rohanne of tyrosh Archives - History of Westeros

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. Check out our series on the Blackfyres here. Time to find out what is beneath the gold, in this episode on the Golden Company.

Credits

Michael Klarfeld (Klaradox) created our introduction, the Essos map, and the Bittersteel and Golden Company images. Dutchmogul created the cyvasse pieces used in the intro video. Joey Townsend does our intro music, and Jesse Kowal does our outro music. Thank you to them as well!

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. 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

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

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

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

Blackfyre Rebellions: Part 6 – The Golden Company (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhmRi1U6Eyk)

It ended far more quickly than the pretender might have wished, at the Battle of Wendwater Bridge. Afterward, the corpses of the Black Dragon’s slain choked the Wendwater and sent it overflowing its banks. The royalists, in turn, lost fewer than a hundred men. – TWOIAF

Aziz is joined by returning guest Steven Attewell (of Race for the Iron Throne) to discuss the legendary Daemon Blackfyre. The man, the myth, the sword, the rivalries, the immense popularity. Comparisons to Robert and Renly Baratheon, Aemon the Dragonknight and more are included. The most Daemon-tastic episode of all time!

The primary topics in this episode:

Born Under a Bad Name
Becoming Blackfyre
The Living Legend
The Black Dragon Arises

Why, lad? You ask me why? Because Daemon was the better man. The old king saw it, too. He gave the sword to Daemon. Blackfyre, the sword of Aegon the Conquerer, the blade that every Targaryen king had wielded since the Conquest . . . he put that sword in Daemon’s hand the day he knighted him, a boy of twelve.

Raised at the Red Keep, this handsome youth was given the instruction of the wisest maesters and the best masters-at-arms at court, including Ser Quentyn Ball, the fiery knight called Fireball. He loved nothing better than deeds of arms and excelled at them, and many saw in him a warrior who would one day be another Dragonknight.

Daemon was the name Daena gave to this child, for Prince Daemon had been the wonder and the terror of his age, and in later days that was seen as a warning of what the boy would become. Daemon Waters was his full name when he was born in 170 AC.

King Daeron

There was no final insult, no great wrong, that led Daemon Blackfyre to turn against King Daeron.

Daeron was spindly and round of shoulder, with a little belly that wobbled when he walked. Daemon stood straight and proud, and his stomach was flat and hard as an oaken shield. And he could fight. With ax or lance or flail, he was as good as any knight I ever saw, but with the sword he was the Warrior himself. When Prince Daemon had Blackfyre in his hand, there was not a man to equal him . . . not Ulrick Dayne with Dawn, no, nor even the Dragonknight with Dark Sister.

Knights and lords of the Dornish Marches came to mistrust Daeron, and Baelor as well, and began to look more and more to the old days, when Dornishmen were the enemy to fight, not rivals for the king’s attention or largesse. And then they would look at Daemon Blackfyre—grown tall and powerful, half a god among mortal men, and with the Conqueror’s sword in his possession—and wonder.