For all her privilege and the advantage of her beauty, she’s a victim of the patriarchy too, many times over, and chose to turn around and inflict the abuses she suffered on others. Her response to realising that she’s subject to an unfair system was to internalise the values of the system, and internally except herself. Her lack of empathy is so well depicted, especially in her relationships with the people she claims to love. Again and again we see that she doesn’t love her children or Jaime for who they are, but for how they reflect her.
She’s the best fleshed-out of GRRM’s villains, and an excellent example of how understanding a bad guy doesn’t actually make them any less bad.
