Blood and Cheese: the question nobody seems to ask

[Canon Claude]

The famous story goes that in revenge for his great-nephew’s murder during the dance of dragons, Daemon Targaryen sends two men from Flea Bottom to infiltrate the Red Keep. Their nicknames are Blood and Cheese, and they not only take Queen Alicent unawares, they bind and gag her and hold Queen Helaena hostage and force her to choose which son of hers will die. 

But my question is this: if Daemon was serious about winning the war, why not just have all of them killed??

Alicent, Helaena, Maelor, Jahaerys, and Jahaera dead would have seriously crippled the greens’ cause. Sure, it’s cold blooded murder, but Daemon didn’t care about doing that, so it wouldn’t have mattered to him if all of them were killed. 

[Lord Varys]

We have discussed this when TPatQ came out already. My personal guess was and still is that things may have gotten confused there. Daemon sent a message to Mysaria to exact his revenge, and Mysaria then hired thugs to execute Daemon's wishes. Depending how exactly the original message was it may have been that the 'a son for a son' thing was supposed to refer to one of Alicent's nor Aegon II's sons, meaning that Blood and Cheese's original targets may have been Aegon II and Aemond (the only sons of Alicent's in the castle at the time). This is implicitly hinted at by Gyldayn when he mentions that there is uncertainty about it what their original purpose before they settled on Helaena's children once they realized they could easily attacked during their daily visit in the Tower of the Hand.

It seems clear to me that those men did not, in fact, get back to Mysaria (or even Daemon) once they realized what an opportunity they had there. Had Daemon known he would have most likely commanded them to kill them all - Alicent, Helaena, and all her children - and possibly Otto Hightower, too, considering that he was just one floor above his daughter and his apartments could be infiltrated as well.

Rather it seems Mysaria hired them, they went into the castle, tried for a time to get close to Aegon II (and Aemond), failed to do that because they were living in Maegor's Holdfast (where there are no secret passageways aside from the king's very own escape route, unconnected to the others), and because Aegon II was always accompanied by his Kingsguard. And Aemond, being as a competent a warrior as he was, may have been too impressive for them to actually attack him somewhere in the castle in the open. They may have been able to do that, but there would have been no guarantee that they would succeed, especially not undetected, greatly decreasing their chances of escape. Thus they settled on the Helaena plan because that was all they could do. That decision was likely made because they could not afford/were not willing to return with empty hands to Mysaria.

But it is clear that they weren't exactly operatives who cared about the overall purpose of the war nor were they able to grasp the strategic advantage the Blacks could have gained had they just taken out both Alicent and Otto. That could, on the long run, have lead to the collapse of the entire Green cause. An Aegon II or Aemond without the guidance/support of their mother and grandfather may have made much more crucial mistakes much earlier in the war.

They were in this thing for the money they expected to receive.

[Floki of the Ironborn]

2 hours ago, Canon Claude said:

The famous story goes that in revenge for his great-nephew’s murder during the dance of dragons, Daemon Targaryen sends two men from Flea Bottom to infiltrate the Red Keep. Their nicknames are Blood and Cheese, and they not only take Queen Alicent unawares, they bind and gag her and hold Queen Helaena hostage and force her to choose which son of hers will die. 

But my question is this: if Daemon was serious about winning the war, why not just have all of them killed??

Alicent, Helaena, Maelor, Jahaerys, and Jahaera dead would have seriously crippled the greens’ cause. Sure, it’s cold blooded murder, but Daemon didn’t care about doing that, so it wouldn’t have mattered to him if all of them were killed. 

As you said, it would have been cold blooded murder. Imagine how Rhaenyra would have looked if she got her victory by slaughtering women and children through hired assassins? The very fact that she had Jahaerys murdered was a stain on her reputation, as was Prince Maelor's even though she had nothing to do with that. 

Absolute monarchy is one thing, but a basic level of good PR is still needed.

[The hairy bear]

I think at this point of the war it would have been a bad idea to murder three innocent kids, and two well-liked women.

In those initial stages of the war, people could not know how the war would be resolved. It was a real possibility that somehow most of the lords of the realm would agree to celebrate a Great Council to decide on the matter. In this case, indiscriminate children murder wouldn't do great for Rhaenyra's chances.

Even if there wasn't a Great Council, both claimants had to gain the support of as many lords as possible to win the war. If one side was seen to engage in unnecessary brutality and cruel violations of rules of war, finding supports would become more complicated. If all the kids and women in the Red Keep had been murdered, I don't see Elmo Tully defying his father to support Rhaenyra.

"A son for a son" could be easily justified in the eyes of the public, specially if it was in retribution. "A whole family including women and children for a son" may have been a PR debacle for Rhaenyra's cause.

[Lord Varys]

War was inevitable when Aemond murdered Lucerys. There was no possible peaceful resolution to the conflict after that.

[Ran]

12 minutes ago, The hairy bear said:

"A son for a son" could be easily justified in the eyes of the public, specially if it was in retribution. "A whole family including women and children for a son" may have been a PR debacle for Rhaenyra's cause.

I agree. It was cold-blooded revenge that was Daemon's motive, an "eye for an eye" situation in a vendetta, rather than ruthless politics. People understand feuds, and people certainly understand to some degree the "right to vengeance" which can be used to strike at ancillary figures simply because they are related to perpetrators of a misdeed.

As gross as the murder of a child may be, though, the murder of multiple children, and women to boot, would shift it from any plausible connection to vengeance to being the most brutal sort of political assassination. Which, you may rightly think, probably didn't matter so much to Westeros-at-large... but the only person who matters in this is the person ordering it, and how he thought about it.

[Paxter Redwyne]

Daemon Targaryen suggested wiping out Lannisters and Baratheons and gave their lands to Ulf and Hugh because of their support of Aegon II. I don't think this man cared much about morals.

I think, as Lord Varys said, that they probably killed Jaehaerys because they were unable to kill any of Alicent's sons. Killing him already severely damaged blacks reputation. After all, he was only six years old, while Lucerys was fourteen and it could be argued that he died in the battle.

[Ran]

That exchange -- between Rhaenyra, Daemon, and Corlys -- is one of those cases where we have quoted dialogue and yet no clear idea of what the source is supposed to be. Orwyle was not present, being in the dungeon. It does not seem to be some open court session, so no Eustace. Mushroom claims he was around for all these sorts of things, and generally his picture of Daemon tends to the sinister and bloodthirsty. It might be a council session, recorded by someone... but it could be no more than gossip, and may be a claim to discussions going on that the creator of Gyldayn's source believed but couldn't prove.

So, I don't know that I buy that it can be taken at a given that Daemon advocated, rather randomly, for completely wiping out two Great Houses to reward two dragonriders.  I don't even see the sense of his picking the Lannisters as a target. Yes, they were fighting against them, but the Lannisters did nothing infamous or especially outrageous in their conduct of their opposition. I can see Daemon having a grudge for Borros, given the death of Luke, but going after the Lannisters seems like an enormous leap. Surely, if he were that bloody-minded, he'd be suggesting the Hightowers and Oldtown, not the Lannisters and Casterly Rock?

And anyways, just a few pages earlier Daemon argued (according to Munkun, whom we're told is the source of this information) for a much more modest reward of Stokeworth and Rosby. It seems bizzare for Daemon to advocate for marriages to created-heiresses of minor houses as a reward. to wiping out entirely families of two Great Houses to give them seats.

It almost feels like someone heard that Daemon had advocated giving lordships to Hugh and Ulf, and then through the rumor mill it grew into an enormity.

[lysmonger]

3 minutes ago, Ran said:

That exchange -- between Rhaenyra, Daemon, and Corlys -- is one of those cases where we have quoted dialogue and yet no clear idea of what the source is supposed to be. Orwyle was not present, being in the dungeon. It does not seem to be some open court session, so no Eustace. Mushroom claims he was around for all these sorts of things, and generally his picture of Daemon tends to the sinister and bloodthirsty. It might be a council session, recorded by someone... but it could be no more than gossip, and may be a claim to discussions going on that the creator of Gyldayn's source believed but couldn't prove.

So, I don't know that I buy that it can be taken at a given that Daemon advocated, rather randomly, for completely wiping out two Great Houses to reward two dragonriders.  I don't even see the sense of his picking the Lannisters as a target. Yes, they were fighting against them, but the Lannisters did nothing infamous or especially outrageous in their conduct of their opposition. I can see Daemon having a grudge for Borros, given the death of Luke, but going after the Lannisters seems like an enormous leap. Surely, if he were that bloody-minded, he'd be suggesting the Hightowers and Oldtown, not the Lannisters and Casterly Rock?

And anyways, just a few pages earlier Daemon argued (according to Munkun, whom we're told is the source of this information) for a much more modest reward of Stokeworth and Rosby. It seems bizzare for Daemon to advocate for marriages to created-heiresses of minor houses to wiping out entirely families.

It almost feels like someone heard that Daemon had advocated giving lordships to Hugh and Ulf, and then through the rumor mill it grew into an enormity.

That sounds right. Daemon also knows Casterly rock is impossible to take even with dragons.  This is weird. Daemon knows all of the major lords at Kingslanding are hostage to the blood oath suggested by Larys Strong. He also knows most of their position of bargaining and performing a grand council was destroyed when Aemond killed Luke. 

[lysmonger]

This begets a question, why werent any of Daemons bastards allowed a shot to ride the Dragons. Rhaenyra knew about his bastards, why werent they the first ones up to try Seasmoke and Silverwing.

[Lord Varys]

Daemon clearly would have commanded Blood and Cheese to take out Otto, Alicent, Helaena, Jaehaerys, Jaehaera, and Maelor had he been informed what Mysaria's assassins could have done. Even if the slaughtering of the children and Helaena may have given him pause, it seems pretty clear to me that he would have wanted Otto and Alicent both to be dead - it would have greatly helped his overall plan to goad Aegon II into a rash attack. The way Otto is described in FaB chances are not that bad that this man could have actually caused great problems for the Blacks had his stupid grandson allowed him to continue as Hand. And the longstanding enmity of Otto and Daemon is mentioned repeatedly, so there is sufficient information for that.

That the assassins limited themselves to just one dead prince, implies they were just hired for one kill, as they said to Helaena, and that makes it clear that Daemon had originally had no idea how close such assassins could get to the prominent Greens. His original idea may have been to murder Aegon II or Aemond during a walk/ride in the city (which should have been rather easy while Aegon II was at his revels).

We get a similar conundrum with Arryk Cargyll's mission on Dragonstone, but the gist there just as with the Blood and Cheese episode seems to be that the man wasn't supposed to just kill one or two people but to actually do his best to end the war in a stroke by taking out Rhaenyra and her sons. Then the Black cause would quickly evaporate. Taking out only Rhaenyra or only her sons would have little more than symbolic value. Rhaenyra would continue to fight if she survived, just as her claim would pass to her living sons if only she would have been taken out. In that sense, assuming Ser Arryk had been able to successfully take out Rhaenyra or her two Velaryon sons, he would have likely not stopped there. He would have continued to put them all down so that his king and was finally safe again.

After all, Aegon II's plan before Arryk's mission was an open dragon attack on Dragonstone, and the objective the killing of Rhaenyra and her entire family, making it not exactly likely that Arryk was commanded to spare half of King Aegon's sworn enemies.

@Ran

While it is true we have no direct source confirmation for the exchange between Corlys, Daemon, and Rhaenyra, we do have a reference to both Mushroom and Eustace a few paragraphs before when the overall political situation after Maiden's Day is described. Furthermore, Corlys Velaryon himself lived through the Dance and may have repeatedly told anyone who wanted to hear of his repeated attempts to persuade the warring factions to make a peace - especially when he was making those repeated attempts to the Greens after Rhaenyra's death. And he hung out with Munkun during the first year of the Regency.

So the basics there - Corlys the Peacemaker and Daemon the Warmonger and Rhaenyra taking a middle ground between her consort and her Hand - seem to be about right to me.

There is also no reason to assume that this exchange actually took place behind closed doors. It could have taken place during an open court session with Rhaenyra sitting the Iron Throne and she and her advisers discussing the various reports and news about the developments elsewhere in the Realm - which are summarized by Gyldayn there, too.

Alicent most definitely humbles herself in front of the Iron Throne after she hears about Rhaenyra's decision to not spare the lives of her sons. This would have been a public event.

[Ran]

Again, we have a surprisingly similar situation described within a few pages, one that sounds pretty reasonable as an argument between two people, and one that then sounds absurdly exaggerated. We have quoted text in both, but one has an explicit sourcing, and the other does not. Even the pattern of these things are echoed, which feels exactly how incidents tend to be enlarged through rumors and second-hand accounts.

Before this alleged dialog, we have sources cited about the situation, yes. And then the dialog appears without citation. And then when Alicent hears of the plans and preparations -- clearly a different, and more public, occasion -- we once again have actual sourcing, both Eustace and Munkun being in agreement about the Alicent-Rhaenyra dialog.

It sure sounds to me like there's no clear source on that dialog, and just from internal consistency I see no way of making sense of Daemon thinking Stokeworth and Rosby were reasonable rewards to thinking that wiping out two Great Houses to reward them with their seats instead made more sense. It's certainly not that they _did_ anything, since between the time they get their knighthoods and lands and this alleged suggestion, they're involved in precisely nothing that would make them seem any substantially more loyal than they were earlier.

It makes a lot of sense if gossip, or Mushroom's unsupported account, has been placed here, and it has augmented or enlarged a very real debate that happened somewhat earlier.

[lysmonger]

16 minutes ago, Ran said:

Again, we have a surprisingly similar situation described within a few pages, one that sounds pretty reasonable as an argument between two people, and one that then sounds absurdly exaggerated. We have quoted text in both, but one has an explicit sourcing, and the other does not. Even the pattern of these things are echoed, which feels exactly how incidents tend to be enlarged through rumors and second-hand accounts.

Before this alleged dialog, we have sources cited about the situation, yes. And then the dialog appears without citation. And then when Alicent hears of the plans and preparations -- clearly a different, and more public, occasion -- we once again have actual sourcing, both Eustace and Munkun being in agreement about the Alicent-Rhaenyra dialog.

It sure sounds to me like there's no clear source on that dialog, and just from internal consistency I see no way of making sense of Daemon thinking Stokeworth and Rosby were reasonable rewards to thinking that wiping out two Great Houses to reward them with their seats instead made more sense. It's certainly not that they _did_ anything, since between the time they get their knighthoods and lands and this alleged suggestion, they're involved in precisely nothing that would make them seem any substantially more loyal than they were earlier.

It makes a lot of sense if gossip, or Mushroom's unsupported account, has been placed here, and it has augmented or enlarged a very real debate that happened somewhat earlier.

Can we make Daemon's alleged bastards to be propaganda, too? At the behest of Alicent Hightower?

[Ran]

Just now, lysmonger said:

Can we make Daemon's alleged bastards to be propaganda, too? At the behest of Alicent Hightower?

I wouldn't put it past people to impute numerous bastards on him without any real evidence, I suppose.

[lysmonger]

1 hour ago, Ran said:

I wouldn't put it past people to impute numerous bastards on him without any real evidence, I suppose.

Yeah but that still begets the question why weren't there? 

Could it be uber Targaryen dragonrider have trouble begetting children off westerosi women? 

What about the prospects Saera Targaryen's three bastards? I assume they stayed in Westeros for awhile perhaps even working in Jaeherys and Viserys government?  

[The Bard of Banefort]

This is just my own extrapolation, but I think we were supposed to infer that Daemon actually cared very much for his stepsons. We know he was a poor husband and a poor brother, but we're never told that he lacked as a father. We're never told that he was a particularly good father, either, but I think it makes for a better story if he motivated to protect his children (which could also explain why Baela was kept out of the fighting) as well as to win the throne. In this scenario, his murder of Jaehaerys would have been driven by grief and intended to inflict the same pain on Aegon.

I do wonder if, assuming my interpretation holds water, Jace's death is something that bonded him and Nettles together. We're briefly told that Nettles was distraught after Jace's death, so it could provide some basis for the beginnings of their relationship. 

[lysmonger]

3 minutes ago, The Bard of Banefort said:

This is just my own extrapolation, but I think we were supposed to infer that Daemon actually cared very much for his stepsons. We know he was a poor husband and a poor brother, but we're never told that he lacked as a father. We're never told that he was a particularly good father, either, but I think it makes for a better story if he motivated to protect his children (which could also explain why Baela was kept out of the fighting) as well as to win the throne. In this scenario, his murder of Jaehaerys would have been driven by grief and intended to inflict the same pain on Aegon.

I do wonder if, assuming my interpretation holds water, Jace's death is something that bonded him and Nettles together. We're briefly told that Nettles was distraught after Jace's death, so it could provide some basis for the beginnings of their relationship. 

He definitely knew of the SeaSnake's bastards. Then again why hadnt he developed a closer relationship with Saera Targaryen's bastards. He knew a storm was brewing for ten years and didnt do much to better his side's chances.

[The Bard of Banefort]

2 minutes ago, lysmonger said:

He definitely knew of the SeaSnake's bastards. Then again why hadnt he developed a closer relationship with Saera Targaryen's bastards. He knew a storm was brewing for ten years and didnt do much to better his side's chances.

I'm not sure what you mean here.

[lysmonger]

Daemon Targaryen knew all of the reliable dragonseeds for years.

[The Bard of Banefort]

Just now, lysmonger said:

Daemon Targaryen knew all of the reliable dragonseeds for years.

I only meant that Jace's death may have brought them closer together. Even if he knew Nettles prior to her taming Sheepstealer, I don't think he ever interacted with her much.