George RR Martin on Barristan Selmy

barristan has been uh a kingsguard for 40 years you know that's how he defines his life he long ago gave up any hope of marriage uh he he forsook his uh his claim to his father's lands and let that pass to uh to a brother um for the honor of serving in the kingsguard who served for life um and he was the king's guard to the mad king and he was wounded fighting for prince rhaegar on the trident uh but he was such an honorable night that robert uh pardoned him for supporting the targaryens and asked him to become the lord commander of robert's king god which he accepted because that was the only life he knew and then joffrey and the lannisters have discarded this entire tradition they've essentially thrown away everything that he thought was life was about by dismissing him from the from the kingsguard as long as the starks were strong i don't think he was actually planning this when he marched south but you know when presented with opportunity he would do anything to strengthen his own position and strengthen house bolton and weaken his his enemies um and he did so it several times but he was a he's a cold and rational and calculating sort of guy if if rob had continued to win i think he would have continued to be loyal and uh you know if robert not lost the phrase and the car starks and it's and it seemed like he might come out of this bolton would have been right there by his side the unsullied that dany encounters in astapor these are the prime unsullied she's buying an entire army full of them and they are absolutely obedient which is the big thing they won't revolt against you they won't turn against you as self swords will you can buy a sell sword and pay him money and then when he thinks you're losing or when someone offers him more money he'll go over the unsullied will not do that their their training makes that absolutely unthinkable to to them they have nothing they live for the unit but they are very potent soldiers and for someone intending to go to war having a core of unsullied infantry uh at the heart of your army um is quite something and certainly in any battle in westeros if danny can get them back to westeros uh an unsullied infantry would give her an immense advantage over the the feudal levees of the westerosi lords second sons are a mercenary company who sell their services uh under contracts to anyone who wants to hire them be it a a free city a slaver city a lord who wants to take over his city uh someone who just wants to pillage and loot someone who wants to cross dangerous territory and needs a strong escort there are a number of these uh mercenary companies or free companies as they call themselves uh in essos um you know the the nine free cities uh tyrosh and pentos and mir and all that do not have great military traditions so they they although they have their own soldiers and their own militias and you know people who their city guards will defend their walls when they're fighting wars they prefer to hire mercenaries to fight the wars for them this is something that derives from actual medieval customs that i've uh used for the for the books uh dark ages customs actually when when the world was a very dangerous place and if you showed up at uh someone's house and they took you in and offered you hospitality it was expected that the the laws of hospitality the guest right uh ruled and under the guest right a host cannot harm his guest and a guest cannot harm his host and it's really uh a tradition uh a law that is very essential in in kind of savage environments where there's a lot of dangers in the wild and all that because you don't want to let someone in under your roof if you think they're going to murder them in the night and you don't want to shelter with someone who might say oh this guy has nice horses and and a lot of money so let's just kill him and all that so the laws of hospitality became very very sacred and certainly that's true in westeros where particularly in the north where the laws of hospitality are very strong you

Channel: Aegon Targaryen

Views: 568,524

Keywords: aegon targaryen, jaime lannister, cersei, joffrey, history and lore, fire and blood, prequel, house of the dragon, dance with dragons, trailer, ending, finale, daenerys, arthur dayne, kingsgaurd, ned stark, red wedding, robb stark

Id: zF3lGs3KP0Q

Length: 5min 10sec (310 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 28 2020