User blog comment:Sachoras/Cersei - friend or foe?/@comment-5014364-20121221033022/@comment-5014364-20121222232646

You miss the point. It doesn't matter that there "is still love and caring there", fundamentally, if she cared, she'd do something about Joffrey.

There's a great moment from Doctor Who, the Ninth Doctor episode "Boom Town", that really resonates with this: the Slitheen woman is trying to convince the Doctor that she isn't really a bad person, yes she's killed many humans and plans to blow up the Earth, but just this morning she could have killed a female reporter who was getting too close to her secrets but didn't when she found out the reporter was pregnant. She insists that she is thus capable of being kind and merciful.

The Doctor cuts her off and bluntly insists that "I believe you"...but goes on to explain that: "You let one of them go, but that's nothing new. Every now and then, a little victim's spared. Because she smiled, because he's got freckles, because they begged. And that's how you live with yourself. That's how you slaughter millions. Because once in a while, on a whim, if the wind's in the right direction...you happen to be kind."

Even "bad" people often show random moments of kindness, earnest kindness; its own they live with themselves. Cersei honestly thinks that a few moments of....simple politness, with Sansa, make up for all of the horrible things that Cersei herself has done.

Moreover, the discussion is moot, because the later books really show just how warped Cersei's worldview actually is.