The Queensguard; A Dance with Dragons, ser Barristan reflects upon the Defiance of Duskendale

ser Barristan Selmy over the slain bodies of the enemies
Escape from the Dun Fort; ser Barristan Selmy of the Kingsguard rescuing king Aerys II Targaryen
Ser Barristan reflects upon the kings he served; the failures he suffered...

The Defiance of Duskendale appears to him as quite the moral dilemma; he conducted heroic deeds and fullfilled his duty as a kingsguard, but saving Aerys II ultimately resulted to be bad for the Realm.

Reference excerpt from the book: The Queensguard; A Dance with Dragons

Barristan Selmy had known many kings.

He had been born during the troubled reign of Aegon the Unlikely, beloved by the common folk, had received his knighthood at his hands.
Aegon’s son Jaehaerys had bestowed the white cloak on him when he was three-and-twenty, after he slew Maelys the Monstrous during the War of the Ninepenny Kings.
In that same cloak he had stood beside the Iron Throne as madness consumed Jaehaerys’s son Aerys.

Stood, and saw, and heard, and yet did nothing.

But no. That was not fair.
He did his duty.

Some nights, Ser Barristan wondered if he had not done that duty too well.

He had sworn his vows before the eyes of gods and men, he could not in honor go against them …
but the keeping of those vows had grown hard in the last years of King Aerys’s reign.
He had seen things that it pained him to recall, and more than once he wondered how much of the blood was on his own hands.

If he had not gone into Duskendale to rescue Aerys from Lord Darklyn’s dungeons, the king might well have died there as Tywin Lannister sacked the town.
Then Prince Rhaegar would have ascended the Iron Throne, mayhaps to heal the realm.

Duskendale had been his finest hour, yet the memory tasted bitter on his tongue.


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