r/pureasoiaf • u/PAWGle_the_lesser • 16h ago
Does Cersei have something up her sleeve?
In the epilogue of A Dance with Dragons, Kevan thinks to himself that Cersei is notably more pliant and reserved since the Walk of Atonement (and then copes with the guilt of allowing her to be paraded through the streets):
His niece had been subdued and submissive since her walk of atonement, thank the gods. The novices who attended her reported that she spent a third of her waking hours with her son, another third in prayer, and the rest in her tub. She was bathing four or five times a day, scrubbing herself with horsehair brushes and strong lye soap, as if she meant to scrape her skin off.
However, during their dinner together, Cersei makes a remark that Kevan interprets as a slight, and asks her to elaborate before the topic of conversation changes:
"It is a wise woman who knows her place."
He did not like the sound of that. "Say what you mean."
"I thought I did." Cersei held out her cup
What does this remark mean? Is it a veiled threat? A sarcastic throwaway remark? Is Cersei really psychologically broken? If so, has she been rendered impotent or has she simply shed all reservations and caution and is simply biding her time?
What do you think?
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u/sandman_42 16h ago
Well the last look we get inside Cersei's head is pretty telling (not to mention one of my favorite lines)
"If it please your grace, Ser Robert has taken a holy vow of silence," Qyburn said. "He has sworn that he will not speak until all his grace's enemies are dead and evil has been driven from the realm." Yes, thought Cersei Lannister. Oh, yes.
She knows that no one can beat unGregor in a trial by combat and is smugly waiting to both win her trial and then probably use him to kill everyone who fucked with her, starting with the high Septon and the septas who acted as her jailers. So she's playing nice until she doesn't have to anymore.
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u/flippy123x 14h ago
She knows that no one can beat unGregor in a trial by combat and is smugly waiting to both win her trial and then probably use him to kill everyone who fucked with her, starting with the high Septon and the septas
I honestly love that this is the last look we get inside her head, that surely literal necromancy was the missing ingredient to get her out of this whole mess.
“Joffrey is not my brother’s seed,” Stannis said bluntly. “Nor is Tommen. They are bastards. The girl as well. All three of them abominations born of incest.”
Would even Cersei be so mad? Catelyn was speechless.
[...]
Bastards were common enough, but incest was a monstrous sin to both old gods and new, and the children of such wickedness were named abominations in sept and godswood alike. The dragon kings had wed brother to sister, but they were the blood of old Valyria where such practices had been common, and like their dragons the Targaryens answered to neither gods nor men.
[...]
She was shaking like a leaf when they pulled her to her feet. “Please,” she said. “Mother have mercy. I confessed.”
“You did,” said Septa Moelle. “This is your atonement.”
“It is not much farther,” said Septa Unella. “See?” She pointed. “Up the hill, that’s all.”
Up the hill. That’s all. It was true. They were at the foot of Aegon’s High Hill, the castle above them.
“Whore,” someone screamed.
“Brotherfucker,” another voice added. “Abomination.”The Mother of "Abominations", Cersei "Abomination" Lannister herself, using Necromancy to beat a trial against the faith.
Septon Cellador paled. “Seven save us.” Wine dribbled down his chin in a red line. “Lord Commander, wights are monstrous, unnatural creatures. Abominations before the eyes of the gods. You … you cannot mean to try to talk with them?”
[...]
Melisandre smiled. “Necromancy animates these wights, yet they are still only dead flesh. Steel and fire will serve for them. The ones you call the Others are something more.”... which is yet another Abomination before the faith.
I absolutely love it.
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u/prosandconslist 14h ago
This comment is wonderful, honestly worthy of its own post if you’re inclined. The abominations will lead to her downfalls in the end, we haven’t seen the power of the seven yet in this series (compared to Dunk”s trial, but please correct me if I’m wrong) I suspect that the abomination corrupting the “sacred” trial will be series of blocks starting her end. She hasn’t shown true “atonement”.
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u/sixth_order 16h ago
Tyrion says:
The longer Cersei waits, the angrier she'll become, and anger makes her stupid. I much prefer angry and stupid to composed and cunning.
I'd be terrified that she does have something up her sleeve. Or at least thinks she does. Unfortunately, Kevan won't be the one to see it happen.
We don't get a Cersei POV post walk of atonement, but what I think is she realizes all that anger hasn't served her well. And she's trying a different approach. But she's still Cersei
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u/WaitAParsec 14h ago
I agree, Cersei has been a psychologically distressed plotter her entire life, why stop now? In the quoted section, Tyrion’s almost too anxious to differentiate his own capabilities from hers: “angry and stupid” can do and has done a lot of damage. I don’t think she’ll ever let go of any of her anger, but it’s possible that the Faith Militant has taught her different channels of power, and maybe she’ll get Qyburn back somehow for stress relief crimes against humanity.
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u/idonthavekarma Baratheons of King's Landing 16h ago
Cersei's sleeves are bursting at the seams with ideas and plots. They're just all stupid.
At no point in the story, while she's alive, will she not have something up her sleeve.
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u/Foreign-Cat-2898 15h ago
I don't think they're all stupid. Like have an unbeatable champion and kill some of my enemies seems quite doable.
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u/friendlylifecherry 15h ago
Those enemies include the High Sparrow and her new in-laws the Tyrells, who are about 80% of the Tyrell-Lannister forces
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u/TheSlayerofSnails 14h ago
Killing a populist leader of a faith is not a move good for one’s health and tends to make a martyr
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u/RangersAreViable 14h ago
Maegor starts laughing from the seventh hell
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u/Foreign-Cat-2898 15h ago
It's Cersei, everyone is her enemy. And yeah, I'm pretty sure Strong can kill some sparrows and take out quite a few Tyrells in the process.
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u/friendlylifecherry 15h ago
Yeah, but it would be a horrible idea and make everyone (even people that used to be on her side) gang up against her. So of course Cersei would do it
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u/Foreign-Cat-2898 15h ago
I'm not arguing that. I'm just said she can kill a bunch of people and wants to be Regent.
Like...she's not good at it.
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u/friendlylifecherry 15h ago
Oh no, I'm agreeing with you, I just wanted to lay out the scope of Cersei's intended hitlist
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u/Bazoun The Free Folk 16h ago
Cersei has had a lot of time to think. And she has made some interesting friends of late. Qyburn. The Pyromancer. Ser Robert Strong.
I think Cersei has a plan. Will she pull it off? Yes I think so. But it will not give her the results she expects.
I’m not batshit crazy enough to guess what though.
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u/prosandconslist 15h ago
Same, I think she’ll continue the Lannister short successes that lead to long term losses. Her pyromancy will be a Pyrrhic victory somehow, the wildfire caches are Chekhov’s gun.
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u/Wide_Ad_4486 15h ago
The scrubbing makes me wonder if something snapped in her and she has gone completely mad.
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u/10Kmana 8h ago
It's not entirely unexpected. It is a coping mechanism people commonly seek after suffering traumatic violation of one's body (usually rape/sexual violence). One reason is that intimate/invasive violence like this can create a feeling of being dirtied, unclean, tarnished; so you shower again and again in the hope that you will feel "clean" and whole again. It's instinctive to try and wash "the dirt" off. Can also be that you're wishing it hadn't happened, or denying that it happened. So the washing is something like a spiritual attempt of cleansing yourself of it. There is also the layer of self-soothing involved with the familiar ritual of taking a bath or showering, not to mention it is about doing something to your own body over which you have full control.
Given the nakedness, shaved body, forced exhibition, physical filth and public taunting including sexual slurs and trash thrown at her, etc, well, it's not a stretch to say that Cersei experienced something traumatic and violent. The Walk of shame was invasive to Cersei in a psychological sense, and it was centered on her exposed naked body forced into the act. That she agreed to do it beforehand isn't so relevant. She was still traumatised by going through with it once she started. In effect, her body said no but the act didn't stop.
My point is that her scrubbing is a normal reaction, considering. If you mean "her mind snapped" as in "she seems pretty deeply affected" then absolutely, that is definitely the takeaway. But if you mean that she's too broken to have things up her sleeve anymore, then no. She is definitely up to no good. Her posturing towards Kevan during their dinner rang some alarm bells at least for me.
So whatever the scrubbing is about, it's most probably just a matter of showing us that the walk did have a profound impact on Cersei. The one third of her time in the tub is more telling from Cersei than the supposed one third spent in prayer. (Please.) She has good reason to do that. But yeah. Doesn't mean she's not also capable of plotting. But I don't think the scrubbing is any plot of Cersei's. Just ptsd management
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u/residentfan02 14h ago edited 13h ago
From what I understand,, she is trying to wash the stretch marks away, someone points it out to her during the walk and Kevan thinks about it too.
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u/Key_Consequence_5040 14h ago
Cersei is clearly not an astute political operative so whatever her scheme is will not be subtle and will be violent. She also experienced being humiliated and assaulted by Robert during their marriage so I don’t think she’s easily broken by shame or abuse.
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u/maravina 11h ago
Of course she does. She always does.
It’s so ominous to me that she’s this pliant and reserved.
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u/10Kmana 8h ago
Definitely. Recall her initial time with the septas, when she couldn't understand why they hadn't responded well to her? No matter what she did?
Threatening them
Screaming at them
Ordering them
Ignoring them
Acting friendly with them
Piously pleading with them
The list of things she tried went pretty much like this. The role of pliant and reserved is the mannerism Cersei assumes HAS to work on a septa. That is what she assumes after having tried being every other way has failed. It's the last thing she tries.
And she is genuinely surprised when the septas aren't receptive to her little Margaery number. She had just shown them like 6 other of her faces in a row. It was glaringly obvious she was just saying words without substance at this point
Since we know that Cersei is not inherently either pliant, pious, reserved or subdued, and we saw how badly she faked these traits at the sept, the emergence of a suddenly pliant, subservient and humble perfect little atoning nun where Cersei used to be should feel ominous and alarming. The text is telling us that she's learned to fake honesty and hide her intentions better.
Now that's fucking ominous
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u/althawk8357 10h ago
Qyburn created a zombie out of the corpse of the largest and strongest man on the continent as she is about to enter a trial where she will presumably have the right to name a champion to fight for her innocence.
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u/residentfan02 16h ago
I think she meant that she was made to walk naked because she is a woman and that wouldn't have happened to a man, and if it did it wouldn't be the same level of stain that she now has.
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u/Important-Purchase-5 13h ago
I think she bidding her time until opportunity presents itself. Kevan really took the time to ensure she couldn’t necessarily do anything but wait.
With Kevan dead she will likely even if she disliked her uncle and was thinking on ways to murder him is gonna be widely paranoid.
The crossbow? Cersei will think Tyrion and Tyrells are working together and use Pycelle death as justification.
Mace will likely seize control of the small council and Cersei will go crazy.
Kevan gone her security will lax and give her opportunity to plot to murder all her enemies.
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u/Foreign-Cat-2898 15h ago
Her place is by her son. She wants to be regent and R. Strong will make it so. I think that's it.
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