At the Red Keep, ‘Game of Thrones’ History Repeats Itself

This article contains spoilers for Season 8, Episode 5 of “Game of Thrones.”

Cersei made a curious comment during Sunday’s episode of “Game of Thrones,” explaining why she lingered so long at her perch in the Red Keep to observe the coming siege.

“The Red Keep’s never fallen,” she tells Qyburn. “It won’t fall today.”

But Cersei should know better. Her reign as queen began in part because the Red Keep did fall long ago, thanks in part to her father. It is only fitting that Queen Cersei begins and ends, in a way, with a sack of King’s Landing. History repeats itself, and Westerosi history is no different.

[Read our recap of Season 8, Episode 5.]

In that earlier siege, Ned Stark took command of the rebel army that surrounded and then entered King’s Landing during Robert’s Rebellion. (His adopted son, Jon Snow, led the vanguard this time, offering another historical reverberation.) Tywin Lannister’s forces — some 12,000 men — joined them.

In preparation, King Aerys II — Daenerys’s dad — hid wildfire around the city. Some of the green blasts seen going off during this most recent sack could have been old hidden caches from the Mad King’s day or new barrels that Cersei placed in strategic locations, perhaps a defensive strategy to fight dragon fire with wildfire.

Several people tried to reason with King Aerys regarding his plan to burn innocent people alive — as Tyrion tried to reason with King Aerys’s daughter by urging her to accept a surrender. But when King Aerys disagreed with his advisers, he burned them alive. Dany’s burning of Varys is a little more justified; he did commit treason, and she had warned him in Season 7 that death by fire was the penalty.

Still, there are echoes of her father’s actions here, as well as echoes of Tyrion’s father, Tywin. In both sacks, a Targaryen monarch is betrayed by a Lannister who disagrees with Varys as to the correct course of action.

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The previous go-round, Tywin pretended to be King Aerys’s friend and ally, despite a previous falling out. He came to the city gates with his forces and requested entrance. Varys tried to counsel King Aerys to keep the gates closed to Tywin, but Grand Maester Pycelle, always a Lannister stooge, advised King Aerys to open the gates, and his advice won out. Varys, in both sacks, tried to reason with Targaryen monarchs who wouldn’t listen to his advice and who didn’t share his concern about protecting the people. The result was that Tywin Lannister’s forces began killing the men, women and children of King’s Landing, and raping the women.

It was precisely that needless rape and slaughter that prompted Jorah Mormont to advise Dany to use the Unsullied as her armed forces.

“I was in King’s Landing after the Sack, Khaleesi,” he told her. “You know what I saw? Butchery. Babies, children, old men. More women raped than you can count. There’s a beast in every man, and it stirs when you put a sword in his hand. But the Unsullied are not men. They do not rape. They do not put cities to the sword unless they’re ordered to do so.”

At least that used to be the case.

King Aerys had stayed inside the Red Keep, as Cersei did. He sent his pregnant wife, Queen Rhaella, and their son Viserys to Dragonstone for safety but refused to allow Prince Rhaegar’s wife, Elia Martell, and their two children to go to Dragonstone as well, keeping them as hostages in Maegor’s Holdfast, where Qyburn advises Cersei to hide.

Maegor’s Holdfast, however, provided little refuge for Elia and her two children. That’s where Tywin’s men, including Gregor Clegane, did their dirty work, killing the little prince and princess, smashing the head of the littlest one against a wall before raping and killing their mother. Squashing heads became Gregor’s signature move, which he repeated on Sunday with Qyburn.

Jaime Lannister rushed to Aerys’s side, an act that earned him the lifelong nickname Kingslayer. He was there again Sunday when another reigning monarch died — to comfort this time, not to kill.

Cersei’s marriage to King Robert was meant to seal the Lannister-rebel alliance and help hold the realm together after the sack. But it’s going to take a lot more than marriage to repair the damage after this one.