 |
This Article Contains Spoilers -
WARNING: This article contains major spoilers. If you do not wish to know vital information on plot / character elements in a story, you may not wish to read beyond this warning: We hold no responsibility for any negative effects these facts may have on your enjoyment of said media should you continue. That is all. |
  |
This article's content is marked as Mature The page contains mature content that may include coarse language, sexual references, and/or graphic violent images which may be disturbing to some. Mature pages are recommended for those who are 18 years of age and older. If you are 18 years or older or are comfortable with graphic material, you are free to view this page. Otherwise, you should close this page and view another page. |
| “ | Larys: The beacon on the Hightower. Do you know what color it glows when Oldtown calls its banners to war? Harwin: Green. |
„ |
| ~ Larys and Harwin Strong. |
| “ | The road ahead is uncertain, but the end is clear. Aegon will be King. | „ |
| ~ Otto Hightower to Queen Alicent Hightower. |
| “ | Those who sat at the black council counted themselves loyalists, but knew full well that King Aegon II would name them traitors. Each had already received a summons from King's Landing, demanding they present themselves at the Red Keep to swear oaths of loyalty to the new king. All their hosts combined could not match the power the Hightowers alone could field. Aegon's greens enjoyed other advantages as well. Oldtown, King's Landing, and Lannisport were the largest and richest cities in the realm; all three were held by greens. Every visible symbol of legitimacy belonged to Aegon. | „ |
| ~ Writings of Archmaester Gyldayn about the Greens' position after Viserys I's death. |
The Greens, originally known as The Queen's Party, are major characters in the A Song of Ice and Fire novel series and the main antagonists of the television adaptation House of the Dragon.
They were a political faction in the court of King Viserys I Targaryen that were in favor of his firstborn son, Prince Aegon, by his second wife, Queen Alicent Hightower, succeeding him to the Iron Throne instead of his only child from his first marriage, Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen, who had been declared Viserys's heir. After Viserys's death, they seized power and crowned Aegon as King Aegon II, beginning the civil war known as the Dance of the Dragons. They used the personal sigil of Aegon II as their battle flag: the sigil of House Targaryen, with the dragon being gold instead of red, to honor the dragon Sunfyre. They were opposed by the Blacks, the party supporting Rhaenyra's claim. The most prominent and leading families of the Greens are House Targaryen (Aegon II's faction), House Hightower, House Baratheon, and House Lannister.
After the end of the war and the deaths of their respective Targaryen leaders, peace was made between the Greens and the Blacks under the ascension of King Aegon III Targaryen, whose regency before his coming of age saw a small council and a council of regents made of both former Greens and Blacks, by then disbanded political parties. Known Greens to have served under Aegon III as government officials were the Hands Ser Tyland Lannister and Lord Unwin Peake, Ser Gedmund Peake, Ser Willis Fell, Ser Marston Waters, Lord George Graceford, and Ser Victor Risley.
Biography[]
After the death of Queen Aemma Arryn in childbirth, King Viserys I married Alicent of House Hightower, the daughter of the Hand of the King, Ser Otto Hightower. In 107 AC (or 113 AC in the TV series), Queen Alicent gave birth to Prince Aegon. By both traditional Westerosi inheritance and the precedent set by the Great Council of 101 AC (in which Viserys himself was chosen to succeed King Jaehaerys I instead of his older cousin Rhaenys, despite her being the daughter of Jaehaerys's eldest son), Aegon should have been declared heir. But Viserys had named Rhaenyra, his only surviving child with Aemma, as his heiress apparent the year before Aegon was born. Alicent and Otto began rallying their family and allies to support Aegon in opposition to Rhaenyra.
The greens got their name from a vibrant green gown worn by Queen Alicent during the tournament celebrating her and Viserys's fifth anniversary (in the show, this took place at the wedding of Rhaenyra and Laenor Velaryon), and thereafter, those who supported her also wore green at all times. They were opposed by the blacks, who supported Rhaenyra. They named the color of the dress Rhaenyra wore to the same event, and soon they adopted the same wardrobe custom as the greens.
The greens spread rumors that Rhaenyra's sons by Laenor Velaryon were in fact bastards fathered by Ser Harwin Strong to encourage Viserys to disinherit her in favor of Aegon. He never relented, however, and decreed that anyone who questioned the legitimacy of the boys would have their tongue removed.
Dance of the Dragons[]
When Viserys died in 129 AC (or 132 AC in the series), the small council, which was dominated by greens, conspired to crown Aegon as King while the pregnant Rhaenyra was away on Dragonstone. The one member who protested, Master of Coin Lord Lyman Beesbury, was murdered by Ser Criston Cole. They kept the King's death secret until their plans were complete. Any blacks in the capital who couldn't flee were imprisoned or murdered. Aegon was crowned with the crown of Aegon the Conqueror in the Dragonpit as King Aegon II Targaryen, and soon after, the blacks declared war by crowning Rhaenyra on Dragonstone with her father's crown, which had been stolen.
Aegon's possession of the Iron Throne and the Conqueror's sword, Blackfyre, greatly enhanced his image and drew many Lords to his side. Initial diplomatic efforts turned to open violence when Aegon's brother Aemond murdered Lucerys Velaryon, Rhaenyra's second son, over Storm's End. In response, Rhaenyra's husband, Daemon, sent two assassins after Aegon's children, murdering his eldest son, Jaehaerys and driving his sister-queen Helaena to madness as a result. Perceiving his grandfather's diplomacy with entities such as the Triarchy and Dorne as a waste of time, Aegon fired Otto as Hand and replaced him with Ser Criston Cole, now the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard.
After Aegon was badly wounded in the Battle of Rook's Rest, Aemond took command of the green forces and marched north with Ser Criston to take the blacks' base of operations in the riverlands: Harrenhal. But Daemon had lured Aemond to Harrenhal to leave King's Landing vulnerable, and it was taken by the blacks. However, with the help of Master of Whisperers Larys Strong, Aegon and his two surviving children escaped capture. Alicent tried to offer a peace deal with Rhaenyra to split the realm in half, with the Westerlands, Reach, and Stormlands being ruled by Aegon from Oldtown while Rhaenyra ruled the North, Vale, Riverlands, and Crownlands from King's Landing, but she refused.
Enraged by the fall of the capital, Aemond began terrorizing the Riverlands with his dragon, Vhagar. Ser Criston tried to return to King's Landing but was trapped by an army of rivermen and killed. Daemon went after Aemond on his dragon Caraxes. The two and their dragons killed each other in an aerial duel over the Gods Eye.
In the south, Aegon's youngest brother Daeron and Lord Ormund Hightower rallied a new army of greens, sacking Bitterbridge when Prince Maelor, Aegon's second son, was murdered there. Two of Rhaenyra's dragonriders, the bastards Hugh Hammer and Ulf the White, defected to the Greens when they were sent to deal with them at Tumbleton. But when the two began having their own aspirations, they were killed by the greens. In the following Second Battle of Tumbleton, Daeron and his dragon Tessarion were also killed.
During this time, Aegon had secretly taken residence on Dragonstone. After Queen Helaena committed suicide (or was murdered, according to some), King's Landing fell into riots, resulting in Rhaenyra fleeing the capital. When she returned to Dragonstone, she was captured and fed to Aegon II's dragon Sunfyre as her son Aegon the Younger watched in horror. Sunfyre would die of his many wounds a few months later.
Aegon II returned to King's Landing, but he only reigned for a short time, as when an army of blacks led by Lord Kermit Tully, now supporting Aegon the Younger's claim, reached the capital and defeated Lord Borros Baratheon, the small council decided that the war was lost and urged Aegon II to abdicate and join the Night's Watch. When he refused, the council poisoned him. Rhaenyra's son was then crowned King Aegon III, and he married Aegon II's last surviving child, Princess Jaehaera, to reunite House Targaryen.
The war officially ended with the mutual exhaustion of both sides and the hatred of the smallfolk toward the nobility. With all the belligerent adult Targaryens dead, Greens and Blacks negotiated peace and joined in helping the boy Aegon III restore the King's peace and repair the damage done to the lands. For their actions and atrocities, and how meaningless they ended up being in the long term, both the Greens and the Blacks are remembered negatively and resentfully in the history of Westeros.
Though the Greens were not victorious in the Dance of the Dragons, they were, however, posthumously triumphant in the conflict of the succession laws: to prevent any future king from doing the same actions the late King Viserys I did in the past, the law of succession was permanently codified and revised to place female heirs behind all possible male heirs. King Aegon II historically went down as the legitimate king over Rhaenyra, who is branded a usurper in Westeros history. Though she was unsuccessful in fully securing her throne, the Blacks, however, achieved her wish of securing the Iron Throne for her thought-to-be last surviving son, Prince Aegon the Younger, who was crowned as King Aegon III after the Blacks forced the Greens to surrender in the war's closing stage. As all the trueborn male heirs of Aegon II had perished in the Dance of the Dragons and Queen Jaehaera had mysteriously and allegedly committed suicide during the early regency of her husband (Aegon III), Rhaenyra's bloodline lived on to carry House Targaryen's royal lineage through her surviving sons, King Aegon III and then later King Viserys II. However, the subsequent Targaryen members descended from the latter.
Prominent Members[]
House Targaryen
- King Aegon II Targaryen, rode Sunfyre
- Queen Helaena Targaryen, rode Dreamfyre
- Prince regent Aemond Targaryen, rode Vhagar
- Prince Daeron Targaryen, rode Tessarion
- Prince Jaehaerys Targaryen, bonded to Shrykos
- Princess Jaehaera Targaryen, bonded to Morghul
- Prince Maelor Targaryen
- Queen Dowager Alicent Hightower
Green Council
- Ser Otto Hightower, Hand of the King
- Ser Criston Cole, Lord Commander of the Kingsguard, later appointed as Hand after Otto's dismissal
- Grand Maester Orwyle
- Lord Jasper Wylde, Master of Laws
- Lord Larys Strong, Master of Whisperers and Lord Confessor
- Ser Tyland Lannister, Master of Ships, then Master of Coin
- Lord Corlys Velaryon, Master of Ships (Temporaly; after 130 AC)
Kingsguard
- Ser Arryk Cargyll
- Ser Willis Fell
- Ser Rickard Thorne
- Ser Marston Waters
- Ser Gyles Belgrave
Known Houses that supported Aegon II
- House Lannister
- House Lefford
- House Swyft
- House Tarbeck
- House Reyne
- House Crakehall
- House Baratheon
- House Hightower
- House Peake
- House Redwyne
- House Fossoway
- House Roxton
- House Ambrose
- House Norcross
- House Risley
- House Leygood
- House Tully (initially; defected)
- House Strong
- House Vance
- House Butterwell
- House Bracken (later defected)
Defected from the blacks
- House Velaryon
- House Stokeworth
- House Rosby
- House Mooton
Other allies
- Triarchy (Lys, Myr, and Tyrosh)
- City Watch of King's Landing (served the Blacks since the Fall of King's Landing, subsequently served the Greens again after the retaking)
- Septon Eustace
- Alys Rivers
- Hugh Hammer, rode Vermithor
- Ulf White, rode Silverwing
Quotes[]
| “ | Ser Tyland pointed out that many of the lords who had sworn to defend the succession of Princess Rhaenyra were long dead. "It has been twenty-four years," he said. "I myself swore no such oath. I was a child at the time." Ironrod, the master of laws, cited the Great Council of 101 and the Old King's choice of Baelon rather than Rhaenys in 92, then discoursed at length about Aegon the Conqueror and his sisters, and the hallowed Andal tradition wherein the rights of a trueborn son always came before the rights of a mere daughter. Ser Otto reminded them that Rhaenyra's husband was none other than Prince Daemon, and "we all know that one's nature. Make no mistake, should Rhaenyra ever sit the Iron Throne, it will be Lord Flea Bottom who rules us, a king consort as cruel and unforgiving as Maegor ever was. My own head will be the first cut off, I do not doubt, but your queen, my daughter, will soon follow." Queen Alicent echoed him. "Nor will they spare my children," she declared. "Aegon and his brothers are the king's trueborn sons, with a better claim to the throne than her brood of bastards. Daemon will find some pretext to put them all to death. Even Helaena and her little ones. One of these Strongs put out Aemond's eye, never forget. He was a boy, aye, but the boy is the father to the man, and bastards are monstrous by nature." Ser Criston Cole spoke up. Should the princess reign, he reminded them, Jacaerys Velaryon would rule after her. "Seven save this realm if we seat a bastard on the Iron Throne." He spoke of Rhaenyra's wanton ways and the infamy of her husband. "They will turn the Red Keep into a brothel. No man's daughter will be safe, nor any man's wife. Even the boys…we know what Laenor was." It is not recorded that Lord Larys Strong spoke a word during this debate, but that was not unusual. |
„ |
| ~ The Green Council's motivations to crown Prince Aegon over Princess Rhaenyra. |
| “ | Cregan: Small boys become large men in time, and a babe sucks down his mother's hate with his mother's milk. Finish these foes now, or those of us not in our graves in twenty years will rue our folly when those babes strap on their father's swords and come seeking after vengeance. Corlys: King Aegon said the same and died for it. Had he heeded our counsel and offered peace and pardon to our foes, he might be sitting with us here today. |
„ |
| ~ Cregan Stark and Corlys Velaryon, discussing the former's paranoid wish to keep warring against the Houses Hightower, Baratheon and Lannister for being Aegon II's chief supporters. |
External Links[]
- Greens on the A Wiki of Ice and Fire.
- Greens on the Game of Thrones Wiki.
