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[ADwD Spoilers] Daenerys and fertility


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I actually thought it was just a normal period but the miscarriage does seem possible when others talked about it. But just because she can conceive doesn't mean that the baby will be healthy or that it would survive very long. Eating questionable poison berries doesn't improve her chances either.

I agree. Her being infertile also creates an interested wrinkle that I sort of like but not being able to have a child is not actually the same as not being able to conceive one. I think it is totally possible that it was a miscarriage and that she just might not be able to carry a child to term, ergo no kids. It's been a while since I read the Mira Maz prophecy however to I'm fuzzing on the exact wording.

I do think someone upthread raised an interesting point however as to why we are so sure Mira Maz was right, though given the blood magic I'd say it could go either way. My question with Mira Maz is why Dany constantly believes that Mira Maz's betrayals was to be counted as one of the three. I've just had this feeling that Dany is miscounting her betrayals and that she may still have at least two if not three out there as opposed to what she believes is only one.

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By now it's pretty much agreed that Dany suffered a misconception in the Dothraki Sea... time will tell whether she bears a living child, though it can be assumed that she's able to.

No. It hasn't. It's possible. But I don't think it's total agreement yet.

Except she hadn't been bleedning for possibly three months. And the bleeding came while still not eating healthy¨.

I was using it as an example. It is not the only reason a woman might miss her period besides pregnancy. If I remember human anatomy from high school correctly, stress can cause women not to have periods too. Dany had plenty of that.

Either way, Mirri's standards do not state that she cannot conceive, but bear a living child.

So, she very well may have been pregnant, but that in no way means the Mirri was full of shit.

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Unusually heavy at the wrong time of the month after months of not bleeding?

That was a miscarriage. Dany is just dazed and so utterly convinced she can't conceive that she missed it.

While I think a miscarriage is likely the cause (but feel it may just be the demonstration of her infertility - seeds can be planted but will not grow) a woman's periods can be late for a lot of reasons stress, illness, diet, excercise.

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No. It hasn't. It's possible. But I don't think it's total agreement yet.

I was using it as an example. It is not the only reason a woman might miss her period besides pregnancy. If I remember human anatomy from high school correctly, stress can cause women not to have periods too. Dany had plenty of that.

Either way, Mirri's standards do not state that she cannot conceive, but bear a living child.

So, she very well may have been pregnant, but that in no way means the Mirri was full of shit.

I also think the prophecy is "true" but not in the way Dany interpreted it (as with all asoiaf prophecies). And that is why GRRM gives us a textbook example of an early miscarriage.

A missed period due to stress or starvation would return after a some time in peace and after regaining lost weight, not when she is at her sickest and most starving.

To me it seems as if George did good research on this, cause it was really well done. Often I read male writers describing menstruation, miscarriages, pregnancies, labour and I cringe, you know, that's not how it works. The only thing I objected a little to is that Dany seems to have her periods perfectly timed by the full moon, which is a little cliche- and most women aren't nearly that regular with a perfect generic 28 day cycle.

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While I think a miscarriage is likely the cause (but feel it may just be the demonstration of her infertility - seeds can be planted but will not grow) a woman's periods can be late for a lot of reasons stress, illness, diet, excercise.

If this was real life, I would be much less confident in it being a miscarriage (with an outside possibility of pale mare) and definitely not a menstruation cycle screwed up by everything that's been going on in her life.

However, even with Martin's propensity for red herrings, I think it's a safe bet that this isn't a case of "Dany had a late period because of her unusual Mereenese diet" simply because that would be the dumbest possible reason for that scene happening at that moment in that way from a narrative perspective. The only, only way I could possibly see a late period being what actually happened is if it's foreshadowing a reveal that her body chemistry had been screwed up by someone poisoning her in Mereen.

There are, however, much better ways to set that up, and it would be a somewhat redundant plot point after the thing with the locusts already having taken place.

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I think the reason why a lot of readers (and Dany) believe she is infertile, is because Mirri says she will bear a living child when Drogo comes back to her. Obviously (apart from wights, red priests etc) people can't come back from the dead, so therefore she will never bear a living child.

But what if it she (and us) are reading it the wrong way round? What if the point is not to brood over the fact she'll never bear a living child because Drogo can't come back to life, but to realise once she does bear a living child, that is when she will see Drogo again. She will die in childbirth.

Edit: Yes, I'm almost positive now that Dany never was and never will be, infertile. After all, her question wasn't "When will I have another baby?" to which the answer was, "you're as likely to have another baby as your husband is coming back from the dead" (i.e. zero). It was, "When will I see Drogo again?" to which the answer was "When a load of metaphorical stuff happens and you pop out a kid".

Dany is going to give birth and then die, perhaps in childbirth, perhaps soon after.

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Except she hadn't been bleedning for possibly three months. And the bleeding came while still not eating healthy¨.

Ordinarily, but not always, in order for starvation to interfere with periods the person would have to be starving for some time. (Think anorexics).

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But what if it she (and us) are reading it the wrong way round? What if the point is not to brood over the fact she'll never bear a living child because Drogo can't come back to life, but to realise once she does bear a living child, that is when she will see Drogo again. She will die in childbirth.

Wow, I'd never thought of it that way before. That makes so much sense.

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I don't know about the prophecy, but I must assume its terms are either satisfied, or not at all concrete.

Why? Because Dany's bleeding could only logically have been caused by two things:

1. The bloody flux from drinking the water

2. The berries had both a laxative effect, and also caused a miscarriage

We already established that Targaryens cannot get sick when we saw Dany tending to the Astapori outside the walls of Meereen. Dany cannot contract the bloody flux.

What I wonder is whether it was Daario or Hizdahr who got her pregnant, not that it matters.

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Edit: Yes, I'm almost positive now that Dany never was and never will be, infertile. After all, her question wasn't "When will I have another baby?" to which the answer was, "you're as likely to have another baby as your husband is coming back from the dead" (i.e. zero). It was, "When will I see Drogo again?" to which the answer was "When a load of metaphorical stuff happens and you pop out a kid".

Dany is going to give birth and then die, perhaps in childbirth, perhaps soon after.

Yeah, I also think Dany will die bearing a live child (heir to the Iron Throne?). It also creates interesting possibility the treason for love will be someone choosing the child's life over her life (only death can pay for life).

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Oh, and a stylistic thing about the way GRRM writes people who can have power:

He never does a POV chapter from someone who could legitamately become a big time ruler. Drogo, Stannis, Ned, Robert Baratheon, Joffery, Tommen, Renly, Robb, Littlefinger, Euron, Young Griff, any others that I missed?

I wouldn't put Sansa on this list because she will be controlled by Littlefinger or her husband when she gets married off more than having power on her own. Cersei gets power but quickly loses it and even then doesn't truly possess the crown - Tommen or Joffery has it. Asha and Victarion both lost at the Kingsmoot, Theon lost elsewhere.

(Wow that is a lot of people in contention for power)

Dany is the only true outlier for this stylistic inclusion. So, obviously there are only two ways for this to go - she becomes Queen of Westeros or not. I'm leaning towards she will because that would be more personally satisfying, but I see a trend here that could very easily indicate that she will not possess the Iron Throne.

Aside from Ned being a POV character, this is an interesting point about how no Kings are given POV chapters.

I think I also read somewhere (perhaps this board when I was still lurking) that GRRMartin said that the final the final person to sit on the iron throne would be a complete surprise. Now I can't cite that at all and I might just be repeating a rumour (or starting one) so since everyone assumes Dany will end up Queen regnant, maybe she won't be, but like Cersei who was the wife and mother of Kings... So maybe Dany will be bear a living child after the mountain that rides is burnt and his ashes scatter in the wind...

So perhaps Dany will conquer Westeros but her husband will actually rule it (Aegon, whoever he is-perhaps a Blackfyre in the female line-seems competent and well educated unlike Dany). Shrugs.

Personally I think that the Meereen chapters prove that whilst Dany is a great conqueror she is not a great ruler.

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  • 1 month later...

What I wonder is whether it was Daario or Hizdahr who got her pregnant, not that it matters.

Whoever it was, she was lucky she ate those berries and miscarried. If the child had been Daario's, he (or she) would have been a bastard and unable to be Dany's heir, and would have only caused trouble. And a child of Hizdahr would have tightened her connections to Meereen, and that's the last thing she needs right now. In any case, this is the wrong time for her to have a child, and the father would have been wrong, so it was good for her that Drogon carried her far away and she ended up hungry and alone with only berries to eat.

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We already established that Targaryens cannot get sick when we saw Dany tending to the Astapori outside the walls of Meereen. Dany cannot contract the bloody flux.

Actually they can. I dont remember exactly, but there was an incident when a bunch of Targ died from some kind of infection, sickness.

She said, Targs don't get sick, that is what Viserys told her. Well he is not the best source of information, especially when he talks about their house compared to others. Accosding to him, they are demigods, above the other humans, so it is not far fetched that he would think that way.

Not to mentiopn we had another character who had Targ blood, Quentyn, and he actually thought as well that since he is the blood of the dragon he will succed with his plan, and then he failed. It seems to me that people give way more credit for this blood of the dragon thing than it actually means.

And even if she don't have the bloody flux, it does not mean the the targs don't get sick, since a bunch of her advisers, her husbund etc, didn't get sick either they definietly don't have dragon blood.

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Can anybody post the full quotation from the MMD prophecy? I'm at work and can't reference the book, but I'm curious as to what exactly Dany asks that leads to the statement from MMD.

As someone earlier posted, I've held the belief that if all of these things happen, it means Dany will die. I've interpreted it as her "seeing Drogo again," and not so much "Drogo coming back."

I think a zombified Khal Drogo would be a pretty damn stupid plot point, personally. I mean, I'm already barely on-board with this Zombie Mountain, but bringing back Drogo just seems unnecessary.

So the phrasing of Dany's question to MMD seems very important here. She'll either see her sun and stars again in the afterlife (i.e. dying in childbirth, or when the prophecy is otherwise fulfilled to the last) or there will be a zombie Drogo. Which would just be a damn shame.

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I've been thinking about the last Dany chapter for a while and wanted to suggest two possibilities I haven't seen mentioned.

First, I'm not convinced that Dany miscarried. I think it's important to remember that the coming of a period can also mean the return of fertility after a period of amenorrhea ( a period of missed menstruation). Women's cycles can change depending on diet, stress, or even basic hormonal fluctuations that occur over the period of a woman's fertile life. It is possible that Dany's bleeding marks the return of her menstruation which would indicate the return of ovulation and a possible return to fertility. She goes back (to the Dothraki sea from her failed Urban expedition), in order to go forward (to Westeros? We can only hope); and we know the (Dothraki) sea is drying as autumn comes.

This may have been addressed in other places, but I can't seem to find it, so here goes:

There also seems to be a connection between Dany, dragons, and blood. From pg. 100 in GoT, Dany's dream about "waking the dragon" was accompanied by the onset of her first period. It is after her blood sacrifice (of her unborn child/Drogo) that the dragon eggs hatch. And now her bonding with Drogon is also sealed with the return of her bleeding.

I think it's likely that Drogon is both "The Stallion Who Mounts the World" and "Drogo" returned. To Drogon/Stallion who Mounts the World: no one ever said her "son" had to be human, she refers to the dragons as her children, and is is after all the "black egg with scarlet swirls" (GOT paperback, 156) that she asks for and clings to following her miscarriage. If anyone/thing is going to be possible to "mount" the world, I'd put my money on a Dragon who can burn Westeros to ash over the conqueror power of one man. Plus, if Dragon = Stallion who mounts the world, well, Dany is mounted on the Stallion. This allows her to be the great conqueror herself rather than the mother or wife of one.

I also think it's possible that Drogon's bonding with Dany may be Drogo "returned" to her. He's violent, wild, a little out of control, and associated with Drogo's colorings. Not to mention that the name can't be purely coincidental.

So I guess there's my take on it: Dany's bleeding is the return of her menstrual cycles indicating the return of her fertility, occurring at the same time she goes east before heading west[eros], and back (Dothraki) before heading forward (Westeros). The Sun (Quent) rose/was born in the west(Westeros) "set"/ died in the East. Her final bond with Drogon is sealed with her blood. Drogo is returned to her in her bond with Drogon, just not Drogo in human form as she once thought.

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  • 2 weeks later...

What evidence is there that Dany was infertile?

No "evidence" but this is a society without modern medicine. She gave birth to a demon-type creature and then a witch woman told her she was infertile, that was good enough for me.

Until the things in the prophecy started happening.

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Yeah I don't know, MMD's prophecy is kind of annoying to me. For one thing, where did it come from? While reading it seemed to me she was just making up some impossible sounding stuff to taunt Dany and also to make her realize she had to let Drogo go. I suppose the shadows in the tent could have told her what to say.

Anyway it would seem really contrived if the stuff in the prophecy were to come true unambiguously. Unlike the pwwp and aa stuff, it would seem silly to me if this one came true.

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After rereading, I definitely think that she had a miscarriage out in the fields.

She makes note of the blood, but just assumes it's her period, which leads me to believe that she's been having periods the whole time. She then notes the excessive blood, apparently more than a period, which seems to imply a miscarriage.

I sort of think that Dany was never infertile. She working off the word of crazy witch woman that killed her fetus and essentially killed her husband, not really a reliable source. She just hadn't been having sex with men for quite some time prior to Daario.

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