Stannis (The Mannis?)

Everyone has their own favorite nominee for king:

But every series has that one guy. They won’t give up, you’d have better luck bending steel with your genitalia than getting them to budge one iota away from their ‘rights’ or conceptions of right and wrong. They are the principles zealots, the fanatics, the true believers.

If you hate this card, I can assure you that you are not alone.

There are hundreds of names for people who stubbornly cling to the wreckage of the law to justify their actions, most of them involve four letters and are bleeped out. Some notable polysyllabic exceptions include:

• Heir-apparent
• Legally correct
• Self-righteous
• Numbers obsessed
• Letter of the law (rather than the spirit of it)
• Manichean world-view (fancy term for ‘black and white perception of reality’)
• Subtlety-challenged
• Determinator (a portmanteau of ‘terminator’ and ‘determined, thank you TVTROPES)

STANNIS FREAKIN’ BARATHEON.

He’s a cheerful fellow!

Stannis encompasses all of these words and more. The brother of Renly and Robert Baratheon, Stannis is accurately noted by Loras Tyrell as ‘having the personality of a lobster’.

Congrats, Loras. You managed a single witty observation. Gold Star!

Fitting, because lobsters fight to the death, which is why when you see them in restaurant tanks they have rubber bands around their pincers. That’s not to protect us, the diners. The bands are to prevent the lobsters from murdering the crap out of each other while they are on the crustacean equivalent of death row.

Stannis’s spirit animal and personal totem

I know I would enjoy the books and show just a fraction more if instead of the fiery heart of the Lord of Light, Stannis’s personal insignia was in fact a lobster. Make it happen, HBO.

Anyway, a brief bio of Stannis:

Rejection and Failure. Forever.

What? That was as brief as I could make it! Oh fine. Stannis Baratheon is that annoyingly persistent little terrier that yaps around the big dogs as they fight. Legally, he has every right to ascend to his brother Robert’s throne (since Robert’s children are really Jaime Lannister’s children) as king of Westeros.

Here’s a hint: imagine a clock around it

“You mad, bro?”

Now here’s where Stannis gets interesting. He claims that ‘the throne is his by rights’ and that unlike all the other claimants in the war of five kings he desires the throne not for  power, but because THE LAW SAYS SO.

Stannis in a rare moment of complete joy.

There are a lot of ways to read Stannis’s actions and assign him a color identity.  One could argue his demonstration of cold-blooded pragmatism makes him at least in part associated with black mana.

The color of ambition, flimsy justifications and assassins.

On the upside: No fingerprints!

Or you could convincingly argue that due to his buying into the Faith of R’hllor and allowing Melisandre von Crazyskirt that there is red mana rattling around in there somewhere. That and 9/10th of his battle strategy being categorized as ‘ATTACK ATTACK ATTACK’.

The color of madmen, the tactically challenged and arsonists.

One of the better looking fanatics in fiction, but a fanatic nonetheless.

But I believe that the color that suits Stannis Baratheon best is White.

The color of monotony, law and tax men.

Stannis takes White’s obsession with LAW and dials it up past eleven. The reason he’s a claimant at all is because of his belief in the rights of succession. White also has close ties with fanaticism:

White is also quite comfortable with evangelical causes, such as religion, but especially militaristic ones.

Oh hi there, Mel. Didn’t see you burning ‘heretics’ there…

Stannis cares about the letter and spirit of the law, but not it’s morals. He believes that making concessions is weakness, and takes a Manichean world view. You’re either on his side or an enemy. Naturally, this approach when you have the smallest army and lowest amount of gold in the Seven Kingdoms will net you many enemies and few friends.

This sort of absolutism makes Stannis a terrible diplomat. Without Davos Seaworth and Melisandre to win people to his side/smooth over rough patches, Stannis would be dead in the water.

Stannis and the more fringe elements of  White mana are, to put it concisely, extremists. In the same way that Black mana all but worships the ego and primacy of self, White mana puts hierarchy and precedent on a pedestal.

Stannis practices a strange blend of reverence for the law, while disregarding the morality behind them. His vision is myopic: it  discards subtlety for absolutes, thought for dogma and insight for blind faith in the law.

Yeah, as you may have gathered I’m not a fan of Stannis. Or even particularly of White mana. White worships order, to the point of entropy and stagnation. A fanatical White character would not upgrade a system in need of reform because that would temporarily disrupt the order of said system.

White discourages anything that might endanger the status quo, and is actively afraid of change.

This is one of the less appealing sides of White, long considered ‘the hero color’ and conventionally considered good. White, in extremes, cares more about order/heirarchies than it does about people and is completely comfortable with horrible systems like fascism, totalitarianism, and persecution.

Stannis is a fundamentally flat character in the show, although not without his (loud) fanbase who believe that Stannis (The Mannis) is boldly forging new ground in the category of Awkward Awesome Antiheroes.

He won’t stop smiling!

But because I find the Stannis the Mannis memes amusing, here are a few of the best (worst?). It’s weird to see a psuedo-Westerosi Chuck Norris, but I suppose if anyone is bloody-minded enough, it’s him. See you chaps again soon!

The Krampus and Alignment System Cometh…

The Holidays are fast upon on us! Feasting, family (combined, usually not in the Hannibal-type way) and philosophizing will be rampant. Even the snow-demons, safe for now under their insulating layers of cold, will be sipping the tears of field mice and wondering just what the New Year will bring.

Don’t be fooled. Snow-demons, micro-yetis and other unspeakable creatures lurk beneath the snow…

 

What better time to ponder the foundation of any good story, gaming experience or bit of light philosophy? In short, in the spirit of Christmas/The Winter Solstice/Kwanzaa/Hanukkah/The Most Ancient and Vile Rites of The Snow Demons  I will be covering the much loved and well known Alignment System.

The Alignment System is one of Dungeon and Dragons’ most famous tools. People who don’t play D&D (like myself, until recently) still understand and even quote it. In short, the Alignment System is a role-playing tool to help you make your character distinct from yourself. Take a look:

There are a thousand more amusing versions of this, but this is the basics…

It is important to note that these archetypes are guidelines to building a character (or ideology-in-universe) and establishing their priorities, worldview and enemies. Let’s break them down for you (In arbitrary order):

Lawful: Cares about enforcing laws, order and (depending on what side of the good/evil/neutral divide the character falls on) justice. Pretty self explanatory, really. Very White in its general outlook and has a positive fetish for order.

Neutral: Switzerland. The middle child. It takes no side on the Good/Evil debate, or the Order vs. Chaos disagreement (not for one, monolithic reason, it should be noted. Some Neutral characters believe that balance is more important than belief, and would rapidly switch sides between good and evil, in order to keep the balance. Others simply believe that moral codes limit them from doing what they want. Neutral also has the distinction of being the only axis that can ally with itself (Neutral Neutral), which is usually someone who will do exactly what they want, when they want. Or simply doesn’t care about anything but itself.

Chaotic:

Do I need to say anything more really?

 

There are also the three subjective categories–Good, Evil and Neutral. Note that Neutral is the glue that holds this whole damn system together, being the only attribute that can move between Chaos/Order and Good/Evil.

This alignment chart somewhat foreshadows the much-talked about Color Pie:

 

Anyway, the reason I dragged you readers (probably not kicking and screaming, but almost certainly twitching and fidgeting from lack of Game Of Thrones jokes or MTG references) is because I’m going to be giving you a holiday treat. Using both of these systems referred to above—

 

 

Oh dear god KILL IT WITH FIRE!

Sorry, as I was saying before I was interrupted by Santa’s equivalent of a demonic bad cop (if a policeman’s duties including whacking naughty children with sticks and/or abducting them for their failure to be obedient and kind children…)—I will be going through the Alignment System and Pie over the next nine days and giving you an example of each using a—

Santa doesn’t get mad at naughty children. That’s why he has the Kramp–is that his TONGUE?!

Oh, I get it, Krampus. Very droll. You think just because you come from hundreds of years of Teutonic tradition backing you, you can interrupt me? You think because you ride shotgun with Saint Nick you can trample over the basic courtesies of—

At least he sticks to a color-theme…

I bet you got top marks in Interrupting and Failure College, Krampus, you insufferab—oh dear mother of—

The Krampus appears.

The Krampus: YOU HAVE BEEN BAD, CHARLES (Raises his stick and jangles his chains, a mad grin sliding across his strangely sharp mouth and wide-set eyes)

Me:(I dearly wish I could say I met this fierce apparition with a witty retort, but having ones’ trousers unexpectedly fill with urine has the tendency to drown smartass remarks): And I just washed these pants, too.

The Krampus: YOU ARE COMING WITH ME. THANKS TO A RULES UPDATE, BLOGGING WILL LAND YOU A ONE-WAY TRIP IN MY SACK OF PAIN. YOU’RE GOING TO BE QUITE—(Again that mad-eyed, nearly berserk grin, just ahead of that wolf-like growl, the jangling of chains as they snap towards me like hungry serpents…The Krampus minces forward, a strangely dainty movement that only serves to heighten my terror) UNCOMFORTABLE, BOY!

Me: I’m not a boy! (I blurt this out like a sheep with a particularly juicy bit of gossip.) I’m an adult! A man! Your job is to take children, not men!

The Krampus stops in his tracks and for a wonderful moment something like confusion crosses his hybrid face.

The Krampus: PUBERTY SHALL NOT SAVE YOU!

Me: It’s not even Christmas eve yet, you putz! And besides, you are wasting a great opportunity.

The Krampus: DON’T BE ABSURD. I’M GERMAN, WE DON’T WASTE ANYTHING.

Me: Well, in that case, why don’t you let me finish my blogs? You can co-host if you want. Then, if you still think I should be dragged off to your shack, I’m all for it. I just hate to leave a project unfinished. I mean, you’re the star of one of the episodes!

BEAT

THE KRAMPUS: IS THAT ‘THE DEVIL WENT DOWN TO GEORGIA’ I HEAR PLAYING IN THE BACKGROUND?

Me: No, of course not. That would be silly. See you tomorrow.

 

 

 

 

Captain Ahab

On today’s blog, we’re going to be dealing with the contentious captain of the Pequod! The avatar of anger, the bilious badass, the carnage-craving commandant himself…Captain Ahab.

…And THAT is his happy face…

Ahab is an anti-hero, even villainous: he is consistently portrayed as mentally unstable, hungering for vengeance against a ‘dumb beast’ as Starbuck notes (something that Starbuck himself considers a blasphemy).

  Ahab’s hunger for retribution outweighs literally everything else in the story: his family, his ship, the safety of his crew, and even his own sense of self-preservation. He is hell-bent on vengeance on the white whale, the monster that took his leg and scarred his face: Moby Dick. Every waking moment of his life is spent obsessively hunting this creature.

According to Wizards, someone who is focused completely on revenge to the EXCLUSION of any other traits is the colors above (White-Black-Red). For example:

Not shown: Concern for long term ramifications.

and cards that reward aggression over logic:

I confess, I had a hard time swallowing a three-color explanation for something as simple as revenge. But then I pondered it a bit, and it turns out that revenge (and Ahab!) are a bit more complicated than they appear. Let’s break down the component colors and how they apply to Ahab.

FOR GREAT JUSTICE!

White mana is chiefly concerned, in this combination, with justice and order in the abstract sense. I can hear you saying ‘justice isn’t revenge!’ Well, no, but the basic premise of justice is a sort of legally sanctioned retribution. When seen in that context, White makes perfect sense for Ahab. White is also the most obsessed with order and planning: one of my favorite scenes from the book is Ahab in his study (Ok, it’s someone else DISCUSSING the amount of planning Ahab put into this voyage but still). Ahab   figuring out where Moby Dick will be at any given time through his knowledge of the seven seas and copious amounts of maps, charts and reports on pods of whales and their patterns. His hours of study (eventually) pay off (sort of) in the end.

Ahab looks a little…strung out…

Faustian bargains included.

Black mana, at least as it applies to Ahab, is chiefly concerned with the self. It  doesn’t hurt that black mana has historically the longest reputation for being ‘good at killling’ and views homicide/whale-o-cide as the sword that cuts the Gordian knot of life’s problems.  Ahab is completely obsessed with fulfilling his vengeance, it’s a purely selfish desire. As noted above, he forsakes hearth, health and the lives of his crew: everything is coin to be spent to in pursuit of his revenge. One gets the uncomfortable feeling that if blowing up a lifeboat full of orphans would somehow help Ahab fulfill his crusade against Moby Dick he’d be down in the hold measuring out the gunpowder before you could say ‘unfettered’. Ahab has discarded a large part of his humanity in pursuit of his goal, and that’s exactly what black mana is all about: making deals with the devil (or your id) for power or a desired result.

 

Now THAT is a scar…

 

Rationality optional

Red is chiefly concerned with passion and the primacy of emotions. Ahab’s emotions, his, shall we say, burning desire for revenge is what keeps him going for the whole book. While Black or White might calculate the loss-gain ratios of an action, red doesn’t even bother. Ahab places feelings, in this case, hatred, so high on the list that he is willing to pay any price to achieve it, to get that emotional satisfaction. He also insists on killing the whale himself, with a harpoon, as opposed to a more pragmatic option like opening up on Moby Dick with a broadside. This sort of blood lust is characteristic of red characters.  Ahab is being kept alive and awake at night by the sheer power of hatred, not logic or purpose. On an animal that has no concept that it has done anything wrong. Yep, the logic part of Ahab that doesn’t involve killing Moby Dick checked out a while ago.

So that’s Ahab. Join me again for next week, when I’ll return to Westeros and deal with our favorite bastard.

 

 

The Colors of Tyrion Lannister (Red and Blue)

Tyrion Lannister, Master of Coin:

Tyrion Lannister is the youngest of the three Lannister siblings. His mother died in childbirth, something his father, Tywin Lannister, has never forgiven him for (along with being a dwarf). Tywin then proceeded to make Tyrion’s childhood (and a fair portion of his adult life) a living hell.

Not pictured: Empathy.

A defining moment in Tyrion’s early life was his first love, a peasant girl named Tysha. Tyrion and Tysha (T&T) were smitten with each other and enjoyed a blissful two week marriage, which is exactly how long it took his father to find out about it. Tywin had Tysha raped by a barracks full of guards and sent her away, simultaneously crushing his son’s senses of hope and idealism and securing himself the much contested Worst Father in the Seven Kingdoms award for that year and possibly the next few decades.

Tyrion’s relations with his sister, Cersei, are similarly tense. She, like Tywin, blames him for his mother’s death and treats him with unabashed scorn and derision. The queen regent does her level best to have her little brother killed and thinks nothing of torturing ‘Tyrion’s whore’ (in a case of mistaken identity) to ensure Joffrey’s safety.

Kicks ALL the puppies.

In fact, the only Lannister that Tyrion gets along with is his big brother, Jaime, the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard. The two have a deep bond that is explained in the books but only hinted at in the tv series. Jaime is fiercely protective of his little brother, and Tyrion appreciates that, especially given his sister’s and father’s attitudes towards him. In the books, one of Tyrion’s first actions as Hand of the King is to hatch a clever plan to free Jaime from Riverrun using mummers that is only foiled by the Stark forces by happenstance.

Jaime ‘Defenestrate Small Children’ Lannister

Despite Tywin’s best attempts to marginalize his dwarf son, Tyrion is a talented politician, tactician and many other types of ‘icians’. He has served as Hand of the King in his father’s stead and Master of Coin.

Today we will be looking at Tyrion and what makes him tick through the Color Pie.

Tyrion is an intriguing character that mixes a great deal of opposites together, this alone could account for his status as a fan-favorite. He is charismatic without being overly familiar, competent without being cruel. He’s a bookish man in a largely illiterate society, an outcast in the most influential family in Westeros.

As noted before, all three Lannister siblings have a strong impulsive, emotional side to their characters: Cersei is spiteful and willing to cut her own arm off if she can beat you to death with it; Jaime believes in giving your problems a ‘terrible case of sword-through-bowels’ and Tyrion will either charm or buy his way out of trouble (not that he’s averse to a little ass-kicking, but its almost never his first solution). In short, Tyrion is defined by his ability to make the best of a bad situation and to do that quickly.

For Tyrion, a shield is not only a defensive weapon…

This preference for improvisation and his deep-seated belief in helping “Cripples, bastards and broken things” when at all feasible puts Tyrion squarely in the Red part of the color pie. As an outcast himself, he feels empathy for people that others in Westerosi society shun and frequently goes out of his way to help them even at no benefit to himself. Examples include giving Bran and Maester Luwin a copy of his plans for a customized saddle that would allow the crippled boy to ride again and consoling Sansa Stark after the Red Wedding . Tyrion knows what it is to be ostracized and is more than willing to help others in need.

Tyrion is also in part characterized by a hedonistic side that helps serve to humanize him and keep him grounded. He gambles, whores and is quite probably the Game of Thrones character that most would prefer to go drinking with. Robert Baratheon would punch your teeth out in a brawl over a barmaid while insulting your stupid first name:

The Westerosi Butt Monkey in its native environment…

Ned Stark would go on an on about the many intricacies of living honorably Oop North

Ned Stark…heads out.

and Khal Drogo probably would not shut up about horses, raping and pillaging. Hopefully not in the same sentence, as I understand we have laws against that sort of thing.

Seriously, shut up about the horses! We get it!

Tyrion, on the other hand, would probably make some clever remarks, refill the wine and proceed to hold forth about his latest adventure brothel-jumping or escaping the Vale. Even his enemies find the Halfman entertaining!

“I once brought a donkey and honeycomb into a brothel…”

Tyrion’s impulses and wits are almost always his saving throw, but they have landed him in more than one sticky situation. All three  Lannister siblings seem to have a near-supernatural aptitude for witty, cutting and completely badly-timed one-liners that make a bad situation worse. Tyrion can’t help himself, he simply has to have the last word.

I’m sure there is a punner’s hell, and I’m in its ninth circle for this one…

There is  a running joke among the fandom: “Tyrion’s mouth will get him killed–but not in this book!”

Impulse and badly-timed quips included.

Like Cersei and his brother Jaime, Tyrion uses his emotions to help identify and solve problems: unlike them he tends to think ahead even as his most current gambit is in motion and make adjustments as needed. Tyrion has an absolute love of books and claims that they are a large part of his edge over others, saying in season 1:

“My brother has his sword, King Robert has his warhammer and I have my mind…and a mind needs books as a sword needs a whetstone if it is to keep its edge. That’s why I read so much…”

Do we know any colors that prioritize knowledge above all else?

Oh, that’s right. Blue mana.

Tyrion is not only proud of on the fly, creative solutions to his problems but also cherishes painstakingly thought out plans with multiple fail-safes, countermeasures and contingencies. He has demonstrated this love of complexity and research in his defense of King’s Landing during the Battle of the Blackwater amongst others (to go further would be to tiptoe, albeit daintily, into the land of spoilers for those who haven’t read the fourth and fifth books).

He also uses his extensive knowledge of history, culture and lore to adapt quickly to the many perilous situations that his sharp tongue gets him into. He is one of the few characters in series who reads for pleasure, and while this alone doesn’t make him Blue, it is rather telling of his priorities. A library is an armory for Tyrion.

So Tyrion Lannister is Red/Blue.

A quick note here: Blue and Red by themselves wouldn’t be caught dead in the same zip code with each other. That is, for you non-magic players, because Red and Blue are enemy colors (duh!). Any schlub with a basic understanding of a color wheel could tell you that. But for Magic, it takes on an extra level of significance in that the colors have opposing philosophies of life: They value exactly opposite things: Red, as described above values impulse and improvisation, Blue is a reflective and orderly color that prizes rigorous thought and research. Red acts, Blue reacts.

Not pictured: Limitations.

But sometimes, colors that out-and-out hate each others guts combine in unexpected ways.  For Red/Blue their commonality lies in breaking limitations and the status quo, neither color likes being told what to do or not to do. There is a tendency in Magic to flanderize Red/Blue as the color pair with a serious case of magical ADD, but I feel this is a silly hat for the two colors to wear all the time.

Color pairs should have as much depth and layers as a single color. While some Red/Blue characters are talkative, brilliant loons, it should be just as possible in flavor for a  Red/Blue character to have depth, eloquence and a touch of the ribald to them. In short, Tyrion Lannister.

In Magic: The Gathering, Red/Blue is known for being very spell-heavy, combining Red’s tendency to burn things with Blue card-draw, largely eschewing creatures.

…Besides this guy, of course!

Red/Blue is an innovative color pair. Tyrion takes Red’s impulsivity and Blue’s rigorous logic and makes a creativity cocktail.  The result is an explosive, unpredictable color pair that combines the strengths of both. How explosive you ask?

Well, lets look at one of Tyrion’s crowning achievements, achieved by mixing Blue methodology with Red’s love of arson and general hatred for all things made up of wood:

Wildfire and wooden ships tend not to get along…

Tyrion is a huge proponent of lateral thinking: Its no good beating your head against a while when you could simply sidestep it or tunnel under it.  He is able to solve problems creatively and in often unorthodox manners (ranging from bribery, quips, brinksmanship and murder)

His recruitment of the Hill Tribes, Bronn and Oberyn Martell (the LONG list of people Tyrion has enlisted to his cause is too lengthy to reproduce here) all show a flair for the dramatic, charisma, and relentless cunning. I think these things when viewed together make a strong case for Tyrion being a great example of a Red/Blue character.

Stay tuned for the next blog, where we cover the Kingslayer’s exploits and explore his color-alignment and angst.

 

King’s Landing is famous for its back-stabbings, literal and figurative…

 

The Colors of Cersei Lannister (Black, Red, and insane all over?)

Cersei Lannister, the Queen Regent:

Cersei Lannister is the aggressively blond current Queen Regent of the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros.  She is the mother of Joffrey, Tommen and Myrcella through her brother Jaime, with whom she has a long-term affair (Since they were children, as if it needed to be any more odd than it already is).

Not pictured: Humility

Cersei starts out as a credible threat to the Starks and Baratheons in the beginning of the Game of Thrones novels and tv series. She is a decent manipulator and plotter and is able to reasonably predict most of her opponents actions before they make them. This is true as long as the people you are contending with are Robert ‘Hit it with a Hammer’ Baratheon:

Not pictured: Sobriety

 and Ned ‘Honor Before Reason’ Stark:

Not pictured: Pragmatism

 When the game of thrones gets more complex, Cersei finds herself out of her element and unable to control her sociopathic son and King of Westeros, Joffrey. She is likewise unable to stop her brother Tyrion from effectively running King’s Landing and its defenses (although she has no problem snagging credit for it). Cersei tries to make herself relevant, but the fact is that she is outclassed in acumen and allies by the end of season three of the series. She finds herself isolated from the very power she hungers for.

Today, we’ll be looking at what makes Cersei tick and how that determines her position in the color pie.

 

 Each of the three Lannister siblings has a distinct take on problem solving, and Cersei is the most spiteful and arguably least tactical of the three.

When it would serve her best to ingratiate herself to a potential new ally (for example Margaery Tyrell or Tyrion) she goes out of her way to threaten, belittle and generally be unpleasant to them.

When action is called for, like curbing  Joffrey’s atrocities, she excuses them away as ‘willful behavior.’ If it is something that she thinks compromises her or House Lannister’s standing (note that the two are not always the same) Cersei will swear vengeance and disproportionate retribution even if no offense was intended.

In short, Cersei solves problems based on her first, emotional reaction to the people causing them. That is a very Red way of looking at the world. For Red, planning is less important than how you feel at the present moment and this is evidenced time and time again with Cersei. While she is driven, intelligent and ambitious, she prioritizes her emotional reactions and lets them determine her actions.

Not pictured: Restraint

Let me point out that listening to your emotions is not always a bad characteristic. Red is the color that most focuses on passion, impulse and feelings. Red has a very strong sense of loyalty to its friends and family, and in fairness to Cersei, she does love her children (and Jaime, although this is at least partly rooted in narcissism). Tyrion once quipped “You do love your children. It’s your one redeeming feature. That and your cheekbones.”

Suffice to say, that besides love of her family, Cersei’s other defining trait is a lust for power and respect. She feels excluded and marginalized because she is a woman in an aggressively patriarchal society. This drives her to reach ever-higher for more stations, to indulge the “Lannister appetite for honors”. She doesn’t know EXACTLY what she’ll do with her newfound power, but she’ll come up with something. Cersei, in other words, desires power for power’s sake, not to meet any concrete goal.

Does that sound like any color we know? I don’t know, one that is willing to do anything for power?

Not pictured: Scruples

It is the one of the ironies of her life that while Cersei (in theory) has plenty of power, she can never quite get other people to respect her. So she does her best to get more power. Its a vicious cycle that she is never really broken out of  throughout the series.

So what does being Red/Black mean?

Red/Black is the single most aggressive color combination in the color pie.There is no black/red card intended for defense, because Black/Red doesn’t understand the concept.

Defense? What’s that?

Red’s impulse and black’s willingness to sacrifice resources for power make this pairing intensely powerful and shortsighted. A lot of their cards require you to discard, sacrifice creatures or lands, or even pay life to get the most mileage out of them. Black/Red doesn’t care if it self-destructs, just as long as you go with it.

For example, take this card:

You pay twice as much to have minor effect on the board. This card screams ‘Cersei Lannister’.

 Cersei will gladly hurt herself or her position if she thinks that is what it takes. For example, when she is briefly imprisoned, she experiences a brief breakdown: she rips up her shift, refuses to eat and pisses everywhere to spite her jailers. In a drafty, cold tower cell. She often does the same thing politically, just look at how she handles all non-Lannisters members at court: they are all potential enemies if they so much as look at her sideways or fail to grovel properly.

Factor in  that Cersei starts steadily losing her grip on reality as the series progress and that Black/Red is decidedly…sanity optional, and I think you can make a really strong case for Cersei being a black/red character.

That’s all I’ve got for Cersei for today (without going deep into spoiler-land)

The next blog will discuss her brother, but for now, this image:

Wincest?