What role will House Dayne play?

[LmL]

On January 19, 2016 at 6:07 PM, Victarion Chainbreaker said:

I used to think that Darkstar was a replacement for Edric as Sword of the Morning once George decided on skipping the five-year gap. But then I read the Dayne=Black Knight theory, and realized that Edric would have had an evil uncle all along.

Great thread @Floki of the Ironborn and I want to respond and also comment on the esteemed @Victarion Chainbreaker's remarks as well. My suspicion is that the ultimate purpose of either Edric (pre-5 year gap) or Darkstar (sans 5 year gap) was simply to get Dawn out of Starfall and out into circulation so that someone else can wield it - that's IF Martin ever intends for someone to wield it, which I'm unsure of.  Think about it like this: neither Darkstar nor Edric is enough of a central character to play any type of critical role in the War for the Dawn 2.0. IF Dawn is meant to be wielded in a significant way, it would have to be wielded by someone we care about.  Therefore, I suspect Martin's intention was always to use either Edric or Darkstar to bring the sword out to play, get killed, and have the true wielder then gain access to it.  

The only two people I can think of that make any sense are Jon and Daenerys.  @Sly Wren's great theory about Jon and the Sword of the Morning shows that Jon is heavily associated with the SOTM, so it would make a certain amount of sense, even though Jon is probably not a Dayne.

I have my own theory about the occasionally purple-eyed and silver-haired Daynes having a common ancestor with Valyria, the long-vanished Great Empire of the Dawn which I believe was simply another name for the people who built Asshai and first tamed dragons, before Valyria and before the Long Night. Point being, Dawn might go back to those times, and Daenerys is the one who saw the gemstone-eyed ghosts of their empire in her "Wake the Dragon" dream vision - the ones who held swords of pale flame - so perhaps Dawn is tied to her destiny. Dany can't swing a huge sword, but what if Dawn's true purpose is magical? Perhaps its a huge milkglass candle. I don't think anyone would be surprised if the answer to beating the Others isn't simply chopping them up with obsidian until they are all dead. This is a bit far-fetched, admittedly, but if it happens... you heard it here first. 

I discussed a lot of these ideas and a few others with Aziz from History of Westeros on Part 2 of their House Dayne video podcast, if you guys are curious.

@Victarion Chainbreaker, I've read some of Pretty Pig's Marvelous writings, and I checked out the link in your post here. All that black meteor / black sword stuff fits pretty well with my own ideas about Lightbringer, no?  My ideas about Dayne being a descendent of the Amethyst Empress and the Great Empire of the Dawn involve the idea that their line has a light / dark dichotomy. The Amethyst Empress was murdered by her evil brother, after all, and Darkstar seems like an opposite of Arthur in every way. Martin has a lot of these yin and yang-like concepts in his books, and I think House Dayne shows us that dichotomy orety clearly. There was also Vorian Dayne, the "Sword of the Evening," who was sent to the Wall by Nymeria, and Samwell Dayne the Starfire who sacked and burned the most advanced and learned city in Westeros - Oldtown. Not as specifically night-associated as Vorian and Gerold, but there you go.  The dark side. Then we have Arthur Dayne, Nymeria's husband the dashing young Davos Dayne, a SOTM, and Ser Ulrick Dayne, another SOTM and a great swordsman by all accounts. The light side. Something like that, anyway. 

I happen to think Azor Ahai and the Last Hero are likely to be a father - son or uncle - nephew thing, with one dude causing the Long Night and the other ending it. I've seen a lot of echoes of this pattern, and I think that's the deal. The same bloodline, producing the problem and the solution. It's very like Venus, which is both morningstar and evenstar, depending on the part of its cycle that it is in.