Cersei Lannister

**Queen Cersei Lannister** is one of the main antagonists of the *Song of Ice and Fire* book series and its television adaptation *Game of Thrones*. At the beginning of the series she is the Queen of the Seven Kingdoms. She is the daughter of Lord Tywin Lannister, twin sister and lover of Ser Jaime Lannister, and the older sister and arch-nemesis of Tyrion Lannister. She is the wife of King Robert I Baratheon and mother of Joffrey, Myrcella, and Tommen, who are all incest-born children.

## What makes her sympathetic (in the books)?

* She was born in a highly patriarchal and sexist society where women have far fewer opportunities.
* Cersei is older with a few seconds than her twin brother, Jaime. This means that if she was a boy, she would have inherited Casterly Rock and her fate would have been different. However, because she was born a girl she didn't receive much attention from their father, Tywin, and she was destined to marry some Lord and bare his children and being unable to rule in her own right.
* Cersei's mother died when she was 7 years old during the birth of her brother, Tyrion, and her father convinced her that it was Tyrion's fault. There is enough evidence to show that Cersei loved her mother.
* She falls in love with her twin brother, Jaime, but the two of them can't be together.
* Her father was indifferent to her most of the time and was brutal to his enemies and uses cruel techniques against them. This causes Cersei to have insecurities about how her father feels about her and she perceives him as a role model and tries to emulate his behavior which explains a lot of the things she does throughout the series. She genuinely believes that if she doesn't emulate her father in every way imaginable, the kingdom would go bankrupt, the Lannister legacy would be tarnished and she wouldn't last long as a ruler.
* At the age of 10 she received a prophecy that all of her kids would die and her younger brother would kill. This causes her to commit a lot of bad things later on in her life in order to prevent the prophecy from happening and save her life and the lives of her kids. This also causes her to hate Tyrion even more because she thinks that he is eventually going to kill her kids and then kill her.
* When she marries Robert at first she is happy but then she realises that he doesn't love her and starts cheating on her.
* There are some occasions where Robert rapes her after drinking too much and Cersei is unable to do anything about it. In the present Cersei is still traumatized by the experience and tries to inact the same thing on another woman but at the last moment she realises that she doesn't take any enjoyment from raping other people and stops. This leaves her feeling even more hollow than before.
* Because of the sexist double standard in Westerosi society, Robert is able to cheat on her without any repercussion while Cersei has to keep her relationship with Jaime a secret or otherwise the two of them and their children would be executed. In fact, one of the main reasons why Cersei kills her husband and allows Ned to be arrested is because otherwise she and her entire family would have been executed.
* Cersei respects Ned Stark to an extent because he tried to warn her and protect her children and for this reason she allows him to end their rivalry, give up on his intentions to arrest her and go back to Winterfell where he would forget about the entire affair. Ned refuses and still attempts to arrest Cersei which leads to his own arrest because Cersei has the upper hand. She then plans to spare his life and allow him to go the the Night's Watch. However, Joffrey doesn't listen to her and beheads him anyway. This shows that Cersei is able to respect some of the people she doesn't like.
* When Tyrion arrives in King's Landing to help her rule, at first Cersei is rude to him as usual. However, when Tyrion proves that he is competent, there a few occasions where Cersei is nice to him. There is one occasion where Cersei hugs him after he brings her some good news and then the two of them drink some wine together. There is another occasion where a guardsman doesn't want to follow Tyrion's orders and Cersei intervenes to make him listen. There is also another occasion where Cersei kisses Tyrion and apologises to him for how she treated him in the past. However, this ends when Tyrion kidnaps Cersei's son Tommen to use him as a leverage against her and Cersei becomes paranoid about him again.
* Has two small pet the dog moments with Sansa. The first one is when she explains to her about the female body and gives her advice to love no one but her children. The second is during the Battle of Blackwater where Cersei gives her advice on how to act as a Queen. Cersei genuinely seems to believe that she is helping Sansa with her advices.
* Cersei loves her children and is protective of them. She mourns Joffrey's death and wants revenge for him, is afraid when she sees that Tommen is choking on some wine and then bursts into tears when she realises that it's not poison and even has a nightmare where Tyrion is torturing her and she begs him not to hurt her children.
* After Joffrey's death she is convinced that Tyrion had killed him and becomes more paranoid about the safety of her children than ever. Her paranoia and her fear makes her become more cruel than ever in Feast for Crows and causes her to commit a lot of atrocities in order to prevent the prophecy from happening.
* She loses her father who is killed by Tyrion. This causes to feel even more insecure.
* When Cersei sees Shae's corpse next to her Tywin's, she tries to justify her father and convince herself that he has remained loyal to her mother which shows that Cersei romanticizes her parents' relationship.
* In Feast for Crows, it is revealed that Cersei didn't have any friends since the age of 10. She feels some insecurities about this and wants to have a friend who would support and becomes friends with Taena. She doesn't treat her as a friend but this shows that Cersei suffers from insecurities.
* While she is torturing the Blue Bard for information, Cersei feels bad about it and considers stopping the torture. Then, she reminds herself that her father wouldn't show any sign of weakness and would do anything to obtain what he needs. This shows that Cersei can feel some remorse for her actions and that a lot of her behavior was influenced by her upbringing and her desire to please her father.
* When Cersei is arrested by the Faith, she is forced to do the Walk of Shame. She paraded through the streets of King's Landing with no clothes while people are throwing things at her. This is a sexist punishment because she is punished for sleeping with other men and setting a bad example as the Queen Regent. During the Walk Cersei breaks down and starts crying and later on she appears to have been traumatized by the experience.
* During the Walk of Shame, the text heavily implies that Cersei feels bad about some of the things she has done. She even starts hallucinating about different people like Ned Stark and Sansa and feels regret that Ned had to be executed and that she could have provided a good husband for Sansa.