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Incest in Volantis


BigBoss01

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18 hours ago, The Fattest Leech said:

Incest did happen in Volantis as a way to keep the dragon blood "pure", as other posters have pointed out. But it created terrible problems and eventually led to the near demise of the Targ dynasty, therefore, it would have ended the elite in Volantis as it did in Westeros. It just happened quicker in Westeros because of a infinitely smaller Valyrian gene pool for them to chose from.

Um, no...

18 hours ago, The Fattest Leech said:

The tradition amongst the Targaryens had always been to marry kin to kin. Wedding brother to sister was thought to be ideal. Failing that, a girl might wed an uncle, a cousin, or a nephew; a boy, a cousin, aunt, or niece.

In other words, incest by preference.

18 hours ago, The Fattest Leech said:

This practice went back to Old Valyria, where it was common amongst many of the ancient families, particularly those who bred and rode dragons.

  1. "Particularly" those who bred and rode dragons. Not "only". There were many ancient families which were dragonless but also practiced incest. (Velaryon? Celtigar?)
  2. Many, but apparently not all. However, Targaryens were among the particularly many who did.
18 hours ago, The Fattest Leech said:

"The blood of the dragon must remain pure," the wisdom went.

But incest is not necessary for that. Marrying an aunt, niece or cousin does not make blood any less pure, if these aunt, niece or cousin are equally pure blooded to begin with. Yet the Valyrians preferred siblings to cousins given a choice.

 

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33 minutes ago, Jaak said:

Um, no...

In other words, incest by preference.

  1. "Particularly" those who bred and rode dragons. Not "only". There were many ancient families which were dragonless but also practiced incest. (Velaryon? Celtigar?)
  2. Many, but apparently not all. However, Targaryens were among the particularly many who did.

But incest is not necessary for that. Marrying an aunt, niece or cousin does not make blood any less pure, if these aunt, niece or cousin are equally pure blooded to begin with. Yet the Valyrians preferred siblings to cousins given a choice.

 

I think they preferred siblings so they can keep claims within the dinasty.

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2 minutes ago, BigBoss01 said:

I think they preferred siblings so they can keep claims within the dinasty.

But it´s not just siblings who´re within the dynasty - and it´s not just siblings who have dragons.

Why did Jaehaerys I marry Alysanne, and not his niece Aerea? Or his widowed big sister Rhaena in preference to the little sister Alysanne?

Why Aemon/Jocelyn and Baelon/Alyssa, not Aemon/Alyssa? If there was one sister of marriageable age, it would have made sense to ensure that the elder son and heir had the pure blood.

Aemon having a daughter Rhaenys and no son should have been an obvious problem in 80s. An obvious solution should have been marry Rhaenys and Viserys, and unite their claims and their dragons. Why were they married to Corlys and Aemma instead? Neither had dragons.

Marrying Rhaenys and Meleys to Corlys created a second, rival dragonlord family of Velaryon in Westeros. Marrying Daemon to Rhea would have created a third rival dragonlord family if Daemon had impregnated his bronze bitch, as he should have.

We are told why Viserys did not marry Laena and Vhagar (didn´t want to marry for reasons of state, and wasn´t attracted to a 12 year old), and why Rhaenyra wasn´t married to Aegon (Aegon was a danger of usurper, not getting along with her), but why not marry Helaena to Jacaerys? Helaena was not as likely to usurp, and rode Dreamfyre.

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4 hours ago, Jaak said:

In other words, incest by preference.

Actually, more like incest because that is what they were taught since birth. It is just as F'd up as the Westerosi example of that Lannister guy (?) being engaged to a baby (name?) just for her lands. That baby will grow up thinking her marriage arrangement is "normal". There have been plenty of incestuous couples that did not want to marry their sibling because they thought it wrong or were commanded to wed. Rhaella is one that comes to mind as the most recent. She married her brother because of "duty". It is these forced incestual marriages that George set in place as a reminder, or guideline, to show the readers that incest = bad shit happening.

Also, as I mentioned below, incest for political and monetary jockeying power. There were enough dragon eggs for every single Valyrian/Volantene human to hatch, but if there was an egg that popped up, it's "better" to be prepared with dragon blood than not.

(just to be clear, I am in no way justifying this form of suppression against the humans involved)

4 hours ago, Jaak said:
  1. "Particularly" those who bred and rode dragons. Not "only". There were many ancient families which were dragonless but also practiced incest. (Velaryon? Celtigar?)
  2. Many, but apparently not all. However, Targaryens were among the particularly many who did.

I was quoting the text from the books. I never said, and the book section I quoted never said "all". You kind of already pointed out what the text said in your #1 comment, so I am not sure what the argument with me is? There were Targs that married other Valyrians and the part of the reason why is that the other Valyrian noble families had "old Valyrian" blood. There were Valaryons who ride dragons and some were half Targ, as an example.

4 hours ago, Jaak said:

But incest is not necessary for that. Marrying an aunt, niece or cousin does not make blood any less pure, if these aunt, niece or cousin are equally pure blooded to begin with. Yet the Valyrians preferred siblings to cousins given a choice.

 

You are correct. Practicing incest with your aunt who is of the same blood as you is, in fact, still incest according to in-world laws that I posted earlier and does keep the blood more "pure".

Correct again. As I quoted above, it seems Valyrians did prefer close sibling incestual relationships, but they did go with other cousins, uncles, etc when needed just like they also practiced polygamy when needed (or wanted in this case).

4 hours ago, BigBoss01 said:

I think they preferred siblings so they can keep claims within the dinasty.

Yes. If not only to keep the dragon blood "pure", it was done to keep claims to the highest valued item they could get= land, titles, wealth, inheritance, politics, etc.

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24 minutes ago, The Fattest Leech said:

Actually, more like incest because that is what they were taught since birth.

A taught preference.

24 minutes ago, The Fattest Leech said:

It is just as F'd up as the Westerosi example of that Lannister guy (?) being engaged to a baby (name?) just for her lands. That baby will grow up thinking her marriage arrangement is "normal". There have been plenty of incestuous couples that did not want to marry their sibling because they thought it wrong or were commanded to wed. Rhaella is one that comes to mind as the most recent. She married her brother because of "duty". It is these forced incestual marriages that George set in place as a reminder, or guideline, to show the readers that incest = bad shit happening.

And there have been a plenty of forced non-incestuous marriages. As well as people who wanted to commit incest...

Rhaenyra was forced to marry Laenor, who was her second cousin - not incest. She wanted to marry her uncle Daemon, which was incest, and eventually did. Naerys had no objection to incest as such, she just wanted to marry a different full brother of hers - Aemon, not Aegon. Rhae wanted to marry her brother Aegon, and employed a love potion to achieve this (unsuccessfully). Shaera and Jaehaerys successfully eloped and broke engagements to others.

 

Outside Targaryens, Tywin and Joanna were first cousins, in love and Faith had no objections. And over the objections of Faith, the love of Jaime and Cersei was mutual.

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3 minutes ago, Jaak said:

A taught preference.

And there have been a plenty of forced non-incestuous marriages. As well as people who wanted to commit incest...

Rhaenyra was forced to marry Laenor, who was her second cousin - not incest. She wanted to marry her uncle Daemon, which was incest, and eventually did. Naerys had no objection to incest as such, she just wanted to marry a different full brother of hers - Aemon, not Aegon. Rhae wanted to marry her brother Aegon, and employed a love potion to achieve this (unsuccessfully). Shaera and Jaehaerys successfully eloped and broke engagements to others.

 

Outside Targaryens, Tywin and Joanna were first cousins, in love and Faith had no objections. And over the objections of Faith, the love of Jaime and Cersei was mutual.

Cersei has been manipulating Jaime for a long, long while. This will not end well between them. Still, as children, Cersei desired Rhaegar and even drew pictures of them together flying on the back of a dragon. She hid this from Jaime to not anger him (or something) so Jaime would bascially stay at his "place" with Cersei. Cersei is Tywin with teats.

Tywin and Joanna didn't really create the most healthy children, did they? This is part of what George shows us. Even when it is consensual, incest breeds "monsters" of various types.

George set up Twin and Joanna to create a larger conflict of the children and for the power reasons mentioned above:

http://www.westeros.org/Citadel/SSM/Entry/Asshai.com_Interview_in_Barcelona

Q: We see marriages that are almost always between families seeking to ally themselves to one another. Given this context, it always seemed strange that the marriage of Tywin Lannister was to a first cousin, and even stranger when you consider how pragmatic and ambitious Tywin was. Or was it truly a love match?

A: Noble houses usually make marriages of convenience to build alliances. As a matter of fact, it's a common practice not only among the noble class, but also among the middle class and even among peasants: If somebody has a piece of land, he marries his daughter with somebody who has an even bigger piece of land, in the hope that all that land will belong to his grandchildren some day.

About Tywin......Probably.,>

It could be love, but there is another clear motive, which is to reinforce the family's bloodline. The Targayren are the extreme example of that policy: they only marry within the family to keep the purity of the blood, and that way you avoid the problem of having several candidates for the throne or the rule of the family. If you have a generation of five brothers and each of them has several children (sons?), after two or three generations you could find yourself with thirty potential heirs: there could be thirty people named Lannister or Frey, and that produces confict, because all of them are going to get involved in hereditary fights for the throne. That's what originated the War of the Roses; An excess of candidates for the throne, all of them descendants of Edward III. Laking a heir (like Henry VIII) is just as bad as having too many of them. If you have five sons and you want to avoid that kind of problem, maybe it's not such a bad idea to marry the firstborn girl of the oldest son with the third son (or with the firstborn of the third son?), and that way you avoid fights and the bloodline remains united, so maybe that was the purpose of Tywin's marriage. Maybe it was Lord Tytos' idea, or maybe even Tywin's grandfather's idea, it depends on which was the exact time in which the marriage alliance was brokered, but I would have to check my notes because I can't remember.

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Valyrians and valyrian families, in particular, seem to be fairly secretive, so I imagine incest was widely practiced to keep said secrets in the family and to not dilute the gene pool. Consider that the Targs were one of the dragon riding families, but didn't have the knowledge to make Valyrian steel, and you start to understand my assumption. I imagine a select few families or people knew the secrets of their steel, then a select few knew how to maintain the fourteen fires, and so on and so forth. The proto faceless men killing a few of these knowledgeable people seems to be what caused the doom. 

Going back to Volantis and we can assume that there probably is incest going on there, but because there are little secrets that need keeping anymore, then it's probably practiced for the second reason of maintaining blood purity. I'd wager that although the population is larger, it's still not large enough to support a non-incest marriage economy, since it clearly wasn't big enough to produce a single 14-30 year old female of notable status for the young prince Rhaegar to wed. 

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3 hours ago, The Fattest Leech said:

 

Actually, more like incest because that is what they were taught since birth. It is just as F'd up as the Westerosi example of that Lannister guy (?) being engaged to a baby (name?) just for her lands. That baby will grow up thinking her marriage arrangement is "normal". There have been plenty of incestuous couples that did not want to marry their sibling because they thought it wrong or were commanded to wed. Rhaella is one that comes to mind as the most recent. She married her brother because of "duty". It is these forced incestual marriages that George set in place as a reminder, or guideline, to show the readers that incest = bad shit happening.

Also, as I mentioned below, incest for political and monetary jockeying power. There were enough dragon eggs for every single Valyrian/Volantene human to hatch, but if there was an egg that popped up, it's "better" to be prepared with dragon blood than not.

(just to be clear, I am in no way justifying this form of suppression against the humans involved)

I was quoting the text from the books. I never said, and the book section I quoted never said "all". You kind of already pointed out what the text said in your #1 comment, so I am not sure what the argument with me is? There were Targs that married other Valyrians and the part of the reason why is that the other Valyrian noble families had "old Valyrian" blood. There were Valaryons who ride dragons and some were half Targ, as an example.

You are correct. Practicing incest with your aunt who is of the same blood as you is, in fact, still incest according to in-world laws that I posted earlier and does keep the blood more "pure".

Correct again. As I quoted above, it seems Valyrians did prefer close sibling incestual relationships, but they did go with other cousins, uncles, etc when needed just like they also practiced polygamy when needed (or wanted in this case).

Yes. If not only to keep the dragon blood "pure", it was done to keep claims to the highest valued item they could get= land, titles, wealth, inheritance, politics, etc.

In ASOIAF incest isn't always portrayed as bad, king Jaehaerys and queen Alysanne were siblings and they loved each other but they  brought peace and prosperity to Westeros after Maegor so i don't think GRRM's message is incest is bad regardless is more complicated than that.

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5 minutes ago, BigBoss01 said:

In ASOIAF incest isn't always portrayed as bad, king Jaehaerys and queen Alysanne were siblings and they loved each other but they  brought peace and prosperity to Westeros after Maegor so i don't think GRRM's message is incest is bad regardless is more complicated than that.

I agree that the two brought peace and prosperity to half of Westeros (abolish First Night:thumbsup:), and I agree they were happy with each other, but they also really screwed over the north and the Starks and the Nights Watch on one of their joint campaigns. Alysanne especially was a major reason for some defense changes that hurt the Watch and for cutting off a huge portion of magic and the direwolves from the rest of Westeros (where it belonged). On the surface everything looks good, but the end result is not so great. These changes had such a negative effect on the north and their culture because she took their lands, that the Starks went against her in the 101 council. These changes to magic and such are coming to a head in the story now starting with Bran's first chapter in AGOT.

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24 minutes ago, The Fattest Leech said:

I agree that the two brought peace and prosperity to half of Westeros (abolish First Night:thumbsup:), and I agree they were happy with each other, but they also really screwed over the north and the Starks and the Nights Watch on one of their joint campaigns. Alysanne especially was a major reason for some defense changes that hurt the Watch and for cutting off a huge portion of magic and the direwolves from the rest of Westeros (where it belonged). On the surface everything looks good, but the end result is not so great. These changes had such a negative effect on the north and their culture because she took their lands, that the Starks went against her in the 101 council. These changes to magic and such are coming to a head in the story now starting with Bran's first chapter in AGOT.

As the one true king used to say "A good act does not wash out the bad,nor a bad act the good" if Jaehaerys hadn't married his sister perhaps we would still have the first night and other problems that he and Alysanne resolved together. About the Night's Watch, what were the negative effects on the north after Alysanne gave the New Gift to the Night's Watch?

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On 8/29/2016 at 9:39 PM, BigBoss01 said:

As the one true king used to say "A good act does not wash out the bad,nor a bad act the good" if Jaehaerys hadn't married his sister perhaps we would still have the first night and other problems that he and Alysanne resolved together. About the Night's Watch, what were the negative effects on the north after Alysanne gave the New Gift to the Night's Watch?

Perhaps, but chances are some other king or Queen would have stopped that anyway. 

I am on my phone so I can't find and use all of the quotes very easily, but basically people saw that giving the New Gift would take away the responsibilities of the NW brothers, it turned their eyes away from the wall (or something like that) and she moved one of the commanding locations, that of Nightfort with the magic door, somewhere else which closed an opening for magic and direwolves to pass. There is more, but like I mentioned, on a phone and making detailed posts sucks

When the Stark kids find the direwolves in Brand first chapter, Theon remarks how there hasn't been a direwolf south of the wall in 200 years, and that is when GQA moved the watch away from Nightfort and Magic was closed off.

Oh, and I am using the term magic the way it is perceived in-verse. 

And another big clue is that her name is *Good* Queen Alysanne. Since when in GRRM's world does he write strictly good characters?

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On 30.8.2016 at 2:47 AM, The Fiddler said:

Going back to Volantis and we can assume that there probably is incest going on there, but because there are little secrets that need keeping anymore, then it's probably practiced for the second reason of maintaining blood purity. I'd wager that although the population is larger, it's still not large enough to support a non-incest marriage economy, since it clearly wasn't big enough to produce a single 14-30 year old female of notable status for the young prince Rhaegar to wed. 

That's not clear at all.

A Volantene noblewoman who gets married to her second or third cousin of different surname will be living inside the Black Walls right next door to her birth home (I suppose it's a minority who will be living in outer city of Volantis, or west bank, or in daughter cities or estates in countryside). How important is the city social network for a Volantene?

There have been Essosi brides in Westeros. Viserys' wife Larra Rogare from Lys, Blackfyre wife from Tyrosh, princess Mellario from Norvos, Serala from Myr to Duskendale... How many of them did not come to some sort of grief and lived to old age in Westeros with their children on the throne?

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On ‎8‎/‎30‎/‎2016 at 0:47 AM, The Fiddler said:

Valyrians and valyrian families, in particular, seem to be fairly secretive, so I imagine incest was widely practiced to keep said secrets in the family and to not dilute the gene pool. Consider that the Targs were one of the dragon riding families, but didn't have the knowledge to make Valyrian steel, and you start to understand my assumption. I imagine a select few families or people knew the secrets of their steel, then a select few knew how to maintain the fourteen fires, and so on and so forth. The proto faceless men killing a few of these knowledgeable people seems to be what caused the doom. 

Going back to Volantis and we can assume that there probably is incest going on there, but because there are little secrets that need keeping anymore, then it's probably practiced for the second reason of maintaining blood purity. I'd wager that although the population is larger, it's still not large enough to support a non-incest marriage economy, since it clearly wasn't big enough to produce a single 14-30 year old female of notable status for the young prince Rhaegar to wed. 

The population of Volantis is huge, 500,000 + in the City alone.  The Old Blood must surely number in the low thousands, at the very least.

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1 hour ago, SeanF said:

The population of Volantis is huge, 500,000 + in the City alone.  The Old Blood must surely number in the low thousands, at the very least.

No a priori constraint. The only real constraint is that they have to provide candidates for Triarch.

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