Heresy 214 The Last Heretic

[Tucu]

54 minutes ago, Feather Crystal said:

I've been wondering for awhile now what place in Westeros might be a parallel to the House of the Undying. Due to the location of Braavos versus the location of it's parallel, the Riverlands, along with the House of Black and White being a parallel to the Isle of Faces in the God's Eye, I would look for a parallel for the House of the Undying to be roughly the same latitude only further west.

The House of the Undying is south and way, way east of Braavos, in Qarth. Geographically I could see Oldtown or the Hightower being it's parallel. The House of the Undying is described as being grey in color, long and low without towers or windows, and coiled like a serpent through a grove of Ironwood trees, which is the complete opposite of how it's portrayed in the Mummer's version. Black tiles cover the palace roof, many of them fallen or broken. The mortar between the stones is dry and crumbling. Inside it's a maze with many doors and steps.

The foundation of the Hightower near Oldtown is a labyrinthine fortress of unadorned black stone of uncertain origin on Battle Isle. While some believe it to be Valyrian in origin, Archmaester Quillion suggests it was made by the mazemakers and Maester Theron suggests it was created by the Deep Ones, citing its similarities to the Seastone Chair. The Deep Ones are a species posited by Maester Theron in his manuscript Strange Stone.  They are described as a "queer, misshapen race of half men sired by creatures of the salt seas upon human women", according to Maester Yandel. Theron suggests they inspired the legend of merlings and that the sea creatures who fathered them inspired the religion of the Drowned God. The Deep Ones sound like they have some parallels to white walkers, which also have been described as a half-human race that lay with human women.

Everything in the books have a dual-nature or two-sides-of-the-same coin to them. GRRM's characters are the same way. He shows good men doing bad things, and bad men doing good things. I was even going to point out to Some Pig that while GRRM has Marvel inspired characters in the books, I do believe I have discovered DC Comics inspired characters too, which I find hilarious!

 

The are parallels/inversions between the House of the Undying and the combination of the Black Gate and the CoTF cave.

Dany drinks some blue liquid, goes through a door shaped like a mouth, a labyrinth, has visions and then the Undying try to absorb her. Bran goes through a door, a labyrinth, has some red liquid, weds to the trees and then has visions.

[St Daga]

1 hour ago, Tucu said:

Syrax rejects Joffrey causing him to fall and die. After that Syrax does what Joffrey wanted to do: go to the dragonpit and fight. I am taking this as a potential case of soul transfer and a Targ "becoming" a dragon. Gyldayn highlights that the dragon behaviour during the fight was unexpected. The legend of a 30 feet black shadow cutting Syrax's head reinforces the idea in my mind.

I get that Syrax rejects Joffrey, but what seems odd to me is that Joffrey even was able to mount that dragon and ride her some distance from the Red Keep. I am going to pass for the moment on why Syrax continued on to the Dragon Pit, because I am more puzzled by the idea of the dragon ride itself. I am under the impression that once a rider claims a dragon, the dragon and the rider are singularly bonded until one or the other of them die and break the connection.

But here we have Syrax allowing Joffrey to climb on and go for a bit of a ride. And I wonder, if the Targaryen's are correct about genetics, and genetic codes being important in dragon bonding, does Syrax actually read or pickup part of Rhaenyra's genetic code in Joffrey? Allowing the dragon to be fooled for a moment about who her rider actually is?

I am totally thinking on the fly here, so if I am off base or get some details wrong, please rein be back in!

Is this the reason that Maegor was able to bond and ride Aegon's dragon? Because Balerion senses the similar genetic code of Aegon in Maegor? Now, Balerion eventually carried Viserys I just before the dragons death, but also Aerea Targaryon when she disappeared for a year. Balerion must have had riders before Aegon the Dragon. I am curious to see of one of them was a female?

Other dragons that had more than one known rider are Dreamfyre, who carried first Rhaena and later Helaena. Not sure how close a genetic code might have been between these two ladies, but they both bore twins to their brother/husbands.

Quicksilver was ridden by Aenys I and then by Aenys' eldest son, Aegon. I would think this father and son combo shared similar DNA.

Seasmoke was ridden first by Laenor Velaryon and later by Addam of Hull/Velaryon. They might have been father and son, but more probably were half-brothers. Except oddly enough, if Addam and Alyn were Corlys Valeryon's bastards, then Corlys himself was never a dragon rider. Laenor would have gotten that gene from Rhaenys Targaryen, but where does Addam get his dragon riding ability? Unless it is because the half-brother's shared enough of a gene code that Seasmoke recognized part of the code? Or perhaps because Laenor really was his father???

Silverwing was ridden by Good Queen Alysanne and later by a bastard dragon seed Ulf the White. Is there some genetic connection between these two?

Vermithor was ridden by Jaehaerys I, and then by a bastard dragon seed Hugh Hammer. What is the genetic connection here? 

Lastly, Vhagar, who was ridden by Visenya Targaryen, and then by Laena Velaryon, who was the daughter of the Rhaenys, the Queen who Never Was (but probably should have been!!!) Finally Vhagar was ridden by Aemond  One-Eye Targaryen, who had a Targaryen father and a Hightower mother.

** I am not sure that it matters but Laena was also a mother to twins, just like Rhaena and Helaena. Genetics wise, that seems like it might matter.

Can it be that dragon's more easily bond with someone with similar genes as a previous ride? And is that why Syrax even carried Joffrey off the ground?

[Melifeather]

IMO the fact that dragons have had multiple riders discounts the idea that bonds are necessary. I don’t think they are (necessary). It’s a matter of confidence and dominance. 

[Tucu]

The way I understood it is that Syrax was used to Joffrey being around, so he was able to sneak behind and jump into its back. Then Syrax immediately rejected him and took flight in order to get rid of him (like a mechanical bull)

There are a couple of things regarding the bond in that chapter that I found interesting. Rhaenyra seems to sense what Joffrey was attempting to do and gives the order to stop him. The other is Dreamfyre reaction to Haelena's death; the dragon reacted all the way from the dragonpit.

Quote

At the moment of her death, across the city atop the Hill of Rhaenys, her dragon, Dreamfyre, rose suddenly with a roar that shook the Dragonpit, snapping two of the chains that bound her.

These two reactions seem to imply a telepathic link between dragon and dragonrider, maybe similar to the bond between a warg and a direwolf.

[JNR]

19 hours ago, St Daga said:

Major plot change BUT not apparently r/t the show! It's hard to imagine that it is not in response to the show, but I guess it's GRRM's word against anyone else's

Well, it's a gigantic and super-complex series, so there are endless possibilities. 

For instance, suppose he originally intended that Dany's HOTU vision of the dying prince with rubies flying off his chest was Rhaegar. 

Now suppose that more recently he decided it's a future vision of Aegon... dying as he wears Rhaegar-like armor, to promote his claim to the Iron Throne, but is murdered.   This would solve various problems with the vision being Rhaegar, such as how Rhaegar could murmur anybody's name after having a gigantic metal spike rammed into his heart by Robert Baratheon.

That kind of thing, should it occur in TWOW, would have many reverberations and would alter several different storylines.

Yet it would have nothing to do with the show, because Dany's visions in the HOTU were totally different in the show, and there is no Aegon in the show (two of many super-obvious reasons why the fans should comprehend Show World really isn't the same as Book World).

[JNR]

17 hours ago, Tucu said:

The are parallels/inversions between the House of the Undying and the combination of the Black Gate and the CoTF cave.

There most certainly are.

[St Daga]

14 hours ago, Feather Crystal said:

IMO the fact that dragons have had multiple riders discounts the idea that bonds are necessary. I don’t think they are (necessary). It’s a matter of confidence and dominance. 

I think Joffrey is the only example we have a rider who is bonded to another dragon actually ride a dragon that is bonded to another rider. It is very unique, and didn't end well for Joffrey or Syrax (or Rhaenyra, for that matter). I would think a bond is important, just like it's important with skinchangers. We hear that Varamyr stole Haggon's wolf, and I think it's safe to say he stole his shadowcat and snowbear from another skinchanger as well. But then, we don't hear of Haggon's wolf rebonding with Haggon, so it was as if some connection was broken. 

Perhaps that is what Joffrey did by accident. He accidentally stole his mother's dragon, therefore breaking the bond between Rhaenyra and Syrax? Perhaps that is why Syrax's behavior afterward is unexplainable? Or at least difficult to understand. We are told that riding a dragon is not like riding a horse, so there must be something different with dragons that does require some kind of bond or process.

 

14 hours ago, Tucu said:

The way I understood it is that Syrax was used to Joffrey being around, so he was able to sneak behind and jump into its back. Then Syrax immediately rejected him and took flight in order to get rid of him (like a mechanical bull)

There are a couple of things regarding the bond in that chapter that I found interesting. Rhaenyra seems to sense what Joffrey was attempting to do and gives the order to stop him. The other is Dreamfyre reaction to Haelena's death; the dragon reacted all the way from the dragonpit.

Quote

At the moment of her death, across the city atop the Hill of Rhaenys, her dragon, Dreamfyre, rose suddenly with a roar that shook the Dragonpit, snapping two of the chains that bound her.

These two reactions seem to imply a telepathic link between dragon and dragonrider, maybe similar to the bond between a warg and a direwolf.

I do think that the bond between dragon and rider and warg and wolf or skinchanger and whatever familiar animal is used is the same, or at least very similar. And if the Valyrian's actually studied with the CotF, or perhaps even breed with the CotF (I can't help but think of Snowylocks and her white hair), then it makes even more sense to me that the bond is the same or similar!

As to what happened with Joffrey, I still find it odd that he was able to ride on his mother's dragon at all. I have been bucked off a couple of horses in my time, and if they catch you unaware, they can do it the the very spot they are standing on. They don't need to run and dump you a mile away from where you started. When looking back at the text of the situation of the dragonseeds attempted claiming of currently unridden or completely wild dragons, it sounds to me that every seed that failed, was either eaten on attempt to mount, burned immediately. It doesn't sound like even one of them was able to mount and go for a bit of a ride before failure struck. I understand that Joffrey was familiar with Syrax and she with him, but that still doesn't explain why she took off flying. She could have bucked him off where he was standing, dumped him in the courtyard, roasted him immediately. Perhaps I am the only person who finds that he was able to ride her for some time before he fell off.

What we know is that he wasn't using a saddle or chains and was wielding a sword with one hand, which must have contributed to making his riding even more difficult a task. I would think of she wanted to buck him off immediatly, she could have. But he managed to make it until he was over Flea Bottom, which means he traveled nearly all the way across the city from the Red Keep and almost made it to Rhaenys Hill and the Dragon Pit. And he had no saddle and was riding one handed. The more I think about it, the more I question how he stayed on that long. That is if the dragon really wanted him off, he would have not have cleared the walls of the Red Keep. I am beginning to wonder if it wasn't mixed signals from Joffrey and Rhaenerya's panic that confused the dragon, not to mention a mob of people shooting arrows at her that increased her panic and contributed to what happened.

What we are told just doesn't make that much sense to me, but I might be looking at it with to much doubt in my mind. 

 

[Brad Stark]

I don't see major changes due to the show.  He finished Dance of Dragons when the first season came out.  He should have had lots written for Winds of Winter before the show got there.  He isn't going to start over or do major rework just to be different.  But he may have intentionally mislead the show or omitted material.  And the show is necessarily different having fewer characters and much simpler plot. 

[Brad Stark]

Has Dany ridden Viserion or Rhaegar?  She seems much more bonded to Drogon. 

 I wonder if they make it to the end.  I think they need 3 dragons, but Dany's are too young and only Drogon will survive and 2 new ones will show up. 

[St Daga]

2 hours ago, JNR said:

Well, it's a gigantic and super-complex series, so there are endless possibilities. 

For instance, suppose he originally intended that Dany's HOTU vision of the dying prince with rubies flying off his chest was Rhaegar. 

Now suppose that more recently he decided it's a future vision of Aegon... dying as he wears Rhaegar-like armor, to promote his claim to the Iron Throne, but is murdered.   This would solve various problems with the vision being Rhaegar, such as how Rhaegar could murmur anybody's name after having a gigantic metal spike rammed into his heart by Robert Baratheon.

That kind of thing, should it occur in TWOW, would have many reverberations and would alter several different storylines.

I know the common interpretation is that dying prince saying a woman's name was Rhaegar, but I have come to doubt that. After all, if it's a true vision, we are told that Robert and Rhaegar fought and battled while on horseback, so why is this prince in Dany's vision standing in the water? He took a hammer spike to the heart and then fell off his horse. So logically, it means that Rhaegar was never standing in the Trident. He might have died in that water but not in the way that Dany's vision shows us. Which implies to me that Dany's vision never was of Rhaegar! Or it was a false vision of him! Either a thing to come or something never to come, but not a vision from the past. It makes a lot more sense that it's Aegon, or some other Prince entirely.

The dying prince of the vision is never described, except for rubies flying from his chest, which is why we think it's Rhaegar, but earlier in the visions we are given the idea that Rhaegar (who is with Elia and Aegon) has silver hair and indigo eyes. We get no description of the prince who sinks to his knees in the water. 

So, if it ends up being Aegon, (or anyone besides Rhaegar),that was the dying prince in Dany's vision, I don't know that it would be a change from what GRRM intended from the moment he wrote those visions.

As you say, it's super complex and the possibilities are almost endless. That dying prince might very well have been Rhaegar, even though I have reason to doubt. I entered a "doubt everything" and "question everything" stage well over two years ago, and I can't shake that mentality!

3 hours ago, JNR said:

Yet it would have nothing to do with the show, because Dany's visions in the HOTU were totally different in the show, and there is no Aegon in the show (two of many super-obvious reasons why the fans should comprehend Show World really isn't the same as Book World).

Agreed that show world and book world are very different things. Each show season has proved it's moved further and further from the book source material. And changes GRRM makes might have nothing to do with what has been presented or assumed to be presented from the show!

[Tucu]

5 minutes ago, Brad Stark said:

Has Dany ridden Viserion or Rhaegar?  She seems much more bonded to Drogon. 

 I wonder if they make it to the end.  I think they need 3 dragons, but Dany's are too young and only Drogon will survive and 2 new ones will show up. 

As far as we know she only rode once: on Drogon from the fighting pit to "Dragonstone".

[St Daga]

6 minutes ago, Brad Stark said:

Has Dany ridden Viserion or Rhaegar?  She seems much more bonded to Drogon. 

 I wonder if they make it to the end.  I think they need 3 dragons, but Dany's are too young and only Drogon will survive and 2 new ones will show up. 

Well, Drogon is bigger than the other two dragons, and Dany is small of stature, I think. It's possible that Drogon is the only dragon that is big enough to carry a rider at this point of the story. Dany does seem more drawn to Drogon that the other two, but she seems to have a certain affection for Viserion that seems almost sweet. I could be completely crazy about that. She certainly can't ride more than one dragon at a time, and but F&B did show us that Joffrey was able to ride his own dragon Tyraxes as well as his mother's dragon, Syrax. It didn't end well for him but perhaps Dany will be able to ride more than one dragon, too. Right now, she isn't even close to Meereen or Rhaegal and Viserion to even attempt such a thing.

[St Daga]

6 minutes ago, Tucu said:

13 minutes ago, Brad Stark said:

Has Dany ridden Viserion or Rhaegar?  She seems much more bonded to Drogon. 

 I wonder if they make it to the end.  I think they need 3 dragons, but Dany's are too young and only Drogon will survive and 2 new ones will show up. 

As far as we know she only rode once: on Drogon from the fighting pit to "Dragonstone".

I think that the last chapter of Dany's in Dance implies she is riding Drogon daily, that she is having difficulty "stearing" him or directing him where to go, and that every evening regardless of where she directs him, he takes her back to his lair in the Dothraki Sea, the place that Dany has nicknamed "Dragonstone". That is why she finally decides she needs to walk away from him and Dragonstone, because otherwise she would never make it back to Meereen.

[Melifeather]

35 minutes ago, Brad Stark said:

I don't see major changes due to the show.  He finished Dance of Dragons when the first season came out.  He should have had lots written for Winds of Winter before the show got there.  He isn't going to start over or do major rework just to be different.  But he may have intentionally mislead the show or omitted material.  And the show is necessarily different having fewer characters and much simpler plot. 

It is possible that D&D thought the story was going a certain way, and then after meeting with GRRM they were surprised by his revelations, but then after a discussion they could have agreed to go the way they thought the story was going. I for one don't believe the books will be the same as the show.

[Tucu]

26 minutes ago, St Daga said:

I think that the last chapter of Dany's in Dance implies she is riding Drogon daily, that she is having difficulty "stearing" him or directing him where to go, and that every evening regardless of where she directs him, he takes her back to his lair in the Dothraki Sea, the place that Dany has nicknamed "Dragonstone". That is why she finally decides she needs to walk away from him and Dragonstone, because otherwise she would never make it back to Meereen.

Ah, you are right, I forgot about that part.

[Brad Stark]

39 minutes ago, St Daga said:

Well, Drogon is bigger than the other two dragons, and Dany is small of stature, I think. It's possible that Drogon is the only dragon that is big enough to carry a rider at this point of the story. Dany does seem more drawn to Drogon that the other two, but she seems to have a certain affection for Viserion that seems almost sweet. I could be completely crazy about that. She certainly can't ride more than one dragon at a time, and but F&B did show us that Joffrey was able to ride his own dragon Tyraxes as well as his mother's dragon, Syrax. It didn't end well for him but perhaps Dany will be able to ride more than one dragon, too. Right now, she isn't even close to Meereen or Rhaegal and Viserion to even attempt such a thing.

Balerion was well over 100 during the Conquest and was still getting bigger and stronger.  If the Dragons play an important part of the final battle, it is a let down to have three barely big enough to ride - we need a dragon in its prime.  The whole story is more interesting if at least one dragon dies, and Rhaegal has coloring that is foreshadowed to go badly for Dany.  Sheepsteeler, Cannibal and possibly Morning are unaccounted for, almost the right age to be in their prime.  And we have the dragon that Summer saw coming out of the crypts. 

[SirArthur]

1 hour ago, Feather Crystal said:

It is possible that D&D thought the story was going a certain way, and then after meeting with GRRM they were surprised by his revelations, but then after a discussion they could have agreed to go the way they thought the story was going. I for one don't believe the books will be the same as the show.

wait for it ...."something Whent wrong".

[JNR]

20 hours ago, St Daga said:

earlier in the visions we are given the idea that Rhaegar (who is with Elia and Aegon) has silver hair and indigo eyes. We get no description of the prince who sinks to his knees in the water

We also get no reference to a gigantic warhammer slamming into his chest -- which we would expect Dany to notice, if the rubies are literally flying in the air, you know?

A bit difficult for her to miss.

However, I think GRRM had the current Aegon subplot in mind in the nineties, going by SSMs, which means it's quite possible he did always intend that vision to be of Aegon.   We'll find out in due course.

20 hours ago, Feather Crystal said:

It is possible that D&D thought the story was going a certain way, and then after meeting with GRRM they were surprised by his revelations, but then after a discussion they could have agreed to go the way they thought the story was going.

Yes, this could have happened.

However, given GRRM's notorious secrecy and reticence in discussing future books, he really had no incentive to tell D&D much.  His contract with HBO only entitled them to adapt published books, not to know all the ideas in his head about future books. 

Then we have interviews in which he said things like "I hope we're going to wind up in more or less the same place." 

Which made me remark: "He... hopes?  Why doesn't he know?"

And finally, we've been told that HBO is using "the true origin of the white walkers" as one reason we should watch the first prequel show, about the Long Night.

This, of course, means that the origin of the white walkers D&D gave us on GOT was...  surprise, surprise... not true.  (As I've been saying for years.)

Well, what other major creative decisions did D&D make, for the post-canon part of the show, which will turn out to be not true?   Eventually, I think we'll learn the answer is almost all of them.

[Brad Stark]

GRRM's said the show and books would end the same way with the same person on the iron throne.  Again, can't find the interview. 

[alienarea]

1 hour ago, Brad Stark said:

GRRM's said the show and books would end the same way with the same person on the iron throne.  Again, can't find the interview. 

If there isn't an iron throne in the end it's technically correct but the stories could be different.

You would need two books to remove all the people from the books that were cut from the show. 

And ravens. The books need supersonic ravens.