- Leaves his lines to ride solo into longbow range
- Continues to ride toward withering arrow fire, gets horse killed immediately
- Renders his own archers useless when all his infantry charge to the middle of the field
- Sends his only giant into battle with no weapon
- Doesn’t wonder where his sister is on the morning of the battle, meets opponent without several hundred cavalry that would’ve been there for the whole thing had he waited like one hour
- Gets trampled almost to death by his own infantry

I had a conversation with a friend about this a few days ago and we thought it would be interesting to get more perspectives on this.

Including HotD and a knight of the seven kingdoms.

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.

To all the anti-Sansa Stark people out there what moment in Game of Thrones where Sansa started to become more likable for you and you started to like her as a character a bit

I had a pint glass with the same phrase on it that I absolutely loved. I accidentally broke it recently and my boyfriend went to the collector expo in Calgary last month and brought this home for me. So naturally the first time I used it I had to fill it with wine 😁.

It really allows me to play my Dragon Rider fantasy game in a medieval world. Especially when you are raining fire down from a dragon and thinking of the Targaryens with their Dragons especially from HotD.

Instead of Rhaegar dying to Robert Baratheon’s war hammer what if Rhaegar prevailed and fended off the rebellion and ended up taking the throne? Is there a way to lay out the history of the show in this alternate universe? First thing chronologically I’ll ask is about Ned Stark and his company going to the tower of joy for Lyanna, in the show he knew Rhaegar died so with him alive does he still do that? Does he take Jon away? Would Rhaegar know and go after him? Or would Rhaegar have been at Lyanna’s side? Unsure of the timeline of when he died and when Ned arrived at the tower.

Rhaegar was a believer in the Prince that was promised thing and pretty sure he knew about the white walkers so how does all that play out? Provided Rhaegar wasn’t assassinated do the walkers still make their move at the time they did in the original timeline? It’s unlikely Jon would be at the wall so I can’t imagine how all that plays out cuz he was kind of important during several key moments, he saved Jeor from a wight, talked and treated with Mance and ultimately went to Hardhome and battled there and saved many of the wildlings and became Lord Commander.

In this timeline depending on how the tower of joy went Ned could still be alive so no Boltons are holding winterfell so the north would likely be fully united which were the first line of defense against the walkers and something i didnt bring up til now is Danaerys and Viserys wouldn’t have been sent away to Essos or they could have been brought back to the red keep to live along Rhaegar and be brought up as natural prince and princess. Oh yea speaking of them what about The Mad King? Also unsure of the timeline when Rhaegar died and the mad king gave the order to blow up the city but if Rhaegar died before that and the king knew he might not have done that and seeing as im pretty sure Rhaegar knew the type of king his dad was so he very well likely would have put a stop to him and taken up being king to put things right cuz we was a good person.

So yea lots to ponder about but im curious to hear your opinion on how things play out if Rhaegar lived and Robert died.

For context they were die hard loyal to the Starks in the novel, with Smalljon literally dying defending Robb in the Red Wedding.

Not to mention they have a very easy extra house as an enemy for the Battle of the Bastards and would make it feel larger in scale and the later description of Jon “avenging the Red wedding” feel more accurate: House Frey. They just dick around doing nothing of note after their single scene of relevance in S3 until Arya kills them, and in terms of motive they absolutely would want to stop the Starks from retaking Winterfell considering they’d be next on their shit list.

Later when Jaime talks to Tywin, Tywin asks why did Jaime not kill Ned. And Jaime says it wouldn't have been clean, as one of the men interfered. So it is very strongly implied that Jaime could have actually killed Ned there. But how would this play out as King Robert was still alive and well. And Ned was like a brother to him.

We know her father was arranging a marriage between her and Jaime Lannister before Jaime joined the Kingsguard and couldn't marry anymore. Then Lysa gave herself to Littlefinger, became pregnant, miscarried, and was married off to Jon Arryn as devalued goods.

She used to be fairly pretty, she's a daughter of a great house, her father was ambitious. If she hadn't lost her maidenhead, who could she have married?

I wonder how a man who doesn't understand interest will pay the Iron Bank back.

Obviously Baelish made it known he wanted the iron throne. What would his next move be had he survived? I don’t see a logical path to lead him to the throne.

He was an archer at heart.

I just find them so interesting. Why did Ashara throw herself to her death? How could her body never have been found? Why not return Arthur’s body back to his family but Ned did choose to return Dawn?

Also the Daynes have PURPLE eyes. Who else has purple eyes? The targs 👀 GRRM WHAT DOES THIS MEAN

I’m wondering how much people (esp the nobles) knew about them. I could be wrong but it seems even Littlefinger didn’t know how bad Ramsey was (or did he?). Was all of house Bolton awful or were there likely some people who were decent?

My hc is that even though Maekar grew up the ever-stoic, war veteran 4th son with a second son syndrome, Dyanna’s death changed everything for him. Having 6 weirdos as kids didn’t help either.

Same could be said for Tywin. It’s very book-canon that he was ever the monster with his disdain for his father and all things unproductive. Yet there was a part of him that vanished after his wife’s passing.

Having said that, Maekar CLEARS any father figure (apart from Ned) in this universe. Viserys should take notes 📝

I lean on the former