Valyria and Gender

[TheWitch]

Your collective points about female importance in dragon hatching are very fair, just thought id throw the argument in as an interesting topic.

I forgot about the description of sorcerer princes, so that's my bad!

I will however argue that a females ability to bond with a dragon is still our greatest hint at a greater level of gender equality. Yes, men are still physically stronger, and yes they could physically control their lives. However, this doesn't dispute the point, because it undermines the emotional almost religious significance of dragons. There are plenty of men in the modern world who would argue pro-women points but still emotionally and physically abuse women in their own lives. The bond with a dragon is by all-counts telepathic, and so I can imagine an abusive husband might get a hard time from his wife's dragon. Dragons of owners in loving relationships are shown to mimic that relationship. The gun argument that's been brought up is irrelevant, yes anyone can fire a gun, but not everyone can bond with a fire breathing beast to which you owe your cultures entire success. In this sense I really do feel that women being capable of that bond would have given women a mutual respect. It may have been a working form of separate but equal, or a something close to equality.

Ultimately I think the question wouldn't have been are they a man or woman, but are they able to ride a dragon.

[Jon's Queen Consort]

At first I thought that I couldn'y understood what you mean. But  then I read;

On 28/2/2017 at 9:53 PM, TheWitch said:

I do however enjoy the theory put forwards by Preston Jacobs

and I see that I was wrong.

On 2/3/2017 at 4:49 PM, The Weirwoods Eyes said:

It looks very much like Aegon was infertile himself and that possibly Aenys & Maegor were not his sons.

I agree. I do believe that Aenys and Maegor were not his sons.

[Lord Varys]

1 hour ago, TheWitch said:

I will however argue that a females ability to bond with a dragon is still our greatest hint at a greater level of gender equality.

I'd say it is a strong hint that women had (nearly) as much power and status as male dragonlords but that is not the same as gender equality. I hoped TWoIaF would talk a little bit about gender roles in Valyria but it did not. Only the Rhoynar, the enemies of the Valyrians, are described as a gender-equal society.

That makes it exceedingly unlikely that women were as equal in Valyria as they were among the Rhoynar.

1 hour ago, TheWitch said:

Yes, men are still physically stronger, and yes they could physically control their lives. However, this doesn't dispute the point, because it undermines the emotional almost religious significance of dragons. There are plenty of men in the modern world who would argue pro-women points but still emotionally and physically abuse women in their own lives. The bond with a dragon is by all-counts telepathic, and so I can imagine an abusive husband might get a hard time from his wife's dragon. 

It is not strictly telepathic but what we know about Helaena and Dreamfyre, Aegon II and Sunfyre, and Dany and Drogon certainly suggests that there is some sort of strong mental emotional link between a dragonrider and his or her mount. Hell, it might even be that Joffrey Velaryon was driven to his rash actions by Tyraxes' fear of death or that Rhaenyra's desperation/melancholy drove Syrax into committing suicide.

The point there is that the husband of female dragonlord is usually her brother, uncle, or male cousins (and, who knows, back in Old Valyria perhaps even her father or grandfather on occasion) who would also be a dragonrider. Such men would not necessarily respect or fear their sister/niece/cousin-wives just because they they, too, had dragons. Now, if a female dragonlord had a dragon the size of Balerion and her brother-husband a dragon the size of Quicksilver or Sunfyre things might be somewhat different but we don't know how often that happened.

And even having e a huge dragon of your own doesn't mean you are necessarily able to capitalize on that advantage. Just look how Queen Helaena - the rider of the huge dragon Dreamfyre - is completely sidelined during the Dance.

If you dragon is kept far away from you it won't help you if you are in danger.

1 hour ago, TheWitch said:

Dragons of owners in loving relationships are shown to mimic that relationship. The gun argument that's been brought up is irrelevant, yes anyone can fire a gun, but not everyone can bond with a fire breathing beast to which you owe your cultures entire success. In this sense I really do feel that women being capable of that bond would have given women a mutual respect. It may have been a working form of separate but equal, or a something close to equality.

I'd agree with you that a female dragonlord would have had a role in Valyrian society that far extended that of housewife, mother, and runner of a noble estate. She would have been counted upon to represent her family's interests to outsiders and enemies both within and outside the Freehold, and it is to be expected that many dragonlord women played important roles throughout the history of Valyria both in the political arena as well as behind the scenes.

But that isn't gender equality. It just means that the women of the very special class of the dragonlords had more freedoms than common Valyrian women. And if you think about it then even the dragonless wives of dragonlords - be they their sisters or other close kin or not - would have outranked the lower classes simply because of the status that came with such a marriage. A queen may not rule but she is still shown respect and adoration and has a lot of soft power. The same would go for the dragonless wife of a dragonlord.

The main thing indicating that the dragonlords did not treat their women as equals can be seen, I think, in the fact that male primogeniture was apparently the norm for the succession of the Targaryens on Dragonstone (there is a chance that they adopted Westerosi customs during their century on the island but that is by no means certain), and that they followed and established that custom for the Iron Throne after the Conquest. The heirs of the Conqueror were his sons and grandsons, not his sisters. Visenya (and Rhaenys, while she lived) were not his immediate heirs, coming before their own sons. One would assume that a Valyrian tradition of gender equality could have pushed Visenya to decide that she should be Queen Regnant after Aegon's death, with Aenys or Maegor serving in a subordinate role as her co-regent. In Dorne, Princess Nymeria decided to rule in her own right after Mors Martell died instead of handing Dorne over to her eldest daughter by him.

Another important point is that the Targaryens made no attempt to establish the right of gender-blind primogeniture for the succession while they still had their dragons - which they most likely would have done so if they were historically and traditionally inclined to see their women as their equals. Instead, even the great Jaehaerys I passed over the daughter of his eldest son in favor of his eldest surviving son. And back in the days of the Conqueror it was certain that Aenys' sons should come before their uncle Maegor in the line of succession but this was not clear for Aenys' granddaughters.

All that is very telling. You have to keep in mind that the Targaryens were able to force their subject to accept their continued tradition of incest marriages. If they could do that, they should also have been able to get their way with gender-blind primogeniture.

Even Rhaenyra wasn't her father's chosen or desired heir. Viserys I doted on her and loved her as his only surviving child but he wanted a son from his first wife, a son who would inherit his throne. He did only name Rhaenyra his heir after Aemma and the infant Baelon died, and because his brother Daemon actually made fun of his loss(es). Prior to that Viserys I had not been willing to name Rhaenyra his heir - the succession was sort of open and unclear. The precedents set by Jaehaerys I and the Great Council should favor Daemon as the scion of the senior Targaryen branch through the male line but King Viserys was effectively treating Rhaenyra as his heir anyway, showing her great favors, etc.

But even after Rhaenyra was made Heir Apparent and Princess of Dragonstone she still was raised very much as a traditional royal woman. The fact that she was a dragonrider did not change that. And Rhaenys and Alysanne were also very much traditional women, it seems, although they also exerted a lot of real power. Just as Alyssa Velaryon did - who may or may not have been a dragonrider. We don't know that yet. But the one truly exceptional female Targaryen dragonrider was Visenya (and, perhaps, Princess Rhaenys, although we know too little about her youth to make a judgment on that).

That doesn't make it very likely that the Targaryens treated their women as their equals on a regular basis.

And after the dragons died the Targaryen kings very quickly made their women their chattel. Just look how both Naerys and Rhaella suffered from the hands of their brother-husbands. Mariah Martell and Betha Blackwood seem to have been powerful queens, but that has more to do with their personalities and the ways they grew up. Daena the Defiant was pretty strong-willed but apparently never had the chance to really fight for her rights. Princess Elaena seems to be the last Targaryen woman prior to Daenerys who really left her mark on history.

[TheWitch]

Quote

But that isn't gender equality. It just means that the women of the very special class of the dragonlords had more freedoms than common Valyrian women. And if you think about it then even the dragonless wives of dragonlords - be they their sisters or other close kin or not - would have outranked the lower classes simply because of the status that came with such a marriage. A queen may not rule but she is still shown respect and adoration and has a lot of soft power. The same would go for the dragonless wife of a dragonlord.

That was the conclusion I came to in the OP.

 

6 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

The main thing indicating that the dragonlords did not treat their women as equals can be seen, I think, in the fact that male primogeniture was apparently the norm for the succession of the Targaryens

Again this was something that I brought up in the OP. However, they discussion of incestuous marriage has made me think. Perhaps incestuous marriage was not only a means of keeping bloodlines pure, but a way to give equal inheritance to the male and female heirs of a house? An example could be the grandchildren of Anaer Targaryen having joint lordship of Dragonstone. It's a stretch but an idea. As you later say Visenya not challenge the succession could be explained simply by the fact she recognised the first borns right, not gender thing. As we have discussed, polygamy wasn't the standard and so it was a fairly unique situation. Also Visenya was by all accounts pragmatic and elderly, she probably deemed it was better to let the crown pass to a younger man, and when she recognised Aenys as weak decided her son was the better fit. 

 

8 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

Even Rhaenyra wasn't her father's chosen or desired heir. Viserys I doted on her and loved her as his only surviving child but he wanted a son from his first wife, a son who would inherit his throne. He did only name Rhaenyra his heir after Aemma and the infant Baelon died, and because his brother Daemon actually made fun of his loss(es). Prior to that Viserys I had not been willing to name Rhaenyra his heir

I didn't really want to go as far as Rhaenyra, as I think it's fair to say but this time the Targaryen's are fairly 'Westerosinised'.

[Lady Blizzardborn]

10 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

<snip

If that was the case then the Targaryens no longer should have any magical dragon-hatching (or dragon-bonding) potential since Mariah Martell and Betha Blackwood married into the main branches. Jon Snow would also have inherited no magical potential from Rhaegar Targaryen, then.

<snip

There are number of subtle hints:

1. The late birth dates for both Aenys (7 AC) and Maegor (12 AC) despite the fact that the Targaryen siblings had married before the Conquest - which means they were most likely married for over a decade when Aenys was born.

2. Visenya was considered to be barren in 10 AC when Rhaenys died, suggesting she never had had a stillbirth or a miscarriage.

3. No miscarriages or stillbirths are mentioned for either Rhaenys or Visenya, nor is there any talk about Aegon fathering any bastards.

4. During the Conquest Sharra Arryn offers herself in marriage to Aegon if he would, in turn, name her son Ronnel his heir. That strongly suggests she did not expect Aegon to father any children of his own. The man had two wives already and no children for either wife.

5. Aegon himself repeatedly refuses to take any other wives aside from Visenya and Rhaenys - first he rejects Argella Durrandon, then Lord Manfred Hightower's maiden daughter, and then refuses to take another wife to replace Queen Rhaenys in 10 AC despite the fact that the entire Realm urges him to do so (because Visenya is believed to be barren). One assumes a main reason for this was that an outside wife (and her family) might begin to talk about Aegon's inability to father children).

But there are also more concrete hints:

1. There are explicit rumors that Rhaenys entertained lovers since she surrounded herself with male favorites, and that Prince Aenys is the seed of one of those rather than the seed of the Conqueror. This is based on Aenys' weak nature and the fact that he doesn't resemble the Conqueror all that much but nothing says that it is not true. The fact that the boy was born so late when the need for an heir became ever more desperate could certainly mean that Rhaenys finally decided she would no longer try to conceive a child (only) with Aegon's semen in her womb.

2. Visenya is not rumored to have had any affairs (as is Aegon, but then, in his case there might not have been any danger that he would produced any bastards) but we know she was interested in and practiced sorcery. When Rhaenys died in 10 AC Aenys fell back into a crawling state, grew very sick, and Aegon feared he might die. Since Visenya was considered to be barren the lords tried to convince Aegon to take one of their daughters as a new wife. Then, quite suddenly, Visenya announced in 11 AC that she was pregnant and that the child would be a boy. All plans that Aegon take another wife died (and Aenys recovered as well, of course). That can mean nothing or everything. Aegon and Visenya could have conceived a child after all, although Visenya was about forty when Maegor was born. It would be a very lucky coincidence. Visenya could have had a quiet affair. Or Visenya could have used sorcery either to make Aegon's semen viable or to create a clone of herself. It is very odd that she apparently knew the sex of her child before it was born.

And Maegor himself clearly is a freak, physically as well as mentally and possibly even biologically considering that he himself is sterile most definitely, only able to conceive monstrosities with the help of magic (it is very likely that Tyanna helped him with her magics from 44 AC onwards). Such a child could easily enough have been the fruit of black magic himself. After all, we know that magic comes with a price. Visenya wanted a strong male child and got a strong male sadistic psychopath.

Pardon me, but you're trying to read into what I wrote something that wasn't meant...which you could have noted by my not having written it. I didn't say the bond couldn't be passed on through the male line.

Unlike PJ I'm not restricting anything to just the women. My theory is that the dragonlords married their sisters to prevent other houses gaining control of their dragons. Let's say House Jaems is headed by Lord Aevon who has a son Aevor and a daughter Aeva. If Aeva marries a son of House Laekyn then her Laekyn children could potentially claim House Jaems dragons, thus in a sense stealing Aevor's children's inheritance. Lord Aevon does not want that. So he marries Aevor and Aeva to each other.

The bond might be stronger with the females of the family, but that doesn't mean the males don't have it or can't pass it to their own children. With no other dragonlords in Westeros the issue becomes moot because there are no competing dragonbond bloodlines. And any dragonblood gives an advantage over no dragonblood. Look at Brown Ben. His Targ blood is so far back you'd think it wouldn't matter, but the dragons are still drawn to him a bit.

As to Aegon's fertility...has it never occurred to anyone that Rhaenys not having a child until she was in her 30s might be because of the heat issue? Of the three siblings she was the one who rode her dragon the most. Pregnant women are warned against hot tubs, hot baths, and hot showers, so it wouldn't be surprising if fire-made-flesh dragons were a problem. And when she did have a child he was weak.

I don't have any problem believing Visenya had to use magic to conceive but it's possible that she did have miscarriages and either didn't know (this does happen) or never told anyone. Also possible she figured out the problem with the dragonriding and took a break from it long enough to produce a child.

Aegon not marrying anyone else when he already had two wives, including one he loved is not a good argument for infertility. Visenya and Rhaenys at least knew how to work together from growing up together. Can you imagine adding a third queen to the mix? That would have been bedlam.

Maegor is a freak mentally, but that could be from a number of things including the inbreeding, and how his mother raised him. Being bigger and bulkier than Aegon I does not make him a freak physically. Tyanna used her magic to kill at least one of his babies, so I doubt she was using it to help them get conceived in the first place. The only queen Tyanna would have helped conceive would have been herself. She confessed to killing Alys Harroway's baby because she wanted to be the mother of Maegor's heir. Without Tyanna's interference that baby might have been fine or at least lived. Rhaenyra and Daemon had a "monstrosity" but no one questions his fertility. Dany and Drogo had a "monstrosity" according to Jorah, but no one suggests magic was used to create Rhaego.

The rumors are exactly that...rumors. I had a sister who was much in demand by the boys around here, but they couldn't get near her, so they did the next best thing...talking about her. The rumors were interesting, especially the time she was supposedly pregnant with fraternal twins by different fathers, one baby due in July and the other in September. Rumors mean squat.

[Orphalesion]

On 02/03/2017 at 3:56 PM, The Weirwoods Eyes said:

Well, why do you think Mankind is an old-fashioned way of saying humans? Do you think the people (here's a clue, they were men.) were deliberately leaving women out because they saw women as unimportant non-males, or do you think they simply failed to even think of them at all?  And in failing to think about women at all were they simply being absent minded or was this oversight a direct consequence of the deeply rooted sexism within society as a whole? which teaches us women are unimportant. So could the Maester's  usage of the term First Men be a seemingly innocent oversight fueled by the deep-rooted sexism within Westerosi culture? perhaps? 

Actually the older Germanic words for "man" and "woman" translate as "Fighting Man/Human" and "Weaving Man/Human" while "man" was simply "Human" without any gender designation. When, for example Tolkien speaks of "Mortal Men" when meaning humanity he operates under this principle. And I think the First Men operate under a similar understanding due to them being the most ancient and primitive human culture in Westeros. I'd also say the First Men strike me as less patriarchal than Andals. Not gender equal by a long shot, but women in the North and among the Wildlings do seem to enjoy a greater measure of equality than those in the south. 

It was only as the Middle Ages continued (and influenced by Latin and possibly some biblical passages) that "man" came to mean "male human".

[Vaedys Targaryen]

22 hours ago, The Weirwoods Eyes said:

Just based on the fact they were all three of them quite old before any babies popped along.  I know the sisters could have been brewing Moontea all those years. But I find it odd that neither of them had a child pre-conquest. Given their ages.  Visenya was about 40 I think at Maegors' birth and Rhaenys was about 32 when Aenys came along.  

Also, the author has deliberately cast doubt on the father of Maegor by implying that some believe Visenya used sorcery to get with child.  And also provided doubts as to Rhaenys's fidelity.   I'm not saying the rumours were true or not. Just that given the ages they were when they became mothers and the fact that Aegon was known to regularly sleep with Rhaenys and also have sex at a not unreasonable rate with Visenya, it's a long, long time without any pregnancies. 

 

21 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

<snip>

Aegon might not have cared (after all, he desperately needed heirs), but the people of Westeros would have if either Rhaenys or Visenya would have been captured committing adultery. That could very well have marked the end of the short Targaryen reign.

<snip>

There are number of subtle hints:

1. The late birth dates for both Aenys (7 AC) and Maegor (12 AC) despite the fact that the Targaryen siblings had married before the Conquest - which means they were most likely married for over a decade when Aenys was born.

2. Visenya was considered to be barren in 10 AC when Rhaenys died, suggesting she never had had a stillbirth or a miscarriage.

3. No miscarriages or stillbirths are mentioned for either Rhaenys or Visenya, nor is there any talk about Aegon fathering any bastards.

4. During the Conquest Sharra Arryn offers herself in marriage to Aegon if he would, in turn, name her son Ronnel his heir. That strongly suggests she did not expect Aegon to father any children of his own. The man had two wives already and no children for either wife.

5. Aegon himself repeatedly refuses to take any other wives aside from Visenya and Rhaenys - first he rejects Argella Durrandon, then Lord Manfred Hightower's maiden daughter, and then refuses to take another wife to replace Queen Rhaenys in 10 AC despite the fact that the entire Realm urges him to do so (because Visenya is believed to be barren). One assumes a main reason for this was that an outside wife (and her family) might begin to talk about Aegon's inability to father children).

But there are also more concrete hints:

1. There are explicit rumors that Rhaenys entertained lovers since she surrounded herself with male favorites, and that Prince Aenys is the seed of one of those rather than the seed of the Conqueror. This is based on Aenys' weak nature and the fact that he doesn't resemble the Conqueror all that much but nothing says that it is not true. The fact that the boy was born so late when the need for an heir became ever more desperate could certainly mean that Rhaenys finally decided she would no longer try to conceive a child (only) with Aegon's semen in her womb.

2. Visenya is not rumored to have had any affairs (as is Aegon, but then, in his case there might not have been any danger that he would produced any bastards) but we know she was interested in and practiced sorcery. When Rhaenys died in 10 AC Aenys fell back into a crawling state, grew very sick, and Aegon feared he might die. Since Visenya was considered to be barren the lords tried to convince Aegon to take one of their daughters as a new wife. Then, quite suddenly, Visenya announced in 11 AC that she was pregnant and that the child would be a boy. All plans that Aegon take another wife died (and Aenys recovered as well, of course). That can mean nothing or everything. Aegon and Visenya could have conceived a child after all, although Visenya was about forty when Maegor was born. It would be a very lucky coincidence. Visenya could have had a quiet affair. Or Visenya could have used sorcery either to make Aegon's semen viable or to create a clone of herself. It is very odd that she apparently knew the sex of her child before it was born.

And Maegor himself clearly is a freak, physically as well as mentally and possibly even biologically considering that he himself is sterile most definitely, only able to conceive monstrosities with the help of magic (it is very likely that Tyanna helped him with her magics from 44 AC onwards). Such a child could easily enough have been the fruit of black magic himself. After all, we know that magic comes with a price. Visenya wanted a strong male child and got a strong male sadistic psychopath.

Damn, can we have a "was Aegon the Conqueror infertile?" thread going already?

[TheWitch]

10 minutes ago, Vaedys Targaryen said:

Damn, can we have a "was Aegon the Conqueror infertile?" thread going already?

Haha I agree, it is a very interesting, but slightly off topic.

[The Weirwoods Eyes]

5 hours ago, Orphalesion said:

Actually the older Germanic words for "man" and "woman" translate as "Fighting Man/Human" and "Weaving Man/Human" while "man" was simply "Human" without any gender designation. When, for example Tolkien speaks of "Mortal Men" when meaning humanity he operates under this principle.

It was only as the Middle Ages continued (and influenced by Latin and possibly some biblical passages) that "man" came to mean "male human".

2

I'm aware of this. But hiding behind ancient etymology in no absolves the erasure of women when accounting for the choice of words. For instance, why do you think language evolved in that direction?  what happened to make the word for Man evolve from the previously sex-neutral term and the name for woman retain the sex-specific prefix?  As man was indeed the term for simply being human, and maleness was previously denoted by Wer.  Why was it that femaleness retained the prefix wif? All very fascinating. But entirely off topic.  We could go round and round in circles but basically, the evolution of language can never be separated from the culture in which it evolved and the influence of sexism in that culture has been enormous. 

[The Weirwoods Eyes]

16 hours ago, Jon's Queen Consort said:

I agree. I do believe that Aenys and Maegor were not his sons.

 

I think the idea has spread a fair bit now. though I must thank @Lord Varys for as far as I am aware being the one to raise it as a possibility.  

It does make sense to me. 

[Lord Varys]

14 hours ago, TheWitch said:

Again this was something that I brought up in the OP. However, they discussion of incestuous marriage has made me think. Perhaps incestuous marriage was not only a means of keeping bloodlines pure, but a way to give equal inheritance to the male and female heirs of a house? An example could be the grandchildren of Anaer Targaryen having joint lordship of Dragonstone. It's a stretch but an idea. As you later say Visenya not challenge the succession could be explained simply by the fact she recognised the first borns right, not gender thing. As we have discussed, polygamy wasn't the standard and so it was a fairly unique situation. Also Visenya was by all accounts pragmatic and elderly, she probably deemed it was better to let the crown pass to a younger man, and when she recognised Aenys as weak decided her son was the better fit. 

Still, Visenya was just advocating for her son not for herself. She could have demanded the crown herself in 37 AC, deciding to make herself the senior monarch and taking Maegor and not Aenys as her co-ruler. Aegon's sister-wives seem to have been co-rulers at Aegon's side as much as Elaena ruled at the side of Lord Aegon in the past.

But if this was the case then Visenya's power and status did clearly not allow her to press her own claim against that of Aegon's eldest son, and that strongly suggests that the Targaryen mindset at that time was not one of gender equality, and Visenya knew that. And when Aenys I died she did, again, not claim the throne herself but flew to Pentos to fetch Maegor back.

There is no reason to believe the Freehold of Valyria was in any way governed by legal concepts as primitive as the feudalism of Westeros. There is no reason not to believe that all the children of dragonlord couple got their decent share of their parents holdings. After all, the very set up of Valyrian society dictates that only landowners - the Lords Freeholder - can elect and be elected officials. If the younger children of a dragonlord got nothing besides a dragon they would essentially lose all their influence in the Freehold, dragon or not.

There seems to have been a head of each dragonlord house but the power of such a person would not come from the fact that this person controlled all the land of the family himself as is the case in Westeros.

In that sense I very much doubt the incest custom had anything to do with granting women equal rights of inheritance. Especially if the (brother-)husband was considered to be the master of the household, ruling over his (sister-)wife and children. For all we know Jaenara Belaerys may have been unwed when she conducted her exploration of Essos.

The main reason given for the incest thing is that the dragonlords traditionally believed that the blood of the dragon has to remain pure. One assumes that if there is anything true to that belief that the first dragonlords realized that if they just continued to marry 'common men' they end up gradually losing their ability to bond with/mount dragons, and they could not have that. There are additional benefits to this, of course, keeping wealth and property within the family (which would have been a reason why the custom gradually spread out from the dragonlord class to become a common practice among the other Valyrians as well) but one has to keep in mind that the incest custom is actually counterproductive in an oligarchic society like Valyria where the whole brother-sister marriage thing prevents the various dragonlord houses from forging alliances and truces which a sealed by marriage - one assumes such happened, anyway, if people were forced to do that but the common marriage custom was the incest thing.

If the whole blood of the dragon thing did not determine that they have practice incest the dragonlords most likely would not have done so.

14 hours ago, TheWitch said:

I didn't really want to go as far as Rhaenyra, as I think it's fair to say but this time the Targaryen's are fairly 'Westerosinised'.

Considering that Viserys I was only the fifth King on the Iron Throne I doubt that, actually. The royal family was an elitist circle, and protected itself against outside influences most effectively (we see this still in effect in TSS where Egg casually talks about being betrothed to his sister Daella, ignorant of the fact that anybody outside royal circles considers this kind of thing a vile sin). Aside from Maegor's many wives (which would not have had any influence on Alyssa Velaryon's children) Alicent Hightower was the first non-Valyrian woman to marry into the royal family, and everything indicates she tried to become a Targaryen, not make her husband an Andal or Westerosi. If that was the case she would have opposed the incest thing, not urging Viserys I to marry Rhaenyra to Aegon or eventually allowing/pushing Aegon and Helaena to marry each other.

12 hours ago, Lady Blizzardborn said:

Unlike PJ I'm not restricting anything to just the women. My theory is that the dragonlords married their sisters to prevent other houses gaining control of their dragons. Let's say House Jaems is headed by Lord Aevon who has a son Aevor and a daughter Aeva. If Aeva marries a son of House Laekyn then her Laekyn children could potentially claim House Jaems dragons, thus in a sense stealing Aevor's children's inheritance. Lord Aevon does not want that. So he marries Aevor and Aeva to each other.

Ah, okay, that makes sense. I entertain the idea that a specific dragonlord family is bond to a specific line of dragons myself, meaning that the Targaryens can only claim Targaryen dragons and not, say, Belaerys dragons. But that would actually mean that not all dragonlords are descended from one common ancestor/are not interrelated among each other all that much. And considering the long history of Valyria one actually doubts that, especially since they all share those weird purple eyes and silver-gold hair.

As I've said above I'm very much fine with the belief that foreign blood has a negative effect on the dragon-bonding ability that is inherited, making it less and less likely that the great-great-grandchildren of a dragonlord could still become dragonlords themselves. The dragonlords began to take countermeasures against this effect by marrying amongst themselves.

12 hours ago, Lady Blizzardborn said:

The bond might be stronger with the females of the family, but that doesn't mean the males don't have it or can't pass it to their own children. With no other dragonlords in Westeros the issue becomes moot because there are no competing dragonbond bloodlines. And any dragonblood gives an advantage over no dragonblood. Look at Brown Ben. His Targ blood is so far back you'd think it wouldn't matter, but the dragons are still drawn to him a bit.

Brown Ben has quite a lot of dragonlord blood, actually, if Viserys Plumm was indeed the son of Princess Elaena and Aegon IV. That makes Viserys Targaryen on both sides, meaning that Ben's Targaryen blood isn't all that much diluted. He would have more than Quentyn, considering that he is pretty old already. One expects that Viserys Plumm was his great-grandfather.

The idea of purity of blood would go down the road Ran once told us. You have to have the right drop of dragonlord blood to become a dragonrider. Now, with the incest custom in place pretty much every descendant of a dragonlord should have that right drop, without the incest it becomes a lottery whether you have the gift to bond with a dragon. And one should assume it gets less and less likely the farther away you are from those ancestors of yours who were still following this incest custom. But the probability that you can claim a dragon would never drop to zero since you are descended from a dragonlord after all.

12 hours ago, Lady Blizzardborn said:

As to Aegon's fertility...has it never occurred to anyone that Rhaenys not having a child until she was in her 30s might be because of the heat issue? Of the three siblings she was the one who rode her dragon the most. Pregnant women are warned against hot tubs, hot baths, and hot showers, so it wouldn't be surprising if fire-made-flesh dragons were a problem. And when she did have a child he was weak.

Well, one assumes she would have know that, too, and not flown all that much on Meraxes when she and Aegon were trying to conceive. Which they must have done for quite some time after the Conquest was over. I mean, they must have known they needed an heir rather desperately or else they might lose everything they gained in old age. Nothing encourages rebels more than an aging king with no (clear) heir.

12 hours ago, Lady Blizzardborn said:

I don't have any problem believing Visenya had to use magic to conceive but it's possible that she did have miscarriages and either didn't know (this does happen) or never told anyone. Also possible she figured out the problem with the dragonriding and took a break from it long enough to produce a child.

Considering that both Aenys and Maegor were conceived and born during the First Dornish War (where the Targaryen siblings all fought on dragonback) this is not very likely). Nor is there any indication that Alysanne, Rhaenys, Laena, or Rhaenyra did not fly while they wanted to have children. Laena got her twins while she and Daemon were traveling Essos with their dragons.

We also get a pretty complete list of Queen Rhaella's miscarriages, stillbirths, and the children who died in the cradle. If the great Conqueror and his sister-wives had suffered from similar problems it would been known. Any time either Rhaenys or Visenya got pregnant would have caused a literal celebration. The Conqueror needed heirs.

The fact that all Targaryens descend from Aenys I makes it clear while the rumors that he was a bastard eventually died. But that doesn't prove those rumors wrong.

12 hours ago, Lady Blizzardborn said:

Aegon not marrying anyone else when he already had two wives, including one he loved is not a good argument for infertility. Visenya and Rhaenys at least knew how to work together from growing up together. Can you imagine adding a third queen to the mix? That would have been bedlam.

Sure, back during the Conquest that's true. But Aegon never liked Visenya all that much so why didn't he replace Rhaenys with a woman he was actually attracted to in 10 AC or the years thereafter?

12 hours ago, Lady Blizzardborn said:

Maegor is a freak mentally, but that could be from a number of things including the inbreeding, and how his mother raised him. Being bigger and bulkier than Aegon I does not make him a freak physically. Tyanna used her magic to kill at least one of his babies, so I doubt she was using it to help them get conceived in the first place. The only queen Tyanna would have helped conceive would have been herself. She confessed to killing Alys Harroway's baby because she wanted to be the mother of Maegor's heir. Without Tyanna's interference that baby might have been fine or at least lived. Rhaenyra and Daemon had a "monstrosity" but no one questions his fertility. Dany and Drogo had a "monstrosity" according to Jorah, but no one suggests magic was used to create Rhaego.

Well, it is odd that Alys Harroway conceived the first child Maegor ever had only in 44 AC - the man slept with her at least since 39 AC, and we know Maegor as tried very hard to get Ceryse pregnant since the day they were married. And the man also slept with other women outside of wedlock on a regular basis.

My idea is that Tyanna helped Maegor and Alys with her magics to try and conceive a child. When it turned out to be a monstrosity she deflected the blame for the failure to Alys' alleged infidelity to save her skin. Later on she again helped Maegor when he tried to impregnate Jeyne and Elinor. The fact that she later 'confessed' that she poisoned all his children makes little sense unless we assume she 'confessed' this of her own free will (and why would she do something like that?) and not under torture. Maegor may have realized that he and not all those women were the problem when not just Alys but Jeyne and Elinor, too, produced monstrosities. And since he didn't want to believe that he blamed, tortured, and killed Tyanna.

Keep in mind that Tyanna allegedly did become both Maegor's and Alys' lover back in Pentos, indicating that these three got along reasonably well. The idea that Tyanna was jealous of the other wives giving Maegor any children doesn't sound all that convincing to me.

And, of course, Dany's Rhaego became a monstrosity due to Mirri's magic, no? I mean, he was alive and literally kicking before she was carried into the tent.

12 hours ago, Lady Blizzardborn said:

The rumors are exactly that...rumors. I had a sister who was much in demand by the boys around here, but they couldn't get near her, so they did the next best thing...talking about her. The rumors were interesting, especially the time she was supposedly pregnant with fraternal twins by different fathers, one baby due in July and the other in September. Rumors mean squat.

Or everything in this case. After all, if George wants to give us some hints that the Targaryens are, in fact, not Targaryens since the dynasty died out in the male line when the Conqueror closed his eyes for the final time then he cannot do that in an official history outside of recounting rumors. Officially it is quite clear that both Aenys and Maegor were the Conqueror's sons. There is no way around that.

Another thing there is the funny fact that Aenys and Maegor are described as representing two halves of the Conqueror - Aenys has charisma without strength (of will) and Maegor has strength (of will) without charisma (which is the reason why they both failed). George seems to be very much influenced by the Star Trek episode The Enemy Within in his portrayal of Aenys and Maegor. The normal Kirk is, like the Conqueror, a very capable and charismatic leader and commander. The good Kirk is very much like Aenys, incapable to lead and essentially influenced by the last person he spoke with, while the evil Kirk has all of Kirk's determination and strength of will but is following very much his basic needs and desires, just as Maegor seems to be doing. 

But if you compare the descriptions of Aenys and Maegor to the way their respective mothers are described then it becomes very evident that neither Aenys nor Maegor have to have inherited anything from their alleged father to be the way they are. Aenys is a dialed up male version of Rhaenys (who was also fickle and changeable) while Maegor is essentially a dialed up male version of Visenya (who was a capable warrior but unwilling/incapable of making many friends, aloof, and cold).

17 minutes ago, The Weirwoods Eyes said:

I think the idea has spread a fair bit now. though I must thank @Lord Varys for as far as I am aware being the one to raise it as a possibility.  

It does make sense to me. 

Most of the stuff goes back to the 'The Sons of the Dragon' reading. You guys can all assess the evidence in detail when we get the story in full in October. Perhaps the reign of Maegor is going to cast more evidence on the whole sorcery thing there. Ran and Linda got the rumors about Aenys' parentage into TWoIaF but the details about the sudden conception of Maegor in 11 AC and the fact that Visenya was sure it would be a boy were lost.

[The Weirwoods Eyes]

12 hours ago, Lady Blizzardborn said:

 

Unlike PJ I'm not restricting anything to just the women. My theory is that the dragonlords married their sisters to prevent other houses gaining control of their dragons. Let's say House Jaems is headed by Lord Aevon who has a son Aevor and a daughter Aeva. If Aeva marries a son of House Laekyn then her Laekyn children could potentially claim House Jaems dragons, thus in a sense stealing Aevor's children's inheritance. Lord Aevon does not want that. So he marries Aevor and Aeva to each other.

The bond might be stronger with the females of the family, but that doesn't mean the males don't have it or can't pass it to their own children. With no other dragonlords in Westeros the issue becomes moot because there are no competing dragonbond bloodlines. And any dragonblood gives an advantage over no dragonblood. Look at Brown Ben. His Targ blood is so far back you'd think it wouldn't matter, but the dragons are still drawn to him a bit.

14

I think this is right, at least to the larger extent. IE: that Incest was a means to ensure that your dragons remained in your bloodline. Like I was saying earlier. In regards to the question of Why polygamy? If you have 6 kids and you need to practice incest or risk losing some of your dragons/ the ability to ride and hatch said bloodline of dragons. It makes perfect sense to accept polygamous marriage with your siblings. Though we have no examples at all of women with multiple husbands as far as I am aware.( Which is indeed an argument for there not being absolute equality in Valyria. But though I argue for greater equality I don't think it would be absolute anyway.)  certainly, it is preferable to marry your brother even though it means sharing him with your sister, than to marry outside of the family and risk your children losing the connection to your bloodline of dragons. For though they may inherit the ability to bond with your spouses families dragon bloodline. What if they inherit neither? And would them inheriting your husbands dragonbond to their bloodline place them potentially in conflict with their maternal family one day? Or what happens if they inherit from your own bloodline. Do you have to beg a dragon from your sister and brother to bond to your child? Would they potentially refuse leaving your child dragonless?

And what about the dragons themselves? We know nothing of how peacefully two different dragon bloodlines may co-exist. What if marrying outside the family means you have to give up dragonriding altogether because your new spouse's family dragons simply would never accept a dragon from outside their bloodline living amongst them? Or say they might attempt to roast anyone who smells like the wrong sort of dragon to them. That's a pretty shitty, miserable life for a woman who has experienced soaring above the earth and flying to distant lands, tasted the thrill of diving through clouds etc.  

We do know the Targaryens inter-married with the Velaryons, who were not dragonriders. But they never to our knowledge married with the Celtigars, why?  Surely the Celtigars should have been the Targaryens other family of choice post-doom. But not once has the dragon joined with the crab. 

[The Weirwoods Eyes]

Thank you for reminding me that The Sons of the Dragon comes out in October. By heck am I excited for that. 

[Lion of the West]

18 hours ago, TheWitch said:

I will however argue that a females ability to bond with a dragon is still our greatest hint at a greater level of gender equality. Yes, men are still physically stronger, and yes they could physically control their lives. However, this doesn't dispute the point, because it undermines the emotional almost religious significance of dragons. There are plenty of men in the modern world who would argue pro-women points but still emotionally and physically abuse women in their own lives. The bond with a dragon is by all-counts telepathic, and so I can imagine an abusive husband might get a hard time from his wife's dragon. Dragons of owners in loving relationships are shown to mimic that relationship. The gun argument that's been brought up is irrelevant, yes anyone can fire a gun, but not everyone can bond with a fire breathing beast to which you owe your cultures entire success. In this sense I really do feel that women being capable of that bond would have given women a mutual respect. It may have been a working form of separate but equal, or a something close to equality.

I don't see how the gun argument is irrelevant as an abusive husband would be well able to prevent a woman from getting hold of a dragon in the first place. And Valyria don't own their whole success to dragons. The dragons were the military force, yes, but without the sorcery and massive numbers of slaves I doubt that Valyria would ever have risen close to as high as it did. Thus it seems to me that Valyria stood on three legs; slaves, sorcery and dragons as opposed to only on the dragon-leg.

The main importance to the gun argument is however that the initial argument the gun argument was brought up with was that dragons provided the potential for violence which would have empowered women, but its clear that it wasn't this potential for violence with dragons which empowered Valyrian women. As the argument now is that riding dragons inspired an great awe in Valyrian society. That makes it a different argument to what the gun argument was brought up to counter. As such the gun argument stands that it wasn't the potential for violence with dragons that provided the Valyrian women with their greater status.

[The Weirwoods Eyes]

I don't think we can ignore the bond with dragons at all. And I don't think it is comparable to owning a gun at all. 

A dragon is bonded at birth. So a little boy who may one day grow up to be an abusive husband can not prevent his future wife from having a dragon. She likely was bonded to one years and years prior to her own menarche, let alone the point in his life where he becomes an abusive husband.

A dragon's bond with it's human is in some ways at least telepathic, as Lord Varys pointed out up thread.  So a man attacking his wife risks her dragon sensing this and coming to her defence. Whereas all an abusive husband of a gun owning wife need do is physically prevent her from getting to her gun. 

A society with guns is a society where a woman holding a gun can be overpowered and have that gun turned on her. Indeed I am led to believe that many gun deaths in the USA are indeed people who have had their own gun turned on them.  Whereas a woman owning a dragon who is almost symbiotically bonded to her can not have that dragon used against her through being physically overpowered on not being the fastest to the dragon pen (Gun cabinet. Or wherever some idiot thinks is a good place to keep one in places where common sense fails and people are not legally required to keep the damn things locked up!) 

A woman's dragon may be older, larger, and stronger than her husband's dragon. They decide who to bond to mostly and so no man can guarantee that he will get the most powerful dragon. 

Also relevant to the gun argument is that gun ownership is not widespread outside of certain countries and our prevailing culture is one in which women have been subjugated over several millennia; indeed from well before the invention of guns. Introducing a potential sex difference neutraliser such as a gun won't erase thousands and thousands of years of oppression. Nor will it instantly stop to from birth conditioning of the sexes to conform to historical stereotyping. In which women are taught to be subservient, meek, compliant and seek to please. In which they have it drummed into them from birth that their purpose is to serve, and coddle their future husbands. In which they are to save their bodies for him and in which they are told that it is their job to make him happy and that if there are faults within her marriage she is the one who must change to fix those faults.  And in which men are conditioned to put their own wants first, indeed to believe their desires are actual physical needs. That their voices matter more, etc etc etc.  

But, the ownership of an actual sentient fire breathing being who is bonded to us in the cradle likely would go a long way to neutralising the effects of sexism. 

It is evident via many widespread studies into spousal abuse; that it tends to happen predominantly within communities which hold sexist views.  No matter what socio-economic class the perpetrators fall into if they live within a community which views women as lesser than, subservient to or "belonging to" men it rears it's ugly head far more frequently. So it could be argued that as a result of women having Dragons forcing more respect and less subjugation from the men in Valyria than happens elsewhere that their culture would simply have less capacity for abuse in general. And thus foster within itself a feedback loop correlating to the hangover of greater respect and regard for women of their house within the future Targaryen dynasty, until that is the Westerosi culture breaks it down.   But we can see this effect happening over time I think. Culminating in Kings like Aegon IV and Aerys II who abuse their own sister wives rather terribly. 

I don't think that we can say Valyria was in anyway an equal society, just that it seems less sexist than Westeros.  And I think to discount the fact women also rode dragons in this discussion is foolish.  

I think as well that we ought not discount the influence of having entered and decided to rule a society as deeply sexist as Westeros when we look at why Targaryens never pushed for a female monarch prior to Rhaenyra. It is far wiser to assimilate to a certain extent in areas which are non-essential such as the male primogeniture issue. Which seems to have been adopted on or brought with them from Valyria on Dragonstone prior to the conquest anyway. Over say Incest which we are all pretty much in agreement with being important for the guarantee of dragonriding. likewise they converted to the faith of the seven upon entering Westerosi mainland and declaring themselves it's new rulers. They could easily have said burn the Septs there's a new set of gods in town.  

So the fact they did not push for female rule doesn't tell us it was because Valyria only ever had men as head of the household. It tells us that the Targaryens; who had already been accustomed to male figureheads, at least whilst on Dragonstone and certainly through their interactions with the rest of Westeros over that time, never pushed for a ruling Queen.  There is no definitive answer to this. As we just don't know what came first; the belief in male-led households and thus the country or the effects of being submerged in a culture vehemently opposed to female rule. Certainly, we can see that in the early part of the Dynasty the Targayen women seem more feisty. And more accustomed to being treated as important in themselves and that as the generations passed and the subsequent daughters and sons of House Targaryen were raised with Westerosi culture that seems to have faded. Especially post Dance. With the loss of the Dragons and the overwhelming disapproval of and determination to never experience again a Queen in Westeros by its movers and shakers, predominant religious order and scribes. 

Chicken and egg frankly. 

[The Weirwoods Eyes]

Additional thought, please forgive me OP if this is too OT and you wish to confine discussion to Valyrian culture only and the effect of Dragon riding on the potential rise of sexism or lack of that effect within it. 

 

but.....As has been noted above by other posters as well as elsewhere within discussion by the fandom. And I must add which I myself have also noted and feel is evident at least to some extent within the text. First Man culture also feels to be slightly less sexist than Andal culture. 

To what extent might Skinchanging be responsible for this? We see with Varamyr Six Skins that the ability to bond with and skinchange multiple and ultimately the very powerful animals such as the Snow Bear and the Shadow Cat has enabled him to force himself on several women who otherwise would not have wished to engage in sexual intercourse with him.  This example quite clearly seems to imply the potential for even worse abuse than in a culture without skinchangers. But we know from Arya & Sansa that women absolutely can be skinchangers and so given this. Could the seemingly slightly less sexist society of the North and the Wildlings, in general, be down to the fact some women might present as very powerful wargs and skinchangers and so the general effect is that overall women are granted slightly higher status and more fair treatment.  We certainly see in the Wildling culture both north of the wall and in the Mountains of the Moon that women fight, and lead.  And in parts of the North there is a distinct sense that women are seen as less delicate and incapable than in the soft south.   

Will we see a female skinchanger at any point and get an insight into her status in society. 

I also think the Woods Witches go some way to explaining the slightly more respected status of women in the north. because I think they are a hangover from First man culture and held significant roles within it at one point. 

 

[Lord Varys]

2 hours ago, The Weirwoods Eyes said:

I think this is right, at least to the larger extent. IE: that Incest was a means to ensure that your dragons remained in your bloodline.

You can also don't allow your sisters and daughters to actually marry, or ensure that children of such unions never have access to your dragons. We know that the Targaryen kings (Viserys I) controlled the access to dragon eggs and did not allow bastards to get any eggs. One assumes that the children the dragonlords fathered on lovers and prostitutes where also not allowed to claim a dragon without the permission of their fathers.

Keep in mind that the dragonlords apparently resided in those topless towers of Valyria and literally lived above the common rabble, using their dragons to fly from tower to tower. If you were thrown out of such a tower you most likely never again gained access to it.

Quote

Like I was saying earlier. In regards to the question of Why polygamy? If you have 6 kids and you need to practice incest or risk losing some of your dragons/ the ability to ride and hatch said bloodline of dragons. It makes perfect sense to accept polygamous marriage with your siblings. Though we have no examples at all of women with multiple husbands as far as I am aware.( Which is indeed an argument for there not being absolute equality in Valyria. But though I argue for greater equality I don't think it would be absolute anyway.)  certainly, it is preferable to marry your brother even though it means sharing him with your sister, than to marry outside of the family and risk your children losing the connection to your bloodline of dragons. For though they may inherit the ability to bond with your spouses families dragon bloodline. What if they inherit neither? And would them inheriting your husbands dragonbond to their bloodline place them potentially in conflict with their maternal family one day? Or what happens if they inherit from your own bloodline. Do you have to beg a dragon from your sister and brother to bond to your child? Would they potentially refuse leaving your child dragonless?

Again, polygamy was not practiced often among the dragonlords. Only those sorcerer princes occasionally had more than one wife - and we have no idea whatsoever if those polygamists actually married multiple siblings and did not just take, say, one sister to wife to follow the tradition and then take other wives of their own choosing.

The idea that the standard of whatever polygamy there was in Valyria was incestuous polygamy doesn't sound very likely to me. Aegon wasn't into polygamy all that much. Custom decreed that he had to marry Visenya so he did, possibly while his father still lived, but since he desired Rhaenys he also married her. Aenar Targaryen could easily enough have married one sister, cousin, niece, aunt, etc. and have had a non-Valyrian or common Valyrian woman as his second or third wife.

1 hour ago, The Weirwoods Eyes said:

I don't think we can ignore the bond with dragons at all. And I don't think it is comparable to owning a gun at all. 

The crucial point there is how you raise a woman in such a society. The fact that you can wield a weapon doesn't necessarily prepare you to use it, and if the dragonlords generally raised their women to be subservient to their brothers and fathers than there would have been no equality, dragons or not. And we don't know how the dragonlord women were raised. But we know Visenya is clearly an exception in comparison to the Targaryen women we know, even in the early days.

I'd say the dragonlord women had much more rights than any women in Westeros, including Dorne, because Valyria was a much more advanced society not based on feudalism but they were not as equal as the women among the Rhoynar were. And only the dragonlord women would have had such privileges.

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A dragon is bonded at birth. So a little boy who may one day grow up to be an abusive husband can not prevent his future wife from having a dragon. She likely was bonded to one years and years prior to her own menarche, let alone the point in his life where he becomes an abusive husband.

The whole dragon egg in the cradle thing seems to have been an innovation the Targaryens made in Westeros so we can't assume that dragons and their riders bonded at such an early age in Valyria.

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A dragon's bond with it's human is in some ways at least telepathic, as Lord Varys pointed out up thread.  So a man attacking his wife risks her dragon sensing this and coming to her defence. Whereas all an abusive husband of a gun owning wife need do is physically prevent her from getting to her gun.

I did not say it was telepathic. More like some sort of empathic link - say, like Deanna Troi can sense the feelings of other people. A dragon might feel your anguish and fear and need for help just as you might feel his or hers if you are bonded. But dragons are still animals. Dreamfyre apparently felt Helaena's turmoil but she was confined to the Dragonpit and couldn't do anything about it.

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A woman's dragon may be older, larger, and stronger than her husband's dragon. They decide who to bond to mostly and so no man can guarantee that he will get the most powerful dragon. 

Sure, but even if you dragon is very powerful - he or she might still not be able to help you. And if you are raised to submit to your father, brother, cousin, etc. then you most likely won't put up that much of a fight anyway.

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It is evident via many widespread studies into spousal abuse; that it tends to happen predominantly within communities which hold sexist views.  No matter what socio-economic class the perpetrators fall into if they live within a community which views women as lesser than, subservient to or "belonging to" men it rears it's ugly head far more frequently. So it could be argued that as a result of women having Dragons forcing more respect and less subjugation from the men in Valyria than happens elsewhere that their culture would simply have less capacity for abuse in general. And thus foster within itself a feedback loop correlating to the hangover of greater respect and regard for women of their house within the future Targaryen dynasty, until that is the Westerosi culture breaks it down.   But we can see this effect happening over time I think. Culminating in Kings like Aegon IV and Aerys II who abuse their own sister wives rather terribly.

I think the core there lies in the whole incest thing. The male Targaryens essentially own their little sisters, and can abuse them their entire lives, dragons or not.

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I think as well that we ought not discount the influence of having entered and decided to rule a society as deeply sexist as Westeros when we look at why Targaryens never pushed for a female monarch prior to Rhaenyra. It is far wiser to assimilate to a certain extent in areas which are non-essential such as the male primogeniture issue. Which seems to have been adopted on or brought with them from Valyria on Dragonstone prior to the conquest anyway. Over say Incest which we are all pretty much in agreement with being important for the guarantee of dragonriding. likewise they converted to the faith of the seven upon entering Westerosi mainland and declaring themselves it's new rulers. They could easily have said burn the Septs there's a new set of gods in town.  

If they could force the people to accept their incestuous ways they could also have set a dynasty based on female primogeniture if they had so chosen. Once the back of the Faith was broken the Westerosi people had to suffer anything from their rulers. The fact that they did not do that suggests that they were not all that progressive where women were concerned.

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So the fact they did not push for female rule doesn't tell us it was because Valyria only ever had men as head of the household. It tells us that the Targaryens; who had already been accustomed to male figureheads, at least whilst on Dragonstone and certainly through their interactions with the rest of Westeros over that time, never pushed for a ruling Queen.  There is no definitive answer to this. As we just don't know what came first; the belief in male-led households and thus the country or the effects of being submerged in a culture vehemently opposed to female rule. Certainly, we can see that in the early part of the Dynasty the Targayen women seem more feisty. And more accustomed to being treated as important in themselves and that as the generations passed and the subsequent daughters and sons of House Targaryen were raised with Westerosi culture that seems to have faded. Especially post Dance. With the loss of the Dragons and the overwhelming disapproval of and determination to never experience again a Queen in Westeros by its movers and shakers, predominant religious order and scribes. 

I expect there to have been many prominent female dragonlords holding high offices in the Freehold as well as commanding entire dragonlord families on occasion. But the Freehold was very different from Westeros.

[Lion of the West]

I have reconsidered that owning a dragon could well have been the basis for women's standing in Valyria, or more likely for the dragonrider's standing in relation to women without dragon. And given the epic loyalty of Sunfyre to Aegon II its not unlikely that a dragonrider in trouble could come to be relieved by her dragon, but like you said sexism is ingrained and very strong. The idea of there being a dragon quick fix for it don't make much sense to me who don't belive in fast or easy solutions to difficult problems and issues. And I don't think we know if dragons who had their masters killed felt any kind of desire for revenge as we've yet, to my knolwedge, to see a dragon where the rider is killed but the killer is left to live. Its certainly so that dragons losing their riders don't generally go on a rampage but so far seems to have taken it pretty well. As such its entirely possible that once the rider is killed, the dragon losses all interest for her, or him, and that an assassination could well end a rebellious dragonridning women well before the dragon can make its entrence to the scene.

What I would like to comment on is however that while a lack of dragons could well have lead to a lack of respect for women within House Targaryen, its not like this respect ever stretched outside of the dragonridning House and I have some questions on the example of Aegon IV and Aerys II. The most important of this is that while Aerys II was long after the dragons died, Aegon IV was not long after after, so that if its was a declining trend, its odd that first there was a bottom with Aegon IV well within living memory of dragons and then there seems to have been a rise with Daeron's brood, after which there came a new bottom with Aerys II, with close to a hundred years between those two. The examples would make more sense if they were both closer to the end of the Targaryen reign.

EDITED: Changed some stuff

[Lady Blizzardborn]

4 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

<snip

Ah, okay, that makes sense. I entertain the idea that a specific dragonlord family is bond to a specific line of dragons myself, meaning that the Targaryens can only claim Targaryen dragons and not, say, Belaerys dragons. But that would actually mean that not all dragonlords are descended from one common ancestor/are not interrelated among each other all that much. And considering the long history of Valyria one actually doubts that, especially since they all share those weird purple eyes and silver-gold hair.

As I've said above I'm very much fine with the belief that foreign blood has a negative effect on the dragon-bonding ability that is inherited, making it less and less likely that the great-great-grandchildren of a dragonlord could still become dragonlords themselves. The dragonlords began to take countermeasures against this effect by marrying amongst themselves.

Brown Ben has quite a lot of dragonlord blood, actually, if Viserys Plumm was indeed the son of Princess Elaena and Aegon IV. That makes Viserys Targaryen on both sides, meaning that Ben's Targaryen blood isn't all that much diluted. He would have more than Quentyn, considering that he is pretty old already. One expects that Viserys Plumm was his great-grandfather.

The idea of purity of blood would go down the road Ran once told us. You have to have the right drop of dragonlord blood to become a dragonrider. Now, with the incest custom in place pretty much every descendant of a dragonlord should have that right drop, without the incest it becomes a lottery whether you have the gift to bond with a dragon. And one should assume it gets less and less likely the farther away you are from those ancestors of yours who were still following this incest custom. But the probability that you can claim a dragon would never drop to zero since you are descended from a dragonlord after all.

Well, one assumes she would have know that, too, and not flown all that much on Meraxes when she and Aegon were trying to conceive. Which they must have done for quite some time after the Conquest was over. I mean, they must have known they needed an heir rather desperately or else they might lose everything they gained in old age. Nothing encourages rebels more than an aging king with no (clear) heir.

Considering that both Aenys and Maegor were conceived and born during the First Dornish War (where the Targaryen siblings all fought on dragonback) this is not very likely). Nor is there any indication that Alysanne, Rhaenys, Laena, or Rhaenyra did not fly while they wanted to have children. Laena got her twins while she and Daemon were traveling Essos with their dragons.

We also get a pretty complete list of Queen Rhaella's miscarriages, stillbirths, and the children who died in the cradle. If the great Conqueror and his sister-wives had suffered from similar problems it would been known. Any time either Rhaenys or Visenya got pregnant would have caused a literal celebration. The Conqueror needed heirs.

The fact that all Targaryens descend from Aenys I makes it clear while the rumors that he was a bastard eventually died. But that doesn't prove those rumors wrong.

Sure, back during the Conquest that's true. But Aegon never liked Visenya all that much so why didn't he replace Rhaenys with a woman he was actually attracted to in 10 AC or the years thereafter?

Well, it is odd that Alys Harroway conceived the first child Maegor ever had only in 44 AC - the man slept with her at least since 39 AC, and we know Maegor as tried very hard to get Ceryse pregnant since the day they were married. And the man also slept with other women outside of wedlock on a regular basis.

My idea is that Tyanna helped Maegor and Alys with her magics to try and conceive a child. When it turned out to be a monstrosity she deflected the blame for the failure to Alys' alleged infidelity to save her skin. Later on she again helped Maegor when he tried to impregnate Jeyne and Elinor. The fact that she later 'confessed' that she poisoned all his children makes little sense unless we assume she 'confessed' this of her own free will (and why would she do something like that?) and not under torture. Maegor may have realized that he and not all those women were the problem when not just Alys but Jeyne and Elinor, too, produced monstrosities. And since he didn't want to believe that he blamed, tortured, and killed Tyanna.

Keep in mind that Tyanna allegedly did become both Maegor's and Alys' lover back in Pentos, indicating that these three got along reasonably well. The idea that Tyanna was jealous of the other wives giving Maegor any children doesn't sound all that convincing to me.

And, of course, Dany's Rhaego became a monstrosity due to Mirri's magic, no? I mean, he was alive and literally kicking before she was carried into the tent.

Or everything in this case. After all, if George wants to give us some hints that the Targaryens are, in fact, not Targaryens since the dynasty died out in the male line when the Conqueror closed his eyes for the final time then he cannot do that in an official history outside of recounting rumors. Officially it is quite clear that both Aenys and Maegor were the Conqueror's sons. There is no way around that.

Another thing there is the funny fact that Aenys and Maegor are described as representing two halves of the Conqueror - Aenys has charisma without strength (of will) and Maegor has strength (of will) without charisma (which is the reason why they both failed). George seems to be very much influenced by the Star Trek episode The Enemy Within in his portrayal of Aenys and Maegor. The normal Kirk is, like the Conqueror, a very capable and charismatic leader and commander. The good Kirk is very much like Aenys, incapable to lead and essentially influenced by the last person he spoke with, while the evil Kirk has all of Kirk's determination and strength of will but is following very much his basic needs and desires, just as Maegor seems to be doing. 

But if you compare the descriptions of Aenys and Maegor to the way their respective mothers are described then it becomes very evident that neither Aenys nor Maegor have to have inherited anything from their alleged father to be the way they are. Aenys is a dialed up male version of Rhaenys (who was also fickle and changeable) while Maegor is essentially a dialed up male version of Visenya (who was a capable warrior but unwilling/incapable of making many friends, aloof, and cold).

 

There undoubtedly would be times when someone ended up with an only child (others fell off their dragons in mid-flight or something) and had no choice but to marry that child to another dragonlord family. But I think since we have magic involved in blood-bonding and other things potentially, the unique looks could also be a side effect of messing around with fire and blood. Silver-gold is a rather pale color, the Valyrians are known to have fair skin as well. Perhaps adding their own blood to the dragons pulled the melanin out of them? Not sure about the purple eyes unless that was a cosmetic blood-bonding thing. "Want striking purple eyes? Come see Dr. Aekyn for a dragonblood treatment today!" The dragons do tend to have eye colors that don't show up in humans, so it's a possibility.

We're talking several generations of non-dragonblood in the mix though. Yes BBP's Targ ancestry is more recent, and most likely more concentrated, than Quentyn's but it's still not as recent or as concentrated as Dany's. Yet the dragons still sense it. And since you brought up Quentyn, I think he would have succeeded if he hadn't chosen the easy dragon. I think Rhaegal was jealous that Quent was trying to claim Viserion.

You'd think so, but she's several generations down from Valyria and who knows what they remembered to tell the younger generations. It's interesting that the generations from Aenar to our Three don't have many children. Maybe Targs in general are just not that fertile.

They were a ways from old age, and having dragons might have given them a touch of invincibility complex. Hard to say.

Keep in mind that we have not been told everything. Besides which I'm not claiming that dragonriding would make pregnancy impossible, just that it would be a calculated risk. It might well affect some Targ women more than others. Genetics are complicated enough before adding magic to them.

Laena discovered she was pregnant while they were staying in Pentos and as a result they decided to stay there until the twins were born. Sounds like a precaution to me. 

Yes, but Rhaella is recent history. The further back we go in any aspect of Westerosi history, the less information we get. GRRM does that deliberately to mirror actual history where there are things we don't know and will probably never find out. The mysteries are built-in partly for realism.

Nor does it prove them right.

Given his devotion to Rhaenys it's possible that he just never loved again. If the message he received from Dorne indicated that Rhaenys was alive and would remain so for her natural life, as long as her brother and sister would quit messing with Dorne, he might have hoped Rhaenys might find a way to return to him. When he gave up hope on that, he might have decided he was too old, or that he didn't want to risk the pain of losing a woman he loved again. There are many reasons for not replacing a person in ones life, especially a person one loved deeply.

That's not all that unusual. Some couples take a while to conceive even if there is nothing wrong with them. How do we know Maegor's non-wives even wanted to have his child? We don't know much about these women and given the man they were sleeping with they might well have decided it was far safer not to reproduce with him.

I can think of one good reason. She herself had finally conceived and wanted to let Maegor know that she was carrying his heir and that this time it would work. This of course would mean that Maegor killed not only her but also his child, but we all know how bad Maegor's temper was and he might not have believed that she was truly pregnant anyway.

Put yourself in her position. She lives in a medieval world, with a man who has multiple wives all at once. It's like a harem. And in a harem the wife who produces the heir is elevated above the other wives, as her child is above any other children. The heir is usually the firstborn son. We can't discount the possibility that Tyanna was desperately in love with Maegor and thought that giving him a child would make him love her back at the same level. People sometimes do really stupid things for love...that's kind of a thing in the series.

Alive and kicking doesn't mean he wasn't a monstrosity. We know of no particular magic worked on Rhaenyra yet her Visenya was a monstrosity. 

The "official" history is something GRRM has already said may contain false info because the character who wrote it doesn't have all the info, is subject to his own bias, and is under pressure not to upset the Baratheons or the Lannisters. When we get the story from George instead of a maester or a septon, then it will truly be official, but I still don't expect him to clear up mysteries this far back or state whether the rumors were true or not. There are plenty of examples of rumors throughout history that are included in history books but it's unlikely that all of those rumors are true.

That's temperament, and in Maegor's case madness perhaps. People do inherit different things from their parents. I have a sister who has our father's temperament but I got his way of thinking. 

Yep. Baby sister is very much like mom and not remotely like dad. Still, no doubts that we're all full siblings.

Please understand that I'm not saying that it's impossible that Aegon I was infertile, just that it's equally likely that he was not infertile. Based on the little information that we have, we really can't determine this.

[Lady Blizzardborn]

5 hours ago, The Weirwoods Eyes said:

<snip

And what about the dragons themselves? We know nothing of how peacefully two different dragon bloodlines may co-exist. What if marrying outside the family means you have to give up dragonriding altogether because your new spouse's family dragons simply would never accept a dragon from outside their bloodline living amongst them? Or say they might attempt to roast anyone who smells like the wrong sort of dragon to them. That's a pretty shitty, miserable life for a woman who has experienced soaring above the earth and flying to distant lands, tasted the thrill of diving through clouds etc.  

We do know the Targaryens inter-married with the Velaryons, who were not dragonriders. But they never to our knowledge married with the Celtigars, why?  Surely the Celtigars should have been the Targaryens other family of choice post-doom. But not once has the dragon joined with the crab. 

The dragons themselves...that might depend on whether the blood-bonding went both ways. If it's a matter of a different human's blood in the dragon, the dragons might take their cues from their riders: if my rider says this new human is okay, then her dragon must be okay too. If there's dragonblood in the humans as well, that could definitely restrict which dragons would bond with which humans. With magic involved the dragons might potentially be able to pick up on blood feuds between the families, which could make marrying to end feuds dangerous for the dragon that goes to live in the "enemy" lair/pit/stable. Might require another magical fire and blood ceremony to make it safe. And if there's any danger to the ritual itself, that's yet another argument in favor of incest as the usual thing.

I think maybe they never married with the Celtigars either because the Celtigars were even further below them or because of the dragonblood thing. Once a Targaryen woman married into House Velaryon, there was dragonblood in their line, which makes them fit consorts for future Targaryens. It's also possible that the Celtigars had been supporters of a different dragonlord family (perhaps a more powerful one back in Valyria) and they didn't consider the Targs good enough, as well as the Targs not wanting to mix with a rival family's supporters.

The Velaryons were at Driftmark before the Targs left Valyria, and claimed the Driftwood throne was given to them by the Merling King. So there's a royalty aspect, not to mention that they made a fortune controlling the eastern seas of Westeros. The alliance between Velaryon and Targaryen gave them the air and the seas. The Celtigars don't seem to have had much to offer, despite being supposed to be fabulously wealthy.

Crispian Celtigar did serve as Master of Coin for Aegon I though, and Edwell Celtigar was Hand to Maegor. Those don't strike me as particularly Valyrian names. Maybe the Velaryons practiced incest and kept their lines pure while the Celtigars didn't?