Did Mirri Maz Duur kill Rhaego, or was it Dany being to her?

[The Fattest Leech]

54 minutes ago, Lord Lannister said:

See that I was never sure of.  Did MMD poison him, or did he just screw himself by not wearing it? Guess it doesn't matter and we'll never get a definitive answer. Seems a rather awkward 180 though if she was legitimately trying to heal Drogo.

MMD put the poultice in and wrapped it in Lamb skin, gave the warning that it will burn but that fire feeling is good for healing, and to NOT drink wine or milk of poppy. 

Drogo ignored MMD and took off that wrapping, to which an herbalist, put the hard cast medicine thing on (the one that Jorah looks at that is filled with pus and he chips away with his Jorah knife). And then Drogo started drinking the poppy juice. 

*

"Yes," Dany admitted.

"I made him a poultice of firepod and sting-me-not and bound it in a lambskin."

(Dany) "It burned, he said. He tore it off. The herbwomen made him a new one, wet and soothing."

*

MMD gave the directions and they were ignored. And then when MMD looked upon Drogo’s face after he made it worse, MMD was like he’s a goner. Dany freaked a bit and asked for bloodmagc to bring him back.

A Game of Thrones - Daenerys VIII

"Death?" Dany wrapped her arms around herself protectively, rocked back and forth on her heels. "My death?" She told herself she would die for him, if she must. She was the blood of the dragon, she would not be afraid. Her brother Rhaegar had died for the woman he loved.

"No," Mirri Maz Duur promised. "Not your death, Khaleesi."

Dany trembled with relief. "Do it."

The maegi nodded solemnly. "As you speak, so it shall be done. Call your servants."

Khal Drogo writhed feebly as Rakharo and Quaro lowered him into the bath. "No," he muttered, "no. Must ride." Once in the water, all the strength seemed to leak out of him.

Again, MMD gave the warnings and they were ignored and Dany realizes this and then thinks, “if I look back I am lost.” 

A Game of Thrones - Daenerys IX

"I … I shall bring Ser Jorah," the Lysene girl said, bowing her head and fleeing the tent.

Jhiqui would have run as well, but Dany caught her by the wrist and held her captive. "What is it? I must know. Drogo … and my child." Why had she not remembered the child until now? "My son … Rhaego … where is he? I want him."

Her handmaid lowered her eyes. "The boy … he did not live, Khaleesi." Her voice was a frightened whisper.

 

...and then...

A Game of Thrones - Daenerys IX

"No," Mirri Maz Duur said. "That was a lie you told yourself. You knew the price."

Had she? Had she? If I look back I am lost. "The price was paid," Dany said. "The horse, my child, Quaro and Qotho, Haggo and Cohollo. The price was paid and paid and paid." She rose from her cushions. "Where is Khal Drogo? Show him to me, godswife, maegi, bloodmage, whatever you are. Show me Khal Drogo. Show me what I bought with my son's life."

"As you command, Khaleesi," the old woman said. "Come, I will take you to him."

 

and then we get this transition of Daenerys into the bride of fire.

 

A Game of Thrones - Daenerys VIII

"The maegi," someone else said. Was that Aggo? "Take her to the maegi."

No, Dany wanted to say, no, not that, you mustn't, but when she opened her mouth, a long wail of pain escaped, and the sweat broke over her skin. What was wrong with them, couldn't they see? Inside the tent the shapes were dancing, circling the brazier and the bloody bath, dark against the sandsilk, and some did not look human. She glimpsed the shadow of a great wolf, and another like a man wreathed in flames.

"The Lamb Woman knows the secrets of the birthing bed," Irri said. "She said so, I heard her."

A Game of Thrones - Daenerys X

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.

[Lost Melnibonean]

On 4/19/2018 at 7:45 AM, Tucu said:

Both of them have responsibilities.

Mirri seeked revenge on Drogo and wanted to free the world from the Stallion Who Mounts the World.

Dany was subconsciously following her dragon dreams towards the ritual to wake the dragons. Drogon and Rhaego were victims of this.

One way or another, Rhaego had to die so that Daenerys could be the Mother of Dragons. 

[Lost Melnibonean]

On 4/19/2018 at 10:54 AM, Leonardo said:

It seems a genuinely tried to heal Drogo at first as well, but perhaps knew that he may die anyway by stubbornly throwing off his poultice.

I think Khal Drogo was an offering for the Great Shepherd..

Quote

"Silver Lady," a woman's voice said behind her, "I can help the Great Rider with his hurts."

...

"I meant no wrong, fierce riders." The woman spoke Dothraki well. The robes she wore had once been the lightest and finest of woolens, rich with embroidery, but now they were mud-caked and bloody and ripped. She clutched the torn cloth of her bodice to her heavy breasts. "I have some small skill in the healing arts."

"Who are you?" Dany asked her.

"I am named Mirri Maz Duur. I am godswife of this temple."

"Maegi," grunted Haggo, fingering his arakh. His look was dark. Dany remembered the word from a terrifying story that Jhiqui had told her one night by the cookfire. A maegi was a woman who lay with demons and practiced the blackest of sorceries, a vile thing, evil and soulless, who came to men in the dark of night and sucked life and strength from their bodies.

"I am a healer," Mirri Maz Duur said.

...

... Dany ignored the bloodrider's outburst. This old, homely, thickbodied woman did not look like a maegi to her. "Where did you learn your healing, Mirri Maz Duur?"

"My mother was godswife before me, and taught me all the songs and spells most pleasing to the Great Shepherd, and how to make the sacred smokes and ointments from leaf and root and berry. When I was younger and more fair, I went in caravan to Asshai by the Shadow, to learn from their mages. Ships from many lands come to Asshai, so I lingered long to study the healing ways of distant peoples. A moonsinger of the Jogos Nhai gifted me with her birthing songs, a woman of your own riding people taught me the magics of grass and corn and horse, and a maester from the Sunset Lands opened a body for me and showed me all the secrets that hide beneath the skin."

...

"Why should you want to help my khal?"

"All men are one flock, or so we are taught," replied Mirri Maz Duur. "The Great Shepherd sent me to earth to heal his lambs, wherever I might find them."

...

Khal Drogo grunted. "The arrow must come out, Qotho."

"Yes, Great Rider," Mirri Maz Duur answered, touching her bruised face. "And your breast must be washed and sewn, lest the wound fester."

"Do it, then," Khal Drogo commanded.

"Great Rider," the woman said, "my tools and potions are inside the god's house, where the healing powers are strongest."

...

"There," Mirri Maz Duur said, pointing to the altar, a massive blue-veined stone carved with images of shepherds and their flocks. Khal Drogo lay upon it. The old woman threw a handful of dried leaves onto a brazier, filling the chamber with fragrant smoke. ...

...

"She will do no harm." Dany felt she could trust this old, plainfaced woman with her flat nose; she had saved her from the hard hands of her rapers, after all.

... She let the rags of her gown fall to her waist as she opened a carved chest, and busied herself with bottles and boxes, knives and needles. When she was ready, she broke off the barbed arrowhead and pulled out the shaft, chanting in the singsong tongue of the Lhazareen. She heated a flagon of wine to boiling on the brazier, and poured it over his wounds. Khal Drogo cursed her, but he did not move. She bound the arrow wound with a plaster of wet leaves and turned to the gash on his breast, smearing it with a pale green paste before she pulled the flap of skin back in place. The khal ground his teeth together and swallowed a scream. The godswife took out a silver needle and a bobbin of silk thread and began to close the flesh. When she was done she painted the skin with red ointment, covered it with more leaves, and bound the breast in a ragged piece of lambskin. "You must say the prayers I give you and keep the lambskin in place for ten days and ten nights," she said. "There will be fever, and itching, and a great scar when the healing is done."

...

"Drink neither wine nor the milk of the poppy," she cautioned him. "Pain you will have, but you must keep your body strong to fight the poison spirits."

...

Haggo followed the khal from the temple, but Qotho lingered long enough to favor Mirri Maz Duur with a stare. "Remember, maegi, as the khal fares, so shall you."

"As you say, rider," the woman answered him, gathering up her jars and bottles. "The Great Shepherd guards the flock."

 

[Lost Melnibonean]

On 4/19/2018 at 1:53 AM, Leonardo said:

I always assumed yes until I listened to a chapter today, but now I'm curious as Mirri is much more of a gray character in the books.

thinking Daenerys was being willed into that tent somehow, whether Jorah carried her or not. Either MMD was offering Rhaego up to the Great Shepherd or the Dragon was having its due...

Quote

The Dothraki were shouting, Mirri Maz Duur wailing inside the tent like nothing human, Quaro pleading for water as he died. Dany cried out for help, but no one heard. Rakharo was fighting Haggo, arakh dancing with arakh until Jhogo's whip cracked, loud as thunder, the lash coiling around Haggo's throat. A yank, and the bloodrider stumbled backward, losing his feet and his sword. Rakharo sprang forward, howling, swinging his arakh down with both hands through the top of Haggo's head. The point caught between his eyes, red and quivering. Someone threw a stone, and when Dany looked, her shoulder was torn and bloody. "No," she wept, "no, please, stop it, it's too high, the price is too high." More stones came flying. She tried to crawl toward the tent, but Cohollo caught her. Fingers in her hair, he pulled her head back and she felt the cold touch of his knife at her throat. "My baby," she screamed, and perhaps the gods heard, for as quick as that, Cohollo was dead. Aggo's arrow took him under the arm, to pierce his lungs and heart.

When at last Daenerys found the strength to raise her head, she saw the crowd dispersing, the Dothraki stealing silently back to their tents and sleeping mats. Some were saddling horses and riding off. The sun had set. Fires burned throughout the khalasar, great orange blazes that crackled with fury and spit embers at the sky. She tried to rise, and agony seized her and squeezed her like a giant's fist. The breath went out of her; it was all she could do to gasp. The sound of Mirri Maz Duur's voice was like a funeral dirge. Inside the tent, the shadows whirled.

An arm went under her waist, and then Ser Jorah was lifting her off her feet. His face was sticky with blood, and Dany saw that half his ear was gone. She convulsed in his arms as the pain took her again, and heard the knight shouting for her handmaids to help him. Are they all so afraid? She knew the answer. Another pain grasped her, and Dany bit back a scream. It felt as if her son had a knife in each hand, as if he were hacking at her to cut his way out. "Doreah, curse you," Ser Jorah roared. "Come here. Fetch the birthing women."

"They will not come. They say she is accursed."

"They'll come or I'll have their heads."

Doreah wept. "They are gone, my lord."

"The maegi," someone else said. Was that Aggo? "Take her to the maegi."

No, Dany wanted to say, no, not that, you mustn't, but when she opened her mouth, a long wail of pain escaped, and the sweat broke over her skin. What was wrong with them, couldn't they see? Inside the tent the shapes were dancing, circling the brazier and the bloody bath, dark against the sandsilk, and some did not look human. She glimpsed the shadow of a great wolf, and another like a man wreathed in flames.

"The Lamb Woman knows the secrets of the birthing bed," Irri said. "She said so, I heard her."

"Yes," Doreah agreed, "I heard her too."

No, she shouted, or perhaps she only thought it, for no whisper of sound escaped her lips. She was being carried. Her eyes opened to gaze up at a flat dead sky, black and bleak and starless. Please, no. The sound of Mirri Maz Duur's voice grew louder, until it filled the world. The shapes! she screamed. The dancers!

Ser Jorah carried her inside the tent.

 

[Bullrout]

MMD killed Rhaego and Drogo.  With Drogo, it was revenge for her village.  Rhaego was innocent but MMD killed him to prevent the stallion prophecy from coming true.  The khal of khals will never happen.  But prophecies have a way of coming true and we instead got something better, the Mother of Dragons and the Khaleesi over the khals.

[Angel Eyes]

So how do you turn a human baby into a dead lizard?

[Lord of Raventree Hall]

14 hours ago, Lord Lannister said:

The only shade of gray is that it's Dany's child she kills. If it was any other tyrant's child, who was to conquer the world whose father's army raped, pillaged and burned her village and people, she's be a heroine. But because it's Dany, she's evil.

Lol, I don't know what world you live in, but in our actual world killing babies is considered evil, no matter who the parent was. I cannot think of a single movie, book, or tv show in which child murder is viewed through a positive lens. 

For those of you arguing that Drogo's murder can be seen as heroic, I agree. He is a murderous tyrant, and revenge is often viewed positively in media. Mirri Maz Dur was very much justified murdering him. However, the tricking and murdering of a woman's child because of possible future deeds is never viewed positively. No matter who the parent is, murdering an innocent for possible future deeds is evil. If GRRM or any author had attempted to write child murder as a positive, I would have put down that book and never read it again. 

[Lost Melnibonean]

14 hours ago, Angel Eyes said:

So how do you turn a human baby into a dead lizard?

I don't think the blood maege did that. I get the impression that she helped to release powers that wanted to take the wee bairn's place. 

[Moiraine Sedai]

6 minutes ago, Lost Melnibonean said:

I don't think the blood maege did that. I get the impression that she helped to release powers that wanted to take the wee bairn's place. 

The scales is just rumor from superstitious people.  

 

[Lost Melnibonean]

47 minutes ago, Moiraine Sedai said:

The scales is just rumor from superstitious people.  

 

Or not. 

[Damon_Tor]

18 hours ago, Angel Eyes said:

So how do you turn a human baby into a dead lizard?

The same way a magician turns a bouquet of flowers into a dove.

Magic.

[Megorova]

22 hours ago, The Fattest Leech said:

MMD put the poultice in and wrapped it in Lamb skin, gave the warning that it will burn but that fire feeling is good for healing, and to NOT drink wine or milk of poppy. 

Drogo ignored MMD and took off that wrapping, to which an herbalist, put the hard cast medicine thing on (the one that Jorah looks at that is filled with pus and he chips away with his Jorah knife). And then Drogo started drinking the poppy juice. 

*

"Yes," Dany admitted.

"I made him a poultice of firepod and sting-me-not and bound it in a lambskin."

(Dany) "It burned, he said. He tore it off. The herbwomen made him a new one, wet and soothing."

*

MMD gave the directions and they were ignored. And then when MMD looked upon Drogo’s face after he made it worse, MMD was like he’s a goner.

I always thought (and still think), that Rhaego is alive, and that Mirri did absolutely nothing, that could have harmed Rhaego. Though until recently I thought, that she did killed/poisoned Drogo, that his death was her revenge to Dothraki, for what they did to her people. I thought so, until I have read again, what kind of medicine Mirri used, and what other medicine used one of Dothraki healers. For some reason I thought, that it was Mirri who sealed Drogo's wound with hard clay, and that his wound was itching because of her medicine. But after rereding that part just recently, I have realised, that it was that other woman's idea, to seal his wound with clay, and that Mirri's medicine didn't caused itching (which was sign of growing infection), it was burning, and that's different than itching.

All this thing "poultice of firepod and sting-me-not", that was dry and burned, looks similar to effect of iodine, and that's a good anticeptic. Though it does sometimes cause burns on skin, but it keeps the wound dry, and helps it to heal really good.

So Mirri didn't killed Rhaego, and she didn't even tried to kill Drogo. She wasn't evil.

[The Fattest Leech]

 

35 minutes ago, Megorova said:

-snipped a bit-

All this thing "poultice of firepod and sting-me-not", that was dry and burned, looks similar to effect of iodine, and that's a good anticeptic. Though it does sometimes cause burns on skin, but it keeps the wound dry, and helps it to heal really good.

So Mirri didn't killed Rhaego, and she didn't even tried to kill Drogo. She wasn't evil.

Yeah, I think it is easy to read past, or forget, that one quick line that there was another healer that attended to Drogo after MMD. I’m sure MMD has her grey elements like every other character, but I think this part is easy to forget is such a huge series. 

Or, LM has the right of it?  

[The Fattest Leech]

Dup

 

[Lost Melnibonean]

3 hours ago, The Fattest Leech said:

 

Yeah, I think it is easy to read past, or forget, that one quick line that there was another healer that attended to Drogo after MMD. I’m sure MMD has her grey elements like every other character, but I think this part is easy to forget is such a huge series. 

Or, LM has the right of it?  

Of course he does. 

[Castellan]

On 4 May 2018 at 8:37 AM, Lord Lannister said:

See that I was never sure of.  Did MMD poison him, or did he just screw himself by not wearing it? Guess it doesn't matter and we'll never get a definitive answer. Seems a rather awkward 180 though if she was legitimately trying to heal Drogo.

I have never understood what happens in the tent and don't now but this is what I sort of believe:

Mirri's initial poultice was probably healing Drogo by attacking the infected flesh with antiseptic agents. Replacing it with another one that blocked the air from it and put a lot of muck on the site is what turned it into a massive infection with blood poisoning.

Her blood magic may or may not have been intended to work and may or may not have only involved the stallion and Drogo.

Jorah carrying Dany into the tent changed events.

Coincidentally, Dany's eggs had been somehow developing because of Dany's presence. When Dany went into the tent the swapping of the stallion for Drogo changed to swapping Rhaego for the dragons, with Drogo's life only saved in a minimal sense. 

Rhaego once born looked as described. I take the description to be that of a fossilised dragon fetus. Sort of thawed and rotting. Swapped for putting Rhaego's life into the eggs.

It could be that Mirri just didn't deny it when Dany accused her of planning to use Rhaego's life. Her resentment at Dany and Drogo was real but I take it she knows she is going to die now anyway so she is being as spiteful as possible.