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vivacissimx · 9 months

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Heyy hope you're well. Ignore this if you want but I'm curious, do you believe in the Maester Conspiracy?

Let me take this step by step. Long post incoming but you asked, so:

WELCOME TO VIVACISSIMX'S CONCLUSIVE POST ON THE MAESTER CONSPIRACY!!!

The Maester Conspiracy is the theory that the maesters of the citadel work in concert with one another to effect certain political ends in line with their longstanding designs for Westeros — including a specific aim to hamper the existence/return of magic via living dragons.

The only dragontamers during the times of Fire & Blood and ASOIAF are Targaryens, so it ties together as: the maesters have sought to limit/manipulate/end Targaryen rule because they are anti-magic for reasons known best to them.

Do I believe in this? Textually it's pretty clear that this phenomenon exists.

FIRST: REASONS THE MAESTER CONSPIRACY IS DEFINITELY ACTUALLY FACTUALLY REAL

ONE: Multiple characters from different backgrounds tell us so.

Pycelle’s breathing was rapid and shallow. “All I did, I did for House Lannister.” A sheen of sweat covered the broad dome of the old man’s brow, and wisps of white hair clung to his wrinkled skin. “Always.. for years... your lord father, ask him, I was ever his true servant... ’twas I who bid Aerys open his gates... ” That took Tyrion by surprise. He had been no more than an ugly boy at Casterly Rock when the city fell. “So the Sack of King’s Landing was your work as well?” “For the realm! Once Rhaegar died, the war was done. Aerys was mad, Viserys too young, Prince Aegon a babe at the breast, but the realm needed a king... I prayed it should be your good father, but Robert was too strong, and Lord Stark moved too swiftly... ” “How many have you betrayed, I wonder? Aerys, Eddard Stark, me... King Robert as well? Lord Arryn, Prince Rhaegar? Where does it begin, Pycelle?”

—ACOK, Tyrion VI + emphasis mine

[Archmaester] Marywn smiled a ghastly smile, the juice of the sourleaf running red between his teeth. “Who do you think killed all the dragons the last time around? Gallant dragonslayers armed with swords?” He spat. “The world the Citadel is building has no place in it for sorcery or prophecy or glass candles, much less for dragons. Ask yourself why Aemon Targaryen was allowed to waste his life upon the Wall, when by rights he should have been raised to archmaester. His blood was why. He could not be trusted. No more than I can.”

—AFFC, Samwell V

Why can't Archmaester Marwyn be trusted? Since it's the same reason Aemon can't be trusted?

"Archmaester Marwyn's Book of Lost Books." [Rodrik Harlaw] lifted his gaze from the page to study her. "Hotho brought me a copy from Oldtown. He has a daughter he would have me wed." Lord Rodrik tapped the book with a long nail. "See here? Marwyn claims to have found three pages of Signs and Portents, visions written down by the maiden daughter of Aenar Targaryen before the Doom came to Valyria.

—AFFC, The Kraken's Daughter

His interest in Targaryen prophecy, perhaps? (Aemon is also seen to have said interest, corresponding with Rhaegar Targaryen on the matter.)

[Barbrey Ryswell:] "[Maesters] heal, yes. I never said they were not subtle. They tend to us when we are sick and injured, or distraught over the illness of a parent or a child. Whenever we are weakest and most vulnerable, there they are. Sometimes they heal us, and we are duly grateful. When they fail, they console us in our grief, and we are grateful for that as well. Out of gratitude we give them a place beneath our roof and make them privy to all our shames and secrets, a part of every council. And before too long, the ruler has become the ruled. "That was how it was with Lord Rickard Stark. Maester Walys was his grey rat's name. And isn't it clever how the maesters go by only one name, even those who had two when they first arrived at the Citadel? That way we cannot know who they truly are or where they come from… but if you are dogged enough, you can still find out. Before he forged his chain, Maester Walys had been known as Walys Flowers. Flowers, Hill, Rivers, Snow… we give such names to baseborn children to mark them for what they are, but they are always quick to shed them. Walys Flowers had a Hightower girl for a mother… and an archmaester of the Citadel for a father, it was rumored. The grey rats are not as chaste as they would have us believe. Oldtown maesters are the worst of all. Once he forged his chain, his secret father and his friends wasted no time dispatching him to Winterfell to fill Lord Rickard's ears with poisoned words as sweet as honey. The Tully marriage was his notion, never doubt it, he—"

—ADWD, The Prince of Winterfell

Please note these quotes touch on some of the largest political shifts to occur in Westeros. From germinating the idea of alliances between Great Houses in the mind of Rickard Stark who later betrothed/fostered his children to the Arryns of the Vale, the Tullys of the Riverlands, and the Baratheons of the Stormlands; to the Sack of King's Landing; to the circumstances around the Great Council that named Aegon V the Unlikely as king. I am not saying the Citadel was the sole mastermind behind all of these events, or even that maesters all act as one without their own interests/personalities guiding them... but more on that later.

TWO: The Glass Candle test.

Glass candles are obsidian—dragonglass— candles that apparently only burn when magic (see: dragons) exists in the world. Daenerys Targaryen has been hearing about these glass candles for a while now.

Xaro looked troubled. "And so it was, then. But now? I am less certain. It is said that the glass candles are burning in the house of Urrathon Night-Walker, that have not burned in a hundred years. Ghost grass grows in the Garden of Gehane, phantom tortoises have been seen carrying messages between the windowless houses on Warlock's Way, and all the rats in the city are chewing off their tails.

—ACOK, Daenerys V

Hear me, Daenerys Targaryen. The glass candles are burning. Soon comes the pale mare, and after her the others. Kraken and dark flame, lion and griffin, the sun's son and the mummer's dragon. Trust none of them. Remember the Undying. Beware the perfumed seneschal."

—ADWD, Daenerys II

Read: What Quaithe tells Daenerys here is that because the glass candles are burning, people (powerful, dangerous, with their own designs in mind) are becoming aware of her dragons. It means they're coming and Daenerys needs to be cautious of them.

And who is watching the glass candles?

Armen the Acolyte cleared his throat. “The night before an acolyte says his vows, he must stand a vigil in the vault. No lantern is permitted him, no torch, no lamp, no taper… only a candle of obsidian. He must spend the night in darkness, unless he can light that candle. Some will try. The foolish and the stubborn, those who have made a study of these so-called higher mysteries. Often they cut their fingers, for the ridges on the candles are said to be as sharp as razors. Then, with bloody hands, they must wait upon the dawn, brooding on their failure. Wiser men simply go to sleep, or spend their night in prayer, but every year there are always a few who must try.” “Yes.” Pate had heard the same stories. “But what’s the use of a candle that casts no light?” “It is a lesson,” Armen said, “the last lesson we must learn before we don our maester’s chains.

—AFFC, Prologue (Pate)

So, the Citadel has this tradition that every single guy ever to graduate from their school has to at least be aware of the glass candles, which basically serves the purpose of letting them know whether or not there are dragons in the world. Okay, fine, it's a lesson on failure, sure. What's interesting is that this mystical and compelling lesson on failure can only be as old as the death of the last dragon in 153 AC, otherwise they'd all be able to light the candles. So it began at most 147 years ago.

Notably, for years after the death of the last dragon, various Targaryens attempted to hatch more.

So what is the true purpose of the Glass Candle test? Why would the Citadel have a convenient means of knowing immediately if a new dragon was hatched/magic was returning, despite ostensibly having a Grand Maester on every single Targaryen King's Small Council ever?

What was their investment?

THREE: It aligns with the actions/beliefs of the maesters we see on-page.

Old Cressen might be, yet he was still a maester of the Citadel. “I need no crown but truth,” he told her, removing the fool’s helm from his head. “There are truths in this world that are not taught at Oldtown.” [...] As he sank to his knees, still he shook his head, denying [Melisandre], denying her power, denying her magic, denying her god. And the cowbells peeled in his antlers, singing fool, fool, fool while the red woman looked down on him in pity, the candle flames dancing in her red red eyes.

—ACOK, Prologue (Maester Cressen)

[Maester Luwin:] "Perhaps magic was once a mighty force in the world, but no longer. What little remains is no more than the wisp of smoke that lingers in the air after a great fire has burned out, and even that is fading. Valyria was the last ember, and Valyria is gone. The dragons are no more, the giants are dead, the children of the forest forgotten with all their lore.

—ACOK, Bran IV

Note: Maester Luwin actually has a Valyrian Steel chain and has attempted to do magic but by the end of his Citadel studies, he no longer believed in such. Due to his own failure to harness it, yes, but perhaps also due to his teachings under the archmaesters at the time.

Alleras stepped up next to Sam. "Aemon would have gone to [Daenerys] if he had the strength. He wanted us to send a maester to her, to counsel her and protect her and fetch her safely home." "Did he?" Archmaester Marwyn shrugged. "Perhaps it's good that he died before he got to Oldtown. Elsewise the grey sheep might have had to kill him, and that would have made the poor old dears wring their wrinkled hands."

—AFFC, Samwell V

FOUR: Citadel Maesters are super into dragons in general, perhaps a bit too into them, you be the judge.

In what place, if any, has there been an accumulation of dragonlore? Valyria. The Citadel. Dragonstone. Probably some of the Free Cities as well. Maybe Asshai in the far east.

—So Spake Martin, May 2000 (the Citadel clocking in at #2, technically #1, considering RIPValyria)

[H]e brushed the dirt off Colloquo Votar's Jade Compendium, a thick volume of tales and legends from the east that Maester Aemon had commanded him to find. The book appeared undamaged. Maester Thomax's Dragonkin, Being a History of House Targaryen from Exile to Apotheosis, with a Consideration of the Life and Death of Dragons had not been so fortunate. It had come open as it fell, and a few pages had gotten muddy, including one with a rather nice picture of Balerion the Black Dread done in colored inks. Sam cursed himself for a clumsy oaf

—AFFC, Samwell I

Tyrion had read much and more of dragons through the years. The greater part of those accounts were idle tales and could not be relied on, and the books that Illyrio had provided them were not the ones he might have wished for. What he really wanted was the complete text of The Fires of the Freehold, Galendro's history of Valyria. No complete copy was known to Westeros, however; even the Citadel's lacked twenty-seven scrolls. They must have a library in Old Volantis, surely. I may find a better copy there, if I can find a way inside the Black Walls to the city's heart.

He was less hopeful concerning Septon Barth’s Dragons, Wyrms, and Wyverns: Their Unnatural History. Barth had been a blacksmith’s son who rose to be King’s Hand during the reign of Jaehaerys the Conciliator. His enemies always claimed he was more sorcerer than septon. Baelor the Blessed had ordered all Barth’s writings destroyed when he came to the Iron Throne. Ten years ago, Tyrion had read a fragment of Unnatural History that had eluded the Blessed Baelor, but he doubted that any of Barth’s work had found its way across the narrow sea. And of course there was even less chance of his coming on the fragmentary, anonymous, blood-soaked tome sometimes called Blood and Fire and sometimes The Death of Dragons, the only surviving copy of which was supposedly hidden away in a locked vault beneath the Citadel.

When the Halfmaester appeared on deck, yawning, the dwarf was writing down what he recalled concerning the mating habits of dragons, on which subject Barth, Munkun, and Thomax held markedly divergent views.

—ADWD, Tyrion IV

Maesters who have written on dragons: Munkun, Grand Maester to Aegon III The Dragonbane whose efforts to revive the dragons all failed - he wrote True Telling about the Dance of the Dragons as well; Thomax, unknown time; and Anonymous, who wrote a real banger that the world isn't ready for, apparently. This last one will come into play later.

There is also Truth by Maester Anson, cited in AWOIAF, which is only mentioned insofar as it disagrees with Septon Barth's statement that dragons can switch sex.

So there are at least four books written by maesters on dragons, and more that the Citadel library has collected from the world over!

(The books by Thomax and Anonymous, while both being titled The Death of Dragons, are confirmed not the same.)

There is potentially one more, if the unnamed tome Arianne encounters is unique:

During the daylight hours she would try to read, but the books that they had given her were deadly dull: ponderous old histories and geographies, annotated maps, a dry-as-dust study of the laws of Dorne, The Seven-Pointed Star and Lives of the High Septons, a huge tome about dragons that somehow made them about as interesting as newts.

—AFFC, The Princess in the Tower

In summary: the Citadel's investment in dragons/magic is rigorous, a matter serious enough that they lock knowledge on it away in a vault, in order to take a maester's vows you must undergo a test that disavows magic's existence, there are maesters willing to die to deny arcane arts, potentially maesters willing to kill for that too. To a man, maesters dismiss magic... but are they actively engineering it's downfall?

This is where it gets murky. I myself would say that they take advantage of circumstances to have others do their dirty work. That maesters seek to preserve the status quo but also manipulate it to serve their own ends. Which brings us to the next point

SECOND: HOW THE MAESTER CONSPIRACY FUNCTIONS IN ASOIAF (POSSIBLY)

In ASOIAF timeline, the dragons are all already dead and magic is subdued. As a result, the winters are longer and the summers are shorter, another thing the Citadel is deeply concerned with, being the people who officially announce the changings of the seasons.

As established, we know of Pycelle's involvement in opening King's Landing for Tywin after Rhaegar died — this is where the concept of maester's having differing motives and personal loyalties comes up.

Pycelle is a pretty clear case study, he's both deeply loyal, as a maester of the Citadel, to preserving a nominal peace regardless of the dishonorable & murderous ends required to do so... but he also personally is loyal to Tywin Lannister, who is his ideal ruler.

In a letter to the Citadel, Pycelle wrote that the divisions within the Red Keep [between Aerys and Rhaegar] reminded him uncomfortably of the situation before the Dance of the Dragons a century before, when the enmity between Queen Alicent and Princess Rhaenyra had split the realm in two, to grievous cost

—AWOIAF, The Targaryen Kings: Aerys II

Grand Maester Pycelle cleared his throat, a process that seemed to take some minutes. "My order serves the realm, not the ruler. Once I counseled King Aerys as loyally as I counsel King Robert now, so I bear this girl child of his no ill will. Yet I ask you this—should war come again, how many soldiers will die? How many towns will burn? How many children will be ripped from their mothers to perish on the end of a spear?" He stroked his luxuriant white beard, infinitely sad, infinitely weary. "Is it not wiser, even kinder, that Daenerys Targaryen should die now so that tens of thousands might live?"

—AGOT, Eddard VIII

“For the realm! Once Rhaegar died, the war was done. Aerys was mad, Viserys too young, Prince Aegon a babe at the breast, but the realm needed a king... I prayed it should be your good father, but Robert was too strong, and Lord Stark moved too swiftly... ”

—ACOK, Tyrion VI

We know from the books of the unswerving Pycelle's loyalty to the Lannister and precisely to Lord Tywin. Why this loyalty? Was there any event we don't know yet?

There´s backstory yet to be revealed, certainly, but if you asked Pycelle he would insist that he was acting in the best interests of the realm.

—FORUM: Asshai Chat July 27, 2008

It's possible that Pycelle's advice given to Aerys was personally motivated by his own political beliefs on who was best suited to rule & his acceptance that the war was already over, so he needed to get out on the winning side. GRRM has hinted that there's more to the story.

It's additionally possible that Maester Walys, Rickard Stark's maester born from a Hightower mother and an alleged archmaester father, was advising Rickard on making alliances down south simply because that's what he thought was smart politicking.

However, it's interesting that multiple maesters were involved in arranging the chess board of power in Westeros against House Targaryen, and, now, are shown to be aligned to preserve power in the hands of... the Lannisters. More accurately, I would say they seek to preserve whoever is a) currently in power and b) amenable to a maester's advice and manipulation. More on this when we get to Stannis.

Now, Pycelle is personally loyal to the Lannisters because that is what he thinks is in "the best interests of the realm," but otherwise, maesters in general are invested in preserving the power structure as is, because war disrupts their slowgoing machinations (Marwyn's words: the world the Citadel is building). In fact, as the Lannisters infight throughout ACOK and become unstable, only to be saved by an alliance with the Tyrells, there is a response from the Citadel that indicates they're willing to switch to whoever is the dominant side, it if means protecting their influence.

[T]he Conclave accepted the fact of Pycelle's dismissal and set about choosing his successor. After giving due consideration to Maester Turquin the cordwainer's son and Maester Erreck the hedge knight's bastard, and thereby demonstrating to their own satisfaction that ability counts for more than birth in their order, the Conclave was on the verge of sending us Maester Gormon, a Tyrell of Highgarden. When I told your lord father, he acted at once." The Conclave met in Oldtown behind closed doors, Tyrion knew; its deliberations were supposedly a secret. So Varys has little birds in the Citadel too. "I see. So my father decided to nip the rose before it bloomed." He had to chuckle. "Pycelle is a toad. But better a Lannister toad than a Tyrell toad, no?"

—ASOS, Tyrion II

Before we get into cartoon villain territory, let's caveat that their involvement in the deaths of the dragons and the Targaryens who could potentially hatch them once more does seem to be a one-off for them in terms of puppet-mastering against a monarch, and indeed, they never intended war, preferring to function methodically in the background.

"Be that as it may. My father sat where I sit now when Lord Eddard came to Sisterton. Our maester urged us to send Stark's head to Aerys, to prove our loyalty. It would have meant a rich reward. The Mad King was open-handed with them as pleased him. By then we knew that Jon Arryn had taken Gulltown, though. Robert was the first man to gain the wall, and slew Marq Grafton with his own hand. 'This Baratheon is fearless,' I said. 'He fights the way a king should fight.' Our maester chuckled at me and told us that Prince Rhaegar was certain to defeat this rebel.

—ADWD, Davos I

They maximize their influence — they don't overstep.

On to Stannis.

[Alys Karstark:] "Arnolf [Karstark] is rushing to Winterfell, 'tis true, but only so he might put his dagger in your king's back. He cast his lot with Roose Bolton long ago … for gold, the promise of a pardon, and poor Harry's head. Lord Stannis is marching to a slaughter.

—ADWD, Jon IX

“Y-your Grace, my order is sworn to serve, we…” “I know all about your vows. What I want to know is what was in the letter that you sent to Winterfell. Did you perchance tell Lord Bolton where to find us?” “S-sire.” Round-shouldered Tybald drew himself up proudly. “The rules of my order forbid me to divulge the contents of Lord Arnolf’s letters.”

—TWOW, Unreleased Theon Chapter

Here we have Arnolf Karstark, castellan of Karhold, who pledges to Stannis... but secretly he's actually pledged to Roose Bolton, who is in league with the Lannisters. Together they planned the Red Wedding. The Karstark maester is seen assisting in this plot to see Stannis dead via the Karstark-Bolton-Lannister network.

Does Stannis have his own maester with him? No, Maester Cressen dies in the ACOK Prologue, and his replacement, Pylos, is not mentioned as having accompanied Stannis North. Stannis is far from the influence of the Citadel and has publicly declared his new faith in R'hllor, something for the Citadel/general Westerosi hegemony to worry about, and now we have a maester helping to plot against him...

Once more, it's possible that said maester is simply acting of his own volitions & values. Conveniently in service to House Lannister which currently holds power. However, he's not the only Northern maester to have conflicting loyalties South:

[Wyman Manderly, Lord of White Harbor:] If Stannis wonders that my letters say so little, it is because I dare not even trust my maester. Theomore is all head and no heart. You heard him in my hall. Maesters are supposed to put aside old loyalties when they don their chains, but I cannot forget that Theomore was born a Lannister of Lannisport and claims some distant kinship to the Lannisters of Casterly Rock. Foes and false friends are all around me, Lord Davos.

—ADWD, Davos IV

Something to consider.

THIRD: ADDRESSING THE FERTILITY OF TARGARYEN WOMEN

Let's take it back for a minute. I'm separating this section because a whole bunch of it comes from AWOIAF/Fire & Blood and I know not everyone is super familiar with those, so I'm taking time to explain it fully. A big facet of the Maester Conspiracy has to do with magic and dragons ergo House Targaryen. We have covered the Aerys/Pycelle, Maester Aemon, and Daenerys portions.

But there is a larger relevant point: The miscarriages and stillbirths of Targaryen women.

From AGOT we know that the birth of dragons is tied to blood magic, but specifically, that magic which is performed by Daenerys — a pregnant Targaryen. She has prophetic visions both asleep and awake that lead her to the final hatching of the dragons... and it's the deaths of Rhaego in her womb, Drogo by her hand, and Mirri by her order that facilitate this.

She was lying there, holding the egg, when she felt the child move within her… as if he were reaching out, brother to brother, blood to blood. "You are the dragon," Dany whispered to him, "the true dragon. I know it. I know it." And she smiled, and went to sleep dreaming of home.

—AGOT, Daenerys IV

"You will not hear me scream," Mirri responded as the oil dripped from her hair and soaked her clothing. "I will," Dany said, "but it is not your screams I want, only your life. I remember what you told me. Only death can pay for life."

—AGOT, Daenerys X

So, let's posit that there is some matriarchal link between fertility, motherhood, and births... even of dragons.

The theory here is that maesters, operating under the idea that Targaryen wives's fertility was somehow related to the blood magics/births of dragons, meddled with their pregnancies to prevent said magics/births of dragons.

The reason the maesters may have suspected this? Well according to AGOT and Fire & Blood, at certain times, Targaryen women/wives experienced miscarriages of fetuses that were "monstrous." Dragonlike, some might describe them (some being me, in the following list) — so the contention that the women of House Targaryen were magically involved in literal dragon-birthing does seem possible.

The miscarriages in question:

1A) Maegor Targaryen and Alys Harroway's stillborn: a monster, with twisted limbs, a huge head, and no eyes.

1B) The hatchling born to Alyn Velaryon and Baela Targaryen's daughter Laena: the dragon that wriggled from the egg was a monstrosity, a wingless wyrm, maggot-white and blind

2A) Maegor and Jeyne Westerling's stillborn: a legless and armless creature possessed of both male and female genitalia → eventual death in childbirth

2B) Maester Aemon in AFFC Samwell IV: Dragons are neither male nor female, Barth saw the truth of that, but now one and now the other, as changeable as flame

3A) Maegor and Elinor Costayne's stillborn: a malformed and stillborn child, an eyeless boy born with rudimentary wings

3B) In The Hedge Knight, the last dragon to ever live is described as small with unformed wings

4A) Daemon Targaryen and Laena Velaryon's stillborn: the babe was twisted and malformed, and died within the hour → eventual death in childbirth

4B) Laena's stillbirth unique because it's implied that Rhaenyra's maester, Gerardys, who arrived slightly too late, might have been able to assist in saving Laena's life following the birth — the same way he was able to save Viserys I's hand and life when other maesters couldn't. Thus, incompetence or malice on the part of the present maester might have contributed to Laena's death.

5A) Daemon and Rhaenyra Targaryen's stillborn Visenya, Rhaenyra's early labor brought on by the news of her father's death and her usurpation by Aegon II:

The princess shrieked curses all through her labor, calling down the wrath of the gods upon her half-brothers and their mother, the queen, and detailing the torments she would inflict upon them before she would let them die. She cursed the child inside her too, Mushroom tells us, clawing at her swollen belly as Maester Gerardys and her midwife tried to restrain her and shouting, “Monster, monster, get out, get out, GET OUT!” When the babe at last came forth, she proved indeed a monster: a stillborn girl, twisted and malformed, with a hole in her chest where her heart should have been, and a stubby, scaled tail.

—Fire & Blood, The Dying of the Dragons: The Blacks and the Greens

5B) Rhaenyra's usurpation by Aegon II is a parallel to the usurpation of the Amethyst Empress by her younger brother the Bloodstone Emperor, in the ancient Great Empire of the Dawn. This is said to have been what caused the first Long Night to occur and indeed, after Rhaenyra, we see the dragons die out, magic disappear, summers grow short, and winter grow long.

When the daughter of the Opal Emperor succeeded him as the Amethyst Empress, her envious younger brother cast her down and slew her, proclaiming himself the Bloodstone Emperor and beginning a reign of terror. [...] In the annals of the Further East, it was the Blood Betrayal, as his usurpation is named, that ushered in the age of darkness called the Long Night.

—AWOIAF, The Bones and Beyond: Yi Ti

6) Naerys Targaryen's multiple miscarriages/stillbirths vs. 2 living children → eventual death in childbirth

7) Rhaella Targaryen's 8 miscarriages/stillbirths/child deaths vs. 3 living children → eventual death in childbirth

8) Daenerys with Rhaego:

"Monstrous," Mirri Maz Duur finished for him. The knight was a powerful man, yet Dany understood in that moment that the maegi was stronger, and crueler, and infinitely more dangerous. "Twisted. I drew him forth myself. He was scaled like a lizard, blind, with the stub of a tail and small leather wings like the wings of a bat. When I touched him, the flesh sloughed off the bone, and inside he was full of graveworms and the stink of corruption. He had been dead for years." Darkness, Dany thought. The terrible darkness sweeping up behind to devour her. If she looked back she was lost. "My son was alive and strong when Ser Jorah carried me into this tent," she said. "I could feel him kicking, fighting to be born."

—AGOT, Daenerys IX

With these in mind, we can ask: why would anyone think these similar descriptions have anything to do with outside interference? Couldn't it just be that Targaryen babies are weird, it's the blood magic and the incest, nothing to see here?

The thing is that all of Maegor's stillborn children (3/6 examples of dragonesque children) were poisoned, by Tyanna of the Tower. Rhaego was also poisoned, by Mirri Maaz Duur's blood magic.

So 4/6 of these hybrid children were born under the influence of some sort of darker magic. This still leaves Rhaenyra and Laena's respective draconic stillbirths. It opens the question of whether poison was involved in those, too. In my personal opinion, it might also intend to raise a question mark on the matrilineage of Targaryen women who birthed children & brought about dragons — a private theory but raised by the idea of Rhaego's description and the concept of him being "dead for years."

That said, the two serious cases I think we can look into here are Naerys and Rhaella's serial miscarriages/stillbirths/child deaths.

Both these women suffered from frail health and abusive circumstances. Naerys was extremely slight and small of stature, it's possible that she simply struggled with the physical toll of pregnancies. Rhaella gave birth for the first time under traumatic circumstances (the burning of Summerhall and deaths of her family) when she was 14 years old, totally reasonable that she'd be permanently affected by that. In fact, these are two women for whom it would not be suspicious should they experience fertility issues. So if there were ever two people who you could get away with pulling this on...

The reasons to consider each more closely —

NAERYS TARGARYEN: Naerys's successful birth of Daeron (later Daeron II) happened the same year the last dragon died. After this, King Aegon III The Dragonbane started attempting to hatch new dragons whereas before he was extremely resistant to dragon-anything. Naerys's miscarriages and stillbirths begin only after attempts to hatch dragons commence — a likely time, if a link between her fertility and future dragons was suspected by bad actors. Her only other living child Daenerys Lateborn is born 17 years later, and in fact is one of a set of twins, the other child dying at birth. So, it's possible that pregnancy was also tampered with, and simply did not succeed on both twins

Counterpoint One: Naerys was not a healthy or robust person, nor did she desire to carry children. They were forced on her by her purposely cruel brother-husband Aegon IV. It's possible she was not poisoned and simply suffered from miscarriages/stillbirths naturally.

Counterpoint Two: Naerys was married to a man who had many mistresses, lovers, bastards, and grasping councilors. It's possible that she was poisoned, but not by maesters, rather by those who sought to gain power by opening up the position of Queen.

RHAELLA TARGARYEN: Aerys and Rhaella were married to one another based on a prophecy by the Ghost of High Heart that through them, The Prince/Princess That Was Promised would be born.

"Why did they wed if they did not love each other?" "Your grandsire commanded it. A woods witch had told him that the prince was promised would be born of their line."

—ADWD, Daenerys IV

"Maester Aemon believed that Daenerys Targaryen was the fulfillment of a prophecy... her, not Stannis, nor Prince Rhaegar, nor the princeling whose head was dashed against the wall." "Born amidst salt and smoke, beneath a bleeding star. I know the prophecy." Marwyn turned his head and spat a gob of red phlegm onto the floor.

—AFFC, Samwell V

Someday the dragons will return. My brother Daeron's dreamed of it, and King Aerys read it in a prophecy. Maybe it will be my egg that hatches. That would be splendid

—The Hedge Knight

The prophecy is known to at least one maester of the Citadel... seems realistic that it would be known to multiple! The prophecy in question regards the birth of the Prince/Princess That Was Promised, the herald who will bring dragons back into the world, and the culmination of House Targaryen. When Rhaella became pregnant and was close to her due date, the King Aegon V had all the Targaryens gather in Summerhall where he intended to attempt to hatch seven dragon eggs (perhaps he also had some suspicion about the connection between the blood magic needed to hatch dragons and Rhaella's imminent potentially prophesized birth?)

… the blood of the dragon gathered in one … … seven eggs, to honor the seven gods, though the king’s own septon had warned … … pyromancers … … wildfire … … ames grew out of control … towering … burned so hot that … … died, but for the valor of the Lord Comman …

—AWOIAF, The Targaryen Kings: Aegon V

This is what remains of the story of Summerhall. Who wrote this note? Maester Corso, of course. Where did he send this letter? The Citadel. Woof. Innocuous on it's own but for the purpose of this post, in line with the idea that the Citadel was keeping a close eye on all things dragon.

The Maester Conspiracy would ask: who is to say what really went wrong at Summerhall? All we know is that Rhaella gave birth there amidst the chaos and then she didn't give birth to a child who lived past a year for 17 years to come. Miscarriages, stillbirths, child deaths... she had them all. Aerys's paranoia grew and grew until Rhaella was completely isolated. It was under these conditions of extreme scrutiny that Rhaella finally had Viserys, and Viserys lived, and then Daenerys was born while isolated on Dragonstone & raised far from maester's influence following.

Here's the point that sticks out though:

"Lannisport was the end of our voyage," Prince Oberyn went on, as Ser Arron Qorgyle helped him into a padded leather tunic and began lacing it up the back. "Were you aware that our mothers knew each other of old?" "They had been at court together as girls, I seem to recall. Companions to Princess Rhaella?"

"Just so. It was my belief that the mothers had cooked up this plot between them.

—ASOS, Tyrion X

The Unnamed Princess of Dorne and Joanna Lannister were both companions to Princess Rhaella. The exact timeline is unclear but it's definite that the Unnamed Princess was older than the other two. She'd given birth to Doran over a decade before Rhaegar was born, although Rhaella was a very young mother (13 or 14). However, they were close enough to cook up 'plots.' It seems realistic that the Unnamed Princess was present earlier in Rhaella's life while Joanna came about later. GRRM is not trustworthy with ages and timelines anyway, so that's a supposition.

All three of these women had the same experience: a firstborn who lived, followed by a long expanse of fertility issues, followed by another successful birth (or more).

"I was the oldest," the prince said, "and yet I am the last. After Mors and Olyvar died in their cradles, I gave up hope of brothers. I was nine when Elia came, a squire in service at Salt Shore. When the raven arrived with word that my mother had been brought to bed a month too soon, I was old enough to understand that meant the child would not live. Even when Lord Gargalen told me that I had a sister, I assured him that she must shortly die. Yet she lived, by the Mother's mercy. And a year later Oberyn arrived, squalling and kicking.

—AFFC, The Captain of the Guard

Doran was nine before his mother had another successful birth after two child deaths. Her manner of death is unknown. Tyrion is likewise nine years younger than Jaime & Cersei. Joanna Lannister's possible fertility issues in the in-between are unknown, but she died in childbirth. Viserys is 17 years younger than Rhaegar (similar to how Daenerys Lateborn is 17 years younger than Daeron II). Rhaella Targaryen died in childbirth. If all three of these women who canonically shared time, meals, chambers, etc together suffered from similar infertility issues and timelines, with Rhaella being the worst affected, can we theorize that there might have been issues of poison at play?

Pycelle was the Grand Maester at the time — we know he was involved in other plots with poison at the center (Robert Baratheon and Jon Arryn most notably), and we also know that Tywin Lannister married for love. So despite his loyalty to Tywin, couldn't it be that Pycelle never expected Tywin to match with his cousin of few advantages, and that Joanna's struggles were perhaps an unintended, unforeseen consequence?

Could this be the additional backstory regarding Pycelle and Tywin that GRRM is referencing?

Counterpoint One: If the maesters were aware of the prophecy and Rhaegar fulfilled it, they shouldn't have continued with Rhaella

Counterpoint Two: The timeline for the various births of Rhaella, Joanna, and Unnamed Princess are all over the place. It's possible that GRRM didn't simply flub the timeline and actually there is no connection between these three women's similar fertility issues.

Counterpoint Three: Rhaella was traumatized from her young birth and Summerhall's tragedy, her fertility issues arose naturally.

All possibilities.

FOURTH: IS ALL OF THIS GOING TO BITE THE CITADEL IN THE ASS SOMEHOW? WHY ARE THEY EVEN DOING THIS? (SPECULATION)

My theory as to the roots of the Maester Conspiracy is threefold:

ONE: The Citadel, like all institutions of higher academia, is not politically neutral and is invested in specific visions for the future. They inherently seek to preserve the status quo which allows them to function and expand their own influence. They are as liable to corruption as any of the other institutions we see (monarchy, knighthood, the Faith, the Night's Watch, the Kingsguard, etc.) and while maesters do not act as one, they do act as an informal web pushing forth specific beliefs and ideals.

TWO: Not all maesters are created equal. Archmaesters and other such influential members of the Citadel are closer to certain truths than others, it's in the handchosen placement of maesters in the ears of specific lords/political players that we see a larger plan.

THREE: The Citadel is aware of prophecies foretelling a second Long Night to come. To combat this, they have long sought to destroy one of the heralds of said disaster, that being dragons. To put it simply: All magic is from the same root / all magic must be destroyed.

That's my theory.

Now, is this going to bite them in the ass? Hahaha of course!

ONE: The Faceless Men are infiltrating the Citadel due to some plan we are not yet privy to. The AFFC Prologue shows us the novice Pate being body snatched by an FM implied to the Jaqen H'ghar — what is he after, though? Potentially the extremely rare book titled The Death of Dragons that is solely kept in some locked basement of the Citadel... which he just acquired a key for?

TWO: Euron Greyjoy is coming to sack Oldtown, and he is obsessed with dragons/arcane arts/doing experiments with pregnant women (back to my point about connecting dragon births and human fertility)... but above all, he is not nice.

THREE: Daenerys Targaryen is coming to Westeros, and she's the Mother of Dragons. The Dragons are here. By focusing on dragons, it's possible the maesters have lost sight of the bigger picture — the incoming Long Night, wights, and Battle for the Dawn.

That was such a long post I fear and way beyond the question you asked. I appreciate it anyway, seeing as I've wanted to get all these thoughts out for a while to organize what I think & what the text itself points to.

To answer your question: Yes I do think the Maester Conspiracy is a real thing! I believe it's been set up mainly insofar as it will guide Samwell Tarly's POVs in Oldtown, the upcoming Euron Greyjoy plotlines, and potentially Arya due to the Faceless Men connect.

Eventually it will bring Daenerys Targaryen and Jon Snow into play (the latter likely due to the Arya and Sam of it all, which winks to the importance of Jon now having an Oldtown-bred squire in Satin), probably in line with the concept of the Second Dance George has been teasing us about.

Just how it will all play out, though, I couldn't say. We shall have to see. Drink water. Manifest TWOW. Speaking of manifesting...

#asoiaf #valyrianscrolls #asoiaf meta #text #maesters #maester aemon #maester cressen #maestern luwin #archmaester marwyn #rhaella targaryen #naerys targaryen #samwell tarly #tyrion lannister #daenerys targaryen #the citadel #joanna lannister #unnamed princess of dorne #magic in asoiaf #asoiaf speculation

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atopvisenyashill · 4 months

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is it okay that this lady is in the dead ladies club?

i simply wanted the excuse to talk about the moms. i'm not including ashara, elia, or lyanna in this, because the last two are plot relevant deaths and ashara's is left purposefully mysterious I think because we are going to get some sort of answer there (not even implying "lemore is ashara" here, i think the fact that we have conflicting info on her does mean something about her baby being relevant to the tower of joy, which means howland or bran/the weirwood hivemind are going to reveal that to us. will it be a huge reveal that shakes the earth? i mean, probably not, but i do think it will be relevant).

let’s gooo-

joanna lannister is a dead mom with some narrative weight to her. all three lannisters think about how different their lives might have been, define themselves by the gaping absence of her in their life, and the fact that jaime commits more violence in the riverlands, convinces himself it’s a job well done, and of all people it’s his MOTHER who comes to him in a dream just to be like “this is your conscious speaking, you’re a fucking idiot get your life together dude,” you really feel that this is a family that was wrecked by the loss of their mother at a young age. it Is noticeable that we don’t get much of an idea of her personality compared to the men tho.

can she stay in the dead ladies club? yes, i think this is a well thought out dead mom, i simply wish she had slightly more characterization than “loving mom & wife.”

minisa whent gets less characterization, i think bc we only have cat as insight into her, so i can sort of forgive that, esp since i do think it’s noticeable that for all cat is really fuckijg busy most of the time, she does think about her mother and wonder if she would have been happier with her mother around. lysa & edmure only get to be Like That because they really had no adult taking care of them except cat who was still all but a child herself, so you can feel minisa’s absence in the characterization of her children and the damage her death did to the tully siblings.

can she stay in the dead ladies club? yes, i think this is a well thought out dead mom, although once again i wish we had the opportunity to get information on the type of person she was outside of "loving mother." i do think that minisa and joanna are meant to mirror each other in this way though - they died so young that they are forever frozen in the minds of their children as these paragons of goodness, as a reminder of where their lives went wrong, and what might have happened if things had been a little less sad for them.

what’s interesting about loreza nymeros martell is that we don’t even know what her actual name IS or her age or when she died AND YET despite how little time we spend with characters that knew her, Doran names her as an influence on him and quotes her, and this scene - “this is your kingdom” in the water gardens - is usually pointed to as one of those scenes that are The Point Of The Series. the writing around her is certainly clunky but at least you can tell there was thought put into the kind of person doran’s mother was and how she might have influenced doran's life. i also think it's notable here that we know she was up to things besides giving birth - she was a lady at court, she was friendly with joanna and rhaella, she was attempting to engage her kids to non dornish lords so she was clearly very pro-Dorne Being Involved as opposed to having an isolationist bent. we know a decent amount about her personality, and we don't even know who she marries, which is honestly kind of funny - so many of these characters only think about their fathers yet doran only thinks of his mother.

can she stay in the dead ladies club? yes, but we are deducting points for not having arianne think about her at all and also still not knowing her name.

cassana eastermont is a question mark but to be fair,,,,,so is steffon and that is kind of the point of both of them. cassana and steffon were at court, and then died, so like the other siblings of this era, the baratheon boys grew up Without An Adult In The Room except for Maester Cressen. the tragedy of Cressen being helpless to keep his boys together, and dying in a vain attempt to save what’s left of stannis and renly’s souls, it doesn’t really work if any of them have a lot of fond memories that they dwell over of cassana or steffon. and no one has any real idea how aware steffon was of the whisperings of rebellion against aerys because they’re so absent from the narrative, it’s funny that their son then became the face of that rebellion despite steffon’s targaryen mother. BUT. yeah it does objectively suck that we don’t know what cassana was up to before she had her first baby and then she dies, bc at least we know steffon was alive and doing shit, we’re just fuzzy on what. cassana begins and ends as a wife and mother, that really sucks and i wish we had gotten a single person throwaway commenting about her.

can she stay in the dead ladies club? yes, but i think if we had some throwaway lines about her, as an example, fostering at Storm's End so Rhaelle had some female company (since she had no daughters, and only the one son) and her and Steffon met and married that way, so that we know she existed before becoming a mother.

rhaella targaryen is an interesting example because we not only have several characters who remark on her and knew her, we actually get a significant amount of characterization for her. she was clearly romantic enough to entertain fantasies of running off with bonifer hasty and yet pragmatic enough to not pull a stunt like that. "mindful of her duty" as it's put, but also rebelling against her brother-husband in ways by being openly kind to rhaegar and embracing rhaenys and elia. stubborn enough to crown viserys on dragonstone. a loving mother whose loss broke viserys' mind. but...like did she have to die in childbirth? did daenerys have to have no memories of her whatsoever? would it not have been perfectly within the plot george wanted if rhaella and ser willem darry were with her, and died of a fever at the same time?

can she stay in the dead ladies club? no, i think it's really annoying and dumb that rhaella dies on dragonstone giving birth to dany. i dont think it changes the plot in any way if rhaella had stayed alive for four or five years after dany's birth, and if dany thought about her mother from time to time. it is honestly one of the my Main quibbles with this series, that dany never thinks about the women in her family when she thinks of leaders and rulers, only the men.

lyarra stark is in my opinion the most egregious example of a woman in the dead ladies club. no personality, no in canon mentions of her, no idea when she dies, george didn't even think about her until twoiaf. there were theories and mystery surrounding her and the answer was "george did not think she was relevant" and it sure is fun and intersting to look at which dead characters are irrelevant and which ones get characterization (see comments about steffon vs cassana). i get wanting most of the grandparents to be dead by the end of robert's rebellion - a lot of the point is that the sets of siblings from the rebellion era are very isolated from their childhoods, signified by the losses of their parents and especially their mothers (as motherhood and childhood are kind of intrinsically linked together). but why did she have to die before the rebellion? why does ned never once think about her? why must it always be the mother who is inconsequential while the father makes history? to throw george's own words at him, the woman is important too!

can she stay in the dead ladies club? no, there's just no reason why she couldn't have lived to the rebellion, been the Stark in Winterfell alongside Benjen, and died during the war, either of grief, shock, or potentially even after an attempt at finding lyanna herself goes awry.

#motherhood #minisa whent #loreza nymeros martell #the unnamed princess of dorne #joanna lannister #cassana estermont #getting on my soap box #the dead ladies club #lyarra stark #rhaella targaryen #once again i say. bored at work.

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poorshadowspaintedqueens · 11 months

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Why do you think Joanna Lannister wanted an alliance with Dorne?

I suspect we are never going to get a full answer to this question in canon (unless GRRM remembers to include it in Fire & Blood, vol. 2) so what I'm saying here is pretty much all speculation.

I personally like the theory (which I believe was @joannalannister's, though it might have originated with @lyannas or @madaboutasoiaf) that the Princess of Dorne joined Rhaella Targaryen's household as a lady-in-waiting either during or slightly before the War of the Ninepenny Kings. Joanna Lannister was also part of Rhaella's train, and I like the idea that the three women were close, and that they intended to seal that closeness with a series of marriage alliances.

We're talking about the year 273 AC. Queen Rhaella has just suffered a string of miscarriages and stillbirths, and Rhaegar is her only son (now aged 13-14). Joanna has the twins (aged 7ish), and the Unnamed Princess has Oberyn and Elia, who are 15-17ish, respectively. We know from the story Oberyn tells Tyrion that his mother took him and Elia on a Grand Tour of sorts, across Dorne, to Oldtown, and finally, to Casterly Rock. Oberyn believes his mother intended a double betrothal--him to Cersei, Elia to Jaime--but this seems strange for a few reasons.

One, Elia is significantly older than Jaime (as much as 8-10 years), which would mean that any potential heirs to Casterly Rock would need to wait until she was well into her twenties. Now, one explanation is that Elia's mother was cognizant of Elia's health issues and wanted to make sure her daughter would not get pregnant too young, and if that is the case, the betrothal actually makes perfect sense. It also squares with the fact that Elia and Rhaegar did not marry until Elia was 22 or 23, which is about the point at which she and Jaime would likely have married, if that betrothal had actually happened.

Two, we know Tywin intended to marry Cersei to Rhaegar so a grandchild of his blood could sit the Iron Throne. Of course, given Aerys II's repeated attempts to sexually assault Joanna (and his successful assaults upon Rhaella, which Joanna would have known about), she may not have wanted her daughter married to that particular king's son. A double betrothal with Dorne would have solved that problem up to a point, by making sure Cersei was out of Aerys' reach geographically. But also Oberyn may have simply been there as a red herring.

Either way, even if these two ladies had agreed on a double betrothal between their children, they may have done so to buy time for those children to grow up, and--specifically for Joanna's purposes--to separate the twins. We know she had discovered the two of them doing something (not clear what) that troubled her enough that she insisted they move to opposite sides of Casterly Rock. And if you consider the size of Casterly Rock, that is a pretty serious step on her part. I don't know that it's outside the realm of possibility that she considered sending one of them to Dorne.

#asoiaf #a song of ice and fire #joanna lannister #rhaella targaryen #unnamed princess of dorne #elia martell #oberyn martell #jaime lannister #cersei lannister #rhaegar targaryen #aerys ii targaryen

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alienoryva · 4 months

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—QUEEN OF LOVE AND BEAUTY—

🪻Princess Daenerys Targaryen :

named by Ser Simon Dondarrion in the journey celebrating the completion of dragonpit in 55 AC (cr by: dalbe)

🪻Queen Alysanne Targaryen :

named by Ser Ryam Redwyne in the 10th anniversary tourney in 58 AC (cr by: Elenya.art)

🪻Princess/Queen Rhaenyra i Targaryen :

named by Ser Criston Cole in a tourney staged in 104 AC (cr by: Magali Villeneuve)

🪻Queen Naerys Targaryen :

named by Her Brother Prince Aemon The Dragonknight, Who was disguised as a mystery knight known as The Knight of tears (cr by: Hylora)

🪻Princess/Queen Rhaella Targaryen :

named by Ser Bonifer Hasty (cr by: Bella Bergolts)

🪻Lady Lyanna Stark :

named by Prince Rhaegar Targaryen at the tourney at Harrenhal (cr by: louvie Haller)

🪻Lady Lynesse Hightower :

named by Ser Jorah Mormont at the tourney at Lannisport (cr by: blackbettyes)

🖇️

unknown daughter of lord ashford at the opening tourney at ashford meadow in 209AC.

unknown daughter of lord Walter whent and lady Shella whent at reigning Queen at the opening of the tourney at harrenhal.

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lilith-kruger · 1 year

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SEPTA RHAELLA TARGARYEN :The supreme septon was too ill to attend, but sent its most recent septa, rhaella, who had been targaryen, still shy but smiling. It was said that the queen wept with joy at seeing her, for in face and figure she was the living image of her sister aerea, though older.

QUEEN RHAELLA TARGARYEN:Jaehaerys and shaera had two sons, aerys and rhaella. At the suggestion of the forest witch Jenny stones old prince jaehaerys resolved to marry aerys with rhaella, or at least so it is stated in the Chronicles of the court. King aegon, annoyed, washed his hands and let the prince get away with it.

PRINCESS RHAELLE TARGARYEN:The despised girl's father, Lord lyonel baratheon, called the laughing storm, and renowned for his feats on the battlefield, was not a man who was easy to beat when he was hurt in his pride. Finally a brief but bloody rebellion broke out, which only ceased when it was Duncan, of the Royal guard, defeated in single combat Lord lyonel, and king aegon solemnly gave his word that his youngest daughter, rhaelle, would marry Lord lyonel's heir. To seal the pact, princess rhaelle was sent to bastion of storms to serve Lord lyonel as a copera and keep company with his wife.

#septa rhaella targaryen #queen rhaella targaryen #princess rhaelle targaryen #my art digital art #house targaryen #ABECEDARIOTARGARYEN #pre asoiaf #valyrianscrolls #a song of ice and fire #asoiaf #asoiaf fanart #fireandblood #fire and blood #the world of ice and fire #R🐲

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warp-speed · 2 years

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Family and friends

Some modern AU Princess Rhaella Targaryen fanart I did forever ago. A pregnant Rhaella with her grandmother Bertha and mother Shaera. Next, a young Rhaella with the princess of Dorne and Joanna Lannister.

#asoiaf #asoiaf art #asoiaf fanart #valyrianscrolls #house tarth #rhaella targaryen #shaera targaryen #betha blackwood #joanna lannister #princess of dorne #illustration #characterdesign #my art #color pencil

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mmmmriah · 2 years

Photo

Oh, that’ll have to do

#ser harwin strong #harwin strong #rhaella targaryen #princess rhaenys targaryen #hotd #house of the dragon #riah edited thi

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highgardenart · 1 year

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Queen Rhaena, Prince Aegon the Uncrowned, & their twin daughters, Princess Aerea & Septa Rhaella.

#a song of ice and fire #game of thrones #got #asoif fanart #hotd #house of the dragon #asoiaf #fan art #digital art #fire and blood #house targaryen #game of thrones fan art #got fanart #rhaena targaryen #rhaena the black bride #aegon the uncrowned #prince aegon #princess aerea #septa rhaella

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green-ajah-aes-sedai · 11 months

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Rhaella Targaryen x Elia Martell

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https-gossipgirl · 2 years

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RHAENYRA TARGARYEN

#rhaenyra x alicent #rhaella targaryen #rhaenyra targaryen #princess rhaenyra #rhaenyra icons #photo edit #wattpad #wallpaper #house of dragons #daemon targeryan #daemon targaryen

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hollowwhisperings · 2 years

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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.

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