#Queen Visenya Targaryen | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

hollowwhisperings · 2 years

Text

The Sister-Wives of House Targaryen, in Westeros: Marriage & Motherhood, Crowns & Corpses.

CW: discussions of incest, fertility issues, & child brides. mentions of infant mortality, self-defenestration. spoilers for future events of the "House of the Dragon" live-action series, as presented in its source material "Fire & Blood".

KEY

Title NAME family name (if not targaryen), born DATE: age when first a bride/mother/queen/corpse

Queen VISENYA I, b. 29 BC: ?/41/29/73

Queen RHAENYS I, b. ~25 BC: ?/32/25/35

Princess RHAENA of Dragonstone , b. 23 AC: 19/20/×/50

Queen ALYSANNE, b. 36 AC: 13/16/12/64

Princess ALYSSA, b. 60 AC: 15/17/×/24

Queen HELAENA, b. 109 AC: 13/~13/15/21

Queen DAENA "The Defiant", b. 145 AC: 15/~25*/16/unknown

Queen NAERYS, b. 138 AC: 15/15/34/41~53

Princess AELORA of Dragonstone, b. 195~211 AC: ?/×/×/?

Queen SHAERA, b. 226 AC: 14/18/33/34~55**

Queen RHAELLA, b. ~246 AC: 12/13/19/38

*Daena's marriage with her brother was never consumnated: she had an affair with a targaryen cousin.

**an unexpected butterfly corrects: as a Queen Shaera is noted as remaining at court in 260 AC, Princess Shaera could not have died at Summerhall)

With these data points, the following averages can be made:

ages of siblings being wed (by force or elopement);

ages when first pregnant

life expectancy.

In some instances, specific women will be excluded due to being outliers to the group as a whole or split into contrasting groups to determine any effects of shared circumstances.

Marriage

The average Targaryen sister-wife was married at 13 years old.

If separated by how "willing" these girls are to wed their brothers, two groups are made:

Unwilling/Obedient: Visenya (unknown), Helaena (13), Daena (15), Naerys (15), Rhaella (12).

By Choice: Rhaenys (unknown), Rhaena (19), Alysanne (13), Alyssa (15), Aelora (unknown), Shaera (14).

The average age of the willing brides is [17.75], while the average coerced sister-bride is [13.75]. That said, even Westeros considers pregnant <14 year olds to be Too Young: that tilts the balance between "willing" & "forced" toward the latter. Thusly,

Most Targaryen Sister-Wives Did Not &/or Could Not Consent to their Marriages.

Motherhood

Due to their being outliers, Queen Visenya I, Queen Rhaenys I, and Princess Daena are excluded from this calculation: the Conquerors postponed pregnancy until they were done conquering; Daena's brother refused to bed her so she broke out from the Maidenvault to find someone who WOULD, her child being hers alone. Princess Aelora has no recorded pregnancies.

From 7 sister-wives, both the average & median age for a first pregnancy is at 16 years old.

This, while not ideal IRL, is "young but otherwise fine" by the standards of Westeros.

Where this becomes troubling is "in the family": only 5** of these mothers had a living parent to support them during their first pregnancies.

There is rarely a significant age gap between sibling-spouses and, being siblings, there would only ever be 2 grandparents available to support the couple.

For all but 5** of these first-time mothers, their pregnancies, births (& complications thereof), and eventual parenting of children was without true guidance.

Being wealthy and highborn, servants likely did the majority of "practical" parenting - feeding, hygiene, recognising illness or injury, attending to colic, watching for accidents, etc - but, as children grew older, the issue of Discipline would be raised. Many sister-wives found pregnancy difficult, almost all experienced miscarriages and stillbirths, and 3 sister-wives (Princess Alyssa, Queen Naerys, Queen Rhaella) ultimately died of pregnancy.

(More on the subject of Parenting in House Targaryen will likely follow in future posts)

Crowns

This is less relevant in this post than in another planned post, on the ages of kings, but only because there is little to no data on the deeds of Targaryen women outside their beds: only Queens Visenya I, Rhaenys I and Alysanne are written holding court (for the purposes of this series, note that Queen Rhaenyra I will be discussed & counted amongst Westerosi "Kings" and not as a "Queen", despite styling Visenya & Rhaenys as Queens in their own right but counting them amongst Queens-Consort).

Death

An average life expectancy for a Targaryen sister-wife is somewhat difficult to do due to the differences in their circumstances: most women exist only as listed in family trees, even within the Royal Line. Maesters (and, to briefly be a Doylist, the ASOIAF books as a whole) seldom mention any woman past the date of her last child's birth, disappearing entirely thereafter unless their death was particularly morbid or unusual. While it gives opportunity to thus claim that, say, Queen Myriah Martell's lacking a date of death must mean she still lives, an immortal hidden from the public eye, it also makes any calculations we CAN make even more unreliably accurate than those made thus far.

Firstly I will refresh memories by again listing Ages At Death, adding "Cause/s" thereof (if known):

Queen Visenya I, died of old age at 73.

Queen Rhaenys I, killed at 35.

Princess Rhaena, died of "old" age at 50.

Queen Alysanne, died of "old" age at 64.

Princess Alyssa, died of pregnancy at 24.

Queen Helaena, self-defenestrated at 21.

Queen Daena, apparently immortal (disappears from histories after revealing the father of her son, Daemon Blackfyre).

Queen Naerys, died of pregnancy aged 41~53 years.

Princess Aelora of Dragonstone, assumed to have unalived herself (details unknown).

Queen Shaera, **survived Summerhall and still lived in 260 AC. As she does not appear in any of Ser Jaime's flashbacks to the court of Aerys II, nor the stories recalled by Daenerys Stormborn, it can be assumed Shaera died prior to 281 AC, aged 34~55 years old.

Queen Rhaella, died either of pregnancy or the Storming of Dragonstone at 38.

Despite age and pregnancy being natural causes of death, the circumstances of each sister-wife & the nature of their being Targaryens (incestuous, royal, magically-adjacent) makes me hesitate to truly call any of these deaths "natural". Furthermore, Westeros canonically has moontea and other contraceptive methods readily available: if, however, the King has decided that he requires more children then it becomes Treason to prescribe or use any birth control. Even if the wife in question is long-past the ages where pregnancy is safe or reasonable (for the mother and for any children). Thusly, any queen who dies of pregnancy can, very technically, be considered as having been killed by her husband & king.

(Princess Baela's death by pregnancy is "natural" in the sense that it is "natural" to expect a safe & healthy pregnancy when your entire family is an incestuous phone tree designed by evil blood wizards who took "blood of the dragon" very literally /j?)

Despite common belief, human life expectancy has not hugely changed since historic times: the discrepancy comes from how overwhelming the statistics of infant mortality were. Generally speaking, if you survived childhood you could expect to live into your late 60's... unless there was drought or war or, say, a surprise dragon from beneath the floorboards to crush you while its rider makes a dramatic entry & exit.

"Old" age for Targaryen dragon riders is difficult to calculate because few lived long enough to die from age: the effects of blood magic, being born of centuries of incest, and dragonriding on a person's health can be guessed but is compounded by the effects of too many pregnancies from too young an age, surviving battle & resultant trauma, etc.

So, while the average life expectancy of a Targaryen Sister-Wife is 42.8 years (rounded) and the median is 38 years... the means & timings of these deaths are incredibly circumstantial. Such is the case with royalty in a feudal setting, and with any character known as a Targaryen.

Overall Patterns

It is notable that (with one exception) after the extinction of House Targaryen's dragons, all instances of siblings wedding each other are forced by parents or then-presiding kings. While not evident in this list, which excludes both the "otherwise-related" and "unrelated" consorts, there is a pattern of having a sibling-marriage every other generation (as sandwiched between marriages between cousins).

This generational trend would have been interrupted by the likes of Maekar I but for multiple unexpected tragedies (the Great Spring Sickness of 209 AC, the events in the Dunk&Egg novellas, Summerhall) resulting in the last Targaryen king being Aerys II, son of siblings Jaeherys II & Shaera, the brother-husband of Queen Rhaella.

Of 11 recorded instances of Targaryen sister-wives, all ended up directly positioned to take the Iron Throne: Princess Rhaena was Considered to succeed her uncle Maegor's usurpation but refused, favouring her younger siblings Jaeherys I & Alysanne; Princess Alyssa's eldest son was Viserys I, chosen heir of Jaeherys I over his cousin Rhaenys and her son, Laenor Velaryon; Princess Aelora was chosen as an heir by Aerys I but was dead before much could come of it.

Of the 16 officially recognised Royal Consorts (excluding Maegor's black brides, Princess Rhaena, & Prince-Consort Daemon but including Queen Helaena) in the Targaryen Dynasty, 9 were sister-wives though only 3 reigned longer than a decade (Rhaenys I dying exactly 10 years into her queenship).

Only 3 royal consorts were entirely unrelated to their spouses (Queens Alicent Hightower, Myriah Martell, & Betha Blackwood), with the remaining queens-consort being "cousins" (do not ask me how closely/removed: in Houses Targaryen & Velaryon, EVERYONE is everyone else's cousin several times over, while also being their own aunt and nephew simultaneously).

Conclusions

...are likely to be typed up in their own posts, as they occur to me, if i have not already, accidentally, presented them earlier.

NOTE: many ages used here are approximations, sourced via entries on the AWOIAF wiki & as extrapolated from crossreferencing timelines. to be Watsonian, the maesters can be wrong & write with varying objectivity; to be Doylist, GRRM is not a historian nor is his fantasy writing as historically accurate as may be assumed. Thanks are due to NobodySuspectsTheButterfly for correcting me on Queen Shaera's surviving Summerhall.

if you enjoyed this post or have found some missing zeroes or wandering decimals, do send a raven or reblog with a correction! i will add & note corrections as prompted.

41 notes · View notes