It’s really pained us to watch you repeatedly bash your head against those 100-odd words on page 116 of the World Book. So we’ve decided to give you and your readers a preview of some of the ideas and interpretations in our still developing Cersei article, which we think you will find very satisfactory in regards to certain problems. Hopefully this will rid you of all that useless anguish and replace it with some…useful anguish? (it’s that kind of story).
We’ll begin by restarting the problem. The Secret Targaryen theories woven from Joanna’s presence at the Anniversary Tourney are frankly ridiculous. Whenever Yandel says something that is conventional wisdom, propaganda, and doubtful legend this is abundantly clear from the rest of story. When Yondel dismisses something that is obviously true there is clear textile evidence that he is wrong. When Yandel comments on something that remains mysterious, say those oily Black Stones, the direction speculation should take is pretty plain. There is simply no textile evidence that Aerys raped Joanna Lannister at the Anniversary Tourney or that anything weird happened at the Anniversary Tourney beyond what Yandel records. So there is no reason for Yandel’s account to be read as some sort of spin or cover up (such as actually happens concerning the death of Elia and her children a few pages later). But without any purpose Joanna’s audience with Aerys becomes an unnecessary and gratuitous display of Aerys’ raging misogyny, just one more thing in the long list of things Aerys did to assert is insecure masculinity and piss off Tywin. This isn’t very satisfying, so the idea that this scene might be a front for something just won’t go away despite the utter lack of supporting evidence.
Well, story wise, there is a real purpose and significance to that meeting; it’s just that everyone has missed it because they thought it was about Aerys, Joanna, and Tywin. But the important characters in that scene aren’t actually Aerys II or Joanna or Tywin. Rather, the important character is six year old Cersei.
At the great Anniversary Tourney of 272 AC, held to commemorate Aerys’s tenth year upon the Iron Throne, Joanna Lannister brought her six-year-old twins Jaime and Cersei from Casterly Rock to present before the court.The king (very much in his cups) asked her if giving suck to them had “ruined your breasts, which were so high and proud.” The question greatly amused Lord Tywin’s rivals, who were always pleased to see the Hand slighted or made mock of, but Lady Joanna was humiliated. (World Book 116)
So, little, impressionable Cersei, six years old, starting to learn about the larger world, was standing right there when the Mad King said that to her mother, who Cersei must have thought the most beautiful and powerful woman in the world. Now, thirty years later Cersei does her walk of penance and she and everyone else makes much of her own saggy breasts, once so high and proud. In this sight no one sees a queen and Ser Kevan sees the end of her power.
She walked through mud and dung, bleeding, goosefleshed, hobbling. All around her was a babble of sound. “My wife has sweeter teats than those,” a man shouted. A teamster cursed as the Poor Fellows ordered his wagon out of the way. “Shame, shame, shame on the sinner,” chanted the septas. “Look at this one,” a whore called from a brothel window, lifting her skirts to the men below, “it’s not had half as many cocks up it as hers.” Bells were ringing, ringing, ringing.“That can’t be the queen,” a boy said, “she’s saggy as my mum.” This is my penance, Cersei told herself. I have sinned most grievously, this is my atonement. It will be over soon, it will be behind me, then I can forget. (DwD Cersei II)
She did not feel beautiful, though. She felt old, used, filthy, ugly. There were stretch marks on her belly from the children she had borne, and her breasts were not as firm as they had been when she was younger. Without a gown to hold them up, they sagged against her chest. I should not have done this. I was their queen, but now they’ve seen, they’ve seen, they’ve seen. I should never have let them see. Gowned and crowned, she was a queen. Naked, bloody, limping, she was only a woman, not so very different from their wives, more like their mothers than their pretty little maiden daughters. What have I done? (DwD Cersei II)
No queen could expect to rule again after that. In gold and silk and emeralds Cersei had been a queen, the next thing to a goddess; naked, she was only human, an aging woman with stretch marks on her belly and teats that had begun to sag … as the shrews in the crowds had been glad to point out to their husbands and lovers. (DwD Epilogue)
Cersei’s childhood is filled with many incidents that collectively filled her with apprehension and loathing towards her body. That time her mother took her before the Mad King and had her appearance ridiculed before the whole court was only the first. There are the tales of what happened to her grandfather’s mistress, stripped naked and paraded as a whore for all to see. Adult Cersei has a nightmare of sitting naked on the Iron Throne and being pierced by its barbs to everyone’s laughter. The tales Cersei heard growing up about what happened to “that whore” are obviously to blame. Then there is the death of her beautiful mother, who dies giving birth to her hideous brother (a beautiful woman for an ugly little man…who is ahead of her in the line of succession even though he is younger). Then there is the story she was told shortly after her mother’s death, of how the revered King Baleor imprisoned his sisters in the Maidenvault because of their beauty, which she reacts violently to and dwells on the story into the present. When Cersei is ten Maggy the Frog gives her the prophecy that a younger, more beautiful queen will cast her down and then her ugly brother will kill her too. Meanwhile Jaime, who is a boy and therefore strong, is training in arms and doing all the things Cersei wishes she could but is told she can’t. Growing up Cersei learned some very negative lessons about her own beauty. She learned that her beautiful body is temporary and weak, that it restricts her, that it can and will be used to punish her, and that it’s fading will cast her down for all to despise. She will be murdered by her younger dwarf brother, so even a twisted little mockery of masculinity is physically greater than her. Her marriage to and mistreatment by Robert only cemented this preexisting body hatred and insecurity.
Cersei in A Feast for Crows and A Dance with Dragons is a woman who is living her childhood nightmares, which infest her being like bad spirits. It is these fears that dissipate when she is picked up by Ser Robert Strong, her savior, her white knight. With that homunculus by her side it will no longer matter if she is still beautiful.
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