I’ve got a lot of beefs with Game of Thrones season 5, and the Cersei storyline is hardly the biggest of them. But it’s still not perfect, and I’d like to take a look at the big misstep in the storyline. It’s a simple one, a quick one, but it really hurts the show and Cersei’s appearance of rationality. Here’s what it is: Her justification for reinstating the Faith Militant.
Game Of Thrones Season 5 Explained: Cersei And The Faith Militant
Some storylines in Game of Thrones season 5 have diverged significantly from the books—Jaime, Sansa, and Daenerys come to mind—but Cersei’s isn’t one. She’s generally on track with her Feast for Crows storyline, which is a good thing… her increasing paranoia and isolation is one of the best plot arcs in all of Feast. And it’s almost entirely intact in season 5 so far. The slow attempted encirclement of Margaery is particularly compelling, since Margaery is more than able to fight back.
But the show doesn’t explain why Cersei reinstates the Faith Militant. Appointing the High Sparrow as the High Septon is sold well enough: He seems a hell of a lot better than the old one, especially after his continued reign became untenable. But the return of the Faith Militant is a really big deal—as shall be seen—and the reason for it was glossed over. Honestly, omitted entirely.
In Game of Thrones season 5, Cersei re-legalizes the Faith Militant to win favor with the High Sparrow and give him a carrot to take the High Septon job. Why exactly she needs to do that, I don’t know. Because the show didn’t give a reason, basically at all. She just threw it out there for fun, because she’s the queen, and it maybe, indirectly, weakens the Tyrells.
In the books, the rebirth of the Faith Militant makes more sense, as it should. Their recreation is a big deal—the early Targaryens had to fight a years-long war to get rid of them in the first place. And no monarch, not even Cersei, would reinstate them just for shits and giggles. No, in the books she had a reason: the crown owed an absolute fortune to the Faith, and the High Septon wanted Cersei to pay up. Instead, she threw him a bone—in exchange for ignoring the crown’s debts (a million dragons) and formally recognizing King Tommen, she repealed the law against the Faith Militant. It was still a huge mistake, but at least she had a reason. In the show? Not so much.
It’s a quibble, but Cersei’s storyline is entirely driven by her motivations: Her sense that she’s increasingly surrounded by enemies, and has to throw the least bad of them some bones. She lashes out and behaves irrationally, but not randomly. In the show, it just feels like she does it for no reason. It’s too bad—a mere one line could have changed it. Alas.
