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Nettles was Leaf


Mithras

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Nettles name is not really corroborating evidence. Many lowborn women in Westeros are named after plants and flowers - Tansy, Joy Hill's mother, and others that escape me right now. If Leaf had been Nettles she could have gone by the name 'Leaf' as well as Nettles...


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I find it highly unlikely that humans and CotF could interbreed. GRRM has made it clear that he is injecting a little bit of scientific realism when it comes to reproduction by making human/Ibbenese interbreeding only possible under specific circumstances and producing sterile young when it does work, and by stating that some of the hominids in Sothoryos cannot produce viable young with humans at all. The CotF are not hominids or even primates based on their physical characteristics (my guess is that they are members of Carnivora based on the eyes, number of digits, and the presence of claws). I know this is a fantasy series and it's perfectly legit in fantasy to have vastly different creatures produce young together (e.g. the minotaur), but when it comes to reproduction GRRM is clearly going for something more realistic.


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I find it highly unlikely that humans and CotF could interbreed. GRRM has made it clear that he is injecting a little bit of scientific realism when it comes to reproduction by making human/Ibbenese interbreeding only possible under specific circumstances and producing sterile young when it does work, and by stating that some of the hominids in Sothoryos cannot produce viable young with humans at all. The CotF are not hominids or even primates based on their physical characteristics (my guess is that they are members of Carnivora based on the eyes, number of digits, and the presence of claws). I know this is a fantasy series and it's perfectly legit in fantasy to have vastly different creatures produce young together (e.g. the minotaur), but when it comes to reproduction GRRM is clearly going for something more realistic.

Brown Ben claims to have some Ibbenese ancestry, so Yandel may be wrong there.

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Nettles as a plot point was there to sow doubt that you had to be a targ to tame a dragon, leaving open the possibility that someone like Tyrion would get to ride one

Or perhaps just as a plot point to tell us that people of different skin color could have Targaryen blood. Another case in point being the Black Pearl courtesans, and Brown Ben.

ETA: perhaps Nettles is a maternal ancestor to Brown Ben, so he has Targaryen bloodlines on both sides of his family.

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Nettles name is not really corroborating evidence. Many lowborn women in Westeros are named after plants and flowers - Tansy, Joy Hill's mother, and others that escape me right now. If Leaf had been Nettles she could have gone by the name 'Leaf' as well as Nettles...

I didn't mean to suggest that it was, just fitting if Leaf = Nettles.

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Or perhaps just as a plot point to tell us that people of different skin color could have Targaryen blood. Another case in point being the Black Pearl courtesans, and Brown Ben.

ETA: perhaps Nettles is a maternal ancestor to Brown Ben, so he has Targaryen bloodlines on both sides of his family.

Absolutely!

http://asoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/topic/100936-brown-ben-plumms-ancestry/

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My theory for a while has been both mother and father need to have the dragon gene (even if it may be recessive) for you to inherit the ability. The only thing that puts a crimp in my theory is Aegon II. Perhaps either Rhalla or Aerea married into House Hightower.

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Brown Ben claims to have some Ibbenese ancestry, so Yandel may be wrong there.

It is possible that fertile offspring of Ibbenese/human matings could occur very rarely - horse/donkey crossbreeds are almost always sterile, but very rarely a mule will get pregnant and deliver living young. Brown Ben's ancestor may be one of those rare cases.

The fact that the maesters are aware of the concept of humans having difficulty interbreeding with other hominids is a pretty clear indication that GRRM does pay some heed to genetics in his universe, even if the maesters are not 100% correct about how interspecies breeding works. On Earth the issue never came up - there are no hominids that humans can't interbreed with, unless you are one of the biologists who thinks that Pan troglodytes needs to be renamed Homo troglodytes, and even then a lot of scientists think humans and chimps probably could interbreed. I am not aware of any medieval legends or myths about human-like beings that humans could not breed with - most medieval people assumed that interspecies reproduction was possible and believed that humans and other animals had interbred in the past. This makes me think the maesters have been exposed to enough tales of reproductive difficulty between humans and not-quite-humans that they assume it to be true, even if it is not ALWAYS true.

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My theory for a while has been both mother and father need to have the dragon gene (even if it may be recessive) for you to inherit the ability. The only thing that puts a crimp in my theory is Aegon II. Perhaps either Rhalla or Aerea married into House Hightower.

And those "strong" young sons of Rhaenyra, no? Or Did Harwin have a Targaryen ancestor?
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It does not seem likely that Otto and Alicent had Targaryen ancestors, although I brought up that possibility once myself. It seems that Aerea, Rhalla, and (possibly) Rhaena's descendants from a third marriage were the nine lesser claimants dismissed by the Great Council, and that would mean that either Otto or his brother were claimants at the Great Council. Considering Otto's support for Viserys that is is very unlikely.



More importantly, Alicent's Targaryen heritage is never brought up when she marries Viserys - unlike Laenor and Laena's, who inherited Targaryen blood from both their parents - which strongly suggests she has none.


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Nettles was brown skinned ,brown eyed ,dark hair and foul mouthed this doesn't sound like Leaf .

Leaf has nut brown skin. Nettles was also small and skinny.

The first thing came to mind when we read Nettles for the first time was "Arya". Same thing happened to Bran when he saw Leaf first.

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Or perhaps just as a plot point to tell us that people of different skin color could have Targaryen blood. Another case in point being the Black Pearl courtesans, and Brown Ben.

ETA: perhaps Nettles is a maternal ancestor to Brown Ben, so he has Targaryen bloodlines on both sides of his family.

Yes, but as we have seen with Quentyn, having targ blood is not a guarantee of being able to bond with a dragon. If it was he wouldn't be a pork roast

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Yes, but as we have seen with Quentyn, having targ blood is not a guarantee of being able to bond with a dragon. If it was he wouldn't be a pork roast

Actually, Quentyn was doing just fine with Viserion. He got roasted because he tried to control two dragons, something that not even Aegon the Conqueror could do (and something Dany specifically mentioned to him).

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Leaf has nut brown skin. Nettles was also small and skinny.

The first thing came to mind when we read Nettles for the first time was "Arya". Same thing happened to Bran when he saw Leaf first.

:agree:

I always figured she was a by-product of a Stark and CotF. Leaf said she walked the world of men until her heart became weary, (I took that she came home after her lover was killed/died).

Such relations might also explain how the Starks and perhaps other northerners came by warging.

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Since there is a theory that Nettles was Daemon's daughter, I think it is more likely that Daemon + Leaf = Nettles. If Nettles became the GoHH, she appears older than her mother because half-COTF live longer than ordinary humans but age faster than full blooded COTF. This way, Nettles didn't have to stay glamoured for the entire DoD, but as Jenney of Oldstones friend and the GoHH she insisted she was a COTF because Leaf raised her (and she was only half human).



Rhaenyra may have sent the order to execute Nettles (if she really sent that order) because she mistook the lovechild for the old flame (Leaf), whom she knew about.


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  • 1 month later...

I find it highly unlikely that humans and CotF could interbreed. GRRM has made it clear that he is injecting a little bit of scientific realism when it comes to reproduction by making human/Ibbenese interbreeding only possible under specific circumstances and producing sterile young when it does work, and by stating that some of the hominids in Sothoryos cannot produce viable young with humans at all. The CotF are not hominids or even primates based on their physical characteristics (my guess is that they are members of Carnivora based on the eyes, number of digits, and the presence of claws). I know this is a fantasy series and it's perfectly legit in fantasy to have vastly different creatures produce young together (e.g. the minotaur), but when it comes to reproduction GRRM is clearly going for something more realistic.

There is a very rich lore about hybrid creatures and interracial marriages in ASOIAF. So, reproduction and genetics are magical rather than scientific. After all, we all know that Baratheon seed cannot be strong as given in the series.

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