"Take down Cannibal" is actually a reasonable long term goal, I'd say, but it's a job for 2-3 dragonriders working together (already a difficult condition to fulfill) plus a lot of premeditation (troll Cannibal into eating a couple of oxen heavily laced with sleeping pills first or something )
It would be interesting if we could explore essos and other places. But as heir I don't think Rhaenyra will be able too. And wasn't that one girl, I forgot the name, who claimed balerion who travel all over and got attack by the fire worm and died with a scared/wounded balerion after returning from Sothoryos?
[X] [Rhea] [Romantic] Suggest Maybe she doesn't have to marry, at least not yet, she does have plenty of cousins after all. Maybe she should consider other interests instead.
[X] [Shadowcat] Keep for yourself. ~ Nothing else would make the North look at her with more respect and admiration then the cloak of a slained Shadow Cat. And it's the North they love their warrior women.
[X] [Rhea] The Stark ~ Ties two of the most impregnatable realms to her side. Both kingdoms that have the highest amount of battle harden men because of internal security threats (Mountain Men and the Free Folk). And it takes Bennard out of the North where he wouldn't be in a situation to attempt his hostile takeover of the Winter Throne.
-[X]What of Eddard Mormont? A handsome enough man, wise enough to trust and listen to you. Of an ancient, Proud House. Still young enough to give you children, and quite taken with your beauty if I read him right.
-[X] Present it to Mormont, thanking him for trusting Lady Rhea and us and that without his being there it might have caught us or Lady Rhea first before he spotted it.
Cannibal is, however, the problem for reproducing Targ dragons, and removing them from the equation would secure the dynasty all that much more. Perhaps when it has more dragons and riders at its command than Rhaenyra, though?
Cannibal is an actual threat to the Targaryen power that needs to be dealt with. If we manage to persuade at least another dragonrider to help us we can handle it.
Rhaenys is probably our best option for help. Every other dragonrider araound either hates us or would try to stop us. We could offer her a dragon egg for her children as a reward.
Of course killing Cannibal with only Rhaenyra and Syrax would bring us more glory.
It would be interesting if we could explore essos and other places. But as heir I don't think Rhaenyra will be able too. And wasn't that one girl, I forgot the name, who claimed balerion who travel all over and got attack by the fire worm and died with a scared/wounded balerion after returning from Sothoryos?
Not to be that guy, but Aerea Targaryen was his niece, not his daughter, child of his older brother Aegon the Uncrowned and sister Rhaena.
She's one of the three women whose claim Jaehaerys skipped over to become king (Aerea, her twin sister Rhaella, their afforementioned mother Rhaena) thus setting the stage for Rhaenys being passed over decades later. Because, and take your pick of reasons here, Jaehaerys was a sexist prick or so uncomfortable in his own succession before his older sister and her children that he felt the need to stop his granddaughter succeeding over his second son (to survive to adulthood)
Anyway, Aerea flew to Valyria on Balerion, who sustained wounds and Aerea herself became host to horrific worm like parasite creatures and died from the wounds of them emerging and also a fever iirc.
Beyond dragons, who'd fly far afield for thier food, assuming they weren't sustained by the mystical energies of the place? Probably none. Nothing grows there for game to eat save ghost grass, and animals don't survive long by the Shadow.
I was about to say the same, but apparently it is not quite so.
It is true that the big defining thing about Asshai is the absence of all 'good' life, i.e. normal creatures. The only normal native life are mishappen, mutated toxic fish in the river. All work animals coming to Asshai, like horses, die, and the city doesn't even have children. Only the shadowbinders even venture outside the city and nothing grows there except the pale ghost grass. No fruits or grains or even just normal grass. The city has to import even its freshwater.
Asshai's big thing absolutely is sterility and lifelessness.
...however, that is for normal, natural, wholesome life. TWOIAF notes:
"On its way from the Mountains of the Morn to the sea, the Ash runs howling through a narrow cleft in the mountains, between towering cliffs so steep and close that the river is perpetually in shadow, save for a few moments at midday when the sun is at its zenith. In the caves that pockmark the cliffs, demons and dragons and worse make their lairs. The farther from the city one goes, the more hideous and twisted these creatures become ... until at last one stands before the doors of the Stygai, the corpse city at the Shadow's heart, where even the shadowbinders fear to tread. Or so the stories say."
So if we want to hunt literally unnatural magical monsters, there is probably no more fearsome big game than in Asshai.
There is something in Valyria capable of wounding Balerion at basically the height of his strength. He survived, but was clearly weakened and it is commonly speculated that this ultimately is what lead to his death a few decades later. Dragons do die of old age though so who knows. And there are things in Valyria which seem to like incubating in the flesh of humans. Combined with the magical ashes of a volcanic eruption that destroyed a civilisation fuelled by fire and blood magic.
But Sothoryos has the parasite issue too, and plenty of large vicious animals as well. There has been no successful colonisation of the mainland (an island that has similar wildlife was managed I believe), even by the Ghiscari or Valyrian Empires at their height.
We just do not know much about Asshai at all.
The Lands of Always Winter are honestly probably the tamest of the four, maybe, only having evil ice demons who can create zombie armies and their hordes of ice spiders.
They'll all kill you by environmental effects alone.
In the Lands of Always Winter you won't find nourishment and freeze to death. Asshai and the Shadow won't provide nourishment, either, and don't even have drinkable freshwater. Sothoryos is to Westerosi what Africa was to Europeans before penicilin but a hundred times worse. There are four different ways to die of fantasy super-malaria there if you just so much as land there. And Valyria is even worse than that as Aerea's fate shows.
[disclaimer, I explicitly spell out the dynastic relationships to make sure everyone knows, not because I assume the specific person I'm replying to doesn't know]
Orrrr it might bring us more "Rhaenyra gets her head bitten off."
Bringing Rhaenys in on it sounds promising.
Though it bears remembering that Rhaenys has reason to hold her own grudges against King Viserys' branch of the family.
Rhaenys' father was Crown Prince Aemon, first of King Jaehaerys' children to live to adulthood. Prince Aemon died in battle in 92 AC from a stray arrow, at the age of thirty-seven. This was about five years before 'we' (that is, Rhaenyra) was born.
Rather than stick to strict gender-neutral primogeniture (which would make Rhaenys the heir), old King Jaehaerys passed over Rhaenyra...
Working from a wiki that's sourced from the novels, Rhaenys was pregnant at the time, and the daughter turned out to be Laena Velaryon, who was born also in 92 AC, except that makes Laena five years older than Rhaenyra, when in the quest Laena is several years younger than Rhaenyra. So I dunno what the deal is here
...Instead, Jaehaerys made Aemon's younger brother Baelon (our grandpa) the heir, but then he died of appendicitis in 101 AC, and the situation got hopelessly confused. Jaehaerys' only surviving son was already a maester, and Jaehaerys himself was a grief-stricken old man who'd outlived nearly his entire immediate family and was largely bedridden besides.
In the books, a younger Alicent was nursemaiding Jaehaerys between 101 AC and 103 AC. This would make Alicent also several years older than Rhaenyra, who was born in 97 AC. I gather that Alicent is much closer to Rhaenyra's own age in the quest? Again, I dunno what the deal is here
Anyway, Jaehaerys was no shape to pick a new heir himself and make it stick for a third time, so he kicked it to a Great Council that met at Harrenhal.
Now, by this point Rhaenys had a son (Laenor, the canonical Rhaenyra's husband and someone we're seriously considering too). By strict primogeniture even if women can't inherit, Laenor should have been the king, as he was the firstborn son of the oldest surviving child of Jaehaerys. But Baelon himself had two adult sons, Viserys and Daemon, and the Great Council decided to pass the throne to Viserys.
(Notably, under book canon, Laenor was about seven when this happened, so there would have been a regency and a child king for a while if Laenor was chosen)
From Rhaenys' standpoint, both she and her kid have been blocked from the Iron Throne just by Baelor and his sons and granddaughter (us) existing. She's probably none too thrilled about that, especially with Rhaenyra getting to inherit and potentially rule in her own name, in exactly the way that Rhaenys was specifically denied after her father died.
In canon, Rhaenys wound up an ally of Rhaenyra... but that's in large part because Rhaenyra married Laenor, which meant that so long as Rhaenyra got to inherit, so would Rhaenys' grandchildren, which is a pretty respectable consolation prize.
If we marry someone else, Rhaenys may very well be very interested in crowbarring Rhaenyra off the throne, along with Viserys' much younger children with Johanna, in hopes of pressing the Velaryon claim to the throne that passes through her own line.
Sothoryos is to Westerosi what Africa was to Europeans before penicilin but a hundred times worse. There are four different ways to die of fantasy super-malaria there if you just so much as land there.
Wellllll... maybe ten times worse. Probably more like five.
Africa was really bad for Europeans before modern medicine. There's a reason why Africa was largely untouched except for coastal ports subdued and turned into trading posts by Europeans in the mid-1800s, long after the Americas and the quite wealthy and technologically sophisticated Indian subcontinent had been conquered.
A place where everyone from off the continent predictably dies screaming of some horrific disease is really bad, but the mortality rate for white people in Africa in the 1800s is so high that actual Africa would effectively be, oh, 20-30% that bad, because it was something like that percentage of white settlers who did die screaming of some horrific disease.
The point is, we should not go to those places (Sothoryos, Asshai probably, definitely definitely Valyria) unless we really don't care if Rhaenyra dies screaming of a horrible disease or some other even more bizarre and horrible thing. Which would be bad. Alicent would cry.
This is less the quests fault and more a choice by the show which played with the ages of Laena/Rhaenyra/Alicent, and doubtlessly others but those are the most notable three (I think). Laena is aged down, Rhaenyra up / Alicent down.
The quest is show based rather than book based so it inherits these differences versus the books. I am not actually sure if the show does explain all of these, but I believe that rather than coming to court to care for the ageing king, Otto brings his (younger) daughter to court to be a handmaiden / companion to Rhaenyra.
Rather than stick to strict gender-neutral primogeniture (which would make Rhaenys the heir), old King Jaehaerys passed over Rhaenyra...
Working from a wiki that's sourced from the novels, Rhaenys was pregnant at the time, and the daughter turned out to be Laena Velaryon, who was born also in 92 AC, except that makes Laena five years older than Rhaenyra, when in the quest Laena is several years younger than Rhaenyra. So I dunno what the deal is here
...Instead, Jaehaerys made Aemon's younger brother Baelon (our grandpa) the heir, but then he died of appendicitis in 101 AC, and the situation got hopelessly confused. Jaehaerys' only surviving son was already a maester, and Jaehaerys himself was a grief-stricken old man who'd outlived nearly his entire immediate family and was largely bedridden besides.
In the books, a younger Alicent was nursemaiding Jaehaerys between 101 AC and 103 AC. This would make Alicent also several years older than Rhaenyra, who was born in 97 AC. I gather that Alicent is much closer to Rhaenyra's own age in the quest? Again, I dunno what the deal is here
Anyway, Jaehaerys was no shape to pick a new heir himself and make it stick for a third time, so he kicked it to a Great Council that met at Harrenhal.
House of the Dragon changes some things from the book in terms of ages. Biggest thing is the show made Alicent and Rhaenyra basically the same age and life long friends with some intense gay vibes. Unlike the changes in Game of Thrones I sincerely believe that all of these changes generally improved the show over it's original book material. Book Alicent is not a remotely interesting person and is basically just the archtype of an evil Step mom. Whereas Show Alicent's relationship with Rhaenyra is much more dynamic and interesting.
Edit: It also changed some of the timeline of events which has uh, confused me a few times but thankfully I've tracked down dependable guides on the matter.
This is less the quests fault and more a choice by the show which played with the ages of Laena/Rhaenyra/Alicent, and doubtlessly others but those are the most notable three (I think). Laena is aged down, Rhaenyra up / Alicent down.
The quest is show based rather than book based so it inherits these differences versus the books. I am not actually sure if the show does explain all of these, but I believe that rather than coming to court to care for the ageing king, Otto brings his (younger) daughter to court to be a handmaiden / companion to Rhaenyra.
As I understand it, Laenor is implied to be older than Laena, as I understand it. In that he's actually old enough to be a reasonable partner for Rhaenyra soon, as opposed to being, like, a seven year old or something.
The simplest way to resolve a lot of the (HBO-induced) timeline fuckery then would be to just flip the birth order of Laenor and Laena. Laenor's still got a damn good claim to be heir to the Iron Throne if you go by strict primogeniture, but Laenor still hadn't been born yet when Prince Aemon died, and Jaehaerys clearly had a combination of "no girls allowed" and "no take-backsies" in mind when it came to selecting an heir. So everything would play out pretty much the same. The only difference is that Laenor would be older at the time of Great Council of Harrenhal, but still not enough older to be an autonomous adult yet, so there's no significant change.
House of the Dragon changes some things from the book in terms of ages. Biggest thing is the show made Alicent and Rhaenyra basically the same age and life long friends with some intense gay vibes. Unlike the changes in Game of Thrones I sincerely believe that all of these changes generally improved the show over it's original book material. Book Alicent is not a remotely interesting person and is basically just the archtype of an evil Step mom. Whereas Show Alicent's relationship with Rhaenyra is much more dynamic and interesting.
As I understand it, Laenor is implied to be older than Laena, as I understand it. In that he's actually old enough to be a reasonable partner for Rhaenyra soon, as opposed to being, like, a seven year old or something.
The simplest way to resolve a lot of the (HBO-induced) timeline fuckery then would be to just flip the birth order of Laenor and Laena. Laenor's still got a damn good claim to be heir to the Iron Throne if you go by strict primogeniture, but Laenor still hadn't been born yet when Prince Aemon died, and Jaehaerys clearly had a combination of "no girls allowed" and "no take-backsies" in mind when it came to selecting an heir. So everything would play out pretty much the same. The only difference is that Laenor would be older at the time of Great Council of Harrenhal, but still not enough older to be an autonomous adult yet, so there's no significant change.
If we were trying to make the chronology line up and minimize the deviations from the books, just explicitly having Laenor be born when book-canon Laena was born and vice versa would... not quite cut it, I've realized.
Book-canon Laena was born in 92 AC, right after Prince Aemon died.
Book-canon Laenor was born in 94 AC.
Book-canon Rhaenyra was born in 97 AC.
If we keep Rhaenyra's birth year as 97 AC... Well, you've already said in an update that Rhaenyra was "barely old enough to walk" at the Great Council of Harrenhal, so that remains set at 101 AC.
Laenor's actual age can be kept at the book-canon figure, apparently, without it being a problem, because in canon he is about three years older than Rhaenyra, which is an insignificant difference. He doesn't really need to be aged up, the way Alicent and Laena need to be aged down.
But with it being around 113 AC as I recall, we need Laena to have been born around 101 AC, right around the time of the Great Council. In which case either Rhaenys has an extra daughter who was born in book-Laena's place, or she just plain wasn't pregnant when Jaehaerys passed her over for succession after Aemon died.
...
The more I think about the dynastic situation, the more I think that marrying Laenor is a good idea.
On level one, because a lavender marriage is going to be relatively good for Rhaenyra's mental health.
On level two, it does a LOT to remove the Velaryons' incentive to back potential challengers to Rhaenyra's claim to the throne. This is, as I understand it, basically why the marriage went through in canon, so it's not a bad idea.
Well, unless Corlys and Rhaenys decide that their son's probably not actually going to be making babies with Rhaenyra whether he's married to her or not, in which case hell, they might as well marry Laena to someone else (like Daemon) and get grandchildren who are actually theirs onto the Iron Throne that way.
The notable complication of marrying Laenor that occurs to me is that it's probably going to imperil our relationship with Otto Hightower, which could make for trouble for Alicent. I may have missed other issues.
The more I think about the dynastic situation, the more I think that marrying Laenor is a good idea.
On level one, because a lavender marriage is going to be relatively good for Rhaenyra's mental health.
On level two, it does a LOT to remove the Velaryons' incentive to back potential challengers to Rhaenyra's claim to the throne. This is, as I understand it, basically why the marriage went through in canon, so it's not a bad idea.
I genuinely think that a marriage to Laenor is for the best, from a realm stability perspective, we get two-three dragons and neutralise one branch of claimants. We just then need to find a willing sperm donor with more Valyrian looks, do the old turkey baster technique or pray to all that's holy that Joffrey is bi and we can arrange an orgy of some sort to get Rhaenyra pregnant by Laenor in a slightly more dignified manner
Frankly, the benefits of House Velaryon being on our side are probably less important than the benefits of having them solidly NOT on our enemy's side.
But you're not wrong, because those benefits will be important if we can access them.
Well, unless Corlys and Rhaenys decide that their son's probably not actually going to be making babies with Rhaenyra whether he's married to her or not, in which case hell, they might as well marry Laena to someone else (like Daemon) and get grandchildren who are actually theirs onto the Iron Throne that way.
No reason they can't do both, marry Laenor to Rhaenyra and Laena to Daemon. It's even a good bit of insurance for them, since if Rhaenyra and Daemon make a civil war of their falling-out, the Velaryons win either way. This doesn't account for Johanna's kids, but they're probably third-stringers in any event.
It does make Laenor a much less attractive match for us, though, since it would not mean locking the Velaryons out of alternatives. AIUI, he doesn't even bond with a dragon himself.
)
