#asoiaf genetics

[horizon-verizon]

i feel like if it wasnt Harwin, there was always going to be another man to point at for being Jace, Luke and Joff's father. and this too, ofc, as long as they didnt have valyrian features.

If im not wrong, Jace, Luke and Joff would be the first kids to have variety of genes come to them from previous 3 generations. the arryn [as far as ive read, arryns have brown/blond hair] and the baratheon genes [black hair/dark hair]. Its completely possible that they were indeed Laenor & Rhaenyra's kids. genes have weird ways of showing up and also skipping one or two generations. this is how heredity works.

also I dont think Aemma's hair colour if given [i can be wrong here but ive read and not seen it]. also as Baratheon genes are shown to be dominant arent they? so what are the chances that Laenor and Laena didnt have the same black-white hair as their mother and didnt get any features from Baratheaon side of the family?

i maybe reaching here as im curious about all possibilities. but one cant help but think if its maesters who wrote it, wrote it differently cuz reasons ahem or really didnt know or went on off instinct?

Not that it's supposed to matter, but to humor people & put down remarks & make that point...

You're right, Aemma was never described. But from how people in court and the maesters make a deal and a stark point about Rhaenys having dark hair with "violet" eyes, I would guess Aemma also didn't deviate from her mother in Targ appearance. If she did, we'd probably have it mentioned, but I'd be fine with her coming out at least with blonde-very pale hair and any color eyes.

Rhaenys was described, as we already know. But Laena is specifically described as having "silver-gold ringlets" in F&B, after Daemon fails to get any of Rhea's assets. In the same book, Laenor is also described as having "aquiline nose, silver-white hair, and purple eyes". Like I said above, if Laena's looks deviated from the expected Valyrian/Targ looks, it probably would have been mentioned so she most likely had purplish eyes of any shade. Her daughters, identical twins, are specifically written to have purplish eyes and the Valyrian hair shade: "both had fine features, silver-white hair, and purple eyes".

I don't think the maesters lied about these people's looks bc they, especially with most of them green-leaning if not just Rhaenyra-hating, would want to emphasize how unlike Rhaenyra's kids were from every other Targ scion at the time and use every "scientific" principle of genetics-lineage the society already had to discredit Rhaenyra. Or to give a good reason as to why the court and poor Alicent were "concerned". They would want to take care to record exactly how each person looks to throw into relief how and form where Alicent and the greens based their conjectures to show how exactly Alicent and her supporters got to suggest and accrue more believers in the boys' bastardry.

Then there is the fact that Jace definitely became who he was and an effective leader partially because he wanted to show that despite the looks and doubt, he was in fact a "true" Targ for to rule. His looks would exacerbate the doubt put on him, making him as decisive as he was. Even though we could argue that he would be similar if he has the typical Valyrian features, I think that the extra sauce of looking different makes both a better story and adds a layer to the character's determination. Up to others to consider this part of the post relevant.

Finally, there specifically is the text telling us that the court (Alicent's supporters anyway) expected all three of Rhaenyra's kids by Harwin had their eggs hatch almost immediately after they were all born:

Since this measure was their silent way (the court, not the Targs) of proving paternity, which I already argued is bogus in the first place. Coming from the thought that one almost always inherits if not most of their personality and physical traits from their father instead of their mother, then the desirable or the most notable traits and abilities from their father and his family/lineage. And this belief doesn't just go for the Baratheon lineage, I'm talking this court actually hoped/believed that in general. They all wanted this not to happen because even though Rhaenys had dark hair, the princes would have been so doubted as Laenor's so much in order to make room for the belief that them nor hatching eggs was proof of their true parentage.

I also don't know if Baratheons do or don't typically have wider noses than Targs or anything more similar to the "pug nose" the boys reportedly had, but Baratheons (by the time of Daenerys) typically have gray or blue eyes. Jocelyn Baratheon canonically had dark brown eyes, so she deviated from Baratheons in that sense.

Either way, the V boys definitely either got their dark eyes from either their father and his family (the Strongs), or if one believes Laenor WAS their bio dad, Jocelyn Baratheon through Rhaenys or some distant Baratheon/Arryn ancestor/person married in. But I don't think any of these boys were Laenor's. If so, that would put greater credence to the theory that Alyn and Addam of Hull were his sons and that Laenor was capable of sleeping with Rhaenyra enough times to actually impregnate her but actively chose not to when he absolutely could have, which is fine but also puts a wrench in his ability to really be helpful to his and Rhaenyra's abilities to get on their respective thrones with little pushback from public opinion--theoretically. (With Corlys most likely breathing down his neck to impregnate her.) Or if he was pan/bisexual or "homoflexible", he could have been able to bed multiple genders, and if so, again, why not bed Rhaenyra and get the "job" done?

In order for Laenor to have had sex with Marilda of Hull several times, enough to impregnate her twice, then he'd have to be attracted to women/her, and while gay men absolutely are capable of having sex with women and some even can be attracted to one or two in their lifetime, it's clear that Laenor would rather be with his two male companions than that close to a woman.

He spent most of his time away from Rhaenyra until the doubts about Jacaerys. Why would he be more able to bed Marilda out of pleasure (again, because he has to have had sex with her more than once without it actually being a task since Marilda was not his legal wife nor an legal aristocratic woman arranged to marry and perform "duties" with) and not Rhaenyra, the cousin he's always known? Versus some random woman? (This makes sense to a anti-incrst-and-cousin-sexing society, but Westeros is not that).

It is far more likely that Laenor was the feudal gay man who just couldn't do the deed and live his own truths rather than the feudal gay man who put aside the stress of fighting oneself to have sex with one who is not attracted to/reluctance. Who thought about the political benefits of a "trueborn" heir more than said "truth"-living.

And it was pretty obvious Laenor was not ambitious or totally willing to conform to feudal Westerosi standards of masculinity or obey his father to the full breath (again, he stayed away from Rhaenyra except in final occasions at first immediately after their wedding, even if one argues that he was grieving Joffrey Monmouth he still stayed away when Corlys would def be after him to go back, hurry, and sire an heir AND he did not try to become a knight independently- he had to be so before becoming Prince Consort).

[throwawayasoiafaccount]

magic in asoiaf is genetic. and that is intresting. and the fact that grrm doesn’t shy away from the implications of this makes me love asoiaf even more.

because it’s very understandable that these people who could ride dragons would see themselves as more gods than men. it’s understandable that the practice of sibling-sibling incest would become common in order to keep this ability in the family/to not lose said ability. it’s also understandable that these people would see their race as superior because they are able to do these things that others could not.

it also makes complete sense that this human civilization collapsed in a horrific magical event due to their own hubris because they saw themselves as gods when they were always only men.

and that is peak world building.

some more peak world building is that the noble houses of westeros also clearly gained power and held onto their power through the use of their magical abilities inherited from their ancestors.

a godlike existence like Garth the Green being the ancestor of all the oldest and most noble of the reach houses makes perfect sense for this world!and it also makes sense that the lords without this ancestry are discriminated against in this region that still holds onto the values their society cultivated in the past in order to maintain their magical superiority, even though most of these noble and old houses no longer exhibit these abilities.

and it also makes sense that these people no longer have access to these abilities as they no longer practice the religion that was centered around these powers; plus their blood is simply diluted at this point as these houses have married into a different ethnic group so often that the magical gene just doesn’t surface anymore.

but the fact that it still matters if you can trace your ancestry back to Garth the Green? peak! peak! peak!

george does such an excellent job showcasing the stagnation of westerosi society here because why should it matter if you’re connected to this magic guy if magic is no longer commonplace? however, it also makes total sense that the ruling class of the reach still harps on and on about this as it’s how they maintain the status quo and differentiate themselves from those they consider lesser now that they no longer have access to magic themselves.

and this is also why it’s very important that the Starks still retain the blood of the first men. because the first men interbred with the children of the forest and other elder races, which is what gave these humans these powers. it’s also worth noting that before the direwolves connected with the Stark children, none of our current Starks were able to awaken their abilities by themselves, which shows that even now they are very far removed from their ancestor who’s genetic makeup gave this bloodline these abilities. and it makes sense that the Starks experienced this slow magical decline because magic itself was declining in the world after the doom of valyria.

another reason for this decline is because Andal culture started heavily influencing the North and slowly changed the way magic was perceived. so now in the present, a warg/skinchanger/greenseer has become something to fear being because that’d make you different and therefore puts your life at risk, which means that there’s now practically no safe environment to cultivate these abilities and no secure way to pass down any knowledge you do have about said abilities.

i can’t help but be reminded about how Jon Snow has rejected his nature and how that has led to the stagnation of his abilities, and then i think about Arya and Bran and how their new environments have led to an astonishing growth in their abilities, which shows that it’s not just genetics that matter, environment is also just as, if not more, important.

i bring all of this up because magic being genetic in asoiaf is not as problematic as people try to make it out as. in real life, sometimes people just have genetic gifts. some people can become olympians, and some people are disabled. some people are born 10 times smarter than the average human, and some people believe that covering their faces in lemon juice would turn them invisible. that is reality. and in this universe, some people have access to magic and some don’t, and it’s all based on genetics. it’s unfair! and that makes it realistic.

not everyone gets to ride dragons and not everyone gets to travel back in time, and that grounds asoiaf, which is what grrm was going for.

and how these societies have organized themselves in response to these genetic abilities and the dangers they pose makes absolute sense. on one hand we have the valyrian freehold, which was a magic hotspot and the people who lived there used magic to propel their society to new heights, and on the other hand we have the seven kingdoms that demonize anyone too different, and all magic practitioners are different from normal humans.

and the fact that george decided to go this route with asoiaf is so juicy to me cause:

we have characters like Varamyr and Euron who use their abilities to commit great evils and we know that their powers have influenced the way they see and interact with others. on the other hand we have characters like Dany who use their abilities to fight against evil violent institutions. and through characters like her we learn how vulnerable fledgling magic practitioners/characters with these abilities are to these older and more dangerous institutions and individuals who are perfectly aware about the knowledge gap between them and these younger characters and know exactly how to exploit them.

so, while it’s understandable that the fandom is uncomfy with the practices and values that grrm has written about, this isn’t bad world building by any means. it’s logical and well thought out. and i truly enjoy that grrm doesn’t shy away from writing about the more worrying aspects and implications of magic being a matter of genetics. i also like how the seven kingdoms and the valyrian freehold are kinda extremes on the matter of magic and how this is/was detrimental to both of these societies and at the individual level. a horrific magical firey doom is not any better nor any worse than a slow drawn out icey decline.

imo, what is important to remember is that in the world of asoiaf, people with magic are the ones who are discriminated against (bc most POV characters are in Westeros and magic is a no no there). so they are the ones who are in danger if they out themselves as magic users. now, it is true that some societies are more tolerant (Qarth is a great example of this and Valyria before the doom was likely the most tolerant to have ever existed in this world), but as of now most societies simply aren’t. remember jojens warning? he didn’t pull that out of his ass. bran would’ve been in a lot of danger if he came out and told the wrong people about his dreams/abilities. also, jon’s assassination may have been partly motivated by the mutineers fear of wargs. this is the life-threatening danger magic practitioners are in for simply existing in an intolerant society.

tbh the reason i typed all this up is because it’s very annoying when people try to ignore the reality, which is that the dragonbond depends on genetics. now, i’m sure there are other ways to ride a dragon, as dragons are magical animals so of course there may be a one in a million chance of a dragon allowing some rando to ride it, but this doesn’t change the fact that there is such a thing as a genetic ability that gives these certain humans the ability to form a connection with a dragon.

(another example that i can’t help but remember is that melisandre was able to get ghosts approval by using some of her tricks. of course there could be other reasons for ghost to have done this, but the most likely reason is that ghost simply fell for melisandre’s trick and this influenced how jon saw mel. but this doesn’t change the fact that melisandre will never have the kind of bond jon and ghost have because melisandre is not a warg. this is also another example of how vulnerable fledgling magic practitioners are to older ones.)

so, sorry not sorry that george decided to create a realistic representation of what a society would look like if only certain bloodlines were able to ride dragons <\3.

[thaliajoy-blog]

Maybe I can get this out of my system, there's Baela discourse on twitter and it's making me think...like the possibility, the future with her & Jace being the perfect rulers and bringing a new golden era to the realm is only interesting to me as what it is on paper, in the actual text : a doomed future that never came to pass. I prefer Baela's relationship with Jace to be something she treasures & regrets, something from her past, from when she was barely fifteen & idealized the same future I just pictured. That golden doomed issue that never came to be, compared to a bitterly imperfect present with Alyn (the one who will never be Jace, because Jace died at fifteen and never got to grow up & become a flawed human being), where Baela isn't queen, had lost her dragon & the realm is recovering from a terrible war.

And like maybe this will sound mean or something but the future people tend to imagine between her and Jace generally looks prety, eh, painfully heterosexual ? It's giving Alyssa and Baelon but like, emphasis on the "bold & courageous young Targaryen woman whose dream is actually birthing lots of sons for her husband because no matter how bold & courageous she is, she's been successfully indoctrinated into wanting what's right for the dynasty - lots of babies".

Like on one part there's definitely a golden future lost in her & Jace, like there was in Alyssa & Baelon, or in Aemon, and later in Baelor Breakspear...but also I'm a bit annoyed by how people seem to think that this couple would have had no problem whatever because this time (!) the Targ formula would have been perfect & unproblematic & feminist ! They would truly have saved us all Westeros 🙌

And like I can't really feel so optimistic for some reason. So many unknown variables in this brother-sister-betrothed-basically-since birth-rarelly-parted relationship. Some part of me just wants to wrench them apart, so they could grow as individual people. Only war & death could do that, in the end, and that's a shame. Though as a story, it's golden.

[daenystheedreamer]

very funny that in comparison to other houses, house frey don’t inbreed much yet they look the MOST sterotypically inbred. genuinely not much cousincest and they even marry out of the riverlands. considering how hot the lannisters and targs are, maybe inbreeding is good actually

[thecatsaesthetics]

I love it when people on tiktok claim their is “ambiguity” regarding Rhaenyra’s children in the books because “that’s not how genetic works”.

And it’s like… do you really think George RR Martin knows how genetics works? He wrote a family that interbreed with each other for over 300 years (they were interbreeding in Valyria as well) and none of them have genetic issues.

He had Ned figure out Cersei’s kids were bastards because they were blonds. Rhaenyra’s children are bastards because Martin hits you over the head with it again and again. Their is no ambiguity.

[baelonthebrave]

ppl being like all the kids have one targaryen parent and one normal parent how come all of alicent’s kids are blonde and rhaenyra’s kids are brunette it’s bc the drama is IN THEIR GENES. targaryens are such attention whores that even their DNA knows how to cause a stir. do you know how fast Jon snow would have died and Ned would have been put to death for treason if he’d been blonde w/ purple eyes? but the targ genes said NO I will NOT present bc I sense we will have a better story on our hands if this poor idiot looks like his mama

[kingcunny]

baratheon superblack hair comes from the same magic genes that give the targaryens silver hair and purple eyes

[tetrachromate]

its kinda fire when asoiaf fanartists depict northerners as like, siberian-altaic looking. Gökstärks....

[deithe]

modern au but everything is literally the same but all the characters have like. snapchat and 24 hour news stations. jon is still a 14 year old on a penal colony but now hes got an android phone and regularly posts on his twitter. daenerys has a meticulous instagram for each of her dragons and incredible aesthetic pictures from mereen. bran has a youtube vlog series titled "my journey to become an all seeing god! (gone wrong!)(i eat a guy 😱)". jamie and brienne appear several times on "have you seen these people" type tv broadcasts while in riverland purgatory. sansa has the most depressing private snapchat story in the world and catelyn has the world most worrying facebook mom wall ever

[throwawayasoiafaccount]

is it wrong that i live for genetic based magic

maybe???? but i can’t care 🙅‍♀️🙅‍♀️🙅‍♀️

i can’tttttt care cause it’s so devious

like… what does it mean for our magical POV characters who are so new to this shit? what does it mean for future societal development? and what did it mean for past societal development?

[jackoshadows]

Q: How did you feel about The Rise of Skywalker and the way the films ended? Because that film retconned almost all of what transpired in The Last Jedi, as far as Rey's parentage and a bunch of other things. The message of The Last Jedi appeared to be that anyone can be extraordinary. But then that message was erased in the final film. A: Well, J.J. [Abrams] was the one who was like, she is of no one, so it wasn't just The Last Jedi where that was the message. What was interesting about the last one, for me, was that you can be a hero and not come from anywhere or you can be a hero and come from literally the worst person in the universe. You're not your parents, you're not your grandparents, you're not your bloodline and you're not the generations before you. So, I always was like, sure. But it's beyond my pay grade. I say the words, do the thing. I do love the version of, you can be anyone you want to be, but I also love the version where you can rectify wrongs and can't help what you're born into - Daisy Ridley

[kazz-brekker]

it remains one of my greatest bookish tragedies to date that i have been a fan of asoiaf for 8 years at this point and have yet to encounter anyone in real life that i can either (a) convince to read the books despite them being unfinished or (b) pick their brain for an extended period of time about all their opinions

[oracleofde1phi]

tiktok got fans arguing that jon will never be a "real" targaryen because he's not blond 🙄🙄 yall just mad the stark genetics are 🔛🔝

[viscardiac]

Real tired of folks not using genetics in asoiaf for funstuffs, only for eugenics smelling bullshit. Could we quit this "x is inherently bad bc genes!!!!!!" shite. It's giving nazism.

[thecatsaesthetics]

People be like “why would Rhaegar run off with a teenage”

Has it ever occurred to you the Targaryens are allergic to making good decisions.

[navree]

Hey, hello!

I was wondering what you thought but something regarding the relationship between Viserys and his non-Rhae children: How much do you think of V's neglect of A's children might be caused by A dressing them in greens?

(I'm in no way suggesting this rw the children or A's fault. He was a grown man who decided that, instead of trying to avoid the need of green by dotting on his children, he would made the abyss between them bigger which caused a bigger divide between blacks and greens and didn't allow for A and her children to feel así if they were safe)

Hey, thanks so much for the ask!!! Always down to talk about the Greens and slam Viserys for being a shit, lol.

It's an interesting idea, but I don't think the color green necessarily had too much to do with it. It likely contributed to the gulf growing between Alicent's children and Rhaenyra's children, considering that it became public knowledge that "the greens" was the shorthand for people partial to Alicent's side (and the claims of her children and their families over Rhaenyra's children), and likely could have signaled to Rhaenyra and her people that they shouldn't see these children necessarily as members of the family but as an entire separate faction (which is still stupid). But I don't think it contributed to how Viserys saw the children all that much.

Viserys's issue when Alicent showed up in The Green Dress at the wedding feast was that Alicent, by arriving not only late but also while he was talking, and in such stunning fashion, was upstaging him, taking the attention away from him and focusing it squarely on her. Harwin says that "the king will not like this, right in the middle of his speech" because Alicent, as a wife and a queen, isn't supposed to have attention shone down on her, she's supposed to be a support and a prop for her husband. That's why that scene was also so pivotal to Alicent's character, because after being a tool used by Otto (for his dynastic ambitions) and Viserys (for his sexual pleasures and his desire for male heirs) and even Rhaenyra (for her plans to get people to believe her lie re: that night in King's Landing over what others might say), she finally decided to be her own person and make this public moment her own, along with the subtle messaging through using not necessarily House Hightower colors, but the colors House Hightower specifically uses to show that they're at war. If Alicent had worn any other color, Viserys still would have been annoyed, because she still would be arriving as an independent and attention drawing woman, rather than just someone on his arm.

It's also that Viserys never shows a problem with Alicent wearing green after that. It's strange, he doesn't care about her as a person all that much, and has no concern with her physical or mental wellbeing, but he does like her. He liked her as a companion during their "courtship", he somewhat enjoyed her company in the moments we saw in episodes 3 and 4, and he certainly likes having her as a nursemaid after the first timejump. So I don't think he would have minded that Alicent was wearing green, or dressing their kids in green either; Rhaenyra wore a lot of yellow in the first four episodes of the show but that doesn't mean that he was starting to think she was declaring her allegiance to the Lannisters or Baratheons.

Viserys's neglect of his children by Alicent, and their own reticence towards him, is ultimately due to a lot of factors: his love for Aemma and guilt over her death caused him to blatantly favor Rhaenyra over any of them to an extraordinary degree, the rift between their mother also influenced any lack of closeness they had towards Rhaenyra specifically, even beyond the age gap, which didn't endear them to him either (because that's what kids need to do Viserys, they need to show you that they're worthy of your time and attention, I hate him!!), and the children themselves most likely started distancing themselves from him and stopped trying to get close (especially after Driftmark where Aemond had to learn that his dad doesn't care about him even if he's grievously injured and Aegon is screamed and treated so dismissively with Viserys calling him "boy" as if that ain't his fucking kid, and Helaena was also a witness of that whole exchange as well), which meant that not only was there no instigation on his part, there was nothing to respond to.

And as they grew older, continuing to dress so firmly on their mother's side of things, while Viserys became increasingly infirm, that might have widened the gulf somewhat. But I think whatever part it played in adding to his treatment of Aegon and Helaena and Aemond (and Daeron, wherever you are bby) was likely negligible.