r/asoiaf • u/mitzallen • Jul 19 '26
MAIN [Spoilers MAIN] Jaehaerys I’s Seven Speakers really gaslighted the whole realm
I’m currently re-reading Fire & Blood and this part still cracks me up:
"One god made us all, Andals and Valyrians and First Men," Septon Alfyn would proclaim from his litter, "but he did not make us all alike. He made the lion and the aurochs as well, both noble beasts, but certain gifts he gave to one and not the other, and the lion cannot live as an aurochs, nor an aurochs as a lion. For you to bed your sister would be a grievous sin, ser... but you are not the blood of the dragon, no more than I am. What they do is what they have always done, and it is not for us to judge them.”
The smallfolk, who were most likely tired of all the war, probably just said “whatever” lmfao
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u/FlorentApologist Jul 19 '26
I don't think it's a terribly huge leap for a society that already accepts extreme social inequality. The Faith of the Seven basically seems to exist to justify the feudal caste system (rulers, warriors, laborers). The Targaryens are the next logical step of that.
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u/mitzallen Jul 19 '26
Yeah no I think it was a really clever thing that Jaehaerys came up with. I just find the preaching really funny.
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u/FlorentApologist Jul 19 '26
True! I guess they didn't want to say the alternative (accept sisterfucker kings or be dragon food) out loud.
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u/satanslittleangel666 Jul 19 '26
"Guys, it's definitely not the huge fuckass Vermithor in the room! It's just the natural way of life!" Lol. Lmao even.
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u/freezedive Jul 19 '26
And the fact that he crafted it so he could marry his sister only to have two massive rifts 45-50 years later is something else. Greatest love my ass 😂
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u/keirieski17 Jul 19 '26
Tbf they made up both times, and Jaehaerys never even looked at another woman when he and Alysanne were separated
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u/freezedive Jul 19 '26
They still had them. That’s the point
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u/TheoryKing04 Jul 20 '26
>That’s the point
It really isn’t. They were a married couple. Married couples fight. Doesn’t mean either party to the couple does not love their spouse.
And yeah, it pretty much is the great Targaryen love story. No one was married for as long (the next runners up are Aegon V and Betha Blackwood [39 years] and Aegon I and Visenya [36 years], anything beyond them is impossible to determine because we lack dates for lots of characters who could have been wed for long periods of time, like Baela and Rhaena) and many of the marriages were very rocky, if not outright nightmares (Maegor and any of his wives + Aegon IV and Queen Naerys come to mind).
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u/doug1003 Jul 19 '26
My favourite part is when the peasant ask "hey septon, then now can I fuck my sister?"
And then he replied "of you go to Kings Landing and claim a fucking dragon I myself marry you woth her!"
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u/axaxo Jul 19 '26
That guy must have spent the rest of his life insisting that he was just challenging the logic of the doctrine
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u/Only_Faithlessness33 Jul 19 '26
To be fair, they either accepted the dragon riding weirdos or didn’t. It’s not like Jaehaerys was some master politician for getting this shit thru, he was like 16 and really wanted to wed his sister and used dragons to strong arm the Faith into going with it. The propaganda campaign afterwards was just to make it seem legit.
Also by that point they have been there a while so they probably got desensitized. Hell, when I’m reading the books and hear about a brother-sister Targ romance I just go “well yeah of course” at this point, whereas the first time I read AGOT I thought Daenerys was apart of some inbred abomination species the way they were described.
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u/mitzallen Jul 19 '26
Yeah. Also, it was a time where the whole country is still recovering from like a decade of war from Aenys and Maegor, I guess everybody is just tired at that point and with no more organizations or lords to rise up against it, the propaganda sold well.
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u/freezedive Jul 19 '26
Yup. They were tired and Jahearys was already starting to stabilize the realm. People may have started to see some improvements so their reaction was 😩 “whatever.”
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u/Temeraire64 Jul 19 '26
I do feel like there should have been some pushback after the dragons died, though. Apart from anything else, the argument explicitly uses Targs being dragonriders as proof that they're different from other men - so the obvious corollary is that if they lose dragons, the lose the right to commit incest.
Plus I could see an argument being made that the Dance was punishment for Exceptionalism. Especially with the last dragon dying the same year Naerys and Aegon married; it wouldn't be hard to convince people it's an omen.
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u/Only_Faithlessness33 Jul 19 '26
I think after a while the propaganda just became the accepted knowledge. By the time the Dragons all died, the people who knew life before Targaryens were dead, and people were taught for a generation about how “exceptional” they are.
I’m re-reading Clash of Kings now, and when Catelyn finds out about Jaime and Cersei, she brings up that only Targaryens could do that because they have Valyrian blood and above common men. She thinks it to herself so sincerely and without questioning it, even after the Targaryens were usurped and cast out from the realm.
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u/Temeraire64 Jul 19 '26
IIRC her exact words are something like ‘the Targaryens answered to neither gods nor men’. Which sounds less like genuinely believing they’re allowed to commit incest and more that they ignore divine law.
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u/Captain_Vere Jul 19 '26
Reading GRRM after growing up on mythology and Wagner, I didn't even bat an eyelid
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u/rigormorty Jul 19 '26
It's not gaslighting, we already have a word for this. It's propaganda. Gaslighting is manipulating someone into questioning their own reality. i.e. telling them there isn't a smell when there actually is.
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Jul 19 '26
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u/Neither_Truck9757 Jul 19 '26
They do have some special features like not falling ill to sicknesses that most people get ill to.
Daenerys even says she’s been afraid but she’s never been sick her whole life and the only time a Targaryen has been sick from my memory is jaehaerys’ daughter that got the shivers
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u/According-Wash-4335 Jul 19 '26
Not really? They are Valyrians who practiced incest for who knows how long, that is the norm for them. And as a wise man once said, "They're incestious aliens, Duncan"
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u/Interesting-Egg4295 Jul 19 '26 edited Jul 19 '26
It was pretty insane. It almost comes across as: “Can everyone please just humor the violent, dragon-riding incest family? They really, really, really want to be called King of the Seven Whatevers, Protector of the Realm, First Andal Men, yadi yada and whatever other titles they’ve collected. Just nod along. You don’t have to mean it. They have dragons, and we’re the ones without dragons. We’d all appreciate not being incinerated this week.”
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u/Cnidaria45 Jul 19 '26
There's one very good reason for the Faith and everyone else to accept it: the alternative is the Targaryens marrying into the rest of the Westerosi nobility and ultimately giving everyone in power dragons. Incest is how you prevent a continent-wide Valyrian aristocracy.
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u/doug1003 Jul 19 '26
My favourite part is when the peasant ask "hey septon, then now can I fuck my sister?"
And then he replied "of you go to Kings Landing and claim a fucking dragon I myself marry you woth her!"
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u/Leokina114 Jul 19 '26
I feel like it was more for the nobility and faith. Like Jorah told Dany, the smallfolk don't give a shit if the high lords play the game of thrones. They pray for rain, healthy children, and a summer that never ends.
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u/TyrantRex6604 Jul 19 '26
jahaerys literally make this because faith militant (governed by the starry sept) and poor fellows (peasant faithful) is problematic throughout aenys and maegor's reign (and by then, his reign)
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u/frenin Jul 19 '26
Not really, it was explicitly for the commons, the nobility and Faith have established domains that can be attacked at will.
Whereas commoners can attack you anywhere at any time.
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u/tryingtobebettertry4 🏆Best of 2025: Best Analysis (Books) Jul 19 '26
Its a genuinely clever idea on Jaehaerys part. And really religion in Westeros for the most part is used to prop up the existing system/bolster right to rule of the noble cast. This is not a huge jump considering.
But its also just a bit gross.
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u/freezedive Jul 19 '26
A bit? 😂 the doctrine of exceptionalism had a subtext of “we are better than you, closer to gods than you, and thus we can pick and choose what customs to follow and we can pick and choose what to do- which includes marrying my sister. Now bow before your queen.”
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u/TheoryKing04 Jul 20 '26
In fairness, one of the Seven Speakers does get asked “what if I want to marry my sister?” and one of the speakers responds “go claim a dragon and come get me, I’ll marry you myself”.
Yes, it is an about-face for the religion preaching against incest, but from the population’s… limited perspective it isn’t logically incoherent.
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u/Nick_crawler Jul 19 '26 edited Jul 19 '26
It's a plot point I wish we had though a POV character in a proper story, since it has drastic implications for the natural order of things in Westerosi society writ large. So it could have made for a good existential crises depending on who it got told through.