Swan Song part 16/16. Exotic fruits on family trees

[StarksInTheNorth]

16 hours ago, Jaenara Belarys said:

His dad, King Daeron II. Considering the traits of Larra and Viserys had, and that Daeron II was born from incest (which keeps the blood pure and features relatively similar), you don't need Drazenko for Valyrian features. 

Also, we don’t know what the other recent marriages were into House Martell. Both sets of Danyes have Valyrian-esque features, even if they aren’t Valyrian. I don’t really think GRRM plays with modern genetics, more “what genetics work for the story.” But if we were claiming genetics, it could very well be that the Martells carried Valyrian-esque genes through a Recent Dayne consort. 

[StarksInTheNorth]

4 hours ago, Willam Stark said:

I'll stick to it, since there is no other options available.

As for the recessive genes, GRRM seems to follow their functioning when it's about the hair and eyes colors for what we've seen.

The other option is that Maron married twice, which is perfectly viable, especially considering Myriah was engaged to Daeron well before Daenerys was even born.

And “as far as we’ve seen,” he really hasn’t. The Stark kids are mostly redheads, but Ned’s brown hair should have won out. But it fit the story better for Robb to not look northern, for Arya to look like Lyanna and Sansa to look like Cat, so he didn’t. 

[HoodedCrow]

I looked it up searching for eye color alleles:) Part of the article said that there are 150 researched variants that contribute to eye color. It goes into specific genes. It is not straightforward. I have heterochromia, which is not a disease. Mostly, adding pigment changes the perceived color. Genes can switch on or off for different reasons. In a world of magic, dragons, and skinchanging, we will rely on the rules of the author. Something is up with Betha Blackwood!

 

[StarksInTheNorth]

1 hour ago, Megorova said:

Why else did Maekar agreed for his son to marry with a woman whose family weren't even the Overlords of a Kingdom? A Tully, or Arryn, or Lannister, or Martell would have been a more equal match for a royal Prince. Though if Betha was bloodrelated to Egg, and if she was King Daeron's niece, then she was a suitable match for the King's grandson. No?

The blackwoods were a pretty important house. Other non-overlords were prior choices for royals plenty of times: the Velaryons, Manderlys, Hightowers, Dondarrions, Corbrays, etc. Rhaena Targaryen, greatgranddaughter of a king, stepdaughter of a Queen regnant, sister to a king, and Dragonrider only married the brother of the Lord Hightower. Blackwoods had already almost married a kings daughter (Daella) except for religious differences.

the other thing is, they married for love. Aegon was 5th or 6th in line for the throne, fairly far down. There’s no evidence that Maekar actually agreed to the arrangement, either. 
 

For further evidence that GRRM is not paying attention to genetics: Rhaenys Who Never Was originally was listed as silver haired in the Princess and the Queen, but later listed as black haired once someone pointed out the inconsistency to him. 

[The Wondering Wolf]

2 hours ago, Megorova said:

I'm also not saying that I have proof, though if my theory concerning Betha Blackwood's ancestry is correct, then it creates a neat picture - in my opinion Betha's mother was Mya Rivers (one of Bloodraven's sisters). So to Egg his wife was his bloodrelative, specifically - first cousin once removed.

Bloodraven, Mya <- half-siblings -> Daeron II.

Betha <- first cousins -> Maekar.

Betha <- first cousins once removed -> Aegon V.

Why else did Maekar agreed for his son to marry with a woman whose family weren't even the Overlords of a Kingdom? A Tully, or Arryn, or Lannister, or Martell would have been a more equal match for a royal Prince. Though if Betha was bloodrelated to Egg, and if she was King Daeron's niece, then she was a suitable match for the King's grandson. No?

Barristan recalls Egg married for love, and the Worldbook states the reason the match provoked no opposition was Egg being so far down in the line of succession at that point. So I'm pretty sure Betha didn't have any close Targaryen relations. It wouldn't make much sense for Lord Blackwood to marry a legitimised bastard-born relative, anyway. What would he gain from that? The Blackwoods already had a connection to the throne via Bloodraven. In my opinion, the fandom is much more obsessed with royal bastards and Valyrian bloodlines than the lords in Westeros are. 

By the way, I'm well aware of your speculations on family trees and all the other stuff, but with all due respect to your efforts and your creativity, most of it is of little substance. An author who writes for a greater audience doesn't include hundreds of secret lineages which only one reader out of millions is able to figure out. And the amount of times one of the persons with the deepest knowledge on Ice and Fire and GRRM's way of working has come forward to reject your claims should tell you something, too. Saying this, I bear you no ill will and hope you won't be too disappointed when the next books won't confirm your speculations.

[Jaenara Belarys]

9 hours ago, Willam Stark said:

Recessive genes must be contributed by both parents to be expressed, so Myriah must have a Valyrian ancestor who carried these genes, Drazenko Rogare is the most likely option. This would mean that she is Daeron II's second cousin through their Rogare side.

Aegon V's son Jaehaerys had purple eyes, and since @Megorova thinks that pictures in the World Book count as evidence then we can say this doesn't apply all the time since two of Aegon V's sons had silver hair, while their mother had black hair. 

2 hours ago, StarksInTheNorth said:

Also, we don’t know what the other recent marriages were into House Martell. Both sets of Daynes have Valyrian-esque features, even if they aren’t Valyrian. I don’t really think GRRM plays with modern genetics, more “what genetics work for the story.” But if we were claiming genetics, it could very well be that the Martells carried Valyrian-esque genes through a Recent Dayne consort. 

Maybe. We'd need FaB 2 to confirm anything. 

[Megorova]

18 minutes ago, StarksInTheNorth said:

For further evidence that GRRM is not paying attention to genetics: Rhaenys Who Never Was originally was listed as silver haired in the Princess and the Queen, but later listed as black haired once someone pointed out the inconsistency to him. 

I wouldn't say that it was an inconsistency. Because:

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

"The story takes off in 103 AC with the death of King Jaehaerys I, after shortly describing his final two years, and ends in 129 AC, just mere hours before The Princess and the Queen takes off.^[4]"

In that novel Rhaenys was 55 years old, so her hair was light-colored because it was "gray"/old.

Quote

With Lord Corlys came his wife Princess Rhaenys, five-and-fifty, her face lean and lined, her silver hair streaked with white, yet fierce and fearless as she had been at two-and-twenty—a woman sometimes known among the smallfolk as “The Queen Who Never Was.” - Rogue Prince.

<- that doesn't mean that her original hair color was silver, and then when she aged, it turned partially white. That means that when she was young, her hair was black, then when she aged, it became silver, and when she aged even more, her hair became even more "washed out" and became silver streaker with white.

Let's take Shiera Seastar for example - when she was young, her original hair-color was silver-gold, and now her hair is either silver-gold with platinum-white streaks, or its completely platinum-white ->

Quote

Ghosts lined the hallway, dressed in the faded raiment of kings. In their hands were swords of pale fire. They had hair of silver and hair of gold and hair of platinum white, and their eyes were opal and amethyst, tourmaline and jade. "Faster," they cried, "faster, faster." She raced, her feet melting the stone wherever they touched. "Faster!" the ghosts cried as one,

<- that's Shiera in red-black clothes (traditional colors of Targaryen Kings) with green-blue eyes, with a Valyrian glass candle in her hands, and her hair is silver-gold with platinum-white streaks, or something like that.

When dark-haired people age, their hair becomes grey (in Rhaenys' case - silver), and when they age even further, their grey hair become snow-white. So that's Rhaenys' case - when she was young, she was black-haired, like all Baratheons, and when she became old, she had "silver hair streaked with white".

And whoever pointed out that supposed "inconsistency" to GRRM, was wrong, because there was no inconsistency, and if he said that - Oh yes, she's a Baratheon, so she should have black hair - he was just placating them, because he knew that her hair being light-colored is not an inconsistency, it's exactly the way he planned - Rhaenys was old, so she had an accordingly colored hair, so he didn't made there any mistakes.

Or could be that since writing that first novel, for which he knew that Rhaenys' hair is lightly-colored because she is old, not because it was originally lightly-colored, but by the time he was writing that other novel and someone pointed out to him that there is supposedly an inconsistency concerning Rhaenys' hair-color, GRRM by that time has already forgotten a reason why he wrote that Rhaenys in The Rogue Prince had light-colored hair. So they made him think that he made a mistake, because he didn't remembered why he wrote it how he wrote it. So because he wasn't sure, or didn't remembered at all, that's why he said that - Oh, yes I made a mistake, so in the next book I should write that her hair was black.

Something like that.

18 minutes ago, StarksInTheNorth said:

For further evidence that GRRM is not paying attention to genetics: Rhaenys

Is there any other examples, besides Rhaenys. Because in my opinion that situation with Rhaenys' coloring is more a misunderstanding on the part of the readers, than a mistake on GRRM's part.

Is there any other cases in which GRRM "disregarded" the real world's genetics? Because if Rhaenys is the only case, then that's not an argument at all. If all the other characters GRRM had colored according to their ancestry, then it means that he does pays attention to genetics. And thus all those half-non-Targaryen characters, such as Jaehaerys - son of a black-haired Blackwood mother, Maekar - son of a brown-haired Martell mother, Aegon - son of a brown-haired Martell mother, had Targaryen coloration because even though their mothers were dark-haired themselves, nevertheless they were also a carriers of a different set of genes, a Targaryen genes, which they themselves got from their Targaryen ancestors, and thus they passed those genes to some of their children.

So my point still stands - about Betha, Dyanna and Myriah possibly being partially Targaryens by blood, and the coloration of their children being an evidence of that.

53 minutes ago, StarksInTheNorth said:

The blackwoods were a pretty important house.

The most important thing that they ever did, in my opinion, is that they provided a wife for Aegon V and a mistress for Aegon IV. Or was there something more?

1 hour ago, StarksInTheNorth said:

The Stark kids are mostly redheads, but Ned’s brown hair should have won out. But it fit the story better for Robb to not look northern, for Arya to look like Lyanna and Sansa to look like Cat, so he didn’t. 

No, because red-hair alleles work differently then the alleles of the other colors. Based on the hair color of Ned's children - that the majority of them are red-haired - it looks like Ned was a recessive carrier of a red-hair alleles, so amongst his ancestors there was someone with red hair.

This article gives a good/simple explanation how works the inheritance of hair color between parents and children:

https://genetics.thetech.org/ask-a-geneticist/hair-color-genetics

And this is from the same source, about red hair:

https://genetics.thetech.org/ask-a-geneticist/what-are-my-chances-having-red-haired-child

<- Ned's case is the same as the second case from this article, he was a carrier of one brown allele and one red, and passed 50/50 to his children, so Robb had red-brown hair; Sansa, Bran and Rickon - auburn; and Arya brown.

If Ned had more children, then amongst those others, there would have been more brown-haired like him, not red-haired like Cat.

One of Ned's grandmothers was a Locke and the other was a Flint, and we don't know the genetic characteristics of both those Houses. So one of them - either Marna Locke or Arya Flint, could have been either a red-head or a recessive carrier, and thru her Ned also was a recessive carrier of the red hair alleles.

[Willam Stark]

2 hours ago, StarksInTheNorth said:

The other option is that Maron married twice, which is perfectly viable, especially considering Myriah was engaged to Daeron well before Daenerys was even born.

The canon source doesn't really give us a window to speculate about a previous marriage, but gives us a window to speculate about Myriah Martell's ancestry, that's why I'll stick to it.

2 hours ago, StarksInTheNorth said:

The Stark kids are mostly redheads, but Ned’s brown hair should have won out.

This means that Ned also carries the red hair gene. You don't have to express a recessive gene to pass it on to your children, 2 black haired parents can give birth to a red haired child if they both carry the given gene. Nothing strange here, this is how genetics works.

3 hours ago, Megorova said:

I'm also not saying that I have proof, though if my theory concerning Betha Blackwood's ancestry is correct, then it creates a neat picture - in my opinion Betha's mother was Mya Rivers (one of Bloodraven's sisters). So to Egg his wife was his bloodrelative, specifically - first cousin once removed.

I agree with @The Wandering Wolf on this one, the Targaryens are not the only Valyrian family after all, her ancestors could have married a Velaryon, Celtigar, or a noble from the Free Cities.

[HoodedCrow]

I believe that Martin does understand basic genetics. He jumped up and down to make it not possible for Robert to be the father of Joffrey, Myrcella,  and Tommen. The readers have a lot of information. In real life, it would be possible for him to have three blonde children. 

[Willam Stark]

6 minutes ago, HoodedCrow said:

I believe that Martin does understand basic genetics. He jumped up and down to make it not possible for Robert to be the father of Joffrey, Marcella and Tommen. The readers have a lot of information. In real life, it would be possible for him to have three blonde children. 

If he carries the blonde hair allele, this plot implies that Robert is a homozygous carrier of the black hair gene.

Thus he really cannot be their father, genetic mutations excluded (I don't think GRRM would go that far in genetics).

[HoodedCrow]

The thing about having pairs of genes is that you can’t tell from this info that Robert is homozygous for black hair.  

[Willam Stark]

In real life, a DNA test would be required of course.

But in the saga, the fact that all Robert's bastards have black hair implies that he is homozygous for black hair. Stannis was betting on that to push his claim, the whole plot is based on that.

[Megorova]

2 hours ago, The Wondering Wolf said:

It wouldn't make much sense for Lord Blackwood to marry a legitimised bastard-born relative, anyway. What would he gain from that? The Blackwoods already had a connection to the throne via Bloodraven.

Though what if it wasn't Lord Blackwood who had married with Mya Rivers, what if instead it was his younger brother, and then the older brother died, and they had the same situation as in case with Brandon and Ned Starks?

The same situation was with Rohanne Webber and her Lannister-husband - when she was marrying him, he was not a Lord of the Casterly Rock, though soon after they got married, the guy's older brother died and the husband became the Lord Lannister.

That first Lord Blackwood could have died for example during the First Blackfyre Rebellion. Mya Rivers was born in 172 or 173. At the time of the Rebellion she was 23 or 24 years old, so most likely already married, possibly with Lord Blackwood's younger brother, and then Lord Blackwood died in the war, and all of his children later in 209-210 died during the Great Spring Sickness, which made Mya's husband become Lord Blackwood. That's a plausible scenario, don't you think?

2 hours ago, The Wondering Wolf said:

Saying this, I bear you no ill will and hope you won't be too disappointed when the next books won't confirm your speculations.

 If (hopefully when) the next books will be out, I will be HAAAAAAAPYYYYYYY, not disappointed, no matter what GRRM will write in them.

2 hours ago, The Wondering Wolf said:

An author who writes for a greater audience doesn't include hundreds of secret lineages which only one reader out of millions is able to figure out.

He didn't wrote what he wrote for the readers to figure it out, he wrote what he wrote because it was necessary to create a foundation for the further plotlines.

What I mean is that - let's take for example my theory about Rhaego being alive (which is part 11 of the Swan Song) - GRRM had inserted into AGOT and ACOK all those elements based on which he will later write Rhaego's return. It doesn't matter for that upcoming reveal whether the readers now are aware about the meaning of all those elements that are part of Rhaego's story, or not aware. He will bring Rhaego back, despite what the readers think. If I correctly interpreted the meaning of those elements, if GRRM has planned since AGOT that Rhaego will become one of the three dragonriders, then that's what GRRM will write, and the readers then will adapt accordingly what they know/understand about ASOIAF's plot. When it will revealed that Rhaego is alive, when it will be a fact written in the books, then looking back the readers will be able to see all those hidden elements for what they are. Though GRRM didn't intended for the readers to figure out the meaning of those elements already NOW, before he will make his reveal about Rhaego. And they didn't, because they were not supposed too. 

1 hour ago, Jaenara Belarys said:

Aegon V's son Jaehaerys had purple eyes, and since @Megorova thinks that pictures in the World Book count as evidence then we can say this doesn't apply all the time since two of Aegon V's sons had silver hair, while their mother had black hair. 

Let's not mix together the recessiveness of eye color with the dominance of hair color, those are totally different things.

Let's take for example Myriah Martell, Baelor Breakspear and his son Valarr - Myriah had brown hair and brown eyes, same with Baelor, and Valarr had his father's brown hair but his eyes were blue, not like his father's. Which means that Myria had this alleles - Brown1Blue2 (brown - dominant, blue - recessive, resulting eye color was brown) + Daeron Targaryen (Blue3Blue4) = Baelor (Brown1Blue3) + Jenna Dondarrion (X-whateverBlue5) = Valarr (Blue3Blue5) - resulting color of his eyes was blue).

And their hair alleles - Myriah (HairBrown1HairBlond1) + Daeron (HairBlond3HairBlond4) = Baelor (HairBrown1HairBlond3 - resulting hair color is brown) + Jenna Dondarrion (HairX1-whatever Sorry, but it isn't known what was her coloration, HairX2) = Valarr (HairBlond3HairX2) - probably Jenna was brown-haired, because Valarr's hair was brown, but it also had a streak of silver-gold running through it.

So Valarr could have received his brown-hair allele from either of his parents, same with that streak of silver-gold hair - even though Baelor had brown hair, he also was a carrier of a blond-hair allele, which he got from his father, and he definitely got from his father Daeron a blond-hair allele, because both of Daeron's were blond-alleles, otherwise he wouldn't have been blond-haired.

Though in case if Valarr's alleles were HairBrown1HairBlond3 <- Brown1 he got from his father and Blond3 from his mother, if that is so, then it's an evidence that Jenna Dondarrion was partially Targaryen by blood. Because if Valarr inherited his brown hair from his father and he got that silver-gold streak from his mother, it means that Jenna, despite what was her actual hair color, was a carrier of not just blond-hair alleles, she was a carrier of a specifically silver-gold hair-alleles, which proves that amongst her ancestors there was a Targaryen, which fits into my theory that Jenna was a granddaughter or a great-granddaughter of Rhaena Targaryen and Garmund Hightower.

So back to what you wrote - amongst the childen of a blue-eyed and blond-haired parent (like Aegon V) and a brown-eyed and a brown-haired parent (like Betha Blackwood) there could be children with blond hair and blue eyes, and children with brown hair and brown eyes, but there could be also children with brown hair and blue eyes and children with blond hair and brown eyes.

So it doesn't matter that some of Betha's children had this hair color but that eye color, doesn't matter what she looked like - the diversity in the looks of her children is an evidence that she was a carrier of the recessive blond hair alleles and the recessive blue (purple/lilac/violet/indigo/any other shade of blue) eye alleles, despite her hair and eyes beying brown. Those pictures in TWOIAF is the proof that GRRM is using in his books the same rules of genetics as those in the real world.

Also - Shiera Seastar being a cat-skinchanger is an additional evidence that her mother was Larra Rogare. Based on what was written in F&B - "Cats were seen coming and going from her chambers so often that men began to say they were her spies, purring at her in soft voices of all the doings of the Red Keep. It was even said that Larra herself could transform into a cat, to prowl the gutters and rooftops of the city." <- Larra was a cat-skinchanger. Shiera got her skinchanging genes from both of her parents, one of them - Aegon was a recessive carrier. Same as Ned Stark was a recessive carrier of not only red-hair alleles, which he passed to some of his children, he also was a carrier of a recessive skinchanging genes, which he passed to all of his children. And Catelyn also was a carrier of a recessive skinchanging genes, and she same as Ned passed them to all of her children, because both of them - Cat and Ned, were descendants of Larra Rogare. As result of it - even though Ned and Cat weren't skinchangers, their children all were/are. Cat had red hair/Larra was a skinchanger, Ned was not a red-head himself but he was a recessive carrier of a red hair alleles/Aegon IV was not a skinchanger himself but he was a recessive carrier of a skinchanging genes, so his daughter - Shiera Seastar is a skinchanger. For Shiera to be a skinchanger (same as for Ned's children to be red-heads), both of her parents are supposed to be either skinchangers or recessive carriers, or one of them supposed to be a skinchanger and the other a recessive carrier. And we have Larra Rogare, who apparently was a cat-skinchanger, and who mysteriously disappeared after going back home to Lys. According to F&B it also appears that she was a blood-mage - "And every time a child went missing, the ignorant would look at one another and talk of Saagael’s insatiable thirst for blood." And then years later in Lys resurfaced a woman that became King Aegon's mistress, and gave birth to his daughter Shiera. Based on what GRRM said about Serenei in one of his SSM - "preserved her beauty by the practice of dark arts." and what he revealed about Shiera in TSS - "Lady Shiera does. Lord Bloodraven's paramour. She bathes in blood to keep her beauty." <- Larra Rogare being a blood-mage, same as Serenei, and Shiera Seastar being a cat-skinchanger, same as Larra, in my opinion is an evidence that Serenei and Larra is the same person. No matter what everyone else say. The sum of facts about Larra point towards her and Serenei being the same person. That's a fact. That's not necessary mean that Larra and Serenei are indeed the same person, though a lot of elements in the books and what GRRM revealed about those characters, thus far support the possibility that they are the same person. So I'm sticking with this theory until it will be confirmed or disproved in the following books. No matter what everyone else say.

[asongofheresy]

1 hour ago, Megorova said:

One of Ned's grandmothers was a Locke and the other was a Flint, and we don't know the genetic characteristics of both those Houses. So one of them - either Marna Locke or Arya Flint, could have been either a red-head or a recessive carrier, and thru her Ned also was a recessive carrier of the red hair alleles.

I am glad it's not only me that considers a red head gene amongst Starks, I think that gene come through Marna Locke and was carried by Rickard as well, we are never given hair color of Benjen and Lyanna, but in weirwood visions Bran thinks the boy he saw looks like him only with red hair, that could be Rickard and the girl would be Lyarra, or the boy could be Benjen with reddish hair and blue grey eyes, playing with Lyanna who resembles Arya. 

[Jaenara Belarys]

3 minutes ago, Megorova said:

Those pictures in TWOIAF is the proof that GRRM is using in his books the same rules of genetics as those in the real world.

Errrrr, no. In the real world, it would be highly doubtful that with all the inbreeding that Targaryens would a). not go batshit quite a lot, b). Rhaegar, Daenerys and Viserys would probably all look like Charles Habsburg and probably not be able to reproduce because their DNA is too damaged

[Willam Stark]

48 minutes ago, Megorova said:

Larra Rogare being a blood-mage, same as Serenei, and Shiera Seastar being a cat-skinchanger, same as Larra, in my opinion is an evidence that Serenei and Larra is the same person.

Ran who worked with GRRM already dismissed it, you have to let it go.

Besides you seem to believe that skinchanging is an inherited ability and Larra isn't the only Rogare, Shiera doesn't need to be her daughter for your theory to work. Stop being stubborn about it, you have alternatives.

 

[Megorova]

1 hour ago, Jaenara Belarys said:

Errrrr, no. In the real world, it would be highly doubtful that with all the inbreeding

Well, to counter the negative effects of inbreeding, GRRM for Valyrians invented that rule, that the blood of the dragons that the Valyrians carry, makes them immune to all bacterial and viral diseases. So it's likely that it also nullifies passage between parents and children of all the damaged or bad genes.

And in some cases when Targaryens did had a disfigured/mutated babies, like one of Maegor the Cruel's sons or Rhaenyra's daughter, it happened because of blood-magic, not because of their genes. I think that those children were born like that, because the Faceless Men used some sort of dark magic to harm their mothers.

I figured out that so called "Targaryen madness" was caused by basilisk blood that the Faceless Men, disguised as the Kingsguards, were adding into the food and drink of specific Targaryens, such as Aerys II.

Do you remember about that night on which Jaime and Jonothor Darry were standing guard at Rhaella's chamber, and Aerys was raping his wife? On that night, or earlier that evening, Jonothor Darry slipped basilisk's blood into Aerys' food or drink. He's the only one who could have done it. Because Jaime is not an FM, Barristan and Lewyn were still at the Stoney Sept gathering Targaryen troops, and Gerold, Oswell and Arthur were away at Dorne.

1 hour ago, Willam Stark said:

Besides you seem to believe that skinchanging is an inherited ability and Larra isn't the only Rogare, Shiera doesn't need to be her daughter for your theory to work. Stop being stubborn about it, you have alternatives.

Larra being a skinchanger has nothing to do with her being a Rogare. It has everything to do with her mother being Johanna Swann. Because in my opinion House Swann was founded by the son of Azor Ahai, whose mother was the tiger-woman - a widow of Azor's maternal uncle - younger brother of the Amethyst Empress, the Bloodstone Emperor. The tiger-woman - an ancestor of House Swann, from whom the Swanns inherited (cat) skinchanging genes.

Azor Ahai + his fifth wife the Tiger-woman -

the founder of House Swann -

...

Johanna Swann -

Larra Rogare -

Aegon IV & Queen Naerys & the Dragonknight (father of Daeron II) -

the Bastard of Harrenhal (the founder of House Whent and Petyr Baelish' great-great-grandfather), Balerion Otherys and his sisters, Mya Rivers, Daenerys Targaryen

- from those people Catelyn Tully (whose mother was a Whent) and her siblings (Lysa included), Petyr Baelish, Ned Stark, Lyanna Stark, Betha and Melantha Blackwoods (Mya's daughters), the parents of the current Sealord of Braavos (a descendant of the Otheryses), Rhaegar thru Naerys and Elia thru Daenerys -

they all were carriers of the skinchanging genes, and passed them to their children.

So in combination with the two parents being recessive carriers, their children are skinchangers - Jon Snow, Robb, Sansa, Arya, Bran, Rickon, Robert Arryn (because his father is Littlefinger), Princess Rhaenys (Balerion the cat was/is her "vessel"), and the current Sealord of Braavos, and Shiera Seastar too.

And the Bastard of Harrenhal, whose parents were Aegon IV and Aegon's daughter - Jeyne Lothston, was a bat-skinchanger, and he used his ability to set up Danelle Lothston, and took from her Harrenhal. And Cat and Lysa's mother - Minisa Whent, was that guy's granddaughter. So that's from whom Cat got skicnhanging genes that she passed to her children. And Ned got his from Melantha Blackwood, his great-grandmother.

Also in my opinion out of all of Lysandro Rogare's children, only Larra was Johanna Swann's daughter. The other 8 of Lysandro's legitimate children and his 16 bastards were born by other women. I think that Lysandro had several wives, at once, like Aegon the Conqueror, and Aenar the Exile, and Creon the Great, and the Dothraki-Khals. Poligamous marriage. For Valyrians that was a norm.

So it's likely that Larra's father - Lysandro, also had several wives. And Larra with her mother caused the downfall of House Rogare, and didn't spared any of Lysandro's other children, because for her they were not family, they were only half-siblings to her. And Johanna hated her husband because before he married with her, she was one of his whores - she worked as a courtesan in a brothel owned by Lysandro - the Perfumed Garden. And he married with an ex-whore because according to TWOIAF - eventually she became the ruler of Lys in all but name.

[The Wondering Wolf]

2 hours ago, Megorova said:

Though what if it wasn't Lord Blackwood who had married with Mya Rivers, what if instead it was his younger brother, and then the older brother died, and they had the same situation as in case with Brandon and Ned Starks?

I don't think that would change much. Again, what would the Blackwoods gain from that? Marriages are used for politics, and marrying a bastard-born woman (even a legitimised one) usually doesn't help your house, unless she's the head of another house or there are other benefits. Which isn't the case with Mya or Gwenys. Of course a Blackwood still could have wed Mya or Gwenys, I just don't consider it likely. By the way, @Ran, do you know anything about Mya or Gwenys, something which was cut from the text for example, or do you have any thoughts on what happened to them? The existence of these women was a huge surprise to me (the only Great Bastards we hadn't known about before), and I guess there is a reason why GRRM included them.

2 hours ago, Megorova said:

He didn't wrote what he wrote for the readers to figure it out, he wrote what he wrote because it was necessary to create a foundation for the further plotlines.

Then let me phrase it differently: The probability that one reader would figure it out, though, is almost zero. Besides that, at least in my opinion GRRM hasn't given any reason to assume hundreds of secret lineages are the foundation of further plotlines.

4 hours ago, Willam Stark said:

I agree with @The Wandering Wolf on this one

I'm not going anywhere - I'm just wondering. :-)

[Ran]

Nothing to add on Mya and Gwenys beyond what's in the text. George had full siblings planned for Brynden for many years, though, at least as far back as 2012 and probably earlier.

[StarksInTheNorth]

6 hours ago, Megorova said:

 

<- that doesn't mean that her original hair color was silver, and then when she aged, it turned partially white. That means that when she was young, her hair was black, then when she aged, it became silver, and when she aged even more, her hair became even more "washed out" and became silver streaker with white.

In F&B, the line is changed to “her black hair streaked with white.” So yes, it does actually mean her hair was black and never silver.