- Location
- Up ya bum!
Yeah so who are the candidates for marriage again? There is Laenor and Gwayne, is there any other?
The Heir of the Dragon: A Rhaenyra Targaryen Quest
Temes1066
To Defy Gravity you must Let It Go
- Location
- Coleraine
There is a wide variety of candidates, Gwayne and Laenor are just the most serious of them (politically speaking).
UrbanAvena
Stair climber and vertical movement enthusiast
- Location
- In the stairwell and elevator shaft.
There are a lot. Almost umentionable amount. Any adult man of high enough noble house is our marriage pool.
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Harwin, Forrest Frey are the somewhat serious proposals, with Harwin being my choice, with the meme options being the Prince of Dorne and the Tully Gambit
- Location
- Up ya bum!
Dorne Would be very interesting and will change a whole lot and be a political bloodbath.
Rhaenyra would get to flex her law studies and her dragon!
Rhaenyra would get to flex her law studies and her dragon!
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UrbanAvena
Stair climber and vertical movement enthusiast
- Location
- In the stairwell and elevator shaft.
It will be a challenge for sure but I think many exagerate the current Dance era Seven Kingdom hostility to Dorne. We are about three generation removed from the last major war with Dorne. There are not any big batle or military conflict fresh in living memory, only smattering of skirmishs and the one sided burning of the folly.Dorne Would be very interesting and will change a whole lot and be a political bloodbath.
In contrast with Blackfyre-era where it is only one generation removed from a big involved war so there are a lot of hard feelings. Marchers may be a problem but they can appreciate a secure border too.
So yes I am all in for Qoren. He may even be the best candidate in regard to our continuing romance with Alicent.
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- Location
- Up ya bum!
People like to hold grudges and dorne was burnt down. So there is definitely hate for the Targaryens, for all the death, destruction, suffering and no doubt propaganda. The surviving nobility and peasants would past down stories and grudges to the younger generations.
But again it would be an interesting choice and challenge if dorne was picked.
But again it would be an interesting choice and challenge if dorne was picked.
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UrbanAvena
Stair climber and vertical movement enthusiast
- Location
- In the stairwell and elevator shaft.
I agree that it will be a factor in internal Dorne opposition. In our side of the border though it will be a smaller challenge than canon Daeron "the Good" effort. There aren't that much Seven kingdom discontent in regard to Dorne right now.
As you say, it will be an interesting choice and a challenge.
- Location
- Earth
No? Laenor rides Seasmoke. At least in the books - I freely confess I have no idea what changes the show made so all commentary I give is book based.
- Location
- United States
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Laenor is personally the match I'm least interested in for a few reasons.
1. It is the canon marriage, and I think deviating from that is more fun.
2. Laenor, especially with show confirmation and QM word, is really not going to give us children without high stress gain and likely luck, and we are going to need heirs preferably multiple.
3. Marrying Laenor comes with more complicated dynastic inheritance to deal with. As the Velaryon's will want a child too.
4. While Leanor would be fully accepting of the whole beard situation, the general concept I feel is weakened when we also are going to need to find a sperm donor. I feel Alicent will understand but the layers of "cheating" will be further complicated with a beard husband, a sperm donor, and herself as the paramour. It certainly is a much more complicated relationship.
5. Corlys kinda just sucks, we gave him a great opportunity and he refused, and he ignored our next olive branch. (Rhaenys, Laenor, and Laena are actually pretty acceptable)
6. Alicent is not something we're going to give up on, so siding with the Velaryons is quite anti-Otto's interests, less so than Daemon whom we're also not going to drop the animosity towards, while Gwayne is the all-in on Otto selection, looking elsewhere at least doesn't alienate that potential ally and we still have Alicent which gives us a tie to Otto and his games with a sometimes accepting ear of his daughter's.
7. We are going to have a much lesser tie to the Velaryon's than show cannon did if we went with this option.
Point 1 is certainly my biggest reason really, because it feels like the boring safe answer, and picking exciting not as perhaps politically savvy options can produce interesting deviations and scenarios that are different from cannon.
1. It is the canon marriage, and I think deviating from that is more fun.
2. Laenor, especially with show confirmation and QM word, is really not going to give us children without high stress gain and likely luck, and we are going to need heirs preferably multiple.
3. Marrying Laenor comes with more complicated dynastic inheritance to deal with. As the Velaryon's will want a child too.
4. While Leanor would be fully accepting of the whole beard situation, the general concept I feel is weakened when we also are going to need to find a sperm donor. I feel Alicent will understand but the layers of "cheating" will be further complicated with a beard husband, a sperm donor, and herself as the paramour. It certainly is a much more complicated relationship.
5. Corlys kinda just sucks, we gave him a great opportunity and he refused, and he ignored our next olive branch. (Rhaenys, Laenor, and Laena are actually pretty acceptable)
6. Alicent is not something we're going to give up on, so siding with the Velaryons is quite anti-Otto's interests, less so than Daemon whom we're also not going to drop the animosity towards, while Gwayne is the all-in on Otto selection, looking elsewhere at least doesn't alienate that potential ally and we still have Alicent which gives us a tie to Otto and his games with a sometimes accepting ear of his daughter's.
7. We are going to have a much lesser tie to the Velaryon's than show cannon did if we went with this option.
Point 1 is certainly my biggest reason really, because it feels like the boring safe answer, and picking exciting not as perhaps politically savvy options can produce interesting deviations and scenarios that are different from cannon.
- Pronouns
- He
There are already massive deviations to the point it'll be unrecognizable from canon, marrying Laenor will not bring it anywhere close.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
There's too many to count but the most seriously talked about I've seen are. Laenor, Gwayne Hightower, Harwin Strong, and Qoren Martell. Forrest Frey and Elmo Tully have also been mentioned to a lesser (or more comedic) extent.
Show Laenor actually is quite the adventuer who fought in the stepstones. He regularly goes on adventures with his boyfriends and seems a skilled swordsman. Very much not the cliche softer gay man that he was in the books.
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- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
OK, well, that's understandable. On the other hand, the more I think about the prospect of going with anyone but Laenor, the more I worry about the prospect of the Velaryons throwing their weight behind potential challengers to Rhaenys' rule, and the less I like it.
Rhaenys and her two children (both Laenor and Laena) are all dragonriders, and they're very likely to get tied up in the dynastic politics that leads up to the Dance. And that's probably true whether it's Daemon pressing his claim (very possibly marrying Laena to reinforce it) or one of Johanna's kids with Viserys (with who-knows-who-all lining up to back them as an easily influenced alternative to Rhaenyra).
A bloc of three dragonriders who collectively have good reason to want Rhaenyra out of the picture is bad news. That's doubly true when right now the only other dragonrider apart from Rhaenyra herself is Daemon. I can't really think of a way to counter that, except to marry someone fast and start pumping out kids in hopes that before a civil war starts, the kids grow up to be dragonriders dangerous enough to stand up to Daemon, Rhaenys, Laena, Laenor, and potentially Johanna's kids who may also turn out to be dragonriders.
And that... is a rather questionable plan.
I want Rhaenyra to be queen and I want her to live. Most other problems, such as complicated intrigue-riddled marital shenanigans because of the complications of a lavender marriage, I imagine we can figure out some kind of a solution to, if not necessarily a perfect one or one where things never go wrong. But I can't figure out how to keep Rhaenyra on the throne as sole dragonrider in the face of three, four, or more dragonriders who want her off it and who are, canonically, willing to resort to violence to change what face gets stamped on the currency in Westeros.
If Laenor were a loathsome choice in and of himself, I'd be more willing to shrug this issue off. If it were Unwin whose family had a majority of all active dragons in Westeros, well, I'd rather just find some way to have him and his family assassinated or something. But Laeron isn't, in and of himself, that bad, is he?
EDIT:
Real talk, I haven't even watched the show except for snippets; it's why I keep getting wrongfooted by book canon.
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- Location
- Spain
Apparently a Shadowcat is significantly smaller than a tiger, something between a cougar and a tiger...
That is still the size of a frigging male lion though, so Shadowcats are still absolute units and your point about Viserys freaking out...
A whale cloak sounds heavier than a mammoths'!
Hey, the interesting thing about whales is not their pelts but their intestines...
If we find a few pounds of ambergris we can gift Alicent and Johanna a couple gallons of perfume
...Well, according to the "Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors" trope, regular fire dragons like Syrax should have an advantage over ice dragons...
Very interesting, hunting, especially in Medieval times, was a great way of socializing with the aristocracy, with the bonus of showing off Nyra's progress and getting some cool trophies to show off or use as gifts...
Interesting and really cool, @Teen Spirit now that you mention the bow... Can Rhaenyra buy/commission a Dragonbone, Weirdwood, or Goldenheart bow?
Somic
It's meow or never
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I'm still team Gwayne if he and Alicent are fine with it, which is why I want to raise the topic with them at some point. At least to know that if they aren't fine with it, we'll need to write this option off and look for a more suitable one based on feedback.
On the other hand, our relationship with Alicent still feels pretty young (if very romantic), so maybe it's best to wait some more until she feels secure in it, idk. Really depends on Alicent's feelings.
On the other hand, our relationship with Alicent still feels pretty young (if very romantic), so maybe it's best to wait some more until she feels secure in it, idk. Really depends on Alicent's feelings.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
My understanding is that in Westeros the reverse tends to be true.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
And, hell, Corlys was canonically already past forty when Rhaenyra was even born. By the time of the Dance of the Dragons in canon he was about seventy-five, I think. If we don't like Corlys, well, he's gonna be around a while longer, but just outliving the guy and getting to enjoy most of Rhaenyra's adult life in a world where he doesn't exist is absolutely on the menu...
As long as our Rhaenyra doesn't die in a losing civil war at the age of 33 like her canonical 'sister.'
As long as our Rhaenyra doesn't die in a losing civil war at the age of 33 like her canonical 'sister.'
- Location
- Up ya bum!
Is it possible to cause a three way dance of dragons or more? And how would we do it out of curiously.
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- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
Hard to imagine it working out that way. It's theoretically possible, because looking at the dynastic politics, over the next twenty years or so I think there's at most three credible power blocs: Team Rhaenyra, Team Velaryon, and Team Johanna's Kids.Is it possible to cause a three way dance of dragons or more?
(Daemon is not a bloc by himself, he's a hero unit who makes whichever bloc he joins a lot more dangerous)
...
The thing is, there's a strong incentive for Team Velaryon to want to fuse with one of the other two power blocs using a dynastic marriage.
What it comes down to is that the Velaryons have little hope of securing the Iron Throne for themselves by main force unless they are somehow the last contenders left standing with the line of Prince Baelon effectively dead (including Daemon). However, they are in an excellent position to play very literal king-maker, because they have a lot of dragonpower and enough money and other political connections to be very important even without their dragons.
So their most obvious path to doing well here is to pick a claimant, establish a dynastic marriage as the price of their support, and ensure that the next generation of Targaryen monarch is one of Corlys and Rhaenys' grandchildren or great-grandchildren.
If they can't marry Laenor to Rhaenyra, they might try marrying Laena to Uncle Daemon and backing his claim, or they might wait around and try something with Johanna's kids, the exact details of which are going to depend on how the kids turn out and which of the two Velaryon heirs have children of their own and how they turn out.
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- Location
- Lake Wobegon
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
There's also Daemon to consider. He looks like he's on Team Velaryon at the moment, but he might do something. . . very Daemon like marry Aelora.
Now please excuse me, I have to dunk my head in a vat of chlorine for having thought of that.
- Location
- Volksstaat Hessen, Deutsches Reich
Yeah it is, because it just makes so much sense in-setting. Laenor has his drawbacks, mainly how to produce heirs then, but in many aspects he is an almost perfect fit for our political needs.
And I find the notion to act deliberately suboptimally just in order to desperately cause a deviation, any deviation, to be really silly and offputting. It would be the same as in canon because it makes sense for us, and we should pursue what we consider to be the optimal strategy whether that ends up the same as in canon or not. Everything else would just be... artificial. Try-hard in its own way.
- Location
- United States
While on paper our marriage pool is basically "any noble man in Westeros" I think we should be very selective in paring this down as far as reasonably possible. Specifically, I think that unless we know before talking to them some argument for them being competitive with Laenor, Gwayne, or Harwin, we should eliminate them from consideration. And if we do have such an argument and want to consider them, then we should likely be eliminating one of those three.
The reason for this is that we are likely to want to seriously vet everyone we are considering before settling on any of them, and that costs time and actions. However we also want to get married and start having kids soon-ish (within the next 2-3 years), so that our eldest can fight on dragonback for our claim alongside us. Additionally, if we vet some minor character and then conclude that as expected beforehand they aren't really competitive with the big three, and then that character vanishes back into minor-characterdom, that action was wasted. Characters like Laenor and Gwayne are unlikely to vanish back into irrelevance, because Laenor is the son of the second most powerful man in Westeros and Gwayne is our lady's brother. Harwin is a bit more marginal on this but he's still the son of someone on the SC who's going to mentor us, etc. On the other hand, we could decide not to marry Amos Bracken and he could get killed by a 12 year old in a duel the next day without really affecting the quest.
I think there's not much to commend Forrest Frey that isn't likely to be redundant with Harwin Strong. What we know about Forrest Frey is that he's the romanceable heir to a fairly powerful but not LP house from the Riverlands. This is all also true of Harwin Strong. But Harwin is the more accomplished knight, has better connections (his father being on the SC), and we know him to be basically decent. The only thing I can think of that we could learn that would make Forrest Frey a more appealing candidate than Harwin Strong is if we learned Harwin Strong was not okay with Alicent, since we have a lore reason to suspect that Forrest Frey would be okay with his wife having an affair with a woman. But this is something we could learn about Harwin not Forrest.
I agree about behaving suboptimally, even if it would be out of character, purely to cause a deviation. However, I think there are strong reasons other candidates are preferable for IC reasons, while also being fairly strong political choices, even if they're not as strong politically as Laenor.
The reason for this is that we are likely to want to seriously vet everyone we are considering before settling on any of them, and that costs time and actions. However we also want to get married and start having kids soon-ish (within the next 2-3 years), so that our eldest can fight on dragonback for our claim alongside us. Additionally, if we vet some minor character and then conclude that as expected beforehand they aren't really competitive with the big three, and then that character vanishes back into minor-characterdom, that action was wasted. Characters like Laenor and Gwayne are unlikely to vanish back into irrelevance, because Laenor is the son of the second most powerful man in Westeros and Gwayne is our lady's brother. Harwin is a bit more marginal on this but he's still the son of someone on the SC who's going to mentor us, etc. On the other hand, we could decide not to marry Amos Bracken and he could get killed by a 12 year old in a duel the next day without really affecting the quest.
I think there's not much to commend Forrest Frey that isn't likely to be redundant with Harwin Strong. What we know about Forrest Frey is that he's the romanceable heir to a fairly powerful but not LP house from the Riverlands. This is all also true of Harwin Strong. But Harwin is the more accomplished knight, has better connections (his father being on the SC), and we know him to be basically decent. The only thing I can think of that we could learn that would make Forrest Frey a more appealing candidate than Harwin Strong is if we learned Harwin Strong was not okay with Alicent, since we have a lore reason to suspect that Forrest Frey would be okay with his wife having an affair with a woman. But this is something we could learn about Harwin not Forrest.
I agree about behaving suboptimally, even if it would be out of character, purely to cause a deviation. However, I think there are strong reasons other candidates are preferable for IC reasons, while also being fairly strong political choices, even if they're not as strong politically as Laenor.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
Since canon Rhaenyra managed to have heirs despite marrying canon Laenor, we can probably figure something out. Granted, there's a fair chance it involves either an extramarital affair or weird bedroom shenanigans involving the medieval equivalent of a turkey baster, but it's doable.
Yeah. Canon Rhaenyra stands on her feet and eats with her hands, not the other way around. Quest Rhaenyra does it the same way... as she should.
Woah, are you bastards slandering Daemon without me?
Unacceptable.
Honestly when George says things like he thinks Darkstar is cool when the guy says stuff like "I am of the night!" I think it's 50/50 odds that he's serious cause he's a campy comic book nerd at heart, and that he might just be saying it ironically, but when he says that Daemon Fucking Targaryen is one of his favorite characters and describes him as "A great man and a monster, and light and dark in equal parts" I pray that bastard is being ironic.
In the books at least (Though given his grooming of Rhaenyra it's not out of character for show Daemon either) there's a line about Daemon liking the youngest virgins in the brothels, he's so narcissitc he only really cares about the people who happen to have the same Valyrian features as him, and don't even get me started on the double standards from the wider fandom between Aemond and Daemon.
Even in the show where it's clear Aemond lost control of Vhagar and didn't really mean to kill Luke, he still gets called Kinslayer at every turn, but when it comes to Daemon where it's heavily implied he told Blood and Cheese that if they couldn't find Aemond that they should kill Jaehaerys, no one ever brands him as a Kinslayer even tho he is.
He also kills Rhea Royce, which I mean aside from the obvious fact that was his lawfully wedded wife, his whole reason for killing her in the moment was that she said a few mean words back after he insulted her and her family first.
But yea that's my weekly Daemon hate rant.
Unacceptable.
Honestly when George says things like he thinks Darkstar is cool when the guy says stuff like "I am of the night!" I think it's 50/50 odds that he's serious cause he's a campy comic book nerd at heart, and that he might just be saying it ironically, but when he says that Daemon Fucking Targaryen is one of his favorite characters and describes him as "A great man and a monster, and light and dark in equal parts" I pray that bastard is being ironic.
In the books at least (Though given his grooming of Rhaenyra it's not out of character for show Daemon either) there's a line about Daemon liking the youngest virgins in the brothels, he's so narcissitc he only really cares about the people who happen to have the same Valyrian features as him, and don't even get me started on the double standards from the wider fandom between Aemond and Daemon.
Even in the show where it's clear Aemond lost control of Vhagar and didn't really mean to kill Luke, he still gets called Kinslayer at every turn, but when it comes to Daemon where it's heavily implied he told Blood and Cheese that if they couldn't find Aemond that they should kill Jaehaerys, no one ever brands him as a Kinslayer even tho he is.
He also kills Rhea Royce, which I mean aside from the obvious fact that was his lawfully wedded wife, his whole reason for killing her in the moment was that she said a few mean words back after he insulted her and her family first.
But yea that's my weekly Daemon hate rant.
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