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Although this article is based on canonical information, the actual name of this subject is pure conjecture.
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- "Such a little thing. A bird without feathers. They came to take his body away and Robert held me. I screamed and I battled, but he held me. That little bundle. They took him away and I never saw him again."
- ―Cersei Lannister to Catelyn Stark
The unnamed trueborn son of Cersei Lannister and Robert Baratheon was the only trueborn child of both parents.
Contents
Biography
Background
This Baratheon was Cersei Lannister's firstborn child, and the only one of her children to actually be fathered by her lawful husband, King Robert Baratheon, making him the only trueborn child of both parents. Very little is known about him other than that he had black hair, resembled Robert a lot, and died as a result of a fever. His name, year of birth, and age at the point of his demise are unknown. Had the boy lived, he would have been first in line to ascend the throne when Robert died instead of his brother (in reality, half-brother) Joffrey Baratheon.
Season 1
When Catelyn Stark watches over Bran, who has not woken up after having fallen from the tower, Cersei comes to visit. She tells Catelyn that years ago she lost her first boy, a little black-haired beauty. She and Robert were nearly driven mad by the child's death.[1]
Robert and Cersei talk about the imminent Dothraki invasion and their unhappy marriage. Cersei says that she had felt something for Robert once, even after they lost their first boy, for quite a while.[2]
Season 8
Cersei and Robert's son is featured in the family tree of House Lannister in Archmaester Ebrose's A Song of Ice and Fire. The son is simply referred to as "unnamed",[3] possibly indicating that he died days after being born, before he was given a name.
Family tree
Paternal
 Baratheon Deceased |  née Estermont Deceased | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 women |  Baratheon Deceased |  Lannister  Deceased |  Lannister Deceased |  Baratheon  Deceased |  née Florent  Deceased |  Tyrell  Deceased |  Baratheon  Deceased |  Tyrell Deceased | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 Baratheon | bastards Deceased |  Deceased |  son Died in infancy |  Baratheon  Deceased | Tyrell Deceased |  Baratheon Deceased |  Baratheon Deceased | Tyrell Deceased |  sons Deceased |  Baratheon Deceased | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Maternal
 Lannister Deceased |  Reyne  Deceased |  Lannister Deceased |  Lannister Deceased |  née Marbrand Deceased | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 Lannister Deceased |  Lannister Deceased |  Lannister Deceased |  née Swyft | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Baratheon  Deceased | Lannister Deceased | Lannister Deceased | |  Lannister |  Stark  |  Lannister  Deceased |  Lannister Deceased |  Lannister Deceased | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
son Died in infancy | Baratheon Deceased | Tyrell Deceased | Baratheon Deceased | Baratheon Deceased | Tyrell Deceased | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
In the books
In the A Song of Ice and Fire novels, Cersei never gave birth to any of Robert's children. When Eddard Stark confronts her about the identity of the father of her children, she admits that Jaime is their father, and that she loathed Robert since their first night, for coming to their bed drunk and calling her by Lyanna's name. She also reveals that Robert got her pregnant once, and her brother found a woman that could end the pregnancy. Robert was unaware of both the pregnancy and the abortion.
The TV series invented that Cersei actually had a son with Robert who died in the cradle (apparently to give her a sympathetic scene with Catelyn in the second episode); some viewers wondered if she made the story up to manipulate Catelyn, but later in Season 1 she speaks about the dead baby with Robert himself, which confirms she wasn't lying.
The TV series never directly mentioned this extra son after Season 1 (he was mentioned in a Season 8 prop). In subsequent seasons Cersei would refer to Joffrey as her "eldest son", possibly raiding a contradiction. Moreover, in the Season 5 premiere, "The Wars to Come", Maggy's prophecy to young Cersei stated she would have only three children (as it was phrased in the novels). In the novels, however, infant mortality is so high even among the nobility that characters frequently only count the number of their children who survived the cradle. For example, Doran Martell actually had two other brothers before Oberyn was born, but both of them died in the cradle, so they often aren't included in the number of siblings he had.
Writer Bryan Cogman was directly asked about this with regard to Maggy's prophecy, and he indeed confirmed that Cersei's black-haired son with Robert simply isn't included in her "official" count of children because he died in the cradle: "Maggy’s just speaking of the three official kids who lived and were known, etc. The black haired baby was kept quiet."[4] That the black haired baby was kept quiet is directly alluded to in Season 1, when Catelyn states that she "never knew" that Cersei and Robert lost their first child. Why the pregnancy of the queen was kept secret is unknown, but the secrecy of the birth itself could be explained by the child being sickly and dying shortly thereafter, as alluded to in the series.
References
- ↑ "The Kingsroad"
- ↑ "The Wolf and the Lion"
- ↑ See the family tree of House Lannister in Archmaester Ebrose's A Song of Ice and Fire (as featured in "The Iron Throne")
- ↑ [1]
