Four New Cast Members Announced

[Zamila]

7 hours ago, Ran said:

There's no reason that Daemon Targaryen had to be named Daemon Targaryen. He didn't even exist in George's first Targaryen family tree, the one that introduced Daemon Blackfyre. Neither did Jaehaera or Daenaera for that matter.

OTOH, that Aegon III had more than one wife was always there in that earliest tree from 1999, and that one was a Velaryon was always there as well.

The age difference between Daenaera and Aegon was dictated by the canonical details he had established regarding the ages of various Targaryen rulers, I think. He had the general shape of the Dance in his head for awhile, that it was ended with Rhaenyra and Aegon II both dead, and Rhaenyra's son Aegon marrying a Targaryen bride, who would be followed by a Velaryon bride. However, he was constrained by the age ranges he had established for characters, and so he concluded that the only way for Aegon to have a string of kids beginning in 143 is if his wife was not of childbearing age until that point. Which necessitated making her very young at her marriage, especially as he seems to have decided that the first wife died quite quickly and the second wife followed hard on that.

 

 

 

Hi Elio, but I still don't think that explains why Jaehaera's killed. Your statement of age of giving birth can be simply solved by aging down Jaehaera. Her age doesn't affect the dance or any plotline, having a younger Jaehaera would also fit-in the in-universe rule of a young mother. So I guess you just explained why Daenaera has to be so young and why Jaehaera has too die this early. The explanation is for the age details of GRRM's original plot of "two wives of Aegon III", not for the plot itself right? BC as you mentioned the "two wives" already existed way back in 1999, the specific age thing he might only start to think over before he published " princess and Queen"

[Ran]

In fact, back in 1999, Aegon III had three wives over the course of his life. That third wife has an interesting textual history of her own.

The specific ages he gives the wives relates to the ages he settled on for various characters by that point. He knew when Daeron I was born, that was part of what made a mess when he published "The Hedge Knight" and I (and some others) figured out that he had made an error because he had given us the age of Baelor Breakspear at his death and from that we could work out that something was not right (he was too old, basically). George's solution was to change Viserys II from a son of Aegon III to a brother. By 2006, he knew the ages of Rhaenyra and Aegon II at the time of the Dance, as well, which put limits on how old their respective children could be, especially as Aegon II was (by 2006) nearly 10 years older than Aegon (as opposed to a year older at the time that A Game of Thrones was published).

So while the characters might have been moved up or down a year or two in age, it was never in the cards for them to be much older than they were. There was no room for a 16-year-old Jaehaera, while I'm not sure what it would have helped to make Jaehaera even younger at her marriage, since that has no effect on the calculus George was making for Daenaera's age (namely that he supposed a very fertile woman who is married for a bunch of years before her fertility evidences itself just meant that she married well before she was fertile.)

 

 

Edited May 2, 2023 by Ran

[Zamila]

8 minutes ago, Ran said:

In fact, back in 1999, Aegon III had three wives over the course of his life. That third wife has an interesting textual history of her own.

The specific ages he gives the wives relates to the ages he settled on for various characters by that point. He knew when Daeron I was born, that was part of what made a mess when he published "The Hedge Knight" and I (and some others) figured out that he had made an error because he had given us the age of Baelor Breakspear at his death and from that we could work out that something was not right (he was too old, basically). George's solution was to change Viserys II from a son of Aegon III to a brother. By 2006, he knew the ages of Rhaenyra and Aegon II at the time of the Dance, as well, which put limits on how old their respective children could be, especially as Aegon II was (by 2006) nearly 10 years older than Aegon (as opposed to a year older at the time that A Game of Thrones was published).

So while the characters might have been moved up or down a year or two in age, it was never in the cards for them to be much older than they were. There was no room for a 16-year-old Jaehaera, while I'm not sure what it would have helped to make Jaehaera even younger at her marriage, since that has no effect on the calculus George was making for Daenaera's age (namely that he supposed a very fertile woman who is married for a bunch of years before her fertility evidences itself just meant that she married well before she was fertile.)

 

 

Oh that would be very interesting! Is there's any chance for you to share some info about this unpublished third wife? Especially when she had her own textual story

And well when I said Jaehaera can be younger, I mean she can simply be born a few yrs later, making her a twin for Maelor. And that change won't really affect the story and she can fit in the theory "why Aegon started to have children in 143ac" if she didn't die. 

[Ran]

14 minutes ago, Zamila said:

Oh that would be very interesting! Is there's any chance for you to share some info about this unpublished third wife? Especially when she had her own textual story

And well when I said Jaehaera can be younger, I mean she can simply be born a few yrs later, making her a twin for Maelor. And that change won't really affect the story and she can fit in the theory "why Aegon started to have children in 143ac" if she didn't die. 

Oh, well, as I said, George seems to have had the idea of a Targaryen bride quite early, and a Velaryon bride as well. He wasn't thinking of ages or some fans becoming obsessed by the fact that this character or that character was "too young".

Edited May 2, 2023 by Ran

[Zamila]

7 minutes ago, Ran said:

Oh, well, as I said, George seems to have had the idea of a Targaryen bride quite early, and a Velaryon bride as well. He wasn't thinking of ages or some fans becoming obsessed by the fact that this character or that character was "too young".

Thank you! I get what you mean then there's no need to criticize George For that. You are being very patient to some obsessed Twitter fans and I admire you for it!

[The Bard of Banefort]

47 minutes ago, Ran said:

In fact, back in 1999, Aegon III had three wives over the course of his life. That third wife has an interesting textual history of her own.

The specific ages he gives the wives relates to the ages he settled on for various characters by that point. He knew when Daeron I was born, that was part of what made a mess when he published "The Hedge Knight" and I (and some others) figured out that he had made an error because he had given us the age of Baelor Breakspear at his death and from that we could work out that something was not right (he was too old, basically). George's solution was to change Viserys II from a son of Aegon III to a brother. By 2006, he knew the ages of Rhaenyra and Aegon II at the time of the Dance, as well, which put limits on how old their respective children could be, especially as Aegon II was (by 2006) nearly 10 years older than Aegon (as opposed to a year older at the time that A Game of Thrones was published).

So while the characters might have been moved up or down a year or two in age, it was never in the cards for them to be much older than they were. There was no room for a 16-year-old Jaehaera, while I'm not sure what it would have helped to make Jaehaera even younger at her marriage, since that has no effect on the calculus George was making for Daenaera's age (namely that he supposed a very fertile woman who is married for a bunch of years before her fertility evidences itself just meant that she married well before she was fertile.)

 

 

Who was the third wife going to be?

[Lord Varys]

I don't think there was any narrative necessity for Aegon III to be a young boy when he came into his throne. That was something George wanted to do since Aegon III could easily enough have been Rhaenyra's firstborn son, not her eldest surviving son.

And to be sure - the original plan for the kids was that the story progresses somewhat more slowly, giving them time to grow up. His plan wasn't to write about an eight-year-old Bran the entire time.

2 hours ago, The Bard of Banefort said:

Sometimes I think George’s problem is that he watches too much TV. It used to be very common (and still is, to a degree) for 20- and 30-somethings to play teenagers on TV. If you don’t spend a lot of time around kids, it’s probably pretty easy to forget that that isn’t what teens look like in real life. It would explain why, rather than puberty kicking off the awkward hormonal years, in ASOIAF kids immediately spring into adults with gorgeous bodies the day they turn twelve.

I don't think that's an issue at all - neither Dany nor Sansa actually have 'gorgeous bodies'. They are young and slim girls. Dany's beauty especially is not one of her 'womanly body' - like Arianne's apparently is - but one of fairness of face and 'Valyrian beauty'.

But it is clearly the case that especially Daenerys has no puberty problems whatsoever, acting as an adult since AGoT when she was not even fourteen. That is deeply unrealistic (Jon Snow is somewhat better in this regard). Loras Tyrell also doesn't behave like 15-16-year-old.

The one character where a depiction of adolescence works is Robb.

Men actually lusting after girls like Sansa and Dany is kind of odd in the prevalence it happens. Sansa is too young to attract anyone but pervs, and Dany also draws too many admirers who actually desire her sexually ... and not so much for her political power.

2 hours ago, The Bard of Banefort said:

Daenara’s grand entrance didn’t bother me so much for her age (although realistically, a 13-year-old boy would likely be much more interested in girls his own age or a bit older than him than he would a 6-year-old) but because it was one of the few times where the Valyrian “blood purity” really went overboard for me. Despite the room being filled with beautiful women, somehow everyone is stunned into silence by the mere sight of her. Only this lily white dragon girl is worthy of the kind and can bring a smile to his lips. It’s so gross.

I find it actually kind of annoying that Gyldayn is not much of a Targaryen supremacist. He clearly is obsessed with the royal dynasty of Westeros, else he would not bother writing about their private problems and the like. His focus is clearly they as people, not they as rulers nor the governments they established or the laws they made. So he should very much be a fan of everything they did ... like most of the Westerosi people living during their reign would be.

But he actually includes doubts about the Doctrine of Exceptionalism in his recounting of the death of the first Daenerys.

The ball scenario works very fine for me, though, since the crucial thing there shouldn't be so much how the girl looked ... but who presented her. But, of course, it is more the Westerosi people than the royal family who are obsessed with Valyrian looks and what they symbolize. Rhaenyra loved her brown haired boys, Alysanne and Baelon loved their dirty blonded Alyssa of the mismatched eyes, everybody loved dark-haired Rhaenys, etc.

But the sources Gyldayn cites routinely dwell on the very distinct Valyrian features of certain princes and kings, e.g. Queen Rhaena vs. Queen Alysanne, Prince Aemon, Rhaenyra, and then both Aegon III and Daenaera. This is what royalty should look like in Westeros in the eyes of the people. Not so much the Targaryens themselves. Rhaenyra and Viserys I have no issues with brown hair and brown eyes ... Alicent and her cronies do.

Of course, on a meta-level George definitely has a kind of 'albino fetish' or a strong preference for albino (i.e. 'Valyrian' characters) in his works. It is staggering how prevalent those traits are in his stories and novels.

2 hours ago, Annara Snow said:

The only way I can justify that scene is to assume that it never happened, and it's another instance of Gyldayn writing propaganda during the reign of Aerys II.

Gyldayn has yet to write about the reign of Aerys II - and there is no 'propaganda' from Yandel there ... only a not exactly complete list of the suspects behind the deaths of Elia and her children. Which is understandable in context, especially since the Tywin thing wasn't actually confirmed.

The notion that a historian would record nonsense about this event is completely unfounded ... even more so as this particular branch of House Targaryen lost the Iron Throne with the death of King Baelor. This was a huge event attended by thousands of people ... and it effectively helped to trigger the resignation of Unwin Peake as Lord Regent, Protector of the Realm, and Hand of the King. That's not something only Mushroom would talk about.

If you don't like the 'Aegon was smitten by the beautiful girl' take go with 'Baela and Rhaena talked to their brother earlier and it was arranged between them that he would marry Daenaera before she was presented'.

With no sister to marry, a Velaryon bride of Valyrian looks was the next best thing as per Targaryen tradition - which seems to be the main reason why the match couldn't be dissolved later on. The girl was young, but the ideal bride for a Targaryen king. And that's why she married Aegon.

[Ran]

4 hours ago, The Bard of Banefort said:

Maybe that wasn’t the intention, but I know I’m not the only one who got the same vibe from that scene.

I meant to respond to this, because I seem to have a very different view of that scene than the people you're referring to.

Yes, of course, Gyldayn was not a witness to these events that happened decades before he was even born. He is going off of accounts. And it's not strange for courtiers to report a very flowery account of how beautiful the girl was and how it stopped even dead, etc, and for Gyldayn to repeat it. Certainly, there was a theatricality to her appearance, thanks to Baela and Rhaena making their entrance as they did, but otherwise... yeah, she's six, no doubt she was very pretty, but that's not why she became Aegon's bride.

Aegon's acceptance of Daenaera has nothing to do with her beauty, so all this dumb stuff about pedophilia makes no sense to me. He picked her because:

1) He didn't really want to have to choose a wife, so the fact that his cousins made the choice for him took a burden off of him, especially as

2) They wisely picked a girl so young that it would be many years before he had to face up to, you know, consummating the marriage. He's a traumatized and broken person, melancholic, isolated, not enjoying being so much as touched, and so needed that time to come to grips with that. Daenaera's extreme youth was as non-threatening as a bride could possibly be. And finally

3) Most of the other prospective brides came with families who would be grasping for influence in the wake of their daughter being chosen. Not so Daenaera, since the Velaryons were already part of the power structure at court, and she was an orphan besides, so no good-mother or good-father to deal with, which suited this king who really had a hard time dealing with relationships for the reasons mentioned above.

ETA: Rhaenyra having more than one husband, and that Aegon came from the second (Targaryen) husband, is a 1999 thing. The husbands changed names and identities over time, but that particular fact never did.

Edited May 2, 2023 by Ran

[Annara Snow]

@Lord Varys Gyldayn was writing DURING Aerys' reign, not about it. Therefore the propaganda (and the fact his sources were full of it too).

LOL at "no Targaryen propaganda". There's a whole long paragraph or two where he goes at length about what an honor it was for people on Dragonstone for some Targaryen or other to decide to "honor" a bride and her husband and father by taking the Lord's Right and getting her with a child, and how everyone was happy about it because Targaryens were "rightfully" seen as more gods than men. (Rightfully!) Countless times he says no one can ever be as beautiful as Valyrians with their silver hair and purple eyes. Not to mention all the idealization of Aegon the Conqueror (when Aegon does threatening, mass killing and burning, he's awesome; and Orys Baratheon was so nice when he married the daughter of the king he killed, who was delivered to him as a prisoner) and Jaehaerys I. At one point in the Sons of the Dragon chapter he says Jaehaerys was undoubtedly the rightful heir to the throne "by all laws of the Seven Kingdoms", which is not true - and the very next chapter acknowledges that there was actually disagreement if he was, or it was Aerea. That's just some of it.

Edited May 2, 2023 by Annara Snow

[The Bard of Banefort]

It’s actually a little weird that so many people in-universe still buy into the Targaryen propaganda. I can only recall Olenna scoffing at it. We can presume that Robert and Jaime think it’s bullocks (although Jaime still admires Rhaegar, so maybe not), but you would think more people—especially in the North—would have more skepticism.

[Lord Varys]

2 hours ago, Ran said:

Aegon's acceptance of Daenaera has nothing to do with her beauty, so all this dumb stuff about pedophilia makes no sense to me.

I think all those points give too much agency to Aegon III. He was a pawn at his own court, and his regents and Hand would choose his wife, not he himself. The ball gives some agency to him, but it is a show - like Joffrey's participation in Ned's execution was to be a show - and the regents could have ignored Aegon's choice, like Peake earlier ignored Aegon's choices for the Kingsguard. He tried get rid of Daenaera, after all.

More importantly, though, Aegon III clearly is not the sharpest knife in the box, and he is only about 14 years old at that time. He wouldn't have thought much about this ... he would have just done what his sisters told him to do (and it is sisters or half-sisters, not cousins).

You might have a point there that a young girl like Daenaera might have not felt threatening to him ... but he must have been aware of his dynastic duty and the lack of male heirs which was the very reason why his regents forced him to marry. Meaning that he might not have had issues if his sisters had given him a wife closer in age to him.

In fact, it strikes one as more likely that Unwin Peake was not wrong in his assessment that the choice of Daenaera Velaryon was a self-serving ploy on the side of Baela and Alyn who not only made a Velaryon the next queen ... but also increased the chances that Aegon III might never actually father a son on her which could then, perhaps, allow Baela-Alyn or their son to seize the throne should Aegon III die early.

After all, it is not very likely that Daenaera Velaryon was the only Velaryon girl alive at that point.

The general age problem which caused the Dance to be another war fought by children and twens is the relative late birth of Jaehaerys' grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Rhaenyra could have been born around 90 AC, Viserys 70 AC, Baelon 50 AC, Jaehaerys 30 AC. Also, of course, Aemma and Alicent could have been married to Viserys at the same time and there could have been the original one year rather than a ten year gap between Rhaenyra and Aegon II.

Also, of course, Rhaenyra's multiple husbands could have also been polygamy rather than successive marriage. That kind of thing would have allowed to have more older characters among the children of the two pretenders during the war.

56 minutes ago, Annara Snow said:

@Lord Varys Gyldayn was writing DURING Aerys' reign, not about it. Therefore the propaganda (and the fact his sources were full of it too).

Nope, Gyldayn wrote during the reign of Robert Baratheon or later. His history makes that crystal clear:

Quote

Sixteen Targaryens followed Aegon the Dragon to the Iron Throne, before the dynasty was at last toppled in Robert’s Rebellion.

Gyldayn is no 'political writer', writing a history to justify Robert's usurpation. He writes a history about the Targaryen dynasty and he clearly likes his subject very much. Although apparently not as much as silly little books about erotic exploits.

56 minutes ago, Annara Snow said:

LOL at "no Targaryen propaganda". There's a whole long paragraph or two where he goes at length about what an honor it was for people on Dragonstone for some Targaryen or other to decide to "honor" a bride and her husband and father by taking the Lord's Right and getting her with a child, and how everyone was happy about it because Targaryens were "rightfully" seen as more gods than men. (Rightfully!)

I know those paragraphs, but it is you who interprets them as him agreeing with that opinion or inserting such paragraphs for propaganda reasons. It is actually quite possible that those are neither lies nor exaggerations. Especially since they come up as a historical insert when the search for dragonriders comes up - which likely means that Gyldayn paraphrases or summarizes talk at the Black Council which led them to believe that there were potential dragonriders among the smallfolk of Dragonstone and Driftmark.

There clearly were people in Westeros - women, mostly, of course - who were unhappy with the First Night as a practice ... but whether this was a big deal for the peasants on Dragonstone in pre-Conquest days (which is the time the paragraphs talk about) we don't know - especially not if the mothers and dragonseeds were actually cherished and costly gifts given as is claimed (the First Night as practiced in the mainland of Westeros seems to have been more a lord demanding his right to bed a woman in her wedding night, not something that involved gifts).

That the smallfolk of Dragonstone was in awe and very much under the thumb of their Valyrian rulers during the Century of Blood and thereafter doesn't strike one as unlikely or surprising.

56 minutes ago, Annara Snow said:

Countless times he says no one can ever be as beautiful as Valyrians with their silver hair and purple eyes.

That is consensus among the Westerosi people. The standard of royalty and supreme beauty are the Valyrian looks as espoused by most of the Targaryens. That is not something the Targaryens themselves push all that much (they know that not all their children look like that), it is how their subjects view them. And we don't ever actually have firsthand quotes by Targaryens - either in FaB or the main series - which have them celebrate their own beauty and demand that people submit to them because they are so fucking hot.

56 minutes ago, Annara Snow said:

Not to mention all the idealization of Aegon the Conqueror (when Aegon does threatening, mass killing and burning, he's awesome; and Orys Baratheon was so nice when he married the daughter of the king he killed, who was delivered to him as a prisoner) and Jaehaerys I. At one point in the Sons of the Dragon chapter he says Jaehaerys was undoubtedly the rightful heir to the throne "by all laws of the Seven Kingdoms", which is not true - and the very next chapter acknowledges that there was actually disagreement if he was, or it was Aerea. That's just some of it.

That is you kind of inserting your own 'Aegon was particularly cruel' take into the text. Aegon the Conqueror is pretty much viewed as a great king by pretty much everybody (Dornish historians, perhaps, excluded). The stuff about Jaehaerys I is George/Gyldayn kind of getting confused - that's not propaganda, it is an error in the text.

22 minutes ago, The Bard of Banefort said:

It’s actually a little weird that so many people in-universe still buy into the Targaryen propaganda. I can only recall Olenna scoffing at it. We can presume that Robert and Jaime think it’s bullocks (although Jaime still admires Rhaegar, so maybe not), but you would think more people—especially in the North—would have more skepticism.

Olenna buys into it, too. She claims that the Baratheons are 'queer' because of their Targaryen blood, confirming that she thinks their blood has special properties that sets them apart from other men.

But the interpretation of certain readers that the characters in-universe kind of view Robert's rise to the throne as some kind of radical break with tradition. The great Targaryen kings are still great in Robert's reign. Aerys II isn't viewed as a monster who invalidated 300 years of glorious history ... and the Baratheons are, in the end, just a black-haired cadet branch of House Targaryen.

If you want a historical parallel then Robert is not so much Henry Tudor - whose rise to the English throne was a real break with tradition considering his flimsy claim against so many Plantagenet descendants with stronger claims - but Henry IV - a close cousin to the king who gained the upper hand in a short war and took over. Robert's ascension also messed around with the succession but he effectively only pushed aside Viserys. He was next in line after Viserys, anyway.

[The Bard of Banefort]

9 hours ago, Zamila said:

Thank you! I get what you mean then there's no need to criticize George For that. You are being very patient to some obsessed Twitter fans and I admire you for it!

Is this a hot topic on Twitter? That doesn’t really surprise me, but I find Twitter’s formatting harder to follow than, say, Reddit, so I don’t stay as up-to-date on the discourse there. 

[Annara Snow]

 

6 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

I think all those points give too much agency to Aegon III. He was a pawn at his own court, and his regents and Hand would choose his wife, not he himself. The ball gives some agency to him, but it is a show - like Joffrey's participation in Ned's execution was to be a show - and the regents could have ignored Aegon's choice, like Peake earlier ignored Aegon's choices for the Kingsguard. He tried get rid of Daenaera, after all.

More importantly, though, Aegon III clearly is not the sharpest knife in the box, and he is only about 14 years old at that time. He wouldn't have thought much about this ... he would have just done what his sisters told him to do (and it is sisters or half-sisters, not cousins).

You might have a point there that a young girl like Daenaera might have not felt threatening to him ... but he must have been aware of his dynastic duty and the lack of male heirs which was the very reason why his regents forced him to marry. Meaning that he might not have had issues if his sisters had given him a wife closer in age to him.

In fact, it strikes one as more likely that Unwin Peake was not wrong in his assessment that the choice of Daenaera Velaryon was a self-serving ploy on the side of Baela and Alyn who not only made a Velaryon the next queen ... but also increased the chances that Aegon III might never actually father a son on her which could then, perhaps, allow Baela-Alyn or their son to seize the throne should Aegon III die early.

After all, it is not very likely that Daenaera Velaryon was the only Velaryon girl alive at that point.

The general age problem which caused the Dance to be another war fought by children and twens is the relative late birth of Jaehaerys' grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Rhaenyra could have been born around 90 AC, Viserys 70 AC, Baelon 50 AC, Jaehaerys 30 AC. Also, of course, Aemma and Alicent could have been married to Viserys at the same time and there could have been the original one year rather than a ten year gap between Rhaenyra and Aegon II.

Also, of course, Rhaenyra's multiple husbands could have also been polygamy rather than successive marriage. That kind of thing would have allowed to have more older characters among the children of the two pretenders during the war.

Nope, Gyldayn wrote during the reign of Robert Baratheon or later. His history makes that crystal clear:

Gyldayn is no 'political writer', writing a history to justify Robert's usurpation. He writes a history about the Targaryen dynasty and he clearly likes his subject very much. Although apparently not as much as silly little books about erotic exploits.

I know those paragraphs, but it is you who interprets them as him agreeing with that opinion or inserting such paragraphs for propaganda reasons. It is actually quite possible that those are neither lies nor exaggerations. Especially since they come up as a historical insert when the search for dragonriders comes up - which likely means that Gyldayn paraphrases or summarizes talk at the Black Council which led them to believe that there were potential dragonriders among the smallfolk of Dragonstone and Driftmark.

There clearly were people in Westeros - women, mostly, of course - who were unhappy with the First Night as a practice ... but whether this was a big deal for the peasants on Dragonstone in pre-Conquest days (which is the time the paragraphs talk about) we don't know - especially not if the mothers and dragonseeds were actually cherished and costly gifts given as is claimed (the First Night as practiced in the mainland of Westeros seems to have been more a lord demanding his right to bed a woman in her wedding night, not something that involved gifts).

That the smallfolk of Dragonstone was in awe and very much under the thumb of their Valyrian rulers during the Century of Blood and thereafter doesn't strike one as unlikely or surprising.

That is consensus among the Westerosi people. The standard of royalty and supreme beauty are the Valyrian looks as espoused by most of the Targaryens. That is not something the Targaryens themselves push all that much (they know that not all their children look like that), it is how their subjects view them. And we don't ever actually have firsthand quotes by Targaryens - either in FaB or the main series - which have them celebrate their own beauty and demand that people submit to them because they are so fucking hot.

That is you kind of inserting your own 'Aegon was particularly cruel' take into the text. Aegon the Conqueror is pretty much viewed as a great king by pretty much everybody (Dornish historians, perhaps, excluded). The stuff about Jaehaerys I is George/Gyldayn kind of getting confused - that's not propaganda, it is an error in the text.

Olenna buys into it, too. She claims that the Baratheons are 'queer' because of their Targaryen blood, confirming that she thinks their blood has special properties that sets them apart from other men.

But the interpretation of certain readers that the characters in-universe kind of view Robert's rise to the throne as some kind of radical break with tradition. The great Targaryen kings are still great in Robert's reign. Aerys II isn't viewed as a monster who invalidated 300 years of glorious history ... and the Baratheons are, in the end, just a black-haired cadet branch of House Targaryen.

If you want a historical parallel then Robert is not so much Henry Tudor - whose rise to the English throne was a real break with tradition considering his flimsy claim against so many Plantagenet descendants with stronger claims - but Henry IV - a close cousin to the king who gained the upper hand in a short war and took over. Robert's ascension also messed around with the succession but he effectively only pushed aside Viserys. He was next in line after Viserys, anyway.

It is me who interprets those paragraphs as him agreeing? LMAO Oh, so when he says the Targaryens were "rightfully" considered closer to gods than men, that's up for interpretation? 

Wasn't Gyldayn initially not even supposed to live into Robert's reign? Aside from that one line inserted there, the text is 100% written as something one would write during the Targaryen rule, so I'm pretty sure the bulk of it was meant during Aerys.

Or am I to believe this guy started writing during Robert and didn't get info on how Robert felt about Targaryens (in spite pf being descended from them), so he goes "...the Targaryens were rightfully considered closer to gods..." The overall support of the Targaryen history makes sense in terms of continuity of the Iron Throne (and the pro Conquest thing certainly does, due to Orys Baratheon), but direct statements about Targaryen superiority make no sense if the text started to be written during Robert's reign. Unless that's another error, because Gyldayn wasn't initially meant to live to Robert's reign. 

Either way, mind boggles at the idea that someone writing that a royal family was rightfully considered gods was being objective.

 

ETA: what break with tradition?! Henry Tudor, unlike Robert, married the daughter of a York king to justify his own claim, and evsn before that the main reason he had any support was because he managed to get support from the Lancastrians as a Beaufort descendant who was also Henry  Vi's nephew. He didn't break with anything. He just had to portray Richard III as an evil usurper, and himself as a savior who ended decades of wars, and he otherwise upheld the tradition of earlier kings.

Edited May 3, 2023 by Annara Snow

[Ran]

I haven't really talked about Jaehaera at all because the marriage to Aegon is not motivated by her beauty or sex appeal or whatever, it's instead pure politics. The reason she is so young is, again, because George was constrained by the decisions he made regarding the ages of characters.

But the reason she dies has nothing to do with Daenaera, nor her age. It's not clear that in in 1999 his original vision was any sort of spectacular or suspicious death for the first wife. Near as I can tell, Jaehaera's death becomes a probable murder only in 2012, when George was working on the Dance material and the post-Dance material for The World of Ice and Fire, and Jaehaera became a victim of the political skullduggery of Unwin Peake (who I am pretty sure did not exist before 2012) because that was a dramatic and exciting choice that opened up more politics and conflicts. That's it, really. No great project to slight the Greens, no glee in inflicting distress on characters, simply doing what he thought was best for the story. Almost all of the Regency material revolves, one way or anothjer, around Peake and his ambition, and of course he'd have acted to try and get a daughter married to Aegon.

 

Edited May 3, 2023 by Ran

[Aelwen]

Quote

No great project to slight the Greens, no glee in inflicting distress on characters, simply doing what he thought was best for the story. Almost all of the Regency material revolves, one way or anothjer, around Peake and his ambition, and of course he'd have acted to try and get a daughter married to Aegon.

 

Many people think it would be better to merge two bloodlines together. 

Edited May 3, 2023 by Aelwen

[Ran]

59 minutes ago, Aelwen said:

 

Many people think it would be better to merge two bloodlines together. 

Why, though? It's a fictional family, and fictional events. Nothing is "better" or "worse" about whoever Aegon's children are by.

It also  undercuts one of the post-Regency details we know, for example, that there will be false Prince Daeron's coming forward to try and steal the crown. It would make less sense for pretenders to show up if Jaehaera was queen and her children were going to be next on the throne.

[Aelwen]

5 minutes ago, Ran said:

t also  undercuts one of the post-Regency details we know, for example, that there will be false Prince Daeron's coming forward to try and steal the crown. It would make less sense for pretenders to show up if Jaehaera was queen and her children were going to be next on the throne.

Let's put it that way from I saw on reddit. Black fans claim George deliberately eradicatated all Aegon's II bloodline. Green fans think it would be thematically better to show that the Civil war ended with unification, to illustrate the horror and all futility of it. 

I saw theories about how the show will make Jahaera survive. Or Daeron.

Edited May 3, 2023 by Aelwen

[Ran]

Just now, Aelwen said:

Let's put it that way from I saw on redditL Black fans claim George deliberately eradictated all Aegon II bloodline.

I mean, "yes", in the sense that he wrote the words. But the reason Jaehaera dies is because it makes a better story, re: Unwin Peake's ambition.

Just now, Aelwen said:

Green fans think it would be thematically better to show that the Civil war ended with unification, to illustrate the horror and all futility of it. 

It did end with a unification, though: the marriage. The Regents were balanced between supporters of the Greens and the Blacks. All efforts were made to end the hostility, and indeed, the Regency doesn't actually feature any on-going Black-Green partisan conflict, so as far as that goes, it was all a success because everyone was too weary from the war to continue gnawing away at it. 

But you don't need kids to come out of that marriage for some thematic reason. 

Just now, Aelwen said:

I saw theories about how the show will make Jahaera survive. Or Daeron.

The show will end with Jaehaera and Aegon marrying, I am sure, they're not planning to go into the Regency.

I presume they'll leave Daeron's fate ambiguous as the historians leave it, but again, it's post-Regency matter that they won't touch.

[Aelwen]

Quote

It did end with a unification, though: the marriage. The Regents were balanced between supporters of the Greens and the Blacks. 

I think it is not enough for fans. They want to see Aegon's blood to go on. 

[Ran]

1 minute ago, Aelwen said:

I think it is not enough for fans. They want to see Aegon's blood to go on. 

Thanks for trying to explain it. I just don't understand stans who get so caught up in indiviudal characters or families that it drives them away from just enjoying the work on its merits.