What if: Baelor Breakspear survives the tourney at Ashford?

Well, he’s got a lot to survive – not long after Ashford, there’s the Great Spring Sickness, where in OTL both of his sons died. So the big question is whether Baelor and/or his sons survive all that. 

Well, first and foremost, Aerys I doesn’t become king, which means that Bloodraven doesn’t become Hand of the King and dictator-in-all-but-name, and instead Prince Baelor becomes King Baelor II.

As King, Baelor II’s going to have to deal with a hell of a crisis – a plague that wipes out a huge chunk of the population, a massive drought that lasts for upwards of a year, huge migrations of the smallfolk, Dagon Greyjoy’s reaving, Bittersteel’s scheming, etc.    

While that’s a lot for anyone to deal with, Baelor’s got a good enough rep that he should avoid the same hatred that Aerys I got for being a sorcery-obsessed bookworm who did nothing while the realm burned, probably because he’s a good enough administrator that he’d have been a lot more pro-active in dealing with these various crises. So expect at least part of the royal fleet to rally the West against the Ironborn, poor relief tied to your sept of residency to help the smallfolk but keep them from mass-migrations, etc. 

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