History Literature / ArchmaesterGyldaynsHistories

* The [[Characters/ASongOfIceAndFireHouseTargaryenAncestors House Targaryen Ancestors]] page, especially the entry on the court of King Viserys II;

* MarryForLove: Viserys I was advised to marry Laena Velaryon to help relations with Driftmark, but he wanted to wed Alicent instead, and so he did.

* OurDragonsAreDifferent: The histories reveal more about dragons than has yet been stated in Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire''. One example is that dragons are choosy about their riders, but their criteria is mysterious.
* RashomonStyle: There are multiple versions of certain events.

The second novella spans the reign of Viserys, detailing the events that lead to bloodshed. It focuses on the life and adventures of Viserys' younger brother, Prince Daemon Targaryen, as he consorts with the lowborn of the King's Landing, wages war on an archipelago called the Stepstones, and navigates his brother's increasing divided royal court.

* AnyoneCanDie: With all the people that died or went missing in action, it would actually be easier to list the people who survived.

* ButtMonkey: Just like in the original series, the Riverlands are the region where most of the damage is done, despite, in this case, having nothing to with the events causing the war.

* SpareToTheThrone: Daemon Targaryen was the brother of a King, husband to a Queen and father of two Kings, but the only time he was King of anything was when he carved out a short-lived pirate kingdom in the Stepstones.

* SuccessionCrisis: Averted in regards to House Velaryon. When Lord Corlys became terribly ill, his nephews got into a dispute with Rhaenyra and her children over who would succeed him, but the king took his daughter's side and Corlys recovered anyway.

* UnbrokenVigil: After Laena passed away, having tried to reach her dragon one last time, Daemon carried her corpse back to her bed and he and Rhaenyra sat vigil over her.

Two novellas written by George R.R. Martin. Set in Martin's ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire'' universe about 170 years before the events of the main series, they are written as an in-universe text and presented as the writings of the fictional Archmaester Gyldayn.

George R. R. Martin announced that these history chronicles comes from his notes on the backstory of Westeros and that he has tentative plans to eventually publish what some fans call the [[TheSilmarillion GRRMarillion]] but which he has tentatively titled "Fire and Blood". Some of the notes also feature in ''Literature/TheWorldOfIceAndFire''.

* UnusualEuphemism: How Grand Maester Mellos assured Viserys I that Laenor would still give her heirs, despite not being attracted her: "What of it? I am not fond of fish, but when fish is served, I eat it."

* KillItWithFire: A fire broke out in Harrenhal in 120 AC, killing Harwin Strong and his father. Though some believe it was a tragic accident or simply a result of Black Harren's curse, there were rumors that someone had intentionedly murdered them for whatever reason. Corlys Velaryon, Prince Daemon, [[InheritanceMurder Larys Strong]], and even Viserys I were all suspects, though nothing came of these suspicions. Mostly it was just an accident, since no one had expected them to return to Harrenhal at that time.

* UnusualEuphemism: How Grand Maester Mellos assured Viserys I that Laenor would still give her heirs, despite not being attracted her.
-->'''Grand Maester Mellos''': What of it? I am not fond of fish, but when fish is served, I eat it."

* HundredPercentAdorationRating: Viserys I was loved by nobles and smallfolk alike. His daughter Rhaenyra was called "the Realm's Delight" in her youth.

* TheAlliance: Lys, Tyrosh, and Myr put aside their old rivalry to attack Volantis together and claim control over the Disputed Land and the Stepstone. When Daemon attempted to carve out a kingdom for himself in the Stepstone, the Three Daughters (as they were called) were his most bitter foes. Later on Dorne would join the fighting on behalf of the Three Daughters.

* SpareToTheThrone: Daemon Targaryen was the brother of a King, husband to a Queen and father of two Kings, but the only time he was King of anything was his short-lived pirate kingdom at Stepstones.

* AllYourBaseAreBelongToUs: The Blacks capturing King's Landing and The Greens capturing Dragonstone.

* AdultFear: There are too many instances of OutlivingOnesOffspring to count. Queen Helaena actually went mad when [[spoiler:her eldest son was assassinated in front of her and her other children]].

* ConvenientMiscarriage: When Daemon got his paramour Mysaria pregnant, he gave her a dragon egg. Viserys became angry over this, since Daemon was [[YourCheatingHeart already married]]. He commanded his younger brother to take back the egg and go back to his wife. Daemon grudgingly obeyed, but when Mysaria lost her child while being sent back to Lys, it caused a huge rift between the brothers.

* SlutShaming: Rhaenyra is accused of having an affair with Harwin Strong. Before that, rumors circulated that Daemon gave her the sex-ed course of a lifetime, taking her to brothels, teaching her about oral sex and showing her what men found most seductive in a woman.

* BodyHorror: [[spoiler:Aegon II got burned into his armor during the Battle of Rook's Rest and he spent over a year recovering. His duel with Princess Baela ruined his legs and he was never able to walk again. His dragon Sunfyre fared little better; after his wing was permanently damaged during the Battle of Rook's Rest, he lost an eye and got terrible scars from his battles with the Grey Ghost and Moondancer.]]

* DecapitatedArmy:

* WhamShot: [[spoiler: Rhaenyra fled back to Dragonstone after the riots of King's Landing, only to find Aegon II, who had been missing for over half a year, sitting on her throne]].

* WouldHurtAChild: Both sides would. [[spoiler:After Aemond killed 14 year old Lucerys, Prince Daemon sent cutthroats to kill one of Aegon II's sons, 6 year old Jaehaerys]].

** [[spoiler:Joffrey Velaryon]]'s death was pretty awful too. He fell from the back of a dragon, crashed into several buildings on the way down, and was impaled by the broken shards of slates of their rooftops.

* {{Turncoat}}: Several, most infamously [[spoiler:Hugh Hammer and Ulf the White. Both were bastard dragon riders raised to power by Rhaenyra for helping her cause. They rewarded her favor by burning down Tumbleton and defecting to the Greens]]. History now knows them as "The Betrayers".

* TheEmpire: The Greens.

* {{Jerkass}}: Several, Daemon and Aemond most prominently.

* SuccessionCrisis: The main conflict of the series arises from uncertainty over who is to succeeded King Viserys I as ruler of the Seven Kingdoms.

* UnreliableNarrator: Gyldayn admits that not everything written is certainly accurate, that history has mixed with folklore and historians disagree about the details of some events.

* TheDreaded: Everyone knew that going up against Prince Aemond and Vhagar alone was a death sentence. The pair spent months terrorizing the Riverlands in the later part of the war.

* RightfulKingReturns[=/=]TheUsurper: Both sides saw themselves as the former and each other as the latter.

* HeterosexualLifePartners: Rhaenyra and Laena were the very best of friends and would often visit each other.

* [[IllGirl Ill Man]]: As he aged, Viserys became more prone to fatigue, chest pains, and gout, until he could barely get out of bed.

* PapaWolf: Viserys threatened anyone who called his beloved grandsons bastards, even his own sons.

* SlutShaming: Rhaenyra is accused of having an affair with Harwin Strong.
** Before that, rumors circulated that Daemon gave her the sex-ed course of a lifetime, taking her to brothels, teaching her about oral sex and showing her what men found most seductive in a woman.

* WeUsedToBeFriends: Alicent and Rhaenyra were quite fond of each other after Alicent first married Viserys and before the issue of succession drove them apart.

* WrittenByTheWinners: [[spoiler:Despite being Viserys I's heir, actually sitting on the Iron Throne, and her two youngest sons later becoming kings in their own right, Rhaenyra is vilified as a "traitor" and dismissed as nothing more than a pretender, and not "Rhaenyra Targaren, the First of Her Name", even to the present day. That despite the fact that she was the ancestor of the line through which all present-day surviving Targaryen claimants are descended. The proof of this can be seen in ''Literature/AStormOfSwords'', where Stannis discusses history with Davos and calls Rhaenyra a "usurper" for stealing her brother's crown. This just shows how completely the Greens succeeded in discrediting Rhaenyra, when a legalistic fanatic like Stannis dismisses Viserys' public declaration of her as the heir to the throne]].
--> '''[[Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire Stannis Baratheon]]''': Daemon Blackfyre, the brothers Toyne, the Vulture King, Grand Maester Hareth... traitors have always paid with their lives... even [[spoiler: Rhaenyra Targaryen. She was daughter to one king and mother to two more, yet she]] died a traitor's death for trying to usurp [[spoiler: her brother]]'s crown.
** Played with, since actually Rhaenyra's side, the Blacks eventually went on to win the Dance of the Dragons when the last Green army was decisively defeated by the Riverlander host loyal to Rhaenyra and Aegon II was murdered by his own supporters causing Rhaenyra's line to regain the Iron throne. There is still considerable debate amongst the fandom as to why Rhaenyra's sons never bothered to officially declare Rhaenyra as a queen.
*** A possible reason for this is that Aegon III and Viserys II derive their claim from their father Daemon Targaryen, who was Viserys I's brother. If the modified succession agreed to after the Dance excludes all women and their progeny from the succession until all direct male line heirs to any previous king have been exhausted, then Aegon III and Viserys II would have claimed the throne as the sons of Daemon Targaryen, direct line male descendant of Old King Jaehaerys.

* {{Badass}}: Criston Cole, Prince Daemon, Prince Aemond, Prince Daeron, Rhaenys "the Queen Who Never Was", and Roderick "Roddy the Ruin" Dustin, among others.
** The dragons were no slouches either (with the possible exception of Syrax, and of the dragons that were too young to take part in the Dance). Particular mentions go to Sunfyre, who fought several duels despite having a crippled wing, and Vhagar, the oldest and strongest living dragon.

* MoreDeadlyThanTheMale: Queen Alicent, Viserys' second wife, was much more ruthless and ambitious than her husband.

* ObnoxiousInLaws: Inverted. Rhaenyra got support from her first husband's family in fighting half her own family. She hated her brothers but loved her sister-in-law Laena.
** Zigzagged in regards to Rhaenyra's father-in-law, Lord Corlys. They worked well together at first, but had a falling out over [[spoiler: Rhaenys' death]], which Corlys blamed on Rhaenyra. Jace helped them patch things up, but after [[spoiler: Rhaenyra tried to arrest Addam Velaryon]], the two of them butted heads again. It's unknown if they ever reconciled after that.
** Also averted with Daemon and Laena's parents. In fact, he and Corlys were best friends.
* OneSteveLimit: Averted because the Targayens like to reuse names.
** There are two Aegons, Rhaenyra's half-brother and her fourth son. The latter was called Aegon the Younger to tell him apart from his uncle. When Aegon the Younger was born, Queen Alicent took it as an insult that he had the same name as her eldest son.
** Rhaenyra also named her youngest son Viserys, after her father.
** Aegon and Helaena's eldest son was named Jaehaerys after his great-great-grandfather, Jaehaerys I, "the Old King".
* OurDragonsAreDifferent: They were highly intelligent and very picky about who could ride them. Their fire was hot enough to melt steel and stone and powerful enough to devastate entire armies.

* CruelAndUnusualDeath: Getting immolated by dragons is not a good way to go, but the worst was [[spoiler:Rhaenyra's death -- she got eaten afterwards, with the dragon (Sunfyre) taking a total of ''six bites''.]]

* DroitDuSeigneur: Practiced on the island of Dragonstone, but unlike other examples, the local people actually like the practice (or so Gyldayn claims), because the Valyrians are so revered. The children resulting from these encounters, called "dragonseed", are considered a blessing.

* EvilUncle: Aemond [[spoiler:murdered his nephew Lucerys, even though the boy gracefully accepted losing a possible alliance with House Baratheon, said he didn't want to fight, and was just trying to go home]].

** Baela's own dragon, Moondancer, can be considered the dragon version of this.
* TheMagicGoesAway: The battles were so intense that most of the dragons died. Those hatched after the war were much smaller and weaker than their predecessors, and the species went extinct within a generation.

* SadisticChoice: The infamous "Blood and Cheese" incident. [[spoiler:Blood and Cheese were two assassins sent by Daemon Targaryen to infiltrate the Red Keep to carry out the retaliation for the death of Lucerys Velaryon. Their real names were lost to history, but the former used to be a sergeant of the City Watch and the latter a rat-catcher in the Red Keep. Together, they broke into Queen Alicent's bedroom, tied her up, and waited for Queen Helaena Targaryen to bring her children to kiss their grandmother goodnight. They killed the guard and then forced Helaena to choose which of her two sons she wanted them to kill. When Helaena eventually chose her youngest, 2 year old Maelor, they killed 6 year old Jaehaerys instead, so that Maelor would live the rest of his life knowing his mother chose him to die. And for good measure, they threatened to rape her 6 year old daughter Jaehaera if she didn't make up her mind fast enough. It’s no wonder that Helaena fell into a crippling depression following the incident and never recovered.]]

* UnreliableNarrator: Constantly lampshaded and perhaps deliberately enforced to show us how difficult it is to perceive historical truth when reading old chronicles. Gyldayn keeps pointing out and exposing the biases of different sources and the wavering reliability of each chronicle.
** On the other hand, Gyldayn is highly biased himself, leaning towards Alicent and the Greens rather than Rhaenyra's side, he is highly chauvinistic and gives all sorts of credit to the most impossible rumors such as the Iron Throne making Rhaenyra bleed when she was wearing armor at the time to make her look bad.

* AHouseDivided: Targaryens were killing each other left and right, especially (but not only) during the Dance.

** Poor, poor [[spoiler: Prince Maelor was ''torn to pieces'' by a crowd overzealous of black supporters seeking a reward for his capture. And he was only a ''toddler'']].