I'm still sttuggling to understand how Cersei has enough support (military or political) to maintain her reign in any capacity, never mind stand up to Dany.

 

Hope Dany won't spend the entire season at Dragonstone. No more S5 plz.

 

I think the whole point is that her hold is tenuous as fuck. All the heirs to the crown are dead and suspected bastards at that. She has a few loyal people in the right places and as long as she wears the crown the Goldcloaks won't cause too many problems.

Politically, the majority of her enemies were blasted to smithereens. Militarily? Who even commands the reach armies at the moment? The Northern armies are scattered and what's left will come together under Jon who's busy looking North.

The Riverlands armies are fucked and essentially leaderless. The Lannister armies are still hers through Jaime for now. The Dornish are content to do nothing and will rise for Dany as soon as she lands in Dragonstone.

I think the realm is disorganised enough that there simply isn't the will to do anything right now.

Trying to list all the dead Lords I can remember. Ned, Robb, Roose, Ramsay, Jon Arryn, Tywin, Stannis, Robert, Renly, Mace, Loras, Frey, Daddy Greyjoy.

I'm probably missing some but the point is that they're all gone in the space of a few years. If it wasn't for the White Walkers Dany has arrived at literally the best possible time to just waltz into the crown.

 

Honestly, I wouldn't bother trying to figure this out. She seized the Throne despite lacking even the slightest pretense to take it, and did so by killing (directly or indirectly) a Lord Paramount, a Lord Paramount's heir, the queen, the High Septon, the leadership of the Seven, her own uncle, the Grand Maester, and her own son the freaking king!

If the Show bothered to care about realism, this would be the part where the Smallfolk and even the remaining Lords united against this monstrous tyrant, so Dany has to deal with Seven knows what when she lands. But alas, this is the Show, where no one questions how Jon Snow either came back from the dead or abandoned the Night's Watch, or where Euron is supposed to get a fleet from without any trees, or literally anything involving Dorne.

 

While I can agree with some of you gripe, I think you're pushing it man. As mentioned by Seratin, with what army? The Northern host is back home, decimated by the red wedding and civil war between Stark and Boltons. The Riverlands' armies are just as decimated if not more because they're still under the occupation by the Westerlands' armies. The Stormlands have faced defeat against the Boltons in the North and are without a standing army. There are only two armies, the Lannister's and the Reach's and one would think the Reach would be quite disorganized following the loss of their Lord Paramount. Dorne is obviously waiting for Daenerys to show up with her dragon. So yeah, sure the smallfolk could rise up and I'm pretty sure Cersei would just have them all killed and they know it.

 

Have you heard of the Storming of the Dragonpit? During the Dance of the Dragons, the Smallfolk raided the Dragonpit, which just so happened to contain four freaking dragons! And while hundreds or even thousands died, they still managed to kill all four of them, along with a fifth. All because they were fed up with one tyrant on the Throne and had the inspiration of a religious leader.

Now, why can't the Smallfolk do the same thing here? Lannister men are nowhere near as frightening as dragons. And considering the magnitude of what Cersei did, even Lannister men should be hesitant to support such a monster, especially since in the Show the Lannisters are nowhere near as wealthy as everyone thinks they are. Would a lot of Smallfolk still die by Cersei's hands? Sure. But the funny thing about Revolts is just how many people are prepared to die to defeat a powerful enemy.

 

Not to mention that one of the often-mentioned themes is that the smallfolk really don't care about the game of thrones, they just want to take care of their own lives and families. Plus, if Cersei has any sense she'll make a token cover story about some enemy of the crown blowing up the sept and murdering the king. It probably won't fool anyone who knows what was going on, but the average medieval peasant is not well-informed about the internal politics of the royal court.

For her legal claim to the throne, she can point to the lack of other viable candidates. All "Robert's" children by her are dead, and his brothers are dead with no heirs. At best, the throne would go to some distant cousin from the Stormlands, and a lot of those cousins would either have died fighting for Stannis or be attained traitors. It'd take a Great Council to sort out the legal claims, and the realm can't afford to go without a king for however many months/years it would take to sort that out.

And as far as lords go, there'll always be those who see an opportunity in sucking up to someone like Cersei. After all, someone has to get the lands and titles of all those lords she just murdered, the new Small Council posts that just opened up, and so on.

 

Eeeh. If there's one thing story taught us, is that Peasant Rebellions always end up in bloody massacres with few effects. Plus, it's heavily implied that the Dragonpit Massacre was engineered and done by a Third Party. It wasn't the peasantry who killed the dragons, but well armed and armored men with specific drsgonslaying equipment and knowledge of their weak points.

These men were ready for it. It wasn't spontaneous.

 

The average Westeros peasant is pretty well-informed about Cersei's crimes though. Her kids being incestuous abominations was gossip that spread through the kingdoms pretty quickly, and we even saw riots at least partially based on that fact a few seasons ago. Not to mention that the centre of the main religion in Westeros was just destroyed, along with all its leaders. The main reason the faith militant were able to claw their way back into power - beyond Cersei being an idiot - was because the smallfolk were getting sick of how they inevitably got fucked over the most in all the fights between the Lords. The High Sparrow was raised to power by them, and the fact that he was murdered and a symbol of everything wrong with the ruling class is now inexplicably the Queen is exactly the kind of thing that should kick off more riots and even a mass rebellion, at least within Kings Landing. Hell, the sept blowing up should have people preaching that the apocalypse is coming, which wouldn't exactly be wrong to be fair.

The show is complete nonsense at this point. It can still be entertaining, the directing and acting is generally top notch when Emilia Clarke isn't on the screen, but that's the sort of writing that would get torn to shreds in any fanfic sumbitted to the library, nevermind on an emmy-award winning TV show.

 

Admittedly, the mass of smallfolk still played an important role in distracting the dragons and being meat-shields so the actual dragonslayers could do their work.

Not really. The riot had very little to do with the rumors that Cersei had incest—after all, the Targs were incesting it up centuries without much more than some token grumbling from the masses. The riot in Season 2 was mostly about King's Landing being out of food, and even then it was just a bunch of grumpy people until Joffrey decided to publicly order a massacre in the middle of said crowd of angry smallfolk.

As far as the incest rumors, those became widespread knowledge because Stannis told everyone about it to legitimize his claim to the throne. Infrastructure's a lot more shot to hell now than it was before the war started, and if Cersei and Qyburn have an ounce of common sense they'll be spreading their own version of why the sept blew up. Probably blaming Tyrion, since he's her favorite scapegoat and already pretty widely hated.

Yeah, there would definitely be unrest. The big question is what it would amount to, since peasant unrest is often pretty directionless—especially since she just killed the rallying figure for all that unrest. It could easily turn into the same thing as most modern popular protests: a lot of noise and big crowds, but after a while things settle down and people get on with their lives

Or at least, that could happen if she stays in power and stable for long enough. Which I don't think is too likely with Daenerys, Jon Snow, and the Otherpocalypse all waiting in the wings. And even without all that, Cersei seems to share Joffrey's knack for making a bad situation worse.

 

I just want to point out that you're bashing Cersei becoming Queen and are assuming that she is facing no opposition. We haven't seen the ramifications of the Sept blowing up yet. Might be a good idea to wait and see how it'll be handle in the show before pointing fingers at the writers and calling their work stupid. Just an idea.

 

Tfw Jon/Sansa will never be reality

 

Disregarding Cersei's destruction of the Sept, the High Sparrow, and half of her enemies, I doubt that the peasant population will respect her after her very public humiliation. I don't think respect is necessary for a ruler to lead, but with the kind of turmoil King's Landing is in at the moment it's important.

 

The question is how informed are the peasants of all the things going on in the capital.
Most of the peasants live in their own isolated villages with not that much contact with the world except a few travellers coming now or then or their lords coming to get their taxes and men and then you have the really abandoned villages that almost never hear of what is happening in the game of thrones and then it is the question if they ever hear the phrase " The queen was humiliated"

 

And within King's Landing itself, I imagine most people would fall into two categories.

1) People Who Believe She Blew Up the Sept

Most of these people will be angry, but also very scared. Cersei just demonstrated her willingness to commit mass murder on a staggering scale. Most of the older folks in King's Landing will be having Mad King flashbacks, and will go back to doing the same thing they did during his reign: keep their heads down, and hope the crazy person on the throne doesn't decide to burn you next.

2) People Who Believe Whatever Cover Story Cersei Makes Up

Naturally, these folks will just go along and hope Tyrion (or whatever scapegoat Cersei picks) doesn't kill them too.

 

Forget all the rest, that trial would have a lot of minor lords of the realm, their families would definitely wish to kill whoever was responsible. Unlike peasants these lords are far more powerful and will definitely crush a mad fool with no claim and no soldiers for support.
Knowing D&D we can assume that they will claim that nobody knows that the fire was Cersei's doing; that would do it.

 

Excuse me but exactly what kind of nonsense are you rambling on about? First of all, what trial? This isn't some democratic republic, it's a fuedal monarchy. Exactly who is going to call for a trial against Cersei?

Minor Lords facing the oncoming winter after a great number of their men at arms have been slaughtered one way or another? What levies could a coalition of Minor Lords raise against King's Landing?

"See Jakob, raise the banners, I know that I'm a minor Lord in the Stormlands with no clue about the inner workings of what happened at the sept but I bet it's something fishy!"

"But, with all due respect milord, your lands consist of widows and orphans who are struggling to feed themselves in these dark times, shall we arm them?"

Cersei has no army? Tell that to Edmure Tully. Tell that to the Gildcloaks she's still paying.

Why invent ridiculous ways for Cersei to go down when Danaerys is sitting in Dragonstone with a massive armada?

The only real threat to Cersei from inside the realm is from the Reach and their still mostly intact armies. How many Tyrells are alive right now? Why would the Florents raise their banners when they're all high fiving?

Why would they care about King's Landing when the news about Danaerys is probably flying around the realm the minute she lands on Dragonstone? Oh and it's winter. The reach will either enact bloody revenge on King's Landing for what as far as anyone knows could have been an accident or they'll sit in Highgarden, prepare for the Winter and see what comes of the Targaryen invasion.

Depends who's left to take over.

And your point about D&D. I'll say it again. THIS IS A FUEDAL MONARCHY. The peasants and minor Lords are not all sat at home watching last season. Why would they have any reason to even suspect Cersei? And even then, how in hell would they get enough proof or backing together to do anything about it?

 

He means the trial that was taking place in the Sept before the fireworks.

 

Not to mention that without any clear hierarchy, any coalition of minor lords is likely to suffer from the usual squabbling over leadership that could easily paralyze them.

From what I can tell of ShowCanon, the Tyrells are extinct aside from old lady Olenna. Since the Tyrells have always had a hard time maintaining their hold over the reach due to powerful vassals and a weak claim, the Florents and other houses that have dreamed of usurping them are definitely going to be eager to jump on them while they look weak.

As for the Tyrells themselves...

Exactly this. Olenna has already thrown her lot in with Daenerys. I expect most of the lords who think she was behind the destruction of the Sept or who are generally unhappy with Lannister rule will do the same. In all likelihood Daenerys will have already won the war before any coalition of minor lords could organize itself and hammer out all the issues of leadership, resources, etc.

Not to mention that the Targaryen return gives people another reason to support Cersei—self-preservation. Rumors from Essos have probably mentioned stuff like Daenerys massacring her way through Astapor's leadership or crucifying most of Mereen's nobility, and that was what she did to people who just offended her moral sensibilities. Now she's up against the folks who engineered the downfall of her house and the death of her family. Siding with Cersei sounds better than becoming dragon food.

 

Never said that Cersei couldn't get squashed under Daenerys' banner. As to lords being afraid of jumping ship, this is not supported by actual feudal relations. Many people fought for or against the Targaryens, that they did not fight to the bitter end does not make them the same as those who rebelled. Minor lords give their support to their immediate overlords,so blame does not get passed on to everyone below.
Those who do not want to jump on the Targaryen ship do not need to have any of Cersei's help, she has got goldcloaks who are of dubious quality, in a city that is entirely dependent on its surroundings. She is a woman who has been humiliated and has no claim.
The thing about feudal lords is that for all their pettiness they are not peasants, they are quite capable of making factions of their own.
You can make a case for Cersei's opposition being less organised or indecisive, but no case can be made for Cersei's hold on the city and the crownlands, which is non existent, combine it with rumours about the Sept's destruction...... Cersei will be lucky if she does not get lynched.