[Book Spoilers] Line of Succession Question

[Recentiy03]

Is Renly actually 4th in line for the crown like he said in E5? Myrcella and Shireen are skipped? So women can inherit houses but not the entire kingdom?

[Ran]

In the novels, Myrcella and Shireen would both be ahead of Renly, at least on paper. Which means he's sixth in line, not fourth in line.

[Lord Varys]

That's a little bit murky right now. I assume they did exclude Myrcella from the line of succession after talking to GRRM. This would not have been necessary at all, as the girls could have just been part of the discussions of the line of succession as well. And it's not that unlikely that the fact that girls do not count when discussing the line of the succession on the Iron Throne is going to be discussed in

ADwD if there appears another Targaryen pretender (fake or real)

.

GRRM already confirmed that House Targaryen excluded females from the line of succession generally after the Dance of Dragons (Rhaenyra got blamed for the whole mess, retrospectively). This is why Viserys II became King after his nephew Baelor the Blessed died, instead of Baelor's eldest Daena. They only inherit if there is no other male Targaryen left, which never happened until Daenerys died. Her claim is only valid as long as there is no other male Targaryen alive. Even younger brother, or Aerys' younger brother would have a stronger claim than she has. And Rhaegar's children - male or female - would all have stronger claims than she has.

This interpretation is actually somewhat in accordance with the books. Myrcella gets not the same attention as Tommen and Joffrey during Ned's discussion of the incest with Littlefinger, and although Stannis offers Renly to name him his heir instead of Shireen until Selyse gives birth to a son, this has not to be seen as an exception from the normal rule of succession (daughters come before their uncles) but as an offer by King Stannis to the traitor Renly to welcome him back in his family instead of executing him.

I really think the whole Andal thing of 'We don't want a Queen on the Iron Throne' was not questioned when Robert took the throne.

Myrcella later becomes only important as a claimant as there seem to be no other close relatives of Tommen around besides Stannis and Shireen - and both of them have been named traitors by the Lannister regime. This makes Myrcella Tommen's direct heir.

[Xenophon]

I take it that they are just following the Targaryen succession rules. After all, the Baratheons are a bastard cadet branch of the Targaryens, so it's not implausible that Robert would maintain their succession order.

[Lord Varys]

The 'Targaryen succession rules' are most likely also not private house rules, but rules the Lords of the Realm deemed fit after the Dance of Dragons ended. To prevent any further civil strife between son and daughter, daughters needed to be put back into their place. And this rule likely would be in effect in any Andal kingdom anywhere. There are other rules in effect concerning the line of succession of normal lordships, but royal succession is another matter, apparently. And after the Dance the normal Andal custom (sons come always before daughters, but daughters come before uncles/cousins) was changed into a more rigid rule which likely had much more to do with Rhaenyra's gender than with her being a Targaryen. The Lords could have put an end to the abomination of incest marriages as well at this point, as there were only Targaryen children left back then. But all they did was to exclude women nearly exclusively from the line of succession.

And, yes, House Baratheon is a cadet branch of House Targaryen, especially Robert, his brothers, and his father. As Robert did not change anything after he took over the Realm (he rules in the same place, with the same offices, the same people etc. - he did not even destroy the dragon skulls!) it is more than likely that he sticked to the same rules, laws, and customs as well.

His two major changes were making Dragonstone an independent Lordship ruled by his brother, and no longer following the rather extreme Targaryen custom of chopping of the limbs of people who attacked members of the royal family. Actually, the series included this concept very subtly by letting Ned say that the worst thing about his coronation is that he won't be able to hit him ever again.

[rpgfun]

...GRRM already confirmed that House Targaryen excluded females from the line of succession generally after the Dance of Dragons...

I believe and appreciate this interesting twist but I'd love to see where/when he said this.

[MaesterRowan]

I don't know about in Westeros, but in most traditional monarchies, women only ever inherited sovereign rule if there was nobody whose claim even approached theirs. Like, if Henry VIII brother had had a male child, neither Mary nor Elizabeth would have inherited. So, in a system like that, Renly would most likely inherit before Myrcella or Shireen because he was the same distance removed from Robert (i.e. a direct relative, mother, father, sister, brother, son, daughter) AND male. If Renly was not alive, then Myrcella would probably inherit, unless Westerosi law at the time excluded females.

Also, Lord Varys, do you have a link? I just could have sworn that at some point the refer to some Targaryen as Such-and-such, the Nth of her name, which is usually the type of style reserved to a sovereign ruler.

ETA: Obviously this doesn't represent most modern monarchies. Like, nowadays if Prince Charles had a daughter, she would inherit before his brothers or their line.

[howland_reed]

From what I remember from the text, most of Westeros followed the sons before daughters line of succession. But if no sons, daughters still inherited before uncles.

So in Renly's case, it really would've been:

Robert -> Joffrey -> Tommen -> Myrcella -> Stannis -> Shireen -> Renly

In the Stark house:

Robb -> Bran -> Rickon -> Sansa -> Arya...but if Jon were legitimized, he'd go right after Robb and leapfrog all his younger siblings. Or if Jon is Lyanna's trueborn son with Rhaegar, he'd be 6th right behind Arya, since Ned's brothers are all dead and left no issue.

I think only Dorne allows daughters to be the equal of sons in terms of succession. So in Dorne's view, Myrcella would succeed over Tommen because she's older.

[Cat O'Nine]

ETA: Obviously this doesn't represent most modern monarchies. Like, nowadays if Prince Charles had a daughter, she would inherit before his brothers or their line.

It doesn't work like this. In the UK we have male-preference primogeniture (also called cognatic). Male children come higher up the order of succession than female, however girls are not excluded. If Charles and Di had had a daughter BEFORE William and Harry she would be third in line once Charles became king (until the boys sprogged of course) despite being the older child. She would not be skipped over if something happened to the William and Harry, but she is automatically further down the pecking order simply because she is a girl. There are rumblings about changing this, and quite a few monarchies have already gone down this route.

Theoretically Britain has always operated this way although there has historically been a concern about female monarchs. We didn't get a woman ruling in her own right until Mary I. Matilda, the legitimate heir of Henry II was usurped by her cousin Stephen precisely because the men didn't like the idea of a woman in power.

I got the impression from the books that the Baratheon's were operating a similar system, hence Arianne Martell plotting to raise Myrcella to the throne, being older than Tommen because Dorne simply operates an absolute primogeniture system where birth order is the only consideration, without gender as an additional qualifier. That system would make Myrcella the heir to Joffrey.

[King_In_The_North]

I'm pretty sure all the male members come before all the female members of the House.

[Cory Lee Hill]

I'm pretty sure all the male members come before all the female members of the House.

The Ironborn seem to work this way. There's a scene in Feast where Aeron is arguing with a Maester who is insisting that Asha is the heir if Theon is dead. Aeron gets angry and says something along the lines of Greenland law not applying to the Iron Born. Most evidence seems to suggest it is male preffered inheritance but a daughter without brothers will come before her uncles. Cersei is mentioned a few times in Feast as being Lady of Casterly Rock in her own right.

[rpgfun]

Yes, the Baratheons inherit by some sort of agnatic primogeniture because Robert's claim to the throne came from being Rhaelle Targaryen's grandson, i.e. Aegon V's great-grandson. The Targaryens adopted this method after the Dance of Dragons, which was inspired by the historical clash between Stephen and Matilda.

It doesn't work like this. In the UK we have male-preference primogeniture (also called cognatic). Male children come higher up the order of succession than female, however girls are not excluded. If Charles and Di had had a daughter BEFORE William and Harry she would be third in line once Charles became king (until the boys sprogged of course) despite being the older child. She would not be skipped over if something happened to the William and Harry, but she is automatically further down the pecking order simply because she is a girl. There are rumblings about changing this, and quite a few monarchies have already gone down this route.

Theoretically Britain has always operated this way although there has historically been a concern about female monarchs. We didn't get a woman ruling in her own right until Mary I. Matilda, the legitimate heir of Henry II was usurped by her cousin Stephen precisely because the men didn't like the idea of a woman in power.

I got the impression from the books that the Baratheons were operating a similar system, hence Arianne Martell plotting to raise Myrcella to the throne, being older than Tommen because Dorne simply operates an absolute primogeniture system where birth order is the only consideration, without gender as an additional qualifier. That system would make Myrcella the heir to Joffrey.