Is Cersei the Mad King's daughter?

is Cersei a secret Targaryen it's been a fan theory for quite some time and there's actually quite a lot of evidence let's take a look hi everyone this is Robert welcome to inde deep geek on this channel we cover A Song of Ice and Fire in full as well as the wider World Of Ice And Fire Game of Thrones House of the dragon and Duncan egg oh and the Lord of the Rings and The Witcher too if that sounds good there's a subscribe button in the bottom right of your screen I've several times theorized on this channel that Tyrion might be a secret Targaryen there's various bits of evidence both for and against that but if Tyrion might be the Mad King's Master child might Cersei and jimie be too well all this stems from the fact that ays II the Mad King had a history of being inappropriate with Tywin Lannister's wife Joanna there were lewd comments I witness accounts of him Taking Liberties at the bedding ceremony rumors of an affair and Joanna was even expelled from Court soon afterwards by ellaa ais's wife which is what she did with the king's various Mistresses nevertheless Joanna was still at court sometimes we're told she was there seldom but not never and therefore in close proximity to the king so it's possible georgea Martin makes it clear in the world of Ice and Fire that the playing down of the rumors we see there are from Grand maester pyel who is as we know a bit of a Tywin Fanboy so we can't really take his word on it so in purely practical terms it's at least possible and it's noticeable that although Tyrion was given a traditional sounding Lannister name just in the couple of generations above Tyrion you get Tywin tyet titos tybolt tyion you get the idea but no Cersei or Jamie anywhere but are there clues in the way Georg ARA Martin wrote cersei's character that hint that it's actually true well she's first introduced as a POV character in A Feast for Crows and these are literally the first words we we hear from her perspective she dreamt she sat on the Iron Throne high above them all the barbs and Blades of the Iron Throne bit into her flesh that's quite an image and a clear echo of arys II who became known not just as the Mad King but also King scab because of how often he was cut by the iron throne and as I said it's the very first image of her we get from her own perspective but that's not all for the comparison with Aris II not by a long way a couple of chapters later we get this when she's talking to Jamie after the war I mean to build a new Palace beyond the river she had dreamed of it the night before last a magnificent White Castle surrounded by woods and Gardens long leagues from the stinks and noise of King's Landing this city is a cesspit for half a Gro I would move the court to lannisport and rule the realm from cly Rock Aris II also dreamed of building a white Marble City on the other side of the river and also literally took his court to lannisport and cly Rock for a year to rule from there and then there are The Echoes In Their Lives both were imprisoned for a while despite their High station Aris at duskendale and Cersei by the High Sparrow and both emerged more paranoid and cruel both had three children two boys and a girl one of which viseris and Joffrey respectively was a cruel bully these three children were with their sibling Rella and Jaimie respectively they didn't love their spouse and had a string of other lovers as well of course the twinsest thing between Jaimie and Cersei also just screams Targaryen history is full of targaryens falling in love with and marrying each other it's worth noting that jimie and Cersei never seem to find what they are doing shameful it just seems natural to them contrary to how pretty much everyone else in the story feels other than valyrians and to add another weird twist to this Cersei also massively lusted after rhaegar who if this theory is correct would also be her brother her father had tried to get the two of them engaged when they were young and years later she still thinks about the two of them together in an idealized way but the biggest echo of Aris II in Cersei is undoubtedly her association with Wildfire the Mad King we know became obsessed with it and Cersei is continually associated with it in the text her eyes are explicitly described as burning green with Wildfire by Sansa Tyrion and Ned when she orders the Tower of the hand burned down by Wildfire the first time she has seen it used on a large scale she had been indoors for the battle of the blackwat we read this disturbing passage it's quite long but here are the highlights to give a flavor of how it makes her feel the queen could feel the heat of those green Flames it is beautiful she thought Cersei thought of all the king's hands that she had known Through The Years all of them are burning now she told herself savoring the thought Cersei felt too alive for Sleep the Wildfire was cleansing her burning away all her rage and fear filling her with resolve the Flames are so pretty I want to watch them for a while this is somebody becom obsessed with wildfire and if we need the point made even more clearly we see it from Jam's perspective too as he remembers back to that night the green light of the Wildfire had bathed the face of the Watchers so they looked like nothing so much as rotting corpses a pack of gleeful ghouls but some of the corpses were prettier than others even in the baleful glow Cersei had been beautiful to look upon she'd stood with one hand on her breast her lips parted her green eyes shining she is crying jimie had realized but whether it was from grief or ecstasy he could not have said from having seen what Cersei was feeling it is clear it was ecstasy this is how jimie concludes that thought the sight had filled him with disqui reminding him of Aris Targaryen and the way a burning would arouse him Jaimie the person who probably knows Cersei best thinks she is becoming like AIS and it's hard to disagree even in the 12 POV chapters we have for her we can see her growing cruler more delusional more paranoid blaming slights and hurts real and imagined on everyone but her dreaming of Revenge obsessed with Wildfire yes she is becoming like the Mad King Now by this point I'm sure some of you will have started to wonder what about Jamie if Cersei is the Mad King's Daughter and Jaimie is her twin then surely he must be his son but Jaimie seems decidedly not like ays in fact he was so repulsed by the Mad King that he broke his solemn Kings guard vow and killed him and in the main story Jaime's character Arc seems so far one of self-reflection and personal growth so how could we explain that well Cersei and jimie are of course non-identical twins so perhaps it's simply that he takes more after his mother Joanna not all siblings turn out the same in fact most don't and not all targaryens turn out to be obsessed with wildfire and without wishing to overinterpret the text there is this intriguing moment when tywin's sister Jenna that's Jaime's Aunt spoke some home truths to him in A Feast for Crows jimie sweetling I have known you since you were a babe at Joanna's breast you smile like gion and fight like TIG and there's some of Kevin in you else you would not wear that cloak but Tyrion is tywin's son not you I said so once to your father's face and he would not speak to me for half a year Gary and Tig and Kevin are her and tywin's brothers so she knows what she's talking about but how literally should we take her assertion that Jaime isn't tywin's son is it just a turn a phrase or something more incidentally there's another layer here that we don't yet have enough information on because Tywin and Jenna were once close until in her words she disappointed him how we don't know is it connected to this in some way maybe but maybe it's something else entirely feel free to speculate wildly in the comments below there is also a fan theory that as the twins are non-identical fraternal twins perhaps Cy is ais's daughter and Jaimie is tywin's son it's biologically possible and the phenomenon goes by the name of heteropaternal super fundation unlikely perhaps but not impossible in any event the main point here is that Jaime not being like Aris does not invalidate the theory that Cersei is his son and what I find Most Fascinating about this whole theory of Cersei being a Targaryen are the implications for the story for all the focus on Robert's Rebellion being the end of targaryan rule in westos actually it wasn't really Robert baratheon's grandmother was targaryan she was the Mad King's Aunt no less so he was part Targaryen an argument the maesters themselves put forward to defend his coronation depending on how you interpret the line of succession there's an argument that at the moment he was crowned after the deaths of AIS rhaegar and rhaegar's children and before Dany was born he was actually second or third in line anyway after viseris obviously fagon and JN potentially muddy the waters a bit but this was more of a bloody coup by a member of the extended family than the start of a completely new royal family and after Robert came Joffrey and tommen cersei's children if she is ais's child that makes them ais's grandchildren and it would mean that Tyrion the son Tywin despised and wished that he could disown might be the only true Heir that Tywin has jaam potentially was a kin Slayer as well as a king Slayer when he killed the Mad King Aris in instructed him to kill his father Tywin but Jaime killed AIS instead and if Jaimie does turn out to be the Von car the younger brother prophesied to kill Cersei then he will have killed both father and daughter who were obsessed with Wildfire it would also add another layer to Joffrey's character there now being a reason for his cruel character being so reminiscent of viseris and Aran Targaryen and tyrion's description of Joffrey as AIS III is not actually that far off so with all that in its favor what could be against this Theory well a few things first although we can't conclusively prove that Aris and Joanna weren't in the same place with the right timing for this to be true we also don't have any evidence to suggest that they were Joanna and Tywin were married in the year 263 and she was expelled from Court soon afterwards seldom returning Jaimie and Cersei were born in the year 266 3 years later and Tywin was clearly committed to Jaime and Cersei as his children he may not have shown them much love but he was very focused on Jaimie being his Heir and using Cersei to tie his family into the Royal Line he never gives even a hint that they aren't his children and although Cersei herself certainly loves wildfire and takes prophecy seriously in over 12 chapters from her perspective we don't get much by way of other Targaryen traits she doesn't think overly about dragons or dragon eggs or get dragon dreams or show much of a resistance to fire or heat finally we have to be honest that just because there are echoes of arys in her story that does not necessarily mean that she must therefore be his daughter perhaps George ARA Martin is just warming us up to the idea that she will look to blow up portions of King's Landing with wildfire in this context ais's actions would therefore be foreshadowing for her rather than an indication of a blood tie between them and it's not as if Aris is the only historical character Cersei is reminiscent of I've spoken a few times on my live streams on my other channel idg live about how Cersei seems to be being set up to be reminiscent of rera in the dance of the Dragons just watch her go in the Winds of Winter in my mind georgea Martin definitely gives us enough room to believe that Cersei could be the Mad King's Daughter but not enough yet to say that she definitely is and it may well be one of those things that we never actually find out all the people who would actually know Joanna Aris and Tywin are all dead so we may be left to speculate for a while yet but what do you think let me know in the comments below if you'd like more videos like this on the world of A Song of Ice and Fire there's a playlist on the left of your screen or to support this channel the best way to do that is by clicking on the link to patreon on the right of your screen that's all for this time thanks for watching I'll see you again soon

Channel: In Deep Geek

Views: 143,964

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Id: v7M5rEAcovg

Length: 13min 36sec (816 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 27 2023