10 Magical Game Of Thrones Details Explained With Science

3. The Science Of Incest

Ah, the magic of incest. You wouldn't have predicted that one of the decade's most popular works of fiction would so rampantly be "keeping it in the family", but hey, we're a weird generation. Pretty much everybody is screwing their brother/sister/father/cousin in Game of Thrones, but what are the implications of the familial friendliness?

First things first, the reason why most of us find the idea of incest so inherently wrong is because it's a really bad idea, evolutionarily speaking. The whole point of sex and babies is to enrich the gene pool because a varied gene pool = a healthier population, so you're programmed to find inbreeding repulsive.

Everybody has two copies of each gene in their DNA, one from each parent, which ensures that, if one of them is faulty, you have a back up. When two people with very similar genes (siblings, for example) get together, there's a huge chance that they both carry the faulty genes, massively increasing the probability of passing them on to their offspring.

The Targaryens, known for their rampant incest, produced their fair share of mad kings. Tyrion Lannister, who is either the product of a first cousin pairing or (if you believe the fan theories) the coming together of the Targaryen and Lannister bloodlines - neither of which are too hot on their genetic diversity - potentially leading to his dwarfism.

Historically speaking, the royalty of Europe are well known for keeping it in the family, the most dramatic example of which is the case of Charles II of Spain, who was so mentally and physically handicapped that he was unable to chew, could barely speak or look after himself and was completely infertile.

Looks like the Lannisters got off lightly.