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[Spoilers] The Princess and the Queen, complete spoilers discussion


chrisdaw

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I think it is a question of conflicting claims at the same time. Aegon II had the better PR.

  • Countless times Rhaenyra is referred to as "The Whore" throughout the story, when really it is not her fault he was at first married to a gay man. She was very fond of her second husband that much we know, when as Lord Varys stated it was obviously an open marriage at least on Daemon's part, who (according to Criston Cole, and I am paraphrasing, could put Aegon the Unworthy to shame - no love lost between ol' Criston and Daemon). All the Targ man in the story had paramours. There were a lot of allegations about Rhaenyra, but we have only seen her loving Daemon.
  • She was depicted as demented. Really, she has just had a stillbirth. Not a miscarriage, but a full birth but no bouncing baby to show for all the pain and 8 months of expectation. Hormones flying all over, post-natal depression, her father dying, her half-brother declaring war on her, her children dying one by one, her husband - although very supportive - philandering continuously, all the betrayals, her getting totally isolated in King's Landing, the dragons dying, Daemon... I think it is obvious the archmaester could have cut her some slack.
I hope we get a more neutral vision of the conflict on WOIAF, though I do wonder why Aegon III didn't cleared his mother's name.
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Since Alyn of Hull (Alyn Velaryon) was stated to have been 13 or 14 during the war, is it also stated how old his brother Addam was?

We do not know but he was, but old enough to be able to recruit a whole new army for the Queen to prove his loyalty.

...Addam Velaryon was relentless and determined and glib of tongue...

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Gyldayn uses sources because they are the sources available, each with their particular pros and cons. He's actually fairly explicit about what those problems are. There are bits where he drily notes that all these sources have this detail... but this other one doesn't, and you can draw your conclusions. Does that about Eustace, once or twice.

Honestly, I don't think Gyldayn is really in the tank for anyone in particular. He's writing something like a century and more after the Dance.

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We do not know but he was, but old enough to be able to recruit a whole new army for the Queen to prove his loyalty.

Ok. Does it say anything about whether or not he was married, or had children? If so, the whole Alyn Velaryon and Elaena Targaryen were cousins thing fits again :) And we know they were cousins. We know Alyn was born in 116 AL, and he must have been Corlys' bastard, as well as his brother Addam, otherwise Addam would not have been seen as the Velaryon heir once legitimized, and Alyn eventually became Lord of the Driftmark as well, no?

Yet someone had to have fathered the Velaryon bride that Aegon III marries eventually. And if Addam had a small child during the Dance, she would be old enough to marry when Jaehaera dies and Aegon III needs a new wife. And it could have been Alyn, because that would have made Elaena his granddaughter, and not his cousin.

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Ok. Does it say anything about whether or not he was married, or had children? If so, the whole Alyn Velaryon and Elaena Targaryen were cousins thing fits again :) And we know they were cousins. We know Alyn was born in 116 AL, and he must have been Corlys' bastard, as well as his brother Addam, otherwise Addam would not have been seen as the Velaryon heir once legitimized, and Alyn eventually became Lord of the Driftmark as well, no?

Yet someone had to have fathered the Velaryon bride that Aegon III marries eventually. And if Addam had a small child during the Dance, she would be old enough to marry when Jaehaera dies and Aegon III needs a new wife. And it could have been Alyn, because that would have made Elaena his granddaughter, and not his cousin.

It says Addam was a boy of ten and five if that's any help.
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Ok. Does it say anything about whether or not he was married, or had children? If so, the whole Alyn Velaryon and Elaena Targaryen were cousins thing fits again :) And we know they were cousins. We know Alyn was born in 116 AL, and he must have been Corlys' bastard, as well as his brother Addam, otherwise Addam would not have been seen as the Velaryon heir once legitimized, and Alyn eventually became Lord of the Driftmark as well, no?

Yet someone had to have fathered the Velaryon bride that Aegon III marries eventually. And if Addam had a small child during the Dance, she would be old enough to marry when Jaehaera dies and Aegon III needs a new wife. And it could have been Alyn, because that would have made Elaena his granddaughter, and not his cousin.

We know nothing about Addam, other than he is badass.

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It says Addam was a boy of ten and five if that's any help.

It helps a bit, but where the family tree is concerned, I'm still stuck on how Aegon III's Velaryon wife is related. I guess Addam is old enough for a bastard, but until anything is confirmed... *sigh*

But thank you :D It's good to know how much older Addam was than his brother. :)

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Well, Corlys could have had bastard daughters... We also know nothing about Alys Rivers's parentage, but I'd rather think her baby will be the line of the Ghost of High Heart or the Magi.



Cousins in ASOIAF often only means any other relative e.g. Rhaegar and Robert Baratheon. Alyn and Eleana could be similar, like my uncle's wife's brother's granddaughter or such like.



I agree that the Daemon storyline is a bit illogical, but there we only have one witness, who could have seen very little due to the nature of dragonfights. So it is more of a legend.


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The world book adds and expands on things only glossed in the story, and skimps on other stuff covered there, so it does balance a bit.

Can't wait. It would be great to know in advance if it works on kindle (I mean the world book). It was quite annoying that Amazon only worked out the Tyrion book is not downloadable on Kindle on the release date.

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On Daemon's possible survival:

I really don't get why he did what he did, or what the thing between him and Nettles was. Why did he not go with her? Why did he not return to Rhaenyra to take things into his own hands? He could have done that. Was he hurt by Rhaenyra by this whole thing (i.e. did he actually still love his wife and niece and consider this a betrayal against their 'open marriage' - I think we have reason enough to assume that both Rhaenyra and Daemon did have multiple lovers during their respective marriages). The way Gyldayn describes it Rhaenyra did not exactly want Netty's head because of her alleged affair with Daemon but because of her bastard heritage and her court's fear that she might betray just Hugh and Ulf did.

Why did Daemon continue his hunt for Aemond?

Made sense to me. It provided him a way out, he didn't want to serve Rhaenyra anymore after she gave that command but didn't want to dishonour himself by abandoning his wife, family and their cause. He also just lost his lover and so death by epic suicide mission seemed the way to go. There's probably more in there about why he turned from Rhaenyra to Nettles but in the broad strokes we're given I saw no problem.

I found Aemond's refusal to meet Daemon and Nettles in combat 2 on 1 more out of character, he was all about naked bravado.

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I'm pretty sure that the world book will be available on Kindle, but I can't swear to it just yet... but I mean to ask next time I talk to our editor.

Alayne's Shadow,

GRRM has suggested that at some point in the future he may release the original material as part of a "GRRM-arillion", a more in-depth narrative history than what's in the world book or TPatQ.

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If they just have an egg the potential dragon rider has to just hope and pray it hatches. There doesn't seen to be any practical technique to it, the egg hatches in it's own time. Bonding seems to happen easily for those who can hatch their egg.

Bonding with older dragons seems to happen by chance and seems to be down to the dragon's preference as much as anything. Interestingly two of the dragonseeds who bond are strongmen, rather than skilled knights, so dragons seem to like strength and bravery over skill or any other knightly values. Although all the seeds who bond with the dragons are considered to be Targ bastards none of them have Targ features.

I think the character Nettles is probably not a Targ bastard. The way she bonds with a wild dragon, bringing it sheep to eat until it gets used to her presence, seems to me to be GRRM hinting at how the Valyrians originally bonded with wild dragons. So I think bonding can happen through "friendship" with the dragon as well as through dragonrider blood but for the people of Westeros dragonrider=targ blood. Poor Nettles is considered to be and is treated as a bastard although she there is nothing to suggest that she is and she never claims to be. Nettles is such a good character I think she must have a descendant in asoiaf, probably Brown Ben Plumm but I would love it to be Missandei.

Thanks for answering. :)

All in all, I found TPatQ to be a bit disappointing - it shows quite clearly what a remarkable story is contained within the dance of the dragons but it had the feel as if it had been cut down to one big info dump. (Which you'd pretty much expect from a maester writing a history but not from GRRM writing a story.)

There are some things I found extremely interesting after first reading:

  • Troop numbers seem to be a lot lower than in the other major Westeros wars that we've seen so far.
  • Some of the great houses do seem to hold back quite a lot: House Baratheon surprises everyone by choosing Aegon II but then I don't remember any important Baratheons mentioned anywhere. House Tully is never mentioned if I remember correctly.
  • You don't need a human/Targ to hatch dragons. Not really a surprise as dragons seem to have existed without human interference for a long time but it recalls the fact that all remaining dragon eggs can hatch during TWoW and ADoS and create turning points.
  • There's apparently no shortage of Targ bastards and they can become dragon riders as well. That makes me wonder how many of those born from bastard Targ lines will volunteer to be part of the 3-headed dragon.
  • People back then seem to be less afraid of dragons than in ASOIAF. Probably because they had learned in Dorne that dragons can die whereas in ASOIAF dragons are primarily the beasts come back from old fables.

If there are any eggs left they are probably petrified, any egg that would hatch on its own would have to be "fresh" I would think.

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Silly question of the day. Do Targs follow the Seven? Gyldain assumed Joff prayed to the Mother when he died, but he also said the little princess (Rhaena of Pentos? I'll never learn these names) was sleeping with her 3 dragon eggs praying for them to hatch. Are the Seven the gods who can help you hatch an egg or were they praying to some old Valyrian god?

Joff was fairly obviously asking for Rhaenerys's forgiveness for his rash actions and not the Mother.

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