Since Rhaegar never became king, Then Viserys succeeds to the throne before any offspring of rhaegar’s.
Bigamy wouldn’t even be required for Jon to be legit. Rhaegar could have had a septon anull his marriage to Elia when he married Lyanna. Anything goes if you’re a Targaryen.
I agree with Sterling Archer that the Rickon “gift” is likely a ruse. Notice he took great care not to kiss the ring or bend the knee to Ramsey. I’d bet that’s another dire wolf’s head, similar to the fake Stark children that they burned.
As I indicated in the other non-book thread, the Iron Throne appears to be following male-preference primogeniture to determine the succession. Until recently, this is the same system as was used for the British throne. (The recent change was to remove the “male-preference” part of it.)
Anyway, under the system of male-preference primogeniture, the succession goes through the entire first-born male line until there are no more descendants. There is no requirement for all of these descendants to actually succeed to the throne if they should predecease the monarch.
In this specific case being discussed, the son of a deceased elder brother inherits before a living younger brother by right of substitution for the deceased heir. So assuming the child is legitimate, Lyanna’s child (Rhaegar’s oldest surviving child) would succeed to the throne ahead of Viserys (younger brother to Rhaegar).
There are many, many examples of grandchildren succeeding to the British/English throne ahead of surviving uncles, including Richard II succeeding Edward III (his grandfather), even though his father (the Black Prince) was never king.
Another example is George III, who succeeded his grandfather (George II) even though his father (Prince Frederick) was never king. He succeeded ahead of his uncle (Prince William).
Another example is Queen Victoria, who descended from George III’s fourth son. She inherited ahead of several surviving uncles, who were younger sons than her father.
Finally, note that in the current British royal family, William will still be next in line for the throne even if his grandmother outlives his father, and his father never becomes king. There is no circumstance in which William’s uncles (Andrew and Edward) would jump ahead of him in the succession, even if Charles never becomes king.
You are right, I was mistaken. I was just reading about how the crown passed down to prince Maekar after all his older brothers and their children had died. So Aegon the Unlikely was even more unlikely than I realized since Baelor’s and Rhaegel’s sons came before Maekar in the line of succession.
Unless one of them gets his hands really bloody.
Well, in that case, they wouldn’t exactly be jumping ahead of William in the succession; instead, they’d simply be eliminating those ahead in the succession.
That said, there actually is at least one circumstance in which someone would drop out of the succession, and that is if they either convert to Catholicism or marry a Catholic.
How long had it been in the books, anyway? More than a year?
A Kingsguard knight is going to follow orders and protect who he’s been told to protect by the crown prince unless or until relieved by someone with the authority to do so (the king himself, the crown prince or, I suppose, the lord commander of the Kingsguard).
As did I. Was it afterwards in the books, too?
Ned is neither omnipotent nor omnipresent. He could not with absolute certainty guarantee the child’s safety forever against a determined and dynastically-paranoid king.
That’s what I was thinking, too. Red tape has a way of getting speedily cut when you’re royalty in a hurry.
Woohoo, thanks for that. Good to see Dorne’s still interesting in the books at least.
Also a nice reminder (I wonder if it was intentional) of one of the best characters in the series who also happens to be a character the show decided not to cast.
I seem to remember from the book that not only that Targs in the past have slept with their direct relatives, but they’ve also married multiple people…
BTW, was I the only one to go:
“Hang on, the three eye crow just said he was 1000 years old. Thus the virtually accepted idea of him being Bloodraven, a Sorcerous Blackfyre called Brynden Rivers, Hand of the King, Lord commander of the nightwatch, is pretty much a no there. Given the timescales would be about 100 years max… Hmmmn…”?
Brandon and Rickard died in 282. Lyanna died in 283. It’s at least 9 months, but less than 2 years. I think Robb was very young when Ned gets back from the war so probably closer to a year.
The Tower of Joy is one of the last acts in the War of the Usurper. Robert Kills Rhaegar at the Trident. Then Ned heads to King’s Landing as Tywin sacks the city. Then Ned heads to Storm’s end to life the seige against Stannis. Then he heads to the ToJ.
~125 years, according to the Wiki. But as he has never been mentioned in the show, no reason why they can’t scale it up, or leave his origins ambiguous. Either that or he’s trying to hard to impress a teenage boy who he invited into his cave to take drugs and trip balls.
It’s Bloodraven. He was either exaggerating or it’s a continuing error, but that’s absolutely Bloodraven. It’d be beyond ridiculous if there was another former Night’s Watchman with the same birthmark, one eye, albinism, and uses the same catchphrase.
Aegon the Conqueror married both his sisters.
I’m positive it was a continuity error at best. At worst it’s They Just Didn’t Care. Regardless of which it is, unless it was a poetic metaphor or a hint of some dark Randall Flagg-esque aspect to the story we haven’t seen yet, it’s a good example of why we can’t depend on the show to give us much insight into the as-yet unpublished and unwritten books.
Perhaps Bloodraven has been time traveling for 1000 years. His visions may only last a few seconds of real time. Kinda like Narnia 
Yeah, but the show Three Eyed Raven (interesting it’s “three eyed raven” rather than “three eyed crow” as it was in the books) doesn’t have the birthmark or one eye, unless I’ve missed something.
In addition, it appears the show is completely uninterested in the Blackfyre Rebellion. So no need for Lord Bloodraven - oh, who btw, was NOT a Blackfyre. He was a loyalist. It would require too much backstory that the show doesn’t seem interested in getting involved in.
The other option is that it is Bloodraven and they won’t make a huge deal of his history, just that he was famous, but the 1000 year mark will be something like the history of all the greenseers, 1000 years of greenseers, with Bloodraven being there for the last 125 years of it.
He doesn’t have the birthmark, but he did say he has a thousand eyes and one.