Inside Game Of Thrones - Season 1 - Episode 7

Episode 4 years ago

Inside Game Of Thrones - Season 1 - Episode 7

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Remember the ancestral conquerors of the Targayen line, Aegon the Conqueror, and his sisters Rhaenys and Visenya? Well, Aegon married his two sisters, and since then, the Targayens have been so obsessed with keeping their blood pure that they continued the tradition of marrying brother and sister together.

In keeping with that tradition, Aerys married his sister and had a son, Rhaegar. Rhaegar, the heir, had a wife, Elia, a highborn Martell of Dorne and an heir of his own, as well as a second child, a daughter. Robert, heir to his father’s seat in Storm’s End, was close to the Starks, being a close friend of Ned’s and was courting Eddard’s sister Lyanna. But Aerys’ son had his eye on the same woman.
Robert got to know that only after Rhaegar, the heir to the Iron Throne, kidnapped his friend’s sister and repeatedly forced her to lie with him.

Now remember that the Targayens never conquered the North, so Eddard didn’t swear fealty to the Iron Throne. Add to that the fact that Aerys, Rhaegar’s father, had years before invited Ned’s father Rickard Stark and his brother Brandon to King’s Landing under a false pretext and had them both killed— burning the father alive and strangling the son —and you can understand that it was the last straw.

Robert had had enough.

He wanted to get his woman back, and Ned had no love for the King either, after what had been done to his family. Since his older brother had passed, Eddard was lord of Winterfell and by extension leader of the entire North, so he called all his banners, and Robert did the same.

Lord Tywin Lannister of Casterly Rock was also known to have bad blood with Aerys Targayen and was also known to desire the king deposed of his title, and so Robert went to meet him for an alliance. Lord Tywin was a very cautious man, and, much to Ned’s distaste, wouldn’t join forces with them until he was absolutely sure they would have the victory. But he did join, anyway.
Together, all three great Houses, Baratheon, Stark, and Casterly Rock, one of the richest in the seven kingdoms, declared war on the throne. Aerys Targayen called up his own banners and sent his army under the red, three-headed dragon standard of House Targayen, and the command of his son Rhaegar.

Both armies met in the renowned Battle of the Trident.

Ned’s friend Robert was a warhorse of a man. Six-and-a-half-foot tall and “built like a maiden’s fantasy”, he was revered for being the best military commander in all of the seven kingdoms. His weapon of choice was, not a sword, but a gigantic warhammer so heavy Eddard could barely lift it, let alone swing it as savagely as his friend did.
Robert was exactly the kind of man other men would be confident to follow into battle.

The Trident was a three-forked river in the riverlands, and both armies waged war in its shallows. As the battle raged all around them, Rhaegar and Robert met face to face, contenders for Lyanna Stark’s heart.
Their fight was long and savage, but was over when Robert landed a blow with his warhammer that caved in Rhaegar’s entire chest. The king’s son was wearing a steel, ruby-encrusted breastplate, and Robert’s warhammer scattered all the stones lose. As the prince fell, men from both sides dove into the water to fight each other for the precious stones.


Their alliance easily won that battle once Rhaegar had fallen, and they rallied and marched on to King’s Landing to claim the throne. Robert couldn’t make the trip because of injuries he had suffered in his fight with Rhaegar, and Ned had gotten the location where his sister had been taken to: Dorne. Eddard’s main concern was finding his sister, not any Iron Throne, so the Lord of Winterfell rode out to the Southern desert kingdom.

Eddard took along some of his most trusted lords; Martyn Cassel, father of Jory Cassel, Ned Stark’s current captain of the guard; Howland Reed, patriarch of one of the bog holdfasts in the Neck region of the seven kingdoms, and five others. In Dorne, Ned found out the house where his sister was being held, but also found that Rhaegar had put her under guard before going to battle.

The house was guarded outside by three famed knights of Aerys’ Kingsguard, respledent in their golden armour and snow-white cloaks: Ser Oswell Whent, Ser Gerold Hightower, the White Bull, Lord Commander of the Kingsguard, and the mighty Ser Authur Dayne, the Sword of the Morning, bearer of the two-handed Valyrian steel greatsword Dawn.

I know that the Arthur Dayne in the television series wielded two swords, but don’t forget, this is abookreview. The knight in thebookwielded a greatsword.

Ned told them that their prince was dead, and that an army was on its way to their King’s city to see that he went to join his son, hoping that they would lay down their swords, but the two knights made it clear that, in life or death, they served their king and his family.
The knights of the Kingsguard put on their helms, and the fight was on.