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A female heir to the iron throne.


Femme_Fatale

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This is going to be quite hypothetical but say the heir to the iron throne was a girl. (Would this be even possible?) When she married would she keep the throne or would her husband get it? And if she did would husband be called King or not?

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If Dany ever takes the IT, I think she may change the rules to something like you described yes. She'd be Regent not her husband.

Well if you go by the way regency is done in England, in this said situation the King would be called "Prince" not King (as it so now).

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According to King's Landing laws, a girl can't be heir. So let's say (hypothetically) that Joff, Myrcella, and Tommen were all Robert's kids instead of Jamie's. Then, after Robert dies, Joff is the successor. If Joff dies, Tommen succeeds. If Tommen dies, Stannis succeeds. Note how this skipped Myrcella. I'm not 100% sure on this, though, so maybe someone will correct me.

If Dorne had their way, Myrcella would succeed Joffery.

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According to King's Landing laws, a girl can't be heir. So let's say (hypothetically) that Joff, Myrcella, and Tommen were all Robert's kids instead of Jamie's. Then, after Robert dies, Joff is the successor. If Joff dies, Tommen succeeds. If Tommen dies, Stannis succeeds. Note how this skipped Myrcella. I'm not 100% sure on this, though, so maybe someone will correct me.

If Dorne had their way, Myrcella would succeed Joffery.

Women can inherit the Iron Throne, just after all possible men in the family, according to Targaryen succession, which the current dynasty adheres to.

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This is going to be quite hypothetical but say the heir to the iron throne was a girl. (Would this be even possible?) When she married would she keep the throne or would her husband get it? And if she did would husband be called King or not?

Robert never made it clear if he was following Targ or Baratheon laws of inheritance. Regardless, each claimant of the Iron Throne is has a female heir.

Dany is a female.

Tommen dies, Myrcella is the last one left (it would be idiotic to crown Stannis before Myrcella because Targs were against women ruling after the Dance of Dragons).

Shireen has been repeatedly declared Stannis's heir. I think Selyse even says she will be queen.

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Which may mean that Stannis comes before Dany in the line of succession...

It may mean that, however, the succession laws are unclear on whether or not an actual legitimate Targaryen woman would inherit the throne over a man with minimal Targaryen blood from another House. I think that former is more likely.

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Shireen, Shireen, it rhymes with "Queen"

With regards to the succession laws, it is possible."Baratheon" succession currently remains fairly untested as to how far it would follow Targaryen customs regarding female inheritence; would Myrcella be ahead of Stannis or behind him had he never been attainted we'll never know, although I suspect she would have, that law was really just there to deal with the aftermath of the Dance of the Dragons afterall.

And with regards to Stannis and Dany it all depends on how strict one wants to be when interpreting the law, we don't know the exact wording of the agreement between Aegon II and Aegon III (I assume that's where this is codified) but unless it's extremely specific, then there's probably a lot of leeway for deciding which males are eligible.

Going off a little bit on a tangent, but I've noticed that GRRM has arranged for just about every permutation of succession to have arising over the IT over the years, many of which are still relevant during ASoIaF. There's distaff inheritence; a legitimised bastard older than his trueborn brother; not one but two children in a position to inherit who have been passed over (one of whom was a male son of a king); a usurption that left behind some members of the previous family; non-paternity. Obviously he's really gone to town on deconstructing the idea of "rightful" rulership by creating this plethora of people, any of whom can justifiably be argued to have a "rightful" claim on the throne

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People on this forum tend to make too big an issue about specific succession laws. If two(or more) people feel they have a claim and are willing to use violence to enforce it, then might makes right. It's as simple as that. Just look at Joffrey, Stannis, and Renly.

To answer your question...it would depend on the capabilities of the girl. Maege Mormont rules Bear Island, while Bronn rules House Stokeworth for his wife Lollys.

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This is going to be quite hypothetical but say the heir to the iron throne was a girl. (Would this be even possible?) When she married would she keep the throne or would her husband get it? And if she did would husband be called King or not?

How it works is:

So King A has only three daughters, no sons, his eldest daughter inherits the throne, she is a queen with basically all the powers of a normal king. If she was to marry, it would probably be a Matrilineal marriage, where her children descends from their mother's house so the dynasty stays on the throne. Her husband, King B would not be "The King" but would basically just be the queen's consort, but yes, he would be called a king.

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There has been a female heir to the Iron throne before in Rhaenyra Targaryen, she was molded for leadership by her father Viserys I. This would suggest that she would have ruled in her own right or at least have significant say so in the rule of the kingdoms.

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How it works is:

So King A has only three daughters, no sons, his eldest daughter inherits the throne, she is a queen with basically all the powers of a normal king. If she was to marry, it would probably be a Matrilineal marriage, where her children descends from their mother's house so the dynasty stays on the throne. Her husband, King B would not be "The King" but would basically just be the queen's consort, but yes, he would be called a king.

That's the way it works with most houses in Westeros. But after the Targaryen's "Dance with Dragons", ie. the civil war between Rhaenyra and Aegon II, that is not how the Targaryens observe the line of succession. They specifically say that any and all male claimants come before any female claimants.

And as Starfell pointed out, we don't really know if the Baratheons would have observed the Targaryens succession laws or not had Cersei's children been legitimate.

Unfortunately, GRRM wrote the histories in a way that that sort of dispute of succession never really became much of an issue after the first Targaryen civil war, so there don't seem to be any real good examples of their succession laws in practice.

But theoretically Robert Baratheon, because he was a quarter Targaryen, was fourth in the line of succession at the time just before Roberts Rebellion. Behind Rhaegar, baby Aegon, and Viserys, but ahead of Rhaenys and the as yet unborn Danaerys.

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The Dance of the Dragons is Martin's fictional version of The Anarchy, in which "Empress" Matilda and Stephen of Blois, two grandchildren of William the Conqueror, fought over the throne of England. Like The Dance of the Dragons, the son of the female contender was ultimately the one put on the throne. I don't think that the occurrence of The Dance of the Dragons necessarily means a woman can't ever be queen, it just means that she couldn't in that particular time period, which was ~170 years prior to the events of the book series. Eventually women (several of them, even!) became monarchs in England.

In real world history the results of a woman acceding to the throne were mixed in the context of power retention. Mary I of England lost much (if not most) of her power upon marrying Philip II. Isabella I of Castile was more or less able to retain political power over her realm after marrying Ferdinand V. In both of these cases the husband became "co-ruler", but the husbands were both already royalty prior to their marriages as well. I think generally speaking whether or not the spouse of the regent is crowned as king or queen is up to the regent.

So the simple answer is, if Martin is taking cues from real world history, yes she would still be queen, but whether or not her husband becomes king and/or takes her political power is up to how capable she and her support structure are.

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From what I can tell, a daughter will take before a brother. Here is an interesting succession question: Who has the better claim Aegon or Dany? I'm not well versed in the various schemes of Westeros succession, but I know a bit about how modern succession works in the States. The key fact is that Rhaegar pre-deceased King Aerys. This gives Dany the better claim. When Rhaegar died on the Trident with the king still alive his children are disinherited from the throne. Viserys becomes the heir. When Aerys dies, Viserys becomes the king with Dany as his heir. When Viserys dies childless, Dany becomes the queen.

One of the important lessons from the story is the disdain that women and illegitimate children face. Westeros has these rules that treat women like son making pieces of meat and "bastard" children as inherently evil. In my mind, the reader is intended to see this and be abhorred by it. That is what kills me about all of the Stannis supporters shouting about his rightful claim every chance they get. To those who think that Stannis is the rightful king I would point out that the queen had three kids and the king had like 20. Stannis may have thought that killing Edric would improve his position, but there are plenty of other kids to deal with first.

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It may mean that, however, the succession laws are unclear on whether or not an actual legitimate Targaryen woman would inherit the throne over a man with minimal Targaryen blood from another House. I think that former is more likely.

Agreed. Its just common sense.
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but stannis is not a targaryen, i think it only adheres to the targs not everyone of blood relation, but the royal family it self.

He has targaryen blood, its not like someone adopted into the targaryens has a better claim than distant relative, the name means nothing.
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