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Who is the RIGHTFUL King/Queen of Westeros?

This is a question that has been brought up a lot after Dany’s bold claims in recent seasons that she is the rightful queen of the seven kingdoms.

Starting off at Aerys II Targaryen, we can trace who belongs on the Iron Throne.

Rhaegar Targaryen was the crowned prince, and heir to the throne until his death. Upon his death, Aerys proclaimed his son, Viserys as his heir as opposed to Rhaegar’s children - an unorthodox move. When Aerys was killed, his sister-wife Rhaella crowned her son on dragonstone as the king of the seven kingdoms and named Dany the princess of Dragonstone (his heir).

However, as this was happening Robert Baratheon won the iron throne by conquest and usurped the titles from House Targaryen. Therefore, he used him claim to the throne that comes from the little bit of Targaryen in his blood to crown himself King by right of conquest. This made Viserys a claimant to the Iron Throne.

Upon Robert’s death, Joffrey is crowned as Joffrey I Baratheon, however because he is a Lannister bastard, the crown basically falls upon House Lannister. His heir, Tommen, is crowned shortly after. Upon Tommen’s death, the crown now falls upon the rest of House Baratheon as both Lannisters were crowned as Baratheons. 

Cersei, at this point should be crowned as Cersei Baratheon but she wins the throne through conquest, by blowing up the sept of Baelor. Therefore, House Lannister becomes the royal family. Because Jamie is no longer in the Kingsguard, he is the head of House Lannister and technically should be crowned King after Cersei’s conquest. However, Cersei is the one who led the conquest and therefore Crowns herself as Cersei I Lannister. 

Therefore, Cersei is the rightfull Queen through conquest as she usurped the titles for her house. Dany can take back her throne through conquest but to say she is the rightfull Queen is semi incorrect. She was Viserys’ heir which makes her have the strongest claim to the throne. When she says “rightfull” I believe she means that the throne was stolen from her family, which is true.

Jon, if the legitimate son of Rhaegar would also have a strong claim to the throne but Dany would beat him out as Aerys essentially skipped over Rhaegar’s kids.

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Jamie is the boy.

“Mine was some Tarly boy at the Battle of Summerhall. My horse took an arrow so I was on foot, slogging through the mud. He came running at me, the dumb high-born lad, thinking he could end the rebellion with a single swing of his sword. I knocked him down with the hammer. Gods, I was strong then. Caved in his breastplate. Probably shattered every rib he had. Stood over him, hammer in the air.” - Robert Baratheon

Interesting parallels can be drawn between the Tarly boy that attempted to kill Robert and Jamie’s attempt on Dany’s life in S7E4. I’m really enjoying these callbacks to the first couple seasons!

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Game of Thrones Season 7 Episode 4 Rundown

The shortest episode of the season thus far turns out to be the most action packed. Heres a few things that popped into my head while watching, please be careful for spoilers if you havent seen the episode yet.

We know that the gold has reached Cersei as Randyl Tarly mentions the fact that only the last few carriages need to get past Blackwater rush. This means that the crowns debts will be paid in full to the iron bank. An interesting theory could be that the iron bank actually betrays Cersei once the debt is paid but i see no reason for them to favour any of her adversaries. Its evident that the carts destroyed by Dany were full of food and supplies which puts the Crownlands, and the Reach in a difficult position. Winter is coming and they are all out of food.

During the battle, we see Bronn injure Drogon with the scoprion in the shoulder, a nice callback to Dany’s late husband, Khal Drogo, who died because of an injury to his shoulder. However, i believe that Drogon will recover quickly. I believe a dragon will die this season, and it will likely be Viserion as Drogon and Rhaegal have connections to Dany and Jon respectively.

Up North, we become privy to the fact that Littlefinger is attempting to win over Bran by giving him the catspaw, the same strategy he used to win over Robin Arryn. However, Bran is trigerred by LF’s mentioning of chaos and hits him back with his own line. We can see clearly that LF is disturbed by this and decides to turn his attention to Arya and Sansa. I cant help but feel that he is going to exploit the tension between the girls but i honestly cant see LF making it through this season alive.

Tyrion, seemed to be struggling this episode as he watched his Queen destroy his brothers armies. This is the same feeling I had while watching as we saw two beloved main characters fighting eachother. The show now truly captures the anti-war message of the books as we root for both sides to win. Who is evil? We truly do not know anymore. Earlier in the show we were told that Dany will be betrayed three times. The most important part of this prophecy is the betrayal for love. Perhaps Tyrion will betray her for his brother, I believe that in the coming episodes, he will attempt to communicate with Jamie in some way. Another theory could be Missandei’s betrayal of Dany as her lover, Grey Worm, is in a lot of danger; this is unlikely as she seems to truly love her Queen.

As a book reader, this episode finally did justice to Arya’s character. She was fantastic with her sword and essentially outsparred Brienne of Tarth, one of the best swordsmen (swordswomen?) in the show. Its going to be exciting seeing what she gets upto in Winterfell and how Sansa reacts to her (and maybe her bag of faces).

Let me know what you thought of the episode and stay tuned for more analysis on episode 4 leading up to this Sunday.