The Game of Thrones Season 8 premiere was packed full of plot points and some great bits of dialogue, but there’s one key detail you might have missed. While much of Episode 1 focused on the Stark family reunion happening at Winterfell, something much darker may have been revealed down in King’s Landing. It’s a subtle detail you might have missed, but here’s what it could mean for Cersei and the Lannister legacy in Game of Thrones Season 8, Episode 2 and beyond.
Spoilers for Game of Thrones Season 8, Episode 1 below.
The scene in question features Cersei and Euron Greyjoy right after they sleep together (and right after she said he’d have to wait until the war was over!). Cersei is clearly drinking a glass of wine, and when Euron says he wants to impregnate her, the embattled Queen of Westeros almost breaks down and cries.
It’s easy to overlook these moments (especially when they’re overshadowed by Cersei’s hilarious line about how she “wanted those elephants”), but they become a lot more significant when you remember what happened at the end of Season 7.
Cersei was pregnant with her brother Jaime’s child.
She confirmed this fact multiple times, even revealing it to Tyrion during a tense scene in the final episode of Game of Thrones Season 7 after she declined to drink a glass of wine. In case that wasn’t enough evidence, Vanity Fair did some digging in the official series script and confirmed that Cersei wasn’t lying. She really was pregnant. So what happened?
The obvious guess is that Cersei had a miscarriage in the brief time gap between Game of Thrones Seasons 7 and 8. That would explain why she seems so upset at the mention of a baby, along with the wine she drinks and maybe even why she was willing to have sex with Euron in the first place. After all, if Cersei wants to continue her family’s legacy, she’ll need another child — even if this isn’t the way she hoped it would happen.
Then again, it’s possible Cersei actually was lying about being pregnant. The Season 7 script could be a red herring, or the showrunners may have changed their minds while writing Season 8. Either way, that sort of deception definitely wouldn’t be out of line for her character.
Finally, it’s possible that Cersei simply doesn’t care about her unborn child now that Jaime has abandoned her. In the same episode, we also learn she’s hired Bronn to kill both of her brothers for their betrayal. That’s probably the darkest possible scenario, but it wouldn’t be that out of character for Game of Thrones.
