Lo' and behold, looks like I'm not done with bastardposting after all. For this piece, I would like to compare and contrast the two main situations that the general public has been exposed as far as the issue of illegitimate children is concerned within the ASOIAF-verse: Rhaenyra v Cersei.
The parallels are obvious. Rhaenyra has three bastard children, Cersei has three bastard children. Let's see how they handle it.
Rules
According to Westerosi law, bastards can't inherit. It doesn't matter if they're the husband's or the wife's, the King's or the Queen's. Children born out of wedlock to any spouse are explicitly excluded from the line of succession.
Only the King can legitimise bastards via a royal decree. Enough of these "Roose legitimized Ramsay" lies. It's patently untrue. Tommen legitimized Ramsay.
In order to be legitimised, the children in question first have to be declared bastards. You cannot legitimize trueborn children. You cannot secretly legitimise bastards. "Viserys claimed Rhaenyra's children were trueborn, ergo he implicitly legitimised them." No, he didn't. He never admitted they were bastards.
Why does this matter? Because it is unclear where legitimised bastards fall in the line of succession. If they maintain their place by birth order or if they are relegated to the back of the line, behind any and all other trueborn claimants.
There are no genetic tests available in Westeros. People have to prove adultery or rely on common sense.
1. Cersei has a distinct advantage over Rhaenyra, since her children look like her. She can very easily argue that they favour her, as their mother, and this is exactly what everyone believes for years, including Robert. Since Jaime is the male version of Cersei, Joffrey, Tommen and Myrcella can look like no else. Catelyn's kids look like Catelyn and no one bats an eye. Only Arya and (to Catelyn's irritation) Jon look like Ned. However, Ned doesn't ever doubt his children are not his.
Rhaenyra's kids look nothing like Rhaenyra and nothing like Laenor. They, instead, share distinct physical traits with her sworn shield, a man seen very often in her presence. People are not idiots. There is no plausible deniability here. You can bet your bottom dollar that if Cersei's kids were, say, Dornish-looking, people would be calling her out for her bullshit.
There is a way you can reasonably get away with passing over your bastards as someone else's, but that is 100% not Rhaenyra's way. This is why Cersei is chilling in the Red Keep, living her best bad bitch life, while Rhaenyra is running away to Dragonstone when the rumours are nipping at her heels. They are not the same. There are no paternity rumours to quell Cersei's girlboss vibes. She is sly enough that even Robert is convinced he inseminated her (gross).
2. I'm not going to get into the intricacies of Ned Stark's Scooby-Doo, Hercule Poirot mystery plot of unraveling Cersei's misdeeds. Ned has his own beef with the Lannisters and is convinced they are up to no good. He investigates them like the meddling kid he is and comes away with a suspicion. He knows nothing (heh) for certain until Cersei verbally confirms it for him. yOuR bRoThEr Or YoUr lOvEr. boo!
Had Ned not been on the Lannister trail from the very beginning, a fair assumption can be made that he never even would have suspected anything untoward. He never questions the children's paternity when they visit in Winterfell.
Again, this is distinctly different from Rhaenyra's situation. No one believes Cersei's children are bastards,* whereas no one believes Rhaenyra's children are trueborn. Pretending otherwise is very, very strange.
*at the beginning of AGOT, at least
3. Robert claimed Joffrey all his life and specifically named him his son and heir in his will, under dictation, to Ned. In turn, Ned deliberately changed Robert's words and wrote them down as "my rightful heir".
This is a parallel to show!Alicent, who misunderstands Viserys' dying words and him naming his son Aegon as heir. If Alicent didn't have the right to muddle the King's meaning, then neither did Ned. However, no one in their right minds is arguing that Ned is a traitor to the Crown. I wonder why is that?
I have already pointed out the circular logic in arguing that Robert only said that because he didn't know the children weren't his.
4. So what does this mean? Can anyone just accuse anyone they don't like of being a bastard and, thus, endanger that person's entire social status?
No, of course not. But, unfortunately for Cersei, Ned and Stannis aren't just some randos in a tavern. Ned is the Hand of the King. Stannis is Lord of Dragonstone and on the Small Council. These two men have a stalwart reputation and are renowned for their obsession with justice, duty and, in Ned's case, honour.
If Ned Stark stands in front of the Iron Throne and proclaims Joffrey a bastard, risks his daughters' lives and literally ends up losing his head as a result of this,
if Stannis Baratheon sends letters throughout the realm claiming Cersei's children are illegitimate,
the people of Westeros are going to pay attention.
These two very important men using their public platform to denounce Joffrey and starting wars over this? Say what you will about them, but they are not oathbreakers and they are not liars. No, they don't come with DNA tests, but for a lot of Westerosi, this is enough. They believe it.
Is this foolproof? No, of course not! But it convinces enough people that they are willing to band together to support rival claimants to the throne, thus igniting the War of the Five Kings. Speaking of political headaches, this is a huge one!
That being said, while Cersei is playing in the Champions League, Rhaenyra is fighting for her life in the relegation zone. She doesn't even need a Ned or a Stannis to cast doubt on her because no one believes her kids are not bastards.
Moreover, Vaemond obviously parallels Ned in this story. He tells the truth in open court and loses his head for it. In the show, Daemon and Viserys play the same role as Joffrey. In the texts, Rhaenyra and Daemon are stand-ins for Joffrey. This is not meant to be a triumphant moment of girlbossery. This is an abuse of power and an act of terror.
All in all, I'm sorry to say, but Cersei wins this hands down. She is savvy enough in her choice of sperm donor and can maintain plausible deniability without looking like a goddamn clown and the entire circus to boot. She holds the capital and has access to all the emblems of state after Robert dies. In contrast, Rhaenyra is floundering across the Blackwater Bay, yelling at the dragon gargoyles that her children are trueborn.
Why is this issue important in the story?
a). No one has a problem with Jace being King.
If people had a problem with Joffrey being King, enough to go to war over it, it would be narratively inconsistent for them to just accept an obvious bastard as King. It would contradict the internal logic of the fictional world we're talking about. That's quite some level of suspension of disbelief just because some fans like Jace. This isn't about him being amiable or a good kid.
b). They're still Rhaenyra's sons / it's a Targaryen internal matter and concerns no one else / the concept of Jace being King doesn't personally affect anyone else, so why does anyone care?
Because it's the freaking law! The name of the crime Rhaenyra commits is high treason! Punishable by exile or death!
No, the crime is not adultery, it's not having bastard children, it's specifically putting said bastard children in line to the throne. In that, Rhaenyra is as guilty as Cersei is.
It absolutely does affect others, since Rhaenyra actively steals the inheritance of House Velaryon for Luke. How is that not a crime? I would even go so far as to say that Laenor and Corlys are complicit in it and should be punished as well.
Contrary to bafflingly-popular erroneous beliefs, the monarch can't just do whatever they want. Even in absolutist monarchies, the sovereign serves the vital social role of upholding the law and the rights of their subjects. Rhaenyra breaks said law by committing theft, murder, high treason and destabilizing the entire system of inheritance.
c) Rhaenyra breaks the social contract
Jock Locke argues for the "right of revolution" in the Second Treatise of Government. He writes that when the government acts against the interests of its citizens, then said citizens gain the right to overthrow it and replace it with an authority that will protect their interests.
I am not trying to impose 'progressive' understandings of the political process anachronistically, in a medieval fantasy; my thesis-statement is that we have already seen this concept at play within the world of ASOIAF: the Faith Militant uprising against Aenys I and Maegor due to their practices of incest and polygamy and Robert's Rebellion, caused by Rhaegar kidnapping a noble lady and Aerys II carrying out executions without due process. The people of Westeros are not unfamiliar with opposing monarchs who don't abide by the law.
The question of Rhaenyra having bastards is framed in a lot of commentary through the lens of her right as a woman to have extra-marital sex and not be demonised for it and to find fulfilling love within the constraints imposed on her by her station. While debating the personal individual freedom of women in a patriarchal feudal society is not to be side-lined, her fundamental fault is that she is demanding rights and exemptions for herself, while the rest of the country have to abide by an entirely different set of rules.
The laws of inheritance, as unjust as they may appear to our modern eyes, are in place to prevent crises of succession, violent conflicts or even large-scale wars from starting every time someone's estates are passed on. Illegitimate children suddenly gaining access to inheritances threatens the political and economical calculations that predicate many Westerosi marriages.
Imagine paying a handsome dowry for your daughter, just so her husband's bastard birthed by some high-born mistress to make use of his maternal family's resources and cheat your legitimate grandchildren out of theirs.
Imagine being married to some lord and now his random bastards threaten the inheritance of your lawful children. Because, hey, the Queen acts like this is fine! This is Catelyn Stark's worst nightmare.
You think you can just sue your husband? What a silly notion. You think you can sue the bastard claimants after your husband is dead? Tough luck, your liege lord may rule in their favour by taking a leaf out of Queen Rhaenyra's book. You think you can appeal to Queen Rhaenyra? How are you going to travel all the way to King's Landing? Good luck with that, maybe you're built different and don't die during this dangerous and expensive journey.
Is this fair for the illegitimate children? Hell no, but Rhaenyra and Viserys are not planning on reforming family law in any meaningful way, because they know what a hassle it would be and how much opposition it would meet!
It reeks of rights for me, but not for thee and I, for the life of me, don't understand the stronghold she has on the liberated feminist brigade.
and finally
d). The Green Coup is not dependent on the legitimacy of Rhaenyra's children.
No. But her committing high treason earns her an automatic disqualification from her right to rule, rendering her claim null and void.
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personally,, i think if we get jace and sara interactions in the show, it’s not primarily going to be a romantic relationship. like i think they’ll be friends, and there’s a good chance that they will get a romance (jonsa foreshadowing is that you? prince targ bastard and stark girl? jace/sara and jonnel/sansa? jonsa?? if jonnos frey son of rhaegar frey counts as r+l=j foreshadowing then it’s kinda likely) but what i think would make them most interesting is that jace and sara are parallels of one another. like jace is a bastard, yet his whole life he was raised as a trueborn son, and his relationship with his birth status and worldview is entirely different to every other bastard in westeros. when he asks rhaenyra if he’s a bastard, he’s shaking, it’s like his whole world has been shattered, because essentially it has. jace’s life experience is entirely different to sara’s, and they’d function as alternate realities from similar situations. jace who’s life was a lie and who’s life is in active danger if his bastardy is acknowledged or if he ascends the throne. who resorts to anger when it is mentioned as opposed to sara, who was always raised as a befitting of her social status as bastard in winterfell. this relation of character could go beyond parallels, as jace and sara quite literally could act as eachothers’ narrative foil.
the interplay of bastardy and gender and social stations would be so cool to explore. jace as an eldest child raised to inherit, yet has younger trueborn siblings (since laenor is allegedly dead, daemon’s boys are considered trueborn.. but it’s wonky given the audience knows he’s still living) who could potentially usurp him with relative ease (this hypothetical ignores all “but they wouldn’t do that they’re family 🥺” claims, as the whole point of the dance is that family can and will screw you over if they want to) and sara as a younger sister and an acknowledged bastard, never set to inherit. it would be a great opportunity to expand on the whole status of bastards in westeros and the role it plays in enforcing the feudal patriarchal structure beyond the generic: “it’s wrong to discriminate against children for coming from unmarried parents” commentary (we all know it’s wrong, irrational and not fair or right in modern society. but what i mean is it’s a great opportunity to explore why it exists in westeros and it’s necessary role within the context of asoiaf’s setting and relation to themes. <- it’s one of those things you must acknowledge and engage with in order to properly understand some character motivations. other people have some great meta on this)
this could also add nuance into jace’s familial relationships beyond just his apparent dislike for daemon. the kids all looked so unhappy during rhaenyra and daemon’s wedding, but did this marriage occurring so close to his father’s (harwin + laenor’s) deaths, knowing his mother allegedly murdered laenor, then the birth of trueborn sons with the targaryen look cause him to foster resentment to rhaenyra? (i’m not saying he wouldn’t still love her, aegon and viserys, he would, that’s still his mother and little brothers, but you can resent and love people at the same time) i think interweaving this with a more positive relationship between sara and cregan could contrast the inherent disfunction of house targaryen as a whole.
by using the characters as vehicles to explore the contrast in power, in lifestyles, relationships and in comfortability in their birth status would create such an interesting interplay between jace and sara beyond the implied generic romance, and expand jace’s character beyond “normal jake”/the entirely unremarkable brown haired targ trope george has going on. and it’s one of those things that i hope the writers will explore in s2 (they probably won’t given how many rumours about characters/plots/storylines being cut and other elements being botched. if nettles is cut or made a targaryen i will scream. she is so special because she’s not targaryen. b&c ep1 with potentially no maelor? deaths of innocent children is not time or place for a half-assed shitty commentary on sexism. also who the fuck will fill daeron’s role?) and whilst i certainly wouldn’t mind a romance for them, it wouldn’t be my main priority for their interactions. i also think the dynamic between jace-baela-sara deserve to be fleshed out properly and favourably to all characters. but if we’re getting into book canon i think treating mushroom’s (a fool and known liar) claims as absolute, undoubtable fact is stupid. so whilst he does claim that they got married, and it does have potential to be true, is more likely to be bullshit. (as in the “men and women can never just be friends” concept, just like how aemon the dragon knight and queen naerys’ relationship could have very likely platonic rather than romantic but everyone else just genuinely cannot tell because house targaryen’s incest has completely fucked over everyone’s perceptions of “is that platonic or romantic love?”)
I've tried to comprise a reply to this baffling take, as exhibited in the thread available here, but, surprise surprise, the reblog feature is not working anymore, so I'll just leave it down here, because I'm such a benevolent despot, willing to educate lost souls:
Except they're not. 🤡 No one in-universe believes Rhaenyra's children to be legitimate. We've already had this exact topic in the main series and, I promise you, that absolutely no one was arguing that Cersei's children are legitimate just because she officially claims as such.
Ned's accusation cost him his head and the North refused to acknowledge the rule of the Iron Throne any longer. Stannis declared himself the rightful King on the basis of Cersei's children being bastards. Then he sent a bunch of letters across the realm and enough lords stopped recognising Joffrey as King because he was revealed to be a bastard.
Do you think Stannis sent them a DNA test? A sex tape with Jaime & Cersei? No, this is what he wrote:
"All men know me for the trueborn son of Steffon Baratheon, Lord of Storm’s End, by his lady wife Cassana of House Estermont. I declare upon the honor of my House that my beloved brother Robert, our late king, left no trueborn issue of his body, the boy Joffrey, the boy Tommen, and the girl Myrcella being abominations born of incest between Cersei Lannister and her brother Jaime the Kingslayer. By right of birth and blood, I do this day lay claim to the Iron Throne of the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros. Let all true men declare their loyalty. Done in the Light of the Lord, under the sign and seal of Stannis of House Baratheon, the First of His Name, King of the Andals, the Rhoynar, and the First Men, and Lord of the Seven Kingdoms."
I could say the same thing as you and argue that Cersei claimed those children were Robert's, then Tywin and Jaime and Tyrion corroborated her claim. On his deathbed, under dictation, Robert names Ned Lord Regent "until my son Joffrey comes of age". Ned changes the words to "rightful heir" in the will.
So, going by that logic, you can argue that even Robert explicitly named Joffrey his son and heir, which would make Ned a traitor to the crown and Stannis a usurper. Yet this accusation of bastardy caused sufficient uproar within the Realm for the War of the Five Kings to break out. So, evidently, enough people were not okay with an illegitimate person as their King.
You can even draw a parallel between House Baratheon in ASOIAF rejecting Joffrey as a trueborn Baratheon and House Velaryon in HOTD rejecting Luke as a trueborn Velaryon.
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"Rhaenyra didn't have a choice; she was married to a homosexual man and they had to produce heirs somehow!"
Let's see what Rhaenyra could have done differently to secure her claim, ranging from the most ridiculous to the most advantageous.
Rhaenyra / Aegon
Otto puts this proposal forward to Viserys in order to combine the two rival claims.
I don't blame Viserys for refusing; the age difference is too big and I doubt 17(?)-year-old Rhaenyra would appreciate being betrothed to a toddler. It would also place her towards the twilight of her reproductive years by the time Aegon could be reasonably expected to consummate the marriage.
It's a good idea on paper, but just too damn weird, I'll grant you.
Rhaenyra / Jason Lannister
Rhaenyra acts so offended that Jason Lannister has the audacity to propose to her, but why wouldn't he?
He is conceited and aloof, but he's the lord of a very powerful, very rich house that has been sidelined by the Targaryens ever since the Conquest. They're just itching to receive some attention. He has the means to build her a Dragonpit at Casterly Rock if she so wishes, he has the resources to back up her claim financially and militarily and he would definitely press for her to become Queen.
Marrying Jason would also rob the Hightowers of a powerful ally and leave them more isolated.
Betrothal tour
If it's marrying for love Rhaenyra wanted, she had a reasonable chance for that, too!
There's no reason she couldn't have married Harwin, if she wanted. They were both at court at the time. She could have easily made a list of eligible young men starting with the Red Keep and the Crownlands and assessed each possibility. It's not terribly romantic, but imagine having this level of freedom.
Viserys was super permissive with her and told her to pick whomever she wanted (I presume he'd have to be of noble birth, at least).
He even organizes a royal progress for her with this very purpose in mind. This was a one-in-a-lifetime opportunity that no other woman or man in Westeros has ever had. To journey through Westeros, be feted by the lords, go to feasts and balls organized in your name... ! No wonder Alicent considers Rhaenyra ungrateful.
All she does is huff and complain and insult her suitors. She is seen exasperating Boremund Baratheon with her antics.
Viserys only forces her to marry Laenor Velaryon after the brothel debacle with Daemon. It's suggested that he doesn't believe her to be a maid any longer by the fact that he sends her moon tea. In his mind, he has to marry her as soon as possible to prevent her from making any more rash decisions.
The match is not a bad one, politically-speaking. The Velaryons are a another rich, powerful house that could provide Rhaenyra with a fleet, money and even dragons to secure her claim.
Rhaenyra & Laenor
Jace and Aemond are about the same age. Realistically speaking, how hard did Rhaenyra and Laenor actually try to conceive?
I realise that they both suffer from the trappings of patriarchy here, but they seemed to get along fine and could have had a reasonable partnership. With the risk of sounding crass, Margaery proved more inventive than them.
In any case, Rhaenyra and Laenor didn't need to have children. Viserys already provided enough heirs. Rhaenyra could have just named Aegon as her heir and be done with it, instead of creating a future succession crisis by having bastard children.
Corlys wouldn't have been pleased by this and could have threatened not to support her, since he seems really pressed to become grandfather to a king, but by compromising on Green heirs to succeed her, the question of a succession war becomes less likely. And what's Corlys going to do, not support his son, the royal consort?
Laenor doesn't need heirs either. Laena exists and has her own children. They can get Driftmark after him. If Corlys is really hung up on male primogeniture, he can take it up with his wife, daughter and son-in-law.
Absolutely do not marry Daemon and make people think you killed your husband.
Of course, it would also help tremendously if Rhaenyra didn't alienate the green faction by completely ignoring her siblings and acting hostile towards them whenever the occasion permitted. If she maintains a good relationship with Alicent, she is less likely to collaborate with Otto.
Of course, Viserys messed up his own succession when he took a second wife from a prominent family and fathered younger sons that could challenge his eldest daughter's claim. But there are also actions that Rhaenyra could have taken on her own to secure her own position and even prevent future wars. She wasn't a powerless, hapless victim in all of this.
I think one of the most frustrating things about both the ASOIAF/HOTD fandom is the inability for people to discuss these characters or books without projecting their own personal/modern sensibilities. I've noticed this a lot with TB so targ nation in general, but they fundamentally hate the world building and lore of a feudal medieval monarchy. They hate tradition, they hate religion, they hate the concepts of honor and duty which is why they can't or won't understand Criston's character if their lives depended on it, they hate anything that can be deemed in anyway conservative, religious, traditional lol, they hate the inheritance laws preferring males, they hate that women have to stay chaste before marriage, they hate arranged marriages, they hate the fact that people care so much about bastards and that bastards cannot inherit, etc. I could go on. Yes, from a modern perspective a lot of these things are now deemed obsolete and uncool, but there were very good reasons for these things AT THE TIME. These people just hate the entire lore that this world is based on and instead of good faith engagement with the lore, they just call anyone who uses the world/lore to logically analyze the text a sexist, misogynist, tradcath, conservative, or whatever. It boggles my mind. Why interact with media, and not just interact with it, but have entire social media accounts dedicated to their hyper fixation and borderline parasocial relationship with these characters/books if they fundamentally hate the world and hate seeing their faves lose as a result of the rules in place. I'm begging these people to go read one of the thousands of fantasy books that isn't set in a rigid feudal monarchy.
This is such a spot-on, insightful comment into how a lot of people interact within this fandom. đź‘Źđź‘Źđź‘Ź This typology of the late stage social justice internet warrior that fundamentally refuses to engage with the historicity of the story's spatio-temporal setting, i.e. a feudal medieval monarchy of European inspiration, that predates centralization and thus absolutism. Even though Westeros is so very obviously decentralized, many fans do not realize this for some reason and pretend it's an absolute monarchy a la Louis XIV.
Many people, like GRRM, who is a prolific science-fiction writer (!), are attracted to this setting regardless, because of the pageantry (look how obsessed he is with creating house sigils and mottos), the romantic flair + the fact that it's literally the setting of fairy-tales, which inspires in the reader a world of magical possibilities. Of course, the world of ASOIAF is an attempt to shore up the 'realism' of this imagological construct, but medieval fantasy is a genre in and of itself, like there are certain flavours of societal layering and organization that are inescapable, like the rigid social structures, the political rule as the purview of the elites, the importance of religion in everyday life etc.
This is not to say that those aspects are in any way aspirational for a modern person or that we should yearn to go back to those times, only that they are merely characteristics that developed hand-in-hand with the technological advancements and the economic progress of the period. If you have a civilisation whose economy is centered on land ownership as the main source of wealth acquisition, its society is going to look a certain way. Certainly, in Westeros there are some craftsmen and merchants, but there seem to only be a handful of towns throughout the entire continent and, off the top of my head, the mention of guilds and the middle classes are few and far between in the books, so there is no concrete way of determining how consolidated the bourgeoisie is. At the same time, this is absolutely just a story and not a 1:1 recreation of those times, so these gaps are completely understandable, as there only is so much worldbuilding one man can do.
Anyway, I often see analysis or commentary being circulated, which are obviously a projection of modern sensibilities, like how there should be no king at all or the Iron Throne is evil or how Westeros should revert to being separate kingdoms because somehow the concept of unifying regions with a common cultural and religious background is automatically bad, always and with no exception. To me these are rather perplexing, but they are so wide-spread that it's not even worth it to try and open up that particular can of worms. Some of these takes don't even make sense if you expand them to their natural implications. Someone has to be the king in a medieval society; it doesn't work like some people envision this - no one chooses to rule and that's that, problem solved? How is society going to be organized then? It's doubtful that the conclusion of the last book will be anarcho-socialism. The Iron Throne consistently cuts kings who are unworthy to sit on it - it's not a symbol that the author intended to be construed as malevolent. Sure, death of the author and all that, but it's not described as mystically quasi-sentient for nothing either. Fragmenting Westeros back into individual kingdoms while maintaining the feudal structure retains the inherent unfairness and inequality of said hierarchy; it's amazing to me how it could be considered progress etc.
To wrap this up, yes, I agree, some people would be much better served if they simply found other fantasy media based on a different time frame. Because it doesn't make sense to become so entrenched in this specific one if you hate the medieval period so much. Again, this is not to say that the Middle Ages cannot be criticised because that's just the way it was back then, they absolutely can, but a lot of criticism shared around is just done in bad faith and with no real desire to understand the historical phenomena at play.
For example, a few days ago, someone commented on one my bastardposts that "just because it was illegal doesn't make it fair", with the implied solution to that conundrum that Rhaenyra should simply be allowed by society to do whatever she pleased. No reflection on why that law/rule was in place to begin with, no consideration of how it would impact the wider community, no proposal as to how one could advance to a society in which all children are considered equal, regardless of their parents' marital status etc. The thought doesn't go beyond "feminism in its modern definition can magically crystallize in any historical period because it is completely divorced from the material conditions of a society".
One thing I do find annoying about GRRM's work is that he really lays on the 'bastardphobia' thick lmaooo. In real life, back in the medieval era, bastards weren't necessarily treated poorly per se, well depending on their fathers/mothers circumstances, I suppose, and weren't seen as these 'inherently untrustworthy, lustful creatures.' Henry VIII's bastard, Henry Fitzroy, was given a royal title and household I believe and wasn't treated like a leper or anything. Mary Queen of Scots bastard brother was a friend/advisor to her before they had a falling out or some type of conflict iirc. He also I think held noble titles/lands.
I get he's trying to make a point about bastardy in Westeros and this is a fictional story but I feel like people take this fictional Westerosi mindest and project onto actual history. Like, bastards were really not that big of a deal or whatever in real life.
On the whole, I think that men's bastards were looked upon more favourably than bastards borne by noble ladies, but in-universe it's a trope meant to explore certain themes or ideas and provide much-needed narrative tension. It may appear exaggerated at times, but it bears mentioning that not all ASOIAF bastards are controversial. The case of Dorne is one to note, of course, and there are other individual examples of bastards that are handled in a fairly chill manner - Mya Stone, Edric Storm (who would have had an OK life if it weren't for Melisandre constantly trying to kill him), Joy Hill, Garse & Garrett Flowers, Aurane Waters etc. There are enough high-born bastards that are shown to be either considered for or occupying official positions such as master-at-arms, in the City Watch, on the High Council, there's one that was Lord Commander of the Kingsguard (Addison Hill) etc. So I wouldn't even say GRRM has an axe to grind against bastards.
