Alester Florent

The important question: are these threads Pure Spam or just Inconsistently Aggravating?

That scenario is so far removed from what we get, and starts so much earlier, that it's hard to imagine a Green faction even developing in the same way.

Killing Aegon III does mean the end of House Targaryen, mind. He's the last (known) male Targ, and while it's theoretically possible Aegon II might have more kids, it also doesn't seem enormously likely. And in any case, the war is lost for the Greens. The Black armies are incoming and there's nothing left to stand in their way. They're not going to go home just because Aegon the younger is killed: having declared themselves opposed to Aegon II and seeing the way he treats his prisoners, they'll fight on for Baela or Rhaena, or Gaemon Palehair if they have to. Killing Aegon the younger is just going to antagonise them.

Just because Tywin is one of the world's biggest bastards doesn't mean he's wrong about everything, either. Jaime is a good Lord Commander when he finally returns to King's Landing. But there are two critical points there: firstly, that's Jaime Mk2 (in fact, Mk3), post-maiming, post-Brienne. Secondly, that's when he returns to King's Landing. He's not in KL when first appointed and there's no way of knowing when he'll be back. Joffrey's Kingsguard is a disaster, and that is surely in part down to having no effective commander. Three of them abandon their posts at critical moments, leaving their charge in danger (Mandon Moore abandons Sansa at the bread riots, Boros Blount Tommen on the road, and Sandor Joffrey at the Blackwater). And also during the Blackwater, Mandon Moore attempts to assassinate the city's commander, which surely would have been a disaster (and something Jaime would have been furious about) had Tywin not largely coincidentally arrived to save the day. Barristan has over his career shown loyalty to whichever monarch he's sworn to at the time no matter what he thought of them, and would surely have done the same for Joff. If he stood by and watched Rickard Stark burn, he's not going to rebel against Joffrey. But even if they think he's incompatible with their regime, they should at least wait until Jaime is back in King's Landing before sacking Barristan, so that there's someone to manage the Kingsguard effectively in the interim. Joff's Kingsguard would surely not have disintegrated the way it did had Barristan still been in charge and on the spot. The way they handled it was not just a problem symbolically, it was practical incompetence too.

Hot Pie is a secret Targ.

Dismissing Barristan was an issue insofar as it damaged Joffrey's credibility and handed a potential propaganda victory to one of his enemies right as Joff was at his most vulnerable. Purging the two most famously honourable men in the kingdom as soon as Robert died sent a terrible message and surely helped Renly's and Stannis's causes in picking up anti-Lannister support. Imagine if Barry had gone to Stannis instead of Dany. And Jaime as LC didn't exactly worked out.

It does seem that a king has the power to release a man of the NW from his vows, albeit I don't recall if it's mentioned how often this happened when the precedent was invoked (it must have been exceptional - but I'm inclined to believe the precedent exists, because Stannis isn't the kind of guy to make that sort of thing up). Cersei seems aware of the same precedent, although I trust her rather less than Stannis: still, it seems that Stannis, Cersei and Robb all independently believe that this is a thing that a king can do and Jon doesn't seem to disagree. So it seems that Robb, being a king, could release Jon from his vows and instate him as heir, if indeed he did (which I'm inclined to believe he did do, but which isn't confirmed), and that while this was indeed a somewhat desperate move on his part given his lack of heirs, was not highly controversial (the only objector we know of was Cat, whose objection was not founded in law, but her own personal feelings towards Jon) nor perhaps unprecedented. Of course, Robb also didn't anticipate his own death coming quite as soon as it did: while he was hedging against his own potential death without a child given his hazardous lifestyle, he wasn't expecting to be exposed to danger until the attack on Moat Cailin, and would presumably have expected Jon's release from the NW to happen first, so that the legitimisation and public recognition of him as heir could happen after Jon was already a free man and thereby giving Jon credibility before he was called on to take over as king, rather than the release, legitimisation and acclamation as king all having to happen simultaneously. To be honest, I think Jon's Stark-cred would be sufficient anyway in the absence of other legitimate Starks. He looks like a Stark and thinks like a Stark, and the houses naturally inclined to follow a Stark would surely fall in behind him rather than go looking for alternatives (dynastically, an unattractive choice between Valemen, Tyrion(!) or, eventually, Ramsay). Of course, Robb also wasn't expecting his own death to be accompanied by such a bonfire of his supporters: the death he foresaw would have been one in which he died but his kingdom remained intact. But there is a big difference between releasing a man from his vows and restoring him to society as a free man (with a reward), and recalling a man from the Wall to punish him for crimes for which the NW vows were meant to atone. Moreover, it appears that the "release from vows" is essentially voluntary; the NWman can't be released from the Watch against his own wishes (and indeed Jon turns Stannis's offer down) rather than the king's having the ability to unilaterally void the vow. The Lord Commander probably has a say too: this isn't an issue with Jon because he is the LC, but a king probably wouldn't be able to release a man from his vows without the LC's agreement. So yeah, had Aegon taken the black, I don't think Aegon III would have been able to recall him later. That might not have stopped him sending agents to the Wall to eliminate his uncle once he gained full power, as Cersei attempted to do with Jon, but that's a very different kettle of fish to recalling someone to execute them.

Eh... less than you might think. For most of history, differing religions has been a case of "we have our gods and you have yours" and everyone was generally ok with that. If you ended up fighting then that was an opportunity to demonstrate that your gods were better than theirs, and if you won you could take all their god-statues and bring them back to sit in your gods' temples to rub that in, but the general attitude was one of live and let live. Roman paganism was basically happy to let you follow whatever gods you felt like so long as you paid your taxes and didn't cause a fuss. That we think that different religions by nature actively hate each other is largely a product of the rise of monotheistic religions in the last 1500 years, and in particular monotheistic religions that seek to actively convert because not only are they not playing fair (they don't just not worship your gods, they actively deny their existence!) the people they're converting are the same people who pay for the temple upkeep and lifestyle of the priests. They are, in short, troublemakers, not necessarily because of what they believe but because of what they do. The Romans were perfectly happy to let the Jews and Christians follow their funny, kind-of-boring, god, but it became a problem when their religon meant they refused to pay the necessary obesiance (and/or taxes) to the emperor. Even monotheistic religions can be quite accommodating. The position in early Islam was that Jews, Christians and Zoroastrians were basically fine, since they were all on the same cosmic team even if they were mistaken about a few of the details. So long as they didn't cause trouble or seek to spread their religion (and paid the necessary taxes) they were A-OK, at least until the Crusades made a mess of things. The western Church has gone back and forth a few times on the Jews, at times seeing them not only as acceptable but actually necessary, and at others encouraging their persecution (although the real horrors of persecution during the Middle Ages tended to be driven by secular or popular figures, for largely secular reasons). Indeed religions seem to save their heaviest artillery for schismatics rather than rival religions per se. The heretic is, generally, worse than the infidel. In a war crimes context, though, the point isn't "your religion is dumb and therefore you're not entitled to protection", it's simple reciprocity. If you start violating their holy places, they'll do the same with yours, and since you don't want that to happen, it's better to leave the sanctuaries alone at least until such time as you feel confident enough of total victory that you can start demolishing them.

You may want to read GRRM's comments on that scene, too...

The thing is, we all have inside information on this one. We know (or at least, it is generally known) that the producers of the Game of Thrones show were asked by GRRM who they thought Jon's parents were, as a condition of getting to make the show. Given that the show was made, they got the answer right. The show went on to establish Rhaegar and Lyanna as Jon's parents. Hence why I think that, even if the text of the books themselves leaves some room for doubt, we as readers, with access to metatextual sources, can be certain beyond reasonable doubt that R+L=J*. That some people don't accept this and continue to argue the point is annoying largely because it means that arguments that should be settled have to be constantly relitigated, and because those same people use their bogus R+L=/=J theories as platforms for even more silliness. Or, worse, it forms the basis for trolling, as with the Stark haters who'll maintain that Brandon raped Lyanna or something. *Now, it is not impossible that D&D decided to tear things up and deliberately get the answer "wrong" in the final draft, but that seems pretty unlikely: the errors made in the show, which are many, do nevertheless appear to have been at least 90% incompetence, rather than deliberate perversity.

I try not to give bad theories too much headspace, so "hate" is a strong word for them unless they're directly contaminating a thread I'm involved in. But in essence, any theory that fails to apply the basics of critical, evidential reasoning to itself. Those that reject things we are plainly told on spurious grounds, and fill in the resultant gaps with conjecture and wishful thinking. Those that make wild leaps of logic based on flimsy premises. Those that daisy-chain from previous poorly-reasoned theories. Exhibit A would be some of the Lemongate theories. Lemongate itself I have no issue with: Dany remembers a lemon tree in Braavos, where lemons shouldn't grow. This is a discrepancy, and it may or may not be significant. The conclusion drawn by some theorists that Daenerys's whole life is a lie, that she's not the child of Aerys and Rhaella at all, and some of the other stuff built on that, is nonsense. I can accommodate the existence of such theories, but it annoys me when they are confidently presented as fact, or of equal credibility to the "orthodox" interpretation of the text, or when its proponents tell other people their own theories are wrong based on the faulty assumption. I have no time for theories about Jon's parentage that aren't R+L=J: I consider that confirmed beyond reasonable doubt, through metatextual sources, although "hate" is, again, a strong word. Anything that relies on Stark or Tully incest, etc, for obvious reasons.

What I am now wondering in retrospect is why Illyrio didn't make more of an effort to tip Dany off about Aegon when he sent her Barristan. Sure, he was probably hoping she would just come back west with Groleo and he could set things up then, but he didn't give her much of a reason to do it. If he'd said at that point that the Golden Company were standing by, say, she might have been more inclined to accept. I get why he didn't do that while Viserys was alive, or while Dany was "just" Khal Drogo's wife, but once she survived the Red Waste and turned up in the east with her dragons, he should surely have been making every effort to get her back to western Essos and integrate her with his primary plan. Aegon and Dany should be natural allies, but the actual Targaryen loyalist factions have been operating in almost complete isolation from, and ignorance of, each other, which has created a conflict of interest. And the one person in a position to join the two causes, Illyrio, hasn't taken meaningful steps to do so despite apparently planning for it.

Well, Arianne is super hot and brings Dorne with her, as well as being old enough to have kids right away. There is currently no other remotely comparable marriage offer on the table, or even obviously available. The only reason to turn it down is if he's holding out for Daenerys.

But Cat is insane! And the insanity has been passed on to Jon Snow, who is also insane! Because, er, look over there! *runs away*

Aside from the point you raise about the Targs' being "special" and getting hung up on their descent is kind of missing the point - which I think is valid - I felt there seemed to be creep in the previous thread towards assuming that since there were a handful of Targs unaccounted for (or even potential Targs unaccounted for) we should be looking for proof that houses are not descended from the Targs rather than vice versa. e.g. well Daena could have had more children and it seems reasonable that they'd have had good marriages and then one of them could have married x and then they'd have married a Lannister and before you know it we've constructed a whole genealogy based on something which there is no actual textual evidence for, only the absence of a confirmed negative. It's possible that some has crept in through some junior line of a junior line that is otherwise unaccounted for on the family trees, but why would we assume that? And what does it actually matter if it has? If Jon Snow ends up being special and saving the world through magic blood or whatever, it's not going to be because his great-great-grandfather on his mother's side was married to the daughter of one of Aegon IV's lesser-known bastards (see footnote to the appendix to etc.) or whatever. Can you even imagine the reveal for that in the novels? "Lame" would cover it, I think. Where Targaryen ancestry is relevant, I think we will either know about it already or it'll be a major reveal (i.e. someone's parent is not who they think; they're a well-established recent Targaryen), rather than anything to do with distant genealogy.

Rape is a deeply sensitive topic and one I always feel a bit uncomfortable discussing, not least because I think the mods discourage it. But it's also very easy for it to be slammed down like a kind of trump card in discussions and I think that can sometimes lead us down the wrong path, especially given that I've seen people do the same regarding the series as a whole ("ASoIaF is bad because it's too rapey") (although that is at least better than the alternative "ASoIaF is bad because it's not rapey enough" - and yes, I have seen that, but as with what follows, context is important). GRRM is writing a "grimdark" medieval-ish fantasy and he doesn't shy away from the less savoury elements of that kind of setting nor do his characters necessarily reflect up-to-the-minute thinking on the subject. (It's worth pointing out too that the conversation around consent in 2023 is in a very different place to where it was in 1996 when the first book was written). And in a world where producing heirs is the first and most important duty of any lord (especially a king), and where arranged marriages are the norm, notions around consent and what is and is not acceptable are going to be very different to how we imagine them now. We should also remember that, in general but among the Dothraki in particular, the setting is with only a couple of exceptions deeply patriarchal, women have limited rights, power or legal protection, fornication is frowned upon, and children born out of wedlock are not only discriminated against institutionally but will be a socio-economic liability for the mother. Let's remember too that Dany is immersed in this system. She herself was married off to a husband not of her choosing, at a young age, who entertains haphazard notions about consent, and she has not only gained power as a result of this, but fallen in love with him. By pushing for the Dothraki to marry the women they have raped, then, she truly believes she is doing the best thing for them. She would consider herself an example of how this can work out well (we might call "Stockholm syndrome", or not). By obliging marriage, she is giving those women rights, the societal protection of a husband, and obliging the Dothraki fathers to stick around and provide for those women rather than discarding them and leaving them to suffer. This kind of thing has a historical basis, of course. There's a reason that "rape" means both "non-consensual sex" and "abduction", because in the kind of world we're talking about, the two are closely related conceptually, and it was far from unheard of for a guy to kidnap a lady and force her into marriage in order to get hold of her inheritance or the like (see: Ramsay and Lady Hornwood). Do we, as readers, have to sit back and accept all this? No, of course not. But I do think we have to at least try to look at it from the characters' perspectives when we're making judgements, and take account of the context and society that they find themselves in, rather than necessarily taking a black and white approach. Am I comfortable with having to do that? No, not entirely. We can either treat that as part of the point in the books (no black and white, only shades of grey) or a feature of the books we find distasteful (that it's trying to force us to defend things we find indefensible by our standards) but that's a Doylist problem, not a Wastsonian one.

Are we going by in-world characters, or by readers? If readers, then my first pick will be controversial (but then I guess that's the point): Robert. The way he's talked about by many round here, it seems taken for granted that he was not only one of the worst kings in Westerosi history, but also barely one up from Gregor Clegane in his personal evil and malevolence, to the point that I've recently seen a theory floating around that Lyanna's running off with Rhaegar was triggered by Robert raping or trying to rape her because that's just the kind of guy he was. I disagree. Robert managed to pull off the classic combo of being loved and feared in a way which relatively few Westerosi kings have, and it's clear from what came after him that this wasn't as easy as it might have looked. The only other ruler we see really pull it off is Dany, and her regime is much more precarious than Robert's ever was. As a king, what mistakes did Robert make? He overspent, sure, but the Throne didn't seem to be struggling to make the repayments so long as the realm was at peace (a peace he maintained). Did the Lannisters become too powerful? Debatable; they certainly had influence, but their dominance over government was lesser than we sometimes assume, and had Ned not fumbled the pass, shutting them out of government after Robert's death should have been relatively easy. Tywin, the supposedly overmighty puppetmaster, doesn't dare openly raise his banners until after he knows Robert is dead. To a great extent, it does seem that it was Robert holding the kingdom together, more than any other factor. And in his personal life, he was no saint, to be sure, but I think the mistake is often made to take everything Cersei says about him at face value (since she talks about him more in her PoVs than almost any other character), accepting her veredict on him, while ignoring everyone else's opinions or the reality of what we know (including what we know about the reliability of Cersei's internal monologues and judgements). As a king, I'd give Robert a solid 6/10 at minimum, perhaps edging up to a 7/10 or even an 8/10 in his early years (prior to the Greyjoy rebellion and probably for some time afterwards). We also have to remember that the Robert we meet in AGoT is not the same Robert who took the throne. It's clear that by the time we meet him, he has sunk into the depths of depression and has changed not only physically but mentally, to the extent that his BFF Ned struggles to recognise him at times, but it's equally clear that that didn't overtake his more positive qualities until he'd already been on the throne for several years.

Henry III reaffirmed his vassal status (or rather, his ministers did on his behalf) after John's death. It was formally rescinded (in fact, unilaterally voided as invalid by Parliament) during the reign of Edward III, but it effectively lost relevance after the accession of Edward I.

Did it though? Yes, the church won its battle with the Empire decisively, at least in the Empire's medieval incarnation, but elsewhere its record was a lot more mixed. Even at its peak of power, the church struggled to meaningfully assert itself politically in France and England, and less than forty years after Conradin's execution, Sciarra Colonna walked into Anagni on behalf of the French king and punched the Pope in the face. And after that, in future battles between state and church it was pretty much one-way traffic in favour of the state.

OK.

It's not impossible, but I'm not seeing any actual evidence either. Aegon wasn't the first Targaryen to wield Blackfyre and ride Balerion, and he wasn't the last. (Nobody is saying Viserys I was a bastard... are they?) The rest of it is just an explanation of how it could work if true, but not giving any indication that it is. It's also much easier to conceal the paternity of a child than the maternity, for obvious reasons. If Aegon wasn't Valaena's son, people on the spot would know and I'd expect at least something in the books to suggest there were rumours or the like, but there's nothing.

Unless you're talking about a mathematics problem, it's pretty hard to have a rational analysis or make an argument without words or saying things? I was referring to the show because it made a habit of ignoring the geography of its own world and it got so egregious that people who hadn't seen any maps other than the ones in the show's opening credits were finding it ridiculous. It was a handy example of how dumb this stuff can get. It's about 4000 miles from the Arbor to Meereen as the crow (ha!) flies, but you can't actually sail as the crow flies because of Valyria. Even if you go through the Smoking Sea, the detour means the journey is closer to 5000 than 4000. 15 knots is about the top speed of a single-hulled sailing ship (tea clippers could go a bit faster). To achieve that they needed a decent following wind. But let's give Euron the best possible set of circumstances: he has a following wind the whole way, and the ship is somehow able to go at full speed 24 hours per day. That journey would take him about 12-13 days. You've suggested 12 knots as a "steady speed", which works out closer to 15 days. But without magic, those assumptions are frankly preposterous. A following wind over that whole distance isn't going to happen. And even if the crew can run the ship at top speed for 24 hours a day for that period, it would be crazy to do that so close to land even through properly charted waters let alone through uncharted waters like the Smoking Sea, even during the day let alone at night. And even if Euron is both mad and lucky enough that he somehow manages to do that and not run aground in the Silence, there's no way he could keep his fleet together while doing so. A mundane ship making that journey, even a highly efficient one like a clipper, accounting for normal winds, actually navigating rather than just going in a straight line and hoping the rocks and shoals move out of their way, would expect to make something more like 6 knots (half your proposed average speed), which would get him there in more like 30 days. And that's still assuming they go through the Smoking Sea. GRRM has created a huge world. The hugeness of that world is rendered pointless, even risible, if characters can travel across pretty much the entirety of one dimension of it like it's nothing. What? I'm not saying that he ought to change his mind because the idea is unpopular. I'm saying that he demonstrably has changed his mind at least a bit if the AFfC outline has Euron going to Slaver's Bay and in AFfC/ADwD he does not go to Slaver's Bay. So his ideas for Euron's plot have changed since that outline was written. That doesn't make it impossible that he will go to Slaver's Bay in future, but it looks to me like GRRM sent Victarion instead. If GRRM's plan was to have Euron go to Slaver's Bay in those books, he could simply have had the Ironborn agree to go with him and off they go. Concocting a whole shaggy dog story about his sending Victarion instead and having multiple chapters showing that long and arduous journey and then having Euron pop up at the end of it seems unnecessarily long-winded given that nothing is apparently accomplished by separating the two characters for that length of time. Given how bloated the books became and how much he's been struggling to write the last couple, you'd have thought he'd save himself the trouble and just stick with his original plan of sending Euron in the first place. Incidentally, where in the outline does it say Euron is going to Slaver's Bay? Because I've just looked at the leaked pages and I can't see any mention of Euron or indeed any Ironborn characters.

He's going to be frustrated either way. If he's internally given up on it, he'll be annoyed that he can't just 86 it and get on with his life because there's this whole multimedia thing hanging off ASoIaF and there's a host of entitled fans who'll make his life a misery. If he genuinely does want to get it finished - and in my experience storytellers do want to tell the stories they create - then it will be infuriating that it's taking him this long to get it onto the page.

"I am still working on The Winds of Winter, and have written about 1,100 pages"