How did Varys know Gregor would have beaten Aegon to an unrecognizable pulp ?

[Table8]

Varys IS lying. He prob cooked up the plan only after the baby was beaten to a pulp. If Gregor just hacked at the kid's torso, no fAegon...

[sleath56]

Table8: Obviously you are right. The past 6 pages were all uneducated spam, after all, and I feel like I need to thank you for finally bringing some extensive and impartial descriptive rationality to this subject. We can finally /thread now.

[Freddie_the_Spider]

The wiki is just another fan's opinion, and not a smart one either. Whether or not fAegon is real, its takes a pretty narrow mind to dismiss the possibility of the switch and him being real.

If Aegon really is Aegon then the substitute coulb be Ashara's baby... I know shes not fair haired but she does have some Targ traits and other Dayne's also look Valyrian/Targaryen (Darkstar, who i also feel is going to have some role to play)

[Freddie_the_Spider]

A

If the swap did occur, I don't think many people would notice. Aegon was still a baby and most people that have seen him are dead. So I don't think Varys counted on Gregor beating fAegon (see what I did there?) to a pulp. He would have banked it on people not knowing what Aegon looked like dimple to dimple.

Also Varys knows about the elaborate tunnels in the Red Keep. I got the feeling from ADWD that there's a secret entrance to almost every room. And there would have been a time between the sack of KL (that was when Elia and her children was killed, right?) and the Lannistar wrapped "gifts presented to King Bob for Varys to make sure that the child was unrecognizable.

[Freddie_the_Spider]

The hair could have been dyed easily.

[PrimeRhaegar]

well Illyrio does give varys a shit load of children so finding one with valyria features would not be so hard for him. I think the mountain doing what he did just made the job easier if he was replaced by another valyria featured kid then it wouldn't be so hard. It's just that the story about the piss water child seem to suggest it wasn't a child of valyria features. Unless as you said varys is lying about that too.

[MegaAIP]

Aegon was one years old and all of the people that knew him well were dead or fled. Smashed head or burned body, Varys could still present his (f)Aegon.

this

also Gregor is a monster, so it's easy enough to assume he will.

[MotherMerciless]

A blood soaked blonde baby would have very similar hair color to a blood soaked darker hair baby, especially after coagulation.

Ew.

[Jojen Dayne-Reed]

Maybe he didn't. He did know that none of the soldiers collecting the royal family would likely know the difference. Maybe he was just buying time. He figured that someone would figure it out but not until after the real Aegon was gone and safe. When everyone thought it was the real Aegon dead Vareys decided to just go with it.

The "plan" only requires an unrecognizable baby if that was the original plan. But getting baby Aegon to safety only requires the fake baby but enough time. Once the facts changed the plan changed. No special foreknowledge required.

(Note: I lean towards faegon. Just so y'all's know my bias.)

[JLE]

Also: Given how many children - even sons - resemble their mothers rather than their fathers (all three trueborn Stark boys, for starters: Baelor Breakspear has dark hair from his Dornish mother, in the Dunk + Egg short stories: possibly Jon Snow as well, if R+L = J: and it is not as if Sweetrobin Arryn bears much resemblance to Jon Arryn, although I wonder if in his case anyone has looked for a resemblance to Littlefinger Baelish - however, at least, he has *brown* hair, not too far from his mother's auburn: the colour of Jon Arryn's hair is not stated), then there's a good chance that the REAL Aegon - murdered by Gregor - might have had darker hair and possibly even slightly darker skin inherited from his Dornish mother.

Young Griff may be, quite literally, "too good to be true" in terms of his Targaryen resemblance... a fake who resembles the pureblood Targaryen, where the real Aegon was NOT a pureblood Targ, but half-Dornish, and there is already precedent for a prince of a Targaryen father and Dornish mother to resemble his mother more than his father...

[Fool of a Book]

Gregor was likely to kill the baby violently. I doubt he gave it a second thought while he was raping Lyanna, nor would he be able to absolutely identify the exact wounds he gave the baby.

All it would take was a little extra smashing around the face and head, by someone else, after the fact and before discovery of the bodies, to make sure the face wasn't recognizable.

So Varys did not need to have the power of foresight about the baby's face. He could have smashed it himself, or had a little bird do it.

I think there was a switch and Varys was involved.

[Khal Pod]

Varys told Aerys not to open the gates to Tywin, so he certainly had suspicions about what was coming for the remaining members of the royal family. But Varys doesn't even need to know that Aegon will be killed, because either way, holding the heir safely away from danger is a much better way of ensuring his survival. Even if the baby in KL lives long enough to be recognized as false, Aegon is well away by this time.

I personally don't think the swap happened, but I don't think this disproves it.

[JLE]

I suddenly have a theory:

(1) The battle for Meereen ends up with the other two dragons being stolen and under someone else's control, probably Victarion's. Tyrion ends up being taken back westwards again, as a prisoner.
(2) Daenerys, after taking control of the Dothraki, returns to Meereen too late, hears the news, and flies westwards on Drogon - alone, since the Dothraki cannot cross water.
(3) So Tyrion and Daenerys still don't get to meet, for the whole of the book, until they both get back to Westeros separately.
(4) And the chance of a Dany / Aegon marriage or alliance is spoiled by the interruption of Tyrion, catching up with Daenerys at last, and denouncing Aegon as a fake... on the grounds that the real Prince Aegon had dark hair like his Dornish mother, not silver hair like his Targaryen father... and Tyrion is one of the few people who bothers to remember important details like that from twenty years ago.
(5) Whether anybody believes him is anybody's guess...

[Rhaenys_Targaryen]

The baby swap story does make sense, though it is understandable why people question it. I've done so as well, before.

Varys would have known that Tywin wasn't a friend of the Targaryens, the moment he showed up at the city gates. Varys counseled Aerys to keep the gates locked, to prevent Tywin from getting in. As we've seen during the Battle of the Blackwater, that doesn't ensure anything, but it would have given Varys more time.

Varys claims he found a babe with similar looks as Aegon. Aegon was a baby 12 to 14 months old (according to GRRM), it would not have been impossible to find a child that looked similar enough. KL is a rather big city, filled with whores, part of who are of Valyrian descend. Even though Varys could not have known exactly how Aegon would die (there would not have been a question about whether or not Aegon would be killed), who would there be to oppose the claim that the dead baby they found in Elia's arms were Aegon? Tywin, Kevan and their bannermen had left KL before Aegon had been born. They didn't know the child. Jaime? Why would Jaime speak against his father. Perhaps in private, yes. But never in front of so many other men. Also, Jaime was Aerys' protector, not Aegons, and not Elia's. Sure, he would have seen the children more often, but as he tells himself, he didn't see Rhaella on a daily basis, and she was Aerys' wife. What makes people believe he'd pick out a babe that he wouldn't see daily? Pycelle? Pycelle would not have been around Aegon daily either. and even though he would definitly have examined Aegon when the child had just been born, there was no reason to examine the entire child multiple times (for body marks and such). So the argument that Pycelle would be able to notice the absence of birth marks on Aegon isn't a very strong one either. Why would Pycelle remember if there was a birth mark on Aegon's arm (for example) if he had last inspected the child 18 years prior?

Why not safe Elia and Rhaenys?

Elia, by herself, was nothing. Rhaenys, as cruel as it may sound, was a girl. Sure, she could have been left alive, but Robert would never have allowed the child to become his wife (in order to secure his throne even more) or to wed one of his own children. Neither would marrying her off to another house have done any good to Robert's claim, since that would give another house claim to the throne. Rhaenys had to die in order for Robert to secure his throne, not just Aegon.

Why not safe her? Because she was a three year old girl with distinctive looks who was known to the people who were trying to enter the city. A look-a-like could have been found, had Varys searched in Dorne, but not a look-a-like that looked like Rhaenys enough to fool Tywin, Pycelle, Kevan, Jaime and anyone else.

Why not simply take them all and sneak them out of KL? Viserys and Dany had been spirited away, known to the rebels. And they have been hunted the rest of their lives, diminishing their chances of survival. Even if the hired knives that Viserys spoke of never existed, Robert obviously wanted to. It was Jon Arryn who put an end to that. But that didn't end for long.

With people thinking that Aegon is dead, no one would look for him. That would give Varys and Illyrio more time to spend to train Aegon.

As to Gregor's treatment of Aegon. No, of course Varys could not have predicted that Gregor would be the one to find Aegon, nor could he have known that Gregor would smash the child beyond recognition. But that point, beyond recognition, that was what was about to happen. Wildfire was placed underneath the castle, and the city was supposed to burn. A body would be found (Elia's) in Aegon's room, together with the body of a small infant. Who else could it be?

Yet, in case that the wildfire plot did not work - did not come to fruitation - the child resembled Aegon enough to fool those who did not spend their entire days with Aegon, and who else did so but the mother? We don't know how many staff was still in the Red Keep. Many of Elia's ladies and servants could have been send away. As far as we know, only Elia remained close to her son.

Young Griff - Yes, Tyrion guesses him younger than Aegon would be, but Tyrion, unlike what some people might think, even though he is extremely clever, he isn't always right. He doesn't know anything, and he can be wrong at times. And teenagers can look younger than they are, just as they could also look older than they are. The fact that Tyrion guesses that the boy is 16/17 years old, doesn't make it impossible for the boy to be 18 years of age.

Jon Connington - JonCon was in love with Rhaegar, we know this. We also know that he knew Elia. A man in love with another man, who is being told that said man's child, against all odds, has survived - the only thing that is left of Rhaegar - would be suspicious. Everything that we know of JonCon suggests that he doesn't trust Varys, and it would make sense that he trusted Varys even less when he was first approached. JonCon believed Rhaegar's son to be dead, and Varys (or an agent of Varys) tells him that the boy isn't. People have argued that JonCon would have been blinded by love, but even JonCon would have taken care to look closely at Aegon's face. There will be some of Rhaegar in that face, and even some of Elia (though more of Rhaegar). Jon would have spotted it if the child looked nothing like Rhaegar - because of his love for Rhaegar.

Septa Lemore - in the small chance that Lemore is in fact Ashara Dayne, the same would go for her, minus the love part. Ashara was a close companion to Elia, and would have known Rhaegar as well. Should she indeed be Lemore, she would have noticed if there was nothing of Rhaegar and Elia in Aegon's face.

Why not tell Doran? Simple, the fewer who know about the secret, the better it will be kept.

The baby swap is a good possibility, and should be considered. Larys Strong managed to sneak out Aegon II, Maelor and Jaehaera, but they were known to be gone. People were searching for them. It had no use should someone know that a child of one year old had escaped KL. It would only lead to people searching for him, and with Aegon at the age that he was, he was no leader. He would not be for many years. Keeping him hidden made the job easier. And it wasn't an easy job to begin with.

[Rhaenys_Targaryen]

I suddenly have a theory:

(1) The battle for Meereen ends up with the other two dragons being stolen and under someone else's control, probably Victarion's. Tyrion ends up being taken back westwards again, as a prisoner.

(2) Daenerys, after taking control of the Dothraki, returns to Meereen too late, hears the news, and flies westwards on Drogon - alone, since the Dothraki cannot cross water.

(3) So Tyrion and Daenerys still don't get to meet, for the whole of the book, until they both get back to Westeros separately.

(4) And the chance of a Dany / Aegon marriage or alliance is spoiled by the interruption of Tyrion, catching up with Daenerys at last, and denouncing Aegon as a fake... on the grounds that the real Prince Aegon had dark hair like his Dornish mother, not silver hair like his Targaryen father... and Tyrion is one of the few people who bothers to remember important details like that from twenty years ago.

(5) Whether anybody believes him is anybody's guess...

GRRM has confirmed that Aegon looked more like Rhaegar, and Rhaenys like Elia.

[assjfjgjsgjljljglgjfjsduar]

He didn't.

The thing about Aegon being unrecognizable is a stalemate, I'd say. If the switch is real, then OK sure the kid wasn't Aegon and no one caught on because the face was smashed. If it isn't real, then it's easy to retcon, because the kid's face was smashed. But it is odd that the switch "works" because of something that Varys could only have been aware of in hindsight.

I also presented an idea some time back that it's probably ludicrous to think that Tywin didn't get some concrete verification that the children were really the children before he presented them to Robert. It makes sense that a maester, say, Pycelle, examined the bodies to make sure they were the real deal. Varys just happens to choose to kill Pycelle as soon as it's clear that Aegon is coming. People focus a lot on Varys killing Kevan and his motives for doing so, while ignoring the fact that he just killed Pycelle. Why? Is it possible that Pycelle, as the guy who probably delivered Aegon and served as his physician, is the one who examined the dead child's body, knows that it was actually Aegon and can thus say that Young Griff is a fraud?

I have a number of serious issues with the switch story. Why not get Rhaenys, too? Varys can smuggle, say, Tyrion in and out easily enough, so why not both children? Why bother with a switch at all, why not just smuggle the kid(s) out and be done with it, like Larys did with Aegon II's kids? Then you have the issue of finding a baby with Valyrian looks (not just hair, but eyes) in the slums on short notice. Not to mention the thematic hints that it's all a lie (Varys bought the kid with Arbor gold, used repeatedly in the story to denote deception), and the very obvious historical parallel of Perkin Warbeck.

I think at the end of the day my biggest hang-up is that I don't think a switch should have even been necessary, if Varys really is as good as people claim he is.

[Rhaenys_Targaryen]

The thing about Aegon being unrecognizable is a stalemate, I'd say. If the switch is real, then OK sure the kid wasn't Aegon and no one caught on because the face was smashed. If it isn't real, then it's easy to retcon, because the kid's face was smashed. But it is odd that the switch "works" because of something that Varys could only have been aware of in hindsight.

Why bother with a switch at all, why not just smuggle the kid(s) out and be done with it, like Larys did with Aegon II's kids?

Missing children will be searched for. If there's a body present, even if it has become unrecognizable (wildfire, which was foreseen, or Gregor, which had not been known beforehand), there will be no search, because people will believe Aegon to be dead. Time spent hiding Aegon from hired knives could be better spent training the boy.

Gregor smashing Aegon's face wasn't necessary. There would have been a wildfire. And even if the wildfire hadn't happened, the child looked enough like Aegon to pass off as Aegon for all those who weren't extremely close to the child. And as argued, Pycelle wouldn't have spend every single day with Aegon. He would have examined the child from time to time, but that doesn't automatically ensure that he could pick the true Aegon out of an entire row of Valyrian looking babies.

Varys just happens to choose to kill Pycelle as soon as it's clear that Aegon is coming. People focus a lot on Varys killing Kevan and his motives for doing so, while ignoring the fact that he just killed Pycelle. Why? Is it possible that Pycelle, as the guy who probably delivered Aegon and served as his physician, is the one who examined the dead child's body, knows that it was actually Aegon and can thus say that Young Griff is a fraud?

Varys kills the two people who were effectively creating stability in the Kingdoms, at the time where Varys needed chaos more than ever. Varys killed Kevan for the same reasons he killed Pycelle - had he only killed Kevan, Pycelle could have continued to create stability. Had he only killed Pycelle, Kevan would surely have continued creating stability. Both of them had to die, otherwise there would have no point of killing either. Even more, had he killed only one, security would have gone up. Killing the second later on would have become more difficult.

Also, the fact that Pycelle most likely delivered Aegon does not mean that he'd be able to name Young Griff a fraud or true 18 years after the birth,

I think the way Pycelle died is more interesting. Kevan was killed with a crossbow, to ensure at least someone would suspect Tyrion. And being stabbed by a child would have the same effect as being stabbed by a dwarf. However, Pycelle was killed on impact, by hitting him on his head with a sharp object while he was sitting in his chair (indicating he was attacked from behind). To me, this hints to some feelings of hatred from Varys against Pycelle, feelings that Varys didn't have about Kevan.

He didn't.

Actually, he did :)

Do you have any idea what Rhaenys and Aegon looked like? (Hair color, eye color, etc.)

Rhaenys looked more like a Martell, Aegon more a Targaryen.

[assjfjgjsgjljljglgjfjsduar]

Missing children will be searched for. If there's a body present, even if it has become unrecognizable (wildfire, which was foreseen, or Gregor, which had not been known beforehand), there will be no search, because people will believe Aegon to be dead. Time spent hiding Aegon from hired knives could be better spent training the boy.

Gregor smashing Aegon's face wasn't necessary. There would have been a wildfire. And even if the wildfire hadn't happened, the child looked enough like Aegon to pass off as Aegon for all those who weren't extremely close to the child. And as argued, Pycelle wouldn't have spend every single day with Aegon. He would have examined the child from time to time, but that doesn't automatically ensure that he could pick the true Aegon out of an entire row of Valyrian looking babies.

Like Viserys and Daenerys were searched for when they got away?

Why did Larys not use decoys for Jaehaera and Maelor Targaryen when he smuggled them out? Missing children will be searched for, right?

You're also basically admitting that Varys was feeding Kevan a line of shit. Either the swap worked well and no one was looking for Aegon because they thought he was dead, or else Varys is lying to Kevan about Aegon "knowing what it's like to be hunted." They can't both be true.

It stretches credulity to think that the Lannisters didn't make damn sure who they had killed before they took the risk of showing Robert the bodies. If they presented the corpse of a fake and were eventually caught, which was always going to be a possibility if the switch happened, it would make them look stupid or even as if they had abetted it.

Varys kills the two people who were effectively creating stability in the Kingdoms, at the time where Varys needed chaos more than ever. Varys killed Kevan for the same reasons he killed Pycelle - had he only killed Kevan, Pycelle could have continued to create stability. Had he only killed Pycelle, Kevan would surely have continued creating stability. Both of them had to die, otherwise there would have no point of killing either. Even more, had he killed only one, security would have gone up. Killing the second later on would have become more difficult.

Also, the fact that Pycelle most likely delivered Aegon does not mean that he'd be able to name Young Griff a fraud or true 18 years after the birth,

I think the way Pycelle died is more interesting. Kevan was killed with a crossbow, to ensure at least someone would suspect Tyrion. And being stabbed by a child would have the same effect as being stabbed by a dwarf. However, Pycelle was killed on impact, by hitting him on his head with a sharp object while he was sitting in his chair (indicating he was attacked from behind). To me, this hints to some feelings of hatred from Varys against Pycelle, feelings that Varys didn't have about Kevan.

Actually, seeing as Pycelle is one of Cersei's biggest enablers and Cersei is incompetent, it should have made more sense for Varys to keep him alive, if instability was really his goal. Pycelle was kept because he was a Lannister toadie, not because he was especially competent.

I'm not talking about Pycelle naming Aegon a fraud now, so much as I am talking about Pycelle being able to have identified the real Aegon's dead body then. If Pycelle was able to verify the body -- and like I said, it beggars belief that Tywin didn't make absolutely sure who they had killed before presenting the bodies to Robert -- then it follows that this Aegon must be a fake. Pycelle would be the one to say, "I looked at the bodies back then and saw that Aegon had XYZ marks/whatever on the body, I know it was Aegon who was killed. This kid cannot be Aegon." Pycelle didn't have to look at Young Griff for a specific birthmark; all he had to say was that the baby whose body he examined had the birthmark, so he was Aegon.

Actually, he did :)

I was actually answering the question posed in the subject, which was, "How did Varys know Gregor would have beaten Aegon to an unrecognizable pulp?" Why did you think I was asking about the kids' appearance? I'm well aware that GRRM has verified what they looked like, thanks.

I'd also be curious to see what you make of, say, the Arbor gold payment ("lies and Arbor gold") or the dragon sign on the Quiet Isle. There's plenty of subtle thematic clues to suggest that Aegon is a fraud, whether or not you think the switch makes sense.

[RoamingRonin]

The baby swap story does make sense, though it is understandable why people question it. I've done so as well, before.

The story makes sense. Whether or not it happened is another matter.

[Edd Tollett's One Vote]

I think the baby swap could have been possible. You could argue that Aegon was more important to Varys than Rhaenys or that Varys knew about the wildfire (but didn't think that he could replace anyone besides Aegon or try to escape himself? - I don't know about that one but could be) or that Varys' original plan wasn't to have them never discover that Aegon had escaped but that it was simply an added bonus. My question is why would Varys have done this? I mean, what was his motivation?

Obviously, Varys is a complex character so it's no easy answer, but the only motivation I can see him for him wanting to smuggle out Aegon is if he was a Targaryen supporter. Yet, this is a bit off with his not offering help to Viserys or Dany while they were on the run. I also don't see what would have caused Varys to have become a Targ supporter. He wasn't even from Westeros, right? When he did come over, it was to serve Aerys, and he was insane. Did serving under the Mad King cause Varys to develop some insane sense of loyalty to the Targaryens, so strong that it caused him to reject any other options for a peaceful nation (like Kevan). It doesn't make sense to me, but like I said, Varys is very complex.