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The Book of Swords - The Sons of the Dragon SPOILERS


Lord Varys

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7 minutes ago, Ser Jon Rivers said:

Only known members of Maegor the Cruel's Kingsguard, Ser Davos Darklyn and Ser Owen Bush. And maybe Ser Maladon Moore, a knight mentioned along with Ser Owen Bush?

Yeah. Ser Raymont Baratheon just disappears from the text after saving Aenys from those two murderous Poor Fellows, which reminds me:

There is a discrepancy between TSOTD and TWOIAF re Ser Raymont Baratheon. In TWOIAF it says he saved the whole royal family. In TSOTD it says that he just saved Aenys. Which one is correct @Ran?

Edit: Don't forget two of the Kingsguard were killed by the Fighting Fool at the Battle of the Great Fork.

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3 minutes ago, The Grey Wolf said:

Yeah. Ser Raymont Baratheon just disappears from the text after saving Aenys from those two murderous Poor Fellows, which reminds me:

There is a discrepancy between TSOTD and TWOIAF re Ser Raymont Baratheon. In TWOIAF it says he saved the whole royal family. In TSOTD it says that he just saved Aenys. Which one is correct @Ran?

Edit: Don't forget two of the Kingsguard were killed by the Fighting Fool at the Battle of the Great Fork.

Yeah, but we don't know who they are or the two Kingsguard who want over to Jaehaerys's side, when he made his claim.

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6 minutes ago, HelenaExMachina said:

I doubt that is something Martin would actually think plausible or in anyway right (I certainly hope he doesn't anyway). I assumed it was the bias of the author showing through. We know people in Westeros view the Targaryen's above the laws of mere men and Gyldayn seems a pretty big Targ supporter so I always assumed it was just his way of saying "these beings are more than mere men, of course it is a blessing that they want your daughter!" when the actual truth is that this is gross and the practice was hated just as much on Dragonstone as it was elsewhere. Though people may have been less vocal because of the massive dragons that could swoop down and torch their farm if they were too vocal

Or because the reason Gyldayn mentions - Targaryens being generous, perhaps relatively cash rich due to trade, had a practice of using carrots. They could find fathers willing to pimp their daughters and even husbands/grooms willing to pimp their wives/brides, for right prices.

It´s not a matter of jealousy only, though. In many societies, getting cheated is a stain on a man´s honour. A man willing to sell his wife and raise another man´s child, indeed make another man´s child his heir, might be happy with the price for the fact, yet be ashamed if he´s known in public to have done the deal. (Which is where custom of first night may help. For a kind lord, it gives a kind of plausible deniability - the groom claims he could not refuse, where in fact the lord consulted the groom beforehand and would have chosen to not visit if he knew the groom minded.)

Aegon Unworthy paid 7 dragons to a blacksmith for Merry Megette - along with threat for ser Joffrey Staunton. He was 20. Why did ser Joffrey let him? Daeron lived, and so did Baelor. No one knew that both Daeron and Baelor would die childless. Ser Joffrey could have told: "I´m detailed to protect you, not obey you and to keep King´s secrets, certainly not to keep your secrets from King. Leave your host and his wife unmolested. If you don´t, I´m not helping you except to protect you from physical hurt, and report your conduct to Aegon III and Viserys ASAP, by raven if urgent enough and on our return at the latest. BUT, if I´m satisfied that the smith is really willing to make deal at the price, and asks you not to walk away without the deal, then I´ll leave it for you". At what price would the smith willingly have sold out Merry Meg?

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22 minutes ago, RumHam said:

The excerpt posted above about the "happy bastards" might be the most ridiculous thing I've ever read from Martin. It's at least up there with the Frey's version of what happened at the Red Wedding. 

It sounds somewhat weird but in effect it is not unbelievable or strange - at least for such bastards that were actually acknowledged or cared for by their lordly or royal fathers. Joy Hill lives a very privileged life as the natural daughter of Gerion Lannister. Similar things may have happened to the more lucky Targaryen bastards.

In effect, many noblemen pimped out or sold their daughters to kings. Just look at Aegon IV. If you or your family get a lot of favors people tend to part rather easily with their wives and daughters.

And we also know that all the noblemen casually sleep around with the commoners - Edmure does so in the Riverlands, Robert always did it, Theon did it at Winterfell, Robb most likely did it, too, etc. While most of that sex wouldn't have been rape, getting involved with those lordlings would have always dishonored and shamed the women involved - especially (but not only) if they were already married.

But then - how do you reject a nobleman or prince who is interested in you? That's right, you don't.

The idea that anyone *really* liked the First Night thing is ridiculous, though. If you marry a woman in such a setting you want her children to be your children. Especially in a society where bastards are so vilified as they are in Westeros.

19 minutes ago, The Grey Wolf said:

Re the Vale: I think it would work best if Maegor visited the place, there was a civil war there between pro-Maegor and pro-Faith lords, or the Warrior's Sons attempted an attack by ship on KL, resulting in an epic defeat at sea.

Well, I guess they could also have participated in some campaign in the Riverlands. But if that was the case we would want to know about that.

19 minutes ago, The Grey Wolf said:

Re Balerion: Even if Dreamfyre or Vermithor were fast-growing the problem remains Maegor rides the f****** Black Dread and Alyssa by that point was down to her last son. It just doesn't make any sense that any of them would risk a direct confrontation with Maegor or that Lord Robar could convince the Stormlords that such a scheme had a decent chance of succeeding. Maegor not being broken and depressed the way he is described to be in TWOIAF only further compounds this issue. Now, if Alyssa claimed Vhagar after Visenya's death, then you might be on to something...

Exactly, then this whole thing could make some sense.

And come to think of it - it could also serve as an explanation as to why Maegor did not continue treating the entire Velaryon family, Lord Daemon (or Aethan, or whoever he was), and Alyssa's other brothers and cousins the same way he treated Prince Viserys and previously all the members and kin of House Harroway.

Maegor isn't the forgiving type. But if he had reason to believe that Vhagar might suddenly drop out of the nightly sky, making his Red Keep glow a bright red-hot the way Aegon made Harrenhal glow before he could get to his Balerion then ... well, he might have reconsidered such a cause of action.

In any other scenario the idea that a man like Maegor would allow the Velaryons to live after Alyssa's escape isn't plausible, either. And one should also assume that not only Lord Velaryon but all his family and kin where encouraged to move permanently to the Red Keep in the wake of Alyssa's escape. There is no way that Maegor allowed them to continue living as they had before.

After all, they could all be involved in this treason. And if they could be involved in it then, in Maegor's mind, they were involved in that.

19 minutes ago, The Grey Wolf said:

Anyway, here are two more things I'd like to note:

1. Is it just me or does GRRM seem to have a predilection for keeping the Stormlands out of conflicts until the very last minute (Faith Militant Uprising + Dance of the Dragons)?

I guess that's just a coincidence. A lot of houses - Arryns, Starks, Tyrells, etc. - don't do anything in TSotD.

19 minutes ago, The Grey Wolf said:

2. In AFFC it is said that the Faith Militant included "dragonslayers" amongst its ranks but that doesn't show up at all in TSOTD. Now, that tidbit could just be made-up but shouldn't we at least hear about a bunch of assassination attempts not just on Maegor but also the dragons?

Can you point me to that line?

If that's to be read literally then the idea of Prince Aegon having ridden a dragon prior to Quicksilver might make some sense. The Poor Fellows could have attacked the progress, slaying Aegon's dragon in the process, and injuring/chasing off Dreamfyre, so that the Targaryen couple was dragonless and had to seek shelter at Crakehall.

I think we should start a thread - best over in the TWoIaF forum - to collect all the errors, inconsistencies, plot holes, etc. we find not only in TSotD but also in TRP and TPatQ. That way we can at least draw attention to those things, and increase the likelihood that somebody does something about that.

As far as I know both George and Anne know how to use the internet, too ;-).

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1 minute ago, Lost Melnibonean said:

I think someone else has a hard-on (or would have) for the blood of the dragon. 

George wanted 'to know' Daenerys since he wrote 'The Glass Flower'. It is known.

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Whether Aenys was the son of Aegon I or the son of a mummer, he was the son of Rhaenys Targaryen. The suggestion that Aenys, and his progeny do not, in fact, descend from Aegon is there fom the author, but this seems likely never to be confirmed one way or the other. My question is, does it make a bit of difference since all Targaryens afterward descend from Aenys? 

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So, did Visenya off Aenys, or what? I think so. The suggestion is certainly there from the author, and the timing gives it away. Aenys only took his turn for the worse after he (and Visenya) learned that his heir Aegon the younger was besieged at Crakehall. With young Aegon holed up at Crakehall, Visenya was able to put down Aenys and retrieve her son Maegor to be crowned. 

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27 minutes ago, Lost Melnibonean said:

So, did Visenya off Aenys, or what? I think so. The suggestion is certainly there from the author, and the timing gives it away. Aenys only took his turn for the worse after he (and Visenya) learned that his heir Aegon the younger was besieged at Crakehall. With young Aegon holed up at Crakehall, Visenya was able to put down Aenys and retrieve her son Maegor to be crowned. 

I'm Brazilian, so this book has not been released here unfortunately.

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1 hour ago, Lost Melnibonean said:

Whether Aenys was the son of Aegon I or the son of a mummer, he was the son of Rhaenys Targaryen. The suggestion that Aenys, and his progeny do not, in fact, descend from Aegon is there fom the author, but this seems likely never to be confirmed one way or the other. My question is, does it make a bit of difference since all Targaryens afterward descend from Aenys? 

3

Not really. Because they all still had Targaryen blood running through their veins, flowing from Queen Rhaenys Targaryen.

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1 hour ago, Lost Melnibonean said:

Whether Aenys was the son of Aegon I or the son of a mummer, he was the son of Rhaenys Targaryen. The suggestion that Aenys, and his progeny do not, in fact, descend from Aegon is there fom the author, but this seems likely never to be confirmed one way or the other. My question is, does it make a bit of difference since all Targaryens afterward descend from Aenys? 

I don't think it does. They are still all descended from Aenar the Exile and Daenys the Dreamer, and the generations of Valyrian dragonlords before them. It clearly doesn't matter that not all of the unions in-between were incestuous or kin marriages. Else we would have long ago gotten a complete Targaryen family tree. They are still descended from this 'magical bloodline' that doesn't really care whether people are descended through the male or the female line. And you can always note that especially Aenys' children all inherited the blood of the dragon from both their parents, anyway. Aenys would have been half-Targaryen (like all of Viserys' children by Alicent are) but his wife Alyssa also has multiple - although somewhat more distant - Targaryen ancestors.

Whether it matters for you that Aegon the Conqueror may not, in fact, be the founder of the royal House Targaryen of Westeros and the biological ancestor of Daenerys, Jon Snow, etc. is up to you. I'd say Aegon is still the father of Aenys and Maegor, never mind that he did not actually father them, just as Tywin is still the father of Tyrion, Ned the father of Jon, etc.

He is the one who raised them, especially Aenys.

1 hour ago, Lost Melnibonean said:

So, did Visenya off Aenys, or what? I think so. The suggestion is certainly there from the author, and the timing gives it away. Aenys only took his turn for the worse after he (and Visenya) learned that his heir Aegon the younger was besieged at Crakehall. With young Aegon holed up at Crakehall, Visenya was able to put down Aenys and retrieve her son Maegor to be crowned. 

We don't know. It is all speculation. Could be - or not. The way Gyldayn tells the tale it is also possible the man got some intestinal disease, had issues with his immune system due to the constant stress he was in, and combined with his general ill health that could easily enough explain how the news about his children could have killed him.

@Linda ironically remarked that Aenys literally didn't have the stomach to deal with the Faith Militant. There is a certain symbolic meaning in that.

In that sense, it is certainly possible that Visenya did all she could to save her royal nephew. After all, his death did also weaken House Targaryen. And at times people draw lines between dots that should not be connected. Sometimes things happen that greatly benefit certain people and then the conspiracy theorists cry 'causation' when it is just 'correlation'.

That kind of thing happens very often in history. 

One wonders whether it would have been necessary for Visenya to kill her nephew. With Aenys being incapacitated, sick, and unable to make a firm and determined decision even in a healthy state was there really a reason to kill him? Couldn't Visenya have just left Dragonstone to bring back Maegor anyway?

Also keep in mind that Aenys was effectively deposed as king. The High Septon denounced him and he fled his own capital, abandoning the lands his father, mother, and aunt had conquered four decades ago.

If Maegor had returned during Aenys' lifetime and claimed his father's Iron Throne, crushing all the enemies of House Targaryen in the process, how many men would have continued to look to Aenys as their true king, the king who abandoned his people?

Not all that many.

In that sense one could argue that Visenya's motive to kill Aenys may not have been as convincing as it appears. And again - a motive is not a murder. Unless Visenya used some form of sorcery to kill Aenys Grand Maester Gawen should have noticed that the king had been poisoned when he first tried to heal him. And for all we know that man was truly loyal to his king.

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2 hours ago, Lost Melnibonean said:

So, did Visenya off Aenys, or what? I think so. The suggestion is certainly there from the author, and the timing gives it away. Aenys only took his turn for the worse after he (and Visenya) learned that his heir Aegon the younger was besieged at Crakehall. With young Aegon holed up at Crakehall, Visenya was able to put down Aenys and retrieve her son Maegor to be crowned. 

Maybe. There are hints to that effect, but I don't believe that Queen Visenya could stoop that low by killing her own blood. And don't forget that she took over his care and for a time his health improved, only worsening again when his son Aegon and daughter Rhaena were besieged at Crakehall. Also, it seems like she may have protected Aenys's widow Alyssa Velaryon, and Aenys's two youngest children, Jaehaerys and Alysanne from Maegor, maybe. IMO.

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7 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Text

AFFC-Cersei VI

Lady Merryweather shared the queen's delight, though she had never heard of the Warrior's Sons or the Poor Fellows. "They date from before Aegon's Conquest," Cersei explained to her. "The Warrior's Sons were an order of knights who gave up their lands and gold and swore their swords to His High Holiness. The Poor Fellows . . . they were humbler, though far more numerous. Begging brothers of a sort, though they carried axes instead of bowls. They wandered the roads, escorting travelers from sept to sept and town to town. Their badge was the seven-pointed star, red on white, so the smallfolk named them Stars. The Warrior's Sons wore rainbow cloaks and inlaid silver armor over hair shirts, and bore star-shaped crystals in the pommels of their longswords. They were the Swords. Holy men, ascetics, fanatics, sorcerers, dragonslayers, demonhunters . . . there were many tales about them. But all agree that they were implacable in their hatred for all enemies of the Holy Faith."

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6 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

@Linda

One wonders whether it would have been necessary for Visenya to kill her nephew. With Aenys being incapacitated, sick, and unable to make a firm and determined decision even in a healthy state was there really a reason to kill him? Couldn't Visenya have just left Dragonstone to bring back Maegor anyway?

Also keep in mind that Aenys was effectively deposed as king. The High Septon denounced him and he fled his own capital, abandoning the lands his father, mother, and aunt had conquered four decades ago.

If Maegor had returned during Aenys' lifetime and claimed his father's Iron Throne, crushing all the enemies of House Targaryen in the process, how many men would have continued to look to Aenys as their true king, the king who abandoned his people?

Not all that many.

In that sense one could argue that Visenya's motive to kill Aenys may not have been as convincing as it appears. And again - a motive is not a murder. Unless Visenya used some form of sorcery to kill Aenys Grand Maester Gawen should have noticed that the king had been poisoned when he first tried to heal him. And for all we know that man was truly loyal to his king.

Would it have been necessary for Maegor to behead Gawen, or would the Gawen have settled for the reply - "Iron Throne belongs to one with the strength to claim it!"?

Would Aenys himself have continued to look at himself as a true king? Or could Maegor have cleared King´s Landing of rebels and invited his weak brother back to King´s Landing to publicly abdicate, hand over his crown and back Maegor as the new conqueror of the kingdom he had lost?

Why were Aegon and Rhaena left in Westerlands just so? For some reason, they could not save themselves either by burning the rebels or flying away, nor were any lords loyal enough to go and relieve Crakehall. And after Maegor came, they just dallied in King´s Landing - Crakehall was finally relieved by drawing off the besiegers, not by active assistance.

Dragons are fast - not only Balerion but Vhagar, just consider the time Visenya needed to fetch Maegor. Even if it did not occur to Maegor or was not his priority, Visenya on Vhagar might, for example right after burning of Sept of Remembrance when Maegor was safe on Iron Throne, have flown for Crakehall, avenged the insult by dragonfire, and urged her teenage nephew to bow to the uncle who recovered the kingdom his father had lost. Not just leave the couple brooding and plotting.

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8 hours ago, The Grey Wolf said:

AFFC-Cersei VI

Lady Merryweather shared the queen's delight, though she had never heard of the Warrior's Sons or the Poor Fellows. "They date from before Aegon's Conquest," Cersei explained to her. "The Warrior's Sons were an order of knights who gave up their lands and gold and swore their swords to His High Holiness. The Poor Fellows . . . they were humbler, though far more numerous. Begging brothers of a sort, though they carried axes instead of bowls. They wandered the roads, escorting travelers from sept to sept and town to town. Their badge was the seven-pointed star, red on white, so the smallfolk named them Stars. The Warrior's Sons wore rainbow cloaks and inlaid silver armor over hair shirts, and bore star-shaped crystals in the pommels of their longswords. They were the Swords. Holy men, ascetics, fanatics, sorcerers, dragonslayers, demonhunters . . . there were many tales about them. But all agree that they were implacable in their hatred for all enemies of the Holy Faith."

I dont think that is to be read literally, as it is said in the context of "tales" of the Faith Militant, and comes right alongside sorcerers and demon hunters....these are just myths and legends of the FM I think, rather than necessarily things that actually happened in recent history

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