Dragons Impress

[Lord Varys]

10 hours ago, Orion2 said:

Yeah you're right. If there was anything it was a gradual decline in health. Which doesn't jive with the considerably degraded health of the dragons on the pyramid. There is definitely a bit in one of the Meereen chapters about how dragons do not do well in captivity.

I actually don't think there is any indication that Viserion and Rhaegal are sick or unhealthy - they are just pissed that they are imprisoned. It seems that dragons do like to fly and hunt on their own ... but in their natural habitat they make lairs, too, which are usually in caves. The pyramid cellars aren't the natural place for such lairs - they are usually at higher places as the wild dragons of FaB show, Drogon atop his Dragonstone and Viserion and Rhaegal after their escape.

It is also noteworthy that up until the Dance and ever after it there is no real sick dragon. Rhaena's Morning is a perfectly healthy and strong young dragon.

The first odd/freak dragon was the hatchling from the egg of the second Laena Velaryon, and chances are that the maesters did something to that egg.

I'd expect that multiple dragons are going to hatch during the reign of Aegon III up until the death of the last dragon in 153 AC, and those might all turn out to be defective in some way.

10 hours ago, Orion2 said:

do you guys have a theory on what the maesters did

Chances are that they did something to the dragon eggs. I expect that Morning, Silverwing, and the Cannibal are going to die of unnatural causes in the sense that they die in another dragon battle, but any dragons that might hatch during the later reign of Aegon III are likely to not live all that long.

9 hours ago, Damsel in Distress said:

The Valyrians would take precaution to make sure that the right to ride dragons is exclusive.  Not everybody can bond and ride a dragon.  The pool of people able to ride would have been very limited to keep the power to themselves.  

Sure, but the reason why I think the 'you just have the dragons to get to like you to become a dragonrider' idea is bogus is based on the fact that when Jacaerys Velaryon started his search for additional dragonriders none of the successful candidates were folk who had handled the dragons before.

Silverwing and Vermithor and Seasmoke weren't claimed by Dragonkeepers or servants/grooms who had cared for them since their previous riders died. Hugh was a blacksmith's bastard - meaning chances are good that he didn't even live in the citadel of Dragonstone but rather in some village on the island before he mounted Vermithor -, Ulf was a man-at-arms at Dragonstone, meaning he likely lived inside the castle but didn't have close contact with the dragons, and Addam of Hull lived on Driftmark far away from the dragon he would eventually claim.

Nettles just figured out how to get close enough to Sheepstealer to mount him ... but if she hadn't had the blood of the dragon she wouldn't have been able to claim him.

If winning the trust of a dragon was part of or the crucial element to become a dragonrider then most or all of the dragonseed dragonriders would have been people who had previous close contact with the dragons.

[Roswell]

On 5/16/2021 at 8:13 AM, Buried Treasure said:

I'm not fully convinced on the meaning of destiny & whether prophecy is a shopping list or a weather forecast (can you force an event to happen by having all the prophesised ingredients, or does the prophecy only exist because the event was going to happen anyway?).

 

But to my wider point 'Dany is Azor Ahai' falls under the umbrella of her hatching the eggs due to some unique combination of magics. Her being of the Targaryen bloodline was not sufficient to hatch the eggs.

Targaryen bloodline was not sufficient for Aegon 5.  TBH, it was never a requirement to have special Targaryens to hatch dragon eggs.  The dragons did it themselves.  But the lack of a dragon could present problems as well as the age of the eggs themselves.  There is something very special about Daenerys Targaryen which reincarnated the dragons back from extinction. 

[Damsel in Distress]

On 5/19/2021 at 9:45 AM, Widowmaker 811 said:

Yes. The ritual was not the most important piece to the puzzle.  It was Dany herself.  Rhaegar could sacrifice all the blood in Westeros and still fail to hatch an egg. Rhaegar was not the prince/princess who was promised. That person is Dany.  

Egg's stunt burned a lot of royal blood and his eggs didn't hatch. Egg and Rhaegar could follow instructions down to the letter and eggs would not hatch for them.  It's different for Daenerys because she is Azor Ahai.