EDIT: NOTE THAT THIS POST IS NOW OBSOLETE. There are or soon will be new, better, expanded and/or revised versions of all the ideas in here in my Secrets of House Martell series, which contains new, better, expanded versions of the stuff I first talked about in the also OBSOLETE Mega-Tinfoil series. Original preserved below for posterity.

[Part 1 of this essay] argues that Prince Lewyn Martell survives the Battle of the Trident and is living as the Elder Brother, until he decamps for the vale in the guise of Ser Morgarth. It contends Marwyn the Mage is also a Martell: Lewyn’s older brother. It argues Rhaegar may well be the Quiet Isle’s harpist, and Jonothor Darry may be Brother Narberth. Plus lots of other stuff.

This is simply part 2 of the same lengthy “essay”, picking up right where that one stopped.

Prefatory Note (Part 2): Much of what these Mega-Tinfoil Essays do relies in part on curiously similar appearances. Some people love to dismiss this, since “lots of people” might have a bulbous nose, or square head, or whatever. Or else they bizarrely claim the author of books they esteem enough to talk about on internet forums “only has so many ways to describe someone”.

To them, I submit the entire “Baratheon genetics” subplot of AGOT, and, straight-to-the-point, Arya’s wrong-headed dismissal of one of Robert’s bastards…

The girl did have hair like the old king’s, Arya thought; a great thick mop of it, as black as coal. That doesn’t mean anything, though. Gendry has the same kind of hair too. Lots of people have black hair. (SOS Ary V)

Arya’s wrong, and I think we are too if we ignore such similarities, especially when they appear in a constellation and lead to a viable narrative.

*****

Joanna Lannister: Not Prince Lewyn’s Paramour, but…

Joanna Lannister is connected to Lewyn’s older sister the Princess of Dorne (“tPoD”). They “knew each other of old”, being “at court together as… companions to Princess Rhaella” from 259-263. (SOS Tyr X; TWOIAF)

Oberyn tells Tyrion he thinks Joanna and tPoD cooked up a plot to marry Elia to Jaime and/or Oberyn to Cersei sometime in 272, the year before Tyrion’s birth. We know a 27-year-old Joanna attends Aerys II’s 10th Anniversary Tournament in King’s Landing that year. (SOS Tyrion X, TWOIAF) It makes sense that tPoD would attend — this is likely where any marriage plans are formulated — as would her 17 year-old (newly or soon-to-be knighted) brother Prince Lewyn. A Lewyn-Joanna “May-July” dalliance is thus possible. After all:

“There’s nought like a tourney to make the blood run hot” (SOS Ar VIII)

Let’s first stipulate: There is a strong case to be made — one I find totally convincing — that Aerys is Jamie and Cersei’s father. [Click these links] and actually [read all the evidence] if you think it’s crackpot. If nothing else, Selmy and TWOIAF make plain that Aerys is waaaay into Joanna when she’s young.

Now then, we know that King Aerys II Targaryen gets “very much in his cups” at the tourney of 272 and makes lewd remarks to Joanna. We know Tywin attempts to resign as Hand the next morning.

Might Lewyn (who as the Elder Brother says his “life was writ in wine” and “I had women, too, and there I did disgrace myself, for some I took by force”) be Aerys’s drinking companion at the tourney? Is Joanna one of the women he takes by force? Might Aerys goad or even force Lewyn into “disgracing himself” by assaulting Joanna, possibly with Aerys? Might Lewyn protect and/or “comfort” Joanna from/after Aerys’s assault? Might Aerys jealously assault Joanna in the wake of Lewyn’s consensual embraces? WHY AM I ASKING THESE QUESTIONS?

(I’ll put forth a more solid scenario; don’t worry. But everything interconnects, so bear with me.)

As people who have previously considered Joanna as Lewyn’s paramour have laid out [HERE], [HERE], [HERE], and [HERE], some perplexing things are neatly explained if Tyrion is Lewyn Martell’s son.

For one thing, Tyrion’s hair color (“pale blond and black”) and “one green eye and one black one” seem half-Lannister, half-Martell. (Actually, though, “pale blond” isn’t typical Lannister, is it?) And if the Martells suspect Lewyn is Tyrion’s father, it helps explain Oberyn’s championing him and tPoD’s visit to Casterly Rock with Elia and Oberyn in 273 at “a queer time to come visiting.” (SOS Tyr V)

Westeros.org-er “Modesty Lannister” remembers a Dornish dwarf — “Tyrion heard reports of a dwarf jester at the seat of the Dornish Lord Fowler” (DWD Tyr VIII) — but nobody adduces much physical similarity between Tyrion and the Martells beyond the hair and eyes. However, the review of the Martell phenotype in Part 1 of this essay shows that Tyrion’s “overlarge” head is actually quite Martell-ish. Now that we know the Elder Brother and Marwyn the Mage are Martells, we see that multiple Martells show various signs of latent dwarfism: large heads (“too big for his body”), thick jaws, high foreheads (“too high”), short legs, “gnarled hands” and “squat” frames. Let’s put that in our back pocket for now.

Brilliant westeros.org-er “Firiel Hiren” argues Tyrion’s dwarfism may result from Joanna drinking Moon Tea after being raped. She rightly points out that Tyrion is called a gargoyle (I count 6 times) and that (proper, water-diverting) gargoyles were believed to purify water and ward off evil (google agrees). If the figurative has weight, might Tyrion be resistant to poison and therefore survive a Moon Tea abortion?

The gargoyle references have always been suspcious to me, and the “water purifying gargoyle” catch is a great one. It’s a thematic “backup” to the more obvious, in-world reason Tyrion doesn’t contract greyscale (which btw turns you to stone, like a gargoyle, which Tyrion already “is”) at The Sorrows, namely: he knows how to entertain his Uncle Gerion, aka the current Shrouded Lord:

His uncle Gerion thought [his asking for a dragon for his nameday] was the funniest thing he had ever heard… (DWD Tyr II)

His uncle Gerion liked to set him on the table during feasts and make him recite [the 16 wonders].” (DWD Tyr III)

This matters because:

They say that the Shrouded Lord will grant a boon to any man who can make him laugh. (DWD Tyrion III)

Tyrion can do so if anyone can, else what is the point of those two anecdotes just before Tyrion is dumped in the water?

“Firiel” argues that the Martells’ trip to Casterly Rock is precipitated as much by Tyrion’s impending birth as by betrothal plans. Joanna wants her powerful friend tPoD on hand to safeguard her and possibly spirit Tyrion away should his appearance upon birth present Joanna with a “Tywin problem”. Firiel proferrs that Tyrion’s “black fuzz” marks Tywin as cuckolded, which he cannot abide. She contends (see links above, discussion below) that Tywin cuts out Joanna’s tongue (to avoid kinslaying or perhaps as the one moment of “mercy” in his life) and sends her to The Silent Sisters (as seen in FFC Jaime VIII!). When tPoD hears that Joanna has died in childbirth, she’s naturally suspicious and presses on to see what she can learn, accounting for her post-mortem visit.

These are all great observations, but Lewyn+Joanna=Tyrion is not the right formula.

*****

A Gargoyle is a Chimera!

Moving beyond the linked posts, I found a fascinating association between architectural “gargoyles” and architectural “chimeras”. Gargoyles are a functional, water-diverting subset of chimeras, chimeras being any weird decorative statues.

Meanwhile, a biological human “chimera” is an individual comprised of cells from two fertilized eggs that have fused into one. And in Greek mythology, a Chimera is a beast combining features of multiple species. Minotaurs are part of the same Greek Mythos, and Tyrion is linked by more than his name to the mythological Asterion the Minotaur (see below).

Given the many allusions to “Tyrion Targaryen” (see below), the heavy-handed equation of Tyrion and gargoyles, the fact that architectural gargoyles are chimeras, the minotaur references, and of course all Tyrion’s physical characteristics, I submit the original hypothesis that Tyrion is not simply Lewyn’s son or Aerys’s son but rather a biological chimera fathered by both Aerys and Lewyn.

Update after initial draft but before posting: I’ve found some Tyrion=chimera theories, but with Tywin as one father. And JUST before posting I found out Preston Jacobs caught the gargoyle/chimera connection (although he cringe-worthily pronounces chimera “shimera”). It’s weird independently noticing something PJ talks about, even if he doesn’t suggest what I’m suggesting. No one’s proposed A+L+J=T AFAIK.

If “Elder Brother Lewyn” as we now know him from the story he tells Brienne is (one of) Tyrion’s father(s), Tyrion’s drinking, whoring and self-loathing are very much like father, like son.

And if Aerys is father #2, every single piece of evidence — westeros.org assembles a metric ton of it right here — for A+J=T applies just as well if not better to L+A+J=T.

Summary of known “basic” Tyrion Targaryen evidence:

Tons of evidence for a Joanna/Aerys affair; Joanna in King’s Landing the year before Tyrion is born

Pale blond hair is Targ, not Lannister (See Below: it may be a blend of the two)

Mismatched eyes are Targ bastard-ish; see Shiera Seastar

Tyrion fascinated w/fire, asks for pet dragon, dreams/reads about dragons, ogles dragon skulls

His scholarship parallels Rhaegar’s and Egg’s

Tywin denies his inheritance

“You are no son of mine;” “All dwarfs are bastards in their father’s eyes”

The “King’s Shadow” bit in AGOT J I, other “large shadow” references

Hugor Hill is a Westerlands bastard name

“Most of my kin are bastards”

A Dance With Dragons is primarily about Jon, Dany and… Tyrion

Many references to Tyrion’s tongue parallel the many references to Egg’s tongue

Varys very oddly implies Tyrion’s father is dead in COK Tyr XI

Tywin compares Tyrion’s desire for “applause” to Aerys’s (SOS Tyr I)

Tywin gets unusually (it’s noted!) upset after Tyrion idly references Aerys (SOS Tyr VI)

Tons of Tyrion/Viserion parallels

How exactly might A+L+J=T have gone down? To assay an answer, we need to establish more history, and I intend to do just that in spades, shortly. For now, let’s just note that while a rape would match Elder Brother Lewyn’s memory of taking some women by force, it’s problematic to imagine Joanna remaining friends with tPoD if she is raped by tPoD’s little brother.

The important thing for now is that both men fertilize eggs, and the zygotes or embyros or whatever fuse into one.

*****

More Things Explained by/Supporting L+A+J=T

1. Tyrion’s coloration is fully explained:

His hair is Martell and Targaryen and Lannister: black for Martell, with “pale blonde” not Lannister gold nor the usual dramatic Targ silver-blond, but splitting the difference like another half-Targ, half-Martell once did: Maekar I’s “straight hair and square-cut beard were so fair they seemed white in the dimness of the hall, but as he got closer he saw that they were in truth a pale silvery color touched with gold,” and his beard hair is later called “silvery- pale “.

in the dimness of the hall, but as he got closer he saw that they were in truth a pale silvery color touched with gold,” and his beard hair is later called “silvery- “. His beard is “a tangle of yellow, white, and black hairs, patchy and coarse…” (SOS Tyrion II) Yellow Lannister (Kevan and Jaime’s beards are both described as “yellow”); Black Martell; “White” a coarse, beard-hair version of a classic platinum Targaryen/god-emperor hair color (“They had hair of silver and hair of gold and hair of platinum white ” [GOT Daen IX]; Elaena Targaryen’s “crowning glory” is her “platinum-pale” hair), again a la “so fair they seemed white” half-Martell Maekar T.

” [GOT Daen IX]; Elaena Targaryen’s “crowning glory” is her “platinum-pale” hair), again a la “so fair they seemed white” half-Martell Maekar T. 3 colors, 3 houses.

His eyes also match all 3 houses: green for Lannister (Joanna’s “green” eyes, not Tywin’s “pale green, flecked with gold” eyes); black for Martell; mismatched for Targ bastard, a la Shiera Seastar.

2. Tyrion being consistently referred to as a giant.

“Oh, I think that Lord Tyrion is quite a large man,” Maester Aemon said from the far end of the table. He spoke softly, yet the high officers of the Night’s Watch all fell quiet, the better to hear what the ancient had to say. “I think he is a giant come among us, here at the end of the world.” (GOT Tyr III)

“And what am I, pray?” Tyrion asked her. “A giant?” “Oh, yes,” she purred, “my giant of Lannister.” (GOT Tyr VIII) [Repeated ad nauseum]

Tyrion had snorted in derision. “If Littlefinger is dead, then I’m a giant.” (COK Tyr IX)

Suddenly this makes all kinds of literary sense. Let’s see why.

Marwyn is his uncle.

Marwyn looks like a “mastiff”, with a “bull’s neck,” i.e. no neck.

“His head was too big for his body, and the way it thrust forward from his shoulders, together with that slab of jaw, made him look as if he were about to tear off someone’s head…. He was heavy in the chest and shoulders, with a round, rock-hard ale belly…”

He’s a dry-drunk addicted to sourleaf and “he had the biggest hands that Sam had ever seen.”

Recall the Martell’s love of wine.

Recall that Quentyn is “too thick around the middle” with “slumped” shoulders.

Recall cousin Ser Archibald: “six-and-a-half-feet tall, broad of shoulder, huge of belly, with legs like tree trunks, hands the size of hams, and no neck to speak of.”

And what of giants?

…their lower torsos looked half again as wide as their upper. Their legs were shorter than their arms, but very thick… Neckless, their huge heavy heads thrust forward from between their shoulder blades… (SOS J II)

Four giants were among them, massive hairy creatures with sloped shoulders, legs as large as tree trunks, and huge splayed feet. (DWD J III)

Wun Wun takes to wine drinking comically quickly.

If the Martells and Tyrion don’t have giants’ blood I’ll be damned. Giants and dwarfs are looking like two sides of the same coin right about now, aren’t they?

3. The whole Tyrion = figurative Minotaur theory doesn’t work with the guy literally named “The White Bull” as his father, but given Prince Lewyn’s Kingsguard future and his bone-breaking physique, he’s a figurative White Bull if there ever was one. We’ll look at it in greater depth later, but the basic myth in which a man is cuckolded and his wife gives birth to a sort of chimera in the half-man, half-bull Asterion the Minotaur makes sense with the rough outline we have so far.

4. Tyrion being a Targ/Martell chimera points to a sexual connection between the Martells and Aerys II Targaryen. Once explored, this connection tells us why Oberyn and Elia look so different from Doran, Quentyn, Marwyn and Lewyn. And then other things start falling into place. Time to re-examine history from 256-281 or so.

5. Tyrion’s nose is chopped off, of course, so we can’t compare it with the Martell family nose, but hilariously his penis seems to stand in as a surrogate:

Even his manhood was ugly, thick and veined, with a bulbous purple head.

*****

Why Oberyn and Elia Look Different

In 259, Joanna Lannister comes to court to be a lady-in-waiting to Princess Rhaella. She meets and befriends the reigning Princess of Dorne. This means tPoD is already at court immediately after the births of Elia and Oberyn. These births, in 257 and 258 AC, follow 9 years of failed pregnancies, stillbirths and cradle deaths.

Neither child grows up to look like Doran, Lewyn, Marwyn, Arianne or Quentyn. Let’s briefly re-hash Elia & Oberyn’s physical features.

Elia is a “delicate beauty”. Even a good-looking Martell woman, Arianne, is hardly “delicate”.

Oberyn, the Red Viper, is “tall, slim, graceful,” with “slender hands”, a “sharply pointed nose” and “large eyes as black and shiny as pools of coal oil” which Hotah calls “viper eyes”. His black hair is streaked with silver. He is a scholar, a warrior, a song-writer and a man renowned for his “carnality”. (TWOIAF; SOS Daen IV; SOS Tyr V; FFC tCoG)

Why was tPoD suddenly able to successfully get pregnant in 256 and 257?

And why does she apparently (barring travelling for no known reason with two infants) get pregnant while at court?

A key piece of the puzzle falls into place when Tywin tells Tyrion, “Oberyn has always been half-mad.” (SOS Tyr VI)

You know what that screams. Yup. “Targaryen.”

I’ll cut to it: I think Elia’s father is Aerys’s father: Jaehaerys II Targaryen:

No one would have called him formidable. Unlike his brothers, Jaehaerys II Targaryen was thin and scrawny, and had battled various ailments all his life. Yet he did not lack for courage, or intelligence. (TWOIAF)

He was “not as forceful as his brother” the Prince of Dragonflies:

Though never strong, Jaehaerys proved to be a capable king, restoring order to the Seven Kingdoms and reconciling many of the great houses. (TWOIAF)

GRRM’s gave these notes on “J2” to an artist:

Jaehaerys II: Amiable, clever, sickly (he died young). Pale and frail, with very large purple eyes. Shoulder-length hair, a silky beard, a tired smile. (SSM 11.1.2005)

Overall, I get a “pretty good dude” impression regarding J2.

The sickliness fits Elia to a tee, and “tired smile” gels with my gut impression of her so much I was stunned to learn it was never actually used to describe her. Elia’s personality — “a good and gracious lady” (SOS Daen IV), “kind and clever, with a gentle heart and a sweet wit” (DWD Daen IV) — goes right along with J2’s. A summary:

J2: “battled ailments all his life” vs. Elia: “her health was ever delicate”; “never the healthiest of women”

J2: “pale and frail ” vs. Elia: “ frail and sickly”

” vs. Elia: “ and sickly” J2: “amiable” vs. Elia: “kind… with a gentle heart,” sufficiently amiable that Cersei agrees to show her baby Tyrion (SOS Tyr V)

J2: “ clever ,” “intelligen[t]” vs. Elia: “ clever , with… a sweet wit”

,” “intelligen[t]” vs. Elia: “ , with… a sweet wit” J2: “did not lack for courage” vs. Elia: died protecting “her” baby

J2: overall positive impression, “not as forceful as [Duncan]”, “a capable king” who brought peace vs. Elia: “a good and gracious lady”

In short, I am 100% convinced the separated/cuckolding PoD couples with J2 and their union yields Elia, who is publicly attributed to whomever is her current husband/consort/however that works in Dorne.

Assuming TWOIAF is correct that Jaehaerys loves his wife Shaera and that Shaera is still alive at this time, Elia is probably the product of tPoD actively seducing her third cousin Jaehaerys, three years before he becomes King. Perhaps Shaera is sickly and unable to meet Jaehaerys’s sexual needs by 256 and tPoD, being either half or fully as Targ as Shaera is, is seen to be a worthy stand-in. Or maybe the 21-22 year old Dornish/Targ PoD is just that attractive/convincing to the 31-year-old Jaehaerys. She does have (at least) half as much Targ blood as Jaehaerys does, FWIW.

Elia being a Targ bastard helps explain why Aerys (who marries his own sister and is the product of an incestuous marriage) agrees to marry Rhaegar to this seemingly unlikely, “frail and sickly” woman.

Aside: It also has a fantastic knock-on effect if you buy my hypothesis that Elia was in love with Arthur Dayne and they’re the parents of Aegon VI (who may not be the guy claiming to be Aegon VI). Aegon BastarDayne is now even Targier than he is given Elia’s “basic” Targ-descended Martell blood (to say nothing of the Targ-ness of Arthur [and Elia’s] Dayne blood, but that’s another post…).

Might Jaehaerys also be Oberyn’s father? Certainly his “very large purple eyes” might mingle with Martell genes and produce Oberyn’s remarkable “large eyes as black and shiny as pools of coal oil”. But this isn’t what happens, as we’re about to see…

ASIDE: After Aerys’s and Rhaella’s births, we “see” Shaera only once, obliquely, in 259/260. The way she is quietly eased off “stage” without ever being spotlighted shows the storytelling power of omission: who spares her a thought, despite the fact that she could be 74 years old and still alive somewhere c.300?

*****

Oberyn’s Father

J2+tPoD=Oberyn seems unlikely since “good guy” Jaehaerys loves Shaera and this would mean two-time two-timing, so to speak. In addition, Oberyn’s health is robust, entirely opposite of Jaehaerys’s and Elia’s. Fortunately there’s an explanation for his paternity that makes far more sense.

Prince Aerys is 13 in 257, when Jaehaerys’s bastard daughter Elia is born. In 258 Aerys marries Rhaella at Jaehaerys’s behest. Neither he nor Rhaella wish it, as Barristan tells Dany:

“I saw your father and your mother wed as well. Forgive me, but there was no fondness there, and the realm paid dearly for that, my queen.” “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.” (DWD Daen IV)

Rhaegar is born at Summerhall in 259, thus probably conceived in 258 when Aerys is 14. If Aerys impregnates Rhaella in 258, it’s plausible that he was willing and capable to DO SEX a year earlier, just as the guy I’m about to posit is his son would himself impregnate a whore at age 12 or so.

I believe it is likely that at age 13 (or just 14), Aerys Targaryen, perhaps wishing to get back at Jaehaerys for forcing him to marry Rhaella, loses his virginity to this father’s ex-lover tPoD (then in her early 20s) and thereby begets the “half-mad” Red Viper, Oberyn Martell. Nothing’s more Dornish nor more Targ, after all, then the Targ-descended Princess of Dorne sleeping with a Targ father and son in quick succession.

What’s more, I think Aerys is in love with the older Princess of Dorne (and she loves him, at least after a fashion) and believe she acts as a mentor to him for years. We’ll see that tPoD’s death affects Aerys’s mind in later years.

But why would tPoD sleep with a barely-man 9 years her junior?

*****

Rockin’ The Cradle: The Chekhov’s Gun of Dornish (and Targ) Sexuality

Before talking about why Aerys and tPoD specifically hooked up…

I submit that Targaryen and, especially, Dornish sexual mores are in fact one of the biggest Chekhov’s Guns in ASOIAF.

Early in AGOT we learn that the Targaryens are incestuous, and TWOIAF provides reams of evidence that Targs are often sexually precocious. But the Dornish. Ohhhh, the Dornish. GRRM was not (just) being a geeky pervy dirty old man when he wrote the following stuff about the Dornish and The Sex:

It was said that [Oberyn] bedded men and women both… (SOS Tyr V)

[Tyrion:] “Did you tire of your paramour on the road?” “Never. We share too much.” Prince Oberyn shrugged. “We have never shared a beautiful blonde woman, however, and Ellaria is curious. Do you know of such a creature?” (ibid) [Oberyn:] “Her Grace needs another husband, and who better than a prince of Dorne? Ellaria believes I should accept. Just the thought of Cersei in our bed makes her wet, the randy wench.” (SOS Tyr I)

“I was abed with the Fowler twins when the word reached me,” the captain heard [Nymeria] say. (The Captain of the Guard)

FWIW the Fowler twins are women.

Dornish women were lewd… (The Watcher)

“Are you certain you are not off to some other bed, some other woman? Tell me who she is. I will fight her for you, bare-breasted, knife to knife.” She smiled. “Unless she is a Sand Snake. If so, we can share you. I love my cousins well.” (Soiled Knight)

“You need a woman, not a little girl, but I can play the innocent if that excites you.” “You should not say such things.” Remember, she is Dornish. In the Reach men said it was the food that made Dornishmen so hot-tempered and their women so wild and wanton. Fiery peppers and strange spices heat the blood, she cannot help herself. (SK)

She and Tyene had learned to read together, learned to ride together, learned to dance together… They would have shared their first man as well, but Drey got too excited and spurted all over Tyene’s fingers the moment she drew him from his breeches. Her hands are dangerous. The memory made her smile. (The Princess in the Tower)

Lady Nym’s garb is “so immodest” that Balon Swann is uncomfortable looking at her. (The Watcher)

The Bastard of Godsgrace was one of Dorne’s finest swords as well, as might be expected from one who had been Prince Oberyn’s squire and had received his knighthood from the Red Viper himself. Some said that he had been her uncle’s lover too, though seldom to his face. [Note that Daemon is 18 years Oberyn’s junior, and a full knight when we meet him, so this could mean a 32 year old fucking a 14 year old boy.] Arianne did not know the truth of that. He had been her lover, though. At fourteen she had given him her maidenhead…. Arianne gave him her most seductive smile. “We might share a bed together.” (TWOW Ari)

“Arianne catches [14 year old Elia Sand] making out with a servant named Feathers who is twice Elia’s age.” (Summary of GRRM reading TWOW Ari II) “Even death is not sacred to a Dornishmen.” (Arianne in The Watcher)

Nor is sex or the innocence of anyone over the age of 11, obviously.

All of this is not prurience for its own sake. The point is to inform readers who have “average” attitudes towards sex that the Dornish do not. Dornish men and women fuck men and women. And they fuck a lot. They regularly fuck people much younger/older than them.

*****

Yes, But Which Cradle? Aerys’s Cradle.

Keeping in mind the lengths to which ASOIAF goes to show us the Dornish doing it with everything sexy that moves, let’s look at how and why tPoD and Aerys Targaryen hooked up in 257, when he is only 13 and she 22. We already have a basic motive for Aerys: his father Jaehaerys just impregnated tPoD, even as he’s forcing Aerys to marry Rhaella. Aerys wants to show up his father, prove himself a man, etc. But why would tPoD sleep with a 13 year old Prince?

Lots of reasons (given that she’s Dornish and 13 is no obstacle), actually!

The young Aerys “was charming and generous,” qualities “that won him many friends.” (SOS Dae VI; TWOIAF) Moreover he is a looker and a burgeoning warrior:

A handsome youth, Aerys had fought gallantly in the Stepstones during the War of the Ninepenny Kings. (TWOIAF)

Said war is yet 3 years away, but his physical qualities would be immanent.

Beyond this, we know little of Aerys’s physicality, but we know a bit more about the look of Rhaegar Targaryen, his acknowledged son, and it all suggests Aerys is attractive.

Rhaegar is taller than Viserys, with “dark indigo rather than lilac” eyes. (COK Daen IV)

Many a night [Cersei] had watched Prince Rhaegar in the hall, playing his silver-stringed harp with those long, elegant fingers of his. Had any man ever been so beautiful?… Cersei had almost drowned in the depths of his sad purple eyes. He has been wounded, she recalled thinking, but I will mend his hurt when we are wed. Next to Rhaegar, even her beautiful Jaime had seemed no more than a callow boy. (FFC C V)

So: Rhaegar is really good looking and (naturally) crazy attractive (to his Targ half-sister Cersei), whereas Oberyn has a similar sort of preternatural sex appeal, notching bedposts and spreading bastards far and wide.

Rhaegar (i.e. Aerys’s son) and Oberyn (i.e. Aerys’s proposed son), side by side:

RT: “long, elegant fingers” vs. OM: “slender hands” (totally unlike Martell hands)

RT: “taller than [Viserys”] vs OM: “tall, slim, graceful”; “slender,” “fit” and “fierce”

RT: “Silver-pale”, “silver-blond” hair like Dany and Viserys (COK Daen IV; GOT Daen I) vs. “a few streaks of silver marred the lustrous black hair that receded from his brow”

marred the lustrous black hair that receded from his brow” RT: Writes songs vs. OM: Writes songs

RT: Cersei “almost drowned in the depths of his sad [dark indigo] eyes” vs. OM: “large eyes as black and shiny as pools of coal oil“1

1 While J2’s “very large” eyes are also consistent with Oberyn’s eyes, Rhaegar provides us with a sample son of Aerys (who, don’t forget, is himself the son of the “very large” eyed J2 and his wife of the identical gene pool). And there’s one helluva conspicuous parallel between Oberyn’s eyes that are “pools of coal oil” and Rhaegar’s eyes in which someone might drown. Indeed, the liquid association suggests to me that Rhaella (whose genes are from the same pool as Aerys’s, whose kids have liquid eyes) may be Quaithe: “Dany had not noticed Quaithe in the crowd, yet there she stood, eyes wet and shiny behind the implacable red lacquer mask.” (COK Dae III)

Oberyn’s drinking and libido make far more sense if Aerys is his father than if Jaehaerys is, given Aerys’s noted drunkenness both at Tywin’s wedding (in 263) and again upon Joanna Lannister’s visit to court in 272.

Likewise, Oberyn’s fighting prowess fits much better with a father who “fought gallantly” and “won his spurs” at 16 on the battlefield than with “frail” J2.

Ser Oberyn Martell is a renaissance man, or, uncharitably, a dilettante:

He had traveled in the Free Cities, learning the poisoner’s trade and perhaps arts darker still, if rumors could be believed. He had studied at the Citadel, going so far as to forge six links of a maester’s chain before he grew bored. He had soldiered in the Disputed Lands across the narrow sea, riding with the Second Sons for a time before forming his own company. His tourneys, his battles, his duels, his horses, his carnality… it was said that he bedded men and women both, and had begotten bastard girls all over Dorne. (SOS Tyr V)

Oberyn’s dilettantish tendencies read like a sane, successful version of Aerys II’s “changeable” nature and “endless caprices”:

His Grace was full of grand schemes… [Four such “schemes” are described, then…] In 270 AC, during a visit to Sunspear, he told the Princess of Dorne that he would “make the Dornish deserts bloom” by digging a great underground canal beneath the mountains to bring water down from the rainwood. None of these grandiose plans ever came to fruition; most, indeed, were forgotten within a moon’s turn, for Aerys II seemed to grow bored with his royal enthusiasms as quickly as he did his royal paramours. (TWOIAF)

So Aerys and Oberyn share a tendency to “grow bored” after initial enthusiasm for new endeavors. Like father, like son.

But also: holy shit! Aerys’s Dorne-visit and promise in 270 jumps out at us and now makes perfect sense! He’s visiting his erstwhile lover tPoD and their 12 year old son Oberyn and promising her the moon, as men will do!

While Oberyn did tire of scholarship, his aptitude for it makes sense if he and Rhaegar are half-brothers, given:

As a young boy, the Prince of Dragonstone was bookish to a fault. (SOS Daen I)

Oberyn’s desire for revenge and overall personality not only fit better with Aerys but also with in-world notions about bastards. And Tywin’s comment that Oberyn “has always been half-mad” is Grade A, Prime Cut shit if Oberyn’s father is indeed “The Mad King”.

Finally, if Aerys is Oberyn’s father, it’s reasonable that he might be in love tPoD, right? And if he loves tPoD, his willingness to marry his firstborn son Rhaegar to her daughter Elia is explained even better than it already is given that Elia is Aerys’s half-sister.

BONUS SHINY SHIT: Viserys “Targaryen” is Master of Ships’ Lucerys Velaryon’s son, and Aerys is absolutely correct when he thinks Rhaella is stepping out. “Less than the shadow of a snake” Viserys is actually descended from “the Sea Snake” Corlys Velaryon.

*****

Tying Oberyn & Elia “Targaryen” into the Timeline; More Literary Allusions

Doran’s story of Elia and Oberyn’s births always seemed odd. But if they’re fathered by Targs, we quickly see that while we’re led to assume Doran isn’t present for their births because he’s “away” at Salt Shore, in fact it’s tPoD who’s away in King’s Landing:

“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…. Yet she lived, by the Mother’s mercy. And a year later Oberyn arrived, squalling and kicking. I was a man grown when they were playing in these pools.” (FFC COtG)

Prince Doran’s Water Gardens reference redoubles the coy suggestion that Elia and Oberyn were always in Dorne, but “a man grown” is 16, so Doran’s memory is totally consistent with their being born in and remaining in King’s Landing until age 6 or so.

If Oberyn has (more) Targ blood, it (further) explains Arianne’s seemingly irresistible, disturbing attraction to him:

I sat beside the well and pretended that some robber knight had brought me here to have his way with me, [Arianne] thought, a tall hard man with black eyes and a widow’s peak. [Yes, that’s Oberyn.] The memory made her uneasy. “I dreamed,” she said, “and when the sun went down I sat cross-legged at my uncle’s [!] feet and begged him for a story.”

“The Red Viper” being Targy also makes better sense of both the pervasive viper/snake imagery surrounding Oberyn and his 8 “Sand Snake” daughters and of the text’s several snake-dragon associations:

The Red Viper was… well, a snake (SOS Tyr IX)

The Red Viper seemed to have the same notion as Bronn… I hope to seven hells that you know what you are doing, snake. (SOS Tyr X)

All Dornishmen were snakes, and the Martells were the worst of them. (DWD C I)

“Your brother Rhaegar was the last dragon, and he died on the Trident. Viserys is less than the shadow of a snake.” (GOT Daen III) [An actual snake, then, is “like” a dragon]

“I am the dragon and I will be crowned!” he shrieked, and his fingers snapped like snakes… (GOT Daen IX)

When she had her handmaids char the horsemeat black, the dragons ripped at it eagerly, their heads striking like snakes. (COK Daen I)

The best snake sauce had a drop of venom in it, he had heard, along with mustard seeds and dragon peppers. (Soiled Knight)

Beyond all this, more “Targaryens” is a perfect fit for where I think ASOIAF is going thematically: more of something “special” makes that something less special, right? And ASOISAF isn’t going to concern itself with the glorious restoration of “the one true king”. It wants to present us with an Epic Clusterfuck of Bloods Royal and thereby highlight the absurdity of any belief that one “chosen” person/family is uniquely qualified and/or destined to (1) exercise political/military/social power and/or (2) neatly and without complication fulfill ancient prophecy.

Finally, granting that Cersei and Jaime are Aerys and Joanna’s, Oberyn makes a comment to Tyrion that takes on a whole new meaning if he and Elia are Targaryen as well: “As children Elia and I were inseparable, much like your own brother and sister.” (SOS Tyr V)

“Much like,” indeed. All 4 are Targaryen bastards. Good one, GRRM.

*****

The Salad Days of Sexy Times In King’s Landing

So the Princess of Dorne and Aerys Targaryen have a relationship and a son together and stay close enough that (a) tPoD remains at court for years after Elia and Oberyn are born, (b) Aerys visits tPoD and their son in Dorne in 270, and (c) tPoD returns to King’s Landing for the 272 tournament along with her youngest brother Lewyn.

Now we need to clarify what I believe is the sexually-charged nature of the Princess of Dorne’s abiding “friendship” with Joanna in light of:

tPoD’s sexual interest in 13 year-old Aerys (i.e. someone young)

Dornish women’s proclivity for sex with other women

Aerys’s sexual interest in Joanna (“as a youth, he was taken with [Joanna]” [DWD Dae VII])

Rhaella dismissing Joanna from her service and complaining that Aerys is “turning my ladies into his whores”

into his whores” Lewyn and Aerys having sex with Joanna contemporaneously (to produce Tyrion)

The point of all the Dornish (and Targ) sex shit begins to emerge with tPoD marrying super young, then later fucking Jaehaeyrs and Aerys in back-to-back years and having kids by each. But it blossoms when we consider her relationship with Joanna Lannister.

After Elia and Oberyn are born, tPoD remains at court as one of Rhaella’s ladies. Joanna comes to court in 259 at age 14 and meets tPoD. Just as tPOD’s son Oberyn and granddaughter Arianne are “wild and wanton” in the ensuing decades, so is tPoD herself. I think tPoD initiates Joanna into sexual maturity together with her young lover, Prince Aerys. The three have a grand ol’ time together for a few years. There’s genuine love in the room all around, but with Aerys being ever flighty, the tightest bond is between Joanna and tPoD.

Tywin knows all about Joanna and Aerys (at least). When Aerys becomes king in 262 Tywin strikes a deal: he’ll marry Joanna and allow her to continue as (one of) Aerys’s secret paramour(s) and Aerys will make him his permanent Hand. Part of this is rooted in Tywin’s fear that he’s impotent and the idea that any children Joanna and Aerys have might be passed off and raised as his own, thereby perpetuating House Lannister. It’s likely agreed (or so Tywin believes) that Aerys will marry his legitimate offspring to any potential children he has with Joanna, putting Joanna’s Lannister blood in the royal line.

NOTE: The idea that Tywin is impotent follows from the fact that he doesn’t have any kids, bastards or legitimate. And there’s also this: the one reference to “impotence” in all of ASOIAF just so happens to be to Shae (not) having sex with old, impotent men — Shae who Tywin later bones. “Tyrion had wanted no handsome young guardsmen loitering about Shae day after day. ‘Find me old, ugly, scarred men, preferably impotent,’ he had told the eunuch.” (COK Tyr VII) Ironically, Tyrion gets his wish, doesn’t he? Sorry. Not a coincidence.

At Tywin’s wedding in 263, though, he’s humiliated by Aerys’s drunken public display of lust towards Joanna, which contravenes their understanding that things be kept quiet. Might he secretly instigate Rhaella’s dismissal of Joanna “not long thereafter”, given that until then Rhaella “turned a blind eye to most of the king’s infidelities” including those with Joanna and tPoD for the past 6 years? The statement attributed to Rhaella by Lannisterite Maester Yandel (i.e. he’s “turning my ladies into his whores”) sounds exactly like whore-obsessed Tywin.

NOTE: Certainly Rhaella isn’t happy with her husband-brother’s public behavior. She’s said to speak of her “ladies”, plural, because Joanna isn’t the first to bang Aerys. The king’s affair with and love for tPoD is surely an old, bitter wound for Rhaella, poisoning the well of their marriage before she ever had a chance to try to make it work, rendering her forever second-best.

With her lover Joanna “exiled”, tPoD soon takes Elia and Oberyn back to Dorne with her, and thus Doran sees Elia and Oberyn in the Water Gardens as a 16 year old “man grown” in 264.

*****

The Twins

In 265-6 Aerys II impregnates Joanna on one of her rare visits to King’s Landing (“seldom visiting” doesn’t mean “once” nor “never”) or perhaps at a tourney or on a trip to Casterly Rock. Joanna gives birth to Cersei and Jamie in 266. Jenna’s comment is profound:

“Men say that Tywin never smiled, but he smiled when he wed your mother, and when Aerys made him Hand. When Tarbeck Hall came crashing down on Lady Ellyn, that scheming bitch, Tyg claimed he smiled then. And he smiled at your birth, Jaime, I saw that with mine own eyes.” (FFC Jai V)

Note that this passage suggests parallels between Tywin’s wedding, his appointment as Hand, his greatest amoral act of Machiavellian power politics and Cersei and Jamie’s birth. It’s thus hinted that his marriage and appointment are related, and that his marriage and children’s birth are as cold, ruthless and calculating as the extermination of a House. (He surely smiles when he sees that Cersei and Jamie can pass for Lannisters.)

After Joanna gives birth to his twins, Aerys pines for her. He takes his court to Casterly Rock for a year in the wake of Rhaella’s latest stillbirth in 267, where they reunite and he gets to see his infant children. Things do not go well between Hand and King (perhaps because “things” are still very good between Aerys and Joanna) and by the time court returns to King’s Landing in 268:

“…it was plain to all that the friendship between the king and his Hand was fraying”

*****

That 70’s Show: A Chimera’s Birth In Context

Three things happen in 270. First, Aerys begins disregarding Tywin’s choices for offices, honors and inheritances. “Yandel” attempts to paint this as a sign of madness, but Aerys’s picks are quite solid: he makes Willem Darry master-at-arms over Tygett Lannister, and history proves Ser Willem is as loyal as could be hoped.

Second, Aerys confines Rhaella to Maegor’s Holdfast, accusing her of unfaithfulness, and third, the king travels to Dorne to see tPoD, his son Oberyn and his half-sister Elia. Rhaella’s confinement looks at first like the product of projection in light of Aerys’s Dorne visit. But I’m open to believing something else is afoot, whether Rhaella cheating (as she should!), perhaps with Lord Velaryon, or otherwise. Might Rhaella be attracted to the younger brother of a woman her brother-husband loves (i.e. tPoD) — not Lewyn, but Marwyn? Does their relationship continue today as Quaithe and Marwyn?

In 272, Joanna and tPoD both return for the tourney in King’s Landing: Joanna brings her twins and tPoD brings her 16-17 year old brother Prince Lewyn. tPoD and Joanna rekindle their relationship, and given the Dornish (and Targ) Factor it’s very possible that Lewyn Martell is consensually brought in as a ready-made boy-toy for the pent-up Joanna (and possibly his own older [half?] sister).

The nature of Aerys’s participation in their “fun” depends on whether you buy Lannister-sycophant Yandel’s interpretation of Aerys’s boob joke:

The king (very much in his cups) asked her if giving suck to them had “ruined your breasts, which were so high and proud.” The question greatly amused Lord Tywin’s rivals, who were always pleased to see the Hand slighted or made mock of, but Lady Joanna was humiliated. (TWOIAF)

If Joanna is no longer attracted to Aerys and/or truly humiliated by the remark, it follows that Aerys probably coerces or physically forces her into sex, possibly jealous that Lewyn has already bedded Joanna consensually but wanting to prove Joanna is still “his”. In this case, it could be that Aerys also coerces or orders Lewyn to join in. But I don’t think this is the case at all.

What if Joanna’s “humiliation” is actually the dread she feels knowing that Tywin’s rivals’ reaction to Aerys’s harmless jape will humiliate and enrage Tywin? Joanna tells Jaime in a vision years later:

“He could never abide being laughed at. That was the thing he hated most.” (FFC Jai VII)

If this latter interpretation is correct and Aerys is just making a dumb, drunk joke Joanna doesn’t mind, it could be Dorn-Targ Orgy Time®©, with Lewyn’s participation perhaps representing “a bridge too far” for Tywin, prompting his attempt to resign. (Or perhaps there are just separate consensual sexual encounters. Whatever.)

The idea that Tyrion is a metaphorical Minotaur helps us see what’s going on here.

In the myth of the Minotaur, King Minos prayed to Poseidon for a white bull which was intended for sacrificial purposes to please the Gods. Instead King Minos decided to keep it for himself out of greed. The gods became angered and Aphrodite coerced King Minos’ wife Pasiphae to fall in love with the white bull. The result of this unholy union was a monster half man/half bull with the head of a bull and the body of a man and he was given the name “Asterion”. /u/crowfoodsdaughter

Tywin “is” Minos and wants to deny Aerys and tPoD (the gods/Aphrodite) their “use” of Lewyn (the white bull of a house associated with water) vis-a-vis Joanna (Pasiphae). (I assume Joanna is naturally attracted to Lewyn, although in light of the Minotaur myth I have to wonder if we’ve just located the raison d’etre for The Sworn Sword‘s story of Rhae giving Egg a “love potion” that “would have” worked.) Joanna gives birth to the malformed chimera Tyrion (Asterion).

FWIW: Other clues that Tyrion is a figurative minotaur include the constant “Halfman” refrain and 5 maze references in Tyrion chapters, including the first line of the first Tyrion chapter in ASOIAF: “Somewhere in the great stone maze of Winterfell, a wolf howled.”

In any case, Tyrion, the chimera son of Aerys, Lewyn and Joanna (with no one certain of his paternity) is born in 273 at Casterly Rock, and Tywin isn’t happy.

*****

Tywin Cuts Out Joanna’s Tongue

Before tPoD’s ship arrives, I believe Tywin cuts out his wife Joanna’s (and maybe some servants’) tongue(s) and sends her to the Silent Sisters, reporting her dead in child birth. Westeros.org poster Firiel Hiren proffers this idea HERE. Reviewing her evidence (with my own twists):

Joanna appears to Jaime as a Silent Sister in a vision, not a dream. (“She was all in grey, a silent sister.”)

There is historical precedent: Tywin sends Rohanne and Sarelle Tarbeck to the Silent Sisters sans tongues.

This passage suggests Tywin’s supposed love for Joanna is a crock of shit:

King’s Landing had never loved Lord Tywin. He never wanted love, though. “You cannot eat love, nor buy a horse with it, nor warm your halls on a cold night,” she heard him tell Jaime once, when her brother had been no older than Tommen. (FFC C II)

Tommen is 9 at the time. If Jaime is 9 when Tywin tells him love is worthless, it follows that Tywin says this within a year of his “great love” Joanna’s supposed tragic death in childbirth.

8-year-old Cersei threatens Tyrion’s wet nurse with tongue removal. Where does she get this notion? Did several servants disappear/lose their tongues at this time?

Tywin deals harshly with powerful women like Ellen Tarbeck and Tytos Lannister’s mistress.

To Firiel’s tidbits I’ll add the following:

If Cersei subconciously knows/suspects/represses her mother’s fate, this explains volumes about her psyche.

Jenna believes “Lady Joanna ruled Lord Tywin”, and Joanna is plainly trying to arrange marriages for her children when she “dies”, which Tywin may see as overstepping her bounds, putting her in the same category as Ellen Tarbeck and Tytos’s mistress.

At the end of Jaime’s vision, we get: “Don’t leave me, he wanted to call, but of course she’d left them long ago.” Left. (I think this is metatext directed at the reader.)

In addition, I found what is for me a dispostive piece of literary evidence. We have seen that Joanna’s breasts are referred to as “high and proud”. The phrase “high and proud” is used only one other time in ASOIAF:

Even at anchor Silence looked both cruel and fast. On her prow was a black iron maiden with one arm outstretched. Her waist was slender, her breasts high and proud, her legs long and shapely. A windblown mane of black iron hair streamed from her head, and her eyes were mother-of-pearl, but she had no mouth. (Iron Captain)

The mouthless lady of the ship “Silence” with its mute crew has the same breasts as Joanna Lannister. Mic drop.

There’s FAT literary payoff for this idea, too. Savor the suddenly magnificent irony in these two passages

“The silent sisters never speak,” said Podrick. “I heard they don’t have any tongues.” Septon Meribald smiled. “Mothers have been cowing their daughters with that tale since I was your age. There was no truth to it then and there is none now. A vow of silence is an act of contrition, a sacrifice by which we prove our devotion to the Seven Above. For a mute to take a vow of silence would be akin to a legless man giving up the dance.” (FFC B VI)

and

“I should have the tongues removed from all my friends,” said Jaime as he filled their cups, “and from my kin as well. A silent Cersei would be sweet. (FFC Ja VII)

It is not an accident that the latter passage comes a whopping 5 pages before his mother Joanna appears to him in a vision.

Plus there are a ton of suggestions that Tyrion is going to lose his tongue which suddenly take on new depth.

Finally, the idea that Joanna is now a tongueless Silent Sister dovetails perfectly with my previously posted hypotheses that (1) the Silent Sisters cut off Tywin’s face on behalf of the Faceless Men now running The Neo-Faith and (2) the Faceless High Septon wore Tywin’s face, accounting for his “Tywin-isms”. It would be delicious irony and is hence likely in a work of dramatic and tragic fiction if Joanna herself cuts-out Tywin’s face, just as he cut out her tongue.

END OF PART 2 of 3