How Game of Thrones FAILED Cersei Lannister 

Realistically, there is NO WAY Cersei could've become queen after blowing up the Sept, Westeros' equivalent to the VATICAN. In real life, she would've had every commoner and noble alike after her.

Thank you for this video as I've listened to all of Danny's chapters an was shocked how much they left out or completely changed they made her look arrogant an crazy in the show , i luv all Danny's chapters an I've watched stream with re readings of some of Cersies chapters an OMG shes an absolute Tyrant things she did as a child an all you spoke of in this video as un the book's Jaime has already abandoned Cersie

finally!!! cersei was made for this! it would be so good both for the character and the actress

Originally, they were going to have Cersei be the Mad Queen, the reason they changed it is because Dan and Dave saw that fans were able to guess that, so they switched roles between Cersei and Daenerys. Lena Heady admitted her ending was supposed to be different because she filmed a miscarriage scene for season 7 that was cut, then she was going to go mad after she miscarried due to the Maggy prophecy and Jaime was going to end her.

Oh man, I barely even go here but the whole idea of Jaime killing Cersei after she uses wildfire is absolutely brilliant. Oh my God that would’ve been a perfect choice. And it was practically on the writers’ laps! Man that’s frustrating and I’m not even a fan of the show lol

I didn't think I could hate the ending of this series more than I do. But, I was wrong.

Its actually closer to being equivalent to blowing up Westminster Abbey, Notre Dame, or Canterbury Cathedral, but id say closer to Westminster Abbey. Just saying...Kings Landing wasnt the equivalent of Rome, it was the equivalent of London. If anything, Old Town would be closet compared to Rome than Kings Landing.

You are right. Now I do like Daenerys turning evil but not the way they did it. In my rewrite I thought that Dany should have kept the 2 dragons and then after the bells are rung, Cersei gives the order to kill the dragons with the Scorpions. All Scorpions fire, Dany almost escapes but the other dragon dies, and now she is mad at Cersei because she just lost a dragon, and only becausr she stopped and listened to the bells. Now we are talking on a good reason to destroy kings Landing.

" the real mad queen" thank you for saying this you have no idea how happy i am of someone acknowledging cercis real role in asoiaf

D&D were in such a rush to end GoT that they missed literally every single possible ending that would have made sense and tunnel visioned on the one that didn't.

The peasants should have ripped Cersei to pieces. Her actions are what causes revolutions in the real world. If the pesants are capable of storming the dragon pit and killing the dragons then they are more than capable of storming The Red Keep and killing Cercei and her guards, including Gregor.

The reason why Game of Thrones failed in the end was just the ego of the show runners who thought they are genius, but they used source material and then didn’t adapt it proper.

Joffrey executes a single nobleman accused of treason: instantly sparks a massive civil war. Cersei blows up the Vatican and a bunch of important nobles: instantly given a royal title she has no claim to with no further consequences. Perfect logic. Perfect consistency.

I totally agree with you! Even from the beginning, Daenerys showed signs of being a good ruler and care for the "smallfolk" unlike Cersei or anyone else, she was a morally gray character in the way that she had to make tough decisions to establish her power. It could've been more realistic and intriguing to see her navigating her struggle to power amidst the grief of losing one of her dragons and some of her most loyal companions but still having that compassion that she always had towards the innocents. Heck, Cersei was literally like the mad king and yet the showrunners decided to soften her character and flipped their entire personalities.

Instead of having Rhaegal stupidly killed out of the blue the way they did. They should have kept him alive for the King's Landing fight and kill him there to actually trigger a more believable unhinged response from Daenerys than would make more sense. To take it even a step further, you can even kill Drogon who was the most important of her dragons, and then she can ride Rhaegal and burn the damn city down. But even then, she should be aiming for soldiers and scorpions but throwing caution to the wind and killing thousands in the crossfire, but never actually purposefully killing the innocent. It would have kept in line with her personality but would have created a massive rift between her allies after they see her do that. They had so many chances to give us something better but were lazy af and wrote the dumbest shit ever.

D&D forgot the woman who had a guy on stand by to kill her, her kids and Sansa in case Stannis won the siege was someone who wouldn't just chill in a window when an enemy is at her gates. Right after she blew up the Vatican because she was on trial and all her enemies were there too. Like the woman is PETTY and a sore loser. She would rather die then be in chains or beg for mercy.

Cersei is as gentle as King Maegor, as selfless as Aegon the Unworthy, and as wise as Ayres II.

I always thought she'd be the Mad Queen in the book, with the references to wildfire. Ned descibed her green eyes "burned like wildfire" in the sun during their meeting in the gardens. She was the one who originally commissioned the alchemists to make a new batch for the siege of King's Landing. She also blew up the Tower of the Hand with wildfire during Tommen's wedding, for entertainment.

That shot after the sept blew of Cersei watching with a cup of wine was so cool, let's just repeat that for the rest of the show

Will never get tired of these types of Game of Thrones videos🙏

Great video! D&D ruined GOT

This is a perfect analysis of her. There is NO comparison between she & Daenerys and up until “burning Vatican City” she was not a cruel person. Even her punishments of the slavers is not viewed as bad because they themselves have done worse.

The burning down of kings landing should have been accidental. She swoops in to take out wall top defenders with dragon fire, and the heat cooks off some of the wildfire pots underground. This can cause a chain reaction that would level large sections of the city. Doing it this way, you can still have a lot of people blaming her for destroying the city without her character doing a total 180 to reach that point.

You guys remember the scene where Cersei opened the door the servant and Jaime was lying there in her quarters? If that servant grabbed her by the throat and then led to and thrown her out the window to a waiting mob below. I think that would’ve been a better ending to her character than the one she got.

I agree. Especially given that Book!Cersei is becoming absolutely unhinged and definitely heading down the Mad Queen route, I thought for sure that's what we were going to get in the show after she blew up the sept. It made the most sense, and it baffles me that there was just... no fallout at all? No small folk uprising? No Jaime being absolutely horrified by what she did and deciding he was 100% done with her and couldn't stand by her anymore? Nothing? Her biggest flaw, at least in the books, is that she genuinely believes she's some Machiavellian mastermind like Tywin -- but she's absolutely not, and so many players take advantage of that and nudge her further into madness. I wish the show had done the same.

Cersei simply put overstayed her welcome in the story, because there is no Young Griff, there is no person to rival Dany for the throne, which leaves Cersei to fill that void. In the books it is very likely she dies or is kidnapped basically becoming irrelevant to the power structure of Westeros soon after the death of her children. The problem is that when you have to cut so much earlier in a story, you don't see the ramifications early enough, the problem was that because there is no young griff, no one other than Cersei is left to take the throne and you can't have no one be in power for the end of your story because then what, Dany arrives to no resistance. At this point, Joffery is dead, Tommen is dead, Marcella is dead, Margery is dead, Stannis is dead, Shireen is dead, Renly is dead, all of Roberts Bastards are dead bar Gendry, so short of Cersei slapping Gendry on the iron throne there really is no other option left for the writers and the result of that is bad television.

I never understood how the show never once had even a small line from Cesrei or Qyburn - declaring that it was Daenerys who blew up the Sept, trying to have propaganda against Tyrion and Daenerys and the Red God and all! But no instead randomly Hot Pie knows…. How ridiculous. Or even a scene showing riots in king’s landing! Very disappointed in the final few series.

I remember being really disappointed in the arcs of Cersi and Danaerys. The conclusion to Cersi's feud with the high Septon was quite enjoyable imo. But then it was just kind of ignored. While Dany's plotline just stopped making sense. Dany is honestly one of the most moral leaders in the show. But then she suddenly decides that saving innocent people doesn’t matter to her. While Tyrion suddenly does care about innocent people now? Whole thing is weird

I've been saying this ever since i saw that trainwreck of an episode. It made way more sense for cersei to be the mad queen. Then they could have had a nice line about how madness is a way of life and not necessarily genetic

Maybe the real consequences are the friends we made along the way... or the brick that kills her.

I always just thought the show should have ended at the end of season 6. You set up all the potential plot points and players for the future. While ending on a high note.

I will NEVER get over the fact that Queen Mother Cersei got off Scott free. It's literally the day of her and Loras' trials and she conveniently isn't present when the majority of the royal court and clergy are in attendance 🤦🏾‍♂️ And oh yeah, whoopsy daisy, King Tommen mysteriously fell from his royal apartments that same day 🤔 And now you say his mother, the former regent who was sacked and paraded through the streets naked and miraculously survived the explosion of the Great Sept, is now the second woman to claim the title Queen of the Seven Kingdoms, though she has no claims on the throne 😮🤔 But instead we get the citizens of KL CHEERING for her ally in the streets as Euron Greyjoy marches Elaeria Sand and her daughter to the Red Keep 🤦🏾‍♂️🤦🏾‍♂️ Rip Good Queen Margaery, I'll always love you 😢

Why did she become queen ? That’s not how succession works . If anything a Baratheon should’ve been king , Stannis or a cousin .nonsense how nobody said anything when the show came out .

Book Cersei is one of the stupidest characters in the books, and what makes it worse is that she thinks she's smart

Benioff and Weiss said they stoped writing Cersei’s scenes thinking about the character Cersei and just started writing them about what lenna headley would look good doing. All they came up with was standing around drinking wine and making sassy remarks.

Season 8 is Shit almost unwatchable and absent of Logic the show runners dumped a steamy shit on the pages of the Book...and the fans

Ugh the sand snakes lol When the bad writing PTSD kicks in hard 😮

I can't agree more. Finally somebody pointed that out

The show runners didn’t like the fans coming up with the true theories and better theories so they did a “gotcha.” The ending was just so stupid that I still get upset about it. From making Arya the Nk killed vs. Jon & Dani thru prophecies. Not having Arya kill Cersei which I thought she would be killed by her “brother,” - Arya wearing his face. I was really disturbed that Bran went somewhere only to come back when Theon was killed. Moreover, the fact they stopped the walkers at WF is just so bad. They should’ve had Brian turn, WW March to KL, have everyone fight THEN turn battle each other. It would’ve been amazing had Jon needed to make a sword by stabbing Danny, having her die, but then brought back by Melisandre, have J&D marry. Then the sequel would be - J&D incest the heir but then turn out like her dad, have Brianne preggo & her son seeks vengeance, Bran survives by the children of the forest- etc. They ruined it.

Cersei was absolutely the real mad queen. I was really looking forward to Lena Headey going extreme when the 7th season approached. I liked to imagine her channeling Malcolm McDowell when he played Caligula. All the possibilities of how Westeros was going to respond to Cersei's action's after her terrorist attack was also exciting. However, King's Landing got empty, boring, and Euron made it cringey. The idea that Daenerys shows up and randomly blasts innocent people with dragon fire is completely absurd even as a concept. Making the dragon woman with magic in her blood turn evil is just so cliché for a show that tried to avoid common fantasy tropes. The experience of watching it as the episode aired was such a buzzkill in a season of constant buzzkills especially since Daenerys was one of my favorite characters. I only watched the final episode just as a completionist. They wasted Cersei and they also wasted Daenerys. I can watch individual clips on RU-vid and enjoy the scenes objectively and for the nostalgia like when Daenerys frees the unsullied or catapults the barrels over Mereen, but the idea of rewatching the whole series leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Daenerys was also the most worldly character in regards to experiencing different cultures and trying to melt them together using diplomacy even though she made mistakes. It's a waste of time now due to the arrogance of the showrunners. If they had just one shot of Bran warging into Daenerys before the roast of King's Landing or a shot of him warging into Drogon and forcing Drogon to burn King's Landing and Daenerys can't control him, that would have justified the spectacle of the genocide. If the showrunners had just given the material to another writer or consulted George, then the show's reputation wouldn't have crumbled to dust. They had a writer's dream job. HBO gave them so much freedom and they wasted it. We also wouldn't have to see D&D apologists bending over backwards to desperately defend Daenerys' nonsensical mad queen era and the random attack on King's Landing. I'm glad I gave House Of The Dragon a chance, but I know the new show still has a huge hill to climb because of how dreadful GOT ended. Many people aren't interested in the new show because of GOT's ending. Some of my friends expressed this and I see it in comments all the time when I look at new Game Of Thrones videos or articles. I was watching the Majority Report live last night and they started talking about old TV shows until the conversation went to GOT and one of the producers said they wouldn't watch the new show because of how terrible the old show ended. I can't blame anyone for that feeling. I get it. HOTD is doing well, but it would do better if the disappointing shadow of GOT weren't on it. Perhaps if the Jon Snow sequel show went back into production when our collective GOT nostalgia grows soon, and they revived Daenerys (which would be easy to write since Bran's advisers reported that Drogon took her to Volantis), and explore a world ruled by an evil Bran then that might repair a lot of damage. I like the idea of Daenerys getting revived in Volantis only to be horrified by their use of slavery, and they go to war while across the Narrow Sea we see Bran enslave Westeros to give to the Others.

TBF Cersei was already "not Cersei". She is way dumber in the books.

Cersei needn´t to care about the people of King´s Landing. Is like general McArthur fearing the japanese after the atomic bomb. Anyways, the series makes the point many times that commoners are just NPCs with no care at all about whoever rules.

Cersei murdered her own son and last living child by pushing him to suicide. She showed no remorse for his death. Why they switched to Dany as the villain was one of the biggest puzzles in the terrible final season.

On a note more related to the topic, when i read the books, I pegged Cersei as the one turning mad...not Dany. I also believe Cersei and Jaime are Arys' kids, i mean...Aunt Gennas words really sticks with me on that topic. But yea...i do agree Cersei shouldve been the mad queen everyone thought was coming. Not Dany. At least with Cersei, it would make more sense than how they did it with Dany.

I don't think you simply have two mad queen arcs. The point is to show that you have two mad queens. One because she is selfish and power hungry and the other because she thinks she's the arbiter of what is best for everyone. Both lead to the same disastrous result, despite wholly different motives.

Exactly the same people who have always hated her & she hated them. They threw 💩at her & shamed her in the streets. She has no claim to the iron throne but the people just accepted her?? The same people who threw cow 💩 at Joffrey & attacked the royal party in the streets in season 2? Foh

There are a lot of people to blame for the GoT S6-8....but I mainly blame George R. R. Martin for not finishing his books before the series caught up to it. I mean, he shouldn't have agreed for the adaptation before making sure to finish it. These production companies cannot just postponed several seasons because the source materials haven't finished yet, the actors get older, they may take other projects that would clash with GoT filming schedule, etc. Had Martin finished his series, the GoT show would've ended differently.

I think Sept if Baelor is more like Westminster Abbey, St. Peter’s Basilica is in Old Town

Вот, кстати, было бы довольно интересно. То есть, Безумие Таргариенов в итоге частично бы объяснялось властью, которую они держали в руках. Серсея бы сошла с ума точно так же, не имея с Таргариенами прямого кровного родства, что показало бы, насколько власть сама по себе губительна, без магии и прочих штук.

Game of Thrones last season is the story of a formerly well-respected and level-headed leader inexplicably going mad, destroying everything they had created and instantly making the whole world hate them. And also Daenerys turned mad queen.

I don’t even think Daenerys will descent into madness or insanity, I think a fitting proper end for Daenerys will be *accidentally burning King’s Landing down; she wins her heart’s desire but at the cost of the city & millions of lives. I can see many descent on KL, both villainous & heroic, and the standoff between Young Griff, Daenerys and the wild card Jon Connington, the wildfire caches will ignite either by Connington’s desperate machinations or Dany’s imprecise dragonfire towards a specific location. There are too many context clues that rule out a simple Daenerys-crazy trump card. Connington’s impending madness, wildfire caches throughout the city, YG’s arrogance, and the real possibility of a second Dance of Dragons; and an encroaching Euron Greyjoy. In the preview characters for Winds of Winter, a prophetic character envisions “Dragons dancing” high in the sky and wherever they dance, death followed. King’s Landing will burn but not by simple reasons.

You last idea just would make sense and make season 8 average ; also GoT far more memorable and fondly remembered. From one idea, all flow naturally and you can close many chapters with one idea only (Cersei and Jaime can die like in the show but now we can assume Jaime did it because he still love her BUT she's Mad Queen so he have to act) Respect, you just showed the natural ending of GoT.

To say the situation that makes Cersei queen isn't contrived is either you outright lying or just not understanding the way the world works. Cersei has no legal claim to be anywhere near the throne once her children are dead. The throne was never conquered by the Lannisters. The entire realm is still operating under the myth that Cersei's children are also Robert's. All power derives from Robert. No power comes from Cersei. Her blowing up the Sect of Baelor is probably the quickest way for her to lose her head. We also know from history that half of Westeros will jump at the chance to kill some woman who decided that she would lead them. Also, no one is backing Cersei. Tywin is long dead at this point so why would anyone listen to her. This is still one of the dumbest things the show does.

The original script given to the Writer's Guild had the burning of King's Landing be accidental from wildfire going off, so it's not fanfiction. You just guessed the original ending that we weren't given because the showrunners were god awful.

In the books, where Dany is (at this point) largely in a struggle against slavery, she has done nothing wrong so far and is arguably way too soft on her enemies. I would go full Tecumseh Sherman on the wise masters with exactly zero regret.

It has bothered me ever since she blew up the Vatican and murdered all her political enemies how the show and its fans treated her like she was the legitimate queen of Westeros and demanded no consequences but then presented Daenerys like she was the crazy one. It's like everyone abandoned critical thinking as soon as Dumb and Dumber proved they no longer cared about the show.

Oof, remembering all the bizarre choices made in those last two seasons is like reliving a traumatic event. I remember thinking when the first trailer for season 7 came out (which heavily featured Cersei) that Cersei was going to be the central conflict/antagonist of that season, and that by the finale she’d ultimately be dealt with and the show would move onto the white walkers for season 8. I was SO confused when she was still alive and a problem at the end of season 7, wondering if there was some justification for keeping her around for the long night invasion. Low and behold, it was simply to motivate Dany’s mad queen heel-turn. Prioritizing Daenerys becoming the show’s Big Bad not only ruined her own character arc, but ruined the rest of the show as well.

If you looked at the books you would clearly know Cersei has a lot of traits of the mad kid. She loves fight and loves the power of being queen.

That shot after the sept blew of Cersei watching with a cup of wine was so cool, let's just repeat that for the rest of the show

I loved Cersei in the first seasons. The contrast between her love for her children and her cunning and contempt for nearly anyone else made her a great character

I always thought the "that mustve been a sight to see" was so out of place in a medieval setting.

You could say two box turtles take over the kingdom at the end, and it would be better than the ending we got!

Yes!!! We know D&D ruined the show😵‍💫

Great video. People (quite rightly) go on about there being next to no build up to the Daenerys Mad Queen arc, but this right here is the clearest example of poor storytelling by the writers/showrunners. The fact that there are absolutely NO consequences to Cersei's actions makes no sense whatsoever.

👏👏👏

Relegated* I just disagree that there was no build up for Daenerys descent. She's threatened from the start to burn cities to the ground I don't know why people were shocked when she did it

Hey, hey, hey! I will not stand here and listen to you disrespect yourself like this. "my miserable dry sarcasm" Sarcastic? Sure. Dry? I guess. But it's not *miserable*.

About this madness thing... The madness thing is as a whole very bad idea for any character except for a very specific situations. In the books if there is mad queen that will be indeed Cersei and it could work but there is VERY significant feature that makes it plausible. The thing is that madness should NEVER be used as a plot device, especially for a major character. And in Daenerys's case it is exactly a plot device. Without going mad Daenerys is just wining so you invent this pathetic plot device so Daenerys fail only because of this ... bulshit. While in Cercei's case in the books it is exactly the opposite. Cersei is failing and the final result could be eventual descent into madness. So her madness will not be a plot device. It is just a final moment for Cersei. It doesn't even matter very much whether Cersei will be mad or not because her ending will be basycally the same. While with Daenerys it is completely the opposite in a very dumb way. She must still has a dragon and an army so she is in the game. She is not loosing, she is wining ... until we introduce this pathetic bulshit. The eqivalent of that would be something like Tywin to die as a result of a ... heartatack. And then trying to justify it with ""but it was foreshadowed" or another similar trash. Or like having Stannis winning the battle of ice but in the end of the battle some dumb random arrow out of nowhere killing him in an one in a milions kind of accident. And then saying "But it was foreshadowed in the house of the undying scene". So? This somehow changes the fact that this is pathetic way to develop a story? Heart attacks and random arrows happen in real life. But you should never develope the plot using such techniques. So madness, as an ending of character arc which doesn't influence the story but only how we will percieve a character's ending - ok. Madness as a plot twist that will change completely the world in the end of the story - absolutely not. With that said imagine just to replace Cersei's story in Feast with "suddenly Cercei's genes exploded so because of her insanity the lannister rule start to fail". Not because of her bad decisions, not because she alienated everyone around her, nor because her understanding of ruling is totally wrong, not because she surrounded herself with useless yesmen. No, it was because her genes exploded because she was secretly Aerys's daughter or some similar crap! What a pathetic joke it would be. Like season 7 and 8.

Thank you for this video 🙏

Thematically, both Cersi and Daenerys going mad makes sense. If one reads backwards from the endpoint to the steps leading to that endpoint, one must explain the following; 1. All the Houses that played the game of thrones were destroyed or nearly so (Houses Lannister and Baratheon were led by a Dwarf and a Bastard respectively). 2. The King (Bran) did not want to be King. 3. The Hand of the King (Tyrion) did not want to be Hand of The King. 4. Jon Snow forfeited his life and his claim to the throne when he assassinated Daenerys, doing so for the good of the realm. 5. The dominant military power at the end of the conflict abandoned Westros and agreed to let Tyrion and Jon Snow Live. 6. The only Lord on the Council of Lord's who sought the throne was Edmire Tully. His neice told him to shut up. 7. The final Small Council was: Tyrion (a freak despised by all), Davos (lowborn, smuggler), Sam (disinherited because a fat coward), Brienne (a freak) and Bronn (a lowborn sellsword with a dubious character). 8. Gone were Tywin, Littlefinger, Varys, Pycell and riffraff like Slynt. 9. Brienne led the King's Guard. The low were made high. Those who sought absolute power died. Democracy replaced the principles "Might Makes Right" and "Right by Succession." Bran and a chastised Tyrion can be expected to rule honorably if not wisely. Dany would not have broken the wheel. The election of Bran did. The narrative that ended with this solution of the conflicts that plagued Westros made sense and conformed to GRRM's sensibilities. The problem with the resolution provided by the show was that it was poorly executed. Dany and Cersi were both mad Queens. The reason: They dedicated their lives to gaining absolute power.

This all makes a lot of sense. I could've potentially gotten on board with "Mad Daenerys" story arc if it weren't rushed. As it was, the show didn't "earn" Daeny's "Mad Queen" turn, it felt shoehorned in and out of place, and as pointed out in this very video, ignores her character arc that came before that point. They needed to give her more reasons to "go" mad and they failed spectacularly.

Seriously, she killed all her foes in the Sept of Bealor, who TF is going to take her on in Kings Landing, who is her foe in Kings Landing. There simply isn't anyone who can unless you go with the D & D transport thing ... it's not happening.