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Is Jon and Dany's blood relationship supposed to be a problem?


Ser Petyr Parker

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1 minute ago, Lord Varys said:

This is actually a funny story considering that it shows that the whole incest thing is much more cultural than religiously motivated - although religion certainly serves as a means to enshrine customs like that.

It seems like religion may affect how strong the incest taboo is, but not where the borders are drawn.* Which is kind of odd, but I'm not sure what it would mean.

1 minute ago, Lord Varys said:

That really shows that the whole incest taboo thing doesn't has a rational basis in the cultures it exist but simply wants to condemn 'improper behavior' between family members. It really hinges on the definition of family.

Well, the idea of incest being morally disgusting seems to be a human universal. And lots of other mammals seem to have the equivalent of an incest taboo, too. So, it's not just some random social construct, or some attempt to keep people down,* or anything like that. Evolutionarily, it made sense for our ancestors to not just avoid sleeping with their sisters, but to be disgusted with the notion of anyone sleeping with their sisters. Of course that doesn't prove it's rational, but we can't just assume that it isn't.

Anyway, humans being complex social creatures, every society ends up with different complex rules about family, so it's not surprising that they end up with different rules about what counts as incest.* And meanwhile, human minds are as complex as human societies, so we're able to get confused when the different markers (look like me, raised with me, labeled "cousin", same last name, emotionally close, etc.) don't all go together. And then when we try to rationalize things to make them easier to understand, we get things like the late 19th century quacks who sold different dietary supplements to avoid birth defects for different degrees of incest or early 20th century eugenicists trying to work out the costs of occasional inbreeding vs. the risks of race mixing so you could make a plan your descendants' marriages for the next few generations until the government was ready to take over the planning.

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* The Catholic Church actually did try to declare that everything up to a sixth cousin was a sin unless you paid them to absolve you. That didn't make anyone in Europe start being disgusted by sixth-cousin marriages. It did make some people start being disgusted by the Catholic Church, or at least start dissociating their beliefs on incest from the official Church teachings. But then Luther may have been right that the Church were motivated by money, not by a desire to improve society, so maybe that's not a good example.

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12 minutes ago, StepStark said:

Yes, I indeed misinterpreted the text at one point, sorry about that. But still, it doesn't make the actual quote any more conclusive. Like, if they had romantic feelings for each other while they thought they're half-siblings, it is only logical that they're relieved once they find out they're "only" cousins. But we definitely don't know that "they would have gotten together", as you said in the post I reacted to. Not even in the end of story as far as we know it Jon and Arya "gotten together".

Well, the impression we get there is that they are, in a sense, already together while they believe they are half-siblings, no? They love each other, perhaps they do not consummate their relationship, or only have sex once in a very emotional moment, or whatever. There is also this deadly rivalry between Tyrion and Jon, so this whole love triangle thing is actually real. Arya and Jon love each other, Tyrion loves Arya, but Arya does not love Tyrion - and they all know that and it influences their actions.

I agree with you, though, that we don't know whether they would have gotten together in the end - however, the impression we get is that the main obstacle for their love - the incest thing - was supposed to be removed by the Jon revelation. One assumes that unless Tyrion killed (one of) them or one/both of them did not survive the series they would have gotten together in the end. Apparently a huge chunk - or rather the only relevant part of their story important enough to be included in that outline - was this tormented love and the adjacent love triangle.

We have no reason to believe that they would have ended up with different lovers in the end or decided to conclude that they weren't destined to be together after all in the very end.

And thinking about that whole thing - I really think that remnants of this story/development were still there when George began writing the Arya chapters of ACoK. After all, from a narrative point of view one really, really expects that Arya eventually gets up north to Jon or at least to her family and/or Winterfell. Most of Arya's story there is a waste of pages and a drawn-on dead end. Yes, she interacts with interesting persons and goes through interesting things but she doesn't get anywhere. She goes in circles and circles, and one assumes that George really changed her story in medias res rather than actually knowing that she would eventually end up in Braavos when he wrote her first chapters on the road.

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7 minutes ago, falcotron said:

It seems like religion may affect how strong the incest taboo is, but not where the borders are drawn.* Which is kind of odd, but I'm not sure what it would mean.

Well, isn't the whole consanguinity thing actually based on biblical texts? That's where religion enshrined (primitive) cultural restrictions but, of course, it is the Church/religious authorities who decides which sections of the holy books matter more than others. Those texts never give reasons as to why you shouldn't marry your brother's widow or stuff like that.

7 minutes ago, falcotron said:

Well, the idea of incest being morally disgusting seems to be a human universal. And lots of other mammals seem to have the equivalent of an incest taboo, too. So, it's not just some random social construct, or some attempt to keep people down,* or anything like that. Evolutionarily, it made sense for our ancestors to not just avoid sleeping with their sisters, but to be disgusted with the notion of anyone sleeping with their sisters. Of course that doesn't prove it's rational, but we can't just assume that it isn't.

Do you have any examples for mammals having some sort of incest taboo? I'd be really interested in that. From what I know about those mammal species which keep harems - like lions - have a rather strong tendency to inbreed. The more offspring are descended from you the lower the genetic diversity gets. That's actually a problem in human populations of polygamous (Mormon) sects. And then there are those who who in general work themselves into a frenzy, assembling and trying to do anything to get a shot at a female - or as many females as possible - they really don't care whether they procreate with a sister, a cousin, etc. Think about the huge groups of females a single seal or sea elephant tries to impregnate. Especially, of course, if there is a bottleneck and they can only (or predominantly) produce offspring with close relatives.

Many mammals and other species are only sexual active during a short time period each year - or even once in their lifetime, and then this whole thing completely rules their lives.

I know that quite a few whale species - and also mammals like elephants - usually live apart. Matriarchs rule groups of females who are only occasionally visited by males to procreate. There incest most likely doesn't happen all that much but I'm not sure this can be described as an ingrained incest taboo.

I find it rather more likely that a sufficiently fertile population very quickly reaches a point where procreation among close relatives decreases dramatically. You have so many sex partners to choose from, after all.

7 minutes ago, falcotron said:

Anyway, humans being complex social creatures, every society ends up with different complex rules about family, so it's not surprising that they end up with different rules about what counts as incest.* And meanwhile, human minds are as complex as human societies, so we're able to get confused when the different markers (look like me, raised with me, labeled "cousin", same last name, emotionally close, etc.) don't all go together. And then when we try to rationalize things to make them easier to understand, we get things like the late 19th century quacks who sold different dietary supplements to avoid birth defects for different degrees of incest or early 20th century eugenicists trying to work out the costs of occasional inbreeding vs. the risks of race mixing so you could make a plan your descendants' marriages for the next few generations until the government was ready to take over the planning.

Well, the difference there is that there are different concepts there - one is actual biological inbreeding which is measurable and can have real effects on the offspring of such unions - and the other are just arbitrary social norms. But whatever is defined as forbidden sex in this way is usually punished very harshly. That seems to imply the problem is the way we deal with the spheres of sex and family as such, not so much the fact that certain types of continuous incestuous unions really can cause a lot of problems.

After all, there were societies where religion and state very much supported incestuous unions - ancient Persia, Egypt, etc. If the societal norms are different there are no or different 'incest taboos' - and/or there might still be other taboos regarding sexual and family relations in place supported by whatever religion or school of thought is dominant.

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15 hours ago, LucyMormont said:

After reading the 10 pages on this thread, it seems to me that the overall positions are
1) Incest is a very bad thing, aunt-nephew romantic/sexual relationship is incest; they should be severely troubled by it and, either they will end it or it will be doomed by circumstances outside them.
2) Incest is a bad thing, but aunt-nephiew is not viewed as incest. So, they'll go on after the initial shock.

I am mostly in the 2) position, but my problem with 1) is not that they disagree, my main problem  is basically that its proponents want this series to become some sort of Aesop's Fable, that teaches the reader/viewer about right and wrong, and to lecture the audience in the direction of their particular mindset/point of view. Geez, this is a fantasy world, and a fictional story! WHY would anyone want that?? I certainly do not want that, I am perfectly happy with a fictional world with its own rules, mindset and worldview.
That's why, while I am a fervent opponent to the death penalty and certainly would not admire anybody who defends it in real life, and I strongly feel nothing but disgust for a person who administers a lethal dose to another human being (however impersonal the process), still Ned Stark is my favorite character of this whole series, and mi admiration for him does not diminish because he beheads people considered criminals in that worldview. And while I abhor real war, real murders, real beheadings, rapes, backstabbing, treason, etc., (most of those things far, far worse than real-life incest); I can sit and somehow enjoy watching a gorgeous fake dragon torching a bunch of fictional people  or a well filmed battle secuence. I have not seen any of those in real life, but sure as hell I would not like them a little bit.
But hey, to each his own.

This is how I view it. What happens in the story is not an endorsement of such actions in real life. 

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13 hours ago, falcotron said:

I was talking with a friend of mine about this, and I think I understand it now. Incest is one of the things that triggers moral feelings of disgust, rather than outrage, like having sex with a pig vs. betraying a friend, and it's actually harder for us to think about them rationally than the outrageous things.

She actually abandoned her religion over this. She was raised in the Philippines, where cousin sex counts as incest, then went to school in Saudi Arabia, where it doesn't. She was so disgusted she went to her imam to ask why so many Arabs are so shameless and immoral when Islam has such strong provisions against incest. He showed her that the provisions in the Koran are all explicitly about siblings and lineal descendants, and that Muhammad himself had married a cousin, so as far as God was concerned, she was wrong, and her neighbors were not committing incest or doing anything else wrong. So she decided God was wrong, became an atheist,* and moved to Denmark.

And yes, when she learned that Ned's parents were cousins, her initial reaction was to lose respect for the Stark family and to start thinking Westeros needs to be fixed. Fortunately, ASoIaF is more important to her than something as trivial as her childhood religion, so she's been able to get over it and realize that we're supposed to see the Starks in a positive light while still rejecting the Lannister twincest as incest, but it wasn't easy for her.

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* As an aside, one of the first things she did when she became an atheist is buy and eat some bacon. I've heard similar things from other Muslims, and Jews. Weird that our culture can make us think cousin sex is as disgusting as sibling sex, or not disgusting at all, but it can't make us think eating pigs is as disgusting as eating worms. At most, it can make us feel guilty for wanting to eat bacon, which isn't at all the same thing.

Wow, that is quite a story. I think it perfectly illustrates that our taboos are not rational, and that the social conditioning we receive in our early years can be stronger than anything else, even religion.

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8 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Well, isn't the whole consanguinity thing actually based on biblical texts? That's where religion enshrined (primitive) cultural restrictions but, of course, it is the Church/religious authorities who decides which sections of the holy books matter more than others. Those texts never give reasons as to why you shouldn't marry your brother's widow or stuff like that.

There is a whole list of  forbidden "sexual relations" in the biblical texts, but those prohibitions are not exclusively related to consanguinity, in addition to the closest by-blood ties, you have also:

‘Do not have sexual relations with your father’s wife; that would dishonor your father."

‘Do not dishonor your father’s brother by approaching his wife to have sexual relations; she is your aunt.

‘Do not have sexual relations with your daughter-in-law. She is your son’s wife; do not have relations with her.

‘Do not have sexual relations with your brother’s wife; that would dishonor your brother.

So, it seems that  a major concern was, in such a patriarchal society where women were property, to set rules in order to mantain a peaceful coexistence, so you should "not offend" the males of the family by having sex with their wives, almost in the same sense that it was wrong, let's say, to rob them some sheep of their flock. Outside of the list of banned sexual intercourse, on the contrary cousin marriage seems to have been encouraged

Strangely, those "prohibitions" seem to have survived till  many modern law systems, where along the list of "forbidden" incestuous relationships based on blood ties,  you have also banned in-law ties in many countries that have no biological reason to exist. The legislation of my country is very liberal, but paradoxically it also includes those legal ties. Marriage between ascendants / descendants of the same line, no matter the grade, and no matter whether by blood or in-law, and between siblings or half siblings (again, no matter whether by blood or by law), is prohibited. Everything else is allowed (avuncular, first cousin, etc.). But the prohibitions only refers to legal marriage, incest per se is not punished, because our Constitution states that "The private actions of men who in no way offend public order, nor harm a third part, are reserved only to God, and exempt from the authority of the magistrates"... so, what you do inside your own home is your own business and nobody can intervene. 
Then, here you can marry your aunt/uncle , but not a stepsibling, or an adoptive sibling with whom you have no blood tie at all.. 
Recently a widower who wanted to marry the daughter of his deceased  spouse and was denied permission, went to Court, and obtained a first ruling in favor (saying that our incest laws are outdated and are unconstitutional) , the Office of the Civil Registry appealed, and the case is now in the Supreme Court on hold of the final decision.

 

 

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21 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

 

That wasn't my point. My point was that George originally had a story in mind where two people who were raised as half-siblings actually fell in love with each other and apparently strongly desired each other sexually. That means he actually set up a clichéd standard incest love story. Now things are reversed - assuming the books do the Dany-Jon romance in a similar sequence, with Jon only learning who he actually is after he has fallen in love with Daenerys -, we are getting the love first before the incest door is opened. Which isn't really opened all that wide since it is an avuncular thing not a sibling or parent-children thing.

 

I'm not sure I'm following your reasoning here at all.  GRRM wrote an outline in which incest turns out not  to be an issue and that somehow supports a story where incest turns out to be an issue? I don't see how that outline supports you. 

We know GRRM writes about incest, and how incest is destructive of family lines through madness, deformities and stillbirths (such issues being the real-world issues with incest, for those who think incest isn't an issue).  It's there in ASOIAF and in his other stories, like Skin Trade, etc.  He doesn't endorse it and I'm pretty sure that if (and it's a big if) there is a Jon/Dany hook up in the books, it won't be the trite nonsense we get in the show. The Targaryens are so interbred to the extent of stillbirths and deformities being frequent in their recent history - even for Rhaego, who had an unrelated parent.   Both Jon and Dany have so much interbreeding in their direct and shared Targaryen lineage, there's no way we are getting happy Targaryens with silver haired babies. If GRRM writes it, it won't be "a love story".

 

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10 hours ago, LucyMormont said:

 

Strangely, those "prohibitions" seem to have survived till  many modern law systems, where along the list of "forbidden" incestuous relationships based on blood ties,  you have also banned in-law ties in many countries that have no biological reason to exist. The legislation of my country is very liberal, but paradoxically it also includes those legal ties. Marriage between ascendants / descendants of the same line, no matter the grade, and no matter whether by blood or in-law, and between siblings or half siblings (again, no matter whether by blood or by law), is prohibited. Everything else is allowed (avuncular, first cousin, etc.). But the prohibitions only refers to legal marriage, incest per se is not punished, because our Constitution states that "The private actions of men who in no way offend public order, nor harm a third part, are reserved only to God, and exempt from the authority of the magistrates"... so, what you do inside your own home is your own business and nobody can intervene. 
Then, here you can marry your aunt/uncle , but not a stepsibling, or an adoptive sibling with whom you have no blood tie at all.. 
Recently a widower who wanted to marry the daughter of his deceased  spouse and was denied permission, went to Court, and obtained a first ruling in favor (saying that our incest laws are outdated and are unconstitutional) , the Office of the Civil Registry appealed, and the case is now in the Supreme Court on hold of the final decision.

 

 

 

Here in the UK a person cannot have a sexual relationship with an aunt/uncle and certainly not marry them.  It is the sexual relationship itself that is a criminal offence.

Prohibitions re. in-law and adoptive 'incest' are more about those who groom young people in their care.  Such prohibitions have been brought into law here in the UK precisely to prevent those who have authority over children in their care having relationships with those children and that grooming can start when children are young even if not acted upon until the child grows up.  These are protective measures.

In-world, you can see this with Viserys - he has effectively groomed Daenerys since she was a child. I have no idea why any reader/watcher would be a proponent of this.

 

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1 hour ago, Ser Quork said:

Here in the UK a person cannot have a sexual relationship with an aunt/uncle and certainly not marry them.  It is the sexual relationship itself that is a criminal offence.

Yes, and that illustrates that even in our occidental modern world, it's not the same everywhere.

1 hour ago, Ser Quork said:

Prohibitions re. in-law and adoptive 'incest' are more about those who groom young people in their care.  Such prohibitions have been brought into law here in the UK precisely to prevent those who have authority over children in their care having relationships with those children and that grooming can start when children are young even if not acted upon until the child grows up.  These are protective measures.

Oh, but that is entirely another thing, you are talking about minor abuse here. I was talking about in-law ties involving only adult people, particularly in the ridiculousness of a legislation that allows a niece to marry an uncle, but forbids  two adults who meet and fall in love to marry, simply because one's father married a month ago  the other's mother, and then they became  legally step siblings, even when they are both adults, independent people,who had no longer lived in his/her parent household.

1 hour ago, Ser Quork said:

In-world, you can see this with Viserys - he has effectively groomed Daenerys since she was a child. I have no idea why any reader/watcher would be a proponent of this.

Viserys was certainly an abusive brother, a child molester and a prick. Would it be less offensive if the abuser was, let's say, Illyrio instead of Viserys?

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14 minutes ago, LucyMormont said:

Yes, and that illustrates that even in our occidental modern world, it's not the same everywhere.

Oh, but that is entirely another thing, you are talking about minor abuse here. I was talking about in-law ties involving only adult people, particularly in the ridiculousness of a legislation that allows a niece to marry an uncle, but forbids  two adults who meet and fall in love to marry, simply because one's father married a month ago  the other's mother, and then they became  legally step siblings, even when they are both adults, independent people,who had no longer lived in his/her parent household.

Viserys was certainly an abusive brother, a child molester and a prick. Would it be less offensive if the abuser was, let's say, Illyrio instead of Viserys?

There is no legislation here that allows a niece to marry an uncle here.  Step siblings are not covered, although adoptive siblings could well be, dependent on circumstances. Your original example though was of widower who wanted to marry his step-daughter - that's a different scenario altogether, and could well be viewed as incestuous if he helped to bring her up.

As to the last paragraph, Illyrio isn't an incestuous example so it's off-topic.  Of course it's offensive, but it's not what is being discussed, which is incest.  My point about Viserys is that he has groomed his younger sister from an early age and she now believes that a familial sexual relationship is acceptable so she is more likely to be accepting of the relationship to Jon (although probably not to his "greater" claim to the |IT).

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3 hours ago, Ser Quork said:

I'm not sure I'm following your reasoning here at all.  GRRM wrote an outline in which incest turns out not  to be an issue and that somehow supports a story where incest turns out to be an issue? I don't see how that outline supports you. 

You don't seem to be following the original argument I made. It is that George has no trouble putting Jon Snow in a position where he loves his own sister. It causes issues for him in the original outline but those are not strong enough to erase or defeat his feelings for Arya.

And thus the very idea that avuncular thing is going to be much of a problem both in the books and the show is ridiculous. If Jon could fall in love with Arya knowing that she is his half-sister and then end up being (most likely) happy with her once he learns that they are first cousins he shouldn't have any problems with the fact that he is fucking his aunt.

Jon is descended from two inbred populations of different degree anyway - the Starks marry their cousins and nieces, and the Targaryens their siblings.

He doesn't even have the arguments how he could condemn such a relationship. He cannot say 'my ancestors never did that', or something of that sort.

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We know GRRM writes about incest, and how incest is destructive of family lines through madness, deformities and stillbirths (such issues being the real-world issues with incest, for those who think incest isn't an issue).  It's there in ASOIAF and in his other stories, like Skin Trade, etc.  He doesn't endorse it and I'm pretty sure that if (and it's a big if) there is a Jon/Dany hook up in the books, it won't be the trite nonsense we get in the show. The Targaryens are so interbred to the extent of stillbirths and deformities being frequent in their recent history - even for Rhaego, who had an unrelated parent.   Both Jon and Dany have so much interbreeding in their direct and shared Targaryen lineage, there's no way we are getting happy Targaryens with silver haired babies. If GRRM writes it, it won't be "a love story".

George also, presumably, doesn't endorse rape, slavery, murder, child abuse, etc. yet he still has his main characters commit or suffer through those atrocities. The idea that George would 'endorse incest' by allowing Dany and Jon to be happy lovers doesn't make any sense. If Tyrion survives this series and thrives this doesn't mean it is okay for 13-year-olds to marry, and gang-rape their wives, right?

And, no, there is no internal textual evidence that the birth defects, etc. the Targaryens suffer from is a consequence of incest. Incest is strictly condemned on religious grounds with no one ever giving an explanation as to why it is wrong.

We do know that the Targaryens are not fully human. They have the blood of the dragon, whatever that means. And it is not unlikely that this is the main reason why they tend to have twisted children, mad individuals, etc. And, you know very well, that Rhaego was affected by dark magic. He was not dead in Dany's womb before she was carried into that tent.

If look at the Targaryen incest thing in ASoIaF it is pretty clear that it is a necessary thing for mankind to be saved. The promised prince and the three dragon heads will be born from another incestuous union descended from an already incestuous bloodline. It may also cause trouble (if we assume the incest is to be blamed for the madness, etc. which I'm not so sure of) but that's a small price to pay if humanity is saved.

If you got by that thing then the point of the story is certainly not to show or demonstrate that incest is bad. It is just a practice that may cause certain problems but also help resolve other, larger problems. There are people arguing that Rhaegar abducting Lyanna and causing a war that killed thousands of people was 'necessary' and 'the right thing to do'. Now, if that was true - which I actually doubt - then the Targaryen incest was necessary even more.

And from a political point of view the Targaryen incest was actually helping to keep the Realm at peace. The Targaryen patriarchs kept their women very much in line, preventing that other ambitious great houses acquired royal blood while they were marrying only their sisters. This was ensuring that no ambitious outsiders like Alicent Hightower or Cersei Lannister tried to seize power and plunge the Realm into civil wars. If all the great houses had gotten a recent infusion of royal blood the Realm would have fractured and descended into a decades-long civil war at the end of Robert's Rebellion because there wouldn't have been a clear heir around to succeed Aerys.

I'm sure you know that most medieval wars were caused by succession disputes - which were based on competing blood claims various royal houses acquired by intermarrying with each other. The Targaryens very successfully prevented that from happening by (mostly) marrying their own.

3 hours ago, Ser Quork said:

Here in the UK a person cannot have a sexual relationship with an aunt/uncle and certainly not marry them.  It is the sexual relationship itself that is a criminal offence.

That is just silly. We have that for core incest - among siblings and (grand-)parents-children here, too - but if you think about it that if I, a grown man, actually slept with my mother or grandmother with both of us being perfectly happy and free in that decision, would have to go to prison for that you realize that this is actually insane. The state is not (or should not be) some institution to regulate the sex life of its citizens. Even the whole offspring thing falls flat if you imagine a fifty-year-old son sleeping with his seventy-year-old mother. She is not going to get pregnant, is she?

And no, I don't have any sister to sleep with, nor do have I any inclination to sleep with my mother or grandmother. It is just an example.

Quote

Prohibitions re. in-law and adoptive 'incest' are more about those who groom young people in their care.  Such prohibitions have been brought into law here in the UK precisely to prevent those who have authority over children in their care having relationships with those children and that grooming can start when children are young even if not acted upon until the child grows up.  These are protective measures.

That is faulty reasoning. You can deal with that by standard laws defining what sexual child abuse is. If a child becomes an adult it isn't the state's business to decide with whom he or she is allowed to have sex with. That's at least how things should be the case if you are living in a free society. We are all the products of our genes and our environments. You or I aren't in control of the sexual desires we have, the people we fall in love with, the sexual fantasies we have, etc. The state saying you cannot do certain things you want to do just because it might be that you developed those desires while you were a child doesn't make any sense. You could use the same line of reasoning against homosexuality, certain BDSM practices, or any other branch of sexuality you don't like or care for.

Adults have a right - even if they were tricked and manipulated into wanting something - to actually get that thing if they are adults. And you don't harm yourself or anyone else if you sleep with your father or mother or sibling at the age of 25.

If a parent or another close relative wants to groom and then abuse a child he or she will most likely succeed, anyway. After all, families have a lot of privacy in their bedrooms, do they not? Making special incest laws for this actually do also criminalize the victim of sexual abuse by a close relative.

Criminalizing consensual incest among adults just causes trouble for actual adults who don't abuse anyone. Not to mention that it makes matters much worse for close biological kin who didn't grew up together and/or don't even know that they are kin before they find out.

For adoptive or step-relations that causes even more troubles. If your father takes a new wife and you suddenly have very attractive new 'siblings' or stepparent you have never seen before and you are in your teens then this is most likely lead rather quickly to sexual attraction of this or that kind. It makes no sense to criminalize such desires, or force yourself to abandon such a relationship just because it unconventional. It is not your fault that your parents have married, is it? And if you had met that boy or girl not as the child of your new stepmother or stepfather you would have been perfectly free in pursuing that relationship. As would the stepmother or stepfather of a stepchild in his/her late teens.

There is also nothing wrong with you if you marry or are with a person and then fall in love with his/her child from another marriage. Those kind of things do happen.

And not every child is falling in love with a stepparent has been 'groomed' by said parent to do so. It is even difficult to decide what constitutes such an action. Am I guilty that my (non-existent) 15-year-old stepdaughter falls in love with me because I'm nice to her, appreciating what she is doing, and spending time with her? Probably not. Just as a nice and attractive teacher is not at fault if some of his or her students fall in love with him or her.

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14 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

You don't seem to be following the original argument I made. It is that George has no trouble putting Jon Snow in a position where he loves his own sister. It causes issues for him in the original outline but those are not strong enough to erase or defeat his feelings for Arya.

And thus the very idea that avuncular thing is going to be much of a problem both in the books and the show is ridiculous. If Jon could fall in love with Arya knowing that she is his half-sister and then end up being (most likely) happy with her once he learns that they are first cousins he shouldn't have any problems with the fact that he is fucking his aunt.

Jon is descended from two inbred populations of different degree anyway - the Starks marry their cousins and nieces, and the Targaryens their siblings.

He doesn't even have the arguments how he could condemn such a relationship. He cannot say 'my ancestors never did that', or something of that sort.

 

I don't follow it because it makes no sense - it's a completely different proposition that does not transfer to this scenario.  That Jon is not this Jon - it is a different story with different characters.

Of course, he does have the argument - the one that is repeated consistently throughout the series, that it's considered an abomination by the Old Gods which he follows.  We shall see.

14 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

And, no, there is no internal textual evidence that the birth defects, etc. the Targaryens suffer from is a consequence of incest.  Incest is strictly condemned on religious grounds with no one ever giving an explanation as to why it is wrong.

 

That's putting the cart before the horse. How do you suppose both real and fictional people came to condemn incest or that it became part of a religion's canon law?  Just because reasons? Because a religion just decided arbitrarily? No, because people observed the incidence of birth defects, stillbirths, madness, etc., increase with incestuous pairings and made their own rules accordingly.

14 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

We do know that the Targaryens are not fully human. They have the blood of the dragon, whatever that means.

 

And it is not unlikely that this is the main reason why they tend to have twisted children, mad individuals, etc. And, you know very well, that Rhaego was affected by dark magic. He was not dead in Dany's womb before she was carried into that tent

 

We are led to believe that, but we don't yet know if they are not fully human or altered by blood/fire magic.

Yes, Rhaego appeared to be killed by dark magic, but we don't know that he wasn't already deformed in the womb.

14 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

If look at the Targaryen incest thing in ASoIaF it is pretty clear that it is a necessary thing for mankind to be saved. The promised prince and the three dragon heads will be born from another incestuous union descended from an already incestuous bloodline. It may also cause trouble (if we assume the incest is to be blamed for the madness, etc. which I'm not so sure of) but that's a small price to pay if humanity is saved.

 

I wonder.  We see magic increase once the dragons are born (potency of wildfire for example)  - it's equally possible that the increase of magic is responsible for the increase in the activity of the Others. We'll need the end of the books to know if this isn't actually a case of self-fulfilling prophecy, which I think is possible.

14 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

And from a political point of view the Targaryen incest was actually helping to keep the Realm at peace. The Targaryen patriarchs kept their women very much in line, preventing that other ambitious great houses acquired royal blood while they were marrying only their sisters. This was ensuring that no ambitious outsiders like Alicent Hightower or Cersei Lannister tried to seize power and plunge the Realm into civil wars. If all the great houses had gotten a recent infusion of royal blood the Realm would have fractured and descended into a decades-long civil war at the end of Robert's Rebellion because there wouldn't have been a clear heir around to succeed Aerys.

I'm sure you know that most medieval wars were caused by succession disputes - which were based on competing blood claims various royal houses acquired by intermarrying with each other. The Targaryens very successfully prevented that from happening by (mostly) marrying their own.

 

Good grief, what does the bolded mean? No, best not answer that.

There's nothing exemplary in hoarding power to one's family irrespective of merit or ability.  Better for the realm to have been able to move past the stagnant monarchical system to a better system of government. Times have to move on, one way or another.

As for the rest, no, it's not "silly" to prohibit aunt/nephew incest.  Blood incest can and does cause health issues in the real world (as it does in fictional Westeros) - the more it happens, the greater the likelihood of health issues.

Unrelated adults meeting as adults isn't going to be an issue for anyone.  However,  the additional protections in law against grooming are child protection measures deemed necessary precisely because some people take advantage of their positions in authority for their own gratification.  You call it silly if you like but this isn't a conversation I will have with you as it's just too disturbing that some people think such things are acceptable or shrug them off as inevitable.  I won't respond to anything else in that vein.

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Guys, you should really stop with this "old gods forbid it" nonsense.

The so-called 'old gods' are actually half-fossilized Children of the Forrest who don't give two fucks about how humans breed, which Jon may find out soon, since Bran is now among them and may try to talk to his siblings.

For that matter, the old gods supposedly forbid sexual relations and marriage between parents and children and between siblings. Everything else is fair game.

No matter how much you try to skim over it, historically Starks married uncles to nieces. That is a historical fact in this fictional universe. The only arguments against it are "it was long ago" (by ASoIaF standards, no, it really wasn't) or "these Starks were bad" for which there is zero evidence.

I dare anyone to find me an actual quote from any of the books, in which the Northmen call an avuncular union an abomination. Where is it? Then I will reconsider my argument that avuncular marriage between historical Starks shows that the North is okay with it.

As for GRRM "condoning incest"... do realize that these books are certain to end with a monarchy, right? People of Westeros know no other form of rule. Do you really believe that writing such ending means that GRRM "condones" hereditary rulership in our real world? Do you believe that GRRM condones that some guy (let's call him Ned Stark) sees an escaped prisoner and decides on the spot that this person that is not in any way threatening him deserves to die, and he becomes the said person's judge, jury, and executioner? 

@Ser Quork

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I wonder.  We see magic increase once the dragons are born (potency of wildfire for example)  - it's equally possible that the increase of magic is responsible for the increase in the activity of the Others. We'll need the end of the books to know if this isn't actually a case of self-fulfilling prophecy, which I think is possible.

At one point in history, there had been at least a dozen fully grown dragons right there in Westeros. Had the Others invaded the Seven Kingdoms at that point? They had not. Is there any mention of the rumors of the Others reappearing around that time? There is not.

Therefore I ask the question, if the Others were not roused by dragons breeding and growing in Westeros for generations, why would a trio of baby dragons somewhere in Essos light the proverbial fire under their asses just now?

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1 hour ago, Ser Quork said:

Yes, Rhaego appeared to be killed by dark magic, but we don't know that he wasn't already deformed in the womb.

He looked like a healthy child in Daenerys vision, which is pretty much the only source we have.
Safer to assume then, that he was normal, and not deformed.

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1 hour ago, Ser Quork said:

I don't follow it because it makes no sense - it's a completely different proposition that does not transfer to this scenario.  That Jon is not this Jon - it is a different story with different characters.

It is the same story in a different form, outlined by the same author. It is about the same characters. But the important point is that the author was willing or entertaining the notion of writing that story, and that means George had no problem having to of his leads - who didn't come out of an incestuous family - fall in love with each other.

And by the way - Targaryen incest is also not part of the original outline yet. That may have come only later, when the Jon-Arya thing was scrapped.

1 hour ago, Ser Quork said:

Of course, he does have the argument - the one that is repeated consistently throughout the series, that it's considered an abomination by the Old Gods which he follows.  We shall see.

See @lojzelote for that. In addition, we should note that Bloodraven actually had sex with his half-sister Shiera Seastar and proposed to her a dozen times or more. He follows the old gods, and he didn't care. Not to mention, you know, that the followers of the old gods apparently don't care about Stark avuncular marriages. Else they would have put down Jonnel Stark, Edric Stark, Sansa Stark, and Serena Stark and their children as 'abominations'.

The idea that the old gods - who actually are nothing but the greenseers of the Children of the Forest (and the giants and humans joining their ranks) actually give shit about human marital practices and sexual preferences is ridiculous. People say the gods (who do not really exist) have forbidden things. That's it.

1 hour ago, Ser Quork said:

That's putting the cart before the horse. How do you suppose both real and fictional people came to condemn incest or that it became part of a religion's canon law?  Just because reasons? Because a religion just decided arbitrarily? No, because people observed the incidence of birth defects, stillbirths, madness, etc., increase with incestuous pairings and made their own rules accordingly.

Can you actually prove that? Not all rules from holy books and ancient traditions are rational, just as not all definitions of incest have to do with biological inbreeding. If people had enforced incest taboo to preserve genetic variety in a population then there wouldn't have been any exceptions from those rules, nor would the powerful and educated (i.e. the elite in the middle ages) have demanded exemptions from the rules for themselves. The royal families wouldn't have married amongst themselves had they known that this would cause their children and grandchildren trouble.

1 hour ago, Ser Quork said:

We are led to believe that, but we don't yet know if they are not fully human or altered by blood/fire magic.

We know that pretty well, actually, because we also do know why the Valyrian dragonlords began to practice incest. To keep their own 'magical' bloodlines pure. If they had just intended to prevent the magical blood to spread to other 'lesser men' they could just have prevented their female kin from marrying at all. That shouldn't have been that hard or difficult. The only reason to marry them themselves is to keep the preserve the magic in their blood and to prevent it from becoming so diluted that they could no longer control the basis of their power - the dragons.

1 hour ago, Ser Quork said:

I wonder.  We see magic increase once the dragons are born (potency of wildfire for example)  - it's equally possible that the increase of magic is responsible for the increase in the activity of the Others. We'll need the end of the books to know if this isn't actually a case of self-fulfilling prophecy, which I think is possible.

The Others are already active long before the dragons return. So perhaps the dragons did return because the Others returned first? We don't know that as of yet, but it is actually very likely that the absence of the dragons led to the Others making their move. They are playing a long game and there must be a reason why did not attack while the Targaryens had twenty dragons or while the Valyrians had still hundreds of dragons.

The Ghost's prophecy is certainly 'self-fulfilling' in the sense that Aerys and Rhaella married each other because of that prophecy. But unless the promised prince turns out to be some evil guy that has to be put down (unlikely if you ask me) he or or she or they will save the world, and if they do that then everything that led to that was literally necessary to accomplish that. That doesn't mean it was good or noble or morally correct, but it can then be justified within the framework of the story.

At least when you care about humanity winning and the Others losing. If you find the Others are justified in eradicating mankind - which they actually might be (we don't know while we don't know their reasoning) - then anything the 'good guys' is most likely not going to be justified.

1 hour ago, Ser Quork said:

Good grief, what does the bolded mean? No, best not answer that.

It means that a patriarchal monarchy in this setting has to prevent its women from helping rival houses to acquire a blood claim to their throne. If they do, and there is a moment of weakness, then the throne is going to be usurped. Just imagine what would have happened to our Starks if Lyanna had ended up with Roose Bolton rather than Rhaegar.

Allowing wives from ambitious and powerful houses into your family can also cause problems, of course, but they join your family. If you marry your daughters off to others they become part of other families and thus also part of the extended royal family.

1 hour ago, Ser Quork said:

There's nothing exemplary in hoarding power to one's family irrespective of merit or ability.  Better for the realm to have been able to move past the stagnant monarchical system to a better system of government. Times have to move on, one way or another.

Not in this series. This is a series in medieval feudal monarchy. The best form of government in this setting is an absolute monarchy with an enlightened monarch - or pair of monarchs - at the top who break the power of the lords and better the lives of the commoners so that, with time, can come a change towards a more egalitarian society. At the point where there are now there is not the slightest chance that the masses could participate in any form of democratic government.

And it is not that the noble families practice a different form of marriage policy than the Targaryens. Sure, they don't marry their sisters, but they also marry within their own social class, which means they pick their brides from a couple of dozen or even less heavily interrelated noble houses. And they sure as hell don't share their power with the lower classes in any way, shape, or form.

1 hour ago, Ser Quork said:

As for the rest, no, it's not "silly" to prohibit aunt/nephew incest.  Blood incest can and does cause health issues in the real world (as it does in fictional Westeros) - the more it happens, the greater the likelihood of health issues.

But that is not something the government has a right to rule upon, does it? If I want to fuck anyone it is our decision whether we want children or not. You could make a case that closely related people should not want to have children. Fine. But while we still allow people who are not closely related but still have a very strong chance (or even certainty) to produce offspring suffering from (a number of) hereditary diseases there is no reason to punish people who are closely related and want to take the risk of producing sick children. Either the health of the entire population is the goal of your laws - and then you have to establish obligatory genetic tests before any intercourse - or it is not - and then you cannot arbitrarily criminalize a certain group where there is a (slightly higher) risk of sick offspring.

Any sane/educated person in love with a close relative is most likely not going want to conceive a child with his or mother or sibling, anyway.

1 hour ago, Ser Quork said:

Unrelated adults meeting as adults isn't going to be an issue for anyone.  However,  the additional protections in law against grooming are child protection measures deemed necessary precisely because some people take advantage of their positions in authority for their own gratification.  You call it silly if you like but this isn't a conversation I will have with you as it's just too disturbing that some people think such things are acceptable or shrug them off as inevitable.  I won't respond to anything else in that vein.

Come on, now, how many uncles actually groom their nieces to become their wives/sex slaves later in life? And how many uncles actually have the power over nieces to actually do that. If a child ends up with his uncle for some reason then the authorities in every proper country should check whether this uncle is really a proper guardian/stepfather to that child like they should in every case where children are handed to adoptive parents, etc.

But that is completely different from you or me falling in love with some uncle we have never spent much time while we are in our late teens or early twenties. Or we could actually both be in the Jon/Dany situation where uncle/aunt and niece/nephew are roughly the same age and thus the niece/nephew is not under the power/authority of the uncle/aunt. There is nothing wrong with sexual desires and romantic feelings in such cases nor is there any reason why the state should stigmatize or even punish such relationships.

Usually those kinds of things should be difficult even without outside interference because the reaction of the environment to that kind of love - even more so to real incest love - should be punishment enough. They should not also have to go to prison for that kind of thing.

And just to clarify - I never said anything that people in power should not be punished for (sexually) abusing children. What I said is that making avuncular relationship and marriages a criminal offense is not exactly helping young children who are actually sexually abused by their parents, uncles, or any other adults in their close environments. Such people usually don't want a proper relationship with their victim. They just use them for their own sexual pleasure and gratification.

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2 hours ago, lojzelote said:

Guys, you should really stop with this "old gods forbid it" nonsense.

The so-called 'old gods' are actually half-fossilized Children of the Forrest who don't give two fucks about how humans breed, which Jon may find out soon, since Bran is now among them and may try to talk to his siblings.

 

The Old Gods is a fictional religion.  I don't believe any reader believes the Old Gods are literally real gods in the story.  So when I say that the Old Gods forbid it, I mean that the tenets of religion of the Old Gods (as practised by the Northerners) forbid it. Which is said a number of times in the series.  I think that is what everyone understands (but you).

1 hour ago, MinscS2 said:

He looked like a healthy child in Daenerys vision, which is pretty much the only source we have.
Safer to assume then, that he was normal, and not deformed.

The baby that was dead looked like a healthy child in a vision so therefore it's safer to assume he was normal?  Why?

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11 minutes ago, Ser Quork said:

The Old Gods is a fictional religion.  I don't believe any reader believes the Old Gods are literally real gods in the story.  So when I say that the Old Gods forbid it, I mean that the tenets of religion of the Old Gods (as practised by the Northerners) forbid it. Which is said a number of times in the series.  I think that is what everyone understands (but you).

 

Oh, I understand very well. The point is, Jon may find out as well. Plus, there is no proof that avuncular marriage is included in their incest taboo. In fact, we have evidence that is not true. Please show me a passage where the Northmen condemn an avuncular marriage in particular. Then I will believe that those historical Starks were really weird and don't count.

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37 minutes ago, Ser Quork said:

The Old Gods is a fictional religion.  I don't believe any reader believes the Old Gods are literally real gods in the story.  So when I say that the Old Gods forbid it, I mean that the tenets of religion of the Old Gods (as practised by the Northerners) forbid it. Which is said a number of times in the series.  I think that is what everyone understands (but you).

But Jon is not one who gives a shit about that particular thing of 'the old gods religion' because he doesn't put down Gilly and her son as 'abominations' which seems what both the Seven and the old gods demand. For the Seven we actually learn that in TSotD. When Maegor takes his second wife and Aenys I marries his children to each other the High Septon and the Faith Militant demand that all those 'abominations' are killed. Incest is not just something you don't do. It is something that is punishable by death, and not just the people committing the abominable crime of incest are killed but also the offspring of such unions.

And - again - no Northmen or Stark ever condemned anyone marrying his aunt, uncle, or cousin.

In fact, Gyldayn tells us what's considering incest in Westeros and condemned as such - brother lying with sister, mother with son, and father with daughter. That's it. Nobody condemns avuncular marriages or cousin marriages.

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The baby that was dead looked like a healthy child in a vision so therefore it's safer to assume he was normal?  Why?

Because this was a vision of what could have transpired had Rhaego not died. Or rather - had Dany not sacrificed him.

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1 hour ago, Lord Varys said:

But Jon is not one who gives a shit about that particular thing of 'the old gods religion' because he doesn't put down Gilly and her son as 'abominations' which seems what both the Seven and the old gods demand. 

That was probably because Gilly and her mother had no say in the matter. He was rational and compassionate.

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