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R+L=J v.163


J. Stargaryen

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35 minutes ago, Black Crow said:

Atishoo - atishoo, we all fall down

Last line of a well-known English nursery rhyme supposedly [but probably apocryphally] referencing the Black Death plague

The Spring Sickness is also a couple of generations back in time from the references that Martin was making. 

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So, without dragons it took a sneeze, a wildly incompetent and megalomaniac king, a love struck prince, a brutal civil war, a dissolute king that didn't really know what to do with the throne and then chaos.

Why not a reference to the Blackfyre rebellions? The bloody wars with Dorne? No, I take it Martin is talking about Jaehaerys II's unfortunate and untimely death which put the "wildly incompetent and megalomaniac king" on the throne. These all seem to be tied in time to one another - one  a result of the preceding reference, not reaching back into other generations. Between the Spring Sickness we have the reigns of Aerys I, Maekar, and Aegon V before we get to the short lived reign of Egg's son Jaehaerys II. The Spring Sickness has nothing directly to do with putting Aerys II on the throne, at least not in a greater sense than it lead to Aerys i, Maekar, and Egg as well. The untimely death of Jaehaerys has everything to do with it. So, between the two, I think the sneeze if almost certainly a reference to that fragile king's death, not his great-grandfather's.

What I want to know why @Moondancer thinks it might reference Summerhall? Just a guess, or something more?

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@SFDanny

 

It was an educated guess. I personally think that grrm was referencing significantly unstable situation and a perhaps a small incident that changed everything. In sneeze parlance, there was a build-up and a release. 

 

Contextually, we have a long and contentious reign of Aegon V and the swath of nobles whose awareness of Targ's dependency on dragons grew more obvious by each moment in which Egg mumbled "if only I had dragons..." It only took a moment, an excuse  for traitors to assemble, as ever, after many years of dissatisfaction. 

I don't think grrm was talking about the sickness. 

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13 minutes ago, Moondancer said:

a small incident that changed everything

That would be my read of "sneeze", as well, but I definitely wouldn't label the tragedy of Summerhal as such. Nor do I think that the Crown Prince making away with Lord Paragon's daughter qualify. 

Call it a hunch, but couldn't it refer to that yet unknown motive that made Brandon think that Rhaegar was in KL and do what he did? A little misinformation, perhaps even unintentional, and look what it led to.

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Call it a hunch, but couldn't it refer to that yet unknown motive that made Brandon think that Rhaegar was in KL and do what he did? A little misinformation, perhaps even unintentional, and look what it led to.

assuming the list is ordered chronologically, I don't think the sneeze relates to Brandon and Rhaegar.  I think it predates Aerys II's ascension to the throne...which makes Jaehaerys II's sudden illness a leading candidate.  I used the word mundane earlier to refer to Jaehaerys II's illness as the potential beginning domino but perhaps that does fit the context of what GRRM was speaking to, that something so small and insignificant could be the precursor to the fall of the dynasty. 

(on an aside, I would love to know what Brandon was told about Rhaegar/Lyanna and, perhaps more importantly, who told him and what their motivations were...but that's for a different thread)

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1 hour ago, Moondancer said:

@SFDanny

 

It was an educated guess. I personally think that grrm was referencing significantly unstable situation and a perhaps a small incident that changed everything. In sneeze parlance, there was a build-up and a release. 

 

Contextually, we have a long and contentious reign of Aegon V and the swath of nobles whose awareness of Targ's dependency on dragons grew more obvious by each moment in which Egg mumbled "if only I had dragons..." It only took a moment, an excuse  for traitors to assemble, as ever, after many years of dissatisfaction. 

I don't think grrm was talking about the sickness. 

 

1 hour ago, Ygrain said:

That would be my read of "sneeze", as well, but I definitely wouldn't label the tragedy of Summerhal as such. Nor do I think that the Crown Prince making away with Lord Paragon's daughter qualify. 

Call it a hunch, but couldn't it refer to that yet unknown motive that made Brandon think that Rhaegar was in KL and do what he did? A little misinformation, perhaps even unintentional, and look what it led to.

I'm all for the educated guesses and hunches here. So, thanks to both for intriguing possibilities, but I'm just looking for more. Until then, I think "sneeze" = Jaerhaerys's early death is the most likely interpretation.

3 minutes ago, The Hidden Dragon said:

assuming the list is ordered chronologically, I don't think the sneeze relates to Brandon and Rhaegar.  I think it predates Aerys II's ascension to the throne...which makes Jaehaerys II's sudden illness a leading candidate.  I used the word mundane earlier to refer to Jaehaerys II's illness as the potential beginning domino but perhaps that does fit the context of what GRRM was speaking to, that something so small and insignificant could be the precursor to the fall of the dynasty. 

(on an aside, I would love to know what Brandon was told about Rhaegar/Lyanna and, perhaps more importantly, who told him and what their motivations were...but that's for a different thread)

I agree. Can't we substitute for this list from Martin:

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So, without dragons it took a sneeze, a wildly incompetent and megalomaniac king, a love struck prince, a brutal civil war, a dissolute king that didn't really know what to do with the throne and then chaos.

with this:

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So, without dragons it took a Jaehaerys's early death, a Mad King Aerys II, a love struck Prince Rhaegar, a brutal Robert's Rebellion, a dissolute Robert who didn't really know what to do with the throne and then chaos.

And note that they all lead seamlessly into one another? With respect to @Black Crow and others who advance the Great Spring Sickness as synonymous with "sneeze" - and I do love the "ring around the rosy" reference - this would make a list of direct connections into something very different and unconnected. I like Hidden Dragon's domino reference here. These appear to be a list of causations. The domino of Jaehaery's death falls and causes the early ascension to the throne of an unstable king, whose actions combined with a love struck Rhaegar's own provide a catalyst for rebellion, which puts an unfit Robert on the throne, and whose detachment leads to his early death and the chaos of the War of the Five Kings and disunity in the face of the threat of the Others. Chaos. Move one domino out of line and perhaps the next doesn't fall and the end is different.

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I'm not sure we should assume Aegon V's reign (or the reign of any Targaryen king since the Dance - which is confirmed to have reduced Targaryen power greatly) actually saw a decline of the power of the Iron Throne.

Aegon V wanted to change things, possibly quite drastically (we have as of yet no idea what the reforms he did actually entailed nor have we any idea what exactly he wanted to implement but never could because he lacked dragons/support among his lords) and changing things is never easy, especially if it is about the very fabric of the society.

George's take that it is a succession of events - Jaehaerys II's early death, Aerys II's personality and mental issues, Rhaegar's actions, the outcome of the war, and Robert's personality and court thereafter - led to a severe weakening of the central authority of the Realm is actually pretty much my interpretation of the whole thing, too.

The Blackfyre rebellions were essentially an inner-dynastic struggle, not a threat to the monarchy or the power of the monarchy. But the overthrow of House Targaryen marked the beginning of a fragmentation of the Realm as George pointed elsewhere already. Balon rebelled against the Iron Throne because he thought the lords would no longer care about him doing his own thing in the wake of the overthrow of the Targaryen dynasty. He misjudged Robert but there are clear hints that he was right in principle. The suddenness in which the Realm exploded after Robert's confirms this. The Dance and the Blackfyre rebellion had very real animosities and long-simmering political conflicts as their causes, but the childish quarrels between Stannis and Renly come as a huge surprise.

And later on it is quite clear that the idea of a 'united Realm' which a Targaryen king would likely want to maintain at all costs isn't really a high priority in the books of Mace Tyrell or Paxter Redwyne. They don't really care whether the Ironborn have a king of their own or whether the North is still a part of the Realm or not.

Robert certainly could have restored the authority of the Iron Throne if he had been a different man. But he wasn't. And that's that.

The question we are talking about was why there were no other strong political powers in the Targaryen realm and George basically said the Targaryens established an absolute monarchy where the Small Council was never supposed to be an independent power of its own. He doesn't mention any other institutions making it very clear that the great lords weren't exactly counterbalances to the power of the Iron Throne. We see this never more strongly than in AGoT where it is quite clear that the Starks cannot risk to piss off King Robert. They still operate under the assumption that the Iron Throne is unquestioningly the main authority in the land. And in Robert's reign that's no longer the case.

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12 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

The question we are talking about was why there were no other strong political powers in the Targaryen realm and George basically said the Targaryens established an absolute monarchy where the Small Council was never supposed to be an independent power of its own. He doesn't mention any other institutions making it very clear that the great lords weren't exactly counterbalances to the power of the Iron Throne. We see this never more strongly than in AGoT where it is quite clear that the Starks cannot risk to piss off King Robert. They still operate under the assumption that the Iron Throne is unquestioningly the main authority in the land. And in Robert's reign that's no longer the case.

And it's telling that the person most successful in the post-Targaryen era, Tywin Lannister, was also the person with the closest to the Throne in previous period and the great lord most aware that the power of the Iron Throne is not quite what it seems. Tywin is more aware than most how the Seven Kingdoms are actually held together (that is, barely at all).

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5 hours ago, velo-knight said:

And it's telling that the person most successful in the post-Targaryen era, Tywin Lannister, was also the person with the closest to the Throne in previous period and the great lord most aware that the power of the Iron Throne is not quite what it seems. Tywin is more aware than most how the Seven Kingdoms are actually held together (that is, barely at all).

Well, the Iron Throne was still very power during Aerys II's reign, thanks to Tywin. Tywin did not only manage the kingdom but also step in for the incapacitated Aerys when his ailments prevented him from doing so.

My take on the whole thing in light of George's own assessment is that the loss of the dragons greatly weakened actual Targaryen power - like, the ability to get whatever they wanted exactly when they wanted as well as their ability to quickly react and punish would-be rebels. I mean, we know the Starks were not all that happy with Torrhen bending the knee, etc. But the knowledge that Balerion and/or Vhagar would come up north and burn Winterfell and all the other castles to the ground if the North rose in rebellion must have been a very real fear. The Dornishmen can survive a winter out in the open considering that it is not going to get all that cold in the Sands. But the Northmen are not likely to survive even one without their castles they have.

But even without the dragons the Targaryens were still the semi-divine family who had united the Seven Kingdoms and forged the Iron Throne. Their propaganda about their 'specialness' had taken root and they had become the unquestioned rulers of the Realm. Both the lords and the common looked up to them in awe and wonder.

Once they were gone the same was certainly not true to the same extent for Robert and the other Baratheons. Robert could have restored the power of the Iron Throne - after all, he was a very impressive and charismatic warrior-king - but he failed to do so because of his character flaws.

And the invitation of another lesser great house, the Lannisters, to effectively dominate the royal government was a huge mistake. We know that over-ambitious queens and Hands are never all that popular with their peers, especially not arrogant pricks like the Lannisters who don't have a drop of Targaryen blood.

Tywin was a capable Hand but he was never popular with his peers because they felt he had grown to accustomed to the power he enjoyed while sitting on the Iron Throne. A similar thing is said of Ser Otto Hightower back when he was Hand. If Robert had found himself a loyal wife or had even married someone from his own family (a cousin, perhaps, if there was one) or if he had betrothed Shireen to his heir the royal family wouldn't have become as divided as it became.

Targaryen incest clearly had the advantage that other ambitious families seldom had the chance to intimately influence the politics at court. There were animosities within the Targaryen family, true, but the ambitions of outsiders seldom played a strong part. The Hightower regime in the days of Alicent and Otto essentially being the only exception. 

One really wonders what effect Tywin and Cersei's ambitions would have had Rhaegar indeed married Cersei and had she become the queen at his side later on. Not to mention the mess/civil war if Rhaegar had married Cersei and still abducted Lyanna. That could easily enough have been even more devastating than Robert's Rebellion.

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23 hours ago, Ygrain said:

That would be my read of "sneeze", as well, but I definitely wouldn't label the tragedy of Summerhal as such. Nor do I think that the Crown Prince making away with Lord Paragon's daughter qualify. 

Call it a hunch, but couldn't it refer to that yet unknown motive that made Brandon think that Rhaegar was in KL and do what he did? A little misinformation, perhaps even unintentional, and look what it led to.

It is just a nod to the butterfly effect, like A Little Bug Went Ka-Choo by Dr. Suess.  I do not think it is talking about anything specific in asoiaf.

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3 hours ago, Suzanna Stormborn said:

It is just a nod to the butterfly effect, like A Little Bug Went Ka-Choo by Dr. Suess.  I do not think it is talking about anything specific in asoiaf.

Yeah. When a Targaryen sneezes, Westeros catches a cold. 

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3 hours ago, Kingmonkey said:

Yeah. When a Targaryen sneezes, Westeros catches a cold. 

Except in this case it is a very specific "sneeze" that ushers in a very specific "wildly incompetent and megalomaniac king." Only the death of Jaehaerys II does that. There is more than a bit of the "for want of a nail" proverb going on here, but as in the proverb it is not any sneeze or nail that causes the catastrophe. In this case a good and competent king died of a chance illness that led his son to be placed on the throne early before the extent of his madness is known. Jaehaerys could have skipped Aerys in the line of succession should the madness have revealed itself during a longer reign of his father. If so, that domino would not have contributed so greatly to the chaos that Martin points toward.

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10 hours ago, SFDanny said:

Except in this case it is a very specific "sneeze" that ushers in a very specific "wildly incompetent and megalomaniac king." Only the death of Jaehaerys II does that. There is more than a bit of the "for want of a nail" proverb going on here, but as in the proverb it is not any sneeze or nail that causes the catastrophe. In this case a good and competent king died of a chance illness that led his son to be placed on the throne early before the extent of his madness is known. Jaehaerys could have skipped Aerys in the line of succession should the madness have revealed itself during a longer reign of his father. If so, that domino would not have contributed so greatly to the chaos that Martin points toward.

Yeah, considering that Jaehaerys II was a clever man by all accounts we have of him, barring his eccentricities involving incestuous marriages and prophecies, and may indeed have decided to change the succession in favor of his grandson Rhaegar had he seen into what kind of man his only son and heir developed into. I mean, Aerys would have been in pretty bad shape by the time his father died had the man ruled for twenty years rather than only 2-3.

In addition, Yandel also makes it clear that Jaehaerys II died of some sort of respiratory illness, complaining about a shortness of breath shortly before his untimely death. That fits very well with 'a sneeze'.

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7 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Yeah, considering that Jaehaerys II was a clever man by all accounts we have of him, barring his eccentricities involving incestuous marriages and prophecies, and may indeed have decided to change the succession in favor of his grandson Rhaegar had he seen into what kind of man his only son and heir developed into. I mean, Aerys would have been in pretty bad shape by the time his father died had the man ruled for twenty years rather than only 2-3.

In addition, Yandel also makes it clear that Jaehaerys II died of some sort of respiratory illness, complaining about a shortness of breath shortly before his untimely death. That fits very well with 'a sneeze'.

I agree, LV, with everything but "eccentricities involving incestuous marriages and prophecies," and that only because I don't think as a member of his family, either of these are unusual. I'd argue that his brothers were the eccentric ones when it came to marriage, and any Targaryen who doesn't believe in prophecies and prophetic dreams just doesn't know the family history.

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On 16.12.2016 at 5:20 PM, SFDanny said:

I agree, LV, with everything but "eccentricities involving incestuous marriages and prophecies," and that only because I don't think as a member of his family, either of these are unusual. I'd argue that his brothers were the eccentric ones when it came to marriage, and any Targaryen who doesn't believe in prophecies and prophetic dreams just doesn't know the family history.

Well, both things were considered to be eccentricities by his father, Aegon V, and presumably by many of his contemporaries as well. Keep in mind that we are talking about incest love and not incest marriages here. Jaehaerys II actually romantically loved his sister Shaera and wanted to marry her for that reason, not (only) because it was an ancient Targaryen tradition to do so. Many few people actually romantically love their siblings. That's very eccentric.

And going through with another incestuous marriage against the will of his own father, the king (Aerys and Rhaella) certainly was another eccentricity because Aegon V apparently neither believed in the prophecy of the promised prince nor in the additional prophecy of the Ghost that the line of Aerys and Rhaella would eventually produce him. Aegon V thought he would bring the dragons back in his own magical ritual.

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1 hour ago, Lord Varys said:

Well, both things were considered to be eccentricities by his father, Aegon V, and presumably by many of his contemporaries as well. Keep in mind that we are talking about incest love and not incest marriages here. Jaehaerys II actually romantically loved his sister Shaera and wanted to marry her for that reason, not (only) because it was an ancient Targaryen tradition to do so. Many few people actually romantically love their siblings. That's very eccentric.

Egg knows very well the power of prophetic dreams and believes in them. His own brother, Daeron, was beset by these dreams which troubled his life. Egg doesn't seem to disbelieve any of this, nor does he think it strange or eccentric to marry one's sister. He decides, later in life that the practice of sibling marriage probably brought more problems to his family than it did good. In that belief, he was the eccentric one in his family's history.

I think we can find enough evidence of actual love between brother and sister marriages to be able to assume it is not thought by the Targaryens to be abnormal. Aegon and Rhaenys? Jaehaerys and Alysanne? Perhaps in a way Naerys and Aemon?

1 hour ago, Lord Varys said:

And going through with another incestuous marriage against the will of his own father, the king (Aerys and Rhaella) certainly was another eccentricity because Aegon V apparently neither believed in the prophecy of the promised prince nor in the additional prophecy of the Ghost that the line of Aerys and Rhaella would eventually produce him. Aegon V thought he would bring the dragons back in his own magical ritual.

I don't think we know enough about the prophecy to reach the conclusion that Aegon didn't believe in the promised prince being born of his line. Is it the promised prince/princess who must bring back the dragons? I don't know what Aegon thought on that subject.

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22 minutes ago, SFDanny said:

Egg knows very well the power of prophetic dreams and believes in them. His own brother, Daeron, was beset by these dreams which troubled his life. Egg doesn't seem to disbelieve any of this, nor does he think it strange or eccentric to marry one's sister. He decides, later in life that the practice of sibling marriage probably brought more problems to his family than it did good. In that belief, he was the eccentric one in his family's history.

Sure, Egg believed in prophetic dreams. He himself had such dreams involving dragons which led to Summerhall. But that's not the issue. The issue is belief in prophecies other people made.

Egg also was betrothed to his own sister Daella and eventually decided to break or dissolve that betrothal. Both that as well as his the betrothals he made for his own children and his view of the marriage of his grandchildren makes it clear that incest wasn't his thing. At least insofar as we can judge the character of the man and king at this point.

And Jaehaerys II is especially eccentric in the way he apparently opposed his father's view on those matters. I mean, Egg and Betha raised that boy and it is very odd that he suddenly decided he wanted to marry his sister when nobody pushed him into that direction.

22 minutes ago, SFDanny said:

I think we can find enough evidence of actual love between brother and sister marriages to be able to assume it is not thought by the Targaryens to be abnormal. Aegon and Rhaenys? Jaehaerys and Alysanne? Perhaps in a way Naerys and Aemon?

That is true but that's one of those things were George actually doesn't depict realistic behavior. We know that children who were raised as siblings - regardless whether they are blood relations or not - are very unlikely to feel attracted to each other in a romantic way later in life.

Now, there is talk that the Conqueror desired Rhaenys but we don't know whether they were raised together on Dragonstone (Rhaenys could have spend a lot of her childhood on some grand voyage or on Driftmark for all we know) nor do we know whether those rumors are true. I mean, the Targaryens also were siblings and siblings very often are close to each other in a non-romantic way. This could easily enough be mistaken as romantic desire especially by observers who are living in a society where the royal family practices incest.

I mean, what does it mean if a Targaryen king touches in his sister-wife in an intimate or affectionate manner in public or at court? What does it mean when somebody overhears him saying 'I love you' to his sister-wife? It would be very difficult to differentiate between love between siblings and actual sexual desire/infatuation.

In the case of Jaehaerys-Alysanne we read nothing about a deep sexual/romantic attraction between these two, and the same goes - at least insofar as sexual desire is concerned - also for Aemon and Naerys. They very much appear to me as two siblings who like each other very much and have a lot in common.

Realistically most sibling marriages should have been as romantic or passionate as Aerys II's marriage to his sister-wife Rhaella.

22 minutes ago, SFDanny said:

I don't think we know enough about the prophecy to reach the conclusion that Aegon didn't believe in the promised prince being born of his line. Is it the promised prince/princess who must bring back the dragons? I don't know what Aegon thought on that subject.

It's two different prophecies. Aegon V might have believed in the prophecy of the promised prince but this doesn't mean he also believed in the additional prophecy the Ghost made. In fact, if he believed in the prophecy of the promised prince (which, if it is the prophecy Egg mentioned in TMK - the one his uncle Aerys I found in some scroll foretelling the return of the Targaryen dragons - might be identical with any prophecy of the return of the Targaryen dragons) he might very have believed that he was the promised prince. After all, he would have brought back the Targaryen dragons had his ritual at Summerhall worked as he planned it.

The idea that Aegon V cared all that much about a future that was not shaped by his guiding hands doesn't make much sense to me. He had a political agenda and he wanted dragons to pursue that agenda. He had no intention to die soon and possibly wanted to live another twenty years to enact his reforms.

This whole thing doesn't fit well with the kind of obscurantism about ancient prophecies and signs and portents Jaehaerys II, Aerys II/Rhaella and Rhaegar seemed to believe in later on. Egg clearly had some sort of scientific approach to the whole magic thing if his detailed research of dragonlore from all over the world is any indication.

But in general incest in itself is a rather eccentric behavior and we don't have to take the Targaryen view that it is perfectly fine. Jaehaerys II grew up in a world where the overwhelming majority of the population abhorred incest as a vile sin and he must have been as aware of that as pretty much any other Targaryen prince. Yet he still actually developed some sort of romantic obsession both with his sister as well as the idea to marry her. That is very odd if you ask me.

Personally I think there is no reason why consensual incest should be taboo in our modern societies, by the way. Only a tiny fraction of biological siblings who didn't grew up together wants to do it, and we nowadays have way to prevent pregnancies very effectively if you want to do so. And even if not - if we don't bar mentally-challenged people (or people who are very likely to pass down genetic illnesses to their descendants) from procreating among their own then there is no need to punish and persecute those few siblings who actually want to have sex among each other.

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17 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

<snip>

Isn't it possible that the incest taboo is relatively stronger in our own culture than in most cultures (including Westeros - look at the commonality of first cousin marriages)?

I have no special knowledge of psychology or childhood development, so please, if you do, feel free to correct me. But I know we get our taboos and culture from multiple sources, including parents, peers, and media - and that Jaehaerys and Shaera might have picked up on stories of other Targaryen romances, been close personally, and felt they were romantic or exciting. That's not to say that it's likely for siblings in Westeros to be interested in each other, but isn't it possible that the forces pushing against incest are relatively weaker there, and that Martin may even think that it's more common than we like to believe?

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14 minutes ago, velo-knight said:

Isn't it possible that the incest taboo is relatively stronger in our own culture than in most cultures (including Westeros - look at the commonality of first cousin marriages)?

Well, I was rather irritated to learn that many US states actually consider first cousin marriages 'incest'. That is rather extreme.

I've checked the laws on incest across the world as they are listed on wikipedia and if there is a pattern then that most societies which were heavily influenced by Abrahamic religions actually consider incest a crime that has to be punished (consensual sibling incest is, for instance, not a crime in India or China).

The taboo as it was handed down in western societies is usually grounded in Biblical bans on marriages among siblings and cousins up to a certain degree (which then allowed the Church to rule on such marriages by giving special permission to cousin marriages among royalty and nobility in the middle ages).

Back in ancient Egypt sibling incest was a very common marriage practice at least in Graeco-Roman times (we have tax accounts confirming that many Egyptians were married to their sisters) and cousin marriages essentially were very common all over the world in times when marriages were predominantly arranged.

However, the fact why pretty much nobody practices sibling incest in our days simply is that there is a naturally tendency to not be sexually attracted to people you were raised with since infancy. Incestuous couples most often are siblings who were raised apart and only met each other later in life. But then, there are also reports that erotic experimentation and sexual exploration isn't all that uncommon between siblings of (roughly) the same age in adolescence - but this is, of course, not exactly a topic many people speak about a lot all that much.

This fact is what I'd criticize in those Targaryen incest romances we seem to be getting. It is not very likely that Jaehaerys I and Alysanne or Aegon and Rhaenys really had the hots for each other in a romantic way. And thinking about that - the insight we have on the Jaime-Cersei relationship also shows, I think, that the basis for their incestuous love is not so much romantic or sexual but their bond as twins. Jaime pretty much cannot see beyond Cersei where women are concerned but Cersei certainly was infatuated with other men (Rhaegar) and only continues her affair with Jaime when he marriage with Robert doesn't work out.

The Faith doesn't see (first) cousin marriages as incest - but then, most definitions of incest only consider sibling (vaginal) sex incest as well as the vaginal sex between (grand-)parents and (grand)-children.

Over here in Germany (and other European countries) cousin marriages are perfectly fine, and even uncle-niece/aunt-nephew marriages aren't outlawed. But only very few people actually fell in love and want to marry their cousins or uncles/aunts. This is mostly, I think, due to the fact that you usually don't feel all that attracted to such close relatives yet with our modern day societies (where you don't necessarily are raised alongside your cousins who may live far away in another city) this kind of attraction certainly shouldn't be stigmatized or made a problem.

14 minutes ago, velo-knight said:

I have no special knowledge of psychology or childhood development, so please, if you do, feel free to correct me. But I know we get our taboos and culture from multiple sources, including parents, peers, and media - and that Jaehaerys and Shaera might have picked up on stories of other Targaryen romances, been close personally, and felt they were romantic or exciting. That's not to say that it's likely for siblings in Westeros to be interested in each other, but isn't it possible that the forces pushing against incest are relatively weaker there, and that Martin may even think that it's more common than we like to believe?

Oh, sure, there certainly is possibility that Jaehaerys and Shaera really liked each other and found the whole incest thing interesting and exciting. Yet that would make them very eccentric/weird people if the people in Westeros usually are the same people as in the real world. Real romantic love between siblings should be very rare considering that they usually are just close as siblings.

That's why I think most of those Targaryens who happened to have good and successful incestuous marriages actually made that work because they had a good sibling bond not because they were really into each other romantically. An arranged marriage between siblings certainly had the potential to be less bad than an arranged marriage between people who have nothing in common and cannot reach any common ground.

However, we also see very unhappy incest marriages among the Targaryens - Naerys and Rhaella spring to mind there - but that's mostly when at least one of the people involved is a jerk.

How strong the whole incest custom actually affected the upbringing of the children and shaped their own desires and ideals is very difficult to say. Aegon IV, Aerion, and even young Egg seem to very much ingrained in a mindset where it is indeed completely normal to speak of your sister as your (future) wife.

But exactly that kind of thing wouldn't have been the case in the upbringing of Jaehaerys II and Shaera. No Targaryen married to a sibling was even around in those days and I very much doubt their tutors and teachers told them the entire how great Targaryen incest was. Still, it seems they came to like the idea anyway - which makes them very eccentric indeed.

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I think the initial "sneeze" discussion gave me a cold. Mostly better now though. :)

Anyway, my initial take on GRRM's comments was that they were more generalized, hence my suggestion of the Great Spring Sickness. But if he was being more specific, i.e. the events that directly led to the fall of the Targaryen dynasty, then the Jaehaerys II illness makes more sense.

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On 12/19/2016 at 6:44 AM, Lord Varys said:

That is true but that's one of those things were George actually doesn't depict realistic behavior. We know that children who were raised as siblings - regardless whether they are blood relations or not - are very unlikely to feel attracted to each other in a romantic way later in life.

You're applying our modern standards to a situation where the most powerful family on two continents comes from a culture which over many, many generations and thousands of years practiced incestuous marriage.  Don't you think they would have long reconciled to the revulsion we (and the whole of Westeros except J&C, Craster etc) feel at the idea of marrying a sibling or close relative (if they ever did feel that way)?  If you're insanely beautiful, can command dragons and pretty much rule the world, you'd probably be quite comfortable that your policy of sibling marriage is working just fine, and may have even evolved to prefer it.  Targaryen children wouldn't naturally be grossed out about even suggesting it, like kids teasing each other would be today.  Dunk even remarks on it to himself when Egg treats incest as such a normal and everyday thing.

That's why I think it's likely Jon and Dany are going to be drawn to each other, even while they're unaware of their connection.

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