25 reasons we love Cersei Lannister on Game of Thrones

“A badge of honor”

Robert and Cersei’s marriage is unhealthy at best by modern standards. By more medieval ones, it’s less surprising. They were married for an alliance, not for love. (Even Catelyn and Ned didn’t love each other when they first wed. Cat tells Robb as much.) Although the younger Cersei did like Robert, that stopped when he called her Lyanna on their wedding night.

Anyway, during this scene, she and Ned start exchanging verbal blows, and when Robert doesn’t do anything, she hisses: “I should wear the armor, and you the gown.” (Funnily enough, elements of armor start getting incorporated into her gowns, like the breastplate she wears during the Battle of the Blackwater, or the shoulder decorations she has as Queen of the Seven Kingdoms.)

Robert doesn’t take kindly to this and slaps her across the face, with Ned still watching from bed. Cersei inhales sharply, but then she tells him she’ll wear it like a badge of honor. In other words, she’s just told him that she hasn’t given up on this yet, and that fighting for her brothers is far more worthy of her time and her pain.

Basically, any scene in which Robert and Cersei talk to each other is pretty interesting to watch, just in terms of looking at two people who love other people (he, the memory of Lyanna, and she, Jaime) put who are still stuck to each other anyway.