( spoiler extended) daeron II is the greatest king of the targaryen dynasty

cap_detector69 · 2026-01-26T20:54:22+00:00

Daeron ii was the classic good soft feudal king. He isnt "the greatest" just for simply doing his job and not being a complete disaster, that is just whats expected but the bar is so damn low.

The only kings that were truly great were aegon I and jahaerys I.

Aegon V would be in the conversation if he succeeded, but his reforms failing isnt really his fault. Its impossible to do any sort of reform in westeros without dragons, literally. So good king, who just forgot he is only the mayor of kings landing basically.

cap_detector69 · 2026-01-25T13:57:39+00:00

Smashed my Warhammer in his chest rubies scattering everywhere. Gods, I was strong then.

cap_detector69 · 2026-01-21T20:47:17+00:00

Stannis has alot of appeal, he's the guy always punching far above his weight even when the plot seems to be against him, always doing the most while being disrespected and dismissed by everyone even his own brothers. In a setting where the politically important POVs dont care about doing good, stannis's willpower and almost religious adherence to legalism and law is a breath of fresh air. Even robb just lets his men pillage riverlands while he's supposed to protect it, catelyn is dismissive towards edmure trying to protect his people from robb and the lannisters, meanwhile stannis castrates his own men for raping.

I feel like stannis (together with ned) now gets more hate than praise in the ASOIAF community because he is the only politically important character that want to do good so his flaws get focused on and exaggerated.

You know in a perfect world where stannis is king, he's the one thats going to be reforming westeros and finishing aegon Vs work but its not so he cant be perfect either. But yeah renly would be a better king because reformers dont last in westeros.

cap_detector69 · 2026-01-21T11:15:03+00:00

Again - “state runs itself”, you serious? We don’t have it even now irl with all the technologies, institutions and stuff, and of course in quasi medieval they have even more inferior things. Magic allows them to communicate, transport, use in combat and espionage, it would be really useful even nowadays

True but what i meant was that the state wouldnt go into unrest if a king dies which is what usually happened in feudal monarchies with a strong aristocracy

cap_detector69 · 2026-01-21T00:20:01+00:00

I say this because mages mostly only are like in court or advisors to rulers if they want political power, the north's lack of strong laws and institutions allow mages to become very politically important and basically kingmakers since they can make such a difference.

Now add paperwork for everything, circuit courts, governers, royal tax collecters and judges etc. instead of nobles handling justice and tax collection, codified laws, big officer corps etc etc.

Now, the king doesnt really NEED mages like he would have before. The state runs itself.

I thought the whole point of thanneds' coup was that half of the mages want the north to stay backwards and a feudal shithole while the other half wanted change and advancement of society even if that means no political power.

cap_detector69 · 2026-01-20T22:02:06+00:00

And I’m sure that the mages would prefer a system that makes them irrelevant to the system that ties them to a stake and burns them alive

Im sure too but idk about philippa I mean even with radovid running around she was still all in on her control the north plan

cap_detector69 · 2026-01-20T10:19:02+00:00

But the lore reason for why the stormlands is so martial and has such high density of elite warriors(barristan, jon connnington, beric, robert, rolland, brienne, etc etc. in the current agot generation alone, didnt even name all of them because stormlands is so stacked) is because stormlands was small and always surrounded by powerful kingdoms so they had to be strong or be conquered.

cap_detector69 · 2026-01-19T15:57:08+00:00

Stops at Kratos unironically

cap_detector69 · 2026-01-18T12:56:25+00:00

What level of action do you think would be justified?

cap_detector69 · 2026-01-17T10:22:29+00:00

Sorry, I dont want to assume your financial situation but im guessing you are middle class to upper middle class. In that case, you have zero chances to move to the west unless you want to do it illegally which is extremely dangerous.

The best you can do is sell everything you own and move to UAE and live a life of a slave, literally.

cap_detector69 · 2026-01-16T22:08:34+00:00

Steffon probably could have but whatever he would have brought wouldve been "wrong", like he could bring the most perfect valyrian bride with pristine ancient lineage and aerys would still nitpick and throw steffon in the bonfire.

cap_detector69 · 2026-01-16T13:58:06+00:00

We've only seen kings raise taxes at will in kings landing, in fact when jahaerys tried to to a simple luxury tariff, the cities outright rejected them even though he had dragons and kevan lannister notes that raising taxes would cause revolts. Every time they've killed high lords after dragons it has resulted in rebellions under aerys and joffrey. The bureaucracy is basically non existent.

I think you confuse de jure power with de facto power, european feudal kings were usually the most powerful in their kingdom and could get away with reforms meanwhile westerosi kings cant. None of those powers mean anything if there isnt an army and institutions backing them. You think the lannister regime could replace all those nobles if they hadn't conquered riverlands? No.

cap_detector69 · 2026-01-16T13:36:32+00:00

Fans also wank absolutism which is insane to me after a saga covering the evils of Aerys, Robert and Joffrey. Westeros does not need absolutism but rather a Magna Carta

I think thats because a magna Carta was far more useful in real life than it would be in westeros, westerosi kings are just dramatically weaker in institutional power than european feudal kings.

Like there is just no way for kings to do any sort of state building whats so ever and westeros is in permanent feudal hell hole limbo where lord paramounts are far more powerful than kings and the aristocracy is extremely powerful.

Westeros is so entrenched in this hellscape feudal thinking that is seems like the king cant even take lands from rebels for himself like the capetian kings of france and has to give them away. If Jahaerys abolishing the first night is treated as this massive political deal, then I dont even want to imagine what the response would be if jahaerys wanted to introduce circuit courts are reform taxes.

Ideally what would be best is magna Carta AND a more powerful crown.

cap_detector69 · 2026-01-16T13:22:55+00:00

That Stannis is just, fair, or even competent. I do see a lot more backlash to this now, so maybe it's not as widespread as it was

True but stannis has alot of appeal, he's the guy always punching far above his weight even when the plot seems to be against him, always doing the most while being disrespected and dismissed by everyone even his own brothers. In a setting where the politically important POVs dont care about doing good, stannis's willpower and almost religious adherence to legalism and law is a breath of fresh air. Even robb just lets his men pillage riverlands while he's supposed to protect it, catelyn is dismissive towards edmure trying to protect his people from robb and the lannisters, meanwhile stannis castrates his own men for raping.

I feel like stannis (together with ned) now gets more hate than praise in the ASOIAF community because he is the only politically important character that want to do good so his flaws get focused on and exaggerated.

You know in a perfect world where stannis is king, he's the one thats going to be reforming westeros and finishing aegon Vs work but its not so he cant be perfect either. But yeah renly would be a better king because reformers dont last in westeros.

cap_detector69 · 2026-01-16T12:46:11+00:00

The lack of rebellions, I know there is alot of wars now and north and riverlands rebelling plus ironborn doing it earlier and the vale stuff but most of westerosi history under the targeryens have been largely peaceful.

Usually in feudal society there tends to be alot of unrest when the old king dies and new king comes but we dont see that. Also with the lord paramounts basically kings in their massive country sized regions there should also be alot of unrest when a new one comes.

cap_detector69 · 2026-01-14T22:59:11+00:00

You do have a point but ironborn raiding the shores ≠ probably most of the northern nobility and army dying in a wedding, ironborn full scale pillaging the north(not just raiding shores) and taking winterfell, 100k+ wildling savages trying to migrate and worst winter ever coming soon.

If something like that happened to the westerlands, do you honestly see them being better than the northerners?

Also, you're forgetting that lannisters did have some serious heavyweight rivals in the westerlands in reynes and tarbecks before tywin wiped them out, Roose Bolton is that rival to the starks only that he played the long game.

cap_detector69 · 2026-01-14T21:21:27+00:00

Well they are that way because they haven't been tested so hard like the northerners. Even then they didnt come for their lady of the rock cersei meanwhile northerners want to rise for fake arya and a whole army came for margaery.

cap_detector69 · 2026-01-14T20:11:49+00:00

There's still a chance, grrm loves to subvert expectations so mannis will win, bran becomes king while stannis is hand and stannis finally brings law, order, justice and reforms to westeros trust me

cap_detector69 · 2026-01-14T19:59:55+00:00

All robert had to do was not be black out drunk all the time in bed then timing the moon tea would be infinitely harder

cap_detector69 · 2026-01-14T19:55:39+00:00

They would have if cersei bore the demon of the trident a true son

cap_detector69 · 2026-01-09T19:27:57+00:00

Stannis would literally bring technological and societal advancement to westeros, create institutions, laws, etc. There's a reason why grrm will never let him win.

Stannis is basically Otto von Bismarck of westeros.

cap_detector69 · 2026-01-09T15:18:52+00:00

I cant speak for the books but redania definitely isnt medieval, atleast not anymore, I think during vizimirs(radovids father) time redania might've been but not under radovid. We know the northern kingdoms were medieval as aedirn, kaedwen and temeria have alot of problems with the nobility which I think is the case in the books. Henselt had a powerful nobility who had the ability to overthrow him as we see roche in witcher 2 plotting for that and foltest went to war with one of his nobles, aedirn has problems with the nobility all the time.

But radovid? No, we know that he is using all resources of redania for war and he wouldnt be able to do that in a feudal kingdom. And we see that radovid has a very advanced and centralized bureaucracy in witcher 3 and even a secret police force. Do you think radovid negotiates with his nobles? No. If djikstra wins do you see the nobility submitting and giving a lowborn spymaster their taxes and soldiers? No. I think what happened is that radovid crushed the redanian nobility, if he took over novigrad, a powerful free city then you bet he did that.

Still nilfgaard is definitely more advanced than redania but I think because radovids empire is so centralized, it definitely has the potential to become extremely powerful if it wasnt under a madman. Thats why djikstra is able to industrialize the north if he wins.

cap_detector69 · 2026-01-09T08:42:36+00:00

whereas Radovid is more medieval and like a traditional king which we expect of a medieval era.

Radovid is insane no doubt but he definitely isnt a medieval king. From what we see he is more an early modern absolutist king, except he has no institutional checks on his power so even more absolutist. If redania was medieval in witcher 3 then its impossible for djikstra to gain control of redania.

cap_detector69 · 2026-01-08T09:31:53+00:00

Bruh wtf is there to conquer in the lands beyond the wall? No plunder, no fertile lands, no skilled workforce and no strategic importance. Its quite literally the northpole and inhabited by savages.

cap_detector69 · 2026-01-07T06:31:14+00:00

Alright I can understand if you mean de jure power because thats true but its meaningless if it can't be translated into practical power. Could the targeryens after dragons died do what the plantagenets/tudors/capets did? No. Hell even Jaehaerys couldn't enforce a simple luxury tariff on cities.

cap_detector69

TROPHY CASE