Jump to content

Daenerys's Fate and the Fire She Must Light to Love


Lost Melnibonean

Recommended Posts

1 hour ago, The Fattest Leech said:

So, Danaerys is going to r#pe Jon???:huh:

Let me grab some popcorn first before I sit down in front of the fandom to read about this. 

That was a joke. I'm pretty sure he will be into her. He already has revealed he would like to have a dragon. The dragon queen is attached to that package.

Quote

Great. But one question, where are the northern prophecies, tales, dreams, Jon's own desires in all of this? Or is this just the one woman Dany show? I guess that is two questions :P

Well, Jon seems to be the main lead, and Dany is clearly the female lead. And the vision of the blue rose indicates very strongly that they will hook up. How George accomplishes this I don't know. It will depend obviously depend on how the story continues and what twists and turns are ahead of Dany and Jon before they finally meet each other.

Jon as he is now doesn't strike me as the kind of man Dany would ever want. He has a nice scar but he is neither dangerous nor powerfully built nor significantly older than she is. So he would have to proceed somewhat in the bad boy department (pretty likely in the wake of the trauma of his death and resurrection, and in light of the dark times that lie ahead of him).

That is actually a rather strong reason against a Dany-Aegon match considering that he definitely nothing but a beautiful boy. And Dany does not like boys.

Dany is famed as the fairest woman in the world so we can safely say that Jon is likely going to be physically attracted to her. That in itself is actually enough for some kind of affair. Whether they have much in common besides remains to be seen, but they certainly will have the same mission (fighting the Others) a closeness due to their kinship of being aunt and nephew, the chance to right the wrongs of the past by getting along (Dany knows about Rhaegar and Lyanna and Jon most likely is going to see House Targaryen in not so bad a light after he learns who his real father was - independently whether he wants to be a Targaryen or not).

From a dynastic and political and narrative viewpoint a marriage between these two seems almost inevitable. There is a reason why the concept of incest marriage was introduced for the royal family. That is not just a minor background detail. Even if they could not stand each other they are still very likely to marry one another. Even more so if Jon ever plays a prominent role politics (which I'm not so sure he will).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

That was a joke. I'm pretty sure he will be into her. He already has revealed he would like to have a dragon. The dragon queen is attached to that package.

Well, Jon seems to be the main lead, and Dany is clearly the female lead. And the vision of the blue rose indicates very strongly that they will hook up. How George accomplishes this I don't know. It will depend obviously depend on how the story continues and what twists and turns are ahead of Dany and Jon before they finally meet each other.

Jon as he is now doesn't strike me as the kind of man Dany would ever want. He has a nice scar but he is neither dangerous nor powerfully built nor significantly older than she is. So he would have to proceed somewhat in the bad boy department (pretty likely in the wake of the trauma of his death and resurrection, and in light of the dark times that lie ahead of him).

Dany is famed as the fairest woman in the world so we can safely say that Jon is likely going to be physically attracted to her. That in itself is actually enough for some kind of affair. Whether they have much in common besides remains to be seen, but they certainly will have the same mission (fighting the Others) a closeness due to their kinship of being aunt and nephew, the chance to right the wrongs of the past by getting along (Dany knows about Rhaegar and Lyanna and Jon most likely is going to see House Targaryen in not so bad a light after he learns who his real father was - independently whether he wants to be a Targaryen or not).

From a dynastic and political and narrative viewpoint a marriage between these two seems almost inevitable. There is a reason why the concept of incest marriage was introduced for the royal family. That is not just a minor background detail. Even if they could not stand each other they are still very likely to marry one another. Even more so if Jon ever plays a prominent role politics (which I'm not so sure he will).

Well, that's certainly one interpretation.

The blue rose in her vision might as well be the answer to a riddle - namely who the true last Dragon is. And who all of her conquests will prepare the ground for. That her entire reason for existing is to find him and restore him to his rightful position.

She is the one that goes before him.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 minutes ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

Well, that's certainly one interpretation.

The blue rose in he vision might as well be the answer to a riddle - namely who the true last Dragon is. And who all of her conquests will prepare the ground for. That her entire reason for existing is to find him and restore him to his rightful position.

She is the one that goes before him.

I suggest you reread the actual text before speculating. This is the quote:

Quote

Her silver was trotting through the grass, to a darkling stream beneath a sea of stars. A corpse stood at the prow of a ship, eyes bright in his dead face, grey lips smiling sadly. A blue flower grew from a chink in a wall of ice, and filled the air with sweetness. . . . mother of dragons, bride of fire . . .

This is a complex of prophecies. Dany is the bride of fire, there are three visions in that complex. The first hints at Dany's first consort, Khal Drogon, by referring her wedding night in AGoT. The second one her second consort (not counting Hizdahr), a prophecy difficult to decipher. The third vision clearly shows Jon as her consort. It is really that easy.

The previous vision complex, summarized as 'mother of dragons, slayer of lies' showed the blued-eyed king without a shadow, the cloth dragon on a pole in front of a cheering crowd, and the stone beast breathing shadow fire. And we all agree that this visions all symbolize lies. Aegon and Stannis aren't 'true kings' Dany is going to support or anything.

Here is that quote, for comparison:

Quote

Glowing like sunset, a red sword was raised in the hand of a blue-eyed king who cast no shadow. A cloth dragon swayed on poles amidst a cheering crowd. From a smoking tower, a great stone beast took wing, breathing shadow fire. . . . mother of dragons, slayer of lies . . .

Unfortunately we lack visions to the three mounts, three fires, and three treasons. That could have helped greatly. But we can be reasonably certain that the blue rose is part of larger complex referring to the marriages of 'the bride of fire'.

The first prophecy complex about 'the daughter of death' only shows visions from the past/alternative futures, namely the deaths of Viserys, Rhaego, and Rhaegar.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

20 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

I suggest you reread the actual text before speculating. This is the quote:

This is a complex of prophecies. Dany is the bride of fire, there are three visions in that complex. The first hints at Dany's first consort, Khal Drogon, by referring her wedding night in AGoT. The second one her second consort (not counting Hizdahr), a prophecy difficult to decipher. The third vision clearly shows Jon as her consort. It is really that easy.

The previous vision complex, summarized as 'mother of dragons, slayer of lies' showed the blued-eyed king without a shadow, the cloth dragon on a pole in front of a cheering crowd, and the stone beast breathing shadow fire. And we all agree that this visions all symbolize lies. Aegon and Stannis aren't 'true kings' Dany is going to support or anything.

Here is that quote, for comparison:

Unfortunately we lack visions to the three mounts, three fires, and three treasons. That could have helped greatly. But we can be reasonably certain that the blue rose is part of larger complex referring to the marriages of 'the bride of fire'.

The first prophecy complex about 'the daughter of death' only shows visions from the past/alternative futures, namely the deaths of Viserys, Rhaego, and Rhaegar.

Why not bride of death? She wasn't the daughter of either Viserys, Rhaego or Rhaegar. Clearly the "daughter" part should not be read literally.

Similarly, Bride of Fire need not mean physical marriages to each of the three visions. And neither do all three of the visions represent "Fire". Hence, it could easily be an association between her and some kind of symbolic Fire she will light in each of the three scenarios. Number one, she will light a fire that will engulf and up end Dothraki society.

Number two, the corpse on the ship, who knows. Maybe she will cause a firestorm of Ironborn pillaging and burning as a result of Euron's obsession with her. We have seen this unfold already, without her even knowing about the effect she had there.

And as for Jon, maybe she will be the one to reveal his true identity, thus lighting the Fire of the new Targaryen dynasty by placing him on the Throne.

Heck, if the prophecy is true that she will be married three times, well, Hizdahr was already number two, and he doesn't look anything like a corpse on the prow of a ship.

All of the above simply points out that your interpretations are far too literal. And as you know, I myself have suggested a possible marriage between Jon and Daenerys, but it is by no means a given, and certainly not with him as her "consort" as you put it. How about her being his consort until her death, after which he marries again, either to Val, or Sansa, or Arya or anyone else.

In short, your one sided interpretation of the future of this series is by no means the only sensible way, or even the mainstream interpretation, for that matter.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Dany clearly is going to pluck that blue flower

Careful -- blue flowers are often poisonous...and in the world of ASOIAF things that smell 'sweet' -- like the breath with which Sweetpetyr tells his lies -- often belie (ha!) a harsh truth.

23 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Dany is Aegon the Conqueror come again

Yes -- except this time she's not going to conquer; she's going to bend the knee.  'Sweet' symmetry.

On 2/21/2017 at 4:19 PM, Lost Melnibonean said:

As to the three mounts she must ride, "one to bed and one dread and one to love," most of us suspect the first is her silver with Drogo to the grassy place beside a small stream, and that the second is Drogo’s namesake Drogon. Well, you know what? The third one just might be the smoky stallion Daenerys will ride to join her sun-and-stars in the Night Lands. 

I really like this!  

Three 'mounts' correlate with three flights:

1.  The silver filly allows her to fly on the ground

  • corresponds to the age of childhood and innocence -- the Maid archetype
  •  the horse runs on all fours, like a child crawling on the ground
  •  fittingly the 'mount' is gifted at a wedding, shortly before the loss of her maidenhood
  •  the color of the 'mount' reflects the color of her hair in youth
Quote

A Game of Thrones - Daenerys II

And last of all, Khal Drogo brought forth his own bride gift to her. An expectant hush rippled out from the center of the camp as he left her side, growing until it had swallowed the whole khalasar. When he returned, the dense press of Dothraki gift-givers parted before him, and he led the horse to her.

She was a young filly, spirited and splendid. Dany knew just enough about horses to know that this was no ordinary animal. There was something about her that took the breath away. She was grey as the winter sea, with a mane like silver smoke.

Hesitantly she reached out and stroked the horse's neck, ran her fingers through the silver of her mane. Khal Drogo said something in Dothraki and Magister Illyrio translated. "Silver for the silver of your hair, the khal says."

...

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

The silver-grey filly moved with a smooth and silken gait, and the crowd parted for her, every eye upon them. Dany found herself moving faster than she had intended, yet somehow it was exciting rather than terrifying. The horse broke into a trot, and she smiled. Dothraki scrambled to clear a path. The slightest pressure with her legs, the lightest touch on the reins, and the filly responded. She sent it into a gallop, and now the Dothraki were hooting and laughing and shouting at her as they jumped out of her way. As she turned to ride back, a firepit loomed ahead, directly in her path. They were hemmed in on either side, with no room to stop. A daring she had never known filled Daenerys then, and she gave the filly her head.

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

When she pulled up before Magister Illyrio, she said, "Tell Khal Drogo that he has given me the wind." The fat Pentoshi stroked his yellow beard as he repeated her words in Dothraki, and Dany saw her new husband smile for the first time.

 

2. The majestic black dragon allows her to fly in the air

  • corresponds to the age of adulthood and corruption -- the Mother archetype
  • fittingly for this archetype, the 'mount' is gifted to her at a birth
  • the adult is no longer a child, walks on two legs (Dany's dragons are two-legged) and reaches for the heavens
  • the color of the 'mount' reflects the color of her hair, i.e. burnt off leaving her skull charred and blackened in the birthing pyre
Quote

A Dance with Dragons - Daenerys IX

… and folded. The dragon gave one last hiss and stretched out flat upon his belly. Black blood was flowing from the wound where the spear had pierced him, smoking where it dripped onto the scorched sands. He is fire made flesh, she thought, and so am I.

Daenerys Targaryen vaulted onto the dragon's back, seized the spear, and ripped it out. The point was half-melted, the iron red-hot, glowing. She flung it aside. Drogon twisted under her, his muscles rippling as he gathered his strength. The air was thick with sand. Dany could not see, she could not breathe, she could not think. The black wings cracked like thunder, and suddenly the scarlet sands were falling away beneath her.

Dizzy, Dany closed her eyes. When she opened them again, she glimpsed the Meereenese beneath her through a haze of tears and dust, pouring up the steps and out into the streets.

The lash was still in her hand. She flicked it against Drogon's neck and cried, "Higher!" Her other hand clutched at his scales, her fingers scrabbling for purchase. Drogon's wide black wings beat the air. Dany could feel the heat of him between her thighs. Her heart felt as if it were about to burst. Yes, she thought, yes, now, now, do it, do it, take me, take me, FLY!

 

A Dance with Dragons - Daenerys III

"Some other night." His mouth was sad, but his eyes seemed more relieved than disappointed.

If I were a dragon, I could fly to Westeros, she thought when he was gone. I would have no need of Xaro or his ships. Dany wondered how many men thirteen galleys could hold. It had taken three to carry her and her khalasar from Qarth to Astapor, but that was before she had acquired eight thousand Unsullied, a thousand sellswords, and a vast horde of freedmen. And the dragons, what am I to do with them? "Drogon," she whispered softly, "where are you?" For a moment she could almost see him sweeping across the sky, his black wings swallowing the stars.

She turned her back upon the night, to where Barristan Selmy stood silent in the shadows. "My brother once told me a Westerosi riddle. Who listens to everything yet hears nothing?"

"A knight of the Kingsguard." Selmy's voice was solemn.

Drogon represents Dany's prime, at the height of her powers, and at the height of her lust for power, with its concomitant taint of corruption.  Accordingly, we have the juxtaposition of the 'shady' ('silent in the shadows') Barristan Selmy 'who listens to everything yet hears nothing' (i.e. turning a blind eye to the abuses of power, while propping up that power, as he did with her putative father Aerys) with Drogon the overreacher who steals the fire of heaven, consuming the stars (his black wings 'swallowing the stars') and 'sweeping' the sky as if he were sweeping away the stars -- as the 'red dragon' does in the Book of Revelation:

And behold a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads. And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the earth.

— (Rev. 12:3-4, KJV)

This consumption of the stars in the peak of adulthood will be contrasted in the 'third flight' when the stars finally consume the rider -- a mirror inverse.  In fact, each of the 'flights' represents the respective 'mount' consuming the mount of the preceding 'life-' or 'spiritual-' phase.  So, for example, the dragon in the air consumes the horse on the ground; and in turn the 'smoky stallion limned in blue flame' will consume the dragon.

Quote

A Dance with Dragons - The Queensguard

He had dreamed of it again last night: Belwas on his knees retching up bile and blood, Hizdahr urging on the dragonslayers, men and women fleeing in terror, fighting on the steps, climbing over one another, screaming and shouting. And Daenerys …

Her hair was aflame. She had the whip in her hand and she was shouting, then she was on the dragon's back, flying. The sand that Drogon stirred as he took wing had stung Ser Barristan's eyes, but through a veil of tears he had watched the beast fly from the pit, his great black wings slapping at the shoulders of the bronze warriors at the gates.

The rest he learned later. Beyond the gates had been a solid press of people. Maddened by the smell of dragon, horses below reared in terror, lashing out with iron-shod hooves. Food stalls and palanquins alike were overturned, men knocked down and trampled. Spears were thrown, crossbows were fired. Some struck home. The dragon twisted violently in the air, wounds smoking, the girl clinging to his back. Then he loosed the fire.

A Dance with Dragons - Daenerys X

In a dozen heartbeats they were past the Dothraki, as he galloped far below. To the right and left, Dany glimpsed places where the grass was burned and ashen. Drogon has come this way before, she realized. Like a chain of grey islands, the marks of his hunting dotted the green grass sea.

A vast herd of horses appeared below them. There were riders too, a score or more, but they turned and fled at the first sight of the dragon. The horses broke and ran when the shadow fell upon them, racing through the grass until their sides were white with foam, tearing the ground with their hooves … but as swift as they were, they could not fly. Soon one horse began to lag behind the others. The dragon descended on him, roaring, and all at once the poor beast was aflame, yet somehow he kept on running, screaming with every step, until Drogon landed on him and broke his back. Dany clutched the dragon's neck with all her strength to keep from sliding off.

The carcass was too heavy for him to bear back to his lair, so Drogon consumed his kill there, tearing at the charred flesh as the grasses burned around them, the air thick with drifting smoke and the smell of burnt horsehair. Dany, starved, slid off his back and ate with him, ripping chunks of smoking meat from the dead horse with bare, burned hands. 

While the following can be read as foreshadowing of the birth of Daenerys's dragons, together with her rebirth; 'waking the dragon' entails a certain ambiguity and may also be read as foreshadowing of her actual death.  I think this prophecy is the first indication of the 'smoky stallion' facilitating her final flight, who will break her back, paradoxically giving her wings, in the same way Drogon broke the horse's back and set it afire, giving rise to 'smoke' --  each life stage giving way to the next:

Quote

A Game of Thrones - Daenerys IX

"… want to wake the dragon …"

Ghosts lined the hallway, dressed in the faded raiment of kings. In their hands were swords of pale fire. They had hair of silver and hair of gold and hair of platinum white, and their eyes were opal and amethyst, tourmaline and jade. "Faster," they cried, "faster, faster." She raced, her feet melting the stone wherever they touched. "Faster!" the ghosts cried as one, and she screamed and threw herself forward. A great knife of pain ripped down her back, and she felt her skin tear open and smelled the stench of burning blood and saw the shadow of wings. And Daenerys Targaryen flew.

"… wake the dragon …"

Fittingly, her ghostly ancestors line the hallway, welcoming her home and encouraging her to make that final leap.

3. The smoky stallion will allow her to fly to the stars -- a euphemism among the Dothraki for dying

  • corresponds to old-age and wisdom/disillusionment -- the Crone archtype
  • 'flying' here corresponds to the release of the spirit at death; as far as the gait analogy, in the example I parsed above, the crone is bent over with back pain until released from the burden of life
  • the 'mount' is gifted to her at her death
  •  the color of the 'mount,' assuming it might resemble that which transported Drogo on his final journey to the 'nightlands', reflects the color of her hair in old age= grey limned in 'blue' the color of death, e.g. the 'burning ice blue' of the Others or the 'sweet (;)) blue flower' in the ice Wall (separating this world from the next...)
Quote

A Game of Thrones - Daenerys X

She had sensed the truth of it long ago, Dany thought as she took a step closer to the conflagration, but the brazier had not been hot enough. The flames writhed before her like the women who had danced at her wedding, whirling and singing and spinning their yellow and orange and crimson veils, fearsome to behold, yet lovely, so lovely, alive with heat. Dany opened her arms to them, her skin flushed and glowing. This is a wedding, too, she thought. Mirri Maz Duur had fallen silent. The godswife thought her a child, but children grow, and children learn.

Another step, and Dany could feel the heat of the sand on the soles of her feet, even through her sandals. Sweat ran down her thighs and between her breasts and in rivulets over her cheeks, where tears had once run. Ser Jorah was shouting behind her, but he did not matter anymore, only the fire mattered. The flames were so beautiful, the loveliest things she had ever seen, each one a sorcerer robed in yellow and orange and scarlet, swirling long smoky cloaks. She saw crimson firelions and great yellow serpents and unicorns made of pale blue flame; she saw fish and foxes and monsters, wolves and bright birds and flowering trees, each more beautiful than the last. She saw a horse, a great grey stallion limned in smoke, its flowing mane a nimbus of blue flame. Yes, my love, my sun-and-stars, yes, mount now, ride now.

Her vest had begun to smolder, so Dany shrugged it off and let it fall to the ground. The painted leather burst into sudden flame as she skipped closer to the fire, her breasts bare to the blaze, streams of milk flowing from her red and swollen nipples. Now, she thought, now, and for an instant she glimpsed Khal Drogo before her, mounted on his smoky stallion, a flaming lash in his hand. He smiled, and the whip snaked down at the pyre, hissing.

 

Quote

A Clash of Kings - Daenerys I

When Irri and Jhiqui returned with pots of white sand, Dany stripped and let them scrub her clean. "Your hair is coming back, Khaleesi," Jhiqui said as she scraped sand off her back. Dany ran a hand over the top of her head, feeling the new growth. Dothraki men wore their hair in long oiled braids, and cut them only when defeated. Perhaps I should do the same, she thought, to remind them that Drogo's strength lives within me now. Khal Drogo had died with his hair uncut, a boast few men could make.

Across the tent, Rhaegal unfolded green wings to flap and flutter a half foot before thumping to the carpet. When he landed, his tail lashed back and forth in fury, and he raised his head and screamed. If I had wings, I would want to fly too, Dany thought. The Targaryens of old had ridden upon dragonback when they went to war. She tried to imagine what it would feel like, to straddle a dragon's neck and soar high into the air. It would be like standing on a mountaintop, only better. The whole world would be spread out below. If I flew high enough, I could even see the Seven Kingdoms, and reach up and touch the comet.

I don't think anyone is surviving any communions with 'comets', at least not in physical form!

Oh-- and about that 'red door'...

Quote

A Game of Thrones - Daenerys IX

"… wake the dragon …"

The door loomed before her, the red door, so close, so close, the hall was a blur around her, the cold receding behind. And now the stone was gone and she flew across the Dothraki sea, high and higher, the green rippling beneath, and all that lived and breathed fled in terror from the shadow of her wings. She could smell home, she could see it, there, just beyond that door, green fields and great stone houses and arms to keep her warm, there. She threw open the door.

...and finally, after all her travails -- Daenerys Stormborn came 'home'.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 12/9/2016 at 1:29 PM, El Guapo said:

Not going to happen. Dany will be riding Drogon into battle against the Others. People really need to accept this and move on.  She is not there just to bring dragons for other people to use ride and not herself which no offense is a such a lame theory. 

Correct.  Daenerys is the main character in this story.  That is why she is granted what will be the biggest dragon since Balerion.  It is her destiny to reshape the world of both Essos and Westeros and to rule afterwards.  Her arrival in Westeros to reclaim her kingdom will be the most important event in the novels.  The Others is a red herring and they will not represent the most important conflict in the story.  The most important struggle in the story will take place within the human heart, which, according to George is the only story worth writing about.  

Let's keep in mind exactly what "light a fire" means in this story.  It means an execution of someone who committed treason.  The word choice is important in this passage.  Why "treason" instead of "betrayal"?  Because it is less-personal.  MMD murdered Drogo.  The assassination of a king.  Drogo was a khal first, before a husband.  There is a connection between treason, execution, and "resurrection".  The first fire gave Dany the power to give Life.  She also used the Dothraki's superstition to gain influence over her small khalasar.  

  1. Mirri Maz Duur commits treason.
  2. Mirri Maz Duur gets roasted.  Rhaegar, Viserys, and either Drogo or Rhaego are reborn as the three dragons.  I pick Rhaego, because there is little connection between the Dothraki and the dragons.  
  3. Daenerys walks out of the flames, reborn as the Azor Ahai.
  4. Dragons are awoken from "stone".

The second fire will most probably involve the Greyjoys.  Vicki will try to steal a dragon and get caught.  He's the likely fire wood for the second fire.  His execution will bring forth a powerful weapon.  The one to dread.  Aeron the devout may get resurrected as a result of this ceremony and come back as a squid :D .  I don't actually think we will see a giant kraken resurrected but I can see Aeron's resurrection turning the Ironborn to Dany's cause.  They will bring "death" to the masters and help Dany end the slave trade.  Daenerys can use Aeron's devotion to the drowned god to help her influence the Ironborn.  A necessary alliance with people you don't really like but you need to accomplish something wonderful, freedom.  She will dread the Ironborn but she needs them and their ships.  

The third fire will be lit in Westeros.  I can see this happening after the battle with the Others and after she takes control of the continent.  Because there is no time for love during war, this one takes place after the dust has settled.   The vision of the dragon rising from a smoking Winterfell may be a future vision of the dragons burning down Winterfell again.  Awesome.  It may only involve Jon Snow, who may get it into his head to rule the north with his ice queen, Arya Stark.   Who will be the most likely necromancer to resurrect Jon?  It's not Mel.  We don't know if she has the talent.  We do know someone nearby who can.  The Others.  I can see Jon getting resurrected by the Others.  It doesn't have to be intentional.  A mass resurrection, like the Reverend Moon used to perform mass marriages, could accidentally wake up Snowhead and the old kings of winter.  I do not see this story as the joining of ice and fire.  I see it as the conflict between ice and fire.  Jon is the fuel for the third fire.  The blue rose will burn.  The result will be the return of Spring and a nation to love. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

That was a joke.

So was mine. But I'll share my popcorn with you anyway when that never comes true ;)

Quote

I'm pretty sure he will be into her. He already has revealed he would like to have a dragon.

So have several other people. And Jon, who knows nothing, IS at least part of dragon and will most likely get a real dragon of his own. Maybe the that last part.

Quote

The dragon queen is attached to that package.

Not when she possibly dies. And who says sex and marriage is required for such??? The dragon chooses the rider.

Quote

Well, Jon seems to be the main lead, and Dany is clearly the female lead.

Sure. Equal leadership in certain times is possible. That is the theme Jon is already practicing in the north with the newly admitted free folk. He has even given girls as young as 12 a chance to fight. Jon has even promoted Satin, who your heroes Marsh and Yarwyck think is lesser than them because he is gay. Stay classy, southron "gentlemen". :thumbsup:

Quote

And the vision of the blue rose indicates very strongly that they will hook up.

No, it does not. This is you revealing your secret diary ship between the two.

And you are wearing the literal like a pair of lead shoes (metaphorically speaking)

There is another thing that 'blooms' and those are the blood bloom flowers near Moat Cailin. So a blooming blue rose at the wall could mean something as simple as Jon's mutiny, to which the boy was "killed" and the man was born. A blue rose as in the blue blood bloom of the first men, of which Jon himself is admitting he is more like than anything else.

Plus, that is probably another RLJ clue for the book readers. Lyanna with her blue roses, and Jon with his. George is, after all, writing a story for us readers to piece together with his clues.

If Dany goes to the wall with her dragons, then this could possibly be a hint they will work together, but that in no way means that requires sex and marriage. Jon has other amazing beauties he has already stolen... per the tradition of his people he has already identified with.

Quote

How George accomplishes this I don't know. It will depend obviously depend on how the story continues and what twists and turns are ahead of Dany and Jon before they finally meet each other.

I agree that there are twists and turns, even though I am not 100% convinced that the two meet at the Wall instead of on the Trident.

Quote

Jon as he is now doesn't strike me as the kind of man Dany would ever want. He has a nice scar but he is neither dangerous nor powerfully built nor significantly older than she is. So he would have to proceed somewhat in the bad boy department (pretty likely in the wake of the trauma of his death and resurrection, and in light of the dark times that lie ahead of him).

I agree. So why would she go with him? Jon is not "dangerous", but skillful and low-key and not filled with arrogance. Um, and you seem to have forgotten the progression of Jon's physical strength in nearly every chapter of his in ADWD.

"So, you think Jon is dead, do you?"-- some author:dunno:

Quote

That is actually a rather strong reason against a Dany-Aegon match considering that he definitely nothing but a beautiful boy. And Dany does not like boys.

Aegon fits Danaerys's "bad boy" liking a whole hell of a lot better. Aegon has been trained in all sorts of skills, and he has the willful gusto to go with it. Aegon is beautiful because Targ's are "beautiful" and he looks like a typical Targaryen, apparently. Aegon has at all :drool:

Quote

Dany is famed as the fairest woman in the world so we can safely say that Jon is likely going to be physically attracted to her.

And? That is normal for young man like Jon, as it is for pedo-bears like Jorah.

Quote

 

That in itself is actually enough for some kind of affair.

No, it is not. See Jaime as he travels through the Riverlands.

Quote

 

Whether they have much in common besides remains to be seen, but they certainly will have the same mission (fighting the Others) a closeness due to their kinship of being aunt and nephew, the chance to right the wrongs of the past by getting along (Dany knows about Rhaegar and Lyanna and Jon most likely is going to see House Targaryen in not so bad a light after he learns who his real father was - independently whether he wants to be a Targaryen or not).

Some of this is possible. No argument here.

Quote

From a dynastic and political and narrative viewpoint a marriage between these two seems almost inevitable.

Well, from what he author seems to have in mind with the idea that blood purity and elitism, both in this world and in most of his other stories, the fact that you keep saying this as if it were fact means you are willfully closing your eyes to the other parts of the story. Both on Jon and Dany's side.

Quote

There is a reason why the concept of incest marriage was introduced for the royal family. That is not just a minor background detail.

And look at how at why that incest (in-world) was created... blood purity, elitism , and supposed dragon control. And it came with several negative side effects.

And IF there is more incest in the story, doesn't it seem odd that Dany, who is from incest parents herself, is put as an opposite to Jon, who was NOT born of incest? That is telling. To me, this also points to more of a chance of a Dany/Aegon match, especially since Aegon has the incest already planted in his mind AND Jon was given the story of you don't bed with kin, and people in your clan are still too close of a relation. Also, that a good man "steals" from afar to strengthen the clan. Again, another plot point in several GRRM stories, including Dying of the Light. Incest is taught, not inherit.

Why was the reader given this specific info in regards to Jon if it is not necessary? This goes with what I asked you earlier that you never answered, which was, what about what Jon wants and how he has his own northern plotline, myths, stories, prophecy, dreams,  etc, to fulfill.

Quote

 

Even if they could not stand each other they are still very likely to marry one another.

That is a bitter and zero sweet. I am sure George is writing something better than this.

Quote

Even more so if Jon ever plays a prominent role politics (which I'm not so sure he will).

And we are back to square one with you thinking Jon means nothing to the story. Again. I think you once made the statement of, "why would Dany even want his frozen dick?" This story is not a Dany solo arc. Just like it is not an Arya solo act as other posters want it to be. It is not even a Jon solo act.

ADDING: I totally forgot to add this because my computer just started acting janky again.

In regards to wearing the literal lead shoes and Dany becoming a bride of fire, that probably means she is going to follow Red Rahloo (Dany is accepting her fire and blood side in the upcoming books, and Moqorro), and she may come into a union with that fire religion and the clue we have with that is how we shave Bran worried that he does not want to be wed to the trees. So just like "stealing" is a marriage, being "wed" to your religion means a final union. Plus, we have already seen Dany the Unburnt... so this may have already played out anyway.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, Ser Loras The Gay said:

Do you think aegon is a fake targaryen or that he's not going to be the king of westeros?

I think Aegon will be the King on the Iron Throne, for a time. But he will be cast down or deposed. Whether that's going to mean that he also has to die remains to be seen. He might not be Rhaegar's son but that is actually the less relevant question.

The really important question is whether he is the promised prince (if Rhaegar's son) as Rhaegar believed or at least one of the dragon heads. Him being associated with the lies in the 'slayer of lies' prophecy complex suggests that he isn't, and that this fact is going to become relevant later in the story, just as it is with Stannis.

Some people don't buy the 'Stannis is the savior/hero' story but the fact that he isn't should actually become relevant at one point in the story - say, when he is actually marching against the Others or something of this sort.

3 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

Why not bride of death?

Because George doesn't use that phrase anywhere in the books? We don't get to invent stuff that would suit our needs.

Quote

She wasn't the daughter of either Viserys, Rhaego or Rhaegar. Clearly the "daughter" part should not be read literally.

I never said it should. I'd say the 'daughter of death' part means that she was a child of death in the sense that her birth was not only dependent on the Rebellion which caused a lot of deaths, including those of her brother, father, niece and nephew, not to mention the death of her own mother in childbirth, but also that the road to become who is now - the mother of dragons - also necessitated a lot of deaths.

Daenerys makes herself the promised princess throughout AGoT. Dreams and destiny guides her but she has made her decisions herself. There was never a guarantee that she would succeed. The woman who steps out of the pyre is no longer the timid girl who had been married to Khal Drogo. She changes drastically throughout that book.

However, when I point out that the three dragons work very well as symbolic lightbringer(s) people quickly want that to have a literal meaning (or the 'true waking' of dragons from stone be a metaphorical one). Why is that?

Quote

Similarly, Bride of Fire need not mean physical marriages to each of the three visions. And neither do all three of the visions represent "Fire". Hence, it could easily be an association between her and some kind of symbolic Fire she will light in each of the three scenarios. Number one, she will light a fire that will engulf and up end Dothraki society.

English is your native language, right? Even I know that you can read 'bride of fire' in a variety of ways. It can mean that Dany marries fire (clearly wrong in the case of Drogo and certainly only partially correct in Jon's case), it could be metaphorical like in 'a fiery (i.e. hot-tempered) bride' or in the sense that she 'the bride of fire', a person associated with fire.

I'd go with the third reading since the first and the second are clearly not correct. Dany is neither particularly hot-tempered nor do Drogo or the corpse guy look like fiery people. Nor is Jon symbolized in a fiery way.

Quote

Number two, the corpse on the ship, who knows. Maybe she will cause a firestorm of Ironborn pillaging and burning as a result of Euron's obsession with her. We have seen this unfold already, without her even knowing about the effect she had there.

That idea is in no way connected to the actual vision. When we are talking about the meaning of actual text passages then we should stick to what we know. Else I could also try to deny that the blue-eyed king without a shadow is Stannis. After all, Stannis still has a shadow, right? And while he has blue eyes that's the case for a lot of people, etc.

Quote

And as for Jon, maybe she will be the one to reveal his true identity, thus lighting the Fire of the new Targaryen dynasty by placing him on the Throne.

The lighting of fires is another prophecy complex. It has nothing to do with the bride of fire thing.

Quote

Heck, if the prophecy is true that she will be married three times, well, Hizdahr was already number two, and he doesn't look anything like a corpse on the prow of a ship.

She could take even more husbands. Nobody has said that those visions have to be complete. In fact, it would be stupid to assume as much.

It is quite likely that George had not yet created the character of Hizdahr zo Loraq when he was writing ACoK. Even Daario might have been a character he only came up with during ASoS.

Quote

All of the above simply points out that your interpretations are far too literal. And as you know, I myself have suggested a possible marriage between Jon and Daenerys, but it is by no means a given, and certainly not with him as her "consort" as you put it. How about her being his consort until her death, after which he marries again, either to Val, or Sansa, or Arya or anyone else.

And how about Dany marrying again after his death? The proper name for the spouse of a monarch in Westeros is either prince consort or king consort (the equivalent for wives is queen consort in comparison to queen regnant). Daenerys will be a queen when she marries Jon Snow, so he will certainly be her consort. Even if they are only married for a day or so.

You should also keep in mind that those prophetic clues have to be reasonably easy to decipher once they actually take place. We see that the blue-eyed king is relatively easy to identify as Stannis, the cloth dragon as Aegon, the blue flower as Jon Snow, and so forth.

I don't expect many of those visions to symbolize complex and vague metaphors rather than pretty concrete events and characters because else we would have to assume that George essentially has written the entire story in his head which clearly isn't the case. It might even be that the story gets the better of him and some of those things don't come true because the story took an entirely different direction.

2 hours ago, ravenous reader said:

Careful -- blue flowers are often poisonous...and in the world of ASOIAF things that smell 'sweet' -- like the breath with which Sweetpetyr tells his lies -- often belie (ha!) a harsh truth.

Littlefinger has my sympathies for not subjecting people to bad smell, irregardless whether he is telling the truth or not.

I know what the blue flower means in Romanticism but in that series blue flowers are clearly connected to Lyanna Stark and thus also to Jon Snow. This is quite clear here. Jon Snow is not poisonous.

Quote

Yes -- except this time she's not going to conquer; she's going to bend the knee.  'Sweet' symmetry.

I'd rather say Jon Snow is going to bend the knee. He is a descendant of Torrhen Stark, and that would then be proper symmetry. Things should not be too complicated.

17 minutes ago, The Fattest Leech said:

So have several other people. And Jon, who knows nothing, IS at least part of dragon and will most likely get a real dragon of his own. Maybe the that last part.

Not when she possibly dies. And who says sex and marriage is required for such??? The dragon chooses the rider.

Dany might die, but not before that marriage. It is not just a random blue flower (which people like to cite for the parentage thing) that pops in relation to a marriage scenario.

17 minutes ago, The Fattest Leech said:

Sure. Equal leadership in certain times is possible. That is the theme Jon is already practicing in the north with the newly admitted free folk. He has even given girls as young as 12 a chance to fight. Jon has even promoted Satin, who your heroes Marsh and Yarwyck think is lesser than them because he is gay. Stay classy, southron "gentlemen". :thumbsup:

I never said Yarwyck was my hero. I even don't know whether he had to guts to gut Jon. We don't see him there, remember? Marsh most likely saved Jon's ass by killing him, by the way. If he had marched against the North with an army of wildlings he would have lost everything, irregardless whether the Boltons or Stannis won the day. The Northmen don't like wildlings on their land.

17 minutes ago, The Fattest Leech said:

No, it does not. This is you revealing your secret diary ship between the two.

I actually don't ship these two all that much. I find a story that culminates in such a romance at the (relative) end of the series (we don't know how many chapters will follow after their first meetings but it shouldn't be that many books thereafter) rather odd. I must say I find it difficult to imagine that romance/relationship because it is clearly very far in the future at this point. There is a reason why I usually don't talk about stuff this far in the future.

However, I think the prophetic and symbolic clues are far too strong to ignore it that this is the most likeliest end point for these two. This doesn't mean both have to survive the series but I think they will marry each other, either before or after the Others have been taken care of.

17 minutes ago, The Fattest Leech said:

There is another thing that 'blooms' and those are the blood bloom flowers near Moat Cailin. So a blooming blue rose at the wall could mean something as simple as Jon's mutiny, to which the boy was "killed" and the man was born. A blue rose as in the blue blood bloom of the first men, of which Jon himself is admitting he is more like than anything else.

If it was just a blue flower you might have a point here but context matters. This is not a random prophecy but a prophecy and vision made to Daenerys Targaryen. It is intricately related to her. Everything she sees and hears while interacting with the Undying is connected to her. 

17 minutes ago, The Fattest Leech said:

Plus, that is probably another RLJ clue for the book readers. Lyanna with her blue roses, and Jon with his. George is, after all, writing a story for us readers to piece together with his clues.

Again, context matters. When Jon finally has some sort of prophetic dream (assuming he ever has one such) or enters the house of some warlocks giving him visions and prophecies about his future I will also believe they are about him.

17 minutes ago, The Fattest Leech said:

If Dany goes to the wall with her dragons, then this could possibly be a hint they will work together, but that in no way means that requires sex and marriage. Jon has other amazing beauties he has already stolen... per the tradition of his people he has already identified with.

Just as Hizdahr and Daario may be a thing of the past by the time Dany finally arrives, Val and even Melisandre might long be dead, too. Ygritte is already dead, you know.

I'm with you that Jon might enter into a relationship with Val (or even Melisandre) but neither of them are going to last.

I don't Dany and Jon will meet at the Wall. I think the Wall will have been fallen by then. Else the finale of the series would be a lot less interesting than it could be.

17 minutes ago, The Fattest Leech said:

I agree. So why would she go with him? Jon is not "dangerous", but skillful and low-key and not filled with arrogance. Um, and you seem to have forgotten the progression of Jon's physical strength in nearly every chapter of his in ADWD.

I did not, but we have yet to get a description (and adore) his muscled body through another POV (I doubt Mel is going to give us that). Jon is more slender than Robb. Are winter rations enough to built up six pack in a few weeks/months? I don't know.

17 minutes ago, The Fattest Leech said:

"So, you think Jon is dead, do you?"-- some author:dunno:

I do, yeah ;-).

17 minutes ago, The Fattest Leech said:

Aegon fits Danaerys's "bad boy" liking a whole hell of a lot better. Aegon has been trained in all sorts of skills, and he has the willful gusto to go with it. Aegon is beautiful because Targ's are "beautiful" and he looks like a typical Targaryen, apparently. Aegon has at all :drool:

Aegon has the body of a boy who has not yet reached maturity (the women I know tell me that most women do not like boys). And he has long eyelashes. He may be popular with the women but I really don't think he is Dany's type. In any case, these two are not likely to meet on friendly terms. Not anymore.

Even if Jon still looks like a boy he has certainly more experience in a lot of fields than Aegon - from his times beyond the Wall, with women, etc. Jon might not be as great in bed as Daario clearly is but he at least can do the lord's kiss.

17 minutes ago, The Fattest Leech said:

And? That is normal for young man like Jon, as it is for pedo-bears like Jorah.

Exactly. The average man (myself included) would gladly have an affair with all the beautiful, exotic, and dangerous women in ASoIaF, independently of the other assets that would come with them (power, gold, etc.).

17 minutes ago, The Fattest Leech said:

No, it is not. See Jaime as he travels through the Riverlands.

Jon is not Jaime.

17 minutes ago, The Fattest Leech said:

Well, from what he author seems to have in mind with the idea that blood purity and elitism, both in this world and in most of his other stories, the fact that you keep saying this as if it were fact means you are willfully closing your eyes to the other parts of the story. Both on Jon and Dany's side.

Oh, I don't see that so much from the political angle (although that plays into it - if Jon became a powerful political factor he would be attractive as a consort for Daenerys irregardless of her personal feelings, simply as a partner for an alliance) more from the point of view of keeping things in the family (something George himself has hinted at sometime in the past in relation to the incest thing).

Dany and Jon could feel really close to each other simply because they are who they are.

17 minutes ago, The Fattest Leech said:

And look at how at why that incest (in-world) was created... blood purity, elitism , and supposed dragon control. And it came with several negative side effects.

It will become necessary again, more than ever. The dragons are back, and if Dany and Jon were to enter into a relationship before the Others are defeated then it would be of paramount importance to ensure that their descendants can become dragonriders, too.

Unless they get conclusive proof that incest is not necessary to keep the dragons bound to a bloodline they won't change that policy (and if they have the hots for each other they will gladly go along with the established incest thing as an excuse).

17 minutes ago, The Fattest Leech said:

And IF there is more incest in the story, doesn't it seem odd that Dany, who is from incest parents herself, is put as an opposite to Jon, who was NOT born of incest? That is telling.

Jon is still the scion of a family which is famous for their incest marriages. And the Starks are not, in principle, opposed to cousin or uncle-niece marriages, as the family tree shows. There is clearly precedent for this kind of thing.

17 minutes ago, The Fattest Leech said:

To me, this also points to more of a chance of a Dany/Aegon match, especially since Aegon has the incest already planted in his mind AND Jon was given the story of you don't bed with kin, and people in your clan are still too close of a relation. Also, that a good man "steals" from afar to strengthen the clan. Again, another plot point in several GRRM stories, including Dying of the Light. Incest is taught, not inherit.

Daenerys certainly comes from afar, don't you think? They might even fall in love before they know they are aunt and nephew.

17 minutes ago, The Fattest Leech said:

Why was the reader given this specific info in regards to Jon if it is not necessary? This goes with what I asked you earlier that you never answered, which was, what about what Jon wants and how he has his own northern plotline, myths, stories, prophecy, dreams,  etc, to fulfill.

I don't know what exactly you mean by that. Not to mention that this is not exactly a Jon thread. I see this whole thing as one story, whatever Jon's own story is will bleed in the others. I think Dany and Jon could rebuild Westeros (and perhaps even Essos) and create a new better society, but whether we see much of that remains to be seen. It depends how much the wars and the Others will destroy and how powerful our heroes will become during and after the fighting.

Egg tried his best and failed. And I actually think he was smarter than Jon and Dany both.

17 minutes ago, The Fattest Leech said:

That is a bitter and zero sweet. I am sure George is writing something better than this.

They could both have paramours, you know. Or more than one spouse each. Dany most likely will have more than just one living husband at the some point, although not all have to survive the series.

17 minutes ago, The Fattest Leech said:

And we are back to square one with you thinking Jon means nothing to the story. Again. I think you once made the statement of, "why would Dany even want his frozen dick?" This story is not a Dany solo arc. Just like it is not an Arya solo act as other posters want it to be. It is not even a Jon solo act.

It certainly isn't a Jon solo act. And by prominent political role I meant that Jon is not likely to become Dany's rival for the Iron Throne. That is Aegon's story. Jon has a different story. Even if he ended up effectively controlling the North that would be no guarantee that Dany would offer her hand in marriage to him. It would depend on the number of swords he could offer (not all that much even while the North was still not ravaged by war and winter) and whether those men would actually fight for her (and not try to hold the Wall against the Others).

If Willas Tyrell would offer Dany 50,000 Reach men against 10,000 Northmen it is pretty obvious whose hand Dany would take in marriage.

And if she arrives after the fall of the Wall it is basically impossible to even contemplate any conflict between these two. That would basically doesn't make any sense.

17 minutes ago, The Fattest Leech said:

ADDING: I totally forgot to add this because my computer just started acting janky again.

In regards to wearing the literal lead shoes and Dany becoming a bride of fire, that probably means she is going to follow Red Rahloo (Dany is accepting her fire and blood side in the upcoming books, and Moqorro), and she may come into a union with that fire religion and the clue we have with that is how we shave Bran worried that he does not want to be wed to the trees. So just like "stealing" is a marriage, being "wed" to your religion means a final union. Plus, we have already seen Dany the Unburnt... so this may have already played out anyway.

That reads like grasping for straws to me. Dany is declared the bride of fire by the visions, but the visions don't show fire - they show the night of Dany's first wedding, the corpse in the ship, and the blue flower at the Wall.

If you want to convince me that those scenes don't have any connection to Dany's future husband(s) you have to do better than that.

I don't think you are also assuming that Stannis, Aegon, and the stone beast are not the lies 'the slayer of lies' is supposed to slay?

If we were to interpret things that way we can also just ignore the text entirely and just talk about what story we would like to read.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

7 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:
3 hours ago, ravenous reader said:

Careful -- blue flowers are often poisonous...and in the world of ASOIAF things that smell 'sweet' -- like the breath with which Sweetpetyr tells his lies -- often belie (ha!) a harsh truth.

Littlefinger has my sympathies for not subjecting people to bad smell, irregardless whether he is telling the truth or not.

I know what the blue flower means in Romanticism but in that series blue flowers are clearly connected to Lyanna Stark and thus also to Jon Snow. This is quite clear here. Jon Snow is not poisonous.

Blue flowers are also connected to Bran Stark.  He is the latest 'incarnation' of a rare blue flower of Winterfell stolen by some 'singers' and ferreted away to an undisclosed location beyond the Wall.  Significantly, by the time he was plucked from Winterfell the glass gardens had been smashed.

If you want to talk precedent (beyond romantic novels), bear in mind the last time someone stole a rare blue flower from Winterfell it did not go well for them.  Bael plucked the blue flower -- and ended up losing his head.  So, Dany should pause before plucking either Jon or Bran!

7 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:
Quote

Yes -- except this time she's not going to conquer; she's going to bend the knee.  'Sweet' symmetry.

I'd rather say Jon Snow is going to bend the knee. He is a descendant of Torrhen Stark, and that would then be proper symmetry. Things should not be too complicated.

GRRM does not derive satisfaction from writing symmetry.  He gets his greatest kicks from writing inversely symmetrical -- and darkly ironic -- scenarios.  Just consider the tour de force he's done playing around with Jaime's 'right-' and 'left-' handedness and the turnaround entailed there.  It's like flipping a coin.  GRRM will not always have heads come out on top -- for anyone.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, ravenous reader said:

Three 'mounts' correlate with three flights:

1.  The silver filly allows her to fly on the ground

  • corresponds to the age of childhood and innocence -- the Maid archetype
  •  the horse runs on all fours, like a child crawling on the ground
  •  fittingly the 'mount' is gifted at a wedding, shortly before the loss of her maidenhood
  •  the color of the 'mount' reflects the color of her hair in youth

 

2. The majestic black dragon allows her to fly in the air

  • corresponds to the age of adulthood and corruption -- the Mother archetype
  • fittingly for this archetype, the 'mount' is gifted to her at a birth
  • the adult is no longer a child, walks on two legs (Dany's dragons are two-legged) and reaches for the heavens
  • the color of the 'mount' reflects the color of her hair, i.e. burnt off leaving her skull charred and blackened in the birthing pyre

 

3. The smoky stallion will allow her to fly to the stars -- a euphemism among the Dothraki for dying

  • corresponds to old-age and wisdom/disillusionment -- the Crone archtype
  • 'flying' here corresponds to the release of the spirit at death; as far as the gait analogy, in the example I parsed above, the crone is bent over with back pain until released from the burden of life
  • the 'mount' is gifted to her at her death
  •  the color of the 'mount,' assuming it might resemble that which transported Drogo on his final journey to the 'nightlands', reflects the color of her hair in old age= grey limned in 'blue' the color of death, e.g. the 'burning ice blue' of the Others or the 'sweet (;)) blue flower' in the ice Wall (separating this world from the next...)

 

 

I’m doing a Bran/Dany reread right now and I just have to point out this parallel between Dany, Bran and the 3 mounts.  So many parallels between these two, especially in the early chapters. Unlike Dany who must take her time progressing through these stages, Bran moves through them at a completely different pace.

As to the parallels, in AGOT Bran II/Dany II, we see both get married after a sort. The two characters who most value their freedom are sold into a sort of slavery, and a sort which is particularly painful for them, no less: Dany to Drago, and Bran to his handicap (and to Bloodraven). Both witness a sexual act and feel terror. Both fight fear and tears. Both Drago and Bloodraven help Dany and Bran though their “marriage” by teaching them to “fly”. Curiously, Dany’s consummation involves Drago often sitting on the ground, like a cripple, and her marriage is consummated with Dany on Drago’s lap, and later we find Dany often on top. Drago positioned as a cripple is perhaps to be interpreted as the consummation between Bran/Bloodraven, or rather, Bran/his destiny. We see this through Dany (with many Bran parallels) because this particular aspect wouldn’t be appropriate to show in the arc of an 8 year old.

So is Dany’s destiny tied to or a parallel to Bran’s, with Bran being on an accelerated path, skipping directly to the Crone stage? Not to forget, Dany’s bloodline in inbred since Aegon V and Betha Blackwood, meaning Rhaegar, Viserys and Dany are half Blackwood, like Bloodraven.

 

The mounts themselves are more important to Dany’s storyline. In Bran’s POV, they seem more like place markers. He begins on a pony, he will later ride a real horse but never gets the chance, and later we see Tyrion allowing him to ride again with the adjusted saddle. He goes straight from child to a crippled crone figure.

* corresponds to old-age and wisdom/disillusionment -- the Crone archtype

Bran becomes a crone figure with the help of Bloodraven. He is most certainly tied to wisdom and disillusionment.

* 'flying' here corresponds to the release of the spirit at death; as far as the gait analogy, in the example I parsed above, the crone is bent over with back pain until released from the burden of life

In Bran III, Bran has to choose between "flying" or dying. It’s assumed that Bran becomes paralyzed by a back injury.

* the 'mount' is gifted to her at her death

Bran's 3 mounts: AGOT Bran II: He was going to ride the kingsroad on a horse of his own, not a pony but a real horse. Bran receives another mount via Tyrion in AGOT Bran IV, immediately after he wakes to his crone phase.

* the color of the 'mount,' assuming it might resemble that which transported Drogo on his final journey to the 'nightlands', reflects the color of her hair in old age= grey limned in 'blue' the color of death, e.g. the 'burning ice blue' of the Others o the 'sweet () blue flower' in the ice Wall (separating this world from the next...)

Where Dany is urged on by the Ghosts of her ancestors, Bran is urged on the three-eyed-crow and the ghostly grey mists of Bloodraven. The crow repeatedly telling Bran to “fly” sounds like Dany’s “wake the dragon”. Like Dany, Bran receives a catastrophic back injury and gets wings in the process. Both Dany and Bran feel elation when “flying”. Dany sees “pale fire”, but Bran sees mist, snow and ice.

AGOT Daenerys IX:

"… want to wake the dragon …"

Ghosts lined the hallway, dressed in the faded raiment of kings. In their hands were swords of pale fire. They had hair of silver and hair of gold and hair of platinum white, and their eyes were opal and amethyst, tourmaline and jade. "Faster," they cried, "faster, faster." She raced, her feet melting the stone wherever they touched. "Faster!" the ghosts cried as one, and she screamed and threw herself forward. A great knife of pain ripped down her back, and she felt her skin tear open and smelled the stench of burning blood and saw the shadow of wings. And Daenerys Targaryen flew.

"… wake the dragon …"

AGOT Bran III:

Fly, a voice whispered in the darkness, but Bran did not know how to fly, so all he could do was fall. Maester Luwin made a little boy of clay, baked him till he was hard and brittle, dressed him in Bran's clothes, and flung him off a roof. Bran remembered the way he shattered. "But I never fall," he said, falling.

The ground was so far below him he could barely make it out through the grey mists that whirled around him, but he could feel how fast he was falling, and he knew what was waiting for him down there. Even in dreams, you could not fall forever. He would wake up in the instant before he hit the ground, he knew. You always woke up in the instant before you hit the ground.

And if you don't? the voice asked.

The ground was closer now, still far far away, a thousand miles away, but closer than it had been. It was cold here in the darkness. There was no sun, no stars, only the ground below coming up to smash him, and the grey mists, and the whispering voice. He wanted to cry.

Not cry. Fly.

"I can't fly," Bran said. "I can't, I can't …"

How do you know? Have you ever tried?

The voice was high and thin. Bran looked around to see where it was coming from. A crow was spiraling down with him, just out of reach, following him as he fell. "Help me," he said.

I'm trying, the crow replied. Say, got any corn?

Bran reached into his pocket as the darkness spun dizzily around him. When he pulled his hand out, golden kernels slid from between his fingers into the air. They fell with him.

The crow landed on his hand and began to eat.

"Are you really a crow?" Bran asked.

Are you really falling? the crow asked back.

"It's just a dream," Bran said.

Is it? asked the crow.

"I'll wake up when I hit the ground," Bran told the bird.

You'll die when you hit the ground, the crow said. It went back to eating corn.

Bran looked down. He could see mountains now, their peaks white with snow, and the silver thread of rivers in dark woods. He closed his eyes and began to cry.

That won't do any good, the crow said. I told you, the answer is flying, not crying. How hard can it be. I'm doing it. The crow took to the air and flapped around Bran's hand.

"You have wings," Bran pointed out.

Maybe you do too.

Bran felt along his shoulders, groping for feathers.

There are different kinds of wings, the crow said.

Bran was falling faster than ever. The grey mists howled around him as he plunged toward the earth below. "What are you doing to me?" he asked the crow, tearful.

Teaching you how to fly.

"I can't fly!"

You're flying right now.

"I'm falling!"

Every flight begins with a fall, the crow said. Look down.

"I'm afraid …"

LOOK DOWN!

Bran looked down, and felt his insides turn to water. The ground was rushing up at him now. The whole world was spread out below him, a tapestry of white and brown and green. He could see everything so clearly that for a moment he forgot to be afraid. He could see the whole realm, and everyone in it.

….

He looked deep into the heart of winter, and then he cried out, afraid, and the heat of his tears burned on his cheeks.

Now you know, the crow whispered as it sat on his shoulder. Now you know why you must live.

"Why?" Bran said, not understanding, falling, falling.

Because winter is coming.

Bran looked at the crow on his shoulder, and the crow looked back. It had three eyes, and the third eye was full of a terrible knowledge. Bran looked down. There was nothing below him now but snow and cold and death, a frozen wasteland where jagged blue-white spires of ice waited to embrace him. They flew up at him like spears. He saw the bones of a thousand other dreamers impaled upon their points. He was desperately afraid.

Now, Bran, the crow urged. Choose. Fly or die.

Death reached for him, screaming.

Bran spread his arms and flew.

Wings unseen drank the wind and filled and pulled him upward. The terrible needles of ice receded below him. The sky opened up above. Bran soared. It was better than climbing. It was better than anything. The world grew small beneath him.

"I'm flying!" he cried out in delight.

I've noticed, said the three-eyed crow. It took to the air, flapping its wings in his face, slowing him, blinding him. He faltered in the air as its pinions beat against his cheeks. Its beak stabbed at him fiercely, and Bran felt a sudden blinding pain in the middle of his forehead, between his eyes.

 

ACOK Daenerys I: Across the tent, Rhaegal unfolded green wings to flap and flutter a half foot before thumping to the carpet. When he landed, his taillashed back and forth in fury, and he raised his head and screamed. If I had wings, I would want to fly too, Dany thought. The Targaryens of old had ridden upon dragonback when they went to war. She tried to imagine what it would feel like, to straddle a dragon's neck and soar high into the air. It would be like standing on a mountaintop, only better. The whole world would be spread out below. If I flew high enough, I could even see the Seven Kingdoms, and reach up and touch the comet.

 

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, ravenous reader said:

Blue flowers are also connected to Bran Stark.  He is the latest 'incarnation' of a rare blue flower of Winterfell stolen by some 'singers' and ferreted away to an undisclosed location beyond the Wall.  Significantly, by the time he was plucked from Winterfell the glass gardens had been smashed.

If you want to talk precedent (beyond romantic novels), bear in mind the last time someone stole a rare blue flower from Winterfell it did not go well for them.  Bael plucked the blue flower -- and ended up losing his head.  So, Dany should pause before plucking either Jon or Bran!

With so much death and afterlife found, I'm really rethinking a lot of the HOTU visions.

Her silver was trotting through the grass, to a darkling stream beneath a sea of stars. A corpse stood at the prow of a ship, eyes bright in his dead face, grey lips smiling sadly. A blue flower grew from a chink in a wall of ice, and filled the air with sweetness. . . . mother of dragons, bride of fire . . .  

Her silver was trotting through the grass, to a darkling stream beneath a sea of stars.

The symbolism of the river is centered around its nature as a moving body of water. Moving water is able to find its way through nearly any kind of physical impediment until it merges with the ocean. A river's movement has also led it to being used as a symbol of life. In literature as in life, cities and towns often spring up on riverbanks, seemingly brought to life by the river's movement. The source of the river, typically small mountain streams, depicts the beginnings of life and its meeting with the ocean symbolizes the end of life.

In literature, the river is also used both as a sign of boundaries and of roadways. As a boundary, the river is sometimes used to show the difference between civilization and those outside of it. The river, in particular the Amazon or the Congo River, has also been used as a symbolic passageway into the heart of the jungle and as a descent into the primitive nature of humanity.

https://www.reference.com/world-view/river-symbolize-5252b82a553f5775

Stars may also symbolize a big change or turning point in a person's life, but they are also seen as a sign of sorrow. If a person follows a star in their dream, this might be a sign that he or she is ambitious or has intuitive gifts. If the stars that are visualized during dreams are dull or red in color, this might symbolize that there is a looming problem that has not been dealt with.

https://www.reference.com/world-view/stars-symbolize-73e5a7f988eb29e9

Stars are some of the most distant things we're able to see with our naked eyes. They can be used as symbols of this physical distance (a long journey or something that is physically unobtainable), as well as many extensions of that, such as emotional distance (something foreign and not easy empathized with, or understood) or conceptual distance (something that is entirely unlike something else or alien).

http://symbolism.wikia.com/wiki/Stars

Darkling streams and stars tend to be overlooked. A darkling stream can be seen as a perversion of life or simply an afterlife and if connected to Drago, this first vision points not to Drago himself, but to his loss, death and his afterlife.

ADWD Daenerys X:

A few bright stars lingered in the cobalt sky. Perhaps one of them is Khal Drogo, sitting on his fiery stallion in the night lands and smiling down on me.

A corpse stood at the prow of a ship, eyes bright in his dead face, grey lips smiling sadly.

Like the passage about the silver, this points to death, an afterlife of sorts, journeys, tragedy and sorrow.

A blue flower grew from a chink in a wall of ice, and filled the air with sweetness. . . .

I agree with blue flowers and their connection to death and tragedy. Extending the connection: "A storm of rose petals blew across a blood-streaked sky, as blue as the eyes of death", which you noted in the Bastards thread. This makes all three consistent with each other: a sense of loss, death, and afterlife, though curiously different forms of afterlife.

I originally had the standard interpretation of "Bride of Fire" which is popular in the forums, but now I'm beginning to see it as a variation of "married to one's work", or rather, that Daenerys is married to her destiny (fire), and that like one married to one's work/destiny, she will make painful personal sacrifices.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

47 minutes ago, Lollygag said:

I’m doing a Bran/Dany reread right now and I just have to point out this parallel between Dany, Bran and the 3 mounts.  So many parallels between these two, especially in the early chapters. Unlike Dany who must take her time progressing through these stages, Bran moves through them at a completely different pace. ~~~

 

 

 

Lollygag, this is great, and maybe worth its own thread? I have seen many of these same instances, but you pointed out so many more :cheers:. Between you and @ravenous reader, I think things are not what the fandom has accepted as "truth", of which I am a fan.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Lord Varys said:

That reads like grasping for straws to me. Dany is declared the bride of fire by the visions, but the visions don't show fire - they show the night of Dany's first wedding, the corpse in the ship, and the blue flower at the Wall.

If you want to convince me that those scenes don't have any connection to Dany's future husband(s) you have to do better than that.

Why? And that is a serious question. We see this set up with Bran, and even Arya if you read Mercy which was supposed to be in ADWD, and we see this with Jon by the end of ADWD... he was stabbed for letting the free folk through after all... so why wouldn't Dany accept being a bride of fire as a union between her and her faith as the others have done? George had said that by the end of ADWD, Dany has acceopted her family words of "fire and blood". What do you make of that? (again, serious question)

1 hour ago, Lord Varys said:

I don't think you are also assuming that Stannis, Aegon, and the stone beast are not the lies 'the slayer of lies' is supposed to slay?

As far as Stannis, I think he is noble to himself, and he was supposed to be the next king because Robert won the throne by right of conquer, but, he was led astray by Sleyse and Melisandre. I think his glowing sword is a useful phony. Useful because in the Long Night, they are going to need a light source from something... but he is not THE Lightbringer.

1 hour ago, Lord Varys said:

If we were to interpret things that way we can also just ignore the text entirely and just talk about what story we would like to read.

Not if it doesn't follow what the books have laid out for us this far, AND you do not ignore and write off half of the daggon' story because you assume it has no value. I would like Lady alive. I would have liked Arya back home back in AGOT, but she had a quest of knowledge that she had to fulfill first. I did not want to read about Jon getting stabbed by the people who he was to trust the most. I would have preferred if Jaime pushed Cersei out of the window. But certain things have to happen for character development, and George lays those clues out for us. Nothing is shocking in the story, but you just have to find it first.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

7 hours ago, ravenous reader said:
On 2/21/2017 at 3:19 PM, Lost Melnibonean said:

As to the three mounts she must ride, "one to bed and one dread and one to love," most of us suspect the first is her silver with Drogo to the grassy place beside a small stream, and that the second is Drogo’s namesake Drogon. Well, you know what? The third one just might be the smoky stallion Daenerys will ride to join her sun-and-stars in the Night Lands. 

I really like this!  

@Lost Melnibonean and @ravenous reader, This is really good stufff.  The last thing I read last night was the chapter where Dany reaches Vaes Dothrak, which ends like this

 

Quote

She was lying there, holding the egg, when she felt the child move within her … as if he were reaching out, brother to brother, blood to blood. "You are the dragon," Dany whispered to him, "the true dragon. I know it. I know it." And she smiled, and went to sleep dreaming of home.

 

The fight between Dany and her brother is covered up with allusions to dragon people, weirwoods, and sacrifices, which is the type of place you would expect to see a reference to a smoky stallion carrying an important soul to the afterlife.  It is just like at the dragon hatching where you have a pyre with Dany and Mirri the godswife = greenseer's wife = weirwood tree.  I could not figure out what that last line meant, but I think you got it.  She is riding to her afterlife as two dragons who are brothers are waiting to be born.  The dreaming implies more greenseeing, and of course Bran is an actual greenseer who dreams of home.  If either of their dreaming of home helps to end the long night or defeat the Others, then I think it would qualify as a dream of spring.  

 

EDIT:  I would also connect that chapter to brothers Bran and Rickon being 'born' from the crypts of Winterfell and the their two wolves who are brothers waiting outside.  Wolves can fill the same role as smoky stallions.  

    

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, The Fattest Leech said:

Why? And that is a serious question. We see this set up with Bran, and even Arya if you read Mercy which was supposed to be in ADWD, and we see this with Jon by the end of ADWD... he was stabbed for letting the free folk through after all... so why wouldn't Dany accept being a bride of fire as a union between her and her faith as the others have done? George had said that by the end of ADWD, Dany has acceopted her family words of "fire and blood". What do you make of that? (again, serious question)

As of yet we have no reason to believe that Dany will even convert to the red god. Could be, could not be. We have to wait and see. But those visions there have no connection to the red god, right. The blue flower isn't Benerro, and the corpse in the ship is not Moqorro.

Context matters. There is the prophecy 'mother of dragons, bride of fire' and the three visions connected to it. And we have it confirmed that the first vision actually does depict Dany's first wedding night. Presumably the other two also are connected to that. That is neither far-fetched nor difficult to understand.

1 hour ago, The Fattest Leech said:

As far as Stannis, I think he is noble to himself, and he was supposed to be the next king because Robert won the throne by right of conquer, but, he was led astray by Sleyse and Melisandre. I think his glowing sword is a useful phony. Useful because in the Long Night, they are going to need a light source from something... but he is not THE Lightbringer.

That isn't the point. The point is that those vision, connected to the prophecy 'mother of dragons, slayer of lies' also depict those lies Dany has to slay. Stannis is one of them, Aegon another, and the stone beast (whatever it represents) the third. What slaying in that context is much more difficult to decipher - is it meant literally (in the sense of actual killing or only in the sense of casting down, defeating with an army, etc.) or more figuratively in the sense that her very existence and destiny as the true savior reveals the fake ones as frauds?

In any case, this whole thing is a strong sign that Dany is actually the prophesied one (and not Jon Snow) if you favor a one savior interpretation because the true savior is going to cast down the fakes.

1 hour ago, The Fattest Leech said:

Not if it doesn't follow what the books have laid out for us this far, AND you do not ignore and write off half of the daggon' story because you assume it has no value. I would like Lady alive. I would have liked Arya back home back in AGOT, but she had a quest of knowledge that she had to fulfill first. I did not want to read about Jon getting stabbed by the people who he was to trust the most. I would have preferred if Jaime pushed Cersei out of the window. But certain things have to happen for character development, and George lays those clues out for us. Nothing is shocking in the story, but you just have to find it first.

I actually would like to see more magical stuff happening around Jon. I think Dany, Jon, and Tyrion are the three heads of the dragon. They will rock the boat later on. But how this is going to play out I have difficulty imagining because Jon and Tyrion are pretty normal and unimpressive people. In Dany's case there is a strong feeling that she is clearly special, surrounded by magic and prophecy, but how far she is going to get with just that and without actual magic is difficult to say.

These characters all have to reach another level to play with the big guys (i.e. the Others and Bran).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 minute ago, Lord Varys said:

As of yet we have no reason to believe that Dany will even convert to the red god. 

Well, she is embracing fire as the author says, soooo? Maybe she will be seen as godlike since she is already on a Jesus-resurrection path. This would be a great set up for an ice and fire mix up, as well as a Targaryen/Blackfyre final resolution.

1 minute ago, Lord Varys said:

 

Presumably the other two also are connected to that. That is neither far-fetched nor difficult to understand.

That is the key word, right!

1 minute ago, Lord Varys said:

That isn't the point.

I was answering what you asked, and how you asked it. If you wanted a different spin, you should have said so.

 

1 minute ago, Lord Varys said:

In any case, this whole thing is a strong sign that Dany is actually the prophesied one (and not Jon Snow) if you favor a one savior interpretation because the true savior is going to cast down the fakes.

Praise Jesus!

But seriously, here you go again claiming Jon has no purpose when if they are sharing duties, then one has one job and the other has another. Equal.

The books even tell us that the Last Hero (? I could be mixing it up), even he had to have help. So no, I am not buying Dany as the sole saviour.

1 minute ago, Lord Varys said:

I actually would like to see more magical stuff happening around Jon. I think Dany, Jon, and Tyrion are the three heads of the dragon. They will rock the boat later on. But how this is going to play out I have difficulty imagining because Jon and Tyrion are pretty normal and unimpressive people.

It is there. Open up, my friend.

1 minute ago, Lord Varys said:

In Dany's case there is a strong feeling that she is clearly special, surrounded by magic and prophecy, but how far she is going to get with just that and without actual magic is difficult to say.

I agree that "magic" is fickle. No doubt. But that goes through the entire story.

1 minute ago, Lord Varys said:

These characters all have to reach another level to play with the big guys (i.e. the Others and Bran).

Bran. He will be a warrior as he wanted. No doubt.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

8 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

I think Aegon will be the King on the Iron Throne, for a time. But he will be cast down or deposed. Whether that's going to mean that he also has to die remains to be seen. He might not be Rhaegar's son but that is actually the less relevant question.

The really important question is whether he is the promised prince (if Rhaegar's son) as Rhaegar believed or at least one of the dragon heads. Him being associated with the lies in the 'slayer of lies' prophecy complex suggests that he isn't, and that this fact is going to become relevant later in the story, just as it is with Stannis.

Some people don't buy the 'Stannis is the savior/hero' story but the fact that he isn't should actually become relevant at one point in the story - say, when he is actually marching against the Others or something of this sort.

Because George doesn't use that phrase anywhere in the books? We don't get to invent stuff that would suit our needs.

I never said it should. I'd say the 'daughter of death' part means that she was a child of death in the sense that her birth was not only dependent on the Rebellion which caused a lot of deaths, including those of her brother, father, niece and nephew, not to mention the death of her own mother in childbirth, but also that the road to become who is now - the mother of dragons - also necessitated a lot of deaths.

Daenerys makes herself the promised princess throughout AGoT. Dreams and destiny guides her but she has made her decisions herself. There was never a guarantee that she would succeed. The woman who steps out of the pyre is no longer the timid girl who had been married to Khal Drogo. She changes drastically throughout that book.

However, when I point out that the three dragons work very well as symbolic lightbringer(s) people quickly want that to have a literal meaning (or the 'true waking' of dragons from stone be a metaphorical one). Why is that?

English is your native language, right? Even I know that you can read 'bride of fire' in a variety of ways. It can mean that Dany marries fire (clearly wrong in the case of Drogo and certainly only partially correct in Jon's case), it could be metaphorical like in 'a fiery (i.e. hot-tempered) bride' or in the sense that she 'the bride of fire', a person associated with fire.

I'd go with the third reading since the first and the second are clearly not correct. Dany is neither particularly hot-tempered nor do Drogo or the corpse guy look like fiery people. Nor is Jon symbolized in a fiery way.

That idea is in no way connected to the actual vision. When we are talking about the meaning of actual text passages then we should stick to what we know. Else I could also try to deny that the blue-eyed king without a shadow is Stannis. After all, Stannis still has a shadow, right? And while he has blue eyes that's the case for a lot of people, etc.

The lighting of fires is another prophecy complex. It has nothing to do with the bride of fire thing.

She could take even more husbands. Nobody has said that those visions have to be complete. In fact, it would be stupid to assume as much.

It is quite likely that George had not yet created the character of Hizdahr zo Loraq when he was writing ACoK. Even Daario might have been a character he only came up with during ASoS.

And how about Dany marrying again after his death? The proper name for the spouse of a monarch in Westeros is either prince consort or king consort (the equivalent for wives is queen consort in comparison to queen regnant). Daenerys will be a queen when she marries Jon Snow, so he will certainly be her consort. Even if they are only married for a day or so.

You should also keep in mind that those prophetic clues have to be reasonably easy to decipher once they actually take place. We see that the blue-eyed king is relatively easy to identify as Stannis, the cloth dragon as Aegon, the blue flower as Jon Snow, and so forth.

I don't expect many of those visions to symbolize complex and vague metaphors rather than pretty concrete events and characters because else we would have to assume that George essentially has written the entire story in his head which clearly isn't the case. It might even be that the story gets the better of him and some of those things don't come true because the story took an entirely different direction.

Littlefinger has my sympathies for not subjecting people to bad smell, irregardless whether he is telling the truth or not.

I know what the blue flower means in Romanticism but in that series blue flowers are clearly connected to Lyanna Stark and thus also to Jon Snow. This is quite clear here. Jon Snow is not poisonous.

I'd rather say Jon Snow is going to bend the knee. He is a descendant of Torrhen Stark, and that would then be proper symmetry. Things should not be too complicated.

Dany might die, but not before that marriage. It is not just a random blue flower (which people like to cite for the parentage thing) that pops in relation to a marriage scenario.

I never said Yarwyck was my hero. I even don't know whether he had to guts to gut Jon. We don't see him there, remember? Marsh most likely saved Jon's ass by killing him, by the way. If he had marched against the North with an army of wildlings he would have lost everything, irregardless whether the Boltons or Stannis won the day. The Northmen don't like wildlings on their land.

I actually don't ship these two all that much. I find a story that culminates in such a romance at the (relative) end of the series (we don't know how many chapters will follow after their first meetings but it shouldn't be that many books thereafter) rather odd. I must say I find it difficult to imagine that romance/relationship because it is clearly very far in the future at this point. There is a reason why I usually don't talk about stuff this far in the future.

However, I think the prophetic and symbolic clues are far too strong to ignore it that this is the most likeliest end point for these two. This doesn't mean both have to survive the series but I think they will marry each other, either before or after the Others have been taken care of.

If it was just a blue flower you might have a point here but context matters. This is not a random prophecy but a prophecy and vision made to Daenerys Targaryen. It is intricately related to her. Everything she sees and hears while interacting with the Undying is connected to her. 

Again, context matters. When Jon finally has some sort of prophetic dream (assuming he ever has one such) or enters the house of some warlocks giving him visions and prophecies about his future I will also believe they are about him.

Just as Hizdahr and Daario may be a thing of the past by the time Dany finally arrives, Val and even Melisandre might long be dead, too. Ygritte is already dead, you know.

I'm with you that Jon might enter into a relationship with Val (or even Melisandre) but neither of them are going to last.

I don't Dany and Jon will meet at the Wall. I think the Wall will have been fallen by then. Else the finale of the series would be a lot less interesting than it could be.

I did not, but we have yet to get a description (and adore) his muscled body through another POV (I doubt Mel is going to give us that). Jon is more slender than Robb. Are winter rations enough to built up six pack in a few weeks/months? I don't know.

I do, yeah ;-).

Aegon has the body of a boy who has not yet reached maturity (the women I know tell me that most women do not like boys). And he has long eyelashes. He may be popular with the women but I really don't think he is Dany's type. In any case, these two are not likely to meet on friendly terms. Not anymore.

Even if Jon still looks like a boy he has certainly more experience in a lot of fields than Aegon - from his times beyond the Wall, with women, etc. Jon might not be as great in bed as Daario clearly is but he at least can do the lord's kiss.

Exactly. The average man (myself included) would gladly have an affair with all the beautiful, exotic, and dangerous women in ASoIaF, independently of the other assets that would come with them (power, gold, etc.).

Jon is not Jaime.

Oh, I don't see that so much from the political angle (although that plays into it - if Jon became a powerful political factor he would be attractive as a consort for Daenerys irregardless of her personal feelings, simply as a partner for an alliance) more from the point of view of keeping things in the family (something George himself has hinted at sometime in the past in relation to the incest thing).

Dany and Jon could feel really close to each other simply because they are who they are.

It will become necessary again, more than ever. The dragons are back, and if Dany and Jon were to enter into a relationship before the Others are defeated then it would be of paramount importance to ensure that their descendants can become dragonriders, too.

Unless they get conclusive proof that incest is not necessary to keep the dragons bound to a bloodline they won't change that policy (and if they have the hots for each other they will gladly go along with the established incest thing as an excuse).

Jon is still the scion of a family which is famous for their incest marriages. And the Starks are not, in principle, opposed to cousin or uncle-niece marriages, as the family tree shows. There is clearly precedent for this kind of thing.

Daenerys certainly comes from afar, don't you think? They might even fall in love before they know they are aunt and nephew.

I don't know what exactly you mean by that. Not to mention that this is not exactly a Jon thread. I see this whole thing as one story, whatever Jon's own story is will bleed in the others. I think Dany and Jon could rebuild Westeros (and perhaps even Essos) and create a new better society, but whether we see much of that remains to be seen. It depends how much the wars and the Others will destroy and how powerful our heroes will become during and after the fighting.

Egg tried his best and failed. And I actually think he was smarter than Jon and Dany both.

They could both have paramours, you know. Or more than one spouse each. Dany most likely will have more than just one living husband at the some point, although not all have to survive the series.

It certainly isn't a Jon solo act. And by prominent political role I meant that Jon is not likely to become Dany's rival for the Iron Throne. That is Aegon's story. Jon has a different story. Even if he ended up effectively controlling the North that would be no guarantee that Dany would offer her hand in marriage to him. It would depend on the number of swords he could offer (not all that much even while the North was still not ravaged by war and winter) and whether those men would actually fight for her (and not try to hold the Wall against the Others).

If Willas Tyrell would offer Dany 50,000 Reach men against 10,000 Northmen it is pretty obvious whose hand Dany would take in marriage.

And if she arrives after the fall of the Wall it is basically impossible to even contemplate any conflict between these two. That would basically doesn't make any sense.

That reads like grasping for straws to me. Dany is declared the bride of fire by the visions, but the visions don't show fire - they show the night of Dany's first wedding, the corpse in the ship, and the blue flower at the Wall.

If you want to convince me that those scenes don't have any connection to Dany's future husband(s) you have to do better than that.

I don't think you are also assuming that Stannis, Aegon, and the stone beast are not the lies 'the slayer of lies' is supposed to slay?

If we were to interpret things that way we can also just ignore the text entirely and just talk about what story we would like to read.

I don't see the basic interpretation of Daughter" vs "Bride" addressed adequately in the post above.

To rephrase my point, in the visions Martin refers to Daenerys as the Daughter of Death, and he refers to her as the Bride of Fire. And in each case he shows us three symbols to represent her connection to Death and Fire respectively.

My point was that you don't take the reference to "Daughter" as literal, but you do choose to take a literal interpretation of the word "Bride". That is inconsistent. My argument in response, is that the title "Daughter" is clearly used as a means to show that Daenerys's origin is symbolically linked to death, hence the depictions of Viserys, Rhaegar etc in the vision. Her destiny was born from the deaths of a number of people - possibly thousands, if you take Rhaegar's death to represent all the deaths in Robert's Rebellion for purposes of the vision.

Similarly, the use of the word "Bride" could equally be symbolic rather than literal, meaning that where the word "Daughter" talked about her past and origin, the word "Bride" talks about her future, and the effect she will have on various people, places and situations. And the three visions shown in the context of the word "Bride" then show three instances where she will bring "Fire" into a scenario. So it is not in fact referring to marriages in the literal sense at all, but to impacts Daenerys will have on the world.

Taking this even further, since we know that the potential "husbands" you propose for her in each of the three visions mostly aren't representations of Fire by any stretch of the imaginations (other than in the third vision, and then only partially), clearly the Fire is not referring to the "husbands" but rather to Daenerys herself, and some kind of Fire that will result from her interactions from these visions.

So to conclude, the "Bride" reference should not be read any more literally than the "Daughter" reference. Aerys wasn't in one of the "Daughter" visions, so clearly they aren't referring to her father, and in the same way none of the "Bride" visions need to be referring  to her husband.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Free Northman Reborn

That is way too far-fetched for me. I like it simple. I like it recognizable. I expect George to actually enable the reader to make the connection between Daenerys Targaryen and the corpse in the ship, blue flower on the wall of ice, the stone beast breathing shadow fire, etc. just as we already did with Stannis and Aegon.

If those prophecies are, in the end, as vague as you imply then neither Daenerys herself nor we, the readers, are likely ever going to figure out what was actually meant. And that doesn't seem to be the point of prophetic visions in this series. The Ghost of High Heart's visions and prophecies are supposed to be deciphered. As are Maggy's, Melisandre's visions, etc. There is a clear meaning to all that.

Going down your route obscures things.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

14 hours ago, The Fattest Leech said:

Why? And that is a serious question. We see this set up with Bran, and even Arya if you read Mercy which was supposed to be in ADWD, and we see this with Jon by the end of ADWD... he was stabbed for letting the free folk through after all... so why wouldn't Dany accept being a bride of fire as a union between her and her faith as the others have done? George had said that by the end of ADWD, Dany has acceopted her family words of "fire and blood". What do you make of that? (again, serious question)

As far as Stannis, I think he is noble to himself, and he was supposed to be the next king because Robert won the throne by right of conquer, but, he was led astray by Sleyse and Melisandre. I think his glowing sword is a useful phony. Useful because in the Long Night, they are going to need a light source from something... but he is not THE Lightbringer.

Not if it doesn't follow what the books have laid out for us this far, AND you do not ignore and write off half of the daggon' story because you assume it has no value. I would like Lady alive. I would have liked Arya back home back in AGOT, but she had a quest of knowledge that she had to fulfill first. I did not want to read about Jon getting stabbed by the people who he was to trust the most. I would have preferred if Jaime pushed Cersei out of the window. But certain things have to happen for character development, and George lays those clues out for us. Nothing is shocking in the story, but you just have to find it first.

 

I'm no Lord Varys, but if you allow me to share my thoughts with you...

First of all, Dany is a very religiously tolerant person, which almost certainly has roots in her childhood, when she traveled from a city to city and has encountered various gods and faiths, but never stayed anywhere for long. She knows her family comes from the Seven Kingdoms, where the predominant religion is the Seven, so she honors them, at least nominally. When she lives with the Dothraki, she adapts and accepts their beliefs. When she rules Meereen, she agrees to conduct a ceremony in the rites of the Meereenese gods.

She is cosmopolitan in her upbringing and beliefs and quite irreligious. I very much doubt that she will become an outspoken champion of any faith or that she is going to force her faith upon others. Even if she 'converts' to R'hllorism, then I doubt that the conversion will be any different from her 'conversion' to the Dothraki or Meereenese gods, or even the Great Shepherd.

As for "Fire and blood"... that one is often used as a proof that she is now the Devil and out there to burn innocent children... well, no, she is not.

I don't know how much you are familiar with GRRM's novel Fevre Dream, but that one shares a similar theme. Its protagonist (and ultimately a hero) is Abner March (and he's nothing like Bowen March, so put the pitchfork away :P), who is a ship captain in the US of the 19th century. He doesn't care for slavery overmuch, but his mild discomfort does not lead him to any actual actions to attempt to liberate his fellow human beings. That is, until the events of the book transpire. In the duration of the book events, he becomes an abolitionist, because he comes to understand how terrible slavery truly is and that it touches him as well.

This is what he says/thinks after he foregoes the change:

Quote

I never held much with slavery […]. You can’t just go… usin’ another kind of people, like they wasn’t people at all. Know what I mean? Got to end, sooner or later. Better if it ends peaceful, but it’s got to end even if it has to be with fire and blood, you see? Maybe that’s what them abolitionists been sayin’ all along. You try to be reasonable, that’s only right, but if it don’t work, you got to be ready. Some things are just wrong. They got to be ended.

This is the transition that Dany has undergone in ADwD. She tried to be reasonable, she tried to compromise with the Meereenese slaver elite, but they did not reciprocate her efforts. What they want is the return of status quo. Step by step she was forced to take away from her reforms, she had reopen the fighting pits, she had to marry a guy who was quite obviously is some way connected to the Sons of the Harpy to stop the attacks. So she said: No more. She's not going to play them a fool. If they want it the hard way, they will get it the hard way.

For that matter, fire and blood have positive connotations as well. Fire and blood are connected to life and the ability to feel.*** "Fire consumes" is often viewed as something negative, but it kinda depends if the thing it consumes is worth saving, doesn't it? Sometimes the old is bad and has to go. OTOH "Ice preserves" is not always positive. Ice enables the existence of the Others and wights, who would otherwise rot and fall apart rather quickly. Preserving such societies as the Slaver's Bay is also not positive. It's rather clear that GRRM disapproves of slavery under any conditions and thinks that something anything should be done about it.

What will she take away from when she sails for Westeros? Hard to say, since we're missing an entire book of character growth. She could go west because she wants to help her kinsman Aegon, she could go there because she knows/suspects that Aegon is fraud and is stealing her family name and birthright, she could go there because Marwyn tells her that Westeros needs her, she could go there because of the combination of those three options... or perhaps because of something completely different, for all we know. But the idea that she will burn people indiscriminately, not to mention to fulfill an agenda a particular faith... No, that is nothing like Daenerys Targaryen. Daenerys Targaryen tried for a peaceful solution, when it failed she decided to do something about it anyway. She knows it will cost lives, but those lives would be likely ruined by slavery anyway. All wars have body count, and at least in this case she fight for the others, for the slaves, not for herself, and so far it has had nothing to do with Rh'llor.

There's no reason to believe she will fundamentally change and become some sort of a pious, religious figure that pushes her religious agenda on the uninterested folk of Westeros. It is possible that the South of Westeros wil become less religiously tolerant with the rise of the Faith Militant, and they may have a problem with an openly religiously tolerant or religiously apathetic ruler, but in that case the fault would be on their side.

Also, Jon was not killed for letting the wildlings through , that was but one small component of that, if at all, but I don't want to derail the thread completely.

And yup, he died. GRRM had it planned already in AGoT. See below (if you're interested, of course).

*** (This is not a direct answer to anybody, but it's some more on the HotU symbolism and Ice&Fire symbolism generally:)

The Old Nan says that the Others hate the warm blood of living creatures.

GRRM also connects Ice to bloodlesness. This is Jeyne Poole's description from Theon in ADwD:

Quote

The hearth was caked with cold black ash, the room unheated but for candles. Every time a door opened their flames would sway and shiver. The bride was shivering too. They had dressed her in white lambs-wool trimmed with lace. Her sleeves and bodice were sewn with freshwater pearls, and on her feet were white doeskin slippers—pretty, but not warm. Her face was pale, bloodless. A face carved of ice, Theon Greyjoy thought as he draped a fur-trimmed cloak about her shoulders. A corpse buried in the snow. “My lady. It is time.” Beyond the door, the music called them, lute and pipes and drum.

Lack of fire and/or blood is negative.

People in this thread say that blue color is negative, well, it is true that GRRM connects blue to to death and cold.

Take the blue heart from the House of the Undying:

Quote

A long stone table filled this room. Above it floated a human heart, swollen and blue with
corruption, yet still alive.
It beat, a deep ponderous throb of sound, and each pulse sent out a wash of indigo light. The figures around the table were no more than blue shadows.

Brrrh!

The thing is, when people try to find something negative in that vision of the blue rose in the Wall of ice, they automatically go for it meaning bad things for Dany. Yeah, but it referrs to Jon's death that has already ocurred, not Dany's death. Dany is going to fall in love with a person that is undead - a zombie - as some simplify it. That should bring a lot of problems and a lot grief by itself. It's unlikely that love story is going to have a happy end, but it has nothing to do with Jon being a danger to Dany's life.

We'll see how much GRRM will draw on that. So far blue roses in his books have been connected to some sort of romantic (or at least sexual) relationship that in two out of three (? arguably, if we count Sansa and Baelish) result in a child and tragedy.

Btw, GRRM foreshadowed Jon's death experience ingeniously.

The quote from AGoT Bran is notorious:

Quote

Finally he looked north. He saw the Wall shining like blue crystal, and his bastard brother Jon sleeping alone in a cold bed, his skin growing pale and hard as the memory of all warmth fled from him. And he looked past the Wall, past endless forests cloaked in snow, past the frozen
shore and the great blue-white rivers of ice and the dead plains where nothing grew or lived.
North and north and north he looked, to the curtain of light at the end of the world, and then
beyond that curtain. He looked deep into the heart of winter, and then he cried out, afraid, and
the heat of his tears burned on his cheeks.

But this one from AGoT Arya is even better:

Quote

Robb took them all the way down to the end, past Grandfather and Brandon and Lyanna, to show them their own tombs. Sansa kept looking at the stubby little candle, anxious that it might go out. Old Nan had told her there were spiders down here, and rats as big as dogs. Robb smiled when she said that. “There are worse things than spiders and rats,” he whispered. “This is where the dead walk.” That was when they heard the sound, low and deep and shivery. Baby Bran had clutched at Arya’s hand.
When the spirit stepped out of the open tomb, pale white and moaning for blood, Sansa ran shrieking for the stairs, and Bran wrapped himself around Robb’s leg, sobbing. Arya stood her ground and gave the spirit a punch. It was only Jon, covered with flour. “You stupid,” she told him, “you scared the baby,” but Jon and Robb just laughed and laughed, and pretty soon Bran and Arya were laughing too.

Who's going to return from the dead? Very nice, GRRM. ;)

Dany and Jon have a dichotomy; it's not 100%, but most of the time Dany is connected to fire and life, while Jon is connected to ice and death. When Ice and Fire can hate, they can also mate. B)

 

So, I think that Dany's fires are:

1, for life - clearly the birth of the dragons

2, for death - burns the khals and/or the slavers?

3, to love - I think that either she wins the love of the Westerosi by stopping the wight army, or - more figuratively? - she thaws Jon's frozen heart; or perhaps the former does the latter?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...