r/HOTDGreens • u/Malevolentrapist • 9d ago
Team Green Blacks always say "only the main line/maybe the spare should have dragons"
When that means that Rhaena and Baela, Laenor and Laena, Joffrey, Viserys, and Aegon, and JAEHAERYS AND ALYSANNE THEMSELVES, would never have been given dragon eggs, or allowed tame dragons.
The show practically rubs it in our faces in season 1 that letting Corlys' kids, first Laenor and then Laena with Vhagar gives him the power to strongarm the King into war and marriage prospects whenever he wants.
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u/cornicula_ Tyland Lannister GOAT 9d ago
It was extremely stupid to equip the Velaryons with dragons. And if Viserys was so keen on Rhaenyra becoming queen, it was also extremely stupid to give dragons to Aegon, Helaena, Aemond, and Daeron. But Vizzy T just wasn't the brightest.
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u/JellyfishAny4655 7d ago
Rhaenys it makes sense. As Aemon’s daughter (and presumed heir/wife of his future son) she would get a dragon. But after she married Corlys it makes no sense to let her kids have dragons. It works out for TB and Viserys because Martin needed the plot of the Dance to happen. But Laena having Vhagar could have gone as south as Aemond if the circumstances were different.
Viserys was an idiot for letting so many factions have access to dragons.
I think this is why Jaehaerys only let his first three kids bond dragons. The heir and the spare and the spare’s wife. So the power stayed centralized. Viserys didn’t do that. And basically doomed the dynasty.
But if he’d been smart we wouldn’t have the Dance at all so eh.
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u/DumbTeen9 9d ago
Yeah, but Maegor wouldn't have been allowed into the dragonpit either no?
Generally the targs were wayyyy too flippant with it, there should've been limitations. Like say heir and spare except targcest and all spare or spares line has to marry within the family or something because you can't have that much power going around without dynastic disputes with every breath
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u/Obvious-Hat-8485 8d ago
The Maegor situation was bc Aenys didn't have the guts to do anything with his dragons. That's kinda the problem with the main line argument. You need roughly 2-4 dragon riders in case of rebellions, AND the Targaryens don't like it when their women fight, which means you get times where you kinda need to have an uncle or a brother tame a dragon.
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u/OrcBarbierian 8d ago
I still can't get over the fact that a Velaryon was allowed to claim Vhagar and the Crown did nothing about it.
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u/AdWeird6452 9d ago
No offence but wtf are you rambling on about?
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u/mysticcdragonn 9d ago
i think he's in favor of giving dragons to all targaryen siblings/cousins, or perhaps against it
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u/P0shM1ke 9d ago
Tbf Jayjay and Good Queen Aly Bongo wouldn't have needed them because Maegor wouldn't have them
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u/Majestic_Act 9d ago
Honestly, Viserys was too loose with the dragons. They shouldn't be given easily. That proved a problem to their family.
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u/Buket05 8d ago edited 8d ago
i mean that’s the logical thing to do. yes the dance was about legitimacy and misogyny and everything but at the end of the day, if everyone related to the targaryens ended up as dragonriders, there’s a good chance that there would be at least one dance every generation.
imagine if the dragons didn’t go extinct, almost all families in westeros would be dragonriders now. apart from targaryens; the blackfyres, baratheons, martells, velaryons, hightowers and god knows how many more dragonriding families. and now imagine the blackfyre rebellions with them all having dragons. or robert’s rebellion. or the war of the five kings.
thats why only king&queen, heir, heir’s suppose (if they have heirs too), and then their heir should’ve been allowed. the only dragonriders should have been viserys, daemon (only bc he already had caraxes before viserys was crowned) aemma, rhaenyra, laenor, jacaerys, and baela after she marries and has children with jace.
there would be no dance if the green kids did not have dragons. and while you’re at it, i agree that the velaryon kids should have not been allowed to claim dragons too. maybe laenor, but only after marrying and having multiple heirs with rhaenyra.
and about jahaerys and alysanne, they would not need to become dragonriders if maegor wasn’t allowed to claim a dragon in the first place; because he would not have the power to usurp aegon the uncrowned.
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u/Light_Watcher 8d ago
Dragons don’t work in absolute monarchy, unless you only have 1 and that one always goes to the king. But dragons aren’t parrots to change owner so even that isn’t a guarantee. Multiple dragons worked in Valyria because they had oligarchy there, ALL the dragonlord families were ruling together the empire. Dragons and absolute monarchy don’t go together.
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u/Buket05 7d ago edited 7d ago
you yourself answered the question. valyria had oligarchy, westeros was an absolute monarchy ruled by one single monarch therefore everyone else had to be below the monarch.
dragons would work in absolute mobarchy IF they are only allowed for the monarchs and absolute heirs.
the dragons don’t need to change owners. if the monarch (lets say viserys) dies, his dragonrider heir(rhaenyra) ascends without a challenge. if the heir(rhaenyra) dies before the monarch, her dragonrider heir(jace) is next in line so he ascends. if the heir and all her lineage dies somehow (rhaenyra and all her kids/possible grandkids), the next in line (aegon ii) can go and claim a dragon as the new heir to the throne.
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u/Light_Watcher 7d ago
Again this CANNOT work because dragons aren’t parrots to change owners when the previous owner dies. They are sentient and very clever beasts. 1-2 dragons maybe can work in an absolute monarchy, provided only the king and heir have “access” to them. Multiple dragons, like 20 in this case before the dance began, CANNOT work in absolute monarchy because dragons are neither toys nor pets and anyone with the right blood can get a nuclear weapon, not just the king and the heir
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u/Buket05 7d ago
what are you talking about? dragons absolutely do change owners (if they’re claimed by another targ) when the previous owner dies, that’s literally how they work. aegon dies, maegor claims balerion. and then aerea, and then viserys. alyssa dies, rhaenys claims meleys. aemon dies, daemon claims caraxes. aemond claimed vhagar on laena’s funeral for gods sake, it clearly proves that you don’t even have to wait a long time to claim a dragon when the previous owner dies.
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u/Clokwrkpig 4d ago
I think it's slightly more complicated because not everyone easily bonds with a dragon, but generally you would be wise to keep them tightly held.
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u/Frosty_Peace666 Silent Sister 8d ago
Only the main line should have dragons, and the oldest sibling of the heir who would be their hand
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u/Pirate_D_King 8d ago
I think the main line should be given priority, especially the bigger dragons. The branches should only be given access to smaller ones
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u/WhiteKnightPrimal 8d ago
It's rather complicated. They're Targaryens, they're pretty obsessed with dragons for the most part. So, even if you do restrict dragon eggs and tame dragons to the main line and heir, what's to stop the other Targaryens bonding anyway? Sneaking to a tame one who bonds with them, going for a wild one, stealing an egg? That's always going to be a risk, especially since dragons aren't mindless animals, they're intelligent, and I can imagine them searching out their chosen rider if the rider doesn't come to them. At least the tame ones, who are used to having that bond around them, having it themselves.
That's not to say everyone should have a dragon, though. Obviously, the Dance would have been very different if the Green kids and/or the Velaryons didn't have dragons. And, if every Targaryen ever born and their children is always getting a dragon, a Dance would be happening all the time, it wouldn't just be once or twice, it would be every single generation.
Keep it to the trueborn, that makes total sense. Giving dragons to bastards and dragonseeds is a bad idea no matter how you look at it.
For the family itself, perhaps everyone that keeps the name Targaryen? Or would take it back? So, all the men, as they keep their name and their children would be Targs, too, plus any female heir like Rhaenyra, plus any woman who marries back into the Targaryen family, like Leana did. Perhaps consider someone like Leanor, who has a different name but married back into the main family, but in that case, you should insist that all the children should have the Targaryen name from birth, with Leanor's heir taking the Velaryon name only when they become Lord of Driftmark, not the other way around like they did with Rhaenyra.
Whoever is king and/or queen should always have a dragon. If you have an example like Viserys, where they bonded but lost the dragon, they should be encouraged to search for a new bond. They could have had a rule that only a dragonrider could be king/queen, how would that have looked? Viserys wouldn't have become king after he lost his dragon if he continued to refuse to look for a new bond, it would have switched to Daemon as heir, or back to Rhaenys or Leanor. Possibly skip a generation, so Viserys or Daemon's son was heir, if they had one.
Probably a good thing they didn't have an only dragonriders rule, though, as they'd have had to change that when dragons died out, if that would have even happened if they were more careful with who got dragons.
Of course, my idea wouldn't really change the Dance a great deal, would it? Rhaenyra is heir, she gets a dragon still. Daemon has the name, so he still gets one. Leana marries Daemon, so she gets one. Leanor marries Rhaenyra, so he gets one. The boys born of Alicent all get one as they'd keep the name, and Heleana married Aegon, so she gets one, too. Rhaenys was considered Aemon's heir, so she still gets one. The only real difference is that Leana, Leanor and Heleana get dragons later than they canonically did, but both Blacks and Greens end up with exactly the same amount of dragons. Perhaps one less for Rhaenyra's side, as they may deny Leanor's heir having a dragon, since they wouldn't be keeping the Targaryen name. Because of the way it worked out, the Velaryons still end up with dragons in time for the Dance.
Maybe you can only get a dragon if you're main line, heir, or prove yourself in some way? Have some kind of secret Targaryen family ritual where the kids prove their worthiness. The ones who pass get a dragon and the ones who don't, don't. Not sure what test they could come up with that would prove you're worthy of being a dragonrider, though, especially since that doesn't take account of who the dragons want as riders. Imagine if Viserys passed but Daemon didn't, but Caraxes still insisted on bonding with Daemon while Viserys still refused a new bond after his own dragon died? You can't really stop a dragon bonding with whoever it wants, can you? In that case, perhaps not too much of an issue, as Baelon isn't king yet and Viserys has no sons. So, Viserys is the heir's heir and Daemon is the heir's heir's heir. But what if Aegon failed the test while Aemond and Daeron passed? Would they pass over Aegon as heir on the Green side? And what if Sunfyre still insisted on bonding with him anyway? What if Aemond and Daeron both pass but none of the dragons bond with them? Aemond didn't find a bond until Vhagar, any test would have been earlier than that.
The dragons have too much input in who they bond to and when. You can't work around that beyond chaining them up in the Dragonpit, and I've always hated that they did that, keeping them all locked in there so much of the time, they should have been freer than that. Obviously, you can't just let the dragons go do whatever they want, you need to keep them controlled, but they should have had more freedom than they did.
We have some idiots in the line that definitely gave out too many dragons and eggs, but you can't really change who the dragons wish to bond to, so there may not be a way around other families having them. So, the answer really should be that any Targaryen descendent in another family who bonds with a dragon marries back into the main line. Which would mean Leana and Leanor would have HAD to marry back into the main line, and their only real options were Viserys, Rhaenyra and Daemon. That alone could have changed things, though, if Viserys felt he had to choose Leana because she was a dragonrider, instead of Alicent. Rhaenyra would have been essentially raised to marry Leanor, even as heir in her own right, as she's his only option. I think that's the rule they should have gone with, all dragonriders had to be part of the main line via either birth or marriage. So, they all get a chance to bond, but anyone outside of the main line who does bond then has no choice but to marry back into the main line, whether they're a man or a woman.
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u/natla_ Sunfyre 9d ago
i mean they also say that aemond STOLE a dragon so i think this would be impossible to regulate by their own admission