The Wild and Wacky Willem Darry: Take 2
Jul 31, 2015 19:52:23 GMT
markg171, kingtyrion, and 1 more like this
Post by Deleted on Jul 31, 2015 19:52:23 GMT
Since mark brought up the subject, a good a time as any to repost this one. I am so close to the answer I can taste it.
Let us look again at what we know of the flight to Dragonstone. I will first put forth the common assumption (A) and then posit the interpretation after reevaluation/reread (R).
A: Willem Darry accompanied Rhaella and Viserys to Dragonstone after Rhaegar’s death at the Trident.
R: Nothing in the text places WD as departing for Dragonstone at this time.
A: R & V left for Dragonstone after the Trident/after Chelsted burned because Jaime saw her off.
R: Jaime saw a covered Rhaella - no Viserys – getting into a carriage to take her to a ship bound for Dragonstone. “The queen had been cloaked and hooded as she [note the singular] climbed inside the royal wheelhouse that would take her down Aegon's High Hill to the waiting ship”. The ship is in the harbor, so fully visible to all...no secrecy, no clandestine operation assumed.
A: Jaime and Viserys’ accounts - the two that we get in-text of the flight to Dragonstone - are the same.
R: 1) Jaime – “Jaime had only seen Rhaella once after that, the morning of the day she left for Dragonstone”
2) Viserys, as per Dany – “Yet sometimes Dany would picture the way it had been, so often had her brother told her the stories. The midnight flight to Dragonstone, moonlight shimmering on the ship's black sails.”
Note: Viserys is describing his version of the flight from King’s Landing, not their later rescue from Dragonstone. See next point.
A: WD was with Vis & Dany on Dragonstone until right before Stannis’ assault, when he took them to Braavos.
R: Nothing in the text has WD on Dragonstone until he rescues the children. Viserys’ recollection of the flight from KL says nothing about WD being present or involved.
“They had run again, just before the Usurper's brother set sail with his new-built fleet. By then only Dragonstone itself, the ancient seat of their House, had remained of the Seven Kingdoms that had once been theirs. It would not remain for long. The garrison had been prepared to sell them to the Usurper, but one night Ser Willem Darry and four loyal men had broken into the nursery and stolen them both, along with her wet nurse, and set sail under cover of darkness for the safety of the Braavosian coast.”
This has been presented as a nighttime sail as well - so, Viserys remembers TWO trips, and neither of them in the daytime.
A: Viserys and Rhaella were together on Dragonstone from the defeat at the Trident to the assault on DS.
R: Not fully substantiated? The World Book indicates that Rhaella crowned Viserys on Dragonstone, and AGOT does have Viserys titling himself as king and being in possession of his mother’s crown at one time, but the only concrete statement about their mutual exile seems to be from Dany - “her mother had died birthing her, and for that her brother Viserys had never forgiven her.” Neither Dany nor Viserys himself recount any memories of Rhaella and Viserys together.
A: Viserys was no longer in KL at the time of the Sack (near the end of 283, per several sources and as coinciding with other known-date references).
R: “Viserys had been a boy of eight when they fled King's Landing to escape the advancing armies of the Usurper.” -- Viserys is born in 276. Even with a birthday at the first of the year, he would be a maximum of SEVEN years old in 283. He would, however, turn eight years old in 284, the year Dany is born.
Viserys tells Dany tales of Westeros – “The sack of King's Landing by the ones Viserys called the Usurper's dogs, the lords Lannister and Stark. Princess Elia of Dorne pleading for mercy as Rhaegar's heir was ripped from her breast and murdered before her eyes. The polished skulls of the last dragons staring down sightlessly from the walls of the throne room while the Kingslayer opened Father's throat with a golden sword.” ** <---important
Note: compare this to Jaime’s account of Aerys’ death during the Sack – “Jaime had slipped in through the king's door, clad in his golden armor**, sword in hand**. The golden armor, not the white, but no one ever remembers that. … Beneath the empty eyes of the skulls on the walls, Jaime hauled the last dragonking bodily off the steps, squealing like a pig and smelling like a privy. A single slash across his throat was all it took to end it.… Ser Elys Westerling and Lord Crakehall and others of his father's knights burst into the hall in time to see the last of it, so there was no way for Jaime to vanish and let some braggart steal the praise or blame. … [Crakehall] had not seemed surprised to find Aerys slain”
Takeaway: Note the striking similarity in the underlined passages. Viserys tells Dany quite a bit of detail about their father’s death, details that would only have been partially witnessed by Lannister loyalists. How did Viserys glean all of this info if he had been sequestered away in Dragonstone? And why the use of near identical descriptive recount from two people who were nowhere near each other during the event or after?
Let us move now to the infamous “tower of joy” fever dream.
**Note from previous text that in Viserys’ tale to Dany, Jaime used a golden sword. Jaime, however, was wearing golden armor. Only two people - Ned and Viserys - refer to a golden sword.
A: WD assumed charge of Rhaella &Viserys after the defeat at the Trident because the 3 KG (Dayne, Whent, Hightower) were already in Dorne at the TOJ.
R: The fever dream text does not indicate this.
A: WD was in KL while the 3 KG were at TOJ. They were not at the same place at the time of the initial flight to Dragonstone.
R: Ned’s statement “I thought you might have sailed with him” indicates that he thought the 4 were to have been in the same place at some time.
A: WD fled to Dragonstone from King’s Landing.
R: Unconfirmed. The text from the fever dream and from character POVs do not support this.
A: WD, R&V had sailed for Dragonstone after the defeat at the Trident.
R: The timeline of events in Ned’s conversation goes as follows: Sack, Siege, Flight to Dragonstone. If Ned is expecting to find the 3 KG in each of these places, sequentially the flight to Dragonstone is LAST.
A: The 3 KG are protecting the newly born king (Jon) at the tower, shortly after the Sack.
R: Closer inspection of the text, if going by sequence of events, indicates that the 3 KG were at the tower possibly long after the Sack.
Random observations:
We have two recollections from Jaime that Rhaella – or someone assumed to be Rhaella - was leaving by ship for Dragonstone after the defeat at the Trident. Jaime is KG that Aerys trusts the least, and the one KG that Rhaegar insisted stay behind to be Aerys' security blanket against Tywin. But, Jaime surprisingly seems to be entrusted with the whereabouts of the queen and the "new heir".
After Rhaegar’s defeat, Aerys is now holed up in the Red Keep with 1000 loyalists set to defend against rebel forces….yet he sends the current Master At Arms of the Red Keep away to Dragonstone as rebel forces march toward KL? Compare this to Rodrik Cassel during the siege of Winterfell.
Text references indicate there were two nighttime flights in the Dragonstone vicinity.
1) "the midnight flight to Dragonstone ", 2) “one night Ser Willem Darry and four loyal men had broken into the nursery and stolen them both, along with her wet nurse, and set sail under cover of darkness”. Granted, this is per Viserys to Dany, and Viserys has told Dany wild tales of Westeros about which he could not possibly know, but it seems evident that he told her a version of events that had them sailing at night, twice.
Willem Darry breaks in to Dragonstone at night, takes Dany and her wet nurse (and Viserys, per Dany) from the nursery, and sets sail for Braavos. Why would Darry need to break into the nursery of Dragonstone at night if he had been there “protecting” R&V&D all along?
“moonlight shimmering on the ship's black sails”
Why would Darry need a ship with black sails to get into/away from Dragonstone at night? Whose ships have black sails for sailing at night? See Davos POVs - Smugglers.
"while a raging summer storm threatened to rip the island fastness apart"
"The Targaryen fleet was smashed while it lay at anchor, and huge stone blocks were ripped from the parapets and sent hurtling into the wild waters of the narrow sea" - The fleet is smashed, meaning Willem Darry’s ship with black sails was not already anchored at Dragonstone or it would have been destroyed in the storm – his ship sailed in from elsewhere. And had it been a smuggler ship, he would have had to procure this ship, and the smuggler experienced enough to use it, well in advance.
Early-Mid 284: Assault on Dragonstone. Stannis: "I built a fleet at Robert's command, took Dragonstone in his name. Did he take my hand and say, "Well done, brother, whatever should I do without you?" No, he blamed me for letting Willem Darry steal away Viserys and the babe, as if I could have stopped it.”
Interesting that Stannis knows that Willem Darry took the kids. Equally interesting that Robert also seemed to know where they were in Essos all along. “Some pox-ridden Pentoshi cheesemonger had her brother and her walled up on his estate with pointy-hatted eunuchs all around them, and now he’s handed them both over to the Dothraki. I should have had them both killed years ago, when it was easy to get to them”.
Then, this entire passage from ACOK 41 – Tyrion that could be used as a current day parallel :
Preliminary obvious conclusion: There is a shit-ton of contradictory information about this situation.
Initial takeaways & questions:
Rhaella may not have been the woman that Jaime saw off to the ship.
Was this a decoy ship?
Was Viserys on Dragonstone near the time of the assault?
Viserys may not have left King's Landing until closer to Dany's birth.
Rhaella and Viserys were not necessarily together the whole time.
Is Willem Darry's first encounter with Dragonstone when he steals the children?
Willem, Rhaella, and Viserys may not have fled to Dragonstone until after Dany's birth.
Willem may have sailed on a smuggler's ship with the knowledge of the 3 KG.
Willem may have sailed to Dragonstone specifically to get Dany (and by proxy, Viserys)
Did Rhaella and Viserys actually flee to Dorne?
Let us look again at what we know of the flight to Dragonstone. I will first put forth the common assumption (A) and then posit the interpretation after reevaluation/reread (R).
A: Willem Darry accompanied Rhaella and Viserys to Dragonstone after Rhaegar’s death at the Trident.
R: Nothing in the text places WD as departing for Dragonstone at this time.
A: R & V left for Dragonstone after the Trident/after Chelsted burned because Jaime saw her off.
R: Jaime saw a covered Rhaella - no Viserys – getting into a carriage to take her to a ship bound for Dragonstone. “The queen had been cloaked and hooded as she [note the singular] climbed inside the royal wheelhouse that would take her down Aegon's High Hill to the waiting ship”. The ship is in the harbor, so fully visible to all...no secrecy, no clandestine operation assumed.
A: Jaime and Viserys’ accounts - the two that we get in-text of the flight to Dragonstone - are the same.
R: 1) Jaime – “Jaime had only seen Rhaella once after that, the morning of the day she left for Dragonstone”
2) Viserys, as per Dany – “Yet sometimes Dany would picture the way it had been, so often had her brother told her the stories. The midnight flight to Dragonstone, moonlight shimmering on the ship's black sails.”
Note: Viserys is describing his version of the flight from King’s Landing, not their later rescue from Dragonstone. See next point.
A: WD was with Vis & Dany on Dragonstone until right before Stannis’ assault, when he took them to Braavos.
R: Nothing in the text has WD on Dragonstone until he rescues the children. Viserys’ recollection of the flight from KL says nothing about WD being present or involved.
“They had run again, just before the Usurper's brother set sail with his new-built fleet. By then only Dragonstone itself, the ancient seat of their House, had remained of the Seven Kingdoms that had once been theirs. It would not remain for long. The garrison had been prepared to sell them to the Usurper, but one night Ser Willem Darry and four loyal men had broken into the nursery and stolen them both, along with her wet nurse, and set sail under cover of darkness for the safety of the Braavosian coast.”
This has been presented as a nighttime sail as well - so, Viserys remembers TWO trips, and neither of them in the daytime.
A: Viserys and Rhaella were together on Dragonstone from the defeat at the Trident to the assault on DS.
R: Not fully substantiated? The World Book indicates that Rhaella crowned Viserys on Dragonstone, and AGOT does have Viserys titling himself as king and being in possession of his mother’s crown at one time, but the only concrete statement about their mutual exile seems to be from Dany - “her mother had died birthing her, and for that her brother Viserys had never forgiven her.” Neither Dany nor Viserys himself recount any memories of Rhaella and Viserys together.
A: Viserys was no longer in KL at the time of the Sack (near the end of 283, per several sources and as coinciding with other known-date references).
R: “Viserys had been a boy of eight when they fled King's Landing to escape the advancing armies of the Usurper.” -- Viserys is born in 276. Even with a birthday at the first of the year, he would be a maximum of SEVEN years old in 283. He would, however, turn eight years old in 284, the year Dany is born.
Viserys tells Dany tales of Westeros – “The sack of King's Landing by the ones Viserys called the Usurper's dogs, the lords Lannister and Stark. Princess Elia of Dorne pleading for mercy as Rhaegar's heir was ripped from her breast and murdered before her eyes. The polished skulls of the last dragons staring down sightlessly from the walls of the throne room while the Kingslayer opened Father's throat with a golden sword.” ** <---important
Note: compare this to Jaime’s account of Aerys’ death during the Sack – “Jaime had slipped in through the king's door, clad in his golden armor**, sword in hand**. The golden armor, not the white, but no one ever remembers that. … Beneath the empty eyes of the skulls on the walls, Jaime hauled the last dragonking bodily off the steps, squealing like a pig and smelling like a privy. A single slash across his throat was all it took to end it.… Ser Elys Westerling and Lord Crakehall and others of his father's knights burst into the hall in time to see the last of it, so there was no way for Jaime to vanish and let some braggart steal the praise or blame. … [Crakehall] had not seemed surprised to find Aerys slain”
Takeaway: Note the striking similarity in the underlined passages. Viserys tells Dany quite a bit of detail about their father’s death, details that would only have been partially witnessed by Lannister loyalists. How did Viserys glean all of this info if he had been sequestered away in Dragonstone? And why the use of near identical descriptive recount from two people who were nowhere near each other during the event or after?
Let us move now to the infamous “tower of joy” fever dream.
"I looked for you on the Trident," Ned said to them.
"We were not there," Ser Gerold answered.
"Woe to the Usurper if we had been," said Ser Oswell.
"When King's Landing fell, Ser Jaime slew your king with a golden sword**, and I wondered where you were."
"Far away," Ser Gerold said, "or Aerys would yet sit the Iron Throne, and our false brother would burn in seven hells."
"I came down on Storm's End to lift the siege," Ned told them, and the Lords Tyrell and Redwyne dipped their banners, and all their knights bent the knee to pledge us fealty. I was certain you would be among them."
"Our knees do not bend easily," said Ser Arthur Dayne.
"Ser Willem Darry is fled to Dragonstone, with your queen and Prince Viserys. I thought you might have sailed with him."
"Ser Willem is a good man and true," said Ser Oswell.
"But not of the Kingsguard," Ser Gerold pointed out. "The Kingsguard does not flee."
"Then or now," said Ser Arthur. He donned his helm.
"We swore a vow," explained old Ser Gerold.
"We were not there," Ser Gerold answered.
"Woe to the Usurper if we had been," said Ser Oswell.
"When King's Landing fell, Ser Jaime slew your king with a golden sword**, and I wondered where you were."
"Far away," Ser Gerold said, "or Aerys would yet sit the Iron Throne, and our false brother would burn in seven hells."
"I came down on Storm's End to lift the siege," Ned told them, and the Lords Tyrell and Redwyne dipped their banners, and all their knights bent the knee to pledge us fealty. I was certain you would be among them."
"Our knees do not bend easily," said Ser Arthur Dayne.
"Ser Willem Darry is fled to Dragonstone, with your queen and Prince Viserys. I thought you might have sailed with him."
"Ser Willem is a good man and true," said Ser Oswell.
"But not of the Kingsguard," Ser Gerold pointed out. "The Kingsguard does not flee."
"Then or now," said Ser Arthur. He donned his helm.
"We swore a vow," explained old Ser Gerold.
A: WD assumed charge of Rhaella &Viserys after the defeat at the Trident because the 3 KG (Dayne, Whent, Hightower) were already in Dorne at the TOJ.
R: The fever dream text does not indicate this.
A: WD was in KL while the 3 KG were at TOJ. They were not at the same place at the time of the initial flight to Dragonstone.
R: Ned’s statement “I thought you might have sailed with him” indicates that he thought the 4 were to have been in the same place at some time.
A: WD fled to Dragonstone from King’s Landing.
R: Unconfirmed. The text from the fever dream and from character POVs do not support this.
A: WD, R&V had sailed for Dragonstone after the defeat at the Trident.
R: The timeline of events in Ned’s conversation goes as follows: Sack, Siege, Flight to Dragonstone. If Ned is expecting to find the 3 KG in each of these places, sequentially the flight to Dragonstone is LAST.
A: The 3 KG are protecting the newly born king (Jon) at the tower, shortly after the Sack.
R: Closer inspection of the text, if going by sequence of events, indicates that the 3 KG were at the tower possibly long after the Sack.
Random observations:
We have two recollections from Jaime that Rhaella – or someone assumed to be Rhaella - was leaving by ship for Dragonstone after the defeat at the Trident. Jaime is KG that Aerys trusts the least, and the one KG that Rhaegar insisted stay behind to be Aerys' security blanket against Tywin. But, Jaime surprisingly seems to be entrusted with the whereabouts of the queen and the "new heir".
After Rhaegar’s defeat, Aerys is now holed up in the Red Keep with 1000 loyalists set to defend against rebel forces….yet he sends the current Master At Arms of the Red Keep away to Dragonstone as rebel forces march toward KL? Compare this to Rodrik Cassel during the siege of Winterfell.
Text references indicate there were two nighttime flights in the Dragonstone vicinity.
1) "the midnight flight to Dragonstone ", 2) “one night Ser Willem Darry and four loyal men had broken into the nursery and stolen them both, along with her wet nurse, and set sail under cover of darkness”. Granted, this is per Viserys to Dany, and Viserys has told Dany wild tales of Westeros about which he could not possibly know, but it seems evident that he told her a version of events that had them sailing at night, twice.
Willem Darry breaks in to Dragonstone at night, takes Dany and her wet nurse (and Viserys, per Dany) from the nursery, and sets sail for Braavos. Why would Darry need to break into the nursery of Dragonstone at night if he had been there “protecting” R&V&D all along?
“moonlight shimmering on the ship's black sails”
Why would Darry need a ship with black sails to get into/away from Dragonstone at night? Whose ships have black sails for sailing at night? See Davos POVs - Smugglers.
"while a raging summer storm threatened to rip the island fastness apart"
"The Targaryen fleet was smashed while it lay at anchor, and huge stone blocks were ripped from the parapets and sent hurtling into the wild waters of the narrow sea" - The fleet is smashed, meaning Willem Darry’s ship with black sails was not already anchored at Dragonstone or it would have been destroyed in the storm – his ship sailed in from elsewhere. And had it been a smuggler ship, he would have had to procure this ship, and the smuggler experienced enough to use it, well in advance.
Early-Mid 284: Assault on Dragonstone. Stannis: "I built a fleet at Robert's command, took Dragonstone in his name. Did he take my hand and say, "Well done, brother, whatever should I do without you?" No, he blamed me for letting Willem Darry steal away Viserys and the babe, as if I could have stopped it.”
Interesting that Stannis knows that Willem Darry took the kids. Equally interesting that Robert also seemed to know where they were in Essos all along. “Some pox-ridden Pentoshi cheesemonger had her brother and her walled up on his estate with pointy-hatted eunuchs all around them, and now he’s handed them both over to the Dothraki. I should have had them both killed years ago, when it was easy to get to them”.
Then, this entire passage from ACOK 41 – Tyrion that could be used as a current day parallel :
Tyrion looked down upon the farewells from the high deck of King Robert's Hammer, a great war galley of four hundred oars. Rob's Hammer, as her oarsmen called her, would form the main strength of Myrcella's escort. Lionstar, Bold Wind, and Lady Lyanna would sail with her as well.
It made Tyrion more than a little uneasy to detach so great a part of their already inadequate fleet, depleted as it was by the loss of all those ships that had sailed with Lord Stannis to Dragonstone and never returned, but Cersei would hear of nothing less. Perhaps she was wise. If the girl was captured before she reached Sunspear, the Dornish alliance would fall to pieces. So far Doran Martell had done no more than call his banners. Once Myrcella was safe in Braavos, he had pledged to move his strength to the high passes, where the threat might make some of the Marcher lords rethink their loyalties and give Stannis pause about marching north. It was purely a feint, however. The Martells would not commit to actual battle unless Dorne itself was attacked, and Stannis was not so great a fool. Though some of his bannermen may be, Tyrion reflected. I should think on that.
He cleared his throat. "You know your orders, Captain."
"I do, my lord. We are to follow the coast, staying always in sight of land, until we reach Crackclaw Point. From there we are to strike out across the narrow sea for Braavos. On no account are we to sail within sight of Dragonstone."
...
Once Myrcella reached Braavos, she ought to be safe. He was sending Ser Arys Oakheart as her sworn shield, and had engaged the Braavosi to bring her the rest of the way to Sunspear. Even Lord Stannis would hesitate to wake the anger of the greatest and most powerful of the Free Cities. Traveling from King's Landing to Dorne by way of Braavos was scarcely the most direct of routes, but it was the safest . . . or so he hoped.
…
Horns blew fanfares as Lionstar and Lady Lyanna pushed out from shore, moving downriver to clear the way for Seaswift. A few cheers went up from the crush along the banks, as thin and ragged as the clouds scuttling overhead. Myrcella smiled and waved from the deck. Behind her stood Arys Oakheart, his white cloak streaming. The captain ordered lines cast off, and oars pushed the Seaswift out into the lusty current of the Blackwater Rush, where her sails blossomed in the wind – common white sails, as Tyrion had insisted, not sheets of Lannister crimson.
It made Tyrion more than a little uneasy to detach so great a part of their already inadequate fleet, depleted as it was by the loss of all those ships that had sailed with Lord Stannis to Dragonstone and never returned, but Cersei would hear of nothing less. Perhaps she was wise. If the girl was captured before she reached Sunspear, the Dornish alliance would fall to pieces. So far Doran Martell had done no more than call his banners. Once Myrcella was safe in Braavos, he had pledged to move his strength to the high passes, where the threat might make some of the Marcher lords rethink their loyalties and give Stannis pause about marching north. It was purely a feint, however. The Martells would not commit to actual battle unless Dorne itself was attacked, and Stannis was not so great a fool. Though some of his bannermen may be, Tyrion reflected. I should think on that.
He cleared his throat. "You know your orders, Captain."
"I do, my lord. We are to follow the coast, staying always in sight of land, until we reach Crackclaw Point. From there we are to strike out across the narrow sea for Braavos. On no account are we to sail within sight of Dragonstone."
...
Once Myrcella reached Braavos, she ought to be safe. He was sending Ser Arys Oakheart as her sworn shield, and had engaged the Braavosi to bring her the rest of the way to Sunspear. Even Lord Stannis would hesitate to wake the anger of the greatest and most powerful of the Free Cities. Traveling from King's Landing to Dorne by way of Braavos was scarcely the most direct of routes, but it was the safest . . . or so he hoped.
…
Horns blew fanfares as Lionstar and Lady Lyanna pushed out from shore, moving downriver to clear the way for Seaswift. A few cheers went up from the crush along the banks, as thin and ragged as the clouds scuttling overhead. Myrcella smiled and waved from the deck. Behind her stood Arys Oakheart, his white cloak streaming. The captain ordered lines cast off, and oars pushed the Seaswift out into the lusty current of the Blackwater Rush, where her sails blossomed in the wind – common white sails, as Tyrion had insisted, not sheets of Lannister crimson.
Preliminary obvious conclusion: There is a shit-ton of contradictory information about this situation.
Initial takeaways & questions:
Rhaella may not have been the woman that Jaime saw off to the ship.
Was this a decoy ship?
Was Viserys on Dragonstone near the time of the assault?
Viserys may not have left King's Landing until closer to Dany's birth.
Rhaella and Viserys were not necessarily together the whole time.
Is Willem Darry's first encounter with Dragonstone when he steals the children?
Willem, Rhaella, and Viserys may not have fled to Dragonstone until after Dany's birth.
Willem may have sailed on a smuggler's ship with the knowledge of the 3 KG.
Willem may have sailed to Dragonstone specifically to get Dany (and by proxy, Viserys)
Did Rhaella and Viserys actually flee to Dorne?