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[Spoilers] Episode 106 Discussion


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3 minutes ago, BlackLightning said:

Exactly @The Grey Wolf Strikes Back

Ordinarily, it wouldn't be a problem for Viserys to go back on his word on this issue. But Viserys goes back on his word all the time. Not only that:

  • He can't properly kill an animal that is being restrained by half a dozen men
  • he is in poor health almost all of the time
  • he is a definitively unhappy people-pleaser
  • he can't adapt to rapidly changing circumstances
  • he schedules these big events only for him to lose control of them
  • he can't effectively deal with -- much less control -- his out-of-control brother...which is his more basic responsibility as the head of his House
  • he avoids conflict like it's the plague (which means that he allows conflict to unfold before him and does nothing about it)
  • he can't effectively address foreign policy issues that have real domestic consequences

To go back on his decision to name Rhaenyra as his heir (what with the great ceremony he had with hundreds of lords and knights in attendance) would topple him and the realm would soon descend into lawless chaos.

Think that's some extreme logic. Let's look at Tytos Lannister and his rule of the Westerlands and House Lannister. It's a miracle Tywin was able to fix that mess.

This is actually something I really like in the show because Otto clearly meant that Viserys should make Rhaenyra his heir until a son is born. But Viserys has no intention of ever choosing anyone else because of the guilt of killing his wife in his pursuit of a son.

And it just leaves Otto....flummoxed.

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17 minutes ago, BlackLightning said:

It does.

Matters of succession and matters of inheritance, at the end of the day, are one and the same.

Westeros (and much of the ancient, classical and medieval world) just has "winner take all" stance towards it.

No, it doesn’t. That is not how succession works in Westeros, we see innumerable examples of this. Jaehaerys would never have passed a law that put daughters ahead of their brothers.

17 minutes ago, BlackLightning said:

It is a crime--unless the King legitimizes them, at which point it would no longer be a crime. Which he basically has done already.

The king could legitimize them. But he has not. He is pretending the crime was not committed.

17 minutes ago, BlackLightning said:

But if it was really such an egregious crime, then Alicent wouldn't be the only one in the Red Keep pitching a fit about it. Literally...she is the only one in the Red Keep pitching a fit about it.

Her own allies don't even care.

Larys the Clubfoot Sociopath is indifferent...like most sociopaths are. He actually spouts a poignant bit of wisdom about how her complaints are not only a dangerous dead-end but that they are exposing her as a hypocrite. She can't even see her own children for what they are. How dare she rail against the likes of Viserys, Rhaenyra, Laenor, etc. when she does the same thing...and worse.

And Criston? He's spiteful and petty and probably very jealous, yes...but he doesn't care either. He hates Rhaenyra so much that it doesn't matter what she does. She could be Mother Teresa and he'd still hate her guts. In fact, he probably secretly wishes that they were his babies.

Lots of people in Westeros care about bastardy. It’s kind of a big theme in the ASOIAF books.

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2 minutes ago, Sand11751 said:

The show has done something I never expected; make the youthful Alicent Hightower sympathetic. I've been Team Black since reading F&B, so it was surprising. But the more I think about, and perhaps when I do the season re-watch, I can better understand the thing that puzzles the most: how has Alicent been harmed so far by Rhaenyra's lies? Alicent's got this self-righteous bent about her. After having done everything expected of her, I assume she's jealous because Rhaenyra flouts her kids and breaks the rules. She certainly hasn't been the Realm's Delight, but her behavior doesn't rise to the level that explains why Alicent refused to consider a reconciliation, ala Jace and Helaena's marriage. It actually makes the Dance even sadder and more destructive because up to this point, there seems to have been a way to avoid it.

It is pretty flabbergasting how utterly the show failed at properly building up the rivalry/hatred there. We get friendship, minor quibble over the marriage which is more with Viserys than Alicent, friendship, a betrayal which they should have been able to overcome ... and then jump right into deep hatred.

That is not what one would have expected from a show using its first season to build up the conflict.

We should have gotten at least (!) 1-2 episodes trying to make things work again, until they reached the situation we have after the big time jump. Kind of show the slow decline of the friendship and the slow gestation of a deep-seated hatred.

Regarding Olivia's acting you can also say how the domestic struggle really seems to wear her down. If you take a back seat this is just a stepmother scenario that didn't really work out, destroying the family. The fact that this is the royal family makes it very bad.

I'd also add that the show making Viserys suffering so strongly from his illness also helps to establish why he took so little interest in his younger children. Had he still been more active one could see him very much enjoy his growing family, spending much time with them, especially his sons.

4 minutes ago, Colonel Green said:

Yes, it is. Bastards are considered inherently sinful and lesser in the culture of Westeros, as are the women who bear them. Beyond that it does concern Alicent because it is her children who are being deprived of their birthright, as tradition and the letter of the law would have it.

The succession of Queen Rhaenyra Targaryen isn't Alicent Hightower's concern, though. If Rhaenyra wasn't Viserys' child Alicent would have reason to be concerned, but she is not charged with the protection of the royal bloodline. And the royal bloodline as such is more or less as intact as it may have been when Aenys succeeded the Conqueror.

And I'm still kind of at a loss there if and how bastardy of children born in matrimony can be proved if the father acknowledges them. In the end it doesn't boil down to the question whether Harwin and Rhaenyra had sex but whether Rhaenyra and Laenor didn't also have sex around that time. Looks don't really prove anything, as the king himself pointed out.

Narrative-wise, George really lost a great opportunity for another Trial of Seven here ... or at least a trial-by-combat. Alicent could have formally accused Harwin of adultery, causing him to fight trial by combat or a Trial of Seven against the queen's champions, Criston Cole foremost among them. Could have been some Pyrrhic victory for the Blacks, with Harwin beating Cole into submission, but dying a couple of weeks of a wound gone bad, or something along those lines.

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2 minutes ago, The Grey Wolf Strikes Back said:

To give one example Henry II of England once he no longer had any legitimate sons. Something similar would be the Pragmatic Sanction of Charles VI (HRE).

Pretty sure you mean Henry I here, which precipitated The Anarchy, which is of course what The Dance is loosely based on.  So, yeah, that was a given and was exactly my point.  While I'm not as familiar with Maria Theresa and the Austrian Succession war, the point still stands - neither of those monarchs changed their minds upon naming their daughters heir.

 

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12 minutes ago, BlackLightning said:

Matters of succession and matters of inheritance, at the end of the day, are one and the same.

Oh yes. This is true.

It is a crime--unless the King legitimizes them, at which point it would no longer be a crime. Which he basically has done already.

But if it was really such an egregious crime, then Alicent wouldn't be the only one in the Red Keep pitching a fit about it. Literally...she is the only one in the Red Keep pitching a fit about it.

And Criston? He's spiteful and petty and probably very jealous, yes...but he doesn't care either. He hates Rhaenyra so much that it doesn't matter what she does. She could be Mother Teresa and he'd still hate her guts. In fact, he probably secretly wishes that they were his babies.

The Widow's Law does not apply to matters of succession. Otherwise, we would see other examples of daughters from first marriages inheriting ahead of sons from second marriages, which we empathically don't.

Viserys I has not "basically done [that] already". In order to legitimize a bastard, it first needs to be acknowledged as such and to do so is, as stated in the text itself, tantamount to admitting to treason, one of the highest crimes in the realm, so Alicent is well within her fits throw a fit over it. (The only reason other people don't speak up is because Viserys can punish them for it to a much greater extent than he can Alicent, on account of her being his wife.)

I don't think Criston is jealous nor is he an incel considered he joined the Kingsguard willingly. What's obvious to me is that he's bitter over the fact Rhaenyra got him* to break his vows for what was, from her perspective, a one-night stand, which really tells you something about Rhaenyra's political acumen (or lack thereof), not to mention basic human empathy, when she thinks she can proposition her bodyguard, a knight sworn to celibacy, for sex and then genuinely believe things will go back to the way they were before with nary a hitch. It may be hard for us to understand in the modern day but back then oaths MATTERED. Honor MATTERED. Especially for someone who came from nothing like Criston.

Just to be clear, I'm not condoning the way Criston insults her or treats her sons in episode 6 but I can understand why he's come to hate her so much.

*When I say she "got" him to do it I mean that she was the one who initiated it and when he displayed hesitation didn't pull back. Seeing as she's also his social superior/employer's daughter and an adult both in-setting as well as out-of-setting whether Criston consented or not to me feels a little moot.

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6 minutes ago, DMC said:

Pretty sure you mean Henry I here, which precipitated The Anarchy, which is of course what The Dance is loosely based on.  So, yeah, that was a given and was exactly my point.  While I'm not as familiar with Maria Theresa and the Austrian Succession war, the point still stands - neither of those monarchs changed their minds upon naming their daughters heir.

 

Yes, I meant Henry I. Facepalm. Neither of those monarchs had living sons either so my point still stands.

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Just now, The Grey Wolf Strikes Back said:

Yes, I meant Henry I. Facepalm. Neither of those monarchs had living sons either so my point still stands.

I wasn't arguing with your point - albeit yes it frankly was an honest question because I'm hardly an expert on medieval European monarchies - I was saying it's irrelevant to my argument you were responding to.  Which was, if Viserys went back on his decision without any cause, he would look even weaker still to his vassals.

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1 hour ago, frenin said:

Or Daeron and Daemon Blackfyre?

 

Look how well that turned out.

  

55 minutes ago, DMC said:

The difference is the Great Council of 101 was called because Jaehaerys' named heir died.  Viserys had already named Rhaenyra heir, both in the show and the books, before Aegon was born.  If he goes back on that without any (at least public) cause, he looks weak.  Weaker still than he already does.

At the same time, he named Rhaenyra as heir before he had sons.

(Again, it's marrying Alicent and having kids with her that really screws things up).

  

23 minutes ago, C.T. Phipps said:

Except they're legally not bastards. It's a slanderous claim that only her political enemies use.

The monarch would have to declare them bastards.

Which Rhaenyra wouldn't do.

It's not a slanderous claim, it's the obvious truth. And that was the point I was making regarding Alicent: even if she accepted Rhaenyra as heir, having 3 children who only an idiot knows that are bastards as heirs would be infringing Aegon's rights to be her heir (at least at that point).

32 minutes ago, BlackLightning said:

 She could be Mother Teresa and he'd still hate her guts

 

Perhaps you should watch this (or find similar content)

  

1 hour ago, frenin said:

Sure but the actions of the Realm goes against the narratve both in and out of universe that the Realm cared enough about the bastardry of the children. Jace wouldn't get the support of two  kingdoms nor Luke would be given the hand of a Baratheon girl if they cared about it, either during the Dance r in the regency, this is never addressed.

 

Some of them might not know or care, but remember LF's propostal to Ned to keep Joffrey's real parentage in the back seat? The thing is that their status as bastards becomes a loaded gun that anyone can fire if they feel like it's in their best interests. It's a problem even if it's a lie, imagine in cases that are true.

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15 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

It is pretty flabbergasting how utterly the show failed at properly building up the rivalry/hatred there. We get friendship, minor quibble over the marriage which is more with Viserys than Alicent, friendship, a betrayal which they should have been able to overcome ... and then jump right into deep hatred.

And I'm still kind of at a loss there if and how bastardy of children born in matrimony can be proved if the father acknowledges them. In the end it doesn't boil down to the question whether Harwin and Rhaenyra had sex but whether Rhaenyra and Laenor didn't also have sex around that time. Looks don't really prove anything, as the king himself pointed out.

Narrative-wise, George really lost a great opportunity for another Trial of Seven here ... or at least a trial-by-combat. Alicent could have formally accused Harwin of adultery, causing him to fight trial by combat or a Trial of Seven against the queen's champions, Criston Cole foremost among them. Could have been some Pyrrhic victory for the Blacks, with Harwin beating Cole into submission, but dying a couple of weeks of a wound gone bad, or something along those lines.

Season 1 should have ended with Rhaenyra and Laenor's wedding, season 2 with Lucerys' death.

By your logic, Jon Arryn, Stannis, and Ned had no cause for investigating the paternity of Cersei's children.

A Trial by Seven would have been amazing!

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6 minutes ago, DMC said:

I wasn't arguing with your point - albeit yes it frankly was an honest question because I'm hardly an expert on medieval European monarchies - I was saying it's irrelevant to my argument you were responding to.  Which was, if Viserys went back on his decision without any cause, he would look even weaker still to his vassals.

I see. The thing is, the birth of a healthy son IS enough cause.

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Just now, Winterfell is Burning said:

At the same time, he named Rhaenyra as heir before he had sons.

(Again, it's marrying Alicent and having kids with her that really screws things up).

 

Right.  His failure - or weakness - here was not necessarily in remarrying and having sons.  I think if he wanted to do that, he should be able to.  But,  it certainly was in ignoring the animus between his wife and heir for years - especially once his son became old enough to be a realistic challenge to Rhaenyra instead of just a baby/infant alternative as "king."

1 minute ago, The Grey Wolf Strikes Back said:

I see. The thing is, the birth of a healthy son IS enough cause.

It's absolutely not.

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1 minute ago, The Grey Wolf Strikes Back said:

I see. The thing is, the birth of a healthy son IS enough cause.

I think there is a bigger problem here. After Viserys declared Rhaenyra heir, there was no need for him to remarry. All focus should have been on her securing her own offsprings. Instad, he married again, for no apparent reason.

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2 minutes ago, Takiedevushkikakzvezdy said:

I think there is a bigger problem here. After Viserys declared Rhaenyra heir, there was no need for him to remarry. All focus should have been on her securing her own offsprings. Instad, he married again, for no apparent reason.

I fully agree. He should have taken Alicent as a mistress and if she refused to be one some other noblewoman instead. Given the existence of Trystane Truefyre and the rumor that Viserys cheated on Aemma as well as his fun-loving personality its clear the man had no qualms about sleeping around or potentially siring bastards.

Nonetheless, the birth of a healthy male heir would be reason enough for Viserys to publicly go back on his decision considering Westeros is a male-dominated military aristocracy.

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4 minutes ago, The Grey Wolf Strikes Back said:

To use the example of Henry I, do you genuinely believe that if he had had a son by his second wife, that he would not have named said son heir despite having already made his lords swear fealty to Matilda as a contingency?

I think it would have shown weakness and indecisiveness to his lords and vassals, yes.  Also, it's important to separate historical "fact" from Martin's fiction.  Viserys didn't name Rhaenyra heir with any "contingency" or preconditions.  She was heir, and that was it.  Otto may have thought that, but Viserys never indicated as such.

Edited by DMC
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4 minutes ago, The Grey Wolf Strikes Back said:

By your logic, Jon Arryn, Stannis, and Ned had no cause for investigating the paternity of Cersei's children.

They can investigate and look into whether they dare or have a right to. But they cannot decide anything. That's up to the king. The parentage of Rhaenyra's sons is brought before Viserys multiple times. He ruled on this issue this episode, and he might do it again after the Aemond incident and yet again in the Vaemond incident.

That thing is settled.

Jon, Stannis, and Ned clearly have no right to decide that the children King Robert acknowledged as his own are not his. Only Robert could rule on such an issue - or perhaps now the Faith due to Cersei stupidly granting them the authority to do so.

In my scenario above a trial-by-combat or a Trial by Seven there would, of course, be contingent on King Viserys allowing it happen. If he decreed that an accusation had no merit at all, then no party involved would have a reason to defend their honor. Then we would perhaps get a private duel but not a trial-by-combat.

A Trial of Seven would have fit perfectly well in the early 110s, considering it is said in THK that the last one took place about 100 years ago.

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30 minutes ago, DMC said:

Pretty sure you mean Henry I here, which precipitated The Anarchy, which is of course what The Dance is loosely based on.  So, yeah, that was a given and was exactly my point.  While I'm not as familiar with Maria Theresa and the Austrian Succession war, the point still stands - neither of those monarchs changed their minds upon naming their daughters heir.

The Anarchy is easy to blame on Matilda's womandom but the issues were interesting in that it was rarely brought up as a reason to choose Stephen at the time over the fact that Stephen's claim was matrilineal as well. He got to pull it off by a judicious amount of promises (that he broke), bribes (that he didn't pay), the hatred of Matilda's HUSBAND (which really did have the reputation akin to Daemon), and the fact Stephen's brother proclaimed him King as a bishop while counting on the Pope saying it was the Church acting through him versus him acting on his own.

Which is actually fairly close to Otto's plan to crown Aegon II and hope everyone accepted it.

Even then, this never would have worked if not for the White Ship having wiped out most of England's upper-tier nobility.

Edited by C.T. Phipps
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