I know get why everyone was all "hey, easy on Sansa", but I feel perfectly okay with disliking Cersei because of her choices, especially the continued one to NOT KILL JOFFREY. Which, fine, not rationale, but Joffrey's not accidentally despicable. GRRM made those choices, and there's backwash.

It's not just about amoral and manipulative or vaginas, because I do like Margaery. "Being born a Lannister was really rough for you" isn't much of a pull for me--the way that Tyrion manipulates his environments (and fails) has been consistently intriguing. And... I guess I need to see what Jaime does next. I'm a pretty stalwart Brienne fan at this time, so...

Brienne is easily one of my favorite characters in the entire series. Incidentally, GRRM has confirmed at book signings and the like that Brienne is in fact a descendant of Ser Duncan the Tall.

Also, Tarth is both Brienne's family name, and the name of the island that entails her family's holdings, hence her being Brienne "of Tarth", in answer to Jessica's question earlier.

I think it would be hard for any mother to kill her son, even a sociopath like Joffrey. And I'm thinking that she probably on some level feels a little guilty about how Joffrey turned out what with all the incest and inbreeding, so that probably makes her feelings about him even more complicated.

Brienne is just an all around kick ass character! I really appreciate that there are all kinds of women in GRRM's world - strong women, weak women, smart women, cunning women, brave women, cowardly women, independent women, powerful women - just women all up in the mix.

I like TV Brienne. Book Brienne was just...really boring. She was a fully realized three dimensional character and not an idealized warrior princess, and I appreciated that. But I found myself skimming more of her POV chapters than I wanted to. Jaime, scum that he is, has a much more vibrant inner life.

I think it would be hard for any mother to kill her son, even a sociopath like Joffrey

She's so not "any mother" by this time, or just any woman, that I do see it as a Cersei-specific limitation. I would (as a show-watcher, not book reader) see her as wanting to get ahead on her son's achievements, but also appalled by him-there's no woobification there, or maternal principle past selfish DNA. I'm trying to put other mothers into a similar position, but I can't even get nearby.

I don't think there's only self interest between Joffrey and Cersei. That's a part of it, yes, but not all of it. I think she sees clearly that he is a monster, but I think she also sees him as her son and she loves her kids. I feel like both in the books and in the TV show that's one of her bedrock characteristics. Maybe she loves Joffrey primarily because he is a part of both her and Jamie (and Jamie is the most important person in the world to her not named Cersei) more than for his own merits (such as they are) but I think she does love him. I do agree that there's no woobification there on her part, though. She clearly knows what he is. She's probably done more bad shit than Joffrey at this point anyway. She's definitely got a higher body count. I figure she looks at him and thinks, "Eh, he's my monster after all."

I figure she looks at him and thinks, "Eh, he's my monster after all."

Plus, you know, it's good to be the Queen Regent.

Better than being thrown into chains by your son. Poor Cat. Not that Robb isn't between a rock and a hard place, but still . . . Your husband gets murdered and your daughters held hostage (well, one of them is on the run pretending to be a boy but she doesn't know that); your two younger sons appear to have been murdered; your older son has you clapped in irons for freeing his political foe in order to (maybe) ransom your daughters; you wind up with an unsuitable daughter-in-law who costs your son desperately needed war time allies; your dad dies, ugh. I know it's not so good to not be the Queen Regent, that's for sure.

I don't think there's any question that Cersei loves Joffrey, and Tommen and Myrcella. Knowing Joffrey is a terrible human being isn't going to change the fact that she's his mother.