Game of Thrones makes a return for the final season in a couple of days. Lots of GOT related content has begun sprouting up in various outlets and one which caught my eye was this one in the national post.
An interesting but flawed defense of Cersei. It ultimately founders on the fact that being a victim of injustice does not preclude you from also being a perpetrator. Cersei was clearly abused by her father, her husband, and others. But she also just as clearly perpetrated horrible atrocities of her own.
Sadly, this kind of argument is often used to excuse real-world tyrants who were victimized in some way by the regime of their predecessors. Lenin, Khomeini, Castro, and Mugabe are all notable examples of brutal despots and mass-murderers whose defenders often justified them on the grounds that they and their supporters were victims of the injustices of the previous regime.
Also, the analogy between Cersei on the one hand and Daenerys, Arya, and Sansa on the other doesn't really work. The latter three committed far less grave injustices than Cersei, and have also managed to do some significant good (which she has not). None of the four characters are wholly admirable. But Cersei is by far the worst of the lot.
