Targaryen (Valyrian) madness: magical or genetic?

[Jon's Queen Consort]

15 hours ago, StarkofWinterfell said:

If you want to argue that Targaryen insanity is the result of their inbreeding, you must also find evidence of that prior to Westeros in Valyria and for other Valyrian families to exhibit the same traits since the Valyrians as a whole had the same practice.

But we don't know the Valyrians in order to know if it was an inbreeding thing. However a culture that uses slaves the way the Valyrians use them and using WMD on people who hadn't the same power to fight back in order to make new slaves doesn't seem a culture that people are either sane or at least decent human beings.

 

[Hugorfonics]

1 hour ago, Jon's Queen Consort said:

But we don't know the Valyrians in order to know if it was an inbreeding thing. However a culture that uses slaves the way the Valyrians use them and using WMD on people who hadn't the same power to fight back in order to make new slaves doesn't seem a culture that people are either sane or at least decent human beings.

 

They don't sound decent to me, but lots of people have fucked up ancestry, like Stark. That doesn't make the family gene crazy.

[JonCon's Red Beard]

You know how the whole thing is nonsense? There is not such a thing as "madness". You don't go to a doctor and they tell you "you're mad". Every "madness" is specific: depression, bipolarity, schizophrenia, autism, etc. I mean, these are neurological disorders. No one suffering from a mental illness is called "mad" anymore. We call "mad" to things that are out of the "norm", a generalization. A valid adjective, but not for people with mental illness.

Now, could the Targs have been victims of schizophrenia? Yes, totally. But not all cases of "madness" among them fit schizophrenia. In the case of the Targaryens, I think people rather diagnose them and try to fit their actions and behaviour into actually suffering schizophrenia rather than take the examples to conclude they could have indeed suffered it. In Aerys' case, I think he fits only a few of the symptoms, not all.

Honestly, I think the only thing the Targaryens had was to be too impulsive. That, combined with all the power they got, made them act foolishly and without thinking on the consequences. This impulsiveness can be either taken as heroic acts by their fans, or mad behaviour by their detractors.

 

[Jon's Queen Consort]

1 hour ago, Hugorfonics said:

They don't sound decent to me, but lots of people have fucked up ancestry, like Stark. That doesn't make the family gene crazy.

What I meant is that maybe the Valyrians had some madness genes, probably because of their blood magic, which were in *repression*, I am not sure if this is the word, and it appeared in full scale in some people who were triggered. However everyone or at least the majority had shown some symptoms.

[StarkofWinterfell]

4 hours ago, Jon's Queen Consort said:

But we don't know the Valyrians in order to know if it was an inbreeding thing. However a culture that uses slaves the way the Valyrians use them and using WMD on people who hadn't the same power to fight back in order to make new slaves doesn't seem a culture that people are either sane or at least decent human beings.

 

That would imply that morality is universal rather than relative. The Valyrians are an obvious parallel to the Romans, who also based their society off slavery.

[Hugorfonics]

3 hours ago, Jon's Queen Consort said:

What I meant is that maybe the Valyrians had some madness genes, probably because of their blood magic, which were in *repression*, I am not sure if this is the word, and it appeared in full scale in some people who were triggered. However everyone or at least the majority had shown some symptoms.

And the term madness gene I find kind of offensive. Starks did blood magic too, and do.

Well in a Westeros world of heresay its hard to know real history, but Viserys is crazy so I guess that's 50% of the targs we know (33% maybe) But Robert and Stannis aren't that right either , so 2/3 of the Baratheons? Not to mention Cersei or Joffrey; or Euron and Aaron. 

[StarkofWinterfell]

Just now, Cowboy Dan said:

I've gotta chime in for the minority here as I think Targ madness is absolutely a real thing in-universe. I think people are trying to tie real-world explanations to what is ultimately a fantasy series, and more than that, a series about the return of magic to the world. 

I agree that Targ madness is too vague a diagnosis but GRRM isn't a psychologist. He's not applying real-world mental maladies to these characters. We may get a couple sociopaths in Roose and Ramsay but they are stereotypes of that illness in literature: the ruthless, calculated businessman (Roose/Patrick Bateman's CEO life) and the tempestuous, capricious sadist (Ramsay/Bateman's inner fantasies).

We've seen that dragon dreams are real. In the D&E novellas Dunk is involved in prophetic Targ dreams not once but twice and is told the first dream by two Targs at different times, which ultimately comes true. Targ madness seems to be these dreams turned up to eleven, to the point one can no longer tell the difference between the world that is and the world to come, seen only in their sleep. To say the madness is completely unrelated to dragon dreams or magic seems a bit odd personally because the books don't really lend to that interpretation and actually seems to point in the opposite direction.

How would you account for the other Valyrians who did the same thing? Were all the Valyrians crazy? Or just the Targs?

I examine this question in my topic here:

 

[Hugorfonics]

7 minutes ago, Cowboy Dan said:

To clarify: it was a trait that was due to the blood, hence blood of the dragon/blood of Old Valyria. There were 40 families that were dragonriders and I think if we got a lineage of Valyria they would all trace back to one ancestor like how all Targs/great bastards/cadet branches can trace back to Aegon the Conqueror. Targaryens I think are more susceptible to the dreams than other Valyrians though, hence why Daenys was the one that led them from Valyria before the Doom. Perhaps it is the other way around and it is because of Daenys that trait proliferated. Targaryen lineage stagnated for a few generations after the Doom, it's very possible this led to the dream trait being a one in two 'coin flip' as opposed to say a one in hundred chance.

Your post is interesting to think about but like some of the explanations earlier in this thread I think it's trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. That is to say it definitely sounds like the kind of historical parallel GRRM enjoy and use BUT there is no evidence in story pointing to this being true. We're using real-world logic to explain phenomena in a world chock full of magic and prophecy.

So, like lots of topics, its probably all about Dany.

Yes, she sees Quaith when she shouldn't, and yes she walks into a pit of fire, but that doesn't make her crazy because she did birth dragons and Quaith (probably) is talking to her.

To say they are crazy for dreaming prophecy, is equivalent to say Starks are crazy for dreaming of wolves. Though it certainly doesnt make them saner, and this toppled with being kings riding nukes can't help either.

[hiemal]

45 minutes ago, Cowboy Dan said:

Not at all, I said they were crazy because they were unable to separate prophetic dreams from reality. If Sansa or Arya woke up from their wolf dreams believing they were actually wolves, started running around on all fours and howling then yes, I would call them crazy too.

Maybe I wasn't clear enough in my clarification but I don't think all Targs/Valyrians are crazy, only that due to Daenys there is a far higher chance than was normal pre-Doom.

Basically this. What if, for example, Aerys was driven mad by his imperfect foreknowledge that his friend and Hand, Tywin was also in some ways the author of his doom?

Until GRRM completes the saga and finishes his Targ tell-all, Fire and Blood: the Secret History of the Targaryens (I think it is to be called that...) but the fact that he feels such a thing necessary makes me suspect that there is a lot going on in that family that "history" has misrepresented- madness being the most obvious suspect (for me).

[Hugorfonics]

43 minutes ago, Cowboy Dan said:

Not at all, I said they were crazy because they were unable to separate prophetic dreams from reality. If Sansa or Arya woke up from their wolf dreams believing they were actually wolves, started running around on all fours and howling then yes, I would call them crazy too.

Maybe I wasn't clear enough in my clarification but I don't think all Targs/Valyrians are crazy, only that due to Daenys there is a far higher chance than was normal pre-Doom.

How many Targaryens do we know that can't separate dreams from reality? The only ones I can think of is the fiddler, eggs brother and maybe Dany, they seem fine

I agree that being magical is a good start for going crazy, but not the only variable. 

[hiemal]

3 minutes ago, Hugorfonics said:

How many Targaryens do we know that can't separate dreams from reality? The only ones I can think of is the fiddler, eggs brother and maybe Dany, they seem fine

I agree that being magical is a good start for going crazy, but not the only variable. 

Heh, I don't think GRRM would ever make it that easy...

[JonCon's Red Beard]

3 hours ago, Hugorfonics said:

How many Targaryens do we know that can't separate dreams from reality? The only ones I can think of is the fiddler, eggs brother and maybe Dany, they seem fine

I agree that being magical is a good start for going crazy, but not the only variable. 

I was going to ask the same. And actually, the Fiddler and Daeron could separate dreams from reality very well, just that their skills were more aggressive than the others's.

[LIVIA]

Part magic/part genetic, I think. They had always carried these "mad" genes. But while dragons were alive, they "slept", and after dragons became extinct, madness started go out.

I like @Lord Varys's idea that Targs so desperately missed their creatures and desired to bond with them again that went mad. But it depends on a person too. Such sane and stable, with strong nerves people as Daeron II, Baelor, Maekar and Aemon didn't go mad though they had to deal without dragons. We don't know, why. But I suspect that if Daeron II had had prophetic dreams like his namesake, he wouldn't have turned into a useless drunkard despite being heavily inbred and frail physically.

[Lord Varys]

1 hour ago, LIVIA said:

Part magic/part genetic, I think. They had always carried these "mad" genes. But while dragons were alive, they "slept", and after dragons became extinct, madness started go out.

I like @Lord Varys's idea that the Targs so desperately missed their creatures and desired to bond with them again that went mad. But it depends on a person too. Such sane and stable, with strong nerves people as Daeron II, Baelor, Maekar and Aemon didn't go mad though they had to deal without dragons. We don't know, why. But I suspect that even if Daeron II had had prophetic dreams like his namesake, he wouldn't have turned into a useless drunkard.

Indeed. It is easily enough explained that within and without the incest framework some Targaryens were much stabler, both mentally and physically, than others. And there are also hints that a lot pressure can destabilize your mental and physical health. We have this with Aenys I (if he died of natural causes), Maegor the Cruel, Baelor the Blessed, and Aerys II. Even Viserys III and Jaehaerys I (after the losses of both Baelon the Brave and Alysanne) show signs of this. And many of them seem to have gotten gradually worse - Aerys II, Aerion, Baelor, Maegor, Aegon the Unworthy.

[Masha]

1 hour ago, LIVIA said:

Part magic/part genetic, I think. They had always carried these "mad" genes. But while dragons were alive, they "slept", and after dragons became extinct, madness started go out.

I like @Lord Varys's idea that the Targs so desperately missed their creatures and desired to bond with them again that went mad. But it depends on a person too. Such sane and stable, with strong nerves people as Daeron II, Baelor, Maekar and Aemon didn't go mad though they had to deal without dragons. We don't know, why. But I suspect that even if Daeron II had had prophetic dreams like his namesake, he wouldn't have turned into a useless drunkard.

I like this idea. And here is a bit of a fact towards inbreeding problem.

Technically, till Egg's generation we didn't have insane Targs. We had evil Targs, bad rulers Targs but not schizophrenic/paranoia insane with which Aerys II and Viserys seemed to be plagued with. They had deformed babies - direct result of inbreeding, but not madness/insanity thing.

So we have a pure Targ Daeron II (pretty nice guy as we all agree), he married a 100% unrelated bride - Dornish Princess of Rhaenar bloodline. He had 4 children - all sane ones. One was into mystical and another was weak-willed, but not mad and insane.

Then we have Maekar marrying a Dayne (First Man bloodline) and suddenly we have our first verifiable insane Targ - Aerion who drunk Wildfyre. (And his son Daeron had a feeble witted daughter)

Then we have Egg who marries a Blackwood (First Man's bloodline again) and has 5 pretty nice kids all normal.

And only when we have 2 of his grandkids marrying each other we get a certifiably paranoid - Aerys II and double that - Viserys (who it was mentioned was kind of mentally unstable as a kid too).

Its like when Targs started to try to marry outside, their insanity became far more pronounced. I'd say magically (or luck of magic) might be an issue here

 

 

[The Hoare]

On 20/04/2016 at 8:04 PM, The Fresh PtwP said:

I think Targ madness is first and foremost: propaganda.

But the King Jaehaeries himself told Ser Barristan about the Targaryen madness:

Quote

King Jaehaerys once told me that madness and greatness were two sides of the same coin. Every time a new Targaryen is born, he said, the gods toss the coin in the air and the world holds its breath to see how it will land

 

Seens that the Targaryens have a predisposition to madness and the inbreeding only makes it more perceptible.

 

[Lady bonehead]

Two points:

Power may not cause madness, but it can certainly exaggerate certain tendencies.  If you are the king and think everyone is your enemy, you will be right often enough to reinforce your paranoia.  A sadistic peasant might beat his wife or torture his dog, but if he goes much beyond that he will be caught and hanged pretty quickly.  A lord or king can get away with quite a lot.  

Also, accusing your enemies of madness is a venerable ploy.  If the Targaryens had a reputation for madness, their enemies could bring that up any time one of them acted a bit wacky.

[Queen Historia I Reiss]

I think it is a combination of genetics, dreams (maybe send by Bloodraven) and the the fact that feudalism means to raise a child with the knowledge that he will gain total power once, 

 

 

[Dorian Martell's son]

https://4.bp.blogspot.com/_lCftRrT_cGY/S13y3TBjxII/AAAAAAAAADM/0X52Xjc950I/w1200-h630-p-nu/Inbred.jpg

This is the answer to your questions 

[Drogonthedread]

Its neitger magical nor genetical... Its just a myth which keeps getting overblown by the fandom mainly by the haters and detractors of dany and targs ..

I can count Aerys , Aerion bright flame and Aemond and maegor...other than these can you name anyone who has been mad or cruel ..even if you add some more like baelor and aegon 4 ...i bet you can name 10 guys in total...

But what about the remaining hundreds of Targs who were completely normal ..

For example , let's take this quote from Jahaerys which was given to barristan which is used by the fandom to use it for the madness in targs 

" Gods flip the coin whenever a Targ is born and it falls either on greatness or madness " 

Was jahaerys great or mad ..neither he was just a simple and normal guy. ..why no lme speaks about all the female targs whobhave been completely normal ..

So that quote itself is an over exaggeration when it was given by a guy who is neither great nor mad..

As I said Targ madness is just over exaggerated and it only exists because George wanted a reason. To overthrow targs and have dany in exile