Remove ads

The Heir of the Dragon: A Rhaenyra Targaryen Quest

Reader mode
Susano said:
Yeah, but by Andal succession laws Rhaenys (the Queen that never was, not Aegon's wife) should have been Queen. The Great Council of 101 really did a number on female royal succession, as it can be readily cited as royal succession excluding women, period. Of course, the counter-argument is that it set succession at the time rather than a precedent and Targaryen succession has always been by a heir being named.

But of course, yeah, Daemon's position would be weaker than the position of any brother of ours.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Yeah having Andal Succession laws with us rather then against us is more of a point in our favor rather then some sort of slam dunk. Even more then a century after Cole's death people try to defend his reputation by claiming he was just acting in defense of Andal customs. Without us having a brother people who declare for our uncle wouldn't have that sort of figleaf.

One wonders if Viserys will ask for our opinions with regards to who he should marry...
 
Imperious said:
Yeah having Andal Succession laws with us rather then against us is more of a point in our favor rather then some sort of slam dunk. Even more then a century after Cole's death people try to defend his reputation by claiming he was just acting in defense of Andal customs. Without us having a brother people who declare for our uncle wouldn't have that sort of figleaf.

One wonders if Viserys will ask for our opinions with regards to who he should marry...
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
We should probably talk to him if/when the pressure to remarry ratchets up, so that we can keep an ear on such matters (stay away from our not!girlfriend dad!)
 
Imperious said:
Training isn't just required in order to improve our skills, we also need to train or otherwise we'll become worse as a fighter overtime. Given one of our ambitions is to become a knight, we're essentially "locked in" to needing to become a better fighter, or otherwise fail one of our ambitions.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Yeah becoming a warrior of note and a knight is going to be something that will require a fair amount of time investment over the years.
 
Teen Spirit said:
Yeah becoming a warrior of note and a knight is going to be something that will require a fair amount of time investment over the years.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

I do hope we can manage to fit into it getting Blackfyre early as a token of respect for the appreciation of our skills at some point though, even if we didn't take the ambition for it. We don't want an opposing claimant to take it for themselves like the Greens did in canon, and it's not like Viserys is making much use of it right now anyway, and we are his designated heir.

Plus having a Valyrian Steel sword we can take into fights would be baller.
 
Last edited:
Imperious said:
I figure our opponent is most likely to be Daemon of Viserys never remarries, but there are some cases I could see us ending at war with Daemon even if Viserys does remarry. A pretty easy one is if Viserys remarries but when Teen Spirit rolls for his children Viserys gets only daughters. Daemon would be more likely to cause issues in that case as he'd still be Viserys' closest male heir, so he'd still be able to rally to his side those that think that only a man should sit the Iron Throne.

In that case we'd have Andal succession laws on our side rather then against us in the case Viserys has sons.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Susano said:
Yeah, but by Andal succession laws Rhaenys (the Queen that never was, not Aegon's wife) should have been Queen. The Great Council of 101 really did a number on female royal succession, as it can be readily cited as royal succession excluding women, period. Of course, the counter-argument is that it set succession at the time rather than a precedent and Targaryen succession has always been by a heir being named.

But of course, yeah, Daemon's position would be weaker than the position of any brother of ours.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Imperious said:
Yeah having Andal Succession laws with us rather then against us is more of a point in our favor rather then some sort of slam dunk. Even more then a century after Cole's death people try to defend his reputation by claiming he was just acting in defense of Andal customs. Without us having a brother people who declare for our uncle wouldn't have that sort of figleaf.

One wonders if Viserys will ask for our opinions with regards to who he should marry...
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Regarding succession laws, the thing we have to remember is that Jaehaerys I was also technically a usurper, because after the death of Maegor the throne should have been for Aerea, the daughter of his elder brother Aegon the Uncrowned, who was by all the laws of succession of Westeros the legitimate heir of the Iron Throne...

So when Aemon died, the removal of Rhaenys from the line of succesion in favor of Baelon had less to do with sexism and misogyny and more with fully legitimizing his own claim to the Iron Throne, because allowing a woman to sit on the Iron Throne would prove that he was technically a usurper... And the same thing happens with the Great Council he didn´t want Rhaenys as her heir and he used the Great Council to remove her claim one while minimizing the risk of civil war...
 
Last edited:
Fanhunter696 said:
Regarding succession laws, the thing we have to remember is that Jaehaerys I was also technically a usurper, because after the death of Maegor the throne should have been for Aerea, the daughter of his elder brother Aegon the Uncrowned, who was by all the laws of succession of Westeros the legitimate heir of the Iron Throne...

So when Aemon died, the removal of Rhaenys from the line of succesion in favor of Baelon had less to do with sexism and misogyny and more with fully legitimizing his own claim to the Iron Throne, because allowing a woman to sit on the Iron Throne would prove that he was technically a usurper... And the same thing happens with the Great Council he didn´t want Rhaenys as her heir and he used the Great Council to remove her claim one while minimizing the risk of civil war...
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
This is what I think to. Aerea Targaryen had no brothers, and was the oldest daughter of Aenys' Targaryen's oldest son and daughter. Under Andal succession laws she would have come before Jaehaerys in the inheritance, as daughters come before uncles. For a number of reasons, including Aerea's mother, Rhaena Targaryen, publicly giving up the claims of herself and her daughters to the throne in great council that followed, Jaehaerys was made king, and I think his decision to remove Rhaenys from inheritance all those years later was motivated by some sort of guilt complex he may have had over coming before his nieces in the succession and a wish to not be seen by history as a usurper.
 
Honestly, it was probably a combination of both this and his misogyny, because looking at how he treated his daughters doesn't paint a pretty picture of him as a father
 
I wonder whether, if and once we win t he throne securely, we could actually codify royal succession.

I also wonder how pissed everyone will be once we just copy Dorne's homework :p
 
Imperious said:
This is what I think to. Aerea Targaryen had no brothers, and was the oldest daughter of Aenys' Targaryen's oldest son and daughter. Under Andal succession laws she would have come before Jaehaerys in the inheritance, as daughters come before uncles. For a number of reasons, including Aerea's mother, Rhaena Targaryen, publicly giving up the claims of herself and her daughters to the throne in great council that followed, Jaehaerys was made king, and I think his decision to remove Rhaenys from inheritance all those years later was motivated by some sort of guilt complex he may have had over coming before his nieces in the succession and a wish to not be seen by history as a usurper.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Sucession on the Iron throne has been weird up to this point. Visenya acted surprised that Aenys made his son heir over Meagor. Alysanne very clearly thought sucession should be "Eldest inherits no matter the gender". Aerea should have been heir but wasn't because her mother had no desire for that. And then there was the council of 101 AC which was basically Jaehaerys trying to both justify his sexism (And I am very firmly of the opinion he was incredibly sexist), trying to prevent a civil war since both the Sea Snake and Daemon were fully prepared to throw down after Baelon died, and in the books at least it's basically an insane popularity contest. In the show it's just Rhaenys's claim vs Viserys claim near as we can tell, whereas in the books there are 12 other claims that are heard for some bizarre reason.
 
Susano said:
I wonder whether, if and once we win t he throne securely, we could actually codify royal succession.

I also wonder how pissed everyone will be once we just copy Dorne's homework :p
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

If we want to make substantial changes to the succession we're going to have to look very carefully to where the dragons end up. The dance shows the sort of issues that arise when the side that ends up with less then what they would have otherwise had are also the ones with the most powerful dragon of the age, as the Greens had with Vhagar.

I just wish we had someone we knew who could be relied on to be 100% in our camp we could try to help claim Vhagar. I still don't quite grok how did Viserys end up letting the Velaryons claim the most powerful dragon in the world and the only remaining dragon from the conquest, so associated with house Targaryen that you could say one of the dragon's three heads was meant to represent her.

For that matter, I'm pretty sure Vhagar is unclaimed as of now.
 
Last edited:
Teen Spirit said:
In the show it's just Rhaenys's claim vs Viserys claim near as we can tell, whereas in the books there are 12 other claims that are heard for some bizarre reason.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

It could have been Jaehaerys trying to pretend like the whole thing was more legitimate because it was more thorough, i.e. "We examined every possible candidate to the best of our abilities, and whaddaya know, I was right all along!"
 
True, @Imperious . But even if we don't copy Dorne, actually codifying succession laws is always a good idea. For exactly the reason the Dance has shown! And yet the Targaryens still hadn't come around to that even by the time they fell! Madness.
 
Susano said:
I wonder whether, if and once we win t he throne securely, we could actually codify royal succession.

I also wonder how pissed everyone will be once we just copy Dorne's homework :p
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Oddly enough, show Viserys did that exactly that. His agreement directly states that Rhaenyra's eldest child, regardless of gender, will be her heir and take the name Targaryen when they rule.
 
Teen Spirit said:
And then there was the council of 101 AC which was basically Jaehaerys trying to both justify his sexism (And I am very firmly of the opinion he was incredibly sexist),
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
This was one of the greatest blows to the Targaryen authority before the Dance and the slow decline of Dragons. It made the Lords think they could influence who wore the Crown. Coupled with the relative weakness of Viserys, the Nobility are in their ascendency.

One of our main goals in this quest should be the assertion of Royal authority and the closing of ranks among the Dragon-blooded houses. Projecting unity and strength. A War against a common foe to show off the power of Dragons is something that we need.

One of the reasons I supported the decision to piss off Otto a little is to show that we might think he's a good Minister, but he is the hand. The hand carries out what the Head decrees.
 
weeblypanda said:
A War against a common foe to show off the power of Dragons is something that we need.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Like what, though? Without a Targaryen pretender to rally around (in which case we have A House Divided again) the nobility won't actually go to war, so that would only leave external expansion. I guess we could stick the realm's dick into the War of the Triarchy blender, but I'd maybe rather not...
 
I'm not gonna close voting yet I just want to show where things are. Probably close voting tomorrow morning.
Adhoc vote count started by Teen Spirit on Aug 2, 2024 at 4:45 PM, finished with 78 posts and 46 votes.
Click to expand...
 
Susano said:
Like what, though? Without a Targaryen pretender to rally around (in which case we have A House Divided again) the nobility won't actually go to war, so that would only leave external expansion. I guess we could stick the realm's dick into the War of the Triarchy blender, but I'd maybe rather not...
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Honestly, Dorne is still available, as unadvisable as that is. I'd prefer to wack the Stepstones since that at least has some economic benefits, but we could pivot to a two-pronged Dornish invasion if we attack from both the Marches and the Sea.
 
I mean if we want to show off the power of the dragons we could always do that tour we were talking about and then have our dragon feed in front of our hosts. It worked for Jaehaerys, and is less of an escalation then going to war, though even that feels a bit too on the nose for now.
 
Teen Spirit said:
In the show it's just Rhaenys's claim vs Viserys claim near as we can tell, whereas in the books there are 12 other claims that are heard for some bizarre reason.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Actually if you watch the first scene of the first episode again (is on youtube), they do say that 14 claims were heard.



As for the succession, my personal interpretation is that the early Targaryens advocated that the successor should be freely appointed by the Head of the Family (aka the monarch on the Iron Throne), this being a more Roman/Valyrian style/law of succession, as opposed to the Andal style/law.

I've also heard that Viserys was interpreting that sons (and daughters) from the first marriage are above those from the second.

Also to be fair with Jaehaerys, who despise being kinda crappy with most of his daughters (as far as we know he had no problems with Alyssa or Maegelle), I think that in this case was more afraid of the Sea Snake ruling in all but name and the Velaryons taking control of the dynasty.
 
Magnos III said:
Also to be fair with Jaehaerys, who despise being kinda crappy with most of his daughters (as far as we know he had no problems with Alyssa or Maegelle), I think that in this case was more afraid of the Sea Snake ruling in all but name and the Velaryons taking control of the dynasty.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

I mean, at that point they were basically the same family anyway and had for over a hundred years.
 
Reader mode
You must login or register to reply here.
Remove ads
Back
Top