Westeros.org on Episode 3: Second of His Name

[Westeros]

We’re back to discuss the third episode of House of the Dragon, titled “Second of His Name”. As usual, we discuss some changes from the source material, provide some additional background information for things touched on only lightly in the episode, and finally some dragon facts (quite brief ones, in this case!)

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[C.T. Phipps]

Very great observations and I'm glad we're moving onto other elements of history and prophecy. Your reminders of all of Good King Joe's horrible-horrible treatment of his daughters was most welcome.

Re: Viserys' prophecy and whether it's true or not

He sees his son on the Iron Throne and Aegon II will cause thundering hooves and battling knights because he's going to destroy the House of the Dragon. The dragons roared because they're battling each other. Aegon II is also wearing Aegon's crown because Viserys' own crown is stolen and given to Rhaenyra.

[Ran]

That's an awfully prosaic vision, to the point that this may be a broken clock situation. It would help if we had evidence that Viserys dreamed of anything else that could arguably come to pass.

[C.T. Phipps]

2 hours ago, Ran said:

That's an awfully prosaic vision, to the point that this may be a broken clock situation. It would help if we had evidence that Viserys dreamed of anything else that could arguably come to pass.

He seems pretty clear this is his only prophetic dream.

Maybe it was green tinted.

[Lord Varys]

Guys, Meleys no longer has battle experience in FaB. Rather than including Meleys/Rhaenys in the Stepstones War - or Alyssa/Meleys in the Fourth Dornish War - George simply excised the line you talk about from the published book.

This is from TPatQ:

Quote

Against Vhagar alone she might have had some chance, for the Red Queen was old and cunning, and no stranger to battle. Against Vhagar and Sunfyre together, doom was certain.

This from FaB as published:

Quote

Against Vhagar alone she might have had some chance, but against Vhagar and Sunfyre together, doom was certain.

Obviously there is no trace of the line in question, meaning the dragon Meleys remained a stranger to battle until her end (as far as we know, at least).

George really decided he didn't want female dragonriders flying to war after Rhaenys and Visenya.

A way to save this could have been to give Meleys to Prince Aemon rather than Princess Alyssa ... then Caraxes' only battle experience would have been on the Stepstones. But the way it is Meleys has no battle experience while Caraxes has a lot of battle experience.

[Lord Varys]

What do you mean by Bloodraven having 'green dreams'?

Is there any basis for this in the text that we know of? I don't recall anything of that sort. Bloodraven just talks about Targaryen/Blackfyre dreamers but we do know that having green dreams - like Jojen - doesn't mean you have greenseer potential and vice versa. And nothing I recall indicates Bloodraven had dreams that came true.

All of Maekar's sons did have dreams, though, that may have been prophetic to a point. Aemon himself dreams of dragons, Daeron did as we know, Aerion had dreams that seemed to have driven him mad, and Egg's dragon dreams led to Summerhall.

Also, I think, you have to consider that there are different scholarly schools on this dream business - Jojen is very fatalistic about his dreams when others would say that one can prevent the outcome of such dreams and prophecies (Qyburn, for instance). This indicates to a point that those dreams have to be pretty clear to a point. You can know what they are about ... and yet you still can do nothing to prevent them from coming true.

Also - the fact that Jojen seems to have dreamed about something that clearly involves himself and his own death, we should not stress the aspect of the dreams being symbolic too much. Dreaming about your own death should be pretty conclusive or else you must really be depressed or suicidal to interpret such a dream as being a dream about yourself and your own death. Jojen could easily have a dream about his own death he recognizes as a green dream ... but this doesn't mean he must correctly interpret it as a dream about his own death. But he apparently does interpret it quite correctly.

Regarding the dragon dreams they don't seem to be always symbolic about dragons representing people as the second Daemon Blackfyre didn't dream about dead twin dragons but his dead twin brothers Aegon and Aemon. There was no need for interpretation there, apparently. Ditto with the second Daemon's dream about Dunk in the white of the KG, or Daeron's earlier dreams about Dunk.

The idea that those dreams always have to be overly symbolic causes one to wonder how we would have to imagine Daenys' dream about the Doom - not sure she could have actually interpreted a dream about a symbolic Valyria being symbolically destroyed by symbolic volcanoes.

A much better take on this entire thing is that some dreams are more symbolic, harder to decipher, while others are pretty straightforward.

Regarding Aenar's exile one can imagine both that the other dragonlords in their hubris declared that nothing could destroy Valyria, ever ... or that Aenar and his family never actually warned the other dragonlords about what they believed they knew and simply decided that they would leave Valyria to save their own necks.

Because as you seem to imply - magical knowledge would have been high in Valyria, so one would imagine that more sorcerers and magical scholars, etc. than just the Targaryens would have tried to escape the Doom if they had actually had reason to believe that Daenys had corrected foreseen the destruction of Valyria. A Cassandra-like scenario is hard to imagine in such a magical society.

[C.T. Phipps]

A great deal of Bryden Rivers actions seem to be motivated by his prophetic knowledge and there's a lot of hints that his loyalty to his brother Daeron and the extremism he took in attempting to stamp out the Blackfyre lineage was not motivated by familial loyalty but by the fact that he somehow deduced the Targaryen lineage (and not a bastard offshoot in the Blackfyres) was required to survive the Long Night.

We also know that he does end up becoming the Three Eyed Raven and that is strongly linked to the ability to see the future/past/present. In any case, his kinslaying and movement to the Nights Watch seems to be strongly related to his attempts to prepare the Realm for the Long Night.

I should note that Daenys dream about the Doom of Valyria is something that was apparently ignored by the vast majority of Valyria and that could be motivated by mulitple factors. Arrogance, hubris, or simple disbelief is certainly something that can affect even a magically powerful society. It's also possible that Daenys may be the only person who saw the Doom of Valyria because they were the only Targaryens "fated" to survive the event. Time not being linear means that it doesn't have to be "fair." There doesn't have to be a strict cause and effect ratio.

The fact that the volcanos were also triggered by some sort of sorcery, possibly slave sabotage, may also have influenced events. Mayhaps the Doom of Valryia was something they believed they could prevent and they absolutely failed or unwittingly brought it about.

[The Wondering Wolf]

@Ran Since you mentioned Johanna Swann: She seems to have been still a courtesan in 131 AC, so do you think her rule took place at a point after 136 AC (and thus could come up in F&B 2)?

[Ran]

I’d guess so,  but it’s just a guess.

[The Dragon Demands]

Strange... HBO made a new behind the scenes video with GRRM, going over a map of where the Stepstones are and their strategic importance...but only loaded it to Instagram, cut up into smaller videos to fit in the "stories" feed:

https://www.instagram.com/stories/houseofthedragonhbo/2921614176173329419/?hl=en

They're late loading it to Youtube.

[The Dragon Demands]

Ah, good, they posted the whole thing to Twitter, at least. No edits:
 

 

[Lord Varys]

On 9/6/2022 at 12:24 PM, The Wondering Wolf said:

@Ran Since you mentioned Johanna Swann: She seems to have been still a courtesan in 131 AC, so do you think her rule took place at a point after 136 AC (and thus could come up in F&B 2)?

The Black Swan is mentioned in passing in 'The Hooded Hand' as being the reason for the death of the Lysene admiral Sharako Lohar. That implies that she didn't exactly rule Lys 'in all but name' in the 130s.

Which is odd if you come to think of it. She was abducted in the early/mid-100s at the age of 15, but about 30 years later she is still not in charge and still working as a courtesan while she is past forty?

One would imagine that she had acquired real power by then, kind of like the Widow of the Waterfront, since courtesan and fame or not, in Lys there should be more desirable courtesans and whores than an aging Johanna.

However, one actually hope FaB includes more stuff about Lys, not just about the Black Swan, but also about the surviving Rogares. Roggerio and his swimming brothel would likely only have a chance for another cameo, and Lotho could feature again with the Hightower power couple (and Garmund/Rhaena if they end up living in Oldtown).

But it is Moredo's story, I think, that isn't finished yet. Larra's brothers were treated horribly by the Iron Throne, and one would imagine that Viserys is going to try to make amends to them once he wields more and more power at Aegon's council.

Moredo I could see being invited to return to court in the wake of his military successes in Essos, possibly ending up on the Small Council.

It is also possibly that Aegon IV reached out to some of his uncles and aunts and cousins on the Rogare side of the family, both during his later reign but also while he was envoy in Braavos.

[C.T. Phipps]

Daemon Targaryen remains the greatest of his lineage for conquering the Stepstones. The first Targaryen conqueror since Aegon.

And the last until Daenerys.

[Ran]

32 minutes ago, C.T. Phipps said:

And the last until Daenerys.

"You have a dragon. He stands before you." -- Daeron I Targaryen

[Lord Varys]

1 hour ago, Ran said:

"You have a dragon. He stands before you." -- Daeron I Targaryen

Both of them were kind of would-be conquerors - Daemon was too changeable to even try to hold on to his 'kingdom' which he never fully conquered, and Daeron lost everything he thought he gained. He did force the Dornish elite to bend the knee to him (and was thus more successful than Aegon I), but he never actually conquered the Dornish people.

One imagines, though, that Rhaegar's Aegon using that particular line as well should indicate that he is going to do some meaningful conquering as well, even if his aunt or Euron is going to take everything from him a fortnight later.

[Takiedevushkikakzvezdy]

15 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

One imagines, though, that Rhaegar's Aegon using that particular line as well should indicate that he is going to do some meaningful conquering as well, even if his aunt or Euron is going to take everything from him a fortnight later.

I mean, Rhaegar's other Aegon did deafeat the Boltons and became King in the North.