If faegon's coloring (hair,skin tone, eyes) don't match to aegon's how many alive characters can know that?

[divica]

In AgoT we learn that robert's kids all had dark hair and most of ned's kids have simillar looks.

We know that if r+l=j both jon and rhaenys favor their mother looks.

So despite grrm saying that Aegon looked more targaryen doesn't mean that he looked like a complete targaryen as faegon does. 

And we can't forget that even targaryens can have diferent looks. Like purple or lilac eyes. Or silver or blondish hair.

Therefore who could know about aegon's appearance and still be alive? And has varys been eliminating these people?

[Lord Varys]

Nobody would care about that, since nobody looks like he or she looked as a baby when they are 18 years old.

Whatever hair or eyes Aegon had as a baby would have changed as he grew up.

And the idea that anyone would exactly remember how baby Aegon looked compared to adult Aegon nearly twenty years later is also not compelling.

[Targaryeninkingslanding]

Um... so (SPOILER WARNING: DO NOT READ MY POST IF YOU HAVE NOT READ OR WANT TO HAVE SPOILED ANY OF THE PRE-RELEASED MATERIAL FOR WINDS OF WINTER)

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I'm pretty sure what is being asked above is literally the task Doran Martell has given his daughter Arianne to do. She has been sent to see Aegon and confirm his identity, and it is most likely her task, because she probably knows what Elia Martell looked like and probably Rhaegar as well. She will have an idea of each of their general coloring and features, and will be able to compare it to the possible pretender. 

It has been years since Arianne has seen her aunt and uncle, but it is more or less up to her whether Dorne will support fAegon.

[divica]

11 minutes ago, Targaryeninkingslanding said:

Um... so (SPOILER WARNING: DO NOT READ MY POST IF YOU HAVE NOT READ OR WANT TO HAVE SPOILED ANY OF THE PRE-RELEASED MATERIAL FOR WINDS OF WINTER)

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I'm pretty sure what is being asked above is literally the task Doran Martell has given his daughter Arianne to do. She has been sent to see Aegon and confirm his identity, and it is most likely her task, because she probably knows what Elia Martell looked like and probably Rhaegar as well. She will have an idea of each of their general coloring and features, and will be able to compare it to the possible pretender. 

It has been years since Arianne has seen her aunt and uncle, but it is more or less up to her whether Dorne will support fAegon.

But if she had seen elia she would have been pretty young to remember. Don't forget that it should be 16 years+ 1 or 2 years of all the drama related to the rebelion.

And how would she know if baby aegon had purple eyes and this one has dark blue? Or if the hair color was diferent? She doesn't even know what was baby aegon's skin tone.

[Lord Varys]

15 minutes ago, Targaryeninkingslanding said:

I'm pretty sure what is being asked above is literally the task Doran Martell has given his daughter Arianne to do. She has been sent to see Aegon and confirm his identity, and it is most likely her task, because she probably knows what Elia Martell looked like and probably Rhaegar as well. She will have an idea of each of their general coloring and features, and will be able to compare it to the possible pretender. 

It has been years since Arianne has seen her aunt and uncle, but it is more or less up to her whether Dorne will support fAegon.

That is not very likely since Arianne apparently never even saw Aegon. She held her niece Princess Rhaenys once, but Aegon was born very shortly before the beginning of the Rebellion, so chances are not that good that the Martells ever visited Elia and Aegon on Dragonstone ... and Elia most likely never made it to Sunspear with her son.

And George basically confirmed that Rhaenys looked like Elia and Aegon like Rhaegar, i.e. a Targaryen with Valyrian features. And Aegon seems to be looking like that as well - at least he does have the eyes and he most likely also has the hair, or else he wouldn't have dyed his hair blue.

[divica]

31 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

Nobody would care about that, since nobody looks like he or she looked as a baby when they are 18 years old.

That isn't exactly true. Usually the eyes and skin color don't change. And in this fantasy setting it isn't important do define if the hair color change after a while.

34 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

And the idea that anyone would exactly remember how baby Aegon looked compared to adult Aegon nearly twenty years later is also not compelling.

Obviously it is compelling. Kevan imediatly thinks about baby aegon when he hears about faegon. If the baby had martell skin color, eyes like rhaegar or a definite hair color people would remember. He was a prince...

[divica]

3 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

And George basically confirmed that Rhaenys looked like Elia and Aegon like Rhaegar, i.e. a Targaryen with Valyrian features. And Aegon seems to be looking like that as well - at least he does have the eyes and he most likely also has the hair, or else he wouldn't have dyed his hair blue.

What Grrm says is this

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Do you have any idea what Rhaenys and Aegon looked like? (Hair color, eye color, etc.)

Rhaenys looked more like a Martell, Aegon more a Targaryen.

Which can mean a lot of things. Like having several targ traits but few martell characteristics. And faegon has no trace of martell ancestry.

[Lord Varys]

4 minutes ago, divica said:

That isn't exactly true. Usually the eyes and skin color don't change. And in this fantasy setting it isn't important do define if the hair color change after a while.

Unless they are different humans in this world than in hours then eye colors do change quite a lot after birth. But we don't even have to turn to reality for that. Remember Alyssa Targaryen? At birth, she very much resembled her late sister Daenerys, but as she grew older that resemblance disappeared completely.

4 minutes ago, divica said:

Obviously it is compelling. Kevan imediatly thinks about baby aegon when he hears about faegon. If the baby had martell skin color, eyes like rhaegar or a definite hair color people would remember. He was a prince...

Kevan thinks of Aegon because nobody could identify baby Aegon as baby Aegon because his head and face had been crushed in. All that was visible in the ruin of his head were wisps of fair hair.

The crucial thing is that the dead Aegon was never properly identified ... and now nobody can say that Connington's Aegon isn't the real Aegon.

And, no, nobody would be able to compare the looks of a one-year-old with that of an eighteen-year-old from memory alone. Especially not without fotographs. Go, look at your own pictures as a baby and you realize that you have pretty much nothing in common with the person you are now.

Jon Connington was in love with Rhaegar. He can compare the mental image he has of his silver prince with that of Aegon ... but all he notices is that Aegon has lighter eyes that Rhaegar ... which isn't surprising at all since Rhaegar and his siblings all had different eyes as well, and Aerys II had very deep purple eyes, etc.

Jon also routinely remembers whenever some Valyrian-looking guy triggers him - Lysono Maar, for instance. Meaning that the crucial traits here are the eyes and the hair. Little else is ever described by narrator and POVs alike.

[Targaryeninkingslanding]

17 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

That is not very likely since Arianne apparently never even saw Aegon. She held her niece Princess Rhaenys once, but Aegon was born very shortly before the beginning of the Rebellion, so chances are not that good that the Martells ever visited Elia and Aegon on Dragonstone ... and Elia most likely never made it to Sunspear with her son.

And George basically confirmed that Rhaenys looked like Elia and Aegon like Rhaegar, i.e. a Targaryen with Valyrian features. And Aegon seems to be looking like that as well - at least he does have the eyes and he most likely also has the hair, or else he wouldn't have dyed his hair blue.

your probably right, and Dorne will probably join them anyways given the Marcella of the situation. the meeting may just be pretext to join and it may have been planned out with varys or Ilirio before hand.

if not... well i don't think it matters if she knows what the real baby Aegon looked like, she just needs to look for features common in the martell side of the family, and I bet Rhaegar left a strong impression if she met him.

she's like 25 now and would have been maybe 8 or 9 when the rebellion happened, so who knows what she may remember from more than half her life ago.

[Lord Varys]

48 minutes ago, Targaryeninkingslanding said:

your probably right, and Dorne will probably join them anyways given the Marcella of the situation. the meeting may just be pretext to join and it may have been planned out with varys or Ilirio before hand.

if not... well i don't think it matters if she knows what the real baby Aegon looked like, she just needs to look for features common in the martell side of the family, and I bet Rhaegar left a strong impression if she met him.

she's like 25 now and would have been maybe 8 or 9 when the rebellion happened, so who knows what she may remember from more than half her life ago.

For Arianne the question will more be whether Aegon is going to useful for her agenda ... and if she likes him. Not so much about who he actually is. It would be great if she could convince herself that he was her cousin or if she realized he resembled Elia or Rhaegar or any of their other kin somehow ... but those kind of trivial details won't be a deciding factor.

Aegon is a political reality now and Arianne will have to decide whether she wants to throw her lot in with him or not.

[Mister Smikes]

1 hour ago, divica said:

So despite grrm saying that Aegon looked more targaryen doesn't mean that he looked like a complete targaryen as faegon does. 

Right.  It is common knowledge that children take after both parents.  In this context, "more like a Targaryen" is relative.  It does not mean that the child takes absolutely everything from the father and absolutely nothing from the mother.

However, it goes to far too say that fAegon "looked like a complete targaryen".  That's far more than we know from the text.

1 hour ago, Lord Varys said:

Nobody would care about that, since nobody looks like he or she looked as a baby when they are 18 years old.

Whatever hair or eyes Aegon had as a baby would have changed as he grew up.

Right.  Golden hair can turn dirty brown.  Dark blue/purple eyes can turn brown.  Aegon as he is now might have changed from what remember from 16 years ago when he was killed, or 18 years ago when he was presented at court.

1 hour ago, Lord Varys said:

And the idea that anyone would exactly remember how baby Aegon looked compared to adult Aegon nearly twenty years later is also not compelling.

I suspect people do somewhat remember though, and that fAegon is, at least in terms of coloring, a fair match with what people remember.  Maybe moreso than the real Aegon is or would be, if he is alive and has changed.

1 hour ago, Targaryeninkingslanding said:

I'm pretty sure what is being asked above is literally the task Doran Martell has given his daughter Arianne to do. She has been sent to see Aegon and confirm his identity, and it is most likely her task, because she probably knows what Elia Martell looked like and probably Rhaegar as well. She will have an idea of each of their general coloring and features, and will be able to compare it to the possible pretender. 

It has been years since Arianne has seen her aunt and uncle, but it is more or less up to her whether Dorne will support fAegon.

I think Doran already knows who fAegon is, and knows who Lady Lemore is as well.  Hence, I expect he already knows or expects that Arianne will see a certain family resemblance, and based on this will imagine she has confirmed fAegon's identity.

34 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

Remember Alyssa Targaryen? At birth, she very much resembled her late sister Daenerys, but as she grew older that resemblance disappeared completely.

Thank you for this example.

31 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

For Arianne the question will more be whether Aegon is going to useful for her agenda ... and if she likes him.

Knowing Arianne, deciding whether or not to share a bed will probably be one of the first things she considers.  I'm guessing Doran is not wild about this particular possibility.  He sent one of Arianne's former lovers to keep her company on the mission, and Arianne actually wonders why he would do this.  

Unintentional sibling incest coming up ...

[Targaryeninkingslanding]

7 minutes ago, Mister Smikes said:

I think Doran already knows who fAegon is, and knows who Lady Lemore is as well.  Hence, I expect he already knows or expects that Arianne will see a certain family resemblance, and based on this will imagine she has confirmed fAegon's identity.

who is Septa Lemore though? from what I've read she is her forties and had dark hair. she could have dyed it, but I don't recall any mention of her eye color. the most prevalent theory for her identity that I've heard is Ashara Danye, but I struggle to believe they are the same person.

I wouldn't be surprised if he knew who fAegon was, but I wonder to what degree is is comfortable accepting someone who would then have a claim to Dorne (because Elia had a pretty strong claim and most of obryns children are bastards.) with Quintain dead, wouldn't fAegon be like next in line after Arianne?

[Mister Smikes]

48 minutes ago, Targaryeninkingslanding said:

who is Septa Lemore though?

Doran's Blackfyre wife, Mellario of Norvos, daughter of Ilyrio and Serra.

Note that Illyrio and Tyrion meet Lemore and Young Griff halfway between Pentos and Norvos on the Pentos-to-Norvos road.  And they apparently did not come from Pentos.  And as for being a merchant's daughter, Lemore tells us so herself.

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from what I've read she is her forties

Perfect fit.

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and had dark hair. she could have dyed it,

Brown hair specifically.  The women of Norvos customarily shave their heads and wear wigs.  But it does not follow that she is doing so on this occasion.  She may have switched to dye.  But in any event, it would hardly do to provoke suspicion by having a hair color similar to fAegon.  If Sansa can brown her hair, then so can Lady Lemore, the merchant's daughter.

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but I don't recall any mention of her eye color

No information is no information.

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I wouldn't be surprised if he knew who fAegon was, but I wonder to what degree is is comfortable accepting someone who would then have a claim to Dorne (because Elia had a pretty strong claim and most of obryns children are bastards.) with Quintain dead, wouldn't fAegon be like next in line after Arianne?

He's plotting to put his son Quentyn on the Iron Throne as fAegon.  As for Frog, the boy he sent to the Yronwoods in place of his real son, and then sent on a mission to see Dany, Doran does not know he is dead yet.  (And if he did know it he'd be wrong.  Frog survived his encounter with Rhaegal because he is, after all, the blood of the Dragon, the Prince that was Promised, and the rightful ruler of the Seven Kingdoms).

[divica]

1 hour ago, Lord Varys said:

Unless they are different humans in this world than in hours then eye colors do change quite a lot after birth. But we don't even have to turn to reality for that. Remember Alyssa Targaryen? At birth, she very much resembled her late sister Daenerys, but as she grew older that resemblance disappeared completely.

 

34 minutes ago, Mister Smikes said:

Right.  Golden hair can turn dirty brown.  Dark blue/purple eyes can turn brown.  Aegon as he is now might have changed from what remember from 16 years ago when he was killed, or 18 years ago when he was presented at court.

I know of hair changing colors as people grow. But eyes and skin don 't change colors. At a 1 year old doesn't change his eye and skin color. Right?

In regards to Alyssa Targaryen, her diferences don't have to mean her coloring changed. It can be about the shape of her face, mouth, nose, etc. She can have retained her coloring intact.

1 hour ago, Lord Varys said:

Kevan thinks of Aegon because nobody could identify baby Aegon as baby Aegon because his head and face had been crushed in. All that was visible in the ruin of his head were wisps of fair hair.

The crucial thing is that the dead Aegon was never properly identified ... and now nobody can say that Connington's Aegon isn't the real Aegon.

And, no, nobody would be able to compare the looks of a one-year-old with that of an eighteen-year-old from memory alone. Especially not without fotographs. Go, look at your own pictures as a baby and you realize that you have pretty much nothing in common with the person you are now.

Jon Connington was in love with Rhaegar. He can compare the mental image he has of his silver prince with that of Aegon ... but all he notices is that Aegon has lighter eyes that Rhaegar ... which isn't surprising at all since Rhaegar and his siblings all had different eyes as well, and Aerys II had very deep purple eyes, etc.

Jon also routinely remembers whenever some Valyrian-looking guy triggers him - Lysono Maar, for instance. Meaning that the crucial traits here are the eyes and the hair. Little else is ever described by narrator and POVs alike.

But kevin imediatly thinking about baby aegon would mean that other people would do the same. It is impossible to not want to compare the baby to faegon. 

And in asoiaf there are portraits. And people still know what rhaegar looked like. So how can it be weird if people remeber the color of aegon's eyes, skin or hair? I can acept that some traits can change as people age, but not that people would forget the phisical characteristics of baby aegon.

And wether faegon resembles rhaegar is besides the point. What matter is if faegon has similarities to baby aegon. Unless a 1 year old baby really can change all his traits as he grows.

And by the way my eye and skin color are the same from when I was a baby.

50 minutes ago, Mister Smikes said:

However, it goes to far too say that fAegon "looked like a complete targaryen".  That's far more than we know from the text.

From what jon con says faegon looks completly valyrian. He doesn't see anything of elia in the lad.

51 minutes ago, Mister Smikes said:

Right.  Golden hair can turn dirty brown.  Dark blue/purple eyes can turn brown.  Aegon as he is now might have changed from what remember from 16 years ago when he was killed, or 18 years ago when he was presented at court.

This is true even for 1 year olds?

52 minutes ago, Mister Smikes said:

I think Doran already knows who fAegon is, and knows who Lady Lemore is as well.  Hence, I expect he already knows or expects that Arianne will see a certain family resemblance, and based on this will imagine she has confirmed fAegon's identity.

I don't think this is likely. Unless you are a fan of some crazy dorne theories and doran is the most competent character is asoiaf. after all, varys is the one keeping faegon hidden from everybody in the midle of essos with people he chose. 

58 minutes ago, Mister Smikes said:

Knowing Arianne, deciding whether or not to share a bed will probably be one of the first things she considers.  I'm guessing Doran is not wild about this particular possibility.  He sent one of Arianne's former lovers to keep her company on the mission, and Arianne actually wonders why he would do this.  

I think the political implications are pretty important. Like what dorne wants? what she wants? What will faegon do if danny arrives in westeros married to quentin? One peaceful solution would be for her to marry faegon and quentin danny. This way the martells would come up on top no matter what happens.

 

[Targaryeninkingslanding]

29 minutes ago, Mister Smikes said:

He's plotting to put his son Quentyn on the Iron Throne as fAegon.  As for Frog, the boy he sent to the Yronwoods in place of his real son, and then sent on a mission to see Dany, Doran does not know he is dead yet.  (And if he did know it he'd be wrong.  Frog survived his encounter with Rhaegal because he is, after all, the blood of the Dragon, the Prince that was Promised, and the rightful ruler of the Seven Kingdoms).

Would you mind elaborating on this?

[Mister Smikes]

51 minutes ago, divica said:

I know of hair changing colors as people grow. But eyes and skin don 't change colors. At a 1 year old doesn't change his eye and skin color. Right?

Change of eye color after 9 months is rare, but not unheard of.  Eye color change up to 6 years has been reported, or so I understand.  I'm not sure it matters, because anyone who remembers Aegon's eye color will not necessarily remember it from the day he was smuggled out of king's landing.   They might instead remember it from the day he was presented at court many months earlier.  The change that they'd be far more likely to notice is a change of hair color.  And that can occur at much later ages.

I'm not sure what you think skin color has to do with this.  In any event, skin color can change at any age.  It's called getting a tan.

51 minutes ago, divica said:

And wether faegon resembles rhaegar is besides the point. What matter is if faegon has similarities to baby aegon. 

If my guess is correct, fAegon and Aegon are first cousins on the Martell side; and both are a Martell-Valyrian mix

51 minutes ago, divica said:

And by the way my eye and skin color are the same from when I was a baby.

What does skin color have to do with this?  I don't get it.

51 minutes ago, divica said:

From what jon con says faegon looks completly valyrian. He doesn't see anything of elia in the lad.

?? So you're saying he does not think fAegon is really Elia's son?

51 minutes ago, divica said:

I don't think this is likely. Unless you are a fan of some crazy dorne theories and doran is the most competent character is asoiaf. after all, varys is the one keeping faegon hidden from everybody in the midle of essos with people he chose. 

With Mellario of Norvos, Doran's wife.  Looks like they're in it together.

51 minutes ago, divica said:

I think the political implications are pretty important.

Well sure.  The fact that fAegon is a secret Blackfyre gets them the support of the Golden Company.

51 minutes ago, divica said:

What will faegon do if danny arrives in westeros married to quentin? 

Marry someone else, maybe?  Anyhow, the problem for the conspirators here, is that Dany is not under their control.  After she failed to die on the Dothraki sea as planned, and hatched dragons instead, they keep on trying to bring her into the fold as an ally, and she just keeps on doing her own thing.  It seems both Doran and Illyrio wanted Dany and fAegon to join forces before they came to Westeros, and somehow that just did not work out.

[Mister Smikes]

1 hour ago, Targaryeninkingslanding said:

Would you mind elaborating on this?

What part do you want me to elaborate on?  The basic idea is fairly simple.  Aegon VI really was smuggled to safety, as Varys told Kevan.  However, at some time after that there was a baby swap.   Quentyn is Aegon and Aegon is Quentyn.

The idea for the swap does not seem to have occurred until both children were about 3 years old.  That was when Mellario threw a tantrum over Doran's plan to send her son Quentyn to be fostered with the Yronwoods, in order to appease them after the Red Viper murdered the previous Lord Yronwood.  The plan for a swap probably began at this time.   It seems that the lad was not actually sent to the Yronwoods until he was somewhat older -- enough for Baby Aegon to be trained to accept his new identity as Quentyn Martell.

Another motive for the swap was that, as he aged, Baby Aegon began to look less like a Targaryen.  It was anticipated by the conspirators that when they brought Aegon VI out of hiding, he would need to look the part.  Quentyn, as he aged, still looked the part, but Aegon did not.   And since Quentyn (through Mellario) is a Blackfyre descendant, the swap cemented the allegiance of the leaders of the Golden Company.

[divica]

6 minutes ago, Mister Smikes said:

Change of eye color after 9 months is rare, but not unheard of.  Eye color change up to 6 years has been reported, or so I understand.  I'm not sure it matters, because anyone who remembers Aegon's eye color will not necessarily remember it from the day he was smuggled out of king's landing.   They might instead remember it from the day he was presented at court many months earlier.  The change that they'd be far more likely to notice is a change of hair color.  And that can occur at much later ages.

I'm not sure what you think skin color has to do with this.  In any event, skin color can change at any age.  It's called getting a tan.

Martells are suposed to be olive skined and targs fair skined. Therefore a baby between the 2 houses can havy skin tone between fair and olive. If baby aegon had a tarker tone of skin and faegon is fair then it would be a significant diference.

So if you are correct it means that the eye color of a few months old baby aegon shouldn't change. So people that were in contact with him until the sacking like jaime lannister would be able to compare the eye color of aegon and faegon.

And I am obviously talking about natural skin tone and not tans...

11 minutes ago, Mister Smikes said:

So you're saying he does not think fAegon is really Elia's son?

No. I am saying that he only sees rhaegar in the boy. He never says "that thing comes from his mother" or something similar. So faegon should look 100% valyrian like rhaegar.

 

[Targaryeninkingslanding]

2 minutes ago, Mister Smikes said:

The idea for the swap does not seem to have occurred until both children were about 3 years old.  That was when Mellario threw a tantrum over Doran's plan to send her son Quentyn to be fostered with the Yronwoods, in order to appease them after the Red Viper murdered the previous Lord Yronwood.  The plan for a swap probably began at this time.   It seems that the lad was not actually sent to the Yronwoods until he was somewhat older -- enough time to train Baby Aegon to be trained to accept his new identity as Quentyn Martell.

Another motive for the swap was that, as he aged, Baby Aegon began to look less like a Targaryen.  It was anticipated by the conspirators that when they brought Aegon VI out of hiding, he would need to look the part.  Quentyn, as he aged, still looked the part, but Aegon did not.   And since Quentyn (through Mellario) is a Blackfyre descendant, the swap cemented the allegiance of the Golden Company.

Okay, I can accept this general premise, but fAegon is supposed to look Valyrian right? like naturally he had white hair and dark purple eyes? Mellario is Novoshi, but I can't find any evidence of her being racially Valyrian, and her other two children are both physically Dornish looking. I suppose the age time table does work though since Quint was born in the year of the false spring...

[divica]

1 hour ago, Mister Smikes said:

Doran's Blackfyre wife, Mellario of Norvos, daughter of Ilyrio and Serra.

That should be very unlikely. It would make ilyrio and varys around 60.

And if doran didn't think quentin was his son he wouldn't send him to danny because who marries danny has 3 dragons.

And it would have been unlikely that the dragons turned agains quentyn if he was a targ.