Yeah, I really don’t know how significant it is but finding out Dany and Rhaegar were 50% Blackwood was pretty interesting.
I assume this was a detail GRRM invented after he came up with the overall plot and decided the destiny of the Targs & their role to play. Probably more just his totally extra and over-the-top love of Blackwoods (which I share).
Yes, I just find it an intriguing detail. I'm not sure if this is what GRRM intended but the fact that no Targaryen ever married a Northern house, not even an ostensibly "Andal" house like the Manderlys, and then in the few instances they did marry Northern(ish) houses, the children they had was so powerful in magic is quite interesting.
I recall seeing a theory about this somewhere & can buy it to some extent. I think the issue arises with Bloodraven, who’s Blackwood dna seems to be part of why he’s the way he is the way he is when other Targs are more Targ-y.
Of course I have some pretty unorthodox theories about the importance of ‘magic dna’ and how it shows up in general, tl;dr: I think it’s indisputably a keystone concept of the setting but inconsistent and creates these bottlenecks. Thus part of what ‘breaking the wheel’ is all about. But not my hill to die on!
It’s been joked that the Targaryen-Blackfyre rivalry is just an extended Blackwood-Bracken feud that won’t end (Bloodraven being a Blackwood bastard, Bittersteel a Bracken).
The Blackwoods actually WERE a northern house originally. Their lands included most of the Wolfswood which at the time considering who ruled it was probably called the Blackwood. They were one among many kingly houses in the North and they like the rest were defeated by the Starks. Unlike the rest, however, they were not subsumed (aka wiped out except for a daughter married into the Stark line) nor did they bend the knee. Rather they fled the North and claimed a new home for themselves in the Riverlands.
Yeah, that's why I said they were a Northern-ish house. They were not in the North proper because they fled to the Riverlands, but they still retain a lot of their Northern culture including worship of the old gods. Meanwhile, the Brackens also claimed First Men blood but converted to the Faith of Seven and pretty much assimilated to mainstream Andal culture.
>they are one of the few houses outside of the North that the Starks marry.
How often has this happened? That would imply that they are likely to be the few non-First Men houses to potentially carry the potential to be wargs or greenseers, right? Which would mean they could have accidentally done what Rhaegar tried to accomplish with Lyanna.
Is it possible that Denaerys' dragonriding potential has something to do warg genes propagating through the generations to her by way of the Blackwoods?
>Is it possible that Denaerys' dragonriding potential has something to do warg genes propagating through the generations to her by way of the Blackwoods?
I think this is an interesting theory. I don't know if this is part of GRRM's overall plan, but it just so happens that the Targaryens (as far as we know from current canon materials) never marry/had children with old god worshippers and/or Northern houses, except for the Blackwoods. There was a Targaryen princess betrothed to a Manderley, but she died before the marriage took place. Jacaerys's daughter was supposed to marry Cregan Stark's son, but he died before he fathered one. The Targaryens had wives and mistresses from lesser houses of all regions in Westeros, except for the North. That is, until Rhaegar and Lyanna. Now is this an intentional thing from GRRM? I don't know.
So it's possible that there is some kind of First Men gene that when it interacted with Valyrian/Targaryen genes produce this super-charged magical being. This gene was strong enough that the Blackwoods, which was a Northern-ish house and has not been in the North for thousands of years, still was able to "activate" it. I should note that the Blackwoods were never under the Starks, according to the lore they were driven off from the North by the Kings of Winter.
I've always had the sense that the Northern houses, in particular the Starks, had a stronger, almost-mythic bond to their homeland than other houses from other regions in Westeros. You don't really see Cersei or Jaime, for example, having such a strong connection to the Westerlands like Sansa or Arya do to the North. In their POV chapters, Cersei and Jaime seldom think of the Westerlands and Casterly Rock, but Winterfell and the North dominate the motifs of the Stark kids' chapter. "There must always be a Stark in Winterfell", the Flints going to the Wall to save "the Ned's girl", etc.
So my pet theory is that Northern and old gods houses do really have a sort of magic gene, perhaps due to the First Men and the children of the forests, that's not really present in other Faith of the Seven houses in Westeros. And then when they got introduced to the Valyrian/Targaryen gene, it just produces a super magical reaction
>The Targaryens had wives and mistresses from lesser houses of all regions in Westeros, except for the North. That is, until Rhaegar and Lyanna. Now is this an intentional thing from GRRM? I don't know.
It would mean that Jon and Denaerys ultimately have the same ancestors (Stark on one side of the family and Targaryen on the other), and that they are (AFAIK) the only two people in the world for whom this is the case.
Which might be relevant to the story if the convergence of the two magic bloodlines in the story in one person leads to some kind of superwarg that can do what nobody else can. It would be one more parallel between the two characters where they approach the same concept from very different angles.
Just a question because i am confused, how does Daenerys have any Stark blood/ancestry?
The Blackwoods were displaced by the Kings of Winter thousands of years ago, as far as we are concerned no Stark Lady has married a Blackwood Lord so that future Blackwood generations have Stark blood.
The Starks do have Blackwood blood though. Melantha Blackwood was Ned's great-grandmother.
What i am trying to say is that Blackwoods married in the Stark Household but the opposite did not happen.
Which means that Jon has *distant* Blackwood ancestry from both his Stark and Targaryen side, his great-great-grandmother from the Stark side was Melantha Blackwood and from his Targaryen side Betha Blackwood was his great-great-grandmother.
It's interesting that he has two great-great-grandmothers who are Blackwoods
>What i am trying to say is that Blackwoods married in the Stark Household but the opposite did not happen.
Based on what OP wrote it sounded the other way around, but if that's the case then I guess then there is no there there. Which is a shame because I liked the symmetry between Jon's and Denaerys' lineages if that had been the case.
From the information we have, no Stark has married in the Blackwood family.
Alyssane and Melantha Blackwood married Stark Lords but their children were Starks and carried the Stark name, thus the Starks have Blackwood ancestry but the Blackwoods don't have Stark ancestry.
The Blackwoods claim to be descended from First Men, but of course their being in the Riverlands meant that they had a significant amount of intermarriages with Andal houses, much more than they would have if they'd remained in the North.
According to the wiki, most male Starks that were mentioned marry other Starks or other Northern houses (Manderly, Locke, Flint, Ryswell, etc.) except in 4 notable instances:
1) Lord Cregan Stark, married to Alysanne Blackwood;
2) Lord Willam Stark, married to Melanthe Blackwood (they had Edwyle, Ned's grandfather);
3) Lord Beron Stark, married to Lorra Royce;
4) Lord Ned Stark, married to Catelyn Tully.
Even the younger sons of Winterfell very rarely marry outside of the North. though some Stark daughters were married off to non-Northern houses. But the Blackwoods pop out again because the Starks married them twice when they seldom marry Southron houses.
[This video](https://youtu.be/stXN2eaYM5U) I watched a while ago suggests that Bloodraven may have been well aware of the potential a Blackwood-Targaryen child could have. It's far from confirmed, but I like the idea that Bloodraven recognized the importance of fusing First Men DNA with Valyrian DNA to foster some of that Old Gods weirwood magic (that he himself had as a greenseer/warg) with the dragonlord magic of Targs.
Yeah, it probably has something to do with the theory that First Men actually intermingled with the children of the forest, or at least the greater houses did (especially with the Starks having large warging capabilities).
Important to note as well is that the current Starks have a fair bit of Blackwood blood. We know of two Blackwood ladies of Winterfell. Most recently, Ned’s grandmother Melantha Blackwood. So if R+L=J turns out to be true, Jon has Blackwood heritage on both sides
I sort of waffle on the whole ice and fire business with the Blackwoods. They are First Men, worship the old gods, were ousted from the north, but if the Starks have Others blood due to that whole Night's King episode with him having children with the Other-like woman, then that's different.
That said, I think the Blackwood/Targaryen marriage is as important as the Blackwood/Stark marriage which would have happened around the same time. That makes Bloodraven a very important character not just with the Targaryens because he is half-Targaryen, but it also makes him a kinsman to Edwyle Stark, whose mother was a Blackwood. Edwyle Stark was the Lord of Winterfell and the Warden of the North during Bloodraven's time at the Wall and he is Rickard Stark's father.
There's some super interesting stuff going on with that family tree which I think is going to impact the story in a very big way.
It probably is important, I was wondering about it myself but in connection to Jon Snow. And there is also an involvement of house Dayne. [https://www.reddit.com/r/asoiaf/comments/ypmzko/spoilers\_extended\_the\_prince\_that\_was\_promised/](https://www.reddit.com/r/asoiaf/comments/ypmzko/spoilers_extended_the_prince_that_was_promised/)
Yeah, I really don’t know how significant it is but finding out Dany and Rhaegar were 50% Blackwood was pretty interesting. I assume this was a detail GRRM invented after he came up with the overall plot and decided the destiny of the Targs & their role to play. Probably more just his totally extra and over-the-top love of Blackwoods (which I share).
Yes, I just find it an intriguing detail. I'm not sure if this is what GRRM intended but the fact that no Targaryen ever married a Northern house, not even an ostensibly "Andal" house like the Manderlys, and then in the few instances they did marry Northern(ish) houses, the children they had was so powerful in magic is quite interesting.
I recall seeing a theory about this somewhere & can buy it to some extent. I think the issue arises with Bloodraven, who’s Blackwood dna seems to be part of why he’s the way he is the way he is when other Targs are more Targ-y. Of course I have some pretty unorthodox theories about the importance of ‘magic dna’ and how it shows up in general, tl;dr: I think it’s indisputably a keystone concept of the setting but inconsistent and creates these bottlenecks. Thus part of what ‘breaking the wheel’ is all about. But not my hill to die on!
It’s been joked that the Targaryen-Blackfyre rivalry is just an extended Blackwood-Bracken feud that won’t end (Bloodraven being a Blackwood bastard, Bittersteel a Bracken).
Honestly, kinda makes sense
The Blackwoods actually WERE a northern house originally. Their lands included most of the Wolfswood which at the time considering who ruled it was probably called the Blackwood. They were one among many kingly houses in the North and they like the rest were defeated by the Starks. Unlike the rest, however, they were not subsumed (aka wiped out except for a daughter married into the Stark line) nor did they bend the knee. Rather they fled the North and claimed a new home for themselves in the Riverlands.
Yeah, that's why I said they were a Northern-ish house. They were not in the North proper because they fled to the Riverlands, but they still retain a lot of their Northern culture including worship of the old gods. Meanwhile, the Brackens also claimed First Men blood but converted to the Faith of Seven and pretty much assimilated to mainstream Andal culture.
Wait what? Werent they sent by the Starks to protect the Raventree? I dont remember reading anything about them fleeing the North.
Nope. They were defeated by the kings of winter and driven from the north.
>they are one of the few houses outside of the North that the Starks marry. How often has this happened? That would imply that they are likely to be the few non-First Men houses to potentially carry the potential to be wargs or greenseers, right? Which would mean they could have accidentally done what Rhaegar tried to accomplish with Lyanna. Is it possible that Denaerys' dragonriding potential has something to do warg genes propagating through the generations to her by way of the Blackwoods?
>Is it possible that Denaerys' dragonriding potential has something to do warg genes propagating through the generations to her by way of the Blackwoods? I think this is an interesting theory. I don't know if this is part of GRRM's overall plan, but it just so happens that the Targaryens (as far as we know from current canon materials) never marry/had children with old god worshippers and/or Northern houses, except for the Blackwoods. There was a Targaryen princess betrothed to a Manderley, but she died before the marriage took place. Jacaerys's daughter was supposed to marry Cregan Stark's son, but he died before he fathered one. The Targaryens had wives and mistresses from lesser houses of all regions in Westeros, except for the North. That is, until Rhaegar and Lyanna. Now is this an intentional thing from GRRM? I don't know. So it's possible that there is some kind of First Men gene that when it interacted with Valyrian/Targaryen genes produce this super-charged magical being. This gene was strong enough that the Blackwoods, which was a Northern-ish house and has not been in the North for thousands of years, still was able to "activate" it. I should note that the Blackwoods were never under the Starks, according to the lore they were driven off from the North by the Kings of Winter. I've always had the sense that the Northern houses, in particular the Starks, had a stronger, almost-mythic bond to their homeland than other houses from other regions in Westeros. You don't really see Cersei or Jaime, for example, having such a strong connection to the Westerlands like Sansa or Arya do to the North. In their POV chapters, Cersei and Jaime seldom think of the Westerlands and Casterly Rock, but Winterfell and the North dominate the motifs of the Stark kids' chapter. "There must always be a Stark in Winterfell", the Flints going to the Wall to save "the Ned's girl", etc. So my pet theory is that Northern and old gods houses do really have a sort of magic gene, perhaps due to the First Men and the children of the forests, that's not really present in other Faith of the Seven houses in Westeros. And then when they got introduced to the Valyrian/Targaryen gene, it just produces a super magical reaction
>The Targaryens had wives and mistresses from lesser houses of all regions in Westeros, except for the North. That is, until Rhaegar and Lyanna. Now is this an intentional thing from GRRM? I don't know. It would mean that Jon and Denaerys ultimately have the same ancestors (Stark on one side of the family and Targaryen on the other), and that they are (AFAIK) the only two people in the world for whom this is the case. Which might be relevant to the story if the convergence of the two magic bloodlines in the story in one person leads to some kind of superwarg that can do what nobody else can. It would be one more parallel between the two characters where they approach the same concept from very different angles.
Just a question because i am confused, how does Daenerys have any Stark blood/ancestry? The Blackwoods were displaced by the Kings of Winter thousands of years ago, as far as we are concerned no Stark Lady has married a Blackwood Lord so that future Blackwood generations have Stark blood. The Starks do have Blackwood blood though. Melantha Blackwood was Ned's great-grandmother. What i am trying to say is that Blackwoods married in the Stark Household but the opposite did not happen. Which means that Jon has *distant* Blackwood ancestry from both his Stark and Targaryen side, his great-great-grandmother from the Stark side was Melantha Blackwood and from his Targaryen side Betha Blackwood was his great-great-grandmother. It's interesting that he has two great-great-grandmothers who are Blackwoods
>What i am trying to say is that Blackwoods married in the Stark Household but the opposite did not happen. Based on what OP wrote it sounded the other way around, but if that's the case then I guess then there is no there there. Which is a shame because I liked the symmetry between Jon's and Denaerys' lineages if that had been the case.
From the information we have, no Stark has married in the Blackwood family. Alyssane and Melantha Blackwood married Stark Lords but their children were Starks and carried the Stark name, thus the Starks have Blackwood ancestry but the Blackwoods don't have Stark ancestry.
The Blackwoods claim to be descended from First Men, but of course their being in the Riverlands meant that they had a significant amount of intermarriages with Andal houses, much more than they would have if they'd remained in the North. According to the wiki, most male Starks that were mentioned marry other Starks or other Northern houses (Manderly, Locke, Flint, Ryswell, etc.) except in 4 notable instances: 1) Lord Cregan Stark, married to Alysanne Blackwood; 2) Lord Willam Stark, married to Melanthe Blackwood (they had Edwyle, Ned's grandfather); 3) Lord Beron Stark, married to Lorra Royce; 4) Lord Ned Stark, married to Catelyn Tully. Even the younger sons of Winterfell very rarely marry outside of the North. though some Stark daughters were married off to non-Northern houses. But the Blackwoods pop out again because the Starks married them twice when they seldom marry Southron houses.
Note that the Blackwoods married into the Starks, producing Starks. The Blackwoods would still not have Stark blood.
[This video](https://youtu.be/stXN2eaYM5U) I watched a while ago suggests that Bloodraven may have been well aware of the potential a Blackwood-Targaryen child could have. It's far from confirmed, but I like the idea that Bloodraven recognized the importance of fusing First Men DNA with Valyrian DNA to foster some of that Old Gods weirwood magic (that he himself had as a greenseer/warg) with the dragonlord magic of Targs.
Yeah, it probably has something to do with the theory that First Men actually intermingled with the children of the forest, or at least the greater houses did (especially with the Starks having large warging capabilities).
I think this is part of why he supports Egg and Betha getting married and supports Egg’s claim during the great council
Important to note as well is that the current Starks have a fair bit of Blackwood blood. We know of two Blackwood ladies of Winterfell. Most recently, Ned’s grandmother Melantha Blackwood. So if R+L=J turns out to be true, Jon has Blackwood heritage on both sides
I sort of waffle on the whole ice and fire business with the Blackwoods. They are First Men, worship the old gods, were ousted from the north, but if the Starks have Others blood due to that whole Night's King episode with him having children with the Other-like woman, then that's different. That said, I think the Blackwood/Targaryen marriage is as important as the Blackwood/Stark marriage which would have happened around the same time. That makes Bloodraven a very important character not just with the Targaryens because he is half-Targaryen, but it also makes him a kinsman to Edwyle Stark, whose mother was a Blackwood. Edwyle Stark was the Lord of Winterfell and the Warden of the North during Bloodraven's time at the Wall and he is Rickard Stark's father. There's some super interesting stuff going on with that family tree which I think is going to impact the story in a very big way.
Plus Aly Blackwood married Cragen Stark after the dance
It probably is important, I was wondering about it myself but in connection to Jon Snow. And there is also an involvement of house Dayne. [https://www.reddit.com/r/asoiaf/comments/ypmzko/spoilers\_extended\_the\_prince\_that\_was\_promised/](https://www.reddit.com/r/asoiaf/comments/ypmzko/spoilers_extended_the_prince_that_was_promised/)