A Song Of Ice And Fire

Cersei fancies herself a successful Magnificent Bitch, but it doesn't mean she is one in truth. She showed some potential in some instances early on, but was too out of her mind in the fourth book to accomplish anything.

The Tyrells appear to be standard Crusader Kings 2 players— make zillions of marriage alliances, and make judicious use of assassination in order to get rid of people who are obstacles or actively harmful to your aims.

My point is that Marg survived much more due to Cersei's errors than any successful scheming on her own part. And if you look at the Magnificent Bastard trope, you will see that they are always their own downfall...

Um... no? Where does it say that on the trope?

It might not be described as a necessary part of the trope, but it's a pretty common end result. You can rarely get away with playing everyone against each other for ever. It's a Fatal Flaw, essentially.

Ehh. It's not that Marg couldn't do anything in response so much as that she didn't need to. All Cersei has to back up her accusations is a crazy bard, after all.

The Magnificent Bastard is a villain trope, and we all know what inevitably happens to villains. Cersie has lived to fight and scheme again, and she may be one of the most fascinating characters in ASOIAF, but we all know that in the end, she must go down, and it will be as a result of her own flaws.

Marg was in jail, awaiting judgement by a man not in the employ of her family. She felt so powerless that she indulged herself in a helpless rant against Cersei. It was obvious in context that Cersei had totally blindsided her. Luckily for her, and unluckily for Cerei, the judgement went Marg's way.

edited 24th Aug '12 9:23:29 AM by DeMarquis

Cersei's purpose is to make it possible for the Lannister faction to lose. Otherwise, the story would be utterly predictable and there would be no suspense.

It would be the best Disney Princess movie. Ever. :D

It would so very creepy.

...no it wouldn't, they'd make Daenerys older and Jorah 20.

edited 27th Aug '12 12:19:45 AM by Laura

What exactly about her is poorly written?

edited 27th Aug '12 6:18:53 AM by BornIn1142

She doesn't change or develop through the series, there's really nothing about her character that isn't revealed in the first book, and her actions are rather predictable.

... Cersei is a character that doesn't change based on their surroundings... She doesn't recognize her own mistakes nor does she change her actions to correct them, or prevent further mistakes. She also blames a lot of her faults on other people...

I don't see how that's a "poorly written" character(as there are people like that in real life)... Unless "poorly written" means "a character I would like to sympathize with, but can't justify doing so"...

edited 27th Aug '12 7:01:00 AM by Swish

Two of those three things are demonstrably false.

Okay, demonstrate how they are false.

Anyways, Tommen sticking up to his mother on behalf of Margaery was, methinks, one of the highlights of the entire series. A little powerless kid, calling out the queen, showing loyalty and kindness, finding inner strength to protect his friend.

edited 27th Aug '12 10:50:40 AM by ATC

She does change throughout the series: she becomes much more unhinged, enamored of power for its own sake, and estranged from her family. She goes from a fairly competent player of the Game who uses her own talents in accordance with the overall good of her family to a paranoid, power crazed and slightly mad queen making amateurish and needless schemes, estranging herself from her support and power base rather than acting in concert with them, etc.

She's also picked up addictions to alcohol and becoming increasingly gluttonous along the way, which she didn't have back at the start of the series.

She predictable in her responses to criticisms or attempts to pry her away from the center of power, but in all other things it's her unpredictability as far as other characters are concerned that makes her so dangerous.

Also, if you think that she she isn't well written, see how many times Strawman Has a Point in the first few books, there are a number of times that she serves as a deconstruction of a storybook medieval princess or queen, both as a young woman and then as a queen. Take her rant to Sansa during the Blackwater about how she and Jaime were treated so differently despite being so alike, or her whole story arc as a young woman, with the disastrous marriage to Robert, etc.

I hate her guts, not the least because she reminds me of my mother in certain ways, but that's not to say that she's poorly written, or a flat character. (Well, no more than every character's writing has suffered since Martin had to drastically alter his plans for the series, anyway.)

I wouldn't say she's badly written as a character, but her arc kind of dragged and didn't go anywhere one couldn't see a coming a mile away. This is especially unfortunate because her chapters theoretically make up the core of AFFC, preventing the flaws from hiding themselves.

I find her somewhat badly written in that she's cartoonishly evil in several parts of AFFC (while not true of the tv!Cersei, tv!Tyrion comments that Cersei's redeeming qualities are her love for her children and her cheekbones (read good looks), and as I read it, AFFC is all about showing that she doesn't really have the former, as she's really motivated by a prophesy, and is losing the latter).

edited 27th Aug '12 3:06:55 PM by Jordan

I feel that the 'Cersie only cares about her children because of the prophecy' interpretation is giving her too little credit, and that there's no solid evidence to support it.

This is just me, but her reaction to Joffrey's death seemed more like grief then fear. But that's my interpretation.

I think that's when she started to fray around the edges too. Tywin dying and Jaime abandoning her sealed the deal.

edited 27th Aug '12 3:19:03 PM by asterism

I agree with the above, but while I can't assume Word of God supports this, my impression was that the prophesy was a Retcon to make it so that Cersei was revealed to not actually love her children, and therefore, to lack her only redeeming quality (except her looks, which AFFC makes a big deal about her steadily losing).

Edit- It seemed overall like AFFC ran with the combined Littlefinger and Tyrion interpretation of Cersei (e.g. that she's a stupid whore). One of the things I did like about ADWD is that it showed Cersei to have some skill as a manipulator, which was evident in earlier books, but pretty much absent in AFFC.

edited 27th Aug '12 3:36:40 PM by Jordan

I feel that she's definitely developed as a character, but I think she confuses people because her development involves her becoming less complex and sophisticated as time goes by (99% of the time, character development in literature goes the other way). Cersei is experiencing a sort of one-person version of Long Days Journey Into Night, or perhaps a better analogy is Othello the Moor's descent into madness in Shakespear (although in Cersei's case her descent into madness is self-inflicted). She is more or less a metaphore for Westernos itself.

Maybe it applies to the thread, too.◊

Just because Cersei gets more ineffectual, nuttier, less intelligent, and less sane as the series progresses doesn't make her a poorly written character. I don't like her because I think she's just getting TOO ridiculously stupid and that makes things a bit silly, and because as far as nutty rabid bad guys go I preferred Joffrey, but she's still fun to read about. I'm waiting for her to get her righteous comeuppance myself There was a Dany-Jorah comment a while up, and let me just say: NOWHERE NEAR AS CREEPY AS WALDER 'CREEPTACULAR' FREY. The ASOIAF 'verse is a world where it's perfectly appropriate for women in their twenties - and younger - to end up married to significantly older men. Jorah isn't ninety, for Pete's sake. Of course, issues arise inasmuch as Dany thinks it's super-weird and has pretty much exiled him at this point.