How to Train Your Drogon

[Oveloel]

When Daenerys takes Astapor in ASOS, she has trained Drogon to breathe flame on command, with the trigger phrase "Dracarys". How on earth would one go about this training? Where did she do the training unseen? Groleo and the sailors seemed to be very unhappy about the prospect of dragonfire on the boats.

Furthermore, how did she work out how to do it? Do we know who was in the know on her plan to double-cross the Good Masters (although I can't see how any of them would have this knowledge)?

 

Perhaps the many ancient (or valuable, or something to that effect) texts, mentioned when the Good Masters are tallying up the worth of Daenerys' goods, contained such information? However, if my memory is correct, these were all in foreign languages such as Qartheen, Ghiscari, Asshai'i, etc and therefore useless for Daenerys. I suppose it's possible that she handed these over, bring worthless to her, and kept the texts written in the Common Tongue and Valyrian, but I was under the impression that she offered absolutely everything, even including the ships Illyrio had provided for her despite Groleo's protests, so this wouldn't make much sense.

The only other explanation I can think of is the warg-like connection Daenerys has with the dragons - for example, one (I think Drogon) screams as Daenerys orgasms in that scene in her bunk on the boat with Irri in the middle of the night, and another (I think Rhaegal) hisses when Daenerys sits up calling "Quaithe?" after being sent a vision, again on the boat. However, if this is the case, why does she need a trigger word at all, and, given that she doesn't completely understand either this connection or its mechanics, how can she be so sure Drogon will react as she has planned? The double-cross certainly seems to rely on his obedience at this very moment.

[Lost Melnibonean]

The sack of Astapor in Daenerys III, Storm 27 was set up by this...

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The dragons were no larger than the scrawny cats she had once seen skulking along the walls of Magister Illyrio's estate in Pentos . . . until they unfolded their wings. Their span was three times their length, each wing a delicate fan of translucent skin, gorgeously colored, stretched taut between long thin bones. When you looked hard, you could see that most of their body was neck, tail, and wing. Such little things, she thought as she fed them by hand. or rather, tried to feed them, for the dragons would not eat. They would hiss and spit at each bloody morsel of horsemeat, steam rising from their nostrils, yet they would not take the food . . . until Dany recalled something Viserys had told her when they were children.

Only dragons and men eat cooked meat, he had said.

When she had her handmaids char the horsemeat black, the dragons ripped at it eagerly, their heads striking like snakes. So long as the meat was seared, they gulped down several times their own weight every day, and at last began to grow larger and stronger. Dany marveled at the smoothness of their scales, and the heat that poured off them, so palpable that on cold nights their whole bodies seemed to steam.

Daenerys I, Clash 12

And this...

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"I was not sleeping, ser. Come and watch." She took a chunk of salt pork out of the bowl in her lap and held it up for her dragons to see. All three of them eyed it hungrily. Rhaegal spread green wings and stirred the air, and Viserion's neck swayed back and forth like a long pale snake's as he followed the movement of her hand. "Drogon," Dany said softly, "dracarys." And she tossed the pork in the air.

Drogon moved quicker than a striking cobra. Flame roared from his mouth, orange and scarlet and black, searing the meat before it began to fall. As his sharp black teeth snapped shut around it, Rhaegal's head darted close, as if to steal the prize from his brother's jaws, but Drogon swallowed and screamed, and the smaller green dragon could only hiss in frustration.

Daenerys I, Storm 8

[Lady Blizzardborn]

Welcome to the Forums. Great thread title!

It's like training a dog. A fire-breathing dog.

I imagine she watched them carefully and timed the saying of "dracarys" to when they were spitting out their flames, so they would associate the word with the flames. Next she would add praise for their "firing" on command. Then would have added a step, that they had to wait for her to offer the meat and then fire on command. The final step is that they will spit flame on command with no food in sight.