Do we like Cersei Lannister?
A character from Game of Thrones (2011–2019)
Our score: 2 out of 10. Only for people who like their queens ruthless. She's a gripping, even sympathetic schemer, but she leaves wreckage behind her every time she grabs for power or safety.
Cersei is the eldest child of the Lannisters, one of the richest and most powerful families in Westeros. She begins the story as queen, married to King Robert Baratheon in a marriage of political convenience. She is clever, proud and tired of being underestimated in a world run by men. Her twin brother Jaime is the one person she fully trusts.
Her defining traits are a hunger for power, a talent for scheming and a ferocious love for her children. Actor Lena Headey has described how she plays Cersei as someone with real dimensions beyond the cartoon 'evil queen'. That helps explain why viewers keep half-rooting for her even when she does awful things.
She scores low because her methods are cruel and short-sighted. She repeatedly makes a bad situation worse by lashing out, and she trusts almost nobody. We understand her, and we can even pity her, but we wouldn't back her. Anyone standing between Cersei and the throne has good reason to worry.
As her power grows, so does her willingness to go to extremes. At one point she wipes out many of her enemies, and many bystanders, in a single devastating act. She ends up isolated, having pushed away or destroyed most of the people who could have helped her.