Cersei's "plan" and fake drama about Jon

[SuperWrestler]

She wanted to sell it, if she would simply have accepted a truce, wouldn't they feel something was very off? 

Now they where instead lead to believe that they convinced her to accept a truce, which we know is completely wrong.

 

The whole idea of them going north of the wall to get a wight was complete garbage, the scenes with Cersei where very solid though.  

[3sm1r]

1 hour ago, UnmaskedLurker said:

They need Dany to be as strong as she is  BUT -- beating Cersei as easily as seems to be clearly what could be done does not serve the plot.

So, the only reason why the events went in a certain way is that it was convenient for the plot. I'm sorry but this is basically the definition of bad writing 

[UnmaskedLurker]

17 minutes ago, 3sm1r said:

So, the only reason why the events went in a certain way is that it was convenient for the plot. I'm sorry but this is basically the definition of bad writing 

Every show -- especially shows of this scope and complexity -- are going to rely on a little bit of strained logic. Crafting the "perfect" story in which every character always acts consistently with the personality developed for that character -- and every action is consistent with the internal logic of the show -- is incredibly difficult and perhaps impossible in this context. So if you want perfection, keep looking. But I think that given that the rationale the show used to explain why Dany did not invade KL has enough plausibility to excuse it -- so I do not agree it is bad writing. Bad writing is failing to be entertaining to the audience -- and following your advice would result in lack of entertainment value and thus bad writing.

Now the logic behind the wight hunt is even more strained, and I will give you that the logic behind that move was strained to the breaking point. And the distraction for me from the obvious stupidity of what they were doing beyond the wall made it hard to really immerse myself in that episode. But ultimately, the show needs to be entertaining to the audience -- and most people were entertained by both episodes at issue (look at the IMDB ratings, for example). So if the vast majority of people are enjoying these episodes -- then I don't think bad writing is involved (even if the writing is not to your taste). At some level every plot development is there because it serves the overall goals of the larger plot -- and sometimes those developments are more contrived than others, but somewhat contrived plot developments are a necessary "evil" in any wide sweeping tale.

[NickStark2494]

11 hours ago, falcotron said:

It's the exact same tactic as admitting to a small crime to make your denial of a larger crime more believable.

If Cersei just said yes, nobody would trust her. She's Cersei, she can't possibly be that selfless, she must be planning something.

But by stubbornly insisting on getting something for herself out of the deal, even when the survival of humanity is on the line, she solved the problem. She's acting exactly like you'd expect of Cersei, so there's much less reason to be suspicious of it.

Sometimes I wonder if people read the entirety of my post.

The problem with your argument, is that she storms off when Jon refuses, with no way of predicting how they will react as a result. She could not know Tyrion would walk into the Lion's den to convince her. For all she knew, Dany could have decided to simply take King's Landing then and there.

It was incredibly risky of Cersei to rupture negotiations with two dragons and two armies at her doorstep, and entirely unnecessary as well, since she was already planning on accepting the truce and then turning on them.

Why should Cersei care if Dany and Jon are suspicious ? Let them be suspicious. It was their idea to have a truce, they aren't going to reject it if she accepts "too easily". They may be suspicious, but so what, it doesn't matter to Cersei since she knows they're still planning on going North and she knows that she is planning on betraying them.

She in no way needs them to trust her. It isn't necessary at all for any part of her plan. All she needs is for them to fuck off to the North. And that result would have been obtained without throwing a fit, retreating to the Red Keep, and taking the risk that Dany might respond to the end of negotiations by simply taking the city with the forces she brought.

After all, it isn't unreasonable to think Dany might do that. She did bring her two armies and two dragons to the capital to potentially use them if things go awry.

Cersei should have not been confident playing with fire as she did. It doesn't make sense, the showrunners simply wanted to structure it that way to get the scenes they wanted.

[NickStark2494]

1 hour ago, SuperWrestler said:

She wanted to sell it, if she would simply have accepted a truce, wouldn't they feel something was very off? 

Now they where instead lead to believe that they convinced her to accept a truce, which we know is completely wrong.

 

The whole idea of them going north of the wall to get a wight was complete garbage, the scenes with Cersei where very solid though.  

Totally disagree. She doesn't need them to trust her, the truce was their idea. It's not like they're going to reject it if she accepts "too easily".

She in no way needs them to trust her absolutely. And there's no way she could have predicted Tyrion coming to speak with her. For all she knew, Dany could have responded by simply taking the city.

[Hoo]

Before storming off, Cersei gets up and says:  Then there is nothing left to discuss.  The dead will come to the North first.  Enjoy dealing with them!

That's truce.  She storms off, rejects the offer, and the truce has taken place naturally.  She is not going North to fight the wights and suffer casualties.  Truce is a natural consequence of Dany pulling her army to fight the wights.  No need to ask for it.  They asked for joint forces, and did not get that.

[3sm1r]

21 minutes ago, UnmaskedLurker said:

Every show -- especially shows of this scope and complexity -- are going to rely on a little bit of strained logic. Crafting the "perfect" story in which every character always acts consistently with the personality developed for that character is incredibly difficult and perhaps impossible in this context. So if you want perfection, keep looking. But I think that given that the rationale the show used to explain why Dany did not invade KL has enough plausibility to excuse it -- so I do not agree it is bad writing. Bad writing is failing to be entertaining to the audience -- and following your advice would result in lack of entertainment value and thus bad writing.

You're surely right on one point: writing a story that is plausible, complex and entertaining at the same time is not an easy task. This is the reason why they are not supposed to be helped by me, nor by my uncle, but by the best screenwriters they could think of. 

Do I want perfection? Absolutely not. But I do think the plot is still far enough from perfection for me to feel allowed to be disappointed. The plot in season 1 was way more complicated but it made much more sense. 

31 minutes ago, UnmaskedLurker said:

I will give you that the logic behind that move was strained to the breaking point.

Thank you

32 minutes ago, UnmaskedLurker said:

So if the vast majority of people are enjoying these episodes -- then I don't think bad writing is involved

I couldn't disagree more on this. This is exactly the perfect opposite of what I think. 

If this was the case, how could you explain why 50 shades of grey earned an overwhelming half a billion dollars?

"Entertainment" means many things. In my opinion, what the showrunners decided to go for is the cheapest version of entertainment, that is obtained by orienting any decision to cool action scenes regardless of the quality of the dialogues and the plausibility of the plot.

They knew it was the winning strategy, because people on average simply don't care about the plot. I'm not even saying it to be mean, they acknowledge it without any problem: how many times can we see in this forum answers like "just stop complaining and enjoy the battle between dragons and wights" ?

[Lorathi]

The problem will all the strained logic mentioned in this thread is that they had a better solution available. Rather than the wight hunt, just keep Euron like he was in the books. They already went into full on fantasy territory with Mad Queen Cersei wildfiring all her problems away. So why not give Euron his horn and confirm that it's able to control dragons? Give him his Valyrian steel armor and his captive warlocks and red priests, and you have a lock.

I guarantee that viewers would have complained less about Euron's teleporting if he was using blood magic to speed his ships. We've already seen blood magic work in the show, so it's not a hard sell. And we saw how powerful Pyat Pree was in Qarth. Also, they could have changed it so that Euron wants Cersei the whole time, rather than Dany. He's twisted enough to have gotten turned on by Cersei blowing up the Sept of Baelor. 2 insane villains with magic at their disposal, and a way to control her dragons, would be a credible reason why Dany didn't just walk into King's Landing and take it.

[Tagganaro]

21 minutes ago, Lorathi said:

The problem will all the strained logic mentioned in this thread is that they had a better solution available. Rather than the wight hunt, just keep Euron like he was in the books. They already went into full on fantasy territory with Mad Queen Cersei wildfiring all her problems away. So why not give Euron his horn and confirm that it's able to control dragons? Give him his Valyrian steel armor and his captive warlocks and red priests, and you have a lock.

I guarantee that viewers would have complained less about Euron's teleporting if he was using blood magic to speed his ships. We've already seen blood magic work in the show, so it's not a hard sell. And we saw how powerful Pyat Pree was in Qarth. Also, they could have changed it so that Euron wants Cersei the whole time, rather than Dany. He's twisted enough to have gotten turned on by Cersei blowing up the Sept of Baelor. 2 insane villains with magic at their disposal, and a way to control her dragons, would be a credible reason why Dany didn't just walk into King's Landing and take it.

Well I think D & D needed a way to get the Wall down, and it seems like for whatever reason they were averse to including horns in the show (no Horn of Joramun, no dragonbinder horn), and they sort of worked backwards from there as they tend to do.  So they needed to come up with a reason to have Dany and her dragons go north of the Wall. While I don't think my concerns with Episode 6 Beyond the Wall and the wight-napping plan will ever be completely nullified, I did think the finale went a long way towards helping to justify it, both for the Dragonpit summit scene and the awesome visual of the Night King riding Viserion destroying the Wall.  

That being said, I have to agree that I just don't understand why they changed up Euron like they did.  It seems like some people like him, but for me personally I'd be so much more into Euron with the blue lips and the eyepatch and all the mystical insanity stuff.  

[Dragonslack]

She chews up the scenery every time, one note, because she is not really acting, that is how she is, thinking about her former lover Bronn, lol.

Still, as a "bad ass" "clever" woman in power, means many viewers adore her. DD are clever enough to spot that, and they are doing ok financially by giving those viewers what they want. Think about it, the two top bad ass killers/warriors are women. As soon as the realm was full of queens, the incessant bitching stopped. Also less tits and more man ass.

Stop trying to make sense of it any other way. The reason to make less episodes but longer is maybe because they pay her and other key unkillable actors a ton of money for every episode.

Besides, poor gal at the divorce had no money on her bank accounts.

[UnmaskedLurker]

@NickStark2494 and @Hoo --

I will try to address your points as succinctly as I can.

Cersei did not want to agree to the truce -- she wanted to be "convinced" to join the fight so that she had an excuse to keep her troops north rather than being expected to pull back to KL (the condition of the truce) which would make it more difficult to be in the right position to fight Dany if she beats the WW army. A slightly alternative theory is that this approach was Plan B and she really wanted Jon to agree to remain neutral, but once he refused, she went to Plan B -- but I tend to think what we saw was Plan A and not Plan B.

I think Cersei did not think she was taking a big risk that Tyrion would fail to come after her and try to convince her. I think Cersei believed that there was close to a 100% chance that Tyrion would try one last time to convince her -- and only then would appear to be convinced and agree to fight for them and not just have a truce (which I believe is the key -- agreeing to fight with them is better than the truce because she is not showing her hand too quickly by failing to pull the troops back).

By storming off Cersei was not agreeing to the truce because she was not agreeing to pull her armies back to KL. This refusal risked Dany attacking KL. But Cersei knew Tyrion well enough to know he would go after her and "convince" her that she needed to come to an agreement with Dany. Cersei was not really taking a risk because she knew Tyrion had to try. The main benefit to the truce for Cersei was eliminating the threat of attack by Dany -- and Cersei in exchange was expected by Dany to pull back to KL. So when Cersei refused to pull back to KL -- Dany almost by necessity to be taken seriously again would have had to attack KL. But Cersei knew it would not come to that because she knew Tyrion would "convince" her.

So no, Cersei does not need them to trust her. But she needs them not to attack KL when she fails to pull her troops back to KL. And by putting on the "show" that she did, she now has them convinced she will actually help them fight (not just pull back to KL) which means that they will not catch on nearly as quickly that she is betraying them because she is no longer expected to start a troop withdrawal (but rather is now expected to have a troop advancement -- totally in Cersei's interest).

@3sm1r --

Of course, lowest common denominator does not mean good writing. But it generally means not bad writing. I have never read or seen 50 shades of grey -- and I am sure that it is not great literature -- but it also probably is not totally crappy writing. In order to engage the audience and draw them in -- some form of "not bad" writing needs to be employed.

Do I think the writing on GoT is great? No. Do I think it is good? Not sure -- but it is decent. Could it be better? Sure -- most shows could be (even my favorite series of all time -- Breaking Bad -- had some weak spots).

So basically, I do not agree with your definition of bad writing. I agree that to be really top level writing, such flaws need to be minimized, but just because writing is not really good does not make it bad -- there is a lot in between.

@Lorathi --

I do not think that D&D could have gone the route you suggest. They wanted to wrap up this production -- not drag it on for multiple additional seasons. Viserion needs to go to NK in D&D's version of the endgame -- not Euron. And taking the time to have Euron have the dragon -- for it to eventually go to NK -- would just be too complicated and take too long.

By the way, I highly doubt Euron (or Victarion) will ever control a dragon in the books. They do not have Targ blood -- and a dragon horn is not going to allow a non-Targ to bond with a Targ dragon. The dragon horn most likely does something important to the plot (really not sure what) -- but substituting for the dragonlord blood necessary to bond with a dragon will not be one of them.

[3sm1r]

8 minutes ago, Dragonslack said:

Think about it, the two top bad ass killers/warriors are women.

I also noticed it, last season it was even more extreme on that point of view. Almost every man looked dumb or weak and every woman strong and cool. It seemed like a Clinton advertising spot. 

Women: Cersei/Sansa/Daenerys/Yara/Melisandre/Arya/Ellaria/Olenna/Brienne

Men: Jaime/Tommen/Jon/Jorah/Theon/Ramsay/Davos/Hound

I can't think about a single smart strategic decision taken by a man in season 6. If someone can, please, help me out!

[falcotron]

5 hours ago, NickStark2494 said:

Sometimes I wonder if people read the entirety of my post.

The problem with your argument, is that she storms off when Jon refuses, with no way of predicting how they will react as a result. She could not know Tyrion would walk into the Lion's den to convince her.

Someone else had already responded to that exact same point, and I assumed you'd read it, so I didn't want to just repeat the same thing. But I can, if you want:

She can't know exactly what they'll do to give her a chance to "reconsider", but they're probably going to do something—and if they don't, she can just come back and make a counteroffer. It doesn't work quite as well, but it still works, so that's fine as a fallback.

5 hours ago, NickStark2494 said:

For all she knew, Dany could have decided to simply take King's Landing then and there.

If Dany could simply take King's Landing then and there, Dany wouldn't have come for a truce in the first place.

The show has repeatedly told us that it's not that easy. I know they haven't done a good job showing us why it's not that easy, but that doesn't mean you can just assume that what they told us is wrong.

5 hours ago, NickStark2494 said:

Why should Cersei care if Dany and Jon are suspicious ? Let them be suspicious. It was their idea to have a truce, they aren't going to reject it if she accepts "too easily". They may be suspicious, but so what, it doesn't matter to Cersei since she knows they're still planning on going North and she knows that she is planning on betraying them.

She in no way needs them to trust her. It isn't necessary at all for any part of her plan.

That's ridiculous. Think about it: If it doesn't matter in the slightest bit how much they trust her, why would they even have the meeting? They'd just say, "Hey, let's pretend Cersei agreed to an armistice" without even bothering to talk to her. The reason they came to talk to her is that they want to be convinced that she's actually going to do it. Which means she has to convince them.

Again, you seem to be assuming that, because the show hasn't done a good job showing us the explanation for something, it must not be true, even though the show has told us it's true. If you're going to go down that path, why not just assume Jon died up north and therefore he wasn't at the meeting, because the show didn't do a good job explaining how he survived? Why not just assume Cersei isn't actually in charge of King's Landing and large parts of Westeros, because the show didn't do a good job explaining how she still is?

[Tadco26]

On 8/29/2017 at 2:55 PM, NickStark2494 said:

So, if Cersei had already planned with Euron that he was going to pretend to retreat home, and she was going to pretend to accept the truce but then stab Dany and Jon in the back, then what was the point of her entire fake bullshit about Jon refusing to stay neutral ?

She's planning on betraying the truce herself, what's the point of pretending like she cares about permanent peace with Jon ? Why does she even ask for this permanent truce in the first place ? Why does she throw a fit about his refusal ? That entire maneuver on Cersei's part is pointless if she was planning on stabbing them in the back from the beginning.

And it's also potentially risky. As it happened, Tyrion came to talk to her, but for all Cersei knew, Dany could have very well said "Fine, if you refuse the truce then I'm taking the city right now".

And that's the other thing. Dany could just take the city, but doesn't because the writers want this truce. Cersei could just accept the truce immediately, and then reveal to Jaime and the audience that she's planning to betray them, but she doesn't because the writers want drama surrounding Jon's pledge and they want Peter Dinklage and Lena Headey to have an emotionally charged scene.

The whole thing is contrived, nothing is organic, the character motivations are forced, nonsensical, or nonexistent.

The point was to have some additional scenes between Cersei and Tyrion and Jaime and Tyrion for Drama because the writers wanted to.  Obviously logically if betrayal was Cersei's plan all along then it makes no sense not to accept the original truce.  It was even dumber to voluntarily pledge to march north with her armies, when it will be obvious she lied when they don't come.  Of course the show had Greyworm and all the Unsullied miraculously escape Casterly Rock and march across Lannister lands unscathed and now they are sailing north after having lost their navy... The show writers want to have exciting events and don't really care about the logic or lack there of needed for those events to happen.

[Ser Gareth]

6 hours ago, UnmaskedLurker said:

Every show -- especially shows of this scope and complexity -- are going to rely on a little bit of strained logic. Crafting the "perfect" story in which every character always acts consistently with the personality developed for that character -- and every action is consistent with the internal logic of the show -- is incredibly difficult and perhaps impossible in this context. So if you want perfection, keep looking. But I think that given that the rationale the show used to explain why Dany did not invade KL has enough plausibility to excuse it -- so I do not agree it is bad writing. Bad writing is failing to be entertaining to the audience -- and following your advice would result in lack of entertainment value and thus bad writing.

Now the logic behind the wight hunt is even more strained, and I will give you that the logic behind that move was strained to the breaking point. And the distraction for me from the obvious stupidity of what they were doing beyond the wall made it hard to really immerse myself in that episode. But ultimately, the show needs to be entertaining to the audience -- and most people were entertained by both episodes at issue (look at the IMDB ratings, for example). So if the vast majority of people are enjoying these episodes -- then I don't think bad writing is involved (even if the writing is not to your taste). At some level every plot development is there because it serves the overall goals of the larger plot -- and sometimes those developments are more contrived than others, but somewhat contrived plot developments are a necessary "evil" in any wide sweeping tale.

Excellent post.

I'd go one step further and say that the strained logic applies to almost all mediums of story telling, including books and definitely ASOIAF.  Fantasy novels can especially get away with it if they do use "fate" or "visions".

[Trigger Warning]

"Hey Euron, find an excuse to leave this meeting because you totally have to be here then secretly sail your fleet of a thousand ships that's anchored right next to the city all the way to Essos and back to pick up a sellsword company that's so super duper awesome that we couldn't possibly lose, meanwhile I will accept their truce to gain their trust by first NOT ACCEPTING THEIR TRUCE muhahhaa, then of course my brother that I want to murder will come to me in private, I'll let him use his intuition to winkle out of me that I am pregnant then use that motherly protective instinct to convince him that I will actually help, this will gain their trust because seeing an undead zombie wouldn't convince me to actually help them, they know that which is why they didn't go North and lose a dragon to do just that banking on the idea that such a thing alone would convince m... oh wait. I sure do hope they don't notice my fleet going the wrong way or that I actually haven't sent any men North before the Golden A-Team gets here."

I hope Euron actually did look at that wight and think "Fuck this, screw you guys, I'm going home" because one it's a bloody zombie and two he's sick of this lady's bullshit plans, guy has 1000 ships and Iron Bank fat stacks go be king of somewhere warm and comfy. The show would be saved(probably not). 

[NickStark2494]

1 hour ago, falcotron said:

Someone else had already responded to that exact same point, and I assumed you'd read it, so I didn't want to just repeat the same thing. But I can, if you want:

She can't know exactly what they'll do to give her a chance to "reconsider", but they're probably going to do something—and if they don't, she can just come back and make a counteroffer. It doesn't work quite as well, but it still works, so that's fine as a fallback.

If Dany could simply take King's Landing then and there, Dany wouldn't have come for a truce in the first place.

The show has repeatedly told us that it's not that easy. I know they haven't done a good job showing us why it's not that easy, but that doesn't mean you can just assume that what they told us is wrong.

That's ridiculous. Think about it: If it doesn't matter in the slightest bit how much they trust her, why would they even have the meeting? They'd just say, "Hey, let's pretend Cersei agreed to an armistice" without even bothering to talk to her. The reason they came to talk to her is that they want to be convinced that she's actually going to do it. Which means she has to convince them.

Again, you seem to be assuming that, because the show hasn't done a good job showing us the explanation for something, it must not be true, even though the show has told us it's true. If you're going to go down that path, why not just assume Jon died up north and therefore he wasn't at the meeting, because the show didn't do a good job explaining how he survived? Why not just assume Cersei isn't actually in charge of King's Landing and large parts of Westeros, because the show didn't do a good job explaining how she still is?

Responding to the bold : no, actually the show has repeatedly told us that she could take King's Landing in a day if she wanted to. Go back to the Dragonstone scenes in Episodes 2 and 3. It was made clear, contrary to what you're saying, that it would be incredibly easy.

The entire reason for the truce is that Dany doesn't want Cersei to take advantage of her absence while she goes North. She wants to be able to fight in the North, and then come back to take KL later, without too much bloodshed.

If Cersei refuses the truce, she is essentially saying she will take advantage of Dany's absence to further her dominion of the south. In that case, it would be in Dany's best interest to take KL immediately. Cersei has no way of knowing that Dany won't do that. She also has no way of knowing that Dany wants to hold back her dragons to prevent them from killing innocents. This idea would never occur to Cersei, and she doesn't know Dany at all.

Dany brought two armies to the meeting. It is entirely reasonable to assume she is willing to use them if things go awry. There is no reason why Cersei should feel so confident that Dany won't do that.

 

As for the point about Cersei convincing them, you misunderstand my argument. What I'm saying is that since they are the ones who asked for the truce, and since Cersei does not plan on respecting the truce, she does not need to concern herself with whether Jon and Dany are merely suspicious. All she needs is for them to accept the truce. Which they will if she does. Jon and Dany aren't going to refuse it if Cersei agrees immediately, that's insane. They are the ones who asked for it ! They're already betting on her good will. If Cersei accepted immediately, Jon and Dany wouldn't then suddenly refuse. Would they be suspicious ? Maybe. But this makes no difference to Cersei. Why should she care about erasing all doubt from their mind ?

Jon and Dany wouldn't entirely trust her no matter what she did. There was always going to be doubt in their mind, but they were never going to refuse the truce over that doubt if Cersei agreed to it.

Cersei simply has no reason to throw a fit over Jon's refusal to stay neutral. 

 

[Tywinelle]

On 30/08/2017 at 3:55 AM, NickStark2494 said:

So, if Cersei had already planned with Euron that he was going to pretend to retreat home, and she was going to pretend to accept the truce but then stab Dany and Jon in the back, then what was the point of her entire fake bullshit about Jon refusing to stay neutral ?

She's planning on betraying the truce herself, what's the point of pretending like she cares about permanent peace with Jon ? Why does she even ask for this permanent truce in the first place ? Why does she throw a fit about his refusal ? That entire maneuver on Cersei's part is pointless if she was planning on stabbing them in the back from the beginning.

And it's also potentially risky. As it happened, Tyrion came to talk to her, but for all Cersei knew, Dany could have very well said "Fine, if you refuse the truce then I'm taking the city right now".

And that's the other thing. Dany could just take the city, but doesn't because the writers want this truce. Cersei could just accept the truce immediately, and then reveal to Jaime and the audience that she's planning to betray them, but she doesn't because the writers want drama surrounding Jon's pledge and they want Peter Dinklage and Lena Headey to have an emotionally charged scene.

The whole thing is contrived, nothing is organic, the character motivations are forced, nonsensical, or nonexistent.

Contrived and nonsensical were the very words going through my head the whole ep.

After Cersei said the deal is off, I would have liked the Dragon Pit to go something like the Hunger Games when the tributes are released and there is a free for all bloodbath.

[Edward Teach]

12 hours ago, Hoo said:

Before storming off, Cersei gets up and says:  Then there is nothing left to discuss.  The dead will come to the North first.  Enjoy dealing with them!

That's truce.  She storms off, rejects the offer, and the truce has taken place naturally.  She is not going North to fight the wights and suffer casualties.  Truce is a natural consequence of Dany pulling her army to fight the wights.  No need to ask for it.  They asked for joint forces, and did not get that.

They didn't want her to join the fight, they wanted her to pull her armies back into KL. Then she refused because of Jon, then came back and pledged to give them more than they've asked for.

[John Meta]

This thread has me wondering about irrational actions by characters in a story. When I read the initial post, I thought about it for a few minutes, then came to the conclusion that there's no way for me to know what's going on in Cersei's mind. I don't know her thoughts, so can't actually form any kind of judgment on the rationality of her actions.

But that in turn made me wonder, should characters in stories always act in extremely consistent logical fashion? Should characters always be expected to perform and think and act as though the are mental giants incapable of even a hint of poor judgment; characters whose logic is always flawless as a computer? I think about people and generals and kings in our real history who made the worst decisions, enacted the most irrational plans, and judged in the most incompetent fashion.

Since this thread is about Cersei, it brings to mind discussions I've had where I said "She has lost her mind" and I was not being facetious. When Cersei blew up the Sept, I thought "She is the Mad Queen". So I'm not sure what her plans are here, I don't have access to her actual inner thoughts; but if a person says "Why is she is acting and thinking like an irrational person" (as some in the thread propose) I feel like seriously responding "Because she's flipping insane, where have you been the past seven seasons?" And I'm not meaning to be, offensive by saying that, it's just a counterquestion of "You think this character is rational?"

But again, the larger question is, why does every decision made by every character have to be forged in the flaming fires of searing logic? People in other threads have defended having characters die with unresolved character arcs as "realistic" and not "bad writing" (and I won't argue they're wrong as long as we're using the same criteria for determination), but then, isn't it "realistic" to have many instances of characters making poor decisions, acting illogically based on impulsive natures borne out of emotion, and not out of reason? If every character's actions and thoughts were always based on the precision logic of emotionless computing machines, isn't that about as "unrealistic" as a story could be? Do you see what I'm saying?