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Why Aegon IV's bastards didn't take Targaryen name?


Willam Stark

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3 hours ago, Willam Stark said:

As you know, Aegon IV has legitimized all his bastards on his deathbed to spite Daeron II.

That makes them Targaryen and not Rivers or other bastards names, so why they didn't take it or at least claim it?

because they are self made men/women and they don't need their father's name!!

seriously, what Corvo says + they were all playing nice for Daeron for about a decade. why would they anger him by taking the name Targaryen? they were completely dependent on Daeron's support at that point especially because the eldest was 14 .  

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3 hours ago, Willam Stark said:

As you know, Aegon IV has legitimized all his bastards on his deathbed to spite Daeron II.

That makes them Targaryen and not Rivers or other bastards names, so why they didn't take it or at least claim it?

A legitimized bastard has less social status than one who was born Targaryen.  It's one thing for Roose to change Ramsay from Snow to Bolton.  It will be quite a different matter to go from bastard Blackfyre to Targaryen.  Many in Westeros will be outraged. 

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2 hours ago, James Steller said:

Well, Daemon Blackfyre already had a name that was better than "Targaryen."

I also feel like Aegor should have followed suit and used "Bittersteel" as his surname.

I feel like Bittersteel was a nickname that at least started out derogatory. By the time he came to like it, if he ever did, he's probably stopped caring, especially since he's devoted his life to Daemon's kids rather than having any of his own. In any case he might have preferred a gold-themed name given the company he founded.

Bloodraven's retaining the name "Waters" (if he did) might have been a conscious choice to demonstrate that he was loyal to Daeron and not seeking to challenge his legitimacy.

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1 hour ago, H Wadsworth Longfellow said:

A legitimized bastard has less social status than one who was born Targaryen.  It's one thing for Roose to change Ramsay from Snow to Bolton.  It will be quite a different matter to go from bastard Blackfyre to Targaryen.  Many in Westeros will be outraged. 

I’m curious… do you even realise how absolutely ludicrous and hysterical this sounds? :rofl:

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7 minutes ago, Craving Peaches said:

Yeah, outraged that they have to put up with another Targaryen.

The great bastards were too good to take on the Targ name, they knew they’d be better off as Rivers etc. :D

 

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That's just silliness.

'House Blackfyre' is such a joke because it is actually just 'House Sword'. That's like Jon Snow calling himself 'Jon Longclaw' should he ever be legitimized.

Also, of course, after Daemon was legitimized and viewed himself as the eldest trueborn son of Aegon IV it makes actually no reason at all he would go with a name he took as a bastard. That would be like Jon trying to unseat one of his Stark kin by going with the Snow name - or Ramsay not bothering with the Bolton name after he was legitimized.

Bittersteel never had a house, so he had no reason to bother with a house name. That he would not call himself 'Targaryen' in light of his ambitions makes little sense, though.

And Bloodraven as the little Targaryen lackey that he was should have had no problems going with the Targaryen name ... nor should his family have problems with his legitimization since he was a pillar of the reigns of Daeron II and, especially, those of Aerys I and Maekar.

At the latest Brynden should have gone with the Targaryen name when he was named Hand. At that time he was clearly an accepted and leading member of the royal family. Folks even didn't seem to have had issues with him banging his dear sister Shiera, never mind that neither he nor she went with the Targaryen name.

The same with Shiera - who was still little more than a toddler when her father died. She likely didn't even understand what a bastard name was when she was legitimized. So why should she go with whatever bastard name she had if her father's decree made her a Targaryen?

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11 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

'House Blackfyre' is such a joke because it is actually just 'House Sword'. That's like Jon Snow calling himself 'Jon Longclaw' should he ever be legitimized.

Also, of course, after Daemon was legitimized and viewed himself as the eldest trueborn son of Aegon IV it makes actually no reason at all he would go with a name he took as a bastard. That would be like Jon trying to unseat one of his Stark kin by going with the Snow name - or Ramsay not bothering with the Bolton name after he was legitimized.

It'd be interesting to know if "Blackfyre" was the name Daemon adopted on being given the sword (before being legitimised) and then legally assumed the name Targaryen on being legitimised, but "Blackfyre" remaining as a sobriquet, i.e. "Daemon Targaryen, known as Blackfyre", in the same way as we see with his half-brothers and various other noteworthy figures. And we know that his ownership of Blackfyre, the king's sword, was played up for political purposes by his supporters, i.e. he's a "Blackfyre Targaryen, not one of those other Targaryens"

In this way there would be no "House Blackfyre", just a branch of House Targaryen... but Westerosi chroniclers have adopted the "Blackfyre" standard to discredit the dynasty in the eyes of future generations.

Or even just for convenience: we talk about the house of York and the house of Lancaster in the real-world Wars of the Roses, but they were all just Plantagenets, and none of them would likely have called themselves York or Lancaster or Plantagenet when putting forward their claim to the throne, presumably calling themselves "of England and France".

But then again the closest parallel IRL is probably to the Beauforts, a legitimised Lancastrian cadet line, and they do seem to have been known as "Beauforts" rather than Somersets or Plantagenets or Lancasters... at least until they were resurrected as the Somerset family, dukes of Beaufort, an exact reversal of their original name and title.

Anyway, I don't remember either the Golden Company chapters or the chat in D&E well enough to say whether the Blackfyres or their immediate supporters ever refer to "House Blackfyre" in this way, or whether it's something that's only said by their enemies. I do remember, in The Sworn Sword, the confusion arising because Dunk's master talked about how loyal he was to the king, leading Dunk (and Aegon!) initially to believe he was a Targaryen loyalist, only to realise later that this was a misunderstanding.

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We know that Daemon II Blackfyre was known by that name by his followers. And both in TSS and TMK no follower of Daemon Blackfyre or House Blackfyre refers to members of that house by any other name than 'Blackfyre'.

The fact that the names of houses and dynasties was pretty much irrelevant in the real middle ages was, in fact, not transferred to Martinworld. There noblemen and royals do obsess not only over their banners and personal sigils but also their family names.

Which is what makes it especially odd that Daemon Blackfyre and the other great bastards would reject/not use to the Targaryen name - when in fact we do know that legitimized bastards do acquire the right to use the name of their father - which is what Addam and Alyn Velaryon do and what Stannis offers Jon Snow in ASoS.

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