what's in a name: dunkegg novellas edition
Nestled into the three dunkegg tales is GRRM's telling of the Blackfyre rebellions— which makes the name repetitions across generations an especially delicious feature of these stories. Specifically the name repetitions I'm referring to are:
Daeron the Drunken and King Daeron the Good in THK;
Rohanne Webber and Rohanne of Tyrosh (Daemon Blackfyre's wife) in TSS; followed by
Daemon Blackfyre Jr. and Daemon Blackfyre Sr. in TMK.
Through these three doublings we're as readers able to explore the three 'regimes' which characterize the ongoing conflict, and whose simultaneous existences are causing instability of power.
These name-pairings exist as both mirrors and foils. Not to make everything about Hamlet, but this pattern is notably present in Hamlet: the titular character has his father's name, though he is far from his warlord father's nature. Fortinbras of Norway is similarly named for his father, who once warred with Hamlet Sr. and was killed in single combat. The two sons inherit their fathers' grievances in the frame of two feuding states. Two feuding families.
(and yes, I know Tyrion is the true Hamlet of asoiaf, but the Blackfyres are just proto-Lannisters anyway. Tyrion dreams of Bittersteel for a reason!)
The first story, THK, is set in Daeron the Good's kingdom. The Realm is facing an identity crisis now that the Dornish wars/Unification + the first Blackfyre rebellion have changed the paradigm, with the Dance not so far gone either. The razor-sharp tensions in Daeron II's reign are demonstrated by the violence which erupts between Aerion (a character entirely associated with the dragon-era Targ identity that the Blackfyres championed) and Tanselle (whose dragonslaying puppets are a reminder that Dornish identity is still tied to it's rebuffing of the Targs in prior wars). The Trial of the Seven richly evokes a civil war, with the Targaryen brothers Baelor and Maekar fighting on opposite ends.
On to the names! Daeron the Good we can connect with Daeron the Drunken in that they both seek to conceal an unexpected Targaryen claimant: Daemon B and Egg respectively. (Actually Egg's fluid relationship with becoming a usurper himself is explored throughout these novellas. But I digress.) Neither Daeron is martial, and both are dismissed as deviant in some way. Daeron the Drunken is a whoremonger, and Daeron the Good's use of diplomacy was thought by some to indicate an unnatural submissiveness to/permissiveness with his wife's Dornish culture.
During the Trial of the Seven, Daeron Maekarson intentionally faints so he doesn't have to fight. This in effort to wipe his hands clean in the result of the trial, when obviously his actions were instrumental in bringing the situation about. King Daeron not being a warrior likewise resulted in his role in the first Blackfyre Rebellion being downplayed in favor of his sons: Baelor and Maekar, the Hammer and the Anvil. Like that first Rebellion, the Trial ends in fratricide of a brother loved by the other. Yeah, this is a Daemon was the brother Brynden loved household. Sorry but it's the right side of history.
My last point on the name Daeron is that Daeron Maekarson and Daemon Jr., the two characters whose names correspond to the leaders of the two factions in the First Blackfyre Rebellion, both dream of dragons. They also both dream of Dunk. But Daeron dreams of one dying, and Daemon dreams of one hatching. Revealing!
Lady Rohanne Webber is a woman in a tenuous position of power after all the men in her life have failed her/died. The men remaining around her are dangerous, covetous of her lands. She brings to mind Rohanne of Tyrosh (and other Blackfyre women) in this regard, because those are women who must have existed in the Blackfyre war camps/councils in some capacity... but whose positions and even factional loyalties were complex.*
After the Dance of the Dragons ends, F&B says:
So many lords, both great and small, had perished during the Dance of the Dragons that the Citadel rightly names this time the Winter of the Widows. Never before or since in the history of the Seven Kingdoms have so many women wielded so much power, ruling in the place of their slain husbands, brothers, and fathers, for sons in swaddling clothes or still on the teat. —Under the Regents: The Hooded Hand
I imagine a similar phenomenon occurred as various Blackfyre Rebellions ended in many deaths of the men in their camps. In the main timeline all the male Blackfyres are dead, with Young Griff/fAegon seemingly being the son of Illyrio Mopatis and the last Blackfyre woman, Serra. Given the the next as-yet-unpublished Dunk novella is The She-Wolves of Winterfell, where a succession crisis is fought between various Stark women, I think we can extrapolate that there's more to the matrilineal story of the Blackfyres than meets the eye. Bittersteel overshadows them as a means of hiding them in plain sight.
The initially obvious thread between Rohanne the Red Widow and the Blackfyres is the Coldmoat vs. Standfast conflict: a miserable rehashing of Blackfyre Rebellion the First. Rohanne's lands (some of which were confiscated from Blackfyre loyalist Ser Eustace Osgrey) are hers by temporary decree of Daeron the Good, following her father fighting for the "right side." It's not a lasting gift. Rohanne must both guard her vulnerable castle and marry well if she wants to maintain her position. Honestly, the dynamic between Rohanne Webber and her main suitor Lucas Longinch brings to my mind a possible dynamic between Calla Blackfyre and Bittersteel, which is also a situation in a which a dead father supported a (frightening) marriage prospect. Before the fight with Dunk in the stream, Lucas demands Rohanne marry him after to fulfill her father's wish. Rohanne quite coolly tells Lucas, "my lord father never knew you as I do."
The other tether between the two Rohannes is Bloodraven being openly reviled around them. Bloodraven is the shadow of the devil to the Blackfyres probably, he killed Daemon and is their main villain. In TSS, Rohanne Webber hunts a Bloodraven spy (Ser Bennis of the Brown Shield) who is openly provoking bloodshed, while at least one other Bloodraven spy lives incognito in her castle. The implication that Brynden has spies in the Blackfyre camps surprises no one, I imagine.
Rohanne Webber and Rohanne of Tyrosh do differ in that the former is childless after four of her husbands have died— hence her hold on her lands is temporary, because there is no clear heir— while the latter had seven sons (plus an unknown number of daughters) with Daemon Blackfyre— those sons' only inheritance being continued rebellion, hence the many Blackfyre incursions, each with a different standard-bearer. Both women are endangered by their reproductive status.
(*By 'factional loyalties' I am mostly referring to Rohanne of Tyrosh, who married Daemon as a means of making an alliance between Tyrosh and the Iron Throne. When Daemon rebelled however, the question of who Tyrosh was allied with became very interesting. This is likely the reason that Valarr Targaryen also married a Tyroshi noblewoman, Kiera, and why when Valarr died Lady Kiera was remarried to Daeron the Drunken so as to keep whatever alliance was made with that marriage. Ergo Blackfyre women as kingmakers is a role silently present from the very first Blackfyre iteration.)
In TMK, we find ourselves in Daemon Blackfyre's Westeros. His is a grand Court: celebratory, joyous, overflowing with food and wine and displays of chivalry. Daemon's coinage even appears. All the Great Bastards had an element of their father in them and Daemon's was his father's charisma. If there's any doubt that this connection is intentional, remember: the tourney prize in this story is the dragon egg Aegon IV once used to buy the maidenheads of three Butterwell sisters. Allegedly all three of these girls got pregnant that night. Can you think of another set of three sisters who Aegon IV was trying to run through? And in Daena + Elaena's case, both bedded and fathered bastards with them? Bastards whose identities come into play in this very short story? I'll make another Aegon IV connection in the next section but I want to pin that the father-son lineage is expansive and pronounced here.
The thing is, TMK is a story where the guise is specifically a wedding. Blackfyre 1 was itself a war replete with weddings: it was catalyzed by the marriage of Dorne into the Realm, Daemon dubiously claimed Daenerys in marriage, as well as the Tyroshi connections I detailed earlier. At Whitewalls the Frey bride is, we are told, not a virgin, so the analogy we can follow is of the once-defiled Blackfyre army gathering again with gratuitous ceremony. The same dragon egg which was used to buy the Butterwell daughters is now being used to seduce Daemon's skeptical old guard back into their armor. To accomplish that, a very convincing case must be made that their new claimant Daemon Jr. is all his father was, that their noble cause is continuous... the "butter must be churned well," so to speak 😉
Daemon Jr. (unfortunately for him) is not all his father was. He isn't the warrior, or the trad heterosexual man. He puts on a show of chivalry in the tourney... wherein he's bribed his opponents to lose against him. He is gay, and effeminate, and the dark shadow to the Blackfyre family precisely because he does not reflect their purported masculine identity. Bittersteel's homophobia is implied to be an element in him not supporting Blackfyre Rebellion 2, his disapproval being the reason why Daemon Jr. doesn't wield his papa's uber-phallic symbol of the patriarch: the Sword. (And that is interesting because the competition over Daemon's legacy is obviously fought between Bloodraven and Bittersteel. Daemon Jr. then becomes a pawn between them in a way none of the other Daemonsons do... almost as if the name matters!).
Daemon Jr. toasts his dead brothers at the wedding feast, but later on he confides in Dunk that his brothers were cruel bullies (Theon Greyjoy moment). He dreamed of dragons and his siblings' deaths (Tyrion Lannister moment) but they didn't believe him. I point this out because Theon and Tyrion are also both characters whose relationships to their families swing violently between traitor and faithful.
Which brings us to the Bloodraven of it all. In THK Bloodraven is nothing more than a shadow. In TSS Bloodraven is banging on the subtextual walls. In TMK he is (most likely) PHYSICALLY present, glamored to appear as one Ser Maynard Plumm.
The name Ser Maynard Plumm doesn't lack for significance. It actually needs to be significant, because as we know, a strong glamor has to be rooted in something the wearer can so closely inhabit they slip into it:
“The bones remember. The strongest glamors are built of such things. A dead man’s boots, a hank of hair, a bag of fingerbones. With whispered words and prayer, a man’s shadow can be drawn forth from such and draped about another like a cloak. The wearer’s essence does not change, only his seeming.” —ADWD, Melisandre I
Plum the fruit/color is associated with lies in asoiaf. Brown Ben Plumm in the main series is a liar; a liar who is nonetheless telling the truth when he tells Dany about the Plumms having a tiny bit of dragon blood. That blood is a result of Aegon IV's impregnating Princess Elaena on/ after her wedding night to geriatric Lord Plumm, her later giving birth to Viserys "Plumm", who was her third child after her bastard twins. Notably this was a land grab. Daemon Jr. is also a third child following a pair of twins, and he wants Westeros. The glamor in question thus evokes Targaryen bastardry and the situation. Ser Maynard has most of Brynden's features, only not his coloring. His moonstone (touchstone) brooch is a "pale white eye" (in general, Brynden is symbolized by the half-concealed image of a single eye).
Now, Brynden's derisive comments on marriage (it's transactional, performative, and also just like, plebeian) do seem incongruous with his character at first. We know him as the guy who is seemingly chomping at the bit to marry his half-sister/sometimes-paramour Shiera Seastar. I would argue that this isn't a real mismatch, that Brynden's motivations for wanting to legitimize his union with Shiera were complex, politically motivated, totally selfish... but nonetheless had roots in his love and desire for her. That's just my two cents. If we are following the thread that the wedding/tourney is a metaphor for the Blackfyre cause, though, then "Maynard" bitching about the hollow rituals of nuptials starts to slot into place. Consider that presented prominently in Daemon Blackfyre Sr.'s election campaign was the promise of marriage between himself and Daenerys Lateborn, his trueborn half-sister. Daemon's claiming of Daenerys can be viewed quite cynically: a propaganda effort by Daemon to romanticize his own cause as well as buoy his claim with Daenerys's immaculate credentials. All under the banner of making good on a puppy love, rudely interrupted by Daeron II shipping his sister to Dorne, the Six Kingdoms not-so-old enemy (which, yes, invoked all the nasty stereotypes associated with Dorne). That both Daemon B and Daenerys Martell were already wedded, bedded, and had children with their respective spouses is a glaring omission which everyone has picked up on.
That said, I do not think the reading we're meant to take is that Daenerys and Daemon didn't love each other. It's pretty obvious they did, when they were young. Daemon's claiming of her in his Rebellion was nonetheless inappropriate, misogynistic, jealous, a betrayal, etc— and are these the sort of words Shiera might use to characterize Brynden's myriad proposals to her, perhaps? It's Brynden saying the derogatory words here, though. Words which we can imagine he might well have said to Daemon once, to convince him to give up his grudge over not being able to marry Daenerys. Daemon who raged and fumed to hear Brynden's callous flippancy and became convinced that Brynden just didn't understand anything at all. Remember when I said all the Great Bastards had elements of their father in them? Daemon had the charisma. Shiera had her father's sexual sadism. Brynden had his father's ruthlessness. Aegor had Aegon IV's bitter propensity to hold a grudge and never share his toys. Actually the latter is interesting because if we look at the generation directly prior to the Great Bastards, Aegon IV (dispenser of Blackfyre) and Aemon the Dragonknight (wielder of Dark Sister) were two brothers with a sister, Naerys, who they fought terribly over. Aegon IV didn't love Naerys but he was adamant in his right to own her. Shiera, like Naerys, had two brothers who fought over her: Aegor, the dispenser of Blackfyre, and Brynden, the wielder of Dark Sister. This might not be a case of repeated names, but it nonetheless hints at a repeated dynamic.
(You might ask: Luen, do you really think Aegon IV was that complicated and layered of a character? Short answer: No. Long answer: I think he is exactly what George meant him to be. Unable to "rule himself," not so much multifaceted as simply following his hedonistic urges, which revealed different elements of his nature at different points but always ultimately came back to his selfishness.)
There's a couple other points I could add to this list about repeated names and their significance (indeed there are more repeated names), or about the poisoned familial relationship running parallel with the concept of civil war (omg I'm doing Hamlet again) but this is the main thrust of my post's argument. I will probably add to this as I think more on it, honestly. The Blackfyre era is somewhat underexplored meta-wise so I am excited to start detangling it for myself, especially as I find myself loving Bloodraven & Shiera more and more at every re-read.
