The Dance Is Not Over
is an A Song of Ice and Fire story by Antony444, set during the Dance of the Dragons. King Aegon and Queen Rhaenyra both experience different earlier deaths in the Dance of the Dragons, causing two different, more competent monarchs to succeed them and altering the future of the Seven Kingdoms.
Official Summary: The Dance of the Dragons was the most devastating conflict Westeros had ever seen, one hundred and seventy years before the War of the Five Kings. In the end, a succession of deaths and betrayals allowed the kingdom to find peace and recover. But what if it had not happened? What if the courage of a young dragoness had pushed this war to be fought to the bitter end?
Tropes:
- Alcohol-Induced Idiocy:
- Ser Richard, the castellan of Deep Den, decides that he needs several drinks when King Daeron lands his dragon outside the hostile castle at the end of the War of the Lions. Richard then surrenders, but his intoxication makes him slur or mispronounce many words, beg not to be fed to Tessarion, and babble about his Awful Wedded Life before he passes out. Also, his parlay flag is soaked with wine, and he can barely stand. Once Richard wakes up with a hangover and recalls how many noblemen he humiliated himself in front of, he begs to be told that it was All Just a Dream.
- When Eldric Arryn is exiled from the Vale for cuckolding Lady Arryn's heir and provoking a duel with him, he demands a trial by combat and requires a champion to fight for him after said heir cuts off his sword arm. The only champion he can find is Ser Yorbert, an alcoholic knight of House Lipps. Yorbert arrives at the trial late and drunk and bumps into Eldric as he approaches the battlefield. He mistakes Eldric for the other champion whom he arrived to fight, accuses Eldric of ambushing him before the fight could start, and starts dueling the man he came to defend. Throughout the duel, Yorbert rants about his nonexistent military exploits and staggers around so clumsily that Eldric survives the encounter with just a missing ear.
- The Pretext for War of the War of the Beard was a pointless drunken brawl in which one of the combatants got part of his beard cut off.
- Ancestral Name: Some characters have the same name as characters from the present day stories of Game of Thrones, such as a minor lord in the Reyne's Rebellion arc by the name of Gregor Clegane.
- Balkanize Me: The coming of a long winter forces the two factions to agree to a ceasefire with the currently held territories (Black holding the North, Riverlands and Vale, Green holding the Westerlands, Crownlands, Reach and Stormlands, and nobody holding the Iron Islands, with Dorne still independent) until spring. When spring finally comes, both sides independently decide that they aren't ready to restart the war, so the Seven Kingdoms are effectively split in half.
- Batman Gambit: Princess Baela pretends to be out of arrows to sucker King Aegon to get in close, allowing her shoot his dragon in the eye.
- Badass Creed: Lord Grimm has the call/response version with his men.Lord Grimm: GRIMM IS HERE!His men: GRIM WE ARE!
- Combat Pragmatist: King Daeron begins his attack on the Iron Isles by burning their fleet at anchor. Once that's done, he gives the order to burn Harlaw, because that's the granary of the Isles. Destroy their food source, and the Ironborn are done.
- Decadent Court: The primary advantage that Black Westeros has over Green Westeros is that Daeron's court much more of one than Baela's, meaning that the Blacks can devote far more of their attention to actually getting things done instead of dealing with the disruptions caused by internal intrigues.
- Democracy Is Flawed: In an attempt to keep the realm united, Captain General Belicho suggests they put it to a vote. Lord Manderly points out that if each realm is given one vote, the Vale, North and Riverlands will vote for Baela, the Westerlands, Reach, and Stormlands will vote for Daeron, resulting in a tie. There aren't enough lords left in the Crownlands for them to vote, the Iron Islands have declared independence from both rulers, and Dorne is neutral, so no way to break the tie either.
- Didn't Think This Through:
- The Ironborn raids bring back lots of wealth, at the cost of offending everyone they could have gone to to spend that wealth, leaving them unable to buy food at the start of winter. Then Daeron flies in on Tessarion and sets their fleet on fire in retaliation.
- The Sealord of Braavos gets elected to his position through warmongering anti-Pentosi demagoguery, and there finds himself pretty much required to launch a war against Pentos as quickly as he can gather enough troops and ships for a serious campaign after assuming office. While he sees nothing wrong with this, the problem is that he was elected in autumn, and the winter storms in the seas around Pentos are brutal. The first storm of the season ends up sinking three-quarters of an entire fleet, and while the surviving ships technically remained afloat, they were so badly damaged that they had to be scuttled after the surviving crews limped back to dry land.
- Dirty Business: Daeron is well aware that destroying the Ironborn's food supplies is a terrible thing, but it must be done.
- The Dragon Slayer: Aside from the moments of canon, Princess Baela becomes one when she shoots down Sunfyre. Since King Aegon II is crushed by its fall, this means she's also The Kingslayer.
- Dying Moment of Awesome: A few.
- Daemon Targaryen dies the same he did in canon, leaping off his dragon to stab Aemond in the eye before they (and their dragons) crashed into the lake.
- In the Second Butcher's Ball, Lord Grimm kills countless foot soldiers, at least twenty knights, two Lords, and grievously wounds "King" Walder Reyne before finally falling. He's instantly (and rightly) made the hero of the war.
- Embarrassing Nickname:
- The castellan of Harrenhal is The Ghost, but gets the unflattering nickname "Let's Surrender" after being forced to surrender the castle seven times throughout the civil war.
- One of the less popular Greyjoy captains is known as "Kenning the coward" to his fellow reavers.
- Helmets Are Hardly Heroic: Dalton Greygoy refuses to wear a helmet on these grounds. He gets shot in the head.
- Home by Christmas: The War of the Beard is launched in the certainty of complete victory in six months at the outside. To be fair, given the troop disparity between Braavos and Pentos, had the war been launched in a season more suitable for naval warfare, such a feat might have been possible.
- In Spite of a Nail: Despite King Aegon II dying earlier, some elements of the war remain unchanged. Specifically, the Storming of the Dragonpit and the Battle Above the God's Eye.
- Instantly Proven Wrong: Terrence Harlaw tries to rally the Ironborn to his cause to war, exclaiming "Only the dragons could have stopped us...and the dragons are dead!" Immediately after he says that, a dragon sets their fleet on fire.
- Justice by Other Legal Means: A Morally Bankrupt Banker involved in an unsuccessful (and needlessly bloody) coup against House Lannister is careful to use Exact Words in the letters with his coconspirators that give him Plausible Deniability. Lady Lannister admits that there's no hard evidence of his treason, but there is evidence that he's only paid a tenth of the taxes he owes her due to hiding money that was being funneled to the rebels. Tax evasion is a very serious offense in a feudal fantasy setting.Johanna Lannister: The crime is smaller, but I'm told the sentence at the end of the trial is oddly similar.
- One-Man Army: Lord Grimm is an absolute beast on the battlefield.
- Point of Divergence: Princess Baela is able to grab her favorite bow before mounting Moondancer to flee Dragonstone. Armed, she shoots down Sunfyre, killing it and King Aegon II.
- Pyrrhic Victory: The Second Butcher's Ball is this for the Reynes. They successfully take the field of battle, and thus arguably won the fight. But their victory wasn't successful enough for them to push on to take their actual objective, so it was a meaningless victory, and the casualties they suffered among their knights and nobles weakened them to the point where the battle marked the starting point of their ultimate defeat.
- Silly Reason for War: The War of the Beard, whose ultimate cause was some Braavosi nobles deciding they wanted a war and escalated a stupid incident into an international affront by means of an Unreliable Narrator to create a Pretext for War. What they said happened: While in a Black Westerosi port, a villainous Pentosi sliced off an innocent Braavosi merchant's beard, dunked it in urine, and threw it in his face, followed by the barbarian Westerosi arresting the victim of this horrible crime and confiscating his ship and goods. What actually happened: While in a Black Westerosi port, a drunken Braavosi merchant started brawling in the streets with an equally drunken Pentosi merchant for unspecified reasons. Part of the Braavosi merchant's beard was accidentally cut off when the fight escalated to the use of knives. After breaking up the fight, the local city watch sentenced both merchants to a night in the cells to sleep it off and then let them go without any further penalties in the morning.
- Space Cold War: Most of the story so far is a Fantasy Cold War, with adult Targaryen dragon-riders as the nukes. The Dance of Dragons ended with the Green and Black Dragons effectively dividing the Seven Kingdoms between them, but everyone is convinced that a Second Dance of Dragons is inevitable. However, given how destructive the first one was, nobody is ready to kick off the second one, leaving the two nations rebuilding and maneuvering for position so they'll be ready for the Second Dance whenever it might happen.
- You Can Keep Her!: A merchant house in Lys tries to ransom back Prince Viserys to both factions, only to find that the Greens don't want him because he's a Black, and the Blacks don't want him because of how introducing a male prince to a faction that only has female royals could undermine the new Queen's authority. In any case, both factions combined didn't have the funds to meet the (absurdly large) demanded ransom.
