Potsk

44 minutes ago, The Wondering Wolf said:

Why would Aegon decide that some events before the end of the Conquest (in your example three months) would be dated AC (= after the Conquest)? As Potsk says, this would defeat the purpose of the new dating system.

That's not what I said. I said having the first year before the Conquest not last a full actual year would defeat the purpose of having a Before/After (BC/AC) system.

Events before his coronation being dated AC to ensure 1 BC and 1 AC are two full years wouldn't be stranger than Jesus being born 6-4 BC.

What day of the year the coronation was is inconsequential. If there's no year zero and it was in the "fourth moon," the first through third moons would also be considered part of Year 1. If there was a year zero (which wouldn't make any sense in this instance) the coronation would be Fourth moon 0 AC while the first through third moons would make up the entirety of 1 BC, and 2 BC would be only half a year in the past. This of course defeats the purpose of a Before/After dating system.

It's unlikely that GRRM intends a "year zero" considering he uses "BC" dates counting backwards. Astronomical year numbering does count backwards with a year zero, but that is only for computational reasons, something I don't think the Westerosi would consider. Other calendars in real life with year zero (Hindu and Buddhist calendars for instance) are based on eras, so say if we started year zero today, it would be January 29th 0, but yesterday would still be January 28th 2024, not January 28th 0; 2024 would only have lasted 28 days (plus a few hours of January 29th) in this scenario and would be considered the last year of the previous era, while 0 would be the first year of the new era and would be missing 28 days.

A notable example of year zero in fantasy worldbuilding is The Elder Scrolls, whose timeline is split into eras. 2E 896 is the last year of the Second Era, and 3E 0 is the first year of the Third Era. They don't count the years of the Second Era backwards.

3 minutes ago, The Wondering Wolf said:

Cadet branch might not be the right term, indeed, I'm not sure it's the same house, though. Baelish of the Fingers is a vassal to some Vale house, Baelish of Harrenhal is lord paramount of the riverlands. At this point they both are ruled by Petyr in a way which I would describe as personal union.

That means he holds two lordships, not that he's the head of two houses. That Petyr still holds his Vale lands in the name of some lord doesn't mean this either. William the Conqueror was both King of England and Duke of Normandy, thus both a sovereign and a vassal to the King of France, but we don't consider the House of Normandy at that time to have been two separate houses.

House Baelish could split into two houses if Petyr had sons, and one of them inherited Harrenhal and another inherited the tower on the Fingers. The Baelishes of the Fingers would then be a cadet branch of the Baelishes of Harrenhal. But currently that is not the case.

30 minutes ago, Craving Peaches said:

even though we see plenty of Targaryens get sick and die of disease..

Dragons keep them from getting sick. The ones who died of disease didn't have dragons.

Regarding Daenerys, who died of the Shivers: "Near dawn, Jaehaerys bolted to his feet shouting that a dragon was needed, that his daughter must have a dragon, and ravens took wing for Dragonstone, instructing the Dragonkeepers there to bring a hatchling to the Red Keep at once."

Regarding Aenys: "the boy was small at birth and sickly. He cried all the time, and it was said that his limbs were spindly, his eyes small and watery, and that the king's maesters feared for his survival. [...] And the prince was slow to grow as well. Not until he was given the young dragon Quicksilver, a hatchling born that same year on Dragonstone, did Aenys Targaryen begin to thrive."

1 hour ago, Gilbert Green said:

Exactly like in the real world.   An unbroken string of sibling incest soon leads to non-viability.  So yeah, there always have to be a few regular marriages back there somewhere.  Otherwise the line would have died out long ago.

This is applying real-life expectations of what might happen, to a race of magic elves in a fantasy story. Moreover you're missing the point: the "evidence" against the Doctrine of Exceptionalism always involves a Targaryen marrying outside the family, then their children marry each other, and then their offspring show undesirable effects. It's never simply incest = birth defects. Whether there were regular marriages "back there somewhere" is beside the point.

1 hour ago, Gilbert Green said:

Non-incestuous marriages can also result in defects. 

Again, exactly like in the real world.

What would be the literary purpose of giving one of the Targaryens a birth defect if it's just a regular birth defect that has nothing to do with the fact that his parents are siblings?

1 hour ago, Gilbert Green said:

In this case, possibly because inbreeding brings to the fore recessive traits that mainfest upon outbreeding.

That's what I think GRRM is getting at by giving Jaehaerys a six-fingered hand. More specifically, I think he's suggesting that such traits would never manifest if the Targaryens didn't outbreed. Alicent's non-immune genes muddied the bloodline.

1 hour ago, Gilbert Green said:

Right.  Two successive generations of full sibling incest are likely to lead to all kinds of trouble, for reasons that have nothing to do with whether the troublemaking genes are Blackwood, Martell, Dayne or Targaryen.

*One instance of full sibling incest (his parents Jaehaerys II and Shaera) after 3 successive generations of outward marriages (Aegon V to Betha Blackwood, Maekar to Dyanna Dayne, Daeron II to Myriah Martell). I think you might have misunderstood what I said? Maybe my wording was confusing.

So in simple terms, Valyrians are immune to the negative effects of incest. They start to lose this immunity once they add normal people to their family tree, for the same reason not everyone distantly descended from House Targaryen can easily claim a dragon (see Quentyn Martell and a few unfortunate dragonseeds). They've failed to "keep the dragon blood pure."

3 hours ago, Craving Peaches said:

The Doctrine of Exceptionalism. Despite the evidence in the text to the contrary, some people genuinely believe it.

37 minutes ago, Gilbert Green said:

I agree that the the text provides plenty of evidence of negative effects.

The thing about that evidence is that it always involves regular marriages first. Aegon II and Helaena producing six-fingered children can simply be a result of Hightower blood incesting, rather than of Targaryen blood. Aerys II (assuming his madness is caused by incest) is a product of Targaryen incest that occurred after generations of regular marriages, thus it could have been caused by his Martell/Dayne/Blackwood genes mixing in ways they shouldn't mix.

What in the books indicates that Littlefinger created a completely new House separate from the original House Baelish? He has new lands and arms but that doesn't mean he founded what the article describes as a "cadet branch." He was already Lord Baelish, he isn't a younger son.

I've created redirects for all the dates we have sections on in the Years before/after Aegon's Conquest pages. As for 248 AC I don't think anything has been mentioned as happening in that year, so there's nothing to redirect that to and if we had a page on it it would be empty.

1 hour ago, Nittanian said:

Yandel writes, "More historical proof exists for the war between the Kings of Winter and the Barrow Kings to their south, who styled themselves the Kings of the First Men and claimed supremacy over all First Men everywhere, even the Starks themselves."

We currently have separate articles for "Barrow King" and "King of the First Men". Since they cover the same topic and the latter is essentially a stub, we could just have "King of the First Men" redirect to "Barrow King".

I think the difference is that "Barrow Kings" refers to the unnamed dynasty (therefore the article title should be plural) while "King of the First Men" is the title they held. Merging them would be like merging "House Gardener" and "King of the Reach."

On 1/18/2024 at 2:23 PM, SaffronLady said:

Monopoly™ - Lenton Kyvakio™

House Cyvasse?

On 1/17/2024 at 9:32 PM, Nittanian said:

Also regarding Brandon the Builder, his article uses the monarch infobox and lists him as as a King of Winter. His descendants were the Kings of Winter, but is he himself ever referred to as a king?

This might imply it:

Quote

Those old histories are full of kings who reigned for hundreds of years, and knights riding around a thousand years before there were knights. You know the tales, Brandon the Builder, Symeon Star-Eyes, Night's King ...

(AFFC Samwell I / ADWD Jon II)

If we consider the name "Clegane's Keep" semi-canon because it appears on maps from HBO's Game of Thrones, what about newly named characters in House of the Dragon such as Simon Staunton, Allun Caswell, Reggio Haratis, Hobert Hightower, Beric Dondarrion, and Lucas Blackwood? Or the alternate name for the Kingdom of the Ifequevron, "the Footprint," which also appears on HBO maps?

4 minutes ago, direpupy said:

If i look at how the how the arms are displayed on Joffrey's page, its they opposite of the COA you link to in your post. Are you sure you have the correct COA because on the page it looks exactly like the description Lannister first and Baratheon second.

And its the same on the "House Baratheon of King's Landing" page Lannister first and Baratheon second, I really think you are looking at a old and no longer used COA.

That's because I changed it earlier. I'm just double checking now.

According to The Citadel Joffrey's coat of arms is Lannister and Baratheon, in that order, thus the Lannister side is in dexter while the Baratheon side is in sinister. However the COA on the wiki has been the opposite for years, and I'm wondering whether that's because of contradicting information in the books or if it's simply an error influenced by the TV show flipping it.

I am also wondering if we should opt for a different design for the Targaryen dragon, since the one we use now is the one from the TV series, designed without the "breathing flames" part in mind (the flames were omitted in the show), so the flames that have been added to it are so small you can't see them when the image is scaled down to fit lists and infobox headers, and that's how it's displayed the vast majority of the time.

14 hours ago, Nittanian said:

The founder of House Stark is currently at "Brandon Stark (Builder)", but has GRRM ever called him by that name? From what I can tell, he's referred to as "Bran the Builder" or "Brandon the Builder". Lann is at "Lann the Clever" instead of "Lann Lannister", for instance, and Durran is at "Durran Godsgrief" instead of "Durran Durrandon (Godsgrief)".

I think all pages should be titled by their most commonly used name. For example we have like 3 mentions of "Aegon I Targaryen" in the books but more than 60 mentions of "Aegon the Conqueror."

We already do this on some pages (e.g. Greenbeard [32] / Pello of Tyrosh [1]). So I wonder, why not also nobles with epithets and nicknames?

40 minutes ago, The Wondering Wolf said:

Aegon I was born in 27 BC, but he became 60 in 33 AC and 64 in 37 AC, which isn't possible without a year 0.

Maybe he just pulled up a calculator and put "33 - 60" without thinking about it. Something to ask him whenever there's an opportunity to

On 1/3/2024 at 11:27 PM, The Wondering Wolf said:

GRRM seems to calculate with a year 0

What makes you think so?

On 1/6/2024 at 7:12 AM, The Bard of Banefort said:

They put out the casting call in October (you made a video about it). The strike didn’t end until November. 

He means the WGA strike, which ended on 27 September

On 1/5/2024 at 9:34 AM, Thomaerys Velaryon said:

https://redanianintelligence.com/2024/01/05/a-knight-of-the-seven-kingdoms-aka-dunk-egg-series-gets-a-schedule-update/

Not a big deal but since I saw it, I might as well share it. The filming for Dunk and Egg has been pushed back from Spring 2024 to Summer 2024.

Could have been changed from late May to early June for all we know. Probably not gonna affect its premiere date by much, if at all

On 1/3/2024 at 6:36 PM, Ran said:

But Benioff and Weiss certainly aren't involved.

I wonder why, though. By their own choice? They had to at least have been contacted about House of the Dragon and the other spinoffs. Not that I'm complaining that they're uninvolved

A new house was just listed on The Citadel: House Polander. The only info is "A house created by GRRM but not yet appearing in the novels." Did GRRM just now take contact about this, and if so why? Could it have something to do with Winds?

How come the House Yelshire blazon says "a black chief," yet both on the wiki and the Citadel it shows a white chief?

Have we gone over that one scene with Boremund yet? In the tourney scene in episode 1 Rhaenys calls Boremund Baratheon "cousin."

In the books he's the brother of her mother Jocelyn and thus her uncle, and also the half-brother of Jaehaerys I and thus her granduncle. Not really a cousin in any way significant enough for her to address him as that. He's Corlys's cousin if anything.

The script says Boremund is in his 40s, and the episode takes place in 112 AC, meaning at the oldest he's 9 years younger than his book self and at the youngest he's 18 years younger than his book self.

Possible explanation: the TV series added another generation of Baratheon between Rogar and Boremund. Jocelyn (still the daughter of Alyssa Velaryon) is Boremund's aunt, not sister. Therefore Boremund and Rhaenys are first cousins.

On 11/1/2023 at 6:39 PM, The Bard of Banefort said:

There are now rumors that, in addition to Daeron, Nettles has also been cut from S2

Not cut, they just aren't appearing yet.