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Why do we not hear of Targyen parents marrying their offspring?


Varysblackfyre321

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I think, that there was at least two precedents like that - Serenei of Lys, Aegon IV's last mistress was, possibly, his mother, Larra Rogare; Jeyne Lothston, Aegon IV's eight mistress was, possibly, his daughter from his first mistress, Falena Stokeworth. Maybe, the Bastard of Harrenhal (this one - https://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/Bastard_of_Harrenhal) was bastard-child of Aegon IV, same as Serenei's daughter, Shiera. Possibly, this bastard was great great granfather of Petyr Baelish, and grandfather of Lady Shella Whent. Thus both, Shiera and Littlefinger, are fruits of incest between mother and son, and father and daughter. And this son to one, and the father to the other, is the same person. So it's a closed circle.

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On 12/12/2018 at 9:50 AM, Megorova said:

I think, that there was at least two precedents like that - Serenei of Lys, Aegon IV's last mistress was, possibly, his mother, Larra Rogare; Jeyne Lothston, Aegon IV's eight mistress was, possibly, his daughter from his first mistress, Falena Stokeworth. Maybe, the Bastard of Harrenhal (this one - https://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/Bastard_of_Harrenhal) was bastard-child of Aegon IV, same as Serenei's daughter, Shiera. Possibly, this bastard was great great granfather of Petyr Baelish, and grandfather of Lady Shella Whent. Thus both, Shiera and Littlefinger, are fruits of incest between mother and son, and father and daughter. And this son to one, and the father to the other, is the same person. So it's a closed circle.

Noted and thank you for this tidbit of information , it appears I’ve once again been shown to be mistaken on this forum.

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12 hours ago, Varysblackfyre321 said:

Noted and thank you for this tidbit of information , it appears I’ve once again been shown to be mistaken on this forum.

Please ignore most anything Megarova posts. The only accurate part of that is there is a small possibility Jeyne Lothston was Aegon's bastard but that is by no means certain. Everything else is Megrova's "theories" (I use that in the broadest sense, baseless speculation is more accurate)

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On 12/12/2018 at 11:33 AM, sweetsunray said:

Rather to make sure that siblings with dragons didn't start killing each other for the seat of power. And there were Targ siblings who married one another out of mutual attraction.

Sure there were.  However more were done out of the necessity to keep the dragon bond.  They believed a savior would one day come who will bring back the dragons.  And she did.  They kept the faith even during the miserable dragonless years.  

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On 12/4/2018 at 2:57 PM, Canon Claude said:

Only in Greek mythology have I heard of parents and children coupling, and not even Zeus went that far. It was only the entities of Earth (Gaia) and Sky (Uranus) who did that.

Zeus wooed his daughter Persephone according to some tales.

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There are some ancient sources claiming Nero had a thing for his mother Agrippina The Younger,along with that Caligula and Livia were featured in TV series , so maybe there is well kept Targaryen secret , though personally I am not fan of these rumored scandals, I more appreciate great battles or reading about political crisis. 

I am not sure if it was taboo in Valyria ,  uncle and niece seem to be permissible and that very similar (Maegor and Rhaena, Daemon and Rhaenyra is very close to father/daughter).

 

http://johndclare.blogspot.com/2013/01/so-did-nero-commit-incest-with-his.html

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1 hour ago, anjulibai said:

Serenei of Lys is Larra Rogare? What?!

Nope. Larra Rogare died in 145 AC according to Ran.

Parent-children incest is not unheard of in mythology (hello there, Lot and daughters) and in Ancient Egypt as well. There are various daughters of pharaohs who are styled 'Great Royal Wives' (here is a list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Royal_Wife) and there is not exactly an insignificant number of daughters married to their royal fathers there.

There is scholarly debate whether those daughters were actually properly - and not just ritually - married to their fathers but considering that sibling incest was very common chances are not that great that they had issues with parent-child incest there.

The Pharaoh Ay, Tutankhamun's immediate successor, is believed to be the father of Akhenaten's main wife, Nefertiti, which would make him the maternal grandfather of the sister-wife of Tutankhamun's, Ankhesenamun, he apparently married after Tutankhamun's early death.

So even grandparent-grandchild incest was a thing in Ancient Egypt (at least in the 18th dynasty).

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  • 4 weeks later...
On ‎12‎/‎4‎/‎2018 at 7:52 AM, LucionLannister said:

Probably because it never really happened historically, and we know GRRM drew a lot from history.

The best example of close incest are the ancient Egyptian pharaohs. They married brother and sister all the time (Cleopatra married both her brothers), but I don't think they ever married father/daughter mother/son.

1. Cleopatra wasn't an Ancient Egyptian Pharoah, she was a Classical Era Hellenistic Pharoah. The Ptolemies were not Ancient or Egyptian, they were Macedonians

2. The Brother-Sister marraiges were endemic fo the Ptolemies and not uncommon for the Ethnic Egyptian Pharaohs before the Persian Conquest. 

3. Father-Daughter marriages were rare but did happen.

For true perversion look not the mind of GRR Martin, look to reality. 

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On 12/21/2018 at 5:50 AM, Lord Varys said:

Parent-children incest is not unheard of in mythology (hello there, Lot and daughters) and in Ancient Egypt as well. There are various daughters of pharaohs who are styled 'Great Royal Wives' (here is a list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Royal_Wife) and there is not exactly an insignificant number of daughters married to their royal fathers there.

There is scholarly debate whether those daughters were actually properly - and not just ritually - married to their fathers but considering that sibling incest was very common chances are not that great that they had issues with parent-child incest there. 

The Pharaoh Ay, Tutankhamun's immediate successor, is believed to be the father of Akhenaten's main wife, Nefertiti, which would make him the maternal grandfather of the sister-wife of Tutankhamun's, Ankhesenamun, he apparently married after Tutankhamun's early death.

So even grandparent-grandchild incest was a thing in Ancient Egypt (at least in the 18th dynasty).

Actually it is almost sure that this parent-children marriages were just ritual-marriages, considering the debate whether sibling-marriages were at all that common in Ancient Egypt, as "sister" and "brother" were wildly used as pet names. It seems as if we do have a Targ-like exceptionalism here for the ruling family, rooting in the importance of the role of the Great Royal Wife, while the common people would normally don't marry their siblings.

Ay had no legitimated claim to be crowned Pharao, beside of his granddaughter, that's why he married her; Ramses for example may simply not have wanted to marry another woman (he already had more wives) after the death of Nefertari, or may have wanted to secure the position of his daughters, we don't know.

Do not forget that a ritual or political marriage in Ancient Egypt not necessary involved actual sexual intercourse, so there is a difference between this (grand-)parent-children-marriages and the Targ-sibling-incest or the sibling-marriages in Egypt itself.

 

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6 hours ago, Morte said:

Actually it is almost sure that this parent-children marriages were just ritual-marriages, considering the debate whether sibling-marriages were at all that common in Ancient Egypt, as "sister" and "brother" were wildly used as pet names. It seems as if we do have a Targ-like exceptionalism here for the ruling family, rooting in the importance of the role of the Great Royal Wife, while the common people would normally don't marry their siblings.

Actually, there is textual evidence that many common Egyptians were married to their siblings in the early Roman period - tax lists from that era do survive. I've linked an article in one of the general threads on incest we have in recent times.

Some of those may only be adopted siblings, etc. but it doesn't seem likely that this is the case for all of them. And in general - it seems very unlikely to me that a culture which (sibling) incest is accepted on the highest level would actually treat such incest as a sin or a taboo in its other members. If incest were seen as problematic in Ancient Egypt the pharaohs wouldn't have done it, either. They may have still married powerful/wealthy close kin like the average medieval royal/nobleman did in later centuries, but they would not have done something that was seen as taboo by the overall culture.

George sort of mimics that with his Valyrians insofar as the incestuous marriages practiced by the dragonlords shaped Valyrian society causing other non-dragonlord families to adopt the marriage policy, too.

The fact that the Ptolemies started to practice sibling incest in the second generation - Ptolemy II made his widowed sister his second wife making the aunt the stepmother of the children from the earlier marriage, whereas the third generation then also produced children in an incestuous union - despite the fact that this kind of thing would have been anathema to Macedonian Greeks (and was not exactly something that was done in the other dynasties that succeeded Alexander as far as I recall right now) implies that we are talking about a genuine Egyptian custom here. It is true that the Persian kings also practiced full sibling incest, but Alexander apparently didn't adopt that kind of thing during his short reign, and thus the Ptolemies very likely adopted Egyptian customs when they started their own sibling incest thing. 

6 hours ago, Morte said:

Ay had no legitimated claim to be crowned Pharao, beside of his granddaughter, that's why he married her; Ramses for example may simply not have wanted to marry another woman (he already had more wives) after the death of Nefertari, or may have wanted to secure the position of his daughters, we don't know.

Oh, I do not doubt that Ay may have married his granddaughter to strengthen his claim, but many pharaohs seizing the throne before and after Ay did successfully do this without marrying a close relative to strengthen the claim or a surviving female member of the previous dynasty. I just pointed out that Ay married his granddaughter. Why he did that we cannot really pretend to know. The same goes for Ramses' daughter-wives.

I've trouble imagining that the marriage of a pharaoh to a Great Royal Wife may have been just ceremonial of said wife happened to be a sister, daughter, or granddaughter - after all, we do know that there were many Great Royal Wives who were not, in fact, close relations of the king and in those cases said marriages were likely not only proper marriages that were consummated but also produced offspring.

If a king just wanted to give a sister, daughter, or granddaughter an exalted position at court he did not have to marry her - he could have just done so by granting her a title, etc. Making her his wife without actually making her his wife when other women styled in this manner are seen as proper wives seems to me as if the (modern) incest taboo causes people to influence the hypotheses and views they develop.

We also got this with the outdated idea that the claim to kingship in Egypt was somehow transferred to men through the female line - a strange idea people here on the board came up with (indepedently?) regarding 'the dragonrider gene' (which is supposed to be inherited through the female line, too) - explaining why sibling incest was so common among the royal dynasties of Egypt. But there is no evidence supporting this idea, and a lot of evidence against that in light of the many kings who are confirmed to have not been married to close relatives.

6 hours ago, Morte said:

Do not forget that a ritual or political marriage in Ancient Egypt not necessary involved actual sexual intercourse, so there is a difference between this (grand-)parent-children-marriages and the Targ-sibling-incest or the sibling-marriages in Egypt itself.

I'm not an Egyptologist - all I can say that I've a reasonably good layman's understanding of Egyptian history. Thus I have a question:

How do ritual or political marriage in Ancient Egypt differ from proper marriages as we understand them?

It is quite clear that the Egyptian understanding of marriage - especially a marriage involving a living god(-king) was quite different from our modern understanding of marriage, but what exactly is our evidence that there were such marriages - especially amongst siblings or other close kin - which were not also properly consummated the way marriages usually are in addition to fulfilling also certain ceremonial and religious functions. It is pretty obvious that the incestuous marriages of the Egyptian pharaohs reflect and mimic the incestuous marriages and relationships of the various Egyptian deities.

13 hours ago, Viking said:

1. Cleopatra wasn't an Ancient Egyptian Pharoah, she was a Classical Era Hellenistic Pharoah. The Ptolemies were not Ancient or Egyptian, they were Macedonians

2. The Brother-Sister marraiges were endemic fo the Ptolemies and not uncommon for the Ethnic Egyptian Pharaohs before the Persian Conquest. 

3. Father-Daughter marriages were rare but did happen.

For true perversion look not the mind of GRR Martin, look to reality. 

The Persian did it, too, as I laid out above. But it seems to me the Ptolemies must have gone native in the incestuous marriage policy thing. This was not a Greek/Macedonian custom, and likely not something they would have done if it hadn't be an integral part of pharaoh ideology. This kind of thing didn't make the Ptolemies popular with the other Greek states, and in light of the tendency of especially the early Ptolemies to not exactly adopt many Egyptian traits - they did not speak the language, didn't really adopt/practice the religion and instead essentially helped to import Greek deities and cults into Egypt and/or create variations of both that were accepted, etc. - it is really odd that they would adopt this incest thing if it hadn't been very important to do so for political reasons.

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I do not recall that it happened and that is probably because it never had to but uncles/nieces, aunts/nephews did. If it came to that, no doubt they would have done so. that is sick enough, worse than that is that probably half of them that would have done so would have actually enjoyed it. Sick, inbred freaks. 

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15 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Actually, there is textual evidence that many common Egyptians were married to their siblings in the early Roman period - tax lists from that era do survive. I've linked an article in one of the general threads on incest we have in recent times.

Some of those may only be adopted siblings, etc. but it doesn't seem likely that this is the case for all of them. And in general - it seems very unlikely to me that a culture which (sibling) incest is accepted on the highest level would actually treat such incest as a sin or a taboo in its other members. If incest were seen as problematic in Ancient Egypt the pharaohs wouldn't have done it, either. They may have still married powerful/wealthy close kin like the average medieval royal/nobleman did in later centuries, but they would not have done something that was seen as taboo by the overall culture.

You got me wrong: it's like @Viking had already said, there are great differences between Ptolemaic and later Egypt and the Classical Pharaonic Period. And no, we are not talking about a taboo, just something not quite as common as science thought it to be till, say, the last third of the 20th century. We are not even sure if it was common even in the ruling families during the Old and Middle Kingdom (and no, gods being married to their sibling is no indication, as this is something we also have in Ancient Greek and other cultures), as it is still not at all a requirement in the New Kingdom.

16 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

They may have still married powerful/wealthy close kin like the average medieval royal/nobleman did in later centuries, but they would not have done something that was seen as taboo by the overall culture. 

Oh, they even married women from neither powerful nor wealthy families. ;)

16 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

The fact that the Ptolemies started to practice sibling incest in the second generation - Ptolemy II made his widowed sister his second wife making the aunt the stepmother of the children from the earlier marriage, whereas the third generation then also produced children in an incestuous union - despite the fact that this kind of thing would have been anathema to Macedonian Greeks (and was not exactly something that was done in the other dynasties that succeeded Alexander as far as I recall right now) implies that we are talking about a genuine Egyptian custom here.

Well... The Ptolemies. They did adopted a custom, driving it to an extreme. Remember that the first Ptolemaic ruler to even speak Egyptian was Cleopatra. The Ptolemaic approach may have something to do with limiting the houses they were related to - they never intended to marry Egyptians, while marriages with their Greek and Macedonian nobles would have caused trouble - as we see with the other Diadochi.

15 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

It is true that the Persian kings also practiced full sibling incest, but Alexander apparently didn't adopt that kind of thing during his short reign, and thus the Ptolemies very likely adopted Egyptian customs when they started their own sibling incest thing. 

Where do you have this from? Honest question, because this is something I never heard before or read about, at least not about the Archaemenides; they married (close) relatives, yes, but not their full sisters [Atossa (Kambyses II) and Parysatis (Dareios the Great) were half-sisters of the the respective king]. Depending on culture a half-sibling-marriage can be seen as no incest at all, either because the same mother, father or both are needed for the incest-taboo to trigger.

16 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Oh, I do not doubt that Ay may have married his granddaughter to strengthen his claim, but many pharaohs seizing the throne before and after Ay did successfully do this without marrying a close relative to strengthen the claim or a surviving female member of the previous dynasty. I just pointed out that Ay married his granddaughter. Why he did that we cannot really pretend to know.

Ay belonged to the Nut-heads around Akhenaten, to even have a chance to be seen as Pharaoh he needed the link to the kings before Akhenaten - so he married his grand-daughter.

16 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

If a king just wanted to give a sister, daughter, or granddaughter an exalted position at court he did not have to marry her - he could have just done so by granting her a title, etc. Making her his wife without actually making her his wife when other women styled in this manner are seen as proper wives seems to me as if the (modern) incest taboo causes people to influence the hypotheses and views they develop.

Pharaoh can not make up titles and positions as he goes, at least not in the way a feudal monarch in Mediaeval Europe could, not even in the New Kingdom.

The incest taboo is not modern, by the way, but one of the most ancient taboos in existence (and not only existing in the specie homo sapiens sapiens), as I explained above (short, I know) however, the definition of incest may vary greatly from the modern scientific perspective.

Fun fact/observation: The more a society views "equality" (again, in it's own definition) as important in it's political structure (even if only inside of different classes/castes), the stricter the taboo (in the definition of incest the respective culture has, of course).

17 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

How do ritual or political marriage in Ancient Egypt differ from proper marriages as we understand them?

It is quite clear that the Egyptian understanding of marriage - especially a marriage involving a living god(-king) was quite different from our modern understanding of marriage, but what exactly is our evidence that there were such marriages - especially amongst siblings or other close kin - which were not also properly consummated the way marriages usually are in addition to fulfilling also certain ceremonial and religious functions. It is pretty obvious that the incestuous marriages of the Egyptian pharaohs reflect and mimic the incestuous marriages and relationships of the various Egyptian deities.

First: Pharaoh is not a living god. At least not since the end of the Old Kingdom, but it may be he wasn't even then (the household is strictly divided between "King" and "person, who happens to be King at this moment" in the counting records even in the Old Kingdom, the "person, who is King" is never the ruler of the land, the "King"/office is, the "person" seems "only" to be seen as a kind of incarnation or manifestation :dunno: ). We don't know for sure.

Since at least the Middle Kingdom the King is some kind of vicegerent for the gods, titled "son of Horus", but as with all this things in Ancient Egypt we can not be sure how this was mend (as they clearly were also the sons of their human parents): They think dual, religious and rational at once, and we don't know how much overlaps we have here (if any at all, remember: they not even have a problem with having a hole bunch of different stories how the world was created, with different gods being the creator at the same time, and having different relations with each other - all at the same time). For example see Herodotos's encounter with the Egyptian priest, when Herodotos tells the priest how his city was founded by the some heroic demigod. The priest shows Herodotos a gallery of statues, depicting his forbearer for some hundred years and more - none of them a demigod. Gods don't walk the earth.

So: Pharaoh and The Great Royal Wife may not necessary have been seen as 100% identical with the "persons, who have the job" - which would indeed be another way to make a marriage between siblings or even parents and children seen as not a problem at all (just an idea, popping up in my head just now ;) ).

Now to the marriages: the Kings of Egypt had many wives, especially in the New Kingdom, some of them living far remote from the King and his closer family - this were just political marriages, daughters of other kings, and it may be they never met some of them. Still, they were married. The ritual importance of a marriage on the other side lies in the role of the Great Royal Wife in ceremonies and as consort to Pharaoh, there's no need to have sex to play that role, the title is important, as it is needed for the female role in the "mystical play".

With the gods you mean Isis/Osiris and Nephtys/Seth, because: that's it concerning incest in Egyptian mythology (and this is only ONE story, there are others, in which they are not even related), you will find more in other cultures with much stricter taboos (

Spoiler

and please don't start on syncretism and henotheism here, because that's actually one of the exits from mythology into theology in Egyptian religion and will leave all the funny tales behind - they are true all at the same time (maybe because none is).

), which shows that the sexual intercourse of gods is no reason to find incest okay or not, because gods are gods and humans are humans.

17 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

But it seems to me the Ptolemies must have gone native in the incestuous marriage policy thing. This was not a Greek/Macedonian custom, and likely not something they would have done if it hadn't be an integral part of pharaoh ideology. This kind of thing didn't make the Ptolemies popular with the other Greek states, and in light of the tendency of especially the early Ptolemies to not exactly adopt many Egyptian traits - they did not speak the language, didn't really adopt/practice the religion and instead essentially helped to import Greek deities and cults into Egypt and/or create variations of both that were accepted, etc. - it is really odd that they would adopt this incest thing if it hadn't been very important to do so for political reasons.

My theory why they did it is stated above, and no - as you yourself have pointed out - is wasn't a integral and necessary thing to do, not even in the New Kingdom (were we have the only data from, and still there are more then enough kings without sister-wives). It suited their interests (not putting other Greeks in a position to overthrow them, while also not having to deal with Egyptians), that's why they have gone so over the top with it (and yes, in it's extreme it is very strange).

But back to topic (somehow):

18 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

We also got this with the outdated idea that the claim to kingship in Egypt was somehow transferred to men through the female line - a strange idea people here on the board came up with (indepedently?) regarding 'the dragonrider gene' (which is supposed to be inherited through the female line, too) - explaining why sibling incest was so common among the royal dynasties of Egypt. But there is no evidence supporting this idea, and a lot of evidence against that in light of the many kings who are confirmed to have not been married to close relatives.

The first was just one of the many tries to explain the role of the Great Royal Wife alongside the marriage between brother and sister; it may even still be some true in it, we simply don't know (where was a time then it was thought what were was only one GRW beside other wives, now we know that a Pharaoh could have quite a few of them at the same time - not even that obscure, if you think about how many godly female pairs are involved in Egyptian monarchy). But if it was not completely wrong, it wasn't as important and strict as science wanted it to be, back then.

As for the "dragonrider gene": I'm still not sure were is one at all (although I wouldn't rule it out - it's still speculation at this moment. If we knew for sure whether Nettle did have some Valyrian genes or not, we would get closer to an answer), but in another thread the idea has been developed that it would need a female Valyrian dragonlord to make it easier for dragons to hatch - or at least to preform the ritual to create/recreate dragons. This may be so, then Nissa-Nissa would not have been the sacrifice per se, but more like the woman (or women) who went into the fire to "sacrifice" herself/themselves like Dany did. But this too, is just speculating, although we might learn more about that subject.

Finally on the subject of this thread: While GRRM did indeed find inspiration in a lot of history, imho we simply don't hear about Targ-marriages between parents and children because they did not do this. In fact we know that when the family couldn't provide the sibling for the marriage, they simply married their children to other people's children - favourable to such families as the Velarony's, who had Valyrian blood. :dunno:

 

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1 hour ago, Sophia [email protected] said:

Valyrians marry Cousin to Cousin, Sister to Brother, Uncle to Niece, and sometimes Aunt and to Nephew   (They don't marry their off springs) ps in the Stark Family's Line there a uncle who his half niece.  Also Ned and Brandon, and Lyanna and Benjen's Parents were cousins.

Yeah, cousin to cousin, uncle/aunt to niece/nephew is common and not incest by westerosi law according to Fire and blood

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1 hour ago, BigBoss1 said:

Yeah, cousin to cousin, uncle/aunt to niece/nephew is common and not incest by westerosi law according to Fire and blood

Cousin to Cousin is not incest in Westeros, but before Aegon I was King it was OUTLAW to marry brother and sister. Jaenerys I made a deal with the Faith that the laws of marriage doesn't involved the Targaryens because they were above the common man and the people. They ride Dragons and were special.

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Just now, Sophia [email protected] said:

Cousin to Cousin is not incest in Westeros, but before Aegon I was King it was OUTLAW to marry brother and sister. Jaenerys I made a deal with the Faith that the laws of marriage doesn't involved the Targaryens because they were above the common man and the people. They ride Dragons and were special.

Correct.  Exceptionalism.  They are Valyrians after all.

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1 hour ago, Sophia [email protected] said:

Cousin to Cousin is not incest in Westeros, but before Aegon I was King it was OUTLAW to marry brother and sister. Jaenerys I made a deal with the Faith that the laws of marriage doesn't involved the Targaryens because they were above the common man and the people. They ride Dragons and were special.

Did he really believe they were above the common man or just different? Kinda like the way a lion is different to a tiger but not superior to it. I think he may have believed valyrians to be a different breed of humans, which I could actually believe due to their special traits.

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