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Orys: who was that guy actually?


Orm

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"Dragonseeds, they call them" Jahearys said with obvious reluctance."It is not a thing to boast of, but it has happened, mayhaps more than we could care to admit. Such children are cherished though. Orys Baratheon was himself a dragonseed, a bastard brother to our grandsire. Whether he was conceived of a first night I cannot, but lord Aerion was his father, that was well known. Gifts were given..."

 

So this is what we get about of him from Jehearys I himself.... It seems that most people in the fandom and think of him as a rumoured bastard(unconfirmed).... But since gifts were given, is it rather not obvious?

And what exactly is the name Baratheon? Orys virtually kept everything of the Durrandons. Why not the name?..... A name arguably more prestigious than the name Stark....... He disregarded the name but, NOO the Stag is too cool to be changed..... What gives???

And also the Baratheon super gene/pheno-type which becomes a plot point in the major storyline...... Is it actually the Durrandon gene/pheno-type?

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32 minutes ago, Orm said:

"Dragonseeds, they call them" Jahearys said with obvious reluctance."It is not a thing to boast of, but it has happened, mayhaps more than we could care to admit. Such children are cherished though. Orys Baratheon was himself a dragonseed, a bastard brother to our grandsire. Whether he was conceived of a first night I cannot, but lord Aerion was his father, that was well known. Gifts were given..."

 

So this is what we get about of him from Jehearys I himself.... It seems that most people in the fandom and think of him as a rumoured bastard(unconfirmed).... But since gifts were given, is it rather not obvious?

And what exactly is the name Baratheon? Orys virtually kept everything of the Durrandons. Why not the name?..... A name arguably more prestigious than the name Stark....... He disregarded the name but, NOO the Stag is too important..... What gives???

And also the Baratheon super gene/pheno-type which becomes a plot point in the major storyline...... Is it actually the Durrandon gene/pheno-type?

With the talk of whether Orys was conceived via First Night, I surmise that Orys' mother was lawfully wed to a Lord Baratheon.  But it was fairly widely known that Orys was not Lord Baratheon's biological son.  

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Orys Baratheon was a baseborn half brother to Lord Aegon, it was whispered,

The reason that was whispered and not said aloud is probably because Orys was born to a woman lawfully wed.  I think this may be analogous to the birth status of Viserys Plumm.  He was born to a woman who had lawfully been married to Lord Osifer Plumm, but it was pretty much an open secret that Ossifer could not have been the father of the child.  

I think the fact that Orys went by the name Baratheon is proof that he really wasn't technically a bastard by law.  He was however rumoured to be bastard born, because the rumor was that his mother had an affair with Aerion Targaryen and thus conceived Orys.

Which is also probably why Orys kept the name given to him at birth.  Because otherwise it may have been an admission of him being a bastard. 

Your last question is an interesting one.  When Melisandre goes on and on about children with king's blood, does she only mean children who were descendants from the Targaryens?

After all, Edric had ancestors who were Targaryens, but he also had ancestors who were Durrandons and if House Florent is to be believed he had ancestors who were Gardners.  So which of the "king's blood" does Melisandre mean.  Or the fact that he is a combination of those bloodlines (a chimera or a sphinx) is that what makes his blood special?

 

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"bara" from Japanese translates as "rose". There are other cases when GRRM used words from other languages to name his characters. For example, Quhuru Mo, captain of the Cinnamon Wind ship, that in Quarth brought to Dany news about Robert Baratheon's death, and later delivered maester Aemon and Sam from Braavos, his name from Japanese translates as "crows".

There's blue winter roses of Winterfell, also there's Company of the Rose in Essos, a sellswords company that was founded by people of The North, who rejected Torrhen Stark's submission to Aegon the Conqueror and thus chose exile over bending the knee. There was also this Rose -

"Rose of Red Lake is a legendary daughter of Garth Greenhand and ancestor of House Crane of Red Lake. According to legend, she was a skinchanger who could transform into a crane at will. Some say this ability manifests in women of House Crane from time to time."

Skinchanging is also a "Northern" trait, characteristical for Starks. Maybe, Bran the Builder, son of Brandon of the Bloody Blade and nephew of the Rose of Red Lake, married with Rose's daughter, his first cousin, a Crane girl, and Starks got their skinchanging ability from that bloodline.

"According to legend, Rose of Red Lake was a daughter of Garth Greenhand and the founder of House Crane. Brandon of the Bloody Blade, one of Garth's sons, is said to have slain so many children of the forest that what had been called Blue Lake was renamed Red Lake because of their blood.[3]"

The Red Lake is located in The Reach, where there are a lot of roses. Could be that originally that lake was called Blue Lake, because on shores of it grew blue roses.

So, my theory is that Orys' mother was a Northwoman, one of Starks, and that one of the gifts that Aenar Targaryen gave to her, were blue roses, and also a Myrish glass, to build a greenhouse to grow roses at Winterfell.

Could be that Aenar wanted to make a special gift for his Stark-girl, so he found out the history of her House, that one of her ancestors was the Rose of Red Lake, and that before Brandon of the Bloody Blade defiled it with the Children's blood, the lake was called Blue Lake, because of its blue roses. So he send his people to that lake, where they found those blue roses, and brought them to Winterfell, as a gift for Orys' mother.

Maybe, the mother's name was Rose/Bara, and her father's name was Theon, so Orys combined his mother's name and the name of his maternal grandfather, and as result got this "Baratheon" for his lastname.

P.S. Robert Baratheon's youngest child, a daughter, was named Bara.

There was a Northern King Theon Stark

https://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/Theon_Stark

Maybe, he wasn't the only Theon amongst Starks.

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1 hour ago, Orm said:

And what exactly is the name Baratheon? Orys virtually kept everything of the Durrandons. Why not the name?..... A name arguably more prestigious than the name Stark....... He disregarded the name but, NOO the Stag is too cool to be changed..... What gives???

The Durandons lost.  Perhaps Orys wanted to make his House from then on.  It meant he could start his own line of nobility.  This bastard would want to do that if he suffered from inferiority complex and carried a grudge.

 

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2 minutes ago, Lady Topspin said:

The Durandons lost.  Perhaps Orys wanted to make his House from then on.  It meant he could start his own line of nobility.  This bastard would want to do that if he suffered from inferiority complex and carried a grudge.

 

According to the Worldbook, it appears that Orys Baratheon was his name prior to Aegon's wedding proposal to Lord Durrandon:

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The pact would be sealed by the marriage of King Argilac's daughter to Orys Baratheon, Lord Aegon's childhood friend and champion.

 

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7 hours ago, Lady Topspin said:

The Durandons lost.  Perhaps Orys wanted to make his House from then on.  It meant he could start his own line of nobility.  This bastard would want to do that if he suffered from inferiority complex and carried a grudge.

This is the guy who gave up being the king's hand(the 2nd most powerful man in the continent).... Cause he lost his own hand...

I have a feeling if he was simply 'Orys the bastard'...... He would've gone by the alias of Orys the bastard....

And also he openly carried his grudge against the Dornish after his maiming...

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9 hours ago, Frey family reunion said:

According to the Worldbook, it appears that Orys Baratheon was his name prior to Aegon's wedding proposal to Lord Durrandon:

Oh.... So he had the name prior to the conquest...... Your explanation of him having it by his alleged father is possible.... But why the hell hide it?.... Orys seems like a guy who doesn't care for it, Yet puts his alleged father's stamp on the Durrandons?The Durrandon name carries arguably more weight than the Stark name....he disregards it for his name/title nobody ever heard of.. Yet the Stag and everything else is too cool to be messed with..... Why is it not explained by him or anyone? Orys is like the only one with the name Baratheon out of thin air...... He puts it on his hijacked wife's dynasty and bloodline while his buddy/half-brother enforces it..... And both of them don't bother to explain why.......

Orys Baratheon's entire backstory seems hobbled up and up in the air.......

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In boomers polish "bara bara" is a playful name for sex. sth like hanky panky. Anytime I read the name it makes me smile (in my head).  

I agree with Ffr - Orys' mothers husband must have been a noble of the name. Maybe a landed knight from the Dragonstone. Anyway this name sounds strange, not westerosi nor valyrian, but's just my opinion.

 

 

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17 hours ago, Frey family reunion said:

With the talk of whether Orys was conceived via First Night, I surmise that Orys' mother was lawfully wed to a Lord Baratheon.  But it was fairly widely known that Orys was not Lord Baratheon's biological son.  

I don't think we should assume that Orys' legal father as a 'Lord Baratheon'. Rather that there was somebody named Baratheon on Dragonstone who was his father. After all, the rumor is that Orys was Aegon's 'baseborn half-brother', not a noble/highborn half-brother.

The term 'baseborn' in its strictest sense - as used, for instance, by Dunk when discussing Bloodraven with Egg - means not bastard born but born by a commoner.

If there was a noble house of Baratheon - some petty lords or landed knights, say, or whatever equivalent to those the Targaryens had on their island prior to the Conquest - then it is odd that no other Baratheons are ever mentioned, and that Orys's siblings, uncles, cousins, etc. do not rise to prominence at court and in the Stormlands with him.

It makes more sense to imagine Orys' legal father and his mother as commoners, perhaps trusted servants of Lord Aerion's.

But you are completely right that Orys' mother must have had a legal husband at the time Orys was born and that said man must have viewed/acknowledged Orys as his son, or else the boy wouldn't have been a rumored bastard but simply a bastard since the child of any unmarried woman would be a bastard.

Jaehaerys I's 'family lore knowledge' indicating that Orys could have been conceived in a first night indicates even more that Orys' mother was married. That he qualifies as a dragon seed is effectively confirmed, I'd say.

17 hours ago, Frey family reunion said:

The reason that was whispered and not said aloud is probably because Orys was born to a woman lawfully wed.  I think this may be analogous to the birth status of Viserys Plumm.  He was born to a woman who had lawfully been married to Lord Osifer Plumm, but it was pretty much an open secret that Ossifer could not have been the father of the child.  

I think the fact that Orys went by the name Baratheon is proof that he really wasn't technically a bastard by law.  He was however rumoured to be bastard born, because the rumor was that his mother had an affair with Aerion Targaryen and thus conceived Orys.

Which is also probably why Orys kept the name given to him at birth.  Because otherwise it may have been an admission of him being a bastard. 

Yeah, that would be spot on. There should be some sort of reason why Lord Aerion and later Aegon the Conqueror and Orys himself thought it better that Orys keep the Baratheon name of his legal father and not be formally acknowledged - or even legitimized - as Lord Aerion's bastard.

One way to make sense of this could be to assume that Orys Baratheon and the Targaryens both really cherished and loved Orys' legal father and had no intention to harm the bond between father and son there by making the bastardy official.

Because, as we see with the Hull boys, one can acknowledge/adopt bastards into a family even after the alleged father is dead. In that sense, King Aegon I certainly could have made Orys Baratheon into Orys Waters, natural son of Lord Aerion Targaryen and Orys' unknown mother, or even into Orys Targaryen, legitimized son of Lord Aerion Targaryen and the unknown mother.

There must be reasons why this didn't happen and why Orys wanted to remain a Baratheon and pass that name down to his sons and grandsons. After all, he also didn't change his name to Durrandon after marrying Argella.

17 hours ago, Frey family reunion said:

Your last question is an interesting one.  When Melisandre goes on and on about children with king's blood, does she only mean children who were descendants from the Targaryens?

After all, Edric had ancestors who were Targaryens, but he also had ancestors who were Durrandons and if House Florent is to be believed he had ancestors who were Gardners.  So which of the "king's blood" does Melisandre mean.  Or the fact that he is a combination of those bloodlines (a chimera or a sphinx) is that what makes his blood special?

Oh, here one has to differentiate in my opinion between actually magical blood in the story - dragonlord blood, say - and the belief that being king is what makes your blood special (which is something people in Westeros as well as the real middle ages believed) which might be just nonsense people believe in their ignorance and superstition.

Blood magic and blood sacrifices do work regardless of king's blood, unless we assume Mirri Maz Duur had king's blood. Although Euron does introduce the concept that the sacrifices of sorcerers and holy men might even work better than king's blood.

But to be sure - Alester Florent may have been chosen as a sacrifice by Mel because she knew about his Gardener ancestry and believed this king's blood made him a good sacrifice. Just as she may believe in the books to come that Gerrick Kingsblood and his girls make fine sacrifices - or Val and Axell Florent.

It is kind of hilarious to assume that Mance declaring himself king suddenly made his blood more special, and in the end the kings are all just descended from one such guy.

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7 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

I don't think we should assume that Orys' legal father as a 'Lord Baratheon'. Rather that there was somebody named Baratheon on Dragonstone who was his father. After all, the rumor is that Orys was Aegon's 'baseborn half-brother', not a noble/highborn half-brother.

The term 'baseborn' in its strictest sense - as used, for instance, by Dunk when discussing Bloodraven with Egg - means not bastard born but born by a commoner.

That's a good point.  But it's odd for a commoner to have a surname.  I wonder if perhaps Orys' father was a knight, even if he was a knight of the "hedge knight" variety who was married to a commoner (a commoner that happened to catch the eye of Aerion).  ETA: or rather than a hedge knight, perhaps a knight in the service of the Targaryens, though otherwise one step away from a commoner.

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52 minutes ago, Frey family reunion said:

That's a good point.  But it's odd for a commoner to have a surname.  I wonder if perhaps Orys' father was a knight, even if he was a knight of the "hedge knight" variety who was married to a commoner (a commoner that happened to catch the eye of Aerion).  ETA: or rather than a hedge knight, perhaps a knight in the service of the Targaryens, though otherwise one step away from a commoner.

Well, to be sure, the Baratheons could be commoners the Targaryens brought with them from Valyria. Valyrians may all have names, like seems to be the case in the Free Cities, too. How noble Quenton Qoherys was before he got Harrenhal is also not clear.

But to be sure, there are commoners in Westeros that have family names - like the Heddles for instance, or Tobho Mott, etc.

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2 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

Well, to be sure, the Baratheons could be commoners the Targaryens brought with them from Valyria. Valyrians may all have names, like seems to be the case in the Free Cities, too. How noble Quenton Qoherys was before he got Harrenhal is also not clear.

But to be sure, there are commoners in Westeros that have family names - like the Heddles for instance, or Tobho Mott, etc.

The Heddles were from a Knightly family according to the wiki.  And Mott was from Qohor.  Perhaps the Baratheons were from Essos, it just doesn't sound like an Essos name to me.

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45 minutes ago, Frey family reunion said:

The Heddles were from a Knightly family according to the wiki.  And Mott was from Qohor.  Perhaps the Baratheons were from Essos, it just doesn't sound like an Essos name to me.

Baratheons could have been minor noble house sworn to Targs. Or they were Valyrian version of houses Castel and Poole.

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2 hours ago, Frey family reunion said:

The Heddles were from a Knightly family according to the wiki.  And Mott was from Qohor.  Perhaps the Baratheons were from Essos, it just doesn't sound like an Essos name to me.

We know there was a Ser Tommard Heddle once, husband to the eldest daughter of Lord Butterwell, but we don't know whether he came from a knightly family or not. A single knight doesn't make a knightly family.

Even more so, landed knights must have distant cousins and such who do have their name but lack lands and wealth and titles.

My personal guess for Orys' legal father would be that he was Lord Aerion's steward on Dragonstone, or perhaps a tutor for the children. That would make him important enough to be honored by both Lord Aerion himself and his children afterwards.

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You know all these theories/possibilities are all fine and dandy as proposed by FFR, Lord Varys and even the one proposed by Megorova..... BUT and it's a big but.....

Orys nor Aegon doesn't bother to mention this at least once....... Why hide it?

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59 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

We know there was a Ser Tommard Heddle once, husband to the eldest daughter of Lord Butterwell, but we don't know whether he came from a knightly family or not. A single knight doesn't make a knightly family.

Even more so, landed knights must have distant cousins and such who do have their name but lack lands and wealth and titles.

My personal guess for Orys' legal father would be that he was Lord Aerion's steward on Dragonstone, or perhaps a tutor for the children. That would make him important enough to be honored by both Lord Aerion himself and his children afterwards.

If memory serves me correctly, I think GRRM used Baratheon as an example of an Andal name as opposed to a First Man name, so I don't think the name originated from Essos. 

The fact that Orys was a warrior and a fairly accomplished one, makes me think that he was taught at an early age to be a warrior.  The AGOT appendix has Orys Baratheon as the founder of House Baratheon, so you're defintely right, there was no Lord Baratheon before Orys.  My guess is however, that it's still possible that there was a Ser Baratheon before there was a House or at least a great house.  The fact that he Orys is rumored to be both a bastard and a baseborn (yet only rumored) makes me think that his mother was a commoner and perhaps pregnant before her marriage.  The fact that Jaehaerys makes mention of Orys possibly being the product of a "First Night" makes me believe that there was certainly a marriage.

My best guess is that Aerion had an affair with a common woman that he was very fond of.  When he got her pregnant he married her to a household knight or soldier in his employ.  Which may be where the Baratheon name came from.

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2 hours ago, Frey family reunion said:

If memory serves me correctly, I think GRRM used Baratheon as an example of an Andal name as opposed to a First Man name, so I don't think the name originated from Essos. 

Well, to be sure, all Andals originally come from Essos, as do the First Men, so I certainly can see Baratheon as an Essosi name.

It doesn't strike me as particularly Andal, if you ask me. It doesn't sound very Valyrian either, to be sure, but there is a variety there as many of the names in the Free Cities we got over the years show.

A standard Andal name is something along the lines of Tyrell or Martell or Lefford - a real world English name or close enough that it could pass for an English name.

2 hours ago, Frey family reunion said:

The fact that Orys was a warrior and a fairly accomplished one, makes me think that he was taught at an early age to be a warrior.  The AGOT appendix has Orys Baratheon as the founder of House Baratheon, so you're defintely right, there was no Lord Baratheon before Orys.  My guess is however, that it's still possible that there was a Ser Baratheon before there was a House or at least a great house.  The fact that he Orys is rumored to be both a bastard and a baseborn (yet only rumored) makes me think that his mother was a commoner and perhaps pregnant before her marriage.  The fact that Jaehaerys makes mention of Orys possibly being the product of a "First Night" makes me believe that there was certainly a marriage.

Oh, well, one can go with something along that line, too. I'd find it more interesting if Orys' legal father wasn't a warrior type, stressing the fact that people don't have to be carbon copies of their (legal) fathers. Think Randyll-Samwell or Tytos-Tywin or Aegon-Aenys. Another very good historical parallel would be Criston Cole, who was also just a steward's son with exceptional martial skills - another Glendon Flowers/Ball from TMK, or even Barristan Selmy (whose known ancestors/kin are so far not exactly famed for their prowess as super warriors).

This is something George likes to do.

And to be sure, we can take the founding of House Baratheon of Storm's End with a grain of salt there, since Aegon the Conqueror also sort of counts as a founder of the royal dynasty of House Targaryen in Westeros when the house as such is much, much older than he is. Orys could have done something similar in the Stormlands - yet as a I said: If there were other Baratheons around it is very odd that Orys' rise to power and glory really didn't put them in the spotlight, too.

But one can always explain away something like that by means of there not being any other Baratheons or we simply not knowing anything about them.

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