User blog comment:Gcheung28/Game of Thrones Wikia Awards: Season 3 Winners/@comment-63.131.36.41-20131001180420/@comment-5014364-20131001190052

Joffrey is insane - sane but immoral people do not have that excuse.

Actually this is a major question of morality explored in many different books and films over the years, not just GoT.

But basically, Joffrey is just a "mad dog". He isn't just evil, he's a maniac, with a warped concept of the world around him. Cersei isn't physically insane, but she does have a very warped view of the world herself. To a lesser extent, Walder Frey and Roose Bolton also "know better" but break social rules like guest right anyway.

So basically, Joffrey doesn't know any better. He's officially "insane", he's their version of Caligula or Commodus (the actor said he actually bases much of his performance on Commodus from the film Gladiator). Thus I actually hate other characters more than Joffrey because they do know better.

Why did Cersei, specifically, beat Joffrey as the most hated?

Well it's not like comparing Joffrey to Roose Bolton or Walder Frey. Cersei *lives* with Joffrey.

The whole point of Cersei is that she *knows better*, but she will never stop Joffrey, no matter how ridiculous his behavior becomes. She *sees* him having the Kingsguard beat Sansa, knows he pointlessly killed Ned Stark even though it was politically disastrous.

I mean, just look at their last scene together in "Mhysa" at the Small Council -- Cersei meekly tries to say that Joffrey was only joking, and he just ignores her.

Cersei can't bring herself to speak against Joffrey, even though she *knows* he's evil....and that makes me hate her even more.

To use a real life example, the recent child molestation case of Jerry Sandusky at Penn State University. Who do you hate more, Sandusky the pedophile child-rapist....or the school staff members who *knew* of the accusations against him, but kept their mouths shut for years rather than face a lawsuit against the school? "Victim 1" even told his school principal about it and she did nothing - for ten years - rather than stick her neck out and risk coming under fire from the university.

So Joffrey, even Ramsay Snow to a certain extent - they're not just "evil" they're "insane", in which case, they're not really "people" but merely animals, unaccountable for their own actions. We're talking about outright mental illness here.