'Game of Thrones' fans want to know if Cersei and Jaime Lannister are really dead
This article contains spoilers for season 8, episode 5
'Game of Thrones' season 8, episode 5 did this brilliant thing of building up the characters of Jaime and Cersei Lannister over the last seven years to phenomenal heights and then giving them the bleakest, blandest, most unceremonious and uncharacteristic deaths ever. The shrewd, villainous mad queen, Cersei, and the Kingslayer with a heart of gold who had shown the most redemption over the years, died in each other's arms like some star crossed lovers, crushed under a pile of rubble. Fans have come together and unanimously agreed that this melodramatic soap-opera-like death was beneath the two characters, regardless of their many vices. Which has also led to some of them concluding that maybe this isn't their death; maybe they survived the pile of rubble crumbling down on them after all!
Through the past seven seasons, we have seen Cersei (Lena Headey) and Jaime (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) evolve, only to go their different ways at the beginning of this last and final eighth season. But while Cersei turned out to be the cruelest, most ruthless queen ever, there was a certain authority to her vices that made her such a fan favorite character. She isn't necessarily the villain, but she is an anti-hero - the antagonist you can't stop liking. The only thing that still kept her from turning into an outright monster was her love for her children, and for Jaime of course; and even with the latter, she faltered.
Similarly for Jaime, the man who killed the Mad King and made love to Cersei in front of their bastard child's dead body, rose to such honor and valor that fans weren't rooting for him just for that pretty face anymore. Jaime's plot taught us the true meaning of a character a well written - a poster child for redemption. But that was until episode 5 of this final season.
With episode 5 - The Bells - we saw Jaime go back to the same Cersei who he had skillfully managed to get over in the initial bits of this season, and the two of them die like weaklings inside the Red Keep as rubble comes crashing on them. After that point, we don't see the two of them anymore, so it is assumed that two of the most powerful Lannisters just got crushed under rocks, and that has led creative fans to grind their imagination and come up with the theory that maybe they aren't dead after all.
Watch the scene where Jaime and Cersei died- here
Twitter user @7deadlyLils wrote: "Everyone saying Jamie and cersi dead but imagine Tyrion goes to the back sees the dingy realize the caves collapsed n Cersei n Jamie still alive n then we get a satisfying death of cersi." And come to think of it, that could actually be true. That is the only thing that would do justice to the absolute disappointment that was the final moments of these two characters, even with the whole poetic aspect of them arriving at the world together, and leaving together as well. All of that is fitting for a romance novel and we have already said that romance is the last trope that the show - known for its gritty violence and political horror - should dabble in.
The only thing that would make right the wrong that the death scene was is keeping the two characters alive - only to die a more ceremonious death in the finale. Let's also not forget that fans were counting on the Stark siblings being the ones to kill the Lannister ones, so some of them are still hoping for the two of them to be alive only to be killed by Sansa (Sophie Turner), Bran (Isaac H. Wright), or Arya (Maisie Williams). Or even better, all three of them kill the Lannister sibling together and avenge their family's death. "In the off chance the Lannister twins are still alive... can either Jamie kill Cersei or Sansa kill her???? Because we know Arya won’t at this point because they gave her the Night King which should have been Bran or Jon’s kill. Or maybe even Brienne because REASONS," wrote Twitter user @sassyismassey.
Certain fans are looking at the more moral side of things, and they - much like Daenerys Targaryen (Emilia Clarke) - have nothing but pure spite and rage coursing through them for Cersei at least, if not her and Jaime both. They have seen the monstrous side of Cersei and know her cruel, inhuman, psychopath ways, and they believe that Cersei deserves a death far more torturous than dying in the arms of the man she loves. One such fan, @danisthebest86 tweeted: "I get the symbolic nature of the death of Jamie n cersei dying in each others arms buttt.... I hope there's a glimmer of hope that cersei's still alive so she can suffer. I know I'm messed up but she bloody deserves it!"
Their reasons might be diverse, but it's clear that deep down these fans are rooting for the Lannister twins to be still alive, and mostly because they want them to die in a better - and if not that, a more fitting manner. Getting crushed under a pile of rubble just didn't cut it for us, D&D!
'Game of Thrones' returns with its series finale this Sunday, May 19, at 9 pm only on HBO.
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