Why I think (f)Aegon has the blood to ride a Targaryen dragon.

[Hippocras]

12 hours ago, Jaenara Belarys said:

Same point applies. I would assume that they have a position at some castle, so anybody would know if they got pregnant.

Yes, people would know? I am sorry but there is no point being made here really at all as far as I can tell? People would know, but that does not mean that WE know yet. GRRM simply has not told us where they went, if they had children, etc.

They were legitimized "great" bastards of a King. Chances are high they had decent marriages arranged by Daeron II or Melissa Blackwood, at which point they became "Lady" Whatever and their own names disappeared from history, as tends to happen with women in patrilineal systems.

[Mister Smikes]

8 hours ago, Frey family reunion said:

I don’t know about it being too far fetched … but it is kind of gross.

Well, Manderly's pies were made of pork, so GRRM is aware of the association.  Getting back to Tyrion, he also fantasizes about burning his family alive.

Fafnir, in Norse myth, was a dwarf who murdered his father, because he wanted his father's  golden hoard.  He then took possession of the hoard and turned into a dragon (I'm not sure in what order, but I guess in the order stated because the hoard was under a curse of some kind).  This is one of the legends that associates dragons with guarding hoards of gold, which is not something we have (yet) seen in ASOIAF.

[Lord Varys]

9 hours ago, Frey family reunion said:

I like that theory as well.  But if Melisandre ever dropped her glamor you might see the family resemblance to the Ghost of HH.

That would be rather surprising considering that Mel might merely disguise her age, not her actual looks.

14 hours ago, LynnS said:

Any idea on Melisandre's age?

If she were the child of Bloodraven and Shiera she may between 80 and 90 years old at that point, since chances are that was born after TMK, since Dunk & Egg do not mention Bloodraven having a child, nor does Bloodraven himself.

She could still be alive naturally after that time if you think about Maester Aemon ... but the idea would be that whatever magics she learned and the transformation she went through with the fire stuff allowed her to live longer than normal people.

[LynnS]

17 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

If she were the child of Bloodraven and Shiera she may between 80 and 90 years old at that point, since chances are that was born after TMK, since Dunk & Egg do not mention Bloodraven having a child, nor does Bloodraven himself.

She could still be alive naturally after that time if you think about Maester Aemon ... but the idea would be that whatever magics she learned and the transformation she went through with the fire stuff allowed her to live longer than normal people.

Thanks.  For some reason. I thought she was more unnaturally old, centuries old.  And I thought, for some reason that Shierra Seastar was dead and that Bloodraven said he failed to bring her back from the dead.  Perhaps she isn't dead after all.

[Frey family reunion]

49 minutes ago, Mister Smikes said:

Well, Manderly's pies were made of pork, so GRRM is aware of the association.  Getting back to Tyrion, he also fantasizes about burning his family alive.

Fafnir, in Norse myth, was a dwarf who murdered his father, because he wanted his father's  golden hoard.  He then took possession of the hoard and turned into a dragon (I'm not sure in what order, but I guess in the order stated because the hoard was under a curse of some kind).  This is one of the legends that associates dragons with guarding hoards of gold, which is not something we have (yet) seen in ASOIAF.

I have a feeling that the Volsunga saga and Wagner's interpretation of it, are both big inspirations to ASOIAF.   And while I think you're right, that Tyrion is playing the part of Fafnir, my guess is that Jon may  playing the part of sword that slayed the dragon.

There is a lot of sword symbolism as it relates to Jon.  Jon moves his quarters to an armory and compares himself to Valyrian steel at one point.  I think for GRRM his “magic swords” are actually his characters.  

In the Volsunga saga, the sword Gram was forged by a magical blacksmith, and then embedded by Odin in a mystical tree, where only someone considered worthy would be able to draw it from the tree.  King Sigurd is able to draw the sword, only to have it broken against the spear of a black cloaked soldier.  The sword is then reforged and made stronger and then used to slay the dragon Fafnir.

While Jon was technically trained by Thorne, in reality it was the blacksmith, Donal Noye, who really helped “forge” Jon.  The Odin figure, Lord Commander Mormont, is the one who makes Jon reswear his vow to stay at the Wall, thereby embedding Jon via an Oath to the Wall and the Night’s Watch.

Stannis tries to draw Jon from his oath to use him as his “sword”, but is unsuccessful.  Finally the author of the “pink letter” draws Jon from his oath.  So if that author were either Stannis or Mance, then the analogy continues.  That a “king” is able to “free” Jon from where he was embedded/imprisoned.  

Jon is then “broken” by the black cloaked soldiers of the Night’s Watch.  So assuming the analogy continues, we should expect Jon at some point to be “reforged” or “resurrected” and become more powerful than before.

And ultimately if the analogy holds we should expect Jon to slay a dragon.  Specifically a dwarf turned dragon.

[LynnS]

3 minutes ago, Frey family reunion said:

And ultimately if the analogy holds we should expect Jon to slay a dragon.  Specifically a dwarf turned dragon.

This is the only thing I'd change.  If Mel is the daughter of Bloodraven and Shierra Seastar; then she is a bastard dragon.   

[Frey family reunion]

15 minutes ago, LynnS said:

This is the only thing I'd change.  If Mel is the daughter of Bloodraven and Shierra Seastar; then she is a bastard dragon.   

I do think that Jon will be involved in Mel's demise, but my guess is her death is going to be the tool used to bring Jon back.

In Melisandre's POV chapter we learn that the first place her vision takes her is to dangers to her own person. 

Quote

Danger to her own person was the first thing she had learned to see, back when she was still half a child, a slave girl bound for life to the great red temple.  It was still the first thing she looked for whenever she gazed into the fire.

Well in the same chapter we're given one of her visions, and the vision starts with this:

Quote

Visions danced before her, flickering, forming and melting and dissolving into one another, shapes strange and terrifying and seductive.  She saw the eyeless faces again, staring out at her from sockets weeping blood.

My guess is, her vision is pointing her to the Weirwood Grove north of the Wall, which I think is going to be the location that Jon is brought back.  I think Melisandre is going to end up being one of the sacrifices made to bring Jon back.  Think of Mel less like Thoros and more like Beric,, fire made flesh.  It was Beric's sacrifice that allowed Lady Stoneheart to rise, and my guess is it will be Mel's sacrifice that will allow Jon to return.

[LynnS]

12 minutes ago, Frey family reunion said:

My guess is, her vision is pointing her to the Weirwood Grove north of the Wall, which I think is going to be the location that Jon is brought back.  I think Melisandre is going to end up being one of the sacrifices made to bring Jon back.  Think of Mel less like Thoros and more like Beric,, fire made flesh.  It was Beric's sacrifice that allowed Lady Stoneheart to rise, and my guess is it will be Mel's sacrifice that will allow Jon to return.

Interesting.  I'm highly diverted by our conversation.  I'm still of a mind that Jon will make a fiery sword out of Mel by plunging his sword into her heart. 

[Jaenara Belarys]

19 hours ago, LynnS said:

Any idea on Melisandre's age?

"Hunnerds and hunnerds, m'lord". 

[Hippocras]

On 5/12/2021 at 10:12 PM, Lord Varys said:

The skinchanging/greenseeing thing is something that occasionally pops up in a population, and there is no indication so far you can breed that trait ... or that the chances are higher you become a skinchanger when one of your ancestors had this gift. We don't even know if the crannogmen have preserved a lot of knowledge because they have intermarried a lot with the Children of the Forest ... or whether their isolated lifestyle allowed them to preserve a lot of magical knowledge the other First Men lost.

I think that skinchanging/greenseeing does almost certainly have a genetic element. The current Starks are descended from  Willam and Melantha Blackwood on their father's side, and from a Tully on their mother's side, and houses Blackwood and Whent on the Tully side, being important Riverlands houses are very likely to have shared ancestry that fed in to Catelyn's blood as well. I would say actually that Lord Blackwood's attachment to his only daughter may well be a subtle hint of the female line magic we discussed earlier too: It may not be just a question of his daughter being the only daughter but of her showing certain talents.

IMO the magic passing on genetically is not just a matter of there being a direct line and it passing always from mother to mother. I think it is a lot like my red hair, which is a recessive gene. What that means is that it is very possible to have two parents, as I do, who do NOT have red hair, but as long as BOTH parents are carriers of the red hair genes then it can be expressed in the child. Which means that while the parents of the Stark kids were not themselves wargs or greenseers, they nevertheless were carriers of the necessary genes, and them passing it on together to their children is what allowed the Starks to have this trait.

[Hippocras]

10 minutes ago, Crazy Old Guy said:

Wait a second, you don't really need Targaryen or Valerian blood to ride a dragon.

Back up this claim

[Lord Varys]

2 hours ago, Hippocras said:

I think that skinchanging/greenseeing does almost certainly have a genetic element. The current Starks are descended from  Willam and Melantha Blackwood on their father's side, and from a Tully on their mother's side, and houses Blackwood and Whent on the Tully side, being important Riverlands houses are very likely to have shared ancestry that fed in to Catelyn's blood as well. I would say actually that Lord Blackwood's attachment to his only daughter may well be a subtle hint of the female line magic we discussed earlier too: It may not be just a question of his daughter being the only daughter but of her showing certain talents.

Not sure why you would think the Blackwood bloodline played any role in any special talents we have seen so far. Bloodraven is the only Targaryen-Blackwood greenseer we know of, there is no indication that there were any other skinchangers/greenseers in that family, so the idea that theirs is a special magical bloodline in skinchanging/greenseeing department is without basis.

And the same is true for the Starks. It is a remarkable that all of Ned's children and Jon do have the talent, but that doesn't mean that's because of their genes or family tree ... it could just be a magical miracle thing like Dany hatching the dragon eggs. That, too, doesn't seem to be a talent you inherit. It is Daenerys who works that spell, not her bloodline.

And as Bran is told by Bloodraven himself in the cave - skinchanging and greenseeing are statistical aberrations in a population, not something that pops up more often in certain bloodlines than others. Varamyr also looks for skinchangers among his children, but there are none - and so far we have no evidence that a skinchanger parent could ever pass on his talent to his children or other descendants.

[Mister Smikes]

1 minute ago, Crazy Old Guy said:

I mean, what's the proof that that's how it works?

That's the problem.  You made a flat claim that you don't need Valyrian blood to ride a dragon, and then supported this by saying that we don't know from certain proof that the reverse is true.   That's what we call an argument from ignorance.

In the meantime, our limited information is consistent with the hypothesis that one does need Valyrian blood to ride a dragon, but that such heritage is not necessarily obvious from the dragonrider's appearance, nor necessarily traceable.  But sure, we can't prove this absolutely.

[Mister Smikes]

2 minutes ago, Crazy Old Guy said:

Why would you need Valyrian/Targ blood to ride a dragon? They're not even fire-proof.

Apparently, to control a dragon enough to ride them, one needs a special kind of (perhaps mystical) bond.

And I'm not talking about merely hitching a ride as a backseat passenger.

[Hippocras]

6 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

Not sure why you would think the Blackwood bloodline played any role in any special talents we have seen so far. Bloodraven is the only Targaryen-Blackwood greenseer we know of, there is no indication that there were any other skinchangers/greenseers in that family, so the idea that theirs is a special magical bloodline in skinchanging/greenseeing department is without basis.

And the same is true for the Starks. It is a remarkable that all of Ned's children and Jon do have the talent, but that doesn't mean that's because of their genes or family tree ... it could just be a magical miracle thing like Dany hatching the dragon eggs. That, too, doesn't seem to be a talent you inherit. It is Daenerys who works that spell, not her bloodline.

And as Bran is told by Bloodraven himself in the cave - skinchanging and greenseeing are statistical aberrations in a population, not something that pops up more often in certain bloodlines than others. Varamyr also looks for skinchangers among his children, but there are none - and so far we have no evidence that a skinchanger parent could ever pass on his talent to his children or other descendants.

Bloodraven is part of my logic, yes, by fact of his existence. As I said previously, these things seem to reinforce each other, and Bloodraven clearly carries the relevant mutated gene (as with red hair) from both his mother and his father. What I was trying to say is that it needs to come from both sides (dragonblood integrated in the Blackwood family line or not). This means that if Varamyr did not find warging in his children then that is because none of the mothers were carriers of the relevant recessive gene. It needs to come from BOTH parents and not all children of parrents who are carriers will have that gene expressed, just like with red hair.

An interesting and likely relevant bit about the Blackwoods is that their tree continues to be a favoured spot for ravens in spite of being dead. Ravens gather in a similar way around Coldhands (but don't eat him even though he is dead meat - but the raven did eat Small Paul), and they also gathered around Bloodraven. Now as for specific mentions of Blackwood magic, I would agree they are scarce but frankly that doesn't mean much with these books which reveal their secrets slowly and only as needed. Something not yet filled in in detail is not the same thing as something that is clearly without basis. The feud between Brackens and Blackwoods has ties to the Andal/First Men tensions which in turn are related to what weirwoods mean (or don't) to a particular set of people.  And if weirwoods continue to have such strong meaning to this family in spite of being essentially extinct in the Riverlands and in spite of the religion being otherwise wiped out in the surrounding area, then I would argue there must be strong reasons for their continued faith, and magic appearing to some members of the family with a certain frequency would be a strong reason for that continued faith. Without it the social pressure of the people around them would be too strong.

[Frey family reunion]

39 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

And as Bran is told by Bloodraven himself in the cave - skinchanging and greenseeing are statistical aberrations in a population, not something that pops up more often in certain bloodlines than others. Varamyr also looks for skinchangers among his children, but there are none - and so far we have no evidence that a skinchanger parent could ever pass on his talent to his children or other descendants.

It’s probably a play on hemophilia.  It only occurs in about one in ten thousand men, but it’s still a inheritable trait.  But it can only be passed on through the female X chromosome.  Hence, Varamyr not passing on his “gift” to anyone else.

 And one man in a thousand is a pretty big statistic.  There should be more skinchangers in the story than we’re seeing.  

My guess is if the talent isn’t nurtured then it probably remains repressed in the carrier.  Which is why there doesn’t seem to be many skinchangers running around.  In Westeros it’s something that is considered unpure.  So there are few if any one around to help someone develop their abilities.  But there are probably many who would help try to suppress them.

And we can look at Bran as an example.  When he told his Maester about his wolf dreams, the Maester kept giving him substances to prevent his dreams.

[Lord Varys]

28 minutes ago, Frey family reunion said:

It’s probably a play on hemophilia.  It only occurs in about one in ten thousand men, but it’s still a inheritable trait.  But it can only be passed on through the female X chromosome.  Hence, Varamyr not passing on his “gift” to anyone else.

Could be - or it really just means that the gods gave special gifts to some, while ignoring others. This is also a fantasy series. The Valyrians of old played around with selective breeding eugenics and gave themselves 'dragon blood' somehow ... but the skinchainging/greenseeing isn't the same thing. Nobody seems to have actively tried to create this talent and pass it on to their children.

28 minutes ago, Frey family reunion said:

 And one man in a thousand is a pretty big statistic.  There should be more skinchangers in the story than we’re seeing.  

My guess is if the talent isn’t nurtured then it probably remains repressed in the carrier.  Which is why there doesn’t seem to be many skinchangers running around.  In Westeros it’s something that is considered unpure.  So there are few if any one around to help someone develop their abilities.  But there are probably many who would help try to suppress them.

And we can look at Bran as an example.  When he told his Maester about his wolf dreams, the Maester kept giving him substances to prevent his dreams.

Yes, I'd agree with that. In fact, I expect that Bloodraven only learned about his skinchanging talent when he went to the Wall and met wargs and other skinchangers up there. They would have recognized him as one of their own as they do, and then he would have found a teacher who helped him explore his gifts.

The Bloodraven we meet in TMK wouldn't have had need of a glamor to infiltrate Whitewalls if he had been able to control animals at that point. All he would have needed was a bunch of ravens or other birds/animals to spy on the folks inside the castle. IT is also curious that neither Maynard Plumm nor the Bloodraven we meet at the end of the story do have pets. We would expect a skinchanger to have at least one pet. And it would have been so easy to give Bloodraven a raven, say, or have Plumm interact with birds, too.

I'd also expect that most skinchangers are not like Varamyr or Bran - only the strong ones forge their bonds instinctively and at a very early age so that the people around them *really* realize what's going on. If you just have strange dreams and never actually try to explore this whole thing you might have the potential of becoming a pretty powerful skinchanger but never make anything of that potential.

In Bran's case Bloodraven also had to open his third eye, Arya had to lose her sight for a time to explore her talents, etc.

[Universal Sword Donor]

On 5/13/2021 at 12:17 AM, Frey family reunion said:

I don’t know about it being too far fetched … but it is kind of gross.

TBH that's the only real way to eat bacon. IDK how people eat thick slabs of it

[Mister Smikes]

14 minutes ago, Universal Sword Donor said:

TBH that's the only real way to eat bacon. IDK how people eat thick slabs of it

Well, there's bacon, and then there's bacon.  If the fat content is high, then yes, I prefer it well done.

[Frey family reunion]

3 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Could be - or it really just means that the gods gave special gifts to some, while ignoring others. This is also a fantasy series. The Valyrians of old played around with selective breeding eugenics and gave themselves 'dragon blood' somehow ... but the skinchainging/greenseeing isn't the same thing. Nobody seems to have actively tried to create this talent and pass it on to their children.

For most fantasy authors I would agree, but GRRM really seems to like playing around with the idea of inheritable powers.  Whether it be futuristic psionics, lycanthopy or super hero powers, he's toyed around with this idea before.

And Varamyr has apparently been interested on the possibility of passing on his "gift", but of course if this gift can only be passed down by the mom, he may be out of luck.

(I would also refer back to the Worldbook, where there was a specific reference of the Starks taking the Warg King's daughters as "prizes".)