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[Spoilers] Episode 110 Discussion


Ran
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We don't get any official take on Rhaenyra's queenship in the books.

Arya Oakheart in AFfC:

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The Seven Kingdoms have never had a ruling queen.

And Princess Arianne doesn't deny it, she just talks of the Kingmaker having helped Aegon usurp her place.

This canard that Stannis is the only person who views Rhaenyra as not a rightful queen is blatantly wrong. It is the widely-held view in Westeros that Rhaenyra is not  considered to have been a ruling queen. 

George's list of monarchs has not changed. It's enshrined in the table of contents of both TWoIaF and F&B. However silly you may think it, that's how Westeros would largely see it.

Edited by Ran
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Somewhat comparable to Athaliah, who ruled Judah for 7 years after death of her son King Ahaziah & was otherthrown by the High Priest Jehoiada & his wife the daughter of Athaliah, who placed Athaliah's surviving grandson of 7 or 8 on the throne. Obviously differences, but ultimately her reign wasn't recognized as legitimate by the biblical authors even though she literally ruled & had power for 7 years.

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On 11/8/2022 at 12:27 AM, EggBlue said:

as long as we are on dragon subject, has there been a more pointless scene in the series that Daemon singing for Vermitor ?! 

In addition to what Ran said, it also is clear by Daemond being tolerated, Vermithor hadn’t gone feral, and can be bonded to a new rider, adding another dragon firmly of the Blacks.

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21 hours ago, Ran said:

Arya Oakheart in AFfC:

And Princess Arianne doesn't deny it, she just talks of the Kingmaker having helped Aegon usurp her place.

This canard that Stannis is the only person who views Rhaenyra as not a rightful queen is blatantly wrong. It is the widely-held view in Westeros that Rhaenyra is not  considered to have been a ruling queen. 

George's list of monarchs has not changed. It's enshrined in the table of contents of both TWoIaF and F&B. However silly you may think it, that's how Westeros would largely see it.

I do wonder at what point GRRM had the Dance fully mapped out, though.

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I have to agree with others that it's hard to reconcile Rhaenyra not being recognized as a ruling queen with the Dance's aftermath.  I think the best argument for this disconnect is either/both the independence of the Citadel and their inherent bias towards the Hightowers.  The latter is simple enough, but the former is hard to swallow considering the generally established obsequiousness of maester historians.

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1 hour ago, Ran said:

By TWoIaF, basically, where the list of rulers does not include Rhaenyra 

As far as I can tell, the list of rulers hasn't changed since the 90's, only their relation to each other was changed. Aegon and Rhaenyra being full siblings and closer in age back then, etc. 

Didn't GRRM say that you and Linda influenced him to make those changes?

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29 minutes ago, Takiedevushkikakzvezdy said:

Didn't GRRM say that you and Linda influenced him to make those changes?

The change we were instrumental in was changing Viserys II from Daeron's youngest brother to his uncle, when we and others pointed out that "The Hedge Knight" caused a serious issue (i.e. we knew that Daeron died at 18 in 161 AC, his "youngest brother" could not be older than 16 that year, then if you work forward and assume Aegon IV was born in 161, Daeron the Good in 177, and Baelor Breakspear in 193, he couldn't be older than 16 in 209 when "The Hedge Knight" takes place... but of course, he's 39 years old).

As far as Aegon and Rhaenyra, George kind of accidentally changed Rhaenyra's age when he was describing the character to Amok for her portrait. We pointed it out to him, and he admitted he forgot that the appendix stated they were one year apart -- he only remembered that he had decided she was older. But, that said, he felt a bigger age difference made more sense when he started to think about the Dance more. That was, I believe, in 2006.

@DMC

Big difference between Rhaenyra and Aegon is that Aegon II was recognized by the Faith -- Septon Eustace acted as proxy for the High Septon -- while Rhaenyra's crowning in Dragonstone goes without any reference to the Faith, and her enthronement in King's Landing apparently has Eustace as a witness but not a participant.

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13 minutes ago, Ran said:

Big difference between Rhaenyra and Aegon is that Aegon II was recognized by the Faith

Meh, there was also High Lickspittle long preceding all this.  Martin only seems to grant the faith influence when it's convenient - which frankly I don't mind at all and actually enjoy - but it strikes me as a weaker argument than the maesters.  I'd also say septons don't write histories, but I suppose at least a couple of them have.

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1 hour ago, DMC said:

Meh, there was also High Lickspittle long preceding all this.

Right, a High Septon who anointed Maegor... and Maegor I is listed as king, and Aegon the Uncrowned is not.

1 hour ago, DMC said:

  Martin only seems to grant the faith influence when it's convenient - which frankly I don't mind at all and actually enjoy - but it strikes me as a weaker argument than the maesters.  I'd also say septons don't write histories, but I suppose at least a couple of them have.

I think the maesters write the histories, but the idea that because Rhaenyra sat the throne a few months she was now actually queen is just something that doesn't make sense to me. Aegon the Conqueror didn't claim his reign started when he landed on the shores of Westeros, but from when the High Septon anointed him in Oldtown. That was the start of 1 AC, and the maesters certainly followed that.

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Guys, in context you have to measure the reason why the hell anyone should have a motive to celebrate Aegon II after his defeat and murder versus the simple fact that Rhaenyra was the martyred mother and grandmother of kings Aegon III, Daeron I, Baelor the Blessed, Viserys II, and Aegon IV?

That is the thing that kind of flies in one's face in the aftermath of the Dance. You can see that the consensus would be that Rhaenyra, personally, lost against Aegon II ... but it would also be consensus that Aegon II lost against Rhaenyra's faction, the Black supporters of King Aegon III.

Nobody is arguing that Rhaenyra should be counted as 'the rightful' or 'only' monarch of the Dance ... but it just makes no sense that her short reign and rule in 130 AC should be treated as never happening. Proper historians would write the history of the Dance as Aegon II winning against Rhaenyra but losing against Aegon III, and they would duly recount Aegon II's deposition by Rhaenyra, her short reign, and Aegon II's subsequent restoration ... just as Gyldayn does.

Aegon III's rise has little and less to do with Aegon II being strong-armed into accepting the boy as his presumptive heir ... and everything with the fact that Aegon II lost the last battle of the war and was murdered by his own court because he refused to yield to the victorious Black armies.

Aegon III's proclamation and eventual coronation has nothing to do with the Greens accepting their defeat - that was icing on the cake. The regency government of King Aegon III would have been run by Lord Cregan Stark, a fervent Black, if he had not given up the Handship.

It is a sign of goodwill that some Greens are included in the regency government after it has been clear that Lord Cregan is not going to run the government as king in all but name. It meant the war was well and truly over ... but Aegon III would have been king in any case, whether the Dance was over or not.

The idea that the regency government was particularly biased towards the Green view is also not really the case. They did imprison the dowager queen Alicent, after all, who, to our knowledge, never actually committed any crimes whatsoever. If Aegon II was the rightful king, the coup and all other actions were justified and lawful. Certainly, her attitude towards King Aegon III couldn't be allowed, but it is odd that she wasn't sent back to Oldtown into honorable retirement.

Any later writings of the Dance would take into account that Aegon III effectively 'won' the war - his mother's line triumphed, so Rhaenyra would be portrayed more as a tragic hero and Aegon II as an evil villain. Even more so since the victorious king greatly suffered from the actions of his uncle, losing his elder half-brothers, his father, watching his mother being devoured in front of his own eyes, being threatened by mutilation and castration and death, etc.

The idea that history would remember Aegon II as the rightful king and not some Maegor-like monster just doesn't make much sense.

And if you do a close reading of the Dance as presented in FaB, it is also clear that on a symbolic level George actually presents both Aegon II and Rhaenyra as lacking all tokens/symbols of royal legitimacy:

- Aegon II is anointed by Septon Eustace but not the High Septon. That's about worth as much as King Aenys being endorsed by Septon Murmison. It seems clear that the High Septon being too old and frail to make the journey to KL to anoint and bless Aegon II was an excuse because he was not supporting the coup. The very same High Septon had been earlier inquiring about all the arrests being made in KL, indicating he had many Black friends. Both the fact that Aegon I, Aenys, Maegor, Jaehaerys I, and, presumably, Viserys I were all anointed by the High Septon as well as Cersei's issues with the High Septon's refusal in AFfC to anoint and bless King Tommen shows that the crucial aspect there is the High Septon's endorsement of a king, not the endorsement of some septon in the Iron Throne's employ.

- Rhaenyra's own coronation on Dragonstone doesn't mention a septon anointing her ... but since we have to assume that Dragonstone had a castle septon one would also imagine that said castle septon did anoint Rhaenyra. Even if that didn't happen, Rhaenyra may have forced Eustace to anoint her later after she ascended the Iron Throne. He was right there, after all. In the show, Rhaenyra and Daemon's focus on Valyrian traditions helps explain why her spur of the moment coronation lacks a septon ... but Rhaenys and Otto both told her about Aegon's grand show, so we can expect her to stage her own coronation show after she takes KL.

That would mean that both pretenders did have the edorsement of some septon (or the same septon) but never the High Septon.

- Then there is the heraldry. Neither pretender actually uses the proper banner of House Targaryen, something one could interpret as there being no proper Targaryen king. Remember the symbolism at the very end of the Dance narrative. The Lads still fight and win under Rhaenyra's banner, but the Vale armada is welcomed by a Velaryon fleet depicting the proper Targaryen banner, the red dragon on a black field, the banner of King Aegon III, the true king.

- Finally there is the way Aegon II's 'restoration' is portrayed. The king has apparently been emasculated by Lady Baela - his injuries may have left him impotent or possibly even (partially) castrated. Dynastically, that would make him a dead end, and his only remaining child, Jaehaera, is a defective heir, mentally challenged and female. Most importantly, though, Aegon II is never properly restored to the Iron Throne. After his return to KL he never sits the throne again physically, which means that his 'reign' after his restoration is more regency government, an interregnum between the effective abdication of the last proper monarch, Rhaenyra, the madness of the Moon of the Three Kings, and the eventual rise of Aegon III. The restored Aegon II is presented more like Queen Alyssa or Queen Alysanne ruling for King Jaehaerys I (in his absence) from a chair beneath the Iron Throne than the proper rule of a king on the Iron Throne. It is a kind of restoration, but not a full restoration, and thus lacking in legitimacy on a symbolic level.

With all that in mind I think one can conclude that the message George is wanting to send with the Dance narrative is that it is simply not clear who the rightful monarch is during the Dance.

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39 minutes ago, Ran said:

Right, a High Septon who anointed Maegor... and Maegor I is listed as king, and Aegon the Uncrowned is not.

I think the maesters write the histories, but the idea that because Rhaenyra sat the throne a few months she was now actually queen is just something that doesn't make sense to me. Aegon the Conqueror didn't claim his reign started when he landed on the shores of Westeros, but from when the High Septon anointed him in Oldtown. That was the start of 1 AC, and the maesters certainly followed that.

Let's turn it around: Why would anyone view Aegon II as the rightful king when he sat the throne effectively only a few months (then he went to bed permanently, hid under a rock on Dragonstone, before being carried around the Red Keep in a litter)?

Aegon II never actually ruled the Seven Kingdoms since half the Realm or more never acknowledged him as their king. The same is true for Rhaenyra, of course, which only gives fodder to the idea that neither of them was a proper monarch.

George could have made the Greens the clear winners, having Aegon II die a natural or accidental death after all the Blacks in the Realm had yielded, making Aegon III only king because he was the last (male) Targaryen left ... but he didn't do that.

3 hours ago, DMC said:

I have to agree with others that it's hard to reconcile Rhaenyra not being recognized as a ruling queen with the Dance's aftermath.  I think the best argument for this disconnect is either/both the independence of the Citadel and their inherent bias towards the Hightowers.  The latter is simple enough, but the former is hard to swallow considering the generally established obsequiousness of maester historians.

I don't see any inherent Hightower bias in the writings of the Citadel we know. Gyldayn's history is very measured and non-partisan. He never says that Rhaenyra 'wasn't a queen', nor does he side with Ceryse Hightower or the Hightowers/Faith in the Targaryen-Faith conflict.

And as I keep saying - since Rhaenyra's line triumphed there is just no chance that any history written or completed after Aegon II's death and the rise of Rhaenyra's son(s) to the throne would actually not want to suck up to Rhaenyra and her descendants.

Just think of Yandel's silly praise for King Robert's 'Glorious Reign'. Contemporary writers - meaning Gyldayn's sources - wouldn't want to anger Rhaenyra's descendants by taking the side of the Greens. The only exception there would be Mushroom since he seems to have dicated his works late in life after he had already moved to Essos.

Orwyle's confessions were written while King Aegon III's government was trying him, Munkun wrote his history while serving as Grand Maester to Rhaenyra's sons and grandsons, and Eustace's also wrote during the reign of Aegon III. And his history was a history of both the reign of Viserys I and the Dance thereafter ... meaning his work would have dealt a lot with the fact that Rhaenyra had been the chosen heir of her royal father.

I mean, you can ask yourself how likely it is that Munkun would have sat at the council table of Aegon III or his sons - with Prince Viserys being there all the time as well - with everybody knowing about his great work, with Aegon III and Viserys II possibly being among the eye-witnesses Munkun interviewed ... and then Munkun actually blackening Rhaenyra's reputation or taking a staunch Green view in the question whether she was a queen or not.

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3 hours ago, Ran said:

Aegon the Conqueror didn't claim his reign started when he landed on the shores of Westeros, but from when the High Septon anointed him in Oldtown. That was the start of 1 AC, and the maesters certainly followed that.

Maegor was only reconciled with the High Septon a year after his coronation and his reign is counted as having lasted  6 years, not 5. The mark of the beginning of his reign is his crowning by Visenya.

If the Blacks had lost the war or, at the very least, both parties were so exhausted militarily, then the arrangement would be perfectly sound.

But as it stands, the Lads win the war while flying Rhaenyra's banner, then Cregan and Jeyne Arryn appear... the Greens are all on the last rope, with the only serious threat left leaving Aegon II to his fate and being blackmailed by the Tyrells...

And somehow, Corlys and Larys convince these Great Lords that have just won the war that they are all traitors, that the banners they are flying are that of a pretender and a usurper, that the King they were just marching to kill was actually the righful one all along, that they are putting on the throne Aegon's heir not Rhaenyras, nevermind they were fighting in her name a minute ago,  and that they should all just accept the pardons and go home... That's not perfectly sound.:o

All to appease... people who pose no threat anymore and who will actually just recover the power lost with this appeasement... And they say Alyn Velaryon is terrible bargaining.

 

PS: And whereas Aegon will never do anything to restore his mother's image... He will harbor an incredible grudge towards the Baratheons and make them suffer for their allegiances in the war even tho he's focused on peace and reconciliation... I don't know...

 

Edited by frenin
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11 minutes ago, frenin said:

Maegor was only reconciled with the High Septon a year after his coronation and his reign is counted as having lasted  6 years, not 5. The mark of the beginning of his reign is his crowning by Visenya.

Sure. My point is that the Targaryens said it mattered that the High Septon recognized them. Maegor's date of his reign was retroactively okayed by the High Lickspittle who anointed him.

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If the Blacks had lost the war or, at the very least, both parties were so exhausted militarily, then the arrangement would be perfectly sound.

Rhaenyra lost the war. She died before Aegon. Aegon died not because of the Blacks but because he was betrayed. It was Corlys, chief remaining leader of the Blacks, who put forward an attempt to bury the hatchet once and for all with his proposal. Everyone was tired. No one actually saw themselves as a "traitor" based on the decision to agree to this. Aegon III certainly did not care about what the history books said, melancholy king that he was -- he just wanted to be left alone and keep the realm happy with dancing bears and bread, etc.

I don't know, it all makes sense to me anyways. I don't put any weight on Rhaenyra sitting the throne when her brother is still alive and the anointed king. It'd have been a different story if he had pre-deceased her.

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3 minutes ago, Ran said:

I don't know, it all makes sense to me anyways.

The reason it doesn't fit for me, which LV touched on in his most recent post, is because of the in-universe depiction of the Dance in F&B among the three maesters.  Particularly the Green Council, where Orwyle is apparently trying to excuse himself by claiming he initially dissented instead of Beesbury.  When considering Munkun and Gyldayn's "depictions," the subtext of the scene is plainly that of a usurpation to all three.

Anyway, I referenced Lickspittle to emphasize the faith has little influence and is a comparatively weak institution.  If they objected to acknowledging Rhaenyra as ruler because she wasn't anointed by the High Septon, no one would care.

2 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

I don't see any inherent Hightower bias in the writings of the Citadel we know.

I agree.  I was just proposing reasonings to reconcile the disconnect.

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6 minutes ago, Ran said:

I don't know, it all makes sense to me anyways. I don't put any weight on Rhaenyra sitting the throne when her brother is still alive and the anointed king. It'd have been a different story if he had pre-deceased her.

That is an odd take on things since Aegon II was clearly formally deposed and subsequently reinstated/restored. He was crowned, he reigned, he was deposed, and he was restored.

The proper comparison here would be the reigns of Henry VI and Edward IV, respectively, during the Wars of the Roses. Both kings were deposed and replaced by the other pretender, only to be restored to the throne some time later.

Proper histories do reflect that, as to proper lists of English kings. The lists of the Targaryen monarchs are faulty if they claim Aegon II reigned and ruled from 129-131 AC. That is simply incorrect.

Erasing Rhaenyra's queenship only makes sense if her side lost the war entirely, with her bloodline dying out, too. Rhaenyra can be queen and folks could still agree that naming female heirs was a bad idea and shouldn't be done in the future if there are other options available.

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1 hour ago, Ran said:

Sure. My point is that the Targaryens said it mattered that the High Septon recognized them. Maegor's date of his reign was retroactively okayed by the High Lickspittle who anointed him.

But the High Septon and the Faith pulled a Tyrell and remained silent on the matter, even when they were sitting in the base of power of the Green most fervent partisan and his cousin's dragon. I don't think that one should believe that the fact that the septon whatever married Aegon and Rhaena or Jaeharys and Alyssane as a sign that the Faith approved those unions.

 

1 hour ago, Ran said:

Rhaenyra lost the war.

Sure and so did Aegon, Rhaenyra's partisans won the war.

 

1 hour ago, Ran said:

Aegon died not because of the Blacks but because he was betrayed

Seems like semantics to me.

He was betrayed because the Blacks were going to take the city by storm and kill them and his council did not want to go down with him. The people who betrayed him were quite literally urging him to surrendering to the Blacks and beg for mercy.

After the Muddy Mess Aegon's days were numbered, two armies were coming to kill him and no one was coming to save his ass.  

 

 

1 hour ago, Ran said:

who put forward an attempt to bury the hatchet once and for all with his proposal.

Sure but his proposal doesn't make much sense.

Or better said, it makes no sense why would the Blacks ever accept it. It's not like the Greens were going to contest them anytime soon, they had all accepted a pardon that didn't include acknowledging Aegon as the truly righful monarch and delegitimizing Rhaenyra.

The only thing the Greens accept when pardoned is acknowledge Aegon the younger as ruler, lay down the swords and that Aegon will marry his cousin...

Aegon II being the righful king, Rhaenyra being randomly delegitimized even after her partisans won, they sharing actual power in the new regime... are all gifts from the heavens that Corlys just decided to grant.

 

 

1 hour ago, Ran said:

Aegon III certainly did not care about what the history books said, melancholy king that he was -- he just wanted to be left alone and keep the realm happy with dancing bears and bread, etc.

And yet he went after the Baratheons and brought them "nothing but ill" for them going against his mother.

 

 

1 hour ago, Ran said:

No one actually saw themselves as a "traitor" based on the decision to agree to this.

If there is a single monarch officially acknowledged, the Throne itself is categorically naming one of the parties as traitors.

Funnily enough... The party the won the war.

 

All in all, the Greens should have won or at least the Blacks should have far less leverage than they had. All the Greens being decisively defeated bar Lyonel Hightower, who conveniently enough could neither start the war anew nor he had much interest to help Aegon anyway, makes this the trade of the century.

Edited by frenin
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In addition, one has to keep in mind that the 'Green loyalists' basically abandoned Aegon II prior to his death. They all refused to raise new armies to defend his rule and his person, before and after the Muddy Mess. Aegon II did not only lose the war, he also lost the support of his followers before he lost his life

After his murder Lyonel Hightower was briefly tempted to continue the war and avenge the king, but this seems to have been more a reaction to the craven betrayal that cost Aegon II his life ... and not so much a fervent belief in 'the Green cause'.

If had believed in that, neither Lady Sam nor some Tyrell threat could have stopped him.

Basically, George's narrative of the Dance as given helps us to accept that Rhaenyra's descendants did not erase the kingship of Aegon II, did allow the usurper to get away with his usurpation and allow him a place among the legitimate monarchs, allowed him to truly be King Aegon, the Second of That Name.

But it does nothing explaining why Rhaenyra shouldn't be counted as a monarch when she actually did rule ... and her descendants shaped the history of Westeros thereafter.

The Stephen-Matilda comparison doesn't work - Matilda was never crowned queen and Stephen was never deposed. And historically, Matilda also had a better title/honorific to go by than queen - she was an Empress Dowager of the Holy Roman Empire, after all.

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Denying Rhaenyra’s queenship seems to me like claiming that Henry VII’s reign started in 1483 (something that Tudor propagandists tried to argue).   No serious historian ought to accept it.

A pretender is Lady Jane Grey, or Charles Stuart, or Edgar Atheling.  Not a crown Prince/Princess who takes the capital, has a coronation, and whose bloodline prevails.

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9 minutes ago, SeanF said:

Denying Rhaenyra’s queenship seems to me like claiming that Henry VII’s reign started in 1483 (something that Tudor propagandists tried to argue).   No serious historian ought to accept it.

A pretender is Lady Jane Grey, or Charles Stuart, or Edgar Atheling.  Not a crown Prince/Princess who takes the capital, has a coronation, and whose bloodline prevails.

Yeah, the 'narrative' from the appendix of AGoT implies that Rhaenyra was more like Matilda, Aegon the Uncrowned, or Daemon Blackfyre ... a pretender who was never properly crowned and never actually reigned or ruled.

Not the previous king's chosen heir nor somebody who actually deposed her rival and sat the Iron Throne for quite some time.

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