Jon v Dany, Stark v Targaryen

[chrisdaw]

There is a running theme in both the arcs of Dany and Jon and the ideology of their houses that is set to pit the wills of each against the other. Now, they're not going to war for the throne, but in the end it will come to swords.

House Stark is characterised by Ned. Yes every Stark has historically not been a Ned, but as the reader knows it and most importantly as Jon knows it, the name Stark means what Ned made it mean. That is honour, duty, yada yada, but specifically, Ned's thinking manifested itself repeatedly in a particular way. Ned Stark holds above all else, including his life and his honour, the safety of innocent children.

There is first of all Jon. Ned committed treason and betrayed the truth to his friend to keep Jon safe. He lied. Then there are his own children. Ned would give his life easily rather than play out the lie of confessing to treason, but when the safety of his children are at stake he relents and confesses. Now Ned has personal relationships with these characters, but with the third he does not. He refuses to partake in the attempted assassination of Dany, abandoning his position, king, friendship and perhaps putting at risk the safety of his house and the future safety of the realm. Its a hard and fast rule, of which everything else sits below.

Fast forward to Jon. Similar situations have crept up in Jon's arc, and he has in every instance acted in a manner consistent with Ned. He refused to execute Ygritte and he refused to execute the old man by the fire. Not children, but the principle is close enough. And then there is the baby swap. In defiance of his king, Jon acts to ensure no child will be sacrificed to the flames, disregarding prophesy and possible salvation.

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"and better men than Stannis have done worse things than this." The king can be harsh and unforgiving, aye, but a babe still on the breast? Only a monster would give a living child to the flames.

Monster is important.

On the Dany side of things the pendulum swings the other way.

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Dany turned to the godswife. "You warned me that only death could pay for life. I thought you meant the horse."

"No," Mirri Maz Duur said. "That was a lie you told yourself. You knew the price."

Had she? Had she? If I look back I am lost. "The price was paid," Dany said. "The horse, my child, Quaro and Qotho, Haggo and Cohollo. The price was paid and paid and paid." She rose from her cushions. "Where is Khal Drogo? Show him to me, godswife, maegi, bloodmage, whatever you are. Show me Khal Drogo. Show me what I bought with my son's life."

Had she known the cost? She does not deny it, not aloud and not to herself.

She did not buy back Khal Drogo's life with her son's though, she bought her dragons. That is made clear by MMD's line that only death can pay for life, by Dany's dream of waking the dragon and in her HOTU vision.

Later, Drogon kills Hazzea.

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"Pets?" screeched Reznak. "Monsters, rather. Monsters that feed on children. We cannot—"

"Silence," said Daenerys. "We will not speak of that."

 

The dragons are monsters that feed on children. Again, the cost of the dragons, is dead children. And at this point, Dany is not willing to pay that price, she chains the two and unsuccessfully tries to chain Drogon.

 

After this Quaithe appears to Dany, subtly questioning her path, if she remembers who she is.

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"Daenerys. Remember the Undying. Remember who you are."

"The blood of the dragon." But my dragons are roaring in the darkness.

 

A Targaryen saying, the blood of the dragon. She is a Targaryen but she has chained her dragons, they roar in the darkness. This is not a Targaryen act.

 

Rhaego, Dany's son, her blood, died, and for it Dany got not only dragons, but a dragon she can ride. It is not much of an assumption that this is the way Valyrian families including Targaryen's came to be able to ride dragons in the first place. That this was the first time this has ever happened is really more of an assumption.

 

That the Targaryen's practiced blood magic is taken for fact in TWOIAF.

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Art and music flourished in the cities of the Rhoyne, and it is said their people had their own magic—a water magic very different from the sorceries of Valyria, which were woven of blood and fire.

And Marwyn in the series.

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"What feeds the flame?" asked Sam.

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

When Dany's son dies its apparently a result of Blood Maegi MMD's ritual. Blood magic.

The magic Valyrian dragon horn.

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

Blood for fire, whoever sounds the horn dies.

Blood magic is basically magic fuelled by sacrifice, and it is the Valyrian way, and thus the Targaryen way. The cost of their power, as Dany paid. Blood of the dragon, fire and blood.

Set on the course by Quaithe, at the end of ADWD Dany creates her own conversations with imaginary Quaithe and Jorah and brings herself to a conclusion.

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"It is such a long way," she complained. "I was tired, Jorah. I was weary of war. I wanted to rest, to laugh, to plant trees and see them grow. I am only a young girl."

No. You are the blood of the dragon. The whispering was growing fainter, as if Ser Jorah were falling farther behind. Dragons plant no trees. Remember that. Remember who you are, what you were made to be. Remember your words.

"Fire and Blood," Daenerys told the swaying grass.

The ways of House Targaryen are her ways, she is fire and blood. The floppy ears are set to come off and the monsters set free, in more way than one.

 

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What have I done? she thought, huddled in her empty bed. I have waited so long for him to come back, and I send him away. "He would make a monster of me," she whispered, "a butcher queen." But then she thought of Drogon far away, and the dragons in the pit. There is blood on my hands too, and on my heart. We are not so different, Daario and I. We are both monsters.

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Mother of dragons, Daenerys thought. Mother of monsters. What have I unleashed upon the world? A queen I am, but my throne is made of burned bones, and it rests on quicksand. Without dragons, how could she hope to hold Meereen, much less win back Westeros? I am the blood of the dragon, she thought. If they are monsters, so am I.

Switching back to Jon, there is one occasion on which he lets go this idea of sacrifice, of child sacrifice even. Craster.

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"He's of my village. You know nothing, Jon Snow. A true man steals a woman from afar, t' strengthen the clan. Women who bed brothers or fathers or clan kin offend the gods, and are cursed with weak and sickly children. Even monsters."

"Craster weds his daughters," Jon pointed out.

A monster. Incest, another Targaryen practice, a cost to keep the blood of the dragon pure.

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She punched him again. "Craster's more your kind than ours. His father was a crow who stole a woman out of Whitetree village, but after he had her he flew back t' his Wall. She went t' Castle Black once t' show the crow his son, but the brothers blew their horns and run her off. Craster's blood is black, and he bears a heavy curse." She ran her fingers lightly across his stomach. "I feared you'd do the same once. Fly back to the Wall. You never knew what t' do after you stole me."

But Craster is more Jon's kind than an other. Like Targaryen's are more Jon's kind than an other. And what does Craster do? Practices incest and child sacrifice. Targ practices.

Jon lets it go, but there are good reasons for this. It's ultimately not his decision, he does not command, and outside the wall is not his or the NW's place to do justice. Even so, if it were up to Jon, I don't think it would have gone this way.

Back to the first monster quote and its context.

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Burning dead children had ceased to trouble Jon Snow; live ones were another matter. Two kings to wake the dragon. The father first and then the son, so both die kings. The words had been murmured by one of the queen's men as Maester Aemon had cleaned his wounds. Jon had tried to dismiss them as his fever talking. Aemon had demurred. "There is power in a king's blood," the old maester had warned, "and better men than Stannis have done worse things than this." The king can be harsh and unforgiving, aye, but a babe still on the breast? Only a monster would give a living child to the flames.

The sacrifice is proposed to save the world. A situation similar to that faced in the greatest of prophesies.

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"Burnt," said Salladhor Saan, "and be glad of that, my friend. Do you know the tale of the forging of Lightbringer? I shall tell it to you. It was a time when darkness lay heavy on the world. To oppose it, the hero must have a hero's blade, oh, like none that had ever been. And so for thirty days and thirty nights Azor Ahai labored sleepless in the temple, forging a blade in the sacred fires. Heat and hammer and fold, heat and hammer and fold, oh, yes, until the sword was done. Yet when he plunged it into water to temper the steel it burst asunder.

"Being a hero, it was not for him to shrug and go in search of excellent grapes such as these, so again he began. The second time it took him fifty days and fifty nights, and this sword seemed even finer than the first. Azor Ahai captured a lion, to temper the blade by plunging it through the beast's red heart, but once more the steel shattered and split. Great was his woe and great was his sorrow then, for he knew what he must do.

"A hundred days and a hundred nights he labored on the third blade, and as it glowed white-hot in the sacred fires, he summoned his wife. 'Nissa Nissa,' he said to her, for that was her name, 'bare your breast, and know that I love you best of all that is in this world.' She did this thing, why I cannot say, and Azor Ahai thrust the smoking sword through her living heart. It is said that her cry of anguish and ecstasy left a crack across the face of the moon, but her blood and her soul and her strength and her courage all went into the steel. Such is the tale of the forging of Lightbringer, the Red Sword of Heroes.

A sacrifice must be made to save the world. AA knew what was required, the sacrifice he must make, and did it.

It is all headed to a clash between Dany and Jon, the Targ and Stark way. Dany is Targaryen, no questions asked, fire and blood, blood of the dragon. With the world in the balance she will be willing to make the sacrifice, she already has once.

Jon, well he's Stark and Targaryen. Will he be willing to make the sacrifice? Put to bed the Ned way and embrace the way of his real father?

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He is not my father. The thought leapt unbidden to Jon's mind. Lord Eddard Stark is my father. I will not forget him, no matter how many swords they give me. Yet he could scarcely tell Lord Mormont that it was another man's sword he dreamt of …

Not a chance.

And so this will be what Jon and Dany come to swords over. It won't be armies, it'll be intimate, possibly seven against three. Dany will race to make the sacrifice she believes will save the world behind the protection of those who have such faith in her they'll defend her attempting to do that which seems so evil. And Jon will race to stop her, because that's what Ned would do.

[Julia H.]

A very compelling OP. The question of sacrificing innocents for the "greater good" is certainly a strong motif in the novels. I can totally imagine that the final "battle" (literal or not) comes down to simple "good versus bad" (and what is meant by it) between humans rather than between fantasy monsters and humans.

The life of one bastard boy against a kingdom...

Sacrificing others (Azor Ahai) versus self-sacrifice - another strong motif.