aegon vi targaryen Archives - History of Westeros

Blackfyre Rebellions: Part 6 – The Golden Company

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhmRi1U6Eyk

Steven Attewell of Race for the Iron Throne returns, we discuss the 3rd and 4th Blackfyre Rebellions, the Golden Company, and a lot more Bittersteel.

Credits
Our introduction, the Essos map, and the Bittersteel and Golden Company images were created by Michael Klarfeld (Klaradox), with the cyvasse pieces created by dutchmogul. Check out the episode on YouTube or the Acast player below to see those images, as well as art by Ed Scheer.

The primary topics in this episode:

Part 1 – The Life of an Exile
Part 2 – The Blackfyre Dynasty ~212
Part 3 – The Golden Company
Part 4 – Third Blackfyre Rebellion
Part 5 – Fourth Blackfyre Rebellion
Part 6 – Bittersteel: Death & Legacy
Part 7 – The Golden Company Then & Now
Outro

“At first the magisters and archons and merchant princes were pleased to welcome the last ~~Targaryens~~ Blackfyres to their homes and tables, but as the years passed and the ~~Usurper~~ Falseborn continued to sit upon the Iron Throne, doors closed and their lives grew meaner. Years past they had been forced to sell their last few treasures, and now even the coin they had gotten from Mother’s crown had gone. In the alleys and wine sinks of ~~Pentos~~ Tyrosh, they called her brother “the beggar king.” ~~Dany~~ Calla did not want to know what they called her.” – AGOT, Daenerys I

My mother was a lady of Tyrosh. I dye my hair in memory of her.” – ADWD, Tyrion III

“He has been trained in arms, as befits a knight to be, but that was not the end of his education. He reads and writes, he speaks several tongues, he has studied history and law and poetry. A septa has instructed him in the mysteries of the Faith since he was old enough to understand them.” – ADWD, Epilogue

“Bittersteel gathered exiled lords and knights, and their descendants, to him. He formed the Golden Company in 212 AC, and soon established it as the foremost free company of the Disputed Lands. “Beneath the gold, the bitter steel” became their battle cry, renowned across Essos.” – TWOIAF

“Bittersteel saw the strength of House Blackfyre scattering to the four winds, so he formed the Golden Company to bind the exiles together.” – TWOIAF

“Ser Aegor Rivers was sixty-nine years of age when he fell, and it is said he died as he had lived, with a sword in his hand and a curse upon his lips. Yet his legacy would live on in the Golden Company and the Blackfyre line he had served and protected.” – TWOIAF

The Winds of Winter: The Forsaken

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BwjmMDMo-tQ

We were among the first on the planet to hear this chapter, and it’s safe to say: we’re taken by the “The Forsaken”! PoorQuentyn’s transcript of The Winds of Winter: The Forsaken can be found here. Our new introduction was created by Michael Klarfeld (Klaradox), with the cyvasse pieces created by dutchmogul.

The primary topics in this episode:

Part 1 – Euron
Part 2 – To Valyria and Beyond
Part 3 – Dreams, Visions & Hallucinations
Part 4 – Of Sacrifice and Bait
Outro

“The Shields have served my purpose. I took them with one hand, and gave them away with the other. A great king is open-handed, brother. It is up to the new lords to hold them now. The glory of winning those rocks will be mine forever. When they are lost, the defeat will belong to the four fools who so eagerly accepted my gifts.”

“I think the Damphair’s dead. I think the Crow’s Eye slit his throat for him. Ironmaker’s search is just to make us believe the priest escaped. Euron is afraid to be seen as a kinslayer.” – The Wayward Bride, ADWD

Euron Crow’s Eye stood upon the deck of Silence, clad in a suit of black scale armor like nothing Aeron had ever seen before. Dark as smoke it was, but Euron wore it as easily as if it was the thinnest silk. The scales were edged in red gold, and gleamed and shimmered when they moved. Patterns could be seen within the metal, whorls and glyphs and arcane symbols folded into the steel.

Valyrian steel, the Damphair knew. His armor is Valyrian steel. In all the Seven Kingdoms, no man owned a suit of Valyrian steel. Such things had been known 400 years ago, in the days before the Doom, but even then, they would’ve cost a kingdom.”

“If your Drowned God did not smite me for killing three brothers, why should he bestir himself for the fourth?”

“Euron did not lie. He has been to Valyria. No wonder he was mad.”

“A weaker man might have wept, but Aeron Damphair prayed, waking, sleeping, even in his fever dreams he prayed. My god is testing me. I must be strong, I must be true.”

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Aziz vs. ADWD Epilogue

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JMuScleEYwU

A breakdown of the final chapter in A Dance with Dragons! Our new introduction was created by Michael Klarfeld (Klaradox), with the cyvasse pieces created by dutchmogul.

This episode was created as part of our Patreon reward system! Patreon voters will select from a short list of chapters and Aziz will record an episode breaking down that chapter. A new installation will come periodically. All the foreshadowing and parallels, the historical references, easter eggs and fates of secondary characters. All the fun.

These episodes will be available for Patreon supporters only until TWoW is released! When that happens, we’ll switch to discussing a TWoW chapter each time instead. The TWoW chapter recordings will be for Patreon supporters only, and the previous episodes will be released for anyone. This ADWD chapter is the first episode in this series, so we released it as an example of how these Aziz vs. Chapter episodes will work.

“You do not deserve to die alone on such a cold dark night. There are many like you, good men in service to bad causes…”

“We do not even know if he’s alive. Meryn Trant claimed that Strong took neither food nor drink, and Boros Blount went so far as to say he had never seen the man use the privy. Why should he? Dead men do not shit. Kevan Lannister had a strong suspicion of just who this Ser Robert really was beneath that gleaming white armor. A suspicion that Mace Tyrell and Randyll Tarly no doubt shared. Whatever the face hidden behind Strong’s helm, it must remain hidden for now. The silent giant was his niece’s only hope.”

A knight of the Kingsguard was always posted at its far end. Tonight the duty had fallen to Ser Meryn Trant. With Balon Swann hunting the rogue knight Darkstar down in Dorne, Loras Tyrell gravely wounded on Dragon-stone, and Jaime vanished in the riverlands, only four of the White Swords remained in King’s Landing, and Ser Kevan had thrown Osmund Kettleblack (and his brother Osfryd) into the dungeon within hours of Cersei’s confessing that she had taken both men as lovers. That left only Trant, the feeble Boros Blount, and Qyburn’s mute monster Robert Strong to protect the young king and royal family.

“The more I give him, the more he wants. Kevan Lannister was beginning to understand why Cersei had grown so resentful of the Tyrells.”

“Ser Kevan was cold as ice, and every labored breath sent a fresh stab of pain through him. He glimpsed movement, heard the soft scuffling sound of slippered feet on stone. A child emerged from a pool of darkness, a pale boy in a ragged robe, no more than nine or ten. Another rose up behind the Grand Maester’s chair. The girl who had opened the door for him was there as well. They were all around him, half a dozen of them, white-faced children with dark eyes, boys and girls together.

And in their hands, the daggers.”

“Grand Maester Pycelle bobbed his head. “Dragons. These same stories have reached Oldtown. Too many to discount. A silver-haired queen with three dragons.””

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Book Discussion: World of Ice and Fire Overview

In this discussion episode, we give our first impressions of The World of Ice and Fire. We discuss all of the immediate revelations, and the latter half of the episode contains discoveries more related to the ‘current events’ of the series.

Special attention is paid to the Kingdom of Sarnor, other ancient cultures, and the mysterious oily black stone that keeps popping up. There is, of course, a lot of discussion on House Targaryen as well. We also talk at length about the sections on Dorne. The mystery of Asshai’s children is also debated.

“On the Isle of Toads can be found an ancient idol, a greasy black stone crudely carved into the semblance of a gigantic toad of malignant aspect, some forty feet high. The people of this isle are believed by some to be descended from those who carved the Toad Stone, for there is an unpleasant fishlike aspect to their faces, and many have webbed hands and feet. If so, they are the sole surviving remnant of this forgotten race.”

Such questions abound even to this day. Before the Doom of Valyria, maesters and archmaesters oft traveled to the Freehold in search of answers, but none were ever found. Septon Barth’s claim that the Valyrians came to Westeros because their priests prophesied that the Doom of Man would come out of the land beyond the narrow sea can safely be dismissed as nonsense, as can many of Barth’s queerer beliefs and suppositions.”

“For scholars and students of history, the fall of Sallosh by the Silver Shore was especially tragic, for when that City of Scholars burned, its great library was not spared, and most of the history of the Tall Men and the peoples who had gone before them were lost for all time.”

“Florys the Fox, the cleverest of Garth’s children, who kept three husbands, each ignorant of the existence of the others. (From their sons sprang House Florent, House Ball, and House Peake).”

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Plots: Varys & Illyrio (spoilers)

In this episode, Aziz, Steve, and Ashaya continue their series on Varys and Illyrio. This is the spoiler filled installment in which their origins, motives, and “Young Griff” are discussed.

When Maelys the Monstrous died upon the Stepstones, it was the end of the male line of House Blackfyre.

Young Griff, the boy is called. There never was a nobler lad.

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Plots: House Martell (spoilers)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vntRZ19icJc

Aziz and Steve are joined by Ken from the “Cripples, Bastards, and Broken Things” blog/podcast. House Martell remembers.

Once I crown Myrcella and free the Sand Snakes, all Dorne will rally to my banners.

Vengeance. Justice. Fire and blood.

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Cripples, Bastards, and Broken Things

The Winds of Winter: Dornish Preview Chapter

A very thorough discussion of the Arianne spoiler (early release) chapter from the Winds of Winter. Includes character analysis, historical context, predictions/theories, a keen eye for detail and of course, a sense of humor.

War is happening, and this time Dorne will not be spared.

They were dancing. In my dream. And everywhere the dragons danced the people died.

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The Arianne spoiler chapter on George R.R. Martin’s site.