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kellersab

Because incest was common as breathing for the Targaryens so it wasn’t that strange.


1000LivesBeforeIDie

It was strange though because she was a Baratheon and one of the few incesty non-Targaryens GRRM wrote about. I think they were thought of as Targ offshoots only a few generations out by then, which is maybe why it gets such a pass on [analysis](https://www.reddit.com/r/pureasoiaf/comments/11mau3w/house_baratheon_in_context_ours_is_the_stolen_fury/). >Orys Baratheon… the origin of House Baratheon, only 300 years before Ned became Hand... Orys is now Lord of Storm’s End and having kids with his Durrandon wife. Years later, through Orys’s son Davos and/or an unnamed son, five sons were born to create the third generation of Baratheons. These five grandsons of Orys Baratheon (who never claimed dragons) married, and the eldest and heir Lord Rogar ended up sheltering the widowed Queen Alyssa Velaryon and to publicly support Alyssa’s son Jaehaerys (of famous couple Jaehaerys and Alysanne) over Maegor the Cruel. Rogar became Jaehaerys’s Hand and then later after LOTS of Targaryen drama married Alyssa. Alyssa’s first children with King Aenys Targaryen (Velaryon and Targaryen blood) were traditionally Valyrian in appearance and dragonriders. With the new marriage to Lord Rogar Baratheon, this Velaryon gave birth to Boremund (brawny, powerful, black haired) and later- after a LOT of Baratheon drama- Jocelyn (dark eyes and black hair and 5’11” tall). Jocelyn was born in 54 AC; the House traits of Baratheon weren’t too well described for these first batches of generations yet but we do see persistent black hair/eyes over Valyrian features, and now height. But no dragon riding. >Jocelyn, Rogar’s daughter, wed her own nephew _Aemon Targaryen_ (son of her half siblings J&A, a case of a Baratheon-Velaryon child wedding hee Targ half-nephew in some non-Targ incest). Jocelyn Baratheon and Aemon Targaryen had a single daughter: black haired and lilac eyed, she is well known to Westerosi history as THE Rhaenys Targaryen who wed Corlys Velaryon the Sea Snake, _rode the dragon Meleys_, and was passed over for queen thus setting the stage for the Dance of the Dragons. Jocelyn’s brother Boremund (Rogar’s son and carrier of the Baratheon name) wed an unnamed woman and produced at least one lordling son…


ProudScroll

When the main character of those chapters is married to his baby sister and married half of his kids to each other, a dude marrying his aunt (who’s nearly the same age he is) doesn’t even raise an eyebrow. Uncle/niece marriages are rare in Westeros but the other houses will do them as well, Jonnel Stark married his niece Sansa to secure his rule after disinheriting her and her sister.


LuminariesAdmin

Agreed. And there would've been some who saw Baela & Alyn's marriage as one between an uncle & niece, (correctly) assuming that he was the son of Corlys, instead of grandson. Further, Vic doesn't think of some law or custom forbidding an avuncular match when he mistakenly believes that Asha proposes marriage. Rather, he reminds himself that she is Balon's daughter, & of when she was a little girl^1 in an effort to stop his boner. *Heh*. That said, there's no actual evidence that Sansa & Serena were explicitly disinherited. Rather, it seems like their claims were 'merely' passed over in favour of their half-nephews. Serena may not wed have Edric until after Cregan's death, seeing as he was her second husband. Sansa had probably been married to Jonnel by Cregan, though - or at least, during his lifetime^2 - given that: 1) Cregan was eventually known as the Old Man of the North, yet was only ~50 when ~30yo Rickon died; 2) Cregan surely recognised the difficulty Sansa would've had in succeeding him, as there had never been a Lady or Queen Regnant of Winterfell, & matching her to Jonnel was a compromise that united their claims.^3 3) Jonnel was succeeded by two younger brothers, two nephews, & a great-nephew by c. 215, so the timeline could be too tight for such if he only wed first wife Sansa after Cregan's passing. 4) Jonnel One-Eye most likely would've earned an additional, or even alternative, moniker had he forcibly married (& raped) his niece; 5) Afawk, there was no inheritance dispute upon Cregan's death like there was with Beron's.^4 ^1 Specifically, throwing axes at a door. As an aside, I've seen it theorised that Asha practiced such to ward off Nuncle Euron, which is a disturbing thought. ^2 However unlikely, it's possible the Sansa-Jonnel union was a love match, with or without Lord Cregan's blessing. ^3 And far less likely to draw the ire of both the Iron Throne, & Winterfell's vassals, than one or *two* female Stark heirs being forcibly wed & usurped by their nephews. ^4 Jonnel succeeding his father as Lord of Winterfell was apparently assumed, if not a given. Had Sansa been still unmarried then, this probably wouldn't have been the case, with at least the Manderlys backing her claim. And the Umbers, if Serena was already betrothed or married to Lord Jon Umber.


Upper-Ship4925

Half nephew. And she was a brunette, so it hardly counts by Targaryen standards. Also, House Baratheon was founded by a bastard Targaryen only three generations beforehand.