Aegon III and political strife, or lack thereof

[Angel Eyes]

So Aegon III takes full royal power in 137 AC after a turbulent regency, with the realm partially ashes, dragons all but extinct (they would eventually die out during his reign and not be seen for almost 150 years), and himself a broken man. Yet his reign has a relative lack of political strife. How is that? 

[The Grey Wolf]

There was political strife. 

For example, the three men claiming to be Daeron the Daring.

[Lord Varys]

We don't know *anything* about the reign of Aegon III. Thus we cannot say we know that nothing happened there.

What Yandel gives us about the Dragonbane's reign is pretty much a joke. We learned that the Nine Mages worked their spell during his reign, and we learned about impostors who pretended to be Daeron the Daring. That's literally it. We don't know anything else about the reign of that man, and he actually ruled in his own right from 136-157 AC. That's 21 years.

A lot of stuff could have happened there. Or not. We'll have to wait and see. But I doubt George is going to make it 'nothing important happened there'.

Could even turn out that there is a prelude to the Conquest of Dorne beginning during the last years of the Dragonbane.

[The Grey Wolf]

1 hour ago, Lord Varys said:

Could even turn out that there is a prelude to the Conquest of Dorne beginning during the last years of the Dragonbane.

How would that work?

[Lord Varys]

43 minutes ago, The Grey Wolf said:

How would that work?

How do I know? Didn't you like the idea of border skirmishes and the like as a prelude? If something like that did provoke Daeron's war it should have been in a time when Daeron I actually had a chance to witness it.

[The Grey Wolf]

2 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

How do I know? Didn't you like the idea of border skirmishes and the like as a prelude? If something like that did provoke Daeron's war it should have been in a time when Daeron I actually had a chance to witness it.

I forgot we discussed that before tbh.

[Lion of the West]

On 7/24/2018 at 10:02 PM, Angel Eyes said:

So Aegon III takes full royal power in 137 AC after a turbulent regency, with the realm partially ashes, dragons all but extinct (they would eventually die out during his reign and not be seen for almost 150 years), and himself a broken man. Yet his reign has a relative lack of political strife. How is that? 

I would guess that Aegon III had capable supporters, like his brother Viserys, and that perhaps many top dogs have died, disgraced themselves or become tired of the Game of Thrones after both the Dance and then the trouble during the regency?

I mean the Starks retreated North to supposedly continue their isolationism. Hightower seems to have lost alot of grown men in the Dance so maybe there were not fit to fight again yet. The Lannisters were trying to ingrain themselves and rebuild the West after also getting serious losses during the Dance, Peake was isolated. The Baratheons lost a lord who had "only" daughters from his body. I don't know if the Arryn succession was stable or not. Which only leaves the Black Tullys, and maybe they just wanted peace and quiet now? While the Velaryons had a place at the king's table so no reason to cause mischeif.

Thus perhaps there was a loss of people interested in causing strife and that helped Aegon III?

[Lord Varys]

Aegon III must have faced a lot challenges and may have had his decent share of troubles. Keep in mind that the man absented himself from his own court on a regular basis and refused to talk to anyone for days. Even if you have a strong Hand and trusted advisers this is going to be a problem. And the impression we get is not that Aegon III had a reign of peace and quiet when there were three pretenders claiming to be Daeron the Daring.

I'm sure Alyn Velaryon (after he returned from his voyages) and Prince Viserys did their best to help them, but Viserys could only become Aegon III's Hand at least six years after the end of the Regency considering that Tywin was the youngest Hand ever at the age of twenty.

But it might be that Viserys only got the Handship half way through the reign of his brother. We don't know.

[The hairy bear]

Probably, the main reason why Aegon III was able to maintain his throne was because the realm was in such a demographic collapse. In less than a decade the realm had suffered a civil war (129-131), a widespread plague (131-133) and a "terrible, hard" six-year winter (130-135).

In a scenario like that, nobles would be more worried about survival than playing the Game of Thrones. It's also worth noting that ther rulers of the individual kingdoms were in a fragile enough position themselves, so they wouldn't be in a situation to challenge the Iron Throne: Lyonel Tyrell was just a boy, Kermit Tully a young "lad", Casterly Rock was under the regency of Jason's widow, the Stormlands would be ruled either by one of Borros daughters or by a potential very young son, etc.