Random Thoughts About ASOIAF

[King_Tristifer_IV_Mudd]

Thronies 

[EggBlue]

17 hours ago, Jaenara Belarys said:

I'm honestly curious as to what those reforms were. Ideas, anyone?

He should've just made Daeron the heir, IMO. All the sons were idiots, but he seems like the best, and with Olenna by his side, he would've been fine. 

And on another tangent, completely unrelated. 

@The Bard of Banefort, I've come to register a complaint for a thread with TWENTY SEVEN pages, while my lily-white threads were locked at 20-21. 

but Daeron also ditched his betrothal. however , since his lover was a guy, he didn't get to marry him or end up in bard songs and history books.

[Jaenara Belarys]

18 hours ago, EggBlue said:

but Daeron also ditched his betrothal. however , since his lover was a guy, he didn't get to marry him or end up in bard songs and history books.

At least he didn't make as much of a fool out of himself as Duncan the Dumb, and Jaehaerys. 

[The Bard of Banefort]

Who is the real-world equivalent of Jaehaerys and Alysanne? Ferdinand and Isabella? William and Mary?

[Alden Rothack]

On 11/26/2022 at 10:06 PM, The Bard of Banefort said:

Knowing the story of the Black Brides, I’m genuinely confused as to why Henry VIII, after Jane Seymour’s death, didn’t seek out a young widow who had already given birth to a son before. Obviously it doesn’t guarantee any future sons (especially considering Henry’s own health problems) but it seems like it would be common sense from a sixteenth-century perspective. Did any other kings ever deliberately marry a widow for this reason?

probably not, any widow still available at a young age would have been viewed with great suspicion by the royal court unless they knew exactly how her husband died

[Tyrosh Lannister]

On 11/28/2022 at 4:19 PM, The Bard of Banefort said:

It sounds like Egg changed the law allowing a noble to cut off the hand of someone who struck them, since Jaime mentioned that Cersei wanted to bring it back after Arya’s fight with Joffrey by the Trident. He probably also enacted a law against forcing untrained peasants to engage in combat, since that was a big concern of his in The Sworn Sword.

So what do nobles do instead then ? Cut off feet ?

[Takiedevushkikakzvezdy]

On 12/7/2022 at 6:42 AM, The Bard of Banefort said:

Who is the real-world equivalent of Jaehaerys and Alysanne? Ferdinand and Isabella? William and Mary?

Justinian and Theodora?

[Craving Peaches]

8 hours ago, Takiedevushkikakzvezdy said:

Justinian and Theodora?

Justinian killed 30,000 unarmed protesters and his own nephew at the behest of Theodora. I don't think Jaehaerys would do that.

[Tsarcastic]

This isn't a thoroughly researched theory, but I think Young Griff may have some connection to Princess Saera Targaryen, the child of Jaehaerys Targaryen & Queen Alysanne. Saera was the willful child who ended up being disowned by her family, because of her sins.  When she was caught she tried to steal a dragon and escape, but failed. Jaehaerys then gave Saera to the Faith, sending her to Oldtown to be trained by her sister, Septa Maegelle. But she escaped from Oldtown, and started working in a Lysene pleasure house, still dressed as a novice of the faith.

The main connection that seems odd to me is that Ilyrio's second wife, who he found in a Lysene pleasure house, was named Serra. I know George likes to recycle concepts, and names, but only the spelling & time period have changed.

To be clear, I'm not saying Ilyrio's Serra and Princess Saera are the same person. Just that it seems an odd coincidence that perhaps hints at something.

 

[Takiedevushkikakzvezdy]

In the alleged correspondence between GRRM and his editors from the Cushing Library, George said that he "didn't have the feel" on Marwyn while writing AFFC, so I guess the decision to send him to Dany was made quite late in the process. But since Marwyn was mentioned all the way back in AGoT, GRRM must have had some sort of plan for him from the beginning, no?

 

[The Bard of Banefort]

How many people do you think are going to receive Fire and Blood as a Christmas present this year, read the first twenty pages, and then give up? I feel like that happens every time there’s a successful book-to-screen adaptation.

[Tsarcastic]

I think R'hllorism is just Valyrian fire magic, that got infected by religious dogma shortly before, or after, The Doom.

Moreover, I think the word R'hllor is a bastarded version of the Valyrian name "Rhaellor." We don't see this directly as a name in the series, but it fits the construction of Valyrian Names, in that all of the syllables line up with syllables from existing Targaryens from Westeros. Rhaegar, Maegor, Baelor, Aegor, etc.

The shift to R'hloor is explained with linguistic drift over hundreds of years. Especially since the vowel "ae" seems to be mostly unique to the Valyrian language, it would make sense that people speaking other languages, using the word, would just shift to a vowel normal in their language, thus turning "Rhaellor" into "R'hllor."

My guess would be that Rhaellor was a central figure/prophet for the religion, like Buddha or Jesus, thus getting the religion named after him.

[EggBlue]

9 hours ago, The Bard of Banefort said:

How many people do you think are going to receive Fire and Blood as a Christmas present this year, read the first twenty pages, and then give up? I feel like that happens every time there’s a successful book-to-screen adaptation.

Fire&Blood is not a very good Christmas present . what is the appeal for a non-asoiaf fan ? ..  

[The Bard of Banefort]

1 hour ago, EggBlue said:

Fire&Blood is not a very good Christmas present . what is the appeal for a non-asoiaf fan ? ..  

For people who watched HOTD and now want to read the source material. I expect many people will also receive the Silmarillion this year too.

[Takiedevushkikakzvezdy]

2 hours ago, EggBlue said:

Fire&Blood is not a very good Christmas present . what is the appeal for a non-asoiaf fan ? ..  

Well, it's hard to surprise people these days. If you give someone F&B and they find out that the source material for their favourite new show is only around 100 pages of the actual book, it will be a genuine surprise.

[The Bard of Banefort]

54 minutes ago, Takiedevushkikakzvezdy said:

Well, it's hard to surprise people these days. If you give someone F&B and they find out that the source material for their favourite new show is only around 100 pages of the actual book, it will be a genuine surprise.

To be fair, HOTD will definitely lead to more people discovering the books, the same way GOT did for me and many others. But as is the case with every popular adaptation, a lot of people will try picking up the books and then decide to stick to the show instead lol.

[The Bard of Banefort]

RE: the do-bastards-threaten-succession argument, it occurred to me that Mary Queen of Scots may have run into this issue, since she was crowned as a newborn and her father was a horndog. Judging by a cursory look at Wikipedia, it looks like one of her bastard brothers loyally supported her and the other tried to overthrow her. Is there anyone who knows more about Scottish history that can elaborate on this?

(TBH I never really understood the fascination with Mary Stuart, aside from the unique circumstances of her queenship, since she didn’t rule on her own for very long. If anything, it sounds like her mother was the real BAMF).

[Ran]

59 minutes ago, The Bard of Banefort said:

RE: the do-bastards-threaten-succession argument, it occurred to me that Mary Queen of Scots may have run into this issue, since she was crowned as a newborn and her father was a horndog. Judging by a cursory look at Wikipedia, it looks like one of her bastard brothers loyally supported her and the other tried to overthrow her. Is there anyone who knows more about Scottish history that can elaborate on this?

 

Can't say about that, but another example in history is Henry II of Castile, also known as Henry of Trastámara and Henry the Fraticidal, one of the many bastard children of Alfonso XI, who overthrew his legitimate (and slightly younger) half-brother Peter the Cruel with the help of the French (led by the famous Bertrand du Guesclin) as Peter was supported by the English and the Black Prince (the fight over Castile was basically a proxy for the Hundred Years War, and I expect George is aware of it through that end of things).

 

 

Edited December 26, 2022 by Ran

[The Bard of Banefort]

20 minutes ago, Ran said:

Can't say about that, but another example in history is Henry II of Castile, also known as Henry of Trastámara and Henry the Fraticidal, one of the many bastard children of Alfonso XI, who overthrew his legitimate (and slightly younger) half-brother Peter the Cruel with the help of the French (led by the famous Bertrand du Guesclin) as Peter was supported by the English and the Black Prince (the fight over Castile was basically a proxy for the Hundred Years War, and I expect George is aware of it through that end of things).

 

 

Was Peter actually cruel, and therefore provided more justification to overthrow him? If so, then I’d put that in a different category than Daeron II.

[Ran]

15 minutes ago, The Bard of Banefort said:

Was Peter actually cruel, and therefore provided more justification to overthrow him? If so, then I’d put that in a different category than Daeron II.

Opinions differ as to whether he was as tyrannical as the victors wrote of him posthumously, as painting him as a monster helped to support Henry's usurpation. He  certainly had some people killed who had opposed him or allied themselves with those trying to bring him down, but that is kind of par for the course.

In that sense, there's similarity in that various efforts to delegitimize Daeron (he's not Aegon's son!) or justify rebellion (he's too cozy with Dorne!) against him, and who knows what the histories would say if he had lost.