Who is the lamb? Who is the knife?

i would LOVE to elaborate more, anon, thank you very much for the ask <3

to talk about tyrion and cersei i must first talk about cersei and jaime (stay with me) - specifically their mutual belief at the beginning of the series that they are two parts of a whole, and the consequential deconstruction of that belief as the story progresses.

in asos, jaime thinks "if i were a woman, i'd be cersei". in adwd, he burns her note calling for help and leaves with brienne. in acok, cersei is desperate to rescue jaime. in affc, she's deeply disappointed in him and the man he has become.

in adwd we can conclude that the belief they both held - that they are each other mirror - is not the truth. they have hidden in that belief to avoid looking at themselves, and it's only when jaime finds his true narrative mirror (brienne) that he can let go of that false belief and move on. but if brienne is jaime's true mirror, who is cersei's?

tyrion.

both occupy similar positions in the eyes of their father, because neither of them is an able-bodied man. tywin uses them as he sees fit, but he doesn't respect them or see them as people. that's why tyrion and cersei are obsessed with jaime. jaime represents the ideal of masculinity that neither cersei nor tyrion can achieve. that's also why cersei and tyrion are the most obsessed with their father's legacy, because they're the ones who feel they must prove their worth in their father's eyes. jaime never had to prove anything (until, you know, he lost his hand).

[that's also why cersei hates and abuses tyrion, while jaime offers him affection. cersei replicates everything her father does because she's aware that she needs his approval in a way that jaime never did.]

it's funny, because cersei and tyrion have similar personalities. both are story nerds who think they're smarter than everyone else, they create enemies unnecessarily, they have a cruel and bloodthirsty streak, they're deeply spiteful, and they wear their pride like a crown. "if tyrion were a woman she would be cersei, and if cersei were a man she would be tyrion" is a much more accurate sentence than the idea that jaime and cersei are the same person in different bodies.

and yet, despite their many reasons to get along, they hate each other. cersei mistreats tyrion because she reproduces everything tywin does, and tyrion, naturally, resents it. and resents it in a very specific way, because we can't ignore tyrion's deeply misogynistic views of women. cersei refuses to see tyrion as a person, and tyrion is not capable to see cersei as a person. they're both dehumanizing the other constantly.

and this all culminates in adwd. cersei believing that tyrion is the one destined to kill her, seeing him everywhere, and tyrion in turn obsessed with killing (and raping, let's not forget) his sister. they want to kill the other more than anything, without realizing that the person they want to make disappear is not their enemy, but their own reflection.

Anyone with a name that starts with a “Z”, ends with an “i”, and isn’t some kind of Italian pasta, IS SERIOUS