I remember feeling sorry for her in Season 2 when she got tipsy in the tower with Sansa and the other womenfolk during that Battle of Blackwater . I don't remember what she was saying, but she seemed to open up more, and show a weary vulnerability.
Are there things to admire about Cersei? Everyone just seems to detest her.
I'm trying to come up with her good points...
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The one and only humanizing aspect to her is her love for her children. Her children are all dead, and that part of her personality is dead with them. The rest of her is cruelty and lust for power, paranoia and seeing enemies everywhere; everyone is with her or against her, mostly the latter. She has Joffrey's mentality without his extra dose of sadism. People keep saying Daenerys is going to be the Mad Queen (on a basis as flimsy as cardboard), but really it's Cersei that's shaping up to be that. She's already started with blowing up the Great Sept and everyone in it, a feat the Mad King would be proud of.
shareBy the way, Cookie.L.A., I'm glad to see you're still posting here. I remember you were one of the original crowd that first showed up on MC when IMDb died. It seems like a lot of the old crowd kinda disappeared after a while, though fortunately we do seem to be getting newcomers to replace them. Anyway I'm glad to see you still around. :)
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How kind you are! I kind of go in waves with different websites...I'll post a lot, and then I'll kind of forget about them because something else catches my attention and I'll do a lot of whatever that is. I think I have a slightly addictive personality!!
But I suddenly "remembered" I hadn't watched Game of Thrones in forever, and I knew I had to scurry back here while I was catching up : )
It is nice to see you're still here, too. Those first few Survival Mode days here were traumatic! It was like an Internet 9/11
Haha I'm just the same way, my attention flits easily from one thing to another. I do it mostly with books, chiefly non-fiction ones (I read a lot of history). I'll be interested in one thing one day and do a bunch of reading about that, and then another day I'll be curious about something else and switch to a book about that.
I didn't post a whole lot on MC for the last couple months, due to being busy in real life and doing more reading than movie-watching lately (though I certainly had no intention of leaving completely; I like it here), as well as the site not being particularly active, but the return of Game of Thrones has gotten me to where I can hardly stay off here, lol. Maybe it's good that Game of Thrones was delayed a few months, as it came back at just the right time to give this site a nice shot in the arm when it needed one.
Yeah, it was crazy! I remember how we talked about it being like an internet apocalypse, with all of us refugees migrating to a new land in the hope of rebuilding our lives. Haha. I still miss IMDb sometimes, especially when I look at some of the less-active boards here.
<< Yeah, it was crazy! I remember how we talked about it being like an internet apocalypse, with all of us refugees migrating to a new land in the hope of rebuilding our lives. Haha. >>
Yes! And we'd all scatter to post on our old favorite titles... ("Hellloooo!! Did anyone survive the SHUT-DOWN??") ...and get no answer.
It was chilling : o And funny. We had to deal with posters we never really liked at imdb, but at least they'd made it over.
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Redeeeming? None.i
shareFace is, Cersei's chief redeeming quality is that she's entertaining! I love to watch her!
I also have a guilty admiration for her firmness of purpose. When she wants something she doesn't wimp out or fuck around or let ethical concerns get in her way, she gets it done and by any means necessary.
She's Blonde.
shareSay what you want about Cersei, but she is driven and she is tough. Those qualities come off in the worst possible way, every time, but they are there.
I've never really detested her, I felt sorry for her as well. Lots of characters want power, and the ultimate power of sitting on the Iron Throne. For her, being a woman in this world, it's something very difficult to achieve. Look at all the men that had to die for her to finally sit on the damn thing! She was married off young to Robert, a man who wasn't very fond of her himself. She was passed over for being in charge of Casterly Rock. She wanted real power, but had to resign herself to being the daughter, wife, mother, etc. She might have been cruel to begin with, but that lifetime of being passed around, and passed over has made her even crueler, more spiteful, and warped her mind to such an extent that she can't see a way of achieving her goals without doing horrible, horrible things.
Now, I wouldn’t say all that redeems her, but it made her an interesting character in the beginning and certainly explains why she's like that (I also may be mixing in book and show a bit).
Daenerys was in a somewhat similar (not entirely) position as her in the beginning, and she was able to achieve her goals in a more positive way (still killed a bunch of people). But she had better advisers, and surrounded herself with better people in general. She also had the benefit of not being stuck in the snake pit that is Kings Landing. So I wonder how Cersei would have turned out if she had all those things as well.
»But she had better advisers«
Mostly due to the fact that she actually accepts advisers. As far as I remember, Cersei never took advice from anyone.
Yeah, that's true. She's not much of an advice taker. Jaime tries with little to no success. The only one I can think of that she takes some advice from is Evil Maeater (I forget his name). Still, not the best person to listen to...
share"She also had the benefit of not being stuck in the snake pit that is Kings Landing."
Uh, King's Landing is a rose garden in a convent compared to the lawless oligarchies of Slaver's Bay, or the primitive Sea of Grass!
Although if the bloom has been off the King's Landing rose lately, it's nobody's fault but Cersei's. She brought in the fucking Sparrows and wildfire.
I meant that Kings Landing is a snake pit politically. So much shadyness going on there and uncertainty who to trust. You can't even have a private conversation, because someone might be listening in the walls.
I admit, I don't remember what the political situation was exactly in Slaver's Bay, there very well might have been more backstabbing there than in Kings Landing. But I think you pretty much know where you stand with the Dothraki. They might kill you, but they'd do it to your face lol. Still, both more brutal places over all.
Cersei just makes a mess out of everything, it's downright tragic.
Um, backstabbing, shadyness, spying, manipulation, untrustworthiness, amorality, and corruption are pretty much normal for centers of politics power, in all times and places. Go to Athens in the age of Pericles or the court of Henry VIII, and the relationships between the players wouldn't be that different than Washington DC or King's Landing. Of course things were a little rougher in Mereen, where politically motivated murder and terrorism were so common, and the opposition party was inviting enemy city-states to invade and enslave most of the population.
But you're right, there's not a lot of subtlety in Dothraki country. No subterfuges there, just cutting off the other guy's head and raping his horse.
Both Mereen and King's Landing would be dangerous places if you're in the political game. I do agree that the folks in Westeros are more restrained in the way they go about carrying out political assassinations and what-not (until Cersei came on the scene). But I don't remember Daenerys being immersed in Mereen's political scene nearly as much as Cersei was in King's Landing's. She didn't grow up in it is what I mean. Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't she apsent for a big chunk of the political negotiations that were taking place in Mereen? While Cersei had decades of exposure to King's Landing's politics (even if they are more subdued).
shareDanerys was always a fish out of water in Mereen - a big fish that all the other fish were afraid of, but she had absolutely nothing in common with any of the inhabitants. Of course the freed slaves loved her for having Westerosi values and being nothing like the slave-master class, but the slave masters made up the existing political class and the only way they could communicate was through violence. They crucify slaves to gross her out, she retaliates by crucifying masters. They assassinate her men, she feeds one of them to the dragons. (And BTW these actions aren't evidence of insanity or an unusual degree of cruelty, she didn't enjoy it but knew it was the only way to make the slave masters obey her.)
And yes, Cersei was born into the King's Landing political scene, married into it, bred children into it, ruled it, screwed it up, is fully prepared to die rather than leave it, etc. Danerys was such a poor fit into the Mereen political scene that her advisers ended up being a ragtag of freed slaves and foreign eunuchs or drunks, she'd never be part of the native power structure there as long as she lived.
Which was a point they could have made in a few scenes, I don't know why the show's writers kept her there for four or five seasons. Her stay there was pretty dull, up until the end, and so unmemorable that well - some fans have already forgotten most of it.
She is a fighter , and no matter how unfavorable or disadvantaged she is, she will not give up without a fight. I liked her somewhat when she started taking some blame with how Joffrey turned out, though not really direct responsibility but she knew something was off.
shareShe certainly knows how to get revenge. s7 e3 spoiler [spoiler]I was somewhat glad to see her get satisfaction in that regard with Ellaria and her daughter. I suspect this was the last time I will be able to take her side.[/spoiler]
shareI think she was right about taking revenge on the people who killed her sweet and innocent daughter.
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