Girls Gone Canon Cast - ASOIAF Episode 10 - Barristan Intro

Episode Date: July 6, 2018

Heavy is the cloak, they say - or is it blinded by the white?  Eliana and Chloe unravel the the legend himself, Ser Barristan Selmy.  Today the girls delve into Barristan's rich history with a world-building episode of Girls Gone Canon.   Check out the ever amazing Meereenese Knot series by Adam Feldman analyzing Daenerys and Meereen under a more attentive eye if essays are your thing: https://meereeneseblot.wordpress.com/essays/     Barristan intro music Shadow of the Dragon by NCM Epic Music Ender Guney      Eliana's twitter: https://twitter.com/arhythmetric Eliana's reddit account: https://www.reddit.com/user/glass_table_girl Eliana's blog: https://themanyfacedblog.wordpress.com/   Chloe's twitter: https://twitter.com/liesandarbor        

Sir Barristan of House Selmy, firstborn son of Sir Lionel Selmy of Harvest Hall, served as squire to Sir Manfred Swan, named the Bold in his tenth year when he donned borrowed armor to appear as a mystery knight in the tourney of Blackhaven, where he was defeated and unmasked by Duncan, Prince of Dragonflies. Knighted in his sixteenth year by King Aegon V Targaryen, after performing great feats of prowess as a mystery knight

in the winter tourney at King's Landing, defeating Prince Duncan the Small and Sir Duncan the Tall, Lord Commander of the Kingsguard, slew Malus the Monstrous, last of the Blackfire Pretenders, in single combat during the War of the Ninepenny Kings, defeated Lormel Longlance and Cedric Storm, the Bastard of Bronzegate, named the Kingsguard in his 23rd year by Lord Commander Ser Gerald Hightower, defended the passage against all challengers in the Tourney of the Silver Bridge, victor in the melee at Maidenpool, brought King Aerys II to safety

during the defiance of Duskendale despite an arrow wound in the chest, avenged the murder of his sworn brother, Ser Gawain Gaunt. Rescued Lady Jane Swan and her septa from the Kingswood Brotherhood, defeating Simon Toyne and the Smiling Knight, slaying the former. In the Old Town tourney, defeated and unmasked the Mystery Knight, Black Shield, revealing him to be Bastard of Uplands. Sole champion of Lord Steffen's tourney at Storm's End, whereat he unhorsed Lord Robert Baratheon, Prince Oberyn Martell, Lord Leighton Hightower, Lord John Connington, Lord Jason Malister, and Prince Rhaegar Targaryen. brothers in Rhaegar, Prince of Dragonstone, pardoned and named Lord Commander of the Kingsguard by King Robert Baratheon I, served in the honor guard that brought Lady Cersei of House Lannister to King's Landing to wed Robert, led the attack on Old Wyk during Baelin Greyjoy's rebellion, champion of the tourney at King's Landing in his 57th year, dismissed by King

Joffrey Baratheon I in his 61st year for reasons of advanced age. Hello everyone, and welcome back to Girls Gone Canon. Hello everyone, and welcome back to Girls Gone Canon. I'm Eliana, also known as GlassTableGirl over on the Maester Monthly Podcast, and of course on the AsangaViceAndFire subreddit. And I'm Chloe. You can find me on the internet as LiesInArbor on Twitter and Tumblr. And this is our first Barristan episode. Yeah! I farewell Ned. Hello Barristan! and this is our first barristin episode yeah i farewell ned hello barristin i think that was effective that open i feel like i'm kind of feeling really low like i don't do much with my

life i think this is like the this is a very impressive resume um that you read aloud to me yeah oh my god so the worst part of that is you get to age 23 and you're, like, reading that and you're like, oh my god, I'm only at age 23. I mean, I can get into a few more bar fights, I guess. I can get into, like,

any bar fights, I suppose. I was gonna say, I'm like, I don't think you even... Anyways. No. no god it's our it's our first baristan episode this is our intro to Barry episode what are we gonna do with Barry man what are we gonna do

with him we've got a lot to go through here yeah well what we're gonna do with Barry is we're gonna start out with this intro episode here right now and we're gonna have like four main episodes in total before we move on to our next POV and so this week what we're doing is we're just like doing our due diligence setting everything up because like as everyone here knows since this is a reread and presumably you've read these books

before in the first four books we don't have any Barristan POVs, so we're just going to set the stage for what comes before those actual Barristan chapters. Yeah, it's a world-building episode. It's a Girls Gone Canon world-building episode we're doing. Yeah, exactly. I don't do that very often. So this is interesting. You know, we're not every POV is going to be like this,

but obviously some of them will. And Barristan, obviously, we don't get as POV until much later in the series. So I think this is a good way to wade into those waters. Yeah. Next week, we're going to be going over the Queen's Guard and the Discarded Knight, and the following week, we'll have an episode for

Kingbreaker and Queen's Hand, and then after that, we're going to do a Barristan Outro episode, and we're actually going to have a special guest for that, so that'll be fun. It'll be our first guest. I hope the pressure's not on. I think they'll do fine. We'll see. They're going to have a special guest for that so that'll be fun it'll be our first guest I hope the pressure's not on I think they'll do fine we'll see they're going to be fine they're going to be fine

it's fine they're a diversity pick we've been getting so let's just get into this housekeeping right we've been getting a bunch of questions about how far we're going to go into Barry's chapters we do have plans to record a bonus episode eventually covering Barristan 1 and Barristan 2 in Tiwau, though that release date's a little up in the air at the moment. We plan on doing those bonus episodes for Patreon subscribers first,

but we're kind of settling on that date for that to go live still, so stay tuned for that information. And plus, Eliana has to read it for the first time yeah i i haven't read all of the wins chapters because for a while i was kind of just waiting in that i was like oh yeah i'm gonna just read them in wins oh you sweet summer child i know i was saving myself um i when he released the elaine chapter is when i broke to be honest so yeah i can't really fault you i i was like fine you know what the show's garbage right now after that episode and nothing's gonna get much better from here so

i'm just gonna read it i'm just gonna read it and then i read them all I've read Mercy, I've read Elaine I was there for the release of the reading of The Forsaken because never heard of it I'm gonna boast about this like constantly because I deserve it

and I've read Theon 1 and it's a really good chapter and oh they're all really good even the barest i don't know um i haven't read them i haven't read them more than once yet the barest in ones because i was like all right that's enough i'll just read it again in t wow but now i have to read them again so yeah i have like inklings i don't know i have some ideas of some things that happen in them just because of course our friends and like other aswa folk uh talk about it and cite it in their essays or in their casts and stuff so so i have a

i have an idea of what happens i just haven't actually experienced it or read it i understand you will yeah you will i think it'll be really good to read it after we've done all this and talked about these chapters and talked about this history and i just think it'll be really good it'll be very fulfilling when you read it it'll be like your first read of them will be like whoa that was a worthwhile read so just because we're doing this right now yeah and i think it's going to be really fun doing it as part of this project because like we'll have what two perspectives right for you you'll have already read them before so you're looking at them with a little more of a uh scrutinizing eye yeah absolutely whereas like i'm coming at this with fresh eyes which i think will be interesting

i'm very interested to hear what you have to think about it especially after we go through this because i feel like this is like we we just like psychologically get down like ned was a lot i can't believe we're doing barriston next like we're crazy this is a lot emotionally you know to think on sure but but what's nice is that I think there's a lot that goes on emotionally, of course, and like, there's a lot of action in Barrison's chapters, but it's very short in terms of the actual chapters that we have. Yeah, it's not as it's not going to be 15 episodes of depression or 10, whatever, 15 chapters of depression. It's not going to be that. It's just going to be like five. Funny when you think about it, right? Because like, very few other characters have as small an amount of chapters as Barristan. Yet, in some ways, Barristan's story is the longest. Yeah, the biggest. Well, Yeah, because he's old. Exactly.

He's like, if you cut the tree, there'd be a million rings in there. Yeah, there's not a million. There's like seven million rings. Grandpa. Grandpa. Yeah. We're still working on our catchphrase for Barristan, guys. Don't worry. we'll figure it

out we're not there yet yeah i'm sorry everyone um it'll it'll establish itself as we go i'm sure we can't we can't the phrases have to find us like i feel like get a job found you you know yeah no get a job chose me when i was younger it was like the three-eyed raven and i just like opened my eye oh i was thinking like corn the houses in harry potter but i guess you kind of choose them i don't fucking know what anyways we're waiting for them oh it's like your patronus you know yeah finds you finds me yeah there you go so we're still waiting for the soul of the baristan chapters it'll come to us brevity yeah but you know since this is a lore-based episode right this is uh that backstory instead of doing our usual lightning

round of what we missed we're going to do a lightning round really more of like a straight up thunderstorm kind of round of what you've missed of Barristan's history. All that history. All those 7 million rings that Chloe was talking about. We're just going to touch in the top of them. Ew. Stop touching Grandpa's rings. Grandpa was born a long

time ago in 236 or 237 AC is the calculation, which of course, George always says like put away your ruler okay like just enjoy the story like don't worry about that but we're obsessive we can't do that so we're gonna do it anyway sorry George he starting in about Aegon V's reign is kind of what we're gonna start talking about right now in the story. Barristan is about in his mid-60s. In Rebellion era, he was about mid-40s, and he was knighted in the Kingsguard at 23,

but his career began way before then. He was born to Lionel Selmy, a knight of Harvest Hall. And the Selmy's, it's really interesting. It's something that George must have changed in the long run, or maybe it changed when hands changed, such as kingship or just grants and lands getting given out. But the Selmys were originally written as

landed knights in 2005 by George. There was an interview from the Citadel from a so-spake Martin that said, is there a Lord Selmy or are they just landed knights? And he said they were landed knights and wouldn't go into detail. But there are a few differences. For those that aren't quite as keen into it, landed knights don't get the right of pit and gallows, for instance. They have to look to their liege lord to carry out justice. Other landed knights in the series that you might hear of would be like Sir Gregor Clegane of Clegane's Keep, Sir Simon Santagar, the Knight of Spotswood, Sir Simon Templeton, the Knight of Nine Stars, just to name a few. Landed Knights have a ton of pros and cons of many things against their lords, but their status is going to be reflected in their styling, like Sir Simon Templeton,

the Knight of Nine Stars. Landed Knights don't quite have the prestige of lords, and they would be outranked at tourneys and feasts and some tourneys especially the south might decide not allowing landed knights to compete etc george has said before that a master in the north would be about equal to a landed knight in the south as far as power goes while originally landed knights in the canon george has actually listed arstan selmy the newer head of house in the dance of dragons appendix as a lord which would make house selmy a marcher lord and of course they're sworn to house baratheon and selmy swan don darian and karen are all marcher lords of the stormlands sworn to defend against

the dornish's attacks in history so going back to how barison has a long story and starting with his like first internship he squired for lord manfred manfred swan in his youth uh when he first you know they didn't have resumes back then so what he did was he he was just on the job. You know, he started out as his mystery knight at this tourney in Blackhaven at around 247 AC. So that puts him at around like age 10. Everyone was like, what the hell? There's like this little kid here. But Prince Duncan Targaryen, Duncan the Small, the Prince of the Dar dargan flies um took pity on him and while others may have laughed prince duncan precious precious boy jousted with barriston when no one else would

then after a while um in about like a few years not that much later in the early 250s bearston goes on to actually unhorse sir duncan the tall whom as everyone knows he's in fact very tall and very swole and then the other duncan too he's just like fracking up all of his duncans he also unhorses prince duncan an attorney in king's landing Because of how well Barristan performed, he gets an early promotion. He's knighted at 16, which is about in the early 250s, by Aegon V Targaryen, which is pretty cool. Yeah, you know, like after he had horses above Dunks. Stunken, slam Dunks. Dunk and slam dunks.

Oh my god. Whatever. Anyways. Oh my god. Then he has his first job. His first real job. Where he goes into the war of the Ninepenny Kings. And he does.

He performs exceptionally well. He's not. Yeah. So in around 260 AC, so that puts him in, you know, about his, like, 20s, late teens. Barristan participates in the War of the Ninepenny Kings, and he slays Maelys, the first Blackfyre,

in single combat, which effectively ends the male Blackfyre line and cuts a path through the Golden Company to reach Maelys. Incredibly impressive. Like, the Golden Company is a very formidable force, and of course we're going to see more of them in the winds, presumably. Baerson also becomes, of course, very famed after this war and that's the right that's how he starts becoming this hero um how his stories start in westeros it's his start to becoming a household name and that was just king number one that's true this is horrible i feel like I've done nothing with my life. I haven't even slayed any black fires. Oh, Chloe, you slay every day.

Ah, thanks, Boo. Who's next? Jaehaerys II's reign. Barristan was named the Kingsguard at 23 years old. This is 259-260 AC. He swears his vows before Gerald Hightower, and Jaehaerys II bestowed the white cloak upon him. He gave up his claim as firstborn son to Harvest Hall and the girl he was supposed to

marry was wed to his cousin. And I think it's so interesting. There's a lot of Jaime parallels in this. Jaime and Barristan have so much more in common than either would ever admit. And we'll talk more about some of the knights named the Kingsguard in this era a bit later. Among some of the youngest knights named the Kingsguard are Sir Roland Darklyn, who only survived a few days on the job, and Jaime Lannister. And Barristan isn't really even considered that young at 23 when he joined. And he's deaf not young now. Deaf not. He is old. You know who's not that old when they die? Jaehaerys. Ouch.

Who dies in 262 AC. That was my segue. Around the ages of 34, 37. After a short illness. Yeah, like a three year long illness. Which I think it's touching, you know, that Barristan thought that Jaehaerys was very strong, even though many people saw Jaehaerys as weak.

Jaehaerys was like a pretty good king, especially compared to like Aerys. Like he brought stability to the realm. He ended the Black Fires with help from Barristan. He reconciled many of the great houses who had become unhappy with the way that Aegon V was running things. King Jaehaerys is the one who has that really great line that he tells Barristan, that we're gonna hear later on also, that King Jaehaerys once told me that madness and greatness were two sides of the same coin. Every time a new Targaryen is born, he said, the god saws the coin in the air and the world holds its breath to see how it will land.

This is knowledge that he imparts upon Daenerys. And he talks about Jaehaerys and people in Dany's family pretty often when he's counseling Dany. Aerys II's

reign, one of the oh, this is where it gets good, everyone. So juicy! So juicy. Barristan continues to serve Aerys II after Jaehaerys II's death. And of course

the famed defiance of Duskendale comes along. In 277 AC, Ares is captured by House Darklyn for half a year. Taxes they didn't want to pay, yada yada. Also, his wife was kind of cray, you know? Lord Tywin was hand of the king and planned to storm Duskendale himself, but Bery wanted the opportunity to retrieve his liege himself. Tywin gave him one day to get the job done. So Barristan did what anyone would do, and he disguised himself as a hooded beggar and climbed the walls in the dead of night. He slayed sentries and scaled castle walls before anyone could alert others. He slew two guards and avenged his brother of the Kingsguard,

Sir Gawain Gaunt, by killing Sir Simon Hallard. He saves Aerys, escaping horseback through the Dunford gates and taking an arrow to the chest while leaving. After the defiance, Aerys and Tywin kill pretty much everyone involved, but Barry begs for one life, which is Dantos Hallard. Everyone, like, remember this moment, alright right we're gonna come back to this obviously in future episodes yeah not even just embarrassed and yeah that's true but especially much also yeah yeah and then we have the kingswood brotherhood which is another infamous outlaw organization but this time during aries' reign. They kidnapped nobles and evaded capture.

Lord Commander Sir Gerald Hightower was injured earlier on by the Brotherhood when they had attacked Princess Elia Martell's escort through the woods. And how dare they? How dare they do that? That woman deserved so much better.

She deserved a lot. Everything. I know everything Ares then sent soldiers with the Kingsguard to finish them like Sumner Crakehall and his squires Jaime Lannister and Merit Frey yes indeed

that Merit Frey and that detachment was led by Arthur Dayton. All-star cast. Oh my god. It really is, actually. Which is great on George's part, because that's to remind us

these are people we know. Yeah, there's a whole history to this world. The world-building episode, if you will. Yeah. The Brotherhood was shielded by small folk, though, of the Kingswood, which prevented these forces from finding the outlaws. Arthur Dayne, though, gained the small folks' confidence and then petitioned the king for the small folks' rights

and made sure that the royal forces were paying them for anything that they took from them. And of course, the smallfolk changed allegiance to the royal side, and the outlaws no longer were able to roam free in the forest. Jamie Lannister, Arthur Dayne, and Ser Barristan Selmy have this big showdown against the outlaws, including the Smiling Knight and their leader, Simon Toyne. showdown against the Outlaws, including the Smiling Knight and their leader, Simon Toyne. Barristan rescued Lady Jane Swan and her septa, as we knew from before, and killed Simon Toyne in single combat while Arthur actually kills the Smiling Knight, as we know. Wend of the White Fawn, Oswin Longneck the Thrice-Hanged, Big Belly Ben, Fletcher, Dick, and Ulmer were some of the other members. Ulmer ends up joining the Night's Watch to avoid being executed, but the rest of the Brotherhood is presumed dead. Despite, of course, some wild Wend of the White Fawn theories, like Wenda as Septa Lamore, if you haven't heard that one.

It's an interesting read. Check it out. Next we have the tourney at Storm's End. So sometime prior to Robert's Rebellion, Barristan defeated Rhaegar in a final joust at Storm's End, winning the tourney. So we know that he can do it, all right? He's done it once before. And then we have this conflation, this confabulation between Simon Toyne and Storm's End.

In Barristan's white sword entry, in his resume, nobody checked this, I guess, because there seems to be some sort of mix up of dates that was pointed out to George. In a So Speak Martin from the Citadel on Westeros.org dated 2001, George talks about how he really is just chalking that up to Barristan being an old man and forgetting how things actually go which in a way it makes you wonder if he's really truly an unreliable narrator which I would say

yeah a lot of times he is considering his other either unreliable narrations or his severe honorific point of view that kind of clouds what he tells people. Like I grew up Roman Catholic. I'm recovering now. And Barristan reminds me of like the people I grew up with that they think the Bible and the teachings are code and they only adhere to that code and stand by while wrong was being done. I think that's very kind of a similar thing to what Barristan goes through with the Kingsguard that he just thinks the Kingsguard is law no matter what and he has no other options even if he thinks something dishonorable is happening yeah I think that's really true of Barristan especially as we get more exposition from Jaime and the things that he saw the Kingsguard standing aside for when it came to

the reign of Aerys and we're also definitely going to go into this way more uh in Barristan's actual chapters especially as he starts questioning himself and his own acts or lack of action um and as for whether this makes him an unreliable narrator or not I do believe that Barristan is an unreliable narrator as is every other pov because the whole point is like we're in close third um but how old was he when he was writing this right because like i assume that sometimes they're just writing it in like right after plus if jamie points out in when he's reading aloud Barristan's resume, that Gerald Hightower was the one who wrote some of the earlier parts before Barristan did. And I assume that Barristan would have taken over writing it because the Lord Commander writes all these things only after the rebellion when he becomes the Lord Commander.

And assuming that Gerald Hightower was keeping up his duties, then I'm just going to throw this out there. It should be an oversight on the part of Gerald Hightower and not Barristan. That's very true. And he was like probably 61, 62 when he added all of the last bits in. Honestly, that's not that old. No, and he's still pretty sharp i mean obviously

he can fight a bajillion people as we learn so it really just goes to show like how cersei tried to pull it as which we'll get to his age you know ageism against him just to get rid of him george is the unreliable narrator okay yeah he is is. And then, speaking of the rebellion, let's talk about some of the... The good stuff. Some of the good stuff. The stuff that leads into it. Let's get into it.

The tourney at Harrenhal. So, as we know, Barristan was one of Ares II's Kingsguard who was present at Harrenhal. Along with Gerald Hightower, Lewin Martell, I really like the name Lewin, Jonathan Derry, Oswald Huent,

Oswald Huent, Arthur Dayne, Gwyn Gaunt, and of course, Jamie Lannister, who was Harlan Grandison's replacement after dying in his sleep. Do you remember House Grandison? Apparently we touched on them, and they bent their knee to Robert during the rebellion. Jaime was sent back to the Red Keep during the tourney, not only unable to participate,

but also after House Lannister is pretty much publicly shamed by the Kingsguard taking their heir, something Barristan actually has a bit in common with, although the nature doesn't seem to be the same. Barristan sees the Kingsguard as the highest honor and the king is almost as his own god, never questioning why god does what he does, but obeying and keeping him safe. Their differences in what they see as honorific, Jaime saving the city by slaying the king, and baristan's marriage to his duty and saving the king even when it seems like the wrong thing to do is 10 shades of different considering their internal struggles and some of their commonalities yeah i think it's really great how we start getting those more of those knights like POVs in the later

books and you can see this like dialogue happening between all of them of course another thing that we know and learn about the tourney at Harrenhal is that Baerston was really digging Ashara Dayne

and he in fact wanted to name her Queen of Love and beauty had he won the tourney but reygar and horst him probably getting him back for that tourney at storm's end and it's possible that baristan is the white sword that ashara danced with in that night of the laughing tree story that we hear in a storm of swords from jojen mira but i mean it's also possible that it was her brother arthur dane because like what i guess ashara didn't have another date to prom right it could have really been any of them i mean like they were all there so but it's true it's more likely it was one of them he wonders

if the war could have been avoided if he had only the chance to crown her instead of Rhaegar crowning Lyanna of House Stark, along with him thinking that had he crowned her, she may have turned to him in her dime of need instead of Stark. Barristan thinks of this as one of his many failures, and we're going to get into this.

I'm staying very calm right now we're gonna get into all of this a lot deeper as we actually hit this chapter and hit this passage because there's a lot of imagery and different kind of exposition to talk about around the scenario especially with what's going on with daenerys at the time but barristone was a grown-ass 45 year old man at the like at this point in the story like this is where we are in his timeline at the tourney at harrenhal he was a grown-ass 45-year-old man at this point in the story. Like, this is where we are in his timeline. At the tourney at Harrenhal, he was a grown-ass man, and Azshara was, at the oldest, 18 years old. Leave that girl alone.

Yeah, leave her alone. You should get a job, Barristan. Jesus. Barristan and Selmy. Well, that's the thing. He's like, I got a really good job you know he's like of course but I can't have a chick

so be gone we don't actually care about like your car we don't care about your car dude sorry like yes there's it's okay to have age gaps in Westeros I get it but 45 to 18 and to him like be like Like, yes, there's it's OK to have age gaps in Westeros. I get it.

But 45 to 18 and to him like be like, oh, that little girl, I could have saved her. I was so in love with her. It's just gross. We'll get to it eventually. We'll get deeper into it. She didn't need to be saved. OK. Yeah. And even if she did, like, that's just not she wasn't a thing to save.

Like, she wasn't for your honor she's a person get over yourself like you're the one that chose to be in the king's guard dude like you chose this she wasn't even alive when you chose this dude like let's just put that into perspective for a second stop anyways i'm done now on on to Robert's rebellion. I swore no oath to Dorne, Sir Barristan told himself, but Lewin Martell had been his sworn brother back in the days when the bonds between the Kingsguard still went deep.

I could not help Prince Lewin on the Trident, but I can help his nephew now. The discarded knight at dance with dragons. when we get down to the core of it barrison is another traumatized man baby of a song of ice and fire born out of all of this war barrison's standout moments in robert's rebellion are big but few he and jonathan dairy's attempt to rally the remains of john connington's army after breaking at the Battle of the Bells. He fought in Battle of the Trident, but he was severely wounded, as we mentioned above. Roose Bolton thought Robert should actually slit

Barristan's throat and just be done with it, but Robert commanded his maester to heal Barry instead himself, and ended up eventually offering him a pardon and position of lord commander on the king's guard for fighting with his heart but being smart enough to know when to kneel his wounds were so bad that he wasn't present in the throne room when the bodies of rainis and agon were shown to robert and this is what puts ned and barry on such an interesting level of honor and justice together is that barriston thinks if i had seen him smile over the red ruins of rhaegar's children no army on this earth could have stopped me

from killing him about robert ned and barriston both are standing by while they knew they could have done better and we see in ned's chapters that we've gone through that Ned actually holds Barristan in a very high esteem. He sees Barristan as another man of honor, like himself. And so this creates a sort of intersection between Barristan and Ned. Because as Ned cares about the life of the children and is pleading for danny's life and the lives of children in general wink wink wink wink baristan has these same sorts of inclinations even though he feels that he can't do anything to stop aries from destroying the rest of house Hollard, he steps up once to ask for a favor, to ask to spare the life of Ser Dantos in exchange for the heroism that he showed saving Ares. Save the children.

children. Barristan, though, doesn't actually approve of Robert keeping Jaime in the Kingsguard after Jaime slew Aerys during the sack of King's Landing. And of course, that lands us at Robert

Baratheon's reign. Now, well, not quite now yet. First we have a few other things like uh the great joy rebellion where bearston led the attack on old wyke during the rebellion bearston also won a championship in another tourney in the early 290s in king's landing which what occurred during the rebellion like didn't they have like a to fight? I don't know. And right before the events

of the story, there was actually another tourney in the early 290s in King's Landing. And we're going to get to some recent events soon, but one more tourney, one more tourney. Where Barristan unhorses Sandra Clegane in Joffrey's Name Day tourney in 297.

That you'll probably remember and we'll go over again soon in the fall. And then we finally make it to a Game of Thrones. Our first taste of Barristan Selmy paints him kind of as a legend. When we hear his name in the story, it's not when we meet him, but

through Bran thinking about his heroes. To him, and to many in the series, Barristan is the greatest living knight, and we slowly learn more and more about him. When we actually first get to see Barristan Selmy in the flesh, it's when he's meeting King Robert Baratheon and Lord Eddard Stark and their party alongside Renly Baratheon and Illyn Payne as an honor guard to help guide them and bring them back to King's Landing.

So where we have scenes reminding us of Barristan being a part of the honor guard to bring Cersei to King's Landing, we actually are having eventual history being unwrapped in front of our eyes right here. And that history comes through with a reputation the first time again that we actually see baristan and the flesh is through sansa's eyes she identifies him and calls him by that moniker that we've learned through those earlier brand chapters of baristan the bold and it's only through her point of view that we actually learned that this hero that we've heard about is much older she calls him an old man and i think it's apt that for a man surrounded by so much legend we meet him through the two children who love these songs and stories so well and that theme absolutely transcends into this since we know we're reading the story that will be written

someday who's to say that barriston escorting Ned Stark and the king doesn't someday actually turn into met and escorted the princess Sansa or queen Sansa of house Stark to King's Landing in 297 AC I mean this could this could be a story in the making that's what I love about these it's just stories writing stories absolutely person's job though in king's landing is pretty much accompanying king robert to places in the hands tourney jamie lannister finally defeats him after three tilts while barrison defeated men 30 and 40 years younger than he is in the first two barrison is also the first to stand vigil over Sir Hugh of the Vale

when the young squire dies. Not only is he first, he's only. I think there's a lot to unravel here. I think Barristan saw a boy with no family around or able to come be with him who died alone in a gruesome manner. He saw a boy, a young knight, much like himself

at one point, dead at the hands of foolish games after seeing his own friends and young knights die on the Trident. There's a chapter where Missandei remarks that Barry never sleeps that we'll get to hear later on, and he remarks internally about the Trident and how he hasn't really slept ever since then. Ned and Barristan were traumatized by different things in the rebellion, but all came to the death of kids. Ned was present for the reveal of the dead royal children, and he wasn't at the Trident, while Barry was at the Trident, but missed the reveal of the dead children.

I'm just going to remark that I think this just shows how bad the battle at the trident was and robert's rebellion was because berston was already a veteran he had fought in wars before but this one really traumatized him absolutely like he was in the war of the nine penny kings and that wasn't at all like this this was i mean he saw his friends die he remarks later about lewin martel dying and remembering it and how he couldn't stop it yeah berestin and ned along with their trauma uh also seemed to agree on quite a few things in their last few moments and times together at king's Landing, such as how Robert should not participate in the melee, or how let's not kill the little girl across the sea. That sounds like a bad idea.

Barristan, as Robert's escort, is actually present for Robert's tragic boar hunt, where he cannot protect his king against himself when does it end right over and over poor baristan and of course that brings us to the end of his reign as lord commander and to king joffrey's reign baristan is dismissed dismissed from the Kingsguard due to old age, and Varys's whispers help cement that. We all know it's bullshit, because he just competed in the hands tourney like a month ago, and he was a complete badass at it. It's implied by Cersei and by Joffrey that he let Robert die. It was to give Sandor a cloak and instill Jaime as new Lord Commander, which brings up a huge point

of how everything Robert did was either a huge break in tradition or allowed for a future break in tradition like this unprecedented move from Cersei. It's also a double diss to Barristan because he might know that this is why he was dismissed. Like, as we said earlier barriston thinks that it's completely disgraceful that jamie was kept on board as part of the king's guard and for like barriston to have been dismissed when jamie who like actually killed his king was not and for him to be dismissed so that that guy who like killed his king can rise to lord commander of the Kingsguard? That's just rude. Yeah, absolutely. It's like robbing a bank and being the manager the next day.

It's messed up. Yeah. Barristan doesn't actually appear for almost the entirety of Clash of Kings, which heightens the mystery of where he goes after being dismissed. In A Clash of Kings, while it builds on the legend of Barristan established in the first book, it also establishes Barristan's importance as a political symbol. We hear from people like Tywin and Tyrion about how letting Barristan go was a stupid move because of what he means to the people. And of course, Varys recognizes Barristan's worth as a political symbol because this is like Barry's specialty

he weaves these political stories and narratives for more on how Barry's does this I would highly recommend checking out something like a lawyer's essay the spider and the dragon I believe it's called over on the wars and politics of ice and fire blog it's my favorite essay by him to be honest um and it also this act of varies being the one to suggest like oh maybe you should dismiss barriston no further connects uh varies with illyrio because i mean where do we see barriston next Which is established in that underground discussion in A Game of Thrones.

And of course, Barristan knew, well, what he didn't ignore, that Varys was whispering in Aerys' ear and sowing discontentment at court, too, which makes where he lands very interesting indeed. Eventually, in the last Dany chapter, we meet an old squire

named Arstan, which coincidentally is the name of the family member who took Barristan's place at the helm of House Selmy. This works temporally in terms of the story, since Barristan actually has to travel from Westeros across Essos, but it also works narratively again, building up the mystery, then bringing him in, leaving time between books for fans to figure out the secret identity. So many things hinted his real identity, especially his entrance. From far away, he saves Daenerys from the sorrowful man. Dany is the one who must clear his name. But Barristan's entrance is overshadowed by the actual main hero of the story.

Barristan is playing squire to the prince that was promised to Azor Ahai Reborn, Strong Belwis. So this is actually a podcast now about Strong Belwis. Strong Belwis is such an important character like we've just really established how important he is because you can see that he lets every opponent cut him once before he kills them um he also carries in the rock so you know shows you a little world building and tells you like that he is a warrior he was once a slave and has a reputation as a as a very renowned pit fighter and he's the one who's who gifts baristan aka arston with his new nickname white beard there's so much power in strong belwis's story and we're gonna go into this in depth a little

later in this Strong Belwis podcast. Are you good? You got it out of your system? I really didn't and you know that I didn't. Can we do a Strong Belwis episode?

Do the people need it? The people both need it and want it. well deserve it it's a patreon tier it's a patreon tier and by patreon tier i mean it's giving me patreon tiers right now um i'm the one who's probably gonna have to pay for us to get there i'm like who bought 10 50 tears it was me oh my god it was me arson whitebeard so a store of swords is uh where barrison's story starts to really change right like in a game of thrones baristan was something of like a background character he's just kind of like a

glorified house plant and storm of swords is where he starts to come to the forefront as a really active character a glorified house plant i was like i i was hoping I was going to come up with a better metaphor of like, and Storm is where he blooms or becomes like, I don't know, poison ivy, but not poison ivy. Yeah, you gotta work on it. You thought the magic would happen. Yeah, I did,

but glorified houseplant is pretty good on it. No, that's pretty good. I like that one. I'm going to call people that. In Robert's council, Barristan may have advised the king and lectured against sending assassins against Daenerys, in line with his whole save the children thing, but his

council was often ignored, except by Ned. The council probably saw Barristan as, like, a dumb jock. Which is kind of funny, because, like, I mean, that's kind of... I was gonna say that is what robert is and that's probably why no one listened to him and just was like whatever we'll just appease him yeah i guess contrast that too with how danny seeks barrison's counsel in a storm of swords

while she might think he's only a squire that he's from westeros and has knowledge of the seven kingdoms and rhaegar puts him in her high esteem. She doesn't always listen to his counsel, but she does respect it and she does weigh it. And sometimes, of course, like Beristun, aka Arsene in this moment, can be like a little paternalistic and he stays that way, actually. It's clear that he doesn't actually get Dany. Like, he doesn't really understand her and get her as a person and we're gonna go into this much more when we get to his dance chapters he probably just like doesn't get girls in general uh he's problematic he is i do look i do like

anyways what he ends up doing is he interrupts danny's sale of Drogon for the Insully, that exchange, and he speaks out against her, which makes her seem less powerful. Like, why is your squire just like out here questioning you? So, of course, she chastises him, which, in my opinion, is very reminiscent of a scene from Elizabeth Taylor's performance as Cleopatra. It's a four hourhour movie, but... Oh, yeah. Worth it. Worth the watch just for this, for this comparison. He is kind of the promise of home for Danny in a way,

but not for Jorah. He represents a certain familiarity for Danny. The closest she's been to the Red Door is this man who served three generations of her family and would have kept serving more if he could so much so that he sought her out to be her queen's guard this man can tell me what i came from i like that she says what not where you know like because this is barriston explaining that madness thing ser jorah then calls and names baristan in dany 5 in a storm of swords i'm gonna be real if i had to pick between ser jorah and ser baristan i would definitely pick

baristan but also here's like a thought you know we we end up sort of pitting the two against each other like, oh, they're so different. But with what we learn about Barristan and his feelings for Azshara, like what, later, are we supposed to actually see that there's a lot more in common between Barristan and Jorah? They're not actually that different after all. not actually that different after all oh absolutely i think in a way that barriston shields himself with his honor from actually dealing with the fact that he's not so great of a person i think he clings to it i think he holds it against himself like that where jorah has just given into his shitty side like he knows he's a piece of crap now he knows there's no going back but it's the same thing with him in fact jorah almost has that jamie lannister thing going where he's like i did everything i did for the good of people and this is what i get yeah whereas i think at least berston has he has humility right and we're gonna yes he does question internally sometimes he's like did I do the wrong thing? Maybe he doesn't question

the right things, but he does question them. And we're going to go into that, of course, later on. And finally, we get one last clue before the big reveal. Same as how we saw those quick reflexes with the green scarab, our Stan Whitebeard defeats Miro of Braavos, which also cements Jorah's suspicions because yes, it was suspicious that such a well-spoken, really old guy was somehow a squire. But I want to assert that I don't think it was really

that strange, because he was playing squire to strong Belwis, who like R'hllor, no man may withstand him, and anyone really can be a squire to strong Belwis, who like, R'hllor, like, no man may withstand him, and anyone really can be a squire to strong Belwis, and they should count themselves blessed to be able

to be a squire to strong Belwis. In fact, Dany says, and what if you just stay a squire to strong Belwis, and Barristan says that it would be, it would be totally fine with him, because why wouldn't it be? Would I... You have one more you get one more that's all podcast three strikes and you're out you're fired three treasons i will know three bellwosses once for Belwas, and once for Belwas, and once for Belwas. I love how when Dany's like, Jorah, would you please knight Arsten for me?

And I love how both men are like, no, at the same time. And Jorah's like, because he's like a fucking liar. And Barristan's like, because he's a fucking liar and baristan's like because he's a fucking liar like you know you know and i also just love this line when jorah's like who are you and he was like a better knight than you sir arson said coldly and you can't see but in my notes I'm like clap emojis because I love that it's a big moment it's a big moment yours

if you will have me Sir Barristan had tears in his eyes I took Robert's pardon I served him in the Kingsgarden council served with the Kingslayer and others near as bad who soiled the white cloak I wore. Nothing will excuse that.

I might be serving in King's Landing still if the vile boy upon the iron throne had not cast me aside. It shames me to admit. But when he took the cloak that the white bull had draped around my shoulders and sent men to kill me that self-same day, it was as though he'd ripped a call off my eyes. That was when I knew I must find my true king and die in his service. Quiet, said Dany. I'll hear him out. It may be that I must die a traitor's death, Sir Barristan said. If so, I should not die alone. Raider's death, Ser Barristan said. If so, I should not die alone. Before I took Robert's pardon, I fought against him on the Trident. You were on the other side of that battle,

Mormont. Were you not? He did not wait for an answer. Your Grace, I am sorry I misled you. It was the only way to keep the Lannisters from learning that I had joined you. You are watched, as your brother was. Lord Varys reported every move Viserys made for years. Whilst I sat on the small council, I heard a hundred such reports. And since the day you went, Khal Drogo, there has been an informer by your side selling your secrets, your side, selling your secrets, trading whispers to the spider for gold and promises. So juicy!

God, what a good chapter too, when she sends him off. Oh man, when she's so mad. Oh, it's so good. Such drama. And of course, there's this great line from Dany, which is an overarching theme in the story to which Barristan, of course there's this great line from danny which is an overarching theme in the story to which barrison of course also contributes to are all the knights of westro so false as you two he

was no true knight i love i love it exactly it's so like all of the knights oh it's just so thematically pleasing i love how it's constructed danny of course ends this she sends baristan and jorah into the sewers to win her marine which is only intimated and we're not entirely sure how well anything danny has planned for baristan is going to go other than that but what's great is that we get this kind of reassurance because while we're questioning the safety of baristan jamie's chapters are over here on the other side of the nearest sea and storm reassuring us that baristan's prowess is just incredible because jamie is like i'm gonna open the white book and like

the fuck baristan somehow had time even though he was like fleeing that same day he like came back he wrote and finished his entry in linkedin in the white book which he somehow had time to do while he was fleeing king's landing and so that gives us kind of an inkling of what to anticipate when we finally get back to those dandy chapters because we've only heard about his prowess at this point we haven't seen it yet it's been outlined by all these characters that have dreams like brand with all these nightly dreams so getting it from another adult finally and realizing oh he might be fine and then you switch back to barrison's story and eventually he just starts kicking ass yeah and he's just got a stick you know he's like whatevs yeah i love that it's

like very like i don't know almost karate movie too in a way just very the reveal i mean soon after though barriston reveals why he chose to flee to danny's service and though he was beginning to fill this role he truly becomes her connection to her family and regales her with stories about rhaegar and the tales of unsavory stories about Ares. And of course, as said before, having known so much of her family from even before then. And then of course, like with Barristan being across the Narrow Sea, we actually don't see him at all in A Feast for Crows, which is to be expected.

Instead, we get some of the groundwork for those memories that we're going to see haunt Barristan in his own dance chapters when we finally get to his POV. Like, brienne's chapters dig into it and uncover what happened at dusk and dale and the role that barrison played in it um as this idea of knighthood starts to snowball barrison also becomes a stick by which jam Jaime measures his competence as the new lord commander and so a dance of dragons opens up where we left Barristan as Dany's trusted

counselor who causes her to question her sanity through the lens and scope of the great and mad of her family and we're gonna leave it off there for now we're gonna dig in a little more with dance in the next episode especially because barrison's chapters are like actually in there and just to keep it kind of cohesive but before we do that we're gonna talk a little bit about

this thing that you may or may not have heard of called the mirini's knot and no it's not just a fancy sex move or like a way to tie your tie not that either not that the mirini's knot baristan's chapters come to us through the way of the marines not which is kind of the conflation of chapters that all can join in marine with pov characters all on their way toward daenerys george had to fit daenerys quentin tyrian victorian all in one book and still didn't have a way to fit his plot where he wanted it thus grandpa, Grandpa the Point of View Chapter was born. Sir Granddad. Bierston

ends up becoming that other lens into that chaos that's erupting in Meereen with the vacuum in Danny's absence. He's kind of tying together the warfare that's erupting outside of the walls, the Harpy uprising inside of the walls.

And all that bright fire to burn ashes story of Quentin. Because of how long the Myrionese knot took for George R.R. Martin to unravel, and he wasn't entirely sure how he was going to do it, we know that George didn't necessarily intend for Barristan to be a point of view chapter. Barristan was his solution, his way to unravel it. Because like,

I mean, George has got to start cutting back these POVs eventually. Like we got to start tying up some of these loose ends. But he saw that there was that need in order to maintain the cohesion between all the different character threads. And so here we are, looking at these chapters. And this is something we'll totally tear more into eventually, after we cover more of these marine dance point of views, or even just after Barristan. If you're into reading essays and analysis, I highly recommend you check out Adam Feldman's Myrnie's Knot series because it pulls analysis from a lot of these point of views and how they all add up to progress the Eastern plots.

And as something to kind of like tie us up on this episode and set us up for the next one, I wanted to start off with this really interesting piece of trivia that I personally love. interesting piece of trivia that I personally love. People tend to like thinking or asking like who would win in like a fight between I don't know a megalodon and a giant squid the megalodon. So the title of this entry in So Speak Martin is The Sword of the Morning versus Bearson the Bold. Note this is from a private correspondence. Without the usual header information, we used to verify. However, a screenshot of the message can be seen here. And by here, I mean, there's a link.

We'll provide links and stuff with the name of the respondee redacted. And the question is, who would win in a fight? Barristan Selmy or Arthur Dayne? Qualified with in their best days. And George R.R. Martin says I think this is really interesting it tells you a lot about how

skilled Barristan was so George says Dayne if he was armed with Dawn which is the pale milk glass colored space sword of House Dane.

Never heard of it. Never heard of it. George says if both men had equivalent weaponry, it might be a toss-up. So I think it's interesting to think that Barristan is on par, in his best days, with Arthur arthur dane the knight the biggest the knight to be yeah the first few books uh and as we've talked about in this entire world building episode just really build up that myth of how skilled baristan the Bold is, skilled enough to be on par with these legends, right? To take them on. And before we see him, he's larger than life.

And then as we get to know him, he just becomes this sort of man, right? He's very much on the same trajectory as all of these books in general, deconstructing those bedtime stories and the heroes that we grew up with. Life is not a song. So we get to see that firsthand with Barristan, as he himself starts to question his own heroism.

We see characters like Jaime broken down from a kingslayer to being human. We see Sansa, the uppity princess, down to a naive little girl. We see the honorable man Ned destroyed for doing what he thought was the right thing. We even see the evil queen humanized. Barry is no different. He is the manifestation of this theme. And I do love the theme that Barristan

is riffing on. I'm gonna be honest. I love the badass old man trope. To me, I'm over here like like I love I love the badass old man like trope me I'm over here like what you like sad old men no I like uncle Iroh okay okay uncle Iroh's fine come on grandpa

I'm gonna be so disappointed though when we deconstruct him all your heroes fail you yeah that's true just like your parents anyway thank you for watching when we deconstruct him. All your heroes fail you. Yeah, that's true. Just like your parents. Anyway, thank you for watching and by watching I mean listening to Girls Gone Canon.

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Chloe's being a tsundere right now. I don't like things. So... But Eliana. I like Eliana. So if she wants iTunes reviews, my podcast wife gets them. You guys, this has been fun.

I'm Chloe. You can find me on the internet as atLiesInArbor on Twitter and Tumblr. And this has been Eliana, also known as GlassTableGirl on the Maester Monthly Podcast and on the A Song of Ice and Fire subreddit.

Strong Bell was for life. Grandpa, no. It doesn't have the same ring. It really doesn't. We'll figure it out. Yeah. We'll figure it out.