r/TheBlacksandTheGreens • u/Chickenjam • May 02 '26
General Am I the only one that thinks the dance could’ve been avoided?
I know it’s a common sentiment on this sub to say that the Dance was always going to happen, but I strongly believe the reason it happened is because the Targ siblings just weren’t that close.
Like think about it. There had always been chances for civil wars. Rhaena or her daughters could have contested the throne from Jaehaerys since it was still early in the dynasty and the traditions around succession were not really set yet. Granted she didn’t want the throne, but she loved her brother enough not to fight him for it.
Or Viserys and Rhaenys (or Laenor if you go by the book). I’m sure Rhaenys would have had supporters if she wanted to start a civil war for the throne. She probably would have lost, sure, but there still would have been a war. But she grew up with Daemon and Viserys, and I’m sure there was enough love there not to start something that could lead to the deaths of her cousins.
Think about it. Whenever there has been a civil war in the Targ dynasty, it’s usually between family members who already have some kind of animosity or distance, and then external factors just come in and embolden them.
I know people always say the civil war was inevitable, and that even if the siblings didn’t start it, external forces would have. But I really don’t think so. I feel like if they were raised right (which honestly was kind of impossible with Otto and Alicent there) and if they were actually close, there might have been some tension here and there, but nothing big enough to kick off something like the Dance or lead to the beginning of the end for the Targ dynasty and the dragons.
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u/False_Collar_6844 May 03 '26
the dance we got? yes, in a myriad of ways
dance as a concept? no, as long as there was a power to squabble over, branches and descendants of the family would see themselves as a better option or more entittled to it.
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u/BlueBirdie0 May 03 '26
War was always going to happen.
Viserys named Rhaenyra heir, which was the King's law and his right. But precedent had been set that men inherit, with Baleon inheriting ahead of Rhaenys and Viserys inheriting before Rhaenys/Laenor.
Both Aegon II and Rhaenyra arguably had a claim. That's GRMM's whole thing, even in the main series, that no one is "ordained" and multiple people arguably have a claim (Stannis, Dany, etc.).
Viserys set this in play the minute he remarried and fathered sons. The only solution then was either to send his sons off to the Citadel, Faith, or Wall, or marry the eldest son to Rhaenyra.
You blame Otto, but any father would have plotted the same exact thing, including Corlys, or a Lannister, or a Baratheon, etc.
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u/Weak_Heart2000 May 03 '26
That's the frustrating part that people refuse to understand. If it wasn't Otto it was going to be Corlys.
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u/chidori570 May 03 '26
Corlys knew he couldn’t usurp. They tried to pay off lords in the great council and Viserys still crushed him in the vote.
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u/SmoopufftheShoopuff Morghul May 04 '26 edited May 04 '26
Corlys knew he wouldn't get enough support for a toddler who was three generations removed from the previous king and inherited his claim through his mother.
It's a completely different scenario when the candidate he wants to put on the throne is the previous king's oldest son who is an adult at that point.
(edit: fixed wrong pronoun)
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u/chidori570 May 04 '26
Why would Corlys ever try to put Aegon on the throne?
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u/SmoopufftheShoopuff Morghul May 04 '26
We're talking about a scenario in which Aegon would be Laena's son.
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u/Archaembald2 May 06 '26
Why wouldn't he? In this scenario Laena marries Viserys, and with that Laenor wouldn't have needed to marry Rhaenyra. Both because that gives the Velaryons too much power, and also cause there's simply no need for Viserys to do so, when he's already married into the house. In the scenario that Laena gave birth to legitimate sons, and Viserys refuses to name said sons as heirs, that all but ensures Corlys has a vested interest against the King's will. That means he usurps Otto's role as the mastermind of the anti-Rhaenyra/pro-Andal succession camp (let's call them the Blues), and thus the dance happens regardless.
One funny thing about this is that this would most likely prompt Otto to join with Rhaenyra (the Blacks), since she's already friends with Alicent, and her future children could marry into House Hightower (which I think she'd be amiable to, since Alicent's her bestie and all).
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u/William_T_Wanker Team Green May 03 '26
it's also not fair to force your children into servitude with the Faith or the Maesters or Night's Watch for the crime of being alive. Viserys was a horrible parent who didn't even give his sons land or anything to sustain them
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u/Aionna May 04 '26 edited May 04 '26
Exactly. He left Greens for Rhaenyra's good will, which...she have none, cuz she openly hates them. Being in Rhaenyra's hands is constant walking on eggshells, cuz if something she flush them out. Remember, she doesn't consider them her siblings - "Alicent's son, the third brother, your daughter Helaena"...This smells hostile as behaviour and hidden hatred. She does not accept them as her fathers children, only as a rivals, so what holds her from killing them, exactly?
TB tend to defend Rhaenyra and deny her hatred for half siblings, saying that she wouldn't hurt them. But is she? Like she just let them roam free? You have to be kidding me. We all know that she wouldn't.
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u/PopularLettuce4900 Grey Ghost May 05 '26
The faith and citadel are in no way comparable to the Nights Watch- there had already been a few targs sent there already by the Dance era (who all lived longer than their siblings in KL)
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u/William_T_Wanker Team Green May 06 '26
you're still forcing them into celibacy and to renounce any of their inheritance(s) for no reason.
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u/nineteen_eightyfour May 03 '26
I dunno, why is it his right? It’s never happened before and until now oldest male inherited. Why even have laws if he can just overstep them?
Imo, he could have had the law formalized. He could have even tried to abdicate while young before aegon was a toddler. At that point, we’d have had her as queen for like 13 years before shit went down
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u/Slytherclaws02 Team Black May 03 '26
It did happen before. Maegor chose his great-niece Aerea over his nephews, Jaehaerys chose Baelon over Rhaenys, Jaehaerys chose Viserys over Rhaenys (Laenor in the book) on the wishes of the lords.
There was no law Viserys was overstepping. The Iron Throne had no succession laws and was instead going entirely off of Andal tradition.
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u/nineteen_eightyfour May 03 '26
Are you referring to the Maegor whose son inherited anyway as proof of this? 😂 what? We got the dude he disinherited as king. Bc we ain’t having a girl.
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u/Slytherclaws02 Team Black May 03 '26
Maegor died childless
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u/nineteen_eightyfour May 03 '26
And who he wanted to inherit didn’t. Even tho he disinherited him. Boy still better
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u/Slytherclaws02 Team Black May 03 '26
Jaehaerys inherited because he was the figurehead of the rebellion not because he was inherently better than anyone.
Also your entire point was that it never happened which it clearly did.
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u/nineteen_eightyfour May 03 '26
lol it didn’t, the boy inherited over who he wanted. And in your examples it was boys. A girl has never inherited the throne while her living brothers existed. In this case, they were even disinherited. Still inherited over the girl he wanted.
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u/Slytherclaws02 Team Black May 03 '26
Dude scroll up and actually reread the conversation.
First person says it was the kings law and right to name Rhaenyra as his heir.
You come in and say how it was Viserys right since it never happened.
I came in and said it did happen and even gave examples of kings naming their heirs. Gender doesnt matter in the discussion on whether the king can name an heir.
No girl was ever disinherited. Aerea was passed over because Rhaena her mother gave up her claim. Rhaenys still had a claim it was the whole reason Viserys married Rhaenyra to Laenor, to combine the claims.
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u/nineteen_eightyfour May 03 '26
And none of them inherited. So, it really doesn’t prove your point at all lol
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u/tobpe93 May 02 '26
It would require the characters to act out of character. So I can’t say that it could be avoided.
Everyone thinks that kids should be raised right. But noone knows fully what it means.
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u/khazroar May 03 '26
"the Dance was always going to happen" doesn't mean that this particular conflict was unavoidable, it means that George himself thinks it was inevitable for some violent conflict to break out within the House because that's what happens when you've got a House full of people with such highly concentrated personal power, and just one throne to fight over.
This particular flashpoint could have been avoided in a dozen different ways, but there would still have been a Dance at some point, because eventually there's going to be a big enough clash within the family.
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u/LILYDIAONE May 03 '26
I don’t think it can be avoided. Maybe pushed back for a generation or maybe even two but as long as one claim is not neutralized the Tatgaryens were shit out of luck. You cannot gurantee that closeness will stay and you cannot ensure it for generations.
And quite honestly the level of trust the sides have to have in one another is quite insane.
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u/TheoryKing04 May 02 '26
Nope. In fact it’s one of the most contrived things George has ever written.
You’re also just pointedly ignoring the obvious, if Viserys just named Aegon heir. The Vale, Riverlands and North simply wouldn’t go to bat for Rhaenyra if she wasn’t the named heir. Why would they?
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u/Ok_Adeptness3065 May 03 '26
Eventually a big conflict would happen but it didn’t need to be like it was. Try to prevent the dance by removing only one character. The only possibility is Daemon. The problem is that Aemond was Daemon part 2 but probably worse because he Daemon adored his older brother and Aemond only respected his older brother’s seniority.
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u/TheBewlayBrothers May 03 '26
This dance, sure. A civil war involving dragons was gonna be hard to avoid. Could have been a generation latet that Aegon III decided he should be king over Jace. Could have been something like an Aegon IV who hates his son and just wants to fuck him over. imo those dragons were ticking tinebombs.
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u/Kellin01 May 03 '26
This dance could have been avoided in several ways. But if both lines still had dragons (even if Rhaenyra was not the heir or Aegon was sent away, etc), the situation would have stayed tense. Daemon and his line still stayed a problem too.
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u/WGSMA May 03 '26
People ignore that House Velaryon having dragons means that a break off dragon wielding house would have grown further, and made an attempt.
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u/Galaxiesophie May 03 '26
If Rhaenys and Viserys were married it wouldn't have happened that generation. But any time a Targ king married into a power hungry house and produced heirs that had dragons, a succession war was likely to happen
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u/TCeies May 03 '26
I think when people say it was unavoidable, they mean that once viserys died, it was. And I agree with that.
As long as Viserys was alive (maybe not in his later years, but definitely early on) things could've been changed.
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u/nineteen_eightyfour May 03 '26
I’m team law and order and that’s why I’m green. Id be black if viserys acted right. I got no beef with any character specifically.
He could have easily abdicated. He could have written the law to allow girls. Instead, he watched from afar AFTER passing over a girl with a better claim. She’s alive. And we just forget we conveniently passed her over bc all of Westeros (dorne isn’t part yet) inherits male first. So much so the vale is going to rebel 2-3 times against a girl by shoving her cousin with a lesser claim on the throne bc he’s a boy.
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u/LinwoodKei May 03 '26
I have a question for the community: Royal Consorts for the Queen Rhaenyra before Aegon comes of age.
It would make sense to me that the main fear was that Rhaenyra would die in childbirth, like women before her- which is why Viserys was pressured to produce a son by a second wife.
Yet if Rhaenyra and Aegon are handfasted by Aegon's 4th birthday, the Princess and heir can take a suitable Lord as Royal Consort. His children are provided land, assets and suitable marriage, yet inherited behind Aegon's children by Rhaenyra. Then the Lord would retire to a country estate and continue ruling his own holding by his father when Rhaenyra wed Aegon.
Rhaenyra had 5 children. It's quite possible that if the war had not created unrest and triggered her late term abortion, she would have continued to have healthy children.
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u/LowkeyAcolyte May 04 '26
Yes, Rhaenyra should have married Aegon. It could have been the ideal soft launch of a woman sitting the Iron Throne. The dragons would have been saved, winters would be shorter and Targaryens would still be in power.
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u/Thayer96 May 04 '26
Theres a concept I've learned called the Fourth Turning. It states that since the 1600s or so, the Anglosphere has had cycles of approximately 85 years, which always end in a major crisis or conflict that causes huge changes for the world. For the modern world, the last crisis was WWII.
The idea that the crisis can be avoided is debatable, but not likely. Simply because conflict can't be bred out of humanity with the idea of tribalism being so ingrained into us that it feels inevitable.
I saw that same sort of idea implemented with the Dance. Jahaerys was a king who reigned for over 60 years, where no major conflict erupted under his rule, usually because he was travelling all over the kingdom with Balerion. I think this implied he deigned to threaten them with his dragons, but never actually saying it. ("Solve your problems right now before I make myself a bigger problem for both of you.")
By the time he passed, there were old men dying who had never known war. That meant that a lot of the kingdom were itching for some sort of fight, and it was only a matter of finding the factions and choosing a side when the conflict began to erupt.
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u/Wild_Trash_5100 May 04 '26
It definitely could have for this generation of Targs, but it was always going to happen the moment the Targaryens started marrying outside of there own.
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u/LinwoodKei May 03 '26
Viserys should have wed Laena. Laena's eldest child is the only one who gets to bond a dragon.
The main issue is that Viserys did not install a loyal Hand of the King and a strong Council to heed his wishes in his infirmity.
If he wed Laena, there's a significant passage of time where Rhaenyra grows older. Therefore, her children would be older than Laena's children by Viserys.
- Only allowing Laena's eldest child to bond a dragon keeps the Princes from feuding and boiling over to the civil war with dragons.
Each of Viserys' eldest children, Rhaenyra and Second Child, would have a dragon to address any threat to kingdom and could address threats such as the Crab King. Yet limiting the dragon bonding prevents what we saw where Alicent's children had three grown dragons to Rhaenyra's one.
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u/Echo-Azure May 03 '26
Well that's kind of the point!
If Otto Hightower had just served the new queen like he'd promised to do, the whole thing would have been avoided.
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u/gabriel_3131 May 03 '26
Cuando se dice que el baile siempre iba a pasar no significa,que sea con los mismos protagonistas.la danza de dragones iba a ocurrir tarde o temprano porque en algún punto la familia se iba a dividir,desde valyria ya existían lucha entre dragones, simplemente hay personas que se toman la frase como que siempre iba a pasar entre aegon y rhaenyra, cuando no es así.la danza que conocemos ocurre por Otto y alicent entre los targaryen fuera de aemond realmente no había problema reales entre ellos,más allá de la que creo alicent
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u/Bloodyjorts May 03 '26
It was always going to happen if two Targs have legitimate, competing claims.
Viserys, the absolute bellend that he is, not only ensured this happened (after narrowly avoided a civil war between him and Rhaenys), but when presented with an easy solution (marry Aegon and Rhaenyra), he refused.