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Olenna's Targaryen Prince: Duncan the Small?


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And doesn't Rhaegar sort of fit in line with this? He was 24 when he died and hadn't been married to Elia that long.

I was just heading over to check out the Elia timeline... Yes, I believe this is true.

Eta-Rhaegar was born in 259, Elia in 257. Rhaenys was born most likely in 280, making Rhaegar at least 21 at the birth of his first child, while Elia was 23.

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And doesn't Rhaegar sort of fit in line with this? He was 24 when he died and hadn't been married to Elia that long.

His daughter, Rhaenys, was old enough to have named her kitten something she recalled from a family story, so probably at least 3 or 4, making Rhaegar 19-20 when he married.

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Olenna was direct (and nonchalant) when she spoke of her making sure the Targaryen marriage didn't come to fruition ; having in mind conversation to Sansa re:the context of Margaery's possible problems in her marriage to Joff and the initiative Queen took in both cases, I think we are dealing with a very strong, fine woman who doesn't seem to be driven by pride (remember how she was interested whether Joff is a decent person). She did what she had to do to be happy/ensure her granddaughter is to be happy. Princes be damned.

If she indeed refused the marriage (in a cunning way, I suppose, since one can't offend the king outright) she would easily earn the nickname the queen ("she found Tyrells better over Targaryen" she is queen in her own right). The "thorns" part is probably amalgam of her association to Tyrells and her temper.

Would she really equate besotted Duncan and insane Joff in order to act? There is something serious about her refusal just as the Joff situation. So far, what we know about Duncan is ok.

Loras (mildly) warning Sansa about the nickname is perfectly normal, you don't get to use nickname in formal situations; nicknames also show a degree of closeness which Sansa and Olenna don't have.

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well i do have to say i like it.

still i'm a bit iffy on the fact that just because she doesn't like her nickname makes it seemingly so.

still i was all for the prince being aerion brightflame, but she met him and saw what he was and got out of it some how. Cause i do wonder why the redwaynes would let their daughter trow away them getting royal favour, because she doesn't like said prince. Then boom what if the prince was the one that rejected her LOLOL damn.

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There is compelling reason to disagree with your final assertion and I'm sure you will admit that your first assertion is a knife that cuts both ways- you are also making assumptions in your Olenna-is-too-young-for-Duncan timeline.

All we can do with the evidence before us is make hypotheses and I don't think it's fair to rule one out based on tenuous information while asserting another is more likely using the same pool of facts.

I'm not saying that it's impossible to disagree, but I've laid out why my numbers are based on making the fewest assumptions and using traditional patterns of behavior where specifics are unavailable. Deviations from these numbers are possible, but I think if you're going to accept them, you should have to provide a good argument supporting why we should accept that deviation as having taken place instead of being just another possibility to tack on.

Regarding Rhaegar, Varys tells Eddard this about Rhaenys, "A precious little thing, younger than your girls. She had a small black kitten she called Balerion, did you know? I always wondered what happened to him. Rhaenys liked to pretend he was the true Balerion, the Black Dread of old..."

This suggests she is at least 3 or 4, possibly a little older than that.

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Duncan and all related parties are dead so Olenna can pretty much say whatever she wants about it, especially to someone who wasn't even born at the time. It's not at all unusual for someone to pretend something happened a different way or didn't happen at all. Isn't it Tywin who is the king of pretend when he doesn't get his way? "Oh, Rhaegar and Willas turned Cersei down? Don't talk about it, it didn't happen." There's a pretty long list of characters who have twisted the truth for their own reasons.

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I am pretty sure Brightflame, the wildfire drinker was her betrothed. I think that she had her kids later in life 30s-40s,. Lady Oleana reminds me of Eleanor of Aquitaine. Eleanor had kids well into her 40s and outlived the two men she married as well as all but one of her sons and one daughter (she had 7 children that lived out of infancy). She mentions Brightflame when she first meets Sansa.

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I am pretty sure Brightflame, the wildfire drinker was her betrothed. I think that she had her kids later in life 30s-40s,. Lady Oleana reminds me of Eleanor of Aquitaine. Eleanor had kids well into her 40s and outlived the two men she married as well as all but one of her sons and one daughter (she had 7 children that lived out of infancy). She mentions Brightflame when she first meets Sansa.

That doesn't make sense. Brightflame would be around 110 or so now. How old you think Olean is? Her son is in his mid fourties. Even if she had a child at 45, that would still make her 20 years younger than Brightflame or there about.

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That doesn't make sense. Brightflame would be around 110 or so now. How old you think Olean is? Her son is in his mid fourties. Even if she had a child at 45, that would still make her 20 years younger than Brightflame or there about.

Brightflame was Aegon's older brother, so he'd be far too old to be the match. The idea that it might have been Aerion's son is interesting, but we know next to nothing about the kid or his fate. If it was Aerion's unnamed son, the parallel with Joffrey would be pretty strong. Olenna might have refused a marriage to Brightflame's son because of the father's legacy of madness and cruelty, hence her interest in protecting Margaery from something very similar in Joffrey.

It's also mildly interesting that Olenna characterizes her would-have-been betrothed as just "a Targaryen" instead of a prince or the crown prince. It almost sounds like the Redwynes were being offered a lesser member of the Targaryen family, perhaps one not in line for the throne at all.

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Brightflame was Aegon's older brother, so he'd be far too old to be the match. The idea that it might have been Aerion's son is interesting, but we know next to nothing about the kid or his fate. If it was Aerion's unnamed son, the parallel with Joffrey would be pretty strong. Olenna might have refused a marriage to Brightflame's son because of the father's legacy of madness and cruelty, hence her interest in protecting Margaery from something very similar in Joffrey.

It's also mildly interesting that Olenna characterizes her would-have-been betrothed as just "a Targaryen" instead of a prince or the crown prince. It almost sounds like the Redwynes were being offered a lesser member of the Targaryen family, perhaps one not in line for the throne at all.

It could be Brightflames son we never hear what happens to him and he would be about the right age. It's interesting how many Targaryens could still be left. It would make sense for her to reject the son of Brightflame even if he was a good man, based on the reputation of his father.

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Apple M. Strikes again.

This is a great topic, whether it corresponds precisely to the actual events or not. That Lady Olenna sometimes lies is something that we need to keep in mind, just as Barristan's not always a reliable witness.

I have to admire those who can keep all those dead Targaryens straight. My poor mind starts changing them to Aileron and Aerial.

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I'm not sure that it can be Aerion's son either. Wasn't he an infant when Maekar I died? He was passed over in the succession and pretty much left to obscurity; I can't imagine that anyone would have tried to make a marriage match for him. And Aerion himself is too old.

If this is true (and it seems very plausible) then that puts Olenna in a suspicious place. She may have had reason to want to get rid of Duncan and Jenny of Oldstones. This makes her a suspect for whatever may have happened at summerhall.

I'm not going quite that far. Just that the list of possibilities keeps dwindling and it would flesh out Olenna's character and put the Margaery thing into more perspective.

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Nice Post Apple and i like your theory :thumbsup: , I always believed that Olenna and Margery, the Tyrell women are the real power and brains behind House Tyrell, and i always thought Olenna Tyrell is a devious player along with her protege (not that I am complaining Joffrey is dead), their sweet treatment of Sansa the first time they met for sup didn't sit with me well.

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Just a couple of thoughts. One, if Lady O had connived to get out of a marriage to a nutso/evil Targ that would parallel her getting Marg out of the marriage to Joff. Two, the original thought of Marg marrying the king (any king, starting with Renly) could well be a case of Lady O's and the Tyrell's ideas dovetailing. The Tyrells are socially ambitious.

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However, what if it's the opposite, and Olenna was actually spurned? She's a very proud woman; rather than admit to someone like Sansa that her marriage contract was nullified, wouldn't she be just the sort to pull a sour grapes routine (she is a Redwyne ...) and say that no, it didn't happen because she didn't want it to? Wouldn't it be a boon for House Redwyne to marry any Targaryen?

...

Finally, all of this goes a very long way toward explaining — beyond the usual reasons of power and wealth — why the Tyrells are so keen for Margaery to be queen. Mace is the head of the house, but Olenna's the real power and the one really making the big decisions or at least planting the seeds. Olenna loves her granddaughter and sees her as a protege. By making Margaery a queen, Olenna can live vicariously through her and put Margaery in a position that she was unable to attain.

Hmm... it's such an interesting theory because now that it's all in front of me, I can't think of a single reason why it wouldn't be true. It's unlike that Olenna was always as prickly as she is at present, although she was probably always a bit too tactless. :P

Also, it's unusual that the Targaryens would want to marry such a lowly house. When they weren't marrying each other, the Targaryens seemed to favour marrying Martells to keep the alliance healthy. If there were no Targaryen or Martell heirs on hand, or no immediate need to cement the Iron Throne through marriage, it is quite strange that they'd pick a house that's relatively lowly instead of picking a Great House. To secure the Reach it'd make much more sense to marry a Tyrell than a Redwyne. Especially since the Tyrells owe their standing to the Targaryens; it'd be odd to empower a rival house with a mariage to the Iron Throne that could undo the peace within the Reach.

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