The Incestuous Nature of the Targaryens is What Doomed Them

[Lord Varys]

15 hours ago, Lee-Sensei said:

No. When I mention STAB alliance, I'm talking about the Stark, Tully, Arryn and Baratheon alliance that was the core of the rebel forces during Roberts Rebellion and bound together primarily through marriage pacts. Why do you think the Tyrells married the Hightowers, Redwynes and their other bannermen?

That wasn't the core of it. The core were two great lords who were targeted by the king and their foster father who had no marriage ties whatsoever to either house. Hoster Tully joined them only after the rebels met his rather steep price - very steep, actually, for Jon Arryn.

There was no actual alliance there, just a very deep but informal friendship. As I pointed out - if the Rhaegar-Lyanna thing had involved less mad and less hot-headed people (Aerys, Brandon) the Starks could have easily dumped stupid Robert for prestigious Prince Rhaegar. Most noblemen would have done that even if Lya had just been a mistress.

Of course, it seems that most great lords usually marry the daughters of their own bannermen. But that isn't a rule. We hear about quite a few Baratheon-Lannister matches throughout the centuries, for instance. 

20 hours ago, Sandy Clegg said:

Putting aside the moral implications, there is one other major problem with Targ incest, and that's with regard to its goal of 'keeping the blood pure'.

It only really works if the original bloodline was pure to begin with.

Supposing that Aegon the Conqueror and Rhaenys's son, Aenys, was a bastard (Fire & Blood does hint at this, with talk of Rhaenys 'keeping the company of singers', etc) then no amount of inbreeding would have been able to rectify this error. And they did actually end up marrying outside the Targ tree often, as with Alicent Hightower and Viserys I. Which compounds the initial mistake.

So quite apart from needing to inter-marry, the reverse would be true. They would have needed to seek Valyrian blood from outside the family tree. The assumption was always that Aenys was pure-born from Aegon, however, so the matter was presumably never given any thought. 

I think this may be one of the revelations coming up as we learn more about 'how the maesters were the one to kill the dragons' and why the Targaryens grew less and less able to breed large dragons as the centuries went on. 

I think that is a weird argument pushing real world eugenics/racist concepts into the fictional world. The Valyrian dragonlords were not interested in some kind of nonsensical 'blood purity fiction' but looked for a way to preserve one hereditary trait they acquired (apparently) through magic - the ability to bond with dragons.

The Targaryens and the other dragonlords don't walk around and talk about some fantastical standard of blood purity and then make silly projections and deductions.

[Lee-Sensei]

42 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

That wasn't the core of it. The core were two great lords who were targeted by the king and their foster father who had no marriage ties whatsoever to either house. Hoster Tully joined them only after the rebels met his rather steep price - very steep, actually, for Jon Arryn.

There was no actual alliance there, just a very deep but informal friendship. As I pointed out - if the Rhaegar-Lyanna thing had involved less mad and less hot-headed people (Aerys, Brandon) the Starks could have easily dumped stupid Robert for prestigious Prince Rhaegar. Most noblemen would have done that even if Lya had just been a mistress.

Of course, it seems that most great lords usually marry the daughters of their own bannermen. But that isn't a rule. We hear about quite a few Baratheon-Lannister matches throughout the centuries, for instance. 

Call it informal if you want (although it seems pretty formal when Jon Arryn and Ned Stark marry Hoster Tully's daughters and they all swear fealty to Robert Baratheon), but an alliance eisted there.

Rhaegar probably didn't think Robert was so stupid when his army was getting shattered on the Trident. As to Rickard, we don't know what he felt. If Rickard would have easily dumped Robert for Rhaegar, why didn't Rhaegar go to Rickard with his proposal and have it done out in the open? As you've said, Rickard would have preferred for her to be Rhaegar's mistress rather than the Lady of Storms End.

Why do they marry their bannermen? Why not just keep it in the family? That's the smart thing to do as you said.

Edited September 10, 2023 by Lee-Sensei

[Lord Varys]

6 hours ago, Lee-Sensei said:

Call it informal if you want (although it seems pretty formal when Jon Arryn and Ned Stark marry Hoster Tully's daughters and they all swear fealty to Robert Baratheon), but an alliance eisted there.

A friendship, not an alliance. Ned and Robert and Jon were friends - Rickard/Brandon and Robert and Jon were not friends. And Ned and Robert and Jon were not friends nor allies of Hoster Tully until the marriage matches were made during the Rebellion.

6 hours ago, Lee-Sensei said:

Rhaegar probably didn't think Robert was so stupid when his army was getting shattered on the Trident. As to Rickard, we don't know what he felt. If Rickard would have easily dumped Robert for Rhaegar, why didn't Rhaegar go to Rickard with his proposal and have it done out in the open? As you've said, Rickard would have preferred for her to be Rhaegar's mistress rather than the Lady of Storms End.

We don't know the details of any of that yet. But what we know is that the Rebellion grew from Brandon's rash decision to go to KL and from Aerys' assumption that the Starks and Rhaegar were plotting against him. If Aerys had not suspected that Rhaegar was plotting against him, if he had been close to Rhaegar he may have approved of the Lyanna thing. And Rickard may have - without Brandon's knowledge.

I mean, if you look at things it is quite silly of Rickard to go to KL without an army after Brandon's arrest. What happened in AGoT when Ned was arrested? Did Robb go to KL without an army? No. So why did Rickard think he could talk to the Mad King? Perhaps because he had no issues with the Rhaegar-Lyanna thing. We know he was ambitious for southron matches and he was at Aerys' court earlier. Marrying his daughter to Rhaegar would have been a tremendous success.

6 hours ago, Lee-Sensei said:

Why do they marry their bannermen? Why not just keep it in the family? That's the smart thing to do as you said.

It is the smart thing for the Targaryens. But the great lords don't face would-be usurpers regularly. They can call on the help of the king if some cousin were to threaten them. But if you check the family trees we do see both the Starks and the Lannisters do enjoy cousin or even avuncular marriages ... and we actually don't know the houses they married their daughters into.

It is irrelevant who is the Lady of Casterly Rock or Winterfell in this context. It is important to who you marry your sister or daughter. But to be sure - I'd expect that the Lannisters and Starks both usually took brides from houses where a cousin or aunt married into some time ago - to keep such relations sweet and ensure they don't feel slighted to the point that they end up causing trouble.

[Lee-Sensei]

33 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

A friendship, not an alliance. Ned and Robert and Jon were friends - Rickard/Brandon and Robert and Jon were not friends. And Ned and Robert and Jon were not friends nor allies of Hoster Tully until the marriage matches were made during the Rebellion.

We don't know the details of any of that yet. But what we know is that the Rebellion grew from Brandon's rash decision to go to KL and from Aerys' assumption that the Starks and Rhaegar were plotting against him. If Aerys had not suspected that Rhaegar was plotting against him, if he had been close to Rhaegar he may have approved of the Lyanna thing. And Rickard may have - without Brandon's knowledge.

I mean, if you look at things it is quite silly of Rickard to go to KL without an army after Brandon's arrest. What happened in AGoT when Ned was arrested? Did Robb go to KL without an army? No. So why did Rickard think he could talk to the Mad King? Perhaps because he had no issues with the Rhaegar-Lyanna thing. We know he was ambitious for southron matches and he was at Aerys' court earlier. Marrying his daughter to Rhaegar would have been a tremendous success.

It is the smart thing for the Targaryens. But the great lords don't face would-be usurpers regularly. They can call on the help of the king if some cousin were to threaten them. But if you check the family trees we do see both the Starks and the Lannisters do enjoy cousin or even avuncular marriages ... and we actually don't know the houses they married their daughters into.

It is irrelevant who is the Lady of Casterly Rock or Winterfell in this context. It is important to who you marry your sister or daughter. But to be sure - I'd expect that the Lannisters and Starks both usually took brides from houses where a cousin or aunt married into some time ago - to keep such relations sweet and ensure they don't feel slighted to the point that they end up causing trouble.

I could post the dictionary definition of alliance, but you believe whatever you want. To me and most people (including characters in the books), there was clearly an alliance during the Rebellion that unseated the Targaryens.

You didn't address the point. Why wouldn't he have done it out in the open if he agreed to it before hand? If Rickard preferred for Lyanna to be Rhaegar's mistress than Robert's wife, wouldn't he have broken the betrothal openly first? He could have just "easily dumped stupid Robert". No?

We don't know how common it is. Even now in the current setting, Euron Greyjoy has usurped Balon's children... Theon and to a lesser extent Asha. Both of them are ahead of him in the line of succession. For another example, Ronnel Arryn was overthrown and killed by his brother, Jonos Arryn. No. It's definitely relevant. You don't think the Tyrells married their two strongest bannermen, because joining their strength would make them the most powerful faction in the Reach?

Edited September 10, 2023 by Lee-Sensei

[Lord Varys]

6 hours ago, Lee-Sensei said:

I could post the dictionary definition of alliance, but you believe whatever you want. To me and most people (including characters in the books), there was clearly an alliance during the Rebellion that unseated the Targaryens.

But that alliance was effectively formed when Aerys demanded the heads of Robert and Ned. It wasn't a premeditated thing. There was no overall political alliance there, just two young buddies and their foster father.

6 hours ago, Lee-Sensei said:

You didn't address the point. Why wouldn't he have done it out in the open if he agreed to it before hand? If Rickard preferred for Lyanna to be Rhaegar's mistress than Robert's wife, wouldn't he have broken the betrothal openly first? He could have just "easily dumped stupid Robert". No?

Never said anything about there being an agreement before. I said that it was due to Brandon's rashness and Aerys' madness that this thing spiraled out of control. It could have gone the other way if the people involved had been less hot-headed/mad.

6 hours ago, Lee-Sensei said:

We don't know how common it is. Even now in the current setting, Euron Greyjoy has usurped Balon's children... Theon and to a lesser extent Asha. Both of them are ahead of him in the line of succession. For another example, Ronnel Arryn was overthrown and killed by his brother, Jonos Arryn. No. It's definitely relevant. You don't think the Tyrells married their two strongest bannermen, because joining their strength would make them the most powerful faction in the Reach?

The Ironborn are their own cup of tea ... and the price there isn't a lordship but a crown. In 37 AC the kingship of Mountain and Vale wasn't dead history but still alive in the minds of both Ronnel and Jonos Arryn. So no surprise there.

But as you might recall - my point is that spreading out your royal blood gives claims to all sorts of people. Brothers are always a danger in that sense, of course, so Jonos Arryn is no surprise there. We also have guys like Borys Baratheon making trouble. It happens. But that is immediate family through the male line, not cousins and kin through the female line getting ideas.

That is Robert. And it could and would have been other houses if Aegon V or other Targaryen kings had been stupid enough to marry their daughters to the most powerful lords of the Realm.

[Sandy Clegg]

2 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

I think that is a weird argument pushing real world eugenics/racist concepts into the fictional world. The Valyrian dragonlords were not interested in some kind of nonsensical 'blood purity fiction' but looked for a way to preserve one hereditary trait they acquired (apparently) through magic - the ability to bond with dragons.

Don’t put words in my mouth please, especially words like racism. 
 

My point was essentially the same as yours - the need for Targs to preserve the dragon bond through blood. The fact that we never hear them mention this explicitly in the books points to the ‘lost knowledge’ of this process which eventually results in their reliance on brother-sister marriages. 

Viserys to Dany:

Quote

The line must be kept pure, Viserys had told her a thousand times; theirs was the kingsblood, the golden blood of old Valyria, the blood of the dragon. Dragons did not mate with the beasts of the field, and Targaryens did not mingle their blood with that of lesser men. 

He never tells her why, only uses the word purity. What started as an attempt to preserve a hereditary bond had degenerated - with Viserys at least -  into a more blunted idea about Targaryen purity for its own sake.  

[Lord Varys]

6 hours ago, Sandy Clegg said:

Don’t put words in my mouth please, especially words like racism. 

Sorry, but you made a kind of silly racist calculation there - imagining an arbitrary degree of 'blood purity' around the Conquest. What we do have is that these people say they want to keep the blood line pure, yes, but this is never filled with actual pseudo-scientific/racist 'substance'.

What they want to do is to preserve the dragonrider thing - and that worked, never mind that they occasionally married complete outsiders or very distant cousins.

6 hours ago, Sandy Clegg said:

My point was essentially the same as yours - the need for Targs to preserve the dragon bond through blood. The fact that we never hear them mention this explicitly in the books points to the ‘lost knowledge’ of this process which eventually results in their reliance on brother-sister marriages. 
 

I don't think we will get that, to be honest. If the dragonlords had any real knowledge about why they are doing the incest the Targaryens would still know that. Also, it seems to be a rule of thumb they came up with through trial-and-error. Like there being early dragonlords who happened to marry only/mostly completely unrelated people resulting in their great-great-great-grandchildren not riding their dragons but being eaten by them. If they realized that those who married only other dragonlords or close relations ended up never losing the ability it makes sense that they made incest a cultural practice.

6 hours ago, Sandy Clegg said:

Viserys to Dany:

He never tells her why, only uses the word purity. What started as an attempt to preserve a hereditary bond had degenerated - with Viserys at least -  into a more blunted idea about Targaryen purity for its own sake.  

'Blood purity' is the way they express that. And, of course, with the dragonless Targaryens it becomes a very weird practice. For Viserys marrying your sister is part of his concept of royalty, no longer connected to the practical deliberations of the Valyrian dragonlords. You see that in the vocabulary - 'the kingsblood', 'the golden blood of old Valyria' wouldn't be phrases the kingless Valyrians used before the Doom. But they would have talked about 'the blood of the dragon', one imagines.

[Lee-Sensei]

6 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

But that alliance was effectively formed when Aerys demanded the heads of Robert and Ned. It wasn't a premeditated thing. There was no overall political alliance there, just two young buddies and their foster father.

Never said anything about there being an agreement before. I said that it was due to Brandon's rashness and Aerys' madness that this thing spiraled out of control. It could have gone the other way if the people involved had been less hot-headed/mad.

The Ironborn are their own cup of tea ... and the price there isn't a lordship but a crown. In 37 AC the kingship of Mountain and Vale wasn't dead history but still alive in the minds of both Ronnel and Jonos Arryn. So no surprise there.

But as you might recall - my point is that spreading out your royal blood gives claims to all sorts of people. Brothers are always a danger in that sense, of course, so Jonos Arryn is no surprise there. We also have guys like Borys Baratheon making trouble. It happens. But that is immediate family through the male line, not cousins and kin through the female line getting ideas.

That is Robert. And it could and would have been other houses if Aegon V or other Targaryen kings had been stupid enough to marry their daughters to the most powerful lords of the Realm.

There were betrothals in place. Catelyn to Ned. Robert to Lyanna. It was on the path towards a formal alliance and that was cemented during the Rebellion.

You heavily implied as much when you mentioned Rickard not going to Kings Landing with an army. It spiraled out of control, because of Rhaegar, Lyanna (if she went willingly) and Aerys.

The last point just goes back to why the Great Lords marry their bannermen. We don't know what happened in depth for most of these families except for when they intwined with the Targaryens and I doubt most of the Great Lords were running around and burning their vassals alive. Marrying into the main families of your kingdom is smart.

[Lord Varys]

16 hours ago, Lee-Sensei said:

There were betrothals in place. Catelyn to Ned. Robert to Lyanna. It was on the path towards a formal alliance and that was cemented during the Rebellion.

Cat was betrothed to Brandon, not Ned. And obviously Lyanna's betrothal to Robert was kind of over when the Rhaegar thing happened ... especially if she secretly married him.

Nothing was cemented during the Rebellion. Hoster married his daughters to Ned and Jon, respectively, but no marriage ties ever bought the Starks or the Arryns to the Baratheons. This alliance was one of friendship between Ned, Jon, and Robert ... and they had then to buy Tully's swords because that guy wasn't their friend.

16 hours ago, Lee-Sensei said:

You heavily implied as much when you mentioned Rickard not going to Kings Landing with an army. It spiraled out of control, because of Rhaegar, Lyanna (if she went willingly) and Aerys.

Nope, because of Brandon, too.

16 hours ago, Lee-Sensei said:

The last point just goes back to why the Great Lords marry their bannermen. We don't know what happened in depth for most of these families except for when they intwined with the Targaryens and I doubt most of the Great Lords were running around and burning their vassals alive. Marrying into the main families of your kingdom is smart.

No, it is not, as I pointed out.

And stop pretending people only rebel or want to be king themselves if there is a mad tyrant monarch. Just look at Renly, Daemon Blackfyre, Balon Greyjoy, or Robb.

It is smart to keep the number of your heirs small(er) to reduce that kind of risk. Also it is smart to not intermarry with ambitious or else you get power-grabbing in-laws like the Lannisters or Tyrells who plot to murder you or your children for their own petty reasons.

[Lee-Sensei]

2 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Cat was betrothed to Brandon, not Ned. And obviously Lyanna's betrothal to Robert was kind of over when the Rhaegar thing happened ... especially if she secretly married him.

Nothing was cemented during the Rebellion. Hoster married his daughters to Ned and Jon, respectively, but no marriage ties ever bought the Starks or the Arryns to the Baratheons. This alliance was one of friendship between Ned, Jon, and Robert ... and they had then to buy Tully's swords because that guy wasn't their friend.

Nope, because of Brandon, too.

No, it is not, as I pointed out.

And stop pretending people only rebel or want to be king themselves if there is a mad tyrant monarch. Just look at Renly, Daemon Blackfyre, Balon Greyjoy, or Robb.

It is smart to keep the number of your heirs small(er) to reduce that kind of risk. Also it is smart to not intermarry with ambitious or else you get power-grabbing in-laws like the Lannisters or Tyrells who plot to murder you or your children for their own petty reasons.

Irrelevant. What was the point of these betrothals?

You just disproved yourself. The Tully's, Arryn's and Stark's were bound together by marriages like the Stark's and Baratheon's were supposed to be. Then they all swore fealty to the Baratheon's and fought the same enemy for the same cause. Meaning that they were allies.

Nah. Because of Aerys, Rhaegar and Lyanna if she went willingly. I'm not going to victim blame Brandon.

Then why are the Tyrells marrying their strongest bannermen? That's a stupid idea, right?

Renly rebelled to get rid of Cersei. Robb rebelled because of Joffrey. Both of those were because of mad rulers.

The Lannisters are a special breed. There's nothing wrong with the Tyrells as far as I can see. Joffrey was a monster, but they seem to be very supportive of Tommen.

[Alester Florent]

On 9/10/2023 at 9:02 AM, Lord Varys said:

Sorry, but you made a kind of silly racist calculation there - imagining an arbitrary degree of 'blood purity' around the Conquest. What we do have is that these people say they want to keep the blood line pure, yes, but this is never filled with actual pseudo-scientific/racist 'substance'.

Unless I'm missing something, Sandy Clegg didn't make any such assertion: any such inference is entirely yours.

[Craving Peaches]

On 9/10/2023 at 9:02 AM, Lord Varys said:

Sorry, but you made a kind of silly racist calculation there - imagining an arbitrary degree of 'blood purity' around the Conquest

Sandy Clegg made no racist calculation at all. They were commenting on inheritance of Valyrian genes, nothing about 'race' there. You are the one who assumes it has anything to do with race, which is a bit strange given you consistently argue the Valyrians/Targaryens are not racists/supremacists despite fixation with keeping the blood pure (i.e. no non-Valyrian blood in the mixture) because the concept of 'race' doesn't exist (which I disagree with to an extent). Everything Sandy Clegg commented on was coming directly from how the Targaryens themselves speak on the topic. 

Edited September 11, 2023 by Craving Peaches

[Alester Florent]

On 9/10/2023 at 5:20 AM, Lord Varys said:

That wasn't the core of it. The core were two great lords who were targeted by the king and their foster father who had no marriage ties whatsoever to either house. Hoster Tully joined them only after the rebels met his rather steep price - very steep, actually, for Jon Arryn.

There was no actual alliance there, just a very deep but informal friendship. As I pointed out - if the Rhaegar-Lyanna thing had involved less mad and less hot-headed people (Aerys, Brandon) the Starks could have easily dumped stupid Robert for prestigious Prince Rhaegar. Most noblemen would have done that even if Lya had just been a mistress.

I don't believe that there was a conspiracy against the Targs, but I do think it's clear that there was a concerted attempt to build a network of relationships between the four houses that would have amounted to an informal political alliance, one that when the chips were down transitioned almost seamlessly into a formal military alliance. In addition to the betrothals and the warding, we also know that Brandon was friends with the heir to the Vale. I don't think it's a stretch to assume that Brandon had a good relationship with Robert, either. Obviously not nearly as close as with Ned, but he probably had at least some say in the betrothal to Lyanna and it's hard to imagine he would have kicked off like he did at Rhaegar if he hadn't approved of Robert at least to some extent.

Hoster is the most peripheral member of the (political) alliance network, linked only (that we know of) by the betrothal of Cat and Brandon, and when the rebellion kicks off he's also the only member whose hand isn't forced by Aerys. Moreover, his lands are particularly vulnerable to attack, so he's risking as much as Ned and Jon if not more in raising his banners against Aerys. So it's not entirely surprising that he insists on reinstating the Cat-Stark marriage arrangement to formalise that relationship, and maximises his leverage by dealing with the Lysa problem at the same time. We don't know that Jon considered marriage to Lysa a particularly steep price at the time: indeed we only have Lysa's word for it (and she's hardly a reliable witness) that he had any issue with it at all. And after that deal was sealed, Hoster is all-in on the rebellion.

 

[Daeron the Daring]

42 minutes ago, Alester Florent said:

Unless I'm missing something, Sandy Clegg didn't make any such assertion: any such inference is entirely yours.

What Lord Varys says is that keeping it in the family isn't to preserve the 'purity' of the blood, but to ensure a control over who is capable of riding dragons. 

I personally disagree with this, as we can very much point at a couple of Targaryens/valyrians who were supremacists/purists in nature for the sake of it, but he is right in that the major reason was indeed to preserve the ability to dragonriding to themselves only, especially while they (the dragons) were alive.

To look at the Targaryens after the death of the dragons is a trickier question, but one important thing to remember is that they never gave up on hatching new dragons. Not even Egg, who saw the hipocrisy of supremacism both in Targaryen 'customs' and noble privilege, hence why he tried to get rid of both.

 

Edited September 11, 2023 by Daeron the Daring

[Alester Florent]

38 minutes ago, Daeron the Daring said:

What Lord Varys says is that keeping it in the family isn't to preserve the 'purity' of the blood, but to ensure a control over who is capable of riding dragons. 

I personally disagree with this, as we can very much point at a couple of Targaryens/valyrians who were supremacists/purists in nature for the sake of it, but he is right in that the major reason was indeed to preserve the ability to dragonriding to themselves only, especially while they (the dragons) were alive.

Is he actually saying that? That's not what I get from those posts. Rather he seems to be implying into Sandy Clegg's reference to "blood purity" a whole Targaryen agenda of racism and eugenics and denying its existence. Which is fair enough... except that Sandy Clegg didn't say anything about that and merely referred to the Targaryen preoccupation with "keeping the blood pure", something which is taken directly from the text itself. 

From what I can see, if you set aside the argument over "blood purity" semantics, they seem agree that the Targs' intention was to maintain dragonriding ability (if it can be restricted to themselves, then great, but the important thing is to ensure that they maintain enough dragonlord blood to keep the dragonriding going)

[Lord Varys]

20 hours ago, Lee-Sensei said:

Irrelevant. What was the point of these betrothals?

The strengthen the prestige of the families involved. Hoster wanted great lords for his girls, and Rickard was willing to marry into the southern families because he no longer wanted to be a backwater lord. And Robert fell in love with Lyanna - his was no arranged match but a love match. On his part, at least.

20 hours ago, Lee-Sensei said:

You just disproved yourself. The Tully's, Arryn's and Stark's were bound together by marriages like the Stark's and Baratheon's were supposed to be. Then they all swore fealty to the Baratheon's and fought the same enemy for the same cause. Meaning that they were allies.

Because Aerys made them allies, not because they were before. And their alliance is one based solely on friendship, not marriages that didn't exist (yet).

20 hours ago, Lee-Sensei said:

Nah. Because of Aerys, Rhaegar and Lyanna if she went willingly. I'm not going to victim blame Brandon.

Brandon needs to be blamed for his actions.

20 hours ago, Lee-Sensei said:

Then why are the Tyrells marrying their strongest bannermen? That's a stupid idea, right?

It could be, but Mace is more threatened by his many uncles and male cousins than by a sister of his marrying her first cousin Paxter.

I mean, there aren't that many Tyrell girls. That Luthor married a Redwyne and Mace a Hightower was smart.

20 hours ago, Lee-Sensei said:

Renly rebelled to get rid of Cersei. Robb rebelled because of Joffrey. Both of those were because of mad rulers.

Joffrey and Cersei weren't mad. And Renly wanted the fucking throne, not just get rid of Cersei.

20 hours ago, Lee-Sensei said:

The Lannisters are a special breed. There's nothing wrong with the Tyrells as far as I can see. Joffrey was a monster, but they seem to be very supportive of Tommen.

Come on, they murdered the king they betrothed their daughter to and blamed him on innocent Tyrion and Sansa. They are disgusting and untrustworthy. Regardless what Joffrey was (bullying Sansa doesn't mean he will bully Margaery) he didn't deserve that treatment. And whoever pulls off something like that you can't trust.

19 hours ago, Alester Florent said:

Unless I'm missing something, Sandy Clegg didn't make any such assertion: any such inference is entirely yours.

It is racist/eugenics thinking to start to measure imagined 'blood purity standards' that aren't even on the table in the books. 'Keeping the blood of the dragon pure' is a rule of thumb in the books, but he tried to add substance to it by going quite arbitrarily with the Targaryens around the Conquest being '100% pure' (which is already nonsense as Aegon's mother was a Velaryon).

Talk like that is racist in the sense that it starts to actually take talk of 'blood purity' seriously in a sense the Westerosi can't. Because they don't have the pseudo-science for that kind of thing. They are so primitive they think hair color is 'evidence' for paternity or lack thereof. They have no clue how genetics works. So if they say 'we have to keep the bloodline pure' they also don't know what they talk about.

19 hours ago, Craving Peaches said:

Sandy Clegg made no racist calculation at all. They were commenting on inheritance of Valyrian genes, nothing about 'race' there. You are the one who assumes it has anything to do with race, which is a bit strange given you consistently argue the Valyrians/Targaryens are not racists/supremacists despite fixation with keeping the blood pure (i.e. no non-Valyrian blood in the mixture) because the concept of 'race' doesn't exist (which I disagree with to an extent). Everything Sandy Clegg commented on was coming directly from how the Targaryens themselves speak on the topic. 

Racist talk can happen independent of the notion or concept of 'race' ... else we would have no racism those days.

Of course the Targaryens/Valyrian dragonlords are not a race because they are too few people for that. But they are no racist in a modern sense since (1) their blood is actually different because of the dragonrider thing so the basis for their talk is not fantasy like real world racist ideologies, and (2) they are but a class of a larger population which looks exactly like them.

But, of course, one of the roots of modern racism is the elitist thinking of medieval and early modern aristocrats and royals. They thought their blood set them apart from 'lesser men' - a notion that was eventually transferred from ruling classes to entire peoples.

No modern concept of race exist in Westeros, though. There is no racialized slavery, there is no notion that certain skin colors make you inherently better or worse. However, there are some notions that different races or species of humans exist, for instance that the Ibbenese or the striped men of Sothoryos are different human species which cannot (really) interbreed with each other (a notion Brown Ben Plumm already calls into question).

19 hours ago, Alester Florent said:

I don't believe that there was a conspiracy against the Targs, but I do think it's clear that there was a concerted attempt to build a network of relationships between the four houses that would have amounted to an informal political alliance, one that when the chips were down transitioned almost seamlessly into a formal military alliance.

That is making too much of it. It is the friendship between Ned and Robert and Jon that made it happen. If you ignore Lya for a moment, the friendship alone could have triggered the Rebellion if Jon had received the mad order to kill Ned and Robert for some other mad reason. Ned and Robert and Jon were not, in fact, tied to each other through marriages. And Hoster only joined them when his steep prices were met. Ned and Jon had no inclination nor intention to marry the Tully girls. They just had to if they didn't want to lose the war.

19 hours ago, Alester Florent said:

In addition to the betrothals and the warding, we also know that Brandon was friends with the heir to the Vale. I don't think it's a stretch to assume that Brandon had a good relationship with Robert, either. Obviously not nearly as close as with Ned, but he probably had at least some say in the betrothal to Lyanna and it's hard to imagine he would have kicked off like he did at Rhaegar if he hadn't approved of Robert at least to some extent.

Elbert Arryn was Brandon's companion - that doesn't make them close friends. Elbert was Jon's nephew, so much older than Brandon, most likely. Robert's betrothal was apparently arranged through Ned and approved by Rickard. No reason to assume Brandon was even asked.

19 hours ago, Alester Florent said:

Hoster is the most peripheral member of the (political) alliance network, linked only (that we know of) by the betrothal of Cat and Brandon, and when the rebellion kicks off he's also the only member whose hand isn't forced by Aerys. Moreover, his lands are particularly vulnerable to attack, so he's risking as much as Ned and Jon if not more in raising his banners against Aerys. So it's not entirely surprising that he insists on reinstating the Cat-Stark marriage arrangement to formalise that relationship, and maximises his leverage by dealing with the Lysa problem at the same time. We don't know that Jon considered marriage to Lysa a particularly steep price at the time: indeed we only have Lysa's word for it (and she's hardly a reliable witness) that he had any issue with it at all. And after that deal was sealed, Hoster is all-in on the rebellion.

Lysa is the only witness we need for the 'happiness' of her marriage. And of course Jon paid a steep price there. He got a soiled, mentally unstable wife who failed to produce a proper heir for the Vale. He fucked up the future of his house and bloodline by marrying Lysa.

 

[Lee-Sensei]

6 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

The strengthen the prestige of the families involved. Hoster wanted great lords for his girls, and Rickard was willing to marry into the southern families because he no longer wanted to be a backwater lord. And Robert fell in love with Lyanna - his was no arranged match but a love match. On his part, at least.

Because Aerys made them allies, not because they were before. And their alliance is one based solely on friendship, not marriages that didn't exist (yet).

Brandon needs to be blamed for his actions.

It could be, but Mace is more threatened by his many uncles and male cousins than by a sister of his marrying her first cousin Paxter.

I mean, there aren't that many Tyrell girls. That Luthor married a Redwyne and Mace a Hightower was smart.

Joffrey and Cersei weren't mad. And Renly wanted the fucking throne, not just get rid of Cersei.

Come on, they murdered the king they betrothed their daughter to and blamed him on innocent Tyrion and Sansa. They are disgusting and untrustworthy. Regardless what Joffrey was (bullying Sansa doesn't mean he will bully Margaery) he didn't deserve that treatment. And whoever pulls off something like that you can't trust.

This is such a cope. The primary purpose of these marrages wasn't for prestige. They were alliances and you know it. What Robert felt isn't really relevant. If some random peasant wanted to marry Lyanna, Rickard wouldn't have agreed. He agreed because Robert was one of the most powerful Lords in the realm.

In a year or two when the marriages happened, they would have been formal allies and we both know it. That was the point.

Nah. Rhaegar, Lyanna and Aerys need to be blamed for the war. Not Brandon. As far as he was aware, his sister had been kidnapped and was being raped. I'm not going to victim blame him.

He doesn't seem to be threatened. He seems to be pretty secure.

Why? Wouldn't it be smarter to just to keep it in the family?

Whether or not they're disgusting is up for debate. I think there are fair criticisms of the Tyrells, although they're nowhere near as close to being as disgusting as the Lannisters. The whole point of their inquiry of Sansa was to understand who Joffrey was and they did. He was a monster that had already committed monstrous acts at a very young age. If he hadn't been a monster, he might have still been alive.

Joffrey and Cersei are both definitely mad and Renly's original plan was to get Robert remarried to remove Cersei. His next plan was to get Ned to take Cersei's kids and act as Joffrey's regent to remove Cersei. Crowning himself was his last option to get rid of that murderous lunatic.

[Lord Varys]

1 hour ago, Lee-Sensei said:

This is such a cope. The primary purpose of these marrages wasn't for prestige. They were alliances and you know it. What Robert felt isn't really relevant. If some random peasant wanted to marry Lyanna, Rickard wouldn't have agreed. He agreed because Robert was one of the most powerful Lords in the realm.

In a year or two when the marriages happened, they would have been formal allies and we both know it. That was the point.

Sorry, but you don't seem to understand how marriages actually work in this world. Marriages can seal alliances and establish lasting ties ... or they help to drive wedges between families and cause the parties involved a lot of grief. Cersei and Robert married, too ... are houses Lannister and Baratheon 'allies' because of that? No! Were the Arryns and Tullys/Starks allies because of the Jon-Lysa match? No! Because the people who should deepen or forge new ties loathed each other ... which is actually not uncommon in arranged matches.

Did the Blackwoods stick to Aerys II despite the king being their like second cousin or something through Betha Blackwood? Nope.

Hoster was after prestige. He wanted a great lord or a great lord's heir for his daughters. Brandon Stark for Cat, Jaime Lannister for Lysa. He didn't want to forge some 'alliance', he wanted to look important and glorious.

And it was the same with Lord Rickard. He had had enough with always marrying the same backwater northern girls, so he decided his heir wouldn't marry Barbrey Ryswell but a proper southron lady, namely Catelyn Tully. That way he would have ties to another great family.

Noble families marry each other all the time ... and it rarely establishes lasting ties or alliances. What played the crucial role in the Rebellion is that Robert and Ned and Jon WERE REALLY GREAT FRIENDS! That's what did the trick, not some marriages or betrothals.

1 hour ago, Lee-Sensei said:

Nah. Rhaegar, Lyanna and Aerys need to be blamed for the war. Not Brandon. As far as he was aware, his sister had been kidnapped and was being raped. I'm not going to victim blame him.

LOL, how do you know that? Brandon never says he thinks his sister is raped nor do we have any reason to believe he had good reasons to believe that.

1 hour ago, Lee-Sensei said:

He doesn't seem to be threatened. He seems to be pretty secure.

Sure. It doesn't always have to go bad if you have many relations. But nobody can threaten you if you are the only claimant to something. Mace, however, would first be threatened by other male (line) Tyrells, not by some female line cousins like the Redwynes or Fossoways.

1 hour ago, Lee-Sensei said:

Why? Wouldn't it be smarter to just to keep it in the family?

Do you still not understand it? My point was that Egg would have been stupid to marry his daughters to ambitious great lords like the Tyrells or Lannisters. That would give such houses a hereditary claim to the throne, allowing them to potentially challenge them like Robert eventually did. Marrying his sons to other noblewomen wasn't that bad, although getting ambitious and poisonous pricks in that way is also a risk. Think of Cersei or Alicent.

Marrying sisters or close cousins is much better as it keeps things in the family. The women don't bring ambitious men in who demand offices and influence.

Bottom line is if you look at the Targaryen history - sibling incest effectively never made problems even if it was very bad for the woman involved (Naerys, Rhaella). They were only in trouble when some king married some outsider (Alicent, Myriah).

1 hour ago, Lee-Sensei said:

Whether or not they're disgusting is up for debate. I think there are fair criticisms of the Tyrells, although they're nowhere near as close to being as disgusting as the Lannisters. The whole point of their inquiry of Sansa was to understand who Joffrey was and they did. He was a monster that had already committed monstrous acts at a very young age. If he hadn't been a monster, he might have still been alive.

Sorry, Joff isn't 'a monster'. He is 12-13-year-old boy. And boys are not monsters. Joff was a bully and an asshole but he still didn't deserve to be poisoned at his own wedding feast by the family of his own wife. That is just disgusting. Anyone capable of doing that is capable of worse monstrosities than Joffrey ever did. Joffrey mostly lashed out at people he loathed for reasons. Ned tried to steal his throne. Sansa was his daughter and had earlier witnessed his earlier humiliation at Arya's hands.

Margaery and Olenna and Alerie and Garlan and Leonette and whoever else was involved were actually capable of murdering a young boy who never wronged them at his own wedding. His murder was cold-blooded, premeditated murder and I actually look forward to the punishment they are going to receive for that.

1 hour ago, Lee-Sensei said:

Joffrey and Cersei are both definitely mad and Renly's original plan was to get Robert remarried to remove Cersei. His next plan was to get Ned to take Cersei's kids and act as Joffrey's regent to remove Cersei. Crowning himself was his last option to get rid of that murderous lunatic.

Joffrey and Cersei are neither lunatics nor is there any indication that Renly believed that or acted because he felt like that. The asshole failed to get along with his nephew and his sister-in-law ... which is something we can blame him to a point. Cersei, too, of course, but with Renly having the same gift of making friends as Robert it is actually quite noteworthy he doesn't get along with Cersei and Joffrey.

I mean, seriously, where are you getting that Cersei and Joffrey are lunatics?!

[Lee-Sensei]

2 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Sorry, but you don't seem to understand how marriages actually work in this world. Marriages can seal alliances and establish lasting ties ... or they help to drive wedges between families and cause the parties involved a lot of grief. Cersei and Robert married, too ... are houses Lannister and Baratheon 'allies' because of that? No! Were the Arryns and Tullys/Starks allies because of the Jon-Lysa match? No! Because the people who should deepen or forge new ties loathed each other ... which is actually not uncommon in arranged matches.

Did the Blackwoods stick to Aerys II despite the king being their like second cousin or something through Betha Blackwood? Nope.

Hoster was after prestige. He wanted a great lord or a great lord's heir for his daughters. Brandon Stark for Cat, Jaime Lannister for Lysa. He didn't want to forge some 'alliance', he wanted to look important and glorious.

And it was the same with Lord Rickard. He had had enough with always marrying the same backwater northern girls, so he decided his heir wouldn't marry Barbrey Ryswell but a proper southron lady, namely Catelyn Tully. That way he would have ties to another great family.

Noble families marry each other all the time ... and it rarely establishes lasting ties or alliances. What played the crucial role in the Rebellion is that Robert and Ned and Jon WERE REALLY GREAT FRIENDS! That's what did the trick, not some marriages or betrothals.

LOL, how do you know that? Brandon never says he thinks his sister is raped nor do we have any reason to believe he had good reasons to believe that.

Sure. It doesn't always have to go bad if you have many relations. But nobody can threaten you if you are the only claimant to something. Mace, however, would first be threatened by other male (line) Tyrells, not by some female line cousins like the Redwynes or Fossoways.

Do you still not understand it? My point was that Egg would have been stupid to marry his daughters to ambitious great lords like the Tyrells or Lannisters. That would give such houses a hereditary claim to the throne, allowing them to potentially challenge them like Robert eventually did. Marrying his sons to other noblewomen wasn't that bad, although getting ambitious and poisonous pricks in that way is also a risk. Think of Cersei or Alicent.

Marrying sisters or close cousins is much better as it keeps things in the family. The women don't bring ambitious men in who demand offices and influence.

Bottom line is if you look at the Targaryen history - sibling incest effectively never made problems even if it was very bad for the woman involved (Naerys, Rhaella). They were only in trouble when some king married some outsider (Alicent, Myriah).

Sorry, Joff isn't 'a monster'. He is 12-13-year-old boy. And boys are not monsters. Joff was a bully and an asshole but he still didn't deserve to be poisoned at his own wedding feast by the family of his own wife. That is just disgusting. Anyone capable of doing that is capable of worse monstrosities than Joffrey ever did. Joffrey mostly lashed out at people he loathed for reasons. Ned tried to steal his throne. Sansa was his daughter and had earlier witnessed his earlier humiliation at Arya's hands.

Margaery and Olenna and Alerie and Garlan and Leonette and whoever else was involved were actually capable of murdering a young boy who never wronged them at his own wedding. His murder was cold-blooded, premeditated murder and I actually look forward to the punishment they are going to receive for that.

Joffrey and Cersei are neither lunatics nor is there any indication that Renly believed that or acted because he felt like that. The asshole failed to get along with his nephew and his sister-in-law ... which is something we can blame him to a point. Cersei, too, of course, but with Renly having the same gift of making friends as Robert it is actually quite noteworthy he doesn't get along with Cersei and Joffrey.

I mean, seriously, where are you getting that Cersei and Joffrey are lunatics?!

You're just wrong on this one though. Objectively wrong.

Quote

"Good," King Stannis said, "for the surest way to seal a new alliance is with a marriage. I mean to wed my Lord of Winterfell to this wildling princess."

Or... more likely, Hoster wanted to marry his children to other Great Houses, because the Riverlands are hard to defend and having strong allies would have made his kingdom more secure? That seems much more likely to me.

The Starks aren't a backwater House as I see it. Neither are most of the families in the North. And I'm pretty sure that their family is considered more prestigious than the Tullys even though I like the Tullys. They were kings for thousands of years. The Tullys were never kings.

Where did I say that having good relations between these Houses was unimportant? Yes. Ned, Jon and Robert being friends was important, but marriages are to forge alliances.

If your 14 year old sister was kidnapped by a 23 year old man (as Brandon saw it), what would you think?

You still haven't answered why every other House marries their vassals instead of their sisters. Cersei is a unique case. Not having Robert's kids wasn't even in her interests and all of her children are going to die for it. Just like in the show. Alicent on the other hand, wasn't trying to replace the Targaryens with the Hightowers. She wanted her Targaryen son to inherit. That's not really the same thing.

Nah. Joffrey was a monster and if he'd been a better person, they probably wouldn't have killed him. I have sympathy for Joffrey. Having Cersei as a mother must have been hard, but he was cutting open pregnant cats as a toddler, which suggests that he was always broken to some extent. Possibly in part because of Jaime and Cersei's incest.

Quote

The Targaryens have heavily interbred, like the Ptolemys of Egypt. As any horse or dog breeder can tell you, interbreeding accentuates both flaws and virtues, and pushes a lineage toward the extremes. Also, there's sometimes a fine line between madness and greatness. Daeron I, the boy king who led a war of conquest, and even the saintly Baelor I could also be considered "mad," if seen in a different light. ((And I must confess, I love grey characters, and those who can be interperted in many different ways. Both as a reader and a writer, I want complexity and subtlety in my fiction))

There are fair criticisms of Renly, but that's not it. Renly gets along with almost everyone. Even Jaime liked him iirc. Where as Cersei and Joffrey are almost universally hated. The best thing that people can say about them is that they're physically attractive. If Robert had married Queen Delena Florent and had Prince Edric Baratheon as his heir I'm certain that Renly would have got along wtih them. As you said, he had a gift for making friends, but Cersei isn't one of them. This isn't a Renly issue. This is a Cersei and Joffrey issue.

Where am I getting that they're lunatics? From Cersei murdering her best friend as a child, having sex (implied) with her brother while her mother was still alive (she wasn't even 10) and trying to twist off Tyrion's penis in his crib as a baby. For Joffrey from cutting open pregnant cats. Why do you think they weren't mad?

Edited September 12, 2023 by Lee-Sensei

[Alester Florent]

13 minutes ago, Lee-Sensei said:

There are fair criticisms of Renly, but that's not it. Renly gets along with almost everyone. Even Jaime liked him iirc. Where as Cersei and Joffrey are almost universally hated. The best thing that people can say about them is that they're physically attractive. If Robert had married Queen Delena Florent and had Prince Edric Baratheon as his heir I'm certain that Renly would have got along wtih them. As you said, he had a gift for making friends, but Cersei isn't one of them. This isn't a Renly issue. This is a Cersei and Joffrey issue.

Where am I getting that they're lunatics? From Cersei murdering her best friend as a child, having sex (implied) with her brother while her mother was still alive (she wasn't even 10) and trying to twist off Tyrion's penis in his crib as a baby. For Joffrey from cutting open pregnant cats. Why do you think they weren't mad?

Who, exactly, do Cersei and Joffrey get on with? They have sycophants, but anyone who actually shows them affection? Cersei has Jaime, and I guess Falyse Stokeworth (though she doesn't like her) and arguably Taena (albeit Taena's motives are suspect)?

Joffrey seems to have no actual friends at all, which is something even Aerys managed. Even Sansa learns to despise him after getting to know him.