How did the Targaryens hold the kingdoms for 300 years without Dragons?

How did the Targaryens hold the kingdoms for 300 years without Dragons?

They only had the shitty crown's lands for them and all the other lords were more powerful.

>How did the Targaryens hold the kingdoms for 300 years without Dragons?
They didn't.

>0 AC: Targaryens conquer Westeros
>131 AC: Targaryen Civil War kills nearly all the dragons
>150 AC: Last dragon dies
>283 AC: Robert overthrows Targaryens

So they ruled about 150 years with their dragons, and 130 without them. That 130 years was built almost entirely on inertia.

>They only had the shitty crown's lands for them and all the other lords were more powerful.

They had the backing of other important houses for different reasons. The Baratheons are related to the Targaryens and were usually extremely loyal and the Tyrells are only in power because the Targaryens put them there. Other than that, simple inertia kept them going. Nobody wants to challenge the status quo, it's difficult and expensive.

*The only reason they were overthrown in the end was because they were so badly weakened by an insane amount of unlucky shit that the other houses started plotting against them. That's how you got the Stark-Tully-Arryn-Baratheon conspiracy. And even then it almost failed.

>The Baratheons are related to the Targaryens and were usually extremely loyal and the Tyrells are only in power because the Targaryens put them there.
Unless they were transmitting fanatical devotions down each new generations there was no reason to keep supporting them once the dragons were away.

>Nobody wants to challenge the status quo, it's difficult and expensive.
What's difficult about challenging someone with next to no power of his own?

They were fine rulers. There was peace in the lands and everyone was well fed. There was no reason to rebel against their rule until that fat fuck got overly ambitious and fucked everything up. Once the Targaryens retake their throne, all will be well again and the show will end. It's a shame Viserys was crowned too early.

Can the dragons turn into ice zombies?
Legit question here. We saw zombie giants this season.

>There was no reason to rebel against their rule
Independence and more power?

>There was peace in the lands and everyone was well fed.
They only directly administered the crown's lands.

they lied about not having dragons. sort of like president Kim lying about having nukes.

>an insane amount of unlucky shit that the other houses started plotting against them.
It wasn't bad luck, Aerys killed the Stark lord and heir, the Arryn heir and kipnapped Baratheon's betrothed. That's 3 of the kingdoms he got agianst him. The Tullies were also allied through marriage to the Starks so they joined in too. Having those 4 kingdoms rise up was pretty logical, no amount of plotting or luck was neccesary.

White privilege

>It wasn't bad luck, Aerys killed the Stark lord and heir, the Arryn heir and kipnapped Baratheon's betrothed.

The conspiracy against the Targaryens started long before that. It wasn't a coincidence that Robert and Ned were sent to live with the Arryns for so long, or that Robert was betrothed to Lyanna while Brandon was betrothed to Catelyn.

That makes it even dumber on Aerys' and Rhaegar's part to fuck around with them without the neccesary back-up

Families do transmit loyalties and prejudices down through generations, though. The Baratheons were not only traditionally loyal, they were also blood kin. The last civil war devastated both sides so badly that no major house seriously entertained rebellion until Aerys alienated all of them by going bugfuck. Family-run enterprises tend to value stability over machiavellian behavior for obvious reasons.

Aerys was literally insane and Rhaegar was letting some bad dreams control his actions. Neither one of them was thinking rationally.

Yes and we will have a zombie dragon breathing blue flame this season finale

based viserys was the joffrey on steroids, shame he was killed off early in the show. imagine him fucking shit up with 3 dragons.

>Family-run enterprises tend to value stability over machiavellian behavior
The 7 kingdoms are simple enough that it doesn't take any sort of plotting to dismantle it.

Just the majority of the great lords declaring they don't really need to obey the Targaryens and pay them tribute. Then they just unilaterally secede in their clean cut borders.

The Lich King, oops the Night King, raises Sindragosa, I mean Viserion in the finale.

> he would've burned every city in essos and marched his slave army to the red keep and burned every single person there

shame it's just a wight dragon, i thought the walkers might possess a legit ice dragon.

based viserys. imagine how much shit he would give about slavery and shit, nah, he'd have invaded while joffrey was king.

Night King will ride it though, I don't think it'll be much different.