Discussed here. 

Well, for the whole of Aerys I’s reign, Rhaegel was his heir, and since Aerys was notoriously unuxorious, Rhaegel was extremely likely to inherit. 

As @goodqueenaly can tell you, royalty have put up with a lot worse than madness for a shot at a crown…

Depends on the perceived need for strengthening ties between the houses, but it seems fairly common…if we skip a generation either way. 

While not precisely wards, the fact that Brandon had Ethan Glover, Kyle Royce, Elbert Arryn, and Jeffory Mallister as his companions makes sense: it shows favor to the Glovers although that’s more a personal connection, but it’s also about tying the next generation of the Vale and the Riverlands and the North together. 

Likewise, while Robb only had Theon growing up, once he became King in the North, he’s got a good selection of bannermen: Umbers, Manderlys, Flints, Mormonts, Norreys, Karstarks, Hornwoods. Plus when he heads into the Riverlands he picks up Mallisters and Freys to add representation for that kingdom. 

That’s a kind of petty reason to read my stuff, but I’m not one to judge.

Here you go.

Thoughts on Game of Thrones, Season 7 Episode 4, “Spoils of War”

So that was an explosive episode…so let’s get into the episode:
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goodqueenaly:

racefortheironthrone:

A Parcel of Rogues in a Nation: the Great Councils of Westeros (Part I)

credit to Marc Simonetti The “game of thrones” has become such a powerful symbol in the broader ASOIAF fandom that our perceptions of how Westerosi politics function have been distorted by it, resulting in an imaginary that is far too authoritarian and top-down. The King of Westeros is not an absolute monarch, nor is it normal for liege lords to wipe out entire houses for disloyalty. Rather,…

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An excellent take on the Great Council as an institution in general Westerosi politics and look at the First Great Council.  I really appreciated the historical comparison between the Westerosi Great Councils and similar real-world institutions (I certainly never noticed the fact that Westerosi problems were almost always focused on succession and the quality of the ruler, and pretty much never on taxation).

Two scattered thoughts. One, the other reason I agree with @racefortheironthrone that the Vale threw in its lot for Viserys is because of the individual voting for House Arryn (and, presumably, House Royce of Runestone as well): Yorbert Royce, Lord Protector of the Vale and regent for little Lady Jeyne Arryn. With his daughter (? at the very least his successor in the seat of Runestone), Lady Rhea Royce, married to Viserys’ brother Daemon, and Viserys and Aemma having only a daughter despite nearly a decade of marriage, Lord Yorbert might have figured that Daemon stood a good chance of being his brother’s heir, and that a son of Lady Royce could very well become king someday. As regent to the future queen’s (possible) sister and perhaps father-in-law to the future king, Lord Yorbert had everything to gain from backing Viserys over young Laenor.

Two, it’s interesting to compare young Laenor in 101 AC to another underage candidate in another Great Council: Prince Maegor. Laenor was only seven – a fact Yandel points out when explaining why Laenor ultimately lost – but still managed to get a dynastically, if not numerically, impressive set of lords to back him, knowing that if the Old King died the next day there would be a nearly decade long regency until Laenor became king in fact as well as name. Comparatively, “few” lords acclaimed Maegor king in 233 AC, as “an infant king would have meant a long, contentious regency”. No doubt that this reaction owes a great deal to the trying years of Aegon III’s regency, when 13 different individuals shared power uneasily over a period of about six years – a period still some decades (and a civil war) away from Harrenhal in 101 AC and a monarchy which had at that point had only seen the much pleasanter regency of Lord Robar Royce and Dowager Queen Alyssa.

I think it also helped Laenor that he had a powerful and wealthy house backing his play for the Iron Throne and helping to organize potential supporters behind him. 

Poor Maegor didn’t have any sponsor like Corlys Velaryon. 

Because BC means “Before Christ” and AD means “In the Year of Our Lord.” Not exactly scholarly neutral, especially if you’re discussing other cultures, religions, or historical periods where Christianity isn’t relevant. 

So they switched over to “Before Common Era” and “Common Era,” which is a total fudge that doesn’t really fool anyone, but it’s enough of a figleaf that we don’t have to redo all of the dates. 

If a lord had no issue, then a foster son might well have a pretty good claim. 

There were a variety of ways of storing gold: you’d definitely have gold ingots (since when you’re smelting the impurities of gold in the end-stage of mining, you generally pour the result into ingot molds), you’d have gold plate (because plates are easy to store and transport, but they’re also handy to serve people off of if you’re trying to impress them), and you’d have sacks of coin (bulkiest and hardest to transport, but more immediately usable whereas everything else would generally need to be melted down and then coined first).