[ SECRET POST #2819 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2819 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 054 secrets from Secret Submission Post #403.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Because she's a strong independent womyn and if you dislike her then you're a misogynistic shitlord neckbeard.

[kaijinscendre]

Then consider me a neckbeard because I HATE her.

[firstmoonie]

Fun fact: her stance on feminism is borderline internal misogyny.

Cersei is a three dimensional character but pro-feminist? Bitch please.

When people defend Cersei in feminism norms, I almost lose my shit.

[visp]

I wouldn't say she's "pro-feminist" as much as a good example of how a patriarchal society damages women.

[(Anonymous)]

It is amazing how somehow her psychopathy is patriarchy's fault and not the fault of her being a psychopath. Many of the other female characters dealing with the same patriarchy don't turn out to be PSYCHOPATHS.

[(Anonymous)]

You must be so boring in discussions.

[visp]

I wouldn't say she's a psychopath any more than Melisandre, Arya or Jaime is - just deeply fucked up due to an extreme temperament combined with shitty circumstances (religion and slavery for Melisandre, Aerys and Tywin and the martial side of chivalry for Jaime, a whole host of events for Arya). Cersei's fucked up circumstance just happened to be sexism.

[a_potato]

Going by the colloquial definition, she's not a psychopath, because she actually cares about people other than herself (not very many people, mind, but still enough to check off the box).

In any case, it's very possible that she would have been an awful person no matter what. However, the choices she makes are still informed and constrained by her society -- and that society happens to be a very patriarchal one.

[(Anonymous)]

Many of the other female characters don't have the (comparative) power Cersei does, nor were they raised by psychopaths themselves. Being raised by Tywin + being sold into marriage to someone she hates + political influence, however limited = crazy lady with the power to take her rage out on people less powerful. Cersei didn't sprout out of the ground the way she is any more than any of the other characters did.

[(Anonymous)]

She drowned a friend in the well long before that happened.

[(Anonymous)]

She drowned a friend before being raised by Tywin?

[(Anonymous)]

What did Tywin do when she was little?

[diet_poison]

Be himself?

I don't know much about the details here, but living with/being raised by someone like Tywin would do things to you, I imagine.

[(Anonymous)]

Then how come Tyrion despite getting it worse wasn't drowning kids when he was little?

[diet_poison]

Well, that is a fair point.

I don't have much to say to that because I'm not terribly familiar with Tywin and his interactions with all of his kids.

[arcadiaego]

She didn't randomly drown her - it's not *ok* but there were very specific reasons behind it, including the fact that the prophecy, which Cercei is terrified of (given it says her little brother will kill her and he has already, in her eyes, caused the death of her mother) said the girl was going to die that night. It's a false comparison to say 'but what about Tyrion'. But if Tyrion had been in the same situation he a) wouldn't have got away with it b) wouldn't have ever thought he would, so wouldn't have considered it c) wanted everyone to like him because his father was an abusive dickhead d) probably not believed the prophecy anyway.

[(Anonymous)]

book cersei =/= show cersei. book cersei is more evil queen bitch of evilness, while show-cersei's psychological profile is far more consistant and lifelike

[philstar22]

Not to mention being physically abused by Robert and likely Tywin as well (certainly emotional).

None of that at all justifies what she has done. But they are all part of the reasons for who she is, and saying so is not justifying her actions. It is exploring who she is and some of the reasons for that.

[arcadiaego]

I haven't read the books but in the show I don't find her to be psychopathic at all. There's a middle ground between saying she has no free will because of her upbringing and saying she was just born evil. Joffrey clearly *was* completely abnormal, and Cercei was repeatedly devastated by his actions.

[(Anonymous)]

See, that's an interesting point to me. Right now I'm rereading Feast For Crows, the one where Cersei's suicidally incompetent regency is screwing everything up, and I feel like she has two separate problems that interact really badly.

The first is that she doesn't really have any idea how things actually work. How money works, what peasants are good for, how wars are fought... it's all just vague notions to her. And that, yes, is shit she would have been trained in had she been born with a wang. Tywin's dismissal of her potential is a real loss on that level.

However, her real failure, the thing that drives most of her worst decisions, is that she's the most self-centered person in the entire story. All her decisions are based on what she wants at that particular moment, and she never thinks beyond that. She doesn't like other people being smarter than her or having power she thinks should be hers, so she surrounds herself with incompetents and suck-ups. She packs the Kingsguard with handpicked morons she thinks she's in control of. She lets the church rearm itself in exchange for something she happens to want at that moment, and doesn't wonder for a second whether that might be consequences of that decision. She's thrilled to hear Ser Loras is on the brink of death because she dislikes him, ignoring the fact that he's the last competent knight in the Kingsguard. And so on and so forth. All her decisions are shortsighted, petulant, and entirely about herself.

Patriarchy kept her from achieving her potential, yes. But from what we see of her from childhood on, I'm not sure we're missing out on much there.

[(Anonymous)]

this is a good comment.

[(Anonymous)]

This, basically. A lot of Cersei's problem is that she thinks she's smarter than she actually is and she refuses to listen to anyone else, no matter how good their advice is. Plus she is super petty.

[(Anonymous)]

Yes. I'm almost done with a reread of the books and in her chapters, the overwhelming idea I kept getting struck by was how much she hates women. Sure, it's clearly a product of the society and being raised by Tywin, but crap, Cersei hates women.

[(Anonymous)]

Wow, you know, I hadn't thought about that angle, but on reflection, you're absolutely right. It's not even that she consciously hates women as a category, apart from resenting being born as one, but she comes up with some reason to hate every individual woman she's ever met in her life. That is fucked UP.