And while I'm on the topic of Selmy, here's a bit of fanfiction I did between him and Davos:

"Ser Davos," he had said longer into the night "I wish to go for a quiet walk in the moonlight. Would you accompany me?"

Davos had no reason deny him, and all the fears that he would leave him. So he said yes, and for a few minutes, the two walked quietly near the harbour side of the city.

"Were they good children?" said Ser Barristan suddenly "Stannis's, I mean. I remember his girl dimly, before the greyscale saw Stannis keep her away. And I did not see or know anything of the boy."

"Steffon," mumbled Davos to the older knight "His name was Steffon, for Lord Stannis's father. he was only a baby. He cried and shat and slept. I didn't see much of him accounting on his mother's side not thinking too highly for me. But I could always visit Shireen when she was doting on the boy, and I'd trade her stories of her brother or things I'd been doing outside Dragonstone for a smile or two. She had a kind heart, that girl. Didn't deserve what those scum did to her, nor Steffon. Not even Selyse, though she was a might stern and unkind."

"No child deserves death," said Barristan softly "Yet a part of me wonders if it was not a cruel justice, for Aegon and Rhaenys."

"If it had been justice," said Davos angrily "They would have killed the Queen's children. Or two of Lord Tywin's nephews and nieces. Shireen wasn't born when the war happened. Steffon was only a babe. So do not speak to me of justice, ser. There is little enough of that around, and certainly none came to those children."

"Did it come to Rhaegar's children?"

"Perhaps their father should have thought better than steal another's betrothed," said Davos with a spit to the ground "Or perhaps their grandfather should have been stopped from burning men and women alive. A knight perhaps, could have done that. Were there any there, Ser Barristan?"

"I swore oaths, Ser Davos. Perhaps the finer particles of knighthood elude you-"

"Knighthood doesn't elude me, Ser Barristan. I understand the idea pretty well. But it does not escape me that a knight seems to need oaths to the do the right thing, whereas the rest of us manage just fine without it. I was a smuggler before Lord Stannis knighted me, before he raised me up. How many lords let him starve at Storm's End, were willing to let him and the garrison die from hunger before I snuck through the blockade?"

"And yet he took your fingers," pointed out the older knight "For the crime of smuggling."

"The good does not wash out the bad, nor the bad the good. He punished me, aye. He also raised me up, gave me lands and income, gave a future to my sons, a kinder life to my wife. Stannis did that, for a poor smuggler who gave him onions and salted fish. What did Aerys or Rhaegar ever give you, Ser Barristan? What did they ever give the Kingslayer, or any other of your sworn brothers. A seat of honour? A white cloak?"

The Kingsguard knight stood silent at that.

"I did not choose to serve Aerys, nor would I have chosen to serve Rhaegar, or Viserys, had the Targaryens defeated Robert. There is more to the Kingsguard than the armour, than the whitecloak, Ser Davos. Behind the metal and cloth, there is an ideal, a standard."

"And that ideal is?"

"That those assembled within the White Sword Tower are the greatest knights in the realm, that they have been recognized as such by their peers, that they have been named as such by the king."

"Criston Cole the Kingmaker. Jaime Lannister the Kingslayer. I could go on."

"It has not always been so, that is true. There have been adulterers, traitors, cowards, kingmakers and kingslayers within it's ranks, fell folk of every region sworn to the Iron Throne. But the ideal persists, Ser Davos. It is greater than Barristan Selmy, or Jaime Lannister. It will be greater than Loras Tyrell or Jon Stormcrown. It is the mark upon a man to be considered for the honour, or to be denied it. Songs are sung of the knights so named, of their deeds and daring, their actions written into history and time as if it were parchment, their ladies as glorious as the sun.

You ask what the Targaryens gave me? They gave me my honour. My words and my deeds. Without a Targaryen, I would not have become Ser Barristan the Bold. I would have been the Knight of Harvest Hall after my father, I would have taken a neighbour's daughter for wife to keep the peace, and I would have fathered sons and daughters of varying worth and died in my bed, surrounded by those who would bury me."

"Only a knight or a lord," said the Onion Knight with a shake of his head "Would spit on a warm home and sons and daughters, while speaking of chivalry and glory. There is more glory and greatness in fatherhood, than any of your tourneys and battles, Ser Barristan Selmy. I am saddened you cannot see that."

"I am saddened you think it, Ser Davos. Come, the night is dark and our ship leaves early. We'd best get a few hours of sleep while we can."