Who else thinks Daemon Targaryen is an awesome character?

[Valens]

Daemon fans, gather around! And btw, this is not about BLACKFYRE Daemon, but the first one. Viserys' brother, Rhaenyra's husband, rider of Caraxes and wielder of Dark Sister. And commander of the City Watch. All those things alone make him awesome, but that's not where it ends. Yes, yes, I know he wasn't all good, but who cares about that? Very very few characters, major characters, in the whole saga were just good, and not to speak about Targaryens. But-he loved his brother, he was ready to take up arms to secure his right to the throne, he loved his niece until she became too crazy and he really lived the life. His one flaw was his carnal desire. But, that's one of the lesser flaws of man, I think. There are far worse flaws to have. He had a sharp tongue too but that came with his birth, being a Targaryen prince. He was quick to take offense also. So was king Robert, but I see he still has many fans here. I find that him and Robert have many of the same flaws. Daemon didn't care much for politics or running and governing a kingdom. Well, he was the king of the Stepstones and the Narrow Sea, but that's a completely different thing than being the king of Westeros. And, in the end, when his brother died he gave Rhaenyra his unwavering loyalty and was eager on avenging her sons. He also slew Aemond, that bastard. It is interesting that he was never found and even his end is pretty awesome. Come on, what beats being killed in a dragonfight after slaying your foe and falling into a huge lake?

[Nyrhex]

The entire short story he is in is about celebrating him and rogues like him. It's the entire point of the Rogues anthology. The title is about him, so it's pretty much clear that he is meant to be the awesome character that you are meant to like.

A better question is "who thinks GRRM went overboard with the concept of the rogue, and wrote a masterbatury ode to a power-hungry, sadistic child-murderer?".

[ShadowCat Rivers]

14 minutes ago, Nyrhex said:

The entire short story he is in is about celebrating him and rogues like him. It's the entire point of the Rogues anthology. The title is about him, so it's pretty much clear that he is meant to be the awesome character that you are meant to like.

A better question is "who thinks GRRM went overboard with the concept of the rogue, and wrote a masterbatury ode to a power-hungry, sadistic child-murderer?".

Yea, I'd rather agree with this view.

Perhaps the non-POV "academic" way of presentation bares him of the necessary depth that could, maybe, make such a character more relatable, but as it stands for now I just find him a callous self serving sob and not awesome at all.

[Jon's Queen Consort]

1 hour ago, Nyrhex said:

The entire short story he is in is about celebrating him and rogues like him. It's the entire point of the Rogues anthology. The title is about him, so it's pretty much clear that he is meant to be the awesome character that you are meant to like.

A better question is "who thinks GRRM went overboard with the concept of the rogue, and wrote a masterbatury ode to a power-hungry, sadistic child-murderer?".

True. 

"An eye for an eye, a son for a son," Prince Daemon wrote. "Lucerys shall be avenged".

I never thought that I would say that but I agree with the op. Daemon was a monster for what he did to Jaehaerys but I don't really care. He was awesome! He flew from a dragon on another dragon and skewer Aemond with Dark Sister and it was awesome! 

[Jen'ari]

He was pretty awesome.

[OuttaOldtown]

He was awesome, most of this fan base wouldn't know awesome if it fell out of the sky landed on their faces..

[aryagonnakill#2]

I am a big fan also, I don't get the hate on him.  He is the one who should be called the dragonknight.  The very same people who hate on him give sympathy to other characters who do the exact same things.

[Nyrhex]

17 minutes ago, aryagonnakill#2 said:

I am a big fan also, I don't get the hate on him.  He is the one who should be called the dragonknight.  The very same people who hate on him give sympathy to other characters who do the exact same things.

That's kind of a broad claim there. I hate him for using cheap popularity to have people ignore the part where he sent people to murder a child infront of his mother after forcing her to choose which child to keep and then killing the other just to spite her. Among other things, he can do cool things and everything, and he can be called awesome by the dictionary definition of the word, but the point of a good rogue is that he dances on the line between good and bad, he can bend rules or even break minor ones for a good reason/cause.

Good rogues don't murder innocent children. Amongst other asshole things he does, this pretty clearly sets him aside as evil. 

Now you can call evil characters awesome, cool, and everything, but you don't let the shit that they do slide because of that. You can have a Magnificent Bastard, but even that card can't save a character from it's Moral Event Horizon. 

You can have a character cross that line, perform the horrible act, and have some theme to it, have some significance, and try and explain why that character did what it did for some more profound reasoning. 

Daemon did it because he was a dick. That is the sum total of his characters' depth. He is the Kanye West of Westeros, "I live a dope life and do dope things".

[aryagonnakill#2]

1 hour ago, Nyrhex said:

That's kind of a broad claim there. I hate him for using cheap popularity to have people ignore the part where he sent people to murder a child infront of his mother after forcing her to choose which child to keep and then killing the other just to spite her. Among other things, he can do cool things and everything, and he can be called awesome by the dictionary definition of the word, but the point of a good rogue is that he dances on the line between good and bad, he can bend rules or even break minor ones for a good reason/cause.

Good rogues don't murder innocent children. Amongst other asshole things he does, this pretty clearly sets him aside as evil. 

Now you can call evil characters awesome, cool, and everything, but you don't let the shit that they do slide because of that. You can have a Magnificent Bastard, but even that card can't save a character from it's Moral Event Horizon. 

You can have a character cross that line, perform the horrible act, and have some theme to it, have some significance, and try and explain why that character did what it did for some more profound reasoning. 

Daemon did it because he was a dick. That is the sum total of his characters' depth. He is the Kanye West of Westeros, "I live a dope life and do dope things".

I guess I painted with a broad brush, but I've heard people say he was a dick to his wife from the Vale, but those same people give Lysa a pass for her crimes because she was forced into an unwanted marriage, as if Daemon wasn't.

The way the kids were killed was cruel, but they had to be killed eventually in any event. If the rage he inflicted is what caused Aegon to march out of the city with his forces leading to his and Dreamfyres injuries, then it was a good plan.  

I personally think that any and all death during the war is on Aegon and Alyssanne and co, they started a war, war has no rules and people die, therefore the deaths are on the people that started it.

[Duranaparthur]

I think he's a fascinating character in that he seems to have undergone some definite development as he grew and there's enough ambiguity about some of his motives to make him the type of protagonist/antagonist that greater explanation could really flesh out. I think his morality and status as a rogue likely changes throughout his life as well.

There's a strong implication that older Daemon is quite a bit colder and in control than he was as a young man; he was always amoral and always creative, but he shows his experience and  a cool headedness that doesn't quite match the impetuous and impulsive nature that got him and his brother at odds. When he's younger, he seems more like a pure, roguish anti-hero who abuses his power but focuses on doing his jobs well for his brother, then he becomes an adventurer in the Step Stones and Free Cities, before evolving finally into a ruthless, weary, and spiteful old man who kind of overlaps with Tywin.

I do think he seems more relatable to some readers because of how much more competent and intelligent he seems than his counterpart in Aemond Targaryen, and because Aemond is kind of the guy who started the kinslaying between the family, encouraging the reader to constantly foil the two men together. That also makes the comparison between the two characters more interesting; Martin makes the two characters ridiculously similar while repeatedly citing their differences, but you can argue he's just demonstrating how time changes people, with Aemond showing the disadvantages of youth. Besides the obvious way that their names are perhaps the most simplistic anagrams of each other, they both are loyal younger brothers not above child murder, holding a grudge to a foolish degree, highly skilled warriors, and they both have close relationships with intriguingly powerful mistresses. The only thing really separating them is that Aemond hasn't gotten enough experience or intelligence to be an effective advisor and is just a brute, and that may just be a thing of time.

[Jon's Queen Consort]

8 minutes ago, aryagonnakill#2 said:

I personally think that any and all death during the war is on Aegon and Alyssanne and co, they started a war, war has no rules and people die, therefore the deaths are on the people that started it.

I agree. Aegon and Helicent are the people who are to blame for the Dance and all the deaths the war caused. The best punishment for Helicent was for her to be alive and seeing her line dying when Rhaenyra’s line surviving and becoming the only Targaryen line. I only hope that she died after Jaehaera.

[Nyrhex]

19 minutes ago, aryagonnakill#2 said:

1. I guess I painted with a broad brush, but I've heard people say he was a dick to his wife from the Vale, but those same people give Lysa a pass for her crimes because she was forced into an unwanted marriage, as if Daemon wasn't.

2. The way the kids were killed was cruel, but they had to be killed eventually in any event. If the rage he inflicted is what caused Aegon to march out of the city with his forces leading to his and Dreamfyres injuries, then it was a good plan.  

3. I personally think that any and all death during the war is on Aegon and Alyssanne and co, they started a war, war has no rules and people die, therefore the deaths are on the people that started it.

1. As charming as he was hot-tempered, Prince Daemon had earned his knight’s spurs at six-and-ten, and had been given Dark Sister by the Old King himself in recognition of his prowess. Though he had wed the Lady of Runestone in 97 AC, during the Old King’s reign, the marriage had not been a success. Prince Daemon found the Vale of Arryn boring (“In the Vale, the men fuck sheep,” he wrote. “You cannot fault them. Their sheep are prettier than their women.”), and soon developed a mislike of his lady wife, whom he called my bronze bitch, after the runic bronze armor worn by the lords of House Royce. Upon the accession of his brother to the Iron Throne, the prince petitioned to have his marriage set aside. Viserys denied the request but did allow Daemon to return to court, where he sat on the small council, serving as master of coin from 103–104, and master of laws for half a year in 104.

...

A year later, in 115 AC, there came a tragic mishap, of the sort that shapes the destiny of kingdoms: the “bronze bitch” of Runestone, Lady Rhea Royce, fell from her horse whilst hawking and cracked her skull upon a stone. She lingered for nine days before finally feeling well enough to leave her bed … only to collapse and die within an hour of rising. A raven was duly sent to Storm’s End, and Lord Baratheon dispatched a messenger by ship to Bloodstone, where Prince Daemon was still struggling to defend his meager kingdom against the men of the Triarchy and their Dornish allies. Daemon flew at once for the Vale. “To put my wife to rest,” he said, though more like it was in the hopes of laying claim to her lands, castles, and incomes. In that he failed; Runestone passed instead to Lady Rhea’s nephew, and when Daemon made appeal to the Eyrie, not only was his claim dismissed, but Lady Jeyne warned him that his presence in the Vale was unwelcome.

Daemon was a dick. He was born a dick, raised a dick, lived his whole life a dick. He was married to the house of Royce in a political move that was entirely to his benefit. He was such an abusive shitlord to everyone in the Vale that the instant he returns from a war he started out of boredom, to try and lay claim to his hated wife's land, he gets spewed out of the Vale by the Lady Arryn herself. 

I'm not going to defend Lysa, she was batshit insane. But she started way better off than Daemon, who was a shit from the start.

2. Don't go there. The action was despicable, there is no way to white-wash it or to rational it as a necessary evil.

3. That's a fantastic way to get rid of all blame. So seeing that Rhegar and Aerys started Robert's Rebellion, is Rhaegar to blame for his children's vicious murder? So Tywin and Gregor and Amory ok now because it was Rhaegar who started it all? 

[Lord Varys]

Prince Daemon has some good traits and he certainly supported the right side but I don't like him all that much. He is way too overconfident and fickle for my taste, especially in his youth. I think he is much more in Aerion and Maegor territory for my taste, not to mention that his inability to participate in the formal government (Master of Laws, Master of Coin), to keep his 'kingdom' together or stay true to his royal wife make him resemble Aerys II more than anybody else (the man was at least as changeable as Daemon).

I also don't think his martial abilities change the fact that he was petty and cruel (whipping a servant boy bloody just because he brought him bad news just isn't very nice or likable) and actually behaving like a gold digger by first trying to woo/seduce/marry Rhaenyra and then later Laena Velaryon (and she lived until the death of Viserys I Daemon would have used her as a figurehead to rise against either Rhaenyra or Aegon II or both considering that she was the rider of Vhagar and the eldest child of Princess Rhaenys). Discarding Rhaenyra for some younger cunt also is a deplorable move.

The fact that history considers him to be a main candidate behind the murder of Laenor Velaryon and the fire that killed Harwin and Lyonel Strong also makes things pretty worse. If he did any of that he must have been a pretty fucked up guy.

The one thing where I think he is less to blame is the Blood and Cheese incident because he was neither in KL nor nearby to actually oversee the whole thing. Mysaria was in charge of all that. And I very much doubt Daemon gave orders to target Aegon's children. It just happened that they could get to them much easier. Daemon himself may have meant one of Alicent's sons in his letter to Rhaenyra, not Aegon's irrelevant children. Taking out Aemond would have been a huge success (but he may have been still out of the city at this point) and TPatQ suggests that the original target may have been Aegon II but Blood and Cheese could not get inside Maegor's nor catch him outside without the Kingsguard being present.

Thus things narrowed down to a son of Aegon II. And the fact that they did not kill Alicent, Helaena, Jaehaera, Maelor, and even Otto makes little sense from a Black perspective. If Daemon had known they could remove all those people then he certainly would have commanded to do so. Letting the others live didn't make any sense.

In general I think the Blacks had every right to retaliate the way they did after the coldblooded murder of Lucerys Velaryon. In fact, they had to to prevent to appear weak in the eyes of the Realm. If the Greens can slay Rhaenyra's sons with impunity then many lords might have reconsidered their allegiances and declared for Aegon II.

3 minutes ago, Jon's Queen Consort said:

I agree. Aegon and Helicent are the people who are to blame for the Dance and all the deaths the war caused. The best punishment for Helicent was for her to be alive and seeing her line dying when Rhaenyra’s line surviving and becoming the only Targaryen line. I only hope that she died after Jaehaera.

Don't think so. I think there is a pretty good case to be made that Unwin Peake only dared to move against Jaehaera after he had become Hand (in the wake of Ser Tyland's death) and after the Queen Dowager was dead, too. Both succumbed to the Winter Fever in the same year as Jaehaera was killed, and it is also pretty likely that Peake also was able to put his cronies into the Kingsguard and other high positions in the wake of the casualties this plague caused in the capital. Prior to that he would not have been able to murder the queen with impunity.

But then, Jaehaera definitely was a dead end. All Alicent could hope for was lackwit great-grandchildren. And even she must have known that this marriage would never be consummated.

[Valens]

I see there are some errors in names here, people should really get that stuff together first before posting here. Dreamfyre? I think the name you are looking for is Sunfyre. And Helicent? Is that a pun or just an error? And concerning the murder of prince Jaehaerys-Daemon didn't ask Haelena to choose which kid he will kill, it was that murderer duo, Blood and Cheese. Daemon just ordered them to kill Jaeherys, the rest I believe was all their improvisation.

[lojzelote]

I find Daemon an entertaining character, but his faults included far more than carnal desires. Aside of the Blood and Cheese incident, he had a blameless messanger whipped for bringing him bad news, he provoked Laena Velaryon's berothed with the intention of killing him, he made jokes of his brother's tragic loss (the death of his wife and a much desired son), he treated his first wife callously and after her death had the gall to attempt to claim her castle and lands for himself.

Not to mention, TWoIaF says that had Laenor Velaryon had been chosen as Jaehaerys' heir instead of Viserys, Daemon would have pressed his brother into a war, so he himself would get closer to the throne. Had things gone differently, there might have a different Dance of Dragons a generation earlier, mostly thanks to Daemon.

19 minutes ago, aryagonnakill#2 said:

I guess I painted with a broad brush, but I've heard people say he was a dick to his wife from the Vale, but those same people give Lysa a pass for her crimes because she was forced into an unwanted marriage, as if Daemon wasn't.

The way the kids were killed was cruel, but they had to be killed eventually in any event. If the rage he inflicted is what caused Aegon to march out of the city with his forces leading to his and Dreamfyres injuries, then it was a good plan.  

I personally think that any and all death during the war is on Aegon and Alyssanne and co, they started a war, war has no rules and people die, therefore the deaths are on the people that started it.

No, Aegon and Helaena's children didn't have to die. Little Jaehaerys and Maelor could have married daughters of Rhaenyra's sons, just like Jaehaera later married Aegon the Younger. In the worst case, they could have been sent either to the Citadel, the Faith or the Wall.

Besides, this was hardly a politically motivated deed. In such a case all three children would have been murdered (including Jaehaera, since from the Green POV King Aegon II's daughter would have a better claim than his sister Rhaenyra and her children) without any sadistic Sophie's Choice BS.

What Daemon had done is indefensible. If he wanted to avenge his stepson so terribly, he should have sworn revenge upon the grown ass guy who was actually guilty. After all, he ended up killing him anyway.

[Darth Sidious]

12 hours ago, Valens said:

Daemon fans, gather around! And btw, this is not about BLACKFYRE Daemon, but the first one. Viserys' brother, Rhaenyra's husband, rider of Caraxes and wielder of Dark Sister. And commander of the City Watch. All those things alone make him awesome, but that's not where it ends. Yes, yes, I know he wasn't all good, but who cares about that? Very very few characters, major characters, in the whole saga were just good, and not to speak about Targaryens. But-he loved his brother, he was ready to take up arms to secure his right to the throne, he loved his niece until she became too crazy and he really lived the life. His one flaw was his carnal desire. But, that's one of the lesser flaws of man, I think. There are far worse flaws to have. He had a sharp tongue too but that came with his birth, being a Targaryen prince. He was quick to take offense also. So was king Robert, but I see he still has many fans here. I find that him and Robert have many of the same flaws. Daemon didn't care much for politics or running and governing a kingdom. Well, he was the king of the Stepstones and the Narrow Sea, but that's a completely different thing than being the king of Westeros. And, in the end, when his brother died he gave Rhaenyra his unwavering loyalty and was eager on avenging her sons. He also slew Aemond, that bastard. It is interesting that he was never found and even his end is pretty awesome. Come on, what beats being killed in a dragonfight after slaying your foe and falling into a huge lake?

Yeah, the Rogue Prince was the rockstar of his time.  The way he took down his nephew was badass.