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Dragon birth order and the HotU prophecies


Isobel Harper

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I have discovered a possible new way to interpret the HotU prophecies.  (Who hasn't heard that a million times?)  I think the order of the prophecies might have to do with specific dragons, their riders, or both.  The order the prophecies are given relate to the order in which the dragons hatched on Drogo's pyre.

She heard a crack, the sound of shattering stone. The platform of wood and brush and grass began to shift and collapse in upon itself. Bits of burning wood slid down at her, and Dany was showered with ash and cinders. And something else came crashing down, bouncing and rolling, to land at her feet; a chunk of curved rock, pale and veined with gold, broken and smoking. The roaring filled the world, yet dimly through the fire fall Dany heard women shriek and children cry out in wonder.

Only death can pay for life.

And there came a second crack, loud and sharp as thunder, and the smoke stirred and whirled around her and the pyre shifted, the logs exploding as the fire touched their secret hearts. She heard the screams of frightened horses, and the voices of the Dothraki raised in shouts of fear and terror, and Ser Jorah calling her name and cursing. No, she wanted to shout to him, no, my good knight, do not fear for me. The fire is mine. I am Daenerys Stormborn, daughter of dragons, bride of dragons, mother of dragons, don't you see? Don't you SEE? With a belch of flame and smoke that reached thirty feet into the sky, the pyre collapsed and came down around her. Unafraid, Dany stepped forward into the firestorm, calling to her children.

The third crack was as loud and sharp as the breaking of the world.

When the fire died at last and the ground became cool enough to walk upon, Ser Jorah Mormont found her amidst the ashes, surrounded by blackened logs and bits of glowing ember and the burnt bones of man and woman and stallion. She was naked, covered with soot, her clothes turned to ash, her beautiful hair all crisped away … yet she was unhurt.

The cream-and-gold dragon was suckling at her left breast, the green-and-bronze at the right. Her arms cradled them close. The black-and-scarlet beast was draped across her shoulders, its long sinuous neck coiled under her chin. When it saw Jorah, it raised its head and looked at him with eyes as red as coals. AGoT, Daenerys X

In short, Viserion hatches first, Rhaegal second, and Drogon third.  The reader is also introduced to these dragons in that order for the first time.  Viserion, Rhaegal, then Drogon.

The HotU prophecies are three sets of three:

A. "Three fires must you light... one for life, one for death, and one to love." "Mother of dragons, daughter of death."

  1. Viserys Targaryen's gruesome death.
  2. A tall lord with copper-skin and silver-gold hair beneath a banner of a fiery stallion, with a burning city in the background (this may be a glimpse at what Rhaego's future would have been).
  3. A dying prince (likely Rhaegar Targaryen) mutters a woman's name with his last breath, rubies flying from his chest.

B. "Three mounts must you ride... one to bed, one to dread, and one to love."  "Mother of dragons, slayer of lies."

  1. A blue-eyed king who casts no shadow raises a red sword in his hand.
  2. A cloth dragon sways on poles amidst a cheering crowd.
  3. A great stone beast takes wing from a smoking tower, breathing shadows.

C. "Three treasons will you know... one for blood, one for gold, and one for love."  "Mother of dragons, bride of fire."

  1. Daenerys's silver trots through grass to a darkling stream under a sea of stars.
  2. A corpse standing at the prow of a ship with bright eyes and grey smiling lips.
  3. A blue flower growing from a chink in a wall of ice, filling the air with sweetness.

The 1st, 2nd, and 3rd in each of these series deals with Viserion, Rhaegal, and Drogon, respectively, and/or their dragonriders.

Viserion (1):

A. The "fire lit" for Viserion's life was Viserys; he was a blood sacrifice so that Viserion could hatch.  Daenerys even calls Viserion "Viserys' dragon."  "The cream-and-gold I call Viserion. Viserys was cruel and weak and frightened, yet he was my brother still. His dragon will do what he could not." ACoK, Daenerys I

B. The vision of (most likely) Stannis is part of the slayer of lies series.  Perhaps Viserion and/or his rider will kill Stannis?  I have a theory that either Jon Snow or Aurane Waters will ride Viserion.  Both men supported (albeit Jon in a passive way) Stannis. 

C. I don't know how Daenerys' silver relates to Viserion (or to anything else) in this series.  Maybe something to do with a wedding night?

Rhaegal (2):

A. Rhaego was a blood sacrifice so that Rhaegal to hatch.

B. The cloth dragon on poles has something to do with Aegon, I'm sure.  Unfortunately, I think it parallels to the vision of Rhaego:  It's something that could happen, but won't.  In short, I think Aegon's return may not be celebrated as he and his party is expecting. 

C. The corpse with the "grey smiling lips" is a Greyjoy.  A Greyjoy, probably Euron, will (at least per my theorizing) kill Aegon and take his dragon, Rhaegal.

Drogon (3):

A. This one is a little more cryptic.  The vision of Rhaegar is a nod back to the nightmare Daenerys has during her feverdream when Rhaego is born.  Basically, it hints that Daenerys will ride Drogon.

B. "Great stone beast breathing shadow fire."  Something to do with Drogon. Drogon is even called a beast when we are first introduced to him in AGoT, Daenerys X.  The cream-and-gold dragon was suckling at her left breast, the green-and-bronze at the right. Her arms cradled them close. The black-and-scarlet beast was draped across her shoulders, its long sinuous neck coiled under her chin. When it saw Jorah, it raised its head and looked at him with eyes as red as coals.

C. "The blue flower in the Wall" and "treason [she] will know" will have something to do with figuring out Jon's parentage.  That is, Ned hiding Jon's true identity was a betrayal.

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On 29/03/2017 at 2:16 PM, Isobel Harper said:

<snip>

Drogon (3):

A. This one is a little more cryptic.  The vision of Rhaegar is a nod back to the nightmare Daenerys has during her feverdream when Rhaego is born.  Basically, it hints that Daenerys will ride Drogon.

B. "Great stone beast breathing shadow fire."  Something to do with Drogon. Drogon is even called a beast when we are first introduced to him in AGoT, Daenerys X.  The cream-and-gold dragon was suckling at her left breast, the green-and-bronze at the right. Her arms cradled them close. The black-and-scarlet beast was draped across her shoulders, its long sinuous neck coiled under her chin. When it saw Jorah, it raised its head and looked at him with eyes as red as coals.

C. "The blue flower in the Wall" and "treason [she] will know" will have something to do with figuring out Jon's parentage.  That is, Ned hiding Jon's true identity was a betrayal.

3A. Is this the dream where she opens the visor of Rhaegar's helmet and sees her own face? That would work for me, because it shows Rhaegar and Dany have an important overlap of identity. This would make for a very tidy solution to the 'A' category, with the three unhatched dragons reaching out for the three Targs present: Viserion + Viserys, Rhaegal + Rhaego and Drogon + the 'Last Dragon'.

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The silver is important to the three mounts part. She rides the silver to bed, Drogon to dread, and ??? to love. 

Has anyone put all the triads together with that where the first thing always refers to something with Drogo or the Dothraki, the second to dragons/Drogon/her Essosi conquests, and the third to...things that will happen in Westeros maybe?

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9 hours ago, Springwatch said:

3A. Is this the dream where she opens the visor of Rhaegar's helmet and sees her own face? That would work for me, because it shows Rhaegar and Dany have an important overlap of identity. This would make for a very tidy solution to the 'A' category, with the three unhatched dragons reaching out for the three Targs present: Viserion + Viserys, Rhaegal + Rhaego and Drogon + the 'Last Dragon'.

Yeap, that's the dream.

1 hour ago, Lady Blizzardborn said:

The silver is important to the three mounts part. She rides the silver to bed, Drogon to dread, and ??? to love. 

Has anyone put all the triads together with that where the first thing always refers to something with Drogo or the Dothraki, the second to dragons/Drogon/her Essosi conquests, and the third to...things that will happen in Westeros maybe?

This is another way I interpret it.  1st Dothraki, 2nd Essosi, 3rd Westerosi. 

That would make the mummer's dragon Daenerys though, not Aegon.  However, I do predict that this vision may have something to do with her "slaying the lie" that she's dead.  That is, Essos will celebrate her death, only for her to return alive and well.

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2 minutes ago, Isobel Harper said:

Yeap, that's the dream.

This is another way I interpret it.  1st Dothraki, 2nd Essosi, 3rd Westerosi. 

That would make the mummer's dragon Daenerys though, not Aegon.  However, I do predict that this vision may have something to do with her "slaying the lie" that she's dead.  That is, Essos will celebrate her death, only for her to return alive and well.

But couldn't the mummer's dragon be a literal dragon on cloth poles that is used in the celebration of her death? Like they parade it through the streets and set it on fire or something? That would work well with slaying the lie of her being dead.

Another lie she could slay in Essos would be the Stallion Who Mounts the World being male. It wasn't Rhaego, it was Dany all along.

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1 minute ago, Lady Blizzardborn said:

But couldn't the mummer's dragon be a literal dragon on cloth poles that is used in the celebration of her death? Like they parade it through the streets and set it on fire or something? That would work well with slaying the lie of her being dead.

You mean like they kill Rhaegal or Viserion?  Or that they make a cloth dragon?  I've seriously considered the latter.  This is what I had in mind for the "Trojan's horse" a couple of years ago when I made this prediction.

6 minutes ago, Lady Blizzardborn said:

Another lie she could slay in Essos would be the Stallion Who Mounts the World being male. It wasn't Rhaego, it was Dany all along.

True... but the vision of Rhaego is not in the "slayer of lies" series. 

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4 minutes ago, Isobel Harper said:

You mean like they kill Rhaegal or Viserion?  Or that they make a cloth dragon?  I've seriously considered the latter.  This is what I had in mind for the "Trojan's horse" a couple of years ago when I made this prediction.

True... but the vision of Rhaego is not in the "slayer of lies" series. 

Yes the cloth dragon.

I got mixed up there with our mummers dragons and our lie slaying. Sorry about that.

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On 3/29/2017 at 9:16 AM, Isobel Harper said:

I have discovered a possible new way to interpret the HotU prophecies.  (Who hasn't heard that a million times?)  I think the order of the prophecies might have to do with specific dragons, their riders, or both.  The order the prophecies are given relate to the order in which the dragons hatched on Drogo's pyre.

 

That's one way to interpret the prophecies.  The dragon hatchings can be interpreted another way.  Rhaegar, Viserys, and Daenerys are the children of Aerys and Rhaella.  Rhaegar and Viserys failed.  Both are dead.  All that belonged to them, including Viserion and Rhaegal, now belong to their little sister, Daenerys.   What was theirs is now hers.  She inherited the lands, the banner, and the dragons of the Targaryen family.  She is the three headed dragon, the true heir to Westeros and the Valyrian Empire. 

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6 hours ago, Lady Blizzardborn said:

Has anyone put all the triads together with that where the first thing always refers to something with Drogo or the Dothraki, the second to dragons/Drogon/her Essosi conquests, and the third to...things that will happen in Westeros maybe?

I have made this : 

- first mount to bed = the silver mare

- 2nd to dread = Balerion ship, to accomplish Salver's bay conquest in fire and blood

- 3rd for love = Drogon who makes her escape Meereen and find again the Dothraki sea, where she knew her first love. 

The others part of the complexe follow same steps : 

- first fire for life : Drogo's pyre which gives life to dragons

- 2nd fire for death : the sack of Astapor (the real beginning of the conquest of the slaver's bay)

- 3rd fire to love : the tandem with Drogon, symbolized with the horse burnt that they eat together at the end of Dany's last chapter in ADWD

And the treasons : as Daenerys is the active part in the other triplets, and because the list of traitors (potentials/real) is very long, and finaly because Daenerys is a unreliable narrator, I considere that the most probable is that she is the traitor of this prophecy. So she commit 3 treasons : 

- once for blood : Viserys, whiped and humiliated in dothraki's sea before his death (even if Viserys is not an innocent man) : to confirm the treason, Dany, at the end of ADWD, "hallucinates" and ears him calling her traitor.

- once for gold : at Astapor, she betrays the masters by selling falsely Drogon to obtain all the Unsullied (she hasn't enough gold to pay them) : the chapter of the selling (in ASOS) shows that she is just playing a part, the part of the foolish valyrian princess to deceive the masters of Astapor. She betrays also Yunkaï by giving them a delay, but attacking the town before the end of the delay (and YunkaÏ - the yellow/golden city - pays her to go away. And she takes Meereen and its treasures by trickery. So the conquest of the Salver's bay corresponds to the treason for gold.

- once for love : at the end of ADWD, Daenerys betrays her meereenese children - her people - for her dragon Drogon. She had to choose between 2 children, 2 loves. Choosing one is betraying the other.

And so, she is really the Mother of dragons, and the Dragon.

 

The following visions explain, imo, the destiny of the Dragon : where does he come from (daughter of death), and for what he is reborn ("slayer of lies"), and which "alliance" he will make/which fire the Dragon must catch ("bride of fire"). In other word, what kind of tasks and steps the "promised prince(ss)" will accomplish : the "bride" and the "slayer" are probably in chronological order.^^

For me, Rhaegal and Viserion are kind of red herring : they won't survive and at least one will be stolen (and perhaps turned against his mother Dany at one point, and for me it could be Viserion the "traitor", who could "want" to finish what Viserys began at Vaes Dothrak, pointing his spade to Dany's belly : in this case, Viserion could kill Rhaegal)  

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I have a very different take on the HotU prophecy as a whole (IMO, it's about Dany's three literal human children) but one point I'd like to make:

On 3/29/2017 at 6:16 AM, Isobel Harper said:

A tall lord with copper-skin and silver-gold hair beneath a banner of a fiery stallion, with a burning city in the background (this may be a glimpse at what Rhaego's future would have been).

When this was first published, this appeared to be an allusion to Rhaego's possible future: what else would it be? But we hadn't been introduced to Aegon yet, and this could just as easily be him. The fiery stallion is Bittersteel's sigil, signifying the Golden Company. The vision shows us "Copper Skin" but not the almond-shaped eyes that would nail him down as Rhaego. And despite Dany's dream of Rhaego with silver hair, we have no reason to believe that he would look that way: light hair is a recessive trait, and we have no reason to believe that Drogo would carry a gene for light hair. And Dany is not, as far as we can tell, a prophet, so we have no reason to put any faith in her dream.

Just wanted to offer an alternative perspective.

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6 hours ago, GloubieBoulga said:

Rhaegal and Viserion are kind of red herring : they won't survive and at least one will be stolen (and perhaps turned against his mother Dany at one point, and for me it could be Viserion the "traitor", who could "want" to finish what Viserys began at Vaes Dothrak, pointing his spade to Dany's belly : in this case, Viserion could kill Rhaegal) 

I think there is a correspondence between the three dragon brothers and the three 'brothers' in the Prologue.

Gared, Will and Waymar correspond with Viserion, Rhaegal and Drogon respectively.

There are many parallels.  For example, we are introduced in the Prologue to the two 'brothers' who are always arguing, namely Gared and Waymar, with Will stuck in the middle.  Likewise, Dany notes that Viserion and Drogon are always fighting, with Rhaegal as the unpredictable 'wildcard' in the equation.  Although Gared is technically the eldest and most experienced ranger, the youngest brother Waymar is the leader, who despite being a 'green boy' wears the coveted black sable coat!  Likewise, despite Drogon being the youngest chronologically, he is the dominant dragon and wears the same resplendent black (and red) colors of Balerion the Dread, designating his privileged status in the power pecking order (his sable coat was his 'crowning glory'...).

I worked out the basic comparison with reference to your ( @GloubieBoulga) and @Crowfood's Daughter's discussion about the two feuding brothers with the third trickster figure.  According to Crowfood's grey-green schema, we can call these archetypes 'greybeard of Winter' (the eldest); 'greenboy of Summer' (the youngest or least experienced); leaving the third, the trickster, Puck or Hobgoblin figure, whom I associate with the colors red and black, so we can call this middle child the 'red-handed' or 'black-hearted' turncloak of Autumn/Fall or Spring, since he is caught between the other two, thus representing the 'turning' of the seasons from Winter into Summer and vice versa.  I discovered this idea when I noted that the 'grey-green' notation often occurs at liminal times, e.g. dusk and dawn, analogues for Fall and Spring respectively.  So the 'hyphen' in the compound color term represents this tricky brother!

Assuming the fates of the dragons correspond with that of the Night's Watch brothers, perhaps Rhaegal will betray the others, the way Will failed to call out a warning, leading to his brother's death.  (Will is associated with sorcery, so perhaps Euron will steal Rhaegal with the aid of a dragonbinder).  Rhaegal's betrayal will lead to Drogon's death, with Drogon returning as a wight -- an ice dragon -- to kill Rhaegal in revenge.  Viserion is the scapegoated brother, who will be executed on account of something the other two committed, in the same way Gared was beheaded, despite not really being central to the dramatic showdown in the wood  (he was watching the horses, supposedly!)  Once Drogon is wighted (he'll have one blue eye like the solitary blue flower growing out of the ice in the vision), Dany will lose control of him.  

At that point -- enter Bran -- only a greenseer who has experience with skinchanging ice 'giants' (;) Hodor and heart trees) will be able to 'ride' him.  His brother Jon parallels Bran-Drogon by becoming after his resurrection the figurative ice dragon 'riding the Wall' as @LynnS has recently suggested.  If the pattern of comparison to events in the Prologue holds true, Viserion like Gared will be the first dragon to arrive in Westeros proper -- thus accomplishing what his namesake Viserys never could, by coming home -- only to die unfortunately (this is GRRM we're talking about here, so happy endings are bittersweet!).  Rhaegal will die before arriving in Westeros.  Eventually, Drogon after being wighted will then cross the Wall circumventing the magical boundary by flying over it-- and best of all, Bran will 'leave' the cave.  Somehow Bran's body will be killed, leaving him stuck in Drogon (Summer will be dead by this time).  It's always been my contention that Bran's fate is tied to that of Drogon -- together they are the abominations -- the abominable giant and the abominable child --  the heroic antiheros who will ultimately do some good with their abominable gifts. The Drogon-Bran combo is a visual representation of the sword 'Ice'.  When Bran is skinchanging him and flying, that's like swinging Ice.  'The man who passes the sentence must swing the sword...'   As Dany is dying, wighted Drogon will return!  Perhaps Bran will take her along with them for the final ride to 'touch the comet' of which she always dreamed...(my 'Deep Impact Drogon' theory...at the point of impact with the comet, we will see a burning sword in the sky, Lightbringer...and that will be the 'sun rising in the west')  :)

ETA:  @LmL  The final sword will burn 'white'!!!

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1 minute ago, ravenous reader said:

I think there is a correspondence between the three dragon brothers and the three 'brothers' in the Prologue.

Gared, Will and Waymar correspond with Viserion, Rhaegal and Drogon respectively.

(...)

I will go for holidays tomorrow, so I make fast : I didn't have thought to this correspondance, but it seems at first sight making very good sense and I will looking at your different points. I add too that I just found yesterday another triad of the same type : Jaqen H'ghar, Rorge and Biter, that Arya saves from a pyre (the parallel with the birth of the 3 dragons out of their prison/stone egg seems obvious to me, now !), and each one plays a specific part : Rorge is a kind of leader (I used to see a symbolic evil avatar of king Robert, because he comes from the "underworld" of the Red Keep), Biter is his wild beast, his mute wolf (symbolic evil avatar of Ned Stark); and Jaqen with his red and white hair and as Facelessman is a skinchanger' and a greenseer's avatar, and represents the 3rd brother, who is feared and respected by the two others (and strangely, we have absolutely no information about why Rorge or Biter "respect" him : it is just like that). For me, all 3 are metaphores for the "Dragon's adversary" : perhaps the Dragon's needs 3 heads because the "adversary" had 3 heads too. That recall me Melisandre visions, when she sees BR and Bran with a wolf head, but think the 2 must only be servitors of the "Great Other" (that can be a mistake from Mel, the interesting thing is the triad evoked by a character which never speaks about three dragons nor triad in general). 

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