There’s a new book set in Westeros coming this year. No, it’s not The Winds of Winter; it’s Fire & Blood, the first volume in George R.R. Martin’s two-part series about the Targaryen dynasty.
“Written” by Archmaester Gyldayn, a maester who lived around the time of Rhaegar Targaryen, the book will dive deep into Westerosi history, roughly covering everything from the time Aegon Targaryen I invaded Westeros through the end of the Dance of the Dragons, the Targaryen civil war that tore the realm apart. (And which, for some reason, HBO doesn’t seem to adapting as a Game of Thrones prequel series, but that’s another issue.) You can even preview a nifty-looking Targaryen family tree from the book:
Die-hard fans may notice that a few things about the family tree are out of step with what we’ve told about Targaryen history up to this point. Redditor zionius_ helpfully compiled some:
- Rhaenyra Targaryen is famous as the woman who fought her half-brother Aegon Targaryen II for the Iron Throne in the Dance of the Dragons. On the new family tree, her deformed daughter Visenya, who died young, is included.
- Viserys Targaryen II, the younger of Rhaenyra’s two sons to survive the Dance of the Dragons, is not marked as a king. The family tree looks to have been made while Aegon (the Unlucky) Targaryen III, Viserys’ older brother, still reigned.
- Prince Aeryn Targaryen was the sixthborn child of King Jaehaerys I Targaryen and Queen Alysanne Targaryen. He died young, which isn’t really a problem for him anymore because he no longer exists. A daughter named Daenerys Targaryen has taken his place. Also, the birth order has been changed round some; Daenerys is the second-born child of King Jaehaerys and Queen Alysanne. We assume this new Daenerys died young, as well.
Why did Martin make these changes? According to Elio García, who co-authored The World of Ice and Fire and helped with Fire & Blood, “George had some new ideas for some of the names and the stories of the children who died young, and corrected some issues that came out of his original birth order (we actually got the names of all the kids quite late in the production of TWoIaF — literally a month before we had to finalize the book — so there was not much time to interrogate it). However, the stories of those who live to adulthood, as published in TWoIaF, do remain the same (just, of course, much more detailed).”
Adding in that new Daenerys is the biggest change here, since it conflicts with a bit from A Dance with Dragons where Quentyn Martell, having arrived in Meereen, tells the Daenerys we know that he traces his lineage “to the first Daenerys, the Targaryen princess who was the sister of King Daeron the Good and wife of the Prince of Dorne.” Now, with this new family tree, that Daenerys is now the second Daenerys, with our Daenerys being the third.
Yes, this is confusing. Like real history, Martin’s mythology is full of kings and queens and offshoots and bastards, and way too many of them share the same names. Diversity, fake dead people.
Anyway, García also said that Martin knows that this addition creates a small error, and that future editions of A Dance with Dragons may change to reflect that. But really, since the first Daenerys Targaryen died young, it’s not hard to excuse Quentyn’s mistake. Maybe he just forget this factoid once he got in front of the Mother of Dragons, or was speaking broadly.
Fire & Blood will be on store shelves on November 20.
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h/t Los Siete Reinos
