Lemongate: It was Dragonstone, not Braavos?

[Egged]

Dragonstone, not Braavos
Cressen heading into the Great Hall:

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Above, the comet blazed red and malevolent. I am too old and wise to fear such things, the maester told himself.

The doors to the Great Hall were set in the mouth of a stone dragon. He told the servants to leave him outside. It would be better to enter alone; he must not appear feeble. Leaning heavily on his cane, Cressen climbed the last few steps and hobbled beneath the gateway teeth. A pair of guardsmen opened the heavy red doors before him, unleashing a sudden blast of noise and light. Cressen stepped down into the dragon's maw.

 

Daenerys' dream:

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"… wake the dragon …"

The door loomed before her, the red door, so close, so close, the hall was a blur around her, the cold receding behind. And now the stone was gone and she flew across the Dothraki sea, high and higher, the green rippling beneath, and all that lived and breathed fled in terror from the shadow of her wings. She could smell home, she could see it, there, just beyond that door, green fields and great stone houses and arms to keep her warm, there. She threw open the door.

 

Aegon's garden, on Dragonstone:

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Aegon's Garden had a pleasant piney smell to it, and tall dark trees rose on every side. There were wild roses as well, and towering thorny hedges, and a boggy spot where cranberries grew.

Daenerys' vision:

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I know this room, she thought. She remembered those great wooden beams and the carved animal faces that adorned them. And there outside the window, a lemon tree! The sight of it made her heart ache with longing.

The Sept of Dragonstone

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The burning gods cast a pretty light, wreathed in their robes of shifting flame, red and orange and yellow. Septon Barre had once told Davos how they'd been carved from the masts of the ships that had carried the first Targaryens from Valyria. Over the centuries, they had been painted and repainted, gilded, silvered, jeweled.

[...]

Dragonstone's sept had been where Aegon the Conqueror knelt to pray the night before he sailed. That had not saved it from the queen's men. They had overturned the altars, pulled down the statues, and smashed the stained glass with warhammers.

[...]

They were all afire now, Maid and Mother, Warrior and Smith, the Crone with her pearl eyes and the Father with his gilded beard; even the Stranger, carved to look more animal than human.

 

So we have the green fields (compared to Essos, Westeros is very "green"), the tall wood pillars with carved faces of animals (or at least one of them, in Dany's child mind maybe they were all animal-like), a garden, the great stone house with its red door that leads into the "dragon". The lemon tree is missing, but Elia spent time in Dragonstone, where her first child was born. Could there once have been a lemon tree, from her homeland, since removed, due to its association with the murdered princess?

Now, if lemongate was Dragonstone all along... what does it mean for Daenerys? How could she have memories of the place if we go by the official story?

[Daenerysthegreat]

5 minutes ago, Egged said:

Dragonstone, not Braavos
Cressen heading into the Great Hall:

Daenerys' dream:

Aegon's garden, on Dragonstone:

Daenerys' vision:

The Sept of Dragonstone

So we have the green fields (compared to Essos, Westeros is very "green"), the tall wood pillars with carved faces of animals (or at least one of them, in Dany's child mind maybe they were all animal-like), a garden, the great stone house with its red door that leads into the "dragon". The lemon tree is missing, but Elia spent time in Dragonstone, where her first child was born. Could there once have been a lemon tree, from her homeland, since removed, due to its association with the murdered princess?

Now, if lemongate was Dragonstone all along... what does it mean for Daenerys? How could she have memories of the place if we go by the official story?

I don't want to offend you but the theories of dany and viserys being elsewhere are not that believable since they have less evidence for it and more evidence against it. 

The dragonstone theory is extremely unlikely, 0.00000000001 percent chance of it happening. 

But let's say that it's true then either 

1) Viserys and dany were disguised as normal smallfolk. Their targaryen appearance was believable since there are lot of targaryen looking people on dragonstone. 

2) Stannis is a targaryen loyalist and hid viserys and dany on dragonstone. 

[Egged]

There are many other possibilities.

[LindsayLohan]

29 minutes ago, Egged said:

There are many other possibilities.

Dragonstone ain't one of them.

[Tucu]

2 hours ago, Egged said:

Dragonstone, not Braavos
Cressen heading into the Great Hall:

Daenerys' dream:

Aegon's garden, on Dragonstone:

Daenerys' vision:

The Sept of Dragonstone

So we have the green fields (compared to Essos, Westeros is very "green"), the tall wood pillars with carved faces of animals (or at least one of them, in Dany's child mind maybe they were all animal-like), a garden, the great stone house with its red door that leads into the "dragon". The lemon tree is missing, but Elia spent time in Dragonstone, where her first child was born. Could there once have been a lemon tree, from her homeland, since removed, due to its association with the murdered princess?

Now, if lemongate was Dragonstone all along... what does it mean for Daenerys? How could she have memories of the place if we go by the official story?

IIRC we discussed in past Heresy threads the link between a dragon's gullet, the red doors of the Great Hall and Dany's dreams of the big house with the red doors. We didn't get to any conclusions except to expect some reveal if/when Dany takes Dragonstone.

[Mister Smikes]

1 hour ago, LindsayLohan said:

Dragonstone ain't one of them.

I'm inclined to agree.  Dragonstone is not quite as extreme as Braavos in terms of being the last place in the world you would expect to find lemons.  But if we accept the lemongate premise, and start looking for alternatives to Braavos, surely we should then search for likely places, rather than not-quite-so-unlikely ones.

Or, to paraphrase what somebody said to someone else in I forget what sample chapter:  "This is north of King's Landing, you fool.  Can't you read a bloody map."  Or to paraphrase Sharna:  "Lemons?  Where would I find lemons?  Does this look like Dorne to you?"

[WhatAnArtist!]

2 hours ago, Daenerysthegreat said:

2) Stannis is a targaryen loyalist and hid viserys and dany on dragonstone. 

This would be one of the wildest twists ever. I kind of want it to be real.

[Mister Smikes]

2 hours ago, Daenerysthegreat said:

I don't want to offend you but the theories of dany and viserys being elsewhere are not that believable since they have less evidence for it and more evidence against it. 

FAN:  Dany remembers a lemon tree outside the house with the red door in Braavos, but citrus trees shouldn't really grow in Braavos's cold, foggy climate.  Is this discrepancy significant?  Does it point to future revelations about Dany's past?  Thank you so much.

GRRM:  Very perceptive of you.  Yes, it does point to ... well, that would be telling.

Which does not necessarily prove that the House with the Red Door is not in Braavos.  But there is some mystery here and it does point to something, according to GRRM.  If anyone has a plausible alternate theory, I am all ears.

Note that since these are Dany's memories, the only person who is required to be elsewhere is Dany herself.  Viserys can still be in Braavos at this time.  Viserys does not feature explicitly in any of Dany's memories.  She believes he is there, because she conflates her memories with Viserys' stories.    In short, she believes Viserys must have been present for the same reason that she believes the house must have been in Braavos -- it simply matches what she was taught.  We are warned of this phenomenon, when we are warned that she does seem to remember the flight from Dragonstone, even though she knows (and we know) that this cannot have been a real memory.

 

[Lord Lannister]

Well if Stannis spent years sucking lemons on Dragonstone it would explain why he's so bitter.

[Alexis-something-Rose]

I've sort of thought that because the description of the house with the red door is reminiscent of Dragonstone, that perhaps the house with the red door is a property that belonged to the Targaryens and that Willem Darry took Dany and Viserys there when they fled Dragonstone. 

[Mourning Star]

Dany describes Weteros (home), in her very first chapter, and it is there we will find the House with the Red Door:

Somewhere beyond the sunset, across the narrow sea, lay a land of green hills and flowered plains and great rushing rivers, where towers of dark stones rose amidst magnificent blue-grey mountains, and armored knights rode to battle beneath the banners of their lords. The Dothraki called the land Raesh Andahli, the land of the Andals. In the Free Cities, they talked of Westeros and the Sunset Kingdoms. Her brother had a simpler name. “Our land,” he called it. The words were like a prayer with him. If he said them enough, the gods were sure to hear. “Ours by blood right, taken from us by treachery, but ours still, ours forever. You do not steal from the dragon, oh, no. The dragon remembers.”

In Dany's “wake the dragon” dream, we see the same green hills/fields, flowered plains/smell of home, stone towers/houses, and finally the pun: "banners of their lords" are “arms” (as in coat of arms).

The red door was so far ahead of her, and she could feel the icy breath behind, sweeping up on her. If it caught her she would die a death that was more than death, howling forever alone in the darkness. She began to run.

…

She could smell home, she could see it, there, just beyond that door, green fields and great stone houses and arms to keep her warm, there. She threw open the door.

" . . . the dragon . . . "

And saw her brother Rhaegar, mounted on a stallion as black as his armor. Fire glimmered red through the narrow eye slit of his helm. "The last dragon," Ser Jorah's voice whispered faintly. "The last, the last." Dany lifted his polished black visor. The face within was her own.

After that, for a long time, there was only the pain, the fire within her, and the whisperings of stars.

....

“Remember who you are, Daenerys,” the stars whispered in a woman’s voice. “The dragons know. Do you?”

Dany smells home first, a nice touch for a wolf, and it should be obvious without any mention of a lemon tree that this isn't describing Braavos. 

Then of course it’s also worth pointing out she literally sees herself as Rheagar, wearing his arms and armor (very reminiscent of Luke seeing himself in Vader's armor in Star Wars, where obviously, there was another: Leia). Especially since Rhaegar ran off with Lyanna Stark about the amount of time after the Tourney at Harrenhall when it would be hard to hide a pregnancy, and then Lyanna was missing for long enough to have a second child. This also explains the Kingsguard at the Tower of Joy (Jon was already born and Lyanna died giving birth to his little sister Dany), the odd age discrepancy alluded to between Jon and Rob, and why Ned's promises become "broken promises" after the assassin is sent to kill Dany.

Ned Instructs Arya about the Stark family sigil… aka Arms… aka the Direwolf.

"The hard cruel times," her father said. "We tasted them on the Trident, child, and when Bran fell. You were born in the long summer, sweet one, you've never known anything else, but now the winter is truly coming. Remember the sigil of our House, Arya."
"The direwolf," she said, thinking of Nymeria. She hugged her knees against her chest, suddenly afraid.
Let me tell you something about wolves, child. When the snows fall and the white winds blow, the lone wolf dies, but the pack survives. Summer is the time for squabbles. In winter, we must protect one another, keep each other warm, share our strengths. So if you must hate, Arya, hate those who would truly do us harm. Septa Mordane is a good woman, and Sansa... Sansa is your sister. You may be as different as the sun and the moon, but the same blood flows in both your hearts.

Notice how well it fits… They (the Starks) must keep each other warm during winter or they will die, howling (dragons don’t howl, wolves do) alone in the darkness. Just like Dany's dream above.

Dany is looking for "arms to keep her warm", the sigil of her family, the Direwolf of the Starks.

Off in the distance, a wolf howled. The sound made her feel sad and lonely, but no less hungry. As the moon rose above the grasslands, Dany slipped at last into a restless sleep.

Ned even spells out for us what he would do with a baby who's hair/eye color gave away a parentage which would incur Robert's wrath.

"For a start," said Ned, "I do not kill children. You would do well to listen, my lady. I shall say this only once. When the king returns from his hunt, I intend to lay the truth before him. You must be gone by then. You and your children, all three, and not to Casterly Rock. If I were you, I should take ship for the Free Cities, or even farther, to the Summer Isles or the Port of Ibben. As far as the winds blow."
"Exile," she said. "A bitter cup to drink from."
"A sweeter cup than your father served Rhaegar's children," Ned said, "and kinder than you deserve. Your father and your brothers would do well to go with you. Lord Tywin's gold will buy you comfort and hire swords to keep you safe. You shall need them. I promise you, no matter where you flee, Robert's wrath will follow you, to the back of beyond if need be."

[Frey family reunion]

31 minutes ago, Mourning Star said:

Somewhere beyond the sunset, across the narrow sea, lay a land of green hills and flowered plains and great rushing rivers, where towers of dark stones rose amidst magnificent blue-grey mountains, and armored knights rode to battle beneath the banners of their lords.

We have to be careful when we try to determine what Dany’s actual memories were as opposed to the descriptions of Westeros that Viserys gave her.

I think the above descriptors along with the green fields and great stone houses were probably Dany’s mental image of Westeros from Viserys’ stories.  Viserys was describing castles (great stone houses) and green fields for Dany.

My guess is though, that the lemon tree outside of Dany’s window was an actual childhood memory of Dany’s.

There is a phenomena we’ve all experienced called childhood amnesia.  Where we start having explicit memories of events around age three, but those explicit memories are infrequent.  We forget the vast majority of events that happen to us around the age of three and four.  As we get older we start forming more and more explicit memories.

So I think Dany’s first explicit memory was her house, where a lemon tree could be seen outside of her window.  

What I think GRRM may be hinting at is that Dany’s early childhood may not be as Viserys described.  In other words she wasn’t sent to Braavos soon after a birth from Dragonstone.

At one point very early on in her life she was in a place that had a lemon tree outside the window.  GRRM keeps hitting us over the head, that this isn’t consistent with a house in Braavos.  The other thing that GRRM starts to repeat is that lemons are found in Dorne.  He repeats that from book 3 to the wow excerpts.

Which makes me think that the implication is that early in her life Dany was in Dorne, not Braavos.  And presumably as a very young girl she was brought to Braavos.  And because her memories are so spotty that early on, she conflates Braavos with her image of the lemon tree outside the window, and perhaps with the red door as well.  And this conflation of memories probably also comes about because of her reliance on Viserys for what happened to her before her own memories come into play.

This theory gains some additional traction when we see that early on Oberyn Martell signed a wedding contract with the earliest father figure from her memory, Willem Darry.  The Dorne connection comes up again.

So I think Dany’s vision of home is crafted from stories, and from a very spotty rare explicit memory of her actual home, where the lemon tree grew.

[Mourning Star]

17 minutes ago, Frey family reunion said:

We have to be careful when we try to determine what Dany’s actual memories were as opposed to the descriptions of Westeros that Viserys gave her.

Well yes, we have to account for the things abusive Viserys told her, but the text still seems to hint strongly that the House with the Red Door was in Westeros.

The same things appear in her opening chapter, and in the wake the dragon dream, particularly the smell, which she remembers (and is particularly fitting if she's half a direwolf):

She did take a dozen flasks of scented oils, the perfumes of her childhood; she had only to close her eyes and sniff them and she could see the big house with the red door once more.

Which fits with the flowered plains and smelling home, but not the smells of Braavos:

But Braavos lay before her. The night air smelled of smoke and salt and fish.

And we didn't get into all the weird phrasing that makes a ton more sense once you accept that Dany wasn't raised in Braavos.

All that Daenerys wanted back was the big house with the red door, the lemon tree outside her window, the childhood she had never known.

Even the big house with the red door had not been home for him.

Or that Dany in fact remembers arriving in Braavos:

Once on a voyage to Braavos, as she'd watched the crew wrestle down a great green sail in a rising gale, she had even thought how fine it would be to be a sailor. But when she told her brother, Viserys had twisted her hair until she cried. "You are blood of the dragon," he had screamed at her. "A dragon, not some smelly fish."

Where we see an example of how Viserys abused her and messed with her memory.

[Egged]

If you want another Darth Vader analogy: Jon wearing an armor of black ice, his blade burned red in his fist. All while he is chopping the head off Ygritte and Robb. Until a gnarled hand (wood hand) grabs him by the shoulder and he wakes up.

So Jon and Dany are Luke and Leia, and the fear is that they may become like their father. Now who is the father?

[Mourning Star]

2 minutes ago, Egged said:

If you want another Darth Vader analogy: Jon wearing an armor of black ice, his blade burned red in his fist. All while he is chopping the head off Ygritte and Robb. Until a gnarled hand (wood hand) grabs him by the shoulder and he wakes up.

Yerp... but this one from the dragon dream is just so spot on. Not just what I mentioned above but Jorah being a ghost too.

Ser Jorah's face was drawn and sorrowful. "Rhaegar was the last dragon," he told her. He warmed translucent hands over a glowing brazier where stone eggs smouldered red as coals. One moment he was there and the next he was fading, his flesh colorless, less substantial than the wind. "The last dragon," he whispered, thin as a wisp, and was gone. She felt the dark behind her, and the red door seemed farther away than ever.

Ben and Yoda are ghosts, their flesh colorless, in Star Wars when they say:

That boy is our last hope...
No, there is another

[Egged]

1 minute ago, Mourning Star said:

Yerp... but this one from the dragon dream is just so spot on. Not just what I mentioned above but Jorah being a ghost too.

Ser Jorah's face was drawn and sorrowful. "Rhaegar was the last dragon," he told her. He warmed translucent hands over a glowing brazier where stone eggs smouldered red as coals. One moment he was there and the next he was fading, his flesh colorless, less substantial than the wind. "The last dragon," he whispered, thin as a wisp, and was gone. She felt the dark behind her, and the red door seemed farther away than ever.

Ben and Yoda are ghosts, their flesh colorless, in Star Wars when they say:

That boy is our last hope...
No, there is another

“There is another” sounds like Rhaegar’s line during Dany’s vision too.

[Mourning Star]

9 minutes ago, Egged said:

“There is another” sounds like Rhaegar’s line during Dany’s vision too.

Yes, this:

"He has a song," the man replied. "He is the prince that was promised, and his is the song of ice and fire." He looked up when he said it and his eyes met Dany's, and it seemed as if he saw her standing there beyond the door. "There must be one more," he said, though whether he was speaking to her or the woman in the bed she could not say.

I would argue that much of the House of the Undying points towards Dany being Rhaegar and Lyanna's child. From the visions of Stark and Targ Kings, to the house with the red door, to the Undying's answers to her questions at the end.

I would go so far as to say the "cup of ice" is the bitter cup of exile discussed by Ned and Cersei which I quoted above.

"Exile," she said. "A bitter cup to drink from."
"A sweeter cup than your father served Rhaegar's children,"

[Frey family reunion]

1 hour ago, Mourning Star said:

She did take a dozen flasks of scented oils, the perfumes of her childhood; she had only to close her eyes and sniff them and she could see the big house with the red door once more.

I’m not sure that this really narrows it done much.  Most of our examples of scented oils comes from Essos not Westeros, actually.  I’m not sure this is very good evidence against Braavos.  And she’s not really referencing the smells of the outside, she seems to be talking about the smells inside the house.  I think the memory of the lemon tree remains the best evidence against Braavos.

Having said, that I agree with the general premise that the story that Viserys told Dany about her childhood might very well be false, and that Dany lived somewhere before she was brought to Braavos.  My suspicion is that she originally came from Dorne based on the repeated theme of lemons coming from Dorne.  But regardless, the scented oils doesn’t really narrow it down for me.

(It would help to know exactly how the oils were scented.)

Another poster from another board, had a pretty interesting theory that Dany’s earliest memory of the House with the red door might be memories from a brothel.  The red door in reality, would be from the red lamp over the door.  I would suspect that such a house would be heavily perfumed with scented oils.

[Egged]

We have the wood pillars with carved animal faces in Dragonstone, and a garden, and the only red doors ever mentioned in all the books.

Cutting off the lemon tree due to it having been there for Elia would make sense.

[Mourning Star]

1 hour ago, Frey family reunion said:

I’m not sure that this really narrows it done much.  Most of our examples of scented oils comes from Essos not Westeros, actually.  But regardless, I’m not sure this is very good evidence against Braavos.  And she’s not really referencing the smells of the outside, she seems to be talking about the smells inside the house.  I think the memory of the lemon tree remains the best evidence against Braavos.

Having said, that I agree with the general premise that the story that Viserys told Dany about her childhood might very well be false, and that Dany lived somewhere before she was brought to Braavos.  My suspicion is that she originally came from Dorne based on the repeated theme of lemons coming from Dorne.  But regardless, the scented oils doesn’t really narrow it down for me.

(It would help to know exactly how the oils were scented.)

Another poster from another board, had a pretty interesting theory that Dany’s earliest memory of the House with the red door might be memories from a brothel.  The red door in reality, would be from the red lamp over the door.  I would suspect that such a house would be heavily perfumed with scented oils.

I agree that the scent of the oils themselves is conspicuously missing, but we can be fairly certain they smell like flowers, and not the other scents which remind Dany of the Free cities:

As Irri and Jhiqui helped her from her litter, she sniffed, and recognized the sharp odors of garlic and pepper, scents that reminded Dany of days long gone in the alleys of Tyrosh and Myr and brought a fond smile to her face.

The smell of flowers is consistent both with Dany's memories of home and of Westeros.

You will note in the market there are other smells she identifies, and likes, but it is always flowers which are associated directly with home, and unsurprisingly with Lyanna.

It's even highlighted by Ned when he dreams of the Tower of Joy,

"I was with her when she died," Ned reminded the king. "She wanted to come home, to rest beside Brandon and Father." He could hear her still at times. Promise me, she had cried, in a room that smelled of blood and roses.

And among the many qualities Dany and Lyanna share, such as being natural horse riders (Dany's Silver is even Stark colored, grey and white), is a love for flowers.

Starlight and seafoam, Dany thought, a wisp of silk that leaves my left breast bare for Daario's delight. Oh, and flowers for my hair. When first they met, the captain brought her flowers every day, all the way from Yunkai to Meereen. "Bring the grey linen gown with the pearls on the bodice. Oh, and my white lion's pelt." She always felt safer wrapped in Drogo's lionskin.

And above we see Dany even dress like Lyanna, in Stark colors and with flowers in her hair.

The slim, sad girl who wore a crown of pale blue roses and a white gown spattered with gore could only be Lyanna. 

Note that the vision in the House of the Undying from outside the house:

A little girl ran barefoot toward a big house with a red door.

There is simply no way the quote below is about Braavos:

She could smell home, she could see it, there, just beyond that door, green fields and great stone houses and arms to keep her warm, there.