Ένα πάρα πολύ δυνατό επεισόδιο, με φοβερό φινάλε.
1. Επιτέλους μάθαμε τι πραγματικά συνέβη ανάμεσα στο τρίγωνο Rhaenyra-Daemon-CC. Νομίζω πως έχει ιδιαίτερο ενδιαφέρον να παραθέσει κανείς τις διάφορες εκδοχές που δίνει το Fire & Blood και να τις συγκρίνει με τα όσα έλαβαν χώρα στη σειρά για να φανεί με ποιον τρόπο η σειρά επέλεξε να δουλέψει πάνω σε αυτές (σε κουτάκι σπόιλερ, για να μην πιάνουν χώρο):
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SpoilerHere is where our sources diverge. Grand Maester Runciter [μία από τις πηγές του Χορού των Δράκων] says only that the brothers quarreled again, and Prince Daemon departed King’s Landing to return to the Stepstones and his wars. Of the cause of the quarrel, he does not speak. Others assert that it was at Queen Alicent’s urging that Viserys sent Daemon away. But Septon Eustace and Mushroom [δύο άλλες πηγές του Χορού των Δράκων] tell another tale…or rather, two such tales, each different from the other. Eustace, the less salacious of the two, writes that Prince Daemon seduced his niece the princess and claimed her maidenhood. When the lovers were discovered abed together by Ser Arryk Cargyll of the Kingsguard and brought before the king, Rhaenyra insisted she was in love with her uncle and pleaded with her father for leave to marry him. King Viserys would not hear of it, however, and reminded his daughter that Prince Daemon already had a wife. In his wroth, he confined his daughter to her chambers, told his brother to depart, and commanded both of them never to speak of what had happened.
[αρκετά απ’ όσα αναφέρει η παράγραφος συνέβησαν, με τη βασική διαφορά ότι ο Daemon δεν ολοκλήρωσε με τη Rhaenyra για άλλους λόγους]
The tale as told by Mushroom is far more depraved, as is oft the case with his Testimony. According to the dwarf, it was Ser Criston Cole that the princess yearned for, not Prince Daemon, but Ser Criston was a true knight, noble and chaste and mindful of his vows, and though he was in her company day and night, he had never so much as kissed her, nor made any declaration of his love. “When he looks at you, he sees the little girl you were, not the woman you’ve become,” Daemon told his niece, “but I can teach you how to make him see you as a woman.
He began by giving her kissing lessons, if Mushroom can be believed. From there the prince went on to show his niece how best to touch a man to bring him pleasure, an exercise that sometimes involved Mushroom himself and his alleged enormous member. Daemon taught the girl to disrobe enticingly, suckled at her teats to make them larger and more sensitive, and flew with her on dragonback to lonely rocks in Blackwater Bay, where they could disport naked all day unobserved, and the princess could practice the art of pleasuring a man with her mouth. At night he would smuggle her from her rooms dressed as a page boy and take her secretly to brothels on the Street of Silk, where the princess could observe men and women in the act of love and learn more of these “womanly arts” from the harlots of King’s Landing.
Just how long these lessons continued Mushroom does not say, but unlike Septon Eustace [άλλη μία από τις πηγές του Χορού των Δράκων], he insists that Princess Rhaenyra remained a maiden, for she wished to preserve her innocence as a gift for her beloved. But when at last she approached her white knight, using all she had learned, Ser Criston was horrified and spurned her. The whole tale soon came out, in no small part thanks to Mushroom himself. King Viserys at first refused to believe a word of it, until Prince Daemon confirmed the tale was true. “Give the girl to me to wife,” he purportedly told his brother. “Who else would take her now?” Instead King Viserys sent him into exile, never to return to the Seven Kingdoms on pain of death. (Lord Strong, the King’s Hand, argued that the prince should be put to death immediately as a traitor, but Septon Eustace reminded His Grace that no man is as accursed as the kinslayer.)
[τα όσα αναφέρουν οι 3 παραπάνω παράγραφοι έχουν κάποιες δόσεις αλήθειας – πχ. η έλξη της Rhaenyra για τον CC, η προσπάθεια του Daemon να παντρευτεί τη Rhaenyra – αλλά τα περισσότερα αποδεικνύονται λανθασμένα]
And here again our sources differ. That night [το βράδυ πριν τον γάμο της Rhaenyra με τον Laenor], Septon Eustace reports, Ser Criston Cole slipped into the princess’s bedchamber to confess his love for her. He told Rhaenyra that he had a ship waiting on the bay, and begged her to flee with him across the narrow sea. They would be wed in Tyrosh or Old Volantis, where her father’s writ did not run, and no one would care that Ser Criston had betrayed his vows as a member of the Kingsguard. His prowess with sword and morningstar was such that he did not doubt he could find some merchant prince to take him into service. But Rhaenyra refused him. She was the blood of the dragon, she reminded him, and meant for more than to live out her life as the wife of a common sellsword. And if he could set aside his Kingsguard vows, why would marriage vows mean any more to him?
[πάνω κάτω αυτό που συνέβη, αλλά σε λίγο διαφορετικό context]
Mushroom tells a very different tale. In his version, it was Princess Rhaenyra who went to Ser Criston, not him to her. She found him alone in White Sword Tower, barred the door, and slipped off her cloak to reveal her nakedness underneath. “I saved my maidenhead for you,” she told him. “Take it now, as proof of my love. It will mean little and less to my betrothed, and perhaps when he learns that I am not chaste he will refuse me.”
Yet for all her beauty, her entreaties fell on deaf ears, for Ser Criston was a man of honor and true to his vows. Even when Rhaenyra used the arts she had learned from her uncle Daemon, Cole would not be swayed. Scorned and furious, the princess donned her cloak again and swept out into the night…
[τίποτα από όσα αναφέρουν οι 2 παραπάνω παράγραφοι δεν αληθεύει, πέρα από την έλξη της Rhaenyra για τον CC]
Το συμπέρασμα είναι ότι η σειρά πάτησε σε διάφορα σημεία των διαθέσιμων εκδοχών για να βγάλει τελικά κάτι δικό της, το οποίο νομίζω λειτουργεί μια χαρά.
2. Μετά την (οριστική απ’ ότι φαίνεται) ρήξη ανάμεσα στη Rhaenyra και την Alicent, είναι αρκετά σαφές ότι πλέον έχουμε μπει στην αρχική ευθεία για την έναρξη του Χορού των Δράκων. Απομένουν ακόμη κάποια κομμάτια να μπουν στη θέση τους, αλλά κρίνοντας από το (εξαιρετικά αποκαλυπτικό) τρέιλερ του 6ου επεισοδίου αυτό δεν θα αργήσει πολύ.
3. Είμαι αρκετά περίεργος για το κίνητρο του Larys Strong να βάλει την Alicent σε υποψίες για το αν η Rhaenyra της είπε την αλήθεια ή όχι (αν και η Rhaenyra ποτέ δεν της ορκίστηκε κάτι σχετικά με τον CC). Δεδομένου ότι είναι ίσως ο πιο αινιγματικός χαρακτήρας του Χορού στο canon των βιβλίων, θα έχει ενδιαφέρον ο τρόπος με τον οποίο θα τον εξελίξουν στη συνέχεια.
