25 reasons we love Cersei Lannister on Game of Thrones

She really does love her children

Tyrion has a point when he says that even his older sister has redeeming qualities to her. (Very few characters on Game of Thrones don’t have anything redeeming at all. Cersei is not one of them.) Of course, he uses this as a very back-handed compliment in between explaining how he’s about to get Jaime back.

He does have a point though. Cersei actually does love her children. Sometimes she has a strange way of showing it. During the battle of the Blackwater, when all looks lost, she actually sits Tommen on the throne and gets ready to kill him, lest he be lost to the invading Stannis Baratheon. That may seem strange, but she was planning for the worst-case scenario.

Good thing that Tywin came in when he did, right? Otherwise this list would be far shorter.

She advises both Joffrey and Tommen while they’re on the throne, even if her advice isn’t always the most sound. She worries about Myrcella being sent off to Dorne, and never forgets what Dorne did to her only little girl.

As we’ve also previously mentioned, she gets through the walk of atonement, one of the biggest humiliations of her life, at least partially because she can see her son again. (Also, she can get some revenge.) Just remember how many times she asks to see Tommen while imprisoned.