Bride of Fire: The Corpse with Bright Eyes is Daario Naharis

[Lady Blizzardborn]

14 hours ago, ByoTic said:

I,m aware of that,  im just saying that he explicitly used this interpretation. 

Oh, okay. Interestingly, he has a parallel on the ice side with the story of Night's King and his queen.

[Lost Melnibonean]

Daenerys desired to sail to Westeros with Daario...

Quote

The next morning Dany woke as full of hope as she had been since first she came to Slaver's Bay. Daario would soon be at her side once more, and together they would sail for Westeros. For home.

Daenerys III, Dance 16

Perhaps she will, or, if he dies, perhaps she will recall him as she sails for home. 

[Lost Melnibonean]

Quote

That night her cooks roasted her a kid with dates and carrots, but Dany could only eat a bite of it. The prospect of wrestling with Meereen once more left her feeling weary. Sleep came hard, even when Daario came back, so drunk that he could hardly stand. Beneath her coverlets she tossed and turned, dreaming that Hizdahr was kissing her … but his lips were blue and bruised, and when he thrust himself inside her, his manhood was cold as ice. She sat up with her hair disheveled and the bed-clothes atangle. Her captain slept beside her, yet she was alone. She wanted to shake him, wake him, make him hold her, fuck her, help her forget, but she knew that if she did, he would only smile and yawn and say, "It was just a dream, my queen. Go back to sleep."

Daenerys VI, Dance 43

Most of the speculation I have read about this dream is that it foreshadows Daenerys having sex with Euron, Tyrion, Jon Snow, or an Other. I have also read that it foreshadows Hizdahr’s death. I would say that Hizdahr’s death is the more likely of those two options, but I was reading a post by @tze, who noted that the speculation about Tyrion, advanced by @Fire Eater, is based on this...

Quote

"Lemore has been washing you with it. Some say it helps prevent the greyscale. I am inclined to doubt that, but there was no harm in trying. It was Lemore who forced the water from your lungs after Griff had pulled you up. You were as cold as ice, and your lips were blue. Yandry said we ought to throw you back, but the lad forbade it."

Tyrion VI, Dance 22

@tze suggested that the two passages foreshadow Daenerys having sex with a drowned man, and concluded that it would be Euron. But perhaps Tze is only partly right... Perhaps the object of the dream is not a Drowned Man, but rather, a man that has drowned. If so, this dream would fit nicely with the idea that Daario will die at sea, or be killed by Victarion, maybe even as a sacrifice to the Drowned God.

[Lost Melnibonean]

Hmm...

Quote

One day he will go and not return, she thought. One day some archer will put an arrow through his chest, or ten men will fall on him with spears and swords and axes, ten would-be heroes. Five of them would die, but that would not make her grief easier to bear. One day I will lose him, as I lost my sun-and-stars.

Daenerys VI, Dance 43

Ten would be heroes... like the ten long arms of a kraken.

[Lollygag]

I haven’t read through this whole thread, but I’m leaning toward “Bride of Fire” being more along the lines of “Married to One’s Destiny”. So maybe these are all romantic interests, maybe not. Got to admit, a broader interpretation is more interesting to me than a list of Dany’s boyfriends.

So maybe these are things which Dany will value greatly and want, but will have to give up in order to be Married to her Destiny. Maybe they are aspects of herself which must die before she can succeed at her destiny? Dany’s version of Kill the Boy, Let the Man be Born?

The first was Drago and her own family, domestic bliss, the hope that she could live her life just for herself. She was happiest during this time of her life, is still seeking this level of happiness, but has yet to find it in anyone else.

Here, we see Dany still seeking to be comforted from her last loss, Drago. Her hair is tousled, she’s wearing skimpy things, she wears Drago’s lion pelt to feel close to him. She’s soft and seeking comfort, just like Stalwart Shield. At the end of this passage, we see her shed the lion’s pelt and say “the blood of the dragon does not weep”. If this is the correct reference for #2, then I suggest Dany now needs to give up her Stalwart Shield, her need for comfort, warmth, peace, companionship, her need to heal and rest. This particular Stalwart Shield failed in its purpose and died. The soft, feminine Dany at the beginning of this passage will not serve Dany in her destiny, will not protect her.

This passage has a corpse pulled from a ship. His cheeks are cut ear to ear (smiling). Much is made of his open blue eyes. He is bright from the light of a torch. He was alone, without his pair, and was paying prostitutes to hold him, which sounds rather sad to me.

ADWD Daenerys I:

She could hear the dead man coming up the steps. The slow, measured sound of footsteps went before him, echoing amongst the purple pillars of her hall. Daenerys Targaryen awaited him upon the ebon bench that she had made her throne. Her eyes were soft with sleep, her silver-gold hair all tousled.

"Your Grace," said Ser Barristan Selmy, the lord commander of her Queensguard, "there is no need for you to see this."

"He died for me." Dany clutched her lion pelt to her chest. Underneath, a sheer white linen tunic covered her to midthigh. She had been dreaming of a house with a red door when Missandei woke her. There had been no time to dress.

"Khaleesi," whispered Irri, "you must not touch the dead man. It is bad luck to touch the dead."

"Unless you killed them yourself." Jhiqui was bigger-boned than Irri, with wide hips and heavy breasts. "That is known."

"It is known," Irri agreed.

Dothraki were wise where horses were concerned, but could be utter fools about much else. They are only girls, besides. Her handmaids were of an age with her—women grown to look at them, with their black hair, copper skin, and almond-shaped eyes, but girls all the same. They had been given to her when she wed Khal Drogo. It was Drogo who had given her the pelt she wore, the head and hide of a hrakkar, the white lion of the Dothraki sea. It was too big for her and had a musty smell, but it made her feel as if her sun-and-stars was still near her.

Grey Worm appeared atop the steps first, a torch in hand. His bronze cap was crested with three spikes. Behind him followed four of his Unsullied, bearing the dead man on their shoulders. Their caps had only one spike each, and their faces showed so little they might have been cast of bronze as well. They laid the corpse down at her feet. Ser Barristan pulled back the bloodstained shroud. Grey Worm lowered the torch, so she might see.

The dead man's face was smooth and hairless, though his cheeks had been slashed open ear to ear. He had been a tall man, blue-eyed and fair of face. Some child of Lys or Old Volantis, snatched off a ship by corsairs and sold into bondage in red Astapor. Though his eyes were open, it was his wounds that wept. There were more wounds than she could count.

"Your Grace," Ser Barristan said, "there was a harpy drawn on the bricks in the alley where he was found …"

"… drawn in blood." Daenerys knew the way of it by now. The Sons of the Harpy did their butchery by night, and over each kill they left their mark. "Grey Worm, why was this man alone? Had he no partner?" By her command, when the Unsullied walked the streets of Meereen by night they always walked in pairs.

"My queen," replied the captain, "your servant Stalwart Shield had no duty last night. He had gone to a … a certain place … to drink, and have companionship."

"A certain place? What do you mean?"

"A house of pleasure, Your Grace."

A brothel. Half of her freedmen were from Yunkai, where the Wise Masters had been famed for training bedslaves. The way of the seven sighs. Brothels had sprouted up like mushrooms all over Meereen. It is all they know. They need to survive. Food was more costly every day, whilst the price of flesh grew cheaper. In the poorer districts between the stepped pyramids of Meereen's slaver nobility, there were brothels catering to every conceivable erotic taste, she knew. Even so … "What could a eunuch hope to find in a brothel?"

"Even those who lack a man's parts may still have a man's heart, Your Grace," said Grey Worm. "This one has been told that your servant Stalwart Shield sometimes gave coin to the women of the brothels to lie with him and hold him."

The blood of the dragon does not weep. "Stalwart Shield," she said, dry-eyed. "That was his name?"

"If it please Your Grace."

"It is a fine name." The Good Masters of Astapor had not allowed their slave soldiers even names. Some of her Unsullied reclaimed their birth names after she had freed them; others chose new names for themselves. "Is it known how many attackers fell upon Stalwart Shield?"

"Six or more," said Ser Barristan. "From the look of his wounds, they swarmed him from all sides. He was found with an empty scabbard. It may be that he wounded some of his attackers."

Dany said a silent prayer that somewhere one of the Harpy's Sons was dying even now, clutching at his belly and writhing in pain. "Why did they cut open his cheeks like that?"

"Gracious queen," said Grey Worm, "his killers had forced the genitals of a goat down the throat of your servant Stalwart Shield. This one removed them before bringing him here."

They could not feed him his own genitals. The Astapori left him neither root nor stem. "The Sons grow bolder," Dany observed. Until now, they had limited their attacks to unarmed freedmen, cutting them down in the streets or breaking into their homes under the cover of darkness to murder them in their beds. "This is the first of my soldiers they have slain."

"The first," Ser Barristan warned, "but not the last." 

I am still at war, Dany realized, only now I am fighting shadows. She had hoped for a respite from the killing, for some time to build and heal.

Shrugging off the lion pelt, she knelt beside the corpse and closed the dead man's eyes, ignoring Jhiqui's gasp. "Stalwart Shield shall not be forgotten. Have him washed and dressed for battle and bury him with cap and shield and spears."

 

[Lost Melnibonean]

Wow I just noticed this...

Quote

Baelor Hightower was no longer young, but he remained Lord Leyton's heir; wealthy, handsome, and a knight of splendid repute. Baelor Brightsmile, they called him now.

So, the heir to the Hightower is not young, making him grey, and he has a bright smile...