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Implications of the House with the Red Door in Tyrosh


Tyrosh Lannister

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In earlier drafts of AGOT, GRRM intended to have the House with the Red Door in Tyrosh instead of Braavos. Tyrosh is way south of Braavos and experiences warm weather. Ideal conditions for lemon trees to grow. Braavos as you know is cold, grey and trees only grow in the homes of the wealthy (like the sealord).

How does this house being orignally in Tyrosh in earlier drafts impact Dany's childhood? Is Dany just misremembering and that she actually grew up in Tyrosh? She even has a Tyroshi accent.

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Implications?  A childhood spent wandering the Free Cities creates many memories.  So many places visited and lived and such a young age will cause a blending of memories.  It's not a big deal.  I think the past Qaithe wants her to remember goes way back in ancient history and back to the beginning of the great empire of the dawn. 

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16 hours ago, Tyrosh Lannister said:

In earlier drafts of AGOT, GRRM intended to have the House with the Red Door in Tyrosh instead of Braavos. Tyrosh is way south of Braavos and experiences warm weather. Ideal conditions for lemon trees to grow. Braavos as you know is cold, grey and trees only grow in the homes of the wealthy (like the sealord).

How does this house being orignally in Tyrosh in earlier drafts impact Dany's childhood? Is Dany just misremembering and that she actually grew up in Tyrosh? She even has a Tyroshi accent.

He changed the name of the city.  He did not, as far as we know, change the location of the city.

In order to conclude that he changed the LOCATION of the city, we would have to see his early maps.

Braavos is inspired by Venice.  It makes sense, therefore, that it was originally imagined to be in the South.   I would guess, therefore, that he tweaked this idea to make it more original -- a more-northerly version of Venice, with saltwater canals, and a more-foggy climate.  Once he decided to make it more northerly, he might have decided it might as well be Dany's city.

For all we know, Dany's city (whatever it was to be called) may have always been meant to be in the North.

But that's only a guess.  You really cannot reconstruct the creative process based on tidbits of data like this.

13 hours ago, James West said:

Do you have link to a copy of this draft?  

No, but I believe it comes from the promotional novella "The Blood of the Dragon", which was published before AGOT, and consisted of the Dany chapters.

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Regardless of why GRRM changed the name, it almost certainly has nothing to do with the climate discrepancy.

The climate discrepancy was created, or at least cemented, years later.  In 2005 Arya and Samwell visit Braavos, and we find out how cold and foggy it is, with "three kinds of weather" none of it conducive to growing lemons.  Then, in 2011, GRRM published DANCE, showing a map indicating that Braavos was north of Sharna's Inn.  (In earlier books, Sharna had mocked Anguy for thinking she might have lemons).  Then in 2014 he releases a WINDS sample chapter where one guard mocks another for imagining citrus would grow in Braavos ("... north of King's Landing, you fool ...").

Nobody forced GRRM to put Braavos so far north on the map, nor include so many quotes underscoring the problem.

Finally, in response to a fan question, GRRM hinted that the discrepancy might be significant and point to something spoilerish.

Whatever it means, it is now deliberate.

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Here's an early thread discussing the issue. 

Browsing through the thread, it seems to be all about owning the lemon-gate crowd, by its opponents.  The level of ill-feeling directed at a fan theory they don't like is truly awe-inspiring.

Sadly, GRRM refused to cooperate:

 

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Preston has a whole video, about how Dany's memories of her childhood, were manipulated and she was essentially brainwashed. It was all part of some conspiracy to hatch dragon eggs. Honestly I think it's all BS, but there is something weird about that house with the red door, that keeps coming up in her memories.

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I don't know what GRRM is planning about the house with the Red Door and its Lemon Tree. And I certainly do not know how significant it'll be with regards to Bravos's weather. But it is doubtful that the Lemon Tree is a leftover of the first draft. because both a good chunk of Lemon Tree's memories and Bravos's lack of tree are in the same book: Feast/Dance. 

I do not believe in GRAND CONSPIRACY THEORIES of Dany changeling , R+L=D, and so on.  GRRM is pretty good at writing dreams, memories, thoughts, and how the brain works them together. as far as I'm concerned, childhood memories can be mixed together when you remember them later, especially for a child with an unstable life who's been constantly traveling. it is more than possible that the Red Door and ser Willem were in Bravos and the Lemon Tree and the Room with the Window were in Tyrosh. as for why Tyrosh might have had a lasting effect in her memories or why her accent is Tyroshi, well, we do not know how long she's spent in each of the free cities. but we do know that Doran and Archon had an agreement that Viserys, Daenerys, and Arianne stay in Tyrosh. so. it's not far-fetched to think Tyrosh had been one of the most stable places for Targlings, thanks to Doran. though it appears that for whatever reason, that agreement fell apart, and Targlings were sent to the streets. 

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22 minutes ago, sifth said:

Preston has a whole video, about how Dany's memories of her childhood, were manipulated and she was essentially brainwashed. It was all part of some conspiracy to hatch dragon eggs. Honestly I think it's all BS, but there is something weird about that house with the red door, that keeps coming up in her memories.

I very much doubt it was part of a conspiracy to hatch dragon eggs.

But something is going on because GRRM says so.  Anyone who does not like the other guy's theory can come up with his own.

"Brainwashing" seems a rather over-the-top term for the basic idea that young children are easily manipulated, and, after they grow older, may have confused memories of what happened before the age of 5.

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12 hours ago, EggBlue said:

I don't know what GRRM is planning about the house with the Red Door and its Lemon Tree. And I certainly do not know how significant it'll be with regards to Bravos's weather. But it is doubtful that the Lemon Tree is a leftover of the first draft. because both a good chunk of Lemon Tree's memories and Bravos's lack of tree are in the same book: Feast/Dance. 

Agreed.  But this negates any need to suppose that the Red Door House has anything to do with Tyrosh.

12 hours ago, EggBlue said:

I do not believe in GRAND CONSPIRACY THEORIES of Dany changeling , R+L=D, and so on. 

There are a variety of theories.  If you don't like grand ones, you can make less grand ones. 

12 hours ago, EggBlue said:

GRRM is pretty good at writing dreams, memories, thoughts, and how the brain works them together. as far as I'm concerned, childhood memories can be mixed together when you remember them later, especially for a child with an unstable life who's been constantly traveling. it is more than possible that the Red Door and ser Willem were in Bravos and the Lemon Tree and the Room with the Window were in Tyrosh. as for why Tyrosh might have had a lasting effect in her memories or why her accent is Tyroshi, well, we do not know how long she's spent in each of the free cities. but we do know that Doran and Archon had an agreement that Viserys, Daenerys, and Arianne stay in Tyrosh. so. it's not far-fetched to think Tyrosh had been one of the most stable places for Targlings, thanks to Doran. though it appears that for whatever reason, that agreement fell apart, and Targlings were sent to the streets. 

This sounds like a variant of the "move along nothing to see here" theory.  Except instead of saying GRRM made a mistake, you are saying Dany made a mistake.  In any event, it all seems to boil down to:  never mind, go away, it's all a mistake.

Which is certainly possible.  But there is no suggestion here of a theory of how the discrepancy points to something spoilerish.  And GRRM hinted at something spoilerish.

I see no mystery about her Tyroshi accent.  Tyrosh was where she had stayed for some time before she came to Pentos.  Young children pick up accents very easily.  If a 13 or 14 year old child has a noticeable foreign accent, it is far more likely to reflect where she was at ages 8-12, than where she was at age 4 or 5.

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The red door is where she felt safe and felt she belonged - home. She now feels her home is in Westeros, right now Westeros = red door = home.

If the red door of her memories wasn't where she though it was, it's symbolic of her being wrong about the location of the red door in contemporary times. She has the location of the red door wrong, in her memories, and where she thinks it is now, she will find Westeros is not her home and the red door home of her memories was in the wrong place too.

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9 hours ago, chrisdaw said:

The red door is where she felt safe and felt she belonged - home. She now feels her home is in Westeros, right now Westeros = red door = home.

If the red door of her memories wasn't where she though it was, it's symbolic of her being wrong about the location of the red door in contemporary times. She has the location of the red door wrong, in her memories, and where she thinks it is now, she will find Westeros is not her home and the red door home of her memories was in the wrong place too.

In both contemporary times and in the past, she believed and still believes the House with the Red Door is in Braavos which she knows is not in Westeros.

If that is somehow wrong, it is wrong literally, and not merely symbolically.

As for Westeros, it is true that she sometimes thinks of it as home.  But she knows or believes she has never actually been there.  She just thinks of it as "home" in terms of her family's culture and heritage.  Which can hardly be wrong if she is really the daughter of Aerys and Rhaella. 

She believes that Viserys does not think of the House with the Red Door as home, presumably because of his stronger connection to Westeros.  Viserys has actually lived in Westeros, and moreover, is old enough to remember it.

Dany's Westeros "home" and her red door "home" are already distinct in her mind.  You are conflating the two and calling it "symbolism".  That does not make much sense to me, and I don't think gets us anywhere much.

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6 hours ago, Gilbert Green said:

@chrisdaw  I am not averse to the idea that Dany might give up plans of Westerosi conquest based on whatever she ultimately finds at the House with the Red Door.  But I'm not sure if that is what you were hinting at.

The red door symbolises where she felt safe and where she felt she belonged and therefore felt was her home. She believes that is what she's going to find in Westeros. The symbolism is the whole entire point.

Quote

But it was not the plains Dany saw then. It was King's Landing and the great Red Keep that Aegon the Conqueror had built. It was Dragonstone where she had been born. In her mind's eye they burned with a thousand lights, a fire blazing in every window. In her mind's eye, all the doors were red.

Westeros won't be the home she's longing for, she's wrong about the location, her home, where she belongs is somewhere else, so her being wrong about the location of the red door of her childhood would be fitting.

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33 minutes ago, chrisdaw said:

The red door symbolises where she felt safe and where she felt she belonged and therefore felt was her home. She believes that is what she's going to find in Westeros. The symbolism is the whole entire point.

Westeros won't be the home she's longing for, she's wrong about the location, her home, where she belongs is somewhere else, so her being wrong about the location of the red door of her childhood would be fitting.

I'm trying to make sense of this.  What I am about to say is not meant as sarcasm or mockery.  I'm merely trying to reduce something very fuzzy and abstract to a concrete example.  So if it wrong, or if you prefer a different concrete example, please just correct it.

What you seem to have in mind is something along the lines of:  Dany finds out the House with the Red Door is in Lys [or whatever], and not Braavos.  So, after she and Drogon kill half of Westeros, she realizes that this is symbolic of the fact that her home is not actually Westeros, but rather Old Valyria [or whatever].   So (maybe after taking out a few ice wights) she flies off on Drogon, never to be seen again.  And other than that, there will be no surprise revelations whatsoever when she locates the House with the Red Door in Lys (or whatever).

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26 minutes ago, Gilbert Green said:

I'm trying to make sense of this.  What I am about to say is not meant as sarcasm or mockery.  I'm merely trying to reduce something very fuzzy and abstract to a concrete example.  So if it wrong, or if you prefer a different concrete example, please just correct it.

What you seem to have in mind is something along the lines of:  Dany finds out the House with the Red Door is in Lys [or whatever], and not Braavos.  So, after she and Drogon kill half of Westeros, she realizes that this is symbolic of the fact that her home is not actually Westeros, but rather Old Valyria [or whatever].   So (maybe after taking out a few ice wights) she flies off on Drogon, never to be seen again.  And other than that, there will be no surprise revelations whatsoever when she locates the House with the Red Door in Lys (or whatever).

Dany's motivation is this desire for home, the red door is written in as simple symbolism for this desire, so yes I think after she finds Westeros isn't home (it rejects her, she doesn't feel any affinity to it but finds only problems and pain) she may draw the parallel to the red door of her childhood also not having been in the location she thought it had been. It may help motivate her to keep looking, or maybe to re-examine her past to see if she's missing anything like she did with the location of the original red door. But the symbolism would exist to us readers if it gets acknowledged in the POV or not, but it probably would, as it has been before (as per what I quoted) and the symbolism helps to explain these things.

There may or may not be a revelation if she were to find out the original red door wasn't where she thinks, the overall point is the symbolism and it'd work either way. If there were a revelation I think it will thematically tie into the point being made and that the wrong location - Braavos, is similar in some way to Westeros, and that the real location -Tyrosh? (wherever) is similar in some way to where she will find her red door and home. Or maybe the point is that it's not a physical location she's really looking for, it's perhaps the people, feeling or state of being that matters and so the physical location never mattered.

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3 hours ago, chrisdaw said:

Dany's motivation is this desire for home, the red door is written in as simple symbolism for this desire, so yes I think after she finds Westeros isn't home (it rejects her, she doesn't feel any affinity to it but finds only problems and pain) she may draw the parallel to the red door of her childhood also not having been in the location she thought it had been. It may help motivate her to keep looking, or maybe to re-examine her past to see if she's missing anything like she did with the location of the original red door. But the symbolism would exist to us readers if it gets acknowledged in the POV or not, but it probably would, as it has been before (as per what I quoted) and the symbolism helps to explain these things.

There may or may not be a revelation if she were to find out the original red door wasn't where she thinks, the overall point is the symbolism and it'd work either way. If there were a revelation I think it will thematically tie into the point being made and that the wrong location - Braavos, is similar in some way to Westeros, and that the real location -Tyrosh? (wherever) is similar in some way to where she will find her red door and home. Or maybe the point is that it's not a physical location she's really looking for, it's perhaps the people, feeling or state of being that matters and so the physical location never mattered.

Under your theory, there is nothing spoilerish about the House with the Red Door.   We find out it is not in Braavos, but that revelation leads nowhere.  It points to nothing and means nothing.

Your theory is merely that at some future point, Dany will point to it, and draw some kind of strained-and-irrational simile or comparison between it and something that actually does happen.  Such as the people in Westeros not liking her or her feeling unhappy there.  Which, logically, can occur regardless of where the House with the Red Door turns out to be.

Which is not to say that you are necessarily wrong.  But if you are right, then in my opinion GRRM was doing some major trolling when he implied to Victarion Chainbreaker that there was some spoilerish mystery connected to the lemon tree climate discrepancy.

Yours is almost another flavor of the "move-along-nothing-to-see-here" theory.  Except that you actually do agree that the House with the Red Door is not in Braavos.  Which is an interesting concession.  But I am rather of the opinion that if the House with the Red Door turns out to be somewhere other than Braavos, that surprise twist will actually mean something.

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On 1/29/2023 at 10:39 PM, Gilbert Green said:

Here's an early thread discussing the issue. 

Browsing through the thread, it seems to be all about owning the lemon-gate crowd, by its opponents.  The level of ill-feeling directed at a fan theory they don't like is truly awe-inspiring.

Sadly, GRRM refused to cooperate:

 

The lemon tree is a hint that Daenerys's story will end on a sour note; it is not a hint that Daenerys was raised in Dorne or switched at birth, or a secret Blackfyre. The red door symbolizes something else. 

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