“Sometimes we go to extremes where our children are concerned.”
To be a mother is to bring life into the world –
but on Game of Thrones,
it’s just as much an experience of death.
“She was mine, and you took her from me.”
Having children kills so many mothers in the story,
just as used to be the norm throughout history.
“Back when you ripped my mother open
on your way out of her and she bled to death?”
And if they do survive childbirth….
“What comes after is even harder.”
So in this cruel world, what are the best practices of motherhood?
The three central mothers on the show –
Cersei Lannister, Catelyn Stark, and Daenerys Targaryen –
illustrate how their respective houses’ Lion, Wolf, or Dragon philosophy
can be applied to mothering.
Cersei raises her kids to believe that they are superior lions,
removed from the riff-raff of society.
Catelyn teaches her children to love each other
faithfully as a wolf pack.
And Daenerys uses her dragons and followers for conquest,
showing us how a mother is first and foremost a leader.
So here’s our take on how, in the Game of Thrones world and in ours,
the values a mother passes down to her children define the future.
“Her love for you is more real than anything else in this world.”
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When you think of Cersei, the first words that come to mind
might be cold, ruthless, self-centered.
But she is also one of the most loving characters on the show,
at least, when it comes to her kids.
“You love your children.
It's your one redeeming quality.
That, and your cheekbones.”
She epitomizes a mother’s bottomless, unconditional love,
“I used to spend hours looking at him.
His wisps of hair.
His tiny little hands and feet.”
in all its intense ferocity.
“I will burn the cities to the ground if they touch her.”
Unfortunately, the lesson she teaches about parenthood is that love alone
does not make you a good mother.
“You never love anything in the world the way you love your first child.
Doesn't matter what they do.”
Cersei raises her children to believe they are golden lions,
better than everyone else, with a special destiny.
"They will all come to you, little lion, to rest a crown upon your head.”
She inherits this belief in the Lannisters’ superiority
from her father Tywin,
“A lion doesn’t concern himself with the opinions of a sheep.”
so we can see how foundational parenting philosophies
get passed down from generation to generation.
“Year and years of lectures on family and philosophy.”
As William Blake put it:
“One law for the lion and ox is oppression.”
-- and Cersei teaches her kids that
Lannister lions shouldn’t feel themselves restrained
by the same rules that apply to lesser beings.
“For one day, all the beasts will bow to you’.’”
We see the results of imparting this over-the-top sense of entitlement in Joffrey,
“You are my darling boy and the world will be exactly as you want it to be.”
demonstrating that truly unconditional love,
absent any discipline, can be bad for a child.
“He doesn't listen to me.”
“It's hard to put a leash on a dog once you've put a crown on its head.”
And her total indulgence leads to her child’s failing to respect her as well.
“My mother's always had a penchant for drama.
Facts become less and less important to her as she grows older.”
Cersei’s other two children, Myrcella and Tommen,
are sweet and well-behaved.
“Tommen and Myrcella are good, decent children, both of them.”
But the way her excessive love ruins them
is by keeping them too innocent and sheltered.
Her insular parenting style makes them
overly trusting and susceptible to manipulation,
they don’t see threats coming in this world of schemers and backstabbers,
and they aren’t resilient enough to endure serious hardship.
As strategic and devious as Cersei herself is,
she hasn’t passed on these survival skills to her children,
rendering them incapable of making it in the Seven Kingdoms.
After Tommen becomes king, Cersei manipulates, sidelines and lies to
him,
clearly thinking of herself as the real monarch,
“I am the Queen!”
Instead of teaching him to be a strong ruler,
she makes him feel small and inadequate.
“If I can’t even protect my wife and my own mother what good am I?”
The irony is that Cersei is desperately trying to keep her children safe and escape
Maggy the Frog’s prophecy.
“Gold will be their crowns.
Gold their shrouds.”
But Cersei’s mistake is thinking she can protect them,
“It's so wonderful to have her watching over you.
A lioness guarding her cub.”
instead of empowering them to protect themselves.
“Your Grace, the queen has sent me to bring you back to the Red Keep.”
Meanwhile, because Cersei believes a mother should care only about her children,
“Love no one but your children.”
through her we see the danger
in making your kids the center of your world.
“If it weren't for my children I’d have thrown myself
from highest window of the Red Keep.
They’re the reason I’m alive.”
Kids inevitably grow up and need to make lives
without their mother at the center of them.
But overbearing Cersei is a perfect guide
to what not to do when you become a mother-in-law.
Look at this shot of Cersei and Tommen at Margery’s wedding –
she’s in between them,
refusing to let anyone be closer to Tommen than her.
Threatened by her son’s happiness,
“Exhausted, to be honest, but what could I expect,
he is half-lion half-stag.”
she arms the high sparrow in order to lock up his bride.
“My son needs me now more than ever.”
“Get out, you hateful b**ch.”
She succeeds in destroying her daughter-in-law,
but this brings about great suffering for herself,
and ultimately costs her her son.
Cersei’s excessive love for her kids is an extension of her narcissism.
“Have you ever known your mother to like anyone aside from her children?”
These children conceived through twin-cest
are quite literally a product of Lannister self-love.
Cersei’s motherly love is actually quite selfish
and self-serving a lot of the time.
She feels her children belong to her.
“No one can take that away from me, not even Joffrey,
how it feels to have someone.
Someone of your own.”
She puts her control over her children before their own good.
“I didn’t want to come here but she told me to,
I did what she said, I did my duty,
and now she’s forcing me to go back?”
Moreover, she demonstrates that how we act toward ourselves
inevitably shapes the way we act toward our children
and the messages we unthinkingly send them.
Just as she does for herself,
Cersei refuses to check her children’s worst impulses,
defensively fends off any criticism, and tries to shut them off from anyone
outside of immediate family.
“Everyone who isn’t us is an enemy.”
Thus to be a good mother it’s important to be conscious of the example you set,
because any parent is first and foremost a role model.
Catelyn shows us what a mother of wolves looks like.
More than anything, she instills in her little wolves
a devotion to family.
“I’m defending our family.
So is she.”
And long after she’s gone, we see the results of her parenting
embodied in the Stark kids’ loyalty to their pack.
“Family, duty, honor.”
“Those are Tully words, your mother’s.”
Catelyn herself is born into House Tully which makes her a fish,
but over the years she grows into a true mother wolf.
“Bind him with every chain you can find.”
“You’ve become a real she-wolf in your later years,
there’s not much fish left in you.”
In the Stark’s early years, Catelyn imparts a positive model
for a stable home life through her strong marriage to Ned.
“Love didn't just happen to us.
We built it slowly over the years, stone by stone.”
She molds her young into mature, capable, independent people
through supportive but grounded attention.
And she balances giving them a carefree childhood,
“Ten is too young to see such things.”
with passing down her knowledge of the realities
of the world when her kids come of age.
“I don't trust Lord Greyjoy because he is not trustworthy.”
Robb values his mother as an intelligent advisor,
while Catelyn generally respects that her son
is the King in the north and her role is to counsel rather than control him.
This is a striking contrast to how Cersei shelters,
disempowers and lies to her sons on the throne.
In season six Jaime compares Catelyn to Cersei,
“She loved her children.
I suppose all mothers do, but Catelyn and Cersei,
there's a fierceness you don't often see.
But the difference between the two is that Catelyn has shaped her children into
resilient, resourceful individuals,
giving them the tools they need to go on without her.
“I’m your brother.
I have to protect you.”
“Right now I have to protect you.”
She makes mistakes,
“This horror that’s come to my family,
it’s all because I couldn’t love a motherless child.”
yet for the most part, she gives her children the right advice,
“I want you to promise me, no more climbing.”
even if they don’t always listen.
“…and I ignored your advice.
Now Winterfell is burnt to the ground, the North is overrun with ironborn,
and Bran and Rickon are gone.”
The tragedy that befalls Catelyn and her children,
in spite of all she does right,
illustrates a difficult truth:
that a mother can’t always protect her children
from a dangerous world.
“I wonder how many times did Bran or Rickon stare across the moors of Winterfell
waiting for me to return.
I will never see them again.”
Still, most of her wolves prove strong enough to endure enormous hardship,
unlike Cersei’s coddled lions.
So Catelyn illustrates that the proof is in the pudding –
the ultimate test of a mother is how well
she prepares her children to survive and thrive
when she can no longer be with them.
Daenerys the Mother of Dragons embodies the idea of the mother as a leader.
Her dragon’s style of parenting involves setting an example of strength
and inspiring her children to become strong themselves.
In our culture, the identities of mom and career woman
are so often framed as conflicting,
but in Daenerys the leader takes the form of the mother archetype.
She shows what it is to be a mother to a people,
to embolden them with a greater vision of tomorrow.
As Daenerys begins liberating slaves, she goes from being khaleesi to ‘mhysa’.
[shouting]
“It means ‘mother’.”
And like Catelyn, she empowers her symbolic children
to find their own purpose and strength,
instead of encouraging them to be dependent on her.
[speaking Valyrian]
The success that this strategy brings Daenerys in her quest for the throne
shows that healthy mothering and inspirational leadership
share many of the same principles.
[speaking Dothraki]
Meanwhile, after losing her baby in season one,
Daenerys believes she can’t bear human children.
“The dragons are my children.
And they are the only children I will ever have.”
Instead she has three offspring who are both
exceptional and freakish in the world’s eyes.
“But a good mother never gives up on her children.”
Yet while her children are more unconventional than Cersei’s,
“They call you the Mother of Dragons.”
her mothering is far more enlightened.
As the dragons grow from babies to rebellious teenagers,
her parenting tactics evolve along with her children’s needs.
In season four she chains up Viserion and Rhaegal
after learning that Drogon killed a young girl.
“He came from the sky and…”
So like Cersei, we see her becoming afraid of her children’s unchecked power.
“I can’t control them anymore.”
But unlike Cersei, Daenerys doesn’t want to be responsible
for her children hurting anyone.
“I don't want another child's bones dropped at my feet.”
Similar to how Cersei’s children are extensions of herself,
Dany’s dragons are symbols of her own inner strength.
“When your dragons were born, our magic was born again.
It is strongest in their presence.
And they are strongest in yours.”
Her maturity when she chains them up shows one of her best qualities –
her understanding that great power needs checks and balances.
“She chose an advisor that would check her worst impulses
instead of feeding them.”
Yet, when provoked, the mother dragon in her comes out,
breathing fire, with potential to do major harm to the world.
So these children embody her best and worst qualities –
her incredible ability and tyrannical ruthlessness –
just as children will inevitably inherit
some of their parents’ strengths and weaknesses.
Intriguingly, as mother to both her followers and her dragons,
Daenerys is not selfless and sacrificing
like the other mothers we see.
“Take me for a hostage, but let Robb go.”
It’s her followers who offer up their lives for her.
“Do I have a champion?”
[speaking Valyrian]
While Cersei’s indulgent spoiling and sheltering of her children,
catering to their every whim, might remind us more of modern parenting,
Dany is a more stern, old-school mother
who demands service and obedience from her children.
“Bend the knee and join me.
Together we will leave the world a better place than we found it.”
And often, this does her kids good.
. So as the dragon mother,
Daenerys illustrates many lessons
of how to motivate and shape people, whether they’re your literal children or
not –
“He’ll be able to feed himself from now on.”
while also showing that, the mightier a mother is,
the more important it becomes for her to periodically check her instincts
and heed the advice of moderate advisors.
“They’re dragons Khaleesi.
They can never be tamed.
Not even by their mother.”
Before we finish up, we want to devote a little time
to the lessons we learn from the other mothers
on Game of Thrones.
Catelyn’s sister, Lysa Arryn, is a cautionary tale
of the overprotective mother.
Her desire to keep her son Robin safe is natural in this dangerous world,
“If you fear for the safety of your son--”
“Of course I fear for the safety of my son!”
but her excessive attachment infantilizes and stunts him.
Selyse Baratheon embodies the opposite danger –
not loving your child for who they are.
“I should have given you a son.”
“Not your fault.”
“Whose, then?
I gave you nothing but weakness.
And deformity.”
Thus she shows the perils of clinging to a fixed idea in your head
of what your child should be.
Gilly is a model of resilience and improvisation as a mother.
She gets her baby out of a bad, seemingly hopeless situation
and gives him a far better life than she had,
“I want to save my baby’s life, can you do that?”
reminding us that a parent needs to adapt.
Olenna Tyrell embodies a grandmother’s total acceptance of her progeny,
she’ll do whatever it takes to protect her young roses.
“You don't think I'd let you marry that beast, do you?”
Even more importantly,
she adds humor and happiness to their lives –
reminding us that a special mother balances
practical concerns with a sense of levity.
“As for your fathead father…”
“Grandmother, what will Sansa think of us?”
“She might think we have some wits about us.”
Finally, Ellaria Sand reminds us that a parent’s choices out in the world
inevitably come back to be felt by her children.
If you hurt someone else’s child it will put your kid in danger.
“Your daughter will die here in this cell,
and you will be here watching when she does.”
One key similarity between Catelyn, Cersei, and Daenerys
is that they all lose their mothers at a young age.
“My own mother died on the birthing bed.”
All these women are figuring out how to mother
without having had a true role model.
So many of our other central characters, too,
are motherless children,
which may explain a lot of the pain and brutality
we witness in this society.
The Mother is one of the seven figures in the Faith of the Seven,
and according to the books, quote,
“The Mother could be fiercer than the Warrior
when her children were in danger.”
“How did men and women first come to feel the Mother's presence?
It was through their own mothers.”
While they don’t always get it right,
the strong moms battling unthinkable dangers
channel a love and fortitude that are out of this world.
“You have courage.
Not battle courage, perhaps, but, I don't know, a woman's kind of courage.”
So if there’s one key feeling the Game of Thrones moms leave us with,
it’s awe.
“The love she had for her children, I was a little awed by it.”
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