finally read the dunk and egg books

I've said it before, but I absolutely love the Dunk & Egg books, I've read them all a couple times. love the perspective they provide and love the characters. it depresses me a little bit to know their end though. I would love to know more about their lives, even if it may be a bit disturbing.

 

Are these available outside of the Warrior and legends collections?

 

did you buy these or can you hook a playa up with a link

 

I actually put in 3 minutes of effort and found the pdfs for my kindle.

 

I just finished them. Assuming I read all 3 in full, they were interesting. The Mystery Knight in particular was interesting because of all the Lords that came to meet under false pretext to plot a rebellion. I think it was Tower of the Hand that wrote about how the Tournament at Harrenhall was essentially the same thing. After seeing how many of these lords marry their kids off to their bannermen or neighbors, it's odd that the heir to Winterfell was wed to the oldest daughter of the Tully's and the heir to Storm's End was betrothed to a Stark. They always talk about how the north is kind of a different world yet all the sudden Starks are marrying to Southern houses and also the lord of the Vale took in a Stark (Ned wasn't heir yet) and a Barratheon and by engagement was also tied to the Tully's even before he married Lysa. Does seem fairly clear that they were all creating alliances for some reason and makes me think that Rhaegar taking off with whatshername Stark and/or Aery's killing the fathers wasn't necessarily why the war broke out and it may have been inevitable. Plus Vary's was supposedly in on it (it says he was always in Aery's ear making him paranoid but also that he's the one that convinced him to open up the gates for the Lannisters) but he's also clearly on team Aegon which is weird. I'm going to stop now before I get a headache

 

From what I recall, Varys told Aerys not to open the gates to the Lannisters, but Maester Pycelle (who was a Lannister man) convinced Aerys to open the gates. I agree that the stages were set for rebellion with the marriages, and that it was a powder keg ready to explode. I believe is the Citadel wanted to plant the seeds for rebellion. Brandon Stark's ex-lover told Theon the "gray rats" were the reason Rickard married him to a Tully.

I'm still waiting to see what Varys' real end game is. My guess is he wants Dany to take the throne and have Aegon be her husband. The other interested piece about Varys is he told Aerys that Rhaegar was at the Tournament of Harrenhall to conspire to remove the Mad King. Rhaegar implied to Jamie that changes would be made if he came back from Trident, but obviously we will never find out what those changes might have been.

 

You're right about Pycelle and the Lannisters. It does seem like the tourney was the pretext for something. Also interesting is that we never hear of any interaction of Rhadgar and Lyanna prior to then either. If he was thinking of removing his father from the throne it is interesting that the Starks/Tullys/Arryns/Baratheons were having the same thoughts as well. Plus the discussions between Robert and Ned about how Ned should've say the throne lead me to believe that it wasn't necessarily about gaining power for any one house but simply ousting Aerys

 

As for the interaction between Lyanna and Rhaegar, I read a theory somewhere that Lyanna was the knight of laughing tree. Rhaegar was sent to find the knight by Aerys, for fear that he/she was an enemy to the throne. Rhaegar found out it was Lyanna, and promised to keep her sercet. That would explain a lot, IMO.

 

Yea I read that before. I'm leaning towards Rhaegar taking her not for love but due to the prophecy. Doesn't seem like the type to risk war by doing that just for love

 

Try decade.

 

Yeah this essay kind of says the same thing, spoilers.
http://towerofthehand.com/blog/2012/01/05-southron-ambitions/index.html

 

That's the one I was thinking of. Hadn't seen it in a while

 

BIG difference between the tourney in the Mystery Knight and Harrenhall is that Aerys, Rhaegar and the Kingsguard were all in Harrenhall. kinda hard to plan a rebellion when the whole ruling family is there. I like the theory that the rebellion had been brewing, but I think it's a stretch to connect the tourney at Harrenhall.

 

I really like the theory that the seed was planted and cultivated at the Citadel and carried out by the Maesters being in the ears of the lords of the major houses. I think there is a ton of evidence to support that.

 

I don't think it's that much of a stretch when you consider Aery's crazed nature.

 

makes it all the more dangerous to plan a rebellion right under his nose.