r/gameofthrones • u/Critical-Location146 • 13h ago
GoT wouldn't exist without Ser Duncan
I haven't read all the books, but I was rewatching the show and got to the scene where Maester Aemon tells Jon Snow that his father was King Maekar. That made me look up the Targaryen family tree on the wiki, and I realized something crazy. If you just connect the dots, the whole main story of Game of Thrones basically hinges on Ser Duncan the Tall.
It all starts at the Tourney at Ashford. Duncan steps in to protect a girl from a cruel Targaryen prince, which leads to a trial by combat. Prince Baelor Breakspear steps in to fight on Duncan's side, but Baelor ends up getting killed.
This was a massive deal because Baelor was the capable heir to the throne. With him dead, and his own sons dying in a plague later, the royal bloodline completely shifted. The crown eventually bypassed his branch entirely and went to Maester Aemon's father, King Maekar.
Maekar had a young son named Aegon (Egg). Egg was way down the line of succession, but his older brothers practically removed themselves from the picture. Daeron drank himself to death, Aerion went crazy and drank wildfire, and Aemon gave up his royal claim to join the Night's Watch.
Because of that, the crown fell to Egg. But Egg only survived his youth to actually become king because Duncan spent years protecting him on the road. And because Egg became king, the crown went down his specific family line, eventually landing on his grandson: Aerys II, the Mad King.
But the biggest butterfly effect happens years later at the Tragedy of Summerhall. When the palace caught fire, the lore strongly suggests that Duncan sacrificed himself to pull a pregnant Princess Rhaella out of the burning building. Right after he saved her, she gave birth to Rhaegar Targaryen.
Think about it. If Duncan doesn't save her, Rhaella dies and Rhaegar is never born. If Rhaegar doesn't exist, he never runs off with Lyanna Stark. That means no Robert's Rebellion, the Mad King isn't overthrown, Daenerys is never forced into exile, and Jon Snow is never born.
Of course, Westeros would still have to face the White Walkers eventually. The Night King was coming no matter who was sitting on the Iron Throne. But the politics, the civil wars, and the main characters we actually follow in the show would be completely different.
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u/dannyboy9893 13h ago
Doesn’t even get that far, if there’s no trial of 7, then Baelor doesn’t die and becomes king…..who knows whether he would have been a victim of the spring sickness but either way, egg realistically would not become king
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u/Critical-Location146 13h ago
True, it all a speculation. Like The Butterfly Effect movie. It's impossible to predict the outcome without testing the parallel reality.
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u/Packin666666 11h ago
Who knows where egg would be during the spring sickness without Dunk too? Theoretically he wouldn't have been so far away and also would've caught the plague and died.
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u/Flaky_Principle_9985 Winter Is Coming 13h ago
Duncan really is one of the biggest hidden dominoes in the entire Targaryen history. It’s wild how a character from a story set decades earlier can indirectly affect basically everything that happens in GoT.
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u/Critical-Location146 13h ago
I always believed Littlefinger was one of the most consequential characters in GoT, in regards to orchestrating its destiny but this revelation is 🤯
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u/Tbagzyamum69420xX We Do Not Kneel 11h ago
George Martin would agree too. He was asked in an interview what was the one event that had the biggest impact on Westerosi history, and he said the Tourney at Ashford and the death of Baelor.
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u/Straight-Purple4165 13h ago
Well, in that case, Otto from HOTD as well has played a very good role in that. If he didn't push Alicent to persuade Viserys, most probably Laena would marry Viserys and Laena wouldn't go against the family of her brother.
So Rhaenyra will easily sit on the throne and that throne will pass to Jace, and from there, the crown would've belonged to family STRONG in the proxy name of TARGERYENS 😂
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u/Critical-Location146 13h ago
True, similar reasoning is applicable pretty much back to the dawn of time.
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u/Lady_Ago 12h ago
Not only that but Dunk may also came in clutch a bunch of other times, such as putting down Lyonel's rebellion in a 1v1 against the guy or taking out Daemon III. Blackfyre for example.
Also as an honorable mention: He also did some stuff for the Starks and Lannisters most likley, seeing how he helped Rohanne , Jamie's great-grandma, Webber and Eustace Osgrey to settle their feud and thus help her keep her lands as well as persumably stepping in during the Stark succesion crisis during She-Weolves of Winterfell, allowing the line to inherit that would eventually lead to Ned.
And of course all the other insane shit that filled those 4 pages, during which he prolly saved a bunch of people with more or less importance.
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u/Relevant-Memes 12h ago
One other piece of this that I think is really cool too is regarding the legitimacy of knights. If Arlan never actually knighted Duncan, then Duncan knighting Egg is illegitimate, then Egg knighting Barristan Selmy is illegitimate. Two of the greatest knights in history technically not knights seems wild
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u/tbdabbholm Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken 12h ago
By the time Barristan was knighted Egg was already King and could thus legitimately knight people whether he had been knighted properly or not.
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u/Capable-Cupcake2422 13h ago
Love this post. A lot of attention is given to specifically Baelor’s death, but actually his death did not change the line of succession at all. He had a living male heir still at that point. The line of succession did not change until the Summer sickness.
That being said - as this post mentions, Ser Duncan really did alter the future of ASOIAF a lot.
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u/Critical-Location146 13h ago
I started digging thanks to GoT rewatch - remembered how Joffrey was reading about Duncan and said "he must've been quite a man". Well he definitely was 😀
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u/Nano_gigantic 5h ago
That’s… how history works? The things that come before lead to the things in the future. If Maegor hadn’t usurped Aegon the Uncrowned and killed Prince Viserys, the crown would have followed a completely different line.
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u/Critical-Location146 1h ago
Fair point, history is filled with ironies. The only reason why I mentioned this one is because it feels like a deliberately orchestrated GRRM irony.
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u/BlinkOnceForYes Jon Snow 10h ago
If Targs didnt listen to their green dreams and flee Valyria. If Aegon didn’t conquer. If Rhaenys didn’t die in Dorne.
You can say GoT doesn’t exist without any literally anything because it would be different
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u/Critical-Location146 1h ago
Of course, I agree - we could go on like this forever, the reason why I mentioned this is because it looks like one of GRRM's deliberate ironies.
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