A Song of Ice and Fire does not lack for villains.
While most of the characters in the story are Gray characters
capable of both good and evil, George has also created
thoroughly mean, hateful, cruel people who put the protagonist
through the ringer, and there's not as much to discuss in terms
of whether there's good in them There there isn't much, or there
isn't any. Think of Ramsey, Joffrey,
Gregor, Viserys as in Danny's brother.
These characters are very much one sided or almost 1 sided, and
that side is evil, serving as contrast to our heroes and their
choice to do good. The tales of Duncan eggs no
exception when it comes to this sort of character.
Perhaps the biggest, even though he was in the first of the three
novels, is Aryan Targaryen. He may have been only in the
hedge night, but it wouldn't have taken long, in fact just
the first scene to see that, well, this guy is pretty evil.
Or certainly seems that way. If AG was 1/2 of the heroic pair
at the center of the tails, Aryan was his polar opposite.
Arrogant, sadistic, and absolutely against Dunk from the
first. Given the mentions of Aryan in
The World of Ice and Fire and the main novels were almost
guaranteed to see Aryan in future tales, as history tells
us he and his brother Egg will cross paths again.
While we doubt Aryan will get any nicer with future stories,
he was a very young man at Ashford Meadow, so he probably
changed at least a little if not a lot over the years.
But that doesn't mean he changed for the better.
So we will speculate on what his life might have looked like,
what kind of man he became, how he dealt with madness, his
supposed dabbling in the black arts, and how he might impact
both the characters in his own time and the current stories.
He is referred to quite a few times in The Song of Ice and
Fire, after all. We'll be sure to get into all
that and more on this episode of History of Westeros podcast.
Hello and welcome back everybody.
It's another episode of History of Westeros podcast.
We're taking a look at a Targaryen Prince that you all
have heard of and have seen and heard and read about.
And with us today is our very favorite.
Nina, back from well, back from your your place where you live
and coming to hang out with us again.
Good to see you. I'm back again.
That's right. That's definitely where I was.
No, I mean it's amazing to be back with not just my friends,
but may I say my Hugo nominated friends and I am very excited.
Well, thank you. Thank you.
We appreciate it. Oh, congratulations.
I should have had like a noisemaker or something but but
listen, it is very cool to be on the Hugo nominated podcast.
I'll. Edit the sound for you, Nina.
Something just like that. Very, very potent sounding like
that. That was very manly.
No, I am so excited. I have been wanting to do
another episode for a while and I thought Aryan is such a rich
villain character that how do we not have an episode about him?
Yeah, he's like your opposite in some sense, because you are good
Queen Alley. You can be found at good
queenalley.tumblr.com with 1L in Allie.
And Allie is, you know, she's so good, she's unambiguously on the
other side of things like this is it's hard to find any flaw
with this lady, whereas with Aryan, it's hard to find the
good. I'm going to make a A blog
called Bad Prince Aryan and I'm just going to like negate
everything, Nina. I'll like reblog it with the
inverse. She's like whatever she said or
take the opposite position. Yeah, that's great.
Yeah, the anti Nina over here. That's funny.
I love it. So this episode is prerecorded.
You can catch us on any platform this episode and any other
episode really, but you get it early.
If you're a patron. That's pretty cool.
Thanks to our dragon writer patron, Dragon Lord Kevin,
writer of Ice Wall, a dragon with the coloring of ice and
fire art by Ed Sheer in this episode.
Today we have a pretty straightforward section headers
here, but I'll read them to you nonetheless.
So you know what we're getting into.
We have our usual first menu in first appearance, maybe earlier
than you might have thought. His early life attorney at
Ashford, Aryan in exile, returned to Westeros.
Third Black Fire Rebellion, later Life and death and legacy
outro. Let's get to it with that
aforementioned first dimension. John 1A Clash of Kings is the
first time he's mentioned in the main novels in a conversation
between John and Lord Commander Mormont.
Quote. The new king summoned all his
sons to court and would have made Amon part of his counsels,
but he refused, saying that would usurp the place rightly
belonging to the Grand Maester. Instead he served at the keep of
his eldest brother, another Deron.
Well, that one died too, leaving only a feeble witted daughter as
heir. Some pox he caught from a whore.
I believe the next brother was Aryan.
Aryan the monstrous. John knew that name.
The Prince who thought he was a dragon was one of Old Nan's more
gruesome tales. His little brother Bran had
loved it. The very one, though, he named
himself Aryan Bright Flame. One night in his cups he drank a
jar of wildfire after telling his friends it would transform
him into a dragon. But the gods were kind, and it
transformed him into a corpse. Our focus on Aryan's legacy is
at the end, but it is worth pointing out here for knowledge
as we go through at the start how much Aryan has lasted in
cultural memory almost 70 years after he died.
Colorful in life and death, but a good example of why colorful
isn't always a good thing. And in some ways it's ironic.
After all, we just got through describing in the intro that
he's kind of 1 sided in the old good evil spectrum.
But as we'll see, he's remembered for a a variety of
colorful again in air quotes, though not flattering reasons.
As for his first appearance, it's very early on page in the
Hedge Night quote. The Speaker wore a black cloak
bordered in scarlet satin, but underneath was Raymond, bright
as flame, all Reds and yellows and golds, slim and straight as
a Dirk, though only of middling height, he was near Dunc's own
age. Curls of silver gold hair framed
a face, sculpted and imperious. High brow and sharp cheekbones.
Straight nose, pale smooth skin without blemish.
His eyes were a deep Violet color.
This is all very intentional on George's part.
He's talked before about appearance versus reality when
it comes to good and evil, as we have here in a follow up quote.
From Nick Gevers interviewing George R Martin Gevers, The Song
of Ice and Fire undergoes a very interesting progression over its
first 3 volumes, from a relatively clear scenario of
good, the Starks fighting evil, the Lannisters, to a much more
ambiguous one in which the Lannisters are much better
understood and moral certainties are less easily attainable.
Are you deliberately defying the conventions and assumptions of
neo Tolkienian fantasy here? George R Martin, guilty as
charged. The battle between good and evil
is a legitimate theme for a fantasy, or for any work of
fiction for that matter. But in real life, that battle is
fought chiefly in the individual human heart.
Too many contemporary fantasies take the easy way out by
externalizing the struggle, so the heroic protagonists need
only smite the evil minions of the dark power to win the day.
And you can tell the evil minions because they're
inevitably ugly and they all wear black.
I wanted to stand much of that on its head.
In real life, the hardest aspect of the battle between good and
evil is determining which is which.
So yeah, he's being intentional about it.
He knows the tropes, he has a plan.
Nina, what are the specifics as it pertains to Aryan?
When it comes to this quote, it it's not the case, obviously,
that Oh well, George Martin can never create an ugly villain or
every villain has to be pretty. That's not what he's saying.
What he's saying here is that you can't look at the characters
in his story and say, oh, that's a pretty person, they must be
the hero. Or, oh, that's an ugly person,
must be the villain. What he's doing with Aryan is
showing the exact opposite. You have to look at the
character's actions. And what we see of Aryan is,
yes, he is considered handsome by the standards of Westeros,
even though, funnily enough, Jordan Martin mentions the
villains wearing black, and Aryan is traditionally wearing
black. But he is considered handsome,
again, by the standards of Westeros.
But he is very obviously a villain, and he's a villain by
choice. What he's choosing to do is
evil. And so that's what Jordan Martin
is getting at, is to say I'm creating characters that make
the choices of good and evil, and you've got to look at that
rather than how they look on the outside.
He's almost like a version of the high school type archetype
movie where the handsome guy is the villain, like the guy who
has everything, the privileged rich kid that like the plucky
younger boy is trying to overcome.
He he's he would more fit in that sort of thing.
But yeah, in fantasy, you're right, it isn't that isn't the
norm, or it is maybe sometimes a norm, but this is a trope that
George is is playing with some somewhat uniquely.
Personally can't think of a fancier Targaryen.
We tried to think through the whole line of of 300 years or
so, and Aegon the Unworthy might be the only one that's really on
that level in terms of just being outrageous with his
appearance. Fancy being kind of underselling
you, and that's kind of telling, isn't it?
It is. I mean, if if you're being
compared to Aegon the unworthy, something is fundamentally wrong
with you. Aegon is ugly in every sense of
the word, except for maybe partly in his youth he's
considered handsome, but certainly by the end of his life
he's not considered handsome. And morally, personally, no.
He is a very ugly person. And I think the same is true
with Aryan. Yes, as a young man he's
considered handsome, but he is incredibly vain, arrogant, cool,
selfish. And again, these are the choices
that he's making to be the we see him deliberately choosing to
be this way. So it's showing that yes, you
can have this appearance on the outside, but within, if you're
still making those choices, you are very ugly indeed.
Yeah, it's definitely a form of vanity, but honestly, as a fan,
it's it's pretty cool. We like our villains to be
fancy, you know, it's kind of, it just makes them more fun it.
Is, I mean, it's, it's, you know, it's what you'd call
extra. He's a he's a very extra person.
And you can't overdo it. But as we just said, we haven't
seen a whole lot of other Targaryens that do it.
So he is he is outstanding there and and almost unique.
Now, the World of Ice and Fire app says the Aryan was quote,
the perfect image of a Targaryen.
And how exactly do we interpret that?
I mean, so it's not the overly fancy part because he is a
little unique in that, as we just said.
So what? What exactly do we mean?
And and and what is? What can we glean from all that
in general? I mean, I think the word that's
really important there is image because there there is an image
of a Targaryen. It's it's an image of something,
or I should say someone who is almost otherworldly beautiful.
This is closer to gods in the common run of men is sort of
the, you know, the saying here even to the extent that we see
in Aryan 2 and he sees Placeo no Mar and he supposedly looks like
a Targaryen. And she's like, oh, this is this
is a little bit off putting to me.
I think what Yandel is getting at in the World of Ice and Fire
by saying Aryan is the perfect image of a Targaryen is saying,
yeah, you can look like you absolutely belong to House
Targaryen with all of those genetic hallmarks, all of that
look of this sort of what's considered in Western's
otherworldly beauty. But again, his choices are very,
very, very ugly. I guess we could if we think of
other houses along the same line.
Atlanta. A Lannister, you have a look for
a Lannister, you would expect him to look really wealthy.
Whereas a Northerner, particularly a Stark, you might
think they'd have fine clothing, but they wouldn't necessarily be
bedecked, right? They wouldn't have lots of
jewels. Maybe there's some silver they
got to look like a Lord, but they wouldn't look like, well,
they wouldn't like a Lannister. They wouldn't look like a
Targaryen. So I think when you see perfect
image of a Targaryen, there is sort of a, there's an image
associated with each house that kind of fits that way, like the
grey Joey. Well, their ideal image might be
bedecked in the the jewelry taken from other houses and.
I think, you know, to some extent maybe it's getting at
this idea of to be a Targaryen is to be an inheritor willingly
or not of the legacy of the dragon Lords that these were
their ancestors were people who ruled the vast empire, commanded
Dragons, were sorcerer Princess, were ruling in a way that no one
before or after them really was. So.
And again, we're going to talk about that when it comes to
Aryan specifically. But when Yandel calls Aryan the
perfect image of a of a Targaryen, is he getting at this
idea that to be a Targaryen in some ways for some of them is to
be arrogant and vain and commanding?
Because you literally believe, again for some Targaryens that
you are above other people, that you are capital E, exceptional?
And Aryan gives us another example of this with Dark Star
where he specifically looks like a Targaryen to him but but knows
this man is bad news. And Sansa very early to arc
lives this out personally with the whole concept which we can
narrow down to beauty is in the eye of the beholder where
everything about Joffrey is pretty or handsome or beautiful
about him early on. And then, you know, after a few
things like killing your father and beating her up several
times, she starts to see a lot of things, including some of
those things that she thought were pretty before, they are now
ugly. So it is very much relative,
right? And it's all backed by things
that maybe your subconscious isn't clocking at the time.
She might just have realized that through all this, that,
huh, I wasn't necessarily just attracted to this boy, was I?
I was attracted to who he was and who I thought he was and
etcetera. So Aaron's kind of a predecessor
of this concept, even though he was written after Joffrey in
real life. But he's that sort of person and
he got to live a full life sort of at least a lot longer than
Joffrey. So we have a a better idea of
what the long term of this type of character looks like when
they have a chance to live beyond their teenage years.
Not a good thing, mind you, but hey, it's interesting.
Did both unintentionally poison themselves though?
True that. Hey, how about that?
Forgot about that one. Now here's where the characters
are directly compared in the text.
So Sansa is afraid to speak her mind about Joffrey.
Lady Olenna sees through that easily and presses her quote.
Yes, all the Lannisters are lions, and when a Tyrell breaks
wind, it smells just like a rose, The old woman snapped.
But how kind is he? How clever has he a good heart?
A gentle hand? Is he chivalrous as benefits a
king? Will he cherish Marjorie and
treat her tenderly? Protect your honor as he would
his own? He will.
Sansa lied. He is very, very calmly.
You said that. You know, child, some say you
are as big a fool as butter bumps here, and I am starting to
believe them. Comely.
I have taught my Marjorie what Comely is worth, I hope somewhat
less than a mummer's fart. Aryan bright fire was comely
enough, but a monster all the same.
We can assume similarly, though not so many high born a sense of
course, girls made the same mistake when encountering Aryan
for the first time to see, oh, this guy's really handsome and
making that same assumption that looks good equals acts good or
is good. And of course that's a mistake.
But many people make that mistake.
It's it's not about gender. Of course that goes all for
people who just are attracted to somebody.
But for Aryan, I don't know, even though we hear about him
later, you know, hiding his behavior from his father.
I doubt he's concerned with hiding his behavior here or
trying to be good to very often. I don't know that he has the
patience for it. Doesn't come off as someone
that's really pretending to be good.
He's just right off the bat. Yeah, I'm.
I'm a jerk. I'm evil.
You can perceive me that way. I don't care.
Well. And the other thing I wanted to
point out, which is it's somewhat related, Elena is
pointing this out. Elena wouldn't have known Aryan
personally. I think he was like 3 or 4 when
he died. But her family definitely would
have known Aryan personally, at very least by sight.
I can very well imagine the Red Wings were at court or their
friends or their family was at court.
So this is someone that Elena can speak to with some.
Personal authority, yeah, that's for sure.
He was certainly a well known commodity within the family.
And she was almost married to a Targaryen, as we know.
So yeah, there's a number of reasons she would have known.
I mean, she's just in the know anyway.
She's a person that makes a point to know and has insider
information on top of that. And then of course, Sansa does
admit after being pressed that Joffrey is a monster.
She uses basically the same language that is used about
Aryan. It's not a subtle parallel,
they're of the same archetype. Ironically, it's Joffrey who's
the direct child of incest, while it's not common in his
ancestry. While Aryan has it very commonly
in his ancestry. But his actual parents were not
both Targaryen. So these little funny twists and
turns, let's use that as a segue to discuss his early life.
All right, Nina, tell us about his birth and parentage and all
that, but what do we know? As you point out, Aryan is not
the child of Tarnarian siblings. He's born roughly between 191
and 194. It's not entirely clear, but
it's a relatively narrow window. But he's the second son of
Prince Makar Tarnarian and Lady Diana Dee Daron.
His older brother is rough. Especially about one to three
years older than he is. And then he has two younger
brothers. Of course we know Eamon, later
Maester Eamon and Aegon our Egg, and two younger sisters Day,
Ella and Ray. We don't know when Diana Dane
died. She was dead by two O 9 because
Egg mentions that his mother is dead when Dunk first meets him
going at the tourney. But we don't know how old Aryan
was. He may have been lesson, he may
have been early teens. It could have been the day
before the tourney. We don't know.
So unfortunately, hopefully we get more on on Diana Dane and
and their relationship and and future tales.
Given we compared Aryan to Aegon the Unworthy, that would be
something that they have a bit of in common is a lack of a
mother around at least for a substantial portion, if not
nearly all of their early life. And while that is not a reason
by itself to turn into the type of person they were, especially
given, you know, neither of them had brothers that were like
them. In fact, they both had brothers
who were quite good. It does certainly make for some
conflict within the family and is not the ideal upbringing.
So what does this timing tell us as far as what we know about
Aryan and things like Ashford Meadow and, and how old he was
and, and his position in the family, things like that?
It's possible he was as young as 15 when he was dusting.
I tend to not think that. That seems to be, even in
Westeros, considered a pretty young age to be knighted.
Jamie thinks of himself as being very young when he was knighted
at 15. So I tend to think that Aryan is
more like 16-17, maybe 18. And I say this because Dunk
himself thinks in The Hedge Knight that Aryan is round about
the same age that he is, and Dunk himself is around 1617
years old. That also just makes sense. 1617
is a pretty typical age for an aristocratic Westerosi boy to be
knighted, so that would completely make sense to me that
Aryan is a newer or newer knight at the time of the Tourney of
Ashford. I think it also just makes sense
from a narrative level and a thematic level.
The Hedley in particular really wants us as readers to compare
and contrast Aryan and Dunk, and I think that comparison just
works so much better if they are, if not exact birthday
twins, near enough to be birthday twins, really just
about the same age. That's pretty neat, yeah.
And it's also kind of a unusual parallel between the two of
them. That's pretty young for either
of them to be in a tournament, whether you're a hedge knight.
And of course, Dunk is on his own.
Had he still been under Sir Arlen, there's no way he would
have been in that tournament. He wouldn't have been in a
tournament for years. There's a reason he wasn't
ready. And he didn't do that well in
the jousting portion. In fact, that he did quite
poorly. But Aryan, for the same reason,
shouldn't have been there. But he comes from a family, as
we'll discuss, well, a particular father, not
necessarily the whole family where he was being pushed into a
warlike role. And that certainly has a big
impact on him. Again, doesn't necessarily
explain the extreme parts of his personality, but it does explain
why he was jousting at a young age.
What about him being a Squire? A lot of people in position to
be a knight. He wasn't Sir Aryan at this
point. Do you think being on a nightly
track though he would have probably been Squire?
Maybe his father or someone else in the family.
I actually. Think he might have been
knighted by this point, especially if he is including it
at Ashford. I would say it's probably likely
you know it's not. Again, it's not unusual for
16/17/18 year olds in Westeros, especially among the
aristocratic class, to be nice. And you look at someone like a
Loris. Again, you look at someone like
a Jamie, you look at even a Rhaegar is 17 when he's gousting
at Casterly Rock. So it's not.
It's young, certainly, and everyone recognizes that it's
young, but it's not completely out of the norm.
I would say it's possible to Aryan squired for someone
specific, but I'd say it's also possible if not probable.
But he didn't. And I say that because it
doesn't seem to be typical. Certainly it's not required that
you Squire for anyone in order to be knighted in Westeros, but
I also don't see it as typical among Targaryens that the
Princess Squire for anyone to be knighted.
There were certainly are examples.
Darryl the Daring, the son of his heiress, the first Ghost to
Squire for Lord Hightower, but we don't hear about, for
example, his older son squiring for anyone.
So I think maybe more likely Aryan is just growing up being
trained by the Master of Arms at the Red Keep at Summerhall.
Maybe he's being trained by one or more of the Kingsguard.
Maybe his father is taking part in this.
And then if he is knighted, and again, I think that's likely
that he is, that he's competing, maybe he's knighted either by a
knight of the Kingsguard or again by his own father.
Yeah, that master of arms at the Red Keep is certainly a good
possibility. Whoever took Fireball's place
after the Black Fire Belly was all settled, maybe since this is
the song of Ice and Fire, we have to take his opposite.
So ice ball or ice square? Ice square.
That's right. It has to be square it.
Has to be a different shape. Yeah.
You can't just go another another ball there.
Ice cube. Ice cube.
What's the next man? How did we miss that Ice cube?
There we go. We got there.
It's definitely ice cube, Sir. Ice Cube.
That assumes that he was born in King's Landing, or at least was
raised there. That seems likely, right?
Or or probable. I would say yes, we do know that
make our is given Summerhall as his own seat and becomes or is
at least as styled as Prince of Summerhall.
But that's not until after the first Black Fire rebellion,
which is of course after Aryan is born.
So I think it's more likely the Aryan.
If we can guess anywhere, it's probably the Red Keeping King's
Landing. Could his parents have been
traveling somewhere door That's possible.
It would be amusing to think of one or more of make ours
children being born at Starfall if he's traveling to meet
Diana's family. But the more likely answer is
that they're just born at the Red Keep the way that most
Targaryens are certainly make our also isn't Prince of
Dragonstone. No one is expecting make our to
become king. He's not the heir, so there's
really no reason for him and Diana to be there or be having
their children there. So, yeah, probably just A and
again, if we're thinking of him as to compare and contrast to
Dunk, to paraphrase Egg Duncan Egg, when they're when they're
talking the heads tonight, they're both from King's
Landing. And you know, Dunk kind of
ruefully says, yeah, you're from the top of the hill and I'm from
the bottom of the hill. So again, it's that sort of
compare and contrast that they are so similar, but they are so
different. Yeah, good point.
What about his name though, is that should we supposed to read
into that at all? Like a Makar was very
traditional with his names and his just general styling and and
his posturing about being a Targaryen.
So what can we read into, if anything, this name Aryan?
Well, I think to your point, Makar certainly is a
traditionalist and it may have just ended there, but I do think
that there is a way to read the names of the sons of Makar, not
his daughters, unfortunately, but the sons of Makar as having
very specifically historical Targaryen names.
So you've got Daron, obviously named after his grandfather,
Daron the Second, and any other Daron that came with the now
Targaryen. You've got Aryan who is probably
I would say named after Agan the Conqueror's father, Lord Aryan
Targaryen. You've got Amon just like Amon
the Dragon Knight, like Amon Prince of Dragonstone.
And then you've got Egg. And we've got plenty of Eggans
in the history of House Targaryen.
And the reason I say this is very specific is because I think
Makar is using his sons names to really capture that Targaryen
legacy and specifically take it away from the black fires at the
time that Aryan is born and really at the time that make our
children are being born. More generally.
There are also black fire children being born it it seems
like Mohan of Tie Rod is almost constantly pregnant between 184
and 196. And so there are plenty of black
fire sons and at least 2 black fire daughters who are being
born in this time. And we know Damon Blackfyre
picks at least four historical Targaryen names for his own
sons. He's got an Eagan and an Eamon.
He's got his demon. And then he's also got Amy's the
fifth son. And we don't know the names of
his other children besides Hagon.
So it's possible that as Makar is seeing all of these young
Blackfyres being born and getting these historical
Targaryen names, and as he's seeing these the beginnings of
what will become the Black Fire and loyalist factions forming
and that proto Black fire faction really rallying behind
Damon is the spitting image of Egg and the Conqueror.
And someone who stands for the values of Egg and the Conqueror
again, in their opinion, make our may have been thinking no,
no, no, I want to re emphasize we're the heirs of Egg and the
Conqueror. We're the ones who are the
dynasts. Yes, you may have been
legitimated, but you are not Targaryens.
You are black fires. We are the heirs to the
Targaryen tradition. We will be the ones to use the
historical Targaryen. Names and you can see Aryan
picking up on that and maybe just a corrupted, distorted
version of that and channeling cruelty and and pride in ways
that his father doesn't. But certainly the idea that he
was raised to be anti Black Fire makes a lot of sense.
And it's something to consider what a four or five year old
Aryan would have been thinking or experiencing that young at
the Red Keep where there may have been the Black Fire twins,
Egan and Eamon, and if not Damon Blackfyre himself just before
the rebellion where they would have all, you know, died.
So an interesting young memory for Aryan to have is.
Yeah, I remember those. I remember those kids.
I remember. Well, I I was four or five years
old when they went off to die in battle when they were 12.
Yeah. So it's interesting times he was
born into. There were so many Princess and
princelings or people that were roughly on that rank and with
this level of tension. But then afterwards, you know,
things changed. But at the time of his birth, he
was pretty low down in succession.
It wasn't he wasn't protecting his own rights so much as the
rights of his family. That's what he was taught.
At least that's what his father would project.
So, but let's be more precise with that.
Where? Where was he exactly?
In the line of succession? Well, you're right to say he's
pretty low. We don't know the exact place
because we don't know the exact birthdays of some of the folks
involved here. But we can say he was at least 8
because he's definitely behind his uncles Baylor, Harris and
Regal, and he's definitely behind cousin Valar.
That's Baylor's son, of course, and he's definitely be behind
his own father, Makar, and his own brother Darren.
We don't know if Mataris was born before or after Aryan, so
he could have been even lower. I don't think Regal's children
were born by this point. It's, I guess, theoretically
possible, but I don't think that's actually true.
So Aryan, nevertheless, is still incredibly low.
And that's an important point here because we're getting to a
moment in House Targaryen where a few generations ago how
Targaryen looked like it might implode on itself because the
male line, legitimate male line of Aegon the Third died out it
the throne then passed to Becerra the Second, who only had
one dynastically eligible son, the future Aegon 4th.
And the future Aegon the 4th had only 1 dynastically eligible
son, the future Darren the Second.
So when Darren the Second came the throne, that was it.
There were no more legitimate dynastic male line members of
House Targaryen. But what Darren and his sons did
is become very successful in repopulating House Targaryen.
In fact arguably too successful. Because now the problem in
Aryans generation is not Oh no, what happens if there are no
more Targaryen Princess to inherit?
It's Oh no, we've got too many Targaryen Princess and not
enough for all of them to do. This is exactly why Aryan's
younger brother Eamon is going to be sent to the Citadel.
Too many Dragons are as dangerous as too few, in the
words of Daron the Second. So Aryan is very much growing up
with the idea that he is at best a spare.
The spare of the spare. He is not important,
dynastically speaking, and there's no reason for Aryan to
think growing up, that Valar and Mataris are not going to have
sons of his own who are going to push him down.
And Heiress might have sons of his own who will push him down.
And Regal might have sons of his own, and they will have sons of
his own, and Daron will have sons of his own.
Aryan will become less and less important with every passing
year, dynastically speaking, at least, if everything goes as
everyone thinks it will. And this is a new outlook for
any Targaryen of this era where there's no longer Dragons and
there's so many Targaryens. The last time there were a lot
of Targaryens was I suppose, under Jeharis and Al San and
well, things went differently and those were different times.
So this is this is a very different outlook for for Aryan
and might be part of why he acted out.
Again, it doesn't explain being sadistic or cruel, but it might
explain his need to make a name for himself.
Like a lot of second sons in Westeros too.
What about his dragon egg? He did have one, and he probably
got it at birthright. What about it?
Say yes, it seems to have been still a tradition, even though
we're now a good almost half century out from the death of
the last dragon. The Targaryens are still being
given dragon eggs because Egg talks about this, and Egg
describes Aryan's egg specifically and says that it
looked as though it was made of gold and silver with veins of
fire running through it. That's like him.
He's the extra Targaryen and he gets an extra egg to go with it.
I was going to say that if there was ever an egg to match its
owner, this was this was it. And it sort of sounds similar in
in vague ways to some of the other eggs that we know.
It's kind of like the Syrians egg.
Danny calls that one sort of cream and gold.
It's sort of like Princess Elena's egg, the youngest
daughter of egg and the third it's that's one's platinum white
and gold. But I, I think honestly, it
doesn't really matter where Aryan's egg came from.
It is sort of draconic lineage. I don't think there's any sort
of grand conspiracy or some sort of grand theory around it.
The point is exactly what you say, Aryan's egg matches the
owner. Aryan likes to be called Aryan
Bright Flame. Aryan wants to think of himself
as fancy and gilded and covered in flames.
So of course he needs to have an egg that's going to match that.
And if we were to find out that it wasn't given to him in the
crib and he picked it himself, that would explain a lot.
But he probably did get it in the crib.
But still, I, I like to imagine this, this alternative version a
little bit when he was say 2 to 5 is what we were saying in
regards to the Blackfyre twins, the first black fire rebellion
broke out. This would have been rather
formative. Not just these kids that he
would have known and maybe been competitive with going off to
die, but so many other things. Let's talk about that.
Of course, Aryan is way too young to be seeing anything
first hand with the first Black Fire Rebellion.
He's way too young to even be a pede, much less a Squire, but
he's definitely not too young to have at least a general
awareness of what's going on. Because you think about Ricken
in A Game of Thrones, he's around the same age when Ned and
Catelyn both leave. And we can see how incredibly
traumatic that is for poor Ricken, who doesn't know all of
the political machinations but definitely knows Mom and Dad are
gone. And I don't know what's going on
or if or when they'll ever be back.
Which of course they're not. So Aryan, I think would have
known there is a war going on and Dad and Uncle are going off
to war and they may or may not come back from that.
Of course they do. And the rebellion is a victory
and for for House Targaryen, but it's still a serious war.
There are still casualties. There are very likely people at
court that Aryan would have been aware or been told were
casualties of the war. And so I think even at this
young age, Aryan is understanding or beginning to
understand, my father and my uncle are war heroes.
They are big figures, especially his father, to live up to.
They are the they are the figures of this sort of
triumphant dynasty. And we've overcome the biggest
challenge it's ever faced. But at the same time, Damon's
younger sons and his widow escaped with bitter steel.
So they're still out there. These belligerent cousins still
think that the Iron Throne is theirs and they might come back
someday. There is always this threat out
there that they might invade and next time we might not win the
war. And with someone like Makar, let
alone Bloodraven being anti Blackfire hardliners, you could
see that this would have been imbued in Aryan's mind, let
alone for the obvious that they would overthrow his whole family
potentially if given the chance. So his father would see a lot of
this very straightforwardly. They would, they're still out
there. He's not a slacker make artist
to come off of somebody that would just ignore that threat
out there. And in fact, there would be
other threats. And that's the sort of energy he
would bring to the table and that Aryan probably pick up on.
So what would that look like? The scenario of Aryan and his
father, the war hero, with this threat still being out there,
yet they're still very low in the line of succession at this
point. Makar being the type of man he
is, this is a pretty interesting scenario for a child.
Not typical. What do we think of it?
Well, no, it I mean, it is an interesting question of, of what
their relationship is like as as Aryan is growing up.
And you know, to your point, Makar is proud, he is prickly.
He is someone who takes his duty to his family very, very, very
seriously, especially in the lead up to the hedge night.
You know, to his credit, Makar is not his bluster.
He is a veteran. He was a war leader.
He did lead the Targaryen forces at the Battle of the Red Grass
Fields. He was an essential part of that
victory. And Makar's not wrong if he
thinks the black fires are still out there, they very well may
stage an invasion in the future. And Makar may also be thinking,
if they do invade, if and when that happens, it's going to
likely be me and my sons who are going to have to answer that
because we are the spares. Baylor is the heir.
His sons are the heirs. My older brothers are going to
come before me. I'm the most dynastically
extraneous. So are my sons.
So we're going to have to be the defenders of House Targaryen.
We're going to have to take up the sword and drive our enemies
back across the Narrow Sea. Because that's falling to us as
as our duty. So I think from a very early age
with Aryan, Makar would not have just encouraged Aryan to excel
at his Marshall training, but would have enforced it, would
have demanded it. Because in Makar's mind, that is
what you do. And you know, to the to make
ours credit, this is not something that Makar himself
would have come up with. This is very standard practice
for young Westerosi boys, or aristocratic I should say,
Westerosi boys. Even in eras where there is
peace, even in eras where no one is necessarily expecting there
to be a war tomorrow. These young aristocratic
Westerosi boys are almost across the table, being trained for war
from young ages, having weapons put in their hand and told this
is how you fight your enemies in combat.
This is how strategy works. This is how you command men on a
battlefield. You have to know these things.
This is an essential part of your training.
And so I think that Makar is really part of that in saying my
sons are going to be warriors and I'm going to make sure that
they're warriors. Yeah, he seems to have been
pretty unforgiving and when it came to his children, his sons
especially, we here in the hedge night him say that in the case
of Deron, he would change or I swear I'll see him dead.
That is something we have to extrapolate and think about how
he was to his other sons. Now, if Arian was a little more,
if if not a lot more unnatural in terms of straightforward
knightly prowess. Setting aside the virtues of a
night, he certainly knew how to swing a sword and ride a horse
and all that without embarrassing himself too much.
But we still have to assume he was harsh about learning these
things, don't we? I think that's right.
I mean, you know, in that quote, as you say, Nygar isn't talking
about Aryan specifically, but I don't think his attitude would
have changed that much between Darren and Aryan in the sense of
this enforcing of their destinies as warriors and as
Knights. And you know, it's we see this
in in an extreme way with someone like Randall Tarley, who
is literally brutalizing Sam for years, literally abusing him for
years, because in Randall's mind, the only way to be Lord
Tarley is to be a warrior and a leader in war.
So if you can't do that, then I'm going to brutalize you into
doing that. Now, to be very clear, I am not
saying that make our did exactly the same thing that Randall
Tarley was doing. But where I think that there may
be some overlap is that mindset in saying if I have a son, then
my son has to be a warrior. In other words, failure is not
an option. He's going to be a warrior and
I'm going to make sure that happens.
There is no no in this scenario. There is no I could get to
choose another path. You're going to be a warrior and
I'm going to keep pushing you until you do that.
It's maybe a lighter version of Randall Tarley and Sam.
Certainly that's about as extreme as it gets.
Makar wasn't out here threatening to kill his own
children. He did say I'll see him dead,
I'll swear. But I think that was, I think he
was just saying that because he didn't actually kill him.
He did see him dead, but he didn't 'cause that directly.
So yeah, so maybe if if Sam and Randall are a 10, maybe Makar is
like a 7 1/2 or an 8 on that scale.
But as far as him being cruel, as we've said, you can't pin all
that on Makar because it didn't appear in Aegon or Amon or
Deron. In fact, Aegon specifically is
very kind to animals and well, that's part of where the
conflict comes. As far as their upbringing.
Makar didn't 'cause this, but he didn't really do much about it
either, did he? Was there denial here or what do
we think? It's fair to level some portion
of criticism on Makar here. And the reason I say that is
because it's not just the family who is saying Aryan is a
monster. Yes, we absolutely get that in
horrific detail from Egg, and we get that from Darren too, where
he's corroborating what Egg is saying about their brother.
But what I think is so notable here is outside of the family,
it is common knowledge by the time of attorney of Ashford that
Aryan is a monster. We've got Raymond Fossaway
saying it's no secret that Aryan is a bad piece of work.
It's no secret that Aryan is vain and cruel.
How does Raymond Bossaway know this?
Raymond doesn't live at court. Raymond lives nowhere near
court. Raymond's not, as far as we
know, the son of a courtier or someone who's living within the
royal household, or someone who's best friends with Deron
and Egg. How does Raymond know this?
It has to be because Aryan is already getting a reputation
publicly for cruelty and vanity and arrogance.
Maybe not doing things as extreme as what we see in at the
tourney of Ashford, but I think he was doing something on a
public stage that was causing aristocratic onlookers to raise
eyebrows, was starting to cause whispers, was starting to have
people look at him and say, oh, no, no, no, not not this one.
This one's got got some problems.
And that's where I think the criticism of Make Our can come
in, because if even people outside the royal family can see
that Aryan is a problem and Make Our is continuing to enable
Aryan, that's a failing on Maker's part.
It doesn't erase that what Aryan is doing is bad, to be clear,
but it means that it's also a failing on Maker's part.
Maker is the parent who needs to step in.
And as far as we can see, at least leading up to the hedge
night Maker is not doing that. Yeah, it's a little bit Tywin
Ish here, moving under a different comparison where we
have this level of denial about Jamie and Cersei.
Maybe Makar had that with Aryan. It wouldn't require nearly as
much denial because it's not like Aryan and is doing the sort
of things Jamie and Cersei were. But still there seems to have
been Aryan keeping things from his father yet somehow make are
not looking into them even when his reputation seems to have
spread as far as like you said to people like Raymond
Fossewaik. It's it's pretty likely there's
some sort of madness involved here.
Obviously he has madness, but when did it begin is up in the
air. I would say that on the spectrum
of Targaryens who slowly go mad, his began sooner than most.
Not all of them go mad at all, but in his case it certainly
seems to have happened and begin rather on the early side.
Is that sound about right to you?
I, I think that's right. I think that's right.
And you know, this is what we're hearing from from Egg and from
Darren is that pretty much the only stories that are told about
Aryan are bad stories, that he is pretty consistently A
villain. And again, if we if we're sort
of talking about nature and nurture and personality all at
once, if you have someone like Aryan, who from a young age is
very likely displaying this tendency toward violence and
cruelty and sadism. And then you're Makar, who is
putting weapons in Aryan's hand because you want him to be a
warrior. And you're saying this is how
you defeat your enemies in combat and this is the most
effective way to defeat men in battle.
That's that's not a great combination.
That's only going to feed into that.
So it's this really awful combination again of nature and
nurture and personality and all of those coming together to make
the dangerous person that is Aryan.
Now, Daron also says about him that he thought he was a dragon
in human form. Now, that's something we've
talked about as a symbolic versus literal thing in a number
of contexts throughout the years.
But for Aryan it, that line seems to be maybe a little
blurrier than usual, in that he maybe started thinking along
those lines in a symbolic way, but perhaps it started to become
a little more real in his mind. What do we make of it in
general? Not just his own behavior, but
his family's take on it. I think you make a good point
that it's there's a very blurred line here between does Aryan
understand this as symbolic or literal?
You're both, which sounds contradictory, but I don't think
it is when you're talking about a Targaryen because on the one
hand, in a symbolic level, I do very much thank the Aryan on a
symbolic level, thought of himself as a dragon.
We'll, we'll talk about this a bit when it comes to how he
styles himself at the Tourney of Ashford.
But I think Aryan is trying to appropriate that draconic
legacy, especially in this era where the Targaryens not only
don't have Dragons, but now they're several generations out
from having Dragons, and it doesn't seem like they're coming
back anytime soon, no matter how much they're dreaming about
them. Yeah.
You think about someone like a Daron the First who is
confronted with the idea of, well, you can't conquer Dorn
because you don't have a dragon, and saying to them, oh, no,
you've got a dragon. I'm him.
It's me. I standing right in front of
you. I don't think Daron literally
thought he could breathe fire or fly or do any of the things that
a dragon could do. But in the same way, I think
maybe Aryan is thinking of himself as I'm just like
Darrell. The first was as good as a
dragon when it came to his ability to conquer Dorn.
Well, I'm as good as a dragon when it comes to not having to
listen to anyone. Dragons don't have to listen to
anyone. I can do what I want.
I can rule how I want because I'm above everyone else.
But again, there's a level here where this may also, and not
mutually exclusively be sort of a literal thought process too.
There is some. And again, it's it's kept, I
think, purposefully vague supernatural connection between
the Targaryens and Dragons and somewhere their dreams fit into
this. So whether or not Aryan knew
about this, suspected this, had any kind of understanding or
knowledge of it, I think Aryan may have clung to this idea that
I am supernaturally linked to the Dragons.
I am maybe in a very more literal sense, the blood of the
dragon, because that exalts me above other people, because that
makes me, again, capital E exceptional above other people.
And that means I can do whatever I want to other people.
And he was not unlikely having dreams of some kind, perhaps not
on the level of his brother Darren, in fact very unlikely on
that level, but some kind of dreams.
We certainly have evidence from Eamon later in life who said all
my brothers dreamt of Dragons and that it drove them to their
deaths. So it's definitely a question of
when these dreams started and how much they pushed him and
affected his personality. But it's not a question that
they were in the mix at some point and probably to a pretty
significant degree. So there's that, along with the
his father's determination and pressure and his lot place in
the succession, the general Westerosi tendency towards
violence. It's the certainly the world
they live in. But he chose from all this,
unlike so many others. Or perhaps it was just the man
he was cruelty, selfishness and a belief in himself that he was
superior. But even not just to his
subjects, even perhaps the rest of his family, right apart from
his father. There, that's the real
exception, I suppose. Huh.
That's true. And I that was the point that I
was going to make is I was talking before about how all of
this is coming together in a perfect storm of creating a
villain. You've got, you know, the Aryans
nature to what extent that is inborn, the environment he's
growing up with in not just generally violent in Westeros,
but also particularly focused on commercial ability through his
father. And then you've got his
personality. And what I think is so key to
understand about Aryan is Aryan makes choices and he makes evil
choices. You know, Daron, Aryan and Egg
and Amon all grow up with the same father.
They grow up to some extent, less so for Amon because he
becomes a maester, but certainly Daron and Aryan and Egg grow up
in the same household. They're exposed to a lot of the
same influences, but where Egg becomes a kind hearted person
and a good person and someone who wants to help other people
even though the lowest born people in Westeros.
What Aryan takes away is a sense of violent, entitled arrogance.
I can do whatever I want to whomever I want, at whatever
time I want, for whatever reason I want, and the only
justification I have to give is I'm a Targaryen and I said so.
Yeah, I like it. That sounds about right for
Aryan Fitz. He may have also wanted to make
a name for himself, as his father had, and given all the
inducements and all the reasons that he might want that, like
the lack of Dragons, the continuing threat of the black
fires. All these reasons may have
contributed to that ambition or something beyond ambition,
something that he felt he needed.
The tourney of Ashford in 209. Lord Ashford, of course, had
that tourney in honor of his daughter's 13th name day.
And Aryan was there, along with so many others.
Now, there was also Baylor and Valar and Makar and Darren and
Egg were in the vicinity. They were supposed to be there.
But that's a whole nother story, as we know.
Why did so many Princess go to Ashford, do we think?
And in particular, Makar's family so heavily represented.
Well, I think there's a couple reasons it's very possible.
Obviously this tourney is being staged for Lord Ashford to
advertise his daughter to say I've got an eligible daughter.
I'm open to making a marriage alliance with her.
And so it's possible that Daron, Daron the second, I should say
the King Baylor and or Makar was thinking about this young lady
Ashford and thinking, could she be a bride for one of our more
extraneous Princess. And Aryan himself may have been
on the table as a potential suitor.
He's a younger son of a younger son.
That means he's probably not going to have very much to call
his own when he comes into his majority.
And the Ashford's certainly aren't the highest ranking
aristocrats in Westeros, but they're not peasants either.
I think they're generally speaking on the same level as
the Corbrays or the Pen Roses, who have both relatively
recently in this era married a Daos Targaryen.
So the idea of marrying Aryan or any of the Princess into the
Ashfords, maybe not the wildest of ideas, but even if that
wasn't the exact reason they were going, it's also possible
that again, the King or Baylor or make our or all three.
We're thinking, let's take advantage of this tourney as a
way of showing off the strength of the dynasty.
We are barely a decade out from the first Black Fire Rebellion
when the Tourney Basford takes place.
And this is absolutely no question the most serious
external challenge the Targaryen dynasty had ever faced.
And the the late, great Stephen Atwell argues, and I think
convincingly in his series on the Blacks and the Reds, that
the heart of support for Damon Blackfyre probably came from the
Reach, because this is an area with historical, racial,
cultural xenophobia against Dorn.
So it's very possible that even if the Ashfords themselves
didn't fight for Damon Blackfyre, maybe their neighbors
did, maybe their relatives did, maybe their friends did,
certainly maybe other Richmond did.
And so if they're staging attorney and we're still, you
know, in this barely after the first decade, after the first
Black Fire rebellion, the Crown may have thought, let's make
sure we send as many of our Princess as possible, the
strength of the dynasty, not only to show, hey, we're not
afraid. We're not going to hide in
King's Landing because we're so terrified that someone's going
to try to assassinate us or start another rebellion.
But also, we're showing all of you attendees who are showing
up. This is what you're dealing
with. This is the dynasty.
We're secure, we're strong, we're stable.
And if you want to try another rebellion in the future, this is
what you're going to be facing. So maybe think twice about that.
And then maybe think 1/3 time after seeing the results of what
actually happened at Ashford. But you know, a part of me
wonders, was this Aryan's first tournament as a competitor?
We talked about him being young enough that yes, he was decent
chance he was knighted, but that doesn't mean he had fought in a
tournament before. It would make a sort of sense to
me that he hadn't tested the boundaries of his royal
privilege yet, that he hadn't really been out and about so
much. But I'm not so sure about that.
What do you think? And I think there may be sort of
a happy medium between the two because in my mind, I do think
Aryan had done something on a public stage.
Because again, Raven Fossway is clearly aware that there are
rumors about Aryan and I think he has to have done something
publicly in order for those rumors to get as, as far as
Cider Hall. So I think that it's very
possible that Aryan may have competed, but maybe more
locally, maybe if there was a tournament in crown lands in the
Red Keep somewhere, you know, within the the purview of House
Targaryen as the overlord of the crown lands, maybe he'd done
that. Maybe he had competed in sort of
a Squires tourney, maybe even something along the lines of,
you know what, Miranda Royce reports that Harold Harding is
knighted after a Squires tourney, which is set up for him
to win. So it could be something like
that. And I think that that's very
possibly the way the Aryan started to show some of this
cruelty or some of this arrogance.
Again, not in a way that anyone would actually be able to do
anything about. Isn't in a way that would raise
an eyebrow and say that he's This is not not quite a not
quite a good character here. Another reason I brought this up
is just because of the way we see Arian when he's first
introduced. It's almost like he doesn't
understand the concept of hedge night, which is like, you really
should have heard of them before.
You know, I know him insulting him Despite that would be
fitting. But he is almost surprised in a
way that says, oh, I, you know, I didn't know Knights could look
like this, you know, when neither did egg.
If we're being honest, the egg was funnier about it, but they
were both kind of surprised, but in different kind of ways.
That reaction is a little bit telling.
So let's look at that moment when Dunk encounters Aryan in
the Hedge knight right after he sees the royal party arrive.
Quote. Boy, let go of that nag and see
to my horse. A rider had dismounted in front
of the stables. He's talking to me, Dunk
realized. I'm not a stable boy, my Lord.
Not clever enough. The speaker wore a black cloak
bordered in scarlet satin, but underneath was Raymond, bright
as flame, all Reds and yellows and golds, slim and straight as
a Dirk, though only of middling height.
He was near Dunk's own age. Pearls of silver gold hair
framed a face, sculpted and imperious, high brow and sharp
cheekbones, straight nose, pale smooth skin without blemish.
His eyes were a deep Violet color.
If you cannot manage a horse, fetch me some wine and a pretty
wench. I, I, my Lord, pardons.
I'm no serving man either. I have the honor to be a knight.
Knighthood has fallen on sad days, said the princeling.
But then one of the stable boys came rushing up, and he turned
away to hand him the reins of his palfrey.
A splendid blood Bay. It doesn't take long at all.
This is very efficient. Aryan comes off as pompous,
egotistical, insufferable, you name it right away.
Doesn't he? Oh absolutely.
You know, I, I read this quote and all I can think of is a, a
quote that my husband like to paraphrase sometimes, which is,
you know, I've, I've known authors who use subtext and
they're all cowards. This is, this is not subtle.
This is, and it's not intended to be subtle.
This is George R Martin signaling to you right away.
Here's the villain of the story. You don't have to guess about
it. This is the villain.
And you know, it's, it's so obvious.
I mean the contrast between the way the Aryan greets Dunk and
the way the egg greets Dunk. Absolutely night and day they're
the same age. Just think of the the sunny lie.
We're the same age. They're basically the same age
and yet Aryan is calling Dunk boy why you're the same age.
It's because he can't think of someone as low born as Dunk
being an adult person. He's literally an immature
person simply by virtue of having a lower birth.
When AG first meets Dunk, he, yeah, he's playing at being a
stable boy. He's not, actually, but he's
still calling Dunk Sir, and my Lord, he's still taking on those
respectful forms of address. Aryan sees Dunk and immediately
assumes Dunk is here to serve me personally.
It's not just Dunk is a servant of House Ashford.
This is Dunk is here and because he's here, I can tell him to do
literally anything I want because I'm a Targaryen.
And when Dunk corrects him and says no, no, no, I'm I'm not a
stable boy and then says no, I'm a knight.
Aryan's response instant to be Oh my bad.
I'm so sorry about that. It's to say, Nah, that can't be
the case. You're not really a knight
though. You're you're still obviously a
peasant though, right? Because I think to your point,
it's not maybe so much that Aryan doesn't know what a
headlight is. I think he would have sort of a
intellectual concept of what a headlight is.
But I think that Aryan is so deep in his own arrogance, in
his own vanity, in his own sense of self importance, that he
literally can't believe that someone of such a low birth as
Dunk is a person on his level. He can't do that.
It doesn't add up in his mind. So he has to be a servant, he
has to be a peasant, he has to be a boy because that's how
Aryan can interact with him. This would add a little extra
contact if Aryan hadn't yet been knighted.
He's like, oh, this guy's been knighted and I have it.
Oh, that would that would get him a little bit.
Dunk takes note of Aryan's height, that he's not as very
tall. He's kind of average height,
kind of sizing him up, literally.
And this, of course, is important to how the combat
resolves. At the end of the story, Aryan
is above Dunk on a horse and in status, but on the ground the
status doesn't matter and Dunks size does.
After Manfred Dondarian refuses to vouch for Dunk, he returns to
the Castle where he overhears the following between Baylor and
Makar quote. Don't be an utter fool.
Daron is what he is, but he is still your blood and mine.
I have no doubt Sir Rowland will turn him up and Aegon with him.
When the tourney is over, perhaps.
Aryan is here. He is a better Lance than Deron.
In any case, if it is the tourney that concerns you.
Now, Baylor is right about Aryan, the technically correct,
the best kind of correct, but it's really hard to not be
better with a Lance than Deron. I suppose we could say Baylor is
also quietly reminding his brother that make ours hearts in
the wrong place, though, isn't he?
He's, he's probably done this before, heard his brother talk
this way before. He's he's trying to be
diplomatic about it, but he's his.
His message is pointed, isn't it?
It is. And I think, you know, this is
like a touching moment where we get this very intimate
conversation between the brothers because I think you
really get the sense that Baylor understands Makar.
And he's maybe the one person in the world who can talk to Makar
on Makar's level and really understand him and get to the
heart of the conversation. And what he's talking about
specifically here is, yeah, when Baylor says, well, Aryan's here
and he's a better Lance. If it's the attorney that
concerns you, the clear implication is Bikar, where is
your heart right now? Because your heart should be
with your son. As far as make our nose, Daron
and Egg are still missing. They're his blood too.
He should care about them just as much as he cares about Aryan.
It's not about whether or not Aryan can break the most lances
at Ashford or Aryan can impress everyone.
Ashford. It's about family and you got to
care about your family. Yeah, this is the the family he
lives in though, you know, So it is what it is.
Oh, well. Now Baylor accepts Dunk as a
night. But before Dunk can enter the
lists, he watches other competitors, including Aryan.
Quote. Late in the day, a brazen
fanfare announced the entry of a new challenger to the lists.
He rode in on a great red charger whose black bardings
were slashed to reveal glimpses of yellow, Crimson, and orange
beneath. As he approached the viewing
stand to make his salute, Dunk saw the face beneath the raised
visor and recognized the Prince he'd met in Lord Ashford's
stables. Aryan bore A3 headed dragon on
his shield, but it was rendered in colors much more vivid than
Velar's. One head was orange, 1 yellow,
one red, and the flames they breathed had the Sheen of gold
leaf. His Sir coat was a swirl of
smoke and fire woven together, and his blackened helm was
surmounted by a Crest of red enamel flames.
So here we see what we discussed earlier about his portrayal of
himself as a dragon. But this is here, we have it in
action, we get to see it, and it is pretty striking.
Aryan is. Almost literally portraying
himself as a dragon in all but name.
He's got red and yellow and orange fabric on the bartings
that is the the fabric coverings on his horse.
And he's got these dragon heads on his signal and he's got this
swirl of smoke and fire on his Serco.
It's like he's almost literally breathed in flames, and I think
that's entirely intentional. He's trying to show himself as a
dragon, so much so even his horse has to be red because the
Targaryen dragon is red. At least on on the Family Sigil,
Aryan is showing himself as the closest he can possibly get to
being a dragon rider at this tourney.
He didn't go so far as to have his helm blackened.
Like he literally just pulled it out of the fire, complete with
flames coming out of the top. Like he's really going over the
top to sell the image. He is a dragon in human form.
He's riding a dragon. He's got fire all around him.
He is a Targaryen. Now, this is not entirely new as
far as the personal sigil part, but this really goes well beyond
personal sigils, right? Like you said, he's making
himself look like a dragon. But it's also vanity.
It's also really projecting. There's a lot of things in here
you bring up in our notes. Illyrio who?
That's a really funny example, because Illyrio made fun of
Tyrion, for all their emphasis on heraldry.
But I think Aryan wouldn't take kindly to that mockery.
Tyrion was fine with it, but Aryan would.
Oh, he'd be mad. No, he would because, you know,
the context was in a dance with Dragons.
You know, Tyrion makes the comment of how she better be
careful because I'm a I'm a lion.
And Illyria left. He's like, oh, what?
You put an animal on your shield and all of a sudden you're a
lion or a leopard or a wolf. Like, come on, I'm looking at
you. You're a person just like I am.
So I think it's Illyria ran into Aryan and he's doing all of this
to try and show himself as a dragon only would be like, come
on buddy, really? You're a dragon now because you
painted a dragon and you blackened your helm and you put
flames on your hat. Illyrio would have appreciated
Darren's joke about being an apple or all that.
Yeah, then we'd be all be safer for it.
So Aryan continued to show his arrogance, make us understand
what kind of person he was when selecting an opponent.
Quote. After a pause to dip his Lance
to Prince Baylor, a pause so brief that it was almost
perfunctory, he galloped to the North End of the field, past
Lord Leo's pavilion and the laughing storms slowing only
when he approached Prince Valar's tent.
The young Prince rose and stood stiffly beside his shield, and
for a moment Dunk was certain that Aryan meant to strike it,
but then he laughed and trotted past and banged his point hard
against Sir Humphrey Harding's diamonds.
Come out, come out, little knight, he sang in a loud, clear
voice. It's time you faced the dragon.
Notice he barely stops to recognize his uncle.
That's a nice, subtle, but pretty straightforward moment
there. It's telling, isn't it?
Baylor is not just his uncle. He's not even just Hand of the
King, he's also Prince of Dragonstone and Heir to the Iron
Throat in every way that matters.
Baylor is the face and voice of the king at this tourney.
So if Aryan is dipping his lands so briefly that even Dunk the
Hedge Night Squire newly sort of Hedge Night can recognize that's
an insult, You know, every single aristocrat at that
tournament is recognizing that that was an insult.
Is clocking that moment. This is Aryan saying, yeah, I'm
going to pretend to be respectful to you, but I'm not
really, because why should I? I'm a Targaryen, the same as
you. Why should I be any more
deferential to you, my uncle, when we're both Targaryens?
This sort of undermines the message of this unified front
that the Targaryens might have been trying to present, as we're
this strong house that is very capable of continuing to rule.
Don't think about those black fires now.
Aryan takes it up a notch though when he stops in front of
Valor's tent, doesn't he? This is sort of along the same
lines here, but a bit more provocative.
No, it is. I mean, I don't I think that
Aryan ever really considered challenging Valor.
Because what we'll go on to see throughout Aryan's life, and
especially at this tournament, is that Aryan tends to punch
down. Aryan tends to attack people he
considers beneath him. And Valor, well, Valor's not
beneath him. Valor is second in line to the
Iron Throne. Yeah, he might not have been a
great tourney champion. We get the sense that people are
kind of throwing their matches against him precisely because of
who he is. But because he is so high in the
succession, valor is important in a way that Aryan, especially
the Aryan of the Hedge night, is not and does not seem like he
ever will be. And Baylor is right there,
Valor's dad, the first in line to the Iron Throne.
If Aryan attacks Valor and the way we're going to see him do
with Humphrey Harding, Baylor's going to react immediately.
And although Makar may not be watching, Makar is not going to
take kindly to that either. So I think Arian isn't doing
this to actually say he's going to challenge Valor.
I think he's being provocative. I think he's going up and
lingering just a little too long in front of Valor Shield to to
be shocking to say to everybody, yeah, I'm not going to challenge
my cousin. What if I did?
I'm not going to do it all. But imagine if I did.
Wouldn't that be crazy? Oh, and what if I unseated him?
What if I even heard him? That would be shocking, wouldn't
it? Just No I could do it.
Yep, Yep. He's really enjoying the moment,
I think, while making everyone else there uncomfortable, and
he's thought about this a little bit.
There's a bit of classic bully in this, but a little bit of
thoughtfulness. Also a little bit of something
else. He isn't foolish enough or
delusional enough to think he can, say, beat Leo Longthorne or
the Laughing Storm or even Humphrey Harding.
Not in a fair fight, but he's also not foolish enough to pick
on one of the more powerful houses.
Like, he could have done what he did, probably to Laughing Storm
or Leo Longthorne. Because it's cheating and they
wouldn't have necessarily seen it coming.
Until, you know, maybe he got a chance to do it again.
Everyone from this joust forward knew to watch out for Aryan.
But why did he pick Humphrey Harding over those greater
Lords? Well, I think to your point, Leo
Longthorne and the Laughing Storm, Lionel Baratheon are
Lords. And they're not just Lords,
they're paramount Lords. These are Lords with a lot of
power. They've got a lot of assholes
who are powerful in their own right.
They've got armies of their own, they've got resources of their
own. So.
And for Leo, he's literally this is his land, this is his vassal,
this is his home turf. If Aryan hurts Leo Longthorne or
Lionel Baratheon, that's a lot of problems for House Targaryen
because all of a sudden now you've got very angry vassals
coming to the crown for justice, and the crown does not have
independent draconic power to answer that.
Besides the point, of course, to your point, Leo Longthorne and
Lionel Baratheon are both physical threats to Aryan.
Lionel very obviously so. I mean, this is someone who's
almost as gigantic as Dunk. If Aryan knocks him off his
horse or he knocks off Aryan and they get on the ground loud,
Brathian's going to kick his butt.
And there's there's no question about that.
And Leah Longthorne, he might not be quite as physically
imposing, but he's deadly with a Lance.
He can knock off Helms very easily and actually get the
sense that maybe he was doing this specifically to splinter
lances and to make people afraid to face him because of how
dangerous splintered lances are. So I think Aryan's just too vain
to to face that knowing that he he could lose an eye or, or, or
his life. But when it comes to Humphrey
Harding, well, it's a little bit different.
Yes, Humphrey is still an aristocrat.
I want to be very, very clear about that.
But Humphrey is a much lower ranking aristocrat compared to
Leo Longthorne or the Laughing Storm.
He's only at most a landed night.
And again, that's not nothing, but it means that he doesn't
have a lot of independent power and he doesn't have a lot of
independent resources and he doesn't have a lot of strong
vassals of his own. And also he's very far away from
home. If anything happens to Humphrey
Harding, it's going to be a while before his Wayne Wood and
Aaron overlords hear about it and have anything to do about
it. And so I think the Aryan is
looking at Humphrey and saying, this is the guy I can punch down
at. Oh, you think you're so great
because you've won so much today.
Well, just you wait. Just you wait until I take you
down. When the pivotal woman happens,
Dunk pretty quickly realizes what Aryan plans to do.
Quote. Prince Aryan's Lance, gold
tipped and painted in stripes of red, orange and yellow, swung
down across the barrier. Low, too low, thought Dunk the
moment he saw it. He'll miss the rider and strike
Sir Humphrey's horse. He needs to bring it up.
Then, with donning horror, he began to suspect that Aryan
intended no such thing. He cannot mean to.
At the last possible instant Sir Humphrey's stallion reared away
from the oncoming point, eyes rolling in terror.
But too late. Aryan's Lance took the animal
just above the armor that protected his breastbone and
exploded out of the back of his neck in a gout of bright blood.
Screaming, the horse crashed sideways, knocking the wooden
barrier to pieces as he fell. Sir Humphrey tried to leap free
but a foot caught in a stirrup and they heard his shriek as his
leg was crushed between the splintered fence and falling
horse. What do we actually think Aryan
thought he was going to accomplish?
Clearly he didn't expect to be eliminated via faults, like he
didn't expect to be expelled from the tournament.
He didn't see that coming. He should have.
It was pretty obvious that that would happen.
So what did he expect, do we think?
And why did he expect something other than the very
straightforward thing that did happen?
Yeah. You're you're banned.
You're out. Like you can't do that.
Well, I mean, I think that to your point, this is not what
you're supposed to do in a tourney.
There's a reason the tourney lances are designed to break.
These are not war lances with iron tips that are designed to
kill people and horses. These are designed to break
against a shield. That's how you earn your points.
That's how you win in a douse. But I think what is very clear
here, and Dunk picks up on it right away.
Ariat is deliberately trying to hurt Humphrey, and he's hurting
him. And again, we're going to return
to this point in a bit. Aryan seems to like to hurt
people in a way that is very personal to them.
And, and we see that with Humphrey Harding.
Humphrey is, like we said, at most a landed knight.
He doesn't have much in the way of excess funds to buy new
armor, to buy new horses. And if he's crushed under his
horse, like he's going to go on to be here, he's going to be
pretty severely injured. Even if he hadn't died, his
jousing career was probably over, and that's devastating to
a young aristocrat with not much more to go on in Westeros.
Like a young landed night is as Humphrey Harding was.
I think this is Aryan's way of humiliating him on as much of A
public stage as he can. He sees that Humphrey is winning
so much during the day. He sees how beloved he is of the
Commons. He sees how much Humphrey seems
to be enjoying it. And Aryan says I'm going to take
that away from you. I'm going to attack you in the
way that's going to hurt you most so that you know you can't
stand up against the Dragons. And further evidence of Aryan
just really not having any idea how people would react to this
and really not seeing the sort of obvious result.
He was ready to continue the fight even though it was pretty
obviously over. Let's see here quote.
Aryan, having raced blithely around the carnage to the end of
the lists, wheeled his horse and came galloping back.
He was shouting, too, though Dunk could not make out the
words over the almost human screams of the dying horse.
Vaulting from the saddle, Aryan drew his sword and advanced on
his fallen foe. His own Squires in one of Sir
Humphreys had to pull him back. This leaves even less doubt of
his intentions. Like it.
It was like he was drawn to this, like it was a blood blust.
Almost like his plan wasn't quite complete.
Like the punishment that you mentioned, that the putting him
back in his place was somehow incomplete.
Even though the man is shouting and in pain, there's some kind
of obvious thing that Aryan is unable to perceive.
It's pretty evil. Like even his own people are
trying to stop him. Like what is?
Yeah, that's telling, isn't it? I think that last point you make
is the most salient of all. This is so beyond the pale, what
Aryan is doing. Aryan's own Squires, the people
who should be the most loyal to Aryan, are trying to hold him
back from trying to attack Humphrey, who's lying on the
ground. This is how evil Aryan's conduct
is here. And I I like the the fact that
George RR Martin includes the word Blithely when he says the
Aryan races around the carnage. Blithely is doing so much there
because it is giving such an insight into his mindset.
This is not, oh, I was just immature.
I was unskilled. I wasn't ready for this.
I This was all of an act. Just a horrible accident.
No, no, no. This is this is exactly what
Aryan wanted to do. This is an Aryan who's enjoying
this. This is an Aryan who is getting
exactly what he wanted out of this encounter.
So he was probably pretty surprised at how much pushback
he got, especially the whole getting kicked out of the
tournament, which happened very quickly.
He may have thought that Lord Ashford just wouldn't rule
against him like that because of he's a dragon, because of his
attitude that the dragon shouldn't lose his pride, his
delusions, all that. But that is exactly what
happens. There's a similar event back in
early a Game of Thrones, the first tournament we see the
hands tournament, where some unknown hedge night disgraced
himself by killing Barack Dondarian's horse and was
dismissed from the competition under similar grounds.
Dunk would never. This is of course, just some
dirty hedge night that Dunk would not like to associate
himself with. But I, I, I love the the
reversal here, the inverse that's going on here.
And Aryan, though, would would not see it the same way.
He'd say, look, the noble should have the right to do what he
wants here. The hedge knight.
Yeah, the hedge knight should have been kicked out, but I as
if I should have been allowed to do that.
Clearly that's what he went in thinking.
If he did was surprised by being kicked out of the tournament, he
must have thought he could get away with it.
And that's part of why he got so mad afterwards.
No word on whether this unnamed hedge knight went off to find a
puppet show where they were making fun of hedge Knights.
And he got really mad and and busted the whole thing up.
And yeah, probably didn't happen, but maybe it did a head
cannon, right? So Aryan, you know, again, new
to these sort of things. He's had these urges and
feelings his whole life probably, but not a lot of
opportunity to inflict this on real human beings outside of
court. He wanted to conceal his
behavior from his father. But there's no hiding this,
right? He thought this was something he
can get away with. And no, no, this is like the
talk of the town, the talk of the tournament.
But it's not so simple as just punishing him beyond kicking him
out of tournament, is it? There's like these weird
Targaryen family dynamics with Baylor and Makar and the whole
reason the Targaryens are there in the 1st place, which we
talked about. That has to matter, even if we
aren't clear on exactly what it is.
So what do you think about that? And I think you're right.
And I, and I like comparing this to that, that brief anecdote we
get in a Game of Thrones where the head giant is dismissed
after he, he kills barracks horse because of course, the
head knight has virtually no rights.
Yes, he's a knight, which means he's above kind of your, your
common run of peasants in Westeros.
But he can be dismissed pretty easily because, well, who cares
about the rights of a head knight?
But with Aryan, it's, it is a little more complicated.
And I think what the punishment is that's given to Aryan is
about as much as Lord Ashford and Baylor think they can do or
feel they can do in the context of very complicated feelings,
because Aryan has done something awful.
No one, I think, is disputing that.
But Aryan is Baylor's brother's son, and he's the one that Makar
has put his hopes on. Baylor knows this.
And I don't think that Baylor, I think Baylor cares enough about
Makar to not want to humiliate him, to not want to rub it in
that your son has not only done something so awful, but now
we're going to really publicly drag him through the mud, no pun
intended, for what happens to him because he's done something
so awful. We're I'm not trying to
embarrass my brother like that. Makar is thinking and yeah, he
is a member of the royal family. And again, we we mentioned this
just a bit ago, but we're in the reach, which may have been the
heartland of black fire support. If we start showing the royal
family is attacking one of its own, the royal family is
undermining its own authority or undermining its own power, Well,
now we're starting to get into complicated political questions,
which is I think something Baylor wants to avoid as much as
possible. So the easiest answer maybe, and
I think this is the answer that Baylor and Lord Ashford come up
with, is to say, you know, let's just pretend, no, we're none of
us actually think that Aryan made a mistake here.
But just to make everything easy, let's pretend Aryan was
young, Arian was immature. He shouldn't have been doing
this, clearly wasn't ready for it.
Let's just treat it like that. Let's say you made a terrible
mistake, yet it was your fault. But let's treat it as a terrible
mistake. Let's act like you lost in a
relatively fairway, and then let's just all collectively
forget that it happened. Now, to be clear, is this fair?
No, absolutely not. Of course it's not fair.
This does not in any way give justice to him.
Free Harding doesn't help him at all.
But this is Westeros. Westeros is not a fair place.
It's it's baked in and it is one of the fundamental themes, not
just a bad night, but of the Duck and Egg series as a whole.
Yeah, Aryan thought he could push it farther than he was
aware of this imbalance, and he thought it was larger than it
really was. And it really goes to show where
his head was at and what he expected in terms of himself and
what he was allowed to get away with.
He didn't really care that he lost the horse.
He cared that he was thwarted by adjudication, that he was ruled
against, that his plan to put himself above others by being
above the law, the rules was literally reversed in his face.
Like he thought he could do something that was against the
rules and no, you, you were disqualified.
He was literally the rules were applied to him.
So the most severe way possible, even though it's not that much
of a punishment in the scheme of things.
He can get another horse for nothing and they'll be more
tournaments and all that. But he's young, he's rash, and
he's a bully, so he's eager to lash out and make up for what he
perceives as this embarrassment, this failure, this unfair
result. I'm sure that's a big part of
it. I'm sure he feels like this was
all undeserved and and wrong. So here's what happens.
He encounters, unfortunately, Tanzel and the puppetry
performance quote. The puppeteers stall had been
knocked on its side. The fat Dornish woman was on the
ground, weeping. One man at arms was dangling the
puppets of Florian and Junkiel from his hands as another set
them afire with a torch. Three more men were opening
chests, spilling more puppets on the ground and stamping on them.
The dragon puppet was scattered all about them, a broken wing,
here it's head, there it's tail and three pieces.
And in the midst of it all stood Prince Aryan, resplendent in a
red velvet doublet with long dagged sleeves, twisting
Tansel's arm in both hands. She was on her knees, pleading
with him. Aryan ignored her.
He forced open her hand and seized one of her fingers.
Dunk stood there, stupidly, not quite believing what he saw.
Then he heard a crack and Tansel screamed.
This is more self fulfilling beliefs here.
He believes he has the right to do this, just like he thought he
had the right to be above the rules.
This is even more in his wheelhouse.
He thinks up that's treason. I can do whatever I want to
these people. Again, he's going beyond the
norms and probably in the back of his mind thinking even if I'm
going too far I can get away with this.
But he really leaned into this at the same time he didn't
entirely invent the provocation. He he had a semi legitimate
starting point not to do what he did, but maybe have a complaint
perhaps? Is that fair?
Well, I I think it's certainly fair to say he takes advantage
in a grossly cruel and violent way or the situation that
already existed. What Baylor is going to go on to
explain to Dunk is that red in the wrong light and Aryan is
definitely in the mindset to read something in the wrong
light. A show about a dragon being
slain is going to look like not so subtle propaganda against the
Targaryen regime. We see exactly this in A Feast
for Crows. With this play, Cersei hears
about of the lions who overthrow the Sags and then get overthrown
by a dragon. And Cersei has the is this play
about us reaction. So if Aryan is looking for a
fight now, he's seeing something that in his mind it looks like
it's recalling rebellion against the Targaryens.
And again, we're only about a decade out from the first Black
Fire Rebellion, A rebellion that was intended to overthrow the
Targaryens. We're also barely 2 decades out
from Dorn being formally incorporated into the Targaryen
Kingdom after the marriage of Prince Marin and Princess
Daenerys. So yes, Tansel and her
countrymen are absolutely citizens under the Iron Throne.
There was no question about that.
Subjects, I should say, not necessarily citizens, but it's
still Doran is still relatively a new member of this
sociopolitical family. There's still a lot of tension
and tension that goes back far longer than the Targaryen regime
between specifically Richmond and Dornish and Aryan seizing on
all of that to get out his own feelings.
That's right. And ultimately, as much as all
this has an impact, it also just comes down to basic bullying.
He sees a target, he sees an opportunity, and he jumps all
over that because it's the perfect opportunity for him to
vent his rage in a way that he thinks he can to get away with.
He's a little bit unlucky, I suppose, because Egg happened to
be there, and that once again backfired in the same way his
expectations for the tournament were, which is that he thought
his father wouldn't necessarily hear of it, or that his father
wouldn't hear of it in a way that made him look bad.
Unfortunately for him, that's kind of the opposite of how it
went. Now, would it be fair to say
that he's not really interested in justice for House Targaryen,
but he's interested more in just maybe burying his own
insecurities or just venting about his unfair treatment in
the tournament how he perceived? It absolutely and and again, and
I brought this up with Humphrey Harding, who does Aryan attack
people he can punch down at Tansel and her fellow daughters
woman are lowborn, they are women and they are Dornish and
all of those separately make them vulnerable in an extremely
classic society the way that Westeros is for someone like
Aryan who is both incredibly cruel and violent and also
incredibly inflated in his own ego to try to attack them.
And what does he do? He doesn't just attack them, as
with Humphrey Harding, he takes away their means of performing,
their profession. He's breaking their puppets.
This isn't, you know, modern day.
You could just pop down to your local superstore and buy new
puppets. These are handmade.
These are bespoke puppets. It's going to take weeks, if
days, weeks, months to make new puppets.
That's investment. That's time that they're losing,
not performing. He's also breaking to Tansel's
fingers. He needs it's those.
She needs those to paint. She needs those to puppeteer.
Who knows if they will heal correctly.
Who knows if she will ever be able to paint and puppeteer
again after this? He's deliberately attacking them
in the way that matters most to them.
He is saying, oh, you put on a puppet show that I don't like,
I'm going to make sure you never put on another puppet show
again. It's interesting to consider the
moment of eggs reveal not just from a bad luck for your
bullying there, Aryan, but from his perspective.
It's very different what's going on in that moment.
Everyone else is surprised to find out who AG is, including
the audience, including Dunk and including Aryan.
He's in like, whoa, my brother is here.
That's crazy. But Aryan was surprised that
Dunk was helping a commoner in the 1st place, that he was so,
so quote UN quote, throwing his life away for Tanzel.
He was also quite perplexed by his own brother doing that.
Not the throwing his life away part, because Egg wasn't
throwing his life away, but the fact that Egg would stand up for
a commoner. I think that the sincerely blue
Aryan's mind, like really, you know, not, not from an evil like
how dare you, like I'm baffled that you would do this.
He was, I think he was genuinely curious, not enough to ask, but
because he was also embarrassed and thwarted in his goals there.
But I think a big part of him was genuinely surprised at his
brother's reaction, not just his presence.
He invokes Makar, of course, invokes his father, and that
changes the dynamic of everything for everyone there.
That's the one person that Aryan might think twice about
upsetting so. And Egg knew that, didn't he?
Well, he does. And I think what Egg reveals in
that moment and you you speak to it a referencing Aryan's
embarrassment is Egg is Egg is making clear on a relatively
public stage, pretty public stage, that he and Aryan are not
that different when it comes to rank because Egg can command
these guardsmen just as much as Aryan can.
These are not Aryan's personal guardsmen, these are Targaryen
guardsmen, and they're sworn to obey a Targaryen.
If another Targaryen Prince is giving them an order that's in
conflict with the first Targaryen prince's order,
there's enough confusion there to stop them in their tracks,
and I think that's revealing in a way that I'm sure Aryan didn't
appreciate, that you really don't have a lot of power with
in House Targaryen. Yes, you like to show off that
you do, but in reality your vanity is pretty hollow.
Check out my cool Duncan Egg Tour shirt Night of the Seven
Kingdoms Tour shirt, designed by Shea, has a number of key
locations that we know they were involved in or had business in
across their nice long career, both triumphs and tragedies
alike. You can get one through the link
in the description and show off your Duncan Egg knowledge, your
Duncan Egg fandom and support history of Westeros in the
process. Thanks to our Northern champion
patrons. J Wilson, Winter's King Jake
Snow AKA Jacob Ice Eyes, the bastard of the last river,
Adelaard the Wanderer, wielder of the Valyrian steel axe.
Frost Fall, Tony of House Walowitza, a family of war
scouts. We scout the way.
Winter's King, Lord of the First Men, Lady Bobby of House
Mitchell, the Bitter Steel. Sir Peter, Knight of the Gallows
Wood, Lady IR Ardross, Mother of Wolves, wielder of the Valyrian
steel Claymore Manticore, Gandalf the White, Lord of House
Seymourn, Aaron Snow, the Evergreen bastard who made a vow
to defend the North with his weirwood handled axe.
Timber fell. Liana Snow, the Raven in winter.
Our cell sword captains include Hema Helmuth, Captain of the
Whispering Children. Dead men tell no secrets.
Shepard, the Shepherd of Essos. All men are sheep before the
Shepherd. Heir to the Whispering Children.
Lady Lajar Adagio, the Iron Lily.
Master Archer, Castellan of the Summer Island Keep.
Arboreal Point, Captain of the all female Wailing widows, women
and children. First Lord Brandon Brewer of
Castle Blackroon, Captain of the Shadow Wolves.
Our steel is cold, our vengeance colder.
Maester Malachi, forgotten dragon seed from the Isle of
Drift. Mark, now in service to House
Harlow, Styves the White, Captain of the Hopeful Patriots,
a band of exile Nights motto. The world Ends when Hope dies.
And our Ironborn captains, Black Matos, Storm Rider, captain of
the Rusted Hinge. Lord Chucklaws, captain of the
Droman's Night Blood, destroyer of evil.
Aileen Archer, Queen, captain of the Border Collie.
Catherine the Cruel, captain of the Kraken's Claw.
Lana Del Rely, Death Dreamer, captain of the Cyclopean Call.
Nadia Storm, Mother of Worms and Wyverns, captain of the Stygian
Darkness. Har, a dark charm known as Lady
Bad Luck, captain of the Black Cat and Prowler of the Seas.
Lydia the Drowner, AKA Lydia the Kraken, Captain of Green Smile,
a long ship decorated with the rotting skulls of dead foes.
Your secret Targaryen captain of Boricua Machateros from the
depths of Flea Bottom, Lord Ken of House Hammer is declared for
Queen Carrie Fire of the North who recovered Dark Sister from
beyond the Wall. Now unfortunately, Aryan is
clever enough to twist the situation a bit further to his
advantage and to avoid becoming the person that has done
something wrong and continue to position himself as the person
that is a champion of House Targaryen, as a person that was
wronged and making Dunk into a villain.
Now Baylor knows what's going on.
He perceives this, but as we said before, it's not so simple
as just calling out Aryans crimes.
There's all these sorts of meta Targaryen political reasons
going on that we've already addressed, but it really
intensifies here as the charges and the thought that this could
all be put behind them is pretty quickly thrown away.
There's really no chance of that.
This is going to be something public.
It's going to be exactly what Baylor didn't want, even more so
than he first realized, if we're throwing in a little dark humor
there. So Baylor also kind of says or
at least implies that, yeah, this is he was putting all his
hope in Aryan for this tournament.
And then look, what happens. Like this is extremely
embarrassing. It's kind of disastrous.
It's prickly. It's confusing.
Like, what do Baylor's comments, the way he handles it in
general, what does that tell us about what make our area and
what he's trying to balance with what should be otherwise kind of
basic justice? And I think, you know, again, I
think that Baylor is someone who really understands Makar in a
way that maybe no other character, at least leading up
to the Hedge night, understands Makar and, and, and in a way
that is still very empathetic toward Makar too, Unfortunately.
And I think Baylor may recognize this, although he's not going to
say it, especially to dunk. Maybe Baylor recognizes that
Aryan is getting some of this bad behavior from dad.
Makar is frustrated and embarrassed about how his sons
are acting. He not only hears obviously
about what Aryan does to Humphrey Harding and hears about
what's happening with Tansel and the puppeteers, but then he'd
also, he found Daron passed out drunk in and in with Egg nowhere
to be seen. And Daron's cover story is that
a robber knight came off with him.
So Maker is in a place that I think he's feeling very
frustrated and very embarrassed. He invested himself emotionally
and psychologically into Aryan as what he saw as the most
promising of his sons, and now he's seeing that spectacular
actually blow up in his face, and he's seen that set against
what looked like Valar's victories on the tourney field.
Now again, whether or not people were actually throwing them for
Valar, it doesn't matter because merely by not being a complete
sadist on the tourney field, Valar looks so much better than
Aryan. And so I think make our may have
gone to this tourney thinking this is the way for my sons to
show off. Now I'm going to look great with
my sons. Now my sons are going to get
their moment in the sun. And he's completely humiliated
in his mind that Daryl and Aryan are acting this way.
But what does he do? Well, he doesn't say, Oh well,
maybe I should look internally. Maybe I should do some
introspective thinking and see how I may have been to blame
here or what I could have done differently.
No. Like Aryan in this moment, Nakar
leans into those classes biases. He says, yeah, let's find
someone external to blame. Let's blame Dunk.
I'm going to believe him because that's a context that I can
believe. That's a way that this whole
story makes sense. That's a way that I can
externalize my embarrassment and my sense of failure.
It's not not really Aryan and Aaron's fault.
It's that darn no good hedge night.
He's the one that we need to punish here.
And we know that Makar is quick to judge and impatient.
And if he's impatient and this is a very trying situation, his
lack of patience would be particularly at a peak right now
because already a man who's running out of patience that has
little patience to begin with. Well, now Aryan knows this,
knows this about his father. He knows his father's a man of
low patience. He knows he's a father of the
judges quickly. So if he gets to him first,
tells his story 1st and really leans into the details, then
that's what Makar is going to go with.
And he'll stick to that because he's also stubborn.
And like you say, he's also prefers this version of events
to the one that embarrasses his side of the family even more,
something he cares very much about.
So it does work quite well. Aryan is really playing his
father like a fiddle here. I think Baylor realizes it, but
to call them him out would embarrass Makar even further.
So when Baylor suggests Dunk demand a trial by combat, Dunk
seizes on that. It seems like a good idea.
Aryan is very much ready for it. He pivots to the trial by 7.
Aryan was clearly ready for this.
Again, he's thought ahead of the in this scenario and it shows
that he's ready for what's going to happen.
And it also refers to before his willingness to pick on certain
people but not face others. So he didn't want to face the
laughing storm or Leo Longthorne in a quote UN quote fair fight.
He doesn't want to face Duncan a fair fight.
But if he can con his father at the Kingsguard into fighting at
his side, boom, he obviously is going to feel like he has the
upper hand. And I'm pretty sure that's what
he was going for all along. I think he saw put all the steps
together, knew he was going to ask for a trial by 7, knew that
was within his rights and knew that his father would have to
out of honor join. That's his father's predictable
that way, and I'm pretty sure he also saw the Kings guard part
coming. What do you think about that?
Is that like his father's? Predictable And I think the
Kings Guard is the next step there, but maybe not.
I mean, here's here's the interesting thing about the the
trial of seven, because this is the way that I, I kind of read
it and you know, I know that there's different
interpretations of this, but the way I read Aryan asking for a
trial of seven in the story, I actually don't know if Aryan
really thought that Dunk would even know what a trial by combat
is. Because again, in Aryan's mind,
Dunk doesn't even really a knight.
Dunk is some peasant that's calling himself a knight.
He's a boy, he's a servant, he's a small folk from nowhere.
So how does he know what a trial by combat is?
He shouldn't deserve a trial by combat.
That's for Knights like me. That's for aristocrats.
So when I mean to be fair, Dunk probably wouldn't have asked for
a trial by combat unless Baylor kind of gave him the idea or
planted that idea. But when he does, I think in
Aryan's mind it's OK. Dunk has asked for a trial by
combat. To your point, if I'm Aryan, I
don't want to face Dunk because he might kick my butt and I'm
I'm too cowardly to face him. So how do I get around this?
Ah, I know a trial of seven. Why?
Because a trial of seven you need 6 campions on east side.
Well I'm a Targaryen, obviously everyone will fight for me.
But who will fight for Dunk? Who will take up arms for the
teenage slum kid who's now calling himself a hedge knight
who just publicly attacked a royal Prince?
Who is going to take up arms against the royal family?
Any takers? Don't hear.
Anything's Aryan. And if Dunk can't find 6
champions, Dunk loses automatically, no ifs, ands or
buts. And so I think Aryan is thinking
this is a win win for me either. Dunk, I think, predictably can't
find any champions because who's going to stand with him?
But even if he does, even if he manages to scrounge up a bunch
of local yokels who will fight for him?
Come on, I'm not going to. I'm not scared of them.
I've got Kingsguard on my side, I've got Dad on my side, I've
got the rest of the royal family on my side.
We'll, we'll put them in their place.
So I think Arion was thinking. I don't really want to fight a
trial vice combat, but if I have to then I'm going to be sure to
win. Yeah, I like that analysis of
it. I think it makes sense that he
expected to win on a technicality, but had the fall
back of yeah, we'll win. Even if not, I think this fits
very well with his misperception of how people would react to
what he did to Humphrey Harding and then what he did to the
puppet show. He would expect people to not
stand against the dragon, to fear the Dragon's wrath, to fear
the royal wrath, all those things.
Like you said, they wouldn't stand up against him probably.
And that's somewhat typical bully thinking maybe a few steps
ahead of that. It's a little cleverer than
that. And I think there's a little bit
of maybe early life subtext here.
The the person that last had a trial of seven was Magor the
Cruel himself. And well, Aryan seems to have a
penchant for Magor the Cruel probably was a fanboy, like the
whole projection of strength. And you know, his version of
strength is hurting people and, and causing them to fear you by
inflicting extreme pain and violence and cruelty and all
that. He probably was like, yeah,
that's that's the way to do it. Megor really knew what was up.
So it makes sense that he would know this somewhat obscure thing
because he doesn't come off as like a scholar.
And once again, he's kind of young, so it's not like he would
have encountered it necessarily out in the wild because a lot of
people didn't even know it existed.
So I think that's pretty interesting as well.
If he thought ahead, like we said, then he knew what he would
have on his side. He probably didn't perceive
exactly what he would be going up against.
Now, there's a lot of analysis out there, understandably, of
Dunk getting his champions and how that all went down.
This is probably a surprise to Aryan.
The part that we have on our side is Aryan inducing Stefan
Fossaway. Now it sounds like Stephen
Fossaway brought this idea to Aryan.
He's like, look, I just got dunk on my side and I would screw him
over. I can do that for you.
And Aryan was all about that because as we have been saying,
he probably was trying to win on a technicality in the 1st place.
So stripping him of one of his thin hopes of champions on his
side would, especially one at the last minute, was a a sure
way to to make sure Aryan's plan went up.
Honestly, Aryan's plan is pretty good, it just didn't work out
but. I mean, that's the thing, Aryan.
Aryan is cruel and vain and arrogant and sadistic.
He's not stupid. Aryan is is not a stupid person.
And I think he's very well aware of where the class biases in
Westeros will work in his favor because they have for so many
years. I mean, Aryan is operating in a
world that is deeply classist, So, and I like the idea that
Stefan kind of came to Aryan with this idea because I could
see the appeal for Aryan of taking that away from dunk at
the last minute. Like just when you think that
you might actually have a shot, ha, ha, ha, I got you.
You don't even have the Champions you think you have
because they're actually on my side.
You know, this sort of really punching down at someone where
it's going to hurt the most. I think that would appeal to
Aryan. Speaking of hurting the most
too, it seems to go even better for Aryan because even though a
lot of his plans were thwarted, ultimately when the joust
begins, the trial begins, Aryan gets the upper hand severely.
It looks really bad for Dunk. So Aryan might have been
thinking, Dang it, I thought I would just win without even
fighting, but hey, I am fighting and I'm winning.
That's even better. You know, I actually get to beat
the crap out of this guy, which I'm sure he was enjoying himself
getting that Lance true. I'm sure he was very satisfied
stabbing Dunk with his Lance and then getting to whack him with
his Morning star. He was enjoying that.
He was taunting him. Yeah, he was.
He was having a grand old time. But that's what ultimately was
his problem, wasn't it? His grand old time became a
little too distracting. You mean how, how many times
it's it's such a trope and it's a trope for a reason.
What brings down the villain? The villain's hubris.
What Dunk realizes is that now as Sir Duncan the tall, I can't
be Aryan because Aryan's been trained for his entire life to
be had moral training throughout his entire life.
I should say he's had the best nights that you know, the Royals
can get. He's been doing this probably
every single day from the time he was old enough to sit a
horse. And I've barely, barely, barely
started on my night hood journey.
But what I can do is I can be Dunk of Flea Bottom.
Aryan doesn't know how to fight Dunk of Flea Bottom.
All of that aristocratic chivalric training, all of that
Marshall ability that make our so wanted Aryan to have, that
goes right out the window the minute that Dunk can use just
the sheer physical presence of himself to just absolutely be
Aryan. And I think you know what?
What Dunk notices is that when he finally gets Aryan's helm
open, he sees fear. There's fear in Aryan's eyes.
I think this is probably, if not the first time, 1 of very, very
very few times in his life that Aryan has ever feared, has ever
feared for his life. Dunk is within his rights in
this moment to kill Aryan. He is perfectly legally capable
of killing Aryan in a trial by combat.
This is not a modified trial by combat to first blood or just
until the other person surrenders.
No no no, it's until surrender or death.
If he wants to kill Aryan, he can, and Aryan knows this.
And even if Aryan doesn't admit it in this moment, this is
entirely his fault. He is almost about to be killed
by Dunk, and it is entirely his doing.
If he had never mocked and harassed Dunk, if he had never
attacked Hansel, if he had never demanded this trial of seven,
this would never have happened. But now he is in a position that
he is having this giant of a young head knight absolutely
beating him to the point that he might kill him.
And the only thing that stops Dunk's hand is Dunk's desire to
be, as he puts it, nightly. The one thing Aryan absolutely
couldn't do is the only thing that saves Aryan's life in this
moment. It's true, Aryan is probably
still kind of baffled by it afterwards.
And just like he didn't understand people standing up
for commoners, whether it was Dunk or or Egg himself, he
didn't really get necessarily or expect to be given mercy here.
He's probably legitimately surprised.
Yet he still couldn't help, you know, trying to get into cheap
shot and, you know, getting around his fate there, even
though that probably risked him having his stay of execution by
dunk reversed there. You know, he's like, look, I
could have, I was letting you live and then you go and try to
make a dive for your maze. I should have killed you for
that, but I'm still going to just drag you through the mud
and embarrass you. So there's no doubt that Stephen
Fossaway didn't get his reward there cuz Aryan didn't win.
I'm not sure Aryan could have given him that reward even if he
had one. That's a whole side little
trivia topic, whether that could have been done.
Aryan certainly can't just make Lords.
Even Makar can't do that. Well, maybe when Makar is king,
well, definitely when he's king he could do that.
But that was, you know, years from now, certainly wouldn't
have seen. That come imagine imagine Stefan
Fosway trying to show up to Makar's doorstep in the
metaphorical doorstep in the aftermath of this trial of seven
and going up to him and saying, you know, your grace, your son
kind of sort of promised that he would give me a lordship and no,
he didn't win. But you think you still maybe
want. I mean, it's that I hope if
Stephan had a single brain cell, he got out of there as quickly
as he possibly could because I would absolutely not want to be
Stephan Foss away answering to make our in the aftermath of
that trial. He'd say something a lot more
harsh than not. Bloody likely, like he said, to
dunk there. Yeah.
And of course, Aryan had other problems.
The immediate issue would be his pride, which would probably be a
bigger pain than his physical problems, but those would have
plagued him as well. He probably had a concussion and
some other wounds, but he was going to have other issues.
He may have been doing some of his healing on the road, so to
speak, and not because he wanted to be on the road.
Let's talk about Aryan in exile. He certainly didn't plan on this
being the end result of his dealings and doings at Ashford
make our ordered him into to go to lease rather.
Why lease though, of all places? That seems kind of odd.
Like on the outside, it's like, well, that's like a party spot.
It seems like a vacation place. This is doesn't really seem like
a punishment, but it's a different perspective when
you're talking about a royal and well, let's let's talk about
this. What do you think?
A couple things going on here, I think #1 Makar may have thought
that Lease would be the most distracting, especially
precisely to your plate, because Lease is famous for its pleasure
houses. So maybe Makar is thinking that
Aryan, well, Aryan is clearly extremely vain.
He's clearly extremely egotistical.
So why don't we send him to a place that can just feed that?
Let's just send him to a place that's going to give him all of
these petty distractions, for lack of a better term.
And that way we keep him out of more nefarious mischief, if we
can put it that way. You know, he's not going to be
looking around to cause more serious trouble if he's spending
all his time in the pleasure houses of lease.
But I think Makers also may be thinking, there's only so many
places that I can send Aryan. And there's certainly places I
can't send him like Tie Rush, because that's where the Black
Fire Court in exile is. So I think Maker was thinking, I
need to really kind of make sure that Aryan stays away from.
And we don't know, you know, who may have been allies in the Free
Cities with Tie Rush at this point or what sort of
connections Tie Rush had. But Maker may have been
thinking, I don't want to kind of get in the crosshairs,
political crosshairs, so to speak, of the black fires if I'm
sending Aryan, certainly to tie rush, but even anywhere that
might have ties to tie rush, no pun intended.
At this point. It's also possible that Makar
was thinking that that lease would be a way for him to sort
of keep an eye without keeping an eye on Aryan because sheer
sea stars family is is from lease.
Her mother was Lysine noblewoman Sarini.
And I'm going to assume that they probably still had
relatives there. I don't know what connections
Shira may have had to her like any side of the family, but it's
possible that make our kind of quietly talked to Shira and
said, Hey, Shira, can you just maybe you know, just send a send
a message to to your folks in lease.
Just keep one eye on Aaron. Just make sure he doesn't get
into too much trouble. I don't really care if he's
involved in the pleasure houses. Just make sure he's not doing
anything that's actually a problem.
It kind of, you know, gently, sort of keep an eye on him.
And then it's also possible, you know, we talked about make ours
embarrassment before, clearly make ours doing this as a
punishment for Aryan. He's trying to send him abroad.
So maybe he's sending Aryan to lease as we've seen him as
saying, you know what, You've been so bad.
You have so disgraced yourself in the traditional Marshall ways
of Westeros, you're no good for anything except pleasure houses,
so you might as well just waste your time there because you're
certainly not worth anything here.
That's a good way to think about it, and we have to put ourselves
in make our shoes as to what he would be thinking about, what
type of punishment he would want to inflict and what Aryan would
consider a punishment and make our maybe being in denial
somewhat about what kind of person Aryan was.
He would still have an idea and he would still be severe.
We know that Makar tends to be harsh and severe, so he must
have thought this was quite a punishment, even if from some
angles it seems like less of such.
We get a brief sense of Aryan's exile from George himself.
There was a fan named S Andrews who asked back in the day if
Duncan fathered a family and is that family existent and why
haven't we seen Amon and whether Danny has kin in lease because
of Aryan Bright Fire's exile? George RR Martin lastly, well
Aryan Bright Fire did not stay in lease all his life, only a
few years. He may have fathered a few
bastards there, which would mean Danny has relatives of a sort in
Lease, but they would be very distant relatives from the wrong
side of the blanket. It's a place full of history and
of course it has ties to Old Valyria, including by blood
ancestry. So of course this opens up a lot
of doors, a lot of fan theories, a lot of fun ideas, a lot of
different rabbit holes to go down.
One in particular that I want to draw our attention to is that
Yandel will later say that Aryan was a dabbler in the Black arts.
Now sort of have a head cannon that this began during this time
and lease where there's more connection to that sort of thing
where he had less to do. I don't think his father would
have approved of that necessarily.
And it also a little bit fits with your Shira C Star's family
thing because she was involved in magic.
So maybe if they were connected more directly, then they got him
started on that. Who knows?
There's a lot of different possibilities, but I definitely
think it fits that he got started here.
What do you think of that? No, I absolutely agree.
I think that to your point, Aryan is probably bored.
There is, you know, he could spend the time in pleasure
houses, but there's not much for him to do in terms of what he
was doing in Westeros, torturing his family and competing in
tournaments, torturing the people in the tournaments.
So if Aryan is looking for something to do, this is known.
And for its alchemists who are specializing in these rare and
deadly poisons. And we know because Egg reports
on it that Sierra supposedly uses Black arts.
Her Lyzine mother supposedly used sorceries and was reported
to be a a sorceress. And even today, according to the
Royal Bison Fire, the Lyzenia are still strangely obsessed
with blood purities. Don't really like to emphasize
that they are the blood of Old Valyria.
Emphasis on blood. So I think that if Aaron is
bored and he's looking for something to do beyond the
pleasure houses of lease and he can't go anywhere else, maybe he
does start to dabble. Maybe he does start to think,
ah, this is this is a city that gets me.
This is a city that appreciates A Targaryen, that appreciates
how exalted we are because of our Targaryen blood.
I'd, I'd like to know more about that.
I'd like to get on the same page, so to speak with with you,
Lazeni. More certain is that this is the
period where he had his stint in the second son, so we'd have to
think right? Oh, no, absolutely.
I mean, it's pretty, I don't know if I wouldn't say typical,
but certainly not uncommon for aristocratic Westerosi,
especially those who don't have much else to do to join or even
form sell sword companies in in Essos, we see this with Oscar
Tolley with the Storm Breakers. We see this with House Hornwood
and Tiffany Snow with the Wolfpack in the aftermath of the
dance. They've got nothing to do.
The dance is over, they've got no war to fight, and they're not
the leaders of their houses. So what do you do?
Well, you go try and make a fortune across the Narrow Sea
with the one thing you're good at, which is war.
And we see it with Uber Martel. He goes into exile after he
fights the duel with Lord Ironwood and probably poisons
him. And then he joins.
Also the Second Sons. We have Jorah and Tyrion, who
are now joining the Second Sons. We see John Connington, he goes
into exile after that on the Bells.
He eventually joins the Golden Company.
So I think having this sort of short term career, for lack of
better term, as a sell sword may have appealed to Aryan.
We talked about he was trained probably from a very early age
in Marshall skills, particularly under the eye of Makar.
So Aaron's probably decent with a sword and a Lance, probably
decent in terms of these Marshall skills.
So as someone who certainly in Aryan's mind likes to seek out
bloodshed and pain, well, a career was a second son is
probably going to appeal to him like that.
Oh, you get. You mean that I get paid to go
fight in war and go be violent against your enemies?
Great. Fantastic.
Where do I sign up? You know, he's not the money
part probably doesn't matter to him.
He's a Prince. He's in exile, deliberately so.
I'm sure he's probably getting some kind of stipend or
allowance from the crown or from his father.
But it's still it's still an old and distinguished company.
The second son certainly in this era where the golden Company
doesn't exist. So it may have had a sort of pen
ass or an appeal to to Aryan to say, well if I've got nothing
better to do, all I've got are pleasure houses at least, I
might as well go use these martial skills that I have and
go fight in war and go shed some blood.
Yeah. And it's kind of thing that he
could do his worst, so to speak, and maybe get away with it in an
environment like that. And I think he would see the
appeal to be kind of obvious from that perspective.
But it would be a little interesting when the Golden
Company was founded, which is only three years after Ashford.
So you could imagine, well, you've got a Targaryen.
He's on the opposite side of the Black Fires.
He wasn't in the first Blackfyre Rebellion, but he's make our
son. So.
Oh, this is a little tricky, isn't it?
What do we think about the scenario of him still being in
exile when the Golden Company was formed?
What do we think the. I mean.
That all means fast. It's, it's a fascinating
situation that we don't have details about, but I, I
certainly love speculating about because Aryan is really on the
front lines. And I mean that in the full
sense of the term when the Golden Company is being formed.
No, he's not there for the forming of the Golden Company
for obvious reasons, but he's still very much in a place where
that would have been current event news.
People would have been talking about this, especially because
Bittersteel had been in the Second Sons.
So even if they didn't serve together, and I don't know if
they overlapped or not, it's very possible that Aryan was
serving alongside people who knew Bittersteel directly, who
had served with him, who could tell very recent anecdotes about
Bittersteel. And so now to hear that
Bittersteel is forming his own sell sword company expressly for
the purpose of sitting a black fire on the Iron Throne, that's
going to be very intriguing news to someone like Aryan.
Absolutely. I totally agree with that.
I really hope we get more clarity on that situation
because it seems like it could be very interesting.
A lot of different potential there.
But overall George does say Aryan is laying the lease for a
few years. So what do we know and what's
the extent of that? And what does it mean in terms
of a few years? What does that mean in terms of
the timeline of his return and all that?
We hear about Aryan still being in lease.
According to Egg in the Sworn Sword, Dong thinks that Aryan is
still in exile in the Mystery Night, so he's definitely still
there within about two to three years after the events of the
Hedge Night. But we do know that Aryan
obviously comes back before the 3rd Blackfyre Rebellion, which
happens in 219. In my mind, I think Aryan
probably came back round about maybe the mid to 10s, that that
would be kind of a timeline that makes sense.
It's possible. And this may have even been the
official reason or the stated reason that Aryan returned
because his uncle Regal died in 215.
So maybe by 2:15, it's been around about six years since the
attorney of Ashford make or may have thought, all right,
Marion's learned his lesson. He's gotten the wildness out.
So make our things. Now we've got this major event
happening in the dynasty where my brother is dead, another
dynast is dead. We should probably just bring
Aryan home, not just for the funeral, but to stay that this
is our excuse of, OK, you can now come home.
But I think, and this isn't mutually exclusive, I think the
reason or one of the reasons that Aryan came home is
specifically because the Golden Company was being formed and was
and was coming up. Because almost, or I should say,
very soon after the Golden Company is formed, that's it
takes part in the sack of cohort.
That's in the very clear message not just to the rest of the free
companies and Essos, but also to the Iron Throne.
The black fires are here. Bitter steel is saying we're not
scattered to the four winds. We're not just going to die
alone and penniless. An exile.
No, no, no, we are active, we are organized.
We've got an army and a very well trained army.
We are ready to take back the Iron Throne.
Certainly from a military perspective.
And if Aryan is abroad serving as just sort of a common cell
sword with the second sons, Makar and the Crown generally
may have been thinking, oh, this is this is a dangerous situation
that we didn't consider when we sent him into exile because the
Golden Company didn't exist. Because all we need is the
second sons to go up against the Golden Company and they find out
Aryan is here and they take him as a hostage.
We we don't need the political fallout of that.
We need to just bring him home and out of that danger.
And you know, after the the White Wall tourney in 212, this
may have seemed especially problematic because the crown
literally has the would be blackfire pretender Damon the
younger imprisoned. So how terrible would it be for
the Targaryens if all of a sudden they hear news that
bitter steel has imprisoned the King's nephew and is saying, oh,
we'll trade him back to you. If we could have Damon the
younger back. No, no, no, no, we don't.
We don't want to hear about that situation.
So I think that make our may have just thought and you know,
the crown generally may have thought, you know what?
We don't really need Aryan abroad in a era that is, or in
an area and with a rising golden company.
Let's just bring him home and let's avoid that entirely.
I agree, I think that's a very likely scenario.
It certainly would have been a huge consideration, unless the
timeline is a bit different than we think now.
Given Aryan's first appearance involves him asking for a pretty
wench, it's not unlikely he fathered children at some point.
Maybe he was sterile. That would of course eliminate
that, but it's hard to ignore. Giving Targaryen blood seems to
matter sometimes, or often, but it's probably too many
generations back to be too significant, though I don't
know. What do we think about that?
In my mind, I'm not saying it it it couldn't be a thing.
I'm not saying that it's absolutely, positively,
definitely not a thing. But I think Jorge Martin's own
words are probably the most significant to me here when he's
asked directly, you know, about Aryan, having children, leaves,
his attitude is what I would call dismissive.
He's like, yeah, I mean, maybe, sure, but it's all really
matter. So if that's his attitude,
answering the question, I feel like he would be a little keep
is the wrong word. But something along those lines
to say ha, ha, ha. Got you.
Actually, they mattered completely, and they were
critical to the end game of A Song of Ice and Fire I.
Is it possible that Aryan Father Children leaves?
Sure. Do I think that we're
realistically going to hear about them?
Probably not. Yeah, I wouldn't think they're
important enough. They haven't been mentioned in A
Song of Ice and Fire that there's a the so-called bright
fire theory which claims Young Griff is of dual Aryan bright
flame and Damon Blackfyre origin or other such variations.
There's other flavors of this theory.
They're not all that direct. They're certainly part of his
legacy within the fandom. Whether or not there's anything
to come from them in the story, we'll have to wait and see.
There's discussions of them both on this podcast and elsewhere
the fandom, but we don't have time to get into them here.
But they certainly exist, and that's a part of Aryan Story.
Return to Westeros. He came back at least before
219. We had several ideas of when
that might have been, but it's definitely before. 219 brings up
a series of questions related to the deaths of his kin, which
changed the succession. Was he back in time to see his
Uncle Rhaegal choked to death in a lamprey pie?
Was he there? Or did he hear about more
directly a Laura dying at the hands of a Laura?
Was he at the masked ball where the rat, the hawk and the pig
attacked a Laura? There's a lot of things that
happened in the family during this time that may or may not
have been something he witnessed.
Certainly would have been affected.
Affected him though because the Targaryen dynasty, the
succession was moving around a lot.
Aryan had been the second son of a fourth son.
By the latter half of King Aries's reign.
He was way higher in the line of succession.
Only his own father and elder brother remained as male heirs
ahead of him. After the combined events that
we just listed, plus the Great Spring Sickness, it's started to
become not so unlikely that Aryan might inherit, which would
really not just change his outlook personally, but the
realms. Not in a very good way.
On top of all this though, Aryan would have been aware of, and
maybe in ways that other people weren't, about the Black Fire
threat. He could have seen things up
close and personal, as we alluded to in those years he was
in exile, so the insurance and outs of that might have appeared
different to him, I guess. Is it fair to say that way?
What do we think about this setup for what's to come later
in terms of the succession and all these big changes in the
family? I think I tend to agree.
I mean, this is a decade that is very, very important for Aryan
in terms of his dynastic future, because when he leaves Westeros,
yes, Baylor has just died, but fundamentally, his role really
hasn't changed as a dynast within House Targaryen.
No one thinks at the end of the tourney of Ashford that Aryan is
going to be king someday. But when he's coming back, and
as this decade is continuing, now all of a sudden you've got
not just Baylor dead, but also Valar Mataris are dead, and King
Aaron the Second is dead. And now Regal is dead, and now a
Laura is dead, and now a Laura is dying at some point, and he's
moving up and up and up and up and up.
Suddenly it doesn't seem so unlikely that he may be in line
for the throne, that he may not be so far from the throne as as
he once thought. And at the same time he was on
the front lines in Essos. He would almost certainly have
heard about the Golden Company forming with this intent to see
a black fire on the Iron Throne. So it's this real sense of, on
the one hand, I'm moving up and up and up and up and up to
potentially be king someday. And yet if the black fires
invade, it's gone. I'm dead physically and and
dynastically. So I think Aryan is perhaps even
more rooted in this idea of I can't let the black fires take
over. I have to really respond to them
because now I have, I have stakes in this.
I really couldn't become king. The third Black Fire Rebellion
In 219 AC, Hagon, Blackfyre and Bitter Steel launched the third
Blackfyre Rebellion. They invaded Westeros, they had
the Golden Company, they had allies.
While Aries was still king, he was certainly no warrior, and it
was Prince Makar who led the Westerosi response.
Aryan fought with his father, not with his father alongside
his father, we should say. He didn't turn traitor suddenly
there. So we don't know a lot about the
third Black Fire Rebellion. There's some crucial details,
though, that we can work around, and there's some things that
really seem to include Aryan, or at least he's a big candidate to
be involved in. Let's specifically first the war
itself. What do we know about that?
He's specifically name dropped, isn't he?
He is, and it's unfortunate for us as readers that Gergel Martin
VA Yandel pulls the trick of you know what?
We know so much about this war that we don't even have to tell
the story because we all already know the story, clearly saving
the story for later. But I think what is very
intriguing in The World of Ice and Fire is that Yandel
specifically describes this war by citing the leadership of
Makar, the actions of Aryan Bright Flame, and the courage of
Makar's youngest son. No, actions on its own doesn't
have a negative or positive connotation.
You can use it in in any way to just describe what someone is
doing. But when you put actions in
between courage and leadership, which both have positive
connotations, I think the clear implication is that the actions
were something negative. This is not the leadership of
Aryan. This is not the bravery of Aryan
or the courage of Aryan. It's not the valor of Aryan,
this is the actions of Aryan. This is something that is not
well remembered, I think, in the history of Westeros.
Absolutely agree with that interpretation.
It's very telling of use of specific words there.
And I think that I mean by the same logic that we assume Aryan
was acting out some of his worst impulses within the context of a
sell sort company. I assume that in war, especially
against a hated foe, a. Threat that could overthrow his
entire family. He would do his worst, and those
are likely to be the sort of actions we're talking about.
We also know how the war ended somewhat.
Not what led to it ending, but some details about the immediate
aftermath. We have a suspicion there as
well, don't we? Maybe an even darker suspicion,
at least in terms of the important players in place here.
Exactly, and I think I don't think it's coincidental that
just after Yandel mentions the actions of Aryan Bright Flame,
he also says that Hagon Blackfyre was killed after
battle slaying treacherously after he had given up his sword.
Obviously Hagon is only going to surrender his sword to a leader
on the other side on the Targaryen loyalist side.
So if we're putting together Aryan committed actions that are
not presumably well remembered in the history of Westeros, and
also Hagen surrendered presumably to the Targaryens and
then was slain treacherously, I don't think it's a large leap of
logic to suggest it was Aryan who slayed Hagen treacherously
after he had given up his sword. Why?
Because this is what we see Aryan do.
Aryan consistently bypasses rules or laws or conventions in
the name of his own cruelty. Aryan consistently kicks people
while they're down. Aryan hurts people and looks to
hurt people. And Aryan is very much someone
who believes in his own ego, believes in his own arrogance,
believes in his own place in the universe.
If he's confronted with the would be Black Fire King who's
claiming the Iron Throne. I don't think it's a large
people logic at all to think that Aryan reacted very
violently, very cruelly, and killed him after he surrendered.
And just like we saw, he has a rather maybe it wasn't so fully
formed at Ashford. He has a sense of what he can
get away with. He was pretty good at playing
his father, not so good at playing the crowd at Ashford and
the nobles there. But in terms of knowing what he
can get away with here, I mean, there's enough missing details
here that we can't be sure that whoever did this was was
unpunished. But if it was Aryan, we can be
pretty sure there would have been very little punishment.
I don't think that it's unlikely at all.
So this seems like our top scenario for this, But it
doesn't stop here. There wasn't just his potential
actions. There's his suggestions, which
push some of these ideas even further into the territory of
likelihood, because they're all very consistent.
Now let's talk about that. What did he have to say about,
for example, Bittersteel? Well, Yandel mentions that after
Bittersteel, so Bittersteel is captured.
He's not sleeping treacherously after he gives up his sword,
he's captured alive. He's taken to the Red Keeping
chains. Bloodraven and Aryan both think
that Bittersteel should be put to death now.
I mean, not really surprising for Bloodraven.
There's absolutely no love lost between him and Bittersteel.
And I don't think it's particularly surprising that
Aryan would be against Bitter Steel too, because the same
reasons that Aryan that might have made Aryan want to kill
Hagen treacherously on battlefield made him want to see
Bitter Steel dead. Bitter Steel had tried to make
the dragon lose, and the dragon obviously can't lose in Bitter
in Aryan's mind. So Aryan has to punish him, has
to show no, no, no. You think that you can topple
our dynasty? You think you can topple my
place in the succession? I'm going to make sure you never
try that again by calling for your execution.
You know, the comparison here, I think, is maybe someone like a
Roose Bolton after the battle was tried and Roose Bolton says
that Barris and Selmy should be put to death.
Now, Roose is an evil person who also likes cruelty and pain.
But I think that ruse in that in addition to liking cruelty and
pain, was also thinking Barristan fought for the
Targaryens. Barristan was loyal to the
Targaryens. Barristan should die for that
loyalty. Yeah, and you can't count on him
to switch sides. You wouldn't be able to from
Ruse's point of view anyway. You wouldn't be able to count on
him on your side of that turns out to be wrong mostly, but you
can kind of see where he's coming from, especially given
who he is. Is it interesting?
What if, if Aryan and Blood Raven's advice had been taken,
would the Black Fire cause had been so decapitated, quite
literally, that they wouldn't have been able to continue?
Is it possible that Damon the Third's fourth Black Fire
rebellion wouldn't have happened at all?
Well, it wasn't exactly very effective, so maybe it's a moot
point, but it's certainly curiosity.
I wonder what would have happened.
It would have just been different leadership entirely,
and with someone other than bitter steel in place, it's
really hard to predict what would have happened there.
Agreed, I think that bitter steel is is crucial to the
leadership of the of the Black Fire cause in the aftermath of
the first Black Fire rebellion. But the last Black fire
rebellion in the War of the 9 Penny Kings happens long after
he's dead. So there's a certain extent to
which this is a self perpetuating machine, so to
speak, after after he dies. Later life and death.
It's unclear what Aryan was doing for most of Makar's reign.
Makar's reign was difficult. He did at least fight and defeat
Dagan Greyjoy. That might have been during
Aries reign, it might have been during his own reign, It might
have been spanning both because Dagan was quite a problem.
Do we think Aryan likely fought against the Ironborn in this
campaign? I think that this was clearly a
very important campaign because this is something that's still
remembered among the Ironborn today, that they couldn't stand
up to the dragon. So I think it's possible if
this, as long as it happened after Aryan returned from exile,
which I'm not entirely sure of the timeline on that, but as
long as it did, I think it's possible that he did.
We don't hear about it, but I expect that we'll hear more
details on that in the future Duncan Egg story.
Yeah, I agree. I think so too.
That's something we can speculate about and think it's
likely. But specific details, Yeah,
There's nothing we can get into there.
Not yet, anyway. Makar took the throne in 221
after the death of Aries. There seems to have been no foul
play, at least. Nothing straightforward, nothing
obvious. And, you know, Makar didn't want
to be king. He didn't love it.
He saw it as some sort of a punishment.
He still punished himself for the death of Baylor.
You certainly kind of wonder what Aryan thought of that,
whether he thought his father was wasting his time, whether he
just didn't understand that sort of grief.
Him being sort of a sociopath like that might not understand
holding on to that sort of thing.
And just the idea of grief and and responsibility over that
long period of time just seems kind of alien to someone like
Aryan. But there would have been a lot
of changes in the family and in his status.
And we can speculate at least a little bit on what he thought of
these changes in his family. Low the chance of him ever
becoming king, even to him, with this kind of outlook he might
have had, would have seen pretty unlikely.
But now, not so much. Huh.
It's interesting to think how Aryan saw himself as a Dinos and
a potential heir. In this era of make ours reign,
because now once again there's only one branch of House
Targaryen and there's a few sons within it.
You've got there on who should be the heir because he's the
eldest, but his only child is a simple minded girl.
So it's probably unlikely, certainly to Aryan and probably
to most of Westeros, the idea that Viella will ever become
queen someday, which would theoretically, it's certainly in
Aryan's mind, leave him Aryan as the next in line.
But then he's also got youngest brother Egg, and he's married to
Beth Blackwood, and he's got children of his own.
And so, you know, is Aryan thinking, how's this all going
to come out? And how is this all working out,
especially? And we don't really get a sense
of this in terms of make ours feelings about all of this, you
know, is make our favoring Daron or Aryan or Egg is he have
thoughts about all of this? How is this all going to shake
out once dad dies? Who's going to become king next?
Now Makar's reign is, as we've said a few times from a
different context, still very. Lacking in details, but there
clearly were a lot of troubles. There were a lot of troubles
leading up to it and a lot of troubles during it.
Let's talk about how those directly impacted Aryan, how he
might have seen it, for example, just mixing in all the all the
deaths within the family and the remainder of the black fire
threat. What about the rest of the
succession in terms of what the general body of Westeros
thought? I mean, people could not have
been excited about who the King and the Hand were and who his
heirs were. This is just a tough time,
right? It is.
I mean, we don't get a huge sense of and it's, it's
something that I still find confusing.
As to what the relationship was between Makar and Bloodraven at
this point, because they seem to be pretty antagonistic in the
tales of Duncan Egg and then we hear about them being Hands.
So what happened? I don't really understand that.
There's clearly something that needs to be filled in.
But even no matter what role Blood Raven was doing at this
point, even to have him as part of the government was already
after the mess that was Eris's reign.
I can't imagine there was a lot of popularity there and, you
know, make our I do think that there are admirable qualities to
make our certainly, I don't think that he's just a moron or
a bruge or just prickly and proud.
I do think that he was, you know, a brave and a stand up
commander, but he's certainly not someone who's going to be
winning a lot of popularity contests.
I don't think this is someone who I think even with all of the
character changes that I think he does go through, I think is
still very much a man in the Stannis model, a man who is
prickly, a man who is duty down, a man who is respected but maybe
not particularly loved. And on top of that, they car has
the bad luck that there's some some bad environmental
situations that are happening. So he's got, yes, there is a
long summer, that's great, but there's also great plague in all
in Old Town. And that's a terrible disease to
go through. And there's not just the effects
of the disease itself, but also the rioting that happens
afterward. And that's something that Makar
has to deal with. And oh, by the way, on top of
all of that, they're still the black fires.
They are still out there. They still want to invade
Westeros and really don't invade during Makar's reign.
But I'm very much of the opinion that the peak uprising that
Makar dies in, if not a formal black fire rebellion, was
something akin to a black fire rebellion, Maybe something of
kind of like what Oberyn tried in the aftermath of Robert's
Rebellion. Sort of a like, hey, black
fires, we're here and we're ready to support you just as
soon as you want to come back. And so they car is dealing with
all of this. And although we don't have a ton
of details, I think this is a tough era and not one that he
needs a particularly problematic son like Aryan on top of.
Yeah, it it just nothing was aligned well for him.
There was a number of factors that just.
Made it difficult for Makar. It was probably a very tough
decade all around. Now it's it's weird to think
about the succession too, because yes, Darren didn't have
a son, Aryan didn't have children, Egg did.
But he was unpopular and like it's it's hard to imagine that
Was Egg really less popular than Aryan?
Like that's hard to imagine, but it's definitely possible 'cause
maybe some Lords just looked past a lot of Aryan's worst
qualities. They saw him as a hardliner
against the black fires. They saw him as maybe he had
some did some things during Makar's reign that redeemed him,
at least partially. I doubt fully, but partially in
the eyes of some of the nobility, he may have acted out
a bit because his father was unpopular and he may have taken
offense to that, especially if he, if it rubbed off on him.
He wanted to remind people of who they were, right?
Like the same kind of business he had when he was younger.
But the point is that, you know, these the nobility didn't like
any of these people. They they didn't really like
Makar, they didn't really like Blood Raven, they didn't like
Deron, they didn't like Aryan, and they didn't like Egg.
Now we can discuss in greater detail why they didn't like some
of these others, but it's most of it's pretty straightforward.
And for Aryan, it's also very straightforward.
But in his case, perhaps more uniquely than all of the rest,
he may have been getting madder. His madness was that the most
certain to have been present out of this group, depending on how
you frame Darren's dreams, that is.
But he didn't seem to inflict that on other people as often or
as much. So certainly not as openly
violent. Put it that.
Yeah, that's a good way to put it.
So that's a huge question. That we can't answer, but that
I'm very. Curious about is how how a his
encroaching madness manifested and how that in turn impacted
Makar's reign in terms of the succession and people thinking
this guy might end up on the throne.
Like Yikes Yikes Yikes. Is this another egg on the
unworthy? Is this what is, you know, what
are we dealing with here? Can he still have been fooling
his father this deep into it? Can it?
Did his father really still not know what kind of person was he?
Was he still that dug in on his impression of his son over time?
Like, how could he have hidden who he was?
I don't know. Is this just more scrutiny on
him? The Kingsguard would be around
him more often. The higher up in the line of
succession you are, the more people are going to be watching
you. So maybe he got do you think
maybe he's got better at hiding who he was?
Or maybe this just was a constant problem?
What's your what's your thoughts here?
It's very it's very difficult to perceive.
It is. And I and I do think we'll get a
lot more of this in future. Duncan egg tails I tend to head.
Cannon, admittedly not with a ton of evidence, but it's just
what feels right to me narratively.
I tend to head cannon that as make our sons got older and as
eventually as Maker became king, make our began to appreciate Egg
more of his sons because Egg is the one who is the war hero in
the third Black Fire rebellion, who does have the stable
dynastic marriage, who is there and is certainly certainly among
them the most capable of his sons.
So I think I had cannon that it make our appreciated Egg the
most in a way. Maybe he hadn't when Egg was a
young boy, but I don't think it's the case that Aryan was
fooling his father up until Aryan's death.
I think Makar would have had to be the biggest idiot in the
entirety of Westeros to to believe that Aryan was still
just a cool guy and everybody was still cool.
What was just lying about him. I think the way that I see it,
and again, not a lot of evidence, but this is what feels
right to me, is that Makar was someone who distrusted Aryan,
saw Aryan for what he was, but didn't have a better answer.
Because to your point, what do you do when all the options are
bad? You know, he's got his oldest
son who presumably dies at some point between the two 20s, early
two 30s, and then he's got Aryan, and then he's got a well,
yeah, it might make sense to say, oh, egg is the most
capable, therefore egg should be king.
But at the same time, make our nose, make ours a
traditionalist. How are you going to promote the
fourth son above the second? Yo, who's going to stand for
that? Is Aryan going to stand for
that? So maybe it make ours mind, it's
less of a question of, oh, I'm just an idiot who believes that
Aryan's a cool guy, and more of a question of I don't trust
Aryan. I know he's a monster, but maybe
I can sort of work around this. Maybe I don't necessarily trust
Aryan, but I can trust Egg to take care of Aryan's son.
Maybe that maybe that's the solution is I come up with
someone that I can give the throne to kind of bypassing
Aryan but still going through his mind, and then I can trust
Egg to be a nice region for him. I could see that.
Something like that. Yeah, absolutely.
Now the outlook would have changed.
At least a little, maybe. A lot of the problem is we don't
know when this happened, but Aryan married his cousin Day
Nora. That may have given some people
a worse outlook, thinking this may be more establishes him and
his descendants, which might be a problem like, well, maybe we
don't want descendants of Aryan on the throne.
So Daenora, real quick, some facts about her and then a a
couple questions. Daenora, she was the youngest
daughter and youngest child of Prince Regal.
So that's of course Makar's older brother.
So this is his niece and that therefore it's Aryan's cousin,
his first cousin. So after the accidental death of
Prince Alor and the suicide of Alora de Nora was the only
descendant left of Regal, basically the only girl
Targaryen that was around in this era that was even close to
marriageable for Aryan. And they weren't really that
close in age. So unlike both of her siblings,
Daenera was never really considered the heiress, which,
you know, we, we kind of know why they think along those
lines. He was also very young.
She wasn't born until at least 212, maybe 216.
So that throws a bit of a mystery into the timing here,
but but it might also explain part of why she was never
considered an heir. But this marriage might also be
a way to address that. Well, maybe some people would
consider her an heir, and we don't want that to become a
problem. So nip that in the bud.
Have two branches of the family reunite.
Yeah, the problem is who she's being united with.
And while it's possible this child came later, we're guessing
this marriage was in the late two 20s.
Or I'm sorry, I should have said we're guessing this marriage
could have been early, but it's more likely it came later, like
late two 20s or early two 30s. Aryan died in 232.
Their child was born in 232. So it feels like a lot of this
could have happened close together.
Now, you know, why do we think this marriage happened at all?
I think there's a couple things and not mutually exclusive any
of these. One of them you.
You know you, you. Point out that de Nora was the
youngest child of Regal and there was some question as to
whether or not a Laura, her older sister, was the heiress of
Uncle Heiress at the end of his reign before obviously a a
Laura's death. But Makar became king, obviously
bypassing certainly de Nora maybe also a Laura as well.
So maybe this was sort of part of that pact.
In other words, making an agreement with maybe Riggles,
widow Alice, Aaron, maybe sort of coming up with an idea with
Bloodraven to say we're going to make sure that Daenora doesn't
become queen so I can become king.
But you know what? Let's, let's marry Daenora into
the family once she does. That way, we're still
acknowledging that she has this these diagnostic credentials.
We're not acknowledging her as queen, but we're saying that
she's marrying still into the ruling branch of the family.
It's possible that it's also possible that nobody else wanted
to marry Aryan. You know, Aryan is so known for
having this horrible reputation, this cruel and violent and
arrogant reputation. It's possible that just nobody
wanted to marry Aryan and a member of the family was the
only one who was going to do it because she's just also a
Targaryen. So not not really another
option. And then it it's also possible
that Makar this is what I I was mentioning a little bit before
Makar felt like he was a bit out of options and was just trying
to make something work for the succession.
I I do think that Darrell near on the drunken died sometime the
mid to late two 20s, maybe very early two 30s.
And I think once he did die, make our it's got a problem on
his hands because now he's got no eldest son and he only has a
simple minded daughter from him. Well, no one's going to support
bail his claim to the throne. So what do I do about the
succession? If make ours thinking?
I don't really love the idea of leaving the throne to Aryan, but
he is now my oldest son. What do I do about that?
Well, maybe the solution is I make a new heir is I marry him
to his cousin. She's a Targaryen, but she's
still a first cousin, so it's not completely incestuous in the
minds of the Faith of the 7th. They produce a son.
I can make that grandson my heir.
Aryan doesn't have to be king, but I'm still acknowledging that
it's through his bloodline that this that my my line will
continue. Maybe that sort of make our
trying to come up with a solution and then it's just also
possible that Aryan said no, I'm a Targaryen, so I can only marry
a Targaryen. And if I have no sisters and we
know that both of the sisters were married and clearly not to
Aryan, that Aryan said that I want the only available
Targaryen that's cousin Negora. That makes some sense too, as
well as the fact that a a child through day Nora with a
different. Father might have caused some
sort of succession crisis because a lot of people might
have been willing to back anything other than Aryan.
So Makar's thought might have been let's prevent there being
another option, which may not have been the best thing for the
realm, but certainly preventing civil war is a good thing.
Now this child, they had 232 if anyone was worried about what
kind of man Aryan would be as a ruler, and indeed he may have
been the heir for several years, which could have given people a
nice long look at what sort of ruler he would be as if they
didn't have some idea already. But the choice of his name, his
heir as Magor, if that's the name he chose Magor of all
things. I mean come on, this is part of
why we think he was a Magor fanboy.
The whole trial of seven connection and all that.
But if your prior scenario that you just outlined is accurate
that Makar was going to pass over Aryan for Aryan's grandson,
well Aryan just threw a monkey wrench in that by naming that
kid Magor. People wouldn't necessarily want
to have a a descendant of Aryan on the throne.
It's hard to forget that it's a descendant of Aryan on the
throne when you name him Magor. So George specifically said in
the SSM that he was it deliberately being provocative
to this, to the realm with this choice.
Well, who is he provoking though?
I mean, obviously we can see that that would be provocative,
but who exactly is he targeting? Is it the Faith?
Is it the nobility? Just whoever Is he trolling
Westeros as a whole? What's up?
I think it's everybody. I, I think it's just generally
everybody because I think. You know, we, we've talked a lot
about Aryan's arrogance, his pride, his vanity in what he
sees as ultimate Targaryen supremacy.
No one can challenge a Targaryen.
The Targaryens are above everybody.
And so I think if you were someone like Aryan, you've got
that mindset. Maybe you were looking at the
reign of Makar. It it, it sounds strange to say
it, but nostalgically as the Acme of Targaryen absolute
power. You know, we as readers and even
characters in universe can look at Magor's reign and see
tyranny, can see violence, can see cruelty, can see the mass
slaughter of his subjects. But when Aryan is looking at
Magor's reign, I think what he's seeing is, ah, Magor didn't have
to answer to anybody. Magor crushed all opposition.
Magor didn't take a no from anyone.
If you challenged House Targaryen in Magor's reign,
Magor let you know that you were wrong to do it.
And nobody gained said Magor about that.
So I think that and Aryan is really looking back on this
reign. And again, it sounds so strange
to say it, but Aryan is a strange character with fondness,
with nostalgia, kind of in the way that I think Dana the
Defiant looked back at the era of rain, era of her grandmother
and her grandfather Damon, why she named her son Damon, the
future Damon Blackfyre Damon, because this is an era that he
wanted to live in. And in the same way, I think
Aryan believes this is the era I should have lived in.
I should have been another major or the cruel, if you know, kind
of, to paraphrase Danny's brother or the vision she has of
her brother. If I had a dragon, I would have
taught the world the meaning of our words.
You know, if I were Megor, I would have crushed all our
opposition. But now my son will do that
instead. The second coming of Megor.
He. I wonder if Aryans like hey Dad,
you're going to have to reinstate the Faith Militant.
So my son can go fight them and and do great things.
Yeah, that's that's what he was thinking, I'm sure.
Now, interestingly, though, more seriously, the the Faith
Militant obviously didn't exist in that time, but they, the
faith non militant, whatever we call them, were not likely big
fans of Makar certainly would have been fans of Aryan.
They wouldn't have loved this child, especially not his name,
and they wouldn't have loved that Makar and Bloodraven were
running the realm and they were both kinslayers.
A lot of sort of taboos there in play.
There was a movement towards Targaryens who were more
accepted by the faith. Baylor the blessed primarily
dare on the good. Baylor breaks beer but we have
people like this not so much beloved by the faith.
Blood Raven, Makar an Aryan again who acted like Dragons
instead of septons. Now this may have been a bit of
a push back right? The faith likely grew pretty
powerful under Baylor and Deron because they were giving them
benefits and the laws likely favored them.
I'm not saying Makar would have come after them, but he likely
didn't give them as much allowance either, and the faith
wouldn't have loved the idea, perhaps most of all, of the idea
of Aryan getting on the throne. That said, I don't think they
did anything about it. Aryan killed himself drinking
wildfire. Why the heck would he do that?
We certainly hear from Amon that it was related to dreams.
And of course, Aryan was open about the fact that he believed
drinking wildfire would turn him into a dragon.
So I guess we connect these two things.
His dreams told him this. He believed it, and he was
getting progressively madder and was apparently drinking alcohol
that night, too. So put all those things
together, and I guess he believed it was true.
I mean, it's it's on one hand kind of hard to believe.
On the other hand, yeah. Yeah, that tracks, right?
Where do you fall on this death end?
Any other details surrounding it that you want to drop?
Well, I I think that. What we hear.
Consistently every single version of the story.
Of. Aryan's death.
Everyone agrees the end goal in Aryan's mind was to turn himself
into a dragon. And I know I talked before about
that being metaphorical, that he was a dragon.
I think he literally believed that he would turn into a dragon
if he drank wildfire. Now does that sound crazy?
Yes, of course it does. But I think by the time we're
getting to 232 AC, Aryan is now in his late 30s ish.
I think that Aryan is someone who is desperate, who is bitter,
who has lived his life believing that he has not been
sufficiently adored and compensated and valued the way
that he thinks a Targaryen, and he particularly among the
Targaryen, should be. And I think that Aryan genuinely
believed that the Dragons are our power.
I need to associate myself with the Dragons.
I need to equate myself literally.
So I need to equate myself with the Dragons.
So if I can't get a dragon and I can't symbolically be a dragon,
then I need to turn myself into a dragon.
And I think it's possible that Aryan just kind of, you know,
maybe he just grossly misinterpreted some sort of
supernatural message, some sort of prophetic message, some sort
of dream he had or someone else had, who knows, something that
he believed meant he needed to consume wildfire.
If we want to do a really sort of cutesy reading back from what
we know happened, maybe he thinks that, oh, well, it's been
said that you need to be consumed by fire in order to
bring back Dragons from fire. Therefore, if I am consumed by
wildfire, then I will bring back Dragons via wildfire.
I don't know that that's actually true, but that's
certainly something I could see make our, or excuse me, Aryan
believing. And I think the Aryan is just
someone who really wanted it to be true, really was desperate to
have the draconic power that I think he thought he always
deserved. And unfortunately or or rather
fortunately for the realm, I should say, it didn't turn him
into a dragon, as you know more about said, it turned him into a
corpse. That's right.
I love that line. It was a bit of willful
delusion. I think partly, you know,
there's definitely a lot of factors.
Here, some of which we're not currently Privy to.
But yeah, I, I do have a little bit of a head cannon that maybe
because he talked about it so much that and had so much
implied opposition to the idea of him ever becoming king, which
would have seemed like a not unlikely reality that maybe he
was encouraged. Someone was got this idea.
He's like, hey, he thinks drinking wildfire will turn him
into a dragon. Let's let's encourage him in
that, make him do it. Let's get him to do that 'cause
that would be one way to get rid of him.
Yeah, right. So, you know, I could see
someone like blood Raven seeing it that way, perceiving it and
getting let's, let's paying some people or doing it himself.
Just, hey, encourage him, get him drinking, get him drunk, get
him talking about the wildfire, see what happens.
Because there's just so many people that didn't want this guy
to ever be king. And it's just, yeah.
Was it really? Did he really remove himself?
Yeah, I mean, he did. But they.
He may have been, he may have been encouraged.
Legacy Outro. Aryan's name comes up.
Quite a few different times in A Song of Ice and.
Fire when the topic of madness is broached.
As we pointed out, he's the first to have this sort of
wildfire specific idea, but he's not the last, right?
Egg has this wildfire dream sort of thing.
Aries does too. So it's important enough to have
been part of the historical memory in the world and for the
plot of A Song of Ice and Fire for as of yet to be revealed
reasons, at least not fully revealed.
Here's a famous example from Jamie quote.
The traitors want my city. I heard him tell Rosart.
But I'll give them naughty but. Ashes let Robert be king over
charred bones and cooked meat. The Targaryens never bury their
dead, they burn them. Aries meant to have the greatest
funeral pyre of them all. Though if truth be told, I do
not believe he truly expected to die.
Like Aryan bright fire before him, Aries thought the fire
would transform him, that he would rise again, reborn as a
dragon, and turn all his enemies to ash.
Now, perhaps this is a subset of madness because people associate
it with madness for good. Reason, right?
In addition to the examples we've been given throughout the
episode, Aryan's name most often seems to come up when failed
attempts to hatch Dragons are mentioned.
Which, yeah, that's associated with madness too, right?
That's my point. So here's a fun irony.
Alistair Florent, the Hand before Davos, thinks
Melisandre's message of bringing back Dragons is crazy talk.
Quote. He's always with the red woman
and he is not in his right mind. I fear this.
Talk of a stone dragon. Madness I tell you.
Sheer madness. Did we learn nothing from Aryan?
Bright fire? From the 9 mages?
From the alchemists did we learn nothing from Summerhall?
No good has ever come from these dreams of Dragons.
I told Axel as much. My way was better, sure.
And Stannis gave me his seal. He gave me leave to rule.
The Hand speaks with the King's voice.
The irony is not directly included in that quote, is what
Stannis himself thinks. But.
You know, poor Alistair is burned alive, so he doesn't
quite get to see the irony and probably wouldn't laugh at it
even if so. But Stannis says almost the
exact same thing, at least as it pertains to Aryan and bringing
back Dragons. Here's Stannis doing just that
quote. The look Stannis gave her was
dark. 9 mages crossed the sea to hatch Aegon the Third's.
Cache of eggs Baylor the Blessed prayed over his for half a year.
Egon the 4th built Dragons of wood and iron.
Aryan Bright Flame drank wildfire to transform himself.
The mages failed. King Baylor's prayers went
unanswered. The wooden Dragons burned and
Prince Aryan died screaming. It's interesting again just how
well known Aryan's reasoning is. Everybody knows he thought it
would turn him into a dragon. It has to be something he talked
about or at least was spoken of a lot afterwards.
Like my guess is he repeated this thing many times and we
have evidence for that. He said it as far back as
Ashford, or at least Darren says he did.
So it may have been something that he was saying for 20 years,
right? Like is that probably what is
that maybe where you land on this too or something like that?
I, I think it is. I mean, I think that Aryan was
someone who clearly from a young.
Age was obsessed with the idea of being a Targaryen and
specifically being a version of the Targaryens that meant that
you were better than everyone else and you didn't have to
answer to anyone and you could do anything you liked to anyone.
And I think that increasingly throughout his life, Aryan saw
Dragons as the answer to that. And what I think, and maybe this
is a good place to land on, on Aryan, if we can say that about
him, what I find so fascinating to talk about with respect to
Aryan is how much he and his brother Egg both saw Dragons as
the solutions to their problems, but both saw them in completely
opposite ways. You know, for for Egg, the
Dragons were the way for him to enforce the pro small folk laws
that were not popular among his aristocratic subjects.
He thought, Ah, if only I had Dragons, then I would have the
literal teeth that I would need to get these guys to submit.
To say, you're not rising up against the Targaryens because
we've got Dragons behind us, and now you're going to enforce the
good work that I want you to do in favor of the small throat.
This is all to the good end. So Egg thinks of getting more
rights for the lowest point among his subjects.
For Aryan, it's completely the opposite.
Aryan sees the Dragons as a license to do whatever he want.
This is a draconic blank check. He can do anything he wants to
anyone he wants, at any time he wants, for any reason he wants.
And the only justification he needs is Dragons.
I'm a dragon. I've got Dragons.
I'm descended from Dragons. I'm the blood of the Dragons.
You cannot question me because I am the dragon.
And I think it's just it. It's interesting the way that
George R Martin writes these characters, that they can both
have these ideas. They both have these dreams,
literal, metaphorical, about Dragons.
But where eggs are coming from, this place of good heartedness
and desire to do right and do good, Aryans is coming from a
place of tyranny and cruelty and only desire to cause blood and
pain. Yeah, just to gratify himself.
Which he is through blood and pain, 'cause he likes that,
unfortunately. For those people around him.
So as far as unanswered questions, this whole bit of
wildfire prophecy, this dreaming that wildfire would matter, that
is an enduring mystery somehow connecting both his brother Egg
and their descendant Aries, and maybe some other factors as
well. It's a it's an uncomfortable
subject because it involves Egg and his involvement in all that
is tragic at the very least, but it's far beyond that in terms of
the mysteries. And this connective tissue is
very interesting. It's certainly curious that
George decided that Aryan would be apparently the first one to
have these curious Dragons will return via wildfire thing.
And and maybe there's a whole lot more to be said about that
and his role in it. But that's just one of many
questions we have about his life.
Certainly there's a lot of questions about his time during
Makar's reign, his time in lease and lots of other things.
So I do suspect that we'll have a call to return to this subject
one day because there's a lot of unanswered questions, and if we
get those answers, we're going to want to relook at some of
this stuff for further watching. On this subject or unrelated
subjects, we have the an episode called The Burning of King's
Landing. It certainly delves into some of
this wildfire symmetry. It also includes characters like
Cersei and a lot more foreshadowing in addition to
what we put in the category of prophecy.
We have a pair of episodes on Summer Hall.
We have an episode on the Free City of Lease, which of course
includes a bit of an Arian as well and a little more context
or a lot more context on what that place is like.
We also have a lot of other episodes with Nina.
We did 3 on Baylor the Blessed, Young Baylor the Blessed being
the first. Start at the beginning, if you
are so inclined. That's where that is.
We most recently did Jaharius the Second, the Targaryen red
comet with you. And before that we also did
legendary life of Sarayam red wine.
So we've got several neenasodes out there.
This will be the latest in that catalog.
We're trying to one day have a a full playlist of every
Targaryen, maybe not baby Magor or other, you know, infants, but
pretty much all the adults and and meaningful youngsters will
will have their own episode one day.
So we're glad to add that or add this one to that list, to that
role. I thought you're going to say
we're we're aiming to have a whole playlist of Neenah songs.
Well, we will have that too. We should I.
Mean now we've got what, at least 6 now if I maybe I forgot.
One, but that's that's where they have a playlist and we'll
keep adding to that too. A lot of people like these
Neenah focused episodes in particular, and they are they
are a little bit of a style all their own.
So that's cool. Yeah.
So thanks for hanging out with us today, Nina.
You brought a lot to the table. This was a really fun episode.
To record, don't forget to check ninaout@goodqueenalley.tumblr.com
And thanks to the rest of you all who made this episode
possible. Any goodbye wishes or anything
like that? Never have to ask me twice to to
hang out and chat about the history of Westeros.
Hey, what's the name Podcast but.
I no, I I I love hanging out, love doing the episodes.
I probably should write more tumblers than I do, but I never
have time. But I always have more to say
and I have A tag all about. I think it's under Aryan
Targaryen. I think that's what I put it
under. I should have done this homework
beforehand and I didn't clearly. But if you want to search my tag
for Aryan Targaryen, I have written plenty about him and no
spoiler alert. But don't worry, the Accursed
Kings will get mentioned on there.
So you're if you're thinking I need to know more about Martins
weird obsession with a mid century historical fiction
series and how it ties into Arian, I got Cure readers, don't
worry. Yeah, we did have an Accursed
King section in this episode, but we had to move it or yeah,
just remove it for now. Exactly.
Yeah, This is this. This is now I just get to write
a whole novel. It it will still see the light
of day y'all just. Didn't.
Make it into this particular episode.
A hearty thanks and. Appreciation go to our patrons
who make this show possible. Definitely couldn't do it
without y'all. Including our hand of the King,
a baseboard man Jack. Literally just a drunken
Spearman. Gods help us, Lord Jim the
Fortuitous of Wars and Politics of Ice and Fire Blog is our
Warden of the West Kabethi and Frozen is Lord of the Bricks and
Castle Crimson Light Defender of the Old Gods and Warden of the
North. Andrew of House Crane is Lord of
Red Lake, Keeper of the Bloodied Waters, and Warden of the South.
Wings of gold, Wings of silver. Our elite from outside the realm
include Pirate Queen Carrie, a Storm of Secrets of the Sea,
Captain, Queen of Depth Feeder, which has sent countless ships
to the bottom of the sea, and Jenny, the just captain of the
ghost ship Liberty, which vanished in the Shivering Sea
over a century ago but has recently been sighted near
Volantis. If the tales can be believed,
our White Walker patron, Nevada Pike, 4th of Frost, Frost
Kraken, drowned in ice. Commander of cats and Krakens.
Our small council includes Lord Chris B of House Baelish.
Always keep your foes confused. Master of Whisperers, drown Dan,
Lord of House Windsor, Master of karate, friendship for everyone
and ships. Lord Goodkill McGee, ruler of
castle over Yonder and master of laws.
The Sun. Bearer of House Noel, nicknamed
the fatalistic farmer. Captain of the fig Knights of
House Noel. Their sigil is a fig leaf
emblazoned by the noon sun and Grand Maester Scotty.
The Queen's High Council has Grand Archmaester Rennie, whose
rod and ring and. Mask are quartz crystal wielder
of the Valyrian steel Pen, Fire and Ink, Lady Wolfbird, Mistress
of the Eastern Rivers, Gatekeeper of the Northern
Skies, daughter of the Silver Sea, and Master of Coin
Devorahlynn Blackwood, maker of the Frozen Fury muscle bomb,
eucalyptus and mint leaves washed with Dornish Peppers and
sealed by fire ants. Master of Laws, Lady Jane of
Driftmark, Guardian of Dragonstone.
The Circling Flame Burns, Master of Ships and Lady Sonia of
Sunday, keeper of the Martel Menagerie, master of Castle
Tormira, Topanga, tame and Keep Well, master of Whisperers.
Our Lords and ladies include Lady Dyerliz of Castle Nachi,
the alpha patron, Gregor the Toasty.
Lord of the Bread Fort, the Bastard of the Wolfswood, First
Forester of the Old Gods, sworn to House Ironwarewood.
Listen for the silence. Lady Maura of House Stark, arch
mistress of apothecaries and woods which her castle features,
weirwood doors with painted moons.
Lena Snow, the Twilight Star bastard, daughter of Dane, wife
of the trickster and Lady of Castle Rivia.
Aminda Pink Wolf, lady and ruler of Castle Whitefast.
The ice emboldens Lord Benjen of House Hornwood, Lady Rebecca
Stark of Castle Aurora, wielder of a weirwood bow with Valyrian
steel tipped arrows, and friend of Short Round.
The direwolf Aurelian Mattheus Rhesus, Lord of House Aurelian,
ruler of Dumbus Aurelianus and the Valley of Tennessee, wielder
of Soul Invictus, possibly Valyrian steel, keeper of the
largest collection of books outside the Citadel.
We restore the world Lord Darian the Daring wielder of the
Valyrian steel sword Wisdom, Lord of House Hollingsworth and
the Holly Hold in Dorn. Power and knowledge gave the
jade Blade whose foes are skewered and grilled.
Lady Maria of House High Tree, Lady of the Castle, Fair oak on
the crooked lake sigils, a long Grapevine with dark green leaves
and purple grapes winding around a greystone pillar on a white
field bordered by gold. Ever watchful Lord Abelard of
House Hearkenen, Michael, Master of the Grand Library, Patriarch
of House Fine, keeper of Histories, and Lord Samwise
Kimchi of House Chronic. Higher than Honor.
Our Kingsguard includes Sir Dean the White Knight of the Black
Star, Sir Bateman The Dark Knight, Lady Ani, bringer of
Winter's Warning, Watcher in the Weirwood, Bearer of Wrist
Wolves, Lord Jonathan of House Tanner, Lord Ray Dedo of House
Avocado, protector of the Royal Kitchens, Green in the morning,
dark by evening, Lady Katie Cat herder of the Tobean Terrace and
Royal feline Advisor. Our beard guard includes Lord
Commander George the Golden Lady Rita of the Copper Maine, the
Unbound Dance, The Fervor, Bloody Ben Blackwood, Big Brian
Blackwood and Davin Mack. Night of the Reeds The Bog
Night. The Queens Guard is led by Lord
Captain Commander Hema Helmand, the Self Sword Sentinel.
With James the Green, Lord of the Meadows, Keeper of the Trial
of Grasses, Archmaester Vena, whose ring, rod and mask are
made of steel, not putting, and Laura Boros, the Lady of
Infinity, the history of Westeros Night's Watch includes
Lord Commander Richard the Liger, heart wielder of Barry's
ankle. Breaker of flail with blue and
silver Valyrian steel spikes go blue.
Sir Kobe of house Stonesmith returns.
Words are wind, deeds are stone. Legitimate grandson of the
Bastard of Runestone and first steward Sir Zach of House Wild
Lord Shredder of the Spiral, wielder of the Valyrian steel
axe Grail. To get your own cool nickname
like this designed by yourself or by us or both, go to
historyofwesteros.com and click on the Patreon tab in the upper
right corner. Until next time everyone Valar
re read us.