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Realistically how much support a Targaryens restoration have


Mrstrategy

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Depending at what stage of the story you're looking for.

If it's as It's now, they have a huge base, there are a lot of malcontents in Westeros, Tywin's gone, the Starks are gone, the Tully's are gone and the Baratheons are no more. The only representation of the latter is a bastard kid and a man that's less loved than the bastard kid.

With the right moves, Young Griff will just steamroll to the Throne.

At the beginning of AGOT their support would be minimal, at the height of the Lannister power, Tywin's second run as Hand in King's Landing, their support would have also been minimal. During ACOK it's unlikely they could have a lot of support but they could've roll the dice.

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It's a good question.  Westeros is war ravaged and politically unstable.   War is waged in the North, The Reach and Stormlands.  The Riverlands are decimated, starving and burned.  The capitol is dependent upon the Reach for food and men.  The King of all this madness is an 8 year-old boy.  At this point we have the Iron Islands in open defiance and a foreign invader stocked with Westerosi exiles not to mention elephants, infiltrating the other coast.   Winter really is coming.  Who will feed the masses if Euron makes serious inroads to the Reach?  The Westerlands, Vale and Dorne are the only areas not seriously harmed by the wars of the past years.   They will eventually have to either defend themselves or aid a neighbor.  The unstable political landscape even in unblooded places like Dorne or the Vale will force the nobility to choose a side because Westeros as a united country cannot continue much less thrive under these conditions.  Few in the Vale actually support Little Finger and would likely jump at any opportunity to get him out of there, but they are also thirsty for war glory and could follow him elsewhere just to get out of the freaking Vale and take their place in history.   Doran Martell hasn't got 100% support of his people and I wonder how easy it will be for him to convince his region of Aegon's legitimacy.  A marriage could help that a great deal or completely break the faith Dorne has with House Martell.   Euron is perfectly capable of killing all his own people.  

I would think the vast majority of regular people in the 7 Kingdoms would want change and support any successful candidate.  The nobility are playing a game, but I'm not sure they will all be able to maintain control of their places even to save themselves.  PR and marketing will matter, but who would actually plot against a successful candidate when there can be peace and a return to calm?   It's obvious they aren't getting it with the current regime.  

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3 hours ago, Mrstrategy said:

Realistically how much support does a Targaryen restoration have in westeros after Robert rebellion?

It depends on whether that Targaryen is convincing as the real deal.  I say at least half will immediately flock to Daenerys Targaryen's banner when she makes her landing in Westeros.  Aegon will be a little bit less because his identity will always be in doubt. 

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23 minutes ago, The Coonster said:

I say at least half will immediately flock to Daenerys Targaryen's banner when she makes her landing in Westeros.  Aegon will be a little bit less because his identity will always be in doubt. 

Add to this that Daenerys has dragons, the Targaryen sigil and their source of power, whereas "Aegon" is ... still waiting on those elephants. But either way, I agree with Curled Finger that the smallfolk would probably leap at getting a Targaryen back on the throne. The Baratheon/Lannister regime has been a disaster. Which means Stannis will have a tough time of it.

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The smallfolk likely misses them, just because of how fucked up everything is right now. After them I see The Riverlands being the most likely supporters, Doran would support them but he won't call his spears or anything, his strategy has been working out well for him, no Dornishman died in the WOT5K. Maybe The Vale lords would also want to follow Aegon, or Daenerys, as they wan't to rise against the Lannisters and they would be the better choice, but it depends on who's ruling at the time, LF would only go to war if he's sure he can win and has a lot to gain from it. 

Asha's Ironbron, The North and The Stormlands won't follow while Stannis lives.

The Reach and The Westerlands won't  follow either.

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depends how they present and what other contenders there are. the kingdoms are likely to be so wrecked that anyone with some military might could take over. but many houses would fear retribution which might be the biggest obstacle, especially if Dany will not deal with them.

then there is Petyr conserving some forces in the Vale.

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Plenty, if it seems they have a realistic chance of winning.  Most lords want to be on the winning side.  And, there are always scores to pay off.

If fAegon and Arianne take power, there will still be remnants of the Tyrells and Lannisters, who will look kindly upon Daenerys, when she arrives.

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The situation in Westeros will get increasingly desperate.  Robert and the Baratheons could not hold the kingdom together.  Balon, Renly, Robb, and Jon all badly messed up and failed in their duties.  The kingdom is broken.  The lords are scheming and fighting among themselves while the people are suffering.  Mass starvation is about to become reality.  The people will hunger for the return of the Targaryens. 

Timing is everything.  Aegon will come in and become part of the problem when he launches his attack on King's Landing and Cersei.  Euron is menacing the coast.  The people of Westerosi will soon start sending their envoys to Daenerys and asking for help.

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It seems to me that 18 years have gone by, they have been prosperous years, most of them have been summer years. 

Robert has been big on circuses and nobody has lacked bread. He forgave men who fought loyally for Aerys.

Lord Darry might not be a bosum friend, but he inherited his brother's castle. And Ser Barristan Selmy was on Robert's kingsguard beside Ser Jaime Lannister, in spite of the fact that one had given him a near-fatal wound and the other had slaughtered the king on the Iron Throne.

Some were not so lucky - but Rykker and Thorne had fought against Lord Tywin rather than Robert, and knew Tywin when he was Hand. Knowing how he had dealt with Tarbeck and Reyne as Aerys Hand, and how Aerys himself would have dealt with them if he had lived, they might see their life on the wall as proof that Robert was more merciful and just. To be allowed the choice to put as many miles between themselves and Lord Tywin as possible while still being alive and in Westeros, shows them Robert could restrain Tywin and had deposed Aerys.

Of the smallfolk, we hear exactly one old man speak favourably of King Aerys

Quote

“It’s a sin and a shame,” an old man hissed. “When the old king was still alive, he’d not have stood for this.”

(ASoS Ch50 Arya X) 

It is not clear what exactly "this" is - treason, Starks rebelling against the throne, paper currency, outlaws, dispossession, torture, murder, pressed labour - he has a range of grievances. It is likely the man had never met King Aerys, or even seen him. I note that nobody alive that knew Aerys is quite able to bring themselves to bless him. Not even 'lickspittles' like Rykker or life savers like Barristan.

Viserys is under the impression his enemies enemies are his friends

Quote

"Tyrell, Redwyne, Darry, Greyjoy, they have no more love for the Usurper than I do. The Dornishmen burn to avenge Elia and her children. And the smallfolk will be with us. They cry out for their king.”

(AGoT Ch3 Daenerys I)

His information with respect to the noble houses seems semi-solid. Balon Greyjoy in particular has no love for King Robert. Darry, like Tyrell and Redwyne, had supported Ayrs to the end of the war, but all had bent the knee and were willing enough to host King Robert and attend his tourneys now.

The Martells do still burn (foreshadowing) to avenge Elia, and unlike Balon, would happily ally themselves with Viserys if he was to successfully invade Westeros with 40,000 Dothraki screamers. But it takes three sucessful conquests and living fire-breathing dragons to get Doran to remember he made a marriage pact with Ser Willem all those years ago.

 Mollander raised a glass to Daenerys, but Viserys had been long dead at Vaes Dothrak and his father had died on the Blackwater. Balon Swann had quipped of toasting three kings, but none of them were Viserys.

It is difficult to pinpoint which holdfasts in Westeros might have men making secret toasts to Viserys and women sewing Dragon banners. But that may be because most of the Westerosi points of view we see through the eyes of are staunch supporters of the Stark, Lannister and Baratheon causes. Doubtless Varys could find Targaryen loyalists, if they exist. Perhaps Ser Maynard still toasts the dragon, and Eleanor Mooten treasures as an heirloom the dragon banner she finished for her late mother, who had intended it to fly with the salmon when her goodbrother returned from the Trident.

The loyalties of the smallfolk don't matter. They serve their feudal masters, or whatever war lord co-opts them. The lords with the armies, Stannis, the Lannisters, Night's Watch, Tyrell, Arryn, Bolton, Tarly, Frey - those are the ones whose loyalties matter, because they are the ones with armies, the ones that can afford sell-swords, the ones smallfolk must obey or else.

It seems to me that there are no shortage of houses that would happily ally with a strong friend who wanted to take the throne from Cersei, especially if that friend fought their enemies for them and left them to enjoy the spoils in peace.

Aegon in the Stepstones has a fair chance of winning the love of smaller houses of naval significance like Swann, Tarth, and Estermont. Until someone with a bigger army than Aegon's whips them back into line.If Aegon is very lucky, Dany will arrive with a thousand ships and ten thousand Dothraki at her back while he still holds those isles. Not sure his local friends would like to host Ironborn and Dothraki, but at least if they are allies they won't die fighting them.

The real enemy might be the white walkers. I am guessing their next reveal will be that they can transform into a cold mist to get to the wildlings sheltering in the caves at Hardhome. And there has to be a point where the wall fails to keep them out of Westeros, because really, until and unless they attack below the Neck, the Southerners will concentrate on 'real' enemies like Aegon and Euron and leave the Others to Stannis.

I am not sure how the Others feel about a Targaryen restoration. They are an odd enemy. Their dead men remember particular targets, and their whole modus operandi so far have been strategies of assymetric warfare eg.planting of Othor and Jafer by the Wall then having them assassinate the Lord Commander.  The White Walkers act like a much less numerous and poorly armed force than the Night's Watch, which has less than a thousand men.

 I am not sure Black Jack, Hal, and Garth are the work of White Walkers at all. If they are, it would seem the White Walkers know how the Night's Watch hate the Weeper. They did seem to be close enough to listen in to the Night's Watch before the battle at the fist of first men. They might have selectively claimed the corpses of Chett's mutineers.(Although, the mutineers that Cold Hands killed were not wights - you can tell from the steam still rising from their eviscerated bodies and the blood still flowing sluggishly from their cut throats, and that they smell like meat to the direwolf).

But why would such petty enmities matter to a power that had been sleeping ten thousand years? They don't speak the common tongue, so how would they even work out who the weeper was and why the men at Castle Blak abhored him?And what would they care of the Iron Throne and the dragon lords that sat upon it less than 280 years, that are all gone now?

The houses with armies in Westeros are looking for figureheads that they can overwhelm or undermine. Cersei is fine, if she can be controlled by her uncle and suppressed by her own small council. They flock to the banners of the younger pretenders with the weaker claims for that reason. They have no love for Stannis, because they know he will do them no favours for supporting his claim, and think nothing of sending them into battle against their own kith and kin.

Dany will need a strong force to take the Iron Throne, and the stronger she is, the more she will be resented as a foreign invader. Even if she were to beat back the White Walkers she would earn no gratitude in the South of Westeros, where the armies of Westeros are.

Aegon's claim to the Iron Throne is weak because of the number of people who saw his dead body eighteen years ago, and no sign of life from him these many years. People might be prepared to acknowledge JonCon was still alive when those that knew him meet him again, but in Aegon's case there was a body and lots of questions (like, if they could rescue the babe in arms, why not the mother, why not the daughter? Did the pisswater prince have to die?) And why, how, does a Targaryen pretender get the backing of the Golden Company. The highborn houses of the South know plenty about that lot. They know that  they are returning to claim the thrones of Stormlords and Gardener Kings, to kill Fossoways and Lothsons. Stricklands, Peakes, Mudds, Rivers and Flowers returning to reclaim the lands of Oldstones, Summerhall, Shandystone, and Storms End from their current inhabitants, and set some bastard on the Iron Throne. Starting with Griffin's Roost. 

In our world, The French did not welcome back the Ancien Régime who had ruled for 800 years,  after a break of twenty years full of bloodshed and upheaval, failed constitutions, directories and emporers. When every other nation in Europe was fighting for the restoration, the French fought them off. And when they were restored anyway, they managed to keep in power for fifteen years only because they did not reclaim lands taken from Royalist exiles, and they agreed to be constitutional rather than absolute monarchs. When Charles X tried to remove an elected government administration he opposed, he was deposed within a week, and Louis Phillipe was elected King of the French (no more kings 'of France', no more divine right of kings) for 18 years, until he was deposed in favour of a second republic. 

The Golden Company have started by reclaiming stolen lands, which will cost them any local support they might have hoped for, and remind those old enough to remember of the oppression and injustice and arrogance of the Dragon Lords. The lady that sewed a dragon banner will burn it, the cottager that blessed the last Dragon King will curse the current one, and any local supporters they have after that will be the ones paid or pressed into their service.

TL;DR Realistically, there is no support for a Targaryen Restoration in Westeros. Especially not one supported by Blackfyres.

 

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Depending on who you are talking about. The Lords and the big houses or the smallfolk. The latter, I don't think care that much. They care for their safety and that the wars end soon. Whoever provides that at best, will gain their support. When Danerys and Young Griff start a war with foreign invadors, they won't be welcomed by the smallfolk, since they will suffer the most from a ravaging dothraki army, dragons, elephants and whatsoever. The Lords on the other hand, will decide for the side, who is winnig, as Lords have allways done.

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