Do you support the Greens or Blacks? Why?

[Aemond's Eye]

And why would the historians do that?? Or are you forgetting that the Blacks eventually won - Rhaenyra's own son becomes the new King.

Except neither side actually won. Unless you have an odd definition of victory. If the Blacks won, why was Rhaenyra never recorded as Queen? I somehow doubt that either Aegon III or Viserys II viewed her as the usurper who was unfit to rule.

TPATQ also has Septon Eustace claim that Aegon II originally rejected the throne - but everything else suggests he coveted it. My point? There's intentional ambiguities that are left as such where the reader has to read between the lines and make up their own mind. Given that I doubt Aegon II was honourable and accepted that Rhaenyra was the true heir, I don't think he actually said that. By the same token, I don't think the Iron Throne magically rejects those unfit to rule. Did Rhaenyra cut herself? Sure. Given her mental and physical state at that point I don't doubt it. It's easy to cut yourself on a throne of swords. But it wasn't because the throne rejected her.

Claiming the throne rejected her justifies Aegon II's usurping, and the decision to always place the males before the females.

[Red Tiger]

And why would the historians do that?? Or are you forgetting that the Blacks eventually won - Rhaenyra's own son becomes the new King.

Yes, but Rhaenyra got killed by Aegon II's dragon and thus he outlived her, and history has not forgotten that either

[Lord Varys]

Another important factor in favor of Rhaenyra is the whole purity of blood issue. Aegon II would have been the first 'half-Targaryen' in the Iron Throne, since Alicent had no Targaryen blood whatsoever. Rhaenyra had Targaryen blood on both sides through her mother, Queen Aemma. That this figured into the equation is confirmed by Lord Lyman Beesbury in the beginning of TPatQ.

Up until Alicent all Targaryen monarchs and their heirs married either a sibling or a close relative.

Barty,

Archmaester Gyldayn, the guy who wrote TPatQ, TRP (and whose writings are a chief source for TWoIaF) wrote over a century after the Dance, and cited contemporary sources in his work. The person reporting about the Iron Throne incident as well as Aegon's original reluctance to take the Iron Throne has been identified as Septon Eustace by Ran (who has read the unabridged account on the Dance), and this guy was apparently essentially pro-Green (or rather, pro 'male inheritance'). We cannot take his word at face value, especially not since it makes no sense that Rhaenyra would cut herself on the throne while wearing armor (she may cut herself later, though), or that Aegon would not want the Iron Throne when we consider his other behavior in front of his whole court.

Paxter,

Jaehaerys I did not call a Great Council to confirm his succession. He called such a council to discuss his succession, and later decided to honor the verdict of the council. But he was not legally obliged to follow its decision.

On the end of the Dance:

The Blacks did win, but it was not a glorified victory, and things were even more complicated because Aegon III was still a boy. But essentially the Dance ended pretty much the same way as Robert's Rebellion. The only thing lacking is the Sack, as the traitors killing Aegon II were already in the castle.

I think it is sort of a mistake that Rhaenyra is not counted among the monarchs. The best explanation for this is

- she did not win the Dance, her son did.

- she was only crowned Queen Regnant after Aegon II had already been crowned and anointed.

- Aegon II was King before she was Queen, and he outlived her.

Maegor I is also counted as King despite the fact that the surviving branch of House Targaryen (all descendants of Aenys I and Alyssa Velaryon) did not have any reason whatsoever to count Maegor among the kings, but history still does. Technically it should have been:

- Aenys I (37-42 AC)

- Aegon II (42-43 AC)

- Viserys I (43-44 AC)

- Jaehaerys I (44-103 AC)

Keeping this in mind, the fact that Rhaenyra was not counted among the monarchs is perhaps understandable. If Jaehaerys I and Alysanne did not posthumously declare their elder brothers ruling monarchs (or counted Jaehaerys I reign from the day Prince Viserys was killed), it makes sense that Aegon III and Viserys did pretty much the same in regards to their mother and father.

[Mithras]

Archmaester Gyldayn, the guy who wrote TPatQ, TRP (and whose writings are a chief source for TWoIaF) wrote over a century after the Dance, and cited contemporary sources in his work. The person reporting about the Iron Throne incident as well as Aegon's original reluctance to take the Iron Throne has been identified as Septon Eustace by Ran (who has read the unabridged account on the Dance), and this guy was apparently essentially pro-Green (or rather, pro 'male inheritance'). We cannot take his word at face value, especially not since it makes no sense that Rhaenyra would cut herself on the throne while wearing armor (she may cut herself later, though), or that Aegon would not want the Iron Throne when we consider his other behavior in front of his whole court.

That does not mean that everything he wrote was BS or fabricated. Similarly, not everything Pycelle wrote about Tywin was BS. Rhaenyra was clearly no fit to be the queen, no more than Aegon II.

[Lord Varys]

That's not the point there. Eustace seems to be a pretty good source, actually, but he seems to be biased in regards to certain things.

[Mithras]

That's not the point there. Eustace seems to be a pretty good source, actually, but he seems to be biased in regards to certain things.

But was he corrupt enough to fabricate lies? I thought that was Mushroom.

[Aemond's Eye]

But was he corrupt enough to fabricate lies? I thought that was Mushroom.

Or perhaps it's both? With any historical tale you need to read more than one account to separate fact from conjecture. It may be a fact that Rhaenyra at some point cut herself on the throne. It may be Eustace's opinion that she would have been a terrible ruler. It is not fact that the former happened because of the latter. It's more likely he ties them together for his own agenda.

And as he's a supporter of the Greens and of male inheritance in general, I don't see any reason to think that he isn't letting his own opinions bias the way he's recounting the tale.

[Mithras]

If there was a lie about this incident, it would be rather easy to check that. Rhaenyra was observed by lots of people and surely some of those people must have mentioned it in letters. That is how Tyrion objected to Munkun.

And even if Eustace was biased, Gyldayn lived in a period with no such bias against the Dance of Dragons.

[Jaak]

Because there was no reason to name Aegon as his heir. He'd already settled on an heir and several lords of the realm had sworn to uphold her rights as such. Otto knew before marrying his daughter to Viserys that this was the case, and was eventually dismissed for not accepting it.

We are never specifically told that Otto or Alicent knew it. Lords swore to uphold her rights, yes - before Viserys remarried, back when the dispute was Rhaenyra or Daemon. They were incidentally swearing to uphold Andal law (daughter over brother).

Viserys did not tell them whether Rhaenyra was to be upheld over her younger brother (no such did at the time exist). Otto and Alicent were right to assume that Aegon would bump Rhaenyra, just as Baelon had done.

[Lord Varys]

According to George's recent conversation Mushroom did not really lie all that much. He provided ridiculous additional stuff like - my assumption - Daemon teaching Rhaenyra in the 'Dangerous Liaisons' fashion (or claiming he was the one suggested to Jace to search for dragonseeds - that makes no sense whatsoever if we assume that people Mushroom was a lackwit) - but a lot of Mushroom's claims are supposedly accurate (or rather the core of his claims), as he spent time around the royals while they were speaking their mind.

I think Eustace could have been, say, well-meaning enough to insert Aegon's speech in there because he thought Aegon should have said something like that (or honestly believed he said something like that - he was not there overhearing, I assume, as it was a conversation between Aegon and Ser Criston before Eustace had been told about Viserys' death).

The same would be true about Rhaenyra and the Iron Throne. In the first night she sat on the Iron Throne Rhaenyra wore armor for the whole day while riding Syrax from Dragonstone to KL, circling above the city, and throughout the whole night she accepted oaths of fealty from all the people at court. Since she was accustomed to armor, it would be no surprise if she was sore and bleeding beneath her armor, but this would have had nothing to do with the Iron Throne. Later on, she may have cut herself truly, but TPatQ does not give us such an episode in detail - something like, 'the Queen lost her temper, heavily gesticulated, and cut herself that way'. It is all vague and unspecific, as if Rhaenyra just bled and nobody (including herself) cared. That does not seem very likely. Especially not since the text uses this whole thing as a plot device to style her as 'false queen' rather than actually reporting something that happened. That, in turn, gives us a hint that Eustace was either believing Rhaenyra was a false queen when she ruled, or came to that conclusion later on and decided to insert 'signs and portents' hinting in that direction in his history (which he only wrote after the war was over).

I assume that the full account of 'Fire and Blood' has Gyldayn commenting on his sources, and weighing how much he can trust them, and comparing them to others when necessary. TPatQ has cut all the references to the sources - since TWoIaF we know that Gyldayn cited various accounts how Lord Lyman Beesbury died.

But we really don't know how many official documents on the Dance did survive into Gyldayn's time, and thus we don't really know how much sources he could actually work into his work.

[Aemond's Eye]

We are never specifically told that Otto or Alicent knew it. Lords swore to uphold her rights, yes - before Viserys remarried, back when the dispute was Rhaenyra or Daemon. They were incidentally swearing to uphold Andal law (daughter over brother).

Viserys did not tell them whether Rhaenyra was to be upheld over her younger brother (no such did at the time exist). Otto and Alicent were right to assume that Aegon would bump Rhaenyra, just as Baelon had done.

We're told that Otto argued in Rhaenyra's favour over Daemon, and then later for Aegon over Rhaenyra. We're told it was a repeated enough topic to the point that Viserys sent Otto away for yet again arguing for Viserys to uphold Andal law. Whether they presumed Viserys would place Rhaenyra to the side upon Aegon's birth or that they could persuade him to might not have been clarified, but we do know that within a few years they knew fine well that Viserys had no intention of doing so.

[Jaak]

We're told that Otto argued in Rhaenyra's favour over Daemon, and then later for Aegon over Rhaenyra. We're told it was a repeated enough topic to the point that Viserys sent Otto away for yet again arguing for Viserys to uphold Andal law. Whether they presumed Viserys would place Rhaenyra to the side upon Aegon's birth or that they could persuade him to might not have been clarified, but we do know that within a few years they knew fine well that Viserys had no intention of doing so.

Yes - within a couple of years after Aegon was born.

It is true that Viserys did not have Rhaenyra publicly declared heiress in Aemma´s lifetime - he fobbed it off by telling that Aemma would have another child. But what had changed? Inter alia, that ugly boast of "heir for a day". It was not unreasonable to assume that despite the oaths, Viserys would set Rhaenyra aside for Aegon just as he had set her aside for Baelon.

AND, oaths or no oaths, Viserys thought he could make Aegon his heir if he wanted - and Rhaenyra agreed. When Viserys wanted Rhaenyra to marry Laenor and Rhaenyra reasonably objected, Viserys claimed that what a king could do, a king could undo - and threatened to disinherit Rhaenyra. He did not say - oops, the lords are sworn to uphold Rhaenyra no matter what, so Viserys could not release them from their oaths. Nor did Rhaenyra say that the lords would as per their oath rebel for her and that she therefore was free to disobey Viserys.

[Lord Varys]

Viserys clearly could have altered his succession - whether the Lords who had sworn the oath to Rhaenyra would accept the changed succession after his death is an open question. But it surely would not have helped Rhaenyra's claim if Viserys had changed the succession.

However, it seems that changing the succession was merely a threat Viserys used to force Rhaenyra to back down and marry Laenor. I don't think he really wanted to change the succession - especially not since marrying Rhaenyra to Laenor if she was not his heir would make little to no sense. What the hell would the Velaryons want with a Targaryen princess who is not going to inherit the Iron Throne...?

[SeanF]

There is no legislation in place in Westeros like the Act of Succession, or Titulus Regulus, that lays down the succession to the Iron Throne.

In the absence of this, the King can designate his successor. If he obtains oaths of fealty to that choice, from the leading lords of the Kingdom, then the lords have expressly approved his choice.

Rhaenyra really need someone like the Archbishop of Canterbury from Henry V to present her case:-

Then hear me, gracious sovereign, and you peers,
That owe yourselves, your lives and services
To this imperial throne. There is no bar
To make against your highness' claim to France
But this, which they produce from Pharamond,
'In terram Salicam mulieres ne succedant:'
'No woman shall succeed in Salique land:'
Which Salique land the French unjustly gloze
To be the realm of France, and Pharamond
The founder of this law and female bar.
Yet their own authors faithfully affirm
That the land Salique is in Germany,
Between the floods of Sala and of Elbe;
Where Charles the Great, having subdued the Saxons,
There left behind and settled certain French;
Who, holding in disdain the German women
For some dishonest manners of their life,
Establish'd then this law; to wit, no female
Should be inheritrix in Salique land:
Which Salique, as I said, 'twixt Elbe and Sala,
Is at this day in Germany call'd Meisen.
Then doth it well appear that Salique law
Was not devised for the realm of France:
Nor did the French possess the Salique land
Until four hundred one and twenty years
After defunction of King Pharamond,
Idly supposed the founder of this law;
Who died within the year of our redemption
Four hundred twenty-six; and Charles the Great
Subdued the Saxons, and did seat the French
Beyond the river Sala, in the year
Eight hundred five. Besides, their writers say,
King Pepin, which deposed Childeric,
Did, as heir general, being descended
Of Blithild, which was daughter to King Clothair,
Make claim and title to the crown of France.
Hugh Capet also, who usurped the crown
Of Charles the duke of Lorraine, sole heir male
Of the true line and stock of Charles the Great,
To find his title with some shows of truth,
'Through, in pure truth, it was corrupt and naught,
Convey'd himself as heir to the Lady Lingare,
Daughter to Charlemain, who was the son
To Lewis the emperor, and Lewis the son
Of Charles the Great. Also King Lewis the Tenth,
Who was sole heir to the usurper Capet,
Could not keep quiet in his conscience,
Wearing the crown of France, till satisfied
That fair Queen Isabel, his grandmother,
Was lineal of the Lady Ermengare,
Daughter to Charles the foresaid duke of Lorraine:
By the which marriage the line of Charles the Great
Was re-united to the crown of France.
So that, as clear as is the summer's sun.
King Pepin's title and Hugh Capet's claim,
King Lewis his satisfaction, all appear
To hold in right and title of the female:
So do the kings of France unto this day;
Howbeit they would hold up this Salique law
To bar your highness claiming from the female,
And rather choose to hide them in a net
Than amply to imbar their crooked titles
Usurp'd from you and your progenitors.

[Maid So Fair]

If there was a lie about this incident, it would be rather easy to check that. Rhaenyra was observed by lots of people and surely some of those people must have mentioned it in letters. That is how Tyrion objected to Munkun.

And even if Eustace was biased, Gyldayn lived in a period with no such bias against the Dance of Dragons.

The incident might have happened, but the conclusion he draws is pure conjecture. The IT is not magical and it's an inanimate object with no will of its own. It's also made of swords with some edges still on. It would be surprising if every single monarch to sit it did not cut him/herself at some point, with the more fidgety/stressed ones doing so more often. It's just not subject to so much gossip with the more popular ones.

[Jaak]

Viserys clearly could have altered his succession - whether the Lords who had sworn the oath to Rhaenyra would accept the changed succession after his death is an open question. But it surely would not have helped Rhaenyra's claim if Viserys had changed the succession.

However, it seems that changing the succession was merely a threat Viserys used to force Rhaenyra to back down and marry Laenor.

Yes, but Viserys implied, and Rhaenyra accepted, that the threat had some credibility. Rhaenyra did not laugh the threat off or call Viserys at a bluff.

I don't think he really wanted to change the succession - especially not since marrying Rhaenyra to Laenor if she was not his heir would make little to no sense. What the hell would the Velaryons want with a Targaryen princess who is not going to inherit the Iron Throne...?

Marry Aegon to Laena instead? But she was still engaged to Sea Lord´s son, and much older than Aegon.

[Mithras]

The incident might have happened, but the conclusion he draws is pure conjecture. The IT is not magical and it's an inanimate object with no will of its own. It's also made of swords with some edges still on. It would be surprising if every single monarch to sit it did not cut him/herself at some point, with the more fidgety/stressed ones doing so more often. It's just not subject to so much gossip with the more popular ones.

Aerys used to cut himself a lot and Joffrey cut himself too. The IT was forged by dragonfire. There is magic in this series. Visenya was a sorceress.

[Jaak]

Aerys used to cut himself a lot and Joffrey cut himself too. The IT was forged by dragonfire. There is magic in this series. Visenya was a sorceress.

And not an impartial one.

Who cut himself more often - Aenys or Maegor? (Of course, Maegor was eventually killed by the throne, which Aenys was not).

[Dofs]

Yeah, Jaehaerys I would have unified the the succession laws of all the kingdoms the Targaryens ruled, including the succession of the former royal seats. I assume that the 'a daughter comes before an uncle' rule was implemented in the North (and possibly other Andal kingdoms) only at that point, possibly due to Alysanne pushing for it.

The only Andal Queen Regnant we know of was a Gardener, and we also know that there was no Queen Regnant in the North.

If there were no queens mentioned, that doesn't mean there were none of them, just that there was no need to mention them. And we have an example in Lannister history, where it is mentioned that a daughter inherited CR to explain a retcon a cultural shift from FM blood to part Andal blood.

[Jaak]

If there were no queens mentioned, that doesn't mean there were none of them, just that there was no need to mention them. And we have an example in Lannister history, where it is mentioned that a daughter inherited CR to explain a retcon a cultural shift from FM blood to part Andal blood.

But the point was, she did not inherit - her husband did.