Willem Darry - Tumblr Posts

Daenerys Targaryen Appreciation Week

↪ One quote

Dany hungered and thirsted with the rest of them. The milk in her breasts dried up, her nipples cracked and bled, and the flesh fell away from her day by day until she was lean and hard as a stick, yet it was her dragons she feared for. Her father had been slain before she was born, and her splendid brother Rhaegar as well. Her mother had died bringing her into the world while the storm screamed outside. Gentle Ser Willem Darry, who must have loved her after a fashion, had been taken by a wasting sickness when she was very young. Her brother Viserys, Khal Drogo who was her sun-and-stars, even her unborn son, the gods had claimed them all. They will not have my dragons, Dany vowed. They will not.

The house with the red door in Braavos

@lovinhistorywithswords asked:

Hi Butterfly!  @racefortheironthrone pointed me your way for this question. Why do you think the “house with the red door” is in Braavos?  And where is it in the city?

Interesting question. The “house with the red door”, the house where Dany lived her earliest childhood, is in Braavos because that’s where Ser Willem Darry fled with the Targaryen children after their escape from Dragonstone. So the real question here is, why did Darry choose Braavos?

Per the map of the Narrow Sea, the Free City of Pentos looks a lot closer to Dragonstone than Braavos does, right? So why does it seem that Darry went out of his way?

Well, there’s more to it than just a simple glance at the map. The text of the book is illuminating:

She had been born on Dragonstone nine moons after their flight, while a raging summer storm threatened to rip the island fastness apart. They said that storm was terrible. The Targaryen fleet was smashed while it lay at anchor, and huge stone blocks were ripped from the parapets and sent hurtling into the wild waters of the narrow sea. Her mother had died birthing her, and for that her brother Viserys had never forgiven her. She did not remember Dragonstone either. They had run again, just before the Usurper’s brother set sail with his new-built fleet. By then only Dragonstone itself, the ancient seat of their House, had remained of the Seven Kingdoms that had once been theirs. It would not remain for long. The garrison had been prepared to sell them to the Usurper, but one night Ser Willem Darry and four loyal men had broken into the nursery and stolen them both, along with her wet nurse, and set sail under cover of darkness for the safety of the Braavosian coast.

–AGOT, Daenerys I

So, first of all, we see that that Stannis’s fleet was coming up from Storm’s End. Willem Darry surely thought he couldn’t trust traveling south when a fleet that might intercept them was right there in the south. Secondly, we see that Darry’s ship didn’t land in Braavos itself, but the Braavosian Coastlands, which are a lot closer to Dragonstone, just about equidistant to Pentos. Thirdly, geography is much more complicated than what you see on the map – it involves weather as well:

The storms that blow up the narrow sea are infamous throughout the Seven Kingdoms, and in the Nine Free Cities as well. Though they may arise in any season, seafarers say that the worst of them come each autumn, forming in the warm waters of the Summer Sea south of the Stepstones, then roaring north across those bleak and stony islands.

–The World of Ice and Fire

The prevailing winds in the Narrow Sea come from the south and blow north. There had just been a “raging summer storm” at Dragonstone, and the weather was probably still very unsettled. So, a small ship (with sails, not a galley with oars) traveling across the Narrow Sea would probably find it more difficult to go south-east – better to make use of the winds and go north-east instead, up to Braavosi territory, and eventually to the city of Braavos.

And lastly, there’s politics. The spymaster Varys had come from Pentos, and Varys had just been pardoned by Robert and was now on his side. Willem Darry might not have been as politically astute as some, but he almost certainly believed that with Varys’s connections in Pentos, it wouldn’t be safe to take the Targaryen children there. (The fact that Dany and Viserys eventually ended up in Pentos… well, they had long since lost Darry’s guidance, since he had died years before.)

So, that’s why Braavos. As for where the house with the red door might be in the city:

That was when they lived in Braavos, in the big house with the red door. Dany had her own room there, with a lemon tree outside her window. After Ser Willem had died, the servants had stolen what little money they had left, and soon after they had been put out of the big house. Dany had cried when the red door closed behind them forever. 

–AGOT, Daenerys I

Trees did not grow on Braavos, save in the courts and gardens of the mighty.

–AFFC, Samwell III

This is not a contradiction (or some ~conspiracy~ that Dany’s beliefs about her childhood are a lie, as some crack theorists would have it). No, what it tells us is that this “big” house, with a lemon tree in its courtyard or garden, was in a neighborhood where the mighty of Braavos live.

Now, you can see the northeasternmost part of the city is where the Sealord’s Palace is, near the Purple Harbor where only Braavosi can dock. (It’s much nicer and cleaner and richer than the Ragman’s Harbor in the west.) The northeast of Braavos is also where the Iron Bank is located, and on the map there are many palaces and large houses with courtyards depicted in that area of the city. Also, we know that the Sealord was a witness to the secret betrothal contract between Viserys and Arianne Martell (arranged by Willem Darry and Oberyn Martell).

So I think it’s very likely that the house with the red door was located in the northeast of the city, probably not very far from the Sealord’s Palace. It might have been in some other wealthy neighborhood (near the palaces of the Prestayns or Antaryons maybe), but I’d still give odds on the northeast. But hopefully we’ll get an exact location of the house with the red door before the series is over, and then we can know for sure. :)

What she says: “I’m fine.”

What she means: “If Daenerys spent the first few years of her life in Braavos, learned to speak there, and assumedly learned Valyrian there… why does she speak with a Tyroshi accent???? Did she really grow up in Braavos?? Or does she remember growing up there when she actually grew up in Tyrosh??? Why????????????”

DAENERYS APPRECIATION MONTH 2021: ↳ Day 8: Visions

She fled from him, but only as far as the next open door. I know this room , she thought. She remembered those great wooden beams and the carved animal faces that adorned them. And there outside the window, a lemon tree! The sight of it made her heart ache with longing. It is the house with the red door, the house in Braavos. No sooner had she thought it than old Ser Willem came into the room, leaning heavily on his stick. “Little princess, there you are,” he said in his gruff kind voice. “Come,” he said, “come to me, my lady, you’re home now, you’re safe now.” His big wrinkled hand reached for her, soft as old leather, and Dany wanted to take it and hold it and kiss it, she wanted that as much as she had ever wanted anything. Her foot edged forward, and then she thought, He’s dead, he’s dead, the sweet old bear, he died a long time ago. She backed away and ran.

They will not have my dragons, Dany vowed. They will not. — ACOK, Daenerys I

Freya Allan as book!Daenerys Targaryen, Heath Ledger as book!Rhaegar Targaryen, Alexandra Moen as book!Rhaella Targaryen, André Dussollier as book!Willem Darry & Jamie Campbell Bower as book!Viserys Targaryen

Daenerys Targaryen Appreciation Week

↪ One quote

Dany hungered and thirsted with the rest of them. The milk in her breasts dried up, her nipples cracked and bled, and the flesh fell away from her day by day until she was lean and hard as a stick, yet it was her dragons she feared for. Her father had been slain before she was born, and her splendid brother Rhaegar as well. Her mother had died bringing her into the world while the storm screamed outside. Gentle Ser Willem Darry, who must have loved her after a fashion, had been taken by a wasting sickness when she was very young. Her brother Viserys, Khal Drogo who was her sun-and-stars, even her unborn son, the gods had claimed them all. They will not have my dragons, Dany vowed. They will not.