Blood of the Conqueror, Conclusion: A Last Mad Act

Editor’s Note: I want to thank everyone for reading this series and for being loyal readers to this blog for so many years. For over 3 years now, I’ve dedicated most of my creative energy and thought to GRRM’s world, and I thank him for creating a world that I’ve gotten to play in. However, it’s time for me to refocus my energy on my own works of fiction that I’ve put on hold. As a result, this will be the last A Song of Ice and Fire essay that I’ll write before George RR Martin announces the completion of The Winds of Winter.  Once again, thank you so much for reading my essays, and please stick around the blog as our other writers: SomethingLikeaLawyer, Militant_Penguin, MattEiffel and MasterRooseman have lots of great stuff coming your way in the coming months! All the best – Jeff (BryndenBFish)

Spoiler Warning: This essay contains spoilers for The Winds of Winter

Introduction

Artwork by Tomasz Jedruszek

Aerys Targaryen must have thought that his gods had answered his prayers when Lord Tywin Lannister appeared before the gates of King’s Landing with an army twelve thousand strong, professing loyalty. So the mad king had ordered his last mad act. He had opened his city to the lions at the gate. (AGOT, Eddard II)

At long last, Aegon’s Crusade for the Iron Throne would come to King’s Landing at the close of The Winds of Winter. With victories at Storm’s End and against the Tyrells at Westerosi Agincourt and new friends in Dorne, the Reach and the High Sparrow, Aegon would turn towards the great city. The city, though, won’t be easy to take. Even if Aegon showed up to the city with the full strength of the Golden Company, Dorne and the Golden Company’s friends in the Reach, King’s Landing would be nigh impregnable. Behind the strong walls of King’s Landing, Cersei Lannister and her loyalists could withstand a conventional siege or storming of the walls. And though taking King’s Landing was of tantamount importance to the young dragon, his parallel goal was to continue his campaign for legitimacy by enshrining himself in good optics.

In a certain light, Aegon’s coming struggle to take King’s Landing and the Iron Throne finds a strange parallel to that of the victorious rebels of the rebellion which brought down the young dragon’s alleged father and grandfather. Robert’s Rebellion saw many battles fought across Westeros, but to achieve ultimate success, Robert had take King’s Landing and then unite a fractured realm. The former was achieved when Tywin Lannister treacherously sacked the city. The latter was accomplished by Robert’s personality and his marriage to the beautiful Cersei Lannister.

If Aegon’s invasion of Westeros is a pale imitation of Robert’s Rebellion, we’re likely to see something of a mirroring effect of victory after victory in the field for the Young Dragon in The Winds of Winter. But like Robert Baratheon, Aegon would need more than victory on the field to secure his throne. And if Aegon were to take the Iron Throne, he would need to then quickly pacify the realm with good governance and a marriage.

So, towards the end of The Winds of Winter, I expect the young dragon will turn at last to the great city, and it’s here that we’ll see the conflagration of several major point of view characters from A Song of Ice and Fire and the culmination of Aegon’s crusade for the Iron Throne.

Dances with Wolves: Analyzing the Martial Language of Sansa’s Story

Today, we are joined by a very special guest glass_table_girl for an analysis of Sansa Stark and how she has used courtesy to survive so far, and how she’s weaponizing it for the future. – BryndenBFish

Introduction

In the gardens of Eyrie by bubug

Every fan can recite the trademark phrases from Sansa’s storyline, such as “courtesy is a lady’s armor” or “women’s weapons.”

Despite these metaphors, Sansa’s storyline through the lens of fighting and warfare goes unexplored, and ignores motifs that contrast with other characters to highlight the themes in both Sansa’s storyline and the progression of her character.

tl;dr: Sansa’s storyline is defined in language that equates her learning to warfare. Throughout her story, she accumulates an arsenal while playing defense, pivoting to an offensive position in her first TWOW chapter with the act of “dancing,” which the books establish to be a metaphor for violence or fighting. By framing Sansa’s education in martial language, the story establishes her learning as becoming a warrior—in a different sense.

Episode 12: Year in Review

Happy New Year! Today, we present our final podcast of 2015. Appropriately, it’s our Year in Review Episode covering the many essays, podcasts that we wrote/recorded as well as some of the things that we loved from the ASOIAF community over the year. Finally, we talk about some things in store for the future in movie-trailer voice!

Listen to us here or at:

• Podbean
• Subscribe on itunes!

Here’s some of what we cover in the podcast:

New Developments on Wars and Politics of Ice and Fire

• Nina joined the blog
• The “BryndenBFish” name went the way of the dodo bird
• We wrote 53(!) essays
• 12 podcasts
• We started a tumblr blog
• Stats, baby, Stats.

Some of our Favorite Pieces to Write

• Hamish: Brightflame and Bittersteel
• Nina: Loves of the Dragon, Mothers of Chaos (Part 1, Part 2) & the Winter Queen (Part 1, Part 2)
• Jim: Unlikely, Unwanted Crowns: A Political Analysis of Aerys I and Maekar
• Jeff: Blood of the Conqueror, Part 5: A Conquest That Lasted a Summer

Our Favorites from Each Other

Jeff

• Nina’s “The Merman’s Ambition”
• Jim’s “War and Peace: A Political Analysis of Daeron I, Baelor I and Viserys II”
• Hamish’s “The Curious Case of Domeric Bolton”

Nina

• Jim’s “Unlikely, Unwanted Crowns: Aerys/Maekar”
• Hamish’s “The Great Black Dragon & the Curious Case of Domeric Bolton”
• Jeff’s “The Dragon’s Mercy, Part 3: Blood for Blood”

Jim

• Jeff’s “Blood of the Conqueror, Part 4: The Exile”
• Nina’s “The Ladies of Fire: Rhaenys”
• Hamish: “The Man Clothed in the Bittersteel”

Hamish

• Jeff’s “Blood of the Conqueror, Part 2”
• Nina’s “The Merman’s Ambition”
• Jim’s “Daeron the Pretty Good”

Some of our Favorite Concepts/Theses of 2015

• Nina: The Wrangling of the Wolves
• Jim: The Aegon Doctrine
• Hamish: Aerion’s murder of Haegon Blackfyre and Aerion’s potential as a Blackfyre double agent
• Jeff: Daenerys burns Old Volantis

Favorite ASOIAF moments outside of WaPoIaF

• Nina: Turtle-Paced’s “A Waste of Time”
• Jim: Poor Quentyn’s Essay on Tyrion & Aegon on the Rhoyne
• Jeff: Radio Westeros’: The Lion of the West
• Hamish: BookShelfStud’s King Broken-Smile & Lady Gwyn’s The Boldest Sellsword of Them All

Our Favorite Podcast Episodes That We Did

• Nina: Three Heads of the Dragon
• Hamish: Fan Questions and Answers
• Jeff: The Book That Never Was
• Jim: The Murdered and the Missing

No podcast episode would be complete without a few comedic moments and laughs too. So, we share things that made us laugh this year like:

• Jim doing his best impression of Viserys I folding his royal flush
• “It ain’t easy bein’ green.”
• “Valyria? More like Gary, Indiana.”
• Long Dawn Silver

We wrap up our episode by talking about what’s in store for the future of the blog and podcast and each contributors’ plans for the future.

Follow us on facebook, twitter and tumblr and follow us individually on twitter at:

• Nina
• Jim
• Hamish
• Jeff

Thanks for a great year! See you all next year!

Wars and Politics of Ice and Fire Podcast, Episode 09: Fan-Submitted Questions and Answers

A Song of Ice and Fire is a gripping work of fantasy, but it’s also full of mysteries. Moreover, it’s a series that generates a lot of deep thought and questions. In today’s podcast, we try our best Melisandre impression and look into our fires to give you all the answers to questions you’ve been asking for months now. Thank you so much for all of your questions.  Some of the questions we answer are on the topics of:

• Aegon and whether his true identity actually matters.
• Whether Tyrek Lannister is alive
• A potential live-video youtube Q/A
• The Others and whether the War for the Dawn was resolved peacefully
• Many more!

As a bonus, we are taking question full time now. We didn’t totally get through all of your questions this time, but we’re taking your questions from here on out, and we’ll incorporate them into our episodes going forward! So, submit your questions to us below, and we’ll be happy to answer any and all questions (eventually!).

You can listen to us here, but please feel free to listen/subscribe at the following spots:

• Podbean
• itunes

At the end of the podcast, we talk about where you can find the blog’s social media. Here’s some links to help out

• Twitter
• Tumblr
• Facebook

Additionally, you can find us individually on twitter at the following spots:

• Nfriel
• SomethingLikeaLawyer
• Militant_Penguin
• BryndenBFish

Thanks for listening!

What if Season 5 Was Good, Like Really Good? (Winterfell, Meereen and Dorne) — Corrected!

Part 1 dealt with storylines we thought were the best in Season 5, but for every good storyline, there’s always the bad one (the bad pussy one). Today’s podcast episode delves into the worst storylines of Season 5. From underwhelming battles to poor dialogue to convoluted motivations, we explore:

• The Boltons: the sole Northern House in Season 5
• Stannis’ tell-don’t-show march on Winterfell
• Brienne the Candlewoman
• The Coming Mask Making Industry Bubble in Meereen
• Jorah Connington’s/Varys’ travels with Tyrion
• Dorne…

But instead of criticizing the show, we offer ideas to make it better. At the end, we give a few thoughts on where we think Season 6 might go!

Agree or disagree, and let us know your thoughts on Season 5 and what you would have done to improve it in the comments below!

You can also listen to us at itunes or podbean.

Blood of the Conqueror, Part 2: The Mummer’s Folly

Introduction

In medieval and early Renaissance Europe, allegories or long-form metaphors were used as moral and explanatory story-telling devices. In these allegories, Folly was a character who resembled court jesters in appearance and served as the dramatic device to tempt the protagonist towards foolhardy deeds.

If A Song of Ice and Fire were an allegory, Varys and Illyrio would play the part of Folly in the story. Their soft, powdered hands and tittering laughs guide much of the action in A Song of Ice and Fire. Yet these men aren’t simple mummers performing trickery for laughs. Instead, their tricks and mummery are intended for the highest of dramas.

But their role as Folly is unclear and often misinterpreted. To attempt to expand our knowledge of the Varys-Illyrio plot, I’ve divided their scheming into two parts. In order to understand the plots of Illyrio and Varys, we have to explain the motivations and backgrounds of those pulling the strings. So, in today’s part we’ll be taking a deep dive into the underpinnings of Varys and Illyrio’s conspiracy before the start of events from A Game of Thrones. I plan to do this in three basic ways:

• Their overall objective
• A deep dive into the background of both players to include discussions of their origins, family dynamic and a bit of prophecy..
• Finally, we’ll cover Varys and Illyrio’s opening acts in the folly during the reign of Aerys II.

Through this extended analysis, I hope you’ll come to understand Varys and Illyrio’s role as Folly in the story. But in the end, keep in mind that Varys and Illyrio’s folly will cause the deaths of tens of thousands in Westeros and Essos.

The Court of Viserys I

Introduction

Hello and welcome once again to The Three Heads of the Dragon: Kings, Pretenders, and the Ladies of Fire”, the first multi-author series for Wars and Politics of Ice and Fire.  This series will explore the Targaryen dynasty from inception to destruction, and my pieces – the “Ladies of Fire” – will focus on the ladies of the dynasty – both those born into the red-and-black and those who had a great influence on the dynasty.

In Parts 1 and 2, we examined the sister-queens of Aegon the Conqueror, Rhaenys and Visenya.  In Part 3, we discussed Rhaenys’ granddaughter, and Jaehaerys the Conciliator’s beloved consort, Alysanne. The good queen predeceased her brother-king, yet she did live long enough to see the birth of her great-granddaughter Rhaenyra.  What she did not see – and could not have imagined – were the internal, backbiting politics of her grandson’s court, and the strong-willed women in it who would drive the peaceful realm of Jaehaerys once again to the brink of destruction.

The Ravenry: Week of 6/1/2015

As you may or may not know, Wars and Politics of Ice and Fire has its own Tumblr page (as well as its own Twitter and Facebook pages).  Even more excitingly, a little while back we here at the blog partnered with ASOIAF University to answer questions about A Song of Ice and Fire.  We – that is, Nfriel and SomethingLikeaLawyer – take the text-based questions submitted to us, write up thoughtful text-based answers, and publish these answers on the Tumblr.

Each week, we’ll publish links to our answers on tumblr in a little post here on the site known as The Ravenry.  Every Monday, we’ll collect the questions we’ve answered during the previous week over on the Tumblr in post form, with a brief description of each, and publish it here, and link that post on Twitter and Facebook as well. It’ll be like Best Week Ever, except with fewer bright flashy graphics and probably no Paul F. Tompkins.

So, without further ado, here’s The Ravenry for the week of 1 June:

• SomethingLikeaLawyer analyzes Vale succession
• SomethingLikeaLawyer tackled questions about Valyrian steel in Westeros and Essos
• SomethingLikeaLawyer disputed the assertion that Varys wants to bring democracy to Westeros.
• Nfriel discussed the size of Vhagar and Meraxes’ dragon skulls.
• Nfriel analyzes Edric Dayne’s squirehood against Westerosi history.

As always, we love to hear your text-based questions, so if you have a burning question about ASOIAF, click this link to send us a raven. The more specific the question, the better text-based answer we can write, although we do our best to answer them all!

The Dragon’s Ladies: Part 5: The Lion and the Dragon

Introduction

In Part 1, we discussed the intertwining of marriage, love, and prophecy that plagued the generations of Prince Rhaegar’s grandfather and father, and the impact this intertwining had on the prince’s own life.  In Part 2, we investigated the marriage of Rhaegar, Prince of Dragonstone, to Elia Martell, Princess of Dorne.  In Part 3, we examined Lyanna Stark and the web of alliances woven by her father Rickard (along with several other high lords) referred to as “southron ambitions”.  In Part 4, we considered the causes of, and notable events during, the great tourney thrown at Harrenhal in 281 AC, the so-called “Year of the False Spring”.

Though the tourney had attracted nearly all the high lords of Westeros – Lords Arryn, Baratheon, Tyrell, and (probably) Tully all attended, as well as the heir to the North and Prince Oberyn of Dorne – one great lord was notably absent: Tywin Lannister.  The “Lion of the West” had reached a breaking point with his royal patron, preferring to brood in his great Rock than face a king who openly despised (and feared) him.  Brooding – for more than one reason – with him was his beautiful (and still very eligible) maiden daughter, Cersei.  Father and daughter had hoped for her to be queen, but instead of allying with the dragons, each would assist in cementing their downfall.

The Dragon’s Ladies: Part 4: Queen of Love and Beauty

Editor’s Note: This post contains (very!) minor spoilers for The Winds of Winter

Introduction

In Part 1, we discussed the problems of marriage, love, and prophecy that both preceded and presaged the life of Rhaegar Targaryen, Prince of Dragonstone. In Part 2, we investigated the marriage and relationship of Rhaegar and his wife, Elia of Dorne. In Part 3, we examined Lyanna Stark, and her place in the “southron ambitions” of her father Rickard.  As the only daughter of the Lord of Winterfell, Lyanna was a fair prize for any man; Rickard, however, broke the internal marriage tradition prevalent throughout Westeros and betrothed her to Robert Baratheon, the young and vigorous Lord of Storm’s End.

To what extent Rhaegar, and his father King Aerys, were aware of this betrothal (and the other pacts made among Lords Stark, Tully, Arryn, and possibly Lannister) is speculative at best.  Married himself, the Prince of Dragonstone certainly had no obvious political desire in the daughters of his future lords bannermen.  Yet apart from his future political inheritance, Rhaegar nursed a lifelong obsession with prophecy, and especially the identity of the foretold prince that was promised.

In 281 AC, the political and the prophetic collided at a great event known as the Tourney of Harrenhal.  The tourney would draw together virtually all of the important players in Westeros, and the actions undertaken – by Rhaegar and others – would change the fates of Westeros and House Targaryen forever.