Nitpick: that’s “Jaime.”
In his wonderful Arthurian retelling Arthur Rex, Thomas Berger has the Lady of the Lake say to Sir Gawaine something to the effect of, “Better to break an oath than, in keeping it, to become a monster.”
Wow, it took 13 pages before Godwin’s Law was invoked! Godwin's law - Wikipedia
Hodor definitely is older than I envisioned.
I’m not sure why you seem to believe that the only right thing for Dany to do is to bounce around the Free Cities, dodging assassins.
What assassins? Robert’s dead.
I’m not sure why you seem to think that an assassination attempt by a dead man means that killings tens of thousands of people to stroke your ego is justified.
Freeing the slaves of Astapor was ego-stroking?
And it hardly bears mentioning, but the Westeros that Dany is planning to invade is already at war. It’s not like she’ll be introducing that much new bloodshed.
I don’t know why Dany would think she was free from assassination attempts; all she knows is that attempts have been made, and that the kingdoms are all at war; is there any reason to think everyone else wouldn’t try to kill her? She doesn’t have many options, but going offensive seems the only logical route. Also, the freeing of the slaves is cool and all, but they serve her purpose as well, as an addition to her army or followers or whatever; she needs backup, and she’s taking advantage of whatever opportunities come her way to get some. I think that’s smart; I have no idea if it’s good or evil or whatever. I still throw her onto the ‘good’ side of things, on the grounds that we haven’t seen her turn away from the opportunity to do good yet.
If you think someone is a kidnapper and a rapist, you’re supposed to try to bring him to justice, not start a war over it. Robert plunged the entire kingdom into war over Lyanna. (Granted, he had no choice if he was seeking justice; Aerys would never have allowed anyone to harm his son.) It was a personal vendetta that he thought was justified, which seems to me no different from what Dany is doing.
Bear in mind that the entire feudal system is based on mutual respect between vassal and liege (at least as far as nobles are concerned). Once Rhaegar ran off with Lyanna, Robert and Ned pretty much *had *to rebel; it was either that or accept that the Targaryans were absolute monarchs.
If Aerys hadn’t been an insane asshole, the whole thing could have ended with some sort of a Westeros Magna Carta. But that was not meant to be.
Well, if Aerys had agreed to punish Rhaegar (or at least help get Lyanna back) the war probably wouldn’t have happened. I think it was Lyanna’s kidnapping + the execution of Lord Stark and Brandon Stark that provoked Winterfell to raise its banners.
Upon reflection, Danaerys reasons for her planned attack on Westeros have always bothered me a bit. Dany’s planned attack on Westeros is only justified because the realm is currently in chaos. If Robert had been a good king, Dany would still have mounted her attack simply because she believes that the throne is hers by bloodright. She doesn’t believe Robert’s rebellion was justified. If someone had convinced her that her father was a batshit insane king that needed to be put down, would she still have continued her march on Westeros?
Putting it in modern terms:
The rebellion started, in effect, as a constitutional crisis - Aerys claimed the right to summarly execute one of the highest-ranked lords of the realm, while Ned, Robert and Jon Arryn challenged that right. Only later did it evolve into a full-on attempt at regime change.
Ah, a point I’d love to know more about.
For thousands of years around the globe most monarchies were very aware that their power had to rely at least as much on social acceptance and loyalty than on force. Force is a dubious reason to rule: it invites everyone to ask the question why it shouldn’t be them at the top and gives the people little reason for submission beyond fear and convenience – that’s hardly a stable foundation for dominance within a realm and unity against rivals.
The answer in our world was simple: use religion. Whether the monarch called himself Pharao, Tenno, Imperator or Kaiser, the legitimization of his authority was divine.
This worked the better, the more one religion was predominant and the more religious and secular power was concentrated on one person.
IIRC, the “Seven”(?) are the most widespread religion in Westeros but not in the north (I’m dubious about the south – what do the Dornish believe in?) and the Targaryen had a different belief system when they conquered the continent (correct?) but accepted or at least tolerated the Seven, though I had the impression that they didn’t care about them and didn’t rely on the dominant religion to justify their authority (which would have been difficult to do for a foreign, almost alien invader anyway, though .. it happened).
Frankly, I’m not sure how the Targaryen legitimized their rule: Had they any reason to think about themselves as the “rightful” ruler beyond hubris? And had the indigenous/domestic lords and people any reason to think about them as “rightful” within their traditions?
I thought the problem was the manner of execution. Lord Stark demanded trial by combat, which Aerys agreed to, but then acted in a dishonorable fashion by stringing Stark up to be cooked to death. If Aerys had actually allowed Stark to participate in a proper trial by combat, maybe the outcome of events would have been different, even if Stark had been killed. Most likely Robert would have rebelled regardless, but Winterfell might have accepted the execution as fair, depending.
On the other hand, dissension against the king had been simmering for a while. But again, Aerys still had a lot of support even after Riverrun, Storm’s End, Dragonstone, Winterfell, and the Vale all raised their banners. For the most part the nobles seemed content to suffer through the Mad King’s reign, until Robert’s rebellion looked like it had a chance in hell of succeeding.
First of all, what both lords and smallfolk want most of all is stability. A key element of political stability is a clearly defined line of succession, and if that means that a group of people are arbitralily appointed royalty, then so be it. Religion doesn’t have to have anything to do with it. In the case of the Seven Kingdoms, it even makes sense that the kings unifying them would be Valyrian outsiders, rather than one of the great houses; it makes them “neutral”, supposedly.
That said, the Targaryen took their right to rule from the fact that they were the only ones capable of riding dragons, and even after the dragons were gone, they were still considered by many to be somewhat superhuman, a natural “master race”.
That’s what I meant by “respect”; Aerys was not an absolute monarch, at least not by law, and by treating the Starks as if he were, he forced their hand.
World’s history begs to differ. Your statement is far more true for the people but even they showed time and again a tendency to withdraw their loyalty and sometimes even rebel when the stability choked them to death or when the authority wasn’t accepted as authority any longer. The result is a metastable reign, ready to be challenged.
And lords have always wanted a lot of things, stability surely was on their agenda more often than not - as soon as they had what they wanted. We have seen some cultures in our history that favour stability so much that is it a value in itself, the imperial China, for example, Europe, however, has always been too multi-factious to be very good at it (the present day stability in its western part is almost miraculous in its duration).
I take it, you’re not a historian. 
No, seriously, any author can make such a concept the basis of his political system. If Martin did so, I am perfectly alright with it. I just don’t know.
Interesting. I think I even remember something like that being said by Dany or her brother (though I might be mistaken). But can you point me to a passage in the books where “the many” declare the Targaryen a master race that is therefore legitimized to rule?
The Targaryens are of the blood of old Valyria, where magic and dragons come from. It’s implied throughout the book that they were seen as above the laws of common men. It’s hard to argue with a bunch of people controlling dragons.
Robert didn’t start the rebellion, Jon Arryn did.
You’re right, my bad. Aerys demanded Robert and Ned’s heads, and Arryn rebelled rather than comply.
Those passive constructions make it always so hard to determine who those people are who see them above the laws of common men? The Targaryen themselves? Yeah, I think, it will be an easy task to find plenty of passages that support this self-concept. But who else?
The Starks, for example, have a colossal prove of magic not related to the Targaryens at their doorsteps and their myths and fables are filled with wondrous events that are not exactly an account of natural history.
And the descendants of the first men seem to know tales of or even still have their own kind of magic. And the abilities of the faceless men don’t strike me as 100% normal. And what about shadow babies?
Magic seemed and still seems to exist at many places, in some form at least, so that magic in itself doesn’t constitute exclusiveness.
Dragons, of course, seem to be an exclusively Valyrian thing*; and I agree that they were the key for the conquest of Westeros.
But a) it still had to be conquered, so obviously the natives didn’t think:”Oh, Targaryens + dragons => rightful rulers over us, lets bow our knees" and b) this, once again, boils down to might is right. Which also means that the right is gone with the might. Then it’s only a matter of time before someone with might rightfully challenges the not so mighty.
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I’m not sure what your point is. I wouldn’t disagree that most of the Targaryen’s legitimacy stemmed from the fact that they were stronger than everyone else. I’m sure it helped that they claimed blood from old Valyria.