Hi! i dont know if you have already answered this, atleast i couldn't find it so i wanted to ask u in hotd wasn't vaemonds petition protected by guestright and wasnt vaemond a kin to rhaenyra and even daemon in a way with rhaenys etc (and as the velaryons and targaryens are constantly intermarrying) ...and aren't kinslaying and breaking guest rights super bad in westeros? I thought especially with how misogynistic westeros is won't at least some of the nobles want viserys to remove rhaenyra as heir. I just find hotd full of plot holes and wanted to know if you have a different more feasible possibility for this to happen 🙂. Also how come baela and rhaena not have any problems at dinner, for all his faults wasn't vaemond their uncle? I felt rhaenys kinda felt bad so why don't they show baela / rhaena similarly?
Green greetings! Interesting question about guest right. I suppose so, yes, Vaemond came to the Red Keep in an official capacity, within the bureaucratic framework of a petition. He was basically suing Rhaenyra and turned to the Crown to settle this dispute over patrimony. The Crown was supposed to act like a mediator/judge, allow the claimants to present their case and decide accordingly. Vaemond wasn't breaking any laws by doing so, he was explicitly trying to settle this case legally. This is in reference of Vaemond being considered an usurper by team black. How is he an usurper if he didn't enforce ownership over Driftmark while his brother was dying? Instead, he looked to first obtain the official approval from the highest court of law in the land - the very institution of the sovereign.
It's not Vaemond's problem that Viserys was rotting away in his bedroom. Monarchy is an institution, if the King is unable to carry out his duties, these duties will be taken over and performed by somebody else. Governance of the Realm cannot just stop because Viserys is too inconvenienced to do his job. The problem was that Viserys hauled his arse in the throne room and starting abusing his powers as sovereign. This scene is very emotional and framed very heroically - it is pretty effective at pulling at your heartstrings and a lot of people can empathize with the notion of a dying man using his very last strengths to help his daughter. But, make no mistake, what Viserys is doing is theft. He is taking away House Velaryon's lands and titles and allowing them to be transferred to a person with zero legal claim over them. I've said it before and I'll say it again: if Corlys/Laenor agree to this, they are complicit in this abuse as well. They are failing in their duties towards their House and their relatives.
Now, I will argue that guestright doesn't grant you immunity from treason or from other crimes. It just means you shouldn't be attacked when you're in the vulnerable position of being inside someone else's home. However, the King has the power to enact punishments in accordance to your crimes, so I don't think you can invoke guestright in the context of a trial, else the judicial power of the sovereign would be unenforceable. Viserys had the power to bestow punishment on Vaemond invoking lèse-majesté* but that had to be framed as an official sentence, with a clear crime being singled out and a clear punishment associated with it. Furthermore, Viserys merely stated his favourite type of sanction - cutting off Vaemond's tongue, not killing him - which, while still abusive, it's at least not full out death. Daemon is the one who acts unilaterally and illegally here, since he wasn't designated in any way to be the executioner. In addition, he takes the punishment to the extreme: he outright kills Vaemond, instead of respecting the King's instruction of just maiming him.
*Obviously, Vaemond being punished for telling the truth is an abuse of power. The truth here is that Rhaenyra's children are bastards; the whore accusation can be framed as lèse-majesté, though, since it is an insult, whereas bastardy is a statement of fact. They chose to add this in the show to make people sympathize with Rhaenyra and frame her as a victim of patriarchy - the poor woman being punished for her sexuality. Needless to say, this doesn't happen in the text and this act is presented much more villainously.
I think Daemon/Viserys and Corlys/Vaemond are second cousins once removed in the show. In the books, Vaemond is Corlys' nephew, so that would make them third cousins. I'm not sure if the kinslaying accusations still apply, though the Karstarks were much more distantly related to the Starks and they still invoked this is the main series. Kinslaying cannot be applied in official execution situations, though. If some family member commits a crime for which the punishment incurred is death, you'd be legally in the right to carry out that execution, should you occupy an appropriate social station that allows you this much judicial power, of course. Viserys/Vaemond would have been similar to the Robb/Rickard Karstark situation from that POV (obviously, what Viserys would have been doing is a gross abuse of justice, whereas Rickard's crime was plain for all to see). Since what Daemon did was carry out an extrajudicial execution, though, I suppose you could apply the kinslaying accusations, as well.
I thought especially with how misogynistic westeros is won't at least some of the nobles want viserys to remove rhaenyra as heir. I just find hotd full of plot holes and wanted to know if you have a different more feasible possibility for this to happen 🙂.
You might want to check out some of my tags: succession for the iron throne, the anarchy tm, division of houses during the dance of the dragons, bastardposting.
In short, a brother-sister civil war is a logical fallacy when it comes to an Anarchy-inspired plotline, bastards inheriting are a big deal in Westeros and Rhaenyra's allies don't make sense. :)
Also how come baela and rhaena not have any problems at dinner, for all his faults wasn't vaemond their uncle? I felt rhaenys kinda felt bad so why don't they show baela / rhaena similarly?
Yes, Vaemond is their uncle and they should absolutely feel some kind of way about this, especially Baela, who's been living on Driftmark the past few years. This is one of the reasons why I don't like Baela and Rhaena as characters; in the text at least it can be said that they get personalities of their own, but their their indifference towards their mother's house being repeatedly disrespected, their nonchalant behaviour towards being usurped (by both Rhaenyra and Corlys later on) is just not vibing with me. The narrative keeps them sheltered from the Dance as much as possible; they seem to exist as characters on the page simply to prop up Daemon and Rhaenyra and, to each their own, but I can't be bothered with that.
