Original subtitles

VISERYS: After the Conquest, when men looked up, they saw dragons.

Nobles learned to keep their eyes down,

but the gods weren't used to sharing the heavens.

When Aegon died, the High Septon led the Faith and its army in revolt,

claiming that the Valyrian tradition of wedding brother to sister

was an abomination in the eyes of the Seven.

Though no one could explain where the divine Mother and Father had come from.

My ancestor Maegor the Wise, or Maegor the Cruel, as men slander him,

put a bounty on the head of every militant priest,

and miraculously the Faith soon returned to the septs.

With Dorne in the fold, and the Faith put in its place,

none in Westeros were left to oppose my family,

so we started opposing each other.

In the Dance of Dragons,

a Targaryen Princess tried to steal her brother's throne.

Thanks to her stupidity, most of our dragons died,

though one thankfully ate her before it did.

But even without our dragons, we were still the blood of Old Valyria,

which proved just as dangerous.

One of my foolish ancestors didn't see

what separated his bastards from our family proper,

and legitimized them all on his deathbed.

Adopting the name Blackfyre,

the bastards proved their nature and tried to seize their father's kingdom.

When they failed, their sons tried.

When the sons failed, their grandsons tried.

Until finally Ser Barristan the Bold, knight of the Kingsguard,

slew Maelys the Monstrous in the War of the Ninepenny Kings,

ending the last of the Blackfyre line.

Ultimately, without our dragons and with our blood diluted by commoners,

we failed to see the greatest threat growing under our noses.

JAIME: As the saying goes,

"Every time a Targaryen is born, the gods flip a coin."

They must've dropped the one for King Aerys,

for at first he seemed to have dodged the family madness.

But as he grew older, he began to see conspirators everywhere,

and where there were none, he worked to create them.

As one of his Kingsguard, I saw firsthand

that a king who couldn't rule his own mind couldn't rule seven kingdoms.

We endured his reign

because we hoped his son Rhaegar would right the realm

when he ascended to the throne.

But then Rhaegar proved as mad as his father

and snatched Lyanna Stark, daughter of the Warden of the North,

and betrothed to Robert Baratheon, Lord of the Stormlands.

When Lyanna's father and eldest brother demanded justice,

- the Mad King obliged, - (AERYS LAUGHING INSIDIOUSLY)

laughing as he dispensed it.

VARYS: Unsatisfied with only two murders,

the Mad King then ordered Jon Arryn, Lord of the Vale,

to execute his two wards, Robert Baratheon and Eddard Stark.

Instead, Jon Arryn raised the Vale in revolt.

Ned Stark slipped past royalist sentries and raised the North,

and Robert won three battles in a single day to unite the Stormlands behind him,

only to be defeated by a royalist army and forced to flee,

leaving his home of Storm's End besieged.

SANSA: The Hand of the King finally cornered Robert

in the town of the Stoney Sept

and sent his soldiers door-to-door

- searching for the rebel leader. - (KNOCKING)

But the villagers hated the Mad King and loved Robert,

and kept him one step ahead of the soldiers.

Until only one refuge remained.

As the soldiers closed in, all the town bells rang out.

- (BELLS TOLLING) - Hearing of Robert's plight,

our father and Jon Arryn had rushed to the Riverlands

and enlisted our grandfather, Hoster Tully, to help them.

Together they routed the Hand's army and rescued Robert.

To celebrate and cement the Tully alliance,

our father wed our mother, Catelyn, and Jon Arryn took our Aunt Lysa.

Only a fortnight later, both men rushed back into the field,

for the dragon had finally woken.

VISERYS: While my father's servants were losing my father's kingdoms,

my brother Rhaegar had been cooped up with his...

Mistress? Whore?

Whatever else, I'd call her a distraction.

But now Rhaegar came to his senses and returned to King's Landing.

He persuaded our father to summon his estranged friend,

Lord Tywin Lannister, the richest and most powerful lord in the realm.

- Rhaegar himself would lead the royal army - (HOOVES THUDDING)

against the usurper, Robert.

- (SWORD SWISHES) - On the banks of the Trident,

my brother fought the man whose wife he'd stolen,

and who fought to steal his birthright in return.

In the end, Robert wanted it more.

His hammer shattered my brother's armor

and its rubies fell into the river like raindrops,

vanishing in the current.

VARYS: With Rhaegar's defeat, nothing stood between Robert and King's Landing.

Imagine the King's surprise a fortnight later

when he saw not stags, but lions outside his gates.

His former Hand, Tywin Lannister,

had come to the capital with a force even Robert couldn't match,

claiming to be loyal to the king.

Trusting what he wanted to believe, Aerys ordered the gates opened,

and the Lannister forces dutifully began

to rape, pillage and murder the king's actual loyal subjects.

When Eddard Stark finally arrived at the capital with Robert's army,

he found Lannister banners hanging over the sacked city,

Targaryen corpses littering its streets,

and Ser Jaime Lannister sitting on the Iron Throne.

Below him, the Mad King Aerys,

whom Ser Jaime had sworn to guard, lay in a pool of his own blood

from a sword thrust through his back.

Lord Eddard might've thanked Ser Jaime for doing the realm a favor,

but honorable as he was,

Lord Eddard condemned Ser Jaime as a Kingslayer,

a name he would never escape.

JAIME: Unlike Lord Eddard,

Robert appreciated my contribution to his glorious victory.

He pardoned me for my crime, and even kept me on his Kingsguard

beside Ser Barristan Selmy,

who'd been wounded at the Trident fighting for Rhaegar.

True, both of us had failed to protect our Targaryen charges,

but perhaps that's what Robert liked most about us.

When my father presented Robert

with the bodies of Rhaegar's wife and two children,

Ned Stark hiked up his skirts and demanded

Robert send their killer to Dorne, and me to the Wall.

But I saw what Ned couldn't.

Robert was ashamed of the bodies,

and more ashamed of his relief.

He knew that Rhaegar's heirs had to die or his throne would never be safe,

but glorious heroes didn't kill children.

They simply didn't punish their murderers.

VISERYS: No doubt I would've suffered a similar fate,

but my father had wisely sent me and my pregnant mother to Dragonstone.

When the usurper heroically sent men to kill me and my newborn sister

to protect his stolen throne,

a loyal knight smuggled us across the Narrow Sea to Essos.

And so the last dragons of Valyria,

heirs to the greatest dynasty

from the greatest civilization this world has ever known,

slept in sewers and foraged for scraps in alleyways,

one step ahead of the usurper's knives

and one step behind the whispers of his spymaster Varys.

But we won't run forever.

One day I'll return to my kingdoms with an army,

take back my throne,

and repay all traitors with the only coin my family knows.

Fire and blood.