If you expected the woman who coldly reminded Littlefinger that "power is power" to soften now that she's on the Iron Throne, think again. During an interview with The New York Times, actor Lena Headey made it clear Cersei's reign on Game of Thrones will only bring out darker shades to the long-suffering Lannister. As queen, Cersei won't be any more content than she was when she was conspiring to arrange the right marriage for her sons, or to hide her affair with her brother.
"Power hungry people are fearful, otherwise why wouldn’t you just chill?" Headey said in her interview. And she makes an excellent point. For so long, Cersei's every action has been guided by a desire to protect her family from the kingdom's scrutiny by seizing every scrap of power she could find. Now she's lost her children, but the desire to eliminate anyone who may challenge her or her brother seems to have intensified. It's just Cersei and her twin, Jaime, against the world, and that's a dangerous position for the world to be in.
Now that she commands the Throne, Cersei will continue her quest to ensure the Lannisters are the most powerful family in the Seven Kingdoms — even though she and her brother are the only ones left. Aside from Tyrion, that is; but Cersei's never counted him as a part of her family, and that's unlikely to change now that he's Daenerys' Hand.
Knowing that Cersei isn't on a path for redemption is actually reassuring. She's one of TV's most purely self-serving and dangerous characters. That she's a woman currently winning the game that took the lives of five kings is just the proverbial icing on the cake. Cersei is not a good person, and she never has been. To have her reign be anything but brutal and bloody would be a betrayal to the character.
That's not to say the Seven Kingdom's new Queen is evil. Like nearly every character on the show, aside from Ramsay, Cersei is far too complex for such a simple label. She's proven herself capable of fierce love, and her anger at all the ways her gender holds her back in a patriarchal society is electric. At the same time, this is a woman who blew up an entire Sept full of people without remorse. In fact, she was quite pleased with herself.
With Daenerys coming for the Throne and the North declaring Jon Snow their king, Cersei's paranoia is sure to be at an all-time high. She's been playing the game of thrones right from the start, and now that she's achieved her goal, there's no way she's going to relinquish her power without a fight. Cersei is on a dangerous path, but you can bet she'll burn King's Landing to the ground before she hands it over — and fans of the volatile character wouldn't have it any other way.
