Gilbert Green

Lyanna is a secret Targ. I realized this when I found out that Lady Stark was a Stark by birth and not just by marriage (hence Lyanna does not need to get her Stark features from Rickard); and that Rickard (and his wife?) were in KL during Aerys' randy period of messing with other men's wives. Rhaegar realized he was not TPTWP when he realized he was son of Bonifer, not Aerys. So he sets out to unite the lines of Aerys and Rhaella. He, a son of Rhaella, must unite with a daughter of Aerys. So first he marries Elia, born a "month early" after Elia's mom returns from KL. Then, when Elia can have no more kids, he goes chasing after Lyanna.

If you want to speculate, that is fine. But we don't "know" either of these things. The first is merely your personal reaction, which I for one do not share. And the second is speculation. Septon Utt and Septon Meribald are not part of any abnormally unified monolithic entity. They are two different people. Yes, Jaime seems to find Lancel and Bonifer bothersome and annoying. You clearly share his opinion. But does GRRM agree? There seems little indication that he does. Jaime is an unrepentant villain, who pushes little boys out of windows. He does not, necessarily, represent the views of the author. He might. Who know? But not necessarily.

Nobody is saying that Targs are not part of the story. I am not even doubting that some of them may end up as heros. What I am questioning is the idea that the Targs are so central, that anything they do is justified, no matter how many crops they burn on the eve of Winter, no matter how many Nissa Nissas they skewer, no matter how many Hazzeas they devour. Any Targs that end the series as heroes will reject such doctrines of death.

Young Griff is a Blackfyre. Which means he is not Aegon. But we know from HOTU that Aegon is TPTWP. But yes, whoever that is, it is not Young Griff. Viserys is a near clone of his father Aerys. Which is what you would expect, assuming such a specimen were viable.

That's a theory, but is too niche a theory to garner much hate. The hated theory is that she is Rhaegar's daughter, and therefore one of the three children ("child of three") who is one of the three heads of the dragon. Dunno why people hate that theory. But they do.

I guess people see what the want to see (and I'm not necessarily excluding myself). You see a walking camera watching the Targaryens. I see the protagonist, who, in the very first story, takes on the role of a True Knight who stands between the maiden and a metaphorical dragon (a Targaryen). Not ruling out happy endings for any character. I just don't think GRRM intends to endorse the message that anything the Targs do is justified because you have to conquer the World to save the World

Cheerleading for one team or the other is all good fun while it lasts. But we all know where this is headed. The Stark and the Targs are going to have to learn to make love not war, like good little hippies. Only then can they unite against the forces of Death and save the World.

The smallfolk who stormed the Dragonpit during the first Dance beg to differ. Dragons terrible wicked creatures. Brave men kill them. It is known.

Danaerys is a more-ambiguous example than Rhaegar. Is she, or is she not, the Mad King's Daughter, in spirit as well as in fact? The answer could be "yes", especially if the books go in the same direction of the show. But there could also be twists, involving theories that some people hate. Her dragon-bond may explain her remarkable vitality, which cannot otherwise be shown to be more remarkable than that of her brother Viserys. And the fulfilment of prophesy is all a matter of fate anyway.

Nothing ludicrous about it. Incest works in Westeros more-or-less as it does in the real world. The only special quality the Targs have is a dragon-bond that props them up when they might otherwise be feeble or dying, much as Bran was saved by his bond with Summer. All your arguments could equally be used to prove that incest is never a problem in the real world either. All you really prove by such arguments is that you have no idea what you are talking about. When you say this idea is ludicrous, you are calling King Egg an idiot. I don't think GRRM agrees with you.

-- "Ser Bonifer raised a gloved hand. 'Any man who remains with me shall have a hide of land to work, a second hide when he takes a wife, a third at the birth of his first child.'" Not saying Bonifer is not the exception rather than the rule, and I don't know about "majorities". Just offering a piece of data for your consideration.

Viserys and Daemon were not hugely healthy and talented in the sense that Rhaegar was. Viserys was fat and ineffectual and died young of tummy trouble. Daemon and Viserys have a sort of Aenys/Maegor dichotomy, with one being rather weak, and the other being mad and evil. Daemon was propped up by his dragon-bond, which lasted until his death (Viserys I lost his dragon early). Rhaegar managed to be hugely healthy and talented, without a dragon to prop him up. They also had different starting points. For Viserys and Daemon, the two successive generations of full sibling incest started with the hugely healthy and talented and long-lived King Jaehaerys I and Queen Alysanne. Alysanne was so healthy she bore 13 live children (most of them defective in some way). It was two of the more healthy and talented of these that went on to have a mutual attraction (yes, instinct matters) and reproduce, resulting in Daemon and Visersys. If Jaehaerys and Alysanne had had two and only two children, and these two had been forced to wed against their will, it is doubtful the line would have survived. For Rhaegar, mad Viserys and his siblings, the two successive generations of full sibling incest started with Jaehaerys II, who died suddenly of shortness of breath at the age of 37; and his sister-wife, whose date of death is unknown, and who is not famous for much of anything. She had 2 children, not 13. Rhaella's string of miscarriages establish a pattern, and neither Rhaegar nor Dany fit that pattern (not even if they are in some sense mad, which they might be). Dany at least has a dragon bond to explain her vitality; which seems to begin when she is gifted the dragon-eggs. But Rhaegar is just the guy who does not fit. The mom of Mad Viserys was known for a long string of stillbirths and miscarriages, which I mentioned as an ironic clue. The mom of Viserys I was not known for such a string. There are no hard and fast rules IRL either. But Egg studied Targ history and concluded that sibling incest was a bad idea. I think we can conclude from this that Targs are not immune to the rule that if you marry your full-sister, generation after generation, you eventually get to the point where successful reproduction is impossible. That Viserys I's mom and dad had not quite reached this point yet, is beside the point. Aerys and Rhaella's string of miscarriages and stillbirths and mad Viserys is a clue that THEY may have reached this point.

Also, Rhaegar was by all accounts healthy and talented. In short, he was probably not the product of two successive generations of full-sibling incest. When Aerys suspects that his children by Rhaella are not his own, because sickly and/or deformed, that is an ironic clue. Rhaegar is the one who is not his.

No need for that. He's allowed to disagree. And if your guesses turn out to be correct (as I think some of them are) all the more glory for you.

That has long been my suspicion. There is an ancient trope, from Greek legend to Macbeth, that when Kings and other important persons act on prophesy, they almost always get it wrong somehow. GRRM references this ancient trope when he quotes Marwyn by way of Gorghan of Old Ghis, and his colorful metaphor about the treacherousness of prophesy. Prophesy will bite you in the ass [or whereever], because it does not mean what you think. Then there is the question of whether GRRM would really choose to write a story where the universe was saved by the forced marriage of a weeping teen girl. Who knows, but I'm guessing not. Somehow, someway, Jaehaerys got it wrong. I'm too lazy to redo the math now, but I think I once calculated that Rhaella could have been as old as 15 when Rhaegar was born; though likely still at least 14 when conceived. Baristan also hints there once an exception to the rule that Rhaella was "always mindful of her duty"; and hints this somehow connects to the knight [presumably Bonifer] of her youth. But if, despite her passion, Rhaella had remained chaste, I think this too would count as remaining "mindful of her duty". So I think it is a reasonable conclusion that GRRM is hinting that something happened beyond "love pure and chaste from afar". Also, what is the point of the clues GRRM is planting about Bonifer, if not this? I am not a fan of the "words are wind" theory of textual interpretation. He definitely became "most pious" later, according to the few clues we have. Something happened to change him. He was not "most pious" when he was a promising tournament knight in love with Rhaella. The prious Bonifer was the Bonifer who declared jousting to be an empty vanity. According to Jaime's clue Bonifer was changed by a defeat or a disgrace or a near brush with death [Summerhall?], and per Barristan's clue, it was "afterwards" that he became most pious; and was heard to say that only the Maiden could replace Rhaella in his heart. And in his conversation with Jaime, he agrees with Jaime's septon that "all men are sinners", a category that presumably includes himself. IMHO there is not much point to this twist if Bonifer turns out to be a secret Targaryen anyway. I would think that such a twist would represent a partial rejection by GRRM of Targ blood purity doctrines. Making Bonifer just another relative undercuts the irony. If you must find significance in his sigil, maybe it is suggestive of Dayne heritage (white sword-blade against purple) or Dunk heritage (shooting star against purple). Or maybe both at once. Wasn't Tanselle Dornish? I regard Aerys' fetish for married noblewomen as a dangling plot thread meant to lead somewhere. Aerys' fetish for married noblewomen is maybe easier to explain if this was a formative sexual experience for him. There's also the curious detail about Elia being born "a month early" after her mother returned from KL. Was she really born a "month early"? Or was she actually conceived in KL? IIRC (and I am too laze to redo the calculations), I once calculated that Aerys could have been as old as 12 when this happened. In F&B, GRRM provides an example of a Targaryen boy consumating a marriage at age 12, so he evidently does not regard this as impossible, however unlikely. IIRC, Tyrion was once plotting to introduce Joffrey to a whorehouse at age 12. I think 11 would be a stretch, but who am I to say that GRRM would not do that either. If knights can be 8' tall, then fathers can be 10 or 11. Agree that Ashara is roughly the right age to have been born during Aerys' randy period. So potentially a suspect for secret-child-of-Aerys. I think if Aerys were the kind to boast about his by-blows, we would hear more talk about it. It would be primarily her mother that was dishonored - which is not a great thing to boast about when he is the one to blame. And for our present purposes (the Woods Witch prophesy), Ashara does not matter unless she unites the lines of Aerys and Rhaella. Which (under the Bonifer hypothesis) she can only do by uniting with the son of Bonifer and Rhaella. On that logic it would seem that she would matter as a potential partner of Rhaegar. On that logic Rhaegar would have to directly "dishonor" her anyway. IIRC, Rickard Stark was also in KL during Aerys' randy period. And his wife was a Stark cousin. So a child of Aerys and Lady Stark could have Stark features, without being a daughter or Rickard. I think Rhaegar, and not Aerys, was the driving force behind the marriage to Elia. Aerys probably gave his consent, but his "smells Dornish" line suggest, at the very least, a certain amount of reluctance. Whether he suspected she was his daughter or not (perhaps not), he evidently otherwise had a low opinion of her ethnic heritage.

No. He merely has to use blood magic to ride the red storm. A mere 2 weeks from Slaver's Bay to the Iron Islands, at a steady 12 knots. And Daario goes missing from Dany for MONTHS at a time, and does so more than once. And Euron arrives at the Iron Islands already knowing that Dany is in Slaver's Bay. And he already has in the hold of his ship the Warlocks who went chasing her after she left Qarth.

During the 1000s of years he has spent in Hell, he has only sunk deeper and deeper into evil. So even if he was not pure evil once, he is pure evil now. So ... don't be evil.

You lost me at the end of this chain. Sure, Young Griff could be a "dragon" in some distant sense. But that does mean it does not matter if he is False or True; Good or Evil; a Dragon that saves the World or a Dragon that destroys crops and devours maidens; a Blackfyre or a Son of Rhaegar. Per the HOTU visions, Aegon is TPTWP and his is the SOIAF. And I'm pretty sure Rhaegar was referring to his own son, and not someone else's son, when he gave us that prophesy in HOTU

It certainly can be true that the higher a fan builds his house of cards, the angrier he/she gets when somebody pokes at the base.

Gotta side with SaffronLady on this one. The OBJECT of the story is Nissa Nissa, and by extension, Shireen, Edric Storm, Hazzea, and god-knows who else. The object is murder. Lightbringer is merely a false promise from a demon god. A devil's trick to get humans to murder each other.

Most religions have a hierarchical structure, to be sure, which they use to promote what they regard as core tenets. But I know of nothing historical that is analogous to what you are hypothesizing is occurring here: where a religion preserves for centuries and even millennia a set of inner beliefs that are completely at odds with the beliefs and tenets that they publicly promote. The only thing I can think of that is even remotely analogous is certain kinds of vast anti-Catholic and anti-Jewish conspiracy theories. But I don't regard such theories as having historical basis. The only tiny glimmer of truth that such theories possess is that power has an unfortunate tendency to corrupt, and so corruption, and in some cases even occult diabolism or devil-worship, will often be found, in all ages and in all religions, at or near the top of most-if-not-all organizations. Or, as some might put it, the Devil is the Prince of This World, and so worldly people are sometimes secret diabolists, in some way or another. How do secret texts get preserved for 8000 years? By magic, I guess. We know from comparison with the Dead Sea Scrolls that the Book of Isaiah was preserved, more-or-less faithfully, for about 2000 years. But the Book of Isaiah has always been a public document, constantly being copied and compared by countless people before the old texts crumbled. How would this work with a secret text? It wouldn't. Not without Magic. The secret text would inevitably get lost or destroyed with the passage of time, and the secret would be lost. But okay. Maybe the Great Other is giving direct orders to the Inner Circle of the Faith. And he does not need secret texts because he knows his own mind.

Yes, that's certainly the idea. Egg was a good king who wanted to help and serve his fellow men; opposed by selfish wicked corrupt men who wanted to oppress their fellow men. And I'm perfectly fine with that. I just dread too many specifics, lest Egg seem less like a man of his time, and more like a modern insert.

I am even less eager to find out about Egg's reforms, than I am to find out about Aragorn's tax policies. I'm sure he attempted good reforms, just as I am sure Aragorn's tax policies were excellent. I'd rather just leave it at that.

Either Mance has been caught and his spearwives skinned and murdered, or somebody is lying. Who, other than Jon Snow, knows about Mance and his 6 spearwives? Melisandre, that's who. The same person who knew that a letter was coming, because she told Jon to watch the skies.

No. The thought never crossed my mind.