tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5730513615909994019.post8429535790962191737..comments2024-03-18T07:44:25.387+00:00Comments on Pop Classics: Game of Thrones, Season OneJuliettehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00203399623895589924noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5730513615909994019.post-55723719815594129022011-10-22T10:46:46.258+01:002011-10-22T10:46:46.258+01:00Later books explain some of Aerys Targaryen's ...Later books explain some of Aerys Targaryen's madness: he became gradually more paranoid over the years, so people tolerated him in his early years. In his later years he became a hyper-paranoid, sadistic lunatic...but by then his son Rhaegar was the darling of Westeros; a universally admired knight held to fully embody all positive virtues of rulership, valor, knighthood, and chivalry. So the general idea was that by the time Aerys' behavior became truly bizarre, most people were willing to just suffer through the remaining years of his reign until his popular son inherited the throne, rather than risk a civil war. (of course, then Rhaegar became smitten with Lyanna Stark [Ned's sister] and ran off with her, even though she was already betrothed to Robert Baratheon...)<br /><br />At any rate, in one of the later books Jaime Lannister has a flashback where he recalls Aerys Targaryen during the height of his madness during his later years: he became utterly consumed by paranoia, that there were hidden plots everywhere trying to overthrow him. This of course became a self-fulfilling prophecy: when you burn children alive in front of the entire court, people tend to start looking for ways to overthrow you, or at least not liking you.<br /><br />I'm not sure what episode you missed, but in episode 6 Renly Baratheon accurately summarizes Aerys Targaryen's madness as "he had women and babies burned alive, because the voices in his head told me they deserved it".<br /><br />As Jaime Lannister recalls, Aerys' paranoia reached the point that:<br />1 - he was so worried about being poisoned that he rarely ate...to the point that he was visibly gaunt and haggard, from nearly starving himself.<br /><br />2 - he was so paranoid about assassination plots that he wouldn't allow any blade within his presence...even his barber. The result was that by the time of his death, his fingernails were literally almost a foot long. Also, his hair became exceedingly long, unkempt and matted. He was kind of forgetting to even perform basic grooming at that point. <br /><br />Like most Targaryens, Aerys was obsessed with fire...so much so that as they point out, he executed hundreds of people (many of them women and children) by burning them alive. And not just at the gallows or something, but roasting them alive on spits in the middle of the royal courtroom, holding hundreds of spectators. <br /><br />It was that whole "mad emperor" motif of that he was so powerful that he could do horrible, insane things in front of hundreds of courtiers and no one dared to utter a word in protest.<br /><br />The actual civil war began when Ned and Robert's fathers rod to King's Landing to demand from Aerys that his son Rhaegar answer for his abduction of Lyanna Stark. Aerys promptly had them all burned alive in the middle of the throneroom.<br /><br />Jaime recounts that he also repeatedly raped his wife, who lived in constant terror of him (it was a political marriage). <br /><br />Ultimately Aerys was much more of a Nero analogue than a Caligula....though Nero strikes me as young and arrogant, whereas Aerys was more of that crazy old guy vibe. (indeed, Aerys wasn't even that old when he died, late 40's, but he was so haggard that he looked much older). <br /><br />When the rebels were closing in on the capital city, Aerys Targaryen ordered his remaining loyalist troops to burn down the entire city, including its half a million civilian inhabitants, rather than let the rebels take it. At this, Jaime Lannister killed Aerys to prevent the suicide-order from going out to the troops.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5730513615909994019.post-77528974492732228052011-08-04T20:34:51.954+01:002011-08-04T20:34:51.954+01:00I've had very little exposure to all this as y...I've had very little exposure to all this as yet. Martin turned a big chunk of Daenerys' POV in the first book into a novella, which I was a bit disappointed in (I really enjoyed his work before this ate his life). And I was reluctant to get into it while it was still unfinished. My youngest daughter is heavily into it now and just gave me the first two for my birthday, so I suppose I'll no more eventually.<br /><br />Anyway, I've always had the impression that GRRM's model was more Wars of the Roses/squabbling medieval central European nobility and a dash of Byzantine intrigue than anything Classical. But now that you mention it, you could get a pretty good series using the <i>Twelve Caesars</i> as a model, going from collapse to rebirth of the imperium if you fudged a bit at the edges.DemetriosXnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5730513615909994019.post-85232932606919192212011-08-04T20:15:59.270+01:002011-08-04T20:15:59.270+01:00I got that general impression, but wasn't sure...I got that general impression, but wasn't sure of the details! I suppose that makes them more like Egyptian Pharoahs than the Julio-Claudians really...Juliettehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00203399623895589924noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5730513615909994019.post-62066300957351126102011-08-04T19:55:29.400+01:002011-08-04T19:55:29.400+01:00I can't remember if the TV show ever went that...I can't remember if the TV show ever went that deeply into it and the history of the royal families, but Viserys was also a product of incest (as were a lot of his Targaryen ancestors - they were really into brother/sister marriages), so that inbreeding probably has some bearing on his madness, as with Joffrey (although Joffrey's not a product of it on such a grand scale, obviously)...<br /><br />Of course, you may know this, and I just haven't read the post closely enough!Gemmanoreply@blogger.com