Lancel Lannister

"It wasn't my wounds that needed healing. [...] I'm a different person now. I've found peace in the light of the Seven. You can, too. They watch over all of us, ready to dole out mercy or justice. Their world is at hand."

- Lancel to Cersei Lannister

Ser Lancel Lannister is a recurring character in the first, second, fifth and sixth seasons. He is played by guest star Eugene Simon and debuts in "Lord Snow." Lancel Lannister is the eldest son of Kevan Lannister and a nephew of Tywin Lannister. He serves as a squire for King Robert Baratheon until he is elevated to knighthood, but after sustaining heavy injuries during the Battle of the Blackwater, he joins the religious movement known as Sparrows and abandons his family name, after which he is simply known as Brother Lancel.

Background
Lancel Lannister is the son of Ser Kevan Lannister and the nephew of Lord Tywin Lannister, the head of House Lannister and Lord of Casterly Rock. He is the first cousin of Jaime, Cersei, and Tyrion Lannister. He has the familial blond hair and resembles his cousin Jaime. He is a squire to King Robert Baratheon.

Season 1
King Robert has Lancel pour wine for him while discussing old battles with Ser Barristan Selmy. Robert mocks Lancel's alliterative name, asking if his father had a stutter. Robert becomes annoyed when Lancel runs out of wine and sends him for more. At the Hand's tourney, Lancel tries in vain to help Robert into his armor, tactfully suggesting that it was "made too small". Robert angrily replies that Lancel's mother was a "dumb whore with a fat arse". At this point Eddard enters the tent and bluntly tells Robert, "You're too fat for your armor", to the king's amusement. When Lancel also laughs, Robert sends him out in search for the "breastplate stretcher" (a snipe hunt for a nonexistent device). Eddard seems to feel sorry for Lancel, while Robert hopes that he is sent all over camp looking for this thing. Eddard says he should stop torturing Lancel.

Lancel accompanies Robert, Renly and Ser Barristan on a hunt, frequently giving Robert wine. He is present when Robert is mortally wounded by a wild boar. Varys insinuates that Lancel's readiness with the wine may have been deliberate in order to slow Robert's reactions.

While Jaime is being held captive in the Riverlands by Robb Stark, Lancel enters into a sexual relationship with his cousin Cersei. The Queen receives news of the war. Lancel questions her about it, he finds it exciting and wants to know what she will do. Cersei is irritated and tells him to stop talking and get back into bed.

Season 2
Lancel attends court in the Iron Throne room following the defeat of Stafford Lannister in the Battle of Oxcross. King Joffrey Baratheon aims an ornate crossbow at Sansa Stark and says that she is there to answer for Robb Stark’s treasons. She denies having any involvement in Robb’s actions, calling Robb a traitor. Joffrey instructs Lancel to tell her of Robb’s latest outrage. Lancel claims that Robb used sorcery and an army of wolves to kill thousands of men under the command of Stafford. He adds that the Northmen feasted on the flesh of the slain after the slaughter drawing cries of outrage and horror from the courtiers. Joffrey orders Ser Meryn Trant of the Kingsguard to beat Sansa but spare her face. Tyrion arrives and halts the torture of Sansa.

Tyrion has had Grand Maester Pycelle arrested for breaking his confidence and feeding information to Queen Regent Cersei Lannister. Cersei sends Lancel to Tyrion with a warrant for the release of Pycelle. He arrives late at night and Tyrion invites him for a drink and Lancel refuses. Tyrion wonders why Cersei did not come herself. Lancel says that he does not care and Tyrion continues to question him. Tyrion establishes that the order came directly from Cersei and then asks why Lancel waited to deliver it. Lancel says that he came immediately and Tyrion wonders what he was doing conferring with Cersei so late at night. Lancel improvises and says that Cersei often works through the night, and Tyrion retorts that she must be glad to have Lancel helping her at all hours. Tyrion notes the scent of lavender oil on his cousin and says that it is a favorite of Cersei. Lancel asserts his position as a knight, and Tyrion jokes that he is an anointed knight. Tyrion asks if Cersei had Lancel knighted before or after she took him into her bed. Lancel furiously calls that a lie, but when Tyrion threatens to tell Joffrey, he collapses into a chair, aghast. Lancel claims that it wasn't his fault, and Tyrion asks if she took him against his will. Lancel insists he was following Tywin’s orders to obey Cersei in all things, but Tyrion counters by asking him if Tywin ordered him to sleep with her as well. Tyrion points out the benefits Lancel has received and threatens to go straight to Joffrey at which Lancel falls to his knees and begs him for mercy and offers to leave the city. Tyrion says that Lancel must act as his spy to buy his silence. Tyrion asks Lancel to beg Cersei’s forgiveness and agrees to release Pycelle but refuses to reinstate him to the council. Bronn stands guard as Tyrion meets with Lancel in a litter on the streets of King’s Landing. Lancel reveals that the Queen’s plans for defense of the city hinge on the use of Wildfire. Tyrion is disbelieving and threatens to reveal Lancel’s sexual relationship with Cersei to Jaime Lannister. Lancel offers more information to back his claim; Cersei has met with the Alchemists' Guild and they have already stored thousands of pots of the substance. He says that they are planning to launch it from the walls onto Stannis’s fleet and army. Tyrion sees that Lancel is telling the truth and asks when Cersei told him. Lancel says that he has heard Cersei talking with a pyromancer and has visited their guild. Tyrion forces Lancel to swear that his words are true but tires of toying with his cousin and dismisses him. Tyrion kicks him over as he ducks out of the litter and then instructs him to tell Bronn to kill him if anything happens to Tyrion. Lancel dutifully does as he is told. Bronn says that it would be his pleasure as Lancel jogs away. Tyrion uses the information to usurp Cersei's connection to the Alchemists' Guild.

Lancel is on the walls of King's Landing during the Battle of the Blackwater and fights relatively well during a sortie led by Sandor Clegane. However, Lancel is moderately injured when he is shot in the arm by an arrow. Lancel uses the opportunity to retreat from the walls and head back to Cersei to give her a report on the battle. Cersei then drunkenly orders him to go back to the walls and bring Joffrey back to the safety of the Red Keep. Shocked at these orders, Lancel returns to the walls and reluctantly repeats them to Joffrey and Tyrion. Joffrey uses this obvious excuse to make a cowardly retreat from the walls. His soldiers are stunned that their king has abandoned them. When Lancel returns to the Red Keep, he angrily tells her that her order to retrieve Joffrey is costing them the battle, as many of the Gold Cloaks lost heart and abandoned the fight at the sight of their retreating king. Lancel firmly tells her that he must return Joffrey to the walls if they have any hope of rallying their defense again. Cersei flippantly brushes him off, at which Lancel stands up to Cersei for the first time and demands that she listen to what he is saying. In response, Cersei punches the arrow wound in Lancel's arm, causing him to crumple to the ground in severe pain. Cersei storms out of the room as he lies screaming on the floor.

Season 4
Lancel survives his injuries, but retreats from court life while he recovers.

When attempting to barter for Tyrion's life, Jaime reminds Tywin that should Tyrion be executed the Lannister legacy will ultimately fall to Lancel, as Ser Kevan Lannister's heir.

Season 5
Lancel's wound festered and became life-threatening, taking many months to recover from. Lancel fully recovered by the time of his uncle Tywin's funeral, at which he appeared along with his father Kevan. Following his near-death experience Lancel embraced religion, and joined the fanatical movement known as the Sparrows. At Tywin's funeral, Lancel greets Cersei, his attire and attitude clearly an embarrassment to Kevan. He later talks with Cersei privately, and asks for her forgiveness for their "unnatural" relationship, and for serving Robert the wine that led to his death. Cersei brushes off Lancel's request, and his prayers for Tywin's soul.

Later, Lancel and some his fellow Sparrows invade Littlefinger's brothel. They chase away the whores and grab the High Septon, who vehemently protests but Lancel quickly silences the salacious cleric labeling him both a sinner and a traitor to the Faith. When Olyvar tries to intervene the Sparrows strike him to the floor. Lancel forces the High Septon to walk the streets of the capital naked to shame him for his sins.

Cersei decides to ally with the Sparrows by making their leader, the High Sparrow, the new High Septon, and re-arming the Faith Militant, the military order of the religion. Somewhere in the bowels of the Great Sept Lancel is being fully initiated into the Faith Militant by having the seven-pointed star carved into his forehead. He then accompanies his order when they go to the training grounds to seize Ser Loras Tyrell. When the knight of the flowers resists, Lancel declares he has broken the laws of gods and men, and that justice (Lancel himself) has come for him at last.

Lancel is patrolling the streets of the capital with his Militant brothers, when Petyr Baelish and his Vale escort walk up. Lancel tries to stop them, but Baelish sneers that he has urgent business with Cersei and can't afford to be detained. Lancel angrily warns Littlefinger that in the new Kings Landing 'flesh peddlers' are dealt with harshly. Unimpressed Petyr merely quips that while they both peddle fantasies, at least his bring merriment. The jape leaves Brother Lancel seething but he allows Baelish to depart all the same.

During a secret meeting, Lord Baelish tells Olenna Tyrell that he will give her the same thing he gave Cersei: a handsome young man — implied, in this instance, to be Lancel. Olenna then confronts Lancel offscreen about the affair with Cersei and forces him to reveal the adulterous affair to the High Sparrow, and the High Sparrow has her arrested.

Sometime later, Cersei is brought before the High Sparrow to confess her sins. She confesses of adultery with Lancel but denies all other charges brought against her.

Season 6
For the first time in weeks Lancel is seen at Baelor's Great Sept. Fervently devoted to the Faith, Lancel and his Militant brothers silently stand beside their leader. When Jaime Lannister comes to claim Queen Margaery and Loras, things get tense, with Lancel eyeing his cousin angrily. The High Sparrow and King Tommen diffuse the situation by proudly announcing their new alliance.

Lancel and a detachment of Faith Militant brothers have come to collect Cersei for a meeting with the High Sparrow. Cersei is reluctant to say the least and becomes very flippant as per usual. When Lancel orders one of his brothers to take Cersei the Mountain rips him to shreds. This gruesome act causes the remainder of the Faith Militant to flee hastily.

Quotes

 * Spoken by Lancel

"A young man came to us not long ago, broken in body and spirit. He had so much to strip away, so much weighing him down. But piece by piece he unburdened himself. Let go of pride, vanity, sin. Now his soul is so light, he will float through the Seven Heavens like a bird. And he has much to say about you."
 * Spoken about Lancel

- The High Sparrow discusses Lancel with Cersei.

In the books
In the A Song of Ice and Fire novels Lancel is a squire who harbors ambitions to become a great knight. He idolizes his cousin Jaime Lannister. He has the blond hair and general good looks of the Lannisters, but is considered a poor copy of Jaime at best. He is not quite as tall, his features not so fine as Jaime, and unlike Jaime's hair of beaten gold, Lancel's hair is sandy. On the other hand, Tyrion notes, even a poor copy of the famously very beautiful Jaime is still quite handsome.

Lancel has a good and genuinely warm relationship with his father Kevan, as well as with his mother and younger siblings.

Robert Baratheon was talked into taking two Lannister cousins as squires by Cersei in service to her large and ambitious clan, Ned Stark notes. The other squire is 13-year-old Tyrek Lannister who disappears during the Riot of King's Landing (and was omitted from the TV show).

After discovering that Lancel has secretly been taken as a lover by Cersei, and subsequently turning him into his own agent, Tyrion reflects to himself that Lancel will probably not survive another year: Cersei will kill Lancel if she discovers that he is now spying for Tyrion, Jaime will kill him if he returns and discovers his relationship with Cersei, if Cersei doesn't kill him first to prevent Jaime finding out.

Lancel doesn't appear in Seasons 3 or 4 of the TV series because he is still recovering from his arrow wound after the Battle of the Blackwater. In the third novel A Storm of Swords it is mentioned that the actual wound was relatively moderate but soon festered and developed into a life-threatening infection. Throughout the third novel other characters such as Tyrion sporadically mention reports that Lancel is very feverish and hovering between life and death.

Kevan tells Tyrion that Cersei often visits Lancel's sickbed, to lift his spirits and pray for him. Tyrion wonders "But is she praying that he lives, or dies?" knowing that Cersei does not need Lancel any longer, and the knowledge he has in possession about Robert's death may be dangerous to her.

Since Tyrion is not thrilled about marrying Sansa Stark, Tywin asks Kevan if Lancel is strong enough to wed her. Kevan answers with hesitation “If we bring the girl to his bedside, he could say the words...but to consummate, no". Later, Tywin reveals that as a part of the agreement with Walder Frey about destroying the Starks, Lancel is to marry his granddaughter Amerei (aka "Gatehouse Ami" for her blatant promiscuity), sister of Fat Walda.

When Lancel finally makes an appearance in Joffrey's wedding, the first time he has left his sickbed since the battle, he looks ghastly: his hair has turned white and brittle, and he is thin as a stick. Without his father beside him holding him up, he would surely have collapsed. Yet when Sansa praises his valor and says how good it is to see him getting strong again, both Lancel and his father beam. Lancel is one of the only two people who praise Tyrion for his bravery at the battle of the Blackwater (the second is Garlan Tyrell).

When Jaime releases Tyrion from jail, Tyrion reveals to him that Lancel is one of Cersei's lovers.

Lancel regains the ability to walk under his own power by the time of Tywin's funeral, at the beginning of the fourth novel - corresponding to the Season 5 premiere, when Lancel also returns in the TV series. Lancel's near-death experience convinces him that the Seven must have spared him for a reason: to atone for his earlier sins. Lancel becomes a fanatically pious man, despite his marriage to Amerei Frey and being given the lands of the newly extinct House Darry. Lancel later abandons his wife and renounces his claim to any lands to join the penitents. He is aware of his wife's notorious promiscuity and that she will probably cheat on him in his absence, but does not care at all. The TV version simply condensed this to make him one of the Sparrows. When Lancel reappears in the Season 5 premiere of the TV version, Cersei does remark that he has finally recovered from the wound he took at the Battle of the Blackwater (over two years before), indirectly acknowledging that this is why he was not present in Seasons 3 and 4.

Lancel confesses his and Cersei's crimes (their affair and Robert's murder) to the second High Septon, who is killed for that reason by Osney Kettleblack at Cersei's command. Lancel admitted that also to the High Sparrow, but Cersei is not arrested due to his confession: she sends Osney to confess falsely to the High Sparrow that he has slept with Margaery, as a part of Cersei's scheme against her. Osney sounds so pleased to be so guilty, that it arouses the High Sparrow's suspicions. He has Osney tortured, then the truth comes out: Osney admits he has slept with Cersei, murdered the previous High Septon at her command and never touched Margaery. Cersei is thrown to jail. Later, she is confronted with all the accusations based on both Lancel and Osney's true confessions.