In Game of Thrones season 6, you win or you die. That’s how the saying goes, right? No matter: After a brief lull of strong Lannister control following the War of the Five Kings, Westeros is leaning toward tumult again, and the monarchy in King’s Landing is the weakest it has been since the Battle of the Blackwater. Cersei is in charge, and she’s in big trouble. Will she even live out the season?
Can Cersei Survive The Game Of Thrones?
Cersei has always considered herself a master manipulator, just like her father. Well, she isn’t. Such skills largely fell to Tyrion, and Cersei instead has become a paranoid and tyrannical queen. She isn’t hated nearly as much as Joffrey was, but she’s far weaker than Tywin was, and keeps making terrible decisions in order to protect King Tommen and drive a wedge between him and Margaery. It hasn’t worked out well.
As Game of Thrones season 5 ended, Cersei had become prisoner of the Faith whom she herself had authorized reinstated. She got them to arrest Queen Margaery, which they did, but they went ahead and arrested Cersei not long after, on charges of adultery and incest. Yikes. Although Cersei has been released to her family’s recognizance following her walk of shame, her troubles are far from over. She must face trial on the charges of the Faith, an organization she has absolutely no control over and which is more powerful than she is, at least in the capital. And, of course, she’s guilty as sin.
Cersei has chosen trial by combat to face her charges, with Robert Strong as her champion. If he and she lose, she’s doomed—she’ll be in the hands of the Faith, and done ruling the kingdom forever (possibly even because she’ll be executed). Whether anyone can actually beat Robert Strong is another question—I’d put my money on The Hound—but it doesn’t really matter.
Regardless of how her trial goes, Cersei’s days are numbered. I’m not even talking about the little kid who wants to murder her and is learning lots of assassin tricks to do so. Her rule is crumbling. Her family’s rule is falling. I’m not even sure the Lannisters will last until Daenerys & Company make it to Westeros. The Faith—or the Tyrells—could shunt the Lannisters aside well before then. And they probably will. King Tommen seems secure for now, although his days are numbered, but the Tyrells can rule well enough without the rest of his family around.
The only saving grace for Cersei, really, is that prophecy that all of her children will die before her. Gold shall be their crowns and gold their shrouds and all that. Joffrey is dead, and Myrcella died in the season 5 finale (but not in the books, not yet). Only Tommen remains. As long as he lives, Cersei probably will too—but it won’t necessarily be very long, and her days of power are definitively over.
