Longtime viewers will be aware that Game of Thrones has a pattern when it comes to morally sketchy characters. Their fortunes rise, they meet with a few significant setbacks, they come back angrier and scarier, and then they die horribly. In Season Six, Cersei Lannister rotted in jail before undergoing a sexually victimizing walk of shame. She got schooled in the art of manipulation by a guy who only wore one outfit and had disgusting feet. And, oh yeah, all her kids are dead. Now she’s on the Iron Throne as the first female monarch of the Seven Kingdoms. Things are finally looking up for Cersei, which means her time has come… and Jaime Lannister will probably be the one to make it happen.
BUT HE LOVES HER!
He sure does! We’re talking about a man who joined the Kingsguard in order to avoid marrying another woman. He even committed what he thought was child murder to preserve Cersei’s honor. “The things I do for love,” right?
Problem is, love and honor are thorny concepts in Game of Thrones. Sometimes the best way to prove you care is by murdering someone before their enemies can get to them; think of Jon promising Sansa that he’d kill her if Ramsay Bolton won the Battle of the Bastards so she wouldn’t have to suffer. Less “if you love them, set them free,” and more “if you love them, make it quick and painless.”
This could become a major concern for Cersei going forward, since blowing up a building full of people is an instant hatred generator. She hasn’t consolidated any new power bases since the sept explosion, meaning that her support in King’s Landing is eroding while her opponents push for open war, as seen from Lady Olenna’s meeting with Ellaria Sand and Varys in Dorne. Plus, her victims had families, friends, and allies who’ll be storming the gates before too long and who may want to end her life in terrible, dehumanizing ways.
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If/when this all shakes out, odds are good that she’ll turn to Jaime. He’s the one person who actually seems to have her best interests at heart, and serves as her sole source of emotional support. There’s also something poetic (incestuous, but poetic) about the lover who came into this world with her being the one to take her out. While it’d destroy Jaime to kill Cersei, he’d probably rather give her a clean and dignified death instead of throwing her to the mob. He does some pretty harsh things in the name of love, after all.
HE’S DONE IT BEFORE
The man who shanked the Mad King is no stranger to killing off tyrants, even at great cost to himself. Jaime “Kingslayer” Lannister was willing to be shunned as a regicidal traitor for the rest of his life in order to stop Aerys Targaryen from torching King’s Landing. Now that Cersei’s finished what Aerys started, it’s unlikely that Jaime will just stand by and let her become the Seven Kingdoms’ first Mad Queen.
When she deployed the wildfire reserves under the Sept of Baelor, Cersei not only murdered a whole lot of innocent people, but also committed the very action that Jaime ruined his reputation to prevent. And since the loss of her children has severed her last link to her humanity, there’s nothing stopping her from going Full Aerys.
What do you do when the person you love becomes the monster you killed? If you’re Jaime, you have to act. Time for some Queenslaying, we think.
IT WAS FORETOLD (SORT OF)
Remember back in Season Five, when a young Cersei visited the fortune-teller Maggy the Frog? Maggy correctly predicted Cersei’s unhappy marriage to Robert, Margaery’s ascent to power, and the deaths of the Lannister children. But there’s one piece missing from this puzzle: in the Song of Ice and Fire books, Maggy adds that Cersei will be murdered by “the valonqar,” which is High Valyrian for “little brother.”
Like many book readers, Cersei believed Tyrion was the valonqar. He’s the youngest of the three siblings and he hates her guts. It’s a pretty straightforward reading–and of course, that’s why it can’t be him. Considering how much the books and the TV series adore shocking twists and red herrings, the most obvious interpretations are rarely the ones that actually come to pass.
So who is the valonqar? It’s got to be Jaime. Although they’re twins, he’s technically a few minutes younger than Cersei, thus qualifying as her little brother. Add to that Cersei’s journey into Mad Queen territory, plus the savage world they inhabit, and her death at the hands of the one person she loves seems pretty inevitable.
What are your Jaime/Cersei theories for Season Seven? Let us know in the comments!
Images: HBO, Giphy
