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[spoiler TWoIaF] Of the Breeding of Races (Dragons & Man)


Lord Varys

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I can't believe people argued so strongly against Targ's having special blood, when it's been so obvious for so long.

Glad we're now thinking about how this happened.

I think the argument was against Dragon blood for the most part, as Dragon blood is hot enough to melt Iron. Though I am wondering if the Deep Ones and the Children are on in the same. Common theme is multiple cultures worshipping similar beings and having similar stories with different names. So what it is the bases for the similarities? What's the root basis for the beliefs. Like the Children are no strangers to manipulating fire (pulling flame from Dragon Glass) are naturally adapt to the dark and the deep, live under ground, and have proper claws for digging, and are experts in stone working. Also naturally magical in orientation. They just so happen to work Obsidian, you ever wonder how they got lucky enough to have the anti Other weapon?

The Cranogs are said to have blood of the Children and the Starks would also have this blood on both sides. Raventree and Cranog. There are hints of Children in Essos. Children raising the dead, which seems to tie them to the Others as well. What if they created the Others and Dragons and the like back in the day. Man brought fire against the Childrens trees did the children Strike back with Ice and Darkness. Darkness which they are adapted too much better than humans.

Unfortunately most of this stuff can be taken in a lot of directions so it's a lot of speculation, conjecture and assumption.

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Hey, oh I saw the Bloodraven stuff...

i think i mentioned something everyone got wrong - this was Maekar imprisoning Bloodraven (which was considered canon by just about everyone), and the revelation BR did what he did to get sent to the Wall was what took me by surprise.

Yes, Egg's reign and anything Bloodraven were my favourite parts. Poor Aenys :( I was a little confused by the seemingly conflicting stuff on Maekar/Egg imprisoning BR. I'm glad its clearer now though.

I admit to not catching on about the FM/Doom hints when I was reading through. I guess it does off support though.

The whole wyvern stuff sounds very interesting. Well, pretty much all of Sothoryos was.

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Well, not everyone :P

Of course I hadn't considered that the other candidate could have been a BF.

Veltigar you are awesome! ;)

We should really get a 'what people got right and wrong' thread to celebrate good calls, and highlight what's been debunked.

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Veltigar you are awesome! ;)

We should really get a 'what people got right and wrong' thread to celebrate good calls, and highlight what's been debunked.

That would be depressing I think :P The only thing I really wanted to be true got debunked (That Elaene Targaryen's daughters wed Daemon Blackfyre and Maekar Targaryen) :P And a lot of other things I hoped to learn have yet to be revealed.

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I think the argument was against Dragon blood for the most part

The arguments I got into were simply that Targs have special blood, which is now beyond any doubt. The opposition was fierce, from the usual know-it-alls, it was impossible to have a reasonable, sensible discussion about it. Part of why posting here is not worth it for me. The clue that sold me was always the prophetic dreams of Targs, which are innate, with no explanation for where they came from. As well as the many more obvious clues in the text.

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The arguments I got into were simply that Targs have special blood, which is now beyond any doubt. The opposition was fierce, from the usual know-it-alls, it was impossible to have a reasonable, sensible discussion about it. Part of why posting here is not worth it for me. The clue that sold me was always the prophetic dreams of Targs, which are innate, with no explanation for where they came from. As well as the many more obvious clues in the text.

Agreed it was pretty clear since AGOT that there was something different about people with "blood of the dragon" I always wondered why there was soo much resistance to the idea.

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The arguments I got into were simply that Targs have special blood, which is now beyond any doubt. The opposition was fierce, from the usual know-it-alls, it was impossible to have a reasonable, sensible discussion about it. Part of why posting here is not worth it for me. The clue that sold me was always the prophetic dreams of Targs, which are innate, with no explanation for where they came from. As well as the many more obvious clues in the text.

Honestly, I think part of the resistance is that this would imply that Dany was special. I don't want to make this about Dany hate but from my perspective of arguing the issues, that's what it came down to on most occasions. I'm sure other people had other reasons to deny the obvious.

I think now that it's undeniable it would be interesting to discuss why we have these different magical bloodline and what is the reason/goal for them.

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Thanks for that!

I must point out that my theory was never that the Valyrians were the ones who conducted this breeding project. It would have been this mysterious race from Ashai. It would have been their dragons that spread all across the world, long before the Valyrians discovered dragons in the Fourteen Fires. Probably before the Long Night, even.

That would explain the ancient dragonbones all across the world from well before the birth of the Valyrian civilization. My contention is that the primitive Valyrians then discovered a remnant colony of these ancient dragons, nesting in the Fourteen Fires, many thousands of years later, (about 5000 years ago).

EDIT

Also note the title of Septon Barth's tome: Dragons, Wyrms and Wyverns: Their Unnatural History. Thus linking these three creatures to one another, and to some kind of unnatural origin. Meaning a magical breeding project in my theory.

Wow, this would also explain why Ashai is so massive and why the huge maze building are spread over the whole planet, as far as lorath and old town. The structures are said to be melted and shaped rock like the Valyrian but without adornement and well before the freehold came about. Nice observation.

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Honestly, I think part of the resistance is that this would imply that Dany was special. I don't want to make this about Dany hate but from my perspective of arguing the issues, that's what it came down to on most occasions. I'm sure other people had other reasons to deny the obvious.

Yes, there was some anti-Targ thing going on. I'm a neutral person, as in I don't have investment in characters being special or not, and so it was annoying I couldn't explore the blood issue in a reasonable manner. I didn't mind people having different opinions, but it always seemed to come down to people adopting a superior, condescending tone. Many arguments on the forum seem to boil down to how many people one has on their side, who has more friends supporting them, how aggressively one posts etc etc rather than any implementation of logic or storytelling consideration.

I think now that it's undeniable it would be interesting to discuss why we have these different magical bloodline and what is the reason/goal for them.

If there's people with dragons blood, you'd expect there to be people with Others blood as a parallel, in this song of ice and fire. My call is that Targs have dragon's blood and Starks have Others blood (from the Night's King's "seed"), and this is the significance of R+L=J. Jon might be the first (or most potent) union between the two, and in this way embodies both ice and fire uniquely. It gives equal weight to both Rhaegar and Lyanna being the parents, which is crucial to the theory having a deeper meaning I think.

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The dragon blood thing definitely has more credibility now. I'm not all that sure about Others blood, though. If the Night's King slip, the show, and the tales of Craster's wives are any indication, then the Others may in fact be humans who go through some 'ice magic' change.



There may be some truth to the story that the Night's King was a Stark, but surely we cannot assume that the Stark main line married some of the children he fathered on his 'corpse wife'.



However, I'm quite positive that the Starks and other First Men who have brought forth skinchangers and greenseers have the blood of the Children of the Forest.


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The dragon blood thing definitely has more credibility now. I'm not all that sure about Others blood, though. If the Night's King slip, the show, and the tales of Craster's wives are any indication, then the Others may in fact be humans who go through some 'ice magic' change.

This might be so, but it doesn't mean they don't breed, and the results are more human. I'm not talking about creating new Others, but humans with a drop of Others blood. We hear of inter-breeding and hybrids in the books. I also wonder if the Night's Queen was one of these hybrids, rather than a female Other. I think the whole point of the Night's King tale is that Others blood entered the human line, personally.

Regarding dragon blood, rather than anything sexual (although lol at some of the insinuations in WoIaF), I've wondered about imbuing, bathing in blood, in magical Asshai'i ceremony. We do hear of imbuing via the warlocks who try and make Sam stronger (aurochs blood). It didn't work, but the fact that the warlock tried it makes me wonder, if at one time, imbuing was a legitimate form of magic. Bathing in blood comes up a few times, and bathing in dragon's blood can be found in various mythologies.

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The dragon blood thing definitely has more credibility now. I'm not all that sure about Others blood, though. If the Night's King slip, the show, and the tales of Craster's wives are any indication, then the Others may in fact be humans who go through some 'ice magic' change.

There may be some truth to the story that the Night's King was a Stark, but surely we cannot assume that the Stark main line married some of the children he fathered on his 'corpse wife'.

However, I'm quite positive that the Starks and other First Men who have brought forth skinchangers and greenseers have the blood of the Children of the Forest.

I've been thinking that there might be two sides to each element. The warging abilities possessed by some First Men families (passed down by the CotF) is similar ,IMO, to the abilities of the Others to control the Wights. Of course the Others take it to the next level by reanimating the dead and wargining those bodies. That's why it's such an abomination for Bran to warg Hodor.

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Hehe, yeah, actual sex with a dragon would be a rather weird thing. Especially if you surrounded by a bunch of chanting guys in robes... But, yes, it could be bathing in dragon blood, drinking dragon blood, something like that. And perhaps even something more. We don't really know how those experiments in Gogossos worked, but it may have involved magical 'artificial insemination' or something like that...



Half-Other-children and the like are certainly a possibility, but I'm not whether the Starks will turn out to have such blood. It could be interesting, though, if the Boltons had a drop of that. The fact that the Stark tree does not mention a Bolton-Stark-match is intriguing.



If the Others are originally some lost tribe of the Children who caused the Long Night to get revenge on humanity, then we should assume that they possess some of the innate skills of the Children. However, their ice magic seem to something new and stranger. But we don't know yet - perhaps all Children could do what the Others did and shunned back because it is much worse than everything they can image. That could pull off some really powerful stunts back then.



Oh, and the Garth Greenhand/Green Men parallel is also very intriguing. That island clearly is going to become important.


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Regarding dragon blood, rather than anything sexual (although lol at some of the insinuations in WoIaF), I've wondered about imbuing, bathing in blood, in magical Asshai'i ceremony. We do hear of imbuing via the warlocks who try and make Sam stronger (aurochs blood). It didn't work, but the fact that the warlock tried it makes me wonder, if at one time, imbuing was a legitimate form of magic. Bathing in blood comes up a few times, and bathing in dragon's blood can be found in various mythologies.

I actually think it could be this (in a crackpot way), GRRM has had multiple inspirations from Norse mythology within this story and the Norse mythology story of Sigurd has similarities to both this and the creation of lightbringer (which I believe is the story of how the first dragon rider came about). It involves three attempts to make a sword and after that killing a dragon, bathing in blood and tasting blood which gave Sigurd the ability to hear the language of the birds and also prophetic abilities.

The language of the birds is also similar to the song in ASOIAF sang by the children, direwolves, dragons, ravens etc. Dany heard Drogon sing to her so I wonder if there is something going on here, where the first Valyrians bathed and drank dragonblood like Sigurd which gave them the ability to hear the song Dany heard from Drogon and also giving them prophetic dreams via dragons in the process.

ETA: And we also have the precedent of eating things in this story to awaken powers, such as weirwood paste, and shade of the evening.

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Yes, there was some anti-Targ thing going on. I'm a neutral person, as in I don't have investment in characters being special or not, and so it was annoying I couldn't explore the blood issue in a reasonable manner. I didn't mind people having different opinions, but it always seemed to come down to people adopting a superior, condescending tone. Many arguments on the forum seem to boil down to how many people one has on their side, who has more friends supporting them, how aggressively one posts etc etc rather than any implementation of logic or storytelling consideration.

I sympathize with your frustration.

Along these lines, I wonder whether the Song of Ice and Fire is not the relationship, or the product of the relationship, between Rhaegar and Lyanna. What if, instead, it is the interaction between Jon (Ice) and Dany (Fire).

I wonder about this in particular now because of Jon's burnt hand. I never thought much of this before, but GRRM really hits us over the head with it. First, Jon burns his hand. Then, in practically every other Jon chapter, he flexes the hand or otherwise reminds us of the burn.

Add to this Dany's belief that she survived fires twice (when the dragons hatched and in the pit in Meereen) while Viserys was no true dragon because the gold killed him, and the notion that you need the "right drop" of Targaryen blood to ride a dragon, I wonder if we are being told that even though Jon is Rhaegar's son, he lacks the right drop and cannot ride a dragon.

Otherwise, what is the point of his burnt hand?

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South of the Neck, the riverfolk whose lands adjoin their own say that the crannogmen breathe water, have webbed hands and feet like frogs, and use poisons on their frog spears and their arrows. That last, it must be said, is true enough; many a merchant has brought rare herbs and plants with many queer properties to the Citadel, for the maesters seek such things out to better understand their properties and their value. But of the rest, there is no truth to it: crannogmen are men, albeit smaller than most, even if they live in a fashion unique in the Seven Kingdoms.


Long ago, the histories claim, the crannogmen were ruled by the Marsh Kings. Singers tell of them riding on lizard lions and using great frog spears like lances, but that is clearly fancy. Were these Marsh Kings even truly kings, as we understand it? Archmaester Eyron writes that the crannogmen saw their kings as the first among equals, who were often thought to be touched by the old gods— a fact that was said to show itself in eyes of strange hues, or even in speaking with animals as the children are said to have done.



On the Isle of Toads can be found an ancient idol, a greasy black stone crudely carved into the semblance of a gigantic toad of malignant aspect, some forty feet high. The people of this isle are believed by some to be descended from those who carved the Toad Stone, for there is an unpleasant fishlike aspect to their faces, and many have webbed hands and feet. If so, they are the sole surviving remnant of this forgotten race.



The lord fingered the ribbon, frowning at the seals. He was an ugly man, big and fleshy, with an oarsman’s thick shoulders and no neck. Coarse grey stubble, going white in patches, covered his cheeks and chin. Above a massive shelf of brow he was bald. His nose was lumpy and red with broken veins, his lips thick, and he had a sort of webbing between the three middle fingers of his right hand. Davos had heard that some of the lords of the Three Sisters had webbed hands and feet, but he had always put that down as just another sailor’s story.



The woman brought them a fresh loaf of bread, still hot from the oven. When Davos saw her hand, he stared. Lord Godric did not fail to make note of it. “Aye, she has the mark. Like all Borrells, for five thousand years.



Godric Borrell precisely has an unpleasant fishlike aspect to his face and he also has webbed hands as his ancestors for five thousand years.



In the Vale, however, the deeds of this real historical personage have become utterly confused with those of his legendary namesake, another Artys Arryn, who lived many thousands of years earlier during the Age of Heroes, and is remembered in song and story as the Winged Knight. The first Ser Artys Arryn supposedly rode upon a huge falcon (possibly a distorted memory of dragonriders seen from afar, Archmaester Perestan suggests). Armies of eagles fought at his command. To win the Vale, he flew to the top of the Giant’s Lance and slew the Griffin King. He counted giants and merlings amongst his friends, and wed a woman of the children of the forest, though she died giving birth to his son.



It is obvious that the legendary Ser Artys Arryn is a First Men hero and possibly the Last Hero himself.



Dany remembered the word from a terrifying story that Jhiqui had told her one night by the cookfire. A maegi was a woman who lay with demons and practiced the blackest of sorceries, a vile thing, evil and soulless, who came to men in the dark of night and sucked life and strength from their bodies.



He remembered the hearth tales Old Nan told them. The wildlings were cruel men, she said, slavers and slayers and thieves. They consorted with giants and ghouls, stole girl children in the dead of night, and drank blood from polished horns. And their women lay with the Others in the Long Night to sire terrible half-human children.



“At Winterfell one of the serving women told us stories,” Jon went on. “She used to say that there were wildlings who would lay with the Others to birth half-human children.”



There are other tales about giants and humans producing offspring.



To eat of human meat was abomination, to mate as wolf with wolf was abomination, and to seize the body of another man was the worst abomination of all.



In Septon Barth’s Dragons, Wyrms, and Wyverns, he speculated that the bloodmages of Valyria used wyvern stock to create dragons.



I think whoever created the dragons might have skinchanged into wyrms and wyverns to copulate and produce abominations. During the Long Night, perhaps that was a necessary measure against the Ice Dragons of the Others. Or the Ice Dragons were created by the Others to counter the dragon that caused their defeat in the Battle for Dawn.



Most terrible of all are the wyverns, those tyrants of the southern skies, with their great leathery wings, cruel beaks, and insatiable hunger. Close kin to dragons, wyverns cannot breathe fire, but they exceed their cousins in ferocity and are a match for them in all other respects save size.



All these defenses proved useless against Visenya Targaryen, who rode Vhagar’s leathery wings above them all and landed in the Eyrie’s inner courtyard.



Tyrion listened to Illyrio’s snores, the creak of the leather straps, the slow clop clop of the team’s ironshod hooves on the hard Valyrian road, but his heart was listening for the beat of leathern wings.



And then a hot wind buffeted him and he heard the sound of leathern wings and the air was full of ash and cinders and a monstrous roar went echoing off the scorched and blackened bricks and he could hear his friends shouting wildly.



Too rich, thought Tyrion, too beautiful. It is never wise to tempt the dragons. The drowned city was all around them. A half-seen shape flapped by overhead, pale leathery wings beating at the fog. The dwarf craned his head around to get a better look, but the thing was gone as suddenly as it had appeared.



“I see them in my dreams, Sam. I see a red star bleeding in the sky. I still remember red. I see their shadows on the snow, hear the crack of leathern wings, feel their hot breath.”



Leathery wings looks like stemming from the same genetic heritage.


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BORS THE BREAKER, who gained the strength of twenty men by drinking only bull’s blood, and founded House Bulwer of Blackcrown. (Some tales claim Bors drank so much bull’s blood he grew a pair of shiny black horns.)


If I drink enough fire wine, he told himself, perhaps I’ll dream of dragons.


“Ours is the house of the dragon,” he [Viserys] would say. “The fire is in our blood.”


She [Dany] was the blood of the dragon, and the fire was in her.


Perhaps Aerion was not so mad at drinking wildfire.

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