Defend Cersei as best you can

[Alexia]

She underestimates Varys and generally fights the shadows cast by threats rather then dealing with them.

:lol:

Cersei warned Tyrion against Varys at the very beginning of the story. She was much more suspicious of Varys than other characters such as Tyrion and Tywin.

[Valmy]

Absolutely. It's one of the reasons he underestimates her, it's one of the reasons that he doesn't want her around.

Ned "underestimates" lots of people. He gets played by everybody.

It never would have occured to him that Littlefinger got Lysa to kill her own Husband and frame the Lannisters for it. I think if he did not suspect her of killing or discover the incest thing he would not have opposed her position. Because he thinks her position is not based on his code of honor he opposese her. He does not understand the code of honor is just a flimsy mask concealing the fact that raw physical violence and power is what the system actually functions on.

Cersei understands this and is baffled Ned acts the way he does just as he is agast she behaves the way she does.

I have a hard time believing if he discovered Robert had been masquerading his own bastards as his legitimate heirs he would not have acted the same.

[Kalbear]

Cersei warned Tyrion against Varys at the very beginning of the story. She was much more suspicious of Varys than other characters such as Tyrion and Tywin.

Agreed - Varys is the least trusted of anyone. If anything the person she underestimated (that ultimately cost her) was Littlefinger, who played her. Varys she never trusted and barely tolerated, and she wanted him gone save that he was somewhat useful to her.

I mean...what shadows is she chasing at? Should she be going after littlefinger instead of Tyrion for the death of her son, even though he had the means, motive, and was sitting there holding a poisoned chalice (and littlefinger wasn't anywhere near there and had zero motive to kill Joff?) Should she be going after Varys for..uh...helping Tyrion kill her father? Oh wait, she did. She does spend a lot of time trying to get Tyrion, but again - to her, Tyrion killed her first son. Tyrion killed her father. He's already shown his resourcefulness and his animosity towards Cersei. Should Cersei just ignore that and think he'll be fine out there?

[Valmy]

:lol:

Cersei warned Tyrion against Varys at the very beginning of the story. She was much more suspicious of Varys than other characters such as Tyrion and Tywin.

Cersei is great at knowing who not to trust. The problem is she never gets anybody she really can trust.

She is a great and tragic character. I do not really get why people think she is raw evil. Gregor is raw evil.

I really liked her descent into insanity and debauchery once she gains power as a perfect reflection of what happened to Robert. Power corrupts especially when you have nobody you can trust to be honest with you.

[Kalbear]

I have a hard time believing if he discovered Robert had been masquerading his own bastards as his legitimate heirs he would not have acted the same.

He might have, true. But I also think that he wouldn't have suspected it or even really cared about the investigation. He wouldn't have gone in thinking that things were afoot. He would have just acted as the Hand.

Ned's code wouldn't allow him to ignore that evidence when he had it, but I doubt Ned would have pursued anything with such zeal if it wasn't for the enmity already present.

I really liked her descent into insanity and debauchery once she gains power as a perfect reflection of what happened to Robert. Power corrupts especially when you have nobody you can trust to be honest with you.

Ya know, I hadn't thought of it that way - but you're right. It's almost precisely the same, just a bit faster. She overspends, she does shortsighted things, she fucks over people she shouldn't, she dwells on things that are not that important in the grand scheme of things, she has people on her council that just do whatever she asks..it's very similar.

Both knew how to gain power. Both didn't know how to keep it.

[Faint]

I mean...what shadows is she chasing at? Should she be going after littlefinger instead of Tyrion for the death of her son, even though he had the means, motive, and was sitting there holding a poisoned chalice (and littlefinger wasn't anywhere near there and had zero motive to kill Joff?) Should she be going after Varys for..uh...helping Tyrion kill her father? Oh wait, she did. She does spend a lot of time trying to get Tyrion, but again - to her, Tyrion killed her first son. Tyrion killed her father. He's already shown his resourcefulness and his animosity towards Cersei. Should Cersei just ignore that and think he'll be fine out there?

I agree; while her prejudice of Tyrion clearly clouds her judgment on the issue, there isn't really a compelling reason to think someone else had done it at the time. It would take someone truly intuitive to deduce that the Tyrells and Littlefinger are behind the plot because they have no easily identifiable reason for essentially murdering their ally. Cersei, whatever skills she might posses, is not of a class to see through the complex stratagems of someone like Littlefinger and even less so when battling grief. The fact that Tyrion did, in fact, kill Tywin, only makes it all the more understandable that she thought he had had killed Joffrey as well. Readers have to go easy about Cersei on her culpability for these decisions and, at the same time, keep in mind that she had no education as to playing king and that all of those interactions with Tyrion were seen from his perspective. Try to imagine what Cersei was thinking, not what she was saying, during the second and third books. First, as she sits there under threat of invasion from various armies, whose success might ultimately result in her rape and death, then as she is confronted again with being packed up and married out to a new potentially abusive husband, capped, of course, by her son being murdered in front of her eyes. It's almost an achievement that she didn't go insane before AFfC.

[Valmy]

He might have, true. But I also think that he wouldn't have suspected it or even really cared about the investigation. He wouldn't have gone in thinking that things were afoot. He would have just acted as the Hand.

Ned's code wouldn't allow him to ignore that evidence when he had it, but I doubt Ned would have pursued anything with such zeal if it wasn't for the enmity already present.

Well he did not expect it from Cersei until he is basically told so by Varys (or was it Littlefinger?). Littlefinger played him perfectly by setting him up to believe she had killed his mentor. I think Eddard's love for Jon Arryn (or at least feeling of obligation) was a bigger factor is trying to avenge him and finish Jon's supposed work.

[Jon Westerland]

Zero evidence of that in the book, and it's almost certainly false given the commotion that Bran's fall caused in the castle.

She did have sex with Jaime after he did that (after scolding him) as the replayed that scene in flashback in A Feast of Crows.

Sure. Why not? If Ned happened to come back when she was told that Bran and Rickon were dead and they started fucking, I wouldn't have a problem with it. Clearly you've never had a loved one gone for a while. Sex is a very natural part of the grieving process, especially when dealing with death.

On YOUR SONS GRAVE WHILEST MOURNING HIM! Seriously.

Okay, let's go with this.

She knows - and has known for a long time - how much contempt Tyrion has for her. She blames him on some level for killing her mother. She envies his freedom and ability to do whatever he wants, and recognizes in him the same desire to please their father in the ways they can. Tyrion wasn't threatening to her until he was named the Hand and could act in Tywin's stead - and flat out told Cersei that he was there specifically to rein her in. So yes, she sees him as a threat because he's a definite threat to her and what she wants.

Note that...again...NO ONE LISTENS TO TYRION! Everyone hates him. No one follows him. His title was just that. He was harmless.

As to her son - okay, try to play a game. Suppose you have a child. Are you presupposed to think that that child is lying to you? Are you going to rationally be able to deal with things like bad behavior compared to others? Especially when the other person telling you how bad he is is Robert - a guy who fucks other women, has bastards aplenty, eats and drinks like a pig and is in general horrible? Hell, if Robert says that Joffrey is bad I'd take that as evidence that he's a saint.

If Robert thinks someones bad (as his standard of evil is set way below himself it is really really bad. Nuff said. If she really loved her son, she would have disciplined him, and found a way to make him better in the head. Instead (I think) she USED him to gain power, perhaps unconsciously.

I mean, really - are you condemning Cersei for liking Joffrey? Isn't that a bit like condemning Cat for liking Sansa?

I am concemning her for not really loving him. Even in death, she ****s on his grave.

The smartest thing Cersei ever did was see Tyrion as a threat. Tyrion managed to convince Oberyn Martell to be on his side (and get him killed), kill the mightiest knight in the Kingdom, survive being captured by the rival house, get taken to another rival's keep, and somehow survive and even gain a retinue, save the capital from an invasion by a superior force on land and sea, outwit Littlefinger and Varys and oh yeah - assassinate the greatest military and political mind in the entire kingdom.

1. He did that out of pure luck

2. He survived because of pure luck (and some wits) and daddies money

3. He had saved the capital, and what does he get? (Nothing)

4. And he did that after she imprisoned him

If she is half as smart as you think she is she should have EMBRACED him. Not try to kill him.

Most people don't see Tyrion as a threat because they only see him as a dwarf.

Up until recently? No. No one except the readers like Tyrion (because he is awesome). he had no real power. Therefore no threat.

Well, given that you've actually stated no real facts and consistently get things wrong, I'm not sure how I could disagree with you.

Again, don't mistake what we see of her PoV for what she's like all the time. AFFC is not the same as the rest of her story, and it's very clear that following Tywin and Joff's death she's changed. She has gotten more paranoid, more ruthless, and less competent. But that doesn't mean that she didn't do the right things before. She saw Ned as a threat because she knows her history and knows Ned Stark, and knows that he won't allow for things like political expediency and a kingdom that is at peace to cloud his judgment about what is 'right' or not. She knows that the Starks are a threat because the Starks and the Lannisters have always been threats to each other, at least since the Rebellion. And she's right - Ned is a threat. What does she do to provoke him, pray tell?

Most of what I have said is backed by books. What I see from he PoV isn't what she acts like all the time. It is what she IS.

[Rodgex]

Well he did not expect it from Cersei until he is basically told so by Varys (or was it Littlefinger?). Littlefinger played him perfectly by setting him up to believe she had killed his mentor. I think Eddard's love for Jon Arryn (or at least feeling of obligation) was a bigger factor is trying to avenge him and finish Jon's supposed work.

Ned's code would definitely have force him to use the evidence he had regardless of who came about it first, he was just to honourable to allow something like this to go without mentioning

That is how he ends up dying

[Alexia]

She did have sex with Jaime after he did that (after scolding him) as the replayed that scene in flashback in A Feast of Crows.

No, she did not. That scene did not take place immediately after Bran's fall - it came after they knew that Bran was in a coma and did not die. This is evidenced by Cersei's comments about, "what if he wakes up."

So Razorbeef is correct, there is zero evidence to support this allegation. I also strongly agree with him that Cersei loved Joffrey and in fact, all her children. She tries to protect them, even Varys thought that she was more afraid for her son's life than for her own.

As for Tyrion, I'm not sure how one could allege that he had no power. :lol: He stopped Joff from beating Sansa when he decided he felt like it, he had a force of armed men loyal only to him, he arranged Myrcella's marriage behind Cersei's back and without her consent. Tyrion was one of the most powerful men in the city, dwarf or no, during ACOK. He may not have been respected, he may have been mocked as a Halfman and a twisted monkey demon, but that does not negate his power. Indeed, the prophets of KL claim that Joffrey capers in his place to Tyrion's pipings.

EDIT: Never forget what happened to Pycelle and Janos Slynt, both of whom would probably object to the characterization of Tyrion as powerless.

[Valmy]

Ned's code would definitely have force him to use the evidence he had regardless of who came about it first, he was just to honourable to allow something like this to go without mentioning

That is how he ends up dying

Oh are we supposed to avoid spoilers in this forum? I just kind of assumed everybody had read all the books if they are posting here.

[Kalbear]

She did have sex with Jaime after he did that (after scolding him) as the replayed that scene in flashback in A Feast of Crows.

I don't buy it.

On YOUR SONS GRAVE WHILEST MOURNING HIM! Seriously.

And that makes her psychopathic? Seriously? I mean, on the one hand you say she's a psychopath, and then the next you condemn her for grieving irrationally.

Note that...again...NO ONE LISTENS TO TYRION! Everyone hates him. No one follows him. His title was just that. He was harmless.

And as I pointed out, that's completely not indicated by the book, that tons and tons of people do end up listening to him and respect him, and those who underestimate him do so at their peril. She is 100% correct to view him as a threat.

If Robert thinks someones bad (as his standard of evil is set way below himself it is really really bad. Nuff said. If she really loved her son, she would have disciplined him, and found a way to make him better in the head. Instead (I think) she USED him to gain power, perhaps unconsciously.

I think it's profoundly wrong to view her relationship with Joff as a power grab. I also think that if you're condemning her for being a bad parent and ignoring her child's faults, I think you'll likely have to condemn everyone in Westeros. Is Cat a good parent? Is Ned (given what he did with Jon and then how Sansa turned out?)

If Ned really loved Sansa Sansa would never have betrayed the Starks.

If Cat really loved Robb Robb would never have fucked a teenager and destroyed the Stark lineage.

If Mace really loved Loras Loras wouldn't have been gay.

Etc, etc. Just a ludicrous argument; a parent can love their child and still make mistakes.

I am concemning her for not really loving him. Even in death, she ****s on his grave.

Right - why was she there in the first place? You really do think that Cersei was sitting there thinking how hawt it would be if Jaime fucked her on a coffin, don't you?

Again, try and think about the situation. Her son has been killed violently, and you watched him die and held him as he died. At his wedding no less! So you're at his coffin mourning him, and then your lover and the father of the child comes in after being gone for two years. Looking like...well, like a ravaged guy who had been imprisoned and tortured. He lost his hand, for crying out loud.

And you think that her doing Jaime then is disrespecting Joff? Really? Have some vague amount of empathy. At least understand the characters you're condemning.

1. He did that out of pure luck

2. He survived because of pure luck (and some wits) and daddies money

3. He had saved the capital, and what does he get? (Nothing)

4. And he did that after she imprisoned him

If she is half as smart as you think she is she should have EMBRACED him. Not try to kill him.

And if she embraced Tyrion he would have fucked her over, just like he fucks over anyone who he needs to.

But most importantly ,she can't embrace him. Tyrion represents her arch-rival. She blames him for her mother's death. She blames him for his freedom. She reviles him for his appearance. And then the ultimate slap in the face - her father selects him to rule while he's not there.

Yes, in a perfect world filled with rational actors with no past, history or flaws Cersei would have worked with Tyrion without any issues. And that's not the world that GRRM created. His characters do have flaws and things that they can't just deal with like an economics professor. They do make bad choices or irrational ones, and that's why the series is awesome - because the people are actually people and do people-like things.

I mean - really, are you saying that Cersei is completely un-understandable for hating Tyrion? That she doesn't have a reason to?

Up until recently? No. No one except the readers like Tyrion (because he is awesome). he had no real power. Therefore no threat.

So up until the point where he has power he doesn't have power, and Cersei shouldn't think of him as a threat when he has power because when he didn't have power he wasn't a threat?

Uh....ok.

Most of what I have said is backed by books. What I see from he PoV isn't what she acts like all the time. It is what she IS.

Most of what you've said is flat out contradicted by the books. And if what she is is what she is in the PoV, she's still not a psychopath, needlessly cruel or particularly evil; she's simply incompetent, short-sighted and prone to grudges against people that kill her son and her father. If that's a measure of a psychopath then Ned, Cat, Tyrion, Jon, Robb, and pretty much anyone who isn't named Littlefinger is a psychopath.

[Myrish swan]

According to anthropology, the incest taboo is nearly universal in all human societies studied to date. Be it father/daughter, mother/son, brother/sister, cousin/cousin or even more distant relations. It varies from culture to culture, but it's there. It's there in the earliest writings that man produced: The Code of Hammurabi or the Book of Leviticus, for example. It's a reasonable deduction that, if it is important enough to show up in man's earliest written records, it was important before man came up with the idea or writing. Therefore, in pre-literate, pre-historic society.

I agree with you about Jamie and Cersei's relationship. It's sick, but it's their business. I don't believe I ever said that incest was evil in and of itself.

The siblings joke was meant to illicit a chuckle. I'm sorry if I offended you.

When I said there were no victims, what I was trying to get across was that Cersei and Robert are two sides of the same coin. This becomes really apparent in AFFC. Perhaps it is unfair to Cersei because she was not shown in that light until we get her POV. It is certainly no excuse for Robert to treat her the way he did. My point was that I don't pity her in the least. Especially after learning about her torturing her infant brother by twisting his penis, pushing her best friend down a well out of spite and jealousy, murdering her husband (justifiably), murdering the High Septon, giving numerous people to Qyburn for his atrocious experiments, the list goes on. Cersei's sexual escapades do not make her evil, heck, she is fairly vanilla compared to the Red Viper.

As for those acts of treason, I didn't say they were evil, just that they were treason. What Robert and Ned did was treason too, but they won, and the winner writes history. If not for Petyr, Cersei might have won.

As for Cersei sleeping around, I wasn't talking about the forum, I'm talking about in the books. And I would refer you to the scene where Cersei and Sansa are having a little chat while the Battle of the Blackwater rages about King's Landing. She explains to Sansa why it is a powerful weapon.

I responded to your post because it caught my eye and I thought it was fun. I didn't mean to upset you. If I did, I apologize.

TS

No, you it's no problem, you didn't offend me at all. Actually, rereading my posting, I was overzealous in my defense of Cersei, to the point of being sarcastic and rude. So I'm sorry about that. You're definitely entitled to your own feelings on Cersei; I know that a lot of people can't really feel pity for her after all of her misdeeds, which is understandable.

Regarding the attitude in the books about Cersei and Robert's sex lives, I think that Robert gets much more leeway. The smallfolk seem to enjoy his lustiness; as Ned notes, they wrote songs about his whoring. However, the smallfolk call Cersei a whore when they find out about her and Jaime. Granted, it may be the incest thing that offends them more than the cheating.

[Myrish swan]

Sorry, double post.

[Chirios]

The best defence you can make of Cersei is that she is a shrewd tactician. In many ways she is like Robert Mugabe: able to quickly manipulate circumstances to achieve a certain goal, her problem is that she often fixates on the wrong thing, on solving the wrong problem.

Take the incident with Arya and Joffrey, stripped of all it's noble nonsense, this was just a couple of kids getting into a fight. Joffrey wasn't badly hurt at all, he had some minor scratches and a slightly bruised ego, and for that, she manipulated the law into getting Sansa's wolf killed - a wolf which wasn't even there at the time - and killing a random little boy who didn't even attack Joffrey, Arya did.

Things like that happened all throughout Joffrey's life, her incessant need to "protect" her family just led to entitlement and feebleness. She refused to recognise Joffrey for what he was, I don't think she's ever actually thought about her daughter, and her treatment of Tommen was, well, horrible to put it plainly.

She is cunning, I'll give her that, and ambitious, but she has no insight. She can't look at the broader situation and instead focuses on one thing, often letting other, more dangerous threats climb up. Getting rid of her debt for example, whilst ignoring what might happen if she rearms the faith rearm. Dealing with Ned, good tactics, but she shouldn't have let Joffrey kill him. Letting what's his name, the old White Cloak dude, get fired by Joffrey for no reason. Then, for some reason known only to her, she puts Janos Slynt in charge of Harrenhal. It's like Tywin said, left alone, Cersei "jumps from one folly to the next".

As for people not liking her because she's a woman, that's quite simply not true. People don't like her for several reasons:

1) She's an enemy of the Starks, the only truly "noble" family in all of Westeros.

2) She's kind of a bitch personally.

3) She's clever, but she thinks she's smarter than she actually is.

4) She's also kind of a slut.

But she is a shrewd tactician.

[MyDogIsNamedDanerys]

As for people not liking her because she's a woman, that's quite simply not true. People don't like her for several reasons:

1) She's an enemy of the Starks, the only truly "noble" family in all of Westeros.

2) She's kind of a bitch personally.

3) She's clever, but she thinks she's smarter than she actually is.

4) She's also kind of a slut.

But she is a shrewd tactician.

I love how you say that people don't hate her because of her sex, and then 2 out of 4 of your reasons for why people don't like her are sex specific... :lol:

*and before you start saying "well guys can be bitches and sluts too!!!" ask yourself if you can honestly say you have ever described, for example, Robert as a "slut" (and he was more of one than Cersei ever was).

[Chirios]

I love how you say that people don't hate her because of her sex, and then 2 out of 4 of your reasons for why people don't like her are sex specific... :lol:

*and before you start saying "well guys can be bitches and sluts too!!!" ask yourself if you can honestly say you have ever described, for example, Robert as a "slut" (and he was more of one than Cersei ever was).

Not Robert, but I live in England, so yeah, I have before described sexually promiscuous males as: "slags" (slag=slut) and meant it seriously. As for using the word bitch, well, bitch in this context means, a disliked woman. If she was male I would've used dick, or wanker.

[Kalbear]

Yes, but you still used sexually charged terms when saying that it wasn't about sex. You could have called her a wanker instead and it would have been the same. Hell, you could have simply called her an asshole.

It's also funny that she's bad for being a 'slut' when there's no evidence that she is; she very specifically states why she has sex with people to Sansa and there's no reason to doubt what she's saying at that point, given that she's drunk and thinking she's going to die. She uses sex to gain advantage. She doesn't even seem to enjoy it much outside of Jaime. Does that really sound like a slut to you?

And if you don't like promiscuity, you must really hate Robert, no?

[evanesco75]

I feel like she simply lacked experience. I know she witnessed politics and power struggles and all that, possibly her entire life. Certainly, her family's prominence indicates that, as well as her eventual status as queen. I'm sure she was around at court with Robet, that she saw him deal (or avoid) with matters of state, but I doubt that she was ever a key participant (judging by Robert's dismissive attitude). I also doubt Tywin ever schooled her in politics, because her role was mainly to wed a prince/important man. She is clever, definitely, and has good instincts. But the lack of training (assumed on my part) means she was essentially firing in the dark. Plus, her family had deserted her, and she was quite alone in AFFC. I just feel this is key when judging her performance/decisions.

I don't hate her either, and like some other posters I take issue with the apparent sexism. Let's face it: ASOIAF is populated by scheming, immoral dickheads (men), barring lone figures like Ned. Euron, for example, is way more despicable. As is Tywin, if you ask me. So why should Cersei alone get the flak?

[Paternalisme]

I feel like she simply lacked experience. I know she witnessed politics and power struggles and all that, possibly her entire life. Certainly, her family's prominence indicates that, as well as her eventual status as queen. I'm sure she was around at court with Robet, that she saw him deal (or avoid) with matters of state, but I doubt that she was ever a key participant (judging by Robert's dismissive attitude). I also doubt Tywin ever schooled her in politics, because her role was mainly to wed a prince/important man. She is clever, definitely, and has good instincts. But the lack of training (assumed on my part) means she was essentially firing in the dark. Plus, her family had deserted her, and she was quite alone in AFFC. I just feel this is key when judging her performance/decisions.

I don't hate her either, and like some other posters I take issue with the apparent sexism. Let's face it: ASOIAF is populated by scheming, immoral dickheads (men), barring lone figures like Ned. Euron, for example, is way more despicable. As is Tywin, if you ask me. So why should Cersei alone get the flak?

My thoughts exactly