the craziest thing is how you’ll be prowling around wikipedia and find some entry about an unknown 14th century ruler who was physically deformed and couldn’t string a coherent sentence together.
and you laugh: look at those uneducated, slobby 14th century citizens who went with the flow of things.
then you see an interview with RFK jr. and you wave it away, because even if you notice how much he fits the profile, you think to yourself: “there’s someone in charge who would prevent this in 2026,” and get back to your tiktok feed of blonde influencers in nondescript luxury apartments showing off their morning routine.
"things are normal’, you keep telling yourself. there’s someone in charge who knows what they’re doing–some higher power to guide us.
nah, it’s only _______. but we’re not allowed to say that word.
And it was the painter’s job to make them look reasonably good…so whatever he looked like in reality was probably worse.
Incest offspring usually looks fine and has a normal life (apart from the extreme predisposition to cancer, etc.)
We shouldn’t stigmatize the victims. They have to tolerate enough terrible shit.
Charles II of Spain in particular, who’s depicted here, is kind of an outlier. His body was so fucked up it’s hard to tell if the post mortem report is genuine or if the guy writing it didn’t embellish it by an insane degree. We do know that intellectually disabled to some degree, in addition to the numerous physical illnesses he suffered. And by all accounts he was a generally nice person.
Yeah ancient Egypt was rolling that way too.
Bruh… look at the author and the books.
'Member when Daenerys gets sold to the huge sweaty barbarian dude, and a few minutes later he’s tearing that shit up from behind barbarian style and he makes it clear he has no interest in talking or her as a person and she only exists to fuck and bear his spawn?
Then when she’s horrified and sad and doesn’t know what to do and feels trapped she talks to another girl and gets the sage advice to take over and be the boss in the bedroom, and the next scene is her getting on top and taking charge sexually?
Yeah, in the actual books she’s 13. That whole bit of story line is about a child being raped and then that child ‘learning to like it’ and how to ‘give a man what he needs’ so that she can matter to him.
That happens in the very first book. They first have rapey time in her 2nd chapter in the book. 84 pages into the story. GRRM started writing with this part in mind.
And you’re surprised dude made incest between (sometimes) consenting adults something with no real repercussions?
To be fair it took a lot of incest to make the Habsburgs what they were.
There’s a reason it’s called the Habsburg Jaw
Targaryens also were around for at least the same time, maybe more, because they were already considered an old house when Daenys foresaw the doom, and that was like 500 years before the game of thrones story
Incest was rare, even among the historical pre-Westeros Targaryens. Definitely also rare in Valyria. There were a shit ton of noble houses that ruled Valyria, and this ensured a complex web of political scheming, while also diluting the incest problem. Now, another thing that also caught my attention when reading Fire and Blood is that Targaryens are, health wise, flimsy as fuck. They die like flies of things others would survive. They are also prone to neurodivergency and many were labeled as weak of disposition and often not very athletic. It is what makes the odd tale of a Targaryen with strength and prowess for combat actually stand out. So in many more ways than just facial structure, incest seems to be affecting them somehow.
That’s true, the incenst is only necessary to keep the dragon riding blood in the family, if most of the noble houses have dragon riding blood then it doesn’t matter.
There is also the problem of the stillborn babies with dragon wings and scales.
To be fair they do go mad
If you re-record a VHS tape once, it’ll probably look just as good as the first recording.
If you reuse the same tape over and over again it starts to get wonky.
The Backrooms
"For House Targaryen, the ideal marriage was brother-to-sister, or failing that, marrying close kin such as cousins, uncles, or nieces. This practice preserved the “blood of the dragon,” "
Imma say this meme hits the nail on the head there
Heavily depends on when in the timeline you’re looking at. They had stopped the sibling boinking for a good while by the time A Game of Thrones starts.
Her parents and grandparents were both siblings were they not? The only way she could have gotten more inbred was if she was a daughter of twins lol
Were they? I though they stopped that a few centuries previously due to pressure from the church.
Her parents were the mad king and his sister wife Rhaella. Who bore 8 kids, 3 made it to “adults”. The first being Rhaegar. The biological father of Jon Snow. Meaning the two main characters who were aunt/nephew, fucked and Jon’s kids could have been his cousins if she had gotten pregnant
I once watched this video where they continued copying vhs from the previous version
What a great video! I guess that’s why we used to keep a “Master Copy” that was never played, other than when it was being duplicated.
I tell you you’re too inbred for my potions.
Potion seller, I’m telling you: I’m going into battle, and I need your strongest hemophilia remedy
Because at some point they decided that we couldn’t have ugly people in fictional roles anymore ever. Like less than before and there weren’t that many before.
Is that Sweet Dee Reynolds? I think you are better off with the Habsburg
No, it’s THE ALUMINUM MONSTER!!!
… shut up, Bird
I came here to see if anyone else saw Sweet Dee. Glad I’m not the only one.
The likelihood of noticeable genetic defects in offspring from an incestuous relationship is far less
likelythan most people think (unless there was a lot more incest in their ancestry). Cersei and Jaime Lannister having pretty and generally healthy kids is not that surprising. Pretty Targaryens are more tricky to justify but can be explained by magic and shit (I mean, they have purple eyes, as you do seem to be aware, judging from the pic, and can communicate with big lizards - it doesn’t seem too far-fetched that they have some protection against genetic disorders).Also, I actually can’t think of prominent cases of incestuous offspring in fiction beyond ASoIaF, not enough to claim there is some pattern there, at least.
Edit: “the likelihood is far less likely” is of course nonsense.
The ‘Flowers in the Attic’ series by V.C. Andrews is full of incestuous relationships. Actually, incest seems to be a theme in many of her books.
Only ones I can think of are from The sound and the Fury and Xfiles episode Home.
Oh yeah, I remember that episode. Good counterexample to OP’s thesis, really.
The problem is that the chances are significantly higher and they only go up with each round of incestuous offspring, which is very likely with royalty.
Also, having a certain genetic trait doesn’t mean that the line is immune to other genetic disorders. There can even be a problem where the genetic mutation which causes a benefit can cause other traits which are neutral or negative.
Looks a lot like Mark Zucc
That’s not Zuck?
it looks a lot like him though
Really? I don’t see the reptilian scales or souless, robotic eyes
I’m talking about the ZUCC when he’s wearing his human-mask
Conspiracy theory time:
It’s all a psy-op from the elite ruling shadowy cabal of billionaires to make us think their inbreeding turned them into the elves they were promised they’d be, and not the ghoulish goblins they became.
Because show business is a business. Need an evil demon queen? Put horns and a tail on a hot babe in a skintight black catsuit.
Cause in fiction the rulers are actually god’s chosen with magical gifts unlike real world claims by the nobility.
