Many thanks. Good to put that into perspective.
Looks likeVanity Fair have a similar takeon Martin’s motives in releasing that particular chapter at this particular time.
Brynden Rivers (Bloodraven) came to the Wall at the same time as Maester Aemmon and subsequently rose to Lord Commander, so it’s ludicrous to suggest he’s been root food for 1000 years. And I feel cheated not seeing tree roots growing through his eye socket.
Regarding the line of succession - how could Lyanna’s son inherit the throne ahead of Viserys if he hadn’t yet been born when Rhaegar died? Wouldn’t Viserys have become the rightful king immediately upon Rhaegar’s death? And if Viserys were king, the title of rightful heir would then pass on from him (probably going back to Rhaegar’s son anyway, Viserys having no offspring).
Even if it was known that Lyanna carried Rhaegar’s legitimate child, (1) they had no way of knowing if it was a boy or girl, and (2) even if they knew it to be a boy, I’m not sure you can become a king while still in the womb.
Perhaps (and I’m making this up) with the knowledge that Lyanna might be carrying Rhaegar’s heir, Viserys would have become a provisional or custodial ruler until the child was born. If the child is male, he becomes king (with Viserys perhaps as Regent). If the child turns out to be a girl, Viserys becomes King in his own right.
Of course, since the Targs ended up being overthrown anyway, and Viserys is dead, it’s academic.
Interesting question. Rhaegar actually died before Aerys though, so Rhaegar was never king. When Aerys died, the next in line for the throne would have been baby Aegon, but of course he didn’t live much longer. After Aegon, Viserys would be the heir.
I’m not sure what happens when a presumably legitimate Jon is born after Viserys is already king. Where would he then rank in the succession? After Viserys’s children?
Does it matter if Viserys is never proclaimed king? I can imagine if Jon is born while the question of the throne is still in doubt, (which he was, actually, from a Targaryen loyalist perspective) that could make a difference.
Upon the deaths of everyone ahead of him in the succession, Viserys would become the heir presumptive. Per the link, the heir presumptive is the person entitled to inherit a throne, but whose position can be displaced by the birth of an heir apparent, male or female, or of a new heir presumptive with a better claim to the throne.
An heir apparent is a person, of either sex, who is first in line of succession and cannot be displaced from inheriting by the birth of another person.
Historically, upon the death of a monarch in which there was an heir presumptive (but no heir apparent), they would wait some period of time before crowning the heir presumptive to ensure the queen was not pregnant with an heir apparent with a better claim to the throne.
An example of an heiress presumptive who acceded to the throne was Elizabeth II. Elizabeth II was never the heir apparent to the throne, because the the birth of any male child to her mother would have displaced her from the succession. On the other hand, Charles is the current heir apparent to the throne, because he cannot be displaced from the succession.
Finally, note that under the system of male-preference primogeniture, Lyanna’s child would inherit ahead of Viserys regardless of whether or not the child was male or female (because the child would be the eldest surviving descendant of the eldest son of the king).
The exact detail of who was a Blackfyre during the rebellion was unclear to me. It was about stronger claims to the throne via the female lineage, wasn’t it.
Bloodraven was a legitimised bastard of Aegon IV, called a Rivers. Also there was Daemon Blackfyre, also a bastardised son of the Aegon IV, (waters vs rivers, clear, eh?), who was called a Blackfyre. Bloodraven was called a kinslayer when he killed Daemon…
This is getting far too unclear to me, anyway… No matter. Wiki on asoiaf.westeros.org says that Max Von Sydow in the series is playing him, so Bloodraven = 3 eyed crow/raven on there, and I’ll take 1000 years as a bit of a boo boo which might get edited out of the dvd release (like the car driving through the lanes in the Fellowship of the Rings).
Sorta, Daemon Blackfyre eventually decided to make a claim for the throne after being convinced that King Daeron was not his father’s son, but rather the son of Aemon the Dragonknight. Daemon was a bastard son of Aegon the unworthy and Daena Targaryen, legitimized on Aegon’s deathbed, so he felt he had the better claim.
The Blackfyres was the house of Daemon Blackfyre, his last named based on the (supposedly lost) Targaryen Valerian steel blade named Blackfyre that was passed down from king to king… well, until Aegon (IV) the Unready gave it to his bastard Daemon instead of his trueborn son, Daeron. While Aegon did legitimize all his bastards on his deathbed, Daeron was still born first. Of course, the followers of Daemon claimed that by bestowing Blackfyre on Daemon, Aegon made his choice clear as to who he wanted as his heir.
While Daeron was the bastard son of Aegon IV and Aegon’s first cousin, Daena, who was the daughter of Aegon III, there wasn’t particularly any argument over who had the better claim to the throne, AFAIK. Aegon IV was a perfectly legitimate ruler.
Though this background seems to be stuff they probably won’t get into.
I doubt they bother to edit it unless the show ever makes any effort to really talk about who Bloodraven is and where he came from, the Blackfyre rebellion, etc. I don’t think any of that has been mentioned on the show, has it? And, in the context of the relatively limited “historical” detail the show provides in general, for show watchers, does it make any difference if he’s been there 100 years or 1000?
Now, if for some reason they decide to bring that stuff up in the show, perhaps because there’s not enough to keep track of already, and say Bran goes back and sees the younger Bloodraven being sent to the Wall with the young Maester Aemon because for some reason that ends up being important…then yeah maybe it’s worth fixing because show-watchers know Aemon wasn’t 1000 years old. But I suspect they’ll pretty much leave his backstory out of it, so in the show continuity it just doesn’t really matter.
DaeMon was the bastard. DaeRon was the king.
And there was no question of Aegon IV’s legitimacy as ruler, but there were questions if DaeRon was actually his son. That was just one of the many reasons DaeMon rebelled.
True, but don’t the Targaryens practice something more akin to semi-Salic law (females can only inherit in the complete absence of male heirs, not just brothers)?
What characters would you like to see meet?
One I would like to see is Brienne with Melisandre or Davos. A conversation where one of them talks about Stannis or Renly.
Brienne and Davos are two of the most honorable characters in the entire saga, and yet they served different lieges. A chat about their respective failed kings and the shadow baby could be quite… interesting.
That could go… very badly. Davos was fiercely loyal to Stannis. He probably believed in Stannis more than Stannis believed in Stannis. Brienne talking about how she killed Stannis would likely be met with violence.
Brienne - “How did you serve your liege?”
Davos - “I served his command, but told him privately when I felt he was making a poor decision. How did you serve Lady Stark?”
“I dressed super-masculine, then approached her daughters when they were scared and fleeing danger, and demanded that they come with strange person or else, being more unsettling than a burned killer and a rapist-goateed schemer.”
“Umm…”
Interesting. GRRM has said that Dany isn’t fireproof, guess D&D are disregarding that. If they didn’t and she tried that, hell of a way for a storyline to end.
Martin was wrong, He’s wrote Dany as fire proof several times. Most recently she was completely engulfed in fire when she rode away on Drogon in the books.
She got her hair burned, that’s it. The only other time she was on fire was Drogo’s pyre which was explicitly magical.
She got her hair burned because that’s the only part of her that burns. You don’t walk away from dragon fire with burnt hair.