joluoto2 Posted April 25, 2014 Share Posted April 25, 2014 Actually, with Aenys born a few tests after the Conquest, and with 2 generations between him and Rhaenys, born in 74 AC, it seems more like Targaryens married/had their first children at the ages of 20 to 25.I think Maegor and Aenys marrying young was because of political consequences after the Conquest.I wonder if Agrilac thought Aegon's sisters were infertile when he offered to marry his daughter to Aegon. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rhaenys_Targaryen Posted April 25, 2014 Share Posted April 25, 2014 It's actually north of 300 pages. A very substantial book. ETA: Amazon's page count of 336 pages is pretty much correct.Even more than I had previously read somewhere. Yeah..!! :D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rhaenys_Targaryen Posted April 25, 2014 Share Posted April 25, 2014 I wonder if Agrilac thought Aegon's sisters were infertile when he offered to marry his daughter to Aegon.Interesting thought..Edit: I just now spotted the autocorrect mistake in the post you've quoted. I'm sure you understood what I said, but tests is supposed to read years. :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Thorrand Posted April 25, 2014 Share Posted April 25, 2014 I know they exist, but I have a hard time seeing how anyone really into this series could not be interested in this book. It feels like fan fiction to me. It could also have used better editing. How many commas should one sentence contain? I'm not sure how much input Martin had on it, so I'm not sold all of this is canon. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HexMachina Posted April 25, 2014 Share Posted April 25, 2014 It feels like fan fiction to me. It could also have used better editing. How many commas should one sentence contain? I'm not sure how much input Martin had on it, so I'm not sold all of this is canon. Well its a combined effort of Elio, Linda and GRRM himself. I'd say its pretty canon... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ran Posted April 25, 2014 Share Posted April 25, 2014 Everything in that sample is from GRRM. Everything's signed off by GRRM, but of course, it's correct to say that the canon of this material is that it represents what a maester understands of the world and its history; nothing in it is "wrong", in the sense that these are all things a maester could well and truly set down based on common (and uncommon) knowledge. But maesters can, indeed, be wrong, and sometimes maesters might well elide the truth for reasons that go beyond a devotion to accuracy. A maester's understanding of the War of the Five Kings, a hundred years after the fact, might be markedly different from Cersei Lannister's contemporary understanding, or Robb Stark's. Just as a maester's report on Robert's Rebellion, written in the Baratheon dynasty, might present things differently than what a Targaryen loyalist exiled to Essos might write. As to how many commas a sentence can contain, I don't know, ask James Joyce of the 4,000 word sentence, or Jonathan Coe of the 13,000+ word sentence... ;) There's a certain stylistic decision to present the maesters as having their particular styles. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Thorrand Posted April 25, 2014 Share Posted April 25, 2014 Yeah. Passing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Consigliere Posted April 25, 2014 Share Posted April 25, 2014 Probably a silly question but could someone confirm this for me. In the sample it states: Twelve years before the Doom of Valyria (114 BC), Aenar Targaryen sold his holdings in the Freehold and the Lands of the Long Summer and moved with all his wives, wealth, slaves, dragons, siblings, kin, and children to Dragonstone Is this to be read as Aenar moved to Dragonstone in 114BC or The Doom occurred in 114BC? Right now I'm assuming The Doom happened in 114BC and Aenar moved to DS in 126BC. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheCrannogDweller Posted April 25, 2014 Share Posted April 25, 2014 Aegon seems to be a special case because he married both his sisters. Aenar Targaryen also had multiple wives. We know that Valyrian custom dictated that a man marries his elder sister, not his younger. This may be a hint that it was somewhat unusual to have more than one incestuous wife/husband. Valyrian polygamy may have been a way to include 'normal wives' into the whole incest marriage thing that was dictated by custom due to dragonbinding issues. The Valyrian nobles had to marry siblings, cousins, or uncles/aunts for political/magical/dragon-related reasons, but they still wanted to marry other people they felt actually attracted to. Thus they established polygamy, rather than choosing a paramour-based system (or the Ironborn 'salt wife thing'). I guess the incest-wife/husband had the highest rank as far as protocol was concerned, but he/she did most certainly not were the wives/husbands that were married for love... I think the mention of the Valyrian tradition for dragonriding boys to marry their oldest sisters is a nod towards their succession practices. It's actually a very clever way to prevent the disputes which may arise from the girl being the eldest child - they essentially merged the male and female claims. So it seems Vhagar was simply small for her age, for a Valyrian dragon, if Balerion and Meraxes are representative of Valyrian dragon sizes. I think the assumption that Vhagar is a relatively small dragon is a good one. In TPATQ we see her taken down by a much younger dragon (Caraxes) - in addition to being told that Meleys had a chance against Vhagar if it was a 1-on-1 fight (Meleys being slightly older than Caraxes). I wonder if Agrilac thought Aegon's sisters were infertile when he offered to marry his daughter to Aegon. Maybe that's an inkling that Aegon's marriages to his sisters weren't considered lawful by the Faith-of-the-Seven-worshipping westerosi kings? We see Sharra Arryn trying to pull a similar maneuver - and I doubt she was aiming to be someone's third wife. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ran Posted April 25, 2014 Share Posted April 25, 2014 Thorrand, Glad I could help clarify. Don't want anyone buying the book on the basis of thinking it's something it's not. :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rhaenys_Targaryen Posted April 26, 2014 Share Posted April 26, 2014 Probably a silly question but could someone confirm this for me. In the sample it states: Twelve years before the Doom of Valyria (114 BC), Aenar Targaryen sold his holdings in the Freehold and the Lands of the Long Summer and moved with all his wives, wealth, slaves, dragons, siblings, kin, and children to Dragonstone Is this to be read as Aenar moved to Dragonstone in 114BC or The Doom occurred in 114BC? Right now I'm assuming The Doom happened in 114BC and Aenar moved to DS in 126BC.The occured approximately 100 years before the Conquest. Twelve years before the Doom, Aenar moved his family from Valyria. The Conquest began in 2BC. The Doom happened thus in 102BC, and Aenar moved his family in 114BC. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord Varys Posted April 26, 2014 Share Posted April 26, 2014 On Valyrian custom: It seems as if Valyrian society was much complex than 'the barbaric Westeros feudal system'. Valyria was a Freehold, and we know from Volantis, that women can elect and be elected Triarch (at least in the past). I guess Valyrian society was even more complex than the Volantene system - were they have only two major political parties; in Valyria there would have been the Dragonlords, the sorcerers (although I guess some Dragonlords were sorcerers and vice versa), rich landowners and slavers without dragons, rich merchants, tiger-like militarists, and so on. There would have been a struggle for dominance between the forty ruling families as well as a struggle for control within those families. Since Valyria was a Freehold, power came and went with the amount of lands and wealth you and/or your family controlled. I'd be very surprised if there were titles compared to Westerosi lordships that passed from father to son. That feels bad. It's much more likely that the society was much egalitarian at its peak, meaning that parents could pass their lands to any of their children regardless of gender. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Consigliere Posted April 26, 2014 Share Posted April 26, 2014 The occured approximately 100 years before the Conquest. Twelve years before the Doom, Aenar moved his family from Valyria. The Conquest began in 2BC. The Doom happened thus in 102BC, and Aenar moved his family in 114BC. Thanks. The sentence is oddly phrased though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Free Northman Reborn Posted April 26, 2014 Share Posted April 26, 2014 Ran If you consider the 8000 years of oral Westerosi history, and the 2000-4000 years of written history that exists at the Citadel, at a rough guess, what is the split of the World Book content between pre and post Aegon's Conquest history? I realise that there is quite a large focus on the last 300 years, but still, the 7700 years before that covers a pretty big chunk of events. And given that this book is written from a Maester's point of view, the Citadel likely has masses of written records covering the last 3000 years or so. So is a 60/40 split at all a realistic hope (with the 60% given to post-Conquest history). Or is the outlook a lot grimmer than that, with as much as 90% of the Book covering the Targaryen period of the last 300 years? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ran Posted April 26, 2014 Share Posted April 26, 2014 I'm sorry to say that 95% of the material is post Conquest, excepting the material about the Dawn Age, the Age of Heroes, the legendary origins of various realms and Great Houses (as well as the Watch and the Wall), the invasions of the Andals and the arrival of the Rhoynar, the Freehold and Old Ghis and the Free Cities, and various other lands of Essos, as well as the Summer Isles and Sothoryos. :( Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Free Northman Reborn Posted April 26, 2014 Share Posted April 26, 2014 I'm sorry to say that 95% of the material is post Conquest, excepting the material about the Dawn Age, the Age of Heroes, the legendary origins of various realms and Great Houses (as well as the Watch and the Wall), the invasions of the Andals and the arrival of the Rhoynar, the Freehold and Old Ghis and the Free Cities, and various other lands of Essos, as well as the Summer Isles and Sothoryos. :( OK. Look, I expected as much, so it was more hope than expectation that I had for a substantial portion of pre-Conquest history. I can understand that Martin has so much writing to do just to cover relatively recent events that he can't really spend all that much time fleshing out the older history. Sad, but entirely understandable. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rhaenys_Targaryen Posted April 26, 2014 Share Posted April 26, 2014 OK. Look, I expected as much, so it was more hope than expectation that I had for a substantial portion of pre-Conquest history. I can understand that Martin has so much writing to do just to cover relatively recent events that he can't really spend all that much time fleshing out the older history. Sad, but entirely understandable. Perhaps more pre-Conquest stuff will eventually be in Fire and Blood..? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Weirwoods Eyes Posted April 26, 2014 Share Posted April 26, 2014 I must say I am really looking forward to this. Am glad I have it on pre order at Amazon. :) is it still scheduled for an Autumn release? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rhaenys_Targaryen Posted April 26, 2014 Share Posted April 26, 2014 I must say I am really looking forward to this. Am glad I have it on pre order at Amazon. :) is it still scheduled for an Autumn release? October 28 has been confirmed :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Veltigar Posted April 26, 2014 Share Posted April 26, 2014 Perhaps more pre-Conquest stuff will eventually be in Fire and Blood..? I think the title pretty much states that it will be very Targ centric. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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