Dany’s Shivers

[LadyTargaryen1]

In a recent interview GRRM said (paraphrasing here) that Jaehaerys I daughter Dany’s story will have some foreshadowing for the Dany of the main story. What do you think this means? Will Daenaerys die in a war against the others, like Alysannes daughter succumbed to the Shivers? Speculate below!

[Lord Varys]

If that were so, the foreshadowing would be that she was the central 'head of the dragon'. Like Aemon and Baelon danced around their elder sister, vying for her attention, the other two dragon heads (and riders) will dance around Daenerys - who, riding the new Balerion, is the new version of Aegon the Conqueror.

But can you actually point us to this interview you heard about?

[LadyTargaryen1]

28 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

If that were so, the foreshadowing would be that she was the central 'head of the dragon'. Like Aemon and Baelon danced around their elder sister, vying for her attention, the other two dragon heads (and riders) will dance around Daenerys - who, riding the new Balerion, is the new version of Aegon the Conqueror.

But can you actually point us to this interview you heard about?

Just saw it on Twitter, been looking for a while but no luck. Will link when i find it though.

[The Fattest Leech]

33 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

If that were so, the foreshadowing would be that she was the central 'head of the dragon'. Like Aemon and Baelon danced around their elder sister, vying for her attention, the other two dragon heads (and riders) will dance around Daenerys - who, riding the new Balerion, is the new version of Aegon the Conqueror.

But can you actually point us to this interview you heard about?

I’m not at home to quote this, but GRRM did say it recently in regards to FB1. I think it may have been in that final video promo before the book was released. I brought this same issue up with some friends in a chat elsewhere too. If the info is not about her eggs, then it could be about sickness, lineage/succession. I’m not 100% sure yet myself. 

[The Fattest Leech]

37 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

If that were so, the foreshadowing would be that she was the central 'head of the dragon'. Like Aemon and Baelon danced around their elder sister, vying for her attention, the other two dragon heads (and riders) will dance around Daenerys - who, riding the new Balerion, is the new version of Aegon the Conqueror.

But can you actually point us to this interview you heard about?

I think I just found the right one from my chat. Try this. 

https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/tv/a25228296/george-rr-martin-fire-and-blood-daenerys/

[The Fattest Leech]

I’m not so sure that the Shivers come from anything “cold”, but more associated with the water/sea/travel or something like that. Dany was “out to sea” when she got her Shivers. Still (slowly) reading, though. 

[Lord Varys]

10 minutes ago, The Fattest Leech said:

I’m not at home to quote this, but GRRM did say it recently in regards to FB1. I think it may have been in that final video promo before the book was released. I brought this same issue up with some friends in a chat elsewhere too. If the info is not about her eggs, then it could be about sickness, lineage/succession. I’m not 100% sure yet myself. 

The point was raised here is about a connection between the first Daenerys and our Daenerys. The connection that's there is that she stands in the middle of her two brothers. They are, in a very real sense, another set of a three dragon heads, and do mirror in a sense both Aegon and his sister-wives and possibly Dany and the other two dragon heads she might meet later along the lines.

The Shivers is very important, too, in my opinion. But that's a more subtle thing. I think the sickness was created by the Others and periodically hits Westeros. The reason why Westeros gets such a cruel winter in 59-60 AC (a short but nevertheless cruel winter) as well as why the Shivers hits KL hardest seems to me a reaction to Alysanne and Silverwing's visit to the Wall. Silverwing felt the Others up there, and the Others felt Silverwing. And they can't have the dragons nears them, so they hit back with all the might they can muster at this time, create a very cold winter and sent the Shivers along with it, to target the very people that brought the dragon up the Wall.

The Shivers as such is a very odd disease, a sickness that essentially kills by cold. People literally freeze to death. And the Winter Fever later seems to be a cruel variation of that, adding a fever to the cold. And the speed in which those sicknesses (and the Great Spring Sickness as well) kill even strong and healthy people (within a day) marks it out as 'a magical sickness' considering that there are no infectious diseases in the real world that kill healthy people this quickly. Even rabies usually takes a couple of days after the end of incubation time - but the way the Shivers and the Winter Fever are described implies there is no real incubation time. You catch the thing somehow and then it manifests pretty much immediately.

[The Fattest Leech]

@Lord Varys you are so welcome for the link. Glad you found it helpful. I see you understood me not being able to make full comments at that time as I was sitting in a parking lot under a building with little to no phone reception/WiFi. 

[Alexis-something-Rose]

31 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

The point was raised here is about a connection between the first Daenerys and our Daenerys. The connection that's there is that she stands in the middle of her two brothers. 

Here's what's sort of funny about this whole thing. The original Dany was the second born of Aly and Jae. She falls in between Aegon, who died soon after his birth and Aemon. It resonates even more if someone buys into the idea that Jon's Targaryen name is Aemon. 

[Lord Varys]

36 minutes ago, Alexis-something-Rose said:

Here's what's sort of funny about this whole thing. The original Dany was the second born of Aly and Jae. She falls in between Aegon, who died soon after his birth and Aemon. It resonates even more if someone buys into the idea that Jon's Targaryen name is Aemon. 

Oh, I don't think the birth order there is all that important - rather that she is going to be standing between two men. Like the Conqueror stood between two women, basically.

[chrisdaw]

Freezing out at sea, sounds like its about Euron and his symbolic effect on Dany (ice/frozen hearted) and literal effect on Drogon (making him unable to breathe fire).

[Lord Varys]

19 minutes ago, chrisdaw said:

Freezing out at sea, sounds like its about Euron and his symbolic effect on Dany (ice/frozen hearted) and literal effect on Drogon (making him unable to breathe fire).

Nobody freezes at sea in FaB. The Shivers just supposedly comes in from the sea. And the first Daenerys doesn't die at sea or in any way connected to water and the sea.

[The Fattest Leech]

The freezing cold shivers are the symptom. The cause seems to have been brought in while crossing a sea. There were several people that had just returned from crossing the sea back to the KL. That is when people starting getting sick.

[The Fattest Leech]

This is what GRRM says about Dany in that Fire & Blood promo video (above) for anyone who can't/hasn't watched it. It is not limited to just dragons:

• "This is a book that Daenerys might actually benefit from reading, but she has no access to Archermaester Gyldayn's crumbling manuscripts. So she's operating on her own there." ..."Maybe if she understood a few things more about dragons and her own history in Essos, things would have gone a little differently."

[The Fattest Leech]

A few excerpts about the Shivers from FB. Not sure if I need to use the secret eye, but am just in case...

Spoiler

• And then the Shivers came, and the Stranger walked the land.

• The maesters knew the Shivers. They had seen its like before, a century ago, and the course of the contagion was written in their books. It was believed to have come to Westeros from across the sea, from one of the Free Cities or lands more distant still. Port cities and harbor towns always felt the hand of the disease first and hardest. Many of the smallfolk believed that it was carried by rats; not the familiar grey rats of King’s Landing and Oldtown, big and bold and vicious, but the smaller black rats that could be seen swarming from the holds of ships at dock and scurrying down the ropes that held them fast. Though the guilt of rats was never proved to the satisfaction of the Citadel, suddenly every house in the Seven Kingdoms, from the grandest castle to the humblest hut, required a cat. Before the Shivers ran its course that winter, kittens were selling for as much as destriers. The marks of the disease were well-known. It began simply enough, with a chill. Victims would complain of being cold, throw a fresh log on the fire, huddle under a blanket or a pile of furs. Some would call for hot soup, mulled wine, or, against all reason, beer. Neither blankets nor soups could stay the progress of the pestilence. Soon the shivering would begin; mild at first, a trembling, a shudder, but inexorably growing worse. Gooseprickles would march up and down the victim’s limbs like conquering armies. By then the afflicted would be shivering so violently that their teeth would chatter, and their hands and feet would begin to convulse and twitch. When the victim’s lips turned blue and he began to cough up blood, the end was nigh. Once the first chill was felt, the course of the Shivers was swift. Death could come within a day, and no more than one victim in every five recovered. All this the maesters knew. What they did not know is where the Shivers came from, how to stop it, or how to cure it. Poultices were tried, and potions. Hot mustards and dragon peppers were suggested, and wine spiced with snake venom that made the lips go numb. The afflicted were immersed in tubs of hot water, some heated almost to the point of boiling. Green vegetables were said to be a cure; then raw fish; then red meat, the bloodier the better. Certain healers dispensed with the meat, and advised their patients to drink blood. Various smokes and inhalations of burning leaves were tried. One lord commanded his men to build fires all around him, surrounding himself with walls of flame.

• It was the hour of the owl when Queen Alysanne was awoken by her daughter shaking her gently by the arm. “Mother,” Princess Daenerys said, “I’m cold.” There is no need to dwell on all that followed. Daenerys Targaryen was the darling of the realm, and all that could be done for any man was done for her. There were prayers and poultices, hot soups and scalding baths, blankets and furs and hot stones, nettle tea. The princess was six, and years past being weaned, but a wet nurse was summoned, for there were some who believed that mother’s milk could cure the Shivers. Maesters came and went, septons and septas prayed, the king commanded that a hundred new ratcatchers be hired at once, and offered a silver stag for every dead rat, grey or black. Daenerys wanted her kitten, and her kitten was brought to her, though as her shivering grew more violent it squirmed from her grasp and scratched her hand. Near dawn, Jaehaerys bolted to his feet shouting that a dragon was needed, that his daughter must have a dragon, and ravens took wing for Dragonstone, instructing the Dragonkeepers there to bring a hatchling to the Red Keep at once. None of it mattered. A day and a half after she had woken her mother from sleep complaining of feeling cold, the little princess was dead.

 

[DMC]

2 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

The connection that's there is that she stands in the middle of her two brothers. They are, in a very real sense, another set of a three dragon heads, and do mirror in a sense both Aegon and his sister-wives and possibly Dany and the other two dragon heads she might meet later along the lines.

They do?  Why?  Aemon and Baelon were, what, 5 and 3 when Daenerys died?  And Baelon married Alyssa, who was born shortly after Dany's death.  Feels like this three-headed connection is really forced.

[The Fattest Leech]

These are the times Daenerys shivers in ADWD. I think there is one more (looking), but these quotes may be needed if we are to discuss this idea and not leave anything out. The shivers seem to hit Dany when she is in the middle of some prophetic-type situation or discussion.

• A Dance with Dragons - Daenerys I

"It were the black one," the man said, in a Ghiscari growl, "the winged shadow. He come down from the sky and … and …"

No. Dany shivered. No, no, oh no.

"Are you deaf, fool?" Reznak mo Reznak demanded of the man. "Did you not hear my pronouncement? See my factors on the morrow, and you shall be paid for your sheep."

"Reznak," Ser Barristan said quietly, "hold your tongue and open your eyes. Those are no sheep bones."

No, Dany thought, those are the bones of a child.

• A Dance with Dragons - Daenerys II

"… mother," whispered Missandei.

"Mother to dragons." Dany shivered.

"No. Mother to us all." Missandei hugged her tighter. "Your Grace should sleep. Dawn will be here soon, and court."

• A Dance with Dragons - Daenerys VII

"A sun in splendor, transfixed by a spear."

The sun's son. A shiver went through her. "Shadows and whispers." What else had Quaithe said? The pale mare and the sun's son. There was a lion in it too, and a dragon. Or am I the dragon? "Beware the perfumed seneschal." That she remembered. "Dreams and prophecies. Why must they always be in riddles? I hate this. Oh, leave me, ser. Tomorrow is my wedding day."

That night Daario had her every way a man can have a woman, and she gave herself to him willingly. The last time, as the sun was coming up, she used her mouth to make him hard again, as Doreah had taught her long ago, then rode him so wildly that his wound began to bleed again, and for one sweet heartbeat she could not tell whether he was inside of her, or her inside of him.

• A Dance with Dragons - Daenerys X

For a moment she did not realize what it was. The world had just begun to lighten, and the tall grass rustled softly in the wind. No, please, let me sleep some more. I'm so tired. She tried to burrow back beneath the pile of grass she had torn up when she went to sleep. Some of the stalks felt wet. Had it rained again? She sat up, afraid that she had soiled herself as she slept. When she brought her fingers to her face, she could smell the blood on them. Am I dying? Then she saw the pale crescent moon, floating high above the grass, and it came to her that this was no more than her moon blood.

If she had not been so sick and scared, that might have come as a relief. Instead she began to shiver violently. She rubbed her fingers through the dirt, and grabbed a handful of grass to wipe between her legs. The dragon does not weep. She was bleeding, but it was only woman's blood. The moon is still a crescent, though. How can that be? She tried to remember the last time she had bled. The last full moon? The one before? The one before that? No, it cannot have been so long as that. "I am the blood of the dragon," she told the grass, aloud.

Once, the grass whispered back, until you chained your dragons in the dark.

 

And again, Daenerys is currently traveling out at sea. The Dothraki sea, with her behemoth Drogon/Balerion chasing and eating sea horses, and there are even islands (Much like the Iron Islands).

• A Dance with Dragons - Daenerys X

Dany watched him go. When the sound of his hooves had faded away to silence, she began to shout. She called until her voice was hoarse … and Drogon came, snorting plumes of smoke. The grass bowed down before him. Dany leapt onto his back. She stank of blood and sweat and fear, but none of that mattered. "To go forward I must go back," she said. Her bare legs tightened around the dragon's neck. She kicked him, and Drogon threw himself into the sky. Her whip was gone, so she used her hands and feet and turned him north by east, the way the scout had gone. Drogon went willingly enough; perhaps he smelled the rider's fear.

In a dozen heartbeats they were past the Dothraki, as he galloped far below. To the right and left, Dany glimpsed places where the grass was burned and ashen. Drogon has come this way before, she realized. Like a chain of grey islands, the marks of his hunting dotted the green grass sea.

[Lord Varys]

6 minutes ago, DMC said:

They do?  Why?  Aemon and Baelon were, what, 5 and 3 when Daenerys died?  And Baelon married Alyssa, who was born shortly after Dany's death.  Feels like this three-headed connection is really forced.

It is subtle but it is there, if you open your eyes:

Quote

The young princes loved their sister to distraction, it was plain to see, and Daenerys delighted in the boys, “especially in telling them what to do.”

That is a parallel to Aegon and his sisters and it certainly evokes our Dany's beliefs that she can trust those two other dragon heads who will ride her other dragons.

[DMC]

2 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

That is a parallel to Aegon and his sisters and it certainly evokes our Dany's beliefs that she can trust those two other dragon heads who will ride her other dragons.

Yeah, I don't get why that's a parallel to Aegon - telling his queens what to do.  The only connection I see here is that upon her death, Daenerys had two and only two little siblings that were brothers.  That strikes me as thin basis.

[chrisdaw]

Yeah that's Euron foreshadowing and his greyscale epidemic spread by rats. Her pet kitten is Drogon who Euron will steal/turn from Dany. Then will come Dany's desperation to have Drogon back or a dragon to replace him being foreshadowed in Jae's own desperation for his daughter. Rhaenyra foreshadowed the same thing in this passage,

Quote

but Her Grace refused them both. She was adamant on returning to Dragonstone. There she would find dragon’s eggs, she told her loyalists; she must have another dragon, or all was lost.