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Blackfyre claim...


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On 7/14/2017 at 7:16 AM, Lord Varys said:

It is all precedent-based. Back in the days of the Conqueror women still had a pretty solid claim in the line of succession, although even then it wasn't clear whether Aenys' daughters came before or after Maegor in the informal line of succession. Maegor is the first one to set a precedence for a planned female inheritance by disinheriting his nephew Jaehaerys and naming his grand-niece Aerea instead (although that suggests that Jaehaerys' claim was considered to be stronger than the claim of the daughters of Aegon and Rhaena).

Jaehaerys I's decision for Baelon in 92 AC and the Great Council of 101 AC were a huge blow for female and female line inheritance. Viserys I ignored that but the Dance was later interpreted as a precedent against female inheritance, so things certainly added up by the time of Baelor's death. Aerys I also added to the precedents by ignoring the claims of his nieces Aelora and Daenora and naming Maekar his heir instead.

But no law ever said that females or male descendants through the female line were in general barred from the succession. Some people saw the first Great Council as setting an 'iron precedent' in that direction but that was just an opinion.

Daemon Blackfyre's claim is very weak and very hypocritically justified. For one, there is no proof that Daeron II is truly falseborn. Rumors and personal opinions are not fact. Daeron II was made Heir Apparent to the Iron Throne and Prince of Dragonstone by his father. He was crowned and anointed king, and all the great bastards did him homage and acknowledged him as their king for ten years. If Daeron II had truly tried to kill Daemon unjustly there might have been a good reason to rebel but not necessarily to declare Daemon king.

Even more so in light of the fact that there is no proof that Daemon was truly the firstborn living son of Aegon IV. He seems to be the eldest bastard son of a noblewoman he acknowledged but he legitimized all his bastards on his deathbed, which means that the true heir to the Iron Throne - if we assume Daeron II was not Aegon's son and unjustly king despite the fact that Aegon IV himself had named his his heir and never disinherited him - would then be the eldest male bastard of Aegon IV. And that could very well be the son of some whore Aegon had sex with in his early teens. The idea that this men did not produce a literal army of sons older than Daemon Blackfyre with all the women he slept with before he got to Daena is very unlikely.

I once asked George whether the Daena thing meant a lot to the Blackfyre loyalists but apparently it did not. It was Aegon IV recognizing him as his son and the whole Blackfyre thing that really made Daemon stand out symbolically.

And this really shows an important thing - people don't really care that much about primogeniture and proper pedigree if it suits them. If there is a great guy - or a person you think is a great guy - and the king favors him then you can see him as the king, too, even if he is a bastard.

That shows that kings and lords certainly can decide who is going to succeed them if they play it right. Tywin not showing any favors to Tyrion whatsoever shows the opposite. He wouldn't have gotten Casterly Rock no matter 'the law'.

Without disagreeing on the strength of Daemon's claim, whether or not he was actually the eldest bastard born son is pretty irrelevant. Only two people can confirm the parentage and if Aegon IV either declined to or wasn't around to do so -- as he would have been in the mid 190s AC -- then there was no way of determining paternity. Insofar as we know and confirmed by Maesters, there were only six acknowledged, legitimized bastards. Three were women, three were men, of which Daemon was the oldest.

If anything, George had the entire "Great Bastards" things fleshed out to smooth over weakness of that particular branch.

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16 minutes ago, Universal Sword Donor said:

Without disagreeing on the strength of Daemon's claim, whether or not he was actually the eldest bastard born son is pretty irrelevant. Only two people can confirm the parentage and if Aegon IV either declined to or wasn't around to do so -- as he would have been in the mid 190s AC -- then there was no way of determining paternity. Insofar as we know and confirmed by Maesters, there were only six acknowledged, legitimized bastards. Three were women, three were men, of which Daemon was the oldest.

If anything, George had the entire "Great Bastards" things fleshed out to smooth over weakness of that particular branch.

But that's the thing - we only have the names of those great bastards and the names of the children of the mistresses of Aegon IV. We don't have a comprehensive list of all the acknowledged bastards of Aegon IV. The man allegedly slept with over 900 women during his lifetime, and there is no reason to assume he did not acknowledge any sons by some of the whores, short-time affairs, etc. he had before the birth of Daemon Blackfyre.

Chances are that there are dozens of sons older than Daemon who were acknowledged but never allowed to come to court nor shown any favors by either Aegon IV or Daeron II because they didn't have any noble mothers.

And even if Aegon didn't acknowledge any such bastards there is still the fact that such sons may have looked like their father and their family and friends may have known that Aegon had sex with them. Depending on the circumstances that certainly would have been enough.

But then, Daemon Blackfyre never actually claims to be the oldest son of Aegon IV. He just says that Daeron is faseborn and that he should be king instead.

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35 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

But that's the thing - we only have the names of those great bastards and the names of the children of the mistresses of Aegon IV. We don't have a comprehensive list of all the acknowledged bastards of Aegon IV. The man allegedly slept with over 900 women during his lifetime, and there is no reason to assume he did not acknowledge any sons by some of the whores, short-time affairs, etc. he had before the birth of Daemon Blackfyre.

Chances are that there are dozens of sons older than Daemon who were acknowledged but never allowed to come to court nor shown any favors by either Aegon IV or Daeron II because they didn't have any noble mothers.

And even if Aegon didn't acknowledge any such bastards there is still the fact that such sons may have looked like their father and their family and friends may have known that Aegon had sex with them. Depending on the circumstances that certainly would have been enough.

But then, Daemon Blackfyre never actually claims to be the oldest son of Aegon IV. He just says that Daeron is faseborn and that he should be king instead.

No one else was going to garner the kind of support that Daemon was. Frankly that matters far more than literally anything else from being eldest to looking like Aegon I

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4 minutes ago, Universal Sword Donor said:

No one else was going to garner the kind of support that Daemon was. Frankly that matters far more than literally anything else from being eldest to looking like Aegon I

That is true, but the thing is that from a legal standpoint none of that matters. If Daeron II is falseborn and there are other sons of Aegon IV around that are older than Daemon Blackfyre then the eldest of those would be technically the true heir to the Iron Throne since the legitimization decree made them all legitimate. And the deciding factor would then be the birth order of all those sons.

The fact that they don't care about makes reveals that they only care about their own interests. It is an obvious excuse for an attempted power grab, nothing else.

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I always felt that the Blackfyre Claim came down to Perception.

I mean we can blather on and on about how LEGALLY Daeron was never removed from his position as his heir, or give precedents to why he'd still be the King even if Daemon was older, but to the bannermen that aligned with the Blackfyres it all came down to what they saw... or thought they saw with their own eyes: A King that took every opportunity to show favour to a son that was by many rights the better choice to his younger-trueborn brother.

We all know that Daeron turned out to be a pretty decent king, but to the bannermen of the Targaryens before the revolts he was a weakling. A man more interested in ancient scrolls and tomes with little to no ability to actually lead REAL MANLY MEN like them in war or peace. He did not even enjoy feasts like any truly redblooded man should, and surrounded himself with foreign looking Dornish courtiers in all their sandsilks, sandsteeds and sandy poisons.

On the other hand we had Daemon... a man the King clearly showed favour to. A great man to be around by all accounts! A true warrior, knight and a man of the people (namely... them) that the king clearly loved so much as to gift him the sword of Aegon the Conqueror and legitimize him. A man they all grew to like above and beyond their weak future king.

Throw into that mix the rumours of Daeron not even be the Kings son, and all of this leads us down to the path of how many would've thought. The King did not like Daeron not only because he was weak and foreign looking, but also because he was not even his own son!

So the seeds of rebellion are sown.

Imagine if Ned Stark had in the books timeline done the same to Jon Snow, legitimizing him as a full blooded Stark and gifted him Ice. The North would now have an older legitimized Stark wielding the houses ancestral blade, much as Catelyn probably feared at times.

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On August 14, 2017 at 9:10 PM, Lord Varys said:

But that's the thing - we only have the names of those great bastards and the names of the children of the mistresses of Aegon IV. We don't have a comprehensive list of all the acknowledged bastards of Aegon IV. The man allegedly slept with over 900 women during his lifetime, and there is no reason to assume he did not acknowledge any sons by some of the whores, short-time affairs, etc. he had before the birth of Daemon Blackfyre.

Chances are that there are dozens of sons older than Daemon who were acknowledged but never allowed to come to court nor shown any favors by either Aegon IV or Daeron II because they didn't have any noble mothers.

And even if Aegon didn't acknowledge any such bastards there is still the fact that such sons may have looked like their father and their family and friends may have known that Aegon had sex with them. Depending on the circumstances that certainly would have been enough.

But then, Daemon Blackfyre never actually claims to be the oldest son of Aegon IV. He just says that Daeron is faseborn and that he should be king instead.

Just like there is no reason to assume that Aegon IV did acknowledge any bastard  son's by whores or etc. Aegon didn't even acknowledge Daemon as his son for years. 

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36 minutes ago, Daemon The Black Dragon said:

Just like there is no reason to assume that Aegon IV did acknowledge any bastard  son's by whores or etc. Aegon didn't even acknowledge Daemon as his son for years. 

But he did acknowledge all the children by his mistresses, no? Daemon's mother was a problematic case - we don't know what Daena did after she got out of the Maidenvault. It is not all that unlikely that Aegon lied when he acknowledged Daemon as his son. After all, if Daena was already dead at that point the only confirmation we have that he is the king's son is Aegon's own word. And that's not worth anything, actually.

In many cases - especially the cases of maidens Aegon deflowered - he did not really have to acknowledge the children publicly to make it clear that they were his children. If they had Targaryen features and it was (public) knowledge that Aegon had slept with their unmarried mothers it is pretty much clear. And there must have been many such children.

The man slept with 900 different women throughout his life. That is a lot.

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29 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

But he did acknowledge all the children by his mistresses, no? Daemon's mother was a problematic case - we don't know what Daena did after she got out of the Maidenvault. It is not all that unlikely that Aegon lied when he acknowledged Daemon as his son. After all, if Daena was already dead at that point the only confirmation we have that he is the king's son is Aegon's own word. And that's not worth anything, actually.

In many cases - especially the cases of maidens Aegon deflowered - he did not really have to acknowledge the children publicly to make it clear that they were his children. If they had Targaryen features and it was (public) knowledge that Aegon had slept with their unmarried mothers it is pretty much clear. And there must have been many such children.

The man slept with 900 different women throughout his life. That is a lot.

So he acknowledge some of his bastard, clearly not all. Why would he acknowledge a bastard by some whore tho, he wouldn't. Daemon is the oldest male bastard Aegon ever acknowledge. All the non acknowledge bastard don't matter, especially the ones whos mother were lowborn.

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The problem with bringing up some baseborn son of Aegon would be to prove that he is Aegon's son. We have the king's word that Daemon is his but for all those baseborn, it will be word of the mother, and more than likely the nobility of Westeros will not take such words very seriously.

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44 minutes ago, Daemon The Black Dragon said:

So he acknowledge some of his bastard, clearly not all. Why would he acknowledge a bastard by some whore tho, he wouldn't. Daemon is the oldest male bastard Aegon ever acknowledge. All the non acknowledge bastard don't matter, especially the ones whos mother were lowborn.

The point is we never got a list of the bastards Aegon acknowledged. We get a list of his nine mistresses and the names of their children. The focus there is not on Aegon's bastards but on Aegon's mistresses. And Daemon Blackfyre isn't even one of them although he definitely is the greatest of the great bastards.

Now, I'm not saying that Aegon must have acknowledged any bastards he fathered on some whores and peasant women but he also slept with many more noblewomen than just (some of) his nine mistresses and Daena. For instance, there are the Butterwell daughters he deflowered, and presumably many more such women. Sure, it is not that likely he had that many longterm affairs with important noblewomen prior to the birth of Daemon Blackfyre but the man began very early. 

The point simply is that the arguments of the Blackfyre supporters basically are crap if they don't know for a certainty that Daemon Blackfyre is the eldest son of Aegon IV. If Daeron is falseborn then the eldest bastard son of Aegon's inherits, not necessarily Daemon Blackfyre. The king's deathbed decree legitimized all of his bastards. They are all royal now, whether they know it or not.

31 minutes ago, LionoftheWest said:

The problem with bringing up some baseborn son of Aegon would be to prove that he is Aegon's son. We have the king's word that Daemon is his but for all those baseborn, it will be word of the mother, and more than likely the nobility of Westeros will not take such words very seriously.

See above. Not all those sons would have to be baseborn. Some could have noble mothers. As long as we don't have a complete list of Aegon's acknowledged bastards it is impossible to say. But even if there is only some son of a commoner who is known to have sexual relations with Aegon IV looking like a Targaryen he should have pretty good cards in this game if he is definitely older than Daemon Blackfyre. Trystane Truefyre and Gaemon Palehair weren't acknowledged bastards, either, and they had some success simply because some people declared them Targaryen bastards.

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23 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

See above. Not all those sons would have to be baseborn. Some could have noble mothers. As long as we don't have a complete list of Aegon's acknowledged bastards it is impossible to say. But even if there is only some son of a commoner who is known to have sexual relations with Aegon IV looking like a Targaryen he should have pretty good cards in this game if he is definitely older than Daemon Blackfyre. Trystane Truefyre and Gaemon Palehair weren't acknowledged bastards, either, and they had some success simply because some people declared them Targaryen bastards.

And I think that Aegon simply only acknowledge the children of his mistresses + Daemon Blackfyre for we hear precious little of other children and there's no reason to think that Aegon was a particular responsible father who cared to take responsibility for most of his children. Can I prove it? No. But I don't see anything but conjecture in that there was some bastard son of Aegon IV to challenge Daemon when it came to recognition and pedigree.

Also Trystane and Gaemon are pretty bad examples. They only came to limited power due to an absence of acknowledged Targaryens around, we see how little support they managed to gather to themselves and how quickly they fell as soon as Aegon II rolled back into town. These kind of lowborn "maybe or maybe not" Targaryen bastards really never gathered anything resembling support among the Westerosi nobility.

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49 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

 The point simply is that the arguments of the Blackfyre supporters basically are crap if they don't know for a certainty that Daemon Blackfyre is the eldest son of Aegon IV. If Daeron is falseborn then the eldest bastard son of Aegon's inherits, not necessarily Daemon Blackfyre. The king's deathbed decree legitimized all of his bastards. They are all royal now, whether they know it or not.

See above. Not all those sons would have to be baseborn. Some could have noble mothers. As long as we don't have a complete list of Aegon's acknowledged bastards it is impossible to say. But even if there is only some son of a commoner who is known to have sexual relations with Aegon IV looking like a Targaryen he should have pretty good cards in this game if he is definitely older than Daemon Blackfyre. Trystane Truefyre and Gaemon Palehair weren't acknowledged bastards, either, and they had some success simply because some people declared them Targaryen bastards.

Do you really think any Westerosi lord or lady is going to go through the trouble of finding this hypothetical eldest son by a non-noblewoman? Aegon IV had his first sexual relationship at the age of 14 and died at the age of 49. Not to mention the fact that this hypothetical eldest son, if he even existed and was still around in 196 AC, may not have known he was the eldest or for that matter not a bastard anymore. There's no proof that Aegon IV had copies of his will sent out via raven or rider.

Regarding Trystan Truefyre and Gaemon Palehair: The circumstances in 131 AC were much different than they were in 196 AC. The former was during a civil war when KL was in a state of upheaval and leaderless (in the sense that there wasn't a unifying claimant or a functioning Small Council after Rhaenyra fled the city). Also, the text says it all re the claim of Gaemon Palehair, "which was not improbable, given the king's bawdy ways in his youth".

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On 6/30/2017 at 9:38 AM, Angel Eyes said:

Makes no sense. Since there was no marriage between Aegon IV and Daena, Daemon's still a bastard, no matter of the rumors that Naerys and Aemon the Dragonknight were having an affair and Daeron II is a bastard. 

Daemon Blackfyre was one of the most reknowed knights of his age. He was the legitimized son of Aegon IV. If the people had accepted the rumors (slander?) that Daeron II was the son of Aemon the Dragonknight (as some apparently did, but most would always refuse absent some "proof," such as a confession or trial before the gods), then Daemon might have been king. 

But another way to approach the Blackfyre claim is though Daemon Blackfyre's mother Daena. She was the daughter of Aegon III. The prevailing inheritance standards in the Seven Kingdoms seem to be that the eldest takes all, a son takes before a daughter, and a daughter takes before a brother, which is followed by a sister. But when it comes to taking the Iron Throne, power, politics and male-preference comes into play even more forcibly than lower tier rights and estates. 

Aenys I was recognized as the first true born son of Aegon the Conqueror. Maegor the Cruel then usurped the throne from Aenys's heris, before Jaehaerys I claimed the throne. Jaehaerys's first son died. Jaehaerys's second son, Aemon, wed Jocelyn Baratheon, and they had a daughter, Rhaenys Targaryen, who was wed to Corlys Velaryon. Jaehaerys passed over her, though, in favor of his third son, Baelon, who had wed his sister, Alyssa. But then Baelon also died, and Baelon's son Viserys was  named Prince of Dragonstone by the Great Council of 101. Viserys's daughter and his son fought each other in the Dance of Dragons for the right to succeed him. The son, Aegon II, outlived the daughter, Rhaenyra, but he was murdered, and the daughter's supporters put her son, Aegon III, on the throne ahead of the son's daughter (but whom Aegon III did wed before her death--and Aegon II's line was extinguished). 

Daena the Defiant was in a similar position to Rhaenys the Queen that Never Was. Daena was the third born child of Aegon III and Daenaera Velaryon, after Daeron I, and Baelor I. Since her brothers died without issue, Daena appeared to stand next in line. The king's brother, Viserys II stepped in, though, and he took the throne with, apparently, no complaint. His son, Aegon IV, followed him, and the son of Aegon IV, Daeron II, followed his father. 

But keep in mind that Rhaenys's blood royal was still considered by the Great Council of 101. Against Viserys stood Rhaenys's son, Laenor Velaryon, even though his mother had been passed over. So, Daemon Blackfyre, through his mother Daena, would have had a similar claim to that of Laenor Velaryon. Daemon was a legitimized bastard, but he was also the son of Aegon IV, so one could argue that Daemon Blackfyre's claim was as strong as, if not stronger than, Laenor Velaryon's. Against that, though, stood his older half-brother Daeron, Prince of Dragonstone, recognized true born son of King Aegon IV and Queen Naerys. Rebellion was Daemon Blackfyre's only chance to claim the throne. 

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The point isn't that there was no dude around to actually challenge Daemon Blackfyre's claim. The point is that the followers of Daemon Blackfyre had neither a guarantee nor any proof that Daemon was truly the oldest bastard son of Aegon IV. If they argument is that Daeron II is falseborn and they want the rightful king to take the throne then this person is the eldest bastard son of Aegon IV, never mind whether he was acknowledged or not. All his bastards were legitimized. And thus they would have to look for the eldest son rather than just say Daemon should be king.

10 minutes ago, Lost Melnibonean said:

But another way to approach the Blackfyre claim is though Daemon Blackfyre's mother Daena.

From what we know nobody cared about Daemon's mother in all this. There is no mentioning of any Blackfyre partisans ever mentioning Daena's claim strengthening her son's. And I once actually asked George about this possibility and he flatly referred me to the story of the sword. TWoIaF did nothing to elaborate on the whole thing - there could have been stuff about Daena in there. But there isn't.

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2 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

From what we know nobody cared about Daemon's mother in all this. There is no mentioning of any Blackfyre partisans ever mentioning Daena's claim strengthening her son's. And I once actually asked George about this possibility and he flatly referred me to the story of the sword. TWoIaF did nothing to elaborate on the whole thing - there could have been stuff about Daena in there. But there isn't.

That's 'cause Daemon didn't retain good counsel. :P 

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On 6/30/2017 at 4:21 PM, Angel Eyes said:

Then Aegon IV shouldn't be on the throne. I thought one of the laws after the Dance of Dragons was that a monarch couldn't inherit from their mother, so that would also disqualify Daemon Blackfyre.

But Aegon III succeeded Aegon II, after Aegon II's own council poisoned him rather than face likely defeat at the hands of of the late Rhaenyra's supporters. But at that point the misogynists of ASOIAF were between a casterly rock and harstone, since the alternative to Rhaenyra's son after Aegon II was poisoned was Aegon II's daughter. But, perhaps the misogynists prefer to think that Aegon III inherited his crown through the blood royal of his father, Daemon Targaryen, who was Viserys I's brother. 

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On 6/30/2017 at 5:31 PM, LionoftheWest said:

Its kind of written to be weak and I think that GRRM almost went over the top with how we're supposed to see the Blackfyre claim as really, really bad.

But I think that you miss some important parts in that Daemon was legitimized by Aegon IV and given the sword of kings, Blackfyre, which makes it so that if Daeron is a bastard, then Daemon is the oldest son of Aegon IV and now a legitimized son of that king. Its a lot of make-believe but there are two points that could be used for making a claim to the throne.

One can see that Daemon has a primogenture claim through his mother Daena and that there really are no formal ways to designate an heir given Westeros' absolutistic monarchy. So in effect there's nothing to say that given Daemon the sword was not a way to designate him as the heir as the king is not bound by a rulebook in how something should be done. Dragonstone or a sword, an absolute king can designate an heir pretty much in whatever way that he likes. It really comes down to perspective and how one wants to interpret a royal action that isn't given a text message to explain it.

And wasn't Aegon IV happy to spread the rumor of Prince Daeron's paternity? Didn't some believe that Aegon IV might actually strip Prince Daeron of Dragonstone and name Daemon has his heir? (I hear an echo of Robb, Sansa, and Jon.) 

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