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The Princess and the Queen [SPOILERS]


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Am I the only one who feels George probably felt stressed on the fact that all of the authors we're waiting on him to finish his story.

So he put D&E away and used the story he'd been working on for The World of Ice and Fire, gave it a title, elaborated on it more using the extra information he may have stored but didn't want to use because TWOIAF is a history book so it won't contain mass detail. As most of us know GRRM sets out to write something and with time it becomes huge so that may have been the case when writing a chapter on The Dance With Dragons.

It's not that much of a crackpot theory when you think about it. On 6/23/12 D&E 4 was still planned to be released in this anthology so this change happened relatively soon and in between then and now he's mentioned how he's written a lot of pages for TWOIAF.

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well, it's some of that fake history I have been writing lo these many months, the true (mostly) story of the origins of the Dance of the Dragons.

This makes me think "The Princess and the Queen" won't be an actual account of the Dance of the Dragons, it'll be an account of the events that led up to the Dance of the Dragons. In other words, we probably won't see dragons battling each other, but we might, for example, see Viserys I's death (or his death followed by the exact events surrounding his kids declaring war on each other). Though we might still get info on dragons in general (for example, how the Dragonpit operated, what mechanisms (dragon horns?) the Targs used to ride their dragons, general background info on dragons, etc.).

And I wonder if the title isn't referring solely to Rhaenyra (the princess who wanted to be the queen), but rather to Rhaenyra ("the Princess") and Viserys I's Hightower wife (Rhaenyra's stepmother and Aegon II's mother---"the Queen")? It would be interesting to see what role Viserys's second Queen played in the Dance---"current" Westerosi history puts the onus on Ser Criston Cole, but perhaps the queen played a larger role there than has yet been revealed.

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"The Princess and the Queen" will not affect the publication schedule of the world book. Other factors (art!) might, but not that novella. :) You'll see what I mean in time.

And it's not a D&E story. For one thing, it's about the Dance of the Dragons, 80 years prior to the Dunk and Egg stories.

Thank you Ran for that ray of hope. 80 years prior to D&E...let's itemize. D&E starts is 209AL; so let's subtract 80 and go back to 129AL:

  • Death of the Last Dragon...Aegon. We may find out way ultimatley happened to all of the remaining dragons (how they died) and egg's.
  • The conquering of Dorne and them entering the Seven Kingdoms.
  • House Tyrell and how they come to control Highgarden.
  • The First Blackfyre Rebellion.
  • Do I dare say it; the introduction of a lady named Shiera Seastar and the man who loved (with 1,000 and 1 eyes).

I don't know about the rest of you; but I'm heading tomorrow to Barnes & Noble and putting in my request.

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Even though I was disappointed to hear the news about the latest edition of D&E, I'm excited about the prospect of reading the one Martin will be contributing to the anthology.

I'm curious to see if we find out anything about how the Targaryen succession skipped Jaehaerys's child(ren) and went straight to Viserys I. I'm also thrilled at the prospect of finally seeing a female character who has been groomed for a leadership role in Westeros. I've always thought that the theft of her succession rights is one of the most overlooked issues in discussions of Westerosi history on the board.

I wonder if this story grew out of an overflow of information, similar to the origins of the app.

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"The Princess and the Queen" will not affect the publication schedule of the world book. Other factors (art!) might, but not that novella. :) You'll see what I mean in time.

Am really looking forward to the world book now--I received both volumes of The Art of A Song of Ice and Fire as a present recently and have been absolutely glued to them (great for flights, though the person sitting next to me raised an eyebrow a couple of times). Thanks for the heads up!

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I'm actually very excited to see a Dance of the Dragons account for a very specific reason: It looks like it's the time period when the most dragons were killed. Ergo, an account of it would include specifics on how dragons can be killed.

Back then, the dragonslaying doctrine was probably: "use another dragon, and better yet, two of them".

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Thank you Ran for that ray of hope. 80 years prior to D&E...let's itemize. D&E starts is 209AL; so let's subtract 80 and go back to 129AL:

  • House Tyrell and how they come to control Highgarden.
  • The First Blackfyre Rebellion.
  • Do I dare say it; the introduction of a lady named Shiera Seastar and the man who loved (with 1,000 and 1 eyes).

I don't know about the rest of you; but I'm heading tomorrow to Barnes & Noble and putting in my request.

Those three are out. The Tyrells got Highgarden when surrendered the castle to Aegon I, a hundred years earlier. All Aegon the Unworthy's great bastards, Blackfyre, Bittersteel, Shiera Seastar and Bloodraven, were born at least a few years after the Dance of Dragons. Even as horny as he proved to be later in his life, Aegon IV didn't father any children when he was five-year-old.

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Good News!

I allways wanted to learn more about the Dance of Dragons and Rhaenyra seems to be one of the most fascinating characters of westerosi history.

I hope GRRM will write more short stories about the Dance of Dragons.

Maybe GRRm decided to publish "She-Wolves" later, because it would have included to much foreshadowing (he have had a good reason to do so).

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Good News!

I allways wanted to learn more about the Dance of Dragons and Rhaenyra seems to be one of the most fascinating characters of westerosi history.

I hope GRRM will write more short stories about the Dance of Dragons.

Maybe GRRm decided to publish "She-Wolves" later, because it would have included to much foreshadowing (he have had a good reason to do so).

I understood that this is pre-First Dragon Dance,about game that lead to the Dance; The rest is slated for The World of Ice and Fire book.

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Though we might still get info on dragons in general (for example, how the Dragonpit operated, what mechanisms (dragon horns?) the Targs used to ride their dragons, general background info on dragons, etc.).

This would be most excellent. How you control a dragon is one of the big issues left hanging at the end of ADWD.

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I'll certainly be buying this.

I'm fairly recent to fantasy and a Brit to boot so many of the other writer's names don't ring a bell with me but... Hello Lawrence Block.... Hitman and Matt Scudder... So I'm sold.

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The Arianne sample alludes to dancing dragons in the future of the series, with Daenerys and Aegon fighting for the throne (female and male claimants). So maybe George chose the Dance of the Dragons as a prelude/parallel to that. Plus, more information on dragons will be welcome!

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