Omelette, scrambled, or dragons? Or what do do when you have eggs.

[kissdbyfire]

@Lyanna<3Rhaegar made a post elsewhere that was a bit OT but totally worth its own thread, so here it is. Below her post in question.

 

[Lyanna<3Rhaegar]

Thanks!! I'll try to arrange my thoughts & post some more

[Ran]

Test post to see if this thread is working right

[Lyanna<3Rhaegar]

2 minutes ago, Ran said:

Test post to see if this thread is working right

Seems to be. 

[The Fattest Leech]

20 minutes ago, Lyanna<3Rhaegar said:

Thanks!! I'll try to arrange my thoughts & post some more

@Lyanna<3Rhaegar this is the correct info, right? Or, at least the start of it? Pasting from the linked post above:

• Indeed. I think this is worthy of its own thread but here are my scrambled ideas on the matter. What I wanted to check was if anything significant happens Irt the eggs directly after Viserys is killed. Because I thought maybe Mel's prophecy has some truth. She thinks she needs King's blood to wake the dragon from stone right? Viserys has King's blood. The first mention of her eggs after Viserys is killed is when she gets the idea (instinct?) To put the eggs in fire. She puts them in the brazier, which doesn't do anything but she has the right idea. There is also this line directly before she puts the eggs in the fire:

  "No. He cannot have my son.” She would not weep, she decided. She would not shiverwith fear. The Usurper has woken the dragon now,

   

  I'm not totally sure what I think it means  but it is interesting that she talks of waking the dragon & someone taking her son directly prior to trying to burn the eggs. 

  Am I making any sense? I hope so, sometimes my thoughts are too fast for my typing. 

  Anyway, I think maybe what Mel is given is not so much a prophecy, but a recipe. Same with Dany. She is being told - by the eggs? - how to hatch them. 

  I want to re-examine her dragon dreams with this in mind & see if I find anything that fits.  

[Lyanna<3Rhaegar]

I apologize in advance for the shoddy post - I'm on my phone & can't post the quotes nor have I went through some things I would like to in order to see if there is any more foundation for this 

Ok so my basic idea is that Dany & to a lesser extent, Melisandre, have been given a recipe to hatch dragon eggs. 

We know the Mel thinks she needs King's blood to wake the stone dragon & we also know that Dany's eggs are pulling her toward them, or speaking to her instinct right? 

I've always wondered what Mel saw in her fires that led her to Stannis & while I still don't know what that was, I think she misinterpreted those signs (as she is known to do) & had she followed them correctly she would have ended up with someone else. Whether or not that is true doesn't make or break the theory - the important thing is that I think the information irt waking a dragon from stone is correct - you need King's blood. 

Daenerys is being given this recipe also & a lot more of it. 

The first thing I checked after thinking about this was what happened irt the eggs after Viserys dies. 

Dany gets an instinct or a gut feeling or what have you that she should put her eggs in fire. It amounts to nothing but as I said she has the right idea. 

I think she got this "feeling" directly from the eggs themselves - as proposed by @Rufus Snow & I think she got it at this moment because one part of her recipe had been completed - the sacrifice of a King or King's blood. 

I remember some of her dragon dreams that (iirc) can support this idea so I'm going to analyze the dreams & post some more, along with quotes tomorrow. 

[Lyanna<3Rhaegar]

11 minutes ago, The Fattest Leech said:

@Lyanna<3Rhaegar this is the correct info, right? Or, at least the start of it? Pasting from the linked post above:

• Indeed. I think this is worthy of its own thread but here are my scrambled ideas on the matter. What I wanted to check was if anything significant happens Irt the eggs directly after Viserys is killed. Because I thought maybe Mel's prophecy has some truth. She thinks she needs King's blood to wake the dragon from stone right? Viserys has King's blood. The first mention of her eggs after Viserys is killed is when she gets the idea (instinct?) To put the eggs in fire. She puts them in the brazier, which doesn't do anything but she has the right idea. There is also this line directly before she puts the eggs in the fire:

  "No. He cannot have my son.” She would not weep, she decided. She would not shiverwith fear. The Usurper has woken the dragon now,

   

  I'm not totally sure what I think it means  but it is interesting that she talks of waking the dragon & someone taking her son directly prior to trying to burn the eggs. 

  Am I making any sense? I hope so, sometimes my thoughts are too fast for my typing. 

  Anyway, I think maybe what Mel is given is not so much a prophecy, but a recipe. Same with Dany. She is being told - by the eggs? - how to hatch them. 

  I want to re-examine her dragon dreams with this in mind & see if I find anything that fits.  

Yes! Thanks, that's it

[Yaya]

hello!  nice thread - i didn't read all the previous locked thread so this is new for me - thanks!

not to hijack anyone's idea(s) but please - don't forget to consider the timing of the comet sighting & the timing on the lighting of the funeral fire was important - Jhogo spied it first - I do believe this has something to do with the "magic" of the hatching, a least a part of the recipe.

 

 

[The Fattest Leech]

I think the waking of the dead dragon eggs (the neverborn) started earlier in Dany 4, Viserys was crowned in Dany 5. There is also a link between the Targs with their blood being gold, so really this was a type of blood betrayal (to stick with ASOIAF terms).

• A Game of Thrones - Daenerys VI

  She watched until the coals had turned to ashes. Drifting sparks floated up and out of the smokehole. Heat shimmered in waves around the dragon's eggs. And that was all.

  Your brother Rhaegar was the last dragon, Ser Jorah had said. Dany gazed at her eggs sadly. What had she expected? A thousand thousand years ago they had been alive, but now they were only pretty rocks. They could not make a dragon. A dragon was air and fire. Living flesh, not dead stone.

Dany is the culmination of all Targs, she is all and none at the same time because she is magical and unique to her family, but at this point in the story, the old powers all over have started to "wake" again, this includes the old gods/trees as Qhorin says. Dany is cradling her eggs, and a soul switcheroo could be happening then, that is why Rhaego was born being already dead and half-dragon like in appearance. It is only in the later, supplementary works GRRM added that the Targs started putting eggs in cradles to try and establish a bond (which only maybe sometimes worked).

• A Game of Thrones - Daenerys IV

  "I'm not hungry," Dany said sadly. She was suddenly very tired. "Share the food among yourselves, and send some to Ser Jorah, if you would." After a moment she added, "Please, bring me one of the dragon's eggs."

  Irri fetched the egg with the deep green shell, bronze flecks shining amid its scales as she turned it in her small hands. Dany curled up on her side, pulling the sandsilk cloak across her and cradling the egg in the hollow between her swollen belly and small, tender breasts. She liked to hold them. They were so beautiful, and sometimes just being close to them made her feel stronger, braver, as if somehow she were drawing strength from the stone dragons locked inside.

  She was lying there, holding the egg, when she felt the child move within her … as if he were reaching out, brother to brother, blood to blood. "You are the dragon," Dany whispered to him, "the true dragon. I know it. I know it." And she smiled, and went to sleep dreaming of home.

Again, a type of blood betrayal (in ASOIAF terms).

• A Game of Thrones - Daenerys I

  The old woman washed her long, silver-pale hair and gently combed out the snags, all in silence. The girl scrubbed her back and her feet and told her how lucky she was. "Drogo is so rich that even his slaves wear golden collars. A hundred thousand men ride in his khalasar, and his palace in Vaes Dothrak has two hundred rooms and doors of solid silver." There was more like that, so much more, what a handsome man the khal was, so tall and fierce, fearless in battle, the best rider ever to mount a horse, a demon archer. Daenerys said nothing. She had always assumed that she would wed Viserys when she came of age. For centuries the Targaryens had married brother to sister, since Aegon the Conqueror had taken his sisters to bride. The line must be kept pure, Viserys had told her a thousand times; theirs was the kingsblood, the golden blood of old Valyria, the blood of the dragon. Dragons did not mate with the beasts of the field, and Targaryens did not mingle their blood with that of lesser men. Yet now Viserys schemed to sell her to a stranger, a barbarian.

• A Game of Thrones - Daenerys III

  But it was not the plains Dany saw then. It was King's Landing and the great Red Keep that Aegon the Conqueror had built. It was Dragonstone where she had been born. In her mind's eye they burned with a thousand lights, a fire blazing in every window. In her mind's eye, all the doors were red.

  "My brother will never take back the Seven Kingdoms," Dany said. She had known that for a long time, she realized. She had known it all her life. Only she had never let herself say the words, even in a whisper, but now she said them for Jorah Mormont and all the world to hear.

As far as Drogo and his part in this whole fire and blood ritual, in the fire/pyre wedding, we see what appears to be Drogo giving his blessing (or whatever) to Dany in his after life as he praised her and her strength while he was alive. He gives her the rank of Khaleesi (property of a Khal), but Dany is going to own the name and wear it proudly as the first Khali (Kali). This has a lot of inspiration GRRM is stealing from his friend Roger Zelazny (RIP) and his story Lord of Light that GRRM has called "required reading". Bran also has some stealings from this story as well, which makes sense because Bran and Dany are being set up as the magical opponents to each other at some point.

Also, the "rule" that only death can pay for life does exist naturally in nature- the green balance of things. But in ASOIAF it is only the fire zealots that say this, it is taken beyond context, because fire is a hungry god and it feeds itself.

And also, remember that a Dothraki wedding without at least 3 deaths is considered a dull affair. Dany's three deaths are the birth of her dragons, however that works out magically. I don't think we will ever be revealed just what the magic mixture is. Ever. This falls under the category where GRRM says to put away the rulers and stopwatches and go with the flow. He is not going to reveal all to us because that takes away the magic.

• A Game of Thrones - Daenerys X

  She could smell the odor of burning flesh, no different than horseflesh roasting in a firepit. The pyre roared in the deepening dusk like some great beast, drowning out the fainter sound of Mirri Maz Duur's screaming and sending up long tongues of flame to lick at the belly of the night. As the smoke grew thicker, the Dothraki backed away, coughing. Huge orange gouts of fire unfurled their banners in that hellish wind, the logs hissing and cracking, glowing cinders rising on the smoke to float away into the dark like so many newborn fireflies. The heat beat at the air with great red wings, driving the Dothraki back, driving off even Mormont, but Dany stood her ground. She was the blood of the dragon, and the fire was in her.

  She had sensed the truth of it long ago, Dany thought as she took a step closer to the conflagration, but the brazier had not been hot enough. The flames writhed before her like the women who had danced at her wedding, whirling and singing and spinning their yellow and orange and crimson veils, fearsome to behold, yet lovely, so lovely, alive with heat. Dany opened her arms to them, her skin flushed and glowing. This is a wedding, too, she thought. Mirri Maz Duur had fallen silent. The godswife thought her a child, but children grow, and children learn.

  Another step, and Dany could feel the heat of the sand on the soles of her feet, even through her sandals. Sweat ran down her thighs and between her breasts and in rivulets over her cheeks, where tears had once run. Ser Jorah was shouting behind her, but he did not matter anymore, only the fire mattered. The flames were so beautiful, the loveliest things she had ever seen, each one a sorcerer robed in yellow and orange and scarlet, swirling long smoky cloaks. She saw crimson firelions and great yellow serpents and unicorns made of pale blue flame; she saw fish and foxes and monsters, wolves and bright birds and flowering trees, each more beautiful than the last. She saw a horse, a great grey stallion limned in smoke, its flowing mane a nimbus of blue flame. Yes, my love, my sun-and-stars, yes, mount now, ride now.

Her vest had begun to smolder, so Dany shrugged it off and let it fall to the ground. The painted leather burst into sudden flame as she skipped closer to the fire, her breasts bare to the blaze, streams of milk flowing from her red and swollen nipples. Now, she thought, now, and for an instant she glimpsed Khal Drogo before her, mounted on his smoky stallion, a flaming lash in his hand. He smiled, and the whip snaked down at the pyre, hissing. [The Dothraki brides gift is a whip, and this spirit Khal just used his to give Dany her warrior jets]

She heard a crack, the sound of shattering stone. The platform of wood and brush and grass began to shift and collapse in upon itself. Bits of burning wood slid down at her, and Dany was showered with ash and cinders. And something else came crashing down, bouncing and rolling, to land at her feet; a chunk of curved rock, pale and veined with gold, broken and smoking. The roaring filled the world, yet dimly through the firefall Dany heard women shriek and children cry out in wonder.

Only death can pay for life.

Mirri's role in this was to provide "birthing" songs, her ululating cries of pain, another learned ingredient. A woman's battle is in the birthing bed. Or, the berthing bed in the case of bringing the dragons into the world. A Song of Ice and Fire is A Battle of Ice, then a Battle of Fire.

• A Game of Thrones - Daenerys VII

  "I am khal," Drogo said. "I spit on pain and drink what I like. Cohollo, bring my vest." The older man hastened off.

  "Before," Dany said to the ugly Lhazareen woman, "I heard you speak of birthing songs …"

  "I know every secret of the bloody bed, Silver Lady, nor have I ever lost a babe," Mirri Maz Duur replied.

"My time is near," Dany said. "I would have you attend me when he comes, if you would."

Khal Drogo laughed. "Moon of my life, you do not ask a slave, you tell her. She will do as you command." He jumped down from the altar. "Come, my blood. The stallions call, this place is ashes. It is time to ride."

• A Game of Thrones - Daenerys X

  The godswife did not cry out as they dragged her to Khal Drogo's pyre and staked her down amidst his treasures. Dany poured the oil over the woman's head herself. "I thank you, Mirri Maz Duur," she said, "for the lessons you have taught me."

  "You will not hear me scream," Mirri responded as the oil dripped from her hair and soaked her clothing.

  "I will," Dany said, "but it is not your screams I want, only your life. I remember what you told me. Only death can pay for life." Mirri Maz Duur opened her mouth, but made no reply. As she stepped away, Dany saw that the contempt was gone from the maegi's flat black eyes; in its place was something that might have been fear. Then there was nothing to be done but watch the sun and look for the first star.

Boy, oh, boy did Mirri join in, or what?

 

[Lyanna<3Rhaegar]

7 minutes ago, Yaya said:

hello!  nice thread - i didn't read all the previous locked thread so this is new for me - thanks!

not to hijack anyone's idea(s) but please - don't forget to consider the timing of the comet sighting & the timing on the lighting of the funeral fire was important - Jhogo spied it first - I do believe this has something to do with the "magic" of the hatching, a least a part of the recipe.

 

 

Thanks! 

[Rufus Snow]

My my, everyone's been busy whilst I was otherwise engaged  

@kissdbyfire thanks for getting the new thread rolling for us... and now we have lots more text to play with too, so perhaps we can tease something out of this. OK, got some catching up to do, back when I've read everything

 

[Rufus Snow]

1 hour ago, The Fattest Leech said:

I think the waking of the dead dragon eggs (the neverborn) started earlier in Dany 4

Oooh, I get a good feeling about a thread when the Leech drops in A good summary, and some nice new thoughts, too.

Anyway, I believe the process was started at least in Dany III:
 

Quote

 

A Game of Thrones - Daenerys III

And the next day, strangely, she did not seem to hurt quite so much. It was as if the gods had heard her and taken pity. Even her handmaids noticed the change. "Khaleesi," Jhiqui said, "what is wrong? Are you sick?"

"I was," she answered, standing over the dragon's eggs that Illyrio had given her when she wed. She touched one, the largest of the three, running her hand lightly over the shell. Black-and-scarlet, she thought, like the dragon in my dream. The stone felt strangely warm beneath her fingers … or was she still dreaming? She pulled her hand back nervously.

From that hour onward, each day was easier than the one before it. Her legs grew stronger; her blisters burst and her hands grew callused; her soft thighs toughened, supple as leather.

 

That suggests to me that the ... communion??? ... whatever, has already begun between Dany and the egg - or is it already a dragon? My feeling was - in the previous thread - that the dragons were acting as characters long before they actually hatched. And that prompted me to wonder about timings of various deaths.

I believe it's commonly thought that MMD + Drogo +Rhaego (or +Horse if you think Rhaego lives...ahem..) are three lives for three dragons, and that somehow it all happens within the pyre.Well, MMD is the only one who dies in the pyre. Drogo is smothered earlier, and Rhaego dies even before then. But this seems odd - like if Dany was doing some bloodmagic of her own with the pyre, is the single death in the flames actually enough? BUT if the eggs have been quickening since Dany III, then clearly it's NOT those lives lost in the pyre and its immediate run-up which have 'paid for life' after all. Maybe a final instalment, maybe it's a bum steer by the fire-crazies after all?

And all this is spiralling off to some other thoughts which have bugged me for the few years I've been rereading... The observation that someone made (maybe Tyrion) that the later dragons were small and wizened and not overly impressive specimens. I have a niggle with this. And the niggle is the Dance. Most of the 'older' dragons died off/killed each other in the Dance. Most of the younger ones also died. Then the eggs stopped hatching. So where are these supposed dragons the size of terriers coming from?

I keep on meaning to go back to double check all the dates for dragons' hatchings and dyings, but, lazy sod that I am... well, maybe tomorrow..

Anyhooo, the OTHER side to that niggle was what if the 'unimpressive dragons' were not the flying ones, but House Targaryen themselves? They ceased to hatch dragons for some reason, though they clearly had eggs, and fresh ones, too. Was it really just the tides of magic in the world, or were the latter-day Targs the stunted dragons all along? Perhaps unlike Dany, they no longer could hear the eggs calling them?

 

ETA: ok, mastiff, not terrier
 

Quote

 

A Game of Thrones - Tyrion II

He had expected to find them impressive, perhaps even frightening. He had not thought to find them beautiful. Yet they were. As black as onyx, polished smooth, so the bone seemed to shimmer in the light of his torch. They liked the fire, he sensed. He'd thrust the torch into the mouth of one of the larger skulls and made the shadows leap and dance on the wall behind him. The teeth were long, curving knives of black diamond. The flame of the torch was nothing to them; they had bathed in the heat of far greater fires. When he had moved away, Tyrion could have sworn that the beast's empty eye sockets had watched him go.

There were nineteen skulls. The oldest was more than three thousand years old; the youngest a mere century and a half. The most recent were also the smallest; a matched pair no bigger than mastiff's skulls, and oddly misshapen, all that remained of the last two hatchlings born on Dragonstone. They were the last of the Targaryen dragons, perhaps the last dragons anywhere, and they had not lived very long.

From there the skulls ranged upward in size to the three great monsters of song and story, the dragons that Aegon Targaryen and his sisters had unleashed on the Seven Kingdoms of old. The singers had given them the names of gods: Balerion, Meraxes, Vhaghar. Tyrion had stood between their gaping jaws, wordless and awed. You could have ridden a horse down Vhaghar's gullet, although you would not have ridden it out again. Meraxes was even bigger. And the greatest of them, Balerion, the Black Dread, could have swallowed an aurochs whole, or even one of the hairy mammoths said to roam the cold wastes beyond the Port of Ibben.

 

And, really? A three thousand year-old skull? How come, if the Targs had only been in Dragonstone for 400 years or so?

Still, put this together with the Dance, you get a tale more of catastrophe than of a long drawn-out decline, as generally thought when people murmur about the maesters having killed off the dragons.

[Lyanna<3Rhaegar]

13 hours ago, The Fattest Leech said:

I think the waking of the dead dragon eggs (the neverborn) started earlier in Dany 4, Viserys was crowned in Dany 5. There is also a link between the Targs with their blood being gold, so really this was a type of blood betrayal (to stick with ASOIAF terms).

• A Game of Thrones - Daenerys VI

  She watched until the coals had turned to ashes. Drifting sparks floated up and out of the smokehole. Heat shimmered in waves around the dragon's eggs. And that was all.

  Your brother Rhaegar was the last dragon, Ser Jorah had said. Dany gazed at her eggs sadly. What had she expected? A thousand thousand years ago they had been alive, but now they were only pretty rocks. They could not make a dragon. A dragon was air and fire. Living flesh, not dead stone.

Oh I agree. I didn't mean to suggest the waking started after Viserys died but only wanted to see if anything significant happened right after he died. That does get me to thinking though, what did start the whole thing? I want to check if there is anything significant happening right before Dany first feels the eggs 'quickening' 

13 hours ago, The Fattest Leech said:

Dany is the culmination of all Targs, she is all and none at the same time because she is magical and unique to her family, but at this point in the story, the old powers all over have started to "wake" again, this includes the old gods/trees as Qhorin says. Dany is cradling her eggs, and a soul switcheroo could be happening then, that is why Rhaego was born being already dead and half-dragon like in appearance. It is only in the later, supplementary works GRRM added that the Targs started putting eggs in cradles to try and establish a bond (which only maybe sometimes worked).

• A Game of Thrones - Daenerys IV

  "I'm not hungry," Dany said sadly. She was suddenly very tired. "Share the food among yourselves, and send some to Ser Jorah, if you would." After a moment she added, "Please, bring me one of the dragon's eggs."

  Irri fetched the egg with the deep green shell, bronze flecks shining amid its scales as she turned it in her small hands. Dany curled up on her side, pulling the sandsilk cloak across her and cradling the egg in the hollow between her swollen belly and small, tender breasts. She liked to hold them. They were so beautiful, and sometimes just being close to them made her feel stronger, braver, as if somehow she were drawing strength from the stone dragons locked inside.

  She was lying there, holding the egg, when she felt the child move within her … as if he were reaching out, brother to brother, blood to blood. "You are the dragon," Dany whispered to him, "the true dragon. I know it. I know it." And she smiled, and went to sleep dreaming of home.

Indeed. What made her unique & magical though I wonder? Why is she so special? Why are the old powers & magic starting to wake again? Is it just a cycle & this is the time for it or has something particular set it in motion. 

I'm sorry, I always have more questions than answers  

13 hours ago, The Fattest Leech said:

As far as Drogo and his part in this whole fire and blood ritual, in the fire/pyre wedding, we see what appears to be Drogo giving his blessing (or whatever) to Dany in his after life as he praised her and her strength while he was alive. He gives her the rank of Khaleesi (property of a Khal), but Dany is going to own the name and wear it proudly as the first Khali (Kali). This has a lot of inspiration GRRM is stealing from his friend Roger Zelazny (RIP) and his story Lord of Light that GRRM has called "required reading". Bran also has some stealings from this story as well, which makes sense because Bran and Dany are being set up as the magical opponents to each other at some point.

I've never read that but will try to when I get some time!

13 hours ago, The Fattest Leech said:

Also, the "rule" that only death can pay for life does exist naturally in nature- the green balance of things. But in ASOIAF it is only the fire zealots that say this, it is taken beyond context, because fire is a hungry god and it feeds itself.

Absolutely! 

13 hours ago, The Fattest Leech said:

And also, remember that a Dothraki wedding without at least 3 deaths is considered a dull affair. Dany's three deaths are the birth of her dragons, however that works out magically. I don't think we will ever be revealed just what the magic mixture is. Ever. This falls under the category where GRRM says to put away the rulers and stopwatches and go with the flow. He is not going to reveal all to us because that takes away the magic.

Eek! I hope we get some answers, but I suppose even if we don't, it's fun to question & analyze while we are waiting. 

13 hours ago, The Fattest Leech said:

Mirri's role in this was to provide "birthing" songs, her ululating cries of pain, another learned ingredient. A woman's battle is in the birthing bed. Or, the berthing bed in the case of bringing the dragons into the world. A Song of Ice and Fire is A Battle of Ice, then a Battle of Fire.

• A Game of Thrones - Daenerys VII

  "I am khal," Drogo said. "I spit on pain and drink what I like. Cohollo, bring my vest." The older man hastened off.

  "Before," Dany said to the ugly Lhazareen woman, "I heard you speak of birthing songs …"

  "I know every secret of the bloody bed, Silver Lady, nor have I ever lost a babe," Mirri Maz Duur replied.

"My time is near," Dany said. "I would have you attend me when he comes, if you would."

Khal Drogo laughed. "Moon of my life, you do not ask a slave, you tell her. She will do as you command." He jumped down from the altar. "Come, my blood. The stallions call, this place is ashes. It is time to ride."

• A Game of Thrones - Daenerys X

  The godswife did not cry out as they dragged her to Khal Drogo's pyre and staked her down amidst his treasures. Dany poured the oil over the woman's head herself. "I thank you, Mirri Maz Duur," she said, "for the lessons you have taught me."

  "You will not hear me scream," Mirri responded as the oil dripped from her hair and soaked her clothing.

  "I will," Dany said, "but it is not your screams I want, only your life. I remember what you told me. Only death can pay for life." Mirri Maz Duur opened her mouth, but made no reply. As she stepped away, Dany saw that the contempt was gone from the maegi's flat black eyes; in its place was something that might have been fear. Then there was nothing to be done but watch the sun and look for the first star.

Boy, oh, boy did Mirri join in, or what?

I like it! Why, though, would Mirri sing a birthing song then? Surely she didn't want for the dragons to hatch? 

I'm thinking if the sacrifices were made prior to the funeral pyre - maybe all that was necessary there was the actual fire (& maybe Mirri's birthing song) As in maybe it wasn't important that Drogo was actually in the fire, because after all, none of the other 'sacrifices' were in the fire - unless you consider Mirri one of the sacrifices but I don't think she was. 

 

[Lyanna<3Rhaegar]

12 hours ago, Rufus Snow said:

I believe it's commonly thought that MMD + Drogo +Rhaego (or +Horse if you think Rhaego lives...ahem..) are three lives for three dragons, and that somehow it all happens within the pyre.Well, MMD is the only one who dies in the pyre. Drogo is smothered earlier, and Rhaego dies even before then. But this seems odd - like if Dany was doing some bloodmagic of her own with the pyre, is the single death in the flames actually enough? BUT if the eggs have been quickening since Dany III, then clearly it's NOT those lives lost in the pyre and its immediate run-up which have 'paid for life' after all. Maybe a final instalment, maybe it's a bum steer by the fire-crazies after all?

Yeah! I'm with you, I just suggested something very similar to TFL. I think this was the last ingredient in the recipe. I don't think Drogo being in the fire was necessary at all, that just provided a reason to be building the fire. If MMD was indeed singing a birthing song though - that could have been a necessary part of the recipe. 

12 hours ago, Rufus Snow said:

And all this is spiralling off to some other thoughts which have bugged me for the few years I've been rereading... The observation that someone made (maybe Tyrion) that the later dragons were small and wizened and not overly impressive specimens. I have a niggle with this. And the niggle is the Dance. Most of the 'older' dragons died off/killed each other in the Dance. Most of the younger ones also died. Then the eggs stopped hatching. So where are these supposed dragons the size of terriers coming from?

I keep on meaning to go back to double check all the dates for dragons' hatchings and dyings, but, lazy sod that I am... well, maybe tomorrow..

Anyhooo, the OTHER side to that niggle was what if the 'unimpressive dragons' were not the flying ones, but House Targaryen themselves? They ceased to hatch dragons for some reason, though they clearly had eggs, and fresh ones, too. Was it really just the tides of magic in the world, or were the latter-day Targs the stunted dragons all along? Perhaps unlike Dany, they no longer could hear the eggs calling them?

 

ETA: ok, mastiff, not terrier

Right, I've always wondered what happened to make the dragons stop hatching & why they get smaller & smaller & lose their ability to fly (that brings to mind Bran learning to fly) Maybe the latter-day Targs closed their 3rd eye? 

 

[Rufus Snow]

17 hours ago, The Fattest Leech said:

Mirri's role in this was to provide "birthing" songs, her ululating cries of pain, another learned ingredient. A woman's battle is in the birthing bed. Or, the berthing bed in the case of bringing the dragons into the world. A Song of Ice and Fire is A Battle of Ice, then a Battle of Fire.

I like the idea of the birthing song being required.

 

Another thought has come to me, and again, I need to go back and look at records of successful hatchings to be sure. But something struck me: solo eggs don't seem to hatch.... I could be out on a limb here, but.....

..... could Rhaegar's insight that 'the dragon must have three heads' be a realisation that for successful hatching there needs to be three eggs together? Could that be another thing Dany did that earlier Targs had forgotten (or just not appreciated?) How many eggs did they have at Summerhall? Discuss amongst yourselves while I go do some reading

[The Fattest Leech]

 

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I like it! Why, though, would Mirri sing a birthing song then? Surely she didn't want for the dragons to hatch? 

 

Right, and I do agree with this . This isn't a typical birthing song (whatever that may be as I think on it), but something more, something different that hasn't been seen for eons. A birthing song to assist a woman in labor to bear a living child is a different kind that wakes dead-stone eggs, is what it seems to me. This is Dany's recipe, not MMD's necessarily.

• A Game of Thrones - Daenerys III

  "I hit him," she said, wonder in her voice. Now that it was over, it seemed like some strange dream that she had dreamed. "Ser Jorah, do you think … he'll be so angry when he gets back …" She shivered. "I woke the dragon, didn't I?"

  Ser Jorah snorted. "Can you wake the dead, girl? Your brother Rhaegar was the last dragon, and he died on the Trident. Viserys is less than the shadow of a snake."

  His blunt words startled her. It seemed as though all the things she had always believed were suddenly called into question. "You … you swore him your sword …"

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I'm thinking if the sacrifices were made prior to the funeral pyre - maybe all that was necessary there was the actual fire (& maybe Mirri's birthing song)

I was in a semi-recent chat with someone else about this pyre-fire and we started to wonder if this onetime magical event that did not burn Dany was because the fire itself was magic, not that Targs and Dany are inherently magic (as GRRM has stated). It was speculation, but one that had us both making funny "huh?!" faces.

Also, as Dany's three dragons are somewhat analogous to Valyrian steel swords, and those are made with spells and magic (and souls/shades?), there is also this weird mention that seems to maybe possibly imply that the birthed dragons could be drinking/absorbing souls/life essence as well. And this takes place in the same paragraph were the human symbol of fertility that serves Daenerys, Doreah of Lys, dies. THAT is huge! Dany truly is the mother of dragons. No human children come from Asshai because dragon-children do.

Also, Doreah died shivering. I don't know for sure if GRRM then later added the Shivers in Fire & Blood as an expansion on this overall "shivers" idea, but there are some odd, head scratchy connections if so. The Shivers.

• A Clash of Kings - Daenerys I

  "And the black beast?" asked Ser Jorah Mormont.

  "The black," she said, "is Drogon."

  Yet even as her dragons prospered, her khalasar withered and died. Around them the land turned ever more desolate. Even devilgrass grew scant; horses dropped in their tracks, leaving so few that some of her people must trudge along on foot. Doreah took a fever and grew worse with every league they crossed. Her lips and hands broke with blood blisters, her hair came out in clumps, and one evenfall she lacked the strength to mount her horse. Jhogo said they must leave her or bind her to her saddle, but Dany remembered a night on the Dothraki sea, when the Lysene girl had taught her secrets so that Drogo might love her more. She gave Doreah water from her own skin, cooled her brow with a damp cloth, and held her hand until she died, shivering. Only then would she permit the khalasar to press on.

  They saw no sign of other travelers. The Dothraki began to mutter fearfully that the comet had led them to some hell. Dany went to Ser Jorah one morning as they made camp amidst a jumble of black wind-scoured stones. "Are we lost?" she asked him. "Does this waste have no end to it?"

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As in maybe it wasn't important that Drogo was actually in the fire, because after all, none of the other 'sacrifices' were in the fire -

I can see this. I think for Khal Drogo's addition to the fire was the symbolic handing over of the whip where he "cracked/hatched" the eggs for Dany, giving her the ultimate stallion... before he went off to be a Nightlands King/Khal. She is now owning the name Khaleesi, like Jon is "owning" being called bastard, and Dany evolves into the Kali to lead all the kalisars.

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unless you consider Mirri one of the sacrifices but I don't think she was.

I agree with this, that MMD was for her songs, not so much her life/blood/whatever sacrifice, in my opinion.

[Buried Treasure]

Dany is special because of all the unknown sorcerers and  named Targaryens that tried to hatch dragons from fossilised eggs, she is the only woman, and a pregnant woman to boot.

The Fattest  Leech has provided some of the links between the dragons and birthing, but the connection starts even earlier, from the first moments of Danny's pregnancy.

In Dany III, she first starts to feel heat in the dragons eggs.

The second time she has just entered her tent after riding: 

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It was cool and dim beneath the silk. As she let the door flap close behind her, Dany saw a finger of dusty red light reach out to touch her dragon's eggs across the tent. For an instant a thousand droplets of Scarlett flame swam before her eye. She blinked, and they were gone. 

Stone, she told herself. They are only stone, even Illyrio said so, the dragons are all dead. She put her palm against the black egg. The stone was warm. Almost hot. "The sun" Dany whispered. "The sun warmed them as they rode."

Clearly she is trying to convince herself that strange properties of the eggs had a natural explanation.

Of even more significance was the first time she felt the heat. This was before she adjusted to Dothraki life, after the night she considered suicide: 

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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. ....

...She felt strong and new and fierce.

And the next day, strangely, she did not seem to hurt quite so much. It was as if the gods had heard her and taken pity. Even her handmaids noticed the chance. "Khaleesi;" Jhiqui said, "what is wrong? Are you sick?" 

"I was," she answered, standing over the dragon's eggs that Illyrio had given her when she wed. She touched one, the largest of the three, rubbing her hand lightly over the shell. Black-and scarlet, she thought, like the dragon in my dream. The stone felt strangely warm beneath her fingers.... or was she still dreaming? She pulled her hand back nervously.

She first feels the warmth of the eggs the night after a dream in which a dragon is covered in the imagery of birthing blood.

The chapter goes on for several more weeks as she adjusts to Dothraki life, and ends with the revelation Dany already knows she is pregnant. Dany is not a true prophet, but has the same latent talent for prophetic dreaming that other Targs display when fevered or at times of significance. She  dreamt the dragon dream the night she conceived, and was able to sense the magical potential of the eggs from that moment 

[The Fattest Leech]

1 hour ago, The Fattest Leech said:

 

Right, and I do agree with this . This isn't a typical birthing song (whatever that may be as I think on it), but something more, something different that hasn't been seen for eons. A birthing song to assist a woman in labor to bear a living child is a different kind that wakes dead-stone eggs, is what it seems to me. This is Dany's recipe, not MMD's necessarily.

• A Game of Thrones - Daenerys III

  "I hit him," she said, wonder in her voice. Now that it was over, it seemed like some strange dream that she had dreamed. "Ser Jorah, do you think … he'll be so angry when he gets back …" She shivered. "I woke the dragon, didn't I?"

  Ser Jorah snorted. "Can you wake the dead, girl? Your brother Rhaegar was the last dragon, and he died on the Trident. Viserys is less than the shadow of a snake."

  His blunt words startled her. It seemed as though all the things she had always believed were suddenly called into question. "You … you swore him your sword …"

I was in a semi-recent chat with someone else about this pyre-fire and we started to wonder if this onetime magical event that did not burn Dany was because the fire itself was magic, not that Targs and Dany are inherently magic (as GRRM has stated). It was speculation, but one that had us both making funny "huh?!" faces.

Also, as Dany's three dragons are somewhat analogous to Valyrian steel swords, and those are made with spells and magic (and souls/shades?), there is also this weird mention that seems to maybe possibly imply that the birthed dragons could be drinking/absorbing souls/life essence as well. And this takes place in the same paragraph were the human symbol of fertility that serves Daenerys, Doreah of Lys, dies. THAT is huge! Dany truly is the mother of dragons. No human children come from Asshai because dragon-children do.

Also, Doreah died shivering. I don't know for sure if GRRM then later added the Shivers in Fire & Blood as an expansion on this overall "shivers" idea, but there are some odd, head scratchy connections if so. The Shivers.

• A Clash of Kings - Daenerys I

  "And the black beast?" asked Ser Jorah Mormont.

  "The black," she said, "is Drogon."

  Yet even as her dragons prospered, her khalasar withered and died. Around them the land turned ever more desolate. Even devilgrass grew scant; horses dropped in their tracks, leaving so few that some of her people must trudge along on foot. Doreah took a fever and grew worse with every league they crossed. Her lips and hands broke with blood blisters, her hair came out in clumps, and one evenfall she lacked the strength to mount her horse. Jhogo said they must leave her or bind her to her saddle, but Dany remembered a night on the Dothraki sea, when the Lysene girl had taught her secrets so that Drogo might love her more. She gave Doreah water from her own skin, cooled her brow with a damp cloth, and held her hand until she died, shivering. Only then would she permit the khalasar to press on.

  They saw no sign of other travelers. The Dothraki began to mutter fearfully that the comet had led them to some hell. Dany went to Ser Jorah one morning as they made camp amidst a jumble of black wind-scoured stones. "Are we lost?" she asked him. "Does this waste have no end to it?"

I can see this. I think for Khal Drogo's addition to the fire was the symbolic handing over of the whip where he "cracked/hatched" the eggs for Dany, giving her the ultimate stallion... before he went off to be a Nightlands King/Khal. She is now owning the name Khaleesi, like Jon is "owning" being called bastard, and Dany evolves into the Kali to lead all the kalisars.

I agree with this, that MMD was for her songs, not so much her life/blood/whatever sacrifice, in my opinion.

Ok, something else just popped into my mind that maybe adds to a few points I made in the post above... Dany has to become the Khali first to wake the stone dragons, and that is what Drogo was representing. Just an idea. As Aemon says, they were looking for a boy, when it they should have been looking for a girl. Mel is constantly mis-reading her info, and this could be another case of that happening?

Am I remembering correctly that Khal actually means "prince", or prince of something? I could be making that up

• A Storm of Swords - Davos IV

  "Robert did that. Not the boy. My daughter has grown fond of him. And he is mine own blood."

  "Your brother's blood," Melisandre said. "A king's blood. Only a king's blood can wake the stone dragon."

  Stannis ground his teeth. "I'll hear no more of this. The dragons are done. The Targaryens tried to bring them back half a dozen times. And made fools of themselves, or corpses. Patchface is the only fool we need on this godsforsaken rock. You have the leeches. Do your work."

• A Feast for Crows - Samwell IV

  On Braavos, it had seemed possible that Aemon might recover. Xhondo's talk of dragons had almost seemed to restore the old man to himself. That night he ate every bite Sam put before him. "No one ever looked for a girl," he said. "It was a prince that was promised, not a princess. Rhaegar, I thought . . . the smoke was from the fire that devoured Summerhall on the day of his birth, the salt from the tears shed for those who died. He shared my belief when he was young, but later he became persuaded that it was his own son who fulfilled the prophecy, for a comet had been seen above King's Landing on the night Aegon was conceived, and Rhaegar was certain the bleeding star had to be a comet. What fools we were, who thought ourselves so wise! The error crept in from the translation. Dragons are neither male nor female, Barth saw the truth of that, but now one and now the other, as changeable as flame. The language misled us all for a thousand years. Daenerys is the one, born amidst salt and smoke. The dragons prove it." Just talking of her seemed to make him stronger. "I must go to her. I must. Would that I was even ten years younger."

[Lyanna<3Rhaegar]

Something is glitchy on this thread & @kissdbyfire can't read or post in here :'( im going to start a new one & see if I can transfer these posts to there so she can engage with us! 

[Rufus Snow]

15 minutes ago, The Fattest Leech said:

Am I remembering correctly that Khal actually means "prince", or prince of something? I could be making that up

Well, I think khal is meant to be cognate with khan in the real world, which does mean 'prince'. However, Dothraki don't follow bloodlines, rather follow strength. SO I'm not sure the whole 'king's blood' stuff applies for khals... but there again I could be overthinking it...

I also wonder how the pregnancy angle plays out. Was it Dany conceiving that started the eggs into life? And it does rreally seem that dragons are 'waking from stone'....

We mustn't forget, there was an expectant mother at Summerhall (oh and 7 eggs, I've re-discovered), but Rhaegar was born there amidst the flames, maybe that can help us pin down other differences or similarities?