Bloodlines

[Syphon of Oor-Tael]

Has anybody tried to make sense of the bloodlines and their strength and weaknesses? I mean this in the sense of the book that Jon Arryn and Ned Stark borrowed from Grandmaester Pycelle: The Lineages and Histories of the Great Houses of the Seven Kingdoms.

These are my findings so far:

Lannister beats Baratheon

Baratheon beats everything but Lannister and Florent.

Stark beats Targaryen

Tully beats Stark

Arryn beats Tully?

 

[Eversummer]

Lannister beats Baratheon

Baratheon beats everything but Lannister and Florent.

Well, uhm... The Baratheon seed is strong. Robert's bastards all have black hair, blue eyes. Florents can always rejoice with their prominent ears

 

[joshrackley]

This is an issue that I'm very interested in as well and I've looked for something already "published" (like a table or spreadsheet or something) but haven't found anything. While I don't think that it's always a case of "x beats y and y beats z" 100% of the time, I do think that there are general rules of thumb such that one could say "in a majority of cases x beats y". If people want to start submitting info on the known and confirmed offspring of different house unions we could potentially compile enough info to put together a decent reference on the subject.

I would suggest that "strength of seed" be acknowledged only when >60ish% of offspring favor one house over the other and we ignore unions with only 1 child. Thoughts?

 

[Syphon of Oor-Tael]

Well, it's obvious that B...
I just realized something. Lannister does not beat Baratheon. I just remembered that Joffry, Myrcella, and Tommen are 100% Lannister. Doigen! The one child that Robert and Cersei had, the one killed by Cersei, had dark hair.

In this case, Baratheon beats everything!

I don't think we should exclude unions with just 1 child because technically, Robert and Cersei had one child but Robert spread his genetic material to more than a few women in the Seven Kingdoms. Not every bloodline can be gauged this way.

I'm assuming that Arryn beats Tully because Robin has dark hair, not auburn hair. And as for the strength of seed of house Arryn...Well, Robin is a little wimp, and the daughter Arryn had with Jeyne Royce was stillborn. He had no children with his second wife, Rowena.

 

[joshrackley]

I don't think we should exclude unions with just 1 child because technically, Robert and Cersei had one child but Robert spread his genetic material to more than a few women in the Seven Kingdoms. Not every bloodline can be gauged this way.

I'm assuming that Arryn beats Tully because Robin has dark hair, not auburn hair. And as for the strength of seed of house Arryn...Well, Robin is a little wimp, and the daughter Arryn had with Jeyne Royce was stillborn. He had no children with his second wife, Rowena.

I only suggested that to account for statistical "anomalies" -- most of the Stark children favor House Tully except for Arya, now what if Arya was the only child? We would incorrectly assume that Stark beats Tully. But counting unions with only one child would allow for a larger sample size to draw from and cover more unions.

 

[Syphon of Oor-Tael]

Not quite, because if we were to count Jon as his ******* son (Taking what Ned says at face value; that Jon is indeed his own) Stark beating out Tully would win. Unless we can start cracking pots now and say that Arya isn't a Catelyn-Ned child either. Ye gods!

 

[juleska]

Lannister doesn't beat Baratheon. Cersei's children have that Lannister look because both of their parents are Lannisters, identical twins no less.

 

[Syphon of Oor-Tael]

Lannister doesn't beat Baratheon. Cersei's children have that Lannister look because both of their parents are Lannisters, identical twins no less.

I know, that's how I derped quite hard. I completely forgot that.

 

[Rufio]

Not quite, because if we were to count Jon as his ******* son (Taking what Ned says at face value; that Jon is indeed his own) Stark beating out Tully would win. Unless we can start cracking pots now and say that Arya isn't a Catelyn-Ned child either. Ye gods!

Whoever Jon's parents are neither of them are a Tully, though. If Ned is his father (though he's not) then his mother is either a Dayne or a lowborn wetnurse.

The Targaryen blood must be the weakest in Westeros, starting off with three people related to no one else on the entire continent, and then inbreeding for countless generations to keep the blood pure is a self fulfilling prophecy there. Rhaella was desribed as Dornish looking like her mother, and then there's Jon Snow too.

 

[Syphon of Oor-Tael]

You can't gauge the blood by just the Targ on Targ couplings, so I'll check that out later today. Here's another tidbit I found on AWOIAF, randomly found as I stalked through Targaryen-related entries:

King Viserys I had three children by his first queen of House Arryn, but only one, Princess Rhaenyra, survived to adulthood

More proof, however, of Arryn weakness. 2 children that didn't last long, and 1 that has the silver-gold hair of the Targaryens.

Edit:

Some more info. Take Bittersteel, one of many Targ bastards:

He was only half Targaryen, so he got the purple eyes, but his hair was black. As an adult he wore a close-cropped beard.

His mother was a Blackwood.

Targaryen blood also beats Lyseni blood, in the case of Shiera Seastar:

Shiera was renowned as a famous beauty and seductress, with long Targaryen silver-gold hair, and a heart-shaped face. Although she had two mismatched eyes, (one blue, the other green), it was said that the "defect" only enhanced her beauty. She was a great reader, even at an early age, spoke many languages, and maintained a large and arcane library. She also was reputed to share her mother's skill in the dark arts.

 

[Keebs411]

I could be mistaken but i thought that some of the Daynes were described with having targ traits and poss ties to targ blood somewhere along the lines?

If so would that show some strength of targ blood in passed down traits amoung houses in westeros that is not in reference to ******* born offspring?

 

[Rufio]

The Daynes are not Targ related except that they are of Valyrian origin, as are House Valaryon (the most notable son of that house in the series of course being Aurane Waters). But that's three families, compared to countless for the First Men, Andals, and even Dornish. And the great houses are all very old and established, much more so than the Targs, they've been intermarrying with other houses for thousands of years. So any northern noble a Stark chooses to marry probably has some Stark blood in them somwhere.

 

[Syphon of Oor-Tael]

Not necessarily Targ traits or blood, but I can see where that might come from:

Unlike the rest of the more rhoynar-looking Dornishmen they have pale skin with hair ranging from dark brown to pale blond and that they often have violet eyes.

There is no record of any Daynes before the generation of Ashara and Arthur, Allaria and the fourth child. I suspect that there might be Valyrian blood in their ancestry, though, not necessarily Targaryen.

 

[Eversummer]

Edit:

Some more info. Take Bittersteel, one of many Targ bastards:

His mother was a Blackwood.

I beg to disagree. Bittersteel was born Aegor Rivers, Aegon 4's son by Barba Bracken and that it was Bloodraven that was a Blackwood. Hmmm...Bloodraven is an albino.

 

[Tywin]

Before I delve into discussion I'd like to go on record as stating that this is not at all how genetics works. The number of people in your 'bloodline' from a certain group of ancestors doesn't have any bearing on whether or not you display the characteristics of one of your parents over the other, that all comes down to dominant and recessive genes.

Okay, so with that out of the way:

I'm assuming that Arryn beats Tully because Robin has dark hair, not auburn hair. And as for the strength of seed of house Arryn...Well, Robin is a little wimp, and the daughter Arryn had with Jeyne Royce was stillborn. He had no children with his second wife, Rowena.

Do we really think that Robin is Jon Arryn's son? I assumed that he was Littlefinger's *******.

 

[Koopa]

When i saw this thread i thought someone was bringing up the point that GRRM puts a lot of stock in bloodlines. Very much like Tolkien did. Even with considering the Medieval background. Like blood wil really tell...instead of education.

 

[Syphon of Oor-Tael]

Before I delve into discussion I'd like to go on record as stating that this is not at all how genetics works. The number of people in your 'bloodline' from a certain group of ancestors doesn't have any bearing on whether or not you display the characteristics of one of your parents over the other, that all comes down to dominant and recessive genes.

Oh, it is known. (See what I did there?) It's just that we are taking what GRRM gives us, so we (at least I) choose to ignore real genetics in favour of blood dominance.

It is clear that GRRM thinks that's important, otherwise, why would The Lineages and Histories of the Great Houses of the Seven Kingdoms be such an important book to both Jon Arryn and Ned Stark? The entire point of the War of X Kings is that Joffrey, Myrcella, and Tommen are Lannisters from both sides.

Can you imagine the books if Jon Arryn had gone "Well, their mom is a Lannister so they must get their hair from her"?

Anyway, on the subject of the little Arryn boy, I think he is an Arryn. It is known that Arryns were not of particularily strong seed. As I pointed out before, Arryns tend to die before maturing. Robin's illness only seems to confirm this.

I'm thinking that Robin won't live much longer. Sooner or later he will get such a bad fit of epilepsy that he does, or perhaps he ODs on dreamwine/milk of the poppy or whatever drug it was, administered accidentally or even purposefully. I see Littlefinger making that move soon enough, so that he doesn't become de facto ruler but the actual ruler of the Eyrie.

Let's save that for a different time, however...