maester aemon targaryen Archives - History of Westeros

The Three-Eyed Bloodraven

The third of our THREE (1, 2) Bloodraven episodes. This one has a deep dive into the life of Brynden Rivers beginning from the point at which he took the Black. Was he a ranger? What did he and Maester Aemon talk about? Who is Coldhands? and much more on… the Three-Eyed Bloodraven!

Thanks to guest producer Zack of Game of Owns!

Before them a pale lord in ebon finery sat dreaming in a tangled nest of roots, a woven weirwood throne that embraced his withered limbs as a mother does a child. His body was so skeletal and his clothes so rotted that at first Bran took him for another corpse, a dead man propped up so long that the roots had grown over him, under him, and through him. What skin the corpse lord showed was white, save for a bloody blotch that crept up his neck onto his cheek. His white hair was fine and thin as root hair and long enough to brush against the earthen floor. Roots coiled around his legs like wooden serpents. One burrowed through his breeches into the desiccated flesh of his thigh, to emerge again from his shoulder. A spray of dark red leaves sprouted from his skull, and grey mushrooms spotted his brow. A little skin remained, stretched across his face, tight and hard as white leather, but even that was fraying, and here and there the brown and yellow bone beneath was poking through.
– Bran II, ADWD

Bloodraven's sigil by Abjiklam — Bloodraven’s sigil by Abjiklam

Eastwatch — Bloodraven’s sigil by Abjiklam

ASOIAF Dreams and Dreamers, plus Q&A

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOJ_7qIzahg

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

An episode dedicated to all kinds of ASOIAF dreams and dreamers, whether mundane or magical. Green dreams, wolf dreams, dragon dreams, dreams of guilt, fever dreams… and an accompanying Q&A to go with it, answering all the burning (and freezing) questions sent us regarding the last episode.

Credits
Our introduction, and the awesome new Essos map 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 Reader (Martin Lewis of Echoes of Ice and Fire).

The primary topics in this episode:

Part 1 – Dreams of the Past
Part 2 – Dreams of the Present
Part 3 – Dreams of the Future
Part 4 – Dreams Out of Time
Outro

“There’s different kinds,” he said slowly. “There’s the wolf dreams, those aren’t so bad as the others. I run and hunt and kill squirrels. And there’s dreams where the crow comes and tells me to fly. Sometimes the tree is in those dreams too, calling my name. That frightens me. But the worst dreams are when I fall.”
– ACOK, Bran V

That night Sansa dreamt of Joffrey on the throne, with herself seated beside him in a gown of woven gold. She had a crown on her head, and everyone she had ever known came before her, to bend the knee and say their courtesies. – AGOT, Sansa IV AGOT

“He knew nothing of his mother; Eddard Stark would not talk of her. Yet he dreamed of her at times, so often that he could almost see her face. In his dreams, she was beautiful, and highborn, and her eyes were kind.” – AGOT, Jon III

“They are children, Sansa thought. They are silly little girls, even Elinor. They’ve never seen a battle, they’ve never seen a man die, they know nothing. Their dreams were full of songs and stories, the way hers had been before Joffrey cut her father’s head off. Sansa pitied them. Sansa envied them.” – ASOS, Sansa II

“That night Catelyn slept fitfully, haunted by formless dreams of her children, the lost and the dead.” – ASOS, Catelyn I

“She had no time for sleep, with the weight of the world upon her shoulders. And she feared to dream. Sleep is a little death, dreams the whisperings of the Other, who would drag us all into his eternal night. She would sooner sit bathed in the ruddy glow of her red lord’s blessed flames, her cheeks flushed by the wash of heat as if by a lover’s kisses. Some nights she drowsed, but never for more than an hour. One day, Melisandre prayed, she would not sleep at all. One day she would be free of dreams. Melony, she thought. Lot Seven.” – ADWD, Melisandre

The Shadow of Summerhall: Aerys & Rhaegar (spoilers)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbgMl0LgNn0

This episode delves deep into Aerys, Rhaella, and Rhaegar Targaryen, as well as other characters who were impacted by Summerhall. There’s talk of how the Mad King could wreak havoc on the Seven Kingdoms even now…though our main focus is, of course, the Aftermath of Summerhall. Why didn’t it work? Who tried to capitalize on the instability? What impact did the event have on the survivors? What impact does it have on the current ASOIAF storyline?

The primary topics in this episode:

The Day After
Jaehaerys Ascends, Blackfyres Descend
Aerys Ascends, Madness Descends
Dragons in the Shadow
Rhaegar, Who Thought Himself So Wise
The Mad King’s Revenge

“Once it takes fire, the substance will burn fiercely until it is no more.”

“…many of the accounts written of Harrenhal speak of his hysterical laughter, long silences, bouts of weeping, and sudden rages.”

“Drawing on his father’s plans, His Grace put aside his grief, called his lords bannermen, and resolved to meet the Ninepenny Kings upon the Stepstones, choosing to take the war to them rather than awaiting their landing on the shores of the Seven Kingdoms.”

Your grandsire commanded it. A woods witch had told him that the prince that was promised would be born of their line.”

“High in the halls of the kings who are gone, Jenny would dance with her ghosts.”

“It was a prince that was promised, not a princess. Rhaegar, I thought… the smoke was from the fire that devoured Summerhall on the day of his birth, the salt from the tears shed for those who died. He shared my belief when he was young, but later he became persuaded that it was his own son who fulfilled the prophecy, for a comet had been seen above King’s Landing on the night Aegon was conceived, and Rhaegar was certain the bleeding star had to be a comet. What fools we were, who thought ourselves so wise!”

“It was the shadow of Summerhall that haunted him, was it not?” “Yes. And yet Summerhall was the place the prince loved best.”

“He is the prince that was promised, and his is the song of ice and fire.”

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The Heresies of Septon Barth (spoilers)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-86Pn9XLuc

A detailed look at the life, times and works of the man who knows the most about the “higher mysteries”. If you want to learn more about dragons, ravens, or why the seasons are so crazy, you do not want to miss this episode on Septon Barth. He’s the leading expert in all of A Song of Ice and Fire on those topics and quite a few more!

“Ser Ryam Redwyne was the greatest knight of his day, and one of the worst Hands ever to serve a king. Septon Murmison’s prayers worked miracles, but as Hand he soon had the whole realm praying for his death. Lord Butterwell was renowned for wit, Myles Smallwood for courage, Ser Otto Hightower for learning, yet they failed as Hands, every one. As for birth, the dragonkings oft chose Hands from amongst their own blood, with results as various as Baelor Breakspear and Maegor the Cruel. Against this, you have Septon Barth, the blacksmith’s son the Old King plucked from the Red Keep’s library, who gave the realm forty years of peace and plenty.”

“With Barth’s aid and advice, King Jaehaerys did more to reform the realm than any other king who lived before or after.”

“Where his grandsire, King Aegon, had left the laws of the Seven Kingdoms to the vagaries of local tradition and custom, Jaehaerys created the first unified code, so that from the North to the Dornish marches, the realm shared a single rule of law.”

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…”

“Yet if Alysanne was Jaehaerys’s great love, his greatest friend was Septon Barth. No man of humble birth ever rose so high as the plainspoken but brilliant septon.”

“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.”

“Dragons are neither male nor female, Barth saw the truth of that, but now one and now the other, as changeable as flame. The language misled us all for a thousand years. Daenerys is the one, born amidst salt and smoke. The dragons prove it.”

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

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.”

“…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.”

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