Followers are used to novel adaptions altering many issues, more often than not for good cause. Nonetheless, Episode 7 of Home of the Dragon caught many followers off guard once they noticed Laenor Velaryon alive and effectively crusing off with Ser Qarl, calling it a departure from the e book. In my viewing of this episode, I noticed the writers taking a chance to play with the deliberately imprecise and contradictory historical past e book that’s Fireplace & Blood.
Laenor’s dying will not be a certainty in George R.R. Martin’s Fireplace & Blood and is doubtful at finest. The novel describes his dying as “a thriller to at the present time.” There are various causes for this distinction of the associated occasions to Laenor and others in the identical class. Let’s check out why that is the case.
Fireplace & Blood is an imaginary historical past e book. In contrast to A Tune of Ice and Fireplace, the place we observe the characters via the story, hear their internal ideas, and reside via the occasions in real-time, Fireplace & Blood is a historical past e book by Archmaester Gyldayn retelling the historical past of the Targaryens.
Gyldayn is alleged to have lived into the reign of King Robert Baratheon, so the probabilities of him witnessing any of the occasions in the course of the Dance of the Dragons is slim to none. Due to this, descriptions of occasions may be partisan.
In an interview with Random Home, George R.R. Martin talks concerning the perspective of Fireplace & Blood. He described Gyldayn as “a really distinguished scholar but additionally a considerably idiosyncratic and crotchety outdated man who has robust opinions on the historic figures he’s writing about, so a few of his views might creep into the textual content. I don’t vouch for its authenticity.” Gyldayn, though clever and revered, can’t be trusted as correct, and his sources of occasions differ wildly.
Gyldayn cites three accounts of Laenor’s dying, which come from Grand Maester Mellos, Septon Eustace, and Mushroom; all three are rumour and play on one another like highschool rumors. Mellos provides the primary and most simple account of “that Ser Laenor was killed by one in all his personal family knights after a quarrel.”
Eustace expands on it by giving a reputation and motive, “Laenor Velaryon had grown weary of Ser Qarl’s companionship and had grown enamored of a brand new favourite, a good-looking younger squire of six-and-ten.” Lastly, Mushroom provides the darkish spice by accounting “that Prince Daemon paid Qarl Correy to get rid of Princess Rhaenyra’s husband, organized for a ship to hold him away, then lower his throat and fed him to the ocean.“
Home of the Dragon makes an attempt to present us the precise occasions as they happen. Not one of the historic accounts have been corroborated. If there’s one factor we find out about Westeros is that rumor, lies, and conjecture change into reality.
It’s additionally essential to keep in mind that Home of the Dragon takes place in real-time and that the sequence will not be an adaptation of Fireplace & Blood within the purest sense. As an alternative, it reveals us occasions as they occurred from the character’s views fairly than retelling occasions from third events.
This enables us to see the historic discrepancies and show how occasions occurred. Contemplating the confusion, thriller, and oddly public show of Leanor’s dying, a conspiracy for him to be alive is a believable and compelling argument. And conspiracy makes for compelling leisure.
Imagining Laenor, who was undoubtedly sad together with his life as Queen Consort, faking his dying and operating away with Ser Qarl is each romantic and believable. The truth that Daemon is the one who orchestrated it provides a lot character depth to Daemon and is likely one of the causes that makes him one in all my favourite characters.
The present takes the historic occasions offered within the e book and gave context surrounding it; context that doesn’t change the narrative and plot however as a substitute provides us some added taste and “ah-ha” moments to digest and talk about.
That’s the reason the Laenor twist will not be a departure from the e book however fairly added spice that enhances the stuffy historic retelling by Gyldayn. Occasions in Westeros proceed on as historical past data, however what’s flawed with the notion of Laenor and Qarl dwelling in bliss off the coast of Pentos? I believe it’s stunning amid a narrative of such heartache and monstrous individuals.
