[Ol' Dan Tucker]

I think George R. R. Martin is just a sexual deviant and it shows through in anything he does. The incestuous relationship between Cersei and Jaime almost comes across as normal in the storyline.

Royal families have always engaged incest to preserve the royal blood lines.

Martin didn't invent this tradition. He merely fictionalized it in his books.

What I find surprising is that you didn't know this fact, or bother yourself to look it up before posting.

[Telepathic Intruder]

I know all about incestuous practices in royalty, going back to ancient Egypt and beyond. But by the middle ages in Europe, which the society in GoT approximates, direct brother and sister relationships were looked at with the same disdain as today. Why GRRM chose to almost normalize it is strange.