A question about the lemon tree

[Livesundersink]

Often in the books Daenerys thinks back to the house in Braavos with the red door and a lemon tree in the back garden. I've seen numerous theories that state this could not happen, one statement said that there are no trees in Braavos. Is the climate in Braavos not suited to lemon trees and is it an actual fact that there are no trees at all in Braavos? and if so where is it stated?

[Knekse]

Yeah, it's also theorized to be a part of that Daenerys' ''House with the Red Door'' was actually located in Dorne, of some Martell conspiracy there, because trees are so rare in Braavos.

 

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Trees did not grow on Braavos, save in the courts and gardens of the mighty. Nor would the Braavosi cut the pines that covered the outlying islands around their great lagoon and acted as windbreaks to shield them from storms.

 

Dareon, A Feast for Crows - Samwell III.

I hope this helps you out.

[LynnS]

Well, I think you can put a lemon tree in a pot if you really wanted lemons.  Then you can bring them inside when the weather is inclement.  I think the real question is where is the house with the red door?

The question is whether the doors are wooden doors painted red or bronze doors:

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A Game of Thrones - Daenerys III

"The Dothraki sea," Ser Jorah Mormont said as he reined to a halt beside her on the top of the ridge. Beneath them, the plain stretched out immense and empty, a vast flat expanse that reached to the distant horizon and beyond. It was a sea, Dany thought. Past here, there were no hills, no mountains, no trees nor cities nor roads, only the endless grasses, the tall blades rippling like waves when the winds blew. "It's so green," she said.

"Here and now," Ser Jorah agreed. "You ought to see it when it blooms, all dark red flowers from horizon to horizon, like a sea of blood. Come the dry season, and the world turns the color of old bronze. And this is only hranna, child. There are a hundred kinds of grass out there, grasses as yellow as lemon and as dark as indigo, blue grasses and orange grasses and grasses like rainbows. Down in the Shadow Lands beyond Asshai, they say there are oceans of ghost grass, taller than a man on horseback with stalks as pale as milkglass. It murders all other grass and glows in the dark with the spirits of the damned. The Dothraki claim that someday ghost grass will cover the entire world, and then all life will end."

A Game of Thrones - Daenerys VIII

The stallion kicked and reared as Rakharo, Quaro, and Aggo pulled him close to the tub where the khal floated like one already dead, pus and blood seeping from his wound to stain the bathwaters. Mirri Maz Duur chanted words in a tongue that Dany did not know, and a knife appeared in her hand. Dany never saw where it came from. It looked old; hammered red bronze, leaf-shaped, its blade covered with ancient glyphs. The maegi drew it across the stallion's throat, under the noble head, and the horse screamed and shuddered as the blood poured out of him in a red rush. He would have collapsed, but the men of her khas held him up. "Strength of the mount, go into the rider," Mirri sang as horse blood swirled into the waters of Drogo's bath. "Strength of the beast, go into the man."

Dragonstone:

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A Clash of Kings - Prologue

Again he had to cross the long gallery. A night wind whispered through the great windows, sharp with the smell of the sea. Torches flickered along the walls of Dragonstone, and in the camp beyond, he could see hundreds of cookfires burning, as if a field of stars had fallen to the earth. Above, the comet blazed red and malevolent. I am too old and wise to fear such things, the maester told himself.

The doors to the Great Hall were set in the mouth of a stone dragon. He told the servants to leave him outside. It would be better to enter alone; he must not appear feeble. Leaning heavily on his cane, Cressen climbed the last few steps and hobbled beneath the gateway teeth. A pair of guardsmen opened the heavy red doors before him, unleashing a sudden blast of noise and light. Cressen stepped down into the dragon's maw.

Kingslanding:

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A Game of Thrones - Eddard IV

Eddard Stark rode through the towering bronze doors of the Red Keep sore, tired, hungry, and irritable. He was still ahorse, dreaming of a long hot soak, a roast fowl, and a featherbed, when the king's steward told him that Grand Maester Pycelle had convened an urgent meeting of the small council. The honor of the Hand's presence was requested as soon as it was convenient. "It will be convenient on the morrow," Ned snapped as he dismounted.

The Red Light District:

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A Game of Thrones - Jon IX

Mole's Town was bigger than it seemed, but three quarters of it was under the ground, in deep warm cellars connected by a maze of tunnels. Even the whorehouse was down there, nothing on the surface but a wooden shack no bigger than a privy, with a red lantern hung over the door.

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A Clash of Kings - Tyrion III

The brothel is a house two stories tall with a stone ground floor and a timber upper floor. A round turret rises from one corner of the structure. Many of the windows are leaded. Over the door swings an ornate lamp, a globe of gilded metal and scarlet glass.

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A Game of Thrones - Eddard I

Robert Baratheon had always been a man of huge appetites, a man who knew how to take his pleasures. That was not a charge anyone could lay at the door of Eddard Stark. Yet Ned could not help but notice that those pleasures were taking a toll on the king. Robert was breathing heavily by the time they reached the bottom of the stairs, his face red in the lantern light as they stepped out into the darkness of the crypt.

We know from Dany's account that she has been moved around and in her memory all the doors are red:

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A Game of Thrones - Daenerys III

But it was not the plains Dany saw then. It was King's Landing and the great Red Keep that Aegon the Conqueror had built. It was Dragonstone where she had been born. In her mind's eye they burned with a thousand lights, a fire blazing in every window. In her mind's eye, all the doors were red.

So it's possible her early memories of the house with the red door is a jumble of memories.  The smell of perfumes and spices - a red light district, brothels and the market place; the red doors of Dragonstone or Kingslanding.  

We know she travelled on trading ships or fishing boats:

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A Storm of Swords - Daenerys I

The narrow sea was often stormy, and Dany had crossed it half a hundred times as a girl, running from one Free City to the next half a step ahead of the Usurper's hired knives. She loved the sea. She liked the sharp salty smell of the air, and the vastness of horizons bounded only by a vault of azure sky above. It made her feel small, but free as well. She liked the dolphins that sometimes swam along beside Balerion, slicing through the waves like silvery spears, and the flying fish they glimpsed now and again. She even liked the sailors, with all their songs and stories. Once on a voyage to Braavos, as she'd watched the crew wrestle down a great green sail in a rising gale, she had even thought how fine it would be to be a sailor. But when she told her brother, Viserys had twisted her hair until she cried. "You are blood of the dragon," he had screamed at her. "A dragon, not some smelly fish."

Dany seems to think that she has made mutliple trips to Braavos across a stormy sea.  Suppose Braavos is actually the Summer Islands:

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A Clash of Kings - Daenerys IV

She fled from him, but only as far as the next open door. I know this room, she thought. She remembered those great wooden beams and the carved animal faces that adorned them. And there outside the window, a lemon tree! The sight of it made her heart ache with longing. It is the house with the red door, the house in Braavos. No sooner had she thought it than old Ser Willem came into the room, leaning heavily on his stick. "Little princess, there you are," he said in his gruff kind voice. "Come," he said, "come to me, my lady, you're home now, you're safe now." His big wrinkled hand reached for her, soft as old leather, and Dany wanted to take it and hold it and kiss it, she wanted that as much as she had ever wanted anything. Her foot edged forward, and then she thought, He's dead, he's dead, the sweet old bear, he died a long time ago. She backed away and ran.

Who makes such carvings?

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A Game of Thrones - Eddard IV

And so Ned had come striding into the council chambers, bone-tired and dressed in borrowed clothing, to find four members of the small council waiting for him.

The chamber was richly furnished. Myrish carpets covered the floor instead of rushes, and in one corner a hundred fabulous beasts cavorted in bright paints on a carved screen from the Summer Isles. The walls were hung with tapestries from Norvos and Qohor and Lys, and a pair of Valyrian sphinxes flanked the door, eyes of polished garnet smoldering in black marble faces.

Far enough south for lemon trees?

[LiveFirstDieLater]

7 hours ago, Livesundersink said:

Often in the books Daenerys thinks back to the house in Braavos with the red door and a lemon tree in the back garden. I've seen numerous theories that state this could not happen, one statement said that there are no trees in Braavos. Is the climate in Braavos not suited to lemon trees and is it an actual fact that there are no trees at all in Braavos? and if so where is it stated?

Arya 1, Feast:

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To Arya's eyes they were queer-looking, four and five stories tall and very skinny, with sharp-peaked tile roofs like pointed hats. She saw no thatch, and only a few timbered houses of the sort she knew in Westeros. They have no trees, she realized. Braavos is all stone, a grey city in a green sea.

According to Arya's eyes anyway...

[ChuckPunch]

My pet theory is that the tree was planted because lemons were the sweetest fruit available at the time.

[Corvo the Crow]

 

This is the best post/topic on lemon tree I have seen so far.

[LynnS]

14 minutes ago, Corvo the Crow said:

 

This is the best post/topic on lemon tree I have seen so far.

I especially like the bit where Dany speaks valyrian with a Tyroshi accent.  She also speaks the common tongue and I suppose we can assume that Willam Derry spoke the common tongue rather than valyrian.  This implies that she learned valyrian from those around her in the household who spoke it:  nanny's, nursemaids, servants since Dany didn't have a maester to teach her.   It's interesting that in the earlier version of this chapter; Martin places the house with the red door in Tyrosh. 

[Dorian Martell's son]

10 hours ago, Livesundersink said:

Often in the books Daenerys thinks back to the house in Braavos with the red door and a lemon tree in the back garden. I've seen numerous theories that state this could not happen, one statement said that there are no trees in Braavos. Is the climate in Braavos not suited to lemon trees and is it an actual fact that there are no trees at all in Braavos? and if so where is it stated?

It was a mistake by the author from a draft when the house she was raised in was located in Tyrosh. Now, Bravos being cold and foggy does not preclude a lemon tree from being there. In the books we are told of the glass houses in winterfell where vegetables and fruits are grown year round, even in the depths of winter. Jon wishes the watch has glass houses to get fresh veggies to the members of the watch in the impending very hards winter.  This would not be outside of the realm of the sealord of Bravos, who was sheltering the Targ kids.  So really, there is no lemongate. Dany is Dany and she remembers her childhood correctly 

[Corvo the Crow]

33 minutes ago, LynnS said:

I especially like the bit where Dany speaks valyrian with a Tyroshi accent.  She also speaks the common tongue and I suppose we can assume that Willam Derry spoke the common tongue rather than valyrian.  This implies that she learned valyrian from those around her in the household who spoke it:  nanny's, nursemaids, servants since Dany didn't have a maester to teach her.   It's interesting that in the earlier version of this chapter; Martin places the house with the red door in Tyrosh. 

I think this and several other things that disprove crackpots should get a pinned topic so we won't see threads on them so often.

[LynnS]

24 minutes ago, Corvo the Crow said:

I think this and several other things that disprove crackpots should get a pinned topic so we won't see threads on them so often.

LOL!  It's the use of emotional manipulation to coerce an argument that I find maudlin.  If that doesn't work, you can apply a means test for your own theory that is so low that everything passes; while applying a means test that is so high for anything else, it can't possibly pass the bar.  If that doesn't work, you can name call.  This isn't true of everyone.  There are those people that I admire and respect a great deal who don't agree with me.  It's always worth listening to what they have to say on the matter; regardless of my own preference.

[bemused]

5 hours ago, LynnS said:

Well, I think you can put a lemon tree in a pot if you really wanted lemons.  Then you can bring them inside when the weather is inclement.  I think the real question is where is the house with the red door?

Besides being able to put a lemon tree in a pot, we can easily tell that from the time Dany was roughly about three, Westeros was entering into a 10 yr. long summer and potted trees would probably not even need to be brought indoors.

My search and quote functions are somewhat glitchy at the moment, so I'll just point everyone to the wiki to back up my points...

 http://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/Braavos

We know that there are trees in Braavos in the "courts and gardens of the mighty". It seems unlikely that Dany & co would be sheltered anywhere but the environs of the mighty while in Braavos. We know that ships from the Summer Isles dock and trade in Braavos. Elaborate decorative carvings would probably be something they trade and something likely to be collected by the wealthy.

It's quite possible that Dany's memories could be a hodge-podge of multiple places she has been, but also possible that she really does remember a specific door in Braavos. There may be an intersting hint in the way colours are used as a significator in Braavos e.g. the purple harbour , the House of Black and White (which actually has black and white doors) and the house of the red hands being where healers are found.

I'm waiting to see if the red door is possibly connected to or affiliated with the house of the red hands... Dany would have been an infant when she arrived ,Ser Willem was already half blind and later..um..fell ill...

 

[Faera]

1 hour ago, LynnS said:

It's interesting that in the earlier version of this chapter; Martin places the house with the red door in Tyrosh. 

This is a little fact I never knew!

Ha, the funny thing is that if it had stayed in Tyrosh, there probably wouldn't be Lemongate.

[Corvo the Crow]

29 minutes ago, LynnS said:

LOL!  It's the use of emotional manipulation to coerce an argument that I find maudlin.  If that doesn't work, you can apply a means test for your own theory that is so low that everything passes; while applying a means test that is so high for anything else, it can't possibly pass the bar.  If that doesn't work, you can name call.  This isn't true of everyone.  There are those people that I admire and respect a great deal who don't agree with me.  It's always worth listening to what they have to say on the matter; regardless of my own preference.

Perhaps I came off wrong; There are sometimes good and interesting stuff, I am not denying that, but reading the same thing over and over again from different posters but with nothing new added to it gets... tiresome.

[Ckram]

11 hours ago, Livesundersink said:

Is the climate in Braavos not suited to lemon trees

We have this on TWOW, Mercy's sample chapter:

Spoiler

The envoy from the Seven Kingdoms had taken two of his guards into his box to stand behind him and the Black Pearl, but the other two had been posted just outside the door to make certain he was not disturbed. They were talking quietly in the Common Tongue of Westeros as she slipped up silently behind them in the darkened passage. That was not a language Mercy knew.

“Seven hells, this place is damp,” she heard her guard complain. “I’m chilled to the bones. Where are the bloody orange trees? I always heard there were orange trees in the Free Cities. Lemons and limes. Pomegranates. Hot peppers, warm nights, girls with bare bellies. Where are the bare-bellied girls, I ask you?”

“Down in Lys, and Myr, and Old Volantis,” the other guard replied. He was an older man, big-bellied and grizzled. “I went to Lys with Lord Tywin once, when he was Hand to Aerys. Braavos is north of King’s Landing, fool. Can’t you read a bloody map?”

GRRM pretending to answer your question.

[Dorian Martell's son]

56 minutes ago, Corvo the Crow said:

I think this and several other things that disprove crackpots should get a pinned topic so we won't see threads on them so often.

Proof and confirmation have no effect on crackpots 

[LynnS]

1 hour ago, Corvo the Crow said:

Perhaps I came off wrong; There are sometimes good and interesting stuff, I am not denying that, but reading the same thing over and over again from different posters but with nothing new added to it gets... tiresome.

No you didn't come off the wrong way and I am not offended.  It's true that some new members are asking questions that have been worked over for some time.  

I'll always remember my experience on the Galaxy Zoo project.  I came to it late about a year into the project.  I was making observations and asking questions about objects that had already been noted and discussed.  I'm always thankful to the astronomers and scientists who were so kind and generous answering my questions.  I was never made to feel small or stupid and I learned quite a bit about star classifications, galaxy formation and spectrographs.

The same thing applies to new members on this forum. Yes, old subjects will continue to come up for conversation.    

 

[El Dude]

@Lost Melnibonean Your account is interesting, and I believe your lemon/bitterness theory, but you should ask the follow up question: why would GRRM change Dany's home from Tyrosh to Braavos between publishing that short short and AGOT? There must be a purpose.

I think it's a clear effort to hide connections between Dany and Tyrosh. GRRM has said that he wished some of his foreshadowing was more subtle because it was picked up so easily and that he also wished he made some other things more obvious as no one has seemed to catch on yet.

Who is Dany? I don't know. However, look at the juxtaposition of following Jon (who lives his whole life as a bastard

Spoiler

but is actually the legal true born heir to the throne)

and Dany (who lives her life as the heir to Iron Throne but is not), who are going to fall in love. I find this theme of parallel, false identities very GRRM-ian.

[LynnS]

3 hours ago, bemused said:

I'm waiting to see if the red door is possibly connected to or affiliated with the house of the red hands... Dany would have been an infant when she arrived ,Ser Willem was already half blind and later..um..fell ill...

There is a very odd thing about this passage:

8 hours ago, LynnS said:

A Game of Thrones - Daenerys III

But it was not the plains Dany saw then. It was King's Landing and the great Red Keep that Aegon the Conqueror had built. It was Dragonstone where she had been born. In her mind's eye they burned with a thousand lights, a fire blazing in every window. In her mind's eye, all the doors were red.

This isn't a dream.  Dany sees Kingslanding and Dragonstone in her mind's eye. How can she have a memory of a place she is too young to remember or a place where she have never been?  Perhaps these aren't her memories but someone else's memories. Previous to this conversation with Jorah, Dany dreams of the singing dragon:

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A Game of Thrones - Daenerys III

Yet when she slept that night, she dreamt the dragon dream again. Viserys was not in it this time. There was only her and the dragon. Its scales were black as night, wet and slick with blood. Her blood, Dany sensed. Its eyes were pools of molten magma, and when it opened its mouth, the flame came roaring out in a hot jet. She could hear it singing to her. She opened her arms to the fire, embraced it, let it swallow her whole, let it cleanse her and temper her and scour her clean. She could feel her flesh sear and blacken and slough away, could feel her blood boil and turn to steam, and yet there was no pain. She felt strong and new and fierce.

When Dany wakes the dragon, does she wake the dead?

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A Game of Thrones - Daenerys III

"I hit him," she said, wonder in her voice. Now that it was over, it seemed like some strange dream that she had dreamed. "Ser Jorah, do you think … he'll be so angry when he gets back …" She shivered. "I woke the dragon, didn't I?"

Ser Jorah snorted. "Can you wake the dead, girl? Your brother Rhaegar was the last dragon, and he died on the Trident. Viserys is less than the shadow of a snake."

Is Rhaegar the singing dragon, his soul trapped in the black and red dragon's egg? Are the memories of Dragonstone and Kingslanding his memories?  Does Dany recognize that the dragon is her blood just as Ned says that Jon is his blood?

[Lost Melnibonean]

4 hours ago, El Dude said:

@Lost Melnibonean Your account is interesting, and I believe your lemon/bitterness theory, but you should ask the follow up question: why would GRRM change Dany's home from Tyrosh to Braavos between publishing that short short and AGOT? There must be a purpose.

I think it's a clear effort to hide connections between Dany and Tyrosh. GRRM has said that he wished some of his foreshadowing was more subtle because it was picked up so easily and that he also wished he made some other things more obvious as no one has seemed to catch on yet.

Who is Dany? I don't know. However, look at the juxtaposition of following Jon (who lives his whole life as a bastard

  Hide contents

but is actually the legal true born heir to the throne)

and Dany (who lives her life as the heir to Iron Throne but is not), who are going to fall in love. I find this theme of parallel, false identities very GRRM-ian.

I suspect he he decided to have the Blackfyre escape to Tyrosh, so he moved Daenerys to Braavos, where a few plot lines might converge. 

[zionius]

Trees grow in the Sealord's Palace, as seen in the Lands of Ice and Fire.

We know Dany's wedding pact was signed by Oberyn Martell in the witness of the Sealord. So she might lived somewhere in the Sealord's Palace. The lemon tree might be a gift from Drone in honor of the pact.

As for the Tyrosh accent of Dany, maybe GRRM just forgot to change it from his draft of AGOT, or maybe Dany spent more years in Tyrosh. She left Braavos at 5 or 6, as suggested in the App. 3 years in Tyrosh should give her enough accent.

Another thing worth of note. Syrio had been the first sword for 9 years and came to Westeros in 298 AC. 9 years ago was 289 AC, just the time when Willem Darry got sick and died afterward. So the death of the first sword before Syrio might be related with Willem's death and Dany's driven out of the house with the red door.

Why did GRRM change Dany's infancy from Tyrosh to Braavos? So far as I can guess, maybe Ayra or Syrio will reveal her past in Braavos.