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Dany, Dragonblood, and the Restoration of House Targaryen


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On 30.7.2017 at 4:14 PM, Lord Varys said:

If Maegor had only come to Dragonstone for the funeral Prince Aegon had had more than enough time to try to claim Balerion. And even Maegor seems to have taken his time - the first time he is mentioned as a dragonrider is when he shows up with Balerion in the Vale, following the rebellion of Jonos the Kinslayer.

 

In respect to Aemond's claiming of Vhagar it has been mentioned that dragons are particularly ill-tempered and dangerous after losing their riders - maybe it was even more so for Balerion? Or maybe Maegor took his time to learn what there is to learn about dragon-riding? Here is to hoping that we learn more from "Sons of the Dragon" in October.

 

On 30.7.2017 at 4:14 PM, Lord Varys said:

Aenys' children most likely didn't get any eggs. They were given living hatchlings, like Aenys was and Maegor was allowed to pick and refused.

 

And this is another thing that I'd very much like to know - how and why did Targaryens transit from claiming hatchlings to hatching eggs themselves? Does this deeped the bond in some way, perhaps? Frankly, this always seemed odd to me - because wouldn't dragon eggs need heat to gestate? Dany's instincts re: her eggs in AGoT, as well as the fact that dragons nest around volcanoes both seem to suggest so. Yet in TPaTQ Targaryen kids just dragged their eggs around  and most of them still hatched?

 

On 30.7.2017 at 4:14 PM, Lord Varys said:

It is somewhat exceptional but certainly not unheard of. Nobody makes a fuzz about Laena claiming Vhagar at an early age, either.

 

Well, we don't know when she claimed Vhagar - could have been shortly before she is mentioned in the TPaTQ/tWoIaF as a rider, i.e. at 12.

 

On 30.7.2017 at 4:14 PM, Lord Varys said:

 It seems that Stormcloud was simply not big enough to be mounted in 129 AC. Combined with Aegon's general temperament (the boy seems to have been always somewhat timid) it is understandable why he isn't a dragonrider at the age of nine, just as it makes sense that Jaehaerys and Jaehaera haven't yet mounted their dragons at the age of six.

 

 Wasn't it also mentioned that Joffrey hadn't been a rider for very long either, even though his dragon hatched when he was  3?

 

On 30.7.2017 at 4:14 PM, Lord Varys said:

One assumes they lived in those hatcheries around the citadel and were fed and cleaned there, roaming the island and the seas whenever they would. Unlike the wild dragons they were not accustomed to/forced to hunt their own food, and were thus not exactly a danger for the people of Dragonstone.

I'd hope so for their sake and for plausibility, since even with magical creatures like dragons, spending  a decade or more chained  should have  made it impossible for them to fly again. KL dragons were kept chained in Dragonpit, though.

 

On 30.7.2017 at 4:14 PM, Lord Varys said:

The idea that they were closed stables and the like on Dragonstone doesn't sound very likely to me.

 

They did have stables on Driftmark, though, and Vhagar was kept chained there after Laena's death... Possibly only until she calmed down after her bereavement, but we don't know that for sure. 

 

On 30.7.2017 at 4:14 PM, Lord Varys said:

Yeah, that is odd. But it is just as odd that Rhaenyra and Daemon left Baela and Moondancer on Dragonstone. What was the point of that?

 

Weren't they guarding the homestead? Maybe also a variant of "there (must) should be a Targaryen on Dragonstone (if possible)? 

 

On 30.7.2017 at 4:14 PM, Lord Varys said:

Rhaenyra was pretty protective of her children, so there may be something to that, whether those fears were justified or not.

See, I don't find the whole "overprotective mother" thing a satisfying explanation. GRRM has been in the habit of overusing it. Lysa, Cersei, now Rhaenyra - though, frankly, it could be argued that it was mostly  the chronicler's  slant. Her sons all received the usual Westerosi noble training (which is somewhat risky) and were scrappy kids, not at all coddled. She seemed pretty sensible to me until the betrayers turned on her.

And, thankfully, D&E  mostly shows the machismo of needlessly taking young boys onto a battlefield for the stupid and  destructive thing it is. Sometimes, there is little choice, of course, but Rhaenyra holding Joffrey and his young, small, vulnerable dragon back wasn't wrong until the riots in KL. And even then, the greater mistake was that she froze herself. It was on her to do something, not on her young son. Frankly, that's my biggest problem with Rhaenyra's character - that she seemingly never took direct action herself, even though as a female claimant she really needed to prove herself to the realm as a  leader and had a big dragon at her disposal. Yes, there were reasons to hold back - not the least of which being that her faction's claim would have crumbled without her, but letting Daemon take on too much of the mantle of active field leadership caused it's own problems and made people wonder who'd really rule if Black cause won and encouraged the Betrayers to discount her. 

But besides all that _Daemon_ wasn't over-protective and it makes no sense that he didn't insist on his daughter(s) claiming the bigger dragons - or at least Seasmoke, if there was indeed some decree that J&A's dragons shouldn't be claimed again, if there was no danger and maybe even at least one of his sons being left free to do so when they were older.

 

On 30.7.2017 at 4:14 PM, Lord Varys said:

Both she and Aegon were pawns of Alicent's and Otto's.

 

I don't buy the depiction of Aegon as an innocent in all of this, as he is often shown as very antagonistic to Rhaenyra and her sons prior to his father's death. Those weren't the actions of somebody who expected Rhaenyra to ever become his ruler. IMHO sympathetic chroniclers have been at work there. But Helaena absolutely was a pawn, who seemingly had no input in anything, despite being a rider of a big dragon. There are even hints that she was more sympathetic to Rhaenyra than her brothers, but she just never _did_ anything.

 

On 30.7.2017 at 4:14 PM, Lord Varys said:

Yes, but that was later, when Aemond was ten. Rhaenyra's boys and Daeron already had their eggs/dragons by then.

Sure, but since there were hatchlings, there would have also been eggs before they hatched, no?

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On 7/30/2017 at 3:17 AM, Damon_Tor said:

I'd like to note that dragons stopped hatching shortly after house Lothston took Harrenhall and began hatching again after house Whent (almost certainly descended from house Lothston based on their heraldry and known history) was evicted from Harrenhall during the War of the Five Kings. It supports the idea that Harrenhall (when ruled by someone with a particular bloodline) was designed to emit a sort of "anti-magic" effect. It's why Aegon's landing occurred on the very day it was finished; not a coincidence. Interesting note: the Stark kids are Whent descendants. Baelish is lord of Harrenhall. Makes it a bit more clear where the story is going with Sansa, whose plot otherwise seems somewhat pointless as the novels move into more mythic themes and away from political intrigue.

 

  This is really interesting! Do you have quotes to show these dates as aligning?

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2 hours ago, Regular John Umber said:

 

  This is really interesting! Do you have quotes to show these dates as aligning?

Their extinction:

Quote

Ser Lucas Lothston—master-at-arms at the Red Keep—was given the seat as a gift from King Aegon III in 151 AC. Newly wed to the Lady Falena Stokeworth, following the scandal of her relations with Prince Aegon, the future Aegon the Unworthy, Lothston soon departed court with his bride.

-The World of Ice & Fire, The Riverlands: The Lords of Harrenhall

Quote

Yet Aegon III will always be remembered as the Dragonbane, for the last Targaryen dragon died during his reign in the year 153 AC.

-The World of Ice & Fire, The Targaryen Kings: Aegon III

Their rebirth:

Quote

“Your father and I have been marching on each in turn,” Ser Kevan said. “With Lord Blackwood gone, Raventree fell at once, and Lady Whent yielded Harrenhal for want of men to defend it.

-A Game of Thrones, Tyrion VII

Of course Daenerys hatches her dragons in the last chapter of A Game of Thrones.

Unfortunately we don't have a date for the hatching of the last dragon only her death, but since she lived long enough to lay a clutch of her own eggs I think it stands to reason she hatched before House Lothston took up residence in Harrenhal: I don't think a dragon lays eggs before her second birthday.

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8 hours ago, Maia said:

In respect to Aemond's claiming of Vhagar it has been mentioned that dragons are particularly ill-tempered and dangerous after losing their riders - maybe it was even more so for Balerion? Or maybe Maegor took his time to learn what there is to learn about dragon-riding? Here is to hoping that we learn more from "Sons of the Dragon" in October.

I've checked that again, but this is also where it is mentioned that Helaena already was a dragonrider in 120 AC. She had claimed a rather old and huge dragon by the age of eleven, too. Most likely some years back, actually, just as with Laena and Vhagar.

And by the way, Laenor and Laena really seem to have been Targaryens in all but name. Laenor was cremated on Driftmark and the entire royal family/court attended the funeral.

We should get nothing new about the claiming of Balerion in TSotD. Him showing up on Balerion in the Vale is written as a surprise. Maegor is there for the Conqueror's funeral (speaking the eulogy) and he does Aenys I homage on Dragonstone and perhaps in KL on the Iron Throne, too, receiving Blackfyre as a gift and the promise that he has never to kneel to his royal brother again. But he doesn't seem to accompany the royal progress to Oldtown during which (presumably on the way back via Lannisport) they receive word at Riverrun about the rebellion of Harren the Red, etc. Maegor would have set out for the Vale from KL or Dragonstone, presumably.

8 hours ago, Maia said:

And this is another thing that I'd very much like to know - how and why did Targaryens transit from claiming hatchlings to hatching eggs themselves? Does this deeped the bond in some way, perhaps? Frankly, this always seemed odd to me - because wouldn't dragon eggs need heat to gestate? Dany's instincts re: her eggs in AGoT, as well as the fact that dragons nest around volcanoes both seem to suggest so. Yet in TPaTQ Targaryen kids just dragged their eggs around  and most of them still hatched?

I guess that transition is likely to occur during the reign of Jaehaerys I. Hopefully George elaborates on that. Perhaps one of his children is actually killed by a dragon he or she tries to claim? But it would only make sense if such an accident involved a hatchling not a grown-up dragon. After all, those are still claimed later on by younger Targaryens.

How it is that dragon eggs just hatch when they are around Targaryens is completely unclear. But one assumes that a dragon mother actually sits on her eggs and provides them with warmth, etc.

8 hours ago, Maia said:

Well, we don't know when she claimed Vhagar - could have been shortly before she is mentioned in the TPaTQ/tWoIaF as a rider, i.e. at 12.

Do you really see such a great difference between a 12-year-old and a 10-year-old? In relation to a beast the size of Vhagar this should be pretty insignificant. If Aemond could do it at ten, then Aerea also could have done it in 48 AC at Maegor's behest, or perhaps a couple of years later, say in 51-53 AC or so.

8 hours ago, Maia said:

Wasn't it also mentioned that Joffrey hadn't been a rider for very long either, even though his dragon hatched when he was  3?

Joffrey also has a dragon in 120 AC. He is spending time with it in the yard of High Tide when he catches Aemond sneaking up to Vhagar. But he most likely wasn't yet a rider at that time. I think the problem in 129 AC is that Tyraxes is not yet as large as Arrax and Vermax, making Joffrey an emissary on dragonback more difficult.

8 hours ago, Maia said:

I'd hope so for their sake and for plausibility, since even with magical creatures like dragons, spending  a decade or more chained  should have  made it impossible for them to fly again. KL dragons were kept chained in Dragonpit, though.

For what it is worth it seems the dragons were chained in the outer yard of Driftmark during the funeral. That should have been Vhagar's place for the time she was bonded to Laena. A riderless dragon hopefully was allowed to fly as it would, especially on Dragonstone. Else it makes little sense to allow them to return to the island. After all, why weren't Silverwing and Vermithor not chained in the Dragonpit instead?

It seems to me Dragonstone very much was a 'dragon place' while there were still dragons around. Things were not all that civilized over there. They could do what they wanted. That's why they have three wild dragons there, too. That indicates that those hatchlings were not supervised all that thoroughly.

8 hours ago, Maia said:

They did have stables on Driftmark, though, and Vhagar was kept chained there after Laena's death... Possibly only until she calmed down after her bereavement, but we don't know that for sure. 

It is not said that she was particularly foul-tempered after her death, just that approaching an old and foul-tempered dragon who isn't your mount is always a risk. And that's pretty obvious. There is always a risk mounting a dragon, even a hatchling you raised and fed after it hatched from your own egg. 

8 hours ago, Maia said:

Weren't they guarding the homestead? Maybe also a variant of "there (must) should be a Targaryen on Dragonstone (if possible)? 

There is this talk in TPatQ about Rhaenyra bringing her ladies to KL after she took the city (why didn't she bring Baela?). And then we have Joffrey and Rhaena go to the Vale for safe-keeping there but only Joffrey (apparently) going to KL later on. Why didn't he bring Rhaena? And why didn't Baela/Moondancer not accompany Joffrey and Rhaena to the Vale?

At times context seems to be missing, especially about what transpired in the Vale, but it is still somewhat odd.

8 hours ago, Maia said:

See, I don't find the whole "overprotective mother" thing a satisfying explanation. GRRM has been in the habit of overusing it. Lysa, Cersei, now Rhaenyra - though, frankly, it could be argued that it was mostly  the chronicler's  slant. Her sons all received the usual Westerosi noble training (which is somewhat risky) and were scrappy kids, not at all coddled. She seemed pretty sensible to me until the betrayers turned on her.

I don't like the Rhaenyra characterization all that much, either. She could have been much more interesting. But I think the beginning is somewhat coherent - the death of her beloved father, the coup, the dreadful labor and stillbirth, the aftermath, and then the blow of Lucerys' death, too. That is very much in a short time. And while I would really have liked to see her fly in at least one battle in her own right it seems quite clear that she was unable to do so when it mattered the most - early on during the war. I mean, if she had been able to mount Syrax she most likely would have abandoned Daemon to Harrenhal - or she would have delivered her messages to positively-inclined lords herself. If she had paid Lord Borros a visit things would have turned out very differently.

8 hours ago, Maia said:

And, thankfully, D&E  mostly shows the machismo of needlessly taking young boys onto a battlefield for the stupid and  destructive thing it is. Sometimes, there is little choice, of course, but Rhaenyra holding Joffrey and his young, small, vulnerable dragon back wasn't wrong until the riots in KL. And even then, the greater mistake was that she froze herself. It was on her to do something, not on her young son. Frankly, that's my biggest problem with Rhaenyra's character - that she seemingly never took direct action herself, even though as a female claimant she really needed to prove herself to the realm as a  leader and had a big dragon at her disposal. Yes, there were reasons to hold back - not the least of which being that her faction's claim would have crumbled without her, but letting Daemon take on too much of the mantle of active field leadership caused it's own problems and made people wonder who'd really rule if Black cause won and encouraged the Betrayers to discount her. 

Yeah, she should have taken Syrax and bathed all those would-be dragonslayers in fire. There were people who speculated that Syrax was injured at that time. Could be, but there is no indication of that in the text we know as of yet. I really don't like how she handled the crisis in KL.

8 hours ago, Maia said:

But besides all that _Daemon_ wasn't over-protective and it makes no sense that he didn't insist on his daughter(s) claiming the bigger dragons - or at least Seasmoke, if there was indeed some decree that J&A's dragons shouldn't be claimed again, if there was no danger and maybe even at least one of his sons being left free to do so when they were older.

Yeah, that's somewhat odd. I guess the girls could already have had their eggs when their mother died, and Baela may already have bonded with Moondancer, but Rhaena certainly could have tried to mount her uncle's dragon.

8 hours ago, Maia said:

I don't buy the depiction of Aegon as an innocent in all of this, as he is often shown as very antagonistic to Rhaenyra and her sons prior to his father's death. Those weren't the actions of somebody who expected Rhaenyra to ever become his ruler. IMHO sympathetic chroniclers have been at work there. But Helaena absolutely was a pawn, who seemingly had no input in anything, despite being a rider of a big dragon. There are even hints that she was more sympathetic to Rhaenyra than her brothers, but she just never _did_ anything.

Sure, it is quite clear that Aegon never liked Rhaenyra. That is very, very obvious. But the point I was trying to make is that he wasn't exactly the evil architect/genius of his own rise to power. He was a pawn in the sense that his mother and grandfather propped him up as king. He was a willing accomplice in all that but not the driving force. I doubt that he would have tried anything all by himself if Alicent had died giving birth to Daeron and Otto had never been recalled to court.

8 hours ago, Maia said:

Sure, but since there were hatchlings, there would have also been eggs before they hatched, no?

That is true. Well, ask George about that ;-).

Thinking about that - I really think George should reconsider things and give Viserys I a second dragon. There are sections of text in TRP that imply that the royal family flew to Driftmark on dragonback for the funeral and of it being another Valyria because there were so many there. Are we supposed to believe that the king and Alicent flew on Dreamfyre along with Helaena, Daeron, and Aemond (Tessarion was already there, but not yet mounted)?

A similar strange situation is there when Aenys I and his family retreat to Dragonstone during the Faith Militant Uprising. The court may have traveled by ship, and Aenys could perhaps taken Alyssa with him on Quicksilver (if she had no dragon of her own) but I doubt that Viserys, Jaehaerys, and Alysanne also could have flown along with them. That would have been pretty crowded. At least Viserys and Jaehaerys should have had their own dragons at this point. Viserys was twelve, Jaehaerys was seven, and Alysanne only five.

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Idea of mine I have no real backing for:

Dragons are a reflection of the person who hatched them. Maegor did hatch a dragon, the one that would be called "The Cannibal". It was a cruel and vicious thing (like Maegor himself would prove to be) so they took it away from him and it simply became feral, totally unable to be tamed.

IIRC, the apparent age of The Cannibal seems to fit with this idea.

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If there is a genetic component in hatching dragons, then the easiest explanation for the Targaryens being unable to hatch any dragons after the reign of Aegon III, is that dragon hatching is a genetic trait inherited only through the mother.  And the trait was missing or recessive in both Daenaera Velaryon and Larra Rogare, thus the trait was never passed down to the rest of the Targaryen line.  Which might be why it is so significant that Rhaenyra Targaryen's only daughter was stillborn.

From what I recall, the last surviving female Targaryen who successfully hatched a dragon, after the Dance was Baela Targaryen and she married Alyn Velaryon, who failed at his attempt to be a dragon rider, and it was from this line that current day House Velaryon (to the best of our knowledge) descended from.  So perhaps the necessary gene for dragon hatching was passed down from mother to daughter in Driftmark, but it was never expressed because of other necessary genetic traits that weren't passed down.  And significantly, House Targaryen never married back into House Velaryon after Aegon III.

There is at least a hint that "skinchanging" can't be passed down from the father, because Varamyr Sixskins comments that none of his bastard children ever expressed the talent to skinchange.  So perhaps that is also a magical genetic trait that can only be passed down through the maternal line.

If so, there is a real world explanation in Mitochondrial DNA inheritance.  This is a portion of our DNA that only is passed down after fertilization from the egg and not the sperm.  So a mother can pass a genetic trait (from the Mitochondria) down to her son and daughter, but only the daughter can then pass that same trait down to her children.

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