Characters / A Song of Ice And Fire - Cersei Lannister

For the main House Lannister entry, see HERE

For the main House Baratheon entry, see HERE

Queen Regent Cersei Lannister, Light of the West, Protector of the Realm

"The only way to keep your people loyal is to make certain they fear you more than they do the enemy."

Wife and Queen of King Robert. Twin sister of Jaime, older than him by perhaps a minute. A very ambitious and cunning woman, she hates the restrictions put on her because of her sex. She is a physically beautiful but morally repulsive Mama Bear/Evil Matriarch combination, and fiercely protective of her children. She staunchly refuses to become a dowager to Joffrey's (then Tommen's) wife and queen Margaery Tyrell.

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A-F

• 0% Approval Rating: The smallfolk despise her for her incestuous relationship with her brother and her wanton cruelty, particularly after the incident where she orders all of Robert's bastard children (including a baby) publicly murdered. When she makes her naked walk of shame through King's Landing, the peasants pelt her with garbage, dung and rotten food while calling her "whore", "cunt", "abomination", and "brotherfucker".
• Abusive Parent: When Tommen stands up for himself for possibly the first time in his life, Cersei... doesn't beat his whipping boy, Pate. Oh no. Instead, she orders Boros Blount to force her eight-year-old son to beat Pate himself, until both cheeks bleed, and lets Tommen know that if he refuses or protests at all, the boy's tongue will be cut out in front of him.
• Agony of the Feet: While being forced by the Faith to walk naked through King's Landing, she steps on something sharp and is left bleeding and limping the rest of the way to the Red Keep. She shouts at Septa Unella, "I asked for sandals. You could have given me sandals, you could have done that much!"
• The Alcoholic: Her downward spiral coincides with her increased reliance on liquid courage as more than just the occasional pick-me-up. The more she uses wine as a prop, the greater her contacts with both the Villain and Idiot Balls get. By the fourth book, to find a scene without her having a goblet in hand is an increasing rarity. Not that she didn't beforehand, of course.
• All Take and No Give: Her relationship with Jaime is characterised to a large degree by this, and for complicated reasons — Jaime himself observes that Cersei will dislike the diminished resemblance between them after his time at war, hinting that he knows she lives vicariously through him (though he himself does not try to think of why she would need to). For Cersei, as the queen mother guilty of high treason with Jaime, her entire situation is a matter of life and death, not just for herself but for all three of their children too. Considering that Jaime, as a man, can take the black to escape the ax, the demands and burden of their crimes fall heavier on Cersei. Considering she is at higher risk than Jaime, it becomes clearer why she responds so fearfully, then furiously, when Jaime no longer acts in her service.
• Ambiguously Bi: She does keep Taena Merryweather in her bed and they HAVE fooled around. For Cersei's part, however, she was very drunk and attempting to feel what her late husband would feel when abusing a woman. Cersei did not enjoy the act, so bisexuality is unlikely.
• Ambition Is Evil: She dreams of being the one undisputed ruler of the Iron Throne and the Seven Kingdoms, and is a very cruel, nasty, paranoid and spiteful individual to boot.
• Aristocrats Are Evil: She's both queen and a high ranking member of House Lannister.
• Arranged Marriage: To Robert. She would have had one to Rhaegar, but his father King Aerys (who wasn't the sharpest glass candle in the Citadel) decided that spiting Cersei's father Tywin was more important than making a good political match.
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: Cersei is accused by the Faith of the crime of fornication. What they don't know is that she has orchestrated a regicide, she may have murdered her childhood friend, and her children are products of incest (the Faith does accuse her of incest but she vehemently and successfully denies it). In hindsight, that sex charge isn't as bad and she knows it. That beign said, the Faith has suspicions of the incest, but lets it slide out of self-interest, since Cersei's kids being illegitimate would make Stannis, an atheist who isn't terribly opposed to letting his heretic supporters burn down septs, the rightful king.
• Avenging the Villain: Her search for Tyrion, still believing him to be Joffrey's murderer and knowing him to be Tywin's.
• Bad People Abuse Animals: While she didn't do the deed, she was totally unfazed by Joffrey's horrifying slicing of a pregnant cat just to see her kittens, and how he showed the dead kittens to Robert, dismissing it as "some nonsense with a cat", indicating that she too has a callous disregard for animals' lives and well-being. After Nymeria mauled Joffrey to defend Arya and was forced to run away by Arya, she pettily orders Lady, Sansa's direwolf, to be killed in Nymeria's stead, prompting Ned to give her a quick and painless death to avoid her being butchered for Cersei and Joffrey's pleasure.
• Badass Boast: Her iconic scene of threatening Ned Stark has this famous quote:
  When you play the game of thrones, you win or you die. There is no middle ground.
• Bald of Evil: Following her stint as a prisoner of the Faith Militant, Cersei is shaved hairless and left with a smoldering desire for homicidal vengeance. Although given the way time passes in this series, she might have short hair before long.
• Battle of Wits: By anybody's measure, she's not all that bad at using words and people to get whatever she wants whenever she wants it — she knows exactly how to use her looks, money and connections to plan three moves ahead. She also rarely needs to resort to open displays of violence (but, when she does... boy, howdy). However, she's just a bit out-classed by other players in both the available resources and knowledge stakes, often lets her temper and paranoia get the better of her, all too often overplays her hand and is simply just not as good as her overinflated ego thinks she is. She badly needs constructive criticism and grounding to up her mastery of the game, but actively avoids both as if they have greyscale.
• Beauty Is Bad: She's drop-dead gorgeous and one of the most villainous characters in the entire saga.
• Became Their Own Antithesis: Jaime notes in A Feast for Crows that Cersei has started adopting a lot of the negative habits (alcoholism, hedonism, gluttony) she once condemned in Robert.
• Because Destiny Says So: At a young age, Cersei received a prophecy: her children would all be crowned and all die before she did, a younger woman would replace her, and "the valonqar" — a younger brother, in this case — would kill her. She has always deemed Tyrion to be this valonqar, and this is one of the main reasons she has always hated him. The thing is, this younger brother might be also Jaime, who is minutes younger than her. Also, the prophecy doesn't say that it has to be her younger brother, as for instance, Loras Tyrell is one of countless younger brothers in the series, so fans think it could be anyone. Complicating matters even further is the fact that in the show only, valonqar is, in its direct translation from Valyrian, gender-neutral and more accurately means "younger sibling." This further inflames fans into theories.
• Believing Their Own Lies: Cersei is so delusional that she unwittingly convinces herself that her enemies are actually guilty of every slander she lays against them. Despite knowing damn well that she's torturing an innocent man to frame Margaery for adultery, when Cersei and Qyburn are trying to torture the Blue Bard into confessing to sleeping with her, Cersei's inner monologue describes the poor man's denials as "persist[ing] in his lies". There's also the fact that she genuinely believes that her children are the rightful rulers of Westeros and everyone else is a usurper, when she must be fully aware that since they're not really Robert's, she is the usurper. Also one that's not so much a lie as a willful self-delusion is her strident insistence that she is the queen and Margaery is only "Lady Margaery" because she's only Tommen's wife — deliberately ignoring the fact that the only thing that makes her queen is that she was Robert's wife, and now that Robert is dead she's not even that.
• Beneath the Mask: Implied in the ADWD Epilogue, after her psychologically cruel and brutalizing Walk of Atonement. Cersei slips and forgets she accused all three Kettleblack brothers; when Kevan corrects her, she briefly flushes before diverting his attention with uncharacteristic self-deprecation. Though Kevan buys into it, unreliable POV and such, it's implied that Cersei is not as broken as Kevan and the High Sparrow had hoped.
  Her fire is quenched, she who used to burn so bright. "You have not asked about your brother," [Kevan said.]
  Cersei lifted her chin, her green eyes shining in the candlelight. "Jaime? Have you had word?"
• Betty and Veronica: Considers herself the Veronica to Lyanna Stark's Betty. She once said that if Rhaegar married her like Tywin wanted, he would never have given "the wolf girl" a second look. Similarly, in her marriage with Robert she is the glamorous trophy wife in a loveless marriage to a man who still pines for his best friend's sister.
• Big Bad Wannabe: True to her ignorance, she thinks being Queen Regent makes her the most dangerous and cunning person in the realm, while the actual big plotters and schemers of the series regard her variably as a pawn or a distraction.
• Big Sister Bully: Was a nasty sibling to young Tyrion, whom she used to treat as her little punching bag. Shortly after Tyrion's birth, when Oberyn and Elia Martell were visiting the Lannisters with their mother, Cersei took the siblings to see her baby brother. Cersei removed Tyrion's swaddling clothes to fully expose him and twisted his penis so hard Tyrion cried out in pain, and only stopped when Jaime forced her to. Cersei dismissed Tyrion as the monster that killed her mother and who wouldn't live much longer himself. Another time in Tyrion's infancy, upon hearing of the story of Baelor the Blessed and the Maidenvault, Cersei was so taken at the injustice of punishing girls for their beauty that she went to Tyrion's crib and "pinched him till he cried." Even as adults, Cersei still bullies Tyrion.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Poor Sansa and Ned find out the hard way.
• Black-and-White Insanity: Cersei thinks in an incredibly extreme With Us or Against Us mentality, regarding grovelling lickspittles who tell her what she wants to hear as loyal advisers (therefore "Good"), while anyone who questions or defies her is an enemy plotting against her and must be destroyed before they take action (therefore "Evil"). After the events of A Storm Of Swords, she becomes convinced that Tyrion is still leading plots against the crown, and everything that goes amiss and anyone who disagrees with her is his doing. It's this type of paranoia that leads to her downfall in A Feast For Crows. As Tyrion notes in his exile:
  Tyrion: Cersei is as gentle as King Maegor [The Cruel], 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.
• Book Dumb: Played with. Aunt Genna scolds Jaime for his and Cersei's ignorance of the historical Faith Militant, which really calls into question Tywin's education of his twins. Furthermore, her mother died too soon to give her a more in-depth education on being an effective political animal as a woman and the specific skills her sex would benefit from. Besides which, Cersei wants to wield the power of a lord and king, which is altogether another role entirely. One need only contrast Cersei to Catelyn, who is greatly respected by other nobles for her intellect and competence, to see the differences an education can make for a highborn lady.
• Brainless Beauty: Invoked and subverted yet also somewhat played straight. Cersei has no lack of intelligence and is highly conniving and quite cunning... but, these traits are undermined by a dearth of wisdom and glaring flaws such as narcissism, fostered by no training whatsoever by Tywin. It really leads one to wonder how much more successful and dangerous Cersei might have been had Tywin educated her as well as he was educated. Just see below under The Cloud Cuckoolander Was Right.
• Break the Haughty: After her ordeal while being held captive by the Faith, to say nothing of being forced to walk naked through King's Landing, Cersei appears to be well and truly broken. Though if she's just biding her time, a lot of people need to be constantly looking over their shoulders.
• Broken Pedestal: Sansa initially sees her as The High Queen, and admires her. This doesn't last very long.
• Brother–Sister Incest: With Jaime.
• The Bully: Cersei constantly antagonises and bullies those whom she doesn't like and she thinks can't fight back. She constantly insults, belittles and sometimes even hits Tyrion, even after he becomes interim Hand of the King, and humiliates, belittles and threatens Pycelle when he calls her out on her catastrophic actions during "A Feast For Crows". She also has a tendency to throw water or wine in the faces of those who displease her, such as she does with Jaime and Kevan in the same novel.
• Buxom Beauty Standard: She values the sex appeal of her large bosom, thinking of herself as the superior choice when comparing herself to the flat-chested Elia Martell, who was chosen to be Rhaegar Targaryen's wife in her stead.
  "It must have been the madness that led Aerys to refuse Lord Tywin's daughter and take his son instead, whilst marrying his own son to a feeble Dornish princess with black eyes and a flat chest."
• Can't Take Criticism: Due to her narcissism and paranoia, Cersei is unable of handling criticisms, even constructive ones, and will either ignore and belittle the one criticizing her, such as she does with Pycelle when he rightfully warns her about the consequences of her decisions by rearming the Faith and slighting the Iron Bank, or angrily lashes out at them such as when she threw wine at Kevan for him calling her out for being a terrible mother and ruler. As Tyrion points out Cersei takes caution for cowardice, and dissent for defiance, meaning that anyone who doesn't openly agree with her is either a craven or a traitor.
• The Chain of Harm: Hypocritical Female Misogynist that she is, the reason Cersei gives for not standing up for Sansa when she's held captive by the Lannisters and constantly beaten and terrorized by her fiance Joffrey is that Cersei herself suffered worse under Robert, and no one ever helped her (Westerosi society expected her to graciously accept being abused with a smile), so Sansa can live with it too.
• Child Supplants Parent: Cersei greatly admires her father Tywin, but she wants to supplant him anyways. At his funeral, she thinks to herself:
  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.
• Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: Becomes this out of paranoia in the fourth book, plotting even against her only allies because she doesn't trust them.
• The Cloudcuckoolander Was Right: An apparent consistent tendency of Cersei, especially once we reach her POV. To list some ways:
  • At the very start of the series, Cersei perceives Eddard Stark's Handship as a threat and insists to Jaime that the Lord of Winterfell would only leave his seat "for power" and, well, Eddard was a threat to her and her children... puppeteered by the power-hungry-at-her-expense Petyr Baelish.
  • Not moments after Joffrey's murder, as the Tyrells begin their cover story that he choked, Cersei accurately and instantly accuses a poisoning instead... with Tyrion as the poisoner. If not for Cersei seeing Tyrion as the explicitly lethal valonqar, seeing Margaery as her younger, more beautiful replacement may have led her to sussing them out then and there.
  • She then goes on, astonishingly, to figure that the Tyrells had a hand in Joffery's death any ways! She even guesses the motive correctly! This is notable as she is the only POV character, and less than a handful of general characters, to do so.
  • Cersei also suspects Taena's initial informing on Team Tyrell as potentially provocation to sew discord between the royal families... and this after discovering Rugen's coin in the dungeons, conveniently confirming her suspicions of the Tyrells. Combine with her musings that Varys plays them all including her once she came to court, Cersei is in all likelihood one step away from realising just who is (still) puppeteering her. And, recall that Taena listed Lys, Varys's hometown, among the places she had "men of power" for friends...
  • And then there is this exchange:
    "Perhaps Myrcella sent this man with the dagger [to kill Bran Stark], do you think so?"
    It was meant as mockery, but she'd cut right to the heart of it, Jaime saw at once. "Not Myrcella. Joffrey."
• Color-Coded Eyes: Her green eyes perfectly fit her avid and envious personality. She often wears emerald jewelry to bring them out.
• Color Motif: In addition to Lannister red and gold, Cersei is often associated with green. She has beautiful green eyes and a penchant for emerald jewelry, many green dresses, a liking for jade-green wildfire starting from A Feast for Crows, and her greatest allies-cum-rivals the Tyrells have for their sigil a gold rose on a green banner. Not to mention the out-of-universe comparisons to Alicent Hightower, whose side in the Dance of the Dragons was called the Greens. Green in silk and green with envy — of everyone smarter, richer or more beautiful than she is.
• Come to Gawk: She is imprisoned by the Faith in A Feast For Crows. In A Dance With Dragons, to avoid a trial in which she would almost certainly be found guilty of treason, she confesses to certain sins, and consents to undertake a "walk of penance", where she is shaved completely bald (as in, total removal of all hair from her body) and forced to walk naked from the Great Sept of Baelor to the Red Keep. She's escorted by armed guards, so no one can actually harm her, but the smallfolk of King's Landing hurl insults and refuse at her the whole way.
• Comically Missing the Point: Cersei blames her washerwomen for shrinking some of her old gowns, not realizing they don't fit anymore because she's gained weight from drinking. She almost has them whipped, but Taena convinces her not to, her reasoning being "The smallfolk will love you more if you are kind." So Cersei just deducts the value of the gowns from their wages instead.
• The Corrupter: Seen as such by the High Sparrow. When Kevan visits Cersei, she is guarded by four handmaidens and a septa who are rotated out every seven days to prevent Cersei from gaining any influence over them. And from the Faith's perspective, this makes perfect sense considering Lancel's confessions.
• Create Your Own Villain: One of the traits she inherits from her father, Tywin. Cersei creates an enemy army outside of Lannister control, not once, but threefold once she becomes the uncontested regent in AFFC:
  • She snubs the Iron Bank and tells them they will wait on her until the rebellions have been put down. Fast forward to the next book and look up north, the Iron Bank has sought out King Stannis Baratheon to fund his campaign.
  • She rearms the Faith Militant, lessening the Crown's debts. Then at the end of AFFC, the plan she concocted to destroy Margaery Tyrell backfires and she is arrested as well. Furthermore, since the case against Margaery was weak, and Randyll Tarly brought his army, the High Sparrow releases Margaery on grounds of holy oath, but does not extend the same offer to Cersei. Rather, it is implied that her own uncle Kevan Lannister proposed the Walk of Shame. As Kevan notes, opposing the High Sparrow risks blood in the streets of King's Landing itself.
  • Sensing coming chaos, Aurane Waters asks to put the brand new warships to sea. Upon her arrest, he promptly leaves to become a pirate king with a fleet of dromonds. The only other comparable powers at sea, the Greyjoys and Redwynes, are locked in combat with each other.
  • While the above are without doubt entirely Cersei's fault, before she was the uncontested regent she definitely didn't help appease potential foes. Her incest with Jaime, Bran Stark's tower fall, and her allowance of Eddard Stark's decapitation all ensure that House Stark becomes an enemy, as does Tywin's marauding of the Riverlands and Jaime's assault and murder of Stark's retinue.
  • Hers and King Robert Baratheon's abysmal parenting of Joffrey and her inability to contain him once he is king drive Olenna Tyrell to murder him with Littlefinger's help so as to protect her granddaughter.
  • She ignores, bullies and threatens Pycelle when he tries to give her advice on how to rule and warn her about the catastrophic consequences of her hare-brained decisions. This causes him to get fed up with her abuse and to abandon her when she's imprisoned by the Faith, taking back control at the Red Keep and calling Kevan back to King's Landing to become regent in her stead and fix her mess.
  • Lastly, she even drives away her own family. As the rivalry between Cersei and Tyrion escalates, he eventually comes to threaten her and mean it, especially after that farce of a trial. Her sexual abuse of Lancel Lannister turns his father against her as well, culminating in Kevan forcing Cersei through an absolutely horrific Walk of Shame. Then, once Jaime returns, his changing attitudes make them clash. She sends him out on a military campaign to have one less voice opposing her on council, and when she writes him desperately for help, he instead burns the letter. His lack of a sword hand was certainly a central factor here... but so was their utter inability to communicate, instead preferring to vocally hold one another in contempt.
  • This seems especially true of the prophesied valonqar; Cersei has ruined her relationships with both of her brothers, with one wanting murder and the other leaving her to her fate. Though she and Jaime were never in a healthy relationship (to say the least), it was the closest thing to love either of them had. As much as Jaime wants to become a better person, he fixates on Cersei's transgressions... which leaks out as feelings of hatred for anyone who reminds him of Cersei a la Sybell Spicer. At one point he even feels the urge to strangle Sybell Spicer...
    Tyrion: I have never liked you, Cersei, but you were my own sister, so I never did you harm. You've ended that.
• Daddy's Girl: Not anymore. When she was a child, she was one of the two people Lord Tywin ever smiled at (the other being his beloved wife), and he would share some of his plans with her and trust her to keep silent. However, she could never forgive him for failing to fulfill his promise to get her married to Rhaegar Targaryen, instead landing her with the (eventually) fat, lecherous, alcoholic Robert Baratheon.
• Deadpan Snarker: She's a Lannister and sister to two of the funniest POV to read, so she ought to be this. She even says it herself:
  Cersei: I assure you, when I make a jest, men laugh.
• Deconstructed Character Archetype: Of the evil queen of fairy tales. Cersei is beautiful, vain, selfish, sexually loose, and actively makes people fear her as a way to control them. But all these make her a terrible ruler who fails at controlling others effectively and makes her blind to her real enemies that are using her.
• Didn't See That Coming:
  • Though Cersei has never been fond of Tyrion, she didn't quite see him as a threat until Tywin made him acting Hand of the King. Cersei is one of the few people that see how conniving Tyrion really is, though she doesn't appreciate him for it and sees him as a rival. At first it seems that even Cersei is enjoying their battle of wits until Joffrey gets killed; this makes her think that Tyrion is still conspiring against her even after he has fled.
  • Cersei arms the Faith Militant, not realizing that as agents of a higher calling they do not heed to the authority of kings. When Margaery is charged with fornication, suspicions of Cersei arise in the Faith about the latter's own bouts of fornication and later evidence is given by Osney Kettleblack about his affair with Cersei. The last time she meets with the High Sparrow she doesn't even have a single grasp that she is going to get arrested until everything is dropped on top of her head.
• Didn't Think This Through: A recurring problem for Cersei is her astonishing lack of foresight, usually the result of a short-term gain that she doesn't bother to think far past:
  • Convincing Jaime to join the Kingsguard; intended to keep him close by so they could remain lovers, Cersei thoroughly underestimated how their legacy-obsessed father would react to his heir abandoning all claim to Casterly Rock (in her defense, she believed that Tywin wouldn't publicly argue against the appointment, unaware of how much his and Aerys's relationship had soured). Not only were the twins separated again, but Jaime was left all on his own to be traumatised by the horrors of Aerys's reign.
  • Making no attempt to avoid becoming pregnant by Jaime and even aborting her one pregnancy by Robert; Cersei's hatred for Robert blinded her to the simple fact that, as her children have no legitimate blood ties to the royal family, their claim on the Iron Throne is invalid and open to challenge from Robert's legitimate heirs, which ends up being a major part in setting off the War of the Five Kings.
  • Allowing Joffrey to execute Ned Stark. She sincerely didn't plan for it to happen, but had a brief moment where she could've prevented it and chose not to because she thought it would make her son look weak. It created an enemy they could never make peace with in Robb Stark when they already had Robert's brothers preparing for war against them. Her lamentation over it later during her Walk of Shame would suggest even she came to realize it for a horrible mistake.
  • Dismissing Barristan Selmy from the Kingsguard: Cersei thought she was opening a spot in the Kingsguard for Jaime to assume command and for the Hound to join, while letting Joffrey punish someone for Robert's death. As Tywin points out to Tyrion and Tyrion later spells out to Cersei, Ser Barristan is a knight of incredible skill and renown, and shunning him that way not only damaged the Kingsguard's reputation, but opened the door for Barristan to potentially sign on with one of the other kings, which will make the Lannisters' rivals look more credible to the commoners.
  • During the Battle of the Blackwater, Cersei has Joffrey pulled out of the battle and returned to the Red Keep out of paranoia and overprotectiveness toward Joffrey, which nearly costs the Lannisters the battle as seeing their king leave them has a disastrous effect on the morale of the defenders of King's Landing and causes hundreds of them to desert, as Lancel points out to her. When Lancel tries to talk sense into her and have Joffrey return to raise the spirit of their men, Cersei refuses to see reality and further injures Lancel by hitting his wound.
  • Cersei's paranoia about the Tyrells has her assume that they're cunning and devious enough to worm their way into power in King's Landing and orchestrate Tywin's murder, but stupid enough to bribe a jailer (actually a guise of Varys's, unknown to Cersei) with a coin that could be traced back to them in an instant. This gap in reasoning is entirely characteristic for Cersei, and exactly what Varys was counting on when he planted that coin.
  • Allowing the Faith Militant to re-arm; Cersei believed that she was setting up a new enemy for Stannis and erasing a near-million golden dragon debt for the Crown, as well as solving the problem of the Sparrows. Nothing could be further from the truth; while the High Sparrow does reject Stannis due to his association with R'hllor, he's far from the Faith's top priority, and with an army at his command, the High Sparrow has no need to yield to anything Cersei can threaten him with, which leaves her helpless when the Faith calls her on her crimes.
  • Framing Margaery for fornication and treason; suffice to say, framing someone for crimes you yourself are guilty of, using someone who knows more than a few of the skeletons in your closet (Osney Kettleblack, in Cersei's case), has a lot of potential to backfire.
  • During A Feast For Crows, and despite Pycelle's warnings that the Iron Bank is a dangerous enemy to have, she orders to defer on repayments of the crown's debts to the Iron Bank, using the money to build a new and very expensive royal fleet, all because of her paranoia toward the Tyrells and the Redwynes, under the pretext of the war not being over even if it's largely in the Lannisters and Tyrells' favor by this point. This of course angers the Iron Bank, which is only made worse when Cersei rudely dismisses the Bank's envoy demanding the crown resume its repayments. In retaliation, the Iron Bank offers financial support to Stannis's war effort, refuses to grant any new loans and begins demanding immediate repayment from all its debtors in Westeros, causing economic chaos all over the Seven Kingdoms and putting the Iron Throne and her house in a very bad financial position when Aegon VI, Jon Connington, and the Golden Company arrive in Westeros. In addition, her actions have destroyed the Iron Throne's credibility as a debtor, as the banks of Myr and Pentos aren't willing to lend any money to the Iron Throne after that.
  • In the same novel she names Aurane Waters her Grand Admiral, just because of his resemblance to Rhaegar Targaryen, on whom she had a crush, and despite Waters having shown no sign of loyalty toward her. As soon as she's imprisoned, Aurane Waters betrays her and steal the aforementioned new royal fleet to become a pirate lord in the Stepstones. She also only puts spineless men and syncophants in the Small Council, because they all agree with her and pose no threat, only for them to abandon her or become paralyzed when the Faith arrests her, leaving her with no one to rescue her and allowing Kevan to easily take power.
  • A hypothetical one; it's suggested that Cersei murdered her childhood companion Melara Hetherspoon by pushing her down a well after hearing the prophecies of the witch Maggy the Frog, based on the idea that the prophecy of the valonquar would not come true as long as no-one spoke of it and Cersei wanted to ensure Melara would NEVER speak of what she'd heard. If this is true, she failed to realise that all she was doing was ensuring the prophecy Maggy made for Melara — namely that she would die that night — was fulfilled, only increasing her paranoid fear of the witch's prophecy coming true rather than diminishing it.
  • A general example that covers a great many of Cersei's troubles, especially in A Feast for Crows and A Dance with Dragons: for all the crimes she's committed, Cersei never once considered that she might get caught.
• Disproportionate Retribution: She has a habit of abusing and killing people over minor slights, which she's done from a young age.
• Dissonant Serenity: At first. Cersei is a paragon of beauty and courtesy; in contrast, she is manipulative, vindictive, paranoid and remarkably bitter on the inside. When Tyrion kills Tywin all degrees of demure go out the window.
• Distaff Counterpart:
  • It is strongly suggested that this is where much of her attraction to Jaime comes from, which even he begins to catch on to. She is very disappointed when he returns from captivity and they no longer look identical.
  • This may also be why Joffrey was her favorite child: he shared her tendencies towards cruelty, pettiness, and arrogance.
• Domestic Abuse: Both a victim and a perpetrator. Robert hits her and uses his Marital Rape License. In return, Cersei once hit him in the face with her drinking horn so hard that she chipped one of his teeth. She is also physically and emotionally abusive to her lover Jaime.
• Dramatically Missing the Point: Cersei might as well be leading the trope as a prime example:
  • Cersei initially thinks that Kevan is mad at her for throwing wine at his face back when she denied him the regency; he's actually mad because she slept with his son Lancel.
  • Cersei gives the Admiralty of the Royal Fleet to Aurane Waters simply due to his resemblance to Rhaegar, only for him to turn pirate at the first opportunity.
  • Cersei thinks that backstabbing and conspiring are most of what governing consists of. When it comes time, she is completely lost on what it means to govern, so she resorts to what she knows best.
• Early Personality Signs: Some of the behavior Cersei displayed as a child is repeated in adulthood. Notably, at seven years old she physically hurt a newborn Tyrion because she considered him responsible for their mother's death. This is the first sign of both her lifelong cruelty toward him and her Disproportionate Retribution toward people she believes have wronged her.
• Elemental Eye Colors: Some characters have noted that Cersei has "wildfire eyes", bright green and beautiful, yet dangerous and possibly unstable. She develops a liking for using wildfire after the Battle of the Blackwater and she has a knack for destruction, but can rarely control the damage.
• Enemies Equals Greatness: Part of Cersei's problem is that she sees power as simply the ability to ruin one's enemies at a stroke, and that making any sort of concessions to an identified enemy can only be a sign of weakness. Ironically, by acting on that belief, she's been alienating what few supporters she might have had.
• Enfant Terrible: Cersei was already a cruel, spoiled and vindicative bully as a child, bullying and harming Tyrion such as twisting his penis while he was just a baby and in front of Jaime and the Martell siblings, having threatened Tyrion's wet nurse with mutilation if she did not got out of Tyrion's chamber as she ordered.
• Entitled Bitch:
  • Cersei feels that Sansa owes her for feeding and clothing her, despite the fact that, in addition to holding her hostage, she allows Joffrey to abuse the poor girl with impugnity.
  • Cersei believes, with all her heart, that she deserves to rule the Seven Kingdoms, all without having any actual ability or talent for ruling, nor any concern for the people she'd be ruling over. She also has no inherent claim to authority, as her claim to authority is based on first marriage to Robert, whom she cuckolded with her brother which is high treason, and being mother of the king who is a product of said incest, and therefore illegitimate to the throne. Despite all this, Cersei whole-heartedly views the Iron Throne as rightfully hers with no justification needed other than the fact she's Cersei Lannister.
  • Throughout their lives, Cersei has felt, despite cheating on him for pleasure and profit, Jaime owes her his unconditional love and loyalty. Also, despite boasting of having lied to him a thousand times and treating him with increasing disdain in their scenes together, Cersei ends A Feast for Crows begging Jaime to fight on her behalf when the Faith puts her to trial, even writing off his lack of a sword hand (and extremely low likelihood of actually winning a trial by combat) with the belief that he'd be willing to die with her. Jaime, who has grown considerably and ceased to blind himself to Cersei's faults, refuses to do it, and privately reflects that even if he wanted to, there's nothing he can do to save her.
• Ermine Cape Effect: Used deliberately. Cersei always dresses in a regal manner, always looks stunning and is somewhat aware that her looks will eventually fade (just as she warns Sansa), only that her overall behavior doesn't quite match this statement; when she takes her Walk of Shame and is completely naked, she realizes that she is not nearly as buxom as she used to be and that she is beginning to sag, as childbirth and her frequent drinking have taken a toll on her, adding even more to the humiliation.
• Establishing Character Moment: Her rant to Jaime about her suspicions that Ned Stark is planning to move against her. It shows her hunger for power and belief that everyone is out to get her. Also an interesting look into her mindset: she's convinced Ned is preparing to overthrow them, because why else would he leave his seat of power? Meanwhile, the reader sees that the only thing Ned sees Winterfell as is home. This scene also establishes her affair with Jaime.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Invoked, played straight, subverted, and complicated:
  • She is in love with the idea of what her kids could be, but she refuses to acknowledge them as they are and treats them as extensions of herself — this parenting style is one she inherited from Tywin, who treated his own kids in the exact same way. She initially focuses completely on Joffrey while showing not much interest in Myrcella and Tommen, at least until Myrcella is sent to Dorne and taken from her, and Tommen inherits. Later books reveal a prophecy where she was told that her three children would all die before her. So, part of the concern for her children's well-being could be self-motivated... however, Cersei does mourn Joffrey intensely and even appears traumatised by his death; had she been entirely self-centred, she could have just moved onto Tommen as his replacement especially since her situation had basically remained the same with her as regent. The fact that she is still in great pain over Joffrey when it has no benefit to her means she does love her children in some way to some degree, as incomplete as it may be.
  • She is in love with a satellite image of Jaime that gets marred from the moment he leaves to fight in the war against Robb Stark. When they reunite, they see how much the events have changed them both, ultimately splitting up. This is in exact parallel with Tywin disowning Jamie when he refuses to be the perfect Lannister heir.
  • She very much idolizes and tries to emulate Tywin, but falls hilariously short. It doesn't help that her father sees her as furniture of his property. After his death she reveals that she secretly resented him when reflecting on all the King's Hands she's seen while burning the Tower of the Hand, listing him alongside Jon Arryn and Ned Stark and Tyrion, and thinking to herself that she is free of all their "plots and schemes and betrayals".
    • As Tywin's creature, Cersei doesn't seem to have had the same motherly relationship with her aunt Genna that Tyrion and Jaime had (though a flashback of her's implies they were once closer). Kevan seems to have been fond of Cersei when she was unencumbered with the woes of power and argues that she was a much happier person in her youth. Other than that, Cersei is not shown to have been particularly close to her other uncles, as she does not mention them.
• Even Evil Has Standards:
  • According to Joffrey, Cersei taught him that a king should never strike his wife, no doubt because of the Domestic Abuse she herself suffered from Robert. That said, Cersei's own standards regarding abuse are hardly anything to emulate; she has no problem emotionally and even physically abusing Jaime, despite professing to love him.
  • When Joffrey brags about having the severed head of Robb Stark served to Sansa at his wedding feast, even Cersei is disturbed and tries to play it off as a joke. She also demands that he apologize for accusing Tywin of cowardice.
  • She originally didn't plan to execute Ned Stark, but merely have him take the black. However, Joffrey had other plans. This also ties in with Pragmatic Villainy — publicly executing the lord of a Great House isn't a great look for the crown. The fact that Cersei still didn't lift a finger to stop it makes it a Downplayed Trope.
• Evil Aunt: She has Littlefinger spread rumors about her niece Shireen being a bastard and a fool's daughter, in order to counter the whispers that her own children are products of incest and adultery (which they are).
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good:
  • She greatly mistakes Ned Stark's reasons for leaving Winterfell; Cersei believes that Ned wants more power for himself, believing this to be the only reason he'd leave his "seat of power", blind to the idea that Ned is driven by honor and is loath to leave his home. She also considers Ned's refusal to claim the Iron Throne for himself at the end of Robert's Rebellion to be his greatest mistake, failing to understand that he never wanted power.
  • Like Joffrey, she can't see the advantages in courting positive publicity with the smallfolk. For that matter, she can't even grasp the very concept that as supposed ruler of Westeros, she's supposed to be responsible for the welfare of the smallfolk, since she thinks anyone less than a noble is effectively subhuman; when questioned on what the Crown is going to do to stop the suffering of the common folk, her internal response is basically, "Why are you wasting my time with this meaningless crap?"
  • She also misjudges how far Mace Tyrell will go to defend Margaery when she assumes he wouldn't dare lift the siege at Storm's End to hare off to King's Landing.
  • She also fails to see Jaime's growth towards a healthier attitude, only seeing the change in him as annoying and troublesome, and something that makes him less reliable.
  • She cannot understand why Catelyn would put up with her husband's bastard in the castle, when she would happily just kill any of Robert's bastards.
  • She can't understand why Robert wouldn't commit genocide against the Ironborn.
  • She thinks the High Sparrow is a madman for selling the Most Devout's treasures and valuables to buy food for the poor.
  • When Margaery gives Tommen three kittens as a gift, Cersei interprets it as a clumsy attempt at seduction and never considers the possibility that Margaery might just be trying to do something nice for him.
  • The concept of niceness and compassion seem totally foreign to her, as she cannot see Tommen's great qualities, viewing him as meek and weak — not that she recognises it or reacts well when Tommen does show some strength, whereas she views Joffrey as "willful" and "strong" instead of the arrogant, cowardly, cruel and sadistic monster he truly was.
• Evil Counterpart: To Sansa (both grew up as highborn ladies with high dreams, only to become disenchanted). Also to Catelyn (both are Mama Bears who are fiercely protective of their children, but Cersei is an especially twisted and possessive version compared to Catelyn).
• Evil Is Petty: Cersei is an extremely petty, vindicative and spiteful individual who will hurt, humiliate, threaten or kill people often for very minor, if they even exist, offenses and will go to incredible lengths to spite a person she hates, which often end up backfiring on her. Examples of this include:
  • She ordered for Lady, Sansa's direwolf to be killed, after Nymeria bit Joffrey to protect Arya and fled, despite neither Lady nor Sansa having done anything to her or Joffrey. She also certainly have made a sadistic butcher of it, which is why Ned gave the direwolf a quick death first.
  • She went to incredible lengths to not have any children with Robert, having at least one aborted and doing everything so Robert wouldn't impregnate her again, while passing Jaime's children with her as Robert's. She also threatened to murder Mya Stone if Robert ever dared to bring her to King's Landing, and ordered the murder of every of Robert's bastards after becoming queen regent. It's even rumored that she sold the mother of bastard twins fathered by Robert into slavery.
  • After Kevan refused to become her puppet Hand of the King and called her out for being a terrible mother and ruler, Cersei had the titles of Warden of the West and Castellan of Casterly Rock that should have gone to him given to Daven and Domion Lannister instead just to spite her uncle.
  • Why, yes, framing your younger, more beautiful daughter-in-law for adultery and high treason and trying to get her executed, even though your family desperately needs her family's financial backing and political support, is quite petty, no? She also went to Margaery's cell just to gloat and mock her, though it didn't go as well as she thought it would.
  • After hearing that there's a puppet show in King's Landing where a family of lions is eaten by a dragon, she has two of the puppeteers executed while the two female puppeteers that remain are given to Qyburn as his test subject and orders that those who watched the show either are fined of half their wealth, or lose an eye for treason if they don't have money.
  • When Tommen does stand up to her, she first threatens to have Pate, Tommen's whipping boy, beaten until he bleeds. Later when Tommen defends Margaery against Cersei, she has Boros Blount force Tommen to whip Pate himself until both of his cheeks bleed. She also threatens to have Qyburn cut out Pate's tongue in front of Tommen, if he refuses to do so or if he says one word of protest.
  • After getting fat and finding out that her clothes don't fit her anymore, Cersei refuses to admit that she has gained weight and instead accuses her washerwomen of having shrunk her clothes and wants to have them whipped, before deciding to reduce their pay with the price of her dresses.
• Evil Matriarch: While she loves her children, she makes for a terrible mother. Jaime suggests that she is responsible for much of Joffrey's horrible personality, and when Tommen becomes king at age eight, she uses him as an anchor to power and disciplines him very harshly when he stands up to her, while at the same time criticizes him for being soft unlike Joffrey.
• Failed a Spot Check: An example where it's not something Cersei fails to see so much as an obvious warning sign she competely fails to recognise the significance of: after the Faith that Cersei has just allowed to rearm arrest Margaery and her ladies for adultery as a result of Cersei's plotting, Septa Moelle comes to discuss the issue with her on the Faith's behalf. Cersei demands that the Faith release Margaery and her companions and Moelle sternly refuses, saying it cannot be done until their innocence is cleared. Since Cersei obviously does not want Margaery released and is only playing out the role expected of her ("But first we must dance the dance and never miss a step."), she's so busy being pleased with her own cleverness that it completely flies over her head that, since Moelle and the Faith are not complicit in her plot, the Faith has genuinely just openly defied an order from the Crown, failing to realise that she can no longer control them. Before the end of that very chapter, they've arrested and imprisoned her too.
• Fairest of Them All: Becomes obsessed with bringing about the downfall of Margaery Tyrell, convinced she's the younger and more beautiful one who is prophesied to take her place.
• A Family Affair: After her husband dies, she ends up sleeping with her lover Jaime's cousin (and her own), despite supposedly only loving Jaime.
• Fall Guy: Ruthlessly treated as such by the more advanced players, namely Varys and Petyr Baelish. As the Lannister with highest authority in the capital and the regent, all attempts that Varys and Petyr make at undermining the crown collect under Cersei's name. Examples great and small can be found even in the first book, such as Petyr arranging Jon Arryn's death or Varys arranging Barristan Selmy's dismissal. By the fifth book, the High Sparrow sends the political and military message that the nobility bows before the faith, by taking the wrecking ball she aimed at Margaery and putting her in its path — it did not truly matter to him which queen he humiliated so long as his authority was cemented, and he seems primed to jump ship to a more legitimate, non-abomination king regardless.
• False Friend: Even if Cersei starts by genuinely liking you, she'll all too often find a reason to backstab you, let alone those around you, herself down the line. Or, will somehow mess your life up some other way either directly or indirectly thanks to other things she's done (or neglected to do). Even though, in her mind, she was trying to help or protect you... until you turned on her. Obviously you did. She just can't do healthy relationships: see Lady Macbeth, My Beloved Smother and Toxic Friend Influence.
• False Flag Operation: Cersei plans to stage an ambush on a Dornish party to kill Prince Trystane Martell just to end his engagement to Myrcella by a group claiming to belong to Tyrion.
• Fatal Flaw: Cersei has more fatal flaws than a skyscraper built by Jigsaw, but her most prominent and damaging are as follows — and note that all of her flaws are directly inherited from Tywin himself, exaggerated due to Tywin failing to prepare Cersei for rulership, something for which Tywin was groomed since birth:
  • Her overwhelming arrogance. Cersei is overwhelmingly convinced that she's a perfect, flawless genius who can do no wrong, when she is actually a reckless fool with terrible judgement. Since she Can't Take Criticism she can never see what she's doing wrong to course correct. Additionally, Cersei's paranoia makes her see anyone who isn't one of her faithful lickspittles as an enemy, which means she sees enemies everywhere but also never respects any of them, dismissing them all as fools and weaklings to be easily crushed. The way she treats Tyrion in concrete parallel to Tywin is a prime example, as the prophecy convinced her that he is foretold to eventually kill her, but up until Joffrey dies, for which she intially blames Tyrion, she never actually fears him at all or shows any recognition of his abilities. This also leads to her downfall when she rearms the Faith, not even being able to imagine that they might turn against her (again akin to Tywin not anticipating the Bloody Mummers as simplistic mercenaries may act against his interests).
  • Her selfishness and greed. Because she was spoiled growing up, Cersei believes she deserves everything, and other people are only due what she deigns to grant them. When Tywin dies and she becomes the uncontested regent for Tommen, she acts like this makes her the actual queen of Westeros, treating it as something that was owed to her. This makes her grasp of diplomacy effectively nonexistant, since she can't understand the concept of compromise, not getting everything she wants, or giving up anything she doesn't want to part with. This leads to one of her most foolish mistakes when she cancels the Crown's debt repayments to the Iron Bank in order to build a new war fleet, believing she can just order them to wait on her pleasure. Instead, they begin bankrolling Stannis with the intent of getting him to pay them back once he's overthrown her. Her uncompromising greed runs in parallel to Tywin, who refused to forgive the Crown's debt to House Lannister, despite the fact the two entities were increasingly becoming the same thing — essentially Tywin was forcing his own family to pay a debt to themselves, reducing the Crown's funds that could have been used politically or militarily, as Tyrion laments during his tenure as Master of Coin. Something about keeping the cake and eating it too...
  • Her utter callousness and cruelty. Cersei is completely incapable of caring about anyone other than herself, except insofar as they are an extension of herself — this she learns directly from Tywin who treated all three of his children as extensions of his will. She only cares about her children because they're her children and doesn't know how to properly express or identify love for them. She only cares about Jaime as long as he's her narcissistically-adoring reflection, and grows tired of him once he begins to grow apart from her (hello Tywin and disowning his no longer perfect heir?). She only has any regard for her fawning lickspittle followers as long as they are useful to her, and would discard any of them in an instant if they became a burden. And her contempt for the commoners of Westeros is so absolute that she'd walk across a carpet of them without even bothering to wipe her shoes first; to her they're not even humans. And as she becomes more of a public figure once rule falls on her shoulders (rather than just being "the king's wife" or "the king's mother") her cruelty becomes more obvious to all and sundry. When she hears pleas for the crown's aid to help rein in rampant bandits who have been slaughtering the smallfolk and raping the Septas, her only response is to wonder why she's being bothered with such irrelevancies, and an idle thought that the Septas (who are sworn to chastity) were probably secretly craving a good raping. As a result, almost nobody in all of Westeros actually likes Cersei. Even her own family has been driven away from her, and all her remaining followers are either weaklings who only obey because they do whatever they're told, or social climbers exploiting her for their own benefit. About the only person left who does actually seem to have any genuine loyalty to her now is, ironically, Qyburn.
    "My brother is undoubtedly arrogant," Tyrion Lannister replied. "My father is the soul of avarice, and my sweet sister Cersei lusts for power with every waking breath."
• Female Misogynist: She holds femininity in contempt and wishes she had been born a boy instead. That said, Cersei hates (or at the very least disregards) every woman she interacts with in this series. Despite rightfully pointing out several sexist facets of society that have unfairly restricted her, she doesn't bat an eyelash when those very same things are imposed on other women. For example, she complains about not having any choice in whom she was supposed to marry, but actively participates in forcing Sansa to marry a man she doesn't love. In her mind, misogyny is only a problem when it's directed at her.
• Femme Fatale: She's a smoking hot, worldly and very dangerous plotter, in spite of her flaws. In a hard-boiled detective novel, you'd be safe putting money on her having paid somebody else to have done it.
• Fille Fatale: In her early teens, she arranged her brother's entry into the Kingsguard in order to keep her lover entirely for herself.
• Food Slap: Cersei is fond of doing this to people who annoy her; Kevan Lannister gets a faceful of wine for refusing to be her crony, as well as dropping a few home truths that she's a lousy ruler and mother, and Tyrion recalls a childhood incident where he got the same when, after Cersei told him about a dwarf whore who apparently had sex with dogs and offered to find him a bitch in heat if he wanted to try, Tyrion asked if Cersei was referring to herself.
• Forgot About His Powers: As Queen Regent, she is effectively the main ruling power in Westeros until her son reaches adulthood. If she had ordered Ilyn Payne to stand down after Joffrey ordered Ned Stark's execution, then the War of the Five Kings might have been avoided. Her power also outclasses the Hand of the King, meaning she could have countermanded any decision made by Tyrion that she doesn't like or even strip him of the position. It's only after Joffrey and Tywin die and Tommen becomes king does she start abusing her position to do whatever she wants.
  • There are some important factors involved with this. She very likely did not know about the full power-set of a regent vs the much more limited one of a dowager queen (Cersei's education wasn't primarily in the whole of statecraft; just in "how to look awesome, be witty and trophy wife it as queen"): knowledge about your power is power. No maester could react in time to educate her on the spot. Contradicting Joffrey in public also held political risks for and messages about a new ruler, even if she were not habitually inclined to indulge her "bold boy" generally; terrorizing the sheep into shocked inaction is also a display power. Last, but not least, a instinctual lean towards revenge. Ned had threatened her son and her not that long ago. Visceral payback via Joffrey, just be a bit too slow to stop it. It's also entirely possible that Payne would have followed Joffrey's command anyway, because he was the King and Cersei was a woman, regardless of who was supposed to be have more power "officially".
• Formerly Fit: In A Feast for Crows, she starts to put on weight due to constant stress-drinking, to the point that several of her old gowns no longer fit. Of course, she assumes that the washerwomen must have shrunk them. Or because she became pregnant after her tryst with Jaime.
• Freudian Excuse:
  • Her twisted personality and fierce protectiveness of her children are partly the result of the prophecy she received as a child, and her vindictiveness comes from being the daughter of Tywin Lannister. Her bitterness and resentment stem from her father a) believing in the Stay in the Kitchen philosophy b) not fulfilling his promise to wed her to Rhaegar, and c) sending her into an Awful Wedded Life with Robert instead.
  • Since her own mother Joanna "ruled Tywin at home while Tywin ruled the Seven Kingdoms as Aerys's Hand", Joanna's death meant that she missed out on much-needed lessons on what Silk Hiding Steel really is.

G-M

• Generation Xerox: Tywin (quite likely) ordered the deaths of Elia Martell and her children in retaliation for Elia's marriage to Rhaegar. Sixteen years later, his daughter Cersei orders the deaths of Robert's bastards, which also results in the death of the mother of Barra.
• God Save Us from the Queen!: As soon as her father is no longer around to manage the power, Cersei rules cruelly with an iron fist, growing increasingly paranoid and stumbling from one folly to the next.
• Green-Eyed Monster: She has a particularly jealous personality, and especially resents men that exclude her from power, and women she envies for their youth and looks.
  • A great element of her incestuous relationship with Jaime is that she wants to be him. When as a child she sneaked in Jaime's clothes she witnessed her father's favoritism towards him, and resented to be only a little girl to be used as a political pawn, while her twin was the golden son and the heir of Casterly Rock;
  • She grows to be jealous of her daughter-in-law Margaery Tyrell as she is young, beautiful and popular among the court and smallfolk (thanks to her and her grandmother's good PR, while Cersei is terrible at that), and that's why Cersei fears she is the younger and more beautiful queen destined to overthrow her;
  • She's also jealous of Lyanna Stark because the men Cersei was set to marry cared more for Lyanna than her. While Cersei did not love Robert, she at least liked him enough to want to be loyal to him and to want his affection but Robert made the great affront of spurning her in favor of his late fiancee's memory, making their already ill-matched marriage even worse. Lyanna was also the object of Rhaegar Targaryen's affection, for whom Cersei harboured a powerful infatuation since childhood stoked by her father promising that she would marry the prince. Even in the present, Cersei broods over Lyanna ruining the realm and insults the memory of a girl she never even met.
• Half-Identical Twins: Cersei and Jaime are identical, apart from the sexual dysmorphism. They would Twin Switch as children. Even as adults their resemblance is striking. Bran says of them, "They looked as much alike as reflections in a mirror." This may have something to do with the fact that her mother and father are first cousins. Jaime thinks to himself that Cersei won't like the fact he looks less like her after growing a beard, or that Loras and Margaery Tyrell resemble each other even more closely than they do, despite not being twins.
• Hates Being Alone: An isolated case; Cersei oddly hates sleeping alone. When she was young she slept with Jaime until their budding sexual experimentation caused their mother to forcibly seperate them and afterwards she shared her bed with a number of different bedmaids and companions, mostly girls her age who were daughters of her father's lords and knights. She didn't like any of them and tended to have them replaced fairly quickly, but she still preferred company at night. In A Feast for Crows she takes Taena Merryweather as her bed companion, even sexually experimenting with her a bit, but mainly just to have someone in bed with her.
  An empty bed was a cold bed.
• Heel Realisation: A minor example and one that possibly didn't last beyond the moment, but during her Walk of Shame she has a Villainous BSoD that seems to include a realization of exactly how wrong her actions have been.
  This is my penance, Cersei told herself. I have sinned most grievously, this is my atonement.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: Her reinstatement of the Faith Militant and plot to remove Margaery backfires spectacularly. Two of her confidants of House Kettleblack get arrested for sleeping with her, she gets accused of murder (which she organised) of both her late husband and the High Septon that replaced the one killed in the second book, then detained by the Faith Militant, then forced through a Humiliation Conga and told that she will be stripped of power, regardless of the trial's outcome.
• Hidden Depths: It's subtle, but there are a few implications that Cersei may not feel as secure and confident in herself as she seems to be on the surface and that she may have self worth problems.
  Cersei's thoughts: Her father's eyes had always been unsettling; pale green, almost luminous, flecked with gold. His eyes could see inside you, could see how weak and worthless and ugly you were down deep. When he looked at you, you knew.
• Horrible Judge of Character:
  • Can find no wrong in Joffrey, despite him clearly being a sadistic little monster. Finds Tommen disappointing, despite him being infinitely kinder and nobler than Joffrey. Really screws up when she chooses a new Master of Ships for the small council in A Feast For Crows, selecting the young and handsome bastard Aurane Waters over a more experienced man, only for him to betray her and steal the entire fleet of ships she'd commissioned (at kingdom-crippling cost) in order to set himself up as a pirate prince the moment she is taken prisoner by the Faith.
  • Her paranoia against the Tyrells has been nicely ramped up... by her totally underestimating the feats that The Queen of Thorns is capable of.
  • The first good look we get of her is ranting how Ned Stark must be plotting against their family, because there's no other reason he would leave his "seat of power"; it's clear to everyone else, especially the reader, that Stark detests leaving his home and would never think of it as his "seat of power".
  • During her reign of terror in Feast, she gives positions of power to several men who haven't proven themselves to be loyal, trustworthy, experienced, or even capable of doing their jobs, including Harys Swyft (whom she makes her Hand of the King to use as a hostage and ensure her uncle Kevan's obedience), Aurane Waters (mentioned above), the Kettleblack brothers (sellswords who work for the highest bidder), and Orton Merryweather (who has no real qualifications for being on the Small Council, other than being married to Cersei's friend Taena). This comes back to bite her when she's imprisoned by the Faith for her crimes and none of them lift a finger to help her. In her absence, the Kettleblacks do nothing since she can't bribe them from her prison cell, Waters takes advantage of her imprisonment to abscond with the royal fleet, and Merryweather runs back to Longtable, taking his wife with him.
  • While her view of him isn't totally inaccurate, there's a lot about Jaime that Cersei either underestimates, disregards, or just plain doesn't understand; upon his return to King's Landing, she readily assumes that he'd kill Tyrion for poisoning Joffrey, despite Jaime loving Tyrion and having no solid proof that he killed Joffrey. She also thoroughly underestimates his capacity for change, seeing him as little more than her mirror image. By the time they reunite in A Storm of Swords, Jaime has grown to the point that Cersei barely recognizes him and she's totally blindsided by his willingness to question her.
  • She initially views her uncle Kevan as a Yes-Man who will be a perfect puppet Hand of the King for her, only to find out that Kevan only served Tywin, out of loyalty and admiration for his older brother, that he has no intention of being her unquestioning obedient toadie and will only accept becoming Hand of the King if she makes him regent and returns to Casterly Rock to avoid causing troubles, and that Kevan is Brutally Honest and has no issues telling to her face just how horrible of a mother and ruler she is and how disastrous her parenting of Joffrey has been. When he does give her honest advices on how to rule and to name Randyll Tarly or Matthis Rowan as her Hand, she only views it as him being mad or to be a traitor bought by Mace Tyrell. Later she believes that the reason why Kevan is angry with her is because she threw wine on him, ignoring that Kevan wouldn't hold something so petty against her. He has to spell it out to her that he's furious at her for having slept with Lancel.
• Hot-Blooded: The one thing she has in common with her husband, brother and eldest son. It doesn't go very well for her.
• Humiliation Conga: In A Dance With Dragons she is shaved all over, then forced to walk naked through King's Landing while spectators throw abuse and rubbish at her. She doesn't let it get to her until the very end.
• Hypocrite:
  • She claims she and Jaime are born to be together and possibly killed her childhood friend for wanting to marry him, yet has sex with many others, either for pleasure or persuasion (Robert doesn't count, because she didn't have a choice in it). While Jaime has slept with no one but her.
  • She despises Robert for being a drunk, yet later on she becomes an alcoholic herself and sees nothing wrong with her own drinking.
  • She criticizes men in general and Tyrion in particular for thinking with their penises, yet she names Aurane Waters (a young man with no experience) as Grand Admiral—thus giving him command of the royal fleet—because he kinda-sorta looks like Rhaegar, her childhood crush.
  • When Robert wants to bring one of his bastards to be raised at the Red Keep, Cersei threatens to have her killed if he does, while passing off her own three bastards as legitimate heirs to the throne.
  • Complains to anybody who will listen that she's just as good as (if not better than) her brothers, husband or father and shouldn't be pushed to the side thanks to being female, yet ignores her daughter in favor of her reigning son. Probably thanks to Myrcella not being able to giving Mummy a hold on power through a strong claim to the throne.
  • Speaking of which, she utterly detests Robert for (among other things) his Domestic Abuse, and often complains about the injustices and indignities she was expected to suffer under her lord husband, especially since she had no choice in marrying him. However, after Ned Stark is executed and Sansa is bound to her engagement to Joffrey against her will and is constantly beaten and terrorized by him, Cersei's answer is to basically tell Sansa to just grin and bear it.
  • How she treats Tommen after he becomes King. She berates and threatens him anytime he tries to show independence, and yet she also states that she dislikes Tommen for not being "strong" like Joffrey.
  • She resents Robert's Wrong-Name Outburst on their wedding night, even though she slept with Jaime that very morning and still resents not getting married to Rhaegar. The latter is a particular bit of irony, since while Jaime at least does love her back, her infatuation with Rhaegar almost exactly mirrors Robert's pining for Lyanna: Cersei didn't know much of Rhaegar beyond his handsome looks and musical talent, and yet she is certain that had she only married him, they would have been ideally happy (which at the same time doesn't stop her from sleeping with other people). The only difference between her case and Robert's is that Cersei was also attracted to Rhaegar's throne.
  • Doesn't want Tommen consorting with Loras, fearing he might catch the gay, yet never owns up to her incest and even experiments with another woman.
  • She accuses Margaery of having affairs with several men and even thinks that she might be sleeping with her brother Loras despite his homosexuality. While Margaery may or may not be guilty of these things, Cersei definitely is.
  • Speaking broadly, the thing about Cersei is that she's genuinely been the victim of horrible people, but she's also a horrible person.
• Ignorant of Their Own Ignorance: Everyone who knows Cersei knows that she's a bad mother, an unthoughtful lover, and an incompetent ruler, while she is convinced that she's an expert in these matters.
  • She truly believes that Jaime and their children are her top priority, but the truth is that she loves them partly because she considers them her property; a share of the love she has for Jaime (and Joffrey for that matter) is due to considering him the male version of herself, so as to live vicariously through him after her own life of powerlessness. She demonstrates that she is willing to put her own needs ahead of those of Jaime and their children.
  • She thinks the lack of respect she has received all her life, despite her status, is because she is a woman; instead, everyone from her relatives to Sansa knows that the reason no one respects Cersei is because she is utterly incompetent as a ruler.
• I Just Want to Be You: She resents the fact that she and Jaime, despite being "the same," were raised in different ways because of their gender and she received the short end of the stick. She also seems to think that if she were a man she would make a better Jaime than Jaime.
• Idiot Ball: While she does have a brain in her head, when given the Idiot Ball she tends to hug the damned thing for all it's worth. It, and/or the Villain Ball.
• Improperly Paranoid: She does indeed have many enemies. The problem is, she thinks everyone who isn't her loyal unquestioning toady is out to get her. And she's particularly obsessed with Tyrion, who she believes is destined to kill her; while the prophecy she heard as a child at least gives her a reason to be wary of him, she automatically assumes he's behind every bad thing that happens to her and provokes conflict with him to the point that she makes him into her enemy.
  • Poignantly underlined when Cersei is the lone POV to remark on sounds (read: Varys or his little birds) in the walls of the Red Keep, yet of any reaction she writes it off as probably nothing!
• Inadequate Inheritor: There are hints showing that Tywin tried to make Cersei the carrier of the family legacy mainly because he lost Jaime as an heir and he doesn't want Tyrion to be linked to anything Lannister-related. Cersei certainly thinks herself the carrier of the legacy until Tywin realizes just how unprepared she is to take the reins. According to her uncle Kevan, up until his assassination, Tywin intended to send Cersei back to the Rock where she wouldn't cause any more trouble.
  • A key aspect to this is Tywin shunting Cersei from all things political and military on account of her sex—certainly Tywin never expected to have no sons, so all the work he put into his legacy is undone by the one child he never disowned and never prepared.
• I Reject Your Reality: She will staunchly refuse to accept any truth that does not fit her twisted worldview.
  Tyrion's thoughts: It was astonishing to see how angry Cersei could wax over accusations she knew perfectly well to be true^note the accusations in question were from Stannis declaring her children to be bastards born of incest and adultery. If we lose the war, she ought to take up mummery, she has a gift for it.
  • There's a degree of situational Insane Troll Logic involved here, too. Even before she hits the drink. Take her reaction to Tyrion: because she thinks he's prophesied to end her, she fears and hates him... buuuut, because he's younger, uglier and Dad hates him, he's simultaneously not truly all that threatening. So, she bullies him mercilessly. Until he really is a major threat given real power as acting Hand; suddenly, she can't not see him in every shadow.
• Insistent Terminology: Cersei always refers to her daughter-in-law as Lady Margaery, never Queen Margaery. She doesn't like being reminded that she's not the only Queen of the Seven Kingdoms anymore.
• Irony: Despite her negative qualities, Cersei is brave, fierce, charming and passionate. Had she been born a man (like she wishes) she would resemble Jaime to some extent, sure... but, more so the man she hates most: Robert.
• It's All About Me:
  • She claims to love her children, twin and father, but her actions say otherwise. She's petty enough to never forgive her father for not giving her Rhaegar, uses her children as her claim to power and snaps at Jaime when he doesn't do as she pleases. As Cersei and Jaime are guilty of high treason, a major contributor in Cersei's selfishness is the fact that the twins created a situation where it is legitimately life and death for Cersei.
  • She also arranged for Jaime to enter the Kingsguard—this not only scorched her father's plans to marry Jaime off to the Tully's, but prevented Jaime from inheriting the richest and one of the most powerful House in the Seven Kingdoms — solely to keep him as a lover.
  • In the broader sense, Cersei really does think it's all about her. This is why she simply can't grasp the concept of an "ally", a powerful partner who works together with her for a mutual benefit; all power is hers, so anyone else who is trying to gain any power of their own to advance their own interests rather than hers can be nothing but an enemy. This is why she treats the Tyrells like enemies trying to destroy her whom she has to undermine at any cost, rather than the strongest allies of House Baratheon-Lannister whom she needs to keep sweet in order to survive.
• I Was Quite a Looker: Well, she still thinks she is, but during her naked walk of shame through the streets of King's Landing, she realizes that her beauty is beginning to fade due to age and the strain of bearing three children, not to mention from lots of drinking. She's still quite pretty, just not as striking as she thinks she is.
• Jerkass Has a Point: Cersei is a horrible human being but it turns out that even a stopped clock is right twice a day:
  • Warns Tyrion that Varys is playing both of them.
  • After spending some time with Mace, Kevan starts understanding why Cersei despises the Tyrells so much, though of course he also realizes how foolish Cersei throwing away all her power in order to be able to get petty revenge on them was.
  • She insists to Jaime that he should exert more influence with King Robert. While she points it out for a different reason, Jaime himself eventually realizes that he should have done that very thing much earlier in order to prevent the decay in quality in the office of the Kingsguard when Robert took office, as no one else could have.
  • Her "instructing" Sansa on how to be a Queen (and the inevitable consequences of the sack of King's Landing) might be mainly to torment Sansa, but she's undoubtedly telling the truth to somebody who's sometimes painfully naive.
  • When the High Sparrow is exalting the virtues of King Baelor, she remembers that Baelor imprisoned his own sisters in the name of preserving his virtue.
  • According to Stannis, Cersei spoke out against Ser Richard Horpe joining the Kingsguard, denying him a white cloak. As Horpe is a vicious Blood Knight, even Stannis thinks she was right to do it.
• Kick the Dog: Her specialty.
  • Forcing Sansa's pet direwolf killed in place of Arya's just so she can enjoy her bed with a brand new wolf-skinned blanket is one of the many most notably examples. And all this started because her son was mauled by Arya's direwolf, who was in defense of her master because Joffrey went Axe-Crazy on Arya, but Cersei refuses to listen to the truth and blames Arya and her friend, Mycah for "attacking" her "darling boy".
  • During the Battle of the Blackwater, three servants are caught trying to escape the castle. She orders them executed and their heads mounted on pikes outside the stables as a warning to anyone else thinking of attempting the same.
  • By the time of A Feast For Crows, she gives Qyburn a maid (who she suspects has been spying on her) to torture and experiment on. Then she starts turning over prisoners, enemies and Falyse Stokeworth when she becomes inconvenient.
  • When she hears about a puppet show being performed where a family of lions is eaten by a dragon, she orders that anyone who watches be fined half their wealth (if they have money) or lose an eye for watching treason (if they don't), then she has two of the puppeteers executed while the two remaining female puppeteers are given to Qyburn as his test subject.
• Kissing Cousins: Had an affair with her cousin Lancel, who was squire to the King.
• Lack of Empathy: Cersei has absolutely no regard for other people as anything more than existing for her benefit or being her enemies. The deaths of thousands from war and starvation, the devastating effects of war on the kingdom and the consequences of her own actions on those around her mean nothing to her.
• Lady Drunk: She seems to be on her way to becoming one.
• Lady Macbeth: To Jaime most prominently; every major accomplishment in his life was at her behest. Also to her lovers and husband, King Robert.
• Laser-Guided Karma: Sends her brother to cut off Arya Stark's hand because it's the traditional punishment for striking the Royal blood. The Kingslayer fails to find Arya Stark but later gets his hand cut off, the same one he used to kill Aerys II. This along with Brienne's presence is what helps Jaime rediscover his honor and morality which is one of the factors that pushes the twins apart. Cersei then tries to frame Queen Margaery for adultery, and ends up being imprisoned for her own fornications.
• Like Father, Like Son: Zig-zagged. Cersei appears to be a cunning Lannister like Tywin, and her pride, ruthlessness, and pettiness match his, but her acts as regent and her POV reveal that she utterly lacks her father's patience, judgement, or forethought.
• Love Is a Weakness: As she puts it:
  Cersei: (to Sansa) Love is poison. A sweet poison, yes, but it will kill you all the same.
• Love Is Like Religion: Cersei and Jaime have built a quasi-religious personal mythology around their relationship. The central metaphysical belief is "We are one person in two bodies," "I am not whole without you," and "I need my other half. You are me, I am you." They invoke imagery from the local mainstream religion, the Faith of the Seven, casting themselves in the roles of the gods the Maiden and the Warrior respectively. Their little pseudo-religion even has a prophesy: that they'll die together just as they were born together.
  Lancel: I pray for you, cousin. And for Her Grace the queen. May the Crone lead her to her wisdom and the Warrior defend her.
  Jaime: Why would Cersei need the Warrior? She has me.
• Maiden, Mother, and Crone: Of the three Baratheon wives, she is the Mother while Margaery is the Maiden and Selyse is the Crone.
• Maiden Name Debate: Apparently nobody ever has called her a Baratheon. Granted, in Westeros such things appear to depend on who's speaking (Cersei once refers to Catelyn as 'Catelyn Tully' in her narration, for example) and the huge weight behind Tywin's name and the fact that Cersei's husband is the one who most strongly considered her 'a Lannister woman' do contribute to favoring her maiden name. It seems common for highborn and married Westerosi women to invoke their birth names on occasion, or have them invoked on their behalf, if their birth families have sufficient clout. It's however taken a step further in Cersei's case, as the royal banner is combined from her and Robert's respective Houses', not his, solidifying the input of her family name into the marriage.
  • This appears to be a royal custom. All Queens that were not Targaryens did not change their maiden names (Alicent Hightower, Alyssa Velaryon, Aemma Arryn, Myriah Martell, Daenaera Velaryon and Dyanna Dayne). This seems to be for pointing out that they are royal consorts and not "Targaryens" proper (or Baratheons, for that matter), just as Margaery Tyrell and Selyse Florent are not subject to being called Baratheons because they simply are not. One thing is the Royal Family name and another is the other family names, which are beneath it.
• Mama Bear: Her love for her children is one of her few redeeming features. Alas, even that goes overboard. Cersei often recalls an incident when Robert struck his son over "some nonsense over a cat." The nonsense was that the cat was pregnant and Joffrey wanted to see the unborn kittens, so he slit the cat open to dig them out. She threatens to kill Robert, the king, in his sleep if he ever touches Joffrey again. Her uncle Kevan even tells her point-blank that she made a complete hash of raising Joffrey.
  • Cersei's parenting is modeled on Tywin's own: treating his children as political pawns with no individual desires beyond empowerment of House Lannister and glory of Tywin as ruler. Cersei ultimately plays the same game with the similarly disastrous results.
• Manipulative Bitch: Since she can't fight on the field or rule directly, Cersei's arsenal involves manipulation, spies and misdirection, often using her beauty and sexuality or promising riches to those who do her bidding. A Clash of Kings has many instances of her and Tyrion trying to outwit each other.
• Meaningful Echo: We're told how every time Targaryens wed brother and sister, the gods flip a coin on how insane that kid will be. Seeing as herself and Jaime are noted to be two sides of the same coin, it makes a lot more sense as to how insane Joffrey ends up being.
• Meaningful Name: "Cersei" is a homophone in a bastardised way of "Circe" (pronounced in Greek more as 'Kirke') a sorceress famous for turning men into beasts, including most famously swine.
• Might Makes Right: Subscribes to Machiavelli's "being feared is better than being loved" philosophy, using her position as queen to get her enemies killed left and right. However, she forgets the second part of it: "...but being hated is worse than being feared". When she murders innocent people, including Robert's bastard children and the High Septon, she earns the enmity of the smallfolk and the Faith, which eventually results in the Sparrows imprisoning her for crimes of incest and adultery and she is forced to walk naked from the Great Sept to the Red Keep through a jeering crowd who throw garbage at her every step of the way.
• The Millstone: She doesn't start off as one, but as the books progress, her inadequacies start to pile up and drag everybody around her into a downwards spiral, as well as greatly undermining house Lannister's power and political regime. Her paranoid attempts to get rid of Margaery and the Tyrells, despite the Lannisters' reliance on them to win the war and remain in power, her rearmament of the Faith of the Seven, her appointment of incompetent and sycophantic advisors on the Small Council, her interruption of the Iron Bank's payments and following slighting of them lead to her imprisonment and Walk of Shame and house Lannister being in a precarious position by the end of "A Dance With Dragons", with Kevan struggling to maintain the alliance and repair the ties with the Tyrells, the Seven Kingdoms knowing economic chaos with the Iron Bank refusing to do any new loan in the Seven Kingdoms until its paid back and supporting Stannis, and the other banks from Essos refusing to grant them any loan either, and the Faith Militant being a direct threat to her house and the royal power.
• My Beloved Smother: Partly why Joffrey turned out the way he did, as noted by multiple characters. Later, she's so determined to protect Tommen from the tricks and wiles of his new wife that she tries to prevent practically anyone having access to him at all. Myrcella's probably lucky that her mother favors the boys.

N-Z

• Narcissist: Cersei fits every criteria for this label: She is extremely prideful, entitled and fervently believes in her own superiority to everyone around her, she is completely self-absorbed, she is obsessed with her image, she is utterly incapable of accepting any kind of criticism or perceived slight against her character, she never takes responsibility for her mistakes, she is ruthlessly focused on getting more power, she has absolutely no empathy and her relationships are all almost entirely one-sided and she sees others as existing for her benefit or as her enemies.
• Never a Self-Made Woman: The fact that Cersei has no power that is truly her own is occasionally brought up during the series. Her wealth and authority as a Lannister comes from her father, her power as Queen Consort comes from her husband, and her power as Queen Regent comes from her sons and will be taken from her as soon as they reach adulthood.
  Petyr Baelish: [Cersei's] strength rests on her beauty, birth, and riches. Only the first of those is truly her own, and it will soon desert her. I pity her then.
• Never My Fault: She rationalizes nearly every cruel thing she does by saying that either her victims deserved it or she's just trying to protect herself and her children. If something goes wrong, she always puts the blame on someone else. This is most prominent when she orders Qyburn to torture the Blue Bard, a minstrel in Margaery's circle. Despite being sickened by the violence, she blames it on Margaery for forcing her to torture a helpless man.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Cersei's motives in convincing Jaime to join the Kingsguard were purely selfish, but it ended up putting Jaime in the right place at the right time to prevent Aerys's final stroke of madness, preventing King's Landing from going up in a blaze of wildfire.
• No Historical Figures Were Harmed:
  • Margaret of Anjou. A beautiful, ruthless and ambitious queen, whose fierce desire to rule the realm of England paved the way for disaster. She was wife to an ineffective king, her son was a cruel boy of questionable descent, and her tumultuous relationship with her husband's right hand man helped draw their Feuding Families into a bloody civil war (The War of the Five Kings/War of the Roses). She eventually becomes the leader of her respective faction, the Lancasters; although, Margaret actually commands her army and participates in battle at some point. After the death of her son and a devastating defeat, she is held in captivity and effectively declawed, although Cersei actually has a way out of this predicament.
  • Isabella of France, daughter of King Philip IV "the Fair" of France (who incidentally is one of the inspiration for Tywin Lannister), she was married off to Edward II King of England. Isabella was soon trapped in an unhappy marriage as she was constantly humiliated by the king's favorites, who were also granted a higher position at court than Isabella herself. For both queens, the actions of their husbands lead to disdain towards them and as result both queens eventually look lovers and plotted against their terrible spouses. Isabella had an affair with English nobleman Roger Mortimer and together they have King Edward disposed from the throne and assumed power of her son Edward III due to his young age, but their Regent for Life plans were thrown off a cliff as soon as Edward III grew up, who wanting to avoid the same fate as his father, executed Roger Mortimer and exiled his mother Isabella. Incidentally Isabella was the instigator of the Tour de Nesle Affair, a scandal among the French royal family in 1314, during which the three daughters-in-law of King Philip IV of France were accused of adultery, which inspired the "Fawlty Towers" Plot (of framing Margaery Tyrell and her cousins for adultery) schemed by Cersei in A Feast for Crows.
  • Queen Ælfthryth of England. Both are famous for, at one point, being the World's Most Beautiful Woman and the wives of Kings known for licentious behavior. Aelfthryth is believed to have played a part in poisoning her step-son Edward to pave the way for her son Aethelred to become King, not unlike Cersei's treatment of Robert's bastards. Both women served as Queen Regents when their sons were too young to rule and had domineering presences through their child's reign despite their poor advising (to the point that Aethelred is known to history as "the Unready", meaning "ill-advised").
• No Sympathy: When the High Sparrow is confronting her about the various atrocities committed by Lannister soldiers in the War of Five Kings, he brings up the sack of Saltpans during which a young girl was savagely raped by "Sandor Clegane" (actually Rorge wearing his helmet) and had her nose and nipples cut off. Cersei is less horrified and more irritated that the High Sparrow holds the Lannisters responsible for the crime of a soldier who left their service.
• Not Me This Time:
  • She is widely believed to have killed Jon Arryn. When Cersei is asked by Tyrion about it, she denies it point-blank. It is later revealed, that despite all the other killings and murders she is involved in, Jon Arryn was actually killed by Lysa Arryn at Littlefinger's instigation.
  • Tyrion is certain she commanded Mandon Moore to have him killed. Not at all unreasonable, but at no point after becoming a POV character does Cersei recall doing so, suggesting it actually wasn't her. The TV series even goes with the idea that it was Joffrey instead.
• Not So Above It All:
  • She is utterly terrified at losing Tommen the same way she lost Joffrey. At one instance, it leaves her a lump of tears.
  • Her whole character arc is an example of the trope. At the beginning, it's shown that she is a player in the game of thrones; later in the story, it becomes clear that she's just another pawn of greater and more capable forces.
• "Not So Different" Remark: The text has lately been drawing comparisons between her and her husband. She's not winning. She turns to be as terrible ruler as he was (if not worse), almost as much of a heavy drinker (despite constantly scorning Robert for a sot), and while her cheating on her husband could be excused (considering what he was), she eventually starts cheating on the man she loves as well. And unlike said husband (who knew he was poor ruler but was too lazy and depressed to do anything about it), she lacks any self-awareness.
• Obnoxious In-Laws: Cersei's relationships with her in-laws are about as functional as with her actual relatives.
  • She hates her new daughter-in-law Margaery Tyrell, and the feeling turns out to be mutual.
  • Her loathing extends to the Tyrells as a whole, but besides Margaery, she seems to personally hate Mace and Olenna. Admittedly, The Queen Of Thorns while awesome is a tad difficult socially (and crossed Cersei on several occasions) and Mace is thought to be obnoxious even by the much better mentally balanced Kevan.
  • She didn't seem to be particularly fond of Stannis and Renly as well, even before they went on war with her, associating Renly with mockery and Stannis with teeth-grinding.
  • The Starks ultimately didn't become her family-in-law, but those who had relationships with her could tell a tale, especially Sansa. Ordering your future daughter-in-law's beloved pet direwolf killed doesn't exactly make for great family memories. Though it wouldn't be until after her father's death that Sansa would finally see Cersei for the awful woman she truly is.
• Older Than They Look: She's in her 30s during the Battle of the Blackwater, but Sansa describes her as looking "maidenly", i.e. a never-been-married girl or very young woman.
• One Bad Mother: She becomes Queen Mother once Robert dies and Joffrey inherits. She isn't particularly fond of it, as being a Queen Mother and/or a Dowager strips her of all power in all but name. Her main conflict with Margaery stems in the fact that they both are queens.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: There's a moment in the second book when she actually takes a second to thank Tyrion for all of his hard work and even gives him a kiss on the cheek. He takes about sixteen seconds to enjoy it before immediately flying into a panic and sending spies out to find out what horrible thing she's plotting to do to him now. This is proved to be in no way an overreaction.
• Open Secret: By A Clash of Kings, pretty much all of Westeros is aware (or at least suspects) that her "Baratheon" children are the result of an incestuous affair with her own brother. Not helping is the fact that all three of them are blond with green eyes, like Cersei herself and her twin, while trueborn Baratheons always have black hair and blue eyes.
• The Paranoiac: Cersei believes that her younger brother Tyrion is behind every bad thing that ever happens to her and is prophesied to murder her, and murdered her "best friend" to conceal this "fact", and thought it was bold of herself. She is proud of her son Joffrey because he acts like a psychopath, and ashamed of her son Tommen because he isn't and whom she therefore views as weak. In later books she starts seeing conspiracies everywhere and stupidly recruits the local fundamentalists to her cause in order to better control the kingdom and enforce her will, only to predictably be turned on by them as they recognize her for the lunatic she is. The only person she trusts is her twin brother Jaime and she ends up repelling even him with her arrogant, callous, and paranoid behavior.
• The Peter Principle: As a scheming support of others' long-term plans, she's actually pretty good. In charge as a ruling queen? Not so much.
• Pet the Dog: She tells Joffrey to stop beating Sansa because it's improper for a king to strike a woman. Unfortunately Joffrey just loopholes the rule by having the Kingsguard beat her instead, but it's one of the only times in the series Cersei does something genuinely altruistic. It's also likely that this one standard she has came as a result of Robert's Domestic Abuse towards her.
• Poor Communication Kills: The Lannister twins spend most of A Feast for Crows having a falling out due to their inability/unwillingness to communicate properly. This is a plot device (they can't communicate properly because it would break the plot if they did) — but it's also a Justified Trope for these two. Their entire relationship is premised on the idea of "one soul in two bodies". Within that belief system, it logically follows that if you're me, I shouldn't have to explain my feelings to you, you should just implicitly get it. The Lannister twins aren't merely incompetently bad at communication, they're in some ways willfully bad at it. Communicating properly would mean admitting they're actually two different people and they don't have Twin Telepathy, and that would be sacrilege.
• Pragmatic Pansexuality: Cersei sleeps with some of her underlings to gain more control over them. This mostly includes men, but also the Lady Taena Merryweather. However, Cersei specifically thinks that she is not attracted to Lady Taena and isn't getting any pleasure from sleeping with her, so she is most likely fully hetrosexual.
• Pride Before a Fall: After she loses her regency.
• Properly Paranoid: Zig-zagged. Cersei is utterly paranoid, to the point of regarding nearly everyone as an actual or potential threat. However, this is Westeros: as often as not, Cersei's paranoia and amorality allow her to get the drop on her enemies before they can properly deal with her. The only problem is that her paranoia (and her odious personality) creates as many enemies as it neutralizes, and seems to have finally backfired on her. A serious inversion of this trope comes after Tywin's death; when things start going wrong or backfiring, she's quick to blame Tyrion for all of it, even though several people point out that the possibility of him being behind any of it is slim at best.
  • In particular, she's right to fear that the Tyrells are trying to use Margaery's influence as the future Queen over Joffrey and later Tommen to expand their own power within Westeros at her expense, as it's basically exactly what she had already done with Robert before the war. The way she goes about handling that situation, however, is singularly counterproductive.
• Proud Beauty: Is well aware of her status as the World's Most Beautiful Woman, and what she can do with it. Her pride on this issue is highlighted in her fear of the prophesied "another, younger and more beautiful" that will take her place, which emphasizes how much she cares about her own beauty and power.
• Psychological Projection:
  • Cersei believes Margaery Tyrell is guilty of things Cersei herself has committed, namely scheming, manipulation, incest, and adultery.
  • When Littlefinger suggests fighting fire with fire to counter Stannis' charge of Joffrey being illegitimate, Cersei immediately begins listing potential candidates amongst Selyse's relatives. At the same time that it implies Cersei's incompetence (relying on a No, You rumor), there's the implication that her first thought when considering an illicit lover is to look within one's family.
• Psychopathic Manchild: Beneath her beauty and the High Queen facade she uses in public, Cersei is an extremely immature, petty, entitled, spoiled and vindicative person who feels like she's owed the world and deserves to be queen and rules the Seven Kingdoms due to her family status, of her beauty, and of her frustrations over being born a female and of not having had the life and activities Jaime had upon growing up, and of not having been married to Rhaegar as she dreamed. She's willing to bully, persecute, maim or kill people over minor or even imaginary slights or just out of paranoia, can't take criticisms or take responsability for her actions, views the world in an extreme Black-and-White Insanity and With Us or Against Us mindset, and constantly throws temper tantrums sometimes under the form of throwing food or water or wine or smash objects when things don't go her way. She's basically a Spoiled Brat and schoolyard bully in an adult woman body.
• Questionable Consent: She invokes it during her fling with Taena, wondering how it would feel to be the 'man' in the intercourse for once, and outright comparing it with her nights with Robert. The other woman claims she's enjoyed the experience, but it's not known if she really did or just was smart enough to act so.
• Really Gets Around: Cersei literally sees sex as a weapon she can use to defend or support herself. Meaning, Cersei will usually resort to screwing her way out of a jam when diplomatic persuasion becomes too time consuming. Tyrion eventually lampshades this when he becomes frustrated with Jaime, who thinks Cersei is completely faithful to him. Despite what she claims, she also sleeps around just because she wants to.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Yes and no. She thinks of herself as a female counterpart to her father, and while both Tywin and Cersei are united in their goals such as Lannister superiority and in their methods such as violent domination, father and daughter have totally different styles of going about achieving said goals and employing said methods. Tywin maintains a controlled mask of restraint and learnt to foster stability within his coalition, while Cersei pompously lacks restraint and alienates allies on whims. Both are hypocrites with self-serving memories, however, and under pressure both Tywin and Cersei escalate to the point of self-sabotage: Tywin's Red Wedding has primed the riverlands for another rebellion to erupt under Jaime not to mention the grudges he earned from the Martells, while Cersei's rearmament of the faith and snubbing of the iron bank began funding armies not under Lannister or crown pay. Both Cersei and Tywin are demons, with differences in education, experience, and presentation.
  Jaime's thoughts: Their father had been as relentless and implacable as a glacier, where Cersei was all wildfire.
• Regent for Life: She seems determined to stay in power even when her son/young King grows up, but it isn't quite working out.
• Replacement Goldfish: Invoked, but averted. She feared becoming Robert's substitute for Lyanna, but ultimately that didn't happen.
• The Resenter: She's made quite a list.
  Cersei's narration: I waited, and so can [Tommen]. 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.
• Sadist: Another thing Joffrey inherited from her in even worse. While not as bloodthirsty and openly sadistic as Joffrey, Cersei does take pleasure in abusing her power and inflicting pain and misery on others, having already threatened a maid with mutilation and twisted Tyrion's penis just to inflict pain on him as a young girl, psychologically abusing and tormenting Sansa Stark during her captivity, and visiting Margaery Tyrell in prison just to gloat and mock her for her imprisonment.
• Sanity Has Advantages: Not that Cersei has figured it out yet.
• Sanity Slippage: Following Joffrey's death, Cersei gradually becomes more and more paranoid and cruel, believing that everybody is conspiring against her. Her father's death and Tyrion's escape only make things worse.
• Screw Destiny: Her attempts against Tyrion are meant to avert the prophecy she so fears, but her paranoia about it makes it more of a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy.
• Screw the Rules, I'm Beautiful!: Deconstructed, like everything else about Cersei. She's always been a stunner, and she knows how to use it. Trouble is, it can only get her so far, and she never seems to realize how far it can actually get her. It certainly doesn't work on everybody, those it does work on don't always prove the safest tools to use, and it crashes headlong into Stay in the Kitchen, whatever she tries. Worse, she's terrified she's losing even this tool as she ages...
• Screw Yourself: It is rather heavily implied that her attraction to Jaime stems from the fact that he is the closest she can get to actually realizing this trope. Jaime notes at one point that she will probably get upset by seeing him with a beard, as it makes him look less like her.
• Scrubbing Off the Trauma: After her naked walk of shame through King's Landing and her return to the Red Keep, she reportedly spends a third of her time in the bath, scrubbing herself vigorously with horsehair brushes and strong lye soap.
  Kevan: She will never wash the stain away, no matter how hard she scrubs.
• Secret Relationship: As the queen, she can't afford to have her affairs become public. She sleeps with one of the Kettleblacks and her cousin Lancel to further her own ends, but her biggest secret is her incestuous relationship with her brother Jaime. That's also the only relationship she seems to value (though even this is debatable), but things between them go sour.
• Selective Obliviousness:
  • The main reason even her Mama Bear tendencies don't do much to redeem her. She adores Joffrey beyond any reasonable measure, making excuses for even his most appalling atrocities and never admitting he has any faults other than being "willful". She's also bizarrely disappointed with her far more admirable and gentle younger son Tommen, considering him "weak" and criticizing him for it, but also punishing him for standing up to her.
  • She hates Tyrion even when it's evident that he is trying to save her and King's Landing from Stannis's attack. She sees nothing but fault on Tyrion for reasons beyond his control and tries to hurt him at every opportunity she has.
• Self-Fulfilling Prophecy:
  • Her attempts to Screw Destiny about the prophecy she received when she was young only seem to bring it closer. Her disastrous parenting of Joffrey which turned him into the monstruous sadistic brat he is, is largely what caused his death as Olenna Tyrell poisoned Joffrey to save her granddaughter from his eventual abuse. Also with her identifying Tyrion as the Valonqar, seeing him only as an enemy to get rid of, her constant antagonism and attempts to eliminate or spite him even when he does try to help her and their family eventually fully alienate Tyrion and turn him into her enemy for real after she pushes him too far, causing him to swear vengeance on her.
  • Her performance as a ruler is implied to be this to some degree. While she demonstrated some talent to scheme and she is a Lannister, so it's even more safe to assume that she has some, she was never taught how to use it, as she was kept out of "manly business" like most women in Westeros's patriarchal society. Cue Cersei finally coming to power with her lack of preparation for ruling making her incompetent, and the years of resentment about being looked down at causing her to becoming paranoid and unable to trust or even listen to any person offering her sensible advice.
• Self-Serving Memory:
  • As part of her Never My Fault portfolio. In A Feast for Crows, she rants about how she made Sansa part of her own household, fed and clothed her, and had her "kindness" thrown back in her face when Sansa supposedly helped poison Joffrey. She conveniently forgets that she 1) engineered the death of Sansa's beloved wolf, 2) allowed her son to have Sansa's father killed, 3) then told the girl to endure regular beatings and humiliation by him, her, and the Kingsguard and smile, and 4) that she doesn't have any concrete proof that Sansa was behind the poisoning at all.
  • During her naked walk of shame through King's Landing, she starts to see every child in the crowd as Tyrion jeering at her "as he jeered when Joffrey died", even though he did no such thing and his actual reaction was Stunned Silence.
• Sensei for Scoundrels: Tries to act as this for Sansa, though likely it's also an excuse for her to vent over how life sucks when you're female in No Woman's Land.
• Seven Deadly Sins: Symbolically embodied in her clash with the Holy Faith of the Seven:
  • Pride: charged with usurpation, regicide, and deicide; of which all she is guilty.
  • Envy: her fued with Margaery Tyrell over Tommen "Baratheon", which is known even in as far as Dorne.
  • Wrath: sets an infamous bounty on Tyrion Lannister's head which leads to the murder of perhaps a dozen or more dwarves/children; often decrees brutal punishments, including turning over women to Qyburn.
  • Sloth: initiates no action regarding Red Wedding backlash, the Lords Declarant in the Vale, Stannis Baratheon in the North, nor the Ironborn succession crisis, which she further refuses to address even when the Reach is raided by the thousands.
  • Greed: defers on payments to the Iron Bank and the Holy Faith, using the monies to finance a new fleet; buys many new gowns and a new crown during her rule; known to head the "Smallest Council" after she crafts a sycophant council and expells the Tyrells as advisors, even other Lannisters such as Kevan and Jaime.
  • Gluttony: constant wine and often feasting contributes to notable weight gain.
  • Lust: charged with fornication; of which she is only truly guilty with Jaime Lannister, Lancel Lannister, and Osney Kettleblack. Then there is the whole Aurane Waters thing...
• Shadow Archetype: She embodies traits present in her hostage, Sansa, such as great beauty and powerlessness largely due to her gender. However, they are portrayed from a far darker angle in Cersei's case.
• Shame If Something Happened: When Robert threatened to bring his bastard daughter Mya Stone to be raised at court after an argument between him and Cersei over Joffrey, Cersei opined that Robert might find "the city is not a healthy place for a growing girl". Though Robert hit Cersei for that remark, he ultimately backed down because he knew Cersei wasn't making empty threats.
• Shameful Strip: The Faith demands Cersei perform a walk of penance, sheared and naked, through the streets of King's Landing before her trial by champion.
• Silk Hiding Steel: Cersei, the beautiful queen, is even more ruthless, brutal and power-hungry than most of the high lords of the realm, but she usually maintains a cold, dignified and ladylike facade in public.
• Single-Target Sexuality: When we learn Jaime is hyper-monogamous for Cersei, it implies the inverse is true too with their insistence that they are "one soul in two bodies". It's subverted when we find out Cersei is sleeping with all manner of people for political purposes (though she notes she only enjoys it with Jaime), and that she still pines for Rhaegar Targaryen and comes to lust after Aurane Waters as his Replacement Goldfish.
• Sleeps with Everyone but You:
  • Tyrion complains, at one point, that he's about the only guy she won't sleep with, and that it's totally unfair that she'll "open her legs for one brother and not the other." He doesn't actually want to sleep with her; he's just bitching about his own status within the family.
  • Jaime feels this in A Feast for Crows especially after Tyrion's revelation, that "She's been fucking Lancel, Osmund Kettleblack, and Moon Boy for all I know." and when Cersei spurns and insults him and his "stump" constantly. Eventually, he abandons her when she cries to him for help.
• Small Name, Big Ego: Her overconfidence in her own abilities as a ruler is Played for Drama, with suitably horrific consequences. Cersei actually has one of the biggest names in the entire Seven Kingdoms and yet still fits this trope to a T, which should tell you exactly how phenomenally arrogant and cringingly inept she really is. She even thinks that in a thousand years time she'll become so legendary that her famous father Tywin will only be remembered for being her sire.
• Smitten Teenage Girl: She fell instantly for the charming, melancholic Rhaegar Targaryen and even took to drawing pictures of her and Rhaegar flying dragons. Even now, she still hasn't completely gotten over it, often wondering how things would have been for her and the kingdom, had Aerys agreed to the match Tywin proposed. She also notes one other reason she hates Robert (aside from their Awful Wedded Life) is because he killed Rhaegar in battle.
• Smug Snake: Shown clearly in her POV chapters. She thinks she was born to rule, but while she's good at plotting, backstabbing and treachery, as a ruler she's extremely incompetent. Even in the former three activities, she also eventually proves to be outmatched by individuals with a better grasp of long-term consequences.
• The Social Darwinist: Her philosophy in the game of thrones boils down to "backstab the other players in the most underhanded fashion possible before they inevitably do the same to you". Summed up in this conversation with her son, talking about his cats.
  Tommen: Ser Pounce caught a mouse, but Lady Whiskers stole it from him.
  Cersei: Ser Pounce must learn to defend his rights. In this world, the weak are always the victims of the strong.
• Stepford Snarker: Like all good little lions, Cersei can battle with words. But, in her case, they seem to come from her intense bitterness and dissatisfaction (not to mention her fear of the aforementioned prophecy) and comes across as both armor and as a weapon to get even with.
• Stupid Evil: While not without wits and cunning, Cersei is so arrogant, paranoid, and short-sighted that she makes very catastrophic decisions and drives herself and her house into the ground. Without anyone to keep her in check in "A Feast For Crows" she keeps shooting herself and her regime in the foot with her actions that undermine and eliminate House Tyrell, despite how the Lannisters need them and their bannermen to stay in power, alienating her true allies; then she spurns the Iron Bank of Braavos, re-arms the Faith Militant, builds a fleet for a random dockside bastard who was comely to steal and become a pirate king, and finally gets herself arrested and humiliated after a hare-brained ploy to destroy Margaery Tyrell. Of all her schemes, the only one to truly pay off was her patronage of Qyburn. How she will use the unbeatable Ser Robert Strong, we'll have to see...
  • This all seems to be part of the overarching theme of irony with Cersei: in her narcissism she thinks higher and higher of herself with each disastrous step, culminating in her becoming the victim of the very scheme she masterminded for her enemy. Not only is the irony here that her ego inflates in proportion to the self-destructiveness of her actions, but she is the primary actor leading the implosion of House Lannister; of Tywin's children, the one doing the most to destroy his legacy is the one child he never disowned and never educated.
    Jaime: I love you too, sweet sister. But you're a fool. A beautiful golden fool.
• Surrounded by Idiots: She laments this, unaware that the reason why is she's driven away or ignored everyone who could give her good advice. By the middle of A Feast for Crows she seems to have forgotten that she intentionally replaced the entire council with her own people, several specifically chosen for being easily manipulated fools, and she blames them for everything.
• The Svengali: Towards Sansa Stark. Cersei sees herself as somewhat a mentor to Sansa in the ways of appearing before court and being a good consort to her king; the only problem is that Cersei thinks that her own example is something to be followed... she's even proud of herself.
• Sympathetic P.O.V.: Averted; readers finally get a glimpse inside her head in A Feast For Crows, but she remains as villainous as ever. She is one degree lower in cunning than it initially seemed from AGOT. One could even say it is actually an Inverted Trope: her POV makes her come across as more pathetic and less sympathetic.
  • Whether premeditated or opportunistic, this seems intentionally invoked by GRRM: for two books Cersei is framed as the antagonist against Ned and Tyrion — who both fail to notice the larger schemes of Petyr and Varys that cause such conditions — so readers are already emotionally primed to lack sympathy. But, GRRM goes further by finishing the third book and starting the fourth with everything going wrong at once for Cersei: her firstborn was assassinated, she and Jaime have started their estrangement, and now she learns her father is assassinated too. Not only that, but "another, younger and more beautiful" girl has already made her a dowager and no doubt is a rivalling power for the crown, and she learns that her suspected valonqar is escaped. For these two aspects the reader only gains the context much later, so Cersei's overblown paranoia and towering bloodthirst is all the more striking. To top it off, GRRM has hinted here and there but never outright confirmed that Tywin's failure to tutor Cersei is a foremost factor as to her incompetence as a ruler; this can easily slip by anyone not paying careful attention to a woman who is already so odious. Altogether, the result is entering the psyche of a character we have every reason (accurate or not) to hate, at a moment when she hits her lowest point yet and with little to no context to fully understand her worst attributes. And this is to start the self-destructing downward spiral. There is very good reason why Cersei, though not without her own dedicated fans, can appear so universally hated.
• Tantrum Throwing: When Cersei is seized, stripped and imprisoned by the Faith she literally chucks a temper tantrum, tearing the shift they gave her to wear into shreds and throwing the ewer of water and chamber pot in her cell to shatter against the wall. When these bold acts roundly fail to improve her situation, she's forced to sit in her cell cold, naked and thirsty, and to relieve herself on the floor when nature calls.
• Til Murder Do Us Part: She gets Robert killed by having Lancel give him spiked strongwine before he goes on a hunt, making him so drunk that he gets ripped open by the tusks of the boar he's fighting.
• Too Clever by Half: Runs in the family. Cersei does have some smarts and a talent for plotting, but she lacks common sense and mental stability. So while she proves to be dangerous, she ultimately is dangerous for herself as well and ends up imprisoned.
• Toxic Friend Influence: Jaime's life might well have been a lot less eventful if she hadn't been born his sister. Not to mention Tyrion's. And, should Cersei ever suggest going to have your palm read, the wise choice is to back out.
• Trauma Button: After seeing Joffrey choke to death on poisoned wine at his own wedding feast, she nearly has a heart attack at Tommen's wedding when he drinks his wine too fast and starts to cough.
• Traumatic Haircut: The Faith Militant shave her entire body as part of her Humiliation Conga.
• Troubling Unchildlike Behavior: She began an incestuous relationship with her own twin at the age of nine, threatened to have a wet nurse's tongue cut out if she wasn't allowed into baby Tyrion's nursery, and by the time she was a teen, it's strongly implied she murdered her best friend Melara Hetherspoon by pushing her down a well, partly because Melara had a crush on Jaime, partly because she suggested that as long as nobody speaks about the prophecy, it wouldn't come true.
• Twincest: Exaggerated Trope. Cersei and Jaime have a lifelong Secret Relationship that dates back to childhood, carried through to adulthood, and is a marriage in all but name. The most interesting thing about their relationship is the personal mythology they've constructed around it, making it more than a marriage, almost a religion.
• Twin Desynch: This is a huge theme between Jaime and Cersei, and it's played with in multiple ways.
  • They were never that alike. Jaime and Cersei have always believed they're super alike — "one person in two bodies." Jaime is convinced that "If I were a woman, I would be Cersei," and Cersei likewise thinks, "If I were a man, I'd be Jaime." But as the books unfold, it becomes increasingly clear that they were never actually as alike as they thought. A Feast of Crows contains both Jaime and Cersei's perspectives, and it reveals that Jaime never really entertains the thought of being a woman like Cersei, and subscribes to the belief only insofar as it justifies and fuels his attraction for his twin sister. Cersei is a Female Misogynist who is extremely jealous and resentful of not being born a man like Jaime, as well as believing that she’s really the superior twin, especially after Jaime starts calling out her foolish decisions.
  • They grow apart — in parallel ways. After the time spent apart while Jaime's captive during the war, he and Cersei both change in contrasting ways, and this is alarming to the pair of them. Ironically, though, even as they grow apart, it's in oddly parallel ways. Each is nursing a profound loss: Jaime's loss of a hand, and Cersei's loss of a son. Each wants their twin to see and acknowledge this loss to a greater extent than they are. Each has the same proposed remedy for their twin's loss: a replacement. Cersei has a prosthetic hand made for Jaime, and Jaime proposes he and Cersei have another son. A cool prosthetic and a new baby can both be something great in their own right, but neither can ever replace what was lost. Both are keenly aware of this in terms of what's being offered to them, but oblivious of the shortcomings of what they're offering the other.
• Twin Switch: As Half-Identical Twins, the only visual difference between Cersei and Jaime is the sexual dimorphism. As prepubescent children they would switch places and no one would be the wiser.
  Cersei: When we were little, Jaime and I were so much alike that even our lord father could not tell us apart. Sometimes as a lark we would dress in each other's clothes and spend a whole day each as the other.
• The Unfettered: Especially in the second half of her AFFC arc (Cersei VI–X) where she is the only Lannister authority in the capitol. Cersei's main goal in life has been to accumulate as much power as possible for herself (and House Lannister by extension); though she marries the ascendant King Robert to become queen consort, once she assassinates him she then refuses to simply be queen dowager and names herself queen regent. Her regency under Joffrey begins with her sole leadership before Tyrion then Tywin fulfil their roles as Hand and stabilise the regime — after their defection and death, with Kevan refusing to help, Jaime is the only remaining voice that is not sycophantic. After Cersei rids herself of even Jaime, her regency very quickly accelerates to destruction, leaving the Lannisters "a spent force" and dragging down the Tyrells with them.
• Ungrateful Bitch: Toward Pycelle, who had served her and her family loyally for years, kept her and Jaime's secret, and keeps trying to give her good and useful advice at the beginning of her rule despite her catastrophic decisions, only for her to ignore, bully and humiliate him in favor of Qyburn and other incompetent and syncophants because they tell her what she wants to hear rather than what she needs to hear. Her abuse causes Pycelle to abandon her once she's imprisoned and to call Kevan back to King's Landing to undo the damage she has done.
• Unstable Powered Woman: One of the core examinations provided by the character that is Cersei Lannister. Her ambition and drive brought her all the way to the regency; but her (utter lack of) tutelage means she does not know how to wield power productively. Indeed, as a ruler Cersei is destructive and destabilising, and an increasing danger... but dangerous to no one more than herself, with her reign culminating in self-destruction.
  • The factors that go into this are key to illuminating not only Cersei, but Tywin, Jaime, Tyrion, and even Kevan. Cersei was a total believer in Tywin's philosophy of Lannister supremacy and escalating brutality, fostering narcissism and malice; Tywin's extreme sexism meant Cersei was never mentored or moulded, fostering incompetence and recklessness; and the lack of Joanna meant Cersei never developed a healthy view of womanhood nor the skills necessary to fully exploit the powers available to a noble Lady, fostering self-hatred and limiting her options as a woman in power.
• Used to Be a Sweet Kid: According to Kevan, in her youth she was bright, cheerful, and optimistic, before her Awful Wedded Life to Robert and life as a Lannister embittered her. Tyrion, on the other hand, remembers her as a Big Sister Bully and just as cruel in her childhood as she is now.
• The Vamp: "Tears are not a woman's only weapon. You've another one between your legs. Best learn to use it." and unfortunately for her as she's aging it's being deconstructed. After all, you can't be The Vamp forever.
• Villain Decay: Introduced as a very ruthless and competent chessmaster; grief and anger and paranoia help drive home that by the fourth book, she isn't.
  • The main issue seems to be that while Cersei is effective at gaining power, her inability to wield said power effectively means she has difficulty keeping it. This is due to her father handling the political side, but after his death Cersei takes charge and shows she hasn't inherited his political cunning nor did Tywin teach and mentor her skills.
• Villainous Demotivator: Hires the blacksmiths of King's Landing to forge weapons and armour for her soldiers in A Clash of Kings and threatens any smith who doesn't meet their quota will have their hands smashed on their own anvil.
• Villainous Glutton: Throughout A Feast For Crows, she spends ostentatiously on pleasure barges, clothes, and jewelry, and is constantly gulping wine, to the point she actually starts to gain a noticeable amount of weight.
• Villainous Incest: While Catelyn's and Ned's narration already paints the Lannisters in a negative light at the beginning, the first definite sign we get that they're bad news is the reveal that Cersei and Jaime are having an affair.
• Villain Protagonist: She first becomes a POV character in A Feast For Crows, acting as the driving force at the capital while all other characters are wandering about. Her thought process is just as twisted as her actions in previous books.
• Villain Raises a Toast: When Cersei and Tyrion find out about Stannis and Renly fighting each other, they share a mocking toast:
  Tyrion: To Stannis!
  Cersei: To Renly! May they battle long and hard, and the Others take them both!
• Villainous Valour: Queen Cersei is subject to the "Walk of Shame" — being forced to walk naked through the city — for charges of adultery. This is a humiliating ritual, and a uniquely gendered punishment that no man would ever have to submit to. Cersei intentionally Invokes this idea to get through the experience. The ritual's purpose is to break her pride, and by braving it with considerable resolve, she refuses to give her enemies the satisfaction of seeing her will broken.
• Villain with Good Publicity: In at least some parts of Essos, she is believed to be a brave, beautiful, good and gentle queen who suffered tragically the loss of her father and eldest son. In Westeros, where her crimes are more widely known, it's a different story.
• "Well Done, Son" Guy: Female example; she hates how she feels undervalued by her father due to her gender, and when she does have power she desperately tries to emulate him, despite him already being dead.
• When She Smiles:
  • One time Tyrion was giving her some good news that put her in a good mood he notes that he is possibly getting an insight into what Jaime sees in her.
  • This is one of the reasons her uncle Kevan is fond of her much in spite of what has transpired between them, as he remembers her being a considerably happier person when she was younger.
• Wicked Stepmother:
  • Though she isn't a stepmother to them by the standards and values of Westeros, she does have most of her husband's illegitimate offspring killed after her son takes over the throne. Ned Stark is also appalled to hear rumors of children getting killed because her husband dared to sleep with a woman in Casterly Rock.
  • She also actively plots to destroy her "daughter" by marriage, Margaery, not to mention her treatment of (then betrothed to Joffrey) Sansa.
• With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: The second all checks on her power are removed, she runs herself into the ground.
• With Us or Against Us: Due to her extreme paranoia and narcissism, Cersei cannot see others as in her side unless they are her unquestioning lackeys who do as she wants and don't question or discuss her decisions. This makes her a terrible politician and disastrous ruler, as she cannot understand the ideas of making concessions or of coalitions and uneasy but necessary alliances. As soon as her father isn't here to keep her in check,she wastes no time undermining and trying to get rid of the Tyrells, despite how her house desperately need them to stay in power, and only appoints incompetent, weak men and syncophants in her Small Council who praise her and stand by her disastrous decisions.
• World's Most Beautiful Woman: Whatever Cersei hasn't gained from her father's influence or her own scheming, she has achieved through her beauty. Though by no means good or kind or tactful, Cersei is and always has been a remarkably beautiful woman. Nevertheless, she knows that her looks will fade eventually and tries to counsel Sansa about this. This eventually comes to roundly bite her in the rear end when the High Septon forces her to take a walk of shame buck naked through King's Landing due to her sin of fornication; only then she begins to fully realize that she is beginning to get saggy and show some age.
• Would Hurt a Child: She wanted Jaime to cut off Arya's hand for attacking Joffrey. She threatens to harm Mya Stone if Robert brought her to court, had twins Robert fathered on a servant woman at Casterly Rock killed (and their mother sold into slavery) according to rumours, and later she orders the deaths of all of Robert Baratheon's bastards, succeeding in killing all but a few. Freaks out the small council when speaking of her intention to have Sansa tortured to death. She's also verbally and mentally abusive toward her son Tommen, disgusted by his gentle nature after Joffrey dies. Let's not even get into how she got along with kids when she was a child.
• Wrong-Name Outburst:
  Ned: I remember Robert as he was the day he took the throne, every inch a king. A thousand other women might have loved him with all their hearts. What did he do to make you hate him so?
  Cersei: The night of our wedding feast, the first time we shared a bed, he called me by your sister’s name. He was on top of me, in me, stinking of wine, and he whispered Lyanna.

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She dreamt she sat the Iron Throne, high above them all...