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


chrisdaw

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The information that Laena was a year older than Laenor is new, though. The most common speculation until now had been that they were twins.



The fact that Viserys rode Balerion is really surprising, but we should have seen that one coming. Having been the rider of Balerion, even if the dragon already died, surely would carry a lot of weight.



It seems unlikely, however, that Viserys became Balerion's rider at Maegor's death in 48. That would make him around 70 when he remarried, and around 80 when he fathered his last son Daeron. In order to make the ages work, Viserys can only have been Balerion's rider for a short span of time.



Perhaps a good candidate for being Balerion's rider between Maegor and Viserys could be Aemon Targaryen, Rhaenys' father and the Old King's (first?) son.

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The information that Laena was a year older than Laenor is new, though. The most common speculation until now had been that they were twins.

The fact that Viserys rode Balerion is really surprising, but we should have seen that one coming. Having been the rider of Balerion, even if the dragon already died, surely would carry a lot of weight.

It seems unlikely, however, that Viserys became Balerion's rider at Maegor's death in 48. That would make him around 70 when he remarried, and around 80 when he fathered his last son Daeron. In order to make the ages work, Viserys can only have been Balerion's rider for a short span of time.

Perhaps a good candidate for being Balerion's rider between Maegor and Viserys could be Aemon Targaryen, Rhaenys' father and the Old King's (first?) son.

That would mean that Viserys only claimed Balerion in 92 AC or later... Could work, I guess If Viserys was born around the time of Princess Rhaenys, he would be somewhere between 18 and 22 years old at that point. Old enough to claim Balerion?

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THB,



yes, my guess prior to the Balerion-Viserys revelation was that Aemon was Balerion's rider, and that they may have died together, perhaps in Dorne, causing Jaehaerys to name Baelon his heir in 92 AC. Viserys must have been a man grown when he claimed Balerion. If we assume Viserys was born about 75 AC, or even a few years earlier, he would have been 17-20 in 92 AC. A perfect age to try to master a beast like Balerion.


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THB,

yes, my guess prior to the Balerion-Viserys revelation was that Aemon was Balerion's rider, and that they may have died together, perhaps in Dorne, causing Jaehaerys to name Baelon his heir in 92 AC. Viserys must have been a man grown when he claimed Balerion. If we assume Viserys was born about 75 AC, or even a few years earlier, he would have been 17-20 in 92 AC. A perfect age to try to master a beast like Balerion.

damn if the dornish had killed the black dread too that would have been too much. Why would you even consider such a theory lord varys

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1. Has anybody considered the possibility that the 3 eggs Rhaena (born in Pentos) brought to the Vale turned out to be Dany's eggs? The fate of Viserys II after being captured is unknown. Those eggs might be used to pay for the freedom of the young prince.



2. Does anyone else see the parallels between Viserys I and Tommen?



They are both plump, pleasant and easily lovable.


Viserys managed to ride the largest dragon ever. That means he had a big pair. Tommen is a brave kid. Even after failing in the jousting arena, he wanted to try it again. I think that kind of attitude is necessary for Viserys to mount Balerion.


They both succeeded their grand fathers. Tywin was the true king before Tommen, not Joffrey.


Viserys died at his sleep. Some claimed he was poisoned. Tommen might be poisoned with sweetsleep and never wake again.


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PR,



mostly because I thought (and still think) that Prince Aemon Targaryen may have died prematurely. A fight/battle is the easiest guess. He may have been in fifties in 92 AC, but certainly not much older. And he can only be in his fifties if Jaehaerys had a son before he ascended the Iron Throne in 48 AC.


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1. Has anybody considered the possibility that the 3 eggs Rhaena (born in Pentos) brought to the Vale turned out to be Dany's eggs? The fate of Viserys II after being captured is unknown. Those eggs might be used to pay for the freedom of the young prince.

2. Does anyone else see the parallels between Viserys I and Tommen?

They are both plump, pleasant and easily lovable.

Viserys managed to ride the largest dragon ever. That means he had a big pair. Tommen is a brave kid. Even after failing in the jousting arena, he wanted to try it again. I think that kind of attitude is necessary for Viserys to mount Balerion.

They both succeeded their grand fathers. Tywin was the true king before Tommen, not Joffrey.

Viserys died at his sleep. Some claimed he was poisoned. Tommen might be poisoned with sweetsleep and never wake again.

1. That possibility has been mentioned a couple of times in this thread, but they are burried deeply now :p That's what will happen with 104 pages :) You could try the search function though, perhaps you're able to turn up a few of those posts

2. O god I hope you are wrong (though I fear you're not). I don't want Tommen to die! Though dying in his sleep would be a gentle way to go. He's just a little plump brave kid who wants to play with his kittens and outlaw beets!

I fear for little Tommen..

Though I doubt it was sweetsleep. Viserys had been ill for some time, IIRC. Sweetsleep will kill quickly, if you give the right dose.

I was just looking at some of the Westeros arms and for the Vances of Atranta their flag is quartered green dragons and white towers. Is it possible this family is related to the Targs of this period.

The Vances of Wayfarer's Rest have black dragons on their sigil, the Vances of Atranta indeed green dragons. I think it might not reflect on a Targaryen ancestor, but more to a split in the house during the Dance, where the Vances of Wayfarer's Rest were loyal to Rhaenyra, while the Vances of Atranta were loyal to Aegon II.

A bit like the Fossoways, and how they became two seperate fractions (red-apple and green-apple) during the Tourney at Ashford in 209 AC. Only with some more severe consequences :)

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I was just looking at some of the Westeros arms and for the Vances of Atranta their flag is quartered green dragons and white towers. Is it possible this family is related to the Targs of this period.

In the old encarnation of this forum, back in February 2005 (damn, I'm old), there was this very interesting discussion between Happy Ent and Ran (they are old too!):

Ran, King o' the Board (2/15/05 6:19 am)

The Targaryen heraldic dragon shouldn't, in fact, be a RL heraldic dragon. It should be more like a wyvern, because GRRM's indicated it's got just two legs (yes, this means our front legs -- albeit tiny -- are incorrect at Westeros.org; since removing the legs means rebalancing the whole figure, we've not had time to fix that as of yet).

Happy Ent, Shepherd of the Weirwoods (2/15/05 9:13 am)

Ran, that's great news! (...) Anything else I should know? Most specifically, is the Targaryen dragon displayed instead of rampant? I am sure it says somewhere, "the Targaryen arms displayed a three-headed dragon". Does Martin mean display in the heraldic sense, or just informally?

Ran, King o' the Board (2/15/05 10:47 am)

The Targaryen dragon seems to be an exception. When we pointed out we had four legs on the Vance dragons, too, he said those were all right. Possibly there had once been a breed of dragon that had four legs. We know Westeros had dragons in it, many milennia ago.

Happy Ent, Shepherd of the Weirwoods (2/15/05 12:27 pm)

Fascinating, Ran. So the Targaryens did not introduce dragons to Westeros, and House Vance displays a different breed? Could you point me to some quotes? The fact that Targ dragons are wyverns actually is clear in hindsight. Isn't there an early scene with Dany which describes one of them using his wings to crawl? I need to browse the books for that... I guess Bloodraven's dragon is a wyvern as well.

Ran, King o' the Board (2/15/05 1:18 pm)

The Vance reference I can't find -- I think it was just an exchange about the heraldry, which I didn't keep. Basically, that the dragons there were fine, even though they were quite different from our depiction of the Targaryen dragon which was based (as much as possible) on the description of Dany's dragons. It may be my supposition that it means there were other kinds of dragons, once, and that the Vance arms were based on these rather than the Targaryen version -- can't recall. In any case, I'm certain he had no problem with our keeping the Vance dragons how they are, even if they're quite noticeably different from the Targaryen dragon. Mail #56 contains the reference to there having been dragons everywhere.

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So is it possible that Viserys' landslide win in 101AC was because he was Balerion's rider and NOT because he was the most competent ruler? From GRRM's description, he sounds like a charming fellow so he may have won over the Great Council with these two factors rather than being the best possible candidate.

He kept the realm running smoothly for 30 years, so I don't think Viserys' qualifications for the crown can be seriously doubted. We don't really know whether Rhaenys would have been a good queen or not -- she was a formidable warrior, from the text, but that alone doesn't make a monarch, as we know from Robert.

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Viserys may never have faced a serious crisis. I doubt that he was an extraordinary man, best suited to real. He surely loved his eldest daughter more than his children by his second wife, or else he would changed his last will. That's about all we know for sure.



We don't even know if Viserys participated all that much in the rule of his kingdom. It seems that Ser Otto was appointed Hand by his predecessor, Jaehaerys. Viserys apparently did not even bring his own management (old Lord Lyman Beesbury also served as Master of Coin under Jaehaerys).



His portrait suggested that he 'was great fun at a party', as GRRM put it, and his personal management also sucked in regards to ensure a smooth succession. Yeah, he might have been poisoned, but that does not mean that he could not have put somewhat less Greens on the Small Council.



I don't know if Rhaenys would have been a better queen, but I seriously doubt she would have been worse than Viserys!


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Viserys may never have faced a serious crisis.

He ruled for thirty years -- that's a long time to be in charge in any period. Think of being president of the United States since 1980, or look at the reigns of any English monarch, of any of the information we have about the other periods of Westerosi history, at that (the thirty years leading up to ASOIAF saw two continent-wide wars and a provincial rebellion, a particularly active period). It's a stretch to conclude that he just happened to get the thirty-year period where nothing major happened.

Viserys apparently did not even bring his own management (old Lord Lyman Beesbury also served as Master of Coin under Jaehaerys).

So? Why replace people who are doing their jobs well, and are (apparently) loyal?

I agree the succession issue was handled poorly, but he'd hardly be the first good monarch to leave a problem like that.

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What succession issue? There was no such issue to anyone but the traitors. He had all his lords come together and swear to uphold Rhaenys claim, made her lady of Dragonstone and named her heir, what more was he supposed to do. I don't think that thinking your son and council will uphold their vows makes him a bad king.


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What succession issue? There was no such issue to anyone but the traitors. He had all his lords come together and swear to uphold Rhaenys claim, made her lady of Dragonstone and named her heir, what more was he supposed to do. I don't think that thinking your son and council will uphold their vows makes him a bad king.

man i do agree the only fault i saw with viserys is putting faith in his scheming wife to do the same, since come on she was pressuring the guy to still change his will. Who would have even thought a KG (the lord commander) no less would even do such a thing.

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What succession issue?

The fact that most of the government apparatus was in the hands of people who disagreed with his choice of successor. And, in fact, at least one member of his Small Council stated (without ever being contradicted) that he'd never had to swear an oath regarding the succession at all.

In Viserys' defence here, Rhaenyra and Daemon apparently didn't see this coming either.

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To me, if anyone been aware of the plot, even including Peesbury, then Rhaenyra would have been in KL rather than on Dragonstone. It sounded to me like Alicent and Cole were having an affair and had long planned about Viserys death, but that that is where the pre planning stopped. If not there than Hightower would have been the only 1 to know. We see that at least at first the only lords to declare for Aegon are those tied by blood, clearly the rest of the realm didn't think there was a succession issue.


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man i do agree the only fault i saw with viserys is putting faith in his scheming wife to do the same, since come on she was pressuring the guy to still change his will. Who would have even thought a KG (the lord commander) no less would even do such a thing.

We don't know why Viserys died, only that it was in his sleep. I didn't have a positive view of Alicent from what I read in the PATQ. I wouldn't put it past her to poison her husband because they had an argument about the succession. Leaving him on his bed for days before telling anyone is shady. She might have done it that way because of the war she knew would erupt after declaring Aegon II king. Leaving instructions for servants to not tell anyone besides the queen when the king dies indicates that she knew what she was about to do would cause trouble.

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We don't know why Viserys died, only that it was in his sleep. I didn't have a positive view of Alicent from what I read in the PATQ. I wouldn't put it past her to poison her husband because they had an argument about the succession. Leaving him on his bed for days before telling anyone is shady. She might have done it that way because of the war she knew would erupt after declaring Aegon II king. Leaving instructions for servants to not tell anyone besides the queen when the king dies indicates that she knew what she was about to do would cause trouble.

There was a dwarf as a fool at court during Viserys' reign, and after Viserys died he made some remarks, to which the reply was "Poison? No, he died in his sleep!". This was given somewhere as a preview, but it hasn't appeared in a final text, but it does support the theory that Alicent had Viserys poisoned.

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I'm just saying that we don't know anything whatsoever about Viserys' personality. Look at Aerys' reign. The guy was no extraordinary man when he was not having some of his lapses, but the Realm still prospered under his administration, mostly due to his long-time Hand. Or Robert: His reign would have been much shorter, if Jon Arryn had not kept the Realm together. Even Joffrey: Without Tyrion serving as Hand, Stannis would have taken the city.



Viserys made a lot of mistakes if he truly wanted to succeed his daughter smoothly.



1. He did not have the Lords repeat their obeisance later when he had sons by Alicent. The fact that the King had made his daughter the heir while she still was his only child could have given the impression that he did not really seat her before his sons.



2. Most power in KL is in the hands of the Greens. Ser Otto is Hand, and thus the guy who is supposed to rule in the name of the old king until the new monarch is crowned. He is Viserys' father-in-law, and the mother to the woman who does not want Rhaenyra to succeed her father. How smart is it to do that? It would be as if Robert had appointed Tywin as Hand, hoping that he would hand the Iron Throne over to Stannis if he found out that Cersei's children were no Baratheons.



3. Viserys apparently was also a very bad moderator of family feuds. If we assume for one moment that Alicent is not Cersei 2.0 (or rather 0.0) then there may have actually been a way to pacify the two women, preventing that they develop into mortal enemies overtime. As soon as it became apparent that there were two political parties - and Viserys must have been aware of that - the King should have wholeheartedly support one side to ensure that the Realm would not be plunged into an all-out civil war upon his death.


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