The Princess and the Queen [SPOILERS]

[OneEyedRaven]

:o The baby had dragon like deformities like Dany's Rhaego?

Does this mean Valyrians have dragon blood in them?

Yes and the baby had a tail and was described the same why as rheago.

I guess there's some kind of magical connection or something. It wasn't explicitly stated in the reading, Rhaenerya just assumed stress deformed her baby but who knows the real reason if any

[Queen‍‍‍‍‍‍ Alysanne‍‍™]

Yes and the baby had a tail and was described the same why as rheago.

I guess there's some kind of magical connection or something. It wasn't explicitly stated in the reading, Rhaenerya just assumed stress deformed her baby but who knows the real reason if any

Thats really interesting, since it happened to 2 females of the same blood, Dany and Rhaenyra, it points toward the theory that Valyrians may have meddled with magic to transfuse their blood to a similar one like dragons and that could be why dragons bond to them and get attracted to them.

Maybe they really are the "blood of the dragon".

[Queen‍‍‍‍‍‍ Alysanne‍‍™]

Also I remember MMD said Dany's baby was already dead before he was born or something like that perhaps nothing in the tent killed the baby MMD already knew what the baby was. This also might mean Dany really did have a miscarriage in the Dothraki sea and was fertile all along.

[Mrs.Grumpy]

Woah. Wait. So, Rhaenyra had a Rhaego-like stillborn baby :o

What the hell? What's going on with these Valyrians :S

They were awkward enough with all these incest pairings.

[Little Balerion]

Woah. Wait. So, Rhaenys had a Rhaego-like stillborn baby

Rhaenyra, not Rhaenys.

[Rhaenys_Targaryen]

Ok, so to summarize all I have read about the children, please confirm this, because it's getting confusing... Rhaenyra had 6 sons and 1 daughter?

Two bastard sons (with a Strong), 1 trueborn son (with a Velaryon husband), and three sons and one daughter with her uncle the Uber-Targ. Of the three sons with the Uber-Targ, two were Aegon III and Viserys II. The daughter she had with Uber-Targ was the child she was pregnant with when her father died and it was stillborn, in 129 AL, when the Dance began.

Do I have the number of children correct now? Or did Rhaenyra only have two sons with Daemon the Uber-Targ, and was the third child the stillborn girl with whom she was pregnant in 129 AL?

Also, if this Princess Rhaenys Targaryen, The Queen Who Never Was, was Viserys I's mother, wouldn't she have inherited the throne upon Jaehaerys' death?

For all those who are trying to guess Rhaenyra's age (I've seen several people claiming she easily could have been 40 during the Dance), please remember that in a SSM, GRRM said that Rhaenyra and Aegon II were about 10 years appart in age. Aegon's earliest birth year was 107, a year after his father had wed his mother, so the first year that is possible for Rhaenyra's birth in 97 AL. If so, Rhaenyra was 32 at the outbreak of the Dance

[Mrs.Grumpy]

Rhaenyra, not Rhaenys.

Oops. Sorry :p

[Ran]

Some of the details reported are not quite right. I guess since George read it... I might as well correct the errors:

Rhaenyra had six children. Five were sons, one was the stillborn daughter. The three eldest sons were born during her marriage to the Velaryon, but it was widely believed that they were in fact fathered by her lover, a knight of House Strong; there were those who called them Strongs rather than Velaryons (as was their legal family name) as an insult, due to this.

The other two sons are indeed Aegon III and Viserys II, by Prince Daemon Targaryen (as was the stillborn daughter.)

[The hairy bear]

Thanks for clarifying, Ran!

And please, keep bringing more reports! This is very interesting stuff!!

ETA: It's interesting how many parallels there are between the Blackfyre rebellion and the Dance with Dragons: half brothers fighting each other, the realm split, the factions are known by colour names, rumours of the heirs being born from extramarital affairs...

It's interesting to see that Alicent's daughter, Helena, has a non-Valyrian name. She may be a Targaryen, but she is also a Hightower, and naming Aegon II 'Aegon' can be read as a political statement as well (that he should be king).

I'm sure her actual name is Elaena. It's the same name that will receive the youngest daughter of Aegon III, so that would suggest that the Dragonbane doesn't hate too much her first mother in-law.

In fact, it's not unlikely that the first Elaena survived her daughter and was part of the court during Aegon III's reign.

[Ran]

The daughter's name was Helaena, not Helena or Elaena.

[Queen‍‍‍‍‍‍ Alysanne‍‍™]

Some of the details reported are not quite right. I guess since George read it... I might as well correct the errors:

Rhaenyra had six children. Five were sons, one was the stillborn daughter. The three eldest sons were born during her marriage to the Velaryon, but it was widely believed that they were in fact fathered by her lover, a knight of House Strong; there were those who called them Strongs rather than Velaryons (as was their legal family name) as an insult, due to this.

The other two sons are indeed Aegon III and Viserys II, by Prince Daemon Targaryen (as was the stillborn daughter.)

Wow so there is actually alot more incest in the targ family line then we thought.

[Lord Varys]

Over there, in the BWB Conclave thread we also got the information that one of the KG's - as of yet unidentified - defected to Rhaenyra shortly after the coup - supposedly after Aegon's crowning, but apparently before that since 1. he was the one who took Viserys's crown to Rhaenyra (the crown Jaehaerys I had made! and we should assume that he would have worn that crown during the coronation had it still been in his possession) and 2. apparently only four KG were in attendance when Criston Cole crowned Aegon II.

Great information on Rhaenyra's children. Now it would be great if anyone could either remember or reveal some further details? Especially the names of Rhaenyra's sons! I doubt that there are additional Aegons or Viserys' among them, but what about Aelixes, Aenars, Gaemons, or Aerions?

Any details on how they looked? If the elder three or some of them were in the end the sons of this Strong knight - Lord Lyonel is apparently gone, it seems - did they have any prominent non-Valyrian features? Rhaenyra herself had very prominent Targaryen features and with their official father being a Velaryon one should not expect any dark-haired or brown-eyed surprises...

Any hint on how old Rhaenyra was would be interesting as well. I argued in favor of making her older since she now has given birth to seven children. If there are no twins, this alone should take about 7 years. And there is the thing about this oath of obeisance to Rhaenyra given to her as early as 105 AC. My assumption was that she was not a toddler back then, but 8-10 or so. Aegon II could be born in the year of Alicent's marriage to the King (106), Rhaenyra's earliest possible birth date - if the ten year difference between the half-siblings still stands (and that was never set in stone!) - is 96 AC. That would make her 33 in 129 AC. A little bit younger than my gut feeling, but I can live with that. But I'd not be surprised if she turns out to be two or three years older. Especially if there is any truth to those rumors about her affair with Ser Criston Cole. If there was such a thing, then this has to have happened before she married her Velaryon husband, and also before she started her affair with this Ser Strong. Else the rumor should include Ser Criston as possible father of at least Rhaenyra's eldest son!

This is why we should assume that Rhaenyra was 15-17 during that tourney in 111 AC, rather than, say, 10-13. This would have been the time when she had an affair with Ser Criston.

If Rhaenyra's eldest son(s) were really only about 15-17 when the war started, they would have been born 112-114. That could work.

Aegon II would be 23 in 129 AC if he was born in 106, and 22 if he was born in 107.

Any hint as to what Rhaenyra did once she declared herself queen? Were her sons then styled Targaryen instead of Velaryon? We all expect that Harrold Hardyng will re-name himself Arryn should he ever become Lord of the Vale...

And now my really interesting legal questions:

Was Rhaenyra's Velaryon husband Lord of Driftmark or merely a second son/younger brother? If former was the case, is in 129 Rhaenyra's eldest 'Velaryon son' now the Lord Velaryon of Driftmark as well as next in line to the Iron Throne? Back when we worked under the impression that Rhaenyra's children were the sons of a Lord of Harrenhal I imagined that at least one of them ruled Harrenhal during the Dance. Is now something similar happening with Driftmark?

The theory on Princess Rhaenys 'The Queen Who Never Was' Targaryen is that she might have been the mother of Viserys I and the chosen heir of Jaehaerys I and Good Queen Alysanne, but decided upon the death of her father that she would pass on the crown to her son Viserys. No idea why she would do that, perhaps she was already rather old, did not really want to rule, or had some other reason. But that way the Realm would once have already expected a Queen Regnant to come into power which would make the installation of Rhaenyra as heir to the throne not that big an issue.

Despite the fact that Viserys I seems to have died as a older man, it's easily possible that this Princess Rhaenys might be still around as some sort of Targaryen Queen of Thorns in her eighties or nineties. We know of two other Targaryen women who reached a very old age - Queen Visenya Targaryen, who lived at least in to the reign of her son Maegor, and Princess Elaena who at least reached the age of seventy (which means that she lived from the reign of her father Aegon III to the reign of King Maekar) - so this would be easily possible.

And we all know Maester Aemon's longevity, of course!

As of yet we still don't know if Viserys I is descended from Jaehaerys and Alysanne through a son, a daughter, or both. All we know is that he is their grandson.

But it's narrowed down quite a bit right now. If Rhaenys is not Viserys's mother, then she has to be a cousin, sister, or aunt of his. Viserys had no other daughters besides Helaena (who is also a queen), and we now also know that Rhaenyra had no daughters beside the stillborn dragonspawn child. The only other Targaryen princess close to the line of succession is going to be the daughter of Aegon II. But she will be queen, so she can't be this Rhaenys.

If Rhaenys comes from a cadet branch of House Targaryen (say, by being descended from one of the daughters of Aenys I or from the youngest son of Jaehaerys I), this 'The Queen Who Never Was' thing becomes irritating. It strongly suggests that Rhaenys was once on the brink of becoming Queen of Westeros, and I get the hint that Queen Regnant is meant here, not 'wife of the king'.

The only other theory I could come up with is that Rhaenys would be an elder aunt or cousin of Viserys I, coming from an older branch of the Targaryen family tree who ends up being passed over when the Old King died. But that would make things more difficult since that might mean that there might be another older Targaryen line still out there.

No idea though who Baela Targaryen might be. Best guess is a sister of Prince Daemon and Viserys, or a daughter of Daemon from an earlier marriage, or a cousin to the main Targaryen branch (i.e. a descendant of one of the younger sons of Jaehaerys and Alysanne).

[Little Balerion]

Is there a place where all this info is gathered - all info on the Princess and the Queen from those who were at the reading?

[Queen‍‍‍‍‍‍ Alysanne‍‍™]

Isn't it possible 'the queen that never was' was Viserys I mother and died before Alysanne and her husband?

[Lord Varys]

Alysanne,

that would be a theoretical option as well, although I doubt it. The impression the reviewer of the story gave on tor.com - where Rhaenys, Baela, Nettles, and Alys Rivers were first mentioned - indicated that all these Targaryen women were characters in the story. Not dead historical figures that people are referring too.

Although it's possible that Archmaester Gyldayn eventually starts to gossip and ends up talking at length about Jaehaerys's children instead of focusing exclusively on the Dance. That way, an already dead Rhaenys could be sort of a character in the story, but we don't know that yet.

But since GRRM apparently cut the story down from 80,000 to 34,000 words, I doubt that Rhaenys could make a really big impression if she was only referred to as the great, promising future queen and daughter of Queen Alysanne. If she died before Viserys I even ascended the Iron Throne her direct influence on the story and the characters depicted in the Dance would more or less non existent.

So out best guess is that she is still alive during the Dance.

Another option could be that she was the elder sister of Viserys I, and in that capacity the chosen heir of Jaehaerys and Alysanne, but abdicated in favor of her younger brother. But if that was the case, she and any children she might have would pose quite a severe threat to Viserys I and his children.

We simply don't know yet.

[Little Balerion]

Everyone is speculating that there will be a Dance of Dragons 2.0 in ASOIAF. But all the dragons in the story belong to Dany? Does that mean some dragons have not made an appearance yet? And Aegon (Dany's most likely contender) doesn't seem to have any dragons.

[Anath]

So Rhaenyra's baby had dragon deformities, like Dany's? What are we to think of Dany's decision to burn MMD for "killing" her child, then?

I would have taken this to the thread about Dany's greatest crime but I suppose it's a spoiler, so I'll say it here: Dany sucks once again for this. Now there's a strong possibility that MMD didn't do anything to Dany's baby and she still died in a horrific way because the barbarian couldn't be bothered to keep his bandages clean and stay sober.

[OneEyedRaven]

Alysanne,

that would be a theoretical option as well, although I doubt it. The impression the reviewer of the story gave on tor.com - where Rhaenys, Baela, Nettles, and Alys Rivers were first mentioned - indicated that all these Targaryen women were characters in the story. Not dead historical figures that people are referring too.

Although it's possible that Archmaester Gyldayn eventually starts to gossip and ends up talking at length about Jaehaerys's children instead of focusing exclusively on the Dance. That way, an already dead Rhaenys could be sort of a character in the story, but we don't know that yet.

But since GRRM apparently cut the story down from 80,000 to 34,000 words, I doubt that Rhaenys could make a really big impression if she was only referred to as the great, promising future queen and daughter of Queen Alysanne. If she died before Viserys I even ascended the Iron Throne her direct influence on the story and the characters depicted in the Dance would more or less non existent.

So out best guess is that she is still alive during the Dance.

Another option could be that she was the elder sister of Viserys I, and in that capacity the chosen heir of Jaehaerys and Alysanne, but abdicated in favor of her younger brother. But if that was the case, she and any children she might have would pose quite a severe threat to Viserys I and his children.

We simply don't know yet.

I do remember George mentioning a Queen Who Never Was in Rhaenyras court. Again apologizes for any incorrect info.

[Little Balerion]

Yes and the baby had a tail and was described the same why as rheago.

I guess there's some kind of magical connection or something. It wasn't explicitly stated in the reading, Rhaenerya just assumed stress deformed her baby but who knows the real reason if any

Where is this mentioned? It's not in the preview or in the summarized version either.

[lojzelote]

So Rhaenyra's baby had dragon deformities, like Dany's? What are we to think of Dany's decision to burn MMD for "killing" her child, then?

I would have taken this to the thread about Dany's greatest crime but I suppose it's a spoiler, so I'll say it here: Dany sucks once again for this. Now there's a strong possibility that MMD didn't do anything to Dany's baby and she still died in a horrific way because the barbarian couldn't be bothered to keep his bandages clean and stay sober.

Hey, that's not exactly fair to Dany. How the heck should she have known? Besides that, Mirri didn't exactly defend herself when Dany accused her of killing Rhaego:

D: You warned me that only death can pay for life. I thought you meant the horse

M: No. That was a lie you told yourself. You knew the price.

D: [...] Where is Khal Drogo? Show him to me, godwife, maegi, bloodmage, whatever you are. Show me Khal Drogo. Show me what I bought with my son's life.

M: As you command, Khaleesi. Come, I will take you to him.

Then she leads Dany to still very much vegetable Drogo.

D: When will he be as he was?

M: When the sun rises in the west [...] and you bear a living child. Then he will return, and not before.

D: [...] You knew. You knew what I was buying, and you knew the price, and yet you let me pay it.

M: It was wrong of them to burn my temple. That angered the Great Shepherd.

D: This was no god's work. You cheated me. You murdered my child within me.

M: The stallion who mounts the world will burn no cities now. His khalasar shall trample no nations into dust.

Seriously, that does not read like a defence of someone who had no hand in Rhaego's death. Why should have Dany not think Mirri had caused it?