#aegon's conquest - fire and blood section

[branwinged]

Do you think Rhaenys truly loved Aegon as a husband? We know that Aegon loved her, but the text never offers any insight into her feelings. I don't think there’s anything that clearly states she loved him in return, at least romantically.

i'm not thinking about this to be honest, but you can believe whatever you want here. the text never offers any insight into rhaenys's feelings because fire and blood is presented as a medieval historical narrative/chronicle wherein all events are recounted from the viewpoint of male chroniclers. she adheres to conventional femininity and unlike visenya takes part in the private sphere of governance (patronage etc) so she was doing everything that was socially expected of a queen consort, her interiority is not considered important, her motivations don't need to be questioned. visenya in contrast, i think, gets a little more characterisation because she's considered something of an anomaly. rhaenyra gets a bit more than that (filtered through that same misogynistic lens) because she's vying for kingship. and beyond that the conquest section is just deliberately written that way to evoke the conquerers as distant, larger than life, mythic figures.

[marwyn]

listen i don't think fire and blood is a very good book but i find it so weird when show only fans are disrespect to fire and blood grrm like you wouldn't have a show without it settle down

Idt I’ve personally encountered that tbh, maybe because the people I follow are generally fans of GRRM’s but for his other work. On the subject though I will say that while I don’t care much for F&B on the whole I do like

The section about the Conquest

The section about Aegon III’s PTSD. Heart-wrenching!

[kazz-brekker]

in my head fire and blood is divided into three, sections "fun bit" (aegon's conquest and maegor's rule), "rage-inducing bit" (reign of jaehaerys) and "depressing bit" (the dance of the dragons)

[horizon-verizon]

The Targaryens were of pure Valyrian blood, dragonlords of ancient lineage. Twelve years before the Doom of Valyria (114 BC), Aenar Targaryen sold his holdings in the Freehold and the Lands of the Long Summer, and moved with all his wives, wealth, slaves, dragons, siblings, kin, and children to Dragonstone, a bleak island citadel beneath a smoking mountain in the narrow sea. At its apex Valyria was the greatest city in the known world, the center of civilization. Within its shining walls, twoscore rival houses vied for power and glory in court and council, rising and falling in an endless, subtle, oft savage struggle for dominance. The Targaryens were far from the most powerful of the dragonlords, and their rivals saw their flight to Dragonstone as an act of surrender, as cowardice. But Lord Aenar’s maiden daughter Daenys, known forever afterward as Daenys the Dreamer, had foreseen the destruction of Valyria by fire. And when the Doom came twelve years later, the Targaryens were the only dragonlords to survive. Dragonstone had been the westernmost outpost of Valyrian power for two centuries. Its location athwart the Gullet gave its lords a stranglehold on Blackwater Bay and enabled both the Targaryens and their close allies, the Velaryons of Driftmark (a lesser house of Valyrian descent) to fill their coffers off the passing trade. Velaryon ships, along with those of another allied Valyrian house, the Celtigars of Claw Isle, dominated the middle reaches of the narrow sea, whilst the Targaryens ruled the skies with their dragons. Yet even so, for the best part of a hundred years after the Doom of Valyria (the rightly named Century of Blood), House Targaryen looked east, not west, and took little interest in the affairs of Westeros. Gaemon Targaryen, brother and husband to Daenys the Dreamer, followed Aenar the Exile as Lord of Dragonstone, and became known as Gaemon the Glorious. Gaemon’s son Aegon and his daughter Elaena ruled together after his death. After them the lordship passed to their son Maegon, his brother Aerys, and Aerys’s sons, Aelyx, Baelon, and Daemion. The last of the three brothers was Daemion, whose son Aerion then succeeded to Dragonstone.

Fire and Blood, by George R.R. Martin pg 4-5

[sebeth]

The World Of Ice And Fire: The Pre-Conquest State of Westeros

Warning, Spoilers Ahead…

 I’ve mentioned that I have gone back and forth between “The World Of Ice And Fire” and “Fire & Blood” to cover the Targaryen sections. I grabbed “Rise of the Dragons” off my bookshelf – mainly to describe the beautiful artwork and discovered it has new information not seen in the previous two books.  “Rise of the Dragons” came out during the busiest part of my work year, so I quickly glanced at the pretty artwork and put it on my bookshelf, assuming it was simply a re-telling of “Fire & Blood” with no new text, which is not the case.

Here we go, the state of pre-Conquered Westeros, using all three sources for information:

“The Rise of the Dragons” opens with a two-page painting of Aegon, Visenya, Rhaenys, Orys, and Targaryen soldiers standing around the Painted Table at Dragonstone.

The next page is an illustration of Blackfyre, Dark Sister, four Targaryen crowns, and three dragon eggs.

The next illustration is an angry dragon head. The Illustration for the Preface is Valyria after the Doom followed by a two-page painting of the Field of Fire.

The Seven Kingdoms section has illustrations of a Westeros map, Argilac the Arrogant, the Lannister and the Westerlands army pre-Field of Fire, Torrhen Stark, and Meria Martell.

On to the Seven Kingdoms:

The Stormlands –

·         Centered around the rainwood and bordered by the Blackwater River, the Dornish Marches, and the Reach

·         First monarchs of the Stormlands were Durran Godsgrief and Eleni, a daughter of the gods

·         Bran the Builder built Storm’s End

·         House Durrandon has ruled for thousands of years

·         400 years before the Conquest, Arlan III Durrandon expanded the Stormlands by conquering the Riverlands

·         100 years before the Conquest, the Storm Kings lose the Riverlands after Harwyn Hoare, a king of the iron Islands, conquers the Riverlands

·         An attempt to regain the Riverlands resulted in King Arlan V Durrandon’s death

·         Argilac the Arrogant, son of Arlan V, becomes King of the Stormlands

·         Argilac the Arrogant’s reputation as a warrior grew when he threw back a Dornish invasion

·         Argilac joined an alliance with the Free Cities against Volantis

·         He also killed King Garse VII at the Battle of Summerhall

·         Argilac’s only heir is his daughter – Argella

 The Kingdom of the Isles and the Rivers –

·         The histories of Westeros state the Iron Islands were settled by First Men

·         The priests of the Drowned God insist the Ironborn were created in the image of their god

·         Long history or maritime activity – fishing, trading tin and iron ore, reaving and pillaging other kingdoms

·         The Iron Islands consist of thirty-one islands, including seven major inhabited ones

·         The Grey King ruled in the Age of Heroes, but no details remain of his reign

·         Each isle had a salt king and a rock king, each elected to their offices until the Drowned God priest Galon Whitestaff unifed the Iron Islands by electing a High King at the first kingsmoot

·         The era of the High Kings lasted centuries and was the apex of Ironborn power

·         The High Kings were referred to as the Driftwood Kings due to their wooden crowns

·         The reign of Qhored the Cruel saw the Ironborn controlling most of the western shore of Westeros

·         Urron Greyiron slaughtered his rivals at the last kingswood, establishing hereditary kingship

·         Centuries later House Hoare succeeded the Greyirons as Kings

·         King Harwyn “Hardhand” Hoare launched an invasion of the riverlands and drove out the Storm Kings

·         Harren “the Black” Hoare rules the united Kingdom of the Isles and the Rivers at the time of the conquest but had beggared his realm by building Harrenhal, an enormous castle fortress by the God’s Eye

 The Reach –

·         The second largest but most fertile and populous of the Seven Kingdoms

·         Bordered by the Westerlands, the Red Mountains of Dorne, and the Stormland Marches

·         Claims a connection to Garth Greenhand, the first “High King of all the First Men”

·         All the Reach house claim descent from a child of Garth

·         House Gardener established Highgarden as their seat

·         The Gardener Kings ruled their “Green Realm” for millenia

·         Weathered the Andal invasion by adopting their customs and making the Reach the place of chivalry and knighthood in Westeros

·         Mern IV Gardener was the King of the reach at the time of Aegon’s Conquest

·         Mern IV commands the greatest army in Westeros

 The Westerlands –

·         The Casterlys were ancient lords of the Westerlands until Lann the Clever gained control of Casterly Rock

·         Lann the Clever had a plentiful number of descendants but the most famous were the Lannisters, “who would carve out a kingdom from their seat at Casterly Rock”

·         The Lannisters first warred against the invading Andals but then used them as mercenaries to expand their realm – resulting in the Lannisters in control of the entirety of the Westerlands

·         “Many wars wracked the Seven Kingdoms before the Conquest and the Kings of the Rock were frequently at the center of these conflicts”

·         Lannisters starting wars? Shocking!

·         The Riverlands, the Iron Islands, and the Reach were their main rivals in war

·         Loren I Lannister was King of the Westerlands at the time of Aegon’s Conquest

 The Vale –

·         The Vale has been ruled by the Arryn Kings since the Andal Invasion of Westeros

·         Ser Artys Arryn defeated Robart II Royce at the Battle of the Seven Stars to become the High King of the Mountain and the Vale

·         The First Men who survived the Battle of the Seven Stars and refused to submit fled into the mountains, founding the mountain clans

·         House Arryn is the oldest and most pure of the Andal bloodlines

·         The Vale battled the North for centuries over control of the Three Sisters

 The North –

·         Largest but least populous kingdom in Westeros

·         Harsh climate, deadly winters

·         The Starks, Kings of Winterfell, united the petty kingdoms of the North through conquest and alliances

·         A list of the vanquished include: the Barrow Kings in the Thousands Years War, the Warg King, the Marsh Kings, and the Red Kings of House Bolton

·         The First Men of the North repelled the Andal invasion due to the leadership of the legendary King Theon Stark

·         The Starks were known as the Kings in the North and the Kings of Winter

·         Chief Enemies were the Ironborn, wilding raiders, and the Vale

·         The Vale conflict resulted in The War Across the Water

·         Torrhen Stark was the King in the North at the time of the Conquest

 Dorne –

·         A harsh land of wide deserts, dangerous coasts, and high mountains and three main rivers: Greenblood, Vaith, and Scourge

·         The First Men came over the land bridge that connected Essos to Westeros

·         The Andals made excursions into Dorne but never gained dominion

·         Dorne was an array of petty kingdoms for thousands of years

·         The strangest petty kingdom formed along the Greenblood where a dozen noble houses would elect a High King

·         Nymeria arrived in Dorne seven hundred years before the Conquest – she, along with Mors Martell, would unify Dorne into one kingdom

·         Women have equal status to men in inheritance laws

·         Frequently warred with the Reach and the Stormlands

·         Meria “the Yellow Toad” Martell is the ruler of Dorne at the time of the Conquest

 We end with more details on Dragonstone:

·         The Freehold of Valyria sent an expedition to seize Dragonstone two hundred years before the Doom

·         Dragonstone became the westernmost outpost of the Valyrian Freehold

·         The citadel of Dragonstone was raised by Valyrian magic

 The section ends with illustrations of Dragonstone and Balerion burning the Volantene fleet.

Up next: Aegon’s justifications for the conquest of Westeros.

[kallypsowrites]

Game of thrones: Conquest and Rebellion

I’m a happy camper this Christmas as I finally got Game of Thrones season 7 for myself. And I was surprised when it came with this beautiful little DVD that contains an over 40 minute history of the Targaryens in Westeros, narrated by several of the characters in Game of Thrones including: Viserys, Varys, Euron, Peytr Baelish, Sansa, and Jaime. I say characters and not actors because it is clearly supposed to be from the perspective of the characters and what they have learned about the history of the Targaryens.

Now, I was intrigued to watch this because I am actually midway through a big ol’ post on unreliable history in Fire and Blood. The basic thesis is that by telling the history of his world through the eyes of someone in that world, he makes it unreliable and biased and this is very much by design. I have my ideas about what is exagerated vs what is real in Fire and Blood, but I wanted to see how this video compared. Especially since it contains what the SHOW views as the most important notes in the Targaryen conquest.

And boy did it confirm my suspicions about unreliable history. In fact, hearing individual characters bring in their bias illustrated my thesis perfectly. But let’s talk about some of the highlights. Because I was surprised to see how the Targaryens were represented her.

1. Viserys suggests that the Targaryens may have left Old Valyria because of a court mishap and not the prophesy from ‘The Dreamer’. I have had my suspicions about some of the “prophetical” motivation behind the Targaryen conquest, because in large part it seemed like stories written to justify Aegon’s conquest. Like it’s his “destiny”. However, I never thought to question the idea of the dreamer foreseeing the doom of Valyria. Now, if this was from any other character’s narration I might call it unreliable and an attempt to discredit the Targaryens but this is Viserys, “number one Targaryen fanboy”, “my family is the best and like GODS among MEN” Targaryen. Even he thinks that perhaps the vision is just a story. At the very least, the vision wasn’t super clear as the Targaryens left a full twelve years before the Doom. Already the show seems to be calling attention to the fact that the Targaryens are just like everyone else.

2. This continues with the implication that Aegon conquered for resources and knew he could win because of dragons. This is also Viserys’ implication. He also makes a statement about Aegon “teaching the squabbling families the meaning of greatness” and it sounds very villainy. Again. This is Viserys who later on calls Maegar the cruel, “the wise” and says the title of cruel was slander! Viserys is 100% team Targaryen and yet he does not begin to make Aegon’s intentions sound noble. Even though the Targaryen history books are FILLED with that kind of thing. Viserys also calls them “strangers” to Westeros which follows the narrative of this being an invasion. in fact the next section is even TITLED ‘invasion’

After this, we switch to Varys’ narration. As a narrator, he’s probs the most trustworthy as he is the most neutral. And HE adds in the suggestion that Aegon used the hands of the envoy sent to him by Argilac the arrogant were just a PRETEXT for the conquest he’d been planning for a long time. He wanted to rule the seven kingdoms and was just looking for an excuse to attack. He also suggests that Argilac the arrogant was surpassed by Aegon in arrogance. Not a great picture painted of Aegon.

3. “Before he was done, the rivers fields and skies would turn red” -- Varys on Aegon the conqueror. Continues to speak of this man like a villain. in sharp contrast to the ‘noble conqueror’ painted in Fire and Blood. Speaking of which, Aegon is the one who comes up with the words ‘Fire and Blood’ according to this video, which definetily makes him seem like he was hoping for some casual mass murder.

4. Obviously, Harren the Black and Argilac the Arrogant sucked. Totally not coming to their defense. But how are their deaths portrated. Well, Euron is given the chance to describe the death of Harren and he is CLEARLY turned on by the destruction of his ancestors which is a bad sign. It’s description is horrifying and the animation is dark. Obviously if Euron likes it, its supposed to be kind of freaky.

Argilac, however, is given a heroic final battle seeming almost noble. Orys Baratheon, the most humanized of all the conquerors, seems to respect him enough to take his sigil and words “out of respect”. We’ll talk more about how the characters are drawn later, but there’s a big difference between Orys and Aegon.

5. Jaime describes the field of fire and he himself looks VERY MUCH like Lorren Lannister. He stresses that Aegon had “no mercy”. But its no surprise that he hates Targaryens cause they have a bad history. But still, the Field of Fire is shot like a horrifying war scene and the Targaryens are again depicted as the villain. Thousands return home as “scarred monsters”.

Favorite line “Aegon had a fetish for collecting swords”.

6. Sansa narrates the bits about House Stark and House Stark is indisputidly depicted as heroes. Now, this isn’t surprising. Sansa is loyal to her house. But she implies that the north was different than the other kingdoms because they were focused on survival not power. There is focus for a lot of time on the white walkers and how it is a Stark problem to deal with and they are a greater threat than dragons.

She puts emphasis on how Starks are willing to make alliances for survival, regadless of pride as well. She seems to respect Torrhen Stark’s decision to kneel saying ‘he had no choice’. Aegon was offering a very ‘kneel or die’ message after all. The Starks would have died if they did not bow. But their swords are still taken for the throne!

The most ominous bit is this:

“The swords Aegon took from them were not twisted or mangled” - Sansa

“Yet” - Viserys, very ominously

What an ominous thing to throw in there Viserys!

7. Most unsettling display of Targaryen villainy happens in the Eyrie, narrated by Littlefinger. Queen Arryn arrives to see that Visenya is with her son, next to her dragon. Visenya doesn’t say it, but she is fully threatening the boy. You can see it by her smile which is just...oof. It’s scary. She clearly intends to kill him if his mother doesn’t give the crown. She has “no choice” and Littlefinger describes him as a “poor boy”. Visenya is clear villain in this. This is in HUGE contrast to the two women apparently relating and connecting with each other in Fire and Blood.

8. Viserys mocks the “religious” reasons for old town’s surrender suggesting that they knelt because otherwise everyone would die. This once again undercuts the idea that the septon saw some grand purpose for Aegon which is suggested in Fire and Blood. The septon is just afraid, again, according to Viserys the number one Targaryen fanboy. Bonus: calls the north savages because Targaryens are better than everyone~~ He even calls the Targaryens the "Greatest dynasty ever.” when Aegon is crowned.

9. But after Aegon’s victory, the neutral Varys comes in to remind us of the Dorne failure. Rather than making Rhaenys seem unflapable and invincible as Fire and Blood did, Varys suggested that the yellow toad of Dorne SCARED Rhaenys. And later on, of course, Rhaenys gets taken down. Dorne really is painted as the heroic underdogs of this scene. and emphasis is placed on the fact that Aegon and Visenya set every city on fire except sunspear. If there HAD been people there, they would all be dead. Fire and Blood indeed.

10. We skip right from the conquest to the Dance of Dragons.

“With no enemies left they started fighting each other.” - Viserys

This defs doesn’t sound like the centuries of peace and prosperity that Dany talked about. This video is focused ENTIRELY on the wars of the Targaryens and not the good things or building of infrastructure. No mention of Jahaerys the concilitator at all. Instead we focus on Aegon, Maegar, the Dance, Aegon the Unworthy and the Mad King. All the very worst Targaryens. And there are lots of good things the Targaryens did! But instead of focusing on that, the show focuses on the war, which means they know that Dany’s line about “centuries of peace” is wrong.

Bonus, we have more of Viserys arguing for blood purity and that Targaryens are SPECIAL and that they would have been fine if Aegon didn’t legitimize so many dirty half breed bastards.

11. The greatest Targaryen threat, however, is madness (according to Jaime who saw the Mad King first hand). We bring up that line again: “Every time a Targaryen is born the gods flip a coin”

“We put up with Aerys hoping Rhaegar would be better but then he also proved mad when he took Lyanna Stark”

This does not place Rhaegar as the sane, good sibling most people do. Instead, it also paints him in a negative light. Which, this is Jaime, so take it with a grain of salt. But he actually never hated Rhaegar so yeah...

12. Jaime is so bitter about Ned condemning him and it’s kinda funny. I love Nikolaj narration

“I saw what Ned Stark couldn’t. Robert was ashamed of the bodies of the children... and more ashamed at his relief. Glorious heroes didn’t kill children. They simply didn’t punish their murderers” - Jaime being smart with one of my fave lines.

He clearly sees things as they are. He doesn’t like the Targaryens but he also doesn’t elevate Robert as a god. Jaime doesn’t believe in heroes and it shows here.

13. Then we end with a particularly ominous note.

“One day I’ll return and repay all traitors with the only coin my family knows. Fire and blood” - Viserys. 

These are the last words in the video. A threat. It really does not paint the Targaryens as tragic characters pushed out of their rightful throne.

And this is where I want to talk about the character drawings. Every pose from the original three dragons (Aegon and sisters) is the most villainous thing in the world and the music behind their conquest is intense and dark. Their faces are often lowered but with their eyes glaring up and shrouded in shadow. Their smiles are sharp. Their body language is arrogant. It is victims of the conquest like Lorren and Torrhen who are given more humanized designs.

On the Targaryen side of things, the most humanized design belongs to Orys Baratheon who has much kinder eyes and a more open expression. And the there’s Viserys and Daenerys at the end who look like scared children more than anything. But the Targaryen dynasty that is their birth right doesn’t appear to start out on a great foot.

This kinda all backs up my point that if Daenerys wants to break the wheel, she will have to reject and correct the legacy of her family. The show clearly does not view Aegon as a great hero. So if they mean for Daenerys to be a hero, I hope they have her recognize the history and take steps to correct it (maybe even destroy the iron throne, plz?) And if she doesn’t recognize her history or tries to emulate Aegon, she could be headed down a bad path.

I love the Targaryen family because, like lots of my favorite Westeros families, they are SCREWED UP and have lots of interesting characters, and I look forward to exploring them more in my Fire and Blood post. But if anything, this video just backs up my thesis about unreliable history and what Dany will have to do if she wants to be a good ruler. Break that wheel! It was forged in fire and blood!

[beyondmistland]

Analysis of Fire & Blood Volume 1′s Table of Contents!

Aegon’s Conquest (23 pages)

Reign of the Dragon-The Wars of King Aegon I (12 pages)

Three Heads Had the Dragon-Governnance Under King Aegon I (10 pages)

(That adds up to 45 pages, 100 if you include The Sons of the Dragon, either way it is disappointing that the largest section on just Aegon I is about the Conquest, which we already got the full account of in TWOIAF)

The Sons of the Dragon (55 pages, the version in Book of Swords is 42 pages long so that means we’re getting an additional 13 pages!)

Prince into King-The Ascension of Jaehaerys I (16 pages, shouldn’t it be Prince to King?)

The Year of the Three Brides-49 AC (21 pages, NOT the year Jaehaerys I wed Alysanne, which is 50 AC)

A Surfeit of Rulers (31 pages)

A Time of Testing-The Realm Remade (18 pages)

Birth, Death, and Betrayal Under King Jaehaerys I (33 pages)

Jaehaerys and Alysanne-Their Triumphs and Tragedies (42 pages)

The Long Reign-Jaehaerys and Alysanne: Policy, Progeny, and Pain (64 pages)

(That adds up to 225 pages, 276 if you include Heirs of the Dragon! Either way that means Jaehaerys I and Alysanne are the biggest part of the book! And GRRM said he had “worked some on just fleshing out a bit” the long reign of Jaehaerys I! Talk about an understatement!

Heirs of the Dragon-A Question of Succession (51 pages, which is more than was in The Rogue Prince!)

The Dying of the Dragons-The Blacks and the Greens (20 pages)

The Dying of the Dragons-A Son for a Son (14 pages)

The Dying of the Dragons-The Red Dragon and the Gold (30 pages)

The Dying of the Dragons-Rhaenyra Triumphant (45 pages)

The Dying of the Dragons-Rhaenyra Overthrown (44 pages)

The Dying of the Dragons-The Short, Sad Reign of Aegon II (19 pages)

(That adds up to 172 pages, which is little more than twice the size of TPATQ!)

Aftermath-The Hour of the Wolf (21 pages)

Under the Regents-The Hooded Hand (28 pages, the Hooded Hand is probably Tyland Lannister)

Under the Regents-War and Peace and Cattle Shows (29 pages, cattle shows probably refers to the ball where Aegon III chose Daenaera to be his new wife)

Under the Regents-The Voyage of Alyn Oakenfist (17 pages)

The Lyseni Spring and the End of Regency (41 pages, isn’t it missing a “the” before the word Regency?)

(That adds up to 115 pages, 136 if you include Aftermath!)

Lineages and Family Tree (1 page, lineages is plural but what does that mean if it isn’t a typo?)

P.S. I wonder how the artwork fits with these page counts.

P.S.S. I think you’re in luck @racefortheironthrone!

[sheikah]

Have you read "Fire and Blood" yet? Is it worth the money to buy and read?

I haven’t. I bought it, saw the first chapter was a just a copy/paste of the Aegon’s Conquest section of A World of Ice and Fire and then I just got sidetracked. The parts I’ve scanned further in seem cool. The fandom as a whole seems really hyped. I bought it to support GRRM and I love Targ!history but at the end of the day it’s just that--a history book. It’s not as riveting as usual fictional storytelling so it wasn’t enough to engross me with everything else I have going on. As a collector of Thrones merch, I think it was worth the money. And I could see myself sitting down to it in the future. 

[aion-rsa]

Game of Thrones: House of the Dragon is a Familiar Choice

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Game of Thrones prequel House of the Dragon focuses on the "Dance of Dragons" civil war between Targaryens. We consider why HBO picked it.

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As you’ve likely heard by now, Jane Goldman’s Game of Thrones prequel, tentatively titled “The Long Night,” is dead, and Ryan Condal’s Game of Thrones prequel, House of the Dragon, is going straight to series. Long live the Game of Thrones prequel. This news was met with much fanfare by WarnerMedia, who made it the crown jewel of its HBO Max presentation. The series, which is getting a full 10-episode order out of the gate, will pull liberally from George R.R. Martin’s Fire & Blood and dive deep into the history of House Targaryen.

These tidings have traveled across the internet faster than news of Jon Snow’s true parentage. And yet, what it means is only beginning to be grasped, as is perhaps why HBO elected this to be its first Game of Thrones spinoff to see airwaves and streaming after putting at least six pilot pitches into development. What news has thus far been unspooled about House of the Dragon suggests it will be based on the origins of House Targaryen, as well as the beginning of its decline, as chronicled in Fire & Blood. But here’s the rub: Fire & Blood is not really a narrative, or at least it’s not a singular one like the five published books in the “A Song of Ice and Fire” series.

Published in 2018, Fire & Blood is actually a history compendium of the beginning of Targaryen rule in Westeros. Acting like a historical text of half the known history of the Targaryens—as it ends roughly 150 years before the events of Game of Thrones—Fire & Blood chronicles several generations of Targaryen monarchy, beginning with Aegon the Conqueror’s conquest of what became the Seven Kingdoms and ending in the aftermath of “The Dance of Dragons” civil war a hundred years later.

While the series will be pulling from the whole book, it is apparently the Dance of Dragons that House of the Dragon will specifically mine for characters and storylines. This is a wise choice, as adapting Fire & Blood straight would mean each season might focus on a different generation or era. Also building to the Targaryen civil war, and then reveling in the carnage for subsequent seasons, returns to what global audiences generally agreed on was their favorite aspects of Game of Thrones: political intrigue, massive battles, and dragons.

Historically remembered as the “Dance of Dragons,” that Targaryen civil war lasted three years and pitted Aegon II against his half-sister Rhaenyra for the Iron Throne after the death of their father, Viserys I. Rhaenyra was the lone child of Viserys to survive to adulthood after his first marriage, and she was named his successor. But upon becoming a widower, Viserys remarried and had several more children, including a son named Aegon. Sure enough, lords plotted against Rhaenyra after Viserys’ death, as did Aegon’s own family which sought to put him on the throne.

This led to dueling coronations and a civil war that bears much similarity to an English civil war known as “the Anarchy.” That spanned more than a decade in the 12th century after King Henry I, the son of William the Conqueror, died without a living son. He named his daughter Mathilda heir, yet his nephew Stephan claimed the throne with the support of many lords, eventually leading to Mathilda—who by this time was a married empress in the Germanic lands—to invade England and attempt to claim the throne for herself and her son. The resulting anarchy is the alleged reason Henry VIII worried centuries later about not having a male heir, though a perfectly healthy daughter, and broke with the Catholic Church to secure his first divorce.

It is certainly a setup rich with dramatic palace intrigue and filled with a variety of characters who died by murder, execution, and on the battlefield. It also may look a lot like the “War of the Five Kings” that formed the backbone of the first four seasons of Game of Thrones, which in hindsight appear the strongest in the series’ whole run. And its familiarity may be the point.

read more: Game of Thrones - Queen in the North Has Historic Roots

When Jane Goldman’s The Long Night was announced, it promised a major departure from what we understand Westeros to be. Set in the expansive era known as the “Age of Heroes,” there was massive wiggle room for Goldman to go her own way, given our knowledge of those distant times are intentionally vague and likely embellished by folklore in Martin’s universe. It was a time when Children of the Forest still walked in evergreen land with earthly feet, and when the Starks had yet to legitimize their claim over the whole North by building the mysterious Wall that kept White Walkers out. Westeros wasn’t seven kingdoms but hundreds; the Lannisters and Tyrells were but paupers in kingdoms ruled by the Gardeners and Casterlys; if the Targaryens did exist, they were but one family of many great houses and dragon riders in Old Valyria, an ancient Roman-like city far advanced beyond Westeros; and the series promised to explore Sothoryos, the mysterious African-like continent in Martin’s world that is said to have creatures we’d consider dinosaurs roaming plains.

In short, it would’ve been a very different show from Game of Thrones and explored corners of Martin’s universe that even he has barely mapped out. It was the chance to do something extreme with the material. Now we can only speculate as to why that pilot died and House of the Dragon went straight to series, and there were apparently rumors of a troubled production on The Long Night pilot, however you cannot help but wonder if it offered such a drastic departure from what we know that HBO decided to opt for something closer to home.

When House of the Dragon was first reported on last September, it was suggested it would be focused on a period 300 years ago, which would’ve been specifically the Targaryen conquest of Westeros. It is apt to avoid that direction considering there is little dramatic tension in an army with dragons smiting one legion of foes after another. Also if audiences were turned off by the Game of Thrones ending that saw series icon Daenerys raze King’s Landing, how would they feel about a series revolving around such Targaryen slaughter?

Instead HBO wisely opted for a period of civil unrest where both armies have dragons. They also are leaning into Daenerys Targaryen’s aforementioned iconography. Achieving an almost impossible thing in the age of Peak TV and streaming, Game of Thrones captured the imagination of the world with its grand cinematic visions of medieval warfare, and with the moral ambiguity of real historic-like figures vying for power by any means necessary. But to many viewers, it is probably fair to say that the mental image Game of Thrones leaves behind is that of Emilia Clarke’s Daenerys Targaryen sitting proud on the back of a dragon, delivering Valyrian gibberish to enraptured armies with sun or snow drifting through her platinum hair. It was, in fact, the inversion of this image where the speeches became fascist, and the carnage her dragons unleashed was no longer fun, that infuriated many about the final two episodes of Game of Thrones.

HBO has now opted to have an entire series dominated by not one fair-haired Targaryen warrior, but nearly a half dozen of them. There will be dragons, burning armies, and we haven’t even gotten to the incest! If you thought Jon and Dany was creepy, watch out for Targaryens in their prime…

Yet, without seeing either series, it feels a bit like a missed opportunity to really explore new corners of Martin’s vast world. His vision extends beyond the civil wars of Westeros and includes cities of shadow with Lovecraftian deities and whole continents yet unexplored. Even among the Westerosi civil wars, the Blackfyre rebellions of about 90 years after House of the Dragon’s setting had a unique quality. Closer to Martin making a high-fantasy, medieval riff on the attitudes and tensions erupting during the American Civil War, the war between the “red” and “black” dragons, and the Lost Cause legacy they left behind, is quite different from the wars we saw on Game of Thrones. However, those rebellions were missing dragons…

House of the Dragon has every opportunity to be amazing, and as a fan of this world and Game of Thrones—yes, even after the last season—I am certainly rooting for it to be just that. But in the age of intellectual property convergence, it is fair to hope that this isn’t a dance we’ve done before. 

Read and download the Den of Geek NYCC 2019 Special Edition Magazine right here!

David Crow is the Film Section Editor at Den of Geek. He’s also a member of the Online Film Critics Society. Read more of his work here. You can follow him on Twitter @DCrowsNest.

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David Crow

Oct 30, 2019

HBO

Game of Thrones

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[ser-merlin-of-valyria-blog]

Check out a preview of George R.R. Martin’s Fire and Blood, with pictures and a table on contents!

Fire and Blood, the principal volume of George R.R. Martin's two-section history of House Targaryen, is set to drop on November 20. Martin's German distributor has discharged the initial a few pages for seeing. They incorporate a wide range of treats… in the event that you can peruse German. For whatever remains of us, there are pretty pictures are a couple of pieces that are all the more effectively translatable, kindness of Reddit. Look at the chapter by chapter guide:

The Reign of the Dragon — The Wars of King Aegon I

Three Heads of the Dragon — The Government of King Aegon I

The Sons of the Dragon

Aegon’s Conquest

A Prince Becomes King — The Rise of Jaehaerys’ I

49 A.C. — The Year of the Three Brides

Rulers Abound

Time of Probation — The Renewal of the Empire

Birth, Death, and Betrayal under King Jaehaerys I

Jaehaerys I and Alysanne — Triumphs and Tragedies

Jaehaerys I and Alysanne — Politics, Offspring, and Anguish

The Heirs of the Dragon — A Question of Succession

The Death of the Dragons — The Blacks and the Greens

The Death of the Dragons — Son after Son

The Death of the Dragons — The Red and the Golden Dragon

The Death of the Dragons — Rhaenyra Triumphs

The Death of the Dragons — Rhaenyra’s Fall

The Death of the Dragons — The Short, Sad Reign of Aegon III

Aftermath — The Hour of the Wolf

Under the Regents — The Hand under the Hood

Under the Regents — War and Peace and Livestock Markets

Under the Regents — The Voyage of Alyn Oakenfist

The Lyseni Spring and The End of the Regency

The Succession of House Targaryen of Westeros

It would appear that Martin is betting everything on the detail, as we were already aware he would. One of those sections, one of them — "Children of the Dragon," about siblings Aenys I and Maegor the Cruel — has just been distributed as a feature of an alternate compilation.

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The Lord of Dragonstone countered with an offer of his own. He would take the dower lands being offered if Argilac would also cede Massey’s Hook and the woods and plains from the Blackwater south to the river Wendwater and the headwaters of the Mander. The pact would be sealed by the marriage of Argilac’s daughter to Orys Baratheon, Lord Aegon’s childhood friend and champion. These terms Argilac the Arrogant rejected angrily. Orys Baratheon was a baseborn half-brother to Lord Aegon, it was whispered, and the Storm King would not dishonor his daughter by giving her hand to a bastard. The very suggestion enraged him. Argilac had the hands of Aegon’s envoy cut off and returned to him in a box. “These are the only hands your bastard shall have of me,” he wrote. Aegon made no reply. Instead he summoned his friends, bannermen, and principal allies to attend him on Dragonstone. Their numbers were small. The Velaryons of Driftmark were sworn to House Targaryen, as were the Celtigars of Claw Isle. From Massey’s Hook came Lord Bar Emmon of Sharp Point and Lord Massey of Stonedance, both sworn to Storm’s End, but with closer ties to Dragonstone. Lord Aegon and his sisters took counsel with them, and visited the castle sept to pray to the Seven of Westeros as well, though he had never before been accounted a pious man. On the seventh day, a cloud of ravens burst from the towers of Dragonstone to bring Lord Aegon’s word to the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros. To the seven kings they flew, to the Citadel of Oldtown, to lords both great and small. All carried the same message: from this day forth there would be but one king in Westeros. Those who bent the knee to Aegon of House Targaryen would keep their lands and titles. Those who took up arms against him would be thrown down, humbled, and destroyed.

Fire and Blood, by George R.R. Martin pg 7

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No king in Westeros was more feared than Black Harren, whose cruelty had become legendary all through the Seven Kingdoms. And no king in Westeros felt more threatened than Argilac the Storm King, last of the Durrandon, an aging warrior whose only heir was his maiden daughter. Thus it was that King Argilac reached out to the Targaryens on Dragonstone, offering Lord Aegon his daughter in marriage, with all the lands east of the Gods Eye from the Trident to the Blackwater Rush as her dowry. Aegon Targaryen spurned the Storm King’s proposal. He had two wives, he pointed out; he did not need a third. And the dower lands being offered had belonged to Harrenhal for more than a generation. They were not Argilac’s to give. Plainly, the aging Storm King meant to establish the Targaryens along the Blackwater as a buffer between his own lands and those of Harren the Black.

Fire and Blood, by George R.R. Martin pg 6-7

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The Westeros of Aegon’s youth was divided into seven quarrelsome kingdoms, and there was hardly a time when two or three of these kingdoms were not at war with one another. The vast, cold, stony North was ruled by the Starks of Winterfell. In the deserts of Dorne, the Martell princes held sway. The gold-rich westerlands were ruled by the Lannisters of Casterly Rock, the fertile Reach by the Gardeners of Highgarden. The Vale, the Fingers, and the Mountains of the Moon belonged to House Arryn...but the most belligerent kings of Aegon’s time were the two whose realms lay closest to Dragonstone, Harren the Black and Argilac the Arrogant. From their great citadel, Storm’s End, the Storm Kings of House Durrandon had once ruled the eastern half of Westeros, from Cape Wrath to the Bay of Crabs, but their powers had been dwindling for centuries. The Kings of the Reach had nibbled at their domains from the west, the Dornishmen harassed them from the south, and Harren the Black and his ironmen had pushed them from the Trident and the lands north of the Blackwater Rush. King Argilac, last of the Durrandon, had arrested this decline for a time, turning back a Dornish invasion whilst still a boy, crossing the narrow sea to join the great alliance against the imperialist “tigers” of Volantis, and slaying Garse VII Gardener, King of the Reach, in the Battle of Summerfield twenty years later. But Argilac had grown older; his famous mane of black hair had gone grey, and his prowess at arms had faded. North of the Blackwater, the riverlands were ruled by the bloody hand of Harren the Black of House Hoare, King of the Isles and the Rivers. Harren’s ironborn grandsire, Harwyn Hardhand, had taken the Trident from Argilac’s grandsire, Arrec, whose own forebears had thrown down the last of the river kings centuries earlier. Harren’s father had extended his domains east to Duskendale and Rosby. Harren himself had devoted most of his long reign, close on forty years, to building a gigantic castle beside the Gods Eye, but with Harrenhal at last nearing completion, the ironborn would soon be free to seek fresh conquests.

Fire and Blood, by George R.R. Martin pg 5-6

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The World Of Ice And Fire: Uncertain Dates

Warning, Spoilers Ahead…

 Yandel notes the following is an account of the reign of House Targaryen from beginning to end. Yandel cites previous maesters’ works as source marterial, primarily papers written by Archmaester Gyldayn, the last master to serve at Summerhall before its destruction, Yandel believes Gyldayn sent the papers to Archmaester Gerold, a noted historian, for “commentary and approval”.

“The maesters of the Citadel who keep the histories of Westeros have wed Aegon’s Conquest as their touchstone for the past three hundred years. Births, deaths, battles, and other events are dated either AC (After the Conquest) or BC (Before the Conquest).

I wonder how Essos and other places date their events – the Conquest wasn’t the world-altering event for them that it was for Westeros. Perhaps they use AD (After the Doom) and BD (Before the Doom)?

There is no precise ending date for the Wars of Conquest. More than two years passed between Aegon’s landing and his coronation in Oldtown. And it took the Targaryens several generations to bring Dorne into the Seven Kingdoms.

Even the start date of the conquest is confusing. Most assume the start date is the day Aegon I Targaryen landed at the mouth of Blackwater Rush.

“The day of Aegon’s Landing was celebrated by the King and his descendants, but the Conqueror dated the start of his reign from the day he was crowned and anointed in the Starry Sept of Oldtown by the High Septon of the Faith. This coronation took place two years after Aegon’s Landing, well after all three of the major battles of the Wars of Conquest had been fought and won. Thus, it can be seen that most of Aegon’s actual conquering took place from 2 – BC, Before the Conquest.”

A long-winded way to say the dates are ill-defined.

I’ll be referencing the World Of Ice And Fire, Fire & Blood, the Rise of the Dragons, The Rogue Prince, and The Princess and the Queen for the Targaryen sections. Side note: Rise of the Dragons is Fire & Blood but with beautiful artwork. Worth the purchase if you are a fan of ASOIAF artwork.

Up next, the events leading to the Conquest of Westeros.