How much of what has been told about Baelor I is true?

[Mithras]

I think most of the Walk of Penance thing sounds like a fancy singer stuff.

[Ser Dermett Corbray]

I dunno, that does seem pretty feasible. I do wonder how he managed to survive the poison of a viper pit for however long it took him to get from the Boneway to the Stormlands, though. I thought snakebites could kill you in hours, not days?

[Mithras]

bump

[JonCon's Red Beard]

Baelar was a man who benefited the Faith a lot. I'd say that they would like him to be remembered as much better than what he really was.

[Mithras]

Yeah, I think his association with the Faith is a major blunder. He was just a puppet and if not for Viserys, he could be the one to reform the Warrior's Sons. I suspect a sneaky Hightower move here. They caused the Dance to wipe out the dragons; the maesters finished what they started; and then there was this puppet king.

[Lord Varys]

I see no reason to doubt any of that. No idea how this stuff could have been invented, since, well, Dorne is a huge place, and half the Realm and Dorne would have seen Baelor on his march.

No idea where this Hightower stuff is coming from, either. The Hightowers did not cause the Dance to get rid of the dragons. They wanted to become dragonriders - and succeeded, as Aegon II, Helaena, Aemond, and Daeron all were dragonriders.

Lord Manfred Hightower wanted to marry his daughter to Aegon I, Lord Martyn Hightower successfully married his daughter to Maegor (and possibly originally intended to suggest the same match between Aenys and Ceryse, and they were much closer in age), and Ser Otto Hightower married his daughter to Viserys I.

And later on, Lord Jon Hightower brought Serenei to court and became Hand of Aegon IV.

If there is a pattern it is a pattern of ambition, not destruction.

[shockwave]

hightowers wanted power. The maesters wanted the dragons gone because they are unnatural, and maesters dislike anything magical.

[Lord Varys]

I'd suggests that any anti-dragon-conspiracy directed by the Citadel arose only during the Dance (the Shepherd and the Storming of the Dragonpit) without the consent/knowledge of the Hightowers (or with the belief that the agents were only acting to cripple/destroy Rhaenyra and her dragons) and after the Dance (during the Regency).

The main suspect here would be Grand Maester Munkun who would have had a lot of power during the later Regency as he was the only regent left for quite some time while he also served as Hand.

But whether a conspiracy existed at that point is still unknown. We don't know if Morning - the only dragon under Targaryen control at the end of the Dance - died during the Regency, or if Silverwing got another rider prior to her death (Baela?).

Sheepstealer and the Cannibal were not exactly in the range of the Citadel. But Munkun and other maesters during the Regency could clearly have messed with dragon eggs and hatchlings/young dragons at that time. I'm pretty sure other eggs hatched up until the last two she-dragons hatched in the 150s. All of Viserys' children could have had hatchlings.

[complexphoenix]

None of what TWOIAF has to say about Baelor the Blessed smells fishy or inaccurate to me, nor do I believe he was a puppet king. Baelor had firm notions about himself, about the gods, and what good kingship meant, and he followed those notions by his own will. Viserys and the High Septon both had a lot of influence, but neither one got their way in everything. Viserys surely wouldn't have approved of Baelor's more eccentric edicts, and the Faith Militant was not reformed because, according to SSM, Baelor was a pacifist who believed that prayer was the only weapon the faithful required.

Baelor was what I'd call a twice-exceptional king: exceptionally good at some things, exceptionally bad at others. His decision to seek peace with Dorne and forgive them for the murder of his brother was an exceptionally wise decision, one that required a great deal of courage at a time when everyone else was screaming for vengeance. His great walk of penance showed his sincerity. Choosing to walk back when peace had already been made was a silly choice, but his insistence on rescuing Aemon himself also showed an amazing degree of conviction, courage, and selflessness, even though it would have been wiser to try a strategy involving less risk to his person to get his cousin out. By building the Great Sept, he left a legacy of faith and beauty to endure for centuries.

On the other hand, Baelor's faith and convictions led him to numerous follies as well, and as time wore on his devotion to the Seven became the locus of his own kind of Targaryen madness. Imprisoning his sisters, tax breaks for chastity belts, running the whores out of King's Landing, replacing ravens with doves, his choices of High Septon (which are, in themselves, proof that he was not in thrall to the Faith - if anything, they were in thrall to him), book burning, and finally starving himself to death were all unforced errors that never would have been made if Baelor were of a more pragmatic bent. In him, we see both the virtues and vices of strongly held conviction.

[joluoto2]

Regarding the Faith though. Baelor's reign actually lead to them becoming weaker in the long run, with them moving from Old Town, where they were quite independent from the Crown, to King's Landing, where they ended up under the thumb of the Red Keep.

[Ramsay's Penguins]

He was probably mad before the viper pit, ngl...

The penance walk, while dangerous, was a good thing to do. And he was right to save Aemon, but just like, throw the key? Its worth a shot surely...

No I think I'd believe it all. Sometimes a snake biting someone twice has rendered the first bite useless. Not an antidote, but the toxins begin to poison the other toxins, and do what it does to blood, to the venom. Slows it down.

I imagine he got less snakebites then is said, but I don't doubt viper pit. That is a very Wyl thing to do.

[Bright Blue Eyes]

I imagine he got less snakebites then is said, but I don't doubt viper pit. That is a very Wyl thing to do.

I do.

Because it would have been counterproductive to the extreme after Baelor made peace.

[Ramsay's Penguins]

I do.

Because it would have been counterproductive to the extreme after Baelor made peace.

I don't know the rules on releasing prisoners at peacetime, but Aemon was a prisoner. He had attacked them, and they weren't fighting anymore, simply holding him captive, the peace was still upheld. It isn't like the snakes were Dornish soldiers who attacked Baelor. Baelor had his peace, at the cost of snakebites.

I think if you require a walk across Dorne to obtain peace, then a snakebite is nothing in terms of war.

I imagine the whole "I'll come back for you" was romanticised, but I'd still say he saved Aemon. This isn't the Dawn Age, and the history is more precise.

Explains the madness and Maidenvaulting too.

These are the Wyls we are talking about...

[Bright Blue Eyes]

Trying to murder the guy brokering a peace, the only guy standing between you and a lot of payback?

Unless the Wyls conciously sabotaged the peace and the Martells let them get away with that, it's not working out. And a man tortured for several months being able to carry an unconcious and delirious man across the mountain passes? That's ridiculous.

Or Baelor walking the length of Dorne on his own twice without being robbed, mobbed, starved, dying of thirst or plain killed?

Baelor's part of the history is particularly thick with BS.

[Mithras]

Trying to murder the guy brokering a peace, the only guy standing between you and a lot of payback?

Unless the Wyls conciously sabotaged the peace and the Martells let them get away with that, it's not working out. And a man tortured for several months being able to carry an unconcious and delirious man across the mountain passes? That's ridiculous.

Or Baelor walking the length of Dorne on his own twice without being robbed, mobbed, starved, dying of thirst or plain killed?

Baelor's part of the history is particularly thick with BS.

You can add more to this mixture.

The Dornish will fuck anything with a hole between its legs.

[Ramsay's Penguins]

Trying to murder the guy brokering a peace, the only guy standing between you and a lot of payback?

Unless the Wyls conciously sabotaged the peace and the Martells let them get away with that, it's not working out. And a man tortured for several months being able to carry an unconcious and delirious man across the mountain passes? That's ridiculous.

Or Baelor walking the length of Dorne on his own twice without being robbed, mobbed, starved, dying of thirst or plain killed?

Baelor's part of the history is particularly thick with BS.

His hostages rode with him, so they would likely have guards or the fact that they were with him is enough to deter attack or receive aid.

And they weren't trying to murder him, they just weren't stopping him from dying. Had he died then they probs would have said a snake bit him, and leave it at that. I don't doubt the Wyls cruelty for one second.

I suppose a lot of it singers fancy, but you can't deny that Baelor walked to Dorne, and that Aemon came back with him.

Edit: It is even stated that the Dornish lords made sure no harm came to him, lest Viserys see this as a cause for war.

[Bright Blue Eyes]

Edit: It is even stated that the Dornish lords made sure no harm came to him, lest Viserys see this as a cause for war.

And lured him into a snakepit?

It doesn't add up.

[Colonel Green]

And lured him into a snakepit?

It doesn't add up.

"The Dornish lords" isn't the same thing as "the Wyls". The Wyls, throughout TWOIAF, come across like the Boltons of the south.

This story is well-known, but there are no disputations of it mentioned anywhere, as to the behaviour of the Wyls, only as to the story that the vipers didn't bite Baelor because he was so holy.

[Mithras]

The fancy tale of Baelor's saving of Aemon simply derive from the sigil of House Wyl. Pit of Vipers in general is a metaphor for Dorne. Surely Baelor saved Aemon but he didnot jump into a pit full of vipers.

[Colonel Green]

The fancy tale of Baelor's saving of Aemon simply derive from the sigil of House Wyl. Pit of Vipers in general is a metaphor for Dorne. Surely Baelor saved Aemon but he didnot jump into a pit full of vipers.

Er, no, seeing as Baelor was laid up in Storm's End for several months suffering from poison. There would be plenty of textual backup for that.

The viper is the Wyl's sigil, but that can speak simply to their preferences, or have inspired their actions. Much like, for instance, the sigil of House Bolton is the flayed man.