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Just how many people knew about the incest?


Selere

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In AGoT Stannis is said to have fled to dragonstone after Jon Arryn is killed, and was probably planning to raise his banners as soon as shit went south (in this case Ned and Robert dying).

Tywin wanted to foster Sweetrobin, which means Pycelle knew about it, and wanted to guarantee the Vale would be on their side.

Renly shows Ned a portrait of Margaery and asks him if she looked like Lyanna, which is a really damn weird thing to ask, but seems to make sense if you assume he was conspiring with Loras to make Robert wed her.

So it seems that Cersei's children not being Robert's but Jaime's wasn't really some unknown thing. Instead, it feels like everyone in the court knew about it and that they were preparing for  a war that was coming soon. Why did they all keep it to themselves? If it was that obvious, for how long have they known it? Joffrey was 13 by then, so it surely wouldn't take that long for people to notice that neither him nor Tommen or Myrcella looked like Robert. You'd expect that once it became known for everyone, Robert would just have ordered Cersei, Jaime and their children to be executed, but did they expect it to lead to war? Tywin couldn't rebel alone against the Throne.

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There's "knowing" something and proving it.  If every mother whose kids looked more like them than their father was executed for supposedly committing incest with her brother, that would be mass murder of epic proportions!  

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As many people as necessary to rid yourself of two hands and a king.. In other words it is a very long list, shucks you gotta remember according to Lannister canon (Pycelle and Yandel) Cersei and Jamie are products of incest why would it be surprising their kids are the same.

I would suggest every arch maester and maester of the citadel, all of the most devout, every member of the small council, every head of every major preeminent house in every kingdom, all lords Paramount and all wardens.

I take another view C and J were of a coupling between Joanna and Aerys.

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6 hours ago, Selere said:

Tywin couldn't rebel alone against the Throne.

Says who?

59 minutes ago, Tygett Lannister said:

Everyone on the small council knew because Lord Baelish found out and told everyone (Baratheon brothers, Pycelle, Vayrs already knew and at last Jon Arryn).

Renly didnt know, he thinks its a ploy by Stannis

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 6/7/2019 at 11:00 PM, Hugorfonics said:

Says who?

Renly didnt know, he thinks its a ploy by Stannis

Says 200k Crown soldiers. 

We don't know his thoughts and he has a reason to say its a ploy since Renly's claim to throne was being loved and having a big army not succession laws. 

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On ‎6‎/‎7‎/‎2019 at 3:40 PM, Selere said:

 

Renly shows Ned a portrait of Margaery and asks him if she looked like Lyanna, which is a really damn weird thing to ask, but seems to make sense if you assume he was conspiring with Loras to make Robert wed her.

 

Not that weird. Renly wanted Cersei replaced, he was planning on having Margaery seduce the king then have Cersei put aside. He'd not need a Lyanna clone if he knew the truth.

 

On ‎6‎/‎7‎/‎2019 at 8:59 PM, Tygett Lannister said:

Everyone on the small council knew because Lord Baelish found out and told everyone (Baratheon brothers, Pycelle, Vayrs already knew and at last Jon Arryn).

Barristan and Renly did not know.

It was Stannis who told Jon Arryn, not Littlefinger.

We know how Varys knew, he has the best network of spies in the realm.

We don't know when Littlefinger found out, it may have been before or after Stannis.

 

 

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LF may have been told by Lysa, if she figured what was her husband doing. Or he was asking Lysa what was her husband doing with books and smiths apprentices and figured it before Lysa. She wasn't sharpest tool exactly.

 

But honestly, people who were clueless are in too many number. This wouldn't work in RL.

 

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One assumes that Varys actually knows - learning by having the little birds overhear talk and/or intercourse between the two. The rest would just suspect things. Stannis only has suspicions, and nothing we know at this point indicates he actually ever saw Jaime/Cersei fuck or exchange romantic kisses, etc., Jon Arryn bought Stannis' suspicions - he didn't know, either -, Littlefinger indicates he knew, but he, too, may have just suspected/learned from Lysa in the wake of Jon's investigation of the matter with Stannis.

After Stannis' sent his letter this thing becomes a rather popular belief in the mind of many people - even such who continue to work with the Lannisters like the Tyrells - but that is also not knowledge. Nobody but Ned, Cersei, Jaime, and Tyrion actually know. And to be more precise, only Jaime/Cersei actually really know because they both should know enough about Cersei's sex partners to actually exclude the possibility that Robert (or anybody else) could be the father of Cersei's children.

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I think before Stannis' letter came out, those who knew for certain were:

  • Cersei and Jaime, duh
  • Tyrion
  • Pycelle
  • Varys
  • Littlefinger -- *might belong in the next group, since it doesn't matter to him whether it's true or not. I suspect he is the one who put this particular bug in either Stannis' ear or Jon Arryn's, or both in order to muddy the waters surrounding JA's eventual death.

Those who are certain of it but have no conclusive proof are:

  • Stannis
  • Jon Arryn
  • Ned

Those who may suspect but either don't care or are not inclined to pursue the truth:

  • Renly
  • Selmy
  • The Hound
  • Ser Illyn
  • any other lord or lady who saw the three children and went hmmmmm . . .
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16 hours ago, Bernie Mac said:

Not that weird. Renly wanted Cersei replaced, he was planning on having Margaery seduce the king then have Cersei put aside. He'd not need a Lyanna clone if he knew the truth.

A Lyanna clone would certainly help, but I think the angle here was two-fold. Even for a king, it's not an easy thing to just set aside your wife of 15 years who, as far as anybody knows, has been faithful and has produced children. Aegon IV didn't just up and dismiss Naerys by fiat; he orchestrated and then lost the TbC.

So I suspect that the first part of Renly's plan was to get Lyanna close to Robert, have her work her charms on him and get him thinking about his long, lost love, then go to him with tales of Cersie, Jaime and the children so that both he and the church would deem her unfit. But even here it would be a tricky thing, since Cersei could always demand her own TbC and select the Mountain as her champion, since her accuser is the king.

So the whole plan was kind of half-assed to begin with.

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3 hours ago, John Suburbs said:

A Lyanna clone would certainly help, but I think the angle here was two-fold. Even for a king, it's not an easy thing to just set aside your wife of 15 years who, as far as anybody knows, has been faithful and has produced children. Aegon IV didn't just up and dismiss Naerys by fiat; he orchestrated and then lost the TbC.

So I suspect that the first part of Renly's plan was to get Lyanna close to Robert, have her work her charms on him and get him thinking about his long, lost love, then go to him with tales of Cersie, Jaime and the children so that both he and the church would deem her unfit. But even here it would be a tricky thing, since Cersei could always demand her own TbC and select the Mountain as her champion, since her accuser is the king.

So the whole plan was kind of half-assed to begin with.

Well yeah, I don't think the plan was going to succeed. But they had a plan to remove Cersei either as Queen or her influence over Robert by making another Queen/Paramour to rival her power at court.

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5 hours ago, John Suburbs said:

I think before Stannis' letter came out, those who knew for certain were:

  • Cersei and Jaime, duh
  • Tyrion
  • Pycelle
  • Varys
  • Littlefinger -- *might belong in the next group, since it doesn't matter to him whether it's true or not. I suspect he is the one who put this particular bug in either Stannis' ear or Jon Arryn's, or both in order to muddy the waters surrounding JA's eventual death.

I doubt Tyrion knew anything prior to his conversation with Cersei in ACoK and the letter. He certainly may have suspected things, but I don't think there is any evidence that he knew more than, say, that his siblings truly loved each other. This is not the same as knowing/suspecting that they were cuckolding the king and that Cersei's children were Jaime's.

Also, what we know of Stannis makes it very unlikely he would have needed or followed Littlefinger's hints if the man had given him some such - he makes it very clear that he despised Littlefinger and his cronies at court.

And it is not that difficult for Stannis to figure it out. He despised Cersei, and he knew he would be a better king than Robert, so this could easily enough be wishful thinking turning into 'certainty' in his head.

Pycelle also falls in the suspecting category, in my opinion. There is no evidence Cersei/Jaime ever actually told the man who the true father of Robert's children was.

Renly definitely didn't know, and neither did Selmy. If it had been easy to figure out somebody else would have informed Robert a long time ago.

4 hours ago, John Suburbs said:

A Lyanna clone would certainly help, but I think the angle here was two-fold. Even for a king, it's not an easy thing to just set aside your wife of 15 years who, as far as anybody knows, has been faithful and has produced children. Aegon IV didn't just up and dismiss Naerys by fiat; he orchestrated and then lost the TbC.

Aegon IV could have just set aside Naerys with a heartbeat - just like Baelor the Blessed freed himself of his sister-wife. The whole accusation thing there was a means not to end his marriage (he liked dominating and fucking Naerys to death) but to ruin her reputation and the reputation of his brother - not to mention to cast doubt on the legitimacy of his son and heir Daeron.

It would have not been that easy to get rid of Cersei, but Robert didn't like her nor her family very much. And he was certainly passionate and reckless enough to not give a damn about Tywin if he had truly found a new Lyanna.

4 hours ago, John Suburbs said:

So I suspect that the first part of Renly's plan was to get Lyanna close to Robert, have her work her charms on him and get him thinking about his long, lost love, then go to him with tales of Cersie, Jaime and the children so that both he and the church would deem her unfit. But even here it would be a tricky thing, since Cersei could always demand her own TbC and select the Mountain as her champion, since her accuser is the king.

No, Robert would have set Cersei aside. For all we know a king doesn't even need the Faith for that, although the puppet High Septons would have definitely done what the king said. There wouldn't have been a trial or anything of that sort.

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18 minutes ago, Bernie Mac said:

Kevan only finds out later, likely after his son came clean to him about what he had been doing in Kings Landing.

They all *know* after Stannis has sent his letters - at least insofar as they deem it convincing or not.

Kevan doesn't find anything out - he just says what's on his mind in that moment, something he would likely never dared to say while Tywin was still alive. And it is the same with other people who talk the incest after the letters.

It is basically impossible to figure out who *knew* before that aside from Ned, Jaime, and Cersei. Stannis and Jon only ever had suspicions - and rather far-fetched ones at that. I mean, think how ridiculous their evidence is. Some old book about marriages and the looks of a couple of bastards. That's essentially nothing - on that basis the parentage of any child that doesn't look exactly like his/her alleged father is in doubt (say, all the Stark children looking like Cat are potential bastards, just as Arya once believed as a child).

They have no testimonies/witnesses overseeing Cersei/Jaime kissing, fondling, or fucking (and the first two things could still be brushed aside as twin siblings expressing their natural love for each other), they have nobody accusing them of anything. They have nothing to prove or question the parentage of Cersei's children. They have nothing.

And if one thinks a little bit then the fact that they had nothing also explains why the dying Jon never said anything to Robert. We know that Robert sat hours and hours at the bedside of his dying foster father, and the Tears of Lys do not muddle your mind. Jon would have been pretty clear for most of the time, which actually somewhat implies that the guy gave this cryptic hint about the strong seed because he did no longer knew what he was saying but did not actually want to accuse anyone even then. It also implies that Jon didn't think Cersei/anyone had him poisoned while he lay dying. If that had been the case he would have likely pointed the finger at somebody, telling Robert his suspicions in the process of that.

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