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When you play the game of thrones, you win or you die. There is no middle ground.
„
~ Cersei threatening Ned Stark about revealing the truth about her progeny.noicon
Queen Cersei Lannister is one of the main antagonists of the A Song of Ice and Fire novel series and its television adaptation, Game of Thrones. At the beginning of the series, she is the Queen Consort of the Seven Kingdoms.
She is the daughter of Lord Tywin Lannister, the twin sister and lover of Ser Jaime Lannister, and the older sister and archenemy of Tyrion Lannister. She is also the wife of King Robert I Baratheon and mother of Prince Joffrey, Princess Myrcella, and Prince Tommen, who were all born out of incest adultery between her and her twin brother Jaime - which would become pivotal in triggering the War of the Five Kings. She is also the primary archenemy of the Houses Baratheon, Stark and later Targaryen (in the show).
In the television series, she was portrayed by Lena Headey, who also played Ma-Ma in Dredd, Morgana in Tales of Arcadia, Big Mama in Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and Aunt Grandma in Uncle Grandpa.
Cersei is known as a strikingly beautiful woman, regarded as perhaps the most beautiful woman in all the Seven Kingdoms. She has long gold blonde hair that curls, emerald green eyes, pale skin, and a slender, graceful figure. She prominently wears red, the color of her house, and green to match her eyes, as well as a golden crown. She and her twin Jaime significantly resemble each other. After her walk of atonement, her head is shaved.
TV Series[]
In the television series, Cersei is also considered really attractive, but her hair is more of a dirtier blonde than gold. She only wears her queenly crown in the first season, and later wears a new crown after becoming ruler of the Seven Kingdoms. As opposed to being shaved completely, her hair is cut short like a man's during her walk of atonement, and she keeps this hairstyle for the rest of the series. After becoming ruling Queen of the Seven Kingdoms, she wears primarily black and dark colored clothing.
Personality[]
“
Cersei is as gentle as King Maegor, as selfless as Aegon the Unworthy, as wise as Mad Aerys. She never forgets a slight, real or imagined. She takes caution for cowardice and dissent for defiance. And she is greedy. Greedy for power, for honor, for love.
In both incarnations, Cersei is manipulative, callous, ruthless, and, above all else, power-hungry and narcissistic. Her narcissism is especially her most prominent trait, as she is immensely self-centered and arrogant due to her status as a Queen and a Lannister. She is extremely elitist, callous and cruel to the smallfolk, even by Westerosi standards, as she ordered the murder of several of Robert's lowborn bastards and ordered that any blacksmith who slows down will have their hands smashed. She is highly intolerant of failure and incompetence, having guards killed on whims, and even sending women who displease her to her necromancer Qyburn to be used in horrific experiments.
In the books, she is a very vain individual and her beauty is only skin deep. Aware of her looks, she is willing to use her looks to her advantage, using sex and seduction to get what she wants. In addition to Jaime and her husband Robert, she also had affairs with her cousin Lancel, the Kettleback brothers, and attempted to seduce Ned Stark, but Ned resisted. She is also highly judgemental of other peoples' appearances, being especially harsh towards other women, such as insulting Brienne and Elia Martell for not being as beautiful as her.
Her narcissism extends towards her family, as she is only attracted her twin Jaime because she views him as the ideal male version of herself. Personally, she views Jaime as a tool to fulfill her needs and do what she could never be able to do. This is shown in the fact that Cersei has slept with several men without shame, including her cousin Lancel. Jaime, by contrast, has never slept with another woman in his life and is totally loyal to Cersei. Cersei also hates her youngest brother Tyrion with every fiber of her being from the moment he was born, and was known to be emotionally and physically abusive to him in their youth. This is due to their mother dying giving birth to Tyrion, Tyrion's ugliness and dwarfism, and Cersei's paranoia surrounding the valonqar prophecy.
This also applies to her love of her children, as she sees them as extensions of her own person as opposed to people. She encourages Joffrey's cruelty, unironically seeing him as a strong and great king. The only time she was frustrated was when he acted outside of her control. In contrast, she saw her youngest son Tommen's kindness as a weakness, and thought he would make a pitiful king. When Tommen stood up for himself, she forced him to punish Pate the whipping boy himself. She is even shown to be willing to poison Tommen, though this was likely done to save him from Stannis' troops. In essence, despite the fact her toxic love for her children is genuine, it is highly possible that when push comes to shove, to put it metaphorically, the lioness would eat her own cubs.
She is also blunt, brash, spiteful, and paranoid, seeing enemies everywhere and never forgetting a slight, be it real or imagined. After the deaths of her eldest son Joffrey and her father Tywin, her mental health take a nosedive and her paranoia deepens considerably, believing that Tyrion or the Tyrells are secretly plotting against her. She seems to be willing to even commit genocide, as she was angry at Robert for not wiping out the Ironborn after the Greyjoy Rebellion. After being told of the valonqar prophecy, she became even more cruel to her brother Tyrion. It is also implied that she secretly murdered her best friend, Melara Heatherspoon, by pushing her down a well out of fear of the prophecy (and possibly also due to the fact that Melara was romantically interested in Jaime, as Melara wished to marry him). She was 10 or 11 years old at the time.
While it is true that many noblemen disregard her because of her gender, it is also true that Cersei is not as smart as she thinks she is, as noted by her brother Tyrion and father Tywin. As a ruler, she is terribly dysfunctional, incompetent, chaotic, unpredictable and tyrannical. During her time as Tommen's regent, she commits folly after folly, putting the Seven Kingdoms in even worse shape than before. In addition to rearming the Faith Militant, she puts the Lannister-Tyrell alliance in jeopardy, refuses to pay back the Iron Bank of Braavos, and surrounds the small council with sycophants and yes men. When she ordered the construction of a fleet of dromonds, she entrusted it under the command of her new Master of Ships, Aurane Waters, a young man whom she appointed simply because she found him attractive, only for Aurane to steal the whole fleet for himself and allegedly set sail to the Stepstones, where it is implied he has become a pirate lord. Despite her evident stupidity, Cersei is shown to possess a certain low cunning and is competent at manipulation. Olenna Tyrell, who cited her as the worst person she ever met, acknowledges her cunning, saying, "Cersei maybe vicious, but she is not stupid."
In spite of all the awful things she has done and being an evil person in her own right, Cersei is not without some humanity. Even if it is a twisted, toxic and volatile form of love, she does in fact loves her children very deeply, which Tyrion claims is her one redeeming quality alongside her cheekbones. She was absolutely furious with Tyrion when he sent her daughter, Myrcella, to Dorne to be fostered by the Martells. She is also devastated by the death of her son, Joffrey Baratheon, which, along with the death of her father, drastically accelerated her mental decline.
She is also a tragic character in some ways. Cersei and Robert's marriage was a disaster, as well as being a massive letdown due to her originally wanting to marry Prince Rhaegar Targaryen. Her marriage to Robert was toxic and abusive to both of them, with Robert hitting her on more than one occasion and sexually assaulting her while he was drunk, and Cersei going out of her way to avoid birthing any trueborn sons of Robert and having her own children usurping Robert's house by lying about the parentage of Joffrey, Myrcella and Tommen, which lead to the War of the Five Kings. The death of her mother when she was a child also seems to have had a life-long and traumatic effect on her.
All in all, Cersei is an undoubtedly evil woman driven by narcissism, paranoia, and a hunger for power, but she still loves her family deeply and is not entirely without sympathy.
When you play the game of thrones, you win or you die. There is no middle ground.
„
~ Cersei to Ned Stark.
“
Jaime and I are more than brother and sister. We are one person in two bodies. We shared a womb together. He came into this world holding my foot, our old maester said. When he is in me, I feel ... whole.
„
~ Cersei to Ned about her incest with Jaime.
“
A true man does what he will, not what he must.
„
~ Cersei to Ned.
“
Cersei: Treason is vile enough, but this is barefaced naked villainy, and I do not need that mincing eunuch to tell me what must be done with villains.
Cersei: The boy Joffrey, he calls him. And he dares to accuse me of incest, adultery, and treason! Thoughts of Tyrion: [Only because you're guilty. It was astonishing to see how angry Cersei could wax over accusations she knew perfectly well to be true. If we lose the war, she ought to take up mummery, she has a gift for it.] Tyrion: Stannis must have some pretext to justify his rebellion. What did you expect him to write? Joffrey is my brother's trueborn son and heir, but I mean to take his throne for all that? Cersei: I will not suffer to be called a whore! Tyrion: Why, sister, he never claims Jaime paid you.
„
~ Cersei and Tyrion with the rest of the small council, discussing Stannis's accusations that he publicly spread across the entire realm and the Free Cities.
“
A woman's life is nine parts mess to one part magic, you'll learn that soon enough... and the parts that look like magic often turn out to be messiest of all.
„
~ Cersei to Sansa Stark.
“
Love is poison. A sweet poison, yes, but it will kill you all the same.
„
~ Cersei to Sansa.
“
The only way to keep your people loyal is to make certain they fear you more than they do the enemy.
„
~ Cersei to Sansa.
“
If Tywin Lannister was truly dead, no one was safe... least of all her son upon his throne. When the lion falls the lesser beasts move in: the jackals and the vultures and the feral dogs. They would try to push her aside, as they always had. She would need to move quickly, as she had when Robert died. This might be the work of Stannis Baratheon, through some catspaw. It could well be the prelude to another attack upon the city. She hoped it was. Let him come. I will smash him, just as Father did, and this time he will die. Stannis did not frighten her, no more than Mace Tyrell did. No one frightened her. She was a daughter of the Rock, a lion.
„
~ A terrorized and paranoid Cersei trying to calm herself down after being informed of her father's murder, before discovering Tyrion's escape.
“
There will be no more talk of forcing me to wed again. Casterly Rock was hers now, and all the power of House Lannister. No one would ever disregard her again. Even when Tommen had no further need of a regent, the Lady of Casterly Rock would remain a power in the land.
„
~ Dowager Queen Cersei after becoming Lady of Casterly Rock, as Tywin's heir.
“
It was gloomy within the sept with the sky so grey outside. If the rain ever stopped, the sun would slant down through the hanging crystals to drape the corpse in rainbows. The Lord of Casterly Rock deserved rainbows. He had been a great man. I shall be greater, though. A thousand years from now, when the maesters write about this time, you shall be remembered only as Queen Cersei's sire.
„
~ Cersei's delusions of grandeur, thinking she will manage a great administration when she will become known as one of the worst and most short-lived.
“
This city is a cesspit. For half a groat I would move the court to Lannisport and rule the realm from Casterly Rock.
„
~ Cersei being tired of living in King's Landing and wishing to return to her home, which she didn't visit since one year before King Robert's death.
“
The rule was hers; Cersei did not mean to give it up until Tommen came of age. I waited, so can he. I waited half my life. She had played the dutiful daughter, the blushing bride, the pliant wife. She had suffered Robert's drunken groping, Jaime's jealousy, Renly's mockery, Varys with his titters, Stannis endlessly grinding his teeth. She had contended with Jon Arryn, Ned Stark, and her vile, treacherous, murderous dwarf brother, all the while promising herself that one day it would be her turn. If Margaery Tyrell thinks to cheat me of my hour in the sun, she had bloody well think again.
„
~ Thoughts of Cersei.
“
Cersei: Rule? I said naught of ruling. I shall rule until my son comes of age. Jaime: I don't know who I pity more; Tommen, or the Seven Kingdoms.
„
~ Cersei and Jaime
“
I must have been mad to think he could be Hand. She would sooner abolish the office. When had a Hand ever brought her anything but grief? Jon Arryn put Robert Baratheon in her bed, and before he died he'd begun sniffing about her and Jaime as well. Eddard Stark took up right where Arryn had left off; his meddling had forced her to rid herself of Robert sooner than she would have liked, before she could deal with his pestilentialbrothers. Tyrion sold Myrcella to the Dornishmen, made one of her sons his hostage, and murdered the other. And when Lord Tywin returned to King's Landing...
„
~ Cersei's thoughts as she recalls all the troubles the recent King's Hands brought her.
“
It is blood I need, not water. Tyrion's blood, the blood of the valonqar.
„
~ Thoughts of Cersei Lannister
“
I am a lioness. I will not cringe for them.
„
~ Cersei's strong will before her walk of atonement, refusing to show herself weak in front of the people of King's Landing, before breaking down and crying in front of them during the walk's later stages.
One day I pray you love someone. I pray you love her so much, when you close your eyes, you see her face. I want that for you. I want you to know what it's like to love someone, truly love someone, before I take her from you.
„
~ Cersei to Tyrion Lannister.
“
The only way to keep people loyal is to make certain they fear you more than they do the enemy.
„
~ Cersei giving advice to Sansa Stark.
“
The more people you love, the weaker you are.
„
~ Cersei to Sansa.
“
What good is power if you cannot protect the ones you love?
„
~ Cersei to Oberyn Martell.
“
I do things because they feel good. I drink because it feels good. I killed my husband because it felt good to be rid of him. I fuck my brother because it feels good to feel him inside me. I lie about fucking my brother, because it feels good to keep our son safe from hateful hypocrites. I killed your High Sparrow... and all his little sparrows... all his septons, all his septas, all his filthy soldiers, because it felt good to watch them burn. It felt good to imagine their shock and their pain. No thought has ever given me greater joy.
I don't care about checking my worst impulses, I don't care about making the world a better place. Hang the world.
„
~ Cersei to Tyrion.
“
I want our baby to live. I want our baby to live. I want our baby to live. Don't let me die, Jaime. Please don't let me die. Please don't let me die. I don't want to die. Not like this. Not like this. Not like this.
„
~ Cersei's last words to Jaime before they are crushed by a ceiling.
Notable Victims[]
Lady - Ordered; killed by Lord Eddard Stark.
King Robert I Baratheon - Ordered; fatally wounded by a boar during a hunting trip after Lancel Lannister deliberately gave him too much strongwine.
Varly - Ordered; Throat slashed by Commander Janos Slynt in the novels, killed by gold cloaks in the TV series, both during the arrest of Ned Stark.
Vayon Poole - Ordered; killed by Cersei's men during the purge of the Stark household in the Red Keep.
Septa Mordane - Ordered; killed by Cersei's men during the purge of the Stark household in the Red Keep.
Books only:[]
Melara Heatherspoon - Implied; fell down a well and drowned not long after hearing Maggy's prophecy.
Two infant twin bastards of King Robert - Ordered; killed at Casterly Rock out of spite.
Tomard - Ordered; speared from the back by a gold cloak during the arrest of Ned Stark.
Cayn - Ordered; killed by Sandor Clegane during the arrest of Ned Stark.
Desmond - Ordered; killed by Lannister soldiers during the arrest of Ned Stark.
Porther and Hullen - Ordered; killed by Cersei's men during the purge of the Stark household in the Red Keep.
Barra and her mother - Ordered; killed by Allar Deem on Lord Janos Slynt's behalf.
High Septon (Tyrion's) - Ordered; suffocated to death with a pillow by Ser Osney Kettleblack.
Senelle, two female puppeteers, and Lady Falyse Stokeworth - Ordered; given over to Qyburn, who tortured them to death for weeks for his experiments.
Hamish the Harper - Possibly and unconfirmed; ordered; died of unspecified causes shortly after Cersei let Qyburn "help him" remember a confession. Possibly died of a natural illness he already had.
In the books, Cersei is more tragic because she was trapped in an abusive marriage with Robert, where she was regularly raped and sexually assaulted by him. We also know that Robert would have executed her and her kids if he had ever found out about his wife`s infidelity. This means that her murder of Robert could be somewhat justified.
Another reason why Cersei is more tragic in the books is because, since the age of 10, she has lived in fear of a prophecy she heard that foretold the deaths of all her children and her own death as well. Most of Cersei's crimes after Robert's death were done because she wanted to prevent that prophecy from happening. Meanwhile, this prophecy doesn't play a very big part in the TV series.
Cersei and her brother Jaime can be considered the main antagonists of the first season since they are Ned Stark's primary enemies. This was before Joffrey took the role in the finale.
Cersei is the second name on Arya Stark's death list for having Ned imprisoned for treason and for being responsible for the death of Lady the direwolf.
Cersei is not as villainous in the series, showing more love for her children. In the books, it is implied that her love for her children is more an extension of her narcissism.
In the novels, Cersei ordered one of Robert's bastards massacred (the infant Barra) without a shred of guilt. In the series, Joffrey performs a massacre of every located bastard of King Robert within the capital, and Cersei is visibly horrified by it. This change is a useful microcosm for the different portrayals of Cersei in the television adaptation.
In the series, Cersei says she knew how bad Joffrey was and was unable to control him. However, in the books, she encouraged his behavior and thought of him as a strong ruler. At other times, she thinks Tommen would be better; however, Cersei, in her chapters, shows herself to be delusional and continually lying to herself.
In the novels, Cersei is wary of black cats, as she believes them to be heralds of bad luck, which is a common belief in Westeros (and based on the same old belief in Medieval Europe). However, she allows her son Tommen to keep all the black kittens that his wife Margaery gifted him without complaints, only wishing Margaery could've picked a different species.
In the novels, she incorrectly thinks Euron Greyjoy is Balon's son, despite Qyburn having already told her Euron is his brother.
While in the TV series, Tywin Lannister tries to force his daughter Cersei to marry Ser Loras Tyrell, in the novels this is not the case, as Loras is a member of the Kingsguard. Instead, Tywin pressures Cersei to remarry by giving her three choices for a new husband: Willas Tyrell, King Balon IX Greyjoy, and Prince Oberyn Martell. Tywin tells a seething Cersei that she is free to choose between these men, as each one will gain an alliance: Willas for a future claim to Highgarden and stronger ties between the Lannister-Tyrell alliance, Oberyn to strengthen the Lannister-Martell alliance, and Balon for a new alliance between the Iron Throne's realm and the Kingdom of the Isles and the North and strong naval support against Joffrey's enemies (Tywin acknowledges the Iron Islands as independent and considers an alliance with Balon so House Lannister can help him hold the North and claim Winterfell through Tyrion's marriage to Sansa). While neither Willas nor Oberyn are married, Balon is actually married to his estranged wife, Queen Alannys Harlaw. The culture of the Iron Islands allows polygamy, in which the Ironborn are allowed to keep an infinite number of wives. Since Alannys is Balon's Ironborn rock wife, Cersei would have been a salt wife to Balon.
In the TV series, Cersei Lannister is now known by many Game of Thrones fans as the Mad Queen for her great resemblance to the Mad King, though this epithet was also given to Daenerys Targaryen, as she had succumbed to the Targaryen Madness and proved to be worse than her father.
Cersei’s destruction of the Great Sept of Baelor in the TV series appears to be based on the Gunpowder Plot of 1605 with the destruction resembling what would’ve happened if the plot had succeeded.
Ironically, Jon Snow’s actor, Kit Harrington, portrayed Robert Catesby, the leader the Gunpowder Conspiracy, in a 2017 miniseries.
In the TV series, Cersei is noted for having a similar appearance to Carol Brady from The Brady Bunch. This is mainly because of her short, similar hairstyle to Carol.
Cersei had always felt safest in King's Landing; ironically, she died from being crushed by it.
In the Sesame Street spoof of Game of Thrones called Game of Chairs, Cersei appears as a caricature muppet who was renamed Cersie, in which the letters i and e switched places.
As part of the 2019 campaign Respect Brings us Together, which is part of Sesame Street's 50th anniversary celebration, Cersei (this time portrayed by Lena Headey) and Tyrion (again portrayed by Peter Dinklage) appeared in the campaign's first episode Respect is Coming, in which the two were convinced by Sesame Street character Elmo to listen and learn from each other with respect.
Ironically, Lena Heady was born in Northern England, which is one of the inspirations for The North. And she very much considers herself a "Northern Girl".
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