Why did they bring up succession order?

[MinscS2]

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Two more words: Accidental Impregnation.

Yes the impregnation will by all accounts be accidental. Since Daenerys think's she can't get pregnant they won't take any precautions or attempt to prevent it from happening.

I'm sure she won't mind though, her infertility has been a great source of grief for her since season 1. It's one of the reasons she lashes out at Tyrion in episode 6 when he brings up the subject; it's still a very sensitive subject for her and she's not ready to have that discussion yet. It also serves as foreshadowing for the audience.

[falcotron]

31 minutes ago, Mikkel said:

That would be interesting, but Robb's mistake was not in the proposing itself - that bit was a bit naive, but also honorable - the mistake was in reneging on an already established marriage contract with Walder Frey. Jon has no such contract hanging over his head.

Yes, that's my point: he's doing the same naive-but-honorable thing, but he's doing it when it's beneficial for his people (these two should have already been discussing the possibility of a political marriage even before they got the hots for each other) rather than when it's harmful.

And that's a bit of a pattern for Jon. Most obviously, accepting the mantle of King in the North is repeating the most notable thing Robb did, but it won't turn out to be disastrous for him and his people.

[falcotron]

18 minutes ago, Mikkel said:

if anything the best of the Targaryens were those who had "input" so to speak from outside of the Targaryen bloodline

Of course the show kind of breaks that pattern by skipping over Jaehaerys II. Ask anyone to name a Targaryen with outside input, and they're going to think of the son of Aegon V and Betha Blackwood, Aerys II the Mad King…

[ShadowKitteh]

4 hours ago, Apoplexy said:

Was this mentioned in the show?

Nope.

Don't remember it in the books, either.

[Mikkel]

16 minutes ago, falcotron said:

Of course the show kind of breaks that pattern by skipping over Jaehaerys II. Ask anyone to name a Targaryen with outside input, and they're going to think of the son of Aegon V and Betha Blackwood, Aerys II the Mad King…

Yeah that's a good point.

[Mikkel]

21 minutes ago, falcotron said:

Yes, that's my point: he's doing the same naive-but-honorable thing, but he's doing it when it's beneficial for his people (these two should have already been discussing the possibility of a political marriage even before they got the hots for each other) rather than when it's harmful.

Right. He is doing much the same thing when seen in a vacuum, but the circumstances surrounding said thing makes it entirely different, and with entirely different consequences (probably).

[falcotron]

2 minutes ago, Mikkel said:

Yeah that's a good point.

Well, I don't think it's really an important one, it's just something mildly amusing.

I mean, I doubt D&D dropped Jaehaerys because they thought GRRM was making a point that the Targs were actually wrong about incest being important to their power and they wanted to make the opposite point; it's just an accidental result of a change they made for other reasons.

[Kytheros]

3 hours ago, Mikkel said:

Well you're not wrong in principle, but I think that - outside of House Brotherfucker and House Inbred - aunt/nephew would be considered too close for comfort, at least in Westeros (real European history is another matter). I could be wrong, so feel free to correct me, but I don't think we have any examples of that kind of marriage (uncle/niece would also quality as it's the same relation just in reverse). Euron/Victarion having obscene fantasies about Yara/Asha don't count, as those guys have already gone beyond the pale on multiple occasions.

I'm not sure it's been mentioned in the show, but in the books, there was Uncle/Niece with Daemon and Queen Rhaenyra, back before/during the Dance. There might be more such relationships in the Targaryen family tree, but that's just the big one I remember.

In addition, I believe that in the Stark Family tree there are a couple of Uncle/Niece marriages as well. There are probably similar occurrences in other noble family trees. Most likely in Dorne, as Dorne and the North are the two most isolationist mainland regions.

 

Uncle/Niece and Aunt/Nephew wouldn't be as common as cousins, of course, but hardly unheard of. To be fair,  Aunt/Nephew and/or Uncle/Niece usually would not be the preferred first option, but it's not that far down the list, either.

[Mikkel]

2 minutes ago, Kytheros said:

I'm not sure it's been mentioned in the show, but in the books, there was Uncle/Niece with Daemon and Queen Rhaenyra, back before/during the Dance. There might be more such relationships in the Targaryen family tree, but that's just the big one I remember.

Well, the Targaryens don't count in my opinion - "too close for comfort" is not a thing in their book after all (for the record they were House Inbred in my post there, heh).

3 minutes ago, Kytheros said:

In addition, I believe that in the Stark Family tree there are a couple of Uncle/Niece marriages as well. There are probably similar occurrences in other noble family trees. Most likely in Dorne, as Dorne and the North are the two most isolationist mainland regions.

Well I'll take your word for that since I don't have time to check it. I should probably re-read the world book sometime soon.

3 minutes ago, Kytheros said:

Uncle/Niece and Aunt/Nephew wouldn't be as common as cousins, of course, but hardly unheard of. To be fair,  Aunt/Nephew and/or Uncle/Niece usually would not be the preferred first option, but it's not that far down the list, either.

I think family relationships in general are not preferred - even cousins - if not for the incest factor, then for the lack of political gains. I am aware that cousins, at least, is considered acceptable in Westeros however.

[Kytheros]

14 minutes ago, Mikkel said:

Well, the Targaryens don't count in my opinion - "too close for comfort" is not a thing in their book after all (for the record they were House Inbred in my post there, heh).

Well I'll take your word for that since I don't have time to check it. I should probably re-read the world book sometime soon.

I think family relationships in general are not preferred - even cousins - if not for the incest factor, then for the lack of political gains. I am aware that cousins, at least, is considered acceptable in Westeros however.

Cousins are basically inevitable when dealing with relatively stable, long-lived aristocracies.

Cousin matches do have one significant advantage - they can unite family lines, reducing the number of possible competing claims. A large family is good ... but too many claims make for an overly complicated succession. Also, trimming down the number of possible claimants through family matches also makes it harder for an outsider to marry in and try to take over.

Rickard Stark and Lyarra Stark (Ned Stark's parents) were cousins, for example.

 

In the books, fAegon was expected to marry Daenerys to cement his claim and legitimacy, and negate any possibility of a dispute between them. Again, Targs, but that's a distinct political advantage.

[NexivRed]

If they didn't grow up together as auntie and nephew, and have that family connection, then I don't see the problem with it. They're the same age too, so it's not like it's some creepy, predatory older relative. 

Apparently if siblings don't grow up together and know of each other's existence, there's a high chance they fall for each other. 

Besides, Dany seems to hold her brother in high regard. She wishes she could have known him. His son seems like a solid choice for a deep relationship and a way to connect with the brother she never knew.

 

With regards to why they've brought it up though, I think it's cos Dany is inevitably for the chop. 

[Kytheros]

3 hours ago, NexivRed said:

If they didn't grow up together as auntie and nephew, and have that family connection, then I don't see the problem with it. They're the same age too, so it's not like it's some creepy, predatory older relative. 

Apparently if siblings don't grow up together and know of each other's existence, there's a high chance they fall for each other. 

Besides, Dany seems to hold her brother in high regard. She wishes she could have known him. His son seems like a solid choice for a deep relationship and a way to connect with the brother she never knew.

 

With regards to why they've brought it up though, I think it's cos Dany is inevitably for the chop. 

For that matter, Jon's older than Dany is.

 

She does idealize/idolize Rhaegar to some extent, true. I'm not entirely sure how much she knows/was told about Rhaegar's alleged abduction of Lyanna, or how she explains that.

[MinscS2]

Both Jon and Dany are supposed to be 22 in the show as of season 7.

[Veraxes523]

On 8/21/2017 at 1:41 AM, falcotron said:

The prophecy doesn't predict that Dany is barren in the books either:

Sure, it can be read as implying that her bearing a child is as impossible as the other things in the list, but it doesn't actually say that. All it says is that all of those impossible things have to happen, along with her bearing a child, before Drogo returns. Which is true even if Dany isn't barren. Her womb will quicken, she'll bear a living child, but none of the other stuff will happen, so Drogo still won't return to her.

Phrasing a prophecy in a way that could mislead Dany into making an unwarranted assumption that will make her miserable for years, without actually lying? That seems 100% in-character for Mirri.

I read the Prophecy as stating that she will die in childbirth!  

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When your womb quickens again, and you bear a living child. Then he [Drogo] will return, and not before.

Drogo is dead.  No one can dispute that.  She will die in childbirth (just like her mother, Jon's mother and Tyrion's mother) and Drogo will return to her in the afterlife.

[Kytheros]

4 hours ago, MinscS2 said:

Both Jon and Dany are supposed to be 22 in the show as of season 7.

The show aged everybody except Lyanna Mormont up from the books. They didn't change anybody else's age relative to anyone else.

Jon was born shortly after the Battle of the Trident and the Sack of King's Landing. Dany was conceived shortly after the Battle of the Trident and before the Sack of King's Landing. Per GRRM, Jon's older than Dany by "8 or 9 months, or thereabouts".

It's quite possible that Ned got back to Winterfell with Jon before Dany was ever born. Depends on travel times and how much other things he did on the way home.

[falcotron]

11 hours ago, Kytheros said:

Most likely in Dorne, as Dorne and the North are the two most isolationist mainland regions.

Dorne really isn't isolationist in the relevant sense—it seems to be very common for people to marry (or just have kids with as a paramour) people from all over the world. And there also seems to be a lot less pressure to find a noble of the right social class, too. So, I'd actually expect them to have fewer cousin marriages than the other realms, not more.

The Reach, I'd also expect to have fewer first cousins (but lots of second cousins once removed and the like), just because there seems to be an unofficial Tyrell policy of spreading the kids out equally among the six big houses (although admittedly, for all we know that policy could be only two or three generations old).

11 hours ago, Mikkel said:

I think family relationships in general are not preferred - even cousins - if not for the incest factor, then for the lack of political gains.

But there are often huge political gains from marrying cousins. Whatever house you gave your daughter to was probably pretty important, and will probably still be pretty important a generation later when looking for wives. Look at how many Royces there are in the Arryn family tree and vice-versa, for example—so many of those Royce wives are half-Arryn, and vice-versa. 

Also, as Kytheros points out, marrying back into cadet branches unites claims to prevent succession disputes in the future. That may not be as important in Westeros as in Europe, because they seem to have other traditions that make merging claims much less common, and therefore there's less need for cadet branches (and most of the ones we hear about are centuries old, not a generation or two), but it still surely comes up.

5 hours ago, Kytheros said:

She does idealize/idolize Rhaegar to some extent, true. I'm not entirely sure how much she knows/was told about Rhaegar's alleged abduction of Lyanna, or how she explains that.

I think she mostly knows Viserys's version of Robert's Rebellion, which is (a) based on very little actual knowledge, and (b) heavily slanted by Viserys's biases. If so, she may not hear Robert's side of the story from someone who takes it seriously until the same time she hears the true story that Robert didn't know.

But that's mostly just a guess; I suppose we'll see soon.

2 hours ago, Veraxes523 said:

I read the Prophecy as stating that she will die in childbirth!

Yes, I know others have suggested that she will meet Drogo again in the Dothraki afterlife, right after she gives birth to a living child, and that works. But I'm not sure how that fits the sun moving the wrong direction and the mountains blowing like leaves. And anyway, that line of the prophecy wasn't in the show, so even if it is the answer in the books, it can't be relevant here.

[Kytheros]

8 minutes ago, falcotron said:

I think she mostly knows Viserys's version of Robert's Rebellion, which is (a) based on very little actual knowledge, and (b) heavily slanted by Viserys's biases. If so, she may not hear Robert's side of the story from someone who takes it seriously until the same time she hears the true story that Robert didn't know.

But that's mostly just a guess; I suppose we'll see soon.

I'm not sure what Viserys's version of events was either. Other than most likely biased in the direction of Targs can do no wrong, or some such.

[lakin1013]

As to the OPs original question, I thought the succession discussion was a foreshadowing of Dany's death.   The point is clearly made that Dany has nobody to succeed her, and this makes her angry.  It reminds me of the prophecy at the House of the Undying when Dany walks into the throne room and it is destroyed, with snow on the ground and the smell of blue roses fill the air.  All signs point to Jon and not Dany.  But there is nobody on the throne (kind of like the riderless horse).  I predict Dany will never make it and will die in her quest.  

[El Guapo]

The talk of the succession and Dany not being able to have children (twice in this episode) and Jorah telling Jon  to pass Longclaw onto his children is pretty clear forshadowing to me that Dany is going to become pregnant which will solve that succession issue. I also think she will probably be alive in the end as well. 

[The Prince who was not pro]

Hace 4 horas, El Guapo dijo:

La charla de la sucesión y Dany no poder tener hijos (dos veces en este episodio) y Jorah diciendo a Jon que pase a Longlwaw sobre sus hijos es bastante claro para que me muestre que Dany va a quedar embarazada, lo que resolverá el problema de la sucesión. También creo que probablemente estará viva al final también. 

No, the end will be bittersweet, that's a happy ending, Daewnerys is going to die.