Wednesday, August 24, 2016

Game of Thrones: The Reasons for Incest




    Once Game of Thrones and HBO confirmed that Jon Snow is actually a Targaryen a few people were disappointed because they think now Jon can't marry Daenerys because she's his aunt. What part of this show has given the impression that being blood related is an obstacle to romance at least for the nobility? 


Doing incest right... well...

      Some real world facts: Royalty and nobility have been kissing their cousins and more since the dawn of time. In Ancient Sumeria and Ancient Egypt, royal families preferred siblings to marry each other. Abram (a.k.a. Abraham, the father of Judaism) was actually a prince who married his half sister Sarai (a.k.a. Sarah). King Philip II (Mary I's husband) married his niece Anna of Austria. The purpose of such marriages was to keep land and fortune in the family as well as to cement alliances. It was not uncommon for first cousins to marry and though now royals are much more selective in their choice of consort, they still marry a 5th cousin or further; mostly because they have little choice, almost all of the nobility of England are related through some great-great grandfather or other.



Targaryens are the sister-f&*%ers of Westeros

      It was only labeled as incestuous when families wanted to divorce or dissolve unions either because the union wasn't fruitful or a father wanted to marry his daughter to someone of better status. 



Some guys prefer brunettes, others like them blond...
and related to them

      I've gotten over Jaime screwing his twin sister to be honest. Some people theorize that means they could really be Targaryen bastards but wanting to bump uglies with your brother or sister isn't a mark of royalty. It still happens to common people whether by accident or on purpose regardless of status. I've grown more concerned that Jaime loves Cersei more deeply than she loves him given she cheated on him... with her first cousin, Lancel (damn, she likes her men blond and blood related doesn't she?), while he was away fighting. So my heart's gonna somewhat bleed for him when he eventually finds out (if he does at all because it would suck if he didn't).  



This is accidental incest, by the way
   
     There may be dragons and ice zombies in this story but George R.R. Martin based his novels off real world events and real people and those people married their cousins for mostly political reasons. So Jon could marry Sansa if it's proposed because it would unite their houses and bring peace and Sansa could become Queen of the 7 Kingdoms one day. I've already seen MEMEs of people shipping them and that's okay. I don't even blink anymore when someone starts making out with some blood relation on this show. We're okay with incest but ONLY on GoT. In other cases it's gross. 


Be honest, kissing your first cousin is less gross than
kissing your brother or sister

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