There are few shows like Game of Thrones. From the incredible budget and scope of the show to the era-defining dialogue that managed to set the standard for modern television, this show was a true phenomenon. There were also many characters who, for better or worse, are truly iconic for their words.
Cersei Lannister managed to make herself one of the most hated television characters of all time. Her lust for power, which was all-consuming, made her one of the plainest villains in a world filled with different shades of gray characters. However, she did come out with some legendary quotes during her time on the show.
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8 “Everyone who isn’t us is an enemy.”
Season 1, Episode 3
- Said to Joffrey Baratheon
Fans of Game of Thrones didn’t know all that much about Cersei early on. She was Queen, had a horrible relationship with her brother, and seemed to love her children. This early conversation with Joffrey, before he became a tyrannical King, seemed almost to be an educational moment between mother and son.
Unfortunately, not only did Cersei try, and fail, to instill how to be a good King in him. She also gave him her fears, doubts, and distrust of everyone else. The view that everyone was an enemy showed that Cersei was determined to keep playing the great game forever, whether there were any other real opponents on the board or not. She never would have been truly satisfied, even with the throne and the long history her family had in Westeros.
7 “When you play the Game of Thrones, you win or you die.”
Season 1, Episode 7
Cersei, being one of the characters at the forefront of the battle for the Iron Throne throughout the series, is ruthless from start to finish. When Eddard Stark confronts her, attempting to warn her to take her children and leave before he tells Robert the truth about her children, she tells him that he was wrong not to take the throne for himself.
He insists he never wanted to rule, and she tells him that there is no middle ground, that in their great game, you win or die. Unfortunately, her ruthlessness and Eddard’s honor, attempting to help her escape with her children, was his downfall in the end. Both Robert and he were dead within two episodes of him attempting to enact this good deed.
6 “Power is power.”
Season 2, Episode 1
There are different kinds of power seekers in Game of Thrones. Cersei showcased her abilities at playing the game in a less devious, more violent manner than most at the beginning of the second season against Lord Baelish. Littlefinger has always been one of the sneakier characters, trying to wind his way towards the top through subtle means.
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Unfortunately, he was taught a lesson in this episode that he held no real power. When he tried to tell Cersei that “knowledge is power”, she answered by having her guards grab him and hold a knife to his throat, before reminding him that power is power. Cersei was always underestimated by others, and this was an example of her reminding another powerful figure that she knew what he was up to, and that he couldn’t stop her or overthrow her.
5 “Tears aren’t a woman’s only weapon.”
Season 2, Episode 9
The old “fantasy” tradition about women hiding while the men fight isn’t seen often in Game of Thrones, and there are many women who fight alongside the men in the show. However, Cersei and Sansa are sent with the other women present in King’s Landing to hide during the Battle of Blackwater.
During this time, they have a rare one-on-one conversation. Cersei, while drinking, talks casually about trying to seduce Stannis if he takes the city, shocking Sansa. Cersei then reminds her that their sex comes with certain advantages and that Sansa should learn to make use of the “weapon between your legs” if she wants real power as a woman in this world. Cersei didn’t speak often about it being harder to gain power as a woman in Westeros, but it was constantly on her mind, and she simply turned it into another advantage.
4 “You never love anything in the world the way you love your first child.”
Season 4, Episode 5
Joffrey was a monster, one of the few black-and-white characters in a world filled with gray. Cersei, only a little less monstrous herself, didn’t make many attempts to rein in the brutal behavior of her eldest child, but she did occasionally express why, on this occasion while speaking with Margaery Tyrell, for instance, after Joffrey’s death.
Margaery, still mourning for her husband, was told by Cersei that he would have been a terror to her. Cersei finally admitted, only after Joffrey’s death, that he was a horror, but that she couldn’t help loving him as a mother. She did so regardless of whatever monstrosities he had committed, admitting that he had shocked her with how bad a person he had been. She even lost more than just her son, due to pushing Tyrion away by blaming him.
3 “Look at me, look at my face. It’s the last thing you’ll see before you die!”
Season 5, Episode 7
The post-Tywin region of Cersei’s life was absorbed with trying to consolidate power on her terms, without the help of Tyrion or her father, meaning she had to turn to unreliable sources like the Faith Militant. When the High Sparrow decided that Cersei had committed horrible crimes, he turned on her and had her imprisoned by Septa Unella.
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This line of defiance foreshadowed the horrible acts of punishment that would follow. Throughout the next season, Cersei would take her punishment, rise to stand tall again as Queen Mother, and then finally enact horrific vengeance on those who wronged her.
2 “I choose violence.”
Season 6, Episode 8
When the High Sparrow gained too much power in the capital, Cersei was forced to engage in a war with him. The embarrassments and imprisonment that Cersei went through over this period were the lowest she ever got, and she finally snapped and decided that outright warfare was the only real answer.
When Cersei is forced into a corner, she becomes even more dangerous, and this leads to her eventual downfall. But in a grand moment of triumph, she had the Mountain attack those who would bring her to the High Sparrow, leading to all pretense of her ruling kindly going out the window, as she became willing to destroy a huge piece of her city to take back full power from those who had wronged her in one of the best episodes of the show.
1 “No one walks away from me.”
Season 7, Episode 7
Many quotes between these two sum up pieces of their relationship, but more than any of them, this quote by Cersei as Jaime leaves to fight the army of the dead speaks volumes. Their relationship was always based on love, but Cersei was the controlling force, while Jaime was foolishly, completely, devoted to her.
When he finally left her on this occasion, he could have finally escaped. But he came back in the end, as he always did, to die uselessly with her, despite her threatening him on that occasion. Cersei couldn’t help herself, she wanted to control everybody, and in the end, she would have been left to die all alone if Jaime wasn’t as unendingly loyal to her as he was.
Game of Thrones
- First Episode Air Date
- April 17, 2011
- Where to watch
- HBO Max
