Varamyr Turned into a Wolf, Valyrians did the same thing to Dragons to Tame Them

[chrisdaw]

A different angle from which to bang this drum.

Varamyr died but cheated death to become a wolf. He still currently lives in the series as a wolf. A man dying and becoming an animal is not crackpot or a theory, it's literal as per the text.

Now a theory. Varamyr is not the first time this has happened in the series. It might have happened to all three of Dany's dragons but I'm only going to concentrate on Drogo/Drogon, because it's rather explicit. Drogo died, but he became a dragon, he currently lives on as Drogon in exactly the same manner as Varamyr does in One Eye.

Key to Varamyr living on in One Eye seemed to be his ability to skinchange. Drogo was not a skinchanger, at least I do not believe he was though I think there are theories he could skinchange his horse. And the Valyrians were not skinchangers. In place of skinchanging the Valyrians used blood magic to achieve the same result. Valyrians being practitioners of blood magic is well enough established.

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"What feeds a dragon's fire?" Marwyn seated himself upon a stool. "All Valyrian sorcery was rooted in blood or fire.

They would use blood magic and they would sacrifice a (willing I'd assume) family member. And the sacrifice and blood magic would allow that family member to do what Varamyr did to One Eye, only to a dragon. So the dragon would really be family, their blood and kin.

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The tales the Valyrians told of themselves claimed they were descended from dragons and were kin to the ones they now controlled.

And there would be an affinity between that dragon and its human family, enough to allow a rider from them. And between consequent generations on both sides, human and dragon, so long as the blood lines remain pure enough. Hence why dragon riding had a family basis, a Valyrian family was either a dragon riding family or not. Their family at some point in history performed the blood magic ritual and a family member made the sacrifice to become a dragon, and that dragon and every subsequent dragon hatched from that dragon's eggs was potentially able to be ridden by a member of that family.

Someone created a horn to streamline the ritual/sacrifice process. This process is what the Dragonbinder will do.

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I am Dragonbinder ... No mortal man should sound me and live ... Blood for fire, fire for blood.

The horn binds dragons. Not initially to ride, that's a by-product. What the horn does is it take a person's soul/consciousness, and puts it in the dragon. Binds the blower's soul to the dragon. It's a trade, someone trades their blood, their life, and in return they become a dragon, they receive fire. And a family trades a family member, their blood, and in return they gain the ability to ride dragons, fire.

This process, in an unintended gutter manner was done successfully at the end of AGOT, resulting in Drogo's soul/consciousness entering Drogon. MMD provided the blood magic.

MMD saves Drogo but he is left in a vegetated state.

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He was lying on the bare red earth, staring up at the sun. 

A dozen bloodflies had settled on his body, though he did not seem to feel them. Dany brushed them away and knelt beside him. His eyes were wide open but did not see, and she knew at once that he was blind. When she whispered his name, he did not seem to hear. The wound on his breast was as healed as it would ever be, the scar that covered it grey and red and hideous.

"He seems to like the warmth, Princess," Ser Jorah said. "His eyes follow the sun, though he does not see it. He can walk after a fashion. He will go where you lead him, but no farther. He will eat if you put food in his mouth, drink if you dribble water on his lips."

 

He's soulless. And he is so because his soul has already gone to Drogon, to the egg. He's basically in a skinchanging state, same as when Bran or anyone else are skinchanging something. Note he's staring up at the sun, he likes it, he longs for it. This comes after we're told this story.

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"He told me the moon was an egg, Khaleesi," the Lysene girl said. "Once there were two moons in the sky, but one wandered too close to the sun and cracked from the heat. A thousand thousand dragons poured forth, and drank the fire of the sun. That is why dragons breathe flame. One day the other moon will kiss the sun too, and then it will crack and the dragons will return."

Drogo is Dany's sun and stars. Drogon drank from Drogo's soul, his sun, his fire. And that's why Drogon is the dragon he is.

When Dany burns Drogo we get this passage.

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When a horselord dies, his horse is slain with him, so he might ride proud into the night lands. The bodies are burned beneath the open sky, and the khal rises on his fiery steed to take his place among the stars. The more fiercely the man burned in life, the brighter his star will shine in the darkness.

Drogo burned particularly fierce in life, and so becomes a fiery steed, riding the night sky, burning brighter than any other. Dragon imagery.

When someone skinchanges they begin losing themselves to the animal's instincts. GRRM has Bloodraven describe this and demonstrates it when the children warg their wolves. For instance Bran can't even remember to mark a tree as Jojen bids him. A dragon is the fiercest of all animals and so the process would particularly blunt the humanity of the person taking it over. But there's still traces of Drogo in there, popping up over the series.

Drogon is of course named for him, shares his colouring by way of hair, has the strongest affinity with Dany and allows her to ride him and is the strongest, boldest alpha of the pack.

But more specifically, he exults at hearing Robert's death, the man who tried to assassinate his wife, which fuelled him to such anger he declared to invade and Westeros and among other savage things take the Iron Throne.

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"A gift of news. Dragonmother, Stormborn, I tell you true, Robert Baratheon is dead." 

Outside her walls, dusk was settling over Qarth, but a sun had risen in Dany's heart. "Dead?" she repeated. In her lap, black Drogon hissed, and pale smoke rose before her face like a veil. "You are certain? The Usurper is dead?"

 

He doesn't seem to like Irri fingering Dany.

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Dany knew her face was flushed, but in the darkness Irri surely could not tell. Wordless, the handmaid put a hand on her breast, then bent to take a nipple in her mouth. Her other hand drifted down across the soft curve of belly, through the mound of fine silvery-gold hair, and went to work between Dany's thighs. It was no more than a few moments until her legs twisted and her breasts heaved and her whole body shuddered. She screamed then. Or perhaps that was Drogon. Irri never said a thing, only curled back up and went back to sleep the instant the thing was done.

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"They have been wild while you were gone, Khaleesi," Irri told her. "Viserion clawed splinters from the door, do you see? And Drogon made to escape when the slaver men came to see them. When I grabbed his tail to hold him back, he turned and bit me." She showed Dany the marks of his teeth on her hand.

He fights against captivity more strongly than the other dragons, refusing to be taken captive like the other two two in the pyramids. Like a Khal he likes freedom, to roam, specifically he likes to roam the Dothraki sea.

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Drogon hunted far afield, but when he was sated he liked to bask in the sun at the apex of the Great Pyramid, where once the harpy of Meereen had stood. Thrice they had tried to take him there, and thrice they had failed. Two score of her bravest had risked themselves trying to capture him. Almost all had suffered burns, and four of them had died. The last she had seen of Drogon had been at sunset on the night of the third attempt. The black dragon had been flying north across the Skahazadhan toward the tall grasses of the Dothraki sea. He had not returned.

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Dany did not want to talk about the dragons. Farmers still came to her court with burned bones, complaining of missing sheep, though Drogon had not returned to the city. Some reported seeing him north of the river, above the grass of the Dothraki sea.

And free to make his home anywhere, he does so on the hill in the Dothraki Sea Dany calls Dragonstone.

There is one more component to all this, or thought to be another component anyway. For the sake of simplicity I've not yet mentioned it, but it seems a child sacrifice is required. Rhaego died too, the price Dany paid, that she apparently knew she had to. And Drogo is not technically her blood, but Rhaego is. Two kings to wake the dragon, the father first so the child dies a king.

This act of becoming the dragon is what the dragon has three heads refers to. The three heads are three characters that will become Drogon, three characters that will perform the act. Drogo is the first. And with the horn, Euron is going to become the second. And so this is the explanation for what Euron is doing and saying and a few of Dany's HOTU scenes. The third head is thought to be Jon but really Dany herself, it gets complicated so I'm not going to go there here.

Euron seems to have a gist of how this all works, not all of it I don't think but he's piecing it together. He knows he needs a child, and not just any child, he needs Dany's child. A heir for 'him' as he so cryptically puts it. A child with blood of the dragon is required. And when his horn blower died he seems to have come to the conclusion that he's going to have to either die or risk death to do this thing, to fly. Hence his metaphor, jumping out of a tower to fly, blowing the horn will be suicide like jumping out a tower, but he will become a dragon, if it works, he will fly.

It's why Euron is grouped with Drogo and Jon in the bride of fire visions. He is the mount to dread, as he will become Drogon and Dany will ride him, as Drogo is the mount to love, currently Drogon.

[The Twinslayer]

Interesting theory.

I thought you were going to say that Euron wants his brother, Victarion, to sound Dragonbinder, in the presence of Rhaegal or Viserion, thereby dying but binding one of those dragons to the Greyjoy family.  Then Euron could  become a dragonrider and his children could ride that dragon's offspring.  

[Curled Finger]

I gotta hand it to you, Man.  I was dubious about the topic and only bothered to read it because I know you are and intelligent and well read fan of the series.   See how right I was about that.    

Really nice.   Thanks for an entirely new take on the prophesy and a nicely detailed and cited explanation for a really difficult concept to explain.   

[Poupsi]

That's really interesting. What about the other two, Mirri Maz Duur and Viseris ?

[chrisdaw]

59 minutes ago, Poupsi said:

That's really interesting. What about the other two, Mirri Maz Duur and Viseris ?

Yeah probably Viserion and Rhaegal are Viserys and MMD. If Rhaego covers the blood bond requirement and Aegon is a Blackfyre descendant then the bond is there, if Tyrion is Aerys' then it's there also. And if you think about it, MMD to Rhaegal to Aegon fights against Dany in the dance, that's in keeping with MMD's feelings about Dany. And if Tyrion betrays Dany at some point, then he's too an antagonistic brother, in keeping with Viserys.

[Poupsi]

Just now, chrisdaw said:

Yeah probably Viserion and Rhaegal are Viserys and MMD. If Rhaego covers the blood bond requirement and Aegon is a Blackfyre descendant then the bond is there, if Tyrion is Aerys' then it's there also. And if you think about it, MMD to Rhaegal to Aegon fights against Dany in the dance, that's in keeping with MMD's feelings about Dany. And if Tyrion betrays Dany at some point, then he's too an antagonistic brother, in keeping with Viserys.

Wanna do a reread of AGOT now. Maybe MMD is Viserion and Viserys Rhaegal, that could be funny as well. Maybe Brown Ben is a relative to MMD and that is why the dragon likes him.

 

Considering your theory, you make a serious difference from the dragons of Valyria and those who hatched after the doom ?

[chrisdaw]

2 hours ago, Poupsi said:

Wanna do a reread of AGOT now. Maybe MMD is Viserion and Viserys Rhaegal, that could be funny as well. Maybe Brown Ben is a relative to MMD and that is why the dragon likes him.

 

Considering your theory, you make a serious difference from the dragons of Valyria and those who hatched after the doom ?

Viserion would Viserys, he's named for him and I believe it's after Viserys' death that Dany feels the cream egg is hot.

I'm not entirely sure what you mean by the second question. I think any dragon from an egg laid by a Targ dragon will have some affinity with the Targ blood line. If Dany's were Targ eggs or not we can't be sure, but it wouldn't matter for the theory as Dany created or recreated the blood bond with the death of Rhaego.

I also don't think any bloodline can do this. For example, I don't think the First Men bloodline will. Or, most importantly, Ironborn. That is its not going to work for Euron as he intends, he'll become the dragon, but the dragon won't stay pure, his Ironborn blood, Kraken blood, will turn Drogon into something else, a beast of multiple parts, dragon + Kraken, sea dragon. Likewise Arianne with her Rhoynar green blood will, when she burns brighter than any man, create a different beast. Sphinxes.