OOC board

That's a shame

Out of curiosity, is there any reason the Dragonpit is like twenty different threads?

Yay. I'll get shit done when I get home.

Cool, let us know if you need any help.

I don't know if any of you follow the "Roose Bolton" facebook page, but the guy who runs it made a great post about succession that I wanted to copy over here:

"The matter of laws of succession was raised once again in another discussion and to clarify it (or fog even further) I'd like to quote George Martin himself:

Well, the short answer is that the laws of inheritance in the Seven Kingdoms are modelled on those in real medieval history... which is to say, they were vague, uncodified, subject to varying interpertations, and often contradictory.

A man's eldest son was his heir. After that the next eldest son. Then the next, etc. Daughters were not considered while there was a living son, except in Dorne, where females had equal right of inheritance according to age.

After the sons, most would say that the eldest daughter is next in line. But there might be an argument from the dead man's brothers, say. Does a male sibling or a female child take precedence? Each side has a "claim."

What if there are no childen, only grandchildren and great grandchildren. Is precedence or proximity the more important principle? Do bastards have any rights? What about bastards who have been legitimized, do they go in at the end after the trueborn kids, or according to birth order? What about widows? And what about the will of the deceased? Can a lord disinherit one son, and name a younger son as heir? Or even a bastard?

There are no clear cut answers, either in Westeros or in real medieval history. Things were often decided on a case by case basis. A case might set a precedent for later cases... but as often as not, the precedents conflicted as much as the claims.

In fact, if you look at medieval history, conflicting claims were the cause of three quarters of the wars"

I've seen that post on So Spake Martin or somewhere.

Going to be captain obvious here and say that I subscribe to the theory that a lord's daughters are legally meant to come before his brothers, as we see that in the books on several occasions (Casterly Rock and Karhold for sure) but it's also clear that the brothers and cousins can try to contest the claims. The Karhold succession clearly indicates that Alys is supposed to be heir if her brother Harry dies yet her uncle claims Karhold when he declares for Stannis and gets his son to attempt a forced marriage with Alys to unite the 2 claims. Also, as we are told several times, Sansa is Robb's legal heir to Winterfell when Bran and Rickon are presumed dead (and Arya as well). But nobody wants her to rule the North as long as she's married to Tyrion.

Of course it's even trickier when there's further uncertainty caused by civil wars and the claimants are fighting for different sides. But as we see in the TPatQ, when it comes to the Targaryen throne, the female claimants frequently lose out because the Andal lords don't want a woman on the throne. Though of course that is heavily based on the war in 12 century England between Stephen and Matilda...

I think that grandchildren inherit in order of precedence as per the same rules as sons, daughters and uncles, etc. For example. with the Freys, there's a couple of underage girls high up in the succession because they are descended from Ser Ryman, Walder's eldest grandson, even though Walder has many many other sons and grandsons who would perhaps be a more suitable heir in terms of age and ability.

I interpreted the question of legitimised bastards as coming after all the trueborn children but that's a tricky issue too because there is no direct confirmation of that either way. That's just how I read it from the Catelyn-Robb discussion about legitimising Jon, as it's clear that any sons Robb would have with Jeyne Westerling would come before Jon's kids. But if even GRRM won't provide a clear answer, we'll have to use our judgement.

I feel like there is some debate over disinheriting sons. Tywin clearly thinks he can disinherit Tyrion and get Jaime out of his Kingsguard vows - clearly he thinks money can buy anything - but as it turns out we end up with Cersei as Lady of the Rock because Jaime won't play along and Tyrion is excluded after being attainted as a regicide. Kevan doesn't try to take it away from Cersei, and even counsels her to go West and stay there so she doesn't mess up the rule. Yet if Tywin had died of natural causes, I feel like Kevan respected Tyrion enough to back his claim rather than support a claim from Cersei.

Exactly. The point of this is that the legal precedents really become meaningless when sucession is contested, and it comes down to force.

Sotry to interrupt this fascinating discussion, but I want to let yall know I had to leave work early and ill be home as soon as I can get there!

Was Aerion left off the dragon list for any particular reason or just Accident?

Probably an accident.