It is almost literally impossible in the world Westeros
to think of the Kingsguard without thinking of Sir Ryan.
Red Wine Bran, who dreams about joining the white cloak someday,
names Rhyme Red Wine along with not just other historical great
Knights, but also legendary heroes of Westerosi myth.
Nearly every time outstanding alumni of the Kingsguard are
named Rhyme Red Wine is one of the Knights sighted.
He's openly referred to as the greatest night of his day, the
subject of songs, a paragon of chivalry that every other night
or would be Night of Westeros should try to live up to.
So what do we know about Ryan Redwine?
Can we separate fact from fiction and truth from legend
When it comes to one of the most celebrated Knights in Kingsguard
of all time? It's hard not to exaggerate,
right? What was it that made Ryan so
famous, not just in his own time, but two centuries after
his death in current times? And does Ryan actually deserve
this golden reputation that he's enjoyed in Westerosi memory?
What impact has Ryan Redwine had on the Knights who came after
him and has that always been a positive legacy?
All that and more including our favorite and best contributor as
returning guests on this episode of History of Westeros Podcast.
Hello and welcome everybody. This is a pre recorded episode
of History of Westeros Podcast. You can still catch every video
on YouTube or Spotify, and the audio is available anywhere you
catch podcasts, and it's ad free if you listen on Patreon.
Hey, we have. Nina Krusling back.
She is the main writer of this episode and you can find her, as
always, at Good Queen Alley with 1l@tumblr.com.
How's it going, Nina? It's going good.
Well, I was, I was very flattered when you said that I
was your favorite contributor, but I have to amend that to say
favorite regular guest and contributor 'cause you, you have
literally interviewed George Armour.
So I feel like I can't really. I can't really.
Contain. There.
All right. So I'm, I'm doing very well.
I'm very excited to talk about Ryan.
Yeah, that's right. Yeah, we are too.
If you have questions about this episode, you can always hit us
up at westeroshistory@gmail.com or any of the socials we're on.
And we're on all of them as usual.
I would like to start with the section headers, the name of
each part we're going to talk about, and then we'll get right
to it. We have our setup and our first
mention, and as we often do with characters, we'll go early life
and then for him knighthood, Kingsguard as a new brother, a
lusty brother later troubles, Lord Commander Hand to the King,
Unhand of the King, last year's Last of the Red Wine legacy, and
then outro and hot D. So let's do it.
Here is a famous quote from Bran 2A Game of Thrones.
Bran was going to be a knight himself someday.
One of the Kingsguard old man said they were the finest swords
in all the realm. There were only seven of them
and they wore white armor and had no wives or children, but
lived only to serve the king brand new.
All the stories, their names were like music to him.
Serwin of the Mirror Shield, Sir Ryan, Red wine, Prince Amon the
Dragon Knight, The twins Sir Eric and Sir Arek, who had died
on one another's swords hundreds of years ago when brother fought
sister in the war. The singer is called the Dance
of the Dragons, The White Bull, Gerald Hightower, Sir Arthur
Dayne, The Sword of the Morning, Barristan the Bold.
As we said in the intro, he's mentioned early and for a
historical figure, often mentioned alongside heroes as
well as legends and myths, so it's really exclusive company.
He first appears, as far as first appearances go, in Fire
and Blood, his mention there in a time of testing a realm
remade, which is the beginning of Jaharis and Alison's reign.
It's when Ryan and his brothers go to court as Squires, so they
go to the Red Keep at a pretty early age, and that sets the
stage for his early life. We don't know exactly when he
was born, but we can make some educated guesses.
Nina, what do you think? Well, I think that we can narrow
it down to a fairly identifiable window and then sort of pick an
age that makes sense to you within that.
Really all we have to go on in terms of hard fact is that he's
knighted by 58 AC because this is when he's competing in the
anniversary tourney. So he's probably not much
younger than his late teens at this point.
He may be in his early 20s. We could also look to the fact
that at this tourney, or when he's at this tourney, I should
say Gildain refers to him as a quote UN quote young Gallant.
We don't really hear that phrase anywhere else in Song of Ice and
Fire. I think the only other time it
gets mentioned is Aryan teasing Aris Oakhart and calling in her
young Gallant. But again, that's in the context
of teasing, so I don't know how much we can really take from
that. But he does use young and
Gallant together sometimes. He uses it with Ned and refers
to the 20 something Edmure as being young and gallant.
He uses it later in Fire and blood to refer to Kristen Colt
when he's Rainier sworn shield as being young and Gallant when
he's in his 20s. So I think it's probably fair to
say that Ryan was somewhere in the neighborhood of late teens
to early to mid 20s in 58 AC. So probably born somewhere in
the late 30s or maybe very early 40s AC.
So he was the third son of Lord Manfred Redwine, who, of course,
Lord of the Arbor. This is a house that's second
tier, prominent in A Song of Ice and Fire, give or take.
They're very rich and powerful. They have one of the largest
navies in Westeros. And that's been the case off and
on for several centuries at the minimum.
So let's talk about the red wines in this era.
And you hit the nail on the head here.
The red wines are an extremely prominent aristocratic house,
not just in the context of the rich.
Oh, that's absolutely true as well.
But in the greater context of Westeros, this is one of the
oldest and proudest and richest and most powerful families in
the entire realm. And I should know it's it's a
little bit amusing in this generation because Manfred and
his wife clearly like our names because they go with Robert
Rickard and Ryan Rickard, three sons they've.
Got a sign of his? Red wine.
But no, they they are an an incredibly important
aristocratic family, and so I think we can say that young Ryan
is being born with the proverbial silver spoon in his
mouth. At the same time, though, we
might call him sort of a Ryan Lackland because he's not the
heir and he's not the spare. He's not Elvis brother Robert,
who's gonna inherit the Arbor. He's not even middle brother
Ricard, who 7 forbid anything happens to Robert is going to
inherit and is probably in any event going to be his brother's
right hand man. There's really not a immediately
identifiable career for Ryan, so to speak, so it's a left a bit
open in terms of what Ryan's future will be, despite the fact
that he's got this extremely high aristocratic privilege and
status. Later in the episode we'll
discuss his legacy in full, because it's a big one, but
we'll go through his life before that.
He's cited often in the books as an inspiration, and as we said,
he's made legendary by how often he's placed amongst the best of
all time. So we could ask who his major
influences have been, whose legacy had a big impact on him.
Now to put that in context, the Kingsguard hadn't been around
nearly as long. Obviously chivalry in the Reach
is ancient, but the Kingsguard when he was knighted was only 58
years old, so by the time he's in the Kingsguard, it was only a
matter of decades. Similarly, whoever these
influences of his would have been, it would have been before
the conquest, probably because a lot of the other ones got cooked
at the Field of Fire. Maybe there's not as many heroes
to emulate in that sense, but it's it's like you said, it's
fair to say he's the opposite of of hedge knight archetype here.
Saddle and Lance were available the moment he was capable of
using them, and as you said, the proverbial silver spoon.
All the wealth, every advantage, but he also seemed to have all
the talent, right, so. No, absolutely.
And I think that it's so important.
As you mentioned, chivalry is ancient, in the reach, and it is
a region that I don't think it's an exaggeration to say reveres
chivalry or at least the idea of chivalry.
It's literally baked into their mythology.
The Reeks tells the story of John the Oak, the son of Garth
Greenhand, who is supposedly the first knight in Westeros, who
creates the first tourney. And at this first tourney, who's
the prize? But John's sister or half
sister, Maris the maid. So this is a region where the
idea of chivalry is coming from its earliest foundational myths,
Although obviously knighthood didn't come to Westeros itself
until much later. And even though the red wines
don't actually claimed dissent from John the Oak specifically,
that's not their sort of heroic ancestor Gilbert Vines is.
This is still something they're growing up with and something
that Ryan would have been growing up with.
This idea that in the Reach, chivalry is all important.
And we see that in a very practical way in the hedge site.
What happens when Dunk goes to the tourney at Ashford at Burst?
He's literally not allowed to compete because the master of
the game says I don't believe you're a knight, and only
Knights are competing here. And Berta Harton points out
that's very different from something like, say, the Tourney
of the Hand, where we have free riders, we have members of Ned's
households who are allowed to compete even though they're not
anointed Knights, because Robert takes that a little less
seriously. But in the Reach, the forms of
chivalry are very strict and very explicit.
If you can't perform of the night and you are not knighted,
you are not allowed to take part in the honor and glory of being
a knight. Yeah, that that scene with Dunk
certainly wouldn't have happened to a red wine.
They'd be like, hey, red wines, how's it going?
We have your table waiting right over here.
Yeah. And they they they'd be really
proud to reach with that the legendary hero of this age,
which, of course, at this point in our timeline, he hasn't
gotten to that status yet, but he would be a talented youngster
and up and Comer. Maybe people would be talking
about him a little bit. They'd be very proud that that
he was one of theirs. And the Arbor being so rich and
powerful, it's interesting that they have this long tradition of
such and they being an island, would be relatively untouched by
a lot of the wars directly. And that, I think, is just a
little cork that's interesting to point out about a house that
spawned such an important hero. There's a greater discussion to
have there about the turfs versus the red lines in terms of
their devotion to chivalry and being island nations.
I don't have an idea of that. I just think it's interesting to
point out. But we are perhaps selling this
short in fact, because the red wines had even more advantages
than what we've described at this and this era.
They had royal connections and ambitions.
No, absolutely. I mean, we're not talking about
just a family that's resting on its aristocratic credentials.
We're talking about a family that certainly for Lord Manfred,
has ambition and wants to get ahead and wants to get ahead in
the royal government. Because what we see at the end
of Magor's reign, the red wines flip, they go to Jaharis, and
they abandoned Magor. And that's, I think, crucial for
their political development in this era, because Jaharis seems
to recognize that when his uncle Damon Valerian is promoted to
hand the king, Jaharis makes Manfred his master of ships.
And that's a really important development for the 50 odd years
of Targaryen government up to this point, there had never been
someone, you know, Lord Admiral or Master of ships, who had not
been a Valerian. It's so much identified as an
office with the Valerians that Yandel will go on to say that in
some eras, it's almost literally considered a hereditary office
for the Valerians. And yet in this era, Jaharis is
saying, no, I'm actually trusting Manfred Redwine with
this. And that's huge because again,
the red wines just flipped on the Last King and they have a
huge Navy rivaled only by the Valerians.
So if, and they, they obviously don't.
But if they chose to, they could be a real problem for Jaharis.
But Jaharis instead cleverly brings them in.
And he says, no, I'm gonna reward your loyalty to me by
making you an integral part of my government.
And he's trusting them. And that's a trust that's going
to pay off again and again as Jaharis's reign continues.
Yeah, it's a, a really a golden age for a family that's existing
in a golden age. So really all the factors for
Ryan come together so nicely. He's got the freedom to devote
himself to knighthood as the not neither the heir nor the spare.
Usually that's not an advantage, but he turned it to his
advantage. I you could say, and obviously
as we've been describing, he's just been overflowing with
privilege and, and opportunity here and he's absolutely didn't
let that slide. He here.
Did we get some early accounts or details of what he was doing
at court early on? Yeah, absolutely.
And so Ryan and his two older brothers come to court with
their father when Manfred is appointed in 50 AC.
And they're all Squires when they when they first come to
court, Although it seems like Robert is pretty quickly
knighted because he ends up competing as a knight, an
attorney that his own father suggests the king undertake.
When the dragon pit is completed, Manfred Redwine says
Jeharis, I think it would be a great idea if you staged A
tourney to celebrate it. And Jeharis does.
And this isn't just a tourney in the King's name.
This is attorney at which directly or indirectly and maybe
consciously on the part of Manfred Redwine, the red wines
come off looking very good. So we've got eldest brother
Robert. He does very well in the joust.
He does eventually lose. Simon Dondarian is the winner,
but he does quite well. And then we've got middle
brother Rickard, who actually wins the Squire's tourney and
Jaharis Knights him himself. And that's a really big deal.
And to be knighted by the king is huge.
It's something that Rickard can take with him and trade on that
sort of cache and name for virtually the rest of his life
and the rest of his career in Westeros.
So this is an era in which the red wines are very early on
getting not just a taste of knighthood and a taste of royal
knighthood, but are being almost literally put center stage as
the heroes of chivalry in the capital.
Yeah, it's so perfect for them. There's a lot of pages in Fire
and Blood devoted to to Harris and Alexander's reign.
So we have a lot to work with in terms of context and what was
going on in the realm. So and what court was like at
the time. So, given these factors, what
can we estimate or imagine Ryan's life to have been like at
court during this era? Well, I think it's a good
question. It's not something that gets
hugely detailed, but I think there are some things that we
can take away. Again, Ryan is coming to court
as a Squire now. We don't know who he might have
been squiring for on the Arbor, and we don't know what his
squiring life looks like at King's Landing.
But I don't think it's impossible or even improbable to
say that he may have been squiring for one of the Knights
of the Kingsguard. After all, his father is a major
governmental figure on the King's small council, so the
idea that his son, who is himself highly aristocratic,
would then be squiring for the Kingsguard not that far off the
mark. And this is not just in any age.
I think it would be a big deal for someone to Squire for a
Knight of the Kingsguard, but we're talking about an age that
Gildane will describe as perhaps the most illustrious of any age
of Kingsguard. Gildane says that never did any
Targaryen possess a Kingsguard who could equal to Harris's
first seven. So now imagine you're a young
Squire like Ryan and you are interacting with these Knights
on a daily basis, maybe even squiring for them.
That's gotta be hugely influential on his idea of
chivalry, that he's quite literally growing up and growing
as a knight by being trained by men who are considered the
greatest Knights of their age and arguably, according to
Gildain, of any age of Kingsguard.
Yeah, that's a a very interesting point too, because
looking at what Gildain says, it's definitely somewhat a
matter of perspective on what you think makes Kingsguard
great. And the dichotomy comes down to
two things from what we've been shown, which is loyalty and to
the king, willingness to die for the king and just straight up
skill at arms. The the two big dichotomies
there. So what Gildane is saying that
because this was an event where it was a tournament of an actual
challenge at arms to be members of the Kingsguard, which Visenya
was against this being this method being used by the way,
this So Geldain is basically saying, well, This is why
they're the best because they fought for it and that's why we
know. But that isn't necessarily what
makes the great Kings guard. So that's a question we have to
ask about Ryan as well as he he clearly has the Marshall side,
but is he also really known for being super loyal, being devoted
in that sense? That's less clear, I guess, but
what do you think? Well, I think it's an
interesting question and it goes to perhaps what what is Ryan's
take on what makes a good Kingsguard?
What is he developing as he's eventually becoming a
Kingsguard? What he's seeing is Knights who
I don't think we have any reason to doubt, at least for these
initial Kingsguard that they were probably pretty loyalty to
Harris and they certainly at least a few of them stand with
him when Rogar tries to separate him and Alison.
So I think it's fair to say that they're probably pretty loyal to
Jay Harris. Some do end up dying for him or
at least on missions for him. So I I think it's it is part
loyalty. I think it is absolutely skill
at arms, but I think it's also and we'll and we'll talk about
this as as we continue. They're also operating in an age
of at least apparent chivalry. This is operating in the age
where there aren't major conflicts to deal with,
certainly major conflicts to deal with with respect to the
king. This is not an era, in other
words, comparable to say, Heiress the Second's reign, or
Aegon the 4th, or someone like that.
Not to say that I don't have problems with Jairus, that's a
different topic, but this is a little bit of a different age to
compare. And So what Rhyme is growing up
with is a king who is, at least outwardly and for members of his
Kingsguard, very easy to serve and someone who they could show
both devotion and skillet arms to.
Yeah, right on. Now this is something we
occasionally see from time to time in in the real life, in
stories, etcetera. Brothers, siblings really, but
in this case brothers relatively close in age who are all on the
same track, in this case knighthood.
They have similar values and day-to-day lives.
They had a very similar upbringing in terms of what's
what values and goals and attainable things that you're
supposed to do in your life, all that stuff.
These young red wine brothers are dreaming of their future
with in that life, in that lifestyle, with that profession.
And they might also be imagining something like the War of the
White or the War for the White, rather another tournament to be
in the Kingsguard or something similar to that.
That isn't a way for them to show off their prowess.
Maybe even an actual war. I don't know if they were hoping
for that. That's an odd thing to hope for.
But you know, one of the things, well, if there is a war, I'm
going to go prove myself. So but tournaments are such a
big part of their lifestyle in the Reach, as we said, it's such
a long standing. It's like the number one sport.
It's like the football of, of, of Westeros.
The the, the by far the most popular thing.
So shining in that is the the biggest thing you can do in your
life. So yeah, that's, that's really
interesting that, that this is probably already at a very young
age. It's the main focus of their
entire life. No, absolutely.
And I think when you print out the the war for the white
Cloaks, it is a really interesting event, not only
because it leads to the choosing of these teams guard, but also
because this would still have been very recent news when the
young red wine brothers are getting into court.
This is happening the year before they get there.
So I don't think everyone suddenly forgot that this was a
thing that happened. I think this is something that
was still famous and still talked about and still marvelled
at as to how many nights competed and how well the
winners did and how they got chosen.
And so if you're the young red wine brothers, especially Ryan,
who are growing up at this point, it's like you almost
literally had this front row seat to the best of, as far as I
could tell, the best of what chivalry had to offer.
That this is an era where, perhaps for the first time in
the 50 odd years of Targaryen monarchy, the King's Guard is
something to aspire to. The King's Guard is something
that's famous in its own right. The King's Guard is something
that a young boy can dream of joining.
They may be in in the first or second generation of boys who
are growing up wanting to wear that white cloak.
And now they've got this example where, yeah, you can, if you are
skilled enough at arms and you do show enough loyalty to the
king, you too can dream of wearing that white cloak and
being one of the most famous and illustrious Knights of your age.
Yeah, this is of course all sparked by Bran's early dreams
of of being a knight of the Kingsguard.
And he's a Stark of Winterfell. Can you imagine how different
and how much more intense and frequent this some?
A boy in in the Arbor or elsewhere in the Reach really
would follow a similar path or have similar dreams.
And as you say, it's a relatively new path.
Not knighthood, obviously, but the Kingsguard.
And it makes. So much sense that Knights of
the Reach and the other nightly regions, Stormlands, the Vale,
the the West and the Riverlands. Of course, they are, of course,
aspiring to this because they're all Knights.
It's a very nightly thing. It's a nightly order they love.
Like in the upcoming book, we know that they're making up this
new order of winged Knights and everybody's so excited.
They all love the idea. They all want to be one of these
new things. So it's a similar vibe, but in
this case, it's a lot more regal than that.
It's a little bit more established and it's built on
that anchor of of long, long tradition.
Look, think of the Manderleys. They've been gone from the Reach
for 1000 years, and yet what is one of their titles that they're
still clinging to? Knights of the Order of the
Green Hood. It's still matters to them
because it's got that cachet, it's got that prestige to it.
And I think you're right, this is something that they can they
can dream of growing up. And I don't think it's well, I
should say I think it's worth considering as well.
The it's not just the kings guard themselves, although that
is very important. It's also the king himself.
We already mentioned the fact that Ricard was literally
knighted by Jaharis, which is a huge, huge, huge deal.
George Martin compares gang a knighthood from a king or a
Prince or a famous knight to like getting a degree from
Harvard. No, it doesn't mean that you
have any more of a college degree than someone else, but it
carries a name. It carries A cachet and similar
year pure knighted by a king. Well, that's a big deal.
That's something that you can carry.
And this isn't just any king. This is a king who remember,
he's not the old king yet. He's in his mid 20s.
At this point he's like King who's.
Training every day with his Kingsguard, who takes personal
martial training extremely seriously.
He's a he's a dowdy fighter in his own right.
And so for young Ryan and and his brothers too, I think
there's a way in which they may have felt like they were sort of
growing up in, and I'll use a, a real world sort of comparison
here, kind of growing up in Westerosi, Camelot.
You've got this illustrious king, you've got his great
Kingsguard, you've got the Knights around him.
It seems like this palace of chivalry where everyone is noble
and great and knighthood is celebrated.
Of course, as a young as a young man and growing up to to be a
knight, Ryan is gonna dream of joining the Kingsguard.
Cause who wouldn't in that context?
Yeah, you're right. It's so it's it's a very well
trodden path and he was in the the VIP lane and both because of
his birth and his skill set and as you said, just his his
younger brother or older brothers.
That's a a long standing thing in families siblings, we get the
youngest sibling, especially if the elder siblings are all
following the same path. They have a bar to exceed.
It isn't just their father and grandfather who set that bar.
The bar set by their own siblings seems to be more of
what you aim for, the thing that's more in your lane.
Personally. So that I love that how this
fits into this so well, the way George has crafted the the
context for this character. So, yeah, he didn't just grow up
on the Arbor. He grew up in the Arbor and at
court around this Westerosi, Camelot, which I think is a
fantastic way to put it. It is.
It is just so perfect. You've got the, like you said,
the Kingsguard practicing with the king.
Yeah, of course you wouldn't be part of that.
That's the the best. It's it ever was probably the
golden. You don't know when you're
living in the golden years, when you're living in the golden
years. But they were living in the
golden years. And we want to wonder later when
he's older if he's going to look back on that and be like, yeah,
those were the golden years, weren't they?
But we're not there yet. Knighthood.
We don't know exactly when Ryan was knighted, but he was
knighted by 58 AC because as you said earlier, he was in Joe
Harris's 10th year anniversary tournament and that meant he was
a knight by that. So in other words, we can narrow
it down. But of more interest than that,
of course, is how well he did and and what that led to.
I think that this is probably, if not the first, one of the
first major events that he's showing off in front of the
royal couple. I guess there may have been
small tourneys or, you know, some of the Knights who were
practicing may have the royal couple, may have been walking
them. But this is the first time that
we hear about a big tourney that the royal couple is stating that
Ryan is competing in. And what a showing to come out
for his first big tourney because in his successive tilt,
he beats Ronald Baratheon, he beats Arthur Oakhart, he beats
Simon Dondarian, he beats Harris Hogg, he beats Lawrence Roxton,
and he beats Lukamore Strong. And that's a lot of names.
And these are not slouches. Simon Dondarian just won the
Dragon Pit tourney. He probably beat Robert Redwine
to win it. Lawrence Roxton had been one of
the victors in the War for the White Cloaks.
Harris Hogg and Lukamore Strong had competed in the melee of the
Dragon Pit tourney, and Lukamore actually won that.
So these are not your local yokels that Ryum is beating.
These are very talented Knights in their own right.
So the idea that this late teens, maybe early mid 20s Ryum
is besting all of them, I think that's showing a lot of talent
on his part. And yeah, I think the obvious
comparison here is Loris in A Game of Thrones, when he's doing
so spectacularly well in the Tourney of the Hand, even though
he's quite young as well. He's beating night after night
and he's winning very easily, both because he's very talented
but also because he's using very clever tactics.
And they're both third sons. We'll, we'll come back to the
we'll come back to this Lawrence comparison.
He's very rich. But we're we'll stick to our
timeline for now. So I think it's obvious he's Got
Talent, but he doesn't just have gousting talent.
I think Ryan also had what we might call showmanship.
He knows how to work the crowd. He knows how to play on how
talented he is because not only does he win, but what does he do
to name of Queen of Love and Beauty?
Why, of course, he names the queen herself Queen Alison.
Now, to be clear, naming a Queen of Love and beauty doesn't
automatically mean that the night in question has some sort
of romantic or sexual interest in the woman in question.
It can, but it doesn't have to. I mean, think of Barristan at
the tourney of Harrenhal. What does he think of later?
Who would he have named had he won?
His first two thoughts are Queen Raela and Princess Elia.
Not because he was romantically interested in either of them,
it's because they are literally the highest ranking women in the
country. So of course, it would be quite
natural for a Kingsguard to look to these two most senior royal
women to honor at this big tournament.
We have other examples of this too.
You know, Simon Dondarian wins and he names Princess Daenerys,
who's a toddler. Yet he's not showing romantic
interest. He's honoring the king and
queen. Same thing with Christian Cole.
When King Deserys first becomes king and Raniera is about 7
years old. Christian Cole wins and then he
gives Raniera the victor's Laurel.
It's not because he's showing romantic interest in Raniera,
certainly not in that moment. He's showing honor to the King
who just came into his throne by honoring the daughter that he
clearly loves, as I think Ryan is operating in a very similar
way here. I agree.
And he probably, as you said on the matter of showmanship, knew
what to say, knew how to put it, came from a kind of family that
would know how to craft the right speech if he wanted help
with it. For example, he may have just
been naturally charismatic. And this is an an interesting
idea and thing to consider. You mentioned Loris and being
cunning, and there is something to be said for self marketing
when you are a famous hero or at some point famous hero.
He's not there yet, obviously. And that is something that he
may have had a talent for. Not to say he didn't deserve his
recognition, but he may have nudged it a bit forward.
And that might be why he ended up #1 instead of, you know, just
among the best, all right, of his era.
So it's interesting to consider. We obviously can't know for
sure, but fun to think. About this is Ryom.
Certainly knowing what the the soft power of politics looks
like and knowing how to work that.
Queen Alison is beloved, she is very much loved by the Commons.
Everyone knows Queen Alison, she's well known for her charity
and her love for the people. So by giving the crown of the
Queen of love and beauty to Alison, what is Ryom saying?
I have no romantic interest. I have no lover, I have no woman
I want to marry. I want to devote my life to my
most celebrated queen. I want to devote my life to the
crown. If he's not literally thinking
of joining the Kings guard up by this point, although he may
have, this is a pretty good advertisement for him.
This is saying, look at me, I am devoting my life to you as the
royal couple. It's so perfect because if they
look into it, they realize just how perfect he is.
Third son devoted to this comes from the chivalric tradition
that produces the type of people that they're looking for.
The Knights who would be devoted to this, it's not something they
just say. They literally do grow up with
these values. It's not just something to pay
lip service to. Maybe some of them do, but it's
believable that he is genuinely focused with all of his being on
this goal of becoming a Kingsguard Knights.
And that's something that they would notice and go, yes, this,
this guy is perhaps a candidate. Whatever he thought his future
might be, he had certainly a bright future.
Whatever it was going to turn out.
His start to life was good. He had been knighted.
His brothers were doing well. And we'll move forward to the
next phase now, Kingsguard, the Golden age was interrupted by
horrible events. Even golden ages can have really
terrible moments. And this one happened to work
out in a sense for Ryan because it was the Shivers and that
killed a lot of people, including a couple of
Kingsguards. So yeah, let's see what happened
next. Take us away, Nina.
You know, I, I think you put it really well to say that this is
sort of a, a very abrupt end to what it might have been.
This early lineage of Saharis or apparent will native Saharis's
reign, the shivers is devastating.
We, we know that this is a pandemic that hits Westeros very
hard and hits King's Landing very hard.
Now, we don't know if Ryan was actually there or if he left for
the Arbor or somewhere else. But we know the people who are
in King's Landing, they're being affected very badly by this
disease. And it's not making distinctions
between high and low. It's not making distinctions
between people that Ryan wouldn't know and people that he
did. In fact, there are definitely
people that Ryan would have known who were dying of this
disease. Princess Daenerys, we mentioned
to her a little bit before. Ryan absolutely would have known
her as a member of the royal family.
He also definitely would have known Albin Massey.
He worked with his father on the small council.
And as you say, there are Kingsguards who are dying too.
And although we don't know it, I wouldn't be surprised if some of
Ryan's friends were dying or friends of his brothers or
friends of his fathers who are dying in this.
Again, this is a devastating disease.
So I think it may have really affected Ryan and, and sort of
perhaps made him question a bit, you know, what does my future
look like and, and what am I doing?
This is sort of the the first big tragedy, so to speak, that
may have affected his life. Absolutely.
I think the the nights of summer phrase is perfect for this
because, as you say, it's everything was so great and then
it wasn't and they had to learn that life isn't a song.
Seeing people die of a horrible disease is about as sobering as
it gets in terms of if you think you're living in a if you
thought you were living in a song, you you might look back on
it and go, I was living in a song, you know, seeing all this
happen. I mean, this is not a song that
anyone wants to hear, not this one.
This would be a terrible song And and and death by disease.
As a person who wants to be a knight, it's super unnerving.
I mean, you want to die in battle.
I mean you don't want to die, but you want when you do die to
be be a brave death, a a noble death, which dying in your bed
with to a disease is that's just so ignoble.
And in that sense, it's terrifying to them because it
undermines what they expect to be in life.
It undermines the lifestyle that their whole life is built on,
their whole view of of what the world is.
No, I agreed. I mean, fundamentally, the job
of the Kingsguard is to die for the king.
That that is what you sign up for when you're a Kingsguard is
if and when the King's life is in danger.
You're the one who to, to use a modern metaphor, takes the
bullet for the king instead of the king himself.
So the idea that Sir Sam Goode and Sir Victor the Valiant are
dying in their bed, I think it would have been shocking both to
them, obviously, but also to Ryan, to see these great Knights
who won in the war for the white Cloaks, who are so apparently,
you know, brave and militarily capable.
And they're just dying of something that they have no
control over and they have no way to die for the king.
They're dying on their own alone.
I think that would have been really unnerving.
Obviously horrible for them, but also shocking for Ryan.
So let's get specific what happened here in terms of the
King's Guard and the shuffling around with the shivers.
Right, so we we mentioned Shosham good of Sour Hill and to
Victor the Valiant die from from the Shivers.
And so now Jaharis has two open slots.
He obviously has to fill them. And So what does he need to do?
Well, he needs to find Knights. Obviously the king and the Lord
commander can only name Knights that they know.
They can't name Knights the Kingsguard that they don't know
about. So they need to look around and
they need to find replacements. And it's doubly hard because now
you're trying to replace what is a little less than 1/3 of the
Kingsguard all of a sudden. And people that Jaharis knew
personally and liked personally. So it's, it's a, it's a doubly
hard task for him. And we know from Gildain that
it's Giles Morgan who's the Lord Commander who suggests Riyam
along with Robin Shaw as these replacements.
It's also notable, and this is not related to the Kingsguard,
but again, as you put it, it's a, it's a disease that does have
some, let's say, beneficial outcomes for the red wines.
It's not just Riyam who benefits.
It's also his brother Robert, because he's named as commander
of the City Watch in place of Carl Korbray, who also died of
the Shivers. So even though this is a
devastating disease, I don't want to lessen that impact in
any way, shape or form or how it might have impacted Ryan or
Robert for that matter. I do think this is also an
opportunity that for the red wines to step into more royal
favor. Absolutely.
Yeah, that's a great point. And they're getting the offices
that they aimed for. When they arrived the three
Squires at court, they knew, of course, the eldest would go back
to be Lord of the Arbor someday, and the other two had all the
opportunity to make their place. And now we see that happen
abruptly. They might have worked their way
into that over the long term, but the Shivers catapulted them
forward in the timeline so they didn't have to.
There were the ladder that they had to climb got a lot shorter.
And are we supposed to think that Ryan's choice was just?
Obvious. Or is that maybe taking it too
far? No, I I think it was probably
pretty obvious. Again, they're they're choosing
from probably a relatively small pool.
Yes, the Kingsguard is officially supposed to be a
meritocracy. You're supposed to get in by
your merits according to the King and Lord Commander.
But as with any institution in Westeros, there are deeply
classist elements to it, and there's also deeply biased
elements to it. And to work quite bluntly, Ryan
is there and he's got all the right credentials.
Yes, he's young, but he's not so incredibly young that I think
that would have been held against him, especially by a
king who is himself only in his mid to late 20s at this point.
Someone who's in his late teens or early 20s by this time, but
doesn't seem so incredibly young that he doesn't belong in the
Kingsguard, so to speak. And again, Gaharis just saw him
perform so spectacularly at this anniversary tourney where he's
not just showing off his skills as a dowser, although obviously
that was there, but also his very public devotion to the
crown, Both things that, as you point out before, are very
important to consider for a king or a Lord commander in a new
member of the Kingsguard. And also, and and you mentioned
this before, he is the youngest of three brothers, so.
It's not like his appointment is going to be offensive to Laura
Manfred. In fact, it actually might be
welcome to him. You know, we hear about this in
a storm of sorts. When Littlefinger is explaining
why he suggested that Loris take take the White and become a
Kingsguard. He mentions that one of the
advantages is that Mies Terrell doesn't have to find him lands
or a bride. Same thing for Manfred.
He no longer has to find a job or a holding or a wife for the
third son of his if he joins the Kingsguard while still having
his heir and his spare. So I think all of that made a
lot of sense to to Harris and to Sir Giles as they're looking for
a replacement for these two dead Kingsguard.
Yeah, they really just fit the bill in a number of ways, didn't
they? Other examples, real quick, of
third sons who joined the Kingsguard.
Like she already said, Loris Tyrell, that's a perfect one.
Eric or Arik, good chance one of them was the third son.
If they were this, if there was two brothers or one brother
ahead, then one of them was the third son.
Or like say Benjamin Stark, if we're using an example from a
different order where you give up your family and claims.
So that's similar to Kingsguard, Waymar Royce, another example,
the the first noble character we see in the entire series, also a
third son. Now let's let's summarize the
sowie put it standing of house red wine here now that Ryan is
in the Kingsguard because it's it's a lot.
It's even stronger than it was when we talked about it a little
while ago. And I think this is also coming
into that calculus of what makes Ryan a good choice for being a
Kingsguard. This is a family that's already,
in certainly to Harris's mind, proven its loyalty to the crown
for more than a decade. We talked about how they
declared for Jaharis instead of Mangor at the end of Mangor's
reign. We talk about the fact that
Manfred was serving apparently pretty well as Master of Ships
for Jaharis. Jaharis had personally knighted
Ryan's brother Rickard during the Dragon Pit tourney.
And again, we talked about how Ryan showed off how loyal he was
to Alison and the crown during that anniversary tourney.
So this is a family that Gaheris has every reason to believe is
incredibly loyal to him and is not going to betray him and is
going to serve him admirably. So why not make its youngest son
one of his Kingsguard? There's no reason for Gaheris to
think not to think that Ryan wouldn't die for him if and when
the need arose. You know, he didn't have a
nickname that we know of, which a lot of these famous guys have
that not all of them do. One reason he might not have had
one is his name already kind of rolls off the tongue.
So rhyme red wine. It's already so nice.
Like again, everything about this guy is perfect.
Like. Jeez.
But if I were to give him a nickname, he's a Kingsguard from
house. Red wine.
So that would have to be white wine, right?
Arbor Gold. Yeah, I know.
Arbor Gold. Want.
No. Yeah.
How could it be? How could it be anyway all?
Right, let's move on to our next section.
This one's called as a new brother.
The year after Ryan became a member of the Kingsguard, we had
what is sometimes referred to as the Third Dornish War.
It wasn't a full scale civil war.
It was. Something, but it was.
Fair. I think we could say no.
I think that's right and. We hear.
From Gildaine that even though officially or maybe academically
it's referred to as the Third Dornish War, popularly it's
remembered as Lord Rogar's War. And I I don't agree with
Gildaine on a lot of things, but I do agree that's probably a
more nickname because it wasn't really a war between the Iron
Throne as the Targaryen government and Sun Spear as the
Dornish or Martel government. And what is?
It was a war between Rogar Baratheon and his outlaw brother
Boris, who just joined up with the Vulture King.
And we know that Rogar took about 500 men into the Red
Mountains and Jaharis flew above the Monvermithor to try to root
out Boris and also root out the Vulture King.
Now, we don't know if Ryan was among those 500 men.
Gulden doesn't mention any King's Guard being part of this.
That doesn't mean they weren't. It just means that we don't
know. I do think it would be a little
strange if the Jaharis is personally going to war here and
he doesn't have at least one member of his Kingsguard.
Again, practically, he does have Firmathor.
I understand that. But also, I, I think the optics
would have seemed a little strange if the King is going off
to war and all seven of his sworn Kingsguard who are bound
to die for him are sitting back home in King's Landing.
Whether or not that means Ryan would have gone, that I'm a
little less certain on because at this point he would have been
the newest Kingsguard along with Robin Shaw.
He still would have been quite young.
I think it would have made more sense if if Saharis did take any
of his Kingsguard with him, to take one of the more senior
Kingsguards, someone that he had known a little bit longer,
someone who was a little more experienced, someone who would
know what to do with the king. As opposed to the quote UN quote
the new recruit. Absolutely there's.
A lot of sense to the idea that he would have gone because of
take the best warrior, but it's not that simple.
Like you say, there's seniority and Jairus would be aware of
such things. He wouldn't necessarily want to
offend the Knights. We've been around for a while.
It's not like they hadn't earned their chance to be at his side
because that is something they want to do.
They want to be there. They're going out and wars are
rare. These are brave men.
They want to do their job, and the best job in that moment is
being at his side, not back at the castle.
They'll do what's job they're told, obviously, but the best
job at that moment was to go fight in that war.
That's the that's the exciting one.
That's the one where you can make a name for yourself.
But in this case, no, Kingsguard did make a name for themselves
because there's no mention of of such.
Vermithor did a lot, an awful lot by himself there.
And of course, Jahari did spend not all of his time in the air,
but that's as an aside. That's an interesting question.
How did the Kingsguard function in the era of when the Dragons
actually existed versus now? Where now it's simple.
They're just always around the king.
But before they're like, well, I can't be around him when he's up
there, so I just got to try to be where he's going to land and
then guard him from there. So yeah, it must have been a
little trickier, but at the same.
Time the only one that could. Attack the king on a dragon is,
well, usually another dragon. So I guess it does kind of lead
to a strange reminder of the division of loyalty, of can you
defend A Targaryen from another Targaryen?
Yeah. That is a tough.
That's a. That's an entire.
Philosophical. Question we don't have time to
get into? Yep.
So Ryan would have certainly been.
There in the year 62, when the king named Amon his eldest son,
Prince of Dragonstone. That's a pretty big ceremony,
pretty big deal, and it's a place that we couldn't assume
he'd be elsewhere for. Absolutely.
I'm I'm going to assume. That all seven members of the
Kingsguard are here for this. This is a really big deal.
This is a really big celebration at quarter, not only because
it's acknowledging Amon as air, certainly it is, but I think it
also may have been the moment where Amon is transitioning into
his beginning of his Marshall training.
This is round about the age that aristocratic Westerosi boys
start to become pages and Squires.
They're not obviously going to be knighted tomorrow, but
they're starting to learn the rudiments of military training
and also the rudiments of chivalry.
We see this with Bran again in in Game of Thrones.
He's about 7 and he's allowed to spar, albeit in a, in a very
formalized and very unmartial way with Tom and when the World
Party comes to to Winterfell. So I think it's very possible
that in this moment, Eamon would have been beginning his Marshall
training. And in that sense, I could see
where if Eamon wasn't literally squiring for Ryan, he may have
been working with Ryan very closely in terms of learning
aspects of knighthood and aspects of chivalry from Ryan
Redwine. Think about, for example, again,
return to Loris in A Beast for Crows.
What is her CC him doing? He's training Tommen.
He's training Tommen how to joust at the very basic steps of
how to joust. I think there may have been a
similar relationship between Eamonn and Ryan.
Eamonn's maybe roughly about 15 years younger than Ryan and give
or take. So I think he may have been
looking to Ryan as sort of an older brother figure, someone
that he can look to this illustrious example of.
Here's what it means to be a great knight.
Here's what it means to be a member of the Kingsguard.
And this is who I can learn from to become a great knight myself
one day. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
Especially if you consider Eamon's personality on top of
all that because he was a very serious, good-natured, well
mannered Prince and that could be the influence of a chivalric
popular kingsguard who had a big influence on him and someone
that he wanted to be like. Makes a lot of sense.
So again, we might have been back to either a second golden
age or just back to the original golden age after that
interruption by the Shivers, because the next basically 10
years, which would be the first ten years of Ryan's Kingsguard
service, things went pretty well.
For quite a. While and that may have yeah,
just felt like another set of golden years and it kind of was
no agreed. I mean this.
Is if you're going to serve as a Kingsguard at any time, this is
a pretty good time to serve as a Kingsguard.
There's really no major wars. There's no really difficult
challenges for the Kingsguard to face.
The Targaryen family is growing, so there's more and more
Princess and princesses. The realms at peace to Harris is
starting to work on his road construction.
And there's enough security and stability and prosperity
throughout the realm that we see tourneys being celebrated
throughout the Kingdom. And these are opportunities that
Ryan gets to show off more of his dousing skills.
He gets to attend more of these events and really develop in
that knighthood. So we hear, for example, that
Lord Darkland hosts Attorney in 72 AC to celebrate his marriage.
Gilding doesn't say that Ryan specifically attended, but I
wouldn't be surprised if he did. Given that both Eamonn and
Bailon go and they participate in Squires Tourney, I think it
would be very unusual for both of the King's male heirs to go
to Attorney and to not have at least one member of the
Kingsguard with them. I mean, again, compare the head
tonight. We've got 6 Targaryen Princess
going to Ashford and they've got 3 Kingsguard going with them.
So I have to think at least one Kingsguard was going with these
teenage Princess to Lord Darkland's wedding tourney.
And again, although we don't hear of Ryan going, I think it's
very possible that he would have heard about this great tourney
and would have thought, I want to compete.
I want to show off my skills. I want to keep honing these
skills and I want to compete against the best that Westeros
has to offer, at least is able to go to this tournament.
So he very well may have competed.
We don't hear about it. What we do hear about, though,
is that Eamon is knighted at this tourney.
So I think it's very possible. We don't know who Knights Eamon,
but it's very possible that if Eamon wasn't at this tourney as
he was, Ryan would have been the one to do it.
And again, why not? This is a by this point already
famous King's Garden knight. He's well known.
He's got those aristocratic credentials.
I don't think anyone would have looked astance at Ryom, who is
now probably in his in his 30s, knighting this teenage Prince.
It's very fitting and I would. Have.
A little more confidence in this estimation than I do about our
prior guests, because in this case, it makes a lot of sense
for the royal family to send the Kingsguard who is most likely to
win the tournament. Because part of the point of
sending a Kingsguard, other than the obvious duty of the
Kingsguard guarding the the Princess in this case, they want
to remind. The Realm.
Of the strength of the Kingsguard.
This is part of the reason to let them compete in the 1st
place, to tell everybody, Oh yeah, the King's Kingsguard are
they're great Knights. You know, that needs to be
pointed out every once in a while, especially when there's
ten years without a war or anything like that.
They bring glory to the royal family and that if they're going
to do that, yes, I'm the guy who's best.
So I I like this idea because Ryan by this time, not unlikely
to have established himself as the best.
He wasn't a legend yet, although maybe he was, but he would have
certainly been very well known by this point.
His prowess would be known realm wide.
I mean in the North. They'd already heard of Loris.
Tyrell in the span of books. So if they're hearing of Loris
Tyrell the night of flowers when he's 16, guarantee this guy in
his 30s this in this era when. There's.
Lots of talking and lots of tournaments and it's the the
talk of the the main thing to talk about rather.
Yeah, he's super. Famous.
I can imagine. There was another tournament
worthy of mention here, right? We have the tournament of 73 AC
in Old Oak, which is of course the lands of the Oakharts, and
this one is worthy of mention as well, I think.
So we hear about this tournament.
This time only Prince Bailon goes up with Eamon does not go
now he does officially go as a mystery knight.
The quote UN quote the silver fool.
So he is a mystery knight. It's possible that the king
wouldn't have sent him with a King's guard or that Bailon
himself didn't want to go with a King's guard because he didn't
want to sort of give the game away, so to speak.
That being said, I don't think it's impossible that a
Kingsguard, and even specifically Ryan, may have
still gone. After all, we can look at
something like the mystery night Duncan Egg Meat, who eventually
ends up being revealed as a demon, the younger Black Fire on
the road. He's pretending to be the humble
Knights for John Fiddler, and he's got Alan Coxshaw with him,
who is a de facto member of his Kingsguard, so to speak.
So I think it's possible that the King and Orbailon still
would have brought one of the kings guard with him even if it
wasn't going officially. Even if he himself was also in
disguise. Just to make sure that nothing
happened to the Prince. Just to make sure that he was
still kept safe even though he is in disguise as this mystery
knight. And again, in that case, I think
that it's possible that Ryan was an actual choice because this is
attorney at Old Oak in the Reek. Ryan probably knew Lord Oakhart.
He's probably been to Old Oak before.
In fact, his brother is there. Ricard red wine is the one to
unhorse and subsequently Knight Bayon.
So I think it's. Very.
Possible that Ryan would have gone, and I think it's an
amusing coincidence. If Ryan is the one to knight
Eamon and Ricard is the one to knight Bayon, that would be
funny. Yeah, that's, I guess that's.
One point against this idea if he might be too famous by this
point, but that doesn't mean they know what he looks like
because this is an era where people still don't know it.
They necessarily know what he said it looks like because of
the nature of not having, you know, phones and cameras and all
that stuff. So I also like this idea because
it gives us, as another comparison to Barris and Selmy,
of which there are many here, the idea that maybe he had his
own little arson Whitebeard adventure.
You know, not nearly as serious as that, but disguising himself
to keep an eye on a younger member of the royal family.
And hijinks ensue, just nightly. Things.
Yeah. So again, somewhat of an idyllic
situation he's in. This is the most dramatic thing
that happens. You know, a King's Guard knight,
maybe in disguise, helping a Prince in disguise enter a
tournament under an assumed name.
I mean, that's the big drama of the day.
It's it's it's pretty fun, but it's obviously not the level of,
you know, the new Long Night or an invasion of the Squishers or
something like that. So let's go to a more
uncomfortable topic for the Kingsguard because, yeah, it's
not going to be as bad as the Shivers, but it's important.
It's a different kind of problem.
It's a lusty brother. In 70.
Three AC later in that year, after this tournament in Old
Oak, probably Ryan had his first personal challenge that we know
of as a Kingsguard knight, A problem that you definitely
can't solve with swords. Not the traditional kind of
enemy, something more personal than that.
So what happens is that Ryan. Redwine discovers that Luca More
Strong, who is also a member of the Kingsguard, one of his sworn
brothers had secretly quote UN quote, married several different
women. We don't need to tell you all
that's a. No, no.
So tell us what happened. How did Ryan figure it out?
And I mean, not that having two wives is something that you can
really keep under wraps forever. But yeah, there's there's
certain aspects we don't. Know of this and it and it leads
to interesting speculation. Obviously we know that despite
the official vows of the Kingsguard, there are any number
of Kingsguard Knights throughout the history of the institution
that have taken lovers outside of you know, outside of their
bows. We hear about Barrison, for
example, he says Lewin Martel kept a paramour and he
absolutely knew about it. Aris Okar mentions that he knew
Preston Greenfield and Boris Blau absolutely had women that
they were sleeping with and obviously Aris himself is
sleeping with Arianne. So it's probably not something
now we don't hear about this necessarily before the era of
Ryan and Luca Moore. So I don't know if this was
happening before then, but it's very possible that it was.
So it probably wouldn't have been hard for Ryan to notice if
Luca Moore was gone for multiple nights without explanation or
maybe a flimsy sort of explanation.
After all, they're living together.
They're going to see each other constantly.
So if all of a sudden, Luca Moore is disappearing at odd
hours and he doesn't really have a good reason for it, well,
yeah, Ryan's eyebrow might be raised a bit.
That being said, to find out that he was married to a few
different women, I think that Ryan probably may have had to
tail him a bit. So, you know, kind of follow him
a little bit Private Eye style and figure out what he was
actually doing. But it's also possible, and it's
not mutually exclusive that Lukemore told Ryan directly.
And why not? Perhaps in Lukemore's mind, this
is his sworn brother. There's no secrets among the
sworn brothers. You tell each other everything
and and maybe it's Lukemore was operating under the the
assumption that Ryan would keep keep a secret.
Yeah, he might have thought that, obviously.
He made a mistake because Ryan turned out to be a snitch.
I think it's important to know, like you said, the.
The examples we have besides this one, the ones that are in
more current times, come after the Kingsguard has existed for
300 years. There's a little maybe a
corrosion of their values, but in this era, it's all shiny and
new and there isn't an acceptance of people breaking
the rules necessarily. And of course, this is a guy
that grew up. In that shiny Camelot like realm
where everything's perfect and this just doesn't fit with that.
So, you know, he had to say something.
So he didn't say he didn't turn the other way.
He he reported to the Lord Commander.
No, he did. And.
To me this is a a really decisive moment in terms of
looking at Ryom as a character and and as a multi dimensional
figure because Luca Moore Strong isn't a stranger.
He's not a random person that Ryan is turning in for justice.
This is someone that Ryan has probably known for the better
part of 20. Years and has been.
Serving on the Kingsguard for years and years at this point.
I mean, Luca Moore came to notice in 55 AC at the Dragon
Pit tourney. That's a good almost 2 decades
before this is happening. So there's no way that Ryan
doesn't know Gamor personally. This is someone that he has been
seeing every single day, especially since he's become a
Kingsguard. And again, Ryan could have said
nothing. Barristan doesn't seem to have
ever said anything in his own time to, you know, Hightower or
any of the other Kingsguard that he served with.
That Lewin Martel had a had a paramour.
Aristocart didn't seem to say anything to Barrison or anyone
else, that Preston Greenfield and then Boris Brown were
sleeping with other people. So Ryan theoretically could have
said nothing. He could have just kept it and
let the chips fall where they may, so to speak.
But he doesn't. He chooses to tell Charles
Morrigan, maybe guessing that nothing good would come of this,
but doing it anyway. I can't imagine.
At the very least, Ryan didn't think that the king and queen
are not going to be pleased to hear this and that Lukemore's
life is going to change and it's probably not going to be for the
better. Yeah, it's.
A puzzle. Because we have to wonder what
Ryan was thinking in the moment when he decided to turn his
brother in. Was it just a matter of he felt?
It was important to keep. The institution pure that it was
his duty as a knight, as a knight of the Kingsguard, that
his duty to the King and the royal family exceeded his duty
to his brother. Or perhaps it was just because
he didn't. There was no precedent, and he
didn't know what the punishment would be.
And maybe he imagined Sir Lukamore would just have.
Something lesser happened to him.
And because the his punishment was rather awful.
But it my the darkest thought I could offer here is that if, if
Sir Ryan was secretly a bit more cunning than we want to think or
then we're aware of, because if he's really cunning, you
wouldn't necessarily know it by the by the sources, Sir Lukamar
was famous. He had won the Melee tournament.
He was handsome and also probably did well in the
tournaments. So, you know, getting a rival
out of the way for good is a possible.
Angle here probably. Not, but if you want to think on
the lowest level here, that would be something he could have
been thinking. But what else do you think could
have been on his mind? What, what would have been the
the conflict here? What's what's going back and
forth in his head? Well, and I think that.
Certainly there's there's a way, a less harsh way maybe that we
can think about it that Ryan may not have officially known
because to your point, there's not really a precedent for this
sort of thing happening. And he was a favorite Lukomora
of the king and queen. So it's possible that Ryan
thought, yeah, well, maybe he'll be punished, but it won't be too
severe. And the the king and queen will
take into account that they really like this guy and that
this really hasn't happened before.
So maybe it won't be too much of A punishment.
But he still needs something because he did break the rules.
But again, this is not a world where this type of infraction is
lightly handled. And this is not just he has a
single lover. This is multiple women that he's
not has taken as lovers, but he's obviously unofficially
married, which you're definitely not allowed to do as a
Kingsguard. And so that may have been a lot
harder to to hush up or a parted, but you know it.
It's interesting you mentioned the the darkest thought that you
have is he's trying to get rid of a rival.
Because to me, the darkest thought is that Ryan knew
exactly what would happen and was OK with it because he
believed that the Kingsguard mattered more than this person,
that the institution and the reputation of the Kingsguard and
the monarchy mattered more than this individual.
Now, why he believed that, I don't know.
Maybe he's trying to save his own skin because he doesn't want
to be accused of hiding or hushing up an affair.
You know, maybe he thinks he's going to be rewarded.
But maybe, and, and again, I, I kind of follow this way and it's
certainly not a, a generous thought to have.
Maybe Ryan genuinely believed the Kingsguard is all important,
the Crown is all important, and someone who has solely the
reputation of either or both of those institutions, they need to
be punished and it doesn't matter what my relationship is
to them. The proverbial.
True. Believer of sorts, Yeah.
Someone who is just doesn't have any tolerance for a lessening of
the rules or any sort of, Yeah, any sort of leeway, which might
be an important thing for us to consider later in his life.
We'll keep that thought in mind as his career advances.
One other idea in terms of just getting ahead would be that
maybe Lukemore was a competitor to be the next Lord Commander.
Eventually. He might have seen it that way.
Either way, Lukemore. Kind of dug his.
Own grave. And before he dug his own grave,
we're told something very awful, that he was gelded by his own
sworn brothers. Yikes, right?
Yeah, that is that. Is an awful.
Thought now I will give a little bit of context.
Aris Okhart mentions this to to Arianne.
This is not something that Gildan repeats.
I don't mean to suggest that it didn't happen, but it's
something that we have to take into context.
It's possible that what Arizo Kart meant was that it's either
a story that's been exaggerated that this happened and now the
story that's come down through the centuries is that the actual
Kings Guard brothers did it themselves, or that this is
supposed to be taken metaphorically.
In other words, the actions of his own brothers led to this
happening to him. I don't know if either of those
are what Ares Oakhart is supposed to have meant, but it
is important to note that that's not something that's supported
in Fire and Blood. That's only coming for A Feast
for Crows. That being said, if this is
true. And.
Again, this is what Ares Oakhart says happens.
This is a really, really awful thing to happen.
Not just that this is the punishment that is happening to
Luka Moore, but that his own sworn brothers, Ryan Redwine
included, are the ones that are doing this to him.
I mean think about comparison. It's not exactly a formal
comparison or or a tight comparison.
But think about Cersei in A Feast for Crows who has the blue
Bard tortured or Ramsay who practices it's implied that he
does a similar torture to to Theon.
These are awful and even Cersei who wants to have the blue Bard
tortured thinks that it is so awful.
Now granted she blames Marjorie for this which is definitely not
fair, but even she thinks it's awful.
So now imagine you're Ryan Redwine, and it's not enough
that you've accused this person, but now the knife is literally
or figuratively being put in your hand.
And you're being told now you do it.
Now you mutilate this person that you've known for the better
part of two decades. Now you torture them.
That's got to be a harrowing incident to go through.
Yeah. And it's why.
It's really dark to consider if he knew that would happen and a
much different idea if he didn't.
And that's why we brought up the matter of precedent, because it
is very possible he didn't know what sort of punishment would be
inflicted here. He might have just thought he'd
be sent to the wall, which he was sent to the wall, but after
the gelding. So yeah, it would be horrible to
witness. And it also provides context to
these later Kingsguard who don't turn their brothers in because
they don't want to do that. Like, I don't want to geld my
brother. I don't have to do get anything
to do with that. Yeah, that's a very
straightforward thought of something.
If I turn him in, then I got yeah, I no, they'd have to
really, you know, unless they hate each other, then it's like,
yeah, I'm getting him, you know, that's what, And I think it just
it. Speaks.
To you know, the, and you alluded to this a little bit
before, but it's sort of the, the flip side, the awful and
horrible side of the King's guard, which is the demand for
absolute devotion to the crown. Individual lives can't matter.
Individual relationships can't matter when the most important
thing is the crown and the reputation of the Kingsguard and
I, I think it's very possible that Ryan was one of those
people. He's sort of that if we can go
back to the Maestro Eamon comparison, he's that man in
10,000 who can put duty above love, who can say no, The
Kingsguard matters most, the Crown matters most.
I don't care if I've known you for 20 years.
I don't care if you're my sworn brother.
If you've injured those reputations, then you deserve
the punishment as the King demands.
Yeah, it's a A Stanis. Or sometimes a Ned or maybe Rob
and Rickard Karstark type situation.
George RR Martin loves to introduce and use these themes
with his characters and plot lines because it creates that
sort of interesting conflict that the characters have to deal
with the downsides of honor, the the lack of compromise while
also making the ones who suffer for their honor.
They're still sympathetic even though there's all these
downsides. Like I said, things that they.
Wouldn't normally do things that they get put into between a rock
and a hard place like Ned having to choose between his daughter
and his honor. Well, he made the choice easily,
but his honor was important to him unless his the life of his
daughter is threatened. So this is this is not the same
as a daughter, but they do call each other brothers.
So there is a sense of brotherhood here that he has to
violate. But he but on the other hand, he
would have to violate his oath to the king.
And yeah, this guy could have just been that hardcore, you
know, he he might not have. Felt bad about.
It like you said, he might have well, he broke the law.
I can I don't feel bad for him. He, he made his own choice, you
know, or he might have been like, well, and you know, we, we
talked. A a while back, I know there was
the episode on AIM and the Dragon Knight, and this was
another point that brought Got brought up, you know, was AIM
and also that man in 10,000 who could put duty above love.
I think he was. I think he was someone who not
say he didn't love nearest, but clearly he prioritized his duty
to protect the absolutely awful person that Aegon the 4th was
above the love that he had for his sister later troubles.
It's possible. Ryan Redwine fought for the.
Crown and some of the later conflicts in Joharis's reign.
As usual, some of the Kingsguard.
Are likely to be part. Of these conflicts, we're not
always sure which ones, but it's often sensible to guess that the
man considered perhaps the best fighter amongst the Kingsguard
would have been one of the ones sent.
Now of course, this is more along the lines of the type of
trouble that the average King's Guard would want to face rather
than the Luca more the Lussy situation.
So this is the bit more straightforward in that sense.
The 4th Dornish War. We mentioned the third Dornish
War earlier. Let's talk about the the next
one in 83 AC now this one in. In a strange way, it's a little
more formally a, you know, quote UN quote Dornish war, even
though it lasts a lot less time. So we, you know, we hear about
the the 4th Dornish war as basically a one day war because
Morian Martel decides to invade the Stormlands.
But spoiler alert, it doesn't go very well when he's bringing the
Navy and the Targaryens have Dragons.
No, obviously the bulk of the the lion's share, Dragon's share
of the fighting is done by Joe Harris and his sons on their
Dragons. But we do hear about Borman
Baratheon assembling a land force to complement this
draconic power, although it doesn't end up really being
used. So whether or not the King
decided some of his Kingsguard would be part of that, we don't
know. But again, I think it's not
illogical that that would have happened.
Number one, again, because of optics, I don't think it would
have made a lot of sense if the king and his two male heirs are
going to war and his Kingsguard are kicking back in King's
Landing and sharing a drink together.
I think there has to be at least some of them that no, they can't
literally be in the air with the king, but symbolically they are
going to war with the king. And of course, there is
precedent for Kingsguard leading attacks and leading armies
during wartime, as we see very notably during Robert's
Rebellion. So I think it's very possible
that Ryan Redwine was part of this army that Borman fought,
excuse me, formed in order to fight the Dornish if there was a
land in which of course there wasn't.
And it is worth pointing out, Borman is a relative of the
royal family. He's not a Targaryen, to be
clear, but he is a a female lying relative.
So there is a way in. Which the?
King could have chosen to sort of extend that royal protection
to this extended family member, so to speak, by having one of
his Kingsguard with him, by saying I'm recognizing you as a
member of my extended family and so I'm going to have my
Kingsguard protects you. And again, Mayim is in his early
40s. That's certainly not too old to
be a warrior in Westeros. He's very much an established
member of the Kingsguard at this point.
He's got that martial talent. So I don't think it's illogical
to assume he would have been with this army.
I agree If the Dornish. Had landed and started moving
through the storm lands. It's very forested, almost
jungly because it's the Rainwood, right?
It's so wet. They would have made the Dragons
doing their job, would have been a lot harder and it would have
come down to the ground troops and that would have been an
entirely different matter. So yeah, they would have been
prepared for that kind of occasion, even if it's not what
actually played out one place. We can.
Definitely identify Ryam as having been was in 89 AC.
The end of a very long Royal progress by by Joe Harris.
It ended in Old Town. And of course, what did they do
to celebrate? Lord Hightower staged a
tournament. Shocking.
If you need a celebration in Westeros.
You stage a tournament and of course if there's a big
tournament and it's in this era, who's going to show up?
Well, it's going to be Ryan red wine.
Now we don't know everyone who competed, but we know that Ryan
did because he wins. Now I think that this is a
pretty big event. Obviously the high towers are
very wealthy. Obviously Old Town is a very
important seat. So I think and this is a a royal
visit. So I think this would have been
a pretty grand event. This probably would have bought
brought the best and brightest who at least could attend to
compete and again Ryan. 'S.
Getting up close to 50 probably at this point, if not past 50.
So it says a lot about his talent as a jouster that he's
still very easily holding his own even into his 50s against
presumably much younger competitors and still winning at
this big and impressive tournament.
You know, there, there's a comparison to make in A Game of
Thrones. Littlefinger has to acknowledge,
you know, even Littlefinger has to acknowledge how impressive it
is that Barristan won a tourney at 57.
So if we have Ryan Redwine and he's winning attorney in his
50s, I think it also would have been seen as very impressive.
Yeah, it's that. Would really get spoken of.
And as you said, this was probably a huge affair because
it's an Old Town. We know for sure the crowds
would be huge. And big crowds means more
witnesses. More witnesses means more people
telling their friends, telling their friends.
And this is a port city, so a lot of people that are getting
on ships within the next few weeks would tell that story to
whatever people they encountered in the next port.
And the fame of Ryan Red wine would spread ever further the
next. Event that he.
May have been a part of there's another royal event here, the
Mirish Bloodbath. He may have accompanied the 2
Princess. Both Eamon and Bailon were a
part of this one and it didn't have a great ending, so it's a
bit sad. And that is something that a
King's guard has to face from time to time, the loss of a
royal. So this may be.
Another opportunity that Ryan may have had to go to war, even
though to Harris's reign is largely one of peace, there are
these individual conflicts and these smaller wars, and it's
very possible that Ryan would have fought in this.
Again, there are land armies, even though obviously Eamon and
then later Bailon are taking part and they've got their
Dragons, there are still land armies with Borman, Baratheon,
with Cameron, Tarth, with Corliss Valerian.
So there is definitely opportunity for someone who
doesn't have a dragon, like a member of the Kingsguard to join
in the fray. And again, as we mentioned in
the context of the tourneys, I think it would be very difficult
for the king to justify sending one or both of his sons to war
and not having at least one member of the Kingsguard with
them. So again, you're sending off a
member of the royal family without the obvious official
protection that the royal family is supposed to have.
Absolutely. And how are you going?
To do anything about a crossbow bolt like sniper type situation,
that was very unlikely, very unusual, not something that they
may have prepared for, but it might have been something that
they considered in terms of how their operational security plan
worked. From that from that point on,
they may have considered crossbow.
Men and where one. Could be hidden anytime they're
standing around like, well, where am I to crossbow men?
Where's the. If I could take a shot from you,
it may have changed how they, you know, thought about guarding
the Princess from that point on. Yeah, it would have been.
Really bad, right? They would have felt.
Guilty. And yeah, I mean, I think.
Of and I've probably. Mentioned this before, but
Barristan in A Dance with Dragons he thinks about how
disappointed in himself he is that so many kings died while he
was a member of the Kingsguard and Princess died and he
couldn't see them again. Not because he practically could
have done anything about it. He can't make the Harris a
second not sick, He can't make Eris a second not assassinated.
If he wasn't there he couldn't have stopped Rhaegar from being
killed by robber. There's nothing practically he
could have done. But he still feels guilty
because, again, the fundamental job of the Kingsguard is to die
for the king or the member of the royal family.
You're supposed to be able to take that bullet or in this
case, that crossbow. So I think that there may have
been a lot of guilt for Ryan to say, why is Eamon, this
illustrious Prince, this great Prince who should have been a
great king? Why is he dead and I'm still
alive? That that doesn't make any
sense. The the Civil Rick math isn't
mathing on that one, it's true. They.
Are going to. Hold themselves to a high
standard and if we consider maybe that there's some vanity
here a Kingsguard wouldn't want that on their record a stain
that you know a king died or a Prince either died while they
were there you know so that would be it wouldn't look good
you know and that's someone like Ryan might really care about
that No I mean remember the. I forget the context, but
thinking about the Kingsguard when Daron the young dragon was
attacked and one of them, to his eternal shame, surrendered while
Daron died. That's how it's feeling is if
the king is dead and you're not as a member of the Kingsguard,
something is fundamentally wrong with you in the eyes of
Westerosi. There may have been a second.
Shame here as well, which is that Prince Baelon was so
angered and traumatized by his brother's death that he.
Basically dismounted his dragon and went down on the ground and
slaughtered a lot of these mirror soldiers.
Didn't allow them to surrender, gave them no quarter.
If he's going down into the trenches like that fighting with
Dark sister, which is probably what he did, he probably picked
up his brother's sword because Eamonn had Dark sister at that
point. He would also have probably been
the heir. That actually ended up being
controversial. But in the moment that
distinction is irrelevant. He's the eldest Targaryen there.
He's holding a sword, charging into battle.
If Ryan red wine is there and there's going to be some
Kingsguard there, and I would guess Ryan would is very likely
to have been one of them. He's got to be right beside him.
And it that's not very honorable to kill man in this situation.
And if he was genuinely honorable for honor's sake or
honor honorable for vanity's sake.
Well, think about Quentin's experience killing conscripts
beneath the walls of of Mirin or no Youngkai and how horrible
that was for him. Or what's it Astiport?
I don't remember what slaver city it was, but it doesn't
matter. They the point is the
experience. He's traumatized by just killing
people who basically couldn't fight back, and that's kind of
the vibe we get. From.
This event here, don't you think?
No, and and I think. That but.
Again, I, I think it's worth keeping in mind what is, what is
Ryan's personality here? If he's someone who takes being
a Kingsguard so incredibly seriously, And I think that he
was, then it's very possible that he's also trying to sort of
expiate these feelings, so to speak.
He's also trying to wrestle with Bailon.
Lost a brother, but I lost my Prince, I lost my future king.
So I have to make up for that as much as Bailon has to make up
for that. So it's very possible that Brian
also didn't want to give any quarter because he feels that
loss and that shame and that hurt in his mind.
And so he's going to take it out on the attackers here that he's
going to say, now all of you must be punished and must be
punished violently because you have shamed me, because you have
put me in this position where I've lost my Prince and my
future king. And it's a very.
Loud message as well that everyone hears the this mirrors
bloodbath is what that's why it's called.
That is recorded. And at the time it must have
really spread the news of what happened.
And so you know, what happens if if a Targaryen Prince is killed,
this, this might be what happens to you.
You might not have had anything to do with it.
But if someone in your army or your nationality does it 'cause,
you know, these were just mirish cell swords basically, or, or
just men paid to do this, this invasion.
Yeah, they didn't know what they were getting into with this.
So yeah, that might have been part of it.
It might have been like, yeah, we have to make a loud response
that that people hear and fear us for.
Again, they got lucky. We have to make sure they.
Know that. We.
Every Friday were. Rather we meaning I gather on
Twitch with a lot of you all who hang out with me and we play the
game Crusader Kings 3, which is modified, modded for A Song of
Ice and Fire. It's extremely well detailed and
the way it basically works is we play a house, the Lord or lady
or king or queen, and you play their whole life playing.
They have personality traits, battle skills, intrigue skills
or lack thereof. They might like traveling, they
might be really religious, they might be gay, they might be a
dwarf, they might be a genius, they might be.
There's a variety of possibilities here.
And some of these traits can run in the family.
And when you die, your character, you take over as your
heir. So you just keep playing as the
next in line. And right now, as of this
recording, we're playing House Ozgre during the time of the
Century of Blood. So we also get to play in a
variety of timelines, Dragons or no Dragons, current timeline
past. I definitely want to do a red
wine play through sometime because the Arbor would be a
very unique starting place, a spot that is hard to attack, but
easy to perhaps attack from. And that could be fun.
Never, never done that. Being an extreme corner of the
map would be would be interesting.
You know what the You're the only.
Contribution I ever made to one of your game streams was and
it's the only one because I I could never do better than this.
You're playing House house Valerian.
And so I decided that and Jordan Martin in the unlikely that
you're watching this. Absolutely feel free to use this
name. I thought that you had his name
one of your characters. Hilarion Valerian.
Oh yeah. That is part of the fun we have
to have our pun names some Some houses are better than others
for puns. Like how was he not?
He should have done that if you got.
Three brothers with. R names for house red wine.
How have you not named one Hilarian Valerian that it's it's
right? There come.
On George we we. Had so much fun with Manderly.
It was, you know, garbage Manderly, Iron Manderly, magic
Manderly, all that. Some yeah rain, of course.
Also just infinite puns with House Rain.
Yeah, I remember that rhymes. Too you.
Can do the rhyme, you can do punting.
Rhymes or everything? Yeah.
So it's a great time at twitch.tv/history of Westeros
every Friday at 6:00 Eastern. Lord.
Commander A Song of Ice and Fire gives us a lot of perspective on
this, almost literally, because we have two POV's from Lord
Commanders, sort of. I mean, Barristan's no longer
Lord Commander when he's got APOV, but he kind of is, again
as Danny's. But he doesn't really.
There's not really a Kingsguard. He's still called a Queen's
Guard. It's we'll, we'll count it.
So yeah, it's, it's works. It works.
He's still. And Jamie, of course, is the
other one that's more straightforward.
So while Barristan is the one compared to Ryan the most, it is
Jamie who actually puts us in Ryan's boots, so to speak,
holding the office he held, literally writing in the same
white book his Lannister posterior placed in the same
seat. Quote the chair behind the.
Table. Was old black oak with cushions
of blanched cowhide, the leather worn thin, worn by the Bony arse
embarrassed in the bold and Sir Gerald Hightower Before him by
Prince Amon, the Dragon Knight, Sir Ryan, Red Wine and the Demon
of Dairy, by Sir Duncan the Tall and the pale Griffin Allen
Connington. How could the Kingslayer belong
in such exalted company? Yet here he was.
So it's it's reminiscent of the. Brand quote the this list of
famous Knights there's no you know, immortal characters like
legendary heroes who may never have existed in this list.
It's actual Kingsguard for sure, but it's still a wow list and
Jamie feels kinda unworthy. You know he calls them exalted.
He's not idolizing or glorifying him like Bran did, but he still
knows he's lesser. I mean, he knows he he's right
too. Well, it it sort of goes back to
the. To the the Baylor episode, the
last of the Baylor episodes where Ryan Redwine has by and
we'll get to this a little bit more in the legacy.
But by the time of the main novels, he's become this figure
that you almost can't live up to, that no one can really equal
because he has reached legendary status, even though he didn't
live that long ago, relatively speaking, in the history of
Westeros. Hey, there's the name there.
He didn't live that long ago, but he is a legend.
He's someone that you can't really equal.
You can only recognize that he was better than you.
Yeah. And that.
Is. Jamie in a nutshell.
In this scene, if she was younger, Jamie the.
Jamie of the. Past the the pre maiming Jamie,
he wouldn't have had this kind of reverence for the past, I
don't think. He wouldn't have felt the weight
of these long light shadows. I think he would have compared
himself to them with a lot of cynicism.
He would have instead of thinking of Ryan Redwine as some
great hero, he would have been like, yeah, that guy never had
to deal with an Aries. He lived in an easy time, you
know, and and I could have beaten him, you know, if it came
to swords. So it would be easy for him to
rationalize himself as superior, or at least not worse than, you
know, like, oh, he's not better than me.
But this is a different Jamie. This is a much more humble
Jamie, to be fair. Young Jamie.
Very young Jamie. Was in awe of Arthur, Dane and
Blackfish, but it was of their deeds in war.
It wasn't of their honorable nature or of their their
willingness to sacrifice. It was their skill with the
sword. So yeah, it's a, it's a fair
picture here, but it's not the total picture.
Yeah, it's a golden age. But if it's so easy, why did no
one else measure up to RYOM, right?
This is this is the standard comeback.
If it's that easy, then why didn't you do it or why did no
one else do it? So that's a really important
factor here as well. So I like the scene a lot,
especially when we're able to compare it to other Kingsguard.
But yes, he did become Lord Commander at some point.
We don't know when he may have been Lord Commander some by the
time of some of these prior events that we just discussed,
though not before. Say the was it the 4th Dornish
War, the year 83 'cause it's 84 is the soonest he could have
become King Star. Isn't that our Lord Commander?
Isn't that right? That's right, that's right.
So yeah, at. At some point he was named Lord
Commander. We don't get official dates on
this, but worth pointing out it's in the roughly last two
decades of De Harris's life and reign.
So by this point, he's probably in his 40s.
He's maybe in his early 50s. So this is not a young teenage
Ryan Redwine who's first coming on to the scene.
This is an older Rent Ryan. This is an experienced Ryan.
This is someone who has been at court not just for the majority
of his life, but also for a very long time, just generally
speaking. And I think that there's a way
in which he may have been viewed by this point as sort of the
elder statesman of the Kingsguard, someone who had
spent almost his entire adult life wearing a white cloak.
If he wasn't the longest serving Kingsguard by this point, he
probably was one of the longest. He was someone who had been
around for several decades, who had seen a lot in the court of
Jaharis the first. But he's someone that Jaharis
probably trusted quite a bit. Again, we talked about the
family aspect of that, and that's certainly true.
But also at this time, by this time, Ryan has been by Gaheris's
side quite literally for decades.
There's no way that you don't have that sort of person serving
you day after day, year after year, for decade upon decade and
not be close to them, literally speaking, someone that you have
to trust because that is what his role is.
So I think in the same way that we talked about was very natural
for Daharis to look to Ryan as a member of the Kingsguard, I
think it may have felt very natural for Daharis to then look
to Ryan as his Lord Commander, as someone who could serve in
this role as the Kingsguard because he had this long, long,
storied reputation behind him. Yeah, it it's very.
Fitting, and you wonder if he was a legend By this point.
You know what it's It's hard to pinpoint that in the real world.
Like when someone is legendary, at what point do they achieve
that status? Is it one event that catapults
them into that, or is it a culmination of factors?
It's somewhere in between. With Ryan, there is a candidate
here for something that may have propelled him into that last
stratosphere to that highest point, just a little higher than
he was into from super famous into legendary.
I'm making up a scale here because of the legendary scale.
Yeah, the legendary. Scale.
Yeah, he's he's. A 6.2, yeah, but he's jumping.
He's trying to get to 7. That's the highest the seven.
For Kingsguard. That's the highest.
There you go. Yeah, it's a 7 point.
Scale Yeah, A7. Point scale so.
The year. 98 We had a a really famous tournament, one of the
most famous in in Westerosi history.
Tell us about that. No, absolutely.
So this is. A good candidate for the most
single, single most famous tournament in the entire history
of Westeros. Obviously again, there's
different opinions on this, but this is the 50th anniversary
tourney, so this is the opportunity for Jaharis to
celebrate being on the throne for 50 years, which is a really
big deal even for a modern monarch.
That is a very long range, not to mention someone who lives in
a world where by your 60s you're considered an old an old man.
So Gaharis takes us this tournament in 90 AC to celebrate
being on the throne for 50 years.
And Ryan is obviously competing. And So what happens is he wins
against Clement Craig. But he doesn't just win in terms
of a tilt. They go against each other 30
times. They break 30 lances against
each other before Gaharis declares them Co champions.
That is such a wild. Number.
And the best we can do, because we've at times compared jousting
to sports. That's our one of our best ways
to compare it, I think. What is we?
We tried to come up. With some ideas of what the
comparison to 30 Lance breakings in a tournament would be, what's
the equivalent in, say, basketball?
What do you think? Well it well but.
So. Context for this, I don't know a
lot about sports. It may or may not surprise you
to find that out, but someone who does know a lot about sports
is my darling husband. So I had asked him, you know,
what makes the most sense? What is a good comparison here?
Not to say, you know, literally speaking.
So obviously we don't have a direct comparison here in terms
of what happened, but I, I was sort of getting in terms of
sentiment, like what would be similar in terms of feeling if
you're a Westerosi watching this happen, what's a good modern day
sports comparison? So I'm just going to read
verbatim, literally put this what my husband said.
And again, this is American basketball, So very specific
reference here, but he'd said Jordan's 63 pointers in game one
of the 1992 Finals, the Spurs going approximately 18 for 20 in
the first quarter of a 2014 Finals game.
And LeBron, LeBron James scoring around 45 against Detroit in
2007 to bring Cleveland to the Finals.
Again, I'm not a sports expert. You may or may not agree with
those. But I think that's a good way
just for us to get kind of the sentiment here to say what would
have felt like in terms of in terms of seeing this happen.
That's a great point. Yeah, a great way to.
Compare it, I think like if you all, by the way, listening, have
ideas for what you would compare this to in a sport that you're
familiar with or something besides sport.
And while we're at it, go ahead and hit us up, drop a comment,
send an e-mail, what have you. Boxing comes to mind like a
really long boxing match, one that just maybe before the era
where they had time limits and you just some 30 rounds and
there's like some old time boxing match that went 30 rounds
or something like that. I don't know.
We're gonna have to look deeper into this one, but for now and
turning in terms of opponent, this guy, Clement Kreb, he stood
toe to toe with Ryan Redwine. What do we know about this guy?
Obviously, he's someone that. Nimble the crab in A Feast for
Crows, thinks is is a big hero of his.
Obviously, they're from the same family.
We don't know very much about Clement's reputation as a King's
guard, but I think it's probably fair to say that he was younger
than Ryan. We certainly don't hear about
him beforehand. We don't hear about him with
Robin Shaw, you know, joining the Kingsguard with Ryan Redwin.
So I think it's probably fair to say that he's younger, maybe
even substantially younger. So this is even more impressive.
Ryan is probably in his 60s at this point and yet he is going
not just well against Clement Crab, he's going spectacularly
well for. For part of comparison, Jamie
Laster and Jorah Mormont normally break 9 lances against
each other before Robert says you know I'm going to give the
victory to to Jorah. Barristan thinks that Rhaegar
did exceptionally well because he broke 12 lances against
Arthur Dean. Now imagine seeing double or
triple that against someone or by someone who is considered old
by western Aussie standards. In a very dangerous sport, I
think this would have been nothing short of amazing.
Just the most amazing athletics you've ever seen.
Yeah, I agree. The the crowd.
Must have been unable to tell the story in a way that people
wouldn't have thought they were exaggerating.
It's one of those times where you don't have to exaggerate.
Well, maybe maybe this is an exaggeration actually, but this
is recorded by the maestro, so it probably is accurate.
But it's the kind of story when you hear it you'd be like,
surely you're exaggerating. Surely, which is an example we
get in the hedge night, right? We have the dunk with with Sir.
Arlen, you know. The story that Sir Arlen always
tells is, well, I broke 7 lances against the Prince of
Dragonstone and that's pretty amazing.
And Dunk says this and it's, it's Baylor saying look, but the
and, and The thing is, Baylor says, look, it's nothing to be
to sneeze at or to be ashamed of that you broke 4 lances against
me. That's really good.
Arlen is a, a little headset from nowhere and I'm, I'm a
Prince. I'm, I'm really good.
So the fact that he still broke 4 lances, that's something to be
proud of. Here we've got someone who is
doing that 30 times. So we.
Acknowledge. That it's an amazing feat to do
at this at this age. But he might have been thinking
about how this was the beginning of the twilight of his career,
of even even he would have to slow down eventually.
And absolutely. And I think.
That, you know, there's a way in which Ryan may have seen this as
kind of his last hurrah. You know, whether or not he knew
how long he was going to live. We know in reality he's got
about 7 years left to live. He may not have known exactly
how much time he had, but he certainly probably would have
felt that he was older again. 60s is considered an.
Old age. In Westeros, not to say people
can't live longer than that, obviously someone like Walter
Frey has lived long past that. But for someone like Ryan
Redwine, he may have felt this is this is sort of it.
I don't have much longer to go. So let me go out with a bang,
Let me go out with a blaze of glory.
I'm going to do my best possible job because this is probably
going to be my last big tournament.
This is my last hurrah. This is my last great showing.
Let me go off on a high note rather than sort of fall into
obscurity. There was one more.
Chapter of his career here that was less about being a knight,
but in ways was still about being a knight because he did
this job like a knight and it's a job that you shouldn't do like
a knight, and that is Hand of the King.
His fame wasn't quite complete, His legend.
Wasn't quite complete. Neither was his story.
Most of all, he had one big thing left after the tournament.
Only two weeks later, Septenbarth died, and King
Jairus immediately turned to Sir Ryan to be his new hand.
He's an older man. Had they had been around each
other a long time, The idea of a Kingsguard, well, Lord Commander
being Hand isn't new to us as readers of the books, but we've
seen several examples of it. But this was 200 years prior to
the books, and it was new then. It it is an interesting
question. As to why Jairus turn to Ryom of
all people to serve to serve as his hand, yeah we don't hear
about Ryom holding any other post into Harris's government
other than a King's Guard and then eventually Lord Commander.
It's not like he was in a semi political or openly political or
diplomatic role before. He's suddenly elevated to the
highest office that the not anyone who's not the King can
have in Westeros. It's also interesting because
Jaharis doesn't look to his son Bailon.
Even though Bailon is about 40. He's obviously Jaharis's
preferred heir so it's it's a little strange that he would
look to Ryom and not someone that is going to take over for
him. Now to be fair, maybe he's
thinking well the last time there was a Targaryen who named
another Targaryen Hand it was my father Amis who named Mangor and
that went very poorly. It's also possible that Jaharis
didn't want to be reminded that his own time was probably not
very long. Bailon is obviously of a younger
generation than the king himself.
So if he names Bailon, it's not that Bailon is an incredible
young man, but he's young for Jeharis.
And that might have made the king feel that his end was even
sooner, that he's not so much appointing a new hand as he is
almost giving up some of his authority, almost stepping back
a step from the role as king. Yeah.
I mean this is. A man who would definitely prove
it, his loyalty for decades on the Kingsguard, but also his
family's service before that, that counts among Westerosi.
You know, the the recent deeds of house red wine kind of all
count for all the members of it. You know, that's the kind of the
way Westeros works. So it's it's a lot that was
going for him, but that isn't necessarily enough, right?
That doesn't mean you're going to be a good hand of the King.
It's an entirely different job, so.
What do you what? Was Jairus thinking, did he just
not see perceive the issue here properly, not maybe he just
misread the situation or maybe he was just overvaluing other
qualities that Ryan had. What do we think?
I think there may have been several factors going.
Into it and maybe sort of a perfect storm of of sorts of of
factors going into the choice of Ryan.
Number one, again, we've, we've said this several times and it's
worth repeating. Ryan had been at court basically
from the moment Jaharis started to rule in his own right.
And he's probably by this time one of the few people left at
court who can remember young Jaharis, who can remember
teenager, young adult Jaharis. And I think Jaharis may have set
a store by that. This is someone that has known
him, has known him for a very long time.
It's an obvious. Point but worth.
Repeating that, the role of the Kingsguard is to be around the
king and the royal family 24/7. So you're with the king at his
most intimate moments. You're with the king every
single hour of every single day. There's no way for Ryan not to
learn about Jeharis the person as much as Jeharis the monarch
over the course of, you know, almost 40 years on the
Kingsguard by the time he's being named hand the king.
So maybe Jaharis is thinking, this is someone I can trust.
This is someone who knows me. This is someone who can make me
be like that Barth, someone like my friend Barth who gets me, who
can sort of read my mind and knows what I want to happen and
can make it happen. And I think that Jaharis may
have also felt Ryan's seen a lot.
He's not has seen a Luca more strong incident.
He's also seen, you know, the the Serra incident, he's seen
the viscera incident, he's seen all this.
And he's not turned away from the royal family.
He's not conspired against the royal family.
He's remained devotedly loyal. So maybe Cajaris is thinking,
this is who I need. This is someone who has seen it
all with House Targaryen, has been with us for years and years
and years. He has the stellar reputation as
a knight. This is somebody I can trust to
help me do my job and his popularity.
Probably. Mattered a bit here too, right?
That that might be something Jaharis overvalued or thought
would lend more credibility to the office.
Maybe he thought a lot of the decisions would still come from
him or maybe he just thought Ryan would be a better decision
maker. Either way, that seems to be a
big factor his popularity. Wouldn't you agree?
I I I do I think that. You know, it's not like Jaharis
was just thinking, oh, who's the best jouster yet?
They're going to be a good hand. So I should pick Ryan Redwine.
I think it's, it's more going to Ryan being seen as a model of
chivalry. He's a model of the, the quote
UN quote, the perfect knight. This, the, this hero of chivalry
that can be trusted. And and so maybe Jairus is
thinking, well, he's got the love of the people.
Everyone likes him. He's been around for a long
time. So of course he's going to be a
capable leader because he's got this base of popularity, but
he's not himself, got personal ambition.
He's got nothing to work for because, well, he's a
Kingsguard. So he has no lands or fortunes
or family that he's gonna be able to promote in this office.
So maybe Taharis is thinking he's kind of the the best of all
worlds. He's officially neutral, but he
knows me so well. Yeah, I can see that.
Absolutely on hand of the King, whatever the reason.
That Jaharis. Chose Ryan to be hand.
It would be a short lived tenure.
It was. Yeah.
Didn't last very long at all. Tell us what happened there.
Yeah. So I mean.
Literally, it's barely a year in office and Jaharis, not just
Ryan, doesn't quit. Jaharis removes him and in fact
puts in Prince Bailon. You know, as as he he might have
done, but like we talked about didn't when he first named Ryan.
Here's a really curious thing and it was one of the
frustrating aspects for me of Fire and Blood.
We get no details as to why Ryan Redwine is such a bad hand.
He's just told that he's bad. The most that we can get is
Grand Maester Allar's review of him, which is to say some
problems could not be solved by hitting them with a stick.
But we don't know what that means practically.
What? What did Ryan Redwine do as hand
that made the Grand Maester have that opinion of him?
Unfortunately, we just really don't know.
I mean, it sounds like he. Walked around hitting things
with sticks. That that would get you removed
from office. Quickly, like what happened to
this guy, he seemed to have lost it.
Teddy. He took the Teddy Roosevelt.
Advice, you know, but he just. But he doesn't literally carried
a big stick. Yeah, he just whacked people.
Council meetings are like, well, I'm not sure if we can
accomplish whack, you know, like like.
I'd like to. Challenge you?
Whack. Yeah, So the King's, he was like
you, we can't do business like that.
It it it seriously, though, it does kind of imply a lack of
subtlety, a man who maybe doesn't understand nuance.
Maybe he was rigid. If the Lukamar, the lusty
situation is an example, Maybe he just yeah, he just couldn't
bend like a Stannis, like politics requires flexibility.
And maybe he wasn't. And that can be good for a
Kingsguard, but it's not good for this office.
So. Yeah.
So what happened next? Well, so I you know.
Start thinking what could have happened.
Obviously we don't have details of what he was exactly doing
wrong, but I think there's a few factors to Ryan Redwine that may
hint at what was going on or what he was doing wrong.
The opposite hand of the King is not an easy office.
You are king in all but name. You are there to rule literally
in the King's name. You are the first executive
officer after the king. You are there to make sure that
what the king wants gets done. It's not an easy role even for
highborn W Rossi aristocrats trained for political
leadership. Think of Ned.
Ned is a very capable Lord of Winterfell.
Ned is not doing anything wrong as Lord of Winterfell, but he
fails as Hand of the King in almost every way.
Some notable exceptions, but he fails because he fundamentally
misunderstands the office. It's not because he's stupid or
he's a bad Lord, he just doesn't get what it means to be Hand of
the King in most of what he does.
And now think of someone like Ryan Redwine.
He's coming into this office with way less experience than
Ned at the very least. No, Ned is not raised to rule,
but he is raised to be his brother's right hand man.
He is getting a political education right alongside Robert
from John Aaron Ryan. He's probably not getting that.
Again, we mentioned this, he's the third son.
He's not the heir and he's not the spare.
So there's no universe probably in which he's being raised to
have much of A political role. And even if he had even whatever
education he might have had as a young man, as a young scion of
house red wine, he's been in the Kingsguard since he was maybe in
his early 20s. So he's been dedicating himself
to this role as royal guard much longer than he's had any kind of
formal education or training. The doubt of the Kingsguard, and
I've said this many times in this episode, and I'm going to
keep saying it, the fundamental job of the Kingsguard is to
defend the king, to obey the king, to serve the king, and to
die for the king. The job of the Kingsguard is
not, at least in the job description, to get a political
education, to serve as the King's counselor, to be one of
his officers of state. For better or worse, your job is
to obey and die, not to think. And so the same qualifications,
I think that may have made Ryom so natural, so as a choice, as a
King's guard, so neutral, so independent of factionalism, may
have made him a very unsavvy individual, someone who's not
really aware of how he needs to operate as hand.
Yeah, it's a good theory. It's it's definitely the way I
lean there. I like your point about Ned just
fundamentally misunderstanding the way Hand of the King works
and and what what it's supposed to be.
And that fits really well here too.
I I wonder if Jahari's maybe didn't think.
Well, he's observed the office of Hand of the King for so long,
it may be some of it rubbed off on him.
But yeah, it didn't. No, I mean you can.
Compare him maybe? To someone like Ariohota, you
know, the the popular joke in the Phantom is to call him the
camera that rides. And I do think there's more
interesting aspects to him. But fundamentally, what is
Ario's creed to himself? It's to serve, protect, obey.
That's what he thinks he should be doing.
It's not to think for Doran, it's not to advise Doran what to
do. It's not to say, well, actually
I read over these memos and here's where I think here's my
analysis of it. It's sur protecto Bay.
That's what Ryan is also being raised to do as a King's Guard.
Hotot was like 1/6. Son, wasn't he some some absurd
number really up there? Yeah, that's a good comparison,
though. And the royal family was
different at this point, like when we started this episode or
when Jerry became king. Basically, this is the era where
Ryan was coming up. That's when he was a Squire.
Now there's been scandals, there's been Alison has passed,
a lot of the children are are gone, a lot of them are dead.
It's just a different realm. At this point.
Joharis has lost Septon Barth. His health is down, so we should
maybe reconsider that. This is not the same realm
anymore. This is not the same royal
family. It's it's a lot different.
No, it's it's not I. Mean to Harris will be bedridden
for the last years of his life. We don't know if that started at
this point. We don't know the exact moment
where that started. But I think it's probably fair
to say that he was at least in declining health by this time.
So it's very possible that he may have anticipated relying
more on Ryom. Not in a selfish way that we see
with Robert in the main novels where he says, well, I'm going
to go off and do whatever I want and you can figure out the
office for me. But more in the way of I
physically can't. I don't have the energy anymore.
I don't have the capability anymore.
You've got to take over because I simply can.
And so on top of the pressure of understanding the offspand of
the king, there may have been this added pressure to perform
as king and all but name. And again, we're talking about
someone who's not raised to do this.
He's not being educated to do this, and nor is he himself
young. Again, he's not ancient by
Westerosi standards, but he's certainly old by Westerosi
standards. So he himself is not the young,
vigorous man he once was. Yeah, it's a bit.
Old for a career change, you could say.
It's a very interesting perspective because we have,
even though we have limited information on what made him an
ineffective hand, we have a lot of examples of hands of the
King, hands of the Queen. We just talked about Ned Stark.
Tyrion is acting Hand for a while.
We have Davos, who we'll mention in a minute.
Again, I'm forgetting some others, but the most obvious is
Barristan Selmy in A Dance with Dragons, right?
No, absolutely. I mean they.
Are. Very direct parallels.
Not only because they're probably of an age, Yeah.
In other words, Ryan is probably about the age Barristan is in
the in the main novels and in Dance Dragons.
But also, once Danny flies off on Drogon and his star is
deposed by Barristan, Barristan appoints himself Hand of the
Queen. But he's not doing it because
he's always been super ambitious.
And now I get to have all the political power to myself.
No, in fact, he thinks to himself, I am no Hand.
I am only a simple knight, the Queen's protector.
I never wanted this. He approves himself Hand
because, as he fully admits, there's no one else for the job.
No one else can do that role except him.
He's the last one left, so to speak.
No granted he has a little bit of advantage that Ryan probably
didn't in that he's got Missandei who is very clever and
is able to advise him. And his rule is probably not
going to be very long. And it's certainly going to be
dominated by the one thing Barrison can do very well, which
is war. He's going to go out and fight
against the young IE. So in in a strange way, the fact
that there's so much peace in Jairus reign, it's actually a
bit of a drawback for Ryan Redwine because he can't do the
one thing that he may have been capable of doing with his
leading men in war. That's.
True now. Unless he just outright
embarrassed himself in a very public way, maybe they were able
to just slide out of this situation because the role was
handed. Over to Prince.
Balon and that's and that's not shameful to have the heir to the
throne, which he was by that time named in your place.
I mean, that's the one person that's above you rank wise,
basically. So it's a good way for him to be
like, yeah, there's no pride issue here or minimal pride
issue. He's older.
You know, there's a lot of it's a stepping down, right?
You can they can paint it in a way that's not so bad.
He wasn't actively ambitious. He wasn't forced out by
political, you know, machinations.
It's just he's back. He gets to go.
Back home where? He's, well, he was home.
He's already home. Red Keep has been his home for
how long now? 50 years.
So he gets to gets to just kind of retire in the role that he's
supposed to retire in. Yeah.
I think of it as sort of like. Almost a nicer way of what
Cersei tried to do with Barristan in it and and the Game
of Thrones where she says, you know, well, you're older and
you've served a very long time and it's been very honorable and
we've loved having you. Now we're gonna have you retire.
Now, obviously that does not fly with Barristan because you don't
retire from the Kingsguard. You serve for life.
You die when the king is when the king dies or the seven
decide you die. This is a little bit easier,
though, because you can have a hand resign and it's not
considered a shameful act or a crazy act to to witness.
So I think maybe it may have been something along the lines
of, well, Ryan, you've served very well, even though we all
know you haven't and we all respect what you've.
Done. And you're.
Such an institution and we've really appreciated you having
you, but we know that you're older and we want you to be able
to serve out your years in the honorable position that you've
always had. And I think everyone would have
been fine with that. Last years.
Ryan actually outlived Jerries. He died in one O 3 and that
would be yet another just big milestone, something he lived
through. He's an older man and he's seen
the entirety of Jairus's career basically.
And that's as we talked about the longest reign any king had
so or will have. And I don't know if Ryan
realized that at the time, probably considered that this
would be hard to top in general. It would be a big deal.
How would he have felt, you think?
Not just personally, but professionally?
I mean, I think it would have. Been pretty devastating for him.
You know, we we talked about before this idea of the
Kingsguard and specifically embodied embarrassed in of the
sadness and shame and feeling a failure for a Kingsguard to
outlive his king again. There's nothing that Ryan
practically could have done to stop Saharis from dying.
Saharis is 69 years old and in bad health at the end of his
life. There's not anything Ryan can do
to save him from dying a natural death, but he's still going to
feel that. He's still going to think, why
am I alive and the king is dead? I should have died for the king.
I should not be alive if the king is not alive.
And again, he's not just watch the king die, he's also watched
2 potential kings die. He's seen Amon die, maybe even
in front of his eyes if he was on Tarth.
And he's also seen Bailon die, again, maybe in front of his
eyes because Bailon died in the Red Keep.
So I think there's this way in which Ryan may have been
thinking, I've seen so many kings or would be kings pass and
why am I left? Why am I the last Survivor?
Why am I still here? And all of these Royals who
should be reigning are not raining.
You wonder if he wanted. One last last hurrah, one that
he could have a real fight in and maybe that would be where he
fell at last and that would be good for his legend perhaps.
But he did become Lord Commander for the new King, Viserys the
1st. And this is interesting because
we talk about how the Kingsguard have a lot of interactions with
the Princess, but Viserys would have been a younger generation
and not particularly Marshall as far as the Targaryen princelings
go. So he might have had a much
different connection to Viserys. Not a not a close one at all.
Which would have been a huge contrast from Jaherys if we
talked at the beginning of. The young Riyam watching this
early adult Jaharis literally training with his Kingsguard,
getting so good that his Kingsguard think he even could
have beaten Megor in a fight. And now he's watching not just
this much younger man ascend, but someone who has no interest
in jousting or swordplay. It's possible, I think that Ryan
is maybe a little disappointed, maybe even a way that he
wouldn't necessarily admit. But thinking, you know, Eamonn
and Bailon, who were these brave fighters who were both in war,
who were both willing to go to war, Why are they dead?
And Viserys is the king now, How, how does that make sense,
that why are these sort of paragons of princely chivalry
dead? And now we've got a king on the
Iron Throne who quite simply doesn't care, who doesn't want
to be Grand and Marshall in the way that I understand how.
How does that make sense? Well, one thing they might have.
Agreed on is Viserys really liked tournaments, so that's one
little tidbit that might have worked out well for them.
As in their relationship it's It's unclear whether Ryan went
to this maiden pool tournament in one O 4 to celebrate the new
King's ascension. Viserys is sort of I'm the King
now tournament, but he probably would have been there though,
right? It's it's likely I I think so.
Whether or not he would have. Been competing, I don't know.
I don't think he would have necessarily been too old.
Again, if we're thinking that he's roughly of an age with
Barristan, Barrison is definitely still a formidable
fighter in the main novels. So I don't think that Ryan was
necessarily incapable of doing it.
But he also may have thought, well, I did so well in the
anniversary tournament that anything I do after this is
almost an insult to that. It's almost less like horrible
day Numa. But I would love to imagine that
he did because this may have been the one and only time that
he interacted with Kristen Cole. Kristen Cole makes a name for
himself at this tournament. This is really where he comes on
to the scene as a famous knight. So it's very interesting to
speculate. Did Ryan Redwin interact with
Kristen at all? This sort of almost passing of
the torch in a way, or may have seemed like that later that the
older knight of the older generation is now interacting
with the younger knight who is spoilers about to take his
place. Yeah.
And and and. A lot of things too, right?
The best knight in terms of martial skill, eventual Lord
Commander of the Kingsguard, and also Hand of the King Like this.
Yeah, I didn't mention him earlier when we mentioned people
that were Hand. He's a good example.
Of course I was only mentioning POV characters before, but
Christen Cole is an example of a Hand of the King that is is a
big parallel here. Last of the red.
Wine in 105. AC He.
He finally passed. Do we have many details there?
It's not even a full sentence, it's just part.
Of a sentence that Ryan Redwine died.
I don't think there's any suggestion that there was foul
play here or any sort of violence.
I think it's simply the fact that in Westeros you are
considered old in your mid 60s. Obviously, we don't consider
that, but in Westeros you are considered old, in your mid 60s,
and this is a pseudo medieval world.
So it may not have taken much. If there's a sudden illness, if
there's a broken hip, if there is, whatever it may have been,
that just sort of carries Ryan off.
And I don't think it would have surprised anyone that this guy
who was in his mid 60s is, you know, finally passing away.
Yeah, his death. Must have seemed.
Like the end of an era in itself, A living legend
transitioning to, well, regular legend.
I suppose he doesn't. Need the qualifier?
Anymore. Yeah, just legend.
Regular legend. Yeah, well, and and I agree.
I I think. You're right because we
mentioned this a bit with respect to to Harris naming him
his Hand, but by the time he dies, Ryan is probably one of
the few courtiers who remembered the early days of Jaharis's
reign. If they if anyone in court wants
stories about what young Jaharis was like, what this sort of
golden age or supposed golden age of Westeros was like under
young King Jaharis, Ryan is the person to tell those stories.
Ryan is the one who remembers, and by the time of his death, I
don't think there's any doubt he's the most famous Kingsguard
who not just of his time, but of any time.
This is the 1st century of Targaryen.
Rule has passed and no one exceeds Ryan Redwine in terms of
fame as members of the Kingsguard.
And in fact, he may have been the first Kingsguard to really
become a sort of celebrity, someone who is celebrated,
someone who is very widely remembered.
It's not to say that again, we mentioned at the top, Gill Dane
certainly thinks of Jaharis's first Kingsguard as very
illustrious and we know the names of other Kingsguard, but
Ryan Redwine is standing out himself.
He is someone who, again, continues to be remembered even
into the modern age of the main novels.
So this may have been one of the first times that a Kingsguard
knight transitions into that celebrity status, into that
legendary status. I could see a lot of people at
court when he dies saying, well, we'll never see his like again,
or there goes the end of an era or there goes a legend.
But you know, these sort of sentiments of when a famous
person passes away, when a very famous, especially an older
famous person passes away, well, that's the end of the era.
That's where it's if the book has finally closed on Jeharis's
era. Yeah, that's that's a good way
to put. It too, because it's not just
his own era, which by itself is an important thing, but because,
as you said, he is unique in so many ways and he almost created
a template for future instances to be recognized.
Like he's the key is the category that other people are
now occasionally added to. And there's a certain gravitas
and extra legend status attached to being the first one to do
certain things. And yeah, like you said, being
attached to Jaharius, that's a huge one because that's the
golden age and he is the last real piece of that.
And yeah, you're right about the stories.
He should have had his own podcast.
That would have been a good podcast.
Maybe he's bad at that. Too.
He's just like. No, the same reason I'm in a bad
hand to the King. I'm just, I'm not a good talker.
So we don't know where he was buried, right?
That's kind of interesting, right?
In general, we don't know Kingsguard burial practices
because they can't just all go back to their house.
Some of them don't have a house, right?
Like where was Sir Duncan buried?
I'm so intrigued by that, I mean.
Granted, is there anything left of of donk because I don't know
what if. If it was.
Burned, but also no. This is a very minor.
Point that I don't necessarily. Expect the author to ever get
into, but I am fascinated by which is do Kingsguard go back
to their homes or do they get interred with the Targaryens
because theoretically they are giving up their identities to
join the Kingsgar. They are supposed to be totally
devoted to House Targaryen. So there is a way in which maybe
they're buried with the Targaryens.
Maybe they are interred with the Targaryens.
They serve as a reminder that these people are eternally
connected to us. Or maybe if they do have a home,
their bones do go back there. I I would love to know the
answer to this and I I don't think we ever will, but I'm
fairly intrigued. I like that.
First idea that they are eternally guarding the royal
family that they guarded in life.
That's that's really nice and there is a chance we learned
that if they, you know, maybe I'm optimistic they could go
down. They could go down and you know,
lower in Dragonstone and maybe see that as well.
For The thing is, I do have a vision in.
Mind, and I don't necessarily know that this will happen, but
I would love it to happen. I have a vision in mind that
when Daenerys comes back to esters, obviously she's going to
land on Dragonstone first. That just makes the most sense
physically, I think, but and logistically, but I think he's
going to have this moment kind of similar to Bran in the in the
Witch of All Crips, where he's sort of identifying all of these
past Starks. I kind of imagine that Daenerys,
who has never known any of her family except the Sarahs, will
go into the Crips on Dragonstone and kind of walk through and
have Oh, and there is to Harris and there is Alison, and there
is Deron the Good and there is, you know, whoever else it may
be. So maybe, maybe we'll see.
Oh, and by the way, there's the there are the bones or the ashes
of Ryan Redwine, and there are the bones or ashes of the White
Bull or, you know, whoever it may be.
Yeah, the Starks have a direwolf by.
Them, the kings, the one. Why not some Kingsguard by the
Targaryens? Legacy we talked about.
How his brief tenure. His hand probably didn't harm
his reputation too much. He had so much built up goodwill
and and legendary status, glory, etcetera, especially among other
Kingsguard. He didn't fail at that.
The Kingsguard could look up to him still 'cause he he never
failed at that job, right? It was, it was like, ah, well,
who cares if he was bad as a hand?
I don't look up to that anyway. I'm trying to be a knight and
he's the perfect example of that.
So let's consider who was next. The the following Lord Commander
was probably Sir Harold Westerling, but there was a a
little bit of time between. There could have been somebody
else, Sir. Sir Harold only died seven years
after Sir Ryan, so he wouldn't have been Lord Commander for
very long, but he lived in Ryan's shadow and as the first
guy to be Lord Commander after Ryan.
Woo, big boots to fill there. Oh, a 100?
Percent. I mean those.
Those are some huge sabotage, so to speak, in terms of, in terms
of. Filling that, but even.
Even more so, Christian Cole, I think is, is a huge, huge figure
to talk about here because quite literally, he is stepping into
Ryan Redwin's shoes. He is the person who was
appointed after Ryan Redwin dies to take his place.
And I have to imagine that had a deep emotional and psychological
impact on that especially, and this is somewhat head cannon,
but I do I do like to think this.
To what extent did Kristen feel unworthy?
Or was he made to feel unworthy specifically because he was
succeeding Sir Ryan? After all, Ryan is not just of
the most the bluest of the blue blood aristocrat.
He's been on the Kingsguard for decades by the time of his
death. He is a legend in his own right.
He is a legendary figure. And who's Kristen Cole?
He's 23. He's the son of a steward.
He's a nobody from nowhere, relatively speaking at least.
And so I think there's a way in which either Kristen himself and
or courtiers around him were thinking, who's this guy?
He doesn't deserve to be here. He doesn't deserve to be where
Ryan Red Wine sat. He doesn't deserve to wear the
cloak that Ryan red wine wore. Who is this nobody from nowhere
who presumes to take his place? So does that influence him?
I have to think it does. And maybe, like Ryan, maybe
Kristen Cole thinks I'm going to be the most Kingsguard of all
Kingsguard. I'm going to take this role so
incredibly seriously that no one can doubt.
That I. Deserve to be here, that I
deserve to be the successor of Ryan Redwine, that I deserve to
sit where he sat and wear the cloak that he wore.
And obviously that may have come into play because like Ryan
Redwine, who's confronting this sort of sexual scandal with Luka
Moore Strong there is whatever may have actually happened, this
sexual relationship or sexual scandal with Ray Neera.
So how is that impacting him? Is Kristen, you know, is he
taking Ryan Redwin, Ryan Redwin as his model and saying, no, I,
I can't be part of this. In fact, I'm going to take this
so seriously that I'm going to turn against you forever because
I can't countenance any of this, just like Ryan Redwine couldn't
countenance Luca more strong having multiple quote UN quote
wives and as hand. Kristen had a longer tenure, not
much longer, but maybe a few months longer.
He wouldn't be remembered any better than Ryan was.
In fact, he would remember quite a bit worse.
He's infamous for his time in the office, but there's still a
comparison to be made here, which is that when Aegon the
Second named Kristen in his hand, he's like, my hand is a
steel fist that's a little bit similar to the hitting thing
solving problems with a stick comment My new hand is a stick.
You know my new hand holds a. Stick it's.
Similar to my new hand is a steel fist.
So yeah, I don't suppose they were that similar people maybe,
but they could have been. This part seems very similar
though, and along with the quality of their skill at arms,
that certainly would have been similar.
So in the two centuries following Ryan's death, he's
this legacy is absolutely carried forward.
He's the byword for nightly honor and Kingsguard prestige.
He's kind of the model. He's kind of like the the
aspirational. Figure.
He's the dictionary definition you you.
Open the Westerosi dictionary. You go to Kingsguard.
There's his picture right there, you know.
This is again. We started started the episode
with that quote from Bran. He's the figure you can easily
name. If someone says name a famous
Kingsguard, first answer on the board is gonna be Ryan Red Wine.
And we see this with, you know, John's memories of him sparring
with Rob when they're boys and they're calling out these famous
heroes and they're these legendary figures.
One of them is Ryan Red Wine. They're thinking of this even as
Northern boys, because he is so famous, because he is so well
known as a knight, even someone like.
Dunk. Is familiar with Ryan red wine.
He's got an aristocrat. He doesn't go up with
aristocrats, but he knows the songs and stories of Ryan
Redwine. He hears about them.
This popularity and this celebrity status, this legendary
status of Ryan Redwine has trickled down from the
aristocracy in the highest echelon of Westerosi society all
the way down to someone like Donk.
Everyone knows Ryan Redwine. Yeah, every single one.
It's. It's it's ubiquitous.
He's ubiquitous. Songs praising his chivalry are
mentioned in A Game of Thrones, A Clash of Kings and A Storm of
Swords. Pretty good chance we haven't
heard the last of him. Here's a comparison to
Barristan. And amon the.
Dragon Knight. It comes when Ned expects the
Kingsguard to help Robert. What a notion, right?
The Kingsguard actually protect the King quote.
The Kingsguard a paper. Shield.
The eunuch said try not to look so shocked, Lord Stark.
Jaime Lannister is himself a sworn brother of the White
Swords, and we all know what his oath is worth.
The days when men like Ryan, red wine and Prince Eamon the Dragon
Knight wore the white cloak are gone to dust and song.
So, Ryan. Was probably a huge influence.
On Loris in particular, one would think, and we know that
this happened because, well, we'll, we'll, we'll tell you
here. Like Ryan, Loris was the third
son. Loris even has red one blood.
Olenna is a red wine now the Queen of Thorns.
His Lawrence's paternal aunt, Mina Tyrell was also married to
Lord Paxter. Red wine.
So they're deeply connected. And his maternal aunt, Denise
Hightower, married to Sir Desmond.
Red wine. That's wild, right?
So take it. Away here.
There's so much going. On here and it ends with a very
unlikely figure getting involved.
No, and you're absolutely. Right.
I mean I I cannot imagine we're not in Loris's head as a POB,
but if we weren't, I would be shocked if he did not mention
Ryan Redwine as someone who had a huge influence on him growing
up. I can imagine young Loris
growing up on the Arbor. He probably literally thought of
himself as a new Ryan Redwine. He can see the parallels so
easily here. Excuse me, as he's growing up in
Highgarden, not not the Arbor, although he may have visited the
Arbor because familial connections, but he's thinking
I'm another third son. I'm really talented at jousting.
I've got those aristocratic credentials.
And even though he's not necessarily dreaming of being in
the Kingsguard as a young boy, maybe he is.
And maybe he's thinking, I could be another Kingsguard the way
that Ryan was. I could be a celebrity knight
the way that Ryan was. I can dream of wearing that
white cloak because I have that example in front of me of
someone almost exactly in my position who had this glorious
career as a Kingsguard knight. And we see, and we mentioned
this at the beginning, Loris is precociously talented in the way
that Ryan Redwine appears to have been as well.
He's not just performing, but winning tournaments.
When he's 16 years old, he's already knighted.
She is no no slouch when it comes to the douse and to
Marshall sour play. In fact, he only really loses
the melee at Bitter Bridge because Brienne pulled a dunk
like move and uses her physical strength and stature to to beat
him. He's not losing because he's bad
at arms or because he can't perform jewelry.
He's better than virtually everyone else there.
So I think that he really may have seen.
Himself and May. Continue to see himself as a
Ryan Red Wine like figure and other people would be.
There to point that out too. If he didn't notice it himself,
there'd be eagerness in his own family to see someone of that
talent achieve similar status, or even a shred of that status.
That would be great for the Tyrells, great for the red
wines. But an unlikely man here helped
push things along. Who's that?
It's Littlefinger. Littlefinger.
Pays. Singers in the Tyrell camp to
tell the legend of Ryan Redwine in order to indirectly convince
Loris to join the Kingsguard. This is all during the time
where they're trying to arrange the marriage to the Lannisters.
A Littlefinger goes off with all his new titles of his own and
lots of money to bribe people and Tyrion wondering what his
angle is. Well, of course it ends up being
poisoning Joffrey and among other things, but that's another
story. Loris it and it this this.
Is so straightforward. Because he's so obvious as a
candidate to to be like this. And well, Ryan didn't have a
sister become queen like like Marjorie did Loris's sister
having becoming queen. But he obviously lived at court.
His family was at court all the time.
So here's the actual incident It's great.
I I love this moment. So let's let's hear it
Littlefinger drop name dropping Ryan and some other of the usual
suspects quote I also. Planted the notion of.
Sir Laura's taking the white. Not that I suggested it, that
would have been too crude. But men in my party supplied
grisly tales about how the mob had killed Sir Preston
Greenfield and raped the Lady Lollies and slipped a few
silvers to Lord Tyrell's army of singers to sing of Ryum red
wine, Sir One of the Mirror Shield, and Prince Eamon the
Dragon Knight. A harp can be as dangerous as a
sword in the right hands. Mace Tyrell actually thought it
was his own idea to make Sir Loris's inclusion in the
Kingsguard part of the marriage contract.
Who better to protect his daughter than her splendid
nightly brother? And it relieved him of the
difficult task of trying to find lands and a bride for a third
son. Never easy, and doubly difficult
in Sir Loris's case. It's a.
Great example of several. Of the points we've made the
role of a third son, Loris, a Tyrell of Highgarden, influenced
by stories that he would have grown up with and are built of a
person that he's related to he's.
The most effective of the names listed.
There, he's not going to be like Sir one of the Mirror Shield.
We don't even really know what that guy was like.
That's some man who may not even have assisted it.
If he did, it was the thousands of years ago and Prince Amon was
a Targaryen. That's see he's obviously going
to connect himself with his grandmother's house over the
Targaryen here so and and Mace, the quote about Mace thinking it
was his idea that's just well, that's his little finger for you
a little finger understanding how people will work and this is
how a legend can be used as a weapon and that's.
Really. Some.
That's a little. Unusual.
It's a great way to think about it, and an interesting play by
George to have the world building, to have the legendary
used by a master of intrigue to push his plots forward.
It's just, it's really interesting, I think.
No agreed. And you know, that that makes me
think of as well when you say you sort of a legend as as a
weapon. It's also a little bit not not
as a negative weapon, but also a bit used by by Sansa at the
beginning of A Clash of Kings. Because what does she do when
Dantos is coming out and Godfrey's like, oh, you know, we
should, we should kill him. What does she do?
Well, she reaches to the tropes of chivalry and she said, oh,
well, you know, it's actually considered bad luck to kill
someone, So what you really should be doing is making him
your fool. She's also using sort of legend
and stories and tropes to save a man's life because she's trying
to manipulate Joffrey into saving a man's life.
So indirectly, she is using that idea of the Chvoric saving of
the innocent to save Dantos's life, kind of in the way the
Barristan did, and then it goes forward.
With Dantos manipulating Sansa, knowing exactly what to say,
probably because he was coached by a Littlefinger.
Daddy came up with all this on his own, but still, here it is.
Quote your Lord. Father was as true.
A man as the realm has ever known.
But I stood by and let them slay him.
I said nothing, did nothing. And yet when Geoffrey would have
slain me, you spoke up. Lady, I have never been a hero.
No rhyme, red wine or barrissed in the bold.
I've won no tourneys, no renown in war.
But I was a knight once, and you have helped me remember what
that meant. My life is a poor thing, but it
is yours. So again, he.
He mentions rhyme, red wine, embarrassed in the bold, and
Littlefinger knows that Sansa's got her head in the stories and
so she mentions or he mentions the current legend and the one
most like him from the songs and stories, and it's a hook.
Sansa's wants to believe it, even though she's starting to
have suspicions, she wants to believe it.
She perceives this as an oath, and that's a big deal too.
He he suggests she calls him my Florian and she does.
So she's just getting more and more bought in and using the
thing that's the closest to her heart, these songs and stories.
And it's another another example of this being used as a weapon.
Still probably Littlefinger doing it, but but this is at an
interesting time for her because right, she says when she's
losing some of her naivete, right, like I said, but like not
quite there. And this is starts to pull her
back right Well, and it is and then.
You know, I always like to point out it's, it's not to say that
Sansa stops believing in songs and stories and, and thinks
they're they're all dumb or, or, you know, oh, you, you can't
believe that. Because in fact, this is also
the era in which Sansa is using the stories of Eamonn and Naris
to challenge Joffrey. You know, when when they see
Marcella off and you know, Tommen is weeping and Joffrey
makes fun of him. Stanza points out, by the way,
the stories say that Eamon wept when Anares was married.
So you know, it's OK for a Prince to weep.
So he's also aware of how to use these stories and these legends
to combat what she's also seeing as an injustice.
So it's not to say that she stops believing in songs and
stories and and she'll use them in a in a very nice way, in a
very kind hearted way with Robert Aaron in A Feast for
Crows when they're coming down the mountain.
But I think it is a way that to this point, specifically with
Ryan Redwine, Dantos is and Littlefinger via Dantos is
trying to manipulate Sansa directly and he's trying to make
sure that she will do what he wants.
And so he. Is playing on that idea of the
great knightly savior. You know, in all the stories and
the songs, the maiden is saved by a great knight.
And who's the greatest knight in relatively recent Lester Rossi
legend? Well, it's Ryan red wine.
It. This is a figure that Sansa can
believe in will save her because that's who should be saving her
according to these stories. Yeah, and.
It might have crossed. Her mind.
That Ryan deserved much of what was said about him.
But later, when the songs and stories, when she starts to have
a more mature view of it, she might start to realize that some
of that legend was probably exaggerated a bit.
After all, in that sentence, Dontos mentioned rhyme Redwine
and Barristan the bold. What did Sansa observe
Barristan's fate to beat laughed out of the Red Keep in his
forced retirement scene. That was a she thought about
that and she was like, boy, that must have really hurt.
She thought that her sworn his sworn brothers laugh.
She perceived it very well. It was very moving, the way she
had empathy for him and how perceptive she was about what
would have hurt there. And then come back to Joffrey a
minute later and you know the. Exact opposite here.
So of. Course, this isn't meant to take
anything. Away from Ryan or Barristan,
this is George's world, and George doesn't write perfect
people. Perfection exists only in songs
and stories, which is why throughout this episode we've
been really questioning some of the greatness.
We we don't have certainty. Maybe he really was that great,
but it makes sense that some of this is exaggerated.
Quote, she shouted for Sir. Dantos for her brothers, for her
dead father and her dead wolf, for gallant SER Loris who had
given her a red rose once, but none of them came.
She called for the heroes from the songs for Florian and SER
Ryan, Red Wine and Prince Eamon the Dragon Knight, but no one
heard along with. The earlier mentions.
Of Rob and John Sansa's chapters remind us that heroism and
stories can span cultural barriers, especially in in
Westeros, North and South. There's a lot of back and forth
there, less the other one way than the other.
You know, there's a lot more southern heroes mentioned in the
North than the other way around. Like they're not talking about
Craig and Stark or, you know, Brandon the builder up and down
in the South that much, at least not in terms of I want to be
like them. So and of course, in, you know,
the Iron born, no one's talking about being Ironborn except the
Ironborn, right? Like imagine some reach lady
going why is our son calling himself Dagon Drum the Reaver
and Necromancer? That's odd.
Why isn't he wanting to be like Ryan Redwine?
Do you think any Ironborn Knights 'cause there's a few,
There's a few. Do you think any of them care
about Ryan Redwine? Or honestly, I I would.
Be. Intrigued.
Obviously there are some like Harris Harlaw, so I could
imagine where he may have thought of Ryan Redwine as
someone. But I also think even if they
didn't want to be like Ryan Redwine, maybe they would have
had it, especially in his time, a thought almost like Victarian
where he's thinking, oh, I wish I could take that guy on because
he seems like he's so good. So I wish I could fight him.
You know, he's thinking about this with respect to, I think
it's Randall Tarley. He's thinking, oh, I wish I
could fight him with heart Spain.
That would be a really good fight.
So I can imagine maybe there's Ironborn of Ryan's age or after
where they're thinking, I wish I could have fought Ryan Red wine.
That would have been a good fight.
That would have been a really good fight.
Yeah, that's a good way to think about.
That's how the Iron Board would consider it.
It's like, well, how I would, how I would look, how I would
come out against him. Not I want to be like him.
I want to, I want to fight him. I like that.
That's an Iron Board view of things.
Don't be like them, kill them. Even in failure, though, he sets
an. Example even his time, his hand
to the king comes up during the series as a way to Well in this
case, Master Pilo's giving Davos a confidence boost using
evidence quote Sir rhyme redwine was the.
Greatest night of his day and one of the worst hands ever to
serve a king. Sept in Murmessen's prayers
worked miracles, but as hand he soon had the whole realm praying
for his death. Lord Butterwell was renowned for
wit, Miles Smallwood for courage, SER Otto Hightower for
learning, Yet they failed as hands everyone As for birth, the
Dragon Kings OFT chose hands from amongst their own blood,
with results as various as Baylor, Breakspear and Magor the
Cruel. Against this you have Septon
Barth, the blacksmith's son, the old king plucked from the Red
Keeps Library, who gave the realm 40 years of peace and
plenty. Pylos smiled.
Read your history, Lord Davos, and you will see that your
doubts are groundless. Davos currently is.
Still. And scared to say he's doing a
better job, though it's a much harder job.
His king is in a precarious position.
Nothing like Jaharius or Ryan Redwine had to face, but really
nothing like any Hand has had to face, if we're being fair.
Oh, maybe Davos will get to look back on this quote one day, you
know, and then think about what Pylos said.
And, you know, maybe he'll think, did I do a good job?
And maybe he'll, well, I did a better job than those guys Pylos
mentioned, at least something like that.
Maybe. Well, and I I wonder to what?
Extent if in my mind Davos and Riyam are sort of the extremes
of the guy that doesn't want the job being made Hand of the King.
Davos is not out there trying to petition Stannis and say hey,
make me Hand the King. I should be in in fact.
Again, as this quote shows. He's not trying to be Hand.
He's like, I don't think that I'm capable of doing this.
I don't think that this is my role.
I think he's one extreme of someone who may actually be a
very capable Hand because he's willing to do justice in the
King's name and he's willing to tell the king this is what you
need to do in order to be a good king.
I think that's one aspect. But I think what Ryan shows is
the flip side of that. In other words, you're not made
a good hand just because you're not ambitious.
You're not made a good hand because you're neutral and you
didn't want it. You can still be a bad hand and
not be ambitious and be a neutral figure if you're just
not good at the job. And I think that's what Ryan is.
Yeah, that's fair, Jamie. Was offered the job by Cersei of
Hand to the king. He turned it down.
He didn't explicitly think of Ryan red wine, but it might have
been in the back of his mind. There were just obvious more
frontal reasons to decline the the the invitation there or the
the honor in quotes, but it it would be fitting.
For Jamie to have. That in the back of his mind,
'cause he would have been taught about that, he would have known,
you know, that Ryan had that brief tenure, his hand.
That didn't go well. And yeah, go ahead also.
Well, I was going to add too. And again, Jamie obviously
doesn't think of this, and part of this is probably because
Georgia Martin wasn't writing at the time.
But it's possible that in Jamie's mind, the character he's
thinking, well, Ryan Redwine was a bad hand.
Christian Cole was a bad hand, Morrison Waters wasn't a
particularly great hand. So I'm not really sure that
there is a good precedent of making the Kingsguard or the
Lord Commander of the Kingsguard Hand of the King.
That's not a role that I want to take even beyond any personal
considerations, yet people seem to keep.
Make them making that mistake right?
Like they're not learning from history.
Well, I think it goes back to. The Kingsguard should be
officially neutral. So if they don't have a family
that they're trying to advance, they don't have personal
ambitions, they're trying to advance.
So of course, why shouldn't we promote them because they quote
UN quote, don't want it? I don't think that is really a
logic that applies. Maybe it's true again in the
case of someone like Davos, but maybe it's not in the case like
Ryan Barristan. Selmy in.
Closing is perhaps our remaining best chance to have expansion on
Ryan, given they have so much in common.
Barrison would know about him. He certainly would have heard
the comparisons in his own life. People would compare him to
Ryan, and I would love to see his own thoughts on that.
If he's like, why do people make that comparison?
I'm not, I'm not like that. Or maybe he's like, I'm honored
by that or just and he would maybe have more detail.
So it's an opportunity for George to expand on Ryan.
Just one that came to mind. I thought I'd throw that out
there. It's not the only one, but it's
a pretty good one. No, I I agree and I.
Think that, you know, if I can and if I can have a final, a
final thought on Ryan. It's the idea that Ryan is is
the best and worst of what makes someone a Kingsguard.
Yes, obviously, he is unquestionably martially
talented. He's unquestionably talented as
a Douster. He may be the best there ever
was certainly among them, but he's also someone that is
willing to obey a really terrible order.
He's willing to turn against his sworn brother himself and also
follow the King's orders on it because that's what the king
ordered. And this is something that
ultimately Barristan doesn't quite follow what, what
Barristan's arc, at least for me in a in A Dance With Dragons is
can you be a good Kingsguard and depose a king?
Bearson eventually decides that the answer is yes, if it's a, an
illegitimate king or someone who shouldn't be king, like his
star. And so he comes to, he comes to
the conclusion on that. I don't think there's a world in
which Ryan Redwine would have ever deposed the king.
I think that he's thought of himself as completely loyal to
the crown and whatever the king told him to do, that's what he
was going to do, even if he himself, maybe he didn't think
he would make a good hand, but the king told him to do it.
So that's what he's going to do. And if the king tells him to
mutilate Luca more strong, that's what he's going to do.
And it doesn't really matter how long he's known him.
So I think I, I remember writing a post a really long time ago
and it was about kind of the way in which George R Martin turns
virtue into a vice with the King's guard.
The virtue of the King's guard is ultimate loyalty.
It's the idea that you give up everything, that you are solely
devoted to the health and welfare of the king.
And that should be good. That should be exactly what you
want from a bodyguard. But the flip side to that is the
ultimate loyalty of doing whatever the king wants.
And if the king is giving you a bad order, an unjust order, a
terrible order, do you still follow that?
For Ryan, I think the answer was always yes, Outro and hot D.
Ryan Redwine. Did appear.
In House of the Dragon season 1, he's only in episode 1 in in
quite a few scenes he's standing behind the old King Jerry set
the great council in that iconic shot used on magazine covers
when the show was first being promoted.
And he's at Emma and Balon's funeral.
He's at Reinera's pre coronation ceremony.
He's he escorts her. To.
Valerian Shrine. When her father is about to tell
her about the Song of Ice and Fire, he steps up to Damon.
When Damon is exiled and gets all uppity and approaches the
throne, he announces Allicent In an earlier scene, which I think
is his only line. In episode 2, it's immediately
announced that he's passed from illness.
Illness could be what? He died of.
In the books, we don't know that for sure.
It's a reasonable thing to put on him because he died to sleep.
That's probably the most likely thing.
The announcement comes, though, when the camera is actually
focused on a glass of red wine being poured, which I thought
was pretty cool. That was nice.
I was like, yeah, red. Wine.
Look at that. It wasn't white wine.
Because of the show's compressed timeline.
His death is in 112 instead of 105.
Whatever. Even though there wasn't much
opportunity to show us Ryan's personality on the TV show, his
appearance reminds us, along with the possible opportunity
with Barristan. Is that any character from the
past? And obviously those who are
still living are subject to further discoveries, if not
stories, a further expansion on what we know about them or the
era they lived in, failing specifics about that particular
character. And this has the potential to
make us rethink any character or many characters entirely, or at
least somewhat. Maybe Ryme had a dark side.
We explored that a little bit, but there's so many other ways
he could have had a dark side. Maybe he was just a jerk in
private, you know, that's not so bad, but it's possible.
Maybe he prayed a lot. Maybe he was a zealot, kind of,
or maybe he didn't pray much at all.
Maybe he was actually as lusty as Lukomor, but never actually
broke his vows. He kept it inside, which would
be a big struggle. Maybe he was gay.
Maybe he was a teetotaler, which would be really interesting for
a person from the Arbor to not drink.
You know, it might be a way to get ahead though, like, well,
everyone here's a drinker and you know, I'll be a little bit
faster and quicker, stronger. And then because I don't drink,
you know, maybe you never know, right?
So these are the sort of traits that add depth and conflict to a
character that if rhyme red wine is expanded on, these are the
sort of things that someone, George or otherwise, will have
to decide what how to fill in those blanks.
And that's that's a fun thing because that's part of what we
just did was try to fill in those blanks.
And it's very entertaining for us.
So if someone else does it, I hope they enjoy that process
because it should be fun. And that's it.
That's our episode for today. I hope you enjoyed it.
We mentioned some other of our episodes that were connected to
this one. We mentioned our Baylor, the
blessed episodes that we did with Nina.
Those are really good. There's three of them.
We also mentioned AIM and the Dragon Knight, our Jaharius era
fire and blood episodes. The same goes for egg and the
Conqueror and early rain episodes, which Ryan would have
grown up in or just after rather a white cloak turned is still
white embarrassed and Selmy focused episode.
Our Valar rereadis chapters chapter read throughs or
analysis on Sansa and John. Other characters were related to
this. And of course our Barristan
winds of winner chapter analysis as well.
Thanks so much Nina. This was fantastic.
You gave us such great insight and I'm excited for more topics
to explore with you because it always goes so well.
Oh well, thank you. I always I.
Always love doing this. I love sort of random niche
topics that you can really delve into.
And I think that that really works with Ryan Redwine.
So I'll take I'll take the other one.
We'll we'll do this again sometime.
Yeah, absolutely. Once.
Again, Nina. Was the main writer on this
episode probably you know 8085% of it was written by her, so
kudos. Clap, clap, clap.
I'm. At I'm.
At least a. 6 on the legend scale, that's.
Right. That's right.
That's totally right. I'm not.
I'm actually not. Well, thanks everybody.
We appreciate your. Support and tell your friends if
you're enjoying our episodes, share your favorite episodes
with them and maybe you'll hook them too.
And you'll be able to talk about A Song of Ice and Fire with your
friends even more often like we do.
Thanks once again to Nina on behalf of Ashea.
I'm Aziz. Also thanks to Joey Townsend for
our music, Michael Klarfeld for our video intro.
You can get his maps at his website.
Find that in the description and you know what to do.
Till next time.