User blog comment:TwilightReaderFan/Season 5 Finale/@comment-7600752-20151001173312/@comment-5014364-20151001210003

Nah Cersei didn't fabricate that story to Catelyn in the TV version - recall that later in Season 1 she talks about "our first boy who died" with Robert - so it's not just something she made up.

Overall...there was no way even adapting across two full seasons could capture the nuance from book four, when Cersei becomes a POV narrator after Tywin dies, and you finally get a look in Cersei's head. It is very skewed, she thinks she's the protagonist of the whole story, that the whole world is out to get her for no good reason, that Joffrey was a wonderful son, and that nothing is ever her fault.

And the weirdest part is....she has so many flashbacks to how awful her life was under Tywin and then Robert, that you get this warped sense of sympathy for her....even as you loathe her more than you ever did before (because now you see her warped thought processes).

The TV series had difficulty matching this warped mix of disgust and sympathy, but frankly it was impossible for any live-action project (you can't visualize her thought processes).