#valyria

𝐁𝐞𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐫𝐢𝐝𝐞𝐫 𝐨𝐟 𝐕𝐞𝐫𝐦𝐢𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐫 𝐰𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝 𝐢𝐧𝐜𝐥𝐮𝐝𝐞

⤷ gender neutral, ambiguous race, and any size reader. Requests are open, thank you for reading!  

ᴹᵃˢᵗᵉʳˡᶤˢᵗ | ᴹᵃˢᵗᵉʳˡᶤˢᵗ ᴵᴵ

Loss of the dragons makes maintaining this identity much more difficult. The crippling of House Velaryon during the Dance led not only to the dwindling of their power and influence but to absorption into mainstream culture. Meanwhile the factions that wanted an end to or control over Targaryen power (and likely orchestrated the extinction of their dragons in hopes of achieveing that) found the Targaryens generally stubbornly committed both to maintaining their power and their traditions. Removing Targaryen power post-dragon then necessitated erasing their remaining cultural identity or wiping out the house entirely. The Baratheons by this point, on the other hand, are so deeply assimilated that they barely seem to realize they even are Valyrian. The show gives Raymun a rant about the Targaryen "aliens," only for him to go into combat beside a Baratheon who apparently doesn't count, and Robert tries to hunt down even the Targaryen children, seemingly intent on wiping out the entire bloodline despite— perhaps even unconscious of— his being as much a Valryian descendant as they are.

To Westeros and the anti-Targaryen factions within it, the Baratheons are what they hoped to make the Targaryens– defanged, de-cultured, and, as much as possible, in nature, in power, in blood, a group in line with the rest of Westeros— a faction that played by Westeros' rules and could be controlled by those rules. But for every apparent move toward losing Valryian identity the Targaryens continued to cling to it in other ways. (Even Aegon the Unlikely, one of the Targaryens most willing to embrace Westerosi norms and marry into Westerosi families, was invested in restoring the dragons— conveniently for the Targaryen's rivals, his most ambitious attempt at this not only failed but killed a large amount of his family, and directly led to the rule of Aerys, who allowed a Westerosi lord to dictate much of his policy—policy which frequently undid Aegon's earlier work— and became a cartoonishly evil enough figure that Westerosi society could justify the extiction of his entire family as "casualties" of removing him.) And when they have acculturated, it usually proved detrimental to their longevity, figurative and literal. Despite show!Raymun's claims that they "disrespect" Westerosi traditions, it's a Targaryen's recourse to, and his family's following of, the bonds of an explicitly Andal ritual that directly leads to Baelor Breakspear's death.

Despite having allowed preexisting Westerosi culture to remain ascendent after their arrival with little change, it was the Targaryen's stubborn refusal to dispense entirely with their own culture that became so problematic to their subject population, both as a point of mainstream cultural discomfort and internal power jockeying among Westerosi families and factions. Interestly, the indigenous culture of the North is in a similar situation, but being more widespread, less powerful, and dispersed mostly through a geographically distant and difficult area, the North's cultural longevity is not a concern to mainstream Westeros on the same scale. This survival and independence through remoteness is seared into the Northern identity; the association with going South as bringing death to the Starks is not only realized in the political murders that have befallen the family, but in their cultural survival— they have only been allowed to maintain the cultural independence they have preserved because of their distance from much of the Seven Kingdoms proper. If their ambitions or geography had brought them into closer contact with mainstream culture, it's likely the North would have faced similar pressures— suggestive or aggressive — to adapt to the preferred cultural norms just as the Valyrians did.

In this way, the Targaryens and the North/First Men join the dragons, the Children of the Forest, and other elements either assimilated into, or banished/exterminated by Andal encroachment and control. Westeros had already been remade in the shape of the Andal vision long before Aegon's conquest, and the Valyrians lacked the numbers or influence to reasonably supplant it. The Valyrians, like the First Men, were willing to make peace with some amount of cultural and political collaboration and dissonance; both, notably, adopted their enemy's religions, for example. The Andals meanwhile, seem to prefer, if not need, anyone they come in contact with to fall into line with their own ideas, and have little tolerance or consideration for things to go the other way around. (This even colors their approach to magic and religion, which I went into in a humans vs magic in Westeros vs Essos post a couple years ago.) However they manifest, all these non-Andal/Westerosi, non-comformist elements are intolerable "nails that stick up" to the predominately Andal culture of the Seven Kingdoms and if those nails are close enough or prominent enough, they will inevitably be "hammered down." Despite the Targaryen's initial strength, eventually the Andal legacy worked on the Targaryens as it did on all the others, a legacy dependent on xenophobia, assimilationist pressures, and commitment to extermination if less passive measures prove ineffective.

Another interesting note related to this is how the GOT show zeroed in on these general themes of assimilation, separatism, and xenophobia, and in fact went out of its way not only to emphasize them but to use them in enforcing a moral viewpoint not really present in the books, and with wildly vacillating intents and results.

In the books its clear the Lannisters under Tywin have interests in taking over the Targaryen's spot at the top, both by undermining them, and by eventually worming their way into the vacuum left after the Targaryens are ousted. There's also an insular quality to the family's ambitions: Tywin's commitment to extending his influence through his own bloodline, his marriage to a first cousin and refusal to remarry, Tyrion's vague position as not "fully" part of the family and so not fully allowed to represent them or be relied on, and Jaime and Cersei's incestous affair and resulting offspring. In the books, this seems to reflect the family's tendency toward myopic self-obsession, a trend begun with Tywin and inherited to some extent by his children. (Cersei, for example, seems to have genuine affection for Jaime and connection to her children, but most of it is rooted in how they resemble, or are even extensions of, her.) In the show, however, this goes further, with the Lannister ambitions and loyalty to "brand" and family seeming to verge on family-centric isolationism, and a desire on some level to separate themselves from the rest of Westeros' society as a unique class as the Targaryen's had done, made clear through invented lines like Tywin's "the lion doesn't concern himself with sheep," and Cersei's "everyone who isn't us is an enemy." It's an odd decision, I feel, but also one that's clearly designed to mark the Lannister's out as "bad guys," if only for their almost xenophobic repulsion to those outside the clan, an impulse that let's them manipulate and murder even children and innocents with little compunction.

By the end of the show, however, xenophobia is a good thing, a crowning achievement for the show's "heroes." Daenerys, being Valyrian, a Targaryen, having been raised outside Westeros, and commanding a mixed force of foreign soldiers (and, presumably, also being an uncowed female) makes her insufficiently assimilated and thus a threat to True Westeros Culture; she becomes every inch the evil foreign "alien" threat Westeros has imagined the non-compliant Targaryens to be for centuries. Her convenient and inexplicable descent into "madness" only proves her insufficient assimilation and thus insufficient humanity; it is only right that she be put down like the rabid animal she is.

Sansa meanwhile, as a Northerner (for some reason, the darling and apparent moral center for the show runners by this point) is sprung from the font of all goodness and truth. (Also, unlike Daenerys, who has a show-only speech about how despite all she's suffered, it's her own innate self and—explicitly foreign and Targaryen– identity that has brought her through her struggles; Sansa instead equates her abuse and violation with making her who she is, and even thanks the people who enacted it for enlightening her. This, it seems, makes her taking power while being female forgivable.) So when Sansa echo's Cersei's "enemies" line, it's all for the good, and when she implies Arya's disagreement with her may cause a rupture between them that will mark Arya as "not family" and thus, the enemy, this is also good. Her role, after Daenerys is dead and the last of the "alien" foreign influence gone with her, as ruler of the newly separated, apparently isolationist kingdom in the North is the ultimate triumph for xenophobia, and one we're expected to celebrate.

A further look into the reader from this fic. I would love to expand on this character further. I have multiple ideas regarding her role in events such as 'A Dance with Dragons,' 'A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms,' the Blackfyre Rebellions, and even the events of Game of Thrones.

⊹₊⟡⋆ Reader ⋆⟡₊⊹

— (Name) Balaeryon —

Origin: Old Valyria

Born: Winter of 120 BC. 18 during the Doom.

Race: Valyrian

WHAT THE FUCK WAS BIG ENOUGH TO TAKE A CHUNK OUT OF BALERION IN VALYRIA?

THE SUN ☀️ AND THE MOON 🌕