Why Young Griff genetically could not be Prince Aegon, the Son of Rhaegar and Elia

[TheonGreyjoy]

To the OP

I have green eyes and brown hair, my wife have brown eyes and brown hair: both our kids have blond hair and clear as sky blue eyes. So take ur real world science somewhere else.

[Vaemond]

Your understanding of genetics is WEAK, old man!

You have one parent with bb, that's Rhaegar.

But the other is Bb, Elia. Those with brown hair carry the recessive trait for blonde, which is why they don't have BB, or black hair.

So ---- bb + Bb = 1. Bb 2. Bb 3. bb 4. bb

So a 50% chance that the child of Rhaegar and Elia could be blonde.

http://dna.frieger.com/calc-quick.php

Oh yeah, plus the fact that Baelor Breakspear had brothers who were blonde.

Sorry I meant Elia is BB and Rhaegar is bb so all there children will be Bb.

[Jon's Queen Consort]

Just a question; We know from GRRM that Elia's son was looking like Rhaegar and had his coloring. So what is the point of the real world's genetics?

[Greymoon]

Ok, I've figured out how the Daeron II and Mariah Martell's children could have been a mix but not Elia and Rhaegar's ;).

Aliandra married Drazenko Rogare, a man from Lys with typical Valyrian features. If Aliandra was the same as Elia ('VV', 'BB') and Drazenko the same as Rhaegar ('vv', 'bb') and if Maron and Mariah Martell were descended from them they'd probably be grandchildren. So the child of Aliandra and Drazenko would be 'Vv' and 'Bb' meaning they could still carry the trait of violet eyes and brown hair.

So let's say this child married a person with the genotype 'VV' and 'BB' the children would still have a 2 in 4 chance of being carriers of the violet eyes and brown hair. So one of these children is Mariah if she is 'Bb' and 'Vv' and Daeron is 'vv' and 'bb' this means the children will have a chance of favouring either of their parents in looks.

We are told repeatedly that Elia's son Aegon (the real one) had his father's looks. You cannot argue it wasn't so, or it's impossible, if GRRM explicitly wrote it that way. And Elia's father could have been blond or silver haired, for all we know. Some of the Daynes are that (Edric, Gerold), and they are dornish.

And what about Aegon V's children's? Duncan the Small is the only one that takes after the Blackwoods, according to the illustration in the world book. And Aegon V himself had the Targaryen look, although he was half Dayne. Daeron the Drunken was also, it seems, the only one of Aegon V's brothers to not have the typical Targaryen look.

Rhaenyra's mother was Aemma Arryn, daughter of Princess Daella Tragaryen and Lord Rodrick Arryn. According to your theory, Aemma should have taken after her father, Lord Arryn, and Rhaenyra, after her mother, hence, after Lord Arryn, too. Yet, Rhaenyra had the Targaryen look, not the Arryn look. So Targaryen genes are neither dominant nor recessive. Even in real life, it seems to me that genetics are a bit more complicated than what you are arguing.

And, Silver fantasy hair genes =/= blond genes in real life. Same is true for violet/amethyst/indigo/purple eyes. Valyrian traits simply do not exist in the real world, so we shouldn't apply real world 'rules' to them.

[Alester Florent]

To the OP

I have green eyes and brown hair, my wife have brown eyes and brown hair: both our kids have blond hair and clear as sky blue eyes. So take ur real world science somewhere else.

What hair/eye colour is the milkman? Just wondering... :rolleyes:

[Beorn Snow]

What hair/eye colour is the milkman? Just wondering... :rolleyes:

:agree:

[Ser Lepus]

1.-GRRM has explicitly said that in Westeros genetics don't work as in the real world.

2.-Young Griff's mom Ellaria had Targaryen ancestors, so she could have recessive "Targaryen looks" genes.

[cocoalover1956]

Hair and eye color are both polygenetic traits, which work in a manner a bit more complicated than what OP proposes. We have no idea where silver hair and purple eyes fall on the scale on dominance or what Elia's mother and father's genotypes were, so you can't say with certainty that its impossible for them to have a fair-haired child. Heck, even in the real world you see cases where both parents have dark coloring but their child is fair, or vice versa. And that's not even touching epigenetics.

[oursisthefury69]

Wow wow wow wow wow wow.

This really is indicative, though an extreme example, of how people say things on here literally just to try to display what they believe is their own brilliance in some random field like genetics. SO terribly freaking absurd. I thought/hoped this thread was going to refer to how Connington observed a difference in the shade of Aegonand Rhagers eye colors

[Lady Blizzardborn]

I would be all for this except that Targs are not "blonde." They have silver, gold, or silver/gold hair. The Lannisters are the "blond" ones.

Plus Targs have magic genes. Magic genes do what they like.

[Lady Blizzardborn]

Wow wow wow wow wow wow.

This really is indicative, though an extreme example, of how people say things on here literally just to try to display what they believe is their own brilliance in some random field like genetics. SO terribly freaking absurd. I thought/hoped this thread was going to refer to how Connington observed a difference in the shade of Aegonand Rhagers eye colors

Which would mean precisely nothing anyway, as Rhaegar, Viserys, and Dany all had the exact same gene combinations but each got a different shade of eye color. Naturally Rheagar's son could have different colored eyes than his father did, especially if there were any non-black/brown eyes in Elia's genetics.

[Balerion the kitten]

Which would mean precisely nothing anyway, as Rhaegar, Viserys, and Dany all had the exact same gene combinations but each got a different shade of eye color. Naturally Rheagar's son could have different colored eyes than his father did, especially if there were any non-black/brown eyes in Elia's genetics.

Cersei refers to Elia as a "feeble dornish princess with black eyes and a flat chest". So it is a little suspicious how two adults with very dark eyes somehow have a son with lighter eyes than their own

[Ferocious Veldt Roarer]

To continue we must look further to their parents. Rhaegar was the product of a sister-brother marriage who most likely had the genotype of bb and vv resulting in blond hair and violet eyes for all children as evidenced by Daenerys, Viserys and Rhaegar.

Elia Martell was the daughter of the Princess of Dorne and another person, presumably someone with brown eyes and hair. Meaning the genotypes would be ‘BB’ and ‘VV’. When Elia had children with Rhaegar their genotypes would have to be ‘Bb’ and ‘Vv’. This means that a child of theirs could not possibly be fair coloured like Rhaegar.

Yet we know for a fact that he was, and so does everyone in Westeros. If Young Griff looked nothing like Aegon, he wouldn't try to pass as Aegon.

[Kienn]

Dominant and recessive traits

‘b’ = blond hair, a recessive trait

‘B’ = brown/black hair, a dominant trait

‘v’ = violet eyes

‘V’ = brown eyes

First off let me start with what we know about Rhaenys and Aegon Targaryen and their parents, Rhaegar and Elia. Rhaegar was a Targaryen with blond hair and violet eyes. In the real world, blond hair is a recessive trait as is blue eyes. However, as violet eyes do not exist let’s say they are recessive to both blue and brown eyes. So, ‘b’ = blond hair and ‘v’ = violet eyes. Elia was a typical Martell with brown eyes and hair. In the real world these are dominant traits; so, ‘B’ = brown hair and ‘V’ = brown eyes.

To continue we must look further to their parents. Rhaegar was the product of a sister-brother marriage who most likely had the genotype of bb and vv resulting in blond hair and violet eyes for all children as evidenced by Daenerys, Viserys and Rhaegar.

Elia Martell was the daughter of the Princess of Dorne and another person, presumably someone with brown eyes and hair. Meaning the genotypes would be ‘BB’ and ‘VV’. When Elia had children with Rhaegar their genotypes would have to be ‘Bb’ and ‘Vv’. This means that a child of theirs could not possibly be fair coloured like Rhaegar.

Real world genetics for hair and eyes does not work like this. You are reducing it to 6th-grade genetics about soybeans.

GRRM can also make his genetics work however he wants to.

[Annara Snow]

Dominant and recessive traits

b = blond hair, a recessive trait

B = brown/black hair, a dominant trait

v = violet eyes

V = brown eyes

First off let me start with what we know about Rhaenys and Aegon Targaryen and their parents, Rhaegar and Elia. Rhaegar was a Targaryen with blond hair and violet eyes. In the real world, blond hair is a recessive trait as is blue eyes. However, as violet eyes do not exist lets say they are recessive to both blue and brown eyes. So, b = blond hair and v = violet eyes. Elia was a typical Martell with brown eyes and hair. In the real world these are dominant traits; so, B = brown hair and V = brown eyes.

To continue we must look further to their parents. Rhaegar was the product of a sister-brother marriage who most likely had the genotype of bb and vv resulting in blond hair and violet eyes for all children as evidenced by Daenerys, Viserys and Rhaegar.

Elia Martell was the daughter of the Princess of Dorne and another person, presumably someone with brown eyes and hair. Meaning the genotypes would be BB and VV. When Elia had children with Rhaegar their genotypes would have to be Bb and Vv. This means that a child of theirs could not possibly be fair coloured like Rhaegar.

Two things:

- you don't know how genetics work in ASOIAF:

- you didn't get the genetics of our world right, either. How can you know that Elia's genotype was brown + brown, rather than brown + blue, or brown + violet? You don't.

[Hos the Hostage]

1. Rules of real world science do not apply in fantasy

2. Rhaegar has Dornish ancestors, and Elia has Targaryen ancestors, to the traits are not pure and simple as assumed by the OP.

The OP will be right if Elia had purely dominant genes, BB.

| B | B

b | Bb| Bb

b | Bb| Bb

Red: Rhaegar's genes

Orange: Elia's genes

Black: Their kids' genes

In all four cases, there is at least one dominant 'B', meaning all kids will have Dornish features.

However, this is not the case because both houses have intermarried in the past. The real table is likely to be similar to (but more complicated than) this:

| B | b

b | Bb| bb

b | Bb| bb

There is a 50% chance that the kids will have Targaryen features. Which is what actually happened

3. The real prince Aegon, at least as a young boy, definitely had 'fair hair', as remembered by Kevan Lannister. Even if that corpse was not of real Aegon, Varys would not have got a fair-haired corpse to mimic a dark-haired prince. Rhaenys was dark-haired, so people would not suspect the corpse to be not Aegon's just because he had brown hair - unless of course, if the real Aegon had fair hair.

4. Balor Breakspear and Maekar I were brothers. See their features. They had a Targaryen father and a Dornish mother. If anything we should inquire how did Maekar have fair hair.

[Annara Snow]

Cersei refers to Elia as a "feeble dornish princess with black eyes and a flat chest". So it is a little suspicious how two adults with very dark eyes somehow have a son with lighter eyes than their own

Actually, no, it's not. It just means they both probably had recessive genes for light eyes.

It is the opposite that would be unlikely (two people with blue eyes producing a brown eyed child, assuming that brown eyes are a dominant trait in their world as they are in ours). And that's just according to the basic genetics they teach in schools.

[Annara Snow]

1. Rules of real world science do not apply in fantasy

2. Rhaegar has Dornish ancestors, and Elia has Targaryen ancestors, to the traits are not pure and simple as assumed by the OP.

The OP will be right if Elia had purely dominant genes, BB.

| B | B

b | Bb| Bb

b | Bb| Bb

Red: Rhaegar's genes

Orange: Elia's genes

Black: Their kids' genes

In all four cases, there is at least one dominant 'B', meaning all kids will have Dornish features.

However, this is not the case because both houses have intermarried in the past. The real table is likely to be similar to (but more complicated than) this:

| B | b

b | Bb| bb

b | Bb| bb

There is a 50% chance that the kids will have Targaryen features. Which is what actually happened

3. The real prince Aegon, at least as a young boy, definitely had 'fair hair', as remembered by Kevan Lannister. Even if that corpse was not of real Aegon, Varys would not have got a fair-haired corpse to mimic a dark-haired prince. Rhaenys was dark-haired, so people would not suspect the corpse to be not Aegon's just because he had brown hair - unless of course, if the real Aegon had fair hair.

4. Balor Breakspear and Maekar I were brothers. See their features. They had a Targaryen father and a Dornish mother. If anything we should inquire how did Maekar have fair hair.

I agree with most of this, however: It's not just the Targaryen origin. The Dornish are not all brown eyed and dark haired. We know that there are quite a few Dornish people with blond hair and/or blue eyes. And the Daynes have violet eyes.

[Balerion the kitten]

Actually, no, it's not. It just means they both probably had recessive genes for light eyes.

It is the opposite that would be unlikely (two people with blue eyes producing a brown eyed child, assuming that brown eyes are a dominant trait in their world as they are in ours). And that's just according to the basic genetics they teach in schools.

yeah I know it's completely plausible in our world but in westeros its alarm bells for doubtful parentage. Cause it does seem like ASOIAF doesn't follow our biology

[Annara Snow]

yeah I know it's completely plausible in our world but in westeros its alarm bells for doubtful parentage. Cause it does seem like ASOIAF doesn't follow our biology

Only when it comes to Baratheons, apparently. The magical Plot Point Genetics. Otherwise, there doesn't seem to be anything all that unusual in how genetics work in ASOIAF (not counting the possibility of inherited magical traits like being a greenseer or warg or bonding with dragons).