Why are Men Intimidated by Cersei Lannisters?

TV Series Name	Game of Thrones
Protagonist	Cersei Lannister (Lena Headey)
Usage	Moderate
Denotation	Why are Men Intimidated by “Incest, Boss-Lady, The Arrogant Bitch and What-not” Cersei Lannister
Connotation	Why are Men Intimidated by Alpha Female? Download PDF
Abstract	A synecdoche
What is Synecdoche?	A figure of speech in which a part is made to represent the whole or vice versa.
Spoiler Alert	If you haven’t watched the series, I suggest you watch the series, come back and read.
Introduction	Game of Thrones (GoT), one of the highly-rated TV series in IMDB, is a fantasy drama created by David Benioff & D. B. Weiss, which is the adaptation of the book A Song of Ice and Fire by George R. R. Martin.

We all know the one badass character, Cersei Lannister, who met with an unexpected and pitiful death with her brother.

Dying with your brother sounds awful. But wait, if you have watched the TV series, you know what it is. They were in love, they made love, they even did gruesome things to a lot of people.

To mention few, Brandon Stark (Things we do for love), Tommen Baratheon, Myrcella Baratheon (though she was killed with the kiss from Ellaria Sand), High Septor, Margaery Tyrell, Loras Tyrell and a lot… 

We are not getting into the detailed history or timeline of events in the TV series or from the book (though I haven’t read the book).

Let’s see how the character was portrayed in Game of Thrones. 

Traits: Ambitious, Cunning and Impatient

Ajith quoted

• She is one of the favourite characters
• She is extremely smart, loving towards children and brother but side-lined coz she is a woman, which is one of the reasons she becomes really vindictive

Deepika quoted 

• She is a woman who does anything and everything for her love for Jaime and their kids... That's how a woman feels naturally from within for her family
• She is a very very strong and bold woman. She was pushed off to marry Robert and she had to live with him as a Queen with his atrocious drinking habits and his interest in sleeping with other women
• She is actually very weak inside fearing the loss of her beloved ones and this made her strong to overcome that fear. Though her actions were cruel
• She clearly shows one point till the end that none can be believed whether it's a male or a female. All backstabbed her at some point except the mountain in zombie form. It's a lesson to be remembered in mind especially for a woman in this generation
• Also, she is a firm believer in equality for men and women in society. She was a twin with Jaime. But she was not taught what her brother was taught. And this thing literally pushed her to the edge where she became the Queen of seven kingdoms

Mirdhula quoted 

• She is fearless, believes in the power
• Doesn't mind the taboo... Still loved her brother
• She dominates everybody
• Doesn't bother being a people pleaser

Raghav quoted - I liked her attitude. She won't give up her family. Stubborn

Ramya quoted 

• One of my favourite characters in the series... Self-righteous, she'd go to any extent to save or help what she loves...
• Crooked and cunning, if you count them as fine qualities in human... Good or bad, she stands for what she believes is right, I admire that about her...
• The best of her is being a mother
• Of all the things, motherhood was her weakness as well as her strength

Robert quoted

• I would agree with Ajith. She grows up well as a usual girl, due to her greedy ambitions, she loses everything
• I still remember the episode showing Cersei’s childhood where she goes to a sorcerer with a friend to know about her future. Sorcerer hints that Cersei would get everything and lose everything towards the end because of her dark ambitions
• She starts loving her children too late and realizes her mistake later. As a mother, she was both a maker and breaker of her own family
• I cried when she died with Jamie, that is real Cersei

Sathish quoted 

• Cersei is bold daring cool enough to handle a situation... I think it is because Lena Heady was cast for the role of Cersei, the character seems to be good. Emilia Clarke also had the same kind of weight character but performance-wise comparatively Lena tops the list... 
• Instead of Cersei Lannister, I personally like Lannisters in general. Whenever King’s Landing is shown, I feel an unknown excitement
• Lannisters are all capable right from planning, plotting to betrayal… everything is organized, for example, Wildfire is one fine example
• Even though it was incest, the way their love was portrayed was beautiful. It dint seem obscene
• Cersei the way she carries herself in terms of a hard situation, for family, anger and furiousness, love, was outstanding...  No matter what hardship she faces, she rises back from hell to give a riveting damn reply such that the other doesn’t rise back
• Cersei can be an inspiration to anyone

A Quora user wrote, “Sansa is basically Cersei done right whereas Cersei is Sansa gone wrong”.

In short, Cersei Lannister is a powerful, cunning, dominant, stubborn and a person who would do anything for her family.  No doubt, Cersei Lannister is an Alpha Female. 

Though a lot of people claim to like Cersei Lannister for her badass character over Daenerys Targaryen’s, is it possible for the people who claim to like her to be their boss? An Alpha Female being boss? 

We have seen enough of the character, now let’s get into the main storyline of the post, why are men intimidated by Alpha Female?

	Possible Reasons
The Notion of Weaker Sex	Women were considered to be the weaker sex though it is quite the opposite. “It's well known that under normal conditions, women live longer than men virtually everywhere on earth. Less known is that women die at lower rates than men from all the leading causes of death except Alzheimer's disease.” - Source
Repetition	Men were doing the same stuff over and over, got used to it and were the Masters of It. If you could relate, how a women’s place was in the kitchen and how a man’s place was in the field, you would understand, how these things came into play. For example, let’s take the early men, men went hunting while women were doing household stuff (consider). Over the period, men became Masters of hunting and women became the Masters of the house. Necessity is the mother of invention.  I agree to the point, but it has become gender discriminative.  Compare the number of men and women scientists. Women scientists were less when compared to men.  Does it mean, women’s needs were limited and men’s were surplus? Men inventing, discovering tools for hunting and women were inventing tools for the house.
Conditioning	We all tend to forget the fact that, we are all in the patriarchal state because of all the condition over centuries. Yes, the conditioning dint happen yesterday or last year or in the last decade. OVER CENTURIES. Today (06/09/2019), people are aware of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Queer. To deepen, we get to know about asexual, pansexual and more… What has this got to do with Conditioning? We are all conditioned to believe that, the natural way of sex is between man and woman. No homosexuality! Homosexuality is considered to be a sin and against nature. What I consider against nature is forcing someone to have sex with a person without their consent. At least I could say with confidence, Christianity and Islam are few of the religions which are totally against homosexuality.  Speaking about Indian religions “Ancient religious texts such as the Vedas often refer to people of a third gender known as hijra, who are neither female nor male. Some see this third gender as an ancient parallel to modern western lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex identities.” Under the skin, we all know homosexuality is there in all religion and the only problem is acceptance. Accepting the fact of homosexuality and the social taboos that follow. Social taboos are a by-product of conditioning. We are all conditioned by one or the other. Do you remember our teachers saying, do not sit next to your friend, he will be the person to hurdle your uniqueness and creative thinking. When we start thinking of own our and understand the basics of gender and orientation, we are sure of accepting the way people are, provided we are not influenced by our conditionings.
Religious Influence	Religious influence is also a part of conditioning. Every religion has its own set of pre-text, sub-text, text and fuck-text, saying what to do and what not to do, be it the bible, Quran or Mahabharat, Ramayan…mentioning about the way of living. First question – how did they formulate a whole community’s way of living? Second - why did they formulate? Third- a different set of rules/norms for men and women? Our priests were all exceptional skilled in practising these scriptures and mass manipulation.  Few never questioned God, religion and the priests.  The questioned were imprisoned. One example is Galileo. Please refer to Galileo affair Hypatia Cecco d'Ascoli and more…
Working under an Alpha female.	So, with the art of deduction, we can conclude as why men are intimidated by powerful women. It is just that men do not want to be dominated by women, as men are taught that they are the superior beings and women have their place in the kitchen. If there are exceptions who make it to the top, people tend to damage the name, tarnish the woman’s reputation, treat her as a sexual object, ogle and what not. The other disheartening fact about female workers is that even women are a part of it. Jealously play a part in it. Though there are a lot of women who appreciate and support other women, there are few who speak bad about the woman who is doing well. Talks about “dark “, “nasty” “sex favours” calling names and more.

What do I personally feel?

• The character is acceptable in television but when it comes to real life, men are afraid of such women
• The scale of equality is at macro levels. People ought to be made aware of these things
• The Notion of Weaker Sex, Repetition, Conditioning and Religious Influence is the key factors why men are intimidated by women like Cersei Lannister
• When a dominant woman is rising and shining, men’s ego is hurt because of all these conditionings
• If we are to cut loose these conditionings and social taboos, I’m sure men will never be intimidated
• Instead, men will take all possible chances to be equal
• I also thank all the contributors Ajith, Deepika (Sukanya for helping me out), Mirdhula, Raghav, Ramya, Robert, and Sathish

End Note: I know I missed the link somewhere. If you could mention that in the comment section, will add or rectify. 

Thanks.

P.S.: Since you are here, please drop in your comments.