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[spoilers] Aerea


Lord Varys

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Just now, HamSandLich said:

The important thing is that its South of the Wall, which, like the walls of Storm's End, is explicitly designed to stop magic.

See my edit in previous post

The Wall evidently doesn't prevent Bran or Bloodraven from witnessing events that happened/occur/will occur south of the Wall. So, that's one magic the Wall cannot stop.

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2 minutes ago, sweetsunray said:

The Wall evidently doesn't prevent Bran or Bloodraven from witnessing events that happened/occur/will occur south of the Wall. So, that's one magic the Wall cannot stop.

Likely because its the same type of magic that built the Wall. The weirwoods are also explicitly stated to be beyond linear causality as well.

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5 minutes ago, HamSandLich said:

Likely because its the same type of magic that built the Wall. The weirwoods are also explicitly stated to be beyond linear causality as well.

That seems unlikely since we'd consider greenseeing as green magic, which isn't ice magic. But green magic both in the example of greenseers and the gate beneath the Nightforth seem to supercede the ice magic worked into the Wall.

Seeing and watching doesn't have to be linear, correct. And perhaps communication through sacrifice doesn't have to be either. Were the figures called forth by Mirri Maz Duur during her ritual in the tent restricted to linear causality or not? Mel can see the future in her flames as well. Heck, she can see Bran and Bloodraven in her flames, while South of the Wall in Castle Black.

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On 11/22/2018 at 11:26 PM, Lord Varys said:

Let's talk about the brave girl here.

And no, the creatures are not firewyrms in my opinion. They are something different. Firewyrms are mundane things known to hang out in the Fourteen Flames before the Doom. What Aerea encountered was post-Doom and deliberately Lovecractian weirdness. I don't think we should try to attach a common name to that.

I just reached that part- I'm trying to take small bites and savor every morsel of this meal and I still almost choked on that one.

I'm still processing, but the Lovecraftian sentiment in Barth's doubting the benevolence of the Seven and the sanity of the universe was well done, IMHO. I hope we get more from him.

My best guess, and I don't want to drag too much of my tinfoil on the subject of magic in as we've danced that dance before, is that the things that came out of Aera were the souls of Valyrians slain in the Doom that have been basically just bouncing around in whatever arcane hell their homeland has become that latched onto the power of Aera's blood and were trying to force themselves into existence using her flesh as a doorway.

 

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1 minute ago, hiemal said:

My best guess, and I don't want to drag too much of my tinfoil on the subject of magic in as we've danced that dance before, is that the things that came out of Aera were the souls of Valyrians slain in the Doom that have been basically just bouncing around in whatever arcane hell their homeland has become that latched onto the power of Aera's blood and were trying to force themselves into existence using her flesh as a doorway.

 

Given that...unwholesome experiments involving human reproduction are referenced occurring in both Valyria and Gogossos, I think they're attempts by the dragonlords to fuse men and fireworms, for what purpose I don't know (given what we know of them, they could have done it for the lulz). Hell, the concentrated bad juju in Valyria could have warped previously mundane creatures into monstrosities.

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1 hour ago, Bael's Bastard said:

Before Rhaenyra, the idea of a woman inheriting the Iron Throne was never anything more than the desperate backup plan of an impotent usurper who couldn't produce an heir of any gender, and had no male relatives other than the boys he was usurping (Maegor), and a frankly delusional and irrational Alysanne who had no basis to assert that Daenerys or Rhaenys had any claim to rule in their own right.

Nope, Aerea was the final choice of Lord Rogar. Had he had his way, Jaehaerys may have ended with a chain around his neck - or perhaps a noose - and Aerea would have sat the Iron Throne.

Both Aerea and Daenerys were heirs (apparent) to the Iron Throne prior to the birth of the princes, and if Aerea had lived, they would have been both delusional and irrational to ignore her claim and don't do their best to make her part of their dynastic plans - else she and her dragon and any husband she may have taken would have helped to topple them. You do recall what offers Rhaena Targaryen gets in the West, right? What do you think would have happened if she had stayed at Casterly Rock, marrying Lord Lyman's heir? The Lannisters and all the power of the West would have helped take her father's throne, especially if she given her Targaryen-Lannister children dragons of their own. Rhaena had issues with her family and she was far too proud to admit that she would have liked to be queen. But Aerea didn't love her uncle, nor her aunt, and perhaps not even her mother. She would have had no issues to try to claim what she wanted.

Aerea was not just Rhaenys, she was of the elder line. She had a better claim than Jaehaerys himself. This is made very clear when the boy takes her throne. The strength of her claim is never questioned - they cite arbitrary nonsense like her personality (as if that's relevant in a world where blood claims decides who rules) and her age (which would change overtime).

1 hour ago, Bael's Bastard said:

The century and a half of Lords of Dragonstone and Kings of Westeros had established time and again that a male Targaryen inherited over a female Targaryen. Alysanne might have been wise about a great many things, but she was out of her mind on this matter, and needlessly strained her relationship with her husband with such a baseless idea.

At this point there is actually no evidence that there were any female Targaryens on Dragonstone aside from Daenys, Elaena, her younger sister, and whoever Valaena Velaryon is descended from. There is no reason to assume that Aerys or Baelon and Daemion passed over any daughters. Perhaps those guys all didn't have any children at all - and perhaps they had sons their uncles pushed aside. We don't know.

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9 minutes ago, HamSandLich said:

Visenya was Aegon's elder, but her younger brother was Lord of Dragonstone and was given the bulk of the (official) political power

That's not the same. Nobody ever said the Targaryens practiced equal primogeniture on Dragonstone. It is whether an uncle came before a daughter, e.g. Jaehaerys before Aerea or Baelon before Rhaenys. To claim daughters were passed over we would need confirmation that Maegon and Aelyx and Baelon had any daughters. It might be, but they could have been childless or they could have had sons.

But equal primogeniture is not unheard of south of the Red Mountains, either. Marla Sunderland became queen (and presumably Lady of the Three Sisters prior to that) instead of her younger brother Steffon.

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19 minutes ago, HamSandLich said:

Given that...unwholesome experiments involving human reproduction are referenced occurring in both Valyria and Gogossos, I think they're attempts by the dragonlords to fuse men and fireworms, for what purpose I don't know (given what we know of them, they could have done it for the lulz). Hell, the concentrated bad juju in Valyria could have warped previously mundane creatures into monstrosities.

And probably did- something injured Balerion. I suppose that some of them could be parasitic but I think that what happened was more than just a bilogical infestation. Barth's brief description did not lead me to believe that there was anything "of a kind" about these things, however. The impression I had that was these were unique horrors and furthermore that were not just unfinished, but were shifting or trying to shift almost constantly.

Faces and hands suggest to me that a multitude of things are trying to become human, and that they are doing so using Area's body itself. Kind of combining Athena popping out of a foreheadand and a xenomorph popping out of a stomach into a mass infestation.

A good way to test this is to see what happens to someone who doesn't have Valyrian blood (and isn't sworn to R'hlorr although I'm not sure that would have the same effect and would be curious to see what happens in that case as well) who ventures into Valyria.

 

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1 hour ago, HamSandLich said:

The important thing is that its South of the Wall, which, like the walls of Storm's End, is explicitly designed to stop magic.

Is it? Where is that said? Mel has visions that show her Bloodraven and Bran for instance. 

ETA: as @sweetsunray said a few posts up.

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Just now, Lord Varys said:

But equal primogeniture is not unheard of south of the Red Mountains, either. Marla Sunderland became queen (and presumably Lady of the Three Sisters prior to that) instead of her younger brother Steffon.

That's a given. Westeros, which, up until Jaehaerys came along, lacked anything resembling centralized law. Even the "First Man and Andal Tradition" of male primogeniture was likely ignored countless time throughout the years. 

As for uncles coming before daughters or vice versa, Westeros seems to flip-flop a lot on that. There are records of even the Starks marrying uncles to daughters, but we don't know how said pairings were received by the majority of the population

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1 minute ago, Lord Varys said:

Nope, Aerea was the final choice of Lord Rogar. Had he had his way, Jaehaerys may have ended with a chain around his neck - or perhaps a noose - and Aerea would have sat the Iron Throne.

And? Rogar was a non-Targaryen with no authority to decide the Targaryen succession, and no authority to unmake King Jaehaerys I, the eldest surviving son of King Aenys I. Robar was only Protector of the Realm and Hand of the King on account of the minor King Jaehaerys I naming him such. His attempt to overthrow Jaehaerys to install Aerea was no less an act of desperation by a power hungry traitor than King Maegor's usurpation of his nephews and naming Aerea his heir before him.

8 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

Both Aerea and Daenerys were heirs (apparent) to the Iron Throne prior to the birth of the princes, and if Aerea had lived, they would have been both delusional and irrational to ignore her claim and don't do their best to make her part of their dynastic plans - else she and her dragon and any husband she may have taken would have helped to topple them. You do recall what offers Rhaena Targaryen gets in the West, right? What do you think would have happened if she had stayed at Casterly Rock, marrying Lord Lyman's heir? The Lannisters and all the power of the West would have helped take her father's throne, especially if she given her Targaryen-Lannister children dragons of their own. Rhaena had issues with her family and she was far too proud to admit that she would have liked to be queen. But Aerea didn't love her uncle, nor her aunt, and perhaps not even her mother. She would have had no issues to try to claim what she wanted.

These what if scenarios are irrelevant. I thought you weren't going to speculate nonsense anymore? That didn't last long. ;)

Aerea had no claim above Jaehaerys, and no claim above Jaehaerys's own children. That she was Jaehaerys's heir when he was literally the only living male Targaryen descendant of Aegon I only demonstrates that it was an absolutely worst case scenario. The same goes for Daenerys. Alysanne's delusion that that was anything except temporary until they had more Targaryen males  just demonstrates her irrationality on the matter. Aegon I, not Visenya, was lord and king. Prince Aegon, not Rhaena, was heir to Aenys I. Jaehaerys, not Rhaena or Aerea, was king. At every turn it was the Targaryen male. But suddenly she thought he daughter or Aemon's daughter would inherit? There was no basis for that delusion. They might be queens if they wed their king brothers, but short of all Targaryen males perishing, they were never going to rule in their own right. That is a baseless assumption on her part, which Jaehaerys had no intention of making happen.

17 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

Aerea was not just Rhaenys, she was of the elder line. She had a better claim than Jaehaerys himself. This is made very clear when the boy takes her throne. The strength of her claim is never questioned - they cite arbitrary nonsense like her personality (as if that's relevant in a world where blood claims decides who rules) and her age (which would change overtime).

She really didn't, because she was a woman, and just like her mother Rhaena, the eldest of Aenys's children, she was never ahead of Aenys's male children except at the hands of Maegor, who had usurped and cut out or murdered all his male relatives with better claim than him. Aerea was heir to Maegor when he usurped and denied all the Targaryen living males ahead of him, and heir of Jaehaerys while there were no other Targaryen males except him. Any claim that she had a better claim than Jaehaerys isn't worth shit. It is baseless. She no more had a better claim than Visenya did over Aegon, or Rhaena did over Aegon. In 150 years of Targaryen lords and kings, there was no precedent for a Targaryen to put one of their women ahead of their men.

22 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

At this point there is actually no evidence that there were any female Targaryens on Dragonstone aside from Daenys, Elaena, her younger sister, and whoever Valaena Velaryon is descended from. There is no reason to assume that Aerys or Baelon and Daemion passed over any daughters. Perhaps those guys all didn't have any children at all - and perhaps they had sons their uncles pushed aside. We don't know.

If you want to continue writing and preferring your own fiction over what GRRM has written, have fun with it. Personally, I'm not interested in your baseless assertions.

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1 minute ago, HamSandLich said:

As for uncles coming before daughters or vice versa, Westeros seems to flip-flop a lot on that. There are records of even the Starks marrying uncles to daughters, but we don't know how said pairings were received by the majority of the population

FaB II should dwell on that. Cregan Stark has effectively become a supporting cast member. But one assumes this was done so the claims would be united.

Which is basically what I think they would have been well advised to do with Aerea, too, had she lived. Especially since she had Balerion. And if she and Aemon had then only had a daughter, well, considering Aerea's personality chances are that she might have pushed her own claim as much as that of her daughter. I mean, the girl was really a dialed-up, dragonriding version of Arya.

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5 minutes ago, kissdbyfire said:

Is it? Where is that said? Mel has visions that show her Bloodraven and Bran for instance. 

Silverwing won't cross the Wall, Jon's Warg bond with ghost is disrupted when they're on opposite sides, the Others' necromancy doesn't raise those who die south of the Wall(though if Crows bring over wights on their own, they still function, but they gradually lose function the further they are from the Wall), Coldhands can't cross.

Tangentially, Brandon the Builder apocryphally was the architect for Storms End, which explicitly won't let Melisandre's shadowbinding cross its walls.

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17 minutes ago, hiemal said:

A good way to test this is to see what happens to someone who doesn't have Valyrian blood (and isn't sworn to R'hlorr although I'm not sure that would have the same effect and would be curious to see what happens in that case as well) who ventures into Valyria.

Euron claims to have been, as dubious as those claims are. But Euron is a monster in human skin, perhaps the abominations in Valyria sensed in him a kindred spirit, or a predator more even more twisted than them. Euron's been steeped in magic for years though, ever since his flying dream, perhaps he picked up ways of protecting himself in Qarth or Asshai

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4 minutes ago, HamSandLich said:

Euron claims to, as dubious as those claims are. But Euron is a monster in human skin, perhaps the abominations in Valyria sensed in him a kindred spirit, or a predator more even more twisted than them. Euron's been steeped in magic for years though, ever since his flying dream, perhaps he picked up ways of protecting himself in Qarth or Asshai

I'm of the camp that thinks Euron is full of kraken-poop on this one.

Thoughts- other than the "things" it seems kind of like an accelarated, fire-based version of what happens to stone men. I wonder if something similar went into the creation of the Others?

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42 minutes ago, hiemal said:

And probably did- something injured Balerion. I suppose that some of them could be parasitic but I think that what happened was more than just a bilogical infestation. Barth's brief description did not lead me to believe that there was anything "of a kind" about these things, however. The impression I had that was these were unique horrors and furthermore that were not just unfinished, but were shifting or trying to shift almost constantly.

Faces and hands suggest to me that a multitude of things are trying to become human, and that they are doing so using Area's body itself. Kind of combining Athena popping out of a foreheadand and a xenomorph popping out of a stomach into a mass infestation.

A good way to test this is to see what happens to someone who doesn't have Valyrian blood (and isn't sworn to R'hlorr although I'm not sure that would have the same effect and would be curious to see what happens in that case as well) were to venture into Valyria.

 

I've reread a couple of times. First thing of note is that these "worms with faces and hands" didn't attempt to leave Aerea's body until she was put into the bath and her heart had given away. Once they came out they died because of the ice they ended up trying to escape towards. And the second thing is how her body heated up so over the top that she started to smoke and burn from the inside out.

What are we sure of with Valyrian dragonlords: they have a high body temperature. It's why Alysanne didn't need to wear the thickest furs in Winterfell. It's how Dany can abide with bathing water so hot that would scald others. George has eplicitly said that despite the hatching of the dragons event, Dany is not actually fireproof. So, basically, dragonlords have a higher body temperature than other people, which gives them different responses to  various heat situations, but doesn't make them totally immune to heat and fire. Our normal body temperature is a little less than 37 ° C. We call having anything above that a fever. If you have 38 °C you have a serious enough fever. Anything higher is alarming. Why do have fever? It's a body's reaction to an infection. Viruses and bacterias love our 37°C to multiply in. What happens if our temperature rises with a fever? The survival temperature of a lot of those bugs lies below that, and so they start to die. You can see "fever" as a defense reaction to basically cook those bugs to death. Now, if dragonlords already have a higher body temperature (comparable to our fever temperature), then you get why they tend to be immune to "normal diseases": their bodies are not a good survival habitat for those viruses. Only poison and magical diseases aren't bothered by the hotter body temperature of Targaryens, and to some extent bacterial infections.

Now these things thrived in Aerea's body and they die almost instantly in a cold of 0°C. So, these "worms" love a hot body temperature. The body's response to alien bugs infesting you is to raise the body temperature. But the hotter the better for these worms. So, this seems to have been a cycle of the body trying to kill the infestation by raising the body temperature, while that only served the infestation to have a huge partay, until eventually Aerea was so burning hot that her skin actually started to burn and crackle.

They moved her to the ice tub, finally in an effort to cool her down (and indeed, some diseases need to be treated with cold baths, instead of piling up blankets, to bring the fever down). As hot as she was, her system couldn't handle the temperature difference, and so her heart stopped. Once it stopped, the worms pour out of her body (but not before). So, these creatures likely lived in her blood stream, in her vains... makes sense, since blood is the distributor of heat in our body.

If these worms thrive on heat, then Valyria after the doom makes for a paradise for them, and a dragon (fire made flesh) even a preferred host.

But I do agree that the "infestation" may already be part of the dragonlords since before the Doom, that it's some blood-binding of some alien fire creature that alraedy gave them these special abilities, but somehow with the Doom the magic that makes these two co-exist symbiotically goes completely haywire and help the worms gain the upper hand over their hosts' bodies.

And I'm also curious to what happens to someone who does not have Valyrian dragonlord blood in them. Euron's certainly an interesting case then (if he actually speaks the truth). If non dragonlord humans suffer similarly (they would die faster though), then it's not in the dragonlord blood.  If they don't, then the worms are alraedy part of the dragonlords since before the Doom.

 

 

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1 minute ago, hiemal said:

Thoughts- other than the "things" it seems kind of like an accelarated, fire-based version of what happens to stone men. I wonder if something similar went into the creation of the Others?

For the Stone men thing, its a bit of a stretch. Its a condition with supernatural connotations that induces physiological change, the similarities begin and end there. You could say the same about lycanthropy(though it doesn't exist in ASOIAF) and the Stonemen are were-rocks. Sure, you can make the comparison, but its not a narrow comparison. Aerea's flesh wasn't transmuting into fire, her insides were being set on fire.

As for the Others, i'm of the opinion they're their own people, as the Giants and the CoTF and whatever the hell built the Seastone Chair.

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34 minutes ago, Bael's Bastard said:

And? Rogar was a non-Targaryen with no authority to decide the Targaryen succession, and no authority to unmake King Jaehaerys I, the eldest surviving son of King Aenys I. Robar was only Protector of the Realm and Hand of the King on account of the minor King Jaehaerys I naming him such. His attempt to overthrow Jaehaerys to install Aerea was no less an act of desperation by a power hungry traitor than King Maegor's usurpation of his nephews and naming Aerea his heir before him.

Rogar spoke with the King's Voice, did he not? He could have said the minor king wished to abdicate, no? How irrelevant kings can be in a Regency setting you can see when Aegon III was besieged in his own castle. Nobody gave a damn what the broken boy thought. They even named regents and Hands without consulting him. If they can do that - and Rogar had had some balls - he would have put his wife into place who had sworn to obey him on their Golden Wedding and then he would have done what he thought was best.

If men can make such blatantly contradictory suggestions as Rogar does during the Regency of Jaehaerys I without anyone actually addressing the legal arguments the way you presume to do here we have ample evidence that people there don't give a rat's ass about laws and traditions. The men there stood with Jaehaerys I because Alyssa put Rogar in his place - and because Jaehaerys had befriended and chosen a significant number of them to serve on his council before it came to that. They didn't have better arguments. In fact, the only argument they apparently had was 'Jaehaerys and Alysanne have dragons'. That's not a legal argument.

Even during the Dance there a very few people who care about laws and tradition - and those who do mostly care that a son comes before a daughter, not that a daughter should not inherit at all. And the greatest fun of all is that the greatest champion of 'Andal tradition' - Unwin Peake - ends up killing the true heiress of his king, Queen Jaehaera, to ensure that no woman or male heir through the female line sits the throne. 

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Aerea had no claim above Jaehaerys, and no claim above Jaehaerys's own children. That she was Jaehaerys's heir when he was literally the only living male Targaryen descendant of Aegon I only demonstrates that it was an absolutely worst case scenario.

LOL, have you read the book?

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Even his claim to the Iron Throne was not wholly beyond question. Although Jaehaerys was the only surviving son of King Aenys I, his older brother Aegon had claimed the kingship before him. Aegon the Uncrowned had died at the Battle Beneath the Gods Eye whilst trying to unseat his uncle Maegor, but not before taking to wife his sister Rhaena and siring two daughters, the twins Aerea and Rhaella. If Maegor the Cruel were accounted only a usurper with no right to rule, as certain maesters argued, then Prince Aegon had been the true king, and the succession by rights should pass to his elder daughter, Aerea, not his younger brother.

This is written in hindsight, with the knowledge in mind that Jaehaerys would rule as king and his niece would die a horrible death.

That Maegor was seen as usurper and Prince Aegon as the rightful king is made very clear by Queen Alyssa's take on the matter of Maegor's henchmen. They pardon many of them, but they don't say 'Well, what you did was right because Maegor was king and all'. And if Maegor wasn't king, then Prince Aegon was king. And then his daughters are his heirs, not Jaehaerys:

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After the death of her husband and her flight to Fair Isle, Rhaena Targaryen had acted quickly to protect her daughters. If Prince Aegon had truly been the king, by law his eldest daughter, Aerea, stood his heir, and might therefore claim to be the rightful Queen of the Seven Kingdoms

That looks pretty obvious to me.

By Andal tradition, as confirmed by Jaehaerys himself in the Widow's Law, daughters come before uncles. His ascension is the special case, not the other way around.

And by the way: If Jaehaerys had wanted he could have made his uncle Daemon Velaryon or a Baratheon his heir. Nothing forced him to make Princess Aerea his heir. It is quite clear that both the Velaryons and especially the Baratheons were aware that they were a Targaryen cadet branch.

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The same goes for Daenerys. Alysanne's delusion that that was anything except temporary until they had more Targaryen males  just demonstrates her irrationality on the matter.

Oh, I never said that Daenerys should have been queen, did I? I just said she was the Heir Apparent, because that's what's in the book.

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But suddenly she thought he daughter or Aemon's daughter would inherit? There was no basis for that delusion.

LOL, again:

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In 74 AC, King Jaehaerys and Queen Alysanne were blessed again by the gods when Prince Aemon’s wife, the Lady Jocelyn, presented them with their first grandchild. Princess Rhaenys was born on the seventh day of the seventh moon of the year, which the septons judged to be highly auspicious. Large and fierce, she had the black hair of her Baratheon mother and the pale violet eyes of her Targaryen father. As the firstborn child of the Prince of Dragonstone, many hailed her as next in line for the Iron Throne after her father. When Queen Alysanne held her in her arms for the first time, she was heard to call the little girl “our queen to be.”

It is not 'Alysanne's delusion'. And if her father had lived and ruled and Baelon would have died in 101 AC Queen Rhaenys I would have followed King Aemon I. Even if Baelon would have lived - who would have wanted a toothless old man to inherit the throne instead of the king's daughter? A King Aemon could have even outlived Viserys had the man lived as healthy a lifestyle as prince as he did as king.

It might be that some thought Baelon should come before Aemon, but that wouldn't have been theirs to decided since King Aemon I would have dealt with his own succession in due time, not his father or his father's council.

And by the way: Things can change. I guess Mors Martell's father also didn't think his granddaughters would come before his grandson. Just as Mern IX. didn't think Highgarden would ever end up in the possession of the Tyrells.

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If you want to continue writing and preferring your own fiction over what GRRM has written, have fun with it. Personally, I'm not interested in your baseless assertions.

LOL, care to give us the daughters the Lords of Dragonstone passed over? There may be some, but you don't know their names nor whether they existed. And until we have confirmation on that Maegon and Aelyx and Baelon could have just have as many children as Vaegon. Or their brothers could have dealt with their sons and daughters both the way Maegor dealt with his brother's children.

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