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)?

[kissdbyfire]

1 hour ago, Aldarion said:

Regarding that, her banging Jaime is one of the reasons Cersei deserves to be so hated. Not for banging her brother, mind you, even if it is plenty creepy - but the reasons for it. She and Jaime are identical twins. So she isn't in love with him, she is in love with herself, and having sex with Jaime is the closest she will ever get to actually having sex with herself.

This! And that’s on top of everything else others have said already. The matter-of-fact way in which she orders the murder of babies and children and sends people to be tortured is just beyond the pale. And she has no redeeming qualities; not a one, zero, zip, zilch. 
She’s utterly incapable of feeling empathy and compassion, and every single thing she does has one purpose: benefit her in some way. And to make matters even worse, she’s very stupid so she’s not even capable of passing for a cruel and ruthless individual who gets results, like Daddy Dearest. 

Edited April 4, 2023 by kissdbyfire

[King_Tristifer_IV_Mudd]

36 minutes ago, kissdbyfire said:

This! And that’s on top of everything else others have said already. The matter-of-fact way in which she orders the murder of babies and children and sends people to be tortured is just beyond the pale. And she has no redeeming qualities; not a one, zero, zip, zilch. 
She’s utterly incapable of feeling empathy and compassion, and every single thing she does has one purpose: benefit her in some way. And to make matters even worse, she’s very stupid so she’s not even capable of passing for a cruel and ruthless individual who gets results, like Daddy Dearest. 

Keep in mind I also think Tywin is pretty stupid. He only won the War of the Five Kings due to luck. If Robert survives Cersei’s stupid assassination attempt, Tywin loses. If Edmure obeys Robb’s order to stay put, Cersei and Joffrey die to Stannis, and Tywin is trapped in the Westerlands.

His fear based ruling method only works when people are….afraid. He never taught any of his children that, and that’s why his house is destined for a fall from grace, because now the fear is eclipsed by an even greater hatred and loathing. 

[kissdbyfire]

17 minutes ago, King_Tristifer_IV_Mudd said:

Keep in mind I also think Tywin is pretty stupid. He only won the War of the Five Kings due to luck. If Robert survives Cersei’s stupid assassination attempt, Tywin loses. If Edmure obeys Robb’s order to stay put, Cersei and Joffrey die to Stannis, and Tywin is trapped in the Westerlands.

His fear based ruling method only works when people are….afraid. He never taught any of his children that, and that’s why his house is destined for a fall from grace, because now the fear is eclipsed by an even greater hatred and loathing. 

Yup, 100%. I never said Tywin was intelligent or smart anyway, but compared to Cersei he’s Elon Musk (yes, it’s sarcasm; not nearly as smart as he thinks he is, but still much smarter than Cersei). 

[SeanF]

I find Cersei a lot of fun as a character.

But, she’s a hateful woman.  She murders children, sends people for vivisection, tortures the Blue Bard into madness, tries to frame Margaery and her friends for adultery, etc. etc.

[Craving Peaches]

7 hours ago, boltons are sick said:

many, many other characters are worse than Cersei.

According to TV Tropes, which still makes it an opinion not a fact, therefore the rest of us are free to find Cersei one of the worst characters in the books. How many of those characters you mentioned killed newborn children because of their wounded pride? How many of them already suffered a well-deserved death, compared to Cersei who is still alive? Also, there is no single way to measure how 'evil' a character is, and we are allowed to judge for ourselves rather than use flawed TV Tropes methods.

7 hours ago, boltons are sick said:

And yeah, fans are more willing to make excuses for bad things done by male characters than for bad things done by female characters

I don't think so. People are very critical of Tywin and Tyrion and Jaime too. And even if they weren't, that doesn't mean we can't criticise Cersei, or have to let her off the hook.

7 hours ago, boltons are sick said:

which shows even in this thread where we literally have sympathizers of Tywin

Really?. Can you give me a quote, because I don't think anyone here is a Tywin sympathiser.

Edited April 5, 2023 by Craving Peaches

[boltons are sick]

27 minutes ago, Craving Peaches said:

According to TV Tropes, which still makes it an opinion not a fact, therefore the rest of us are free to find Cersei one of the worst characters in the books. How many of those characters you mentioned killed newborn children because of their wounded pride? How many of them already suffered a well-deserved death, compared to Cersei who is still alive? Also, there is no single way to measure how 'evil' a character is, and we are allowed to judge for ourselves rather than use flawed TV Tropes methods.

Just because someone had their death earlier, doesn't mean they are less evil because the time period in which they die has no bearing on their morality.

And off the top of my head, Theon, Sandor Jaime who are widely considered anti-heroes have murdered/attempted to murder children, but I don't see any posts about them being the worst people in the entire series and many fans like them.

 As for others, Ramsay, Gregor, Craster, Rorge, Euron, Tywin, Aerys (he attempted to burn down all of King's Landing), Petyr Baelish (he instigated the War of the Five Kings), Maegor, Tyanna of the Tower, Lo Bu, Kraznys who forced his slaves to kill babies and the slave masters who crusified those children, Lord Karstark, Blood and Cheese, Robert Baratheon (for ordering Danny's death even if he changed his mind while he was dying), Varys (who made sure to save the Prince, but placed an innocent baby to be killed in his place) Ulf and Hugh, Amory Lorch, Tyrion (the wildling raids against the Vale surely killed some children), the Ironborn during their raids, the Dothraki during their raids and many, many other characters I am currently forgetting. 

 Killing children is horrible, don't get me wrong, but it's something pretty common in this world and even some of the characters who are considered likeable like Jaime, Sandor and Theon have done it, so I don't really understand why you act like Cersei is the only character ever to kill a child in this series?

 Basically, your two arguments for why Cersei is one of the worst are:

a) She is still alive, but this has no bearing on her morality because by the same logic you could also argue that Brienne is worse than Rorge.

b) She killed children which is something anti-heroes like Theon, Sandor, Jaime, Robert, etc. as well as countless other characters who are not considered anti-heroes have also done.

 Most of the stuff Cersei does is to protect herself and her children from Maggy's prophecy and to ensure that her kids would also not be executed for her cheating on someone who rapes her, so that alone already makes her more sympathetic than the vast majority of characters I already mentioned.

Edited April 5, 2023 by boltons are sick

[Craving Peaches]

1 hour ago, boltons are sick said:

 Killing children is horrible, don't get me wrong, but it's something pretty common in this world

Killing children because of your sense of entitled vanity is not common because Cersei is one of the only characters we have seen do it. They were not only children, they were newborn babies. That is my argument.

1 hour ago, boltons are sick said:

Just because someone had their death earlier, doesn't mean they are less evil because the time period in which they die has no bearing on their morality.

What I meant was that people don't care so much because they are dead. There's no dispute that they were evil but they are dead so will be discussed less.

1 hour ago, boltons are sick said:

And off the top of my head, Theon, Sandor Jaime who are widely considered anti-heroes

Okay but where are the people in this topic you said were Tywin sympathisers?

1 hour ago, boltons are sick said:

Robert Baratheon (for ordering Danny's death even if he changed his mind while he was dying)

So Robert is more evil than Cersei for ordering then retracting the order for the death of one 13 year old who is preparing to invade with Dothraki, yet Cersei kills multiple babies who are no threat to her and is not worse? That is a ridiculous argument.

1 hour ago, boltons are sick said:

Most of the stuff Cersei does is to protect herself and her children from Maggy's prophecy and to ensure that her kids would also not be executed for her cheating on someone who rapes her, so that alone already makes her more sympathetic than the vast majority of characters I already mentioned.

There was no need to kill those twin babies, they were in Lannister territory so were no threat to her, and it is specifically stated she had them killed out of pride; and the prophecy doesn't give her a licence to kill anyway, if she didn't want her kids to be executed why did she have them in the first place et all the arguments I made on the other thread. Cersei put herself in a position where she 'had' to kill children, she didn't even have to kill them, she is the architect of her own demise as it is a self-fulfilling prophecy, she chose of her own free will to murder babies because of her ego and that is why I consider her one of the worst people in the series. This is not even including torture of multiple innocents, including sending her maid to Qyburn, knowing full well what would happen to her, torturing the innocent blue bard to frame innocent Margaery, sending her supposed friend Falyse to Qyburn, all the innocent dwarves killed because of her, she was aroused by the thought of maiming a ten year old, for God's sake! She is a vile woman and I don't buy TV Tropes sob story about everything being done only to protect her children, she neglected Tommen and Myrcella, even if you accept she 'had' to kill all those innocent babies (I don't) that still doesn't excuse all the other disgusting things she did. Her primary motivation has always been vanity, she feels threatened by Margaery because she thinks she is younger and more beautiful.

[Alester Florent]

1 hour ago, boltons are sick said:

Just because someone had their death earlier, doesn't mean they are less evil because the time period in which they die has no bearing on their morality.

No but your question is why people post about hating Cersei, and this is part of it. A character who has already got their well-deserved comeuppance is likely to attract less ire than one who is still at large.

1 hour ago, boltons are sick said:

And off the top of my head, Theon, Sandor Jaime who are widely considered anti-heroes have murdered/attempted to murder children, but I don't see any posts about them being the worst people in the entire series and many fans like them.

Even leaving aside the horrific punishment Theon has suffered already, each of these characters has undergone or is undergoing a process of "redemption" in which they recognise their former crimes. Sandor and Jaime at least are trying to make things better. Cersei has done none of this.

1 hour ago, boltons are sick said:

Most of the stuff Cersei does is to protect herself and her children from Maggy's prophecy and to ensure that her kids would also not be executed for her cheating on someone who rapes her, so that alone already makes her more sympathetic than the vast majority of characters I already mentioned.

There's a huge blind spot which you and Cersei both share regarding the prophecy, which is that it's self-fulfilling. Cersei is creating the circumstances for the prophecy to be fulfilled by trying to ignore it. This is a common feature of prophecy-driven characters in the books and in fiction in general.

And at the end of the day, Maggy the Frog is a fortune-teller. If I go to a fortune-teller and they give me a reading and I then become Britain's greatest mass murderer it is no defence whatsoever to say that I was doing it because of the fortune-teller's reading. Cersei bears full responsibility for her own actions.

 

[Terrorthatflapsinthenight9]

What is this obsession with TV tropes ?Why do you use it for each of your threads instead of the original books ?

[Craving Peaches]

6 minutes ago, Alester Florent said:

If I go to a fortune-teller and they give me a reading and I then become Britain's greatest mass murderer it is no defence whatsoever to say that I was doing it because of the fortune-teller's reading.

Exactly. And I doubt the Court would buy that Cersei 'had' to kill those children to protect her own either. The 'threat' she may be trying to avoid is unspecific and remote. The Children were no threat to her at all.

Edited April 5, 2023 by Craving Peaches

[Terrorthatflapsinthenight9]

And as others have pointed out Cersei is hated widely because she's a truly hateful and despicable person with great cruelty, incredible narcicism and extreme petiness, hypocrisy and spitefulness without any real redeeming quality.

Her "love" for Jaime and her children is above all a love of herself, she only sees and loves them as extensions of herself and start treating them like shit the moment they go beyond what she envisions them to be, having neglected Myrcella and Tommen to focus only on Joffrey which she saw as her golden child for having all the "qualities" she can imagine, and abuses Tommen when he isn't enough like Joffrey or try to stand up for himself, and is repulsed by Jaime after he was changed by his maiming and the war.

[astarkchoice]

Thata the opinion of one website possibly edited by like one or two guys

 

Shes clearly evil , a mass child murdering cold blooded manipulator ,a  bully to her dwarf brother, a woman who sees threats to be put down brutaly among the innocent but , overll her   stupidity is a saving grace for the kingdom

[Dofs]

Cersei is not better than Joffrey. She is worse than him, actually.

[boltons are sick]

5 hours ago, astarkchoice said:

Thata the opinion of one website possibly edited by like one or two guys

 

Shes clearly evil , a mass child murdering cold blooded manipulator ,a  bully to her dwarf brother, a woman who sees threats to be put down brutaly among the innocent but , overll her   stupidity is a saving grace for the kingdom

The difference between TV Tropes and the regular ASOIAF fans is the following:

 TV Tropes actually has a strict set of criteria which include that the character shouldn't have any redeeming qualities, no valid Freudian Excuse, have full moral agency and commit crimes that are bad enough by the standards of the story and relative to their position of power. Also, each character gets a thorough discussion before they are approved to make sure nothing is overlooked. We also have a rule that just because you personally hate someone, doesn't mean they qualify.

 The regular ASOIAF fans don't take those things into consideration, they just put characters they hate more as being more evil because of personal hatred for them without taking into consideration things like redeeming qualities, Freudian Excuses or if the crimes commited by the character are actually bad enough when compared to the baseline, the standards of the story and the actions commited by other characters.

 Cersei has both redeeming qualities, a Freudian Excuse and you could even make an argument that the crimes she commits are not bad enough because she is the Queen Regent of the Seven Kingdoms which means she needs to be compared to characters with similar levels of power like rulers of the Seven Kingdoms such as Aerys Targaryen (who tries to kill half a million people by blowing up the capital) or Maegor Targaryen and, frankly, those two alone likely surpass her by far.

 So, TV Tropes is a lot more reliable when judging who is or isn't the most evil because they actually have a set of criteria they are using when doing it, they have dozens of people arguing about every single character that gets proposed and they don't care about how they personally feel about the character they are judging unlike the regular fans who scale characters in terms of evil entirely by emotion and not by using rational thinking (which can even be seen in this very thread).

Edited April 5, 2023 by boltons are sick

[kissdbyfire]

10 minutes ago, boltons are sick said:

Cersei has both redeeming qualities

I see you’ve used the plural, so give me 2 redeeming qualities Cersei has. 

[boltons are sick]

16 minutes ago, kissdbyfire said:

I see you’ve used the plural, so give me 2 redeeming qualities Cersei has. 

She feels sorry for the Blue Bard while she is torturing him (remorse qualifies as a redeeming quality), cares about her children and her mother, acts somewhat affable to Sansa on a few occasions and teaches her about "moon blood" and how to rule as a future Queen and gives a choice to Ned to return to Winterfell and live out the rest of his life, specifically stating that she is doing it because he also provided her with a choice to leave the city with her family (yes, if she is giving Ned the choice to walk out with his life and specifically states that she is doing it because Ned gave her a choice to leave the city before he warned Robert, it counts as a redeeming quality).

Edited April 5, 2023 by boltons are sick

[Alester Florent]

13 minutes ago, boltons are sick said:

She feels sorry for the Blue Bard while she is torturing him (remorse qualifies as a redeeming quality),

[kissdbyfire]

5 minutes ago, boltons are sick said:

She feels sorry for the Blue Bard while she is torturing him (remorse qualifies as a redeeming quality),

No, she doesn’t. And worse, in typical Cersei fashion, she blames Margaery for her having had him tortured within an inch of his life and driven to madness.

“Yes. Cersei blamed Margaery Tyrell for this. If not for her, Wat might have lived a long and fruitful life, singing his little songs and bedding pig girls and crofter’s daughters. Her scheming forced this on me. She has soiled me with her treachery.”

 

5 minutes ago, boltons are sick said:

cares about her children and her mother
 

She cares for her children only as far as she sees herself in them, and that’s why she cares more for Joffrey and doesn’t really give a shit about the others, especially Tommen who she sees as weak. We can’t really say she loved her mother b/c we never really see their relationship and can’t base anything on what she says. I think she uses this alleged love for her mother as a pretext to torture and be cruel to Tyrion.

5 minutes ago, boltons are sick said:

and gives a choice to Ned to return to Winterfell and live out the rest of his life, specifically stating that she is doing it because he also provided her with a choice to leave the city with her family (yes, if she is giving Ned the choice to walk out with his life and specifically states that she is doing it because Ned gave her a choice to leave the city before he warned Robert, it counts as a redeeming quality).

[astarkchoice]

15 minutes ago, boltons are sick said:

The difference between TV Tropes and the regular ASOIAF fans is the following:

 TV Tropes actually has a strict set of criteria which include that the character shouldn't have any redeeming qualities, no valid Freudian Excuse, have full moral agency and commit crimes that are bad enough by the standards of the story and relative to their position of power. Also, each character gets a thorough discussion before they are approved to make sure nothing is overlooked. We also have a rule that just because you personally hate someone, doesn't mean they qualify.

 The regular ASOIAF fans don't take those things into consideration, they just put characters they hate more as being more evil because of personal hatred for them without taking into consideration things like redeeming qualities, Freudian Excuses or if the crimes commited by the character are actually bad enough when compared to the baseline, the standards of the story and the actions commited by other characters.

 Cersei has both redeeming qualities, a Freudian Excuse and you could even make an argument that the crimes she commits are not bad enough because she is the Queen Regent of the Seven Kingdoms which means she needs to be compared to characters with similar levels of power like rulers of the Seven Kingdoms such as Aerys Targaryen (who tries to kill half a million people by blowing up the capital) or Maegor Targaryen and, frankly, those two alone likely surpass her by far.

 So, TV Tropes is a lot more reliable when judging who is or isn't the most evil because they actually have a set of criteria they are using when doing it, they have dozens of people arguing about every single character that gets proposed and they don't care about how they personally feel about the character they are judging unlike the regular fans who scale characters in terms of evil entirely by emotion and not by using rational thinking (which can even be seen in this very thread).

Nope

Id argue her postion doesnt get her a pass for having children exterminated in fact you could argue those other 2 have mental illness whereas cersei is hunting kids in cold blood.

[Moiraine Sedai]

George Martin would list Cersei among the gray characters. Most of the vocal Cersei haters are Stark fans. Jaime is the worst of the three Lannisters.