Did the Targaryens colonize Westeros?

[KingAerys_II]

I don't want to play the part of House Targaryen defender, but it's ridiculous to consider Targaryens as colonizers of Westeros ( I wonder how 3 individuals with fertility issues are able to colonize a continent), anyway, let's see the situation of Westeros before the based Egg came to invade.
The first King of the First Men was Brandon of the bloody blade, he slaughtered the children of the forest till the field became soaked of their blood.
Brandon is the ancestor of the famous Brandon the Builder.
The Starks conquered the North by defeating the Warg Kings, the Umbers and the Red Kings.
Among the Red Kings there was King Royce IV Bolton, who enjoyed removing the entrails of the prisoners when they were still alive.
The wars against the Red Kings were brutal, sometimes the Red Kings were able to sack Winterfell and flay alive Starks.
However the most violent event happened during the Rape of the three sisters, when Theon Stark sent his psycho vassal Belthasar Bolton to defeat the Sistermen that were a problem, probably for the raids.
The Stark is an ancient Westerosi Housed that ruled for 8000 years, a Stark king and a Bolton defeated an Andal king that tried to colonize the North, the Andal invasion annihilated entire First Men houses.
In the rest of the kingdoms the situation was more or less the same, I am going to report the most important conflicts:
Gyles I Gardener sacked Oldtown and enslaved 3/4 of the population.
Dornishmen sacked Highgarden and Garth the Painter retaliated by painting the Red Mountains with dornish blood.
Gyles III succeeded in conquering the Stormlands except for Storm's End, he was forced to return back to his lands after a king of the Rock tried to invade the Reach.
Just before Aegon Conquest Argillac slew a Gardener King and  rejected an invasion of dornishmen

Targaryens rule didn't break a paradisiac situation in Westeros, where people used to live in peace surrounded by weirwood trees, lemon trees, and the smallfolk was not exploited, the smallfolk had no rights, anyway.
However numbers of loss in manpower would be useful to understand how the Dance of the Dragons and the first dornish war affected the population of Westeros and accurate data would be useful to understand the difference between conflicts involving dragons and normal conflicts.

The reality is that Targaryens are not colonizers, colonization requires settlements and colonies, then Aegon and his sisters converted to the Faith of 7, dragonlords used to worship Valyrian God's. Targaryens are rulers, they clearly gained a large amount of wealth, but they are the only rulers that approved laws for the smallfolk, some laws for the smallfolk approved by Aegon V were wiped out by Tywin.
The misconception to consider Targaryens as colonizers is probably due to the physical characteristics of dragonlords described as people with pale skin, gold silver hair, purple eyes

Edited November 23, 2023 by KingAerys_II

[SeanF]

Colonisation can take different forms, but usually, it involves running a territory in the interests of a mother country.

Alternatively, the mother country may establish its own towns, with a view to their becoming independent (the Greek cities), or being used to exercise hegemony (the Roman model).

The Targaryens are more like the House of Wessex, who conquered and incorporated the kingdoms that became England, but did not treat the other English as conquered, or subordinate.

[Him of Many Faces]

43 minutes ago, SeanF said:

The Targaryens are more like the House of Wessex, who conquered and incorporated the kingdoms that became England, but did not treat the other English as conquered, or subordinate.

I think Targaryen conquest of Westeros is inspired by Norman conquest of England.

Aegon is like William the Conqueror, Harren the Black is like Harald Hardrada (also viking-ironborn similarities) and Argilac is like Harold Godwinson (both last kings of an ancient house). And of course GRRM being GRRM he mixed up things a bit like not making Aegon a bastard like William and instead created Orys Baratheon.

Definitely not a colonization, not even cultural.

Edited November 23, 2023 by Him of Many Faces

[SeanF]

8 minutes ago, Him of Many Faces said:

I think Targaryen conquest of Westeros is inspired by Norman conquest of England.

Aegon is like William the Conqueror, Harren the Black is like Harald Hardrada (also viking-ironborn similarities) and Argilac is like Harold Godwinson (both last kings of an ancient house). And of course GRRM being GRRM he mixed up things a bit like not making Aegon a bastard like William and instead created Orys Baratheon.

Definitely not a colonization, not even cultural.

There are parallels, but it was much gentler.  There was no widespread dispossession of lands, nor any equivalent of the Harrying of the North.

[James Steller]

It feels a bit like the Ptolemaic dynasty of Egypt to me, and not just because of the 300 year reign of incest or the last descendant being a young and beautiful queen.

Egypt did have an influx of Macedonians, hence the Valyrian houses in the Crownlands. But Alexander and Ptolemy didn’t impose their own values onto the Egyptians. In fact, Ptolemy and his family adopted Egyptian customs to endear themselves to their subjects. That was partly how they managed to endure for so long.

Aegon the Conqueror is obviously a combination of Alexander and Ptolemy in this case, with the incest being an abnormality instead of customary to Westeros, but the parallels are still there as far as I can see.

Edited November 23, 2023 by James Steller

[SaffronLady]

46 minutes ago, SeanF said:

any equivalent of the Harrying of the North.

The Dragon's Wroth seems fitting ...

[Lord of Raventree Hall]

1 hour ago, KingAerys_II said:

I don't want to play the part of House Targaryen defender, but it's ridiculous to consider Targaryens as colonizers of Westeros ( I wonder how 3 individuals with fertility issues are able to colonize a continent), anyway, let's see the situation of Westeros before the based Egg came to invade.
The first King of the First Men was Brandon of the bloody blade, he slaughtered the children of the forest till the field became soaked of their blood.
Brandon is the ancestor of the famous Brandon the Builder.
The Starks conquered the North by defeating the Warg Kings, the Umbers and the Red Kings.
Among the Red Kings there was King Royce IV Bolton, who enjoyed removing the entrails of the prisoners when they were still alive.
The wars against the Red Kings were brutal, sometimes the Red Kings were able to sack Winterfell and flay alive Starks.
However the most violent event happened during the Rape of the three sisters, when Theon Stark sent his psycho vassal Belthasar Bolton to defeat the Sistermen that were a problem, probably for the raids.
The Stark is an ancient Westerosi Housed that ruled for 8000 years, a Stark king and a Bolton defeated an Andal king that tried to colonize the North, the Andal invasion annihilated entire First Men houses.
In the rest of the kingdoms the situation was more or less the same, I am going to report the most important conflicts:
Gyles I Gardener sacked Oldtown and enslaved 3/4 of the population.
Dornishmen sacked Highgarden and Garth the Painter retaliated by painting the Red Mountains with dornish blood.
Gyles III succeeded in conquering the Stormlands except for Storm's End, he was forced to return back to his lands after a king of the Rock tried to invade the Reach.
Just before Aegon Conquest Argillac slew a Gardener King and  rejected an invasion of dornishmen

Targaryens rule didn't break a paradisiac situation in Westeros, where people used to live in peace surrounded by weirwood trees, lemon trees, and the smallfolk was not exploited, the smallfolk had no rights, anyway.
However numbers of loss in manpower would be useful to understand how the Dance of the Dragons and the first dornish war affected the population of Westeros and accurate data would be useful to understand the difference between conflicts involving dragons and normal conflicts.

The reality is that Targaryens are not colonizers, colonization requires settlements and colonies, then Aegon and his sisters converted to the Faith of 7, dragonlords used to worship Valyrian God's. Targaryens are rulers, they clearly gained a large amount of wealth, but they are the only rulers that approved laws for the smallfolk, some laws for the smallfolk approved by Aegon V were wiped out by Tywin.
The misconception to consider Targaryens as colonizers is probably due to the physical characteristics of dragonlords described as people with pale skin, gold silver hair, purple eyes

I guess no, because...they have no mother country. And Dragonstone is now just considered part of Westeros..I guess making them Westerosi (even if they were only from a small corner of it). 

[Alester Florent]

1 hour ago, Him of Many Faces said:

I think Targaryen conquest of Westeros is inspired by Norman conquest of England.

Aegon is like William the Conqueror, Harren the Black is like Harald Hardrada (also viking-ironborn similarities) and Argilac is like Harold Godwinson (both last kings of an ancient house). And of course GRRM being GRRM he mixed up things a bit like not making Aegon a bastard like William and instead created Orys Baratheon.

Definitely not a colonization, not even cultural.

The Godwins weren't exactly an ancient house... Indeed, although historians are fairly confident in the identification, it's not even known for certain who Godwin's father was.

The "ancient royal house" of England was the house of Wessex, whose last (male) member, Edgar, was pushed aside to get Harold Godwinson on the throne. Edgar was in turn acclaimed as king after Harold's death, but was unable to resist William and is generally overlooked in king lists.

And I think the Norman conquest of England might fairly have been considered a colonisation under different circumstances. Virtually the whole of the noble class was replaced with Normans, the native landowners dispossessed, the language of government altered to match that of Normandy. The line between conquest and colonisation isn't exactly a clear one.

Edited November 23, 2023 by Alester Florent

[KingAerys_II]

4 hours ago, James Steller said:

It feels a bit like the Ptolemaic dynasty of Egypt to me, and not just because of the 300 year reign of incest or the last descendant being a young and beautiful queen.

Egypt did have an influx of Macedonians, hence the Valyrian houses in the Crownlands. But Alexander and Ptolemy didn’t impose their own values onto the Egyptians. In fact, Ptolemy and his family adopted Egyptian customs to endear themselves to their subjects. That was partly how they managed to endure for so long.

Aegon the Conqueror is obviously a combination of Alexander and Ptolemy in this case, with the incest being an abnormality instead of customary to Westeros, but the parallels are still there as far as I can see.

Facts,they did incest too, because they considered themselves as godly men

Edited November 23, 2023 by KingAerys_II

[KingAerys_II]

If Daenerys dies, it would be more natural the restoration of the old kingdoms.
The United Westeros is useful to face the Others, that's the sense of the Iron Throne, I guess, if Aegon really conquered Westeros just to defeat the Others , the existence of the Iron Throne has no longer a purpose.
I don't like the idea of a Targ restoration, but the show ending just proved the producers never opened GRRM books.
 

[Alester Florent]

Quote

I don't want to play the part of House Targaryen defender, but it's ridiculous to consider Targaryens as colonizers of Westeros

It's curious that "colonisation" is a charge felt necessary to defend the Targaryens against, given what they indisputable actually did. I think trying to defend the Targs against charges of colonisation is pointless where it is indisputable that their takeover of Westeros was a violent conquest. This as much as anything reflects current, i.e. largely post-2010, socio-political concerns, where "colonisation" is a bugaboo and "coloniser" is a filthy insult to sling around, because the aftereffects of colonisation are something which a lot of people in agenda-setting countries feels affects them directly, whereas conquest is something that doesn't really happen any more, at least not to anyone we know (cue side-eye at Ukraine).

I would note too that if Aegon was indeed motivated by prophecy, well, that's not all that different from the manifest destiny and "white man's burden" arguments used to justify imperial expansion IRL in the 19th century.

Does being a colonisation or not somehow make this conquest worse? I don't think so. It seems like a nothing question. 

Quote

If Daenerys dies, it would be more natural the restoration of the old kingdoms.
The United Westeros is useful to face the Others, that's the sense of the Iron Throne, I guess, if Aegon really conquered Westeros just to defeat the Others , the existence of the Iron Throne has no longer a purpose.

I'm not sure about this either. Now, admittedly, ASoIaF has problems with scale, especially timescale, in a way which is common to much of fantasy: things which IRL would normally take decades or centuries in fact take millennia. But in any case, 300 years is a long time. Great empires have risen and fallen in much shorter periods.

If a central government has been in place for that long, you can't just remove it and expect everything to snap back to the way it was. Take the Westerlands for instance. Nobody alive remembers an independent Westerlands. Nobody alive has spoken to anyone who remembers an independent Westerlands, and nobody anyone alive has spoken to will themselves have spoken to anyone who remembers an independent Westerlands. The cultural, linguistic, religious and legal differences between the Westerlands, Reach, Riverlands, Stormlands, Vale and mainland Crownlands are negligible. So where's the real driving force for an independent Westerlands? Or more particularly, where's the driving force for an independent Westerlands qua "Westerlands", rather than "Westerlands plus whatever bits of the Riverlands and Reach they can conquer"? So even if the centralised kingdom split up, there's no particular reason it should go back to the way it was.

And if we need a reason to keep the Iron Throne beyond simple inertia, then that surely highlights one of the reasons, which is that splitting up into independent kingdoms would surely immediately result in war, if nowhere else than over the Crownlands which both the Riverlands and Stormlands would want and say they have the right to.

The North, Dorne and the Iron Islands may be exceptions to this: they retain enough cultural independence I think, even if somewhat oddly in the North's case, that it's feasible to see them declaring independence and doing their own thing: indeed both the North and Iron Islands already have. But the Dornish marches remain a hotspot and the Iron Islands' being independent isn't really good for anyone else.

[Hippocras]

So... yes and no. The Targaryens were representatives of a foreign culture, and they conquered a continent. Basically the difference from colonization is that they did not bring any Valyrian settlers, so there were no colonists. Only conquerors. It is therefore hard to see much sign of Valyrian culture being imposed on Westeros. All they really asked was that they be allowed themselves to keep doing things their way.

The real colonizers were the Andals.

[KingAerys_II]

1 hour ago, Alester Florent said:

It's curious that "colonisation" is a charge felt necessary to defend the Targaryens against, given what they indisputable actually did. I think trying to defend the Targs against charges of colonisation is pointless where it is indisputable that their takeover of Westeros was a violent conquest. This as much as anything reflects current, i.e. largely post-2010, socio-political concerns, where "colonisation" is a bugaboo and "coloniser" is a filthy insult to sling around, because the aftereffects of colonisation are something which a lot of people in agenda-setting countries feels affects them directly, whereas conquest is something that doesn't really happen any more, at least not to anyone we know (cue side-eye at Ukraine).

I would note too that if Aegon was indeed motivated by prophecy, well, that's not all that different from the manifest destiny and "white man's burden" arguments used to justify imperial expansion IRL in the 19th century.

Does being a colonisation or not somehow make this conquest worse? I don't think so. It seems like a nothing question. 

I'm not sure about this either. Now, admittedly, ASoIaF has problems with scale, especially timescale, in a way which is common to much of fantasy: things which IRL would normally take decades or centuries in fact take millennia. But in any case, 300 years is a long time. Great empires have risen and fallen in much shorter periods.

If a central government has been in place for that long, you can't just remove it and expect everything to snap back to the way it was. Take the Westerlands for instance. Nobody alive remembers an independent Westerlands. Nobody alive has spoken to anyone who remembers an independent Westerlands, and nobody anyone alive has spoken to will themselves have spoken to anyone who remembers an independent Westerlands. The cultural, linguistic, religious and legal differences between the Westerlands, Reach, Riverlands, Stormlands, Vale and mainland Crownlands are negligible. So where's the real driving force for an independent Westerlands? Or more particularly, where's the driving force for an independent Westerlands qua "Westerlands", rather than "Westerlands plus whatever bits of the Riverlands and Reach they can conquer"? So even if the centralised kingdom split up, there's no particular reason it should go back to the way it was.

And if we need a reason to keep the Iron Throne beyond simple inertia, then that surely highlights one of the reasons, which is that splitting up into independent kingdoms would surely immediately result in war, if nowhere else than over the Crownlands which both the Riverlands and Stormlands would want and say they have the right to.

The North, Dorne and the Iron Islands may be exceptions to this: they retain enough cultural independence I think, even if somewhat oddly in the North's case, that it's feasible to see them declaring independence and doing their own thing: indeed both the North and Iron Islands already have. But the Dornish marches remain a hotspot and the Iron Islands' being independent isn't really good for anyone else.

I imagine Sansa as Queen of the North and Riverlands, Tyrion as new King of the Rock, Edric Storm as new Storm King, the Ironborn kept being a vicious population even under Targaryen rule

[Lord Varys]

While there are parallels between the Norman Conquest, the Ptolemies, and the Targaryens, they are not exactly pretty well.

The Targaryens are more like the Hanovers or Stuarts taking over England than an actual conquest. A new royal house moves in and rules a place, but there is little or no change to the way the conquered people ran their own country.

Yes, there was some fighting and quite a few people died, and, yes, the Targaryens also forged seven kingdoms into one (eventually) ... but there wasn't a lot of warfare and fighting going on, in the end, outside Dorne.

The Westerosi peoples as a whole were fine with Targaryen (or rather unified) rule or else there would have been widespread rebellion which would have put an end to this small and inbred dynasty. 

What was conquered were the elites, the high nobility and the former royal houses, and even they quickly made their peace with the new status quo (presumably because they profited, too).

Culturally the Targaryens were long ago colonized by the Westerosi as they had adopted their language, their religion, their system of governance/economy (feudalism) and their heraldic and chivalry circus before they even finished the Conquest.

The only Valyrian (or Essosi) thing about Aegon Targaryen were his dragons and his sister-wives. Everything else he and his ancestors had long abandoned.

You could even say that the Targaryens fight and bleed to keep the last part of their 'identity as Valyrians' when they pushed back against the Faith's taboo on incestuous marriages. 

If you look at historical parallels, the Norman and Plantagenet kings were Frenchmen whose court continued to speak Norman French for centuries after the conquest and whose interests were, in no small part, in their continental holdings which they wanted to keep and enlarge.

The Ptolemies were Greek and remained Greek until they died out. The last Cleopatra may have been the first Ptolemy to actually speak Egyptian - and that may have been because she may have had an Egyptian mother.

5 hours ago, Alester Florent said:

It's curious that "colonisation" is a charge felt necessary to defend the Targaryens against, given what they indisputable actually did. I think trying to defend the Targs against charges of colonisation is pointless where it is indisputable that their takeover of Westeros was a violent conquest. This as much as anything reflects current, i.e. largely post-2010, socio-political concerns, where "colonisation" is a bugaboo and "coloniser" is a filthy insult to sling around, because the aftereffects of colonisation are something which a lot of people in agenda-setting countries feels affects them directly, whereas conquest is something that doesn't really happen any more, at least not to anyone we know (cue side-eye at Ukraine).

I would note too that if Aegon was indeed motivated by prophecy, well, that's not all that different from the manifest destiny and "white man's burden" arguments used to justify imperial expansion IRL in the 19th century.

Does being a colonisation or not somehow make this conquest worse? I don't think so. It seems like a nothing question. 

It is clearly a conquest, but no colonization, as there is no 'us vs. them' narrative, nor a setting where Aegon and his successors exploit 'the lesser men of Westeros' to the benefit of a new elite of Valyrian settlers.

The tyrannical kings persecute their own as much as the Westerosi (Maegor killing two nephews, for instance), and both the common people of Westeros as well as the Westerosi nobility - which remains in charge of things under the Targaryens - profit equally from the boom the united Realm brings (e.g. the prosperity of KL and the tax revenues from trade).

The way things went, Aegon's Conquest turned out to be good for the conquered - there is really no downside to it, especially in light of the issue of the Others.

If we imagine that there was no unification war and continual warfare as usual up until the books, then there would be no chance at all to defeat the Others.

Edited November 24, 2023 by Lord Varys

[KingAerys_II]

The only thing Aegon has in common with William is the nickname, Aegon Conquest has nothing to do with William Conquest and the colonization of England, actually England  means "the land of Angles", William was a norman, Angles, Saxons and Jutes colonized Britain and they founded England

Edited November 24, 2023 by KingAerys_II

[Alester Florent]

2 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

The Westerosi peoples as a whole were fine with Targaryen (or rather unified) rule or else there would have been widespread rebellion which would have put an end to this small and inbred dynasty.

Like the multiple rebellions that broke out almost immediately on Aegon's death? Arguably, the Targs only achieved the conquest and then survived those first 50 years thanks to their dragons and their apparent willingness to use them - an advantage no medieval conqueror IRL has had.

[Maegor_the_Cool]

As much as I hate most Targaryens, I wouldn’t call it colonialism. They did the same as the other Houses only they had the benefit of millennia of slavery, human experimentation, and blood magic to create their dragons. Tbh it was their dragons that conquered Westeros, not them. Without their dragons the Targaryens would’ve been bannermen to the Storm Kings or thralls of House Hoare.

[KingAerys_II]

32 minutes ago, _Rhaegar_Targaryen_ said:

As much as I hate most Targaryens, I wouldn’t call it colonialism. They did the same as the other Houses only they had the benefit of millennia of slavery, human experimentation, and blood magic to create their dragons. Tbh it was their dragons that conquered Westeros, not them. Without their dragons the Targaryens would’ve been bannermen to the Storm Kings or thralls of House Hoare.

Visenya and Aegon were the most skilled warriors at the time, they weren't just dragonriders 

[Maegor_the_Cool]

Just now, KingAerys_II said:

Visenya and Aegon were the most skilled warriors at the time, they weren't just dragonriders 

No they weren’t lol. Both have little feats without dragon riding. Aegon slew a (Drumm?) and Visenya slew 1 or 2 assassins. 

[Maegor_the_Cool]

1 minute ago, KingAerys_II said:

Visenya and Aegon were the most skilled warriors at the time, they weren't just dragonriders 

Also being skilled warriors does not mean they’d be able to defeat a single Kingdom. Their army numbered a few thousand compared to the Kingdom’s 20-30k. They’d have been subjugated easily without their dragons.