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Ragtag Bands of Misfits


sweetsunray

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Thank you for coming up with a fresh and interesting topic, and for doing such a nice job of presenting the evidence! I look forward to subsequent installments.

10 hours ago, elder brother jonothor dar said:

I like your idea but I think you might have missed the biggest infiltrating agent, the classic bad guy sets up a ragtag band to achieve his goal then betray them.

What Varys goal is I am not sure ...

5 hours ago, sweetsunray said:

As for Varys - yes and no. People are expendable to him (see Kevan and Ned Stark): they're good people working for the wrong cause in his mind. Dany and Viserys were more expendable than Aegon (fake or true). Still, he tries to salvage those he thinks he can use for his ragtag team. But he gave up any leading control, the moment he rescued Tyrion and went into hiding, leaving the small council, and skulking like a spider in the catacombs of the Red Keep. Together with Illyrio the plan was to unite Aegon with Dany, to better Aegon's claim (not to help Dany, but because she's verifiable Targ blood, has 3 dragons and an army). But JonCon and Aegon struck out on their own plan (inspired by Tyrion), and Varys is now following suit to help stir up trouble between Tyrells and Cersei again. ...

While many members of the ragtag of exiles are expendable to Varys, Aegon is the least expendable to him. This is the child and boy he invested in for close to 2 decades.

It doesn't mean that I fully believe that Varys speaks the truth about his claim that Aegon is Aegon Targaryen, but imo Varys compares to Machiavelli who regards Aegon as his Il Principe.

My current mindset is to find and analyze the minor characters who parallel major characters (or other minor characters), and I have been wondering about the possibility of Yezzan zo Qaggaz and Nurse as echoes of Illyrio and Varys. Yezzan puts together his ragtag band of treasures, and Nurse sees that they are chained and obedient but pampered. So the near-miss for Tyrion and Penny, being offered as lion food for the entertainment at the fighting pits, might fit with the idea that Illyrio and/or Varys see some of their own ragtag band as expendable.

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5 hours ago, Ser Loras The Gay said:

who we know for sure has:
a) a good motive to hide her/his identity
b ) knows Arianne enough for her to believe in a first glance
c) isn't right now believed to be dead
d) knows who Aegon really is
they need to have most of those at the same time right? Who can it be?

My guess is that @sweetsunray is referring to Lady Mellario of Norvos - Doran's wife and Arianne's mother, who left when Arianne was in her teens.  Norvos is conveniently close to where Aegon has been hiding.

@sweetsunray, on another note, does your OP focus on the trope in general or on Aegon's group specifically.  Because in my experience with Fanrtasy, these Bands tend to be composed of primarily main characters, or at least have a main character as their nucleus.

The best examples of these that I can see are Dany's court with its mixture of exiles and slaves, and the NW, now focused around Jon, which is nothing but outcasts and misfits.  On a smaller scale, Bran's group would qualify, as well as being the closest thing there is to a fantasy-style quest narrative in the series, with its small band of cripples and misfits traipsing across the wilderness in search of salvation.

I'm not sure that Aegon's group or the BwB, for example really qualify, at least not yet, but I do look forward to further comments on this subject.. 

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5 hours ago, Nevets said:

My guess is that @sweetsunray is referring to Lady Mellario of Norvos - Doran's wife and Arianne's mother, who left when Arianne was in her teens.  Norvos is conveniently close to where Aegon has been hiding.

@sweetsunray, on another note, does your OP focus on the trope in general or on Aegon's group specifically.  Because in my experience with Fanrtasy, these Bands tend to be composed of primarily main characters, or at least have a main character as their nucleus.

The best examples of these that I can see are Dany's court with its mixture of exiles and slaves, and the NW, now focused around Jon, which is nothing but outcasts and misfits.  On a smaller scale, Bran's group would qualify, as well as being the closest thing there is to a fantasy-style quest narrative in the series, with its small band of cripples and misfits traipsing across the wilderness in search of salvation.

I'm not sure that Aegon's group or the BwB, for example really qualify, at least not yet, but I do look forward to further comments on this subject.. 

Guess again :D

The thread is meant to tackle several groups, including Bloody Mummers (rather the easiest one because disbanded, with just a few survivors heading for Oldtown. That band of misfits' story has been told and wrapped up), Dany's, RL BwB, Oldtown Marwyn's magician misfits, the Wall around Jon (one of the harder because you have the Red God group interspersed there and certain characters of it not at the Wall but WF), the characters starting to surround Sansa in the Vale. Personally I think Bran's is part of a larger misfit group, but a satellite group, sort of like we can regard Varys and Illyrio having been satelite operating team members.

I am focusing right now on Aegon's group, because that one was formed 12 years ago, and has been sharply defined with a limited number of characters, only requiring me to take a few recent additions in account.

You are right that in Fantasy such bands are primarly main characters, usually because they have only one band, that splits up along the way to gather extras around them and then unite again to form a larger team. George takes it further (putting in numerous bands), and doesn't care whether it are only mains. In that way he already has subverted the trope. In fact for some we don't have a POV or only the POV of a secondary character. But they do tend to consist of the same roles. It seems that in George's mind every group ends up regarding itself as a team of society's misfits with a heroic mission in mind (except for the Bloody Mummers).  

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10 hours ago, Seams said:

Thank you for coming up with a fresh and interesting topic, and for doing such a nice job of presenting the evidence! I look forward to subsequent installments.

My current mindset is to find and analyze the minor characters who parallel major characters (or other minor characters), and I have been wondering about the possibility of Yezzan zo Qaggaz and Nurse as echoes of Illyrio and Varys. Yezzan puts together his ragtag band of treasures, and Nurse sees that they are chained and obedient but pampered. So the near-miss for Tyrion and Penny, being offered as lion food for the entertainment at the fighting pits, might fit with the idea that Illyrio and/or Varys see some of their own ragtag band as expendable.

Nice suggestion, important to keep in mind when focusing on Mereen.

Note: when I said that Varys tries to salvage people, I meant for "recruitment". You have to salvage and recruit the misfits first, before you can discard them.

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I like that this has become a guessing game to see who the character known to Arianne might be.

I have a few; her wet nurse (Garins mom) as Lemore, I thought maybe Jorahs wife but I believe she looked like Dany and it isn't said that Lemore had dye in her hair, and also Haldon. The wet nurse is my best guess.

Nice post, looking forward to see where it goes (beyond all the guessing).

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7 hours ago, The Bastards Giant Friend said:

I like that this has become a guessing game to see who the character known to Arianne might be.

I have a few; her wet nurse (Garins mom) as Lemore, I thought maybe Jorahs wife but I believe she looked like Dany and it isn't said that Lemore had dye in her hair, and also Haldon. The wet nurse is my best guess.

Nice post, looking forward to see where it goes (beyond all the guessing).

She was contemplated during the chapter in the tower. I can get onboard that train, do we have any reason for her to be in hiding?

@Nevets I first thought was Mellario too.

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5 hours ago, Raisin' Bran said:

She was contemplated during the chapter in the tower. I can get onboard that train, do we have any reason for her to be in hiding?

@Nevets I first thought was Mellario too.

Mellario was my first thought, too. But she is an upper class noble woman, if she disappeared I would think the news would spread. Doran would certainly know it. We know next to nothing about Garins mom but she would know Arianne and possibly vice versa. The bigger question is does she follow the seven? Or is that part of the disguise, but then that's a poor teacher.

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15 hours ago, The Bastards Giant Friend said:

Mellario was my first thought, too. But she is an upper class noble woman, if she disappeared I would think the news would spread. Doran would certainly know it. We know next to nothing about Garins mom but she would know Arianne and possibly vice versa. The bigger question is does she follow the seven? Or is that part of the disguise, but then that's a poor teacher.

Dorne follows the Seven. I see no reason why Garin's mother would not have extensive knowledge of the Faith, especially if some life complication prevented her from remaining in Dorne with her son.

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Ragtag of Exiles member, Lord Varys

About wizards, spymasters, Blackfyres, Bitterfyres, Brightflames and Serra

Ok, so let’s start with one of the two founders and the original recruiter. I in no way intend to make this a complete character analysis of Varys. I will focus on what is relevant to this ragtag band concept, and give a nutshell overview of points made about Varys in the many identity theories about him, with my personal commentary.

In relation to the ragtag band of exiles, Varys is

  • ·         One of the two founders, aside from Illyrio
  • ·         Confirmed to have recruited Jon Connington, Myles Toyne, and thus the Golden Company in 288 AC (12 years ago according to JonCon in 300 AC), and Tyrion Lannister in 300 AC.
  • ·         One of the two lead planners, until JonCon and Aegon decide on their own plan
  • ·         The manipulating juggler in Westeros
  • ·         The eunuch
  • ·         The spymaster until he helps Tyrion flee
  • ·         An orphan
  • ·         Non religious, secularist
  • ·         The magician

The Magician

The last should raise our eyebrows, since he claims to hate practitioners of magic. But Catelyn thinks of him as such, Illyrio calls him one metaphorically, and Arya and Eddard refer to him in the same terms.

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Catelyn:  "You did not wed a fool, Eddard Stark. But Varys has ways of learning things that no man could know. He has some dark art, Ned, I swear it."

"He has spies, that is well known," Ned said, dismissive. (aGoT, Eddard IV)

Maybe that is why Varys had some fondness for Ned Stark? Because he was a rationalist, aside from not wanting to kill children and in general more of a ruler who regarded it as a duty rather than his entitled right. And makes me want to see Varys’s face when he learns that Ned Stark outdid him by hiding Rhaegar’s son almost in plain sight, his own public honor be damned. 

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"As well bid me stop time. Do you take me for a wizard?"

The other chuckled. "No less." […]

“[…] Delay, you say. Make haste, I reply. Even the finest of jugglers cannot keep a hundred balls in the air forever."

"You are more than a juggler, old friend. You are a true sorcerer. All I ask is that you work your magic awhile longer." They started down the hall in the direction Arya had come, past the room with the monsters. […]

 

[…]She hadn't quite understood everything she'd heard, and now it was all mixed up in her head. "The fat one said the princess was with child. The one in the steel cap, he had the torch, he said that they had to hurry. I think he was a wizard."

"A wizard," said Ned, unsmiling. "Did he have a long white beard and tall pointed hat speckled with stars?"

"No! It wasn't like Old Nan's stories. He didn't look like a wizard, but the fat one said he was." (aGoT, Arya III)

 

The voice was strangely familiar, yet it took Ned Stark a moment to place it. "Varys?" he said groggily when it came. He touched the man's face. "I'm not … not dreaming this. You're here." The eunuch's plump cheeks were covered with a dark stubble of beard. Ned felt the coarse hair with his fingers. Varys had transformed himself into a grizzled turnkey, reeking of sweat and sour wine. "How did you … what sort of magician are you?" (aGoT, Eddard XV)

Now, none of that makes him a wizard who practices magic, but in literary sense assigns him the wizard's role. If we take the members of the ragtag band of exiles and paste a post-it note on each memeber's forehead, then Varys's post-it note would read "wizard".

Varys’s wizardry is that of a mummer’s disguise, without the use of magic, without glamors, without using faces of dead people. It’s all just an act using make-overs with glued beards, costume, altered voice and step. Mummer tricks he learned since he was a boy, working for a folly, and later used as a thief, and afterwards spying on thieves. Unlike with a glamor or a dead person’s face,  Ned Stark, Shae and Tyrion can recognize Varys beneath the stubble, in his women’s clothes, etc, once they are made to notice to take a closer look.

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The visitor was a stout man in cracked, mud-caked boots and a heavy brown robe of the coarsest roughspun, his features hidden by a cowl, his hands drawn up into voluminous sleeves.

"Who are you?" Ned asked.

"A friend," the cowled man said in a strange, low voice.

Not until they were alone behind closed doors did his visitor draw back his cowl.

"Lord Varys?" Ned said in astonishment. (aGoT, Eddard VII)

In a robe and a hood over your head, nobody will know who you are. Ned is also astonished how Varys managed to get past his guards into the solar of the Tower of the Hand, and Varys alludes to secret passages, which  is later confirmed in aCoK and aSoS with Tyrion. No magic, no rubies or moonstones, no bones, just secret passages and tunnels, and a robe.

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A whiff of something rank made him turn his head. […] Behind [Shae] stood one of the begging brothers, a portly man in filthy patched robes, his bare feet crusty with dirt, a bowl hung about his neck on a leather thong where a septon would have worn a crystal. The smell of him would have gagged a rat.

"Lord Varys has come to see you," Shae announced.

The begging brother blinked at her, astonished. Tyrion laughed. "To be sure. How is it you knew him when I did not?"

She shrugged. "It's still him. Only dressed different."

"A different look, a different smell, a different way of walking," said Tyrion. "Most men would be deceived."

"And most women, maybe. But not whores. A whore learns to see the man, not his garb, or she turns up dead in an alley."

Varys looked pained, and not because of the false scabs on his feet. (aCoK, Tyrion X)

 

"Varys?" Tyrion slipped inside. "Are you there?" A single candle lit the gloom, spicing the air with the scent of jasmine.

"My lord." A woman sidled into the light; plump, soft, matronly, with a round pink moon of a face and heavy dark curls. Tyrion recoiled. "Is something amiss?" she asked.

Varys, he realized with annoyance. "For one horrid moment I thought you'd brought me Lollys instead of Shae. […]” (aSoS, Tyrion II)

A wizard or sorcerer or witch are words to denote someone uses magic. A magician appears to have magical gifts and powers, but in reality uses practical deception, sleight of hand, boxes with mirrors to saw the lovely assistant in two, still wriggling her toes, and then puts her back together without a mark on her body. The appearance of a magician’s magic is merely an illusion. The far more rationalist Ned Stark actually applied the correct word to Varys – he is a magician, rather than a wizard. 

Since Varys is this secular team’s magician, there cannot be another sorcerer or wizard within the same team. Leaving the Magical Mystery Ragtag of Oldtown out of this1, I can show this by making you consider the other ragtags or teams:

  • ·         Dany’s (freed) slaves: she “recruits” Mirri Maz Dur. The other healers revolt and do not even wish to help Dany anymore. But then Dany becomes the “witch” performing magic with Drogo’s pire, in which she burns MMD alive, and so again, only one magic practitioner remains.
  •       The BwB: Thoros of Myr is the sole sorcerer. They occasionally consult the Ghost of High Heart, but there she is the sole who can practice the magic, as Thoros cannot see anything in the flames at High Heart, and GoHH never strays from High Heart.
  •       The Bloody Mummers: Again only one sorcerer – Qyburn.
  • ·         King’s Landing Small Council: “wizard” Varys disappears, Qyburn replaces him.
  • ·         At the Wall we witness a rivalry, not just for religion, but between witches applying for the position with Jon – Melisandre versus Val who likely graduated her apprenticeship as Woods Witch before her return to the Wall with Tormund. 

The replacement of the wizard role can occur peacefully between apprentice and tutor, with the two separating their ways (like the relationship between Bran and Bloodraven). Or a sorcerer can just pack up and go and switch teams, leaving a slot open that will be filled by either a magician, witch, sorcerer, …. Or a violent usurpation occurs, where the prior wizard is either banished or killed.

Despite not being the leader or planner anymore, Varys’s words to Kevan in the epilogue of aDwD make clear that Varys still very much regards himself as a member of Aegon’s ragtag band, and thus in that capacity still is the team’s magician. Case in point - he has not stopped using his lurking and disguising. Hence it does not allow for another wizard to be one of their members.

I’m sorry to disappoint some readers, but this means that neither Leyton Hightower nor the Mad Maid are members of this particular ragtag band. Regardless whether they actually practice magic or not, they have been referred to as wizard and witch alike by people, before we even met them, just like Arya and Catelyn think of Varys as a wizard, even though he does not actually practice magic2.

Not even wearing disguises seems to circumvent the “one wizard” per team rule. Varys was never team Robert nor team Lannister while he was a member of the small council. He infiltrated the small council for his own Team Aegon, only pretending to be the Small Council’s magician. And yet Qyburn (an actual magic practitioner) does not become the hired wizard of Team Lannister, before Varys surrenders his position.  

The Spymaster

Varys’s attire as spymaster in function is a particular one: perfumed of lilacs (pastel purple flowers), purple silks, and other rich dress.

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The man who stepped through the door was plump, perfumed, powdered, and as hairless as an egg. He wore a vest of woven gold thread over a loose gown of purple silk, and on his feet were pointed slippers of soft velvet. […] His flesh was soft and moist, and his breath smelled of lilacs. (aGoT, Catelyn IV)

[Ned Stark] had never seen the eunuch dress in anything but silk and velvet and the richest damasks [before], and this man smelled of sweat instead of lilacs. (aGoT, Eddard VII)

The moment Varys rescued Tyrion from his cell before he could be executed, Varys surrendered his office as Master of Whisperers, as spymaster. No doubt, Varys continued to skulk beneath the Red Keep, coming and going as he pleased, perusing and listening to news his little birds brought him, but without the office it becomes harder to send real birds, dispatch messengers, deploy scouts, except for the little birds. Varys reduced himself to being a spy, rather than be the spymaster.

If the principle of a “role within the ragtag team requiring to be vacant before another can claim its position” is true, as I maintained above for the position for wizard, then here we might check whether the vacancy of spymaster has been filled by someone else than Varys for Aegon’s team, since aSoS. And indeed it is - by Lysono Maar, who has more than one feature in his attire reminding us of Varys.

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The spymaster was new to Griff, a Lyseni named Lysono Maar, with lilac eyes and white-gold hair and lips that would have been the envy of a whore. At first glance, Griff had almost taken him for a woman. His fingernails were painted purple, and his earlobes dripped with pearls and amethysts. (aDwD, Jon Connington I, The Lost Lord)

Pycelle to Ned: "The Lord Varys was born a slave in Lys, did you know? Put not your trust in spiders, my lord." (aGoT, Eddard V)

Varys is bald, Lysono has a waterfall of lovely locks, nor do we know the color of Varys’s eyes. But he wears purple silks, rich clothes and lilac perfume. The richness is mirrored in the gems dripping from Lysono’s ears3, his fingernails are purple and his eyes are lilac. Effeminate, affluent, purple, lilac, spymaster and Lys. It is almost as if Lysono Moor is a younger and slimmer mirror or copy of Varys with hair.

tWoW spoiler

Spoiler

And there is also Arianne’s instinctive response to Lysono, which is the same physical response Ned Stark has to Varys.

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His eyes were a pale lilac, his hair a waterfall of white and gold. All the same, something about him made her skin crawl. (tWoW, Arianne II excerpt)

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That was scarcely anything Ned needed to be told; there was something about Varys that made his flesh crawl. (aGoT, Eddard V)

 

You might argue that Lysono Maar likely gained his position of Spymaster with the Golden Company before Varys left that office. Though we do not have a precise timing for that, I’m likely to agree on that. But initially, Lysono Maar is not eager to commit to Aegon, Jon Connington, let alone the plan to go to Mereen, whether for Yunkai or Aegon. But he sides with Aegon and Jon Connington once they suggest they set off west for Westeros instead, even countering Strickland who attempts to recycle Lysono’s earlier argument that no Volantene ship will transport them. That is the moment that this spymaster who has proven his worth to the Golden Company becomes the spymaster for the ragtag band of exiles, and the Golden Company truly becomes Aegon’s Company other than names signed on a paper twelve years before in 288 AC. Hence, we can take the post-it saying "spymaster" on Varys's bald head and paste it on Lysono Maar's forehead.

tWoW spoiler

Spoiler

And by the time of Arianne II in tWoW, Lysono has already moved into the inner circle around Aegon with just Haldon being a step closer.

Assassin

But we can also paste a new post-it on Varys's forehead together with the "wizard" one: that of assassin.

 
Quote
He stood in a pool of shadow by a bookcase, plump, pale-faced, round-shouldered, clutching a crossbow in soft powdered hands. Silk slippers swaddled his feet.
"Varys?" (aDwD, Epilogue)
 
And many of you likely think of a possible FM connection. Notice however that Varys is still wearing his attire of silk slippers and powder, and is recognizably Varys. He is not disguised, not faceless. Nor does he make the assassination look like an accident the way FMs do. Quite the opposite - Varys kills both Pycelle and Kevan in a manner that will make anyone who finds them the next day cry "Murder!" . So, the parallel with the FM is no more than Varys assassinating someone.
 
And then there is the way he speaks to Kevan.
 
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The eunuch set the crossbow down. "Ser Kevan. Forgive me if you can. I bear you no ill will. This was not done from malice. It was for the realm. For the children. [...] This pains me, my lord. You do not deserve to die alone on such a cold dark night. There are many like you, good men in service to bad causes … but you were threatening to undo all the queen's good work, to reconcile Highgarden and Casterly Rock, bind the Faith to your little king, unite the Seven Kingdoms under Tommen's rule. So … [...] Are you cold, my lord?" asked Varys. "Do forgive me. The Grand Maester befouled himself in dying, and the stink was so abominable that I thought I might choke. [...] I am sorry." Varys wrung his hands. "You are suffering, I know, yet here I stand going on like some silly old woman. Time to make an end to it." The eunuch pursed his lips and gave a little whistle. (aDwD, Epilogue)

Forgive me, this pains me, forgive me, I am sorry....Varys apologizes profusedly, which makes Varys's act more like a Sorrowful Man (the assassins guild of Quarth) than a Faceless Man.
 

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"Suppose a Sorrowful Man came to my palace one night and killed you as you slept," said Xaro. The Sorrowful Men were an ancient sacred guild of assassins, so named because they always whispered, "I am so sorry," to their victims before they killed them. The Qartheen were nothing if not polite. (aCoK, Daenerys III)

Dany took it almost by reflex. The box was carved wood, its mother-of-pearl lid inlaid with jasper and chalcedony. "You are too generous." She opened it. Within was a glittering green scarab carved from onyx and emerald. Beautiful, she thought. This will help pay for our passage. As she reached inside the box, the man said, "I am so sorry," but she hardly heard. (aCoK, Daenerys V)

No, I am not trying to argue that Varys is from Qarth or a Sorrowful Man. I am however pointing out that Varys's assassination is not one to jump and say "He's a FM", just like Tyrion was not a FM either. And George had Varys apologize to Kevan so much to make sure we would not start theorizing that Varys is an FM, or that an FM has murdered Varys and taken his face.

People can be assassins without being a in an assassin's guild. Anyway, so far about the roles of Varys within the ragtag band of exiles, and how they align with my initial premise in the OP.

Dragonlord blood?

Various readers propose that Varys might be a Targaryen descendant4, from a bastard line: of the female line of the Blackfyre exiles as the male line has been extinguished, or Aerion Brightflame Targaryen. There is no exact evidence for it, only circumstantial, but some of it should indeed make us pause at the very least.

I will summarize the Blackfyre and Brightflame history and highlight some of the arguments made by the referenced essays mentioned in the notes, while adding my own comment and opinion to it in reflection with quotes from the books that I find noteworthy. And finally I will propose at least a dragonlord-blood tie for Serra that I have not come across yet or ever saw mentioned - that of Princess Saera Targaryen. If I am at remiss, and someone has proposed it, just PM me and I'll credit.

For those unfamiliar with the Blackfyre background, I will briefly summarize its relevance. King Aegon IV (the Unworthy) Targaryen had numerous mistresses, and plenty of bastards (such as Bloodraven). He legitimized his twelve year old bastard Daemon Waters (his son with his cousin Daena Targaryen) and bestowed upon him the sword of Aegon the Conquerer, Blackfyre when he knighted him. Daemon took the name Blackfyre after the sword, and thus founded House Blackfyre. Meanwhile, Aegon spread rumors that his son Daeron Targaryen by his sister-wife Naerys was not actually his, but of his brother Aemon the Dragonknight, and taunted his son Daeron often with the threat that he would make Daemon Blackfyre his heir. Though he never actually did. Daeron became the king who brought peace and Dorne into the realm. But twelve years later mal-contents and marcher lords of the Stormlands who preferred Dorne to be an enemy, convinced Daemon Blackfyre (by then 26) to rebel and declare himself the true heir. And hence the first Blackfyre rebellion began. One of the fomenters and Daemon’s backers was another of Aegon’s other Great Bastards, Aegor Rivers “Bittersteel” (a rival of Bloodraven for Shiera Seastar’s affections and always angry).

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What, then, tipped Daemon over into proclaiming for the throne? It seems likely it was another of the Great Bastards: Ser Aegor Rivers, called Bittersteel. Perhaps it was his Bracken blood that made Aegor so choleric and so quick to take offense. […] Or perhaps it was only his rivalry with his half brother and fellow bastard Brynden Rivers, who had been able to maintain his close relations at court[…].

[…] Whatever the case may be, Aegor Rivers soon began to press Daemon Blackfyre to proclaim for the throne, and all the more so after Daemon agreed to wed his eldest daughter, Calla, to Aegor. (tWoIaF – The Targaryen Kings: Daeron II)

After defeat at Redgrass Field, where Daemon and his two eldest twin sons died, Bittersteel and Daemon’s surviging sons fled across the Narrow Sea, where he founded the Golden Company. For four more generations Daemon’s Blackfyre descendants would try to claim the Throne, until the last one of the male line was killed at the Stepstones.

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In Essos, Bittersteel gathered exiled lords and knights, and their descendants, to him. He formed the Golden Company in 212 AC, and soon established it as the foremost free company of the Disputed Lands. "Beneath the gold, the bitter steel" became their battle cry, renowned across Essos. After Bittersteel, the company was led by descendants of Daemon Blackfyre until the last of them, Maelys the Monstrous, was slain in the Stepstones. (tWoIaF – The Targaryen Kings: Daeron II)

Hence, if any Blackfyre descendant is a character in the books, it would have to be one who descended from the female lines. One such a descendant we could dub a “Bitterfyre”, for Calla, one of Daemon’s daughters, was wed to Bittersteel (black haired and purple eyed).

I am of the opinion though that Tyrosh’s significance in relation to Blackfyres or Bitterfyres cannot be neglected, and sadly enough is often overlooked.

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[Dearon II] paid the dowry that Aegon had promised to the Archon of Tyrosh, thereby seeing his half brother Daemon Blackfyre wed to Rohanne of Tyrosh as Aegon had desired, for all that Ser Daemon was only four-and-ten. […]

[…]when Rohanne had already given him seven sons and daughters […]

[…]Daemon Blackfyre's surviving sons fled to Tyrosh, their mother's home, and with them went Bittersteel. (tWoIaF – The Targaryen Kings: Daeron II)

Rohanne was the daughter of the Archon of Tyrosh. Calla and at least one other daughter would have been the Archon’s granddaughters. While Calla was already betrothed/wed to Bittersteel, it is unlikely the Archon would have let his granddaughters go to waste, when he can use them for political backing with influential families of Tyrosh. Even if eventually great-grandchildren and great-great grandchildren may end up marrying a sellsword captain, snail merchant, pirate or slaver, it seems unlikely that they’d end up as slaves themselves. Of course a Bitterfyre sellsword can visit a pillow house in Lys and leave a pleasure slave with child, but even then I expect George to drop hints to Tyrosh directly in relation to this character. George always puts some hints of the truth in there.

So, what is typical for Tyrosh, differently from Myr or Lys?

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Tyrosh, an altogether harder city, began as a military outpost, as its inner walls of fused black dragonstone testify. […] Not long after the city's founding, however, a unique variety of sea snail was discovered in the waters off the bleak, stony island where the fortress stood. These snails secreted a substance that, when properly treated, yielded a deep dark reddish dye that soon became wildly fashionable amongst the nobility of Valyria. As the snails were found nowhere else, merchants came to Tyrosh by the thousands, and the outpost grew into a major city in the space of a generation. Tyroshi dyers soon learned to produce scarlet, crimson, and deep indigo dyes as well by varying the diet of the snails. Later centuries saw them devise dyes of a hundred other shades and hues, some naturally and some through alchemy. Brightly colored garments won the favor of lords and princes the world over, and the dyes that produced them all came from Tyrosh. The city grew rich, and with wealth came ostentation. Tyroshi delight in flamboyant display, and men and women both delight in dyeing their hair in garish and unnatural colors.(tWoIaF – The Free Cities: the Quarrelsome Daughters Myr, Lys and Tyrosh)

While Lys, Myr and Tyrosh are regarded as the daughter cities of Valyria, culturally closer than any other free city, they are not Triplets nor interchangeable. Tyrosh was built as a military outpost, while Lys was built as a retreat, a pleasure island, with a far more pleasant (Mediterranean) climate. To this day, Tyroshi are harder people, more prone to enter in military sellsword service. We have seen and met or heard of a Tyroshi sellsword both in Westeros and Essos, than we have seen Myrmen or Lyseni ones. Lysono Maar is one of the few sellswords from Lys we know, but as noted he is the spymaster of the Golden Company, rather than a fighter. Aside from militaristic, rougher and harder, Tyroshi are also loud –both in speech, choice of dress and hair color. Their culture is one of getting noticed, being boastful.

Personally those are not exactly traits I can reconcile with lilac perfumed Varys in purple silks walking on slippers, nor his type of disguises, especially when we see the same colors reappear in a confirmed Lyseni character like Lysono Maar. Furthermore, Varys and Tyrosh only appear once in the same paragraph, and not on friendly terms with Lys.

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The eunuch drew a parchment from his sleeve. "A kraken has been seen off the Fingers." He giggled. "Not a Greyjoy, mind you, a true kraken. It attacked an Ibbenese whaler and pulled it under. There is fighting on the Stepstones, and a new war between Tyrosh and Lys seems likely. Both hope to win Myr as ally. Sailors back from the Jade Sea report that a three-headed dragon has hatched in Qarth, and is the wonder of that city—" (aSoS, Tyrion III)

Hence, without making claims about Illyrio or Aegon, the Tyrosh connection with Blackfyres and Bitterfyres makes me conclude that Varys is neither unspecified Blackfyre, nor Bitterfyre. If there is a Bitterfyre walking around in the books, I’m more inclined to expect that person to be some boastful, garish warrior with a short temper, easily taking offense, who might have violet eyes appearing blue because of blue dyed hair (and beard), that likely disguises dark or black hair (as Bittersteel was black haired). No one who comes to mind? I’ll give you a tip – he’s outside the walls of Mereen, once again not having won the hand of the desired beauty. 

Aerion “Brightflame” Targaryen was a cruel, arrogant shit who first aimed for one of his opponent’s horse during a joust, then mistreated a young girl playing a puppet theater. Dunk defended her, after Brightflame’s brother Aegon “Egg” warned Dunk what was happening, and struck Brightflame. Brightflame accused Dunk of treason. Upon the Targaryen heir, Baelor “Breakspear”s prompting Dunk demanded a trial by combat, and Aerion demanded a trial by seven in return. Dunk had to find six other champions to fight those who fought for Aerion. Since Aerion was a Targaryen prince his father Maekar, brother Daerion, three Kingsguard and Steffon Fossoway fought alongside Aerion against the hedge knight Dunk. But Baelor Breakspear Targaryen (the heir and Hand) chose to be one of Dunk’s champions, wearing his son’s armor (as he didn’t have his own). An unfortunate blow to the helm with a mace by his brother Maekar ended up being the death of Breakspear. And so, Maekar sent his son Brightflame into temporary “exile” at Lys, and also served in the sellsword company the “Second Sons”. Aerion had the typical Targaryen looks, but is also the purest example of Targaryen madness. Aside from his sadistic cruelties, including animals and his brother Egg, he ended up drinking a cup of wildfire, believing it would turn him into a dragon. How long Brightflame stayed in Lys is not known to us, but the possibility that he fathered bastards in pillow houses is high.

The world book informs us that the old Valyrian bloodlines (and looks) still run the strongest. Even smallfolk can boast pale skin, silver-gold hair, and purple, lilac or pale blue eyes. As Lys was a pleasure retreat for the dragonlord sof Old Valyria, their specialty are pillow houses, pleasure houses with beautiful pleasure slaves, and the Lyseni breed their slaves based on looks.

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The Lyseni themselves are beautiful as well, for here more than anywhere else in the known world the old Valyrian bloodlines still run strong. […]

[…] The Lyseni are also great breeders of slaves, mating beauty with beauty in hopes of producing ever more refined and lovely courtesans and bedslaves. The blood of Valyria still runs strong in Lys, where even the smallfolk oft boast pale skin, silver-gold hair, and the purple, lilac, and pale blue eyes of the dragonlords of old. The Lysene nobility values purity of blood above all and have produced many famous (and infamous) beauties. Even the Targaryen kings and princes of old sometimes turned to Lys in search of wives and paramours, for their blood as for their beauty. (tWoIaF – The Free Cities: Three Quarrelsome Daughters)

It is not to be doubted that the young Brightflame would have visited these pillow house, certainly having no issues in bedding slaves, and that exactly because he was a handsome Targaryen with the right looks the slave breeders would have wanted Brightflame to sow his seed. And there is an interesting connection between Brightflame and Varys. Aegon “Egg” hated Aerion, for drowning his cat, but something more sinister too.

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“And Aerion . . . I remember, when I was little, he used to come into my bedchamber at night and put his knife between my legs. He had too many brothers, he'd say, maybe one night he'd make me his sister, then he could marry me.” (The Hedge Knight)

Aerion Brightflame threatened to castrate Egg often, actually holding the knife between Egg’s legs. And of course Varys was indeed cut by someone, allegedly at Myr.

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"One day at Myr, a certain man came to our folly. After the performance, he made an offer for me that my master found too tempting to refuse. I was in terror. I feared the man meant to use me as I had heard men used small boys, but in truth the only part of me he had need of was my manhood. He gave me a potion that made me powerless to move or speak, yet did nothing to dull my senses. With a long hooked blade, he sliced me root and stem, chanting all the while. I watched him burn my manly parts on a brazier. The flames turned blue, and I heard a voice answer his call, though I did not understand the words they spoke.” (aCoK, Tyrion X)

Varys’s castration is regarded to have been a blood ritual, and as Mel so often repeats, the most powerful blood is royal blood, even if a royal bastard’s blood. The question is whether the sorcerer who mutilated Varys “knew” that Varys had royal blood, or did he “believe” it simply based on Varys’s looks. Since even Lyseni commoners sport Old Valyrian blood, a Lyseni Varys without a drop of royal blood, might have looked like Targaryen offspring without actually being one. Especially in the murkier Myr where many have olive skin and dark hair such Old Valyrian looks would have stood out.

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The origins of Myr are murkier. The Myrmen are believed by certain maesters to be akin to the Rhoynar, as many of them share the same olive skin and dark hair as the river people, but this supposed link is likely spurious. There are certain signs that a city stood where Myr now stands even during the Dawn Age and the Long Night, raised by some ancient, vanished people, but the Myr we know was founded by a group of Valyrian merchant adventurers on the site of a walled Andal town whose inhabitants they butchered or enslaved. Trade has been the life of Myr ever since, and Myrish ships have plied the waters of the narrow sea for centuries. The artisans of Myr, many of slave birth, are also greatly renowned;. (tWoIaF – The Free Cities: The Three Quarrelsome Daughters Myr, Lys and Tyrosh)

Yet, the cutting connection with Brightflame (as the wannabe culprit) and Egg is not so easily discarded. Both Varys and young Aegon are bald as an egg.

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"What happened to your hair?" Dunk asked of him.

"The maesters shaved it off." Suddenly selfconscious, the boy pulled up the hood of his dark brown cloak, covering his head. […]

 

[…]Prince Aerion paid them no mind. "Impudent little wretch," he said to Egg, spitting a mouthful of blood at the boy's feet. "What happened to your hair?"

"I cut it off, brother," said Egg. "I didn't want to look like you." […]

 

[…]"I was supposed to squire for Daeron. He's my oldest brother. I learned everything I had to learn to be a good squire, but Daeron isn't a very good knight. He didn't want to ride in the tourney, […]. It was him shaved my head. He knew my father would send men hunting us. Daeron has common hair, sort of a pale brown, nothing special, but mine is like Aerion's and my father's."

"The blood of the dragon," Dunk said. "Silver-gold hair and purple eyes, everyone knows that." (The Hedge Knight)

Which takes me back to the first time we see Varys on page in Catelyn’s chapter and the words she uses to describe him in thought.

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The man who stepped through the door was plump, perfumed, powdered, and as hairless as an egg. (aGoT, Catelyn IV)

This “hairless as an egg” parallel is why many readers suspect that Varys is not just bald, but actively shaves his head to prevent anyone from discovering he has silver-golden hair. We do not know when Varys first became hairless. If he started to do this when young, after he was cut, he likely wanted to avoid meeting another man like that sorcerer who wanted to do a blood ritual of Old Valyrian blood. Illyrio also mentions to Tyrion how Varys managed to stay ahead and out of the hands of slavers in Pentos. Certainly Lyseni slavers and pirates are notoriously known for taking handsome looking girls and boys with the right looks. Even if they could not breed with Varys anymore, he could still have the perfect looks to serve as a catamite. If instead, Varys shaved his hair when he was older, but before arriving at King’s Landing, he would have done it to prevent suspicion against his origin by Westerosi nobles and Aerys himself.

When Varys describes to Kevan how Aegon was brought up amongst commoners, worked and fished alongside them, and how he would regard kingship his duty for the people (the commoners) of Westeros, we have another link. Egg was not just called “the Unlikely” because he was the 4th son of a 4th son, but because he spent his youth amongst “peasants” (squiring for Dunk).

So, we have quite uncanny ties between Varys and Aegon V. At a first glance this connection would put Varys in opposition of Brightflame, nor is he crazy (certainly given all he endured as a boy) or arrogant (but rather humble, ultimately serving for another). In many ways Varys almost seems the opposite of Brightflame. But then Mad King Aerys is the near opposite of Aegon V too. It is almost as if both the descendants of Brightflame and Aegon V reversed in madness, which given the amount of sibling incest between Aegon’s children and grandchildren who ruled after him, and the lack of incest with the hypothetical bastard children and grandchildren of Brightflame is not that unrealistic.

My hope and my suspicion is that Lysono Maar is the likeliest man in tWoW who can give us many more clues into this. He may actually have Lyseni bloodline knowledge. Since Lyseni breed beauty with beauty and nobles put weight on pure bloodedness, I suspect they keep ancestries, even of the bedslaves they breed.

But Brightflame is not the sole Targaryen who lived a while in Lys as an exile. There is another Targaryen mentioned in the world book who lived in Lys for a while long before Brightflame, long before Blackfyres went into exile in Tyrosh, except it is not a prince, but a princess – Saera Targaryen, daughter of Jahaerys I and Alysanne. And this Targaryen is not someone I have seen considered before as having descendants in Essos.

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Though given to the Faith as Maegelle was, Saera did not have Maegelle's temperament. She ran away from the motherhouse where she was a novice and crossed the narrow sea. She was at Lys for a time, then Old Volantis, where she ended her days as the proprietor of a famous pleasure house. (tWoIaF – The Targaryen Kings: Jahaerys I)

There is no mention of her having been with child of course, and Maester Yandel blames it on Saera’s temperament alone, but I wonder. Apparently Jahaerys loved this particular daughter so well that later in life, he preferred young Alicent Hightower’s company because she reminded him of Saera. In fact, the story goes that he mistook Alicent for Saera often. We could surmise that Saera was the favourite daughter of Jahaerys.

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As the king’s strength and wits began to fail, [Jajaerys I] was oft confined to bed. Ser Otto’s fifteen-year-old daughter Alicent became his constant companion, fetching His Grace his meals, reading to him, helping him to bathe and dress himself. The Old King sometimes mistook her for one of his daughters, calling her by their names; near the end, he grew certain she was his daughter Saera, returned to him from beyond the narrow sea.  (The Rogue Prince)

Considering that the elder sister Maegelle had already been promised to the Faith as well and actually did become a devout septa, it seems to me that Saera could have persuaded her father, the king, to release her from such a promise and welcome her back at the Red Keep, if that had been her dearest wish. Unless she found herself in a compromised situation that could only cause a scandal. Imagine the scandal and disgrace if a Targaryen princess, promised to the Faith, found herself with child from say a singer? So, instead she ran away, went on a dangerous voyage to Lys, at a time when pirates ruled the Narrow Sea and Stepstones.

Curiously Saera has a younger sister Gael (Queen Alysanne’s favourite, not primised to the Faith, but living in the Red Keep) who was seduced and abandoned by a traveling singer, and in her despair committed suicide by drowning herself in the Blackwater.

Quite suggestively, the world book lists Maegelle’s summary of becoming a compassionate septa with a gift of healing, nursing children with grayscale, and dying of the affliction herself (and Illyrio's wife Serra died of the grey plague).

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Septa Maegelle - Given to the Faith, Maegelle grew to be a septa known for her compassion and her gift for healing. She was the chief cause of the reconciliation of the Old King and Queen Alysanne in 94 AC, following the Second Quarrel. She nursed children afflicted with greyscale, but she became afflicted with the same illness and died in 96 AC. (tWoIaF – The Targaryen Kings: Jahaerys I)

Then we have Saera’s paragraph, followed with Gael drowning herself out of shame of being pregnant. 

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Princess Gael - Simple-minded but sweet, Gael was most beloved of the queen. She disappeared from court in 99 AC, allegedly dying of a summer fever, but in fact she had drowned herself in the Blackwater after having been seduced and abandoned by a traveling singer, leaving her with nothing but a growing belly. (tWoIaF – The Targaryen Kings: Jahaerys I)

It is almost as if Saera’s paragraph is a bridge story between Maegelle and Gael, partly the Faith story, but the most beloeved daughter of the king ending up disappearing. The bridge is complete with the undisclosed "fact" that Saera birthed a child in Lys, and left the child that shamed and ruined her life, to move on to Volantis (with its famous bridge) where she started the business of a pillow house that might have reflected how she felt about herself – a whore.

And of course the name Saera should ring a bell, since Illyrio’s second wife, a bedwarmer from Lys, was called Serra. Other close sounding names, from the most recent to the oldest references:

  • ·         Walder Frey’s granddaughters Serra Frey, and her twin sister Sarra Frey.
  •       Serra of Lys, Illyrio's second wife
  • ·         Shaera  Targaryen, sister-wife to Jahaerys II
  • ·         Shiera Seastar, daughter of Aegon IV’s mistress Serenei of Lys
  • ·         Shiera Blackwood, daughter-in-law of Arlan III Durrandon who conquered the Riverlands well before Aegon’s conquest of Westeros.
  • Serra and Sarra Frey seem a nameplay on Saera. Shiera seems an original Westeros name, because of Shiera Blackwood, but conveniently given to the daughter of a Lyseni woman with a name that seems affiliated to Saera or Serra, while Shaera seems a conflation of Saera Targaryen with Shiera. I think that Illyrio’s wife Serra is a descendant of the unknown bastard child of Saera Targaryen that she left behind in Lys.
 
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"A maiden? I know the way of that." Illyrio thrust his right hand up his left sleeve and drew out a silver locket. Inside was a painted likeness of a woman with big blue eyes and pale golden hair streaked by silver. "Serra. I found her in a Lysene pillow house and brought her home to warm my bed, but in the end I wed her. Me, whose first wife had been a cousin of the Prince of Pentos. The palace gates were closed to me thereafter, but I did not care. The price was small enough, for Serra."
"How did she die?" Tyrion knew that she was dead; no man spoke so fondly of a woman who had abandoned him.
"A Braavosi trading galley called at Pentos on her way back from the Jade Sea. The Treasure carried cloves and saffron, jet and jade, scarlet samite, green silk … and the grey death. We slew her oarsmen as they came ashore and burned the ship at anchor, but the rats crept down the oars and paddled to the quay on cold stone feet. The plague took two thousand before it ran its course." Magister Illyrio closed the locket. "I keep her hands in my bedchamber. Her hands that were so soft …" (aDwD, Tyrion II)
 

I think that Serra is Saera's descendant. We have an affiliated name. She was discovered in a pillow house at Lys, while Saera Targaryen became the proprietor of a pillow hosue at Volantis. Serra has the related Targ features. And she died of the grey plague, which might have been Saera's fate if she had followed in her older sister's footsteps in becoming a septa, as Maegelle died of greyscale (a variant of the grey plague).

Most who propose Varys to be a Targ bastard himself also tend to believe that Serra was actually Varys’s sister. I actually am inclined to doubt that.

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Illyrio to Tyrion: “I grew so respectable that a cousin of the Prince of Pentos let me wed his maiden daughter, whilst whispers of a certain eunuch's talents crossed the narrow sea and reached the ears of a certain king. A very anxious king, who did not wholly trust his son, nor his wife, nor his Hand, a friend of his youth who had grown arrogant and overproud. I do believe that you know the rest of this tale, is that not so?" (aDwD, Tyrion II)

Illyrio had not yet found, let alone married Serra of Lys, when the Mad King invited Varys to serve him in King’s Landing. Serra is found and bought well after. If Serra had been Varys’s sister, surely he already had the means (spy network of ‘mice’ and money) to find and recover “a lost sister” from Lys? If she is partly the reason why Varys is angry beneath the surface two decades later, then why wait so long? If the world book should make something clear to us about Lys it is that two people with Valyrian looks in Lys is well “common” and means nothing. Even commoners and slaves have those looks.

Hence, I do not think that Varys and Serra were siblings at all, nor were Varys or Illyrio looking for her, initially. So what then prompted the discovery of “Serra”? Well, Princess Saera Targaryen’s story should ring another bell for us – Volantis, where Steffon Baratheon was sent to find a “suitable bride” of an Old Valyrian bloodline for Rhaegar in 278 AC.

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Determined to prevent [Rhaegar marrying Tywin’s daughter]from happening, King Aerys turned to another friend of his childhood, summoning Steffon Baratheon from Storm's End and naming him to the small council. In 278 AC, the king sent Lord Steffon across the narrow sea on a mission to Old Volantis, to seek a suitable bride for Prince Rhaegar, "a maid of noble birth from an old Valyrian bloodline." That His Grace entrusted this task to the Lord of Storm's End rather than his Hand, or Rhaegar himself, speaks volumes. The rumors were rife that Aerys meant to make Lord Steffon his new Hand upon the successful completion of this mission, that Tywin Lannister was about to be removed from office, arrested, and tried for high treason. (tWoIaF – The Targaryen Kings: Aerys II)

A decade before that (between 268-270 AC) Aerys II had supported Volantis in a trade war between Volantis against Tyrosh and Myr. So, Aerys seems to have been a bit of a fan of Volantis. But like many readers, Aerys seemed to have confused Volantene “Old Blood” with Valyrian “dragonlord” blood.

Volantis is of the oldest daughter cities built by the Valyrian empire. The heart of the city is walled against the rest, and only those of the Old Blood who can trace an ancestry back to Old Valyria are allowed to live there.

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The heart of Old Volantis is the city-within the-city—an immense labyrinth of ancient palaces, courtyards, towers, temples, cloisters, bridges, and cellars, all contained within the great oval of the Black Walls raised by the Freehold of Valyria in the first flush of its youthful expansion. […]Only those who can trace their ancestry back to Old Valyria are allowed to dwell within the Black Walls; no slave, freedman, or foreigner is permitted to set foot within without the express invitation of a scion of the Old Blood. (tWoIaF – The Free Cities: Volantis)

Being able to trace back one’s ancestry to Old Valyria is however not the same as having the purest Old Valyrian bloodline, let alone dragonlord blood. After all, the hypothetical children of Duncan the Prince of Dragonflies and Jenny of Oldstone could claim ancestry to Old Valyria, but whether Aerys would include them as a “pure strong bloodline” is an altogether different matter. And the world book tells us to look for the latter in Lys, not Volantis. Steffon had been sent on a “fool’s errand” (yes, pun intended) from the very beginning, because snobbish Aerys II mistook Volantene snobbery for pure-blood. And so Steffon only returned with Patchface.

Saera Targaryen’s fate shows us how erroneously snobbish Old Volantis truly is. She ended up being a proprietor of an expensive pleasure house. A brothel would not have been allowed inside the Black Walls, only outside.

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Over time, however, taverns and brothels and stables began to sprout up outside the Black Walls, and merchant ships began to call as well. (tWoIaF – the Free Cities: Volantis)

It suggests that our pure blooded dragonlord princess of Old Valyrian descent, great-granddaughter of Aegon the Conquerer, did not live inside the Black Walls, likely because the Volantene Old Blood snobs did not permit her to live inside the Black Walls. 

In any case, I suspect Steffon Baratheon is the source of Saera’s fate at Volantis. Steffon would not have been permitted inside the Black Walls, except per invitation, while he researched and searched for a “suitable bride”. It is my opinion that during his quest, he discovered the tale of the founder of a particular pleasure house outside the Black Walls and how she was a Targaryen princess. I propose that before Steffon went to Volantis, all the Targaryens and maesters ever knew of Saera’s fate was that she fled the motherhouse as a novice and crossed the Narrow Sea, but not where or how she lived and traveled exactly.

I propose that Maester Yandel bases his account of Saera Targaryen on a report sent by Steffon to King’s Landing. We are given information about Steffon’s letter to Storm’s end regarding Patchface, but surely as an envoy of the Small Council on a mission and quest commissioned to him by Aerys II, Steffon would have sent reports to King’s Landing. Because of the hints that Illyrio gives us regarding the timing of Aerys hiring Varys (Tywin still Hand, suspicious of Rhaegar), Varys was already his master of whisperers and certainly would have read Steffon’s finding about Princess Saera Targaryen having fled to Volantis, via Lys, and setting up a brothel there. And I also propose that it was this hypothetical report that prompted Varys to research whether Saera birthed a child in Lys and whatever happened to those descendants, eventually stumbling on bedwarmer Serra, and the hatching of a plan of their own.

Meanwhile, snobbish Aerys II would not have cared about any of that. A bedslave like Serra, no matter what trace of Valyrian and Targaryen blood she might have had, would never suit him for Rhaegar. Aerys’s cousin Steffon had no daughters, and thus the closest bloodline remaining was House Martell, who were descendants of Daenarys Targaryen, daughter of Aegon IV.

The Myrish Connection

 
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"We were young together, two green boys in Pentos."
"Varys came from Myr."
"So he did. I met him not long after he arrived, one step ahead of the slavers. By day he slept in the sewers, by night he prowled the rooftops like a cat." (aDwD, Tyrion II)
 

If you have paid some attention, then all things Myrish, appear in dubious “murky” plots of deception. A Myrish lens may be the best looking glass of its kind, but it does not negate the fact that whatever you see through a Myrish looking glass is an optical “virtual” image, an illusion. In optics you have the “source” and reflection of light on the source creates an “image” on a screen (or our eye). A “real” image of that source object or person would end up standing on its head. In fact, the image that falls on our retina is indeed upside-down. Our brains correct this “real image”. A lens in a looking glass turns the image right side up, which is called a “virtual” image in optics. The Myrish lense at the start of aGoT came with a false message, with a lie, accusing Cersei of murdering Jon Arryn, while Lysa (the messenger) did it.

Myrish tapestries appear in House Darry, where the lord is pretending to be loyal to Robert Baratheon, but in a cellar Tyrion comes across the hidden tapestries that reveal Lord Darry to still be a Targaryen loyalist. The Myrish tapestries are a “cover-up”.

Several characters where we suspect deception are  or have been proven to be liars or part of a deception wear Myrish lace: Cersei, Sansa’s bridal gown (and she does not learn the truth of her marriage to Tyrion until an hour before), Brienne’s pink satin dress at Harrenhal (a grotesquerie),  Margaery’s wedding dress at her marriage to Joffrey, Thyene when attempts to talks with Doran, who has just returned from the Water Gardens, Daario Naharis (and his Myrish ladies), Grazdan mo Ariz of Yunkai who spreads lies about Danaerys wears Myrish lace, and finally Sweets the hermaphrodite slave.

And then there are the Myrish women in  the books. Lord Dukendale’s Myrish wife, Lady Serala, “the Lace Serpent”, is blamed for having filled Lord Duskendale with poison in his ears that emboldened him to defy Aerys II. And of course Taena Merrywheather is of Myr and she fills Cersei’s poisoned mind with even more poison, not unlike Varys poisoned Aerys’s II mind even more than it already was.

Despite Pycelle’s claim to Ned Stark that Varys was a slave from Lys, this actually has never been confirmed by either Varys nor Illyrio. Both leave that out and instead start Varys’s story of “origin” with Myr. While Lys is likely his birth place, Varys must have been given to the Mummer’s Folly at such a young age that Varys does not actually regard it as his home, and since Myr is the city where he was transformed into something else, Varys seems to think of Myr as his place of “origin” of who he is currently – determined to live to spite the sorcerer, as a eunuch, a thief and spy. Hence, without wearing Myrish lace or daggers, Varys is “from Myr”, and thus a character of deception, part illusion, advising and filling ears with poison for his own plans. Since Myr’s origin is described as “murky” I suspect that George never truly intends to reveal all of Varys’s background, nor his lineage.

If Arbor Gold are the lies that a deceiver makes his target drink and swallow like sweet wine, all things Myrish are a deceptive facade, hinting at the deception itself, and it usually implies "usurpation through a lie", as that is what Myr as we know it now actually is -

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There are certain signs that a city stood where Myr now stands even during the Dawn Age and the Long Night, raised by some ancient, vanished people, but the Myr we know was founded by a group of Valyrian merchant adventurers on the site of a walled Andal town whose inhabitants they butchered or enslaved. (tWoIaF - The Free Cities: The Three Quarrelsome Daughters Myr, Lys and Tyrosh)

There used to be a city at Myr built by some ancient, vanished people. But some Valyrian adventurers butchered and enslaved the Andals living there in more recent times and took Myr for themselves. Littlefinger tries to do this by putting Lysa up to poison Jon Arryn. Even if Littlefinger nor Lysa could ever be officially called Lord Arryn, both usurp the effective power of the ruling seat of the Vale, through regency over Sweetrobin. Cersei usurps the throne's power first through the lies that are her children and later as regent of Tommen who isn't a Baratheon at all. Tyrion is wed to Sansa in the hope that Lannisters can usurp Winterfell. Taena usurps Senelle's position as handmaiden serving Cersei, with imo a lie about Senelle. And in essence that is what Varys and Illyrio end up doing as well. The Targaryen line at King's Landing is butchered with the help of Varys whispering poison into Aerys's ears (and the two survivors forgotten and ignored), and now they are bringing someone back who may have traces of Valyrian and Targaryen blood, but is likely the last in line, because of generations of enslavement and bastardy5.

I might even go further in the Myrish connection and propose that both Lade Serala and Taena Merryweather are Varys's agents. There is plenty of speculation that Tywin is behind the defiance of Duskendale, but it could also be argued that Varys had Serala put her husband up to it, to give Tywin the opportunity to expose himself and prove his willingness to commit treason.

Based on some vague references to Aerys II surrounding himself with informers and men of dubious repute for whispers, lies and tales of treason in the wold book, we might pinpoint the year that Varys was hired in 273 AC, the year that Joanna Lannister died.

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It was not long before reports of the king's remarks reached Lord Tywin as he grieved at Casterly Rock. Thereafter, no shred of the old affection between the two men endured. [...] Aerys began to surround himself with informers, paying handsome rewards to men of dubious repute for whispers, lies, and tales of treasons, real and imagined. When one such reported that the captain of the Hand's personal guard, a knight named Ser Ilyn Payne, had been heard boasting it was Lord Tywin who truly ruled the Seven Kingdoms, His Grace sent the Kingsguard to arrest the man and had his tongue ripped out with red-hot pincers. (tWoIaF - The Targaryen Kings - Aerys II)

No matter what hostilities Aerys felt towards Tywin, he proved very reluctant to dispose of Tywin. I suspect that Varys feared Tywin and wished to increase the rift between King and Hand, wished to cause a situation that would convince Aerys to dismiss Tywin, and the Defiance of Duskendale of 277 AC was born out of that. Tywin played in Varys's hand enough to make Aerys consider Steffon as Hand, but only if the latter proved himself worthwhile first. Varys's plan failed, though it provided him with a lead that would eventually unite Illyrio with Serra. 

Cersei dresses up and meets with Jaime, convincing him of her plans to make him kingsguard so they could be together. Either Varys put her up to it (Cersei does tell Tyrion that Varys plays all sides) or he discovered it, and used it to his own end, knowing full well that Tywin would balk at having his heir being made Kingsguard. In 281 AC, Tywin resigns his position as Hand all on his own because of it. Instead Owen Merryweather is made Hand. The man is a lickspittle and as easily manipulated as Harrys Swyft, and as ineffectual.

Varys then is rumored to have whispered in Aerys's ear that the Tourney of Harrenhal is a cover for Rhaegar to assemble a Grand Council to depose Aerys II. We are witnessing an increasing amount of paranoia and provocations, including at the tourney, that is not dissimilar to Cersei's rapid descent into folly. Months after, Aegon is born and the spark of flame is ignited for the Rebellion. Our ineffectual Owen Merryweather only declares Robert, Jon and Ned outlaws without actually moving against them. Aerys strips Owen from his lands and title and exiles him to Essos. And we know how helpful Varys is to exiles.

Once Robert takes the throne, the new king gives land and lordship back to the Merryweathers, who return from exile, likely having lived in Myr or in Pentos, with Orton Merryweather married to Taena of Myr. And just as Varys disappears from court in KL in 300 AC, Taena accuses Senelle of spying, becomes Cersei's most trusted friend with more advizory power than anyone else. And everyone of Taena's advice only pushes Cersei to take her follies one step further. And then as Cersei is taken into captivity by the High Sparrow, Taena manages to stay out of Kevan's and sparrow hands to disappear from court. It seems to me that Taena Merryweather is Varys's agent.

Conclusion (tl;tr)

Varys is the magician  of the ragtag band of exiles, thereby barring any other sorcerer or wizard or witch (such as Leyton Hightower and his daughter Malora the Mad Maid) to be a current member of the same band.

He used to be the ragtag’s spymaster, but the recent Lysono Maar has filled that position, after Varys voluntarily surrendered his spymaster position at King’s Landing. Varys is still a spy, but not in control anymore, let alone the one who advizes Aegon or Jon Connington. All he can do is aid as the need arises as an assassin and use certain Myrish agents to derail Cersei's rule.

Varys’s origin is a murky Myrish one, and yet we have some hints and possible clues to a possible Targaryen link in Lys. He is however not a Blackfyre. We should look for Blackfyres in connection to Tyrosh instead. Nor is Varys Serra’s brother, when we are explicitly reminded not to think of any Lyseni having Valyrian looks as uncommon, and even rough and vague timelining makes the sibling assumption a strange one in the light of the fact that Varys did not have Serra retrieved from Lys years after he already the means to it. The literary parallels to Brightflame and Aegon V in Varys’s arc however suggest he might be a Brightflame descendant.

Meanwhile, I propose that Serra is a descendant of Princess Saera Targaryen, the daughter of Jahaerys I who fled the motherhouse where she was a novice training to become a septa. I think Princess Saera fled across the narrow sea because she had been seduced by a singer and birthed her bastard at Lys, before she abandoned the child and moved on to Volantis where she became the proprietor of a brothel (pillow house). Steffon was sent on a fool’s errand by Aerys to find a bride for Rhaegar at Volantis and discovered Saera’s fate, including the claim she stayed in a Lys for a while first, both facts previously unknown to maesters and Targaryens alike. Varys had the same suspicion as I have about Saera’s reasons to flee the motherhouse and sent people to investigate whether Saera birthed a child in Lys, and thus found Serra, Illyrio’s bedwarmer and later second wife.  

Finally, I propose that the Myrish connection with Varys suggests that Varys was behind the instigation of the Defiance of Duskendale and lately Cersei's follies, through two Myrish female agents who married into a House of Westeros - Serala of Myr at Duskendale, and recently Taena Merryweather.

Notes

  1.          Magical Mystery Ragtag is the sole ragtag band of misfits where there could be multiple wizards, because magic is to be expected their shared feature, sort of like secularism is the common denominator in the Ragtag Band of Exiles.
  2.          There are more arguments against Leyton and Malora being disguised members of the Ragtag Band of Exiles. Varys’s role as wizard is merely one of them, but is a perfect example how a ragtag band should be considered as a whole and within context, when you begin to consider the x=y speculation.
  3.          Purple or lilac is a color often featured together with pearls, such as the purple dress with baby pearls that Lady Smallwood has Arya wear, and of course amethysts remind us of the Amethyst Empress, and Dany’s vision in the HotU.
  4.         You can read up on the various Blackfyre and Brightflame theories in the following links:
  1.      Not that this would make Aegon necessarily a bad king. Aegon might theoretically make the best king.
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On 17/5/2017 at 8:01 PM, Seams said:

My current mindset is to find and analyze the minor characters who parallel major characters (or other minor characters), and I have been wondering about the possibility of Yezzan zo Qaggaz and Nurse as echoes of Illyrio and Varys. Yezzan puts together his ragtag band of treasures, and Nurse sees that they are chained and obedient but pampered. So the near-miss for Tyrion and Penny, being offered as lion food for the entertainment at the fighting pits, might fit with the idea that Illyrio and/or Varys see some of their own ragtag band as expendable.

Been thinking about what you said here again.

Yes, that's basically the intent of the ragtag band idea... seeking the parallels of characters (big, middle, small), and they are grouped into a ragtag.

Because now I'm working ont eh 3rd installment - Illyrio - part of it will touch on Mereen, or have to reread Mereen sections. One of the first things I noticed in Dany I in aDwD is Hizdar wearing "purple" with pearls and amethysts, Sweets does too, as does Lysono-Maar with the GC, which on males is basically Varys's dress as I pointed out in the Varys post.

The funny thing is that the more I read about Illyrio, the more I kindof feel sorry for the fat golden guy. He's far more genuine in his aid than I used to think. I think he gave those 3 eggs to Dany, trying to mimic the idea of each Targ gets a dragon, one for Viserys, one for Dany and one for Aegon. He basically functions like the bank and nobody does what he wants to do -Viserys insists on going with the Dothraki and gets himself killed. By some miracle Dany has dragons born from the eggs, and Illyrion sends 3 ships full of rich merchandize to Dany in Qarth to get her to Pentos, for her to be safe, her dragons to be safe, introduce her to Young Griff, and use the marvel of the dragons to embolden sellswords. But dubious Jorah who wants Dany all for himself now starts to talk badly and distrustful of Illyrio. Ok, she used all of Illyrio's goods ('gold') to get an army of Unsullied even manages to procure 2 sellsword companies. Let's get to Volantis. And she never does ("hmmm, is this the betrayal for 'gold'? After all he invested lots of money in her so far, and he didn't get any return for it) Meanwhile Aegon and JonCon say fuck this, and fuck that, and sail West to take the Stormlands by storm. But it are the GC's words that confirm that Illyrio meant for Viserys to have an army of Dothraki screamers (fitting too with his words that Arya overhears), for Dany to come to Pentos and to Volantis. Anyway, he tries to convince these Westerosi of his good intentions, and most plain distrust him, and gets a worse wrap than his actions prove him to be. Though, admittedly, there is some self intrest beyond being the master of coin. Anyway, I do think that he must be pulling his prongs out of his chin wondering "Why don't they just trust me!!!! If they'd just do what I advize them to do, they'd have their throne already!"  :lmao:

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On 5/20/2017 at 0:41 AM, sweetsunray said:

Ragtag of Exiles member, Lord Varys

About wizards, spymasters, Blackfyres, Bitterfyres, Brightflames and Serra

Ok, so let’s start with one of the two founders and the original recruiter. I in no way intend to make this a complete character analysis of Varys. I will focus on what is relevant to this ragtag band concept, and give a nutshell overview of points made about Varys in the many identity theories about him, with my personal commentary.

In relation to the ragtag band of exiles, Varys is

  • ·         One of the two founders, aside from Illyrio
  • ·         Confirmed to have recruited Jon Connington, Myles Toyne, and thus the Golden Company in 288 AC (12 years ago according to JonCon in 300 AC), and Tyrion Lannister in 300 AC.
  • ·         One of the two lead planners, until JonCon and Aegon decide on their own plan
  • ·         The manipulating juggler in Westeros
  • ·         The eunuch
  • ·         The spymaster until he helps Tyrion flee
  • ·         An orphan
  • ·         Non religious, secularist
  • ·         The magician

The Magician

The last should raise our eyebrows, since he claims to hate practitioners of magic. But Catelyn thinks of him as such, Illyrio calls him one metaphorically, and Arya and Eddard refer to him in the same terms.

...

Varys’s wizardry is that of a mummer’s disguise, without the use of magic, without glamors, without using faces of dead people. It’s all just an act using make-overs with glued beards, costume, altered voice and step. Mummer tricks he learned since he was a boy, working for a folly, and later used as a thief, and afterwards spying on thieves. Unlike with a glamor or a dead person’s face,  Ned Stark, Shae and Tyrion can recognize Varys beneath the stubble, in his women’s clothes, etc, once they are made to notice to take a closer look. 

Dragonlord blood?

Various readers propose that Varys might be a Targaryen descendant4, from a bastard line: of the female line of the Blackfyre exiles as the male line has been extinguished, or Aerion Brightflame Targaryen. There is no exact evidence for it, only circumstantial, but some of it should indeed make us pause at the very least.

...

This “hairless as an egg” parallel is why many readers suspect that Varys is not just bald, but actively shaves his head to prevent anyone from discovering he has silver-golden hair. ...

Conclusion (tl;tr)

Varys is the magician  of the ragtag band of exiles, thereby barring any other sorcerer or wizard or witch (such as Leyton Hightower and his daughter Malora the Mad Maid) to be a current member of the same band.

He used to be the ragtag’s spymaster, ...

Varys’s origin is a murky Myrish one, and yet we have some hints and possible clues to a possible Targaryen link in Lys. He is however not a Blackfyre. ...

 

The eunuch looked at him curiously, tilting his head. "When I was a young boy, before I was cut, I traveled with a troupe of mummers through the Free Cities. They taught me that each man has a role to play, in life as well as mummery.

AGoT, Eddard XV

What a busy guy that Varys is!

Your thorough analysis incorporates a lot of interesting possibilities but, of course, I have a few current irons in the fire and was immediately struck that several of your ideas could connect with something I have been considering. This may be a tangent, or I may be able to bring it back to the concept of the rag tag band. If Varys is the spider in the middle of a vast spiderweb, it makes sense that he has strings connecting him in all directions. So maybe this possibility will fit with the many plots, disguises and behind-the-scenes roles you laid out for the master of whisperers.

… Here, I have something for you.” Ser Dontos fumbled in his pouch and drew out a silvery spiderweb, dangling it between his thick fingers.

It was a hair net of fine-spun silver, the strands so thin and delicate the net seemed to weigh no more than a breath of air when Sansa took it in her fingers. Small gems were set wherever two strands crossed, so dark they drank the moonlight. “What stones are these?”

“Black amethysts from Asshai. The rarest kind, a deep true purple by daylight.”

“It’s very lovely,” Sansa said, thinking, it is a ship I need, not a net for my hair.

“Lovelier than you know, sweet child. It’s magic, you see. It’s justice you hold. It’s vengeance for your father.” Dontos leaned close and kissed her again. “It’s home.”

ACoK, Sansa VIII

What if some or all of Sansa's visits with Ser Dontos in the godswood are actually meetings with Varys the mummer / magician? The famous hair net is compared to a spiderweb, which would be something the Spider could logically produce. Its colors are silver and, by daylight, true purple. Because eye and haircolor are so important, it seems extra-super important that this (apparent) murder weapon looks so much like a Targaryen.

If Ned was fooled by a disguised Varys, Sansa would be easy to fool, especially in the dark godswood. Even if Ser Dontos met Sansa sometimes, it would be easy to distract him with a bottle of wine. The substitute Varys-as-Dontos could easily take his place and the poor fool wouldn't even remember it in the morning.

Some of the dialogue we hear from Ser Dontos seems Varys-like: when he explains that Sansa is not really free, just because Joffrey is now betrothed to Margaery, the complexity of the insights seem like the kind of "you know nothing, Jon Snow" explanations that we see Varys delighted to give to Ned in the dungeon and to Ser Kevan Lannister in the Rookery. It's possible that Littlefinger provided Ser Dontos with good information to make sure Sansa stayed motivated, or that Ser Dontos was sober enough to make some observations of his own, but the delight in describing the Game of Thrones gameplay is a Varys specialty.

But does this mean that Varys and Littlefinger are working together? I have pondered the possibility that these two are secretly aligned, but any clues are hidden pretty deep, if they are in the books.

"Is this your own little scheme," he gasped out at Varys, "of are you in league with Littlefinger?"

That seemed to amuse the eunuch. "I would sooner wed the Black Goat of Qohor. Littlefinger is the second most devious man in the Seven Kingdoms. Oh, I feed him choice whispers, sufficient so that he thinks I am his . . . just as I allow Cersei to believe I am hers."

AGoT, Eddard XV

His response seems genuine, but we are watching an experienced actor at work. Notice that he doesn't deny that he is working with Littlefinger. We would have to figure out the deeper meaning of the Black Goat of Qohor to understand Varys's response, and to sort out whether this is a possible affirmative answer to Ned's question. (Looking just at the wiki, it seems as if the Black Goat religion would be the opposite of something a Targaryen would want to marry, and more similar to the sinister, blood-sacrifice beliefs about the old gods of the weirwood trees. Of course, the Black Goat is also associated with Vargo Hoat.) So maybe we can believe that Varys is not working with Littlefinger. It seems more likely that Varys found out about Littlefinger's plan to use Ser Dontos in manipulating Sansa, and he intercepted the drunken Ser Dontos to use him for his own purposes.

But Littlefinger correctly describes for Sansa that someone probably fussed with her hair net during the wedding feast, and implies that Lady Olenna committed the murder to protect Margaery from mad king Joffrey. So it sounds as if Littlefinger knows about the hair net, but we don't know that it was his idea to put a poison stone in it, or even whether Littlefinger ever saw the hair net. We know he did not see the wedding feast. It's possible that Ser Dontos (real or Varys in disguise) or another messenger was used by Varys as a go-between, and Littlefinger thinks the hair net was Olenna's idea, while she believes it was Littlefinger's idea. This would be quite a masterful piece of manipulation, but might be possible for the MOST devious man in the Seven Kingdoms. If James Bond were a eunuch . . .

But I said I would try to bring this back to your focus on the ragtag band and the puppeteer who is populating one or more of the ragtag bands.

We saw Varys help Tyrion escape King's Landing. Might he have done the same thing for Sansa? He describes Sansa to Ned as sweet and Ned begs Varys to "leave my daughter out of your schemes." Varys responds to this by recalling the murdered child Rhaenys, who pretended that her kitten was the dragon Balerion, the big black dragon ridden by Aegon the Conqueror. The Black Goat was the god of people who rejected Valyria; the name Balerion was originally that of a god of ancient Valyria. So the wistful reference to Balerion could help to confirm the Targ connection for Varys.

Varys claims to have no personal sense of honor, but if he equates Sansa with Rhaenys - especially after covering her hair with silver and with purple gemstones - maybe he would take the time to help her escape King's Landing, even if it means that Littlefinger gets control of a valuable hostage. (There might also be Baelor the Blessed / Bael the Bard / Baelish wordplay at work with the reference to Balerion. The Bael-ish surname seems like a hint to me about Petyr's secret Valyrian ancestry, but I don't have enough evidence to pin it down.)

If one of the functions of this founder of the ragtag band is to audition people, and/or to ensure that the right players are sent to the right ragtag bands, that might explain another motive for Varys to help Sansa escape. He knows that the ragtag band in the Vale needs a captive princess or a vengeful daughter or a Danelle-Lothston-in-training.

I should be the first to admit, GRRM often uses minor characters who share an aspect of a major character - I think Yoren and Qhorin may both be "chips off the old block" of Jeor Mormont, who can't be in two places at once. So it's possible that Ser Dontos is supposed to evoke thoughts of Varys without actually being Varys in disguise. But your good points about his use of mummer tactics really seemed to fit with what I was seeing in that hair net scene, so I thank you for bringing that up.

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@Seams

Thank you for your proposal:

Well, Varys can help by allowing others to continue their game or plot, for his own ends. It was in Varys's interest that Jon Arryn died, because Jon Arryn was getting closer to the truth of Cersei's children. If they were exposed as not being Robert's before Viserys and Aegon have a conquering army ready to cross the Narrow Sea, war was unwelcome. That is why we have the convo between Illyrio and Varys that Arya overhears. Varys did not kill Jon Arryn nor set anyone up to it. We know Lysa was behind it, following LF's advice. But he knew of the plot against Jon Arryn and did nothing to stop it, because it was very convenient for him to allow it to happen (except using reverse psychology on Jon Arryn to use a food taster).

I don't think Varys posed as Dontos. Sansa knew Dontos and met him often. And Varys's disguises are never meant to fool the person he wants to talk to about his identity, but everybody else on the way he has to speak to or meets along the way. He is recognizably Varys once face to face. Even Arya thinks the "wizard" is familiar to her. She knows the face, even with the steel cap and stubble and turnkey clothes. She just lacks sufficient knowledge to place him. So, it wouldn't fit Varys's MO to pose as someone else who already exists.

 

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Having Sansa flee suits Varys, agreed he knew about it and did nothing.  Tyrions escape was convenient and probably planned although Jamie and Tywin was a bonus.

 

The question is if Varys was ready to ship Tyrion away who kills Tywin?

 

Tyrion kills him by chance may be nudged in the right direction by Varys but the magician has his master plan and Tywin is a major obstical who has out grown his usefulness.

 

Did he know the viper had poisoned him and did nothing?

Did he poison him himself to spread discord between the throne and Dorne?

Or was he content to ship Tyrion away and return later to take him out?

 

In any case other pawns/players have given team Varys the best possible outcome, and he is a true wizard of indeed he kept 100 balls in the air and manipulated the desired outcome.

 

I think the spider web hair net is foreshadowing that Sansa is going to get cought up in the web.  Dontos through Littlefinger through Olenna, all strands in the web, all plotting all trying to snare Sansa for their own ends.

 

She has been cought Dontos has been exposed, Littlefinger has confessed but she still can't see the whole truth, like the fly she is cought in the web,  Olenna might have moved on but Littlefinger in this case is the spider waiting to devour the unsuspecting Sansa.

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@Seams

I do also agree that there are certain parallel ways in which Littlefinger and Varys work. LF is the master of coin, but he has quite an information network going on, as well as plots and plans. Varys is the spymaster, but he has a personal sponsor who's his partner. Jorah pooh-poohs Illyrio's ability to be so rich he can buy an army... Well, Jorah is apparently wrong - Illyrio can afford the Golden Company. Even if the contract is writ in blood, and a lot of their gains is based on conquest of lands and castles (as it is with Stannis), Illyrio must have also the ability to fund them if they're tight in resources. FFS - the man can buy and give away 3 dragon eggs. How many armies could you buy with that? So, Varys-Illyrio is a combo that works like LF, and on top of that both Varys and LF make use of each other. The first time we meet either two is together, in LF's brothel, with Catelyn. If Varys is a spider, in a way so is LF. In that sense, Sansa is caught in LF's spidery web imo. And it's nice to see that webbing symbol appear again with Dontos as he gives her the hairnet.

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This is so much info to process. So I will only comment on a small part. I never believed that Varys was a FM nor a SM. Varys spent time as a child learning to be a thief. Thieves sometimes do learn the necessity of killing and become proficient at it. By my line of reasoning, Varys' training as a thief gave him to tools to take out Pycelle and Kevan.

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1 hour ago, Raisin' Bran said:

This is so much info to process. So I will only comment on a small part. I never believed that Varys was a FM nor a SM. Varys spent time as a child learning to be a thief. Thieves sometimes do learn the necessity of killing and become proficient at it. By my line of reasoning, Varys' training as a thief gave him to tools to take out Pycelle and Kevan.

A thief who can use a crossbow? He at least had to train with one before. And at least he had to train by the time he was the spymaster already. A crossbow is not that easy to use since the recharging part you need a specific tool and need to know the techinique. So I don't know. If he had used a dagger, okay, i'll side with you.

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39 minutes ago, Ser Loras The Gay said:

A thief who can use a crossbow? He at least had to train with one before. And at least he had to train by the time he was the spymaster already. A crossbow is not that easy to use since the recharging part you need a specific tool and need to know the techinique. So I don't know. If he had used a dagger, okay, i'll side with you.

It doesn't require years of training like a sword nor does it require a training of an apothecary in making poisons. It requires some exercise to learn to drive a stick car technically, but once you know it, within three to four hours of exercise your feet knows where to find the clutch, the breaks and gas. Same for picking apart a gun and putting it back together again, same for reloading crossbows.

And from the distance he shot Kevan, he didn't even need to train precision.

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20 hours ago, OtherFromAnotherMother said:

How is this only at two pages? Great read @sweetsunray. Thanks!

Thanks :) There are a lot of ideas, and more coming per member, and in relation to other ragtags. A lot of the ideas in there can be a thread on its own right.

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