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The Book of Swords - The Sons of the Dragon SPOILERS


Lord Varys

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1 hour ago, The Grey Wolf said:

@Lord Varys

Re characterization: I agree. (That scene of Maegor in the throne room is actually one of my favorites from TSOTD. Evocative.)

As a picture, I like the corpse wedding of Maegor and Tyanna better, but it is clear one of the few scenes where Maegor actually gets some sort of human moment.

1 hour ago, The Grey Wolf said:

Re Maegor's death: GRRM kind of hints that murder is more likely by not building up the suicide angle doesn't he?

Only if we presuppose our own rationale that the guy would have liked the idea of pulling an Aemond and simply terrorizing people with his large dragon. The man thought himself to be a king, though. And the very concept of kingship crumbles if essentially all your people desert and/or take up arms against you.

In that sense, suicide is still in the game, but it is definitely not at the top of the list, unlike in the tale Yandel told us, where @Ran and @Linda made Maegor look 'as broken as Aenys' which is not exacty what George wrote.

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1 minute ago, Lord Varys said:

As a picture, I like the corpse wedding of Maegor and Tyanna better, but it is clear one of the few scenes where Maegor actually gets some sort of human moment.

Only if we presuppose our own rationale that the guy would have liked the idea of pulling an Aemond and simply terrorizing people with his large dragon. The man thought himself to be a king, though. And the very concept of kingship crumbles if essentially all your people desert and/or take up arms against you.

In that sense, suicide is still in the game, but it is definitely not at the top of the list, unlike in the tale Yandel told us, where @Ran and @Linda made Maegor look 'as broken as Aenys' which is not exacty what George wrote.

I forgot about the corpse wedding (which is a nice way of phrasing it btw).

Re suicide: Fair enough. (Tbh I prefer the "broken Maegor" narrative. Much more intense.)

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5 hours ago, The Grey Wolf said:

Re suicide: Fair enough. (Tbh I prefer the "broken Maegor" narrative. Much more intense.)

Sure, it is not bad, but just one among many possible alternatives, both known and unknown to us.

Like with some of the murder mysteries - the death of Laenor Velaryon and the burning of Harrenhal - we simply don't know what happened, and the author doesn't want us to reach the correct conclusion - assuming he even gives us the *correct* conclusion at all.

As I use to say - would anybody in an in-universe book written at that point accuse Olenna Tyrell of the murder of Joffrey? Would any historian assume that Ned's execution was more than Joffrey's whim? Would anybody even remotely suspect Lysa Tully poisoned her lord husband, or that a letter written by her to Catelyn Tully ensured Eddard Stark would accept to become the King's Hand?

I don't think so. And if you don't know somebody had both means and motive to do something then nobody is ever going to suspect that person.

And if subtlety didn't only enter the Seven Kingdoms in the 280s onwards things like that would have happened behind the scenes in the earlier decades, too. For the Dance, etc. George has both Mushroom and Eustace as sources covering stuff that took place behind the scenes, but they would know little to nothing about the truly secret plots and conspiracies.

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On 6/6/2018 at 4:23 PM, Lord Varys said:

Sure, it is not bad, but just one among many possible alternatives, both known and unknown to us.

I just wish the suicide angle was as plausible as the murder angle.

On 6/6/2018 at 4:23 PM, Lord Varys said:

George has both Mushroom and Eustace as sources covering stuff that took place behind the scenes, but they would know little to nothing about the truly secret plots and conspiracies.

Show material.

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7 minutes ago, The Grey Wolf said:

I just wish the suicide angle was as plausible as the murder angle.

That is what I was trying to say - we don't really know Maegor the man, so we don't know how plausible or implausible it is that he should commit suicide in 48 AC - just, as it happens, that we don't know how plausible it is that some of his KG or other people might have intended to kill him - because we don't know that people, either.

More development would be fine, of course.

7 minutes ago, The Grey Wolf said:

Show material.

Don't have to. It is simple logic. Truly secret plots are truly secret plots.

Men like Moon Boy and Jalabhar Xho (and I'd take them as roughly the equivalents of Mushroom and Eustace, respectively) could also paint us a loosely accurate picture of Robert's court, but it would still be ridiculously inaccurate if wanted to have a detailed picture of the inner mechanics of court intrigues.

And it is pretty clear that a lot of stuff in deliberately obscure in the history pieces - the contents of Nymor's letter, the fate of Queen Rhaenys, the parentage of King Aegon's sons, the murders during the reign of Viserys I, the parentage of Rhaenyra's sons, the exact relationship of Rhaenyra and Criston Cole (and Harwin Strong), who was the first to have sex with Alicent, etc.

Although, the Aenys thing seems to be pretty obvious, now that I think of it:

Quote

So unlike King Aegon was he that a few even dared suggest that His Grace was not the boy’s true sire, that Aenys was some bastard born of one of Queen Rhaenys’s many handsome favorites, the son of a singer or a mummer or a mime.

[...]

Aenys was a fine singer himself, as it happened, with a strong, sweet voice.

The Targaryens aren't Targaryens.

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6 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

Don't have to. It is simple logic. Truly secret plots are truly secret plots.

The Targaryens aren't Targaryens.

I meant the Dance would make good show material.

The Targs are secret Romanovs! Quick, someone tell the Russians!

(They are through the female line...Just like the Lannisters!)

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  • 2 weeks later...
On ‎6‎/‎8‎/‎2018 at 4:25 AM, The Grey Wolf said:

I meant the Dance would make good show material.

The Targs are secret Romanovs! Quick, someone tell the Russians!

(They are through the female line...Just like the Lannisters!)

LOL, you know this anecdote, right? When Alexander III of Russia was told there is a possibility that Emperor Pavel was not Peter's but Saltykov's son, he crossed himself and said: "Blessed be God, we are Russian!". Next time historians told him it was a mistake and Pavel was indeed Peter's son. Alexander crossed himself again: "Blessed be God, we are legitimate"

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6 hours ago, DanaKz said:

LOL, you know this anecdote, right? When Alexander III of Russia was told there is a possibility that Emperor Pavel was not Peter's but Saltykov's son, he crossed himself and said: "Blessed be God, we are Russian!". Next time historians told him it was a mistake and Pavel was indeed Peter's son. Alexander crossed himself again: "Blessed be God, we are legitimate"

I was referring to Catherine the Great.

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3 minutes ago, The Grey Wolf said:

I was referring to Catherine the Great.

Well, Catherine didn't have any Romanov ancestors, did she? And her son and successor may or may not have been the son of the husband she deposed.

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On 6/7/2018 at 7:14 PM, Lord Varys said:

Although, the Aenys thing seems to be pretty obvious, now that I think of it:

The Targaryens aren't Targaryens.

There is no real basis to suspect let alone assume that Aegon did not father Aenys and Maegor. It is just a rumor that makes for an interesting possibility. But if anything, the amount of time it took for Rhaenys and Visenya to conceive supports the fact that Aegon was the father. Just because no failed pregnancies have been mentioned does not mean there were none. We just don't know. But they would have known very early that they had difficulty conceiving, and if he was so intent on having an heir for show that he would have someone else get Rhaenys with child, he would have done it well before his mid-30s. There is the possibility that Rhaenys made the choice on her own after waiting so long, but that too is a more convoluted explanation than is necessary, which is that they simply were not successful until well into their marriage.

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@Bael's Bastard

There is no proof, but there are hints that are as subtly pointing in that direction as those hints about Rhaenyra's sons being 'strong stripling lads'. This choice of words is very deliberate, as is the author stressing that Aenys was a good singer with a strong, sweet voice. No other Targaryen is suspected of being fathered by a singer, nor is any ever praised for his singing voice.

That isn't a coincidence. In the end, the matter cannot be resolved, but all we know, by and far, is Aegon acknowledged Aenys as his son. That isn't the same as confirmation that 'the official story' is true.

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On ‎6‎/‎18‎/‎2018 at 6:17 PM, The Grey Wolf said:

I was referring to Catherine the Great.

Exactly what I was talking about.

Catherine the Great's husband was Peter III, Pavel was her son, and Saltykov was her lover. Hence the story about Alexander III and his dilemma.

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4 hours ago, DanaKz said:

Exactly what I was talking about.

Catherine the Great's husband was Peter III, Pavel was her son, and Saltykov was her lover. Hence the story about Alexander III and his dilemma.

I see. Thanks for sharing.

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The problem with the Romanov comparison is that blood claims weren't really an issue there, as the rise of Catherine the Great (and Peter the Great anointing his own wife, a former courtesan, as his successor - who then also actually succeeded him).

That was an autocracy, where the word of the Tsar was everything, and there were no proper laws of succession until Catherine's son finally got around to establish male primogeniture.

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On 6/19/2018 at 5:59 PM, Lord Varys said:

@Bael's Bastard

There is no proof, but there are hints that are as subtly pointing in that direction as those hints about Rhaenyra's sons being 'strong stripling lads'. This choice of words is very deliberate, as is the author stressing that Aenys was a good singer with a strong, sweet voice. No other Targaryen is suspected of being fathered by a singer, nor is any ever praised for his singing voice.

That isn't a coincidence. In the end, the matter cannot be resolved, but all we know, by and far, is Aegon acknowledged Aenys as his son. That isn't the same as confirmation that 'the official story' is true.

Wait what?

Did I miss Rhaegar and his voice that moved women to tears?

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On 6/19/2018 at 6:59 PM, Lord Varys said:

@Bael's Bastard

There is no proof, but there are hints that are as subtly pointing in that direction as those hints about Rhaenyra's sons being 'strong stripling lads'. This choice of words is very deliberate, as is the author stressing that Aenys was a good singer with a strong, sweet voice. No other Targaryen is suspected of being fathered by a singer, nor is any ever praised for his singing voice.

That isn't a coincidence. In the end, the matter cannot be resolved, but all we know, by and far, is Aegon acknowledged Aenys as his son. That isn't the same as confirmation that 'the official story' is true.

Maester Yandel and his sources for the claim have no actual knowledge of the fact of the matter. At best they can speculate, or imply based on rumors or claims they don't actually know the truth behind. That is not the same as hinting based on actual knowledge of the fact of the matter.

Aenys's interests mirror the interests of his mother Rhaenys,. That is all that is needed to explain his interest and skill in music. He need not have been secretly fathered by singer to explain that. And we don't know what Fire and Blood will reveal about the skills or interest of these or other Targs. We didn't even know about Aenys's singing voice until Sons of the Dragon.

The possibility that Aegon did not actually father his sons is interesting to think about, but there's no real reason to think that there is any substance to such claims/rumors.

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@Bael's Bastard

We are talking different levels here. I'm with you that Yandel and Gyldayn (we are talking the latter here, considering that this is TSotD) cannot *know* who Aenys' true father is - just as they cannot *know* who the true father of Rhaenyra's sons is, or the true father of Addam and Alyn of Hull.

But the author can and does give us hints in a certain direction. Hints that can be seen as nods making this theory more likely than that theory.

For instance, take Joffrey. The prominence of the Lannister lion in his personal arms as well as the fact that he fits the 'bastards grew faster than trueborn children' cliché perfectly can be seen as clues that Joffrey is not, in fact, Robert Baratheon's son - something that's later confirmed.

Aenys, Rhaenyra's sons, and Addam/Alyn of Hull only have the former, but such hints are there. Whether those are enough to decide the matter is up to debate.

But in the end this doesn't really matter - the Conqueror and Laenor Velaryon acknowledged the children in question as their own, and in that sense they were the fathers of those children, just as Robert died as the father of Joffrey, Myrcella, and Tommen.

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On 10/13/2017 at 6:16 AM, Lord Varys said:

A Catholic historian can say that Henry VIII did marry Anne Boleyn

I only read the story last night and was struck with similarities between Maegor & Henry VIII.  The popular warrior of youth later becoming an unpopular and sick old man.  The multiple wives.  The yearning for offspring - in particular a male heir.  The war with the church to allow his marriages.   The defences he built in King's Landing reminding me of Henry's coastal forts.

Probably a few others that don't immediately come to mind too.

I even thought Henry's personal characteristics might have been split between Aenys (the scholarly artist and musician) & Maegor (the warrior sportsman).

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