"Love is all you can still betray. Betrayal can only happen if you love." (John LeCarre) In William Shakespeare's tragedy King Lear, characters are betrayed by the people closest to them. Parents betray their children, mostly unintentionally. Children deceive their parents because of their greed and hunger for power. Their parents were eventually forgiven, but the greedy children were not. Parents and their children cheat on each other, and are only able to do so because they are family, however, children cheat out of greed while parents cheat out of gullibility caused by their children's greed. Two powerful characters in the play, the elderly King Lear and the gullible Earl of Gloucester both betrayed their sons unintentionally. First, characters are betrayed because of family assumptions. Lear banished his youngest daughter Cordelia because he overestimated how much she loved him. When questioned by her father, she replies: "I love Your Majesty / According to my bond, no more and no less." (I,i, 94-95) Lear supposed that since Cordelia was his daughter, she must love him in a certain way, but he took this new knowledge and banished her without a second thought. Secondly, characters were betrayed because of class. Edmund, the eldest son of the Gloucester family, would have been his father's closest relative. He might have assumed the position of earl upon his father's death if he had not held the title of legitimate bastard. In his first soliloquy he says: "Why bastard? Why mean? / When my dimensions are so compact / my mind so generous, and my form so true..." (I, ii, 6-8) Edmund believes he to be at least equal, if not more so, to his father in body and mind, but the title his father unfortunately gave him still persists. Finally, the characters were betrayed because of the family's trust. Gloucester trusted his son Edmund when he was told that his other son was trying to kill him. After reading the forged letter written by Edmund, he responded with: "O bad, bad! His own opinion in the letter! ... Go, sir, look for him." (I,ii,75-77) Gloucester inadvertently betrayed Edgar because he had so much faith in his son that he was easily persuaded to lose all faith in the other. These blind characters were sadly betrayed by the children, but they did so unintentionally and will eventually see their wrong doings.