Daenerys is Azor Ahai Reborn

[Saer]

I thought I'd start with a real tinfoil theory, you know? Well, it has to be written out somewhere, and plenty of people disagree. So. Let's start with the main prophecy, the one that's quoted in full twice and referred to in parts by people who are not Melisandre:

When the red star bleeds

The Dothraki named the comet shierak qiya, the Bleeding Star.

The first star was a comet, burning red. Bloodred; fire red; the dragon's tail.

and the darkness gathers,

(Literally, it's dusk, as they wait for the first star to appear before lighting the pyre. Figuratively, the Others gathering and winter's approach.)

Azor Ahai shall be born again

The frightened child who sheltered in my manse died on the Dothraki sea, and was reborn in blood and fire.

amidst smoke

(It's a funeral pyre, trust me there is smoke. eg:)

As the smoke grew thicker, the Dothraki backed away, coughing. Huge orange gouts of fire unfurled their banners in that hellish wind, the logs hissing and cracking, glowing cinders rising on the smoke to float away into the dark like so many newborn fireflies.

and salt

(This is a small push, but it's the only one, and not the most important indicator. (Sodium concentration in sweat is 30-65 mmol/l))

Sweat ran down her thighs and between her breasts and in rivulets over her cheeks, where tears had once run.

to wake dragons

(Viserys uses these words of Daenerys many times, repeated in her fever dream many times, eventually reducing to just "wake the dragon")

Her son... smiled for her and began to lift his hand toward hers, but when he opened his mouth the fire poured out. She saw his heart burning through his chest, and in an instant he was gone, consumed like a moth by a candle, turned to ash. She wept for her child, the promise of a sweet mouth on her breast, but her tears turned to steam as they touched her skin.

"… want to wake the dragon …"

out of stone.

"Dragon's eggs, from the Shadow Lands beyond Asshai," said Magister Illyrio. "The eons have turned them to stone, yet still they burn bright with beauty."

She heard a crack, the sound of shattering stone... And something else came crashing down, bouncing and rolling, to land at her feet; a chunk of curved rock, pale and veined with gold, broken and smoking.

So. There you go. Daenerys meets every single point.

That prophecy is the most reliable, to my mind. There is another given: "In ancient books of Asshai it is written that there will come a day after a long summer when the stars bleed and the cold breath of darkness falls heavy on the world. In this dread hour a warrior shall draw from the fire a burning sword. And that sword shall be Lightbringer, the Red Sword of Heroes, and he who clasps it shall be Azor Ahai come again, and the darkness shall flee before him." Dany also fits this, but I'm not going through point by point because it 1) never appears again, 2) doesn't mention dragons or the salt and smoke that Maestar Aemon emphasises, and 3) begins a clearly faked ritual for the creation of 'Lightbringer'. Given that, I suspect Melisandre is not, ah, quoting an orthodox prophecy at that point. The emphasis on the sword, for example, suggests she's stretching to support the performance and avoid spooking people with large claims.

As I said, Daenerys drawing dragons from fire in autumn after a ten year summer on the first night a red comet appears fits perfectly well, but I suspect Melisandre is... 'making it up' is too harsh, but giving a remix of the story, shall we say, for the Sunset Kingdom savages. The point is to say the wildfire sword makes Stannis AA, not to give an accurate account of the prophecy.

The lack of smoke and salt is important because the parts corroborated by Maestar Aemon are:

It was a prince that was promised, not a princess. Rhaegar, I thought . . . the smoke was from the fire that devoured Summerhall on the day of his birth, the salt from the tears shed for those who died. He shared my belief when he was young, but later he became persuaded that it was his own son who fulfilled the prophecy, for a comet had been seen above King's Landing on the night Aegon was conceived, and Rhaegar was certain the bleeding star had to be a comet.

Daenerys is the one, born amidst salt and smoke. The dragons prove it.

Smoke. Salt. Bleeding star. And the dragons are proof. Not a sign, not a possibility, but certainty. It's similar in Volantis:

"Dragons. I understood that word. He said dragons."

"Aye. The dragons have come to carry her to glory."

Benerro has sent forth the word from Volantis. Her coming is the fulfillment of an ancient prophecy. From smoke and salt was she born to make the world anew. She is Azor Ahai returned … and her triumph over darkness will bring a summer that will never end … death itself will bend its knee, and all those who die fighting in her cause shall be reborn …

None of these priests know Daenerys. They hear of her dragons and from that decide that there must have been smoke and salt around. Dragons are the proof. Everything else is made to fit. (It does fit, but they don't know that.) Which is why, despite my test for 'too obvious' being "has it been directly suggested in text", the in-universe endorsement doesn't dissuade me: this has moved from theory to certainty. It's like Mirri Maz Dur being the treason for blood, that's how not-a-theory it is. (Or, characters are allowed to correctly interpret prophecies if they're introduced after the events described.)

Aemon's thoughts and Rhaegar's show us that TPTWP and AAR are definitely synonymous to Targaryeans. (To Melisandre as well, with no one dissenting. It's almost like this wasn't supposed to be ambiguous.) So someone telling Targaryeans their descendent will be TPTWP is telling them about AAR. And Dany is definitely of this line:

Your grandsire commanded [Rhaella and Aerys to marry]. A woods witch had told him that the prince was promised would be born of their line.

Now, on to Lightbringer

It's the dragons. From a logistical perspective, it's supposed to be a weapon against the darkness. By which we mean winter, the Others, and their army of undead. There are a large number of these, and we haven't even met ice spiders yet. One person with a sword, no matter how shiny and magical, is never going to be enough against an army. There is one weapon established in the world of ice and fire that can kill, say, 5000 individuals in a single battle: dragons.

We're told fire will only 'dismay' the others, but it's certainly enough for wights. And as ordinary glasss isn't going to do a thing to them, and ordinary steel shatters against them, while dragonglass and dragonsteel are super-effective, dragonfire can be reasonably expected to have a greater effect than normal fire. (I'm not saying the dragons are the only weapon against the Others, I'm just certain that they're going to be important.)

Dragons==sword isn't just my metaphor, it's used in text. In the words of Xaro Xhoan Daxos,

Grown, they are death and devastation, a flaming sword above the world.

By Sallador Saan's story, it takes three attempts to forge Lightbringer. Once with no sacrifice:

Cradling the egg with both hands, she carried it to the fire and pushed it down amongst the burning coals. The black scales seemed to glow as they drank the heat. Flames licked against the stone with small red tongues. Dany placed the other two eggs beside the black one in the fire. As she stepped back from the brazier, the breath trembled in her throat. She watched until the coals had turned to ashes. Drifting sparks floated up and out of the smokehole. Heat shimmered in waves around the dragon's eggs. And that was all.

Once after killing an animal: (a horse)

"… don't want to wake the dragon, do you?" The tent was drenched in shadow, still and close. Flakes of ash drifted upward from a brazier, and Dany followed them with her eyes through the smoke hole above. Flying, she thought. I had wings, I was flying. But it was only a dream. "Help me," she whispered, struggling to rise. "Bring me …" Her voice was raw as a wound, and she could not think what she wanted. Why did she hurt so much? It was as if her body had been torn to pieces and remade from the scraps. "I want …"
[...]
After a time—a night, a day, a year, she could not say—she woke again. ... "Bring me …" she murmured, her voice slurred and drowsy. "Bring … I want to hold …"
"Yes?" the maegi asked. "What is it you wish, Khaleesi?"

"Bring me … egg … dragon's egg … please …" Her lashes turned to lead, and she was too weary to hold them up.

When she woke the third time, a shaft of golden sunlight was pouring through the smoke hole of the tent, and her arms were wrapped around a dragon's egg. It was the pale one, its scales the color of butter cream, veined with whorls of gold and bronze, and Dany could feel the heat of it. Beneath her bedsilks, a fine sheen of perspiration covered her bare skin. Dragondew, she thought. Her fingers trailed lightly across the surface of the shell, tracing the wisps of gold, and deep in the stone she felt something twist and stretch in response.

And finally, successfully, after killing her spouse, with the sacrifice of a living human being.

As Daenerys Targaryen rose to her feet, her black hissed, pale smoke venting from its mouth and nostrils. The other two pulled away from her breasts and added their voices to the call, translucent wings unfolding and stirring the air, and for the first time in hundreds of years, the night came alive with the music of dragons.

All this has been said before, and convinces few enough. There are other ways to fight Others, and if you push and pull enough a lot of things will fit the triple construction. Jon gives us a more detailed description of Lightbringer:

I looked at that book Maester Aemon left me. The Jade Compendium. The pages that told of Azor Ahai. Lightbringer was his sword. Tempered with his wife's blood if Votar can be believed. Thereafter Lightbringer was never cold to the touch, but warm as Nissa Nissa had been warm.

Dany marveled at the smoothness of their scales, and the heat that poured off them, so palpable that on cold nights their whole bodies seemed to steam.

So far, still pretty general. Lots of things are warm. Aemon specifically notes Stannis's Lightbringer's lack of heat as the giveaway it's not the real thing, so we know that is important. But the next part of this Jade Compendium's description describes the effect of Lightbringer in a particularly telling way, and this is what moved me from "Dany is AA, so the dragons must be LB" to "...the dragons are definitely Lightbringer":

In battle the blade burned fiery hot. Once Azor Ahai fought a monster. When he thrust the sword through the belly of the beast, its blood began to boil. Smoke and steam poured from its mouth, its eyes melted and dribbled down its cheeks, and its body burst into flame.

A lance of swirling dark flame took Kraznys full in the face. His eyes melted and ran down his cheeks, and the oil in his hair and beard burst so fiercely into fire that for an instant the slaver wore a burning crown twice as tall as his head.

That's incredibly specific and near identical to Drogon's effect at Astapor, and to be honest, it's gratuitously graphic if there's not a reason for it. I've heard other Lightbringer theories, but none of them could cause a person's eyes to melt and run down their cheeks. To me, that's confirmation. There's no reason to repeat such a gruesome description twice except to say that these are the same thing.

A final note:

"Azor Ahai shall be born again amidst smoke and salt to wake dragons out of stone. Dragonstone is the place of smoke and salt."
Jon had heard all this before. "Stannis Baratheon was the Lord of Dragonstone, but he was not born there."

But someone was. Heh.

Now, Daenerys is not going to save the world single-handedly. That's not happening. Group effort, massive group effort. The political everything is not going to be rendered irrelevant in the last book. There will be other people of significant importance. Some of those people might also fulfill parts of the AA prophecy, although I'm 99% sure we're not waking up any more dragons before dawn. If you predict there are multiple AAs and Dany's one of them, cool. There are a lot of other roles to play in the final books. But this role, this specific prophecy? If you think Daenerys is not Azor Ahai Reborn... you're dreaming, mate.

Azor Ahai is the person who will wake dragons from stone. Daenerys has woken dragons. That any significant number of peeple doubt this is a testament to GRRM's successful redirection: just as he hides the inevitible death of the Stark kids' father by casting him as detective hero in a murder mystery, he hides the fulfillment of the prophecy by only describing it a book and a half after the event it fortells. The idea that a fantasy prophecy describes the future of the story is so engrained in the reader's mind that it works.

[TheLightning Lord]

Daenerys as AA is too obvious. We have every single red priest in essos label her the savior, and then Aemon tells us she is tptwp.

I would love her to be AA over the chosen one Jon, but it ain't gonna happen

[GtrGbln]

Daenerys as AA is too obvious.

This is not and never has been a good argument for anything. By that rationale Jon is really Ned's bastard. Do you think Jon is Ned's bastard? Its glaringly obvious he is the son Rhaegar and Lyanna even if there is some conjecture about the circumstances.

/not Jon hating I just used this because its a highly visible example of how that logic is often unevenly applied.

[Hajk]

I thought I'd start with a real tinfoil theory, you know?

Daenerys as Azor Ahai is not tinfoil. Everyone and their cat knows that she is one of the major contenders. The major objection is that in her case, almost the entire prophecy seems fulfilled already by the end of Book1, before we ever even hear of the prophecy. That is why one suspects a major misdirect here.

The weakest parts in the theory identifying her are those to do with Lightbringer, and the fact that she is not a "Prince". Aemon's statement helps to counter the prince expectation based on the views of Barth, but the World Book expresses skepticism on Barth's views on the issue.

The strongest argument for her seems to be the dragons. The question is what does awakening dragons from stone even mean? It could mean anything from what happened to Dany to volcanoes.

[joluoto2]

Nah, Renly was right. Azor Ahai is a ham. Born under salt and smoke and all that.

[TheLionOfTheRock]

Daenerys as Azor Ahai is not tinfoil. Everyone and their cat knows that she is one of the major contenders. The major objection is that in her case, almost the entire prophecy seems fulfilled already by the end of Book1, before we ever even hear of the prophecy. That is why one suspects a major misdirect here.

The weakest parts in the theory identifying her are those to do with Lightbringer, and the fact that she is not a "Prince". Aemon's statement helps to counter the prince expectation based on the views of Barth, but the World Book expresses skepticism on Barth's views on the issue.

The strongest argument for her seems to be the dragons. The question is what does awakening dragons from stone even mean? It could mean anything from what happened to Dany to volcanoes.

It's obviously meant sarcastically.

I think another major problem with the theory that Dany is AA is that she shows no awareness of the Others, unlike Jon who is actually at the Wall. While the word "Prince" doesn't mean that AA has to be male (considering that ancient prophecies and texts often use male pronouns to refer to people in general) I do believe that in this case, Jon is a more likely contender. He may actually be reborn, if resurrected by Melisandre, where as Dany doesn't actually die in the Dothraki Sea so to use this as proof of rebirth is dubious at best.

In terms of dragons, I feel that there are too many other options to just assume this means Dany and the eggs. There's ever a theory out there that a dragon lives under Winterfell and that's what keeps it hot.

With two books to go, I think it's definitely too earlier to make sweeping statements like Dany IS AA and the dragons MUST be LB. As we know, the next book will be called "Winds of Winter" so I feel that the prophecy is more likely to come into effect here, rather than at the end of the first book.

[Lord Rupert Connington]

Nah, Renly was right. Azor Ahai is a ham. Born under salt and smoke and all that.

Hammis. Hammis! HAMMIS!

Now getting back to the original question, I agree with GtrGbln: just because something is too obvious does not make it true/untrue. I personally believe that Daenerys is AAR because she's fulfilled a lot of prophesies that are required for 'the role'. Killing Drogo; being born on Dragonstone (salt & smoke); etc.

[GtrGbln]

This is not and never has been a good argument for anything. By that rationale Jon is really Ned's bastard. Do you think Jon is Ned's bastard? Its glaringly obvious he is the son Rhaegar and Lyanna even if there is some conjecture about the circumstances.

/not Jon hating I just used this because its a highly visible example of how that logic is often unevenly applied.

I just reread that and it came off harsher than I intended.

[Hajk]

Hammis. Hammis! HAMMIS!

Now getting back to the original question, I agree with GtrGbln: just because something is too obvious does not make it true/untrue. I personally believe that Daenerys is AAR because she's fulfilled a lot of prophesies that are required for 'the role'. Killing Drogo; being born on Dragonstone (salt & smoke); etc.

Dragonstone provides the salt, but where does the smoke really come from? It doesn't say "born once amidst salt and once amidst smoke". Dragonstone doesn't fulfil both components of this prophecy. It's not the smoking sea of Valyria (due to a massive volcanic eruption). Volcanoes can fulfil the role of 'awakening dragons from stone' too as this phrase seems like a metaphorical way to describe volcanoes.

Her dragons are the main reason many are willing to twist the other words to fit her (or deem them metaphorical).

[Jon's Queen Consort]

Daenerys as Azor Ahai is not tinfoil. Everyone and their cat knows that she is one of the major contenders. The major objection is that in her case, almost the entire prophecy seems fulfilled already by the end of Book1, before we ever even hear of the prophecy. That is why one suspects a major misdirect here.

:agree:

I also cannot see how Dany is a warrior. Sure Dany may ride a dragon in the battle, I am not saying that the dragon can do much damage, that doesn't make her a warrior.

[Saer]

Daenerys as AA is too obvious. We have every single red priest in essos label her the savior, and then Aemon tells us she is tptwp.

As I said, it's obvious the same way MMD being the betrayal for blood is obvious. Doesn't make it not true, just no point playing coy now.

The major objection is that in her case, almost the entire prophecy seems fulfilled already by the end of Book1, before we ever even hear of the prophecy. That is why one suspects a major misdirect here.

No? That's an argument in her favour, I say, that it's not the typical structure of a fantasy prophecy.

The strongest argument for her seems to be the dragons. The question is what does awakening dragons from stone even mean? It could mean anything from what happened to Dany to volcanoes.

...or maybe it means dragons. There were stone eggs. Now there are dragons. They are awake. It could mean something else... but it really doesn't need to.

I think another major problem with the theory that Dany is AA is that she shows no awareness of the Others, unlike Jon who is actually at the Wall. While the word "Prince" doesn't mean that AA has to be male (considering that ancient prophecies and texts often use male pronouns to refer to people in general) wait do people actually argue this. does no one listen to Maestar Aemon. what. I do believe that in this case, Jon is a more likely contender. He may actually be reborn, if resurrected by Melisandre, where as Dany doesn't actually die in the Dothraki Sea so to use this as proof of rebirth is dubious at best.

With two books to go, I think it's definitely too earlier to make sweeping statements like Dany IS AA and the dragons MUST be LB. As we know, the next book will be called "Winds of Winter" so I feel that the prophecy is more likely to come into effect here, rather than at the end of the first book.

Well, that's the usual way prophecies in fantasy books work. Would you say ASOIAF uses tropes in the usual way, overall?

Dragonstone provides the salt, but where does the smoke really come from? It doesn't say "born once amidst salt and once amidst smoke". Dragonstone doesn't fulfil both components of this prophecy. It's not the smoking sea of Valyria (due to a massive volcanic eruption). Volcanoes can fulfil the role of 'awakening dragons from stone' too as this phrase seems like a metaphorical way to describe volcanoes.

Her dragons are the main reason many are willing to twist the other words to fit her (or deem them metaphorical).

Nah, her sweat provides the salt, in my read. Melisandre refers to Dragonstone as salt-stone-place because the volcanoes there still smoke. A pale grey wisp of smoke blew from the top of the mountain to mark where the island lay. Dragonmont is restless this morning, Davos thought

[VMVD]

Still going with Jon Snow.

[TheLionOfTheRock]

Well, that's the usual way prophecies in fantasy books work. Would you say ASOIAF uses tropes in the usual way, overall?

Nah, her sweat provides the salt, in my read. Melisandre refers to Dragonstone as salt-stone-place because the volcanoes there still smoke. A pale grey wisp of smoke blew from the top of the mountain to mark where the island lay. Dragonmont is restless this morning, Davos thought

I'm not quite sure what you mean here. GRRM has already shown that this is not a typical fantasy book by killing main heroic characters like Robb and Ned and in the general moral "greyness" of his characters. What are you asking when you say "do people actually ask this"?

Her Sweat? Do you not feel that is a bit ridiculous? Why would a thousands year old prophecy refer to the chemical formula for sweat? If you wanted to argue salt at her rebirth, it would have made much more sense to suggest, either "salt" refers to the sea (in this case the dothraki sea, yes I know its not a body of water but that's prophecies for you) or possibly Jorah's tears and a lot of people seem to think the salt means tears.

[Saer]

So when you see one character who literally checks off every single point of the prophecy, and another character who... doesn't... you go for the second one. Why? (Yes, his death scene does some of that--while dying, not being reborn. No way is he waking dragons, ever. As I said at the end, if you want to say there are multiple iterations of AA and one of them is Dany and one of them is Jon with, idk, Night's Watch as Lightbringer, cool. But Dany's definitely going to be one of them.)

Dragons as Lightbringer is actually something I'm really confident on. I mean reread that Jade Compendium story. I did a search for 'melt' and checked through the results, and there are only two occasions in the entire corpus where someone's eyes melt: that story about Azor Ahai, and Drogon attacking the slaver at Astapor. its eyes melted and dribbled down its cheeks, and its body burst into flame vs His eyes melted and ran down his cheeks, and the oil in his hair and beard burst so fiercely into fire

Read it. They're specific. They're identical. They're the same thing.

[Hajk]

...or maybe it means dragons. There were stone eggs. Now there are dragons. They are awake. It could mean something else... but it really doesn't need to.

Well in that case warrior literally means warrior, and sword literally means sword. It could mean something else but it doesn't have too. So by such rules I can insist that she is disqualified as well.

It is not the typical structure of fantasy writing for the prophecy to unfold even before the prophecy is mentioned for a good reason: It is bad writing. In good writing the layers are slowly peeled away, There are misdirects as well as hints to the larger mystery, just as for R+L=J.

Nah, her sweat provides the salt, in my read. Melisandre refers to Dragonstone as salt-stone-place because the volcanoes there still smoke. A pale grey wisp of smoke blew from the top of the mountain to mark where the island lay. Dragonmont is restless this morning, Davos thought

This is almost enough to make the whole condition utterly irrelevant. How many times since the prophecy was uttered have people produced sweat around a fire? It may as well be saying "drink and piss" rather than "salt and smoke"

[khal drogon]

No other theory convincingly explain "waking dragons from stone" part. "Dragon beneath winterfell" idea is too much ridiculous for ASOIAF.

[Hajk]

Dragons as Lightbringer is actually something I'm really confident on. I mean reread that Jade Compendium story. I did a search for 'melt' and checked through the results, and there are only two occasions in the entire corpus where someone's eyes melt: that story about Azor Ahai, and Drogon attacking the slaver at Astapor. its eyes melted and dribbled down its cheeks, and its body burst into flame vs His eyes melted and ran down his cheeks, and the oil in his hair and beard burst so fiercely into fire

Read it. They're specific. They're identical. They're the same thing.

It may have been quite feat to put a dragon in water and see it shatter, then put it in a lion and see it shatter and then put it through his wife's heart.

[Hajk]

No other theory convincingly explain "waking dragons from stone" part. "Dragon beneath winterfell" idea is too much ridiculous for ASOIAF.

Volcanoes being described by that metaphor is not ridiculous for ASOIAF. Unless you insist that this part of the prophecy MUST be literal. The dragon beneath Winterfell is actually fueled by material that is present in the text (people think it may explain the warm water etc.). And the possibility of dragon eggs there is raised in the World Book as a possibility when Jacaerys visits.

[GtrGbln]

Dragonstone provides the salt, but where does the smoke really come from?

You're funnin' us here right?

Dragonstone is a volcanic Island so from the volcano.

[Hajk]

You're funnin' us here right?

Dragonstone is a volcanic Island so from the volcano.

Was it smoking when she was born? We know of a huge storm, but I may have missed/forgotten this if it is mentioned. My point is that unless the salt and smoke are both major indicators of where, they don't mean much. In Dany's case, it is surprising that it wouldn't be salt and storm. The smoking sea of Valyria does seem like salt and smoke but nothing has happened there. Tze's old interpretation that the prophecy may be the description of a vision by someone ages ago who was not familiar with ice formations etc. and described the Wall as "Salt" and the mist that comes with the Others as "Smoke" at least makes the salt and smoke of such significance and consequence as to be mentioned in such a prominent way. this could happen when they actually storm the Wall, for example.