I love her chapters, but this is why I think some people don’t like them.
First of all, many readers seem to have a bit of a hangover reading A Feast for Crows after the non-stop party of a Storm of Swords. So these flaws that follow might seem worse for the first time reader.
- One reason readers MIGHT not not enjoy them in A Feast for Crows is the fact that they come around too often. I remember at one point there is a Cersei -Jaime - Cersei sequence in that book. Meaning twenty pages (or so) of Cersei; ten pages of Jaime; then another twenty pages of Cersei.
A Song of Ice and Fire works better with longer gaps between the various point-of-view chapters: this is one of the reasons that I recommend reading A Feast for Crows and A Dance with Dragons together rather than seperately.
It’s also a fact that reading Cersei’s chapters in juxtoposition with Daenerys’ and Jon’s puts all of them into stark relief as each character struggles to make leadership decisions within the context of their own hang ups. - Others might not see the humor in her chapters, the sly send up of Tyrion’s COK chapters that GRRM has crafted. If you don’t see the humor in them, I suppose Cersei’s chapters become borderline mysogynistic and wallow in her depravity. She is SO vile.
Cersei reminds me of Shakespeare’s Richard III: that is also a problem. Because Shakespeare’s Richard III, as fun a character though he be, is much less complex than Shakespeare’s great characters of Hamlet, Lear, Othello, etc…. Just as Cersei has a great deal less depth than Tyrion, Stannis, Daenerys or even Sansa.
Perhaps Cersei is altogether too villainous for some people…she really is little more than a crazy cruel bitch, the Evil Queen/mother found in so many fairy tales and it is quite hard to find any sympathy or soft spot at all in the Cersei that is revealed in A Feast for Crows.
Even her motherly instincts (accentuated in the show) seem suspect in the books, as she seems to regard her own children as nothing more than extensions of her own narcissism. - Finally, I have seen criticism of the use of the prophecy of Maggy the Maegi. A lot of people seem to feel that its introduction as a motivating device and explanation of Cersei’s behavior is contrived; that it was something that didn’t exist when GRRM wrote earlier volumes in the series, as if he wanted to cram a tale of self-fulfilling prophecy in there. I tend to agree, but it doesn’t bother me. He probably has his reasons. The slavish attention to Prophecy that some characters display is probably best scrutinized with a cynical eye, and Cersei’s story provides a fine jumping board for readers to get to that point.
But I think the chapters are hilarious. They have an energy that is very similar to those of Tyrion’s Clash of Kings chapters — often even down to the “three-part” construction: Meeting, interlude, meeting, interlude, meeting. I haven’t analyzed Tyrion and Cersei’s chapters side by side, but I think if I did, more similarities would reveal themselves.
Of course, Cersei is much stupider than Tyrion, yet thinks she is much cleverer than he; which is where the hilarity comes in. She is such a train wreck, so mistaken, so incredibly irrational — yet clearly gets off on the fact that she is so much smarter than everyone else. And the reader can see all the bad mistakes she is making, even while she inwardly praises herself.
I also love her private thoughts: as I mentioned, they remind me of Richard III’s villainous asides to the audience in Shakespeare’s play…and they really are funny in all their unbridled ignorant nastiness.
And finally, I have to admit — I think the character is sexy. And not just for the questionable and disturbing porn of her and Taena Merryweather getting it on; it’s also her frank admiration for young, buff bad boys — to the point of idiocy, her equation of sex and power…it’s dumb but I like it. I’d show her what’s what.
I don’t know I’ve ever read a greater or funnier portrait of entitled narcissism in a book, ever.
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