So this post is born from a need to organize my thoughts. As you can imagine for book readers, especially while attempting to RP, the last few years of GOT have been very disorienting. First I thought I knew everything that was coming, then they changed some of that, then the show passed the book timeline by, and now I have fragments told to me that are shadows of the real events. GRRM has told us now that the broad strokes will be the same, but so many things were altered (Sansa is still safe in the Vale sans-Ramsay, Cersei is not pregnant, Jaime never went to Dorne, who knows how successful Brienne will be in her quest to locate the Stark girls, LADY STONEHEART EXISTS, etc etc.) My brain is trying to piece together the clues I have and adjust them with the headcanons because … who knows if we’ll ever get the remaining books.
Below are a few topics I have some detailed thoughts on, and might be helpful for you to read over if we’re writing / plotting / if you’d like to.
M A D Q U E E N:
( if you want a bit more context for this topic, I’d recommend watching
this video about Aerys, but it is 15 minutes long and I realize I’m a tremendous nerd for having watched it in the first place )
Hopefully even from the show tactics alone, you’ve assessed there’s some serious parallels where Aerys ( the Mad King ) and Cersei are concerned. > obsession with wildfire, some echoed words, Jaime as their protector < But I’d never noticed prior to that video how much more there was.
When Aerys is captured in Duskendale’s rebellion, he spends several months in prison before finally being freed. ( Cersei is imprisoned and this is a most traumatizing event for her, as well as the Walk of Atonement. In the latter she’s publically and sexually humiliated. ) Afterwards he becomes increasingly paranoid, seeing enemies everywhere. ( Also Cersei. ) Aerys also becomes less trusting and more suspicious of his sister / wife, Rhaella. ( Cersei, with Jaime. ) After imprisonment, Aerys won’t allow anyone to touch him, and bans weapons from his presence. I’d like to play into that with Cersei, as in the books we haven’t seen her for more than a scene post-Walk of Atonement.
While the show played on this a
little ( once with Lancel, and then Euron ), it comes nowhere near Cersei’s sexcapades in the books. Cersei uses first teasing and then ultimately seduction to foster loyalty and power amongst men, and her methods of manipulation revolve around her looks ( and lesser, clever words ). This is ultimately the only method she knows how to wield successfully, but I think her Walk of Atonement is going to leave her shaken. Her beauty had never been questioned before her aging body had been walked naked through the streets of King’s Landing; she had fruit and sh*t and insults thrown at her, and she’s been humiliated and violated and nearly broken over it.
So I think this is going to manifest into some intimacy issues, especially physically. Nothing near full revulsion, but her self esteem is showing cracks. That would be in play for me in any stories post-book / season 5.
T H E V A L O N Q A R:
I think when GRRM told them that Jaime and Cersei die together, I think D&D went and yeeted themselves into the most simplistic execution of that possible. The books will go differently, I figure, for three major reasons:
a. ) Cersei is not pregnant.
The pregnancy twist was soapy, honestly, and nowhere foreshadowed. Book!canon has the twins’ last sex scene next to Joffrey’s body, so the science isn’t likely either.
Cersei will be choked to death in the books. Upon careful rewatch I realized that the final line about choking was excluded in the show, which may justify it to them. But that is very clearly outlined in her prophecy, and I think it honestly makes it
too hard to swallow and unbelievable to expect Jaime to strangle his PREGNANT twin wife. Like, I’m dramatic but even that’s a bit much.
b. ) Wildfire caches in the finale.
What exactly was the point of including a mention of Aerys’ wildfire caches in the city (even pointing it out on the ‘previously on’) for it only to amount to some background explosions in like two shots? Well, I’d guess it has importance in the final way it would plan out; I’d even stretch to say that Cersei’s Sept Incident is probably conflated with her final stand at King’s Landing in the books.
She’d threaten to use the remaining wildfire on the city - maybe even succeed in parts, and then she’s forced Jaime’s hand. Strangle strangle death death.
c. ) Jaime is mortally wounded in the finale.
Just going to point out here that there is no narrative reason for Jaime to be mortally wounded in the finale, save any logical hints at the actual ending. ( Sure, there’s drama in him fighting Euron, in confronting one of Cersei’s lovers. Euron, who also loves to antagonize and murder.
We don’t even know Euron and Cersei will ever interact in the books even, fyi. Jaime is now handless and Euron hasn’t been hailed as one of the realms
best fighters, so it’s not even a fight that would hype us, necessarily, in terms of gore. So what was the point of Jaime nearly dying, and knowing he’ll die soon if he’s only going to get crushed by a pile of bricks anyway? )
I think it makes a difference because if you’re going by an altered novel!version of events, it would be poetic for Jaime to be mortally wounded
when he chokes Cersei. And then they die together. This theory I’m posing keeps the main events in tact, ( Jaime/Euron fight, Jaime gets mortally wounded, Jaime gets to Cersei in a crumbling building and she’s shaking and screaming about not letting the dragon queen take the city alive, and Jaime would die wounded in her arms without the will or literal blood to get up. The Red Keep crumbles and crushes them. ), so I don’t think I’m too far off.
F I D E L I T Y:
In the books, Jaime is not distraught and distanced from Cersei for any lofty political morals. It’s because when Tyrion and Jaime break up, Tyrion informs Jaime that Cersei has been cheating on him -
with Lancel, Osmund Kettleblack, and Moon Boy for all I know…The italicized is a mantra Jaime repeats over and over again in both AFFC and ADWD, his tool for emotional self-control where Cersei is concerned. ( He says it at least once every goddamn chapter, he really is strung up. ) So far, Jaime hasn’t confronted Cersei with this knowledge. He didn’t believe it at first, but confirmed it with a rather pious Lancel. In a sense, he hasn’t
heard her side.
Because the books are tragedy, especially for the Lannisters, I don’t suspect they’ll ever discuss it, not in a way that can feel final. It’s a shame, because even though they won’t talk about it, I WILL, BECAUSE I LOVE CERSEI LANNISTER.
For Cersei, her concept of romance started around puberty with Jaime. Her entire adult life she’s been in a secret relationship with her goddamn
twin brother. She never gets completely out of it, either. Her sense of romance develops with the idea that what may be the most pure to her needs to be hidden, and imagine on a D&D chaotic - to - neutral spectrum how that must’ve skewed her idea of what is love and marriage and romance. Imagine being sold into marriage and half-accepting it because you can be queen, but having a miserable relationship and a lover with her heart somewhere else.
By default, since her marriage to Robert, fidelity to Jaime in a strictly sexual manner was never possible. Even to hide their children she’d have to endure the act, where she couldn’t bat him off. So she learned to use her sexuality to manipulate weak men, and to her that never feels like a line she’d crossed because it was never a line that was drawn in the first place. It’s different for Jaime, who’s never slept with another woman. Because he had a choice.
That’s his devotion.
Hers comes in the form of allowing him to father her children ( she aborts her only pregnancy by another man ), to be her hand, to be the companion and confidante she relies on. It’s honestly a big mix-up Shakespearean tragedy of misunderstandings and lack of communication and I COULD TRULY SURELY DIE!
This is also relevant for any AUs regarding marriage beyond what's been touched on screen / in book. Cersei's reality on romance will always be a bit skewed because arranged marriages with someone as controlling as Cersei get more... complicated.
If you stuck through this to the end you the real champ, pls tell me if you did because I will worship you or smth. MESSAGE ME AND LET'S PLOT. ♥
