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hollowwhisperings · 10 months

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Blackfyre Conquest: An Autumn King

i've struggled to find any Meta on how Young Griff's conquest will go, politically & logistically, that don't immediately interrupt themselves with "...but then Dany will show up with Dragons".

A lot of fans are very pro-Targaryen and pro-Conquest: a lot of Westeros would probably be on board too, though for less romantic reasons. No one "loves" the commander of a foreign army & Ned successfully rallied a Rebellion with very good reasons. The Targaryens were never entirely welcome in Westeros but the War of the Five Kings certainly made a "return to stability" with a Targ King an easier sell than it would have been earlier in the series. That this Targ King is non-incestuous, seemingly sane, has a sizeable Army, has multiple houses already sworn to him... and seems to be an Actual Politician? The Lords might frown at exactly "how" legitimate their King really is but, overall, "Aegon VI" would be vastly preferable to who Westeros has currently:

1) an increasingly unpopular Queen-Regent whose family Did The Red Wedding & whose claim rests on a toddler-king of Dubious Parentage.

2) a King who's lost his Lands to the foreign invader, has a Pet Witch (called his "true" queen) who burns people alive, has converted to a Foreign Religion (& burned religious sites), is a rumoured Kinslayer, and was Never Very Popular in the first place (Stannis doesn't take bribes, keeps insisting his disabled daughter is his Heir, went to help the Night's Watch for Some Reason, wasn't as fun as his brothers, makes poor conversation at parties, etc) .

3) Euron Greyjoy.

4) a theoretical infant child of King Robb of the North & Trident... and the Treacherous Jeyne Westerling whom he Lost a war over.

5) Robb's legal heir as per his last Will, his "brother" Jon whom he legitimised as "Stark" but is currently busy being the 998th Lord Commander of the Night's Watch (it is unlikely that Jon's getting murdered by his men would be Advertised to the Realm & though Jon is almost certainly going to pull a Dany in WoW, he is currently a Ghost).

6) the allegedly sole surviving non-bastard Stark, Prince Rickon, who's spent the past few [books] entirely raised by [Freefolk] & is a toddler.

7) Some Targaryen Girl in Essos, last seen while... on fire & being abductes by her own dragon, apparently.

While most Lords will see Aegon's commanding the Golden Company as a Pretty Obvious allusion to his not actually being the miraculously surviving son of Prince Rhaegar Targaryen & Princess Elia Martell. The "truth" of Young Griff's identity is pretty irrelevant to his successfully conquering Westeros (which seems very likely, give or take a Kingdom). Robert Baratheon's kingship was won by conquest: his grandmother being a Targaryen princess was an afterthought, an extra touch of "legitimacy". Tommen's claim to the Iron Throne is through his legal status as King Robert's surviving Heir. Stannis's claim is through the illegitimacy of Joffrey & Tommen's claims making him Robert's heir instead.

Aegon's claim to the Iron Throne is not actually his alleged parentage: it's through Conquest (the same would be true for Dany, Euron and any Heir of King Robb). Most Lords would see the Golden Company, famously founded to make a Blackfyre king, and conclude that Aegon is a Blackfyre Pretender: this is, in the short-term, irrelevant.

Some might rejoice at the alleged survival of one of Prince Rhaegar or Princess Elia's children: Targaryen Loyalists, the Dornish, smallfolk out of the loop on why there was a Rebellion. Ned Stark Loyalists would know Ned mourned for Princess Elia & her children, that Robert became King because Ned wasn't interested & be more concerned about Winter than how recently incestuous the latest Southron King's family tree may be.

As far as most of Westeros is aware [going into Winds], its Key Requirements for a Monarch are: being Alive & (ideally) Sane, being Old Enough to reign unsupervised (15 at minimum), having a loyal Army (see: Euronpocalypse, the Red Wedding, the lawlessness of the Riverlands), being Male, not being the immediate product of incest (Tommen aside, Prince Rhaegar only had 2 great-grandparents), not being a blasphemous arsonist, & not being in debt to the Iron Bank.

Robb Loyalists, those still surviving, would Wisely stand back and allow the Golden Company to deal with the Bolton-Lannister-Frey alliance: even if Jeyne Westerling is found alive & with an infant son, few would accept her and most would be unwilling to replace one child monarch with another (that applies to Rickon too). Northerners are proud but, as one of those Dead Starks might say, Winter is Coming.

The Wars over the series have made the southern land route impassable: the Twins are held by the treacherous Freys, the Riverlands are a lawless hellscape, King's Landing is run by Lannisters & Tyrells, and the Reach is itself "Tyrell Territory". With such a dangerous land route, the North relies on itself & seatrade. While the North does have eastern ports that allow trade with the Vale, the Vale itself is currently held by Petyr Baelish, publically aligned with the Lannister Regime. The North's primary port, White Harbour (held by Lord Wyman Manderly, known Stark Loyalist) is on its western coast, along the Narrow Sea. Euron & rogue Ironborn aside, Aegon's Armies have already seized Storm's End after coming across said sea. Having already seized Storm's End and with Aurane Waters' having Absconded with the Crown's Fleet that would guard the Blackwater... The Golden Company can comfortably blockade all traffic from Westeros to Essos (give or take a Lys). Even assuming Aurane Waters isn't in cahoots with Team Aegon (he's a Velaryon bastard), he took the Crown's fleet to the Stepstones and thus holds control over naval passage between the eastern & western coasts of Westeros (& to Dorne).

So, unless Sansa usurps control of the Vale from Baelish within the first third of Winds; unless Prince Doran or seadragons take out Aurane Waters' pirate fleet; unless the Golden Company's AND Euron's respective fleets get taken out without ANOTHER navy taking their place... Westeros really, really needs Aegon to successfully conquer Westeros if only to quickly reestablish vital trade routes for Winter.

Speaking of Euron's fleet and Trouble at Oldtown... there is Trouble At Oldtown and no one is equipped to keep it contained: on land, the sons of Lord Hightower have been taking the Ironborn threat seriously (with Lord Hightower seemingly having Anticipated the supernatural threat Euron seeks to invoke though how successful his & his daughter's Efforts may be remains Unknown); at sea, the Redwyne Fleet is Worried & very probably in Cahoots with Aegon. It will be a Trip, going back to sea from the Stormlands & then South to Oldtown, but a Redwyne-Velaryon-Blackfyre Naval Alliance is the Best and Geographically Closest forces available to Oldtown.

There are a few characters who've been sent to seek aid from Essos, given the Ironborn threat & the general political instability: Prince Quentyn was one (RIP) and Lord Hightower's youngest son, Ser Humfrey, is another. If the Hightowers weren't Team Aegon before, they soon will be.

The Reach is an increasingly vital kingdom to the survival of Westeros: with the Riverlands in the state it is & with the ongoing socio-economic fallout of Dany's very sudden conquests of half the Free Cities, The Reach is the most reliable source of food for the entire continent. That's part of why the impending Euronpocalypse is so Worrying to those otherwise removed from the Oldtown plotlines: Oldtown is one of the most important ports of Westeros, exporting grain from the Reach & importing goods from Essos.

Oldtown is also the Headquarters for the Citadel, where maesters are trained to: manage rookeries, the interkingdom communication system; learn histories, including those of long Winters past & who survived to give tips on Resource Management; and study medicine (to varying degrees of competency but Still).

The maesters are imperfect, often outright incompetent (as much by accident as by any potential Conspiracy): they're still the ones in control of the [telegram] network, the meteorologists, the ones able to not only access the historic archives but how to read them & any knowledge therein. It is certainly more helpful to have scholars than to not have scholars, especially with Winter nearing and many surviving Lordlings having known only Summer (& never educated on "How To Lord" due to how far down the line of succession they were before the Wars).

For those in Westeros who hold to the Faith of the Seven, Trouble At Oldtown would be an apocalypse all of its own: Oldtown is the centre of their Faith and its destruction would greatly demoralize persons of all stations, especially with increased Magical Activity and rumours of [fire zombies, ice zombies, wolf zombies, dragons].

Team Aegon seems the most likely to "contain" the Euronpocalypse, having both method (naval power) & means (the Golden Company, 4 kingdoms' worth of vassal lords) to do so. Aegon's also one of the few "primary" characters who would even know that there IS a Euronpocalpse: Team Aegon, Prince Doran, Queen Cersei, Lady Olenna, Lord Manderly, Asha's faction of Ironborn, the Reacherlords, the Iron Bank, & (probably?) Brynden Rivers are the only ones who could plausibly know of a Euron Threat, let alone organize a Timely Response to it. Regardless of how successful said Response may be, Team Aegon helping with Oldtown smooths the way for his becoming recognised as a Legitimate Leader for Westeros.

I'm fairly certain that Team Aegon will conquer (most of) Westeros over the course of Winds, I doubt he'll have the time to be crowned King or even spend time on a throne: he'll be too busy.

Aegon's Conquest being successful is Pretty Dang Important to the greater scheme of things: it will introduce Key Characters to each other (Arianne & Dorne, Sam & thus the NW, "Alayne" through Baelish, Team Oathkeeper through Jaime's controlling the Crown's armies); restore supply routes; "consolidate" power to enable discussion of Continental Threats long neglected (through both Regional & Interpersonal Conflicts). Aegon's Conquest would act as a kind of "triage" for Westeros, a quick means of uniting different groups (for & against him) and he won't actually need to sit the Iron Throne to do it. It is most likely that, after securing the Reach & Stormlands, Aegon will find that the Frey Civil War had "taken care of" the North & the Riverlands, with Robb Loyalists willing to Play Nice but (understandably, thinketh Aegon) wary of bending any knees. Dorne, regardless of Prince Doran's personal opinion on Aegon's identity, would act "compliant" due to Arianne's involvement & the Rocky Dornish having been in Cahoots with the Blackfyre Regime from the get go. Even a false Aegon would be preferable to a Lannister, as far as the North & Dorne are concerned. The Ironborn post-Euronpocalypse would go back to battling themselves internally, likely while facing heavy [sanctions]: they'd be too busy licking their wounds to be much of a threat to anyone.

That leaves three kingdoms: the Westerlands, cornered at all sides & bereft of much of its Leadership through Wars & the Frey Civil War; the Crownlands, King's Landing likely being besieged for Cersei to later blow up; and The Vale.

Who runs the Vale? The worst, most consistently dangerous backstabber of them all: Lord Petyr Baelish. It will probably be Baelish who undoes all that triage work Team Aegon started, likely via assassinating the kid or "exposing" him to the Right Wrong Crowd (whether Petyr has actual knowledge or evidence against Aegon is irrelevant: this is not his first Smear Campaign).

Assuming it hasn't happened already (in great tonal dissonance with the Euronpocalypse), Little Lord Robert Arryn would get his Tourney at the Gates of the Moon just in time for Aegon to secure his "final" kingdom.

The Frey Civil War would have affected the Vale just as it affected the rest of Westeros (Dorne excluded) but, from the clues I've found in the Vale & Darry-branches of Freys, it's likely that the Vale Freys will have fared better than every other branch of their extensive family tree, likely due to their joining the Aegon Bandwagon prior to Lord Walder's death.

Others have drawn parallels between what we know of "Alayne's'" Tourney and the historic Tourney of Ashford Meadow: essentially, the Tourney is implicitly tied to the themes & character arcs of both Sansa Stark (in the role of "Lord Ashford's 13 year old daughter", defending Queen of Love & Beauty) and Brienne of Tarth (in the role of her ancestor, Duncan the Tall: knightly but never technically Knighted underdog). The Ashford Tourney is best remembered for being the Introduction of Ser Duncan the Tall, a Sudden Trial of Seven, a quietly averted Blackfyre Rebellion, and the tragic death of the greatly beloved Crown Prince Baelon "Breakspear" (& Some Guy from House Hardyng).

Yeah. Dany doesn't even need to leave Essos: Aegon's doom will come courtesy of Thematic Parallels and Foreshadowing.

Prince Baelon "Breakspear" was a living representation of a Westeros at peace: he was the product of one of two political marriages that peacibly joined Dorne to the Seven Kingdoms (the Second Marriage featured one of those Princesses Daenerys); he was a Competent ruler, becoming his Father's Hand at age 26; his nickname was gained when he bested Ser Daemon Blackfyre (yes, THAT Blackfyre) at a tourney (the Wedding Tourney of his Aunt Daenerys); he had two adult sons, presumably with a wife (the sons are the only proof of her existence); and one of Baelon's sons was healthy enough to score 7 victories at the Ashford Tourney!

Which he. Uh. Very unexpectedly died at. Baelon, that is. The Crown Prince. The People's Prince. The Golden Child who promised a Peaceful & Prosperous Future. The son of a Targaryen prince & a Martell mother. A character who Very Strongly Reminds One Of Young Griff, the hopeful Aegon VI.

Aegon is likely to attend the Vale Tourney in order to diplomatically add the Vale to his collection of Kingdoms: Baelish is likely to trade [Sansa]'s betrothal with Harry the Heir for the Shinier Prince Aegon (whether he dissolves the existing betrothal via Having Harry Killed By Tourney or by outing Alayne as Sansa "Key to the North" Stark-Lannister, who was, btw, Spared the marriage bed bc Child Bride so Totally Eligible my dude just Sign Here).

Then Brienne will show up, probably with Jaime, and Some Kerfuffle will Ensue (if only because Sansa & Brienne are Alleged Kingslayers) that leads to Robert Arryn's Tourney becoming Brienne's Trial of Seven for Sansa's Innocence, just as Ser Dunk's defense of the (common) maiden Tanselle so changed the Ashford Tourney.

There is a Rather Formidable enemy of Young Griff whom I have only hinted at: allow me to combine the Clues.

There exists in the ASOIAF series a Certain Character who Knows More than they Should, who has an implied past connection with a young Euron Greyjoy, who is infamously opposed to Blackfyres, who was present for the Ashford Tourney, whose Past & Present can connect just about every active plotline in the series: a disappeared Lord Commander of the Night's Watch, a Hand to two Targaryen Kings & the Master of Whispers to more (with his "thousand eyes and one"), one of the three Great Bastards born to Lady Melissa Blackwood by King Aegon IV, and current tree-wizard mentor to an entirely separate Kingly-coded character.

Brynden Rivers.

If Aegon survives Euron, Cersei, Jaime, AND Baelish? He certainly won't survive Brynden. Whatever Brynden may be right now (tree abomination, Old God Hivemind, puppet king to Feyfolk, Bran Stark's lunch, the distant Blackwood cousin of every surviving Stark), there is no reason to believe Brynden would allow a Blackfyre to go unchallenged, especially in the guise of a "true" Targaryen.

(not that i believe Brynden hopes for a Targaryen Restoration via Dany or Jon: it very much appears that Brynden & the Singers are grooming Bran Stark for kingship, though where & who exactly they expect him to rule is still Unclear)

I hope to do more exploration into what Aegon [Blackfyre]'s Conquest might look like, cobbling together clues from Quentyn's Doomed Quest and Queen Marge's Court (as "microcosm' to the Reach in macrocosm) and historically Targaryen/Blackfyre loyalist Houses. I'm fairly certain I can figure out how the Aegon Conquest will play into the resolutions of the Frey Civil War, (some) Winterfell Conspiracies, the specifics of the Euronpocalypse, & my "Dornish Spring" Theory as well. I'm much less certain on how Stannis would fare against Aegon: would he demand Legitimacy? would he sic Melissandre on him? would Stannis Get Over Himself in service to the Looming Winter? would he even have a leg to stand on the matter?

And would Aegon survive long enough to meet Daenerys, let alone Argue Legitimacy with her? (They'd both be rulers by conquest, not inheritance & it's not like Dany has any backing for her identity beyond "I look traditionally Valyrian" and "these are some dragons i hatched from stone mid-resurrection". The layyer it should be noted, is considered a Death Magic-induced Miracle, not some Secret Targaryen Blood Limit: it's Unique to Daenerys Stormborn, not to "House Targaryen")

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lemonhemlock · 1 year

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What’s the maesters conspiracy?

It's a (fun) theory some fans have developed over the years that states that the maesters were somehow involved in the demise of dragons. It's based on something Archmaester Marwyn tells Sam in AFFC:

Who do you think killed all the dragons the last time around? Gallant dragonslayers armed with swords? The world the Citadel is building has no place in it for sorcery or prophecy or glass candles, much less for dragons.

Nothing confirmed, of course, it's just an amusing idea.

#rhaena also married a hightower and took one of the last living dragons to oldtown #morning then disappears from the narrative #so she must have died a young death for a dragon somehow 🤷‍♀️#ask #anon #maester conspiracy

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godseyeaemond · 11 months

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the longer we wait for a daeron announcement the more i mourn him not being in season one. ya the main beef is between the two eldest sons from both sides but daeron is jace’s age and i think that could have been soo fun. jace could have had an equal little rival in the training yard and even the dragon pit. instead of just hearing that aegon has mastery of sunfyre, we could see daeron have more control of Tessarion than jace with vermax (i also think watching his little brother w his cradle egg dragon would have been more upsetting/motivating to aemond)

#let my boy come home from Oldtown gdi #they counted Tessarion in the black council so it better be for something #i get it’s a lot of blonde kids runnin around but rnene he’s important 2 me #the conspiracy theorist in me: god forbid alicent have a Sane son #them leaving out her son described as the kindest and most chivalrous would be sooooooo rude #also i do want to see him avenge maelor (if they even include him) </3 and think it would be cool to see the chaos following aemonds death #no one knows if aegons alive and urging daeron to be crowned Prince of Dragonstone or even king #and homie just wants his big brothers #daeron targaryen.#hotd.#*

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keyleths · 2 years

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i'm really looking forward to how hotd does the storming of the dragonpit when it gets to it one day cause it never made much sense to me tbh

#like yeah there were thousands of peasants and what not but they're still just peasants?#even if they had the numbers on their side they're still going against five dragons‚ three of which were full grown #and since dragons are fire proof all they had to do was keep breathing fire on the peasants and they'd be toast #but no they died to the peasants #which is super suspicious #and makes me kinda believe the conspiracy theory #that the maesters (since their headquarters are in oldtown which is under hightower rule) poisoned the dragons pre storming #and that the 'sheapard' who lead the storming was also maester (or someone else payed off by the hightowers) in disguise #ana.txt

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mummer · 2 years

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which is worse: sequel tv show about jon or sequel tv show about sam. i’m sure you have lots of positive things to say about both of these excellently-adapted characters :)

the thing with sam is that like a sequel where he’s just kinda hanging out and gets to have lines, and be on screen, and be important(?), would be pretty inoffensive. i dont know what it would BE, but i cant conceive of ways it could make game of thrones WORSE, unlike a jon spinoff, which could do anything. sam was adapted poorly mostly because he wasnt in it very much. they didnt ‘adapt’ anything in his story really. i like john bradley i think he’s a pretty good sam. i look at kit harington and see only the void

#like what would that show be? he realizes he cant be an archmaster without any links on his change and goes to the citadel #and then hangs out with the oldtown gang? because that would be FUN! a little self contained oldtown conspiracy!#there are people who unironically believe the jon show is going to resurrect dany as a zombie. there is maximum potential for catastrophe

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vivacissimx · 8 months

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Heyy hope you're well. Ignore this if you want but I'm curious, do you believe in the Maester Conspiracy?

Let me take this step by step. Long post incoming but you asked, so:

WELCOME TO VIVACISSIMX'S CONCLUSIVE POST ON THE MAESTER CONSPIRACY!!!

The Maester Conspiracy is the theory that the maesters of the citadel work in concert with one another to effect certain political ends in line with their longstanding designs for Westeros — including a specific aim to hamper the existence/return of magic via living dragons.

The only dragontamers during the times of Fire & Blood and ASOIAF are Targaryens, so it ties together as: the maesters have sought to limit/manipulate/end Targaryen rule because they are anti-magic for reasons known best to them.

Do I believe in this? Textually it's pretty clear that this phenomenon exists.

FIRST: REASONS THE MAESTER CONSPIRACY IS DEFINITELY ACTUALLY FACTUALLY REAL

ONE: Multiple characters from different backgrounds tell us so.

Pycelle’s breathing was rapid and shallow. “All I did, I did for House Lannister.” A sheen of sweat covered the broad dome of the old man’s brow, and wisps of white hair clung to his wrinkled skin. “Always.. for years... your lord father, ask him, I was ever his true servant... ’twas I who bid Aerys open his gates... ” That took Tyrion by surprise. He had been no more than an ugly boy at Casterly Rock when the city fell. “So the Sack of King’s Landing was your work as well?” “For the realm! Once Rhaegar died, the war was done. Aerys was mad, Viserys too young, Prince Aegon a babe at the breast, but the realm needed a king... I prayed it should be your good father, but Robert was too strong, and Lord Stark moved too swiftly... ” “How many have you betrayed, I wonder? Aerys, Eddard Stark, me... King Robert as well? Lord Arryn, Prince Rhaegar? Where does it begin, Pycelle?”

—ACOK, Tyrion VI + emphasis mine

[Archmaester] Marywn smiled a ghastly smile, the juice of the sourleaf running red between his teeth. “Who do you think killed all the dragons the last time around? Gallant dragonslayers armed with swords?” He spat. “The world the Citadel is building has no place in it for sorcery or prophecy or glass candles, much less for dragons. Ask yourself why Aemon Targaryen was allowed to waste his life upon the Wall, when by rights he should have been raised to archmaester. His blood was why. He could not be trusted. No more than I can.”

—AFFC, Samwell V

Why can't Archmaester Marwyn be trusted? Since it's the same reason Aemon can't be trusted?

"Archmaester Marwyn's Book of Lost Books." [Rodrik Harlaw] lifted his gaze from the page to study her. "Hotho brought me a copy from Oldtown. He has a daughter he would have me wed." Lord Rodrik tapped the book with a long nail. "See here? Marwyn claims to have found three pages of Signs and Portents, visions written down by the maiden daughter of Aenar Targaryen before the Doom came to Valyria.

—AFFC, The Kraken's Daughter

His interest in Targaryen prophecy, perhaps? (Aemon is also seen to have said interest, corresponding with Rhaegar Targaryen on the matter.)

[Barbrey Ryswell:] "[Maesters] heal, yes. I never said they were not subtle. They tend to us when we are sick and injured, or distraught over the illness of a parent or a child. Whenever we are weakest and most vulnerable, there they are. Sometimes they heal us, and we are duly grateful. When they fail, they console us in our grief, and we are grateful for that as well. Out of gratitude we give them a place beneath our roof and make them privy to all our shames and secrets, a part of every council. And before too long, the ruler has become the ruled. "That was how it was with Lord Rickard Stark. Maester Walys was his grey rat's name. And isn't it clever how the maesters go by only one name, even those who had two when they first arrived at the Citadel? That way we cannot know who they truly are or where they come from… but if you are dogged enough, you can still find out. Before he forged his chain, Maester Walys had been known as Walys Flowers. Flowers, Hill, Rivers, Snow… we give such names to baseborn children to mark them for what they are, but they are always quick to shed them. Walys Flowers had a Hightower girl for a mother… and an archmaester of the Citadel for a father, it was rumored. The grey rats are not as chaste as they would have us believe. Oldtown maesters are the worst of all. Once he forged his chain, his secret father and his friends wasted no time dispatching him to Winterfell to fill Lord Rickard's ears with poisoned words as sweet as honey. The Tully marriage was his notion, never doubt it, he—"

—ADWD, The Prince of Winterfell

Please note these quotes touch on some of the largest political shifts to occur in Westeros. From germinating the idea of alliances between Great Houses in the mind of Rickard Stark who later betrothed/fostered his children to the Arryns of the Vale, the Tullys of the Riverlands, and the Baratheons of the Stormlands; to the Sack of King's Landing; to the circumstances around the Great Council that named Aegon V the Unlikely as king. I am not saying the Citadel was the sole mastermind behind all of these events, or even that maesters all act as one without their own interests/personalities guiding them... but more on that later.

TWO: The Glass Candle test.

Glass candles are obsidian—dragonglass— candles that apparently only burn when magic (see: dragons) exists in the world. Daenerys Targaryen has been hearing about these glass candles for a while now.

Xaro looked troubled. "And so it was, then. But now? I am less certain. It is said that the glass candles are burning in the house of Urrathon Night-Walker, that have not burned in a hundred years. Ghost grass grows in the Garden of Gehane, phantom tortoises have been seen carrying messages between the windowless houses on Warlock's Way, and all the rats in the city are chewing off their tails.

—ACOK, Daenerys V

Hear me, Daenerys Targaryen. The glass candles are burning. Soon comes the pale mare, and after her the others. Kraken and dark flame, lion and griffin, the sun's son and the mummer's dragon. Trust none of them. Remember the Undying. Beware the perfumed seneschal."

—ADWD, Daenerys II

Read: What Quaithe tells Daenerys here is that because the glass candles are burning, people (powerful, dangerous, with their own designs in mind) are becoming aware of her dragons. It means they're coming and Daenerys needs to be cautious of them.

And who is watching the glass candles?

Armen the Acolyte cleared his throat. “The night before an acolyte says his vows, he must stand a vigil in the vault. No lantern is permitted him, no torch, no lamp, no taper… only a candle of obsidian. He must spend the night in darkness, unless he can light that candle. Some will try. The foolish and the stubborn, those who have made a study of these so-called higher mysteries. Often they cut their fingers, for the ridges on the candles are said to be as sharp as razors. Then, with bloody hands, they must wait upon the dawn, brooding on their failure. Wiser men simply go to sleep, or spend their night in prayer, but every year there are always a few who must try.” “Yes.” Pate had heard the same stories. “But what’s the use of a candle that casts no light?” “It is a lesson,” Armen said, “the last lesson we must learn before we don our maester’s chains.

—AFFC, Prologue (Pate)

So, the Citadel has this tradition that every single guy ever to graduate from their school has to at least be aware of the glass candles, which basically serves the purpose of letting them know whether or not there are dragons in the world. Okay, fine, it's a lesson on failure, sure. What's interesting is that this mystical and compelling lesson on failure can only be as old as the death of the last dragon in 153 AC, otherwise they'd all be able to light the candles. So it began at most 147 years ago.

Notably, for years after the death of the last dragon, various Targaryens attempted to hatch more.

So what is the true purpose of the Glass Candle test? Why would the Citadel have a convenient means of knowing immediately if a new dragon was hatched/magic was returning, despite ostensibly having a Grand Maester on every single Targaryen King's Small Council ever?

What was their investment?

THREE: It aligns with the actions/beliefs of the maesters we see on-page.

Old Cressen might be, yet he was still a maester of the Citadel. “I need no crown but truth,” he told her, removing the fool’s helm from his head. “There are truths in this world that are not taught at Oldtown.” [...] As he sank to his knees, still he shook his head, denying [Melisandre], denying her power, denying her magic, denying her god. And the cowbells peeled in his antlers, singing fool, fool, fool while the red woman looked down on him in pity, the candle flames dancing in her red red eyes.

—ACOK, Prologue (Maester Cressen)

[Maester Luwin:] "Perhaps magic was once a mighty force in the world, but no longer. What little remains is no more than the wisp of smoke that lingers in the air after a great fire has burned out, and even that is fading. Valyria was the last ember, and Valyria is gone. The dragons are no more, the giants are dead, the children of the forest forgotten with all their lore.

—ACOK, Bran IV

Note: Maester Luwin actually has a Valyrian Steel chain and has attempted to do magic but by the end of his Citadel studies, he no longer believed in such. Due to his own failure to harness it, yes, but perhaps also due to his teachings under the archmaesters at the time.

Alleras stepped up next to Sam. "Aemon would have gone to [Daenerys] if he had the strength. He wanted us to send a maester to her, to counsel her and protect her and fetch her safely home." "Did he?" Archmaester Marwyn shrugged. "Perhaps it's good that he died before he got to Oldtown. Elsewise the grey sheep might have had to kill him, and that would have made the poor old dears wring their wrinkled hands."

—AFFC, Samwell V

FOUR: Citadel Maesters are super into dragons in general, perhaps a bit too into them, you be the judge.

In what place, if any, has there been an accumulation of dragonlore? Valyria. The Citadel. Dragonstone. Probably some of the Free Cities as well. Maybe Asshai in the far east.

—So Spake Martin, May 2000 (the Citadel clocking in at #2, technically #1, considering RIPValyria)

[H]e brushed the dirt off Colloquo Votar's Jade Compendium, a thick volume of tales and legends from the east that Maester Aemon had commanded him to find. The book appeared undamaged. Maester Thomax's Dragonkin, Being a History of House Targaryen from Exile to Apotheosis, with a Consideration of the Life and Death of Dragons had not been so fortunate. It had come open as it fell, and a few pages had gotten muddy, including one with a rather nice picture of Balerion the Black Dread done in colored inks. Sam cursed himself for a clumsy oaf

—AFFC, Samwell I

Tyrion had read much and more of dragons through the years. The greater part of those accounts were idle tales and could not be relied on, and the books that Illyrio had provided them were not the ones he might have wished for. What he really wanted was the complete text of The Fires of the Freehold, Galendro's history of Valyria. No complete copy was known to Westeros, however; even the Citadel's lacked twenty-seven scrolls. They must have a library in Old Volantis, surely. I may find a better copy there, if I can find a way inside the Black Walls to the city's heart.

He was less hopeful concerning Septon Barth’s Dragons, Wyrms, and Wyverns: Their Unnatural History. Barth had been a blacksmith’s son who rose to be King’s Hand during the reign of Jaehaerys the Conciliator. His enemies always claimed he was more sorcerer than septon. Baelor the Blessed had ordered all Barth’s writings destroyed when he came to the Iron Throne. Ten years ago, Tyrion had read a fragment of Unnatural History that had eluded the Blessed Baelor, but he doubted that any of Barth’s work had found its way across the narrow sea. And of course there was even less chance of his coming on the fragmentary, anonymous, blood-soaked tome sometimes called Blood and Fire and sometimes The Death of Dragons, the only surviving copy of which was supposedly hidden away in a locked vault beneath the Citadel.

When the Halfmaester appeared on deck, yawning, the dwarf was writing down what he recalled concerning the mating habits of dragons, on which subject Barth, Munkun, and Thomax held markedly divergent views.

—ADWD, Tyrion IV

Maesters who have written on dragons: Munkun, Grand Maester to Aegon III The Dragonbane whose efforts to revive the dragons all failed - he wrote True Telling about the Dance of the Dragons as well; Thomax, unknown time; and Anonymous, who wrote a real banger that the world isn't ready for, apparently. This last one will come into play later.

There is also Truth by Maester Anson, cited in AWOIAF, which is only mentioned insofar as it disagrees with Septon Barth's statement that dragons can switch sex.

So there are at least four books written by maesters on dragons, and more that the Citadel library has collected from the world over!

(The books by Thomax and Anonymous, while both being titled The Death of Dragons, are confirmed not the same.)

There is potentially one more, if the unnamed tome Arianne encounters is unique:

During the daylight hours she would try to read, but the books that they had given her were deadly dull: ponderous old histories and geographies, annotated maps, a dry-as-dust study of the laws of Dorne, The Seven-Pointed Star and Lives of the High Septons, a huge tome about dragons that somehow made them about as interesting as newts.

—AFFC, The Princess in the Tower

In summary: the Citadel's investment in dragons/magic is rigorous, a matter serious enough that they lock knowledge on it away in a vault, in order to take a maester's vows you must undergo a test that disavows magic's existence, there are maesters willing to die to deny arcane arts, potentially maesters willing to kill for that too. To a man, maesters dismiss magic... but are they actively engineering it's downfall?

This is where it gets murky. I myself would say that they take advantage of circumstances to have others do their dirty work. That maesters seek to preserve the status quo but also manipulate it to serve their own ends. Which brings us to the next point

SECOND: HOW THE MAESTER CONSPIRACY FUNCTIONS IN ASOIAF (POSSIBLY)

In ASOIAF timeline, the dragons are all already dead and magic is subdued. As a result, the winters are longer and the summers are shorter, another thing the Citadel is deeply concerned with, being the people who officially announce the changings of the seasons.

As established, we know of Pycelle's involvement in opening King's Landing for Tywin after Rhaegar died — this is where the concept of maester's having differing motives and personal loyalties comes up.

Pycelle is a pretty clear case study, he's both deeply loyal, as a maester of the Citadel, to preserving a nominal peace regardless of the dishonorable & murderous ends required to do so... but he also personally is loyal to Tywin Lannister, who is his ideal ruler.

In a letter to the Citadel, Pycelle wrote that the divisions within the Red Keep [between Aerys and Rhaegar] reminded him uncomfortably of the situation before the Dance of the Dragons a century before, when the enmity between Queen Alicent and Princess Rhaenyra had split the realm in two, to grievous cost

—AWOIAF, The Targaryen Kings: Aerys II

Grand Maester Pycelle cleared his throat, a process that seemed to take some minutes. "My order serves the realm, not the ruler. Once I counseled King Aerys as loyally as I counsel King Robert now, so I bear this girl child of his no ill will. Yet I ask you this—should war come again, how many soldiers will die? How many towns will burn? How many children will be ripped from their mothers to perish on the end of a spear?" He stroked his luxuriant white beard, infinitely sad, infinitely weary. "Is it not wiser, even kinder, that Daenerys Targaryen should die now so that tens of thousands might live?"

—AGOT, Eddard VIII

“For the realm! Once Rhaegar died, the war was done. Aerys was mad, Viserys too young, Prince Aegon a babe at the breast, but the realm needed a king... I prayed it should be your good father, but Robert was too strong, and Lord Stark moved too swiftly... ”

—ACOK, Tyrion VI

We know from the books of the unswerving Pycelle's loyalty to the Lannister and precisely to Lord Tywin. Why this loyalty? Was there any event we don't know yet?

There´s backstory yet to be revealed, certainly, but if you asked Pycelle he would insist that he was acting in the best interests of the realm.

—FORUM: Asshai Chat July 27, 2008

It's possible that Pycelle's advice given to Aerys was personally motivated by his own political beliefs on who was best suited to rule & his acceptance that the war was already over, so he needed to get out on the winning side. GRRM has hinted that there's more to the story.

It's additionally possible that Maester Walys, Rickard Stark's maester born from a Hightower mother and an alleged archmaester father, was advising Rickard on making alliances down south simply because that's what he thought was smart politicking.

However, it's interesting that multiple maesters were involved in arranging the chess board of power in Westeros against House Targaryen, and, now, are shown to be aligned to preserve power in the hands of... the Lannisters. More accurately, I would say they seek to preserve whoever is a) currently in power and b) amenable to a maester's advice and manipulation. More on this when we get to Stannis.

Now, Pycelle is personally loyal to the Lannisters because that is what he thinks is in "the best interests of the realm," but otherwise, maesters in general are invested in preserving the power structure as is, because war disrupts their slowgoing machinations (Marwyn's words: the world the Citadel is building). In fact, as the Lannisters infight throughout ACOK and become unstable, only to be saved by an alliance with the Tyrells, there is a response from the Citadel that indicates they're willing to switch to whoever is the dominant side, it if means protecting their influence.

[T]he Conclave accepted the fact of Pycelle's dismissal and set about choosing his successor. After giving due consideration to Maester Turquin the cordwainer's son and Maester Erreck the hedge knight's bastard, and thereby demonstrating to their own satisfaction that ability counts for more than birth in their order, the Conclave was on the verge of sending us Maester Gormon, a Tyrell of Highgarden. When I told your lord father, he acted at once." The Conclave met in Oldtown behind closed doors, Tyrion knew; its deliberations were supposedly a secret. So Varys has little birds in the Citadel too. "I see. So my father decided to nip the rose before it bloomed." He had to chuckle. "Pycelle is a toad. But better a Lannister toad than a Tyrell toad, no?"

—ASOS, Tyrion II

Before we get into cartoon villain territory, let's caveat that their involvement in the deaths of the dragons and the Targaryens who could potentially hatch them once more does seem to be a one-off for them in terms of puppet-mastering against a monarch, and indeed, they never intended war, preferring to function methodically in the background.

"Be that as it may. My father sat where I sit now when Lord Eddard came to Sisterton. Our maester urged us to send Stark's head to Aerys, to prove our loyalty. It would have meant a rich reward. The Mad King was open-handed with them as pleased him. By then we knew that Jon Arryn had taken Gulltown, though. Robert was the first man to gain the wall, and slew Marq Grafton with his own hand. 'This Baratheon is fearless,' I said. 'He fights the way a king should fight.' Our maester chuckled at me and told us that Prince Rhaegar was certain to defeat this rebel.

—ADWD, Davos I

They maximize their influence — they don't overstep.

On to Stannis.

[Alys Karstark:] "Arnolf [Karstark] is rushing to Winterfell, 'tis true, but only so he might put his dagger in your king's back. He cast his lot with Roose Bolton long ago … for gold, the promise of a pardon, and poor Harry's head. Lord Stannis is marching to a slaughter.

—ADWD, Jon IX

“Y-your Grace, my order is sworn to serve, we…” “I know all about your vows. What I want to know is what was in the letter that you sent to Winterfell. Did you perchance tell Lord Bolton where to find us?” “S-sire.” Round-shouldered Tybald drew himself up proudly. “The rules of my order forbid me to divulge the contents of Lord Arnolf’s letters.”

—TWOW, Unreleased Theon Chapter

Here we have Arnolf Karstark, castellan of Karhold, who pledges to Stannis... but secretly he's actually pledged to Roose Bolton, who is in league with the Lannisters. Together they planned the Red Wedding. The Karstark maester is seen assisting in this plot to see Stannis dead via the Karstark-Bolton-Lannister network.

Does Stannis have his own maester with him? No, Maester Cressen dies in the ACOK Prologue, and his replacement, Pylos, is not mentioned as having accompanied Stannis North. Stannis is far from the influence of the Citadel and has publicly declared his new faith in R'hllor, something for the Citadel/general Westerosi hegemony to worry about, and now we have a maester helping to plot against him...

Once more, it's possible that said maester is simply acting of his own volitions & values. Conveniently in service to House Lannister which currently holds power. However, he's not the only Northern maester to have conflicting loyalties South:

[Wyman Manderly, Lord of White Harbor:] If Stannis wonders that my letters say so little, it is because I dare not even trust my maester. Theomore is all head and no heart. You heard him in my hall. Maesters are supposed to put aside old loyalties when they don their chains, but I cannot forget that Theomore was born a Lannister of Lannisport and claims some distant kinship to the Lannisters of Casterly Rock. Foes and false friends are all around me, Lord Davos.

—ADWD, Davos IV

Something to consider.

THIRD: ADDRESSING THE FERTILITY OF TARGARYEN WOMEN

Let's take it back for a minute. I'm separating this section because a whole bunch of it comes from AWOIAF/Fire & Blood and I know not everyone is super familiar with those, so I'm taking time to explain it fully. A big facet of the Maester Conspiracy has to do with magic and dragons ergo House Targaryen. We have covered the Aerys/Pycelle, Maester Aemon, and Daenerys portions.

But there is a larger relevant point: The miscarriages and stillbirths of Targaryen women.

From AGOT we know that the birth of dragons is tied to blood magic, but specifically, that magic which is performed by Daenerys — a pregnant Targaryen. She has prophetic visions both asleep and awake that lead her to the final hatching of the dragons... and it's the deaths of Rhaego in her womb, Drogo by her hand, and Mirri by her order that facilitate this.

She was lying there, holding the egg, when she felt the child move within her… as if he were reaching out, brother to brother, blood to blood. "You are the dragon," Dany whispered to him, "the true dragon. I know it. I know it." And she smiled, and went to sleep dreaming of home.

—AGOT, Daenerys IV

"You will not hear me scream," Mirri responded as the oil dripped from her hair and soaked her clothing. "I will," Dany said, "but it is not your screams I want, only your life. I remember what you told me. Only death can pay for life."

—AGOT, Daenerys X

So, let's posit that there is some matriarchal link between fertility, motherhood, and births... even of dragons.

The theory here is that maesters, operating under the idea that Targaryen wives's fertility was somehow related to the blood magics/births of dragons, meddled with their pregnancies to prevent said magics/births of dragons.

The reason the maesters may have suspected this? Well according to AGOT and Fire & Blood, at certain times, Targaryen women/wives experienced miscarriages of fetuses that were "monstrous." Dragonlike, some might describe them (some being me, in the following list) — so the contention that the women of House Targaryen were magically involved in literal dragon-birthing does seem possible.

The miscarriages in question:

1A) Maegor Targaryen and Alys Harroway's stillborn: a monster, with twisted limbs, a huge head, and no eyes.

1B) The hatchling born to Alyn Velaryon and Baela Targaryen's daughter Laena: the dragon that wriggled from the egg was a monstrosity, a wingless wyrm, maggot-white and blind

2A) Maegor and Jeyne Westerling's stillborn: a legless and armless creature possessed of both male and female genitalia → eventual death in childbirth

2B) Maester Aemon in AFFC Samwell IV: Dragons are neither male nor female, Barth saw the truth of that, but now one and now the other, as changeable as flame

3A) Maegor and Elinor Costayne's stillborn: a malformed and stillborn child, an eyeless boy born with rudimentary wings

3B) In The Hedge Knight, the last dragon to ever live is described as small with unformed wings

4A) Daemon Targaryen and Laena Velaryon's stillborn: the babe was twisted and malformed, and died within the hour → eventual death in childbirth

4B) Laena's stillbirth unique because it's implied that Rhaenyra's maester, Gerardys, who arrived slightly too late, might have been able to assist in saving Laena's life following the birth — the same way he was able to save Viserys I's hand and life when other maesters couldn't. Thus, incompetence or malice on the part of the present maester might have contributed to Laena's death.

5A) Daemon and Rhaenyra Targaryen's stillborn Visenya, Rhaenyra's early labor brought on by the news of her father's death and her usurpation by Aegon II:

The princess shrieked curses all through her labor, calling down the wrath of the gods upon her half-brothers and their mother, the queen, and detailing the torments she would inflict upon them before she would let them die. She cursed the child inside her too, Mushroom tells us, clawing at her swollen belly as Maester Gerardys and her midwife tried to restrain her and shouting, “Monster, monster, get out, get out, GET OUT!” When the babe at last came forth, she proved indeed a monster: a stillborn girl, twisted and malformed, with a hole in her chest where her heart should have been, and a stubby, scaled tail.

—Fire & Blood, The Dying of the Dragons: The Blacks and the Greens

5B) Rhaenyra's usurpation by Aegon II is a parallel to the usurpation of the Amethyst Empress by her younger brother the Bloodstone Emperor, in the ancient Great Empire of the Dawn. This is said to have been what caused the first Long Night to occur and indeed, after Rhaenyra, we see the dragons die out, magic disappear, summers grow short, and winter grow long.

When the daughter of the Opal Emperor succeeded him as the Amethyst Empress, her envious younger brother cast her down and slew her, proclaiming himself the Bloodstone Emperor and beginning a reign of terror. [...] In the annals of the Further East, it was the Blood Betrayal, as his usurpation is named, that ushered in the age of darkness called the Long Night.

—AWOIAF, The Bones and Beyond: Yi Ti

6) Naerys Targaryen's multiple miscarriages/stillbirths vs. 2 living children → eventual death in childbirth

7) Rhaella Targaryen's 8 miscarriages/stillbirths/child deaths vs. 3 living children → eventual death in childbirth

8) Daenerys with Rhaego:

"Monstrous," Mirri Maz Duur finished for him. The knight was a powerful man, yet Dany understood in that moment that the maegi was stronger, and crueler, and infinitely more dangerous. "Twisted. I drew him forth myself. He was scaled like a lizard, blind, with the stub of a tail and small leather wings like the wings of a bat. When I touched him, the flesh sloughed off the bone, and inside he was full of graveworms and the stink of corruption. He had been dead for years." Darkness, Dany thought. The terrible darkness sweeping up behind to devour her. If she looked back she was lost. "My son was alive and strong when Ser Jorah carried me into this tent," she said. "I could feel him kicking, fighting to be born."

—AGOT, Daenerys IX

With these in mind, we can ask: why would anyone think these similar descriptions have anything to do with outside interference? Couldn't it just be that Targaryen babies are weird, it's the blood magic and the incest, nothing to see here?

The thing is that all of Maegor's stillborn children (3/6 examples of dragonesque children) were poisoned, by Tyanna of the Tower. Rhaego was also poisoned, by Mirri Maaz Duur's blood magic.

So 4/6 of these hybrid children were born under the influence of some sort of darker magic. This still leaves Rhaenyra and Laena's respective draconic stillbirths. It opens the question of whether poison was involved in those, too. In my personal opinion, it might also intend to raise a question mark on the matrilineage of Targaryen women who birthed children & brought about dragons — a private theory but raised by the idea of Rhaego's description and the concept of him being "dead for years."

That said, the two serious cases I think we can look into here are Naerys and Rhaella's serial miscarriages/stillbirths/child deaths.

Both these women suffered from frail health and abusive circumstances. Naerys was extremely slight and small of stature, it's possible that she simply struggled with the physical toll of pregnancies. Rhaella gave birth for the first time under traumatic circumstances (the burning of Summerhall and deaths of her family) when she was 14 years old, totally reasonable that she'd be permanently affected by that. In fact, these are two women for whom it would not be suspicious should they experience fertility issues. So if there were ever two people who you could get away with pulling this on...

The reasons to consider each more closely —

NAERYS TARGARYEN: Naerys's successful birth of Daeron (later Daeron II) happened the same year the last dragon died. After this, King Aegon III The Dragonbane started attempting to hatch new dragons whereas before he was extremely resistant to dragon-anything. Naerys's miscarriages and stillbirths begin only after attempts to hatch dragons commence — a likely time, if a link between her fertility and future dragons was suspected by bad actors. Her only other living child Daenerys Lateborn is born 17 years later, and in fact is one of a set of twins, the other child dying at birth. So, it's possible that pregnancy was also tampered with, and simply did not succeed on both twins

Counterpoint One: Naerys was not a healthy or robust person, nor did she desire to carry children. They were forced on her by her purposely cruel brother-husband Aegon IV. It's possible she was not poisoned and simply suffered from miscarriages/stillbirths naturally.

Counterpoint Two: Naerys was married to a man who had many mistresses, lovers, bastards, and grasping councilors. It's possible that she was poisoned, but not by maesters, rather by those who sought to gain power by opening up the position of Queen.

RHAELLA TARGARYEN: Aerys and Rhaella were married to one another based on a prophecy by the Ghost of High Heart that through them, The Prince/Princess That Was Promised would be born.

"Why did they wed if they did not love each other?" "Your grandsire commanded it. A woods witch had told him that the prince was promised would be born of their line."

—ADWD, Daenerys IV

"Maester Aemon believed that Daenerys Targaryen was the fulfillment of a prophecy... her, not Stannis, nor Prince Rhaegar, nor the princeling whose head was dashed against the wall." "Born amidst salt and smoke, beneath a bleeding star. I know the prophecy." Marwyn turned his head and spat a gob of red phlegm onto the floor.

—AFFC, Samwell V

Someday the dragons will return. My brother Daeron's dreamed of it, and King Aerys read it in a prophecy. Maybe it will be my egg that hatches. That would be splendid

—The Hedge Knight

The prophecy is known to at least one maester of the Citadel... seems realistic that it would be known to multiple! The prophecy in question regards the birth of the Prince/Princess That Was Promised, the herald who will bring dragons back into the world, and the culmination of House Targaryen. When Rhaella became pregnant and was close to her due date, the King Aegon V had all the Targaryens gather in Summerhall where he intended to attempt to hatch seven dragon eggs (perhaps he also had some suspicion about the connection between the blood magic needed to hatch dragons and Rhaella's imminent potentially prophesized birth?)

… the blood of the dragon gathered in one … … seven eggs, to honor the seven gods, though the king’s own septon had warned … … pyromancers … … wildfire … … ames grew out of control … towering … burned so hot that … … died, but for the valor of the Lord Comman …

—AWOIAF, The Targaryen Kings: Aegon V

This is what remains of the story of Summerhall. Who wrote this note? Maester Corso, of course. Where did he send this letter? The Citadel. Woof. Innocuous on it's own but for the purpose of this post, in line with the idea that the Citadel was keeping a close eye on all things dragon.

The Maester Conspiracy would ask: who is to say what really went wrong at Summerhall? All we know is that Rhaella gave birth there amidst the chaos and then she didn't give birth to a child who lived past a year for 17 years to come. Miscarriages, stillbirths, child deaths... she had them all. Aerys's paranoia grew and grew until Rhaella was completely isolated. It was under these conditions of extreme scrutiny that Rhaella finally had Viserys, and Viserys lived, and then Daenerys was born while isolated on Dragonstone & raised far from maester's influence following.

Here's the point that sticks out though:

"Lannisport was the end of our voyage," Prince Oberyn went on, as Ser Arron Qorgyle helped him into a padded leather tunic and began lacing it up the back. "Were you aware that our mothers knew each other of old?" "They had been at court together as girls, I seem to recall. Companions to Princess Rhaella?"

"Just so. It was my belief that the mothers had cooked up this plot between them.

—ASOS, Tyrion X

The Unnamed Princess of Dorne and Joanna Lannister were both companions to Princess Rhaella. The exact timeline is unclear but it's definite that the Unnamed Princess was older than the other two. She'd given birth to Doran over a decade before Rhaegar was born, although Rhaella was a very young mother (13 or 14). However, they were close enough to cook up 'plots.' It seems realistic that the Unnamed Princess was present earlier in Rhaella's life while Joanna came about later. GRRM is not trustworthy with ages and timelines anyway, so that's a supposition.

All three of these women had the same experience: a firstborn who lived, followed by a long expanse of fertility issues, followed by another successful birth (or more).

"I was the oldest," the prince said, "and yet I am the last. After Mors and Olyvar died in their cradles, I gave up hope of brothers. I was nine when Elia came, a squire in service at Salt Shore. When the raven arrived with word that my mother had been brought to bed a month too soon, I was old enough to understand that meant the child would not live. Even when Lord Gargalen told me that I had a sister, I assured him that she must shortly die. Yet she lived, by the Mother's mercy. And a year later Oberyn arrived, squalling and kicking.

—AFFC, The Captain of the Guard

Doran was nine before his mother had another successful birth after two child deaths. Her manner of death is unknown. Tyrion is likewise nine years younger than Jaime & Cersei. Joanna Lannister's possible fertility issues in the in-between are unknown, but she died in childbirth. Viserys is 17 years younger than Rhaegar (similar to how Daenerys Lateborn is 17 years younger than Daeron II). Rhaella Targaryen died in childbirth. If all three of these women who canonically shared time, meals, chambers, etc together suffered from similar infertility issues and timelines, with Rhaella being the worst affected, can we theorize that there might have been issues of poison at play?

Pycelle was the Grand Maester at the time — we know he was involved in other plots with poison at the center (Robert Baratheon and Jon Arryn most notably), and we also know that Tywin Lannister married for love. So despite his loyalty to Tywin, couldn't it be that Pycelle never expected Tywin to match with his cousin of few advantages, and that Joanna's struggles were perhaps an unintended, unforeseen consequence?

Could this be the additional backstory regarding Pycelle and Tywin that GRRM is referencing?

Counterpoint One: If the maesters were aware of the prophecy and Rhaegar fulfilled it, they shouldn't have continued with Rhaella

Counterpoint Two: The timeline for the various births of Rhaella, Joanna, and Unnamed Princess are all over the place. It's possible that GRRM didn't simply flub the timeline and actually there is no connection between these three women's similar fertility issues.

Counterpoint Three: Rhaella was traumatized from her young birth and Summerhall's tragedy, her fertility issues arose naturally.

All possibilities.

FOURTH: IS ALL OF THIS GOING TO BITE THE CITADEL IN THE ASS SOMEHOW? WHY ARE THEY EVEN DOING THIS? (SPECULATION)

My theory as to the roots of the Maester Conspiracy is threefold:

ONE: The Citadel, like all institutions of higher academia, is not politically neutral and is invested in specific visions for the future. They inherently seek to preserve the status quo which allows them to function and expand their own influence. They are as liable to corruption as any of the other institutions we see (monarchy, knighthood, the Faith, the Night's Watch, the Kingsguard, etc.) and while maesters do not act as one, they do act as an informal web pushing forth specific beliefs and ideals.

TWO: Not all maesters are created equal. Archmaesters and other such influential members of the Citadel are closer to certain truths than others, it's in the handchosen placement of maesters in the ears of specific lords/political players that we see a larger plan.

THREE: The Citadel is aware of prophecies foretelling a second Long Night to come. To combat this, they have long sought to destroy one of the heralds of said disaster, that being dragons. To put it simply: All magic is from the same root / all magic must be destroyed.

That's my theory.

Now, is this going to bite them in the ass? Hahaha of course!

ONE: The Faceless Men are infiltrating the Citadel due to some plan we are not yet privy to. The AFFC Prologue shows us the novice Pate being body snatched by an FM implied to the Jaqen H'ghar — what is he after, though? Potentially the extremely rare book titled The Death of Dragons that is solely kept in some locked basement of the Citadel... which he just acquired a key for?

TWO: Euron Greyjoy is coming to sack Oldtown, and he is obsessed with dragons/arcane arts/doing experiments with pregnant women (back to my point about connecting dragon births and human fertility)... but above all, he is not nice.

THREE: Daenerys Targaryen is coming to Westeros, and she's the Mother of Dragons. The Dragons are here. By focusing on dragons, it's possible the maesters have lost sight of the bigger picture — the incoming Long Night, wights, and Battle for the Dawn.

That was such a long post I fear and way beyond the question you asked. I appreciate it anyway, seeing as I've wanted to get all these thoughts out for a while to organize what I think & what the text itself points to.

To answer your question: Yes I do think the Maester Conspiracy is a real thing! I believe it's been set up mainly insofar as it will guide Samwell Tarly's POVs in Oldtown, the upcoming Euron Greyjoy plotlines, and potentially Arya due to the Faceless Men connect.

Eventually it will bring Daenerys Targaryen and Jon Snow into play (the latter likely due to the Arya and Sam of it all, which winks to the importance of Jon now having an Oldtown-bred squire in Satin), probably in line with the concept of the Second Dance George has been teasing us about.

Just how it will all play out, though, I couldn't say. We shall have to see. Drink water. Manifest TWOW. Speaking of manifesting...

#asoiaf #valyrianscrolls #asoiaf meta #text #maesters #maester aemon #maester cressen #maestern luwin #archmaester marwyn #rhaella targaryen #naerys targaryen #samwell tarly #tyrion lannister #daenerys targaryen #the citadel #joanna lannister #unnamed princess of dorne #magic in asoiaf #asoiaf speculation

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racefortheironthrone · 11 months

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Hello, I've been loving your blog posts thus far and came across your analysis on Baelor Breakspear versus Bloodraven and how the latter's priorities and personality certainly did not help put out the garbage fire fate had given him, as opposed to the general peace and prosperity Baelor was gifted. I was curious as to how Baelor would have handled the plague and drought? I understand that they're probably not pulling off a miracle, but given that he'd at least maintain the feudal contract he's taken at least half of Bloodraven's issues off of his plate. Like, what could you even do with the tech level and ability of state they were working with?

That's an excellent question.

To be fair to Bloodraven, he was handling situations that medieval governments generally did not have the state capacity to deal with - even if they had understood the biological mechanisms of plague, they generally had neither the medical technology needed to test and treat it nor the bureaucratic manpower needed to execute a public health strategy. (To be completely fair, the Republic of Ragusa did invent the quarantine or technically the trentino in 1347, but republics tended to be outliers when it came to state capacity.)

I think that Baelor Breakspear would have struggled to deal with both the plague and the drought that followed. However, I think the main difference between King Baelor's government and the Lord Hand Bloodraven's government is that Baelor would have tried to help, and I think that would have changed the popular perception of whether the feudal social contract was being upheld. Bloodraven's abiding sin as Hand, in addition to the whole police state thing, is that he was so monomaniacally focused on preventing a Blackfyre crossing of the Narrow Sea that he essentially abrogated the monarchy's responsibility to govern on all other issues.

So what could Baelor have done?

Well, when it comes to the plague, I think Baelor could have issued a decree calling on towns and cities to emulate the Vale and Dorne in closing themselves off from travelers - it's a crude form of quarantine, but it did work to protect those kingdoms from the Great Spring Sickness. And in the aftermath, providing even symbolic assistance to widows and orphans and the like would go a long way to making the people feel like the government was trying to help in an impossible situation.

And when it comes to the drought, I think Baelor could have done a lot to help with famine relief. Similar to Aegon V sending food supplies to the North during a harsh winter, I think bringing in grain shipments from Essos to alleviate the suffering of the peasantry would have done a lot more to prevent destabilizing mass migration than Bloodraven's decrees. Issuing decrees waiving royal taxes and cutting feudal rents for affected areas would certainly strain the budget and piss off local lords, but again they would make sure that the peasants wouldn't have to hand over what little food they had and then go migrating in search of something to eat.

Equally importantly, I think Baelor both could and would have acted against Dagon Greyjoy - if the Royal Fleet is needed in the Narrow Sea, calling up the Redwyne Fleet and the Oldtown fleet and commanding the Wardens of the West and North to ready for an invasion of the Iron Islands would have put the Last Reaver down years earlier. And again, showing that the King will act to uphold the King's Peace and punish rebellion and piracy goes a long way to making the populace feel like the rules are being upheld.

And if those actions didn't outright prevent a Second or Third Blackfyre Rebellion, they would at least starve those uprisings of the fuel for their fire, shrinking them from rebellions with a popular constiuency to a mere conspiracy of a few disaffected aristocrats.

#asoiaf #asoiaf meta #baelor breakspear #bloodraven #great spring sickness #drought

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drakaripykiros130ac · 6 months

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Your blog is awesome and your arguments against TG are brilliant, I saw many of them, you ate!!

Imagine this:

The blacks win the war even before it begins so there is no war. However, the greens are still guilty, they tried to steal Rhaenyra's throne and they must be punished.

What kind of punishment would you give to each one of them?

Thank you!!! I’m glad you’re enjoying my posts.

As for your question, hmm…let’s see.

It’s best to start with the main conspirators:

1. Otto Hightower: executed for High Treason against the Crown. Lord Hightower has to publicly swear obeisance to Queen Rhaenyra Targaryen and her family, as well as offer a public apology for the conspiracy in which members of his family were involved in. House Hightower offers compensation in gold to the Crown Treasury in perpetuity. If House Hightower refuses to comply, Oldtown will be burned to the ground.

2. Ser Crispin Cole: executed for High Treason against the Crown, as well as for the murders of Ser Joffrey Lonmouth and Lord Lyman Beesbury.

3. Ser Tyland Lannister: executed for High Treason against the Crown. Lord Jason Lannister has to publicly swear obeisance to Queen Rhaenyra Targaryen and her family. House Lannister has to offer compensation in gold for the next 20 years to the Crown’s treasury. Given that “a Lannister always pays his debts”, there is no need for threats.

4. Alicent Hightower: sent to become a Silent Sister. She is not allowed to see her children or her grandchildren ever again.

5. Ser Gwayne Hightower: executed for High Treason against the Crown.

6. Lord Jasper Wylde: sent to the Black Cells in perpetuity.

7. Grand Maester Orwyle: sent to the Black Cells for 5 years for being part of the Green Council.

8. Larys Strong: executed for High Treason against the Crown and for the murder of his father, Lord Lyonel Strong and his brother, Harwin Strong.

As for Rhaenyra’s kin:

1. Aegon Targaryen: made to swear obeisance to Queen Rhaenyra Targaryen and her family. He is to remain in the Red Keep with his wife and children but obliged to do acts of penance for having abused servant girls. If he proves his loyalty, Queen Rhaenyra will offer him a place on her Small Council.

2. Helaena Targaryen: made to swear obeisance to Queen Rhaenyra Targaryen and her family. She remains in the Red Keep with her children.

3. Aemond Targaryen: sentenced to the Black Cells for life (if the Blacks win after Lucerys’ murder) OR made to swear obeisance to Queen Rhaenyra and join the Gold Cloaks, under the close supervision of Prince Daemon Targaryen and his men (if the Blacks win and Lucerys isn’t killed).

4. Daeron Targaryen: made to swear obeisance to Queen Rhaenyra Targaryen and her family. He is to return to Oldtown.

#house of the dragon #team black #rhaenyra targaryen #pro team black #anti alicent hightower #hotd #anti team green #queen rhaenyra #anti greens #anti otto hightower #anti jasper wylde #anti criston cole #anti gwayne hightower #asoiaf #a song of ice and fire #daemon targaryen

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joyfulladywarrior · 7 months

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Rhaenyra and Laenor conceive Velaryon looking children au

Rhaenyra and Laenor had consulted different healers and fertility witches from Essos so they can have children without sex. One of the methods worked and Rhaenyra got pregnant. After 8 months and a half, she gave birth to Jacearys who had her hair and Laenor's skin and eye color. Rhaenyra reveled in the bewildered look Alicent had on her face. Rhaenyra is not as blind as her father when it comes to the little whore. She heard the whispers of bastardy from her early pregnancy days. She knows that the green court believed the whispers to be true. The looks on their faces were very entertaining. The looks, however, changed from bewilderment to fear when Jace's egg had hatched while none of her siblings hatched dragons and they were all too young to claim one.

It didn't take long after the egg hatched for the assassination attempts to begin. The first attempt happened during a council meeting. He was a spoiled lord from a minor house from the reach who has never killed anyone, let alone a child, before. He broke down weeping. Truly, it is a marvel that he was able to reach the nursery. He was executed by dragonfire. The second attempt happened during the night. This time the assassin was a professional but he died by the white cloaks. The third attempt happened during early morning. It was one of the nursing maids who feed the prince Daeron and prince Jacaerys. Vermax burned her but did not kill her. She was fired and the attempt was ruled an accidental event. After the third attempt, Rhaenyra and Laenor went to Viserys and they both questioned how is it that Daeron and Jacaerys share everything but it is always Jacaerys that is targeted in these attempts. Alicent protested loudly over the insinuation and begged Viserys to not let them insult her. Viserys had not believed that there is any foul play in those attempts and that assassinations attempts happen all the time when you are a prince of the realm. After many attempts to force Viserys to begin an internal investigation over who could be behind those attempts, Rhaenyra and Laenor had decided that it would be safer for their son to live in Dragonstone.

After the move, Rhaenyra only went to the red keep when there was a council meeting. Viserys had been upset over the new development but would not move a finger against his wife. After Rhaenyra gave birth to Lucerys, she had a dream of the demise of the dragons and the conspiracies that are against the house of the dragon since Aegon's conquest. She woke up and decided to answer Alicent's call of war with action. She had gathered her family for a consultation and shared with them her dream and Aegon's dream. Rhaenys being Aemon's heir had already known about Aegon's dream and agreed that some form of action should be taken. Corlys, eager to avenge the lack of action against the Triarchy and the insult to his daughter, offered to take the Velaryon fleet and block ships from arriving to Oldtown. He had also suggested to bribe Greyjoy to move against the Lannisters. Rhaenys then suggested to turn the smallfolk against the king and his green woman which should be easy if it came out that Otto was the main reason why Viserys neglected the smallfolk. Alicent had never endeared herself to the smallfolk the way Aemma did. It would be easy to turn them against her.

A year after, Viserys held an emergency meeting over the complaints he's getting from Oldtown. There had been a blockade and the ships have to divert to deliver their shipment to Oldtown. The extra time led to Oldtown receiving spoiled food. Alicent wanted him to call on the Velaryon and Lannister fleets to solve the blockade. Rhaenyra, however, catered to his peacekeeping tendencies. She minimized the threat of the blockades. It certainly is a problem that doesn't concern the crown and a few blockades won't make the people of Oldtown suffer. She was also certain that Viserys does not want to show too much preference to one house. He is known to be a fair king and any special treatment would not be perceived well. This had shut down all opposition.

A year later, things had only gotten worse. The blockade matter did resolve itself. No one found out who was behind it. Shipments are being received more regularly. They have new problems now. Septs and houses are being set on fire. Oldtown is not the only place with problems. The Greyjoys ransacked small towns surrounding Lannisport and the smallfolk started to revolt against the king. Rhaenyra eventually had to intervene with the smallfolk and send them food and she dedicated a specific amount to orphanages. Rhaenyra had also conducted an investigation regarding the fires in Oldtown. It was found out that some of the maesters were experimenting in making weapons that would be more effective against dragons and they had to practice using the weapons somewhere. Those maesters were brought up and executed by dragon fire. After Viserys had found out how the actions of his daughter brought peace to the realm again, he invited the lords and ladies of major houses to kingslanding. He also invited Rhaenyra and the Velaryons. In front of the entire council and the Velaryons, Viserys announced that he intends to name Rhaenyra regent queen. The green council were beyond themselves and were reminding the king that he is still healthy (HA!) with many years till his reign end. Rhaenyra said that she cannot accept being a regent. You could hear a pin drop in the council room. Alicent looks like she was going to faint. She repeated her sentiment and said that she only needs a favor from his Grace. To conduct an internal investigation on the assassination attempts on Jacaerys. This time, Viserys agreed since he owed Rhaenyra after she restored the peace of the realm. The investagation yielded shocking results. It was discovered that Alicent, Otto, Larys Strong, Tyland Lannister, and others were behind the assassination. Viserys ordered them to be thrown in the black cells. Alicent was crying and screaming profanities. She called Rhaenyra a witch and a heretic but she was dragged away all the same. That night, Viserys had a heart attack but still survived. Now, Rhaenyra truly needed to step up as regent before the green council exploit the opportunity. Her reign began that night even if she only had the regent title. She had Otto, Larys, and Tyland executed and shipped Alicent and her children to Oldtown, ensuring that her half siblings won't be able to claim a dragon.

Even though, Rhaenyra had won in all the means of the word, she could not forgive nor forget the torment Alicent put her through. She needed to take everything from Alicent, the same way Alicent had taken everything away from her. While Rhaenyra knew that Alicent was not the mastermind behind the plan to seduce Viserys, Rhaenyra also knew that Alicent was not entirely innocent. A lady in their world cannot afford to be too naive to not believe that Otto wanted Viserys to bed her. Alicent, who had always been too self-righteous about her gods, knows that bedding a man who is not her husband is a sin to the seven, yet she did it anyway. Alicent had taken their friendship and trampled on it. She had comforted Viserys without doing her duty to Rhaenyra. She had destroyed Viserys' image to Rhaenyra. Before her mother's death, Rhaenyra had thought that she was the problem. Her father had loved her mother and had she been born a boy then her father would not have tortured her mother with multiple pregnancies and miscarriages. After she heard her father announce that he would wed Alicent, she knew that she was not the problem. He is. If he had loved her mother, he wouldn't immediately bed Alicent. Rhaenyra heard from the servants that Alicent had visited him the night of the funeral. They also told Rhaenyra that they found blood on the sheets ten days after the funeral. Rhaenyra's own dreams had showed her proof of this. Rhaenyra was never the problem, her father was. Otto was the problem. Alicent was too. It isn't enough to exile Alicent and kill her father. She had to take her children too. Ruin them the same way Alicent ruined Rhaenyra.

Rhaenyra had called her brothers to become squire and called her sister to be her lady in waiting. This action was seen as benevolent by the court but it was anything but. From her dreams, Rhaenyra had already known a lot about her siblings. No matter what happens, Helaena would not be able to handle the pressure of the court and the ladies who were ignored in favor of her mother would retaliate against her ten fold the insult they perceived. Eventually, Helaena would ask her sister to return to Oldtown. When she did, Alicent had admonished Helaena for ruining her only chance at finding a husband. Aegon was already known be a drunkard and a whoremonger but to be known as such and to be seen as such are two different things. There are still lords who are in favor of Aegon being named heir. Rhaenyra's spies had told her that Alicent had been in contact with those lords and hope to usurp her when Viserys died. The moment Aegon is alone in the court, without his mother, he would not care for appearances and would lose his allies. Aemond would be too busy following their uncle Daemon in order to learn everything in hopes of receiving a dragon than to focus on keeping his brother in line. His obsession with dragons would lead him to be maimed when the Cannibal (the last dragon Aemond tried to claim) rejects him. Daeron has the best fate out of the Hightargs. He shares the same queer taste as Laenor. He would be completely enamored with Lucerys and would follow Lucerys to Driftmark when the time comes. Alicent would see the downfall of her children and would be unable to do anything.

#rhaenyra targaryen #badass rhaenyra #queen rhaenyra #true heir rhaenyra #viserys targaryen #hand of the king rhaenys #rhaenys velaryon #rhaenys x corlys #corlys velaryon #laenor velaryon #white knight method #dark rhaenyra

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ackermental · 2 years

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Listen, I have no idea how that’s even possible, but the second episode is just as good as the first one, if not better.

I’m actually struggling to think of anything that was not to my taste, so again, I’ll begin with cons, since I have a feeling those will be much shorter:

1. Alicent harming herself 🙄🤨😒

Not so long ago I’ve made a post about different show where I’ve pointed out this newest trope writers use. They make the most unlikable character in the story either a victim of rape, self harm, or a minority in order to make them look more sympathetic. More often than not, they do that to female characters. It’s disgusting, it’s on the nose, it has no place in this story. I hate it. Let women be bad characters, we are only people, we can be terrible bitches just like any other random dude.

2. The Wigs™. Nothing new here, still bad though. The one for Laena is sending me 🤣🤣, they did my girl dirty.

3. Rhaenys’ talk about men not choosing her, when she was supported by two Great Houses and the House with the largest fleet in the Kingdom 🙄. This woman should know better than anyone that the Great Council was a suss and the voting was cheated. I have to say, though, that there is a big chance she was simply manipulating Rhaenyra, just like Corlys was manipulating Viserys. I’m putting this in cons just in case for now.

4. I hoped that they would change Dragonstone’s design, at least the interior. That’s an ancestral seat of the Royal family at the time of their peak. It kinda made sense for it to look dreadful in GOT, but not in HOTD.

5. The little figures shown during the choosing of the next Kingsguard were pretty and all that, but what was the point of them? I have no idea.

6. It seems they’re not going to make Strongs members of the Oldtown Triad conspiracy, and that’s a shame. It takes away a lot of depth from Harwin’s character, if not all of it. It also simplifies the coup for ‘common viewer’. As if we were not capable of understanding it. Not to mention we’ll no longer have the tragic irony of Viserys replacing Otto with Lyonel thinking he made a difference, when in fact this changed nothing 😞.

And that’s it. The rest was wonderful.

1. I simply adore Corlys being a manipulative asshole, playing for himself and his family and for no one else. I was so worried that the writers would go for Velaryons being Targaryen’s bitches and besties and *Yay! We are so proud to be light!Targs* thing. It sure is what most of this fandom has thought about them for years. Corlys twisting the situation on the Stepstones into an excuse to wed his daughter to the King and going after Daemon as soon as Viserys puts him aside was brilliant. The fact that he straight out admits by the end of the episode, that the situation on the Stepstones puts HIS House in danger 🥳😍. Love to see it.

2. We can witness Rhaenyra slowly trying to gain her voice during political meetings and how quickly the entire Oldtown Team shuts her up. It shows us so clearly, that they’ve used her for their own agenda and that with Daemon gone, nobody, even her own father, gives a single fuck about what she wants to say. It’s so heartbreaking, seeing just how strong Otto’s grasp on Viserys is.

3. Rhaenyra choosing Criston was such a great scene covering multiple pieces of storytelling. The way she has to stand on an increase, to make us understand how ‘small’ she still is. Rhaenyra smiling, truly smiling for the first time in the entire episode before she sees Daemon again, while she chooses a man who will later bring death to her and her children, almost brought tears to my eyes. Also, her already having stronger backbone and doing something Viserys couldn’t do for years – standing up to Otto. The fact that she picks Cole not because she’s smitten, but because Criston is a great fighter.🤌🤌

4. Love the little detail of Otto trying to put someone from House Crakehall or Mallister on the Kingsguard. Crakehalls will later fight for the Greens, while Mallisters wanted to fight for the Greens and changed their minds only after Velaryons’ threatened them intervention.

5. I still hate Alicent being Rhaenyra’s friend, but their scene was full of brilliant characterization. They used it perfectly to show the contrast between the two. Alicent being this pious, well-bred Lady, who knows her place, does her fathers' bidding, goes to Sept, prays for her mother and tells Rhaenyra that she should not get involved with politics. And Rhaenyra, talking about men plotting behind her back to a person who is actually plotting behind her back (and good lord, I love this scene!) and trying to act for herself. It’s a beautiful build up from the last episode, with Alicent being terrified of the septa and feeling this pressure to learn, because that’s what is expected of a Lady vs Rhaenyra already having the knowledge, because it’s an interesting story worth knowing and remembering, as well as the iconic „fuck the septa”.

6. I love how the show emphasizes the difference between Valyrians and the Andals and how Rhaenyra and Daemon are the main representatives of their culture. They refuse to abandon their traditions, to forget their language and faith. I love how it shows them not really belonging in this country, in their own court. Love how it explains Oldtown preferring Viserys who managed to acclimatize better. Rhaenyra doesn’t even know what to do in the Sept, because those are not her gods, yet she’s still being respectful. But that was never enough for the Andals, was it?

7. I’ve changed my mind. Velaryons being at King’s Landing actually explains the large plot hole of just how Laena managed to bind Vhagar to her, when Velaryons haven’t been around any dragnos (except for Meleys ofc) for years in the books.

8. I like how smooth the exposition for Rhaenyra’s age was. Viserys talking about her being fifteen makes perfect sense, because what father doesn't find the adolescence of his little girl to be terrifying? I salute all the idiots screaming about her being eleven.

9. The microexpressions Emily gives are just cheff's kisses👌. Alicent knows very well what she’s doing.

10. Rhaenyra wearing Daemon’s necklace even after all this time and ‘the heir for a day’ rumor 😭. She doesn’t believe it for a second, and I love it!

11. Viserys straight out admitting that he thinks of Otto and Grand Maester as the Small Council. Not that he’s wrong, but the fact that those cunts don’t even have to pretend, yet still do, shows you just how calculating they are. The little comedy Otto does with Mellos, trying to make it look like one is for Laena and the other is not, yet we still got treated to the little look maester gives Otto, like „c’mon man, this is your line now”. I want to kiss the showrunners.

12. Laena asking after Vhagar. Yes girl, you have your priorities in the right order!

13. The fact that they point out Lords making vows to Rhaenyra and how it does change everything. Finally somebody understands how feudalism works. Rhaenys storming off with a huff, because she knows she’s been talking nonsense and trying to twist the facts, yet it’s still not working on Rhaenyra. „Your father is not a fool”, please Rhaenys, you can do better than that.

14. Otto jumping out of his chair to stop Viserys, because he knows that if he allows the two brothers to meet, they will make up and all of his hard work will be for nothing. The audacity this man has, to say that Daemon would harm his brother, when he’s the one plotting House Targaryen demise!

15. I know I’ve made many jokes about it as soon as I saw it, but the scene on Dragonstone is actually brilliant. Daemon increasing his provocations to the point where he can no longer be ignored was a smart idea to make his brother meet up with him. If not for Otto, it would have worked. The fact that he takes the specific egg, hoping that if he doesn't get to see his brother, he at least gets to see Rhaenyra, again shows you that this man just wants to be with his family. And when it doesn’t go as he’s planned, he at least makes an attempt to rouse Otto, counting on him to take the bait and give Daemon an excuse to finally kill the cunt where he stands.

16. The dismissing way in which Daemon addresses Ser Cunt, the “very good” line. Oh, how well we were served this week 🤭🥰.

17. The way this episode makes it explicably clear that dragons are the most deadly weapons in the world and that dragonriders are a tremendous power the King wields. And show writers are hammering it down hard. First when Rhaenyra points it out to her father, who’s constantly being manipulated into forgetting just how large of a force he has at his disposal. Then again when Otto calls the egg weapon. And then again when we see Ser Cunt, the rest of the Kingsguard, and Otto cower before Caraxes. Yes, Cole might be a better knight, yes, Kingsguard might be better trained than City Watch, but it still makes no difference because Targaryens have dragons. It was a great scene to make viewers understand, that if you wish to get rid of Targaryens, you have to do it without openly challenging them. Because if you do, you’ll lose every time.

18. The face Otto makes when he sees Caraxes 🙌👏. The fact that book readers can see the moment he remembers Hightowers' own prophecy. That if they ever dare to fight dragons, the Oldtown will burn. The fact that he almost believed the lies he’s been feeding Viserys and forgot for a second why Targaryens are the Royal family in the first place. His forced calmness, the way he straightens his back and gives his men the command to stand down. That was some wonderful characterization done with only one line of dialog. And it makes him look like a badass even though he’s retreating.

19. Daemon standing down as soon as he sees Rhaenyra, his little smile when she lands, him throwing her an egg. She’s been so alone this whole time, with both Rhaenys and Alicent dismissing her new role, her father ignoring her, the Small Council basically treating her like a joke. And here Daemon is, giving her what she wants without any fight. It’s also such an important little detail for how this story will unfold. This man hates the mere idea of Rhaenyra being angry at him, she’s the only family member who still loves him implicitly and for a man who craves love as much as he does, it makes perfect sense that he’s ready to do anything to prove himself to her. The fact that Otto is right there to see it, explains even more the Oldtown Triad using this affection against them later on.

20. By the way, I love how Otto begins this episode with absolutely ignoring Rhaenyra as an opponent and only seeing her as a naive girl, who's there just to serve his purpose (the same way he uses his own daughter), only to realize by the end how much of a real threat she is. He’s just caught up to the fact that he made Lords of Westeros swear fealty to a woman who’s a dragonrider, a dragon hatcher, is actually very comfortable with her valyrian roots, has a very good relationship with another dragonrider, and who at the age of fifteen dares to challenge him and straight out ignores his council. The irony of replacing Daemon with someone much, much worse is slowly starting to bite him in the ass.

21. The writers really be out there, pissing on all those morons claiming that Daemon is a power-hungry madman, who wishes to take his brother’s crown. „I’ll speak of my brother as I wish. You will not.”

22. I loved watching Corlys exploiting Daemon’s position in order to get Caraxes to deal with his war. It’s a really well-played move.

23. And here we have it, Rhaenyra’s final realization that she’s truly alone, that she can’t trust anyone, that nobody at court stands in her corner. Which will later explain her need to find someone just for herself, and the way she’ll see and use Criston, and her happiness at having Daemon back again, and jeez, it’s such a well-writen story!

So yeah, another episode that turned out to be great. I was still not over my shock from last week and they did it again, they gave us good ASOIAF content. Can’t wait for more.

#hotd #house of the dragon #daemon x rhaenyra #daemon targaryen #rhaenyra targaryen

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