(Spoilers) Unwin Peake is Cersei Lannister

[OtherFromAnotherMother]

Both act as regents to a young king. Both give that king little responsibilities or ability to make decisions. Both kings (Tommen and Aegon III) become more interested in governance following a marriage but are rebuked by these regents.

Both appoint their own people to fill offices in court. 

Both send a perceived enemy (and favorite to the king) away on a 'win win' mission. Peake sends Alyn Velaryon, a hero to the commons, to meet the Ironmen. He wins if Alyn can restore Fair Isle and free the Westerlands. He believes he would also win if Velaryon is defeated, breaking the house for good. Cersei does the same with another hero of the commons and king, Loras Tyrell. She believes she wins if he takes Dragonstone, or wins if he dies in attempt. 

Both may have killed a 10-11 year old girl. It is strongly implied that Cersei pushed Melara Hetherspoon into a well to drown. Unwin Peake may have had someone push Jaehaera onto the spikes below Maegor's. Both girls were not killed instantly. 

What is George trying to show us with these similarites, if anything? Will Cersei follow the same arch as Unwin? Could she work from behind the scenes following Kevan's death, as it looks like Unwin may have following his resignation?

Should we also compare The Oakenfist with Loras Tyrell? Will Loras, if allive, bring something back to King's Landing like Alyn did with Viserys? Maybe instead of a human dragon, he brings back a dragon egg? 

 

Or am I making too much of this?

 

 

[Paxter Redwyne]

12 minutes ago, OtherFromAnotherMother said:

Will Cersei follow the same arch as Unwin?

Unfortunately, we don't know what happened later to Unwin Peake, we have only speculations.

[chrisdaw]

30 minutes ago, OtherFromAnotherMother said:

What is George trying to show us with these similarites, if anything? Will Cersei follow the same arch as Unwin?

No, you should follow the parallels as far as they go and then completely stop and infer absolutely nothing more. GRRM intends nothing, all coincidence.

[sweetsunray]

19 minutes ago, OtherFromAnotherMother said:

Both act as regents to a young king. Both give that king little responsibilities or ability to make decisions. Both kings (Tommen and Aegon III) become more interested in governance following a marriage but are rebuked by these regents.

Both appoint their own people to fill offices in court. 

Both send a perceived enemy (and favorite to the king) away on a 'win win' mission. Peake sends Alyn Velaryon, a hero to the commons, to meet the Ironmen. He wins if Alyn can restore Fair Isle and free the Westerlands. He believes he would also win if Velaryon is defeated, breaking the house for good. Cersei does the same with another hero of the commons and king, Loras Tyrell. She believes she wins if he takes Dragonstone, or wins if he dies in attempt. 

Both may have killed a 10-11 year old girl. It is strongly implied that Cersei pushed Melara Hetherspoon into a well to drown. Unwin Peake may have had someone push Jaehaera onto the spikes below Maegor's. Both girls were not killed instantly. 

What is George trying to show us with these similarites, if anything? Will Cersei follow the same arch as Unwin? Could she work from behind the scenes following Kevan's death, as it looks like Unwin may have following his resignation?

Should we also compare The Oakenfist with Loras Tyrell? Will Loras, if allive, bring something back to King's Landing like Alyn did with Viserys? Maybe instead of a human dragon, he brings back a dragon egg? 

 

Or am I making too much of this?

 

 

Nice parallel. When reading F&B I had been contemplating regencies and great councils. F&B contains two regencies, a short-term one with Jahaerys as king and his mother as regent who gives a lot of power to Rogar Baratheon, and even weds him. And then the regency over Aegon III. With Rogar we see how he tries to put Jahaerys aside when Jahaerys refuses to set aside his wife, wanting to make his nieces queen all of a sudden, while those queens are younger in age and would ensure a longer regency. Alyssa poits out to Rogar that she's the regent and he the Hand, but since she wed Rogar and this had been there first true disagreement and she had gone along with pretty much everything before this phase, it's normal that Rogar started to believe he was the regent. Rogar isn't an actual villain, but it does show how having power corrupts him and goes to his head.

With Unwyn Peake we have  a regent who is already corrupted from the start and almost entirely rules for his own ends, not the king, nor the realm.

I like the comparison of Loras to Oakenfist. And I'm not convinced that Loras is in fact dead, and see room for Loras having created a ruse to make Cersei believe this, while he wishes to offer his service to Aegon, and thus bring back a dragon.

As for Cersei, I don't expect Cersei to remain docile. Not sure she is able to remain in the background after Kevan's death, but she might be forced to anyhow. Nor do I epext her to die soon, and at least retreat to Casterly Rock to play the game from thereon. 

[Paxter Redwyne]

35 minutes ago, chrisdaw said:

No, you should follow the parallels as far as they go and then completely stop and infer absolutely nothing more. GRRM intends nothing, all coincidence.

GRRM loves parallels.

[Lord Varys]

Trying to see a parallel here seems pretty weird to me. Unwin Peake apparently conspired to murder his king and queen (after he already murdered his first queen) to place another king on the throne.

Cersei never conspired to murder her own children, nor is she likely to do something like that. She loves her children. Unwin Peake couldn't care less about Aegon III, Jaehaera, Daenaera, or Viserys. He wanted the Iron Throne for himself/his family.

Cersei already has the Iron Throne. She doesn't want to kill her children to mount it, nor does she want to marry any of her children to the king.

Peake is an example for those ambitious men who grasped more and more power during the minority of king, rising from obscure backgrounds ever higher at court. The best historical parallels in English history would be the minority of Edward VI, I'd say, considering that the kingdom was also technically ruled by regency council with various individuals trying to seize more and more power only to fall as quickly as they had risen (first the strong guy was Edward Seymour, one of the king maternal uncles, and then John Dudley, who tried to replace Edward VI with his own daughter-in-law when the king was dying).

One can also see the obvious parallels between Rogar Baratheon and the minority of Edward VI, too, considering that the Aerea plot is reminiscent of the Jane Grey conspiracy. There are also parallels between Rogar and Roger Mortimer and Owen Tudor, considering that both married a widowed queen, supposedly for love.

But Peake is not a parallel to Cersei. Just because two people rule in the name of a young king doesn't mean they have more in common than that.

If there is a parallel to Peake in the books it might be Mace Tyrell. He now seems to be more or less where Peake was when he had most power, and like Peake he is not actually related to Tommen and Myrcella - meaning he could kill them as easily as Peake had Jaehaera killed and presumably tried to kill Aegon III and Daenaera.

Cersei is also not likely to be able to pull off something of the sort Peake did. Unlike in Peake's days the royal government and court are not exactly dominated by friends and family of Cersei Lannister at this point.

[Paxter Redwyne]

4 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

There are also parallels between Rogar and Roger Mortimer and Owen Tudor, considering that both married a widowed queen, supposedly for love.

Roger Mortimer didn't married widowed queen, he was only her lover. He was already married.

[sweetsunray]

10 hours ago, Paxter Redwyne said:

GRRM loves parallels.

He does!

And of course, parallels aren't "copies", nor do they necessarily have the same ending. There are differences too. Cersei is in fact parent of both kings, nor did she kill Joffrey. But she certainly abuses the regency over Tommen to become the sole ruler and sees the throne as hers in her mind, not Tommen's. And where Peake attempted a plot to get rid of the Rogares, including Viserys' wife, Cersei succeeded in getting Margaery accused to be tried for treason.  We could see the Rogares as the parallels to the Tyrells, and not just Velaryon. One of the Rogare brothers was sent to deal with the fighting at the Vale, as commander, but he was too inexperienced and died. Lord Tyrell said he'd deal with Aegon and take Storm's End, but not before Margaery's trials. We can see Cersei might do all she can to persuade him to go. Meanwhile, actual disaster befell the Rogares in their homeland, in Lys, where they lost their bank and most of them were taken into slavery. The Tyrells fund the crown not just with finances but food, and thus are the alternative to the Iron Bank, as the Rogares were. The biggest threat comes to them in their home-region with Euron and the Iron Men, who make prisoners their thralls and salt wives, a different name for slaves basically.

[Paxter Redwyne]

10 minutes ago, sweetsunray said:

One of the Rogare brothers was sent to deal with the fighting at the Vale, as commander, but he was too inexperienced and died.

He didn't die. It was Moredo, the one who later led a host against Lys. He was great warrior and commander but during battle his translator was killed and he didn't know Common Tongue so his soldiers had no idea what he was commanding them to do.

Overall, I don't think Unwin and Cersei share many similarities, but it is possible that some aspects of their lives will go same route.

[sweetsunray]

9 minutes ago, Paxter Redwyne said:

He didn't die. It was Moredo, the one who later led a host against Lys. He was great warrior and commander but during battle his translator was killed and he didn't know Common Tongue so his soldiers had no idea what he was commanding them to do.

Overall, I don't think Unwin and Cersei share many similarities, but it is possible that some aspects of their lives will go same route.

Hmmm, my bad. Read that part only once, and since it's not yet in a search of ice and fire...

[Bernie Mac]

2 hours ago, Paxter Redwyne said:

He didn't die. It was Moredo, the one who later led a host against Lys. He was great warrior and commander but during battle his translator was killed and he didn't know Common Tongue so his soldiers had no idea what he was commanding them to do.

From the looks of it he may well be successful. We know that Larra returns to Lys in two years time, given what happened to the other Rogares in Lys in 135 it seems unlikely she'd go there, especially if her brother invades shortly after. Then in 145 she mysteriously, my guess is that the Rogares are overthrown.

Perhaps Aliandra Martell, the new Nymeria, helps Moredo given who her former husband was. 

2 hours ago, Paxter Redwyne said:

Overall, I don't think Unwin and Cersei share many similarities, but it is possible that some aspects of their lives will go same route.

I agree, there is a bit of Tywin, a bit of Randyl and a bit of Rogar but overall he's his own character. 

Overall him and Alyn were my two favourite characters in Fire & Blood, can't wait to see more of them.

[Lord Varys]

5 hours ago, Paxter Redwyne said:

Roger Mortimer didn't married widowed queen, he was only her lover. He was already married.

Oh, right, but he ended up running things with her until Edward III ended the whole thing.

[OtherFromAnotherMother]

18 hours ago, sweetsunray said:

I like the comparison of Loras to Oakenfist. And I'm not convinced that Loras is in fact dead, and see room for Loras having created a ruse to make Cersei believe this, while he wishes to offer his service to Aegon, and thus bring back a dragon.

I like that idea. Alyn brings back long lost Viserys, Loras brings back long lost Aegon.

18 hours ago, sweetsunray said:

As for Cersei, I don't expect Cersei to remain docile. Not sure she is able to remain in the background after Kevan's death, but she might be forced to anyhow. Nor do I epext her to die soon, and at least retreat to Casterly Rock to play the game from thereon. 

I don't expect her to remain docile either. However, I could see her playing the same role that Peake may have following his exit as regent. I could see Cersei continuing to act from behind the scenes, similar to Peake in the attempted poisoning of Aegon III. It seems likely that she will not have the same power she had before her walk, right? George could have her work through others as Peake did.

 

[OtherFromAnotherMother]

14 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Trying to see a parallel here seems pretty weird to me. Unwin Peake apparently conspired to murder his king and queen (after he already murdered his first queen) to place another king on the throne.

Isn't Cersei trying to get rid of Margaery? Obviously the parallels are not going to be exactly the same, but there are several there to see.

 

14 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Cersei never conspired to murder her own children, nor is she likely to do something like that. She loves her children. 

I'm not sure why this matters. Did Peake conspire to murder his children?

 

14 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Unwin Peake couldn't care less about Aegon III, Jaehaera, Daenaera, or Viserys. He wanted the Iron Throne for himself/his family.

Couldn't the same be said of Cersei? 

14 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Cersei already has the Iron Throne. She doesn't want to kill her children to mount it, nor does she want to marry any of her children to the king.

Again, not everything is going to be exactly the same. 

 

14 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

But Peake is not a parallel to Cersei. Just because two people rule in the name of a young king doesn't mean they have more in common than that.

There are more parallels than just this.

14 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Unlike in Peake's days the royal government and court are not exactly dominated by friends and family of Cersei Lannister at this point.

She appointed several members of her council and the Kingsguard, and city watch.

[OtherFromAnotherMother]

8 hours ago, sweetsunray said:

And of course, parallels aren't "copies", nor do they necessarily have the same ending. There are differences too. Cersei is in fact parent of both kings, nor did she kill Joffrey. But she certainly abuses the regency over Tommen to become the sole ruler and sees the throne as hers in her mind, not Tommen's. And where Peake attempted a plot to get rid of the Rogares, including Viserys' wife, Cersei succeeded in getting Margaery accused to be tried for treason.

Exactly. 

 

8 hours ago, sweetsunray said:

We could see the Rogares as the parallels to the Tyrells, and not just Velaryon. One of the Rogare brothers was sent to deal with the fighting at the Vale, as commander, but he was too inexperienced and died. Lord Tyrell said he'd deal with Aegon and take Storm's End, but not before Margaery's trials. We can see Cersei might do all she can to persuade him to go. Meanwhile, actual disaster befell the Rogares in their homeland, in Lys, where they lost their bank and most of them were taken into slavery. The Tyrells fund the crown not just with finances but food, and thus are the alternative to the Iron Bank, as the Rogares were. The biggest threat comes to them in their home-region with Euron and the Iron Men, who make prisoners their thralls and salt wives, a different name for slaves basically.

Nice find.

[Lion of the West]

Isn't Unwin kind of a mirror of Tywin? He tries to do what Tywin did but failed very much instead or get into positions and stuff for contrary reasons as to Tywin.

[OtherFromAnotherMother]

7 hours ago, Blue Falcon said:

Isn't Unwin kind of a mirror of Tywin? He tries to do what Tywin did but failed very much instead or get into positions and stuff for contrary reasons as to Tywin.

Unwin's failures are what make him more similar to Cersei, IMO.