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How did Denaerys know about her truth?


NPI

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I was just watching Season 1 on repeat mode and was wondering.. she knew about Viserys Targaeryn "not being a dragon".. and when in this last episode of season 1 she stepped into the pyre, Jorah warned her against it but she said all her dialogues with a pretty stony expression.. which implies she very well knew what she was doing..

so that raises few questions for me:

1) The power of immunity to the fire is NOT possessed by all Targaeryans .. so who / what decides who will get this power? Why did Dany get it but not Viserys?

2) How did Dany know that she HAD the power?

 

This for the book readers, I am not reading the books but re-watching all the episodes again.

 

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Targaryens are humans and can be killed by the same things that can kill any other human. There is no historical record (that we are aware of) of a Targaryen being immune to fire. Instead, we know some Targaryens that were killed by fire, and we even know that the Targaryen funerary customs included burning their bodies to dispose of them.

No one expected Viserys to survive the molten gold. Dany's comment about him "not being a dragon" should be understood as some kind of joke. It's like if a Lannister died in a cowardly way and someone mentioned that "he was not a lion".

What happened with Dany is an extraordinary event. Some kind of an unexpected miracle without precedent. She didn't knew what was going to happen, and it's debatable why she entered Drogo's pyre. Is it possible that she felt suicidal after the death of her husband and son, but we can't dismiss that her connection with the eggs gave her "instincts" telling her that he could give birth to the dragons and survive.

 

 

 

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She explains it later on in season 2 that she had a dream that she stepped into the fire. "I'm no ordinary woman! My dreams come true!"

 

Also throughout season 1 she is constantly testing her resistance to fire. She is able to enter a scathingly hot bath, able to touch the dragon eggs when they have been on a fire while her handmaidens burns herself, etc.

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  • 2 months later...

What happened in the funeral pyre was a kind of blood magic. "Only a life can pay for a death", yada yada yada. GRRM has gone on the record saying what happened was not indicative of Dany's normal abilities, but rather was the unique confluence of several factors.

That said, the show seems to think Dany is basically impervious to fire. We see her getting into hot water like it ain't no thang, she picked up the dragon eggs after they had been on hot coals and was just like "Eh, a little warm, I guess?" and in this past season there was the incident where she burned all the Khals but she herself was ok. Again, that could have been some more blood magic at work, but I think the show gives her more special abilities than the books.

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  • 1 month later...

Being generous, I think it's possible that the tv show doesn't explain all of the magic (blood magic or otherwise) that goes into the things we see.

To respond to your question "who decides who gets the special powers" I think it's part fate and part work; some people are born to greatness in terms of their insight and abilities and some are just vicious, selfish and weak (like Viserys). Long before Viserys was killed (and really, what intelligent person would physically threaten his sister, the wife of a ruler of warriors while she was pregnant with the violent warrior's heir?) Dany had realized that Viserys would never rule. Dany wanted to work to make her husband love her, work to learn his language, lead his people and make them hers. Dany also paid attention to her dreams, her tolerance for fire/heat, and the beliefs of the people she was dealing with and used all of those things to lead. My guess is that even if Viserys had had special abilities, he wouldn't have noticed, wouldn't have developed them, would still have expected things to be handed to him, and would have squandered any opportunities that came his way - exactly like he squandered the opportunity of a collaboration with the Dothraki. Dany is a seeker and a worker. Perhaps her pride (or the Targaryan madness) will impede her, but her work ethic and insight may also lead her to further greatness.

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