I just have to say, as I become more familiar with the Ottoman empire I really love Sultana Kosem.
She is like the real Cinderella, but came from even humbler origins. It took a lot of courage to endure what she did, being captured and made a slave, losing her family and freedom, having to go to a distant land in poverty with no rights and learn a new religion and customs. Then she goes from rags to riches when the sultan falls for her and marries her, like something out of fairytale. She must have been very impressive. Nobody disputed her intelligence and charisma.
I think she used the influence she had in a noble way, getting her husband the sultan to end the practice of fraticide in the Ottoman empire. She loved her children, protected them like a mother lion, helped place them on the throne, and counseled restraint, tempering their extremes when she could.
Even as a queen she still had great adversities to overcome and suffered heavy personal losses, her husband dying suddenly when he was still in his 20s, losing her position and income, having to survive the reign of multiple mad and cruel kings, but she kept fighting, and played the game of thrones overall pretty good. She's like the real Margery Tyrell.
What I loved most about Kosem is that she was a great benefactress to her people, irrigation projects, the construction of mosques,religous tolerance, stabilizing the currency, visited prisons, patronizing the arts, fair taxes, she organized disaster relief effort. She was really ahead of her time, and honestly I think whe she was regent she was better ruler than both of her sons. The people were heart-broken at her death. She really cared about them, and not just about advancement and the finer things.