Fire & Blood — The Dance of the Dragons — A Question of Succession
The Old King's council at Harrenhal passes over Rhaenys for Viserys; a generation later Viserys passes over precedent for Rhaenyra. Aemma dies of the birthing bed, Alicent weds the king, and two courts grow inside one castle — the blacks and the greens, named for the gowns worn at a tourney. Daemon wins the Stepstones, weds Laena, loses her, and weds Rhaenyra over Laenor's convenient corpse — though the book's Laenor is truly murdered, cut down at Spicetown by his own favorite, Qarl Correy. Harrenhal burns its lord and his heir; the king rots slowly on his throne and dies whispering to no one the maesters record.
The chapter retold
The Dance's whole tragedy is contained in a decision made twice, a generation apart, in opposite directions. The Great Council of 101 passes over Rhaenys and her line for Viserys on the plain ground that the realm will not seat a woman — and then Viserys, having lost his wife Aemma to a birthing bed he chose to make bloody and the son bought with her to a single day, overturns that very precedent by naming his daughter Rhaenyra his heir. He marches every lord in the Seven Kingdoms through an oath to her, and then spends two decades declining to notice how thoroughly his own court is filing the oath down to nothing.
Everything that will burn is laid in during these quiet years. Alicent Hightower becomes queen and bears the king four children whose claim shadows Rhaenyra's; the princess's three Velaryon sons arrive with the wrong hair and the right enemies, and the whisper of Harwin Strong follows them for life. Fire & Blood is careful to strip away the show's mercies here — its Laenor is not spirited away to freedom but genuinely murdered at Spicetown by his own favorite, Qarl Correy — and to insist that the sources cannot even agree on how Viserys died, only that the peace he held together by hand did not survive the night he stopped breathing.
This movement: A Question of Succession
- The council of 101 sets the precedent — the realm will not have a woman — and Viserys spends his reign unsetting it for his daughter.
- Two courts grow inside one Red Keep: the queen's greens and the princess's blacks, named at a tourney and armed within a generation.
- Daemon and the Sea Snake win the Stepstones; marriages, funerals and one convenient corpse bind Targaryen to Velaryon twice over.
- The king dies; the greens crown Aegon in the Dragonpit; the blacks crown Rhaenyra on Dragonstone — and Vhagar kills a boy over Shipbreaker Bay.
The fallen — spoilers
- Queen Aemma Arryn — Cut open to birth a son who lived a day. The king never forgave himself; the realm never let him forget.
- Prince Baelon Targaryen — The heir for a day.
- Lady Rhea Royce — Fell from her horse among Runestone's rocks — nine days after her husband paid his only visit in years.
- Ser Joffrey Lonmouth — The Knight of Kisses, dead of Ser Criston Cole's morningstar in the wedding tourney for Rhaenyra and Laenor.
- Laena Velaryon — Rider of Vhagar, dead of childbed at Driftmark — she rose from her bed to die beside her dragon.
- Ser Laenor Velaryon — Slain at Spicetown by Ser Qarl Correy as merchants watched — a lovers' quarrel, said some; a hired blade, said those watching Daemon.
- Ser Harwin Strong — Breakbones, burned at Harrenhal with his father — and with him the truth of three princes' blood.
- Lord Lyonel Strong — Hand of the King, dead in the same fire. Larys Clubfoot inherited everything, including suspicion.
- Ser Vaemond Velaryon — Beheaded by Daemon for naming the Velaryon heirs bastards — his tongue, the prince observed, they could keep.
- King Viserys I Targaryen — The Young King grown old, dead in his bed in the 129th year after the Conquest — and with him, the peace of the dragons.