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The Heir of the Dragon: A Rhaenyra Targaryen Quest

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Somic said:
We also insist on putting ourselves at risk (from his perspective, mind you; I don't think anything we've done has actually had any chance of directly harming us except the tourney), going around yeeting ourselves into Situations and making enemies. His relationship with us is warm because of what we did (talk to him and empathize with his early), not because we stopped being the kind of child who gives their parents grey hair or anything.
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I mean, Rhanyra is by definition a mixed bag; the whole Knight thingy is enough to give Viserys grey hair, and she won't be dissuaded of it no matter what... But except for the Knight thingy Rhaenyra is a truly excellent heir, she is hardworking, intelligent, keeps trying to improve herself, and takes her responsibilities (like marriage) very seriously...

So yeah, I get that we are stressing him out, but considering how Nyra's relationship with Viserys was in canon at this point, I still think that he should be in a better place mentally... Besides that, stress can make sicknesses worsen, but prologued stress over a long time has a much worse effect than peaks of high stress.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2rYYdZuWvE&ab_channel=dragonverse

View: https://youtu.be/DTxvuV-wgGA?t=45
Ghost in the sun said:
I am unsure if headbutting straight at the issue is the best route here, since Orwyle might have miscalculated ( to which degree remains a mystery). My idea was basically at the beginning just let Rhaenyra shares her concerns with Johanna, if Viserys decline is as fast as Orwyle says, with Rhaenyra early warning and the risk of loosing her husband I believe Johanna with her personality would take matters on her own hands and team up with Nyra.
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Well, something else to consider is that if we go to Johanna next turn, we would be on time for the twins' first birthday, so if we want to give them dragon eggs, it is kind of the best time to do so...
 
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Teen Spirit said:
There's also this. Don't take anyone's statement in universe as Word of God.
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Regarding this @Teen Spirit , with our choice of not only to start looking for a husband early, but also trying for the Dornish match that could finally unify the Seven Kingdoms and giving Viserys reign a massive win... Could that be enough to significantly lift Viserys' spirits and stall the sickness's progress for a while?
 
[X] Talk About Dragons
[X] About her bond with Vhagar and any Changes this bond brought

Zimmerwald1915 said:
We could also, I suppose, appeal to Viserys directly. Us, Alys, and Johanna together might sway him. . .

It'd be an AP hell putting such a front together though.
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I doubt even that would work. OOC we're fairly certain that Alys knows what she's talking about, but at the moment Viserys has no reason to trust some random witch we dragged out of the woods after meeting once instead of an experienced Maester.

The simplest option would be to ask Otto. But that's a lot of leverage we're giving him...
 
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Harp Practice to soothe Rhaenyra and Studying Valyrian History to soothe Viserys. Win-win.

Seriously this year is filled with Stress landmines.
 
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Parzival95 said:
Further on, we shouldn't necessarily put all our trust in Orwyle. While he seemed sincere, he might be wrong, and I'm certain he'd quite like to be Grand Maester. We shouldn't just jump at a potential opportunity to kill Mellos.
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Zimmerwald1915 said:
Why assume our first resort is murder?
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Fanhunter696 said:
Yeah, I mean going straight to murder even before having a firm talk to him is excessive...
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Well, we must remember that Mellos was partially responsible for Aemma's death.

[X] Ask Laena about any friends she made on Driftmark
 
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Temes1066 said:
Well, we must remember that Mellos was partially responsible for Aemma's death.
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OK, but like... you'd have to struggle quite a bit to even build a case for medical malpractice against him, let alone a case for "actual murder that justifies killing someone."

Aemma's child was going to be a breech-birth, and that genuinely did objectively result in a lot of dead babies and dead mothers in that era; there was no established "best practices" way to ensure that a breech-born child could be turned safely and reliably or to perform a nonlethal C-section. Mellos didn't do a great job, but given the average standard of care for the aristocracy in Westeros, I'm pretty sure he did what would be considered by a sober review panel to be an adequate job within the context of his society.

Mellos wasn't exactly going outside the norms of the era's maester-practice by saying "OK, situation's fucked up, I can do a partial-birth abortion on your kid and probably save the queen, or I can do a C-section and probably get the kid out but the queen's gonna die, those are your options."

Can we argue that Mellos' persistent mediocrity makes him a source of bad medical advice, yes we can. But we'd be very hard pressed to justify putting him to death over this, except on terms that would:

1) Frankly justify killing Viserys too since he agreed to the C-section and also
2) Mean no maester in his right mind would touch the royal family with a ten-foot pole ever again, because most diseases are at best marginally treatable in this era and it's very, very common for doctors to lose their patients despite doing things that are normal established practice, since a lot of the established treatments are at best moderately effective and in some cases actively make the patient's condition worse.
 
Simon_Jester said:
OK, but like... you'd have to struggle quite a bit to even build a case for medical malpractice against him, let alone a case for "actual murder that justifies killing someone."

Aemma's child was going to be a breech-birth, and that genuinely did objectively result in a lot of dead babies and dead mothers in that era; there was no established "best practices" way to ensure that a breech-born child could be turned safely and reliably or to perform a nonlethal C-section. Mellos didn't do a great job, but given the average standard of care for the aristocracy in Westeros, I'm pretty sure he did what would be considered by a sober review panel to be an adequate job within the context of his society.

Mellos wasn't exactly going outside the norms of the era's maester-practice by saying "OK, situation's fucked up, I can do a partial-birth abortion on your kid and probably save the queen, or I can do a C-section and probably get the kid out but the queen's gonna die, those are your options."

Can we argue that Mellos' persistent mediocrity makes him a source of bad medical advice, yes we can. But we'd be very hard pressed to justify putting him to death over this, except on terms that would:

1) Frankly justify killing Viserys too since he agreed to the C-section and also
2) Mean no maester in his right mind would touch the royal family with a ten-foot pole ever again, because most diseases are at best marginally treatable in this era and it's very, very common for doctors to lose their patients despite doing things that are normal established practice, since a lot of the established treatments are at best moderately effective and in some cases actively make the patient's condition worse.
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I don't disagree (although its not clear from the scene that Mellos or Viserys thought saving Aemma was an option; in fact, it looked the opposite way to me personally), but I don't think the core of the "kill Mellos" plan involves any kind of legal argument. If you had that, it would presumably be good enough to dismiss him anyway.

But if he just happened to die in his sleep, well... He's an old man. No one would suspect a thing.

I dont really think that would be in-character, but getting mad over Aemma would at least go some ways towards bridging that gap.
 
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Simon_Jester said:
Mellos wasn't exactly going outside the norms of the era's maester-practice by saying "OK, situation's fucked up, I can do a partial-birth abortion on your kid and probably save the queen, or I can do a C-section and probably get the kid out but the queen's gonna die, those are your options."
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I would like to point out that Melos never offered anything close to the first option... It was more: "The Queen is already beyond saving, we can let nature keep its course and lose both of them, or I can do a C-section and try to save the baby"
Simon_Jester said:
Can we argue that Mellos' persistent mediocrity makes him a source of bad medical advice, yes we can. But we'd be very hard pressed to justify putting him to death over this, except on terms that would:

1) Frankly justify killing Viserys too since he agreed to the C-section and also
2) Mean no maester in his right mind would touch the royal family with a ten-foot pole ever again, because most diseases are at best marginally treatable in this era and it's very, very common for doctors to lose their patients despite doing things that are normal established practice, since a lot of the established treatments are at best moderately effective and in some cases actively make the patient's condition worse.
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Well, I very much agree that we cannot kill Melos, but honestly, talking with him, and scaring him into accepting Orwyle new treatment plan seems very much doable...
 
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[X] About her bond with Vhagar and any Changes this bond brought


We need an explanation that maesters and lords must defer to us on, that is dragon magic.
 
Fanhunter696 said:
I would like to point out that Melos never offered anything close to the first option... It was more: "The Queen is already beyond saving, we can let nature keep its course and lose both of them, or I can do a C-section and try to save the baby"
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OK, but that's also within the bounds of what would be considered standard medical practice in the era. If this were a malpractice trial (if that were a thing in this era) Mellos would have no trouble presenting evidence that yes, a small but significant fraction of births end up this way and nobody really knows what to do about it except confront the obstetrical trolley problem and feel bad about it afterwards.

Fanhunter696 said:
Well, I very much agree that we cannot kill Melos, but honestly, talking with him, and scaring him into accepting Orwyle new treatment plan seems very much doable...
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The flip side of this is that I'm pretty sure Orwyle just swore us to secrecy on all this or something.
 
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Really feeling the lack of a shady vizier rn 😔 Rhaenyra's no good at cloak and dagger (nor wants to be), and her preferred approach of just facing people and talking to them pits the word of a young woman against the Grand Maester.
 
Simon_Jester said:
OK, but that's also within the bounds of what would be considered standard medical practice in the era.
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Following European Medicine in the Middle Ages C-sections were done to either trying to save the baby once the mother had died, or to extract a dead baby when the mother was unable to expel it naturally (to prevent the mother dying from sepsis)

Simon_Jester said:
The flip side of this is that I'm pretty sure Orwyle just swore us to secrecy on all this or something.
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Then following that logic we cannot do absolutely anything about it until Melos dies/retires because of the secrecy vow...
Somic said:
Really feeling the lack of a shady vizier rn 😔 Rhaenyra's no good at cloak and dagger (nor wants to be), and her preferred approach of just facing people and talking to them pits the word of a young woman against the Grand Maester.
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A young woman that's monstrously strong and skilled with a blade...
 
Fanhunter696 said:
Following European Medicine in the Middle Ages C-sections were done to either trying to save the baby once the mother had died, or to extract a dead baby when the mother was unable to expel it naturally (to prevent the mother dying from sepsis)
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OK, well, Mellos being convinced that things had reached that point may or may not be malpractice by Westeros standards. Among other things, Westerosi maester culture doesn't have all the same details and ins and outs as medieval Catholicism.

I'm not pro-Mellos here, I'm just saying it'd be hard to paint him as blameworthy for what happened to Aemma in the context of the setting.

Then following that logic we cannot do absolutely anything about it until Melos dies/retires because of the secrecy vow...
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Well not necessarily. The actual exchange of words is:

"Please, just talk to me, Maester," you urged. "Anything you say to me is in the strictest confidence..."

"You do not repeat anything of what I am about to tell you, to anyone, please," he urged.

"You have my word," you assured him.

So we can act on what he said, but we shouldn't repeat what he said, if we want to keep our word. Which, Rhaenyra being all knightly, she should probably care about. This makes confronting people a bit tricky, though not impossible.
 
[X] Talk About Dragons

Well duh, of course we're gonna talk about dragons. Show!Laena is an avid dragon enthusiast. Our Rhaenyra loves Syrax, how can we not talk about the greatest beasts in the world when the crazy grandma is right here.

Also, Granny Vhagar loves Laena so much that she doesn't force her to commit war crimes.
 
Randino Treviani said:
Didn't we get a shady business partner in gulltown? 🤔
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Business partner, yeah, a Hesitant Ally on the Stewardship side. Somehow I seriously doubt he's up for helping us commit murder after one meeting.

Fanhunter696 said:
A young woman that's monstrously strong and skilled with a blade...
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Which does exactly nothing to prove her credentials as a healer, and very little to bolster her authority in general. Since when does being the biggest brute give weight to someone's opinion on treating illness? :p

Anyway, finally got a bigger chunk of free time, reaction and vote post soonish
 
[X] Talk About Dragons

While I do want to talk about marriage eventually, that's not a topic to bring up in your first time seeing each other again in years. Talking about dragon riding with another dragon rider is a very natural conversation to have though.
 
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