[SPOILERS] Jaehaerys and Alysanne

[Geddus]

On 12/19/2018 at 12:18 PM, Paxter Redwyne said:

- Marrying Viserra to over seventy year old man who already had sons, grandsons and great-grandsons just because "he was good to them" when they visited the North

I think this could be due to the fact that Viserra was, rightly or not, perceived by her parents as overly ambitious so marriage to a powerful lord could have given her strange ideas (for example, she could raise her children to believe they have a right to the throne). The betrothal that was arranged was a way to neutralize her.

[Lord Varys]

3 hours ago, Ran said:

Marlon Manderly is the cousin, and commands the garrison at White Harbor. But yes, there's no reason to suppose there are no other Manderly cousins. For that matter, Lady Hornwood was another cousin.

Might be the family is still large. If so, then it is still odd that none such Manderlys did show up in Robb's armies or were mentioned as being at the Merman's Court in ADwD. I mean, an actual Manderly would be always important enough to sit on Robb's councils or be a crucial leader in the armies, and it is quite clear, say, that there were no other Manderlys with Roose at Harrenhal apart from the freed Ser Wylis, nor seem there have to been any with Robb and Cat at Riverrun.

Marlon apparently did not accompany Lord Wyman to Winterfell. I'm sure there must be other Manderly relations back in White Harbor but the main branch still seems to be somewhat small. Wyman doesn't seem to have any brothers or nephews, for instance.

[HexMachina]

2 minutes ago, Geddus said:

I think this could be due to the fact that Viserra was, rightly or not, perceived by her parents as overly ambitious so marriage to a powerful lord could have given her strange ideas (for example, she could raise her children to believe they have a right to the throne). The betrothal that was arranged was a way to neutralize her.

Manderly is a powerful lord though. 

1 minute ago, Lord Varys said:

Might be the family is still large. If so, then it is still odd that none such Manderlys did show up in Robb's armies or were mentioned as being at the Merman's Court in ADwD. I mean, an actual Manderly would be always important enough to sit on Robb's councils or be a crucial leader in the armies, and it is quite clear, say, that there were no other Manderlys with Roose at Harrenhal apart from the freed Ser Wylis, nor seem there have to been any with Robb and Cat at Riverrun.

Marlon apparently did not accompany Lord Wyman to Winterfell. I'm sure there must be other Manderly relations back in White Harbor but the main branch still seems to be somewhat small. Wyman doesn't seem to have any brothers or nephews, for instance.

That we know of, yet. But it’s not like we have extensive info on this or any other families in the North. And I assume this isn’t because GRRM wants the flexibility to add characters as needed 

[Geddus]

7 minutes ago, HelenaExMachina said:

Manderly is a powerful lord though.

Relatively powerful, he doesn't rule a kingdom and he answers to lord Stark. Also and very importantly, he already has heirs so no future lord Manderly with a very strong claim to the throne. The danger I was talking about was more on the line of Viserra's son being, say, the ambitious lord of the Reach.

[Lord Varys]

10 minutes ago, HelenaExMachina said:

That we know of, yet. But it’s not like we have extensive info on this or any other families in the North. And I assume this isn’t because GRRM wants the flexibility to add characters as needed 

Sure, but the time to mention the existence of brothers, nephews, etc. or actually name-drop them would have been in ADwD. Just as this would have been the time to introduce any new Boltons or Bolton relations would have been that book (and that's partially done with Lady Barbrey).

If Wyman suddenly gets any brothers or nephews it is going to look odd.

[Ran]

2 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

If Wyman suddenly gets any brothers or nephews it is going to look odd.

It sounds like your problem.

I think to many others, it'd just make sense to mention them when they matter to the story. For my part, I will not be shocked to learn that there's some nephew or cousin associated with command of a galley in the new Manderly fleet, or that a sister is wed to some lord from the White Knife region, and so on. Why should I be? What's so odd about it? The Manderlys have not had an appendix entry. No one says that all the Manderlys that exist in all the world are gathered up at the Merman's Court at the precise moment when Davos is there.

[Lord Varys]

1 minute ago, Ran said:

It sounds like your problem.

Sure, I didn't say it was yours, did I?

But the point was just that there don't seem to be any indication that the Manderlys of the main series are as 'famously large' as they were in Alysanne's days at this point. Lord Wyman could certainly have some relations we haven't met yet. I think I've gone on record before that I found it odd we didn't get anything of substance - aside from Lady Dustin - insofar as an enlargement of the Northern families are concerned. I honestly expected to learn quite a little bit about the Dreadfort there, with perhaps even a proper appendix on House Bolton the way we got it for the Hightowers (who, at this point, don't really warrant this special treatment, just as it seems to have been pointless to have a detailed appendix for the Manderlys) and was somewhat disappointed that we got pretty much nothing in that regard.

I don't see that as a hint that the chances are very high that George is going to invent many more Manderlys. We still have yet to get the names and numbers of the Greatjon's brothers and sons (it is odd, too, that one of them seem to be with either Hother or Mors in ADwD).

Other characters, like Larence Snow, even seemed to completely disappear from the story despite the fact that Asha seems to know what happened to the Glover children - which is odd considering the fact that Stannis could easily use the boy's claim to Hornwood against the Boltons.

1 minute ago, Ran said:

I think to many others, it'd just make sense to mention them when they matter to the story. For my part, I will not be shocked to learn that there's some nephew or cousin associated with command of a galley in the new Manderly fleet, or that a sister is wed to some lord from the White Knife region, and so on. Why should I be? What's so odd about it? The Manderlys have not had an appendix entry. No one says that all the Manderlys that exist in all the world are gathered up at the Merman's Court at the precise moment when Davos is there.

Women could be a lot around, I guess. And male line relations could certainly be absent for a number of reasons. But if the Manderlys were still 'famously large' then one assumes that some such Manderlys would have been mentioned at Lord Manderly's own court. A lord and his heir, his granddaughters, and one cousin are not exactly a famously large family. And it is certainly possible the Manderlys are no longer a famously large family in the 3rd century.

By the way:

I took the time to check how many English queens of the middle ages actually died in childbirth or from complications due to the childbirth. The answer is pretty sobering: none, unless we count Elizabeth of York as a medieval queen (she died 1503).

Most English queens from the days when we actually have confirmed dates actually survived their royal husbands, living to see the reigns of their sons and grandsons.

If the women dying in childbirth - not just the Targaryens but also the various mothers dying in childbirth we get in the main series - is supposed to be 'realistic' it is not realistic.

Whereas child mortality is no way near realistically depicted in Westeros if we go by the number of children various royal and noble families lost in infancy or early childhood. None of the main families we meet in the main series seem to have lost any children early in life, aside from Jon Arryn (and later the mystery Princess of Dorne).

[Bael's Bastard]

1 hour ago, Ran said:

It sounds like your problem.

I think to many others, it'd just make sense to mention them when they matter to the story. For my part, I will not be shocked to learn that there's some nephew or cousin associated with command of a galley in the new Manderly fleet, or that a sister is wed to some lord from the White Knife region, and so on. Why should I be? What's so odd about it? The Manderlys have not had an appendix entry. No one says that all the Manderlys that exist in all the world are gathered up at the Merman's Court at the precise moment when Davos is there.

Yeah, it wouldn't be odd at all for the existence of more living Manderlys to be revealed. 

[Maia]

20 hours ago, Paxter Redwyne said:

It's a simple waste of a marriage. 

Indeed. Princess Elaena's marriage to Lord Ossifer Plumm looks like a brilliant match by comparison - at least he had no descendants and was rich. She'd have been the mistress of his castle and lands and there was a lordship for eventual children to inherit. And Elaena was "soiled" by bearing her bastards by Oakenfist.

@Geddus:

Ambitious or not, there was little that Viserra could have done - and there is no evidence, really, that she was. She wanted to marry Baelon - well, of course, in this family she would have. It would have allowed her to keep her station as a princess and let her remain at court in KL, instead of having to go somewhere she didn't know and might not have liked as much. This is all perfectly normal - for a Targaryen. If, for some reason both the royal couple and Baelon were opposed to this, just marry her off to some lord or heir. If lord paramount seems too dangerous - though what would a younger daughter, dragonless, would have been able to do against her older dragonrider brothers and parents? - just marry her to some second-tier lord or heir in a prime of his life, who owns enough to offer her a comfortable life and can keep her in proper station and whom she might learn to like.

I also agree that 3 grandchildren, all of them still children shouldn't have been seen as enough to secure the succession for the next generation.

My sneaking suspicion is that Alysanne was worried about Princess Rhaenys's inheritance rights if Baelon had any more sons, which would have made it even more heart-wrenching when she was passed over anyway. And, of course, recent family history provided a caution against having heirs by 2 wives. Maybe Viserra's manipulative tendencies also put her on guard. But still - Theomore?!

 

25 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

I took the time to check how many English queens of the middle ages actually died in childbirth or from complications due to the childbirth. The answer is pretty sobering: none, unless we count Elizabeth of York as a medieval queen (she died 1503).

Most English queens from the days when we actually have confirmed dates actually survived their royal husbands, living to see the reigns of their sons and grandsons.

If the women dying in childbirth - not just the Targaryens but also the various mothers dying in childbirth we get in the main series - is supposed to be 'realistic' it is not realistic.

Whereas child mortality is no way near realistically depicted in Westeros if we go by the number of children various royal and noble families lost in infancy or early childhood. None of the main families we meet in the main series seem to have lost any children early in life, aside from Jon Arryn (and later the mystery Princess of Dorne).

Interesting, right? Though Empress Matilda apparently came close with her second son Geoffrey - she even made last will and testament and quarrelled with her father Henry I over where she should be buried. After all that she got better, though, and lived for decades. And speaking of child mortality - all of her 3 sons reached adulthood. Ditto all 4 children of Isabella of France. Ditto 8 out of 9 children of Eleanor of Aquitaine by Henry II, as well as her 2 daughters by Louis VII . Looking at Henry II's daughter Matilda - 4 of her 5 children reached adulthood, one died at 15. So, it seems like it really depended on a couple and what we see in ASOIAF isn't particularly unrealistic, IMHO. A little better than how it often was iRL - which makes sense, given that Westerosi tend to be somewhat more hygienic and maesters have late 19th century medical knowledge.

[The hairy bear]

The existence of more Manderlys would feel perfectly natural to me too.

1 hour ago, Lord Varys said:

By the way:

I took the time to check how many English queens of the middle ages actually died in childbirth or from complications due to the childbirth. The answer is pretty sobering: none, unless we count Elizabeth of York as a medieval queen (she died 1503).

Interesting analysis. This wiki page, however, suggests that other realms had a higher frequency of childbirth deaths (I count three French queens dying in just 150 years).

In the 300 years of Tarharyen rule, if I'm not wrong we have 5 Targaryen queens out of 23: Jeyne Westerling, Alyssa Velaryon, Aemma Arryn, Naerys and Rhaella. From these, Jeyne was possibly poisoned, and Alyssa and Naerys were in their middle forties. So perhaps it's not that unrealistic.

And in any case, we have many hints that there's a magical element in the Targaryen pregnancies. We have seen several examples of monstruous, dragon-like stillborns. So perhaps giving birth to a Targaryen child is just more dangerous.

[Ran]

Quote

I took the time to check how many English queens of the middle ages actually died in childbirth or from complications due to the childbirth

Henry V's mother and Henry V's wife both died from childbirth, or complications, but due to timing were not queens at their deaths (Henry V's mother died before Henry IV was crowned, Henry V's wife survived him and remarried).

[Bernie Mac]

9 hours ago, HelenaExMachina said:

Small point but the current day Manderly’s could still be very extensive, we just haven’t met them yet. The main branch may be fairly limited (Wyman, Wylis, Wynafryd and Wylla) But we have no idea whether Wyman has brothers or sisters, or cousins, or nieces or nephews. We are introduced to at least one in DwD (whose name escapes me...Bartimus?) and GRRM can easily add any more Manderly cousins he need.

The impression I got was that they were. 

Davos had hoped to speak with Wyman Manderly alone, but he found a crowded court. Along the walls, the women outnumbered the men by five to one; what few males he did see had long grey beards or looked too young to shave.

The men of fighting age were elsewhere, dead, captured at the Twins, part of Roose's army, at the shipyard, training recruits, still in the Hornwood lands, delivering messages to Locke or other allies or controlling another part of the city or holdfast within the White Harbor lands. 

The House is large, but there's also a war going on. Them not being present to see a prisoner chastised for 30 or so minutes is not a shock.

 

 

 

[Lord Varys]

22 minutes ago, Maia said:

Interesting, right? Though Empress Matilda apparently came close with her second son Geoffrey - she even made last will and testament and quarrelled with her father Henry I over where she should be buried. After all that she got better, though, and lived for decades. And speaking of child mortality - all of her 3 sons reached adulthood. Ditto all 4 children of Isabella of France. Ditto 8 out of 9 children of Eleanor of Aquitaine by Henry II, as well as her 2 daughters by Louis VII . Looking at Henry II's daughter Matilda - 4 of her 5 children reached adulthood, one died at 15. So, it seems like it really depended on a couple and what we see in ASOIAF isn't particularly unrealistic, IMHO. A little better than how it often was iRL - which makes sense, given that Westerosi tend to be somewhat more hygienic and maesters have late 19th century medical knowledge.

To be sure, we have to keep in mind that we have little data on queens from the first millennium, and not all the data on the queens who died in the second millennium are all that great. However, one can safely dismiss all queens dying past fifty or in their forties who have not been reportedly been pregnant around the times of their deaths. And Eleanor of Aquitaine is not the only queen to live to pretty old age. 

And as I think I phrased it above - the Targaryens should have had the topmost medical and magical treatment Westeros and (at least) the Free Cities have to offer. They gave birth to their children attended by the best available maesters, midwives, etc. which should have had a significant impact on the survival rate of women having troubles during childbirth when compared to those of poor commoners or even less privileged noblewomen. Not to mention that they would/could also have had access to alchemists and sorcerers depending on the era. If Maegor the Cruel was, perhaps, magically healed/restored to life by Tyanna of the Tower, then I really see no good reason why a world in which this was possible no king loving his (sister-)wife dearly didn't try anything possible to save such a woman after childbirth. Even more so when there were actual sorcerers among the Targaryens themselves (allegedly Visenya, Bloodraven, Aerys I, etc.).

This also extends to the wealthiest families - the healers the Lannisters and Hightowers should have access to should be as great as those the royals at court had.

As for child mortality - one has to keep in mind that we don't get all the stillbirths and children who died in infancy in the earlier centuries. I think there is quite a discussion how many children Henry II and Eleanor had, for instance.

49 minutes ago, The hairy bear said:

The existence of more Manderlys would feel perfectly natural to me too.

Might there still are some. All I was pointing out that our Manderlys are not as 'famously large' as Alysanne's apparently were.

49 minutes ago, The hairy bear said:

Interesting analysis. This wiki page, however, suggests that other realms had a higher freequency of childbirth deaths (I count three French queens dying in just 150 years).

Didn't get round to the French queens yet ;-). And considering that George is not French and mostly inspired by English history that's where we should look. One would assumes he knows more about English history than French history.

49 minutes ago, The hairy bear said:

In the 300 years of Tarharyen rule, if I'm not wrong we have 5 Targaryen queens out of 23: Jeyne Westerling, Alyssa Velaryon, Aemma Arryn, Naerys and Rhaella. From these, Jyene was possibly poisoned, and Alyssa and Naerys were in their middle forties. So perhaps it's not that unrealistic.

Oh, while I was talking only about queens there I'd allow George to get off the hook there by comparing English queens to Westerosi queens. I'd take all the princesses and great noble ladies there as well. And then those childbed fever corpses just pile up.

And to be clear:

Childbirth is a potentially dangerous event. There are complications, and there certainly are things that would have been mortal to many women in a medieval setting. But childbed fever clearly wasn't one of those.

For the English queens/ladies @Ran mentioned: The cause of death for Catherine of Valois is unclear. There are sources who attribute her death to her recently giving birth, and others who put forth different causes. This is not a clear case.

Mary de Bohun apparently died giving birth to Philippa of England, but the fact that she seems to have died on the same day as her last child was born implies, at least in my opinion, a more severe complication considering that childbed fever actually needs some time to take hold.

In that sense Tyrion killing Joanna during his birth can be seen as an exceptional - and also narratively interesting - complication considering that we know how large his head was even during his birth. The same goes for Alyssa Velaryon - pregnancy late in life, narratively interesting scenario for the other characters (although one could certainly have seen even more interesting scenarios with a living Alyssa...). But things like Alyssa Targaryen, Aemma Arryn, Laena Velaryon, etc. are just lazy.

Even Daella would have worked much better if it were not just childbed fever on steroids there but rather a bleeding based on uterine atony, say, or there could have been issue with Daella being simply to delicately built for a proper birth. That kind of thing can happen, too.

49 minutes ago, The hairy bear said:

And in any case, we have multiple examples that there's a magical element in the Targaryen pregnancies. We have seen several examples of monstruous, dragon-like stillborns. So perhaps giving birth to a Targaryen child is just more dangerous.

I would have found it great if some of Alysanne's children had been monstrosities underlining that, or if Alyssa's Aegon or Daella's Aemma had had some issues, but there are none given. Laena Velaryon's stillborn son seems to have one such, but the symptoms leading up to her death seem to have been common childbed fever. The same also goes for the first Jeyne Westerling, it seems.

And it is not that we don't have that thing with many other women as well - Jeyne Marbrand, Queen Rhaella, Lyanna Stark, Arra Norrey, Alaric's Mormont wife, etc.

 

[Lord Varys]

For France, my road backwards in time leads me to Claude of France (unclear case), the next is Joanna of Bourbon, who may have caused her death by acting against the medical advice of her physician (she apparently took a bath when she was advised not to bathe), then comes Marie of Luxembourg who had a premature birth after she suffered an accident involving a coach, dying of the injuries she suffered in the accident later (that's not a death in childbirth as such), Isabella of Aragon also died in after an accident causing a premature birth, Agnes of Morenia is apparently a true case, Isabella of Hainault died after the birth of twins (always a very dangerous thing in the middle ages), Constance of Castile seems to be a genuine case, too, and Matilda of Frisia was a child bride (which makes her apparent death in childbirth hardly all that surprising).

Those are all the cases from the Capetians up to the last Bourbons. Bottom line here is - this didn't happen as often in the real world as Martin has it happen in Westeros. Especially not with the childbed fever thing. Reality seems to be more creative ;-).

George also has strikingly low number of women living to old age. Alysanne dies in her sixties, Visenya and Olenna are the true old women of note in the entire series. Elaena may reach the age of seventy (Amok description, although I only take that seriously when we have dates for her). He even kills women rather early that could have lived for some years more - Alysanne, Rhaena, Larra Rogare (who dies in 145 AC in Lys, according to Ran) or Dyanna Dayne (is there a narrative reason as to why Egg has to have no mother?) - something that goes against the presence of rather aged women throughout the entire middle ages.

[anjulibai]

9 hours ago, Maia said:

My sneaking suspicion is that Alysanne was worried about Princess Rhaenys's inheritance rights if Baelon had any more sons, which would have made it even more heart-wrenching when she was passed over anyway. And, of course, recent family history provided a caution against having heirs by 2 wives. Maybe Viserra's manipulative tendencies also put her on guard. But still - Theomore?!.

If Alyssane was really worried about Rhaenys's inheritance, I wonder why she didn't try to arrange a marriage between her and Viserys when they were children. Seems like that would have solved a bunch of problems. 

[Alyssa of House Arryn]

12 hours ago, The hairy bear said:

In the 300 years of Tarharyen rule, if I'm not wrong we have 5 Targaryen queens out of 23: Jeyne Westerling, Alyssa Velaryon, Aemma Arryn, Naerys and Rhaella. From these, Jeyne was possibly poisoned, and Alyssa and Naerys were in their middle forties. So perhaps it's not that unrealistic

There are also queens whose eventual fate we do not know - like Daenaera Velaryon, Daena Targaryen, Myriah Martell, Betha Blackwood, and Shaera Targaryen. For all we know, Daenaera could have died birthing Elaena, and maybe after Summerhall Jaehaerys II decided there was an urgent need for more Targaryens that ended up costing Shaera's life. When F&B2 comes out, I hope we don't see even more queens and ladies perishing in childbed when the narrative does not need them anymore.

[Geddus]

14 hours ago, Maia said:

Ambitious or not, there was little that Viserra could have done - and there is no evidence, really, that she was. She wanted to marry Baelon - well, of course, in this family she would have. It would have allowed her to keep her station as a princess and let her remain at court in KL, instead of having to go somewhere she didn't know and might not have liked as much. This is all perfectly normal - for a Targaryen. If, for some reason both the royal couple and Baelon were opposed to this, just marry her off to some lord or heir. If lord paramount seems too dangerous - though what would a younger daughter, dragonless, would have been able to do against her older dragonrider brothers and parents? - just marry her to some second-tier lord or heir in a prime of his life, who owns enough to offer her a comfortable life and can keep her in proper station and whom she might learn to like.

I also agree that 3 grandchildren, all of them still children shouldn't have been seen as enough to secure the succession for the next generation.

My sneaking suspicion is that Alysanne was worried about Princess Rhaenys's inheritance rights if Baelon had any more sons, which would have made it even more heart-wrenching when she was passed over anyway. And, of course, recent family history provided a caution against having heirs by 2 wives. Maybe Viserra's manipulative tendencies also put her on guard. But still - Theomore?!

Iagree, it's weak but it's the only explaination that makes some sense to me. I mean, what's the alternative? Jaehaerys and Alysanne thought it would be fun to marry their young daughter to an old man? I can't think of anything.

[The hairy bear]

11 hours ago, Alyssa of House Arryn said:

There are also queens whose eventual fate we do not know - like Daenaera Velaryon, Daena Targaryen, Myriah Martell, Betha Blackwood, and Shaera Targaryen.

I agree that if some of those were to die in childbed it would become a little bit repetitive. But let's criticize it when it happens, not before!

It's true that it seems that Daenera seems to have died young. She'd be 35 when Baelor closed her daughters at the Maidenvault, and one would expect her to have a say in the matter, if around. For what is worth, the MUSH already had her dead at the Conquest of Dorne, implying she didn't even reach the thirties.

But the other ones can easily be alive past their childbearing age: Daena would be 50 during the Blackfyre Rebellion, Myriah could still be alive during the reign of Aerys I, Betha would be 58 at Summerhall, and Shaera would be 53 during the Defiance of Duskendale.

14 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

For France, my road backwards in time leads me to Claude of France (unclear case), the next is Joanna of Bourbon, who may have caused her death by acting against the medical advice of her physician (she apparently took a bath when she was advised not to bathe), then comes Marie of Luxembourg who had a premature birth after she suffered an accident involving a coach, dying of the injuries she suffered in the accident later (that's not a death in childbirth as such), Isabella of Aragon also died in after an accident causing a premature birth, Agnes of Morenia is apparently a true case, Isabella of Hainault died after the birth of twins (always a very dangerous thing in the middle ages), Constance of Castile seems to be a genuine case, too, and Matilda of Frisia was a child bride (which makes her apparent death in childbirth hardly all that surprising)

As I see it, this study shows that in every century between the 11th and the 16th there was one or two queens who died at childbirth. It's about the same than with the Targaryens. And the fact that you can find 'explanations' for some of the deaths makes it no different: as said, Jeyne Westerling could have been poisoned, Alyssa and Naerys were old, Rhaella had reason to be stressed and traumatized....

I've tried to look for actual statistics of childbirth deaths in the Middle Ages. Of course there is no hard data on the matter, but I've seen the estimation of 1,5 deaths per 100 pregnancies in several places such as here and here. This risk was repeated with every new pregnancy, so at the end the odds were terryfing. It's repeated many times that it was the first cause of death in women. This source says: "A study of Florence in the early fifteenth century has shown that close to one-fifth of all young married women died from childbirth-related causes"

14 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

George also has strikingly low number of women living to old age. Alysanne dies in her sixties, Visenya and Olenna are the true old women of note in the entire series. Elaena may reach the age of seventy (Amok description, although I only take that seriously when we have dates for her). He even kills women rather early that could have lived for some years more - Alysanne, Rhaena, Larra Rogare (who dies in 145 AC in Lys, according to Ran) or Dyanna Dayne (is there a narrative reason as to why Egg has to have no mother?) - something that goes against the presence of rather aged women throughout the entire middle ages.

I'd agree with that. And this is worsened by the fact that the ratio of women is lower than it should be to begin with (at least in noble families, the sex ratio in Westeros is not 1:1, but more like 2:1 in favour of males.)

[Maia]

On 20 December 2018 at 6:42 PM, The hairy bear said:

And in any case, we have many hints that there's a magical element in the Targaryen pregnancies. We have seen several examples of monstruous, dragon-like stillborns. So perhaps giving birth to a Targaryen child is just more dangerous.

It was a decent guess back then, but not after WoIaF and FaB, IMHO, which added a lot of of other noble women dying in childbirth and, for that matter, quite a few women having lots of kids with a Targ or while being a Targ, with no ill effects.

3 hours ago, The hairy bear said:

It's true that it seems that Daenera seems to have died young. She'd be 35 when Baelor closed her daughters at the Maidenvault, and one would expect her to have a say in the matter, if around. For what is worth, the MUSH already had her dead at the Conquest of Dorne, implying she didn't even reach the thirties.

Urgh.

Quote

But the other ones can easily be alive past their childbearing age: Daena would be 50 during the Blackfyre Rebellion

IMHO, this would be a very bad idea, as we'd only get another seemingly strong-willed and pro-active Targaryen woman who does nothing of historical significance - and we already have a surfeit of those. Of all of them, she should be the one who dies young. It was also mentioned in WoIaF that she never admitted who Daemon's father was - which would point at her death during the reign of Viserys, because when Aegon IV suceeded, why wouldn't she proclaim her son's paternity? Why wouldn't she try to become his wife, even? And, frankly, it wouldn't be a bad idea if there was a hint that her uncle did away with her, because she had drummed some support for her claim or something. Or, maybe, if there was a hint of uncertainty re: who really sired Aegon III's children - he himself... or his brother.

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, Myriah could still be alive during the reign of Aerys I, Betha would be 58 at Summerhall, and Shaera would be 53 during the Defiance of Duskendale.

Since we have heard nothing about Myriah in the novellas, I don't have much hope of her still being alive during them or indeed immediately prior to the Great Spring Sickness. It could be remedied by having her be several years older than her husband, though - maybe even as much as a decade, so that she'd still live to a respectable age. I do find it it rather concerning and disappointing that Gyldayn specifically  stressed that apart from the Conqueror's sisters, Alysanne had by far the greatest role in the ruling of the Seven Kingdoms, though. I really hoped that Myriah and Betha would have had similar influence. There is also, sadly, no mention of Shaera after her husband's death in WoIaF - but she could be still have been around during her son's reign sure. Maybe even joined the Faith in her widowhood. I do hope that Martin thinks about such things if and when he canonizes the death dates of these women instead of just brushing them under the carpet and removing them from proceedings as soon as they have produced requisite kids.

Re: deaths in chidlbirth, I am looking a bit wider, not just at queens of England, but at royal daughters and daughters-in-law and sometimes their daughters or mothers and the number is really low. You can's compare with average mortality.

 

[Ran]

2 hours ago, Maia said:

It was a decent guess back then, but not after WoIaF and FaB, IMHO, which added a lot of of other noble women dying in childbirth and, for that matter, quite a few women having lots of kids with a Targ or while being a Targ, with no ill effects.

 

Did these books really add that many? My recollection is there's two in FaB: Unwin Peake's daughter dies giving birth at the age of 12 (not a shock) and Floris Baratheon, who also dies a teenager. Can't recall if Arya Norrey was mentioned in TP&tQ or not, so maybe that is a third. Against that, how many women does this book introduce who do not die in childbirth? I can count quite a few.

I have no idea how these things change the fact that Targaryen births may simply be, for magical hereditary reasons, more dangerous to the mothers than normal births. We're talking a heightened chance compared to non-Targaryens, which based on what little evidence we have seems to be right enough, though of course we have no family tree as detailed as that of the Targaryens.