GrandPoobah

Is one of the "inbred abominations" you're talking about Dany? Daenerys Targaryen's father and mother were also brother and sister. Lots of readers tend to gloss over this fact. While Joffrey, Myrcella and Tommen being the products of incest is troubling to the people of Westeros, it's not what would hold them back from sitting the Iron Throne. Their problem is that them being Jaime's children makes them bastards. Many if not most Targaryen kings and queens were the product of incest.

Sigh. There's more than one set of tapestries in all of Westeros, you know. Most if not all castles probably have a few. Most not terribly memorable, and most probably depicting the resident house's coat of arms and heroic figures from its past. The tapestries that were found in the Darry house were NOT the same tapestries that Robert liked. Remember, Robert had a hatred for all Targaryens (despite his grandmother being one). He wouldn't want a bunch of tapestries with dragons and heroic Targaryen kings on them. Robert would've destroyed those tapestries rather than hang them in his castle. Remember that Cersei had actually wanted to marry Rhaegar Targaryen before he was married off to Elia Martell and took Stark as a mistress. Tywin forced her to marry Robert, which didn't please her overmuch. Her deciding to get rid of some Targaryen-promoting tapestries once Robert's dead makes absolutely no sense. She hated those (hunting, not Targaryen) tapestries for two reasons. They were tacky and in poor taste. And mostly because Robert loved them. The goofy tapestry theory seems to pop up once or twice a month here. It's got no grounding in fact. There's (at least) two different sets of tapestries in Westeros. Just because the author wrote about them both doesn't mean they are one and the same.

I don't believe the pro-Targaryen tapestries and Robert's favorite hunting tapestries are the same. You know, there's more than one set of tapestries in the world, and more than one castle with tapestries on the walls out there. I recall Robert's tapestries being depicted as being described (from Cersei's perspective) as being tacky or at the very least, not quite stately/grandiose enough to hang on the wall of a castle. Past that, they were something Robert loved. Robert hated the Targaryens, so he wouldn't have wanted the pro-Targaryen from the Darry castle hanging on his walls. Tapestries with hunting scenes wouldn't have clued Tyrion in on House Darry's leanings. It seems to me like they'd be tapestries depicting dragons and silver-haired purple-eyed kings winning battles and such.

My take on Bloodraven is that the smallfolk saw an unusual looking person and made a monster of him. He was albino, he had a birthmark. Atop all that, he was a bastard to boot. Hence they made a "dark sorcerer" of him. Doubtless nobles on the other side of the rebellion fence made the most of these stories (and/or were the source of them). Anyone recall the reactions to Tyrion in King's Landing? Or the reactions to "highborn" bastards?