Jon's burned hand

[Alexis-something-Rose]

9 minutes ago, Chris Mormont said:

George is constantly mentioning Jon's hand, as if to remind us that he was burnt.

Would he mention it as much if it wasn't his sword hand? 

[Lord Lannister]

I figured it was some sort of Azor Ahai reference. His sword hand wielding fire as it were. Whether that's foreshadowing or a red herring is another argument.

[Geddus]

33 minutes ago, Chris Mormont said:

Not all Targs rode dragons and so perhaps there is a connection between being able to ride a dragon and the heat resistant powers that Dany has.

During the Dance, plenty of Targaryen dragonriders were burned.

[Haus Berlin]

21 minutes ago, Lord Lannister said:

I figured it was some sort of Azor Ahai reference. His sword hand wielding fire as it were. Whether that's foreshadowing or a red herring is another argument.

Fine observation, dear Lord Lannister. Thanks a lot!

[LynnS]

2 hours ago, Chris Mormont said:

Not all Targs rode dragons and so perhaps there is a connection between being able to ride a dragon and the heat resistant powers that Dany has.

This is true.  She does have some heat resistance.  The scalding bath at Illyrio's and handling the dragon eggs from the brazier (although I'm not sure is that is HBO or in the books). 

Melisandre does something similar.  She walks on the hot rocks in the caverns below Dragonstone but she comes perilously close to spontaneous combustion while Rattleshirt is burning.

[John Suburbs]

22 hours ago, Megorova said:

So what that he doesn't look like a Targaryen? He looks more like his Stark mother, that's all. His hair and eye color is the same as Lyanna's, and he has long face typical for Starks. Which doesn't mean, that he didn't inherited any of Rhaegar's features. Many people said that Jon is beautiful (though mostly those people were men, and they used different word, to describe his looks). So could be that Jon inherited beauty of Targaryens, but coloring of Starks.    

Absolutely, there is no reason to think that just because he looks like a Stark doesn't mean he can't have a Targ father. Most of the Stark children look like Tullys. It's just that it would make it a lot easier to pin a Targ label on Jon if he exhibited just one Targ feature or quality, but I guess that would kind of spoil everything.

One thing about his eyes, though: they are so grey as to be almost black. Several Targs were said to have eyes that were so deeply purple that they looked black, and Rhaegar himself had eyes that some called indigo.

And I'll also note that Rhaegar was not the only Targaryen at the time who could have fathered Jon. We don't know what shade of purple Aerys' eyes were.

[Ygrain]

5 hours ago, Widowmaker 811 said:

Burning hair that close to the skin will cause major scalp burns and scarring. Wind in the hair is not going to explain away why she didn't burn. 

Ever stood next to the fire from the side where the wind was blowing?

 

5 hours ago, Widowmaker 811 said:

The event at the Pit of Daznak, her ability to take baths in scalding water,  are definitive proof of Dany's ability to remain unburnt.  

 

3 hours ago, Chris Mormont said:

There are a few points in the story where Dany mentions or is described as not being affected by heat.  specifically when she bathes.

You know what, guys? Do your word search on scalding water baths. You are going to find plenty of hidden heat-resistant Targs, like Catelyn. Also, it is funny that with all of Dany's superheated baths, not one of her servants ever seems to find anything strange about the temperature.

[kissdbyfire]

17 minutes ago, Ygrain said:

You know what, guys? Do your word search on scalding water baths. You are going to find plenty of hidden heat-resistant Targs, like Catelyn. Also, it is funny that with all of Dany's superheated baths, not one of her servants ever seems to find anything strange about the temperature.

Cat is a secret Targ!

 

[Haus Berlin]

(Should they ever meet, please let Jon, Jaime and Daenerys have a nice scalding bath together. They like that a lot.)

[Ygrain]

7 hours ago, kissdbyfire said:

Cat is a secret Targ!

Apparently. She loves her chambers in Winterfell very warm, due to the scalding hot springs circulating through the walls. Apparently, everyone at Winterfell is a secret Targ then.

(Crackpot time: hot springs = vulcanic activity. The presumed obsidian stash on DS is a red herring, Winterfell is seated right on top of one, accessible from the lower crypt levels)

/stretching/ Haven't had a fireproofness discussion in a while. What comes next, furnace wind doing off poor Quentyn and not Dany? To spare everyone the time: when Quentyn feels "furnace wind", his friends aren't screaming in terror but yelling "behind you, behind you", meaning there was no fire at that time yet. Quentyn turns, shielding his eyes, i.e. not really seeing what's going on, and then starts burning. The same situation as with Dany and Drogon - he first breathed, and then spat fire, but Dany was facing and watching him and darted underneath. 

[Faera]

I love scolding hot baths, too! Guess I'm a secret Targ. 

Either way, liking very hot baths or even having a high tolerance for heat is not equitable to being non-flammable. As pretty much everyone else on this thread has pointed out several times, (and LynnS cited the quote directly from the Word of God), Targaryans are not immune to fire. Plenty have been burned by fire in history and Viserys in particular died from having molten gold poured over him. Even Dany isn't since GRRM specifically mentions her "pink and tender" flesh;

Quote

Her skin was pink and tender, and a pale milky fluid was leaking from her cracked palms, but her burns were healing. 

That's from her last chapter in ADwD. I'm guessing she got the burns from riding Drogon without wearing gloves or perhaps being too close to the fire in the pit, since she jumped on him almost spur of the moment and probably wasn't think much. Either way, high tolerance is not the same as being completely resistant or immune. This is not the show after all - without the ritual bloodmagic, I imagine Daenerys would burn like anyone else.

So, Jon's burn does not preclude him from having Targaryen blood since at best Targs just have a high tolerance for heat due to them having come from Valyria where such a thing might develop naturally. Heck, I'd say Jon grabbing a burning lamp and hurling a burning curtain over a wight seems pretty hard-core for anyone. 

However, I think the question of how Jon's "nervous twitch" with his sword hand seems fun to think about. I'm going to go back and look into it. I never really saw it as anything necessarily to do with the burn but rather why he got it (fighting a wight - this constant fear and concern he has).

[Unacosamedarisa]

On 19/03/2018 at 9:00 PM, John Suburbs said:

If, and I stress the word if, Dany has some kind of fire resistance, wouldn't it make more sense that it comes from her Dornish heritage, than her Targaryen heritage?

No, not at all. It wasn't visions of suns and spears that led Dany to walk into Drogo's Pyre... it was visions of Dragons, fire and blood. 

[John Suburbs]

4 hours ago, Unacosamedarisa said:

No, not at all. It wasn't visions of suns and spears that led Dany to walk into Drogo's Pyre... it was visions of Dragons, fire and blood. 

OK, well those are visions, which past Targeryans were said to have -- and dragons, fire and blood are in the pyre. But I was talking about fire resistance, which would more logically come from people who were trying not to get burned by dragons, not the ones doing the burning.

[Alexis-something-Rose]

Jon's burned arm reminds me mostly of whatever Moqorro did to Victarion's injured arm.

[Ygrain]

7 hours ago, Faera said:

I'm guessing she got the burns from riding Drogon without wearing gloves or perhaps being too close to the fire in the pit

Skin on the inner thighs is way thinner than on the palms, so if her hands got burnt from riding Drogon, I don't want to see her bum, not to mention other parts. It was the spear:

Daenerys Targaryen vaulted onto the dragon’s back, seized the spear, and ripped it out. The point was half-melted, the iron red-hot, glowing. She flung it aside.

Blacksmiths don't hold iron rods with red-hot tips in bare hands for a reason.

 

[Vettie32]

It is weird because I always interpret that Dance chapter as Dany having friction burns from her climb.  

Quote

It took Dany half the morning to climb down. By the time she reached the bottom she was winded. Her muscles ached, and she felt as if she had the beginnings of a fever. The rocks had scraped her hands raw. They are better than they were, though, she decided as she picked at a broken blister. Her skin was pink and tender, and a pale milky fluid was leaking from her cracked palms, but her burns were healing.

 

[Haus Berlin]

Dear friends,

I thank you for all your insightful and diverse responses to my question. You were able to convince me that Jon's burning hand bears no evidence against a Targaryen ancestry, but is a strong hint for his very own relation to the Targaryen element fire. I can see how this makes Jon a special version of Azor Ahai when he fought the wight with flames instead of a sword. His scarred hand will help him to remember this self-less deed, as Catelyn remembers the deed against her family when she looked at her scarred hand. This memory carries on beyond her death as a person and we can expect something similiar from dead Jon too.

The distortion of hands is an ongoing theme in that series. Next to scarred Catelyn and Jon there are Jon Connington with greyscale, Coldhands as a wight and Victarion restored by fire magic, Davos and Theon with missing fingers, and fully amputated Jaime. Some of them are connected with the political function of Hand. Nearly all of them are affected by their hand's distortion in such a way that they have to alter their profession. Few of them even have to reconsider their very nature. Our discussion helped me to take notice of that too.

[kissdbyfire]

17 minutes ago, Vettie32 said:

It is weird because I always interpret that Dance chapter as Dany having friction burns from her climb.  

 

The description below from the quote you provided sounds very much like her hands were badly burnt. And we know  the spear she grabbed was red hot, so it all adds up perfectly. 

18 minutes ago, Vettie32 said:

Quote

They are better than they were, though, she decided as she picked at a broken blister. Her skin was pink and tender, and a pale milky fluid was leaking from her cracked palms, but her burns were healing.

 

 

[Unacosamedarisa]

20 hours ago, John Suburbs said:

But I was talking about fire resistance, which would more logically come from people who were trying not to get burned by dragons, not the ones doing the burning.

You're assuming magic is logical in the world of Ice and Fire, it isn't. I doubt the Rhoynish were able to design their magic, and instead they used what they had available to them. 

And the Rhoynish, and Dornish, have never been associated with fire magic... water magic was their thing, iirc from tWoIaF. Whereas the Valyrians, and Targaryens, have deep, repeated connections with fire magic. Some say they're part Dragon even, which is where fire resistance could come from. Also, Dany's identity is nothing to do with her Dornish heritage, it's her identity as a Targaryen that is constantly brought up. 

[teej6]

On 3/21/2018 at 2:06 AM, Ygrain said:

/stretching/ Haven't had a fireproofness discussion in a while. What comes next, furnace wind doing off poor Quentyn and not Dany? To spare everyone the time: when Quentyn feels "furnace wind", his friends aren't screaming in terror but yelling "behind you, behind you", meaning there was no fire at that time yet. Quentyn turns, shielding his eyes, i.e. not really seeing what's going on, and then starts burning. The same situation as with Dany and Drogon - he first breathed, and then spat fire, but Dany was facing and watching him and darted underneath. 

Ah yes, the fireproof discussions. I remember it going from Dany is fireproof to her having a high tolerance to heat.