Dragons are the beginning and end of House Targaryen. Same for Starks with their Direwolves (and possibly Others).

[Back in Black-Snow]

I think the title is self explanatory. But if not...

What I mean is that the tool that is used to obtain your power is also the reason for your downfall.

It happens with every House and with every family.

Ice and Fire

It just happens that the main characters for this story represent on a more literal scale, Ice and Fire.

The answer? Another repacked version of a promised savior? I think so, but I can see the George putting a twist on it. Not necessarily dark, but twisted.

[Roswell]

Actually, no.  The dragons are necessary to balance the Others and the Direwolves.  What ice represents is the evil, the existential threat to all life.  Fire is life.  Both must continue to exists to maintain balance in nature.  The Targaryens, or rather the Valyrians, just made use of this elemental power.  The Starks and the first men did the same with their control of the elements and their black magic of skin changing.

[StarkTullies]

18 hours ago, Roswell said:

The dragons are necessary to balance the Others and the Direwolves.

Dragons and Others, sure.  They are both magical entities, one "fire made flesh" and the other "demons" made of ice and snow (according to Melisandre).  Direwolves have nothing to do with ice, other than that the human race has nearly wiped them out after once roaming the entire continent, and now their only survivors are in the far north.

Dragons and Others are pure fantasy.  Dire wolves (two words) are an extinct species that actually existed.  Direwolves (one word) are a fictionalized version of reality, but there is nothing specifically "magical" about them.  Skinchangers can warg into them, but they can also skinchange into cats, birds, etc.

18 hours ago, Roswell said:

What ice represents is the evil, the existential threat to all life.  Fire is life.

That's wildly false.  Trying walking into a burning house and then tell me that "fire is life".

Here's a quote from Maester Aemon, from the Targaryen house of fire:  "I should not have left the Wall. Lord Snow could not have known, but I should have seen it. Fire consumes, but cold preserves."

And here is another quote from Beric Dondarrion, a worshipper of the "fire god":  "Fire consumes.  It consumes, and when it is done there is nothing left. Nothing."

Ice and fire are both threats to Westeros: the Others and the dragons.  Ice "preserves" death in a wighted state, and fire "consumes" until nothing is left, but both of them kill.

[Phylum of Alexandria]

On 12/2/2022 at 2:58 PM, Back in Black-Snow said:

What I mean is that the tool that is used to obtain your power is also the reason for your downfall.

That's close to a theme that GRRM has used for a previous novel. In that book, the very curse a certain character was trying to eliminate needed to be used in order to for him to be successful.

I think at some point Dany will realize that destroying the Heart of Winter will almost certainly kill not just her, but her dragons as well, as they are opposing forces (see another GRRM story for this ending as well). Her real hero's moment will hopefully come when she chooses that path despite knowing that fate. And with that, GRRM can both utilize superhuman powers of destruction and eliminate them by the story's end.

[Back in Black-Snow]

12 hours ago, Phylum of Alexandria said:

That's close to a theme that GRRM has used for a previous novel. In that book, the very curse a certain character was trying to eliminate needed to be used in order to for him to be successful.

I think at some point Dany will realize that destroying the Heart of Winter will almost certainly kill not just her, but her dragons as well, as they are opposing forces (see another GRRM story for this ending as well). Her real hero's moment will hopefully come when she chooses that path despite knowing that fate. And with that, GRRM can both utilize superhuman powers of destruction and eliminate them by the story's end.

I like this. I have never read any of Martin's other works, except for the ice dragon story.

[Phylum of Alexandria]

1 hour ago, Back in Black-Snow said:

I like this. I have never read any of Martin's other works, except for the ice dragon story.

The Ice Dragon was the second work I was referring to, about the opposing forces. It was reading that story that I was pretty sure that a trip to the Land of Always Winter by dragon would be a suicide mission.

And the fact that Queen Alysanne couldn't get Silverwing to fly beyond the Wall pretty much confirmed it for me.