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A Dornish Letter Theory


chrisdaw

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Aegon's fixation on Dorne was born of his dream/prophecy the Song of Ice and Fire and key to that is his belief that the realm must be united to fight the war for the dawn. I propose Rhaenys knew this information, survived her fall in a condition well enough to communicate and was (eventually) spoken to by someone important in Dorne, and the conversation went something like this.

Dorne - "We will trade you to your brother to end the war."

Rhaenys - "He won't do that because he believes the existence of Westeros requires he defeats you and unites the realm."

Dorne - "Please explain."

And so she explained.

What the letter contained was a promise from Dorne to Aegon to join their forces to his and fight for him (or whichever Targ king) come TWFTD. Aegon thinks that's not how I saw it happening in prophecy(s) dreams/visions whatever. He goes to Dragonstone where I suggest his magicness is stronger and/or he can do some magic shit without anyone knowing, meditates on the question, maybe consults the fires or answers come to him in dreams, and he concludes ok this is a workable solution, for now, it is after all not like he's looking at winning the war anyway.

Obviously there has to be some accounting for Rhaenys. I don't have any good strong theory, but a fair few resolutions could work, like she eventually succumbed to her wounds and we burnt her body as per her wishes.

What this theory would do is make it plausible that Doran knows the Song of Ice and Fire, or at least of it, which may be how the prophesy is going to resurface before whispering its way to Dany.

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It does not explain why Aegon was so upset over the letter that he caused his fingers to bleed.

I'm not saying that Dorne didn't know about the prophecy or dragon dream, etc... but the letter itself did not contain a reference to it imo. Nor do I believe Aegon flew to Dragonstone to magic stuff.

I think the letter informed Aegon to meet with Prince Martell himself at Dragonstone, and a veiled threat on what a beautiful baby boy he had "pulled my beard while he was in my lap" sort of thing, and, "come and meet me. I brought your beloved home."

His daughter and the dragon skull drew all eyes and attention the moment word got out she was journeying to KL. More importantly, it drew Visenya to KL on Vhagar. All eyes were on KL, both dragonriders were in KL, both dragons were in KL. It gave the Dornish the opportunity to get to Dragonstone unnoticed and show they could strike at his sons at the tiniest of mistakes. That they couldn't and fly to Dorne to burn castles on the back of their dragons AND keep both boys safe.

Aegon was upset imo not over Rhaenys, but that they made a mistake and that Dorne threatened to assassinate his sons. And he instantly jumped on Balerion's back to Dragonstone and meet with Prince Martell himself. Prince Martel gave Aegon the remains of Rhaenys, which were burned that very night on Dragonstone, and he flew back to KL the next day to publically accept the peace offer.

After this, Visenya and Aegon lived separated until Aegon's death, and neither left the side of the sons. Aenys with Aegon, and Maegor with Visenya.

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1 hour ago, LindsayLohan said:

It’s time to call it quits, until another book comes out. Now we’re just making things up out of boredom.

I know others disagree, but I really can't see anything in the main series, or in F&B either, which would indicate Aegon knew of this prophecy. Yes, there are some unsolved mysteries, but I don't think the prophecy is one of the answers, because to my mind Aegon and some other Targaryens knowing about the Others conflicts with what we actually read about them doing, which is killing Dornish peasants, huge dynastic struggles, and most importantly, the Watch loses >90% of its men under the Targaryens who are supposedly concerned about the Others. If it is added in the next book I will feel like it was a retroactive change and I don't think it would be great writing.

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1 hour ago, Craving Peaches said:

I know others disagree, but I really can't see anything in the main series, or in F&B either, which would indicate Aegon knew of this prophecy. Yes, there are some unsolved mysteries, but I don't think the prophecy is one of the answers, because to my mind Aegon and some other Targaryens knowing about the Others conflicts with what we actually read about them doing, which is killing Dornish peasants, huge dynastic struggles, and most importantly, the Watch loses >90% of its men under the Targaryens who are supposedly concerned about the Others. If it is added in the next book I will feel like it was a retroactive change and I don't think it would be great writing.

To be fair wouldn’t the prophecy be lost, after The Dance. All those who knew of it, don’t make it out of that war alive.

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57 minutes ago, sifth said:

To be fair wouldn’t the prophecy be lost, after The Dance. All those who knew of it, don’t make it out of that war alive.

Yes, but that doesn't explain the actions taken before that by Aegon etc. which I don't think line up with them knowing about a prophecy. For example, Queen Alysanne, 3rd generation Targaryen, was seemingly the first Targaryen to even visit the Wall, was surprised that her Dragon could not fly over it. If she wasn't the first then either Aegon or someone else never tried to fly over the Wall or they did and didn't communicate their findings to anyone.

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1 minute ago, Craving Peaches said:

Yes, but that doesn't explain the actions taken before that by Aegon etc. which I don't think line up with them knowing about a prophecy. For example, Queen Alysanne, 3rd generation Targaryen, was seemingly the first Targaryen to even visit the Wall, was surprised that her Dragon could not fly over it. If she wasn't the first then either Aegon or someone else never tried to fly over the Wall or they did and didn't communicate their findings to anyone.

They never thought to test it. It was a wall. Dragons can fly across anything. Never imagined that it contained magic that would prevent dragons from flying across and dragons don't like cold anyway.

Alysanne is indeed the first to try, and is said to have been disturbed her Silverwing wouldn't fly across. At least this suggests, she expected to be able to fly across and that her realization that she couldn't possibly didn't match with whatever Visenya may have told her about any of Aegon's dream.

We do see an effort by Aegon, Visenya and Maegor to try to make some combo of the three main dragonriders riding a black-red dragon, a green one and a silver one initially.

  • Aegon, Visenya and Rhaenys
  • Aegon, Visenya and Aenys
  • Maegor, Visenya and either Jaehaerys or Alysanne as her wards with small bronze and silver dragon

However, these three color themes are slowly being abandoned after Aerea's death, which suggests that if Jaehaerys or Alysanne had info, it was only verbal - no dreams - which would have prompted them to have doubts on whatever they know of the dream. It watered down eventually to "the dragon must have three heads". 

The two silver initial dragons Meraxes and Quicksilver would also point to a type of confusion about the third "ride". There's no silver dragon at the moment. Viserion is cream and bronze, but Dany's horse is called Silver. Dany's own dragon dreams so far have been a confusing jumble. Balerion died and Jaehaerys saw no ice demons ever in his long life, and likely relegated whatever Visenya had once claimed about Aegon's dream to the dustshelves. Nobody cares about it until the bookish Aerys I stumbled up something and both Blackfyres and Aerys' nephews all seem to have dragon dreams, with Daeron having prophetic ones and swearing one day the dragons would come again.

 

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3 hours ago, Craving Peaches said:

I know others disagree, but I really can't see anything in the main series, or in F&B either, which would indicate Aegon knew of this prophecy. Yes, there are some unsolved mysteries, but I don't think the prophecy is one of the answers, because to my mind Aegon and some other Targaryens knowing about the Others conflicts with what we actually read about them doing, which is killing Dornish peasants, huge dynastic struggles, and most importantly, the Watch loses >90% of its men under the Targaryens who are supposedly concerned about the Others. If it is added in the next book I will feel like it was a retroactive change and I don't think it would be great writing.

seems to me the prophecy is considered far too straightforward in the fandom. I don't think there's any indication that the Targs had connected their prophecy with the Northern threat from the beginning. if anything the only thing we get from the Targs is the three-headed dragon that eventually becomes their sigil. something that stayed the case up until Rhaegar , Aemon and their three heads of the dragon. it seems somewhere along the way Aemon had seen the three-headed dragon , prince that was promised and battle for the dawn connected, but he was a maester at the wall . 

in short (!), I agree that there is nothing to suggest Aegon knew about the Others specifically. but I don't think Martin will include it in its full popular form in the next book .the man loves his mysteries! 

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I think the hint to the mystery is GRRM naming the writer of the Dornish letter, Prince Nymor Martell.   Any comic book aficionado should recognize this as an homage to Prince Namor, aka the Sub-Mariner.  

In the comics, Prince Namor was born from when his Atlantean mother infiltrated the ship of a group of humans whom they accused of bombing their lands.  She fell in love with the ship captain, and Namor was born of their liaison.  He grew up to wage war on the humans on behalf of the Atlanteans.

My guess is GRRM is subverting the Namor origin story a bit.  Here, the Targaryens are fire bombing the Dornes.  Rhaenys falls from the sky but possibly survives and is held captive by the Dornes.  Perhaps she ends up falling in love with one of her captors and ends up having a child and succumbs in childbirth.  The Dornes secretly send her body back to Dragonstone along with a letter written by Rhaenys before her death, perhaps trying to elicit a promise from Aegon to end the war with Dorne, a culture she may have secretly grown to admire during her captivity.

Then years later upon Aegon’s death, her secret child takes up the Dornish fight against his mother’s family ( and against his secret half-brother Aenys) as the “Vulture King”.  

Check out the image in the Wiki for the Vulture King which apparently was taken from HBO’s Game of Thrones: legends and histories and note the coloring of the hair of the Vulture King.

 

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  • 2 months later...

The answer to this occurred to me, inevitably, while I was trying to get to sleep for some reason.

The letter contained Rhaenys's confession that Aenys wasn't Aegon's son.

I've never much liked the theory that Aegon's sons weren't his own, but I think this fits. It explains Aegon's anger at reading the letter. It explains why he took off to Dragonstone. And it explains why he made peace with Dorne afterwards, because if Dorne publicise that letter, it will destroy his legacy and lead to the breakup of the Seven Kingdoms.

The journey to Dragonstone may need a little unpacking, and it may depend on the location of the various Targs at the time (it makes most sense if Visenya and Maegor are on Dragonstone with Aenys, which is where they seem to be based). In any case, when he first flies off, Aegon probably wants to see "the evidence" for himself. He doesn't want to believe the letter, believing it a forgery or obtained under torture or the like, but he's still got legitimate doubts. Still, he thinks, I have a second son, so if I have to disinherit or dispose of Aenys, it's not the end of the world.

Then on Dragonstone he somehow learns the truth, possibly from Visenya personally: not only is Aenys not his, but Maegor isn't either, because his boys don't swim. Shattered by the revelation, Aegon returns to King's Landing and agrees yo the Dornish terms, because the risk of exposure is too great and he's too emotionally exhausted to fight on.

I think as an explanation it fits together with what we see better than any of the "official" speculation, and there's also an obvious reason why this isn't one of the theories suggested in FaB: since the Targ kings all descend from Aenys, while the contemporary rumours as to his legitimacy can be referenced only for the purpose of dismissing them, any serious speculation on the part of the chroniclers that Aenys was illegitimate would be treasonous.

This might also help to explain why Visenya stays on Dragonstone with Maegor thereafter rather than bringing him to King's Landing. Perhaps she also felt that, with Maegor around, Aegon can "take the hit" of continuing the Dornish war even if it costs him Aenys as heir, and disapproved of his peace deal. But more straightforwardly, it's likely that a revelation of this magnitude prompted a falling-out, and she's keeping out of Aegon's way.

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I like the theory I read somewhere that Rhaenys survived the fall and was being tended to at Hellholt (or held captive, or both) when Aegon and Visenya burned the castle, thus killing her among others. The letter then basically just described that, kind of like "look what this war has brought you, you have killed your beloved sister-wife yourself, it is really worth it?" It's a bit unclear how he could be sure what the letter said was true, but I can imagine that if he was convinced, it might have caused him to stop the war. 

Another point, which isn't restricted to this theory alone, is that while we're usually trying to decipher why he flew to Dragonstone after reading the letter, maybe he just flew away from KL and everyone there, simply to be alone for a while, and what would be a more natural destination for that than Dragonstone?

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9 hours ago, Alester Florent said:

Then on Dragonstone he somehow learns the truth, possibly from Visenya personally: not only is Aenys not his, but Maegor isn't either, because his boys don't swim. Shattered by the revelation, Aegon returns to King's Landing and agrees yo the Dornish terms, because the risk of exposure is too great and he's too emotionally exhausted to fight on.

My problem with this scenario is that it would harden Aegon’s heart towards Dorne even more, even if he couldn’t outwardly act on it.  And that’s not the impression I got from the Fire & Blood.

Why would Aegon have flown to Dorne with Aerys to celebrate the ten year anniversary of the peace accords if he was constantly under the shadow of a blackmail threat from Dorne?

The whole thing doesn’t really jive for me.  It seems that after his initial anger, Aegon’s heart actually softened towards Dorne.

My suspicion is that GRRM is again teasing the Lyanna-Rhaegar-Robert triangle only with the idea that Aegon isn’t of the same temperament as Robert.

Like Lyanna, Rhaenys is captured by an enemy.  It’s teased to us that Lyanna and Rhaegar fell in love.  It’s teased that Lyanna had a child with Rhaegar only to die in childbirth.

So what if the same thing happened to Rhaenys?  That she fell in love with her captor, and perhaps ultimately had a child with her captor, only to die in childbirth.

Before her death she writes a letter to Aegon, explaining the situation and asking for peace to be made between the two.  And perhaps like Lyanna asked to be buried at Winterfell, Rhaenys asks to be buried in Dragonstone, which is why Aegon returns there.

Robert would have sworn unending vengeance if he were the King, but Aegon is a different sort.  I think he probably did really love Rhaenys, and while the initial news would have been difficult for him, ultimately it would have been Rhaenys’s words that would have softened him towards Dorne, especially if he found out that she had been treated well.

And my guess is that Aegon also knew that Rhaenys had a son growing up in Dorne.  My guess is that it might be the Vulture King who only rose up in revolt after the death of Aegon, perhaps out of deference to his mother’s memory.

 

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