But for those of us who read the book series that the show is based on, A Song of Ice And Fire , it was surprising that Cersei became such a force to be reckoned with. Her character was always in a position of power, and she always made ill-advised decision to secure herself larger pieces of the pie, but plot lines didn't revolve around her as much as in the show. Cersei didn't even have her own point-of-views chapters in the books until A Feast for Crows, which is the fourth book in the series. She's got a much larger footprint in the TV show than in the books. Indeed, i09 talks about a statistics company who put this disparity into numbers: she gets over 200 minutes of screen time in 52 episodes, compared to only 12 chapters in the book series (out of 344 total chapters in 6 books). The upgrade is in how prominently Cersei is featured in the television show over the books, and the difference is noticeable.