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What if one strategic marriage could end a war and change the course of Westeros? Join Liz on the Westerosi Primer as she explores the reign of Daeron II Targaryen. This king would later be remembered as Daeron the Good.
This episode kicks off with an some listener feedback on the best and worst Targaryen kings. Liz starts with Daeron's formative years. She discusses his education and the union with Myriah Martell. This marriage brought peace with Dorne and paved the way for a new generation of Targaryens.
The tension that marked Daeron's relationship with his father, Aegon IV, are explored. Daeron demonstrates his intelligence as he sidestep his father’s reckless actions.
The episode also includes first Blackfyre Rebellion. Liz delves into the intricacies of loyalty, legitimacy, and power. Daemon Blackfyre had privileges he wouldn't have gotten if not for his parentage. Despite a thriving family life, Daemon becomes a challenger to his brother Daeron II. The Blackfyre Rebellion was fueled by discontent among the nobility and questions about Daeron's legitimacy.
Daemon adopts the reversed Targaryen sigil and instigates the first of many rebellions. The Rebellion ends with the crucial Battle of the Redgrass Field. Daemon’s advance is ultimately thwarted by Brynden Rivers.
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Greetings fellow acolytes. Welcome to another episode of The Westerosi Primer. My name is Liz. If you’re new to this podcast, welcome! I hope you enjoy this journey of all things Westeros. And in this episode, I’ll be talking about Daeron II later known as Daeron the Good.
Before I start the discussion, just a brief update! I actually got a response from one of you listeners! Someone has done the poll! If you’re listening to this episode, thanks for starting things off! So you picked Jaehaerys I as the best Targaryen king and Aerys II as the worst one. So listeners, do you agree with that pick? Do you disagree? Head over to the podcast website where I have the direct link to the poll.
In case you’re wondering what are the other options, here they are. For the best king the choices are: Aegon I, Jaehaerys I, Daeron II, Aegon V, and Other. For the worst king the choices are: Aenys Targaryen, Maegor, Aegon II, Aegon IV, Aerys II, or Other. Other is basically the option you can pick if you think the best or worst king is none of the ones I listed. I suspect most of you will pick the choices I listed, but sometimes you guys have different perspectives. So please feel free to do the poll. It’s a fun way to share your thoughts!
Now to get to this week’s episode, there are a couple of things to note. First there will be some potential spoilers for people who have not read any of the books connected to A Song of Ice and Fire. There may also be potential spoilers for House of the Dragon and other future shows adapted by Max. So if you’re okay with this, then please continue listening.
Second, the information in this episode comes from the written works of George R. R. Martin and the contributors of A Wiki of Ice and Fire on Westeros.org. Check out the full show notes and other links located on this show’s website: thewesterosiprimer.com With that said, let’s begin!
As usual, this episode will be focused on Daeron II. However I will include discussions of other people in this episode since they are also involved with events. Also I’ll be repeating some information mentioned in previous episodes considering Daeron lived through the reigns of multiple kings. Daeron was born in AC 153 to Aegon IV and his sister-wife Naerys Targaryen. This means that he was born during the reign of his granduncle, Aegon III.
Since we don’t have a volume 2 of Fire & Blood, we don’t really know a lot about how Daeron was as a child. Based on what is known about his personality, we would have to assume a lot of things. For one thing more care and effort was made to educate Daeron compared to his parents and his royal cousins. Daeron wasn’t a warrior, but he was very intelligent. He spent a lot of time with maesters and other educated men. My personal opinion is this was Viserys realizing the mistakes he made with his own children.
As mentioned in the Baelor and Viserys II episode, Daeron would be betrothed to Myriah Martell to end the war with Dorne. As I mentioned in the previous episode, it’s not clear when exactly the marriage happened, but their first son Baelor would be born in AC 170. So it could have happened at any point between AC 161 and AC 169. But more realistically I lean more towards 169. So again following the tradition that’s sort of happened, Baelor was obviously named after the king responsible for his parents’ union.
We really don’t know too much about Daeron and Myriah’s marriage. We have to assume that they at least got along if not loved each other. They would have 4 sons: Baelor, Aerys, Rhaegel, and Maekar. Baelor is the only son who we know when he was born. Interestingly enough, the folks at Westeros.org have done some really excellent work to figure out when characters were born and died if George didn’t officially state it. It’s a fascinating read if you look at the train of logic used to figure these dates out.
In AC 171, his grandfather became King Viserys II and then just a year later he dies. So in AC 172, Aegon became Aegon IV and Daeron was named Prince of Dragonstone. Considering this meant Daeron was an actual adult, he has a lot more credibility to speak and act. He regularly went against his father’s schemes to do whatever he wanted. Daeron knew perfectly well many of these ideas were not in the best interest of anyone else except his father.
This is why I mentioned in the last episode, Aegon grew to dislike if not hate his son Daeron. It’s a fan theory that Aegon’s questioning of Daeron’s legitimacy his him being a petty man. He hates being told no and being controlled by people who have the ability to stop him. Daeron is too much like Viserys in that he does things to curb against Aegon’s behavior. This is also probably a big reason why Aegon legitimizes all of his bastard children when he died.
In AC 172, Daeron’s only living full sibling was born. Daenerys is 19 years younger than her brother. I can relate to this personally since my only sibling just happens to be a big brother who is 14 years older than me. As I mentioned in the last episode, Aegon really spread his seed around and had numerous children. But for this episode and the next couple of ones, there’s only a handful of these illegitimate children we actually need to keep track of.
Daemon Waters was Aegon’s son after his brief fling with his cousin, Daena Targaryen. He likely was allowed to live in the Red Keep because he’s the son of two Targaryens. He was born in AC 170 and was partially the reason why King Baelor died.
Aegor Rivers was born in AC 172 and was Aegon’s son with Barba Bracken. He grew up at his mother’s home of Stone Hedge because of political shenanigans that happened in the Red Keep. If you didn’t listen to the last episode, you get more details there.
Brynden Rivers was Aegon’s son with Melissa Blackwood. He was born in AC 175 and lived part of his childhood in the Red Keep. He likely spent a lot time in Raventree Hall, the home of House Blackwood.
Shiera Seastar is last acknowledged bastard child Aegon had. Her mother was a Lyseni courtesan named Serenei. It’s not clear when she was born but it had to have been after AC 178. AC 178 was the year the previous mistress, Jeyne Lothston, left court. The king died in AC 184 and Serenei would die from complications after Shiera’s birth.
So with all those dates we can see roughly how things were during Aegon’s rule. Daeron, as the Prince of Dragonstone, would have been dealing with a lot. His father was siring illegitimate children and being a corrupt, negligent ruler. Daeron would have been trying to do what he could to keep Westeros from falling apart. As I briefly mentioned in the last episode, Daemon would have been living in the Red Keep. He got to have certain privileges afforded to him even though he’s not a legitimate son. We don’t really know too much about the relationship between Daeron and Daemon. I imagine there would be some degree of tolerance on Daeron’s part considering who Daemon’s mother was.
Aegor lived at Stone Hedge away from court. He and his mother were forced from court in disgrace only for her to be replaced by a Blackwood. If you listeners didn’t already know this, Blackwoods and Brackens have been at each other’s throats for generations. You could argue this is an influence on his attitude. However what we can be certain of is Aegor has a huge resentment because his mother was barely a mistress for a year. Meanwhile Melissa Blackwood became the dominant lady at court for about five years. Aegor was also bitter about Brynden and Shiera Seastar being lovers when he also loved her too. However Shiera had no interest in Aegor.
Brynden Rivers lived at least part of his childhood in King’s Landing. We don’t get much info about his early years because George didn’t give us the details. Shiera Seastar is another figure where we just don’t know a ton about her. However it’s fascinating she’s the source of bitter jealousy and hate between her half-brothers Brynden and Aegor since they both loved her and she only loved one of them back.
In the last episode I had mentioned that Daemon was given Blackfyre after winning a squire’s joust. Then Aegon dies legitimizing his illegitimate children. And naturally, Daeron becomes king after his father dies. At this point in time, Daeron and his family were living on Dragonstone. This harkens back to his great-grandparents Daemon and Rhaenyra living there while she was heir to the throne. Daeron was crowned with the same crown Aegon wore.
To demonstrate how he was the complete opposite of this father, he quickly cleaned house. He got rid of pretty much everyone his father picked to serve in the bureaucracy. Daeron picked people he knew were actually competent and qualified for their jobs, unlike some other heads of state I can think of.
Daeron couldn’t reverse his father’s choice to legitimize his other children. Daeron did the honorable thing of providing support for his half-siblings. He also honored the marriage negotiations Aegon had arranged for Daemon to marry Rohanne of Tyrosh. Daeron even gifted Daemon a tract of land along the Blackwater Rush so he could build a keep of his own. Daeron didn’t have to do this much. When you take into account how bastard children get treated in Westeros, this really was doing a lot more than was necessary.
Daeron would also finalize the annexation of Dorne by arranging a marriage between his brother-in-law, Prince Maron Martell, to Daenerys. This means that the later Martell family many of you Game of Thrones fans are familiar with claim descent from Maron and Daenerys. This has some implications years later, which I’ll get into in another episode. Maron Martell was also the one who created the Water Gardens for his new bride. In case you guys weren’t aware, many of the Dorne scenes in Season 5 and 6 of Game of Thrones took place at the Water Gardens. The actual castle of House Martell is Sunspear, but Doran Martell moved to the Water Gardens in AC 298, which is roughly when part of Game of Thrones takes place.
The wedding would happen in AC 188. Prince Maron would officially bend the knee a year after the wedding. In return for agreeing to bend the knee, Prince Maron would be able to continue using the title of “prince” and there were additional tax concessions and some degree of autonomous rule.
There were many nobles who resented this given the deaths from past wars with Dorne. Also when the Targaryens conquered the other kingdoms, these types of concessions weren’t given to any of them. On top of this, there was an increase in Dornish representation at court that displeased other Westerosi. You might be thinking, why is this such a big deal? I’ll get to that a bit later in the episode.
One interesting story I have to share is there was of course a tourney organized to celebrate the momentous wedding. The final joust at this tourney was between Prince Baelor and Daemon, who by now had taken the name Blackfyre as his surname. Eventually Baelor would win the joust. He would afterwards be known as Baelor Breakspear, which is an interesting contrast to his namesake. Another side note, we will be seeing Baelor Breakspear in the upcoming show, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms.
Baelor is going to be a very unusual looking Targaryen because unlike most Targaryens, he’s half Martell. If the tv show is going to be accurate, he’ll have dark hair at the very least. There were some grumbles from people over the fact that he looks more Dornish than Targaryen. Also he shares the name with a weak king. It’s a problem given he’s now Prince of Dragonstone and potentially the future king.
To celebrate the success of the unified Westeros, Daeron had a new castle constructed and named Summerhall. Like the name suggests, it would act as something like a summer palace. This is not too different from what some kings in our real world possess.
One side note I have to make. It’s not really clear when this happened because George didn’t write the book about it, but Elaena Targaryen married a second time. She would marry Lord Ronnel Penrose, who was serving as Master of Coin. She would have 4 children with her second husband: Robin, Laena, Jocelyn, and Joy. Despite the fact Lord Ronnel was Master of Coin, Elaena allegedly did the real work since she’s actually smarter than him.
It’s not clear when, why, or how he died, but it happened while Daeron was still king. That’s because not too long after he dies, Daeron gave his blessing for Elaena to pick her final husband, Ser Michael Manwoody. The knight is originally from Dorne. Elaena would outlive this husband as well. It’s not clear when she died but George apparently said in an interview that “men said she was more beautiful at seventy than she had been at seventeen.” If George was being literal, Elaena would be 70 in AC 220. So some fans think she died at some point after AC 220. She likely died some time during the reign of one of the next two kings. I’ll explain that in the next episode.
Just like his older brother, Daemon managed to have a pretty fruitful marriage to Rohanne. Daemon had 9 children with his wife Rohanne, including twin sons named Aegon and Aemon. Considering how fraught his father and his uncle’s relationship was, it’s pretty funny to me Daemon named his two oldest sons after them.
You’d think that there was satisfaction with how his life was going. However like I had said earlier in the episode, some nobles were dissatisfied with the growing influence of Dorne at court. On top of that Aegon’s selfishness really sank in. Aegon’s insinuations that Daeron wasn’t his true son, Aegon gifting Blackfyre to Daemon, and Baelor looking too Dornish for people just made rebellion ripe. People actually started approaching Daemon to possibly start a rebellion. However it took years for this to actually happen.
Some of the more romantic types like to say that Daemon was frustrated and disappointed he couldn’t marry Daenerys, his half-sister who was only 2 years younger than him. Rumors say she also loved him as well. However there’s plenty of skeptics of this notion as I’ll get to in a bit. It seemed most likely that Aegor Rivers and Ser Quentyn Ball finally convinced Daemon to overthrow Daeron and kick off the First Blackfyre Rebellion. Yes there are multiple ones as I’ll get to in the next few episodes. Daemon arranged for his daughter Calla Blackfyre to marry her uncle Aegor Rivers to seal their alliance.
You listeners know who Aegor Rivers is by now. But you may be wondering, who is Quentyn Ball? This knight was the Master-at-arms at the Red Keep during Aegon’s reign. While there he trained Daeron’s sons and also Daeron’s 3 bastard brothers: Daemon, Aegor, and Brynden. For whatever reason, King Aegon promised to name him a member of the Kingsguard when an opening happened. This was strange because the man was already married. Apparently the knight wanted to be in the Kingsguard or maybe he didn’t care much for his wife. I say that because he had his wife join the Silent sisters despite not actually having the position.
Aegon of course dies before an opening happened. Later Daeron became king and the knight mentioned this promise. For whatever reason Daeron chose a different knight instead. This is suspected to be the reason why Ser Quentyn decided to help Aegor convince Daemon to rebel.
The actual rebellion began in AC 196 and would last about a year. This will be the highlights version considering we don’t have the sequel to Fire & Blood that would include more details about the fighting. Daemon had support for his cause, but it’s presumed not as much as his propaganda would make you think.
It’s said the Great Houses, which were the most powerful noble houses in Westeros, stayed loyal to Daeron. A bulk of the nobles supporting Daemon seemed to be from the Stormlands and the Reach along with a house like Bracken in the Riverlands too. That was a given with Aegor being the proponent for this plot. If you listeners checked out season 1 of this podcast, I had discussed in multiple episodes about the territorial disputes between the Reach, Stormlands, and Dorne over the Dornish Marches. They would be the lords least satisfied with Daeron’s decisions about Dorne.
Word got back to Daeron about what Daemon and his circle were up to. Prince Baelor actually hoped to give Daemon some leniency. Perhaps he hoped to talk to Daemon and work things out. You might be surprised by such a view, but I should point out that Daemon was born in AC 170 and so was Baelor. This uncle and nephew undoubtedly grew up together in the Red Keep. This is weirdly similar to what happened with Rhaenyra’s and Alicent’s children. I wouldn’t be too surprised if there were some actual fond memories they had with one another from those years.
Conversely, Brynden Rivers had a tougher position and advocated crushing this now. Ultimately that’s the position Daeron took as well. His Kingsguard were sent to arrest his brother, but Ser Quentyn helped Daemon escape. As I’m sure you’re aware, the sigil of house Targaryen is a red three headed dragon on a black background. Daemon chose to reverse the colors for his sigil so House Blackfyre would use a black three headed dragon on a red background.
Ser Quentyn was a pretty effective commander in Daemon’s side as well as a fierce warrior. He killed Lord Lefford at Lannisport and defeated Lord Damon Lannister so badly, he fled back to Casterly Rock. It was a blow that before the battle of Redgrass field, Ser Quentyn was killed by an archer.
Lord Leo Tyrell was also a fierce commander who sided with Daeron, which is pretty interesting. This is not too different from the Dance where not everyone in the Reach sided unanimously for one side. Unfortunately Leo Tyrell couldn’t make it in time to join the decisive battle known as The Battle of the Redgrass Field.
Daemon’s army was approaching King’s Landing until Targaryen forces led by Lord Donnel Arryn arrived to stop the advance. Daemon’s side was pretty fierce and nearly crushed them until Ser Gwayne Corbray of the Kingsguard arrived with reinforcements. It’s said the duel between Daemon and Gwayne was so epic it lasted an hour. Eventually Gwayne was blinded and defeated. Daemon respected the man so much he ordered the knight be taken off the field to be treated. This would prove to be Daemon’s fatal mistake. While this duel took everyone’s attention, Brynden Rivers made his move.
I haven’t said much about Brynden Rivers even though he’s one of the most significant characters in this part of the saga. I had briefly mentioned he spent time at court since his mother was a favorite of Aegon’s for 5 years. Her friendly relationship with Naerys and Daeron seemed to have also been passed to her children.
Unlike Aegor and Daemon, Brynden stayed loyal to Daeron. He was also very intelligent. He received the nickname Bloodraven because he was born with a red blotchy birthmark that only vaguely resembled a raven. Like I mentioned a couple times in past episodes, we saw a very brief glimpse of Bloodraven in House of the Dragon when Daemon had a vision at the heart tree. It’s not clear when this happened, but Brynden was given Dark Sister. Ser Aemon the Dragonknight previously had Dark Sister. However Bryden preferred using a weirwood bow, which is fitting since his Blackwood family were followers of the Old Gods.
Brynden Rivers led a group highly skilled longbowmen who would be known as The Raven’s Teeth. At Redgrass Field, Brynden and his Raven’s Teeth got into position while Daemon and Ser Gwayne dueled. Once the duel ended, the archers fired into the field at Daemon’s side. They managed to kill Daemon and his twin sons Aegon and Aemon, who were there as their father’s squires.
Aegor managed to grab Blackfyre and tried to rally the rebels. Aegor and Brynden would also duel and Aegor managed to take out one of Brynden’s eyes. But ultimately the rebels were forced to flee when Prince Baelor and Prince Maekar arrived with Dornish and Stormlander reinforcements. The Rebellion failed.
After the failed rebellion, Aegor, Rohanne and her 7 surviving children would flee to Tyrosh where they’d stay for the next few years. She never returned to Westeros. But like I said earlier that’s just the first Blackfyre rebellion. Many nobles who supported Daemon Blackfyre were punished in a variety of ways. Some went to the Wall, some lost land, some had family members held as hostages as well.
To end this episode, I’ll get to the final years of Daeron’s reign. At some point after the Rebellion, Baelor would be named Hand of the King. All of Daeron’s children got married and most of them had children. I’ll be getting into more detail about the grandchildren in the next episode. Baelor married Jena Dondarrion and had two sons with her. Aerys married Aelinor Penrose, who is described as a cousin, but she’s not one of Elaena Targaryen’s children. There’s a fan theory she could be descended from Baela or Rhaena Targaryen. However it could also be an oversight on George’s part as well. Rhaegel married Alys Arryn, and then Maekar married Dyanna Dayne, who is from House Dayne in Dorne.
Then we get into the infamous tourney at Ashford Meadows in AC 209. This is likely something we’ll be seeing in the upcoming show A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms. Many members of House Targaryen attend the tourney and even participated in the events. It’s fascinating that some of Daeron’s sons and grandsons are pretty skilled warriors while he personally had little taste or talent for it.
I’ve decided to give you the short version of the story because for the upcoming season 3 of this podcast, I’m going to talk about the Tales of Dunk and Egg. These are the novellas that the upcoming show is based on. I’m going to be talking about the books before the series airs. And I’ll talk a bit more in detail about this incident in those episodes.
The short version goes like this. Duncan the Tall, who is one of the main protagonists of the upcoming show, attended the tourney. He winds up interacting with Prince Baelor and Prince Maekar. Baelor had known the knight that Dunk squired for. Baelor vouches for him so Dunk could compete. Later Dunk ended up in a fight with Maekar’s son Aerion. Dunk claimed he was defending a puppeteer named Tanselle he had befriended from Aerion. Aerion claimed the puppet show was some kind of treason against House Targaryen. I can assure you listeners it wasn’t, but I’ll explain further in Season 3 of this podcast.
Ultimately it was decided that Aerion could claim trial by combat. Instead of one on one, it was a trial by seven. I had last discussed what that was in episode 2.03 when Maegor did a trial by seven. It’s interesting that both Baelor and Maekar participated in this Trial by seven, but on opposing sides. Maekar sided with his son Aerion. Baelor believed in Dunk’s innocence and joined his side. It was pretty brutal, but Dunk was found innocent. Maekar had attacked Baelor during the fight. Eventually Baelor died from his injuries and Maekar would feel grim and bitter about accidentally killing his brother. This will come up again next episode.
A few months after this tourney, another epidemic hit Westeros and would only be known as the Great Spring Sickness. A number of people died during this epidemic including King Daeron himself and both of Baelor’s sons. Valarr was married, but had no children as his twin sons were still born. Matarys wasn’t married and had no children. The next in line was Daeron’s second son Aerys.
And that just about covers the life of Daeron II. If you’re interested in finding out more for yourself, feel free to go to the full show notes where I will have links. Though be aware if you do any of this research there will be spoilers to the novels, House of the Dragon, and Max’s future adaptations.
Thank you for listening and tune in to the next episode where once again I’ll talk about two kings! I’ll be talking about Aerys I and Maekar.