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Targaryen twisted and deformed, scaled dragon babies, fishing for theories


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Sorry this post is all over the place and not much direction, but I want to get a feel for people's thoughts on the subject.




It became pretty clear in the early Targ chapters of the TWOIAF that it was actually pretty common Targ babies came out scaled or deformed with tails and described as monsters.




Maegor had a bunch, an eyeless monstrosity from Alys Harroway, Elinor Costayne and Jeyne Westerling but it is said that Tyanna of the Tower took responsibility for this.



Aegon II had a twisted malformed stillborn with a hole in her chest an a stubby scaled tail from Rhaenyra Targ



Aegon IV had some stilborns



Tyrion Lannister malformed, demonic eyes and a possible tail. (there is the obvious Aerys Targ theory)



Daemon Targ had a twisted deformed son to Laena



In Mantarys, which is closest inhabited place to Valaryia after the the Doom, men are born twisted and monstrous



Danerys Targ had Rhaego who was a monstrosity with scales and a tail, which was most likely due to the blood magic, but who knows.



I think there are more, but don't feel like doing that exhaustive a search.




I am fishing for theories on why this is a common theme among the Targs.



Obviously, the presence of magic and sorcery is there, but it's not present in all cases.



Aerys, Maegor, maybe Daemon were A-holes, but after reading The Princess and the Queen, I don't really believe that Viserys II was, he sort of just got wrapped up into DwD mostly by Alicent and Hightower.



Also, several come from incest, but once again not all.



In the novels and certainly in TWOIAF it's pretty clear that all of Tywin's kid's could be Aerys's, but the Targ twisted children thing, definitely makes it look like if it's only one, it's Tyrion.



Is it because Targ's are magic and the blood of the dragon? Is there something unnatural about the unions that the god's punish? Is it straight up that there is sorcery involved? Is it that the Maester's are poisoning Targs because they hate Targs, magic and dragons? How does the fact (or fabrication that the places located near the demon road and in close proximity to the Doom produce monstrosities relate?



I don't know, but was wondering what you guys thought about this theme amongst the Targs.


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I think it's because the Valyrians originate near the fourteen flames like the dragons, which explains why they alone have the power to subdue/tame dragons. Some of the dragonlord families controlled their dragons with horns, some used sorcery like the Targs (same as what Dany did in the pyre). And during said sorcery, genes were magically mixed and part of the dragons imprinted on the Targaryens. So for the rest of time Targaryens sometimes have deformed dragon-like babies.



You left out Rhaenyra in Patq.


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I think it's because the Valyrians originate near the fourteen flames like the dragons, which explains why they alone have the power to subdue/tame dragons. Some of the dragonlord families controlled their dragons with horns, some used sorcery like the Targs (same as what Dany did in the pyre). And during said sorcery, genes were magically mixed and part of the dragons imprinted on the Targaryens. So for the rest of time Targaryens sometimes have deformed dragon-like babies.

You left out Rhaenyra in Patq.

And of course, as I am pretty sure you agree, it is planted as another clue regarding A+J=T (which I know was acknowledged in the OP). But I think one of the beggest reasons that GRRM introduced this concept was to give attentive readers a clue that Tyrion seems to have been born with some of the same issues as these Targ babies. Could Tyrion really be a Targ bastard? I tend to think, yes.

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Like King Renly said about Stannis and his kingship. They deny Tyrion is Aery's son from the Wall to Sunspear in Dorne, babes in their mother's wombs and men on their death bed deny Tyrion Lannister Targaryen is Aerys Bastard. People only want there to be one hidden prince Jon Snow. That's why they dislike Aegon and Tyrion being secret Targs, even though GRRM is smashing the hidden prince trope by having mulitple hidden or secret princes. Aegon, Jon Snow and Tyrion all hidden, only Aegon knows about his true "heritage" as I do believe that he his really Rheagar and Elia. Jon Con doens't seem like the man one would want to fool.


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And of course, as I am pretty sure you agree, it is planted as another clue regarding A+J=T (which I know was acknowledged in the OP). But I think one of the beggest reasons that GRRM introduced this concept was to give attentive readers a clue that Tyrion seems to have been born with some of the same issues as these Targ babies. Could Tyrion really be a Targ bastard? I tend to think, yes.

Yes of course I agree :)

Like King Renly said about Stannis and his kingship. They deny Tyrion is Aery's son from the Wall to Sunspear in Dorne, babes in their mother's wombs and men on their death bed deny Tyrion Lannister Targaryen is Aerys Bastard. People only want there to be one hidden prince Jon Snow. That's why they dislike Aegon and Tyrion being secret Targs, even though GRRM is smashing the hidden prince trope by having mulitple hidden or secret princes. Aegon, Jon Snow and Tyrion all hidden, only Aegon knows about his true "heritage" as I do believe that he his really Rheagar and Elia. Jon Con doens't seem like the man one would want to fool.

Um, this is not the right thread to discuss all of this, but I think your post is all kinds of wrong. Jon is the only 'hidden' Prince in these books.

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Tyrion does not fit in the sad group of Targ malformed babies: all Targ neonates whith the dragon-like malformation are stillborns or have a very short lifespan, while Tyrion is perfectly viable (and not dragon like). More likely the Targ malformations where attributed to Tyrion by the smallfolk exactly because they considered him a Targ bastard.


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I wonder if these twisted babies are part of the price of having used blood magic?



Another thing I'm curious about is if other dragonlord families had to deal with these same sort of deformities or if this was something that was a Targaryen thing.



It's said that the Targaryens weren't among the most powerful of the dragonlord families and it seems that each family practiced incest in order to keep the bloodlines pure. To me this suggests that some Valyrian blood is more powerful than others even among the dragonriding families so I wonder if it's possible that this was something that would happen with Targaryens with other families having their own hereditary issues whatever they might have been.



I just have to think that there's a reason why the dragonriding families weren't just marrying each other but seemed to prefer to keep marriage within the family.



Also, maybe this theoretical weakness in the Targaryen blood was one of the reasons they weren't considered to be among the most powerful of the dragonlord families.


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I wonder if these twisted babies are part of the price of having used blood magic?

Another thing I'm curious about is if other dragonlord families had to deal with these same sort of deformities or if this was something that was a Targaryen thing.

It's said that the Targaryens weren't among the most powerful of the dragonlord families and it seems that each family practiced incest in order to keep the bloodlines pure. To me this suggests that some Valyrian blood is more powerful than others even among the dragonriding families so I wonder if it's possible that this was something that would happen with Targaryens with other families having their own hereditary issues whatever they might have been.

I just have to think that there's a reason why the dragonriding families weren't just marrying each other but seemed to prefer to keep marriage within the family.

Also, maybe this theoretical weakness in the Targaryen blood was one of the reasons they weren't considered to be among the most powerful of the dragonlord families.

Those are interesting possibilities. I think SS suggested that different dragonlord families might have been bound to specific lines of dragons and only the Targ line of dragons has survived. If that is the case, it might explain why there was not cross-marrying by different dragonlord families--it would complicate the dragon lines bound to a specific family. I don't know--this issue is even more murky than I thought every time I reexamine the available evidence.

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That's not how incest works anyway. You can't build up incest over generations.

I am not sure what you mean. In the real world, the more generations of incest that occurs, the more genetic defects that tend to come out. And it is not just with pure incest--any isolated group can have the same effect. Hemophilia by the British royals, Tay-Sachs Disease among Ashkenazi Jews, etc. The more isolated a gene pool, the more likely a recessive mutation will become prominent. So one case of a brother/sister marriage will not be as likely to result in genetic defects as multiple generations of such couplings.

But GRRM has made it clear that genetics on Planetos are not qute the same as our world.

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I am not sure what you mean. In the real world, the more generations of incest that occurs, the more genetic defects that tend to come out. And it is not just with pure incest--any isolated group can have the same effect. Hemophilia by the British royals, Tay-Sachs Disease among Ashkenazi Jews, etc. The more isolated a gene pool, the more likely a recessive mutation will become prominent. So one case of a brother/sister marriage will not be as likely to result in genetic defects as multiple generations of such couplings.

But GRRM has made it clear that genetics on Planetos are not qute the same as our world.

I'm no geneticist, but I have had it explained to me the exact opposite of what you just said before, so I don't know what to think. :(

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I'm no geneticist, but I have had it explained to me the exact opposite of what you just said before, so I don't know what to think. :(

A family that practised incest as frequently as the Targaryens would rapidly become sterile in our world. The Spanish Hapsburgs didn't wed brother to sister, but they frequently wed uncle to niece and repeatedly wed first cousins, so that the last of them, Charles II, couldn't father children. In fact, he could hardly feed himself, due to deformities caused by inbreeding.

Genetics work differently in Martin's world. Targaryen incest produces frequent stillbirths, and insane family members, but also children who are highly intelligent and stunningly beautiful.

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I'm no geneticist, but I have had it explained to me the exact opposite of what you just said before, so I don't know what to think. :(

I did a quick search and based on my understand the following link, I think we were both sort of correct. A brother-sister relationship is the most likely to create a problem. This has nothing to do with how many generations of incest have occurred (apparently). But many generations of incest within a family will make less closely linked pairings, like cousin-cousin relationships almost as dangerous as brother-sister pairings. So as I read this information (assuming it is correct and assuming I read it correctly), for a pure brother-sister relationship, the number of generations of incest is probably not related to the level of risk. For more remote family pairings, the number of generations of inbreeding matters.

But again, this is not directly related to ASOIAF because GRRM has said genetics are different there, and clearly magic (like mixing blood with dragons) is something that could affect someone on Planetos but not on Earth.

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The dragonlords themselves claimed to be literally descended from dragons, and these scaly little monsters may be the result of dragon genes, which are dormant in healthy Targaryens, being epigenetically switched on.



How did Valyrians first manage to breed with dragons? Obviously we'll never know... but we can assume magic was involved. And probably a lot of burns.


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Maybe they arent "dragon babies" so much as "sons of squishers"




or/and




maybe the mines under valyria were Ben Plum filled with uranium which mildly irradiated the population for centuries damaging their DNA and causing a high occurrence of vestigial anatomy - especially high when inbreeding and the doom blew all that irradiated dust and debris all over their peninsula making it toxic to living things and Mantarys is populated by victims of radiation exposure.


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I think it's because the Valyrians originate near the fourteen flames like the dragons, which explains why they alone have the power to subdue/tame dragons. Some of the dragonlord families controlled their dragons with horns, some used sorcery like the Targs (same as what Dany did in the pyre). And during said sorcery, genes were magically mixed and part of the dragons imprinted on the Targaryens. So for the rest of time Targaryens sometimes have deformed dragon-like babies.

You left out Rhaenyra in Patq.

I agree with you. I never thought much of miscarried or deformed Targ babies outside of incest and then the medical situation of the day and age. But...in the world book, all these deformed babies are rumored to have the same qualities, specifically wings and tails and scaled all of which just scream "dragon."

I think the Targs have dragon blood through some sort of magic. In some babies it kills them, in some it only manifests slightly (Viserys being the shadow of a snake) and in some it manifests quite strongly (Dany)

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Actually right thread the OP did mention that Tyrion and him being born twisted, deformed and with a tail, or did I miss read the OP? I was making a statement about how some people deny the evidence about Tyrion and him possibly being a targ bastard. Abet I said it in a joking manner, but what I said does stem into what the Op was stating does it not? Thank you once again for pointing out my erronerous error. But I am in the right thread and what I said had merits because there are some that still deny that Tyrion is even a possible canidate from being a Targ let alone being Aerys son.

And to prove my point not one or two post after your post to me someone mentions that they don't attribute Tyrions tail, eyes and deforms to being a Targ at all. So thank you once again

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Actually right thread the OP did mention that Tyrion and him being born twisted, deformed and with a tail, or did I miss read the OP? I was making a statement about how some people deny the evidence about Tyrion and him possibly being a targ bastard. Abet I said it in a joking manner, but what I said does stem into what the Op was stating does it not? Thank you once again for pointing out my erronerous error. But I am in the right thread and what I said had merits because there are some that still deny that Tyrion is even a possible canidate from being a Targ let alone being Aerys son.

And to prove my point not one or two post after your post to me someone mentions that they don't attribute Tyrions tail, eyes and deforms to being a Targ at all. So thank you once again

I hate to speak for SS, but I know her views fairly well (we frequent many of the same threads) and I can tell you that the part about Tyrion being deformed as a result of Targ blood is the one thing you wrote that she basically agrees with and that is on-topic for this thread. I think her point is that everything else you wrote--your discussion of Renly and Stannis and three hidden princes and Aegon being real is off-topic and incorrect. I think she believes Jon is the only hidden prince--that Tyrion is a Targ bastard (not a prince) and Aegon is really a Blackfyre descendant (not a prince). But she avoided debating these points with you on this thread because it would take a lot of space to explain why she disagrees on these points and would be too off topic.

P.S. While I don't agree 100% with every one of SS's views, I agree with most of them, including what I surmised that she meant above. Nevertheless, I respect your right to have different views, but I agree that most of what you wrote really is off-topic for this thread (again--other than Tyrion being deformed as a result of Targ blood which is on-topic).

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