Game of Thrones [SPOILERS]

[Teleku]

Did TV Cersei know the Tyrell's had poisoned her son?  I thought that was still unknown, but things are fuzzy.  I recall Jaime being shocked when Olenna told him after she drank the poison.  If they did know, ignore what follows, and apologies.  

If not, what War was Cersei waging?  Yes, Margery was very ambitious.  But that ambition was to be the queen.  They pulled that off through negotiation and arranged a marriage, and she got her goal.  Cersei doesn't have her head on a pike because of that agreement, which caused the Tyrell army to come save her and her family at Kings landing.  They didn't need to kill Joffery to get it, but after they quizzed Sansa on what he was like, they made the very morally correct decision to poison his ass so he wouldn't torture and rape Margery daily.  So then she married Tommen.  Now, if Cersei didn't know they had poised her other son, what crime has she done at this point against to get Cersei mad (and again, I think the Tyrells deserve the award for defenders of the realm for killing him, because that was probably the best thing that could have happened to Westeros).  Joffery had to marry somebody, so its not like him getting married was some dire threat to her family.  Margery was very shrewd, charming, and all around would have made a great co-ruler for him.  There was literally nothing else she needed to do.  Cersei, on the other hand, became jealous that her son was listening to his wife (the actual fucking queen) and not her, so she drummed up charges on her to get her arrested by the faith.  That of course back fired badly, so she just went with out right murdering her sons beloved wife.

Which caused a reaction only a psychopath could not see coming.  She really doesn't seem to love her family as much as she says she does.  

[Bunk]

If I remember correctly, Cersei was still blaming Tyrion and Sansa for poisoning Joffrey for ages. Yeah, just looked - Sept of Baelor blows up s6e10. Olenna admits to killing Joffrey s7e3. So it was pretty much all about controlling Tommen (and getting revenge on the Sparrows)

Margery (and Olenna) certainly had ambition - it just never occurred to them that Cersei would do something as blunt as blowing up half the city to rid herself of her enemies.

[Polysorbate80]

I am only commenting on TV Cersei, as that's what I know...

...You don't need a dick to have ambition, and you need a sword and go the Brienne-I-pretend-to-be-a-man way to be a warrior. There is more than one way to fight. If I fuck and poison my way to the top that's as legimate as if I reach it by stabbing and slashing.

Bunk is correct that Cersei didn’t know it was Olenna, but it doesn’t change the basic argument that the characters are almost universally monsters doing whatever they can to protect what they see as theirs, regardless of the cost to others.  Collateral damage be damned.  Calapine isn’t wrong.

Edit: but due to the prophecy Cersei’s the one character we KNOW dies, so we’re free to speculate on who does it.

[Teleku]

That line of reasoning puts everybody in the show as the moral equal to Ramsey Bolton, who was just doing whatever to protect what was his.  Which is silly.

[Riggswolfe]

Put me firmly on the side of "Cersie is one of the most evil characters in the entire show/book series." She's fun to watch and I love the actress but Cersei deserves every bit of hate she gets. She blew up the Sept of Balor because she was convinced that Margery was the younger, more beautiful queen that the prophecy had foretold. She is responsible for Tommen's death and she has never owned up to that. It is her actions, as much as anyone else's that set the events of the show in action, let's not pretend otherwise. She essentially had Robert murdered and put her psychopath of a son on the throne who then executed Ned Stark instead of letting him take the black as was promised. Because of her actions hundreds of thousands of people have died.

Tywin is one of the few characters who is probably worse than she is. He was utterly ruthless and if you think the Mountain smashing baby's heads against the wall wasn't something he approved of you're naive. A large part of how twisted and evil Cersei is comes directly from Tywin. She wanted his respect and in return he tended to treat her like little more than a bargaining chip to gain more power for the House.

I'm sorry, but trying to make excuses for Cersei and Tywin is just laughable.

[calapine]

Joffery had to marry somebody, so its not like him getting married was some dire threat to her family.  Margery was very shrewd, charming, and all around would have made a great co-ruler for him.  There was literally nothing else she needed to do.  Cersei, on the other hand, became jealous that her son was listening to his wife (the actual fucking queen) and not her, so she drummed up charges on her to get her arrested by the faith.

You are mixing up the timeline, by the time the faith charges happend Joffrey was dead. So she couldn't have been a "great co-ruler" for him, because he was murdered by the Tyrells by then.

If you mean she would have made a good co-ruler for Tommen: It was perfectly obvious in the show that Tommen was weak and she would Magery would have totally controlled Tommen. With potential were grave consequences for Cersei. Let alone the fact that the goal is to have Lannister's rule, not Tyrells.

I don't think we are going to see eye to eye on this. You obviously don't like her and look for reasons to make her fail. I approach it from the point of "What if I am Cersei and my goal is to rule the 7 kingdoms and establish a 1000 year Lannister dynasty how my father would have wanted"

Btw, I never said that Cersei is always wise and doesn't make rash and or unmoral decisions that backfire. The point is, it doesn't matter.

Was it wise decision when Robb ditched an alliance because he followed his dick and got himself killed?
What's moral about Danearys starting a war for the throne? (At a time that Robert was still king, not Goffrey)
Was it wise when Renly desiced to take arms against his own brother, who had the right on the throne, instead helping him against the Lannisters?
Was it wise or moral when Stannis decided to burn his own daughter?
Was it moral of Tyrion to murder Shae who was no threat to him and only a pawn in this game?

The men in Westeros are do shit for sex, start wars because they want power, start wars against their own family members, kill their own family members, kill innocents and go to totally overboard with revenge.

Cersei has every right to be as lustful and revenge-filled and make the same dumb mistakes as them. That doesn't make her a moral rolemodel to be followed, but I never claimed she was. 

Edit: But I guess better lets stop here before this turns into a neverending "But he, but she". We obviously don't agree.

[Polysorbate80]

That line of reasoning puts everybody in the show as the moral equal to Ramsey Bolton, who was just doing whatever to protect what was his.  Which is silly.

No, because Ramsay actively enjoys what he’s doing.  He commits evil because he wants to do it.

Danaerys is showing signs she could go as all mad-king evil aseher father, her only saving grace so far is she’s been willing to listen to others at times and not always act on first worst impulse.  But those advisors are still all cheering her on to murder thousands to sit on a chair I’m not sure she’s ever even seen but insists belongs to her.

A chair “stolen” by a man who started a war based on a complete lie, out of jealousy and pride.

A chair made centuries ago by others who murdered relentlessly with dragons to take the lands of others.

Lands which had been conquered by those owners.

Don’t think that manyof us today aren’t capable of this kind of thing if pushed (watch the news.)

[calapine]

That line of reasoning puts everybody in the show as the moral equal to Ramsey Bolton, who was just doing whatever to protect what was his.  Which is silly.

No, because Ramsay actively enjoys what he’s doing.  He commits evil because he wants to do it.

Danaerys is showing signs she could go as all mad-king evil aseher father, her only saving grace so far is she’s been willing to listen to others at times and not always act on first worst impulse.  But those advisors are still all cheering her on to murder thousands to sit on a chair I’m not sure she’s ever even seen but insists belongs to her.

A chair “stolen” by a man who started a war based on a complete lie, out of jealousy and pride.

A chair made centuries ago by others who murdered relentlessly with dragons to take the lands of others.

Lands which had been conquered by those owners.

Don’t think that manyof us today aren’t capable of this kind of thing if pushed (watch the news.)

Yeah, that.

And: Cersei didn't blow up the Sept because she thought "Sunday is a good day to kill some", she did because if not she would have faced a trial that would have, so I assume, ended in her death.

After what happened when she was imprisoned, psychologically tortured and then made her walk naked through the town, did you want her to walk into the Sept and say "Dear High Sparrow, I submit to your judgment."?
Would you have done that?

Also people here have this revenge fantasies for her: "I've been wanting her to die very painfully and violently" ~Teleku

Do you not realize that sounds exactly as repugnant as what Cersei did? They killed her daughter and when the time came she got her revenge on Sand in a "very painful" way.

[Chimpy]

Cersei told Jaime to throw Bran out the window like three episodes into the first season. She admitted to arranging the murders of children early in the first season as well.

There really aren’t any powerful characters in this series that aren’t shitty human beings. But she is way far away from being the most endearing.

[Teleku]

Before I move on here, just point of order.  I simply mistyped that, and meant to say Tommen instead of Joffery.  Somebody needed to marry either of them, so again, the act of marrying one of them is no threat to the mother, unless the mother is a psycho.  

Between what she and the Lannisters did to the Starks (Ned/Sansa/Arya), to Tyrion, and then the Red Wedding.  Yes, ever since I read all that in the late 90's, there have been fewer characters I've wanted to see killed off in literature more than her.  Tywin going out at the end of Storm of Swords was very nice, but its been so long.  She has literally been murdering people since she was 11, and in the last book, sending young women off to be dissected alive by Qyburn.  Also, specifically doing it because she wants to manipulate her son and not somebody else (again, I'm sensitive to psycho mothers).  All of my opinion comes from the books on this, which again, I first read over 20 years ago, which gives a whole lot of time to cement hate.  Ramsey hasn't been killed in the books yet, and he ranks #1 in wishing to die terribly (thank you very much TV series, that was great!), but she's a close second in people I want to see die of any fictional character.  I also always play super pure good dudes in RPG's though, and the shock turn around of the usual Epic Fantasy tropes GRRM did back then hit me hard enough to make an impression and want revenge I suppose.

You're right it appears we wont see eye to eye on this.  I can sort of understand where you're coming from, but the character is too tainted for me after all these years, haha.  Even in the TV series, she's probably the last truly bad person left that hasn't died off (I guess the mountain is somewhere in between).  I actually don't have a problem with her killing off the sand snakes as she did for killing her daughters.  That's totally fine!  They were terrible evil fucking people, it was good.  On the flip side, shes so vile I'm happy they went all out and had all of her children die just to twist the knife in her.

Edit:  All stupid nerd fight fun and games right?  Don't hate me!!!   

[Riggswolfe]

I keep thinking Calapine is doing some kind of satire and we're all just missing it. I can't figure out how anyone can find anything redeeming in Cersei beyond "She loved her children." That's really her only redeeming feature. She is worse in the books as Teleku points out but she is still awful in the show as well. She's so bad in both sources that she sort of breaks the whole "I like characters in shades of gray" thing that GRRM talks about. There's very little gray in Cersei. Even Jamie has finally seen her for what she is and he's been in love with her for his entire life.

[Teleku]

Oh, and since I didn't see them posted before, heres the Imgur stream of the guy who recaps every episode with his own subtitles.  Hilarious as usual.

Episode 1

Episode 2

[HaemishM]

Cersei stuff.

Psycho.  

You have to remember though - THERE ARE NO FUCKING GOOD GUYS. Nobody in this should be thought of as a good guy. The closest we get is Brienne, Sam, Ned Stark and Jon Snow. And I say they are good guys because in the end, they do not seek out power. Sansa would be tops of the list of "victim good guys" - i.e. people in this show who were fucked over by someone else and now seek power only to protect their own. Cersei is only more "evil" than Sansa in her cruelty - whereas Sansa has only been cruel to those who were cruel to her (Ramsey Bolton and Littlefinger), Cersei tends to be cruel to anyone and everyone that gets in her way, often just to show that "she has the bigger dick."

I get what you are saying and that's certainly one interpretation of the events. Dany gets more credit because even from the get-go, she has shown a willingness to rule differently - abolishing slavery in conquered kingdoms where that has existed. Cersei doesn't want to rule to change anything, she just wants to rule because she's been told she can't. Dany wants to rule because she's been told from birth that her family is entitled to the throne. The difference is Dany actually does in some way care about "the people" while Cersei just sees them as the spoils of power, the rewards for winning the game.

EDIT: I'll say 2 other things about Cersei. One, she has been actively supporting a goddamn necromancer doing experiments with the living and the dead in her basement for years now. On top of that, when faced with the very real fucking threat of the goddamn walking dead munching their way through her kingdom, her first thought is not "we're ALL fucked if I don't help," it's "these zombie fuckers can weaken my enemies so that I can cement my grasp on the throne and even if I can't beat the dead, at least these other fuckers didn't take my throne!"

That's some quality level psychopathy there.

[Riggswolfe]

Cersei stuff.

Psycho.  

You have to remember though - THERE ARE NO FUCKING GOOD GUYS. Nobody in this should be thought of as a good guy. The closest we get is Brienne, Sam, Ned Stark and Jon Snow. And I say they are good guys because in the end, they do not seek out power. Sansa would be tops of the list of "victim good guys" - i.e. people in this show who were fucked over by someone else and now seek power only to protect their own. Cersei is only more "evil" than Sansa in her cruelty - whereas Sansa has only been cruel to those who were cruel to her (Ramsey Bolton and Littlefinger), Cersei tends to be cruel to anyone and everyone that gets in her way, often just to show that "she has the bigger dick."

I get what you are saying and that's certainly one interpretation of the events. Dany gets more credit because even from the get-go, she has shown a willingness to rule differently - abolishing slavery in conquered kingdoms where that has existed. Cersei doesn't want to rule to change anything, she just wants to rule because she's been told she can't. Dany wants to rule because she's been told from birth that her family is entitled to the throne. The difference is Dany actually does in some way care about "the people" while Cersei just sees them as the spoils of power, the rewards for winning the game.

I don't think Sansa was particularly cruel to Littlefinger. I mean, she ambushed him in that "trial" sure. Then she presented his crimes and had him executed. Considering he is responsible for many of the events in the early seasons, he got off pretty light. Though it's arguable how much she knew. Her brother is Westeros Wikipedia though so she might know quite a lot.

Ramsay, yeah, she was cruel to him. But I think Mother Teresa might've made an exception and been cruel to Ramsay. That dude was pure evil on a scale that even puts Cersei to shame. In the modern day, he'd have been a sadistic serial killer, in GOT, he was basically just a really bad version of a Bolton.

I'd put most of the surviving Starks in the "good guy" camp from the standpoint of "on balance, they've done more good than evil." Arya comes closest to tipping that scale. Bran is just...well...something else so he doesn't count. In D&D he'd be a pure Neutral character.

Dany is I think teetering on the precipice of madness, and if she falls over, I think she'll "break bad". Also, you left off Podrick and Tyrion from your list of good people. Yeah, Tyrion murdered Shae though I think since she'd helped get him convicted of treason it's understandable though not justifiable by modern standards.

[Samwise]

You mean the Tyrell that just murdered her other son? Who only became wife by murdering her first husband?

If Cersei thinks Margaery killed Joffrey (which she didn't, btw), why does she try to set Tyrion up for it?  There was never any hint whatsoever that anyone blamed Margaery for Joffrey's death.  We do learn later than Oleanna was responsible (Margaery was not involved, even if she was the motivation) but the first time that's revealed to anyone outside the family is well after Cersei has already gone full Mad Queen and burned everyone alive.

Also who in the history of ever thinks that Margaery killed Renly?  

[Polysorbate80]

Dany's not a good comparison.  She's endured a lot of horror, including the same utter contempt for the idea of a woman being unfit for rule just because of what is(n't) between her legs.  The difference is, she's had the power and influence of her dragons to bully her way through.  Also literal plot magic (not being harmed by fire).  And a lot of men who love/lust after her willing to do her bidding (which isn't ok for Cersei?).

Take that away, and in a few years you could easily have Cersei 2.0, marginalized but still fighting to protect her son "The Stallion Who Mounts The World" as the Dothraki proceed to make Westeros an even bigger and less stable shithole than it was.

[Teleku]

Dany wants her birthright back, but thinks she can make things great when she rules.  She's had a lot of the naivety knocked out of her in her journey that's made her more cynical, but even now, you can't argue she doesn't want to make peoples lives better, even as she threatens force to take back what she thinks is hers

Cersei wants to violently torture and kill anybody who insults her family or might possibly disrupt her total control over her children.  The state of the realm, the well being of anybody else, doesn't matter to her.  She will happily order the painful death of anybody who she thinks may have wronged her, and cares zero about running the realm.  Maintaining alliances that will keep her house alive don't matter.  Long term planning for anything doesn't matter.  She wants what she can get now, and will just kill or steal to get it no matter the cost.

Surely, these things seem fairly different to you?

[Polysorbate80]

Dany has shown definite tendencies towards ruthlessness and autocracy, and they're getting stronger.  But the plot has given her a power base that Cersei never had, less time to get jaded, and conveniently no children to affect what she wants (I have two.  It totally has an impact)

Turn the question around.  Put Cersei in Dany's shoes 20 years ago, with people who support the idea of her ruling and want to help, and what would you get?

Edit: as Schild likes to point out, it's us old sumbitches that cause all the trouble 

[Riggswolfe]

Turn the question around.  Put Cersei in Dany's shoes 20 years ago, with people who support the idea of her ruling and want to help, and what would you get?

We're getting into a bit of a nature vs nurture quagmire here. I believe Cersei is a psychopath and would likely just have been worse had she gone through what Dany went through and gotten ahold of Dragons. She sure as hell wouldn't be helping Jon right now. She'd be razing King's Landing to the ground with her dragons.

[Teleku]

A loving husband to Robert who would have helped him guide the realm to better peace and prosperity over his own base urges?

No seriously, any evidence that would not have happened?  We have the current outcome because Cersei is a psychotic murdering bitch who hates and distrusts almost everybody and tried to undermine Roberts marriage from the get go because she wanted to marry her brother.  Robert had all his own baggage coming into the marriage, but Cersei was damaged goods long before that.  Dany in a similar situation could have flowered for all we know because she's not a born psycho.

Edit:  Lol, I somehow read what you wrote as them swapping places, not Cersei in Dany's situation specifically.  I'll leave what I wrote.  As for the turn around, I agree with Riggswolfe.  Cersei would have committed genocide 10 times over across Essos at this point, before going to Westeros with her dragons and making people beg for the good governance of the White Walkers.

[Polysorbate80]

A loving husband to Robert who would have helped him guide the realm to better peace and prosperity over his own base urges?

No seriously, any evidence that would not have happened?  We have the current outcome because Cersei is a psychotic murdering bitch who hates and distrusts almost everybody and tried to undermine Roberts marriage from the get go because she wanted to marry her brother.  Robert had all his own baggage coming into the marriage, but Cersei was damaged goods long before that.  Dany in a similar situation could have flowered for all we know because she's not a born psycho.

Edit:  Lol, I somehow rad what you wrote as them swapping places, not Cersei in Dany's situation specifically.  I'll leave what I wrote.  As for the turn around, I agree with Riggswolfe.  Cersei would have committed genocide 10 times over across Essos at this point, before going to Westeros with her dragons and making people beg for the good governance of the White Walkers.

We'll never know, because it wasn't written that way anyway :P  But I'll stop with saying a lot of what goes wrong is our inability to look at someone who's done something and say, "under those circumstances can I assert I wouldn't do that?" and at least judge from a point of empathy.  It's tough to do at times, Cersei *is* broken but I kinda get why (as much as an old white dude can, anyway).  And there are a few monsters -- people like Ramsay or the Mountain -- who just can't be empathized with.


One hopefully-to-remain-hypothetical personal example (possibly TMI): my daughter wanted to go to China this summer with her school tour group.  My wife would not agree to let her go, without at least one parent along.  Not because of a fear our daughter might do anything too dumb -- she's pretty level-headed for a teenager -- but out of fear for her safety.   Part of the reason I was elected to go rather than my wife, is that she knows in that unlikely situation I will absolutely give zero fucks about going full Cersei for my kids.  And sleep well after doing it.

I got my passport back with the chinese visa, so if there's a meltdown in China in June you can all be prepared to make book deals 

[schild]

tv cersei is fucking garbage

everything she did was out of greed and egoism

there's no mental gymnastics that can be done to make her a good mother, woman, family member, or otherwise

she is a power hungry ghoul nightmare

edit: also, she's stupid - and that might be her biggest crime - she doesn't have masterstrokes, she only overkills - she has the subtlety of a sledgehammer and the long term effectiveness of stabbing a knife in your own fucking leg

[Samwise]

I propose that if Cersei cared about her kids more than she cared about being queen of everything, they'd all still be alive.

[schild]

i propose that if cersei cared about anything she wouldn't work as a character because people that care about things don't fuck their siblings ever

[Riggswolfe]

I propose that if Cersei cared about her kids more than she cared about being queen of everything, they'd all still be alive.

If the price of a dead Joffrey is a dead Tommen and Myrcella I'm willing to pay that price.

[IainC]

Cersei is used to being the smartest person in the room, unfortunately the other people in the room are generally morons. Tywin underestimated her because she's a girl; and pretty much everything she does can be set against that feeling of having to prove that she's worthy of respect in a male-dominated world where women are breeding machines/political trade tokens, and the men with power over her are invariably much less capable than she is.
She refused to be friendly with Margaery, not for political reasons or concern for her children, but because she recognised that Margaery was playing the same game that she was, in the same way, and there's only room for one Cersei at the top.

[Teleku]

When did Tywin underestimate her?  He pretty much came back, took control, and she was stuck running along and doing what ever he told her.  And of course Tyrion ran circles around her his entire time as the hand, along with Little Finger and Vary's.  Her biggest problem is always thinking she's the smartest person in the room, when it usually is the exact opposite, and everybody is able to manipulate her.  

[eldaec]

Most obvious example is Cersei's role in diminishing Tyrion.

Tywin might never have been well disposed toward Tyrion, but away from Cersei he was perfectly capable of recognising that Tyrion would be an effective hand. Tyrion out cold for a few days is all Cersei needed to convince Tywin that he made no real contribution. Similarly my reading of the Tyrion's trial is that it goes differently without Cersei.

I think Tywin is the only person who does underestimate Cersei, and Cersei is the only person who Tywin underestimates.

 

[Khaldun]

I suppose for me the thing with Cersei is that her hatreds and her actions make sense to me. Not that they are justified or that I am rooting for her, but she seems like a coherent character in emotional terms, in terms of her history.

Tywin made sense to me in that way. Tyrion did right up until he met Dany and then all the energy seemed to drain out of the character. (Better that than morose self-loathing Tyrion who ends up a circus act as per the last of the books published.)

Jamie kind of? His contradictions are at least kind of coherent matched with circumstance.

Sansa is one of the great swing-and-miss characters of the series where fans have consistently had a clearer idea of where the character needed to go than the showrunners. She may have arrived there now, but she didn't get there in a well-plotted or planned way.

Dany kinda makes sense, I guess; I don't know why everybody keeps going 'mad king! here she goes!'. Everything she's ever done more or less since giving the ok to having her brother's head melted down has been consistent with a justified and somewhat constructive will-to-power in a world where that's the only way not to be a victim. This isn't a nice world; there is no promise of reward for 'good men', as the show and books both announce when Ned Stark gets his head chopped off.

Jon Snow makes sense in the same sense that a potato makes sense: he's stolid, inert, predictable. He looks and acts like a ten-year old who has just taken cough medicine. He would make more sense to me if he was slightly more pissed off about having been murdered, slightly more calculating about politics, and slightly more appreciative of the fact that he gets quality ass twice.

I suppose the Hound makes sense. I suppose Arya does too: she's basically a picaresque heroine.

But Cersei scans really well to me in terms of the relationship between her past, her personality and her actions. I never find myself thinking, "Ah, the showrunners really screwed up this week with her characterization".

[Polysorbate80]

Television Dany feels less prone to listening to advice.  One expects a ruler to mature, and admittedly they’ve made Tyrion weak, Jorah was gone, Ser Baristan dead but her first inclination is still sometimes over the top. For instance, she originally thought to just torch King’s Landing with the dragons if I recall.  Blowing up the sept pales in comparison.

Some of that is manufactured drama, the show needs conflict over who’s going to rule and over how many of the seven kingdoms because I don’t expect that to be decided until episode 6.  I don’t expect Cersei’s fate to be revealed until then either, but they have surprised me with their timing decisions before.  It’s such a major point it makes sense to hold it til the finale.

Television Brienne is the one I don’t entirely get, but I think that’s the inconsistency between her and the book.  Which is largely Tormund.  Don’t get me wrong, I love the addition of his infatuation, but it turns her into a bit of a hypocrite.  The woman who rails against society for not accepting her appearance and unconventional behavior does the same thing when approached by Tormund.  She chases golden-boy Jaime the perfect knight over gruff, rough Tormund the wildling even though he’s been written as completely supportive of her.  Which is entirely human, happens all the time IRL and I expect it to bite her in the ass this week. it’s not badly done, just hard to reconcile the two versions in my head.

[Riggswolfe]

Cersei is used to being the smartest person in the room, unfortunately the other people in the room are generally morons. Tywin underestimated her because she's a girl; and pretty much everything she does can be set against that feeling of having to prove that she's worthy of respect in a male-dominated world where women are breeding machines/political trade tokens, and the men with power over her are invariably much less capable than she is.
She refused to be friendly with Margaery, not for political reasons or concern for her children, but because she recognised that Margaery was playing the same game that she was, in the same way, and there's only room for one Cersei at the top.

Cersei is rarely the smartest person in the room. She is smart and cunning but she constantly overestimates her own abilities. It's because of her own actions that she is barely holding on to the throne and getting the throne wasn't some grand plan on her part. She was just the only person left with a claim after she caused her own kid to jump out of a window.

Television Brienne is the one I don’t entirely get, but I think that’s the inconsistency between her and the book.  Which is largely Tormund.  Don’t get me wrong, I love the addition of his infatuation, but it turns her into a bit of a hypocrite.  The woman who rails against society for not accepting her appearance and unconventional behavior does the same thing when approached by Tormund.  She chases golden-boy Jaime the perfect knight over gruff, rough Tormund the wildling even though he’s been written as completely supportive of her.  Which is entirely human, happens all the time IRL and I expect it to bite her in the ass this week. it’s not badly done, just hard to reconcile the two versions in my head.

I totally get television Brienne. In her entire life, when someone reacts to her like Tormund has, it's been an act. Like the betting that took place in Renly's camp. She knows he's for real but has no clue how to react to it. It's the same reason she acts so oddly when Jaime says he'd be honored to fight under her command. She's not used to this from knights. She's used to them acting superior to her and now, the most arrogant knight she ever met is humbling himself before her.

[HaemishM]

Cersei is the smartest person in the room about half the time. She's used to being considered completely and utterly devoid of thought and capability and agency by every man she's ever met, especially her father. As a result, whatever characteristic she thinks will get her respect/fear/obedience from whoever is in the room at the time is the one she overcompensates on, whether it be cunning or cruelty or seduction. Jamie is the only one who has ever treated her with any devotion that wasn't purely sexual, so despite how terrible their relationship was for her, she has clung to him to the detriment of both of them. And while I think in her own way she did love her children (because of that same kind of devotion to loving her that their father gave), she chose her own happiness and power over theirs when the opportunity presented itself. Faced with the prospect of her own power being diminished or removed by Margery (who was clearly a better queen), she chose murderous rampage rather than acceptance - which she had to know would distress Tommen, though she probably didn't think it would cause his suicide.

[MrHat]

edit: also, she's stupid - and that might be her biggest crime - she doesn't have masterstrokes, she only overkills - she has the subtlety of a sledgehammer and the long term effectiveness of stabbing a knife in your own fucking leg

That overkill bluntness is my favorite part of her character.  There's so much presumed scheming and gaming, when she just lets all that go and just goes straight sledgehammer it's super refreshing.

[Teleku]

While fun, my main issue with that is how the political nuance is lost between the book and show.  In the book, that sledgehammer means she consistently fucks herself because she does big dumb obvious things that backfire in big dumb obvious ways.  This is why Tyrion runs circles around her and by the end she is left a bumbling drunk too afraid to face up to her massive failures as a ruler and a parent.  In the show they tend to just cut that stuff away to make her look better and be a bigger threat.  This latest wild fire bombing is the ultimate end result of that.  It's not in the books (yet), but its something that in the books would result in her head being paraded on a pike in short order.  She blew up the most holy place in the kingdom, killed the high sparrow and the church order who ALL of the people of King's Landing loved, and killed most of the family of her houses ONLY ally (all the other 7 kingdoms other than house Tyrell are actively working to kill house Lannister at this point in the books, who has also run out of gold).  In the TV Series, nobody in King's landing (who earlier were attacking the queen in the street and rioting over her sins in earlier episodes) seems to care at all, all of the Tyrell's banner-men and friends suddenly decide this is OK and they'll just break their sworn oaths on the fly to ally with the weakest player in the kingdom for reasons, Euron magically brings the Iron Island to ally with her for reasons, and in one sea battle Euron knocks the entire powerful kingdom of Dorne out of the picture permanently.

Like, I understand they just need to kill off random plot threads, but its hard for me to take her seriously as a legitimate threat when the writers have to twist the plot so hard to get her there.

[schild]

edit: also, she's stupid - and that might be her biggest crime - she doesn't have masterstrokes, she only overkills - she has the subtlety of a sledgehammer and the long term effectiveness of stabbing a knife in your own fucking leg

That overkill bluntness is my favorite part of her character.  There's so much presumed scheming and gaming, when she just lets all that go and just goes straight sledgehammer it's super refreshing.

no it isn't, because she thinks it's all masterstrokes of scheming and gaming

"this time i'll get them all hahahahaha"

it's wretched

she's basically a scooby doo villain in an r rated adaptation of scooby doo