The Lannisters have long been the richest family in Westeros, and they’ve paid an enormous price to become richer and more powerful. Their matriarch has lost her father and all three of her children. Her brothers have abandoned her. Cersei is a lot more honest about wielding power than most: “I don’t care about checking my worst impulses,” she tells Tyrion in the season-seven finale. “I don’t care about making the world a better place. Hang the world.” The Lannisters’ gold mines under Casterly Rock went dry a long time ago. Without pillaging the Tyrells, her regime’s coffers would have been empty.

Unlike Dany, Cersei doesn’t expect to win with the people — she expects to win in spite of them. When Cersei’s brother (and lover) Jaime begs her not to wage a war — arguing that they don’t have the warrior strength of the Dothraki or the allegiance of the other houses, she replies with all the confidence in the Seven Kingdoms: “We have something better. We have the Iron Bank.” Rather than earn her army, Cersei’s pays for it. She buys 20,000 Golden Company mercenaries — though they arrive without their legendary elephants — with funds from the Iron Bank. But Cersei has no intention of sending her private army north to help defeat the army of the dead — that’s Jon and Dany’s problem. No, Cersei’s army will sit back and wait for whatever comes their way. Cersei’s betting on the strength of the bank to get her through the biggest fight of her life. It never crosses the mind that the bank could fail, or betray her.