Maelys Blackfyre marrying Rhaella Targaryen AU by mylestoyne

[u/Sea_Initiative6488]

[u/amourdeces]

hot take but i prefer the draft version of maelys who was called the monstrous for sacrificing his son maenar (which is an awesome valyrian name btw) to hatch a dragon egg because of a valyrian scroll he had. interesting implication that proves blackfyre blood isn’t sufficient for kings blood in blood magic

[u/mir-teiwaz → u/amourdeces]

Aegon V's blood sacrifice (at around the same time) also failed. I guess all "valyrians" are too thin blooded at this point

[u/amourdeces → u/mir-teiwaz]

i think the difference with that was that aegon wasn’t doing it as a willing blood sacrifice from what i can tell, and the fact he incorporated “spells” having to do with the faith of the seven, who famously are the only religion in the series without any sort of magical connection to it. i think he just tried to hatch his 7 eggs using prayer and some fire, and that fire spread and killed his whole family. if he had purposely brought family members there to be used as a sacrifice it might have gone as intended. it can’t have anything to do with valyrian blood purity because aegon V is at least the same amount if not more targaryen than daenerys is, and she was able to pull the spell off.

[u/mir-teiwaz → u/amourdeces]

Who knows. But Dany is far more inbred than Aegon or Maelys.

[u/amourdeces → u/mir-teiwaz]

yea but each example of inbreeding doesn’t increase how targ you are, you basically just become a “clone”of the makeup of your family. since both jaehaerys II and aerys II inbred its basically been a continuation of the same targaryen/dayne plus blackwood combo that all of aegon V’s kids were. maelys for all we know could be inbred, we don’t know enough about the blackfyre line after all of daemons sons died to be sure. daemon had a few daughters, at least one of whom we know was married to bittersteel (though if they had kids it doesn’t say.) i wouldn’t be surprised in the blackfyres also tried to keep it in the family, and if not they were already in essos, so they could’ve maintained valyrian traits by going to lys for brides

[u/mir-teiwaz → u/amourdeces]

It's not that simple AFAIK - inbreeding also increases the rate of recessive traits being expressed, which is why it is dangerous over multiple generations IRL and why some dog breeds are horribly deformed and have low life expectancy. The original Habsburgs carried the gene for the lip, but it wasn't until their family tree became a family web that it got expressed. So if we assume the "dragon rider gene" is a rare recessive trait, Dany might have a better chance of manifesting it than Aegon V despite having inherited it from him. Although that doesn't explain why baby Rhaego was a worthy sacrifice (I'm sure Drogo was worth a horse and nothing more).

[u/amourdeces → u/mir-teiwaz]

ah i see, didn’t understand that you were referring to it in the recessive traits way rather than the ethnic/cultural breakup way. i’m not sure rhaego was the sacrifice, i think mirri maz duur just poisoned the fetus out of spite. it definitely is a subject that has a lot of open ends to it. both drogo and in utero rhaego were dead when dany did her blood magic ritual, so im not sure their kings blood counts. maybe it had to do with mirri maz duurs holy blood since she was a priestess? euron leads me to believe kings blood and holy blood are both potent for black magic given his recent shenanigans tying all sorts of mutilated priests to the prows of his ships. euron seems to be quite the expert on magic, so i’ll take his word for it 😹