That garanteed Taringail a male heir to continue his line if Tigraine bore him a son. What did it give Mantear? The fucking approval by Laman for the wedding!

What's so hard to understand about this?



I'm a just hair away from insulting your intelligence.

- Lines from Ishara are matrilinear. It means men don't pass bloodlines from Ishara. They pass exclusively from mother to daughter only. Galad's offspring don't inherit any line from Ishara from him, only from his wife if she has any. Considering who Gawyn and Galad mean to marry, their children are out of Ishara's succession and the only chance their descendants ever re enter it would be by marrying a woman from Ishara's lines.

- Galad was a FUCKING TODDLER when Mordrellen died. He would never have been considered for the High Seat of Mantear anyway. Mordrellen had lost her only heir, and her last female relative within Mantear. Her closest female relative with enough lines from Ishara was a distant one, Morgase from Trakand. The dynasty of Mantear was ended with Tigraine's disappearance. Mantear's female line was finished, the bloodlines to Ishara were lost (they would reappear only when a male member married a woman who had some she would then pass to her daughter. There was no surviving Mantear woman closer to Mordrellen than Morgase, who we know was fairly distantly related, not a cousin as common folk understand it, rather a cousin removed a few times). Mordrellen died soon after of grief. We know Taringail was well disliked by Mantear (and the rest of Andor), why would Mordrellen or the Mantears would even want to pass the High Seat and all the lands and revenues attached to that to a baby boy who would obviously be controlled by his disliked scheming foreigner of a dad who was judged to have been a bad husband to Tigraine beside? Galad was much too young to show he wasn't his father's son! The HS passed to one of the former Queen's male Mantear relatives, not a close one as we know she had no surviving brother or close female relative. A male cousin or uncle thus, at best. It's as simple as that. Out with Taringail, the lands and revenues stay in Mantear.



He wasn't. By Cairhienin law as it stood then he couldn't even be! Perhaps Laman meant to his son his heir if the scheme to turn him into the ruler of Andor ever succeeded, but if he meant to make Taringail himself his heir eventually that would have involved changing the law of Cairhien that excluded Taringail because of his marriage to a foreign ruler (that had nothing to do with Taringail marrying into Trakand, Fionwe invented that. That's Andoran custom because of the matrilinear system, not Cairhienin. All the books say on this issue is that when Laman died Taringail was not eligible under Cairhienin Law because he was the husband of the Queen of Andor. He would have been in the same position if Tigraine had ascended the throne). Even if that was his plans (a very big IF), changing the succession law to make Taringail his heir is not something Laman would have done until closer to his death, otherwise his rivals would have plot to counter this, or would murder Taringail! He wasn't that old anyway, he could still have children. He died an untimely death at war, him and his two surviving brothers.



What happened is plain as day. Taringail and Laman saw all their hopes of power in Andor vanish with Tigraine being declared dead at Mordrellen's death. The only way he could salvage anything in Andor was by agreeing to Morgase's offer of marriage, and because she held the bigger end of the stick she made it a sine qua non condition that Taringail married into House Trakand. Laman saw an opportunity there Taringail would co-rule with Morgase or gain enough influence with his extremely young wife(she was like 16-18 y.o. only) to even rule in her place. Laman was still young, he could eventually have made Galad his heir if he still had no children by his old age. The prospect Taringail would soon co-rule Andor or more, that was how the advantage of his wedding to the very young Morgase was perceived in Cairhien (Laman had let this leak on purpose, it's implied). When it became apparent to the Cairhienin Taringail would never come close to that status, that undermined Laman's prestige so much there were rumors he might lose the Sun Crown to plots from rival Houses, and this lead him to launch a prestigious project involving cutting Avendoraldera to make a new Sun Throne. That lead to the Aiel War.

In Andor, it was believed House Riatin had murdered Taringail to forestall any scheme of his to regain the Sun Throne for Damodred for himself or though his son. Of course that wasn't true, Thom had Taringail killed.



Not necessarily. Laman had no children, and the next two men in the line of succession had no children and likely were not much younger than Laman himself. That made it very likely an opportunity for Galad would open eventually. He would likely have been an adult when Laman died, an adult Taringail could have sent back to his House long before Laman's death. Taringail didn't have to have Laman named Galad his heir (we never heard anything about Laman naming an heir, only that any claimant needs support in his own House first to hope to put forward a claim to the throne. Support from the late King would certainly count) to have big hopes he could manage to make his House support Galad's claim one day.




No we're not. It's all there in NS and the series. In NS neither Moiraine nor the Grey Sitter even mentioned Galad as a possibility, nor Anvaere's children. It's PAINFULLY OBVIOUS children stood no chance whatsoever of being supported for the throne, just like in Andor Luan's granddaugther stood no chance of gaining the support of ten Great Houses and that's why he didn't put it forward.

Taringail's dreams for Galad ended with Laman's untimely death when Galad was still only a small child. An Andoran noblewoman told Rand it was thought this is what embittered him and made him plot against Morgase (though I still don't believe it's necessarily the real story, I think Taringail may very well have fallen in competing traps set for him by Elaida and Thom, both seeking to get rid of him).




Moiraine was nearly killed by an assassin (more likely sent by Taringail than by House Riatin, if you ask me...), and she would have lived a long AS life. Whenever she heard of rumors of Taringail's ambitions of course she would have kept an eye on him from afar, she stood ahead of his son in the line of succession and would have the WT's backing... Moiraine had all the reasons to plant spies near Taringail and watch her own back for his assassins. And Riatin's, that might have feared the WT would scheme to place her on the Throne.

And yeah, she didn't visit Caemlyn under Morgase before Thom's exile. Thom would have remembered her visit if she did. He knew her by name, but had never met her. She likely saw Elayne on her way to the Two Rivers. Pure specualtion, but I think Siuan managed to get a meeting with Moiraine (those were very difficult to organize except in official capacity) by asking her formally to visit Elaida and pass her and Morgase all the details concerning the arrangements for Elayne coming to the White Tower. A formal little visit from an envoy from the Amyrlin. That was the excuse to deflect any suspicion from Elaida about Moiraine's presence in Andor.



NOT. A. CHANCE. IN. HELL. Matrilinear system. Galad brings no a single line to Ishara to his daughter. The only way Galad's daughter would ever inherit the throne would have been by marrying the Queen of Andor or her daughter-heir, or a woman who managed on her own to claim the throne. That's no doubt what Morgase would have done with her daughter if Tigraine had ruled but never had a daughter, if Dyelin, Ellorien or Luan for his granddaughter didn't beat her to it, that is. Marriage to Tigraine's son, plus the woman's bloodlines from Ishara, plus perception of competence of the woman in question would then have made her a slamdunk to succeed Tigraine.

Otherwise Galad is not of much worth politically in Andor. His real worth to anyone was his Cairhienin connection, and with the ascension of Riatin and Galad's disinterest in politics and distinct lack of ambition in that regard, that worth was actually fairly low, unless an ambitious Andoran noblewoman married him and convinced him to re enter Cairhienin politics, trying to displace Barthanes or succeed him as High Seat and so on.

Otherwise in Andor itself Galad's worth is not terribly high. He would tie a woman to House Trakand, but only as adopted son. It's not nothing, but not that much either. The real catch of the family was Elayne - any nobleman marrying his son to her would have his grandaughter Queen one day. And then Gawyn, but beside a very close alliance with Trakand and a prominent place at court for your grandchildren, that's about it (unless a house has sufficient daughters with good claims and hoped for Elayne not to have any female issue, in which case as niece of the Queen by her brother, that woman stood a good chance to succeed her, under the name Trakand).

No way Trakand would let Gawyn marry outside the House. He holds Trakand lands and their revenues - which Trakand wouldn't want to pass to the children of another House at the detriment of their own, and only during the succession Elayne might have been in a beggar position enought that might have convinced her to "sell" Gawyn to another House if a House made it the price of their support to her claim.