@daenystheedreamer replied to the post “allyriadayne: will someone explain to me what the deal is with asoiaf lore?”:
#ok the bellegere thing has got to be grrm being horny right. he wants a princess from the summer islands right.
(This is in regards to how TWOIAF in 2014 stated that Bellegere Otherys (Aegon IV's mistress) was the child of a Braavosi merchant's daughter and a male envoy from the Summer Isles, which was based on GRRM's notes that he'd given to E&L, but that same year when GRRM released Arya's "Mercy" TWOW preview chapter, he'd changed his mind and Bellegere was now the daughter of a Sealord's son and a Summer Isles princess; and because the books are "more canon" than TWOIAF, later editions were changed to fit:)
Anyway, I'm not sure it's just GRRM being horny that's the reason lol. There's probably a few reasons:
Bellegere has a Braavosi surname rather than a Summer Isles one, and Braavos isn't so feminist-forward that a child would have the mother's surname; and having her father's name further implies that Bellegere was not a bastard herself
There's certain racist connotations re a black man seducing an innocent backwater girl, even if he is a diplomat (or especially if?), which GRRM probably had second thoughts about
If Bellegere's Summer Islander parent educated her in the ways of their sexually free culture and religion, again the connotations are much more creepy if it's her father doing so rather than her mother (see also how the Black Pearl courtesan lineage is passed from mother to daughter)
So yeah, it's a bit hinky, but it's avoiding far greater hinkiness. When it's GRRM trying to balance problematic material (see also him thinking he should've made the Targaryens black and then going: "wait, black invading conquerers who do incest and have a streak of madness is also maybe not so good"), we've got to give him a little bit of credit, at least.