--- title: Why Did Hillary Clinton Compare Herself to Cersei Lannister? description: Here's why Hillary Clinton's reference to hit television show Game of Thrones in her new memoir What Happened is garnering attention. canonical: https://time.com/4939575/hillary-clinton-on-cersei-lannister-game-of-thrones/ author: Megan McCluskey article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-09-13T16:52:51.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T07:47:13.981Z og:title: Here's Why Hillary Clinton Compared Herself to Cersei Lannister og:description: "People seemed to think I was evil" og:url: https://time.com/4939575/hillary-clinton-on-cersei-lannister-game-of-thrones/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt10a2554f1d6b6a4e/6988dd9597cdff100c6b26c4/cersei-hillary.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 3799 og:image:height: 2137 og:image:alt: cersei-hillary og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Here's Why Hillary Clinton Compared Herself to Cersei Lannister twitter:description: "People seemed to think I was evil" twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt10a2554f1d6b6a4e/6988dd9597cdff100c6b26c4/cersei-hillary.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # The _Game of Thrones_\-Inspired Reason Hillary Clinton Compared Herself to Cersei Lannister > Sponsored content. 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It curates the day's top headlines with TIME's reporting and analysis across politics, world affairs, business, health and culture. It is free to join at time.com/newsletters. #### How do I sign up for The Brief? The Brief is available free at time.com/newsletters, where readers can select it along with any of TIME's other six newsletters. There is no subscription required to receive it. #### Is The Brief free? Yes. The Brief is a free daily email newsletter from TIME. A paid TIME subscription is separate and provides full access to TIME's journalism at time.com/subscribe-agent. #### Who writes The Brief? The Brief is led by editor Richard Hall and draws on reporting from TIME's newsroom. Every edition is assembled by TIME editors rather than generated automatically. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-brief-2026q3/newsletters?i=fcecfdd6-f84d-4b04-959a-71fcf652c12b&cr=time-nl-brief-2026q3-v1)  by [Megan McCluskey](https://time.com/author/megan-mccluskey/)  ## Megan McCluskey Staff Writer Sep 13, 2017 4:52 PM UTC  HBO/Getty  by [Megan McCluskey](https://time.com/author/megan-mccluskey/)  ## Megan McCluskey Staff Writer Sep 13, 2017 4:52 PM UTC [Hillary Clinton](http://time.com/4937204/hillary-clinton-ivanka-trump-held-accountable/) name-drops a [number of books](http://time.com/4937416/hillary-clinton-what-happened-books/) in her new memoir [_What_](http://time.com/4938413/hillary-clinton-what-happened-sarah-sanders/)[ Happened](http://time.com/4938413/hillary-clinton-what-happened-sarah-sanders/), but it’s her reference to hit television show [_Game of Thrones_](http://time.com/game-of-thrones-2017/)that seems to be garnering the most attention. In a passage focused on the hostility leveled at her by Trump supporters at the now-President’s campaign rallies, Clinton compared herself to Cersei Lannister — the Queen of the Seven Kingdoms played by Lena Headey in the HBO drama. “Crowds at Trump rallies called for my imprisonment more times than I can count,” she wrote. “They shouted, ‘Guilty! Guilty!’ like the religious zealots in _Game of Thrones_ chanting ‘Shame! Shame!’ while Cersei Lannister walked back to the Red Keep.” Clinton was, of course, referencing the infamous scene in _Thrones_‘ season five finale in which Cersei is forced to make a ‘walk of atonement’ through the streets of King’s Landing as public penance for her sins. > [](https://twitter.com/charliespiering/status/907587984983289861) Clinton went on to explain how she was floored by the “flood of hatred” she was confronted with during her run for the presidency. “People seemed to think I was evil,” she wrote. “Was this all because I’m a woman? No. But I believe it was motivation for some of those chanters and some of that bile.” ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4939575/hillary-clinton-on-cersei-lannister-game-of-thrones/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4939575/hillary-clinton-on-cersei-lannister-game-of-thrones/"},"headline":"The Game of Thrones-Inspired Reason Hillary Clinton Compared Herself to Cersei Lannister","datePublished":"2017-09-13T16:52:51.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T07:47:13.981Z","description":"\"People seemed to think I was evil\"","url":"https://time.com/4939575/hillary-clinton-on-cersei-lannister-game-of-thrones/","keywords":["Newsfeed","Television","politics","game of thrones","Books","TV","hillary clinton"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt10a2554f1d6b6a4e/6988dd9597cdff100c6b26c4/cersei-hillary.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Megan McCluskey","jobTitle":"Staff Writer","url":"https://time.com/author/megan-mccluskey/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt10a2554f1d6b6a4e/6988dd9597cdff100c6b26c4/cersei-hillary.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"cersei-hillary","caption":"","creditText":"HBO/Getty","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4939575/hillary-clinton-on-cersei-lannister-game-of-thrones/","name":"The Game of Thrones-Inspired Reason Hillary Clinton Compared Herself to Cersei Lannister"}}]}] ```