Sansa/Arya and Lyanna Parallels

[Ygrain]

2 hours ago, Springwatch said:

I really doubt Dany's blue rose is Jon: the original blue rose was a daughter of Winterfell, as was Lyanna, and patterns are repeated.

Blue roses are introduced way before the Bael story and have absolutely nothing to do with it, they are the QoLaB crown from Harrenhal. They are not meat to represent Lyanna herself, either, but a connection between her and Rhaegar, and what else is their child but such a connection?

But you're right, patterns are repeated - a musician stole a daughter of Winterfell and they had a baby.

[elipride]

5 hours ago, Ygrain said:

Yet, Sansa's disobedience of her father also defies tradition...

Yes, she defies tradition once in a while, but my other point was that she tends to romaticize people and see what she wants to se. She disobeyed because she still wanted to marry Joffrey even after he showed he was a jerk. She'll probably grow out of that eventually, but if her life hadn't gone to hell there wouldn't be a reason for her to become more distrustful of people and break a seemingly perfect engagement. Or maybe I'm wrong but that's what I think.

[chrisdaw]

13 hours ago, Springwatch said:

I really doubt Dany's blue rose is Jon

Well you won't be able to say you weren't told. 

[Pikachu101]

20 hours ago, elipride said:

Lyanna was more practical, she saw Roberts true nature and rejected him, which is more in line with Arya's personality. 

Arya would never run off with a married man, if Lyanna willingly ran off with Rhaegar (which I believe she did to some extent) then she displayed the naivety we saw in Ned who Sansa takes after. Also Lyanna doesn't seem practical at all, what she does look like is a teenage girl who was coerced by someone a lot older than her with empty promises, what they were we have yet to find out. 

[Hodor the Articulate]

You can find similarities between any two characters, but unless it was intentional, it's all meaningless. Frankly, I don't find Lyanna and Sansa to be similar at all, and I don't think it makes sense for them to be. It's pretty obvious that Arya is meant to be Lyanna 2.0, given that we are explicitly told how alike they are, both in personality and in looks. And as Sansa and Arya are foils for each other, we should also see more differences between Sansa and Lyanna than similarities.

I think people just want to make comparisons between S and L because they think L is more feminine than Arya. I'm sure 99% of this is because romance features so heavily in her backstory, and romance is, of course, girly. This ignores that romance is also a part of male/masculine characters' stories, and that Arya is not wholly masculine. As someone upthread pointed out, she likes flowers and songs too.

1 hour ago, Pikachu101 said:

Arya would never run off with a married man, if Lyanna willingly ran off with Rhaegar (which I believe she did to some extent) then she displayed the naivety we saw in Ned who Sansa takes after. Also Lyanna doesn't seem practical at all, what she does look like is a teenage girl who was coerced by someone a lot older than her with empty promises, what they were we have yet to find out. 

What are either of these interpretations based on? Arya can be headstrong and she's been defying and challenging social norms throughout the story. I can totally see her running off a with a dude if she wanted to.

As to Lyanna, I'm not sure we know enough about her to say that she's practical, but she certainly didn't seem like an ingenue. She recognised Robert for who he was, and knew what to expect of her marriage to him. And Ned attributes her death (and, it is implied, her running off with R) not to naivety, but to her "wolf blood". That's the complete opposite of Sansa, who tends to romanticise her betrothals, and would have stuck with marrying Robert like a proper lady. That Lyanna was 'coerced' is unsupported by canon unless you take the rape & kidnapping story at face value.

[elipride]

1 hour ago, Pikachu101 said:

Arya would never run off with a married man, if Lyanna willingly ran off with Rhaegar (which I believe she did to some extent) then she displayed the naivety we saw in Ned who Sansa takes after. Also Lyanna doesn't seem practical at all, what she does look like is a teenage girl who was coerced by someone a lot older than her with empty promises, what they were we have yet to find out. 

All of them were naive and sheltered, Arya too, difference is that Sansa and Arya were forced to grow up really fast which wasn't the case with Lyanna (at least until whatever that was with Rhaegar happened). I meant practical in the sense that she realized that Robert wouldn't be a good housband, which is the opposite of what Sansa does. Even if they were both naive Sansa and Arya had very different personalities, Sansa had a tendency to do what she was told, accept her role as a wife and mother and idealize highborn people, and Arya had a tendency to go against the grain, to want to be more than someone's wife and to sometimes do stupid things out of impulse.

[Ygrain]

21 minutes ago, Hodor the Articulate said:

You can find similarities between any two characters, but unless it was intentional, it's all meaningless. Frankly, I don't find Lyanna and Sansa to be similar at all, and I don't think it makes sense for them to be. It's pretty obvious that Arya is meant to be Lyanna 2.0, given that we are explicitly told how alike they are, both in personality and in looks.

Both girls disobeyed because of a Prince Charming, and both actions cost the lives of their family members and nearly destroyed all of House Stark. Coincidence?

Besides, Arya is not Lyanna 2.0, or do you ever see Arya sniffing over a love song?

21 minutes ago, Hodor the Articulate said:

And as Sansa and Arya are foils for each other, we should also see more differences between Sansa and Lyanna than similarities.

Lol, pointing out similarities between the two hardly means denying the differences, no?

The point is that while the differences are obvious, the similarites less and fewer so, but they do exist.

[Pikachu101]

9 hours ago, Hodor the Articulate said:

That Lyanna was 'coerced' is unsupported by canon unless you take the rape & kidnapping story at face value.

Coercion can come in many forms, we have no idea what Rhaegar promised her but it had to be something to make run off without hesitation but I doubt he told her she's going to be his baby maker. 

[Springwatch]

16 hours ago, chrisdaw said:

Well you won't be able to say you weren't told. 

Oh I'm not disagreeing with you: it wouldn't surprise me if Dany fell in love with Jon. and I can see the breadcrumb trail you're following. But blue-rose-as-Lyanna-meaning-Jon seems like a pretty clumsy metaphor to me. I'm holding out for an actual Stark daughter at the actual Wall.

9 hours ago, Hodor the Articulate said:

It's pretty obvious that Arya is meant to be Lyanna 2.0, given that we are explicitly told how alike they are, both in personality and in looks.

That's how the parallels are laid out - the top layer is plainly stated so even first time readers can pick up on it. Then you re-read and see more parallels, and have to question everything you thought the first time round. Like, are Sansa and Arya really opposites, and will they always be in conflict?

[Springwatch]

4 minutes ago, Pikachu101 said:

Coercion can come in many forms, we have no idea what Rhaegar promised her but it had to be something to make run off without hesitation but I doubt he told her she's going to be his baby maker. 

Agree. And I can't help thinking that Lyanna, like her nieces, was brought up on tales and songs - and like them, got a cruelly sharp lesson that life is not a song.

[Ralphis Baratheon]

2 hours ago, Springwatch said:

and will they always be in conflict?

I think Sansa will have to be the first one to apologize though. Granted, Sansa has changed a lot since it happen, but Joffrey did try to kill Arya in front of her at the Trident and Sansa still claimed to love him after it happened. That always stood out to me.

[Hodor the Articulate]

10 hours ago, Ygrain said:

Both girls disobeyed because of a Prince Charming, and both actions cost the lives of their family members and nearly destroyed all of House Stark. Coincidence?

Besides, Arya is not Lyanna 2.0, or do you ever see Arya sniffing over a love song?

Lol, pointing out similarities between the two hardly means denying the differences, no?

The point is that while the differences are obvious, the similarites less and fewer so, but they do exist.

All of these are superficial similarities that crumble apart when you take in the context of these events and the motivations of the characters involved.

- Sansa disobeyed her father, but she still took the side of her betrothed and of the Queen, as she was conditioned to do as a highborn lady. This is completely different to Lyanna who defied the rules of her society when she started an affair with her prince. I can't see Sansa ever doing that.

- Lyanna wasn't crying over any song, it was Rhaegar's song. The whole point of the scene, other than hinting at R+L, was to show that it wasn't typical behaviour for Lyanna (hence Brandon laughing at her for it). Also, look at what she does after: she dumps her wine over Brandon's head. Totally an Arya move.

You can still point out similarities between the characters, as you can for any two random characters, but there's little, if anything, to analyse if they were not purposeful inclusions by the author.

2 hours ago, Pikachu101 said:

Coercion can come in many forms, we have no idea what Rhaegar promised her but it had to be something to make run off without hesitation but I doubt he told her she's going to be his baby maker. 

Well, it could well have been her idea, or a mutual one. She was 16, not 6. We don't even know of it was planned - they could well have just bumped into each other on the way to wherever, and just gave into their passions.

[Ygrain]

8 hours ago, Springwatch said:

Oh I'm not disagreeing with you: it wouldn't surprise me if Dany fell in love with Jon. and I can see the breadcrumb trail you're following. But blue-rose-as-Lyanna-meaning-Jon seems like a pretty clumsy metaphor to me. I'm holding out for an actual Stark daughter at the actual Wall.

What is clumsy? A girl gets something from a guy, later they disappear together, and the girl is constantly being depicted with that something. How else do you propose GRRM went about it, if he wanted to hint at something between the two? - Note that he isn't very straightforward with that hint, either - it starts as mere "roses", then for a long time is "blue roses", then it becomes "a garland of blue roses", and only finally we learn that those blue roses are, in fact, the QoLaB crown, in Ned's very last PoV. After that, we get Theon's dream with Lyanna wearing the crown, and the details and mentions of the tourney. All the mentions in association with Lyanna are tied to HH, i.e. to Rhaegar. The Bael story is the single occasion when the blue rose is not tied to Rhaegar, and the motive of blue rose = Stark daughter is not repeated anywhere else. It is beyond me why that single reference should overrule all the other instances, especially when Jon as the son of R+L is set as the mystery.

The problem with Stark daughters is that in the current generation, neither has ever been associated with blue roses in any way, not once. 

3 hours ago, Hodor the Articulate said:

All of these are superficial similarities that crumble apart when you take in the context of these events and the motivations of the characters involved.

Sheesh, the particulars of the incidents are rather unimportant. What matters is the repetition of the pattern that when one defies the traditions when they want someone, it usually ends up bad not just for them but for others, as well. We see it in Barristan's musings about Daemon, Duncan the Small and Rhaegar, and Sansa is part of that lesson, too. As individuals, all those people have different motivations and different circumstances, but the overall theme is

[Hodor the Articulate]

2 hours ago, Ygrain said:

Sheesh, the particulars of the incidents are rather unimportant. What matters is the repetition of the pattern that when one defies the traditions when they want someone, it usually ends up bad not just for them but for others, as well. We see it in Barristan's musings about Daemon, Duncan the Small and Rhaegar, and Sansa is part of that lesson, too. As individuals, all those people have different motivations and different circumstances, but the overall theme is

But this thread is specifically about Lyanna-Sansa parallels. What is the point of pointing out similarities between two characters when a dozen other characters also share said similarities?

Also, adding Sansa on the list of "defying traditions for love" rather muddies the theme since she didn't break tradition. She may have disobeyed her father, but she was still doing as she was taught, viewing the King and Queen as the ultimate authority. She just chose one expectation over another.

ETA: And Duncan, etc do have the same motivation: love.

[Pikachu101]

7 hours ago, Hodor the Articulate said:

Well, it could well have been her idea, or a mutual one. She was 16, not 6. We don't even know of it was planned - they could well have just bumped into each other on the way to wherever, and just gave into their passions.

I'm pretty sure Rhaegar planned on making Lyanna Visenya's mother since Harrenhall, also Lyanna doesn't have the power or authority to plan an escape it was all down to Rhaegar and his Kingsguard. 

12 hours ago, Springwatch said:

Agree. And I can't help thinking that Lyanna, like her nieces, was brought up on tales and songs - and like them, got a cruelly sharp lesson that life is not a song.

People forget that Lyanna was a 15 year old who had a sheltered life in the North, we saw how naive Ned is as a grown adult a teenage girl would be no different. 

[Springwatch]

10 hours ago, Ygrain said:

What is clumsy? A girl gets something from a guy, later they disappear together, and the girl is constantly being depicted with that something. How else do you propose GRRM went about it, if he wanted to hint at something between the two? - Note that he isn't very straightforward with that hint, either - it starts as mere "roses", then for a long time is "blue roses", then it becomes "a garland of blue roses", and only finally we learn that those blue roses are, in fact, the QoLaB crown, in Ned's very last PoV. After that, we get Theon's dream with Lyanna wearing the crown, and the details and mentions of the tourney. All the mentions in association with Lyanna are tied to HH, i.e. to Rhaegar. The Bael story is the single occasion when the blue rose is not tied to Rhaegar, and the motive of blue rose = Stark daughter is not repeated anywhere else. It is beyond me why that single reference should overrule all the other instances, especially when Jon as the son of R+L is set as the mystery.

The problem with Stark daughters is that in the current generation, neither has ever been associated with blue roses in any way, not once.

Given two theories, I always want both, and with a bit more work, I think I can have both here.

I don't want Jon represented by a rose, even indirectly. Lyanna is a rose, and Bael's girl is a rose, and Margaery is a rose, and Sansa is a rose, and the girls at the Hand's Tourney were each a rose. It's true there are no roses for Arya so far, but she isn't a maiden flowered, not yet - so there's still a chance that her rose will be blue. Or possibly Sansa will become linked with blue roses when she moves north.

I see two possibilities for Jon. If he's dead enough he can be the blue-eyed king. Or, I can give significance to the slightly curious fact that in the HotU, Dany thinks 'flower' even though it's obviously a rose.

So I'm going to change my mind and say men can be flowers. As per the quote below, I'm thinking flowers stand simply for blood (which has interesting implications for Mace, the fat flower).

Quote

A bright bud of blood blossomed where his sword pressed into Mycah’s flesh...

AGOT

 

8 hours ago, Hodor the Articulate said:

Also, adding Sansa on the list of "defying traditions for love" rather muddies the theme since she didn't break tradition. She may have disobeyed her father, but she was still doing as she was taught, viewing the King and Queen as the ultimate authority. She just chose one expectation over another.

Rhaegar was the Crown Prince, Joff was the Crown Prince. Both girls yield to rank, to exactly the same degree.

[Ygrain]

3 minutes ago, Springwatch said:

I don't want Jon represented by a rose, even indirectly. Lyanna is a rose, and Bael's girl is a rose, and Margaery is a rose, and Sansa is a rose, and the girls at the Hand's Tourney were each a rose. It's true there are no roses for Arya so far, but she isn't a maiden flowered, not yet - so there's still a chance that her rose will be blue.

Lol, why? Males can be flowers, too!

Besides, while Bael's story shows the Stark maiden from the legend as a blue rose and the symbolism can be extended to the "real" Stark girls, we do not actually see it used that way by GRRM.

3 minutes ago, Springwatch said:

I see two possibilities for Jon. If he's dead enough he can be the blue-eyed king. Or, I can give significance to the slightly curious fact that in the HotU, Dany thinks 'flower' even though it's obviously a rose.¨¨

It is indeed a rose - some chapters later when she discusses her experience with Jorah, he mentions specifically a blue rose, and since Dany is his only source of information about the visions, it was a rose that she saw.

3 minutes ago, Springwatch said:

So I'm going to change my mind and say men can be flowers. As per the quote below, I'm thinking flowers stand simply for blood (which has interesting implications for Mace, the fat flower).

I think this is a logical line of thinking.

 

3 minutes ago, Springwatch said:

Rhaegar was the Crown Prince, Joff was the Crown Prince. Both girls yield to rank, to exactly the same degree.

Exactly :-)

[Lollygag]

3 hours ago, Springwatch said:

I see two possibilities for Jon. If he's dead enough he can be the blue-eyed king. Or, I can give significance to the slightly curious fact that in the HotU, Dany thinks 'flower' even though it's obviously a rose.

I agree with you that the rose in the vision is something more than most assume. I do think that this is more about death, or rather, Dany's destiny with death of a particular sort.

Dany's silver raced toward a darkling stream to a sea of stars. Given Drago's unlife and Dany's hatching "dead" eggs, that sounds like darkling stream stuff if we use rivers and streams as paths and sources of life. The sea of stars is where Drago went. So death/unlife/afterlife. The corpse with bright eyes is linked to death/afterlife/unlife obviously.

There are a lot of parallels between AGOT Jon VII and VIII and the HOTU chapter and I think they're companion chapters. Jon's battle with blue/black Othor strongly mirrors Dany's fight with the blue/black Undying. Both are violated. Both are saved by their animal(s) and fire.

We almost always use the name of the flower if we know it, so I think the use of flower over rose (we find out later that Dany told Jorah that it was a rose) is actually a hint to the reader to look at this more closely. Othor is always just Othor, we never know his last name. But Jafer with the unremarkable bastard name is repeatedly referred to as Jafer Flowers.

Dany's destiny obviously isn't going to intersect with Jafer Flowers. But we know it definitely will intersect with the Others/wights emerging though the Wall like Jafer Flowers did. This interpretation brings the blue rose into consistency with the death/unlife/afterlife imagery of the first two visions.

AGOT Eddard X

A storm of rose petals blew across a blood-streaked sky, as blue as the eyes of death.

 

AGOT Jon VII

 

"Othor," announced Ser Jaremy Rykker, "beyond a doubt. And this one was Jafer Flowers." He turned the corpse over with his foot, and the dead white face stared up at the overcast sky with blue, blue eyes.

 

“A blue (-eyed Jafer) Flower(s) grew (rose) from a chink in a wall of ice (ice cell), and filled the air with sweetness.

 

The smell of the wights is significant.

AGOT Jon VII

If they’d been dead much longer than a day, they’d be ripe by now, boy. They don’t even smell.’ Dywen, the gnarled old forester who liked to boast that he could smell snow coming on, sidled closer to the corpes and took a whiff. ‘Well, they’re no pansy flowers, but...m’lord has the truth of it. There’s no corpse stink.’”

 

Jon noticed this smell about Othor:

The smell that engulfed him was so queer and cold he almost gagged.

 

 Sweetness is often linked to bad things in the series.

 

Quote

AGOT Daenerys I

He (Willem Darry) never left his bed, though, and the smell of sickness clung to him day and night, a hot, moist, sickly sweet odor.

Dany had no agents, no way of knowing what anyone was doing or thinking across the narrow sea, but she mistrusted Illyrio's sweet words as she mistrusted everything about Illyrio.

AGOT Tyrion I

His brother's smile curdled like sour milk. "Tyrion, my sweet brother," he said darkly, "there are times when you give me cause to wonder whose side you are on."

Tyrion's mouth was full of bread and fish. He took a swallow of strong black beer to wash it all down, and grinned up wolfishly at Jaime. "Why, Jaime, my sweet brother," he said, "you wound me. You know how much I love my family."

AGOT Eddard IV about Varys

His hand left powder stains on Ned's sleeve, and he smelled as foul and sweet as flowers on a grave.

AGOT Eddard V

Ned took another swallow of milk, trying not to gag on the sweetness of it.

AGOT Catelyn VI

"My brother is undoubtedly arrogant," Tyrion Lannister replied. "My father is the soul of avarice, and my sweet sister Cersei lusts for power with every waking breath. I, however, am innocent as a little lamb. Shall I bleat for you?" He grinned.

AGOT Daenerys VIII

A foul, sweet smell rose from the wound, so thick it almost choked her. The leaves were crusted with blood and pus, Drogo's breast black and glistening with corruption.

ACOK Prologue

Stannis nodded. "The Starks seek to steal half my kingdom, even as the Lannisters have stolen my throne and my own sweet brother the swords and service and strongholds that are mine by rights. They are all usurpers, and they are all my enemies."

ACOK Tyrion IV

"So. Blood for his pride, a chair for his ambition. Gold and land, that goes without saying. A sweet offer . . . yet sweets can be poisoned. 

ACOK Daenerys II

"Sweet smells are sometimes used to cover foul ones."

ACOK Sansa IV

"I see flowering hasn't made you any brighter," said Cersei. "Sansa, permit me to share a bit of womanly wisdom with you on this very special day. Love is poison. A sweet poison, yes, but it will kill you all the same."

ACOK Sansa VI

Sansa lifted the cup to her lips and took a sip. The wine was cloyingly sweet, but very strong.

"You can do better than that," Cersei said. "Drain the cup, Sansa. Your queen commands you."

It almost gagged her, but Sansa emptied the cup, gulping down the thick sweet wine until her head was swimming.

ACOK Daenerys V

"From Meereen I am sold to Qohor, and then to Pentos and the fat man with sweet stink in his hair.

ASOS Catelyn I

There was a smell of death about that room; a heavy smell, sweet and foul, clinging.

ASOS Arya XII

She paddled after the sharp red whisper of cold blood, the sweet cloying stench of death.

The sweetness which was spread by the blue Flower? Death.

The other wight, the one-handed thing that had once been a ranger named Jafer Flowers, had also been destroyed, cut near to pieces by a dozen swords … but not before it had slain Ser Jaremy Rykker and four other men.

 

 

 

[LiveFirstDieLater]

Great OP! I figured if we’re pointing out the aunt-niece references for Lyanna, it’s probably applicable to include the references to her daughter under each category too! Ice, wolves, cold, flowers, and the grey and white of house stark... 

Pleading:

Quote

"Help him," Dany pleaded. "For the love you say you bear me, help him now."

 Pleading for a loved one, check!

Protector:

Breaker of Chains…  there are a lot of quotes of Dany saving people. In some cases, like with Miri Maz Durr, it may lead to more heartbreak than initially bargained for. If you believe the Knight of the Laughing Tree was Lyanna, this is a great parallel. 

Personality:

Quote

"You will drink," Dany said, cold as ice. "Empty the cup, or I will tell them to hold you down while Ser Jorah pours the whole cask down your throat."

Wine dumping, check!

Appearance: 

Quote

“Lyanna was beautiful,” Arya said, startled. Everybody said so. It was not a thing that was ever said of Arya.

…

Quote

"My queen,” he said, “and the bravest, sweetest, and most beautiful woman I have ever seen. Daenerys-“

Unlike Arya, Dany is a beautiful child queen...

Betrothal:

Quote

“I don’t want to be his queen,” she heard herself say in a small thin voice. “Please, please, Viserys, I want to go home.”

 It might be the rule rather than the exception, but Dany too is engaged against her choosing.

Songs and Stories:

Quote

"I'm cold," Dany lied. "Bring me the book I was reading last night." She wanted to lose herself in the words, in other times and other places. The fat leather-bound volume was full of songs and stories from the Seven Kingdoms. Children's stories, if truth be told; too simple and fanciful to be true history. All the heroes were tall and handsome, and you could tell the traitors by their shifty eyes. Yet she loved them all the same. Last night she had been reading of the three princesses in the red tower, locked away by the king for the crime of being beautiful.

 Loves the songs and stories, check!

Flowers:

Quote

Starlight and seafoam, Dany thought, a wisp of silk that leaves my left breast bare for Daario's delight. Oh, and flowers for my hair. When first they met, the captain brought her flowers every day, all the way from Yunkai to Meereen. "Bring the grey linen gown with the pearls on the bodice. Oh, and my white lion's pelt." She always felt safer wrapped in Drogo's lionsikin.

White and grey, Stark colors, with flowers in her hair!

Wolves:

Quote

 What was wrong with them, couldn't they see? Inside the tent the shapes were dancing, circling the brazier and the bloody bath, dark against the sandsilk, and some did not look human. She glimpsed the shadow of a great wolf, and another like a man wreathed in flames.

…

Quote

 

" . . . don't want to wake the dragon . . . " 

The red door was so far ahead of her, and she could feel the icy breath behind, sweeping up on her. If it caught her she would die a death that was more than death, howling forever alone in the darkness. She began to run.

 

…

Quote

Off in the distance, a wolf howled. The sound made her feel sad and lonely, but no less hungry. As the moon rose above the grasslands, Dany slipped at last into a restless sleep.

 

Horseback Riding:

Quote

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 greyas the winter sea, with a mane like silversmoke.

…

Quote

 

Nervously Dany gathered the reins in her hands and slid her feet into the short stirrups. She was only a fair rider; she had spent far more time traveling by ship and wagon and palanquin than by horseback. Praying that she would not fall off and disgrace herself, she gave the filly the lightest and most timid touch with her knees.

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.

 

…

Quote

The khal had commanded the handmaid Irri to teach Dany to ride in the Dothraki fashion, but it was the filly who was her real teacher. The horse seemed to know her moods, as if they shared a single mind. With every passing day, Dany felt surer in her seat. The Dothraki were a hard and unsentimental people, and it was not their custom to name their animals, so Dany thought of her only as the silver. She had never loved anything so much.

…

Quote

The descent was steep and rocky, but Dany rode fearlessly, and the joy and the danger of it were a song in her heart. All her life Viserys had told her she was a princess, but not until she rode her silver had Daenerys Targaryen ever felt like one

Dany is a natural, and the grey and white horse (Stark colors) brings out her centaur like ability to ride!

In conclusion:

Dany describes Weteros (home) in her very first chapter:

Quote

Somewhere beyond the sunset, across the narrow sea, lay a land of green hills and flowered plains and great rushing rivers, where towers of dark stones rose amidst magnificent blue-grey mountains, and armored knights rode to battle beneath the banners of their lords. The Dothraki called the land Raesh Andahli, the land of the Andals. In the Free Cities, they talked of Westeros and the Sunset Kingdoms. Her brother had a simpler name. “Our land,” he called it. The words were like a prayer with him. If he said them enough, the gods were sure to hear. “Ours by blood right, taken from us by treachery, but ours still, ours forever. You do not steal from the dragon, oh, no. The dragon remembers.”

Then in her “wake the dragon” dream, we see the same green hills/green fields, flowered plains/smell of home, stone towers/houses, and finally the pun: banners of their lords are “arms” (as in coat of arms).

Quote

 

 She could smell home, she could see it, there, just beyond that door, green fieldsand great stone houses and arms to keep her warm, there. She threw open the door.

" . . . the dragon . . . "

And saw her brother Rhaegar, mounted on a stallion as black as his armor. Fire glimmered red through the narrow eye slit of his helm. "The last dragon," Ser Jorah's voice whispered faintly. "The last, the last." Dany lifted his polished black visor. The face within was her own.

After that, for a long time, there was only the pain, the fire within her, and the whisperings of stars.

She woke to the taste of ashes

 

....

“Remember who you are, Daenerys,” the stars whispered in a woman’s voice. “The dragons know. Do you?”

...

And what do we know about the arms of house Stark? 

Dany is looking for the arms of her house so she doesn't die alone howling in the darkness...
.

Quote

 

.., but now the winter is truly coming. Remember the sigil of our House, Arya."

"The direwolf," she said, thinking of Nymeria. She hugged her knees against her chest, suddenly afraid.

"Let me tell you something about wolves, child. When the snows fall and the white winds blow, the lone wolf dies, but the pack survives. Summer is the time for squabbles. In winter, we must protect one another, keep each other warm, share our strengths. So if you must hate, Arya, hate those who would truly do us harm. Septa Mordane is a good woman, and Sansa … Sansa is your sister. You may be as different as the sun and the moon, but the same blood flows through both your hearts. You need her, as she needs you … and I need both of you, gods help me."

 

 

[Springwatch]

1 hour ago, LiveFirstDieLater said:

Great OP! I figured if we’re pointing out the aunt-niece references for Lyanna, it’s probably applicable to include the references to her daughter under each category too! Ice, wolves, cold, flowers, and the grey and white of house stark...

Well. It was sort of the point that Sansa is sometimes accused of a lack of Starkiness, which is not an accusation I've ever seen aimed at Dany.

But I have to thank you for the quotes. That one about arms to keep her warm was very good, excellent in fact, and when I read about Daario bringing her flowers every day, I laughed out loud (see earlier post).