TW: rape/abuse
Cersei is ambitious.
Cersei wanted to be queen.
Cersei agreed to marry Robert - she could have refused.
Cersei knew that being queen meant she was expected to do her marital duties and to provide her husband with an heir. No woman in Westeros is going to fail to realize this.
Cersei was not intimidated by Robert, she was disgusted by Robert following their wedding night.
Cersei, because of her disgust with Robert, choose to deny him heirs. However, she knew that if she denied him sex, she could potentially lose her position as queen.
Cersei did not want to lose her crown, so she did not deny Robert sex. She just made sure to make it unappealing by simply lying there.
Robert was insensitive about it, yes, but given how she plainly showed her disgust for him, how easy was it for him to do his duty? I don’t think he got drunk before sleeping with whores. He got drunk to sleep with Cersei because of her apparent disgust with him.
Robert had no reason to think she was not doing the same thing as him; going through with an unpleasant duty.
If Cersei had truly wanted to, she could have said no. The consequences would have been unpleasant for her, but because of society, not because of Robert. Because of this, one cannot argue that Robert raped her. As far as he understood — and as far as she saw it as well — they were performing their expected marital duties.
He could still have been more considerate, no doubt about it. But he didn’t rape her. They were both in that marriage together and they both made the other act badly.
Ultimately, it comes down to Cersei’s desire to be queen which kept her from risking an end to the marriage as well as to Westerosi attitudes about marital duties and heirs. She is trading her body for social status and paying the price for it.
I generally avoid the drama, but this is too wrong to ignore.
Cersei is not the most likeable character, and she is indeed in love with someone else (namely her brother) and sleeping with that man before and during her marriage to Robert. No one is trying to claim (I think) that Cersei is a super duper nice person who never did anything wrong.
That said, the justification of marital rape will not fly. There are several mentions of Robert hurting Cersei and him claiming he was drunk at the time as a weak excuse. Even he was ashamed of himself. Cersei has very few options after it became clear what sort of marriage they would have. We can speculate various avenues out of the marriage (running away with Jaime, will she lose her children, etc) but those are distracting tangents.
Robert’s choice was to try to win over his wife, and if he failed at that, well, suck it up. We’ve seen that Cersei is not 100% opposed to sleeping with any men who aren’t Jaime. (Hi Lancel!) Robert could have made a better attempt to get his wife to not loathe him. Instead he got drunk and raped her. Repeatedly.
The fact is that there is no justification for marital rape. Her staying in the marriage does not make marital rape okay.
Repeat after me: marital rape is rape. Please stop defending rape.
Source: hippoiathanatoi
notstrangebutdifferent asked you:so where are you on the whole lyanna/Rovert/Rhaegar love triangle? some people interpret that passage you posted so differently…
Okay for some reason I can’t use the Read More break on my profile, so what I’ll do is this- follow this link to read my spoilerish response to the Ask. Mostly it’s just spec, but better to be safe than sorry. http://twitpic.com/7wu734
”She should be on a hill somewhere, under a fruit tree, with the sun and clouds above her and the rain to wash her clean.”
“I was with her when she died,” Ned reminded the king. “She wanted to come home, to rest beside Brandon and Father.” He could hear her still at times. Promise me, she had cried, in a room that smelled of blood and roses. Promise me, Ned. The fever had taken her strength and her voice had been faint as a whisper, but when he gave her his word, the fear had gone out of his sister’s eyes. Ned remembered the way she had smiled then, how tightly her fingers had clutched his as she gave up her hold on life, the rose petals spilling from her palm, dead and black.
“I bring her flowers when I can,” he said. “Lyanna was … fond of flowers.”
The king touched her cheek, his fingers brushing across the rough stone as gently as if it were living flesh.
“I vowed to kill Rhaegar for what he did to her.”
“You did,” Ned reminded him.
“Only once,” Robert said bitterly.
(via eugenefitzherberts)
Source: dietvirgincubalibre
![koi-girl:
[full size]
This is lovely, sorry I didn’t see it before!](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lv3sfhxCqZ1qf3n84o1_r1_1280.png)
Source: kaiju-koi
“Robert was the true steel. Stannis is pure iron, black and hard and strong, yes, but brittle, the way iron gets. He’ll break before he bends. And Renly, that one, he’s copper, bright and shiny, pretty to look at but not worth all that much at the end of the day.”
(via circles90)
Source: martellarianne
A Baratheon Graphics Challenge
Okay there’s no prize, but shiny congrats, reblogging, and pimpage for the people who make something.
I was thinking how much I love the quote about the Baratheons from A Clash of Kings, comparing them to metals. But since I don’t have Photoshop anymore (new computer) the basic graphics I churned out around the quote are meh and my skill with colors, especially metallic, almost nil. So I’d love to see what everyone else could produce.
The full text of the quote is “Robert was the true steel. Stannis is pure iron, black and hard and strong, yes, but brittle, the way iron gets. He’ll break before he bends. And Renly, that one, he’s copper, bright and shiny, pretty to look at but not worth all that much at the end of the day.” Spoken by Donal Noye, Night’s Watch armorer who once worked for the Baratheons. Donal is a great but unnecessary character who has been cut from the show so far.
We’ve got more time to kill before fresh promos come out. Anyone want to take a whack at this challenge?
Source: goblinov-gebis
Source: jpunch
Ron: Why do I only date brunettes? You know sometimes you eat chicken and you get food poisoning and then even the sight of chicken makes you sick, Tammy One is my blonde chicken.
Ron and Tammys - Episode 4.4
Source: stormofswansons
GOB: That’s a woman’s wig.
Tobias: I was told it was a bob.For British Eyes Only - 3x02
Source: arrestedwesteros
