Guinevere’s jealousy and Jaime’s "Put it in the fire"
There are two main instances of Guinevere's jealousy regarding Lancelot: the first when she finds Lancelot abed with Elaine of Corbenic (unaware that he is victim to a bedtrick)...
... she was nigh wood and out of her mind, and for anger and pain wist not what to do...
... and the queen met him in the floor; and thus she said: “False traitor knight that thou art, look thou never abide in my court, and avoid my chamber, and not so hardy, thou false traitor knight that thou art, that ever thou come in my sight.”
“Alas,” said Sir Launcelot; and therewith he took such an heartly sorrow at her words that he fell down to the floor in a swoon.
And therewithal Queen Guenever departed. And when Sir Launcelot awoke of his swoon, he leapt out at a bay window into a garden, and there with thorns he was all to-scratched in his visage and his body; and so he ran forth he wist not whither, and was wild wood as ever was man; and so he ran two year, and never man might have grace to know him.
— Malory, Le morte d'Arthur. Book XI, Chapter VIII.
...and the second when Lancelot wears Elaine of Astolat's favor to the lists.
But when Queen Guenever wist that Sir Launcelot bare the red sleeve of the Fair Maiden of Astolat she was nigh out of her mind for wrath.
...
“Fie on him, recreant knight,” said the queen, “for wit ye well I am right sorry an he shall have his life.”
...
Also Queen Guenever was wood wroth with Sir Launcelot, and would by no means speak with him, but estranged herself from him; and Sir Launcelot made all the means that he might for to speak with the queen, but it would not be.
— Book XVIII, Chapter XV, XVIII, XIX
And while Jaime and Cersei are pretty obvious nods to Lancelot and Guinevere respectively, interestingly enough, when Jaime burns Cersei's letter he becomes Guinevere: the jealous punisher of infidelity to the point of mortal injury to the lover.
In love, Jaime lived as Guinevere did—so wholly loyal and faithful to only one person that the risk (and fact) of that person's infidelity is earth-shattering. Jaime is quite literally named for love.
He strengthens her subjectivity through mutuality, and as her love for Lancelot grows, Guenevere begins to be defined within the text precisely for her capacity to love ... Guenevere's legendary anger arises when Lancelot appears to betray the contract of love between them that lends her an identity.
— Kaufman, A. S. (2010). Guenevere Burning. Arthuriana, 20(1), 76–94. http://www.jstor.org/stable/23237803
But Guinevere's had the added danger of her life. Part of courtly love was the knightly lover being the lady's champion in all things, and Guinevere was always being put in peril by one thing or the other. They were situations where her husband the King could not interfere, due to him being the King and having to enforce the law. Only Lancelot could consistently intervene on her behalf, and fight for her worship.
Jaime serves the same purpose for Cersei:
A flush crept up Lancel's cheeks. "I pray for you, cousin. And for Her Grace the queen. May the Crone lead her to her wisdom and the Warrior defend her."
"Why would Cersei need the Warrior? She has me."
-- AFFC, Jaime II
So we have a case where the knightly lover, who still has all the privilege of his sex, is the one with the intense fidelity and dependence on the other, to the point that he gave up everything and became a perpetual serf if only to stay by her side, to love and protect her.
There were only seven of them, and they wore white armor and had no wives or children, but lived only to serve the king.
— AGOT, Bran II
Since that day I have separated myself from life and its ties—My manhood must know no domestic home—must be soothed by no affectionate wife—My age must know no kindly hearth—My grave must be solitary, and no offspring must outlive me, to bear the ancient name of Bois-Guilbert. At the feet of my Superior I have laid down the right of self-action—the privilege of independence. The Templar, a serf in all but the name, can possess neither lands nor goods, and lives, moves, and breathes, but at the will and pleasure of another."
— Ivanhoe, Chapter 24
Infidelity is a heartbreaking thing to discover, of course. But Jaime's Guinevere-like response of bright, blazing jealousy feels vastly more unfair because of the swapped positions. Though all his life he has lived for her sake, he won't want to admit to himself how much better that life of his remained, Kingsguard though he is. It is true that Kingsguard are in perpetual serfdom, living only to serve the king, no matter how vile he may be—but Cersei's is still the lot of most women, sold as property, valued only for their face and womb, subject to marital rape, even with the power she has a nominal claim to as a queen and as a Lannister. Jaime by virtue of his birth just has access to things Cersei would never have been allowed to have. She cannot defend herself in a trial by combat because she is a woman and was not allowed to train in the yard; she resorts to selling sex as a way to get allies because she was taught that that is the only thing a woman has to offer.
Slight tangent: Brienne in a sense inhabits both Elaines' role too, though more abstraction than anything, as the embodiment of all Jaime lost and found and dreams of once more. Whether his dreams are true and selfless (or… not), Brienne, Oathkeeper, the quest for Sansa Stark, a horse named Honor, are all bound up in an Elaine of Corbenic who draws him away from the Queen through truth, while Elaine sought to draw Lancelot away from the Queen through lies. Brienne is the utter opposite of the feminine ideal Cersei presents; Elaine imitates and impersonates everything of the Queen.
Cersei disdains Brienne, and calls her a hulking creature in mail; but at the same time, at least Brienne was allowed to wield a sword, the way Cersei daydreams of in some of her Feast chapters.
If the gods had given her the strength they gave Jaime and that swaggering oaf Robert, she could have made her own escape. Oh, for a sword and the skill to wield it. She had a warrior's heart, but the gods in their blind malice had given her the feeble body of a woman.
— ADWD, Cersei I
I think of Kaufman's Guenevere Burning, again. Cersei tires of having to depend on men... now see Kaufman's account of Guenevere at the stake:
Shriven and disrobed, Guenevere casts off all falseness, both the instability of illicit love and the mutability of earthly lovers, and awakens into a new consciousness. She is no longer waiting for Lancelot; her heavenly father has been brought to her. For if Arthur is too political and detached a lover, and Lancelot's love is too earthly, too fragile, then Guenevere can only find the perfect love in Christ, the only partner who adequtely can return her self-sacrificing passions, their union the only love affair in which she, herself, can be completely sovereign.
I don't think Cersei is going to turn to religion. But I do think that the TWOW trial by combat will sour her on Jaime and having to depend on Jaime. (Would it be too much of a stretch to cast Ser Robert Strong as that partner with whom she can finally be completely sovereign, seeing as he is essentially her wight? heh)
