Incest is Magic: Westerosi Genetics and the Origins of Supernatural Phenomena

[Maester Barth]

I have been mulling around a theory since learning Craster's sons were the Others, and TWOIAF has reinforced my suspicions about the magical biology of the Westerosi planet (hereinafter "Planetos"). I know they won't talk about genetics in ASOIAF, but rather about blood magic and keeping blood pure, but by relating it to Earthly biology I think the theory is clearer.

My Hypothesis - Part 1:

1. Magic originates EXCLUSIVELY from biological life on Planetos that genetically inherits magical powers.

2. Magic genes of all types are generally recessive and are not expressed in the general public.

3. Inbreeding on Planetos is the surest and fastest way to make recessive genes express themselves and become active, whether they produce Targaryen fire magic or Otherly ice magic or Rhoynean water magic or COTF greenseer magic or... whatever.

4. Magic is akin to carbon dioxide or methane or fossil fuels on our planet. When more life is producing magic as a bi-product, the more ambient magic is in the atmosphere to be "burned" by secondary users of magic, such as pyromancers, Priest's of Rhollor, Qarthean warlocks, etc.

Supporting Stories - Craster and Targaryen:

The story centers largely around three incestuous families: The Targaryens, Craster's Daughter Harem, and the Lannister Twins.

I. Craster's Harem and the breeding of the Other Army:

Before the series showed the Night King adopting Craster's son as a baby other, I already thought Craster had singlehandedly resurrected the others. The books note that:

"Dywen said Craster was a kinslayer, liar, raper, and craven, and hinted that he trafficked with slavers and demons. "And worse," the old forester would add, clacking his wooden teeth. "There's a cold smell to that one, there is.""

As another commenter has stated, saying that someone has a "cold smell," along with Craster's weird eyes, suggests he is half other. Either his father was an Other, or he may be a son of the Night's King. The others only seem to take the male babies. I originally supposed that Other genes were somewhat like color blindness, insofar as it is passed via the sex chromosome (XY chromosome). Women are seldom color blind because both their mother and father would have pass on the colorblindness gene, where a man only needs a mother with a single recessive gene for color blindness. I guess some of you don't remember this stuff from biology 101, so the next paragraph is a refresher for those who have forgotten. You can skip it if you remember how chromosomes work.

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Genetics Refresher: (Skip this part if you understand already how chromosomes and chromaitids work). Reach back in your distant high school memories to health class and you may remember that humans have 24 chromosomes that are all shaped like X's. Each X is the joinder of two chromatids, or halves. When a cell breaks into a sperm or egg, the chromosomes split in half, leaving the two chromatids separate, and the sperm or egg cell only has 24 halves of a chromosome, which combine in the womb to make a zygote, or new combination of 48 chromatids. Each one of your 24 chromosomes is made up of a chromatid from your mother and another from your father, so your 24 chromosomes come from 48 chromatids inherited from your parents. All genes are passed in these discrete 48 parts. The exception is the sex chromosome, which has a broken half of one chromatid, making it look like a "Y" (Hence XY chromosome). When your dad's 23rd chromosome breaks in half (in his balls), two sperm get's either the long chromatid or the short chromatid respectively. Which chromatid of the 23rd chromosome you receive from your father determines your sex, which is why the father exclusively determines the sex of a child. The gene for color vision or baldness is exclusively on the long half of the "XY" chromosome, so if you are Y (i.e. male) you only get one shot at receiving the right gene and recessive genes are automatically expressed in men but not women. However, if you are a woman, you get two shots, since the color vision gene is dominant. So if one in a thousand 23rd chromatid's have the color blind gene, one in a thousand men will be color blind. However, the chances of a woman being color blind is 1/1000X1000, or one in a million (1:1,000,000). The sex chromosome can also explain why most green seers are men (that we know of).

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So anyway, if you need two recessive "Other genes" to be inherited to make an Other, how do you make a hundred others with only one partial carrier of the recessive gene? The chances are one in a million, normally. Answer: Have that carrier mate with their children, and then their grandchildren, and the great grandchildren. The other option is to have each generation marry their brother and/or sister. Either way, that recessive gene is matched with itself when incest leads to "homozygous pairs." Homozygous pairs are the real world problem with incest, when the same chromatid is inherited as both halves of the chromosome on an inbred child.

Homozygous Pair Example:

John's Chromosome 22 is made up of Chromatid A and Chromatid B. John fathers a daughter who inherits his Chromatid A. Father then has sex with said daughter, and inbred grandson/son inherits Chromatid A from his father and his mother, so both halves of the "X" are identical, with all their hundreds of millions of genes. If A SINGLE GENE is a recessive gene such as cystic fibrosis, hemophilia, etc, it gets expressed.

The theory in ASOIAF is some of those recessive genes aren't diseased, but magic, and by inbreeding you can increase the occurrence of double pairs of recessive genes a thousand fold, especially after multiple generations.

So when they say the Others slept under the ice for thousands of years, maybe they mean like recessive genes, they remain hidden within humanity until someone as evil as Craster commits multiple generation incest. This is already TLDR status so I'll just throw out some other stuff that I'll back up later:

The XY dynamic may be reversed on Planetos, so the Y makes a female and the X makes a male. Also, Craster's first wife was his mother, and his father was an Other and/or the Night King, who came to his mom as a God and told her to breed with the offspring of their union and that he should breed with all his daughters.

II. Valyrian are Magic Nazis who used artificial selection, blood magic, and selective breeding to make a master race of Dragon Riders:

First of all, it shocks me that so many people have missed GRRM's allusions to Hitler's master aryan race, despite GRRM basically face raping the readers with the reference. Val-ARIAN, Targ-ARYEN, or even the Driftmark "Vel-ARYON." Still, my girlfriend does not want to accept that GRRM's race of platinum blond, conquering and enslaving lesser races, inbreeding to maintain blood-purity, genocidal dragon riders ARE BASED ON NAZIS. Guess what? The progenitor of the Targaryen dynasty, Aegon the Conquerer's father who fled Valyria before the Doom, was even named AERION TARG-ARYEN, who married Vaena Vel-ARYON! So yeah, the Valyrians were and are metaphors for Nazis.

That being said, it seems apparent that there were two classes of Valyrians consisting of (1) dragon riding, magically inclined families, and (2) lesser blond people. TWOIAF shows that, much like the Ibenese, early Targaryans in Westeros could produce nothing but monstrosities and Mules when breeding with normal folk. Maegor the Cruel could not produce a son with any of his Andal or first men wives. He finally married a Targaryen, but she never got pregnant. Targaryens could, however, have children with the Velaryons driftmark, who were Valyrians without magic blood.

Well, it's almost midnight so I'll come back to this tomorrow night. Till then...

Hopefully tomorrow I'll make it to parallels with Dune, and how the prince that was promised is analogous to the Kwisatz haderach. Bene Gesserit? Yeah, there will be some tin foil about that too.

[Maester Barth]

I started writing last night when I'd had a few beers, so the post had a lot of errors, typos, and generally seemed written by a drunk person. My apologies.

[Vlaars]

That's a lot of writing on the product of incest.

Haven't read all of it yet, but from what I've read it looks well thought out. Unfortunately, I'm not experienced with any of this, so I'll leave the debating to others.

[Pod The Impaler]

1. Magic is EXCLUSIVELY produced by biological life on Planetos who genetically inherit magical powers. Consider this a l

2. Magic genes of all types are usually recessive or, if dominant, overpower normal genes to create "monstrosities" when paired with normal genes. (i.e. still born half dragon babies).

3. Inbreeding on Planetos is the surest and fastest way to make recessive genes express themselves and become active, whether they produce Targaryen fire magic or Otherly ice magic or Rhoynean water magic or COTF warg magic or... whatever.

I don't think I like where this is headed. :uhoh:

II. Valyrian are Magic Nazis who used artificial selection, blood magic, and selective breeding to make a master race of Dragon Riders:

First of all, it shocks me that so many people have missed GRRM's allusions to Hitler's master aryan race, despite GRRM basically face raping the readers with the reference. Val-ARIAN, Targ-ARYEN, or even the Driftmark "Vel-ARYON." Still, my girlfriend does not want to accept that GRRM's race of platinum blond, conquering and enslaving lesser races, inbreeding to maintain blood-purity, genocidal dragon riders ARE BASED ON NAZIS. Guess what? The progenitor of the Targaryen dynasty, Aegon the Conquerer's father who fled Valyria before the Doom, was even named AERION TARG-ARYEN, who married Vaena Vel-ARYON! So yeah, the Valyrians were and are metaphors for Nazi's.

Well... I guess this calls for a Hail Hydra.

(Yeah, I know - last April wants its meme back.)

[Equilibrium]

Best pick up line ever for family gatherings :D

[Daenerys Flint]

Well reasoned... I like it. But how does it work with the Starks? Biology never my strong point unfortunately... So would Cat have had to pick up the recessive gene from blackwood lineage and Ned would also have to have a recessive gene?

[TheDrunkenDornishman]

The progenitor of the Targaryen dynasty, Aegon the Conquerer's father who fled Valyria before the Doom, was even named AERION TARG-ARYEN, who married Vaena Vel-ARYON!

Aerion was Aegon's father, yes. But it was Aenar Targaryen, Aegon's great-great-great-great-grandfather who brought the Targaryens across the Narrow Sea, about 100 years before Aegon was born.

[Elm Tree]

Craster gave up lambs or sheep (if I recall right) to the Others when his sons ran out. Could be of no significance, but I think it means the children and lambs alike are sacrificed rather than turned in Others. Sure, it's also a possibillity that the sons were made in Others and the animals were sacrificed, but since the 'Crasters son is made into an Other' is show canon I think not.

[Maester Barth]

Aerion was Aegon's father, yes. But it was Aenar Targaryen, Aegon's great-great-great-great-grandfather who brought the Targaryens across the Narrow Sea, about 100 years before Aegon was born.

You're right. Sorry, I was looking at the Targaryen lineage in the back of ASOIAF which started with Aerion. I still think the Valyrians were Nazi metaphors, and maybe the Rhoynish were French? I mean, the border between France and Germany was historically the Rhine, which the Valyrians of Volantis and Rhoynish were sharing? And so then if follows logically that... the Ghiscari... were.... Polish. Yes, we'll go with that.

[aryagonnakill#2]

I would just like to point out that you have never learned that Crasters children are others, because that has not been stated by GRRM or shown to us in the books.

[Maester Barth]

Craster gave up lambs or sheep (if I recall right) to the Others when his sons ran out. Could be of no significance, but I think it means the children and lambs alike are sacrificed rather than turned in Others. Sure, it's also a possibillity that the sons were made in Others and the animals were sacrificed, but since the 'Crasters son is made into an Other' is show canon I think not.

I believe that episode of the show is cannon. Before the episode, when the Others were coming for Gilley's baby, Sam asked who was coming for them and an old hag said, "His brothers." GRRM has said that the show can show things that really happen that the book couldn't. Who would be GRRM's POV character for the baby turning into the other scene? The baby? No.... The Night King? "This is what my plan is," thought the Night King, without any ambiguity and spoiling the entire plot. GRRM can't do a POV chapter on Varys or Littlefinger because it ruins the mystery, so his characters are all partially in the know, never successful masterminds.

For example, GRRM said the confrontation between Bronn and the Hound actually happened, but it wasn't in the books because there was no POV character. Besides, there are no female others mentioned besides the Night Queen.

[Elm Tree]

I believe that episode of the show is cannon. Before the episode, when the Others were coming for Gilley's baby, Sam asked who was coming for them and an old hag said, "His brothers." GRRM has said that the show can show things that really happen that the book couldn't. Who would be GRRM's POV character for the baby turning into the other scene? The baby? No.... The Night King? "This is what my plan is," thought the Night King, without any ambiguity and spoiling the entire plot. GRRM can't do a POV chapter on Varys or Littlefinger because it ruins the mystery, so his characters are all partially in the know, never successful masterminds.

For example, GRRM said the confrontation between Bronn and the Hound actually happened, but it wasn't in the books because there was no POV character. Besides, there are no female others mentioned besides the Night Queen.

Does GRRM confirm it as canon? Until he does, it's not canon. The wives of Craster do not know what the Others do with the kids, so the old hag saying that doesn't really matter. The message she delivers is clear, of course, but it does not confirm the Others doing whatever.

[wolfmaid7]

What the show depicted is canon and what is canon is that Craster's wives" believe "the WWS are Craster's sons.

The belief of the wives are in question.I dont think they are correct because there is no way they could know that

unless they saw it.They haven't seen anything take the babies because Craster's exposes them to the elements.

Until GRRM reveals this i'm holding out on his sons being the Others.

[aryagonnakill#2]

Nothing in the show is Canon unless GRRM said it is. With the info given to us in the books, it is more likely a sacrifice. By that I mean the book has shown us the power of sacrifice, and eluded to sacrifice being used many other times, and eluded to rewards being given for those sacrifices. There is absolutely nothing in the books that hints that the babies are turned.

[Maester Barth]

Very well, the theory assumes in arguendo that the babies are the others. I just think that one of the underlying themes of the world is plots to breed humans, or cultures that breed humans. TWOIAF also explains that in the disappearing empire in the Bone Mountains. There, the fortress cities only allow one in a hundred men to breed, castrating all the others. They only pick the smartest and strongest to be breeders, and the women are the warriors (and the best in the world, allegedly). Now, assuming the fortress cities have a hundred thousand people, then every man fathers a thousand kids. While they may not be purposefully inbreeding, the gene pool (at least for the Y chromosome) is extremely small. The opposite of the evil Valyrians would be summer islanders, who basically worship sexual diversity.

[Maester Barth]

Well reasoned... I like it. But how does it work with the Starks? Biology never my strong point unfortunately... So would Cat have had to pick up the recessive gene from blackwood lineage and Ned would also have to have a recessive gene?

Inbreeding will cause the rarest of recessive genes to show up almost automatically, but people still get hemophilia or cystic fibrosis without incest. The Starks get their magic from intermarrying with the Reeds, who intermarried with the children of the forest. Brynden Rivers at one point said that something like one in a hundred would be a warg, and one in ten thousand would be a greenseer, when mentoring Bran in ADWD. So perhaps the warg gene is actually partially expressed if you have a dominant and recessive gene pair. So for those of you who remember Mendelson's peas:

W = warg gene. (Like a blue eye gene, getting half makes green eyes).

N = normal gene.

So say a warg (W)(N) and a normal (N)(N)have kids, the matrix looks like this:

____N_____N_____

| |

W | WN | WN

|______ _|_______

| |

N | NN | NN

| |

So half of their kids would be normal, the other half wargs, statistically. Catelyn and Starks are both first men and, presumably, both have first men genes. Since neither Catelyn or Ned spent enough times with wolves or knew wargs were real, neither fully developed their abilities. 1/4th of their children would be normal, 1/4th would be a green seer, and 2/4 would be wargs.

____W_____N_____

| |

W | WW | WN

|______ _|_______

| |

N | WN | NN

| |

Bran = WW

Arya = WN

Robb = WN (kept it a secret or only partially realized like Jon?)

Sansa = NN (No powers)

John = R+J (so he's not in the matrix)

[Lullipop]

I haven't read it all yet, but since now I have a question:

1. Magic originates EXCLUSIVELY from biological life on Planetos that genetically inherits magical powers.

You use Crasten and his inbreeding and the Targaryen to justify you hypothesis, but what of the shadow binders and other magical practicers we have seen in Esses or from Esses? Like Melisandre, MMD and Quaithe? They all seem to have learnt magic/shadow binding, instead of being able to practice because of blood lines.

Even so, really nice theory and post. Nice to see people researching and thinking a lot before opening a thread! ;)

[Archmaester Drew]

Welcome to the forum! :cheers:

Your biology is incorrect. First, humans have 23 chromosomes (chimpanzees have 24). Second, you are describing Mendelian genetics, which is only accurate for traits controlled by one allele (specific version of a gene at a specific locus), which are very few -- if any. We now know that many alleles combine to produce traits (which we refer to colloquially as 'genes'). Third, recombination of alleles is not simply the shuffling of chromatids in the zygote; each locus is discrete. This leads to an incredible amount of variation and expression of genes. Not a simple punnett square as you have diagrammed.

Valyrians are not 'Magic Nazis' either. There are some vague parallels which you have pointed to, but the Valyrians are largely inspired by the Roman Republic.

:)

[Maester Barth]

Here's a hypothetical about how in this world you could use incest to monopolize magic in your family and be worshiped like gods.

So if one in a hundred people in the population were Wargs (WN), and the other 99 were normal (NN) then the chances of making a green seer (WW) would be one in ten thousand, which matches the stats given by Brynden Rivers to Bran. However, if you wanted to monopolise the warg powers for your family and rule over Normals as Gods, then a warg could start making his children marry each other. So from 1/100 wargs and 1/10,000 green seers, assuming only the father was a warg, the next generation of brother-sister marriages would statistically produce...

Two warg siblings = 75% wargs, 25% green seers

warg and normal sibling = 50% wargs

Normal siblings = no magic...

You could effectively cull the non warg children and keep them from reproducing, kill them, castrate them like the fortress cities of the bone mountains.

generation by generation you could increase the percentage in the family of greenseers until they're all greenseers breeding pure greenseers.

Now say you killed all the other wargs and green seers because our greenseers great grandchildren knew the future and could kick other wargs out of their animals like Varymyr Sixskins. If you wanted to preserve that power in your family and rule over the normal people as gods, you would have to brother sister marry. This would ensure the magic stays greenseer strong and keeps other families from inheriting the magic. This may have happened among the children of the forest in ancient times, who knows. Or maybe the peace with the first men was achieved by marriage between the first men and greenseer royals.

Anyway, this ties into ASOIAF because Daeny, the first dragon, was only produced after two successive brother sister marriages. The dragon magic started fading when the Targs started outbreeding (See TWOIAF). Eventually they intermarried with the Martells and even the purest valyrian royal family had dampened fire genes because they married water magic rhoynish. (Egg's uncle Baelor had brown hair). So I think Egg may have had the last dragon gene, say (Dd). Then his kids married each other, and their kids married each other, and had Rhaegar and Daeny...

etc.

[Archmaester Drew]

Here's a hypothetical about how in this world you could use incest to monopolize magic in your family and be worshiped like gods.

So if one in a hundred people in the population were Wargs (WN), and the other 99 were normal (NN) then the chances of making a green seer (WW) would be one in ten thousand, which matches the stats given by Brynden Rivers to Bran. However, if you wanted to monopolise the warg powers for your family and rule over Normals as Gods, then a warg could start making his children marry each other. So from 1/100 wargs and 1/10,000 green seers, assuming only the father was a warg, the next generation of brother-sister marriages would statistically produce...

Two warg siblings = 75% wargs, 25% green seers

warg and normal sibling = 50% wargs

Normal siblings = no magic...

You could effectively cull the non warg children and keep them from reproducing, kill them, castrate them like the fortress cities of the bone mountains.

generation by generation you could increase the percentage in the family of greenseers until they're all greenseers breeding pure greenseers.

Now say you killed all the other wargs and green seers because our greenseers great grandchildren knew the future and could kick other wargs out of their animals like Varymyr Sixskins. If you wanted to preserve that power in your family and rule over the normal people as gods, you would have to brother sister marry. This would ensure the magic stays greenseer strong and keeps other families from inheriting the magic. This may have happened among the children of the forest in ancient times, who knows. Or maybe the peace with the first men was achieved by marriage between the first men and greenseer royals.

Anyway, this ties into ASOIAF because Daeny, the first dragon, was only produced after two successive brother sister marriages. The dragon magic started fading when the Targs started outbreeding (See TWOIAF). Eventually they intermarried with the Martells and even the purest valyrian royal family had dampened fire genes because they married water magic rhoynish. (Egg's uncle Baelor had brown hair). So I think Egg may have had the last dragon gene, say (Dd). Then his kids married each other, and their kids married each other, and had Rhaegar and Daeny...

etc.

Inheritance of genes does not work that way (see my post above). When the gametes (sperm and ovum) are created they recombine the DNA in meiosis.

From Wikipedia:

Genetic recombination is the process by which two DNA molecules exchange genetic information, resulting in the production of a new combination of alleles. In eukaryotes, genetic recombination during meiosis can lead to a novel set of genetic information that can be passed on to progeny. Most recombination is naturally occurring. During meiosis in eukaryotes, genetic recombination involves the pairing of homologous chromosomes. This may be followed by information exchange between the chromosomes. The information exchange may occur without physical exchange (a section of genetic material is copied from one chromosome to another, without the donating chromosome being changed) (see SDSA pathway in Figure); or by the breaking and rejoining of DNA strands, which forms new molecules of DNA (see DHJ pathway in Figure). Recombination may also occur during mitosis in eukaryotes where it ordinarily involves the two sister chromosomes formed after chromosomal replication. In this case, new combinations of alleles are not produced since the sister chromosomes are usually identical. In meiosis and mitosis, recombination occurs betweensimilar molecules (homologs) of DNA. In meiosis, non-sister homologous chromosomes pair with each other so that recombination characteristically occurs between non-sister homologues. In both meiotic and mitotic cells, recombination between homologous chromosomes is a common mechanism used in DNA repair.

:)