Question about the Dance of the Dragons...

[Angel Eyes]

Did Daemon Targaryen specifically order Prince Jaehaerys’ death, or did he tell Blood and Cheese to “make Helaena pick one to die, then kill the other”?

[Lion of the West]

I think he told them how to do the scheme but not which kid to specifically kill.

[Lord Varys]

Prince Daemon didn't tell anyone anything. He was at Harrenhal. He contacted Mysaria in KL - perhaps via raven, perhaps by way of a messenger - who then took it upon herself to arrange his revenge.

If we check his letter to Rhaenyra it is not clear what he intended to do. It was about 'a son for a son' but who did Daemon/Rhaenyra blame for Luke's death? Aegon II or Alicent? Who sent Aemond to Storm's End in the first place? Alicent.

We do know that Blood and Cheese settled on the Helaena scheme when they realized they could not get to Aegon II himself. Aemond was likely not yet back in KL, and Prince Daeron was in Oldtown.

The whole scenario of capturing Alicent and Helaena and forcing the latter to make a choice only grew out of the fact that they could get to these people.

[Knight of the Winged Pig]

4 hours ago, Angel Eyes said:

Did Daemon Targaryen specifically order Prince Jaehaerys’ death, or did he tell Blood and Cheese to “make Helaena pick one to die, then kill the other”?

Well, the fact that while Helaena did choose Maelor to die, but they killed Jaehaerys makes it clear that they wanted to kill Aegon II's heir. They forced Helaena to make a choice just to prolong and extend her suffering. Now, Daemon was not above from such abhorrent acts, but Mysaria might be equally responsible here.

[Lord Corlys Velaryon]

I wonder if Aegon or Aemond were initially the intended target, given the sheer advantage the Blacks would gain with the death of the king or his Baratheon-betrothed brother, riders of Sunfyre (obviously, a fucking beast from everything he survived during the Dance) & Vhagar (the largest & most powerful dragon) respectively, no less. Why would Yandel (& perhaps Gyldayn too in Fire & Blood, we shall see) mention that Cheese did not have knowledge of secret access to Maegor's Holdfast, if the plot was always only to attack the Alicent, Helaena, & the young kids in the Tower of the Hand, part of the wider Red Keep?

As to your question, I could see it going either way, although it being Jaehaerys specifically doesn't make a great deal of sense to me. Killing the elder boy only makes two-year-old Maelor the heir, not much worse than only six-year-old Jaehaerys, tbh. And of course, the "kill the other one" option is well within Daemon's wheelhouse. It may be worth considering Rhaenyra in this too - it's not unlikely that she rubber-stamped it to some degree. If she had opposed it (not that she would've), at the very least she would have the power to attempt to stop it, if not actually do so. And we know that the Greens had already attempted to assassinate Rhaenyra &/or her son/s when their negotiation mission visited Dragonstone, with Arryk Cargyll posing as his brother Erryk to do so. The Queen Regnant (plus her prince-consort) would've been pissed about that.

Really, the whole thing is very weird imo, though. Daemon & Rhaenyra were rather ruthless & not very nice people to say the least. If they're willing to have a very young & completely innocent family member murdered, risking the fallout that could (& did) produce, why not have Alicent & Helaena killed too? The Queen Dowager heard & saw everything (obviously the historical source for the ugly affair), with neither of them exactly friendly with her, shall we say. She was arguably the lead architect of the coup by the Greens, a highly skilled politician in her own right (even more so than her father, imo) & she was still a (major) thorn in Rhaenyra's side as her captive. Whilst the Queen-consort was one of only four dragonriders among the Greens, bound to their second largest (& around the fourth largest overall) dragon. Despite her nature, Helaena would by no means have necessarily been shattered like she was IOTL & however perhaps unlikely, there was a chance that the murder of a son would influence her to actually take the field against the Blacks on Dreamfyre.

Blood & Cheese were able to capture Alicent (& kill her bedmaid), kill the royal guard (why the hell was their only one with four royals?!), & presumably able to escape with the head of Prince Jaehaerys. It's not that unlikely they were actually a historical source, given Yandel's knowledge that Cheese couldn't have gotten them into Maegor's Holdfast & it doesn't seem like he is speculating (or going off Gyldayn's, afawk). (I suppose unless they actually told Alicent, if Daemon's original intention was to have them infiltrate & murder in Maegor's. But why would they do that & they wouldn't necessarily have known of that anyway, if it was the case ... Perhaps Mysaria was the source instead). So, why would Daemon (& Rhaenyra) not have them seize Jaehaerys &/or Maelor alive (kill them if necessary), for the less heinous & far more politically advantageous act of taking them hostage?!

[Lord Corlys Velaryon]

@Lord Varys I'm not so sure we can say that Daemon did not tell anyone (i.e. Rhaenyra) what was going down to some greater degree than just "An eye for an eye, a son for a son. Lucerys shall be avenged." Or that Mysaria was the only one who made the actual details. The (high) likelihood that the initial intention to target the royals within Maegor's Holdfast suggests o/w. Perhaps also the above quote.

@Knight of the Winged Pig Murdering only six-year-old Jaehaerys just makes two-year-old Maelor the heir. Not much of a gain for the Blacks. If anything, killing both princes makes Aemond the wannabe-Daemon the heir of Aegon II & that means potential disunity for the Greens.

[Knight of the Winged Pig]

4 minutes ago, Lord Corlys Velaryon said:

@Knight of the Winged Pig Murdering only six-year-old Jaehaerys just makes two-year-old Maelor the heir. Not much of a gain for the Blacks. If anything, killing both princes makes Aemond the wannabe-Daemon the heir of Aegon II & that means potential disunity for the Greens.

Yeah, but Maelor is just a toddler, lords are less likely to fight for him in a situation where Aegon II dies or is severely incapacitated.

[Lord Corlys Velaryon]

19 minutes ago, Knight of the Winged Pig said:

Yeah, but Maelor is just a toddler, lords are less likely to fight for him in a situation where Aegon II dies or is severely incapacitated.

And Jaehaerys is only 6, hardly that much better. If anything, there's a longer regency with Maelor for powerful & ambitious lords to potentially exploit afterwards (as much as a long, difficult, & risky process that would be). And unless Aemond is killed or incapacitated, he's still around to not be helping the Greens cause at all (besides only partially to take Rhaenys & Meleys, along with Aegon & Sunfyre).

[Lord Varys]

2 hours ago, Lord Corlys Velaryon said:

@Lord Varys I'm not so sure we can say that Daemon did not tell anyone (i.e. Rhaenyra) what was going down to some greater degree than just "An eye for an eye, a son for a son. Lucerys shall be avenged." Or that Mysaria was the only one who made the actual details. The (high) likelihood that the initial intention to target the royals within Maegor's Holdfast suggests o/w. Perhaps also the above quote.

What we do know is that Daemon wrote one letter to Dragonstone where he used the eye-and-son- quote. That's it.

Rhaenyra was a wreck in the aftermath of her son's death. And Daemon didn't need her or anyone's approval anyway. He may have told her about the plot later, in another letter - or when they saw each other face to face in the Red Keep.

It seems that this whole thing was arranged pretty quickly. I find it reasonably plausible that Daemon actually wanted to target one of Alicent's sons - Aegon II and Aemond preferably, of course - but the henchmen Mysaria chose decided to go with one of Aegon's sons because that was all they could do.

If Daemon or Rhaenyra had been consulted in the matter - or even if Mysaria had known what Blood and Cheese could do (murdering Alicent, Helaena, and all her children along with, perhaps, Otto Hightower, too, who was sleeping in the apartments above Alicent) - then it is pretty likely that all those people would have been killed.

It was the weird sense of honor of Blood and Cheese - as well as their sadism - that led to the game with Helaena. Anyone properly thinking things through - or relating relating to the black fury and resentment in the hearts of Daemon and Rhaenyra - would have killed them all. Especially considering the political advantage Rhaenyra would have gained from all that.

They wouldn't even be forced to publicly admit that they were behind all that.

As to the guardsmen:

We are talking about the royal castle here. There was no reason to believe the queen and the king's children would be attacked by assassins in the king's own castle. One assumes that the Helaena and the children would have been granted Kingsguard protection if Aegon II hadn't been down to four Kingsguard knights.

[Lord Corlys Velaryon]

 

On 11/9/2017 at 11:35 PM, Lord Varys said:

What we do know is that Daemon wrote one letter to Dragonstone where he used the eye-and-son- quote. That's it.

We know that Daemon sent one raven from Harrenhal to Dragonstone on the subject of avenging Luke's murder, but not that it was necessarily only one, if perhaps that is most likely. Surely there would've been a number of ravens exchanged between the two strongholds during this time on the wider war, one or more could've included further correspondence on the revenge conspiracy. Gyldayn's not going to detail the whole process, not even in Fire & Blood, so there could've been more than one letter on the matter. We just don't know.

On 11/9/2017 at 11:35 PM, Lord Varys said:

Rhaenyra was a wreck in the aftermath of her son's death. And Daemon didn't need her or anyone's approval anyway. He may have told her about the plot later, in another letter - or when they saw each other face to face in the Red Keep.

Good point. That very likely rules out her being (directly) involved, but again & still, it's not a certainly w/o confirmation though.

On 11/9/2017 at 11:35 PM, Lord Varys said:

If Daemon or Rhaenyra had been consulted in the matter - or even if Mysaria had known what Blood and Cheese could do (murdering Alicent, Helaena, and all her children along with, perhaps, Otto Hightower, too, who was sleeping in the apartments above Alicent) - then it is pretty likely that all those people would have been killed.

Again, good point. It isn't airtight at all (particularly as Mysaria could easily know that both Daemon & Rhaenyra would want as many rival royals & Hightowers killed as possible, especially after the Greens attempted to murder Rhaenyra &/or her sons on Dragonstone, if she knew about that), but is the best way to explain how comparatively ineffective the Blood & Cheese plot was.

On 11/9/2017 at 11:35 PM, Lord Varys said:

Especially considering the political advantage Rhaenyra would have gained from all that.

Exactly. The whole thing really came to bite them in the ass too anyway, as such a heinous action easily could. But take out Aegon & Aemond, perhaps even only Aemond & the Hightowers, & the war is near enough over. The rest is likely just technicalities & finalising. Without a dragon like Vhagar (& even then, by oneself), Daeron wouldn't be able to gather/retain enough support for the Greens, whether he would be made heir by the assassinations or still not. Particularly as Helaena (if she was even still alive) doesn't seem to have been overly keen on taking an active part in the war - not flying over KL with Aegon after their coronation, not being sent as an envoy to the Riverlands, Vale, &/or North, not joining in the Crownlands campaign (whilst not even being ready to defend the city in the absence of her brothers), or attempting to join Daeron in Oldtown after Aemond & Cole enacted their most ridiculous plan.

On 11/9/2017 at 11:35 PM, Lord Varys said:

We are talking about the royal castle here. There was no reason to believe the queen and the king's children would be attacked by assassins in the king's own castle. One assumes that the Helaena and the children would have been granted Kingsguard protection if Aegon II hadn't been down to four Kingsguard knights.

Problem is we know that kings, Hands, & some queens (especially if not Targaryen themselves) had their own household guards. Alicent's lack of protection can be (partially) hand-waved by Blood & Cheese coming out of the secret passage close enough to her, but the Queen & her three children only being escorted & protected by one guard is utterly ludicrous, imo. It's one of many examples of GRRM's fingers on the scales against the Greens (tbf, there was some to the Blacks too), that really doesn't make sense. And where is Helaena's maids & servants & septa/s, especially with three royal kids in tow. She should've had several women with her most of the time, including at exactly this moment. The Hightowers are one of the richest & most powerful families in the realm, as well as the ones most entrenched in & controlling Viserys I's court. It was war & the Hightowers knew better than anyone what Daemon & Rhaenyra were & could be capable of. They were expecting an attack on the capital at any time. Sorry, it just doesn't fly at all.

[HexMachina]

1 hour ago, Lord Corlys Velaryon said:

 

We know that Daemon sent one raven from Harrenhal to Dragonstone on the subject of avenging Luke's murder, but not that it was necessarily only one, if perhaps that is most likely. Surely there would've been a number of ravens exchanged between the two strongholds during this time on the wider war, one or more could've included further correspondence on the revenge conspiracy. Gyldayn's not going to detail the whole process, not even in Fire & Blood, so there could've been more than one letter on the matter. We just don't know.

Good point. That very likely rules out her being (directly) involved, but again & still, it's not a certainly w/o confirmation though.

Again, good point. It isn't airtight at all (particularly as Mysaria could easily know that both Daemon & Rhaenyra would want as many rival royals & Hightowers killed as possible, especially after the Greens attempted to murder Rhaenyra &/or her sons on Dragonstone, if she knew about that), but is the best way to explain how comparatively ineffective the Blood & Cheese plot was.

Exactly. The whole thing really came to bite them in the ass too anyway, as such a heinous action easily could. But take out Aegon & Aemond, perhaps even only Aemond & the Hightowers, & the war is near enough over. The rest is likely just technicalities & finalising. Without a dragon like Vhagar (& even then, by oneself), Daeron wouldn't be able to gather/retain enough support for the Greens, whether he would be made heir by the assassinations or still not. Particularly as Helaena (if she was even still alive) doesn't seem to have been overly keen on taking an active part in the war - not flying over KL with Aegon after their coronation, not being sent as an envoy to the Riverlands, Vale, &/or North, not joining in the Crownlands campaign (whilst not even being ready to defend the city in the absence of her brothers), or attempting to join Daeron in Oldtown after Aemond & Cole enacted their most ridiculous plan.

Problem is we know that kings, Hands, & some queens (especially if not Targaryen themselves) had their own household guards. Alicent's lack of protection can be (partially) hand-waved by Blood & Cheese coming out of the secret passage close enough to her, but the Queen & her three children only being escorted & protected by one guard is utterly ludicrous, imo. It's one of many examples of GRRM's fingers on the scales against the Greens (tbf, there was some to the Blacks too), that really doesn't make sense. And where is Helaena's maids & servants & septa/s, especially with three royal kids in tow. She should've had several women with her most of the time, including at exactly this moment. The Hightowers are one of the richest & most powerful families in the realm, as well as the ones most entrenched in & controlling Viserys I's court. It was war & the Hightowers knew better than anyone what Daemon & Rhaenyra were & could be capable of. They were expecting an attack on the capital at any time. Sorry, it just doesn't fly at all.

Helaena was just making a routine personal visit to her mother’s chambers with her children though, I don’t think it so unusual she would do so without being accompanied by maids and septas. If they were expecting any kind of service (food, drink etc) it would fall to their host (I.e. Alicent) to provide it from her own maids and such. It’s hard to think of comparable situations form the novels because those I do th8nk of are unusual for various reasons (e.g. Catelyn visits Hoster alone...but that is in the midst of a war, and she would have not maids anyway). But if memory serves me, Cersei and Tyrion sometime visit family or other nobles on their own, without any acc9mpanying maids or servants.

As for guards, they are in the royal stronghold and, more specifically, the Tower of the Hand. Doubtless there were plenty of guards outside the tower to ensure the protection of those within. Blood and Cheese simply bypassed these by way of the secret passages, knowing that the guard inside the tower itself would be very scarce.

[Lord Varys]

On 11.11.2017 at 0:53 PM, Lord Corlys Velaryon said:

We know that Daemon sent one raven from Harrenhal to Dragonstone on the subject of avenging Luke's murder, but not that it was necessarily only one, if perhaps that is most likely. Surely there would've been a number of ravens exchanged between the two strongholds during this time on the wider war, one or more could've included further correspondence on the revenge conspiracy. Gyldayn's not going to detail the whole process, not even in Fire & Blood, so there could've been more than one letter on the matter. We just don't know.

Which is the reason why we should not speculate that there was a 'revenge conspiracy going on there. Ravens take their time, too, and we do know that the 'war of quills and ravens' ended at Storm's End with Lucerys' death. That was when the really bloody war began, and one assumes they didn't waste all that much with plotting and planning.

Aemond opened the real hostilities at Storm's End, Daemon retaliated with Blood and Cheese, and then Ser Criston likely tried to strike back in kind with his Cargyll infiltration plot. But that would have been around the same time as the first real battles were fought - in the Riverlands, the Reach, the Crownlands, etc.

On 11.11.2017 at 0:53 PM, Lord Corlys Velaryon said:

Good point. That very likely rules out her being (directly) involved, but again & still, it's not a certainly w/o confirmation though.

Even if there were other letters explaining what the cryptic eye-son quote meant it wouldn't have been Rhaenyra reading and/or responding to such letters. It would have been someone else, most likely Jacaerys. But then - Daemon isn't the kind of guy who asks anyone for permission. He heard of Luke's death and most likely sent word to Mysaria around the same time he informed Dragonstone about his revenge plans.

On 11.11.2017 at 0:53 PM, Lord Corlys Velaryon said:

Again, good point. It isn't airtight at all (particularly as Mysaria could easily know that both Daemon & Rhaenyra would want as many rival royals & Hightowers killed as possible, especially after the Greens attempted to murder Rhaenyra &/or her sons on Dragonstone, if she knew about that), but is the best way to explain how comparatively ineffective the Blood & Cheese plot was.

I assume the Cargyll thing happened later. It may be what triggered Jace's decision to send Aegon and Viserys to Pentos. The fact that Mysaria sent only two guys into the castle indicates that this was more some sort of smaller scale assassination thing, and definitely not planned as a large scale slaughter of the entire royal family.

Blood and Cheese sneaked into the castle, spied on the habits of the royal family, and then settled on the Helaena-Alicent weakness there. The original idea might have been to shadow Aegon II - which they apparently did for a time - or Aemond (assuming he was already back, which apparently wasn't the case) and then just stab him to death or something when an opportunity presented itself.

That they could target Alicent and Helaena and her children really hinged on Alicent moving from Maegor's to the Tower of the Hand - something that Daemon - and perhaps even Mysaria - might not have been aware at that point. And even if they knew - Cheese is the one who had the knowledge of the tunnels, not Mysaria and Daemon (and we don't even know if he knew he could get in all the rooms in the Tower of the Hand or whether they only figured that out while they were crawling around behind the walls). The details of that plot lay very much in the hands of the assassins. 

On 11.11.2017 at 0:53 PM, Lord Corlys Velaryon said:

Exactly. The whole thing really came to bite them in the ass too anyway, as such a heinous action easily could. But take out Aegon & Aemond, perhaps even only Aemond & the Hightowers, & the war is near enough over. The rest is likely just technicalities & finalising. Without a dragon like Vhagar (& even then, by oneself), Daeron wouldn't be able to gather/retain enough support for the Greens, whether he would be made heir by the assassinations or still not. Particularly as Helaena (if she was even still alive) doesn't seem to have been overly keen on taking an active part in the war - not flying over KL with Aegon after their coronation, not being sent as an envoy to the Riverlands, Vale, &/or North, not joining in the Crownlands campaign (whilst not even being ready to defend the city in the absence of her brothers), or attempting to join Daeron in Oldtown after Aemond & Cole enacted their most ridiculous plan.

Even if it wouldn't have ended the war, it would have greatly weakened the position of the Greens. And, quite frankly, the smartest way would have been to take out Helaena, Alicent, and Otto and leave the children alive. They were no real danger. And Jaehaerys and Maelor would never get the throne anyway, not while Aemond was alive. At least not if Aegon II had died while his sons were still children.

On 11.11.2017 at 0:53 PM, Lord Corlys Velaryon said:

Problem is we know that kings, Hands, & some queens (especially if not Targaryen themselves) had their own household guards. Alicent's lack of protection can be (partially) hand-waved by Blood & Cheese coming out of the secret passage close enough to her, but the Queen & her three children only being escorted & protected by one guard is utterly ludicrous, imo. It's one of many examples of GRRM's fingers on the scales against the Greens (tbf, there was some to the Blacks too), that really doesn't make sense. And where is Helaena's maids & servants & septa/s, especially with three royal kids in tow. She should've had several women with her most of the time, including at exactly this moment. The Hightowers are one of the richest & most powerful families in the realm, as well as the ones most entrenched in & controlling Viserys I's court. It was war & the Hightowers knew better than anyone what Daemon & Rhaenyra were & could be capable of. They were expecting an attack on the capital at any time. Sorry, it just doesn't fly at all.

@HelenaExMachina already addressed that. We see the Lord Regent Kevan Lannister visiting the Grand Maester without any retinue. These people are within the royal castle, after all, a place where they are safe.

Now, we get the impression that this thing was a private visit during which Helaena's children basically wished their royal grandmother a good night. That seems to have been some sort of tradition - Helaena and the children also visited Viserys I as their last visit seems to indicate - and until Alicent's move to the Tower of the Hand the whole thing would have taken place within Maegor's - where Alicent and her children and grandchildren lived.

There would have been no reason for them to bring a big retinue with them - they had some guardsmen, and perhaps even some more down at the entrance of the tower.

Remember how neither Ned nor Tyrion or Tywin their guardsmen with them inside their actual living quarters.