IBanalysis

By John Ferrandino

Characters: Ser Duncan The Tall (Dunk), Aegon Targaryen (Egg), Bloodraven, Baelor Breakspear Targaryen, Maekar Targaryen, Aerion Brightflame Targaryen, Rohanne Weber, Eustace Osgery, and Daemon II Blackfyre

Plot: Dunk and Egg are a hedge knight and squire in Westeros. Dunk styles himself as Duncan The Tall and is a knighted commoner. His squire Egg, is a Targaryen prince named Aegon. They travel the seven (nine) kingdoms joining the service of lords, keeping the king’s law, and participating in tourneys.

Inspiration: 12th to 14th century England, chivalry, Magna Carta, Ivanhoe, Ashford v. Thornton, feudalism, polytheistic mythologies, Mandate of Heaven, and Ptolemaic dynasty

George R. R. Martin based Westeros off of 13th century Western Europe, with feudalism and chivalry. His first novel set in Westeros, A Game of Thrones, published in 1996 and first in A Song of Ice And Fire series. Martin participated in a anthology collection by Robert Silverberg in 1999 along with other A-list sci-fi and fantasy writers, to write a short story set in their established universes.

The tourney at Ashford is named after the last real world duel in England.

The Targaryen historical counterparts would be the Ptolemaic dynasty of Egypt, an incestuous monarchy that portrayed themselves as deities. The Ptolemaics modeled themselves after the Greek and Egyptian pantheons. Marriages were not for love or was incest taboo, but an arrangement for power and succession. with the Ptolemaic and Targaryens being kin to the gods, their rule is seen as a favor from the gods, and natural disasters and war are contributed to their moral failings.

Baelor’s philosophy is similar to the Magna Carta from England where the king had to follow the laws.

Motifs: dreams, dragons, armor and weapons, capital punishment, surveillance, honor, disguises, luxury accessories and cloths, and traveling

A Targaryen hereditary power is dragon dreams, premonitions of the future, and a burden. Egg’s brother Daeron dreams of his uncle Baelor’s death and the return of dragons. These are prophetic dreams. Dunk has no bloodline, so no special dreams, but his dreams are still symbolic to his experiences. Standard dreams for his love for Tanselle and Rohanne, and nightmares over his guilt over causing Baelor’s death. Dreams are hopes and brudens.

The dragon is the sigil for House Targaryen, representing their military might, emotional fire, ties to magic, godlike superiority, and aspirations for conquest.

Every aspect of the world is explored; food, armor, weapons, cloths, and hygiene, and how they differ between social classes. The type of armor, weapons, and clothing an individual wears, as well as sigils, can determine an individual’s identity before their name is known.

Westerosi society revolves around land and power. The power of warriors called knights bound by honor. They uphold the laws of the king, but knighthood is limited to those of noble birth and great deeds. Besides knights, a sign of the king’s law is capital punishment. Public displays to the peasants and a guarantee of stability.

Westeros under the current king Aerys I is a surveillance state; district of strangers, nostalgia for freer times, unrest, and fear.

Most sigils, such as dragons and lions, are apex predators, who fight to maintain power. Most lords see themselves as personifications of their sigils.

Arlan of Pennytree, who Dunk squired under, had a winged chalice as his sigil. Pennytree is a reference to the pennys that he hammers into the trees of his liege lords to show proof that he was there. Otherwise he has no other legacy as a poor hedge knight. Dunk uses a tree during a sunset with a shooting star as his sigil. A humble setting with high aspirations, but the shooting star also looks like a falling star, so a personal warning.

Conflicts: Destiny vs reality, gender in politics, societal and environmental unrest, surveillance state, dealing with traitors, classism, xenophobia, treatment under the law based on class, sanctity of marriage, prejudice, misogyny, and artificial popularity; bribes, glazing, and flattery (blowing smoke up the ass).

The conflict in the realm is caused by male vs female inheritance, environmental disasters, prejudice against people born out of wedlock, and dealing with the traitors of the Blackfyre rebellion. Lady Rohanne Weber inherited lands from her father, but due to being a woman and unmarried, she face land grabs from Eustace Osgery and other lords, unconsented advances from her own subordinates, and disinherited if she does not find a husband. She needs to be more assertive and strict in order to uphold her dignity and sovereignty, same as any other lord, but hard, and for that she is branded as a craven witch.

Being a feudal society means a lord’s power comes from his land which he can tax and the population to work it and call upon for military service. Ser Eustace has neither, and he also joined the Blackfyres and was ostracized for it. He is a landed knight, but is ancestral land used to be bigger and were ranked lords.

The Targaryens are the ruling house of Westeros, so are the law, but not all of them believe in absolutist autocracy. Baelor Breakspear believes in equality under the law, knighthood should balance out absolute heredity authority, and consent of the governed . Aerion believes he is a dragon, superior to humans, and utilizes the law as his weapon. Maekar is a martial ruler, but not a dictator, he wants the best for his family’s wellbeing and honor. Daeron the Drunk is an embarrassment and craven in Westerossi society because of his drinking and disdain for fighting. In truth he drinks to null the pain the dragon dreams give him and the depression of being a Targaryen without a dragon. He questions whether or not the Targaryens have the right to rule since their dragons went extinct. Bloodraven is a Targaryen bastard, but he rules through reapolitik, machiavellianism, and intelligence gathering. This generation of Targaryens don’t have the dragons that allowed them to conquer the seven kingdoms, they also the least incestuous.

Bastards are those born outside of marriage, whose lives are seen as a continuation of their parents lust and infidelity. In Dunk’s time, its been 15 years since the Blackfye Rebellion, where a coalition of Targaryen bastards legitimized by Aegon The Unworthy, attempted to usurp the throne. Their loss made bastards a person of suspect and the lords who supported them were forced to give up lands and give hostages.

Daemon Blackfyre led the first rebellion. His son Daemon II attempted another one, but his support was based on bribes, fixed tourney victories, and reliance on a prophesied dragon egg hatching. His rebellion failed before it even started because he didn’t have the full support of his lords and the egg was stolen. He relied too much on symbolic ritualism. His father made a similar mistake as well. His strategy at the Battle of The Redgrass Field was using the Targaryen sword Blackfyre as his proof to rule, a Westerossi version of Exsculibur. Daemon’s battle tactics was a forceful melee battle with the opposing army, confident that the gods were on his side due to his honor and possession of Blackfyre. Baelor, Maekar, and Bloodraven used battle tactics with historical precedents; Maekar kept the Blackfyres from advancing by forming a wall and engaging with the main force, Bloodraven took the hills surrounding the field with archers, and Baelor smashed into the rear flank with reinforcements. Daemon unmounted from his horse to help a defeated foe he had dueled with, and Bloodraven filled him with arrows. Because Bloodraven was his half-brother and he was killed in a non sword to sword battle, Bloodraven was vilified as a kinslayer, a blood magic sorcerer who used magic to guide his arrow, and the dictator in charge of the surveillance state after the death of Daeron II “The Good”.

Environmental disasters and plaque are seen as the gods punishing Westeros for the royal family’s sins. Public support for the Targaryens in at an all time low, with them seeing as weak and warmongering foreigners who have burned parts of Westeros with their now extinct dragons and dragged the people into dynastic civil wars.

Dunk has no bloodline, and an orphan from Flea Bottom, but he ends up in the middle of the conflicts, and still must make his own decisions on how to act, with no clear benefits from the victor, except another day to live. Egg is a princeling far down the line of succession, and he is smart and wise for his age, but still learns the people’s view and new experiences that his status would have never prpared him for. Dunk is not even literate or the best swordsman or jouster, but his honor and determination to protect the innocent is enough to fulfill his desire to do good.

“How many eyes does Lord Bloodraven have? A thousand eyes and one.”

“Some words are wind, ser. Some are treason.”

“Don’t we take the same oaths?”

“They come to cheer for a knight who remembers his vows.”

“My dreams aren’t like yours Ser Duncan. Mine come true.”

Themes: ignorance leads to intolerance, actions outside of social norms are seen as evil, cognitive dissonance is forcing a desired fantasy onto reality, knighthood and respect are earned, the law should treat everyone the same, and the environment one grows up in influences maturity