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Targaryen princess who doesn't want to marry her brother in F&B v2


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Will there be princess who thinks incest is wrong in F&B v2? We have examples of Baelor, Duncan Targaryen and maybe Egg (he is still child in stories) as princes who somehow managed to go against the rules . But even Naerys loved her brother Aemon. Shiera Seastar was paramour to her brother Bloodraven but she didn't want to marry. I find it artificial that all Targaryen princesses find their love in their incest marriages and none of them want to go against it Do Egg's sisters have potential for that?

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I don't doubt that we'll find out that a random Targaryen princess didn't want to marry her brother and defied people's expectations. Look at all the stuff we found out about Rhaena, Aerea, Alysanne, even Viserra or Saera. I won't be surprised if we get our minds blown in the second volume. 

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14 minutes ago, Prince Yourwetdream Aeryn said:

Rhaena and Alysanne did marry their brothers willingly. Viserra and Saera tried to sleep with their married brothers. 

I just meant that Fire and Blood gave us a LOT of new information that we didn't know before about those aforementioned characters. Who knew that a girl rode Balerion to Valyria? That blew my mind reading about it.

Therefore, I have no doubt that we'll get an incredible amount of info in the next book, and it could very well include a Targaryen princess who did not wish to be married to her brother (personally, I'm betting on one of Baelor's sisters or Aerys II's wife). 

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8 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Naerys didn't want to marry her brother - and considering her piety chances are not that bad that she also had no intention to marry Aemon.

Shouldn't Doctrine of Exceptionalism solve that problem for Naerys?

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The singers like to claim that both Aemon and Naerys wept during the ceremony, but the truth is different: Aemon is known to have quarreled with Aegon during the feast, and Naerys wept during the bedding, not the actual wedding.

 

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4 hours ago, Prince Yourwetdream Aeryn said:

Shouldn't Doctrine of Exceptionalism solve that problem for Naerys?

How so? The Doctrine of Exceptionalism doesn't help you when you don't want to marry. Naerys' words about wanting to live 'as brother and sister' with Aegon after she had given birth to their son Daeron implies that her natural view of a sibling relationship wasn't an incestuous marriage.

But I don't think many Targaryens ever thought incest was bad. Why should they? It was part of their family identity since time immemorial. We see this, for instance, when the natural thing for King Aenys is to marry his children to each other - even though he knows that the Faith doesn't like this and he himself didn't exactly marry a very close cousin - or when the lesbian Rhaena also has no issue marrying her brother.

And George doesn't really give them 'empirical evidence' that this kind of thing is bad. They conquered an entire continent, made seven kingdoms into one, are the most famous royal dynasty this side of the Bones, and are blessed by a surpassing, inhumane beauty (which is preserved and refined by the incest they practice).

Interestingly enough, the opposition to incest in the books is also not based on 'empirical evidence'. It is strictly religious in nature, just as it was in the real world middle ages. If the noble and royal families had known and understood that continuous avuncular and cousin marriages would increase the risk of hereditary diseases and have bad effects on fertility then they sure as hell would have not done that. The entire point of noble/royal marriage was to produce healthy children - and most of the succession struggles and wars that ravaged medieval countries were caused by the absence of a clear heir - due to the result that monarchs died childless.

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Naerys obviously did not want to marry Aegon, and seeing how pious she was, probably considered incest to be a sin.

Rhaena (Aegon III's daughter) was also very pious like her brother Baelor and there's a chance she too did not like incest.

Rhaella also was less than happy on her wedding day, but she seems to have had a problem with the groom rather the incest.

Princesses whose opinion on incest is not clear include Elaena (she did bed a cousin, but a cousin is not incest), Aelora (was married to her brother, personal feelings not known), Daella, Daenora, Vaella and Rhaelle. Daena, Daenerys, Rhae and Shaera all seemed to be more than OK with incest.

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1 hour ago, Alyssa of House Arryn said:

Naerys obviously did not want to marry Aegon, and seeing how pious she was, probably considered incest to be a sin.

Rhaena (Aegon III's daughter) was also very pious like her brother Baelor and there's a chance she too did not like incest.

With the Doctrine of Exceptionalism in place it is increasingly unlikely that even pious Targaryens considered incest a sin. I mean, the pious septon-king Baelor actually locked away his sisters because he was afraid they would seduce him or cause him to think unchaste thoughts. You have to completely absorbed the Targaryen incest mindset to actually have ridiculous thoughts/fears such as that. Only people who see their siblings as their natural sex partners/spouses would view them the way Baelor did.

There is a small chance that some Targaryens had septons and septas trying to instill in them the pre-Exceptionalism views of the Faith, but considering how futile that approach was with Alysanne - and how unlikely it is that any Targaryens after Jaehaerys I employed such septons and septas - I'd think the probability that this happened is very low.

Incest even comes very naturally to young Egg, meaning both the courts and the nobility the court usually interacted with had completely adopted the Exceptionalism thing. It seems the old views are mainly shared by the smallfolk in most rural areas. That's what influenced Dunk's view on the matter.

We also see this when Jaime and Cersei discuss their own incest - they both acknowledge that the Targaryen incest was fine because they were Targaryens. But Cersei cannot bring herself to openly acknowledge/legitimize her incestuous relationship by marrying Jaime.

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On 1/6/2019 at 7:15 PM, Lord Varys said:

With the Doctrine of Exceptionalism in place it is increasingly unlikely that even pious Targaryens considered incest a sin. I mean, the pious septon-king Baelor actually locked away his sisters because he was afraid they would seduce him or cause him to think unchaste thoughts. You have to completely absorbed the Targaryen incest mindset to actually have ridiculous thoughts/fears such as that. Only people who see their siblings as their natural sex partners/spouses would view them the way Baelor did.

There is a small chance that some Targaryens had septons and septas trying to instill in them the pre-Exceptionalism views of the Faith, but considering how futile that approach was with Alysanne - and how unlikely it is that any Targaryens after Jaehaerys I employed such septons and septas - I'd think the probability that this happened is very low.

Naerys asked Aegon to live as brother and sister - that is, without incest. The Faith considers incest to be a sin; so it's only natural that Naerys would hate it as well.

Whatever Baelor might have felt, it doesn't mean much for Rhaena; she's her own person. She was pious like Naerys, so I believe she too might have not looked very favourably at the Targ tradition.

Talking about Baelor; all we've got about him is second-hand information. We don't know for sure that Baelor locked up Daena, Rhaena and Elaena because he was tempted by them. Cersei thinks so, but Cersei never met him. And even if he was attracted to them... it doesn't change the fact that he might have misliked incest. Conflicted feelings and attraction against one's better judgement is a thing, after all. The fact that he locked them away so he couldn't commit incest points to that, he, too, wasn't fond of the tradition.

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  • 4 weeks later...
On 1/5/2019 at 10:03 AM, Prince Yourwetdream Aeryn said:

Will there be princess who thinks incest is wrong in F&B v2? We have examples of Baelor, Duncan Targaryen and maybe Egg (he is still child in stories) as princes who somehow managed to go against the rules . But even Naerys loved her brother Aemon. Shiera Seastar was paramour to her brother Bloodraven but she didn't want to marry. I find it artificial that all Targaryen princesses find their love in their incest marriages and none of them want to go against it Do Egg's sisters have potential for that?

We already have some examples of Targ siblings not wanting to marry each other with Rhaelle/Aerys and Naerys/Aegon IV (though Naerys and Aemon loving each other undermines that, as you point out), but if you were raised to think incest was natural and desirable and there weren't any birth defects or genetic problems (in fact quite the opposite, at least as far as they think) from the products of incestuous couplings then why would you think it was bad? In fact it is probably much preferable to marry your hot brother/sister that you like a lot than some rando to solidify a marriage alliance.

Now excuse me, I'm going to throw up and wash my mouth out.

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I don't think Naerys' point had anything to do with her views on incest. I believe it was plain for her (and everyone else) that Aegon and her did not love each other, so when she gave him an heir she just asked for them to live their own lives separately (as close as divorce they had).

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I also think Naerys was concerned about her health, being a young, frail teenager. Also, she wanted to be a septa (iirc?) so whether or not it’s a sin to her, personally she’d have liked to live a celibate life. 

It seems like Aelora and Rhae/Daella are the only chances for something like that, as Jaehaerys wanted his kids to not marry incestuously (with Shaera being an inverse of what is proposed)

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Naerys seemed more concerned that childbirth would kill her than incest was a sin. And she made that point after she had given Aegon an heir. 

Helaena Targaryen probably was not so eager to marry Aegon II. 

I hope F&B vol 2 explain us why Baelor locked his sisters and not give them to the Faith or marry them to great lords or even Viserys's sons.

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I'm going with @Lord Varys on this.  The Targs were not normal Westerosi nobility.   They were not 1st Men.  They were not Andals or Rhoynish.   They did not come from a place that even had monarchs.  They held slaves.   Point is, Valyrian culture was vastly different from Westerosi.  It may well have been part of their religion to marry incestuously.   All this talk of the princesses who didn't want to marry their rotten brothers, but what of Jaehaery's kids who had sex so loud everyone in the Red Keep could hear them?   They enjoyed each other.   They lived according to their nature and heritage.   The Targs compromised and assimilated a great deal of Andal Faith of the 7 practice when they came to power.   This was astute political maneuvering.   The one thing they did not back up on was the purity of their bloodlines.    The Doctrine of Exceptionalism may have been the best thing anyone ever did for the Targaryans, except of course the princesses and queens.   They didn't all suffer.      

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On 1/6/2019 at 6:51 PM, Alyssa of House Arryn said:

Naerys asked Aegon to live as brother and sister - that is, without incest. The Faith considers incest to be a sin; so it's only natural that Naerys would hate it as well.

There is no such indication, actually. Naerys did not love Aegon and did not want to marry and did not want their marriage to continue. But this doesn't mean she had anything against Targaryen incest. She may gladly have become Aemon's sister-wife.

On 1/6/2019 at 6:51 PM, Alyssa of House Arryn said:

Whatever Baelor might have felt, it doesn't mean much for Rhaena; she's her own person. She was pious like Naerys, so I believe she too might have not looked very favourably at the Targ tradition.

Rhaena was pious and wanted to be a septa - this doesn't mean she had any issues with Targaryen incest, either. And again - at this time Exceptionalism was an official tenet of the Faith. The incest of lesser men was vile and abominable, but the blood of the dragon was different. They were made different by the Seven themselves. The High Septons themselves preached that.

On 1/6/2019 at 6:51 PM, Alyssa of House Arryn said:

Talking about Baelor; all we've got about him is second-hand information. We don't know for sure that Baelor locked up Daena, Rhaena and Elaena because he was tempted by them. Cersei thinks so, but Cersei never met him. And even if he was attracted to them... it doesn't change the fact that he might have misliked incest. Conflicted feelings and attraction against one's better judgement is a thing, after all. The fact that he locked them away so he couldn't commit incest points to that, he, too, wasn't fond of the tradition.

If we talk about historical figures we can only go by second-hand information. Gyldayn does rarely, if at all, cite any firsthand accounts of the Targaryens he writes about in FaB.

If Baelor disliked Daena or incest he should and likely would have refused to marry his sister in the first place. The way the chronology is there implies that he only developed his freakier notions after his near death experience in Dorne, and even then his lust and desire for Daena and his others did not disappear - he just decided not to act upon that and punish said sisters for the feelings they triggered in him.

Later still we see how ingrained Targaryen incest is in court life - Egg sees no issue whatsoever in TSS when mentioning his betrothal to his sister Daella - whereas Dunk is abhorred by that. And this is at a point in time when neither King Daeron II nor any of his sons were married to a sister. But the tradition continued, Egg was betrothed to Daella, and Aelor married his twin-sister Aelora.

Earlier still we have neither Aenys nor Maegor marrying any sisters, yet Aegon and Rhaena and Jaehaerys and Alysanne grow up with the knowledge and that they will eventually marry each other. This is how it is with those people, unless two siblings really don't get along - like Vaegon and Daella. Aegon and Naerys certainly should also not have been married to each other, but we'll have to wait for their full story to understand why Viserys insisted on that marriage. 

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