#and also that I had 'angry tatarian eyes' and 'looked like I wanted to beat people with a whip for looking at me' (yes really)

[miazeklos]

The narrative of Jaime "breaking free" from Cersei is bad because it delegitimizes the experiences of mentally ill women (especially relating to relationships, sexuality, etc) and falls back on the good woman/bad woman dichotomy. I hate with the burning passion of a thousand suns the implication that he’s better off without Cersei because she’s “crazy,” which unfortunately seems to be how many fans view it. Mentally ill women are gaslighted and abandoned and taken advantage of by men all the time in the real world and it’s hugely harmful that Cersei, who’s the prime example of a mentally ill woman in ASOIAF, is treated the way she is by GRRM and the fandom. She’s damaged, as a result of the patriarchy, sexual assault, rape or other abuse by men.

There’s this quote which I think about when regarding relationships with mentally ill women, it’s by Anne Theriault, bolded mine:

“The Sexy Tragic Muse fetishizes women’s pain by portraying debilitating mental health disorders filtered dreamily through the male gaze. The trope glamourizes addiction and illnesses like depression, bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia – diseases that are distinctly unglamorous for those of us who live with them. The Sexy Tragic Muse is vulnerable, and her vulnerability is sexualized. Her inability to properly care for herself or make decisions on her own behalf is presented as being part of her appeal.

And perhaps this is the most frustrating thing about the Sexy Tragic Muse – the fact that this character type seems to be a neat way of removing a woman’s agency without the film or book or song coming across as overtly misogynistic. She occupies the intersection of ableism and sexism, and her mental illness is portrayed in a way that makes it commendable, even necessary, for others to care for her. We feel gratitude to the men that step up and save her, because she obviously cannot save herself. We feel empathy for the men that break up with her, because we see that she is difficult and volatile. We never get to see things from her perspective; often it is implied that this would be impossible, because her perspective is too confused and fractured.”

As a society, we’re conditioned to feel more empathy for Jaime than for Cersei because she’s the crazy bitch and he’s the proper man who’s doing the right thing for himself. And like, I really really really hate that we didn’t get Cersei’s perspective until she’s on her downward spiral because it’s not inherently misogynistic that we see her downfall so vividly but it just feels that way when comparing how GRRM writes Cersei compared to how he writes Jaime (or Tyrion and Tywin for that matter). Look at how Euripides wrote Medea.

This is a wonderfully apt quote, thank you for sharing it! And yes, this is literally it: part of what makes me mad about that whole thing (and also makes me as invested in Cersei as a character, since I identify with her in a lot of ways) is that people will do that to you allll the time IRL face to face if you're a specific brand of unstable. Explosively angry women with a plethora of only halfway concealable issues exist at a weird intersection of 'I can fix her' brand of men who think that their (obviously asked for and needed, duh) empathy (which is rarely that, tbh) will simply put you to rights and the anger of those same men when you tell them you're more than capable of caring for yourself without their help.

GRRM's decision to only include her POV when she's supposedly ~descending into madness~ (and even then, she's right about the majority of the things going on around her even if she's heavy-handed int he way she deals with them) can be fuelled by things others than misogyny, but to tell you the truth, I don't think it is.

There are times when I think he criticises that same treatment of such characters through Jaime's POV when he's being profoundly unfair to her in his own mind, but then I remember him writing his fave Tyrion talking about how 'all he wants' is to kill and rapе his sister' and GRRM saying that he needed a shower after writing her chapters or w/e and it's like.... yeah. Sentiments such as these are part of the reason why I dread the way he's going to write her ending and also why I was so profoundly pleased by her show ending. All I wanted for this character was to be allowed to have her end in dignity and I was astonished when it happened and that's all you need to know about how media usually handles characters like her.

As for Jaime and his supposed betterment through leaving her behind, I'll combine this answer with the one to another ask, because YES:

I am once again asking about the specific ways in which Cersei is worse than either of her brothers.