#seas stuff

Uh!!!! wow !!! I did an Actual Sort Of Serious Cover?? Who would have thunk!! 

Karl Marx effectively renounced Judaism altogether, married a gentile woman (on whom, I might add, he dumped every bit of domestic labor while he drank and navel-gazed), and wrote an incredibly antisemitic essay called "On the Jewish Question" where he rebutted someone else's antisemitism by saying that "practical Judaism" was "huckstering and money," that "the Christians have become Jews," and that humankind needed to be emancipated from this so-called "practical Judaism."

Lenin, who had a single Jewish grandmother, insisted that Jews needed to assimilate in order to have a utopian Communist society and that Jewish persecution in Eastern Europe was their own fault for remaining a separate community. As far as I know, he did not routinely interact with Jews.

Trotsky is arguably the only Jewish figure in early Communism to have considered antisemitism an undeserved and extrinsic evil, and even he considered it largely a Tsarist evil. He changed his name from Bronstein to a "revolutionary" one. At one point, he said that he was a Bolshevik, not a Jew, and he even considered rejecting a position in the Communist government because he thought that there shouldn't be too many Jews in high positions. (The "Judeo-Bolshevik" stereotype was based on him, not on an actual environment friendly to Jews.) The party also turned on him when he started speaking out against Stalin, and he was eventually killed with an ice pick to the head while in exile.

the first mention we hear about Daemon blackfyre is one of Cat's chapters in the 3d book when she was arguing against Rob legitimizing Jon, i assume here GRRM wanted 1) Cat not appearing as a paranoid hateful step mother w/o a reason, 2) establishing a backstory why Westroes have certain prejudices & fears against bastards in power or legitimized ones. At that early stage I doubt he had much more planned for Daemon. But later, when he needed an arch-enemy/rival for Daenerys who wasn’t from her direct bloodline, his first idea was Aerion’s descendants. Then the Golden Company and the whole reason Brynden ended up in the Night’s Watch pushed him to reuse an already-established powerful legitimized bastard and link him to Brynden, Aegor, and Daenerys. That’s when he really started fleshing out Blackfyres. we can see the how the Blackfyres evolved across the books. Originally if i remember correctly the rebels raised the black dragon sigil in the name of Princess Daena’s son, which suggests her claim was supposed to play a much bigger role in the rebellion. Then GRRM had the idea: what if the king (Aegon IV) literally chose Daemon as heir by giving him the ultimate symbol of kingship? "The king who bore the sword" is a cool title & most of the fans think it's about Daemon's strength, but it’s really about the sword Blackfyre itself. After all, plenty of people saw Maegor as Aenys’s true heir simply because Aenys handed him Blackfyre. So the sword isn’t just any weapon it’s an extremely important sign of legitimacy and kingship. Later GRRM added the “Dornish influence” motive, but honestly that’s the weakest explanation he came up with for the whole rebellion. Because:

1)Baelor the Blessed had already made peace with the prince of dorne (father of Maron & Myriah) and sealed the alliance by marrying Daeron to Myriah.

2)There were already plenty of Dornish people in King’s Landing since Baelor I’s time.

3) Daena herself was fond of a Dornish squire early in Aegon IV’s reign. Yet nobody rebelled against Baelor I, Viserys II, or even Aegon IV despite all that Dornish presence.

That’s why GRRM had to downplay Baelor’s achievements and credit the peace to Daeron II instead. He couldn’t change the marriage itself, so he turned Daeron II into this weirdly over-the-top pro-Dornish king who showers them with privileges for no clear reason. In the end the Blackfyre Rebellion transformed from being “a son fighting for his usurped mother” to a story about kings’ wills, symbols of legitimacy… and then to just plain old Westerosi racism. Sure, GRRM made the Martells commit pretty much every crime imaginable, what they did to Daeron I is basically the Martell version of the Red Wedding but he never really focuses on it and just hand-waves that Westeros hated 'Dornish/Martell influence' “just because.”

Obviously I could be wrong on all of this, but it’s clear that all the problems with the Blackfyre storyline come from the fact that GRRM didn’t plan them from the start. He originally planned the Brightflames but swapped them for the Blackfyres. That’s also why the Blackfyres could never win: if they had, the Golden Company wouldn’t exist as we know it, Bumraven probably wouldn’t even be alive, and the Targaryens would’ve been deposed way earlier than Robert’s Rebellion. I’m not denying GRRM’s baffling bias toward Bumraven either. The guy literally committed every crime under the sun and got rewarded for it. Even the Starks —the heart of the story— didn’t get that kind of free pass. Ned made 2 or 3 mistakes and got brutally punished (and his kids paid the price too). Still, something tells me GRRM simply found Daemon way more interesting than Aerion (the founder of the original arch-enemy house) or his usual usurper-kings like Maegor. Even in the biased history written by Yandel, Daemon comes across as a noble, chivalrous knight who showed mercy to children and to his enemies (Gwayne Corbray). He feels like a genuinely decent man. So yeah, in a nutshell: the Blackfyres are a super interesting house, but they definitely suffered from GRRM’s gardener style. Ironically they ended up way more sympathetic than the Targaryens themselves even their worst member, Maelys, can’t hold a candle to the worst Targaryens.

This part from the ask really just encapsulates why I don't think what happened to BR is a punishment at all:

Bumraven, on the other hand, is one of the most influential characters in the main story. Whatever theory you subscribe to, he’s still massively important — especially to Bran. That’s why he’s so annoying: the narrative doesn’t just bend for him, it also gave him a far bigger role than he ever deserved.

Yes. You get it. Something that really pissed me off about the way the show ended is that Bran never disconnected from the weirwood network (which includes all the dead greenseers), and therefore Bloodraven essentially finished the series as king of Westeros by proxy. They didn't make him that much of a killer in GoT, but STILL.

I don't think I can say much more than you already did in your well-laid-out ask, but your hypothesis about GRRM's original vision for the Blackfyres' role makes a lot of sense. Daemon's claim originally stemming from Daena's before GRRM changed his mind is incredibly plausible in light of the fact that Jon is also illegitimate through a female line. If he and Daemon were originally supposed to be analogs to each other, hence Catelyn's fear, then having people rally around Daena is a great way to foreshadow who Jon's mother actually is.

I have no idea why GRRM ended up going with the constant, lopsided, no-holds-barred Blackfyre beatdown that he did, especially since it weakens the case that the Targaryens were in the right. Having Daemon as a powerful equal who pursued the throne because of a rival claim through the king's cousin, not his father, would have been both complex and a nice callback to the Dance - especially given the Velaryon connection in both wars. But nope, he had to be a hub (with almost zero evidence in-text) for anti-Dornish prejudice who died when he was younger than I am now, knowing his cherished sons were doomed. That's just wonderful. Very nuanced writing, George.