#tommen**

Cersei has this tendency to compare Tommen to the deceased Joffrey:

Tommen did as he was bid. His meekness troubled her. A king had to be strong. Joffrey would have argued. He was never easy to cow. “Don’t slump so,” she told Tommen. “Sit like a king.” (AFFC, Cersei II)

“[Joffrey] would never have shamed me so.” (AFFC, Jaime I)

Joffrey has always been Cersei’s favorite, that’s pretty obvious. To her, his enormous ego and arrogant, aggressive personality were admirable qualities; conversely, she sees Tommen’s sweet and submissive personality as a tragic character flaw, one that risks to jeopardize Tommen’s (and, therefore, her own) grip on the iron throne.Of course, she isn’t entirely wrong in worrying about the child’s meek nature– this is a cruel world, that doesn’t allow children to be children and has no tolerance for weakness, and Tommen in particular has all eyes on him; the survival of the Baratheon/Lannister dynasty lies upon his ability to persuade the realm that he’s going to grow into an apt king – but the way she pushes the child against his limits isn’t going to make Tommen any stronger, only destroy his self confidence. 

This tension explodes at Tywin’s funeral when Tommen starts crying after being dragged by Cersei in front of his grandfather’s rotting corpse:

The boy recoiled at the sight, but his mother seized his wrist before he could pull away. “Pray,” she whispered, and Tommen tried. But he was only eight and Lord Tywin was a horror. One desperate breath of air, then the king began to sob. “Stop that!” Cersei said. Tommen turned his head and doubled over, retching. His crown fell off and rolled across the marble floor. His mother pulled back in disgust, and all at once the king was running for the doors, as fast as his eight-year-old legs could carry him. (AFFC, Jaime I)

Tommen is only a child. He was suddenly burdened with an enormous responsibility he doesn’t even fully understand and was absolutely unprepared to deal with, and in a short time span he watched the quasi entirety of his family die tragically (Robert, Joffrey and Tywin), leave (Myrcella), come back mutilated (Jaime) or turn into a bad guy (Tyrion, as far as he knows). Cersei tends to underestimate his intelligence but I think the kid is very perceptive, and all these things were traumatizing to him. Here, the little king is terrified, and also ashamed and painfully aware that he just failed (disgusted) his mother, to the point that he desperately tries to justify himself to Jaime:

“I’m sorry,” Tommen wept. “I will do better on the morrow. Mother says a king must show the way, but the smell made me sick.” […] “I wasn’t scared,” the boy insisted. “The smell made me sick. Didn’t it make you sick? How could you bear it, Uncle, ser?” (AFFC, Jaime I)

Then there’s this:

“The world is full of horrors, Tommen. You can fight them, or laugh at them, or look without seeing…  go away inside.” Tommen considered that. “I… I used to go away inside sometimes,” he confessed, “when Joffy…”“Joffrey.” Cersei stood over them, the wind whipping her skirts around her legs. “Your brother’s name was Joffrey. He would never have shamed me so.” (AFFC, Jaime I)

… I don’t know what the text is hinting to in this paragraph, but it can’t be pleasant. Whatever Joffrey did to (or in front of) Tommen, whether it was merely being his usual obnoxious self or something more specific, it made Tommen “go away inside” (I found it very telling that a child of eight instantly gets what Jaime is suggesting in this passage. He knows because he already experienced, in his own way, that kind of horror and that feeling of powerlessness). Also look at the wording: “I used to go away inside” – it happened more than once. I can’t tell if Cersei was aware of Joffrey’s effect on Tommen, but even if she was, she ostensibly neglected to take any measures to protect his youngest son from the oldest, and the way she harshly shuts down Tommen’s confession right here to make a remark about how Joffrey was better than him is particularly unfortunate in this circumstance.

Then we have Pate, the whipping boy. Cersei uses him to break Tommen’s small rebellions and force him into obedience. If Tommen doesn’t do as he’s told, Pate will take the beating for him:

“If you lie to me, I will have no choice but to send for Pate and have him beaten till he bleeds.” Pate was Tommen’s whipping boy, as he had been Joffrey’s. “Is that what you want?”“No,” the king muttered sullenly.(AFFC, Cersei V)

This is a royal tradition, of course, but it’s an absolutely vile practice. To make things worse, Cersei takes it one step further: when Tommen defies her, shouting that he won’t let her hurt Margaery, she orders Boros Blount to make sure Tommen whips Pate himself, and if he protests, to “summon Qyburn and tell him to remove Pate’s tongue, so His Grace can learn the cost of insolence.” (AFFC, Cersei VIII) This is abuse. Not only Pate is abused, but also Tommen, who is forced to inflict pain on another person. I have no doubt it was a terrifying experience for the kid.

Cersei’s parenting of Tommen is also erratic and ultimately counterproductive (if her goal is indeed to raise him as a strong, respected king): for all she pressures him to be bolder and shames him for his passivity, she actually discourages him from taking an interest in political matters, patronizes and even emotionally manipulates him into backing off when Tommen expresses a desire to “learn to be king” or, simply, making decisions of his own:

The king was pouting. “I want to sit on the Iron Throne,” he told her. “You always let Joff sit up there.”“Joffrey was twelve.” “But I’m the king. The throne belongs to me.” “Who told you that?” […] The queen could smell Margaery Tyrell all over this rebellion. […]He shuffled his feet. “Lady Margaery.” He knew better than to call her queen in his mother’s hearing.“That is better. Tommen, I have grave matters to decide, matters that you are far too young to understand. I do not need a silly little boy fidgeting on the throne behind me and distracting me with childish questions. I suppose Margaery thinks you ought to be at my council meetings too?” (AFFC, Cersei V)

Margaery totally has her own agenda with regards to Tommen – she wants to remove his mother’s influence and replace it with her own, as Cersei correctly guesses – but the idea of Tommen gradually becoming more involved in the small council or showing up sitting on the throne isn’t completely nonsense. Clearly, no one expects him to actually take political decisions, but it’s important to promote a kingly image of him in this phase as far as his young age allows it, secure his connection to the throne, and bolster his confidence and assertiveness without pressuring him as Cersei does. Yet she shuts him down. Because she thinks that it’s all Margaery’s doing, yes, and she’s right. But also because, frankly, she is perfectly fine ruling in Tommen’s place. I said earlier that most of Cersei’s actions towards Tommen are informed by her instinct to protect him, but this? This is 100% Cersei “not gonna cheat me of my hour in the sun” Lannister, refusing to share power with anyone, including her eight years old son (“The rule was hers; Cersei did not mean to give it up until Tommen came of age. I waited, so can he. I waited half my life”).

Cersei takes advantage of Tommen’s childish gullibility when it suits her, encouraging him to put his signature on papers without questioning what they’re about:

“Will the king be joining us?” asked Orton Merryweather.“My son is playing with his little queen. For the moment, his idea of kingship is stamping papers with the royal seal. His Grace is still too young to comprehend affairs of state.” (AFFC, Cersei IV)

There would be time later to tell him about Margaery and her cousins. “There are some warrants that I need you to sign.“ For the king’s sake, the queen had left the names off the arrest warrants. Tommen signed them blank, and pressed his seal into the warm wax happily, as he always did. Afterward she sent him off with Jocelyn Swyft. (AFFC, Cersei X)

Cersei is too blind and desperate for control and caught in her own paranoia to realize that the damage she does to Tommen – not just Tommen the kid, but also Tommen the king – is serious. It undermines Tommen’s authority and contributes to make him look like a puppet king, which is absolutely dangerous in his position, even considering the mitigating factor of his young age.

And, of course, it backfires on her spectacularly:

“Where are my knights? Ser Osfryd … the High Septon means to kill his brother Osney, his gold cloaks must…”“Osfryd Kettleblack no longer commands the City Watch. The king has removed him from office and raised the captain of the Dragon Gate in his place, a certain Humfrey Waters.”Cersei was so tired, none of this made any sense. “Why would Tommen do that?”“The boy is not to blame. When his council puts a decree in front of him, he signs his name and stamps it with his seal.” (AFFC, Cersei X)

This is Cersei’s doing. She trained the kid to swallow up everything they put under his nose, and now the small council is using it against her, to dismantle every scrap of power she used to have. This is part of the tragic irony her AFFC arc is rife with. She genuinely believes her actions towards Tommen are in his best interest (and in her own), but they’re actually setting up her downfall and damaging the child.

The show kind of drove the point home in season 5. In the cold war between Margaery and Cersei, the first casualty is Tommen himself. Cersei doesn’t hesitate to throw him under the bus when she’s like “lol go free Margaery yourself, your grace” knowing all too well that he’d accomplish nothing. This results in the incredibly sad scene in which Tommen makes a fool of himself in front of the Sept of Baelor, proving himself unable to handle the Sparrows, which is tantamount to publicly admitting “I am a weak, incompetent king”. (he’s older in the show, so this is has an even greater impact)