History Characters / ASongOfIceAndFireCerseiLannister

* BigSisterBully: Was a nasty sibling to young Tyrion, who 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.

* TheBully: Cersei constantly antagonises and bullies those who 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 [[FoodSlap throw water or wine]] in the faces of those who displease her, such as she does with Jaime and Kevan in the same novel.

* FemaleMisogynist: 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 [[JerkassHasAPoint 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 who she was supposed to marry, but actively participates in forcing [[spoiler:Sansa]] to marry a man she doesn't love. In her mind, [[ItsAllAboutMe misogyny is only a problem when it's directed at her]].

* ForgotAboutHisPowers: 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 [[spoiler: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.

** 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 (who 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 [[OnlyInItForTheMoney 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). [[spoiler: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.]]

** She claims she and Jaime are born to be together, yet has sex with many others, either for pleasure or persuasion.

** She accuses Margaery of having affairs with several men and even thinks that she might be sleeping with her brother. While Margaery may or may not be guilty of these things, Cersei ''definitely'' is.
* IgnorantOfTheirOwnIgnorance: Everyone who knows Cersei knows that she's a bad mother, a bad lover, and an incompetent ruler, while she is convinced that she's an expert in these matters.

* IJustWantToBeYou: 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 was a man she would make a better Jaime than Jaime.

* ImproperlyParanoid: 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's ''makes'' him into her enemy.

** In the broader sense, Cersei really does think it's ''all'' about her. This is why [[TheyJustDontGetIt 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 who she has to undermine at any cost, rather than the strongest allies of House Baratheon-Lannister who she needs to keep sweet in order to survive.

* SurroundedByIdiots: 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.

* SympatheticPOV: Averted; readers finally get a glimpse inside her head in ''A Feast For Crows'', but she remains as villainous as ever. She has one degree lower in cunning than it's initially thought from AGOT. One could even say it is actually an InvertedTrope: her POV makes her come across as more pathetic and less sympathetic.

** She resents Robert's WrongNameOutburst on their wedding night, even though she slept with Jaime that very morning.

* TroublingUnchildlikeBehavior: She began an incestuous relationship with her own twin at the age of nine, and by the time she was a teen, it's strongly implied she [[spoiler: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.]]

* BadPeopleAbuseAnimals: While she didn't do the deed, she was totally unphased 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.

* {{Narcissist}}: When Jaime gets his head shaved but keeps his beard, he reflects that this will upset Cersei because it will make him look less like her. See also ScrewYourself, below.

* JerkassHasAPoint:

* SingleTargetSexuality: 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|Trope}} when we find out Cersei is sleeping with all manner of people [[PragmaticPansexuality for political purposes]] (though she notes she only enjoys it with Jaime), and that she still pines for [[LostLenore Rhaegar Targaryen]], and comes to lust after Aurane Waters, because he reminds her of the dead prince.

* SingleTargetSexuality: 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|Trope}} when we find out Cersei is sleeping with all manner of people [[PragmaticPansexuality for political purposes]] (though she notes she only enjoys it with Jaime), and that she still pines for [[LostLenore Rhaegar Targaryen]], and comes to lust after Aurane Waters, because he reminds her of the dead prince.

* SingleTargetSexuality: When we learn Jaime is hyper-monogamous for Cersei, it implies the inverse is true too. It's {{subverted|Trope}} when we find out Cersei is sleeping with all manner of people for political purposes. Then {{double subverted|Trope}}. Most of her trysts (like the Kettleblacks) are clearly political, not personal. Of the two that are somewhat personal -- Lancel and Taena -- Cersei finds both unfulfilling and quickly regrets it. She says of Lancel, "Knighting him was a mistake, and bedding him a bigger one," and of Taena, "It was still no good," concluding it with, "It had never been any good with anyone but Jaime."

* SingleTargetSexuality: Despite her PragmaticPansexuality -- sleeping with all manner of people for pollical means -- "It had never been any good with anyone but Jaime." Most of her trysts (like the Kettleblacks) are clearly political, not personal. Of the two that are at least somewhat personal -- Lancel and Taena -- Cersei is finds it unfulfilling and quickly regrets it. She says of Lancel, "Knighting him was a mistake, and bedding him a bigger one," and of Taena, "It was still no good."

* HalfIdenticalTwins: Cersei and Jaime are identical, apart from the sexual dysmorphism. They would TwinSwitch as children. Even as adults their resemblance is striking. 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.

* HalfIdenticalTwins: She is described as identical to her brother Jaime, saying she couldn't feel complete without him, but they end up becoming very different people. The similarity is at least justified by 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.
-->'''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.

* PragmaticPansexuality: 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.

* SevenDeadlySins: She manages to display all of them.
** Pride: Cersei's pride is her main character feature. She's extremely arrogant and egocentric; the whole purpose of her [[spoiler:walk of shame]] is to BreakTheHaughty.
** Greed: Cersei desires power, which is one of the reasons she wanted to be the queen.
** Lust: Cersei sleeps with many men and women, and even her own twin brother.
** Envy: Cersei is jealous of Margaery's beauty and how she replaces her in the royal court.
** Gluttony: After she and Jaime fell out, she started to drink hard and it too much, which affected her.
** Wrath: Cersei has a short temper, reacting with anger every time someone disobeys her.
** Sloth: Cersei ignored many problems the kingdom had to face, as she was busy fighting Tyrells and creating a new, YesMan government.

** Gets played with and deconstructed in ''A Feast of Crows'', as a look at both Jaime's and Cersei's perspective reveal that this only adds to Cersei being a FemaleMisogynist, as she is extremely jealous and resentful of not being born a man like Jaime; while 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.