Author: stevenattewell

I had a question (sorry if it’s stupid) about the Aerys I’s heirs. In the World of Ice and Fire, Yandel says that after the death of Alor Targaryen, Maekar became the Prince of Dragonstone. But on the wiki i saw that Aelora Targaryen was the Princess of Dragonstone after the death of her brother, implying that she was the heir to Iron Throne. If this case is true, and not an error, why was your younger sister, Daenora, not considered to be heir to the throne before her uncle if her sister was?

nobodysuspectsthebutterfly:

Hey, y’all, @condedatorre especially. The clarification and definition of Princess of Dragonstone is actually on the wiki. 🙂  If you look at the article for Prince of Dragonstone, you’ll see Aerys I Targaryen’s heirs include “Aelora Targaryen[15]”, and if you check Aelora’s article, it says that “Aelora became the new heir to the throne for her uncle, King Aerys I Targaryen, following Aelor’s death.[4]” A bold statement without proof, yes? Nope! Those citations link to this thread on the forum, where Ran (Elio Garcia) explains:

The situations of the past are not congruent with those of the
present, really, so not relevant. For that matter, we’ve certainly
discussed the value of precedent… but another question would be
whether the precedents of the _Targaryen_ dynasty are necessarily in
place for the Baratheon dynasty. It may well be that over the 15 years
of Robert’s rule, it’s been made clear that there is a firm order of
succession, with Myrcella ahead of Stannis. The machinations of Cersei
and Tywin? One more sleight for Stannis to chew on? Mayhaps.


Having seen the Targaryen family tree from its early form, I don’t think
the Viserys II change made much difference – you’re assuming that
Daeron and Baelor had sisters back then…

As to Aerys’s heirs, Rhaegel _was_ his heir, and then Rhaegel’s son
Aelor, and then Aelora. These are all things George established before
“The Sworn Sword” or “The Mystery Knight”. (Yes, the mystery of Daenora
remains – something we brought up with George at the time and he
insisted on our leaving things as he had written them, so I assuming
there’s a reason why Daenora is not considered at all when it’s said
Maekar is the only possible heir remaining.)

Bolding mine. Later comments in the thread clarify Aelora’s status:

The Grey Wolf:
Are you saying Aelora was heiress to the Iron Throne after Aelor/before Maekar?

Ran:
Yes. The text is explicit in running down through Aerys’s various heirs
before coming to Maekar, and explicitly links Aelora’s death with Maekar
becoming heir.

The Grey Wolf: I don’t remember the text being that explicit but alright.

Ran:
I’m referring to GRRM’s write up on Egg which discusses the situation.
In the course of editing we ended up compressing things so it’s not
explicit there.

And Elio additionally says:

Given GRRM’s response, there’s no error with the Aelora situation, or
the Daenora one. He seemed to have definite ideas about it that he did
not explain.

And there the conversation stops, as they realize they’ve gotten way off topic from the thread’s main subject (an endless discussion of R+L=J, apparently).

Anyway. Regarding what Elio says about the explicit/edited text and Aelora’s status, I double-checked TWOIAF, and it says:

goodqueenaly:

Don’t apologize!

The wiki is, of course, a fan-run creation, and while extremely helpful and accurate in the vast majority of areas, it is not ultimately canon. I’m not sure who worked on the Aelora article, but my guess, if I had to make a guess, is that the person was going on the fact that Aelora was married to her brother Aelor while the latter was Prince of Dragonstone. Now, we’ve never seen the title “Princess of Dragonstone” applied to the wife of a Prince of Dragonstone; the only two Princesses of Dragonstone in-canon are Rhaenyra (who was formally named and acclaimed as such by her father, King Viserys I, when he decided to treat her as his heiress) and our Daenerys (who, once she was in exile with Viserys, was at least arguably his heir presumptive, since after him she was and is the last of the legitimate, dynastic male line of Aegon the Conqueror). Still, I wouldn’t be surprised if the wife of the consort was known as “Princess of Dragonstone”, and indeed I’m hopeful to get clarification on this in the future.

In the course of that reign, His Grace had recognized a series of heirs, though none were children of his body; Aerys died without issue, his marriage still unconsummated. His brother Rhaegel, third son of Daeron the Good, had predeceased him, choking to death upon a lamprey pie in 215 AC during a feast. Rhaegel’s son, Aelor, then became the new Prince of Dragonstone and heir to the throne, only to die two years after, slain in a grotesque mishap by the hand of his own twin sister and wife, Aelora, under circumstances that left her mad with grief. (Sadly, Aelora eventually took her own life after being attacked at a masked ball by three men known to history as the Rat, the Hawk, and the Pig.)
The last of the heirs Aerys recognized before his death would be the one to succeed him to the throne: the king’s sole surviving brother, Prince Maekar.

I can only assume that whatever was edited out was something that would have made it far more clear that Aelora was included in Aerys’s series of heirs, and was Princess of Dragonstone in her own right before she died. What’s left… sigh… I hope Elio eventually gets that second edition of TWOIAF he wants, or else Fire & Blood vol. 2 better have all the details. And as for Daenora being excluded from that title and status… I’m just going to assume there that it’s a Dunk & Egg thing, due to GRRM being both mysterious and insistent about it. Especially considering her marriage to Aerion and the evidence from TWOIAF that he returns as an antagonist in later D&E stories.

But seriously, somebody could just follow Elio’s w.org posts and get so many details that apparently didn’t make it into TWOIAF but still count. Sigh, it’s worse than the SSMs for obscure non-textual but apparently canon details. Also, I should note that this whole thing got off topic regarding women succeeding to the Iron Throne, where Elio is insistent that Yandel’s “iron precedent” is not necessarily all that iron, and well, he should know…

A very interesting development, although one that I think adds to my confusion about Bloodraven and Maekar.

As I’ve explored with Aziz over at History of Westeros podcast, everything leading up to Maekar becoming king speaks to Bloodraven and Maekar being fierce political rivals who are widely expected to come to blows the moment Aerys II dies, with “bloody war between Lord Rivers and Prince Maekar for the crown, the Hand against the heir.“

Aelora being named as Princess of Dragonstone ahead of Prince Maekar, would absolutely have been viewed by much of the political community and probably by Maekar himself as a direct attack on his rights as heir by Bloodraven, looking to extend his monopoly on royal power through what would have been a lifelong Regency. And yet, four years later, all is forgiven and Bloodraven remains as Hand for the whole of Maekar’s reign?

I’m not saying it’s impossible, but we’re getting absolutely no information about how this transformation occurred, and all the information we’re getting points the other way.

While Jon focusing NW on archery is a good idea now, was it really bad for NW to focus on melee weaponry prior to start of the story? Horde of Wildlings attacking the wall is a new development, so likely 99+% of wildling encounters happened on Rangings and the like, where melee is more useful. In addition, practice shooting at horizontal targets 100′ away or so is of marginal benefit when shooting at enemies 700′ directly below you.

One important corrective: “hordes of wildlings attacking the Wall” is NOT a new development:

“Wildlings have invaded the realm before.“ Jon had heard the tales from Old Nan and Maester Luwin both, back at Winterfell. “Raymun Redbeard led them south in the time of my grandfather’s grandfather, and before him there was a king named Bael the Bard.”
“Aye, and long before them came the Horned Lord and the brother kings Gendel and Gorne, and in ancient days Joramun, who blew the Horn of Winter and woke giants from the earth. Each man of them broke his strength on the Wall, or was broken by the power of Winterfell on the far side…”

The Watch is primarily a defensive military force manning a fixed fortification. GRRM’s problems with math aside, it makes a lot more sense to train them in archery and siege weaponry than it does to emphasize hand-to-hand training, given that melee weapons’ arms-length range doesn’t do you much good when you’re on the top of a bloody great wall and the enemy is at the bottom. 

Now, ranging is a different story, but I would maintain that Ser Alliser’s godawful training scheme is still a bad one: emphasizing fighting on foot one-on-one is a very bad idea when the Night’s Watch is badly outnumbered by wildling raiders, who are absolutely going to use their advantage of numbers to overwhelm whatever negligable training in the blade a crow gets in boot camp. 

To the extent that you’d emphasize melee combat at all in the Watch, it should absolutely be focusing on cavalry tactics, which would allow the Night’s Watch to punch above their weight vis-a-vis the mostly on-foot Wildlings. And cavalry tactics emphasize horsemanship over swordsmanship, because you don’t need to be very good with a sword when you’re thundering down on someone at top horsepower. 

What do you think(or is it said) what started the enmity between Cersei & her brothers-in-law? And why both? Wouldn’t Intrigue 101 suggest playing them against each other, or at least cultivate the friendship of one as a counterweight to the other’s influence with their eldest brother, esp since Robert is none too fond of her.

Isn’t the flaw of this argument the idea that Cersei would ever follow the rules of Intrigue 101?

Hello, Do you know any “rules” about wealth that make a noble person seem cultured/refined/ect? What would be considered nouveau riche and garish? Things with jewelry, food, clothing, horses would be nice to know. I mean this in context of ASOIAF/medieval and not today’s standards. The Lannisters are ridiculously wealthy, but since they are an old money family would they make big displays of wealth like the Tyrells? The Tyrells seem to use their wealth to deal with people who covet Highgarden.

The tricky thing is that there were different fashions for this kind of thing that changed dramatically over the course of the Middle Ages, the Early Modern period, etc – especially when you factor in the complicating factor of commoners getting richer than nobles by getting their hands dirty “in trade,” which makes the dividing line harder to enforce. 

So for example, big displays of wealth could be very “on-brand” at various times, because nobles are supposed to be “magnificent.” This fashion obviously works in a context in which commoners either can’t afford to keep up with their betters, or aren’t legally allowed to due to sumptuary laws. At other times, understatement and the display of refined aesthetic might be considered the mark of true nobility – this fashion works in a context in which merchants, the rising bourgeoisie, etc. have tons of money but don’t have the social and cultural capital to know the “right” way to display it. 

In general, I would say that some good rules of thumb for refinement are:

  • Don’t Talk About the Price Tag: regardless of what the fashion is about the degree of opulence at the moment, one of the key attitudes of the nobility w/r/t money is that you don’t care how much stuff costs, because you’re supposed to be stupendously wealthy, generous and open-handed, and more concerned with refined aesthetics than commercial calculation. It’s not an accident that one of the oldest tropes about “nouveau riche” is that they constantly talk about how much various things cost, because they’ve still got that bottom line mentality going on.
  • Know the Fashion, Know the Scene: one of the advantages of being a wealthy parasite who doesn’t work for a living is that you have a lot of spare time to do things like keep up with what’s in fashion and what’s not, what the trends are, who the best craftsmen are, etc. Especially in an aristocratic context where what’s fashionable is less decided by manufacturers and specialized press and more about what important individuals (the monarch, the monarch’s immediate family, the monarch’s mistress/mister, various long-time fixtures at court) are wearing, a lot of this knowledge is very personal and having a grasp of it is a sign that you’re close to the right people. 
  • Making Fashion, Not Just Taking It: of course, one of the clearest signs of refinement is that the noble in question doesn’t merely follow the latest fashions but makes them, bending it to their personal aesthetic. To give an example, “Beau” Brummell was a leading aesthete of his day and, thanks to his close connections with the Prince of Wales and his own personal force of charisma, changed the dominant well-to-do men’s fashion of the day from the fop (powdered wigs anf faces, knee britches, stockings, and buckled shoes, tailcoat, lace cravats, etc.) to the dandy (hair worn naturally, clean face, long trousers, white linen cravats, frock or morning coats). 

I’m not sure you already had this question but why did Renly choose to marry Margaery to Robert and not Joffrey? Wouldn’t he get the same advantages without the trouble of removing Cersei?

The point was to remove Cersei. 

Cersei was a clear enemy of both Baratheon brothers (and vice versa), as we see from Bran II of AGOT where she talks to Jaime about all her enemies, or from Eddard XIII where Renly urges Ned to launch a coup against her, or from Sansa V of AGOT where Cersei marks down Renly as a traitor well before he declares his candidacy for the Iron Throne.

PoorQuentyn expects that Davos will be imprisoned for at least a short while on Skagos before he’s able to properly sort things out. There’s a part of me that is curious to know how and in what way cannibalism plays a role in Skagosi society, since thus far all we’ve seen is hearsay. But there’s another part of me that would be amused to see Davos sitting in some dingy corner going, “Ffs, not again.”

Certainly he’s got to be put in a position where he’s telling his life story again, because that’s the rules of the game. 

I’m sure I’ve missed it when I read the books, but why does Renly want to wed Margaery Tyrell to Robert?

Renly wants to wed Margaery Tyrell to Robert as part of a larger plan to oust the Lannisters – get Cersei out as queen, get Joffrey/Tommen/Myrcella out as heirs – and replace them with the Tyrells, with Renly likely becoming the next Hand of the King as the king’s loyal brother, the man responsible for uncovering Lannister treachery, and as a close ally of the Tyrells through Loras. 

Rather than having the Night’s Watch as an independent institution and forbidding its members from marrying or holding lands or titles, might a marcher lord system have worked better? Give each castle to a different family along with a portion of The Gift and it’s associated incomes in exchange for maintaining their portion of the Wall?

That would work well for the King in the North, not so much the other kingdoms of Westeros.Â