[SPOILERS] Family trees and successions

[Lord Varys]

1 hour ago, Paxter Redwyne said:

Was Alys Rivers confirmed to be bastard of Lyonel Strong or was it only a rumor?

That's a rumor purported by Eustace and Munkun. Mushroom thinks she is much older, having served as wetnurse to Lyonel himself (hence my idea she may either be a daughter of Rhaena Targaryen and Maegor Towers - less likely - or one of the daughters of Lucamore Strong who were fostered as 'Rivers' girls with his brother Lord Bywin at Harrenhal).

2 hours ago, The Wondering Wolf said:

I can not imagine he would have changed his name though.

Me neither. And I don't think he would have allowed that his sons were called 'Royce'. They would have been Targaryens even if they had ruled as Lords of Runestone.

[The Wondering Wolf]

11 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

Me neither. And I don't think he would have allowed that his sons were called 'Royce'. They would have been Targaryens even if they had ruled as Lords of Runestone.

That is what I was thinking as well, but I can not imagine that the realm and especially the Vale would be happy with such a change. The Royces are a damn old house, of course Daemon would not care if their line continued or not, but it seems to me a lot of other people would. So how would Viserys (because I think in the end it would be his task to settle the issue) dealt with such a scenario?

[Lord Varys]

3 minutes ago, The Wondering Wolf said:

That is what I was thinking as well, but I can not imagine that the realm and especially the Vale would be happy with such a change. The Roycec are a damn old house, of course Daemon would not care if their line continued or not, but it seems to me a lot of other people would. So how would Viserys (because I think in the end it would be his task to settle the issue) dealt with such a scenario?

No idea. But since Lady Rhea agreed to marry a Targaryen prince she must have known what she was getting herself into. Part of the reason why you don't want your daughter to inherit is that this, usually, marks the end of your name and your house in the male line.

Viserys I would have also had a viable interest to keep Daemon's children as Targaryens if they had become dragonriders. As such they would have been important for the dynastic plans of the next generation, anyway.

[The Wondering Wolf]

1 minute ago, Lord Varys said:

No idea. But since Lady Rhea agreed to marry a Targaryen prince she must have known what she was getting herself into. Part of the reason why you don't want your daughter to inherit is that this, usually, marks the end of your name and your house in the male line.

I think the Westeros try to keep the house names though, there are some examples for that. So I can see no reason why Lord Yorbert would agree to give up his family seat and let his house go down when there were other Royces around.

[Lord Varys]

27 minutes ago, The Wondering Wolf said:

I think the Westeros try to keep the house names though, there are some examples for that. So I can see no reason why Lord Yorbert would agree to give up his family seat and let his house go down when there were other Royces around.

At this point there is speculation, not exactly a proper example. And we have most definitely no example for a royal prince marrying an heir and not passing his name on to his children. With the Targaryens this would be part of their pride. And they are most definitely bigger fish in that pond than the Royces.

[The Bard of Banefort]

Was Naerys left off of the family tree for simplicity's sake? 

[The Grey Wolf]

9 minutes ago, The Bard of Banefort said:

Was Naerys left off of the family tree for simplicity's sake? 

No. She just wasn't born yet is why.

[Bernie Mac]

On 11/28/2018 at 3:23 AM, LordSeaSnake said:

I've done a count of named characters, including bastards, from the major noble families who lived from 0 BC-136 AC:

House Arryn: 15
House Baratheon: 15
House Greyjoy: 6
House Hightower: 22
House Lannister: 10
House Martell: 9
House Stark: 16
House Tully: 6
House Tyrell: 6
House Velaryon: 26

House Greyjoy, Tully, and Tyrell were definitely given lesser roles in the book, unfortunately. We can make a near-complete family tree for the Hightowers, Velaryons, and Baratheons, though the others are lacking in major spots.

 

Great work, I wish I had the patience to note this down. 

The Arryn family tree, from what we are told, is going to be epic given the amount of times the title went to a cousin rather than child/grandchild. Does not bode well for Robin though. 

 

[Lion of the West]

I'll add that its very nice that the Arryn backstory seems to get some more love. It has been a seriously underdeveloped House up to this point.

[Paxter Redwyne]

9 hours ago, Bernie Mac said:

Does not bode well for Robin though. 

I think it would be funny if Harry the Arse died in accident during tournament and Robert survived, but I think that is not very likely.

[Bael's Bastard]

I would have loved to see Robert turn it around with the five year gap. At this point, I'm not sure how much he can change with so little time passing, unless GRRM intends to insert a gap between TWOW and ADOS.

[Paxter Redwyne]

Do we know what three Kingsguards were sentenced to death by Cregan Stark and joined Nightswatch?

[Lord Varys]

3 hours ago, Paxter Redwyne said:

Do we know what three Kingsguards were sentenced to death by Cregan Stark and joined Nightswatch?

Not that I recall right now. All we can draw from that, I think, is that Aegon II had seven KGs around the time of his death.

Which should also imply that Rhaenyra had seven Queensguard at some point. They kept the men they had - Thorne, Fell, Cole, Cargyll for Aegon II and Marbrand, Cargyll, and Darklyn for Rhaenyra - during the first half of the war, while Aegon II was still in KL and Rhaenyra on Dragonstone, but once Rhaenyra sat the throne she filled up her Queensguard while Aegon II did the same thing after his restoration.

[Paxter Redwyne]

At the time of death, Dalton is not mentioned to have any brothers. That would mean that his brother Veron has died somewhere before him, right? Also Toron Greyjoy, older son of Dalton became in the end lord of the Iron Isles?

[Lord Varys]

5 minutes ago, Paxter Redwyne said:

At the time of death, Dalton is not mentioned to have any brothers. That would mean that his brother Veron has died somewhere before him, right? Also Toron Greyjoy, older son of Dalton became in the end lord of the Iron Isles?

Not necessarily. The fact that Veron didn't take part in the succession struggle implies he was dead, but is not a real confirmation.

We don't really know that salt sons come behind brothers.

[Paxter Redwyne]

2 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

Not necessarily. The fact that Veron didn't take part in the succession struggle implies he was dead, but is not a real confirmation.

We don't really know that salt sons come behind brothers.

"Dalton Greyjoy had never taken a rock wife, so his only heirs were two young sons born of the salt wives he had left on Pyke, three sisters, and several cousins, each more grasping and ambitious than the last."

Veron is not listed here as one of Dalton's heirs and:

"Though Toron Greyjoy remained upon the Seastone Chair when his defenders beat off the Lannister assault upon the walls of Pyke, his half-brother Rodrik was taken and brought back to Casterly Rock, where Lady Johanna had him gelded and made him her son’s fool."

Last time Toron is mentioned he is still lord of the Iron Isles. We don't know what happened later, but from those two quotes it seemed that Veron was dead and Toron became new lord in the end.

[Lord Varys]

12 minutes ago, Paxter Redwyne said:

"Dalton Greyjoy had never taken a rock wife, so his only heirs were two young sons born of the salt wives he had left on Pyke, three sisters, and several cousins, each more grasping and ambitious than the last."

Veron is not listed here as one of Dalton's heirs and:

"Though Toron Greyjoy remained upon the Seastone Chair when his defenders beat off the Lannister assault upon the walls of Pyke, his half-brother Rodrik was taken and brought back to Casterly Rock, where Lady Johanna had him gelded and made him her son’s fool."

Last time Toron is mentioned he is still lord of the Iron Isles. We don't know what happened later, but from those two quotes it seemed that Veron was dead and Toron became new lord in the end.

Oh, yeah, I overlooked the whole part on the sisters. Thought they were daughters, for some reason, makes no sense. In that case, Veron must most definitely be dead - or at least Gyldayn must believe he was dead and does therefore not count him among the heirs.

If he had gone underground somehow he could come back in FaB as 'a hidden heir' ;-).

[The Bard of Banefort]

The addition of Jaehaerys' daughter, Daenerys, was a retcon, yes? Any idea why GRRM decided to include her in place of the original Targ son? 

[Lord Varys]

11 minutes ago, The Bard of Banefort said:

The addition of Jaehaerys' daughter, Daenerys, was a retcon, yes? Any idea why GRRM decided to include her in place of the original Targ son? 

My guesses:

To have another Daenerys and to make some allusion to another 'heads of the dragon' trinity - in this case Daenerys, Aemon, and Baelon, the only children around while Daenerys is alive.

Another reason could be to make the Shivers more devastating by claiming the oldest child of Jaehaerys and Alysanne rather than some other.

Finally, replacing  the oldest daughter with a girl that died rather than have Alyssa as the eldest daughter who would then go on to marry Baelon helps to make the incest marriage policy work better.

We learned that a Targaryen usually marries his eldest sister, so how could it be, prior to FaB, that Aemon marries Jocelyn Baratheon instead of his elder sister Alyssa? Now we know - Aemon originally was supposed to marry his older sister Daenerys whereas Baelon got his younger sister Alyssa who was set up for him from the start. That creates the void Jocelyn Baratheon can then enter into.

This also helps to deal with the Great Council and claims thing because if Baelon had indeed married his eldest sister Alyssa - older than Aemon - then Viserys' claim would have been much better than it actually is. He would have been the scion of the younger male line as he is now, but also of the eldest Targaryen line, though Jaehaerys' eldest child, Alyssa. That way his claim would have easily trumped Laenor's whose claim would have been only through a younger female line than Viserys'.

With Viserys now descending from Baelon and his younger sister-wife Alyssa everything works out pretty well.

But I actually think the Daenerys thing is much more important there then the family tree dynamics.

Although he shuffled the birth orders around for that, too, so that Vaegon and Daella would be close in age, etc.

[The Sleeper]

3 hours ago, The Bard of Banefort said:

The addition of Jaehaerys' daughter, Daenerys, was a retcon, yes? Any idea why GRRM decided to include her in place of the original Targ son? 

So that she would be the first rift between Jaehaerys and Alysanne regarding the succession and showing Jaehaerys's attitude towards same.