Is inbreeding good or bad?
In the eyes of the general public, couples in consanguineous marriages are prone to having children with genetic defects, which is highly detrimental to eugenics and healthy births.
This is a scientific fact.
Since the primitive era of human origins, the cruel natural environment has long helped humanity eliminate the vast majority of dominant disease genes.
Millions of years later, by the time humanity developed relatively advanced civilizations, genetic diseases were all recessively inherited—only if both parents carried the recessive gene for the same disease would their child have a roughly one-in-four chance of suffering from it.
Note that it must be the recessive gene for the *same* disease.
Close relatives, whose genes originate from the same ancestor, are obviously more likely to carry the same type of recessive genes.
Their children are more prone to being born with mental or physical deformities.
However, if close relatives interbreed for dozens, hundreds, or thousands of generations, all the recessive defective genes in this bloodline will be fully exposed.
By discarding the children who carry ‘paired’ recessive defective genes, the remaining offspring will inevitably possess fewer recessive defective genes than the previous generation.
In other words, through a cruel system of elimination, inbreeding helps reduce defective genes—a disguised form of genetic optimization.
Of course, genetic optimization works both ways.
Besides reducing inferior genes, there is also the addition of superior genes—a more practical approach through crossbreeding.
But here, we are only discussing the concept of ‘inbreeding to reduce inferior genes.’ To achieve genetic optimization through inbreeding requires the efforts of at least dozens of generations.
If new blood is introduced halfway through, bringing new defective genes, all previous efforts are rendered void, and the process must start over from scratch.
Without a thousand years of direct bloodline intermarriage, the idea of a “noble bloodline” is nothing but a pipe dream.
In the great Celestial Empire of Earth, there are no absolute aristocratic families with a thousand years of history—the kind that could refuse a royal marriage alliance.
Therefore, for the Chinese people, consanguineous marriage will always be a taboo to be avoided.
Even looking across the ten thousand years of Earth’s history, only the pharaoh families of ancient Egypt achieved this—and they later perished due to their system of inbreeding, because ‘inferior’ mixed blood was introduced midway, meaning everything had to start over.
Continuously giving birth to freaks and mentally disabled heirs could not sustain their increasingly collapsing dynastic rule.
If their ruling power didn’t decline, would the ‘noble’ pharaohs have intermarried with other families?
Ultimately, the ancient pharaoh lineage went nearly extinct—perhaps the people didn’t all die out, but the dynasty and the system it established were eliminated.
The ancient European nobility also had similar ideas to the pharaohs, but unfortunately, they fared even worse—such as the hemophilia that devastated European royal families.
The main reason was their inability to carry out thorough, direct-line reproduction; every now and then, fresh blood was introduced midway.
But what Earthlings couldn’t accomplish, many families on the continent of Ice and Fire did.
They possessed true royal bloodlines.
Take the Targaryen family, for example.
In fact, a great race that practiced inbreeding once existed on the continent of Essos—the ancient Valyrian Freehold, of which the Targaryens were merely a small branch.
Just how strong was the bloodline of the Valyrians?
One only needed to look at the current Daenerys Targaryen to understand.
Aside from the Valyrian remnants, the ducal families of Westeros (former royal families who were demoted to dukes due to Aegon Targaryen’s invasion and unification of the Seven Kingdoms) were all, more or less…
well, they could only be considered ‘secondary’ inbreeders, as they also intermarried with other families.
The main reason this world could achieve “genetic optimization through inbreeding” was that their histories were far too ancient.
For example, the protagonist family of the plot—the Starks of the direwolf—had a family history of at least 8,000 years.
Then there was the Frey family of the Twins, the architects of the Red Wedding.
This family had always been discriminated against by the upper nobility due to their shallow foundations.
So, just how ‘nouveau riche’ were the Freys?
Well, they were ‘merely’ a marquis family with a 600-year history, possessing nothing but money.
Uh, if a 600-year-old wealthy family were placed in the Celestial Empire, that would be…
The point of saying all this was simple: Viserys’s intention to climb into his own sister’s bed might be considered a crime in the barbaric and magical world of Westeros and Essos, but it was not a crime of ethics.
The Targaryen family had always adhered to an ancient tradition: the union of brother and sister.
For instance, Aegon, who founded the Targaryen dynasty, married his two sisters.
Uh, yes, two: his older sister Visenya and his younger sister Rhaenys.
King’s Landing was composed of three hills—Aegon’s High Hill, Rhaenys’s Hill, and Visenya’s Hill—named to commemorate the three founders of the dynasty.
In fact, Daenerys’s parents, the Mad King Aerys and Queen Rhaella, were also brother and sister, and even her grandparents were brother and sister.
If Dany had been born ten years earlier—no, probably five years would have been enough—she would very likely have married her eldest brother, Rhaegar.
“And then?” Dany said flatly to Lilith.
“Viserys is a bastard, I’ve known that for a long time.” Lilith gave her a strange look, puzzled by her breezy indifference.
At the same time, seeing that her words couldn’t hurt Dany, the anger in her heart surged even higher.
She whipped her head around and pointed at Ser Jorah, who was watching her warily.
“He fucked me too.
Even though he didn’t call out your name, the way he looked at me…
it was as if he was fucking your soul through my skin.” “I did not,” the knight said.
He had been guarding against Lilith suddenly lashing out and hurting the ‘pitiful and frail’ Dany, but he hadn’t expected to be dragged into it himself.
His face flushed red, and he waved his gauntleted hands repeatedly.
“You slander me.
I never thought such a thing.” “I’ve read countless men.
You can’t hide it from me,” Lilith sneered.
“Ahem, you are a Khaleesi now, no longer a top-tier whore from a Lyseni brothel,” Dany said awkwardly, immediately issuing a stern warning.
“I imagine Khal Jhaqo would absolutely not want to hear what you just said.” She had long known that Jorah Mormont harbored lustful desires for Daenerys.
Well, she had learned it from *Game of Thrones* before crossing over: when Jorah and Tyrion met in a brothel, he was holding a silver-haired, purple-eyed Volantene whore who was cosplaying the famous Queen of Meereen—Daenerys from two or three years in the future.
“Jhaqo?” Dany failed to intimidate her.
Lilith’s mouth twisted even further as she leaned close to Dany’s ear, whispering so only she could hear, “How do you think I ended up with him?” Dany’s heart tightened.
*Have I become Helen of Troy?* “Does he deeply love me too?
Doesn’t seem like it,” she whispered back, not feeling the least bit bashful.
Lilith sneered.
“Because he’s just like me.
He only wants what the Khal had.
In his heart, there’s no difference between you and Drogo’s steed or royal tent.” “Then aren’t you worse than even Drogo’s tent?” Dany pushed her head away and loudly shooed her off.
“Leave.
I don’t want to discuss these boring topics with you anymore.” “Fine, I’ll leave.
The khalasar returns to Vaes Dothrak almost every year anyway.
I hope you’ll still be this proud when you join the ranks of the dosh khaleen crones.” Lilith left in a huff.
Early the next morning, as the sky just began to brighten, Jhaqo’s khalasar slowly moved north through the cold morning mist.
They had no choice but to leave.
Let alone drinking water and fodder for the horses, they didn’t even have firewood left; it had run out days ago.
The Red Waste was dry and scorching hot during the day, but at night the temperature dropped below ten degrees—a typical vast Gobi Desert climate.
Stepping out of the dim tent, Dany found the outside world frighteningly bright.
The slanting sun rose like a furnace dripping with molten gold, its searing liquid spilling across the earth, baking the ground until it was cracked and hollow.
The small camp was not silent.
The sound of old people coughing came from nearby grass shelters, a small group of toddlers ran and played in the open spaces of the camp, ignoring the heat, and further away, some women went about their daily chores.
On the outskirts, over a hundred unsaddled horses were put out to pasture.
They stamped the ground, pacing listlessly, occasionally letting out weak neighs as if complaining: *Why isn’t there even a single blade of grass in this damned place?* Seeing Dany’s figure, the handmaids immediately stood by with water, wine, fruits, and roast meat.
After wiping her face and eating a little something, Dany had Aggo and the others direct the khas to move back to the original location of the grass-woven palace.
Although it was also desolate there, at least the nearby hills helped shield them from the sun and sandstorms.
Qotho and Haggo were still in the tent accompanying the dying Drogo.
Dany called Aggo, Kovarro, Jhogo, Rakharo, and Ser Jorah into the shade, where they sat on the ground in a circle.
The first expanded political meeting was held beneath the small hill.
“Drogo’s khalasar has scattered,” she told them directly.
Jhogo said matter-of-factly, “A khal who cannot ride is not fit to be a khal.” “The Dothraki only follow the strong,” Ser Jorah said.
“Princess, I am sorry, but we simply cannot hold the people.
Starting with Ko Pono, Drogo’s warriors have been leaving in droves, day by day.” “Well, how many people and supplies do we have left?” Dany asked.
“Khaleesi, not a single member of your khas has left,” Aggo said solemnly.
“We are the Khaleesi’s guards.
The one we swore loyalty to is you, not the Khal, so we all stayed.” Dany felt a surge of joy.
Although the Dothraki were barbaric, their integrity was far better than those of more ‘civilized’ nations—like the Westerosi, who treated sacred oaths like dog shit.
“Who else?” Dany asked in a brisk tone.
“Our khas is less than a hundred men, but I saw at least two hundred of our people when we moved the tents just now.” No matter which Daenerys it was, the Dothraki were her foundation.
The horse lords were loyal, brave, and straightforward—far more real and trustworthy than the people of her ‘homeland’ tens of thousands of miles away.
And in terms of identity, Dany was the Khal’s wife, having long since adopted the “household registration” of the horse people of the Great Dothraki Sea.
Therefore, she referred to the Dothraki as ‘our people.’ The others failed to notice such a subtle shift in mentality, or rather, the horsemen before her had always considered her one of their own.
Jhogo answered her, “The old people who cannot move easily stayed behind, along with the cowards, the weak, and the sick.
The departing new khalasars refused to take them in.”