Good Queen Alysanne

Sometimes I write stuff.

[goodqueenaly]

Hello, I hope you're well and having a great summer! I am not sure if this is a silly question but I wanted to ask, with Littlefinger creating a (in theory) permanent House Royce of the Gates of the Moon, how "good" of a deal is this for that branch of the Royces? I understand of course that there would be prestige and benefits to having a permanent title and castle, but I also wonder if not really "owning" the castle and having to host the Arryns during the summer would be negative tradeoffs at all? In the sense that maybe it limits their household or independent power because (if I understand correctly) the Gates of the Moon belongs to the Arryns, so I'm assuming the Arryns would have a lot of control over day-to-day life that wouldn't apply to other houses in the Vale. But maybe I'm not understanding it. Thank you very much!

This is not a silly question!

What Littlefinger has done with Nestor Royce - and I think he, Baelish, very much understands it - is handed Nestor a sort of dynastic white elephant, useful to Nestor and his branch of the family in the short term but potentially, and deceptively, politically tricky to hold long term. As Nestor notes to Baelish, "even after [the Targaryen Conquest], the Gates remained an Arryn castle", a seat by some reckoning "as royal as the Eyrie". Yet as both Nestor and Littlefinger acknowledge, even if the position of Keeper had never been hereditary, its officeholders had almost exclusively hailed from House Arryn: Nestor recalls that "Jon Arryn himself was Keeper of the Gates whilst his father lived" and as lord "named his brother Ronnel to the honor, and later his cousin Denys", while Baelish explains to Sansa that "Lysa dreamed of other sons and meant the castle to go to Robert's little brother". Littlefinger blithely dismisses Nestor's response by saying that "Lord Robert has no brothers, and only distant cousins", but the point remains: Littlefinger has given Nestor and his family a seat that by every reckoning has always belonged to, and remained with, the Royces' Arryn overlords.

Baelish’s grant, then, represents a substantial breaking of quite literally centuries of Arryn tradition - not merely investing the keeping of the castle in a non-Arryn (as even Lord Jon felt prepared to do when he lacked an adult male Arryn relative for the post), but formally naming that keeper the hereditary lord of this very Arryn castle. Indeed, Nestor Royce seems aware of the worryingly unprecedented nature of the grant, remarking that Littlefinger was “not without courage” to order as much, since “[s]ome will call this grant unseemly, and fault [him] for making it”. If Littlefinger is technically correct that young Robert lacks brothers or (patrilineal Arryn) cousins who might have expected to take over the position of Keeper, he has limited the observation to this generation of House Arryn. Littlefinger is keenly aware that the future of House Arryn - at least as he, Littlefinger, has planned it - will rest not with the young lord Littlefinger is actively poisoning but the Hardyng cousin whose betrothal to his own “daughter” Littlefinger has arranged by the end of AFFC. In some far-off potential future for House Arryn, would Harry and Sansa’s sons or grandsons or other descendants appreciate that their ancestral castle, the first foothold of the family in the Vale, was held in lordship, rather than merely stewardship, not by House Arryn but by a secondary branch of the Royces? In some future era of tension within the Vale, could the Royces of the Gates of the Moon keep a Lord or Lady Arryn as a virtual hostage of the castle, or even trap their overlords on the Giant’s Lance? The recent experience of the almost-siege of the Lords Declarant, as well as the similar actions taken by Lord Allard Royce against the usurping Jonos Arryn in the first century AC, illustrate how the Gates of the Moon could function during geopolitical strife in the Vale. As hereditary keepers of the Gates of the Moon, the Royces might find themselves the unwelcome landlords of their liege-tenants.

Of course, Littlefinger does not care what fallout the Royces might ever experience in the future. Baelish obtained what he wanted out of the deal - the invaluable thanks of, and subsequently an alliance with, a blue-blooded Vale aristocrat - at a cheap price; again, with no Arryn brothers or male-line cousins around, and with Baelish himself as Lord Protector of the Vale, Littlefinger could pass on the Gates of the Moon without an obvious source of challenge. More to the point, Littlefinger is expecting to get out of the Vale sooner rather than later, with Sansa and Harry leading an army of Vale chivalry to claim Winterfell in her name. Even if Nestor Royce comes along (and he might, not only as a highborn aristocrat but also as the vehicle for his highly intriguing daughter), the Gates debate will hardly demand as much attention in a struggle of third-party Stark factionalism.

[goodqueenaly]

Which time periods do you think are the more likely for the lifetimes of Loron Greyjoy the Bard and his tragic friendship with Desmond Mallister, and Alton Greyjoy the Holy Fool, since there's two long periods during which the Ironborn were mostly quiet, or at least without focus; the years between Goren Greyjoy and Dalton Greyjoy (37AC and 127AC), and after Toron Greyjoy's ascendence and the troubles caused by Dagon Greyjoy (135AC and 212AC)?

It is almost impossible to say with either Loron or Alton Greyjoy, of course. While TWOIAF suggests that both were post-Conquest Lords of the Iron Islands, the sole paragraph that mentions them does not appear to list them in any sort of obviously chronological order. Nor does the lack of detail on the Iron Islands generally or the Greyjoys specifically for huge swathes of Fire and Blood Volume 1 help us here: in the same way that there is little basis for speculation on what geopolitically drove the ironborn delegation at the Great Council of 101 AC, so there is little to say about when any of these men (other than Dagon, and to a somewhat lesser extent Torwyn) lived.

However, I will say I enjoy the headcanon that Alton Greyjoy was the father of Dagon Greyjoy. The “Holy Fool” who “sought new lands to conquer beyond the Lonely Light” may serve as an intriguing contrast to Dagon "the Last Reaver". Of course, given that according to GRRM “[n]o one has ever crossed the Sunset Sea to learn what lies on the other side” (the mystery of Elissa Farman’s ultimate fate notwithstanding), as well as the sheer distance even between the Lonely Light and the rest of the Iron Islands, I highly doubt that Lord Alton did in fact find those “new lands to conquer”, much less brought any such lands under the Greyjoy banner. Likewise, given Alton’s epithet as a “fool” (albeit a “holy” one), it is possible that Alton’s memory on the Iron Islands is far from a positive one: a man seemingly so dedicated to the expansion of the Drowned God’s worship and the continued domination of the Drowned God’s chosen race (that is, the ironborn) that he would sail even beyond the domains of those “queer folk” on the Lonely Light, into waters unfamiliar even for Greyjoy ships. (Compare, say, Euron’s belated, somewhat mocking acknowledgment at the kingsmoot that he would lead the conquest of Westeros “[a]ll for the greater glory of our Drowned God, to be sure”.)

(I would wonder to what extent GRRM is aware of the real-world concept of the "holy fool", but that's really beyond the scope of this post.)

If Alton was in fact Dagon's father, then perhaps Dagon's reaving and terror along the west coast were in part a response to what appears to have been his father's failed dreams of conquest. The destiny of the ironborn, so Dagon may have decided, was not to rush foolishly into the unknown west but to revive the Old Way imperialism of the Westerosi west coast at its height during the reign of the Hoare kings. To make up, perhaps, for what he may have seen as his father's inability to pursue an ironborn empire in or beyond the Sunset Sea, Dagon may have thought to subjugate the mainland Westerosi who were so much closer to hand.

[goodqueenaly]

Do you have any thoughts on how the Baratheon family tree might link up in the generations before Ormund? We know that around 180 AC a Baratheon woman married into House Lannister, in 200 a Lord Baratheon (no given name) celebrated the birth of a grandson, around 210 a Lord Baratheon (who may or may not be the same man) had three sons, the last of whom (Gowen) married Tya Lannister. We also know that Lyonel wasn’t the lord by 209 but was by 237, that he had a daughter (the spurned and unnamed betrothed of Prince Duncan) and that Ormund was his heir (although the conspicuous use of ‘heir’ and never ‘son’ makes me convinced that Ormund is Lyonel’s grandson or nephew).

My best guess (and this is only a guess) is that Lyonel “the Laughing Storm” and Gowen Baratheon were the first and third sons of an unnamed Lord Baratheon, born in the late second century AC. Lyonel Baratheon, I believe, may have married and had a son in about 200 AC, when he, Lyonel, would have been about in his late teens or early to mid 20s - perfectly old enough by Westerosi standards for the heir of an aristocratic family to have married and fathered a child. Because this boy would have been the second in line, after his own father, to Storm’s End, Lord Baratheon then perhaps decided to host a hastilude in his new grandson’s honor, at which Prince Baelor tilted against Ser Arlan of Pennytree. Gowen Baratheon then married Tya Lannister circa 208 AC (in a relatively rare, but not completely unprecedented, example of inter-kingdom marriage in Westeros). At some point in the aftermath of the tourney of Ashford, Lyonel and Gowen’s father died and Lyonel became the new Lord of Storm’s End.

Meanwhile, Lyonel had at least one other child - the daughter betrothed to Prince Duncan Targaryen. While it might seem a bit tough for Duncan’s fiancée to be a sister of a Baratheon son born circa 200 AC - since Prince Duncan himself was born between 220 and 224 AC - I think there is enough room to fudge a believable gap for marriage between the two, especially if the Baratheon daughter was a few years older than her royal fiancé. (After all, Robert Baratheon was some 15 years older than his brother Renly, for example, to say nothing of the distance between Rhaegar and his surviving brother and sister.)

At some point, perhaps in about the late 210s or early 220s AC, Lyonel’s unnamed (possible) son married (a similarly unidentifiable woman, though more likely than not a Stormlands aristocrat). Lyonel’s son then, maybe, had his own son, Ormund, perhaps around the mid to late 220s AC (to be of an age with his eventual wife, Princess Rhaelle). This, I think, may have been the stability enjoyed by House Baratheon that made Lord Lyonel content to betroth his daughter to Egg’s own heir. He, Lyonel, had at least one son and a grandson, just as his own father had had when Papa Baratheon hosted that hastilude and married off brother Gowen to a Lannister; the Baratheon dynasty could extend itself in such a prestigious marriage arrangement.

Then, in 239 AC, the Baratheon dynasty received the bombshell news that Prince Duncan had married Jenny of Oldstones. Lyonel, of course renounced his fealty to the Iron Throne and had himself proclaimed a new Storm King - and if he did in fact have a nearly 40 year old son, I could see this son joining his father in rebellion against the Targaryens. How much more poignant, then, if Lyonel’s son died during his father’s “short, bloody rebellion”, leaving his son Ormund as Lyonel’s new heir. Both Lyonel and Aegon V would have lost their eldest sons and heirs in the course of the conflict - Aegon politically, after Prince Duncan abdicated as Prince of Dragonstone, and Lyonel of course far more permanently. I could see GRRM using the death of this (possible) Baratheon son as a statement on the futility of war and the seemingly endless cycle of violent vengeance, both favorite themes of his throughout ASOIAF: did Lyonel’s son have to die to satisfy the pride and honor of House Baratheon, which Prince Duncan had insulted, and how many Targaryen and Baratheon men both would then have to die to avenge the life of the late heir? Too, how much grief would Egg have felt not only that his own son had forsaken his royal inheritance to marry a commoner, but also that Duncan’s decision led to war with his old ally and supporter Lord Lyonel, a war which may have seen Lyonel lose his son in turn? This is speculation on top of speculation, but it feels like the sort of rich narrative GRRM may play with in a future entry in the Tales of Dunk and Egg.

[turtle-paced]

One of GRRM greatest talents is making people feel sympathy for characters who have done horrible things and have horrible personalities as we see with Theon and Cersei in Dance. Do you think he did something similar with Joffrey death since that was what he was aiming for? On the one hand Joffrey is still a teenager suffering a horrible death but on the other hand in that same chapter and the one before it we get reminded of what a twisted monster Joffrey is and he was clearly never going to get better plus the Tyrells had justified reasons for wanting him dead and his death helps Sansa escape in the confusion.

Yep.

Ser Meryn pried the king's mouth open to jam a spoon down his throat. As he did, the boy's eyes met Tyrion's. He has Jaime's eyes. Only he had never seen Jaime look so scared. The boy's only thirteen. Joffrey was making a dry clacking noise, trying to speak. His eyes bulged white with terror, and he lifted a hand... reaching for his uncle, or pointing... Is he begging my forgiveness, or does he think I can save him? "Noooo," Cersei wailed, "Father help him, someone help him, my son, my son..." Tyrion VIII, ASoS

Yes, Joffrey's a murderer, a tyrant, and an abuser. Yes, Joffrey's death solves several problems for various characters. But that's still a thirteen-year-old boy, betrayed and murdered, in pain and fear, dying on the floor while his distraught mother cries for her own father to save her son. Terrible as Joffrey is, he's a human being with feelings and someone who loves him.

The readers also know, of course, that Joffrey grew up in an abusive family. His father ignored him at best and hit him at worst; his mother indulged him but provided no meaningful discipline; between the two, nobody provided Joffrey with education or guidance, leaving Joffrey to model himself after his parents' examples of raging misogyny, domestic abuse, and outright tyranny. Whatever underlying mental health problems Joffrey had that Westeros couldn't detect or treat, this could not have helped. There is a sense in which Joffrey was a victim too - as usual for the series, it's an explanation, not an excuse.

GRRM is doing this deliberately, and does this repeatedly, to make the point that terrible people are still people. This is because 1) it 'demystifies' human evil, attributing it not to evil magic or anything like that, but to human minds, human hearts, and human ways of living, and 2) reminds the readers that terrible people still aren't the (explicitly supernatural) Others.

Saving humanity means saving Joffreys. ASoIaF does not look away from that fact, and it's still out there arguing that it's worth it.

[goodqueenaly]

Fully agree, and I think we can see this approach to Joffrey in Sansa's POV as well:

He had not been dead when she left the throne room. He had been on his knees, though, clawing at his throat, tearing at his own skin as he fought to breathe. The sight of it had been too terrible to watch, and she had turned and fled, sobbing ... ... Hysterical laughter rose up her gullet, but Sansa choked it back down. The bells were ringing, slow and mournful. Ringing, ringing, ringing. They had rung for King Robert the same way. Joffrey was dead, he was dead, he was dead, dead, dead. Why was she crying, when she wanted to dance? Were they tears of joy?

Sansa has been aware for quite some time that Joffrey was an abusive terror in her life, both during and after their betrothal. She has just witnessed the death of the boy who gleefully ordered her father's execution, forced her to view his head, beat and sexually assaulted her, had her beaten and humiliated in public, regularly threatened her, and generally attempted to make her life a living hell. Yet Sansa's emotions are still scattered and contradictory - laughing and weeping in turns, confused as to why she should be doing the latter when she thinks she should be doing the former. Sansa struggles to reconcile her feelings, believing that her tears are really for Robb and Margaery but nevertheless unable to forget the horror of Joffrey's last moments. The sheer awfulness of Joffrey's dying, even against the knowledge that Joffrey had himself been awful toward her, continues to disturb Sansa in the aftermath of the Purple Wedding.

Nor can Sansa shake that image from her mind even after that evening:

She had seldom ventured out on deck herself. Her little cabin was dank and cold, but Sansa had been sick for most of the voyage . . . sick with terror, sick with fever, or seasick ... [sic] she could keep nothing down, and even sleep came hard. Whenever she closed her eyes she saw Joffrey tearing at his collar, clawing at the soft skin of his throat, dying with flakes of pie crust on his lips and wine stains on his doublet. And the wind keening in the lines reminded her of the terrible thin sucking sound he'd made as he fought to draw in air

...

That night Sansa scarcely slept at all, but tossed and turned just as she had aboard the Merling King. She dreamt of Joffrey dying, but as he clawed at his throat and the blood ran down across his fingers she saw with horror that it was her brother Robb.

Again, none of this is to suggest that Sansa misses Joffrey after his death, much less has any love for him. Rather, Sansa can understand both the reasons she has to celebrate Joffrey's death - escape from her torment at his hands, justice for Robb's murder, the end of his reign of terror - as well as the ghastliness of the manner of Joffrey's death. Sansa's focus on the visceral imagery of the scene - the boy "clawing" at his throat, the sucking sound of his last gasps, the remnants of the festivities lingering on his dying form - reflects how haunted she feels by the moment no matter the character of the person in question; no one, still less a young and traumatized teenage girl, should have to see so gruesome a death.

The intent of the author, as @turtle-paced rightly notes, is not to erase Joffrey's cruelty, nor to leave Joffrey's victims in the narrative lurch; indeed, we as readers see and reflect on the moment of Joffrey's assassination through the perspectives of people who suffered abuse and humiliation at his hands. Rather, the story recognizes that Joffrey can be both villain and victim, and that one does not negate the other. This was the author's "certain moment of pathos", having "the impact of the death to still strike home on to perhaps more complex feelings on the part of the audience, not necessarily just cheering".

[goodqueenaly]

Who do you think raised Renly?

Considering he became a orphan at 1 year old, and we know of no other Baratheon relations, I can't help but wonder.

Renly was 6 when Robert became King and made him Lord of Storm's End. Was Cortnay Penrose the man who stood as his regent? Did he have wife that influenced Renly? Were the Estermonts ruling in his name?

Is that, we know Stannis and Renly has in Cressen and Jon Arryn second father figures. But we never knows about Renly. Both Robert and Stannis were in King's Landing when he was a kid in the Stormlands. I can't help but wondered if he felt abandoned by them and turned to the Tyrells for familiar love as well as romantic love.

I see Renly's childhood, especially after Robert's Rebellion, as being perhaps vaguely similar to Bran's period as heir presumptive to Winterfell following Robb's acclamation as king. Like Bran, who at eight years old acted in Robb's place as Lord of Winterfell during ACOK, Renly became Lord of Storm's End (albeit in his own right) when he was about eight or nine years old. However, just as no one truly expected Bran to rule on his own as acting Lord of Winterfell at this time, so I doubt Renly was expected to take on many responsibilities as Lord of Storm's End through his childhood until his majority. In turn, just as Winterfell's affairs were overseen by a sort of two-person regency comprised in Rodrik Cassel and Maester Luwin, so I imagine Storm's End and the Stormlands were in practice governed by members of young Renly's household.

The composition of that household is an open question, of course. It is possible Cortnay Penrose filled some role in governing Storm's End in Renly's childhood: we do not have a sense of when Cortnay joined the household, but his bald and weathered face certainly suggests an older man, his position would have been aristocratic enough, and his fondness for young Edric Storm now may indicate he once showed a similar fondness for young Renly. However, it is entirely possible that Renly's household in his minority was ruled by characters we have never met (and likely will never meet); Corttnay Pernose was certainly not the only aristocrat who ever served Storm's End. We do not know, for example, who replaced Cressen as maester of the castle (at least until Maester Jurne began service), and given the traditional maesterly role as both tutors to noble children and advisors to the heads of households, I could see Storm's End maester serving in a quasi-paternal as well as regent role for young Renly. We have even less to say about, for example, the master-at-arms of the castle in Renly's childhood, or the castellan (more on that in a moment), or any other Baratheon household officer who might have helped raise Renly. (It's probably redundant to say that there is nothing to say of any women who might have had a hand in Renly's upbringing, either.)

I will say, though, that it is possible Renly's childhood household included relatives, if not immediate family members. Stannis remembers a Ser Harbert, whom he describes as a great-uncle, as castellan of Storm's End when he, Stannis, was young; while it is unclear if this great-uncle was still alive when Renly was growing up (as he was already "old Ser Harbert" when Patchface washed ashore), Renly may have known this great-uncle in his youth. Too, while they would not necessarily have been members of the Storm's End household (beyond the father and husband of the Estermont widow Robert slept with on Greenstone), the Estermonts were certainly close with the Baratheons of Robert's (and consequently Renly's) generation; it is possible that, as much as Robert played with Estermonts as a child and wished to visit his kin during his reign, Renly may have grown up regarding the Estermonts as family. It is possible that one or more of these relatives might have served in some regency capacity for young Renly.

It is too difficult to say what was in Renly's mind in these years. However, I do not think it too great a leap to suggest that Renly saw the grand Tyrell army, feasting while he starved with distant brother Stannis inside their castle, and felt longing instead of hatred. Likewise, it's reasonable to see Renly as a boy inside the vastness of Storm's End, head of the House but largely if not entirely bereft of relatives or loved ones - until both the Tyrells and love came into (or back into) his life with Loras.

[goodqueenaly]

Do you think Myriah Martell bring the heiress to dorne impacted her political skills and marriage to Daeron ii? In the sense of why he highly valued her council and the council of her friends at court, or do you think that was more based on Daeron’s own personality as he had his princess cousin as maester of coin through her husband?

On the one hand, I am not sure how long Myriah's training as heiress to Dorne continued in her childhood relative to her betrothal to then-Prince Daeron. Baelor and the unnamed Prince of Dorne agreed to the betrothal when both Daeron and Myriah were children; Daeron was about eight, but we do not have an idea of exactly how old Myriah was. If the Prince of Dorne truly disinherited Myriah as heiress to Sunspear as part of or in consequence of this betrothal, then it is possible that Myriah's education and training shifted from preparation for ruling Dorne to preparation for becoming a Targaryen bride. Myriah and Daeron were married by 170 AC (the year the future Baelor Breakspear was born), so Myriah may have had about or up to nine years of knowing that she would marry a foreign (in Martell eyes) prince and live in the Targaryen kingdom, never to rule in Sunspear.

Of course, we do not know what Myriah knew or believed of her betrothal and future, and how she might have been educated accordingly. Was Myriah aware for that period that she would eventually marry Prince Daeron, or did the Prince of Dorne keep the betrothal secret for any amount of time (more on that below)? To the extent that Myriah did not know or was not made aware that her fiancé was a cousin of the Targaryen king, did she view herself and/or was she educated in the context of her future marriage? We see via Arianne in AFFC a Martell princess and would-be heiress to Dorne left in ignorance of her Targaryen betrothal, only aware that she had been given little in the way of formal authority and that her younger brother had been favored by their father to inherit. Myriah does not have to parallel Arianne exactly (or at all), but it is interesting to speculate whether Myriah came to her Targaryen marriage deeply imbued with a sense of her former Dornish inheritance (as, incidentally, I believe Arianne will, as heiress to Dorne, in marrying Aegon).

Nor indeed do we have a clear idea of how Sunspear viewed the Iron Throne in the perhaps better part of a decade between Baelor's peace negotiation and the wedding of Daeron and Myriah. While I certainly believe the Prince of Dorne may have welcomed Baelor's complete reversal of the Young Dragon's campaigns of conquest, at the same time the Prince of Dorne may have worried about how long this new pious king would last. Baelor had undertaken a hugely physically exhausting task merely in walking to Sunspear, and though the Prince would not have known at the time of the betrothal, Baelor would nearly die during his return to King's Landing following the rescue of Prince Aemon. Any news of Baelor's fasts may have deepened the Prince's worry: Baelor's death while Myriah and Daeron were still in their minority might have called into question whatever succession plan Baelor had made, and by extension whether Myriah and Daeron would wed. Too, it would do no good for Sunspear to commit itself publicly to a Targaryen-Martell union, especially in the immediate aftermath of the Young Dragon's violence and bloodshed, if Baelor's reign appeared too unstable, or if the hawks (dragons?) of Daeron I's government tried to take over setting policy. In turn, we can only guess how the Prince of Dorne approached the education of his oldest child as a future Targaryen bride versus as his heir.

However, whatever training or education Myriah had received as onetime heiress to Dorne, I do not want to discount the influence of Myriah Martell on Daeron II's rule and regnal policies. Whether or not Myriah approached her eventual queenship with the lessons of her time as heiress to Dorne, she certainly extended some leverage over her husband’s court: Yandel notes that “Daeron II brought many Dornishmen to his court, some of whom were granted offices of note” and that “some questioned the influence of his Dornish wife” during his reign. We have too little sense - indeed, almost none at all - about Myriah as a character, and so little room to understand to what extent Daeron II’s pro-Dorne policies were as a result of her presence and advice, versus his politico-personal mutual antagonism with his vehemently anti-Dorne father, or his admiration for the vigorously pro-peace Baelor the Blessed (all of which factors are, of course, interrelated and none of which are mutually exclusive). I think it is fair enough to say that Myriah had received at least as good of an education as any very highly born Westerosi aristocratic girl (especially one expected eventually to marry a foreign prince), and perhaps better for as long as she was officially heir to Dorne, and that she had every reason, as the daughter and sister of reigning Martell princes as much as the onetime heir herself, to favor, promote, and advocate for Dornishmen and women at court, align herself with her husband’s peace policies, and support unification between Dorne and the Iron Throne’s kingdom.

[goodqueenaly]

Do you think a marriage between Jace and Helaena and a simultaneous marriage between Aegon and Baela would have been able to stave off the Dance of the Dragons or at least avert it in that generation?

Absolutely not. From the moment Alicent gave birth to her sons, the queen and the green faction wanted Aegon and his brothers to succeed their father ahead of Rhaenyra. Years before Jacaerys was born, Alicent and her father were lobbying Viserys to change his decision on the succession - so much so that Viserys sacked Ser Otto as Hand in 109 AC, five years before Jacaerys’ birth, with the declaration that Lyonel Strong, his new Hand, “[would] not hector [him]”. Gyldayn had already identified the “queen’s party” and the “party of the princess” as extant following Otto Hightower’s termination, and named them with their familiar color designations as of the tourney of 111 AC. For two decades, these parties deepened their mutual antagonism: the Iron Throne was a zero sum game, its seat only big enough for either Aegon or Rhaenyra alone. If the polite and very transitory fiction of the king’s loveday could not change that reality, no amount of cross-factional marriages would either.

Too, such a marriage between Jacaerys and Helaena would require the green faction to acknowledge the legitimacy of the former - a point the green faction, consistently, vehemently, and violently denied. Gyldayn repeats not only Alicent’s sniping comment to Laenor after Lucerys’ birth - that if he, Laenor, kept having children with Rhaenyra, “soon or late, you may get one who looks like you” - but also the “article of faith” amongst the greens that “the father of Rhaenyra’s sons was not her husband, Laenor, but her champion, Harwin Strong”. Alicent’s sons had certainly learned by 120 AC to denounce Rhaenyra’s sons as “Strongs”, with Aegon merely shrugging that “[e]veryone [sic] kn[ew]” about the boys’ extramarital origins just to look at them. No matter how true the accusation probably was, and no matter how firmly Viserys attempted to shut down this particular line of questioning, the green faction was never going to agree to a marriage between Alicent’s only daughter and an ostensibly Velaryon prince the greens held to be a bastard.

Indeed, what we see of the marriages and betrothals among the children of these factions IOTL was a desire not to merge these groups together but to emphasize mutual isolation from each rival faction. Alicent may have contemplated marriage between her Aegon and Rhaenyra (less a goodwill gesture to the latter and more, I think, a guarantee of Aegon’s accession and reliance on patriarchal expectations to promote him eventually as sole ruler), but when Viserys shut down that idea, Alicent’s solution was to marry Aegon to Helaena - another way of emphasizing Aegon’s role as heir to the similarly incestuously married Conqueror (and, by extension, Aegon’s right to take the Conqueror’s throne). Rhaenyra, for her part, betrothed her eldest sons when the boys were little more than toddlers - early even by Westerosi standards, and a clear indication both that Rhaenyra had aligned herself with the Velaryon-Targaryen branch of the family and that her sons were not available for the nuptial schemes of either the green faction or the king (since Rhaenyra firmly held out her sons as Velaryons, nevermind the antipathy of the greens as I mentioned). Far from either faction being willing to use the traditional tool of dynastic marriage to make peace, both the blacks and the greens dug themselves in more deeply to their positions in the decade before the Dance.

[goodqueenaly]

Why do you think the ironborn sent a delegation to the Great Council of 101 led by an unnamed Lord Farwynd, even though the last contact with the Iron Throne had been over 50 years prior, Jaehaerys and Alysanne never bothered to make a royal progress to the islands, and it didn’t matter who they voted for since Viserys won my a huge margin?

This got long, more under the cut:

To be pedantic, it is not clear from the text that the Farwynds were leading the delegation from the Iron Islands. Gyldayn simply says that “[t]he Evenstar of Tarth was there, and the Lord of the Lonely Light” - and considering that the Tarths definitely were not leading the Stormlands delegation (since Boremund Baratheon himself was there to advocate for Rhaenys and Laenor), I hesitate to say that the sentence automatically implies the Farwynds were doing so for the ironborn. Indeed, I think this mention of the Farwynds by Gyldayn is less an indication of their leadership at this council and more a reflection of  the pan-Westerosi attendance of the Great Council. After all, Gyldayn begins the paragraph by stating that “[l]ords came from every corner of the realm, from the Dornish Marches to the shadow of the Wall, from the Three Sisters to the Iron Islands”. Considering that the Lonely Light is about as far from mainland Westeros, much less the other “corner[s] of the realm”, as any aristocratic Westerosi seat gets, I believe the Farwynds received a particular mention only to demonstrate that the Great Council drew men from far and wide (even from Dorne, still very much independent despite Targaryen symbolic posturing).  

Anyway, while I do agree that it is a little strange that we as readers hear nothing about the Iron Islands from basically the reign of Aenys until the very end of Jaehaerys’ life (but then what is not strange about F&B?), I think it is misunderstanding the point of the Great Council, and merely reading from results, to assume that ironborn attendance did not matter. The Great Council of 101 AC represented a very unique political opportunity for every single aristocratic attendant; it is no exaggeration, I think, to say that the Great Council was a history-changing moment for the Seven Kingdoms. No matter which potential heir received the greatest acclamation (more on that choice in a bit), the Targaryen dynasty had invited its vassals from across the realm to participate directly in the succession to the Iron Throne - a level of power never before, and almost never again (apart from in 233 AC, of course), extended to the nobles of Westeros. I know, I know, it me, but I want to quote The She-Wolf of France, the fifth novel in the series The Accursed Kings, because I think this particular passage - about the deposition of King Edward II of England and the acclamation of King Edward III - reflects why the Great Council of 101 AC was such a highly important historical moment

The people of England, that night, were sovereign, but somewhat embarrassed at being so; they did not know to whom to hand over the exercise of that sovereignty.

History had taken a sudden step forward. Questions were being argued whose mere discussion was significant of the admission of new principles. A people does not forget such a precedent, nor a Parliament that it had exercised such power; a nation does not forget that, through its Parliament, it has had occasion to be the master of its destiny.

For the ironborn especially, with their history of kingsmoots, the Great Council may have appeared particularly welcome. Now the Iron Islands lords, equal to their mainland neighbors, could give their say on who would govern them in the future, just as they had for the centuries on the islands themselves before the bloody coup of Urron Redhand. Moreover, the lack of detail on the crown’s relationship with the Iron Islands during the reign of Jaehaerys does not imply that the crown stopped governing the Iron Islands in this period or that the ironborn had no interest in participating in the Great Council, any more than, say, the non-appearance of the Tullys in national Westerosi politics between the deaths of Lord Prentys and Lady Lucinda in 59 AC and the Great Council in 101 AC meant that the Tullys would have had no point in coming to Harrenhal. The ironborn attendees were there to see the claimants (or at least their sponsors) and to cast a vote for one (or more) of the potential successors - knowing that whoever came out ahead would be responsible for setting policy, include for the Iron Islands, in the not-too-distant future (since Jaehaerys I was already an older man by Westerosi standards by 101 AC, and did not in fact have long to live).  

Too, I do not think we should assume that all of the attendees flocked to Harrenhal already knowing the outcome of the vote. While Gyldayn acknowledges that “Laenor’s claim was generally regarded as the weaker” (between that of Laenor and that of Viserys), he adds immediately after that “[t]he boy’s mother and father were such powerful and influential figures that it could not be dismissed entirely”. Nor had the Targaryen dynasty ever faced this particular predicament of succession: Jaehaerys had come to the throne ahead of his nieces, the daughters of his late eldest brother, but Jaehaerys himself had not had to contend with either of those daughters having a son of her own - much less a son fathered by an extremely rich and powerful Valyrian-blooded vassal, with a dragon to boot. With Laenor enjoying significant aristocratic backing - not just the Velaryons, but also the Baratheons, the Starks, the Manderlys, the Dustins, the Blackwoods, the Bar Emmons, and the Celtigars, among unnamed others - and Lord Corlys able to trade on his and his wife’s influence and wealth, the outcome of this new question of succession may have seemed still open, despite the strength of Prince Viserys’ male-line position. In turn, no matter how the Farwynds and the compatriots may have voted, they would have been casting ballots alongside senior aristocrats of the realm to decide an openly contested issue. 

To that point, the ironborn may well have wondered what the backing of various noble families for Laenor or Viserys would mean for the future of the Iron Throne, especially as it pertained to the Iron Islands. The Sea Snake’s naval fame and power may have appeared a direct challenge to the strength and position of the Iron Fleet; with Corlys as would-be regent or co-regent for young Laenor, perhaps the ironborn feared how Velaryon supremacy both on the seas and at court would affect the support or reliance of the crown on the longships of the ironmen. Too, though we do not have a completely clear idea of the timeline, in 101 AC the Triarchy may have recently finished its conquest of the Stepstones - and with that conquest, the Iron Throne and its vassals may have started to resent the increasing tolls (in both gold and human lives) imposed by Craghas and his admirals. Would either Laenor's faction or Viserys' faction be interested in a war against the Triarchy to scour them from the Stepstones - and if the Iron Throne decided on such a war, what part if any would the Iron Fleet play? These were questions that the representatives of the Iron Islands may have felt merited their presence at the Great Council, the better to prepare themselves, their vassals, and their countrymen across the Sunset Sea.

Plus, the Great Council was not just a simple opinion poll of Westeros’ highest-born subjects. Gyldayn describes the Great Council as a magnificent gathering in every sense of the word: thousands of aristocratic attendees and attendants, hundreds of merchants and tradesmen, untold numbers of hedge knights, freeriders, “[t]hieves and whores, washerwomen and camp followers, singers and mummers”, all making Harrenhal and its surroundings a veritable metropolis on the scale of Westeros’ greatest cities. If any event had the right to be called a once in a lifetime opportunity, the Great Council of 101 AC certainly earned the title; for what was likely to be the only time in the lives of these ironmen, they would be rubbing shoulders with a vast number of mainland Westerosi, and more remarkably in peacetime, in a setting fit for a song. Would it be so extraordinary to believe that the sheer scale and wonder of this event, on top of the political advantages of attendance, drew at least some of the Farwynds and their countrymen to Harrenhal? Compare, say, Howland Reed, who despite the general isolation of crannogmen sought out the tourney of Harrenhal after his voyage to the Isle of Faces because he “had never seen such pageantry, and knew he might never see the like again”, such that “[p]art of him wanted nothing so much as to be part of it." I could see where these men came simply to witness what they had never seen before and would never see again - a national assembly to decide the weightiest matter of political consequence since Aegon's Conquest, with all the accompanying spectacle,

[turtle-paced]

Why do you think Tywin reinstated Boris Blount? Yes he's a Lannister lackey but he also showcased himself to be inadequate and unreliable. After Blackwater King's Landing would have been full of battle hardened knights, many from Tywin's own army. Surely it wouldn't have been hard to get a suitable replacement?

Here's the event that led to Blount getting the sack:

Ser Boros had been escorting Tommen and Lord Gyles when Ser Jacelyn Bywater and his gold cloaks had surprised them, and had yielded up his charge with an alacrity that would have enraged old Ser Barristan Selmy as much as it did Cersei; a knight of the Kingsguard was supposed to die in defense of the king and royal family. His sister had insisted that Joffrey strip Blount of his white cloak on the grounds of treason and cowardice. Tyrion XI, ACoK

By any objective measure, Tyrion and even, eventually, Cersei were right about Blount. You had one job, Boros!

Since objective reasons have failed us, we turn to Tywin's subjective reasons. Tywin's kids removed a Lannister appointee, and they couldn't do it without publicly humiliating said appointee twice over. My suspicion is that it's a case of Tywin going "nuh uh! didn't happen!", both in respects of a Lannister lackey being proven so unfit, and for Tywin's kids taking that action for themselves in such an embarrassing way. Now let's sum this up.

Cons: retains bodyguard unwilling to bodyguard, sets terrible precedent for the institution, undermines the acting Hand and the Queen Regent, extends an already-embarrassing affair and reinstalls a living reminder in the Kingsguard.

Pros: makes Tywin feel a bit better about his decisions and his control over his kids.

When we put it like that, it's pretty obvious, isn't it?

[goodqueenaly]

I agree, and relatedly, I think Tywin was also wrestling with the unwelcome precedent Cersei had set by dismissing Barristan Selmy. While no one could ever argue that Boros Blount enjoyed even one iota of the fame or prowess of Barristan the Bold, Tywin (and indeed Tyrion) had recognized that Cersei had made a foolish move in stripping Barristan of his white cloak, and so publicly, merely to indulge Joffrey’s cruelty and to reward Sandor Clegane. If Tywin allowed his daughter to dismiss a second white cloak for what (truly) amounted to gross incompetence, Tywin may have thought that Cersei would undermine the prestige of the Kingsguard even more; the sworn brotherhood of seven might start to look less like (at least in theory) a collection of the finest knights in the realm and more like a bakery case with all that turnover. As cowardly, incapable, and frankly bungling as Boros had acted with Tommen, Tywin certainly had no desire to advertise that the White Swords of King Joffrey were pseudo-chivalric dunces who neither trusted the Baratheon-Lannister crown nor were trusted by the crown in turn. In classic Tywin fashion, vehement and violent denial would win the day: if he, Tywin, simply said that Boros was in fact a knight of the Kingsguard, then surely no one could question the integrity (in every sense of the word) of the Baratheon-Lannister Kingsguard, right?

[goodqueenaly]

What do you think motivated Houses Costayne and Mullendore to support the Blacks against their own liege lords, because while it's obvious House Beesbury did it in revenge for Lyman Beesbury's death, there's little context for them, do you think it was because their lords still remembered the oath to Viserys I, or was it simply opportunism? PD: I still find it annoying we don't know much about House Cuy before the main novels.

We do not get really any sense of these families during Viserys I's reign or at the outset of the Dance, so it is fundamentally impossible to say. However, what I personally headcanon, and I think makes as much sense as any other explanation, is the idea that these families attempted on a somewhat more local scale what families like the Yronwoods, the Reynes, and the Sunderlands may have attempted during the First Blackfyre Rebellion. As the late great Steven Attewell once speculated, these families and others may have rallied to Daemon Blackfyre because a Blackfyre victory offered more opportunity for advancement than did a loyalist victory. If Daemon Blackfyre emerged triumphant, the new Blackfyre government may well have decided either to depose or to severely humble those families who supported the Targaryens - and who better to profit from that decision than disgruntled pro-Blackfyre vassals of those great Houses?

Similarly, the Costaynes and Mullendores may have decided that if there were ever a time to try to challenge the might of the Hightower, the Dance was perfect chance to do so. On their own, the Mullendores and Costaynes would never have the strength to rebel, at least successfully, against House Hightower, one of the richest and mightiest families not just of the Reach but of the entire realm. However, by joining a national civil war on the side defying the Hightowers, the Costaynes and Mullendores may have believed they were well-positioned to be rewarded if the black faction triumphed. Whether or not Rhaenyra's government, had it ultimately emerged victorious, would have ordered a complete damnatio memoriae against House Hightower, it is very possible if not probable that the Hightowers would have lost at least some lands and wealth (as did, say, the Blackwoods in the aftermath of the Red Wedding, or more extremely the Conningtons after Robert's Rebellion). As pro-black Hightower vassals, the Mullendores and Costaynes may have expected to receive some of this redistribution (along with, perhaps, their Tarly neighbors).

[goodqueenaly]

If you were Selwyn Tarth (and assuming Brienne was interested in such a match), who would be a realistic target marriage wise for her?

I think there are a few points to be noted here.

Number one, I believe Selwyn Tarth did attempt to choose a husband for his daughter who, in Selwyn’s mind (and personalities very much aside), would have been a realistic marriage choice. As the head of an ancient and high-ranking family, Selwyn certainly knew that any husband for Brienne would have needed to be blue-blooded enough to serve as a consort to the Lady of Tarth (and, perhaps, jure uxoris lord himself). At the same time, Selwyn likely would have avoid too powerful a potential son-in-law, whose marriage to Brienne might mean that Tarth would become a mere satellite of her husband’s own holding. Brienne’s childhood fiancé, the second son of Lord Bryce Caron, likely would have fit the bill (again, speaking in purely political terms): the son of a similarly blue-blooded Stormlands family, yet not directly heir to Nightsong. Likewise, Ronnet Connington might have appeared on paper to enjoy the dynastic credentials required for a Tarth husband while being sufficiently humbled by the Connington losses during Robert’s Rebellion not to overshadow his bride. There is less to say about Humfrey Wagstaff (given his surname seems to be mostly a priapic joke), but I think it is fair to assume that, given his knighthood and position as Grandview’s castellan, Ser Humfrey was at least considered well-bred enough to be a husband to Brienne. In sum, Selwyn Tarth in-text knew the sort of dynastically appropriate suitor to seek out for his heiress; the failure of any these betrothals to result in a marriage was a combination of circumstantial bad luck and wildly incompatible (and deeply deplorable, on the part of the men in question) personalities.

More importantly, once it became clear that Brienne both wanted martial training and would not give it up after any marriage she might undertake, Selwyn specifically refused to press the point. Selwyn might well have tried to force Brienne into any marriage simply with the aim of producing a (male) heir of his line, or might have remarried himself to father a son who could replace her in the Tarth succession, or might have promoted a Tarth kinsman as a would-be alternate heir (as Wyman Webber did, to Rohanne’s chagrin). That Selwyn took none of these actions speaks to a desire, at bare minimum, not to pursue a marriage for his daughter or to secure the male future of House Tarth above all other considerations, including his daughter’s wants. Selwyn was (and is) probably intelligent enough to understand, as Ser Humfrey and Red Ronnet made very obvious, that few if any Westerosi male aristocrats would view Brienne’s outward appearance and fighting ability without derision and disdain - and that those who would, like Hyle Hunt, would likely be poor minor noblemen with an interest in her substantial landed inheritance, not her person.

On top of all of that, Brienne herself certainly showed no romantic or personal interest before the events of the novels in anyone but Renly Baratheon. Whether or not Selwyn even knew about her infatuation with Renly (or Renly’s own sexuality, which seems to have been something of an open secret), I doubt that Selwyn thought it likely that the king’s brother and Lord of Storm’s End in his own right would marry his own vassal’s heiress, even without her being considered ugly by the standards of Westeros. With Selwyn apparently unconcerned about Brienne’s unmarried state, and Brienne herself not showing a great interest (at least to Selwyn’s probable knowledge) in anyone but Renly, I’m not sure there is more Selwyn could or would have done without completely changing his and/or Brienne’s personalities.

[goodqueenaly]

Yes obviously it me the person who talks about The Accursed Kings but I’ve been thinking about Daena Targaryen and wondering how much GRRM might draw inspiration for her, and indeed to her son Daemon too, from Marguerite of Burgundy, Marguerite’s daughter Jeanne, and the events of the second and fourth novels. While I do believe GRRM has used Marguerite as inspiration both for Margaery Tyrell (perhaps even as the latter’s namesake) and Cersei, I also think there are ideas in The Strangled Queen and The Royal Succession might also provide some ideas for Daena’s story.

The Strangled Queen, the second novel of The Accursed Kings, opens with the imprisoned Burgundian princesses, Marguerite and her cousin Blanche. Having found these princesses guilty (in The Iron King) of conducting extramarital sexual affairs with a pair of courtier brothers, Philip IV condemned his daughters-in-law to incarceration for life in Château Gaillard. With the death of Philip the Fair and the accession of his eldest son as King Louis X, however, the new king faced a troubling dilemma. Because adultery was not a grounds for annulment, Marguerite was still legally his wife, and their daughter Jeanne legally his heir; if Louis wanted to remarry and produce a son (and remove Jeanne from the succession), he would need to find a different way out of his marriage. 

The answer, for Louis, was to dispatch his kinsman Robert of Artois to Château Gaillard with an offer. If, as Robert proposed  Marguerite were to swear that she had never consummated her marriage with Louis and that their daughter was not the child of the king, their marriage could be annulled, and Marguerite and Blanche would be released. Marguerite, though initially tempted, refused the offer: as she told Robert, she would never “admit that my daughter is not Louis’s”, as in the event of the king’s death “my daughter would become Queen of France and then people would have to take some account of me as Queen Mother”. 

Marguerite never tested the theory; the title of the novel rather spoils her fate. Yet the question of young Jeanne’s legitimacy haunted the Capetian dynasty, especially following the deaths of Louis X and his short-lived posthumous son (as depicted in the fourth novel, The Royal Succession). Philip, second son of King Philip IV, wished to claim the throne but faced the troubling prospect of asserting his claim ahead of his niece’s own. To justify his taking of the crown, Philip promulgated both extant misogynistic tropes - that “lilies could not spin wool and that the kingdom was too noble a thing to fall into the hands of women” - as well as the “stranger [argument]” that “there were, for instance, three intermediate generations between the venerated Saint Louis and Madame Jeanne of Navarre, while between Saint Louis and Philippe there were but two”. Yet Philip’s most long-lasting of his attempts to defend his accession was what became known as the Salic law:

Finally the councillors to Parliament, spurred on by Messire de Noyers, exhumed, though without much belief in it, the ancient code of the customs of the Salian Franks, before the conversion of Clovis to Christianity. This code contained nothing concerning the transmission of the royal powers. It was a fairly rough system of civil and criminal jurisprudence, and almost incomprehensible moreover, since it was over eight centuries old. A brief paragraph laid it down that the inheritance of land must be by equal division among the male heirs. That was all.  No more was necessary for certain doctors of secular law to construct a thesis and support the doctrine for which they were being paid. The Crown of France could go only to males, because the Crown implied the possession of land. And the best proof that the Salian Code had been applied since the beginning was clearly to be found in the fact that only men had indeed succeeded to it. Thus Jeanne of Navarre could be eliminated without the unprovable accusation of bastardy being even brought forward.

I could see where GRRM may adopt elements of these stories when writing about Daena. Like Marguerite, Daena had been permanently separated from her royal husband, locked away for sexual sin (or, more specifically, what Philip IV and Baelor, respectively, perceived as sexual sins on the parts of these princesses - the dynastically threatening extramarital affair of Marguerite, the threat of male temptation Baelor saw in Daena). Though Daena’s marriage was annulled as Marguerite’s was not - Baelor having failed to consummate his marriage, where Marguerite had sworn Louis had done so in theirs - Daena was no more free to leave her “court of beauty” in the Maidenvault (certainly officially) than Marguerite was able to escape her “gallant” castle. Moreover, in both cases their erstwhile husbands fathered no children while their wives lived - Louis because his inability to procure an annulment prevented him from marrying again, Baelor because he wanted to live as a celibate septon. 

Yet just as Marguerite rested her hopes for liberty and future queenship on her daughter, though Jeanne was (at least as far as Druon depicts) of uncertain legitimacy, so perhaps Daena believed her own son could deliver her from the Maidenvault to the heart of royal authority. Whether or not Marguerite had actually conceived Jeanne with her lover, the sometime Queen of France and Navarre was clever enough to understand that Jeanne’s public status as the king’s only child gave Jeanne, and by extension her mother, dynastic importance that would be irrevocably squandered if Marguerite had agreed to Robert’s proposal. Similarly, though no one could argue that young Daemon was King Baelor’s son, Daena’s refusal to name her son’s father may have left Daemon’s status dynastically ambiguous; with Daena definitely no longer married to the king, and Daemon not recognized as any specific (or specifically married) man’s son, no one could prove with certainty that Daemon was a bastard. If Baelor died, as Daena may have guessed was soon to come by 170 AC, then Daena, as the king’s next-eldest surviving sibling, may have figured that her son would have at least a claim to the throne, or would bolster her own claim (and that she, in turn, could declare him legitimate thereafter). 

While I do not believe the soon-to-be King Viserys II murdered or tried to have Daena murdered (as I definitely believe he did Baelor), I do think that he adopted some of the same arguments Philip did to promote his own seizure of the Iron Throne in the wake of Baelor’s death (especially since Viserys knew he faced at least some support for Daena). I will not be surprised if Viserys and/or his supporters asserted that dragons could not spin wool and that the Seven Kingdoms were too noble a thing to fall into the hands of women. Too, Viserys might have cited the three intermediate generations between Daena and the popularly hallowed King Jaehaerys I (her father, King Aegon III, her paternal grandfather, Prince Daemon, and Prince Daemon’s father, Prince Baelon), perhaps noting that between himself and the Old King there were two (as Viserys was King Aegon III’s brother).  

Most notably, perhaps Viserys flipped the idea of Druon’s Salic law on its head by using the Widow’s Law. The Widow’s Law, of course, provided as follows:

To rectify these ills, King Jaehaerys in 52 AC promulgated the Widow’s Law, reaffirming the right of the eldest son (or eldest daughter, where there was no son) to inherit, but requiring said heirs to maintain surviving widows in the same condition they had enjoyed before their husband’s death. A lord’s widow, be she a second, third, or later wife, could no longer be driven from his castle, nor deprived of her servants, clothing, and income. The same law, however, also forbade men from disinheriting their children by a first wife in order to bestow their lands, seat, or property upon a later wife or her own children.

Philip’s doctors of secular law argued that “the Crown implied the possession of land”, and that “the ancient code of the customs of the Salian Franks … laid it down that the inheritance of land must be by equal division among the male heirs”. The argument, as Druon rather wryly noted, conveniently meant that “Jeanne of Navarre could be eliminated without the unprovable accusation of bastardy being even brought forward”. In turn, perhaps Viserys sought to block the arguments of either his niece or her son by distinguishing the Iron Throne from the provisions of the Widow’s Law. The Widow’s Law, Viserys may have insisted, only concerned the inheritance of lands, seats, and property. Just as Philip’s legal scholars relied upon a somewhat circular justification - the Crown of France must be an exclusively male institution, since “only men had indeed succeeded to it” - so Viserys may have claimed that the Widow’s Law clearly had no bearing on the Iron Throne because no one had argued that the Widow’s Law applied to the Iron Throne and because only kings had succeeded to it (his own mother’s ultimately unsuccessful struggle for the throne notwithstanding, of course). By crafting these arguments, Viserys and his supporters may have sought to avoid addressing the uncertain position occupied by Daemon Waters: if Viserys could proclaim himself king by right, he would not need to make a determination as to whether Daemon could be considered potentially legitimate or whether Aegon III’s daughter could pass any legitimacy onto his grandson .  

I’m just asking for more Accursed Kings, GRRM!

[goodqueenaly]

Speaking of Kevan and his role as his right hand what do you think Tywin intended for his brother's Gerion and Tygett if they had survived? I just checked Gerion and apparently he never married who do think would have been a potential candidate for an alliance? Lastly, was House Hayford's land valuable enough for Tywin to waste a marriage to the Lannisters to or do you think it was a way to get him out of the succession/less Lannisters to worry about?

We get a brief insight into Tywin's wishes for Tygett pre-Robert's Rebellion. Yandel notes that during Aerys II's reign, Tywin "wished to name his brother Ser Tygett Lannister as the Red Keep's master-at-arms" (only to have the king give the post to Willem Darry). Given the emphasis on Tygett's fighting prowess, I could see where Tywin might have envisioned Tygett as functioning somewhat as Kevan or even Stafford Lannister did at the outset of the War of the Five Kings - that is, a trusted high-level Lannister military commander. Still, Tygett's willingness to serve as one of Tywin's lieutenants would need to balance with Genna's suggestion that Tygett's simultaneous desire and inability to "be his own man ... just made him angrier as the years went by". Tygett certainly does not seem to have been a Kevan, an eager right-hand man, and that struggle for independence may have kept Tygett from being given much in the way of responsibility by Tywin.

With Gerion, we are not given even a basic insight into what use Tywin thought his youngest brother could be, and that lack of clarity limits our speculation on how Tywin might have viewed both Gerion's career and his future marriage, Indeed, Tywin seems to have left Gerion mostly to his own devices. Gerion toured the Free Cities in his youth, participated in the tourney to celebrate the birth of Prince Viserys, and attended Robert and Cersei's wedding (or at least gave a gift), but otherwise seems to have taken on no responsibility or duties of military and/or political life in Westeros. Given Gerion's restlessness and seemingly carefree joviality, perhaps Tywin thought that Gerion was frivolous to trust with any real role (contrasted with, say, Tyrion, whose "low cunning" Tywin was willing to acknowledge despite his deep and utter loathing toward his son). With so many other Lannisters to utilize, Tywin may have simply left Gerion to do what he wanted (within the confines of what Tywin considered Lannister standards, anyway), even if Gerion had not decided to go searching for Brightroar.

That apparent lack of interest on Tywin's part in Gerion also means that we have little idea whom, if anyone, Tywin had considered for Gerion's marriage. It is possible that Tywin thought that, with three sons fathered by Kevan and one by Tygett along with his two (not to mention innumerable Lannister cousins), Gerion simply was not necessary as a Lannister breeding machine. Whether that decision, if true, would have changed with altered political circumstances is of course unknowable. Tywin was certainly willing to use any and all available Lannisters for nuptial political advantage during the War of the Five Kings - including his own children, various nephews, and even Gerion's illegitimate daughter Joy Hill - so Tywin may have similarly seen Gerion as a useful pawn had the latter lived to the time of the main novels. Likewise, as an adult male Lannister Gerion may have seemed, to Tywin, capable of taking power through a politically advantageous bride even more than, say, his teenage nephews, and the existence of his extramarital daughter may have looked to Tywin like proof Gerion could father children. Would Gerion instead of Tyrek have married little Ermesande Hayford if he, Gerion, had lived at court at the time? Would Gerion instead of Lancel have been betrothed to Amerei Frey following the Red Wedding? These are at least intriguing scenarios to ponder.

As for Tyrek, no, I do not believe that Tywin was simply trying to remove Tyrek from the Lannister succession; indeed, even if by marrying Lady Hayford Tyrek lost his claim to Casterly Rock (and I do not at all think that is guaranteed), Tywin would never have considered a world where anyone other than his Jaime inherited the Rock, much less that anyone would claim as much. Nor indeed do I consider the Hayford marriage a "waste". Tyrek may have been the grandson and nephew of Lannister lords, but he was also the son of a third son - hardly a particularly glittering dynastic prospect of his own. While Tyrek would, like his uncle Kevan, likely never want for a comfortable income or rooms at the Rock, he would never have anticipated having lands or a seat of his own, much less a title. With the marriage to Lady Ermesande Tyrek received lands, a castle, and a lordship - and not just any lordship, but control of a dynasty at least as old as the Targaryen kingdom itself, with a history of service as one of the foremost families of the Crownlands. Moreover, because Ermesande was a baby at the time of their wedding, Tyrek could have anticipated that (at least once he himself reached his majority) he would be ruling as Lord of Hayford, without needing the input of his toddler wife; compare, for example, Bronn, who upon seizing power at Stokeworth becomes "Lord Stokeworth" (despite his disabled wife Lollys having the blood claim), with the authority to drive out Falyse. In Tywin's mind, I think the Hayford marriage not only preserved Lannister influence in the Crownlands but also did well for his late brother's son.

[goodqueenaly]

I am actually curious about the marriage between Ormund Hightower and Samantha Tarly. Why do you think this match have taken place? Do you think it was strategic?Considering by the timing of the Dance and how heavily divided was the Reach I wonder if Ormund suspected which houses supported Rhaenyra and hoped to secure an alliance of both houses Tarly and Rowan for Aegon's favor.

It is virtually impossible to say what motivated Ormund Hightower to marry Samantha Tarly. While Samantha's paternal and maternal families would both go on to support Rhaenyra and the black faction during the Dance, we as readers get no sense of how obvious their factional loyalty appeared in the years immediately preceding the Dance. The most open favor the Tarlys had shown toward Rhaenyra was an unnamed Tarly son courting the princess prior to her Velaryon marriage - hardly a sufficient explanation when the Lannister twins also vied over Rhaenyra but would go on to back the green faction. So it is an open question as to how much Ormund Hightower understood that her father Donald and her grandfather (in a rather tight timeline)/uncle/cousin Thaddeus Rowan would defy Oldtown and raise their banners for Rhaenyra, much less how much he saw Samantha as a useful pawn or hostage against the loyalty of the Tarlys and Rowans. It is certainly an intriguing possibility that Ormund knew or suspected the Tarlys and/or Rowans might not rally to the green faction and wanted to shore up his borders (and/or prevent the Tarlys allying with the eventually pro-black Mullendores to threaten Oldtown); I wish we could say more on the likelihood.

I do think that there may well have been some geopolitical strategy behind this marriage, even potentially beyond the question of Dance factionalism. As the late great Steven Attewell once explained (in the context of the main novels), the Tarly lands appear to border the lands of Hightower vassals in the western Dornish Marches. Ormund Hightower may have been eyeing Horn Hill (though maybe not from atop the Hightower itself) as a useful neighbor with which to ally and/or from which to gain concessions. With aristocratic Westerosi marriages tending to occur within each pre-Conquest realm rather than across them, Ormund Hightower may have seen the Tarlys as the best choice among his fellow Reach families.

It is also worth pointing out (not mutually exclusive to either of the above) that Ormund Hightower may simply have been a classic Westerosi creep who wanted a specifically young bride as a walking womb (much like Samantha's kinsman Thaddeus Rowan eventually would with Floris Baratheon). Gyldayn notes that "Lord Ormund had only recently taken a second wife when the Dance began, his first having died some years before in childbed" (thanks again, GRRM, for giving us yet another nameless woman dying in childbirth, eyeroll). We don't know when Samantha married Ormund, but given that Samantha was born in 112 or 113 AC and the Dance broke out in 129 AC, Samantha was no more than 16 when she and Ormund wed, and may well have been a few years younger. Ormund was at least 26 when he married Samantha, and may indeed have been even older (if he was of an age with his first cousin Alicent). Ormund Hightower may simply have been interested in Samantha as (gross) a teenage bride to provide him more heirs, despite his having three sons already.

[goodqueenaly]

Hello, and I hope you are well. I was wondering if you had any thoughts about Harras Harlaw using a coat of arms including the Serrett sigil. which of course this is his mother's House, but do you think it would be controversial in the Iron Islands to use a mainland sigil even partially? It seems against the general ethos of the Iron Islands to me, but doesn't seem like it's an obstacle for him. Thank you very much!

I think Harras Harlaw has set himself apart enough from strict Old Way culture beyond just the sigil; in other words, I do not think the sigil is the most shocking (in ironborn eyes) part of Harras’ image, so to speak. After all, what Harras’ sigil represents is, I would argue, even more unorthodox from an ironborn perspective than the sigil itself: the fact that Harras was born of the marriage between a Harlaw son and a daughter of House Serrett, a “green lands” family of the Westerlands. Likewise, and perhaps not unrelatedly, Harras is relatively unique among aristocrats of the Iron Islands in that he is Ser Harras, a distinction so notable that Harras Harlaw is almost always referred to as “the Knight” - the implication being that there are so few knights on the Iron Islands that Harras can be easily personally identified just by calling him a knight. Perhaps most surprisingly of all, Ser Harras seems to take the chivalry of his knighthood somewhat seriously: Hotho reports to Victarion that Harras took Grimston by “plant[ing] his standard beneath the castle and def[ying] the Grimms to face him” - a classic knightly single combat, with Ser Harras even accepting the surrender of two of his opponents (instead of fighting them to the death). So rather than the Knight’s sigil itself raising an eyebrow among the ironborn, I think Harras’ entire character as “the Knight” marks him as unique on the Iron Islands.

[goodqueenaly]

Do you think Rhaenyra named her son Aegon as a way to spite Alicent? Or what other intentions would Daemon and Rhaenyra had in the naming of their children?

Yes - indeed, Gyldayn explicitly suggests as much, at least according to one source:

And thus that dreadful year 120 AC ended as it begun, with a woman laboring in childbirth. Princess Rhaenyra’s pregnancy had a happier outcome than Lady Laena’s had. As the year waned, she brought forth a small but robust son, a pale princeling with dark purple eyes and pale silvery hair. She named him Aegon. Prince Daemon had at last a living son of his own blood ... [sic] and this new prince, unlike his three half-brothers, was plainly a Targaryen [sic]. In King’s Landing, however, Queen Alicent grew most wroth when she learned the babe had been named Aegon, taking that for a slight against her own son Aegon … [sic] which, according to The Testimony of Mushroom, it most certainly was.

I am certainly not aligned with Mushroom in all of his claims, but this particular one seems logical enough To say that the black and green factions had reached a new nadir of antagonism by the end of 120 AC is to state the obvious. This antagonism centered on the future of House Targaryen - and because the personal is political in Westeros' hereditary dynastic monarchies and aristocracies, both the black and the green dynasts acted and used the persons of their respective factions to express the sentiments of each faction. So when Queen Alicent gave birth to a son in 107 AC, Gyldayn reports that the queen "nam[ed] him Aegon, after the Conqueror" - an open declaration that her firstborn son was the heir to the patriarch of the dynasty, and by extension the leadership of the dynasty itself. Likewise, as Rhaenyra gave birth to the sons surnamed "Velaryon" but almost certainly fathered by Ser Harwin, the greens held it as what Gyldayn terms an "article of faith" that "the father of Rhaenyra's sons was not her husband, Laenor Velaryon, but her champion, Harwin Strong". Nor did the green faction restrict this sniping to Alicent's backhanded sympathy to Laenor at the birth of Prince Lucerys: when Aemond mocked the Velaryon boys as "Strongs", Aegon the Elder defended telling Aemond as much because "[e]veryone [sic] knows. Just look at them". The green faction had drawn a distinction through names between itself and the black faction: "Aegon" and the legacy of the Conqueror for the greens, "Strong" and the (in Westerosi view) taint of bastardy for the blacks.

The slights against Rhaenyra and the black faction, of course, would not go unanswered by Rhaenyra herself, and like Alicent, Rhaenyra utilized her son's name to do so. By calling her first son with Daemon "Aegon", Rhaenyra undermined the green faction's attempt to seize Aegon the Conqueror's prestige for the greens alone. Rhaenyra was suggesting not only that her newborn son, as much as Aegon the Elder, had the right to bear the name of that most illustrious of Targaryen ancestors, but also that her faction had as much right to claim inheritance from the Conqueror. Moreover, because the new baby "was plainly a Targaryen", emphasis Gyldayn's own, Rhaenyra's choice of name countered that allegation of bastardy most recently voiced by Aegon the Elder; if Alicent's son would insult the black faction's older princes by teaching his brother to call them "Strongs", he would now be forced to acknowledge that his newborn nephew was not only legitimate, but as much of a Targaryen, with as storied a Targaryen name, as he had.

[goodqueenaly]

I have a question about woman's rights and even the widow's law that I've been trying to wrap my head around and just can't figure out.

Westeros doesn't seem to have a jointure or even dower lands, right? At least I don't think there is any reference. Cersei doesn't get any pension or lands as a widowed. Myranda Royce was married to an elderly lord and returned to her father's home afterwards, and doesn't seem to speak of it. But she does speak of how she would have liked to have had a son by him (and the lord already had sons) so I imagine she would probably get a pension from him (maybe even a country manse) if she had a son? Barbrey Dustin seems to have inherited her husbands lands. Dustin name seemed to have died with her husband, and it is very possible Barbrey's mother was a Dustin by birth. We don't know, of course, but it could be very possible.

But it says the widow's law that: "his heir could and would often expel the newly widowed wife, reducing her to penury; in the case of lords, the heirs might strip away the widow's prerogatives, incomes and servants, reducing her to no more than an impoverished boarder"... do this means there is a dower?

I ask this because of someone like Jocelyn Baratheon. She outlives her husband and by that time her daughter is already married. In George's fashion, she disapears from the narrative, but she is powerful dynastic person, as the widower of the crown prince (and she is supposedly a Joan of Kent).

Would she live out of the kindness of her family? Did she get some money of her own? Lands? Did she remarried in hopes of stability?

Again, Cersei didn't seem to get anything as a dowager queen. But there is dower lands like the widow's law seems to indicate, how aren't she and Margaery fighting over it?

For a long time I just imagined George just made Westeros into the still very famous misconception that women had no rights or have lands they inherited by marriage/parents/etc... But then he made a widow's law that speaks of prerogatives and incomes, and I can't wrapped my head around it.

I wish I had better answers for some of this, but I do get to talk about GRRM's sometimes problematic writing of female characters, so why not! (more under the cut)

Number one - and this is not specifically a female character problem - GRRM tends to avoid even mildly complex property questions in Westeros. No matter their rank, aristocratic families, even the greatest, tend to own a single seat, and it is notable when a House (like the Peakes) claims more than one castle, specifically more than one in the hands of the main ruling branch. (Don't even start with families or individuals holding seats across geopolitical borders.) I cannot entirely blame him in this decision - if you have even a passing familiarity with medieval England you understand how convoluted and arcane, especially to modern eyes, property law of that place and time can seem - but the consequence is that property disputes never get more complicated than, say, Tytos Blackwood surrendering some villages and mills to the newly pro-Lannister Brackens in ADWD. There are no manors or castles or lands for widows and ruling lords to haggle over because, at least as a matter of property law and inheritance, these holdings do not exist, certainly not in the author’s interest. Likewise, given the rather vague state of Westerosi jurisprudence, and the apparent lack of lawyers and law courts (other than my speculation on law-specialist maesters, which would not be quite the same thing anyway), we will likely never see the sort of legal property disputes that occurred IRL. 

Number two - and this is a specifically female character problem - GRRM has paid very little attention, certainly beyond the surface level, to the question of dowries. Indeed, GRRM does not even seem to know, and/or care, that there can be (albeit not always) a distinction between “dowry” and “dower”, much less that “dower” can (though again, not always) mean that provision given to a wife for her widowhood. GRRM almost always uses “dower” as simply a synonym for “dowry”, to mean what a bride’s family will give to the prospective husband and his family ahead of or at the time of the marriage being brokered. (I suppose you could argue that when Jaime remembers Cersei telling him that Tywin “had gone so far as to invite Lord Hoster to the city to discuss dower” when negotiation the Lysa marriage, Tywin and Hoster were preparing to discuss Lysa’s widow portion. However, even if that were the case, we certainly never hear about these discussions again.) Moreover, very few dowries we learn about in ASOIAF carry any sort of details, and certainly not including anything we might recognize as jointure. So “dowry” and “dower” for GRRM are not terms associated with widowhood and the rights/incomes of widows, but instead descriptors of prenuptial marriage arrangements.

Number three, I think GRRM only focuses on the above two topics when he has a plot point or story to tell with them. I understand that GRRM is an author primarily writing novels (and novellas) set in this universe; while TWOIAF and F&B exist, I would not call these GRRM’s first area of focus. I can acknowledge that while I, and probably at least some readers, would find discussions of jointure and widows’ property rights fascinating, I also understand that GRRM has a story, or stories, he wants to tell. So instead of, say, having Cersei and Margery squabble over royal manors, both are vying over being young King Tommen’s primary influence. Likewise, Myranda Royce, while still a very interesting character, is presented as less interested in enjoying whatever lands and/or manors might have come to her through her late husband and more keen on holding court for her father until and unless she marries again. Barbrey’s status as the Lady - or, as she wryly answers Theon, “widow of Barrowton”, emphasis Barbrey’s own - seems to be less the product of clear politico-dynastic calculus and more an expression of GRRM’s love for a smart, sassy, confident older widow character (especially in a portion of the story with fewer female characters overall). 

None of the above is an excuse, to be very clear.  I still find it utterly baffling and frustrating, for example, that Jocelyn Baratheon ceases to be a character (even more than the thinly detailed figure she was prior to Aemon’s death) after her husband’s assassination. F&B instead treats Jocelyn Baratheon as a walking womb, whose only importance in the narrative was to be born as Queen Alyssa died and then to give birth to Aemon’s daughter in turn, and she completely disappears almost as soon as Aemon dies. Too, the debate between Cersei and her father (and then Uncle Kevan) in her widowhood is not which (again, nonexistent) royal manor(s) Cersei would inherit but which prospective groom (like Oberyn Martell) would be her next husband and whether she would return to Casterly Rock. Indeed, even Rohanne Webber in "The Sworn Sword" focuses entirely on her position as Lady of Coldmoat in her own right, with no mention of any inheritance from her prior husbands - understandable in the context of a short(er) story about a plucky ruling lady in a patriarchal society, but frustrating in the context of this legal question. In other words, simply because we have not seen GRRM address these issues does not mean he could not have chosen, or could not choose in the future, to do so; every story he tells, or does not, is his choice to tell, or not. 

Now, you are correct to point out the general weirdness, in terms of narrative purpose as well as in-world application, of the Widow’s Law. I myself still do not have a clear idea as to why GRRM included the Widow’s Law in F&B, and given that we have not received any published material from the author since F&B, the importance or narrative use of the Widow’s Law remains an open question. The best answer I have come up with is that the Widow’s Law is GRRM’s version of the Salic law, specifically (it me) as depicted in The Accursed Kings - in other words, less a piece of property legislation than a flimsy (by authorial design) basis for politico-dynastic maneuvering. While it is certainly possibly future stories will use the Widow’s Law as a way to discuss jointure and widowhood incomes, I more anticipate that the Widow’s Law is going to come into play when, say, the various Stark descendants of “The She-Wolves of Winterfell” (or whatever its final title ends up being) start bickering over inheritance rights, or the Freys dynastically implode in the near future.

I wish we would see more about jointure and widow portions in the future. I kind of doubt we will. I'd love to be proven wrong!