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horizon-verizon · 2 years

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Does Viserys ignore the children he had with Alicent in the book? Although in the series, it's clearly more Viserys' illness that's the cause of less time with the kids, rather than him disliking them and willfully ignoring them.

*EDITED POST* (4/9/24)

House of the Dragon’s Viserys

Viserys obviously favored Rhaenyra (politically). But I feel it is tied to how Show!him had a real romantic connection with Aemma yet killed her without her knowledge or consent so he could have a son who didn’t live long anyway.

Adding to that, from the trauma of losing several of his pre-kids/kids to miscarriages and stillbirths and his wife probably almost dying in some of those pregnancies--a daughter is still better than having no kids at all because he genuinely wanted kids, and because this is a feudal world where inheritance and lineage leads to pride, identity, security and power--Viserys would also care for or favor Rhaenyra even more. Rhaenrya s his first child of a series of children who all died; she is kinda his "miracle child as well as the child that officially made him a father.

Like how you hear and read fathers value their child after their mother died giving birth to them, Viserys would see this daughter as his only connection to Aemma as well as try to “make it up” to her by making their only daughter successful.

So he is more attached to Rhaenyra other than her being the only child Aemma ever could bring into being successfully.

(This does not mean that Viserys’ pain matters or is more than Aemma’s emotional and physical pain. The betrayal she would have felt when she realized Viserys was cosigning her final moments to pain--without her knowledge or permission. Because it doesn’t--he is still accountable and I dislike him and people like him. I’m saying that before he did this to Aemma, he did experience lost hopes for an heir as well as pain from having his children die before they could ever be.)

It also doesn’t mean that he doesn’t value Rhaenyra as his progeny or offspring.

He didn’t fully value her as his potential heir, or as a true, politically autonomous agent in her own right.

In the show, however, I also think that a combination of:

his rotting

Alicent's constant protests against Rhaenyra and her children/his accepted grandkids

his finding out about Otto’s hand in pushing Alicent and Viserys having to even pursue this after Young Rhaenyra told him that Otto overstepped his bounds as someone not even a part of the royal family and having her followed without royal permission and Viseys’ added guilt or confliction about that moment where he did a fuck up himself and tried to go at Rhaenyra, when he was so shortsighted himslef

all comes to him choosing to be more hands off towards his green kids and let Alicent and Rhaenyra's rivalry foment until major events happened.

His determination to keep Rhaenyra in her position that all comes across as him just “loving” Rhaenyra to an extreme to some people watching the show.

In the Book Fire and Blood and by Original Canon Lore

He had complications with his weight. Over time, he experienced more chest tightness and gout that get worse until he finally dies. Stress would have exacerbated it--his worries with his wife and daughter duking it out constantly, the tension at court, his worries over the succession, etc.

There was no literal decay. And there isn't a solid, or direct indication or quote that shows us he actively favored Rhaenyra more than his other kids.

There is also no indication that he would or did kill Aemma for Baelon (dead son) in the book.

However, we can read between the lines and reason that he valued Rhaenyra differently then his other kids for the same reasons I listed about Show!Viserys, even if Aemma had just died on her own. For being his only child by Book!Aemma, who still dies trying to birth him an heir. Doesn't mean that he didn't love them, in the book, we see he spends time with Helaena and her kids, one of those moment sjust hours before his death When he's telling them stories about past Targ generations ("A Question of Succession"):

Why Viserys Protects Rhaenyra’s Position in Both the Show and the Book/Canon Lore

Other than what I already said about the sort of love he has for her...

Politics: public image and house reputation and what we can hide and manipulate to maintain control.

If Rhaenyra is revealed to have bastard kids, then the house cannot deny the shame (objectively it is not shameful for a woman to have kids out of wedlock no more than it is for a man to do similar. Shameful in terms of cheating on your spouse if you two did not agree to an nonexclusive arrangement beforehand. But otherwise, not shameful. In the context of medieval politics and patriarchy, it becomes shameful to have this out in the open...and even then, it depends on the political climate of the persons).

But if it is kept hidden, then the reputation doesn’t completely falter, the line of succession goes throuhg Rhaenyra, and the whole house doesn’t face censure.

lt and the people can still work under an image.

If you don't like this, blame politics and patriarchy.

This is what @the-king-andthe-lionheart says in a reblog:

“With regard to royal children, the only consideration more important than their kingly blood was the monarch’s self-interest. Many kings acknowledged children they knew had been fathered by someone else. Often, kings did not want to cast doubt on the paternity of older children they knew to be their own. In the case where the king could not father children, sometimes court factions heartily desired the queen to bear bastards in order to stabilize the throne and cement their own interests.

Fortunately, the queen’s complete and utter disillusionment with her husband usually set in after the birth of the heir. And so it was not deemed worthwhile to lose international prestige, throw the nation into tumult, and question the paternity of all royal children, simply to deny the one cuckoo in the robin’s nest. In the early nineteenth century, the last son of King John VI and Queen Carlota Joaquina of Portugal was extremely good-looking and slender - unlike either of his parents - and happened to be the spitting image of the handsome gardener at the queen’s country retreat. Other than a few snickers behind painted fans, no one said a word.” (Sex With The Queen by Eleanor Herman)

and

“It was never adultery alone that did in a queen, or the fact that she did not resemble the Virgin Mary, or that she had polluted the royal bloodline. It was politics.

If the queen followed the traditional pattern of bearing children, embroidering altar cloths, and interceding for the poor - pious duties that the Virgin Mary would likely have approved of - even if she took a lover she was usually left in peace. There was rarely reason to shoot down a political nonentity at court. But an intelligent ambitious woman who spoke her mind and built up a faction was always open to the accusation of adultery by her political rivals, whether the accusation was true or fabricated.

Adultery charges offered the accuser many benefits. The very mention of adultery suddenly cast doubt upon the legitimacy of the offspring of a suspected queen, possibly rendering them unfit for the throne and opening the door to other ambitious candidates - usually the accusers themselves [...] (Sex With The Queen by Eleanor Herman)”

Plus he had already named Rhaenyra heir long ago.

While you are the monarch and can change the heir while the previous is still alive, to change the heir would have come across as revealing or “admitting” Rhaenyra’s not having trueborn sons.

Defeating the entire purpose of protecting her and going against the need and cultural compulsion to uphold his and his house’s own public image/reputation.

So Viserys wanted to make sure the throne kept his feudal dignity.

Feudalist power and monarchy.....you know, the thing the Greens canonically wanted just for itself in the first place?

The other reason why Rhaenyra is allowed to get way with her sons’ illegitimacy is because Viserys wants to keep her and the grandsons he accepts as his grandsons alive. Because he loves them.

Viserys is not a good father, but he is not Tywin Lannister--one of the most evil fathers to exist in Westerosi history.

I doubt a father/grandfather who has some real caring for their child/granfchild, no matter their position, would allow his child and grandchild’s lives to be forfeit.

If Rhaenyra is publicly revealed with inscrutable evidence that he can’t just ignore and deny or hide (Vaemond wasn’t enough) to have had illegitimate children, then her kids could die, could be exiled, or face total ruination to the point they can’t live in Westeros without facing worldwide hatred for being illegitmate.

Which, by the way, comes from a bogus Faith belief. The same religion rules that children who are born out of wedlock (parents who weren’t married to each other) are inherently untrustworthy. The logic is that because these people are born from “lust, lies, and weakness, and as such, they are said to be wanton and treacherous by nature”.

This is blood purity, anon. That one would actually believe that a person is inherently evil, dangerous and lesser than another because their birth didn’t happen within a marriage is to say that people can have inherently traits that define their entire being and value in society forever and ever.

So not only do we had the risk of women all over Westeros losing even more ability to use political power, we also have the seeds of racism/outright classicism and discrimination.

Which affects every single person in a society and would make them define their entire worth according to external, socially-constructed ideology. Creating a divide between those "deserving" and those not.

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horizon-verizon · 2 years

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What is this bullshit that the fact that Rhaenyra has children born out of wedlock and yet heirs, will upset the stability of the kingdom? 🙄 As if there hadn't already been "bastards" in power in history or even named as heirs? 😂

Rhaenyra is already doubted to be an effective leader due to her gender. It's not only that, many lords and their male relatives do not wish to be directed by a woman, used to male authority and patriarchal privilege. So there is the fear that some will resist and actually rebel to remove her.

Rhaenyra, just by being a woman, already "threatens the stability of the realm".

We think of how Henry VIII felt about his daughters Mary I and Elizabeth I, how hard he wanted a male heir, and how many wives he got rid of and abused--he wanted to make sure that his lineage and dynasty would survive, and to do that was to ensure he got legitimate males. (He had a few male illegitimate children, but you know.)

Thus the other fear is that some lord(s) will take Aemond, Aegon, Helaena, and Daeron and any children they may have to use against Rhaenyra. So Rhaenyra would be forced to order their executions or kill them in battle.

I understand the initial fear and concern, but I can't really excuse how far it went with what Show!Alicent knew of Show!Rhaenyra, with they were supposed to know of each other because of *close friendship*, the fact that Rhaenyra could have also claimed that those lords were trying to make her commit kinslaying (Jane Grey was Mary I's very distant relative while Aemond and the rest are closer kin to Rhaenyra), and the fact these people had dragons.

Book!Rhaenyra was not afraid to use her dragon either, as we read about Vaemond and the Driftmark Claim (she got Daemon to decapitate him and fed the remains to Syrax).

I also reject judging women for the same action a man can take without similar consequence, reaction, or punishment.

Back to bastards. Because Rhaenyra is already a "liability", her introducing bastards into the mix would complicate things since some lords already do not want a female ruler. Bastards are unfavorable because they are believed to be inherently untrustworthy and evil (Faith of the Seven).

By having bastards, she acts "unwomanly" and against the standards set for her gender--how can she be a good ruler?!

As if Jaehaerys I didn't get enough of the lords and peasants to accept Targaryen sibling-sibling incest through manipulation and propaganda, or that there was a time in their pre-Alysanne history that a lord could rape one of his peasant's/vassal's newlywed wife [right of the first night], which does go against what the Faith official doctrine teaches about gender-equal fidelity.

Some have counterargued that the V boys aren't bastards at all because they were born accepted by Viserys, Corlys, and Laenor. Others bring up what you do and counterargue that bastards have always occupied higher positions of power or were allowed to according to their parents and relatives or else's needs and desires for power and resources.

In real life:

before the 1200s in France, England and Spain, it was being born to the right parents–whether they were married according to the Church’s doctrines and rules–that made a child seem more worthy of inheriting their parents’ lands, properties, and titles.

several early medieval kings – Charlemagne as an example– had concubines, mistresses, etc. who mothered children that were very much apart of these kings’ lineages.

there was also a real concern behind this was that kings can marry and annul/divorce a lot easier or how their parents’ resources could provide for the child’s future vassalages.

it wasn’t until more and more medieval lawyers used Church doctrines of marriage to draw up reasons for some illegitimate children to not inherit some lands and rights, such as the Anstey case of the 1160s (if you doubt this wiki page, look through its references listed below).

“There is very little evidence to suggest that an interest in keeping illegitimate children from inheriting noble or royal title outweighed political or practical considerations in the same way that the policing of illegal marriages sometimes did.” (The Wire)

The fact that these medieval lawyers can even use another precept to exclude “illegitimate” children for succession for other lords and ladies when before, illegitimate kids can and often inherited their parents’ right and properties (William the Conqueror) speaks to how immaterial and unreal legitimacy itself is.

#asoiaf asks to me #westerosi bastards #medieval bastards #medieval europe #the medieval period #medieval history #fire and blood comment #hotd comment #william the conqueror #anstey case #asoiaf

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