#the wildfire plot

I have a hard time picturing this confrontation in Casterly Rock, because Casterly Rock is---Lannistans pls don’t be mad at me---a relatively marginal place in the context of the story. It matters only to Jaime, Cersei and Tyrion, it has no magical relevance and so far it has never been a theatre of actual action. As a city, Lannisport is much less populated than King’s Landing and there are no hidden wildfire caches there, so the stakes in this confrontation would be infinitely lower, and the Cersei = Aerys 2.0 parallel wouldn’t work that well, imo.

Jaime, presumably, as he’s the only one alive who knows about it all. Possibly Tyrion will figure it out too, as he’s very intelligent and got some (but alas not all) information about Aerys’s wildfire from Jaime and from the pyromancers. Speaking of pyromancers, if there’s a chain reaction I wouldn’t expect any of them to survive, as the Guildhall of the Alchemists will blow up spectacularly, but maybe one might make it out to babble incoherently about “fruits” and confuse people before he dies.

@ladyofdragonstone replied:

would the public doom the dragonriders in the end? Dany/anyone else?

I have no certainty here, sorry. If the explosion of the wildfire comes about during a dragon battle between Dany and another dragonrider, or dragonfire hitting the Red Keep or Flea Bottom by accident and setting off the wildfire there, probably the public would associate the further chain reaction with the dragons, yes. The fact that wildfire is green and obviously unnatural might not be enough to relieve the confusion, as Rhaegal has green dragonfire (and Drogon’s is black).

But unfortunately there’s just too much speculation here to know if this very theoretical destruction of King’s Landing (and it is just a theory right now – a good theory if I say so myself, but still) would doom Dany’s or other dragonriders’ public relations. We might be more certain after TWOW, if this event is even in TWOW, but it might be an ADOS thing (or not happen at all).

“Three can keep a secret if two are dead.”

Here’s who Aerys told about the wildfire: the three pyromancers Rossart, Garigus, and Belis. That’s it. (Jaime Lannister was the only other person in the room when this happened, and he killed the other four people involved.) The Lord Hand Chelsted “became suspicious” when he saw “Rossart, Belis, and Garigus coming and going night and day,” but when he confronted Aerys, he was immediately burned alive and couldn’t share what he knew. 

So Pycelle didn’t know because Aerys kept his Small Council ignorant of his plans, because he didn’t want anyone trying to stop him. 

As for why Varys didn’t know, even the best spymaster needs time to develop sources, collect information, and then correctly analyze this information. The problem is that the wildfire plot only included a few people, who maintained a high degree of operational security:

“Everything was done in the utmost secrecy by a handful of master pyromancers. They did not even trust their own acolytes to help.” 

(Jaime V, ASOS)

As for why Aerys didn’t trust them on the plot but trusted them on other things, this was a fairly consistent pattern of his paranoia, where he was simultaneously afraid of the same people he was deeply dependent on, and refused to remove people who he thought was trying to kill or replace him:

“By this time, King Aerys had become aware of the widespread belief that he himself was but a hollow figurehead and Tywin Lannister the true master of the Seven Kingdoms. These sentiments greatly angered the king, and His Grace became determined to disprove them and to humble his "overmighty servant” and “put him back into his place.”…Tywin Lannister attempted to return his chain of office the next morning, but the king refused to accept his resignation.Aerys II could, of course, have dismissed Tywin Lannister at any time and named his own man as Hand of the King, but instead, for whatever reason, the king chose to keep his boyhood friend close by him, laboring on his behalf, even as he began to undermine him in ways both great and small.”

(WOIAF)

Jaime didn’t tell anyone about the wildfire probably out of pride (his whole Kingslayer trauma, it’s complicated), and also because he didn’t know about the danger. What the pyromancer Hallyne told Tyrion is apparently not public knowledge, but a trade secret:

“Why doesn’t it seep into the clay as well?”“Oh, but it does,” said Hallyne. […] “As it ages, the substance grows ever more, hmmmm, fickle, let us say. Any flame will set it afire. Any spark. Too much heat and jars will blaze up of their own accord. It is not wise to let them sit in sunlight, even for a short time. Once the fire begins within, the heat causes the substance to expand violently, and the jars shortly fly to pieces. If other jars should happen to be stored in the same vicinity, those go up as well, and so—” 

–ACOK, Tyrion V

Nobody else mentions these properties of aged wildfire, so we can presume that nobody else knows, certainly not Jaime. So Jaime, focused on removing the danger of Aerys’s plan to blow up King’s Landing, killed the pyromancer Rossart, killed Aerys, and a few days later hunted down and killed the other pyromancers who had worked on the wildfire plot (Garigus and Belis), and presumably thought it was safe to leave everything where it was. Jaime thinks wildfire needs to be removed from its jar and catch fire to burn, and he thinks the cache locations of warehouses and cellars are safe, where nobody knows about them – he doesn’t know that wildfire seeps into the clay jar it’s stored in over time, he doesn’t know that heat or even jostling could set them off and cause an explosive chain reaction.

As for the caches of wildfire pots, yes, certainly the pyromancers Tyrion dealt with knew about some of them. But only some, the ones they had found:

“So His Grace commanded his alchemists to place caches of wildfire all over King’s Landing. Beneath Baelor’s Sept and the hovels of Flea Bottom, under stables and storehouses, at all seven gates, even in the cellars of the Red Keep itself. Everything was done in the utmost secrecy by a handful of master pyromancers. They did not even trust their own acolytes to help.” –ASOS, Jaime V

“There is a vault below this one where we store the older pots. Those from King Aerys’s day. It was his fancy to have the jars made in the shapes of fruits. Very perilous fruits indeed, my lord Hand, and, hmmm, riper now than ever, if you take my meaning. We have sealed them with wax and pumped the lower vault full of water, but even so… by rights they ought to have been destroyed, but so many of our masters were murdered during the Sack of King’s Landing, the few acolytes who remained were unequal to the task. And much of the stock we made for Aerys was lost. Only last year, two hundred jars were discovered in a storeroom beneath the Great Sept of Baelor. No one could recall how they came there, but I’m sure I do not need to tell you that the High Septon was beside himself with terror. I myself saw that they were safely moved. I had a cart filled with sand, and sent our most able acolytes. We worked only by night…”

–ACOK, Tyrion V

“We have been, hmmm, most fortunate, my lord Hand. Another cache of Lord Rossart’s was found, more than three hundred jars. Under the Dragonpit! Some whores have been using the ruins to entertain their patrons, and one of them fell through a patch of rotted floor into a cellar. When he felt the jars, he mistook them for wine. He was so drunk he broke the seal and drank some.““There was a prince who tried that once,” said Tyrion dryly. “I haven’t seen any dragons rising over the city, so it would seem it didn’t work this time either.” The Dragonpit atop the hill of Rhaenys had been abandoned for a century and a half. He supposed it was as good a place as any to store wildfire, and better than most, but it would have been nice if the late Lord Rossart had told someone.

–ACOK, Tyrion XI

Because Jaime was the only witness, because Jaime killed all the master pyromancers who knew about Aerys’s plan, the remaining acolytes didn’t know about much of the stock of wildfire pots or where the caches were. They knew about the thousands of jars stored in the vaults of the Guildhall of the Alchemists, sure, but they had no idea that any of the other caches existed. Two caches of several hundred jars were discovered, in Baelor’s Sept in 298 AC (15 years after Robert’s Rebellion) and under the Dragonpit in 299 AC, and nobody knew that they existed until they were found! Nobody could recall how they got there! There were no records, it was merely luck that let the pyromancers find the ones Tyrion used in the Battle of the Blackwater.

(Notably, the caches of wildfire jars not said to be found include the ones in various storehouses,under Flea Bottom, at the city gates, andin the cellars of the Red Keep. Quite a Chekhov’s gun, yes indeed.)

I do what ifs / alternate histories only if I can see a path. If there are too many variables/branches or it seems way too unlikely to me, I can’t work with it. Also if the change depends on or greatly affects military strategy, that is so very much not my bailiwick, so I’m no good there either.

I don’t think so. We get to spend a lot of time in Tyrion’s head and he never once references the Wildfire Plot in his thoughts. Even if he was very occupied with the defense of the city from the Baratheon brothers, he would probably have thought about it, given all the time he spends with wildfire and the Alchemist’s Guild.

Jaime’s pride, I think, made him keep that badge of honor to himself (maybe the half a million people he saved will become half a million who die all because of his pride). He told no one, not even his beloved Tyrion, about the wildfire. It’s one of those dangers that only Jaime (and the reader) knows about, so that every time King’s Landing is threatened, we as readers know that a terrible thing just might happen. Maybe it will go off when Aegon VI attacks King’s Landing. Maybe it will go off when Daenerys attacks it. Maybe a riot will erupt and something will set it off. Maybe it’s a red herring. This uncertainty helps keep us invested. No one is going to know about the wildfire. Not Aegon, not Daenerys, not Cersei. It’s going to be a surprise to everyone when it goes off.

Thanks for the question, Anon.