Aegon is not a Blackfyre

[Jon's Queen Consort]

6 minutes ago, The Snow Bear said:

But wouldn't that make Elias character even stronger? Being ready to pretend the pisswaterkid to be Aegon the full way to save her son?

No. A mother is a mother and when a mother's child is in grave danger what a mother would had done is to be with her child because that is how a mother's instincts work.

[LiveFirstDieLater]

8 hours ago, The Snow Bear said:

To A.:

Well, few do. But to me it stillmakes sense that the one character, who is hated by almost everyone for what he is and is perceived to be, is out for the greater good.

To B.:

That!

And as I tried to state in the brakets, a plot at harrenhall would have likely led to a civil war with high smallfolk casualties

Well, thats your opinion. The figuring out happens of stage but, I always imagined it more like a "yes or no" than as a "tell me everything" thing. 

A. We certainly don't know and I am admittedly sharing my opinion... But it isn't baseless, Varys does use little children, who have had their toungs ripped out, as spies... And doesn't mind causing chaos and war by killing Kevan when it suits his plan. Also, he doesn't help Ned even when he admits he is that rarest of things, a truly honorable man... If the "end" he aspires to is peace and prosperity, aka the greater good, at what point do these "means" stop making sense.

B. Ok, so my problem here is that it seems Rhaegar seems by all accounts like he would have fit the mold of a "good" King like Varys describes...

And wether or not there was plotting going on at Harrenhall, it sure seems like Varys activly undermined him. Had Rhaegar been able to take over for his "eccentric" pa,  Robert's Rebellion and all its associated violence and atrocities may have been avoided. 

Switching out a baby for Aegon isn't impossible... But why do that instead of saving Elia and Rhaenys too? We know that there were no "hired knives" sent after Dany and Viserys until she got pregnant, and then Varys was in charge it (and why not bother raising them instead of letting them wander about?) so I don't really get the, keep it secret for his protection argument. 

And the endgame is to invade Westeros with sellswords and savages, to put a boy King on the throne, who was just raised so well he will solve all the realms problems? A war to end all wars? Aegon won't live forever so even if the plan worked aren't you back at square one the next generation?

Of course this all assumes a baby swap took place at all... It is a very different picture with very different motives if instead Varys just realized that in the chaos of the Sack of Kings Landing he could claim he swapped out a kid and it would lend credibility to any blond haired blue (purple) eyed kid they decided to put on the throne.

Once again this is just my thinking, but I feel like it takes some pretty twisted logic, or willful ignorance, to paint Varys's actions as rational and "for the greater good". I don't mean that in any way as insulting, by the way... Just that I can't get it to make sense in my head... Maybe it's me

[The Snow Bear]

26 minutes ago, Jon's Queen Consort said:

No. A mother is a mother and when a mother's child is in grave danger what a mother would had done is to be with her child because that is how a mother's instincts work.

Well, yes, that's how a mother's instinct works. So if the story is true, Elia had to overcome a basic instinct to safe at least one of her children (while, yes, letting her other child die gruesomely alone).

[Jon's Queen Consort]

2 minutes ago, The Snow Bear said:

Well, yes, that's how a mother's instinct works. So if the story is true, Elia had to overcome a basic instinct to safe at least one of her children (while, yes, letting her other child die gruesomely alone).

I call it nonsense. No mother would had abandoned her child and had protected a stranger's child, she couldn't had faked something like that.

[The Snow Bear]

51 minutes ago, Jon's Queen Consort said:

I call it nonsense. No mother would had abandoned her child and had protected a stranger's child, she couldn't had faked something like that.

Well Sophie could not do it and it would mean a giant effort but when it either have both your children die or safe at least one, I'd call it possible. For someone with enormous strength

[LiveFirstDieLater]

59 minutes ago, Jon's Queen Consort said:

I call it nonsense. No mother would had abandoned her child and had protected a stranger's child, she couldn't had faked something like that.

Real life aside...

Gilley? 

[Jon's Queen Consort]

3 minutes ago, The Snow Bear said:

Well Sophie could not do it and it would mean a giant effort but when it either have both your children die or safe at least one, I'd call it possible. For someone with enormous strength

No I don't see it. If Elia's son has disappeared with Varys then he was in a secret passage and out of the castle and the city before the end of the Sack. So he would had been safe, no one would had looked for him because Elia would had been with Rhaenys. Hence it wouldn't make sense for her to be with a fake and let her daughter die alone.

[Jon's Queen Consort]

13 minutes ago, LiveFirstDieLater said:

Real life aside...

Gilley? 

Gilly had no other choice, either she left with Steelsong or her child would die, and Jon made sure that he will protect Monster. On the other hand Elia did had a choice to be with her daughter and let Varys save Aegon. I am not saying that she couldn't had chose to save Aegon. I am saying that she could had made that choice and yet be with Rhaenys, there was no reason for her not to be with her daughter but being with a fake baby when Rhaenys was in grave danger.

[Lost Melnibonean]

1 hour ago, Jon's Queen Consort said:

No. A mother is a mother and when a mother's child is in grave danger what a mother would had done is to be with her child because that is how a mother's instincts work.

Absolutely, even if all she could have done would have been to hold her until the moment came. 

[Jon's Queen Consort]

2 minutes ago, Lost Melnibonean said:

Absolutely, even if all she could have done would have been to hold her until the moment came. 

Agree. She couldn't had saved Rhaenys but she would had still be with her daughter and not a fake one. 

[LiveFirstDieLater]

14 minutes ago, Jon's Queen Consort said:

Gilly had no other choice, either she left with Steelsong or her child would die, and Jon made sure that he will protect Monster. On the other hand Elia did had a choice to be with her daughter and let Varys save Aegon. I am not saying that she couldn't had chose to save Aegon. I am saying that she could had made that choice and yet be with Rhaenys, there was no reason for her not to be with her daughter but being with a fake baby when Rhaenys was in grave danger.

But we don't know the details...  Besides seeing the bodies I feel like we don't know much at all about how it went down.

I just wanted to provide an example from the text where a mother gives up her kid in a baby swap... Seemed relevant

[Lost Melnibonean]

1 hour ago, LiveFirstDieLater said:

A. We certainly don't know and I am admittedly sharing my opinion... But it isn't baseless, Varys does use little children, who have had their toungs ripped out, as spies... And doesn't mind causing chaos and war by killing Kevan when it suits his plan. Also, he doesn't help Ned even when he admits he is that rarest of things, a truly honorable man... If the "end" he aspires to is peace and prosperity, aka the greater good, at what point do these "means" stop making sense.

B. Ok, so my problem here is that it seems Rhaegar seems by all accounts like he would have fit the mold of a "good" King like Varys describes...

And wether or not there was plotting going on at Harrenhall, it sure seems like Varys activly undermined him. Had Rhaegar been able to take over for his "eccentric" pa,  Robert's Rebellion and all its associated violence and atrocities may have been avoided. 

Switching out a baby for Aegon isn't impossible... But why do that instead of saving Elia and Rhaenys too? We know that there were no "hired knives" sent after Dany and Viserys until she got pregnant, and then Varys was in charge it (and why not bother raising them instead of letting them wander about?) so I don't really get the, keep it secret for his protection argument. 

And the endgame is to invade Westeros with sellswords and savages, to put a boy King on the throne, who was just raised so well he will solve all the realms problems? A war to end all wars? Aegon won't live forever so even if the plan worked aren't you back at square one the next generation?

Of course this all assumes a baby swap took place at all... It is a very different picture with very different motives if instead Varys just realized that in the chaos of the Sack of Kings Landing he could claim he swapped out a kid and it would lend credibility to any blond haired blue (purple) eyed kid they decided to put on the throne.

Once again this is just my thinking, but I feel like it takes some pretty twisted logic, or willful ignorance, to paint Varys's actions as rational and "for the greater good". I don't mean that in any way as insulting, by the way... Just that I can't get it to make sense in my head... Maybe it's me

It's not just you. 

[Lost Melnibonean]

25 minutes ago, LiveFirstDieLater said:

Real life aside...

Gilley? 

Gilly's didn't choose between protecting an imposter versus her own child. She agreed to send her only child off to save him from the red witch. 

[Jon's Queen Consort]

6 minutes ago, LiveFirstDieLater said:

But we don't know the details...  Besides seeing the bodies I feel like we don't know much at all about how it went down.

What details? Even if the swap happened that moment she would had tried to reach Rhaenys.

6 minutes ago, LiveFirstDieLater said:

I just wanted to provide an example from the text where a mother gives up her kid in a baby swap... Seemed relevant

I know and I had explained you what I meant. However your example isn't the same. Gilly didn't chose to save her child and stay with another while her second child was going to die. Gilly took a baby to save it when she was sure that her child would have been protected. I am not against the baby swapping possibility, I am against the baby swapping and the mother staying with a fake baby when her other child was going to die.

Gilly's didn't choose between protecting an imposter versus her own child. She agreed to send her only child off to save him from the red witch. 

This!

[Lost Melnibonean]

5 minutes ago, LiveFirstDieLater said:

But we don't know the details...  Besides seeing the bodies I feel like we don't know much at all about how it went down.

I just wanted to provide an example from the text where a mother gives up her kid in a baby swap... Seemed relevant

That's a separate argument. In isolation, it is certainly possible that Elia allowed Varys to take her son off to safety. That's what Gully did. 

The limited point we've been arguing about for the past few posts is whether Elia being with the boy and not with the girl supports the proposition that the boy was actually hers and not an imposter as Varys told Jon Connington. 

[Sullen]

Illyiro pretty much confirms Aegon's a Blackfyre with his "Red or Black, a dragon is a dragon" line... that, and the story about the inn ensign also strongly hints towards that.

As for Varys, he's fond of toying with people by using half-truths, what he did to a dying Kevan was no different.

[Lost Melnibonean]

6 minutes ago, Sullen said:

Illyiro pretty much confirms Aegon's a Blackfyre with his "Red or Black, a dragon is a dragon" line... that, and the story about the inn ensign also strongly hints towards that.

As for Varys, he's fond of toying with people by using half-truths, what he did to a dying Kevan was no different.

While I agree with your conclusion, Illyrio's black or red comment, on it's face, suggests an explanation as to why the Golden Company would support a Targaryen. 

As to your second point, you have touched the matter with a needle. 

[LiveFirstDieLater]

12 minutes ago, Jon's Queen Consort said:

What details? Even if the swap happened that moment she would had tried to reach Rhaenys.

I know and I had explained you what I meant. However your example isn't the same. Gilly didn't chose to save her child and stay with another while her second child was going to die. Gilly took a baby to save it when she was sure that her child would have been protected. I am not against the baby swapping possibility, I am against the baby swapping and the mother staying with a fake baby when her other child was going to die.

This!

This is all fair...

By details I meant like maybe Varys had just closed the secret back door after handing Elia the pisswater prince as Gregor breaks down the door... Wild speculation, but we just don't know...

"Refuse, and the boy will burn. Not on the morrow, nor the day after … but soon, whenever Melisandre needs to wake a dragon or raise a wind or work some other spell requiring king's blood. Mance will be ash and bone by then, so she will claim his son for the fire, and Stannis will not deny her. If you do not take the boy away, she will burn him."

"I'll go," said Gilly. "I'll take him, I'll take the both o' them, Dalla's boy and mine." Tears rolled down her cheeks. If not for the way the candle made them glisten, Jon might never have known that she was weeping. Craster's wives would have taught their daughters to shed their tears into a pillow. Perhaps they went outside to weep, well away from Craster's fists. 

Jon closed the fingers of his sword hand. "Take both boys and the queen's men will ride after you and drag you back. The boy will still burn … and you with him." If I comfort her, she may think that tears can move me. She has to realize that I will not yield. "You'll take one boy, and that one Dalla's."

So admittedly the situation isn't quite the same, but the basic premis works... 

For the record I don't think Varys switched the princes... But I have more of an issue with why not save Elia and Rhaenys also then why Elia was with the baby and not her daughter... Just saying

[The Fresh PtwP]

Elia and Rhaenys wouldn't of come to any harm from most lords except Tywin...who as it happens, is alot more emotional and petty then he lets on. 

Way back, Aerys made a couple jokes when he declined Tywin's proposal of Cersei and Rhaegar. A couple people snickered at House Lannister and that was enough for Tywin, when given the opportunity, to avenge those slights from years ago (that btw nobody even cared about)...in the cruelest of fashions.

Whatever he might, say I personally don't think he just forgot about Elia and the royal children like he claims to Tyrion. Their death and the Sack of KL was innocent people paying for a very very personal beef between Aerys and Tywin. 

[Jon's Queen Consort]

3 minutes ago, The Fresh PtwP said:

Elia and Rhaenys wouldn't of come to any harm from most lords except Tywin...who as it happens, is alot more emotional and petty then he lets on. 

Even if she was a girl Rhaenys was still an heir hence any lord, except Ned, would had done the same one way or another.\

59 minutes ago, LiveFirstDieLater said:

By details I meant like maybe Varys had just closed the secret back door after handing Elia the pisswater prince as Gregor breaks down the door... Wild speculation, but we just don't know...

Even if it was the truth she still had Aegon in her arms instead of even trying to go to Rhaenys.

59 minutes ago, LiveFirstDieLater said:

So admittedly the situation isn't quite the same, but the basic premis works... 

Only as Lost Melnibonean had said I am not talking about the swap but about Rhaenys.