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The Pyre Revisited


tze

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I haven't read the Dunk & Egg stories, but my impression of Aegon liking the heat is much akin to Ned telling Catelyn that he likes the cold because "he's of the north". That might be true, but it didn't stop the Starks from building Winterfell over hot springs to keep themselves warm, and he'd freeze to death the same as any other man regardless of how much he likes the cold.

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as far as we know, the need for dragons was not at summerhall.

dany was alone in the world. the targs were dying out. her people stranded. the gods respond to people in need.

grrm has said himself that magic isn't something that should be well-defined in fiction.

in my opinion, you don't study magic. you do it. it's natural. mirri amz duur and melisandre and even varamyr sixskins can hone their skills all their lives, but will never match dany or bran in terms of power.

Are you seriously suggesting that, given another egg, Dany would be able to replicate the funeral pyre event? GRRM has called that a "miracle." Miracles, by virtue of being, you know, miracles, are not replicable, and are not due to any real skill or power on the part of humans. In the first post, you suggest that the "gods" were somehow responsible for the attempt working this time. But in the second, you attribute some sort of power to Dany herself. So which is it? Either the gods, for whatever reason, "let" the dragons hatch at this time, or it's due to some power that Dany has. Near as I can tell, it can't be both. And I see nothing inherently magical or powerful about Dany at all.

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Lots of great thoughts in this thread.. I've found this whole topic to be fascinating; the mysterious nature of MMD's spells, her connection to Maryn, the reason the dragons were hatched when so many others have failed over the years.

One thing bothering me - slightly unrelated but not completely:

The only thing in the story, to me, that remotely hints at targs being fireproof, is Dany's reaction to seeing Vis killed:

"he was no dragon; fire cannot kill a dragon."

Yet it's confirmed that Dany/Targs are not fireproof.

So.... is this just a superstition she's been brought up with? Does she think she has this ability? Did GRRM change his mind about something after GOT was published?

What does Dany mean when she says this?

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While this is an interesting notion and certainly has merit, I am more inclined to believe that it was added for dramatic. Walking into a pyre and emerging with three dragons has more of a punch, than add three dragon's eggs a dead khal, a horse and a maegi and let roast for a couple of hours. I wonder if Jorah will ever tell us what he saw in the tent.

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The only thing in the story, to me, that remotely hints at targs being fireproof, is Dany's reaction to seeing Vis killed:

"he was no dragon; fire cannot kill a dragon."

Yet it's confirmed that Dany/Targs are not fireproof.

So.... is this just a superstition she's been brought up with? Does she think she has this ability? Did GRRM change his mind about something after GOT was published?

What does Dany mean when she says this?

I think it's just an unreliable narrator that people, for whatever reason, take way too seriously. I certainly don't think Martin's "changed his mind," seeing as he confirmed that Targs weren't fireproof even years after the novel was published.

I read a good explanation not too long ago and I can't remember who provided it, but basically, it was that moment that Viserys was "revealed" to Dany for who he really was — a very weak, cruel, pathetic person. But it's not like fire differentiates between "good" Targaryens and "bad" ones — it seems to kill them all equally. Even Aegon V, the "dragon" who hatched at Whitewalls, died in a fire, as did his son Duncan the Small, who by all accounts was also a decent person. So the idea that, within the family, there exists a super-Targ group of superior people, seems to be bunk.

I think some readers, speaking broadly here, don't realize that Dany has probably never had any kind of accurate or unbiased historical education about her family. It was all "we're blood of the dragon" and "we're awesome" and "nothing can harm us." Her education in the matter of her family has come from her brother, who wasn't right in the head, to put it mildly (and it's also possible that, seeing him killed like that, Dany herself wasn't in her right mind at that exact time either; coping mechanism, maybe?). She also thinks Targs can't get sick, yet we objectively know that not to be true. But does she know that? I'd argue that maybe she doesn't. And if she doesn't know that, why should she know about Summerhall, or Aerion Brightflame, or Rhaenyra? All of those instances point to weaknesses in the family — vulnerabilities and mental incapacitation and madness — and I don't think that Viserys would be terribly eager to teach her those things.

This lack of objective knowledge might cause her some trouble down the road, as it's usually the Targs who identify the strongest with dragons and fire imagery who go the most insane.

ETA: Think of it this way. Let's say Robb Stark fell off of Winterfell to his death, and Sansa stood by and said, "He wasn't a real Stark. Starks can fly." But the pages of the books are littered with examples of Starks who have fallen to their deaths — because they couldn't really fly. In that situation, would you think that Sansa was still right, or would you assume that she was an unreliable narrator who had no idea what the hell she was talking about?

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I would wholeheartedly agree that MMD was trying to cast some sort of spell on the Pyre, as evidenced by the singing and the miracle that occurred with the dragons being hatched. I think that the key here is definitely Blood Magic going wrong, due to its difficulty to use/understand and the fire interrupting the spell. Not much to add there. However, I would propose that the spell MMD is trying to cast is one of two different spells:

1. She realizes that Dany is trying to hatch the dragons, but does not think Dany deserves them due to her immaturity and lack of knowledge of blood magic. Possibly she could be trying to cast a fire-protection spell on the egg not on herself or Dany, preventing them from getting the fire to rekindle their life. Then due to the magic either not being finished, or getting messed up, the protection gets passed on to Dany as they are hers.

I think this fits more than MMD casting it on herself because it would be much easier for the spell to me miscast at someone who actually has a strong connection to the target. I understand we have no way of knowing how magic works, but you would think the caster would have to target it it properly and I just don't see how or why the spell would go from MMD toward Dany. Makes more sense to me it could more easily go from Dany's eggs to Dany.

The reasoning I have behind this is the fear in MMD's eyes whey Dany tells her the "Only death pays for life." I think its at this moment that MMD realizes that Dany is trying to hatch the dragons, and MMD fears for the world. To prevent his she had to protect the eggs from the fire, which ultimately backfired.

2. The other idea is that her spell is simply her trying to sing her own death rites since she knows she has to die. She is singing to pass her life on to the afterlife, but again this gets muddled. Instead of passing her life force on, the spell somehow passes her, Drogo, and Rheago's life forces into the eggs, causing them to take life. Not sure how this would get Dany to be immune to fire though, and this spell doesn't fit nearly well as a fire-protection spell. I don't think this is the true spell, but I thought I'd throw it out there in case its hits something in someone else's brain.

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Are you seriously suggesting that, given another egg, Dany would be able to replicate the funeral pyre event? GRRM has called that a "miracle." Miracles, by virtue of being, you know, miracles, are not replicable, and are not due to any real skill or power on the part of humans. In the first post, you suggest that the "gods" were somehow responsible for the attempt working this time. But in the second, you attribute some sort of power to Dany herself. So which is it? Either the gods, for whatever reason, "let" the dragons hatch at this time, or it's due to some power that Dany has. Near as I can tell, it can't be both. And I see nothing inherently magical or powerful about Dany at all.

"Magic" or a "miracle" isn't defined. It just happens. It's rare and special. Dany was aware enough to add the eggs to the pyre. The hatching wasn't brought about by any one particular spell or voodoo or recipe. The timing was right. The red comet appeared. Old Nan said that the red comet meant dragons. Old Nan was correct.

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It seems likely that MMD was attempting to cast a spell on the pyre, but it's not exactly clear what she was doing.

Looking at her behavior along the way, her original intent doesn't seem to have been to kill Rhaego or Drogo. She couldn't have known that the circumstances would present themselves the way that they did and she could not have predicted that Jorah would carry Dany into the tent during her shadowbinding. Most of what she ended up doing to hurt or hamper Dany seems opportunistic, possibly the result of bitterness at her treatment despite being "saved" and of learning about Dany's and Drogo's plans during her time as their captive. Given all this, I don't think it's likely that her actions on the pyre amount to the culmination of a long-running plan.

As others have pointed out, MMD didn't seem to fear death and she didn't really take any actions to avoid her killing at Dany's hands.

If she did choose to cast a spell, I only see two possibilities: it backfired horribly, giving Dany an incredible (and undeserved) gift of dragons, or Mirri was trying to use the hatching of the eggs for some other purpose. Is it conceivable that she could have done something to the dragons at the moment of her death?

Did she hope that Dany might use the dragons to take vengeance against her Dothraki enemies? When she is addressing Dany about the wrongs done to her, she speaks mostly about the crimes comitted by "them," the Dothraki, not by Dany herself. Yes, she taunts Dany for her ignorance and her simplistic worldview, but MMD seems mostly concerned with the Dothraki and their Stallion prophecy.

This is something of a long shot, but the initial appearance of the Dothraki seems to roughly coincide with the Doom of Valyria, some 400 years ago. Given the ethnic and linguistic ties between the Dothraki and the Lhazareen, it's possible that they were one people until that time, with some portion of the sedentary population taking to a nomadic lifestyle as a result of changes wrought by the Doom. The Dothraki victimize the Lhazareen with particular glee, possible rooted in their shared heritage and the rejection of the raiding lifetsyle by the remaining Lhazareen. Mirri boasted of preventing the Stallion that Mounts the World from uniting the Dothraki from a bunch of raiding khalasars into a conquering super-horde.

Perhaps her actions are motivated more by a desire to end the Dothraki culture than to settle a personal score with Daenerys. In the above scenario, Valyria and its dragons created the Dothraki as a result of the Doom, and with some degree of symmetry, the remnants of Valyria and the return of the dragons might spell the end of the Dothraki.

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"Magic" or a "miracle" isn't defined. It just happens. It's rare and special. Dany was aware enough to add the eggs to the pyre. The hatching wasn't brought about by any one particular spell or voodoo or recipe. The timing was right. The red comet appeared. Old Nan said that the red comet meant dragons. Old Nan was correct.

And if it's "rare" and "special" and "just happens," then that implies that it can't be replicated at will. And if it can't be replicated at will, then I don't see how anyone could attribute what happened on the pyre to some "power" of Dany's.

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For me, I find the idea of human magic-users not being shown screwing up----that their spells always work out exactly as they intend----to be at odds with 1) the nature of magic in ASOIAF, and 2) at odds with the greater narrative itself (which is filled to overflowing with people taking actions that lead to unforeseen consequences). Magic has been portrayed as wild, a force that humans can tap into but which they don't truly understand. The most powerful and competent magic-users I think we've seen (the skinchangers/greenseers), the ones whose abilities seem intuitive, the ones who don't appear reliant on things like verbal spells---are the same group primarily associated with not being human: becoming animals, becoming weirwood trees, a magic that was born, not from humanity, but from the nonhuman Children of the Forest. Humans are fallible, and magic (especially blood magic) is extremely volatile and dangerous. Mirri had studied magic for years, she'd successfully pulled off at least one major spell---but as Dalla says, magic is a sword without a hilt, and it cannot be grasped safely. Mirri was not exactly operating in optimum conditions here, and as I stated, I think there's evidence that whatever magic process Mirri was attempting was interrupted and altered when the flames reached her body. And I don't think the idea that whatever magic Mirri was working backfired on her is at odds with the themes GRRM has been playing with thus far---I think it's the most accurate distillation of those themes.

Yes, good note has been taken of Dalla's pronouncement, repeated by her sister, and by Jon Snow, and even approved by Melisandre.

While I agree with your suggestion that Mirri's spell protected Dany, and I applaud that you singled out the evidence, I think I can say why I don't like very much your hypothesis that botched magic protected Dany: It's because Dany got a magical effect for free. She did not give anything to be protected from fire. She didn't have even to be clever to benefit from it. She didnt even have to think about it. It doesn't follow the rules of good storytelling and isn't in accord with the sense of balance in the costs and benefits of magic. In other words, just in my opinion, it's perilously close to a Deus ex Machina, indeed nothing prepares us for it. Moreover, why was Mirri singing (edit: to protect herself from fire) if she had no hope to survive eventually?

I am not sure if you attributed to me the opinion that Mirri caused deliberately the birth of dragons. I merely noticed that as part of her education in sorcery she learnt birthing songs, and that she was precisely singing when the dragons came to the world. But I stopped short of guessing her intentions.

I think your main observation has merit and deserves to be completed by a better explanation. For example, to expand lazily on what Sevumar hinted at, Mirri perhaps allowed the eggs to hatch, and allowed Dany to survive the pyre and at the same time sent a terrible curse on the dragons whose effect we will see much later. (The power of birthing songs might be important in the story: both Sam and Val sang to Craster's son for instance, and I conjecture that Val is a moonsinger.) But a good scenario would take into account Drogo and Dany's son as well – perhaps the curse will involve Rhaego (of whom Dany dreamt twice) in the style of a Greek tragedy.

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Are you seriously suggesting that, given another egg, Dany would be able to replicate the funeral pyre event? GRRM has called that a "miracle." Miracles, by virtue of being, you know, miracles, are not replicable, and are not due to any real skill or power on the part of humans. In the first post, you suggest that the "gods" were somehow responsible for the attempt working this time. But in the second, you attribute some sort of power to Dany herself. So which is it? Either the gods, for whatever reason, "let" the dragons hatch at this time, or it's due to some power that Dany has. Near as I can tell, it can't be both. And I see nothing inherently magical or powerful about Dany at all.

no i don't think that Dany could replicate the funeral pyre event but i do think that she has (magical) power.

perhaps her power is simply the 'favour of the gods'.

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When we saw Mirri use magic in Drogo's tent, she was very explicitly singing. On the pyre, she was singing as if her life depended on it, singing even as the fire swept over her. And it's only after this, after Mirri sings, after the fire reaches Mirri and starts burning her, that Dany shows any resistance to the flames whatsoever:

unlike most people in this thread, i think mirri's singing had little to do with dany's resistance or the birth of dragons.

i could argue that it is once mirri is burnt (and sacrificed) that dany gains +5 fire resistance, but i don't expect grrm worries about every little detail

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I think your main observation has merit and deserves to be completed by a better explanation. For example, to expand lazily on what Sevumar hinted at, Mirri perhaps allowed the eggs to hatch, and allowed Dany to survive the pyre and at the same time sent a terrible curse on the dragons whose effect we will see much later. (The power of birthing songs might be important in the story: both Sam and Val sang to Craster's son for instance, and I conjecture that Val is a moonsinger.) But a good scenario would take into account Drogo and Dany's son as well – perhaps the curse will involve Rhaego (of whom Dany dreamt twice) in the style of a Greek tragedy.

This brings up an interesting idea. Let's see if I can verbalize my thoughts in a way that they make sense.

Could the birth of the dragons be a tangible embodiment of, "Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it"? Generations of Targaryens have tried to bring the dragons back; it's kind of like the family hobby. But what we have seems to be a conflict between what dragons are said to be — great gifts, miracles, wonders — and what they generally are — flame machines whose only real use is in death and destruction.

If we look at the people in the past who have had dragons, there's come a time when they eventually had to pay the piper. For the Valyrians in general, it was the Doom. For the Targaryens in particular, it was the Dance of the Dragons. In both of those cases, it's implied that what made those people powerful (and they used that power to enslave, conquer and subjugate others) — the dragons — was eventually what caused their downfall. The Valyrians used dragons to destroy, and were in turn destroyed themselves. The Targaryens used their dragons to conquer Westeros, but eventually they turned on each other with those dragons, and generations of Targaryens after the dragons died out went mad or killed themselves trying to bring them back. So how much of a blessing are these things, really? Is it a matter of short-term gain versus long-term risk? Or are the dragons the ultimate "sword without a hilt," and it's only a matter of time before they destroy (destruction is their only purpose, after all) everything they touch, including people who are arrogant enough to think they can be controlled?

no i don't think that Dany could replicate the funeral pyre event but i do think that she has (magical) power.

perhaps her power is simply the 'favour of the gods'.

In that case, it's the power of the gods, not Dany. If it can't be replicated, it isn't a power.

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@tze- I just want to say that I really admire the way you put forth arguments for unconventional interpretations.

I like your analysis very much, but have a few concerns a bit similar to BranVas. Much like you, I've never thought Dany was particularly magical, and have a lot of problems that blood and fire could yield dragons without something else going on- it seems like a very imbalanced input-output ratio, even in the a series where magic has a kind of normalcy attached to it.

I've had two theories regarding why the pyre scene worked. One is more banal, that the presence of magic is cyclical, and humans can tap into this magic-stream when the time is right. So this has more to do with a kind of cosmic alignment enabling magic (which come after it seems magic has already returned given the appearance of 4 Starks, possibly all 6 that happen to be wargs and White Walkers, among other things). This theory would support the idea that all failed attempts at dragon hatching can be attributable to the time being not right if all else is equal.

The other reason I thought does have to do with Dany herself, but for completely unmagical reasons. I trust none of what Viserys says, but I do think there's something to "waking the dragon" as a euphemism for extreme rage/ bloodlust/ vengeance. I wonder if part of the piece to the dragon recipe pertains to Dany's frame of mind, that when you have blood, fire and an unquenchable rage within, then dragons can happen. I've said elsewhere that Dany is inherently violent and prone to rage, and she struggles to come to terms with this fully throughout her arc. At the moment of the pyre, she appears calm, but she is certainly full of vengeance, hate and righteous wrath, that I think this may be one of the factors associated with dragon birthing (and very much absent at Summerhall, by contrast). So though it's not a magical aspect of Dany, it seems appropriate to me that vessels of destruction and domination would result from someone's actions who is inherently like Dany.

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I've always assumed that Dany fortuitously put together just the right combination of fire and blood (Fire and Blood), at just the right time, to get her dragons to hatch. I never thought that Mirri Maz Dur was casting a spell, meaning, I never thought about it, not that I disagree. I believed she was singing her death song. But I can totally see, if she was indeed using magic, how her spell could backfire on her – Mirri says that a steep price has to be paid for blood magic. Perhaps the forces she was trying to invoke took her as their price; perhaps she was attempting something beyond her powers; perhaps the forces she invoked found Dany a more attractive recipient of their protection and they abandoned Mirri in favor of beauty and King's Blood. Or perhaps the forces wanted dragons to make themselves stronger.

I can totally see how the domesticated Targs of Westeros would forget the formula for hatching dragons eggs, even though that formula is the words of their house. They became followers of the Faith, which doesn't practice human sacrifice, and even if it did, these Targs didn't have an endless pool of slaves to burn. So the blood & fire magic was forgotten.

Dany's formula for dragon hatching would seem to invalidate Melisandre's idea that king's blood is required, unless the already-dead Rhaego supplied the king's blood.

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While I agree with your suggestion that Mirri's spell protected Dany, and I applaud that you singled out the evidence, I think I can say why I don't like very much your hypothesis that botched magic protected Dany: It's because Dany got a magical effect for free. She did not give anything to be protected from fire. She didn't have even to be clever to benefit from it. She didnt even have to think about it. It doesn't follow the rules of good storytelling and isn't in accord with the sense of balance in the costs and benefits of magic. In other words, just in my opinion, it's perilously close to a Deus ex Machina, indeed nothing prepares us for it. Moreover, why was Mirri singing (edit: to protect herself from fire) if she had no hope to survive eventually?

I absolutely understand where you're coming from here, and to an extent I agree with you. If we look at this merely as Mirri performing a spell, it backfires, Dany gets the unearned reward, end of story, then I think it would be a simple, poorly-plotted deus ex machina. But I think that if you look at the magic in the pyre not actually being centered around Dany at all, but actually being all about Mirri, with Dany as basically an ignorant bystander with delusions of grandeur who stumbled into the spell and inadvertently benefitted from Mirri's fuckup, I think that angle can actually answer a number of these concerns. The point isn't that Dany got a magical effect "for free". The point is that Mirri was actively trying for an effect, failed, and paid the price---and part of that price was accidentally enrichng her enemy. The point isn't about what Dany gained, it's about what Mirri lost. If you look at the pyre as being about Mirri getting hoisted by her own petard and getting metaphorically and literally burned by attempting a form of magic she was unprepared to properly utilize and which she quite probably didn't fully understand herself, even with all of her study and work, then the whole scenario fits with the "Bloodmagic = Dangerous" theme other characters keep espousing.

And frankly, Dany thinks she got two categories of things from the pyre: 1) three dragons, and 2) validation that being a Targ grants her special powers. But if we look at the pyre as Mirri botching a spell, not as Mirri actively working to aid Dany, and not as Dany actually accomplishing anything through her own power . . . then what does Dany actually gain, long-term, from that pyre? Only her own very dangerous delusions. It's the sort of scenario GRRM institutes time and again: what looks like a character's crowning moment of glory turns out, in the long-term, to actually seal a character's doom (and we see this with Dany in particular over and over again). Because the whole point is that Dany has no idea what really happened on that pyre. She seems to genuinely believe the pyre showed her being inherently "special", that all that stuff Viserys told her about the Targs, well, it wasn't true for him, but it's totally true for her. But if her benefits from the pyre were the result of a glorified mistake, then the fact is that Dany is operating with a false information base which seems set, not to grant her free lollipops and hundred-dollar-bills, but to utterly destroy her in the future.

Given the central importance of that pyre, not just to Dany's plot arc, but to her personal understanding of who and what she is (something which informs all of her future actions), then reconceptualizing what really happened on the pyre, not as a vindication of Dany's magical awesomeness, but as a result of someone else's giant fuckup . . . that provides a setup wherein literally everything Dany thinks she basically got for free is actually a poisoned gift. First, as Apple Martini points out, the very nature of dragons prevents them from being a free lottery ticket. And second, because walking into the fire and not being burned is the thing on which Dany hinges her sense of self and personal identity. And if it only happened at all because someone else screwed up . . . then how strong and unimpeachable is the foundation of Dany's personal identity, her understanding of her place, power, and position in the world? If she knew all along that she'd basically gotten extremely lucky via someone else's accidental efforts, then she would structure her actions and her justifications for her choices accordingly. She'd probably recognize that what happened on the pyre wasn't a vindication of her idea that she's owed certain things in life. But she never seems to see the singing witch in the fire as anything but a sideline to the "proof" of Dany's own "power". And without the fire immunity on the pyre, without the hatching of the dragons, would Dany be so positive that she's superhuman? That she's a dragon in human skin? That her "special" blood gives her special rights? These are the things that are crippling her, not helping her. So did the magic of the pyre really grant her something for free? Or is Dany building her power base upon a rotten foundation of accidents and mistakes, while thinking it's actually firm and unmovable as steel?

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^ I keep saying this, but it really does need to be repeated to, I think, really understand where I think Dany is going.

The Targaryens who identify the most with fire and dragons are the ones who go the most nuts.

... Or were some of the worst, or the most tragic.

Daeron I is referred to as the Young Dragon, the guy who lost 40,000 men trying to conquer Dorne and died when he was 14.

Baelor I prayed for dragon eggs to hatch and became a religious nutbag.

Aegon IV (The Unworthy) gave away dragon eggs as status favors, built "wooden dragons" to replace the old ones and built himself a gaudy crown with dragons all over it.

Aerys I let the kingdom go to rot while he read about dragon prophecies.

Aerion Brightflame thought he was a dragon in human form, and chugged wildfire.

Aegon V, an otherwise decent guy, died and killed his son too in a fire at Summerhall, trying to hatch dragon eggs.

Aerys II was a sadistic bastard who burned people alive and thought he'd be reincarnated as a dragon if he burned King's Landing down.

Viserys Targaryen passed on family myths to his sister, abused her and seemed to be obsessed with dragons, thinking of himself as one when he was angry.

You never hear about Jaehaerys I or Viserys I or Daeron II bellowing that they were dragons in human form. Curious. And Dany, by gloating about her magical blood and her "immunity" to fire and whatnot, reminds me much more of the former group than the latter one. So what happens when Dany's faced with a fire, and thinks she's immune, when she isn't?

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Alright, so let's start with the evidence we have from GRRM about the Targs immunity (or lack-thereof).

The first is from the SSM on November 5, 1998:

Yes, ultimately Egg will become king, but that's a long and winding road, and the subject for many a later story... which I hope to write after I finish all the millions and zillions of words I've still got to write for A SONG OF ICE AND FIRE.

The Targaryens have heavily interbred, like the Ptolemys of Egypt. As any horse or dog breeder can tell you, interbreeding accentuates both flaws and virtues, and pushes a lineage toward the extremes. Also, there's sometimes a fine line between madness and greatness. Daeron I, the boy king who led a war of conquest, and even the saintly Baelor I could also be considered "mad," if seen in a different light. ((And I must confess, I love grey characters, and those who can be interperted in many different ways. Both as a reader and a writer, I want complexity and subtlety in my fiction))

Lastly, some fans are reading too much into the scene in GAME OF THRONES where the dragons are born -- which is to say, it was never the case that all Targaryens are immune to all fire at all times.

I think that is perhaps the problem I have with this, admittedly well-thought out and researched, argument against Dany being fire-proof or fire-resistant. Apple Martini is my personal hero on this board, but listing every other Targaryan who erroneously died thinking they were fireproof (or held an odd fascination with their house sigil) doesn't actually prove that Dany isn't special. In fact, I think the long history of Targs believing, sometimes tragically, that they had a special affinity with fire suggests an underlining family myth grounded in some previous precedent. While Dany and Viserys are children and foolish, Aegon was neither an idiot nor deranged when we encounter him, nor is he portrayed that way in secondary characters' memories. He knew the precedents and still persisted because he believed that he was correct. Our problem as readers is that, by the time we enter ASOIAF, the only two remaining Targaryans (that were raised as such) were too young to learn anything other than the catchphrases ("Fire cannot kill the dragon").

The next evidence we have is from an online chat GRRM conducted in March 1999:

Granny Do Targaryens become immune to fire once they "bond" to their dragons? George_RR_Martin Granny, thanks for asking that. It gives me a chance to clear up a common misconception. TARGARYENS ARE NOT IMMUNE TO FIRE! The birth of Dany's dragons was unique, magical, wonderous, a miracle. She is called The Unburnt because she walked into the flames and lived. But her brother sure as hell wasn't immune to that molten gold. Revanshe So she won't be able to do it again? George_RR_Martin Probably not.

There are two things that we can assume based on GRRM's response to this question. The first is that Dany's funeral pyre was a unique and special event and she, just like her brother, isn't immune to fire and that (as of 1999) GRRM didn't think Dany was going to be able to recreate a similar experience. However, we know that Dany in ADwD did manage to avoid Drogon's flames and is at least heat resistant. So either GRRM changed his mind and made Dany flame retardant, or the vague "IT" in the question is about the "birth of Dany's dragons," in which case GRRM is merely saying that Dany isn't going to be able to hatch anymore dragons - thus ensuring continuity between book 1 and book 5. If GRRM has changed his mind, then we should just sit back and enjoy the ride because the discordance between the first book and the fifth book means we can't rely on previous evidence to formulate a coherent theory that would explain both events in GoT and ADwD. Seeing as how sitting back and twiddling our thumbs is not something that we do on this board, let's assume that "probably not" is about hatching more eggs and see what is similar between the two instances in GoT and ADwD.

  • MMD: She could have mistakenly cast a spell shielding Dany from the flames, but how does that help Dany in ADwD? Also, her "life for death" could have saved Dany, but nobody else died during the furnace blast from Drogon that hit Dany in ADwD, so there isn't a chance for overlap there to make the magic work out the way it did before.
  • Khal Drogo's Body: Well, King's blood has some powerful properties according to Melisandre, but there was any king's blood during the ADwD unless you count Dany's own blood, which I think is an interesting and as yet unacknowledged component. Though personally, I'd prefer to think that Khal Drogo's blood woke the dragons from stone, but that's just me.
  • Dragon Eggs: GRRM totally sidestepped the question of whether or not bonding with a dragon makes you flame retardant, but I'm sure the issue will come up Victarion in TWoW. However, ADwD doesn't have dragon eggs and we don't know if the dragons were already bonded with Dany at that point. This seems to be a dead end...

Lastly, we have Dany herself. The only constant between GoT and ADwD is Dany herself. I know it chafes a lot of people that Dany has these things sort of thrust into her lap that she "doesn't deserve," but nobody really questions why the Starks get Direwolves when they need them. The Targaryans are one half of this whole Fire & Ice thing, so obviously that comes with certain privileges. While Bran gets to plug into the tree matrix, Dany gets a dragon. The Targaryan family is obsessed with the idea that one of them will eventually be a Super-Targ and I honestly just think we need to accept that Dany fits. If we accept the idea that the dragons mentioned in prophesies are actually Targaryans and not literal dragons, then we should honestly just combine the "Dragon has Three Heads" prophesy with the "Fire cannot kill a dragon." Obviously literally dragons don't have three heads, and obviously fire can kill a Targaryan. In my mind, the "dragon" with three heads is the same Super-Targaryan that fire cannot kill.

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Dany wasn't injured by Drogon's flames in ADWD because she ducked underneath them and dodged them. She isn't damaged by the "furnace wind" that Drogon blows, but Quentyn equally withstands a "furnace wind" that Rhaegal unleashed. The only difference is, Dany was able to dodge Drogon's flame (I think the "furnace wind" is a warm-up before fire is actually unleashed; it serves the same function for both dragons), while Quentyn was hit head-on when Rhaegal unleashed his fire. If Dany had taken Drogon's fire head-on instead of ducking it, she would have been incinerated. Only Dany's hair gets burned in the fighting pit, and it doesn't take much for that to happen, and it doesn't necessarily mean that other parts of her would have burned. Whereas her clothing burned off in the funeral pyre, her tunic isn't singed at all from the fighting pit. Why? Because she didn't get close enough to the fire for her clothing (or any other part of her, except her hair) to burn. So I don't see how anyone can make any claim that the fighting pit constitutes another "fireproof" moment when 1. her hands were burned just by touching the spear, and 2. her clothing (and thus her body) shows no evidence of being in contact with the actual fire. If her clothing had been singed or burned off but she herself was unscathed, you might have a point. But that wasn't the case.

So again, Dany is not fireproof. And I dare say that before the series is over, that will be confirmed explicitly, beyond debate, much to several people's shock, apparently.

ETA: And for the record, I took the "probably not" to mean, "Dany will probably not have another fireproof moment," not, "Dany will probably not ever hatch another dragon egg." The question was about fire resistance, not hatching eggs.

ETA2: I'm sorry, but does no one else see how nutty this is? The author says, multiple times, "No, Targaryens are not immune to fire." He says that Dany's thing was a one-off and that it "probably" won't happen again. He doesn't say, "All Targs except Dany can be killed by fire." He doesn't say, "Dany will probably have another fireproof event." He says nothing about dragons giving humans fireproof powers (it was a question asking such a thing that prompted him to say Targs aren't fireproof). He takes great pains to show that plenty of Targs who got big heads died stupid, gruesome deaths related to fire. He says nothing that would suggest that Dany is a Super-Targ. The only thing he suggests is that the funeral pyre event was "miraculous" and would not be repeated, which I don't think anyone disagrees with. Yet people still cling to the idea that Stormbrat is fireproof. I honestly don't get it.

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