68 pages • 2 hours read
George R. R. MartinFire & Blood
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2018A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 6-12, Part 1Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 6 Summary: “The Year of the Three Brides—49 AC”
Content Warning: The source material in this section includes gender-based violence, debilitating alcohol abuse, incest, suicide, and domestic abuse.
Three weddings in 49 AC interfered with Jaehaerys’s efforts to consolidate power. Rhaena married Androw Farman, second son of the Lord of Fair Isle, without getting permission from Jaehaerys and Alyssa. Jaehaerys was offended, and this coupling prevented marriage to a potential ally to shore up Jaehaerys’s power. Rogar Baratheon married Alyssa without asking Jaehaerys; their wedding was a decadent affair with expensive feasts, clothes, and a tourney. People called it the Golden Wedding. Because he was a man, Rogar presumed to dominate his wife, and he played a central role in finding a wife for Jaehaerys.
Jaehaerys was angry with his exclusion from discussions about his own marriage, and his younger sister Alysanne had no interest in the matches proposed for her. Alysanne and Jaehaerys married on Dragonstone with the family’s old personal septon presiding and the Kingsguard as witnesses. Rogar and Alyssa showed up with knights to put a stop to it. The Kingsguard refused to put their hands on the king as Rogar ordered. The marriage had not been consummated. Sources differ on this last point and why there was no open battle. Septon Benifer was there and presented the whole affair as the triumph of a brave prince. Gyldayn rejects this account. He writes in the footnote that the king got his way because he had a garrison of soldiers and the Kingsguard to back him. Jaehaerys and Alysanne did not broadcast their marriage. Rogar and Alyssa also kept it secret when they returned to King’s Landing.
Chapter 7 Summary: “A Surfeit of Rulers—50 AC”
On Dragonstone, Jaehaerys trained to become a warrior and read histories on Aegon the Conqueror so he would be ready to rule. When Alyssa sent noble companions to persuade Alysanne to give up on the marriage, Alysanne won these potential allies over instead. Beautiful Coryanne Wylde was one of these companions; if she had a child out of wedlock as the rumors claim, she was an unsuitable companion for Alysanne.
Rogar was power-hungry. Some claim Rogar had sex with Coryanne Wylde and put her among the noble companions to seduce Jaehaerys. This may or may not be true. A Caution for Young Girls, supposedly written by Coryanne, includes details about this episode. Gyldayn warns that the “lascivious details of the author’s erotic adventures need not concern us here” (157). Disgraced maesters, failed septons, and “mummers”—traveling actors—probably created the book.
Rhaena became another rival for power. In Fair Isle, Rhaena was the Queen in the West, and Westerosi lords visited her there to seek influence. She had a love affair with Lady Elissa of Fair Isle, her sister-in-law.
Chapter 8 Summary: “A Time of Testing—The Realm Remade”
After his ascension, Jaehaerys consolidated his power. Aerea moved to King’s Landing. Jaehaerys made Daemon Velaryon his Hand and Pentoshi Rego Draz, a rich and flashy man, his master of coin (treasury secretary). Draz filled the nearly empty crown treasury through unpopular taxes and loans from the Iron Bank of Braavos. Rogar returned after Jaehaerys forced him to reconcile with Dowager Queen Alyssa; public support for Jaehaerys and Alysanne’s marriage was part of the deal. The nobles who betrayed his father came with promises of loyalty, but Jaehaerys responded, “Words are wind” (178). He exiled them.
Jaehaerys knew incestuous marriage nearly destroyed the Targaryens in the previous generation. He sent out the Seven Speakers to proclaim the Doctrine of Exceptionalism, which prohibited incest generally but allowed it among Targaryens. According to the doctrine, the Faith came to Westeros with the Andal ancestors who settled Westeros; the Faith rightly prohibited incest. But the Targaryens were from Valyria, not Andalos. Their appearance and their unique abilities to control dragons made them the exception to the law against incest. The High Septon said nothing against the doctrine; people were tired of war, the Faith most of all, and the young king and queen were initially popular.
Chapter 9 Summary: “Birth, Death, and Betrayal Under King Jaehaerys I”
The young king and queen initially gained popular support by going on frequent royal progresses. Alysanne held women’s courts to establish goodwill and give Westerosi women of all classes a voice. She used her influence to protect widows from poverty after the death of their husbands.
Jaehaerys’s popularity waned with every new tax Rego Draz imposed; the young king had grown politically adept, however. He connived with the Hightowers to elect an elderly outsider after the High Septon died. They agreed that the next High Septon would be a Hightower who would not object to the Doctrine of Exceptionalism.
Rhaena and her household damaged the Targaryens’ reputation further. She was rude and dismissive of the lords who came to Dragonstone. She constantly argued with Aerea, a headstrong, belligerent girl who missed the attention at court. Rhaena’s life worsened when Lady Elissa grew bored on Dragonstone. Elissa stole three dragon eggs, sold them to the Sealord of Braavos, and used the proceeds to build the ship Sun Chaser. One of the premises of the Doctrine of Exceptionalism was that the Targaryens were different because they had dragons; losing the eggs was a serious political problem. Jaehaerys said he would go to war to get the eggs back, and he chided his sister for her carelessness.
Aerea ran away on the back of the dragon Balerion. Rhaena disappeared as she searched for the girl and the dragon.
Chapter 10 Summary: “Jaehaerys and Alysanne—Their Triumphs and Tragedies”
Alys Westhill (formerly Elissa) left for the unknown lands. Survivors of the unknown lands—Hightowers—came back with treasure and tales of sea monsters. Corlys Velaryon, famous for his own journeys, claimed he saw one of her old ships in the western Summer Isles years later. She never returned, and there is no further mention of her in the historical record.
Aerea returned on Balerion’s back, but she died when wyrms—limbless, dragon-like creatures who spout fire—in her body cooked her from the inside. Only Septon Barth witnessed it. The septon speculated that Balerion took the girl to Old Valyria, a place still corrupted by the blood magic the Old Valyrians practiced. From then on, Dragonkeepers guarded the dragons, who lived in Dragonpit. Rhaena returned; she lived in Harrenhal until her death in 57 AC.
Back in King’s Landing, Jaehaerys sent his Hand to Braavos to retrieve the dragon eggs. The Sealord refused to admit he had the eggs, but he forgave the principal on the Targaryens’ huge loans in exchange for keeping the dragon eggs. Jaehaerys reigned for 10 years in relative peace. Gyldayn closes the chapter by noting, however, that “winter was coming” (273).
Chapter 11 Summary: “The Long Reign—Jaehaerys and Alysanne—Policy, Progeny, and Pain”
More hard times came to House Targaryen and Westeros. In 59 AC, crops failed, and a disease called the shivers killed high and low alike. King’s Landing became lawless as too many of the City Watch died of the shivers. Angry citizens lynched and killed Rego Draz because they were tired of the high taxes and believed the shivers came from his native city, Pentos. Rogar put down a rebellion in Dorne but soon died.
Jaehaerys and Alysanne had more children, but several died. Their son Baelon survived and became the heir. The succession was assured with their grandchildren, brothers Viserys and Daemon. However, the peaceful marriage between Jaehaerys and Alysanne fractured. After many years, Jaehaerys grew old and confused. The queen died at 64.
Chapter 12, Part 1 Summary: “Heirs of the Dragon—A Question of Succession”
Part 1
Gyldayn admits his sources for the civil war and other events in this section are unreliable and biased. He relies on three sometimes conflicting sources—Eustace, septon of the Red Keep; Mushroom, the court “fool”; and Grandmaester Runcitor, the court chronicler. The septon records shocking details with an air of disapproval, while Mushroom describes scandalous behavior with glee. Runcitor sticks to dry facts. The sum of these three sources shows that the succession and women’s places in it led to trouble.
Jaehaerys’s heir Baelon died, leaving many possible candidates for heir. The Great Council of lords met in 101 AC to settle the question. They excluded Jaehaerys’s granddaughter Rhaenys, now wife of the powerful Corlys Velaryon, and all other lines of descent that came through Targaryen women. Baelon’s son Viserys I became the heir and then king when Jaehaerys died. Viserys I and Aemma, his first wife, had one child, Rhaenyra. Daemon, Viserys’s hot-tempered and restless younger brother, thought he would be heir. He caroused in bars and brothels, where he fell in love with Mysaria, a sex worker whom he got pregnant. Viserys I made Daemon commander of the City Watch, which he transformed into a disciplined, gold-cloaked force, to everyone’s surprise. Daemon carefully cultivated a relationship with Rhaenyra.
Aemma died giving birth to a baby boy who passed away shortly thereafter. According to rumors, Daemon joked about the one day the heir lived; when Viserys I heard this, he banished Daemon and Mysaria. Viserys I made Rhaenyra Princess of Dragonstone and heir; the lords were forced to swear oaths to recognize her claim. Jaehaerys later married Alicent Hightower, daughter of Otto Hightower, his Hand. Discontented Corlys and Daemon skipped the wedding to fight the pirates blocking shipping lanes in southeastern Westeros; they won. Daemon crowned himself King of the Stepstones and the Narrow Sea, but Viserys welcomed Daemon back to court. He let Daemon keep his crown. These last details are the official account.
Viserys I and Alicent later had two sons, Aegon and Aemond, but Rhaenyra remained heir. Viserys removed Otto as Hand after Otto insisted Aegon or Aemond were the proper heirs because they were boys. Two factions developed: the Hightower Greens and Rhaenyra’s Blacks. Other details are murky and shocking to Gyldayn. Mushroom says Daemon seduced Rhaenyra; there was open talk that he taught her to pleasure men sexually in the brothels of King’s Landing; Mushroom also claims Rhaenyra tried to seduce her guard Criston Cole, who rejected her. Viserys confronted Daemon about the rumors. Daemon said the rumors were true and that Viserys should let him marry Rhaenyra since she was spoiled for marriage. The king exiled Daemon. Mushroom is an unreliable source, but his account helps makes sense of these events.
Chapters 6-12, Part 1 Analysis
Martin explores the impact of gender on the nature of power in Westeros. Like in feudal Europe, women in Westeros rarely exercised formal power in their own right; the powerful men around them consigned them to bit roles or forced them to be merely the vessels for heirs. Nevertheless, the women and girls of Westeros in these chapters fought for their right to self-determination. The conflicts in Westeros over Rhaenyra’s right to be heir shows that women’s access to power was limited.
Many women were more assertive in how they gained power, with Alysanne as the prime example. Alysanne insisted on having a voice in important life decisions such as her marriage to Jaehaerys. Jaehaerys was keen to support her in this role; they both remembered the failure of the previous generation to use reputation to enhance their power; the Seven Speakers were her and Jaehaerys’s effort to shore up the Targaryens’ influence. In addition, when Alysanne finally obtained some power, she used important interpersonal skills and diplomacy to support reforms to make women’s lives better, like the Widow’s Law. Her high caste gave her a platform to make these changes for women, and so long as her interests aligned with the crown and the nobility, she maintained her power.
There are rebellious women in these chapters, but their character arcs show that there is little room for nonconformity with regard to gender roles. The story of Rhaena’s fruitless search for Aerea and the little girl’s death reads like a parable on what happens to rebellious girls and women. The same applies to the story of Elissa/Alys Westhill. No one knows what happened to Alys when she went beyond the known world. Only the men who went with her came back to tell the story, bringing wealth that gave their house more power. Alys never gets the chance to tell her story the way Corlys does, so she falls out of Westerosi history. Aerea exceeded physical boundaries as well by flying off on a dragon—the ultimate symbol of Targaryen power. Her dream was of dragons, but Barth’s account of her death is a story about the illegitimacy and costs of female curiosity. Aerea was a child of dragonriders, but the blood magic that enabled that power corrupted her body and killed her. Gyldayn’s characterization of her illustrates what happens when girls and women reject restraints placed on women.
Rhaena also paid a price for seeking power and violating gender norms. Although she was putatively the Queen in the West, her hosts, the Lannisters, only valued her for her proximity to power. Androw’s systematic murder of her lovers shows that men found her attraction to women such a threat to patriarchal power that they were willing to kill for it. Still, Rhaena managed to survive these trials and the death of her child because of her status. Less privileged women had to find other sources of power, based on subplots Martin develops in later chapters.
Rhaenyra also ran up against the limits of what even royal girls and women can expect when it comes to power. Martin foreshadows the struggle over women and power among the Targaryens with the flat denial of Rhaenys’s claim at the Great Council and the estrangement between Jaehaerys and Alysanne. Also, Gyldayn increasingly relies on the accounts of Mushroom to discuss why Rhaenyra’s actions were problematic. Extensive gossip about her sexual purity made its way into the rumors of the smallfolk and the historical record because, Gyldayn claims, it shed light on what Daemon and the king did in response. The men around her were particularly threatened by the idea of her as a sexually active person; were she a man, her actions would not be enough to nullify her claim to the crown. As the only potential Westerosi queen in her own right, Rhaenyra posed a threat to the order of things.
Gyldayn here also introduces three important sources for his chronicle. However, Septon Eustace’s piousness and deference to the powerful make his many reports unreliable.
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