Fire & Blood Vol. I does not stint for material on Jaehaerys I – no less than eight chapters, almost three hundred pages, focus on his reign – which means that it is not going to be possible to cover this monarch in one chapter. And since almost all of this is new material, I’m going to go chapter-by-chapter.

Which is not much of a sacrifice, because this is the strongest material in the book, and absolutely the best in-universe historical writing that GRRM has ever done.

Before I go into the point-by-point stuff, I did want to talk about the inter-personal dynamics of Jaehaerys, Alysanne, Alyssa Velaryon, and Rogar Baratheon. While the relationship between Jaehaerys and Alysanne reminds me a lot of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt – the close partnership marred by a few major crackups, the way Alysanne’s progresses and Women’s Courts mirror the way that Eleanor acted as FDR’s eyes-and-ears while pushing him to expand his policy agenda, etc. – in this chapter, the conflict between Jaehaerys and Alyssa and Rogar reminds me a lot of the young Edward III, his mother Isabella of France, and her consort Roger Mortimer, albeit with a much less violent outcome.

It still strikes me as odd that Walder Frey is 21 years older than “the Old King” ever got.

As I suspected, a lot of Jaehaerys’ succession decisions did come down to the fallout of Maegor’s reign: “Although Jaehaerys was the only surviving son of King Aenys I, his older brother Aegon had claimed the kingship before him…if Maegor the Cruel were accounted only a suruper with no right to rule…then Prince Aegon had been the true king.” It doesn’t show up in the Regency chapter, but I imagine the same phenomenon explains why Aegon III didn’t add his mother into the roll of kings.

To the extent that GRRM is responding to any of the criticisms about his handling of gender issues, I thikn we start to see this in the Jaehaerys section, where it feels like he’s created a macro for the term “formidable woman.” More on this as we go on.

For someone known to be a “conciliator,” Jaehaerys is enough of a power politician to not fuck around when it comes to dealing with Maegor’s lackies, throwing Darklyn, Staunton, and Towers into the black cells along with the “King’s Justice, the Lord Confessor, the Chief Gaelor [IRONY!], the Commander of the City Watch, and the four knights of the Kingsguard who had remained beside King Maegor.” Makes me think that Rogar and Alyssa’s arrests were put in there to make Jaehaerys more reasonable.

Regents seem to run into problems with underage monarchs making inconveniently public pronouncements, but rarely figure out a strategy to deal with this. Makes Cersei seem not quite as ineffectual, I guess?

Against Jaehaerys’ general clemency, we do have to note that he does make sure to take hostages (the Baelor model), and has a lot of lower down torturers put to death. (BTW, among the more misogynistic comments in the series, Maladon Moore’s comment that Ceryse “died of “shrewishness”” has got to be up there. Not sorry that dude’s dead.)

While in general, I really liked this chapter, I did find myself somewhat disappointed by the way that the Reconciliation itself happened.

The downfall of Septon Moon was especially disappointing, since we get very few smallfolk characters of historical significance, and I have an emotional attachment to the legacy of John Ball. Not that you didn’t have historical figures like this guy, like the Anabaptist leaders of the Munster rebellion, but there were plenty of religiously-infused populist radicals who weren’t corrupt lunatics, and no one ever wants to tell their stories.

I do really like Donnel Cuncator Hightower, as a rare example of a post-Targaryen Hightower who isn’t an incompetent.

Lorcas the Learned feels like a retread of the Butcher King of Astapor.

While the scene where Joffrey Doggett takes the pardon and a white cloak is a good one, I wasn’t as keen on the Reconciliation happening so early in Jaehaerys’ reign, or omitting the bit from WOIAF where Septon Barth is sent to dicker with the High Septon and work out a deal, which is a far more plausible scenario than everyone being overcome by the pageantry of the Red Dog’s becoming a Kingsguard. If the earlier scenario had been included, it would have worked a bit better (IMO), with Jaehaerys’ actions at Oldtown being the more dramatic and romantic imagery and Septon Barth’s the more realistic power politics.

Speaking of GRRM creating a place for formidable women, I love the twin-swap between Rhaella and Aerea.

Moving on to the next Jaehaerys chapter, or rather, the next Rhaena, Alyssa, and Alyssa chapter!