Aegon is Legitimate: It's Obvious, Right? (Long OP)

[Bravely Done]

Like I said, if you read Dany's initial chapters in Game of Thrones, she talks about how they moved around when Darry died and how they made no efforts to hide their locations and where they were and what they were doing. Viserys got his nickname that stuck because everyone knew what they were doing — what kind of a spymaster would Varys be if he didn't know where they were?

These are your interpretations of the story, your assumptions and your opinions. It's how you read the book, and what you want to believe, and that's fine. But Martin never wrote that Varys or Illyrio knew of Daenerys and Viserys whereabouts, movements, and locations as they traveled the free cities, and he never implied Varys or Illyrio knew of Daenerys and Viserys whereabouts, movements, and locations as they traveled the free cities. That is your assumption.

As we see in ADWD, Illyrio hardly knows her movements now, and she's the most infamous/famous woman in the world. He had her going to Volantis when she was sitting in Meereen, but they had all knowing knowledge of her whereabouts as she was a poor girl traveling amongst the free cities? It's your book.

And why do you think I or anyone else should be your personal concordance?

Usually, in a debate, when they make a claim they support it. You're above that though, I know that now.

Because this is about FUTURE spying, not PAST spying. Why is that so bloody difficult to understand? He knew where they were when they were in the Free Cities, but they're traveling to Vaes Dothrak now, which is not part of the Free Cities, and thus a NEW SPY — Jorah — is needed. Seriously, what is confusing about this?

Oh, I see.

Your deliberate obtuseness here is both hilarious and infuriating to the point that I think you must really be a troll.

And you're refusal to support your arguments, insistence on passing your opinions off as fact, and continuous attacks have led you to my ignore list. Have a good day.

[Bravely Done]

I'll try another way to approach this. The text doesn't need to explicitly state that Varys knew where they were because it is common knowledge in Essos. He would have to be completely terrible at his job to not know. The text also doesn't explicitly state that Varys knew Hoster Tully lived in Riverrun. However, I am sure that he knew because he would have to be a freaking idiot to not know and I do know that Varys is not an idiot.

Daenerys and Viserys lived in their ancestral castle, in their ancestral lands, while in Essos? And here I thought they were poor people in constant movement.

Anyway, I'll tell you like I told Apple Martini:

These are your interpretations of the story, your assumptions and your opinions. It's how you read the book, and what you want to believe, and that's fine. But Martin never wrote that Varys or Illyrio knew of Daenerys and Viserys whereabouts, movements, and locations as they traveled the free cities, and he never implied Varys or Illyrio knew of Daenerys and Viserys whereabouts, movements, and locations as they traveled the free cities. That is your assumption.

As we see in ADWD, Illyrio hardly knows her movements now, and she's the most infamous/famous woman in the world. He had her going to Volantis when she was sitting in Meereen, but they had all knowing knowledge of her whereabouts as she was a poor girl traveling amongst the free cities? It's your book.

[assjfjgjsgjljljglgjfjsduar]

And you're refusal to support your arguments with text from the novels and continuous attacks have led you to my ignore list. Have a good day.

Oh God how will I go on?! NOT YOUR IGNORE LIST!!! :bawl:

Really though, this thread has gone on obscenely long and this person is obviously wearing blinders, if he isn't a troll altogether, and is willing to disregard perfectly good evidence and accuse people of making things up while demonstrating a pretty severe lack of familiarity with the material and lack of willingness to become familiar with the material. It's probably best for everyone's mental health — especially poor Dragonfish, who's far more patient than I am — if people just ignored him and stopped arguing in circles.

[Dragonfish]

These are your interpretations of the story, your assumptions and your opinions. It's how you read the book, and what you want to believe, and that's fine. But Martin never wrote that Varys or Illyrio knew of Daenerys and Viserys whereabouts, movements, and locations as they traveled the free cities, and he never implied Varys or Illyrio knew of Daenerys and Viserys whereabouts, movements, and locations as they traveled the free cities. That is your assumption.

Yes, it's an assumption, but it's a valid one. Dany and Viserys were not difficult to locate. If Varys wanted to find them, as you claim, then he would have found them.

As we see in ADWD, Illyrio hardly knows her movements now, and she's the most infamous/famous woman in the world. He had her going to Volantis when she was sitting in Meereen, but they had all knowing knowledge of her whereabouts as she was a poor girl traveling amongst the free cities? It's your book.

There's a big difference between knowing her movements in a city half a world away, and knowing her location in nearby cities, in an area where Varys first honed his spying abilities and developed his contacts, and when they are staying with well-known, publicly visible figures.

[EvilClosetMonkey]

I want to be clear here.

Is your assertion that Varys & Illyrio were actively looking for them during this time period but they were unable to find them as they wandered the free cities begging for assistance from prominent citizens for 7 years?

[Dr. Pepper]

These are your interpretations of the story, your assumptions and your opinions. It's how you read the book, and what you want to believe, and that's fine. But Martin never wrote that Varys or Illyrio knew of Daenerys and Viserys whereabouts, movements, and locations as they traveled the free cities, and he never implied Varys or Illyrio knew of Daenerys and Viserys whereabouts, movements, and locations as they traveled the free cities. That is your assumption.

If you assume that the only things that are true in the series are those that Martin explicitly wrote, then I assume you think that Davos is really dead. Martin explicitly wrote that Davos is dead. So this guy thinking himself to be Davos must be a fraud, right?

Apple Martini, where's that thread you started about things that Martin explicitly wrote that turned out to not be true? I think Bravely Done might need to read it just so he can see that Martin doesn't write for stupid people. He doesn't explicitly spell out A,B,C & D because he assumes most of his readers have at least some intelligence and can figure things out for themselves.

[Bravely Done]

Yes, it's an assumption, but it's a valid one. Dany and Viserys were not difficult to locate. If Varys wanted to find them, as you claim, then he would have found them.

In your opinion, because that's how you read your book, and because that's what advances your agenda.

I was never under the assumption that Varys knew of Daenerys and Viserys movements, and whereabouts, as they never settled in one place for long. And why wasn't I under that assumption? Because it was never written, and it was was never suggested.

There's a big difference between knowing her movements in a city half a world away, and knowing her location in nearby cities, in an area where Varys first honed his spying abilities and developed his contacts, and when they are staying with well-known, publicly visible figures.

Yea, maybe you're right. But Varys didn't establish himself in all 7 free cities, he established himself in Pentos. But whatever, you guys are right.

[Bravely Done]

I worn out by this thread. = /

[assjfjgjsgjljljglgjfjsduar]

If you assume that the only things that are true in the series are those that Martin explicitly wrote, then I assume you think that Davos is really dead. Martin explicitly wrote that Davos is dead. So this guy thinking himself to be Davos must be a fraud, right?

Apple Martini, where's that thread you started about things that Martin explicitly wrote that turned out to not be true? I think Bravely Done might need to read it just so he can see that Martin doesn't write for stupid people. He doesn't explicitly spell out A,B,C & D because he assumes most of his readers have at least some intelligence and can figure things out for themselves.

Here:

http://asoiaf.wester...-group-project/

I suspect it's completely wasted on him, though.

Yea, maybe you're right. But Varys didn't establish himself in all 7 free cities, he established himself in Pentos. But whatever, you guys are right.

There are NINE Free Cities. If you can't remember basic things like this, why should anyone take you seriously? It's one thing to miss details in the books or forget things. It's another to do so but turn around and tell people who, frankly, are far, far more familiar with the material than you are that they're making things up and don't know what they're talking about.

[TheMysteriousOne]

@Bravely Done

In any novel, you want to be able to infer and read in between the lines to understand the deeper contextual meanings of the novel. At least in any good novel. If GRRM was to explicitly spell out every detail, we wouldn't be able to come up with these theories and the books would just be plain boring. Its the fact that we can infer and use common sense and logic which makes the whole series more interesting then it already is. A lot of facts we know are not suggested or implied, just as someone else before said that Varys would know that Hoster Tully lived in Riverrun even though he doesn't state that.

[tze]

The point isn't that it should be obvious to the reader, but that it should be obvious to Tyrion.

Tyrion was pretty clearly not operating at full intellectual capacity during his time with Illyrio. He'd rather recently been through multiple, wide-reaching emotional and physical traumas, the type of traumas that would have affected anyone's deductive reasoning skills. He had a lot on his plate during ADWD, and the sheer volume of problems he was dealing with meant that he never had the opportunity to really sit down and think through the whole Aegon/Illyrio issue---first he was asking everyone he met at Illyrio's where whores go (signaling the fact that he was rather preoccupied with the whole Tywin/Tysha/Cersei thing(s) there), then he was trying to suss out the identities of Griff and Young Griff while keeping his own identity secret and traveling through a dangerous foreign area, then he was kidnapped by Jorah, then he was enslaved . . . he has all of the pieces of the puzzle, but he hasn't really had the opportunity to sit down and rationally put them together. If he hadn't been kidnapped by Jorah right before Connington and Young Griff hooked up with the Golden Company, for all we know, Tyrion interacting with the GC might have been the impetus that led to everything clicking into place for Tyrion.

But Martin never wrote that Varys or Illyrio knew of Daenerys and Viserys whereabouts, movements, and locations as they traveled the free cities, and he never implied Varys or Illyrio knew of Daenerys and Viserys whereabouts, movements, and locations as they traveled the free cities. That is your assumption.

Oh, clearly. Just like Martin never wrote that Roose Bolton murdered Robb Stark. Just like Martin never wrote that the Freys were baked into pies and served to guests at the wedding of Ramsay and Jeyne Poole. Just like Martin never wrote that Maggy the Frog was Jeyne Poole's great-grandmother. Just like Martin never wrote that Abel the Bard was really Mance Rayder in disguise. I mean, without explicit textual quotes that explicitly state all of these things, clearly they're all false assumptions---just like, without Varys explicitly stating "I have always known the exact locations of Viserys and Daenerys Targaryen", and without him diagramming their movements over the past decade and a half for other characters, readers simply cannot assume the Free Cities-born-and-raised royal spymaster was tracking the movements of two huge threats to 1) his current boss's power base and 2) his personal plan to put Aegon on the Iron Throne. I mean, clearly it's not evidence unless he explicitly flat-out says it, right?

As we see in ADWD, Illyrio hardly knows her movements now, and she's the most infamous/famous woman in the world. He had her going to Volantis when she was sitting in Meereen, but they had all knowing knowledge of her whereabouts as she was a poor girl traveling amongst the free cities? It's your book.

, , , You do realize that Illyrio isn't actually a sorcerer, right? He's based in the Free Cities. He would have to have a network in the Free Cities because he's a merchant prince in the Free Cities. Varys was born and raised in the Free Cities,and all of his contacts and networks would logically be in the Free Cities. The Dothraki Sea, Qarth, and Slaver's Bay are not part of the Free Cities. Illyrio and Varys have information networks that are clearly not centered around the places where Dany's been hanging out, so Varys and Illyrio don't know what she's doing because she's outside the reach of their particular abilities.

[Dr. Pepper]

I worn out by this thread. = /

While you take a break, I really do encourage you to look at this thread:

http://asoiaf.wester...-group-project/

This was a group project where posters pulled out things that were explicitly stated to be true which later turned out to be false. You cannot always trust what character say to be true. No good piece of fiction will ever explicitly spell out every single detail. GRRM isn't Danielle Steel. You must read between the lines, you must infer based on tiny details spread out in a few chapters, and you must look at actions if you ever hope to make accurate interpretations.

[Dragonfish]

Apple Martini said:

Here:

http://asoiaf.wester...-group-project/

I suspect it's completely wasted on him, though.

There are NINE Free Cities. If you can't remember basic things like this, why should anyone take you seriously? It's one thing to miss details in the books or forget things. It's another to do so but turn around and tell people who, frankly, are far, far more familiar with the material than you are that they're making things up and don't know what they're talking about.

I'm just quoting this so Bravely Done gets a chance to read it. Also, I'm sort of hoping he'll put me on his ignore list.

[butterbumps!]

These are your interpretations of the story, your assumptions and your opinions. It's how you read the book, and what you want to believe, and that's fine. But Martin never wrote that Varys or Illyrio knew of Daenerys and Viserys whereabouts, movements, and locations as they traveled the free cities, and he never implied Varys or Illyrio knew of Daenerys and Viserys whereabouts, movements, and locations as they traveled the free cities. That is your assumption.

Bravely Done, let's think about this for a minute. Viserys was known throughout the free cities as the "Beggar King" to the point that even drunks and lowlifes laughed at him in the streets. Viserys also feasted the captains Golden Company before going to Illyrio's according to a Dany chapter in DwD, which is not the sort of thing that leads one to believe that Viserys and Dany do not have exposure in Essos.

But perhaps the most damning part of this? Varys and Illyrio are in the business of SPYING. They are not just some common numbskulls without a clue. The raise and train countless spies, and have made a killing in the business of trading secrets. I ask you, how can you say that there is no indication that Varys and Illyrio did not know exactly where Dany and Viserys the entire time they were in Essos?

Even more to the point, everyone knows that Willem Darry spirited off the Targ kids to Braavos. Multiple people, from Ned, to Barristan to a number of others all know that Dany and Viserys were with Darry. Why, oh why would Illyrio not reach out to them when Willem died, as it was not a secret that they were with him?

[Two Towers]

Everyone should relax a bit. If Bravely Done annoys you all so much, just stop reading this thread. It was a really good thread in first pages before the trolling acusations and the personal atacks derailed it.

Bravely does provides interesting ideas on many of his post (although he might do it a bit aggressively) but you don't have to agree with him.

If you don't like the thread, then don't pay attention to it

[assjfjgjsgjljljglgjfjsduar]

Everyone should relax a bit. If Bravely Done annoys you all so much, just stop reading this thread. It was a really good thread in first pages before the trolling acusations and the personal atacks derailed it.

Trolling accusations that were well earned and personal attacks like him accusing people of making things up, yes. He's not exactly the victim here.

[Lummel]

Well if everybody agrees that Illyrio didn't have a precise and accurate idea where Daenerys and Viserys then we are left with two possibilities either that Varys' spy network is incompetent and Illyrio is incapable of collecting any information through his trading contacts over a fifteen year period or they were just not interested in doing so - in which case they can't be Targaryen Loyalists.

[Black Wolf Smith]

I will not try to keep the peace. I have infact read all 32 pages of this, well not ever word since a lot repeats it self.

@Butterbumps, nice retort to me on #506, but as to the last bit what my point was. I think it would be a very big gamble with little gain by a 10+ year con using a fake(even real for a real Aegon, its a big gamble), not that he wasn't in it for the long haul.

I would disagree with you #550 I think Bravely Done more then held his own for 10-12 hours/pages, when he was tired and some the bigger(what ever we call them with the best knowledge/argument) came in, then kinda lost it and got back to that level. For a first topic, with like 6 post I think well done. ( I also am not sure he slept seen then, as he never goes long with out a post)

Is it possible that Varys did in fact save Aegon, but YG is not that child? there forth lying and not lying to Kevan?

I am sorry not good enought to multi quote from different pages.

[lomiller]

"I can't see GRRM adding such a big player at such a late stage in the game. I would hate that."

People who say this are presuming to know what George Martin would and wouldn't do.

Introducing such an important character that late in the series is a move fitting bad fan faction. Saying Martin wouldn't do it isn't "presuming" it's giving him the benefit of the doubt.

There is a famous quote from the early days of the internet that goes "Anything is possible, but only a few things actually happen". It's possible Martin planned the series out so poorly that he had to introduce such an important character so late, but that doesn't mean it's one of those things that happens.

Aegon IS a big player now, regardless of who he came out of when he was born

Him being cannon fodder to give the real heroes something to fight makes more sense. He's a complication, not a player.

As far as I know AFFC occurred simultaneously to most of ADWD where we were introduced to Euron Greyjoy, a guy who won the support of the Iron Islands then decided to take all of the military might of the Ironborn to support Daenerys. He sounds like a big player to me

Another example of a complication/plot device rather than a real player or threat. Most likely his role in the story is to get Dany her ships and maybe convey some key price of information.

[Bravely Done]

I'm practicing insanity. :stunned:

Blackfyre theorist, you can have your opinions, I'm comfortable in my own. If someone fresh brings something new to the thread or has any questions about my theories or why I believe what I believe, I'll be happy to give you an answer, but arguing with the same 4 or 5 posters whom refuse to admit error, concede a point, ignore my questions and points, and assert their interpretations as fact has exhausted me. It's been fun, but I'm tired.

I believe my original lays my beliefs out plain, and I'm confident I'll be vindicated and Aegon wont be written as Theon 2.0 come Winds of Winter. Good reading till then. (Apple Martini, Dragonfish, Toccs, Butterbumps)