New Games of Thrones TV Series Premieres on Sunday

**TheSummoner** · 2022-10-30, 12:26 PM (ISO 8601)

Yes and no. If Aemond was anyone other than who he was, he certainly would've been executed for his part no different than Luke would've been. Age isn't a factor in this, blood is and the fight between Rhaenyra and Alicent shows that. No one intervened because everyone in the room knew that if they did and either of them got hurt, it would be with their head. That's the legal side of this: no one would get involved by choice and if (when) things reached the point where there the choice was pick a side instead of get involved or not, you're looking at a war. The moral side is that Jace attacked Aemond and drew a knife and swung it at him when Aemond called him Lord Strong.

As for Viserys, I think the reason he didn't come down on either side is because above all else, he wanted peace. Peace in his family included. It was certainly naïve and short sighted, but it's well within his character to try to mend bridged rather than deal out punishment to the people he loved.

**Ramza00** · 2022-10-30, 01:11 PM (ISO 8601)

Originally Posted by TheSummoner

Yes and no. If Aemond was anyone other than who he was, he certainly would've been executed for his part no different than Luke would've been. Age isn't a factor in this, blood is and the fight between Rhaenyra and Alicent shows that. No one intervened because everyone in the room knew that if they did and either of them got hurt, it would be with their head. That's the legal side of this: no one would get involved by choice and if (when) things reached the point where there the choice was pick a side instead of get involved or not, you're looking at a war. The moral side is that Jace attacked Aemond and drew a knife and swung it at him when Aemond called him Lord Strong.

As for Viserys, I think the reason he didn't come down on either side is because above all else, he wanted peace. Peace in his family included. It was certainly naïve and short sighted, but it's well within his character to try to mend bridged rather than deal out punishment to the people he loved.

The sovereign is the state of exception, and it is in his power to grant mercy or demand judgement. Arya in Book 1 of Game of Thrones / ASOIAF could have lost her head, she was not the royal blood, but Robert granted mercy for kids are kids.

That is the delightful / perverse pleasure that Cersei demanded a wolf hide instead. Not even the same wolf, but her lawyer logic was able to point out the differences between the Kings words a few breaths ago and this new state of affairs concerning what are we going to do about these cursed (blessed direwolves.) We as book readers know the wolves are magic, but to everyone else in that society they are not to be trusted.

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I repeat the rules are all made up, everyone knows this, yet the rules have to be followed or else the rules lose their powers. There are circuit breakers, aka sovereigns who can find state of exceptions and grant mercy / clemency. Likewise one can find ways to twist the rules and logics and play them like it is a magic spell in all its perversity while they traverse the system of logics. Or perhaps instead of invoking the word magic spell we can invoke the word “song”

**Liquor Box** · 2022-10-30, 03:49 PM (ISO 8601)

Originally Posted by Ramza00

That is the joke, Fire and Blood made evident there is no ultimate ur tradition, the first born son is heir if there is no caveats. Yet the king or another lord can choose another heir if they find the other heir to be more fit (for example Tywin was going to have Casterly Rock not flow through the dwarf his son Tyrion but instead through his daughter and her sons), etc etc with many more traditions being involved.

Actually it made the opposite evident. The king tried to choose another, but his choice was rejected because it flew in the face of law/tradition. We have no reason to think things might have been different had he made her hand or anything.

Tyrion was never bypassed in terms of the succession of Casterly Rock, so we don't know if it would have happened (and Tywin wanted his eldest son Jamie to the last, which accords with tradition). That does not stand as a counter-example.

**Ramza00** · 2022-10-30, 04:38 PM (ISO 8601)

Originally Posted by Liquor Box

Actually it made the opposite evident. The king tried to choose another, but his choice was rejected because it flew in the face of law/tradition. We have no reason to think things might have been different had he made her hand or anything.

We are arguing past each other. When boy A can claim tradition X as authority and boy B can tradition Y as authority, and both X+Y existed in a society prior … then one can not just say “authority” and author-ship. There are multiple originators, multiple auctors (the language root for all those words I just used)

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/auctor#Latin

Viserys did his daughter Princess/Queen Rhaenyra no favours for he never created a power base for her besides Tradition, and there is also simultaneously a counter-Tradition at the same time, thus begging the question to use an idiom (begging here meanings testing the logical argument one outlines, it comes from Aristotle and 500 year old English)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Begging_the_question

Of course Rhaenyra could have done so much more to create her own power base. She did some things, but also it is completely unsatisfactory. Her episode 10 work is procastination after the assignment was already due.

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Rhaenyra was in may ways foolish (I am not calling her a fool though, people are in tension and flux, I am not going to make her static as one thing) for not expecting Alicent and company to pull a Cersei Lannister and tear the paper in half when Ned Stark says I have this king’s authority in this paper when the king is now dead.

**Liquor Box** · 2022-10-30, 08:16 PM (ISO 8601)

Originally Posted by Ramza00

We are arguing past each other. When boy A can claim tradition X as authority and boy B can tradition Y as authority, and both X+Y existed in a society prior … then one can not just say “authority” and author-ship. There are multiple originators, multiple auctors (the language root for all those words I just used)

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/auctor#Latin

Viserys did his daughter Princess/Queen Rhaenyra no favours for he never created a power base for her besides Tradition, and there is also simultaneously a counter-Tradition at the same time, thus begging the question to use an idiom (begging here meanings testing the logical argument one outlines, it comes from Aristotle and 500 year old English)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Begging_the_question

Of course Rhaenyra could have done so much more to create her own power base. She did some things, but also it is completely unsatisfactory. Her episode 10 work is procastination after the assignment was already due.

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Rhaenyra was in may ways foolish (I am not calling her a fool though, people are in tension and flux, I am not going to make her static as one thing) for not expecting Alicent and company to pull a Cersei Lannister and tear the paper in half when Ned Stark says I have this king’s authority in this paper when the king is now dead.

I think we are speaking at cross puposes. I shall clarify my point.

First, I am saying that there were traditions and laws in universe that established the sequence of succession. This succession order would see Aegon inherit before Rhaenyra.

Second, I am saying that the kind departed from the established order of succession by naming his daughter as heir, and maintaining that after his son was born.

Third, I am saying that it was this divergence between the heir by law and tradition (Aegon) and the named heir (Rhaenyra) that has caused the civil war. If the named heir and heir by law had been the same person, there would be no strong alternative claimant and no war.

Do you disagree with any of the above points, and if so, which?

I get that you think that the king could have done more to bolster his daughter's claim. I agree, although I tend to doubt it would have prevented war. But that doesn't change the three point above.

**Thomas Cardew** · 2022-10-31, 12:15 PM (ISO 8601)

I believe the point Ramza00 was attempting to make, is that while nominally the king is above tradition and can do what he wants, he's bound by it as strictly as anyone else. Sometimes the king can get away with it, pardoning crimes and indulging his whims. V attempts to go against tradition by appointing his daughter as heir as is technically his authority. But he only has that authority by tradition, by going against tradition he undercuts his authority. The system pushes back and enforces itself because the king was too weak / unwilling to enforce his will.

Meanwhile, I'm going to mention a niche side issue I haven't seen mentioned anywhere.

Spoiler

Show

I really like how the activating spark, that makes war truly inevitable in this story, is Aemond killing Luc is an accident. Martin and whole bunch of other people have talked about how dragons are fantasy nuclear weapons. The metaphor has always fallen flat for me, it just doesn't map appropriately. But this was a great scene for illustrating a couple of nuclear weapon policy concepts.

It's a great demonstration of unintentional escalation and the inherent risk of nuclear armed forces being in close proximity to each other. In the show version, Aemond wasn't trying to kill his nephew and start a war. HeÂ’s actively shocked when he loses control and Vhager chomps Luc. (Queue side rant on the importance of Always/Never)

This is the point war becomes inevitable. Because thatÂ’s what happens when youÂ’re involved in risky situations. Accidents happen, things get out of control, and when youÂ’ve got forces from two nuclear armed powers mixing in a chaotic situation, you have a recipe for catastrophe beyond what any of the participants actually intended. ItÂ’s not just WW3 starting because a red balloon drifted into the wrong area, itÂ’s WW3 starting because both sides are pushing on each other and pushing on each other is inherently risky and the existence and logic of the weapons demands their use. And a war that nobody wants, that everyone thinks will be too costly, that no rational person would begin starts. Because accidents happen and then logic of war grinds on to horrifying conclusions.

**hamishspence** · 2022-10-31, 01:32 PM (ISO 8601)

Originally Posted by Liquor Box

I think we are speaking at cross puposes. I shall clarify my point.

First, I am saying that there were traditions and laws in universe that established the sequence of succession. This succession order would see Aegon inherit before Rhaenyra.

More traditions than laws, in this case.

There was a law passed that forbade disinheriting your heir when you remarry in favour of younger children, though.

https://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/Widow%27s_Law

To rectify these ills, in 52 AC King Jaehaerys implemented the Widow's Law, reaffirming the right of the eldest son (or daughter, where there was no son) to inherit, but requiring said heirs to maintain surviving widows in the same conditions they enjoyed before their husband's death. A lord's widow, be she a second, third or fourth wife, could no longer be driven from his castle, nor deprived of her servants, clothing, and income. The same law also forbade a man to disinherit the children by a first wife in order to bestow their lands, seat or property on a later wife or her children.

**Liquor Box** · 2022-10-31, 04:02 PM (ISO 8601)

Originally Posted by Thomas Cardew

I believe the point Ramza00 was attempting to make, is that while nominally the king is above tradition and can do what he wants, he's bound by it as strictly as anyone else. Sometimes the king can get away with it, pardoning crimes and indulging his whims. V attempts to go against tradition by appointing his daughter as heir as is technically his authority. But he only has that authority by tradition, by going against tradition he undercuts his authority. The system pushes back and enforces itself because the king was too weak / unwilling to enforce his will.

If that is what he was saying, then I don't think I disagree. I don't think it stands in opposition to my point though.

Originally Posted by hamishspence

More traditions than laws, in this case.

There was a law passed that forbade disinheriting your heir when you remarry in favour of younger children, though.

https://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/Widow%27s_Law

To rectify these ills, in 52 AC King Jaehaerys implemented the Widow's Law, reaffirming the right of the eldest son (or daughter, where there was no son) to inherit, but requiring said heirs to maintain surviving widows in the same conditions they enjoyed before their husband's death. A lord's widow, be she a second, third or fourth wife, could no longer be driven from his castle, nor deprived of her servants, clothing, and income. The same law also forbade a man to disinherit the children by a first wife in order to bestow their lands, seat or property on a later wife or her children.

Am I missing something. Your own post says that the Widow's law "reaffirms the right of the eldest son to inherit". Is that no a law establishing the sequence of succession.

**hamishspence** · 2022-10-31, 04:14 PM (ISO 8601)

Yup - but it gets bent a bit now and again - so it's not as hard-and-fast as all that.

Once Rhaenyra had become the heir, and been given the castle Dragonstone in token of this (thanks to Daemon, the king's brother, being demoted)- then making the newborn child Aegon the heir would have had elements of:

"disinheriting the child of a first wife in order to bestow their lands, seat or property on a later wife or her child"

So it's not surprising that Viserys looked at the idea of making Aegon the new heir with suspicion - feeling that "right of eldest son to inherit" does not mix well with "avoid disinheriting children".

King Jaeherys broke that law when his son and heir Aemon died leaving only a daughter (Rhaenys) - Rhaenys was Aemon's own heir, and legally should have inherited Dragonstone from him - but Jaeherys gave it to Aemon's younger brother Baelon, infuriating his wife in the process. As a result, she separated from Jaeherys for a few years.

Viserys having Daemon as heir at all, after Rhaenyra had been born, broke the "your daughter is your heir if you have no sons" principle - so it makes sense that, once he'd made Rhaenyra heir, he might have thought on the injustice that had been done to her (and before her, Rhaenys) and decided to take things one step further to "your eldest child is your heir".

**Ramza00** · 2022-10-31, 05:20 PM (ISO 8601)

Originally Posted by Liquor Box

If that is what he was saying, then I don't think I disagree. I don't think it stands in opposition to my point though.

Pretty much what Thomas Cardew said earlier and you just replied to in the first part of the post is what I am saying. Will respond later with more details. But that is not now.

Originally Posted by Liquor Box

Am I missing something. Your own post says that the Widow's law "reaffirms the right of the eldest son to inherit". Is that no a law establishing the sequence of succession.

There is no organized system of laws concerning Inheritance, and Widow’s law is one of the first introductions inserted by the 4th Targaryen king (Jaehaerys), Viserys which we saw in the show is the 5th Targaryen king.

And skipping over the details (will explain more later) and in the 2+103 years from Aegon setting foot on future King Landing’s river of those 5 kings, Aegon (the first king) and Jaehaerys (the fourth king) ruled 2+37+55=94 years while King number 2 ruled for 5 years and during that time there was a major rebellion over 2 events, followed by the 3rd king Maegor the Cruel ruling for 6 years. Mangrove who was a paranoid *censored* word but also he had a traumatic brain injury, likely blood magic after a 28 day coma, a massive rebellion caused by a Hightower High Septon who said he can not remarried / 2nd for Maegor was married to a Hightower niece of the Hightower High Septon. Maegor was mad no kid has occurred in 14 years and Maegor said his wife is barren and thus he wants a second wife for he wants a kid / heir… etc etc (skipping over) more details but the short of it is king 2 and 3 fought 11 years of conflict concerning inheritance, marriage, incest, etc.

So 11 years (5+6) of the 2nd and 3rd king, and 94 years of two kings.

Aegon and his wife’s purposefully did not want to change the laws, instead Aegon had 6 Maesters he carried around for all the laws and customs of each region. The only law Aegon cared about is no fighting, and if you have a dispute that required fighting you must come to him or be branded a rebel. At the same time Aegon spent over half the year each year on tour visiting each aspect of the realm and being spoiled by feasts and celebrations letting his sisters, half brother (the Hand Otto Baratheon) and the Quiet Council doing the day to day ruling. Likewise Visenya did lots of building at King Landing.

Jaehaerys Is the first one to standardized the law, and it was done after a crisis of the rebellions and Maegor the Cruel. The laws standardized were more about the faith, can Targaryens do incest, and can the lords kill people without a trial. Most of this stuff delegated to Septon Barth which is the badass Renaissance man who is the son of a blacksmith and was hand for over four decades. But inheritance was not touched for it caused Alysanne his Queen to get angry and the King and Queen became estranged, not talking and being at different locations twice over Alysanne and Jaeharys over arguing inheritance and what freedom should his daughters have. Alysanne herself pushing for the most basic reforms, so limited reforms, about not wanting women to be raped or thrown to the cold such as Widows law. Alysanne advocating for the Queen that never was. Alysanne saying do not banish my daughter (not a heir) away for said daughter liked to have sex like a man and Jaehaerys caused his daughter the whore of Lys and banished her, and Alyssanne checked out, especially after another daughter died due to childbirth.

Well Jaeharys lived so long he had 7 different heirs for he was outlasting his kids and future grandkids. So after the 6th heir died he did the great council thing, for his wife had recently died and he was in grief, especially since the 5th heir caused a 2 year estrangement with his dead wife. Thus the great council said the 6th heir Baelon’s son Viserys will be the 7th heir. People at the great council pressed their claims for 6 months, but the decision was done by secret ballot (similar to our pope) and it was not a thing of law, logic, or customs where one declares future precedent in iron rules, no it was the lords picking who they wanted to have as the next king for the current king was 67.

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I was trying to make this short, and I skipped stuff about boy vs girl with the tradition of heirs for I was trying to do a quick reply but that failed while typing it out. Edit here is what Martin said in 1999 aka before book 3 was out.

Spoiler: Martin’s 99 answer concerning inheritance, Spoiler for it is long

Show

Originally Posted by THE HORNWOOD INHERITANCE AND THE WHENTS

[Summary: Maia asks about the Hornwood inheritance, given that Lord Hornwood's sister is not being considered for the lordship but her son is and so is one of his bastards. Given that we have seen female heads of houses (Mormont, Whent, and other examples listed), this doesn't seem to make sense. Moreover, how could Lord Hornwood's wife or a future husband of herself be considered a legitimate holder of her lands over Lord Hornwood's blood relatives. Also, Maia asked about Lady Whent being called the "last of her line" given that a female Whent is listed as married to a Frey, but GRRM did not answer that one.]

Well, the short answer is that the laws of inheritance in the Seven Kingdoms are modelled on those in real medieval history... which is to say, they were vague, uncodified, subject to varying interpertations, and often contradictory.

A man's eldest son was his heir. After that the next eldest son. Then the next, etc. Daughters were not considered while there was a living son, except in Dorne, where females had equal right of inheritance according to age.

After the sons, most would say that the eldest daughter is next in line. But there might be an argument from the dead man's brothers, say. Does a male sibling or a female child take precedence? Each side has a "claim."

What if there are no childen, only grandchildren and great grandchildren. Is precedence or proximity the more important principle? Do bastards have any rights? What about bastards who have been legitimized, do they go in at the end after the trueborn kids, or according to birth order? What about widows? And what about the will of the deceased? Can a lord disinherit one son, and name a younger son as heir? Or even a bastard?

There are no clear cut answers, either in Westeros or in real medieval history. Things were often decided on a case by case basis. A case might set a precedent for later cases... but as often as not, the precedents conflicted as much as the claims.

In fact, if you look at medieval history, conflicting claims were the cause of three quarters of the wars. The Hundred Years War grew out of a dispute about whether a nephew or a grandson of Philip the Fair had a better claim to the throne of France. The nephew got the decision, because the grandson's claim passed through a daughter (and because he was the king of England too). And that mess was complicated by one of the precedents (the Salic Law) that had been invented a short time before to resolve the dispute after the death of Philip's eldest son, where the claimants were (1) the daughter of Philip's eldest son, who may or may not have been a bastard, her mother having been an adulteress, (2) the unborn child of the eldest son that his secon wife was carrying, sex unknown, and (3) Philip's second son, another Philip. Lawyers for (3) dug up the Salic Law to exclude (1) and possibly (2) if she was a girl, but (2) was a boy so he became king, only he died a week later, and (3) got the throne after all. But then when he died, his own children, all daughters, were excluded on the basis of the law he's dug up, and the throne went to the youngest son instead... and meanwhile (1) had kids, one of whom eventually was the king of Navarre, Charles the Bad, who was such a scumbag in the Hundred Years War in part because he felt =his= claim was better than that of either Philip of Valois or Edward Plantagenet. And you know, it was. Only Navarre did not have an army as big as France or England, so no one took him seriously.

The Wars of the Roses were fought over the issue of whether the Lancastrian claim (deriving from the third son of Edward III in direct male line) or the Yorkist claim (deriving from a combination of Edward's second son, but through a female line, wed to descendants of his fourth son, through the male) was superior. And a whole family of legitimized bastard stock, the Beauforts, played a huge role.

And when Alexander III, King of Scots, rode over a cliff, and Margaret the Maid of Norway died en route back home, and the Scottish lords called on Edward I of England to decide who had the best claim to the throne, something like fourteen or fifteen (I'd need to look up the exact number) "competitors" came forward to present their pedigrees and documents to the court. The decision eventually boiled down to precedence (John Balliol) versus proximity (Bruce) and went to Balliol, but those other thirteen guys all had claims as well. King of Eric of Norway, for instance, based his claim to the throne on his =daughter=, the aforementioned Maid of Norway, who had been the queen however briefly. He seemed to believe that inheritance should run backwards. And hell, if he had been the king of France instead of the king of Norway, maybe it would have.

The medieval world was governed by men, not by laws. You could even make a case that the lords preferred the laws to be vague and contradictory, since that gave them more power. In a tangle like the Hornwood case, ultimately the lord would decide... and if some of the more powerful claimants did not like the decision, it might come down to force of arms.

The bottom line, I suppose, is that inheritance was decided as much by politics as by laws. In Westeros and in medieval Europe both.

https://www.westeros.org/Citadel/SSM/Category/C91/P210/

**Aedilred** · 2022-10-31, 06:03 PM (ISO 8601)

With regards to the succession, I think it's clear (from the books at least; I don't know how much detail has been gone into in the show) that there is a conflict of traditions surrounding the start of the Dance. There are seven kingdoms each with their own subtly differing laws as to inheritance. There is also a longstanding custom that determine succession disputes are to be determined by the legal authority - usually meaning the local lord, or in some cases the king himself, and that the king can personally intervene to override previous decisions that would otherwise be binding (for instance, releasing a brother of the Night's Watch from his vows).

The law as regards Targaryen succession is particularly unclear, especially since the Targaryens have explicitly been exceptions in a number of respects to the rules that govern the rest of society.

Aegon had two sons, and the elder (Aenys) inherited his throne on Aegon's death. But when Aenys died, his half-brother Maegor seized the throne, over the heads of Aenys's son Prince Aegon - and then had that succession confirmed at law via a Trial of Seven. When Maegor died in turn, the throne passed back to the descendants of Aenys, with a choice between the children of Prince Aegon (both girls) or the surviving son of Aenys (Jaehaerys). Maegor himself considered Aerea (Aegon's daughter) his heir presumptive, but that's complicated by the fact that Jaehaerys was in open rebellion against him. At Maegor's death, Aerea was only six years old and without obvious supporters, so Jaehaerys had little difficulty claiming the throne himself.

Effectively the same debate happened when Prince Aemon died, and Jaehaerys chose Baelon as heir over Aemon's daughter Rhaenys. So the emerging pattern seems to be that brothers take precedence over daughters.

But there were also precedents for daughters taking precedence over brothers elsewhere in the kingdom, and in both these cases the relevant woman passed over was one generation removed from the succession (i.e. not daughters of kings themselves). And the Rhaenys decision was controversial, with a number of powerful lords (including the Velaryons, the Targaryens' closest allies and fellow Valyrians) objecting.

Then again following Baelon's death there was a Great Council to determine who should be Jaehaerys's next heir, with Viserys's succession not being a done deal. The emerging custom seems to be that male heirs and male-line heirs take precedence in all instances, but it's also clear that the prior decisions are not binding on future generations.

Indeed the succession is still up for debate a number of generations after the Dance. On the death of Baelor I, it remains open to question whether his heir is his oldest surviving sister, Daena, or his uncle Viserys II. The Dance is cited as a precedent, but the really decisive factor is that thanks to a prudish policy of Baelor, Daena has been imprisoned for years so lacks supporters. Again and on the death of Maekar I, a great council is called to determine the succession to him, as there are a number of competing claims. And in that council, the councillors selected Maekar's second surviving son, over the claim of an elder-line grandson and an elder brother (the latter of whom did not press his claim).

The real stress test is therefore not necessarily what the letter of the law says but what the lords of the realm will bear, which is why the great councils are necessary. And Viserys is clearly aware of this. This is probably one of the reasons why he is reluctant to confirm Daemon as his heir by making him Prince of Dragonstone early on, knowing that he is unpopular and this could lead to civil war; it's also why he goes to such lengths to establish Rhaenyra as his heir apparent, convening a great council, getting the lords to swear allegiance to her, marrying her into the most powerful noble family, and generally getting the realm used to the idea of her as his heir.

The implication (OOC) is that the kingship of the Seven Kingdoms is in practice elective even if it generally follows a predictable pattern - mirroring the English and indeed French kingship prior to the 13th century, which makes sense since the Dance of the Dragons is clearly modelled on the Anarchy, the biggest succession dispute in England prior to the Wars of the Roses. Viserys's strategy aligns with that used by French and occasionally English kings during this period, of getting their preferred heir as close to the throne as possible and getting everyone to swear oaths to them (sometimes making them co-king) to minimise the chances of anything going wrong when they die.

And this would have worked.

Spoiler

Show

Of the Lords Paramount, the North, the Vale, the Riverlands, the Iron Islands all declare for Rhaenyra, as do all the major families of the Crownlands and Dragonstone. The Stormlands ia on the fence and the LP of the Vale officially abstains. Only the Lannisters are entirely behind Aegon. Of course, although the Tyrells are abstaining, the Vale effectively fights for Aegon since the Hightowers step up.

But even in the face of a male claimant who by some theories has a better claim and whose accession would in principle align better with Westerosi norms, the majority of the LPs still prefer Rhaenyra and go to war to fight for her.

It is a safe assumption that had Aegon not seized the throne and Rhaenyra had succeeded as Viserys intended, the realm would have accepted this: while there may have been some reluctance in principle to the idea of a queen, by the time of Viserys's death it was no longer a highly controversial issue outside those who had an immediate interest in Aegon. There would doubtless have been grumblings from the Hightowers, and she might still have faced a rebellion, but any such rebellion would have been triggered by her own actions as queen.

**Ramza00** · 2022-10-31, 07:13 PM (ISO 8601)

Thanks for that Aedilred you covered much of the terrain I was thinking about covering in a later post and now I do not need to write it. So much thanks and gratitude.

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One thing I would like to highlight (edit sorry I went long), Lets talk Valyria inheritance tradition and boys plus girls. Though the amount of information we have is rudimentary is that Valyria traditions of inheritance (with the 40 families who rather do incest and not bread with each other) do not make sense in a Medieval Age Feudalism framework.

They kind of make sense with Roman and earlier empires such as Persia and Ptolemaic Era Egypt after Alexander the Great in the Hellenistic era.

And they make even more sense when you start thinking about dragons instead of imagining a society removed from dragons. In the Roman Empire one merged great dynasty of wealth between two families and this was highly debated and managed before the deal was finalized for it was like a modern cooperate merger. But in Valyria you would want the opposite of that. What makes the 40 dragon lord families special was limited access to their dragon eggs and unclaimed dragons, and you want to control access to them. Especially since we can infer (but do not know the details) there is likely a genetic component for dragonriding (that and magic, but this too is speculation and inferring)

So two Dragonriding families would not want to merge unless successful managed for it opens up the problem of candidate branches of the family and possible loss of current and future dragons. It is the opening up of strife and discord. Likewise those 40 families would not want to mate with the common Valyrians for much the same reason. Incest "solves this problem" for it allows brother and sister to marriage, uncle and daughter, aunt and nephew, cousin and cousin closing off possible loss of family being impacted and the creation of rival family branches. It is ICKYbut it makes sense.

Thus Valyrian traditions would suddenly be impacted when the Doom happens and you have only 1 Dragonriding family and that family was small when they went to Dragonstone 12 years prior to the Doom. Thus the inclusion of a rival Velaryon family to plug in any generation holes of the family if you do not have the right gender / sex of family members at key times. Aegon the Conqueror's mother being Valaena Velaryon.

Likewise wedding older sister to younger brother also "solves" the issue of should older girls inherits before boys in primogeniture (the first born should inherit.) There would be less need to adjudicate this issue for Incest solves that issue some of the time (Incest still being Ick.) The problem is when there are massive age differences such as Rhaenyra and Aegon who are 10 years age difference in the books (the show is massaging ages such as aging Alicent down and aging Rhaenyra a little bit older. This is actually kind of important with book Viserys for while he loves Aemma Arryn-Targaryean he kind of resented the fact his grandpa King Jaehaerys forced Viserys to marry Aemma when she was only 11. Note this is a source of strife with Queen Alysanne and Jaehaerys for when Alysanne's two daughters died during childbirth Alysanne blames Jaehaerys for marrying the kids at too early of an age, except that does not make sense to me for they were in their late teens and twenties.
In sum I am saying Viserys as king is in some ways rebelling against the intergenerational trauma Viserys felt where he was pressured to marry early and gave Rhaenyra more freedom.)

=====

So yeah these systems are not perfect by any means, but the Targaryean system actually makes sense when one thinks about it, and the "circuit breaker" of the King or another Lord is the final arbitrator of succession is meant to prevent disasters if an unfortunate circumstance happens (like that son is injured but not dead, or is somehow unsuitable to rule.)

That same power allows Viserys to make Rhaenyra his heir and to guarantee decades long loyalty of his liege lords where Rhaenyra is a known character with her personality and so on. But as soon as Aegon the future II was hitting a birth year where he could be squired / foster away from home Viserys should have been taking more steps to include Rhaenyra like making her Hand of the King and so on. Viserys was being foolish for not taking the extra steps.

This did not happen though due to Queen Alicent and Princess Rhaenyra being at odds for their younger kids tried to kill the other. Tragedy you can say, but another way of saying it is there was no good options once the deed was done and Viserys should have realized bad blood had festered in the family by then.

**KorvinStarmast** · 2022-11-01, 07:35 AM (ISO 8601)

Originally Posted by hamishspence

More traditions than laws, in this case.
The same law also forbade a man to disinherit the children by a first wife in order to bestow their lands, seat or property on a later wife or her children.

No matter how one slices it, Otto and Alicent are in the wrong if one appeals to this law (or tradition?)

Originally Posted by hamishspence

Tragedy you can say, but another way of saying it is there was no good options once the deed was done and Viserys should have realized bad blood had festered in the family by then.

And he should have done something about it. Failure in leadership.

**hamishspence** · 2022-11-01, 08:18 AM (ISO 8601)

Originally Posted by KorvinStarmast

No matter how one slices it, Otto and Alicent are in the wrong if one appeals to this law (or tradition?)

Pretty much. There are reasons other than "to bestow them on someone you now like more" to disinherit someone, which are valid (voluntarily joining the Night Watch comes with disinheritance built in for the person, but not for their children, for example) - and Jorah Mormont was disinherited for enslaving smallfolk and then fleeing the continent.

Viserys threatened to disinherit Rhaenyra if she didn't marry Laenor.

**Aedilred** · 2022-11-01, 10:24 AM (ISO 8601)

Originally Posted by KorvinStarmast

And he should have done something about it. Failure in leadership.

The question is what more he should or could reasonably have done.

He can't control what happens after he dies so all he can do is assemble as much support for his preferred course of events as reasonably possible. He does this, by stacking Rhaenyra's deck with powerful allies and getting lords to swear oaths to support her succession (oaths being in principle at least the most that a lord can bind themselves).

He doesn't know Aegon is going to seize the throne. Aegon himself doesn't know, nor do his supporters. They might be thinking about it, but if things had gone slightly differently, they probably wouldn't have. What steps is it reasonable for Viserys to take to insure against this possibility?

The only real way to eliminate the possibility would be to decapitate the Greens as a faction: dispose of Otto Hightower, Criston Cole, Aemond and probably Tyland Lannister and the queen, either by execution or by sending them to the Wall (or a sept in the queen's case). But that would be a largely arbitrary decision: none of these people - all of them family or longstanding colleagues if not friends - are actually traitors. He's just worried that they might be in future. It's exactly the kind of decision that precipitates civil war, antagonising exactly the same factions who line up behind Aegon anyway. Maegor took this approach and spent his whole reign fighting as a result, with his memory damned by posterity. If he took this action, and a civil war didn't kick off before Viserys died, it would still poison the well for Rhaenyra when she comes to the throne.

Ruthlessness doesn't come naturally to Viserys, obviously, but in this case it probably isn't the answer anyway. I think it's just one of those situations where the circumstances and the combination of personalities conspired to make it virtually impossible to resolve satisfactorily.

**KorvinStarmast** · 2022-11-01, 11:20 AM (ISO 8601)

Originally Posted by Aedilred

Aegon himself doesn't know, nor do his supporters.

That is not entirely true. The Greens have been setting this up (without Alicent's knowing it) for some time.

none of these people - all of them family or longstanding colleagues if not friends - are actually traitors.

Very much not true, as seen by a large number of people in-universe.
We, the audience, know the source of the mistake Alicent makes based on the King thinking that she was Rhaenyra - but only because we are the audience.
Even Alicent does not know that it was a case of mistaken identity.
Her statement "on his death bead he said {my son is heir}" With No Witnesses is of course open to question.

Compare that to how many witnesses were present when Rhaenyra was named heir.
Compare that to how many witnesses were present when Vyseris was named heir.

**Aedilred** · 2022-11-01, 05:14 PM (ISO 8601)

Originally Posted by KorvinStarmast

Very much not true, as seen by a large number of people in-universe.
We, the audience, know the source of the mistake Alicent makes based on the King thinking that she was Rhaenyra - but only because we are the audience.
Even Alicent does not know that it was a case of mistaken identity.
Her statement "on his death bead he said {my son is heir}" With No Witnesses is of course open to question.

Compare that to how many witnesses were present when Rhaenyra was named heir.
Compare that to how many witnesses were present when Vyseris was named heir.

When I say they're not traitors, I mean they're not traitors before Viserys dies, i.e. at a point when he's able to do anything meaningful about it. Expecting him to do something much more than he does - which realistically means violent action against the Greens - requires him to not only have certain foresight of what is going to happen, but to convince everyone around him that he does too, and that any action he takes is not purely arbitrary. That's a big, frankly unrealistic, ask.

**Beeftank** · 2022-11-01, 05:18 PM (ISO 8601)

Originally Posted by hamishspence

Pretty much. There are reasons other than "to bestow them on someone you now like more" to disinherit someone, which are valid (voluntarily joining the Night Watch comes with disinheritance built in for the person, but not for their children, for example) - and Jorah Mormont was disinherited for enslaving smallfolk and then fleeing the continent.

Viserys threatened to disinherit Rhaenyra if she didn't marry Laenor.

I really don’t think that is the case with Rhaenyra. As far as I can tell, westeros mostly follows what we in the Crusader Kings fandom call agnatic-cognatic primogeniture (I.e. eldest son inherits the titles), so I’m not sure Aegon being born would count as disinheriting Rhaenyra so much as it would bypassing her, which isn’t the same thing. If Aemma gave birth to a son he would have leapfrogged Rhaenyra in the line of succession, why should it be different for Aegon? Whether you think Aegon or Rhaenyra is the heir depends on whether you put more weight on the established rules of inheritance or the decree of King Viserys.

Going against the wishes of the the king, a man who Otto considered a friend, is a total jerk move, and he is more motivated by what is best for him than following the law, but I think the greens do actually have some legal justification to contesting Rhaenyras succession according to the laws and tradition of the realm, even if I personally think the King declaring his daughter the heir should override the laws.

**hamishspence** · 2022-11-01, 05:56 PM (ISO 8601)