Brynden Rivers

ABOUT BRYNDEN

Lord Brynden Rivers, called the Bloodraven, was a legitimized Great Bastard, son of King Aegon IV Targaryen and Mylessa Blackwood, his sixth lover. His personal coat of arms is a white dragon with red eyes, releasing a red flame from his belly, on a black field. Despite being a bastard, he was loyal to House Targaryen during the Blackfyre Rebellion, Hand of King Aerys I and Lord Commander of the Night's Watch. Shiera Seastar, another bastard of Aegon IV, was his lover. His half-brother Açamargo also desired Shiera, which increased the enmity between the two. He was believed to be a sorcerer. Alias(s): Blood Raven Three-Eyed Raven Last Green Seer Title(s): Sor Master of Whispers Hand of the King Lord Commander of the Night's Watch Allegiance: House Targaryen Night's Watch Race: Valyrian and Riverman Born: 175 AD, in King's Landing Death: 252 AD (presumably), in Beyond-the-Wall Personal coat of arms: A white dragon on black, breathing red fire (Sable, a silvery dragon flaming gules)

FAMILY

Father: King Aegon IV Targaryen Mother: Mrs. Melissa Blackwood Mistress Lady Shiera Seastar (lover) Half-Siblings: Shiera Seastar, Daemon Blackfyre, Aegor Rivers

APPEARANCE AND CHARACTER

Brynden was an albino and therefore had milk-white skin, long white hair, and red eyes. On the right side of his face, he had a wine-red birthmark, which extended from his throat to his right cheek. The birthmark was the reason he was called "Bloodraven", as he was said to look a bit like a raven drawn in blood. However, Ser Duncan the Tall thought the birthmark was just a stain. According to George R. R. Martin, it is more of a suggestion of a raven shape, like an inkblot. Brynden was not as tall or muscular as his half-brothers, Daemon and Aegor, but was considered more cunning. Standing less than six feet tall, Brynden was thin and wiry. He had a dark, forbidding appearance and sharp, vaguely sinister features. He typically wore the colors scarlet and smoke, a dark gray mottled and striped with black. For example, one of his outfits included a scarlet tunic with black boots and a smoke-colored cape. As his skin was sensitive to light, Bloodraven usually wore a cloak and hood. Brynden lost an eye during the First Blackfyre Rebellion, and rarely covered the empty eye socket with a patch, preferring to display his scar and empty eye socket to the world. He wore his white hair straight and down to his shoulders, with the front brushed forward to cover his missing eye. Although Brynden carried the Valyrian steel longsword Dark Sister and was a good swordsman, he was also an expert archer who preferred using his tall weirwood longbow. Brynden was said to be a sinister sorcerer and master spy, who effectively ruled the kingdom "with spies and spells" and as "Lord Bloodraven". A popular riddle was: "How many eyes does Lord Bloodraven have? A thousand eyes and one". The song "A Thousand Eyes, and One" was written about Brynden.

YOUTH

In 175 CE, Brynden was born in King's Landing as the bastard son of King Aegon IV Targaryen and his sixth mistress, Lady Melissa Blackwood, who replaced the king's fifth mistress, Lady Barba Bracken. Brynden's older sisters were Mya and Gwenys Rivers. Although Melissa was eventually dismissed by Aegon IV in favor of his seventh lover, Lady Bethany Bracken, Brynden was able to maintain close relationships at court because of Melissa's popularity. Brynden was resented by Barba's bastard son, Aegor Rivers, nicknamed “Bittersteel”. At some point, Brynden became the lover of her half-sister, Shiera Seastar. As Aegor also desired her, Shiera became another point of rivalry between the two half-siblings. Brynden would become Shiera's most ardent admirer. Like his other bastard brothers, Brynden was legitimized by his father Aegon IV in 184 CE, when the king was on his deathbed.

FIRST BLACKFYRE REBELLION

During the First Blackfyre Rebellion, Brynden remained loyal to his legitimate half-brother, King Daeron II Targaryen, rather than joining his bastard half-brother, Daemon I Blackfyre. Brynden commanded his own private guard, a group of archers called the Raven's Teeth. At the Battle of the Redgrass Field in 196 AC, the Raven's Teeth gained the Wailing Ridge and rained arrows upon the Blackfyres from three hundred yards away, killing first Daemon's eldest son Aegon, then Daemon himself, and finally Aegon's twin, Aemon. The arrows were said to have been fired by Brynden's sorcery, and people later called Brynden a kinslayer. Daemon's death led to the rebels' defeat, but some were rallied by Aegor Rivers in a mad charge. The resulting duel between the rival half-brothers left Brynden blinded in one eye and Aegor in retreat. With Daemon and his eldest sons dead, Aegor fled into exile in the Free Cities with Daemon's wife, daughters, and remaining sons. After the war, Brynden advocated a hard line against the rebels, winning Prince Baelor Targaryen's appeal for clemency.

REIGN OF AERYS I TARGARYEN

In 209 AC Brynden became Hand of the King and master of the whisperers, serving throughout the reign of his nephew, King Aerys I Targaryen. His first great trial was the Great Spring Sickness, an epidemic that killed King Daeron II Targaryen, Princes Valarr and Matarys Targaryen, and tens of thousands of others. Seeing the corpses piling up in the streets of King's Landing, Brynden ordered the Alchemists' Guild pyromancers to burn them in the Dragonpit. At night, the green glow of wildfire pyres could be seen throughout the city. At the same time, a drought began that lasted just over a year, causing many commoners to leave their lands in search of somewhere where the rain still fell. Brynden ordered them to return to their own lands, but few obeyed. In fact, they blamed Brynden, cursing him as a kinslayer. Many of them became thieves. Prices rose as trade declined, and it was widely believed that travel was less safe under Aerys's reign than under his father's. Some people have claimed that Brynden and his lover, his half-sister Shiera Seastar, used witchcraft to uncover secrets. Brynden proposed to Shiera numerous times, but she always refused his offers of marriage. In 211 AC, Ser Otho Bracken, known as the Brute of Bracken, was expected to succeed to the lordship of Stone Hedge. Unwilling to see such a man in power, House Blackwood's traditional Bracken rivals were expected to begin a war to eradicate him. It has been suggested that Brynden, being half-Blackwood himself, would not be inclined to listen to any complaints from a member of House Bracken. Septon Sefton believed that Brynden would probably do nothing, and that if he decided to act, it would only be to help his Blackwood cousins ​​bring Otho to the bay.

REIGN OF AERYS I TARGARYEN

In 211 AC, Lord Dagon Greyjoy raided the western coast, including Fair Isle, the Arbor shipping lane, and the village of Little Dosk in the Reach. In 212 AC, Lord Beron Stark called upon his bannermen to repel the ironborn from the Stony Shore, while House Lannister was building ships to attack the Iron Islands. Through it all, Brynden kept his eyes on Tyrosh, where his half-brother Aegor Rivers remained with Daemon Blackfyre's surviving sons in exile. However, Victarion Greyjoy recalls that, "...not even Dagon could defeat the dragons", suggesting that the Targaryens eventually intervened.

SECOND BLACKFYRE REBELLION

During the wedding tourney at Whitewalls in 212 AC, Ser Maynard Plumm defended Brynden's actions as Hand to Ser Kyle the Cat. Through his informants, including a Vyrwel man-at-arms and a troupe of dwarven comedians, Brynden was aware of a plot at Whitewalls to place Daemon II Blackfyre at the head as the rightful Lord of the Seven Kingdoms. Brynden marched in the tourney with three hundred Crow's Teeth, three brothers of the Kingsguard, five hundred other knights, and five thousand foot soldiers drawn from the crownlands and the riverlands. Faced with such a force, Daemon attempted to rally the tourney participants for battle, but found little support. Daemon then challenged the Hand to single combat; Brynden refused and arrested the pretender, thus quelling the Second Blackfyre Rebellion. Daemon was held captive rather than executed with the other rebel leaders, ensuring that Aegor Rivers could not name his brother Haegon as a serious suitor.

THIRD BLACKFYRE REBELLION

After the Third Blackfyre Rebellion, Brynden argued that the captive Aegor Rivers should be killed, but King Aerys I Targaryen decided to send Aegor to the Night's Watch. However, Aegor Rivers escaped back to Essos when his ship was intercepted en route to Eastwatch.

GREAT COUNCIL OF 233 AD

Brynden continued as Hand of Aerys's successor, his brother Maekar I, in 221 CE. After Maekar's death in 233 CE, Brynden, as Hand of the King, called a Great Council in King's Landing to discuss the disputed question of succession. Aenys Blackfyre wanted to participate peacefully in the Great Council, and Brynden offered her safe conduct to King's Landing of Tyrosh. Once Aenys arrived in the capital, however, he was arrested by the Goldcloaks and then beheaded in the Red Keep. The Grand Council chose Maekar's youngest son to succeed as King Aegon V Targaryen, whose first act was to arrest Brynden for Aenys's murder. It is suggested by Maester Aemon that Brynden was imprisoned in the dungeons of the Red Keep. Brynden argued that he had sacrificed his honor for the good of the kingdom, but Aegon refused to release Brynden. Instead, he offered the option of using black instead of death, which Brynden accepted.

NIGHT PATROL

When Maester Aemon sailed to the Wall in 233 AC, he was escorted by King Aegon V's friend Ser Duncan the Tall of the Kingsguard, and accompanied by an honor guard of Night's Watch recruits. They numbered two hundred men and prisoners, including Brynden Rivers. Many of the men were Brynden's Raven's Teeth archers. According to a semi-canon source, Brynden took Dark Sister with him when he went to the Wall. Brynden was elected Lord Commander of the Night's Watch in 239 AC. However, in 252 AC, he disappeared while wandering beyond the Wall.

RECENT EVENTS

THE FEST OF CROWS - Maester Aemon tells Samwell Tarly that Brynden accompanied him to the Wall when he joined the Night's Watch, with Ser Duncan the Tall as his escort. Singer Dareon comments that he knows a song about Bloodraven, "A Thousand Eyes, and One". A DANCE WITH DRAGONS - Bran Stark discovers that Brynden is still alive as the Three-Eyed Raven, the last greenseer who lives with the children of the forest in a cave beyond the Wall. Brynden becomes Bran's mentor in the art of greensight and skin-changing.

BRYNDEN QUOTES

"Treason is no less vile because the traitor shows himself to be a coward." - Brynden to Ambrose Butterwell "There have always been Targaryens who dreamed of things to come, long before the Conquest." - Brynden to Duncan the Tall and Aegon Targaryen "I had many names when I was swift, but even I had a mother, and the name she gave me when I was in the breast was Brynden." - The Three-Eyed Raven to Meera Reed "I have ghosts of my own, Bran. A brother I loved, a brother I hated, a woman I desired. Through the trees, I still see them, but no word of mine has ever reached them. The past is still the past. We can learn from it, but we cannot change it." - Brynden to Bran Stark

QUOTES ABOUT BRYNDEN

"The Mother marked Lord Rivers the day he was born, and Bittersteel marked him once more on the Redgrass Field." —Sefton to Duncan the Tall "How many eyes does Lord Bloodraven have?" went the riddle. "A thousand eyes, and one . . . Some claimed that the Hand of the King was a student of the dark arts who could change his face, take the appearance of a one-eyed hound, even turn himself into mist. Packs of lean gray wolves hunted his enemies, men said, and carrion crows spied on him and whispered secrets in his ear. Most of the tales were just tales, Dunk did not doubt, but no one could doubt that Bloodraven had informants everywhere." —thoughts of Duncan the Tall "Lord Bloodraven is a sorcerer and a bastard." —Glendon Flowers to Maynard Plumm