Part 1 ended with Baylor defeating Damon Blackfire during
the famous joust at the wedding tourney that saw Princess
Daenerys Targaryen's sister to King Daron the Second, the Good
marry Prince Maron Martel, ruler of Dorn and earning him the name
Brakespeare. This would have been a
disappointing moment for those who hated Dorn and didn't want
to see them join the realm, as well As for fans of Damon
Blackfyre who didn't want to see him lose.
Had Damon won, it might have struck a blow for those with
anti Dornish sentiments. He was sort of the champion of
that attitude as well as other things.
As it turned out, for Baylor himself, it was a huge win.
Daenerys was his aunt, Maron Martel his uncle, His very
person represented the new peace.
The Seven Kingdoms at last joined with Dorne as they were
in his bloodlines. His father Daron and grandfather
slash namesake Baylor the Blessed forged the peace, but
Daylor Break Spear was the physical embodiment of it.
He was the produce of those marriages, those arrangements.
In many ways he was the future. A new look for House Targaryen,
one that physically actually looks more Westerosi, seems
appropriate in a sense for a newly united 7 kingdoms.
All the more perfect then that. His defeated opponent, Damon
Blackfyre, was, to the eyes of many, the perfect Targaryen,
despite not technically being one, thanks to his birth.
Despite that technicality, though, he represented the old
ways in many ways, hearkening back to the time when there were
Dragons, when Dorn was an enemy, a state of affairs that had
lasted much longer than the time of Dragons in Westeros, if we're
counting. By beating Damon in front of so
many, he showed that future Damon lying defeated in the
dust, like the dreams of those who wanted to keep the status
quo. They saw that slipping away.
I wonder how much Baylor felt the weight of all this.
Did he feel that pressure while jousting?
Was his victory more than symbolic?
And did he realize that at the time?
Did he think to himself, I can't let the realm see that we are
weak, that we aren't capable of manifesting the stream of peace.
It's a lot of weight to have on your shoulders.
But he carried it, assuming he felt it in the first place.
There's a certain irony in a show of strength as a means to
keep peace. Don't get violent, or so will
we. But that's just how much of
Earth and Westeros history has played out, if we're being
honest. Sometimes you can only keep the
bad guys in line by convincing them that they'll lose if they
try it. And sometimes you have to join a
trial of Seven to defend a hedge knight because you think it's
the right thing to do, even when your nephew is the bad guy.
But that's of course, much later, the end of this episode,
we'll deal with that incident. It's long after he had convinced
everyone he was the real deal. By that point, he was well
established. At this point, he's just getting
there. Earlier on, those who might have
thought him weak because he was half Dornish, son of the very
non Marshall, bear on the good. Those who thought maybe Baylor's
reputation was undeserved, a product of royal propaganda
rather than true ability, well, they learned how wrong they were
when they saw that joust, or at least heard about the result of
it. A lot of witnesses to the
tourney would have left with a new impression.
Some of those who plotted against the throne would realize
this might be harder than we thought.
Not that it stopped them. But going up against Deron's new
peaceful pro Dornish regime and going up against Baylor?
Baylor breaks spear. In Part 1 we covered the 1st 17
years of his life here. In Part 2 we got the
second-half, which spans another 22 years.
It should be a bit longer. It's a larger document, but hey,
people often do more things in their adult life than their
youth. Those years coincide as well
with some of the most compelling times in Westeros history.
So we've got all that and more on this episode of History of
Westeros podcast. Hello and welcome everyone.
It's time for Part 2 of a very compelling and interesting and
heartfelt story of Baylor Breaks Beer.
Sean, you've got a little something in common with or at
least you could be, you could have something in common with
Baylor here and you have something in common with one of
the important nights, Humphrey Harding who fought after
breaking his leg. Sean had leg surgery, knee
surgery on his birthday this week, this past week, yet he's
here four days ago despite all that.
So we we praise your toughness there Sean and hope your
recovery is, is going smoothly. Mostly here.
Bear with me if I blank out or fidget or something.
You're on the IT got a little painkiller than you there.
Yeah, so it's the mix of pain and painkillers has got me a
little uneasy. Well.
Like Greg worked gain today then.
Yeah. Well, the reason I said you
could be like one of the characters is 'cause right now
you're not dancing, Sean. Dancing is difficult on one leg,
but if you were wielding, if you're fighting in a joust with
an injured leg, you could be Lancing Sean.
Oh, it's like one letter off a. Lancing Sean.
I can't believe I never thought about all these jokes.
I know I just, it just came to me like an hour ago.
All the rest of you should feel a failure for not thinking of
that first. Also, we're all failures.
Chat liked your shirt too, Sean. Denver Yeah, that's right.
First time ever national champion Denver Nuggets.
Nuggets is I don't follow basketball.
I'm I'm glad your team won, but Nuggets is a particularly great
name for a team. I notice it's like something
like some some animal, some statuesque powerful animal or
something like that, but no Nuggets.
I love it. I don't want to diverge too much
into basketball, but for you, Aziz, or anyone else who doesn't
follow basketball, particularly the Nuggets, have this player
Jokic, they call him the Joker and he's breaking 50 year old
records, Magic Johnson said. He's on par with LeBron and
Michael Jordan for changing the game.
Like to give you an idea of how incredible he is, but also want
to see him win the championship that.
Explains why the chat also said Joker gang, Joker, gang joker.
Gang, I didn't. See the connection.
By the way, the name Magic Johnson is also just.
It says a lot, doesn't it? Like this guy has a high opinion
of his junk. My Johnson is magical.
Yes, that's right. Shout out to our good friend
Nina, who is a particular fan of this character in this time
period, as am I. She added a lot of great notes
to this one, as she so often does, and I want to point you,
as I so often do, to her blog. She takes a lot of great
questions on A Song of Ice and Fire, pointed out that many
times, but she also takes questions on certain historical
periods, in this case, Henry the Eighth.
You got a question about Anna Pleaves because Henry the Eighth
is a favorite of hers, so she knows a lot about him.
Henry the Eighth is the number one parallel to Aegon the
Unworthy, so you would recognize a lot of his attitudes and
character in Aegon if you weren't too familiar with Henry
the Eighth. So check that out.
Good Queen Alley with 1l.tumblr.com and check out what
she has to say there. I'm way behind.
I apologize to everybody, but I'm way behind and going through
the, the chats from our past few episodes.
But I did look at last week's Baylor episode and misses Sir
Duncan the tall asked who my favorite Targaryen was or, or,
or where are Baylor ranked among my Targaryen sections.
OK, and so let's think about that for a minute.
My, my instinct was like #1 I'm pretty sure number one was like,
well, egg, maybe Amon egg, John. Wait, which?
Amon. Amon.
Maester Amon, You mean, right? Yes.
Yeah, I could have been.
The he might be #1 Baylor might be #2 John's number 3.
That's what I think. Right on it.
OK, I like it. I I haven't picked a favorite
myself. I'll think about that.
This episode was voted on by patrons.
Of course they voted for it a couple weeks ago.
I did turn into two, two episodes as we well, at least as
at least one person predicted correctly.
Next week, the voters have chosen Pentos.
Stay tuned till the end to hear what Pentos defeated in the poll
to make its way into our episode queue, as well as I'll have
suggestions for more episodes that are related to this current
topic and the answer to this trivia question, which is
forthcoming right now. The Lord of Black Tide in the
Iron Islands was also a Baylor. I say was because Euron cut him
into seven pieces. Kind of an interesting guy.
He was raised as a hostage at the Hightower, which is why he
turned to the Faith of the Seven, which is why Euron cut
him into seven pieces specifically.
The question is, though, what's the name of his ship?
Hint. It's a reference to one of
George R Martin's other works That might ring a bell for some
of you. It may enable you to guess
otherwise, but the answer at the end.
So Baylor from age 17 to 25. That is the ages from the
tournament where he earned his nickname until the Blackfyre
Rebellion. It was of course, the major
event of the end of the 2nd century AC, the Blackfyre
Rebellion, but it was a full 8 years after the marriage
attorney before it actually broke out.
In that time, of course, the groundwork was laid while his
father's reign continued to reshape the realm, which
continued to upset those who didn't like the way these
changes were progressing, especially because they just
kept coming. Maybe some thought the pace of
change would slow down, or things would maybe settle, but
no change kept happening. Here's a quick quote from Sir
Eustace Osgre from Sworn Sword, our go to Bitter Black Fire.
Deron bore the same name as the young dragon, but when his
Dornish wife gave him a son, he named the child Baylor after the
feeblest king, whoever sat the Iron Throne.
You can see the anti Dornish. You wouldn't mention the race of
the queen or the wife if it wasn't a problem.
But he's like Dorn. You almost hear him like
sneering as his Dornish wife gave him a son.
He named the child Baylor after the feeblest king.
I was like, oof, you are bitter, aren't you?
That feeble king who walked across the desert barefoot,
that. Feeble.
The one that like went into this snake pit and came out like OK
doesn't. Sound so feeble does he.
Peaceful, Yeah. But feeble?
No. No, not feeble.
Yeah, but his name, you could. But that's the point, though.
His name said a lot like it actually mattered.
Even his name was offensive to some people.
They found everything to, like, pick at the things they didn't
like about the other side. And it's just, yeah, it really
stuck in his craw. Even your name is offensive to
me, damn it. So just as he physically
represented the realm and his look and his bloodlines, also
his name. Let's talk more about the
appearance, because that is maybe even more notable the
thing that that stands out. We talked about the Dornish
Targaryen connection, how that's embodied within him.
But it's not just that he looked Dornish, it's that he looked
different than literally every other Targaryen king who would
actually sat the throne to this point and most Targaryens
period. So it wasn't just looking
Dornish. It wasn't, it was not looking
Targaryen. So there's this kind of a double
whammy in that sense. Of course he never actually
ascended the throne, but it it really looked like he would for
a variety of reasons. He didn't really look Targaryen
even a little bit and he was clean shaven.
Not super unusual but not common.
More Targaryens and just Westerosi general men would have
beard than not. Makar his younger brother had a
silver hair and full beard silver beard thing going so even
his younger brother looked like that.
Now Darren the second was also beardless, so was Viserys the
Second, and so was Darren the first.
Darren, the first was, you know, 14 to 18.
So maybe he didn't, maybe he couldn't grow a beard.
I'm not sure about that. Nina says also that he was very
fastidious. You know, he was a military
efficient military commander. So it may have been more of a,
an intentional thing. But all of our early Targaryen
kings had beards. Even Baylor the Blessed had a
beard. Agon the Unworthy had a beard.
Nina says Agon the Unworthy's beard might be the reason they
were trying to look different because Agon grew his beard to
conceal his his jowls is over. He was so overweight that the
beard was actually like a way to conceal some of that.
So Nina suggests it's kind of a metaphor for his reign.
And they were trying to distance themselves from that, both that
attitude, that look and just that everything, anything that
reminds them of them. So they went the opposite.
They didn't use his crown, they didn't use his look and they
didn't have his attitudes of excess and lots of other things,
lots of things to be different. And of course, this was yet
another complaint against Baylor, as we said there that in
that quote. Meanwhile, Damon had a warrior's
name, right? He's related to Damon Rider of
Craxies and Damon Valarian, who was Aegon the Conqueror's first
master of ships who died in battle.
Like there's been several famous warrior Damons.
Whereas the only Baylor we've heard about it all was the
peaceful king, as we, as we say, not feeble, but still peaceful,
which some people associate with weakness.
But he looked like a warrior. That helped a lot.
He had that twice broken nose, which, you know, that's the
thing that we don't know when he got the, his nose broken, but it
was fighting, right? It was in tournaments or, or
battle or something. But you know, you don't that
that helps make you look like a warrior.
You have some battle scars. It's a type of scar, basically.
It might have been a knitting accident.
Knitting accident. He was always knitting while
climbing stairs, and he was not paying attention to where he's
going, you know? So this next section is called
the United Kingdom of Westeros, the UK of Westeros.
That's right. In part because Westeros is
shaped like the UK turned around.
Yeah. But it although it's still
called the Seven Kingdoms, even with Dorne added to it.
That's a topic for another time, why the number didn't change and
why it really wasn't Seven in the first place.
But yeah, like I said, story for that time, Dorne was added to
it, meaning everything not north of the Wall was now under the
authority of the Iron Throne. This is a gigantic change,
right? It's a huge difference.
Darn had been an independent nation since the time of
Nymeria's conquest. Prior to her coming had been a
massive shifting independent kingdoms, much like the rest of
Westeros was or had been at various times.
Now this was later in that era, so it wasn't like 100 kingdoms
the more powerful houses had established themselves.
There's more like 6 kingdoms. Maybe if if we go by how many
kings Nymeria sent to the wall in Golden Fetters.
Anyway, it was 6. So that's a a good number to to
rest on. And as an aside, we've never
really focused on how Dorn felt that being bought, brought into
the realm. But they've talked about it from
the Lesterosi perspective and how all these marcher Lords
hated it. And some of them were for it.
But we never talked about like how the Dornish felt about it as
well as we do with Westeros. It wouldn't be a monolith.
Some of them would be cool with it, some of them would be very
happy with it, some of them would hate it.
Same ones. You could look at some of the
same circumstances to decide and figure out who who hated it.
The ones on the border probably hated it.
They're the ones that had their identity was so established via
warring with the people on the other side of that border.
Just like the Marcher Lords didn't like seeing Dorn as an
ally. Well, the Dornish people on that
side probably felt similar, but not all of them.
Some of them were probably like, finally we're done with this
crap. We can, we can like I can farm
now and not worry as much about someone coming in and burning my
farm. At least if they do, it'll be a
Dornish person. And which isn't better, but you
know, it's less likely to happen.
So like for example, the Ironwoods, good chance the
Ironwoods didn't like it. The Ironwoods are on the border
there. They've, they already resent the
Martells for being more powerful than them, and this was a step
up for the Martels to be even more powerful than them.
So the distance between the two houses got bigger.
A lot of potential resentment there.
The the iron would still call themselves the blood royal.
It's like their, their Lord is called the blood Royal.
Like that's, that's pretty, pretty bold.
You know, it made me pretty bold, but it also reminds me of
the, oh, is that a Tywin quote? It's like if you have to tell
people that you're the king, yeah.
And so we're not positive, but the Ironwood's probably fought
for the black fires in the first black fires.
They definitely fought for them in some of the others, but
probably the first as well. Of course, a big problem here
would be prejudice on both sides, right?
It's not just losing their place in the world saying our identity
was in as as warriors on the border, but after so long being
worried in the border, yeah, they have hatred towards that
other side. So it's not a thing you can
erase overnight having this like we hate the Dornish or we hate
the marchers. So that's the problem.
But it's a worthy problem to tackle, one that if if tackled
well in the long term, creates a lot of peace.
And we can Fast forward to song by some fire, the marchers in
the Ironwoods. And they said these houses don't
love each other. But it's, no, it's nowhere near
as bitter as it used to be. So there has been a lot of
progress, even though it's maybe not quick progress.
But hey, thousands of years of history takes a long time to
undo. So.
Yeah. Yeah, that type of thing.
You're talking generations, you know, like, I think about that a
lot. In the real world, it doesn't
matter what 2 politicians in some of the country got together
and decided, OK, we're at peace now.
You killed my uncle last week. You know what I mean?
The person on the ground in that village wants revenge for the
the the actual violence exacted on them in recent time.
That doesn't go away 'cause some politicians steal.
Yeah, you're right. It gives them a reason to not do
it. It gives them a penalty for
continuing the violence. It doesn't make them stop hating
the other side though. That's that it takes longer.
That is a you're right. A lot of times it takes multiple
generations for them to get over people who didn't have didn't
directly suffer at the hands of those that they're now told to
be peaceful with. Yeah, but there wasn't it, it.
It would be wrong to say that racism, prejudice, things like
that are the only reasons for animosity here.
Dorne, as part of the peace deal, wasn't given the same laws
and restrictions imposed on them like the rest Feroz.
So the Starks, the Baratheons, the Tullys, they had stricter
rules, more taxes, things like that than Dorn and that of
course, you can see why that would be a thing that makes them
chafe and say, well, why do they have to pay less?
Why? And and they get to still be
called the Prince of Dorn. You know they're it's not a they
didn't lose their title, right. A Darnish person might be able
to say, look, doll, the reason we get these so-called
concessions is because Aegon and his sisters conquered.
You failed to conquer us. In fact, you people failed to
conquer us repeatedly. Yeah, we don't have to give up
as much as you did. We were invited to join and we
accepted. We weren't forced.
We didn't lose. You know, that's not maybe not
the nicest thing to say. Why not make them feel better?
But sitting back like we can do and and we're not involved
personally, he was like, yeah, that is kind of true, isn't it?
But you could also see why that would maybe not be great to have
this imbalance of laws. Nina also points out dare on the
second didn't get full buy in from his vassals making this
arrangement. It was kind of a we're doing
this and you're going to like it.
Of course it started before him, Baylor and etcetera.
But there was plenty that just didn't like it.
And these are powerful people who didn't like it.
And that's part of where we get to the Blackfyre Rebellion, you
know, eight years later or so now.
Not to mention, though, there's even more favors.
First of all, you get the, the lead, the tax write offs, the
the title gets to be kept in place.
But also there's just more favors implied.
You're married to the king. You just, you got to figure the
King's going to give some favors to his own family.
So they that's just implied that they're going to get even more.
Benefits from this arrangement, ones that aren't necessarily
written down or quantified, but it's clearly there because this
is your your in laws, right? Some might have even seen it as
more of a dual monarchy rather than one Kingdom subject to
another. And that would have enhanced the
bad feelings. And hard to say they're entirely
wrong. Like Doran was allowed to
operate independently in a lot of in a lot of ways.
So throughout all this, what did Daylord do?
Baylor's got a lot of new responsibilities.
He sees this as part him. He's part Dornish.
He's the bridge for a lot of this.
I would think, given the way we see him act, given the way we
see him behave later, he wouldn't descend into
factionalism. In fact, he would probably try
to do the opposite. He would probably try to avoid
factionalizing and try to constantly reach out to the
other side. He would obviously still be
associated with the dormer side. I think that's his family and
his in laws were Dondarians who were marcher house.
Maybe the only marcher house in his corner.
Though the others might have still been upset with the
arrangement. Maybe they looked down on the
Dondarians as well. A lot of unanswered questions in
terms of who felt what about who, but it's, it's a really
excellent setup. Another thing Deron did to
denote the peace, to try to enshrine it, to make it more
physical, to make it more permanent, was the building of
Summer Hall. The site was chosen with a lot
of intent. It's right near the border of
Dorne, the Stormlands and the Reach.
There's actually a little area where the the Realms actually
come together and it makes it a little of a unique spot.
Now, of course, it's in ruins, which is which is symbolic in
another way, but it's a it's a sensible place to to meet and
we'll see later how that comes into play.
The peace was a great achievement.
So commemorating it is makes sense to do that.
It also said signals that this is something he expected to
last, something semi permanent, if not actual permanent.
And it's not a castle, it's not a what's really important is
it's not a fortress. That's intentional and
important, not a military installment, because if you're
building a base here, that doesn't scream peace, does it?
That sounds like, sounds like the opposite, really.
But this is a palace. It's called Summer Hall, right?
It's the opposite of winter. It's a nice place.
It's not a it's not defensible hardly at all.
You wouldn't expect it to be used as a military place.
The location is important strategically, but it's not a
Fort. So he almost intentionally took
a military location and made it peaceful as part of the symbol.
Which I think is pretty cool and clever for George as writing as
well. It kind of like how Castle Black
is in. You can't defend Castle Black
from the South. Like if the Starks attack Castle
Black, it's doomed. It's built to defend from
something coming from the north. Summer halls like that except
all directions. The no direction is well
fortified there. It definitely I, I, I also like
that idea. It's a on multiple levels.
It's really good. You get to have a much more
efficient and maybe cheap palace built when you're not worried
about military fortifications, right.
You don't have to have this extra staff and food and
armaments and stuff. And then once you establish a
being that way, it's also this signal, like, why would you
attack this? Like, clearly this is here for
peace's sake. Yeah, it's something we can
share, something we can grow around.
And yeah, it is extra symbolic for it to burn down.
That would maybe be why they would attack it, not as a
military target, but they just to show their contempt for the
peace or for what it stands for, not because it has a yeah, not
as a military. But for them to do that, it's
extra symbolic too. It's sort of like the clan war.
You can't, you know, It's like, it's no small thing if you
attack this. Yeah, you're right.
Everyone would would understand what's being attacked.
It's not Summer Hall so much as it is the peace.
So technically the Prince of the Crown Prince is always the
Prince of Dragonstone. That's been a tradition for a
long time. Still is.
And Baylor was Prince of Dragonstone.
But with Summer Hall out there, the Targaryen said options.
At least one Prince of Dragonstone preferred Summer
Hall. We don't know how Baylor was
with it. Makar spent a lot of time there
even before he was Prince of Dragonstone.
And Daron the Drunkard is the one I'm referring to, Makar's
son, who was Prince of Dragonstone for a long time, but
he preferred Summerhall. And Rhaegar preferred the ruins
of Summerhall to Dragonstone. So that's another Crown Prince.
He preferred Summerhall, but not quite the same context.
We mentioned last time that at some point Baylor got betrothed
to Jenna Dondarian. Within a couple of years of
being married, Valar would have been born Valar Targaryen, the
young Prince who looked a little more Targaryen than his father.
He had a silver streak in his hair.
He had light blonde hair or light brown hair with a silver
streak, a little like Dark Star. Maybe Dark Star's hair is more
black with the silver streak, if I if I remember correctly, but
he's the only other person I I can think of that has that
silver streak. That's not true.
There's one of the Raina Elena. That's right.
Elena was the other one with the streak, but it is silver and
gold, not not silver and black or brown.
Right. Two different colors.
Cool and Valar also has blue eyes, which is not necessarily
Targaryen, but it's closer to the purple than Baylor's brown
eyes. It just like Aegon in the main
novels has blue eyes and the blue hair makes his eyes pop
more, which is maybe a way to make them look less purple or.
But it's what it said is it's a way to honor his Thai Rashi
mother, his Thai, which is maybe an in joke fact that all black
fires were mothered by Rohan of Thai Rash.
Yeah, Yeah. It's kind of interesting that he
looks more Targaryen than his father.
You wonder if that was like they saw that as a good thing, like
eventually the realm will be in his hands.
Someone who kind of is the physical embodiment of both
sides. Maybe not really clear and then
Mataris would have been born. We have no idea when Mataris was
born. Valar's age is a little clearer,
but it seems like Mataris was pretty close and to Valar's age.
His nickname was the even younger Prince.
So the young Prince and the even younger Prince.
He also may have had a similar look, but we don't know what he
looked like at all. We don't know if he had streak
or brown hair or silver hair. Completely unknown.
But these names, Valar and Mataris never had names like
that before. Completely new.
These are different styles. So not only do we have this new
world of Targaryen, Dornish merging, it comes with new
names. I I think that's a sign of the
new culture, Nina says. Mataris is similar to the
Valyrian city, Mantaris. It's just one and away, and
there's a Valerian named Montaris, which is also kind of
close, but definitely not the same.
You can kind of maybe see the origin there.
It's a little bit Valyrian, but it's clearly not Targaryen.
So they may have been trying to pick something that sounds
Valyrian but is distinctly not Targaryen as a way to denote the
change within the dynasty, which is really great detail.
I love that this is part of it. And Valar, by the way, if you're
not clear, it's not spelled like Valar, Doheris or Valar.
Reread us. It's 2 Rs in the Valar, which
is, yeah, a little interesting. Kind of like the name Becerra,
which has two Rs, which is a little uncommon to see the
Targaryen names not end in like an S, so many of them end in S
or N, you know, especially S Rhaegar is a little different.
So I would have really liked to see it and we'd never actually
seen it. But consider how a lot of houses
match their two sigils up when they're showing their heritage.
Sometimes they quarter it, sometimes they make a
combination sigil. Like Bitter Steel's is so cool
with the horse breathing fire and having wings.
That one's one of my favorites. Imagine this.
Stannis's is pretty cool. Stannis is really cool too.
I agree, but imagine the sweet dual heritage you get from
Dondarian's purple lightning and a dragon.
Like that's awesome. You could have the purple
lightning behind it, like framing it or like shooting out
of their eyes, eyes or out of their mouth.
Like which dragon is it in D&D? The blue Dragons, the breathe
lightning, Right? That's their Yeah, it's the blue
Dragons, the breathe lightning. And so it just reminds me of
stuff like that. And purple.
It's purple lightning too. It's purple for Targaryens.
It fits so well. Someone draw that.
So as we get closer to the rebellion and the timeline, it
becomes all the more important to check in with where things
stood with regard to loyalties within the House of the Dragon.
I'm, I'm glad I could use that phrase, House of the Dragon to
represent multiple families under one umbrella, because it's
not just Targaryen we're talking about anymore.
In other words, who seemed to stand where as the divisions
grew early on. Of course the Reds faction it
wouldn't have been called that yet but they're on of course
Baylor, Aries, Regal, Makar and Bloodraven.
Now Paris and Regal weren't around a whole lot they were
Regal wasn't all there mentally. Aries was reading books but
Makar and Baylor were warriors. Blood Raven was a hard liner and
a warrior and and hyper loyal. He at some point got Ravens
teeth and dark sister. More on that in a minute.
Nina points out of course Queen Mariah Martel as well and maybe
some other Dornish nobility that would have been around at her
court. She would have maybe had ladies
in waiting from amongst the nobility and their families
would be on the red side. Certainly you wouldn't have
ladies in waiting from families whose loyalty is not very solid.
So there's a lot of room for just some, some some unknowns
that would have been around that aren't named by the history
books, but that still could have been pretty important.
And even if they weren't important, just their presence
would tell us a lot about who stood where on the Black Side.
Damon and Agor, of course. Dana, the Defiant, if she was
still around, that's a big open question as to when she was,
when she died. But by this time, let's not
forget young Aegon and Eamon, the Damon's twins, and then
Damon the Second, who of course wouldn't have been called Damon
the Second. He would have been, I don't
know, Damon Junior, they don't use that term in Westeros.
But young Damian, little Damon, little Damon.
Plenty of gold chains for their Valyrian steel chains.
What's that? Damon?
Damon. IN.
MIN. He's Bill Damon.
Danax and Damon. Yeah, Damon.
He was born in 189, two years after the wedding tournament.
So he would have been nine years old when the Black Fire man
broke out. So old enough to have been aware
of a lot of goings on and maybe started to have dreams as well.
More on that later, too. Little Damon is a much better
nickname than even younger Prince.
Even younger Prince is not the most creative nickname, although
it is funny. It doesn't roll off the tongue
very well. I mean it's.
EYP, even that's, like, hard to say properly.
Even the acronym isn't great. Damon also had four other sons
and at least two daughters, most of whom had to have been born
before 196 or or maybe, if not all of them, because Bitter
Steel grabbed them all and fled overseas with them after the
war, after the Red Grass Field. And of course, Damon wasn't
having more kids after he died unless Rohan was pregnant, so at
most one more child could have been born.
So she was probably at court as well, if not back at their keep
constantly popping out children because that was quite a
schedule of having children, nine children in between their
marriage in the year, like 186 or 185.
So it's a lot of kids. And, and even if Damon hadn't
been planning on rebelling, because we, we we hear he was,
you know, gradually convinced to do it, it wasn't something that
he just like, wanted to do, but held back for a long time.
So early on, you might have been hearing comparisons, though,
like comparing the family of Baylor to the family of Damon
and like, oh, Damon's got more sons.
He's more of a man, you know, this kind of silliness that it
comes out sometimes, but it probably happened, right?
Because we know that is a thing that that Westerosi men judge
themselves by, even though it's really has a lot more to do with
the woman, you know. But regardless, that sort of
talk probably happened. Elena Reyna as well.
We wonder about them. Reyna would have probably been
for peace. That seems pretty
straightforward. She was a SEPTA.
She was very pious. So I don't know about taking
sides in terms of factions. She would take sides with the
idea of peace. I think that's one of the safer
bets we have here. But there's a chance she
preferred her trueborn family because the seven teaches that
bastards are, you know, bad news and teaches they're born of lust
and envy and things like that. So she may have believed in that
instead of, you know, 7 rooted propaganda.
Elena is, well, not pious, but she was master of coin for Daron
the second later and she married adornishment for love later.
So she wasn't later. There's nothing that indicates
she was ever on that side of things and plenty to indicate
she was on her family's side. Also used as Osprey.
Nina points out complaints about women whispering and and Daron's
ear. This is very probably one of the
women he was referring to because she was a power behind
the throne, a very influential woman who didn't officially have
a seat at counsel, but was, as we said, basically the master of
point. De facto master of point, made
the decisions but didn't have the title.
Now, how old was Valar? We guessed about how old Damon
Junior was Damon, but Valar was probably around 20 in the hedge
night. Maybe a couple years older, but
he couldn't have been too much older.
So he could have been old enough to be a Squire during the red
grass field. So he could have been he might
have even be at his father's side.
It wouldn't necessarily have been mentioned.
Like Squires don't get a lot of attention necessarily,
especially if nothing happens to them, but very possible.
And someone like Baylor, like Jamie, think about Jamie having
like he's like, I got more Squires than I can shake a stick
at. Like what do I?
This is just a thing. You just nobles who are good at
fighting as a point of alliance, as a point of pride.
You just get Squires thrown at you and and Baylor breaks beer.
Being who he was, he had to have just gotten a ton of offers to
Squire youngsters. But his own son, his own heir,
obviously, he's got the inside track.
You know, they might have thought it better to have him
learn from somebody else. But surely he, you know, from
his father seems very likely and which would be interesting
putting him around the same age as maybe as as twins Aegon and
Amon, maybe a little younger than them, which means he may
have trained with them, which is a normal thing to do as well
because Baylor and Damon trained together.
Maybe it's a way to make them be friends and keep them from
having animosity later the same thing we see the Dance of the
Dragons. It didn't work out there.
The the children of Rainiera and the children of Allison had to
be kept separate. But that's why you try to put
them together. That's why you try to make that
work so that it doesn't descend into that level of animosity
that eventually leads to war. And of course there's people
outside the family that we should keep stock of other
people around the Red Keep like we said, maybe whereas ladies
and waiting would be a good example.
But also fireball, the red keeps master at arms.
We mentioned him a few times. The Kingsguard.
The Kingsguard would be buddy buddy with guys like Baylor and
Damon and they also have their duties to attend to.
They would have their personal loyalties and preferences, but
they all about be waiting against their duties.
Which of course is a Kingsguard is a really interesting sub
topic. And if some of these guys may
have had real qualms based on how the rebellion broke out and
who took what side. As far as we know, all the
Kingsguards stayed loyal. None of them went to Damon, but
they may have felt bad about that.
You know, they may have. Well, I'm sure they didn't feel
good about it. You know, think about Rhaegar
and how he was really close with some of the Kingsguard.
They were really tight with him. Now, part of that is because
there was real animosity between him and his father, and there
was a need to take sides well before anything happened,
whereas that may not have been the case here.
We don't know how much factionalizing happened ahead of
time, but it seems likely some of the Kings guard would have
thought Damon was the better man even though Baylor was so great.
Do we know who the different Small Council members were at
that time? We only know one or two.
One of them was Lord Butterwell. The same Lord Butterwell from
the mystery night. The one who tried to run the
Black Fire wedding. Not rebellion, but.
The brown which? Is interesting because we know
that Daron, when he took over, he fired all his father's small
counselors and one of them was this Butterwell.
Butterwell was master coin. So for some reason he was he
undid that and brought him back at a higher rank as hand of the
king. So it was Nina's suggestion is
that this was like a concession for balance within these
political factions that were emerging.
OK, well, we need to show a little bit of give a little bit
of power to someone here who's kind of on the other side of
things and show that we can all work together.
That's where it didn't work out, but we have.
It's a big curiosity why it even happened in the 1st place given
that he fired all his father, fathers, counsellors for being
so corrupt. So for some reason he brought
this guy back. Bloodraven though is the biggest
question mark I have here. In the second-half we really
wondered how much how well Damon and Baylor got along and I still
wonder about that. But in the second-half,
Bloodravens, the one I wonder about because in terms of his
relationship with Baylor, Brendan had the opposite sort of
reputation, Like he was a hardliner and not considered
chivalrous and not considered like a good man.
He was someone to fear, someone to respect for his capabilities
and capacities. But everyone was afraid of him.
He was a rule through fear, not through love kind of guy, as
much as we like him. Yeah, there's a lot of aspects
about him that were problematic, and Daylor probably would have
seen it. Some of those things that way.
He's like, you know, I don't really like all the way you do
do some of these things here uncle, because Brendan was his
uncle, but he had to respect just how loyal he was to his
father. One thing Bloodraven was not was
disloyal to the crown. So Baylor had to he could count
on that had to respect that much.
And I wonder here we go with the Ravens teeth.
Like what happened with this? The Ravens teeth existed before
the battle of the red grass field.
Of course they were critical during it.
How did this come to be that he had this large private guard of
like 300 dudes with bows and well, like the money for that
had to come from the crown. Bloodraven didn't have lands of
his own. So Bloodraven must have done
some very important things to show his loyalty.
And what did Baylor think about his uncle having such a large
private guard? He must have, I assume he was
cool with it, that he weighed in on it and he trusted his trusted
his uncle just as much as his father did.
And and that trust was rewarded, at least in terms of what side
he stayed on. Maybe not in terms of all of his
actions. For example, at the red grass
field, what would he think of Bloodraven shooting down Damon
and his sons with arrows? Damon, you know, I mean, that's
fair, I guess. He's a warrior.
He's an adult, you know. But shooting down the 2 twin
sons, I don't know about that. He might have had real qualms,
but that's not chivalrous, right?
You know, And maybe he would have preferred even Damon to
have been beaten straightforwardly.
So you could see that his cause was defeated.
You know, people that would Damon became like a folk hero
afterwards for the manner of his death and for the promise that
would have been if he had been defeated properly, you know, in
in nightly combat instead of from afar, That might have been
more emphatic. It might have staunched the
enthusiasm for future rebellions.
Like people who said it was the will of the gods.
You can't say it's the will of the gods when this old gods
oriented sorceress guy did it like you.
It's hard to like. You can't argue that the gods
will. The Damon Blackfire should fall
when it doesn't look like the Seven did that.
It looks like the old gods or sorcery did it right.
So the manner of his defeat is problematic for a chivalrous,
honorable guy. Ted said he might not have been
defeated otherwise. Yeah.
Oh yeah, absolutely. Ravens, like, sure, it wasn't
chivalry, but we did it, yeah. Like, this is like, you want the
best possible result. This might have been the best
possible result. Did you want another Wayne
Korbray getting his face caved in by fighting Damon Blackmire?
Like, what did you want? Did you?
I didn't see you rushing to fight him, you know.
Are we going to decommission all The Archers in our army now so
we can be chivalry all the time? There's a reason we have The
Archers, right? Exactly so.
I wonder if you it would go so far as Baylor appreciating
Bloodraven but not really liking him.
You know, like, I don't really like you, but I respect you.
I'm glad you're on our side. You know, that kind of thing.
Now I'm just guessing this is, this is all very much pulled out
of nowhere just kind of guessing based on their personalities.
For all we know, Baylor had nothing whatsoever to say about
the manner of of Aegon and Amon's deaths via Arrow.
Maybe he was like, yeah, good job.
You know, probably not, right? Given what we know about him, I
think we can I think we can take a make a educated guess here.
We also just don't know how much power and influence blood Raven
had in general, whether this was a problem.
Like, oh, now he's done this, his hard line attitudes are
going to carry more weight at court because he's now the
killer of Damon Blackfire. He's his esteem has risen.
I don't know if I like that. And dark sister talk about that.
He got dark sister and it was before the battle of the red
grass field also. So he had done something to earn
it, maybe before getting the the Raven's teeth or at the same
time. Interesting potentials here.
I mean, this is the Blade of the Dragon.
The blade of Queen Visenya didn't have the standing of
Blackfire, but it was literally smaller.
But still, I really find it hard to believe that Deron just gave
it to Bloodraven without consulting with his son and heir
first. Like, hey, son, do you want Dark
Sister? Or should I give it to someone
else to give it to Brendan? And here's the reasons why they
maybe talk it out. Baylor would be like, yeah.
And the way Baylor is about always wanting other people to
get the acclaim, like, no, you did this.
No, you did that. No, it seems almost
straightforward that he'd be like, yeah, let's use the sword
to bind the rest of the field. Like we've got better uses for
the sword than giving it to me, you know?
Especially because I feel strongly and Nina feel strongly
that part of the reason to give Dark Sister away in the 1st
place was to devalue the gift of black fire to Damon to show that
it's not such an important sword after all.
It's not a kingly sword. Yes it was wielded by a king,
but the king is not the crown. Stop associating the two y'all.
So by giving away Dark Sister away, it kind of show it kind of
shows their attitude towards the swords.
I. Think it's pretty cool.
By giving away to someone other than the Prince further devalues
it. Yeah, exactly.
It's just the sword. It's a a family treasure.
It's it's for good warriors not connected to the line of
succession. Yeah.
Absolutely. So I think that was if that was
their thinking, and I do. It's a, it's a strong level of
head cannon. It's pretty darn clever.
It shows the kind of moves Daron was likely to make.
Daron's really good at these political moves and symbolic
moves that are non violent that carry a lot of weight to them.
And I think Baylor learned from that.
I think he saw this and he had the ability to see it because he
was close to his father for so long.
They worked together really well.
And as we'll see after the Blackfyre Rebellion, he works
with him even closer as hand in the king.
So if you see like when you're a king and you know that your son
is going to inherit one day, of course, it's like we see Ned
work with Rob and countless other Lords work closest with
their eldest son, the one they want to see inherit.
Like when's Kendall Tarley worked with Sam, even though he
didn't like him, but once he was like, I got a air I like better,
he started working with that one instead.
He started working with Dickon instead.
Was like Dickon was by his side for every decision at council,
at court, all these things. So Baylor and Aaron together,
believe it. The actual war, Black fire
rebellion, the famous moment came in the order to arrest
Damon was sent. Blood Raven reported on
intrigues going on. He said, look, y'all, they're
going to announce a claim within the moon's turn.
Well, there's some suspicion here whether that's actually
true. Blood Raven may have kicked it
off and like, we need to take care of this now.
They're not listening to me. We should get the jump on it.
So I'm going to fudge the details a little bit, but maybe
not. Maybe it's exactly what
happened. Maybe it's entirely true.
Either way, what did Baylor think?
He probably had knowledge of this order being sent to arrest
Damon and he would have weighed in.
He would have maybe been like, I think this is a mistake or yes,
let's do it. I'm I'm all for it.
We, you know, it's a tough choice, but we got to do it.
I mean, again, this is a guy who's close to all the
decisions, the guy who's going to be appointed hand to the
king. So he's at least witness to his
father's decision, most likely, if not part of the decision.
And Baylor likes to hear people out.
Like, Baylor was a big believer in justice.
We see this in the hedge night. He wanted to hear people's.
He wanted to hear both sides of of an argument.
That might be something. He's like, well, we should hear
from Damon. We should.
OK, yeah, seize him. But, like, let him make a
statement. I want to hear the evidence.
Let's have a trial. That may have been what he
called for. Of course, we don't know what
would have happened because Damon was warned and got away.
Is it possible Baylor is the one who warned him it it?
Well, yes, it's possible. I, I don't, I don't have any
direct evidence of it or even a suggestion of it.
But you know, it would be quite a twist if Baylor did it.
I don't really, I think there's a low percentage chance, but but
I wouldn't say it's like a super unlikely, maybe like a 10%
chance. More likely it was what We're
told it was Fireball who helped him escape.
So Fireball somehow found out about it.
Maybe Fireball overheard the decision and ran away tell them.
Maybe it was one of the other Kingsguard.
We talked about some of the Kingsguard maybe liking Damon
more. If that's the case, they didn't
fight for him, though maybe that's not a great theory.
Either way, someone told and we don't know who.
It could have actually been Daylor himself, which is really
interesting. And again, what did he think we
have to come back to? What did he think of Damon?
Was he like, well, this guy's my friend, He's my my kin.
Oh that small fries next to throwing the realm into civil
war. So I think he would do its best
for the realm but it would have been a real like human heart and
conflict with itself moment if he was actually friends with
Damon and respected him or wanted them to like have a
future together as friends. Which you can see that just
falling apart right before his eyes with this evidence which
may not have been evidence. It probably was though, Lord
Ambrose Butterwell again, the one that that held the second
Blackfyre party. He was handed a king.
And he may have been glad to see Baylor preach leniency because
Baylor, that's the first thing he did, was he preached leniency
towards Damon, which is part of why I wonder if he was the one
that told or if he was friends with him or is like, or if it's
just his. Let's exhaust all avenues of
peace first before we go to war. That to me sounds like the most
likely possibility. But it doesn't have to be just
one answer. There's a lot of, I mean,
multiple reasons here. He did such a bad job of
containing the rebels, Lord Ambrose Butterwell, that is,
that he was fired. Some people later suspected him
of being too friendly with the Blacks.
Of course, he did try to start the second Black fire rebellion.
And when the rebellion started, he sent one son to fight on each
side. He was one of those guys like,
oh, I'm not taking sides. I'm not taking sides.
That seems more likely than he then, because he lost his land
and other stuff. That's why he sided with the
blacks eventually. But either way, he was fired and
replaced by Lord Hayford. Now Hayford was a hardcore
loyalist. There's no question about him.
And I think maybe King Darren maybe felt like, oops, you know,
I screwed up. You know, I because we just a
minute ago we were like, why did he even rehire this guy?
Why did he bring Lord Butterwell back as hand to the king if you
fired all his father's counsel for being so corrupt?
So he probably was like, whoops, that didn't work out so well.
This this guy I brought in failed to contain the Black Fire
rebellion. What if he had like, he was just
really confident. He was just really good at
setting up relationships and keeping track of the books.
And they do. When they let him go, they
realize like, crap, no one else is that good at this job.
And he wasn't that corrupt. OK, Yeah, that makes sense.
Like a guy who's good at books and numbers but isn't good at
war like that. That's not a tough sell at all.
There's plenty of people like that.
You know, he'd be a good peacetime hand and a bad war
time hand. Yeah, that would make sense.
I can see that. I can see that.
So the attempted arrest of Damon had the effect that outrage
often does, especially if it's sold properly to people, which
is that it creates sympathy for someone who's actually probably
guilty. And that may have been part of
Baylor's concern. If he's arguing a counsel for
leniency, he might be like, we got to play this carefully or
else Damon could gain sympathy. We got to make sure that we're
not the bad guys here. We don't because the last thing
we want to do is send more troops into his arms, more
people that support him because he was treated unjustly by this
Dornish king or this Dornish Prince, you know, and whatever.
And think about men like against Sir Eustace Osgrey, our bitter
black fire, He comes back. He seemed to genuinely believe
that Deron was a bastard. And it's like, it's hard for us
maybe to process that because from where we're sitting, it's,
it's kind of a crazy idea. But look what happens with
Stannis and the rumors about Cersei and Joffrey and then they
turn around and send rumors about him and and Felice
sleeping with Moon boy or Solis not Felice sleeping with Moon
Boy. These rumors get somewhat
accepted, right? Because people don't know about
her. They don't have the Internet,
they don't have DNA tests. They're just everything is a
rumor to them. Nothing is truth.
When you live in that system, you just have to believe what
you can. There's no way to know.
The king said this guy's a bastard.
Are we supposed to not believe the king?
Well, this king. Yeah.
Because he lies all the time. Well, then people don't
necessarily know that. Like, look what we saw in the
Riverlands. There were people that were
like, there wasn't like this under King Aries.
Like the. You mean the mad king?
You're like, you want him back? Like, well, he wasn't hurting
us, you know, So just, there's a lot of different shoes you have
to put yourself in to, like, frame the perspectives here
properly and just. Yeah.
Because from where we're sitting.
Yeah. Joffrey Juice, Juice.
Joffrey, Luke and Jase Juice. Juice and.
Lace, Joffrey, Luke and Jace are obviously bastards from where
we're sitting, but it's a little less obvious in in world,
Marcella, Tom and Joffrey, the other Joffrey, right?
Obviously bastards to us, but in world, not so obvious, right?
Same thing here. It's not obvious that Daron's
not a bastard. It's not obvious that he's not
the son of aiming the Dragon Knight.
So yeah, it's tricky. Now again, this wouldn't make
Baylor or Break Spear a bastard, but it would put his claim below
Damon Blackfires if his if his father Daron was a bastard and
Damon's also a bastard, but Damon's actually a bastard of
the king and Daron isn't well then Damon comes first, So
they're from their logic. It's not it's not really
convoluted at all. It just takes this one truth so
well. Daron's a bastard, thus Damon
comes before him. It's actually quite simple when
you put it that way. And looking Dornish, Baylor
looking Dornish wouldn't help, even though we know that's
irrelevant. But like, if you're if you have
anti Dornish sentiment, that just pushes you even farther
into Damon's camp. And these are the people.
This is one thing I love about Baylor.
These are the people Baylor is saying we should go easy on.
Yes, they believe lies. Yes, they are against us, but we
shouldn't feel bitter towards them.
We should still hold out an open hand towards them.
We should still try to bring them back into the fold
peacefully. He's logical and magnanimous,
Nina says about rumors like yes, he doesn't turn bitter.
He doesn't hate the people for believing this nonsense about
his father and his family is like, well, this is how it is.
We got to deal with it. You know, I'm the Prince.
I got to handle this maturely with forward thinking capacity
and without taking it personally.
This is one of the reasons people like him so much, because
that yeah, that's a great, that's a very virtuous way to
handle it. It's a vulnerable way to handle
it. It's a way it's.
We could all learn from that, right?
But the war broke out like he preached leniency to Damon.
But as things progressed, it was clear that that was not going to
do any good. That leniency was
counterproductive because this is now a real rebellion.
It's not going to stop through peace.
It's only going to be stopped through force of arms.
And Baylor was deployed S to collect an army of Dornish and
Stormlanders. Now you can understand why he
was sent to collect the Dornish arm.
He's Dornish. His mother's Dornish.
I mean, his wife is a marcher that they may not love that
part, but still, he's the right call.
And of course, going to the stormlands.
Well, his wife's a marcher Lord, that's the Stormlands and the
Stormlands are in the hands of the Baratheons.
Laughing storm fought at Baylor's side at Dunks side in
the hedge night. That's the storm.
Let's the Lord of Storms end. He probably wasn't Lord of
Storms end at this point but his father probably was and probably
his father. We don't actually know that.
But either way this is close kin like the Baratheons and
Targaryens. They're you know they're still
pretty close relationship wise. We also know none of the high
Lord supported Damon, it was only lesser houses that
supported Damon. So either way, the Baratheons
were Reds in the in the upcoming war since the marchers sided
with Damon, most of them or at all but the Dundarians maybe, we
don't know. There was probably battles to be
fought in the Stormlands too to settle things to be like OK well
who's loyal who's not. Once the Stormland was settled
they can gather the army and start marching.
And this may have been part of the delay.
As we know Baylor barely made it to the battle on time and this
is probably why these battles that he had to fight.
Smaller skirmishes getting people loyal.
And Nina says I wouldn't be surprised at all if Baylor acted
a bit like his eventual great great great nephew Robert
Baratheon in using both his battlefield prowess and his
charm to win people over to win over especially Storm Lords.
In this case, while Baylor would almost certainly have had the
support of the Dondarians, it's entirely possible other marcher
houses were opposed via ambition or ideology.
So Baylor's charm and charisma might have come up big here in
bringing over, but we're kind of on the fence.
There might have been some people that were like, well,
yeah, we we hate the Dornish, but we also are rebels.
We don't want to just turn on the king.
Like that's a big deal too. SAS have done an easily made
decision. So he might have won some people
over who were on the on the fence, which is a really
powerful thing to be able to do. Like if you got someone who's on
a coin flip, might be your enemy and you through charm and
charisma and just your presence and bearing are able to bring
them to your side. And that's just a huge thing.
It's possible Baylor went to Dorn first, though, because he
might have expected a better welcome there.
Like you. Sure, the Ironwoods would have
been against him and maybe some others, but the majority of the
Dornes should probably be on his side for ethnic reasons for
wanting to fight against anti Dornist.
And what they're saying we're not good enough to be a queen
for our people to be queen like outrageous.
Let's fight them. You know, of course some were
like, yeah, we don't want to be a part of that realm, so let's
join the rebels. But as I said, more of the pro
Iron Throne people on the Dornist side most certainly
because of the esteem and their leaders, Sun Spear, all that.
But have to remind ourselves not to treat Dorne as a monolith.
There would have been certainly plenty of houses that bought for
Damon and the Ironwoods. That might be another reason to
go there, because they're not a monolith.
You can't be sure of how they're going to respond.
We need to, we know what the North's going to do.
We know what the you know, the other territories and leaders
are more established, right? But Dorn is, like you said, a
coin flip. We got to make sure this coin
flip's the right way. Yeah, and then and before they
take sides, like do it get help them decide which side of the
fence to be on before someone else makes that decision for
them, before they decide on their own.
Which begs the question, did he go to Dorn first for the
Stormlands first? Like if he goes to Dorn first,
he can maybe get more help to help in the Stormlands.
And I don't know about marching about Stormlanders into Dorn.
That sounds a little more precarious, you know, although
it might be necessary. I don't know.
The third possibility is he didn't do either.
He went to Summerhall and was like, hey everybody meet me
here. You know, like it's a good
border spot for people to meet and gather.
And they fought their battles on their own, like the Dornish
fought the Ironwoods. And once that was settled, they
brought their army N same thing happened in the Stormlands.
They meet Baylorate at Summerhall and March from there.
That's the third possibility. I almost think that's the most
sensible one, but it may have been necessary for optics
reasons, for potential for violence, reasons for Baylor to
go in person to some of these places.
Yeah. Like Lord Martel himself, like
Morris Martel wasn't super old at this point.
We know his father's the one who arranged for the marriages with
Bear, with Baylor. So he's not a like, probably not
an old man. He may have marched with the
troops. He may have been at the Battle
of Red Grassfield. I'm guessing no, but it's
possible. And his son, he his his first
born was a son with Daenerys, who if he was born relatively
soon after the marriage, which is entirely possible, he would
have been a similar age to say Valar and could have been a
Squire in the battle too. So there may have been a little
a young Martel Prince at Baylor's side for this, and
maybe even both a Martel Prince and his own young Valar, which
would have been neat. One of the reasons I saw,
another reason Summerhall is is notable as a possible gathering
spot for troops is Robert Baratheon did the same.
He gathered an army at Summerhall, ended having to
fight a battle there against Randall Tarley, which was the
only battle he lost. But still the point is it
happened got that big army together one way or another.
Whether it was through marching S personally, whether calling
the banners and letting them deal with it themselves and and
bringing forth their troops, we don't know.
But one way or another it happened.
A large army of maybe of 10,000 or so.
Maybe similar to the army that Prince Lewin Martel LED out of
Dorn during Robert's Rebellion, except those men were raised to
lose. And these ones were raised and
came out ahead, came out to Victor.
They were rushing to get to the battle on time.
They were hoping that by the time they got there, they didn't
find a new king already sitting on the throne.
That would be a problem. Like, yeah, we showed up.
But then we'd like, ah, do we bend the knee?
I mean, what do we do? Do we bend the knee to Damon
instead of bite him if he's already defeated?
They're on by the time we get there.
Crap. I'm like, what's in the head of
the common soldier there? We don't know.
They don't know what they're going to get, What's going to
happen by the time they get there?
It may already be over. Put a strange, strange headspace
to be in. Like we're marching force to a
great battle or for nothing. It might already be over.
You might be hoping for that. You might be like, I don't
really want to get revenge on these Swast Rossi, but I kind of
want to not fight at all. I kind of want to just not die,
you know? I just want to go home, yeah.
Can we go back now? Yeah, my.
Family and my farm, that was a lot nicer.
Yeah, I feel like that would be perhaps the most common
sentiment, but there'd be plenty of hardliners, plenty of people
ready to fight, plenty of people driven, whipped into a frenzy.
You know, outrage can take people to pretty nasty places in
their mind, makes make you do things you wouldn't normally do,
especially when there's mob mentality added to the mix.
You know, like, well, all my other neighbors are mad.
I guess I should be mad too. Yeah, let's get them, I guess.
And then a few days later, you're fully bought in.
All right, let's take a quick break here and then get back to
it with the actual Battle of the Red Grass.
Feel guilty, Undertaker says. I do wonder if the Ironwoods
were actually Damon supporters or if they were Dornish
separatists who saw Damon as a path to bring back the old way
of Vulture kings and other such. Business within Dorn, good
mention of the Vulture King or a Vulture King because we're going
to have that as part of the second-half, one of them.
But yeah, I mean, I think that's a great good way of looking at
it. Guilty Undertaker.
Because whether they actually cared about Damon is is
definitely questionable. But they definitely cared about
Martel supremacy and Dornish independence.
That seems. Yeah.
So Damon's cause aligned with theirs rather than them being
specifically aligned with Damon. Damon would give them what they
want, but he's not necessarily someone that they would have
picked under other circumstances.
So yeah, I, I, I agree with that interpretation in terms of what
actually motivated them, Nina says as well.
Even though George's intention was to parallel Henry the Eighth
with Aegon the Unworthy, she doesn't think it was that
effective and doesn't really think the parallel is that
strong. Yeah.
In fact, when you said when you said that, she and the chat went
no, no. OK.
Yeah, she doesn't. Agree she doesn't agree with.
That the comparison is made often.
Yeah, yeah, George himself makes the has made the comparison and
lots of people when reading it naturally make the comparison.
Whether that is accurate to the true history.
I agree with her. It is not.
But when you can look at popular history, popular perception,
what he's playing with, I just think, of course people see
that. Yeah, when you dig into it,
you're right though, some of those comparisons fall off, but
there are some service level comparisons are definitely
there, so. That's what he's doing.
You know, he's it's intentional to have those surface level
comparisons. You know, there's that.
But no, do not, do not think that because you said Nina's
name within a sentence of saying that, that she.
She doesn't agree. On that, yeah.
Cool. All right well we good
clarification. Thanks for that.
Also, our Patreon Dr. continues. There is about a month and a
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Also, if you are a patron or a member through our Spotify
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If you're a patron, you can be a direct participant.
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It's a very audience. Participation is a big part of
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In other gaming news that reminds me of Lansing Sean, we
have been playing our CK3 campaigns on Twitch.
Now we moved from YouTube to Twitch.
The videos are still available on YouTube.
They are in the playlist. CK2CK2 CK 3 playlist folder.
Not folder, rather there's playlist on YouTube so you can
see them all there. They all get put there.
They're also viewable on Twitch, which is where we do them live.
But if you want to catch the replays, you can still see them
on YouTube. Yeah, and they should still show
the chat even though the on YouTube the chat won't be
embedded anymore, but on the screen it shows up on the
screen, so you should be able to follow along with the
conversation when relevant. And the reason I made the
Lansing Sean joke just now is that I'm currently playing Jaime
Lannister as Lord of Casting the Rock and like, well, how did
that happen? Well, he got kicked out of the
Kingsguard because he lost a leg and he still enters tournaments
and jousts. Sean, yeah, you should still be
entering tournaments. Yeah, you.
Should that's? Right.
Don't you want to be like Jamie? All right, all right, I will.
Yeah, whenever there's a jousting tournament around,
he'll enter it. Yeah, he'll enter all the
jousting tournaments in Denver. He hasn't missed a single 1 yet,
so that's really fun. The graphics on CK3 are amazing.
Casterly Rock and Atlanta Sport look fantastic.
It's really fun playing Jamie. We're married to a young woman
who looks like Brienne, including her size, and we're
trying to have large, handsome, gigantic warrior children and we
have succeeded. We have 4 large children, one of
them who is has the beautiful trait and the Amazonian trait.
So she's large and beautiful. And our eventual goal is to
usurp the Iron Throne from Robert, who is still king.
He's still married to Cersei and yeah, even even 20 years after
he would have died in cannon. So we're having a great time
with that. Better watch out, you're going
to have some death by snooze snow.
Death by snooze, Snoo. Amazonian Women.
That's right, we love our Futurama references here on
History of Westeros podcast. I hope you do too, because
otherwise you're like, I don't know what the hell they're
talking. About that's to be a whole lot
more drama references when the new season starts.
It's like the fifth time Futurama has returned from the
grave, isn't it? Yeah.
No, it is. It's about a movie theatre.
And it is. It won't die because it's great.
That's why it won't die. Because it's the future.
We keep getting closer. To you can't.
You can't totally. You can never get to the future.
The Red Grass feels. Talk about that.
So Bailor didn't fight, let alone win a famous duel like
Damon did versus Dwayne Corbray. There was no clash of bleary and
steel for him. He didn't have any to clash
with, right? There was no mad charge to
snatch an ancestral sword while maiming an arch enemy before
escaping overseas to fight again, either.
He he didn't have the epic story of Bitter Steel, nor Bloodraven,
nor Damon Blackfire, but he did nevertheless come out of it a
hero. He led his soldiers well-being a
good leader, winning men to your cause, getting them to fight for
you, having their morale being as good as it could be, those
are hugely important qualities. You don't have to, you know,
kill a bunch of people with your sword to be an effective leader
in medieval style times. It's a quality that will
continue to matter after the fighting was over.
I mean skill with a sword is crucial in times like this, it
helps a lot. But in day-to-day ruling of the
Kingdom, it doesn't do you anything except for maybe
framing your reputation a bit, maybe helping back up your
authority. So there is a little of that.
But still the qualities he showed on the red grass field as
a leader, those are the qualities that would continue
for him. These are the qualities that
Westeros would end up relying on.
And they it was the better for it.
You know, I, I don't know how it would have gone if Damon had
won, but I don't think it would have been better.
I don't think Damon, Damon probably would have better been
a better king than Robert Baratheon.
But he had a lot of those qualities of warrior first
administrator. Well, not seconds.
It's this far down the list. Like he also wasn't a womanizer
or a drinker, although maybe he would have become one.
I don't know. I mean, who knows?
Like Robert wasn't necessarily known to be a big alcoholic
except for people close around him in those early days.
So who knows about Damon now? While Sir Eustis isn't the most
unbiased observer, in fact, he's very biased.
There's this impossible to have an unbiased observer here.
So we we work with what we have. Even when Damon Blackfyre fails,
it's framed as a good thing. It's like, oh, he was too
honorable when he defeated Gwaine Corbra, he dismounted and
ordered him tended to by his maester.
And Eustace says, oh, that was the difference quote.
So close a thing. If Damon had ridden over Gwaine
Corbrae and left him to his fate, he might have broke and
made cars left before Blood Raven could have taken the
Ridge. The day would have belonged to
the Black Dragons then, the Hand slain and the road to King's
Landing open before them. Damon might have been sitting on
the Iron Throne by the time Prince Baylor could come up with
his Storm Lords and his Vornish men.
The singers can go on about their hammer and their amble,
Sir, but it was the Ken Slayer who turned the tide.
The white arrow black spell. He's basically saying if it
wasn't for Damon being so honorable, Baylor wouldn't have
had a chance. He wouldn't have even gotten
there on time. He's saying the hammer and the
anvil, well, basically irrelevant.
The battle was decided before that.
It was decided when Damon was killed, and the hammer in the
anvil came after that. He's basically saying the
singers are making a big deal out of a mop up operation.
It's to be expected from Eustace's bitterness, but he's
got a point, you know? Like, yeah, Damon was already
dead by the time Baylor got there.
Like that's pretty big. Not only that, but blood.
Raven had already lost his eye. Bittershield already recovered
the sword, had his mad charge, and took out blood.
All that happened before Baylor got there.
So, yeah, Eustis has a little bit of a point.
Like Baylor maybe did get too much praise for what he did.
Like, he was remembered as a hero nonetheless, though, for
leadership and for that timing, that timing was was pretty
perfect. Yeah, he missed most of the
famous last battle. But hey, I can kind of
understand why he got such a claim.
When it comes to battles, for many reasons, if not the most
important reason of all, it's better to be the guy that
finishes the battle than the one that starts it.
Because, you know, if you're not the one that finishes it, you
probably lost. And Daylor breaks.
Beer was remembered as exactly that man.
Here's a quote from The World of Ice and Fire.
The battle came to an end when Prince Baylor Breaks beer
appeared with the host of Storm Lords and Dornish men falling on
the rebel rear, while the young Prince Makar rallied what
remained of Lord Aaron's van and made an implacable anvil against
which the rebels were hammered and destroyed. 10,000 men had
died for Damon Blackfyre's vanity and many more were
wounded and maimed. King Daron's efforts at peace
had been shattered through no fault of his own, save perhaps
too much mercy for his envious half brother.
Are you proud of me as he's? I said that without laughing.
Nice, good job. It's not over yet.
So to recap the action real briefly, Damon led his army
towards King's Landing, leading the vanguard himself was blocked
by the loyalist host, which was led by the Aaron's Lord Aaron
and Wayne Corbray there. Then he was shot down by
Bloodraven. The rebels started to flee when
Bloodraven shot down the twin sons.
Bittersteel, who commanded the rear, turned the route into
another charge. He let he restored the the route
and turned it into a charge which he led towards where Damon
fell. He recovered blackfire and then
charged Bloodraven who they dueled.
Bittersteel got the better the duel and it's possible he would
have even finished Bloodraven off.
We're not sure. This may have been when Baylor
arrived and when Baylor arrived, the smash into the rebel rear
and that basically ended the battle.
Now that's the part you were going to laugh at.
How the Rebel rear. Yeah, yeah.
Bitter Steel, if you think about this from a strategic
perspective, Bitter Steel's job, he was leading the rear.
So his job is to prevent something like what Baylord did.
His job is to watch out for another army approaching.
He was. His job is to protect the rear
of the army from being smashed into from behind like Baylord
did. But because the battle was over
losing and they were, he had to do something to recover the
sword and this other stuff. So had things gone a little
differently as well? Baylor arrives and finds himself
facing Bitter Steel and is going to be delayed.
He'll have to fight his way through that in order to get to
the main army. So it really could have gone a
lot differently because this was a like these things all happen
together so closely in a matter of like minutes, not not even
not hours, let alone days for. What it's worth, there's other
ways it could have gone differently that would have made
it more clear, like we're we're looking at ways like it was so
close and it could have gone the other way.
Well, it may be it was so close and it could have been more
clear that it was going the way it was.
What if Baylor got there a day early?
Yeah. What if we just got there a day?
Yeah. Yeah.
All these close things would have been pretty close, yeah.
Yeah, that's true. Damon may have just had to back
off. Battle may not have happened.
They'd be like, Sir, they've got 40,000 men, we've got 20.
Should we not do this right now? Like, Oh yeah, you're probably
right. And who knows what a monumental
effort it may have been on Baylor's point to get his
soldiers there on time. You know, yeah, I think of the
logistical and political coordinations that would have
taken to do all that. It's easy to blow all that off
because one guy was better with the sword.
But hey, man, that guy was better with the sword.
Bring 40,000 troops to the battlefield.
I mean, yeah, you're right. Like he may a a a weaker
commander, a less charismatic, less capable commander may have
may have been completely late. He may have showed up.
Yeah. Three hours later, which would
have been too late. So three days later, which went
way too late. Yeah, you're right.
And you notice that that quote was a lot less harsh.
It wasn't as biased as your Sir Eustis because it's it's from a
maestro's point of view. It's still it it caused Damon
Blackfyre's vanity. And it also says King Deron
maybe gave too much leeway to his half brother, but so kind of
leaves both sides open there a bit.
I would be a little harder on Deron, but not like super hard
like he was trying for peace. I got to.
I respect that. But he may have learned a lesson
about trusting too much or keeping people too close or or
being a little too lenient, as the quote suggests.
He also saw how well his son acquitted himself in combat as a
leader, which was that had to make him very proud, had to make
him feel good about the future. And it also made him more of a
candidate for office, which we'll see here in a minute.
Like that had to give a lot of people confidence in his
abilities. Like they knew he had it in him
probably like everybody was, Oh, the bright shining Prince.
He's great. He's great.
But until he actually performs when it matters, you can't know
how he's going to handle it. And he did.
He handled it really well. He handled it so well.
Arguably, he got too much credit, I think.
And we talked about this in our episode on the red grass field
made seven years ago, that Makar deserves more credit than Daylor
Makar's the one who had to step in and take over for the slain
Lord Hayford, the commander, the Lord, the hand that took over
for Lord Butterwell was killed in the red grass field.
And Makar sort of stepped up to reform the lines.
And he's the one who, it's, as it says, gathered the shattered
lines into an anvil that Daylor hammered against.
Well, Baylor got to sneak in and attack from behind, right?
Whereas Makar was there the whole time, fighting and holding
people off and resisting Damon's initial charge.
It sounds like he had a harder job.
Baylor kind of came in and saved the day, but Makar's job was
more difficult and more challenging.
He acquitted himself just as well, if not better.
But afterwards, it was Baylor who got all the credit.
Who or most of the credit? I mean, it was the hammer and
the anvil. Like they they that was the the
song. But more credit goes to the
Hammer. Like Hammer's just a cooler
name, right? Like how many Hammer?
Like it's one of the most common nicknames there is.
Like right now any of you out there could name like 5 people
who have the nickname Hammer MC Hammer.
MC Hammer. Yeah, MC Hammer.
There's that Hammer who won the second Magic the Gathering Pro
Tour. Hammer Rainier was his name
Hammer and Hank, Hank Aaron for baseball.
You know, there's even within a Song of Ice and fire, the Hammer
of the waters, the hammer of the Dornish hard hew hammer.
There's just a lot of hammers. Y'all hammer and nail in the in
the second sons or whatever. You know, there's just a lot of
hammers. It's popular.
Hammer hardly know her. Exactly.
So break spear, he gets another nickname because when you're
cool, you can get multiple nicknames.
So he's break spear and the hammer.
He breaks the spear with hammers and now make our being in his
brother's shadow is a pretty big deal.
But that's probably more of a story for Makar.
Being in someone's shadow is it's more appropriate to discuss
that when you're the guy in the shadow rather than the one past
the shadow. So we'll we'll talk about this
more when we do an episode of Makar because Makar does deserve
his own episode one day. TK OK Podcast Network.
Shout out to our good friend Tommy and the new Dad show.
You know, Yeah, super chat says love on Father's Day from the
thigh Sparrow. Not the High Sparrow, but the
thigh Sparrow. Right on named that because of
his creamy thighs, which are well tattooed.
Yes, yes, but he has a tattoo of of Winterfell on one thigh
currently. Also, I will note that part of
the TK OK podcast network is the new Dad podcast, which I'm not
such a new dad right now. Experienced dad, I'd say, but
relevant on Father's Day, yes. Yeah, Happy Father's Day to all
fathers out there except mine. Screw that.
Screw that guy. Yeah.
Or yours if your father's like mine.
Yeah, screw him. Screw them too.
All right? So hand to the king.
So not everyone has a father like Deron the Second?
Yeah. Some people have a father like
Aegon the Unworthy. That's right.
Like Deron the second. Yeah, exactly.
So he was hand from nears 196 up until his death in the year 2 O
9. So a good solid 13 plus years is
hand to the king. It was a good thirteen years.
And here's a quote to represent those good times.
With his half brothers dealt with and the strength of his
sons and heirs supporting him, many thought that King Daron had
now ensured that the realm would be under Targaryen rule for
centuries to come. Few could doubt that Baylor
Breaks Spear would be a great king, for he was the heart of
chivalry and the soul of wisdom, and came to serve his father
most ably as Hand. Yeah, I mean, it wouldn't.
It says first centuries to come. It didn't even last one more
century. Robert Baratheon became king in
about 283 or 282. That's less than 100 years from
this this point. This is the year 196.
It's possible Deron wanted Baylor to be hand before this.
I mean, he worked with him so closely, but maybe he just
didn't have the political clout to promote his son at such an
early age. It's so little experience being
so unproven, but boom, clearly he's proven now he's the one of
the big heroes of the red grass field of the rebellion.
He successfully showed his leadership abilities and it
played out in a way that that made him maybe get even more
acclaimed than he deserved. Though he clearly deserved a lot
of acclaim. So the question of experience
and capability was thoroughly answered.
So I'm guessing if he was a questionable choice before he
went to a popular one, especially because a lot of the
people who would have been opposed to it were just killed
or lost and had to bend the knee and were no and in no place to
demand anything as he had when the war preached broke out.
He may have preached mercy for the rebel to bring them back in
peacefully. Let's invite them back so, you
know, let make them sure concessions.
Maybe they have to give up hostages here and there, but
let's not be too hard on right Blood Raven and others argued
for severe punishments and blood Raven's esteem at court would
have also gone up. He's the guy that actually
killed Damon. He showed himself very capable
as well. He also lost an eye so he would,
you know, have I don't know if that gives him any sympathy but
they'd be like look proof I I lost this on the red grass field
y'all. He could maybe intimidate people
with his opinions based on. He would look intimidating.
Hell, I mean, there's that too. But just his authority for
having been there and faced that and been there, done that, all
that. Yeah, no one can blow him off.
Like when's the last time you were on a battlefield or
something like that? Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, so whatever any any anti blood Raven sentiment would have
would have been lessened given his participation and just the
fact that whoa, he's he's even more dangerous than we thought.
Like the rumors of him using sorcery to kill Damon and his
willingness to be a kinslayer and all of this stuff.
Like, man, this guy is ruthless. Do not cross him.
So what you have is a court at which a lot of people's esteem
is raised. Daron wins the war.
Even though he didn't send any, even though he didn't
participate directly, he sent the right people to do it.
He still gets a lot of credit. Baylor and Bloodraven get a ton
of credit too. So they have honors and favors
and standing at court with which to argue their positions.
King Darren was surprisingly, somewhat surprisingly harsh with
the rebels. It wasn't.
I don't know what that means because we don't get a lot of
details, but but it people were surprised given the way he had
handled things like this before, he went farther than they
thought he would. And this, I got to think, is
partly Blood Raven's influence. Maybe Baylor wasn't happy about
that. Maybe he pushed for a little
more leniency, but evidence suggested perhaps that leniency
backfired, so they might not want to be so lenient.
There might be a lot of other people that would agree with
that. But like, yeah, look, Baylor,
like I appreciate your chivalrous take here, but I got
to side with Brendan because leniency did backfire or
blackfire pretty badly. So we got to be harsher.
We got to demand hostages. We got to take land away.
We got to do that stuff, which of course had it's you never
could tell. Like we, we only have one data
point here. We don't know how it could have
gone if they were more lenient or or even harsher.
We do know that some people were very dissatisfied and it did
maybe stoke the next rebellion of the the wedding rather the
wedding party. If you're going to stoke her a
billion, that's the best one. Yeah, yeah, yeah, 1.
That actually like 3 people died or something, you know, and one
of them was just bragging about being a an informer, you know.
So one of them was Lord Gorman Peak.
Like, yeah, good riddance to that guy, you know, Black Tom
Heddle also good riddance. Yeah.
So yeah, that went pretty well. But for Daron, he grew up, and
we got to put ourselves in his shoes for a minute, too, because
Baylor would know this. Baylor would know where his
father's coming from. Granddad Aegon, who he grew up
with, let's not forget, Baylor was around for his grandfather,
trying to undermine his side of the family, constantly
humiliating, trying to remove them from the line of
succession, all this stuff. So there is that as well.
To balance out any leniency on Baylor's part might be like,
well, yeah, even the leniency can come within our own family.
So maybe maybe I should be a little stricter about these
things. Maybe he changed his tune a
little bit. Maybe.
Meaning we're talking about a young man transitioning to
adulthood. He may have been disabused of
some notions. If he had been friends with
Damon, which we speculated on off and on throughout this this
pair of episodes, it would wake him up to like, well, I got to
be careful about who I make friends with and I got to.
I can't allow my prejudices to, for my friendship with people
distract me from my greater duty to the realm here.
No. And he seems like a very serious
person. Yeah, I wonder that.
And that would be a primary goal, not having another civil
war, two major civil wars in the 2nd century of Targaryen rule,
the Dance and the Black Fire Rebellion.
Now, of course, as we know, there would be more Black Fire
rebellions, not just the wedding in the next turn, not next
century. But by that time, Baylor would
be long dead. So during his time, maybe it was
easy, maybe it was just because it took Bitter Steel so long to
get the Golden Company set up and other things.
But they kept it on lockdown like they kept it in in a good
place. They may have even done clever
things to slow Bitter Steel down.
They may have made moves overseas.
We know they remarried, make our son Daron to Kiara of Thai Rosh
much later. Now that would be after Baylor's
death. But the first marriage of Kiara
of Thai Rosh to Baylor's son was very political because, you
know, Damon's strength lies in Thai Rosh.
They may have been trying to like undermine some of his Thai
Roshi strength. So yeah, like I said, I was a
little harsher on Deron about stopping the Blackfire
Rebellions in the 1st place. They didn't clearly didn't learn
enough of the lessons from the Dance to stop this one from
happening. But of course, to be fair, Aegon
the 4th, I mean, that dude did so much to make it to set the
plants of seeds for the Blackfire Rebellion in the 1st
place. Like he's the reason more than
anything. But you know, I mean, Deron did
appoint Lord Butterwell. There's this.
This kind of that was probably a mistake, even though he may have
been a good peacetime hand. Let's say he didn't appoint Lord
Butterwell. Does that mean it wouldn't have
happened? You know, he was really set up
for failure. Like he maybe he didn't handle
it perfectly, but he probably handled it way better than
average. And even if he had handled it
perfectly, it might have still happened.
And. I think from a like a greater
karmic angle, George is saying talking about reality and we
like just because you make the right moves, because you do you
have the right attitudes and your your goals are noble,
doesn't mean it's going to work out doesn't guarantee the best
results. That's the world.
You know, there's always going to be bad people trying to
undermine you. A random chance can undermine
you Mother Nature. I mean, there's random things
like the tornado comes and you're blamed for it because
everybody's superstitious like you do, you know?
I will say, though, I don't feel like George has a nihilistic,
no, he's not. I, I don't think he, it's not
like you shouldn't try to do the right thing.
Even when you do the right thing, it doesn't always work
out. But you shouldn't still try to
do the right thing. I agree.
I totally agree. I totally agree with that
interpretation too, because a lot of people do think George is
a nihilist and it's just like this.
I don't see that. He absolutely makes it clear
that that the trying is hard, but he doesn't say he never
makes it seem like pointless. He I totally agree with the
interpretation that he makes it. He shows that it's worthwhile.
It's worthwhile to try. Ren is a hero.
Rihanna is a hero. Yes.
Rihanna is a hero. Dunk is a hero.
Yeah, Dad Stark is heroic. He's a hero too, in a much
different way, you know, for sticking up for children and,
and for peace and things like that.
And all the heroes might not be perfect, but I think we we
jumped to Brienne because she is close to perfect.
I don't know a moral standpoint it.
Is close as we got. Yeah, it's perfect.
Yeah. And we don't.
And we don't feel like she's wasting her time with her silly
integrity, you know? No, yeah, no one reads that and
going like, what a dumb ass. And no one reads that and goes,
that's stupid Brienne. Well, maybe someone does, but no
one I know I would disagree with anyone who thinks that way.
The complaints would continue though.
Even though the black fires lost, there would still be
people saying, look, this court is too Dornish, or why do the
Dornish get these concessions that the other highlighters
don't? That was that would still happen
in court with petitions instead of with swords and insults,
right? That would still be going on.
It wouldn't just die out with the black fires.
And Baylor's hand to the King would be in charge of handling a
lot of it. I mean, as we know, the hand is
the frontline for a lot of these things.
The King dreams, the Hand builds, that sort of thing.
And this King and Hand worked together better than most.
They they were of one mind, more so than a lot of others, because
a lot of times where the King and the Hand were contentious,
Tywin and Aries being one of the most.
But Tywin and Aries worked really well early on.
So even they were an example of King and Hand getting along
until until they weren't. So there'd be still people
saying, you know, mocking him for being Dornish and whispering
about that. And but he would probably have
handled it with grace because that seems to be how he handles
most things. I mean, maybe he would have his
moments where chafed at him and he got frustrated.
But I, you know, I feel like he would have kept that under
wraps, done that behind closed doors.
But maybe I'm making too much of his goodness.
One other weird question we have is what would he have thought
about Daenerys and Damon? Whether Damon wanted to marry
twice, whether that was something that was just young,
something that happened when he was younger.
It's always been a little puzzling.
Did Damon really think he could marry twice?
I kind of doubt that. Maybe when he was, maybe when
Aegon was still king, he could have thought that.
But I mean, Baylor probably wouldn't have been cool with
that. I mean, Daron definitely wasn't
either. Like polygamy under this new in
my salad. Yeah.
Like a me under infronted by salad.
Yeah, no way. So I don't think so.
But it's it's even weird that he could have thought that he was
enabled to do that or allowed to do that given all this.
So one thing might be a conflation of old rumor.
Like Barristan brings this point up.
He's like, oh, he rose when he was denied the hand of Nair's.
Like, no, that happened eight years later, you know, And it's
like, it definitely wasn't the. Yeah, I think maybe some of this
is just exaggerated by the historians because it sounds
romantic and it's the kind of thing in the world people would
latch onto as a reason while it being not very accurate.
And he may have believed, like Nina writes, that it's.
Possible that when Damon was like. 14 years old he could have
thought he could also marry someone else because he thought
of himself as another Aegon the Conqueror and his father Aegon
was had 9 mistresses and all of those.
So it's not that far from maybe believing this stuff naively
because of his age And and you know, Rhaegar will later be with
Lyanna while he's married, so it's not The idea isn't going
completely crazy even though it seems culturally unacceptable.
Arguably it was more culturally acceptable when.
Rhaegar did it even though it was less.
Acceptable from some of the high Lords, like the faith were more
powerful in in Deron's day, in Baylor's day as well too.
Like how did that go with the with the marchers?
As things proceeded, did the marchers start to calm down over
time? Like, all right, one realm fine,
we're not at war with Dornish, but there may have been more
just Dornish incursions. They may have still been sending
Raiders into Dorn just to petulantly continue the old ways
under wraps, you know, send raids here and there regardless
of what was happening, regardless of what ill will
still was out there. A key goal for any monarch and
his son in hand would be to curb these bad feelings, these flare
ups from turning into another war to turning into some big
problem. They would recognize that it's
going to take generations to fix these problems for good.
The best they can do is just keep it from flaring up too big
into another full scale rebellion.
Let's talk about outside threats, because it's one thing
to. See problems within.
The family or within the realm. It's another to to stop things
that aren't even in Westeros. Like they have a limited ability
to interfere with things that are happening outside their own
borders. Like a lot of things that
happened happened within the family, right?
Like it wasn't like the Dornish didn't start a war and attack,
you know, the Ironborn didn't do that.
It was a civil war, 2 Targaryen factions going against each
other. So these things start from
within. That's why I put a little bit
more blame on most the Deron, on Deron the most, because it
started within his family. Like this is these are your
relatives. Your job was to prevent this
from happening. I think he did a good job in
general as a king. I think he earned the name The
Good, but I'm still critical of this, you know.
But as I alluded to before, there may have been some clever
moves they did to undermine whatever Bitter Steel was trying
to do in Essos. He had black fire.
But the Golden Company wasn't formed till about the year 212.
And I wonder if they are the reason it took so long.
Nonviolent interference, bribing offerings, like, hey, you know
what certain key commander of bitter stills like, you know
what, bro, just come back over to Westeros.
We'll promise you safe passage. We'll let you have some of your
land back. Just come on back.
That's what you want anyway, right?
So just like buy off a few of his of his top guys and that
just like sets him back a lot. You know, just bring him back in
like you don't want to live in Essos as a cell sword.
Come back here, bro. We'll give you your you know, I
could see that working on a few of them.
Yeah, a couple sabotage ships. A couple.
Red tape at the port and give a trade deal to Thai Rosh in
exchange for not backing them in.
Something else, like just something, just little
nonviolent ways of slowing them down, of blocking their moves.
Yeah. And Thai, Thai Rosh isn't a
monarch. We got to, we got to remember
that there. And they have Archons, which are
elected officials. So we got to figure Rohan of
Thai Rosh, Damon Blackbird's wife, she was connected.
She was part of some big family. And so with Kiera of Thai Rosh
marries Balar Baylor's son. This, as I alluded to before,
was likely to curb Thai Roshi influence, to give them a a
counterbalance within Thai Roshi society against any using them
against Westeros. Now.
Kiara, like I said, is. Going to remarry to Darren the
Drunkard later. After Valor dies in the Great
Spring Sickness, which shows how important this marriage was to
them. They thought it was so important
that they remarried her to another Targaryen Prince, to
another Crown Prince. And that says a lot about what
their. Their continued worries.
About future Blackfyre incursions, even though at this
point, nothing. Nothing of that sort has
happened yet. By the time they remarry Kiera
Daron, there'll have been second Black Fire incursion and the
third Black Fire rebellion, which was a close run thing.
Nina thinks this marriage was probably arranged.
And occurred after the first black fire.
Rebellion. That is Kiera to Valar.
Now, Kiera and Valar never had any children, so that's
unfortunate. But had they had children, it
would have been pretty interesting to for people to
compare Damon's still living sons to those of the red Dragons
who are still around. And you know, this all this
stuff. And then as well, later it
becomes very interesting to consider as part of his legacy.
Consider the preacher. Remember the preacher That's
like, oh, you know, the when Damon's the holier 1, you know,
the the gods favored him. You know, Blood Ravens with his
spell and his sorceries evil and the deaths of these children are
of of Baylor's children, Valar and Mataris.
It's kind of like you could frame that as the death of Aegon
and Amon at the red grass field. So the two first sons of Damon
verse the two only sons of Baylor.
It's like, well, the gods have spoken.
Baylor's line is ending. Damon's is still going.
So you wonder if that was a superstitious call out by
adherents of Damon or people who wanted to see the black fires
continue. Of course, this is much later,
but it would be the same. People would have been preaching
this and that during Baylor's life, would have been able to
pivot to this later. Like, see, see, we we've been
saying this for decades now. The gods finally had their due.
You know, it took a while, but they did it.
You know, they showed the gods can't be cheated.
Very results oriented, yes, very, but that's a lot of people
are that yes, yes, we sure are. Nina says Kira of Tyros is a
very is has a lot of parallels to Catherine of Aragon and more
more potential connections there for real world stuff there.
So that's a that's a discussion for another time, but wanted to
throw that out. So if Maron and Daenerys's.
Eldest son wasn't at the. Red grass field because he
wasn't old enough to Squire for Baylor.
We only need to look a few years later for when this is a lot
more likely because we don't know when this kid was born, but
whenever he was born, at some point he turned old enough to be
a Squire. And I mean, it's super
straightforward. This is Baylor Brakespeare, the
Crown Prince, the heart of soul and soul of nobility and
chivalry in the 17. Of course you want your son
Squire to be to be a Squire to him, especially when he's like
your your nephew, you know, or or I guess he would actually be.
Yeah, he would be cousin because he'd be a lot older.
But Daenerys is his aunt, so yeah, Anyway, close relation and
a pretty ideal choice. So yeah, maybe this son of Maron
Martel was raised inside Baylor, at least for a little while.
Briefly, let's check back in on magic and prophecy because
that's always worth talking about.
Here and there we talk about Blood Ravens.
Increase increase role because of his being so effective during
the Blackfyre rebellion and his promotion.
He may have been not officially Master Whispers, but we think he
was. He was called Master Whispers,
we just don't know when officially he achieved that
title with his enhanced clout with Chiara in the picture now
and Darren's own son Aries, who was bookish.
You've got this cadre at court, this group that we discussed in
the Shirazi Star episode in particular, as well as other
places that are very, very interested in researching the
occult and the arcane. And again, ERISA is the one who
found the prophecy of the Dragons returning and throw that
mix in. They're on the drunkard's
dreams, who were not he, he would have maybe started having
dreams at a young age. We're not clear on that, but.
He was born. Before, certainly well before
Baylor died. Obviously Baylor died and Darren
the drunkard was right there at the trial 7 with him.
So he would have been Privy perhaps to his nephew's dreams,
maybe not the contents of them, but he would know that his
nephew was a dream most likely. And Damon, and we mentioned
Damon the second who was probably at court till he was
around 8 or 9 or at least would have been in and out of court.
His dreams might have been something people talked about as
well if they were aware of them, which in his case they might not
have been. But it's impossible for Baylor
not to be aware that Targaryens have dreamed that Targaryens
want to bring Dragons back. Even Baylor the blessed prayed
over his Dragons. So it wasn't even off the table
for for the the pious Targaryens.
So what did he think of it? We have no idea, but it's it's
he had to have had opinions. He had to have had thoughts on.
It what did he think of magical pursuits?
The fact that it was a time of peace enabled more magical
pursuits. Like this is something you don't
have time for when you're in civil war.
You know, maybe Shiera does because she wasn't fighting in
the war. But Bloodraven, he was a little
busy. Eris the first, not a warrior.
Maybe he was still just in the library during the war, but
still, you got to figure there's more time for the stuff when the
realm isn't at war. More ability to for academic
pursuits, more time for that, more appropriate for that.
From what we can tell. When Aries became king, I picked
up even more. Because we've got the bookish
dude. Who's actually in charge?
And no one's going to tell him to do other stuff.
He's like, no, I want to read my books.
That's you. Take care of the realm.
I'm going to keep reading. Super interesting to wonder what
Baylor thought of that, whether it was one of the things that
some of the hardliners didn't like people who were black
fires. Did they associate this stuff
with blood Raven before he was big into it?
Or was it something they or a reason they turned on it because
he was associated with like, oh, this is the stuff Blood Ravens
into. We don't we don't like that or
or what you know, it's it's always a big open question as to
what people think about magic. I feel like from what we know of
Baylor. He would have at least accounted
for. These things I don't think he
would have just like completely dismissed it.
I think he's, he's been described specifically as wise,
you know, and I think that he would have seen enough to be
aware of the reality of the, you know, he.
May even have sort. Of I don't know how to say it's
like Davos or Stannis suspicions.
Like I don't know about this magic stuff, but it's real.
Like he might, you know, and he might even be more accepted of
like dreams from his relatives, you know, like he he might not
get obsessed with it like some might.
Yeah. But I don't think that he.
Would have been. Ignorant to it or dismissive of?
Yeah, I think you're right because it would be weird to be
dismissive of something that's clearly effective.
Doesn't sound like something. He would do you also wonder like
we hear that Bloodraven and maybe Shiera or with Shiera's
help was using magic to ferret out secrets as part of being a
master whisperers. If if Baylor was aware of any
specifics or details that might be interesting or cause for
concern or just something they'd spoke on or like, don't go too
far with that, you know, keep that under wraps.
You know, I don't know. But is there there are good
questions that we can't answer. If this ever hits TV, those
questions might have to be answered.
They're going to have to fill in some of those blanks.
They can't just ignore it. The Vulture King in the year 2 O
6 after Baylor had been handed for a good ten years, helping
rule, managing the realm after the Black fire rebellions,
helping his father do good things, keep the peace.
This was a new Vulture King, wasn't the first one.
This was at least the 4th Vulture King.
We don't know how many total. There were kind of a microcosm
of the Black Fire Kings and that they just kept coming by the way
by and so it is showing. I didn't know there were
multiple vulture Kings. Is there a certain time frame
and or geographical location that they were limited to?
They're always in the Red Mountains.
The Red Mountains is the key here.
They're all pretty much Dornish and.
They're all pretty. Yeah.
It's it's like the shrouded Lord.
So the Dread Pirate Roberts thing, there's been multiple
people call themselves out there aren't necessarily related
family wise, but they're basically outlaw kings that
emerge in the Red Mountains. And because the Red Mountains is
is difficult to penetrate. So it's a really hard place to
root out an outlaw king. Is it?
Is it something that's emerged, you know, like four or five
times over the past 10? 1000 years, or four or five
times over the past 100 years. More of the latter.
Yeah, it wasn't. It wasn't a thing from way back
the first Vulture. King was during the time of
Jerry's, I believe the old king. So not so only about so like in
the year like 60 or 70, something like that.
So yeah. And there.
And this was the 4th, about 120 years later, 130 years later,
150 years later, something like that.
Yeah. So it's like a combination of
the black fires and the dread pirate robbers.
And yes, it's an outlaw tradition.
And this may have had political or ideological ties to the
Ironwoods because this is kind of in their region, the northern
part of the Red Mountains, the ones that have borders with the
rest of the Seven Kingdoms. So the Vulture King can spill
out through secret valleys and passes known only to Dornish,
into Dorn or into the Marcher lands.
Or, you know, they have various place they can come in and out
of the mountains and which is what makes them difficult, sort
of like Ironborn. They can attack suddenly and get
away suddenly. And then when they retreat, you
can't really follow them because they go into their mountains
where it's very dangerous to follow them.
You might be chasing them and all of a sudden a bunch of
boulders are dropped on your head, you know, and you're
ambushed. It's like you're chasing them,
but now they're chasing you because you've entered their
turf. So, yeah, very daily, like the
Cranigan, you don't want to follow them into their turf. the
Vulture Kings, there's lots of suspicions about them.
It's a topic we'll cover specifically one day, that they
might be proxy, like a proxy king, someone paying them to
cause trouble that they can exploit.
The Ironwoods would be a good potential example of this
because the Ironwoods have often tried to undermine the Martells.
Of course, keep in mind a lot of the Vulture Kings emerged before
the Seven Kingdoms was united. This is, I think this is the
last Vulture King and the only one that emerges when the seven
kingdoms is whole because all the others come on door and it's
independent because it's always been like, well, the Vulture
King comes out and does stuff and the sun Spears like we got
nothing to do with this. This is an outlaw king and
people are like, is it now or is it just a way for you to absolve
yourself and have plausible deniability?
And we don't know which is true. There could be 11 Vulture king
could be a yes, one could be a no.
So a Baylor would be faced with this.
And this is very interesting as hand to the king.
It would be his job to take this on even more because look what's
happening. This is the when when he was
sent to participate in the Blackfyre Rebellions, it was to
recruit Stormlanders. And dornishment.
Well, the Vulture King is smack dab in that territory, those two
territories, as well as maybe a little bit in the Reach.
So there's potential blood ties to former rebels.
And who united to stop this Vulture King, Lord Karen and
Lord Dondarian? This is only three years before
the hedge night. So it's very likely the same
Lord Dondarian that we see in the hedge night.
The one that kind of tells Dunk to go away.
But Baylor is is kind to him. He's like, oh, yeah, I jousted
against your master, you know, and he's like, no, you couldn't
have. That was the the Prince.
Oh, you this would be. And remember that's we don't
know what Baylor's wife, Jenna, what his relation to Lord
Darndarian or what her relation to John Lord Darndarian is, but
he's a chance it's his sister or daughter.
So very likely a close relation, which is why we see Baylor and
him chatting. They're in laws.
And you would really hope they would be particularly interested
in these results. They would really want to equip
themselves well and reprove that they are capable.
Like I said, it had been 10 years since the Blackfyre
Rebellion. Maybe some people were still
chafing at things and had been a long time since Baylor's
victory, and maybe they thought thing he'd gotten soft or weak
or who knows. But ten years is a long time for
grievances to be refreshed. And well, they did a good job.
They put down this new threat pretty thoroughly, and it may
have if it was a test. Well, they passed.
The new marchers arrangement worked out pretty well.
The Karen's and the Dondarians worked together.
Whatever enmity may have existed from before.
The Carons were probably on the black side.
Dondarians were on the Reds, given they were married into the
royal family, so that seems to have been set aside.
That's good evidence of them working together is a sign of
things to come. If there had been a split over
anything before this, this mended that.
Speaking of that moment was Duncan and Baylor and the joust.
In the hedge night, we learned. That dunks former master Sir
Arlen, once ousted against Baylor and broke 4 lances.
Arlen says 7. Baylor's like, no, it's 4.
But don't feel bad, you know, you're mad.
He's just, again, just phrases the other guy says no, I don't
think less of him. You know, maybe it was just his
memory. You know, everyone exaggerates
here and there. Always being like that, being a
friendly, being gentle, being graceful.
Sir Arlen had nothing but a good thing to say about Baylor.
It seems to be a widespread opinion, not just from him.
Dunk learned it directly from someone who had met him.
But just the realm, I mean everywhere.
People just respect him, love him.
Like expect great things from him.
His charm and his understanding of people, his way to handle
people, way to talk to people. Everyone feels like they're in
good hands with him, feel like he's going to make respectful,
well considered decisions. If he makes a decision you don't
agree with, well, it's a lot easier coming from someone you
respect, someone you think, well, he's probably not doing it
for underhanded political reasons, probably not doing it
for personal gain. You can at least take stock in
that when you disagree, that means a lot.
It's hard to accept decisions you don't agree with from
someone you hate because you just, it's hard to not have your
mind go to think the worst about them and think, well, they're
doing it for underhanded reasons, unethical reasons.
But if it's someone you respect, you can kind of sit back and go,
all right, I don't like that decision.
I disagree with him, but I respect the man who made it.
I respect the woman who made it, whoever the person is that we're
discussing. And it just makes it a lot
easier. And Baylor and that's that's
that's something that's part of why having such a respected,
even handed person at the top can have such a trickle down
effect is that it's harder to argue with what happens.
It's harder to argue with their decisions.
You just have more respect for what comes down from that.
Like it's really hard for anyone to have authority over us.
Like we all, we don't want people making decisions for us.
But when those decisions come from people who are at least
wise, at least seem decent, it's so much easier to accept that,
especially when you disagree with it.
So it's it's really important to see that that's what the realm
is looking forward to. Sometimes you'll disagree with
something that you wouldn't have otherwise just.
Because you dislike the person deciding it so much.
Yeah, you're right, and you might even learn, especially if
it's close in any way then. It's becomes really easy to like
become against. Something that maybe you didn't
care that much about, but you care about the person deciding
and it's hard for you to come back around on that.
Be like, OK, I was wrong. That person I hated, their
decision was. Actually good.
But if you but if you turn that, invert that and say, OK, I
didn't agree with this decision from this person I respected
five years later, you know what? That was a good call on their
part. Like they were right.
You know, it's hard. It's a lot harder to admit that
with someone you hate. But if you respect the person,
it's it's a lot easier. Like, OK, they were right about
that. Or maybe maybe you, maybe you
throw in a caveat. OK, they may have been right.
Like you don't fully admit that you were wrong.
Some people just hate admitting they're wrong so much that they
won't do it. But but but it's a lot more
likely to come when the person you're admitting that to is
someone you respect, especially since you're not saying it to
their face. You're admitting it to your
friends. You know, I know they're maybe a
more positive angle to look at that too.
Is it? You might be more gung ho about
a decision than maybe you're on an offensive ballot.
If you respect the person that made it right, you win people
over more easily If it's close or they might change your mind.
Yeah, they might. Actually.
You might respect them enough that their point.
Flips your opinion entirely, which is, yeah, that's hard to
do. So another reason for Arlen to
just have praised Baylor so much.
This is kind of an under the radar thing.
Look, you know what happens at a joust?
You lose a joust, you lose your stuff, they get your arms and
armor. Baylor was like, Nah, you can
keep your stuff, you have it back.
I'm the Crown Prince. I've got all the suits of armor
and coin I need. Just have it be enough.
You got this far. Take that, You know, So that
would be something that Arlen would have probably brought up,
one of many things he praised Baylor over.
And other people too, by the way.
Yeah, other people would have been aware he did that for.
Arlen. Arlen is probably not the only
one he did that for. It would have added more and
more to his his clout, his honor, his generosity or
persona. Yeah.
You know, like, yeah, it's like a snowball effect.
The system. The more good things, the more
these good things pile. On and the more you expect more
good things as well yeah, like the more unknowns you frame
positively because all the things you do know are so
positive. Stands to reason that the other
things I don't know about this person are also good yeah.
And it would help it come from different angles too, because
probably other Lords, other people.
The wealthy Lords, it might be in court with Baylor, they might
not know or chair if you let some knight have his armor back,
but all the Knights would know, all the Squires would know all
the hedge Knights, all the all the commoners, all the people
running a food booths, whatever. He would get, you know,
appreciation from the common people.
They like the snail Knight for sure would know.
He's like, well, that guy, he goes to every tournament, you
know? Oh yeah, Baylor always gives the
armor back. You know, he never takes the
ransoms. Yeah, that would spread.
And that's an interesting thing. And this was brought up my next
point, which is it's interesting that he was still jousting while
he was handed to King. It's not we It's not like
unheard of, but it's a little unusual.
Ena says it's a really good way to continue to undermine the
idea that Damon Blackfyre's faction was the heart and soul
of chivalry. This guy constantly reminding
people of what a good guy he is and how capable he's like.
He keeps winning and he keeps giving the stuff back.
It's a constant reminder of that.
Yeah, that's. That's a really good way to just
keep that going. Like, people won't forget what a
good man this is. And he wasn't, but he didn't
show up to joust at Ashford Beto.
So maybe he he he'd maybe retired from it by that point.
Because we don't know in this thing what Sir Arlen was.
It may have been 20 years prior to the hedge night.
It was. We have no idea.
Yeah. All we know is that had to have
been before Dunk was born, because it was before Dunk was
because of Dunk. No, Arlen's dead now and all
that. All right, so our last section
is the actual hedge night. The the only time we really get
to see Baylor up close. And this is something that we
that sets him apart as well. Not just his look, not just his
character. We've seen egg.
We've seen dare on the drunkard. We've seen Aryan, Makar, Eamon
as well, although Eamon we see in a song of Ice and Fire, not
these older stories that we probably will at some point.
And Bloodraven, we've seen all those characters in the three
Hedge Night novels or the three Sword Night and seven King of
novels. We never see better steel.
We never see Damon Blackfire, we never see Chiara, we never see
Fireball Dare on the second Egg on the 4th.
Elena Dana Reyna Baylor is not only on screen, he's on screen
quite a bit more than any of those listed except Egg.
Egg's the only one of those guys that's on screen more than
Baylor. And even though Baylor's only in
this one store, I mean, obviously Dunk is on more, but
he's on a Targaryen only. Maester Eamon maybe is more
because he's in the Song of Ice and Fire, but that's much later
and detached from this timeline. So this is our best sorceress
personality. It really shows why he's so
Shiv. I mean, he displays it front and
center, but he's also clever, almost underhanded, like he does
sneaky things, which I think that's cool.
I really like that because he uses his he uses underhanded
tricky things, but for good, right?
He uses it to to win in a trial that he thinks he's on the right
side of like it's the just side that he's championing.
And I wonder if he just, he really wanted to beat Aryan
because Aryan sucks. And he's like, I want to sit
this kid back, you know, it's like, Aryan sucks.
We need to teach this kid a lesson.
I need to teach my brother's son.
This is a good way to do it. I can't, like, tell him what to
do. But if I can embarrass him in
front of a lot of people, like he's doing it.
He says he's doing it to be because it's deserved.
It's justice. It's all this.
And I believe that. But there's also a chance to
knock Arian down a peg. Really needs that.
He's super arrogant, right? And I can see with Baylor seeing
that, perceiving this as a way to do that in a way that might
not otherwise be available to him.
You can have, I don't know, I said.
True, genuine. Positive goals for a decision
that also have some benefits to you incidentally, you know, or
some then that's maybe even more cynical than what we're
describing this decision with, you know, trying to teach Arian
a lesson also. And so the and with the trick
with the lances, he says, let's use tournament lances because
they're. Longer and we can hit our our
hit them before they hit us. It's dangerous.
And and the laugh laughing storms like is that chivalrous,
my Lord? And he's like, the gods will let
us know. I guess they maybe they did.
But that's one of my favorite lines in the whole works
through. George Martin.
Yeah. And he?
Not that I don't think Baylor was good.
Obviously I've been sick going on and I like this whole
episode. I'm talking.
About how good he was, but I appreciate it.
He's not a goody 2 shoes like he's he's virtuous, but he's not
like, oh, we can't do anything remotely underhanded.
No, we can do underhanded things if it's in the cause of good.
So yeah, he he's a little willing to get his hands dirty.
He just a little careful about when he does it, who he tells,
how public it is. I mean, he accepted Dunk.
He's like, I accept you as a knight.
Like he took him at his word as well.
Like you can enter the lists. I'd vouch for you, right when no
one else would. And there's no proof you were
knighted. But I believe I know who your
master was. He seemed like a good guy.
He, you know, I he's representing what a knight
should be. Yes, and that's more important
to Baylor. And maybe should be more
important to everyone. Than the details.
Of some ceremony, yeah, Nina suggests.
It's quite possible that you know Makar offers to take dunk.
On after the tourney because his son is like really into him and
he's like you acquitted yourself well, my son wants you to be his
his teeter, his teeter, his teacher.
And I was trying to combine the word tutor and teacher there.
But if Baylor hadn't died, maybe he would have brought dunk on.
He's like you are a good man. You're a good knight.
You're the kind of night I went on my side.
You and I have same virtues. I think that's an entirely
possible. Yeah, it makes a lot of sense.
I'm. Although more likely he would
have stuck with Egg, and Egg would stick with his father.
But still, Daylor would have offered, I think, to bring him
in. And like, you're you're a good
guy. We could use more men like you.
So as of this recording, it's June. 2023 it's still a long way
away from. HB OS version of the Hedge
Night. But this has a lot of potential
to jerk some tears, especially Baylor's part of the story,
right? I mean seriously.
And one thing nice about Baylor is there probably won't be any
complaint about Targaryen wigs in his case because people
always complain about the wigs. Although Aryan and Makar,
they'll they'll be able to focus on those two instead.
Those guys will be there. Not Egg though.
No wig for him. Maybe a bald cap.
No, they'll shave his head. The actor who plays Baylor can
use his real hair. Is is my point.
Probably. They might as well give him a
wig anyway, but you never know. Yeah, you really do never know.
Just look at Jace Valarian and his.
Awful, awful wig. Yeah, that is not his real hair.
Yeah, so he has Gray hair, but it looks more real because.
It's brown like you're like, that's.
Clearly can't be your. Real hair.
It looks silvery like that, you know.
OK, so let's have Baylor's epitaph such that it is well
written and glorious. Baylor of House Targaryen,
Prince of Dragonstone, Hand. Of the King, Protector of the
Realm and heir apparent to the Iron Throne of the Seven Kings.
Westeros went to the fire in the yard of Ashford Castle on the
north Bank of River Cockleswent. Other great houses might choose
to bury their dead in the dark earth or sink them in the cold
green sea, but the Targaryens were the blood of the dragon,
and their ends were writ in flame.
He had been the finest knight of his age, and some argued that he
should have gone to face the dark Plaid in nail and plate, a
sword in his hand. In the end, though, his royal
father's wishes prevailed, and Daron too had a peaceable
nature. Had a peaceable nature.
When Dunk shuffled past Baylor's beer, the Prince wore a black
velvet tunic with the three headed dragon picked out in
scarlet bread upon his breast. Around his throat was a heavy
gold chain. His sword was sheathed by his
side, but he did wear a helm, a thin golden helm with an open
visor so men could see his face. Yeah, that's a great quote,
great epitaph. Few characters have.
Epitaphs like that in The Song of Ice and Fire, because we
don't see their funerals that die in battle and stuff happens
off screen or whatever. You know, even Ned Stark didn't
get something like that, although he would have been a
candidate to deserve something like that.
There's a few people that remind me of Baylor Rainey's daughter
of Elia and Rhaegar, who was also murdered well before her
time, well before Baylor's time as well, but well at Baylor's
age, I mean, well after Baylor's time, because she also looked
Dornish. She was a Targaryen Princess who
looked more Dornish and out of one of each in terms of their
parents, Elia and Rhaegar. And she loved cats.
Maybe Baylor loved cats too. Maybe they had that in common as
well. Not of course.
Maybe. What do you mean of course?
Not to mention Rhaegar. Himself.
There's parallels there, Rhaegar looked.
Targaryen, but he was considered like a great Prince.
A lot of people liked him. People look forward to him
ruling. And he was also, you know, he's
not Dornish himself, but he had Dornish marriage.
So maybe he's a, he's a little more, maybe in some ways a
little more similar to Deron Baylor's father, but in a lot of
ways similar to Baylor himself. Couple of real life comparisons,
Edward the Black Prince who is the eldest son of a king who's
I'm forgetting who his father was.
Which father was that anyway someone remind me in the chat
there he was this He was a much the son of a long reigning king
and was very admired himself. He was very looked for.
People really look forward to Edward the Black Prince ruling.
Despite his name he was well regarded.
I was like whoa that guy sounds dangerous now.
He was a Great War. That was part of why he had that
nickname. He was also considered the model
of chivalry. He adapted the badge of the
Prince of Wales. Have your answer.
Edward 3, Edward the 3rd. That's right.
OK, I was like Edward. I can't remember the number.
I thought it was the 1st or the 4th so.
I was way off, well off by one or two and he also died right
before his fought. So it was kind of like which is
exactly what happened with Baylor.
Baylor died like months before or dare on the second.
A lot of parallels there. As we discussed in our Dunkin
Egg series in the Hedge Night, we discussed how Baylor also has
a lot in common with JFK, who died when George was around 15.
So it would have been a very important living in a Roman
Catholic household in New England where JFK would have
been very popular. His death was untimely and
similar entry wound back of the head where's where they're both.
So we talked about that in a little more detail in the Hedge
Night series. So I recommend that as well,
amongst other episodes that relate to this one.
His legacy is substantial, in part because he died with so
much promise, and that's part of what makes it so painful.
That's a promise that can never be fulfilled.
But what if questions will never be answered, and you can only
wonder at what might have been? This quote really speaks to
that. Perhaps he should have hated
Makar, but instead he felt a queer sympathy for the man.
You swung the Mace, my Lord, but it was for me.
Prince Baillor died, so I killed him too.
As much as you. Yes.
The Prince admitted. You'll hear them whisper as
well. The king is old when he died.
Valar will climb the Iron Throne in place of his father.
Each time a battle is lost or a crop fails.
The fools will say Baylor would not have let it happen, but the
hedge knight killed him. Dunk could see the truth in
that. And indeed though Valar never.
Climbed the throne. The realm did suffer.
Many woes, the great spring sickness, A drought.
And from what we know, many did wonder or exclaim their lamented
Baylor's death, especially during some of those things.
And that's the problem with if so and so hadn't died.
You can never prove it right? It's the same kind of the same
thing. I was just saying, entering the
section where that promise can never be known.
Those questions can never be answered.
You don't know. You can still know.
It would have been better, Probably would have.
He probably would have been a good king.
But who knows? He might have been the best King
Lesteros ever saw, but how could he?
But he can't stop the drought, probably like he couldn't have
stopped the Great Spring Sickness.
Maybe he would have managed it a little better.
Maybe the casualties would have been reduced by 5 or 10% under
his reign. But maybe he would have just
died against Dagan Greyjoy's Reavers instead of dying of an
tournament mishap. It's, you know, there's this.
The What If just launches so many other what ifs, but I still
find it compelling. It's still a worthy question,
but we have to acknowledge how unanswerable it is.
But it's still also relevant to see just how big a question it
was. In Westeros we can say that.
But in Westeros at the time, the laments, the tears would have
been big and many and and would have continued.
Some would have seen his death as will of the gods, though
maybe as finally the gods have their will.
You know, like the gods will show us if this is chivalrous or
not. You know, maybe finally, Damon's
revenge from beyond the grave. Chiara and Valar's twin sons
were stillborn. I forgot to mention that and
that may have been. Further judgement of the gods as
seen by the Commons. And then of course the spring
sickness, killing Deron and Valar and Mataris but sparing
Chiara somehow. So it does seem very specific.
The the disease did hit an awful lot of Targaryens, a lot of
crucial Targaryens. So if you're a Black Fire
loyalist who blame the Targaryens for slaying Damon,
doing against the will of the gods with that evil blood Raven,
using sorcery, and using things outside of the purview of the
Seven, no wonder they're getting their just desserts now.
Pretty easy to see how superstitious people could frame
that to their within their own worldview.
I mean, four more Black Fire rebellions did occur later after
all, whether the gods or not had anything to do with it.
The death of Baylor did open the door for that.
Like if he had survived, I wonder like he does the second
black fire brilliant even get started If Baylor breaks, Pier
is still handed to King. I don't know, maybe not.
They might have been more wary of that.
They still tried it under Bloodraven and he's obviously
capable and and formidable, so it quite possibly still would
have gone the same way. Now, Makar wasn't just marked as
a kinslayer, but as a. Kinslayer of such a beloved.
Figure, it's one thing to kill like your evil twin brother or
your evil brother, you know, especially via accident.
But this was just such a beloved figure.
And yeah, as that quote said, Makar knew he would carry it for
the rest of his life and realized it's so a dunk.
Now I'm, I'm a little less concerned with Makar at the
moment. But when we talk about Makar,
we'll, we'll wonder about that and wonder, like, how did that
weigh on him throughout his life?
And how often did he think of Baylor?
Dunk will be seeing in his head for sure in future stories.
So we may never get a lot as much in more insight on Makar,
but Dunk we will. How motivating will it be for
him in the future to do right by the realm because he was left
alive? He he thinks about that.
He's like, well, maybe there will be a day when the realm
needs me for something. Maybe that's why Baylor is dead
and I'm alive, you know? And he want.
But he wants to be worthy of that.
He wants to. He wants that to come true.
He wants for that outcome to be correct.
He doesn't want to have cost the realm such a great person for no
good reason at all. He's like, just so I could live
that that's empty for him. He's like, no, it has to be for
some greater purpose. Nina writes him saving baby
Rhaegar at Summerhall. Yeah, well, he was probably
thinking about it then. Although that might have just as
easily been like, I'm trying to save a baby from the fire.
Targaryens and Princess may not have entered in it that much,
but it very likely would have. I mean, like during his whole
career, like his whole life, How often is he thinking of Baylor?
Like, well, I should do right here to make up for Baylor, you
know, Baylor's death. If Baylor was here, I like, I'm
the reason he's dead. I should carry his that chivalry
form if he's living his whole life that way, of course.
Some of the things he does are going to be, you know, minor
acts of kindness at A tournaments, but some of them
are going to be save the Prince. You know, he's just if he's
always trying to do these grand and generous and brave things,
Nina says he needs to. He's trying to earn it, which I
think a threat to trying to earn that.
Yeah, whatever the. The gods did this.
He's trying to live up to it, earn it.
Yeah, that's that's a good way to put it.
And one of the last lines in the hedge nut is Dunk reminding
Makar, quote, just before Prince Baylor died.
I swore to be his man. Yeah.
He's not going to forget the promise he made to a dying
noble, chivalrous Prince, the greatest knight in the realm,
the one that he's going to. I mean, he's going to be the
greatest knight in the realm at some point.
So he's going to think of that. He's like, oh, I, I took I got
this title, the title that Baylor once he's told he's going
to make him really proud and maybe a little unworthy of it.
Be like, like, have I lived up to this?
I got to keep keep earning this. I got to.
I can't rest on my laurels. He also says he can't look at
the scar he got from Aryan's Lance without thinking of
Baylor. That scar's not going anywhere,
y'all. He'll have that scar the rest of
his life. Every time he looks out to see
that scar, he's going to see Baylor.
He's going to think about it and think of what a great man he was
and how he's there instead of him and remember maybe the
finest moment what happens? Dunk is standing before the
crowd, trying to get that seventh person to join him for
the trial by combat. If he doesn't get a 7th person,
he's judged guilty. What does he say in all caps in
front of that crowd? Are there no true Knights among
you? Powerful moment, right?
Baylor emerges from the mist. He didn't answer the call then.
He'd already answered it. He was already dressed.
He didn't just instantly put his armor on in three seconds.
No, he had already answered that call.
He was already doing what a true knight should do before Dunk
asked for it. He just made his entrance in a
very he understands how to make an entrance like this guy.
You know, he's like, well, may as well have a little fanfare
with it. Like I know I'll maximize this
moment. Without that moment, there's no
Dunk living his life by these values, right?
It doesn't come. It never happens.
So that means there's no Brienne either, by the way.
So like this moment, Baylor birthed Dunk, birthed Brienne
and whatever other children Dunk has out there or descendants,
all those kids, Baylor is their patron.
He's their true. He's their uncle, He's their
godfather. Yeah.
OK. Guilty, Undertaker says.
I could see people seeing the still birth of Valars and
Chiara's twin sons as divine retribution for the death of
Damon Blackbar's sons on the record.
Yes, absolutely. Nina said a similar thing.
Totally see that. Yeah.
Like there, there are people who would spin it that way and
people would seize on that because they it wouldn't have
occurred to them necessarily. But once, once some St. preacher
points it out, they're like that.
That's a good point right there. Head cannon, you know, whatever.
Head cannon, Real world head cannon for what the gods think.
What is that? Karma cannon, God cannon, Heaven
cannon. Heaven cannon.
That's pretty close to head cannon.
Next week we have the episode on Pentas it Beat.
Out in the vote on Patreon. Asha Greyjoy A bestiary episode
and House Ironwood. So it was pretty well contested.
Asha Greyjoy I know I was a little surprised at that.
It was close. It was close they.
Got pentas, only got like 30. 2% of the vote.
So yeah, it wasn't it wasn't quite as overwhelming as
Baylor's win. If that result outraged you,
well then you should join Patreon.
And vote. That is, I think the argument
there if you don't like the outcome of our.
Polls then. You should vote, I think only
five. I think it would have only taken
about 5 or 6 votes to change. The poll to a different result
so you Asha Greatjoy Stan that I'm talking to in the.
Audience You could have signed up six times over, buy a
membership for yourself and five friends and vote in the Asha
block. The polls usually have a theme.
There's no theme there though. I was just like let's do 4
random. Topics and completely
unconnected to each other and that's what we did yeah.
So the trivia question the answer the the question was
about Baylor Black Tide Ironborn Lord and worshipper of the seven
cut into that many pieces by Euron.
What is the name of his ship? Answer is night flyer.
Multiple people got that one and you would guess people who were
able to guess it. Because, well, they know germs,
other works, and Night Flyer was a well known one because it was
adapted to the screen. Yes, it was indeed adapted for
the screen. Only went one season and
apparently wasn't very much. Like the book but the short
story is really good. I love George's like cosmic
world building is really on display.
I highly recommend Night Flyer or Night Flyers.
Yeah, plural. The short story the ship is is
just a singular, but yeah, I wonder whose ship that is now
because it's no longer Baylor Black Tie.
It's probably his son, but maybe not other episodes that you
might want to peruse or re. Listen to if you've heard them.
Before that were related to topics we brought up here.
Nymeria of course was brought up.
The Red Grass Field episode in particular, but all the other
Black Fire rebellion episodes. Deron the Second would be a good
one. Summer Hall of course, came up.
Here we talk about Summer Hall in greater detail.
It's a double episode. Kriegan Stark is a very recent
episode that that comes up in relation to Dorn and the
rebellions there. I would wondered if the North
would care about Dorn joining the realm.
Well, they might because the war with Dorn is where Kriegan's
heir was killed, so they might have some bad feeling over that
too. Like we tried to conquer it, you
killed my son, and now we're just bringing them into the
realm with better law, laws that favor them over us.
They might not care. Doran's so far away, but that
might bother them quite a bit. Some Northerners more than
others. Creagan was probably still alive
when this happened, too. Very old guy that's still
around, most likely. I in my mind, I'd like to think
that, you know, there there's going to be a lot of different
people, a lot of different. Opinions.
But the couple of wise people who are most in charge, I hope
they would recognize this is just like a bargaining chip.
We don't really care, but we're going to.
We're going to get what we can out of this.
We have some justifiable grievances.
Morning. Good point.
Yeah, like false outrage to to gain something out of it.
You can see the opportunity. To get a concession out of the
Iron Throne over this grievance. That's a good point.
That's how a lot of how politics works too.
Yes. Also the episode of Dare on the
1st and of course aiming the Dragon night.
Those were both referred to here and are relevant, so you might
want to check those out if you haven't already.
Thank you for attending live. If you did, thank you for
listening later. If you're catching the edited
version and if you're not listening, then screw you and
I'm safe to say that 'cause you're not listening, you.
Don't know what if they're watching?
Oh my gosh. Well, I'm they're also listening
if they're. Watching.
If they're watching and not listening, they didn't hear you
say that. Yeah, exactly.
Also, that's weird. Why would you watch and not
listen? We're just really to see our
faces. We're not.
I don't think we're handsome enough.
They're here for the T-shirts. That's right, Dragonstone
shirts. And you're Denver.
Denver. Dragonstone.
What's your shirt? Shaya Dragonstone?
Oh, I'm wearing a Tom Anderson shirt from King of.
Not. From Beavis and Butt Head.
That's appropriate because of Sir Arlen.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, Tom. Anderson anyways.
Yeah. Arlen, Harlan.
But yeah, it's like a kind of trippy shirt with him.
I wish I could show y'all, but yeah, it's got his face on it
three times. I got it at San Diego Comet.
Yeah, I think Arlen, Texas and Arlen Sir Arlen are spelled.
Differently ones AN and ones yen that I'm not sure about.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Either way, whatever, it's close
enough. They're they're different.
They are different. King of the Hill.
The Hill. West, Arlen.
Isn't even Arlen. Mealy, it should be Harlot.
Town, as we all know. That's the correct real name of
of Arlen, Texas harlot town. They they got rid of that
influence or they tried too, but we.
Know better. All right, folks, thanks again.
Thanks to Nina for her invaluable notes, a lot of great
takes, and that clarification on Henry the Eighth, of course.
Thanks to Joey, Jesse and Brand for the help with our theme
music and our video intros and our music outro as well.
Thanks to Michael Klarfeld for our also other video intro and
the maps you see on display. Many episodes of Mystery
Westeros podcast. Check out claradox.de.
That's with AK to shop Michael's stuff.
Lots of great. Things over there you can get.
Maps and other things and thanks to our engineer.
Shout out to him for our sound quality assistance and I love
shouting out him because his name is so good.
Engineer. Yes, his name is Ben and he is
an engineer, as you probably guessed, or you've heard me
explain that before. Either way, I'm telling you
again and we'll see you next time for more.
You know what to do. In the meantime.
Valar Reritus.