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What exactly happened at Daznak’s?


Mithras

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Dany turned. “Why are we stopped?”


Hizdahr stood. “The way is blocked.”


A palanquin lay overturned athwart their way. One of its bearers had collapsed to the bricks, overcome by heat. “Help that man,” Dany commanded. “Get him off the street before he’s stepped on and give him food and water. He looks as though he has not eaten in a fortnight.”


Ser Barristan glanced uneasily to left and right. Ghiscari faces were visible on the terraces, looking down with cool and unsympathetic eyes. “Your Grace, I do not like this halt. This may be some trap. The Sons of the Harpy—”


“—have been tamed,” declared Hizdahr zo Loraq. “Why should they seek to harm my queen when she has taken me for her king and consort? Now help that man, as my sweet queen has commanded.” He took Dany by the hand and smiled.



Before the fights, there is this suspicious halting as if someone was preparing a trap. Barristan suspected a trap from the Sons of the Harpy but Hizdahr was their pet and he confirmed that this was not their work. Brazen beasts are in the scene too and we know that their primary allegiance is to Shakaz, who has many reasons to hate Hizdahr and the Harpy.



Dany could not see, she could not breathe, she could not think. The black wings cracked like thunder, and suddenly the scarlet sands were falling away beneath her.


Dizzy, Dany closed her eyes. When she opened them again, she glimpsed the Meereenese beneath her through a haze of tears and dust, pouring up the steps and out into the streets.


The lash was still in her hand. She flicked it against Drogon’s neck and cried, “Higher!” Her other hand clutched at his scales, her fingers scrabbling for purchase. Drogon’s wide black wings beat the air. Dany could feel the heat of him between her thighs. Her heart felt as if it were about to burst. Yes, she thought, yes, now, now, do it, do it, take me, take me, FLY!



Dany jumped on Drogon and they took flight. Dany closed her eyes and when she opened them, they were high up in the sky.



But…



Her hair was aflame. She had the whip in her hand and she was shouting, then she was on the dragon’s back, flying. The sand that Drogon stirred as he took wing had stung Ser Barristan’s eyes, but through a veil of tears he had watched the beast fly from the pit, his great black wings slapping at the shoulders of the bronze warriors at the gates.


The rest he learned later. Beyond the gates had been a solid press of people. Maddened by the smell of dragon, horses below reared in terror, lashing out with iron-shod hooves. Food stalls and palanquins alike were overturned, men knocked down and trampled. Spears were thrown, crossbows were fired. Some struck home. The dragon twisted violently in the air, wounds smoking, the girl clinging to his back. Then he loosed the fire.


It had taken the rest of the day and most of the night for the Brazen Beasts to gather up the corpses. The final count was two hundred fourteen slain, three times as many burned or wounded. Drogon was gone from the city by then, last seen high over the Skahazadhan, flying north. Of Daenerys Targaryen, no trace had been found.



Dany does not remember Drogon wreaking havoc. Barristan only heard it.



“And I saw that dragon ripping off arms and legs, tearing men in half, burning them down to ash and bones. People started running, trying to get out of that pit, but I come to see a show, and by all of gods of Ghis, I saw one. I was up in the purple, so I didn’t think the dragon was like to trouble me.


“The queen climbed onto the dragon’s back and flew away,” insisted a tall brown woman.


“She tried,” said the old man, “but she couldn’t hold on. The crossbows wounded the dragon, and the queen was struck right between her sweet pink teats, I hear. That was when she fell. She died in the gutter, crushed beneath a wagon’s wheels. I know a girl who knows a man who saw her die.”



The things this slave told are the men of the pit master probably because we know that Drogon did all those things to them. The slave hears that Drogon was wounded by crossbows and Dany was hit by one. The former is true and the latter is obviously wrong.



It had been the same in Daznak’s Pit. That much she could recall, though much of what followed was a haze. So many people, screaming and shoving. She remembered rearing horses, a food cart spilling melons as it overturned. From below a spear came flying, followed by a flight of crossbow bolts. One passed so close that Dany felt it brush her cheek. Others skittered off Drogon’s scales, lodged between them, or tore through the membrane of his wings. She remembered the dragon twisting beneath her, shuddering at the impacts, as she tried desperately to cling to his scaled back. The wounds were smoking. Dany saw one of the bolts burst into sudden flame. Another fell away, shaken loose by the beating of his wings. Below, she saw men whirling, wreathed in flame, hands up in the air as if caught in the throes of some mad dance. A woman in a green tokar reached for a weeping child, pulling him down into her arms to shield him from the flames. Dany saw the color vividly, but not the woman’s face. People were stepping on her as they lay tangled on the bricks. Some were on fire.


Then all of that had faded, the sounds dwindling, the people shrinking, the spears and arrows falling back beneath them as Drogon clawed his way into the sky. Up and up and up he’d borne her, high above the pyramids and pits, his wings outstretched to catch the warm air rising from the city’s sun baked bricks.



Dany confirms the wounds of Drogon due to crossbow bolts but she does not say anything about how Drogon loosed his fire upon people, as Barristan was told.



We should also note that the whole thing was like hell being loosed. People were mad from fear and chaos.



Slaves and lower class people were high up in the pit and they were naturally away from the gates. There is the mention of palanquins, so it is certain that the first people who rushed to get the hell out of there were the high class Meereenese, probably all part of the Harpy.



Now I am proposing my idea. Did Shakaz organize a riot-like chaos to turn this opening into a bloody mess? Of course the appearance of Drogon could not be anticipated but there is this suspicious poisoning. What would happen if Dany dropped dead or unconscious and some agents fueled the freedmen by shouting that the Yunkai-Harpy coalition poisoned her?



None of the Great Masters nor the Yunkish Commanders would make it alive from there.



And who would benefit from this massacre most?



You know the answer.


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So the idea is that Skahaz is now using Barristan to take control of Meereen? I like that. And didn't he urge Barristan to kill Hizdar when he was captured? That would be a good move because it means that if Dany ever did return, her authority would be undermined by her lack of husband. That would clear the way for the Brazen Beasts to take control of Meereen--but the odds of them succeeding against the Ghiscari AND the Unsullied are low... unless the Unsullied and Ghiscari tear each other to pieces in the coming battle and the Brazen Beasts hold back from the worst of the fighting. But then would this be one of Dany's three betrayals? And if so, which one?


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I don't know about the riot business, I think a dragon showing up and killing a bunch of people is probably the simplest way to explain that, even if some second hand accounts get some of the details wrong. There's a brilliant little theory over at the Meereenese Blot blog pointing to Skahaz poisoning the locusts & using the incident to control Barristan. Worth reading.


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I don't know about the riot business, I think a dragon showing up and killing a bunch of people is probably the simplest way to explain that, even if some second hand accounts get some of the details wrong. There's a brilliant little theory over at the Meereenese Blot blog pointing to Skahaz poisoning the locusts & using the incident to control Barristan. Worth reading.

I agree that Shakaz was the poisoner because the Harpy got what they wanted and they had no reason to poison Dany. Second hand accounts may differ but Dany (who is a first hand witness) does not remember Drogon burning people from above. Besides, the halt and the sense of trap was mentioned for a reason.

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Even if we say the halt is part of a Skahaz plot, what role is it playing? What would need to be prepared that 1) wouldn't be prepared well in advance, and 2) required that Dany not be present? My personal sense is that the scene is included to create some tension, since at this point the reader probably has plenty of questions of their own as to the intentions of the Harpy and the Yunkai'i, and that when the whole thing turns out to be nothing it's supposed to lend just a little more credence to the idea that the peace is genuine, but that's just my reading.

As to Dany's recollection, the scene was chaotic and extremely stressful, so maybe she didn't take everything in. At the same time though, we don't know for sure that she doesn't remember the dragon burning anyone. There's plenty of internal narrations in these books where we don't get access to everything the character is thinking. More likely, the people on fire were just what was on her mind here.

And even if she doesn't remember it, what are we suggesting? That Skahaz prepared a plan B where he can light over 100 people on fire just in case the dragon shows up? That the 1000s of witnesses all misremembered Drogon lighting the crowd up in basically the same way? This isn't impossible, but it sounds like its pretty close.

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I'm still more inclined to believe Hizdahr was behind the poisoning, as he also gave the orders to fire upon Dany and Drogon in the pit.

Pod you should read this:

http://meereeneseblot.wordpress.com/2013/09/27/untangling-the-meereenese-knot-part-i-who-poisoned-the-locusts/

The whole blog is amazing, almost required reading for ADWD, but this part gets to the whole locusts thing.

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I have a feeling we'll find out in the next book, but just guessing here:

He gets the freedman companies, the unsullied, and barristan to blame the yunkai'i and the Harpy for killing Dany and uses the opportunity to kill off the rival great houses of Meereen the way he's been pushing for from the beginning of the book. From what we've seen of the Yunkish army, it isn't in great shape and is horribly organized. It'd be a gamble, but a strike spearheaded by the Unsullied should be able to break them. Then he consolidates, and by the time the Volanteenes get there they're facing a united Meereen without any of their allies. Not a terrible situation for the Shavepate.

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  • 2 weeks later...

What I wonder about the Shavepate is what's his ultimate plan. Like, okay, he poisons Dany and breaks the peace, but then what? How can he hope to win against the Yunkaii, the sellsword companies, and the Volanteene Fleet?

Dragons for a start. He might loose them in the battle against the Yunkai and the Volantene Fleet. He can also be expected to turn the sellsword companies once again. After all, he has agents among the Yunkish army and people with eyes see that without the Volantene Fleet, the Yunkish army is likely to lose the battle. And after that, he means to fight the Volantene Fleet but in case of a defeat, he means to kill his own family first to spare them from being sold to slavery, which he stated in the text.

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Even if we say the halt is part of a Skahaz plot, what role is it playing? What would need to be prepared that 1) wouldn't be prepared well in advance, and 2) required that Dany not be present? My personal sense is that the scene is included to create some tension, since at this point the reader probably has plenty of questions of their own as to the intentions of the Harpy and the Yunkai'i, and that when the whole thing turns out to be nothing it's supposed to lend just a little more credence to the idea that the peace is genuine, but that's just my reading.

As to Dany's recollection, the scene was chaotic and extremely stressful, so maybe she didn't take everything in. At the same time though, we don't know for sure that she doesn't remember the dragon burning anyone. There's plenty of internal narrations in these books where we don't get access to everything the character is thinking. More likely, the people on fire were just what was on her mind here.

And even if she doesn't remember it, what are we suggesting? That Skahaz prepared a plan B where he can light over 100 people on fire just in case the dragon shows up? That the 1000s of witnesses all misremembered Drogon lighting the crowd up in basically the same way? This isn't impossible, but it sounds like its pretty close.

I think the part with the halt is only there to give us the idea that a secret plot might be in motion. That part is actually a very graphic scene originating from George's time in Hollywood. Imagine you are watching that scene. Most people naturally suspect a plot.

As I said, the real intention of Shakaz was to provoke Dany's freedmen against the Great and Wise Masters. The best thing to do that was to create a situation in which Dany gets obviously poisoned (but not dead). Then, his agents among the benches would inflame the crowd by blaming the Harpy which would lead to the massacre of the slavers there.

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The House of Pahl poisoned the locusts to kill Strong Belwas because he literally shit on their family's champion.

Dany couldn't have cared less about the locusts, if they wanted her dead they would poison the figs.

Also I believe that drogon was lead there with a trail of pigs or boars.

I also think that Shavepate is the harpy and that Missendei is the daughter of the harpy, and she was serving as a ward for the dude in Astapor.

Shavepate set up the entire events of the pit and it's impact on Barristan and Hizdahr. He means for Dany to marry him.

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