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

[Megorova]

On 11/1/2021 at 10:26 PM, HoodedCrow said:

George lived near NYC. He lived in Chicago. I would ask got his opinion about race and the States.

Megarova, the tests max out:) For you, I have central heterochromia! 

I have read a bit about heterochromia, and because I think that GRRM knew what he was doing, when he was inserting amongst ASOIAF's characters people who have it - like Shiera Seastar and Tyrion, I think that he at least knew the model according to which are passed the genes responsible for heterochromia.

So when I was reading info about genetical heterochromia, I noticed there info about chimerism - it's a genetic condition because of which the carrier's organism or tissue contain at least two different sets of DNA.

So maybe skinchanging is a form of chimerism? I'll read more on this topic. Thank you!

[HoodedCrow]

George can follow the rules or not as he wishes:) He might have been inspired by chimera stories, eye color, albinism and twinning. 

 

 

 

[Castellan]

6 hours ago, HoodedCrow said:

George can follow the rules or not as he wishes:) He might have been inspired by chimera stories, eye color, albinism and twinning.

Yes, I would say he is interested in the notion of all these things, as a writer of fantasy fiction.

And I have got something out of this thread because as I was looking for a picture of a chimera to link to my standard "yes and Tyrion is a chimera" response I wondered why the other character whose symbolism draws from a classical myth of a composite beast - JonCon the Griffin - is a griffin and found this (bolded bits by me).

The griffin, griffon, or gryphon (Ancient Greek: γρύψ, grū́ps; Classical Latin: grȳps or grȳpus;^[1]Late and Medieval Latin:^[2]gryphes, grypho etc.; Old French: griffon) is a legendary creature with the body, tail, and back legs of a lion; the head and wings of an eagle; and sometimes an eagle's talons as its front feet. Because the lion was traditionally considered the king of the beasts, and the eagle the king of the birds, by the Middle Ages, the griffin was thought to be an especially powerful and majestic creature. Since classical antiquity, griffins were known for guarding treasures and priceless possessions.^[3]

In Greek and Roman texts, griffins and Arimaspians were associated with gold deposits of Central Asia. Indeed, as Pliny the Elder wrote, "griffins were said to lay eggs in burrows on the ground and these nests contained gold nuggets."^[4]

In medieval heraldry, the griffin became a Christian symbol of divine power and a guardian of the divine.^[5]

ie It symbolises his role in raising and guarding Aegon/fAegon.

May not be news to anyone but me, of course

[Megorova]

On 11/2/2021 at 9:48 PM, Willam Stark said:

Summarizing your fanfiction into a list won't make it more true or believable.

But if you have time to waste, be my guest.

It’s not a waste of time for me, because I’m using this forum to practice my English. Though for your sake, I’ll try to make my explanation (about Larra=Serenei, and why Serenei can’t be anyone else but Larra) as short as possible (or not ).

What info GRRM has revealed thus far about Serenei? ->

1. TWOIAF, Aegon IV:

Quote

SERENEI OF LYS (SWEET SERENEI) A Lysene beauty from an ancient but impoverished line, brought to court by Lord Jon Hightower, the new Hand

Serenei was the most beautiful of Aegon’s mistresses, but she was also reputed to be a sorceress. She died giving birth to the last of the king’s bastard children, a girl called Shiera Seastar who became the greatest beauty in the Seven Kingdoms, beloved of both her half brothers, Bittersteel and Bloodraven, whose rivalry would ripen to hatred.

Children by Serenei: Shiera.

2. https://awoiaf.westeros.org/images/8/89/Serenei_of_Lys.jpg

3. https://www.westeros.org/Citadel/SSM/Entry/Shiera_Seastar

Quote

Lady Shiera was the natural daughter of King Aegon IV by the ninth and last of his mistresses, Lady Serenei of Lys, the last daughter of an ancient but impoverished line of Valyrian nobility. "Sweet Serenei," Aegon called her, but about his court she was considered cold and haughty, and some said that she was much older than the king, and preserved her beauty by the practice of dark arts. Considered by many the most lovely of Aegon's mistresses, Sweet Serenei died in childbed, bringing forth the last of the king's "Great Bastards," the daughter she named Shiera, Star of the Sea.

There are many gaps in the story about Serenei, to put it mildly , though in 1&3 there are pieces of partial information about her age and her origin, and those pieces are sort of like links in a chain. Thus, later the Author can add more segments onto them. I’m not saying that GRRM will definitely do something like that, only that he could. And those already existing segments, which were thus far revealed about Serenei, don’t contradict the possibility that she and Larra Rogare could be the same person.

If I remember correctly - yours and the other forum members’ main argument against Larra and Serenei being the same person, is - why would have Larra banged her own son? Well, for the very same reason why Craster banged his own daughters, and why the Targaryens were practicing sibling-incest.

Have you ever thought why Craster was fathering children on his own daughters? And why did he had so many wives, even though to feed 19 people, in the conditions in which they were living beyond The Wall, was very problematic, to say the least? Haven’t you realized that he was doing it not because he liked it, but because there was a reason why it was necessary (at least for as long as he was intending to remain living beyond The Wall)?

If it would have been sufficient enough to give to the Others any random offerings, just as long as they were alive, then Craster could have just grabbed any random Wildling-children, and used them as the sacrifices to the Others. Why to bother with impregnating a woman, feeding her for the next 9 months, and waiting for the baby to be born, in case if it wasn’t necessary for the sacrifices to be Craster’s own flesh and blood? Thus, apparently his pact with the Others was based on blood, CRASTER’S BLOOD. So that’s EXACTLY with what he was supposed to pay them for not killing him and the rest of his family, and allowing them to live on the “enemy’s” territory.

And now let’s think about the reason why it wouldn’t have been enough if Craster would have been sacrificing to the Others the babies that were his children, but not the products of incest between him and his daughters, and why Craster was sacrificing to the Others only his sons, though never any of his daughters. He wasn’t doing it out of some hatred for the other males, or for the sake of remaining the only cock in a chicken coop.

A child of Craster, born by some random woman to whom Craster was not blood related, would have shared with him only 50% of the same genes. So it would have been half-Craster, but at the same time in equal measures it would have been half-not-Craster, a child OF Craster’s blood, but not a vessel with HIS blood. Now let’s use a metaphorical example - imagine a cup with equal measures of coffee and milk in it. Is it coffee with milk, or milk with coffee? -> It’s neither, because it is a so called half&half. And for a drink to be considered as a coffee with milk, the coffee’s percentage in the cup has to be higher than 50%. So for the Craster’s child to be “coffee with milk” (or more than a half-Craster) and not merely a half&half, that child has to be a product of incest between Craster and his own daughter, furthermore it has to be a boy. A child receives half of its DNA from the mother and half from the father; also - males are carriers of XY-chromosomes and females are carriers of XX-chromosomes. So for Craster’s son to be more than half-Craster, both (actually not merely 2, but 48 pairs) of his chromosomes have to be Craster-chromosomes. So these are the steps that Craster had to take, to produce a child that would have been sufficiently “Crastorian”, to be accepted by the Others as a viable (within the accord of the blood-pact that was forged between Craster and the Others) sacrifice:

Craster (crXcrY) + Ferny (frX1frX2) = possible variations - crXfrX1, crXfrX2, crYfrX1, crYfrX2. Then he got rid of the boys (because they were unsuitable - not more than half-Crasters), but kept the girls, and later had children with them.

Whenever Craster had a son with one of his daughter-wives, there was 50/50 possibility that this boy will be suitable/unsuitable.

Craster (crXcrY) + Dyah (crXfrX1) = possible variations - crXcrX (Gilly), crXfrX1, crYcrX, crYfrX1.

Over the years Craster observed the patterns of his children’s births, and based on them amongst his daughter-wives selected those that more often gave birth to the boys, those boys that were accepted by the Others as a viable sacrifices, and made them his main breeders. So whenever Craster had a son with the wife that also was his daughter&granddaughter (born by one of his main breeders), the chances of her producing a suitable boy were 100%.

Craster (crXcrY) + Gilly (crXcrX) = 2 crXcrX and 2 crYcrX.

And he kept at his house 19 wives, amongst whom his daughters&granddaughters were a majority, to use them as a source of a steady supply of the sacrificial babies - the boys that were more than half-Crasters.

The fact that Craster was giving to the Others only boys, and those boys were accepted as a suitable sacrifices (and the concept that not all of the potential offerings are a suitable/acceptable sacrifices, is based on the fact that Craster went thru the long and laborious option of producing his own babies to sacrifice them, instead of just sacrificing some random children), is an evidence that Craster was practicing Medieval version of genetic engineering. And if one of the created by GRRM characters did something like that, then there also could have been others, who also have done it, for example - Larra Rogare. By the way, the Targaryens and the Starks also did this thing - let’s keep our blood of the dragons pure, and - the Prince that was Promised has to be born from Jaehaerys’ line, and - there always has to be a Stark at Winterfell, and so on. So Larra/Serenei also was practicing genetic engineering, same as Craster. The only difference is that, while Craster was using observations of his children’s breedings to produce pure “Crastorian” boys, what Larra wanted to do was to give birth to a daughter who would have had “magical” Swann-genes, same as her mother’s (which would have enabled her to not only become a skinchanger, but also to use various other forms of magic).

Larra had three children with Viserys Targaryen, and her two boys were recessive carriers of her magical Swann-genes, which they passed onto their own children (Aegon - Daenerys, Mya Rivers, Jeyne Lothston, the Otheryses, Viserys Plumm; Aemon - Daeron II), but her daughter - Princess Naerys, instead of inheriting her mother’s Swann-genes, got the Rogare ones. <- Larra.

Though, years later Larra’s son - Aegon IV, had a child with his own daughter - Jeyne Lothston, and that child - the Bastard of Harrenhal, was a skinchanger. That had happened in 178-180 AC. So when Larra found out about this sure-win method for her child to be born with her magical genes (that this result could be achieved via an incestuous union), she took an alias (Serenei of Lys), went back to the 7K and became her son’s mistress, and TADA! - she gave birth to Shiera Seastar, who is a cat-skinchanger, a shadowbinder Quaithe, the Three-Eyed Crow, and a blood-mage.

Next - what are my reasons to believe that Larra Rogare was Johanna Swann’s only child amongst the Rogares? You suggested that Serenei of Lys could have been some other Rogare, not necessary Larra. But I don’t agree with this, mainly because of two reasons.

Reason 1:

Don’t you think that if besides Larra, Johanna also had other Rogare-children, she would have made sure that they were out of harm’s way, before she would have launched her vengeance campaign against Lysandro, Drazenko, and her ex-clients from the Perfumed Garden?

Though Larra’s sister - Marra, got into “crossfire”, when the Rogare House fell. And Drako - the only Rogare that had escaped mostly unharmed, didn’t fell with the rest of his family solely based on pure luck - he was away from Lys, when the fall happened. Though in his case it was merely a coincidence, not a pre-arranged organized retreat out of the harm’s way (which Johanna did for Larra, by moving her across the Narrow Sea to the 7K):

Quote

The fall of House Rogare was swift and brutal. Lysaro’s brothers and sisters claimed to have played no part in the despoiling of the bank, but many doubted their claims of innocence. Drako Rogare escaped to Volantis on one of his galleys whilst his sister Marra fled to the temple of Yndros in man’s garb and there claimed sanctuary, but all their siblings were seized and put on trial, even the bastards. When Lysara Rogare protested, “I did not know,” Magister Tigaro Moraqos replied, “You should have,” and the mob roared its approval. Half the city had been ruined.

 

[Johanna Swann (in my opinion) was a descendant of the Tiger-woman. According to my calculations she was kidnapped by the Triarchy in ~106 AC, when she was 15 years old, and the fall of the Triarchy started in 135 AC, with the death of one of Johanna’s admirers – Sharako Lohar. At that time, in early 135, before Aegon IV’s birth (he was born in March), Johanna was 44 years old – same age as was Rohanne Webber-Lannister (the Ghost of High Heart) at the time of her disappearance in 230 AC. In my opinion Planetos’ years correspond to ours like 283 – 1983, 284 – 1984, etc. And if Johanna was 15 in 106, then she was born in 90 or 91 AC, which corresponds to our 1890 and 1891. In Chinese calendar the period from 21st January 1890 to 9th February 1891 is the Year of the Tiger. So it seems that Johanna was born in January-February of 91 AC (1891). “In the Year of the Tiger are born leaders and rebels. Following their hearts, they live by their own laws.” Johanna’s granddaughter – Shiera Seastar, is a parallel to Morgan le Fay and Morrigan the Phantom Queen. “Mor” in Old Welsh and Old Breton means the “Sea”. Thus based on all that info, I think that the Lyseni Magister from above - Tigaro Moraqos, actually could have been Johanna Swann in shadow-glamour. Tigaro - Tiger, Moraqos - Mor/Sea. “Magister Tigaro Moraqos replied … and the mob roared” – the tiger’s (Johanna’s) roar, get it? ]

 

Lysaro’s and Fredo’s daughters were sold into slavery, same as Lysara:

Quote

In this, the Seven Kingdoms lagged well behind the Free City of Lys, where the collapse of the Rogare Bank had led inexorably to the utter ruin of the house that Lysandro the Magnificent had built. The palace he had bequeathed to his daughter Lysara was seized, together with the manses of his other children, and all their furnishings. A handful of Drako Rogare’s trading galleys learned of the house’s fall in time to divert course to Volantis, but for every ship saved, nine were lost, together with their cargos and the Rogare wharves and storehouses. Lady Lysara was deprived of her gold, gems, and gowns, Lady Marra of her books. Fredo Rogare saw the magisters seize the Perfumed Garden, even as he tried to sell it. His slaves were sold, along with those of his siblings, trueborn or bastard. When that proved insufficient to pay more than a tenth of the debts left by the bank’s collapse, the Rogares themselves were sold into slavery, together with their children. The daughters of Fredo and Lysaro Rogare would soon find themselves back in the Perfumed Garden where they had played as children, but as bed slaves, not proprietors.

Not sure whether Marra also was sold into slavery, though the point here is that if she or any other of the Rogares were also Johanna’s children like Larra, then none of them would have been harmed, despite the fall of the Rogare House. Drako wouldn’t have escaped alone to Volantis, and Marra wouldn’t have been hiding alone in a temple.

 

[Also, if you don’t agree that the fall of the Rogares was orchestrated by Johanna Swann, then - who else in your opinion could have done it? All these things? ->

Quote

Even as the fighting in the Vale of Arryn continued, the promise of the Lysene Spring suffered another grievous blow hundreds of leagues to the south, with the near-simultaneous demise of Lysandro the Magnificent in Lys and his brother Drazenko in Sunspear. Though the narrow sea lay between them, the two Rogares died within a day of each other, both under suspicious circumstances. Drazenko perished first, choking to death upon a piece of bacon. Lysandro drowned when his opulent barge sank whilst carrying him from his Perfumed Garden back to his palace. Though a few would insist that their deaths were unfortunate accidents, many more took the manner and timing of their passings as proof of a plot to bring down House Rogare. The Faceless Men of Braavos were widely believed to have been responsible for the killings; no more subtle assassins were known to exist anywhere in the wide world.

But if indeed the Faceless Men had done these deeds, at whose bidding had they acted? The Iron Bank of Braavos was suspected, as was the Archon of Tyrosh, Racallio Ryndoon, and various merchant princes and magisters of Lys known to have chafed under the “velvet tyranny” of Lysandro the Magnificent. Some went so far as to suggest that the First Magister had been removed by his own sons (he had sired six trueborn sons, three daughters, and sixteen bastards). So skillfully had the brothers been removed, however, that not even the fact of murder could be proved.

...

Amongst the Lyseni, it is truly said, wars are fought with plots and poisons rather than with armies. For the rest of that bloody year, the magisters and merchant princes of Lys performed a deadly dance, rising and falling almost fortnightly. Oft as not their falls were fatal. Torreo Haen was poisoned with his wife, his mistress, his daughters (one being the maid whose wisp of a gown had caused such scandal at the Maiden’s Day Ball), siblings, and supporters at the feast he held to celebrate his elevation to first magister. Silvario Pendaerys was stabbed through the eye leaving the Temple of Trade, whilst his brother Pereno was garroted in a pillow house as a slave girl pleasured him with her mouth. The gonfaloniere Moreo Dagareon was slain by his own elite guards, and Matteno Orthys, a fervent worshipper of the goddess Pantera, was mauled and partly devoured by his prized shadowcat when its cage was unaccountably left open one night.

My interpretation of some of those events is that Johanna hired the Faceless Men to kill Lysandro and Drazenko, also she had skinchanged into that shadowcat, mentioned above, and using it killed Matteno Orthys, who was one of her ex-clients. Same thing with Pereno Pendaerys - Johanna hired a whore and an assassin, and the two of them together killed Pereno. While the girl was distracting Pereno, the assassin came from behind and threw a noose around the guy’s neck (A garrote is a weapon, usually a handheld ligature of chain, rope, scarf, wire or fishing line, used to strangle a person). This was Johanna’s payback for how Pendaerys-brothers treated her while she was forced to pleasure them, when she was working as a courtesan at the pleasure house - the Perfumed Garden owned by Lysandro Rogare. Maybe in the past Silvario had hit her in the face and she had a black eye, thus he was killed by being stabbed through the eye. And maybe Pereno was choking Johanna, when he had sex with her, maybe he forced her to give him a ****job, thus that’s how she killed him - he was strangled by an assassin, while a slave girl was "pleasuring him with her mouth". And years later Johanna had paid back to Lysandro for using her as a courtesan, by selling his daughter Lysara and his granddaughters to the same pleasure house where Johanna worked in the past. Don’t you think that if Lysara and those other girls were Larra’s full-sister and nieces, then Larra would have done at least something to get them out of there? But no, she was staying at the 7K for another four years, and hadn’t returned to Lys until 139 AC.

Why else GRRM would have inserted all these small elements into the Fire&Blood’s text, if not to use them later as those chain-links, that I had mentioned in the beginning of my post? All these elements could later serve a role of anchors, using which GRRM will add new segments/links/details into his plotlines about the Rogares, Johanna and Larra/Serenei.

Also - don’t you think that unless the fall of the Rogares and the events that had occurred afterwards in Lys, were orchestrated by Johanna Swann, and that she subsequently took Lys under her full control, it wouldn’t have been safe for Larra to return there, considering that the Rogares owned a lot of money to everyone and that Larra also was one of the Rogares? - “When that proved insufficient to pay more than a tenth of the debts left by the bank’s collapse, the Rogares themselves were sold into slavery, together with their children.” - So there’s that.]

 

Reason 2:

If any other Rogare would have been Johanna’s child, if what you think is correct - that supposedly all of Lysandro’s children were born by the same woman and that he had only one wife (just because the opposite info wasn’t so far revealed in the books), then out of those 9 legitimate Rogares, someone else, not only Larra, also would have inherited Johanna’s magical blood and her abilities. And then they would have been able to shadow-glamour themselves to look like someone else, when the citizens of Lys came to seize them, and that way would have escaped.

Let’s take for example Marra’s flight to the Yndros’ temple - “Marra fled to the temple of Yndros in man’s garb and there claimed sanctuary”. If she was like Larra - a shadowbinder, then there would have been NO NEED for her to run, nor hide. She could have just shadow-glamoured herself to look like a black-skinned woman from the Summer Isles, or a man. Same as Larra did during the secret siege of Maegor’s Holdfast - she shadow-glamoured herself into Aegon III:

Quote

“This is on your head, ser,” Prince Viserys warned. He drove his axe deep into the wood of the drawbridge, scampered back, and said, “Go no farther than the axe, or you will die.” The king took him by the shoulder and drew him back into the safety of the holdfast, and a shadow stepped onto the drawbridge.

Sandoq the Shadow had come from Lys with Lady Larra...

She even had her own protectors. Lysene swords guarded her night and day, under the command of her brother Moredo and a towering mute from the fighting pits of Meereen called Sandoq the Shadow.”

Though even if Marra, while being Johanna’s daughter, didn’t had any of her mother’s magical genes (same as Naerys didn’t had any of Larra’s), still Johanna and Larra at least would have made for Marra a shadow-artifact, using which Marra would have been able to change her looks. Like it was done by Bloodraven in The Mystery Knight novel, where he was shadow-glamoured to look like Maynard Plumm. His glamour was stored in a moonstone brooch that was given to him by Shiera Seastar. She’s the one who turned that piece of jewelry into a shadow-artifact. There was also in ADWD a fake-Mance/Rattleshirt, who got burned instead of the real Mance. And Mance Rayder, who afterwards was shadow-glamoured to look like Rattleshirt. Melisandre had several shadow-artifacts: 1. ruby-necklace that she’s always wearing; 2. ruby-bracelet that she gave to Mance (using which he looked like Rattleshirt, and then Bael the Bard); 3. the third piece, which got burned together with the fake-Mance/Rattleshirt. Those shadow-artifacts are dispensable things, because a shadowbinder can make a lot of them, using all sorts of “vessels” to store in them various glamours. If Melisandra spared one of hers to save Mance, don’t you think that Johanna would have made a few for her own children (if she really had any other children besides Larra)?

Look at the pictures in F&B - Larra there has two shadow-artifacts - a chain and that medallion-like thingy (P.S. That’s not Aegon III on that picture):

https://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/File:Sandoq.jpg

I couldn’t find the second picture anywhere in the Wikia, so in case if you don’t have F&B-book, here it is:

https://www.reddit.com/r/pureasoiaf/comments/ew80qu/this_moment_brought_me_to_tears_oakenfist/

Look at Larra’s waist on the second picture, and then on “Aegon’s” neck and Sandoq’s chest in the first - it’s the same jewelry, a two-piece shadow-artifact.

 

And back to Johanna - because of those Two Reasons explained above, I’m sure that Larra was Johanna’s only child (amongst the Rogares). Furthermore, based on the information from F&B, I think that besides Johanna and Larra, even while they were both still living at Lys in Lysandro’s mansion, no one else knew about their abilities (aside from Sandoq the Shadow, who was loyal to them and a MUTE). As I wrote in Swan Song Part 3 - Larra’s mother was secretly teaching her since childhood. And not only Common Tongue, but also the basics of the skinchanging, shadowbinding, and blood-magic. And Johanna was able to conceal her daughter’s extracurricular activities from the others, by making a cover-front that she and her daughter have supposedly filled their Lyseni mansion with cats (for Larra to train her skinchanging) and various objects of dark-arts, merely because they are worshipers of the goddess Pantera, Yndros and Saagel. Despite Lysandro not knowing about his daughter’s (nor his wive’s) supernatural abilities, he didn’t trusted to her. So, even though he allowed Larra to go to the 7K, he had sent his son - Moredo, and his Lyseni guards to keep a 24/7 watch over her.

Quote

Lysene swords guarded her night and day, under the command of her brother Moredo…

Her worship was reserved for certain of the manifold gods of Lys: the six-breasted cat goddess Pantera, Yndros of the Twilight who was male by day and female by night…

Her ladies, her servants, and her guards would join Lady Larra at certain times in performing obeisances to these queer, ancient deities. 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. Darker rumors soon arose. The acolytes of Yndros could supposedly transform themselves from male to female and female to male through the act of love, and whispers went about that her ladyship oft availed herself of this ability at twilight orgies, so she might visit the brothels on the Street of Silk as a man.

Though she managed to trick all of them, and to avoid being spied on. Because she was aided by all those cats, whom she was using as her eyes and ears, and she was shadow-glamouring herself to change her looks. That way she was able to freely leave her chamber whenever she wanted, for example looking like a maid. When she was going out of her room, she just told to the guards that Lady Larra is resting, and asked not to disturb her. And one of the cats was staying in her room to warn her thru their skinchanging-channel, in case if something unexpected happened.

Or Larra could have used Gaemon Palehair as a decoy - Gaemon went into Larra’s room, shadow-Gaemon/Larra came out, while the guards that were standing at the doors of her chamber, stayed there not knowing that the Larra that is still in the room is actually Gaemon, shadow-glamoured to look like Larra. That’s probably why “Larra” was often crying, whenever Mushroom came to visit Larra in her chambers - because actually it was Gaemon, and he was scared of being unmasked:

Quote

Though Sandoq could not read or write, Mushroom tells us he was fond of music, and would oft sit in the shadows of Lady Larra’s bedchamber playing sweet sad notes on a queer stringed instrument of goldenheart and ebony that stood near as tall as he did. “I could sometimes make the lady laugh, though she did not understand more than a few words of our tongue,” the fool says, “but the Shadow’s playing always made her weep, and strange to say she liked that better.”

 

Now let’s move aside all my speculations and assumptions concerning the Rogare-family, and let’s look at the facts and facts only - “Lysandro the Magnificent… he had sired six trueborn sons, three daughters, and sixteen bastards” – whether Johanna was or wasn’t Lysandro’s wife, whether she was or wasn’t Larra’s mother, whether those 8 and 16 were Larra’s full-siblings or half-siblings, either way, same as Larra they all were Lysandro’s Rogare’s children, and thus they were Aegon IV’s aunts, uncles and cousins. Besides Larra, Lysandro Rogare also had two other legitimate daughters - Marra and Lysara, and his sons - Lysaro and Fredo, also had daughters. If Marra and Lysara were Larra’s full-siblings, then they would have been Aegon’s aunts. If Marra and Lysara were Larra’s half-siblings, only thru their father, then they would have been Aegon’s half-aunts. Same with Lysaro and Fredo’s daughters - they would have been Aegon’s first cousins, either full-cousins or half-cousins.

Aegon’s paternal grandmother was Rhaenyra Targaryen. Her second husband - Daemon Targaryen, was her paternal uncle. Also Aegon had children with the two out of his three first cousins - Daena the Defiant (Daemon I Blackfyre), and Elaena Targaryen (Viserys Plumm).

So I don’t see a necessity for any of these women - Marra, Lysara, Lysaro’s and Fredo’s daughters - to take on a new identity just to bang Aegon. The Targaryens were not against incestuous unions between brothers and sisters, and there were amongst them multiple marriages with their first cousins (both - full and half), and there was already one marriage between an uncle and a niece. So I don’t see a reason that would have stopped “Serenei” from going to the 7K under her Rogare name and having in the open a relationship with Aegon, if he was merely her nephew, half-nephew, a cousin or a half-cousin. None other Rogare wouldn’t have needed to take an alias to hide who she is, unless she was Aegon’s mother - Larra Rogare, and thus the people of the 7K wouldn’t have accepted this sort of relationship between her and Aegon.

Also, there would have been no need for any of those other Rogares to hide from the Targaryens who they are. If amongst Lysandro Rogare’s children Larra had any full-siblings, then they could have come to court after Lysandro’s death and what had happened at Lys. The Targaryens, or anyone else at the 7K, hadn’t had a grudge against those Rogares that were remaining at Lys during the Lyseni Spring period. There were reasons why the people of the 7K detested those three Rogares that came to the 7K with Larra - her brothers Moredo, Lotho and Roggerio, though they had absolutely nothing against Marra, Lysara, Lysaro’s and Fredo’s daughters. After Lysandro’s death in 135 AC, Larra was staying at the Targaryen court for another four years, until 139 AC. So if she had a full-sibling amongst the other Rogares, if there was another daughter or a son also born by Larra’s mother, then why didn’t Larra brought any of them from Lys to the 7K? After Lysandro’s death Lys was in a state of a civil war, and also they were at war with their ex-partners from the Triarchy - Tyrosh and Myr. It was dangerous at Lys, and the Rogares also lost all their gold and other valuable possessions, while Larra, who was married with a royal Prince from the 7K, was staying in the safety and luxury of his family’s castle. So why haven’t Larra brought to court, or elsewhere to the 7K, any of her siblings, to at least save them from the chaos and bloodshed that were occurring at Lys?

Thus, based on all that - it doesn’t make any sense for any of the Rogares to take on a new identity for their visit to the 7K, and it doesn’t make sense if Larra had any other full-siblings amongst the Rogares.

Also - between the Lyseni Spring and Serenei’s arrival to court had passed approximately 43-45 years. Those people who had lived at the 7K at the time of the Lyseni Spring, and have heard names Marra, Lysara, Lysaro, Fredo, Drako, Moredo, Lotho and Roggerio, were either already dead, or were old and senile. The names Marra and Lysara - if Serenei was one of them - wouldn’t have been recognized by anyone at the 7K, and thus there would have been no need for either of them to take an alias, nor to invent this “Serenei”. And the possibility that Serenei could have been one of Lysaro’s or Fredo’s daughters - Aegon’s first cousin, doesn’t fit with the information about Serenei - that she was much older than Aegon. How older is “much older”? Khal Drogo was 30, and Dany at the time of her wedding was 13 and a half, but it was never said anywhere that he was “much older” than her. Thus, in my opinion, it’s a reasonable assumption that GRRM’s “much older” means 20+ years older. And Larra Rogare was 20 years older than Aegon.

That’s about all.

P.S. If Larra Rogare and Serenei of Lys is really the same person, then GRRM would have shared this information only on the Needs-to-know basis. And thus - the only other person, who besides Martin himself was also privy to this information, would have been Magali Villeneuve. And only because GRRM would have required from her to take Larra’s portrait as a basis, and to add ~15-25 years to her face, to create Serenei’s portrait. And there's such a thing called - non-disclosure confidentiality agreement. So if Magali had signed one of those, she can't share that info with ANYONE, even if she, for example, will be asked a direct question on this topic by GRRM's co-Authors of TWOIAF. But that’s just my speculations. Which doesn't mean that something like that is absolutely not possible.

P.P.S. @Willam Stark What are your thoughts on what I wrote in Reason 1 and Reason 2 - that if there were other Rogares that were Larra's full-siblings, then they also would have been taken into safety, or would have had the same or similar abilities as Larra, or that if Larra cared about any of them, then she would have helped them? Also, if the fall of House Rogare, in your opinion, wasn't orchestrated as a pay-back to Lysandro Rogare from Johanna Swann the Black Swan of Lys, then who else could have been behind it?

[Phylum of Alexandria]

As for Haviland Tuf's presence in the story, I believe GRRM said that Planetos is not part of his Thousand Worlds universe.

Still, I do think his other stories are informing ASOIAF in other ways, and the notion of a "secret sci-fi" setting not unlike Bitterblooms is certainly possible.

My working theory of magic on Planetos has shades of that, but I'm trying to be as parsimonious as possible--using only elements that we have evidence of. For instance, the God-On-Earth could be a reference to some sort of interstellar seed, but for the weirwoods, via something like panspermia.

[Willam Stark]

15 hours ago, Megorova said:

Though for your sake, I’ll try to make my explanation (about Larra=Serenei, and why Serenei can’t be anyone else but Larra) as short as possible (or not ).

Serenei can be someone else, emm let me think... Serenei ! Guess what, it's the case, isn't it wonderful?

I don't wanna waste my time with your fanfiction so I will mainly look at your sources.

16 hours ago, Megorova said:

Aegon called her, but about his court she was considered cold and haughty, and some said that she was much older than the king, and preserved her beauty by the practice of dark arts.

Hold on a sec! You've deliberately omitted the part that I've underlined here, this is not a direct information from GRRM, but the opinion of Aegon IV's court about Serenei and a rumor spread by people we don't know about her age as the "some said" tells us. Rumors should be taken with a grain of salt even IRL, because they are either false or exaggerated and without evidence you cannot use it as a basis for your theory.

To summarize, the only real information we can take from your sources are these:

- She is a beautiful Lysene

- She is the last daughter of an ancient but impoverished line of Valyrian nobility.

- Aegon called her "Sweet Serenei"

- She died giving birth to the last of the king’s bastard children, a girl called Shiera Seastar

The rest is just rumors we cannot take as "facts".

16 hours ago, Megorova said:

If I remember correctly - yours and the other forum members’ main argument against Larra and Serenei being the same person, is - why would have Larra banged her own son?

Nope, it's the fact that Ran dismissed it and you refuse to accept that you're wrong.

The "bang her own son" part is a brief summary of your theory that I've made.

 

16 hours ago, Megorova said:

Larra had three children with Viserys Targaryen, and her two boys were recessive carriers of her magical Swann-genes, which they passed onto their own children (Aegon - Daenerys, Mya Rivers, Jeyne Lothston, the Otheryses, Viserys Plumm; Aemon - Daeron II), but her daughter - Princess Naerys, instead of inheriting her mother’s Swann-genes, got the Rogare ones. <- Larra.

You are contradicting yourself here, remember what you've said here

"The mother can pass her skinchanging genes to her daughter directly, so it isn't necessary for the father to also be a carrier of skinchanging genes."

By following this reasoning, Naerys should have inherited and express the skinchanging genes which is not the case, thus it is false.

17 hours ago, Megorova said:

Also, if you don’t agree that the fall of the Rogares was orchestrated by Johanna Swann, then - who else in your opinion could have done it? All these things?

The answer is inside your source: "The Iron Bank of Braavos was suspected, as was the Archon of Tyrosh, Racallio Ryndoon, and various merchant princes and magisters of Lys known to have chafed under the “velvet tyranny” of Lysandro the Magnificent."

As far as I'm concerned, Johanna doesn't belong to any of these groups of people. The fact that she became the "eventual ruler of Lys in all but name" and you see her as a "femme fatale" (I'm not sure the non-French speakers have understood what you've meant, thankfully I'm French but you should have translated it, just in case) doesn't mean anything. This is pure speculation, a fanfiction.

17 hours ago, Megorova said:

If any other Rogare would have been Johanna’s child

I've never said that.

17 hours ago, Megorova said:

that supposedly all of Lysandro’s children were born by the same woman and that he had only one wife (just because the opposite info wasn’t so far revealed in the books), then out of those 9 legitimate Rogares, someone else, not only Larra, also would have inherited Johanna’s magical blood and her abilities. And then they would have been able to shadow-glamour themselves to look like someone else, when the citizens of Lys came to seize them, and that way would have escaped.

You've spent a lot a time explaining how recessive genes work, both in their expression and transmission, you already know the answer.

17 hours ago, Megorova said:

As I wrote in Swan Song Part 3 - Larra’s mother was secretly teaching her since childhood. And not only Common Tongue

Larra didn't speak the Common Tongue.

17 hours ago, Megorova said:

Thus, based on all that - it doesn’t make any sense for any of the Rogares to take on a new identity for their visit to the 7K, and it doesn’t make sense if Larra had any other full-siblings amongst the Rogares.

Of course it doesn't make sense since the supposed hidden identity of Serenei is based on nothing.

17 hours ago, Megorova said:

that she was much older than Aegon.

Rumors.

17 hours ago, Megorova said:

P.S. If Larra Rogare and Serenei of Lys is really the same person, then GRRM would have shared this information only on the Needs-to-know basis.

Ran is among them and he's dismissed your theory.

17 hours ago, Megorova said:

And only because GRRM would have required from her to take Larra’s portrait as a basis, and to add ~15-25 years to her face, to create Serenei’s portrait. And there's such a thing called - non-disclosure confidentiality agreement. So if Magali had signed one of those, she can't share that info with ANYONE, even if she, for example, will be asked a direct question on this topic by GRRM's co-Authors of TWOIAF. But that’s just my speculations.

I agree with that, it's just your speculations.

17 hours ago, Megorova said:

What are your thoughts on what I wrote in Reason 1 and Reason 2

Pure fanfiction, you don't have any textual basis about about the link between Johanna and the Rogares, nor her magical powers. In your quotes, you select only the information you need to push your theory and ignore the one that directly contradict it (Larra who didn't speak the Common Tongue for example, or Ran dismissing your whole theory), or may contradict it (Serenei's age and magical powers), this is a confirmation bias.

I don't need to propose an alternative to your claims by the way, I only did it by charity.

[StarksInTheNorth]

41 minutes ago, Willam Stark said:

Ran is among them and he's dismissed your theory.

I will say it is notable that GRRM doesn’t explicitly share details with his editor. Like the time her notes leaked on a FeastDance Bran chapter and she asked re Coldhands “is this Benjen?” And GRRM said “no.”

This does indicate he might not share every detail, but that could just as easily be explained by his editor not being told so she can ~experience~ the story as it’s written. Also notable is that she is not an in universe content creator, which Elio is. 

[StarksInTheNorth]

Something that just doesn’t make sense to me: Why would Lysandro marry a courtesan? The way the sources are written suggests that Johanna Swann was still a courtesan when the Triarchy fell in 131. But her theorized daughter, Larra Rogare, was born in 115. Why would a seemingly respectable man allow his wife to remain a courtesan after marriage? The easier answer is they weren’t married.

[Megorova]

4 hours ago, Willam Stark said:

Serenei can be someone else, emm let me think... Serenei ! Guess what, it's the case, isn't it wonderful?

I wouldn't have thought that Serenei could be something more than who she outwardly appeared to be, if it wasn't for this one small detail mentioned about her - "A Lysene beauty from an ancient but impoverished line" - WHAT line was it?

If Serenei knew about herself that her family/line/House was ancient, then she also should have known the "name" of that line. Because how else would she have known that this line is ancient, if she didn't knew what line exactly was it?

I mean - it is known that the Targaryens came from Valyria and that they were dragonlords, and about Valyria it was known that the first Valyrian dragonlords tamed their dragons approximately 5.000 year ago (after which they fought in the First Ghiskari war). Thus based on that information - Targaryens are from an ancient Valyrian line. Though how would they or anyone else would have known that they are from an old Valyrian line, if they didn't knew that they are Targaryens?

So Serenei knew from which House exactly was she, and for some reason (intentionally) GRRM didn't revealed to the readers what was that line/House/family. And in my opinion (yes, it is only an assumption, but STILL it COULD BE correct) he held back this information because if he did revealed in TWOIAF what was the name of Serenei's line, that it was House Rogare, then the readers would have much faster added 1 and 1 together and came up with 2 - 1.1. Serenei was said to be much older than the King; the King's mother - Larra Rogare, in 139 AC went back to Lys and then just vanished out of the history; then years later in Lys resurfaced this Serenei, and she looks a LOT like Larra Rogare, and if it was also said about Serenei that 1.2. she was from an ancient but impoverished line - a Lyseni House Rogare, then it wouldn't have been hard for the readers to come to conclusion that Serenei = Larra.

4 hours ago, Willam Stark said:

I don't wanna waste my time with your fanfiction so I will mainly look at your sources.

And thus you'll miss the point. Though - whatever. That info will still be there later, for the time when the truth will be revealed by GRRM, so THEN you and the others will see how many plot points were there all along in the texts of TWOIAF and F&B, which were parts of this Larra=Serenei mystery, and which were noticed by me.

4 hours ago, Willam Stark said:

Hold on a sec! You've deliberately omitted the part that I've underlined here, this is not a direct information from GRRM, but the opinion of Aegon IV's court about Serenei and a rumor spread by people we don't know about her age as the "some said" tells us. Rumors should be taken with a grain of salt even IRL, because they are either false or exaggerated and without evidence you cannot use it as a basis for your theory.

GRRM had chosen to share with the readers specifically THIS information about Serenei. If those rumors were just rumors, then there would be no point for GRRM to even mention them. HE. had. CHOSEN. what info he should share with the readers, what info they SHOULD KNOW about Serenei. That's because later he will use this information as a stepping stone from which he will lauch the reveal about Serenei's real identity. And when the readers will say - "How can this Serenei be Larra Rogare, shouldn't Larra be like in her late 60th?" - And then he will tell them - "Do you remember, folks, how I told you about Serenei, that there were rumors at court that she was much older than the King and that she was using dark arts to preserve her beauty? And at that time I also revealed to you that Shiera also, same as her mother, was using dark arts; and in The Sworn Sword novel I did revealed to you information that Shiera Seastar was bathing in blood to preserve her beauty. So that's the thing, folks! -> Both Larra and Shiera stopped physically aging, after they bathed in blood and used blood magic to remain as they were and not to become old. So even though in 184 AC, at the time of Shiera's birth, her mother - Serenei, who actually was the same person as Larra Rogare, really was 69 years old - that was just her chronological age, biologically she was 35-45, so she still was able to have children, despite her age."

Or something like that.

4 hours ago, Willam Stark said:

You are contradicting yourself here, remember what you've said here

"The mother can pass her skinchanging genes to her daughter directly, so it isn't necessary for the father to also be a carrier of skinchanging genes."

By following this reasoning, Naerys should have inherited and express the skinchanging genes which is not the case, thus it is false.

No, it is not false. Look -> "The mother CAN pass her skinchanging genes to her daughter directly".

CAN isn't equal to WILL.

By saying that she CAN PASS those genes directly, I meant that she is ABLE to do that, not that it will definitely happen in all 100% of the cases with all of her daughters ever born. It's the same (or rather SIMILAR kind of) thing as with Myriah Martell's dark hair. She's a carrier of a brown-hair alleles, so she CAN pass them to her children, which doesn't mean that she definitely WILL. Out of her four sons, only one got her dark hair, so to the the other three she didn't passed those genes, that she did passed to Baelor Breakspear.

So Larra COULD HAVE passed her skinchanging genes to Naerys, but it didn't happened. Same as Myriah could have passed her dark-hair alleles to all of her children, but passed it to only ONE of them. Larra could have passed those genes directly to her daughters, and in one case - Shiera's, she did, but in the other case - Naerys', she didn't.

Larra made three attempts to pass her skinchanging genes to a daughter. Though the first two of her children were boys, and only the third one was a girl, and that girl didn't had what Larra needed from her. Probably there was some sort of test, using which it is possible to determine whether a newborn child has any magic in it. So Larra knew early on, that Naerys isn't like her mother and grandmother. And then she left, probably went to Asshai to study there magic, same as her mother before her.

Johanna's family found out early on, that she has magical blood, same as their ancient ancestor - the Tiger-woman. Thus they sent her to Asshai, where she became an acolyte and was learning various forms of magic. And when she was 15 years old, she was going back to the 7K, either because her educating was completed, or because she was visitng her family during the school's hollidays. And when the ship on which Johanna was, was going from Essos to Westeros thru the Stepstones, which was the terriotory frequently pestered by the Triarchy's pirates, it was seized by them. Johanna's uncle refused to pay a ransom. It appears that when it was discovered that out of all the Swanns it was Johanna, who got their House's hereditary magic, and not one of Lord Swann's children (Johanna's father was a second son, and her uncle was a firstborn son of the previous Lord, and at the time of Johanna's kidnapping, same as before her departure to Asshai, he was already the Lord of Stonehelm), her uncle refused to pay for her education. And thus her father had to pay for it by himself, and it was very expensive, so afterwards he was broke. So when Johanna was kidnapped, he was unable to pay a ransom. And his older brother - Johanna's uncle, said - serves you right. And left her to the pirates, who then sold her into slavery.

Though, when she was returning from Asshai to the 7K, she brought with her several magical artifacts, including that scarlet silk that Shiera Seastar later used to bewitch Mance Rayder. I'm talking about this (ASOS, Jon I):

Quote

"One day on a ranging we brought down a fine big elk. We were skinning it when the smell of blood drew a shadow-cat out of its lair. I drove it off, but not before it shredded my cloak to ribbons. Do you see? Here, here, and here?" He chuckled. "It shredded my arm and back as well, and I bled worse than the elk. My brothers feared I might die before they got me back to Maester Mullin at the Shadow Tower, so they carried me to a wildling village where we knew an old wisewoman did some healing. She was dead, as it happened, but her daughter saw to me. Cleaned my wounds, sewed me up, and fed me porridge and potions until I was strong enough to ride again. And she sewed up the rents in my cloak as well, with some scarlet silk from Asshai that her grandmother had pulled from the wreck of a cog washed up on the Frozen Shore. It was the greatest treasure she had, and her gift to me." He swept the cloak back over his shoulders. "But at the Shadow Tower, I was given a new wool cloak from stores, black and black, and trimmed with black, to go with my black breeches and black boots, my black doublet and black mail. The new cloak had no frays nor rips nor tears . . . and most of all, no red. The men of the Night's Watch dressed in black, Ser Denys Mallister reminded me sternly, as if I had forgotten. My old cloak was fit for burning now, he said.

"I left the next morning . . . for a place where a kiss was not a crime, and a man could wear any cloak he chose."

The grandmother didn't pulled that silk from a shipwreck

(how could she have known that that silk was from Asshai? Was that wilding-woman highly educated, and thus she knew what goods are produced in which region of Planetos? Still it doesn't explain how could she have known that this silk is specifically a silk from Asshai. Because on Planetos the silk was produced in several regions - Qarth, Naath (not anymore), Yi Ti, Jade Sea (both Asshai and Yi Ti are in that area). Or was there a writing on that cloth - "Made in Asshai"? , and THAT'S how she knew. Nope, I don't think so),

instead she had brought it from Asshai herself. And that grandmother was Johanna Swann - the Black Swan of Lys, and her granddaughter - that widling healer, actually was Shiera Seastar in shadow-glamour. She skinchanged into that shadow-cat near the Shadow Tower, attacked Mance in a cat's body, and then treated him from those wounds, and casted magic on him by using the silk that her grandmother - Johanna, brought from Asshai.  

You may think that this is all just my fanfiction, though you could be wrong about that. There are so many this tidbits, hidden all over ASOIAF, that support my theory about Johanna - Larra/Serenei - Shiera. And you're just refusing to see them. Though, whether you see them for what they are, or don't see, you can't deny the fact that THEY ARE THERE. You can disagree with my interpretation of that data, but you can't disregard the existence of that data. Because GRRM wrote it there.

So back to Larra - she gave birth to three non-skinchanging non-magical children (two of whom were recessive carriers), and gave up. She could have kept trying, but she saw no point. Because - what if next she again gave birth to a boy? and a boy? and only then to a girl? and what if that second girl also will be like Naerys? So she will have SIX children and still won't have what she needed. And thus she gave up pursuing this line, and instead went to Asshai, to receive there proper education. I think that maybe Johanna's education wasn't completed, that's because she didn't became an unaging sorceress like Larra/Serenei and Shiera/Quaithe. So Larra has achieved a more extensive education than her mother.

Also could be that Larra was staying in touch with her family at KL, and thus the reason why Aegon IV was f***ing around, was because his mother was using HIM as an experimental breeder (what I wrote about Craster in my previous post), so he had children with all sorts of women, to try and produce a skinchanging child for his mother's needs. He fathered a child on two of his cousins (though I think that both Daena and Elaena actually were also Viserys II' children, not Aegon III's. Because Aegon III died in 135 AC - he was poisoned by Larra and Viserys); had a child with his sister; had three children with a woman that was partially Summer Islander; he had children with a higborn ladies and with a smallfolks; with a Blackwood and a Bracken, both of whose Houses were worshipers of the Old Gods. And the Raventree Hall even had their own Raven-Weirwood-tree. So they could have been carriers of the skicnhanging genes, like the Swanns. Only they got theirs from a different source - Rose of Red Lake (the founder of House Crayne from the Reach), not the Tiger-woman. And when Aegon had a child with his daughter - Jeyne, the boy was born with the neccesary genes. Though Larra wanted a girl. Thus she had to do it herself, and then she had Shiera. So Larra's first daughter haven't inherited her magical genes, but her second daughter had. 50/50 result, or 1 out of 2 daughters. In Larra's case that 50/50 resulted in her having four children, and her mother was successful on the very first try. She was just lucky.

4 hours ago, Willam Stark said:

By following this reasoning, Naerys should have inherited and express the skinchanging genes which is not the case, thus it is false.

By following your reasoning - Rhaegel, Aerys I and Maekar should have inherited dark-hair alleles from their mother - Myriah Martell, and should have expressed it. But because they HAVEN'T, it means that Myriah wasn't their mother. Tada! 

So you just misunderstood what I wrote. Maybe I'm insufficiently expressing my theories, because English is my fourth language, so...  Maybe that's why you're not getting the meaning of what I write. Which is my fault. I should have wrote more clearly what I meant.

4 hours ago, Willam Stark said:

Larra didn't speak the Common Tongue.

They lied. Haven't you thought about this possibility? Viserys LIED that his wife doesn't understand, nor speak Common Tongue, and she pretended that that's exactly how it is. That way, when she was in the same room with the other people - the 7K's natives, they didn't watched their tongues, and spoke in her presense about things that they wouldn't have, if they knew that she can understand them. Also, whenever she shadow-glamoured herself to look like someone else, and left not only her chambers but also the castle, and went to do her business all over King's Landing, and while she was doing it, she was pretending to be one of the locals, she WAS speaking Common Tongue.

People lie.

So "Larra didn't speak the Common Tongue." was a lie.

4 hours ago, Willam Stark said:

The answer is inside your source: "The Iron Bank of Braavos was suspected, as was the Archon of Tyrosh, Racallio Ryndoon, and various merchant princes and magisters of Lys known to have chafed under the “velvet tyranny” of Lysandro the Magnificent."

Though in that same chapter GRRM asked the readers to use their own heads and to think who could have done it, who and why could have orchestrated the fall of the Rogares, who had a reason to do it.

"But if indeed the Faceless Men had done these deeds, at whose bidding had they acted?"

And the list of the "suspects", that he wrote there, is just a decoy, to distract from the question those readers that don't use their heads much. Because the majority will be perfectly satisfied with an easy-ready answer - that one of those people in the list is the culprit. And thus they won't have to think about it themselves, nor to figure it out on their own. The thing is - people don't like to think, they don't like to use their brain. They prefer for the answer to be given to them on a silver platter, instead of finding the answers themselves. It's not that those people are stupid, they're not, they are just lazy. Laziness is a human nature. Though, good thing that not all of them are afflicted with it, otherwise we all would have still lived in caves, wearing animal-skins, and believing that the world is flat and has an edge, so if you will go too far from your home, you will fall off that edge. But thanks to those first thinkers - who have extended their horisons and thought about the things that the others around them haven't - we have electricity, computers and Internet, and thus now can converse on this forum. So thinking outside of the box, and not just believing into everything that was said to us, is actually good for the Humanity's Evolution. Don't you agree? 

4 hours ago, Willam Stark said:

22 hours ago, Megorova said:

P.S. If Larra Rogare and Serenei of Lys is really the same person, then GRRM would have shared this information only on the Needs-to-know basis.

Ran is among them and he's dismissed your theory.

There is ZERO necessity for GRRM to share the information that Serenei=Larra with his co-Authors of TWOIAF and F&B Volume 1 & 2. Because just think about it - why would THEY need to know about this? WHAT FOR? The thing is - TWOIAF and F&B are historical books, they are written from the point of view of a maester, or several maesters. So if those people (in world) didn't knew that Larra Rogare and Serenei of Lys was the same person, then they couldn't have written and thus didn't wrote there anything about her, aside from what was publicly known separately about Larra, and what was publicly known separately about Serenei. The people of that world, the pseudo-authors of the 7K's history included - all those maesters and the historical people on whose knowledge were based those historical accounts, that became parts of TWOIAF and F&B, NONE OF THEM knew that Serenei=Larra/Larra=Serenei, and thus it wasn't included in any of the HISTORICAL ACCOUNTS. And because TWOIAF and F&B are a HISTORICAL ACCOUNTS, it wasn't necessary for GRRM to share with Elio and Linda the truth about Serenei. Because that part about her will be written, incorporated, used, explored and revealed to ASOIAF's fandom ONLY THRU THE BOOKS FROM THE MAIN SERIES - TWOIAF and ADOS, and he will write them SOLO, not thru co-authorship with his co-Authors of TWOIAF and F&B.

And thus there IS a possibility that GRRM didn't shared with Ran that Serenei is Larra, because Ran doesn't have to know it to co-write with GRRM the "historical" books.

Don't you understand this?

4 hours ago, Willam Stark said:

I don't need to propose an alternative to your claims by the way, I only did it by charity.

How kind of you.

4 hours ago, Willam Stark said:

In your quotes, you select only the information you need to push your theory and ignore the one that directly contradict it (Larra who didn't speak the Common Tongue for example, or Ran dismissing your whole theory), or may contradict it (Serenei's age and magical powers)

I explained those elements in this post.

4 hours ago, Willam Stark said:

I don't need to propose an alternative to your claims

Then let's drop this topic, and we can return to this discussion later. When GRRM will reveal that Serenei was indeed Larra. Or, if the later books will prove that I was wrong, then we won't be continuing this discussion, instead you will be able to just tell me - I TOLD YOU SO! -> See Serenei isn't Larra, and you so stubbornly denied it. You were WRONG!

And I will (not really ).

P.S. There was one other of your questions that I haven't answered yet, the one about Littlefinger. You will again deny that any of that could be true, and that's all is just my fanfiction, but I still will write it. Because I think that those theories are not wrong, and thus later I will have more evidences that I did figured it all out ahead of anyone else, and before GRRM revealed it, and that there really were clues/elements because of which I saw what was what.

[Megorova]

23 hours ago, Phylum of Alexandria said:

As for Haviland Tuf's presence in the story, I believe GRRM said that Planetos is not part of his Thousand Worlds universe.

That's not exactly what he said. This is the source of that info, it's GRRM's Not A Blog:

https://grrm.livejournal.com/464984.html?thread=23461208#t23461208

 He said - "No, Westeros is not one of the Thousand Worlds."

He was asked an incorrect question and aswered it honestly, but without drawing the poster's attention to the fact that his question was incorrect.

P.S. I see that you just recently joined the forum. Welcome!

6 hours ago, StarksInTheNorth said:

Something that just doesn’t make sense to me: Why would Lysandro marry a courtesan? The way the sources are written suggests that Johanna Swann was still a courtesan when the Triarchy fell in 131. But her theorized daughter, Larra Rogare, was born in 115. Why would a seemingly respectable man allow his wife to remain a courtesan after marriage? The easier answer is they weren’t married.

That's a good thing that if you don't understand something, or if something doesn't make sense, then you ask questions, and don't just disregard the whole thing.

Do you want to know the long version, or a short one? The short one is just quotes, and the long one are my explanations after them.

1. The Sworn Sword:

Quote

"You've known queens and princesses. Did they dance with demons and practice the black arts?"

"Lady Shiera does. Lord Bloodraven's paramour. She bathes in blood to keep her beauty. And once my sister Rhae put a love potion in my drink, so I'd marry her instead of my sister Daella."

2. Fire&Blood, The Sons of the Dragon.

Quote

Alys of House Harroway, Maegor Targaryen’s second wife, had returned to Westeros…but not alone. With her sailed another woman, a pale raven-haired beauty known only as Tyanna of the Tower. Some said the woman was Maegor’s concubine. Others named her Lady Alys’s paramour. The natural daughter of a Pentoshi magister, Tyanna was a tavern dancer who had risen to be a courtesan.

...

Then His Grace announced his intent to take Tyanna of Pentos as his third wife.

...

Maegor Targaryen and Tyanna of the Tower were wed atop the Hill of Rhaenys...

3. Fire&Blood, Aftermath - The Hour of the Wolf:

Quote

A great scandal ensued when the young lord then announced his intention to marry his father’s widow, and the reigning High Septon ultimately forbade the marriage as a form of incest, but even that could not keep these young lovers apart. Thereafter refusing to wed, the Lord of the Hightower and Defender of Oldtown kept the Lady Sam by his side as his paramour for the next thirteen years, fathering six children on her, and finally taking her as his wife when a new High Septon came to power in the Starry Sept and reversed the ruling of his predecessor.

& [8] from here ->

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

Quote

Linda's referring to a detail from George's material that was cut from The World of Ice and Fire, but will be appearing in Fire and Blood, relating to a situation where Lord Hightower took up with his step-mother following his father's death.

The High Septon refused to countenance the relationship and would not allow them to marry, but they continued it and had a number of children. Eventually a new High Septon allowed the marriage and the children were rendered legitimate.

4. ASOS, Jaime IX:

Quote

Ser Kevan presented another sheaf of parchments to the king. Tommen dipped and signed. “This is a decree of legitimacy for a natural son of Lord Roose Bolton of the Dreadfort."

Explanation:

1. Johanna Swann was kidnapped in 106, and Larra Rogare was born in 115. So it's obvious that Johanna didn't immediately married with Lysandro when she was brought to Lys. She was just a courtesan for the first few years, maybe as much as 5-6, until she managed to meet (in the same bed) with the master of the pleasure house in which she worked - Lysandro's Perfumed Garden, and slipped a love potion into his drink, which then made him marry her. Same as it possibly happened between Duncan the Small - the Prince of Dragonflies, a 9-years old Jenny of Oldstones, and her mother a woodswitch - the Ghost of High Heart/Rohanne Webber-Lannister.

Lysandro didn't madly fell in love with Johanna, he just temporarily lost his marbles and thus married with her, despite her courtesan/slave-status.

2. Another option is that Lysandro just took Johanna as one of his numerous wives. And the thing is - who the noble's wife is, matters only if she is his only wife, but if he has MANY, then nobody will care much, if one of them will be of a low status, even a courtesan. Like Maegor the Cruel's third wife - Tyanna of the Tower. She was a courtesan. And before that she was a tavern dancer. So if it wasn't too much for a guy, who was a King of an entire continent, to marry with an ex-stripper, then I don't see a problem for a rich guy and a pimp, who was not even a Prince of the city-state in which he lived, to marry with a courtesan that was one of his "girls".

3. Third option is that Lysandro married with Johanna sometime after 132, when Viserys Targaryen was brought into Lysandro's household, and Lysandro had assigned one of his (at that time) bastard-daughters - a 16-17-years old Larra, to serve as Viserys' caretaker (he at that time was 9-10 years old). And then Viserys fell in love with Larra (or maybe she gave him a love potion to make him do it). Either way, he had specifically chosen to marry with Larra, despite Lysandro offering to him his other daughters - the legitimate ones. So later for that marriage (which was beneficial for Lysandro, whether Larra was his legitimate daughter, or one of his bastards) not to be discarded by the Targaryens - Viserys' family, on the grounds of his wife's illegitimate status, Lysandro either married with Johanna, and that way did for her the same thing as happened in F&B with the children of Samantha Tarly, - thru that marriage rendered Larra legitimacy, or ->

4. Another option is that maybe Lysandro didn't married with Johanna, just legitimized Larra as his daughter, same as it was done by Roose Bolton for his bastard - Ramsay Snow. Lysandro was one of the richest people in the world, and he was even referred to as the Prince of Lys in all but name. So he could have asked the actual Prince of Lys to write a decree, which had legitimized Larra as Lysandro's legal daughter, and this way reversed her bastard-status.

One of those four options is Johanna's case, or maybe her case is a mix of a several options.

6 hours ago, StarksInTheNorth said:

The way the sources are written suggests that Johanna Swann was still a courtesan when the Triarchy fell in 131.

Why would a seemingly respectable man allow his wife to remain a courtesan after marriage?

I think that the exact phrasing in the book is ambiguous (F&B, The Hooded Hand):

Quote

The murder of Sharako Lohar of Lys, the admiral who had presided over the Triarchy’s disaster in the Gullet, proved to be the spark that engulfed the Three Daughters in flames, fanning the smoldering rivalries of Tyrosh, Lys, and Myr into open war. It is now commonly accepted that Sharako’s death was a personal matter; the arrogant admiral was slain by one of his rivals for the favor of a courtesan known as the Black Swan. At the time, however, his death was seen as a political killing, and the Myrish were suspected. When Lys and Myr went to war, Tyrosh seized the opportunity to assert its dominion over the Stepstones.

If she still was a courtesan in 131, then she could have married with Lysandro sometime after Sharako's death. The rival who killed Sharako could have been Lysandro. So he sort of "won" Johanna's hand. Maybe originally she didn't wanted to marry with him, similar to this kind of thing:

Quote

Whereas previously she had fended off the boy’s halting advances, now Lady Sam (as she would be known for many a year) yielded to them, allowing him to seduce her, and afterward promising to marry him…but only if he would make peace, “for I would surely die of grief should I lose another husband.”

So Johanna agreed to marry with Lysandro only if he will do certain things for her. And killing Sharako was one of them. Maybe. As one of the options.

Or another option is that at the time of Sharako's death, Johanna was already married to Lysandro, though had a paramour. Lysandro had an entire harem, many mistresses and several wives, and also was occasionally "sampling goods" at the owned by him brothel. So if he was allowed to f*** around, then Johanna, despite being a married woman, also was allowed to have some fun on the side.

Also - Lysandro Rogare was not a respectable man, he was a pimp.

"Lysaro Rogare aspired to rule Lys, but had neither the cunning nor the patience to spend decades in the slow accumulation of wealth and power, as his father Lysandro had."

If Lysandro was a penny-pincher/scrooge/miser, like Johanna's uncle, then could be that he still was making her work in his pleasure garden and make money for him, even after he married her. He was renting her only to the very rich and influential men, to earn Big money or to get favours from them.

Or could be that the phrasing - "a courtesan known as the Black Swan", doesn't necessary mean that she still was a courtesan at that time. It's just that she was known by her reputation as a courtesan. You see - it wasn't said in one of those quotes from above that Tyanna of the Tower was an ex-tavern dancer or an ex-courtesan. Thus maybe people still called Johanna a courtesan, even after she married with Lysandro and stopped working. In a sense that there are no ex-whores. Or something like that. So despite her not being anymore in the sex industry, she was still known as the Black Swan and a courtesan.

Or another option is what I wrote in 3. & 4. - wedding after 132 AC, or no wedding at all - only Larra's legitimization by a decree.

That's it. What do you think?

[Willam Stark]

19 hours ago, Megorova said:

I wouldn't have thought that Serenei could be something more than who she outwardly appeared to be, if it wasn't for this one small detail mentioned about her - "A Lysene beauty from an ancient but impoverished line" - WHAT line was it?

Don't write your words in upper case, this means you are yelling at me and you don't have any reasons to do that. If you can't handle contradiction, stop right here, because I won't stop and don't care if it hurts you. I can follow your reasoning, I don't need your help to see where the key points are.

19 hours ago, Megorova said:

And in my opinion (yes, it is only an assumption, but STILL it COULD BE correct)

No it's not, deal with it.

19 hours ago, Megorova said:

Serenei was said to be much older than the King

Rumors.

19 hours ago, Megorova said:

Larra Rogare, in 139 AC went back to Lys and then just vanished out of the history

People disappear, even in our world.

19 hours ago, Megorova said:

then years later in Lys resurfaced this Serenei, and she looks a LOT like Larra Rogare

In-universe, Jon looks a lot like Ned but they are still two different people. Nothing weird here.

19 hours ago, Megorova said:

she was from an ancient but impoverished line - a Lyseni House Rogare, then it wouldn't have been hard for the readers to come to conclusion that Serenei = Larra.

Except that she's not Larra, deal with it.

19 hours ago, Megorova said:

And thus you'll miss the point.

I've already read all your "Swan Song" posts, even though I didn't answer to all of them so I get it. You wanted to write a fiction about femme fatales who are pulling the strings of the whole saga's plot in the shadows, so you took all the elements supporting your headcanon and ignored the others. These femme fatales are from the same maternal lineage, making this plot a family plot, it's more interesting and fits with your obsession with dragon seeds.

But one of the hidden identity subplot you've already overused in your "Swan Song" appeared to be false and you can't accept it. You've spent too much time, selecting elements from TWOIAF and F&B to build your fanfiction, you didn't do it for nothing so you prefer stay in denial.

Don't count on me to support your position.

20 hours ago, Megorova said:

HE. had. CHOSEN. what info he should share with the readers, what info they SHOULD KNOW about Serenei.

He had chosen to share a rumor with us.

20 hours ago, Megorova said:

How can this Serenei be Larra Rogare, shouldn't Larra be like in her late 60th?

She's not, deal with it.

20 hours ago, Megorova said:

So even though in 184 AC, at the time of Shiera's birth, her mother - Serenei, who actually was the same person as Larra Rogare, really was 69 years old - that was just her chronological age, biologically she was 35-45, so she still was able to have children, despite her age.

This won't happen.

20 hours ago, Megorova said:

No, it is not false. Look -> "The mother CAN pass her skinchanging genes to her daughter directly".

Ok, you didn't understand why your reasoning is false, let me elaborate. According to you, skinchanging is a hereditary and recessive ability, which means it is the expression of specific gene(s). Just like us, the characters have received half of their genes from their father, the other half from their mother, which means they have two versions of each gene called allele. In our case, the skinchanging gene(s) are only expressed if the carrier (and so the skinchanger) is homozygous, meaning that he must inherit the skinchanging gene(s) from both parents.

If he has inherited the skinchanging gene(s) from one parent and not the other, then he's what we called a heterozygous carrier and won't express the skinchanging ability, but can transmit it to his children. You got that part so let's move on to the contradictory part. You basically said that a female skinchanger (who is then homozygous remember) can give birth to another female skinchanger without the father being a carrier of the skinchanging gene(s). However a homozygous carrier will always transmit his recessive genes to his children, because he has only one version of those genes (or alleles), only a heterozygous carrier may not transmit the recessive genes, because he has the dominant version that will inactivate the recessive one and may transmit it. A non carrier will always transmit the dominant one, leading to a heterozygous carrier child who wouldn't be a skinchanger then, since he must be homozygous on the specific gene(s) to become a skinchanger.

If a heterozygous carrier of skinchanging gene(s) can become a skinchanger, then it is not a recessive ability but a co-dominant one and you said otherwise. Thus your reasoning is false, you were just looking for a way to make Larra the only alternative possible, using bad faith in the process.

22 hours ago, Megorova said:

She's a carrier of a brown-hair alleles, so she CAN pass them to her children, which doesn't mean that she definitely WILL. Out of her four sons, only one got her dark hair, so to the the other three she didn't passed those genes, that she did passed to Baelor Breakspear.

She is a heterozygous carrier of the recessive blond hair allele, absolutely not the same case as our homozygous skinchangers (according to you again). She had 50% of chances to transmit the brown hair allele, 50% to transmit the blond hair allele, as the coin toss. A homozygous carrier of a specific recessive gene as almost 100% of chance to transmit these alleles.

22 hours ago, Megorova said:

So you just misunderstood what I wrote.

Quite the opposite.

22 hours ago, Megorova said:

They lied.

How convenient.

22 hours ago, Megorova said:

Haven't you thought about this possibility?

I don't have reason to doubt this fact.

22 hours ago, Megorova said:

Don't you agree? 

No.

22 hours ago, Megorova said:

There is ZERO necessity for GRRM to share the information that Serenei=Larra with his co-Authors of TWOIAF and F&B Volume 1 & 2.

Of course since it's false.

22 hours ago, Megorova said:

Because just think about it - why would THEY need to know about this? WHAT FOR?

Tell the story if something bad happens to him for example.

22 hours ago, Megorova said:

So if those people (in world) didn't knew that Larra Rogare and Serenei of Lys was the same person

They are not.

22 hours ago, Megorova said:

then they couldn't have written and thus didn't wrote there anything about her, aside from what was publicly known separately about Larra, and what was publicly known separately about Serenei.

Yes, they could.

22 hours ago, Megorova said:

Because that part about her will be written, incorporated, used, explored and revealed to ASOIAF's fandom ONLY THRU THE BOOKS FROM THE MAIN SERIES - TWOIAF and ADOS, and he will write them SOLO, not thru co-authorship with his co-Authors of TWOIAF and F&B.

That part will never be written.

22 hours ago, Megorova said:

And thus there IS a possibility that GRRM didn't shared with Ran that Serenei is Larra, because Ran doesn't have to know it to co-write with GRRM the "historical" books.

Nope, there is no possibility.

22 hours ago, Megorova said:

Don't you understand this?

Keep raging, it won't change anything about the fact that Larra is not Serenei.

22 hours ago, Megorova said:

How kind of you.

You can forget it, I gave you too much credit and it won't happen again.

22 hours ago, Megorova said:

Then let's drop this topic

After you.

[Megorova]

44 minutes ago, Willam Stark said:

You can forget it, I gave you too much credit and it won't happen again.

I'm sorry. Don't go. I will behave.

45 minutes ago, Willam Stark said:

23 hours ago, Megorova said:

Then let's drop this topic

After you.

I said that I will write the explanation about Petyr, so I'm obligated to keep my word. I posted it here:

https://asoiaf.westeros.org/index.php?/topic/159078-swan-song-part-1516-the-false-prophet/&do=findComment&comment=8740078

47 minutes ago, Willam Stark said:

Don't write your words in upper case, this means you are yelling at me and you don't have any reasons to do that.

The words written all in big letters = yelling?

I was unaware of it. I'm a computer "dinosaur", so I didn't knew. Sorry. By writing all big letters I only meant that it's a highligned part, the most important part, the part with emphasis on it. I wasn't yelling at you. Sorry, my bad.

51 minutes ago, Willam Stark said:

I can follow your reasoning, I don't need your help to see where the key points are.

Sorry again.

It's just that English isn't my native language (which doesn't entirely excuse my manner of writing), so I wasn't sure whether the point of what I write is getting across if it is written not with All Big, because usually a person can emphasize what the key points are in speach by tones of voice, and in writing that could be done thru usage of various punctuation marks. Though I was told before, and more than once, that I'm placing my comas and other punctuation marks in wrong places. So to better express the meaning of what I want to convey, I was using this - All Big letters. I didn't meant yelling. I didn't even knew that it was equal to yelling. So I apologize. I won't do it again, now that I know that it isn't perceived how I was intending for it to look like.

1 hour ago, Willam Stark said:

I've already read all your "Swan Song" posts

Thank you for that.

1 hour ago, Willam Stark said:

it's more interesting and fits with your obsession with dragon seeds.

I'm not obsessesd with them. Why are people saying that? It's GRRM who added all those dragonseeds into his books, not me.

1 hour ago, Willam Stark said:

According to you, skinchanging is a hereditary and recessive ability

What? That's not what I meant

It's not a recessive ability. It seems that indeed what I wrote is not what I wanted to express, I'll need to re-read all of it to understand where the meaning got lost.

The ability itself is not recessive, instead some of the people who are descendants of a skinchanger are recessive carriers of those genes, not in a sense that the genes are recessive, but in a sense that despite them having those genes, they don't have that ability.

<- Is this also "doesn't make sense".

Sorry, I'll have to read a few more sources about genetics to use a correct terminology in the future.

1 hour ago, Willam Stark said:

Just like us, the characters have received half of their genes from their father, the other half from their mother, which means they have two versions of each gene called allele. In our case, the skinchanging gene(s) are only expressed if the carrier (and so the skinchanger) is homozygous, meaning that he must inherit the skinchanging gene(s) from both parents.

If he has inherited the skinchanging gene(s) from one parent and not the other, then he's what we called a heterozygous carrier and won't express the skinchanging ability, but can transmit it to his children. You got that part so let's move on to the contradictory part. You basically said that a female skinchanger (who is then homozygous remember) can give birth to another female skinchanger without the father being a carrier of the skinchanging gene(s). However a homozygous carrier will always transmit his recessive genes to his children, because he has only one version of those genes (or alleles), only a heterozygous carrier may not transmit the recessive genes, because he has the dominant version that will inactivate the recessive one and may transmit it. A non carrier will always transmit the dominant one, leading to a heterozygous carrier child who wouldn't be a skinchanger then, since he must be homozygous on the specific gene(s) to become a skinchanger.

If a heterozygous carrier of skinchanging gene(s) can become a skinchanger, then it is not a recessive ability but a co-dominant one and you said otherwise. Thus your reasoning is false, you were just looking for a way to make Larra the only alternative possible, using bad faith in the process.

Using your terminology - Larra is not (I so want to write that all in big letters) a homozygous carrier. Only her mother was a carrier of the skinchanging genes, so Larra got only one and that one was enough.

If that is so, then why shouldn't that also have been enough for Aegon IV and Aemon? That's because they are males, and males need two. And why Naerys is not a skinchanger, is because while her brothers have received that 1 from their mother, Naerys didn't received any - 0. 

I'll write a table below (later). In a table, with all options displayed together, it will look more coherent. And then I'll be able to properly express what have I meant.

1 hour ago, Willam Stark said:

On 11/8/2021 at 7:03 PM, Megorova said:

Because just think about it - why would THEY need to know about this? WHAT FOR?

Tell the story if something bad happens to him for example.

For that case he has his wife and his manuscripts.

[Jaenara Belarys]

4 minutes ago, Megorova said:

It's not a recessive ability. It seems that indeed what I wrote is not what I wanted to express, I'll need to re-read all of it to understand where the meaning got lost.

 

You did say it was a recessive ability that needed both parents to have the skinchanging genes. 

[Megorova]

8 minutes ago, Jaenara Belarys said:

You did say it was a recessive ability that needed both parents to have the skinchanging genes. 

Two parents are needed only for males, whether their mother is an active  skinchanger or a recessive carrier. And for females, two parents are needed only in case if both of those parents are recessive carriers, but not when both/or one of them is an active skinchanger.

Wait, I'll post it later in a table, with all options on it, that way it will be more understandable what exactly do I mean.

 

And concerning what I wrote in the Opening Post of this thread - that the skinchanging genes could be transferred in a similar manner to how are transferred red heir alleles, that was way back in May, months ago. Since then I added a few more things. Because my theories are not exactly a finite product, more like they are an ongoing process. For example - when I was writing Swan Song, I was still under impression that the Targaryens are afflicted with their own brand of madness, and that their women suffer from low fertility and childbearing problems. Though a few months later, already after I posted SS, I noticed the active presense of the Faceless Men in the plot connected to the Targaryens, and some of the bad things that had happened to them. So now I think that the so called Targaryen-madness was caused by basilisk blood, and the fertility problems by Tancy, or other similar substance that the Faceless Men added into the food or drink of the Targaryen-women.

Same with this skinchanging thing - now I don't think that their transferrance is the same as the transferrance of the red hair alleles. Instead now I think that there are two components that influence how they are transferred, like the red heir is transferred + one more additional condition (connected to female-DNA). That's because since writing OP of this post, back in May, I have discovered that Daeron II is, most likely, not one of Aegon IV's children, which then changes from whom Rhaegar (and several other people too) got his skinchanging genes.

[Megorova]

3 hours ago, Megorova said:

Two parents are needed only for males, whether their mother is an active  skinchanger or a recessive carrier.

@Jaenara Belarys, @Willam Stark

Ok, I admit that I was wrong about this part.

Two parents are needed not only for males, but also for females. And also one parent alone is also enough, for both males and females, not only for females alone, what I thought before.

And it appears that there is no need of an additional condition, because that additional condition is already inside the scheme thru which are passed red-hair alleles. So the skinchanging is exactly like a transferrance of the red-hair alleles.

The info in my theory was based on what I have read in genetics.thetech.org site, and previously I have missed there one important detail.

https://genetics.thetech.org/ask/ask400

Quote

Is it possible to end up with red hair by getting the red hair gene from just one parent? If so, how common is it?

 

-A curious adult from California

March 17, 2011

Doesn't seem like it should be possible does it? As everyone who reads our stuff knows, you need to get a red hair gene from both mom and dad to end up with red hair. Except, of course, when you don't.

Nothing in genetics is 100%; there are always exceptions. So there are redheads out there that got their red hair from one parent. And there are people who don't have red hair who got red hair from both parents.

You can read there the whole article to better understand what is it about.

And I won't be posting that table, (things became too convoluted along the way - there's too many variations with the inclusion of this additional option - with the transferrance also thru only one parent as a carrier, added to those options that I wrote before; it adds too many varians for each dragonseed parent-child couple who were featured in my theory, as parts of the line thru which were transferred skinchanging genes from Johanna Swann to Jon Snow), Sorry.

So instead you can look at the pictures in this article

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

go in that page down down down to the 4th picture.

Look at that picture as it is, and then imagine

(because they don't have a pictures that show transferrance of genes described in that first article - when a child can have red hair, even if only one of the parents is a carrier)

imagine Partner 1 as she is - Red/Brown <- this will be Larra,

and then imagine in place of Partner 2 - a Brown/Brown instead of that Brown/Red <- this will be Viserys.

In this case they won't have a Red/Red child, instead they will have 50% chanses to have a Red/Brown child - Aegon IV and Aemon, and 50% chanses to have a Brown/Brown child - Naerys.

Now keep Larra as she is - Red/Brown - and Partner 2 also as he is on that picture - Red/Brown <- this will be Aegon IV.

The possibility of what their children will be like is in this case the same as it is originally on that picture - 25% Red/Red <- this one is Shiera, 50% Brown/Red and 25% Brown/Brown.

Though Larra and Aegon had only one child and that child got her skinchanging genes from both parents. While Aegon and Aemon got that gene from their mother alone <- based on the information from that first article.

Originally on that picture there are a two recessive carriers with the probability for their children to be 25% a redhead, 50% a recessive carrier, and 25% non-carrier.

Which doesn't actually mean that if a two recessive carriers will have 4 children, then their children definitely will be - one redhead, two brown-haired, and one a recessive carrier of a red hair alleles.

It's not like how things work in real life, you won't have 1R, 2Br, 1Rec; because each time when a two people, who are a recessive carriers, conceive a child, each of their children every time has those same possibilities - 25% R / 50% Br /25% Rec.

Or another example - if you have in your pocket (a big pocket ) 10 candies - 5 chocolate and 5 toffees, then the possibility of you drawing out of that pocket a chocolate candy, is the same as the possibility of drawing out a toffee - 50/50. Though it is possible that 5 times in a row you will draw out a toffee, and not a chocolate candy. Or a different option - you will draw several toffees in a row. So this 50/50 stuff is a real thing only in theory.

Look at the children of Myriah Martell for example - two of her four were supposed to be dark-haired, but based on what we know about Baelor Breakspear, that it was noted about him that he looks like his mother, and he was singled out in that regard, it appears that out of her four sons he alone inherited her dark-hair alleles, despite the possibility of Mariah having dark-haired / blond-haired children was 50/50.

Also look at the recent generation of the Starks - out of Ned's five children, only 1 had brown hair and 4 had red. Despite Ned being a carrier of one Brown and one Red allele. So shouldn't he have passed that Brown in equal cases, as he was passing the Red one?

That first article is not the only source in which it is written that even one parent with one Red-allele can pass it to his/her child.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/12/181210101930.htm

That first article is dated March 2011, but in this link from above it is said that those discoveries - that a child can have a red hair, even if only one of the parents originally had a red-hair allele, is dated - 2018, and it is said there that this discovery was made just recently.

How a source dated with 2011, could have an information that preceded a more recent discoveries?

P.S. Also I should specify that I thought that this skinchanging stuff works differently for males and females, based on this -> "ROSE OF RED LAKE, a skinchanger, able to transform into a crane at will—a power some say still manifests from time to time in the women of House Crane, her descendants." - TWOIAF, The Reach.

If the power manifests only in the women, and not in all of them but only in some, then doesn't it mean that in case with House Crane, despite some of their males and females being carriers of those skinchanging genes, only females got those genes, and males didn't?

[Willam Stark]

2 hours ago, Megorova said:

Look at the children of Myriah Martell for example - two of her four were supposed to be dark-haired, but based on what we know about Baelor Breakspear, that it was noted about him that he looks like his mother, and he was singled out in that regard, it appears that out of her four sons he alone inherited her dark-hair alleles, despite the possibility of Mariah having dark-haired / blond-haired children was 50/50.

This is not how probability and pregnancy work. Go check this out: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Probability

In probability, each event is independent, meaning that the result of an event won't affect the result of the next event. Thus, Myriah Martell could have had 4 black haired children, 4 blond haired children or only one blond haired child without it being weird. By the way, exceptions don't make the rule, in the study you've posted about the red haired people having inherited their genes from a single parent, only 1,2% of the largest sample (the most representative one) were concerned. The remaining 98,8% didn't have red hair, thus red haired people have more than likely got their genes from both parents and I seriously doubt that GRRM would go that far into genetics, when we see what he has done with the Targaryen and their high inbreeding. He's not an expert and we can clearly see it, I'm not saying that I'm one myself but I have the basics.

2 hours ago, Megorova said:

If the power manifests only in the women, and not in all of them but only in some, then doesn't it mean that in case with House Crane, despite some of their males and females being carriers of those skinchanging genes, only females got those genes, and males didn't?

This is not what is written in your quote, it is said that the power manifests from time to time in the women of House Crane, this is completely different. Besides skinchanging is not an innate ability, it is acquired under certain conditions, bonding with an animal seems to be a prerequisite since all the active skinchangers we know are concerned. Sansa who is also a skinchanger didn't awaken this ability for example, because she didn't bond with Lady or another animal.

This means that a skinchanger by blood like Sansa may never awaken his ability during his life, while another may awaken it during his childhood like Bran or Arya. If we also take into account the heterozygous carriers, there is nothing weird here, the female skinchangers were homozygous and they have awakened their ability while the possible males skinchangers have never awakened it like Sansa or were heterozygous.

[Megorova]

18 hours ago, Willam Stark said:

If we also take into account the heterozygous carriers, there is nothing weird here, the female skinchangers were homozygous and they have awakened their ability while the possible males skinchangers have never awakened it like Sansa or were heterozygous.

This kind of makes sense. For the Crane-genes spesifically, not for all the skinchanging genes generally (in a sense that not all women 100% are definitely homozygous, and all males are heterozygous).

Now back to the "general" skinchanging. What if amongst the people of Westeros, there are many of those who are heterozygous carriers (1 gene)? Not only people like Aegon IV, Jeyne Lothston, Catelyn Tully, Ned Stark, Rhaegar Targaryen, Elia Martell, but also many others, maybe even hundreds or thousands of people, who also have one skinchanging gene. In this case there are not that many active skinchangers all over the 7K, based on the reason that for a child to be born an active skinchanger, he/she is supposed to get two of the genes, from both of his/her parents. And the cases of those matches, in which both - the mother and the father, are the carriers of a skinchanging gene, are very rare.

Thus far, in my opinion, there were - 1. Larra + Aegon IV = Shiera; 2. Aegon IV + Jeyne Lothston = the Bastard of Harrenhal; 3. Rhaegar + Elia = Rhaenys (not confirmed yet); 4. Rhaegar + Lyanna = Jon; 5.-9. Catelyn + Ned = Robb, Sansa, Arya, Bran, Rickon; 10. Dany + Khal Drogo = Rhaego (not confirmed yet); 11. Lysa + Petyr = Robert Arryn (not confirmed yet); 12. the parents of a Braavosi-skinchanger, into whose vessel (a cat) Arya skinchanged in her Blind Girl chapter (not confirmed yet). So - 12 cases in total, out of which only 8 thus far were confirmed (in my opinion).

So amongst the millions people that inhabit 7K's part of Westeros (minus what is behind The Wall), we have only 8 (confirmed) cases of an active skinchangers, whose parents possibly are/were heterozygous carriers (of 1 skinchanging gene). + What is written next. ->

18 hours ago, Willam Stark said:

exceptions don't make the rule, in the study you've posted about the red haired people having inherited their genes from a single parent, only 1,2% of the largest sample (the most representative one) were concerned. The remaining 98,8% didn't have red hair, thus red haired people have more than likely got their genes from both parents

From that first article: "For example, in one recent study, scientists looked at 1092 people that had a single strong red hair gene. They found that 13 or 1.2% of them had red hair."

Amongst the characters of ASOIAF and its companion books there are ~276 of those whose name beging with an A. It's a "popular" letter. And there's only 5 characters whose names begins with an X. (276 + 5)/2 = 140,5 * 26 letters from the English Alphabet = ~3653 named characters.

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

(There are ~221 characters whose name beginns with an L, like Larra, and ~211 characters whose name beginns with a J, like Johanna. So even out of those L-characters Larra is 0,45%, and Johanna in her group is 0,43%.)

Out of those 3653 cases only 1 - Johanna, was a carrier of a single skinchanging gene, and managed to pass it down to one of her children - Larra/Serenei.

1 out of 3653 is 0,027%. Which is even lower than those 1,2% from that article.

So Johanna - Larra are within the margin of what is scientifically possible.

[Edit: I realise that at the first glance it appears that it is incorrect to use a list of the named characters as a pool based on which we should be determining that percentage. Though the actual pool of those people of Westeros and Essos, who are/were carriers of skinchanging genes, would have been not too far from the numbers that I used. Because just think about it - those characters that are named in the series, their names were given to the readers, because majority of those people are bloodrelated to Jon, the Starks, Larra, Petyr, etc. The total population of Westeros is 40.000.000. The population of Essos (this one I don't know) is probably double of that. If we will devide named characters as 1 to 2 - Westeros/Essos, then out of those 3653 people, 1217 will be characters from Westeros and 2436 will be characters from Essos. Then out of those 1217 Westerosians, nearly all of them are bloodrelated to the Starks and to each other, because how GRRM said - in those thousands years since the First Men and Andals settled at Westeros, all Great Houses had intermarried multiple times, so they all have approximately same genes (same as how all people of Earth are distantly bloodrelated, and scientists even figured out from what area of the world started the mass migration of the first people, who were all one tribe, so the actual Adam and Eve actually lived somewhere at Africa). So nearly all the characters that inhabit Westeros, are bloodrelated to each other, at least distantly, and thus they all are in the same gene pool. And there are 40.000.000 of them. But I'm not using those 40 millions, I'm using only named characters. Even if we will take out of that list only those who are Westerosians, there will be 1217 of them.

1217 out of 40.000.000.

In The North and Riverlands, 10% of population has blond hair, 30% red, and 60% dark (brown or black). Same percentage beyong The Wall, and in Stormlands.

That's 4 Million people with blond hair, 12 Millions red-heads, and 24 Millions of people with brown or black hair.

Based on that - blond hair is a rare trait, only 1 in 10 people are blond. Though because to display a blond hair a carrier has to have two blond alleles, it means that amongst those 36 Millions of other, non-blond people, at least 10% more are likely a carriers of 1 blond allele. That's because for a child to be blond, it isn't necessary for both, or even one of his/her parents, to be also blond. So instead both parents could be dark-haired carriers of one recessive blond-hair allele. And let's say that amongst the parents of those 10% of blond people, half of them are also blond, so they are included in those 10%, and the other half are brown-blond or something similar. So we have 10% of people who are blond-blond and 10% of people who are brown-blond. In total that's 8 Million people. 

8 Million people amongst Westeros' population are carriers of one or two blond-hair alleles.

The rate of "blondness" is 1/10, and there are 8 Millions of them. How rarer are the skinchanging genes compared to blond-hair alleles? I think that 1 person out of 10.000 would be a viable estimation of a rate skinchangers/non-skinchangers.

Thus - 40.000.000/10.000 = 4.000.

And I used for Larra and Johanna a pool of 3653, which is pretty close to this other number.

If we will use this other number, that amongst 40.000.000 people that live at Westeros, nearly all of whom are bloodrelated to each other, only 1 in 10.000 is a carrier of either 1 or 2 skinchanging genes, then if amongst them Johanna Swann is the only carrier of a single skinchanging gene, who despite this managed to give birth to a child that was a skinchanger - Larra, then the percentage in this case will be 1 out of 4.000, and that's 0,025%.

And with the numbers that I originally used - ~3653 named characters, Johanna's case was - 0,027%.

So if we will use 40.000.000 of Westeros' population (GRRM gave this number) as a gene pool in which 1 out of 10.000 is a skinchanger the ratio will be 0,025%, which is even a bit lower than in the first case, for which I was using as a gene-pool only named characters.

So, as I wrote before, - Johanna - Larra are within the margin of what is scientifically possible. No higher as those 1,2% mentioned in the article according to which there are cases in which even a carrier of a single red-hair allele could be a red-head.]

18 hours ago, Willam Stark said:

I seriously doubt that GRRM would go that far into genetics

I agree with that. Aside from him following the general and simple rules of whom the children of a specifically colored parents should look like, it wasn't necessary for him to have or use a deeper knowledge of how genetic works.

18 hours ago, Willam Stark said:

when we see what he has done with the Targaryen and their high inbreeding. He's not an expert and we can clearly see it, I'm not saying that I'm one myself but I have the basics.

And let's not forget the case with the Baratheons - in the span of the last 300 years all the Baratheons, without exception, were dark-haired, despite some of them being partially Valyrians (like Jocelyn Baratheon, whose parents were Rogar Baratheon and Alyssa Velaryon. Jocelyn was married and had a child with Aemon Targaryen - Rhaenys, who was also black-haired like her mother and maternal grandfather).

Quote

The seed is strong, Jon Arryn had cried on his deathbed, and so it was. All those bastards, all with hair as black as night. Grand Maester Malleon recorded the last mating between stag and lion, some ninety years ago, when Tya Lannister wed Gowen Baratheon, third son of the reigning lord. Their only issue, an unnamed boy described in Malleon's tome as a large and lusty lad born with a full head of black hair, died in infancy. Thirty years before that a male Lannister had taken a Baratheon maid to wife. She had given him three daughters and a son, each black-haired. No matter how far back Ned searched in the brittle yellowed pages, always he found the gold yielding before the coal. - AGOT, Ned XII.

I have an explanation for the thing with the Baratheons, and the thing with the skinchangers.

Time to put on a table my Ultimate trump card - Deus ex machina (god out of the machine).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deus_ex_machina

"a plot device whereby a seemingly unsolvable problem in a story is suddenly and abruptly resolved by an unexpected and unlikely occurrence.^[4][5] Its function is generally to resolve an otherwise irresolvable plot situation, to surprise the audience, to bring the tale to a happy ending, or act as a comedic device.^[6]"

Bible - Genesis, The Beginning: "And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light."

George Martin is the Author of ASOIAF and its companion books. Or in other words - he is the Creator of the world in which are occurring the events depicted in his books. He is the God of that world, he's the one who's writing the laws of nature in there. So if he will want something to happen there, it will happen, just like that.

And GRRM said, "I want this and that happen", and so it happened. Amen.

Also - as the Author and the Creator of this Thread, by the Power given to me though this Forum, I'm putting on Larra-Serenei a Plot Armor.

[Plot armor - the phenomenon in fiction whereby the main character is allowed to survive dangerous situations because they are needed for the plot to continue.]

Based on the specific elements that I have read in ASOIAF and its companion books, I came to conclusion that Johanna Swann, Larra Rogare/Serenei of Lys, and Shiera Seastar were/are skinchangers; also that Johanna is an ancestor of the current generation of the Starks, Jon Snow and several other characters, and that they are also skinchangers because they have inherited this magical ability from Johanna. Whether my conclusions are correct or wrong - the time will tell. Until then - Larra-Serenei will remain in a plot armor.

Case closed.

P.S. There are many other topics in the Opening Post of this thread, besides this thing with the skinchangers. Won't you rather discuss one of them?

How about my latest discovery? - I have found information that GRRM actually didn't disprooved the notion that the events of ASOIAF could be happening in the same Universe as the events of his sci-fi novels, like A Song for Lya and Tuf's Voyaging. So could be that what I wrote in OP - that the God-on-Earth, the founder of the Great Empire of the Dawn, really could be Haviland Tuf, and thus could be that the Lands Under the Shadow are shadowed because there's a giant space-ship, in a stealth-mode, hanging in the sky above those lands.

https://grrm.livejournal.com/464984.html?thread=23461208#t23461208

Quote

Mr. Martin,
I too enjoy juggling projects/tasks. Keeps my interests, well, interesting. I love ASOIAF immensely and recently started your Thousand Worlds stories and am really blown away at the Universive you've created. I just finished Greywater Watch and the scientists reminded me of 'The Institute' from "Fallout 4". I have suggested these to my friends because they are a great read. I'm not sure if anybody has ever asked you this, but is "The Known World" (Planet Westeros/Essos/Lands of Always Winter is on) part of the same Universe as these short stories/novels like Dying Light and Greywater Watch? It seems like it definitely could be (different galaxy?).

Do you have plans to put these stories into an Anthology? That would be great (with art of course!) especially if they are meant to be read in a certain order. Anyways, Happy New Year and thank you for you very hard work!

~

Asimov and Heinlein, late in life, both seemed to feel the urge to merge all of their books and stories into one huge continuity.

So far I do not feel the urge. No, Westeros is not one of the Thousand Worlds.

What that reader asked - "is Planet Westeros/Essos/Lands of Always Winter is on, part of the same Universe as these short stories/novels like Dying Light and Greywater Watch?" is similar to "is Planet USA/Eurasia/Canada is on, part of the same Universe as Alpha Centauri?", or "is Planet Hong-Kong/Japan/Beiging is on, part of the same Universe as Roman Empire?". And what GRRM said is similar to - "No, USA is not one of the Alpha Centauri Worlds", or "No, Hong-Kong is not one of the Roman Empire's parts."

His answer is the same kind of misdirection as these:

Quote

"Who sent you? Who is this three-eyed crow?"

"A friend. Dreamer, wizard, call him what you will. The last greenseer." - ADWD, Bran I.

"Are you the three-eyed crow?" Bran heard himself say.

...

"A … crow?" The pale lord's voice was dry. His lips moved slowly, as if they had forgotten how to form words. "Once, aye. Black of garb and black of blood." - ADWD, Bran II.

So there is a viable possibility that there are indeed aliens present on Planetos. And if the "second moon" in the sky, the one from which the first dragons came onto Planetos, is the Ark, then it means that a parasite Greeshka (who connects people into a hive-mind, and then eats their bodies and souls) also could be present on this planet. And it could be - the Weirwood-Network!

[Megorova]

New addition to Littlefinger's family tree (and how was he related to Khal Drogo and Brown Ben Plumm).

Based on his cat-like eyes, and Balerion the cat, I thought that Petyr's Braavosi ancestor was Balerion Otherys, and that Balerion also was an ancestor of Brown Ben Plumm (because their names sort of alike - Brown/Black, Ben/Balerion, Plum/Pearl). But I recently found a new element - name Narha (Balerion's sister) could have been a parallel to the sea dragon - Nagga.

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

Also in Wikipedia -

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nāga

Quote

The Nāga (IAST: nāga; Devanāgarī: नाग) or Nagi (f. of nāga; IAST: nāgī; Devanāgarī: नागी)^[1] are divine, semi-divine deities, or a semi-divine race of half-human half-serpent beings that reside in the netherworld (Patala) and can occasionally take human form.

...

In Sanskrit, a nāgá (नाग) is a cobra, the Indian cobra (Naja naja). A synonym for nāgá is phaṇin (फणिन्). There are several words for "snake" in general, and one of the very commonly used ones is sarpá (सर्प). Sometimes the word nāgá is also used generically to mean "snake".^[5]

...

Their domain is in the enchanted underworld, the underground realm filled with gems, gold and other earthly treasures called Naga-loka or Patala-loka. They are also often associated with bodies of waters — including rivers, lakes, seas, and wells — and are guardians of treasure.^[7]

Dragons are known as gold-hoarding creatures. And Braavosi have their Iron Bank, which was created by those founding families of Braavos, who were storing their treasures in the secret caves under Braavos.

And in one of ASOIAF's books there was this:

Quote

Is your sigil a lamb, my lady, or some sort of grasping monkey? Cersei thought. - AFFC, Cersei V.

She was referring to the sigil of Stokeworths - a lamb that holds a golden chalise in one of its front paws. One of Petyr's ancestors was Falena Stokeworth.

Thus the new family tree (with addition of Narha into it) looks like this:

1.1. Aegon IV + Bellegere Otherys (First Black Pearl of Braavos) = Bellenora (Second Black Pearl), Narha, Balerion;

1.2. Aegon IV + Falena Stokeworth = Jeyne Lothston;

1.3. Aegon IV + Princess Elaena = Viserys Plumm;

2.1. Narha + Balerion = a daughter (let's call her Alayne);

2.2. Aegon IV + Jeyne Lothston = the Bastard of Harrehnal;

2.3. Viserys Plumm + a Dornishwoman = a daughter;

3.1. & 3.2. Alayne + The Bastard of Harrenhal = a son* (the Sellsword from Braavos), and a daughter**.

3.3. Viserys' daughter + a Dothraki Khal = son 1***, son 2****;

4.1. The Sellsword* + wife = Hedge Knight*;

4.2. Alayne's daughter** + husband = a son**;

4.3.1. Viserys' grandson 1*** + Ibbenese & Qohorik wife = a daughter*** (mother of Brown Ben Plumm);

4.3.2. Viserys' grandson 2**** + a Dothraki wife = a son**** (father of Khal Bharbo);

5.1. Hedge Knight* + wife = First Lord Baelish*;

5.2. & 5.3.1. Alayne's grandson** + Viserys' great-granddaughter*** = Brown Ben Plumm **&***;

5.3.2. Viserys' great-grandson**** + wife = Khal Bharbo****;

6.1. First Lord Baelish* + wife = Petyr*;

6.2. Brown Ben Plumm **&*** + wife (if there is one) = children**&***;

6.3. Khal Bharbo**** + wife = Khal Drogo****.

~

Alayne's son, the Sellsword <- siblings -> Alayne's daughter.

Hedge knight <- first cousins -> a son of Alayne's daughter.

First Lord Baelish <- second cousins -> Brown Ben Plumm.

Petyr Baelsih <- second cousins once removed -> Brown Ben Plumm.

~

Viserys' grandson 1*** <- siblings -> Viserys' grandson 2****.

Viserys' great-granddaughter*** <- first cousins -> Viserys' great-grandson****.

Brown Ben Plumm*** <- second cousins -> Khal Bharbo.

Brown Ben Plumm*** <- second cousins once removed -> Khal Drogo.

~

Viserys Plumm <- half-siblings -> Narha & Balerion.

Viserys' daughter <- first cousins -> Alayne.

Viserys' grandsons 1*** & 2**** <- second cousins -> the Sellsword & a daughter.

The mother of Brown Ben Plumm***, and the father of Khal Bharbo <- third cousins -> the Hedge Knight, and Alayne's grandson (the father of Brown Ben Plumm).

[Brown Ben's parents were each others third cousins.]

Brown Ben Plumm, Khal Bharbo <- fourth cousins -> First Lord Baelish.

Brown Ben Plumm <- fourth cousins one removed -> Petyr Baelish.

Khal Drogo <- fifth cousins -> Petyr Baelish.

~

Thru the Otherys-line Petyr and Ben are second cousins once removed, and thru the Plumm-line they are fourth cousins once removed.

Thru the Plumm-line & Otherys-line (thru Aegon IV, Elaena Targaryen and Bellegere Otherys), Khal Drogo and Petyr are fifth cousins.

Though there's more shared genes between Petyr and Ben, than between Ben and Drogo, despite both Drogo and Ben being partially Dothraki and Viserys Plumm's descendants. That's because Drogo didn't had any Braavosi+Summer Islander genes, like Ben and Petyr did. Ben's mother maried with a great-great-grandson of Bellegere Otherys, but her first cousin (who was also Viserys Plumm's great-grandchild, same as Ben's mother) married with a Dothraki-woman. So Drogo was mostly Dothraki, and had just a drop of Targaryen blood from Aegon IV, who was his 3-times-great-grandfather.