George's story in Book of Swords

[Danelle]

8 hours ago, Curled Finger said:

-is there any hope at all this story could be about one or many of our Valyrian Swords???  

I can only hope! 

I would love to read a story about those swords, especially Brightroar and more details about King Tommen's quest in Valyria but I doubt that that would be the story.

 

It could be that the story might be about a Sword of the Morning, perhaps a more detailed account of Ser Arthur's duel with the Smiling Knight?

[Lost Melnibonean]

1 hour ago, Danelle said:

I can only hope! 

I would love to read a story about those swords, especially Brightroar and more details about King Tommen's quest in Valyria but I doubt that that would be the story.

 

It could be that the story might be about a Sword of the Morning, perhaps a more detailed account of Ser Arthur's duel with the Smiling Knight?

How about Dawn vs. Ice?

Didn't the George indicate he was pretty far along with what he called she wolves and The Village Hero?

[Lord Varys]

@The Dragon Demands

It is not very likely that some kind of dragon family tree would be included in 'The Sons of the Dragon'. But the coverage of the story of Aegon and Rhaena could explain whether Aegon had a dragon prior to Quicksilver and whether Rhaena was already riding Dreamfyre at that point (that is sort of odd considering that she then would have been older than Vermithor). The idea that Aenys' eldest children weren't the first Targaryens after Aenys himself (and possibly Alyssa) to get some dragon hatchlings is pretty much insane.

We could also learn whether Prince Viserys had a dragon before his death. He could have had Vermithor or Dreamfyre prior to Jaehaerys/Rhaena. Or another dragon who was killed by Maegor when he made Viserys his squire-hostage.

The really complex parts of the dragon history would be during the long reign of Jaehaerys I.

12 hours ago, The Grey Wolf said:

The Second (Aenys I) (37-39 AC, while Maegor was Hand)

Unless George doesn't add material to 'The Sons of the Dragon' (if that's what we are going to get in the anthology) this won't be the Second Dornish War. But perhaps it turns out that the Vulture King thing qualifies as some sort of Dornish War.

Perhaps we are talking about some lesser campaigns done in the name of Aenys I and later Maegor I without direct Targaryen participation. Say, under the leadership of some Marcher Lords, Baratheons, or Tyrells?

Quote

The Third (Maegor I) (45/46-47 AC, during a lull in the Faith Militant Uprising or perhaps an attempt by Maegor to stem his rising unpopularity by uniting the realm behind him against a common foe, possibly after accusing Dorne of supporting rebels or the Vulture King during his older half-brother's reign).

There is some chance for that, although Maegor's rule seems to be pretty cramped already.

9 hours ago, The Grey Wolf said:

Anyway, I just want to clarify that when I wrote that I don't think the end of the Dance would have been particularly bloody I wasn't taking into account the retaking of King's Landing and meant only that by the time of Rhaenyra's death the bloodiest parts of the war had past given that there was only one major battle in 131 AC which by all appearances was decisive rather than pyrrhic.

The idea is just that if we get the Regency we should also get the end of the Dance. Skipping that would be pretty shitty.

Considering that Gardner also edited TPatQ for 'Dangerous Women' I think we can be reasonably sure that they would continue the story where he left it off rather than have him edit a completely new text.

1 hour ago, Lost Melnibonean said:

Didn't the George indicate he was pretty far along with what he called she wolves and The Village Hero?

Not really, especially not where the Winterfell story is concerned. He seems to have ideas about that one but it doesn't seem he has written a lot already. TVH looks somewhat better considering how flashed out Pennytree was in ADwD. I think there is a chance that this story already existed in draft form when the last Jaime chapter was written.

[Lost Melnibonean]

2 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

@The Dragon Demands

It is not very likely that some kind of dragon family tree would be included in 'The Sons of the Dragon'. But the coverage of the story of Aegon and Rhaena could explain whether Aegon had a dragon prior to Quicksilver and whether Rhaena was already riding Dreamfyre at that point (that is sort of odd considering that she then would have been older than Vermithor). The idea that Aenys' eldest children weren't the first Targaryens after Aenys himself (and possibly Alyssa) to get some dragon hatchlings is pretty much insane.

We could also learn whether Prince Viserys had a dragon before his death. He could have had Vermithor or Dreamfyre prior to Jaehaerys/Rhaena. Or another dragon who was killed by Maegor when he made Viserys his squire-hostage.

The really complex parts of the dragon history would be during the long reign of Jaehaerys I.

Unless George doesn't add material to 'The Sons of the Dragon' (if that's what we are going to get in the anthology) this won't be the Second Dornish War. But perhaps it turns out that the Vulture King thing qualifies as some sort of Dornish War.

Perhaps we are talking about some lesser campaigns done in the name of Aenys I and later Maegor I without direct Targaryen participation. Say, under the leadership of some Marcher Lords, Baratheons, or Tyrells?

There is some chance for that, although Maegor's rule seems to be pretty cramped already.

The idea is just that if we get the Regency we should also get the end of the Dance. Skipping that would be pretty shitty.

Considering that Gardner also edited TPatQ for 'Dangerous Women' I think we can be reasonably sure that they would continue the story where he left it off rather than have him edit a completely new text.

Not really, especially not where the Winterfell story is concerned. He seems to have ideas about that one but it doesn't seem he has written a lot already. TVH looks somewhat better considering how flashed out Pennytree was in ADwD. I think there is a chance that this story already existed in draft form when the last Jaime chapter was written.

But wasn't she-wolves supposed to appear in Dangerous Women? Did the George ever say why he switched it for TP&TQ? Was it because she-wolves wasn't ready? Or maybe it was time for the storyteller to give us the Dance of Dragons backstory? (I'm looking for his actual statements, verbatim or even the jist, rather than speculation. Speculation is cool, as long as it's not dressed up as fact.) 

[Lord Varys]

4 minutes ago, Lost Melnibonean said:

But wasn't she-wolves supposed to appear in Dangerous Women? Did the George ever say why he switched it for TP&TQ? Was it because she-wolves wasn't ready? Or maybe it was time for the storyteller to give us the Dance of Dragons backstory? (I'm looking for his actual statements, verbatim or even the jist, rather than speculation. Speculation is cool, as long as it's not dressed up as fact.) 

The fourth Dunk & Egg story was supposed to be in 'Dangerous Women', just as TMK was part of 'Warriors'.

What I remember is that it wasn't completed. Else we would have gotten it. TPatQ and TRP don't really qualify as short stories or novellas.

Considering that he doesn't even have a title for that one ('The She-Wolves of Winterfell' isn't the title) makes it less likely that he ever got around to write it. Perhaps he wrote some of it, but if he did it is sort of odd that he finds the whole Village Hero thing more captivating now. Perhaps he doesn't really know how to spin that she-wolf struggle for power.

There was no premeditated reason to ever give us the back story for the Dance. That was just the outgrowth of the material he wrote for the world book which originally wasn't supposed to cover the history of the Targaryen kings at all. It began as an encyclopedia of all known fact (what is now the App), not as an in-universe history book.

[Clegane'sPup]

14 minutes ago, Lost Melnibonean said:

But wasn't she-wolves supposed to appear in Dangerous Women? Did the George ever say why he switched it for TP&TQ? Was it because she-wolves wasn't ready? Or maybe it was time for the storyteller to give us the Dance of Dragons backstory? (I'm looking for his actual statements, verbatim or even the jist, rather than speculation. Speculation is cool, as long as it's not dressed up as fact.) 

If it helps I found this on Martin's not a blog.

http://grrm.livejournal.com/365715.html

Turning back to prose, however... it has always been my intent to write a whole series of novellas about Dunk and Egg, chronicling their entire lives.  At various times in various interviews I may have mentioned seven novellas, or ten, or twelve, but none of that is set in stone.  There will be as many novellas as it takes to tell their tale, start to finish.  But only the three mentioned have been published to date.  I did originally plan on including a fourth in DANGEROUS WOMEN, the crossgenre anthology Gardner and I put out last year, but the book was past due and the story was not finished, so I substituted an abridged version of "The Princess and the Queen" instead.

The unfinished novella was indeed set in Winterfell, and involved a group of formidable Stark wives, widows, mothers, and grandmothers that I dubbed 'the She-Wolves,' but "The She-Wolves of Winterfell" was never meant to be more than a working title.  The final title, when I finish the story, will be something different.  There's also another Dunk & Egg novella that I've got roughed out in my head, with the working title "The Village Hero."  That one takes place in the Riverlands.   There's no telling when I will have time to finish either of these, or which one I will write first.  I don't expect I will know more until I've delivered THE WINDS OF WINTER.

 

[Lost Melnibonean]

6 minutes ago, Clegane'sPup said:

If it helps I found this on Martin's not a blog.

http://grrm.livejournal.com/365715.html

Turning back to prose, however... it has always been my intent to write a whole series of novellas about Dunk and Egg, chronicling their entire lives.  At various times in various interviews I may have mentioned seven novellas, or ten, or twelve, but none of that is set in stone.  There will be as many novellas as it takes to tell their tale, start to finish.  But only the three mentioned have been published to date.  I did originally plan on including a fourth in DANGEROUS WOMEN, the crossgenre anthology Gardner and I put out last year, but the book was past due and the story was not finished, so I substituted an abridged version of "The Princess and the Queen" instead.

The unfinished novella was indeed set in Winterfell, and involved a group of formidable Stark wives, widows, mothers, and grandmothers that I dubbed 'the She-Wolves,' but "The She-Wolves of Winterfell" was never meant to be more than a working title.  The final title, when I finish the story, will be something different.  There's also another Dunk & Egg novella that I've got roughed out in my head, with the working title "The Village Hero."  That one takes place in the Riverlands.   There's no telling when I will have time to finish either of these, or which one I will write first.  I don't expect I will know more until I've delivered THE WINDS OF WINTER.

 

Thanks for answering the question with what the George actually said. 

I am still hoping for a new Dunk and Egg! I love those books just as much as the others, especially since they are intertwined with ASOIAF. 

[Rhaenys_Targaryen]

13 hours ago, The Grey Wolf said:

The problem with that is Gyldayn explicitly says in the account on the Conquest that "sporadic attempts to bring the Dornishmen into the realm continued all through King Aegon's reign and well into the reigns of his sons, making it impossible to fix a precise end date for the Wars of Conquest" and in the Dornish section of TWOIAF it mentions that "there were other Dornish Wars to be sure", which may not include the campaigns of Daeron I or Aegon IV given they aren't named as such anywhere. If I had to postulate I'd say the Dornish Wars were as follows:

[snp]

 

According to Yandel:

The result, however, was a peace that lasted through the troubles of the Vulture King and beyond. There were other Dornish Wars, to be sure, and even during times of peace, raiders out of Dorne continued to descend from the Red Mountains in search of plunder in the richer, greener lands to the north and west.

[...]

It was not until the ascent of King Daeron I that the treaty of eternal peace proved to be less than eternal, and we know the cost of that. The Young Dragon's conquest of Dorne was a glorious feat, rightly celebrated in song and story, but it lasted less than a summer and cost many thousands of lives, including that of the bold young king himself. It was left to Daeron's brother and successor, King Baelor I the Blessed, to make the peace, and the cost of that was grievous as well.

He speaks of a peace that begun when Aegon I signed the peace treaty provided by Princess Deria in 13 AC, and ended when Daeron I began his conquest. And while Daeron I's war likely counts as one of the Dornish Wars, there must have at least been another one. But the fact that Daeron was the one to end the "treaty of eternal peace" sort of suggests that there had been no other Dornish War since 13 AC until he began his conquest of Dorne.

So perhaps the "sporadic attempts to bring the Dornishmen into the realm" that continued "all through King Aegon's reign and well into the reigns of his sons" included several peaceful attempts have the Dornishmen join the Targaryen rule... Viserys I's suggestion that Rhaenyra might be wed to the Prince of Dorne comes to mind as a possible example.

Viserys even talked of wedding Rhaenyra to the Prince of Dorne, as a way of bringing the Dornish into the realm.

 

[Clegane'sPup]

2 hours ago, Lost Melnibonean said:

Thanks for answering the question with what the George actually said. 

I am still hoping for a new Dunk and Egg! I love those books just as much as the others, especially since they are intertwined with ASOIAF. 

It would be nice to have some new ASOIAF material for me to check out at of the library. When I looked at the promotional blurb I immediately thought about a quote in FfC:

Quote

I know the prophecy." Marwyn turned his head and spat a gob of red phlegm onto the floor. "Not that I would trust it. Gorghan of Old Ghis once wrote that a prophecy is like a treacherous woman. She takes your member in her mouth, and you moan with the pleasure of it and think, how sweet, how fine, how good this is . . . and then her teeth snap shut and your moans turn to screams. That is the nature of prophecy, said Gorghan. Prophecy will bite your prick off every time." He chewed a bit. "Still . . ."

Until Martin mentions contributing a story for the book on his not a blog I’m taking a lackadaisical stance.

Various sites are picking up steam about this topic. Take a gander at Vulture. According to them an ASOIAF expert is speculating this story will be “Sons of the Dragon.”

http://www.vulture.com/2017/01/george-rr-martin-book-of-swords-sons-of-the-dragon.html

[The Dragon Demands]

Quote

So perhaps the "sporadic attempts to bring the Dornishmen into the realm" that continued "all through King Aegon's reign and well into the reigns of his sons" included several peaceful attempts have the Dornishmen join the Targaryen rule... Viserys I's suggestion that Rhaenyra might be wed to the Prince of Dorne comes to mind as a possible example.

.....I hadn't considered that the "sporadic attempts" under the Sons of the Dragon might not actually be violent, but negotiations of marriage-alliance that didn't turn into anything.  Much like Viserys I.

anyway.....

Hatchlings have been known to die.  And dragons don't always want to bond with an heir, they're finicky.

Quicksilver vs Balerion was the first dragon vs dragon fight since Valyria. 

Of course, dragons did die "in combat" before that - Meraxes. 

 

Could Maegor have killed another dragon of Aegon or Viserys?  Possibly.  But it seems a waste of resources; and I don't think they were old enough to ride.  Why kill Viserys's dragon if you already have the rider captive?

 

Oh, I don't expect a full "family tree" in Sons of the Dragon alone; just a single line like "Silverwing was actually from an egg laid by Meraxes" would be pretty nifty.

 

 

[The Dragon Demands]

Gyldayn's Fire and Blood, by the numbers:

I actually kept some notes on this by cross-referencing several statements by GRRM, Elio & Linda:

• The original word count goal for the "encyclopedia" they ordered in 2004 was 50,000 words.  Elio and Linda would "pick out what we already know from the main novels", and GRRM would fill in a gap or two with sidebars.  This was going to be based on the old "Concordance" notes listed on this website; they're sort of "World Book mark zero". 
• When Elio and Linda actually make a basic outline of "everything we know from the main novels", even after cutting out character profiles, it was 70,000 words.
• GRRM sat down to write a few sidebars and organize his personal notes....but then like Tolkien, "the story grew in the telling".  A master storyteller 'in the zone'.  The Dance of the Dragons just poured out of him, stuff he had never thought of before, this sweeping cast of characters, and the Sons of the Dragon, and ALL of the "Beyond Westeros" stuff from the World book.  GRRM ended up writing 300,000 words of fictional history.
• These 300,000 words are only half-finished - they only extend through the end of the reign of Aegon III.  After that he finally realized he had gone on far beyond his goal and had to stop.  Of course, other parts of the history after that he kind of already put a lot of thought into:  he already has extensive notes on the reign of Aegon IV, the court intrigues, which he's simply never revealed, and which the print World book only hints at.  Plus the Blood of Dragons MUSH kind of covers the gap with the Conquest of Dorne era, based on earlier notes and rounded out by Elio and Linda (semi-canon I know).  The backstory about the Reyne Rebellion, however, all of the backstory of the Rise of Tywin that appears in the westerlands section, that already existed for years - like, since the first or second novel, I'm not sure.  But the whole backstory about Lannister history from the first Blackfyre Rebellion to Tywin, that's all in pre-existing notes. 
• For a sense of scale, the final, finished print version of the World book is 150,000 words.  This includes the bits of sidebars they edited down to keep in.  I think 70,000 from Elio & Linda, plus all of the "Beyond Westeros" stuff, which apparently isn't part of that "300,000" word count (unsure). 
• The largest block quote from Gyldayn in the print World book, on the history of the Conquest, is over 8,000 words.  Round that out with a few other sidebars about the First Dornish War and the reign of Aegon I, let's round that up to an even 10,000 words about the Conquest generation.
• According to GRRM, out of the 300,000 words' worth of sidebars he wrote, the section on the Dance of the Dragons spans 80,000 words.  Unclear if this includes the Regency era which followed. 
• GRRM wanted to put out a short story for the "Dangerous Women" anthology, so he submitted a heavily edited chunk of the Dance of the Dragons section focusing on Rhaenyra vs Alicent, "The Princess and the Queen", which stands at 30,000 words.
• Later he put out "The Rogue Prince", the introductory chunk of the larger 80k Dance history, which stands at 10,000 words. 
• So there's 40,000 words' worth of Dance history we have never seen, but which are FINISHED.  They exist.  Not just post-Second Tumbleton, they're bits edited out of the main TPATQ for time (like what was going on in the riverlands theater of the war, etc., stuff only mentioned in passing in the print version). 
• 40,000 already printed + circa 10,000 word chunk for the conquest, that's 50,000 words released....out of 300,000 he wrote. 
• Question of course is whether those 300,000 include the "Beyond Westeros" stuff but from the way he phrased it, I think not (he said "I stopped at Aegon III", sounds like that's just the king history).  And of course some of this was already released in the other printed sidebars - how long are those, another 10,000 words?. 
• Thus, for sense of scale, the print World book is 150,000 words.......and there's a finished 200-240,000 words that are already written but unreleased?
• At the very least, there's easily an entire World book sized amount of unpublished material just sitting on a shelf, ready to print.  Fire and Blood.

[Lost Melnibonean]

44 minutes ago, Clegane'sPup said:

It would be nice to have some new ASOIAF material for me to check out at of the library. When I looked at the promotional blurb I immediately thought about a quote in FfC:

Until Martin mentions contributing a story for the book on his not a blog I’m taking a lackadaisical stance.

Various sites are picking up steam about this topic. Take a gander at Vulture. According to them an ASOIAF expert is speculating this story will be “Sons of the Dragon.”

http://www.vulture.com/2017/01/george-rr-martin-book-of-swords-sons-of-the-dragon.html

As long as it helps us to understand what's coming, I will be happy. 

[The Grey Wolf]

1 hour ago, Rhaenys_Targaryen said:

Text

That's why I find the whole thing so confusing and wish GRRM or Ran/Linda had been more clear on it in TWOIAF. Also, while possible I find it highly doubtful that the attempts during Aenys and Maegor's reigns were of a diplomatic nature, certainly not in the case of the latter.

[Lord Varys]

3 hours ago, Rhaenys_Targaryen said:

According to Yandel:

The result, however, was a peace that lasted through the troubles of the Vulture King and beyond. There were other Dornish Wars, to be sure, and even during times of peace, raiders out of Dorne continued to descend from the Red Mountains in search of plunder in the richer, greener lands to the north and west.

[...]

It was not until the ascent of King Daeron I that the treaty of eternal peace proved to be less than eternal, and we know the cost of that. The Young Dragon's conquest of Dorne was a glorious feat, rightly celebrated in song and story, but it lasted less than a summer and cost many thousands of lives, including that of the bold young king himself. It was left to Daeron's brother and successor, King Baelor I the Blessed, to make the peace, and the cost of that was grievous as well.

He speaks of a peace that begun when Aegon I signed the peace treaty provided by Princess Deria in 13 AC, and ended when Daeron I began his conquest. And while Daeron I's war likely counts as one of the Dornish Wars, there must have at least been another one. But the fact that Daeron was the one to end the "treaty of eternal peace" sort of suggests that there had been no other Dornish War since 13 AC until he began his conquest of Dorne.

So perhaps the "sporadic attempts to bring the Dornishmen into the realm" that continued "all through King Aegon's reign and well into the reigns of his sons" included several peaceful attempts have the Dornishmen join the Targaryen rule... Viserys I's suggestion that Rhaenyra might be wed to the Prince of Dorne comes to mind as a possible example.

Viserys even talked of wedding Rhaenyra to the Prince of Dorne, as a way of bringing the Dornish into the realm.

Jaehaerys I and even Aenys I could have considered such attempts. We know Aenys accompanied the Conqueror for a diplomatic visit to Sunspear once, and one wonders whether they entertained some notions of marrying Prince Viserys or even Prince Jaehaerys to one of her daughters (if she had any). That certainly could have been the first step in such a unification enterprise.

But those other minor Dornish wars could also have been rogue lords during times when the Targaryens were occupied elsewhere, although it is pretty difficult to figure out when such times could have been. During the Regency, perhaps? Or at another point during the reign of Aegon III when he and Viserys were dealing with one of the more dangerous Daeron impostors? Perhaps even Jaehaerys I could not put a stop to something of that sort while he was hanging out with Alysanne and his court at Winterfell and the Wall?

2 hours ago, The Dragon Demands said:

Hatchlings have been known to die. 

Not necessarily this early in the Targaryen reign. Remember, the effect of the Dragonpit (whatever it was) would only have set in during the reign of Jaehaerys I. We are talking about dragons that hatched and lived on Dragonstone until they were given to or claimed by a Targaryen.

Just as Prince Aenys was given a hatchling when he was a toddler one would expect that Aenys' own children would have gotten dragons this early as well.

And while the Cannibal seems to have killed some hatchlings during his career it seems to be pretty obvious that Aegon would have given dragons to his grandchildren as soon as he could. And since they lived in KL they would have been safe.

Granted, accidents can happen, but if Rhaena's Dreamfyre was given to her when she was still a child she would have been the oldest Targaryen dragon after Vhagar, not Vermithor as both Yandel and Gyldayn claim.

2 hours ago, The Dragon Demands said:

And dragons don't always want to bond with an heir, they're finicky.

We don't have an example of a dragon rejecting a Targaryen prince it was given to. Nor have we any reason to believe the dragon hatched from an egg given to a Targaryen prince in the later years ever rejected him. You can get rejected by older, fiercer dragons, to be sure, especially by wild ones.

As to the other things (somehow the quoting system fails me right now):

I know that Balerion-Quicksilver is supposed to be the first dragon vs. dragon fight since the Doom but this doesn't mean a Targaryen did not put down another Targaryens (young) dragon while he was absent. Either by poisoning it, by hacking it to pieces with Valyrian steel weapons and/or killing it with a lot of arrows while it was chained. Those kind of things could have happened.

But my idea actually would be that Maegor might have killed Viserys' dragon only after Aegon rebelled against Maegor. I assume Alyssa and her children on Dragonstone were treated reasonably well while Aegon had not yet declared his intention to challenge Maegor. Only thereafter would the treatment of Aenys' family have changed. And when Maegor was forced to kill Quicksilver in the rebellion he might have decided that he would not permit Aenys' second son to keep his dragon. After all, he could have escaped on dragonback and tried to stage another rebellion as Aenys' true heir at this point.

Of course, he could also have just separated Viserys from his dragon, and then Alyssa could have taken that dragon with her when she escaped. In such a case he could have been the first rider of either Vermithor or Silverwing.

Aegon and Rhaena's original dragons might have been killed in the West. We know from the royal progresses of the early Targaryen kings that showing of the Targaryen dragons was a vital part of that so one assumes that Aegon and Rhaena took their dragons with them when they began touring the Realm after their wedding, and that some members of the Faith Militant (or some of their sympathizers) killed them while they were chained in some castle yard or outside some inn.

Keep in mind that a lot of knights, freeriders, and men-at-arms would accompanied Aegon and Rhaena on their progress. Since they ended up being besieged at Crakehall Castle half the Reach or the West or more must have risen in rebellion or chased them to this location. And if they had a dragon or dragons with them they could have escaped on dragonback. The fact that they did not means they either didn't take any dragons with them (which would have been stupid) or they no longer had them because they were dead.

Rhaena was born in 23 AC, which means she was nineteen when her father died. Prince Aegon was sixteen. Their dragons, if they had any at that point, would easily enough have been as large as the Vermax, Arrax, and Tyraxes at the beginning of the Dance, and thus they could have ridden them.

2 hours ago, The Dragon Demands said:

Oh, I don't expect a full "family tree" in Sons of the Dragon alone; just a single line like "Silverwing was actually from an egg laid by Meraxes" would be pretty nifty.

We have this quote about the Dragonpit being built for Balerion and Vhagar's get. That suggests that all the Targaryen dragons after the Conquest descend from these two. Meraxes died rather early, although she could have been the mother of Quicksilver who, in turn, could have been the father of Silverwing.

 

2 hours ago, The Dragon Demands said:

GRRM sat down to write a few sidebars and organize his personal notes....but then like Tolkien, "the story grew in the telling".  A master storyteller 'in the zone'.  The Dance of the Dragons just poured out of him, stuff he had never thought of before, this sweeping cast of characters, and the Sons of the Dragon, and ALL of the "Beyond Westeros" stuff from the World book.  GRRM ended up writing 300,000 words of fictional history.

As far as I remember that includes everything he wrote for TWoIaF, not just the Targaryen history but also the accounts on the Seven Kingdoms and the sections on the Free Cities and the East. The 300,000 words are not what exists from 'Fire and Blood from the Conquest to the Regency.

2 hours ago, The Dragon Demands said:

• According to GRRM, out of the 300,000 words' worth of sidebars he wrote, the section on the Dance of the Dragons spans 80,000 words.  Unclear if this includes the Regency era which followed. 

It does not, as far as I recall. The account on the Regency is the second largest piece of the Gyldayn history that exists.

2 hours ago, The Dragon Demands said:

• GRRM wanted to put out a short story for the "Dangerous Women" anthology, so he submitted a heavily edited chunk of the Dance of the Dragons section focusing on Rhaenyra vs Alicent, "The Princess and the Queen", which stands at 30,000 words.
• Later he put out "The Rogue Prince", the introductory chunk of the larger 80k Dance history, which stands at 10,000 words.

TRP also has been edited. Much less severely than TPatQ where all the references to the sources have basically been deleted but it was still shortened considerably. Some details on the reign of Viserys I only show up in TWoIaF. As far as I know, though, the history of the reign of Viserys I isn't part of the 80,000 words written on the Dance itself. That is a different text.

[The Dragon Demands]

Quote

During the Regency, perhaps? Or at another point during the reign of Aegon III when he and Viserys were dealing with one of the more dangerous Daeron impostors?

There's mention that unlike her father, Aliandra Martell thought herself a new Nymeria and wanted direct confrontation with the Targaryens (despite a torrid love affair with Alyn Velaryon...)  That may imply something. 

Timing gets screwed up because eggs can lay dormant for generations.  The other four Targaryen dragons from Generation Zero also left eggs behind (besides the two which hatched Meraxes and Vhagar).  How do we even know they were only from those three?  Or, if they were, a Meraxes-Balerion or Meraxes-Vhagar hatchling is still "their get", just not between Balerion and Vhagar.

These questions are of course why I'm hankering for the confirmed dragon lineages!

 

Am I alone in suspecting that the imposter-Daeron the Daring is in fact the bastard son of Aemond with Alys Rivers?

 

Ah!  Good news that the 80 k words don't include TRP or Regency.

 

UPDATE:

Ah, checking an e-copy, everything in "Other Lands Beyond Westeros" from "the Free Cities" through "Asshai" is roughly 34,000 words. 
 

At least some of the Free Cities stuff is Elio and Linda, though (I asked Linda once, she said they specifically came up with the Pentos backstory, not GRRM). 

So let's call that an even 30,000 words by GRRM on "Beyond Westeros" that we didn't know before (though word count is relative; I mean in 5 pages of broad brushstrokes he describes "this is a general outline of 8,000 years of Yi Ti's history"). 

So....TPATQ = 30k, TRP=10k, Conquest=10k, "Beyond Westeros" = 30 k = around 80,000 words published, out of 300,000 written?  "Over 200,000 words" left finished but unpublished?

[The Grey Wolf]

1 hour ago, Lord Varys said:

Text

1 hour ago, The Dragon Demands said:

Text

A small-scale Dornish War during the reign of Aegon III, such during the regency under Aliandra Martell, is possible as is a small-scale Dornish War during the reign/s of Jaehaerys I and/or Viserys I.

In the former's case it would explain both why Baelon was known as "the Brave" as well as why Myrish pirates seized the eastern half of Tarth if Myr was allied with Dorne as some of the Free Cities later were under Viserys I and Daeron I.

In the case of the latter on the other hand a Dornish War could have been the impetus for Viserys I considering a Dornish match to bring them into the fold in the first place or it could potentially have been the result of the War for the Stepstones spilling over into Westeros.

Judging by the fact that the Fowlers at one point alone commanded 10000 men it could very well be that Dorne once really was capable of fielding 50000 spears but as a result of the Dornish Wars (and in particular the Dragon's Wroth and the Conquest of the Young Dragon) their population underwent a massive decline which crippled the manpower they could muster in comparison to before, hence, why now they can at best field only half those numbers.

As for Aenys, the man was fickle and later known to get emotional about his family's legacy so I can see him in a sudden fit of inspiration deciding to complete his father's conquest, which Maegor as Hand would have eagerly supported, only to suddenly call the whole thing off two years later shortly before the debacle with Alys Harroway following the birth of Princess Vaella.

[Clegane'sPup]

an interesting take about the as yet unverified and unconfirmed possible story

http://watchersonthewall.com/next-story-ice-fire-world/

 

[The Fattest Leech]

5 hours ago, Clegane'sPup said:

an interesting take about the as yet unverified and unconfirmed possible story

http://watchersonthewall.com/next-story-ice-fire-world/

 

Thanks for the link. This is much exciting to this one.

[The Grey Wolf]

This just in: Sons of the Dragon is indeed what GRRM is contributing to Book of Swords. Here's the link:

http://grrm.livejournal.com/519773.html

 

[Lost Melnibonean]

10 minutes ago, The Grey Wolf said:

This just in: Sons of the Dragon is indeed what GRRM is contributing to Book of Swords. Here's the link:

http://grrm.livejournal.com/519773.html

 

Thanks!