I sort of wonder what precisely Bloodraven was thinking during that time period.
Mulling it over, I imagine his response to this sort of advice would be “Aerys is a King, not a God; he controls neither the weather nor the plagues. As for Dagon Greyjoy, we have a Warden of the West, a Warden of the North, and a Warden of the South for a reason, and we expect them to use their great wealth, authority, resources, and power to deal with Lord Greyjoy’s treason whilst the attention of the Crown and the Warden of the East is on our foes across the narrow sea.”
Because it isn’t like the Crown has vast armies of its own, right? It provides leadership, of course, and it can be argued that perhaps it should have picked one of the three Wardens most affected by Dagon’s reaving and put them in overall charge… but the whole point of the Warden system is for those specific lords to see to the defense of the Realm in their areas of authority. When the wildlings come south of the Wall, the Wardens of the North don’t appeal to the Iron Throne for protection; they muster a host and offer battle themselves. The Tyrells have a standing fleet, and the Starks and Lannisters wherewithal to build one. Indeed, that’s how they dealt with the Ironborn in the wake of the Red Kraken; the Lannisters and the Tyrells did not wait for the Regency Council to bestir itself, they gathered their own forces and dealt with the problem.
It isn’t unreasonable to demand that House Targaryen uphold its duty to defend its vassals… but it also isn’t unreasonable to point out that they have Wardens for that express purpose. In the time before the Dragonkings, the King of the Rock or the King of the Reach might be worried about leaving their own lands undefended while they made war among the Iron Islands. Such threats largely didn’t exist under the Targaryens, which means one might expect them to deal with the problem using their own resources, which utterly dwarf those of the Ironborn.
I’m sure that’s what Bloodraven would have liked people to think, but I don’t think that’s how his actions were taken – in no small part because the feudal social contract has reciprocal obligations of protection and support:
Uphold the feudal social contract. Daeron II kept the Iron Throne entirely because his bannermen stepped up and held the line even when the Hand and the King himself (if we’re being honest) were completely ineffectual.
Especially when you’re in the opening stages of a multi-generational civil war and you’ve just gone from Valarr to Aerys as your figurehead, you need to reward that loyalty because it’s what’s going to win you the war in the long-run.
So the King needs to be seen to be actively protecting his people, whether that’s in relief of the Great Spring Sickness and the drought, or in using at least part of the royal navy along with the Oldtown fleet to crush Dagon Greyjoy like a bug.
I would argue that the Third Blackfyre Rebellion could have been made a lot more like the Fourth if they’d done that…
“They say the king gives justice and protects the weak.“
“Why do the gods make kings and queens, if not to protect the ones who can’t protect themselves?”
“There’s much I don’t understand,“ Davos admitted. "I have never pretended elsewise. I know the seas and rivers, the shapes of the coasts, where the rocks and shoals lie. I know hidden coves where a boat can land unseen. And I know that a king protects his people, or he is no king at all.”
When you look at the various texts (ASOIAF, D&E, WOIAF), you see a pretty broad consensus that the King is falling down on the job, stretching from Maester Yandel to the hedge knights at Whitewalls, which suggests an expectation of royal assistance.
Again, I don’t think the King had to move heaven and earth to clear that bar – just a demonstration that the King was actively involved in uphold the King’s Peace and the King’s Justice.
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