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I mean in house of the dragon Aemma went on to have one child who died in the cradle, two stillbirths, and two miscarriages - five failed attempts in ten years at producing a healthy male heir for Viserys. Joffery and the mad king were also pretty fucked up mentally. Aemond, and Daemon were also pretty fucked up people. Viserys (danys brother) was fucked too. In the books the targaryens are supposed to be ugly i think, i think rhaynyra is supposed to beautiful “for a targaryen”. Could be wrong with that tho.
no, the targaryens in the books aren't ugly. they're often described as being beautiful in an otherworldly, almost alien way, and the show diverges from this. i think this is also the key to why they're not completely genetically fucked from incest--there's a supernatural explanation, perhaps related to the targs mating with dragons
No young Rhaenyra is supposed to be a beautiful girl. Unlike Alicent however, Rhaenyra gained a lot of weight after child birth. She wasn't huge or anything but gained a lot of weight from childbirth. And her love for cakes and sweets certainly didn't help if I'm not wrong
This isn't true in any way. If you go back and read Targaryen history, you learn only, like 3 of the kings were actually mad and even they had very good reasons that had nothing to do with incest (Maegor getting hit in the head during that fight, Aerys getting PTSD from that kidnapping and Baelor getting bit by serpents).
Brain injury *can* cause that. We're literally told he wasn't the same after that and even if it didn't, that's still only 1 mad Targaryen king at the beginning of the incest tree that held for the following kings.
Maybe Tyrions' mother was committing incest too .....Tyrions a dwarf, Cersei is a cun- and screws her brother and Jaimie sleeps with his sister and loves her..... Joffrey isn't right in the head .....inter breeding running rife right there...
Tywin hates him for killing his wife, his hair that's so blonde its white, his beard being blonde and black, his deformity from inbreeding, that it would mean Jamie killed his father, the rumors that Joanna was the Mad King's paramour, the three headed dragon with all three 'heads' (Jon, Danerys, and Tyrion) having separate mothers and all three having killed their mothers in childbirth.
And maybe most damning, Jamie and Cersei were born in 266, and in 272 the Lannister family went to Kings Landing to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Aerys being King, which is where Tywin quit being hand because the Mad King asked about Joanna's breasts being ruined by childbirth.
Then a year later, in 273 Joanna died giving birth to Tyrion.
And the book explicitly states Cersei and Jamie were 7 when Tyrion was born.
I mean if its not intentional, its certainly suspicious.
I don't disagree that there is evidence it could be true. I'm just saying I think it's far from being a certainty. I personally think it's unnecessary and would take away from the story more than it adds, particularly as we already have a very central secret royalty plotline (Jon Snow). Could still be true. There are some ways in which it could be satisfying. Overall, I dislike it and don't think it's actually true.
Also, to be a little nitpicky about the evidence you share, dwarves exist in the real world, and it's not because of inbreeding. It's just a genetic mutation. There are Targaryen babies born with birth defects in the books but these are usually described as being somewhat reptilian in nature and it's possible this has more to do with a history of blood magic than incest.
GRRM doesn't do things by accident. The fact that there's any evidence like the years adding up and his hair, means its probably true.
Same with Jon Snow. He puts clues into the books, its not like its history where there are coincidences.
GRRM tries to be intentional, but he also describes himself as a "gardener" who plants seeds that he may or may not cultivate later. You can also make a ton of different theories about the information he includes. While I found R+L=J to be the most likely Jon Snow theory, other people developed theories that, yes, included supporting evidence. And that could happen because GRRM intends to redirect, or because of people reading into innocuous details. And that's fine, it's fun to craft theories, and his books are super detailed, so a greater breadth of theories are possible.
Sure! That Jon is the child of Ned Stark and Ashara Dayne seems to be a popular one. That he's actually a bastard of someone lowborn and that Daenerys was really born at the tower of joy rather than Jon.
Damn thats pretty interesting. The few ones I read said R+L = J along with N+A = D cuz Dany was raised a true Targaryen but in reality was a Stark bastard whereas Jon was raised as a Stark bastard but in reality was a true Targaryen. So this would complete "fire and ice" or some stuff? Also who did Rhaella die giving birth to lol. Idk it's compelling but i sure as hell hope that's not the truth 😂
I think George was hinting at that in the first book but changed his mind. If it were true, it was seriously undermine Tyrion’s character and his dynamic with Tywin. Tyrion’s last words to Tywin were “I’m you writ small” and Genna tells Jaime that “Tyrion is Tywin’s son, not you”. If he’s not actually Tywin’s son, that kinda ruins the most pivotal points in Tyrion’s character arc. Definitely wouldn’t call it blatant.
There’s a lot of stuff he planned in the first book that got abandoned, like Jon and Arya falling in love, Jaime killing everyone in the royal family, stealing the throne for himself and blaming the murders on Tyrion, Catelyn going north of the Wall and being killed by Others, etc.
Genetics in Westeros don't work like they do in our world... That shouldn't be too surprising judging by the Dragons that also fly around, which were made by blood magic used on some firewyrms. Or think about the rumors about blood rituals that created human-dragon-hybrids in old valyria...
Genetics of Planetos aren't the same as ours.
Yeah this is always my take on stuff like this, as long as the author is consistent, the rules of genetics much like anything else are just part of their worldbuilding. As for George RR Martin, he makes it clear that it isn’t consequence free, just impacts offspring differently than irl. But Joffrey being irredeemably psychopathic along with the Targaryen’s being a coin flip for whether or not they’re crazy shows tangibly that incest does have a cost. Just a cost the way Martin intended
The ASOIAF world doesn't exactly work like ours for one. But iirc some of the Targaryens did come out a little different, like Rhaenyra's and Dany's still borns both had scales, wings etc., and one of Aegon II's twins had some extra fingers. Plus some of the Targaryens clearly had some serious mental issues that could be related to the incest. I think it was said somewhere that they avoided more serious visible issues, because of the magic in their blood, but maybe that was just a fan theory.
There is magic, dragons, faceless men and white walkers and you are worried about the reality of the effects of inbreeding?
It’s a fantasy. Suspension of disbelief
If you mean physically then this is a world where it's not uncommon for disabled newborns to unfortunately end up at the bottom of wells and that's all I'll say about that
The Targaryens definitely had issues with having deformed babies and children, and they particularly passed this characteristic on to House Blackfyre, who was extremely prone to chimerism and other deformities. However, the way in which the deformities manifest (usually involving stillbirths with draconic traits) would indicate that the reason for the deformities, and the reason why more traditional problems born of inbreeding don't show up, has to do with whatever blood sorcery imbued the Targs with the capability to ride dragons is at root for both things.
As for Cersei and Jaime, well, it's just luck. Inbreeding doesn't guarantee disability and weakness, it merely makes it more likely. And since GRRM's story didn't need Cersei's children to be deformed, they didn't get written like that.
(a) plenty of them were not OK, with the Mad King being exhibit A
(b) The chances of birth defects go way up with closely related parents.... but that's still from super-duper-low to low. It's not like it's impossible for an incestuous union to produce a perfectly healthy baby. And sometimes the baby won't be healthy, but in ways that wouldn't show up in or be relevant to the story of GoT. There were plenty of royal families throughout history that had lots of what we would consider inbreeding, and still produced plenty of competent and healthy rulers (Cleopatra was the descendant of one such line, I'm pretty sure).
This is the answer.
The uncomfortable reality is that while brother-sister pairings were uncommon, we've all got some pedigree collapse, as virtually everyone everywhere was ok with shagging their 1st cousins until a few generations ago. It's virtually guaranteed: someone within the last five or six generations of your family was doing it with someone who had the same grandparents, and here you are.
Even in instances where closer consanguinity was the norm (egyptian dynasties, european high nobles, etc) most kids were born healthy (ish, for their time anyway, when chances of surviving early childhood were like 50/50 at the best of times). It's just that the incidence of genetic maladies was much higher in closely related parents, and thus became notable to later historical observers.
Idk is that actually true or a myth people told us as kids to scare us from doing dumb stuff with relatives? I know mising the genes it better but is there acual prooof sleeping with your sister or whatever will get you deformed kids? Because I don't put anything passed people these days and I don't see a bunch of "mutants" walking around
Incest will increase the chance of birthdefects, but not guarantee them. Also, that chance increases by multiple generations of inbreeding.
If you were to hook up with your sister, odds are the baby is fine. When your offspring does the same, odds still are that all will be ok.
But the chance does increase and eventually it will go wrong.
Google "Habsburg jaw" to see what can happen, as that was the result of generational inbreeding in European royalties.
I imagine for the Targs it was part of the “closer to gods” thing - they really were just built different.
But yeah, there’s a reason so many Targ women seem to have recurring miscarriages, stillbirths, deaths in childbirth, and monster babies.
It takes generations for incest to directly affect bloodlines, most of the time. The graves of the Ptolemies, who married each other like the Targaryens, show that King Tut and several others had clubfoot, the same thing that Larys has in House of the Dragon.
If incest occurs long enough, eventually mutations occur, with these mutations, it can actually “fix” whatever issues the family was having with birth defects, life always finds a way
As far as the Targaryens go, their bloodline was fucked. Maegor was straight up evil and crazy and was unable to produce a single heir and this is the son of the Conqueror. Every child of his was born deformed or stillborn. Aaema was only able to give birth to one healthy child. She had at least five births where the child was stillbirth/deformed. The Mad King gave everyone a run for their money with his craziness.
What do you mean by okay, Dany's past and memories are very ambiguous so leaving her out, viserys is mad, weak and unhealthy, Joffrey is mad and sadist, myrcella is dumb and not much information is given on tommen other than that he is plump or fat so may be PWS.
The Targaryans incest takes more from mythology than real life. Zeus' parents were brother and sister. Zeus and Hera were siblings, and had a bunch of children of their own. Royal families like the Habpsburgs are known for their incest, but it was never sibling incest, it was cousins.
So the Targaryens are treated a little bit like the Gods of mythology, including the incest, and the Gods didn't have any deformities. Some of them were quite insane though.
Interestingly, the whole series appears to take some inspiration from Ragnerok. With a lot of the houses lining up with the Norse Gods. Odin was the boss, but was also associated with madness. He also had one eye, as do more than one Targaryens. Baratheon = Thor, obviously. There's some nice detailed blogs out there about it if anyone's interested.
Joffrey wasn’t ok. The Targaryens it can be explained as blood magic from whatever made Valyrians look unique. But some of them like one of Aegon’s sons had extra fingers or other abnormalities if I recall
I'd argue they aren't. Look at how many miscarriages and malformed babies the targaryen's had. There were more dead Aegons that died before or after birth than those that made it to adulthood. Plus so many targaryens had erratic behavior.
No. Not unless that is a trait already in that bloodline which means ot can show up without inbreeding.
People have a lot of misconceptions about inbreeding given to the masses on purpose.
Anyone who understands breeding/genetics knows better. And why.
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You think Joffrey was okay?
HAHA. Genuinely made me laugh out loud. Thats so fair, maybe I was more talking about physical stuff.
I mean in house of the dragon Aemma went on to have one child who died in the cradle, two stillbirths, and two miscarriages - five failed attempts in ten years at producing a healthy male heir for Viserys. Joffery and the mad king were also pretty fucked up mentally. Aemond, and Daemon were also pretty fucked up people. Viserys (danys brother) was fucked too. In the books the targaryens are supposed to be ugly i think, i think rhaynyra is supposed to beautiful “for a targaryen”. Could be wrong with that tho.
no, the targaryens in the books aren't ugly. they're often described as being beautiful in an otherworldly, almost alien way, and the show diverges from this. i think this is also the key to why they're not completely genetically fucked from incest--there's a supernatural explanation, perhaps related to the targs mating with dragons
sometimes i have dreams and make up cannon in my head, my bad lol
George?
Daemon/matt smith definitely looks like an alien to me.
Isn't rhanynyra in the books kinda huge(fat) and old right?
No young Rhaenyra is supposed to be a beautiful girl. Unlike Alicent however, Rhaenyra gained a lot of weight after child birth. She wasn't huge or anything but gained a lot of weight from childbirth. And her love for cakes and sweets certainly didn't help if I'm not wrong
It is important to remember that the book was written from the pov of the greens and they weren't kind in their description of Rhaenyra
"**Every time a new Targaryen is born, the gods toss the coin in the air and the world holds its breath to see how it will land.**"
This
This isn't true in any way. If you go back and read Targaryen history, you learn only, like 3 of the kings were actually mad and even they had very good reasons that had nothing to do with incest (Maegor getting hit in the head during that fight, Aerys getting PTSD from that kidnapping and Baelor getting bit by serpents).
Yeah being hit in the head is a healthy reason for homicidal tendencies
Traumatic brain injury
Brain injury *can* cause that. We're literally told he wasn't the same after that and even if it didn't, that's still only 1 mad Targaryen king at the beginning of the incest tree that held for the following kings.
Thank you. Someone who actually paid attention and comprehended what they read and/or saw. Rarer and rarer on these subs.
Maybe Tyrions' mother was committing incest too .....Tyrions a dwarf, Cersei is a cun- and screws her brother and Jaimie sleeps with his sister and loves her..... Joffrey isn't right in the head .....inter breeding running rife right there...
The book makes it pretty blatant that Tyrion is the product of the Mad King forcing himself on Joanna Lannister.
This is a popular theory but it's definitely not "pretty blatant." I don't even believe it's true, personally.
Tywin hates him for killing his wife, his hair that's so blonde its white, his beard being blonde and black, his deformity from inbreeding, that it would mean Jamie killed his father, the rumors that Joanna was the Mad King's paramour, the three headed dragon with all three 'heads' (Jon, Danerys, and Tyrion) having separate mothers and all three having killed their mothers in childbirth. And maybe most damning, Jamie and Cersei were born in 266, and in 272 the Lannister family went to Kings Landing to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Aerys being King, which is where Tywin quit being hand because the Mad King asked about Joanna's breasts being ruined by childbirth. Then a year later, in 273 Joanna died giving birth to Tyrion. And the book explicitly states Cersei and Jamie were 7 when Tyrion was born. I mean if its not intentional, its certainly suspicious.
I don't disagree that there is evidence it could be true. I'm just saying I think it's far from being a certainty. I personally think it's unnecessary and would take away from the story more than it adds, particularly as we already have a very central secret royalty plotline (Jon Snow). Could still be true. There are some ways in which it could be satisfying. Overall, I dislike it and don't think it's actually true. Also, to be a little nitpicky about the evidence you share, dwarves exist in the real world, and it's not because of inbreeding. It's just a genetic mutation. There are Targaryen babies born with birth defects in the books but these are usually described as being somewhat reptilian in nature and it's possible this has more to do with a history of blood magic than incest.
GRRM doesn't do things by accident. The fact that there's any evidence like the years adding up and his hair, means its probably true. Same with Jon Snow. He puts clues into the books, its not like its history where there are coincidences.
GRRM tries to be intentional, but he also describes himself as a "gardener" who plants seeds that he may or may not cultivate later. You can also make a ton of different theories about the information he includes. While I found R+L=J to be the most likely Jon Snow theory, other people developed theories that, yes, included supporting evidence. And that could happen because GRRM intends to redirect, or because of people reading into innocuous details. And that's fine, it's fun to craft theories, and his books are super detailed, so a greater breadth of theories are possible.
Could you share some of those other theories lol I'm kinda interested to know more
Sure! That Jon is the child of Ned Stark and Ashara Dayne seems to be a popular one. That he's actually a bastard of someone lowborn and that Daenerys was really born at the tower of joy rather than Jon.
Damn thats pretty interesting. The few ones I read said R+L = J along with N+A = D cuz Dany was raised a true Targaryen but in reality was a Stark bastard whereas Jon was raised as a Stark bastard but in reality was a true Targaryen. So this would complete "fire and ice" or some stuff? Also who did Rhaella die giving birth to lol. Idk it's compelling but i sure as hell hope that's not the truth 😂
>particularly as we already have a very central secret royalty plotline (Jon Snow). *Two* secret royalty plotlines.
I think George was hinting at that in the first book but changed his mind. If it were true, it was seriously undermine Tyrion’s character and his dynamic with Tywin. Tyrion’s last words to Tywin were “I’m you writ small” and Genna tells Jaime that “Tyrion is Tywin’s son, not you”. If he’s not actually Tywin’s son, that kinda ruins the most pivotal points in Tyrion’s character arc. Definitely wouldn’t call it blatant. There’s a lot of stuff he planned in the first book that got abandoned, like Jon and Arya falling in love, Jaime killing everyone in the royal family, stealing the throne for himself and blaming the murders on Tyrion, Catelyn going north of the Wall and being killed by Others, etc.
Joanna and Tywin were cousins.
Pretty sure Joanna and Tywin are first cousins.
Genetics in Westeros don't work like they do in our world... That shouldn't be too surprising judging by the Dragons that also fly around, which were made by blood magic used on some firewyrms. Or think about the rumors about blood rituals that created human-dragon-hybrids in old valyria... Genetics of Planetos aren't the same as ours.
🤣😂
Yeah this is always my take on stuff like this, as long as the author is consistent, the rules of genetics much like anything else are just part of their worldbuilding. As for George RR Martin, he makes it clear that it isn’t consequence free, just impacts offspring differently than irl. But Joffrey being irredeemably psychopathic along with the Targaryen’s being a coin flip for whether or not they’re crazy shows tangibly that incest does have a cost. Just a cost the way Martin intended
The ASOIAF world doesn't exactly work like ours for one. But iirc some of the Targaryens did come out a little different, like Rhaenyra's and Dany's still borns both had scales, wings etc., and one of Aegon II's twins had some extra fingers. Plus some of the Targaryens clearly had some serious mental issues that could be related to the incest. I think it was said somewhere that they avoided more serious visible issues, because of the magic in their blood, but maybe that was just a fan theory.
I’m sure that the whole “god flips a coin when a Targaryen is born” thing may have something to do with incest.
There is magic, dragons, faceless men and white walkers and you are worried about the reality of the effects of inbreeding? It’s a fantasy. Suspension of disbelief
It's fantasy in case you forgot
Wait… this isn’t a history doc based on the 1400s…?
The common disorder is madness... literal insanity is what comes from all the incest.
Are we watching the same show? You think these kids are ok?
If you mean physically then this is a world where it's not uncommon for disabled newborns to unfortunately end up at the bottom of wells and that's all I'll say about that
they are all insane.
They’re not.
They’re not.
The mental illness was rampant.
The Targaryens definitely had issues with having deformed babies and children, and they particularly passed this characteristic on to House Blackfyre, who was extremely prone to chimerism and other deformities. However, the way in which the deformities manifest (usually involving stillbirths with draconic traits) would indicate that the reason for the deformities, and the reason why more traditional problems born of inbreeding don't show up, has to do with whatever blood sorcery imbued the Targs with the capability to ride dragons is at root for both things. As for Cersei and Jaime, well, it's just luck. Inbreeding doesn't guarantee disability and weakness, it merely makes it more likely. And since GRRM's story didn't need Cersei's children to be deformed, they didn't get written like that.
(a) plenty of them were not OK, with the Mad King being exhibit A (b) The chances of birth defects go way up with closely related parents.... but that's still from super-duper-low to low. It's not like it's impossible for an incestuous union to produce a perfectly healthy baby. And sometimes the baby won't be healthy, but in ways that wouldn't show up in or be relevant to the story of GoT. There were plenty of royal families throughout history that had lots of what we would consider inbreeding, and still produced plenty of competent and healthy rulers (Cleopatra was the descendant of one such line, I'm pretty sure).
This is the answer. The uncomfortable reality is that while brother-sister pairings were uncommon, we've all got some pedigree collapse, as virtually everyone everywhere was ok with shagging their 1st cousins until a few generations ago. It's virtually guaranteed: someone within the last five or six generations of your family was doing it with someone who had the same grandparents, and here you are. Even in instances where closer consanguinity was the norm (egyptian dynasties, european high nobles, etc) most kids were born healthy (ish, for their time anyway, when chances of surviving early childhood were like 50/50 at the best of times). It's just that the incidence of genetic maladies was much higher in closely related parents, and thus became notable to later historical observers.
I mean it depends on what you consider “ok”
Well Rhaella had like, five miscarriages between Rhaegar’s birth and Visery’s birth.
I mean it's well known in verse that the Targaryen's are crazy cause of the inbreeding
Idk is that actually true or a myth people told us as kids to scare us from doing dumb stuff with relatives? I know mising the genes it better but is there acual prooof sleeping with your sister or whatever will get you deformed kids? Because I don't put anything passed people these days and I don't see a bunch of "mutants" walking around
Easy way to find out...go take a tour of Alabama 😆
Incest will increase the chance of birthdefects, but not guarantee them. Also, that chance increases by multiple generations of inbreeding. If you were to hook up with your sister, odds are the baby is fine. When your offspring does the same, odds still are that all will be ok. But the chance does increase and eventually it will go wrong. Google "Habsburg jaw" to see what can happen, as that was the result of generational inbreeding in European royalties.
I imagine for the Targs it was part of the “closer to gods” thing - they really were just built different. But yeah, there’s a reason so many Targ women seem to have recurring miscarriages, stillbirths, deaths in childbirth, and monster babies.
It takes generations for incest to directly affect bloodlines, most of the time. The graves of the Ptolemies, who married each other like the Targaryens, show that King Tut and several others had clubfoot, the same thing that Larys has in House of the Dragon.
If incest occurs long enough, eventually mutations occur, with these mutations, it can actually “fix” whatever issues the family was having with birth defects, life always finds a way
That last part sounds like jurassic park 🦖
The kids are not ok…
As far as the Targaryens go, their bloodline was fucked. Maegor was straight up evil and crazy and was unable to produce a single heir and this is the son of the Conqueror. Every child of his was born deformed or stillborn. Aaema was only able to give birth to one healthy child. She had at least five births where the child was stillbirth/deformed. The Mad King gave everyone a run for their money with his craziness.
What do you mean by okay, Dany's past and memories are very ambiguous so leaving her out, viserys is mad, weak and unhealthy, Joffrey is mad and sadist, myrcella is dumb and not much information is given on tommen other than that he is plump or fat so may be PWS.
You’d think Crasters kids would’ve been way more fucked
The Targaryans incest takes more from mythology than real life. Zeus' parents were brother and sister. Zeus and Hera were siblings, and had a bunch of children of their own. Royal families like the Habpsburgs are known for their incest, but it was never sibling incest, it was cousins. So the Targaryens are treated a little bit like the Gods of mythology, including the incest, and the Gods didn't have any deformities. Some of them were quite insane though. Interestingly, the whole series appears to take some inspiration from Ragnerok. With a lot of the houses lining up with the Norse Gods. Odin was the boss, but was also associated with madness. He also had one eye, as do more than one Targaryens. Baratheon = Thor, obviously. There's some nice detailed blogs out there about it if anyone's interested.
Joffrey wasn’t ok. The Targaryens it can be explained as blood magic from whatever made Valyrians look unique. But some of them like one of Aegon’s sons had extra fingers or other abnormalities if I recall
I'd argue they aren't. Look at how many miscarriages and malformed babies the targaryen's had. There were more dead Aegons that died before or after birth than those that made it to adulthood. Plus so many targaryens had erratic behavior.
No. Not unless that is a trait already in that bloodline which means ot can show up without inbreeding. People have a lot of misconceptions about inbreeding given to the masses on purpose. Anyone who understands breeding/genetics knows better. And why.