#and dany and her dragons being the fire

[jonsnowunemploymentera]

Revanshe: There is some question as to what "A Song of Ice and Fire" refers to. Some people think it dwells on elements, such as the wall and Others and dragons, while others think it refers more to a character or characters, the favored one being Jon. Any comments?

GRRM: No comments on that one . . . except that I am known for titles that have several meanings

[iheartbookbran]

My biggest gripe with how HOTD writers depict women is how they’re never allowed to showcase their anger and bitterness at their circumstances in full. We know it’s there, we see Alicent’s frustration about loosing the kingdom’s regency to a unstable nineteen year old, but she’s never allowed to fully express it (the closest we got was her outburst when Aemond lost his eye, and she was made to regret it directly afterwards). Her role in Rhaenyra’s usurpation isn’t born out of a desire to have what she believes is her due after years of withering away and suffering as Viserys’ wife, but as a desire to carry on what she believes to be her husband’s wishes.

When it comes to Rhaenys, since last week I’ve seen a lot of speculation on why she decided to turn back to fight Aemond and Vaghar, because in the show she has no reason to do so. The thing about Rhaenys’ story, at least how I understood it in F&B, is that she always seems to be holding back. It is one thing for her to say to Corlys that she doesn’t resent the fact that she lost the throne to Viserys and another to actually mean it, because if she (allegedly) lost fairly to Viserys, how could she in good conscience initiate a war? How could she inflict that on her whole family? So she holds back. And she doesn’t have to like Rhaenyra, but watching the same thing that happened to her repeat itself must be frustrating. Watching Rhaenyra be expected to give up her crown for the sake of maintaining the peace without her half-brother having the same expectation placed upon him must be painful. So she should want to encourage Rhaenyra to fight for the throne this time, she should want to turn back to fight those greedy, stupid boys playing at war, who could never understand her pain. She should want to show Baela and Rhaena that it is possible to fight back; she might not be able to save them or shield them or get them what she believes they deserve, but at least she can show them that they don’t have to take on their circumstances passively. They can fight back.

Or at least that’s how I would have written Rhaenys, anyways.

[adarkandmagicalforest]

call me crazy, but i think having an overlord king rule over seven kingdoms full of seven different cultures who reinforces violent dominance when they say they dont want to be ruled by a stranger is... bad, actually

[starry-eyer]

I love that one of the roles fire plays in this series is to represent how all consuming desire can be, and how it’s framed as something that can be world ending when uncontrolled.

So naming unnatural, untamable green fire ‘wildfire’ is therefore a stroke of genius. It’s the representation of how we humans manufacture our own doom in the pursuit power, of how uncontrolled desire will eventually blow up in our faces.

And the fact that barrels and barrels of it sit fermenting under Kings Landing, Westeros’s breeding ground of maniac desire, and the capital the ambitious and corrupt flock to for what it promises? It’s perfection!

[kaerinio]

also, i just know aegon's crown, which was lost in dorne following daeron i's death, is going to be used to crown young griff . . . and that crown is going to further legitimize his identity, much like how the crown was used to legitimize aegon ii's claim when the throne was stolen from rhaenyra.

[rainbow-femme]

ASOIAF headcanon I refuse to let go of:

Sheepstealer escaped to the Shadow Lands, laid eggs, and there have been dragons there this whole time that they were going extinct in Westeros

And Sheepstealer wasn’t trained by the whole Targaryen bond thing, Nettles did it the old fashioned way by feeding it to gain its trust. So this is a dragon whose awareness of humans is that they’re weird little things that, if you’re nice to them, may bring you food. And if you let them sit on you then they definitely bring you food

I mainly love this idea for the scenarios it creates

1. Because the dragons weren’t introduced as being solely owned by one family, and a royal conquering family at that, regular people could figure out things like Nettles and bond with the dragons, which would make any Targaryen in the post-dragon era just so pissed to find out that every day people were riding around on dragons

Or

2. They’re seen as an invasive species and dangerous predators and the people kill them when possible, again something that would piss off any post-dragon Targaryens after all they do to get them back and there could be dudes seeing one, sighing, and going and getting to a scorpion bow to take it down like if you’re a shepherd seeing a wolf near your sheep

If there’s some deep lore that contradicts this I don’t care, I like imagining that there’s a part of the world where dragons are just around and no one in the rest of the world knew and it was in the place where no one speaks normally to outsiders so it wouldn’t get out

[myimaginationplain]

these people are so fucking lost, man skskdkdj

[derangedthots]

if i was hotd showrunner i'd make aegon iii and viserys ii boarding the ship bound for essos the final scene of the season finale as an inversion of dany's departure from essos at the end of got season 6. that way season 3(preferably 4 but more like s3) of hotd opens with aegon flying back to dragonstone on a bleeding stormcloud, paralleling dany's arrival to dragonstone at the start of got season 7 with three dragons at full health. the future king who became known as dragonbane and whose reign saw the death of the last dragon vs. the future queen hailed as mother of dragons and the one who brought them back to life. aegon returning to his family(who he will soon lose most of) vs. dany returning as the 'last' of her house(soon to find more).

both of them coming home but both under radically different circumstances.

[morgenlich]

i also have to say that AGoT’s last line being “…and for the first time in hundreds of years, the night came alive with the music of dragons.” really sold the series for me. first because i just think it’s a beautiful line. also, it’s a huge Oh Shit moment. like this is clearly a big thing that is going to change the world. also ofc the Parallels with the prologue, where the Others have returned…ice and fire, always….

but more importantly it’s such a strong statement on the themes of hope and rebirth. dany walked into drogo’s pyre thinking she had lost everything—she has no brother, no husband, no son. and she rises out of it with dragons. her new children. and a new purpose in life…she goes through a lot of character growth throughout all of AGoT, but walking into the pyre and emerging unscathed changes her…she no longer views her destiny as being the sister/wife/mother of a man who will restore the throne or whatever. she’s going to do that herself now….lots of thoughts and feelings

[jonsnowunemploymentera]

We don’t appreciate enough how GRRM made House Targaryen the poster children for his de/reconstruction of the fantasy chosen family trope, and we don’t appreciate how Jon and Dany are the main lens through which he does that. House Targaryen is fantasy on steroids—magic swords, magic look, magic lineage, perhaps the most magic pet one could have in the genre, and a magic destiny that’s specific to them and only them. There’s a foretold magical conflict and its main hero (as many would think), “the prince that was promised”, specifically has to be a Targaryen. This House’s history is so rich, but from a genre perspective, it is Aerys II’s reign and Robert’s Rebellion that’s the most interesting to analyze. Aerys isn’t special himself, but he is to sire the future savior of the world. Then Rhaegar is born and tragic as they are, all the signs point to him being the promised messiah. And Rhaegar becomes THE fantasy hero on steroids. He’s the perfect heir to House Targaryen’s legacy because not only is he to be the best of them, and many think he would have been had he lived, but he is the most perfect manifestation of House Targaryen as the personification of fantasy. There’s absolutely a point to him living and dying as the heir, the inheritor, the eternal symbol of what could have been of the Targaryen’s old glory.

Part of Rhaegar’s legacy extends to his son Aegon. Aegon had everything Rhaegar didn’t. A comet was seen at his conception—and this is an most important herald for the chosen one. So he is given a song, “the song of ice and fire”, and a king’s name to match his status as the new messiah. He didn’t live long but he inherited Rhaegar’s look in his youth too; the fantasy protagonist look. But Aegon died before he could be the hero.

You see Jon and Dany as chosen ones only works so well because of their House’s history, especially as (anti)parallels to Rhaegar and Aegon. They are the unexpected inheritors and challengers to their house’s legacy but in different ways.

Dany is the most immediate and obvious heir. There’s a beauty to her being the last of them and thus, the one bearing the entire house’s legacy. Dany is THE Targaryen. And in being that, she becomes THE hero. She’s got the hero’s look, the hero’s magic and destiny, and better yet, she got the hero’s sword and pet all in one. And, she’s legitimate! She is House Targaryen. But there’s a problem….shes a girl. And we all know House Targaryen’s history with girls.

Maester Aemon’s “no one ever looked for a girl” is quickly becoming my favorite Dany-related quote because it pretty much encapsulates her entire arc, especially as an inheritor to her house’s legacy. The hero they died knowing and expecting was the boy: first Rhaegar, then Aegon. But father and son are dead. Yet Daenerys lives. She inherits everything else they did and more! The Targaryens tried and failed to bring dragons back, but it was Dany who ultimately did it.

Now, Jon is Dany but flipped. From a meta point of view, he’s more fantasy protagonist than she is. He’s a boy, he’s got a big magic sword that he can swing about, and he’s perhaps fantasy’s most prolific trope in action—the magical hidden prince. But within this story, GRRM flips these two characters. Jon’s fantasy protag-ness doesn’t go away, it just morphs into something else. Unlike Dany, he may be a boy and he may have a sword, but he lacks literally everything else. He doesn’t have the look, his magic powers are from his other family, so is his magic pet, and his magic destiny has thus far developed outside his immediate association with House Targaryen. Dany is “what if Rhaegar was a girl?”, but we can’t even begin to ask these types of questions with Jon because there’s so much that precludes him from the fantasy hero role in story. He’s Rhaegar’s heir…but he doesn’t look like him…and he’s not even legitimate. So what do we do now?

GRRM destroyed his fantasy protag house and decided to build up again from the ground up, but did so by challenging the two most critical points—primogeniture and exceptionalism. With Dany, he makes a girl the Targaryen’s outward successor. This works really well because the Targaryens have a history of denying their female heirs. But now what’s left of them is a girl, and she is literally everything they could have hoped for. And she is a a reflection of her house, but her arc has at many times seen her be the antithesis of her ancestors. And I can’t help but think of the oncoming meta-textual showdown between her and Young Griff. On the surface Young Griff, a boy, is the preferred heir. But Dany is, in truth, the one.

Jon is interesting because, in my view, he challenges the Targaryen idea of exceptionalism. He’s easily the fantasy protagonist from the outside looking in. But he doesn’t have the Targaryen name, nor does he have the look. He has the blood, but what makes him special is that it is mixed with the other major fantasy protagonist house’s blood—he’s special in that he’s a hybrid. And this is interesting because if Aegon conquered the seven kingdoms because of a prophecy regarding him or one of his princely descendants, it’s quite the twist to have this messiah not even be a Targaryen prince (not in name anyway). That’s why all the hand wringing around “is Jon legitimate?” or “no one cares because he doesn’t look like Rhaegar” really isn’t the point. The point is for Jon to be the manifestation of the hero—the king—outside of that narrow framework. And if he succeeds, then GRRM would absolutely still be subverting prophecy and genre conventions.

There’s something to Jon and Dany being born as or after House Targaryen falls. House Targaryen has no crown, no throne, and their prophetic mandate has been usurped. But GRRM is so attached to them, and he certainly wants to rebuild them and hold fantasy to account. But to do so, everything we know about the Targaryens, everything the Targaryens knew about themselves, has to be challenged and put to the test by the personifications of all that a Targaryen hero couldn’t be: a girl, and a bastard.

[ai-manre]

Every time I wonder about how Jon is going to come back, I try to picture the manner of his resurrection. I wonder if it's gonna be like the show where he wakes up on a table, which I found rather underwhelming. What I keep coming back to is this vision from AGOT:

No, Dany wanted to say, no, not that, you mustn't, but when she opened her mouth, a long wail of pain escaped, and the sweat broke over her skin. What was wrong with them, couldn't they see? Inside the tent the shapes were dancing, circling the brazier and the bloody bath, dark against the sandsilk, and some did not look human. She glimpsed the shadow of a great wolf, and another like a man wreathed in flames.

This is not something we have seen come to fruition yet, and I really like this idea of Jon being reborn in fire because throughout ADWD there's the foreshadowing of kings blood and fire, of melisandre seeing 'kings and dragons' in her fire, of 'waking dragons out of stone'. And I really feel like the line 'he was no true dragon. Fire cannot harm a dragon' has to come back into play atleast once more. Especially when there's a false dragon in the story now, that marker of a true dragon is even more powerful.

[branwinged]

dragon discussions are usually about the dualism of dragonfire's destructive capabilities and fire as an element of life in the fight against eternal winter, which is also what i've focused on before. but reading fire & blood rn and realising their ability to fly is an overlooked aspect of the way dragons are being used in the story. flight in f&b serves two major purposes. dragons are, of course, their main claim to power, dragons made them kings. flight then becomes a way of placing them quite literally above the rest of the population because they're not simply nobility, they're royalty. flight also signifies a disregard for all enclosure—it's the way aegon, rhaenys, and visenya begin the conquest by effortlessly flying inside castle walls. emphasised most in the burning of harrenhal ("Those walls are strong and thick" / "But not so high as to keep out dragons. Dragons fly.") —flight here is put to use as both invasive entry and a show of dominance as aegon takes balerion and descends well within castle walls to set harrenhal ablaze. but this goes both ways, because the castle also signifies (gendered) entrapment. which is why flying is consistently described as the one great love of a great many targaryen women, because on dragonback they're the equals of targaryen men, capable of fulfilling the same role in warfare. but back on ground they're eventually expected to fall back into the gender roles demanded of them (and i think hotd's opening is doing both with rhaenyra. she's a targaryen princess and the privilege of flight is hers alone, contrasted with alicent remaining on ground. and rhaenyra is free and wild and happy in the air, but two scene changes later, on ground and inside castle walls, aemma tells her she's destined for the birthing bed)

in the main series flight is always, unsurprisingly associated with freedom, and not simply from gendered expectations, because unlike her royal ancestors dany's life has been defined by dispossession. forced out of her home and on the run, under the primary care of an abusive brother until that brother sells her for an army—dany has never truly known material safety or independence. which is why flight is the great appeal of her dragon dreams in agot (Flying, she thought. I had wings, I was flying. But it was only a dream) and something first made obvious with silver, the horse drogo presents her with at their wedding.

The silver horse leapt the flames as if she had wings.

she said, “Tell Khal Drogo that he has given me the wind.”

And for the first time in hours, she forgot to be afraid. Or perhaps it was for the first time ever.

silver represents the modicum of freedom she acquires through their marriage. yes, she is thirteen and is sold to drogo as his property and he rapes her nightly, but her status as khaleesi is what finally frees her from viserys. drogo kills him not out of any particular love for her, but because viserys threatens to hurt the mother of his child. silver is a symbol of that protection drogo provided but being khaleesi won't truly liberate her—she loses everything the moment drogo dies. but what does free her in the end is her dragon dreams.

She could smell home, she could see it, there, just beyond that [red] door, green fields and great stone houses and arms to keep her warm, there. She threw open the door. And saw her brother Rhaegar, mounted on a stallion as black as his armor. Fire glimmered red through the narrow eye slit of his helm. “The last dragon,” Ser Jorah’s voice whispered faintly. “The last, the last.” Dany lifted his polished black visor. The face within was her own.

it's interesting the way the red door in the house with the lemon tree is meant to be her version of security and stability and personal freedom, that's home. when she imagines king's landing she imagines every door painted red. but what she finds within once she opens the door is herself. perhaps then, home for her is not a material location she must look for. instead security and freedom for daenerys is her identity as the last targaryen, the last dragon and when she understands that truth (the fire is mine), she walks into that pyre and sets herself free.

it's not yet a role she's entirely, unhesitatingly stepped into. adwd is the book in which dany struggles most with her targaryen heritage, represented in the way she locks away her dragons once drogon eats that little girl, but the solution doesn't lie in rejecting it. chaining the dragons led to her own entrapment in meereen, which is why drogon appearing in the fighting pits is so obviously a rescue. what she must to do is redefine what it means to be a dragon, and i think she will, she's already halfway there in the way dragons and the magic they embody are being redeemed through dany righting the wrongs of her valyrian ancestors. flight as a symbol of dehumanising oppression in the freehold with the dragonlords in the sky as the slaves toiled away in the mines underground vs flight now as a symbol of enduring hope and freedom for the dispossessed.

[ilynpilled]

i did always love this parallel. cersei desperately wants the fire and power that dany has to cleanse and heal and save her. to give her catharsis. but she seeks it in this extremely corrupted version of dragonfire, the artificial wildfire that exists to recreate that power, the thing that the targaryens also turned to once they lost dragons. it feels like the epitome of trying to recreate lost power, which i think works superbly in a more symbolic and psychological sense here too.

"I mean... Fire is love, fire is passion, fire is sexual ardor and all of these things. Ice is betrayal, ice is revenge, ice is... you know, that kind of cold inhumanity, and all that stuff is being played out in the books." - grrm

[kaerinio]

sitting here shrieking and crying, thinking about how drogon screams at full volume in dany's face, and how, in that moment, she glimpses what she's been reduced to and broken into during her time in meereen. she sees how she's shrunk herself to fit into what has been intended for her by the harpy and her conspirators. thinking about how, while drogon is upset and hurting because he's been injured, a part of his shrieking at her is to, in a sense, awaken her. he's forcing her to look at him, specifically into his eyes, so that she may face herself and remember who she is.

[raven-6-10]

The Dreamers in House Targaryen

So, I finally did the Thing I once promised to do.

Below the cut is the complete famiily tree of House Targaryen, based on all the information currently available in all the published books. I also included the Blackfyre branch for the sake of completness.

Included a reference for what means what on this absolute monster of family tree. Also, for the sake of clarity, I did not include spouses unless they were also Targaryens or a child of a Targaryen.

House Targaryen pre-Conquest surprisingly includes only two confirmed Dreamers and none who could be suspected of having the gift.

Or maybe it's just the lack of the data (*glares at Valaena's mother*)

Daenys the Dreamer: self-explanatory. The most famous of Targaryen Dreamers and the one everyone wants to be like.

Aegon the Dragon: honestly, no surprise there. GRRM confirmed that Aegon's Dream from the show is also canon to the books. But even if he didn't, I would have marked Aegon as a suspected Dreamer - it was long theoretised that Targs came to Westeros because of a prophecy about the Doom of Men, so I could see the Conquest being kicked off by a Dream.

Now this is were it gets Interesting!

Alysanne Targaryen: there is an excelent analysis of Fire & Blood chapters on why Alysanne could be a Dreamer. One that apparently was missed by her relatives.

Viserys I Targaryen: so the thing is. Book!Viserys is never hinted at to have Dragon Dreams. Even in the show, he only had the one dream (of dubious authenticity). Hence, marked as show!only Dreamer.

The Greens!

Helaena Targaryen: Honestly, same deal as Viserys. Book!Helaena is never even hinted at as somebody who might be a Dreamer. So she's in blue and not red.

Now, Aemond's potential line might have produced something. If Alys actually had a living child. And if that line survived more than a generation.

Unfortunately, Lack of Data.

Honestly, once again we are dealing with Lack of Data on the Blacks and their descendants. Fire & Blood only takes us to the end of Regency, which is when Aegon the Younger turns sixteen. We have almost nothing after that as WoIaF is much less detailed on the family doings.

So if there was somebody with the gift, the fact did not make it into history.

Aegon IV's many, many bastards!

(even if some only suspected)

(or you know, not actually his)

Brynden Rivers (The Bloodraven): the only one with magical shit going on, and his is explicitly of the First Men variety.

(If we ever get Fire & Blood 2, I have some hopes for Shiera.)

The Blackfyres!

Daemon II Blackfyre: very explicit confirmation in The Mystery Knight, as he speaks of several Dreams he had over his life that came true.

Also, it's a colossal mess of a family tree with multiple branches having an uncertain fate. *eyeroll* And fans wonder why nobody believes in Varys' story about Young Griff.

Moving back to the main family, we finally get some confirmations that yes, Targs still produce Dreamers. Granted that seems to be confined to Maekar's branch

Daeron the Drunken: confirmed in The Hedge Knight and about as explicit as it gets.

Aemon Targaryen: as confirmed as it can be when we don't have his pov. But he says several things during aFfC that in hindsight are rather prophetic.

And here are our heroes!

Daenerys Stormborn: very explicitly has Dragon Dreams and waking visions at various points in the books.

Jon Snow: technically, we still don't have the confirmation that he's actually a Targaryen. But Jon does have a dream about figting Others at the Wall with a sword of fire, that is very similar to the Dream Dany has about fighting warriors of ice at the Trident.

Rhaegar Targaryen: marked him as a suspected Dreamer for the simple fact that it is hinted that he could see Dany when she was having her visions in House of the Undying.

[naggascradle]

fire & blood is an interesting work insofar that it all exists to be the background of asoiaf itself and so thematic decisions made that are similar to the contemporary characters are obvious indications of what the characters may be thematically representing. its important that the strong boys are emphasized as being 1. bastards 2. half valyrian half first men (why else emphasize house strong descending from first men?) 3. jacaerys visits winterfell in some sort of pact called the pact of ice & fire in which the ice & fire name is invoked which only happens like TWICE in the whole damn series. outside of that rhaenyra is a queen with three bastards (hey cersei!) claiming to not actually be bastards where each bastard dies one after another. her considered true "rival" to the throne by all rights should be her eldest younger brother, second child (hey stannis!) i forgot where i was going with this. um something with either jon or faegon and jacaerys vs dany and aegon 2 also. baela and rhaena with arya and sansa also yeah. rhaena's dragon egg hatches and its a sad weak wyrm that dies and she eventually gets one of the last dragons to hatch. just like sansa with lady dying as a puppy. so this all clearly means sansa will be getting a dragon at the end. obviously.