chrisdaw

Concerning these HOTU prophecies/visions, And These two passages relate to each other. Targaryens sacrificed children to achieve their mastery over dragons and the process was carried out by accident with Dany and Rhaego and resulted in Drogon. Integral to the process is that the child's soul gets swapped with the dragon's. The characteristics of the sacrificed child shows through in the characteristics of the dragon, and the child's characteristics are a combination of its mother and father. The first passage is a description of the defining traits of three fathers of Dany's children that soul swap (second life) and become dragons. One has happened - Drogo, two are prophesied to happen - Euron and Jon. The mounts are the circumstances in which Dany conceives the children whose souls will enter and shape the dragon (mounts) that she will ride, that's why they're termed mounts. Drogo is love, Euron and Jon are prophesied to be bed and dread. This is the symbolism of Drogo. Her silver is her horse that Drogo gifts her and it symbolises riding and flight. The implication is either that Drogon has wings because of Drogo's characteristics or that Drogon accepts Dany as a rider and thus allows her flight because of the connection to Drogo. The silver = wings/wind/flight. And that's really the purpose of this topic, to point out what is made obvious in the cross referencing of above passages, that the description of the HOTU brides of fire suitors are specifically characteristics relating to the dragons (more accurately mounts) Dany is to ride. Dany will not ride different mounts, rather the mounts will change. The children's souls will enter the existing mount and the mount will change to reflect the child's father's characteristics, the HOTU passage is conveying those characteristics. Bride of fire suggests that Dany is providing the fire every time in these equations and the question is always what qualities the other party is bringing to the table. The symbolism of Euron. Lots of death, not surprising for Euron, and undead too. The ship is important, he is a pirate captain, Ironborn with salt water in his veins, his vessel is a ship and the resulting mount will reflect this. I'm not going to flesh it out in this topic but the Stone Beast is the immediate result of Euron's child's soul entering Drogon, but it is an initial state and will further change in time to further reflect Euron. The symbolism of Jon. Runs straight into this line and Jon's arc. People can draw their own conclusions but I suggest it is purposely skinny on detail. The mount provided by Euron's child will come next and after it happens this HOTU prophecy will become well understood and any detail provided on the third would become like spoilers. I would point out that as per the text these HOTU prophecies are not at all infallible, just one possible future.

A fatal flaw is a flaw that gets someone killed. Tyrion's fatal flaw is his desire to be loved, it makes him deny reality and continue on in a little happy bubble, and that can be dangerous for him. This is what happened with Shae and it will happen again with Sansa.

For Aegon, for Illyrio and Varys' it's all for Aegon. Viserys is just the placeholder at the time to try and get Drogo moving in the right direction. Aegon is valuable, to Varys he's the purpose built future perfect king, and with Illyrio the text establishes there's a personal connection driving his efforts and we are invited to speculate on its exact nature.

Varys and Illyrio are not Targ loyalists. Viserys and Dany were completely expendable, they were nothing more than currency which Illyrio/Varys tried to flip into a Drogo invasion of Westeros. That they give a fuck about Viserys or Dany for some kind of house loyalty or moral reasons is merely keeping up appearances (and with Tyrion Illyrio doesn't even bother, which seems rather stupid and might come back to bite him) for the likes of JC and the GC (and probably Aegon) who do care about that shit. Illyrio expected Dany would die out on the Dothraki Sea. Had she died they'd have been hard pressed to get Drogo to do anything, but they had no better use for her so /shrug. Hell he was so attracted to her he thought of not even bothering with the gamble and keeping her for himself. They care about her now obviously because she's got dragons and an army.

No the only thing Drogo would give Viserys is the Westeros crown when he leaves Westeros conquered. Varys and Illyrio would have at some point had to move Drogo off Viserys onto Aegon, which shouldn't have been hard.

The OP is correct though I've not seen people talking like that was the plan recently. Varys and Illyrio need swords - a bulk army. Selling Dany to Drogo gets them this in theory but with minimal control over their army, low motivation on Drogo's part and the sea crossing issue. Viserys is an irrelevancy, having Robert assassinate Dany likely would have fixed their Drogo motivation problem as the attempt did.

Do you know if it is covering just "The Hedge Knight" story in the first "season"?

I'm not sure what you mean but The Hedge Knight is the first story, so one would think what they're doing now is just the Hedge Knight material and if/when they do another series it'll be A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms: The Sworn Sword.

Exciting stuff, magnificent material. I take issue with characterising Dunk as naive (though it might have come from GRRM), Dunk knows, he just doesn't want to know, he wants to believe the world better than it is and give it every chance to prove it.

It doesn't conflict with anything and the necessary background is there. Magic is real, Valyrians were sorcerers, Targaryens were sorcerers, among other abilities they could predict cataclysmic events which they may take action to avoid or prevent. It's not a retcon it's a reveal and it plays into story themes, most particularly Dany's arc. There's likely also a heavy Stannis parallel in it. Stannis is Aegon having these dreams about the end of the world unless he intervenes to save it. Visenya like Melisandre, probably has undeniable sorcery and is pushing Aegon/Stannis into doing some far more out there brutal shit than he is morally comfortable with, for the sake of saving the world. Stannis' story will culminate in him relenting to Melisandre and sacrificing Shireen, Aegon probably didn't relent to whatever crazy Visenya was attempting to get him to do (maybe sacrifice/kill Aenys?).

No that's a mistake, should be nephew, someone in front of her in the line of succession by their own Targ rules.

Howland Reed tells Dany, she (eventually) believes it because why would this man lie and it will align with her dreams/visions and also what she needs, a very Targaryen blooded man to father a child on her. Probably Reed's and Dany's meeting is chance/fated, as in neither seek out the other but fall in each other's lap. Dany will eventually go north and she will tell Jon who will eventually be convinced but he's not going to make a claim to kingship through Targ lineage or anything even though Dany will encourage him to do so. The way it serves Jon's arc is he will have to choose between the ways of his Targ father and their family, who sacrificed children for power, and the Ned and Stark ways which constantly strove to protect innocent children. The way it serves Dany's arc is she will kill Faegon, and for it the world will call her mad for power, but she'll maintain that she did it because he was a fake. When Dany finds out she has an older brother she will have to choose to either prove the world right and deny him to maintain her claim to power, or prove them wrong and submit to him. Arya will find out too and before Jon as she'll be amongst Dany and her people in the south. It will serve to put even more distance between Arya and Jon when they reunite, as they're not both children of Eddard Stark and brother and sister.

No I'm not, I'm talking this; I hear executive producer-showrunner Ryan Condal, working with author/executive producer George R.R. Martin, took a step back as Season 2 was being put together to take a big-picture view of the series, which follows Martin’s Fire & Blood, and figure out the overall narrative flow, including how to break up the stories season-to-season and what battles to include and when. would be the logical first next step when the series proved a smash hit.

You would think plotting a roadmap for the rest of the series would have been the first step after the show was a big success. These things seem so loose and not for the better, but it's happening in this instance so that's reassuring.

Sansa's arc just hasn't progressed to the stage of her lusting for and achieving great power, it will, young hopeful girl/woman unwarily strolls into the vipers pit of KL and out of necessity becomes the hardened master player, she is Alicent, Alicent is her. Arya's primary theme is freedom vs duty. Arya will choose to forsake her freedoms and loves for the sake of doing her duty and what the realm requires. Endgame Arya will forsake her love of Gendry, give up her secret love child to him, accept a marriage in the interest of the realm and set about providing them heirs of doubtless parentage. Rhaenyra exists to stand in contrast to the decisions Arya will make at the culmination of her arc. Rhaenyra stepped into the role but didn't make the sacrifices required of the position, conspired to marry the worst possible person for the position because she loved him and gave the realm every reason to question the legitimacy of her heirs, not to mention character. Jaime in series is coming down on the other side of the arc, but pre arc he wars and fights because he loves it and puts his family ahead of the greater realm wide picture, he's motivated by his selfish pride. Jaime is to set aside his selfish pride and rule and act for what he believes is best for the realm, he will take no revenge on those who personally did him harm or on the side of those who did him harm. Cole is Jaime without the arc, acting only out of self interest and particularly against those who've personally hurt him.

The main characters of the series will go through character arcs, and they will generally learn and become wiser and better people, and they will at the end make pivotal wise/selfless decisions for the greater good that will avert armageddon and save the world. I believe the basic premise of the Dance of Dragons is that this is the disaster that happens if those characters didn't have their character arcs and make the unwise/selfish decision relating to the theme of their arcs. It's not 1 for 1, but for the straight-forward ones generally Rhaenyra is Arya if Arya never learns to put duty and service over her own freedom and love. Alicent is Sansa if Sansa never moderates her lust for power and would rather the realm burn than accept defeat and someone else rule. Cole is Jaime if Jaime continues to play the game based on personal vendettas and desires rather than detaching himself and being in it for the realm.

I've understood a long while Aegon II is a Tyrion parallel, but the show revealed it goes deeper than I'd thought. Aegon's relationship/resentment towards his parents is Tyrion's with Tywin, and it's apparent the writers know this. How Aegon noted that Viserys had 18 (or whatever it is) years to name him heir but chose not to is directly paralleling Tywin's refusal to name Tyrion heir to Casterly Rock and Tyrion's feelings about it. When Alicent says "you're not my son" they're directly ripping Tywin. Both Tyrion's and Aegon's drinking, whoring, joking and general debauchery stem from their not good enough for daddy (mummy) issues. Note Tyrion's desire to be loved, his disease as Cersei words it, and Aegon II's reaction to being crowned and cheered by the KL crowd. Tyrion will ride Viserion and become king (and will take a gold dragon for his standard, just like...), accept that and I expect the foreshadowing for Tyrion through Aegon II is going to come at you thick and fast in HOTD, because the writers are leaning into it and don't think anyone has noticed.

One of the worst thought crimes in the whole of the series.

Looks really cool. More elaborate construction than how I imagined it.

The same way Rhaenyra went "mad". She'll take the throne and begin leaning towards violence and tyranny as Westeros defies her rule, causing many to abandon her, causing her to become paranoid, causing many to abandon, causing her to become paranoid, and so the cycle downwards until the people chuck her out. She'll redeem herself by saving the realm that calls her mad and rejected her.

It's better than the series show. Series show was too broad and so moved at too slow a pace, they just went 1 to 1 with the book and never even tried to account for it being a different format. It worked better for binging but week to week it was unsatisfying. Cole is pretty much the only weak actor here whereas GOT was littered with them, including 2 of the big 3, but there's stellar work by the best of both casts. Writing is generally of the same level as the first 3 to 4 seasons minus the sexposition, there's some annoying basic stupidity to both shows (guards only do shit when the script demands it particularly annoys me). The world looks more wonderful. This show has offered deeper more well rounded characters than GOT did. D&D's character work was only there because that's how it was in the books, for example, Jaime has this big outpouring on Brienne's shoulder because that's how it was in the book, not because anyone besides Nikolaj gives a fuck about Jaime's arc. Drogo kicking ass scene was because Momoa convinced them it made sense for the character, not because anyone else, like a writer, was thinking about the character. When it came to the characters none of them understood or cared besides an actor here or there, and GRRM obviously who phased out. In HOTD they've taken outlines and had to learn and understand them so that they can flesh them out into characters, it shows that they care about getting them right.

Nah. Tyrion isn't joining with the Starks (besides Sansa) and Arya and Jon isn't a thing. Minor characters have been created to serve the themes that were to be explored amongst fewer main characters. Arya and Gendry is what it is now, Gendry being the low born bastard who will be sworn to celibacy when he becomes KG, Arya's love who in the end game she must dutifully sacrifice to fulfill a marriage pact to someone she isn't at all attracted to (Sweetrobin) for the good of the realm. The unrequited love of Tyrion's will be for Sansa, who despite being married to Tyrion and using him for power will have a heart all for the newly emerged True Knight Sandor. The redacted part will include Tyrion becoming king, it's redacted because it's actually still a spoiler, it is going to happen, Tyrion will become king (though obviously Sansa will be his queen). Arya is also going to be queen later, some of that might be in there too.

Joffrey.

It's not mysterious lol.

No it's quite clearly a character arc concerning justice in which she learns how her murders were wrong and were not justice and grows and becomes better. You people get such a hate on for characters that you go and make wild amounts of content about it when I can't even imagine you believe it yourselves, it's quite bewildering. I don't know, maybe this YouTuber makes money through the clicks but for the rest of you, what do for?