this cersei line in affc is so telling ppl always flatten her into ‘she sees her children as extensions of herself’ but honestly? that’s the wrong mirror it’s JAIME she can’t separate from she doesn’t just see him as close she sees him as herself
he’s her double her missing half the proof she exists outside the cage patriarchy forced her into the tragedy is that while her kids can individuate jaime can’t not in her eyes he’s not an extension so much as an annexed piece of her identity and when he starts to slip away the ground beneath her collapses
that “the ground beneath her collapses” comes through so bad. jaime repeatedly notes how afraid she is. i like the emphasis on the hand, especially with “he came into this world holding my foot.” that is severed, and that loss embodies a lot with jaime
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this is a layer of cersei that is acknowledged by the author. it does not make the love not there. it can be “argue(d)” just how much that love is shaped by it and what that means, but i think this can be discussed properly. i know the reductive “extension of” weaponization that does not acknowledge or see the nuances of this and is overly pathologizing and doesn’t even properly grasp what it is is frustrating, but the text is intentionally touching on this on some level. how is this love shaped by a very painful relationship to/with the self? and then how such a lens may lead to a certain aversion to the individuation and separation and autonomy that leads to incompatibility of the other party and what they have going on outside of the self. i would argue this is present with jaime too to some degree















