Your gateway to endless inspiration
“I know I just slept with Brienne who I have a deep attachment to, and I’m about six seasons deep into a redemption arch but Ima peace out and get crushed by rocks with my sister wife”
“I wonder what brienne is doing right now”
Please remember this is all based on the books alone, and there also might be SPOILERS for Fire and Blood and the Game of Thrones book series.
ALSO I might open the requests for Game of Thrones fics and headcanons, and maybe for Baldur's Gate as well once I get back into it.
Okayyy so here we gooo.
1. Maegor's story doesn't add up
Don't get me wrong, he must've obviously been a horrible king and a shitty husband, but reading the chapters that talk about him in Blood and Fire, it all just felt like a list of rumours and versions of all nefarious crimes he would've committed. There are about five versions of whatever he did with each wife of his, each of them more depraved than the one before.
Again, I don't think he was an angel or anything, but my theory is that his history was written by biased sources. His reign was made illicit by Jaehaerys, so it would've been in his best interest to have him remembered as nothing more than a viscious monster.
It's a form of "damnatio memoriae" that we've already seen, in a way, with Mushroom and the Dance of Dragons. When in a conflict, and especially after a victory, each side wants to depict the side they beat as badly as possible Caesar did a similar thing in "De Bello Gallico", the book about his conquest of the modern French and Swiss territories. In this book he excuses his conquest with the supposed preparations for an attack by the Helvetians, a fact that was proven to be misinterpreted as it was a mere pacific migration. And again, he did the same thing when he accused them of cannibalising each other while being under siege, another untrue fact made up to just make them seem worse.
So in a way, Maegor's reputation could've been made worse by following historians to legitimate Jaehaerys' reign over Aerea's claim.
2. Incest has no effects on Valyrians
Okay, this is a bit weirder. My theory is that Valyrians practised incest because it had no effect on their offspring.
Looking at the Targaryen family tree, I noticed that the cases of madness increase the more Targaryens marry with other houses. Baelor the Blessed was the first mad Targaryen, and he had a grandmother of house Harte and a great grandmother who was half Arryn.
Before Baelor, Helaena is questionably considered mad as well, which would prove my theory furthermore had it not been for the amount of trauma she endured in her life so I'm honestly not gonna count her as "mad". Rhaegel Rargaryen was the second confirmed mad Targaryen, with a Martell mother; his daughter Aelora is questionably considered mad too, and her mother is an Arryn.
Aerion Brightflame was another mad Targaryen, with a half Martell father and a Dayne mother. The last two mad Targaryens were Aerys II and Viserys III, but at this point, the bloodline was mixed with others enough to make the Targaryen madness an unpredictable factor.
3. There is no good or bad in the Dance of Dragons
So I think we could theorise that Valyrians can perform incest so long as it remains within pure Valyrian blood.
Edit: some of you have pointed out how there were other signs of incest complications in the Targaryen family such as malformities and stillborn babies. I really am no biologist and I don't want to dwell into that "Valyrian race supremacy" craziness, but those cases are once again always correlated to marriages between Targaryens and other houses, for example all of Maegor's stillborn and unborn children (as 5 out of his 6 wives were not Targaryens/Valyrians) or the following cases.
Rhaenyra had a claim on the throne because of Viserys' will, but Aegon had a claim on the throne because of the laws of Westeros themselves. You can argue that Alicent wasn't the nicest stepmother, yet you can't look me in the face and tell me a woman in the middle ages married to a KING to whom she had given THREE SONS wouldn't complain when the king dismisses all of them and their claims in favor of his firstborn daughter.
Otto may have manipulated Alicent, but that was just how a Lord was supposed to act in that situation: have her marry the best candidate (the king), have her birth at least a son (she did) and make sure those children are first in line for the throne (as it should be, by the laws).
Viserys shouldn't have remarried if he already had his heir, period.
At the same time, Rhaenyra had every reason to fight for her claim and try and go against the actual laws of Westeros, but it was inevitable that many would've seen badly her attempt at claiming what was Aegon's birthright.
Lucerys was an asshole for mutilating Aemond and never showed remorse, quite the opposite. Aemond was an asshole who shouldn't have had all the power he had, plus I hardly believe his and Alys relationship was really consensual so there's that..
In the end, they all had their rights and wrongs, but that doesn't matter at all. The only point about the Dance is the fact that a pointless conflict led to the downfall of one of the strongest families in Westeros history.
4. Rhaegar didn't love Lyanna
I hate the series for making them marry. Like, seriously, have D&D ever read the books? Have they not read what happened between Maegor and the Faith when he took another wife??
Never, not even in the most twisted of universes, would the faith let Rhaegar kidnap and marry a Stark girl while he was still married to Elia. That just wouldn't be plausible.
And I also don't think he'd just fall in love at first sight with a random girl at a tournament. She was a beautiful soul and had many qualities, but she had nothing that could truly make a man throw away his whole life to pursue her.
He needed another child. The dragon has three heads. He had Rhaenys and Aegon, but Visenya was missing (I just made up the name for the third possible child considering he was naming them after the three conquerors lmao). He needed Lyanna to have that third child, and he knew how to get her to get what he wanted.
Perhaps we'll find out this isn't true. Perhaps Rhaegar really was head over heels for Lyanna, but I honestly really really doubt it.
5. There is no certainty on who the Prince that was Promised is
No matter what the show wants us to see, we still don't know who it is. It could be Daenerys, it could be Jon, it could even be Stannis and we're not gonna know it until Martin reveals it.
I honestly think Daenerys is Azor Ahai, but I'm still curious to see why we would need to revive Jon then. And considering Stannis' sword possibly being Azor Ahai's sword, is it a fake one made by Melisandre to get what she wanted from him, or does he actually possess the original sword?
Well, these are the first theories and opinions I could think of right now, I might post more in the future. Again, please don't slander me in the comments, these are just my personal opinions and I respect all others.