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Is it bad that I understand and accept Cersei and Jaime's relationship?


Lord Parker

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Believe me, I have asked myself so many times whether I am a perverted sicko for believing in the incestuous love of these twins or not. Obviously at the beginning of the story I shook my head and thought it was gross, and was even kind of baffled at how GRRM created these characters. Correct me if I am wrong, but incest is frowned upon in almost, if not every known civilized society known to man and yet I find myself accepting of this couple, even rooting for them at times, and love to watch their relationship. Do not get me wrong, I don't ship it because I find Cersei to be toxic and holding Jaime back from becoming a better man, but I accept it and in a way it is beautiful and poetic to me. I don't know how to describe it. I just get it. I've come to this conclusion that if a person wants to understand Jaime's complexity, they need to accept the major impact of his love for Cersei. They have many ups and downs, sure, but to me they are the most interesting couple of the series.

I feel as if I've grown from watching these two interact. Don't get me wrong, I don't think incest is an appealing practice or anything like that, I just think it works for these two characters, which is weird. I don't know. Am I alone on this matter?

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A lot of people won't admit but many aren't bothered by taboo things like incest. I'm not to sure how ummm, straight forward, I can be on this site so I'll put my reason for saying that below in a spoiler.

I have had two girlfriends who wanted to call me daddy when in bed and a third who once had me pretend to be the brother she never had....so ya, that may give you something to think on.

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For me, it's like that:

I am ok with Jaime loving Cersei because he loves her despite her being his twin sister.

I am not ok with Cersei "loving" Jaime because she "loves" him because he is her twin brother.

I was extremely happy that Jaime threw away that woman's letter to the fire but not because it ended incest itself.

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Sadly, as someone who became a mild Arya/Jon shipper(don't judge me, I know it's weird) I'm not so bothered by the incest because I know this is a work of fiction, a fantasy. If I had two friends who were twins and I found out they were together, I would not be okay with that. 

Even if they weren't twins, this is a poster child for an unhealthy relationship. Cersei has manipulated and emotionally abused Jaimie since they were children. 

 

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For me, it's like that:

I am ok with Jaime loving Cersei because he loves her despite her being his twin sister.

I am not ok with Cersei "loving" Jaime because she "loves" him because he is her twin brother.

I was extremely happy that Jaime threw away that woman's letter to the fire but not because it ended incest itself.

that last moment of AFFC with the snow and everything was AMAZING.

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For me, it's like that:

I am ok with Jaime loving Cersei because he loves her despite her being his twin sister.

I am not ok with Cersei "loving" Jaime because she "loves" him because he is her twin brother.

I was extremely happy that Jaime threw away that woman's letter to the fire but not because it ended incest itself.

Hit the nail on the head for me.

I don't have a problem with their relationship because they're twins. However, I do have a problem with the fact that Cersei is poison to anyone she meets, and with no one else has she been more toxic than with Jaime. Think about it, all his life he's only lived to please her, and she only seeks to manipulate him more. An abusive relationship if I've seen one.

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If Jaime and Cersie want to have that kind of relationship, I have no problem with it so long as they come out in the open, admit they re kids are bastards and leave King's Landing, the jewels and all of the things that are not theirs. Oh and Jaime probably needs to go to the wall or be executed but maybe a pardon and expellation from the King's guard could be arranged for the Confession.

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So other than committing basically the worst kind of high treason1, you are fine with it?

1 Wait, that's kingslaying, woops

Well, if Cersie and Jaime want to go and get frisky, whatever but it is all of the crimes they have committed that i do have a problem with. I much rather they dropped that bomb on their Dad, Tywin before she married Robert and left and had incest sex for the rest of their lives. The whole World in this story would have been better for it. Cersei reminices that she had sex with Jaime on the day of her wedding so she never intended to be faithful to Robert anyway. As for as incest goes, brother / sister stuff is pretty sick but i have no doubt that in our world of over 8 billion people, it happens.

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For the purposes of this fictional world I have absolutely no problem w/ Jaime & Cersei's relationship. I actually just want them to get back together. All they do in their POVs is talk about each other. It's gotten quite annoying so maybe if they get back together half of their chapters won't be "oh I wonder what Cersei's doing" (a bit of an exaggeration but still). And I think I'm probably the only person who thinks Cersei actually loves Jaime. She's just touched with a little too much crazy & paranoia to do it in a healthy way. Or maybe I'm just giving her too much of the benefit of the doubt

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The thing about incest is that on the surface it is not really morally wrong.  What makes it wrong is that we now have the medical knowledge to know that it will lead to problems in terms of genetics and mental/physical disorders.  However thats generally after more than 1 generation.  All in all I can't think of a quantitative reason to keep 2 people who love each other apart whether or not they're twins.

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Hit the nail on the head for me.

 

I don't have a problem with their relationship because they're twins. However, I do have a problem with the fact that Cersei is poison to anyone she meets, and with no one else has she been more toxic than with Jaime. Think about it, all his life he's only lived to please her, and she only seeks to manipulate him more. An abusive relationship if I've seen one.

Finally someone else sees it wasn't love.  

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A lot of people won't admit but many aren't bothered by taboo things like incest. I'm not to sure how ummm, straight forward, I can be on this site so I'll put my reason for saying that below in a spoiler.

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It's a fantasy novel.  It takes place in a world of fiction where magic, necromancy, and dragons exists.  I have no problems with incest in the story.  It adds an interesting and very special element to the story.

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There's no such thing as a non-toxic incestuous relationship. Feeling sexual attraction for biological relatives is perversly unnatural and almost always tend to be destructive relationships.  

This isn't just me being a Prudish Victorian with sexual hangups; it's supported by science. The Westermarck Effect shows that the people do not naturally feel sexual attraction to those whom they were in close proximity to during the formative years. If you raise a boy and a girl as brother and sister, they won't be able feel sexual attraction in adulthood. 

Personally, Cersei and Jamie's relationship struck me as abusive; Cersei uses affection/sex as a currency with which to make Jamie dependent on her so that he'll do her bidding (one example is how she convinced Jamie to try and maim Arya). Being away from his sister and her toxic influence, even if for a little bit, made Jamie a better person. He went from the type of guy who was willing to murder Eddard's friends to the type of guy who steps in to prevent rape on two occasions (saving Brienne with his quick wit, and giving Pia justice with his sharp sword). 

I root against Jamie and Cersei's relationship, and I hope Jamie falls in love with a different woman so he can experience a healthy relationship for a change. 

 

 

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This is an interesting thread, because lately I've found out that I'm not bothered with their relationship either. Yet when I think of Jon/Arya endgame, it bothers me. I don't know why, probably it's because we saw Cersei and Jaime as lovers from the very beginning, while Jon and Arya had a sibling relationship (I know George intended for them to be together initially, but if there were hints of it in the final text, I didn't catch it). 

I also agree that Cersei loves Jaime, but she loves him only because he's her twin, her reflection. Jaime is what Cersei thinks she'd be if she were a man. So while Jaime genuinely loves Cersei, for Cersei loving Jaime is in a way loving herself.

Still they if they are happy with each other, I don't really mind that they're twins. Except Cersei's pretty unhealthy love the only thing I mind is that they (Cersei mainly) presented their bastards as heirs to the throne and thus largely contributed to the start of a destructive war. Love each other as much as you want, but don't play with the lives of thousands of people.

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I think they are both horrible for each other, to be honest.  Jaime pretty much became horrible because of his relationship with Cersei.  I don't blame cersei for this as much as some here, though.  I think it was more that he was essentially deciding to break his vows and act dishonorably day after day by fucking the married queen right in front of the King.  So it was all part of him becoming cynical/jaded and deciding that he just didn't give a crap about anything and can do whatever he wants.

I really don't buy this idea that Cersei "controlled" him with sex or whatever.  I actually find that insulting as a concept and perpetuates the sexist ideas that men can't make a rational decision if they see a bit of skin/get horny (this kind of stuff leads to awesome stuff like women being blamed for being raped).  He could have chosen to stop, any time he wanted, but he did not - because he was loving the sex and was getting as much out of the relationship as she was.  In fact the relationship was pretty much purely transactional by agot.  He gets to have sex with her - sometimes when she is not really interested - and she gets to feel powerful because she's screwing Robert over with the kids thing, defying her father blah blah blah. 

Jaime FINALLY made the choice not to fuck her in in asos and that was the big cheer for me (more so than the letter burning).  

Anyway Thjs is all to say that I don't think that Jaime loved cersei either.  He didn't give a fuck what she wanted any more than she cared about him.  At least not after she married Robert.  Before that, they probably both thought they were in love. Such as it was.

btw I think someone mentioned above that cersei convinced Jaime to maim Arya?  I thought that what he remembers was he was the one to suggest killing arya then when she protested he "shut her up" by having sex with her. 

To the OP I honestly don't care about the incest.  It's a little squicky but whatever, it's fantasy.

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Hey, sometimes characters in fiction get it easy.
They can live unending loves, and then the tests they have to endure are quite straightforward.
Jaime and Cersei, on the other hand, had to face quite high stakes to live their love.
That's romantic.
It is easy to say "I'd do everything to be with you", more difficult is actually chosing to push a kid out of the window for that. Even if you are saving yourself, your true love and three other innocent children that are your children too.
It is easy to recognize that Jaime and Cersei is a powerful love bond.
And being them consenting adults, I don't have any qualms on that.
That's not what I'd hope for my children, but their love is not anything they should be ashamed of.

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You may have multiple plots that lead to what Game of Thrones is about today...but their incest forms the base of all...without this plot line there isn't much happening in the show other than simply waging war against each other...this plot gave the sense, a purpose, a meaning for all the chaos that eventually followed.

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