F&B is a history book, not a propaganda it reflects real medieval historiography.
An in-universe historical book written by a maester whose job is to synthesize conflicting, biased sources. Gyldayn isn’t a cheerleader for anyone. He’s not Team Black. He’s not Team Green. He’s not even Team Targaryen. He’s Team “I’m a tired old man surrounded by bad sources doing my best.”
Gyldayn lived through two anti-Targaryen eras. He begins the work under Aerys II but finishes it under Robert Baratheon, a king whose entire legitimacy hinges on destroying the Targaryen line and making them as mad, decadent tyrants. If anything, praising the Targaryens too heavily would be politically dangerous. There is absolutely zero incentive for him to produce Targaryen propaganda.
His incentives are: please the current king, appear neutral, avoid being burned alive or executed by whichever monarch comes next. That’s it.
Propaganda doesn’t cross-reference its own opposing sources. Gyldayn constantly says things like: “Septon Eustace claims…” “Mushroom tells a different tale…”, “The truth likely lies somewhere between them.” He openly acknowledges: discrepancies, contradictions, salacious exaggerations, moralizing distortions and clerical omissions. A propagandist does not present multiple conflicting narratives and then admit he isn’t sure which is correct. A historian does.
His sources themselves contradict any propaganda narrative Gyldayn relies on: Maester Munkun who’s very sympathetic to Rhaenyra. Septon Eustace who’s Sympathetic to the Greens. Mushroom who’s Sympathetic to Rhaenyra but also gleefully obscene and unreliable, full of scandal that no propagandist would ever cite. There is no world in which a “Green propagandist” includes Mushroom’s pornographic chronicles as a valid source. And there is no world where a “Black propagandist” quotes Septon Eustace at length. Only a historian trying to approximate truth does that.
Court jester Mushroom seems to be your Suetonius. He’s a huge gossip. He’s either the only person without an agenda willing to tell it like it is, or he’s just full of it, because how could he even know this stuff? Right? He exaggerates his own importance and his own presence in such things repeatedly. But all three of the primary sources that Archmaester Gyldayn is quoting have their own prejudices, their own axes to grind. Obviously, the Septon is very influenced by his faith and his belief in the one god with seven faces, and the whole concept of what’s a sin, what’s not a sin. The accounts by the Maester are official records, and then there are the more gossipy letters that he writes to the Citadel. So everyone has their own view of things. I realized when I was writing that it would not necessarily be for all readers some don’t want to play that sort of literary game; they would rather just have a straightforward story. Of course, I’ve written that kind of book, too. I’ve written it many times. But I was doing something a little different with Fire & Blood.-GRRM
Almost every major player looks bad. If this were propaganda, someone would come out looking good. Instead: Rhaenyra is arrogant, paranoid, vengeful, and destructive. Alicent is rigid, resentful, political, and complicit. Aegon II is cruel, unstable, and easily manipulated. Daemon is… Epstein. The Small Council is ruthless. The Dragons are weapons of mass destruction. The realm collapses.
Propaganda picks a hero. Fire & Blood picks no one.
What Is a Propagandist? A propagandist is someone who writes or spreads information with the goal of promoting one side, one agenda, or one interpretation usually to make that side look morally right, heroic, justified, or superior.
A propagandist: selects facts that help their preferred side, hides or distorts facts that make their side look bad, uses emotional framing to guide the audience, makes heroes and villains and writes with a purpose: persuade people to believe something.
If Fire & Blood were propaganda, it would present: Rhaenyra as the rightful, good, noble queen, or Aegon as the rightful, good, noble king. It would push one side very hard. It does not.
What Is a Historian? A historian studies and records events with the goal of understanding what actually happened, and why not who should be admired or hated.
A historian: gathers information from multiple sources, acknowledges biases, tries to present events as accurately as possible, shows complexity and contradiction and lets the reader form their own judgment. This is exactly what Fire & Blood does.
Gyldayn: compares Septon Eustace, Maester Munkun, and Mushroom, tells you when they disagree, notes when details are uncertain, doesn’t moralize and doesn’t declare a protagonist or antagonist. He narrates the events like a real medieval chronicler. This is why GRRM made it a history, not a narrative. It’s intentionally ambiguous, contradictory, and incomplete because real medieval histories were too.
FIRE & BLOOD, the first volume of Archmaester Gyldayn’s history of the Targaryen kings of Westeros, has just been released in trade paperback by my friends at Random House. If you missed the hardcover (shame on you), here’s your chance to catch up. But let me say, as I have a hundred times before, this is not a novel. It is an imaginary history. If you like reading history, real or fantastic, you will probably enjoy it. If you go in expecting a conventional novel, you won’t.—GRRM
Yeah sure let’s say it’s a propaganda…
F&B reflects real medieval historiography.
Propagandist = tells you what to believe. Historian = tells you what happened (as honestly as possible) and lets you decide. Fire & Blood is written by a historian, not a propagandist which is why no one in the Dance is written as the objective “hero” or the objective “villain.”
Saying “Fire and Blood is propaganda” is simply fandom cope for “my fave looks bad and I want to pretend the book is lying.” Fire & Blood is not Targaryen propaganda. It’s not Green propaganda. It’s not Black propaganda. It’s messy, conflicting, political historiography designed to show how truth gets lost. And honestly? That nuance is the entire point of the book.
People arguing “THE Blacks are protagonists, the Greens are villains” are importing novel-logic into a chronicle that was specifically written to avoid that.
Fire & Blood has no protagonist or antagonist because it is not a story it is a chronicle (especially the part of the dance)
A history book cannot have a main character in the narrative sense, because real history doesn’t revolve around moral binaries, chosen ones, or neat arcs. It revolves around events, conflicting accounts, and people with competing motivations. Historians don’t write heroes and villains they write causes and effects. Gyldayn is doing what real medieval chroniclers did: record sources, cross-check them, include contradictory accounts, acknowledge bias, leave moral judgment ambiguous. That structure prevents the story from centering around one moral viewpoint.
Because real history isn’t about who the “good guy” is it’s about what happened and why.
Gyldayn’s job is to record, not to evangelize. This is why he doesn’t write anyone as: the rightful hero, the noble victim or the evil tyrant. Instead, every chapter quietly implies: “Here is what people said happened. It may or may not be true.” That uncertainty stops the book from functioning like a traditional narrative with a main hero.
GRRM is very explicit here: the Dance is not a protagonist vs antagonist story. It’s not “good Blacks vs evil Greens” or vice versa. It’s a Shakespearean civil war, where everyone is compromised, motivated by ego, fear, grief, lust, pride, revenge, and entitlement. That’s the point.
It's a dark story. Mind you, and you've read the books, you know it's a dark story. And the characters are grey, they're complex, they're very human, they're driven by things that I think real human beings are driven by, which is ambition and power and revenge for slights that they feel that were done to them and lust and you know, all of these things that I think we all have in something. And that's the kind of characters I like to write about, to explore them. They have a good side, they have a bad side, you know. We don't have any Orcs who are just pure creatures of evil, going around doing evil. But despite that, we don't have any Orcs, but we don't have any glowing, heroic characters either, so it's almost the kind of Shakespearean in some ways, and I love Shakespeare, so that's good.-GRRM
There are no Orcs. But there are also no Aragorns. Orcs = pure antagonists, irredeemably evil, no interiority and exist only to be defeated. Aragorn-types = pure protagonists, morally righteous, destined to rule and their claim is written as inherently just. GRRM is saying the Dance has neither. So NO character exists just to be “the bad guy” NO character exists just to be “the rightful hero” Everyone wants a hero bc fandom brain is allergic to ambiguity, but the Dance is literally about: inherited power rotting from the inside, dynastic narcissism, people mistaking personal grievance for moral righteousness and a family destroying itself while insisting they’re justified.
Rhaenyra isn’t the protagonist. Aegon isn’t the antagonist. Daemon isn’t the antihero savior. Alicent isn’t the evil stepmother mastermind. They’re all agents of collapse. That’s why GRRM comparing it to Shakespeare matters. This is not Marvel morality. It’s closer to: the Wars of the Roses, Macbeth, Richard III, Hamlet-style cycles of grievance and revenge. Everyone thinks they’re owed something. Everyone thinks they’ve been wronged. Everyone escalates. Everyone loses.
And this is where fandom goes wrong: they hear “morally grey” and translate it as “my fave is secretly right.” No. Morally grey means no one gets moral elevation by default. Which is also why the obsession with bloodlines (“Rhaenyra’s blood wins,” “Daemon’s blood,” “Dany’s ancestor”) is so off-theme. GRRM is literally saying: this family’s obsession with blood and power is what destroys them.
People keep applying novel-logic to a chronicle, which just doesn’t work. Fire & Blood is structurally: episodic, multi-perspective, biased in contradictory ways, non-linear in its characterization and uninterested in interiority. All of that prevents the text from centering on a single character. There are important characters Rhaenyra, Daemon, Alicent, Aegon, Aemond, Otto, Criston etc… but none of them are the “main character” in any narrative sense. Gyldayn isn’t telling: Rhaenyra’s story or Aegon II’s story. He’s telling the story of the conflict itself the story of the greens and the blacks, the same way a historian writes about the Wars of the Roses or the Fall of the Roman Republic.
And that’s why the protagonist/antagonist question is flexible. Because Fire & Blood is history, not a novel: If you make the story from Aegon II’s perspective, he becomes the protagonist, and Rhaenyra is the antagonist. If you make it from Rhaenyra’s perspective, she becomes the protagonist, and Aegon is the antagonist. You could even make it around Alicent, Daemon, Criston, or Aemond and each could be positioned as the central figure in a tragedy. None of these readings contradict the text, because the text never chooses for you.
People treating Team Black = moral righteousness or Team Green = moral villainy are reading the Dance like a YA fantasy or a Marvel movie, when the book is intentionally structured more like the Fall of the House of Atreus or the Wars of the Roses. And that’s exactly why Fire & Blood hits so hard it lets you choose a “team,” then quietly reminds you that every team loses.
Fire & Blood is not written like A Game of Thrones (the main series) It is deliberately constructed in a way that prevents you from settling into a comfortable “these are the heroes, these are the villains” framework. People are importing a main-series framework (Lannisters vs Starks, Boltons vs Starks) into the Dance, when those conflicts are explicitly written differently. In ASOIAF proper: We have POVs. We have structural alignment. We have authorial signaling. The Starks are positioned as protagonists by design: multiple POVs, moral interiority, narrative sympathy and repeated framing of their enemies as cruel, treacherous, or sadistic.
The Boltons are not “grey.” Ramsay is an Orc, actually, Roose is cold, predatory, and explicitly villain-code. GRRM is not subtle here. Even the Lannisters: Cersei is written as a self-destructive tyrant and Joffrey is straight-up monstrous. Yes, they’re complex, but the story tells you who you’re supposed to recoil from.
The Dance does none of that. no POV chapters, no privileged interiority, everything filtered through biased chroniclers and conflicting accounts stacked on top of each other. That’s why GRRM keeps stressing: “There are no Orcs. There are no glowing heroes.” Ppl act like Rhaenyra is the Stark-coded hero and the Greens are the Boltons, that’s not just a bad take, it’s ignoring the book entire structure. The Dance is not who deserves to win. It’s what power does to people when no one is innocent.
GRRM never asks the reader to choose a side in the Dance. If he wanted a moral binary, he knows exactly how to write one. He did it with the Starks vs. Lannisters in AGOT: Ned is written as the moral center of the book, The Stark POVs invite emotional closeness, The Lannisters enter the story killing Jon Arryn, pushing Bran, planning to murder Robert. You’re supposed to feel that tension. You’re supposed to see the Starks as sympathetic and the Lannisters as dangerous antagonists.
That is not what Fire & Blood is doing. Instead, the Dance is written like a true historical chronicle. Which means: You are not meant to have a clean moral alignment. You are meant to witness a dynasty destroy itself.
In an interview GRRM has literally said he is a bit “both” Black and Green. And that matters. Because if GRRM intended: Rhaenyra = the “rightful queen,” shining feminist heroine and Aegon II = brutish, evil, misogynistic usurper. He would simply… write the book that way. GRRM’s Fire & Blood, especially the Dance of the Dragons, is written as history, not as a story telling the reader who to cheer for.
And when he’s asked about his favorite character in Fire & Blood, he doesn’t name Rhaenyra, Aegon, Alicent, or Daemon. He says Mushroom. A court fool. Someone who observes, exaggerates, lies and jokes
“Question: Do you have a particular favorite character from Fire & Blood? GRRM: Well, I have a lot of affection for Mushroom.”-GRRM
[GRRM has not been consistent about Daemon being his “favorite Targ” in the way fandom treats it, and the timeline + context matters a lot. Years ago, GRRM called Daemon his “favorite rogue.” That phrasing is doing heavy lifting. “Rogue” ≠ “favorite character,” and it definitely ≠ “moral endorsement.” It means messy, chaotic, narratively fun, and good for stirring the pot. GRRM likes grey characters, esp ones who cause conflict. But That’s not the same as saying Daemon is admirable, justified, or correct just interesting. Fast forward to HotD promo, and yeah, GRRM says Daemon is his favorite Targaryen. But context again: he’s promoting a Daemon-heavy show, Daemon is flashy, dramatic, memeable, and interview answers get simplified for casual audiences. That’s PR language, not a thesis statement. Now contrast that w// Fire & Blood promo, where he’s explicitly talking about the book and when asked his favorite F&B character, he says Mushroom. Not Daemon. Not Rhaenyra. Not Alicent. Not Aegon. Mushroom the unreliable, marginalized observer who survives by watching power tear itself apart. That choice is incredibly telling. It says GRRM’s emotional attachment in F&B isn’t to the players, it’s to the lens, the commentary on power, ego, and cruelty.]
How GRRM talks about f&b and how he talks about the starks and the Lannisters proves everything That choice alone tells you how GRRM views the Dance: not as a story of rightful rulers or moral justice, but as a grotesque, tragic mess filtered through unreliable voices. This is why importing Stark-versus-Lannister or Stark-versus-Bolton logic into the Dance completely misses the point. The main series is structured around POVs, protagonists, antagonists, and intentional moral framing. Fire & Blood has none of that. There’s no interiority, no single truth, no moral center only historians.
GRRM wants readers to argue about the Dance. He does not want them to pick teams like it’s a sport, and he absolutely does not want anyone crowned as “the heroes.” The way he talks about these books makes that unmistakably clear. The Starks are heroes by design. The Dance has none. Treating it like good versus evil isn’t canon it’s fandom projection.
There is no Right Side. Only the side you, as a modern reader, gravitate toward. And the book never tells you that your choice matters.
Fire & Blood = history book with multiple perspectives. No clear protagonist or antagonist. The reader is invited to understand, not pick a side. This is why “Team Black” or “Team Green” is a fandom concept, not an in-universe label the book itself doesn’t tell you who to support.
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