RumHam Posted January 26, 2014 Share Posted January 26, 2014 If Varys actually swapped babies, he was probably just counting on nobody closely examining the dead baby. Kevan even says something like "nobody looked for very long." I mean even if someone who was present when Tywin presented the dead children to Robert had suspicions, what are they gonna say? "Hey Bob I don't think you're really king cause that could be any baby." Plus of all the people who were in the room when the bodies were shown, only Jamie might have noticed it wasn't Aegon. The rest were all rebels who were naturally not spending time in Red Keep and hanging out with Elia and her kids. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RumHam Posted January 26, 2014 Share Posted January 26, 2014 The thing that raises eyebrows is why Varys didn't save Rhaenys as well. I think that's actually pretty clear. How would have had to find a look alike who would fool everyone. He wasn't counting on either child being beaten beyond recognition, but figured he could pull off a fake Aegon but had no chance with the older Rhaenys whose dornish look was well known. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bright Blue Eyes Posted January 26, 2014 Share Posted January 26, 2014 I think in general into order to make somebody unrecongnizable you would have to use bludgeons to beat the body. Gregor uses a sword. Now accoding to Ned (?), Gregor apparently threw Aegon against a wall, but babies/people have fallen from large heights (which is comparable to being thrown against a Wall) and they were still recognizable. That's true. For an adult. But a babe is small enough that a Mountain (or literally any adult) can take it by the feet and get a nice circle swing going that's going to end at a wall. That's a huge force multiplier, it provides several times the impact force. Which means like fifty fissures in the bone structure of the head and the face, the head is going to be a lumpy sack of squishy and the face has been a face once. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oursisthefury69 Posted January 26, 2014 Share Posted January 26, 2014 Why does it need to be pre-planned? why cant it just be varys taking adavnatage Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Minstral Posted January 26, 2014 Share Posted January 26, 2014 Did Gregor in killing his horse make it unrecognizable ? The equivalent would like saying Gregor chopped his horse head, and them proceed to beat it with a bludgeon (because swords are terrible bludgeons), until it was unrecognizable. Okay, are you really going into minute details to sell a crackpot theory that Gregor was in cahoots with Varys? It's Gregor, he overreacts and punched in both the heads of Oberyn and Elia. Perhaps we can ask Lorch on the subject of gutting a girl with over a hundred thrusts of a sword, because she kicked him, and ask how someone can react when their blood is heated? I don't even think Aegon is real btw, so mark me down in believing that Varys is lying. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LordStoneheart Posted January 26, 2014 Share Posted January 26, 2014 Aegon was still a baby, you could swap my aunts baby with one that is vaguely familiar and I won't notice it. Neither would Robert, Tywin, Ned, Jaime... They would notice a Targaryen baby. There weren't much Valyrian infants around, so the story just doesn't work It's not as impossible as some people will make it out to be. There are really no 'flaws' against the body swap being true. Huge flaw. As the wiki says here, it only works in retrospect. Gregor was not in on it; he's just a monster. But there was no way Varys could know for sure that Gregor would kill him the way he did... or that the baby would've been killed at all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RoamingRonin Posted January 26, 2014 Share Posted January 26, 2014 Aegon was one years old and all of the people that knew him well were dead or fled. Smashed head or burned body, Varys could still present his (f)Aegon. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sleath56 Posted January 26, 2014 Share Posted January 26, 2014 He doesn't need Gregor to bash the baby's face in. It's a baby, with plain Valyrian faces. There are Targaryen look-alikes to be found all over Essos. People say that Young Griff is a random Essos child. So why can't that be the safe for here? Also, even if people find out, how should that affect Varys not baby-swapping? He still manages to get the Targaryen heir to safety. People act like if someone finds out, Varys would not swap Aegon. Aegon is the heir to House Targaryen and Westeros. It's only a bonus if no one finds out. He will swap Aegon regardless. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JonCon's Red Beard Posted January 26, 2014 Share Posted January 26, 2014 It's not as impossible as some people will make it out to be. There are really no 'flaws' against the body swap being true. The thing that raises eyebrows is why Varys didn't save Rhaenys as well. It's easier to hide one kid than two, I guess. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fool of a Book Posted January 26, 2014 Share Posted January 26, 2014 Firstly, a faceless dead baby/heir to the throne is the perfect plot device, to keep readers guessing. Second, no one looked very closely at any of the bodies, not just Aegon's. Third, Gregor could have had instructions, or even been somehow magically influenced to smash the head in. And maybe his recollection of events isn't quite how it happened anyway. I think the swap happened so I wonder too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sleath56 Posted January 26, 2014 Share Posted January 26, 2014 The thing is: if Varys found a Valyrian-match for Aegon, why couldn't he have done the easier task of replacing Rhaenys with a Dornish as well? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Big Daddy Posted January 26, 2014 Share Posted January 26, 2014 Aegon was one years old and all of the people that knew him well were dead or fled. Smashed head or burned body, Varys could still present his (f)Aegon. This here. All Varys had to work with was that he needed to get Aegon out of there (if this is true anyway). If Elia and the kids were say, put to the sword or smothered with a pillow, his ruse still could have worked. There never was any saving the girl because she was recognizable. And infant is easier to pull off. The head smashing thing was a...happy accident? Gravy? Now I feel ghoulish, but it's still true from Varys' perspective IF Aegon is real. (I'm not convinced either way, just playing devil's advocate) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OutlawSarge Posted January 26, 2014 Share Posted January 26, 2014 Aegon was still a baby, you could swap my aunts baby with one that is vaguely familiar and I won't notice it. Neither would Robert, Tywin, Ned, Jaime... this Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RumHam Posted January 26, 2014 Share Posted January 26, 2014 The thing is: if Varys found a Valyrian-match for Aegon, why couldn't he have done the easier task of replacing Rhaenys with a Dornish as well? It's not just that she looks Dornish, it's that she was older, about three I think. People had seen her and she had grown passed that phase where all babies mostly look alike, you know? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RoamingRonin Posted January 26, 2014 Share Posted January 26, 2014 The thing is: if Varys found a Valyrian-match for Aegon, why couldn't he have done the easier task of replacing Rhaenys with a Dornish as well? From ADWD epilogue: "A feigned boy is what he has," said Randyll Tarly. "That may be. Or not." Kevan Lannister had been here, in this very hall when Tywin had laid the bodies of Prince Rhaegar's children at the foot of the Iron Throne, wrapped up in crimson cloaks. The girl had been recognizably the Princess Rhaenys, but the boy … So Ser Kevan and others were able to recognize Rhaenys. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pod The Impaler Posted January 26, 2014 Share Posted January 26, 2014 The thing is: if Varys found a Valyrian-match for Aegon, why couldn't he have done the easier task of replacing Rhaenys with a Dornish as well? As I already stated, because replacing Rhaenys without arousing suspicion would be much harder. The more replacing you do, the more Robert or whoever realizes someone has been replaced and hunts them down. Plus, Rhaenys was already a child with distinctive features such as bone structure, voice and so on (not an infant), and finding a match for her would involve more than just basic hair and eye colour. Only the infant could be switched safely, not Rhaenys nor Elia. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Martini Sigil Posted January 26, 2014 Share Posted January 26, 2014 I don't imagine that Gregor Clegane is capable of giving a dainty bludgeoning Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
saltovergray Posted January 26, 2014 Share Posted January 26, 2014 I don't imagine that Gregor Clegane is capable of giving a dainty bludgeoning :agree: The logistics question of how Gregor Clegane could have done it is a silly question, I feel. His duel with Oberyn should be an indicator to his strength, where even injured (mortally, supposedly) and very tired (after chasing around his Dornish opponent) he was still able to nearly crush Oberyn's skull in with his fist. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kienn Posted January 26, 2014 Share Posted January 26, 2014 This has been discusses dozens of times but no one has mentioned the wildfire in this version yet so there it is. Varys knew Aerys was planning on burning down KL, so the corpses would all be unrecognizable just like Bran/Rickon. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LordStoneheart Posted January 26, 2014 Share Posted January 26, 2014 He doesn't need Gregor to bash the baby's face in. It's a baby, with plain Valyrian faces. There are Targaryen look-alikes to be found all over Essos. People say that Young Griff is a random Essos child. So why can't that be the safe for here? Also, even if people find out, how should that affect Varys not baby-swapping? He still manages to get the Targaryen heir to safety. Plain and Valyrian face have no business being in the same sentence. We're talking about fantasy handsome looks, surreal beauty, not just different coloring, as confirmed by the author. It would not be at all likely that Varys would find a baby in Pisswater Bend that has Valyrian features. Even then, as has been stated over and over in this thread and countless others, Varys could not have known that Gregor would do that Aegon. What if Armory had gotten to the baby instead? They definitely would've recognized it as a fraud then. But that's the thing with believing the swap happened and fAegon is real. It relies on too many what ifs and pure luck. It really is too good to be true. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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