Would the Blackfyres have been better?

[DominusNovus]

 

9 hours ago, Dorian Martell's son said:

No sir, your inability to discuss literary  characters without out their literal personal agency is asinine. Also, you can have all the conversations you speak of, without speaking of a character's agency and choice, by discussing them as characters in a book and the characters actions in relation to the story. 

By your standards, no character has agency, within the confines of the story. Ned didn't raise Jon out of a sense of love for his family, he did it because GRRM wrote it.  From a technical standpoint, you're correct, but it means that we can't draw any conclusions from their actions.  We can't say 'Ah, Ned has been shown as the sort of person who cares about honor more than anything else, except the wellbeing of his family, so we can deduce that it is reasonable that he might have lied about the Jon's parentage, in order to protect him.'  All we can say is 'GRRM wrote Ned.'  There' no room for reading in between the lines in your interpretation.

9 hours ago, Dorian Martell's son said:

So this is literally the problem here. The author literally said he hates fan fic. There is absolutely no room for disagreement or arguing.

I'm not disagreeing that he hates fanfic.  I'm just saying it doesn't matter.  All any of us owe GRRM is the price of his published works, and nothing more.

[Nihlus]

3 hours ago, falcotron said:

Let's just ditch civilization. No Fisher Queens, no Dawn Empire, when the Deep Ones come up to the coastal cities and say "Hey, humans, want some civilization?" just say "No, my mom told me that you always give the first dose for free to get me hooked and then I have to start paying for it. I think I'll stick to hunting and gathering and occasionally getting eaten by tigers, thank you."

Nah, civilization is nice. We just need to get rid of the Valyrian Fucking Shits.

[falcotron]

2 hours ago, Nihlus said:

Nah, civilization is nice.

I'll bet it's the "getting eaten by tigers" bit that turned you off, right? I'm not a great salesman. 

[DominusNovus]

14 hours ago, Nihlus said:

Nah, civilization is nice. We just need to get rid of the Valyrian Fucking Shits.

In all seriousness, something occurs to me: if Valyria relied on blood magic from their slaves to maintain their empire, and they inherited the practice of slavery from the Ghiscari, how did Valyria work before that?

[falcotron]

4 hours ago, DominusNovus said:

In all seriousness, something occurs to me: if Valyria relied on blood magic from their slaves to maintain their empire, and they inherited the practice of slavery from the Ghiscari, how did Valyria work before that?

Maybe not as well, but then they wouldn't have had to.

Before running into Ghis, Valyria "only" had 40 families of dragon riders and some inferior non-slave-driven magic, but then they only had the peninsula to control.

I'm not actually sure whether they developed that slave magic after first contact with Ghis, or only after winning the final war. But it actually works even better if it's only after the war. The reason they salted rather than occupied the core Ghiscari territory is that they weren't powerful enough to hold it yet. But once they had that slave magic, now they were powerful enough to dominate half a continent.

[Dorian Martell's son]

19 hours ago, DominusNovus said:

By your standards, no character has agency, within the confines of the story. Ned didn't raise Jon out of a sense of love for his family, he did it because GRRM wrote it.  From a technical standpoint, you're correct, but it means that we can't draw any conclusions from their actions.  We can't say 'Ah, Ned has been shown as the sort of person who cares about honor more than anything else, except the wellbeing of his family, so we can deduce that it is reasonable that he might have lied about the Jon's parentage, in order to protect him.'  All we can say is 'GRRM wrote Ned.'  There' no room for reading in between the lines in your interpretation.

again, you are missing the point. Yes, GRRM wrote ned to raise jon, but he wrote ned as raising jon because he loved his sister. There is nothing wrong with that, but trying to extrapolate what ned would do in a radically different circumstance is where people run into trouble unless they talk to the author himself. 

19 hours ago, DominusNovus said:

I'm not disagreeing that he hates fanfic.  I'm just saying it doesn't matter.  All any of us owe GRRM is the price of his published works, and nothing more.

It should matter if you have respect for the artist and the art 

[DominusNovus]

47 minutes ago, Dorian Martell's son said:

again, you are missing the point. Yes, GRRM wrote ned to raise jon, but he wrote ned as raising jon because he loved his sister. There is nothing wrong with that, but trying to extrapolate what ned would do in a radically different circumstance is where people run into trouble unless they talk to the author himself. 

First of all, you're still missing the point I'm making, which I honestly am too bored with this back and forth to re-iterate, and what trouble can someone run into in such extrapolation?

47 minutes ago, Dorian Martell's son said:

It should matter if you have respect for the artist and the art 

Thats the point I disagree on.

[Dorian Martell's son]

15 hours ago, DominusNovus said:

First of all, you're still missing the point I'm making, which I honestly am too bored with this back and forth to re-iterate, and what trouble can someone run into in such extrapolation?

If you are bored, why respond? 

15 hours ago, DominusNovus said:

Thats the point I disagree on.

You have never tried to be creative 

[ChuckPunch]

I don't think it really mattered who won.

Blackfyre supporters were just angling to improve their lot. Daemon and Daeron were equally decent people with shitty bastard advisors that couldn't fix anything from either side. Daemon was technically "more" Targaryen if you go solely based on parentage so it's a bit funny that he isn't the "Targaryen" in this debate. 

 

He should have taken Targaryen as his given name when he had the chance. 

[DominusNovus]

2 hours ago, Dorian Martell's son said:

You have never tried to be creative 

What do you mean with that?

[falcotron]

2 hours ago, ChuckPunch said:

He should have taken Targaryen as his given name when he had the chance.

That's actually an interesting point. Would more people have fought for him as a (legitimized) Targaryen than as a Blackfyre? Would fewer people have fought for the Blacks if Rhaenyra had fought as Rhaenyra Velaryon instead of Targaryen? (Of course she solved that problem by marrying back into the Targaryen family after Laenor died, but it could have been an interesting precedent otherwise.) Would Robert's Rebellion have been easier if he'd had claimed to be continuing the Targaryen dynasty rather than replacing it with Baratheon?

We can't really turn to English history for this one. Rhaenyra's counterpart Matilda did fight as Matilda of Normandy rather than her married name, but that was more about not wanting to remind people that the Empress would be the Queen of England. And her opponent, Stephen of Blois, set the precedent that nobody gave a damn about the dynastic house name (hence Plantagenet, Lancaster, York, Tudor, etc.). That's definitely not the case in Westeros, as Robert proves.

 

[Dorian Martell's son]

4 hours ago, DominusNovus said:

What do you mean with that?

I guess I must spell it out
If you have tried to be truly creative, with all the work, effort, stress, frustration, anger, sadness, love and the unique joy and utter satisfaction that comes from taking an original idea of your own and seeing it to fruition, you would have more inherent respect for people like GRRM. But you don't, so that says everything  

[OberynBlackfyre]

I love the Blackfyres and although my character married into theirs from House Dayne on the ICE AND FIRE RPG on reddit.....i have to say that the Blackfyres honestly probably wouldn't have made better Kings IN THE END. 

Honestly I think it was bullshit of Bloodraven to have killed the Blackfyre that came to have his say at the COUNCIL that eventually crowned KING AEGON V, the UNLIKELY.    He was a good King, but I think the thing could have been handled far better.  The Blackfyre should have been given the chance to at least marry into the family or perhaps even be King with Aegon as his heir for the moment.  Aegon V's sons really destabilized the realm, because if they had just done their duty and married for alliances, the Targaryens would have had a relationship with all the great Houses basically for the next 100 years-instead they ALL basically fucked over their dad....which I think could have been what culminated in Summerhall.  

Anyway, I think Daemon Blackfyre got seduced and controlled by Bittersteel, but my real Blackfyre support comes down the line to Aenys Blackfyre that came from Tyrosh under promise of Bloodraven to give his say for the throne.  Honestly he could have attacked, especially with the realm destabilized with no king and no really "acceptable" heir.  I think he could have won as well.  Instead he would rather plead his case.  So id like to think that made him an ok guy, with honor.  But Bloodraven had him beheaded right when he got there....so yeah.  

[DominusNovus]

1 hour ago, Dorian Martell's son said:

I guess I must spell it out
If you have tried to be truly creative, with all the work, effort, stress, frustration, anger, sadness, love and the unique joy and utter satisfaction that comes from taking an original idea of your own and seeing it to fruition, you would have more inherent respect for people like GRRM. But you don't, so that says everything  

Ah, you're making personal attacks and entirely unfounded assumptions. I wanted to give you the benefit of the doubt and not assume you were doing that. I'll refrain engaging you any further out of respect for everyone else on this forum's time.

[falcotron]

2 hours ago, OberynBlackfyre said:

He was a good King, but I think the thing could have been handled far better.  The Blackfyre should have been given the chance to at least marry into the family

I think the biggest problem was that Aenys wasn't even the heir to the Blackfyre line. He was Haegon's younger brother, but Haegon already had a son, Daemon, who Bittersteel had crowned in exile.

Obviously it still would have been fairer and better to give Aenys some lordship and a special courtesy title or something and maybe even pledge Aegon's first daughter to his first son instead of murdering him, but I'm not sure it would have done that much to affect the Fourth Blackfyre Rebellion (which was already pretty minor and easily put down), or the Ninepenny Kings (Maegor wouldn't have cared that he had another Blackfyre cousin out there living fat and happy in the crownlands or whatever), or fAegon. (Although I suppose without a spare daughter lying around there might have been no Baratheon marriage and Robert's Rebellion could have gone very differently…)

[OberynBlackfyre]

10 hours ago, falcotron said:

I think the biggest problem was that Aenys wasn't even the heir to the Blackfyre line. He was Haegon's younger brother, but Haegon already had a son, Daemon, who Bittersteel had crowned in exile.

Obviously it still would have been fairer and better to give Aenys some lordship and a special courtesy title or something and maybe even pledge Aegon's first daughter to his first son instead of murdering him, but I'm not sure it would have done that much to affect the Fourth Blackfyre Rebellion (which was already pretty minor and easily put down), or the Ninepenny Kings (Maegor wouldn't have cared that he had another Blackfyre cousin out there living fat and happy in the crownlands or whatever), or fAegon. (Although I suppose without a spare daughter lying around there might have been no Baratheon marriage and Robert's Rebellion could have gone very differently…)

No see Bittersteel crowned Haegon when the SECOND Blackfyre Rebellion failed...however they kept DAEMON II alive, yet Bittersteel still crowned DAEMON III. However that was basically completely illegitimate at the time since DAEMON II was still alive, albeit prisoner.  
Also I think Aenys was kinda stating damn the lineage, he was making his claim as no other Blackfyre did- peacefully and within the right timing.  I mean at this point the Targaryens were really in bad shape.  Since Daeron II they had basically been decimated.  Which it was the 4th son (Maekar) that had to become King.   Im not against AEGON V at all, I just think that AENYS could have been a much better choice for the time being.

[falcotron]

19 minutes ago, OberynBlackfyre said:

No see Bittersteel crowned Haegon when the SECOND Blackfyre Rebellion failed...however they kept DAEMON II alive, yet Bittersteel still crowned DAEMON III. However that was basically completely illegitimate at the time since DAEMON II was still alive, albeit prisoner.  

You may think it's completely illegitimate, but the Blackfyre supporters were all willing for fight for Daemon III. As we know by the fact that they did fight for Daemon III in the Fourth Blackfyre Rebellion. And that's all that matters.

So, if the Targaryens had played nice with Aenys and promised him a daughter-in-law in exchange for renouncing any Blackfyre claim, would Bittersteel, Daemon, or most of their supporters have been all that mollified? They certainly wouldn't have renounced Daemon's claim. They might have delayed attacking, and kept delaying until the moment was passed, but they might have invaded the same as they did in the actual history. And it definitely wouldn't have affected the Ninepenny Kings, or fAegon (assuming he's a Blackfyre). So, it's a nice idea, and was the honorable thing to do, but I don't think it would have helped much.

(Well, except from Aenys's point of view. I'm sure he'd rather be living it up in the Crownlands waiting for Egg to have a daughter to give him, than be executed.)

[OberynBlackfyre]

15 minutes ago, falcotron said:

You may think it's completely illegitimate, but the Blackfyre supporters were all willing for fight for Daemon III. As we know by the fact that they did fight for Daemon III in the Fourth Blackfyre Rebellion. And that's all that matters.

So, if the Targaryens had played nice with Aenys and promised him a daughter-in-law in exchange for renouncing any Blackfyre claim, would Bittersteel, Daemon, or most of their supporters have been all that mollified? They certainly wouldn't have renounced Daemon's claim. They might have delayed attacking, and kept delaying until the moment was passed, but they might have invaded the same as they did in the actual history. And it definitely wouldn't have affected the Ninepenny Kings, or fAegon (assuming he's a Blackfyre). So, it's a nice idea, and was the honorable thing to do, but I don't think it would have helped much.

(Well, except from Aenys's point of view. I'm sure he'd rather be living it up in the Crownlands waiting for Egg to have a daughter to give him, than be executed.)

Well you're saying this with assuming the fact that the GC would never crown Aenys as Kings of the Seven Kingdoms when honestly I believe he had the best shot.  He was grown, seemed intelligent, and was at least brave enough to come to a place where he knew at least some people wanted him dead.  And possibly without any support from his other Blackfyre family.   If the GC had picked him, that would have fractured the supporting around DAEMON III because now there would be a Blackfyre on the actual throne of Westeros.  All Aenys would have to do is point out that Daemon III's crowning was illegitimate as DAEMON II was still alive when he was crowned.

Would this have made Bittersteel stop warring? Probably not.  His war was with Bloodraven, not because he wanted a Blackfyre on the throne.  He wanted war, period.  But this would have drastically hurt any support he had because the "cause" would have been accomplished.

[falcotron]

3 minutes ago, OberynBlackfyre said:

Well you're saying this with assuming the fact that the GC would never crown Aenys as Kings of the Seven Kingdoms when honestly I believe he had the best shot.

I'm not assuming that at all.

You brought up the scenario that "the Blackfyre should have been given the chance to at least marry into the family", and I responded that doing so is a nice idea, but probably wouldn't have changed all that much.

Obviously electing him king would change a lot more than just giving him a Targaryen wife or daughter-in-law, but that's not what we were talking about.

[Pikachu101]

I doubt it simply because they're just like the Targaryens especially if it's Daemon's line because he's 100% Targ. There's 0 indication that the Blackfyres would end the inbreeding that plagued the dynasty which in turn ostracised them from the rest of Westeros.