If Jon Arryn dies earlier while his son is an infant would Petyr go ahead and marry Lysa? What would Holster think?

In Petyr’s words:

“It would not have been fitting for a daughter of Riverrun to marry one
so far below her.“ Littlefinger spread his hands. “Now, though … a
match between the Lady of the Eyrie and the Lord of Harrenhal is not so
unthinkable, is it?”

Before Tywin bestowed the lordship of Harrenhal on Petyr, he was but a very minor noble in the Vale, no way close to being a suitable match to the Lady Regent of the Eyrie. While Lysa might not care about his station from a personal standpoint, her lords bannermen definitely would. Lysa was not exactly liked in the Vale; she was seen as an outsider, her policies openly derided by her lords, and her regency only grudgingly accepted in OTL, as Brynden Tully tells Catelyn.

Nestor Royce has been high steward these past fourteen years, while Lord
Jon served in King’s Landing, and many whisper that he should rule
until the boy comes of age. Others believe that Lysa must marry again,
and soon. Already the suitors gather like crows on a battlefield. The
Eyrie is full of them.

 

These are people who are not happy that Lysa Arryn is the one who commands them. They either want to replace her altogether or install a suitable valeman to rule besides her. The proud lords of the Vale do not consider the grandson of a foreign sellsword a suitable ruler. It would not be all that hard to use the marriage to Littlefinger to challenge Lysa’s regency and take control of the infant Robert to “raise him up to be a knight that Jon Arryn would be proud of”. Look no farther than the reaction of the Lords Declarant to Littlefinger in AFFC to get an idea of how badly that marriage would be received, particularly at a time of peace when some pretty powerful political players were still alive, and when Petyr did not have the “empty” lordship of Harrenhal to elevate his station. Petyr is more than aware enough to recognize the political downside to that marriage and the backlash it would garner, not just from the Vale lords, but also from Robert, Ned, and Hoster (also Stannis), none of whom would be eager to surrender the care of the infant Lord of the Eyrie to Petyr Baelish of all people, or to let the slimy master of coin rule from Jon Arryn’s seat.

What happens if Viserys offers to marry Daena (post Daemon) to combine their claims? How does this through a wrench in the Blackfyre future if they have a son? Would a third party candidate be enough to split the war?

It does not throw a wrench in the Blackfyre future because Aegon is still favoring Daemon, bestowing Blackfyre on him and legitimizing him. While some of the lords who supported Daemon would surely prefer a trueborn son to rally behind (because anti-bastard prejudice was still present in Blackfyre ranks, hence Gormon Peake talking about not trusting bastards in The Mystery Knight), it was Daemon who pressed a claim, Daemon who possessed the sword of kings, Daemon who Aegon posed as his true heir. Daemon arguably also had a better claim to throne, even as a legitimized bastard, as Aegon’s son which puts him ahead of Aegon’s brother in the line of succession.

300+ lives including nearly 30 children were lost yesterday in a terrorist attack on a mosque in Egypt, the biggest terrorist attack on our soil in years. The death toll keeps going up every time I hear about it. It was an open massacre, they ambushed the mosque, they ambushed the ambulances going in to transfer people to the hospital, they situated themselves so they can shoot whoever escaped the mayhem going on inside the mosque. And every time I see a media outlet reports that they were saying Allah Akbar, I get angry. That they had the audacity to verbalize God’s name while attacking worshipers in a mosque, innocent peaceful people, children, it makes my blood boil. The distortion of everything the Quran says and actually using it to justify killing innocents. I’m without words. I’m just furious with no outlet to my anger. The enormity of the incident, the fact that it was on a place of worship, the enormity of these people claiming they are acting in the name of Islam, it’s maddening. That’s not my Islam, you bastards, it’s not Allah’s Islam. As much as it infuriates me to hear you invoke his name while going against everything he commands, you will not take Allah Akbar from me. You will not take it from the billions who believe it and  live by it. You will never succeed in stripping it from its true connotations and make it synonym with terrorism and violence. Allah is great, so much greater than you cowards and your blood-stained hands.

“To be lordly is to be false. I have learned that lesson hard. Now, kneel. Your king commands.” Well said, thanks very much for a great answer. Tho I might add that is may be particularly prevalent to Stannis due to the mercurial yesmen that are the stormlords. Following Jaime’s capture the westermen are all voicing opinions what to do – right in front of Tywin – rather than waiting for him to speak first, and Robb’s early councils were a dogpile of various good and bad northern ambition.

Eh, I don’t think that’s a Stormlords thing, or that they are inherently yesmen as opposed to other lords. Every region has its flatterers, its bad counselors, its cravens and its fools just as much as they have their wise, courageous and honorable men. I don’t see much of a difference between Harys Swyft bemoaning Jaime’s capture and urging an impossible peace, and Alester Florent doing the same after the Blackwater, or between Adam Marbrand’s refusal of asking for a truce lest they be thought weak and Maege Mormont arguing the same in Robb’s council. Marbrand’s boisterous bravado and wish to meet Robb sword-to-sword is echoed in Stannis’ council by Bryce Caron and Guyard Morrigen wishing to meet Cortnay Penrose in single combat. Alester Florent’s plan to put old Lord Penrose in a noose to force his son to surrender Storm’s End is the same tactic the Freys used with Edmure Tully and the Blackfish during the siege of Riverrun.

I think GRRM gave us a wide range of reactions across all regions for us not to characterize one region as a monolith and blame Stannis’ opinion on it. Kevan Lannister, a westerman, is the biggest yesman in the entire series. As Tyrion repeatedly tells us, “Ser Kevan seldom “had a thought” that Lord Tywin had not had first.” In Robert’s small council of yesmen, the only one to oppose his plan to assassinate Daenerys, besides Ned, is Barristan Selmy, a stormlander. Brienne of Tarth is the truest knight there is and she is also from the Stormlands, as is Andrew Estermont who is one of few men Stannis truly esteems. Robb had northmen desert him and was betrayed by a northman and a riverlander. Jonos Bracken was quick to seize the chance to try and carve up the Blackwood lands and add it to his own and was happily assisting the Lannisters after the Red Wedding. That’s the same man who met Catelyn’s plea for peace with ““Gregor Clegane laid waste to my fields, slaughtered my smallfolk, and left Stone Hedge a smoking ruin. Am I now to bend the knee to the ones who sent him? What have we fought for, if we are to put all back as it was before?”

Tywin’s council after the Blackwater was, erm, interesting.

“Gods be praised!” said Paxter Redwyne. “A great victory for King Joffrey! “

What did Joffrey have to do with it? thought Tyrion.

 

Tyrion watched the faces of the Lords Tyrell, Redwyne, and Rowan,
wondering if any of the three would be bold enough to say, “But Lord
Tywin, wasn’t it you who presented the bodies to Robert, all wrapped up
in Lannister cloaks?” None of them did, but it was there on their faces
all the same. Redwyne does not give a fig, he thought, but Rowan looks
fit to gag.

And that’s only the surface level. They were basically a bunch of feasting crows gathered around to split the spoils and planning to allow a wildling invasion on the North. How are the Tyrells and their bannermen, those who cursed the Lannisters with Renly and planned to bring them down, any different from the lords who went to Stannis after Renly’s death? How are they different from this…

Only a short time before, the Fossoways, Guyard Morrigen, and the Lords
Caron, Varner, Errol, and Estermont had all belonged to Renly. They had
sat in his pavilion, helped him make his battle plans, plotted how
Stannis might be brought low. And Lord Florent had been with them—he
might be Queen Selyse’s own uncle, but that had not kept the Lord of
Brightwater from bending his knee to Renly when Renly’s star was rising

 

The Lords Tyrell, Redwyne, Rowan and Tarly had all belonged to Renly. They had sat in his pavilion, helped him make his battle plans, plotted how the Lannister might be brought low. They had talked about bringing the Lannisters to justice and were dismayed that Robb did not execute Jaime. Now they are prattling about victories for Joffrey and calling others who didn’t bend the knee to him traitors and rebels. Mind you, the fact that they declared for Renly in the first place tells you all you need to know about them.

It’s also incorrect to think that Stannis’ men, stormlords or others, waited for him to come up with a plan so they could mindlessly voice their agreement. By his own words…

 Lord Velaryon will urge me to storm the castle walls at first light,
grapnels and scaling ladders against arrows and boiling oil. The young
mules will think this a splendid notion. Estermont will favor settling
down to starve them out, as Tyrell and Redwyne once tried with me. That
might take a year, but old mules are patient. And Lord Caron and the
others who like to kick will want to take up Ser Cortnay’s gauntlet and
hazard all upon a single combat. Each one imagining he will be my
champion and win undying fame

We see Stannis complain to Davos about Velaryon’s desire to strike for King’s Landing at once in ACoK. Most of his counselors urge him to take Cortnay Penrose up on his offer of single combat, something Stannis explicitly refused in their hearing. Axell Florent plots with Salladhor Saan to attack Claw Isle and tries to convince Stannis of it. ADWD witnesses different lords favoring different plans of attack. Stannis’ people offered their opinions just as much as other lords in other kings’ councils – that not all of it was sensible…. well, every leader in the series had to deal with their share of that, including Daenerys over in Essos and Jon Snow on the wall.

What happens if the Toyne brothers are successful at killing both Aemon and Aegon?

Daeron II ascends to the throne and the Blackfyre case gets a whole lot harder to press. 

Granted we don’t know when the assassination attempt took place exactly, but Terrence Toyne was executed in 178 and it’s hard to imagine that his brothers waited too long before trying to kill Aegon in turn. I’ll give it an average of two years, though, just to be sure and say the assassination attempt happened sometime between 178 and 180. That puts Daemon at 8-10 years of age when Aegon dies in this scenario, enough time for Aegon’s favoritism of him to show by all means but an age that makes him susceptible to teachings aimed at cultivating loyalty to Daeron. Politically, Aegon’s early death spares Daeron a lot of the damage his father caused: Daemon isn’t awarded Blackfyre for starters (which he was given at age 12 in OTL). Aegon also does not get the chance to double-down on perpetuating the rumors of Daeron’s illegitimacy in the wake of the Dragonknight’s death and to hint at his intent to disinherit Daeron. While that does not completely remove the shadow Aegon cast on Daeron’s parentage since that started in 174 during Aegon’s war on Dorne, it’s no longer sustained, spread and kept alive by Aegon’s repeated references to it which allows for the result of the trial of combat between the Dragonknight and Ser Morgil to stand as strong evidence of Naerys’ innocence and Daeron’s legitimacy. 

But most important of all, Aegon never has the chance to issue the blanket legitimization of all his bastards on his deathbed, keeping Daemon a bastard with no rights of inheritance so even if he tried to argue the case of Daeron “the Falseborn”, by all rights the throne should pass to little sister Daenerys and her Martell children after her,

an unattractive prospect to those unhappy with the Dornish-friendly court of Daeron II.

The anti-bastard prejudice, already present in Daemon’s ranks if Gormon Peake and the reaction to Glendon Flowers is anything to judge by, would surely kick in as well, all of which would significantly limit Daemon’s potency as a substitute king and make the lords consider risks to their own seats: if they help put a bastard with no rights of inheritance on the throne ahead of a legitimate sibling, it is open season for any bastard to try and supplant a trueborn sibling with strength of arms, putting the lords’ own seats in danger. After all, the bastard king can hardly uphold that bastards have no right of inheritance and enforce laws of succession when his very kingship undermines that. 

madaboutasoiaf:

They look at Bran oddly when he expresses his fervent desire to visit the crypts the moment he returns to Winterfell. Nobody questions him though. He is the Lord of Winterfell, son of Ned Stark, brother to Robb Stark.

King in the North.

He likes the darkness. Darkness has been his strength for so long. It is a comfort to be back here. It stops being a comfort when they set him down before the statues, right where he asks them to. There is Lord Rickard, and Lyanna, and the Brandon Stark who was his uncle.

Next to them is the statue of his father.

It’s odd to see Ned Stark’s likeness carved in stone. After seeing his father so many times through the trees Bran can see imperfections, small things that are not quite right but it’s close enough that he blinks away tears.

I never wanted to be Lord of Winterfell, he wants to tell the statue but he’s not alone. His father was a second son too, not raised to rule. Bran wonders if his father doubted the way Bran does. He hopes he can be half as good a Lord of Winterfell as his father was.

He turns his head and sees that the place next to his father is empty.

“Bran,” Meera says softly. “What’s wrong?”

Everything, he thinks, but he doesn’t say that. Meera has enough of a burden to bear without him troubling her with all he knows. Instead he nods toward the empty space but when he looks back at her he sees she understands.

“Robb should have a statue,” he says, his throat tight with remembering that terrible feeling, that dream he had, and Summer’s grief. “Robb was Lord of Winterfell, and King.”

The men who accompanied them down here begin to make excuses but Bran silences them with a look, and a raised hand.

“Find a stonemason,” he commands, his first true command as King. “I will see that it is a good likeness.”

“It will be done, your grace” comes the quick answer.

Bran only has to close his eyes to see Robb alive, praying in the godswood, laughing with Jon, or in the yard training with swords. The trees show him, and when he looks beyond the trees it helps him recall everything vividly, and painfully.

King in the North! King in the North!

The North remembered, and Bran would make sure they never forgot.

moonlitgleek:

Why isn’t there more gen fics in the GoTASoIaF fandom? I want to read about the Starklings being adorable kids, I want to read about Jon and Robb growing up close as twins, I want to read about Ned’s dynamic with toddler!Jon. Hell I want to read about the previous generation; moments between Brandon, Ned, Lyanna and Benjen growing up. I want to read some exploration of who Rickard and Lyarra Stark were. Basically I just want an endless supply of Stark family fic but there isn’t many of them *pouts*