#marriage in asoiaf

[rosaluxembae]

In the medieval period, noble girls were often not betrothed as children, when they were they often didn't marry until they were adults, and when they did marry it was often not consummated until they were older. Which is probably why Ned complains Sansa is too young to be betrothed, Robert agrees that they wouldn't actually be married for a few years, and if they were it might not have been consummated until she was older.

The difference with Sansa's actual marriage to Tyrion is she's a hostage. Her family aren't only not there to protect her but actively at war with her captors. She has a claim on her family's lands and they're (except the actual groom) in a rush to consummate the marriage so it can't be set aside.

ASOIAF has younger marriages/more of them than medieval history (and F&B worse for this than the main series I think) but people really exaggerate the difference.

#asoiaf #grrm #marriage in asoiaf #sansa stark

[goodqueenaly]

How did Lyman Lannister plan to marry his son to Rhaena Targaryen if she was already married? Was he planning on killing Androw?

It became apparent to her that the bedmaids and servants assigned to them were tattlers and spies, bringing word of their every doing back to Lord and Lady Lannister. One of the castle septas asked Samantha Stokeworth whether the queen’s marriage to Androw Farman had ever been consummated, and if so, who had witnessed the bedding. Ser Tyler Hill, Lord Lyman’s comely bastard son, was openly scornful of Androw, even whilst doing all he could to ingratiate himself to Rhaena herself, regaling her with tales of his exploits at the Battle Beneath the Gods Eye and showing her the scars he had taken there “in your Aegon’s service.”

I think Lyman Lannister's strategy was pretty unsubtle here. By having his castle septa question whether the marriage had actually been consummated, and getting reports from bedmaids and servants (who, presumably, would be using their personal access to the couple to see whether Rhaena and Androw were actually sleeping together), Lyman was establishing whether he could pursue the one confirmed avenue for Westerosi annulments - that is, non-consummation of the marriage. By having his bastard son rather bluntly try to show off his (by Westerosi standards) manliness, Lyman was likely trying to present Rhaena with an obvious contrast to (and, again by Westerosi standards, better choice than) the "half a girl" Androw Farman. Given that the Farmans were also Lord Lyman's bannermen, I can imagine that Lyman assumed that the Farmans would not fuss too much if he persuaded (read: forced) them into accepting the end of Androw's marriage to Rhaena (again, perhaps on the grounds that it had never been consummated).

It was not a particularly clever strategy, of course, and Rhaena clearly saw right through it. Having no interest in being forced into another political marriage, or pursuing a romantic relationship via marriage, and very much recognizing the ambition barely veiled beneath Lyman's actions, Rhaena was not the easy nuptial prey Lyman might have hoped she would be.

#asoiaf meta #fire and blood volume 1 #rhaena daughter of aenys #lyman lannister #marriage in asoiaf

[agentrouka-blog]

I actually think Margaery and Renly did consummate their marriage, it doesn't make any sense not to. They needed an heir. They probably lied to the Lannisters about consummation to hasten the wedding otherwise they would've had to wait till the pregnancy was over.

I wouldn't be so sure.

It's very possible that Olenna leaned on Renly's obvious reluctance on the subject to give her blessing to wait a little. Margaery was only 15 at the time, which would have been a plausible pretext. That way, Olenna has the marriage in hand but the trump card of it being unconsumated in case this alliance goes south or Renly dies. A virginal Margaery remains a potential royal bride.

At this point the Reach is sitting on a formidable army AND vast food reserves. They're a valuable ally for anyone willing to court them.

As it turns out, that was exactly what happened.

And it is not just the potential pregnancy that would have hindered a royal marriage at a later date if this marriage with Renly had been consumated. I'm pretty sure the king would be expected to marry a maiden and not a widow with prior sexual experience.

I may be wrong, but I don't think there is an example of a king on the iron throne marrying a widow, especially as his first wife.

The queen and mother of the royal heirs has to be "spotless". (Blech.)

#margaery tyrell #renly baratheon #anti olenna tyrell #marriage in asoiaf

[fruitageoforanges]

elia martell character of all time because she was playing the game of thrones AND WINNING — survived aerys, set up an alternate court on dragonstone, universally beloved even by most of robert’s anti-targ regime, was probably at least angling to get rid of aerys — but the literal song of ice and fire was being written around her and well. you can’t outrun your inevitable doom.

like. that’s elia’s tragedy, and what makes me so insane about her. she was in the wrong story. she was playing the game of court politics but ended up yoked to 300 years of targaryen collapse and dynastic rot instead. there’s nothing i love more than characters doing their best with the pieces they can see on the board, while the fact slowly dawns on them that the board is in the process of being swallowed by an eldritch monster.

#asoiaf #asoiaf meta #elia martell #this is why elia & rhaegar as a marriage is so compelling to me #they’re playing the complete opposite games #esp if you think they liked each other enough to make it work #which it seems like they did #but the dissonance must’ve been a gaping hole in their marriage #just generally — she comes from one of the few decently affectionate and healthy families #he comes from the horror show that is aerys’ nuclear family #and they have vastly different priorities #i wonder when the penny dropped for her #because i think she was certainly extremely sharp #how early she realised the depth of the shit she was in #and how late she realised it was inescapable

[jeyneofpoole]

the unequal marriage (after pukirev)

#11 HOURS AND 30 MINUTES LATER. #asoiaf #a song of ice and fire #valyrianscrolls #asoiaf art #asoiaf fanart #theon greyjoy #jeyne poole #ramsay bolton #ramsay snow #barbrey dustin #barbrey ryswell #classic art #classical art #the unequal marriage #adwd #a dance with dragons

[toskarin]

btw they robbed you of renly's kingsguard (the rainbow guard) literally wearing colour coded armour like a sentai team because HBO thought it looked gay

#a recurring motif in asoiaf is the rainbow and it's largely scrubbed from the show #because the show was being made while the USA was in the lead-up to the legalisation of gay marriage #so HBO was worried it would come off as a political statement lol

[amber-laughs]

something about robb marrying a nobody from a nothing house after finding out his oldest and closest friend betrayed him only to be betrayed by her family too

#this is NOT jeyne westerling disrespect #but trust in me to always tie robb’s marriage to theon’s betrayal #i stole this from my own twitter account #robb stark #theon greyjoy #throbb #robb x theon #theon x robb #jeyne westerling #valyrian scrolls #asoiaf #game of thrones #a song of ice and fire #shiv roy

[maidensfantasy]

the roblya failmarriage has SO MUCH potential. theyre both miserable, robert is still mentally in the vale and thinks lyanna is Close Enough to be able to be with ned, lyanna initially was resigned to marrying him but after he began whoring again she just mentally logged out forever. robert hates her because she’s breaking the mold he made for her in his head and lyanna hates him because he can’t keep a single promise + the humiliation that comes with being a stand-in for your brother. anyways they hatefuck sometimes.

#its very complex TO ME. #asoiaf #robert baratheon #lyanna stark #jordy.txt #i am deeply nedbertpilled when it comes to this nightmare marriage #shes a victim of yaoi

[knightsickness]

i know fixit fics that are like ‘rhaenyra dies and then wakes up at fourteen the day aemma dies to do it all again’ are a genre but i think there’s untapped potential for that set up + rhaenyra makes every choice that seems like it would prevent the dance and it makes everything worse. blocks the alicent-viz match gets otto and alicent removed from court marries daemon asap and then gets blindsided by an alicent-laenor match and a fully-formed velaryon-hightower faction before aegon-son-of-laena hits two

#daemyra marriage occurs when he’s still gunning for the throne + is in part an aegon-visenya esque depowering move #corlys who has never been against her before extremely would be if it challenged his grandson’s inheritance #asoiaf #a song of ice and fire #house of the dragon #hotd #rhaenyra targaryen

[greywoe]

maegor & rhaena

#loathing your husband club #asoiaf #asoiaf fanart #maegor the cruel #rhaena targaryen #idk what tags people use tbh #honestly this one sucks it was one of my first ever attempts at procreate on ipad #i'm posting it so i can redraw it later and compare. maybe it'll be a thing #i had such vivid images of them in my head as i read f&b but i didn't manage to translate it to paper (or screen orz) #in any case they are two of the most interesting targs #my drawings #the og toxic uncle-niece marriage.. #f&b

[daenystheedreamer]

isnt it crazy that bran's like fiftieth cousin bajillionth removed from bloodraven through black aly. like damn that old ass man is cousin. family reunion.

#fully believe grrm did the weird uncleniece stark marriage thing cos he wanted the starks to have cool awesome perfect #blackwood dna. he made SURE there was no bracken in there #though the blackwood-bracken intermarriages DOES mean stark do for sure have some bracken in them yeehaw #asoiaf

[goodqueenaly]

Hello, I hope you are well! Apologies if I am forgetting something that’s already been explained—I wanted to ask about marriages in which the inheriting heiress of a house might marry but any potential children with her husband would keep her name. Do you think these marriages have a cloaking ceremony that is modified somehow or something altogether different?

I talked about a similar Westerosi nuptial issue before - namely, to who gives away (to use the parlance of Westeros) the bride at weddings. To quote myself, the cloaking ceremony at a Westerosi wedding “is a moment of reinforcing Westerosi gender norms - the man as the powerful protector, the woman as the grateful recipient of his protection”. Consequently, I think that in probably most if not all Westerosi weddings, the bride undergoes the same ceremony - that is, kneeling before her new (would-be) lord husband, losing her maidenly (or often maidenly, anyway) natal cloak and receiving her husband’s nuptial cloak from his own hand. Whatever the actual power balance of the marriage thereafter, the marriage would, perhaps, serve to continue the assumption (and perhaps polite fiction, given the circumstances) that it is really the man who rules, and the woman who is the domestic helpmeet.

Indeed, I think we see throughout the examples of Westerosi weddings we have the emphasis on this cloaking ceremony, with symbolic power very firmly in the hands of the husband no matter what political inheritance his wife might be bringing to the table. The Lannisters expressly sought to claim Winterfell in Sansa’s name by marrying her to Tyrion, and the Boltons by marrying “Arya” (who of course was really Jeyne Poole) to Ramsay, but neither bride was not acknowledged as a powerful heiress in her own right at each forced wedding; both, instead had to kneel and have their Stark cloaks removed for the cloaks of their respective husbands (and note that Littlefinger plans on having the same done at the future wedding of Sansa and Harry Hardyng). Too, despite the fact that both Alys Karstark and her nefarious uncles see Alys as the heiress of Karhold (and express doubt as to the survival of her brother Harrion), Alys still participates in the same cloaking ceremony at her marriage to Sigorn, Magnar of Thenn, losing her Karstark cloak and gaining the newly fabricated heraldry of House Thenn.

(Now, of course, we’ve never seen a Dornish wedding, much less a Martell wedding, where it is very obviously the case that the ruling princesses keep their names and rule in their own right. Whether or not the ceremony is modified there is an intriguing question which may perhaps be answered if, or rather when, heiress Arianne marries the would-be King Aegon VI.)

#asoiaf meta #marriage in asoiaf

[agentrouka-blog]

Is it possible that Robert had been planning to betroth Sansa and Joffrey for years? I mean. Sansa is what? A year younger than Joffrey? There’s no way that when he got the news that Ned and Cat just had a girl and he didn’t immediately think oh, yes, a Stark girl for a “Baratheon” son. There’s no way he hadn’t wanted that match way before AGOT.

I tend to agree.

Apart from the emotional attachment to Lyanna, and his friendship with Ned, she's also the most sensible political match available.

So, really, Ned should have expected his old buddy to make that offer. Realistically, it could have been on the table years earlier.

#robert baratheon #sansa stark #joffrey baratheon #marriage in asoiaf

[rhaenin-time]

Annoying people: Dany's going to lose it when she finds out about Jon and FAegon! She can't handle not being the super special only Targaryen and she's going to go mad with jealousy and insecurity.

Dany: The dragon has three heads. There are two men in the world who I can trust, if I can find them. I will not be alone then. We will be three against the world, like Aegon and his sisters.    

#asoiaf #daenerys targeryan #this NEVER made sense #even the show knew it which was why they had to go against worldbuilding and claim Jon couldn't handle that Dany was his aunt #“Is marrying your aunt common in the North?” #It's not UNcommon! (ok more like not unheard of but still. and ESPECIALLY regarding murky lines of succession) #also just a useless nickpick but she was OPEN about the fact she was infertile you don't even NEED to bang her for a political marriage

[fromtheseventhhell]

I want to make a longer post about this someday but: I think Arya's TWOW arc is going to include her coming to terms with her identity as a Lady. This has been an ongoing conflict with her since her first chapter and I think her flowering in winds is going to mark a turning point. The theory of her having an apprenticeship with the courtesans holds a lot of weight and the idea of Arya going through puberty among a group of unconventional women she's fostered a positive relationship with is just too perfect. It would really have an impact on Arya reconciling her personal idea of what a Lady should be. There's also a lot that she could learn from them in terms of courtesies, communication, appearances, body-language, etc. that would elevate her current skill-set and ways her relationship with them could push the plot.

Not to mention she will undoubtedly reclaim her identity as Arya Stark, and her being a Lady is inseparable from that. Arya Stark is a Lady Stark and being a Lady is a social position, not a measure of how well someone preforms feminine tasks. She shouldn't have to relinquish her position because she doesn't fit patriarchal standards. That's not to say that she's ever going to be the perfect example of a traditional Lady but what I think will happen is that she becomes capable of playing the part. She plays several identities throughout the series but she's always been Arya underneath, so I think it's appropriate that she learns to adopt a "persona" that's part of her. Her remembering Ned putting on his "Lord's face" (+ the various examples of other characters being separate from their ruling persona) makes me think that Arya will be donning her "Lady's face" when she makes a return to Westeros.

#arya stark #asoiaf #twow speculations #Arya has been through so much traumatic shit and I think her flowering is going to bring up a lot of her self-esteem issues #I just really need her surrounded by kind older women when that happens so she can have some comfort #George saying her arc in braavos could be the plot of a YA novel?? definitely makes me think she's going to grow up a lot there #she's already one of the most mature characters so I think part of it's going to be her accepting her duty as a Stark Lady #she wants to help and protect people and the best way she can do that is if she has political power #She could learn that first hand in TWOW #possibly through her finding out about her marriage??? and meeting Jeyne in Braavos?? #and before someone says it courtesans are so much more then sex work so I don't want to hear it #they are such a big part of Braavosi high life...they're cultured and connected with very important people #I just have so many thoughts on the subject cause I think her apprenticeship with them will serve multiple purposes #the faceless men and their plans...the iron bank...the sealord...It's all connected and I think her apprenticeship with them will kick off #the braavos plot and could mark the beginning of the end of her time with the faceless men and in braavosi #half a boy half a wolf pup -> half a lady half a wolf #I think her current skillset fits well and it's likely she'll learn even more in TWOW #Arya defining her own role as a Lady and becoming comfortable means so much to me

[mummer]

can you imagine being this insanely cruel when speaking about your lesbian sister who lived a very full if tragic life????

#jaehaerys when i FIND you in hell eternally evergreen statementtt!!!!!! #asoiaf #like ooohhhh now the perfect incest prince thinks her literally compulsory straight incest marriage with her BROTHERR was the peak of her #life?????? KILL YOUR SELF #she had 7 girlfriends and at least one daughter who loved her and every man in her life was violent to her #so now a woman cant be sligjtly unstable and depressed…..