Cersei's Walk of Atonement

Shame, shame, shame: from the Great Sept to the Red Keep.

Cersei Lannister's walk of atonement is one of the two main storylines of "Mother's Mercy", the fifth-season finale of Game of Thrones. The High Sparrow demands she complete it before her trial.

Quick Facts

Episode: Season 5, episode 10
Route: Great Sept of Baelor to the Red Keep

Lore & Background

Cersei confesses to the High Sparrow that she committed adultery with Lancel, but denies that her children were fathered by her brother Jaime. He lets her return to the Red Keep to await a formal trial.

Reader's Guide

HBO used the actress Rebecca Van Cleave as a body double for Lena Headey, together with CGI. Critics praised the scene, though one noted that in the book the point of the walk is that the crowd sees Cersei's ageing body and she loses her mystique, which a 27-year-old double could not show.

First she must walk naked from the Great Sept of Baelor to the Red Keep, jeered at and pelted with garbage by the crowd. The episode draws on the Cersei chapters of A Dance with Dragons.