#did he perhaps murder a few young heirs for an infamous king?

[malfaith]

OKAY! Vampire verse:

Lucius was turned at age 21, a little after 1000.

Narcissa is about 850 years old, from a family with a history of vampirism. They are still married <3

In most verses, Lucius loves upper-class culture and "slumming it" with the humans. He goes to plays, opera, and (sometimes) movies. (All at night).

He technically has a lordship*, but this isn't incredibly relevant as he uses a lot of aliases. (The politicians of Britain are probably under the impression that the Malfoys have been a large family meddling in politics for a long time.)

Lots of political power (vampire or human).

Assets in 423 currencies

Very proficient in glamour and hypnotizing humans.

Still can't decide about Draco. He's probably around 100 years old and Lucius and Narcissa are still trying to parent him.

*this applies to the main verse, but it's not something that's used in wizard culture, so you never hear about it and he doesn't consider it very important

[goodqueenaly]

Can you talk about the Cersei-Oberyn match that Tywin intended? What would be the aims of that marriage? Is it really useful considering the already existing betrothal between Trystane and Myrcella, and the low position of Oberyn in the inheritance of Dorne?

Sure, I think Tywin saw it as useful for a few reasons.

One, a marriage to Oberyn would almost guarantee that Cersei would give birth to more children, which was an explicit desire of Tywin’s. Cersei being unwed “allow[ed] Stannis to spread his disgusting slander”, in Tywin’s words, and his favored remedy was a marriage: if she could give birth to some non-Lannister-looking children, then by Tywin’s logic there would be no more reason for anyone to believe Stannis’ “lies” about her and her Baratheon-named children. Oberyn Martell was infamous for his “[begetting] bastard girls all over Dorne”, so presumably Tywin guessed that Oberyn would not be slow to claim what marital rights Westerosi law allowed him over Cersei. 

Two, a marriage agreement between Cersei and Oberyn would send a quiet but firm and serious message to the Tyrells. Tywin’s first choice for Cersei was Willas Tyrell, but as he revealed to Tyrion, Mace refused the offer (after Olenna mentioned that Cersei was “too old and too used” for Willas). As Tywin was wont to remind anyone who forgot, anyone who mocked or refused the Lannisters did so at his or her own peril. There is a very, very long racial-cultural history of hatred between the Reach and Dorne, which neither side has forgotten - no less so Mace and the Tyrells (since it was Tyrell men who taught Joffrey the racist anti-Dornish jokes he spouted before his wedding). Marrying Cersei to Oberyn - not simply a Martell, but the Martell who had crippled Mace’s heir - would serve as a quiet rebuke to the overproud Tyrells for refusing Tywin’s daughter.

Three, you mentioned the Trystane-Myrcella betrothal. While Tyrion had recognized the political value of a Trystane-Myrcella union, the young ages of both the would-be bride and groom meant that the marriage would not stand to be consummated for years - years in which the Martells (or the Lannister-Baratheon regime) could decide to back out of the arrangement. A marriage between Cersei and Oberyn would not only presumably be consummated right away (since that was one of its express purposes for happening), shoring up the crown’s alliance with Dorne, but could also free Myrcella for a more prestigious marriage later (rather than the second son, and third child, of the reigning Martell prince). Myrcella, as the only royal princess, might have seemed far more valuable a marriage pawn than older, already-widowed, scandal-plagued Cersei. (Of course, that would also imply that Tywin thought the Martells were only worth a lesser match, in his mind, which I could certainly see Tywin believing.) 

Fourth, Tywin was certainly not happy at all with the job Cersei had been doing as Joffrey’s mother. He expected Cersei to raise a perfectly Lannister heir, and believed Cersei’s reports that Joffrey cared nothing for Robert - only to have Joffrey mock him to his face as being afraid of Aerys II while glorying in his “father’s” victory over Rhaegar. Following Joffrey’s murder, Tywin planned a more direct strategy for Tommen: taking him back to Casterly Rock not only so that he could “learn to be a Lannister” but also explicitly to get him away from his mother. Marrying Cersei to Oberyn would eventually necessitate Cersei going back to Sunspear with him, where she would have been physically that much more distant from her son, unable to interrupt his “proper” Lannister training. Too, Cersei would have then been defined not solely as the mother of the king, but as the wife of a younger Martell prince, limiting her ability to claim the right to oversee - and indeed, rule for - her son (Tywin perhaps hoping to play on Westerosi racism toward the Dornish to limit Cersei’s potential access to power).

[roadsiderose]

Huckleberry Finn and the Missing Prince

I read the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn when I was a kid, and I think I liked this book more than the one on Tom Sawyer. I chuckled reading this theory for the first time, it brought back memories of the book. 

This post was originally posted on the reddit forums by /u/wren42. I scour the forums for posts like these, that show the literary or historical significance of plotlines, characters. Here it is...

Introduction

A while back there was a post about our favorite subtle allusions in ASOIAF, and I mentioned Huck Finn. A few posters were curious to see a longer writeup of the parallels -- so here it is. =)

The chapters detailing Aegon’s travels on the Rhoyne have often been noted by astute readers as containing references to another famous river trip - Mark Twain’s “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.”

There are obvious parallels in narrative and the imagery GRRM chooses: Young GrifFinn wears an iconic straw hat and travels down a river on a barge having adventures.

If these similarities weren’t blatant enough, GRRM drops this bit in ADWD:

The Upper Rhoyne was full of snags and Sawyers, any one of which could rip out the Shy Maid's hull. Griff did not want to hear it. What he wanted was Volantis.

A sawyer is an unusual and archaic word -- “a fallen tree stuck on the bottom of a river, where it constitutes a danger to boating” -- it’s also of course the name of Huck Finn’s partner in crime Tom Sawyer.

Most people assume the connections stop here, and that these cheeky winks are just a cute cosmetic reference, like the Wheel of Time or Harry Potter easter eggs.

However, when you dig deeper into Huck Finn, you can find connections to a popular tinfoil subplot:

**I believe Young Griff’s similarity to Huck Finn is actually an intentional subtextual clue to his Blackfyre lineage. **

The story of Huck Finn contains thematic and narrative elements that GRRM may have purposefully drawn from in crafting the Blackfyre subplot. George is known to do this - he draws heavily from English and French history as well has various mythologies both for world-building inspiration and specific plot points. I believe that GRRM included the Huck Finn references because he was amused by the cleverness of the thematic parallels with the Blackfyre story.

"The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" isn’t just the story of a kid floating down a river -- it features mistaken identities, blood feuds between two aristocratic houses and the extermination of the male bloodline of one, and a pair of con artists who falsely pretend to be royalty "the duke and the king" and put on a mummers show to scam money. These themes are reflected as in a dark mirror in GRRMs secret fAegon Blackfyre subplot.

The False Nephew

The core conceit of the blackfyre conspiracy theory is that fAegon is not the long lost son of Rhaegar, but in fact a descendant of the bastard Blackfyre line, found by Varys or the Golden Company(depending who you ask), and put forward as a pretender in order to hijack the throne.

So how is Finn similar to fAegon?

Both Young Griff and Finn falsely pretend to be the Nephew of an influential family to cheat them.

Huck Finn’s plot is rife with cases of mistaken identity, disguises, con-men, and pretenders. However the most notable is his identity swap with the infamous Tom Sawyer. Near the climax of the story Finn arrives in a distant town and insinuates himself into a wealthy family by pretending to be the Nephew of Aunt Sally and Uncle Silas Phelps. He uses this position to help effect the escape of his friend Jim from slavery.

Why does this matter?

The true Aegon would be Daenerys’ nephew -- but Young GrifFinn isn’t truly her nephew, he’s a fake. The mistaken identity in Huck Finn is paralleled in fAegon’s false claim and attempt to steal the throne from Danny.

And this isn’t the only such clue -- Huck Finn features other cons and pretenders, even some who claim, laughably, to be nobility.

Noble Pretenders and Stolen Inheritance

In Huck Finn two con artists “The Duke and the King” pretend to be royalty and perform various stunts to rob people.

They introduce themselves as the long-lost heirs of noble houses, one to the Duke of Bridgewater, the other as the Lost Dauphin, the King of France Louis XVII.

Louis XVII’s actual history is of keen interest here, and with it we start to see how deep the rabbit hole goes.

History of the Lost Dauphin

During the French Revolution, where the long standing dynastic monarchy was overthrown, Louis XVI was imprisoned and executed. Louis XVII was actually the second son of the king, but his elder brother had died leaving him as heir apparent.

Little Louis-Charles was technically recognized as King by the nobles but never ruled and was kept imprisoned by the new Republic government. This is where the conspiracy theories start to spring up.

Immediately after his father’s death, plots were hatched to free Louis-Charles from confinement, but these came to nothing at the time, and eventually he died of illness in captivity under mysterious circumstances -- it being suspected that his doctor was murdered by poison. However, popular theories abounded in the day and for many years afterward of conspiracies to smuggle the child out of confinement in the Temple tower. They proposed that the autopsy and burial records had been falsified, and that in fact the boy had lived and been spirited away.

Rumours abound and when the monarchy was restored some 20 years later, hundreds of claimants pretending to be the “Lost Dauphin” came forward to attempt to take the throne.

GRRM The Histrogrifter

This is perhaps one of the most famous stories of a lost prince in European history, and GRRM would certainly have studied it in preparing his narrative around the Targaryen Restoration. It’s well established that he based the history of westeros on English and French history and this plot could not have been overlooked.

Thus, the appearance of a Dauphin pretender in Huck Finn can be taken as something GRRM would have noted, given he’s included references to Huck in fAegon’s chapters. Here is an obviously false claimant pretending to be the long-lost heir of a royal bloodline whose throne is about to be restored - a juicy intrigue to parallel in his own story!

And indeed, in fAegon we have an heir presumed dead after a revolution, only to supposedly have been spirited away by Varys during the sack of King’s Landing, and appearing later as a false claimant when the original line is restored. The similarity to Louis Charles is stunning.

Scammers, Swindlers, and Mummers

The antics of the “Duke and the King” provide the basis for other allusions in ASOIAF as well.

Later in the story the group arrives in the town of the primary target -- a recently deceased nobleman who has left a large inheritance to his daughters. The “Duke” pretends to be the missing heir of this nobleman to swindle the Heiresses of their fortune -- again paralleled by fAegon’s royal pretensions attempting to steal the Iron Throne from Daenerys. But of course, the Duke, like fAegon, is a fraud.

The two con-men engage in a variety of schemes, one of which involves putting on a play -- or mummer’s farce, if you will -- entitled “The Royal Nonesuch” -- ie a play about false royalty. The play is a bawdy flop and complete ripoff of the town’s populace, and they eventually have to flee for their lives or risk being hung.

These themes are also hinted at in the Duke and King’s theatrical fumbles -- in addition to the “Royal Nonesesuch” the pair practices scenes from Romeo and Juliet, Richard III, and Macbeth, the former of course being the archetypal tale of feuding families (which we will revisit shortly), while the later two are again stories about wars to usurp a throne.

These theatrical elements have been worked into AOSIAF via references to fAegon as the “Mummer’s Dragon”, and parallels in his story to those of Richard and Macbeth. It has been theorized that, just as the townspeople turn on the Duke and Dauphin when they learn the truth, the people of Westeros will turn on fAegon when his false identity is revealed.

Family Feud and the Extermination of a Male Bloodline

So we’ve established the falseness of fAegon’s claim, but how do we get to the Blackfyres, specifically?

The answer comes from another conflict Huck stumbles upon during his adventures.

The Blackfyres were a branch house of the Targaryen dynasty, started from a bastard line. After the wars that settled the legitimacy of their claim, they retreated into the east, and ultimately the male bloodline was believed to have been wiped out. Did GRRM draw inspiration from Huck Finn for this part of the story as well?

Huck Finn’s parallel to the Targaryens and Blackfyres comes in the form of the conflict between the Shephersons and Grangerfords. These two bitter rival families are engaged in a 30 year blood feud, and Huck quickly becomes entangled in their war. Notably, the Grangerfords have a son Huck’s age who he befriends, and is then shocked to see gunned down in a firefight. Like the Blackfyres, the males of the Grangerford family are wiped out, ending the feud. This section can also be seen as an additional reference to Romeo and Juliet, as the final confrontation is kicked off by a forbidden tryst between children from opposing families.

If GRRM is drawing on Huck as a model for fAegon, then this conflict should play a prominent role in his story. fAegon should be not just a royal pretender, but a pretender tangled up in a long standing blood feud between two aristocratic families -- the Blackfyres and Targaryens.

One other subtle hint in Huck Finn supports the idea that fAegon is from a bastard royal line.

During their elaborate plot to break Jim out of captivity, Huck and Tom form a secret nation, complete with a royal coat-of-arms. Among the many superfluous and conflicting components of the crest, Tom insists they include a "bar sinister" -- the mark of a bastard line.

Finn and the Future

So we’ve established a strong connection between Huck Finn’s narrative and the Blackfyre subplot in ASOIAF -- but what might these parallels say about the future of fAegon’s story?

At least two plotlines from Huck Finn appear to be relevant here.

The ending of Huck Finn centers on the plot to free Jim from slavery out from under Tom’s Aunt Sally (which, you recall, parallels Danny as fAegons ‘aunt’). Tom hatches an absurdly complicated plan based on his ideas from romantic adventure stories.

This romanticism is reflected in Young Griff’s naivete and impulsiveness, traits that will likely lead to his downfall. In wanting to live out his romanticized vision of a great Conquering King, fAegon will be led to make unrealistic and foolish decisions. fAegon’s ultimate fate will likely be failure and defeat, brought on by his own naivete. Like Tom and Huck, he will act based on how he imagines a romanticized story would go, rather than on the practicalities of the situation, and in the end will be betrayed by the cold hard reality.

The second portion of Huck Finn that may become relevant is the fate of the Duke and King when their frauds are discovered. In the case of the “Royal Nonesuch”, they are run out of town at risk to their lives when the people discover they’ve been swindled.

It’s quite possible that fAegon’s claim will be delegitimized in some way, and the people of Westeros will turn against him. Where they first hailed him as a hero, once his true identity is discovered they will resent being duped and rise up against his claim.

How might this happen?

As a final spurious bit of tinfoil- in attempting to identify the true identity of the Duke after trying to steal the girls’ inheritance, the town is forced to exhume the dead brother’s body for evidence. While we can’t say for certain this detail would have any bearing on GRRM’s plot, it could perhaps be read as a hint about the identity of some trueborn heir in a certain crypt…

Were several claimants to all argue for their legitimacy, it would be a beautiful and subtle allusion on GRRMs part to mimic Huck Finn again in the conclusion of fAegon’s arc, and have Jon emerge as the true heir as a result of evidence exhumed from the Crypts of winterfell.

Thanks for your attention, I hope you enjoyed this little literary float trip. =)