A Song Of Ice And Fire

I'm reading "The Hedge Knight" finally and wow, I didn't know Prince Daeron was so likeable.

Prince Aerion reminds me of some fusion of Viserys and Joffrey.

Egg and Dunk remind me of a male book one Arya and a sterner male Brienne.

edited 26th May '15 2:50:25 AM by MadSkillz

That reminds me I need to read the Dunk and Egg stories >.>

And he wasn't called Daeron the Good for nothing. Unfortunately I think the Blackfyre Rebellion happened during his reign.

The Hedge Knight made me really like Maekar. I find him to be one of my favorite Targs, right up there with Aegon II. Then again, Maekar is basically proto-Stannis.

Why would you like Aegon II? Don't you mean Aegon III?

Egg is my favorite Targ up there with Baelor, Bloodraven and Maekar. Clearly that was the Targs at their most interesting.

You're thinking of King Daeron the Good, the father of Maekar. I'm talking about Maekar's son who is also named Daeron and is an alcoholic.

@Millard I like to think Stannis inherited his personality from Maekar who inherited his personality from his Dornish mother.

edited 26th May '15 1:23:45 PM by MadSkillz

No, I mean Aegon II. Greens>Blacks. It is known.

In AWOIAF or anywhere else, do they discuss where The Seven Pointed Star came from? As in, who wrote it and when? Is it supposed to be a single narrative, like The Koran, or a compilation like The Bible?

I think it would be a one-author thing but I'm not sure.

I think it's more along the lines of a Liturgy/Prayer Book.

Oddly, there's really no such thing as a Bible equivalent for any of the religions.

That is strange, but not unheard of. Many religions relied more on ritual and tradition than "Holy Scripture". In belief and practice, the Faith seems to have more in common with Roman Paganism than Christianity. Other than things like their version of the Pope, and vows of celibacy for the clergy.

In retrospect, one thing that strikes me is how weak the Faith actually was, until the High Sparrow came along. If I'm not mistaken, the Targaryens stripped the Faith of most of its worldly power. It seems for most people, the Septs are mainly a "weddings and funerals" thing, not a "sing hymns, pray and hear sermons every Sunday" thing. Nobody in Westeros really "goes to church" in the way we think of it.

Well, it grew in power under the Targs until they realized armed religious militants powerful enough to challenge secular authority militarily were a Very Bad Idea and said "enough of that! The king picks the High Septon now!" then it slowly grew in power again over the years. So it had its peaks and valleys.

Kind of interesting to think about what might have happened if Aegon I hadn't converted to the Faith; that's what's going on in Volantis, with the ruling class still worshipping Valyrian gods, and everyone else doing the R'hllor thing. It might have set the Targs apart from both the common people and the nobles a little too much, though and being annointed by the High Septon probably cinched the deal for Aegon's authority, so I doubt that would've worked.

The faith also has in common with Roman paganism the fact that it's essentially polytheistic, at least among the smallfolk. Unlike Christianity, there's not really a hierarchy of the god aspects – all aspects of the Seven are pretty distinct and you pick whoever is most relevant to you to pray for.

edited 26th May '15 7:48:02 PM by majoraoftime

I would say its ebbs and flows come with the situation. For instance, the Faith seemed fairly respected but ignored unless convenient in matters other than going to worship until it became more militant during the War of the Five Kings in response to the fact that everyone and their mother were destroying septs for no reason beyond "DUR HUR GOLD AND LOOT"

The Faith Militant Uprising is also an example, because Maegor was such an enormous asshole that they decided "Enough is enough".

Though I would take "challenging secular military might" with a grain of salt. The Faith Militant was being butchered whenever they came into conflict with a royal army. Bitterbridge, for instance.

edited 26th May '15 8:09:39 PM by theLibrarian

@Millard I'm not sure what the appeal is for Aegon II. I mean, I suppose how he finished Rhaenrya off was badass as he had just set a cunning trap for her right after he got into a badass dragon fight while he and his dragon were half-dead.

But I thought you'd be more of an Aemond One-eye and a Daemon, Lord Flea Bottom-type of person to be honest.

Question: None of the things involved in Cersei's plot to get Margery jailed are true, right?

That's pretty much exactly why I like him. Plus, I really, really, really disliked Rhaenyra and her hilariously gruesome death made me laugh. I'm of course going to like the guy who orchestrated it.

Aemond is obviously Axe-Crazy and Daemon is Darkstar 2.0: a character that Martin is just trying too hard to make cool.

Besides Aegon II, I was a big fan of Criston Cole. He was probably my favorite character of the Princess and the Queen.

edited 26th May '15 10:35:42 PM by Millardkillmoore

None of the things involved in Cersei's plot to get Margery jailed are true, right?

Well I wouldn't be surprised if Margery actually isn't a virgin.

Well, yeah, but I meant moreso the things they tortured out of The Blue Bard, all the cousins being involved, and the people Margery was with. Since a lot of that seems to be disproved immediately.

@Son They're all false. It's likely that Marge was getting moon's tea for one of her cousins and not herself. At best, Marge slept with Renly but that's not provable and it's plausible she's still a virgin. Littlefinger certainly seems to think so anyways.

@Millard Well Rhaenrya came off as a more competent version of Cersei. She was still a dick.

I didn't like Prince Daemon either but not because GRRM was trying too hard to make him look cool. He was just kinda gross manipulating his teenage niece into his bed. Bleh.

Aegon II might have been a badass at points but he's entirely unsympathetic.

I don't think any of the Targs that did stuff during the Dance of Dragons were sympathetic aside from Prince Daeron , Rhaenys (the Queen Who Never Was) and Lady Baela (the Targ that helped kill Sunfyre).

And I agree Criston Cole was the best character out of the Dance of Dragons.

The bastard Strongs Velaryon brothers were decent people though.

edited 26th May '15 11:42:39 PM by MadSkillz

It's been a while since I read the novella, but I don't really remember Aegon II ever doing anything particularly terrible. So far as I can recall, he mostly just tried to crush the rebels attempting to topple him (what any king would do in that situation). He was wounded in battle and ended up stuck in bed for months, covered in horrific burns and constantly drugged to kill the pain. Then his spymaster smuggled him out of the city and he ended up in Dragonstone, where he orchestrated Rhaenyra's demise. Then, despite the constant pain, he refused to take milk of the poppy any more in order to retain his wits.

He's certainly no saint, but I don't remember him doing anything particularly monstrous. I supposed he was cheating on his wife, but most of the nobility does that and it's nothing compared to the stuff Rhaenyra pulls, Aemond in general, or Daemon orchestrating the Blood and Cheese incident.

I suppose I mostly like him because he manages to pull off some pretty badass stuff without the narrative constantly trying to convince us of his awesomeness like it does with Daemon. Honestly, the in-universe author seems to be pretty biased against Aegon II and the Greens in general, but fails to provide me with much actual reason to dislike the guy.

edited 27th May '15 12:19:55 AM by Millardkillmoore

Well this was pretty badass:

Rhaenyra: It would seem we are your prisoners ... but do not think that you will hold us long. My leal lords will find me.

Aegon II: If they search the seven hells, mayhaps.

-cue Sunfyre crunching on Rhaenrya-

I couldn't find anything too monstrous either, huh.

Although I did find this:

So it seems like it was supposed to be too biased in favor of the greens at certain points.

Not that Aegon II was wrong to think that Rhaenry's kids were bastards and had no real right to the throne as determined by their laws.

edited 27th May '15 12:31:26 AM by MadSkillz

Not to mention they take Margaery's cherry having popped as proof of infidelity when she was married for a good length of time to Renly and even then most likely got it from riding her horse a bunch.

Was Margery's line to Sansa in season three about women being difficult to please also in the books? I took that as a confirmation that she wasn't actually a virgin and Sansa was too naive to realize.

most everything between Sansa and Cersei was show!only

No that wasn't in the books. Show! Marge is basically Arianne Martell.

The Marge in the books is more of an intelligent and cunning version Princess Classic who hides behind a face of innocence.

edited 27th May '15 11:30:33 AM by MadSkillz

Fixed that for you.

Her and Ellaria, apparently. (I've only seen the first couple episodes of the season as yet.)