Saera's sons?

[Vaedys Targaryen]

I don't know if this is the right place to ask this, but I've been wondering this for a while:

So Saera ran away from the motherhouse she was kept in in 85AC and she had three sons, with different fathers, who came to the Great Council in 101.

I'm wondering, how old were Saera's sons in 101? Because Saera must've had her first son in 86AC, at the earliest, making him 15-years-old at the Great Council. So, was a little ten-year-old coming to the Great Council? 

I don't think GRRM thought it properly through to have all three of Saera's sons come to the Council, after they've been so young.

[Canon Claude]

28 minutes ago, Vaedys Targaryen said:

I don't know if this is the right place to ask this, but I've been wondering this for a while:

So Saera ran away from the motherhouse she was kept in in 85AC and she had three sons, with different fathers, who came to the Great Council in 101.

I'm wondering, how old were Saera's sons in 101? Because Saera must've had her first son in 86AC, at the earliest, making him 15-years-old at the Great Council. So, was a little ten-year-old coming to the Great Council? 

I don't think GRRM thought it properly through to have all three of Saera's sons come to the Council, after they've been so young.

 Presumably they didn’t show up alone. And before Aenys Blackfyre, nobody would have reason to doubt the crown’s word for safe passage to councils.

[Lord Varys]

This whole thing was a later addition to the 'Heirs of the Dragon' chapter to give the readers the information about the other claimants we so desperately craved. But as you say, it isn't particularly well thought through. George should have turned Saera into one of Jaehaerys' elder daughters and/or have her go into exile at an earlier date as he actually did in one of the earlier manuscript versions.

The son of the Volantene triarch we can expect to be brought to Westeros even as a preteen child, since he would likely be brought there by a pretty big retinue of slaves and servants and officials, even if his father didn't accompany him. He would be well cared for and protected and there would be adults speaking in his name, etc.

With the other two it is more difficult to imagine how this worked, even if they were the elder sons. Their fathers or other guardians must have been with them, and considering the journey they undertook they must have been pretty rich, too. If Saera herself was rather wealthy at that time she could also have financed the journey of one or multiple sons, I guess, but considering her own disinterest in Westeros I doubt that's very likely.

It is a pity we don't know what happened to those sons. One could easily imagine that some of them got stranded in Westeros - I for one like to imagine that Grand Maester Gerardys is one of those sons. Rather than taking passage back to Volantis in Oldtown he could have joined the Citadel to eventually became the maester of Dragonstone. And since Gerardys very much sounds like a Valyrian name that kind of thing would fit rather nicely.

We could also imagine the other sons as kind of wards of the Crown being brought up at the court of Viserys I. Or at least one of them - the Triarch's son may have been more interested to return to Volantis. My own idea how Daemon was able to serve as Master of Coin in Lyman Beesbury's stead is that the ailing Jaehaerys I sent Lyman as envoy to Volantis to beg Saera to return to Westeros so he could apologize to her. I imagine Jaehaerys confusing Alicent with Saera at the end implies he felt very guilty how things turned out between them and intended to make up for that.

Lyman would have failed in his mission, but he could have brought one or multiple children of Saera's to court instead. Alternatively, Jaehaerys I could have invited them to stay with him after the Great Council was over.

[Vaedys Targaryen]

On 6/16/2022 at 5:57 PM, Lord Varys said:

I for one like to imagine that Grand Maester Gerardys is one of those sons. Rather than taking passage back to Volantis in Oldtown he could have joined the Citadel to eventually became the maester of Dragonstone. And since Gerardys is very much sounds like a Valyrian name that kind of thing would fit rather nicely.

Oooh, I like that!

[Lord Lannister]

On 6/16/2022 at 11:08 AM, Vaedys Targaryen said:

I don't think GRRM thought it properly through to have all three of Saera's sons come to the Council, after they've been so young.

Give Jon and Dany's ages, George seems to like the idea of child prodigies rising to the top.