What's crazy about this scene- and maybe savage books will cover it soon.. is that it's made very clear that there's a power imbalance from the conversational offset.. Olenna is acting impatient, antagonistic, poised to duel, looking straight at her- Cersei is avoiding eye contact, scribbling to calm herself, trying to prolong before having to address anything she knows she has done and attempt to lie to a master in the game. She is intimidated. Cersei lets her political mask slip when she says "what can a queen mother do?" and follows that immediately with an annoyed head tilt with the pursed lips. Then again when Olenna references her dad with the head tilting, sigh and eye rolling. Would make a poker player or diplomat laugh at the amateurishness of her. It's like she was just only half hearted about maintaining the appearance of shock and dismay at what happened to the Tyrells. All through, Olenna shows that she's not the least bit fooled and wants to tell her at every opportunity through coded/soft speak that Cersei is out of her element, should cut out her childish, shortsighted gameplaying, family name, brawn and force isn't enough to keep order, you need a brain, restraint, networking and deal making skill. Then the end of the scene all but confirms that Olenna was right and Cersei was not actually writing anything. She's even unsure if she won the duel because she really doesn't know what Olenna would do next because the old Tyrell swatted away every narrative she attempted to put, replying with simple truths and putting the welfare of the city over her head because Olenna really does hold a position of considerable power in the relationship- without her, the royal family does diminish in control and status with their debt, famine, poverty, troops. Her house loses nothing and will just find another trading partner.
Been watching the show again and I really don’t get why Cersei hated Margaery so much. It gets annoying really. She goes on about how Margaery will dig her claws in and control them and steal her sons away…But how could Cersei not have expected that her sons would marry? It was obviously inevitable. And as far as who they were going to marry, Margaery seems like a great option…I didn’t see any “claws”. She was relatively kind, smart, and well meaning. Joffrey needed someone who could help tame him and Tommen needed someone stronger and more experienced to help guide him. Margaery was good for the realm. Cersei was just a selfish, blind, power-mad bitch.
One of the key differences between when Tywin has a quill in hand vs Cersei, with Tywin he could be writing in his diary and he would still be intimidating and seem far too busy for your nonsense. Hell what would he even be writing in a diary?
If this was Tywin he would have stopped writing because Olenna being there meant they had important things to discuss. Tywin always gave attention to important matters (AKA all the letters he was writing, while any other person with *useless* drivel came to him just to waste his time). Cersei was so fckn dumb that she probably thought it was just some sort of dominance tactic. No sis, your father actually has important matters to attend to.
I love how despite Joffrey being among the most despised, the comments HERE are full of people wishing he were still around to deal with the High Sparrow. Funny old world, innit.
