David Benioff

We'll drive. Keep driving. Head out to the middle of nowhere, take that road as far as it takes us. You've never been west of Philly, have ya? This is a beautiful country, Monty, it's beautiful out there, like a different world. Mountains, hills, cows, farms, and white churches. I drove out west with your mother one time, before you was born. Brooklyn to the Pacific in three days. Just enough money for gas, sandwiches, and coffee, but we made it. Every man, woman, and child alive should see the desert one time before they die. Nothin' at all for miles around. Nothin' but sand and rocks and cactus and blue sky. Not a soul in sight. No sirens. No car alarms. Nobody honkin' atcha. No madmen cursin' or pissin' in the streets. You find the silence out there, you find the peace. You can find God. So we drive west, keep driving till we find a nice little town. These towns out in the desert, you know why they got there? People wanted to get way from somewhere else. The desert's for startin' over. Find a bar and I'll buy us drinks. I haven't had a drink in two years, but I'll have one with you, one last whisky with my boy. Take our time with it, taste the barley, let it linger. And then I'll go. I'll tell you don't ever write me, don't ever visit, I'll tell you I believe in God's kingdom and I'll see you and your mother again, but not in this lifetime. You'll get a job somewhere, a job that pays cash, a boss who doesn't ask questions, and you make a new life and you never come back. Monty, people like you, it's a gift, you'll make friends wherever you go. You're going to work hard, you're going to keep your head down and your mouth shut. You're going to make yourself a new home out there. You're a New Yorker, that won't ever change. You got New York in your bones. Spend the rest of your life out west but you're still a New Yorker. You'll miss your friends, you'll miss your dog, but you're strong. You got your mother's backbone in you, you're strong like she was. You find the right people, and you get yourself papers, a driver's license. You forget your old life, you can't come back, you can't call, you can't write. You never look back. You make a new life for yourself and you live it, you hear me? You live your live the way it should have been. But maybe, this is dangerous, but maybe after a few years you send word to Naturelle. You get yourself a new family and you raise them right, you hear me? Give them a good life, Monty. Give them what they need. You have a son, maybe you name him James, it's a good strong name, and maybe one day years from now years after I'm dead and gone reunited with your dear ma, you gather your whole family around and tell them the truth, who you are, where you come from, you tell them the whole story. Then you ask them if they know how lucky there are to be there. It all came so close to never happening. This life came so close to never happening.

You know how they find people? They find them when they come home. People run away but they usually come back. That's when they get caught.

Yeah, fuck you, too. Fuck *me*? Fuck *you*, Fuck you and this whole city and everyone in it. Fuck the panhandlers, grubbing for money, and smiling at me behind my back. Fuck the squeegee men dirtying up the clean windshield of my car - get a fucking job! Fuck the Sikhs and the Pakistanis bombing down the avenues in decrepit cabs, curry steaming out their pores stinking up my day. Terrorists in fucking training. SLOW THE FUCK DOWN! Fuck the Chelsea boys with their waxed chests and pumped-up biceps. Going down on each other in my parks and on my piers, jingling their dicks on my Channel 35. Fuck the Korean grocers with their pyramids of overpriced fruit and their tulips and roses wrapped in plastic. Ten years in the country, still no speaky English? Fuck the Russians in Brighton Beach. Mobster thugs sitting in cafés, sipping tea in little glasses, sugar cubes between their teeth. Wheelin' and dealin' and schemin'. Go back where you fucking came from! Fuck the black-hatted Chassidim, strolling up and down 47th street in their dirty gabardine with their dandruff. Selling South African apartheid diamonds! Fuck the Wall Street brokers. Self-styled masters of the universe. Michael Douglas, Gordon Gekko wannabe mother fuckers, figuring out new ways to rob hard working people blind. Send those Enron assholes to jail for FUCKING LIFE! You think Bush and Cheney didn't know about that shit? Give me a fucking break! Tyco! Worldcom! Fuck the Puerto Ricans. Twenty to a car, swelling up the welfare rolls, worst fuckin' parade in the city. And don't even get me started on the Dom-in-i-cans, 'cause they make the Puerto Ricans look good. Fuck the Bensonhurst Italians with their pomaded hair, their nylon warm-up suits, their St. Anthony medallions, swinging their Jason Giambi Louisville Slugger baseball bats, trying to audition for "The Sopranos." Fuck the Upper East Side wives with their Hermès scarves and their fifty-dollar Balducci artichokes. Overfed faces getting pulled and lifted and stretched, all taut and shiny. You're not fooling anybody, sweetheart! Fuck the uptown brothers. They never pass the ball, they don't want to play defense, they take five steps on every lay-up to the hoop. And then they want to turn around and blame everything on the white man. Slavery ended one hundred and thirty seven years ago. Move the fuck on! Fuck the corrupt cops with their anus-violating plungers and their 41 shots, standing behind a blue wall of silence. You betray our trust! Fuck the priests who put their hands down some innocent child's pants. Fuck the church that protects them, delivering us into evil. And while you're at it, fuck J.C.! He got off easy! A day on the cross, a weekend in hell, and all the hallelujahs of the legioned angels for eternity! Try seven years in fuckin' Otisville, J.! Fuck Osama Bin Laden, al-Qaeda, and backward-ass cave-dwelling fundamentalist assholes everywhere. On the names of innocent thousands murdered, I pray you spend the rest of eternity with your seventy-two whores roasting in a jet-fuel fire in hell. You towel-headed camel jockeys can kiss my royal Irish ass! Fuck Jacob Elinsky. Whining malcontent. Fuck Francis Xavier Slaughtery my best friend, judging me while he stares at my girlfriend's ass. Fuck Naturelle Riviera, I gave her my trust and she stabbed me in the back, sold me up the river, fucking bitch. Fuck my father with his endless grief, standing behind that bar sipping on club sodas, selling whisky to firemen, and cheering the Bronx Bombers. Fuck this whole city and everyone in it. From the row-houses of Astoria to the penthouses on Park Avenue, from the projects in the Bronx to the lofts in Soho. From the tenements in Alphabet City to the brownstones in Park Slope to the split-levels in Staten Island. Let an earthquake crumble it, let the fires rage, let it burn to fucking ash and then let the waters rise and submerge this whole rat-infested place.

No. No, fuck you, Montgomery Brogan. You had it all, and you threw it away, you dumb fuck!

Champagne for my real friends, and real pain for my sham friends.

Y'know, people think I was after the money... and I was in a way. I mean, let's face it, money gets you nice things. I like... Italian shoes and a fast car like anybody else, but I don't need 'em. It's not like I grew up poor. I wasn't chasing the money, I was chasing a feeling. What I hungered for... was *sway*.

Sway is locking eyes with an undercover cop on the subway. You know what he is, and he knows what you are, and you *wink* at him... because he drives a battered Buick and you drive a vintage muscle car, and he can. Not. Touch. You. That, my friends, is sway.

I'll tell you a secret. Something they don't teach you in your temple. The Gods envy us. They envy us because we're mortal, because any moment might be our last. Everything is more beautiful because we're doomed. You will never be lovelier than you are now. We will never be here again.

You gave me peace in a lifetime of war.

You're still my enemy in the morning.

Imagine a king who fights his own battles. Wouldn't that be a sight?

Myrmidons! My brothers of the sword! I would rather fight beside you than any army of thousands! Let no man forget how menacing we are, we are lions! Do you know what's waiting beyond that beach? Immortality! Take it! It's yours!

Go home, prince. Drink some wine, make love to your wife. Tomorrow, we'll have our war.

Perhaps your brother can comfort them. I hear he's good at charming other men's wives.

There are no pacts between lions and men.

Now you know who you're fighting.

You gave him the honor of your sword. You won't have eyes tonight; you won't have ears or a tongue. You will wander the underworld blind, deaf, and dumb, and all the dead will know: This is Hector. The fool who thought he killed Achilles.

At night I see their faces. All the men I've killed. They're standing there on the far bank of the river Styx. They're waiting for me. They say, 'Welcome, brother'.

It's too early in the day to be killing princes.

Of all the kings of Greece, I respect you most. But in this war you're a servant. And I refuse to be a servant any longer.

Trojan soldiers died protecting you. Perhaps they deserve more than your pity.

Get up, Prince of Troy! I won't let a stone rob me of my glory!

You're a good student, but you're not a Myrmidon yet. Look at these men, they are the fiercest soldiers in all of Greece, each of them has bled for me. You will guard the ship…

Cousin, I can't fight the Trojans if I'm concerned for you, guard the ship!

Yes, but who will you fight for when I'm gone? Soldiers fight for kings they've never even met. They fight when they're told to fight, they die when they're told to die.

You say you're willing to die for love but you know nothing about dying and you know nothing about love!

You speak of war as if it's a game. But how many wives wait at Troy's gates for husbands they'll never see again?

All my life I've lived by a code and the code is simple: honor the gods, love your woman and defend your country. Troy is mother to us all. Fight for her!

I've seen this moment in my dreams. I'll make a pact with you. With the gods as our witnesses, let us pledge that the winner will allow the loser all the proper funeral rituals.

I thought it was you I was fighting yesterday. And I wish it had been, but I gave the dead boy the honor he deserved.

I thought it was you I was fighting yesterday. And I wish it had been, but I gave the dead boy the honor he deserved.

Last time you spoke to me like this, you were 10 years old and you'd just stolen Father's horse. What have you done now?

I killed a boy today. He was young; too young.

Yesterday the Greeks underestimated us. We should not return the favor.

Bird signs? You want to plan out strategy based on bird signs?

I can't ask anyone to fight for me. I'm no longer queen of Sparta.

You're a princess of Troy now.

And, my brother needs you tonight.

I want to see him grow tall. I want to see all the girls chasing after him.

All my life, I live by a course, and the course is simple - honor the gods, love you woman, and defend your country!

Troy is Mother to us all. Fight for her!

You're still my enemy tonight. But even enemies can show respect.

I have endured what no one on earth has endured before. I kissed the hands of the man who killed my son.

I know my country better than the Greeks, I think.

Do you really think death frightens me now? I watched my eldest son die, watched you drag his body behind your chariot. Give him back to me. He deserves a proper burial, you know that. Give him to me.

When you were very young, you came down with scarlet fever. Your little hand was so hot. The healer said you would not last the night. I went down to Apollo's temple, and I prayed until the sun came up. That walk back to the palace was the longest of my life. When I went into your mother's room, and you were sleeping in her arms, your fever had broken. I promised that day to dedicate my life to the gods, I will not break my promise. For 30 years I have worked for peace, *thirty* years. Paris is a fool sometimes, I know that, but I will fight a thousand wars before letting him die.

I've fought many wars in my time. Some I've fought for land, some for power, some for glory. I suppose fighting for love makes more sense than all the rest.

I have heard rumors of your beauty. And for once, the gossip is right.

I knew your father. He died well before his time. But he was fortunate enough to not have lived long enough to see his son fall.

Men are haunted by the vastness of eternity. And so we ask ourselves, will our actions echo across the centuries? Will strangers hear our names long after we're gone, and wonder who we were, how bravely we fought, how fiercely we loved?

I loved my boy from the moment he opened his eyes until the moment you closed them.