Jump to content

Heresy 202 and still going


Black Crow

Recommended Posts

1 hour ago, Brad Stark said:

I've suspected The Others and the dragons are similar, as well as the Targaryans and Starks. 

Summerhall could have been an attempt by Aegon to sacrifice himself and Duncan the Small to bring dragons back.  It seems in character for Aegon to be willing to die to bring back the dragon, but out of character to sacrifice his son.  But if Jenny of Oldstones died first, Duncan would not have wanted to live, and Aegon might have been willing to capitalize on that.  They were successful with the dragons, as we did get the red comet, and the only other time it appeared was when Dany raised her dragons.  Something (or someone) happened after that killed the dragons and Duncan the Tall.  

If I ever got to ask GRRM 1 question, it might be whether the details of Summerhall are something intends us to learn later, or whether he is just leaving the details ambiguous.  I remember him suggesting including the full details of Summerhall by master Yandal in the WorldBook but obscured by spilled ink.  The publisher disliked this as it would look like a printing error.  I am really glad he didn't do anything that cheesy.

Now we also had the King of Winter Rickard killed and his son Brandon killed right after - and this happened very close to the time the Others came back.  Could this have accidentally been a ritual to bring the Others back?  Could it have been on purpose?  I've long suspected Aerys was not as mad as everyone thinks, but was being manipulated.  He was genuinely paranoid - if you know someone was listening to your thoughts and messing with your brain, wouldn't you be?  This also fits my theory that we have a war between people, with 1 side using the Others instead of war against the sort of darklord GRRM doesn't like.

I have doubts about what was going on at Summerhall.  I think it likely that the pyromancers wanted to take a crack at hatching dragon eggs and their wildfire got away from them.  I don't think there were any intended sacrifices of children or anything else.  Aerys was the one who was mad, who was obsessed with wildfire and pyromancers.  The Targaryens may have known about bonding dragons with infants I think it likely they thought they needed the hottest fire possible.  The slightest mishap can end in disaster.  

Quote

A Feast for Crows - Cersei VIII

Lord Hallyne of the Guild of Alchemists presented himself, to ask that his pyromancers be allowed to hatch any dragon's eggs that might turn up upon Dragonstone, now that the isle was safely back in royal hands. "If any such eggs remained, Stannis would have sold them to pay for his rebellion," the queen told him. She refrained from saying that the plan was mad. Ever since the last Targaryen dragon had died, all such attempts had ended in death, disaster, or disgrace.

Quote

A Clash of Kings - Tyrion XI

"Yes, yes, that's so." Hallyne mopped at his pale brow with the sleeve of his black-and-scarlet robe. "We have been working very hard, my lord Hand, hmmm."

"That would doubtless explain why you are making so much more of the substance than before." Smiling, Tyrion fixed the pyromancer with his mismatched stare. "Though it does raise the question of why you did not begin working hard until now." 

Hallyne had the complexion of a mushroom, so it was hard to see how he could turn any paler, yet somehow he managed. "We were, my lord Hand, my brothers and I have been laboring day and night from the first, I assure you. It is only, hmmm, we have made so much of the substance that we have become, hmmm, more practiced as it were, and also"—the alchemist shifted uncomfortably—"certain spells, hmmm, ancient secrets of our order, very delicate, very troublesome, but necessary if the substance is to be, hmmm, all it should be . . ."

The pyromancers may have been incompetent in their sorcery as well:

Quote

A Clash of Kings - Tyrion V

The substance was the pyromancers' own term for wildfire. They called each other wisdom as well, which Tyrion found almost as annoying as their custom of hinting at the vast secret stores of knowledge that they wanted him to think they possessed. Once theirs had been a powerful guild, but in recent centuries the maesters of the Citadel had supplanted the alchemists almost everywhere. Now only a few of the older order remained, and they no longer even pretended to transmute metals . . .

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Whatever Moqorro did to Victarion's hand -  it's spreading.

Quote

 

A Dance with Dragons - The Iron Suitor

Come sunset, as the sea turned black as ink and the swollen sun tinted the sky a deep and bloody red, Victarion came back on deck. He was naked from the waist up, his left arm blood to the elbow. As his crew gathered, whispering and trading glances, he raised a charred and blackened hand. Wisps of dark smoke rose from his fingers as he pointed at the maester. "That one. Cut his throat and throw him in the sea, and the winds will favor us all the way to Meereen." Moqorro had seen that in his fires. He had seen the wench wed too, but what of it? She would not be the first woman Victarion Greyjoy had made a widow.

A Dance with Dragons - Victarion I

But he would feed the red god too, Moqorro's fire god. The arm the priest had healed was hideous to look upon, pork crackling from elbow to fingertips. Sometimes when Victarion closed his hand the skin would split and smoke, yet the arm was stronger than it had ever been. "Two gods are with me now," he told the dusky woman. "No foe can stand before two gods." Then he rolled her on her back and took her once again.

 

 

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Not sure. In the first quote his arm is bloody to the elbow after the "operation"; by the time the second rolls around its had a chance to scab over. That being said, I do ultimately expect a complete transformation

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 10/6/2017 at 8:02 PM, Brad Stark said:

I've suspected The Others and the dragons are similar, as well as the Targaryans and Starks. 

Summerhall could have been an attempt by Aegon to sacrifice himself and Duncan the Small to bring dragons back.  It seems in character for Aegon to be willing to die to bring back the dragon, but out of character to sacrifice his son.  But if Jenny of Oldstones died first, Duncan would not have wanted to live, and Aegon might have been willing to capitalize on that.  They were successful with the dragons, as we did get the red comet, and the only other time it appeared was when Dany raised her dragons.  Something (or someone) happened after that killed the dragons and Duncan the Tall.  

As to the first that's what I've been suggesting for some time now, but as to the second I don't think that Targaryens were sacricing their first born or anybody else just to "bring back the dragon" rather I'm arging that Aegon and everyone else involved were trying to become dragons themselves, but the knowledge of how to do it was lost. Hence the science experiments going wrong

Link to comment
Share on other sites

51 minutes ago, Black Crow said:

As to the first that's what I've been suggesting for some time now, but as to the second I don't think that Targaryens were sacricing their first born or anybody else just to "bring back the dragon" rather I'm arging that Aegon and everyone else involved were trying to become dragons themselves, but the knowledge of how to do it was lost. Hence the science experiments going wrong

I agree they didn't know how to do it.  But I don't see the difference between being sacrificed and becoming a dragon, other than whether the Targaryan was willing.  We are talking about the person's soul being transferred into the dragon either way.

I doubt this works exactly like the laws of inheritance.  Someone being legally recognized as a King doesn't sound so magical.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

26 minutes ago, Brad Stark said:

I agree they didn't know how to do it.  But I don't see the difference between being sacrificed and becoming a dragon, other than whether the Targaryan was willing.  We are talking about the person's soul being transferred into the dragon either way.

I doubt this works exactly like the laws of inheritance.  Someone being legally recognized as a King doesn't sound so magical.

I think it has something to do with being born on Dragonstone itself.  I'm starting to think it's a place of sorcery or a wellspring of fire magic.  Dany does wake the dragon and transform into a dragon.  She is then given the ability to wake dragons from stone and temporary immunity to fire.  But there is sorcery involved and where Dany get's the knowledge, she herself doesn't understand.

Quote

 

A Game of Thrones - Daenerys VI

"No. He cannot have my son." She would not weep, she decided. She would not shiver with fear. The Usurper has woken the dragon now, she told herself … and her eyes went to the dragon's eggs resting in their nest of dark velvet. The shifting lamplight limned their stony scales, and shimmering motes of jade and scarlet and gold swam in the air around them, like courtiers around a king.

Was it madness that seized her then, born of fear? Or some strange wisdom buried in her blood? Dany could not have said. She heard her own voice saying, "Ser Jorah, light the brazier." 

"Khaleesi?" The knight looked at her strangely. "It is so hot. Are you certain?"

 

Quote

 

A Game of Thrones - Daenerys X

The land was red and dead and parched, and good wood was hard to come by. Her foragers returned with gnarled cottonwoods, purple brush, sheaves of brown grass. They took the two straightest trees, hacked the limbs and branches from them, skinned off their bark, and split them, laying the logs in a square. Its center they filled with straw, brush, bark shavings, and bundles of dry grass. Rakharo chose a stallion from the small herd that remained to them; he was not the equal of Khal Drogo's red, but few horses were. In the center of the square, Aggo fed him a withered apple and dropped him in an instant with an axe blow between the eyes.

Bound hand and foot, Mirri Maz Duur watched from the dust with disquiet in her black eyes. "It is not enough to kill a horse," she told Dany. "By itself, the blood is nothing. You do not have the words to make a spell, nor the wisdom to find them. Do you think bloodmagic is a game for children? You call me maegi as if it were a curse, but all it means is wise. You are a child, with a child's ignorance. Whatever you mean to do, it will not work. Loose me from these bonds and I will help you."

"I am tired of the maegi's braying," Dany told Jhogo. He took his whip to her, and after that the godswife kept silent.

 

Dany is accused of being a Maegi:
Quote

 

A Game of Thrones - Daenerys VIII

"Maegi," Haggo growled. And old Cohollo—Cohollo who had bound his life to Drogo's on the day of his birth, Cohollo who had always been kind to her—Cohollo spat full in her face.

"You will die, maegi," Qotho promised, "but the other must die first." He drew his arakh and made for the tent.

"No," she shouted, "you mustn't." She caught him by the shoulder, but Qotho shoved her aside. Dany fell to her knees, crossing her arms over her belly to protect the child within. "Stop him," she commanded her khas, "kill him."

 

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Brad Stark said:

I agree they didn't know how to do it.  But I don't see the difference between being sacrificed and becoming a dragon, other than whether the Targaryan was willing.  We are talking about the person's soul being transferred into the dragon either way.

I doubt this works exactly like the laws of inheritance.  Someone being legally recognized as a King doesn't sound so magical.

We may be a little at cross-purposes here. My argument is that Aegon and before him the Summerhall lot were trying to become dragons, rather than breed a pack of them, which may or may not have been available for cross-decking at a later date.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

48 minutes ago, LynnS said:

I think it has something to do with being born on Dragonstone itself.  I'm starting to think it's a place of sorcery or a wellspring of fire magic.  Dany does wake the dragon and transform into a dragon.  She is then given the ability to wake dragons from stone and temporary immunity to fire.  But there is sorcery involved and where Dany get's the knowledge, she herself doesn't understand.

:agree:I think the matter of Danaerys having being born on dragonstone rather than say King's Landing may be an overlooked factor in this 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 minutes ago, Black Crow said:

:agree:I think the matter of Danaerys having being born on dragonstone rather than say King's Landing may be an overlooked factor in this 

+

However, the Targaryens had trouble breeding Dragons in Dragonstone before the conquest. I wonder if conquering Westeros was an attempt to generate King's blood and how that issue would have been solved in Valyria. Raising again the question what a prince is for valyrians.

 

59 minutes ago, LynnS said:

Dany is accused of being a Maegi.

She wants to practice bloodmagic, one can come to the conclusion she is one. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

27 minutes ago, Black Crow said:

My argument is that Aegon and before him the Summerhall lot were trying to become dragons, rather than breed a pack of them

Not sure what you mean, since Aegon V died at Summerhall and hence was part of the lot.  

He says pretty clearly what he wants to do in D&E: hatch a dragon egg.  Nowhere does he say he wants to transform himself into one in any way.

There are a few references along these lines, but they don't apply to all Targs.  They only apply to the insane Targs, whose flipped coin came down on the crazy side.

Quote

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.

The huge majority of Targs don't seem to have harbored such ideas.   Egg in particular was not a nut.

The most common element linking Targs (sane and insane) and dragons appears to be the dreams... and it's through her dreams, if anything, that Dany got some clues re hatching her eggs.  

Why none of the prior Targs were able to leverage vague clues in their dreams toward this end is not explained by GRRM and probably never will be, because it's a logical problem that likely has no adequate solution.  He needed Dany to hatch eggs for his plot and so she did.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

15 minutes ago, JNR said:

Not sure what you mean, since Aegon V died at Summerhall and hence was part of the lot.  

He says pretty clearly what he wants to do in D&E: hatch a dragon egg.  Nowhere does he say he wants to transform himself into one in any way.

:blush: so many Aegons... so few dragons, and that's the point. He can't become a dragon if he hasn't got one.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

14 minutes ago, JNR said:

I also note that Jon Snow has had many dreams explicitly described in canon, and in none of them do we find a dragon.

:thumbsup:  

Oh indeed and its worth emphasising that in an oft-quoted conversation with one Tyrion Lannister, the dreams which the former has of being a dragon and immolating his kin are day-dreams, not the nocturnal kind, and Jon Snow's agreement that he too has such day-dreams are also day-dreams of taking revenge on his siblings and stepmother NOT sleeping dreams of being a dragon

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 10/6/2017 at 11:16 AM, JNR said:

Largely true, but also applies to the idea that he was trying to restore dragons (just as it applies to whatever Rhaegar was thinking in naming Lyanna QoLaB at Harrenhal).  We can guess, but there's a paucity of real info.

Maybe, but this is another area where we have no information.  

If Egg arbitrarily decided to put Duncan back in the line of succession again, we definitely haven't been told that... and if Egg died before Duncan, so that Duncan was in some sense a king when he died, we also haven't been told that.  

We have Craster dumping his baby sons in the woods, as all the rangers knew... but what happens to them next doesn't seem at all established.  (My guess is that they died and animals ate them, or else possibly animals ate them and then they died.)

It sounds like you mean that 

1) Rhaegar learned how to restore dragons in some way

2) Rhaegar picked this tower in Dorne as the site for restoring them (but why?)

3) Rhaegar moved one or more dragon eggs there

4) Rhaegar also moved his son Aegon there

5) Rhaegar planned to hatch an egg there and then transfer his baby son Aegon's consciousness into the newborn dragon

If so, what is the connection with Lyanna (or is there one)? How do we know Aegon was ever there?

Quote

He (Aemon) spoke of dreams and never named the dreamer, of a glass candle that could not be lit and eggs that would not hatch.

 Think one of the problems at Summerhall, was that the dragon eggs would not hatch.  I think the problem was the Targaryens lost the necessary bloodlines to hatch the dragons.  Which is one of the reasons why I think Dany is not the child of Aerys and Rahella (maybe one but not both).  If Dany’s bloodlines included the Targaryen offshoots that branched off after the Dance, then I think she may have been the missing piece of the puzzle that they needed.  So perhaps it was her birth that they were waiting on before they could carry out their plans.

I think the tower of joy was picked out due to it’s remoteness and it’s central location to the Water Gardens, Sunspear, Starfall, Oldtown, High Garden, and some of the other locations where they may have been fostering the children with the necessary bloodlines to complete the ritual.

Now I do think that there may be another reason, that George chose a desert valley in the midst of mountains to put the tower of joy.  The Old Testament talks about a place named Gehenna, (today the Valley of Hinnom).  A valley in the midst of a hilly region surrounding Jerusalem’s Old City.  Legend has it that the Kings of Judah would sacrifice their children by fire to the god Moloch.   A god who was often depicted as having the body of a man but the head of a bull.  

Quote

In its lowest part, towards the southeast, and near the king’s gardens and Siloam, the idolatrous Isrealities made their children pass through the fire to Moloch.  Jeremiah 32:35; 1 Kings 11:7

 I think George may be recreating that imagery in the tower of joy.  We have the sacrificial altar, the tower of joy, set in a valley, in a desert, mountains region, with the most striking image the Kingsguard who wears the bull helmet.  And like Josiah was said to have destroyed the shrine to Moloch to prevent anyone else from sacrificing their children, we have Eddard single handedly tearing down the tower of joy.

Now look at some of the imagery surrounding the tower of joy.  It’s in the “Prince’s Pass”.  Perhaps a play off of the kings of Judea passing their children through fire.  There is a location nearby called the King’s Grave.  Perhaps a reference to two kings having to be sacrificed, or the children being sacrificed having “king’s blood”.  Then we have Blackmont, who’s symbol is a vulture carrying off a small child.  

Now think back to the tale of Mad Danelle having giant bats carry off infants to put in her cauldron.  

Now how many children, if any, had been moved there, at the time Eddard and company found them, I’m not sure.  Nor am I sure that the dragon eggs had been brought there at the time, though I tend to doubt it.  My guess is that they were waiting for Dany’s birth.  My thought is one or more of the children involved in the tower of joy were either the child of Ashara and/or Lyanna, which is why Eddard got involved.  

Which is also why I think Lyanna was given the blue rose crown.  I think this might have been a sign that she was to be the mother of one of the necessary sacrifices.  I think for Rhaegar this symbol may have had a different meaning or an additional meaning than the Bael tale.  Note that the sigil of House Florent is a fox looking through a wreath of blue flowers.  I think this symbol may also have to do with the bloodlines of House Gardner as much as the bloodlines of House Stark.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

9 minutes ago, Black Crow said:

Oh indeed and its worth emphasising that in an oft-quoted conversation with one Tyrion Lannister, the dreams which the former has of being a dragon and immolating his kin are day-dreams, not the nocturnal kind, and Jon Snow's agreement that he too has such day-dreams are also day-dreams of taking revenge on his siblings and stepmother NOT sleeping dreams of being a dragon

The reason I associate Jon with Dragons is actually Tyrion and his book from the Winterfell library before it burned down. The book about dragon saddles. It's a very typical clichée foreshadowing that raised my fantasy alarm levels. There is no other or deeper purpose for that book than as a book for a future dragon rider. 

Given that Tyrion is with Dany by now we can expect Dany producing a saddle soon. Maybe. When she solves her Dragon problems. But still the reason why the knowledge is shared with Jon is ... just strange. Jon being a Targ is a meta story argument, not an in book argument. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, JNR said:

The most common element linking Targs (sane and insane) and dragons appears to be the dreams... and it's through her dreams, if anything, that Dany got some clues re hatching her eggs.  

Another factor in Dany's dreams is the house with the red doors.  This appears in the wake dragon dream as well.  Dragonstone does have red doors:

Quote

 

A Clash of Kings - Prologue

Again he had to cross the long gallery. A night wind whispered through the great windows, sharp with the smell of the sea. Torches flickered along the walls of Dragonstone, and in the camp beyond, he could see hundreds of cookfires burning, as if a field of stars had fallen to the earth. Above, the comet blazed red and malevolent. I am too old and wise to fear such things, the maester told himself.

The doors to the Great Hall were set in the mouth of a stone dragon. He told the servants to leave him outside. It would be better to enter alone; he must not appear feeble. Leaning heavily on his cane, Cressen climbed the last few steps and hobbled beneath the gateway teeth. A pair of guardsmen opened the heavy red doors before him, unleashing a sudden blast of noise and light. Cressen stepped down into the dragon's maw.

 

Quote

 

A Game of Thrones - Daenerys IX

Wings shadowed her fever dreams.

"You don't want to wake the dragon, do you?"

She was walking down a long hall beneath high stone arches. She could not look behind her, must not look behind her. There was a door ahead of her, tiny with distance, but even from afar, she saw that it was painted red. She walked faster, and her bare feet left bloody footprints on the stone.

 

When Dany wakes the dragon, she is sharing a consciousness and perhaps a memory that is not her own of Dragonstone.
 
Quote

 

A Game of Thrones - Daenerys III

Day followed day, and night followed night, until Dany knew she could not endure a moment longer. She would kill herself rather than go on, she decided one night …

Yet when she slept that night, she dreamt the dragon dream again. Viserys was not in it this time. There was only her and the dragon. Its scales were black as night, wet and slick with blood. Her blood, Dany sensed. Its eyes were pools of molten magma, and when it opened its mouth, the flame came roaring out in a hot jet. She could hear it singing to her. She opened her arms to the fire, embraced it, let it swallow her whole, let it cleanse her and temper her and scour her clean. She could feel her flesh sear and blacken and slough away, could feel her blood boil and turn to steam, and yet there was no pain. She felt strong and new and fierce.

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Black Crow said:

:blush: so many Aegons... so few dragons, and that's the point. He can't become a dragon if he hasn't got one.

Perhaps the loss of dragonlore knowledge comes from Baelor the Blessed who had all of Septon Barth's books burned.

http://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/Baelor_I_Targaryen

But I suspect Jorah gave her a copy of one of Barth's books.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, LynnS said:

Perhaps the loss of dragonlore knowledge comes from Baelor the Blessed who had all of Septon Barth's books burned.

http://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/Baelor_I_Targaryen

May not have helped, but I'd look for something more direct like a failure to pass something down from father to son.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

12 hours ago, LynnS said:

I think it has something to do with being born on Dragonstone itself.  I'm starting to think it's a place of sorcery or a wellspring of fire magic.  Dany does wake the dragon and transform into a dragon.  She is then given the ability to wake dragons from stone and temporary immunity to fire.  But there is sorcery involved and where Dany get's the knowledge, she herself doesn't understand.

I don't think Dany was born on Dragonstone,  nor is she Rhaella's daughter. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
×
×
  • Create New...