blackfyre Archives - History of Westeros

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

This episode covers the life of Aegon IV the Unworthy, the man who fathered the Blackfyre Rebellions. A King who used the Iron Throne to serve his needs, caring little for the realm. He made life miserable for his sister Naerys and brother Aemon the Dragonknight while siring Bittersteel, Bloodraven, Shiera Seastar and Daemon Blackfyre himself.

“Aegon the Fourth legitimized all his bastards on his deathbed. And how much pain, grief, war, and murder grew from that? I know you trust Jon. But can you trust his sons? Or their sons? The Blackfyre pretenders troubled the Targaryens for five generations, until Barristan the Bold slew the last of them on the Stepstones.”

“…no king before or after would practice so much willful misrule.”

“Treason . . . is only a word. When two princes fight for a chair where only one may sit, great lords and common men alike must choose. And when the battle’s done, the victors will be hailed as loyal men and true, whilst those who were defeated will be known forevermore as rebels and traitors.”

He was the son of a common blacksmith and had been given to the Faith while young. But his brilliance made itself known, and in time he came to serve in the library at the Red Keep, tending the king’s books and records. There King Jaehaerys became acquainted with him”

“…his body so swollen and obese that he could no longer lift himself from his couch, his limbs rotting and crawling with fleshworms. The maesters claimed they had never seen its like, whilst septons declared it a judgment of the gods. Aegon was given milk of the poppy to dull his pain, but elsewise little could be done for him.”

“His last act before his death, all accounts agree, was to set out his will. And in it, he left the bitterest poison the realm ever knew: he legitimized all of his natural children, from the most baseborn to the Great Bastards—the sons and daughters born to him by women of noble birth. Scores of his natural children had never been acknowledged; Aegon’s dying declaration meant nought to them. For his acknowledged bastards, however, it meant a great deal. And for the realm, it meant blood and fire for five generations.”

[separator type="top"]Content[/separator]

Blackfyre Rebellions: Part 6 – The Golden Company

Blackfyre Rebellions: Part 1 – Aegon IV the Unworthy (spoiler free)