"I will tell you a story. You know the one about the mother lion and the little cub?"

The most heart-wrenching part of this scene (other than Lena Headley’s beautiful acting) is not Tommen’s quiet obliviousness to the battle raging outside, nor is it the impending sense of doom looming all around Queen Cersei and her cub. 

It is one single line, the meaning of which very few were likely to notice.

“The cub said, will I be strong and fierce like my father?”

Watch Lena Headley.

The words are heavy, her tearful eyes are lifted to a distance far, far beyond her powers of sight. 

She has internalized Cersei’s true meaning in such a lovely and heartbreaking way. 

She loves her children more than anything else in the world. She loves them so fiercely. But the only person or thing she loves even nearly that much is not her throne, not power, not beauty, not womanly wiles.

It is Tommen’s true father, her brother Jaime.

“Will I be strong and fierce like my father?”

Not Robert, little cub.

Jaime Lannister, who has been a pillar of strength and fiercely beautiful for as long as Cersei can remember. The only man on her mind in this darkest hour. 

Jaime Lannister, whose roar Cersei can hear even over the roar of clashing swords and bloodshed and fear.

Jaime Lannister, the man who would be king, even if it is only in Cersei’s head.

Perhaps she’s thinking that she could only be his queen in death, but he will always be her king in her heart.