The Dance of the Dragons: An Overview

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[InDeepGeek]

This is an updated version of a video first published in February 2021.

[The_Malcontented]

@9:28 "Many years later, Aemond Targaryen's armored bones were discovered still chained to Vhagar's saddle, with the sword Dark Sister impaled hilt-deep through his eye socket." The single most metal line GRRM has yet written

[maxsalmon]

Nettles had it figured out. Take the dragon and run. To hell with the war.

[ian]

I'm still impressed by the fact that a decimated, dragonless House Targaryen still managed to hold onto power for another 150ish years . And if the tragedy at summehall hadn't happened or if Raygar had become king, it could've been even longer

[philip]

First it was a waltz, then it was a hoedown, and lastly, it was a 2 step.

[ilovemesomme]

All I know is that Ser Adam Velayron was LOYAL

[amon]

The Dance has a very interesting conclusion, simply down to the fact that there is no clear, decisive winner. The Blacks got their bloodline on the throne and killed off the Green line, however the Green claim managed to survive and Rhaenyra's reign was expunged from the records and unacknowledged by the realm

[emmabush]

You could argue that the realm never did recover. The Targaryen’s never again had that many dragons and by extension, that much power.

[TheNinjaDC]

I'd say the two winners were the North & House Tully.

For the North, this was the first time they really involved themselves heavily in the politics of the kingdom. They were rather isolated before this. The hermit kingdom of the 7 kingdoms. But this established them as a major political player that could make significant moves outside of their realm.

House Tully (and other Riverland lords) were also winners, as this was the first time the Riverlands as a united realm under the Tullies played a major part. This added legitimacy to Riverlands being their own kingdom(an equal to other kingdoms), and not just a vassal state of another kingdom as they always were before the Targs took over the 7 kingdoms.

The Riverland small folk however, were definitely not the winners.

[AndrewK]

Well done comprehensive breakdown of the DotD Robert. The Dance is truly a disastrous tragedy with insane amounts of carnage. I do tend to sympathize with Team Black but basically most involved are quite terrible with atrocities on all sides , so really i am Team No-one in the end. For me the DotD is essentially a grey horrors of war conflict and GRRM's treatise on such imo. It also highlights the dangers of such ambitions and ruthlessness with weapons of mass destruction at play (dragons in this case). Any victory was Pyrrhic at best ; everyone lost in the end including both sides and the wider realm.

The realm took a very long time to recover from the DotD and the Targaryen family essentially never did. Nearly 20 dragons most gone as a result of the Dance and the remaining few mostly died off not long after the conflict. A huge powerful Targ family very much decimated from that point on and were all the more vulnerable ever since. The Targ family was broken to a degree and would never reach such heights again. Including and especially so the understandably very broken and traumatized boy king who emerges from this conflict, who never really recovered. Also, not a coicidence imo we get the most amount of mad and eccentric Targs in the post-dragon era ; with such an intrinsic element ripped away from the family, seemingly an element they were genetically linked with.

The DotD was a very grey tragic conflict. And i do hope HotD highlights that above all else ; both sides were and did so much wrong in the end, any victory was Pyrrhic at best and its just a grey horrors of war familial (and beyond) tragedy overall. That should be the main takeaway rather than supporting a given side or trying to decide which faction was more wrong, right or justified etc.

[nils]

daemon and aemond are insanely well casted

[josephlongbone]

Dance of the Dragons summery:

"Massive Black strategic blunder."
"Massive Green political blunder."
"Crippling black defeat, 6 dragons dead, 4 mutinied."
"The river lands explode and catch fire."
"Critical Black strategic blunder."
"Massive riots lead to peasants eating knights in the streets."
"300 Targaryen bastards declare themselves king and then die."
"Massive Green strategic blunder."
"Critical green strategic blunder, the river lands catch fire again."

[_valdezzlopezz]

All that war just to end up how it was supposed to be in the first place…with Rhaenyra’s bloodline on the throne

[TheTrollingMaster-xrel]

No hate but you made a small mistake, Criston’s army wasn’t trying to get to kings landing it was going to the reach to link up with Dearon’s army.

[sandygehrmann]

As a fan of the Blacks, it will always annoy me that Rhaenyra split her dragons up when she got the seeds, rather than sending all of them en masse to take out the Green threats one at a time (and thereby keeping the loyalty of the turncloaks).

[NipplesMagee]

It’s a summary, but I love that we get to see the actual knitty gritty details in tv, including moments that were in obscurity and left up to interpretation

[dromankass]

Who poisoned king Aegon II? A small man can cast a large shadow.

'Rats they may be, but rats can bring down a bear, I have seen it. And a Fool can kill a King.'
- Mushroom the Fool.
(Who just happened to be a supporter of Team Black and in the Red Keep when someone gave Aegon II a cup of poisoned wine).

[Gotti]

Daemon's body was never found and Nettles disappeared also. I like to think they ran off together.

[THATGuy]

At the end of the regular series, after everyone else has killed each other, an extremely elderly Nettles is it going to swoop in and claim the throne.

[anr]

You make it sound like Addam just randomly showed up at Tumbleton rather than that he went there specifically to uphold his honour.