This post contains major spoilers for A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms‘ third episode. Unless you want to hear a song of spoilers and facts, check out our coverage of episode two until you catch up.
A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms‘ first three episodes featured many clues about Egg’s true identity. Most will be very obvious on a rewatch, including his intense hatred for one of House Taragryen’s most notorious enemies, the “Blackfyre bastards.” It’s a hatred Egg harmonized when he sang “The Anvil and the Hammer” in the show’s third episode.
The Blackfyres were highborn Targaryen bastards. Aegon’s heinous great-grandfather whom he shares a name with, King Aegon the Unworthy, legitimized all his bastards on his deathbed. Years later—fifteen years prior to the Tourney at Ashford—those highborn bastards eventually rose up against their own kin.
Daemon Blackfyre claimed he, and not Aegon’s grandfather King Daeron II, was the rightful heir to the Iron Throne. The civil war known as the Blackfyre Rebellion raged for a year. It ended when Daemon fell in the final clash, later named the Battle of the Redgrass. Dunk briefly referenced Redgrass earlier in season one, as Ser Arlan fought in it on behalf of King Daeron. (Thank goodness for Dunk! Would have been awkward if Ser Arlan fought for Daemon.)
Daemon Blackfyre ultimately failed thanks in part to Prince Baelor and his youngest brother Maekar.
At the Battle of the Redgrass, Daemon Blackfyre almost proved victorious that day. But while King Daeron was no warrior, two of his sons were. His eldest, Baelor, led a combined force of Dornish spearmen and stormlanders. Maekar, Daeron’s youngest son and also a great warrior and battlefield commander himself, led his own force. The singers who commemorated the Battle of the Redgrass credited Baelor and Maekar for stopping the rebellion for good.
Baelor attacked Daemon’s rear, pushing it right into Maekar’s shield wall. The singer’s would remember this winning combination with the yarn “The Hammer and the Anvil.” (George R.R. Martin’s “hammer and anvil” concept is a real military tactic employed throughout history, from Antiquity through World War II.)
Baelor represented the hammer and Maekar the anvil. In A Knight of the Seven Kingdom’s third episode, Dunk found Egg singing this song while the squire whittled in the tree. It’s the first story of any kind to ever include lyrics, which until now had only ever been known by name and subject.
What the song (or at least Egg’s singing) lacks in melody in A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, it makes up for with some clever wordplay.
Prince Baelor was the first born
Prince Maekar sprang out last
Daemon was the bastard,
So they kicked his bastard…
Grass is green in summer,
Green grass I adore
But grass is red all over
When you kill a rebel…
Horses die in battle
This battle was the front
Blackfyre’s not a trueborn,
He came from the wrong….
Country was in peril,
The Hammer smashed the bastard
With his giant veiny
Host of Dornish spearman
Like many songs of great deeds and stories of the Realm, “The Hammer and the Anvil” is incomplete at best and a lie at worst. It omits the actions of the field commander who actually defeated Daemon. Ser Brynden “Bloodraven” Rivers, the only Great Bastard who remained loyal to the crown, and his archers killed Daemon Blackfyre and his two oldest sons (twin boys). Bloodraven did so before Baelor even entered the field where Maekar had long been holding his own.
(You can guess how the “history” of this event made Maekar feel. He felt his contributions went unappreciated while his beloved brother was unfairly heralded.)
While the Baelor and Maeker’s strategy did then crush the remaining Blackfyre forces together, they allowed Daemon’s second in command to escape. The Great Bastard Aegor “Bittersteel” Rivers made his way across the Narrow Sea following the Battle of the Redgrass. Considering Daemon’s uprising would eventually be known as the First Blackyre Rebellion, Bittersteel’s escape would come back to haunt the Iron Throne.
The singers didn’t know the future when they wrote “The Hammer and the Anvil,” though. It probably wouldn’t have mattered even if they did. They didn’t care about the truth.
Mikey Walsh is a staff writer at Nerdist. He really wants HBO to adapt the Blackfyre Rebellion. You can follow him on Bluesky at @burgermike. And also anywhere someone is ranking the Targaryen kings.
The post The Story Behind Egg’s Song ‘The Hammer and the Anvil’ in A KNIGHT OF THE SEVEN KINGDOMS appeared first on Nerdist.
Source: Kiat Media
0 Comments