14

Chapter 14: Part XIV

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Disclaimer: I own nothing, just borrowing for a while.

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"It's funny how we when we think of Aerys hoarding wildfire and saying 'Burn Them All!' we call him the Mad King but when Joffrey did the same people cheered."

The Wit and Wisdom of Tyrion Lannister - 325 AL

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The Red Keep - King's Landing – 298 AL

Having woke up in someone else's body Octavian's scepticism regarding the supernatural wasn't nearly as strong as it had been, although he was still inclined to go along with his "Uncle" Tyrion that all the old tales of mystical creatures north of the wall were to be seen as dubious without reliable eye-witness accounts more recent than several millennia ago.

Folktales of White Walkers, Snarks and Grumpkins aside, the fact you could actually see and touch the skeletons of dragons in the cellar of the Red Keep was certainly good supporting evidence for all the references to the creatures in books written on the Valyrian Freehold, and the early years of Targaryen rule in Westeros. Even more intriguingly perhaps magic itself appeared to be real in this world, albeit rarely encountered even in Essos where warlocks, maegi and shadowbinders were to be found.

Attempting to see the world in his own terms Octavian had already drawn a parallel between the dominant religion in Westeros, The Faith of the Seven, and the religion he had himself been brought up in. Fortunately Romans did not automatically assume the gods of other peoples were automatically false just because they thought their own were real and this had led to a theology that rather sought to fit them into the existing structure.

Jupiter, the supreme deity in the Roman pantheon was assumed to be the same being as Zeus who the Greeks worshipped. Similarly Mars, the God of War, was also the Greek Ares, and so on, with Minerva also being Athena for another example.

On that basis why couldn't the local deities also be simply other names for the same beings? What if Jupiter was The Father as well as being Zeus, Mars was The Warrior as well as Ares?

It all actually fitted quite nicely the more he thought about it. The Maiden was Diana and Artemis, The Smith was Vulcan and Hephaestus and The Stranger was Pluto and Hades.

At least as a hypothesis it might help explain why he got placed into Joffrey if the deities that watched over his own world were the same as those which had dominion here. It might simply be a game, moving a piece from one board to another to see what happens, or if they did have some regard for their creations perhaps they hoped to improve the lot of their worshippers without a more visually blatant act of divine intervention.

Striking Joffrey down with a lightning bolt might have been a more just means of dealing with him though, Octavian considered. There was a reason why Tommen was clearly petrified of him, the elder of Cersei's brood had terrorised his little brother for years.

Even when he thanked Octavian for saving their father's life the young boy had kept his distance, practically cowering away from him. A few months of not being bullied and tormented for once wasn't going to make up for years of mental and physical abuse.

As well as being the only girl Myrcella was probably the brightest of Cersei's three children, at least she was before Joffrey's consciousness was relocated somewhere, that place ideally being Tartarus in Octavian's opinion. Although not as scared of her eldest brother as her youngest was she was still wary of him and Octavian often seemed to find her surreptitiously observing him these days as if trying to figure out what was up with him.

There was a lot going on behind the eyes of that pretty face, Octavian thought to himself, one day she'll either be very useful or a thorn in my side, he decided.

Currently reading another work dealing with the Targaryen dynasty, the book only helped reinforce Octavian's view that whoever thought that primogeniture in a hereditary monarchy was a good idea was clearly an eldest son who failed to consider that his eldest son might be dumb as a rock or crazy as a bag of weasels. Even when Rome was itself still a monarchy kings didn't simply inherit the job, by tradition they were endorsed by the Senate, and the mere existence of both that body and also the Curiate Assembly provided some degree of restraint on the monarch.

Westeros was more like Egypt perhaps? A culture and society several millennia old in which largely unchanging customs and traditions from ages past had long held sway, and too much power, money and influence was concentrated among too few people.

Certainly the amount of resources expended in constructing great temples like the Sept of Baelor in King's Landing put Octavian in mind of the great monuments constructed by the Egyptians, a people who also tended to divert resources to vanity projects that could have been better spent elsewhere. Like the Red Keep, the Sept of Baelor with its towers and massive marble dome was certainly awe-inspiring, but something three quarters the size would have impressed almost as much and you could have used the rest of the money to upgrade the city's sewer system to something less horrifying.

Cultural inertia was perhaps the problem? The Targaryens had arrived from Essos a few centuries ago but their impact on Westerosi society wasn't as deep as a cursory glance at the situation might lead you to believe. They might have brought the Seven Kingdom to heel, and constructed a great city to act as their capital, but from the perspective of the small folk their lives were still in the hands of the same old ruling families like the Starks and Martells, and they still worshipped the same gods before and after Aegon came with his dragons.

Likewise the Ptolemies had come to rule Egypt, but although being Greek by background the age old customs and traditions of Egypt had adapted them rather than the reverse. Despite a new capital city in Alexandria, and a new ruling house from another land, Egypt was still Egypt.

The Ptolemies even adopted the Egyptian practice of marrying the heir to the throne to his sister, the Targaryens would be quite at home Octavian thought to himself with a chuckle.

It took a massive upheaval to completely change a society and rewrite its rules, and although Octavian had plenty of ideas, and would wield tremendous power and influence from the Iron Throne one day, he doubted he would be able to do much more than get things on the right track in a single lifetime.

What he really needed was the threat of some kind of impending doom that nobody could ignore and was so awful that both the small-folk and the nobility would fall into line with anything he wanted to do as long as he offered some prospect of saving them.

Unfortunately a few thousand sea-sick Dothraki just weren't enough of a threat to meet the required criteria.

"Maybe I'll get lucky and the gods will answer my prayers?" Octavian said to himself as he returned to his reading in earnest.

Far to the north in Castle Black the retrieved bodies of some of the Night's Watch who had been part of First Ranger Benjen Stark's ill-fated patrol north of the wall awaited examination by Maester Aemon before proper burial the next day.

One of the corpses opened its eyes.

Notes:

Note from the author:

Romans were a superstitious lot and although more skeptical than most by nature Octavian did grow up in that culture. It's fair to say that recent events have made him a little more open to belief in the supernatural!

Before it became a Republic Rome was itself a monarchy, but a rather different one than Westeros. The original Senate and the Curiate Assembly meant that it was far from being a hereditary absolutest monarchy. Seeking better parallels between Westeros and his own world Octavian looks to Ancient Egypt and the Ptolomies for example.

The Great Sept of Baelor is a huge domed temple to the Faith of the Seven and effectively the Westerosi equivalent of the Pantheon in Rome.

Far from being effected by events in King's Landing far to the south events at the Wall and beyond it are still going much as canon. Since we're now around the point that GoT Episode 1:08 The Pointy End takes place Jon Snow is about to meet a Wight...