Heresy 216 The Return of the Crow

[asongofheresy]

1 hour ago, Black Crow said:

This I think is far more likely. All of the stuff by Mel quoted above, whether confused or not, is spoken in ignorance of the fact that Danaerys the Dragonlord has in the meantime  actually woken three dragons from stone [eggs], and Benero and the Red lot in Volantis are acclaiming her accordingly.

This suggests that Azor Ahai is not of himself/herself significant in winning the battle, but rather in his/her waking the dragons.

On the other hand that begs the question as to why how the present generation of dragons differ from those formerly ridden by the Targaryens

Wait, why do you thing Daenerys' dragons are different from the previous ones? Would love to hear your reasons 

[alienarea]

Did we ever discuss what the prince(ss) was promised for?

Maybe they got that part of the prophecy wrong as well and a prince(ss) was promised to the Others to even up and that's what they want now?

Would make a nice bittersweet ending.

[asongofheresy]

1 hour ago, alienarea said:

Did we ever discuss what the prince(ss) was promised for?

Maybe they got that part of the prophecy wrong as well and a prince(ss) was promised to the Others to even up and that's what they want now?

Would make a nice bittersweet ending.

What if PTWP is Gilly's son? He was born when Craster and Jeor was murdered by NW right? And the comet was present too. 

[Black Crow]

1 hour ago, Jova Snow said:

Wait, why do you thing Daenerys' dragons are different from the previous ones? Would love to hear your reasons 

I don't know that they are, but what is the significance of their awakening now when they were once so so common. Its only 300 years since Aegon conquered Westeros with dragons, so why is it so important that Azor Ahai should waken dragons?

[asongofheresy]

1 hour ago, Black Crow said:

I don't know that they are, but what is the significance of their awakening now when they were once so so common. Its only 300 years since Aegon conquered Westeros with dragons, so why is it so important that Azor Ahai should waken dragons?

Well we know when last dragon died winters started to get longer and magic died in the world and when dragons appeared so did direwolves, Jon saw COTF, Undying started to get stronger, along with the pyromancers, glass candles are burning. So magic is important to fight against the Others it seems, the difference between Daenerys and other Targaryens is simple no other Targaryen before her knew about the Others or cared about them but now Daenerys is the subject of a prophecy that will fight against them. 

[Frey family reunion]

43 minutes ago, Black Crow said:

I don't know that they are, but what is the significance of their awakening now when they were once so so common. Its only 300 years since Aegon conquered Westeros with dragons, so why is it so important that Azor Ahai should waken dragons?

Of course we have to ask ourselves have the dragons truly “awoken”?  After all did Bran “awake” when he was born, or when his third eye opened?

“They” had been trying to figure out the Prince that was Promised prophecy for a thousand years.  Yet numerous dragons and dragon riders had been born, lived and died in the thousand years they were trying to figure out the prophecy.  It’s not simply a dragon or a dragon rider that is necessary to fulfill the prophecy.

What did Aemon mean when he said that the “sphinx was the riddle not the riddler”?  Was he referring to a Valyrian Sphinx, something with the body of a dragon but the head of a man (or woman)?

So what does it mean to wake Dragons from stone?  And I put Dragons in capital letters for a reason.  Because I think these dragons that were hatched out of stone have only fulfilled the prophecy half-way.  

My guess is that the dragons will only truly awaken when they have been joined by the consciousness of certain humans with the unique genetics that will allow their consciousness to be transferred into the dragons.  And my guess is that it will take three consciousnesses for each dragon to fully awaken.  In other words to create a dragon with a human consciousness or intellect.  After all “The dragon has three heads.”

So I don’t think the Prince that was Promised is one person.  I think it is three persons who’s consciousnesses will be transferred into one dragon.  

After all, what better weapon to fight in a long night, a long winter, than a dragon with a human consciousness?  A being who supplies his own heat source, and isn’t dependent on the frailty of a human rider/controller.  

So I think that the Prince that was Promised will be one of those dragons.  Three human consciousnesses plus one dragon = the Prince that was Promised.  My guess is that we’ve already seen the process start, with Quentin Martell’s last chapter in ADWD, the Dragontamer. I think our Frog Prince was “transformed” by Rhaegal’s Kiss of fire.  His third  eye woke on his death bed (perhaps being tutored by our dragon savante, and scribe, Missendei), and his consciousness was transferred into one of the freed dragons.  My guess is two other consciousnesses will join him, to create the Prince that was Promised.

But of course we have two other dragons as well.  And it may be very possible that one or both of those dragons will also merge with human consciousnesses.  If we are talking about waking dragons from stone, than perhaps these human consciousnesses will be woken from stone as well.  And interestingly enough we have Sansa as Alayna Stone hidden away in the Vale...

[LynnS]

17 hours ago, SirArthur said:

I don't know what's going on with her. First she wants AA to wake dragons out of stone and then she wants to wake the stone dragon herself. 

This is as absurd as it gets, should the prophecy be true.

Davos adds another qualifier:

Quote

A Storm of Swords - Davos V

"There are no gods save R'hllor and the Other, whose name must not be spoken." Melisandre's mouth made a hard red line. "And small men curse what they cannot understand."

"I am a small man," Davos admitted, "so tell me why you need this boy Edric Storm to wake your great stone dragon, my lady." He was determined to say the boy's name as often as he could.

"Only death can pay for life, my lord. A great gift requires a great sacrifice."

What's the difference between a great dragon and your average dragon?

It seems to me that Dany has done the deed:

Quote

A Storm of Swords - Daenerys III

That night she dreamt that she was Rhaegar, riding to the Trident. But she was mounted on a dragon, not a horse. When she saw the Usurper's rebel host across the river they were armored all in ice, but she bathed them in dragonfire and they melted away like dew and turned the Trident into a torrent. Some small part of her knew that she was dreaming, but another part exulted. This is how it was meant to be. The other was a nightmare, and I have only now awakened.

She woke suddenly in the darkness of her cabin, still flush with triumph. Balerion seemed to wake with her

 

Balerion is not just the name of a ship but also the name of a great dragon, one of the Targaryen gods.

This is a recurring dream of of the same dragon who sings to her and ultimately gives her temporary immunity from fire:

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.

 

Dany experiences the cleansing, transformative, spiritual fire.  This is what Mel is referring to when she says that  fire is the cleanest form of death.

The sacrifice that Dany has to provide (in place of Edric Storm) to actually hatch the eggs is her own unvorn son; who trades places with one of the dragons and is born long dead.  This is the resurrection of the great dragon imo. I think Mel knows more about this than she lets on or that we are told.  She thinks that she can resurrect the great dragon and then hatch dragons from stone.  She might even see this as part of her own transformation to come.

 

 

[SirArthur]

23 minutes ago, LynnS said:

It seems to me that Dany has done the deed:

It brings up the question if Viserys had (great) dragon dreams, he talks about waking the dragon. 

[Janneyc1]

20 minutes ago, LynnS said:

Dany experiences the cleansing, transformative, spiritual fire.  This is what Mel is referring to when she says that  fire is the cleanest form of death.

The sacrifice that Dany has to provide (in place of Edric Storm) to actually hatch the eggs is her own unvorn son; who trades places with one of the dragons and is born long dead.  This is the resurrection of the great dragon imo. I think Mel knows more about this than she lets on or that we are told.  She thinks that she can resurrect the great dragon and then hatch dragons from stone.  She might even see this as part of her own transformation to come.

I think we all agree that it takes a sacrifice to hatch dragons. At one point we see a winged serpent breathing fire on Winterfell, through the eyes of Summer. 

What I would like to speculate about is whether or no this is a true dragon and if so, how was it hatched? Personally, I think that it was a dragon that was hatched awhile ago. In my opinion, the sacrifice that was needed to hatch the dragon was the years of blood cleaned off of the Stark sword (probably just Ice, but if it is an older dragon, it may have been the original Ice). 

What are your thoughts on this? 

[Janneyc1]

4 minutes ago, SirArthur said:

It brings up the question if Viserys had (great) dragon dreams, he talks about waking the dragon.

I think that he may have, but I think that they stopped. He has correlated "Waking the Dragon" with himself being angry. That tells me that he didn't really understand what it meant. There may be an optimal age for hatching dragons. 

I also see a bit of Euron's dreams with this. 

[JNR]

17 hours ago, Tucu said:

The myths/prophecies must be quite similar as we get equivalent descriptions and the characters can identify one with the other.

I think we agree that both figures are prophesied to be born and live at close to the same time, and hence, both could easily be involved in what appears to be the second Long Night.

However, Aemon doesn't, through silence, endorse Mel's idea that they're the same person.  He is aware of her statement, but that's all. 

When he contradicts her later with Sam, re Lightbringer, that is because he's blind, and he needs Sam to  confirm his reasoning: that Lightbringer showed no visible signs of being hot.  But he doesn't need Sam's eyes to contradict Mel on other points, so those don't come up.

 

[Matthew.]

3 hours ago, alienarea said:

Did we ever discuss what the prince(ss) was promised for?

Maybe they got that part of the prophecy wrong as well and a prince(ss) was promised to the Others to even up and that's what they want now?

This is something I wonder about as well--whether "Promised" is to be taken as a prophetic guarantee ("this is the Prince that the prophesies promised us") or if it might imply that the Prince is promised to someone/something, that their role is to be offered or sacrificed, to fulfill some sort of magical obligation that is either related to the Others or the broken seasons.

To get even more speculative on that front, it also raises the possibility that TPTWP has not yet been born, or isn't even to appear as an adult character within the narrative; there's the aforementioned notion of Gilly's son as one prospect, and I would also raise Mirri's words to Dany:
 

Quote

"When the sun rises in the west and sets in the east," said Mirri Maz Duur. "When the seas go dry and mountains blow in the wind like leaves. When your womb quickens again, and you bear a living child. Then he will return, and not before."

At the surface level, this can just read as a particularly brutal way of saying "you'll never be with Drogo again," but it might also be an unintentional act of prophecy, as certain elements of it have been interpreted from time to time--eg, that the sun rising in the west and setting in the east is now fulfilled with Quentyn's death. Accordingly, the rest might come to fruition as well, and relate to the whole PTWP business.

[JNR]

9 hours ago, Jova Snow said:

If we are talking about waking dragons over stone than the only character to do so is Daenerys so that means she is our AA

Well, we have no way to know if this part of the AA prophecy has come true already, though.  We have two gigantic books to go. 

For instance, let's not forget this remarkable image from Dany's HOTU vision:

Quote

From a smoking tower, a great stone beast took wing, breathing shadow fire

It seems quite likely to me that this is a future event, and that it represents the fulfillment of the "great stone dragon" bit Melisandre likes to witter about.

It also certainly is not what Dany has done.  Her eggs have nothing to do with smoking towers, and there were three of them, not one.

19 hours ago, SirArthur said:

this woman does not understand what she says or quotes. She can't decide if it's a dragon or dragons

Yes, that's true.  If she is mixing up two similar, but fundamentally different, prophecies and figures, one of which is about a "great stone beast breathing shadow fire" coming from a "smoking tower," and the other of which is... not... that kind of contradiction is just what I would expect from her.

[LynnS]

59 minutes ago, SirArthur said:

It brings up the question if Viserys had (great) dragon dreams, he talks about waking the dragon. 

Aerys (and other Targs) as well had dreams of transforming into a dragon.   This seems to be part and parcel of Targaryen lore; possibly linked to the notion that there are dragon gods.

[LynnS]

1 hour ago, Janneyc1 said:

I think we all agree that it takes a sacrifice to hatch dragons. At one point we see a winged serpent breathing fire on Winterfell, through the eyes of Summer. 

What I would like to speculate about is whether or no this is a true dragon and if so, how was it hatched? Personally, I think that it was a dragon that was hatched awhile ago. In my opinion, the sacrifice that was needed to hatch the dragon was the years of blood cleaned off of the Stark sword (probably just Ice, but if it is an older dragon, it may have been the original Ice). 

What are your thoughts on this? 

Sorry, I have no idea about it.   Is this something Summer sees while Bran is hiding in the crypts?   Can Summer perceive something from the past or future.  

[Black Crow]

15 minutes ago, LynnS said:

Aerys (and other Targs) as well had dreams of transforming into a dragon.   This seems to be part and parcel of Targaryen lore; possibly linked to the notion that there are dragon gods.

Perhaps that may indeed be what the prophecy is about. We know that at least some Targaryens believed that they could become dragons - even though the experiment turned out badly. One of these days one of them might succeed.

[LynnS]

9 minutes ago, Black Crow said:

Perhaps that may indeed be what the prophecy is about. We know that at least some Targaryens believed that they could become dragons - even though the experiment turned out badly. One of these days one of them might succeed.

This is what I'm thinking as well.  We've discussed the possibility that dragon eggs can contain the souls of bonded Targs should they die before the egg is hatched.  In this case, I think the soul contained in Dany's black egg was resurrected in exchange for her son's life (and Mirri Maaz Duur's life).    

[Janneyc1]

15 minutes ago, LynnS said:

Sorry, I have no idea about it.   Is this something Summer sees while Bran is hiding in the crypts?   Can Summer perceive something from the past or future.  

here's the quote:

Quote

 

He padded over dry needles and brown leaves, to the edge of the wood where the pines grew thin. Beyond the open fields he could see the great piles of man-rock stark against the swirling flames. The wind blew hot and rich with the smell of blood and burnt meat, so strong he began to slaver.

Yet as one smell drew them onward, others warned them back. He sniffed at the drifting smoke. Men, many men, many horses, and fire, fire, fire. No smell was more dangerous, not even the hard cold smell of iron, the stuff of man-claws and hardskin. The smoke and ash clouded his eyes, and in the sky he saw a great winged snake whose roar was a river of flame. He bared his teeth, but then the snake was gone. Behind the cliffs tall fires were eating up the stars.

All through the night the fires crackled, and once there was a great roar and a crash that made the earth jump under his feet. Dogs barked and whined and horses screamed in terror. Howls shuddered through the night; the howls of the man-pack, wails of fear and wild shouts, laughter and screams. No beast was as noisy as man. He pricked up his ears and listened, and his brother growled at every sound. They prowled under the trees as a piney wind blew ashes and embers through the sky. In time the flames began to dwindle, and then they were gone. The sun rose grey and smoky that morning.

 

My guess is that there was a dragon beneath Winterfell that was asleep. 

[SirArthur]

35 minutes ago, LynnS said:

Aerys (and other Targs) as well had dreams of transforming into a dragon.   This seems to be part and parcel of Targaryen lore; possibly linked to the notion that there are dragon gods.

That is where I disagree. For me the dreams are linked to locations ... specificly Dragonstone and Shireen is the proof for me. None of Robert's bastards, as fas as we know, have dragon dreams. Shireen however was born on Dragonstone, much like Dany. 

Winterfell may be another location (with a  similar cryptic name), but that is another discussion and not a discussion about a great dragon woken from stone. 

[asongofheresy]

2 hours ago, JNR said:

Well, we have no way to know if this part of the AA prophecy has come true already, though.  We have two gigantic books to go. 

For instance, let's not forget this remarkable image from Dany's HOTU vision:

It seems quite likely to me that this is a future event, and that it represents the fulfillment of the "great stone dragon" bit Melisandre likes to witter about.

It also certainly is not what Dany has done.  Her eggs have nothing to do with smoking towers, and there were three of them, not one.

Yes, that's true.  If she is mixing up two similar, but fundamentally different, prophecies and figures, one of which is about a "great stone beast breathing shadow fire" coming from a "smoking tower," and the other of which is... not... that kind of contradiction is just what I would expect from her.

.... I wow... How do you think this will happen? I think there are talks about gorgoyles of Dragonstone right? Shireen has dreams about them I think? 

Since there are theories of Melisandre being a Targaryen bastard through Shiera and Brynden - is it possible she is a Targaryen bastard though line of Aemond One Eye and the Witch Alys? Is she trying to wake up Vhagar? I remember mentions of Caraex instead.