#i'm just ridiculously enamoured with it for reasons that probably would do well to remain unexamined honestly

[a-commas-a-pause]

I'm on an asoiaf kick at the moment apparently and I 100% blame you for this Kai, so you're getting all my 1:30am thoughts on the crack theory I developed when I first read these goddamn books at the age of 17.

[

I'm copying tags that were responding to my own tags here so this is a bit of a non-sequiter. My original tags for reference:

#i had a crack theory once that jaime and cersei were the bastard kids of mad king aerys #cos they're pretty. and incestous. and also because Tywin deserves it honestly like the irony would be on point #but I'm starting to think that maybe that wasn't a clue so much as george just really likes writing incest

and Kai(@listen-to-the-inner-walrus)'s:

#okay but your crack theory is like #a way better version of the tyrion targaryen theory #(im being mean to the theory but like. tyrion is a reflection of all the parts of tywin that tywin hates about himself and tyrion is very #much the son of tywin lannister and that inner turmoil for tyrion is like a good thing) #because its like #tywin is proud of cersei and of jaime as they grow up to be what noble children should grow up to be #they are his accomplishments #but when he takes them to kings landing aerys gives jaime the ''honour'' of being the youngest to join the kingsguard which is#paramount to stealing tywins heir from him and is an insult that tywin is forced to take as if a compliment #and then again he is snubbed by yhe targaryrns as cersei is passed over in favour of elia as bride to rhaegar #his daughter should have been future queen (queen regent?) #the idea of them being aerys' bastard children fits so well thematically as yet another snub to tywin

#but also because when the books begin jaime and cersei are bastardised versions of what they could have been under targaryen rule #if it was continued #yes jaime is a kingsguard but he is jaded and disillusioned and his name is forever tarnised by him being a kingslayer #and cersei is queen but to a man who has no interest in her nor the realm nor for being a king. her children are bastards and if they had #not been everything in kingslanding in agot would not have happened #also like youd have the parallel of tyrion killing his father and jaime killing his #and like thematic consistency with the ''all dwarfs are bastards in their fathers eyes'' #and its also just a little heartbreaking for tyrion who spent so much of his life learning about dragons and being interested in them #just for his siblings - who have always gotten it better than him - to be the ones who might be able to control dragons #i have no idea if this timeline works with the books but i like it so much

]

Kai, you have correctly identified basically all the reasons I became so enamoured with this theory in the first place (I'm certain I'm not the first to come up with it but I did come up with it independently because I was way less online(tm) when I was 17). I think my original thought was the Tyrion theory, but then I was thinking about it and I was like "wouldn't that just prove Tywin right that Tyrion was a bastard though?" and I hated the idea of proving Tywin right. But that got me thinking about the other Lannister children. So spiting Tywin('s ghost) was basically the motivation. But I also like the nifty symbolic implications/mirroring of Tyrion and Jaime both killing their own fathers.

The more I thought about it, the more satisfying it became, as well. Like, the fact that had they only been trueborn this would spin Jaime and Cersei's three kids right back around to being legit heirs again (before Dany but after Jon, by my accounting) is SO hilarious to me. Like sorry Dany, I know you were super mad at Robert the Usurper, but technically the firstborn line of succession actually does legitimise the "usurper's" kids as the rightful heirs because literally no-one in this goddamn family could manage to keep it in their pants for five fucking minutes. Also would piss off Robert's ghost so much. Like his WHOLE GOAL was to COMPLETELY wipe out the Tareryens, to a frankly ridiculous and self-defeating degree, only for ''his'' kids to not only not be his, but to ACTUALLY BE SECRET TARGERYENS? From Robert's perspective not only are his kids not his own, his kids' parentage is in fact the worst it could possibly be. I just think it would annoy him so much and that delights me.

I checked the timings when I first came up with this and it's technically possible I think, but only because of how little we know about the exact locations of various people in the years before the Rebellion...

...Ok, having checked the asoiaf wiki page for Joanna Lannister again because I am not rereading the books for this (I mean, my copies are currently in storage about 200 miles away so I coudn't if I wanted to), yeah, Joanna married Tywin in 263 AC, was dismissed from Rhaella's service an unspecified 'short' time later and visited the capital 'seldom' after that. Jaime and Cersei were born in 266. So the timing is not encouraging by any means, but it's also not technically impossible, since one of her 'seldom' visits could have been 9 months before the twins were born, but you would think that Tywin would have noticed. The implausibilty is why I call it a crack theory but like. It's POSSIBLE. Technically.

I'm mostly attached to this because it would upset EVERYONE in-story who is remotely affected by it (Cersei's the most likely to react positively, but even for her, she's so attached to the idea of being Tywin's daughter/heir. She wants his approval so bad. She never knew Aerys - sure, she can project whatever she wants onto him, but he's never going to live up to Tywin as the perfect ideal in her head because she's already so invested in Tywin. The queen of sunk cost fallacy is not going to back out of the sunk cost fallacy of trying to get Tywin's approval now. Not if she didn't give up on it AFTER HE DIED. As for the other two, Jaime is ALREADY guilty about killing Aerys this would only make it worse; meanwhile Tyrion really wants to ride a dragon and would probably LOVE to be set free of the spectre of Tywin as his father, and this would reiterate that not only is he Tywin's son, he is actually Tywin's only son) while still being extremely thematically satistfying because it adds all of this extra character mirroring into a canon that is already very mirror-heavy.

george specifically plotted out a potential arya jon romance if i remember correctly

I really like ASOIAF (as much of it as has been published anyway) but the more I learn about George's plans for it the more I feel like maybe George and I just have different preferences in what makes a good (ending to?) a story. And that's ok. This is what fanfic is for.