The Heir of the Dragon: A Rhaenyra Targaryen Quest
- Thread starter Teen Spirit
- Start date
Imperious
Without the sun of my life
We were told by the QM that rushing into a political marriage would be something Rhaenyra would be unsuited for. My point is that getting to know possible matches over a course of a few years before Viserys starts breathing down our neck about it is the way to avoid being rushed into marriage because we'll then have a few years to find someone we actually like before Viserys forces the issue.
I should note that not planning the matter in advance was one of the biggest issues that Rhaenyra faced in canon. If she had just bothered to meet Harwin Strong before her tour she could have just married him with Viserys' approval and avoided the entire bastardry scandal. In addition Rhaenyra had eggs placed at her sons' cradles in order to combat the rumors of their bastardry when they were born, which meant that they lost the chance to bond with an adult dragon.
Imagine if instead of Vermarx and Arrax Jace and Luke had instead bonded with Vermithor and Silverwing. The Blacks would have avoided the catastrophe of the betrayal in Tumbleton and Luke might have survived being pursued by Vhagar or maybe taken down Aemond with him.
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- Pronouns
- He/Him
Trying to bond with a fully grown dragon carries with it risks of it's own, even for Targaryens
Imperious
Without the sun of my life
Fair, though it also carries its benefits. The Greens' cause was basically carried by Aemond bonding with Vhagar, while the Blacks suffered terribly from having to have the unreliable Hugh and Ulf mount Silverwing and Vermithor compared to if they had managed to find someone more reliable for it, such as one of Rhaenyra's or Daemon's children. Whether to put an egg in their cradle or try to have our children claim an adult dragon would a choice we'd also have to consider.
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- Location
- Germany
A fine goal for him, but Bobby B was not a Targaryen warrior princess with a dragon. We should outdo him and Make The Sixteen.
- North
- Iron Isles
- Riverlands
- Vale
- Westerlands
- Crownlands
- Reach
- Drone
- Stepstones
- Tyrosh
- Lys
- Myr
- Volantis
- Pentos
- Braavos
- Lorath
- Location
- Volksstaat Hessen, Deutsches Reich
I mean, I'm sure the Lysene and Dornish would be intrigued
- Location
- The Shrine of the Muse
- Pronouns
- She/They
Pull an Aegon and take two wives.
Imperious
Without the sun of my life
Maegor kind of gave Polygamy a bad name in Westeros. We don't want to have our Saera moment with Viserys...
- Location
- Volksstaat Hessen, Deutsches Reich
He did, but in theory the Doctrine of Exceptionalism covers it. De facto it is only used anymore as a loophole for Targaryen incest, but de jure it covers everything else as well. Of course, even so, actually using the DoE for that purpose might drive away potential followers... but the rationale for the current plan is discovering the DoE anyway so we might eventually have a Targaryen gay marriage. So, we are kinda on that path now anyway. We fully plan on using the DoE to its fullest extent anyway.
Imperious
Without the sun of my life
The Doctrine of Exceptionalism was conceived by Jaehaerys as a method with which to legitimize his own marriage to his sister Alyssane. It seems pretty unlikely when he was writing it down that he would have put something there about Polygamy given how enraged he was by the idea due to his hatred of Maegor, let alone how he personally is portrayed in a way that suggests he had been a monogamist his entire life.
Honestly we're going to have a pretty difficult time in just inheriting the throne, more so if we also try to get knighted, even more so if we try to get a politically poor match for the sake of love. As my main interest in the Quest is probably to manage as successful an ascension to the throne as we can manage, I'm not sure about adding even more challenges on the way to it.
- Location
- Volksstaat Hessen, Deutsches Reich
The Doctrine of Exceptionalism went far, far beyond that. It even claimed that Targaryens, being so special, can't die of illness... which was promptly disproven in reality, of course, but is still theological canon.
The basic tenet of the Doctrine of Exceptionalism is that Targaryens are not common humans, so all the rules for humans that the Faith holds only apply to them in a limited fashion. Rather, coming from Valyria, they are to be governed by the old Valyrian customs - and as Aegon showed, polygamy was part of those customs. It wasn't just about incest, it was about Valyrian customs in general. It just ended up being about narrowly incest in practice, but theoretically, polygamy is covered by it.
Now I don't deny that this would be a fine way to lose followers regardless, but speaking just of legalities... well. That's covered. And again, we kinda are on that path anyway, if for different reasons.
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Imperious
Without the sun of my life
Here's the wiki article for the doctrine:
The article does mention that the doctrine, while created by Jaehaerys in order to legitimize his incestous marriage to Alyssane, did include precepts other then incest to it, like an immunity to sickness.
However given its author was Jaehaerys, it seems unlikely that he would have included specifically Polygamy among such precepts given Jaehaerys himself hated polygamy. The article makes mention of the arguments that septons had with the preachers sent by Jaehaerys about incest, but makes no mention of such arguments about polygamy despite the faith being no less opposed to it then it was to incest.
It literally was about incest though. We're explicitly told that the doctrine was something that was made up by Jaehaerys for the purpose of legitimizing his marriage to Alyssane. Any other Valyrian practice would have been an afterthought at most, with Polygamy being particularly unlikely to be included given Jaehaerys' own antipathy to it.
Edit: It should perhaps be noted that even Aegon IV, despite all of his philandering and his dislike of his actual wife, never tried to be married to more then one woman at a time.
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- Location
- Volksstaat Hessen, Deutsches Reich
"The Doctrine of Exceptionalism's basic tenet was simple: the Faith of the Seven had been born in Andalos of old, where the laws laid down by the Seven in the holy texts decreed that incest was an abomination. The Doctrine of Exceptionalism confirmed this, but with one caveat: the Targaryens were not like other men, as they rode dragons, and were the only ones in the world to do so since the Doom of Valyria. In addition, the Targaryens did not have their roots in Andalos, but in Valyria, where different laws and traditions held sway. The Targaryens wed brother to sister as the Valyrians had always done, and as the gods had made them this way, it was not for men to judge."
By the Doctrine's logic, this would touch all matters of Valyrian custom. Andal/Faith of the Seven rules do not concern us; the question is instead how it was done in Valyria. Incest was the pressing matter, of course, but the doctrine as such states that Targaryens fully fall under Valyrian customs.
Imperious
Without the sun of my life
I'm reminded that this is actually something Daemon tried to get away with, when he claimed that he was to wed Mysaria despite already being wed to Rhea Royce. It didn't work out for him.
At a minimum we'd probably have to wait at least until Viserys died and our throne was secured so Viserys wouldn't just rule our second marriage illegitimate. Then we'd probably need our own set of Septons to travel around the continent trying to get people's approval like Jaehaerys did for the original doctrine of exceptionalism. Quite possibly we'd also need a Barth scale brilliant theologist in our corner to write sufficiently convincing theological arguments for us, as Jaehaerys had Barth do for him in order to answer arguments made by opposing theologists.
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- Location
- Volksstaat Hessen, Deutsches Reich
Well, as I have said, it definitely would cost us followers. The argument was just that the pure legality, that is already there.
Imperious
Without the sun of my life
I'm not sure we even have that, given that so long as Viserys is still alive he's unlikely to give us more leeway on this then he did Daemon, and would probably just rule our second marriage to be legally invalid.
Come now, this is ridiculous! No Mantaryan hunchback girly? No Dothraki warrior princess?? No Creature from the Black Lagoon from the Thousand Isles??? You're thinking too small.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I should note that there was flat out a Targaryen Princess who had multiple girlfriends for most of her life and it seems few took that much issue
Four-Headed Beast
The Four-Headed Beast was the nickname given by Ser Franklyn Farman to Queen Rhaena Targaryen and her three companions: Alayne Royce, Samantha Stokeworth and Elissa Farman.[1]
Imperious
Without the sun of my life
Also on the subject of using the time of our minority to find a good match for us to marry and have a loving relationship with, this actually appears to have been what Rhaenys did. At the age of 16 Rhaenys approached Jaehaerys for his approval for her to marry Corlys, which Jaehaerys readily gave as Corlys was considered to be an excellent match for her. Presumably she spent some time before that looking for matches before she found and settled on Corlys.
It may be worth spending one of our interaction actions next turn on speaking with her about how she managed to find a match that she both liked and that would be one that the king would approve of during her minority.
I will note that the Romantic trait notes two examples of specifically married couples, Baelon and Alyssa and Viserys and Aemma, so I don't think it's incompatible with the idea of our love also being our spouse. It also mentions that if we do find an actually loving relationship we would not be willing to set them aside later. This means that if during our minority we find a love that we can't marry, we run a serious risk of repeating Rhaenyra's canonical bastardry scandal*, with all of the issues that would entail, because Rhaenyra wouldn't want to end her affair with them once married.
*At least if that love is a man who could end up impregnating us. An affair with a woman would not have that particular risk at least.
It may be worth spending one of our interaction actions next turn on speaking with her about how she managed to find a match that she both liked and that would be one that the king would approve of during her minority.
I will note that the Romantic trait notes two examples of specifically married couples, Baelon and Alyssa and Viserys and Aemma, so I don't think it's incompatible with the idea of our love also being our spouse. It also mentions that if we do find an actually loving relationship we would not be willing to set them aside later. This means that if during our minority we find a love that we can't marry, we run a serious risk of repeating Rhaenyra's canonical bastardry scandal*, with all of the issues that would entail, because Rhaenyra wouldn't want to end her affair with them once married.
*At least if that love is a man who could end up impregnating us. An affair with a woman would not have that particular risk at least.
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- Location
- The Shrine of the Muse
- Pronouns
- She/They
Why am I only learning about this now?I should note that there was flat out a Targaryen Princess who had multiple girlfriends for most of her life and it seems few took that much issue
Four-Headed Beast
The Four-Headed Beast was the nickname given by Ser Franklyn Farman to Queen Rhaena Targaryen and her three companions: Alayne Royce, Samantha Stokeworth and Elissa Farman.[1]awoiaf.westeros.org
Imperious
Without the sun of my life
I should note that there was flat out a Targaryen Princess who had multiple girlfriends for most of her life and it seems few took that much issue
Four-Headed Beast
The Four-Headed Beast was the nickname given by Ser Franklyn Farman to Queen Rhaena Targaryen and her three companions: Alayne Royce, Samantha Stokeworth and Elissa Farman.[1]
The story of Rhaena Targaryen is a bit more complex then that. Rhaena was Jaehaerys' older sister, and the first rider of Dreamfyre. There are hints in the books that her romantic interest in women began as a youth. Despite those interests though, she was made to wed her brother, Aegon the Uncrowned. Rhaena only formed the "four headed beast" much later, after Aegon had been killed by their uncle Maegor and after Rhaena had publicly given up the claim to the throne of her and her children in favor of her younger brother Jaehaerys. Even then, Rhaena felt the need to marry a man, Androw Farman, to act as her beard. Eventually Farman became so offended by this that he murdered all of Rhaena's paramours before committing suicide when it was discovered that he had been the one responsible for their poisoning.
So Rhaena was still made to marry a man. It was only after she was out of the line of succession and faced much less scrutiny that the "fourheaded beast" was formed, and even then Rhaena still felt the need to have a husband as a beard. More then once Rhaena also faced occassions in which families of her paramours became incensed by the situation before trying to take them away to marry someone.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Character sheet is up. As I say on the post, Attributes are more so you guys understand the current vibes then for anything mechanical almost all of the time.
Edit: I should note there's a potrait on the discord channel that VeteranMortal posted that I definitely intend to use when Rhaenyra's older but that doesn't fit a sixteen year old.
Edit: I should note there's a potrait on the discord channel that VeteranMortal posted that I definitely intend to use when Rhaenyra's older but that doesn't fit a sixteen year old.
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- Location
- Volksstaat Hessen, Deutsches Reich
Rhaena and Elissa definitely were a couple: "The queen found her true love on Fair Isle, not with Androw, but with his sister, Lady Elissa". The other two may have just been close friends of the couple, though. Though they did go everywhere together, from Fair Isle to Casterly Rock to Dragonstone, so who knows.
Imperious
Without the sun of my life
It's never stated outright that Rhaena was romantically involved with her ladies AFAIK, but both Royce and Stokeworth, the other two, were among the victims of Androw Farman's murder spree, with it being explicitly stated that he was "jealous" of their relationships with Rhaena.
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