#westeros

So I just stumbled upon the umpteenth post on incest, and decided to clarify in the simplest way possible once and for all:

1. Why is incest considered morally wrong

2. Why is incest to be avoided

To answer 1., I need to specify two things: why is incest considered morally wrong here and now, meaning, in our society and in ourtimes. Because if you look back in time you’ll find mutliple examples of incest which was totally fine with everyone:

• The ever so mentioned Middle-ages noble European dinasties, who frequently married between cousins, uncle and nieces, aunt and nephews
• A number of the members of the Ptolemaic dinasty, last but not least the famous Queen Cleopatra who was supposed so hook up with her half-brother
• Deities in mythology. In particular in the Greek-Roman mythology, pretty much all deities are related and all want to hook up. Oh and Japanese mythology. Quite possibly other mythologies I don’t remember.
• Cain and Abel both wanted to marry their sister. In fact, it is said Cain killed Abel precisely over this. Then Abraham, and others, who married nieces.

This clarifies that a mindset on incest varies depending on where and when we were born. As such, statements such as “You don’t disapprove incest!!” are much like “You are pro/versus abortion!!”: At the end of the day, they depend of one’s personal views and education.

Moreover, going over Wikipedia you’ll find that:

• Most countries in the world allow cousin marriage

• A number of countries allow uncle-niece, aunt-nephew - the first one is much more common though - incest, there’s wasn’t a graphic on this, it was just me reading the entire Wikipedia page, you’re free not to trust my memory and read it yourself.
• What iswidely not allowed is incest in direct line, which is incest between direct descendants and ancestors, meaning parents and children, grandparents and grandchildren, and so on - for Westeros examples, we have Craster and his daughter-wives, which was made even worse by the fact that he was an abuser and condamned his sons to become popsicles. Incest between siblings is also widely illegal today, from the relationship itself being a punishable offense, to the sole marriage being illegal. But it’s not illegal everywhere.
• The definition of incest according to law varies much from country to country: in some countries it’s up to third cousins, in others it considers only direct descendants. This too proves how the mindset varies even more and that you may or may not find people who consider it a taboo.
• In many countries where incest, however defined, is illegal, a permission can be asked to marry a close relative - for example in Italy you can turn to a tribunal to obtain permission to marry your aunt/nephew.
• Macro-Religions like Catholicism, Hebraism, Hinduism and Islam ban incest. But if you look it up, religions like Catholicism and Islam often granted and grant concessions to marry close relatives - though never in direct line. And then maybe used that same excuse to annul marriages - see Henry VIII of England and his first wife. Not to mention how reading the Ancient Testament you’ll find so many examples of incest to make you think that religion simply cared or cared not based simply on what was convenient at the moment.

But this is just a list to exhibit that the where and when of my first question do change the answer. This is a concept called “cultural relativism” in anthropology, which means exactly what you think it would: “our ideas and conceptions are true only so far as our civilization goes.” . And our civilization comprehend our society, our family, our education, our country, out history…

So let’s talk here and now, which would be today in a average western country: why is incest considered morally wrong?

The answer lies in psychology and anthropology. The so called Westermark effect explains that children who grow up together develop a reverse sexual imprinting, which means that as grown-ups, they tend notto feel sexual attraction towards each other,whether or not they are actually blood-related. This explains why you don’t often see adoptive siblings getting married, because they develop a sense of vicinity that excludes sexual attraction and eros and so on. And in it lies also why we as individuals mostly feel incest as “icky”: because psychology says that in most cases we don’t want to hook up with our siblings. I don’t want to hook up with any relative of mine. I’m ready to bet half of you wouldn’t as well. Then again exceptions exist, both here and in Westeros, Lannister kids or not.

So this is why some people feel icky about Jaime and Cersei, Jon and Daenerys: because we don’t want the same for us. Personally, I’d have no problems with Cersei and Jaime either, if not for the fact that’s she’s kinda the incarnation of evil and all that follows, because I couldn’t care less about what others do, as long as they don’t hurt each other or a third party - which Jaime and Cersei sadly do.

But keep this in mind: the Westermark effect doesn’t apply to Jon and Daenerys: they did not grow up as siblings or cousin or even remote relatives. The effect doesn’t work on amount of DNA shared - let alone they couldn’t even know about that in Westeros -, but on having grown up together as family. This is why, even if we teleported Jon in our time and society, he’d have a harder time hooking up with either Arya or Sansa, because despite them sharing less DNA than with Daenerys,they share a sense of “family” that tends to exclude any sexual attraction.

In statistics terms, it’s huge bad luck that out of all the people in the world you fall in love with your nephew/aunt, but the point of my explanation is that they fell in love precisely because they don’t know.

And also maybe because of the so called “Genetic Sexual Attraction”, look it up.

And also because they’re both good-looking.

And also because they have similar characters and goals and a steady will to help people.

…

What else?

…

Oh yeah, maybe, just maybe, because they’re the fricking song of Ice and Fire and the center of the whole saga - blame Martin not me.

Proceeding to number 2: why is incest to be avoided?

Having already discuss the moral reasonable let’s move on to the scientific ones, specifically, genetics: simply put, because inbreeding genetic disorders. One example? Dwarfism. In a realistic world, which Westeros is not, Tyrion’s dwarfism can be blamed on his parents being first cousins. Other examples are albinism, fused limbs, microcephaly, misshapen skull, and so on. There’s a small island close to Sardinia where all the inhabitants have terrible eyesight, because they are descendants of a small group of people with bad eyesight and kept marrying between each other over years. In the Brazilian village of Araras the same happened, with the difference that here the inhabitants developed a terrible condition that doesn’t allow them to stay in the sun. Examples are endless.

Analyzing a Targaryen family tree, which again savvy people on Reddit did, you’d notice that clearly our world’s genetics doesn’t apply to the Dragon Lords, because if it did, most of the members would be severely malformed and probably wouldn’t live long, instead of being the super-human beauties that they are. Leave out Jon and Daenerys, because all their ancestors wouldn’t have lived to begin with. For this reason we can infer that a child between him and her shouldn’t have particular problems, so the genetics argument doesn’t apply here either. And the genetics argument is the only completely impartial and objective counterargument that can be used against incest in our world: all the others are subject to cultural relativism. I hear a lot people stating that Westeros isn’t the real world and as such we shouldn’t apply our views on it, but they use this argument incorrectly, because they refer to simply liking it or not, when the science itself is different - in a world where winters last for years - and so, to make an hyperbole, you might as well try to apply our science to an alien.

I wrote this as a clarification for people who mindlessly apply standards that don’t belong and notice that in all of this I never said “it’s a fictional story, you can do as you like”, bevause there’s no need to come to that.

The argument “you ship Jon and Dany, therefore you support incest” is the stupidest thing on Earth because it all depends on how you define incest, then cultural relativism says you may approve of it or not and no-one can give you shit for it, but most importantly, the Westermark effect assures you that shipping relatives doesn’t imply you’re shipping yourself with a relative.

It took all of this to simply state: you may, actually, ship whoever you want. An argument that was initiated by Jaime ages ago: “We don’t get to choose who we love.”

Battle of Winterfell episode in a nutshell

Everyone who called it saying the crypt is a bad idea

Everyone, the entire world after seeing Arya on Episode 3 of GoT