Cersei Lannister Dies After Totally Unnecessary Destruction Of Capital

Pour one (glass of wine, obviously) out for the meanest in Westeros.
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WESTEROS ― Cersei of the House Lannister, the First of Her Name, Queen of the Andals and the First Men, Protector of the Seven Kingdoms, has died as she lived: without mercy.

Shame.

On Sunday, Cersei sincerely underestimated her enemy, Daenerys Targaryen, believing that as long as she surrounded herself with her innocent subjects in a tower equipped with dragon-slaying contraptions, she would be safe.

She was wrong. Authorities said Cersei fell victim to her enemy’s own cruelty, finding herself in the Red Keep as it crumbled around her and took out much of her guard. When her loyal Hand-slash-co-conspirator Qyburn met a poetic fate at the hand of the reanimated Mountain, a monster of his own making, all seemed lost until she stumbled into her twin brother, Jaime.

Although many got used to their relationship over the years, Cersei made a shocking first impression when she was, very unfortunately, spotted engaging in an act of intimacy with her brother. The Lannister twins reportedly considered themselves linked somehow, having been wombmates. Fittingly, they left the world much like they came into it ― together.

Reports indicate the Queen’s last words betrayed an inner cowardice: “Please don’t let me die. I don’t want to die.” Her brother reportedly held his sister, repeating a familiar sentiment, that the two of them were the only ones who mattered.

The Lannisters were crushed to death beneath the Red Keep, authorities said.

Cersei Lannister is now no longer.
Cersei Lannister is now no longer.
HBO

Incest aside, Cersei was known for two main qualities: her love for her children and her awesome ruthlessness. Just a few short years ago, she had three yellow-haired children ― Joffrey, Myrcella and Tommen ― all fathered by Jaime but passed off as the trueborn descendants of Cersei’s husband, King Robert Baratheon. Robert and Cersei’s marriage, best described as “tense,” got off to the wrong start on their wedding night when he called her by his ex’s name in bed. It was allegedly rather awkward.

She was rumored to have given birth to one of Robert’s many children, a black-haired boy whose name we never knew, but the infant died in murky circumstances ― unlike Robert’s other children, whom Cersei ordered to be murdered where they stood.

She will be mourned for her utter lack of empathy for her fellow man (or at least for those who do not share her surname, because she really did love her children). It is believed that is what made her so lethal when they all died.

“Gold shall be their crowns and gold their shrouds,” a woods witch told Cersei in her childhood. The prophecy was said to haunt her from then on, as she saw it slowly come true: Joffrey and Myrcella were poisoned by Lannister enemies, and Tommen threw himself out of a window.

Cersei was not entirely innocent in all of their deaths, given how she went rogue after her father, Tywin, was speared on the can by the son he constantly tormented. Having spent all of her childhood bumping up against gendered assumptions about her desired path in life, Cersei took the opportunity to make alliances and enemies as she wished, with her father deceased.

Jaime and Cersei in happier times.
Jaime and Cersei in happier times.
HBO

Cersei is credited with coining the tagline for the game of thrones ― that is, “you win or you die.” In her case, though, a more accurate version would have been, “you win or you make a stupid alliance with the High Sparrow and then he makes you walk through the streets of the city naked while people throw stuff at you and then you vow to murder all of your enemies but a younger queen eventually casts you down just like the witch said.”

Cersei will be remembered for a great many atrocities: allegedly plotting Robert’s murder, being fine with pushing a child out of a high window, playing mind games with a young girl who just witnessed her father’s beheading, having a Westerosi nun killed by prolonged torture, forcing a mother to watch her daughter die by poison and crumble to dust, seeking to murder her brothers, promising to send her forces to fight in the Great War between the living and the dead and then not.

Her most memorable feat, however ― the one that will surely follow her through history books for centuries ― was allegedly ordering the total destruction of the Sept of Baylor in one fiery, neon-green blast.

She leaves behind only her detested brother, Tyrion, although not for much longer.

Services will not be held. In lieu of sending flowers, buy yourself a bottle of red wine and drink the entire thing in your bedroom, alone.

Editor’s note: If it wasn’t already apparent, this is a slightly tongue-in-cheek farewell to a fictional character on a swords-and-dragons show. Please don’t send the writer corrections for that reason alone.

Before You Go

Remembering Jaime Lannister

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