Arya Havinfun

Obviously this heat resistance thing isn't really a small question! However, if you do a really close reading of the whole fire pyre episode at the end of AGoT (including the days before, when Drogo is sick and Mirri Maz Duur is commanded to do anything & everything in her power, including blood magic, to keep Drogo alive and healed, and Dany goes into labor and loses her baby, etc.), you'll see that Mirri Maz Duur proclaims she will not scream, and then proceeds to sing some weird song. Ultimately she does scream, and burns to death, while Dany wakes up next morning just fine, only bald, and nursing dragons. But if you pay close attention, you'll observe that the firey pyre is way too hot for Daenerys to approach right away, then as Mirri is singing, something changes, apparently in concert with the loud cracking/popping sounds of eggs breaking, one.by.one. Apparently Mirri was singing a spell to keep herself protected from the fire, but as the eggs were hatching the direction of the magic spell she sang was shifted, so that Mirri's fire protection was shifted over to Dany instead. Mirri died, Dany nursed her dragon babies, and the fate of Terros was changed. Why did the target of the fire protection spell change from Mirri to Dany? I suspect the dragons had something to do with that, especially as one of them has the soul of Rhaego, who Mirri switched from being born healthy and strong as the prophesied Dothraki STMTW to a fossilized dragon abortion. Is this a complete explanation? Probably not, as even without the one shot spell, Dany is a lot more heat tolerant than anyone I've ever met. Her dragon dreams where she communes with the future Drogon are quite "steamy" one might say, and may well be the source of her particular ability. But I wouldn't go bad mouthing GRRM's skills as a story teller, as he's working with a lot more complexities than are immediately obvious in so many situations. And he's really good at those. Not perfect, because he does make some minor mistakes (eye colors and hip dimensions being among the more famous/notorious examples), but nevertheless really good. He just doesn't make it easy to see what he's done unless you pay very sharp attention. That way he rewards his most diligent readers with extra reading value. And his less diligent readers still get a good magical yarn without bothering to delve into the depths of detail he provides. As to the spear she pulled from Drogon's body, yes, her hands were burned from that, but not too deeply, as she only held the spear for a few seconds at most. And I'm sure you've heard of Real Life situations where for brief moments normal ordinary people in extreme situations were temporarily unaware of the pain or seriousness of their wounds because their minds were focused on the immediate issues of surviving the present danger. That's not bad writing, that's actually normal description. Do some folks fail in those situations? Sure, you bet. But not everyone does, even folks who aren't superheroes in great fantasy epics. I've met several over the years.

Some folks complain :bawl: about Tyrion’s near soliloquy while talking with Jaime (in season 4 Episode 8) about a brain damaged cousin named Orson Lannister who was obsessed with killing beetles. AFAIK, this is a show only character. Tyrion's speech seemed an apt allegory for the breathtakingly irrational and relentless way that humans and everything else in this world gets mercilessly slaughtered all the time, and a not-too-difficult-to-see metaphor for Tyrion’s trying to face the fear of being irrationally killed himself. If there are gods, they are just as unreasonably broken as his cousin. Quite poignant, actually, as he realizes that being the smartest guy he knows doesn’t always mean he can reason (or buy) his way out of any threat to his life and/or comfort. He so loves playing the “Game of Thrones”, and is lamenting that his personal “Game” appears to be ending. :crying: Some folks also state their belief that it's really GRRM who kills everybody relentlessly. :spank: The thing that made me laugh out loud :lol: was the sudden realization that this speech was an homage to Orson Scott Card, a famous scifi writer who wrote a series of books that focused on the moral results of endlessly killing Buggers, starting with the novel Ender’s Game. I wonder if they got the idea from GRRM or if they thought up that little easter egg on their own? D&D must have had such a fun time writing that little tribute, just the sort of thing GRRM puts into the books all the time!

:box: Some folks complain about Tyrion’s near soliloquy (in season 4 Episode 8) about a brain damaged cousin named Orson Lannister who was obsessed with killing beetles. It seemed an apt allegory for the breathtakingly irrational and relentless way that humans and everything else in this world gets mercilessly slaughtered all the time, and a not-too-difficult-to-see metaphor for Tyrion’s trying to face the fear of being irrationally killed himself. If there are gods, they are just as unreasonably broken as his cousin. Quite poignant, actually, as he realizes that being the smartest guy he knows doesn’t always mean he can reason (or buy) his way out of any threat to his life and/or comfort. He so loves playing the “Game of Thrones”, and is lamenting that his personal “Game” appears to be ending. :crying: Some folks also state their belief that it's really GRRM who kills everybody relentlessly. The thing that made me laugh out loud was the sudden realization that this speech was an homage to Orson Scott Card, a famous scifi writer who wrote a series of books that focused on the moral results of endlessly killing Buggers, starting with the novel “Ender’s Game”. D&D must have had such a fun time writing that little tribute, just the sort of thing GRRM puts into the books all the time! I wonder if they got the idea from GRRM or if they thought that little easter egg up on their own? :bowdown: