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The Book of Swords - The Sons of the Dragon SPOILERS


Lord Varys

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15 hours ago, Colonel Green said:

I don't think you can rule it out on that basis.  He'd be "almost a hundred years old" if he was 92; it's a sufficiently imprecise phrase.

Actually you would use the frase "over ninety" or "wel over ninety" wen you are closer to ninety then you are to a hundred so "almost a hundred years old" means a minimum of 96 years of age.

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14 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Well, if there is some truth to the rumors about him it would be odd if he was just a little bit older than Sheepstealer and Vermithor. It is odd that such strange tales are told about him and not the other wild dragons.
 

he is really only called they oldest of the wild dragons and with Vermithor probably born around or before Jaehaerys and Sheepstealer when Jaehaerys was young meaning at minimum few years after his birth Cannibal might really not be older then Vermithor.

The rumors don't mean anything really just some smallfolk talking about the dragon that eats his own kind and from one mouth to an another embelisments creep in.

14 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

No, George is the one telling us that.

And in that sentence he even makes it clear that Vermithor becomes the oldest and largest dragon alive after the death of Vhagar - Dreamfyre is dead by that time, too, but she is not mentioned there:

actually its Archmaester Gyldayn who tells us this he is the (fictional) writer of tPatQ and may well be as misinformed as Yandel about certain things ;)

Anyway its one of those things that you can endlessly debate  butt that we probably wont be able to resolve without further information, personnaly i think Vermithor was they oldest but thats just a personall feeling i could well be wrong.

14 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Yeah, that would be my take as well. But I'm not saying that Vermithor and Silverwing have to be those two dragons from 37 AC, just that this is a possibility. But we have eight dragons from which Maegor, Rhaena, Aegon, Viserys, Jaehaerys, Alysanne, and Alyssa could have picked a dragon. And only three of them - Rhaena, Jaehaerys, and Alysanne - are confirmed to have done that. If true, then this would have been very, very odd.

Like i told colonel green

30 minutes ago, direpupy said:

Actually you would use the frase "over ninety" or "wel over ninety" wen you are closer to ninety then you are to a hundred so "almost a hundred years old" means a minimum of 96 years of age.

He is called this right before his dead in 130 AC so even at the minimum Vermithor is born in 34 AC at the latest.

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2 hours ago, The hairy bear said:

Just finished it. Great read, and it's always exciting to read more Martin material after such long waits, but I expected more. Not much new information, no unexpected turns, bad editing,... I suppose it would have been much more exciting if we hadn't read TWOIAF yet, but still, I feel that The Princess and the Queen > the Rogue Prince > The Sons of the Dragon.

That would be my assessment, too. Although I find TRP is a much better read than TPatQ due to the fact that it was much less edited than the latter, although the subject matter of TPatQ was much more interesting.

George would really have to add more material to TSotD to make fit well with the other historical pieces that are going to part of Fire and Blood. There is no reason that this Gyldayn chap would only cite and discuss various sources for the reign of Viserys I and the Dance and its aftermath and not for the reigns of Aegon I, Aenys, and Maegor.

2 hours ago, The hairy bear said:

I think it can still work. Rhanea was riding Dreamfyre by 35 AC. She was clearly one of those "half a dozen hatchlings" that had been born in Dragonstone by 31 AC. But Vermithor could easily be another (elder) one, even if obviously he could have only bonded with Jaehaerys after his birth in 34 AC. Am I missing anything?

Sure, this is still a technical possibility. But if Vermithor was indeed older than Dreamfyre why didn't they give him to Rhaena - or Aegon, or Viserys?

Maegor was given opportunity to choose a dragon - perhaps because there was no hatchling around during his infancy/early childhood, perhaps because Visenya didn't want to give him a hatchling - but since Aenys wasn't given such a choice chances are very high that his children would have been given dragons, too. The third generation of Targaryens must continue the whole dragonrider thing Aegon and his sisters were doing, too. That was important for the public image and for the perception of power.

2 hours ago, The hairy bear said:

I would bet that besides Dreamfyre and Vermithor, among those six hatchlings we would find the Cannibal and Silverwing.

That is very likely. Or Silverwing and/or Vermithor are (one of) the two dragons that hatched in 37 AC on Dragonstone.

2 hours ago, The hairy bear said:

When Aenys died, Prince Aegon was 16 and Visenya was 71. My guess is that he was waiting for she to die in order to get Vhagar. I can see Aegon wanting to emulate Maegor's gamble of waiting for Balerion, specially if he already feared that his uncle may want to usurp the throne after Aenys' death.

That doesn't sound very convincing to me. Maegor was in exile, and nobody was expecting Aenys I to die as quickly as he did. If Aegon was dragonless for some reason he could have entertained such a notion, but the thing I find strange is that he was dragonless in the first place. Not to mention that Aegon and Viserys could have actually claimed Balerion after the death of their grandfather in 37 AC if they were dragonless at that time.

2 hours ago, The hairy bear said:

Prince Viserys was just 13 at his father's death. It is possible that he hadn't bonded with a dragon yet? Aenys was given a hatchling at infancy, but perhaps the next generation received them at an older age.

Doesn't sound very likely in light of the fact that Rhaena was a dragonrider at the age of twelve. And she would have gotten her dragon quite some time before she mounted her.

2 hours ago, The hairy bear said:

I agree that that's something that should have been explained in the narrative. I can't came up with any good explanation.

The only scenario that would make some sense is that someone brought the dragon west. The best way would be another dragonrider convincing Quicksilver to tag her along - like Daemon and Caraxes took the riderless Vhagar back to Driftmark while Laena and the girls went by ship.

Prince Viserys could have done that, if he was a dragonrider himself. If he wasn't a dragonrider himself it makes no sense whatsoever that he didn't claim Quicksilver after the death of his royal father. Quicksilver was on Dragonstone at that time - else Visenya wouldn't have told Aenys that he had a dragon he could use to burn the Starry Sept.

2 hours ago, The hairy bear said:

A possible explanation is that Jaehaerys and Alysanne only bonded with Vermithor and Silverwing just before claiming the throne in 48 AC. Jaeahaerys was 14 and Alysanne was 12. Alyssa could have fled with her children Storm's end, and once she decided it was the right time, bring them secretively to Dragonstone to claim a couple of dragons.

That seems overly convoluted to me. One should assume that Maegor installed some sort of trusted castellan on Dragonstone in the wake of his mother's death and Alyssa's escape, especially ensuring that the dragons would be well-protected. Or he could actually have killed all the hatchling alive at that point to ensure that they did not fall into the wrong hands. Or he could have taken them all to his newly-built Dragonpit in KL.

And one wonders even more - why would Jaehaerys go for Vermithor when Vhagar was to be had now that Visenya was dead?

In fact, Lord Baratheon's notion that their two dragons - Vermithor and Silverwing (and eventually Dreamfyre) - should be able to stand against Balerion is ridiculous. If one of the good guys had claimed Vhagar Maegor might have been somewhat in trouble, but those pet dragons were no threat to him.

If George wants to bring the dragons into the equation someone - Alyssa - should have claimed Vhagar after Visenya's death. Then they would have been a real threat. And as I laid out somewhere above there is no chance whatsoever that they could have escaped and successfully hidden from Tyanna if they fled by ship. Men talk in any case, but they would talk very loudly if they were actually on a ship transporting two dragons.

If Alyssa, Jaehaerys, and Alysanne all fled on dragons, they could have hidden on some rocky island in Blackwater or Shipbreaker Bay before making contact with Lord Baratheon. They could also have kept the dragons there. But unless they killed all the men on the ship they fled with there is no chance that they could have hidden for so long.

2 hours ago, The hairy bear said:

Again, it depends on whether we assume that this generation of Targaryens were given dragons at birth, or at their early teens. I think it works better if we go with the later.

Since the impression is that Jaehaerys and Alysanne were already dragonriders when they fled Dragonstone the chances are very unlikely that the children received their dragons at a later age in that time.

Rhaena was already a dragonrider at the age of twelve. That means she received Dreamfyre a couple of years early at least.

2 hours ago, The hairy bear said:

TWOIAF says that "Manfred Hightower, Lord of Oldtown, was a cautious man, and godly. One of his younger sons served with the Warrior's Sons, and another had only recently taken vows as a septon". It seems clear that Lord Martyn is intended to be his son, and Ser Morgan the one with the Warrior's Sons.

Thinking about that - that septon son isn't the later High Septon, is he?

The man is Ceryse's uncle but I always imagined him to be have been the brother of Ceryse's mother. One really wonders from what house he was. Considering the prestigious Hightower marriage he and Lady Hightower could actually have been the last Gardeners from a rather distant cadet branch.

Even if that is not the case, I think the chances are very good that the High Septon lost his father and brothers in the Field of Fire.

2 hours ago, The hairy bear said:

I'm convinced he was murdered. Not only his psychological profile and his actions in the previous meeting were not be consistent with a suicide, but also the manner of his death is very telling. His hands where slashed open AND another barb crossed through his neck. No one could/would kill himself in this manner.

I guess the barb could have crossed his neck after while he sat on the throne bleeding to death?

But, yeah, murder - then most likely at the hands of the four Kingsguard knights who together could have overpowered Maegor - seems to be the likeliest scenario.

A little bit more detail there would have been nice. Thinking about the massive power of Balerion there is really no need for Maegor to have feared his nephew or the lords of the Realm. If he had taken his dragon out and threatened any major city or castle the people there would have fallen in line again. Especially after he had burned Storm's End to the ground and killed Alyssa and her children and their pet dragons.

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4 hours ago, direpupy said:

Actually you would use the frase "over ninety" or "wel over ninety" wen you are closer to ninety then you are to a hundred so "almost a hundred years old" means a minimum of 96 years of age.

George doesn't seem to follow your standards there. And neither would I under all circumstances. Even I don't want to be that precise under all circumstances ;-).

3 hours ago, direpupy said:

he is really only called they oldest of the wild dragons and with Vermithor probably born around or before Jaehaerys and Sheepstealer when Jaehaerys was young meaning at minimum few years after his birth Cannibal might really not be older then Vermithor.

The rumors don't mean anything really just some smallfolk talking about the dragon that eats his own kind and from one mouth to an another embelisments creep in.

Well, we don't know when exactly the Cannibal first showed up, do we? If he could be tracked down by history there wouldn't any rumors floating around, right? Or rather - such rumors wouldn't show up in history books, just as Yandel and Gyldayn don't record any superstitions nonsense the uneducated rabble on Crackclaw Point might believe about, say, Balerion or Vhagar.

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Just posting to remind myself to come and comment in the morning. 

My main take homes were the fact that Maegors marriages are absolutely counted as real historically despite the vocal and numerous denials and complaints at the time of his marriage to Alys by the faith and some Lords. the way his Queens are talked about by this Maester makes it absolutely clear they are legitimate wives as far as the history of Westeros is concerned. (I will not be debating this with you Lord Varys so don't bother)  

The reporting of Tyanna as a Witch, the warrior woman leader Poxy Jeyne as a witch and the calling of a Hightower maid as a Witch all reinforce my own theories on Witches in Westeros. Mainly that Woods Witches were a much more powerful force in times past, and that certain families carry the arts and still practice magic use once attributed to this office. And that the Wildlings still revere them in the same way the first men did. And that there is a connection between woodswitches and warrior leaders.

 

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9 minutes ago, The Weirwoods Eyes said:

Just posting to remind myself to come and comment in the morning. 

My main take homes were the fact that Maegors marriages are absolutely counted as real historically despite the vocal and numerous denials and complaints at the time of his marriage to Alys by the faith and some Lords. the way his Queens are talked about by this Maester makes it absolutely clear they are legitimate wives as far as the history of Westeros is concerned. (I will not be debating this with you Lord Varys so don't bother).

Nobody ever doubted that. There were polygamous marriages by kings in Westeros long before Maegor and Aegon. Kings get what they want, that's one of the few iron rules in this world. But Prince Maegor didn't get what he wanted. And that was always my point. And neither did Prince Rhaegar, in my opinion. The man didn't had a dragon nor the support of his father nor the ear and trust of the High Septon.

Maegor beat the Faith into submission. If you beat somebody into submission they no longer fight back. But that doesn't mean they actually have to change their opinion. In the end, the Hightowers saw to it that open resistance ended. But this doesn't mean that Maegor's actions suddenly became 'right'. Or that the public opinion changed and people suddenly decided that polygamy was legal and valid in principle because King Maegor could get away with it. Instead, Targaryen polygamy died with Maegor.

A historian writing a piece on some polygamist or bigamist records the facts. A Catholic historian can say that Henry VIII did marry Anne Boleyn. And he would say that if he is actually an honest historian. But this doesn't mean he also has to consider his marriage valid. After all, from the Catholic point of view that marriage simply wasn't valid, since no bigamist marriage is.

The Faith stopped condemning Maegor's actions and they officially stopped trying to kill him. But that doesn't mean they changed their doctrines. We know they did not. 

And we learn in AFfC that Maegor actually failed. The Warrior's Sons may have been destroyed but the Poor Fellows were never truly gone. They survived in the underground and in AFfC they take over the Faith and make their leader the new High Septon. The High Sparrow and his buddies are Poor Fellows. That is evident in their behavior even before Maegor's laws are officially rescinded. 

Nobody ever doubted that Aegon and Maegor (and even Aenar, back in Valyria) set precedents for Targaryen polygamy. But the point is that polygamous marriages - just as incestuous marriages - is something only kings can arrange or approve of. Because it is actually still a sin, presumably punishable by death - the Faith wanted to kill all those abominable Targaryens, the innocent children included.

Rhaegar was never a king. If he took a second wife such a marriage would have had about the same legal status as Prince Maegor's marriage to Alys Harroway. If his royal daddy had supported him in that things might have been less controversial but if he did not do that - and everything points to the possibility that Aerys wouldn't have supported Rhaegar in this - then he would have been as finished as Maegor and Daemon were when they married without the king's permission.

And if the king had decreed that such a marriage wasn't a marriage at all, using religious doctrines and teachings as a pretext, then it wouldn't have been a marriage. Such is the power of a king in this world.

Other stuff:

Anybody noticed the fact that Maegor might not have been 'a rightful king' after all? The senile High Septon crowning and anointing him did forget the words of the blessing. That would indicate that the 'magical ritual' didn't go as it was supposed to go, right?

And about polygamy:

@Ran If you are out there, perhaps inquire with George why Jaehaerys I didn't end up following in the Conqueror's shoes, and took both his sisters to wife.

When one looks at the celebration in the end and Rhaena's support of Jaehaerys one cannot but wonder whether some people didn't come up with such an idea. House Targaryen was nearly extinct in the male line, and the new king needed heirs as quickly as possible. If it came up there must have been a pretty good reason why Alyssa/Jaehaerys rejected that notion.

Somebody must have come up with binding guidelines for House Targaryen that polygamy wasn't the same as incest. The latter was necessary but the former died with Maegor. If it didn't then it is very, very odd that none of the later succession issues and personal crises (Viserys', Daemon's, Rhaenyra's, etc.) was not resolved via polygamy.

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2 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

George doesn't seem to follow your standards there. And neither would I under all circumstances. Even I don't want to be that precise under all circumstances ;-).

 

Actually he does, not just in ASIOF but in all his other work as well, so i am pretty certain about this one.

2 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

 

Well, we don't know when exactly the Cannibal first showed up, do we? If he could be tracked down by history there wouldn't any rumors floating around, right? Or rather - such rumors wouldn't show up in history books, just as Yandel and Gyldayn don't record any superstitions nonsense the uneducated rabble on Crackclaw Point might believe about, say, Balerion or Vhagar.

No we don't but that does not mean he is older then Vermithor. And whats more Yandel actually calls out the rumors of the smallfolk citing Munkin and Barth, so the educated who studied dragons actually don't believe them, meaning that such tales as there are of Cannibal should be taken with a heavy pinch of salt.

The World of Ice and Fire - The Targaryen Kings: Aegon II

the Cannibal, said by the smallfolk to have lurked on Dragonstone even before the Targaryens came (though Munkun and Barth are dubious of this claim);

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17 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

And about polygamy:

@Ran If you are out there, perhaps inquire with George why Jaehaerys I didn't end up following in the Conqueror's shoes, and took both his sisters to wife.

When one looks at the celebration in the end and Rhaena's support of Jaehaerys one cannot but wonder whether some people didn't come up with such an idea. House Targaryen was nearly extinct in the male line, and the new king needed heirs as quickly as possible. If it came up there must have been a pretty good reason why Alyssa/Jaehaerys rejected that notion.

Somebody must have come up with binding guidelines for House Targaryen that polygamy wasn't the same as incest. The latter was necessary but the former died with Maegor. If it didn't then it is very, very odd that none of the later succession issues and personal crises (Viserys', Daemon's, Rhaenyra's, etc.) was not resolved via polygamy.

I actually was expecting a few answers in this story that are clearly missing (or as you've pointed out could be descrepencies)...

 

what happened to the poligamy thing? Targaryen Kings kept marrying their sisters(family) but didn't take more than one bride... I thought that Maegor's story would provide some reason for this, but I'm still not at all sure why that tradition was abandoned but incest was kept around (if anything it seems both the Seven and the Old Gods had more against incest than polygamy).

What happened to Rhaenys? Maybe dead with the body lost in Dorne, but come on somebody must have found her... and then we hear that Visenya was intruded under Dragonstone beside her brotherhusband and sisterwife... but wait what? There seems to be an enourmous part of this story still missing.

how did Rhaenys's body/ashes end up on Dragonstone?

 

Blackfyre got blacker when it was burned on Aegon's pyre, and we are told that Valyrian steel isn't effected by normal fire. Of course, Aegon's pyre was lit by dragon fire, and he was blood of the dragon after all. It's long been suspected that the forging of Valyrian steel requires blood sacrifice, and (along with Ice) there is some odd inherent color/blood thing going on.

 

Anybody else hoping to catch a glimpse of Leaf wandering around in the time of the Dragon?

 

Finally, what was Aegon's crown made of? (Iron or Valyrian Steel?)Where did it end up, like Rhaenys it was lost in Dorne... and as an aside, was the crown of Rhaella the same crown as one of the other famous crowns?

 

Ok I'm done rambling...

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Polygamy fell out not because it became illicit for the Targaryens, but because: 1)  the Targaryen family got a lot bigger over time and 2) the need to bind the realm led to marrying out rather more often than Viserys would have had you believe in AGoT. Aegon and his sisters were the last Targaryens in the world, while Maegor was a monster. Why would anyone want to replicate what Maegor did? Why would anyone feel compelled to do what Aegon did?


I don't expect there was ever a formal legal document from the crown or a Great Council proclaiming that the Targaryens would never indulge in polygamy again. It simply fell by the wayside. But you can look at the novels and see characters entertaining it now for Daenerys, for example -- Jorah suggests it, and Dany even considers it in ADwD -- in a way that shows that there seems to be a very pragmatic view on this. 

 

 

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1 hour ago, direpupy said:

Actually he does, not just in ASIOF but in all his other work as well, so i am pretty certain about this one.

Well, if you call it precise when the phrase 'a thousand years ago' is used to describe events that happened a couple of thousand years ago I'm not sure we are on the same page ;-).

1 hour ago, direpupy said:

No we don't but that does not mean he is older then Vermithor. And whats more Yandel actually calls out the rumors of the smallfolk citing Munkin and Barth, so the educated who studied dragons actually don't believe them, meaning that such tales as there are of Cannibal should be taken with a heavy pinch of salt.

The World of Ice and Fire - The Targaryen Kings: Aegon II

the Cannibal, said by the smallfolk to have lurked on Dragonstone even before the Targaryens came (though Munkun and Barth are dubious of this claim);

The issue with that is just that we can't be sure that this is all correct because those texts are, unfortunately, full of errors. Chances are that Dreamfyre might be older than Vermithor. Chances are also that the Cannibal is older than Vermithor. Chances are that even Sheepstealer is older or about as old as Vermithor.

The reason I point this out is that this could actually be addressed or corrected in a proper publication of that history.

I never said I bought the 'the Cannibal already lived on Dragonstone before the Targaryens came' story. But if there was a kernel of truth to those rumors then the Cannibal could easily have hatched while Aenys was young or perhaps even before the Conquest.

52 minutes ago, LiveFirstDieLater said:

what happened to the poligamy thing? Targaryen Kings kept marrying their sisters(family) but didn't take more than one bride... I thought that Maegor's story would provide some reason for this, but I'm still not at all sure why that tradition was abandoned but incest was kept around (if anything it seems both the Seven and the Old Gods had more against incest than polygamy).

Actually, no, it is quite clear that polygamy provoked as much ire and opposition in the Faith than did the incest thing, perhaps even more. Maegor never married a sister, remember, and Rhaena was only his half-niece. Even the Starks marry their half-nieces.

On the part of the lords/royal advisors TSotD continues the pragmatic approach quite a few people - Sharra Arryn, Manfred Hightower - showed during the Conquest. If a man already has two wives he can also marry a third or a fourth. We have the lords urge Aegon to take another wife after Rhaenys' death, we have Lord Celtigar urge Maegor to marry one or both his daughters.

But the Faith really doesn't like that kind of thing.

The fact that Maegor had no children makes the whole succession crisis thing multiple wives can cause - e.g. given Visenya/Rhaenys and later Aemma/Alicent - not really important in Maegor's case. There certainly seems to have been jealousy and all but not really a struggle as to whose child should succeed Maegor.

Still, there is a chance that Alyssa and Jaehaerys realized that the root of all their troubles was in Aegon's two sister-wives.

There would also be the chance that Rhaena explicitly declined Jaehaerys' offer to marry her, too - perhaps because she wanted to marry her lover Androw Farman - but that alone wouldn't have ended the polygamy thing. Jaehaerys I and Alysanne had three sons and six daughters who reached adulthood. Surely the thought must have crossed their mind to marry to mimic the Conqueror and marry two of their daughters to their eldest son... 

52 minutes ago, LiveFirstDieLater said:

What happened to Rhaenys? Maybe dead with the body lost in Dorne, but come on somebody must have found her... and then we hear that Visenya was intruded under Dragonstone beside her brotherhusband and sisterwife... but wait what? There seems to be an enourmous part of this story still missing.

how did Rhaenys's body/ashes end up on Dragonstone?

We already raised that above. Could be a mistake - then it would be only Visenya and Aegon (and presumably Aenys) who were interred on Dragonstone - or Princess Deria eventually actually returned the remains/ashes of Rhaenys to Aegon. Perhaps she gave them to Aegon and Aenys during their visit to Sunspear?

52 minutes ago, LiveFirstDieLater said:

Anybody else hoping to catch a glimpse of Leaf wandering around in the time of the Dragon?

Since we actually don't really know what that means - we know she walked the world of men for two hundred years but not when. It is quite likely it refers to the era of the Targaryen dragons in Westeros, but it could also refer to the days the Valyrian dragons still ruled the world. Then Leaf would have walking the Seven Kingdoms much, much earlier.

52 minutes ago, LiveFirstDieLater said:

Finally, what was Aegon's crown made of? (Iron or Valyrian Steel?)Where did it end up, like Rhaenys it was lost in Dorne... and as an aside, was the crown of Rhaella the same crown as one of the other famous crowns?

Aegon's crown was a simple band of Valyrian steel and square rubies. It was lost in Dorne when Daeron I was killed there. The other lost crown is Jaehaerys I's crown - it was sold by Rhaenyra when she bought passage back to Dragonstone. Aegon III's simple golden band might have been destroyed/lost at Summerhall (since we know it was worn last by Aegon V and prior to that by Viserys II).

The crowns the Targaryens/Baratheons still possess seem to be Aenys' ornate crown, Aegon IV's crown (worn by Aegon IV, Daeron II, Aerys I, and Aerys II), Maekar's crown (worn by Maekar and Jaehaerys II).

If Robert didn't make a new crown for himself I could see him wearing Maekar's warrior crown.

Do you mean the crown of Rhaella Viserys III was forced to sell?

We have no idea how that one looked like. If George didn't change things then Aerys II wore the crown of Aegon the Unworthy, and one assumes he made a similar crown to his sister-wife. If so, then there is a chance that Rhaella wore that crown.

But strictly speaking the only crown of a queen we actually know is the one Jaehaerys I had made for Alysanne - it was the same crown he wore later in life, the gold circlet with the seven gemstones, presumably representing both the Seven Kingdoms and the Seven. One really wonders why Jaehaerys I abandoned the crown of his father Aenys. Considering his conciliatory approach it would have been a nice gesture to continue to wear the crown that was given to his father by the High Septon, especially considering that it included those images of the Seven. Jaehaerys I eventually became the Defender of the Faith during his reign.

53 minutes ago, Rhaenys_Targaryen said:

One more inconsistency spotted during a reread: When Maegor reconcilles with Ceryse, she is called the "sister" of the Lord of Hightower, but Martyn is mentioned to be Lord, so that should be "daughter".

I mentioned that above already. It is most likely a mistake. But I asked the question whether she could, in fact, be a younger daughter of Lord Manfred.

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39 minutes ago, Ran said:

Polygamy fell out not because it became illicit for the Targaryens, but because: 1)  the Targaryen family got a lot bigger over time and 2) the need to bind the realm led to marrying out rather more often than Viserys would have had you believe in AGoT. Aegon and his sisters were the last Targaryens in the world, while Maegor was a monster. Why would anyone want to replicate what Maegor did? Why would anyone feel compelled to do what Aegon did?

Well, quite frankly in 48 AC Jaehaerys I is the last male Targaryen alive. He needs heirs. And he has just seen how his uncle fell and he rose to the throne insteadmnot only because the man was a monster but also because the man couldn't father any heirs. What if Alysanne turned out to be as fertile as Ceryse Hightower or Tyanna of the Tower?

There is also this thing George has established about Targaryen tradition dictating that a Targaryen male marry his elder sister not his younger sister. Rhaena is Jaehaerys' elder sister, not Alysanne. In that sense Jaehaerys I effectively finds himself in a very similar situation in 48 AC than his grandfather was when he chose to marry both Visenya and his beloved Rhaenys.

An account on the Jaehaerys-Alysanne wedding in 50 AC (?) should be the perfect way to establish why Jaehaerys I considered polygamy a bad idea, unlike his grandfather and uncle. The idea that this didn't come up in light of the fact that Aerea actually still had sort of a better claim than Jaehaerys I is not very likely. The argument as to why Jaehaerys I should marry Rhaena (and Alysanne both) would be exactly the same argument Lord Velaryon used to convince Maegor to marry Rhaena in 47 AC.

Hell, one could even make a pretty good argument that he should marry his niece Aerea as soon as she can bear children.

What do you mean by marrying outside? From what we know Aelinor Penrose - and possibly Jena Dondarrion, too - was a Targaryen cousin. Alys Arryn and Dyanna Dayne might not have been Targaryen cousins, but there are those six Targaryen-Hightower girls who basically could all be mothers or grandmothers of the brides of Daeron II's sons. And his four sons really seem to have been the ones marrying apparently outside the family (prior to Egg's political matches, of course).

If you know something more about that - and I remember that you hinted at seeing some of the more complete family trees there - please illuminate us ;-).

And as to why any Targaryen later on would want to revive/practice polygamy:

1. It could have helped Viserys I getting a son prior to Aemma's death. He could have married Alicent while Aemma was still alive, shortcutting the entire stupid succession issue he had to deal with early in his reign.

2. It could have allowed Daemon to marry Rhaenyra when he deflowered her. In fact, he would not have to deflower her and try to blackmail Viserys into dissolving his marriage to Rhea Royce, he could have just persuaded Rhaenyra to marry him and then they could have secretly done it.

3. It could have allowed Rhaenyra to take a second husband - Harwin Strong - in addition to the stupid Velaryon marriage she was forced into.

4. It could have allowed both sides during the Dance to secure alliances by simply taking additional spouses on to the ones they already had. Lucerys Velaryon could betrothed or married one of Lord Borros' daughters in addition to his betrothal to Lady Rhaena, for instance. Just as Jace could have married his Stark bastard, etc.

5. Aegon IV had a number of mistresses he truly loved, and Barbra's father actually schemed to replace the Queen Naerys with his daughter while it seemed likely the queen would die. If polygamy was still technically an option there then Aegon IV would have been the prime candidate to actually practice it. At least while he was king. Barbra, Melissa, Bethany, Jeyne, and Serenei could all have been his wives instead of his mistresses.

If you keep all that in mind and take a realistic approach then it makes really no sense that no Targaryen or Targaryen advisor ever came up with the polygamy suggestion as a possible solution to some of those problems. Especially not if that would have been a way to get his daughter into the marriage bed of the king.

If Manfred Hightower can ask Aegon the Conqueror to take his youngest daughter as a third wife then Otto Hightower sure as hell could have asked Viserys I in 101 or 103 AC to take his daughter Alicent as a second wife.

39 minutes ago, Ran said:

I don't expect there was ever a formal legal document from the crown or a Great Council proclaiming that the Targaryens would never indulge in polygamy again. It simply fell by the wayside. But you can look at the novels and see characters entertaining it now for Daenerys, for example -- Jorah suggests it, and Dany even considers it in ADwD -- in a way that shows that there seems to be a very pragmatic view on this.

Exactly this pragmatic approach Jorah shows there - and many of the lords also showed during the reign of the Conqueror and Maegor - makes it very, very odd that nobody would have ever indulged in it again after Maegor. 

And I don't think Jaehaerys I would have formally decreed that polygamy would never be done again. He could have just made it clear that he considered that a very bad idea, found it not in accord with the scriptures of the Faith, found it not proper behavior towards the potential (sister-)wives because they would have to share their husband, etc. He would be the kind of king most of his successors would try to emulate.

I mean, there is even a hint that there was a sort of unspoken law after the Dance that a Targaryen king or prince does not remarry if his late wife has given him a (sufficient number) or healthy heirs. Viserys II and Maekar apparently never remarried although their wives died rather early in their lives (although I'd like it if it turned out that Maekar ended up marrying the widowed Aelinor Penrose or Alys Arryn so that he had a queen at his side during his reign, even if they were long beyond child-bearing age).

One could also spin the whole thing by making polygamy a really unpopular and impossible thing in Westeros. Which it definitely was. But since Jaehaerys I and his successors continued the incest - which was at least as bad as polygamy and perhaps even worse - there is really no reason why 'being not popular' would have prevented the Targaryens from doing it. At least while they still had dragons.

In the case of Aegon IV one could say that he may have feared such improper behavior would give Daeron, Aemon, and his other adversaries the necessary pretext and ammunition to depose him.

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Alysanne proved very fertile. If she hadn't been, perhaps Jaehaerys would have opted to undo the marriage, or take a second bride, but probably not -- they were very much in love. Had Alysanne been barren, I'm going to guess Jaehaerys would have ended up having the offspring of one of the female Targaryens groomed as successor, if not the female Targaryens themselves. I suspect the speculation that Rhaena married a Farman is both  an explanation for why Jaehaerys did not marry her himself and an avenue for his having had some kin.

Given how easily people are suggesting Daenerys take up polygamous marriages, I think it's fairly asinine to assume that no one ever _suggested_ it in the past; a lack of examples doesn't mean it was not, at some point, mooted. Daemon Blackfyre may have well believed his father would have supported his marrying Daenerys when he already had a wife, after all. 

But it never happened, doubtless because in all the scenarios presented there are perfectly sound reasons for why polygamy wasn't something anyone leapt to. It fell out of favor with the Targaryens for the reasons already stated, whereas to some degree incest did not, and so it just wasn't something anyone chose as a solution within the scope of the reigns from Jaehaerys I to Aerys II.... well, with the one speculated by some for Rhaegar.

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