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Fire and Blood


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GRRM's new book Fire and Blood (about the Targaryen dynasty) says that after death Targaryen family members were cremated rather than buried; and that at the funeral of a dragon-rider, his dragon was often called on to light the funeral pyre. Clearly the time-duration and power needed when used for that purpose, would be much less than (e.g.) a full long blast against an enemy fort. Likely, the plain order "Dracarys" must have come in many variations acccording to what job it had to do.

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On 8/29/2019 at 10:25 PM, Anthony Appleyard said:

I borrowed it from the library and tried to read it.  To be perfectly honest, I found it tedious.  A lot of it seems to be repeated information from his other targ history book.  It felt like a money grab.

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I feel like it stopped just before the interesting parts started. I personally find politics before the dragons all died boring because the Targs are basically untouchable, which doesn't make for much excitement. It would be much better if F&B had come out before TWOIAF, but it didn't and it feels a lot like what argonak said, a cash grab.

 

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  • 3 weeks later...
7 hours ago, M.Alhazred said:

Been reading about Meagor and Aenys.The tensions that lead to The Dance and The War of 5 Kings have always been there haven't they?

Powerful people always want more power.  And Aegon made one big mistake, in that he gave the Crownlands too little power.  The Crownlands should have been setup to be at least as strong as any other two kingdoms put together, preferably three.  Aegon didn't realize that his descendants wouldn't be able to maintain the dragons.  

Thus the current Kings rely on the consent of their great lords to be effective.  That (historically), leads to civil wars and anarchy.  

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I found Fire and Blood to be quite interesting. And it has bulk, for example, for passing the time of a long journey.

Likely, literary advice would be that a dragon is a spectacular feature and should not be over-used, and that unnecessary trivial mentions should be avoided. Similarly, a flight by dragon is often described simply as "he/she flew", with no mention of what he/she flew on. But in F&B I found a mention of a Targaryen prince at the small boy age playing at dragon-rider, by running about astride a broom-handle .

In the real world, when I was much younger, from time I saw boys playing at fighter-plane, with arms out sideways as wings, and imitating engine and gun noises. I wonder if Westerosi children ever "played at dragon" similarly?

 

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