Game of Thrones Psychology by Travis Langley

Author:Travis Langley
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sterling

The Terrible Mother

In Jungian psychology, light cannot exist without dark just as pleasure cannot exist without pain.17 Similarly, good mothers can be better understood in comparison to evil mothers. In many ways, Cersei Lannister represents all that the evil and terrible mother embodies. Jung describes the negative aspects of the Great Mother as being associated with qualities of all that is “secret, hidden, dark, and dead.”18 She devours, seduces, or poisons all life that she encounters, like some “inescapable fate.”19 Psychologist Erich Neumann describes the terrible mother as “the hungry earth, which devours its own children and fattens on their corpses.”20 Cersei’s evil is apparent from the very beginning of her life, even before she becomes a mother. Tyrion recalls that at nine years old, Cersei had a servant girl brutally beaten for stealing a necklace—a pitiless act that sets the stage for future viciousness.

The incestual relationship between Jaime and Cersei is another dimension of the terrible mother embodied by Cersei—the secret and the hidden. Her relationship with Jaime is so cloaked in darkness that she cannot risk having others know her terrible secret. Although it is Jaime who pushes Bran out the window, he does so at Cersei’s urging.21 The terrible mother bears power so prevailing that those under it face nothing but death, dismemberment, or sickness,22 and her supremacy for destruction surpasses all. When Arya’s direwolf mars Cersei’s son Joffrey, Cersei demands that the wolf be killed. When Arya’s wolf cannot be found, Cersei calls for the life of Sansa’s innocent wolf instead, indifferent to which wolf actually bit her son,23 destruction and death being her ultimate goal. To spite her brother Tyrion, Cersei abducts his lover, Shae, and has her brutally beaten.24

For the terrible mother, love implies weakness. Cersei admits feeling disgusted by her experience of love. She warns Sansa, “The more people you love, the weaker you are. You’ll do things for them that you know you shouldn’t do. You’ll act the fool to make them happy, to keep them safe. Love no one but your children. On that front a mother has no choice.”25 For the terrible mother, love is no blessing; rather, it is a nuisance that stands in the way of ultimate power.

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