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[SPOILERS] Jaehaerys and Alysanne


Lord Varys

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7 hours ago, AryaNymeriaVisenya said:

Are they though? It takes two to tango and everything seems to have come from Argella besides the name. If anything the name just hides what they really are, the Storm Kings. Its a nice bookend for that era of the story. The family will likely get another cycle soon as Stannis and Shireen repeat the Argilac and Argella story. Defeated in battle, betrayed by her own people. Then another bastard to take control.

It is not unlikely and Argilac seems to fit with the Baratheons nicely. I have a feeling though that when Melisandre burned the weirwood at Storm's End she ended the Durrandon/Baratheon line in any meaningful way. 

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Back to the question of Baratheon family.

Was Orys a rumoured bastard of Aerion, or did "rumoured" extend to bastard status?

Look at Marilda. Pretty well-off for a commoner - inherited the wealth to buy one cog, and expanded it to 7 ships.

Yet no surname. "Of Hull". No surname for her, and her sons were also of Hull, not even Waterses.

That Orys was a Baratheon, not a Waters, suggests that his status as a bastard was rumoured, not acknowledged - and that there was a lawfully married "daddy" Baratheon.

Orys may not have had Baratheon blood, but he would have had his mother´s. Who was Orys´ mother?

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Baratheon might be a Valyrian name. It might have been a surname for bastards in Old Valyria. Orys' mother, judging from his closeness with Aegon, was likely more than a commoner (though less than a noble). Perhaps a servant or lowborn retainer. The "demigod" status that the Targaryens held on Dragonstone pre-Conquest makes the issue of bastardy different than in most of the Seven Kingdoms. Hell, Aerion could have named Orys Baratheon himself and the name translates into an epithet in High Valyrian. 

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9 hours ago, Jaak said:

Back to the question of Baratheon family.

Was Orys a rumoured bastard of Aerion, or did "rumoured" extend to bastard status?

Look at Marilda. Pretty well-off for a commoner - inherited the wealth to buy one cog, and expanded it to 7 ships.

Yet no surname. "Of Hull". No surname for her, and her sons were also of Hull, not even Waterses.

That Orys was a Baratheon, not a Waters, suggests that his status as a bastard was rumoured, not acknowledged - and that there was a lawfully married "daddy" Baratheon.

Orys may not have had Baratheon blood, but he would have had his mother´s. Who was Orys´ mother?

@Jaak

I have wondered about this for a number of years. We don't have enough information to be certain, but Jaehaerys I informs us:

"Dragonseeds, they call them," Jaehaerys said with obvious reluctance. "It is not a thing to boast of, but it has happened, mayhaps more often than we would care to admit. Such children are cherished, though. Orys Baratheon himself was a dragonseed, a bastard brother of our grandsire. Whether he was conceived of a first night I cannot say, but Lord Aerion was his father, that was well-known. Gifts were given . . ."

TPATW tells us:

House Targaryen had ruled Dragonstone for more than two hundred years, since Lord Aenar Targaryen first arrived from Valyria with his dragons. Though it had always been their custom to wed brother to sister and cousin to cousin, young blood runs hot, and it was not unknown for men of the House to seek their pleasures amongst the daughters (and even the wives) of their subjects, the smallfolk who lived in the villages below the Dragonmont, tillers of the land and fishers of the sea. Indeed, until the reign of King Jaehaerys and Good Queen Alysanne, the ancient law of the first night had prevailed on Dragonstone, as it did throughout Westeros, whereby it was the right of a lord to bed any maiden in his domain upon her wedding night.

Though this custom was greatly resented elsewhere in the Seven Kingdoms, by men of a jealous temperament who did not grasp the honor being conferred upon them, such feelings were muted upon Dragonstone, where Targaryens were rightly regarded as being closer to gods than the common run of men. Here, brides thus blessed upon their wedding nights were envied, and the children born of such unions were esteemed above all others, for the Lords of Dragonstone oft celebrated the birth of such with lavish gifts of gold and silk and land to the mother. These happy bastards were said to have been “born of dragonseed,” and in time became known simply as “seeds.” Even after the end of the right of the first night, certain Targaryens continued to dally with the daughters of innkeeps and the wives of fishermen, so seeds and the sons of seeds were plentiful on Dragonstone.


I would speculate that Lord Aerion celebrated the birth of Orys in such a manner that left little doubt that he believed him to be his bastard, whether or not he openly or legally acknowledged it.

As for how Orys received the Baratheon name, I would say that it could be a:

- Joffrey Baratheon situation (inherited from his still-living legal, if not biological, father _____ Baratheon)
- Viserys Plumm situation (inherited from his recently deceased legal, if not biological, father _____ Baratheon)
- inherited from his unwed biological mother _____ Baratheon

I don't think there is much of a case for it being a "bastard name."

Whatever the case, the Baratheon name strikes me as being Valyrian. It is very similar to surnames and first names like Velaryon, Targaryen, Balerion, Viserion, Daemion, Aerion. Though spelled with an 'e' rather than an 'i' or 'y,' there is little to no difference in pronunciation.

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6 minutes ago, Bael's Bastard said:


Whatever the case, the Baratheon name strikes me as being Valyrian. It is very similar to surnames and first names like Velaryon, Targaryen, Balerion, Viserion, Daemion, Aerion. Though spelled with an 'e' rather than an 'i' or 'y,' there is little to no difference in pronunciation.

Its possible that its from a different dialect. Given that there's High Valyrian, which strikes me as a formal court language reserved for nobles, there might be a "Low Valyrian" for commoners and servants in addition to the colonial dialects that sprung up in the Free Cities. Similar to how Ptolemaic Egypt had Demotic script for everyday interaction and Hieroglyphic script for ritual purposes.

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19 minutes ago, HamSandLich said:

Its possible that its from a different dialect. Given that there's High Valyrian, which strikes me as a formal court language reserved for nobles, there might be a "Low Valyrian" for commoners and servants in addition to the colonial dialects that sprung up in the Free Cities. Similar to how Ptolemaic Egypt had Demotic script for everyday interaction and Hieroglyphic script for ritual purposes.

That is certainly possible. It is also possible that Baratheon is just made up of different words in the same High Valyrian dialect, in the same way that names with the similarly if not identically pronounced "ion" (Aerion, Balerion), "yon" (Velaryon), and "yen" (Targaryen) and "le" (Rhaelle, Maegelle) and "la" (Rhaella, Daella, Baela) might be.

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This has probably been mentioned already (hey, it's hard to keep up in this place!) but I found it interesting that Alysanne did not have the traditional Targaryen appearance, instead possessing blue eyes and honey-blonde hair. I think it's more realistic that not all the Targs looked like carbon-copies of one another. 

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19 minutes ago, The Grey Wolf said:

Yeah but their tone is that the giants and Children have been dead for millennia whereas F & B tells us Maesters knew them to be around as late as 50 AC.

I know nothing about tone. All we have from Luwin is what's reported from Bran, that they believe they're all dead. I would assume that the basis for this is that there have not been reports of them for many decades by Luwin's time.

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1 hour ago, The Grey Wolf said:

I found it baffling that Walton Stark was killed by giants. If they were known to still be around as late in time as 49 AC why is there doubt about them and the Children amongst the Maesters?

Because most Maesters make a point of trying to keep their histories as mundane and bowdlerized as possible.  Giants aren't magical, but they are fantastical, while the Children are innately supernatural, they don't fit into the orthodox Citadel's worldview in the current era of the books.  In-Universe, TWOIAF was "written" by Maester Yandel shortly before 300AL and his writing style and research reflects the Citadel's views at that time, while F&B was written by archmaester Gyldayn during the reign of Aegon V.

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2 hours ago, The Bard of Banefort said:

This has probably been mentioned already (hey, it's hard to keep up in this place!) but I found it interesting that Alysanne did not have the traditional Targaryen appearance, instead possessing blue eyes and honey-blonde hair. I think it's more realistic that not all the Targs looked like carbon-copies of one another. 

Yeah, if one want to play that up, it could be a sign that Aenys' father wasn't the Conqueror, and we get those common blond traits and green eyes stuff from there. Alyssa's mother Alarra Massey supposedly also was a great beauty and all, so chances are not so great that those traits come from her side of the family tree.

Also interesting that the really 'prototypical dragonlord looks' was the silver rather than the gold. That makes Targaryens like Maekar such with very distinct Valyrian features.

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1 hour ago, lysmonger said:

I think George RR Martin has said silver-gold was the valyrian hair color. And from what I can kind of inference is most nobles and small folk have a ton of Valyrian ancestry around KingsLanding and the eastern side of the continent.

Sure, but he stretches that the silvery part Alysanne and Alyssa are missing is the true trait of the dragonlords of old.

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Do all ethnic Norwegians have blue eyes?

GRRM has to make each character rememberable in their own special way..  So sometimes hell say blue eyes or darker hair.

2 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

Sure, but he stretches that the silvery part Alysanne and Alyssa are missing is the true trait of the dragonlords of old.

 

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Did anyone lose a bit of respect for Jaehaerys after his treatment of Saera? I find it interesting that he had nothing to say about Baelon being lustful, but when it comes to his daughter he denounces her as a whore, and kills an heir of a noble house for sleeping with her. In my opinion, the whole Saera diblocile could of been avoided if he simply wed the Stinger to Saera.

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Quote

 

while F&B was written by archmaester Gyldayn during the reign of Aegon V

 

It's been retconned that Gyldayn survived Summerhall and actually lived into the reign of Robert Baratheon (done by GRRM so that F&B2 will have the same narrative voice and he won't need to change up to Yandel for the last 100 pages or so), although it's not specified when F&B I was written in-universe. If we assume the "author's portrait" page is in-universe, it would appear to be quite late in his life.

Quote

 

Did anyone lose a bit of respect for Jaehaerys after his treatment of Saera? 

 

I think the idea there was that Jaehaerys may have been the best king to ever sit the Iron Throne, but he was not without flaws.

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50 minutes ago, LadyTargaryen1 said:

Did anyone lose a bit of respect for Jaehaerys after his treatment of Saera?

I thought he was a bit of a dick about it, yeah.  Thought he could have been more accommodating with Daella as well without it much effort.  Definitely on team Alysanne in terms of those beefs.

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It explicitly says that while Jaehaerys was harsh with Saera, he wasn't beyond forgiving her - until she outright fled Westeros.  Barth even thinks he just wanted to send her to a sept to straighten her out for a few years, not permanently.  That and her behavior was really negative and unrepentant:  "Hey, Maegor could do it, why can't I?" isn't the thing to say to your father whose 2 brothers were killed by his evil uncle Maegor. 

Saera never even asked to come back.  Probably wasn't a high point of Jaehaerys's life, but it was a bad situation all around.

....I'd hoped we'd see a few more direwolves when Jaehaerys visited the North, given that they hadn't died out by this time period south of the Wall.

Other maester records don't doubt giants etc. exist - they do have bones, cave paintings, etc. as physical evidence.

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