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Why are the Targs...


KarlDanski

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How far is "far from the most powerful"? The "most powerful" would be say the top three or top five, so "far from" could be as high as 35-40 or as low as ten. If they were in the top twenty most powerful dragonlord families, they would still be "far from the most powerful" but I would hardly call that lower nobility or minor dragonlords. Even if they scraped in at number 40, they're doing better than 41 (because there is no 41, and anyone with dragons is more powerful than those without dragons, i.e. the rest of the population ). Still not lower nobility.

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Well I didnt know either that there was no Targaryen banner before the conquest.But as to why the Targaryens are so dragonish why the Velaryons arent I think it has to do with the Targaryens being proud and kind of sneaky.They left hundrends of people to die after all except from the Velaryons and some others.I think they always wanted to be something like number one dragonlords and by conquering westeros and without having any rivals who could threaten them they could finally make their dream come  true.

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32 minutes ago, maudisdottir said:

How far is "far from the most powerful"? The "most powerful" would be say the top three or top five, so "far from" could be as high as 35-40 or as low as ten. If they were in the top twenty most powerful dragonlord families, they would still be "far from the most powerful" but I would hardly call that lower nobility or minor dragonlords. Even if they scraped in at number 40, they're doing better than 41 (because there is no 41, and anyone with dragons is more powerful than those without dragons, i.e. the rest of the population ). Still not lower nobility.

I don't have the quote from Martin but I remember saying that the Targaryens weren't even close to the strongest of the Dragonlord houses. Still comparatively it doesn't mean much as you said. They were still in the 1% of people who owned and rode dragons.

 

19 minutes ago, Valedina said:

Well I didnt know either that there was no Targaryen banner before the conquest.But as to why the Targaryens are so dragonish why the Velaryons arent I think it has to do with the Targaryens being proud and kind of sneaky.They left hundrends of people to die after all except from the Velaryons and some others.I think they always wanted to be something like number one dragonlords and by conquering westeros and without having any rivals who could threaten them they could finally make their dream come  true.

Yup heraldry is most a Westerosi concept.

The Targaryens didn't leave anyone to die. Daenys had hear prophecy and her family fled Valyria because of it. The rival dragonlords just thought they had given up and laughed it off.

Velaryon's, Celtigar etc simply came from non Dragonlord houses. Also if the dream was to conqueror Westeros why didn't they attempt it when they first arrived? They had five dragons instead of the three they had at Aegon's time.

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On 4/26/2017 at 6:51 PM, The Fattest Leech said:

I say supposedly because the world book is only semi-canon and admitted to be skewed.

The world book is canon, but the novels take precedence.

SSM from Elio:

Quote

However, I'll point to this post in which I report on George referring to the book as "authoritative" while indicating at the ongoing ASoIaF series (and, come to think of it given his thoughts on Summerhall, Dunk & Egg) are of course the "supreme canon" because that's where he may reveal that details in earlier works are in fact deliberately mistaken and so on.

Not a Blog:

Quote

The novels always trump.

 

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21 minutes ago, Nittanian said:

The world book is canon, but the novels take precedence.

SSM from Elio:

Not a Blog:

 

Oh, I agree that George had a lot to do with the information that is in the World book, but even he says that it is skewed, and therefore take it with a grain of salt type thing. Same with the app.

However, even Elio says that this World book info could change if George decides to do something different in the main books, "course the "supreme canon" because that's where he may reveal that details in earlier works are in fact deliberately mistaken and so on. "

 

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I used lower nobility and minor lord as the same, I didn't insinuate that they were the lows of the low. I stated in the beginning of the post that I was creating this post in asking why the Targaryens had a more dragon appearance than other Valyrians, I stated that while I dislike them, I still am interested about them. If your insinuating that I try to make them appear lower as a form of dislike, your wrong, it's just the wording I use.

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Because the only other Valyrians we meet aren't dragonlords. The Targaryens are the last of them, hence why they identify as dragons and use them as their sigils and transport and weapons etc. The only Velaryons with dragons were offspring of Targ dragonlords; they never had dragons of their own.

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Why are the Targs... so awesome?

Because they're the equivalent of Gods.  "A Song of Ice and Fire" is their story: history, present, and future. 

There is nothing unique about their house words.  All houses come up with words that reflect pride and status. 

  • Hear Me Roar is not indicative of humility and kindness.
  • As High as Honor sounds like it came from someone on drugs.
  • We Don't Sow is a sign of laziness.
  • Winter is Coming is the motto of a cult family that feeds people to their pet weirwood tree just for giggles.
  • Ours if the Fury.  That family has anger management issues.

And let me correct you.  The Targaryens were not lower nobility.  They were one of the noble families who owned and controlled the Valyrian Empire.  Every family in the ruling class was wealthy.  Imagine buying an island with a castle on it.  That's Richard Branson billionaire territory today and they still had enough gold left after the acquisition of Dragonstone to sustain a large household.  The Targaryens were rulers in the greatest empire known to Planetos.  The Starks were "kings" in a frozen wasteland in a backwards continent of primitives who practiced human sacrifice to an "effing" tree of all things.  Who has a better leg to stand on?  It's no contest which family has achieved more.

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On 4/26/2017 at 6:36 PM, KarlDanski said:

the only Valyrian house or Valyrian dynasty that has words, sigils, and motifs based around dragons? Surely the Valyrian "Dragonlords" would have more dragon-mania than the lower nobility Targaryen house. Valyrians tend to share the violet eyes, white hair, and stuff besides the Baratheons, but still. 

House Targaryen had a black, and red sinister sigil with a three headed dragon, with the words, "Fire and Blood". Very "draconian', and what you would expect from Dragonlords. House Velaryon oddly has a seahorse sigil in blue, and white with the words, "The Old, the True, the Brave". House Celtigar has also oddly enough crabs, and their words are unknown. Finally, the only other house started by Valyrians are House Baratheon which have the Durrandon look, sigil, and words so that isn't as big of a deal as the others. Still, why does the lower nobility of Valyria, namely Targaryen, have dragonistic words, and sigils while other lower houses take after their environment of Dragonsttone. I would expect a house of higher nobility to have dragonish words, and a dragon sigil instead. Just wondering, don't know if this has an answer. Do not take this as another Targ bash post like the one were I asked what would the 7 Kingdoms be if Aegon didn't invade which someone thought that I was bashing them.

My million dragon question regarding this is when the other Houses came to Westeros: If they came before the Targs and their dragons, they might have simply not have thought about it and afterwards, perhaps there it was discouraged, either officially or unofficially. There is one House that uses a dragon chasing its own tail, but they are dornish and it was very much a FU to the crown.

Although the Velaryon seahorse is inching into dragon territory.

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1 hour ago, hiemal said:

My million dragon question regarding this is when the other Houses came to Westeros: If they came before the Targs and their dragons, they might have simply not have thought about it and afterwards, perhaps there it was discouraged, either officially or unofficially. There is one House that uses a dragon chasing its own tail, but they are dornish and it was very much a FU to the crown.

Although the Velaryon seahorse is inching into dragon territory.

House Velaryon rule of Driftmark predates the arrival of House Targaryen. We don't know why this Valyrian house was so far from Valyria but they must have had some reason.

Also maybe Sea dragon territory eh? 

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2 hours ago, hiemal said:

My million dragon question regarding this is when the other Houses came to Westeros: If they came before the Targs and their dragons, they might have simply not have thought about it and afterwards, perhaps there it was discouraged, either officially or unofficially. There is one House that uses a dragon chasing its own tail, but they are dornish and it was very much a FU to the crown.

Although the Velaryon seahorse is inching into dragon territory.

Why would the Velaryons have dragon sigils if they never had dragons?

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On 27/4/2017 at 0:05 AM, KarlDanski said:

Thank you Leech for the quote, it helps understand it a lot better than the chivalric banner type thing was more Westerosi than Valyrians, and that the Valyrians never had family sigils etc.

Aryagonakill#2, thanks for putting that in, I assumed Velaryon, Targaryen, and Celtigar were the same stature politically in Valyria, and I didn't know that they were actually lower than most.

Question 3 though...why don't the Velaryons have any Valyrian Steel swords? Targaryen had two swords named, Dark Sister and Blackfyre, and that Celtigar is suppose to have a Valyrian Steel Axe, but the Velaryons seem to have had no Valyrians weapon.

Maybe they had them but lost them at some point, it is very unlikely that a noble valyrian house that came directly from old valyria will not have any valyrian weapons.

I also refuse to belive that the targs have lost knowledge about how to make valyrian steel, I think that point is not being brought up in the books only because GRRM wants it that way, it's very unlikely that the targaryens will ever let themselves forget something as important as this, and if anyone should know how to make valyrian steel then it is them since they are the only people with dragons who survived and it is possible they personally forged their own weapons

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1 hour ago, Yucef Menaerys said:

Maybe they had them but lost them at some point, it is very unlikely that a noble valyrian house that came directly from old valyria will not have any valyrian weapons.

I also refuse to belive that the targs have lost knowledge about how to make valyrian steel, I think that point is not being brought up in the books only because GRRM wants it that way, it's very unlikely that the targaryens will ever let themselves forget something as important as this, and if anyone should know how to make valyrian steel then it is them since they are the only people with dragons who survived and it is possible they personally forged their own weapons

I must disagree.I find it highely unlikely that the Targaryens, being nobility, would bother to have learned craftsmanship no matter how developed, to essentially make their own weapons. Its not like they sew their own clothing or make their own silver spoons or personally grow their own food. RIght up to the Doom there would have been plenty of smiths available to make the weapons for them and then there were no way to get hold of such knowledge but normal steel weapons would have been perfectly useful to fight pretty much any enemy they encountered, not to mention they already had two Valyrian swords with them in exile.

No way that the Targaryens would have had a whole stockpile of Valyrian steel weapons and no one ever noticed it. 

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On 4/29/2017 at 8:37 AM, LionoftheWest said:

I must disagree.I find it highely unlikely that the Targaryens, being nobility, would bother to have learned craftsmanship no matter how developed, to essentially make their own weapons. Its not like they sew their own clothing or make their own silver spoons or personally grow their own food. RIght up to the Doom there would have been plenty of smiths available to make the weapons for them and then there were no way to get hold of such knowledge but normal steel weapons would have been perfectly useful to fight pretty much any enemy they encountered, not to mention they already had two Valyrian swords with them in exile.

No way that the Targaryens would have had a whole stockpile of Valyrian steel weapons and no one ever noticed it. 

But this isin't any craftsmanship, its an art that involves the use of dragons, we know that to make valyrian steel requires dragonfire, who will be their to handle and supervise the use of the dragonfire if not the dragonlords themselves?  Besides the nobility didn't have to learn every aspect of it they just had to know how its made, like how tyrion knows how to make saddles even though he doesn't physically make the saddles himself. We also know that the sorcerers of the freehold were the dragonlords themselves not just any commoner, so i expect anything that has to do with sorcery to be handled personally by dragonlords.

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3 hours ago, Yucef Menaerys said:

But this isin't any craftsmanship, its an art that involves the use of dragons, we know that to make valyrian steel requires dragonfire, who will be their to handle and supervise the use of the dragonfire if not the dragonlords themselves?  Besides the nobility didn't have to learn every aspect of it they just had to know how its made, like how tyrion knows how to make saddles even though he doesn't physically make the saddles himself. We also know that the sorcerers of the freehold were the dragonlords themselves not just any commoner, so i expect anything that has to do with sorcery to be handled personally by dragonlords.

I am pretty sure there's a mentioning of sorcerers in Valyria who are different from the dragonlords. My guess is that these sorcerers handled the sword making. But I could naturally be wrong as I'm not as well read on Old Valyria as I know that some are.

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On 4/29/2017 at 1:21 AM, maudisdottir said:

Why would the Velaryons have dragon sigils if they never had dragons?

For the same reason any House chooses a sigil representing an animal that they didn't actually physically ride on at some point? Because it says something about their House, its origins, or its ideals.

And a sea horse isn't a dragon, but it is close to a dragon in symbolic, mythic terms; being either a "sea dragon" (like a :Sea Snake) or as a juvenile dragon (like a non-dragonriding family that breeds a few dragonriders after the Doom.).

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On 4/28/2017 at 11:48 PM, Lord Wraith said:

House Velaryon rule of Driftmark predates the arrival of House Targaryen. We don't know why this Valyrian house was so far from Valyria but they must have had some reason.

Also maybe Sea dragon territory eh? 

I was pretty sure about Velaryon and I suspect that Celtigar might also be pre-Targ but I'm just guessing on the rest.

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22 hours ago, LionoftheWest said:

I am pretty sure there's a mentioning of sorcerers in Valyria who are different from the dragonlords. My guess is that these sorcerers handled the sword making. But I could naturally be wrong as I'm not as well read on Old Valyria as I know that some are.

Even if there were non-dragonlord sorcerers in old valyria they still couldn't do many things that require dragon fire and we know a lot valyrian magic is rooted in dragon fire, just because they are sorcerers doesn't mean they can command dragons at will so as to use their flames, they still need a dragonlord for that which is why i believe the dragonlords do take part in the forging of valyrian steel.

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On 26/4/2017 at 5:36 PM, KarlDanski said:

the only Valyrian house or Valyrian dynasty that has words, sigils, and motifs based around dragons? Surely the Valyrian "Dragonlords" would have more dragon-mania than the lower nobility Targaryen house. Valyrians tend to share the violet eyes, white hair, and stuff besides the Baratheons, but still. 

House Targaryen had a black, and red sinister sigil with a three headed dragon, with the words, "Fire and Blood". Very "draconian', and what you would expect from Dragonlords. House Velaryon oddly has a seahorse sigil in blue, and white with the words, "The Old, the True, the Brave". House Celtigar has also oddly enough crabs, and their words are unknown. Finally, the only other house started by Valyrians are House Baratheon which have the Durrandon look, sigil, and words so that isn't as big of a deal as the others. Still, why does the lower nobility of Valyria, namely Targaryen, have dragonistic words, and sigils while other lower houses take after their environment of Dragonsttone. I would expect a house of higher nobility to have dragonish words, and a dragon sigil instead. Just wondering, don't know if this has an answer. Do not take this as another Targ bash post like the one were I asked what would the 7 Kingdoms be if Aegon didn't invade which someone thought that I was bashing them.

 
 

At that time, they were the only ones with Dragons, so I guess it was fitting that they used the Dragons. Also, the Dragons helped them to conquer the Seven Kingdoms.

It was that or the image of a blond dude banging his sister, and that's not very much "aesthetic", imo.

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On 2017-05-01 at 3:22 PM, Yucef Menaerys said:

Even if there were non-dragonlord sorcerers in old valyria they still couldn't do many things that require dragon fire and we know a lot valyrian magic is rooted in dragon fire, just because they are sorcerers doesn't mean they can command dragons at will so as to use their flames, they still need a dragonlord for that which is why i believe the dragonlords do take part in the forging of valyrian steel.

I will start by saying that its entirely possible as Valyria isn't an area of Planetos that I am deeply interested in. But I don't think that the need for dragonfire by itself showed that the dragonlords knew about the swordmaking. As I see it, it could also have been that it was a matter of cooperation between sorcerers and dragonriders. But I realize that I don't have a rock-solid foundation for this.

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