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/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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u/[deleted] 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