The Vulture King Posted January 16, 2015 Share Posted January 16, 2015 Have not seen any threads about this new dragon lord. Wonder how powerful house Balaerys was for starters? If they are looking to Sothoryos maybe before any other houses I am thinking they might be in the top 5 of the 40? Also I wonder if she was a very special dragon lord to do so much exploring on her own. 3 years away from the freehold it says. We know other dragon lords never like to leave the freehold,this makes me think she is special. Wonder how she was able to survive for 3 years in Sothoryos. We know nothing of Terrax but I wonder how big her/she was and what color. Finding food for 3 years with no farm raised meat at all is a pretty impressive feat. I think GRRM should be a short story all about her. Anyone else agree?? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aryagonnakill#2 Posted January 16, 2015 Share Posted January 16, 2015 This was discussed briefly right when the book came out and a few of us agreed that she likely was not exploring Sothoryos. 3 years of flight on dragonback and she comes back and says Sothoryos has no end? I don't see it, in 3 years time a dragon could circle the world, probably multiple times, as we know Rhaenyra and Daemon use to race to Dragonstone and back from Kingslanding, that means 100 miles is a short race to them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheSovereignGrave Posted January 16, 2015 Share Posted January 16, 2015 This was discussed briefly right when the book came out and a few of us agreed that she likely was not exploring Sothoryos. 3 years of flight on dragonback and she comes back and says Sothoryos has no end? I don't see it, in 3 years time a dragon could circle the world, probably multiple times, as we know Rhaenyra and Daemon use to race to Dragonstone and back from Kingslanding, that means 100 miles is a short race to them. But she probably wasn't flying nonstop for those 3 years. You'd have to stop to rest, get food and water, etc. And if you're exploring a continent and you see something neat you're going to go have a look around. And she probably didn't fly in a straight line south; I'd imagine she'd look around some. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord Varys Posted January 16, 2015 Share Posted January 16, 2015 That is my take as well. In fact, if we assume she could not take much food and stuff with her own dragonback, she would have to find shelter, live off the land (sustain herself on fruits and game etc.). Both activities would take quite a lot of time. I guess 1-2 days of non-stop flights on dragonback are possible, but then you have to take a break to refresh yourself, eat, sleep etc. We also don't know whether intended to map Sothoryos or simply wanted to see how large it is - I'd think the former, and then three years is a good estimate for the whole mission, especially if she first visited/investigated the better known northern reaches of Sothoryos. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
naseridrl Posted January 16, 2015 Share Posted January 16, 2015 Have not seen any threads about this new dragon lord. Wonder how powerful house Balaerys was for starters? If they are looking to Sothoryos maybe before any other houses I am thinking they might be in the top 5 of the 40? Also I wonder if she was a very special dragon lord to do so much exploring on her own. 3 years away from the freehold it says. We know other dragon lords never like to leave the freehold,this makes me think she is special. There was also a lady who went to YI TI and married an emperor and took her dragon. So time away from the freehold might not be that big of a deal depending on where you fell in the family dynamic. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aryagonnakill#2 Posted January 16, 2015 Share Posted January 16, 2015 I'm not saying she would have been flying straight for 3 years, but that we know a dragon can fly hundreds of miles without stopping, Dragonstone to Storms End was flown by a small dragon in a terrible storm, and after a very short rest the rider intended on going straight back. In my own opinion, she would have at least found the end of the continent if she was really exploring it for 3 years. I myself would have done a ring of the continent then gone home, and perhaps returned to explore the middle at another time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wmarshal Posted January 16, 2015 Share Posted January 16, 2015 I wanted more info on the houses the Freehold and there seemingly drow like society. Hopefully Fire Blood gives more light. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Vulture King Posted January 16, 2015 Author Share Posted January 16, 2015 I'm not saying she would have been flying straight for 3 years, but that we know a dragon can fly hundreds of miles without stopping, Dragonstone to Storms End was flown by a small dragon in a terrible storm, and after a very short rest the rider intended on going straight back. In my own opinion, she would have at least found the end of the continent if she was really exploring it for 3 years. I myself would have done a ring of the continent then gone home, and perhaps returned to explore the middle at another time. What other reason do you have for her going to Sothoryos then in the first place? I think its pretty clear a person could not just fly for 3 years straight. Let us assume with all resting and gathering food she probably flew south for no more than a year. Then turned around and had to fly another year home. Does anyone else think the Balaerys were probably a very powerful house in the freehold? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ser Uncle P Posted January 16, 2015 Share Posted January 16, 2015 What other reason do you have for her going to Sothoryos then in the first place? I think its pretty clear a person could not just fly for 3 years straight. Let us assume with all resting and gathering food she probably flew south for no more than a year. Then turned around and had to fly another year home. Does anyone else think the Balaerys were probably a very powerful house in the freehold? I'd say they'd have been powerful enough to allow a dragon rider off on such a whimsical mission, as in not feeling any threat from other Dragonlords. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DMC Posted January 17, 2015 Share Posted January 17, 2015 What other reason do you have for her going to Sothoryos then in the first place? I think its pretty clear a person could not just fly for 3 years straight. Let us assume with all resting and gathering food she probably flew south for no more than a year. Then turned around and had to fly another year home. Does anyone else think the Balaerys were probably a very powerful house in the freehold? This has always been my problem with it though - even if you assume that she only spent a third of her time (or even a fifth or a sixth) on dragonback, mathematically she should have found the end of Sothoryos if Planetos is anywhere close in size to Earth - even if she criss-crossed the continent. There are of course plausible alternative explanations. Maybe she ended up in a bunch of adventures and was a kind of Xena Warrior Princess. Maybe she was forced to continually return to the settlements in northern Sothoryos for sustenance, setting out in different directions again and again. Maybe she did find a sustainable environment and lied about it for whatever reason. Maybe she was just lazy. I just think it's pretty clear if she was on a concerted effort to map the continent it either should not have taken such a long time or it should have been quickly apparent that such an endeavor was impossible. Anywho, I've spent far too much time contemplating this one throwaway line that has a 99.9 percent change of never leading to any more info. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord Varys Posted January 17, 2015 Share Posted January 17, 2015 We actually do not know if Luke flew to Storm's End non-stop. He could have spent the night with the Masseys or the Bar Emmons for all we know. All we know is that you can reach Dragonstone from KL on dragonback in a day. In Jaenara's case we could assume an average fourteen days rest only any non-stop 1-2 days flight, which should greatly put the thing into perspective. It is also easily imaginable for to find a particular interesting spot where she lingered much longer. And, honestly, we don't know whether Sothoryos is a huge landmass connected to Westeros on the other side of the Lands of Always Winter... We should also assume that the dragonlords did have much better maps of the whole world than any other nation/people, as they should have been able to explore the entirety of Essos without much difficulty. 3-4 determined dragonlords would have been enough to fly to the far ends of the world over land. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
naseridrl Posted January 17, 2015 Share Posted January 17, 2015 I'd say they'd have been powerful enough to allow a dragon rider off on such a whimsical mission, as in not feeling any threat from other Dragonlords. I wonder how powerful the family of the Dragonlady in Yi Ti were/became? Yi Ti was the big main power outside of Valyria. If her family was already powerful before they may have become even more powerful afterwards. And if they weren't powerful I imagine strong links with a power like Yi Ti can't have done them any harm. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord Varys Posted January 17, 2015 Share Posted January 17, 2015 We know that there were times when only one family called the shots in Valyria. I'd not be surprised if the marriage between one of the most powerful God-Emperors of Yi Ti and a Valyrian dragonlady happened during such a time, meaning that the Valyrian dragonlady become (one of the) empress(es) of Yi Ti came from the most powerful dragonlord family of that time. This marriage clearly was a recognition of the power and the prestige each side had, and Yi Tish do not strike me as a people who would take slights lightly... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Vulture King Posted January 18, 2015 Author Share Posted January 18, 2015 Well I agree with some of the points made but I have to totally disagree with her not actually trying to figure out the size of Sotho. I think what happened is she must have had to constantly find a settlement to work out of kinda of like a base camp. At some point she reached the end of all settlements and her journey then ended. Thinking about the marriage with the Yi Ti it makes me think that the Balaerys must have been very powerful lords indeed. They may have even been the same family that married the Yi Ti emperor. If we look at them as the most outward looking family in Valayria is all kinda makes sense. Another thing to consider is the fact that we know the Sotho is heavily populated with wyvrens. I wonder if this one family had a perticular interest in maybe taming/weaponize wyvrens to increase their power in the freehold. OrI also wonder how the local wyvrens felt about Terrax. =] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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