“What is a valonqar? Some monster?” The golden girl did not like that foretelling. // “It’s High Valyrian, it means little brother.” She had asked Septa Saranella about the word, after Melara drowned.
I’ve often lamented that show!Cersei is never as truly awful as she is in the books. And she is pretty appalling. But mostly because she’s overreaching, trying desperately to be as brilliant (if brutal) as her father. Convinced it’s her gender holding her back from gaining the respect she feels she deserves. This is paralleled by her male twin, who despite being male cannot live up to his father and will never regain respect or recover his honor. Kingslaying and all that–but mainly, it is noted repeatedly they are both rash and impulsive, unlike Tywin or Tyrion.
In the books, she’s a mad dog, a drunken and out of control queen of bad planning, unable to strategize to the point of rearming the Faith Militant and ending up on her Walk of Atonement. Estranged from all, Jaime and Kevan having abandoned her. We leave her humbled at the end of ADWD, shortly before Uncle Kevan gets some stabby stabby from Varys’ Little Birds.
This lament due to the show is largely because most of the characters are made to look, for want of a better term, badass. One liners, brutal revenge with a smirk, no signs of the inner trauma or any complexity. I’d throw Sandor, Arya, Dany, Bronn, among others into this category on the show. Arya doesn’t start out killing for self defense or revenge like a cold hearted serial killer, she is traumatized and in a frenzy. Cersei is no different, she is grasping for any straw that seems powerful, and choosing the wrong ones, but on the show she keeps her composure and is often more sympathetic than her book counterpart.
So, it’s a bit alarming to see all the cries of, “BADASS! QUEEN Cersei!” upon the season finale tonight of Game Of Thrones. Are people even remotely aware of what they’re saying? Did they see the same show I did?? Are people actually cheering for this woman? After tonight??
(Spoilers, rather obviously…)
A little recap. She left her remaining child alone while skipping her trial. She skipped her trial (and that of Loras and Margaery) sticking to the Red Keep while the Sept of Baelor was packed with not only her enemies, but multiple innocents. She had Qyburn step in, during these events, with his own Little Birds, instead of Varys’ book ones, to murder Grand Maester Pycelle (loyal to House Lannister, right?? Not to Cersei at this point in the books, but on the show, no sign he’d be a problem…). She has the wildfire under the Sept of Baelor (in the books, it was removed from this location as noted in ACOK, by Hallyne) rigged to explode. Which it does. In her cousin, and former lover, Lancel’s face. Then up and out while Margaery pitifully is piecing things together and trying to get everyone out of the Sept of Baelor. Including her father, her Uncle Kevan, plenty of innocent people besides. Skipping my trial to blow UP my trial, bitches!
She blows up the bloody Sept of Baelor with her son’s wife inside! Her Uncle! She leaves her son alone, with no regard as to what this will do to him emotionally, and he leaps from a window to his King’s Landing. Why is he all alone and not under her watch (remember, Maggy the Frog prophesied her children’s deaths to precede her own, which would then leave her open to death-by-valonqar)? Yes, because she has decided to torture Septa Unella. Now, no one likes poor old Shame Septa, but Cersei leaves her not to be killed, but TORTURED by Gregor Clegane (or something?? It’s the Undead Mountain, so likely everything), the same monster who murdered Elia Martell and her children, not to mention countless numbers since and during the War of the 5 Kings!
And this is more important to her, along with a snazzy new Maleficent dress, than being with her son as she blows up, well, his beloved wife? Barely a whimper over Tommen being dead after this, burn the poor kid and put his ashes where his other relatives WERE interred, yes, she blew up their resting places as well.
Just when you thought Qyburn was the Mengele of KL, that the Mountain was the worst serial rapist and murderer in Westeros barring perhaps Ramsay Bolton, just when we’ve had a taste of justice and revenge (though I don’t particularly think Sansa smiling as Ramsay gets no public trial but instead death-by-dogs was in character for book Sansa, nor do I think Arya’s new step into faceless revenge killer bodes well, no matter how “cool” it appears on a show, this crosses a line into beloved characters losing their very humanity), enter QUEEN Cersei? Destroyer of Worlds?
And people cheer. Make “girl power” comments. Just…..NO. Like throwing triple parentheses around names on twitter, just NO. Cersei didn’t show herself as a powerful figure not to be trifled with, she committed mass murder. It was perhaps her only way to win, but with the help of The Mountain, she could just as easily have fled a la Lady Olenna. A tactical retreat with Lannister forces (Jaime seemed to have quite a few these past episodes) at her side. Yet she blows up the holiest place in the capitol city, causes her remaining child to commit suicide, has her father’s trusted Grand Maester (and he was the GRAND MAESTER, after all) murdered and a Septa tortured by the Mountain and people cheer?
Just no. People were upset that Sansa was raped brutally, and rightly so. I can even understand cheering her and Arya on in their revenge scenes these past two episodes. Each killing one person who murdered members of their families and/or brutalized them personally. Cersei murders this many, proves herself the worst of take-your-pick-of-historical-tyrants, and people cheer her on? Even if this wasn’t the intention of the showrunners, please tell me this is not the effect we were looking for, is it? IS IT?? Cersei is officially worse than Ramsay, Joffrey and The Mountain, with a little Vargo Hoat thrown in, and she was bad enough already!
If nothing else, one thing is certain, Cersei is as hated and evil to me in the show as in the books, now she’s even more. I despise that instead of descending into drunken, paranoid madness they let her plot cooly and with a seemingly level head as it is, and with Jaime’s approval, and even Uncle Kevan’s, but that a woman was even crowned when she just committed such atrocities, and to cheers from the web, that is appalling.
At least somewhere Sandor Clegane is fucking pissed that another Lannister burned hundreds (thousands?) with the help of his brother.
PB (after using the ever reliable aggregate source, Twitter, to gather a bit of information that is likely completely useless and baseless)
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