What did GRRM intend for Baelor? Whatever the rights and wrongs of the war its hard to see any King or Lord holding much respect for making peace with the side torturing both him and other prisoners after murdering a King under a peace banner. For any other King that would be an excuse to try and wipe Dorne from existence with a new army fueled by rage and the rest of his reign was a series of follies barely kept in check by Viserys. Is the peace with Dorne his one good act or another mistake?

goodqueenaly:

To me, Baelor I is a criticism of the pursuit of peace to the exclusion of all other policies. It is unquestionable that Daeron I employed a vigorous war policy, and that there was little (although not nothing) in his reign which spoke to a greater political strategy of incorporation of Dorne besides martial conquest. While there was certainly aggression on both sides of the Dornish Marches prior to Daeron’s war, and I’m sure Daeron cited Dornish raids in the southern part of his domain as justification for the invasion, there was surely more than a small amount of desire for glory as the motivating factor (albeit glory for the Westerosi state as well as personal glorification of Daeron himself). There are valid criticisms, in other words, to be had of Daeron’s War of Dornish Conquest, and valid arguments that could paint Daeron as the aggressor, attempting by force to bring the last independent polity of the Westerosi continent under the control of the Iron Throne. 

However, Daeron I’s death is unambiguous: he was murdered, while riding beneath a peace banner, on his way to meet with the Dornish aristocracy to discuss fealty and peace terms. Westerosi armies acknowledge the rights of those traveling under peace banners to have guaranteed safe conduct until they reach their destinations; indeed, it was only after Tyrion’s planned treachery to free Jaime from Riverrun that Catelyn says Ser Cleos “forfeited the protection of [his] peace banner”. The king’s death, occurring in gross violation of this sort of agreement, demanded recognition from his successor. The killing of the Dornish hostages would be the most obvious and traditional response to the king’s own murder, but some action had to be taken to show that the Iron Throne regarded such a move from its would-be vassal state as wholly unacceptable. 

Yet what did Baelor do? Not only did he walk to Dorne barefoot, “clad only in sackcloth” – a wordless sign of penitence from the Iron Throne to the Dornish regicides – but he “publicly forgave his brother’s killers” and spoke of “bind[ing] up the wounds” of Daeron’s conquest. He negotiated a peace treaty with Dorne that not only presumably recognized the latter’s independence (especially since the marriage of young Daeron and Princess Mariah seemed to include the princess surrendering her succession rights), but agreed to the return of the very hostages Daeron had taken to guarantee Dorne’s fealty. He submitted to the humiliation of House Wyl in trying to recuse Prince Aemon without complaint or censure. In all, Baelor put himself, and by extension the nation he now governed as king, as a supplicant of House Martell and the Principality of Dorne – a dramatic reversal from Daeron I’s regnal policy.

Doubtless, Baelor was sincere in wanting peace. Yet what sort of message did his actions send to his new subjects? Thousands from across the continent had joined the Young Dragon in invading Dorne, and many had died in the enterprise (including no less a casualty than the heir to Winterfell). They had followed their king’s orders, had shed blood and even died for him, and had watched him be murdered in a manner totally against the prescribed norms of Westerosi warfare – only to see their new liege say “all is forgiven”. In a real way, these men might have thought Baelor was telling them “you were wrong to follow Daeron”. There was no meaning to be had by the deaths in Dorne, no outrage that could be felt over the king’s murder. Baelor was committed to peace, but it was a peace that ignored the sacrifices of his countrymen and the murder of his predecessor. In his eagerness to end martial conflict with Dorne, Baelor would bend over backwards to pretend Daeron’s war had never happened – and never mind the Houses that had lost husbands, fathers, brothers, and sons, not the least his own. 

Peace is not inherently preferable to war; it is no use hammering one’s sword into a plowshare, to paraphrase Brynden Tully, if one has to forge it into a sword again the next day. Baelor’s peace-at-any-price attitude toward Dorne was not inherently superior to Daeron’s conquest-by-battle philosophy. In both, the author challenges the readers to see the failings of extreme policies taken by two successive Targaryen kings toward Dorne. Baelor’s policy, while certainly not as aggressive as that of his brother, in its own way sowed the seeds of civil destruction to come in the First Blackfyre Rebellion.