Less examined bits of the AA prophecy

[Devaki Khanna]

First the father then the son--Aerys and Viserys, anyone?

[assjfjgjsgjljljglgjfjsduar]

First the father then the son--Aerys and Viserys, anyone?

Viserys was never actually the king, though.

[lojzelote]

What strikes me is that there doesn't seem to be any supernatural entity / force that makes it beneficial to be a Stark-Targaryen child:

The old gods favour the Starks and have given them wolves. But they don't care about the second parent - a Targaryen is of no more interest to them than a Tully or a wet nurse from Dorne.

Targaryens seem to have a prophetic dream ability and an affinity for dragons (I bet they would probably be good at the fire magic the Red Priests practice too). Again the second parent is irrelevant, a half-Stark Targ is only as likely to inherent the family traits as a half-Martell Targ.

So Jon, having two parents from 'special' families is special-squared, with the gifts of both families, but he doesn't get any super-duper bonus powers that nobody else has ever gotten before just because he is the child of ice and fire.

Well, he could theoretically use advantages of both families (as you have pointed out), which I think is more than enough. (Saying that, I don´t believe we will ever see him ride a dragon.)

The thing which hit right now is what you you have written about the direwolves. Ghost is an albino, isn´t he? I know it´s usually taken as a sign of Jon´s bastardy/being a cousin, but why is that that Shaggydog has different coloring from the rest of the pack, too? What does it mean? And I just realized that there are other albinos, too, and they could be in a way connected to Jon . . . Greenseer Bloodraven is an albino (red eyes + white skin and hair), result of the Targaryen-Blackwood union, Ghost of the High Heart is an albino (and she´s possibly a CotF), and there are the weirwoods which aren´t exactly albinos, but they do have red leaves and sap, and white trunk.

If we take CotF to be the guys who want the balance, and Jon as a product of R + L, then Ghost´s white fur and red eyes could mean he´s sort of "recognized" by the Children?

Just a thought.

(Sorry for derailing the thread.)

[Ygrain]

However, if you interpret father-son in the context of king-his heir, you get Aerys-Aegon.

[Aarick]

could the father-son kings be referring to Ned and Robb. I know ned wasnt the king in the north but he still has royal blood from his ancestors.

[Sand Snake No. 9]

Albinism, resulting in the combination of red and white, seems to be a sign of the old gods. It means a person/animal with white skin and red eyes has been chosen, like green or red eyes among the CotF means that person is a greenseer.

[Dacie]

I'm so glad this thread is continuing. So many great ideas posted here, and great discussion.

Just my two cents on some of the recent topics:

IF (big if) there are literally three heads of the dragon, meaning three separate people, I prefer the idea of it being Dany (fire) Bran (ice) and Jon (both). The only thing I dislike about this is that it seems obvious and literal. Bran is in the North with snow and ice, Dany has her firey dragons, and Jon with his parentage is the perfect blend of both. I mean sometimes the obvious choice is the best answer, but usually not in this series.

I very much like Apple Martini's theory that the three-headed dragon is one person with three different roles/identities ie Jon as a Stark, Targ, and Lord Commander.

About the direwolves, I fully subscribe to the idea that Bloodraven sent them, and it is no coincidence that Jon's (Targ-Stark) is an albino with red eyes. Being that Bloodraven was the ultimate Targ loyalist (as Sand Snake pointed out) it would make perfect since for him to give Ghost (which looks like the wolf form of Bloodraven) to Jon (the rightful Targ king).

[chris999]

It might be your reason for Bran being neither Ice nor Fire is off and that Bran is Ice, leaving room for Jon to be Ice and Fire and then what I suggested switches around. Dany, Fire. Bran, Ice. Jon, both.

But this is just switches things around so they make more sense in relation to what we currently know with no evidence to fully support and ofc a whole lot more story still to come.

Having said that if the Ice champion has not been seen yet, then we have;

Dany, Fire (AA?)

Bran, neither (but for what purpose?)

Jon, Ice and Fire (TPWWP?)

unknown, Ice (???)

Hmm, I think I'm losing this.

You are so close... The hardest part is taking the leap of faith that the Starks might just be affiliated with the Others in some way, shape or form. We dont know why yet, because the history of that connection was erased from memory.

One of my favorite historical quotes is that "the winner" always gets to decide how the history books are written.

If the Nightsking had defeated Joramun and his Stark brother, we would know what the basis of the connection between the Nightsking and the Others was, but since the NK lost the fight, the other side got to write the history as THEY SAW FIT.

for example. Lets say that Hitler and the Germans had won WW2. If that were the case, the history books would probably portray the Nazis as patriots that stood up to the evil American murderers and those evil Brittians that committed atrocities when they firebombed Dresden and the rest of the German countryside ...

See how it works?

[PatrickStormborn]

Power resides where we believe it resides. I mean, if we're going on bloodlines then technically Maester Aemon was king all along. Mirri believed Rhaego was the heir to the Iron Throne when she sacrificed him, as did Dany; Drogo was the Dothraki version of a king when he died.

Both of their deaths led to Dany waking dragons from stone physically, but also metaphorically: she woke the dragon within her, in a sense.

I don't believe the deaths of Aerys and Aegon woke any dragons from stone, but if someone can cite me a passage from the text then I'll change my mind. :)

[Dacie]

I don't think the deaths of Aerys and Aegon did, but the deaths of Aegon V and his heir Prince Duncan the Small. The dragon they woke wasn't an actual fire breathing beast, but Rhaegar, the Prince of Dragonstone, whose birth happened on the same day as the Tragedy of Summerhall. (Thanks Apple Martini for that theory :) )

As others have said, in most instances in prophesy (particularly in Dunk and Egg) dragons are not actual dragons at all, but are Targs.

Just my thoughts for what it's worth.

[Ygrain]

I don't think the deaths of Aerys and Aegon did, but the deaths of Aegon V and his heir Prince Duncan the Small. The dragon they woke wasn't an actual fire breathing beast, but Rhaegar, the Prince of Dragonstone, whose birth happened on the same day as the Tragedy of Summerhall. (Thanks Apple Martini for that theory :) )

As others have said, in most instances in prophesy (particularly in Dunk and Egg) dragons are not actual dragons at all, but are Targs.

Just my thoughts for what it's worth.

Aegon V and Duncan might really work, since at Summerhall, there was both Fire and Blood

[Dacie]

As well as smoke and salt ;)

[Ygrain]

I sincerely hope that Jon will be revived among the salted meat and smoked ham, since it will be a wonderful deconstruction of the clichéd grand prophecies

[lojzelote]

I don't think the deaths of Aerys and Aegon did, but the deaths of Aegon V and his heir Prince Duncan the Small. The dragon they woke wasn't an actual fire breathing beast, but Rhaegar, the Prince of Dragonstone, whose birth happened on the same day as the Tragedy of Summerhall. (Thanks Apple Martini for that theory :) )

As others have said, in most instances in prophesy (particularly in Dunk and Egg) dragons are not actual dragons at all, but are Targs.

Just my thoughts for what it's worth.

Oh, this is a neat one!

Bloodraven is our only chance to know the whole truth! :ninja:

[The Imp With A Pimp Limp]

I hope it's Stannis just so all the Mel haters shut up. Robert and Joffrey died to make him King, he will produce dragons from stone through Shireen (Greyscale = stone) and Jon/Aegon (Dragon), their babies will be dragons born from stone.

[Wellspring]

"Born amidst salt and smoke, under a bleeding star..."

Might the "bleeding star" actually be blood pouring from the body of a man with a star sewn on his breast? Like, for example, Ser Patrek of King's Mountain? Yes, yes, I know about GRRM's bet, but I wouldn't put it past him to make a virtue of necessity to sneak it past the hard-core groupies.

Salt and smoke... if Jon is put under Castle Black with all the stores of salt, and then the castle is burned, then certainly the prophesy will have been fulfilled.

[The Imp With A Pimp Limp]

"Born amidst salt and smoke, under a bleeding star..."

Might the "bleeding star" actually be blood pouring from the body of a man with a star sewn on his breast? Like, for example, Ser Patrek of King's Mountain? Yes, yes, I know about GRRM's bet, but I wouldn't put it past him to make a virtue of necessity to sneak it past the hard-core groupies.

Salt and smoke... if Jon is put under Castle Black with all the stores of salt, and then the castle is burned, then certainly the prophesy will have been fulfilled.

A bleeding star could also be Darkstar, he's on the run and people are looking for him so it's possible. A bleeding star could also be Dawn, the sword of house Dayne, covered in blood.

Salt and smoke could be literally anything

Dany was born in dragonstone, lots of salt around and reborn in the pyre where there's smoke

Stannis had a "reborn" ritual

Theon could be reborn on the iron islands while there's some castle in fire

Jon you mentioned already

So there's a lot of possibilities for every single part of the prophecy

[CrypticWeirwood]

I count ten possible dragonriders, seven of whom could truly be “blood of the dragon” (that is, descended from Aegon the Conqueror), two are Greyjoys because of the hell-horn, and the last is young Bran the greenseer.

1. Dany Targaryen, who is of course already a dragonrider, albeit not a skilled one.
   
2. Brynden Rivers, who gets double-billing by being both a Targaryen and a greenseer. The greenseers can wear the skin of anything that crawls or runs, swims or flies. And Bloodraven is certainly A Song of Ice and Fire’s calque on Elric of Melniboné, that estranged albino sorceror with a conscience, who is descended from the tyrant dragonriding kings of old. If anyone has both the right and the ability to slip into a dragon’s skin, Brynden does.
   
3. Jon Snow, presuming he’s really Rhaegar’s son, whether legitimate or otherwise. There is a hint by Tyrion that Jon, too, may have dreamt of dragons.
   
4. The would-be Aegon VI, which works no matter whether he’s really a red dragon from Rhaegar or if he’s a black dragon from Daemon. He’s still the blood of the dragon. He certainly acts like it.
   
5. Tyrion, presuming he’s really Aerys’s bastard son. Tyrion has dreams of being a dragonrider.
   
6. Stannis, whose grandmother Rhaelle was Egg’s little girl. Aegon V was Stannis’s great-grandfather just as he was Rhaegar’s. Dany and Stannis are therefore second cousins.
   
7. Shireen, Stannis’s daughter, who dreams of being eaten by a dragon.
   
8. Victarion Greyjoy, due to the hell-horn.
   
9. Euron “Crow’s Eye” Greyjoy, again due to the hell-horn.
   
10. Brandon Stark, our budding greenseer who dreams of flying.
    

That’s a whole lot of candidates. Surely some will perish in their attempts, and I don’t mean the way Quentyn did; Martin would never use the same motif twice running. This time it will be much more dramatic.

Imagine that one of the brothers Greyjoy are cruising along on a horn-controlled dragon at several thousand feet of altitude, when either greenseer wrests control of the mount away from its rider and proceeds to do loop-the-loops, somersaults, and barrel rolls.

Whoops!

Exit one kraken, who plummets to sure death thousands of feet below, no matter whether he’s plunged into the drink or shattered upon the rocks. A water landing from that height is just as deadly as one on granite.

And there was much rejoicing.

[CrypticWeirwood]

personally, I think Dany will turn out to have been fathered by Rhaegar. I certainly don't think Aerys was her dad, and Rhaegar seems a very interesting sire. It accounts for her being so un-Aerys-like, and so dragon-y. Plus, the dream she had in the House of the Undying.

Oh ick! You just proposed that Rhaegar screwed his own mother behind his father’s back. That’s unprecedented. And disgusting. Rhaegar is no Craster.

[CrypticWeirwood]

So Jon, having two parents from 'special' families is special-squared, with the gifts of both families, but he doesn't get any super-duper bonus powers that nobody else has ever gotten before just because he is the child of ice and fire.

Our only other example of such a union of ice and fire is the inimitable Brynden Rivers, who seems to parake of the gifts of both bloodlines. Whether Bloodraven’s powers of sorcery are a natural aptitude from his Targaryen side, I don’t know. He may well have learnt sorcery from his sister Shiera or her sorceress mother. However, the tyrant kings of old Valyria used both dragons and sorcery to cement their rule, so there may be sorcery in their blood as well.

We forget that even Aegon the Conqueror was just a dim echo of the ancient kings from lost Valyria.