The Merchant Prince of Pentos is a Game of Thrones / A Song of Ice and Fire fanfiction made by Ghazghul Thraka.
The plot starts the day after Daenerys marries Khal Drogo. Unlike canon, Illyrio restrains Viserys (via drugging him) in Pentos and convinces him to become a merchant. The rest is history.
It can be found on AO3
, on Sufficient Velocity and Spacebattles.
The Merchant Prince of Pentos provides examples of:
- Adaptational Intelligence: Viserys becomes a much smarter person thanks to his experience as a merchant, possessing a shrewd cunning that serves him well in his endeavors
- Adaptational Nice Guy: Viserys is not as dickish as in canon and even grows to be quite the amiable fellow in Pentos
- Curb-Stomp Battle: The Braavosi utterly thrash Pentos in Tycho I. To just imagine how badly it goes for them, the Braavosi first show up with sixty (out of 200) vessels, less than the eighty Pentoshi. Even then the Pentoshi suffer more casualties than the Braavosi. At the end, the Pentoshi have lost four fifths of their fleet. The Braavosi? They gained twenty five "net" vessels and got stronger.
- Dare to Be Badass: Illyrio gives this to Viserys after chewing him out for his stupidity, kickstarting the entire storyIllyrio: Look at yourself, a fat old man has kept you locked on the ground. Do you want to stay this way? Do you want to be perpetually called the Beggar King? Everything that you have now is mine: the clothing and weapons, the servants and gifts you gave to your sister. You have nothing, Viserys... but you CAN have something from this point onwards.Viserys: What is it?Illyrio: I can teach you the games of power and wealth: be my pupil and I'll back you and help you to become a new man that will grow to be as great as the fabled Targaryens of old. Tell me, Viserys: do you want to be a Beggar King or a Merchant Prince?
- Deadpan Snarker: Quite a few characters are snarky fellows, but Ser Edmund takes the cake.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Viserys gets torn a new one as Illyrio points out all the reasons why he's unfit to ruleIllyrio: Viserys, you don't command anything. Dothrakis value ONE thing: strength. You're weedy looking, self-entitled, and lack the will to adapt voluntarily. If you go with Drogo and his khalassar, I bet you my whole fortune that by the point they reached Vaes Dothrak you'd be dead meat, especially with that attitude of yours. You're no king, Viserys, you're just a beggar who has become brother to a Queen. She has the real power now, and she's surely going to grow into it. Meanwhile, you're bound to continue wallowing in your self-pity and the delusions of your childhood. Robert Baratheon, for all that little the small-folk care, is the rightful king of Westeros, while you aren't even a pretender. You are nothing.
- Take a Third Option: Viserys decides to set up his own textile business employing female workers that caters to the lower classes to avoid the excessive costs of relying the Myrish merchants and Pentoshi guilds for textile production and tap into the unused potential of the smallfolk
