Aerys & Rhaegar: Deranged Dynamic Duo
Sept 15, 2017 3:42:43 GMT
Weasel Pie and freyfamilyreunion like this
Post by Some Pig No Doubt on Sept 15, 2017 3:42:43 GMT
A crackpot to end all crackpots, because why not. Referenced in another thread, this was something I put together a while ago about the possible "real" nature of Rhaegar Targaryen.
ETA: VIOLENT CRIME TRIGGER WARNING
While writing the Fisherman’s Daughter theory and thinking about Lyanna and/or Ashara possibly trying to escape King’s Landing with baby Aegon - perhaps pegged as a sacrificial lamb by father or grandfather – I began musing on the overall image of Rhaegar, how he’s portrayed and how he’s viewed by those in current story, and how no one (and I mean NO ONE) would believe him capable of kidnapping Lyanna for nefarious purposes, much less feeding his own son to the flames. By all accounts in the books and TWOIAF, he is this god amongst men: beautiful, noble, good at everything he did, would have made an amazing king, etc. And yet, as a famous author once noted, "all hearts have dark corners"...and I wondered if perhaps our perfect dragon boy had corners darker than most.
I started thinking about this and how often/easily we can be fooled by outward images - a person’s true inner self can be very, very different from that projected on the outside. Some people have the ability to recognize what is really there – "The seeing, the true seeing, that is the heart of it" ; "I see you, dark heart" – but most? Well, most see the Sealord’s Cat....exactly what they want to see.
So upon thinking about duality of human nature, my mind naturally went to the most obvious example of this, which would be Ted Bundy. Yep, straight to serial killers, that's how I roll.
Anyway, I’m recalling the Ted Bundy drama and how his crimes seemed so much more heinous and despicable because Bundy himself was such an unlikely perpetrator: young, handsome, charming, successful career as attorney, etc. Ted Bundy had pretty much everything going for him, and pretty much anything available to him - yet he still murdered scores of women, had sex with their corpses, and kept their body parts as souvenirs. He did this because, underneath all those looks and charm, the guy was a cold-blooded sociopath. And of course eventually he flubbed up in his careful and methodical plans, and was caught and outed for the killer he was.
Ok, so I’m sure you can see the connection I’m making between Ted Bundy and our resident Dragon Prince Rhaegar Targaryen. That being said, though, I still couldn’t shake thoughts about Papa Aerys: his personality, his paranoia, his bizarre tendencies, his innate cruelty, his obsessions - basically that Targaryen madness that is but a coin flip. Viserys was a chip off the old mad block, just so, but Rhaegar won the genetic lottery in everything and escaped it totally? Hmm. Wasn't entirely sold on that.
So, in another glaring example of why I should never be allowed near the internet, I decided to use my Google-fu to see if there have been any notorious father/son serial killers - still mulling on Ted Bundy, remember - that might have piqued our Renaissance Turtle’s interest and provided some inspiration for these characters.
Man, does my scattered ADD-riddled brain pay off sometimes. Check this shit, applejack.
Allow me to introduce Joseph Kallinger, aka The Shoemaker/Cobbler Killer, and his teenaged son Michael. In the mid-1970s, this duo was responsible for the murder of three people and the torture of four families in the northeastern US.
Before I go into some specifics, I want everyone to keep in mind that GRRM has splattered past-to-present echoes all throughout the books – so it shouldn’t be a surprise that a murderous father/son psycho duo shows up in current and Rebellion-era days. In this case, the current-day example will be Roose and Ramsay Bolton, and their past parallel counterparts are Aerys and Rhaegar. A bit of a flip, as with Roose/Ramsay the father is the cool and collected one living a fairly "normal" noble life on the face of it, and the son is the outward, unrepentant,whacked-out sadist nutjob; Aerys and Rhaegar are opposite that, obviously.
Okay, so re: Joseph and Michael. Won’t say too much about their rampages because you can Google that for all the grisly parts if you like. Most of it isn’t relevant so I’m recapping pertinent highlights only here.
Nutshell: after a horrifically abusive childhood at the hands of foster parents, Joe Kallinger turned into an abuser himself and paid things forward - first toward his wife and children and then to other random strangers when torturing your family just loses the novelty and gets too pedestrian, right. After years of mental and physical abuse directed at his poor kids formed the perfect psychotic Pygmalion creation, Joe roped his then 13yo and equally cray son into his pursuit of the sadistic arts. According to psychiatric professionals, Joe had been hearing a voice of "God" for quite some time, the voice emanating from a floating disembodied head that only he could see, and the god (known as Charlie) was commanding him to torture and murder young boys. I guess Joe thought he couldn’t manage this alone, and confessed these divine orders to his son Michael – who, according to record, cheerfully offered to help his father fulfill the god’s wishes.
Parallels to Aerys shoud be pretty obvious here – the slow descent into madness, the voices, etc . By the time of the Duskendale incident, Aerys has been aboard the crazy train for some time, and it was only speeding up. I also find it interesting in terms of the absence of any known bastard offspring for Aerys despite all of his dalliances, and of course there’s Ned’s comment about rising against Aerys Targaryen „to end the murder of children“ – it is still my suspicion that Aerys was finding/trying to find his dragonseeds in order to kill them for some higher purpose; this is sortof in the vein of ol‘ Joe here wanting to off little kids to curry favor with a talking head.
Important point of note: after the handoff of the psycho torch to Michael, the pair did in fact embark on a mission to carry out Charlie’s orders...a mere 11 days later, they abducted a 9yo boy and tortured him to death, including cutting off his penis.
Yep, that’s right. A young lad, root and stem, because the voice of a god spoke and told them to. Gee, where have we seen this before...
The boy’s death sated the bloodlust but for a moment, though. Next, Kallinger decided to up the ante by targeting someone closer to home...literally; his next victim was his eldest son with his second wife, Joe Jr. "Joey" was found drowned in an abandoned building; later, Joe Sr. and Michael confessed to committing the murder together. I’ll note that this was the THIRD attempt on Joey’s life and this successful run occurred THREE days after the second; all three attempts were staged so as to look like accidents, of course, as Joe Sr. had high hopes of cashing in on Joe Jr.’s life insurance policy.
I’m reminded of both Roose’s son Dominic, dying under mysterious circumstances and believed to have been murdered by Ramsay, and also the sudden and suspicious death of Aerys‘ son Jaehaerys in 274 (as well as son Daeron at 6 months old in 269). Again, inverse reactions to the deaths of their respective sons – Roose seeming somewhat meh and unperturbed about the whole thing, Aerys completely flipping out and executing people he felt responsible. IMO it’s very possible that in both cases the sons were responsible for the death; whether Dad knew or conspired in this is TBD. Roose certainly suspected Ramsay, and while the jury is out on Aerys I wonder if his OTT reaction was a big cover-up for the real perpetrator.
Should also mention that during these fledgling days of Joe’s murder career, he was also quite the burgeoning arsonist, setting multiple fires to a property he owned in hopes of collecting insurance money. (One of Joe’s unsuccessful attempts on his son’s life above was also "trial by fire", in which he tried to lock the boy inside a burning trailer during a routine family arson run.) Kallinger’s heavy flirtation with fire continued after his criminal convinction too, which I’ll get to in a minute.
Takeaway: Joe Kallinger really liked burning things for some kind of personal gain. Although Michael didn’t share this predilection, he did participate in some of the arson events as part of a father-son bonding moment or whatever.
Finally, the meat of the insanity bone: in 1975, Joe and Michael Kallinger went on a violent crime spree across the northeast US that ended with a family held hostage and the death of a young woman. Won’t belabor the story other than to say that several family members were imprisoned and tortured inside a home and a 21yo female was killed. There was also attempted rape, most notably once attempt in which the elder Kallinger instructed his son to rape one of the women – Michael gave it the college try, but in the end couldn’t get turned on enough to complete the job. (Rhaegar and his subtle asexualism comes to mind here.)
Some details about the girl, though – Maria Flasching was the neighbor of the family the Kallinger Gang was brutalizing inside. Maria was a nurse who did regular welfare checks on an elderly member of the family, and either on her way to or returning from work that day, she stopped to look in on her charge in the classic case of very wrong place at very wrong time. Joe opened the door, dragged her inside, and took her down to the home’s basement where he bound and gagged her. She met her death at Joe’s hands because she refused to perform a very violent and ugly sexual act upon a male prisoner also bound and gagged in the basement with her. Kallinger opened her throat for her lack of cooperation; when police discovered her body in the basement, her WHITE nurse’s uniform was soaked with blood. Ironically, Maria was the only person in the household that day that was not sexually assaulted in some form.
All right, slim young girl in a white dress spattered with gore, check. My tinfoil antennae start to quiver here at the mention of the basement, though, because my mind instantly went to the Black Cells. Also Brandon riding for KL, and Ethan Glover being inexplicably set free after his dungeon staycation, Varys leading Tyrion through the lower levels in the dark, Varys hating magic and all those who practice it. I’m wondering if something went down in the dungeons of King’s Landing, and if that something involved a dead Lyanna Stark.
Moving on – due to a series of massive screwups w/r/t this particular rape/robbery/murder trifecta, father and son were eventually tracked down and arrested (after leaving most of the northeast on pins and needles as folks waited for these monsters to be caught). The trial itself was quite fascinating, with Kallinger going Full Psychotic before and during in an attempt to bolster an insanity defense - incoherent ramblings and shouting, having conversations with invisible persons/beings (including Charlie the "God Head" that had been haunting him for some time and instructing him to kill little boys). However, most of the really neato behavior that caught my eye in relation to our ASOIAF dragon dudes happened once ol’Joe was safely behind bars.
Not exactly a model prisoner, Kallinger's madness went to 11. In 1977, he set himself on fire – he somehow got hold of lighter fluid (I guess that wasn't on the no-fly list for convicts at the time) and poured it on himself, setting fire to his cell in the process. Multiple accounts state that he was trying to fry an EGG on his person – he cracked the egg on his head, and then set himself alight to cook it. However, though that may have been the motivation cited in this instance, it reflected a consistent theme with Kallinger, as he attempted suicide multiple times... See, Kallinger was convinced that he would become God – or more accurately, REPLACE God – after his death. Apparently he had been in touch with BOTH God and Satan over the long years, and both of them agreed that ol’Joe was the Chosen One selected to bring about Armageddon and the total destruction of the human race. After all had been annihilated, only the Chosen One would remain – and he would be transformed by the "cleansing fire" into the god he was destined to become.
Yeah, chew on that for a minute. Lots of material to work with in that one small segment. First, the obvious nod to Aerion Brightflame and his 1000 Horrible Ways to Die wildfire experiment. Next, the cracked & fried egg references, which now have me sniffing the wind re: Aerys' involvement at Summerhall. Finally, the Enemy That Was Promised stuff and the rebirth in fire.
Ol’Joe died by choking on his own vomit during a seizure 20 years later, much like Aerys died choking on his own blood and soiling himself during his own seizure of sorts. It is unknown whether or not Joe replaced God as he so fervently hoped (although since we are all still around today and mankind has proved perfectly capable of destroying itself all on its own, thank you very much, I’m assuming "no").
His son Michael, though? His teenaged accomplice? Well, due to his being a minor and his endurance of a lifetime of awfulness bestowed upon him by Dad, Mike was sent to a reformatory until age 21 to undergo serious mental deprogramming. After his release he was officially placed on probation until his 25th birthday, at which time he completely disappeared from the radar screen. Presumably he took on a new identity, was "reborn" as a new man, and went on to live his life elsewhere in anonymity. His whereabouts today are unknown.
I should note for posterity that Rhaegar was 24 when he "died‘"at the Trident and was mysteriously "cremated, as is custom for fallen Targaryens", deets classified. Mance= Rhaegar FTW, amirite?
*****************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************
Now that you’re totally discombobulated by this reminder of the depravity that man can practice against fellow man, I’m sure you’re wondering WHY I took the trouble to tell you about it. What in the seven hells led me to choose THIS example as a potential inspiration point for the Aerys/Rhaegar arc?
Well...what I haven’t mentioned yet is WHERE all of this went down. It may interest you to know that the final Kallinger reign of terror event described above occurred in Leonia, New Jersey. Leonia is a mere 20 miles from GRRM’s childhood hometown of Bayonne, New Jersey – not even a 30 minute drive away. George had already graduated college and was living elsewhere at this time, but his parents and younger sisters were both still living in Bayonne when this happened in January of 1975. This particular gruesome spree of robberies and brutal assaults paralyzed Leonia and every surrounding area while the assailants were still at large, and spawned a massive multi-state manhunt that finally resulted in their apprehension at their home in Philadelphia 10 days after the Leonia attack.
Point being, this was a very newsworthy and scary event that would have hit GRRM close to home – Leonia and neighboring towns such as Bayonne would have been under lockdown due to the MO of these killers (forced entry into a home) and their preference for targeting families, brutalizing even women and young children, and sexually assaulting their victims. I can totally see George not only being in constant contact with his family while these guys were on the run, but also following the case and the outcome of the case very closely. We know he draws upon his real-world experiences and interests for inspiration, and I think this incident may have been one of those.
To tie all of this terrible information together, I wanted to discuss some ideas about a possible Sadistic Evil Rhaegar, the Rebellion parallel to Roose Bolton. Soft spoken, somewhat eccentric but not too much, quite gracious and personable on the outside, but raging sociopath on the inside.
Someone carrying on a normal everyday life with wife and kids and cute kitty cat, but also someone absolutely capable of kidnapping and murdering women and slaughtering babies in blood sacrifice. You know, how all the neighbors of these famous serial killers are all like, "He was just really quiet, seemed like a nice guy, would wave to us from the driveway and sign for our packages every now and then...I can't believe there were 14 bodies buried in the basement..." Hell, John Wayne Gacy delivered frigging balloons to sick kids at the hospital, didn't stop him from stuffing a bunch of teenage rent boys into his crawlspace.
Re: the sacrifice, though, I also wanted to think about two independent nuggets from the text that I believe may be related: DanyRhaegar's dream in which she sees the army "armored in ice" at the Trident and bathes them in dragonflame, and Aerys' "fruits" along with the notion that he could burn King's Landing and be reborn in the flames as a dragon. When we're talking about needing special babies to hatch dragons, or house souls of dragons, or transfer consciousness to dragons, or whateverthehell involving dragons and fire, it starts sounding like maybe Aerys and Rhaegar had a common goal in mind: making a dang dragon. Aerys wanted to be one; Rhaegar wanted to have one to fight the War for the Dawn 2.0 along with his Prince that was Promised with the Song of Ice and Fire. This Kallinger father/son love story has me wondering if perhaps Aerys and Rhaegar weren't quite so opposed as people believe.
And, if Show Creep is to be believed, we will see Ramsay Bolton get jealous and greedy, and slay Roose to obtain Wardenship of the North. Will we eventually hear of some similar spat between our Dragon Royals? Did someone want to keep it all for himself and just fail to send the memo? Anyhoo, lots of possibilities.
ETA: VIOLENT CRIME TRIGGER WARNING
While writing the Fisherman’s Daughter theory and thinking about Lyanna and/or Ashara possibly trying to escape King’s Landing with baby Aegon - perhaps pegged as a sacrificial lamb by father or grandfather – I began musing on the overall image of Rhaegar, how he’s portrayed and how he’s viewed by those in current story, and how no one (and I mean NO ONE) would believe him capable of kidnapping Lyanna for nefarious purposes, much less feeding his own son to the flames. By all accounts in the books and TWOIAF, he is this god amongst men: beautiful, noble, good at everything he did, would have made an amazing king, etc. And yet, as a famous author once noted, "all hearts have dark corners"...and I wondered if perhaps our perfect dragon boy had corners darker than most.
I started thinking about this and how often/easily we can be fooled by outward images - a person’s true inner self can be very, very different from that projected on the outside. Some people have the ability to recognize what is really there – "The seeing, the true seeing, that is the heart of it" ; "I see you, dark heart" – but most? Well, most see the Sealord’s Cat....exactly what they want to see.
So upon thinking about duality of human nature, my mind naturally went to the most obvious example of this, which would be Ted Bundy. Yep, straight to serial killers, that's how I roll.
Anyway, I’m recalling the Ted Bundy drama and how his crimes seemed so much more heinous and despicable because Bundy himself was such an unlikely perpetrator: young, handsome, charming, successful career as attorney, etc. Ted Bundy had pretty much everything going for him, and pretty much anything available to him - yet he still murdered scores of women, had sex with their corpses, and kept their body parts as souvenirs. He did this because, underneath all those looks and charm, the guy was a cold-blooded sociopath. And of course eventually he flubbed up in his careful and methodical plans, and was caught and outed for the killer he was.Ok, so I’m sure you can see the connection I’m making between Ted Bundy and our resident Dragon Prince Rhaegar Targaryen. That being said, though, I still couldn’t shake thoughts about Papa Aerys: his personality, his paranoia, his bizarre tendencies, his innate cruelty, his obsessions - basically that Targaryen madness that is but a coin flip. Viserys was a chip off the old mad block, just so, but Rhaegar won the genetic lottery in everything and escaped it totally? Hmm. Wasn't entirely sold on that.
So, in another glaring example of why I should never be allowed near the internet, I decided to use my Google-fu to see if there have been any notorious father/son serial killers - still mulling on Ted Bundy, remember - that might have piqued our Renaissance Turtle’s interest and provided some inspiration for these characters.
Man, does my scattered ADD-riddled brain pay off sometimes. Check this shit, applejack.
Allow me to introduce Joseph Kallinger, aka The Shoemaker/Cobbler Killer, and his teenaged son Michael. In the mid-1970s, this duo was responsible for the murder of three people and the torture of four families in the northeastern US.
Before I go into some specifics, I want everyone to keep in mind that GRRM has splattered past-to-present echoes all throughout the books – so it shouldn’t be a surprise that a murderous father/son psycho duo shows up in current and Rebellion-era days. In this case, the current-day example will be Roose and Ramsay Bolton, and their past parallel counterparts are Aerys and Rhaegar. A bit of a flip, as with Roose/Ramsay the father is the cool and collected one living a fairly "normal" noble life on the face of it, and the son is the outward, unrepentant,whacked-out sadist nutjob; Aerys and Rhaegar are opposite that, obviously.
Okay, so re: Joseph and Michael. Won’t say too much about their rampages because you can Google that for all the grisly parts if you like. Most of it isn’t relevant so I’m recapping pertinent highlights only here.
Nutshell: after a horrifically abusive childhood at the hands of foster parents, Joe Kallinger turned into an abuser himself and paid things forward - first toward his wife and children and then to other random strangers when torturing your family just loses the novelty and gets too pedestrian, right. After years of mental and physical abuse directed at his poor kids formed the perfect psychotic Pygmalion creation, Joe roped his then 13yo and equally cray son into his pursuit of the sadistic arts. According to psychiatric professionals, Joe had been hearing a voice of "God" for quite some time, the voice emanating from a floating disembodied head that only he could see, and the god (known as Charlie) was commanding him to torture and murder young boys. I guess Joe thought he couldn’t manage this alone, and confessed these divine orders to his son Michael – who, according to record, cheerfully offered to help his father fulfill the god’s wishes.
Parallels to Aerys shoud be pretty obvious here – the slow descent into madness, the voices, etc . By the time of the Duskendale incident, Aerys has been aboard the crazy train for some time, and it was only speeding up. I also find it interesting in terms of the absence of any known bastard offspring for Aerys despite all of his dalliances, and of course there’s Ned’s comment about rising against Aerys Targaryen „to end the murder of children“ – it is still my suspicion that Aerys was finding/trying to find his dragonseeds in order to kill them for some higher purpose; this is sortof in the vein of ol‘ Joe here wanting to off little kids to curry favor with a talking head.
Important point of note: after the handoff of the psycho torch to Michael, the pair did in fact embark on a mission to carry out Charlie’s orders...a mere 11 days later, they abducted a 9yo boy and tortured him to death, including cutting off his penis.
Yep, that’s right. A young lad, root and stem, because the voice of a god spoke and told them to. Gee, where have we seen this before...
"One day at Myr, a certain man came to our folly. After the performance, he made an offer for me that my master found too tempting to refuse. I was in terror. I feared the man meant to use me as I had heard men used small boys, but in truth the only part of me he had need of was my manhood. He gave me a potion that made me powerless to move or speak, yet did nothing to dull my senses. With a long hooked blade, he sliced me root and stem, chanting all the while. I watched him burn my manly parts on a brazier. The flames turned blue, and I heard a voice answer his call, though I did not understand the words they spoke."
The boy’s death sated the bloodlust but for a moment, though. Next, Kallinger decided to up the ante by targeting someone closer to home...literally; his next victim was his eldest son with his second wife, Joe Jr. "Joey" was found drowned in an abandoned building; later, Joe Sr. and Michael confessed to committing the murder together. I’ll note that this was the THIRD attempt on Joey’s life and this successful run occurred THREE days after the second; all three attempts were staged so as to look like accidents, of course, as Joe Sr. had high hopes of cashing in on Joe Jr.’s life insurance policy.
I’m reminded of both Roose’s son Dominic, dying under mysterious circumstances and believed to have been murdered by Ramsay, and also the sudden and suspicious death of Aerys‘ son Jaehaerys in 274 (as well as son Daeron at 6 months old in 269). Again, inverse reactions to the deaths of their respective sons – Roose seeming somewhat meh and unperturbed about the whole thing, Aerys completely flipping out and executing people he felt responsible. IMO it’s very possible that in both cases the sons were responsible for the death; whether Dad knew or conspired in this is TBD. Roose certainly suspected Ramsay, and while the jury is out on Aerys I wonder if his OTT reaction was a big cover-up for the real perpetrator.
Should also mention that during these fledgling days of Joe’s murder career, he was also quite the burgeoning arsonist, setting multiple fires to a property he owned in hopes of collecting insurance money. (One of Joe’s unsuccessful attempts on his son’s life above was also "trial by fire", in which he tried to lock the boy inside a burning trailer during a routine family arson run.) Kallinger’s heavy flirtation with fire continued after his criminal convinction too, which I’ll get to in a minute.
Takeaway: Joe Kallinger really liked burning things for some kind of personal gain. Although Michael didn’t share this predilection, he did participate in some of the arson events as part of a father-son bonding moment or whatever.
Finally, the meat of the insanity bone: in 1975, Joe and Michael Kallinger went on a violent crime spree across the northeast US that ended with a family held hostage and the death of a young woman. Won’t belabor the story other than to say that several family members were imprisoned and tortured inside a home and a 21yo female was killed. There was also attempted rape, most notably once attempt in which the elder Kallinger instructed his son to rape one of the women – Michael gave it the college try, but in the end couldn’t get turned on enough to complete the job. (Rhaegar and his subtle asexualism comes to mind here.)
Some details about the girl, though – Maria Flasching was the neighbor of the family the Kallinger Gang was brutalizing inside. Maria was a nurse who did regular welfare checks on an elderly member of the family, and either on her way to or returning from work that day, she stopped to look in on her charge in the classic case of very wrong place at very wrong time. Joe opened the door, dragged her inside, and took her down to the home’s basement where he bound and gagged her. She met her death at Joe’s hands because she refused to perform a very violent and ugly sexual act upon a male prisoner also bound and gagged in the basement with her. Kallinger opened her throat for her lack of cooperation; when police discovered her body in the basement, her WHITE nurse’s uniform was soaked with blood. Ironically, Maria was the only person in the household that day that was not sexually assaulted in some form.
All right, slim young girl in a white dress spattered with gore, check. My tinfoil antennae start to quiver here at the mention of the basement, though, because my mind instantly went to the Black Cells. Also Brandon riding for KL, and Ethan Glover being inexplicably set free after his dungeon staycation, Varys leading Tyrion through the lower levels in the dark, Varys hating magic and all those who practice it. I’m wondering if something went down in the dungeons of King’s Landing, and if that something involved a dead Lyanna Stark.
Moving on – due to a series of massive screwups w/r/t this particular rape/robbery/murder trifecta, father and son were eventually tracked down and arrested (after leaving most of the northeast on pins and needles as folks waited for these monsters to be caught). The trial itself was quite fascinating, with Kallinger going Full Psychotic before and during in an attempt to bolster an insanity defense - incoherent ramblings and shouting, having conversations with invisible persons/beings (including Charlie the "God Head" that had been haunting him for some time and instructing him to kill little boys). However, most of the really neato behavior that caught my eye in relation to our ASOIAF dragon dudes happened once ol’Joe was safely behind bars.
Not exactly a model prisoner, Kallinger's madness went to 11. In 1977, he set himself on fire – he somehow got hold of lighter fluid (I guess that wasn't on the no-fly list for convicts at the time) and poured it on himself, setting fire to his cell in the process. Multiple accounts state that he was trying to fry an EGG on his person – he cracked the egg on his head, and then set himself alight to cook it. However, though that may have been the motivation cited in this instance, it reflected a consistent theme with Kallinger, as he attempted suicide multiple times... See, Kallinger was convinced that he would become God – or more accurately, REPLACE God – after his death. Apparently he had been in touch with BOTH God and Satan over the long years, and both of them agreed that ol’Joe was the Chosen One selected to bring about Armageddon and the total destruction of the human race. After all had been annihilated, only the Chosen One would remain – and he would be transformed by the "cleansing fire" into the god he was destined to become.
Yeah, chew on that for a minute. Lots of material to work with in that one small segment. First, the obvious nod to Aerion Brightflame and his 1000 Horrible Ways to Die wildfire experiment. Next, the cracked & fried egg references, which now have me sniffing the wind re: Aerys' involvement at Summerhall. Finally, the Enemy That Was Promised stuff and the rebirth in fire.
The traitors want my city, I heard him tell Rossart, but I'll give them naught but ashes. Let Robert be king over charred bones and cooked meat. The Targaryens never bury their dead, they burn them. Aerys meant to have the greatest funeral pyre of them all. Though if truth be told, I do not believe he truly expected to die. Like Aerion Brightfire before him, Aerys thought the fire would transform him . . . that he would rise again, reborn as a dragon, and turn all his enemies to ash.
Ol’Joe died by choking on his own vomit during a seizure 20 years later, much like Aerys died choking on his own blood and soiling himself during his own seizure of sorts. It is unknown whether or not Joe replaced God as he so fervently hoped (although since we are all still around today and mankind has proved perfectly capable of destroying itself all on its own, thank you very much, I’m assuming "no").
His son Michael, though? His teenaged accomplice? Well, due to his being a minor and his endurance of a lifetime of awfulness bestowed upon him by Dad, Mike was sent to a reformatory until age 21 to undergo serious mental deprogramming. After his release he was officially placed on probation until his 25th birthday, at which time he completely disappeared from the radar screen. Presumably he took on a new identity, was "reborn" as a new man, and went on to live his life elsewhere in anonymity. His whereabouts today are unknown.
I should note for posterity that Rhaegar was 24 when he "died‘"at the Trident and was mysteriously "cremated, as is custom for fallen Targaryens", deets classified. Mance= Rhaegar FTW, amirite?
*****************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************
Now that you’re totally discombobulated by this reminder of the depravity that man can practice against fellow man, I’m sure you’re wondering WHY I took the trouble to tell you about it. What in the seven hells led me to choose THIS example as a potential inspiration point for the Aerys/Rhaegar arc?
Well...what I haven’t mentioned yet is WHERE all of this went down. It may interest you to know that the final Kallinger reign of terror event described above occurred in Leonia, New Jersey. Leonia is a mere 20 miles from GRRM’s childhood hometown of Bayonne, New Jersey – not even a 30 minute drive away. George had already graduated college and was living elsewhere at this time, but his parents and younger sisters were both still living in Bayonne when this happened in January of 1975. This particular gruesome spree of robberies and brutal assaults paralyzed Leonia and every surrounding area while the assailants were still at large, and spawned a massive multi-state manhunt that finally resulted in their apprehension at their home in Philadelphia 10 days after the Leonia attack.
Point being, this was a very newsworthy and scary event that would have hit GRRM close to home – Leonia and neighboring towns such as Bayonne would have been under lockdown due to the MO of these killers (forced entry into a home) and their preference for targeting families, brutalizing even women and young children, and sexually assaulting their victims. I can totally see George not only being in constant contact with his family while these guys were on the run, but also following the case and the outcome of the case very closely. We know he draws upon his real-world experiences and interests for inspiration, and I think this incident may have been one of those.
To tie all of this terrible information together, I wanted to discuss some ideas about a possible Sadistic Evil Rhaegar, the Rebellion parallel to Roose Bolton. Soft spoken, somewhat eccentric but not too much, quite gracious and personable on the outside, but raging sociopath on the inside.
"It was said that no man ever knew Prince Rhaegar, truly."
Re: the sacrifice, though, I also wanted to think about two independent nuggets from the text that I believe may be related: DanyRhaegar's dream in which she sees the army "armored in ice" at the Trident and bathes them in dragonflame, and Aerys' "fruits" along with the notion that he could burn King's Landing and be reborn in the flames as a dragon. When we're talking about needing special babies to hatch dragons, or house souls of dragons, or transfer consciousness to dragons, or whateverthehell involving dragons and fire, it starts sounding like maybe Aerys and Rhaegar had a common goal in mind: making a dang dragon. Aerys wanted to be one; Rhaegar wanted to have one to fight the War for the Dawn 2.0 along with his Prince that was Promised with the Song of Ice and Fire. This Kallinger father/son love story has me wondering if perhaps Aerys and Rhaegar weren't quite so opposed as people believe.
And, if Show Creep is to be believed, we will see Ramsay Bolton get jealous and greedy, and slay Roose to obtain Wardenship of the North. Will we eventually hear of some similar spat between our Dragon Royals? Did someone want to keep it all for himself and just fail to send the memo? Anyhoo, lots of possibilities.
