Game of Thrones - To Rape, Rob, and Rule

Something I have noticed with Game of Thrones fans I know is in conversations about Jaime they talk to me about how he does change as the series continues. And yet I watch Breaker of Chains and he’s forcing himself on a reluctant Cersei on the floor right next to the funereally dressed body of their son! I guess it will all depend on whether or not you believe Cersei really didn’t want Jaime to kiss and grope her. Maybe you will watch how her hands act when he embraces her and consider that saying yes when she verbally communicates against anything sexual. Maybe that is how they often are in bed when alone and in the throes of incest. I don’t justify it or consider it okay. She said no. She said they shouldn’t. She tried to push him away. Jaime was having none of it. She had denied his advances long enough. I consider it rape. And to do this near their son’s corpse is just further distasteful. She needed his consoling. She wanted Tyrion dead and for Jaime to avenge the loss of their son. Guilty before even a trial, not a second thought to perhaps someone else being responsible, Tyrion is already held liable to Joffrey’s death. Cersei is just too convinced it would have to be him. 

Who else besides maybe Sansa (later guided to Littlefinger’s ship by Joffrey’s clown, hidden within a fog) would want to poison her son? With Joffrey out of the way, though, it gives Tywin the chance to mentor Cersei’s other son, Tommen, into being the next king. Unable to steer psychotic twat, Joffrey, into a respectable king (Margaery did do what she could to shape him into something other than a little monster, as Olenna tries to assure her that she might not be queen yet but circumstances could still work out in her favor) because he was away engaged with Robb in strategic war, Tywin sees Tommen as a good alternative. The kid listens to him as Tywin asks what he considers to be a specific trait most important in being a great king, offering holiness, strength, and justice as examples…Tywin provides examples of kings from the past who failed to survive despite having each of those traits. Cersei can only stand in silence and stare at the dead body of Joffrey, while Tywin mentions how he was terrible as King, encouraging Tommen to learn from the mistakes of those who occupied the Iron Throne in the past. Always eyeing how to best protect the Lannisters’ hold of the Iron Throne, Tywin considers what is next rather than wasting/spending time concentrating on those lost. Now both Stark girls are out of King’s Landing, as Littlefinger, ever the strategist, appears quite enthusiastic of having Sansa with him. 

Arya, on the other hand, continues her adventures, taking The Hound to task for robbing the silver (and capitalizing on the hospitality of…) from a lowly farmer and Tully loyalist and his daughter after he offered them stew (made by the daughter, taught by her mother). The Hound, true to fashion, cuts through the niceties and humanity Arya wishes to hold onto, emphasizing the dangers of Westeros and how the weak will never survive.