Cersei bad opinions mostly because of Tyrion's abuse

[Sansa_Stark]

True, she is not - we yet have to see Ramsay have a baby murdered :P

- I perhaps should emphasize the yet part, but except the sexual sadism, Cersei is not much better in how totally calluous she is when it comes to letting people be hurt.

Cersei was cruel to Jaime by the end and expected him to die for her despite cheating on him and making fun of him being a cripple.

Cersei wanted her maids whipped because she got fat(her clothes wouldn't fit so she wanted them hurt)

Cersei was arguably abusive to Tommen. Cutting his development short by punishing him when he stood up to her(have the whipping boy hurt by Tommen)

Cersei was pretty bad to Pycelle and ignore his every advice by AFFC and was generally just a s*** to him.

I don't recall her interactions with Varys much and there is a point made with LF, but Cersei was pretty cruel and rude to pretty much everyone she interacts with.

[KhalDrogoReborn]

I think that part of the problem is that for the first two books we only had Tyrion's POV and we all know what Tyrion thinks about Jaime and what he thinks about Cercei...

And also that she is a crazy bitch.

[Woman of War]

Okay. Here are some reasons why Cersei is detested and hated, and why she really isn't defendable despite what her apologists claim.

1. Raised her bastards as princes and killed Robert off, causing the war of the 5 kings.

2. Had lady killed.

3. More than likely had Mycah killed. Ned claimed that it was "The Hound and the cruel woman he served" that was responsible for his death.

4. Imprisoned Ned and butchered all of his men(goodbye Fat Tom ;_;

5. Held Sansa hostage and let Joffrey be cruel to her

6. Was cruel to Tyrion all his life. She used to pinch him as a baby whenever she got upset at various point

7. Slaps and hits various men in the series. Extremely violent to men such as Tyrion, Robert, Ned and Jaime

8. Whines about not wanting to be sold as a brood mare. Makes fun of Sansa when she has to marry Tyrion and would have her "dragged kicking and screaming" iirc

9. Was going to have Sansa murdered if Stannis won the battle with no more reason than not wanting the Starks to have a happy ending(Remember how Ned spared her and her children?)

10. Is extremely cruel to the smallfolk, almost instinctively. Threatened to have the hands of smiths broken with hammers if they didn't make enough equipment, wanted to rip off tongues of those who spoke of Stannis' letters, wanted to rip the hands of all the puppet show people? Wanted her maids whipped for "shrinking her clothes" Just completely ignored the woman and her baby before the riot. She didn't give a f***.

11. Her revenge against Tyrion was just awful. She was willing to cause dwarf genocide and the death of many children to get her revenge.

12. Her employment of Qyburn, master of tort-errrrrrrrr whisperers and punishing Falyse, someone loyal to her and various others. Her torture of blue bard was painful to read and downright disgusting. And considering Blue Bard isn't dead we can assume he got a light treatment compared to others Qyburn has had.

13. Cruelty to children in general. She saw Catelyn as a mouse for not killing Jon Snow in his cradle and has ordered the deaths of Robert's bastards(babies and children), Arya Stark and Tyrstane Martell.

14. Her hypocrisy in general. Point 8 is one thing, but she is one of the biggest misogynists in the series and whines about how she is treated as a lesser because she is a woman.

15. Her raising of Joffrey, yeah. How can any mother be so awful?

16. Her plotting and having people murdered and killed in general. More examples would be the High Septon, Maegary, and a few others.

17. She killed Melara as a child, for hearing the prophecy and aiming for Jaime I believe.

18. Her lack of guilt for any or all of the above. Some would argue that she felt guilt during her walk....but the fact is, is that it took complete humiliation for her to feel guilt if that is true. Its like how Jaime didn't give a f*** about Bran but as soon as his hand was chopped off he felt a little bad about it.

You can give me a hundred reasons why to dslike the character Cersei and I can hardly argue against it. She did all that.

But to me she is as well the abused wife, the girl who was married to an oaf but loved another, the mother of three who sees one of her kids die horribly. She was forced to do that Walk of Shame and I will never see that as just punishment, it was sexual abuse and humiliation like it is done to so many women in our world who are punished for being "sexually deviant".

And hating her little brother for the death of their mother in childbirth is of course totally irrational. Cersei has serious issues here, it is evil to put the guilt on the baby who is there at her mercy. But blaming the kid would be something that subconsciously happens quite often as well in RL and it might take some therapeutical intervention to solve that issue. Cersei was for sure a kid in need of therapeutical help is a very troubled person now. But she is a very strong character, a very strong literary character as well and I hope Martin will do her even more justice in future books.

Of course Tyrion would be a different person now if he had been given the love and solidarity of an older sister, the recognition by a mother surrogate, someone else apart from Jaime who loves him the way he is. So Cersei is not only guilty of physical abuse but of not being the sister Tyrion deserved and needed in his special situation in a so very superstitious world.

And Tyrion would have craved for the least little bit of affection, every crumb from his sisters table would have won her little brother's infinite solidarity and loyalty. Given Tyrion's competences, wit and, yes, capacity for loving and caring, they would have been an unbeatable team.

[illrede]

"...but then she wouldn't be Cersei."

Sums it up, right there.

[Kolantero]

I feel like a lot of people hate her because of the way she abuse Tyrion, not because of her actions.

Other people already pointed out several reasons not related to Tyrion so my question is this: How is her abuse against Tyrion not included in her actions?

[chrisdaw]

Cersei is more entertaining than Tyrion, I very much enjoy her POVs, the way her mind works has me enthralled, and I find her all the more entertainment for the abuse she gives Tyrion. But she's a terrible person and in the interest of justice I believe she deserves to die, but hopefully right at the end.

[bloodofwinterfell]

Honestly, when I think of Cersei, her treatment of Tyrion isn't something that immediately comes to mind, probably because it actually pales in comparison to how Tywin treats him imo. For me, Cersei is a character I love to hate. She's fascinating because she's this tragic character whose paranoia only creates more problems for herself. But I also hate her for how arrogant, cruel, and hypocritical she is. When I think of reasons why I hate her, I think of Sansa (I'm a little biased towards the little bird :wub: ), Lady, and Falyse.

Roose, Tywin, The Hound, Euron, Littlefinger, Varys, etc...they all have psychopathic tendencies

I can't speak for everyone, but I do hate everyone on that list ... except for the Hound. I'm never going to excuse him killing Mycah, but at least he showed some regret over what he did - or at least isn't proud of it. Cersei, on the other hand, honestly doesn't seem to give a shit about how cruel she is to others. It benefits her and that's what matters.

[Woman of War]

By Tywin smokin...

You're projecting, the woman killed another girl when she was only 10 years old and doesn't feel the least bit bad about it

Could you please explain how I am projecting here?.

Do you mean I am identifying with someone who killed another person at ten?

Projecting unconsciously my own thoughts of killing and torturing little brothers on the character Cersei and therefore looking for excuses?

I think you misused the term "projection"

I try to analyse characters in their literary context and i feel no need to excuse fictional characters' deeds, the whitewashing of the Hound is just as ridiculous as any other whitewashing

Roose, Tywin, The Hound, Euron, Littlefinger, Varys, etc...they all have psychopathic tendencies

.

I try to explain them from the context. This is not projection.

Note that my favorite character is Tyrion and there is no way I could, given my biography, project anything on this character :) .

[Julian Rayne]

My dislike for Cersei is mostly based on her treatment of Sansa. Tyrion can fight back, there is a power differential between them, but not such a large one. Bullying a girl who has absolutely no way of fighting back is much more horrible in my book.

And I really don't have a problem with her incest or her treatment of Robert. She had no choice in marrying him, I don't see that she owes him anything.

[Tywin Smokin a Blunt]

I mean you're projecting your own feelings on to her. You seem to identify with the idea of cercei as the victimised woman, but that's not who cercei is, she is the perpetrator not the victim. I shouldn't have expounded on that idea sorry, I could see how u thought it refered to the next sentence.

[Winter's Knight]

I mean you're projecting your own feelings on to her. You seem to identify with the idea of cercei as the victimised woman, but that's not who cercei is, she is the perpetrator not the victim. I shouldn't have expounded on that idea sorry, I could see how u thought it refered to the next sentence.

She is both, just as Tyrion is both victim and victimiser.

[Sansa_Stark]

You can give me a hundred reasons why to dslike the character Cersei and I can hardly argue against it. She did all that.

But to me she is as well the abused wife, the girl who was married to an oaf but loved another, the mother of three who sees one of her kids die horribly. She was forced to do that Walk of Shame and I will never see that as just punishment, it was sexual abuse and humiliation like it is done to so many women in our world who are punished for being "sexually deviant".

And hating her little brother for the death of their mother in childbirth is of course totally irrational. Cersei has serious issues here, it is evil to put the guilt on the baby who is there at her mercy. But blaming the kid would be something that subconsciously happens quite often as well in RL and it might take some therapeutical intervention to solve that issue. Cersei was for sure a kid in need of therapeutical help is a very troubled person now. But she is a very strong character, a very strong literary character as well and I hope Martin will do her even more justice in future books.

Of course Tyrion would be a different person now if he had been given the love and solidarity of an older sister, the recognition by a mother surrogate, someone else apart from Jaime who loves him the way he is. So Cersei is not only guilty of physical abuse but of not being the sister Tyrion deserved and needed in his special situation in a so very superstitious world.

And Tyrion would have craved for the least little bit of affection, every crumb from his sisters table would have won her little brother's infinite solidarity and loyalty. Given Tyrion's competences, wit and, yes, capacity for loving and caring, they would have been an unbeatable team.

I don't mind if people think Cersei is sympathetic or if they like her. Its when they start excusing her actions and act like there isn't anything wrong with what she does that irks me. And from my limited time on ASOIAF tumblr blogs, I'd say there are quite a bit of people who actually think this.

My dislike for Cersei is mostly based on her treatment of Sansa. Tyrion can fight back, there is a power differential between them, but not such a large one. Bullying a girl who has absolutely no way of fighting back is much more horrible in my book.

And I really don't have a problem with her incest or her treatment of Robert. She had no choice in marrying him, I don't see that she owes him anything.

She owed Robert for her crown. She should not expect her sons and daughters to be treated as royalty if they were incest bastards. There was a contract and Cersei failed to live up to her end and still demanded the benefits. lulz at her thinking her bastards were equal to the Targs(she wanted Arya maimed because of old Targ traditions).

She is both, just as Tyrion is both victim and victimiser.

She was a victimizer first and victim later. She was a murderer at 10 years old...a cold blooded one and tortured her baby brother. Her marriage to Robert was the first time she was victimized, and while what happened to her was deplorable, she gave 100x worse to the world than she got. She didn't limit her cruelty to the horrible husband that she was given, but to the entire continent.

Tyrion was a victim who turned into a victimizer. Both are horrible people, but at least Tyrion has a conscience and a reason for why he turned the way he did.

[Woman of War]

I mean you're projecting your own feelings on to her. You seem to identify with the idea of cercei as the victimised woman, but that's not who cercei is, she is the perpetrator not the victim. I shouldn't have expounded on that idea sorry, I could see how u thought it refered to the next sentence.

If I analyse her situation - am I projecting?? I am analysing while being aware that an analysis is never objective and the analysing person already influences the subject of her or his focus. For example you choose to call it "spread her legs", I call it "unwanted sexual encounter"' others may even call it "rape" while describing the same situation.

And all the aspects of why Cersei is a "dark" character are right, why should I be interested in negating them?

I analyse Tyrion as well because he is the most interesting character in the books. Would you tell me that I am projecting since I am a 25 year old dwarf boy? It may be that you are a little prejudiced. And yet I love his character and I am very interested in the character Cersei ( note the different choice of words)

[Winter's Knight]

I keep hearing this complaint that people are justifying Cersei and am yet to come across said justification. There is a difference between "Robert's abuse made an already unbalanced woman even more biter and paranoid and explains her lack of desire to bear his children" and "Cersei can do no wrong".

As to Tyrion/Jaime: could I point out that the twins were about eight years old when Tyrion was born, that Jaime left home two years later, Cersei joined Tywin in KL two years after that, and spent one moren year in CR before marrying Robert-at which point Tyrion was eight. Effectively, Tyrion and Cersei lived together for five years, three of which he spent as an infant. He lived with Jaime for only two.

It also interests me that, of the two, Jaime is the one who caused him most harm by lying about Tysha-please note that at this point Jaime is at least twenty one,a member of the KG and completely independent of his father. Furthermore Jaime is the one of Tywin's children who spent the least time under his influence as he left to squire at ten and joined the KG at seventeen.

[Sansa_Stark]

People on tumblr excuse her actions all the time with...."SHES JUST A MOM PROTECTING HER CHILDREN" bulls*** and act like that justifies her cruelty(it doesn't)

[Winter's Knight]

People on tumblr excuse her actions all the time with...."SHES JUST A MOM PROTECTING HER CHILDREN" bulls*** and act like that justifies her cruelty(it doesn't)

We're not on fucking tumblr. This is as relevant as me complaining about people excusing Ramsey Snow's behaviour because Theon/Ramsey is a non-ironic ship on tumblr.

[Sansa_Stark]

Just because she never forgave him for killing Rhaegar doesn't mean she can't be turned on by the guy. Catelyn never could forgive Ned for bringing Jon home.

Robert was very handsome at one point and he did seem gallant and nice for a while. Its not hard to imagine why she would be aroused.

[Winter's Knight]

I just like taking a dump on tumblr. Is there anything so wrong with that?

Plus, as I recall, you have made at least a few threads apologizing for Cersei. You seem a little sensitive about this subject.

I don't "apologise" for Cersei, I provide a more sympathetic reading of some of her actions. You won't however find me dismissing her use of Qyburn, for instance.

[svareff]

What is significant about Cersei is that she 's probably the only grey POV character who never has any kind of redemption : Theon, Jaime, Tyrion in some way all follow the crime/punishment/redemption trope in some way. Cersei is becoming darker and madder each time.

[mormont]

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