Do you believe Preston Jacobs' explanation for dragon riding?

[40 Thousand Skeletons]

So the basic argument I'm hearing now is, if you are unable to convince a majority of the people on the forum, you are wrong. Well since I don't subscribe to R+L=J and you all don't want to believe in time travel, I'm going to say that's total bull shit.

[Ferocious Veldt Roarer]

23 minutes ago, 40 Thousand Skeletons said:

So the basic argument I'm hearing now is, if you are unable to convince a majority of the people on the forum, you are wrong. Well since I don't subscribe to R+L=J and you all don't want to believe in time travel, I'm going to say that's total bull shit.

Yes, apparently this is the argument you're hearing. This is not the argument I'm making, mind you. It was "if it doesn't work on its own, and it doesn't work even if you try your darnedest to help it, if it collapses on its own no matter how many pegs and how much rope you use, and rips no matter how much duct tape you wrap around it, then it just doesn't work, period". I think I was quite clear, and the problem is therefore on your side.

And, forgive me, wasn't the point of this thread you attempting to convince us of something, not the other way around? Do you think it's going well?

[40 Thousand Skeletons]

2 minutes ago, Ferocious Veldt Roarer said:

Yes, apparently this is the argument you're hearing. This is not the argument I'm making, mind you. It was "if it doesn't work on its own, and it doesn't work even if you try your darnedest to help it, if it collapses on its own no matter how many pegs and how much rope you use, and rips no matter how much duct tape you wrap around it, then it just doesn't work, period". I think I was quite clear, and the problem is therefore on your side.

And, forgive me, wasn't the point of this thread you attempting to convince us of something, not the other way around? Do you think it's going well?

Actually I would be happy for people to convince me I am wrong about things, and then I would re-evaluate my theories. It certainly wouldn't be the first time that happened. I would also be pleased to convince other people that PJ is correct about dragon riding. I would be very happy with either scenario. But since you asked: No, I don't think it is going particularly well. On that we can probably agree. And you are forgiven.  

[Jon Ice-Eyes]

I actually like Preston Jacobs' videos... for the first 5 minutes or so. He is a very astute reader, and thinks really hard about small details that I have difficulty mining from GRRM's, shall we say, copious prose. After that, he goes all conspiracy-theory-logic, and the whole thing becomes comedic. 

So, dragon riding being matrilineal? Yeah! Cool! Good call. That would be awesome, and the evidence is not bad. That gene being related in some way to the warg gene? Hell yeah. I always thought that dragon riding might be related to 'riding' dire wolves. I mean, he used the same word for a reason. My understanding of genetics, like most people's -- probably including our beloved author -- doesn't really extend beyond Mendel's insights about dominant and recessive genes. So, the theory is plausible, but what does it give us? Some stuff about Bloodraven pruning the Targaryen family tree? Meh. 

I actually do advocate watching his videos. You just have to mentally delete all the crazy conspiracy bullshit afterwards. The Faceless Men video has some really awesome stuff about Braavosi politics and the FM doing some really sneaky shit. It's rad. And then all this crazy bullshit about assassinating Bloodraven. (Seriously what the fuck is with everyone having such a raging hard-on for Bloodraven?) So we forget the garbage parts and think about whether Braavosi politics helps make Arya's story more fun.

I mean, if we can't mentally edit out crappy parts of our media, what the hell are we doing being fans of GRRM? Quentin chapters anyone?

So, in summary, yeah, PJ is good. 60% of the time. 

[The Sleeper]

On 12/10/2016 at 7:54 PM, 40 Thousand Skeletons said:

Preston Jacobs: Genetics of War and Dragons

I basically stopped posting on this forum after becoming a Preston Jacobs convert, so to speak. His series on Targaryen genetics fully convinced me that he was at least right about why certain people can ride dragons (and others can't), and it made me respect him a lot more and give all his other videos a second chance. My conclusion was that PJ is correct about 95% of the time (as far as I can tell), and I feel like a fool for not listening to him sooner on so many things.

But for the sake of this topic, I just want to ask everyone, do you believe PJ's explanation for dragon riding? I recommend watching at least the first video in that playlist (link above), but I will summarize here: dragon riding ability is basically an X-chromosome linked genetic disorder. You need 1 "dragon-X" gene to ride a dragon, and 2 "Dragon-X" genes to hatch dragons (so only females can hatch dragons). Following simple Mendelian genetics, this means that male dragon riders have a 100% chance to pass along the ability to any daughters and a 0% chance to pass it on to sons. Female dragon riders with only a single "dragon-X" gene have a 50% chance to pass it on to any child, and female dragon hatchers with 2 "dragon-X" genes (like Rhaenyra) have a 100% chance to pass on the gene.

There is a ton of evidence for this, but I think the strongest point is that we have a character named Septon Barth who was focused on studying the breeding on dragons. GRRM seems to be alluding to Mendel, who was similarly a scientist monk who studied the breeding of peas. And "Barth's syndrome" is a real world X-chromosome linked genetic disorder.

What are your thoughts? I am curious what people think, especially if you have never heard this theory before.

No go. As Aegon the Unlikely is Dany's ultimate Targaryen ancestor she can't have two dragon hatching chromosomes, unless Betha Blackwood was a dragonrider herself.

Second, dragon eggs used to hatch both in the keep of male Targaryens and on their own.

I think that Martin has a mechanism in his head, but I'm pretty sure that he will never be explicit about it and that it will be about magic and drama rather than specific rules of genetics.

[40 Thousand Skeletons]

1 hour ago, The Sleeper said:

No go. As Aegon the Unlikely is Dany's ultimate Targaryen ancestor she can't have two dragon hatching chromosomes, unless Betha Blackwood was a dragonrider herself.

Second, dragon eggs used to hatch both in the keep of male Targaryens and on their own.

I think that Martin has a mechanism in his head, but I'm pretty sure that he will never be explicit about it and that it will be about magic and drama rather than specific rules of genetics.

Part of the whole point of the series is that since Blackwoods may have the Stark skinchanging gene, which may effectively be the same or similar to the dragon riding gene. Bloodraven himself is the main piece of evidence, since he is obviously a powerful greenseer. And dragon eggs used to hatch in their own? If that's true, I am not aware of it. Please post a quote from the text if that is in fact the case.

[40 Thousand Skeletons]

7 hours ago, Jon Ice-Eyes said:

I actually like Preston Jacobs' videos... for the first 5 minutes or so. He is a very astute reader, and thinks really hard about small details that I have difficulty mining from GRRM's, shall we say, copious prose. After that, he goes all conspiracy-theory-logic, and the whole thing becomes comedic. 

So, dragon riding being matrilineal? Yeah! Cool! Good call. That would be awesome, and the evidence is not bad. That gene being related in some way to the warg gene? Hell yeah. I always thought that dragon riding might be related to 'riding' dire wolves. I mean, he used the same word for a reason. My understanding of genetics, like most people's -- probably including our beloved author -- doesn't really extend beyond Mendel's insights about dominant and recessive genes. So, the theory is plausible, but what does it give us? Some stuff about Bloodraven pruning the Targaryen family tree? Meh. 

I actually do advocate watching his videos. You just have to mentally delete all the crazy conspiracy bullshit afterwards. The Faceless Men video has some really awesome stuff about Braavosi politics and the FM doing some really sneaky shit. It's rad. And then all this crazy bullshit about assassinating Bloodraven. (Seriously what the fuck is with everyone having such a raging hard-on for Bloodraven?) So we forget the garbage parts and think about whether Braavosi politics helps make Arya's story more fun.

I mean, if we can't mentally edit out crappy parts of our media, what the hell are we doing being fans of GRRM? Quentin chapters anyone?

So, in summary, yeah, PJ is good. 60% of the time. 

I feel you man. I used to have the exact same opinion of PJ. This particular series of his convinced me that he is not as crackpot as he seems and I had to go back and give all his videos another chance. His logic seemed to make way more sense the second time. I know this sounds kind of weird, but I think the problem PJ has is that he so quickly presents evidence and shits all over your notions of the story that your brain can't really keep up, and you conclude that he points out interesting things but his conclusions are nuts. At least, that was my experience.

What does it give us? Well in another thread I started that isn't going fantastic I talk about the master plan of the greenseers, who I think are puppet masters in the story, and all this shit with Egg and BR and their family are part of it. I'll post a link here once I post part 2, which will be directly relevant to this stuff.

[The Sleeper]

20 minutes ago, 40 Thousand Skeletons said:

Part of the whole point of the series is that since Blackwoods may have the Stark skinchanging gene, which may effectively be the same or similar to the dragon riding gene. Bloodraven himself is the main piece of evidence, since he is obviously a powerful greenseer. And dragon eggs used to hatch in their own? If that's true, I am not aware of it. Please post a quote from the text if that is in fact the case.

It's not a Stark skinchanging gene, it is a skill that appears among those who follow the old gods. It can't exclusively genetic as everyone in Westeros has First Men blood in them. It does however appear exclusively among those who follow the old gods. I think it has something to do with weirwoods. 

Bloodraven had both Targaryen and Blackwood blood and he never rode or hatced a dragon anyway, so his inclusion is moot in this regard.

Prior to the death of the dragons it was never mentioned that hatching the eggs required any particular process ajd as there were wild dragons both in Dragonstone and historically, obviously eggs could hatch without human intervention. Eggs also did hatch in the presence of male Targaryens which according to the reasoning of the OP should be impossible.

The most important thing, however is that Dany hatched dead fossilized eggs and she did it through blood sacrifice. 

So, to sum up. The premise is that a. Dragonriding and hatching dragon eggs are seperate particular skills b. That they are related somehow to skinchanging and c. That it is transmitted through the female line. If all three are true then Robb, Bran and Rickon, could not have possibly been skinchangers. If c is not true for skinchanging then Betha Blackwood could not have contributed to Dany being a dragonrider.

So, I don't see how the theory is either probable or relevant.

[Werthead]

Preston Jacobs has taken a very clever and astute attitude to ASoIaF fandom. He's a relative Jonny-come-lately who's realised that all the most logical, well-supported and best theorising was done many years ago, so he's taken the line of coming up with plausible theories (usually discussed or created by other people, many of them on this forum) and then spinning them out into elaborate, often insane tinfoil.

That in itself is fine. He makes money out of it, people like watching the videos so whatever. However, he's also appropriated other fans (and professional) artwork and not given credit for it. That is not cool or acceptable. He's also gotten into some very nasty flame wars and tried to get his followers to harrass and troll groups that have successfully called him out in the past rather than getting into any kind of debate. That is also not acceptable.

What really isn't acceptable, and certainly has not endeared him to any fans who know GRRM personally, is when he's tried to concoct elaborate theories by speculating on George's private life and responded to any argument where people point out how George has shot down his theory (often ten years before he came up with it) with "He's lying then,". That shit does not fly on this forum.

George put as much thought into the genetics of warging and dragon-riding as he did how hair colour is transmitted, how the Wall remains standing when it would need to by a pyramidcal shape or keel right over, or how the planet survived the Doom of Valyria when it should have buried half the world under ash and killed off most higher animal forms, or how anyone in a medieval-level society survives a mini ice age every couple of decades: Rule of Cool, "It's fantasy", "Genetics work differently in this world."

It's fine for fans to try to put together crazy theories based on whatever they like, but the second they start accusing the author of lying and deception, it becomes a problem.

[WilliamDhalgren]

Part of the whole point of the series is that since Blackwoods may have the Stark skinchanging gene, which may effectively be the same or similar to the dragon riding gene. Bloodraven himself is the main piece of evidence, since he is obviously a powerful greenseer. And dragon eggs used to hatch in their own? If that's true, I am not aware of it. Please post a quote from the text if that is in fact the case.

I was thinking about that Blackwood blood too recently. I wouldn't be at all surprised if one could reconstruct much of PJ's theory by starting from these postulates:

men with the dragonriding gene are dragonriders. Women with either exactly 2 copies or maybe both 1 and 2 copies (whatever works out best in the family tree) of the dragonriding gene are also just dragonriders. But women with one dragonriding gene and one other magical gene - perhaps Blackwood skinchanging gene, EDIT:and/or maybe some similar additional gene also carried over from old Valyria - (say maybe one that gives the targaryan 'prophetic' dreams?) /EDIT can hatch dragons.

If I'm thinking correctly, if such a family tree could be constructed (I haven't attempted yet), that would satisfy all my previous objections.

[kimim]

6 hours ago, 40 Thousand Skeletons said:

And dragon eggs used to hatch in their own? If that's true, I am not aware of it. Please post a quote from the text if that is in fact the case.

Here's a quote from Martin:

"There were dragons all over, once." http://www.westeros.org/Citadel/SSM/Entry/Dragons_in_Westeros/

From the World of Ice and Fire:

Quote

...there were dragons in Westeros, once, long before the Targaryens came, as our own legends and histories tell us. If dragons did first spring from the Fourteen Flames, they must have been spread across much of the known world before they were tamed. And, in fact, there is evidence for this, as dragon bones have been found as far north as Ib, and even in the jungles of Sothoryos. But the Valyrians harnessed and subjugated them as no one else could.

For there to be "dragons all over, once," and that "they must have been spread across much of the known world before they were tamed," then obviously they were able to hatch their eggs without female human intervention. I'm not even sure why this discussion is still going on.

[Lady Lia]

On 10/15/2016 at 6:24 PM, Ser Scott Malkinson said:

True, but it was also mentioned that many people who were not dragonseeds tried to tame a dragon that day. So far the evidence she must have been a dragonseed is that she managed to ride a dragon. And that is only said by people (both inside and outside the story) who assume only Targs are able to ride dragons. This is circular logic, so we cannot claim that only Targs can ride dragons, because we don't know if Nettles has Targ blood. Likewise, we cannot argue Nettles definitely has Targ blood, since it's not clear if only Targs can ride dragons. In my opinion, Nettles has been implanted by GRRM in the story to make us doubt these things, and therefore I think she is not a dragonseed (but I cannot really argue it, since we don't have enough evidence).

Well, the argument seems to have moved along since I posted this, but for anyone still interested:

You're completely correct, we have no independent information as to whether the dragonseeds (excluding Addam of Hull) had Targaryen ancestry. That's my point! We can't argue that they definitely did, and, conversely, we can't argue that they definitely didn't. Yet both the posters I replied to are taking it for granted that Nettles could not possibly have had the right genes - even the one who's otherwise trying his hardest to sell a genetic theory of dragonriding. So I'm curious as to 1) why they both seem to have ruled out the possibility of Nettles being a Targaryen descendent, and 2) why Nettles in particular, when Ulf and Hugh's ancestry is just as unknown?

[Lady Lia]

8 hours ago, The Sleeper said:

No go. As Aegon the Unlikely is Dany's ultimate Targaryen ancestor she can't have two dragon hatching chromosomes, unless Betha Blackwood was a dragonrider herself.

Sure she can. Men can pass X chromosomes to their daughters, so Dany could have one from Aerys and one from Rhaella, both having inherited it from their mother Shaera, who inherited it from Aegon.

(I don't consider the theory particularly likely, but this part of the genealogy works fine)

 

Edit: Wait, if the problem is that Aegon couldn't have had one, you're right.

[Protagoras]

Havn´t seen that many videos from him, but from the little I have seen I would say he is a perceptive reader who somehow ends up drawing very unlikely conclusions from the information he has gathered. I remember myself thinking several times "No, observation A doesnt lead to conclusion D and E but to conclusion B and C - how can you not see it!"

[Ser Duncan of Flea Bottom]

My friend, if I were you, I wouldn't lose the time discussing PJ videos here, most people, sadly, are not that receptive concerning his videos, many hate him because he doesn't accept R + L = J.

I am a fan of PJ too, but I realized this is not the place to discuss his videos

[Ferocious Veldt Roarer]

7 minutes ago, Shadow of Asshai said:

My friend, if I were you, I wouldn't lose the time discussing PJ videos here, most people, sadly, are not that receptive concerning his videos, many hate him because he doesn't accept R + L = J.

I am a fan of PJ too, but I realized this is not the place to discuss his videos

Yep, looks familiar. Preston Jacobs' theory gets presented for discussion, gets destroyed in an argument (because, let's be serious, they are not robust enough to withstand, like, a discussion), then, to save face, the defender concludes "Haters, man, they're all haters".

[WSmith84]

4 minutes ago, Shadow of Asshai said:

My friend, if I were you, I wouldn't lose the time discussing PJ videos here, most people, sadly, are not that receptive concerning his videos, many hate him because he doesn't accept R + L = J.

I am a fan of PJ too, but I realized this is not the place to discuss his videos

Actually, it's more the incredible leaps in logic he makes that are the problem. PJ's videos always seem to start out like this:

'OK, so we know that A=B and C is because of B...'

'Right, with you so far.'

'Now, did you ever notice the link between D and E?'

'Wow! How did I miss that? That's really interesting. Go on.'

'OK, now from B and E, we can infer that maybe F is true.'

'Hmm, seems possible.'

'Now, since F is the case-'

'Wait, what? It's possible, but nowhere near proven.'

'-then we can deduce that G, H and I are true too!'

'Wait, where did that come from?!'

'And since G is evidence for H and H is evidence for I, I is also evidence for F!'

'Yeah, I'm out.'

[Trigger Warning]

Always makes me smirk when PJ fans try to paint this board of all places as ignorant and un-receptive of theories and speculation. 

You can discuss his videos as much as you want, people disagreeing with you because they think he talks a load of bullshit =/= hate. 

There's 13 pages of discussion right here. Unless what you really mean is this isn't the place for an everyone agrees with no actual debate circle jerking echo chamber. 

To be honest, I'm not heavily into asoiaf theory crafting and speculation, I'm not too invested so I have no personal stake but PJ's stance on R+L=J always struck me as someone that set out to come up with something to go against the grain, rather than because he was genuinely not convinced or saw stronger evidence for something else. 

Basically just seems contrarian.

 

 

[The Sleeper]

2 hours ago, Lady Lia said:

Sure she can. Men can pass X chromosomes to their daughters, so Dany could have one from Aerys and one from Rhaella, both having inherited it from their mother Shaera, who inherited it from Aegon.

(I don't consider the theory particularly likely, but this part of the genealogy works fine)

 

Edit: Wait, if the problem is that Aegon couldn't have had one, you're right.

Oops, you're right. Aegon's one X could have been duplicated during the two generations of incest.

[Lady Lia]

20 hours ago, The Sleeper said:

Oops, you're right. Aegon's one X could have been duplicated during the two generations of incest.

However, Aegon himself couldn't have inherited Maekar's X, nor could Maekar have Daeron's. So either it was Betha's, as 40 Thousand Skeletons (and presumably Preston Jacobs?) seems to be saying, or Aegon inherited it from Dyanna Dayne. Which I suppose is not out of the question, Daynes being mysterious and purple-eyed and all.