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How might GRRM hint at people second lifing dragons?


chrisdaw

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If he were to do that and if that were the key to dragon riding here's how I think he might go about it without completely showing his cards before time.

He might begin in the first book with a character and emphasise his fierceness and fire for life. Like undefeated Khal Drogo. Then he'd associate colouring between the character and dragon he becomes. Black for his braid probably. And probably do some name association, like add a letter to the character's name to make the dragon's, like Drogo to Drogon. He'd make the dragon the biggest alpha dragon too like the character.

Now I suppose he'd have the character die about the time the dragon came into being, in fact in between then he might have the character exist in a lifeless form signifying the soul has left the body to go elsewhere. And he'd definitely have the character's body cremated.

But it couldn't come without a cost. So he'd need some sacrifice, besides the person himself that is. And he'll need some magic on hand to make it all happen. So he'd probably have his son die at the same time and have a blood magic practitioner on hand to set shit off. Like Rhaego and MMD.

Hmmmm, seems good, but maybe a bit abstract. He'd probably really want to ram the point home. So perhaps some dreams and ancient belief type shit to really fill it out.

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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.

Something like that would be good, fiery steed, really makes the connection.

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She could feel the heat inside her, a terrible burning in her womb. Her son was tall and proud, with Drogo's copper skin and her own silver-gold hair, violet eyes shaped like almonds. And he smiled for her and began to lift his hand toward hers, but when he opened his mouth the fire poured out. She saw his heart burning through his chest, and in an instant he was gone, consumed like a moth by a candle, turned to ash. She wept for her child, the promise of a sweet mouth on her breast, but her tears turned to steam as they touched her skin.

And something like that would really play up the sacrifice angle. And throwing in a dragon origin tale in Dany's POV that plays up the angle that the dragons are a result of Dany's and Drogo's coupling would help too.

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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."

The two Dothraki girls giggled and laughed. "You are foolish strawhead slave," Irri said. "Moon is no egg. Moon is god, woman wife of sun. It is known."

This would be good, using the sun and moon symbolism that Dany and Drogo refer to each other with.

As the story went on he'd have to keep things consistent and have the dragon display Drogo like behaviour. So when Dany learns King Robert is dead, the man who attempted to assassinate Drogo's wife and child setting him off on the epic rant promising vengeance, GRRM should have the dragon present and react to the news.
 

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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?"

And because Drogo was a Khal and roamed the Dothraki Sea the dragon him should also have some affinity with the Dothraki Sea.

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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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Some reported seeing him north of the river, above the grass of the Dothraki sea.

Maybe have it make a home on the Dothraki Sea somewhere and spend his time just roaming it. And because he was Dany's husband he could get the shits if perhaps a handmaiden were to finger her. Perhaps bite the bitch on the offending hand.

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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.

And of course he'd have to be the dragon Dany rides.

That'd cover off that angle, but to really push it he'd probably want to seed it throughout history, in legends and customs.

First off he'd have the dragon riders of history be adept with the sorcery it requires.

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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. The sorcerers of the Freehold could see across mountains, seas, and deserts with one of these glass candles. They could enter a man's dreams and give him visions, and speak to one another half a world apart, seated before their candles.

Have them claim to be kin to the dragons they ride, because they are.

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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.

As it is a blood bond between family and dragons he would play up the significance of the blood lines. Like make them inbreed and refer to their blood as dragon blood and themselves as dragons. And they could probably consider themselves gods, they are after all capable of cheating their mortal life and beginning a second as a super powerful being. It's ascendency basically.

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Some scholars have suggested that the dragonlords regarded all faiths as equally false, believing themselves to be more powerful than any god or goddess.

Perhaps link some of the knowledge passively to these dragonlords, like house words that conveys their sacrifice of blood for dragon's fire.

Have the basics loosely but incorrectly known to sorcerers. Alternate not quite correct interpretations, the details twisted in time.

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"Give me the boy, Your Grace. It is the surer way. The better way. Give me the boy and I shall wake the stone dragon."

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"Your brother's blood," Melisandre said. "A king's blood. Only a king's blood can wake the stone dragon."

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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.

Close but not quite. And a mad Targaryen somehow catching and letting loose his ancestral secret wouldn't go astray, he's mad anyway.

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The Targaryens never bury their dead, they burn them. Aerys meant to have the greatest funeral pyre of them all. Though if truth be told, I do not believe he truly expected to die. Like Aerion Brightfire before him, Aerys thought the fire would transform him . . . that he would rise again, reborn as a dragon, and turn all his enemies to ash.

But obviously GRRM wouldn't just have it happen the once at the start of the series and that be the end of it. It's a prime mystery, the central mystery even. So he'd have to have it come back around again at least one more time.

So he needs another character to second life a dragon, and having it occur by accident again is probably not going to cut it. A Targaryen blooded child's death, and parent or blood relative at least, in the presence of a dragon or egg, cremated bodies and a dose of magic on hand. All a bit much to have happen by luck, again. So he's going to need someone with a bit of a clue of the sorcery side of things, actually he's going to need a character with a fair few special traits.

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So Euron, he'd be the character of best fit.

A character plainly in possession come direct from the ruins of the dragonlord's city with magical knowledge which he takes effort to guard, the cutting out the tongues of his crewmen not the least of his efforts.

Now what he has to do is pretty crazy, he'd have to be pretty mad, so it'd wise to play that up, maybe make him the maddest character of all.

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"Balon was mad, Aeron is madder, and Euron is maddest of them all,"

Repeat that a few times.

He couldn't just come out and say his intentions, that'd give the secret away, having him talk in thinly veiled euphuisms would work. Flying for second lifing a dragon for instance. Jumping from a tall tower for sacrificing himself as he must, for suicide basically as it is commonly used anyway.

He'd have to be extremely motivated, such as it being a childhood dream.

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"When I was a boy, I dreamt that I could fly," he announced. "When I woke, I couldn't . . . or so the maester said. But what if he lied?"

Even then, the risk is great, it'd have to give him a moment's pause surely, to reflect on it as he came to understand what it's going to require.

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He laughed. "Cragorn's died, you know."

"Who?"

"The man who blew my dragon horn. When the maester cut him open, his lungs were charred as black as soot."

Euron turned to face him, his bruised blue lips curled in a half smile. "Perhaps we can fly. All of us. How will we ever know unless we leap from some tall tower?" The wind came gusting through the window and stirred his sable cloak. There was something obscene and disturbing about his nakedness. "No man ever truly knows what he can do unless he dares to leap."

Having a bloodmage on hand to make it all happen is doable, but rather inelegant. Perhaps the Valyrians could have distilled that messy tent of WTF process that MMD managed down into a more palatable form. A magical horn for instance.

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

One which takes care of the sacrifice angle and calls the dragon to second life to it, aptly named dragonbinder inscribed with the trade required to make the process. And of course Euron would come across this horn, streamlining the process.

Now if Euron is really cluey on all this, as it'd make sense he should be to fulfil this role, the he's going to need to understand the dragon blooded child sacrifice. And as Dany is the only full blooded dragonlord woman around, he should have a plan to get Dany and get a child on her. He's got understand he needs his own Targ child to sacrifice, a heir for him, him being the dragon he is to become, that a regular mutt of his won't do.

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Balon was mad, Aeron is madder, and Euron is maddest of them all. Victarion was turning to go when the Crow's Eye said, "A king must have a wife, to give him heirs. Brother, I have need of you. Will you go to Slaver's Bay and bring my love to me?"

I had a love once too. Victarion's hands coiled into fists, and a drop of blood fell to patter on the floor. I should beat you raw and red and feed you to the crabs, the same as I did her. "You have sons," he told his brother.

"Baseborn mongrels, born of whores and weepers."

"They are of your body."

"So are the contents of my chamber pot. None is fit to sit the Seastone Chair, much less the Iron Throne. No, to make an heir that's worthy of him, I need a different woman. When the kraken weds the dragon, brother, let all the world beware."

"What dragon?" said Victarion, frowning.

"The last of her line. They say she is the fairest woman in the world. Her hair is silver-gold, and her eyes are amethysts . . . but you need not take my word for it, brother. Go to Slaver's Bay, behold her beauty, and bring her back to me."

Something like that.

Besides being mad, he's going to have to be a pretty evil asshole to be willing to sacrifice his own child. Perhaps it'd even be worth working in some child sacrifice for magic as an appetiser, have him knock up some random wench and sacrifice her and baby.

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Spoiler

He beckoned, and two of his bastard sons dragged the woman forward and bound her to the prow on the other side of the figurehead. Naked as the mouthless maiden, her smooth belly just beginning to swell with the child she was carrying, her cheeks red with tears, she did not struggle as the boys tightened her bonds. Her hair hung down in front of her face, but Aeron knew her all the same.

 

Still it'd be a big leap. Huge, mad as Euron is, what if it didn't work? He'd just have killed himself for nothing. Perhaps he'd need a little more push to make it happen, some extra to get Euron over the line. Maybe . . . have him catch a terminal illness. If he's going to die anyway of this illness then why not take the plunge? Greyscale is on the way to Westeros thanks to JC, having him catch that would certainly make the jump easier. The living dead.

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mother of dragons, slayer of lies . . . Her silver was trotting through the grass, to a darkling stream beneath a sea of stars. A corpse stood at the prow of a ship, eyes bright in his dead face, grey lips smiling sadly. A blue flower grew from a chink in a wall of ice, and filled the air with sweetness. . . . mother of dragons, bride of fire . . .

That'd work I think. Could even name him after it in a fashion.

Should probably foreshadow it too, dreams, visions, the usual sort of stuff.

 
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Spoiler

Then Euron lifted a great horn to his lips and blew, and dragons and krakens and sphinxes came at his command and bowed before him. “Kneel, brother,” the Crow’s Eye commanded. “I am your king, I am your god. Worship me, and I will raise you up to be my priest.”

“Never. No godless man may sit the Seastone Chair!”

“Why would I want that hard black rock? Brother, look again and see where I am seated.”

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.

 

This sort of thing would work. Like the Valyrians, rising himself above the gods, his ascendency. But he's evil like they never were so he shouldn't just let the other gods, religions and followers be, he should rule over them all, kill them all, make everyone bow to him.

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Her silver was trotting through the grass, to a darkling stream beneath a sea of stars. A corpse stood at the prow of a ship, eyes bright in his dead face, grey lips smiling sadly. A blue flower grew from a chink in a wall of ice, and filled the air with sweetness. . . . mother of dragons, bride of fire . . .

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three mounts must you ride . . . one to bed and one to dread and one to love . . .

These work too. Grouping him with Drogo as he'll follow in Drogo's footsteps, a mount because that works on both levels, as Dany's bedmate to produce the child sacrifice and as the dragon that can be mounted.

But, there is an issue here relating to blood, and what the Euron come dragon would look like, what traits it would have, what it'd be. Drogo makes Drogon, his characteristics becoming the dragon's, so Euron would have to influence this newly made dragon. And Euron is vile, evil, poison, godless, mad, cold blooded and sea blooded. He's a kraken, he's of the sea. And I reckon GRRM should give him greyscale. So the dragon should take on all these traits . . . in fact it might not even look like a dragon.

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From a smoking tower, a great stone beast took wing, breathing shadow fire. . . .

Something like that. Euron all up in there, a kraken dragon, a beast, stone for its greyscaled blood. And the smoking tower is a good touch, like the tower Euron contemplates he has to throw himself off to complete the ritual, and he's got to burn so a smoking tower makes all the more sense. And shadow flame, false fire, as the sea water of the kraken's influence shouldn't allow the dragon to breathe fire.

Maybe some foreshadowing in Euron's culture too.

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The deeds attributed to the Grey King by the priests and singers of the Iron Islands are many and marvelous. It was the Grey King who brought fire to the earth by taunting the Storm God until he lashed down with a thunderbolt, setting a tree ablaze.

A legend of the Iron Islands, a grey king tricking the stormgod to give him fire. For greyscale Euron tricking the Stormborn to giving him a dragon.

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Nagga had been the first sea dragon, the mightiest ever to rise from the waves. She fed on krakens and leviathans and drowned whole islands in her wrath, yet the Grey King had slain her and the Drowned God had changed her bones to stone so that men might never cease to wonder at the courage of the first of kings. Nagga's ribs became the beams and pillars of his longhall, just as her jaws became his throne. For a thousand years and seven he reigned here,

And a grey king defeating a dragon, it becoming stone and making his home literally inside of it, ruling from it for an immortal lifespan. That one might be a bit too obvious.

Side Note: Euron is not going to actually succeed at this with Dany, but he will with the next best source of Targ blooded womb, Arianne. But that's a complication not necessary to this topic.

GRRM might then want to seed the idea of a second life. Perhaps dedicating a whole prologue to it might be a bit much, but I suppose we are getting close to the point of reveal. Best to start on a smaller scale. Definitely he could explore it in Bran, like in trees and birds, and have BR and the COTF explain it.

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I like the idea of "second lifing" dragons through human sacrifice as the way that the Valyrians tamed dragons.  I also like the way that you presented these ideas.  By this logic, which dragon is Dany?  She obviously sacrificed herself as well in the pyre, wouldn't she then also second life one of the dragons?  Or is it a third party sacrifice type of deal?  Like I sacrifice myself to second - life a dragon so that one of my heirs will ride the dragon that I become?  

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Could all the foreshadowing be for Jon to second life as a symbolic dragon, realizing his true heritage after being resurrected and embracing his targ side? Or do you believe this all points exclusively to a warg second living as an actual dragon?

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9 hours ago, No one is here said:

I like the idea of "second lifing" dragons through human sacrifice as the way that the Valyrians tamed dragons.  I also like the way that you presented these ideas.  By this logic, which dragon is Dany?  She obviously sacrificed herself as well in the pyre, wouldn't she then also second life one of the dragons?  Or is it a third party sacrifice type of deal?  Like I sacrifice myself to second - life a dragon so that one of my heirs will ride the dragon that I become?  

Dany's not a dragon, not yet. She came very close during her labour/fever dream but didn't die. I'm positive on this because she is going to become one, that's where the ending is headed and I plan to edit that in above.

The fire-proof instance I think is because it's a bit of a two-way street, it's not an exact science and some cross contamination is occurring. The sacrificial child enters the dragon too but seems to get a bit of dragon back in the process, or at least it can on occasion, hence the dragon defect births. Rhaego's heart seemed to burn out his chest and he had other dragon characteristics, so he got a bit of dragon back in the process, and it happened while he was in Dany's womb so Dany picked up a bit of it too. Probably in the blood.

The deal is the child does or can end up in the dragon as well as the adult. I think this because Dany is going to join them and that's what the three heads are, Dany, her love Drogo and their son, living together as one within the dragon. The scene the TV show substituted for her HOTU visions. I think the dragons the people become know their human family by blood, and if they're so inclined may become docile enough towards that human to allow them to ride. I don't think it has to be a specific relationship other than family by blood, and the rest is down to personality. And that the blood connection persists down generations of both the dragons and the humans, though obviously it's going to get more diluted over multiple generations without inbreeding, at which point they'd probably need to redo a sacrifice to restrengthen the blood bond.

To elaborate a little more on Dany's fire proof instance, I think the key here to what the Valyrians did that no-one else could relates to fire survival. While Euron and Jon are skinchangers I don't think Drogo was or that all Valyrians were. The second life process doesn't require one to be a skinchanger, the blood magic is what probably allows a person to slip their dying skin and enter another. But, the concept of skinchanging and second lifing is not completely unknown. Varamyr knew it and did it, Bloodraven and the COTF know it (the bird scene with Bran), and I think it's quite obvious by some lines in the texts that in Asshai they know about second lifing too and are experimenting with it. So the question becomes why didn't anyone else other than a few Valyrian dragonlords do it with dragons? I think the answer is in the rhetoric about dragons being fire made flesh and the dragon's fiery heart. A dragon can be skin changed or second lifed same as anything else, only inside the dragon is fire and its too hot to survive. Their souls just burn up. And that's what the Valyrians did that no-one else managed, they worked out how to survive the fire. I think it's possible we'll get a scene where one of our POV skinchangers tries to skinchange a dragon, gets inside, then starts thinking it's hot, too hot, I'm going to die, and then nope it out of there.

It may also be a similar situation with Krakens and/or sealife and the Iron Islanders and/or Greyjoys. That they can survive, breathe, live underwater where no ordinary person can.

8 hours ago, Aegon VII said:

Could all the foreshadowing be for Jon to second life as a symbolic dragon, realizing his true heritage after being resurrected and embracing his targ side? Or do you believe this all points exclusively to a warg second living as an actual dragon?

General foreshadowing for Jon and dragons is about his father/blood/kingship.

The specific visions Dany have about Jon are about second lifing a dragon. But more than Jon it's about sacrificing the child, it's all about bringing Dany to the point of believing that to save the world she's going to have to have Jon's child and she's going to have to sacrifice it. And the whole "what is one bastard's life vs the realm" thing lands on Jon's shoulders when he has to decide if he's going to let her do it.

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