what do you think is the reason for baelor breakspear, the literal crown prince, marrying jena dondarrion, a lady from a very minor house in the dornish marches who presumably didnt like the dornish very much? could it have been daeron ii arranging this marriage to curry favour with dorne's enemies by marrying his very dornish son to a marcher lord's daughter and thus in a way simulating peace between the marchers and the dornish in the eyes of the realm? or could it have been a way to keep the blackfyre supporters in line assuming baelor married after the first rebellion, since one of the reasons for the uprising was anti-dornish sentiment?
Number one, I donāt think we can call the Dondarrions āa very minor Houseā. Indeed, Yandel himself counts the Dondarrions (alongside the Swanns, Selmys, and Carons) as one of ā[t]he greatest of the Marcher lordsā and refers to the Dondarrion seat of Blackhaven as ā[a]mong the sternest of the Marcher seats ā¦ with its forbidding black basalt walls and bottomless dry moatā. Lord Harmon Dondarrion seems to have been of equal rank to Lord Tarly and Lady Caron, as all served as commanders during the campaign in Aenys Iās reign against the Vulture King, and Lord Dondarrion served as one of the three Marcher representatives at the wedding of Queen Alyssa and Rogar Baratheon. Queen Alysanne clearly considered the Dondarrions important enough to include on the royal coupleās tour of the Dornish Marches in 54 AC, and later a Dondarrion was one of the ādozen fresh young maidens chosen from amongst a hundred who coveted the distinction of serving as a companion to the queen [i.e. Alysanne]" - proof, I think, of the rank of the Dondarrions even relative to other Westerosi aristocrats. Notably as well in the main novels, Sansa thinks that while Jeyne Poole - herself an aristocrat, albeit an actually low-ranking and probably landless one - mooned after Lord Beric, the Lord of Blackhaven āwould never look at someone so far beneath himā.Ā
Number two, it seems almost certain that Baelor and Jena were married prior to the First Blackfyre Rebellion. Valarr, their elder son, was not only old enough to joust as a knight at Ashford in 209 AC, suggesting that Valarr was at least 16 or so at that time, but was also big and tall enough for his nearly 40-year-old warrior father to plausibly borrow and wear his armor during the trial of seven, suggesting that Valarr was old enough to have reached his adult build and height. Personally, I think Baelor and Jena were married roughly around the mid to late 180s and Valarr was born around the late 180s, but whenever the actual wedding occurred, itās impossible that Valarr was born in or after 196 AC, and as such his parents had to have been married ahead of the First Blackfyre Rebellion.
All of that said, why do I think Prince Baelor and Jena Dondarrion were married? Put very simply, I think Daeron II correctly recognized the fault lines of political factionalism in his kingdom and wanted to repair, rather than deepen, those divisions. From the beginning of his reign, King Daeron had very publicly advertised his desire to unite Dorne with the Targaryen kingdom. Not only was Daeron himself happily married to Myriah Martell, but as Yandel notes, āone of [Daeronās] earliest significant acts after assuming the throne was to begin negotiations with his good-brother, Prince Maron, to unify Dorne under Targaryen ruleā - negotiations which ended with the homage of Prince Maron and his wedding to the kingās sister, Princess Daenerys. Between the unique āsignificant rights and privilegesā granted to the Dornish lords and the Prince of Dorne in particular in the peace accord, and the Dornishmen who were given places at court and āoffices of noteā under Daeron II, the king was making very clear that his government was openly and ardently pro-Dorne.Ā
Yet as Daeron II certainly realized, such courtly and political favoritism toward Dorne generally and House Martell specifically would hardly be received rapturously by the entirety of his realm. From the earliest days of the Targaryen monarchy, the dragonkings had, in the tradition of the Plantagenets and any number of other real-world monarchies, claimed dominion over Dorne, in title if not in fact. Daeron I had come closest, if relatively briefly, to making this paper crown of "King of the Rhoynar" a reality, and Daeron IIās own father Aegon IV had (albeit almost certainly for selfish and petty reasons) attempted to reignite (pun intended) the conquest of Dorne by House Targaryen. Daeron IIās pro-Dorne policies, then, were very much poised to be seen, at least by some of his subjects, as a jarring reversal away from a century and a half of Targaryen posturing and conquest and toward a political reality where the Dornish were, to borrow Yandelās phrase, ārivals for the kingās attention or largesseā. That suspicion extended to Daeronās heir: according to Yandel, āmany men looked upon Baelorās dark hair and eyes and muttered that he was more Martell than Targaryenā. This Martell-looking eldest son of a Martell queen, double first cousins with the future of the ruling dynasty of Dorne, may have seemed to suspicious factions to be the living guarantee that Martell, and more generally Dornish, royal favor was going to continue, if not indeed be increased, in the next generation of the Targaryen monarchy.Ā
The solution, I think, for Daeron II was to marry his eldest son and heir into one of the marcher lord dynasties. These families, founded explicitly according to Yandel to ā[protect] the realm of the Storm Kings from the ancient enemies to the west and, especially, the southā and to ācreate a bulwark against incursions from the Dornishā, would almost certainly have been the most natural opponents of Daeron IIās pro-Dorne policies (and, given their famous pride, perhaps among the most vocal in their opposition). By choosing from among these lords for not just his daughter-in-law but the future (expected) Queen of the Seven Kingdoms and (expected) mother of the next king, Daeron II was making just as public a statement that his was not a client state of Sunspear but a united realm - one in which the proud marchers would have just as much opportunity for courtly favor and advancement as the Martells and other Dornish nobles did. The Dondarrions, and by extension any of their relatives and allies among the marchers, would be directly invested in the dynasty, with a tangible incentive for supporting Daeron IIās government (as opposed to, say, looking to Daemon Blackfyre as a rival for the throne). Too, if I can quote myself, the future (expected) royal children of Baelor and Jena, especially their (expected) eldest son and heir, āwould be a microcosm of the peace Daeron soughtā, as āDornish blood and marcher blood, eternally spilled at the otherās expense, would mingle in a single person, a future king of the united state of Westerosā.Ā
One question I do have - though weāll probably have to wait until Fire and Blood Volume 2 for an answer - is why Daeron II selected a Dondarrion rather than, say, a Swann or Caron. It could be that there were no daughters of the right age among any of other other prominent marcher families; it could be that Daeron II knew or liked Jenaās family more than he did, say, other marcher families; it could even be that Daeron chose the Dondarrions to temper the local geopolitical ambitions of the Swanns and Carons to each be counted āthe oldest of the Marcher housesā and superior over the rest, with the king perhaps quietly reminding the Swanns and Carons that he had the power to humble as well as exalt.Ā
(Let's just hope that F&B Vol. 2 improves upon its predecessor and has Jena as an active, developed crown princess and would-be queen, rather than a walking womb or - ugh - another victim of death-by-childbirth.)
areudirty
titsay
