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What does Euron really want with Daenerys?


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[Warning: This will include Winds of Winter spoilers from The Forsaken chapter.]

 “The bleeding star bespoke the end,” he said to Aeron. “These are the last days, when the world shall be broken and remade. A new god shall be born from the graves and charnel pits.”

Euron is not seeking to simply rule. He wants to bring about the end of the world and be reborn as a god from the ashes, eschaton and apotheosis. It’s in this light that we need to look at why he has sent Victarion to retrieve Daenerys and her dragons.  It would be enough if he just wanted the dragons as a weapon to rule the Seven Kingdoms. Certainly he wants their destructive power. However, his need to acquire Daenerys, goes beyond this to his apocalyptic goals.

I wrote a post about a year ago on this forum called the Daenerys is the Amethyst Empress Reborn. I will try to briefly summarize the important bits here, but the important part isn’t whether or not any of the mythology or the prophecy in the story is true. The important part here is that it is driving Euron’s actions, and we see further evidence of this in the new TWOW chapter, The Forsaken.

Going back first to the published work, the first piece of evidence is Euron’s description of Daenerys to Victorian in A Feast for Crow. He describes her having amethyst eyes and silver-gold hair. It stuck out to me on a reread. No other character has their eyes described as amethyst in the novels. Daenerys describes her own eyes as violet. Nearly everyone else calls them purple, so it stuck out to me on a reread of Feast. My first thought was of the Amethyst Empress in the Yi TI myth from a World of Ice and Fire. I did searches through all of the books and the word amethyst is used less than half a dozen times. With the exception of one random jewelry reference, amethyst is always associated with Daenerys or Asshai. Martin repeats it for emphasis when Victarion describes of Daenerys to Moqorro in A Dance with Dragons, so it’s there, but it is in one other relevant place in the core novels Game of Thrones page 802 right in the middle of Daenerys’ fever dream:

 

“Ghosts lined the hallway, dressed in the faded raiment of kings. In their hands were swords of pale fire. They had hair of silver and hair of gold and hair of platinum white, and their eyes were opal and amethyst, tourmaline and jade.”

So the word amethyst is not just connected to Daenerys but to a line of rulers who appear to be related to Daenerys, her ancestors. Now look at the description of the Gemstone Emperors in the Yi Ti myth:

Dominion then passed to [The God-on-Earth’s] eldest son, the Pearl Emperor, who ruled for a thousand years. Power then passed to the Jade Emperor, the Tourmaline Emperor, the Onyx Emperor, the Topaz Emperor, and the Opal Emperor. Each reigning for a shorter and more troubled time than the previous emperor, for wild men and beasts pressed the borders of the Empire, lesser kings grew proud and rebellious, and the common people gave themselves to sin. When the daughter of the Opal Emperor ascended to power as the Amethyst Empress, her envious brother cast her down and proclaimed himself the Bloodstone Emperor  . . . it was the Blood Betrayal, as his usurpation is named, that ushered in the age of darkness called the Long Night.”  (TWOIAF 712)

It is like a partial fingerprint match. It seems impossible to me that it not intentional, and we can look at a few more pieces of evidence from Feast to that hin Euron is aware of the Yi Ti myth. First there is this quote from Euron’s godliest man speech:

"Who knows more of gods than I? Horse gods and fire gods, gods made of gold with gemstone eyes, gods carved of cedarwood, gods chiseled into mountains, gods of empty air. I know them all." (AFfC 272)

Add to this that we know he has been to Valyria, Asshai, and drinking Shade of the Evening to gain visions. There is every reason to believe that this is esoteric knowledge that he has uncovered. Euron fashions himself as the Bloodstone Emperor, complete with one blood red eye.

We see this imagery emphasized in The Forsaken:

“ . . . the smiling eye hidden. He showed the world his blood eye now, dark and terrible.”

“But from their sterns flew a flag the priest had never seen before: a red eye with a black pupil beneath an iron crown supported by two crows.”

The blood eye has become Euron’s symbol. It represents his identity.

According to the Yi Ti myth, the Bloodstone Emperor “cast down the true gods to worship a black stone that had fallen from the sky.” I’m going to go out on a limb here and suggest that the black stone is real and that Euron has it. I am basing this on the facts that he really has a dragon binding horn and he really has Valyrian steel armor, but we knew Valyria was real. The Golden Empire of the Dawn is mythical, so I could be wrong here. The more important piece is that in The Forsaken we see Euron casting down the gods both in Aeron’s Shade dreams and in his treatment of the priesthood:

“Aeron Damphair looked. The mound of skulls was gone. Now it was metal underneath the Crow’s Eye: a great, tall, twisted seat of razor sharp iron, barbs and blades and broken swords, all dripping blood.

Impaled upon the longer spikes were the bodies of the gods. The Maiden was there and the Father and the Mother, the Warrior and Crone and Smith…even the Stranger. They hung side by side with all manner of queer foreign gods: the Great Shepherd and the Black Goat, three-headed Trios and the Pale Child Bakkalon, the Lord of Light and the butterfly god of Naath.”

All of the gods are cast down in the vision, sacrificed on the throne. (Including R’hllor which I will circle back to in a minute.) Outside of the vision, their priests are cast down, abused, imprisoned and then lashed to the bows of Euron’s ships.  This is the culmination of a journey that began in Euron’s youth, testing the limits of the gods:

“Harlon was my first. All I had to do was pinch his nose shut. The greyscale had turned his mouth to stone so he could not cry out. But his eyes grew frantic as he died. They begged me. When the life went out of them, I went out and pissed into the sea, waiting for the god to strike me down. None did.”

Euron seeks the power of the gods. He rejects their reality or at least their personification as active agents in the world, but he recognizes and covets the magical powers they represent. Circling back to R’hllor, we see R’hllor sacrificed on the Iron Throne, but we also see the representation of R’hllor’s power behind Euron in Aeron’s second dream:

“He saw his brother on the Iron Throne again, but Euron was no longer human. He seemed more squid than man, a monster fathered by a kraken of the deep, his face a mass of writhing tentacles. Beside him stood a shadow in woman’s form, long and tall and terrible, her hands alive with pale white fire.”

The Drowned God is slain, sacrificed on the throne, but Euron has absorbed the power associated with the sea god. He is now the Kraken.  R’hllor is also impaled on the throne, but R’hllor’s power, represented by the shadow woman with hands alive with pale white fire stands beside him. I don’t know if we are to see this woman as a real person, I suspect not, but the imagery of R’hllor the god of light and shadow is pretty clear. The pale white fire is also a direct reference to the swords of pale fire held by the rulers Daenerys’ fever dream. It connects this image to her ancestral power. But, it’s not Daenerys. It’s not a woman with a dragon’s head or amethyst eyes. Daenerys will not and would not rule beside him. Euron does not want to marry Daenerys as his end or share rule with her. He wants her power, which goes beyond the dragons. His purpose in gaining Daenerys is ritualistic. Marriage is likely part of the ritual, but it is a means. The end is to gain her power through ritualistic sacrifice as a key element in his ascent to godhood.

 

 

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I'm not sure. I have long not seen the initial attempt to retrieve Daenerys by Victarion as being unsuccessful, so I don't thin Daenerys will meet up with Euron until she returns to Westeros with her forces. IN the Forsaken we get the image from Aeron's dream where Euron blows his horn and dragons, krakens, and sphinxes come to the call. As usual I imagine that this is metaphorical. Targaryans, Iron Born and who ever the sphinxes are will join team Euron. Now the dragons could be team Aegon or his supporters if he is killed. The sphinxes, who knows. I see maybe a faction of the maesters aligned with Alleras the Sphinx aka Sallera Sand, or maybe its the Sand Snakes? He could have a back up plan to kidnap her when she arrives in Westeros. I think the visions indicate he will hold the Iron Throne for some period of time.

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I think that's an interesting thought, but that Dany will NOT have an army with her when she returns to Westeros. What remains of Victarion's ships will be long gone before she gets back to Meereen: and the various invading fleets will themselves have smashed each other up, fled, or fallen to whichever dragon answers the call of the Dragon Horn (which may well appear to serve Victarion for a time, until the time comes for Euron to reveal that he is still its true master). Even if Dany makes it back to Meereen... the city is shattered and ruined, its own surrounding farmland ravaged by the invading Yunkai'i and Ghiscari (and indeed by the fleeing Meereenese lords when she first took the city), it will be ravaged by war, fire, famine and also the Bloody Flux plague (plague-infected corpses are already being flung over the walls, and the city has no artillery to hurl them back out again in short order, which is WHY Barristan has to take the army outside the gates and fight rather than sit tight behind a walled siege): the Dothraki who come there will find only death in the form of the plague, and will then take it to wherever they go afterwards (and they will not be able to cross the barren lands back to their home in the grasslands without sacking Yunkai, the only city still left standing intact in the region: we have already seen there are great expanses of barren land with little in the way of sustenance even for Dany's small band in the first place.) Ships will be wrecked or fled, the harbour full of unseaworthy sunken hulks that block any attempt to organise sailing efforts, and in any case the Dothraki will still not want to put to sea: "you said you would lead us to the ends of the earth, not beyond it into the poison water". And still nowhere near enough ships to carry a Dothraki army and their horses even if they were willing. Like everything else she has touched, she will lead the Dothraki to their own doom - to the ends of *their* world - and they will curse her for it.

And, when arriving back, will discover at least one dragon missing (thanks to the horn) and, at best, the other injured and now answering to Tyrion who will be the bearer of the unpleasant news as to what has happened in Meereen. In any case, travelling from Meereen to Westeros by boat will be SLOW, and they will have to put in to port or on land more than once to restock. If even the expert sailor Victarion (dumb as a stump but we must allow him his sailing expertise) lost half his ships in the endeavour, with favourable winds, what chance does Daenerys have later in the year with less favourable weather and winds, and no expertise whatsoever?

When she comes to Westeros, she will come ALONE, and at the speed of dragonflight. With her single dragon, Drogon, and nothing much else. At best she may have Tyrion straggling along behind, unable to keep up but ready to make a late entry into whatever situation she comes back to.

And Euron seems to want a bride of supernatural significance, that is clear. If Daenerys will not be it, then he'll take an Other...

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He wants a child by her, because by sacrificing his and her child (his blood + dragon blood) he believes he can become a dragon (fly). Fire for blood, blood for fire. And he's close enough to being right, it's what happened to Drogo.

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1 hour ago, JLE said:

I think that's an interesting thought, but that Dany will NOT have an army with her when she returns to Westeros. What remains of Victarion's ships will be long gone before she gets back to Meereen: and the various invading fleets will themselves have smashed each other up, fled, or fallen to whichever dragon answers the call of the Dragon Horn (which may well appear to serve Victarion for a time, until the time comes for Euron to reveal that he is still its true master). Even if Dany makes it back to Meereen... the city is shattered and ruined, its own surrounding farmland ravaged by the invading Yunkai'i and Ghiscari (and indeed by the fleeing Meereenese lords when she first took the city), it will be ravaged by war, fire, famine and also the Bloody Flux plague (plague-infected corpses are already being flung over the walls, and the city has no artillery to hurl them back out again in short order, which is WHY Barristan has to take the army outside the gates and fight rather than sit tight behind a walled siege): the Dothraki who come there will find only death in the form of the plague, and will then take it to wherever they go afterwards (and they will not be able to cross the barren lands back to their home in the grasslands without sacking Yunkai, the only city still left standing intact in the region: we have already seen there are great expanses of barren land with little in the way of sustenance even for Dany's small band in the first place.) Ships will be wrecked or fled, the harbour full of unseaworthy sunken hulks that block any attempt to organise sailing efforts, and in any case the Dothraki will still not want to put to sea: "you said you would lead us to the ends of the earth, not beyond it into the poison water". And still nowhere near enough ships to carry a Dothraki army and their horses even if they were willing. Like everything else she has touched, she will lead the Dothraki to their own doom - to the ends of *their* world - and they will curse her for it.

And, when arriving back, will discover at least one dragon missing (thanks to the horn) and, at best, the other injured and now answering to Tyrion who will be the bearer of the unpleasant news as to what has happened in Meereen. In any case, travelling from Meereen to Westeros by boat will be SLOW, and they will have to put in to port or on land more than once to restock. If even the expert sailor Victarion (dumb as a stump but we must allow him his sailing expertise) lost half his ships in the endeavour, with favourable winds, what chance does Daenerys have later in the year with less favourable weather and winds, and no expertise whatsoever?

When she comes to Westeros, she will come ALONE, and at the speed of dragonflight. With her single dragon, Drogon, and nothing much else. At best she may have Tyrion straggling along behind, unable to keep up but ready to make a late entry into whatever situation she comes back to.

And Euron seems to want a bride of supernatural significance, that is clear. If Daenerys will not be it, then he'll take an Other...

I can definitely grant that that is a plausible scenario. As for taking an Other as a bride, that is possible, but definitely not indicated by the vision.

 

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Well, he says she's the most beautiful woman in the wold to Vic, and he knows she was Khal's wife, and you know Euron respects those asshat Dothrakis, and that somehow when her Khal died she got 3 dragons, and then she turned Slaver's bay into cesspit of destruction, oh after burning down the Warlock center of operations. 

So, he probably thinks she's pretty awesome, the picture in his head is probably the Dany that will actually exist by the time they meet up, because her walk through the desert didn't go as well as Luke's trip to his cave in Empire. I don't think he would have been too thrilled with the uncertain and emo Dany that tried to rule Mereen.

While he might know she's big into freeing slaves (notice how he's not taking a lot of salt wives for himself or anything?), he probably heard of the total violent and insane sacking of Astapor after she cheated the masters out of their own elite soldiers, can you imagine how the telephone version of that event played for this asshole? Boner country.

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While I agree that the telephone version of her her biography likely plays very badly in certain locals: "Did you hear she had a her Dothraki warlord husband murder her brother so she could usurp his claim to the Iron Throne? Oh, and she totally crucified the Masters of Mereen [with no mention of the slave children the Masters crucified]", and this would likely play pretty well among certain Ironborn, I think there is a pretty strong indication (such as his blue lips) that Euron is getting his information from more than just word of mouth. MY question would be, do you think the shadow in woman form with flaming hands, in Aeron's dream is Daenerys?

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On 8. 6. 2016 at 3:25 AM, Durran Durrandon said:

I can definitely grant that that is a plausible scenario. As for taking an Other as a bride, that is possible, but definitely not indicated by the vision.

I wouldn't be so sure. In the AGOT prologue, they are also described as shadows, tall, their swords shining with pale light. And then we have the legend of the Night's King, who gave his Other bride his seed and his soul. The vision indicates that Euron is not entirely human and his shadow consort is not human at all, a parallel? Plus, the mortals, the players of the game squabbling among themselves, are only dwarves playing for Euron and his consort's amusement, which again points towards possessing powers greater than those of ordinary men - now, how did an Ironborn psycho tap into such powers? 

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5 hours ago, Ygrain said:

I wouldn't be so sure. In the AGOT prologue, they are also described as shadows, tall, their swords shining with pale light. And then we have the legend of the Night's King, who gave his Other bride his seed and his soul. The vision indicates that Euron is not entirely human and his shadow consort is not human at all, a parallel? Plus, the mortals, the players of the game squabbling among themselves, are only dwarves playing for Euron and his consort's amusement, which again points towards possessing powers greater than those of ordinary men - now, how did an Ironborn psycho tap into such powers? 

Yeah, they are decried as white shadow, but they aren't describes as having hands alive with flame. We have seen Melisandre give birth to living shadows and hear her describe R'hllor as the god of light and shadow, so shadow and fire combined seem to point to the magic the Red Priests identify with R'hllor. Now in the dreams, R'hllor is dead, all the gods are dead, so it isn't R'hllor, and frankly I don't think any of the personified gods were real in the first place. I think the dwarves in the vision are intended to be the lords of Westeros as in Deanery's vision of the five kings in her House of the Undying Vision.

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13 hours ago, Durran Durrandon said:

Yeah, they are decried as white shadow, but they aren't describes as having hands alive with flame. We have seen Melisandre give birth to living shadows and hear her describe R'hllor as the god of light and shadow, so shadow and fire combined seem to point to the magic the Red Priests identify with R'hllor. Now in the dreams, R'hllor is dead, all the gods are dead, so it isn't R'hllor, and frankly I don't think any of the personified gods were real in the first place. I think the dwarves in the vision are intended to be the lords of Westeros as in Deanery's vision of the five kings in her House of the Undying Vision.

The first description, in the AGOT prologue, doesn't include "white" for the overall description, though, the information of colour of their skin comes only later, when Will sees details. The hands alive with flame may well be metaphorical (flame=power) but it definitely has nothing to do with R'hllor as his flames are red, it must be some other (pun intended) power. The only source of such power we have seen so far are, well, the Others, though I do not exclude that Euron met some interesting friends in the ruins of Valyria (people have been pointing pout that the pale flame looks like that of glass candles, which might be a connection.

What I find most interesting is the parallel between the Night's King and his non-human consort, and Euron seated on the throne (=king) also having a non-human consort, and the consorts seem to share some characteristics.

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8 hours ago, Ygrain said:

The first description, in the AGOT prologue, doesn't include "white" for the overall description, though, the information of colour of their skin comes only later, when Will sees details. The hands alive with flame may well be metaphorical (flame=power) but it definitely has nothing to do with R'hllor as his flames are red, it must be some other (pun intended) power. The only source of such power we have seen so far are, well, the Others, though I do not exclude that Euron met some interesting friends in the ruins of Valyria (people have been pointing pout that the pale flame looks like that of glass candles, which might be a connection.

What I find most interesting is the parallel between the Night's King and his non-human consort, and Euron seated on the throne (=king) also having a non-human consort, and the consorts seem to share some characteristics.

So, fun fact, "pale flame" is a thing for G.R.R.M. through out the books. You are correct in the red flame association with R'hllor, but pale flame pops up a lot. Going back to Daenerys' fever dream from Game:

“Ghosts lined the hallway, dressed in the faded raiment of kings. In their hands were swords of pale fire. They had hair of silver and hair of gold and hair of platinum white, and their eyes were opal and amethyst, tourmaline and jade.”

It pops again in Jaime's weirwood stump dream.:

"It was at his feet. Jaime groped under the water until his hand closed upon the hilt. Nothing can hurt me so long as I have a sword. As he raised the sword a finger of pale flame flickered at the point and crept up along the edge, stopping a hand's breath from the hilt. The fire took on the color of the steel itself so it burned with a silvery-blue light, and the gloom pulled back. "

It shows up in a few other places too.

I have no idea what it means.

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Thanks for pointing that out, I haven't noticed that. No idea what the connection might be just yet - but I do believe that the flame is pale to distinguish it from R'hllor's flames.

BTW, if Dawn is milky white and alive with light, I'd say that "pale flame" is not far from describing it, either.

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Could be that the Spinhxs are a methapor for skinchangers. Spinhx are half human and half animal , and the skinchangers can be viewed as half human half animal . 

Known skinchangers are the Stark kids , and i doubt any of the Starks joins Euron. But the Farwynds of lonely light are rumored to skinchange with sea animals . So maybe the Farwynd skinchangers hook up with Euron.

Or it could just be a hint to a possible relationship between Euron and Bloodraven.

Dont see why Arella will join Euron , but i guess we never know what the sand snakes are up to.

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20 minutes ago, LordImp said:

Could be that the Spinhxs are a methapor for skinchangers. Spinhx are half human and half animal , and the skinchangers can be viewed as half human half animal . 

Known skinchangers are the Stark kids , and i doubt any of the Starks joins Euron. But the Farwynds of lonely light are rumored to skinchange with sea animals . So maybe the Farwynd skinchangers hook up with Euron.

Or it could just be a hint to a possible relationship between Euron and Bloodraven.

Dont see why Arella will join Euron , but i guess we never know what the sand snakes are up to.

Yeah, I feel like I'm grasping at straws on this one. Someone mentioned the Valyrian sphinxes the other day, which are part human and part dragon but that doesn't seem to work within the context of Krakens, Dragons, and Sphinxes. Your guesses are as good as mine.

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On 6/13/2016 at 2:51 PM, Durran Durrandon said:

Yeah, I feel like I'm grasping at straws on this one. Someone mentioned the Valyrian sphinxes the other day, which are part human and part dragon but that doesn't seem to work within the context of Krakens, Dragons, and Sphinxes. Your guesses are as good as mine.

If I recall correctly, the only Sphinxes we see which are not "Valyrian Sphinxes" are the large ones outside the Citadel. Intelligence could be the defining characteristic of a Sphinx, so it seems to make sense to associate sphixes with the Maesters.

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3 hours ago, Damon_Tor said:

If I recall correctly, the only Sphinxes we see which are not "Valyrian Sphinxes" are the large ones outside the Citadel. Intelligence could be the defining characteristic of a Sphinx, so it seems to make sense to associate sphixes with the Maesters.

I agree. It makes sense. It's seems odd, but it makes sense.

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