old nan Archives - History of Westeros

The first of THREE Bloodraven episodes and part 7 of our Blackfyre Rebellions series. This one covers the time from his birth until the death of King Daeron II.

Six years ago in King’s Landing, Dunk had seen him with his own two eyes, as he rode a pale horse up the Street of Steel with fifty Raven’s Teeth behind him. That was before King Aerys had ascended to the Iron Throne and made him the Hand, but even so he cut a striking figure, garbed in smoke and scarlet with Dark Sister on his hip. His pallid skin and bone-white hair made him look a living corpse. Across his cheek and chin spread a wine-stain birthmark that was supposed to resemble a red raven, though Dunk only saw an odd-shaped blotch of discolored skin. He stared so hard that Bloodraven felt it. The king’s sorcerer had turned to study him as he went by. He had one eye, and that one red. The other was an empty socket, the gift Bittersteel had given him upon the Redgrass Field. Yet it seemed to Dunk that both eyes had looked right through his skin, down to his very soul. Despite the heat, the memory made him shiver. – The Sworn Sword

Bloodraven Images

https://youtu.be/1eGA7K3hWZ0

Blackfyre Rebellions: Part 7 – Bloodraven (https://youtu.be/1eGA7K3hWZ0)

Apart from Night’s King, topics include kinslaying, the blue eyes of the Others & Wights, Night’s Queen, and the Lands of Always Winter. Plus we talk about Coldhands, Stannis, Bran, Melisandre, Roose Bolton and Jon Snow. Listen to the rest of our Religion and Magic series here.

After his fall, when it was discovered that he had been sacrificing to the Others, all records of him were destroyed and his very name was forbidden.

“Some say he was a Bolton,” Old Nan would always end. “Some say a Magnar out of Skagos, some say Umber, Flint, or Norrey. And some would have you think he was a Woodfoot, from them who ruled Bear island before the ironmen came. He never was. He was a Stark, the brother of the man who brought him down.”

This was where the Rat Cook had served the Andal king his prince-and-bacon pie. Where the seventy-nine sentinels stood their watch, where brave young Danny Flint had been raped and murdered. This was the castle where King Sherrit had called down his curse on the Andals of old, where the ‘prentice boys had faced the thing that came in the night, where blind Symeon Star-Eyes had seen the hellhounds fighting. Mad Axe had once walked these yards and climbed these towers, butchering his brothers in the dark.

“This Nightfort is the place my husband has chosen for our seat, and there we shall abide.”

Night’s Queen

The legends say that the Night’s King was a warrior without fear, and when he saw a woman atop the Wall with skin as white as the moon and eyes like blue stars, he chased her and loved her though her skin was cold as ice, and when he gave his seed to her he gave his soul as well.

The oldest of these tales concern the legendary Night’s King, the thirteenth Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch, who was alleged to have bedded a sorceress pale as a corpse and declared himself a king. For thirteen years the Night’s King and his corpse queen ruled together.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6h1bV2mmWA

Religion & Magic: Part 4 – Night’s King (spoilers) (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6h1bV2mmWA)