Three Heads *in* the Dragon

[Evolett]

12 hours ago, Moon Man said:

This is more of a thought experiment. I'm trying to asses what you or anyone thinks it could mean when characters in the story tell us some eggs have 'turned to stone'?

Okay, then as a thought experiment, let's interview Grand Maester Benifer on the matter. He is a learned man who served both Maegor and Jaehaerys, probably saw and handled dragon eggs and has made a statement about them turning to stone.

 

Moon Man: Thank you for granting us this audience, Grand Maester. The King has honoured Lady Evolett and I with the task of hunting down the treacherous Elissa Farrman and finding out as much about the whereabouts of the stolen dragon eggs as we can. Our entire company is determined to see this through. Grand Maester, perhaps you would kindly tell us more about dragon eggs. 

Grand Maester: Dragon eggs are shaped like a bird's egg, only much larger. You would need both hands to pick one up. They can come in all kinds of rich colours, usually two different colours but sometimes three. Often one of these colours is metallic -- gold, silver or bronze. Patterns such as swirls and whorls of colour are not uncommon. 

Lady Evolett: They must be very beautiful! I would love to see one.

Grand Maester: Oh yes, they are. The eggs are covered in tiny scales that shimmer in the sunlight, almost as though they've been polished to a high sheen. They look like large precious jewels. The colour of the hatched dragon matches that of the eggshell.

Moon Man: Grand Maester, do the colours of a dragon egg change when it turns to stone?

Grand Maester: the colours do deepen and appear to shine more brightly. After a long time, they look even more like jewels. The colours themselves do not change though. But of course the weight changes quite a bit. Stone eggs are much heavier than fresh dragon eggs. 

Moon Man: Forgive me for asking, but how do we tell the difference between a fresh egg and an egg that has turned to stone? We have neither seen nor handled any and so have no idea what to look for.

Grand Maester: True true. The colours do not help, even if they do burn more brightly. Yet there are signs that even one who has never seen an egg before can look for.

- The shells of dragon eggs are unlike bird eggs. Instead the shells are rather soft and leathery, easily felt. In this way they resemble the eggs of some snakes, lizards and sea turtles. This does not mean they aren't tough or that they break easily. Stone eggs feel as hard as stone. You couldn't dent the surface with a finger for instance, though this is possible with fresh eggs. 

- The scales of fresh eggs are tiny, very fine and delicate. As the egg turns to stone, the scales thicken until they form a definite hard ridged rim. This you can see and feel.

- And finally there is warmth. A normal fresh egg will be warm to the touch. The heat seems to keep the eggs alive which is why they are left in the hatcheries under the Dragonmont volcano on Dragonstone. A stone egg of course feels cold. I believe that eggs taken away from the island and kept at another location for a length of time will not hatch at all, but soon turn to stone. 

 

Lady Evolett: Soft leathery eggs, tiny delicate scales and warmth for normal eggs; a hard stoney surface, thick rimmed scales and cold to the touch for eggs that have turned to stone. This is very helpful, Grand Maester.

Grand Maester: I'm am happy to be of service to the King's cause. Perhaps I can arrange a visit to Dragonstone so you can see and handle these eggs for yourself.

Moon Man: that is most kind of you. We gladly accept this offer. 
Tell me, Maester, do you know what causes dragon eggs to turn to stone or why that might happen so quickly? I am no scholar but have heard of the stone bones of very ancient creatures from the distant past. Surely, dragon eggs would require a thousand years to turn to stone?

Grand Maester: you pose a good question. At the Citadel, we believe dragon eggs require warmth to survive. Withhold the heat for too long and the eggs begin to harden and eventually turn to stone. Why this happens is unclear. Maesters who have earned a Valyrian Steel link suspect the involvement of magic, that the volcano or Dragonstone may be the centre of some magical force, but if this is so, stone eggs found on Dragonstone itself belie this theory. No one can say.

Lady Evolett: could it be that eggs not kept in the heat become sick? Humans exposed to the cold for too long will catch a cold and run a fever. Could dragon eggs acutally be afflicted by greyscale?

Grand Maester: now that's an interesting thought and not one the Citadel has examined. Hardly possible because the King would not hand over a dragon egg for examination. But there might be something to this idea .... the lack of heat ... exposed to the cold .... dragons would be more sensitive to the cold, I guess. There is a volcano on Dragonstone but the weather is not always clement. It does get cold, windy and rainy. The thick scaling of the stone eggs .... An idea worth thinking about.

Moon Man: Thank you for your time and the knowledge shared, most valuable to our quest. We shall make every effort to fulfill the King's commands. 

 

Note: this is a mixture of fact, fiction and speculation. With the exception of stating that dragon eggs far removed from Dragonstone turn to stone, Grand Maester Benifer never uttered these words!

[Moon Man]

4 hours ago, Evolett said:

Okay, then as a thought experiment, let's interview Grand Maester Benifer on the matter. He is a learned man who served both Maegor and Jaehaerys, probably saw and handled dragon eggs and has made a statement about them turning to stone.

 

Beautiful. Thank you. 

This makes perfect sense. In this scenario it would be very natural for people who had seen fresh eggs to conclude that the older eggs in question had turned to stone.

We could perhaps quibble as to whether they had turned to literal stone. We could ask whether the hardened scales have turned from proteins into something more mineral, but we might exceed the limits of the citadel's power of magnification and understanding of chemistry. Indeed, avian shells are mostly calcium carbonate which is basically limestone, confusing the issue further. It sounds like Benifer is not aware of any stone egg ever being sawed in half to see what happens to the inside. So the question would remain, are the truly 'stone' or merely stone-like?

Even so, this perfectly answers the question of why someone would make this determination and is a very plausible and well thought out possible version. The answer being that they do noticeably, materially change.

As for me, since we don't have any of this information and since the claims of eggs 'turning to stone' come from sources who would not have ever seen a fresh egg, I'm forced to wonder if there has not been a misunderstanding. Because of how we hear only dubiously about eggs turning to stone and because Danny's eggs do end up hatching, I think it also makes that the eggs could always have the same weight, feel, and appearance. Post Dance Targaryens and others ignorant of dragon secrets see that they aren't hatching, notice that they look and feel like stone, and conclude that they must have turned from a more egg-like composition into the way they are now. Rather than eggs turning to stone, what has happened is merely a loss of knowledge or lack to begin with. We don't really even know if they ever truly gave off their own heat or if that's some kind of extra sensory hallucination of Danny's and other egg lovers before her.

So perhaps because of how I read ASOIAF as a literarily ambitions and experimental work in which the author has challenged himself to tell a coherent story in which all exposition is delivered from the perspective of characters who are nearly always wrong about everything, if I could put money on what's in Martin's head this is the bet I would place.

[Evolett]

3 hours ago, Moon Man said:

Beautiful. Thank you. 

This makes perfect sense. In this scenario it would be very natural for people who had seen fresh eggs to conclude that the older eggs in question had turned to stone.

You're welcome!

3 hours ago, Moon Man said:

We could perhaps quibble as to whether they had turned to literal stone. We could ask whether the hardened scales have turned from proteins into something more mineral, but we might exceed the limits of the citadel's power of magnification and understanding of chemistry. Indeed, avian shells are mostly calcium carbonate which is basically limestone, confusing the issue further. It sounds like Benifer is not aware of any stone egg ever being sawed in half to see what happens to the inside. So the question would remain, are the truly 'stone' or merely stone-like?

Well, this is why I brought up greyscale in the dialogue. It's the one in-world disease that turns the living into "stone." We gain some more indepth insights into greyscale through Tyrion's POV:

Quote

As the numbness crept into the hand, or stole past the foot and up the leg, the flesh stiffened and grew cold and the victim's skin took on a greyish hue, resembling stone.

It pretty clear here that the skin does not turn to stone, rather it resembles stone. The flesh also grows cold which is realistic, as calcified flesh would suffer from circulatory disorders or be cut off from the circulatory system. Greyscale sounds like a particularly virulent type of cancer that first affects the skin, causing a proliferation and mineralisation of cells and eventually enrcroaching inward to affect muscles and organs as well. 

The idea that greyscale could affect dragon eggs may seem ludicrous at first but on closer examination of the information we have, albeit given to us through legend and largely devoid of scientific reasoning, I think it's a distinct posibility. The history of the Rhoynar tells us greyscale resulted from a curse called down by Garin the Great against their Valyrian aggressors. This may or may not have been the origin of the disease, however, in relation to dragon eggs, the fact that the curse / disease is directed against the Valyrians may be a clue. 

In the case of the Elissa Farrman theory, it also seems unlikely that true fossilization could have taken place in such a short time. Even Illyrio's claim of Dany's eggs coming from Asshai and the eons having turned them to stone is not sound from that perspective. Fossilized eggs should not retain their colour. 

We also learn about three different variants of greyscale:
- the type that affects children which disfigures them but is curable. Said by Val to "sleep" only to reawaken later.
- the mortal variant that affects adults, starting off in fingers and toes and continuing to engulf the whole body after a number of years.
- the virluent form, the grey plague, an epidemic, swift and fatal

Neither the Pale Mare, Spring Sickness, Shivers or other diseases are as versatile as greyscale. We have three forms that behave differently. If I remember correctly, the grey plague is suspected to have been carried ashore by rats, meaning we even have an intermediate host here. In contrast, the other forms of greyscale are thought to be caused by cold weather, foul fogs and foul humours (all appropriate in respect of the time period the story is set in). In Westeros, Shireen contracted greyscale in the cradle on Dragonstone. There was another case on the Iron Islands. Both are "stoney" places with climates not exactly noted for great holiday weather. The point is, this disease is highly adaptable. 

So we can speculate: Did Garin's curse extend to dragon eggs? The Rhoynar would never recover from the onslaught and would never have prevailed against the Valyrians as long as the latter had dragons. Targeting dragon eggs before they even hatch seems like a sensible thing to do but I also realize this would only work on eggs taken out of their natural volcanic environment. Assuming GRRM has drawn on biologic realities, warmth is an issue for all reptiles. Eggs are buried in the ground to maintain temperature. On Dragonstone, dragon eggs are kept in the volcanic hatcheries or placed in a child's cradle, the child providing warmth. Daenerys takes alternating eggs to bed where they benefit from the warmth of her body. 

It's interesting that children recover from the disease. Dragon eggs are children even before they hatch and Dany's "children" do "recover" and hatch. 

When Tyrion travels through the Sorrows (a place rife with greyscale), we also learn about the Shrouded Lord who bestows the disease on individuals. He is said to have been a statue (carved of stone) brought to life by the kiss of a grey woman. Like the stone dragon eggs, this stone statue comes back to life. Related to this is Val's assertion that greyscale "wakes" again later in children who have suffered it before. 

How do dragon embryos manage to stay viable though? Perhaps the eggshell alone is affected by the calcification process, leaving the embryo untouched. Birds and reptiles usually find their own way out of their shells. A hard calcified shell could pose a serious hinderance to hatching for a baby dragon. We recall the fire took care of the cracking of the stone eggs. It could be that rather than dying, the embryo is preserved in a state of indefinite dormancy, akin to the seeds of many plants. Dragonseeds? And so as not to demystify the whole process, perhaps a magical ritual is essential to end that state of dormancy and reignite the spark of life that never completely died out. 

 

 

[gatlin]

Moon Man's point is subtle and still not quite addressed. Everything Evolett has said is true (or at least I'll take it as true, it seems right) but doesn't change the fact that the very authorities themselves don't have firsthand experience with all parts of dragon husbandry. Moon Man has made a very good (and to my reading as-yet unaddressed) point that nobody has actually proven that a stone dragon egg can't be revived. People simply state that it can't be done and don't know how (and they conclude quite rationally that the eggs are forever unviable). Moon Man has already made that case though, no need to overstate it here.

That being said, I think the buried lede here is the notion that the eggs are afflicted with greyscale. Consider that you risk getting it if you visit the ruins of Valyria because it's prevalent there. Tolkien's (and probably thus some brands of European, idk) dragons turn to stone when they die, and considering the number of inverted Tolkienisms at every level of the narrative it wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if "the affliction that turns dragons to stone" is a more generic (perhaps magically engineered) disease that doesn't just select for dragon DNA.

Dragons themselves harden as they get older. It's part of why older dragons are deadlier: it becomes harder and harder to pierce their, ahem, harder and harder scales. It might be that greyscale was derived from whatever that process is. And if dragons themselves literally harden over time it stands to reason that their eggs do too; is it unreasonable to speculate that eggs literally develop greyscale if they're too cold, perhaps to protect them if they are removed from heat.

 

(This thread has been one of the most civil and enjoyable disagreements I've read online thank you all for simply being able to disagree lol)

[Evolett]

4 hours ago, gatlin said:

is it unreasonable to speculate that eggs literally develop greyscale if they're too cold, perhaps to protect them if they are removed from heat.

Certainly a possibility that makes more sense than a "curse." 

[gatlin]

14 hours ago, Evolett said:

Certainly a possibility that makes more sense than a "curse." 

I'm not an ASOIAF super scholar, so I only have a vague recollection of reading somewhere that Martin has doubled down on the notion that this is a fantasy series, *not* a science fiction series, and that eg the weird seasons have ultimately magical explanations. I certainly could be mistaken but I believe that's the consensus around here.

But, and I realize how hair-splitting this is, if he's decided that all technology above a certain level or of a certain origin is regarded as magic in-universe then he wouldn't be lying; and yet behind the scenes I imagine he has drummed up some pastiche of real world diseases (just like he's done for cultures and geographic regions) and has some "rules" to help keep things at least consistent when those details do matter.

I think that dragons probably do accumulate the minds of their riders since you're sort of "warged in" while flying, and from Varamyr Sixskins we know definitively that your soul lingers in the animal body if you die while warging. I'm not sure that all dragons have 3 souls specifically but I do wonder: maybe 3 souls were used to revive Dany's eggs not because the souls themselves were transferred but because they burn hot enough? Mulling this over. Edit: that last part is very silly and I regret it but I'll leave it out of shame.

Edited July 31, 2023 by gatlin
humor

[Moon Man]

I have a few more scattered thoughts to add to this for further investigation in the future.

1. "The sphinx is the riddle, not the riddler," prophetic girberish told to Sam by the dying Aemon could possibly have something to do with the consciousness of dragon life. The human head on the body of a dragon as seen in Valyrian sphinxes would be an artistic representation of the once human consciousness that is the mind of every dragon. Given that the Valyrians made statues illustrating this point, it may be obvious enough that it was never fully lost to the Targaryens. Imagine Egg and Aemon, having researched the materials available, come to understand this point and that they must put a human consciousness into an egg to hatch it. Meanwhile, their dragon dreams or the interpretation of past Targaryen dragon dreams are telling them "the dragon has three heads". There is a question here, a riddle. If a 'dragon has three heads,' why does the Valyrian sphinx have only one? From their perspective, the existence of these single headed sphinxes made by the dragon lords themselves simultaneously confirms any other suggestion that human consciousness is needed, while confounding the assertion that 'the dragon must have three heads.' In a sense, the sphinx is therefore asking the question. The sphinx is 'the riddler'. Perhaps Aemon is realizing that the sphinx is not actually posing a question because there actually is no contradiction. The Valyrian sphinx is, yes, a representation of human consciousness in a dragon. It is also true that the dragon must have three such consciousnesses. However, the Valyrians feel no need to represent the sphinx with three heads because their dragons have a blended consciousness. A strange concept perhaps to anyone but the children of the forest. The Valyrians knew that the 'three heads' effectively become one. Thus the sphinx is not posing a contradiction, but rather demonstrates the answer to the the meaning of the 'three heads of the dragon" riddle: blended consciousness.

2. Rheago's consciousness being a valid fulfillment of this requirement for egg hatching, as well as the possibility that he was not a still birth but was murdered, brings up the possibility that many Targaryen miscarriages have actually been murders committed to procure suitable human consciousnesses to hatch an egg.

3. While a consciousness might be deposited in an egg upon someones natural death and wait there in storage for quite some time, we should specifically consider all Targaryen deaths near the hatching of dragons as candidates for dragon life. Especially interesting are times when lots of Targs die and dragons are born.

[Sandy Clegg]

6 hours ago, Moon Man said:

The Valyrian sphinx is, yes, a representation of human consciousness in a dragon. It is also true that the dragon must have three such consciousnesses. However, the Valyrians feel no need to represent the sphinx with three heads because their dragons have a blended consciousness.

I've been on board with the dragon-bonding idea for a while, but I'm still not sure we can be confident with regard to the details of the process. In particular, I think we have to be careful when looking at the numbers involved.

One soul within a dragon is already a fairly magical an idea, and really ought to be enough. This would also work more accurately with a 'dragon sphinx' sculptural representation. More importantly, I think we shouldn't ignore the fact that dragon's already have one head - their actual one, snout, fangs and all.  But then if we count a 'soul within' as a metaphorical head then the dragon's inner 'beast-like' consciousness may also be counted. One actual head, two as 'consciousness'. We might even suppose that the third head is the human dragon rider themself, bonded to the dragon presumably for life. Other permutations of adding up the heads might also work, presumably. It's no easy feat to establish precisely what these 'three heads' may refer to.

The problem with theories working this out based on Danny's egg-hatching is that she hatched three eggs at the same time, which was, perhaps, just an arbitrary number. Illyrio might have given her one, or five eggs. Perhaps he chose three because it fit with the 'house words', and wanted to honour Dany, but we don't know this. The fact that she has 3 dragons may be completely unrelated to the 'dragons have three heads' saying, and is one of GRRMs ways of misdirecting the reader.

Also, at what point does the dragon bond need to occur? The hatching? Or any time afterwards? The blood sacrifice needed to hatch a dragon may be unrelated to the sacrifice needed to install a dragon-bonded soul, which may 'tame' the dragon. And didn't plenty of dragons hatch without human sacrifice in the past? Yet also, didn't human sacrifice prove insufficient to hatch dragons (Summerhall, we can assume)? We still have a lot of unknowns to deal with.

 

[Evolett]

On 8/7/2023 at 2:21 AM, Moon Man said:

1. "The sphinx is the riddle, not the riddler," prophetic girberish told to Sam by the dying Aemon could possibly have something to do with the consciousness of dragon life. The human head on the body of a dragon as seen in Valyrian sphinxes would be an artistic representation of the once human consciousness that is the mind of every dragon. Given that the Valyrians made statues illustrating this point, it may be obvious enough that it was never fully lost to the Targaryens. Imagine Egg and Aemon, having researched the materials available, come to understand this point and that they must put a human consciousness into an egg to hatch it. Meanwhile, their dragon dreams or the interpretation of past Targaryen dragon dreams are telling them "the dragon has three heads". There is a question here, a riddle. If a 'dragon has three heads,' why does the Valyrian sphinx have only one? From their perspective, the existence of these single headed sphinxes made by the dragon lords themselves simultaneously confirms any other suggestion that human consciousness is needed, while confounding the assertion that 'the dragon must have three heads.' In a sense, the sphinx is therefore asking the question. The sphinx is 'the riddler'. Perhaps Aemon is realizing that the sphinx is not actually posing a question because there actually is no contradiction. The Valyrian sphinx is, yes, a representation of human consciousness in a dragon. It is also true that the dragon must have three such consciousnesses. However, the Valyrians feel no need to represent the sphinx with three heads because their dragons have a blended consciousness. A strange concept perhaps to anyone but the children of the forest. The Valyrians knew that the 'three heads' effectively become one. Thus the sphinx is not posing a contradiction, but rather demonstrates the answer to the the meaning of the 'three heads of the dragon" riddle: blended consciousness.

We've explored some of this in a couple of @Sandy Clegg's threads (could you please link them here ?), looking particularly at the prologue to aFFC. This chapter is the dragon counterpart to the Varamyr prologue chapter that follows in aDwD but it's much harder to interpret than all the stuff on skinchanging. What seems certain is that GRRM provides a definite template for the "Sphinx" in the form of Alleras who is named as such. Taking it at face value should then provide clues to the puzzle (and I'm sure the ideas on this will differ, depending on the perspective of the reader). In any case, the chapter revolves around dragon related topics and I would argue, also subtley hints at the topic of persons with two identities. 

Quote

It had been Lazy Leo who dubbed Alleras “the Sphinx.” A sphinx is a bit of this, a bit of that: a human face, the body of a lion, the wings of a hawk. Alleras was the same: his father was a Dornishman, his mother a black-skinned Summer Islander. His own skin was dark as teak. And like the green marble sphinxes that flanked the Citadel’s main gate, Alleras had eyes of onyx. “No dragon has ever had three heads except on shields and banners,” Armen the Acolyte said firmly. “That was a heraldic charge, no more. Furthermore, the Targaryens are all dead.”

"Alleras is the same" is qualified in terms of his parentage. He is of mixed heritage, with a Dornish father and mother from the summer isles. And all this in relation to "the dragon has three heads." An attempt at interpreting this in terms of "three heads" would be assigning the parents one head each, i.e. "two heads," while the outcome, the progeny, is the third, the result of the merger of the two parents, but which is in itself an independent entity with its own identity. In relation to dragons, this might mean that two consciousnesses from different bloodlines / races / heritage are required for the perhaps unique "three-headed-dragon." 

Lazy Leo continues by insulting Alleras thus:

Quote

“Your mother was a monkey from the Summer Isles. 

So this conjures up the image of a sphinx yet again, Alleras mother being a "monkey" and her father a "viper." These two animals are normally biolgically incompatible but they come together to form a new "species." It's also interesting that Alleras has eyes like the green marble sphinxes that flank the Citadel's gates, especially since we know they are inherited from the father, "the Viper," Oberyn Martell. There are only four people with onyx eyes in the story: Khal Drogo, Alliser Thorne, Sarella and Oberyn. 

Further, Alleras, who in reality is Sarella, is both "male and female." Like dragons can be or indeed "the prince / princess" that was promised. 

The talk turns to the last Targs, to rumors about Daenerys and her dragons, dragonglass candles etc. The candles also hint at "waking dragons from stone," only here the aim is to wake fire from dragonglass. Inbetween we have Pate thinking about  Rosey and obtaining the gold dragon he has to pay in order to claim her maidenhood. 

So far, these passages leave me with the impression that we are being given hints about the nature of Azor Ahai, said to be reborn from "salt and smoke." Salt and smoke may have more to do with bloodlines, two unique bloodlines coming together to create a special third, perhaps two that are otherwise incompatible or do not come together under normal circumstances, giving the child of this bloodline special powers to accomplish something important to the endgame (probably). That aside, there are other subtle references to "two in one identities," the more obvious one being the Alchemist who later takes on the persona of Pate by wearing his face and taking his place as a novice of the Citadel. 

The second is a Theon reference:

 

Quote

“If only it worked that way with apples, no one would ever need go hungry,” said Alleras with one of his soft smiles. The Sphinx was always smiling, as if he knew some secret jape.

Compare with the following:

Quote

She studied Theon Greyjoy’s sly smile, wondering what it meant. That young man had a way of looking as though he knew some secret jest that only he was privy to; Catelyn had never liked it.

…..

Bran looked away and pretended not to have heard, but he could feel Greyjoy’s eyes on him. No doubt he was smiling. He smiled a lot, as if the world were a secret joke that only he was clever enough to understand.

Theon has the twin-identities of Theon and Reek. If he's ever released from his ordeal, he will have been "made anew," with an identity that's a merger of the old Theon and his harrowing experience as Reek. Like Alleras, Theon was very skilled with a bow and there is also the sea-faring connection, Alleras mother being a trader and captain of the ship "Feathered Kiss" from the Summer Isles. Interestingly, Jaqen Hagar was also said to be "always smiling" by Arya and also hails from a sea-faring nation. So far, I don't think readers have really figured out the importance of the Ironborn or Theon to the story. It's not only about Euron. Can't say I have a satisfying theory myself but there is a lot we do not understand, so I'll leave it at that for the moment. 

Point is, there are references to two identities becoming a third in the chapter. The third is then the "Sphinx," a blending of two. That's one way of looking at it. 

[Evolett]

On 8/7/2023 at 2:21 AM, Moon Man said:

Rheago's consciousness being a valid fulfillment of this requirement for egg hatching, as well as the possibility that he was not a still birth but was murdered, brings up the possibility that many Targaryen miscarriages have actually been murders committed to procure suitable human consciousnesses to hatch an egg.

Assuming child sacrifice is essential to hatching or to the bonding process (bonding being more likely imo) between dragon and human, I think the Targs and Valyrians before them solved this in a more "elegant" way. Undoubtedly, the blood price for such a bond must be very high and the offering of one's own child the highest price one can pay. But it would be obvious even to those not part of the family, as well as horrifying for the parents involved if babies were carried to term, born and subsequently murdered to secure this magical bond. So how to solve that? 

This is where incest comes into the picture. Even the uneducated freefolk beyond the Wall are aware of the problems caused by inbreeding:

Quote

A true man steals a woman from afar, t’ strengthen the clan. Women who bed brothers or fathers or clan kin offend the gods, and are cursed with weak and sickly children. Even monsters.”

 - Ygritte to Jon

Systematic incest leads to genetic disorders as well as higher infant and child mortality. Premature death of the foetus can occur. Incest thus serves to secure the sacrifices needed and the Targs do suffer from a very high incidence of miscarriages. It is also the reason behind the expectation of "madness or greatness" whenever a Targ is born. But there is more to it than that because Targaryens also married outside of the bloodline and one would expect healthy children to result from these marriages. This is not always the case, with Maegor the Cruel being a prime example. Maegor wasn't infertile and with the exception of his niece Rhaena, married outside of the family. At least three of his wives got pregnant but had miscarriages. The babies were all monstrous. 

It's interesting that around this time, his brother, King Aenys, married to Alyssa Velaryon, had no less than six children of which only Vaella died in the cradle. Three dragon eggs hatched for Rhaena, Jaehaerys and Alysanne while Aegon later claimed his father's dragon Silverwing. This begs the question - did Maegor's miscarried children pay for the dragon bonds Aenys' children were able to form? So if not incest, what was at work here? 

Well, how about magic as a fallback when incest is not an option? I would suggest the Targaryens, or rather the ancient founders of the family, made a "deal with the devil." There are two reasons why this could be so. One is the ritual performed by Miiri Maz Dur. This is where Rhaego died in his mother's womb, presumably killed by Miiri's magic. There's no doubt it was a diabolical ritual. Spirits were summoned from the underworld to participate, quite visible as shadows through the thin walls of the tent. Miiri herself warns of the dangers of the ritual and against the powers she will call:

Quote

“I will stay,” Dany said. “The man took me under the stars and gave life to the child inside me. I will not leave him.” “You must. Once I begin to sing, no one must enter this tent. My song will wake powers old and dark. The dead will dance here this night. No living man must look on them.”

 

Miiri calls up the spirits of the dead to aid in her ceremony, her song wakes powers that are old and dark and they do whatever they do once called. Her ritual may have not had the original desired result but the dragon eggs did awalem and the "old powers" claimed their price, Rhaego.  Calling on the spririts of the dead to aid in a ritual is like making a deal or pact, a pact with the old powers, one that costs. 

This idea of a pact with the devil is brought up in the Dunk and Egg stories. It concerns Lady Rohanne Webber of Coldmoat, also known as the Red Widow. Rohanne was married five times. Four of these husbands died pretty soon and two of her children died in infancy. Because of this, she was accused of being a witch who sold her unborn babies to the Lord of the Seven Hells in exchange for being taught the black arts:

Quote

The Red Widow poisoned all her husbands.” “I’m not like to marry her. She’s a highborn lady, and I’m Dunk of Flea Bottom, remember?” He frowned. “Just how many husbands has she had, do you know?” “Four,” said Egg, “but no children. Whenever she gives birth, a demon comes by night to carry off the issue. Sam Stoops’s wife says she sold her babes unborn to the Lord of the Seven Hells, so he’d teach her his black arts.” “Highborn ladies don’t meddle with the black arts. They dance and sing and do embroidery.” “Maybe she dances with demons and embroiders evil spells,” Egg said with relish. “And how would you know what highborn ladies do, ser?

Martin, George R.R.. A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms (English Edition) (S.159). HarperCollins Publishers. Kindle-Version. 

So in this bit of gossip, unborn babies are sold to the Lord of the Seven Hells in exchange for magical knowledge. Notice the joke about dancing with demons which remind us of the dead dancing in Miiri's tent. The embroidery of evil spells is also very interesting because it connects this "pact with the devil" to the sewing motif in the narrative. 

That the future Aegon V, initiator of a disastrous dragon-hatching attempt at Summerhall, at which a highly pregnant and due term Rhaella was present, a man named Egg, tells us this little anecdote is absolutely no coincidence imo. But make of it what you will .

To summarize, I think the Targs had two ways of paying the price for securing dragon-bonding - incest and for want of a better term, a "pact with the devil", the latter being a failsafe and perhaps automatic magical response in the case of mixed marriages. They probably aren't even aware of it, the knowledge lost long ago. 

 

 

[Sandy Clegg]

On 8/10/2023 at 7:45 PM, Evolett said:

Well, how about magic as a fallback when incest is not an option? I would suggest the Targaryens, or rather the ancient founders of the family, made a "deal with the devil." There are two reasons why this could be so. One is the ritual performed by Miiri Maz Dur. This is where Rhaego died in his mother's womb, presumably killed by Miiri's magic. There's no doubt it was a diabolical ritual. Spirits were summoned from the underworld to participate, quite visible as shadows through the thin walls of the tent.

Do we think that Dany is here reenacting the 'original magic' that bonded Targaryens to dragons way back when, in Valyria? We have to assume that at one point Targs were just like anyone else, and that some magic event kickstarted their dragon-ness, right? Perhaps what was common knowledge among Valyrian noble families did become lost over time.

[Gilbert Green]

Per the HOTU visions:  Aegon is the Prince that was Promised, and his is the Song of Ice and Fire.  But "there must be one more" because the "dragon has 3 heads", and Dany is hinted to be that final head. Dany is a "child of three", which is clarified by the phrase "the dragon has three heads".  So the three heads of the dragon are a distinct set of three children and two of them are identified in the HOTU visions.

Or we can disregard the clues the author gave us and let our imaginations run wild.   In which case, there are few limits to what we can come up with. 

[Evolett]

On 11/25/2023 at 5:41 PM, Sandy Clegg said:

Do we think that Dany is here reenacting the 'original magic' that bonded Targaryens to dragons way back when, in Valyria? We have to assume that at one point Targs were just like anyone else, and that some magic event kickstarted their dragon-ness, right?

Certainly something similar to MMD's ritual (only in part), especially since Mirri studied the arcane arts in Asshai by the Shadow and there are histories claming an ancient people from Asshai taught the Valyrians how to tame dragons. I think we are meant to connect  these two bits of information. 

Miiri's study of the arcane arts in Asshai included shadowbinding. She specifically mentions learning from mages in Asshai by the Shadow, the same place where Melisandre trained to be a shadowbinder. As such, I suspect the ancients taught the Valyrians a form of shadowbinding as a means to "tame" dragons. 

There are a few possibilities as to how  the original Valyrians went about it. I imagine they performed their initial rituals with fresh dragon eggs or perhaps even with hatchlings. A shadowbinder would have had to bind the soul of  the sacrificed individual to the dragon. It could have involved an external binding process or else directing the deceased's soul into the dragon. Since Valyrians claim they are kin to their dragons, the sacrificed person would have had to be related to the family aiming to bond with and control the beast. In F&B it is speculated  that the Cannibal's antagonism towards the Targaryen dragons was because he was of a different lineage. If dragon-bonding is family-specific, then lineage here implies the Cannibal was originally bonded to a different Valyrian family. 

With Mel requiring kingsblood to wake a dragon from stone, I wonder what her ritual would look like. Would she have burned Edric Storm and bound his shadow to the stone dragon to wake it? She doesn't reveal specifics. 

 

Old Nan's tale of "the thing in the night" provides us with an idea of what external shadowbinding may look like in practice:

Quote

The ’prentice boys all saw it, Old Nan said, but afterward when they told their Lord Commander every description had been different. And three died within the year, and the fourth went mad, and a hundred years later when the thing had come again, the ’prentice boys were seen shambling along behind it, all in chains.

 

This is an external attachment of course and most likely the kind of shadowbinding that binds wights to the Others. It's also possible that the shades of Beric and Lady Stoneheart were bound to their corpses in a similar manner. 

 

With the dragons, the soul of the sacrificed individual is probably internalized, mediated by the maegi. There a hint at this at the beginning of Mirri's ritual to revive Drogo when she orders the "strength" of the horse to go into the man. 

Quote

Mirri sang as horse blood swirled into the waters of Drogo’s bath. “Strength of the beast, go into the man.”

 

This suggests she's capable of commanding and directing spirits/life force to enter another body. Notice she's singing here.

That brings me to Mirri's singing while she's burning at the stake during Dany's ritual. She was well versed in the birthing songs of the Jogos Nhai. In fact, she was an expert midwife and mentions she's never lost a child:

Quote

“Before,” Dany said to the ugly Lhazareen woman, “I heard you speak of birthing songs …” “I know every secret of the bloody bed, Silver Lady, nor have I ever lost a babe,” Mirri Maz Duur replied. aGoT, Daenerys VII

 

Now, Mirri was taught by the moonsingers. Moonsingers. And accroding to the legend of Qarth, dragons were "born" from the moon. So did MMD's song play a crucial role in the birth of Dany's dragons? Was she singing spells to promote birth? I think this is a necessary ingredient.