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The Golden Company And the Beggar King


James Arryn

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“Her brother Viserys had once feasted the captains of the Golden Company, in hopes they might take up his cause. They ate his food and heard his pleas and laughed at him. Dany had only been a little girl, but she remembered.”

-Danny, AFFC.

Much of the basis for presuming Young Griff is fAegon has always been based on the fact that he’s backed by the Golden Company, something the GC would never consider doing for a Targaryen. Now, even though I think fArgon might very well be a Blackfyre, Brightflame or some random boy with Valyrian features, I have also always found the ‘a dragon is still a dragon’ a very reasonable argument, especially after neither rule in Westeros. All Targ cadet branch legitimacy is premised on the Targaryen claim itself. Much like the Wars of the Roses, the BF rebellions have been a Cousins War. Now none of them sit the Iron Throne, and the enemy of my enemy...

Now, of course the Golden Company mocked and rejected Viserys. The assumption is that this proves they never planned to back him and just wanted, a free dinner? Possible, I guess, though I wonder why they bothered. Why, too, they didn’t kill both Targaryens, the last known in the world if their agenda remains as intact as ever. 

But on the other hand, everyone laughs at Viserys, especially when he talks about reclaiming the Iron Throne. Wouldn’t the GC doing what everyone else does be the more likely explanation for their laughter and rejection? As we saw at Volantis, even when JonConn is present they very openly debate the merits and risks of Young Griff and backing him, especially absent Daenerys Targaryen. It’s his own charisma and presence that fixes their manhoods to the sticking place. But the point are:

*the Golden Company at least met with Viserys previously to consider his proposal of enlisting them in his cause. 
*they demonstrated the dynamic of weighing the merits of a claimant based on his worth and the probability of success with YG, why not with Viserys?
* they considered the absence of another Targ (and her dragons) to be an argument against supporting YG’s claim.

And, too, many people in the GC expressed the desire to go home as their greatest motivation. Presumably this is even stronger now than back when Dany was just a little girl.

There’s a lot there to support the idea that the original GC raison d’être has been made irrelevant by Robert’s Rebellion, and history, too. for considering backing a Targ claimant and deciding based on his/her persona and likelihood of success being the primary determinant.

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Well anything said about the GC slighting Viserys in the past probably needs to be taken with a grain of salt the size of Dragonstone. They obviously did dine with him, so they were willing to entertain him as a possibility. It's equally likely he went in there with "I am the dragon, now serve me" talk and they just told him where to go and how to get there. Since he is literally a beggar king. That's probably the key difference between (f)Aegon and Viserys right there. One wins over the men he means to lead, the other feels he can talk down to them by default. I still think Illyrio would've fixed up the GC to follow Viserys if he wasn't crowned prematurely by Drogo. Whatever else you can say about Viserys, he's a Targaryen claimant with an unquestionable claim. Sure Illyrio would have issues controlling Viserys, but that's been the issue with Dany and even (f)Aegon.

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The Golden Company are no longer die-hard Blackfyre supporters these days. They do have an existing contract with Illyrio to aid the Targaryens but Viserys didn't know this. They met with him as it was a new contract offer. He couldn't afford them though. The offer was presumably comically low. When Jon Connington and Aegon revealed themselves Illyrio's contract came into effect which is why they broke their contract with Myr.

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We don't know when exactly this happened, nor which captains Viserys III feasted or what he proposed. If this was still during Myles Toyne's era - who knew about the Aegon plan - then the interest may have been only very lukewarm, especially if Illyrio and Varys didn't yet know what to do with Viserys III and Dany at that point.

But it is clear that the Golden Company think the plan they were following involved them teaming up with Viserys III and his Dothraki as per Illyrio's plans, so they clearly were not completely opposed to work with Viserys III nor the Targaryens in general.

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The state of Westeros and therefore chances of victory were also very different at the time of the two meetings. 

When Viserys meets the GC, Westeros is united under a strong warrior king, any attack by the GC would seem unlikely to succeed .

Meanwhile by the time Aegon meets them, Westeros is divided and falling apart at the seams. As such victory would seem a lot more likely. 

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The Golden Company as a whole cannot think that Young Griff is a Blackfyre. There are ten thousand of them and ten thousand people cannot possibly keep a secret. So on a literal level, they must think supporting a Targaryen pretender is fine, whether because "a dragon is a dragon" or because anyone who could reward them with land and titles would be worth a shot.

(On the literary symbolism level, however...)

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The Golden Company is desperate for Westeros. And they may very well believe that fake Aegon is a Blackfyre. The chance to return home and earn themselves prizes is too appealing. But a sellsword company is loyal to coin. The danger for Aegon and company is getting betrayed for coin.  The Lannisters have more to offer.

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On 5/23/2021 at 12:45 PM, James Arryn said:

“Her brother Viserys had once feasted the captains of the Golden Company, in hopes they might take up his cause. They ate his food and heard his pleas and laughed at him. Dany had only been a little girl, but she remembered.”

-Danny, AFFC.

Much of the basis for presuming Young Griff is fAegon has always been based on the fact that he’s backed by the Golden Company, something the GC would never consider doing for a Targaryen. Now, even though I think fArgon might very well be a Blackfyre, Brightflame or some random boy with Valyrian features, I have also always found the ‘a dragon is still a dragon’ a very reasonable argument, especially after neither rule in Westeros. All Targ cadet branch legitimacy is premised on the Targaryen claim itself. Much like the Wars of the Roses, the BF rebellions have been a Cousins War. Now none of them sit the Iron Throne, and the enemy of my enemy...

Now, of course the Golden Company mocked and rejected Viserys. The assumption is that this proves they never planned to back him and just wanted, a free dinner? Possible, I guess, though I wonder why they bothered. Why, too, they didn’t kill both Targaryens, the last known in the world if their agenda remains as intact as ever. 

But on the other hand, everyone laughs at Viserys, especially when he talks about reclaiming the Iron Throne. Wouldn’t the GC doing what everyone else does be the more likely explanation for their laughter and rejection? As we saw at Volantis, even when JonConn is present they very openly debate the merits and risks of Young Griff and backing him, especially absent Daenerys Targaryen. It’s his own charisma and presence that fixes their manhoods to the sticking place. But the point are:

*the Golden Company at least met with Viserys previously to consider his proposal of enlisting them in his cause. 
*they demonstrated the dynamic of weighing the merits of a claimant based on his worth and the probability of success with YG, why not with Viserys?
* they considered the absence of another Targ (and her dragons) to be an argument against supporting YG’s claim.

And, too, many people in the GC expressed the desire to go home as their greatest motivation. Presumably this is even stronger now than back when Dany was just a little girl.

There’s a lot there to support the idea that the original GC raison d’être has been made irrelevant by Robert’s Rebellion, and history, too. for considering backing a Targ claimant and deciding based on his/her persona and likelihood of success being the primary determinant.

This brief recollection, which was written in Dance after the George figured out his Blackfyre subplot, doesn't really "prove" anything. If it did, there would be no reason for the countless pages spent on the Blackfyre debate in this forum. It could be, as you suggest, intended simply to reinforce the notion that Viserys was laughable. But why waste time in Dance to reinforce what we already know about a character killed back in Game? Yes, it does show that the Golden Company were clearly willing to listen, at the very least, to the Targaryen heir. Keep in mind, though, that the feast was most likely brokered and hosted by some other patron prior to Illyrio getting involved directly, so we don't know what the politics were behind that, or if the politics behind that feast even matter to the plot. 

Listen to the storyteller... After Feast, we got the third installment of the tales of Dunk and Egg, which told the story of the Second Blackfyre Rebellion. That was a lot of backstory on the Blackfyre history--first hinted at in Storm, and then elaborated on in Feast--but since Barristan extinguished the Blackfyres when he slew Maelys, we still had no compelling reason to suspect that Illyrio was plotting to install a Blackfyre. 

We did know that Varys and Illyrio were working to install a claimant other than one of the Targlings on the Iron Throne, but we could still only guess at who that other claimant might be.

Based on what we knew before Dance, that claimant would most likely be Rhaegar's son Aegon, or perhaps an imposter posing as Rhaegar's son. The next most likely possibility at that point was a descendant of Aerion's son, who, we learned, was passed over for Aegon the Unlikely. A descendant of Rhaenrya Targaryen was another possibility, but she was only mentioned once. 

That changed when we read Tyrion II, Dance 5. 

In Tyrion I, Dance 1, we saw that Varys had sent Tyrion off to his master Illyrio. This appeared to have been spur of the moment since Jaime compelled him to do it. 

Tyrion described a statue in Illyrio's manse of a boy of 16, blonde, lithe, and handsome, holding a sword that shimmered like "true steel." Later, in Tyrion II we would learn that this was crafted when Illyrio was 16. (So, Tyrion can guess ages after all. ;))

Tyrion found a chest of clothes for a young boy that Illyrio had stored with some care. And he found a cask of strongwine marked as the private stock of Lord Runceford Redwyne, the grandfather of the present Lord of the Arbor, suggesting a past or long time relationship between Illyrio's house and Redwyne. The color of the wine was "a purple so dark that it looked almost black in the dim-lit cellar." 

And we saw that Illyrio was sending the clever dwarf off to aid Daenerys, just as he sent Barristan. But if he was backing some other claimant, why was he giving so much support to Daenerys? 

And then we read Tyrion II, Dance 5, and everything changed. 

Illyrio expected that Daenerys was on her way west with Barristan, and that she merely stopped in Slaver's Bay to aquire an army and take some spoils. He believed that she would have to pass Volantis, whether by land or sea, so that was where he was sending Tyrion to meet her. But they were going northeast to the Flatlands, and Tyrion noted that they should have traveled to Volantis by sea. We would find out why momentarily. 

Illyrio first told Tyrion that he was merely helping Daenerys to gain her birthright, but Tyrion noted that he gave her to Drogo. Although Illyrio admitted that he did not think the fearful, furtive girl would survive, he "grew pensive" when he said that, suggesting that he was genuinely concerned about her, but then we saw he was concerned about his investment, rather than the girl, when he told Tyrion that "Viserys might have undone years of planning," if Viserys had taken his sister's maidenhead. 

Next Illyrio told Tyrion that he helped Viserys because Viserys offered him Casterly Rock and the office of Master of Coin. Illyrio suggested that he was was doing it for coin, but the reason rang hollow when he admitted that he had no interest in leaving Pentos for Casterly Rock. And would replacing Petyr, Tyrion, and Gyles Rosby to become Master of Coin truly enhance Illyrio's wealth? Moreover, he waived it off completely in any case, expressing no concern as to whether Daenerys would make good on her brother's promises. 

But then he hinted at the real reason... that he had "debts of affection to repay." Even Tyrion noted that Illyrio had something more in this venture than coin or castles. 

Then, we get the backstory on Illyrio and Varys...

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"How is it that the Spider became so dear to you?"

"We were young together, two green boys in Pentos."

"Varys came from Myr."

"So he did. I met him not long after he arrived, one step ahead of the slavers. By day he slept in the sewers, by night he prowled the rooftops like a cat. I was near as poor, a bravo in soiled silks, living by my blade. Perhaps you chanced to glimpse the statue by my pool? Pytho Malanon carved that when I was six-and-ten. A lovely thing, though now I weep to see it."

"Age makes ruins of us all. I am still in mourning for my nose. But Varys …"

"In Myr he was a prince of thieves, until a rival thief informed on him. In Pentos his accent marked him, and once he was known for a eunuch he was despised and beaten. Why he chose me to protect him I may never know, but we came to an arrangement. Varys spied on lesser thieves and took their takings. I offered my help to their victims, promising to recover their valuables for a fee. Soon every man who had suffered a loss knew to come to me, whilst city's footpads and cutpurses sought out Varys … half to slit his throat, the other half to sell him what they'd stolen. We both grew rich, and richer still when Varys trained his mice."

"In King's Landing he kept little birds."

"Mice, we called them then. The older thieves were fools who thought no further than turning a night's plunder into wine. Varys preferred orphan boys and young girls. He chose the smallest, the ones who were quick and quiet, and taught them to climb walls and slip down chimneys. He taught them to read as well. We left the gold and gems for common thieves. Instead our mice stole letters, ledgers, charts … later, they would read them and leave them where they lay. Secrets are worth more than silver or sapphires, Varys claimed. Just so. I grew so respectable that a cousin of the Prince of Pentos let me wed his maiden daughter, whilst whispers of a certain eunuch's talents crossed the narrow sea and reached the ears of a certain king. A very anxious king, who did not wholly trust his son, nor his wife, nor his Hand, a friend of his youth who had grown arrogant and overproud. I do believe that you know the rest of this tale, is that not so?"

"Much of it," Tyrion admitted.

Surely, Illyrio was holding back critical details, but the storyteller was telling the reader what he wanted us to know early in Dance. 

And then we learned why they were headed for the Flatlands... Illyrio was taking Tyrion to Griff, a sellsword whom Illyrio said they could trust. And then...

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"The Golden Company marches toward Volantis as we speak, there to await the coming of our queen out of the east."

Beneath the gold, the bitter steel.

Immediately, we should have paused reading to recall what we read in the the Tales of Dunk and Egg, and most importantly this from The Soiled Knight, Feast 13...

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"Are you aware that the Golden Company has broken its contract with Myr?"

"Sellswords break their contracts all the time."

"Not the Golden Company. Our word is good as gold has been their boast since the days of Bittersteel. Myr is on the point of war with Lys and Tyrosh. Why break a contract that offered them the prospect of good wages and good plunder?"

"Perhaps Lys offered them better wages. Or Tyrosh."

"No," she said. "I would believe it of any of the other free companies, yes. Most of them would change sides for half a groat. The Golden Company is different. A brotherhood of exiles and the sons of exiles, united by the dream of Bittersteel. It's home they want, as much as gold. Lord Yronwood knows that as well as I do. His forebears rode with Bittersteel during three of the Blackfyre Rebellions." She took Ser Arys by the hand, and wove her fingers through his own. "Have you ever seen the arms of House Toland of Ghost Hill?"

He had to think a moment. "A dragon eating its own tail?"

"The dragon is time. It has no beginning and no ending, so all things come round again."

Apparently, Dance 1 occurs before Feast 13...

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"I had heard the Golden Company was under contract with one of the Free Cities."

"Myr." Illyrio smirked. "Contracts can be broken."

"There is more coin in cheese than I knew," said Tyrion. "How did you accomplish that?"

The magister waggled his fat fingers. "Some contracts are writ in ink, and some in blood. I say no more."

This mystery was getting really interseting... What did he mean by a contract writ in blood? Was it related to the debts of affection he had to repay? What was Illyrio's relationship with the Golden Company?

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The dwarf pondered that. The Golden Company was reputedly the finest of the free companies, founded a century ago by Bittersteel, a bastard son of Aegon the Unworthy. When another of Aegon's Great Bastards tried to seize the Iron Throne from his trueborn half-brother, Bittersteel joined the revolt. Daemon Blackfyre had perished on the Redgrass Field, however, and his rebellion with him. Those followers of the Black Dragon who survived the battle yet refused to bend the knee fled across the narrow sea, among them Daemon's younger sons, Bittersteel, and hundreds of landless lords and knights who soon found themselves forced to sell their swords to eat. Some joined the Ragged Standard, some the Second Sons or Maiden's Men. Bittersteel saw the strength of House Blackfyre scattering to the four winds, so he formed the Golden Company to bind the exiles together.

From that day to this, the men of the Golden Company had lived and died in the Disputed Lands, fighting for Myr or Lys or Tyrosh in their pointless little wars, and dreaming of the land their fathers had lost. They were exiles and sons of exiles, dispossessed and unforgiven … yet formidable fighters still.

"I admire your powers of persuasion," Tyrion told Illyrio. "How did you convince the Golden Company to take up the cause of our sweet queen when they have spent so much of their history fighting against the Targaryens?"

Illyrio brushed away the objection as if it were a fly.

A fly in the ointment, perhaps...

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"Black or red, a dragon is still a dragon. When Maelys the Monstrous died upon the Stepstones, it was the end of the male line of House Blackfyre." The cheesemonger smiled through his forked beard. "And Daenerys will give the exiles what Bittersteel and the Blackfyres never could. She will take them home."

And there it is. House Blackfyre did end through the male line as we learned way back in Storm, but the implication was that House Blackfyre had survived through the female line. 

And here is why I think the George included that recollection a few chapters later... to make the reader skeptical that home was all the Golden Company truly wanted. 

But Tyrion II, Dance 5 was not done. We got a little more of Illyrio's backstory...

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"A maiden? I know the way of that." Illyrio thrust his right hand up his left sleeve and drew out a silver locket. Inside was a painted likeness of a woman with big blue eyes and pale golden hair streaked by silver. "Serra. I found her in a Lysene pillow house and brought her home to warm my bed, but in the end I wed her. Me, whose first wife had been a cousin of the Prince of Pentos. The palace gates were closed to me thereafter, but I did not care. The price was small enough, for Serra."

"How did she die?" Tyrion knew that she was dead; no man spoke so fondly of a woman who had abandoned him.

"A Braavosi trading galley called at Pentos on her way back from the Jade Sea. The Treasure carried cloves and saffron, jet and jade, scarlet samite, green silk … and the grey death. We slew her oarsmen as they came ashore and burned the ship at anchor, but the rats crept down the oars and paddled to the quay on cold stone feet. The plague took two thousand before it ran its course." Magister Illyrio closed the locket. "I keep her hands in my bedchamber. Her hands that were so soft …"

Why was Serra important to the plot of ASOIAF and, more specifically, to the Second Dance of the Dragons? 

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"Sellswords will not stand against Dothraki screamers. That was proved at Qohor."

"Not even your brave Griff?" mocked Tyrion. "Griff is different. He has a son he dotes on. Young Griff, the boy is called. There never was a nobler lad."

Oh really? Why would Illyrio believe a sellsword's son was the most noble lad that ever lived? 

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The next evening they came upon a huge Valyrian sphinx crouched beside the road. It had a dragon's body and a woman's face.

"A dragon queen," said Tyrion. "A pleasant omen."

"Her king is missing." Illyrio pointed out the smooth stone plinth on which the second sphinx once stood, now grown over with moss and flowering vines.

Oho! That's why. At that point the reader could guess at Illyrio's motives... to put this most noble lad upon the Iron Throne. 

We could reasonably conclude that Aegon was descended from Daemon Blackfyre along the female line. But that's not "proven" or revealed. Aegon's identity is not certain. We still need to piece together the relationships among Illyrio, Varys, Jon Connington, Young Griff, and the Golden Company, and Daenerys's recollection a few chapters later is a piece in that puzzle. 

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