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Daenerys (very likely) has Stark ancestry


Ser Hedge

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On 2/3/2019 at 7:06 AM, norwaywolf123 said:

Bolded, it is possible.

 

The Blackwood and the Starks have married each other multiple times. There is probably Stark ancestors in Betha Blackwood's family tree, allthough they may be very distant.

Although it seems conceivable that the Blackwoods have Stark ancestry from before they were driven out of the North millennia ago by the Kings of Winter, the two Blackwood marriages we know of are Lord Cregan Stark and Aly Blackwood in 132 AC, and Lord Willam Stark and Melantha Blackwood, likely in the late 210s-early 220s AC. Betha obviously couldn't be descended from the contemporary match of Willam/Melantha, but both Betha and Melantha could conceivably be descended from one of the four daughters of Cregan/Alys if one of them was wedded back into the Blackwoods.

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37 minutes ago, Bael's Bastard said:

Yes, the Blood of the Dragon MUSH has a daughter of Cregan and Aly (Marian) marrying the son and heir of Lord Benjicot Blackwood (Seth), who seems to be listed as the brother of Aegon IV's mistress Melissa Blackwood.

Of course, the information in the MUSH doesn't exactly match the information that has been revealed since, as TWOIAF shows Cregan and Aly having four daughters (Sarra, Alys, Raya, Mariah), none of whom are named Marian.

But it still seems plausible that one of the daughters of Cregan and Aly could turn out to have been wed back into the Blackwoods, and if so, it wouldn't be surprising if one or both Betha (Aegon V's wife) and Melantha (Willam Stark's wife) ended up being descended from a daughter of Cregan and Aly.

The reason I brought this element up is because Ran and Linda said that they would change Marian to a canon daughter of Cregan and Alysanne who ended up marrying a Blackwood. :)

Even if that's false, there are about 8000 years, give or take, of a potential Blackwood-Stark match, not that unlikely...

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21 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

There is no internal reason to believe that a Stark-Targaryen union is something special. George certainly can play with the symbolic meaning of that but on an actual biological level he would never be able to establish the fact that, say, Rhaegar and Lyanna were not distant cousins through the Blackwood or the Arryn line.

But he never made any attempt to play up the 'metaphysical' or 'magical' meaning of the mingling of Stark and Targaryen blood so I see really no reason to assume that there is any thing *really special* about such a union - aside from the political ramifications.

Jon and Daenerys could certainly help to heal the rift that opened during the Robert's Rebellion and continued to deepen during the War of the Five Kings.

Yes, I agree, the political ramifications of the real truth of R+L becoming known one day seem key to the end game, or at least the epilogue. The possibility that R already had a few recessive Stark genes he didn't know about :-D is not something that should affect any potential ending.

 

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On 2/3/2019 at 2:36 PM, Takiedevushkikakzvezdy said:

If I'm not mistaken, Dany is related to all current Starks through the Blackwoods.

We don't have confirmation, but there are two possible sources for Daenerys and the current Starks being related.

Aegon (V) wed Betha Blackwood in 219 AC, and it is likely that Willam Stark wed Melantha Blackwood within years of that, if not much closer than that. If Betha and Melanthat were sisters or cousins, then all the descendants of Aegon V and Willam Stark would be related through whatever Blackwood Betha and Melantha were both descended from.

But if one of the four daughters of Cregan and Aly Blackwood wed a Blackwood, and Betha and Melantha were both descended from that union, then the current Targaryens and Starks would all be descended from both a more common Blackwood ancestor, as well as the union between Cregan Stark and Aly Blackwood.

That is all speculative, but there is at least the possibility that Egg's descendants with Betha, as well as Willam Stark's descendants with Melantha, are descended from Cregan Stark/Aly Blackwood, with William himself also being descended from Cregan's son Brandon.

Much has been made of the recent Targaryen ancestry of the Baratheons, but if Betha and Melantha end up being related (not to mention if they end up being descended from a daughter of Cregan and Aly), then it will make the more recently deceased and current Targaryens, Starks, and Baratheons related through the Blackwoods.

Melantha Blackwood
wed Lord Willam Stark
    - Lord Edwyle Stark
      wed Marna Locke
          - Lord Rickard Stark
            wed Lyarra Stark
                - Brandon Stark
                - Eddard Stark
                  wed Catelyn Tully
                    - Lord/King Robb Stark
                    - Sansa Stark
                    - Arya Stark
                    - Bran Stark
                    - Rickon Stark
                - Lyanna Stark
                  wed Rhaegar Targaryen ?
                    - Jon Snow?
                - Benjen Stark
    - Jocelyn Stark
      wed Benedict Royce
          - Royce Daughter
            wed a Waynwood
                - ?
          - Royce Daughter
            wed a Corbray
                - ?
          - Royce Daughter
            wed a Templeton ? or ?
                - ?

Betha Blackwood
wed Aegon V Targaryen
    - Duncan Targaryen
      wed Jenny of Oldstones
          - ?
    - Jaehaerys II Targaryen and Shaera Targaryen wed
          - Aerys II and Rhaella Targaryen wed
                - Rhaegar Targaryen
                  wed Elia Martell
                      - Rhaenys Targaryen
                      - Aegon Targaryen
                  wed Lyanna Stark ?
                      - Jon Snow?
                - Viserys
                - Daenerys
    - Daeron Targaryen
    - Rhaelle Targaryen
      wed Lord Ormund Baratheon
          - Lord Steffon Baratheon
            wed Cassana Estermont
                - Lord/King Robert Baratheon
                      - Mya Stone
                      - Gendry
                      - Edric Storm
                      - Robert's other bastards
                - Lord Stannis Baratheon
                      - Shireen Baratheon
                - Lord Renly Baratheon

Or something along the lines of:

If Melantha and Betha were sisters:
 

                                    ? Blackwood
                                    -
--------------------------------------------------
-                                                                       -
Melantha w. Willam Stark                                Betha w. Aegon V Targaryen
-                                                                        -
-                                               ------------------------------------
-                                               -                                                 -
Edwyle                                     Jaehaerys/Shaera                       Rhaelle w. Ormund Baratheon
-                                               -                                                 -
-                                               -                                                 -
-                                               -                                                 -
Rickard                                    Aerys II/Rhaella                          Steffon
-                                               -                                                 - 
-                                               -                                                 -
-                                               -                                                 -
Brandon/Ned/Benjen/Lyanna  Rhaegar/Viserys/Daenerys        Robert/Stannis/Renly



If Melantha and Betha were cousins:

                                    ? Blackwood
                                    -
--------------------------------------------------
-                                                                       -
 ? Blackwood                                                   ? Blackwood
-                                                                       -
-                                                                       -
-                                                                       -
Melantha w. Willam Stark                                Betha w. Aegon V Targaryen
-                                                                       -
-                                                ------------------------------------
-                                                -                                                  -
Edwyle                                      Jaehaerys/Shaera                        Rhaelle w. Ormund Baratheon
-                                                -                                                  -
-                                                -                                                  -
-                                                -                                                  -
Rickard                                     Aerys II/Rhaella                           Steffon
-                                                -                                                  - 
-                                                -                                                  -
-                                                -                                                  -
Brandon/Ned/Benjen/Lyanna   Rhaegar/Viserys/Daenerys         Robert/Stannis/Renly


 

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1 hour ago, Bael's Bastard said:

It doesn't sound like Lord Ronnel Arryn and his Stark wife had any children.

 

 

Yes, my bad. My first read of FaB was way too fast and on my re-read I fell for the Easter egg of Ronnel's marriage to a Stark without thinking ahead to Ronnel and brother doing a quick 1-2 through the moon door and cousin Hubbert inheriting.

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On 2/3/2019 at 5:19 PM, Lord Varys said:

There is no internal reason to believe that a Stark-Targaryen union is something special. George certainly can play with the symbolic meaning of that but on an actual biological level he would never be able to establish the fact that, say, Rhaegar and Lyanna were not distant cousins through the Blackwood or the Arryn line.

But he never made any attempt to play up the 'metaphysical' or 'magical' meaning of the mingling of Stark and Targaryen blood so I see really no reason to assume that there is any thing *really special* about such a union - aside from the political ramifications.

Jon and Daenerys could certainly help to heal the rift that opened during the Robert's Rebellion and continued to deepen during the War of the Five Kings.

except the warging ability and flying dragons. Its one of the few things that only the Starks and Targaryens can do. 

 

As for the entirety of the thread, 

It seems its more accurate to say everyone has Blackwood DNA than anything else. 

 

Also, it seems the Starks married into a first men houses outside of the North, the Royces and Blackwoods being the best examples. 

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On 2/8/2019 at 6:54 AM, Lightoftheast said:

We see plenty of Royce-Arryn marriages.Starks have Arryn blood via Lorra Royce(grt grandmother of Ned).Manderly Lady of Duskendale might have spread Stark blood in south.Branda Stark-Rogers might have spread it to Stromlands.

 

We even have a Dayne-Ryswell match in MUSH.Which is very unlikely.

1. Yes, Lorra Royce's Arryn ancestry makes the current Starks very distant cousins to the Hubbert Arryn descended Daenerys, which they already are through Melantha and Betha Blackwood respectively as @Bael's Bastard and @Vaith pointed out above. Canon information on Mariah/Marian marrying Seth Blackwood and Betha subsequently descending from that line is what would give Daenerys actual provable Stark ancestry (rather than just being a distant cousin of that family through a mutual Arryn or Blackwood ancestor).

2. Lord Theomore Manderly's daughter was a similar age to the older children of Jahaerys and Alysanne, so there wouldn't have been time for her Darklyn offspring to marry into House Arryn to be in Aemma Arryn's family tree. They would have needed to marry into a house that then married into Rogarre, Martell, Dayne or Blackwood to make this link work. Still possible of course.

3. Branda Stark-Rogers was too recent, this would have been after Aegon V's wedding, which was everyone's last chance to get their genes into the Targ family tree :-)

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On 2/8/2019 at 9:37 PM, dsjj251 said:

except the warging ability and flying dragons. Its one of the few things that only the Starks and Targaryens can do. 

 

As for the entirety of the thread, 

It seems its more accurate to say everyone has Blackwood DNA than anything else. 

 

Also, it seems the Starks married into a first men houses outside of the North, the Royces and Blackwoods being the best examples. 

 Well, Bloodraven could warg too and so could some of the free folk. Qhorin was not surprised when Jon told him of his warg dream. The Starks themselves are implied as having gained this ability after one of them cast down the Warg King and married his daughter, though this takes us back to the time of legend of course. It could be the free folk who can warg are descended from Warg kings, and perhaps so are the Blackwoods, or the Blackwoods have Stark ancestry from when they lived in the North long before the Andals - all of this only assuming that warging is a DNA thing, of course.

On your other point, I'm wondering if there's anything concrete about Starks marrying into House Blackwood or House Royce before Aegon's conquest - from what we can tell this is a recent (or recently revived) tradition. It might not have been that straightforward to seek a match with House Royce when they were vassals to the Falcon Kings. You can see the Falcon Kings feeling threatened by their most powerful vassal building a strong alliance with a powerful neighbouring King. The Blackwoods, on the other hand, were Kings in their own right for much longer, but we don't know if there was historical animosity after having been driven out of the wolfswood by the Kings of Winter. In the absence of evidence to the contrary, it does feel like Stark marriages to Blackwood and Royce were enabled by the Iron Throne forging a realm out of the seven kingdoms (i.e. Cregan and Aly met because a realm-wide civil war brought them together, Royce and Stark alliances would not or could not be vetoed by the King of Vale and Mountain)

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56 minutes ago, Ser Hedge said:

 Well, Bloodraven could warg too and so could some of the free folk. Qhorin was not surprised when Jon told him of his warg dream. The Starks themselves are implied as having gained this ability after one of them cast down the Warg King and married his daughter, though this takes us back to the time of legend of course. It could be the free folk who can warg are descended from Warg kings, and perhaps so are the Blackwoods, or the Blackwoods have Stark ancestry from when they lived in the North long before the Andals - all of this only assuming that warging is a DNA thing, of course.

On your other point, I'm wondering if there's anything concrete about Starks marrying into House Blackwood or House Royce before Aegon's conquest - from what we can tell this is a recent (or recently revived) tradition. It might not have been that straightforward to seek a match with House Royce when they were vassals to the Falcon Kings. You can see the Falcon Kings feeling threatened by their most powerful vassal building a strong alliance with a powerful neighbouring King. The Blackwoods, on the other hand, were Kings in their own right for much longer, but we don't know if there was historical animosity after having been driven out of the wolfswood by the Kings of Winter. In the absence of evidence to the contrary, it does feel like Stark marriages to Blackwood and Royce were enabled by the Iron Throne forging a realm out of the seven kingdoms (i.e. Cregan and Aly met because a realm-wide civil war brought them together, Royce and Stark alliances would not or could not be vetoed by the King of Vale and Mountain)

I dont have that same feeling as you. 

 

Seems to me, marriages happened between Kingdoms and to vassals werent all that special.  the best example is Arlec III Durrandon marrying his son to a Blackwood when they were vassels to the royal Teagues. 

Lannisters and Greyjoys married atleast once before the Conquest as well, the Starks married other royal families in the North to bring them into their kingdoms as well. 

 

 

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1 hour ago, dsjj251 said:

I dont have that same feeling as you. 

 

Seems to me, marriages happened between Kingdoms and to vassals werent all that special.  the best example is Arlec III Durrandon marrying his son to a Blackwood when they were vassels to the royal Teagues. 

Lannisters and Greyjoys married atleast once before the Conquest as well, the Starks married other royal families in the North to bring them into their kingdoms as well. 

 

 

Greyjoy were Kings (even if not throughout their history), so a marriage with a Lannister would have been one between two neighbouring ruling families.

The Teagues were a bit of an upstart house in what is easily the most volatile of all the kingdoms. From the wiki:

About a century after the fall of House Justman, the adventurer Torrence Teague, a man of uncertain birth, raided the westerlands and used the gold to hire sellswords from Essos. After six years of fighting, Lord Torrence was crowned King of the Rivers and the Hillsat Maidenpool.[2]

The river lords did not care for the Teagues, however, and the kings were forced to keep hostages from the great families at their court. Theo Teague, the fourth king from the dynasty, was known as Theo Saddle-sore because of his time on campaign against rebels.[2]According to a semi-canon source, the Teagues may not have had an uninterrupted rule, instead being contested by other river dynasties for generations.[3]

When King Humfrey I Teague began to repress worship of the old gods with the support of the Faith Militant, Houses BlackwoodVance, and Tully rose in rebellion. Although the Teagues and their loyalist supporters came close to defeating the rebels, Lord Roderick Blackwood sought aid from the Storm King Arlan III Durrandon, with whom he was related by marriage. Humfrey, his three sons, and his brother were all slain in what became known as the Battle of Six Kings. Since Roderick was also killed in combat, Arlan decided to add the riverlands to the realm of the Storm Kings.[2]

In comparison to this, Arryn rule of the Vale seems to have been unquestioned, since the early days of the Andals. In that scenario, you can see the Falcon Kings have veto power on their bannermen marrying into the powerful ruling family of the neighbouring kingdom with whom a bitter war was once fought.

In any case, we are both of course speculating about what might out might not have happened, but it if interesting that no one has unearthed a definite reference to a Stark marriage outside the North before the conquest.

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4 hours ago, Ser Hedge said:

Greyjoy were Kings (even if not throughout their history), so a marriage with a Lannister would have been one between two neighbouring ruling families.

The Teagues were a bit of an upstart house in what is easily the most volatile of all the kingdoms. From the wiki:

About a century after the fall of House Justman, the adventurer Torrence Teague, a man of uncertain birth, raided the westerlands and used the gold to hire sellswords from Essos. After six years of fighting, Lord Torrence was crowned King of the Rivers and the Hillsat Maidenpool.[2]

The river lords did not care for the Teagues, however, and the kings were forced to keep hostages from the great families at their court. Theo Teague, the fourth king from the dynasty, was known as Theo Saddle-sore because of his time on campaign against rebels.[2]According to a semi-canon source, the Teagues may not have had an uninterrupted rule, instead being contested by other river dynasties for generations.[3]

When King Humfrey I Teague began to repress worship of the old gods with the support of the Faith Militant, Houses BlackwoodVance, and Tully rose in rebellion. Although the Teagues and their loyalist supporters came close to defeating the rebels, Lord Roderick Blackwood sought aid from the Storm King Arlan III Durrandon, with whom he was related by marriage. Humfrey, his three sons, and his brother were all slain in what became known as the Battle of Six Kings. Since Roderick was also killed in combat, Arlan decided to add the riverlands to the realm of the Storm Kings.[2]

In comparison to this, Arryn rule of the Vale seems to have been unquestioned, since the early days of the Andals. In that scenario, you can see the Falcon Kings have veto power on their bannermen marrying into the powerful ruling family of the neighbouring kingdom with whom a bitter war was once fought.

In any case, we are both of course speculating about what might out might not have happened, but it if interesting that no one has unearthed a definite reference to a Stark marriage outside the North before the conquest.

I think both the Greyjoy-Lannister marriage and the Durrandon-Blackwood marriage actually add to the story and give back story to either why Argilac needed Aegon and why everyone hates the Iron Islands. 

We dont really need that backstory for the Starks. 

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4 hours ago, dsjj251 said:

I think both the Greyjoy-Lannister marriage and the Durrandon-Blackwood marriage actually add to the story and give back story to either why Argilac needed Aegon and why everyone hates the Iron Islands. 

We dont really need that backstory for the Starks. 

Yes, I see your point, there was probably no need for a backstory, hence we have only a sketchy knowledge of the Stark family tree before Cregan. We do have mild circumstantial evidence from Lady Dustin's monologue in the crypts in ADWD that sparked the Southron conspiracy theories where she notes the Tully marriage as highly unusual. I can't remember what she said about first men houses south of the neck, but in any case her timespan is likely to have been 200-300 years, so again inconclusive one way or another really.

We just have to park this for lack of data and awaiting canon confirmation of Mariah/Marian.

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Even if were pretending that chances are very low that there were multiple Stark-Arryn marriages in the past (which is pretty stupid considering we know marriages are used to arrange and seal peaces, e.g. the truces after the various Bracken-Blackwood feuds Hoster tells us about) then Dany still has a huge chance to have inherited Stark blood through the Blackwoods - after all, since the Blackwoods supposedly once lived in the Wolfswood they certainly would have intermarried with the Starks back then.

In that sense, Daenerys might as much a descendant of Brandon the Builder as the male line Starks.

It also makes essentially no sense to assume that there was no intermarriage among the royal houses of the Seven Kingdoms back before the Conquest. The noble houses wouldn't have intermarried that often, but when, say, the King of the Rivers and the King of the Rock wanted to make common cause against the King of the Reach it would have come in very handy to seal such an alliance with a royal marriage - or to assume that such an alliance grew out of an earlier marriage.

There was constant warfare between the Seven Kingdoms before the Conquest, and this would have been heavily reflected by their marriage alliances. And, of course, great noble houses living in border regions would, at times, also be favored by a royal match from the neighboring kingdom, allowing the latter to extend their sphere of influence into the other kingdom.

In that sense, we can easily see how a Stark may have married into one of the noble houses living in the northernmost part of the Riverlands, say, a Mallister or a Frey, elsewhere a Sunderland or Corbray may have gotten such an honor. Even in the Iron Islands and the West such things may have happened at times when Winterfell was trying to make common cause with them against the Riverlands.

On 2/8/2019 at 10:37 PM, dsjj251 said:

except the warging ability and flying dragons. Its one of the few things that only the Starks and Targaryens can do. 

As has already been pointed out the former is definitely not true. Bloodraven implies greenseeing and skinchanging basically has nothing to do with special bloodlines. He gives us statistics, and does not imply in any way, shape, or form that this talent is prevalent in certain special bloodlines.

And dragonriding isn't that special an ability, either. Most or perhaps even all potential dragonriders in Westeros seem to be descended from the Targaryens, but they were not the only dragonlord family in Valyria, and there seems to be an army of potential dragonriders in Essos, people who are descended from the other dragonlord family - especially in Volantis in Lys but likely basically in every Free City.

Jaehaerys I is legitimately concerned that the three stolen dragon eggs might create a new dragonlord family in the east.

On 2/8/2019 at 10:37 PM, dsjj251 said:

Also, it seems the Starks married into a first men houses outside of the North, the Royces and Blackwoods being the best examples. 

The Royces are not really a First Man house anymore. They have heavily intermarried with the Andal houses in the Vale, the Arryns most prominently among them, making them perhaps the least First Man house in all of Westeros. Since the Vale is the place the Andals came first intermarriage between First Men and Andals started there first.

If one wanted to look for 'pure First Men' one would have, for the most part, look beyond the Wall, in the Mountains of the Moon and in rural areas in the Stormlands, the Westerlands, the Riverlands, and the North. There might be places there were no Andal ever migrated to, so the people only married their own First Men kin for millennia.

But no noble house would have been that insular. Even if the Starks had only intermarried with their own bannermen, said bannermen would not have only intermarried with the Starks. The crucial tidbit in arranged noble marriages is not some weirdo concept of purity of blood but rather rank, status, and power. If you are part of the nobility you are a potential match, no matter from whom you are descended.

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15 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Even if were pretending that chances are very low that there were multiple Stark-Arryn marriages in the past (which is pretty stupid considering we know marriages are used to arrange and seal peaces, e.g. the truces after the various Bracken-Blackwood feuds Hoster tells us about) then Dany still has a huge chance to have inherited Stark blood through the Blackwoods - after all, since the Blackwoods supposedly once lived in the Wolfswood they certainly would have intermarried with the Starks back then.

In that sense, Daenerys might as much a descendant of Brandon the Builder as the male line Starks.

It also makes essentially no sense to assume that there was no intermarriage among the royal houses of the Seven Kingdoms back before the Conquest. The noble houses wouldn't have intermarried that often, but when, say, the King of the Rivers and the King of the Rock wanted to make common cause against the King of the Reach it would have come in very handy to seal such an alliance with a royal marriage - or to assume that such an alliance grew out of an earlier marriage.

There was constant warfare between the Seven Kingdoms before the Conquest, and this would have been heavily reflected by their marriage alliances. And, of course, great noble houses living in border regions would, at times, also be favored by a royal match from the neighboring kingdom, allowing the latter to extend their sphere of influence into the other kingdom.

In that sense, we can easily see how a Stark may have married into one of the noble houses living in the northernmost part of the Riverlands, say, a Mallister or a Frey, elsewhere a Sunderland or Corbray may have gotten such an honor. Even in the Iron Islands and the West such things may have happened at times when Winterfell was trying to make common cause with them against the Riverlands.

As has already been pointed out the former is definitely not true. Bloodraven implies greenseeing and skinchanging basically has nothing to do with special bloodlines. He gives us statistics, and does not imply in any way, shape, or form that this talent is prevalent in certain special bloodlines.

And dragonriding isn't that special an ability, either. Most or perhaps even all potential dragonriders in Westeros seem to be descended from the Targaryens, but they were not the only dragonlord family in Valyria, and there seems to be an army of potential dragonriders in Essos, people who are descended from the other dragonlord family - especially in Volantis in Lys but likely basically in every Free City.

Jaehaerys I is legitimately concerned that the three stolen dragon eggs might create a new dragonlord family in the east.

The Royces are not really a First Man house anymore. They have heavily intermarried with the Andal houses in the Vale, the Arryns most prominently among them, making them perhaps the least First Man house in all of Westeros. Since the Vale is the place the Andals came first intermarriage between First Men and Andals started there first.

If one wanted to look for 'pure First Men' one would have, for the most part, look beyond the Wall, in the Mountains of the Moon and in rural areas in the Stormlands, the Westerlands, the Riverlands, and the North. There might be places there were no Andal ever migrated to, so the people only married their own First Men kin for millennia.

But no noble house would have been that insular. Even if the Starks had only intermarried with their own bannermen, said bannermen would not have only intermarried with the Starks. The crucial tidbit in arranged noble marriages is not some weirdo concept of purity of blood but rather rank, status, and power. If you are part of the nobility you are a potential match, no matter from whom you are descended.

The context of "only Starks and Targaryens " is with in the current story. Not all history. 

So their bloodlines are at least special.  never argued they were the only ones in all of history.  Bloodraven himself being half Blackwood. 

 

As for the the First Men origins and such. The Vale was indeed the first conquered, but first men werent destroyed. 

 

Royce, Hunter, and Upcliff,  are all first men houses and all of them married into House Arryns.

 

regardless. No house is 100% First Men or Andal blood.  

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As a biologist I find this whole topic slightly frustrating. With near-certainty you can be assured that literally every single established noble house is descended from every single other established noble house. It’s been 8,000 years. The nobility are a relatively small population, and however rare, cross-border marriages happened. The Targaryens, like all westerosi nobolity, have Stark blood and Qorgyle blood and Codd blood and whatever house you can think of, because it has been eight thousand years. 

I really take the thematic important of Rhaegar-Lyanna and the Song of Ice and Fire to be that this is the first direct union of a Stark and a Targaryen, which is far more reasonable.  

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23 minutes ago, Jaehaerys Tyrell said:

As a biologist I find this whole topic slightly frustrating. With near-certainty you can be assured that literally every single established noble house is descended from every single other established noble house. It’s been 8,000 years. The nobility are a relatively small population, and however rare, cross-border marriages happened. The Targaryens, like all westerosi nobolity, have Stark blood and Qorgyle blood and Codd blood and whatever house you can think of, because it has been eight thousand years. 

I really take the thematic important of Rhaegar-Lyanna and the Song of Ice and Fire to be that this is the first direct union of a Stark and a Targaryen, which is far more reasonable.  

Sure, that's the sane view on the matter. But if you are seeing the light of reason there then the importance of that 'union' could, for the most part, only be symbolic because, you know, magical bloodlines and stuff wouldn't really care about family names and stuff.

But then, the very idea that Stark blood is as magical as the blood of the dragon was pretty faulty from the start. It is never introduced as such, nor is ever kept pure and preserved. Nothing special should happen when those two bloodlines merge 'directly'.

And with FaB even 'the blood of the dragon' is no longer that special. Pretty much all Dragonstonian commoners seem to have it, one guesses a lot of Kingslanders, too, at least since the days of the Unworthy, and then there are those armies of potential dragonlords in the Free Cities.

The Targaryens are special in the sense that they are one of the few Westerosi families who are of direct dragonlord ancestry, but that's not a special thing in the Free Cities.

 

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11 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Sure, that's the sane view on the matter. But if you are seeing the light of reason there then the importance of that 'union' could, for the most part, only be symbolic because, you know, magical bloodlines and stuff wouldn't really care about family names and stuff.

But then, the very idea that Stark blood is as magical as the blood of the dragon was pretty faulty from the start. It is never introduced as such, nor is ever kept pure and preserved. Nothing special should happen when those two bloodlines merge 'directly'.

And with FaB even 'the blood of the dragon' is no longer that special. Pretty much all Dragonstonian commoners seem to have it, one guesses a lot of Kingslanders, too, at least since the days of the Unworthy, and then there are those armies of potential dragonlords in the Free Cities.

The Targaryens are special in the sense that they are one of the few Westerosi families who are of direct dragonlord ancestry, but that's not a special thing in the Free Cities.

 

The books both give me an impression that there is something “special” about being a Stark or a Targaryen, yet seem intent also on dispelling that impression (Bael the Bard, the Strong Velaryons, etc.). I guess we’ll have to wait to see how it pans out because right now I’m not sure exactly how this “magic bloodline” thing is supposed to work. 

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9 minutes ago, Jaehaerys Tyrell said:

The books both give me an impression that there is something “special” about being a Stark or a Targaryen, yet seem intent also on dispelling that impression (Bael the Bard, the Strong Velaryons, etc.). I guess we’ll have to wait to see how it pans out because right now I’m not sure exactly how this “magic bloodline” thing is supposed to work. 

It seems clear that 'the blood of the dragon' is truly special in the sense that it is what allows you to become a dragonrider. But everybody with 'a sufficient amount of dragonlord blood' can become a dragonrider. Your physical looks, legitimacy of birth, royal upbringing, etc. is not relevant to this.

If Addam Velaryon was truly Lord Corlys' son then - unless Marilda of Hull is descended from dragonseeds - his most recent Targaryen ancestor could only have been his great-great-great-great-grandmother (and that only if the first Daemon Velaryon was the brother of Valaena Velaryon, and they both do share a Targaryen mother).

If that's sufficient to enable you to ride dragons, then nearly everybody could - or rather: the circumstances are such that George could basically make any (POV) character in the books a dragonrider, because basically any character in the main series could have Targaryen ancestry through Aegon the Unworthy.

And then there is the prevalence of the blood of the dragon in Essos. Dany's dragons could easily enough get some Volantene or Lyseni riders before they end up with Targaryen descendants in Westeros.

For the Starks there is no 'magical blood' of that sort in evidence. Skinchanging and greenseeing is not introduced as a talent that runs in families, and 'the wolf blood' of the Starks just seems to be a medieval way of describing a certain trait of hotheadedness. These people do identify with their heraldic animals, even if they have pretty much nothing to do with them, and they use them to categorize families. That can be seen with the 'lion-like' pride of the Lannisters, too.

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