Winning the Game of Thrones: The Host of Characters and their Agendas (3 page)

Questions and Echoes:

     
Daenerys names her ships for Aegon’s dragons and likewise intends to arrive on Westeros and conquer it. She may need a Valyrian sword like Aegon’s Blackfyre to be her Lightbringer or battle the Others.

     
Aegon wed his sister Visenya, who was a warrior with a Valyrian steel sword called Dark Sister and gifts of sorcery. Jon Snow, a warrior of the Night’s Watch with warg magic himself may echo her. If so, Daenerys may also need a softer man to finish her triad and ride her dragons. Aegon’s other sister-wife, Rhaenys, was fun and playful, sensual and creative, with a love of music and poetry. Visenya crowned Aegon, and Rhaenys hailed him as king. The lords and knights cheered him but the small folk cheered the loudest.
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All this may come to pass for Daenerys, without her conquering the kingdoms one by one as her ancestor did. But whom will she choose for her two companions?

Targaryen History

The Dance of Dragons

The Dance of Dragons was a major civil war. King Viserys I Targaryen raised his only child, Princess Rhaenyra, to inherit. However, he then married again and had two sons and a daughter. Under the law of male primogeniture as practiced throughout Westeros (but not in Dorne) Viserys was expected to name his eldest son heir, not his eldest child. The Seven Kingdoms divided between Queen Rhaenyra and King Aegon II. The Targaryen family itself became divided, and dragon-rider battled dragon-rider over Westeros. Many dragons and younger scions of House Targaryen were slain. When Aegon and Rhaenyra battled at last, his dragon swallowed her, though her son (also named Aegon) continued the war. Joffrey chortles about this while showing Margaery around the Sept on the show. When Aegon II finally died in battle, Aegon III, Rhaenyra’s son, claimed the throne. The few remaining Targaryens and dragons after the war were sadly diminished. In Aegon III’s time, the last dragon died. Martin’s short stories note, “The summers have been shorter since the last dragon died, and the winters longer and crueler.”
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Since this time, the Targaryens have not allowed queens to inherit the throne – with this policy in place, Daenerys could rule through her husband or son but not in her own right. (King Robert and the Small Council note that Daenerys is only a threat if she bears a son, specifically). Of course, between the shattered, warring kingdoms and her fierce dragons and Unsullied, the people of Westeros may not hold to this law.

The Blackfyre Rebellion

About a century before the series, Aegon IV, on his death, legitimized all his bastards and bestowed Aegon the Conqueror’s sword Blackfyre on his bastard son Daemon (called the Black Dragon) instead of his trueborn son Daeron II (called the Red Dragon). “Some felt that the sword symbolized the monarchy, so the gift was the seed from which the Blackfyre Rebellions grew,” Martin explains.
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Daemon Blackfyre was joined by his half-brother, the bastard Aegor “Bittersteel” Rivers, while the bastard Brynden “Bloodraven” Rivers (named for his red birthmark like a raven) remained loyal to the King.

Finally, at the Battle of Redgrass Field, ten thousand men were killed including Daemon Blackfyre and his twin sons Aemon and Aegon. Bittersteel rallied the rebels and took out Bloodraven’s eye. Bittersteel escaped to the Free Cities with the sword Blackfyre and started the mercenary group known as the Golden Company. When he died, they dipped his skull in gold, the first of many, and swore they’d bring him home one day.

Bloodraven with his Targaryen sword Dark Sister, and his destiny served as the king’s spymaster for some time, famed for his warg-possessed “thousand eyes and one,” that, like Varys’ little birds, could be found spying in every corner of the kingdom. Later in life, Bloodraven joined the Night’s Watch. He becomes a major plot point in
A Dance with Dragons,
as does the Golden Company
…
it seems this war is still being fought.

One year after the battle, King Daeron’s sister Daenerys wed Prince Maron Martell, and Dorne entered the Seven Kingdoms. This Daenerys watched her children swimming in the Water Gardens of Dorne and realized common and royal were indistinguishable, all innocent and deserving of her protection. “It is an easy thing for the prince to call the spears, but in the end, the children pay the price” (V:510). Daenerys herself is learning this lesson across the sea in Slaver’s Bay.

A decade later, Daemon’s son, styling himself Daemon II Blackfyre, tried to raise a second rebellion, but Bloodraven, the king’s spymaster, prevented him. Ser Duncan the Tall and his squire, Egg, got wind of the plot and fought to aid the crown. By this point, the sword Blackfyre had vanished. After, there were three further Blackfyre rebellions, before their house was at last wiped out. The last of these, called the War of the Ninepenny Kings (fought under Aegon V), included such fighters as Ser Barristan Selmy, Jon Arryn, and Brynden the Blackfish.

Questions and Echoes:

     
The importance of Valyrian steel swords is emphasized here, of course. These swords may be able to kill the Others, to say nothing of being needed for the Lightbringer legend. Does either of these tales explain why they’re so prized? What are their powers?

     
Visenya, Aegon the Conqueror’s older sister, wielded Dark Sister, a fact Arya specifically mentions on the show. Bloodraven inherited it and likely carried Dark Sister to the North. Perhaps he knew he’d need it more than the Targaryens.

     
The Golden Company, formed of all the rebellious Targaryen bastards, still may have Blackfyre, sword of the king. If not, where is it? Will Daenerys, who’s also in the east, take it from them? Will their Targaryen blood prove significant?

     
What of Brightroar, the Lannister ancestral sword lost in Old Valyria?

     
Why did Bloodraven join the Night’s Watch? Was he curious about the White Walkers? Seeking the children of the forest? Or something else?