Why is Cersei hated so much when neither version is even in top 25 most evil characters of the whole Ice and Fire franchise (which includes the books, TV show and games)?

[Craving Peaches]

Just now, boltons are sick said:

But Daenerys doesn't punish any of the Dothraki who did this to Mirri's hometown

Because they all rode off and are completely out of reach? How on earth can she punish them?

Just now, boltons are sick said:

And for all I am concerned, Mirri was justified in this situation.

Rhaego was an innocent who had done nothing wrong. Why do you believe people are justified in killing innocent children?

1 minute ago, boltons are sick said:

so I really don't care what she did to them

So Mirri is allowed to kill innocent and harmless Rhaego just because of his ethnicity?

[boltons are sick]

4 minutes ago, Craving Peaches said:

Daenerys:

• Kills one woman who actually killed her child

• May have killed a few slavers who weren't directly responsible for crucifying children but regardless would have committed many atrocities anyway

• Has two people tortured to further a criminal investigation

Cersei

• Has multiple harmless babies killed, some out of pride, others to cover up her crime

• Tortures at least three people: one as part of her fraudulent scheme to have Margaery arrested, two to dispose of them to... prevent her scheming being uncovered 

• Routinely threatens people with maiming and torture including wanting a ten year old girl to have their hand cut off so much that she was aroused by it

• Likely killed Melara Heatherspoon when she was a young girl

• Abused her brother Tyrion

• Sold an innocent woman into slavery

In this case, it's not important who has done worse or not (and by the end of the book Danny might even surpass her, so it's too early to tell).

 

What is important is that EggBlue tried to use a comparison to show that there are other women like Cersei who have suffered a lot and don't commit atrocities... by comparing her to a woman who has commited atrocities. Who has commited more or less atrocities in this case doesn't really matter because the comparison that EggBlue tried to use is extremely flawed.

Edited April 8, 2023 by boltons are sick

[Craving Peaches]

1 minute ago, boltons are sick said:

What is important is that BlueEgg tried to use a comparison to show that there are other women like Cersei who have suffered a lot and don't commit atrocities...

No, @EggBlue was showing that people in a worse position than Cersei have not committed as many vile acts as she has, which demonstrates that Cersei's background is a poor excuse for her conduct.

1 minute ago, boltons are sick said:

Who has commited more or less atrocities in this case doesn't really matter

Yes it does, because Daenerys has committed fewer atrocities than Cersei while having a worse background so it is actually extremely relevant.

Edited April 8, 2023 by Craving Peaches

[SeanF]

5 minutes ago, boltons are sick said:

But Daenerys doesn't punish any of the Dothraki who did this to Mirri's hometown while she only punishes Mirri which shows a double standard. And for all I am concerned, Mirri was justified in this situation. She is only a criminal in the eyes of the Dothraki (who are a band of raiding savages) and Daenerys who is a member of the Dothraki, so I really don't care what she did to them after they butcher most of the people of her town, and raped the women (which mind is much worse than anything Mirri herself did). 

 If anything, Mirri's situation is more similar to Cersei's than Danny's is similar to Cersei's.

How would Daenerys go about punishing people like Jhaqo and Maego at that point (her own bodyguards took no part in the killing?”)

[Craving Peaches]

Just now, SeanF said:

How would Daenerys go about punishing people like Jhaqo and Maego at that point (her own bodyguards took no part in the killing?”)

Not to mention all the culprits rode off so how is Daenerys meant to access them?

[boltons are sick]

7 minutes ago, Craving Peaches said:

No, @EggBlue was showing that people in a worse position than Cersei have not committed as many vile acts as she has, which demonstrates that Cersei's background is a poor excuse for her conduct.

Yes it does, because Daenerys has committed fewer atrocities than Cersei while having a worse background so it is actually extremely relevant.

The comparison was to illustrate that Daenerys is a good person who hasn't done anything bad which is not true.

 

And Cersei may have done worse but not by a huge margin (I am pretty sure MOST of the slavers she crusified were not guilty),, so it's a poor comparison.

[Craving Peaches]

Just now, boltons are sick said:

The comparison was to illustrate that Daenerys is a good person who hasn't done anything bad which is not true.

The comparison was to illustrate Daenerys was a better person than Cersei while coming from a worse background, which it did, therefore Cersei's background is a poor excuse.

1 minute ago, boltons are sick said:

(I am pretty sure MOST of the slavers she crusified were not guilty

And what gives you that idea? I'm pretty sure all those babies Cersei murdered were not guilty... because they were innocent harmless infants! But if Cersei is allowed to kill them, then Daenerys is certainly allowed to kill the slavers... because the not-so-innocent slavers are...wait for it...a threat to her children.

[boltons are sick]

1 minute ago, Craving Peaches said:

The comparison was to illustrate Daenerys was a better person than Cersei while coming from a worse background, which it did, therefore Cersei's background is a poor excuse.

And what gives you that idea? I'm pretty sure all those babies Cersei murdered were not guilty... because they were innocent harmless infants! But if Cersei is allowed to kill them, then Daenerys is certainly allowed to kill the slavers... because the not-so-innocent slavers are...wait for it...a threat to her children.

Cersei killed like 2 children in total. For the record, Daenerys actually beats Cersei in terms of sheer bodycount, so it's really debatable who has done worse.

[Craving Peaches]

9 minutes ago, boltons are sick said:

Cersei killed like 2 children in total.

No she did not, she killed at least 4, two twins, Barra, Melara; and aimed to kill more - she threatened to kill Mya and tried to kill Gendry.

9 minutes ago, boltons are sick said:

Daenerys actually beats Cersei in terms of sheer bodycount, so it's really debatable who has done worse.

It's actually debatable since Cersei's actions lead to the War of the Five Kings which beats Daenerys' body count, and it's not just the kills but the reasons why and the way they are done which makes Cersei much worse. In terms of innocent people she goes out of her way to have killed Cersei beats Daenerys by a mile.

Edited April 8, 2023 by Craving Peaches

[SeanF]

31 minutes ago, boltons are sick said:

Cersei killed like 2 children in total. For the record, Daenerys actually beats Cersei in terms of sheer bodycount, so it's really debatable who has done worse.

Five, including Melara.  Plus an unspecified number of dwarves, Falyse, Senelle, and the puppeteers.  We also know that she wants to torture Sansa to death, and was aroused at the thought of mutilating Arya. She also planned to murder Jon Snow, and actually did murder the High Septon.  She also attempts to have Margaery, her cousins, and other innocents murdered.  She also tolerated Joffrey’s abuse of Tommen.

None of this is done to try and save others, but simply done out of selfishness, spite,  and paranoia.

Over and above that, she willingly participates in a war that kills hundreds of thousands of smallfolk, in order to keep a psychopathic usurper as king.

Ned gave her a viable alternative.  All she had to do was pack up her jewels and flee abroad with Jaime and her children.

There is no comparison between her and Dany. Human traffickers are well aware of the harm they cause, and they do it anyway.

 

Edited April 8, 2023 by SeanF

[Craving Peaches]

Just now, SeanF said:

There is no comparison between her and Dany.

There really isn't and I don't know why people even try. Have they read the books?

[boltons are sick]

18 minutes ago, SeanF said:

Over and above that, she willingly participates in a war that kills hundreds of thousands of smallfolk, in order to keep a psychopathic usurper as king.

 

You could argue the same about many other people like Robb, Stannis, Renly and Balon. It's not like she has ordered any war crimes during the war against entire villages and towns.

18 minutes ago, SeanF said:

 

Ned gave her a viable alternative.  All she as to do was pack up her jewels and flee abroad with Jaime and her children.

There is no comparison between her and Dany. Human traffickers are well aware f the harm they cause, and they do it anyway.

 

Ned gave her the "choice" to run away where she would eventually be found by Varys and Robert's assassins would have killed them either way. Even Ned tells her that Robert's assassins would chase her wherever she goes so the safest thing for her is to stay and eliminate the people who want to harm her family.

 Also, Ned could have simply accepted her offer and stayed quiet about the whole thing. It's not like there would have been any war of Ned didn't feel so strongly that "the rightful ruler" should rule Westeros ignoring that Robert himself usurped the throne from the Targaryen dynasty and Ned supported his rebellion. This shows that Ned's honor is very convenient and he is not doing it because he believes it would help the people, but simply because Robert is his friend. This shows that Ned puts his own personal relationships before the good of the people. There are a lot of people who are responsible for the war, not just Cersei.

Edited April 8, 2023 by boltons are sick

[Craving Peaches]

Just now, boltons are sick said:

safest thing for her is to stay and eliminate the people who want to harm her family.

Not the way she goes about it it's not. Because her 'plan' was totally luck based so if it went wrong she was finished. Running away would have been safer for her family. Cersei stayed around because she cared about her power more than her family's safety.

2 minutes ago, boltons are sick said:

This shows that Ned's honor is very convenient and he is not doing it because he believes it would help the people, but simply because Robert is his friend

He's doing it because he believes it's the right thing to do, nothing to do with it being convenient given it would have been more convenient for him to accept Cersei's offer or not investigate in the first place.

4 minutes ago, boltons are sick said:

Robert is his friend. This shows that Ned puts his own personal relationships before the good of the people.

Hahah. If he was doing it because Robert was his friend, he would have told him instantly, not given Cersei a chance to get away. If he was motivated by Robert being his friend, he would never have resigned from being Hand in the first place, he wouldn't have even objected to the assassination of Daenerys. All of the above is quite obvious from, uhh, reading the actual text and not just the TV Tropes page.

[Nevets]

Cersei has:

Demanded the death or maiming of a 9-year-old noble girl for hitting her son.

Ordered the death of an innocent pet despite, or because of, the clear distress of its person.

Murders a small child, and her mother, and attempts to murder a teenage boy because they're Robert's bastards.

Has Tommen's whipping boy (ugh!) whipped after Tommen asserted himself in order to hurt and intimidate him.

Has the Blue Bard and several others tortured into falsely accusing Margaery of adultery. 

Persecutes Margaery by making false accusations.

Sends Senelle, Falyse, and puppeteers to Qyburn knowing they will die screaming.

Abused Tyrion as a small child.

That's an impressive charge sheet and only includes actions that are proven and unjustifiable.  It shows a strong penchant for gratuitous cruelty and spitefulness.  And don't even mention the prophecy.  The fact that any of this happened as a result of a prophecy she heard as a child makes it, if anything, even worse.

Stop trying to convince us that Cersei is some poor, misunderstood put upon victim who is the recipient of unjust hatred on the part of readers.  She's not, and her list of misdeeds shows why.

Edited April 8, 2023 by Nevets

[boltons are sick]

1 hour ago, Nevets said:

Cersei has:

Demanded the death or maiming of a 9-year-old noble girl for hitting her son.

Ordered the death of an innocent pet despite, or because of, the clear distress of its person.

Murders a small child, and her mother, and attempts to murder a teenage boy because they're Robert's bastards.

Has Tommen's whipping boy (ugh!) whipped after Tommen asserted himself in order to hurt and intimidate him.

Has the Blue Bard and several others tortured into falsely accusing Margaery of adultery. 

Persecutes Margaery by making false accusations.

Sends Senelle, Falyse, and puppeteers to Qyburn knowing they will die screaming.

Abused Tyrion as a small child.

That's an impressive charge sheet and only includes actions that are proven and unjustifiable.  It shows a strong penchant for gratuitous cruelty and spitefulness.  And don't even mention the prophecy.  The fact that any of this happened as a result of a prophecy she heard as a child makes it, if anything, even worse.

Stop trying to convince us that Cersei is some poor, misunderstood put upon victim who is the recipient of unjust hatred on the part of readers.  She's not, and her list of misdeeds shows why.

 I am not saying that Cersei is good. All I am saying is that most of the characters in the series are awful people by modern standards, yet Cersei gets treated far worse by the readers than any other character and readers often make excuses for the other characters who do similar things to what Cersei does. And yeah, Cersei is a victim of her circumstances whether you want to admit it or not. I admit that I woudn't want to meet Cersei if she were real, but the same goes for the vast majority of characters in ASOIAF and I can still understand where she is coming from because a lot of it is her being paranoid due to everything bad in her life.

 Also, with the list you provided it actually confirms my claim that her list of her crimes is not really that impressive when you consider her position of power. She is the Queen of the Seven Kingdoms and has control over millions of subjects who are willing to follow her commands to please her and all she does with this much power is... abuse her brother, kills one wolf, kill a couple of children, have 5 people tortured by Qyburn and try to get rid of Margaery and a few more crimes against a limited number of people. Don't get me wrong, those are still horrible things to do, but it's barebones compared to what some of the other rulers of the Seven Kingdoms like Aerys Targaryen or Maegor Targaryen have done while Cersei doesn't commit any widespread atrocities not to mention many other characters who have LESS power than Cersei and still do worse than her.

 I guess those actions look worse to the readers because they are shown more closely and we see them from Cersei's own POV, but objectively considering the amount of power she has, she is pretty tame and could do much worse.

 By the criteria the communities are using, when a character has more power, they also need to commit bigger atrocities to stand out. My point is not that you should think Cersei is good, but that you shouldn't rank as being one of the worst people in the entire Westerosi setting when she has so much power as monarch of the Seven Kingdoms by fourth book, and yet she harms such a limited number of people and doesn't do more evil with her power even though she can, not to mention that unlike many other characters she has excuses for her actions and redeeming qualities.

EDIT: Also, just to be clear, I am not hating on Dany or the Starks. Just saying that they have also done some bad things.

Edited April 8, 2023 by boltons are sick

[fiatlux]

23 hours ago, Craving Peaches said:

Also Cersei did chose to see the prophecy, not like it was randomly forced on her, she wanted her fortune told; Daenerys has some creepy prophetic dreams she has no control over.

I even think the prophecy was what it was because Cersei already had the potential to fulfill it.

(same for Melara's phophecy, she was bound to die that very night because she was Cersei's companion)

[Moiraine Sedai]

Sansa is hated just as much as Cersei. Maybe even more. A lot of the hate towards Cersei are coming from the Stark side of the fans. Some of it are understandable. Cersei, like Arya, started her career in homicide very early while she was a child. Melara was the victim. The naked walk earned sympathy.  

[Annara Snow]

1 hour ago, Nevets said:

Cersei has:

Demanded the death or maiming of a 9-year-old noble girl for hitting her son.

Ordered the death of an innocent pet despite, or because of, the clear distress of its person.

Murders a small child, and her mother, and attempts to murder a teenage boy because they're Robert's bastards.

Has Tommen's whipping boy (ugh!) whipped after Tommen asserted himself in order to hurt and intimidate him.

Has the Blue Bard and several others tortured into falsely accusing Margaery of adultery. 

Persecutes Margaery by making false accusations.

Sends Senelle, Falyse, and puppeteers to Qyburn knowing they will die screaming.

Abused Tyrion as a small child.

That's an impressive charge sheet and only includes actions that are proven and unjustifiable.  It shows a strong penchant for gratuitous cruelty and spitefulness.  And don't even mention the prophecy.  The fact that any of this happened as a result of a prophecy she heard as a child makes it, if anything, even worse.

Stop trying to convince us that Cersei is some poor, misunderstood put upon victim who is the recipient of unjust hatred on the part of readers.  She's not, and her list of misdeeds shows why.

Don't forget ordering Mycah's death for the crime...being attacked by Joffrey and defended by Arya and the cause why Arya hit Joffrey?

That's at least 4 children she had murdered as an adult (probably murdered Nelara when she was a child), plus she tried to murder more children, wanted another one mutilated, had another one whipped, emotionally abused Sansa and let Joffrey physically abuse her, and emotionally avused her own son Tommen, in addition to having let Joffrey abuse him.

Cersei is narcissist who only cares for others as extensions of herself - and that includes her children (Tommen has it worst because she sees him as weak, while adoring Joffrey as an epitome of power and beauty of herself and her family) and Jaime, who she sees as herself as a man and despises the moment he turns out to be different and a separate person. 

We have Cersei's POV, we are in her head. We know she has no compassion, altruism, or care about people on general, no noble goal, and is completely selfish, spiteful and cruel. So how is this a matter of dispute?

[Nevets]

24 minutes ago, boltons are sick said:

 I am not saying that Cersei is good. All I am saying is that most of the characters in the series are awful people by modern standards, yet Cersei gets treated far worse by the readers than any other character and readers often make excuses for the other characters who do similar things to what Cersei does. And yeah, Cersei is a victim of her circumstances whether you want to admit it or not. I admit that I woudn't want to meet Cersei if she were real, but the same goes for the vast majority of characters in ASOIAF and I can still understand where she is coming from because a lot of it is her being paranoid due to everything bad in her life.

 Also, with the list you provided it actually confirms my claim that her list of her crimes is not really that impressive when you consider her position of power. She is the Queen of the Seven Kingdoms and has control over millions of subjects who are willing to follow her commands to please her and all she does with this much power is... abuse her brother, kills one wolf, kill a couple of children, have 5 people tortured by Qyburn and try to get rid of Margaery and a few more crimes against a limited number of people. Don't get me wrong, those are still horrible things to do, but it's barebones compared to what some of the other rulers of the Seven Kingdoms like Aerys Targaryen or Maegor Targaryen have done while Cersei doesn't commit any widespread atrocities not to mention many other characters who have LESS power than Cersei and still do worse than her.

 I guess those actions look worse to the readers because they are shown more closely and we see them from Cersei's own POV, but objectively considering the amount of power she has, she is pretty tame and could do much worse.

 By the criteria the communities are using, when a character has more power, they also need to commit bigger atrocities to stand out. My point is not that you should think Cersei is good, but that you shouldn't rank as being one of the worst people in the entire Westerosi setting when she has so much power as monarch of the Seven Kingdoms by fourth book, and yet she harms such a limited number of people and doesn't do more evil with her power even though she can, not to mention that unlike many other characters she has excuses for her actions and redeeming qualities.

 

What power?  She has no real power until AFFC, and even then it is circumscribed by Mace and Kevan to a large extent.  When she does start exercising real power she is so inept it's almost laughable.  Her actions in the second half of AFFC remind me of the old saying, "it was worse than a crime, it was a blunder".  She often combines both.

My problem is the level of cruelty and spite she exhibits.  Who are the characters that readers give a pass to despite similar behavior?  Not Daenerys.  Her cruelty is far less prevalent and always has a discernible reason.  Not Tywin.  He is hated almost as much as Cersei.  Theon comes close, but he's not really popular either, and has redeemed himself somewhat lately.

She has pathetic excuses for her misbehavior and whatever redeeming qualities she has are minimal and insufficient to mitigate the harm she has done.

[Nevets]

18 minutes ago, Moiraine Sedai said:

Sansa is hated just as much as Cersei. Maybe even more. A lot of the hate towards Cersei are coming from the Stark side of the fans. Some of it are understandable. Cersei, like Arya, started her career in homicide very early while she was a child. Melara was the victim. The naked walk earned sympathy.  

Sansa gets nowhere near the hatred Cersei gets.  I certainly haven't seen it.  And what she does get is related to her actions in the first book.  She has matured, learned and changed a great deal since then. 

Sansa couldn't be worse than Cersei if she tried.  She's too nice and cares too much.  And she hasn't a cruel bone in her body.  Cersei often seems to be nothing but cruelty.

 

Edited April 8, 2023 by Nevets