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]

1 hour ago, boltons are sick said:

No matter what you or anyone else likes to pretend, the laws of the Seven Kingdoms state that if the Queen cheats on the King even WITHOUT trying to pretend that her children belong to the King, she would still be executed

Where does it say this? The execution is going to come from passing off the children. If it was 'just cheating' I really doubt Robert could execute Cersei, she would be sent home in disgrace...aside from the fact it's with her brother, which is the crime of incest. So the problems that will lead to execution are incest and fraud, not just 'cheating'. Incest and fraud remain crimes today. No matter what you like to pretend.

1 hour ago, boltons are sick said:

The only way in which Cersei can protect her children and herself from this

Is to not have children with Jaime in the first place?

1 hour ago, boltons are sick said:

I don't blame her for being forced to do this to protect herself from being executed over cheating on the King, but I blame the sexist society which has created the law that if the Queen cheats on the King, she would be executed even if she DOESN'T try to pretend that her children belong to the King.

But she was never forced to kill children. She had other ways to deal with them, hush money etc. And she willingly put herself in that situation in the first place. If I join a notorious gang then end up in a position where I 'have' to off someone, and then I try and argue that I'm not guilty of murder because I was forced to do it, willingly joining a dangerous gang would completely undermine my 'defence'. Same with Cersei. She willingly committed incest and fraud, then chose to murder people to cover it up. She didn't 'have' to murder people, firstly because she had non-lethal options to deal with the issue, secondly you will never be able to justify crime with 'I had to do it to cover up my previous crime that I willingly committed'. Such a state of affairs would be laughable. Cersei is a horrible baby murderess and there is nothing to excuse or justify her vile behaviour.

[boltons are sick]

30 minutes ago, Craving Peaches said:

Where does it say this? The execution is going to come from passing off the children. If it was 'just cheating' I really doubt Robert could execute Cersei, she would be sent home in disgrace...aside from the fact it's with her brother, which is the crime of incest. So the problems that will lead to execution are incest and fraud, not just 'cheating'. Incest and fraud remain crimes today. No matter what you like to pretend.

Is to not have children with Jaime in the first place?

But she was never forced to kill children. She had other ways to deal with them, hush money etc. And she willingly put herself in that situation in the first place. If I join a notorious gang then end up in a position where I 'have' to off someone, and then I try and argue that I'm not guilty of murder because I was forced to do it, willingly joining a dangerous gang would completely undermine my 'defence'. Same with Cersei. She willingly committed incest and fraud, then chose to murder people to cover it up. She didn't 'have' to murder people, firstly because she had non-lethal options to deal with the issue, secondly you will never be able to justify crime with 'I had to do it to cover up my previous crime that I willingly committed'. Such a state of affairs would be laughable. Cersei is a horrible baby murderess and there is nothing to excuse or justify her vile behaviour.

I literally provided evidence from the fourth book, but you completely ignored it, so I will type it again. The reason why Margaery was threatened with execution was because it was believed she cheated on Tommen and cheating on the King is considered treason. This shows that Cersei would have been executed even if she didn't pretend that her children are Robert's and this means that she is essentially forced by the sexist laws to pretend that her children are Robert's or else she would get executed which I don't blame her for at all because Westerosi laws are made to uphold a few select individuals of power at the expense of everyone else and that's why Westerosi laws shouldn't be respected, abided to or used as any form of moral judgement. This is like saying that a slave who kills his Master because his Master wanted to punish him for trying to run away is unjustified because the slave killed someone to escape punishment for a "crime" (running from your slavemaster is considered a crime in this society) he commited just like you say that Cersei is unjustified to kill the people who oppress her and want to execute her for cheating on her husband.

 

You may have a point about the incest, but there is no indication that incest is punishable by death in Westeros, people just find it really disturbing when someone does and they are used to the Targaryens doing it. Also nobody deserves to be executed for incest and even in today's world the USA wouldn't execute someone for sleeping with their sibling.

 

Also, no offence, but your comparison is really weird. You are comparing a woman cheating on her husband who rapes her and also cheats on her and is forced to pretend that her children belong to him just so she wouldn't get executed along with her family because she chooses who she loves and who she wants to have sex with which is repressed by the sexist Westerosi laws and you are comparing this to joining a notorious gang! At least you didn't compare Cersei's actions against Robert to a serial killer because I literally saw a very dumb post once which compares Cersei killing Robert who rapes her repeatedly and would have executed her for something he himself does to a serial killer who kills the policemen who have come to arrest him to avoid justice because that was an even dumber comparison.

Edited April 5, 2023 by boltons are sick

[Craving Peaches]

38 minutes ago, boltons are sick said:

The reason why Margaery was threatened with execution

The accusation is meant to make sure Margaery is no longer Queen and loses her power and influence, not necessarily to have her executed. The Tyrells are not going to allow that, in the same way Tywin would not allow Cersei to be executed if she was caught cheating on someone who wasn't Jaime. Where does it say that the punishment for adultery is death? The punishment for treason, which Margaery is also charged with, is certainly death, but I have not seen conclusive evidence in books that just adultery would be punished with death. In a man who beat his wife to death for adultery was lawfully beaten in turn because he murdered her.

38 minutes ago, boltons are sick said:

means that she is essentially forced by the sexist laws to pretend that her children are Robert's or else she would get executed

Or she could just not have Jaime's children...

38 minutes ago, boltons are sick said:

Westerosi laws are made to uphold a few select individuals of power

Of which Cersei is one.

38 minutes ago, boltons are sick said:

This is like saying that a slave who kills his Master because his Master wanted to punish him for trying to run away is unjustified because the slave killed someone to escape punishment for a "crime" (running from your slavemaster is considered a crime in this society

No it is not, Cersei is not in a position comparable to a slave, to be honest that is quite frankly insulting, especially when we are shown first hand the position slaves are in. Also I specifically pointed out that fraud and incest are still crimes today multiple times. Those are what will get Cersei into trouble because without them there is no danger of the adultery being discovered and they are the more severe crime.

38 minutes ago, boltons are sick said:

the people who oppress her

Who's oppressing her? Newborn babies? Because those are who she's killing. 

38 minutes ago, boltons are sick said:

You may have a point about the incest, but there is no indication that incest is punishable by death in Westeros

Aside from the fact that it is one of the greatest sins in a religious society and the Faith militant was so unhappy about it that they fought a huge war with the Targaryens over it when they had dragons, and the fact that innocent children of incest are considered abominations worthy of death by multiple characters. No indication. Right.

38 minutes ago, boltons are sick said:

Also, no offence, but your comparison is really weird. You are comparing a woman cheating on her husband who rapes her and also cheats on her and is forced to pretend that her children belong to him just so she wouldn't get executed along with her family because she chooses who she loves and who she wants to have sex with which is repressed by the sexist Westerosi laws and you are comparing this to joining a notorious gang! At least you didn't compare Cersei's actions against Robert to a serial killer because I literally saw a very dumb post once which compares Cersei killing Robert who rapes her repeatedly and would have executed her for something he himself does to a serial killer who kills the policemen who have come to arrest him to avoid justice because that was an even dumber comparison.

No offence, but you have missed the entire point of that part of my post, which firstly was to show that if you accept the possibility you will have to carry out criminal acts you have hardly been forced to do them, and secondly was to show that you cannot justify one crime by saying it was necessary to avoid being caught for the other crime and so avoid punishment. I will give another example which should hopefully make it clear to you. If I am married to one man but pass off another's children as his so they will be included in his will, then murder someone when they find out about my fraudulent scheme, no Court on Earth will accept that the murder was 'justified' because I had to kill X in order to stop people finding out and me being punished for my fraud.

Edited April 5, 2023 by Craving Peaches

[boltons are sick]

54 minutes ago, Craving Peaches said:

The accusation is meant to make sure Margaery is no longer Queen and loses her power and influence, not necessarily to have her executed. The Tyrells are not going to allow that, in the same way Tywin would not allow Cersei to be executed if she was caught cheating on someone who wasn't Jaime. Where does it say that the punishment for adultery is death? The punishment for treason, which Margaery is also charged with, is certainly death, but I have not seen conclusive evidence in books that just adultery would be punished with death. In a man who beat his wife to death for adultery was lawfully beaten in turn because he murdered her.

Cersei literally thinks about a person whom they could hire to execute Margaery and she wants to have Margaery killed to avoid Maggy's prophecy from happening. This shows that the cheating is punishable by death. Even if you just look at Medieval history (which ASOIAF is based on) if the Queen cheats on her husband, she would get executed.

 

54 minutes ago, Craving Peaches said:

No offence, but you have missed the entire point of that part of my post, which was to show that you cannot justify one crime by saying it was necessary to avoid being caught for the other crime and so avoid punishment. I will give another example which should hopefully make it clear to you. If I am married to one man but pass off another's children as his so they will be included in his will, then murder someone when they find out about my fraudulent scheme, no Court on Earth will accept that the murder was 'justified' because I had to kill X in order to stop people finding out and me being punished for my fraud.

In that particular case, I assume the character doesn't get repeatedly raped by their man, the character wasn't forced to marry that man against their will with no choice to end the marriage and be with someone she actually loves, their man doesn't cheat on them repeatedly. Also, cheating on the man isn't punishable by death in that universe and the character isn't forced to lie that the children belong to her husband out of fear that otherwise her husband is going to kill her and the children if he learns that she has been doing the same thing he himself has been doing, so, in that particular case, she isn't doing it to protect her children out of fear for her life and the lives of her kids but just to get her husband's heritage for herself. 

 On paper the situation is similar to Cersei's situation, but just on paper. You leave out A LOT of details regarding Cersei's motivations and you still assume that Cersei wouldn't get executed just for cheating even though from Cersei's own thoughts in AFFC, we know that she thinks Margaery would get punished with death for supposedly cheating on Tommen and we also know that Queens in Medieval countries who cheated on the King got executed.

 And, honestly, Robert raping her repeatedly is MUCH worse than anything Cersei did to him, so, personally, I call anything that she did to Robert pure retribution for what he did to her whether it's considered illegal or not (and no, I am not counting her killing his bastards as things she did to him, I agree that this was unjustifiable). It's like Clyde Shelton from the film Law Abiding Citizen torturing Clarence Darby to death. What he did was considered a crime and the Police went after him, but Darby raped and killed his wife and little daughter, so even if it's illegal and a murder, the brutal torture he inflicted on Darby (like cutting off all of his limbs while he is still alive, cutting off his nipples, tongue and penis and injecting him with adrenaline, so he wouldn't pass out during the torture session) was still really understandable and I know that a lot of people who watched the film felt Clyde was justified in this instance.

 The only reason why you hold the views you have is because the whole situation is presented from Ned's POV who is both:

a) Robert's best buddy

b) Has his own sexist ideas about how a woman should act in Westerosi society

 I suggest we just stop this discussion because it's pointless and we had it multiple times already. You are not going to convince me and I am not going to convince you.

Edited April 5, 2023 by boltons are sick

[Craving Peaches]

8 minutes ago, boltons are sick said:

In that particular case, I assume the character doesn't get repeatedly raped by their man, the character wasn't forced to marry that man against their will with no choice to end the marriage and be with someone she actually loves, their man doesn't cheat on them repeatedly. Also, cheating on the man isn't punishable by death in that universe and the character isn't forced to lie that the children belong to her husband out of fear that otherwise her husband is going to kill her and the children if he learns that she has been doing the same thing he himself has been doing, so, in that particular case, she isn't doing it to protect her children out of fear for her life and the lives of her kids but just to get her husband's heritage for herself. 

You can change it to be identical to Cersei's situation and the Court still won't buy your 'justification' when it comes to killing innocents.

12 minutes ago, boltons are sick said:

And, honestly, Robert raping her repeatedly is MUCH worse than anything Cersei did to him, so, personally, I call anything that she did to Robert pure retribution for what he did to her whether it's considered illegal or not.

And his innocent children? Are they fair game to you too?

13 minutes ago, boltons are sick said:

 The only reason why you hold the views you have is because the whole situation is presented from Ned's POV who is both:

a) Robert's best buddy

b) Has his own sexist ideas about how a woman should act in Westerosi society

No, the only reason I hold this view is because I, seemingly unlike yourself, do not believe Cersei has any justification whatsoever for killing innocent children. It has nothing to do with it being presented through Ned's point of view. And yes it is hard to have a proper discussion when you make such sweeping assumptions.

35 minutes ago, boltons are sick said:

 I suggest we just stop this discussion because it's pointless and we had it multiple times already. You are not going to convince me and I am not going to convince you.

Ok.

[Cas Stark]

Um, she was already a violent, sexually deviant, abusive killer before she ever met Robert Baratheon.  

[boltons are sick]

8 minutes ago, Craving Peaches said:

And his innocent children? Are they fair game to you too?

I will answer this one question and I am done discussing this. I literally said in my post that I don't consider that under "things she did to him". This is what I wrote if you read my comment again:

"and no, I am not counting her killing his bastards as things she did to him, I agree that this was unjustifiable"

Robert is dead by this point, he doesn't care much about his children and she didn't even do it out of revenge, but for political reasons (so that her children would continue to be recognized as Robert's). This is a bad thing to do and is one of her worst actions, but it's not something she did to Robert since Robert himself doesn't seem to care much about them, but to his children, so don't try to present me as someone who advocates for the murder of innocent children.

 However, her cheating on him, passing off her children as his and then killing him is a fair game in my books.

Edited April 5, 2023 by boltons are sick

[Craving Peaches]

4 minutes ago, boltons are sick said:

This is what I wrote if you read my comment again:

I think I replied to your comment before you edited it. If not I apologise for misreading. I was in the car (as a passenger!) and made myself sick looking down at my phone while the car was moving.

4 minutes ago, boltons are sick said:

However, her cheating on him, passing off her children as his and then killing him is a fair game in my books.

I can't say we agreed here then because I don't see her being justified in killing Robert.

Edited April 5, 2023 by Craving Peaches

[Nevets]

12 minutes ago, boltons are sick said:

I will answer this one question and I am done discussing this. I literally said in my post that I don't consider that under "things she did to him". This is what I wrote if you read my comment again:

"and no, I am not counting her killing his bastards as things she did to him, I agree that this was unjustifiable"

Robert is dead by this point, he doesn't care much about his children and she didn't even do it out of revenge, but for political reasons (so that her children would continue to be recognized as Robert's). This is a bad thing to do and is one of her worst actions, but it's not something she did to Robert since Robert himself doesn't seem to care much about them, but to his children, so don't try to present me as someone who advocates for the murder of innocent children.

 However, her cheating on him, passing off her children as his and then killing him is a fair game in my books.

I can give her a complete pass on anything she did with Robert and the incest and still think she's one of the worst people in the books.  

It's mostly stuff in AFFC.  She mistreats Tommen, including having Pate tortured, knowing it would hurt Tommen; torturing the Blue Bard and others to frame Margaery; her entire persecution of Margaery; she sends Falyse and others to the tender mercies of Qyburn.  I think the Blue Bard stuff was when I really began to despise her.

The only reason she isn't top of the list of bad people is because there are some who have managed to be even more vile and depraved than she is.  As far as major characters go, she rises to the top, or sinks to the bottom, more like.  Overall, just because she's better than the likes of Ramsay, Gregor, etc doesn't make her unworthy of being hated.

[Alester Florent]

So here's a better question: why are you bending over backwards to try to defend Cersei? 

[Tyrosh Lannister]

Cersei is one of the coolest characters in the series. She's tough, has a good sense of humour (lannister humour), easily gets pissed off, fun to watch her blunders. 

[Craving Peaches]

Reminder that Cersei did not murder Robert because he was abusing her, she murdered him so he couldn't find out about the incest and so Joffrey could become king.

[astarkchoice]

9 hours ago, Alester Florent said:

So here's a better question: why are you bending over backwards to try to defend Cersei? 

His real name is lancel

[SeanF]

Cersei and Jaime, if they were massively in love with other, could always have taken ship for some foreign country, where incestuous marriage is permitted, or no one cares about such things, and lived in comfortable obscurity.  Cersei would have her jewels, and Jaime could find work as a bodyguard or city guardsman.

But, that would mean their lives would be a lot less privileged than they were as Queen, and Lord Commander, respectively.  So,  count me very unconvinced that they had no option but produce children together, and then Cersei had no choice, but to murder other children in order to cover up their affair.

[SeanF]

17 hours ago, Moiraine Sedai said:

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.  

George in fact said he felt in need of a shower, every time he wrote a Cersei chapter.

[James Arryn]

Depends where and when, but there is in fact historical precedent for an adulterous queen being considered a traitor just for that. Sexism underpins every element of most of the societies in which this was true, but that doesn’t mean the one automatically followed the other, mainly because medieval folk did not have access to dna or even blood tests. So literally the only way of ensuring that the heirs to the throne that exited the queen’s womb could only have entered from the king is to have only the king doing any entering therein. Otherwise no one, not even the Queen unless the dates are just waaaay off, can ever really know, and that undermines the entire legitimacy of the royal line. And as stupid as that seems to us now in some ways, it is abundantly clear that it mattered to medieval folk well beyond what could only be explained by sexism. 
 

Even mad, bad Cersei’s regular habits to ensure Robert’s seed died fruitless isn’t really that foolproof, there have definitely been times when he could have impregnated her…a woman can get pregnant from pre-climax emissions for example. A king’s bastards are never in any way a danger to be passed off as legit…everyone knows they did not come from the queen. But no one knows whose babies come from the queen except by monopolizing her womb. Unfair but entirely true. And if you take away the importance of the children actually being the king’s, you invalidate the entire argument that god/the Gods/etc. have anointed one person above all others to rule. 

Edited April 6, 2023 by James Arryn

[SeanF]

17 hours ago, boltons are sick said:

I don't think the Starks are evil, but they are not the "heroes" of the story either, they are just another random noble family who are part of the political intrigue and Robb is explicitely mentioned to have pillaged the Westerlands which would give him a fairly decent body count of innocent peasants. They just happen to be our introductory POV characters to the world of ASOIAF and that's why they are perceived as the heroes of the story.

I do agree that a lot of the hate for Cersei comes because she is opposed to the Stark family. If she wasn't opposed to fan favorite characters, fans still wouldn't think that she is a good person, but there would be a lot more understanding for her and her desire to protect her family from being unjustly executed by Robert over some sexist laws which don't allow the woman to cheat on her rapist husband.

 I suspect the reason why Tyrion is so popular despite the crimes he commits is that he is not opposed to any fan favorite characters and most of his crimes are commited against unnamed smallfolk that the fans don't care about, but if he was directly opposed to the Stark family and there was genuine hatred between them ,people would have much worse opinions about Tyrion because most fans don't judge characters by morality, but by whether they find them likeable or not and part of being likeable is not opposing fan favorite characters.

The Starks are not the heroes, but George has called them heroes.

The Lannisters threw the first punches in this conflict, and always sought to escalate the violence, rather than trying to limit it.

[SeanF]

1 minute ago, James Arryn said:

Depends where and when, but there is in fact historical precedent for an adulterous queen being considered a traitor just for that. Sexism underpins every element of most of the societies in which this was true, but that doesn’t mean the one automatically followed the other, mainly because medieval folk did not have access to dna or even blood tests. So literally the only way of ensuring that the heirs to the throne that exited the queen’s womb could only have entered from the king.
 

Even mad, bad Cersei’s regular habits to ensure Robert’s seed died fruitless isn’t really that foolproof, there have definitely been times when he could have impregnated her…a woman can get pregnant from pre-climax emissions for example. A king’s bastards are never in any way a danger to be passed off as legit…everyone knows they did not come from the queen. But no one knows whose babies come from the queen except by monopolizing her womb. Unfair but entirely true. And if you take away the importance of the children actually being the king’s, you invalidate the entire argument that god/the Gods/etc. have anointed one person above all others to rule. 

Henry VIII was actually very unusual for executing two of his wives, but it's quite true that adultery with a Queen (or royal princess) was viewed as treason, by both the man and the woman.  The fate of the woman would more typically be confinement to a convent, in disgrace. The man would typically be dismembered.

[Springwatch]

16 hours ago, Alester Florent said:

So here's a better question: why are you bending over backwards to try to defend Cersei? 

Because we're all grown-ups now and we can handle a bit of nuance. It's only doing justice to the author. Besides - if you've ever given a free pass to any of a million remarks along the lines of I can't believe Cersei is soooo dumb, and evil, what a stupid evil bitch etc (and we've all passed by remarks like that) - well then, you can smile on by at Boltons and me too.

[Cas Stark]

4 hours ago, SeanF said:

Cersei and Jaime, if they were massively in love with other, could always have taken ship for some foreign country, where incestuous marriage is permitted, or no one cares about such things, and lived in comfortable obscurity.  Cersei would have her jewels, and Jaime could find work as a bodyguard or city guardsman.

But, that would mean their lives would be a lot less privileged than they were as Queen, and Lord Commander, respectively.  So,  count me very unconvinced that they had no option but produce children together, and then Cersei had no choice, but to murder other children in order to cover up their affair.

Exactly.  They had plenty of money and opportunity to leave Westeros and live their lives together however they wished.  If Bob never had the Targs killed he wouldn't have harmed them either, probably would have been glad to be rid of her.  I believe Jamie would have happily done that, left the country to be not so rich and powerful people, but free to be together.  Cersei is the one who, despite how much she hated her husband, stayed right there in Kings Landing to maintain her personal power. #noexcuses