Oh yea hey guys just a side note, Rhaenyra essentially faced no repercussions from Corlys and Rhaenys despite the two of them believing for years that she'd ordered their son to be murdered.
The QM said that they might change some aspects of canon that made no sense and Corlys' behavior seems like it might make the list. An obvious more sensible explanation is that Corlys and Rhaenys could not move against canon!Rhaenyra and Daemon as their children were de facto hostages, or even that Corlys considered Laenor an embarrassment and okayed the murder.
Still.
[X] Agree to the deal.
Maybe we should shake things up in this new reality and marry a stark and have all of Westeros go what the fuck!
Maybe we can list a bunch of candidates for marriage and see the pros and cons?
I did one a bit ago. This is kind of another list, although I am also arguing a position here.
Laenor Velayron
Laenor is the heir of straight up the most powerful house not named Targaryen and the only one that's a genuine rival to the Targaryens for power. No other house has dragons, and the Velayrons don't just have dragons, they also have an extremely powerful trading fleet and the military strength to conduct their own wars. He is also known to be homosexual and perfectly okay with his wife having extramarital affairs, which is good since we have a girlfriend. There's some question of personality - in show!canon he was an accomplished knight and warrior himself, which could be something to become at least friends over. In book!canon he was kind of a fop. It seems almost certain that show canon will be used, though.
There is some unfavorable aspects to the fact that the Velayrons are so powerful and Laenor isn't a second son - he's a heir that stands to inherit. If there's any risk that a husband is in a position to soft-coup us it's Laenor. Thankfully he doesn't have the personality for it, but Corlys might be the type to push it, depending on QM interpretation. Even if this is doesn't happen, this pushes more towards the Velayrons becoming basically part of the extended royal family, which might have unfavorable ramifications for the realm or our family in the long run.
We've told that having heirs with him is going to be a stress hit. There could also be some moral complications that lead to that stress hit - if we lay out all the reasons we aren't okay with having a bastard, and he's still refusing, and we have to start pressuring him, that's kinda icky territory. You could make the argument that well any other wife would have done the same and might have taken issue with his bf as well (and there will certainly be pressure from his dad as well), but on the other hand another wife might not have had the power to actually pressure him.
The biggest reason not to go for Laenor, though, is that it's a retread of canon
and just picking the best political option which is IMO kind of boring. Like, personally though I wouldn't at all mind a Daemon-Velayron coalition as Final Villain, that seems like it'd be strong enough to be cool but not so strong that it wasn't beatable. I think too many people act like a quest is going to Bad End if you don't make the exact optimal choice for gathering and expanding your own power. When really I think the other problem happens more frequently - you successfully strangle or cripple all your villains in the cradle and then don't have anything to do.
Harwin Strong
Harwin is the best political match who is also a potential romantic match, if we want to have an actual romantic relationship with our husband. A powerful house, and he's the heir, but not so powerful as to be a challenge. Harwin is not only a great knight, but by all indications in canon he's a pretty good dad. He's in an affair - which is a good sign for him being okay with us being in an affair, but IMO of the big three he's the one most likely to actually take issue with Alicent. Being okay with being an affair of someone in a marriage you know is political and loveless is not necessarily the same as being okay with your married partner who you love having an affair with someone else. While canon!Rhaenyra was having sex with Laenor that probably overlapped with when she started having sex with Harwin, she was at least emotionally committed to Harwin and this wouldn't be true for quest!Rhaenyra. I do think he's all in all likely to be okay with it, but just note that there is the most question there.
The biggest plus on Harwin is his dad - of Corlys, Lyonel, and Otto, Lyonel is just the best person and would be the most pleasant person to have as a father in law. Unfortunately, Harwin also has the worst choice in brothers, and we are not set up to deal with Larys at all.
A bigger concern I have with this is that at least if I were Alicent I'd be
super not okay with this. For one, there's the obvious aspect that even if the idea that Rhaenyra is going to need a husband and heirs at some point and so will need to be sexually intimate with someone else, emotional intimacy is a different thing. But the bigger issue is that Alicent could quite reasonably feel endangered by this. I've said this before, but if there are rumors about us and Alicent then it'll make Johanna and a certain fraction of the court hate us but otherwise it'd probably be mostly fine. If we have a falling out due to a break up and there are such rumors (preexisting or as a result of that), then Alicent's life is
over. Like, in that scenario she might consider herself lucky to end up in a motherhouse and not the Silent Sisters. Us having a romance with our husband makes Alicent a disposable political embarrassment, and she's smart enough to know that. Add to this that Alicents' views on romance are almost certainly pretty monoamorous, and that our relationship with her is very butch/femme. The idea that we'd get tired of "playing at being a man" and grow up and find a husband to have a real relationship with while she gets discarded is probably a fear she has (and if it isn't it's one Otto might give her). And while that's partially based on things that aren't true... a fear that if rumors start to spread she has to decide immediately whether to cut her losses and not get burned or cling to us like a lifeline, whereas we can just discard her is a reasonable one.
Gwayne Hightower
Gwayne is my preferred candidate. I'm not sure if he or Harwin is a better political match, since Gwayne is from a stronger house but is from the line of a second son rather than an heir. The reason I like this match though is it's kind of (at least in my head) a romantic match- just with his sister. We have (IMO) three best options for husband, but if we could pick a wife we'd have a clear winner. Marrying Gwayne would establish the alliance between houses that marrying Alicent would, and the children we could have would be the closest genetically we could get to having children with Alicent ourselves without magic. That's the ribbon though - the most important thing about that match (IMO) is that it's the best match for protecting Alicent by ensuring that Alicent's wellbeing isn't entirely dependent on us. Even if we were to break up, she's the Prince Consort's sister. He could protect her, and she could retain some status and station through her relationship with him.
This is not at all that I think we should plan to break up with Alicent. However, I think it's should be important to Rhaenyra that Alicent not feel like her life continuing is solely dependent on remaining in Rhaenyra's good graces. That is in some ways the difference between a mistress and a wife, and that's the closest Rhaenyra can get to giving her that. Along the same lines, it ensures that Alicent probably never has to choose between us and her family, since we'd be closely aligned. And it's probably the only way Otto might potentially even be okay with it - hell, depending on interpretation, if Alicent could spin it as "hey I got us this big political match by seducing Rhaenyra" Otto might even be proud.
There's a question on if Gwayne would be okay with the whole thing - it doesn't work if Gwayne isn't aware and okay with the relationship. So far he seems to have signaled that he is, but we would need to confirm that. And that could also change, but that's probably preventable. Some people have said that this might seem weird to Alicent but it seeming a bit weird seems pretty minor compared to like, the risk of getting unpersoned.
A partial con here is Otto - while getting his political power & the Hand on our side would be a really good thing politically, Otto is also unscrupulous and might expect to run the effort to ensure that
a grandchild of his we end up on the Iron Throne. Like, he could start trying to assassinate our half-siblings, which could lead to personality clashes within faction.
The other con is that Daemon and the Velayrons might interpret this as jumping into bed with their rivals. I think we're all okay with pissing Daemon off like that, but the Velayrons less so.
Those are the big three IMO, others included for completeness in descending order of reasonableness.
Some Guy (Sabitha's husband, Bracken)
Basically this is just anyone who isn't otherwise on the list. There's occasionally some talk about searching out more options. I think this is generally a bad idea because 1) there's not going to be a Mr. Perfect. If there was we'd know about him already. Anyone we find is going to have flaws and drawbacks equal to or exceeding the big 3. And 2) This is a bit meta, but it's not like the world is actually there until we go looking. If people have the worry of "missing out" on some really cool character because we didn't go looking enough... no they don't exist until we go looking. And frankly, there are practically an infinite number of men in Westeros, we are never going to do a deep dive on each ones' marriageability. If the QM does have some really cool OC idea I'm sure they'll make their way into the story eventually. But I think "let's go look at some Stark OC, let's see if he's marriage material" is stuff we should do if all our options were bad. That's not the issue. Any of the three are good options.
Dornish Prince (Or any other foreign prince).
Most of my issue with this is the above. Distinguished by the fact that he brings in probably more power than anyone except the Velayrons, with the issues being that it's bad optics internally.
Our Unborn Baby Brother
This is a bad (and gross) idea, but is distinguished by the fact that it totally kills the Targaryen-Westerlings as potential rivals.
Daemon Targaryen, The Rouge Prince
This one actually does make some political sense, but doesn't fit our Rhaenyra at all.
Our Unborn Baby Sister
Fortunately, this isn't an option, as it was foretold in the prophecy that we would reject her.
