Viserys: You have misjudged me, Rhaenyra.
Rhaenyra: All know it. Jason Lannister knows it. You said it yourself, the lords of the realm gather like vultures to a carcass, hoping to feast on my bones.
Viserys: It is true that as rulers we must marry for advantage to forge alliances and bolster our strength. You have always understood this. I myself was promised to your mother when I was...
Rhaenyra: Ten-and-seven years of age. The Vale had an army to rival the North. I've heard that story since I've had ears to.
Viserys: I loved her. She made a man of me. I do not seek to replace you, child. You've been much alone these last few years. Alone and angry. I will not live forever. I wish to see you contented, happy even.
Rhaenyra: You think a man will do it?
Viserys: A family.
Rhaenyra: I had a family.
Viserys: What would you have me do?!
Rhaenyra: If it was for advantage, you would've wed Laena Velaryon!
Viserys: That is true enough. You must marry, strengthen your own claim, shore up your succession, multiply. As to your match, make it yourself. Search him out. Find one that pleases you, as I did. Rhaenyra, I did waver at one time. But I swear to you now, on your mother's memory, you will not be supplanted.
Rhaenyra: How angry is he?
Alicent: The King went through great effort to arrange your tour. He is frustrated. But I am glad you are home. I find I have few friends lately. I like to believe I'm still the Lady Alicent, but all anyone sees when they look at me now is "The Queen."
Rhaenyra: I've missed you, too.
Daemon: You cannot live your life in fear, or you will forsake the best parts of it.
Rhaenyra: I have no desire to live in fear. Only solitude.
Daemon: Such a lovely prospect.
Rhaenyra: Their wants are of no consequences.
Daemon: They're of great consequence if you expect to rule then one day.
Daemon: When I offered up my crown, you said I could have anything. I want Rhaenyra. I'll take her as she is, and wed her in the tradition of our house.
Viserys: You are already wed.
Daemon: That didn't stop Aegon the Conqueror from taking a second wife.
Viserys: You are no conqueror. You are a plague sent to destroy me.
Daemon: Give me Rhaenyra to take to wife and we will return the House of the Dragon to its proper glory.
Viserys: Of course. It's not my daughter you lust for, is it? It's my throne. Go back to the Vale, Daemon, to your lawful wife. Strive to restore whatever scrap of honor remains in you. Or don't. Matters not to me. As long as you are gone from my sight for good.
Viserys: My father was a hale and healthy warrior and dragonrider at the peak of his abilities. Jaehaerys named a great royal hunt to celebrate him being named the Hand of the King. Five days later, my father lay dead. Tourneys last longer. Baelon the Brave, rider of Vhagar, heir to the Iron Throne, dead of a burst belly. The gods have a dark wit.
Otto: It was a grim day. I recall it all too well.
Viserys: It was a good day for you. Jaehaerys named you Hand in Baelon's stead.
Otto: That's hardly how I viewed it, Your Grace. It was a duty.
Viserys: You served my grandsire nobly in his final days. You are the man that taught me how to be King.
Otto: Oh, you honor me, Your Grace.
Viserys: Just five days you went from being another man in Jaehaerys's court to the second most powerful man in the realm. I wonder, how long did it take you to choose yourself over your King?
Otto: Your Grace?
Viserys: I will never recover from Aemma's death. But Alicent, she took me through the worst of my grief. She was a calculated distraction. I only now realize how well-calculated it was.
Otto: That is an absurdity. The Queen loves you as I know you love her.
Viserys: Your interests no longer align with those of the realm. Your judgment has been compromised.
Otto: A loyal Hand must tell his king a discomforting truth from time to time, Your Grace. If he doesn't, he's failed as a servant.
Viserys: You were a faithful servant, Otto. The Crown and the realm both owe you a debt that can never be repaid. But I can no longer trust your judgment.
Alicent: I do not wish to see you go.
Otto: Such is the king's decision.
Alicent: A decision I most vigorously regret.
Otto: And yet you made it possible. You chose Rhaenyra.
Alicent: She swore her innocence. And I believed her.
Otto: You wanted to believe her. As did her father.
Alicent: Your informant was wrong. An honest mistake, perhaps, but I did not foresee this!
Otto: You should have.
Alicent: If you had not been so relentless in advancing Aegon as heir...
Otto: Listen to me, daughter. The King will die. It may be months or years, but he'll not live to be an old man, and if Rhaenyra succeeds him, war will follow, do you understand? The realm will not accept her. And to secure her claim, she'll have to put your children to the sword. She'll have no choice. You know it. You're no fool and yet you choose not to see it. The time is coming, Alicent. Either you prepare Aegon to rule, or you cleave to Rhaenyra and pray for her mercy.
Rhaenyra: I know that whatever agreement being struck up there will not change your appetites, nor will it change mine.
Laenor: And what do you propose?
Rhaenyra: That we perform our duty to our fathers and to the realm. And when it's done, each of us dines as we see fit.
Rhaenys: We are placing our son in danger.
Corlys: The lords of the realm bent the knee to Rhaenyra and swore obeisance to her.
Rhaenys: That was before there was a true-born prince named Aegon Targaryen. Rhaenyra's succession will be challenged. Knives will come out, for her, her husband, and their heirs.
Corlys: Our house controls the realm's navy and half its dragons. Anyone fool enough to challenge Rhaenyra's claim will be crushed.
Rhaenys: To what end, Corlys? Wealth? Power? Pride?
Corlys: Justice. By all rights, you should be Queen of the Seven Kingdoms. You were robbed of the crown by...
Rhaenys: I never wore the crown because the realm would not have it so.
Corlys: But I would remedy that small-minded error by any means necessary.
Criston: Let us leave it all behind and see the world together, where we'll be nameless and free. Free to go where we like, to love as we like. In Essos, you could marry me. A marriage for love, not for the crown.
Rhaenyra: I am the crown, Ser Criston. Or I will be. I may chafe at my duties, but do you think I would choose infamy in exchange for a bushel of oranges or a ship to Asshai? It is my duty to marry a nobleman from a great house and Ser Laenor will make a fine husband. But my, uh, my marriage does not have to be the end. Ser Criston, Laenor and I have an understanding. I've granted him leave to pursue his own interests. And in turn, he's granted me the same.
Criston: So you want me to be your whοre?
Rhaenyra: I want us to continue as we began, with you as my sworn protector, my white knight.
Criston: I took an oath. As a, as a knight of, of your Kingsguard. An oath of chastity. I've broken it.
Rhaenyra: I won't tell anyone...
Criston: I've, I've soiled my, my, my white cloak. And it is the only thing I have to my fսcking name! I, I thought if we were married, I might be able to restore it.
Rhaenyra: The Iron Throne looms larger than me, larger than anyone in my family.
Viserys: Will I be remembered as a good king?
Lyonel: Your Grace?
Viserys: What will they say of me when the histories are written? I have neither fought nor conquered, nor suffered any great defeat.
Lyonel: Some might call that good fortune.
Viserys: It hardly makes a good song, does it? To be sung at feasts in a hundred years, five hundred.
Lyonel: You have carried King Jaehaerys's legacy, and kept the realm strong. Is it not better to live in peace than to have songs sung after you are dead?
Viserys: Perhaps. But there is a part of me wishes I'd been tested. I often think that in the crucible, I may have been forged a different man.
Lyonel: Many that are tested only wish to have been spared it.
Alicent: You are nearly a man-grown. How is it that you can be so shortsighted? If Rhaenyra comes into power, your very life could be forfeit. Aemond's as well. She could move to cut off any challenge to her succession.
Aegon: Then I won't challenge...
Alicent: You are the challenge! You are the challenge, Aegon! Simply by living and breathing! You are the King's firstborn son. And what they know, what everyone in the realm knows in their blood and in their bones, is that one day, you will be our King.
Rhaenyra: Dark rumors are hunting us, Laenor. They nip at our heels. Questions about our sons' parentage. Vile, disgusting insinuations.
Laenor: Insinuations, are they?
Rhaenyra: They are our sons! Yours and mine. And their true father will not abandon them now to go carousing through the Narrow Sea, waggling his sword and winking at his sailors.
Laenor: I am a knight and a warrior. And I have played my part here, faithfully, for ten years. I am owed some...
Rhaenyra: You are owed nothing! For ten years, you have indulged yourself at court, bought the finest horses, drunk the rarest of wines, fսckеd the lustiest boys. This was our agreement. I have not begrudged you. But you do not desert your post when the storm lashes.
Laenor: The wise sailor flees the storm as it gathers.
Rhaenyra: Very well then. I command you. As your Princess and the heir to the throne, you are commanded to remain in King's Landing and at my side.
Laena: You laud the virtues of Pentos, but you have no interest in it. If you did, you would venture into the city, but instead, you spend your time here, in the library, reading accounts of the same dead dragonlords whose legacy you claim has no hold on you.
Daemon: Didn't know I was being so minutely observed.
Laena: You do not sleep.
Daemon: Well, how can I with you haunting my every move?
Laena: Life has, I know, disappointed you. Perhaps, I too, am not the wife you would've wished for yourself.
Daemon: Laena...
Laena: It does not pain me. I have made my peace. But you are more than this, Daemon. The man I married was more than this.
Jace: Is Harwin Strong my father? Am I a bastard?
Rhaenyra: You are a Targaryen. That's all that matters.
