The North Remembers

YOU WIN OR YOU DIE

RIVERLANDS

Trumpets are heard sounding, and various men are preparing for something. Inside one of the tents, Jamie, who is wearing a full set of Lannister armor, is reading a letter to his father, Tywin Lannister, who is preparing to skin a dead stag

Jamie:  "- summoned to court to answer for the crimes of your bannerman Gregor Clegane, the Mountain." Uh, "arrive within the fortnight or be branded an enemy of the Crown." Poor Ned Stark. Brave man, terrible judgment.

Tywin: Attacking him was stupid. Attacking Aldo was even worse. Do you want to bring down the Order's wrath on us?

He cuts open the belly of the stag and removes its intestines. Jaime looks as though he is about to protest.

Tywin: Are you gonna say something clever? Go on, say something clever.

Jaime: Catelyn Stark took my brother.

Tywin: Why is he still alive?

Jamie: [confused] Tyrion?

Tywin: Ned Stark?

Jamie: Aldo interfered, I speared him through the leg before I could finish him.

Tywin: Why is he still alive?

Jamie: It wouldn't have been clean.

Tywin: Clean. You spend too much time worrying about what other people think of you.

Jamie: I could care less what anyone thinks of me.

Tywin: That's what you want people to think of you.

Jaime: [annoyed] It's the truth.

Tywin: When you hear them whispering "Kingslayer" behind your back, doesn't it bother you?

Jaime: Of course it bothers me.

Tywin: The lion doesn't concern himself with the opinions of the sheep.

Jamie looks away, frustrated.

Tywin: I suppose I should be grateful that your vanity got in the way of your recklessness.

He thinks for a moment.

Tywin: I'm giving you half of our forces - 30,000 men. You will bring them to Catelyn Stark's girlhood home and remind her that Lannisters pay their debts.

Jamie: [surprised] I didn't realize you placed such a high value on my brother's life.

Tywin: He's a Lannister. He might be the lowest one of us but he's one of us. More then Ashter ever was and his disgusting affliction.

Jamie: Ashter is still my brother.

Tywin: If another House can seize one of our own and hold him captive with impunity, we are no longer a House to be feared.

They stare at each other for a long moment.

Tywin: Your mother's dead. Before long, I'll be dead. And you, and your brother, and your sister and all of her children. All of us dead, all of us rotting in the ground. It's the family name that lives on. It's all that lives on. Not your personal glory, not your honor, but family. Do you understand?

Jamie nods gently. Tywin looks skeptical.

Tywin: Hmmm...

He grabs a nearby rag to clean the blood off his hands.

Tywin: You're blessed with abilities that few men possess. You are blessed to belong to the most powerful family in the kingdoms. And you are still blessed with youth. And what have you done with these blessings, huh? You've served as a glorified bodyguard for two kings - one a madman, the other a drunk.