Duskendale

She would focus on finding Ned and she would let other things slip her mind.

Renly rides hard to Storm's End, Lord Royce and Balon to the Crownland's army gathering in Duskendale, and the Starks to Winterfell.

But as they see King's Landing fading behind them, Ned lands on Dragonstone to speak to Stannis.

The Lord of Dragonstone awaits him in the Great Hall, his expression grim as ever.

Who could possibly be Barristan Selmy? Dude, his

greatest feat is the defiance of Duskendale.

Yeah, yeah.

Solo's solid snake-ass mission.

His nails had gotten, like, a little long.

But, you know, who among us hasn't let grooming lapse a little bit when you're stressed out, having a tough time? Oh, you know why he looks like that, right? At the

Defiance of Duskendale, they ripped his nails out and plucked his beard, so then he never cut them ever again.

Oh, I didn't even know that.

Aerys did grow a bit paranoid in his later life, but that doesn't mean that his closest advisor wasn't out to get him.

The Defiance of Duskendale is a great example of how this weird psychoanalytical drama unfolded between the two of them.

Lord Darklyn of Duskendale defied the king by demanding lower taxes for his port, which had been hugely hit by the growth of King's Landing.

It was a fair complaint, but his response was far from fair.

Tywin urged restraint, but Aerys decided to go personally to Duskendale, where he was captured and thrown into a dungeon.

Tywin marched the king's army there in response, but Lord Darklyn refused to give up the king.

Eventually, Tywin decided to attack the next morning, which would very probably have led to the king's execution, but for Barristan Selmy's heroics, he did a one-man rescue mission and somehow made it out alive with the king.

The march halts, and the Dornish are pushed back, preventing them from marching north to join Stannis.

The streets of Duskendale are in flames as the freedmen laid siege to it, trying to expand Daenerys' control in the Crownlands.

They surround the town and prepare to capture, just as a relief force sent by Stannis arrives.

In this chaos rides Lord Nestor Royce, clad in black steel, the moon and falcon of House Arryn on its chest.

between miscarriages, infant deaths, they lose eight children.

And then, of course, there's all sorts of other stuff happens, but the final big thing that happens is Duskendale, where he's kidnapped and held captive for six months, following which, once he's rescued, he then locks himself away for four years in the Red Keep, you know, he'd be seeing servants and maybe some of the Kingsguard and stuff like that, but essentially not being seen in public and not going out at all, not engaging with the world at all.

So all of that happens before we meet him, you know.

And so the time when we first meet him in the play, it's his first public moment in four years.