‘Game of Thrones’ Robert Baratheon Didn’t Deserve His Throne

The Big Picture

• While there are many bad rulers in Westeros, Game of Thrones doesn’t show just how problematic the first king we meet is.
• Robert Baratheon was an ineffectual and immoral king who neglected his responsibilities and engaged in numerous extramarital affairs.
• Robert’s conduct in his personal life and his mistreatment of Cersei highlight his flaws as a leader and a person, despite his initial role in overthrowing a tyrant.

Perhaps the most important theme of both the Game of Thrones TV series and the George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire novels it’s based on is the critique of monarchies, particularly the kind of absolute monarchies found in the show’s medieval societies. While some are significantly more noble than others, all the various kings and queens who claim Westeros’ Iron Throne throughout the series eventually become corrupted by their pursuits of power, except for poor, doomed Tommen Baratheon (Callum Wharry and Dean-Charles Chapman), who was manipulated by so many different factions that he barely held any real authority, despite nominally being king.

Even Daenerys Targaryen (Emilia Clarke) and Bran Stark (Isaac Hempstead Wright), who are portrayed as heroic protagonists throughout much of the series, commit horrific sins before their respective reigns begin. The king who sits on the throne at the beginning of the series, Robert (Mark Addy), is no exception. Although he took the throne from a much worse tyrant, Robert’s actual conduct as king, as well as the rest of his behavior before and during his reign, show that he was never worthy of ruling.

Who Was Robert Baratheon in ‘Game of Thrones’?

The eldest son of Lord Steffon Baratheon, Robert was taken as a ward by Jon Arryn (John Standing) at the Eyrie when he was a child, during which time he befriended Eddard “Ned” Stark (Sean Bean), the future Lord of Winterfell. Years later, Robert was betrothed to Ned’s younger sister Lyanna (Aisling Franciosi), with whom he was deeply in love. But when Lyanna disappeared, believed to be abducted by Prince Rhaegar Targaryen (Wilf Scolding), and Ned’s brother and father were killed by Rhaegar’s father, Mad King Aerys II Targaryen, Ned, Jon, and Robert led a revolt against the king that eventually came to be known as “Robert’s Rebellion.” After Robert killed Rhaegar, and Jaime Lannister (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) killed Aerys at the end of the ensuing war, Robert was named the new king.

At the beginning of the television series, Robert makes Ned the Hand of the King, his chief advisor, after the death of Jon Arryn, who previously held the position. Ned returns with him to the capital city of King’s Landing to begin his new duties, secretly planning to also investigate Jon’s death, who he suspects was poisoned by the Lannisters. He eventually learns that Robert’s children are actually the results of the life-long incestuous romance between Cersei (Lena Headey) and Jamie. Before he can reveal the truth, Robert is mortally injured in a hunting accident.

Before his death, which is later revealed to have been orchestrated by Cersei, he names Ned temporary Protector of the Realm. Ned plans to give the throne to Robert’s brother Stannis (Stephen Dillane) but is captured by the Lannisters before he can do so, after which his eldest son, Robb (Richard Madden), leads the forces of Winterfell and other northern territories in a revolt against Joffrey (Jack Gleeson), Cersei’s eldest son who has assumed the throne. The conflict between the North and the Lannisters grows into the War of the Five Kings after other would-be rulers enter the fray.

Although many of the subsequent rulers, including Joffrey and Cersei herself, are horrific despots that make Robert look better by comparison, in reality, Robert was both an ineffectual, irresponsible leader and a largely immoral person. At least by the time of the series’ beginning, he seems to devote little to no effort to the work of actually governing the realm, instead spending most of his time drinking, cheating on his wife, and engaging in revelry like tournaments and hunts. As a result, when Ned takes up the position of Hand, the country is in shambles.

Robert Was a Lazy King and Immoral Person

Worse is Robert’s conduct in his personal life. He has numerous extramarital affairs, leading to the birth of many illegitimate children. Arranged marriages are one of the many awful things about medieval society that the series critiques. It’s clear that there is no love lost between him and Cersei, and their respective lack of interest in each other is often thinly veiled at best. He does take steps to ensure many of the illegitimate children that he knows about and their mothers are taken care of, with details of how he does so being crucial to Ned’s investigation. That being said, it would have been better if he spent a little less time on that and spending more time attending to his responsibilities as a king, husband, and father.

While the twisted dynamics between his mother and her family could be blamed for making Joffrey the sadistic monster that he is, Robert’s own toxic masculinity can also be blamed. He certainly could have done more to bring his son under control, especially considering Joffrey was the heir to the throne. He even indirectly reinforces some of Joffrey’s behavior by not forcing him to face consequences when he acts cruelly towards others based. The key example of this is when he orders the death of Sansa Stark’s (Sophie Turner) direwolf after the fight between Joffrey and Arya Stark (Maisie Williams) based on Cersei’s demands.

But Robert’s biggest issues actual involve how he treats Cersei. In the novels, Cersei is successfully able to avoid ever having sexual intercourse with Robert, while taking advantage of his frequent drunkenness to make him think they had done so, diverting suspicion from the paternity of her children. However, in the television series, it is revealed that the pair did have one child who was stillborn. Initially, Cersei did not sour at the idea of marrying Robert, but on their wedding night rather than saying her name, Robert called her Lyanna and that quickly doused whatever passions Cersei might have had.

It isn’t clear what their relationship was like and it’s not clear whether Cersei gave any kind of consent to the sex that resulted in that pregnancy. As a woman in Westeros, she would have little to no authority to refuse Robert even if she wanted to, making it one of the many instances in the series where the society’s rules essentially result in rape and even though the crime is commonplace in the setting, that doesn’t mean Robert should be excused from judgment for it. He is also explicitly shown being verbally and physically abusive to her in non-sexual ways. Cersei may do horrible things, but that in no way means she deserves to endure such treatment and the fact that she does, along with her love for her children, makes her a somewhat sympathetic character despite her flaws and crimes.

The Reasons for Originally Making Robert King Are Questionable

In addition to his poor conduct when he actually is king, there are also an assortment of flaws in the justifications that allowed Robert to take the throne in the first place. He is chosen to be king over other rebellion leaders like Ned and Jon Arryn mostly because his family has the closest connection to the Targaryen bloodline, which most believe makes his claim to the throne strongest. This makes Robert a hypocrite, given the rabid hatred of Targaryens he shows in the series’ present-day narrative, which leads him to order the assassination of Aerys’ children, Daenerys and her older brother Viserys (Harry Lloyd), when they are still adolescents. This same hatred is why both Lyanna and Ned understood that Jon Snow’s (Kit Harington) true parentage had to be hidden.

Even worse than that is his involvement in the destruction of Rhaegar’s household. Before he and Lyanna disappeared, Rhaegar was married to Elia Martell, a princess from Dorne, with whom he fathered two children. At the end of the war, Gregor Clegane (Conan Stevens, Ian Whyte, and Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson), a warrior who served Lannister patriarch Tywin (Charles Dance) killed Elia’s son, Aegon, in front of her and was also involved in the murder of her daughter, Rhaenys, before raping and killing Elia herself.

Robert remaining allies with the Lannisters after this atrocity, and choosing not to have Clegane punished highlights that his own desire for the throne cost him his honor and any moral high ground he may have had over the Targaryen leaders. Yes, Aerys was a sadist who needed to be removed from power, especially in light of his psychotic plan to incinerate King’s Landing with the secret caches of mystical wildfire spread throughout the city. But Jaime was the only person who was aware of that plan, and, more importantly, even if he did know about it, that wouldn’t excuse Robert essentially sanctioning the war crimes Clegane and company committed against innocent members of the royal family.

The end of Game of Thrones also calls into question the nature of Robert’s original motivations for the rebellion. The final seasons confirmed a fan theory that had existed since the publication of the novels, that Jon Snow was actually the child of Rhaegar and Lyanna. The show expanded on this revelation when Sam (John Bradley) discovers that Rhaegar had his marriage to Elia annulled before marrying Lyanna, who was apparently truly in love with him. While Robert probably had no way of knowing about this, it does make it seem like Lyanna probably didn’t have the same feelings for him that he had for her. This makes Robert’s efforts to get her back seem less like desperate, genuine acts of love and more like characteristically toxic attempts to control a woman he was obsessed with. The still incomplete novel series hasn’t revealed the truth about the Lyanna/Rhaegar situation yet, so there’s a chance the literary version of Robert won’t get this additional strike against his memory, but there’s also plenty of evidence that the story will turn out to be the same in both versions.

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