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Something that keeps bothering me about Maegor's deminse...


nikstar3

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35 minutes ago, Lost Melnibonean said:

Beric wasn't all that off, and we only met him after he'd been brought back more than half a dozen times. The story suggests that he got progressively worse, suggesting he might not have been that bad in the beginning. 

But we know that Beric retained all his lethal wounds. Are there any reports that Maegor had any such wounds (a cracked skull which never properly healed) or are there reports that Maegor behaved in any way like Beric (forgetting important things), Robert Strong (not visiting the privy) or even Melisandre (not eating)?

I don't recall anything of that sort.

And your entire idea that Tyanna's death greatly affected him and this alleged magic driving him was based only on the TWoIaF account, no? TSotD and FaB didn't imply anything of that sort.

All we can assert with reasonably certainty is that Tyanna did something to heal Maegor. Most likely some spell. But that's it.

Just as they put to rest my idea that Maegor may have used Tyanna and her spells to actually help him impregnate the women who gave birth to monstrosities. It is not impossible that this happened, but with the text not indicating that it did not and instead having Tyanna act like a common jealous woman it would be pretty silly to insist that this may have happened.

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Melisandre's lack of eating is only known because we've read her POV, she deliberately pretends to eat and sleep and do we know of anyone who has figured that out about her? I don't think we have.

Thus we do have precedent for someone who has successfully hidden these basic functions, no? 

And given the overall lack of data on how resurrections work and how many different varieties there are: Qyburn, Others, Coldhands, R'hllor, etc) I personally don't feel comfortable shutting the door on other possibilities.

Tyanna is almost certainly not a Red Priest, certainly not an Other, and well with regards to Qyburn I guess we just don't know. But it is fair to say Gregor was horribly wounded AND poisoned AND freakish besides, so he's not the best template for "typical" necromancy, I think. So I am against looking at different forms of magic and thinking Tyanna's magic would work the same as the other kinds we've seen. 

In fact because there are so many forms of resurrection in ASOIAF/TWOIAF, it stands to reason there are additional forms of it as well.

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On 12/29/2018 at 12:19 AM, nikstar3 said:

It could have been a murder for all I care. The thing that is kinda confusing to me is why he acted the way he did.

All this talk about whether it was suicide or murder or sorcery is all very interesting, but it doesn’t really address the OP’s point. He is asking, wtf was Maegor doing moping about the red keep having meetings with his few minor lords and their 2,000 guys in the first place? Why wasn’t he out on Balerion smashing shit up?

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13 minutes ago, House Mosse said:

All this talk about whether it was suicide or murder or sorcery is all very interesting, but it doesn’t really address the OP’s point. He is asking, wtf was Maegor doing moping about the red keep having meetings with his few minor lords and their 2,000 guys in the first place? Why wasn’t he out on Balerion smashing shit up?

There were a lot of cases where Maegor was surprisingly lenient or unwilling to take the obvious course. For example he made almost no attempt to chase down Aegon nor Jaehaerys even before either of them had declared. He also seemed to ignore the ones who helped Aegon, but it's mentioned they feared his reprisals.

Not really an answer I suppose, but at least we have a bit of a pattern. 

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Yeah, and I guess he would need to take some council to decide how to proceed. I can’t remember how long he was moping about at the Red Keep for, but he would need to take some time to consider his next steps. Though it would seem that once he realised he didn’t have the strength to meet his enemies in the field with an army, he probably should have just headed out on Balerion to take out his rebellious relatives and their smaller dragons. Once they were out of the way everyone else would have had to fall into line or burn. Perhaps he did just genuinely get depressed about it all falling to pieces?

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9 hours ago, History of Westeros said:

Melisandre's lack of eating is only known because we've read her POV, she deliberately pretends to eat and sleep and do we know of anyone who has figured that out about her? I don't think we have.

Mel is not confirmed to have been resurrected, either. She no longer needs to eat, but she still can eat. Can 'Ser Robert' still eat? Perhaps not, we don't know. Could Beric and Catelyn pretend to eat and digest food as normal people would? We don't know.

However, Maegor as a king. He threw great feasts and tourneys and he would have been watched eating and drinking every day. It would be very hard for him to hide it if he were a resurrected freak.

But the overall issue is simply that it is not really established that Maegor ever died. So really no reason to assume he was resurrected. Just as we cannot count Drogo as a resurrected person since we don't really know whether he died or not.

7 hours ago, History of Westeros said:

There were a lot of cases where Maegor was surprisingly lenient or unwilling to take the obvious course. For example he made almost no attempt to chase down Aegon nor Jaehaerys even before either of them had declared. He also seemed to ignore the ones who helped Aegon, but it's mentioned they feared his reprisals.

There were many trials and executions after the Gods Eye. Visenya prevented some of them, but Maegor still put many of the rebels to death.

He also wanted Aegon and Rhaena delivered to him, and he later searched for Alyssa and her children after they had fled. He did not ignore them, he just didn't know where they went.

The only time he ignored Alyssa and the younger children is when he took his throne - and then he could afford to do that because Aegon and Rhaena were not with their mother. Alyssa could and did declare her eldest son 'the rightful king', but while Aegon was not with her that meant essentially nothing - and Visenya made that clear when she visited Driftmark on Vhagar putting an end to that nonsense.

Maegor still had a tendencies to procrastinate on occasion, though. He was really obsessed with the Red Keep while his enemies were mustering their forces, he really got absorbed by life in Oldtown (and perhaps by being with Ceryse again?) for a time, etc.

Could very well be that this trait got stronger when the entire Realm rose against him. It is still not very likely, I think, that the man decided to kill himself in such a ridiculous and humiliating as bleeding and piercing himself to death on his own throne. One would assume that a man like Maegor would have wanted to have a great exit, involving a suicide attack on Balerion, taking as many (or all) of his enemies with him.

That he didn't pull an Aemond - or a Daemon - strongly implies, in my opinion, that he was murdered rather than killing himself.

I mean, what would have the rebels done if Storm's End had become a second Harrenhal, and Aenys' children and their pitiful dragons had been all killed by Balerion? They wouldn't have had a pretender to rally behind. Somebody could have still killed Maegor, of course, but how many rebels would have bent the knee after that? How many lords may have jumped on the chance to marry their daughters or sisters to Maegor and to acquire power in his shadow, planning to take power after his eventual death?

That might have been more than a few. I'm sure the civil war would have continued but Maegor may have had a chance to stay in power for a while. He could have even played the Northern card - the Starks had stayed out of the entire war, it seems, so taking a Stark bride could have given him fresh troops. He could also have started another Dornish War, trying regain the allegiance of the Reach and the Stormlands that way, etc.

 

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14 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Just as they put to rest my idea that Maegor may have used Tyanna and her spells to actually help him impregnate the women who gave birth to monstrosities. It is not impossible that this happened, but with the text not indicating that it did not and instead having Tyanna act like a common jealous woman it would be pretty silly to insist that this may have happened.

No, IMHO it is quite significant that Maegor had not been able to impregnate any woman before Tyanna attached herself to him - which is very much in line with Visenya using magic to conceive him in the first place and him possibly being her male clone. I think that Tyanna _was_ trying to help, but it kept backfiring and Alys Harroway threatened to blame her, so had to be preemptively discredited and removed. As we have seen with Lord Rowan during Aegon III's regency, a skilled torturer - which Tyanna was, can make a person confess to anything. Maegor's "monstrosities" are very much in line with twisted stillborns that other Targaryens also occasionally produced later, after all. But after Jeyne Westerling's stillborn  Maegor chose to blame Tyanna anyway, so she, understandably, acted to provoke him into killing her quickly.

 

9 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

I mean, what would have the rebels done if Storm's End had become a second Harrenhal, and Aenys' children and their pitiful dragons had been all killed by Balerion?

It is fairly interesting that Targaryens never did make a second Harrenhal anywhere, not even when they were taking their furious revenge on Dorne for Rhaenys's death. They burned some castles, true, but none of them where melted like candles or anything like that. So, maybe Harrenhal was for Aegon a bit like hatching the dragons was for Dany - a moment of magic that likely can't be repeated. Maybe all the deaths in and around Harrenhal somehow strengthened Balerion's flames?

Also, isn't it possible that Aegon the Uncrowned had some ace in the hole against Maegor/Balerion, which didn't work out or had some reason to think that Balerion wouldn't attack him? Because otherwise it looks like rank madness both for him to challenge his uncle and for so many to follow him. In fact, bar some plan to counter Balerion, Alyssa was completely crazy to proclaim him "the rightful king", as it did nothing but paint a target on his back. With 3 small dragons, I don't know - they may have had a chance to fry Maegor himself at least. Or, maybe they thought to do something "radical" like packing some missile weapons and trying to shoot him, rather than closing in, dragon to dragon? Frankly, complete lack of tactics in dragon engagements bothers me - surely Valyrians must have developed some?

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On 12/28/2018 at 5:25 PM, nikstar3 said:

Ever since TWOIAF, but ESCPECIALLY since Sons of the Dragon and FaB there has been something that I haven't quite been able to grasp about Maegor the Cruel's final days and his death. OK, so he gets abandoned by most of his allies, has the Faith Militant and a bunch of outlaw armies turned against him, not to mention most of his great lords, Jaeherys and virtually every other living Targaryen. In the end he is left with only a few loyalists and an army of a couple of thousand. It's a bad situation.

However, I can't understand his despair and (presumable) suicide on the IT, considering that he still has at his side the strongest WMD in Westeros - Balerion the Black "F*****g Dread. Biggest, strongest and most fearsome dragon in the world. The one that roasted Harren the Black and his entire kin. The one that set ablaze the Field of Fire. Yeah, Maegor's nephew and nieces had dragons too, but smaller and weaker. Balerion had already proven his ability to kill his younger siblings in the Aegon/Quicksilver fight. So when Maegar gets the news of Rogar Baratheon supporting Jaeherys' claim, why doesn't he mount Balerion and go full Harenhall on Storm's End? Why does he stay behind in KL, brooding, making doomed plans and ultimately killing himself (or letting himself be assasinated, whatever)? It would be obvious to use the trump card that Balerion is. Especially if you are a sociopathic, bloodthirsty warmonger such as Maegor.

Any thoughts on this? Do you think it's a plothole or am I reading too much into it? 

Because dragons were not a surprise to Westeros any more , Dorne itself proved they can be killed by man using scorpions when they shoot down Rhaenys and her dragon Meraxes. They are not thought as being invincible any more. 

And to answer the question why didn't he burned Storm's end like Harenhall , well if he marched south KL would be taken by rebels , probably by Lannisters of Tullyes since they are the closest. And then you can say that he could only go there with dragon and no army well in that case KL would stil be taken since he didn't have enough man to defend it without dragons and he was probably affraid that he could die just like Rhaenys. 

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1 hour ago, Maia said:

No, IMHO it is quite significant that Maegor had not been able to impregnate any woman before Tyanna attached herself to him - which is very much in line with Visenya using magic to conceive him in the first place and him possibly being her male clone. I think that Tyanna _was_ trying to help, but it kept backfiring and Alys Harroway threatened to blame her, so had to be preemptively discredited and removed. As we have seen with Lord Rowan during Aegon III's regency, a skilled torturer - which Tyanna was, can make a person confess to anything. Maegor's "monstrosities" are very much in line with twisted stillborns that other Targaryens also occasionally produced later, after all. But after Jeyne Westerling's stillborn  Maegor chose to blame Tyanna anyway, so she, understandably, acted to provoke him into killing her quickly.

I still think the 'male clone' idea has some merit since George actually used such a plot in 'Nightflyers', but Tyanna is really painted as nothing but a jealous woman in TSotD.

She even gets a motive to poison Alys' child - the fact that Maegor made all his wives serve Alys during her pregnancy. Also, the entire story about Lord Harroway desperately trying to impregnate his daughter with the help of other men could explain why and how Alys got pregnant in the first place.

Maegor definitely had fertility issues, explaining why Ceryse and Tyanna and Rhaena never got pregnant - but Ceryse and Tyanna could also have been barren, we don't know. 

Elinor and Jeyne seem to have gotten pregnant by Maegor. And with there being no hint that magic was involved in any of those pregnancies - and Tyanna having the jealousy motive already back with Alys - I think the idea that Tyanna may have helped Maegor to impregnate his wives with spells and magics is not as convincing as it was prior to TSotD.

If George had such a possibility in mind he would have hinted at it in some manner - just as he does, very subtly, in the Aenys case. He didn't have to point out that Aenys had was that great a singer himself... ;-).

1 hour ago, Maia said:

It is fairly interesting that Targaryens never did make a second Harrenhal anywhere, not even when they were taking their furious revenge on Dorne for Rhaenys's death. They burned some castles, true, but none of them where melted like candles or anything like that. So, maybe Harrenhal was for Aegon a bit like hatching the dragons was for Dany - a moment of magic that likely can't be repeated. Maybe all the deaths in and around Harrenhal somehow strengthened Balerion's flames?

Oh, what little we hear about the Hellholt implied they made that just as much a ruin. One assumes that most/all of the Dornish castles that were destroyed had to be rebuilt completely - if they were rebuild at all and not replaced by new castles.

One also assumed that most of the seats of the rebel lords which were burned during the Faith Militant Uprising were never rebuilt - because here Jaehaerys I's tax on rebuilding/strengthening castles would have prevented the lords from doing that.

1 hour ago, Maia said:

Also, isn't it possible that Aegon the Uncrowned had some ace in the hole against Maegor/Balerion, which didn't work out or had some reason to think that Balerion wouldn't attack him? Because otherwise it looks like rank madness both for him to challenge his uncle and for so many to follow him. In fact, bar some plan to counter Balerion, Alyssa was completely crazy to proclaim him "the rightful king", as it did nothing but paint a target on his back. With 3 small dragons, I don't know - they may have had a chance to fry Maegor himself at least. Or, maybe they thought to do something "radical" like packing some missile weapons and trying to shoot him, rather than closing in, dragon to dragon? Frankly, complete lack of tactics in dragon engagements bothers me - surely Valyrians must have developed some?

Aegon the Uncrowned was the rightful heir, second in line to the Iron Throne since his birth, and Heir Apparent and later Prince of Dragonstone during the reign of his father. Everybody knew who should have been king. Alyssa didn't really have to proclaim him the rightful king for people to realize that this was the case.

That Aegon was abandoned as quickly as he was clearly was due to the dragons both Maegor and Visenya controlled. Neither of them would have been very popular in Westeros. But people were afraid of them and what they could do.

And it is not that Aegon has all that much support. Considering the strength of his claim the entire Realm should have stood with him.

Jaehaerys I later had basically just one dragon. His own. Alysanne was too young to count as a proper dragonrider, even more since both Jaehaerys and Rhaena later make it clear that Alysanne would never fly a dragon in war. Rhaena's Dreamfyre is dismissed as being useless and ineffective against Balerion when Gyldayn discusses the fact that Rhaena was not with Aegon and Quicksilver at the Gods Eye. That wouldn't have changed in just five years since both dragons would have grown larger, not just Dreamfyre.

But in the end - Jaehaerys I himself would also have been a joke had he ever challenged Maegor on dragonback. He and Alysanne hid for years under some rock. Had they trained to fight another dragon as dragonriders people would have seen them doing that. The fact that they could hide as long as they did hide means they could not have flown on their dragons during most of the time they hid. Which means that the last time Jaehaerys and Alysanne properly flew their dragons before 48 AC would have been when they fled in 44 AC - the way it seems now is that Alyssa and the children fled on dragonback rather than via ship - when Jaehaerys was ten and Alysanne eight (Alysanne's flight from Dragonstone may have been the first time she flew on Silverwing at all!).

George really dropped the ball when he decided not to elaborate on Jaehaerys and Alysanne during the time they hid. There would have been a lot of stories about those years, and it makes no sense that Gyldayn doesn't tell us anything about that period. Especially since chances are very high that the hid the entire time at Storm's End - which would have had great impact on the relationship between Alyssa/her children and the Baratheon brothers. In fact, one should assume that the Rogar-Alyssa romance would have started in that period. And Rogar would have indeed have been a second father to ten-year-old Jaehaerys and eight-year-old Alysanne, never mind what Jaehaerys himself later claims (according to Barth).

The entire Baratheon story in the early Jaehaerys chapters feels as if the story only started in 48 AC when in fact it would have started in the four years before. Reason also dictates that Alyssa must have had a reason why she looked for shelter and support at Storm's End and not elsewhere - something that could also been explained if Alyssa and Rogar had had a past connection (young Rogar being fostered as court or on Dragonstone/Driftmark, say).

It is a joke that those children could have ever hoped to try to stand against Maegor/Balerion, and even a greater joke to assume that it was in any way realistic that they could have actually try to target Maegor on Balerion's back - unless, of course, we assume that Targaryens magically know how tell their dragons to aim their fire at the enemy dragonrider rather than the dragon. I don't think that's very likely. Something like that would have to practiced until the dragon understood what it was supposed to be doing.

But then, none of the dragon battles indicate that a dragonrider controls his dragon to the degree that he or she can *tell* the beast to attack the rider. The only people targeting dragonriders are people attacking the dragons and their riders. Their rationale is that the dragon will no longer attack them if the rider is dead (which is not necessarily true as Vermithor proves at Second Tumbleton).

Dragons fighting always attack each other, they never target the rider.

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3 hours ago, Lord Varys said:
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Mel is not confirmed to have been resurrected, either. She no longer needs to eat, but she still can eat. Can 'Ser Robert' still eat? Perhaps not, we don't know. Could Beric and Catelyn pretend to eat and digest food as normal people would? We don't know.

 

Irrelevant. It doesn't matter if Mel is alive or dead, the point is she successfully conceals the fact that she doesn't need to eat or sleep.

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However, Maegor as a king. He threw great feasts and tourneys and he would have been watched eating and drinking every day. It would be very hard for him to hide it if he were a resurrected freak.

No it wouldn't, if he just did like Mel. Eat when others are eating. How is that difficult at all?

If Mel can pull it off, why not someone else? 

edit: Oops, sorry for the double quote. Also worth pointing out re: dead people and eating/drinking: un-Beric drinks wine.

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Just now, History of Westeros said:

 

Melisandre does eat. She doesn't have to, but there are no reports that she never eats at table. In private she forgets doing it but she knows even there she has to keep up appearances.

I guess it is possible that Maegor had the discipline to hide his zombie status by always pretending to eat, always going to the privy never doing anything there, hiding any wounds that wouldn't heal - I guess a resurrected person's wounds no longer heal in general, not only those which are mortal. Meaning that any non-healing minor cuts and bruises and any other injuries Maegor would have gotten during the campaigns he personally fought in would have to be hidden, too.

He just doesn't seem the kind of guy who would care about things like that. And then there is the question whether such zombies can still procreate. Do we assume Beric could have fathered a child? Do we think Catelyn could right no give birth to child? The pregnancy of Maegor's wives all took place after his alleged resurrection.

But in the end the bottom line just is: What is the evidence that Maegor actually died? And what's the evidence that he was a resurrected person afterwards?

If George wanted to send the message that he was resurrected Gyldayn could have cited credible reports about Maegor's death - say, Grand Maester Myros could have left reports stating the king was a corpse when he attended him, men witnessing the Trial of Seven could have spread rumors that Maegor was not, in fact, breathing when Visenya declared that he lived, etc.

In addition, he could also have had a 'zombie Maegor' give hints that he had changed dramatically - in character and insofar as aspects of his body were concerned.

Yet we don't see anything of that sort.

In the end, we cannot even say for sure that magic was involved in his healing. Perhaps it was Tyanna's deep and true love for Maegor that woke him from his coma... ;-)?

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I imagine what we know regarding "can the undead procreate, eat, heal?" will be fleshed out with Jon's TWOW chapters. But again I must insist that we not lump all forms of the undead together.

If we only looked at wights, we'd assume the undead can't speak and are controlled by a separate intelligence, but then we got Beric, who is apparently not controlled by anyone but himself, and can speak. Then Coldhands, who might be controlled and can also speak. Robert Strong doesn't eat or drink, but Beric drinks (and Beric is not doing it to fool people into thinking he's among the living, his horrific injuries make that mpossible. and by the way, we have no visible cause of death for Coldhands, which is slightly curious). Would Robert Strong be able to speak if Qyburn... well, did something differently? 

I agree that the straightforward details to not make the case that Maegor was undead. But the subtext is very strong (Strong? haha) in that regard. Two different "Maegor returned from the grave" quotes in F&B plus the overwhelming similarities between him and Gregor are almost certainly not an accident by GRRM, so I remain very open to the idea.

It is similar to me to the "was Aegon I infertile?" question. Nothing explicitly points to it, but the circumstantial evidence and subtext make it entirely possible. And because GRRM is a great and careful writer, it's likely he intended for us to ponder these mysteries.


 

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4 hours ago, History of Westeros said:

I imagine what we know regarding "can the undead procreate, eat, heal?" will be fleshed out with Jon's TWOW chapters. But again I must insist that we not lump all forms of the undead together.

Sure, but at this point all our undead/resurrected guy were less human than before. There are no examples at this point that an undead/resurrected person can continue as before and is not somehow visibly 'marked' and/or changed. Even Victarion - who was just magically healed - has been changed to no small degree.

4 hours ago, History of Westeros said:

If we only looked at wights, we'd assume the undead can't speak and are controlled by a separate intelligence, but then we got Beric, who is apparently not controlled by anyone but himself, and can speak. Then Coldhands, who might be controlled and can also speak.

I'd actually say that Coldhands implies wights actually can speak - or could technically speak if the Others cared to allow/make them speak. After all, Coldhands is likely a wight who has either regained his 'conscious self' or a wight who has been taken over by a skinchanger/greenseer - my guess is he is a skinchanger turned wight who successfully regained control of his original body during his second life (thus foreshadowing what Jon may be forced to do to regain his body, although his body will likely not be a wight raised by the Others).

4 hours ago, History of Westeros said:

Robert Strong doesn't eat or drink, but Beric drinks (and Beric is not doing it to fool people into thinking he's among the living, his horrific injuries make that mpossible. and by the way, we have no visible cause of death for Coldhands, which is slightly curious).

If I had to guess I'd say Coldhands likely died the way most wights died - he froze to death feeling what Gared so poignantly describes back in the Prologue. 

4 hours ago, History of Westeros said:

Would Robert Strong be able to speak if Qyburn... well, did something differently? 

Robert Strong does not speak up to that point. We don't know whether he can't or whether he would just speak with Gregor Clegane's voice and Qyburn does not exactly want him to do that until he has to...

4 hours ago, History of Westeros said:

I agree that the straightforward details to not make the case that Maegor was undead. But the subtext is very strong (Strong? haha) in that regard. Two different "Maegor returned from the grave" quotes in F&B plus the overwhelming similarities between him and Gregor are almost certainly not an accident by GRRM, so I remain very open to the idea.

There is a little bit of subtext there, but resurrections are very unusual events - events that would warrant more than a little bit of subtext if the author really wanted us to consider that a particularly likely possibility. If Gyldayn had made Maegor's biography more the way the life of Caligula is usually told - he was good at the start, and suddenly got very bad after that serious illness he survived - then we could interpret the blow to the head as a very significant event in his life - especially we there were also whispers about sorceries and blood sacrifices and the like around Maegor's healing, etc.

4 hours ago, History of Westeros said:

It is similar to me to the "was Aegon I infertile?" question. Nothing explicitly points to it, but the circumstantial evidence and subtext make it entirely possible. And because GRRM is a great and careful writer, it's likely he intended for us to ponder these mysteries.

The infertility thing is different in the sense that here that cannot really be proven (you cannot prove such a thing in a world where there is no proper medicine). The hints that both Aenys and Maegor are not Aegon's biological children could be much stronger, but here the point in downplaying that and only giving very subtle clues fits very well with the narrative that both Aenys and Maegor are seen and acknowledged as the Conqueror's sons by basically everyone in Westeros. If there were very widespread rumors about them not being Aegon's children that would have had a significant impact on history - and that is not a story George wanted to tell.

But there could have been very real and obvious hints indicating that Maegor actually died and was resurrected.

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On 1/4/2019 at 8:47 AM, History of Westeros said:

There were a lot of cases where Maegor was surprisingly lenient or unwilling to take the obvious course. For example he made almost no attempt to chase down Aegon nor Jaehaerys even before either of them had declared. He also seemed to ignore the ones who helped Aegon, but it's mentioned they feared his reprisals.

Not really an answer I suppose, but at least we have a bit of a pattern. 

He could have done it, but still has the risk of getting killed by arrows like Rhaenys. Its not 100% that he would have won. Some castles like Fair Isle were very far and almost all Targaryans were flying ahead of an army, they need to use ships in this case. Another point could have been that when he is out on Ballerion to kill all the foes, that it left KL vulnerable for an (dragon)attack and getting it back without destroying the Red Keep would have been not so easy and that was his precious. 

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15 minutes ago, Seaserpent said:

He could have done it, but still has the risk of getting killed by arrows like Rhaenys. Its not 100% that he would have won. Some castles like Fair Isle were very far and almost all Targaryans were flying ahead of an army, they need to use ships in this case. Another point could have been that when he is out on Ballerion to kill all the foes, that it left KL vulnerable for an (dragon)attack and getting it back without destroying the Red Keep would have been not so easy and that was his precious. 

The obvious reaction to the development at Storm's End would be to cleanse the court of any people suspected to favor Jaehaerys/Alyssa and then leave a trusted and competent Hand in charge of KL while Maegor takes Balerion to Storm's End to destroy the castle and the enemies there, dragons and dragonriders included.

That would have ended the most immediate danger, preventing Maegor's enemies from uniting behind a universally accepted figurehead.

From there, the next step would have been to continue a divide-and-conquer approach. Divide the enemy by offering pardons and rewards to some, etc.

I'm sure Maegor would have eventually been overthrown/killed, but things were not necessarily over in 48 AC.

I mean, just think of Rogar the Windbag being basically afraid of his shadow after Maegor is dead. He doesn't want to go to war against Maegor's remaining loyalists, he does not want to go to war against Septon Moon and the Lords Rowan and Oakheart, etc. How do we assume that this man wouldn't have shat his pants the moment the shadow of Balerion was following over his army and castle?

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22 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

The obvious reaction to the development at Storm's End would be to cleanse the court of any people suspected to favor Jaehaerys/Alyssa and then leave a trusted and competent Hand in charge of KL while Maegor takes Balerion to Storm's End to destroy the castle and the enemies there, dragons and dragonriders included.

That would have ended the most immediate danger, preventing Maegor's enemies from uniting behind a universally accepted figurehead.

From there, the next step would have been to continue a divide-and-conquer approach. Divide the enemy by offering pardons and rewards to some, etc.

I'm sure Maegor would have eventually been overthrown/killed, but things were not necessarily over in 48 AC.

I mean, just think of Rogar the Windbag being basically afraid of his shadow after Maegor is dead. He doesn't want to go to war against Maegor's remaining loyalists, he does not want to go to war against Septon Moon and the Lords Rowan and Oakheart, etc. How do we assume that this man wouldn't have shat his pants the moment the shadow of Balerion was following over his army and castle?

Thats thrue he was not as tough as he seemed only against minor dornish ennemies. But I think there is a risk in leaving the city undefended by dragons. Though i agree that not taking out Jahaerys and other drangonriders and dragons is another big risk. Becauese you ll  never know when they all come to KL and if they come at a moment you Maegor is not close to Ballerion. But fightting a battle that far as Fair Isle is a big risk. Flying over Storms End seems like a better plan.

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On 12/28/2018 at 9:25 AM, nikstar3 said:

Ever since TWOIAF, but ESCPECIALLY since Sons of the Dragon and FaB there has been something that I haven't quite been able to grasp about Maegor the Cruel's final days and his death. OK, so he gets abandoned by most of his allies, has the Faith Militant and a bunch of outlaw armies turned against him, not to mention most of his great lords, Jaeherys and virtually every other living Targaryen. In the end he is left with only a few loyalists and an army of a couple of thousand. It's a bad situation.

However, I can't understand his despair and (presumable) suicide on the IT, considering that he still has at his side the strongest WMD in Westeros - Balerion the Black "F*****g Dread. Biggest, strongest and most fearsome dragon in the world. The one that roasted Harren the Black and his entire kin. The one that set ablaze the Field of Fire. Yeah, Maegor's nephew and nieces had dragons too, but smaller and weaker. Balerion had already proven his ability to kill his younger siblings in the Aegon/Quicksilver fight. So when Maegar gets the news of Rogar Baratheon supporting Jaeherys' claim, why doesn't he mount Balerion and go full Harenhall on Storm's End? Why does he stay behind in KL, brooding, making doomed plans and ultimately killing himself (or letting himself be assasinated, whatever)? It would be obvious to use the trump card that Balerion is. Especially if you are a sociopathic, bloodthirsty warmonger such as Maegor.

Any thoughts on this? Do you think it's a plothole or am I reading too much into it? 

I think you're buying into the 'bloodthirsty warmonger' Maegor story too much, GRRM paints more often in grey then black. Everyone's a hero in their own story Maegor may have ruled threw strength and fear, but in FaB he shows restraint when he offered to spare all the Faith Militant if they would just disband and compromise leaving Oldtown unbloodied after their defiance, only when he thinks it's necessary or has a fit of rage does his Cruel streak show. However by this point he'd lost his mother, his loving wife Alys (and jeyne it's never really apparent how she feels towards him) and all his sons, he's a lone, sad, broken man. After calling out for his supporters seeing the few that showed is still more disheartening. Balerion might be the biggest and best dragon but at 3 to 1 he'd probably be hard pressed and he's considered old and slow so he's at a speed disadvantage too, Maegor was probably hesitant to risk his only true ally and friend unless he had too and was murdered before he got the chance.

Also IIRC GRRM drew some inspiration from Richard III here so he's probably also having mental problems and not thinking at his best by this point.

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  • 4 weeks later...
On 1/3/2019 at 8:42 AM, History of Westeros said:

There are two separate offhand quotes about Maegor returning from the grave in Fire & Blood.

The first is Jaehaerys' master at arms saying something like "even if Maegor returned from the grave I'd wager on you" re: single combat.

Then later when Balerion returns with Aerea (along with 3 horn blasts) the maester writes something like "many thought Maegor had returned from the grave to mount Balerion once again"

Furthermore there are a huge number of Maegor/Gregor parallels, and Gregor obviously "returned from the grave" so to speak.

The maesters certainly suggest he was alive when Tyanna got to him, but the subtext hints very strongly that he was dead (and no maesterly author would pre-suppose he literally returned from the grave without a massive amount of proof). It's not enough to be certain, but enough to be confident imo.

I think we are safe to say the "came back from the grave" is used more as a hyperbole rather than people believing Maegor could really come back from the dead.  The first instance is just the master at arms comparing Jaehaerys to the most fiercesome warrior of their era (and his mortal enemy), and the second one is just a reaction of the people of Kings Landing seeing the Black Dread in their sky after he has been missing for the best part of a year.
The text hints at Tyanna using some sorcery to help Maegor recover, period. Just like it hints to the fact Visenya might have used some unorthodox measure to conceive him.

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On 1/7/2019 at 9:46 PM, BrainFireBob said:

To me, always seemed like Aegon I was gay. Orys being his childhood by, Rhaenys acting as beard and hiding his favorites among her crowd, and Visenya not knowing and insisting he do his husbandry duty one night in 10. Hence avoiding her when Rhaenys dies. No more excuses

And if it is true, what are the signs that Orys is gay ot bisexual? I think none. Aegon I is not gay. He married Visenya because it was his duty as she was the older sister. If he was a gay one marriage is enough and he is free for relations with other men. But he marries Rhenys because he desires her. But most of all he desires the kingdom he dreams for, that's why in some manner he acts distant. And Visenya is like Stannis with tits. Her duty is in first place. No place for love or other feeling for the weak.

About Maegor. The throne is metafore. I think Maegor's killed not incident or suicide. Maegor is not a man of doubt so I don't see him surrendering. No way to kill himself.

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