The Princess and the Queen [SPOILERS]

[Ygrain]

snip

Great work there!

I wonder: Dany starts dreaming of dragons after she sleeps with the eggs close to her. Could this mean that placing the eggs in the Targ craddles is not done merely as a gift-giving custom but to create the bond?

And, as she dreams of the dragons in connection with herself bleeding: could the fact that she was still unhealed after childbirth play a role in their hatching? She thinks that only death can pay for life, but the motto says Fire and Blood - should a bit of Targaryen blood be added?

[jet199]

As a person can only bond with one dragon at a time is it possible that Viserys and Rhaego also bonded with dragons, in the eggs, which is why Dany was able to hatch all three rather than just the one she bonded with.

[Bushido]

I wonder: Dany starts dreaming of dragons after she sleeps with the eggs close to her. Could this mean that placing the eggs in the Targ craddles is not done merely as a gift-giving custom but to create the bond?

And, as she dreams of the dragons in connection with herself bleeding: could the fact that she was still unhealed after childbirth play a role in their hatching? She thinks that only death can pay for life, but the motto says Fire and Blood - should a bit of Targaryen blood be added?

:bowdown:

[Lady Gwynhyfvar]

*snip

Thank you for that! Brilliant. I've been reading about eggs quite a bit myself recently but (for the reasons you mentioned...) haven't gotten around to collecting all the references :P

I think the Rhaenyra/TPatQ revelations have everyone arriving at the same place-- that is that there's a connection or bonding that must occur between dragon and Targ during the egg phase in order for hatching to occur. Dany's dream series seems to confirm it.

What interests me about the Elaena egg (if indeed it turns out to be Viserion's) is the connection Viserion seems to have with Brown Ben Plumm. That got me wondering how the connection works. If we draw a rough analogue between Targ dragon bonding and Stark skinchanging, is there a possibility that a Targ consciousness can be absorbed into an egg if one is present at the time of death? (a la Varamyr's second life) Decidedly crack-ish but the collective consciousness might explain why human Targs are so often represented as actual dragons in dreams.

[Lady Gwynhyfvar]

Great work there!

I wonder: Dany starts dreaming of dragons after she sleeps with the eggs close to her. Could this mean that placing the eggs in the Targ craddles is not done merely as a gift-giving custom but to create the bond?

And, as she dreams of the dragons in connection with herself bleeding: could the fact that she was still unhealed after childbirth play a role in their hatching? She thinks that only death can pay for life, but the motto says Fire and Blood - should a bit of Targaryen blood be added?

Failed to page over and see this.

This is exactly what I think. The bond, the fire and the blood are all necessary somehow. We could add in some crackpot that while Dany's bond was with Drogon, the consciousness of her recently deceased brother and son contributed to waking the other two.

[Anath]

I wonder whether there were other Targaryen women giving birth to dragon babies. I think there weren't, at least prior to Rhaenyra, since she assumed that it was stress that deformed her baby. If so, that might give an interesting spin on the history of dragons: my guess is that after Rhaenyra's stillbirth, there were no more dragons hatching. And that went on till Dany's stillbirth. Add to that the fact that those two babies were supposed to be unique - Rhaenyra's only daughter after five sons and the stallion, and we might very well have two markers pointing to the beginning and end of an era.

[History of Westeros]

I highly recommend the e-books for anyone who loves to dig up details. It feels like having some sort of super power, especially if you enjoy being thorough like I do.

Back before I got them, I'm not sure how I researched podcast episodes.

[Lady Gwynhyfvar]

I highly recommend the e-books for anyone who loves to dig up details. It feels like having some sort of super power, especially if you enjoy being thorough like I do.

Back before I got them, I'm not sure how I researched podcast episodes.

Like going to the library in card catalog days?

I do have them and couldn't imagine searching without them.

"egg" though... all those leggings, beggars and begging brothers, not to mention a character called Egg... daunting! Thanks again for taking the time :)

[tze]

Great work there!

I wonder: Dany starts dreaming of dragons after she sleeps with the eggs close to her. Could this mean that placing the eggs in the Targ craddles is not done merely as a gift-giving custom but to create the bond?

And, as she dreams of the dragons in connection with herself bleeding: could the fact that she was still unhealed after childbirth play a role in their hatching? She thinks that only death can pay for life, but the motto says Fire and Blood - should a bit of Targaryen blood be added?

A couple of points: first, I think if we examine Dany's AGOT dreams in greater detail (which I'm going to do in another thread, as it would be off-topic in this one), the idea that those dreams were about the pyre in the first place---even that they were ever necessarily about actual dragons instead of Targaryens---starts losing a lot of steam. For that matter, Dany's first "dragon dream" comes well before she even gets the eggs---I don't see how you could argue she's dreaming about dragons because she's sleeping near the eggs when the dreams arrive before the eggs do.

Second, the idea that the Targs originally got eggs so they could bond with an individual dragon runs into some problems, logic-wise. If they could only ever bond with a single dragon, then if they were 'bonding' via the eggs in the cradle, logically they would have found themselves unable to bond with any adult dragons later on. Did Maegor have an egg prior to riding Balerion? Did Aemond, who would later ride Vhaegar, have an egg?

Thirdly, there's no indication Dany was bleeding by the time she stepped onto the pyre. She took a long and thorough bath prior to the pyre, so she wouldn't have had any traces of blood left on her skin from Rhaego's birth, and she makes no mention of any post-birth bleeding occurring during the pyre sequence.

I think the Rhaenyra/TPatQ revelations have everyone arriving at the same place-- that is that there's a connection or bonding that must occur between dragon and Targ during the egg phase in order for hatching to occur. Dany's dream series seems to confirm it.

I disagree on both counts. :) Dany's AGOT dream series confirms nothing of the sort (again, I'll discuss that in a different thread---it actually has some very interesting implications when you start dissecting it). And the idea that a dragon has to "bond" with a human before it can hatch is intrinsically problematic: how did those dragons hatch before the Valyrians found them in the Fourteen Fires, exactly? And just as importantly, why did the dragon eggs stop hatching when we know the Targs continued the "egg in cradle" practice?

What interests me about the Elaena egg (if indeed it turns out to be Viserion's) is the connection Viserion seems to have with Brown Ben Plumm. That got me wondering how the connection works. If we draw a rough analogue between Targ dragon bonding and Stark skinchanging, is there a possibility that a Targ consciousness can be absorbed into an egg if one is present at the time of death? (a la Varamyr's second life)

What connection? :) Viserion (who appeared to be the most even-tempered of the dragons in the first place) used Brown Ben Plumm as a stepping stool for about three seconds on one single occasion in ASOS. It's just that he did it immediately after Brown Ben had suggested a way for Dany to take Meereen (the sewers), so she started reading things into that event (the dragons loving Brown Ben, when Viserion is the only dragon he ever encounters and Viserion's actions weren't exactly "loving") that she might not have had it occurred in a different circumstances.

For that matter, let's not forget there's a decent chance Brown Ben doesn't even have any Plumm (and therefore, any Targaryen) blood in the first place. Brown Ben's family tree appears "checkered" at best.

(And I don't think you can "draw a rough analogue between Targ dragon bonding and Stark skinchanging" at all---if anything, the two seem to be opposites. But again, that's a topic for another thread.)

I wonder whether there were other Targaryen women giving birth to dragon babies. I think there weren't, at least prior to Rhaenyra, since she assumed that it was stress that deformed her baby.

Where did anyone claim Rhaenyra's stillborn daughter was "deformed"? Did I miss that?

[OneEyedRaven]

A couple of points: first, I think if we examine Dany's AGOT dreams in greater detail (which I'm going to do in another thread, as it would be off-topic in this one), the idea that those dreams were about the pyre in the first place---even that they were ever necessarily about actual dragons instead of Targaryens---starts losing a lot of steam. For that matter, Dany's first "dragon dream" comes well before she even gets the eggs---I don't see how you could argue she's dreaming about dragons because she's sleeping near the eggs when the dreams arrive before the eggs do.

Second, the idea that the Targs originally got eggs so they could bond with an individual dragon runs into some problems, logic-wise. If they could only ever bond with a single dragon, then if they were 'bonding' via the eggs in the cradle, logically they would have found themselves unable to bond with any adult dragons later on. Did Maegor have an egg prior to riding Balerion? Did Aemond, who would later ride Vhaegar, have an egg?

Thirdly, there's no indication Dany was bleeding by the time she stepped onto the pyre. She took a long and thorough bath prior to the pyre, so she wouldn't have had any traces of blood left on her skin from Rhaego's birth, and she makes no mention of any post-birth bleeding occurring during the pyre sequence.

I disagree on both counts. :) Dany's AGOT dream series confirms nothing of the sort (again, I'll discuss that in a different thread---it actually has some very interesting implications when you start dissecting it). And the idea that a dragon has to "bond" with a human before it can hatch is intrinsically problematic: how did those dragons hatch before the Valyrians found them in the Fourteen Fires, exactly? And just as importantly, why did the dragon eggs stop hatching when we know the Targs continued the "egg in cradle" practice?

What connection? :) Viserion (who appeared to be the most even-tempered of the dragons in the first place) used Brown Ben Plumm as a stepping stool for about three seconds on one single occasion in ASOS. It's just that he did it immediately after Brown Ben had suggested a way for Dany to take Meereen (the sewers), so she started reading things into that event (the dragons loving Brown Ben, when Viserion is the only dragon he ever encounters and Viserion's actions weren't exactly "loving") that she might not have had it occurred in a different circumstances.

For that matter, let's not forget there's a decent chance Brown Ben doesn't even have any Plumm (and therefore, any Targaryen) blood in the first place. Brown Ben's family tree appears "checkered" at best.

(And I don't think you can "draw a rough analogue between Targ dragon bonding and Stark skinchanging" at all---if anything, the two seem to be opposites. But again, that's a topic for another thread.)

Where did anyone claim Rhaenyra's stillborn daughter was "deformed"? Did I miss that?

George said it at the reading. It's been said on this thread a couple of times. The daughter was stillborn with deformed dragon like features but also didn't have a heart.

[RumHam]

A couple of points: first, I think if we examine Dany's AGOT dreams in greater detail (which I'm going to do in another thread, as it would be off-topic in this one), the idea that those dreams were about the pyre in the first place---even that they were ever necessarily about actual dragons instead of Targaryens---starts losing a lot of steam. For that matter, Dany's first "dragon dream" comes well before she even gets the eggs---I don't see how you could argue she's dreaming about dragons because she's sleeping near the eggs when the dreams arrive before the eggs do.

Second, the idea that the Targs originally got eggs so they could bond with an individual dragon runs into some problems, logic-wise. If they could only ever bond with a single dragon, then if they were 'bonding' via the eggs in the cradle, logically they would have found themselves unable to bond with any adult dragons later on. Did Maegor have an egg prior to riding Balerion? Did Aemond, who would later ride Vhaegar, have an egg?

Thirdly, there's no indication Dany was bleeding by the time she stepped onto the pyre. She took a long and thorough bath prior to the pyre, so she wouldn't have had any traces of blood left on her skin from Rhaego's birth, and she makes no mention of any post-birth bleeding occurring during the pyre sequence.

I disagree on both counts. :) Dany's AGOT dream series confirms nothing of the sort (again, I'll discuss that in a different thread---it actually has some very interesting implications when you start dissecting it). And the idea that a dragon has to "bond" with a human before it can hatch is intrinsically problematic: how did those dragons hatch before the Valyrians found them in the Fourteen Fires, exactly? And just as importantly, why did the dragon eggs stop hatching when we know the Targs continued the "egg in cradle" practice?

What connection? :) Viserion (who appeared to be the most even-tempered of the dragons in the first place) used Brown Ben Plumm as a stepping stool for about three seconds on one single occasion in ASOS. It's just that he did it immediately after Brown Ben had suggested a way for Dany to take Meereen (the sewers), so she started reading things into that event (the dragons loving Brown Ben, when Viserion is the only dragon he ever encounters and Viserion's actions weren't exactly "loving") that she might not have had it occurred in a different circumstances.

For that matter, let's not forget there's a decent chance Brown Ben doesn't even have any Plumm (and therefore, any Targaryen) blood in the first place. Brown Ben's family tree appears "checkered" at best.

(And I don't think you can "draw a rough analogue between Targ dragon bonding and Stark skinchanging" at all---if anything, the two seem to be opposites. But again, that's a topic for another thread.)

Where did anyone claim Rhaenyra's stillborn daughter was "deformed"? Did I miss that?

http://asoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/topic/79950-the-princess-and-the-queen/?p=5046597

[Rhaenys_Targaryen]

Where did anyone claim Rhaenyra's stillborn daughter was "deformed"? Did I miss that?

It was said so by GRRM during the reading of the Princess and the Queen during Capclave

EDIT: RumHam has beaten me to the punch :P His link provides the post in which it is told :)

[Lady Gwynhyfvar]

*snip

You're quite right that these ideas do deserve their own thread. I think what you're seeing here is people trying out (dare I say hatching ;)) new ideas based upon the recent revelations from TPatQ reading last weekend. In addition to the Rhaenyra still-born, there was a point made about her youngest son being responsible for bonding with and hatching his own egg... So the ideas about bonding and the physical/mental connection between Targs and dragons/eggs being much more concrete than previously thought are arising from there. If you missed those bits, no wonder this particular discussion didn't add up for you.

I shall look forward to discussing more about this in the future :)

[jet199]

I guess in the wild eggs would be hatched by the mummy dragon and the bond would be with the mother. The Targs probably removed the eggs when they were laid so the bond between rider and dragon would be as strong as parent and child.

[RumHam]

I guess in the wild eggs would be hatched by the mummy dragon and the bond would be with the mother. The Targs probably removed the eggs when they were laid so the bond between rider and dragon would be as strong as parent and child.

This makes a lot of sense. the bond isn't formed in the egg or at birth, but a bond develops that helps the human tame the dragon later on.

[Rhaenys_Targaryen]

Great work there!

I wonder: Dany starts dreaming of dragons after she sleeps with the eggs close to her. Could this mean that placing the eggs in the Targ craddles is not done merely as a gift-giving custom but to create the bond?

And, as she dreams of the dragons in connection with herself bleeding: could the fact that she was still unhealed after childbirth play a role in their hatching? She thinks that only death can pay for life, but the motto says Fire and Blood - should a bit of Targaryen blood be added?

This is a very interesting thought. Makes a lot of sense. :) Nice!

[Lord Varys]

Well, this whole thing really starts to get complicated.

First, I think we will have to differentiate between a Targaryen hatching a dragon egg and bonding with a living dragon. You can bond with an adult dragon just as you can bond with a recently born dragon hatchling. Aegon I bonded with an adult Balerion, just as Maegor did after him and his descendants before him. The theory as I see is goes that hatching a dragon egg and then bonding with the dragon you yourself hatched is a much easier, safer path than, say, trying to bond with a beast like Balerion.

We don't know yet but it's possible that you cannot bond with another dragon if you tried it and the chosen dragon rejected you. But even if that was not the case, mortal accidents would tend to happen if young boys or girls would ride the likes of Balerion or Vhagar.

Thus it is entirely possible to hatch a dragon but not bond with it. Only after you are the rider of a particular it is impossible for you to choose another (at least if the piece of dragonlore from ADwD is correct). Dany herself is about to prove that you can hatch three dragon eggs but only ride one.

It seems to me that after the Conquest both the Targaryens and their dragons procreated, and Aegon and his sisters gave their dragon-offspring to their children. It is not clear whether Aenys and his sisters got eggs and hatched them themselves or whether this first post-Conquest dragon generation was born wild. The latter seems to be the case since Maegor apparently had a bunch of recently hatched dragons to choose and considered all of them unworthy. But even then young Maegor could have been given an egg, hatched it, and then not bonded with that dragon because he considered him 'unworthy' and waited until Balerion was free.

More later.

[Lady Gwynhyfvar]

Well, this whole thing really starts to get complicated.

First, I think we will have to differentiate between a Targaryen hatching a dragon egg and bonding with a living dragon. You can bond with an adult dragon just as you can bond with a recently born dragon hatchling. Aegon I bonded with an adult Balerion, just as Maegor did after him and his descendants before him. The theory as I see is goes that hatching a dragon egg and then bonding with the dragon you yourself hatched is a much easier, safer path than, say, trying to bond with a beast like Balerion.

We don't know yet but it's possible that you cannot bond with another dragon if you tried it and the chosen dragon rejected you. But even if that was not the case, mortal accidents would tend to happen if young boys or girls would ride the likes of Balerion or Vhagar.

Thus it is entirely possible to hatch a dragon but not bond with it. Only after you are the rider of a particular it is impossible for you to choose another (at least if the piece of dragonlore from ADwD is correct). Dany herself is about to prove that you can hatch three dragon eggs but only ride one.

It seems to me that after the Conquest both the Targaryens and their dragons procreated, and Aegon and his sisters gave their dragon-offspring to their children. It is not clear whether Aenys and his sisters got eggs and hatched them themselves or whether this first post-Conquest dragon generation was born wild. The latter seems to be the case since Maegor apparently had a bunch of recently hatched dragons to choose and considered all of them unworthy. But even then young Maegor could have been given an egg, hatched it, and then not bonded with that dragon because he considered him 'unworthy' and waited until Balerion was free.

More later.

It is very complicated. I've been trying to tease it out for weeks now, especially how the process might relate to the dragon dreams of the post Dance Targs. Following the discussion here has been a great help since last weekend. The idea you raise, that perhaps bonding with a dragon in the egg might have been viewed as safer (or even perhaps more certain) might resolve some inconsistencies. jet199 mentioned above the idea that this type of bonding might create a parental type of bond, I could see how that would be viewed as less dangerous for children, though perhaps not more useful (if one is considering riding a dragon as a war mount) I'd guess the process might be best viewed as an organic one that Targs developed over generations. There are certainly many elements we have yet to understand. I'm hoping December 3 brings us more insight.

[Veltigar]

What interests me about the Elaena egg (if indeed it turns out to be Viserion's) is the connection Viserion seems to have with Brown Ben Plumm. That got me wondering how the connection works. If we draw a rough analogue between Targ dragon bonding and Stark skinchanging, is there a possibility that a Targ consciousness can be absorbed into an egg if one is present at the time of death? (a la Varamyr's second life) Decidedly crack-ish but the collective consciousness might explain why human Targs are so often represented as actual dragons in dreams.

IIRC Elaena was BBP ancestor (if he is in fact a Plumm) perhaps the dragon did indeed sense something of his previous owner in him.

[tze]

I think what you're seeing here is people trying out (dare I say hatching ;)) new ideas based upon the recent revelations from TPatQ reading last weekend. In addition to the Rhaenyra still-born, there was a point made about her youngest son being responsible for bonding with and hatching his own egg... So the ideas about bonding and the physical/mental connection between Targs and dragons/eggs being much more concrete than previously thought are arising from there. If you missed those bits, no wonder this particular discussion didn't add up for you.

I can't believe I completely missed that post. However, unless I'm missing some other post, nothing was said about the youngest son being responsible for "hatching" his own egg---just that "the 5th son (age 6, I think) only had an egg", in the context of him not (yet?) having an actual dragon. That's not confirmation that the Targs were actually responsible for hatching those eggs. After all, you still run into the problem of why, exactly, the eggs stopped hatching even though the Targs continued with the egg-in-cradle practice.

One possible reason for the Targs to have been constantly carrying eggs around ("There were references to some other children with dragon eggs who carry them everywhere and sleep with them") might have been to cover themselves in the eggs' scent---as a means of "masking" themselves so they could eventually trick the dragons into letting them approach (to use a dragon horn? We don't know how it works yet, but I've speculated elsewhere that the process might be twofold: smear your blood on the horn, smear your blood on a dragon, blow the horn, and you end up with a bonded dragon.) Dragons might very well be able to smell those eggs in a way that humans cannot, and there's a long tradition in fantasy of people getting past a monster by covering themselves in something belonging to that monster, so the monster doesn't see/smell them and therefore doesn't attack. The principle appears in ASOIAF in the story of Serwyn of the Mirror Shield, as Serwyn was able to get close to the dragon because he was "shielded" by something that reflected the dragon, so the dragon only saw "itself", not him. The Targs might have been operating under the same principle (but to allow them to get close enough to control the dragons, not to kill them).

I.e., in order to get close enough to a dragon to ride it (or use the dragon horn on it), the Targs first needed to smell like dragons, otherwise they'd get charbroiled. They didn't have actual dragon blood, so they needed an artificial method to trick the dragons. By keeping a dragon egg on their person 24/7 for some period of time, they would have been covering themselves in the egg's scent, which would mean that when they went to try and tame an adult dragon (or even a newly-hatched dragon), the dragon wouldn't (entirely, at least) smell them, only a dragon egg/baby dragon, and so would allow them to get close enough to get on the dragon's back and start the "taming" process. If the "give a kid an egg" practice had nothing to do with the eggs' actual hatching, that would explain why the hatchings stopped while the "egg" practice continued. And as time passed, the Targs kept doing the whole "give each kid a dragon egg" thing, but forgot the reasoning behind it.