I found Death of X very very meh – the central conflict that Inhumans vs. X-Men is built on doesn’t make any damn sense as a result.
So with that rather enormous caveat, I’ll say that the Inhumans vs. X-Men team are doing a better job of making bricks without straw, and there’s some really interesting ideas here (I really liked the Jean Grey/Karnak “fight” as a clever use of telepathy), but it seems to be heading toward a rather clumsy outcome where the X-Men are restored to Earth and the Inhumans go off to space to trace their Kree ancestry or something. Which isn’t a bad status quo, but the weirdness they had to go through to end up there is bizarre.
Good question! I can think of one who this is already happening to – Tyrion. Seriously, the whole purpose of having “The Bloody Hand” in Mercy is to show how Tyrion’s being turned into a propaganda villain a la Richard III in the Tudor dynasty.
Ooh boy, this goes into some tricky areas where Martin is just not very consistent about Valyrian swords, because there are arguments that go either way: House Corbray lost Lady Forlorn to Robar II Royce and then supposedly got it back after the Battle of Seven Stars, which points one way, but Gwayne Corbray died on Redgrass and the sword somehow got back to the family (possibly because the loyalists retained the field and Daemon forbade looting of his honorable foe?).On the other hand, plenty of Valyrian swords were acquired by the ancient right of Acquiris Quodcumquae Rapis. The Harlaw blade Nightfall was won in battle, Red Rain was stolen by Hilmar “the Cunning” Drumm (with the aid of a blackjack), etc.
So I think this is something of a legal/cultural controversy: on the one hand, returning the arms and armor of a worthy opponent is a big part of the Knightly Code; on the other, Valyrian steel swords are literally beyond price and few people are going to have the moral strength to turn one down.
Yes, they could! Although it gets really really weird, in the best dynastic scholarship way.
So, let’s talk English inheritance law! In Saxon England, all sons of a King were titled as “aethelings” and were eligible to inherit regardless of their legitimacy. The Papacy was not a huge fan of this, being rather a big proponent of the idea that Christian marriages should be important to monarchs and future monarchs, and tried to outlaw the practice, not always successfully. King Aethelstan (924-939) was a bastard, as was William of Normandy. But gradually succession through legitimate union took hold, sort of…
For a while, you had something of a mixed case, where royal bastards were given the last name of Fitzroy (son of the king) and wore royal coat of arms marked with a bend or bar to distinguish them – as we see above. Especially in the reign of Henry I, there were about 21-25 Fitzroys running around who were very very powerful people with Earldoms and Dukedoms, and while they weren’t guaranteed a place in line, they could sometimes have one. Robert Fitzroy Earl of Gloucester was a potential claimant for the English throne during the Anarchy, although he ultimately ended up backing Empress Maude over King Stephen instead.
You then scoot down to one of the weirder bits of dynastic tomfoolery that took place during the Wars of the Roses, and how it is that the Tudors wound up with a claim on the English throne. John of Gaunt, richest and most hated of the sons of Edward III, had a bunch of children with his mistress Katherine Swynford and then married her. The ex-facto results of this union were declared legitimate repeatedly by Kings, Parliament, and Popes, as quid-pro-quo for supporting Richard II, although the condition of legitimacy was that they had to give up their claims to the succession.
When Henry IV usurped the throne from Richard II, and was feeling insecure on his throne, he recinded the titles that had been given to the Beauforts through their legitimation, as a symbolic underlining of the situation, and got the succession re-ordered in Parliament – although to keep them sweet, the Beauforts were given the lands of Owen Glendower, which is where the first Welsh connection comes in. A bit later, Henry VI didn’t have much in the way of close relatives, he did something very odd: he legitimated the Welsh House of Tudors, who decended from his mother’s second marriage to Sir Owen Tudor, in 1452, and then in 1455 married Margaret Beaufort to Edmund Tudor, linking the two families
The dynastic chaos of all of this seemed to have left an enduring lesson after the Wars of the Roses. While there would be powerful royal bastards – Henry VIII’s son Henry Fitzroy Duke of Richmond and Somerset, Charles II’s bastard James Fitzroy the Duke of Monmouth – they would never be added to the succession, even if it meant enduring the occasional rebellion (see Monmouth’s Rebellion).
I think one basic reason is that hero vs. hero is super easy – there’s a reason that went Marvel started the big line-wide crossover thing with Secret Wars, they went with the simplest possible story where everyone gets teleported to an arena and told to punch everyone. You don’t need backstory, you don’t need interesting motivations or a good setup, you just smash action figures together (literally, in the case of Secret Wars, which was created at the behest of Mattel to get them to do a series of Marvel figs, and Mattel’s focus groups decided everything from the name to what characters would look like) for 12 issues and call it a day.
Another basic reason is that editorial and publishing focuses a lot on trying to replicate past successes – sometimes this works ok, and sometimes this doesn’t. I would argue that Infinity Gauntlet and Infinity War build on one another nicely, but it’s patently clear that the only reason Civil War II happened is because Civil War sold despite Civil War’s garbage quality, so surely Civil War II will sell as well? Turns out not so much. So it’s a bit like movie studios trying to chase past trends instead of understanding what underlying features made those trends popular.
A third basic reason is that, for a long time (up until Time Runs Out/Secret Wars) Marvel didn’t really do line-wide continuity reboots that require crossovers, especially in comparison to D.C. who did a lot of these, primarily to “solve” various problems with alternate Earths and timelines, conflicting character identities and backstories, and the like. While Marvel did have alternate Earths/realities, it didn’t go in for them nearly as much as D.C did and historically it was perfectly comfortable leaving those alternate scenarios as What Ifs? or cordoned off in their own times, as opposed to trying to bring everything together into one Earth/universe. So if you don’t have that as a guiding principle for the story and your genre’s fundamental mode of expression is action, you can see why people keep reaching for “Who Would Win in a Fight?”
I would say that Brandon/Ashara was the norm, but I’ve always had a problem with that particular theory. To me, there’s two key limitations to Barristan as a witness: first, he’s a giant romantic so he’d much rather think that a Stark “dishonored” his beloved than she willingly slept with someone else and therefore wasn’t the pure embodiment of the Maiden he had in his head; and second, he wasn’t particularly close to the situation – Barristan was busy fighting in the tourney when he wasn’t guarding the king.
So what I think happened is that Barristan heard a story about a Stark sleeping with Ashara and jumped to the same conclusions that a lot of people have, on the basis of rather superficial judgements about the people involved.
It certainly helped; a legendary sword like that could easily have been considered a prize of war, so returning it to the family is a significant sign of respect.
As for the flipside, it sort of depends on the circumsntaces. Small group, health of a child in question, etc.
Gee, I wonder how tragic deaths might have brought two grieving families together?
Prince …Capulet! Montague! See, what a scourge is laid upon your hate, That heaven finds means to kill your joys with love. And I for winking at your discords too Have lost a brace of kinsmen: all are punish’d. Capulet O brother Montague, give me thy hand: This is my daughter’s jointure, for no more Can I demand. Montague But I can give thee more: For I will raise her statue in pure gold; That while Verona by that name is known, There shall no figure at such rate be set As that of true and faithful Juliet. Capulet As rich shall Romeo’s by his lady’s lie; Poor sacrifices of our enmity! Prince A glooming peace this morning with it brings…
(Incidentally, don’t really agree that they blame him for her suicide. It’s more complicated than that.)
Here’s how I think it went down:
Ned and Ashara were lovers at Harrenhal – after all, they’re both young, neither of them are betrothed to anyone, so there’s no dishonor as Harwin tells us. Indeed, Ned may have even asked for Ashara’s hand or been in the process of negotiations for a betrothal – he’s the second son of a Great House, she comes from a Lesser House but an ancient one, no one’s an heir so that’s less of an issue, it’s a good match – when Lyanna disappears and Brandon rides to King’s Landing.
The young couple are divided by civil war – his father and brother have been murdered and his sister’s abducted, he’s running for his life, she’s looking after Elia Martell in dangerous circumstances (although GRRM says she’s not nailed down so perhaps they have time for one more reunion before he gets married), Rhaegar’s missing in scandalous circumstances.
Ashara becomes pregnant and goes home to Starfall for her lying in, except that the civil war and Ned’s forced marriage prevent the child from being born in wedlock. This is much less of an issue in Dorne, remember. She has a stillbirth.
Ashara finds out that her brother is complicit in the abduction and imprisonment of the sister of the man she loves at the orders of the man who humiliated her mistress and provoked the civil war that ruined her life, when Arthur writes home asking for the family to send Wylla to the Tower of Joy because Lyanna is pregnant and needs a midwife for her secret royal baby.
When it’s clear that the war is over, Ashara sends word to Ned where he can find his sister.
The fight at the Tower of Joy happens. Soon after, Ned arrives at Starfell with Dawn, his nephew, and his sister’s body. The combined grief of her stillbirth, her culpability in the death of her brother, and everything else leads Ashara to commit suicide.
At this point, think of the shared grief of the two families. Ned’s lost his father, his brother, his sister (in part because of Arthur), the woman he loves, their child, and almost all of his friends. The Daynes have lost Arthur, Ashara, and Ashara’s child. The mutual recognition of the common tragedy that has befallen them leads to reconciliation.
After all, Ned stays in Starfall for some time, because newborn Jon isn’t about to travel. The family gets to know Ned and move past initial reactions. They see the way that he’s agreed to protect this innocent, helpless child at the expense of his own reputation, and they agree to do the whole coverup with Wylla to shield both Lyanna and the child, but also in a way to preserve the reputation of both Arthur and Ashara.
And so the Daynes remember Ned as a tragic figure, the man who might have become their good-son/brother if it hadn’t been for the war.
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