GRRM confirms that Dany has some heat immunity, but what is the point?

[assjfjgjsgjljljglgjfjsduar]

Thanks for saying that. I'd love to get some more opinions from non-hostiles. I see they opened a 'Dany is inflammable' thread, so maybe everyone can get it all out of their system there instead of here.

Read: I'd love to get posts agreeing with me and validating an opinion that I already have. (Hint: Disagreeing with you does not automatically equate to "hostile," dear.)

People have answered your questions in fairly reasonable terms for the most part and simply disagreeing with your assertions does not warrant you calling them "hostile."

[utecifa]

I think perhaps the point of making this one family unique in being able to handle heat and fire better than others, is because if that's the case...you'd have to think if they get near ice, snow, or cold the opposite reaction will occur and they basically die and quickly.

[Dr. Pepper]

I don't understand why this is such a controversial topic either. I think it has to do with the violent aversion of some of the fans to the idea that there might be anything whatsoever that's magical or exceptional about Dany.

I see no reason for Starks to be the only people with some natural magic going on. Dany has some kind of affinity for dragons, as well as green "dragon" dreams and some sort of fondness for hot things. It's not much, but it's there.

I agree with Apple that the aversion may actually go the opposite way. I don't think the premise of this topic is controversial at all. At least it shouldn't be. The Targaryens are demonstrably not immune or resistant to heat or fire. That does not mean one denies the actual magical abilities they do have.

The Starks aren't the only people with magic going on. We see several characters who are wargs who are absolutely not Starks. Jojen Reed is a greendreamer. The Targaryens have demonstrated an ability in prophetic dreaming. Even the hostile OP of this thread has nearly successfully argued elsewhere that Dany may have had these prophetic dragon dreams. They moved to Dragonstone based on the dreams of Daenys. Still, without a doubt, they do not have any sort of immunity or resistance to fire. This has been confirmed in the text and by the author.

If a reader finds Dany exceptional or special, then great, they must have found something special about her that is supported by the text. It often seems that readers want her to be special but are unable to find things that actually make her unique and exceptional and so they resort to arguing that her specialness is derived from a magical skill set she does not possess. I think readers who enjoy one of the many complex characters in this series should dig a little deeper to find what makes them special instead of just crying "magic".

[Ruby Chevrolet]

The OP tried to argue that GRRM said "she does have some fire resistance", which he pretty clearly did not. Fire and heat are not synonyms. Liking heat does not indicate fire resistance. Nor does the stated quotation, which expressly describes her single instance of fire resistance as "a one-time magical event", in any way support the idea that she showed any fire (or heat) resistance in Daznak's Pit, as the OP tries to claim. A one-off event by definition cannot be repeated.

As a side note, trying to parse a difference between being "resistant to fire" and being "immune to fire" is nonsensical. If a person is set on fire but doesn't burn, that person is immune. What circumstances could possibly lead to a person being "fire resistant" but not "fire immune"? Getting second degree burns instead of third-degree burns? You would have no way to know you were "supposed" to get third-degree burns in the first place!

I think you are missing the point. A person can be resistant to heat, including the heat associated with fire, without being "fireproof." Think about it like this. Let's say a hobbit is wearing a coat of mithril silver and a cave troll stabs him with a spear. The mithril will prevent the hobbit from being pierced by the spear, but it will not prevent him from being injured by it. Where a hobbit wearing ordinary armor would likely be slain, the hobbit wearing mithril might just be bruised and knocked unconscious. In other words, the mithril makes the hobbit spear-resistant, but it does not make him spear-proof.

So Daenerys has some resistance to heat. It does not mean that she is fireproof.

And GRRM's quote says nothing of a "high heat tolerance" in the first place. It says "The Targaryens can tolerate a bit more heat than most ordinary people, they like really hot baths and things like that". I think this is why you're getting a lot of people arguing with your premise---because your premise is flawed. "A bit more heat" is not synonymous with "high heat tolerance". Liking hot baths is not a symptom of a superhuman ability. (And GRRM said the Targs could tolerate a bit more heat than most ordinary people. Not even all ordinary people.) You're twisting the actual words to say things that they expressly do not say.

As Dr. Pepper pointed out, Dany's love of hot baths in AGOT sets the groundwork for her later fire-and-heat-related beliefs. In fact, when Dany first thinks about liking hot baths in AGOT, she thinks:

Her love of hot baths is one reason she feels comfortable starting down the path of believing some of the pretty obvious BS Viserys told her about her family. Dany herself makes the same mistake in logic that this thread is making----that tolerating a bit more heat than most ordinary people, by liking hot baths and things like that, can in any way be evidence of a superhuman fire/heat ability. But Dany liking heat is not evidence that she has the capability of pulling some fire/heat related magical ability out of the air. Clearly she believes the opposite, which is why she's willing to attempt the pyre. But notice how Dany shows no heat resistance (and certainly no fire resistance) on the pyre at all until the actual witch casting a spell in the background burns alive---and notice how, when she first lights the pyre, the heat soon grows "too hot to bear", and Dany has to step away from it because she can't tolerate it. The pyre didn't confirm her "fire resistance' or even her "heat resistance", because it's pretty clear when you examine what actually happened there that Dany wasn't just naturally heat resistant or fireproof.

The point of the "heat resistance" in the form of "hot baths and things like that" is that it's meant to build the foundation for Dany to start believing in some very false ideas about her own capabilities. The pyre was a one-off magical event, and readers know it---but Dany does not. She thinks it further validated the BS Viserys was telling her about Targaryen capabilities. The point is that she's wrong. That's why she tries to tell herself Daznak's Pit mirrored the pyre, when readers can look at the two events and see all the ways the author is pointing out to us that they differed---we can see she's wrong but she cannot, because she doesn't realize that the foundations for her beliefs are faulty. And the reason she's amenable to this sort of idea in the first place is because she's convinced herself that liking hot baths was a symptom of a larger ability, a false belief that created this false foundation.

I think Daenerys also knows that some of her relatives rode into battle on dragons, that dragons breath fire, that dragon blood is so hot it can melt steel, and that they don't seem to have been burned by the experience. Think about the heat that must have engulfed Aegon the Conqueror when he descended on Harrenhal on Balerion's back. He sat on Balerion while Balerion bellowed enough fire to melt the stone towers of the largest castle ever built. How many ordinary people could have survived that?

Mr. Martin's statement that Targaryens can withstand more heat than other people has to be true, or at least it must be true that some Targaryens can in some circumstances, otherwise Aegon would not have been able to do what we know he did.

First, heat didn't kill Quentyn---fire did. That's the whole point: Drogon's "furnace wind" was just hot breath without any fire, while Rhaegal's "furnace wind" was accompanied by actual fire. We know this because Rhaegal's furnace wind presaged someone being set on fire, while Drogon's furnace wind did not. (And if you're trying to argue that Drogon's "furnace wind" did include fire, you're going to need some actual evidence of that in the text other than "the same phrase was used by two different people who were describing two very different dragon encounters." I mean, there aren't really a ton of easy-to-remember metaphors for what a dragon's breath feels like in the first place.)

And second, what we have are multiple limited narrators who have no access to each other's information base. The author clearly used the same phraseology in both events for a reason, but it's equally clear from the surrounding circumstances and effects shown that that reason was not to indicate that Dany and Quentyn were experiencing the same thing. By encouraging readers to compare the two events, GRRM actually highlights to readers the pretty stark differences between the two encounters.

Notice, for example, that Quentyn's "furnace wind" comes from behind him, where he can't "see" what's coming with it.

Quentyn didn't initially realize Rhaegal was breathing fire because Rhaegal was initially behind him, and when Quentyn turned, he shielded his eyes from the "furnace wind", which is why he doesn't see the fire coming, and also why he's then capable of seeing his body on fire when Rhaegal starts breathing fire at him---if he hadn't shielded his eyes from the furnace wind, his face would have been set on fire when he turned. But it's unmistakeable to readers that Rhaegal's "furnace wind" is followed by him breathing fire.

Dany's "furnace wind", in contrast, comes from right smack in front of her. We know this because Dany gives us a running description of Drogon's every movement immediately before, during, and after the "furnace wind". If she wasn't looking at him, she wouldn't have been able to do that. And if Drogon had actually been breathing fire at her there, Dany would have seen it. It's not like she can't recognize what a dragon breathing fire looks like---after all, after she grabs the whip and starts hitting him, she tells us that Drogon does start spitting fire at her. Given her later attempt to tell herself she'd had another Pyre incident, had Drogon actually been breathing fire along with his "furnace wind", Dany would have had every reason to highlight that fact while she was actually experiencing it. (In fact, her ducking under the fire a few paragraphs later makes zero sense had Drogon's "furnace wind" actually been accompanied by fire, as if she'd just experienced a full face of fire and been unharmed, she would have had no reason whatsoever to be afraid of, and therefore try to dodge, Drogon's fire later on. That she was afraid, and dodged, indicates quite clearly that she knew at the time the furnace wind was just hot air.)

The whole point here is to highlight to readers that these two POV characters were experiencing two very different things. In Dany's case, actual fire did not accompany the furnace wind---in Quentyn's case, the furnace wind was directly followed by fire. Later, when Drogon does start spitting actual fire at her (with no accompanying furnace wind), Dany was able to mostly dodge it (her hair gets ignited when she dodges under the actual fire, but it seems like nothing else did) because Drogon is within her eyeline and she can see his movements. Quentyn, however, couldn't dodge Rhaegal's fire because Rhaegal got the drop on him from behind while he was distracted with Viserion.

Dany's dragon encounter is clearly connected, from a literary and a plot standpoint, with Quentyn's dragon encounter, and it's pretty obvious that the two events are meant to be compared (I mean, Dany's actions in Daznak's Pit are at least partially the impetus, and definitely the blueprint, for Quentyn's later dragontaming attempt). If/when Dany finds out about Quentyn's fate, there's no doubt in my mind she'll attribute her success and his failure to differences in blood. However, when we as readers make that comparison, it becomes clearer and clearer that Dany and Quentyn were not actually experiencing the same thing. Quentyn died when his body was set on fire. Dany survived when her body was not set on fire. This is not evidence that Dany's immune to (or resistant---though what difference there could possibly be between "resistant" and "immune" when it comes to this topic eludes me) fire.

I can't tell whether you are backing off your earlier argument that "furnace wind" means one thing for Daenerys and something else for Quentyn or if you are saying that Drogon and Viserion created non-fire "furnce winds" while Rhaegal blew non-"furnace wind" fire. Either way, I disagree.

If you look at what happened to Quentyn, he was facing Viserion, who was not creating any "furnace wind." His friends then told him to turn around. He turned around to face the source of the "furnace wind," which was Rhaegal, and when he did that he raised his hand to block it. The result was that his hand caught on fire.

Here he is, looking at Viserion:

The pale head rose. The great gold eyes narrowed. Wisps of smoke spiraled upward from the dragon's nostrils.

"Down," the prince commanded. You must not let him smell your fear. "Down, down, down." He brought the whip around and laid a lash across the dragon's face. Viserion hissed.

Then Rhaegal starts moving.

And then a hot wind buffeted him and he heard the sound of leathern wigns and the air was full of ash and cinders and a monstrous roar went echoing off the scorched and blackened bricks and he could hear his friends shouting wildly.

They are shouting to warn Quentyn that Rhaegal just leapt into action behind him:

Gerris was calling out his name, over and over, and the big man was bellowing, "Behind you, behind you, behind you!"

What does Quentyn do in response? He turns around:

Quentyn turned and threw his left arm across his face to shield his eyes from the furnace wind.

If he was turning away from the furnace wind, he would not be shielding his eyes from it. He is turning into it.

Rhaegal, he reminded himself, the green one is Rhaegal.

So he is now facing the green one, Rhaegal.

When he raised his whip, he saw that the lash was burning. His hand as well. All of him, all of him was buring.

So "furnace wind" describes what Quentyn felt when the dragonfire hit him.

Same for Daenerys:

She stumbled over the pitmasters's corpse and fell on her backside.

She is retreating.

Drogon roared. The sound filled the pit. A furnace wind engulfed her. The dragon's long scaled neck stretched toward her.

Drogon's head is moving right at her, he is roaring (just like Rhaegal roared at Quentyn) and a furnace wind is enfulfing her. The dragon is breathing fire all over her. She is sitting, probably in a defensive crouch that shields her clothes, and unlike Quentyn she does not catch on fire.

Then:

She scrabbled in the sand, pushing against the pitmaster's corpse, and her fingers brushed against the handle of his whip. Toucing it made her feel braver. The leather was warm, alive.

So the whip was not in the furnace wind. She picked it up after.

Dany swung the lash at his scaled belly, back and forth until her arm began to ache. His long serpentine neck bent like an archer's bow. With a hissss, he spat black fire down at her. Dany darted underneath the flames

thereby avoiding the furnace wind that would have blown her backwards and stopped her advance toward Drogon

swinging the whip and shouting, "No, no, no. Get DOWN!"

Then she tames him.

Dany later tells herself that she was fireproof in the Pit as she was on the Pyre, which is actually one major reason why the clothes, "furnace wind", and things like that keep getting brought up. Because Dany, one of our unreliable narrators, had every reason in the world to clearly describe herself being "bathed" in fire during her Pit POV, because she knows that's what happened to her on the Pyre. Dany had every reason in the world to painstakingly outline the fire's deleterious effects on her clothes, because again, fire-destroyed clothes were a hallmark of what happened to her on the Pyre. That she tries desperately to tell herself she's had another Pyre incident, while never admitting to having experienced the same things (body set on fire, clothes destroyed by fire) that clearly happened to her on the Pyre, is pretty clear evidence that she didn't have another fireproof event but is desperately trying to convince herself she did.

I think she is telling herself that she is "fire made flesh" because she survived two fires. As Barristan, an eyewitness, later says, as she rode off on Drogon her hair was on fire. How could Drogon light her hair on fire without even singeing her face if she did not have some resistance to heat?

I really, really can. This is what she describes happening to her while she's in the Pit:

No indication there whatsoever of her "sitting with her knees up and with her arms crossed". For a scenario to be plausible, you need some indication in the text to believe your speculation is actually happening (and "because it's required for my theory to work" isn't an indication in the text).

My inference that Danaerys' body shielded her undergarments, partially, from the heat is more realistic than your inference that when Quentyn started to burn the non-fire "furnace wind" was replaced by fire, which is nowhere stated in the text. We are both drawing inferences about what we are not told from what we are told. I believe my inference is more solid than the one you draw, that's all.

What she actually says is this: first,

She mentions what happens to her other clothes---her sandal, her tokar, and her veils---in Daznak's Pit. What she doesn't mention is how her linen undertunic was somehow burnt into rags there. Given that the undertunic's fate is the only one not tied to the events of the Pit, that's an indication the undertunic didn't become "rags" in the Pit. And what she does mention, vis a vis the undertunic, is the wear and tear the environment of the Dothraki Sea has been having on it. Later in the same chapter, she mentions "As she walked, she tapped her thigh with the pitmaster’s whip. That, and the rags on her back, were all she had taken from Meereen." Given that by this point she's already described the wear and tear her clothes have undergone on the Dothraki Sea, mentioned what happened in the Pit to every other article of clothing except for her undertunic, there's really no logical way to infer that her clothes are rags because of dragonfire from the Pit, or that she's indicating the rags she currently has were rags in Daznak's Pit. Rather, the rags are all she has left by this point in time.

Again, I just disagree. She has perfectly good clothes when she goes into the pit. She has rags a couple of weeks later. There is no indication that the clothes were subject to any particular wear and tear (unrelated to heat) while she was riding Drogon. In fact, before she starts her walk -- at which point her clothes were already rags -- she seems to have been pretty sheltered in Drogon's cave or to have been riding on Drogon's back.

The idea that she's resistant to heat in some superhuman way, or that the pyre was the rule instead of a one-off, wishes away so many facts, provided in the books and by the author, that I really don't see how it makes any sense whatsoever.

As I said before, I suggest we agree to disagree. I see your point but I disagree with it. If you can say the same, great. If you don't see my point, that is fine, but I think you are missing out on a rich aspect of the story that is worth discussing.

[assjfjgjsgjljljglgjfjsduar]

As I said before, I suggest we agree to disagree. I see your point but I disagree with it. If you can say the same, great. If you don't see my point, that is fine, but I think you are missing out on a rich aspect of the story that is worth discussing.

On the contrary, anyone who reads and pays attention to Tze's posts knows very well that there's very little she "misses out on." In my estimation she's probably the most analytical and astute person on here, and in the top three posters whose opinion and analysis I enjoy the most. I actually feel affirmed knowing that we agree on most things and given her obvious intelligence, I wouldn't want to side against her.

And I still have yet to see anyone convincingly argue that Dany's high heat tolerance is going to matter worth squat in the long run. Liking hot baths is not a magical superpower, people. It isn't.

[Dagon Greyjoy]

She has heat immunity because she is the reincarnation of Nissa Nissa, who was sacrificed to make the sword, light-bringer.

That would be extremely fucked up, Jon killing Ygritte and then Dany. And so a serial spouse-murderer became Azor Ahai Reborn and King of Westeros? Cm'on.

[Ruby Chevrolet]

Actually no. Bran starts warging Summer before Dany hatches her dragons. There's also the matter of Mirri, who is, you know, the actual "magical" person in the whole dragon equation.

Let's say you are right and Mirri is a "magical" person in the dragon-hatching equation. Do you think Mirri could have hatched the dragons without Daenerys or Rhaego being present? If so, would any person off the street have served this purpose?

The reason I ask this is that Melisandre -- who obviously has some magical abilities -- believes that "king's blood" is a required part of the dragon-hatching recipe. For a long time, in Westeros, "king's blood" has been synonymous with "Targaryen blood." But before the Targaryens were kings in Westeros, they were able to hatch dragons.

So I think that the magic in the blood that hatches dragons is present in the Targaryens. It may require a priestess or sorceress to unlock it, but I don't think the priestess/sorceress could do it without the right blood. I also think the birth process is significant in all of this.

Otherwise, if it is just "king's blood," all of the major families in Westeros would qualify. As would the King-Beyond-The-Wall, Mance Rayder, and his children, but only after he was proclaimed king. So his blood would be non-magical one day and magical the next. That does not make much sense to me.

So I think the Targaryen blood from Daenerys and/or Rhaego was critical to the dragon-hatching. That is not to say that there might not have been other Valyrians whose blood would have worked just as well, just as there are northerners who are not Starks who can have "skinchanging" experiences. But I don't think that tossing, say, a dead Sam Tarly and recently-miscarried Gilly on the pyre with the dragon eggs and Mirri would have resulted in live dragons, nor that Gilly would have walked off the pyre Unburnt.

[Dagon Greyjoy]

Maybe you don't need any weird-ass ritual to hatch dragon eggs if you already have dragons. Dragons presumably bred before the Valyrians found'em to begin with.

[assjfjgjsgjljljglgjfjsduar]

Maybe you don't need any weird-ass ritual to hatch dragon eggs if you already have dragons. Dragons presumably bred before the Valyrians found'em to begin with.

^ This. We also know that a Targaryen king and that king's blood died at Summerhall (Aegon V and Duncan the Small), and that didn't hatch a dragon either. So that would lead me to believe there might be more to it.

I will also point out that the dragons were hatching before Dany ever stepped foot in the pyre. If you want to argue that king's blood and a magical blood sacrifice or whatever are necessary, I point you to Drogo and Mirri. Again, Dany seems incidental. It's not like she lit the pyre around herself at the very beginning and the eggs hatched entirely while she was in it. Seriously, go back and actually read the passage — the eggs are already hatching before she gets in the pyre. The way it looks on paper, any idiot could've put Drogo's corpse, the eggs and Mirri on the pyre and gotten dragons, especially when Mirri is very obviously the one doing the actual magic (read: chanting) there. It's not exactly a coincidence that the pyre is too hot for Dany to approach (despite her, heh, "heat resistance") until after Mirri has started doing her chant (read: spellcasting).

Seeing as Melisandre burned "Mance" for his "king's blood" knowing full well it wasn't him, I'd also take with a heaping grain of salt whatever it is she says she believes about king's blood and its alleged powers.

Finally, at the risk of pointing out the obvious, none of the other king-descended families in Westeros ever had dragon eggs. You can't say they "couldn't" hatch them when they were never in a position to try. If I were a Targaryen fruitcake and didn't want anyone challenging my authority, you better believe I'd spread the rumor that I had magical dragon blood and only I could control dragons. Don't mistake propaganda for fact.

ETA: I'm curious as to where you think Dany's "magic" came in here. Do you think it was because she was the one who lit the fire? I ask because other than that, there's no obvious "entry point" for her "magic" here. She's not the magical blood sacrifice, she's not the king's blood sacrifice, she's not in the pyre when the eggs start hatching. So when you say she was the "key" to hatching the eggs, what do you mean by that? What was it that she did that a normal person, with the exact same ingredients, couldn't have?

[The Idiots Lantern]

And you don't think the flip side might also be true? That some fans have a "violent aversion" to the very real possibility that there's nothing magical or exceptional about Dany at all?

Violent Aversion? No. It's just any fan who became a fan of the show first might be surprised at the "LOL YOU THINK DANY'S MAGICAL LOOOOOOOOSERRRRR" reaction they get on the forum for the most innocent of comments. The hostility of deniers does not match the aggression of the proponants, I think.

Actually no. Bran starts warging Summer before Dany hatches her dragons.

That seems to be more of a natural inborn magical ability then a spell based around ritual. I mean Dany's involved in the first successful spell that we see happen "onscreen" so to speak.

There's also the matter of Mirri, who is, you know, the actual "magical" person in the whole dragon equation.

True, Miri is magical. However, Miri is also the last person on the planet who would intentionally have hatched three dragon eggs for Danaerys, so what happened in the pyre wasn't any plan of hers. She also wouldn't have cast any spell that might have spared Dany from the flames. And if she was trying to cast the spell on herself, then...well it obviously didn't work, so WHY didn't it work? Did she just not have enough time? No, she promised Dany she wouldn't hear her scream, so she THOUGHT she'd have enough time. Why would she be wrong about that? She saw the same preparations for the fire that everyone else did. And why would it misscast and latch onto Dany, who was far from the only person standing around the funeral pyre? And why did Dany know, before the fires were even lit, that what she was about to do would work? Jorah thought she was crazy, burning the dragon eggs that she could sell and be set for life, but she somehow knew she was going to hatch these eggs. She knew she could walk right into the fire and not burn. She didn't even understand HOW she knew, she just knew.

Maybe that was just her Targaryan madness delusion and she was the beneficiary of a string of very, very convenient coincidences, but that's a few too many coincidences for my peace of mind. GRRM called the events around the birth of the dragons a "miracle" and miracles are usually not accidents.

[The Idiots Lantern]

Read: I'd love to get posts agreeing with me and validating an opinion that I already have. (Hint: Disagreeing with you does not automatically equate to "hostile," dear.)

No, but condescendingly calling someone "dear" sure can.

[assjfjgjsgjljljglgjfjsduar]

GRRM called the events around the birth of the dragons a "miracle" and miracles are usually not accidents.

Nor are they repeatable or really due to any inherent skill or power on the part of the person to which they occur. If it's a miracle — and I agree it is, as does the author — then call it that, but don't pretend like it can be a miracle and due to some inherent magical attributes of Dany. It can't be both.

Most of what you're asking has already been explained by Tze in her Pyre Revisited thread, which should be required reading.

No, but condescendingly calling someone "dear" sure can.

Touche. Point stands, though.

[Ygrain]

I don't think Book!Dany IS supposed to think she's immune to fire. She did duck Drogon's fire breath, after all. And she saw her hands were burnt. She tells herself she can handle the heat, but that may be her own mental toughness working, and not a genuine deluded belief that fire doesn't hurt her.

HBO!Dany might actually be fireproof. It hasn't been tested, unless her standing there while her dragons breathed fire all around her chained-up body is considered a test.

There is a profound switch between what she thinks before the Pit and afterwards. In the Pit, as you point out, she knows that she has to duck the fire. Afterwards, she convinces herself that what happened in the Pit was the same as when she walked into the pyre, while we clearly see that this is not the case - her clothes didn't burn, she has blisters... Starved and feverish, she is not in the sanest state of mind, so perhaps she will realize the self-delusion later, but she might as well cling to it and cause her own downfall ("bride of fire" sounds rather ominous in this respect)

@Ruby Chevrolet:

reposting for your convenience, because you must have missed the description what Dany actually does. You have there long version from tze and a short one from me.

The OP tried to argue that GRRM said "she does have some fire resistance", which he pretty clearly did not. Fire and heat are not synonyms. Liking heat does not indicate fire resistance. Nor does the stated quotation, which expressly describes her single instance of fire resistance as "a one-time magical event", in any way support the idea that she showed any fire (or heat) resistance in Daznak's Pit, as the OP tries to claim. A one-off event by definition cannot be repeated.

As a side note, trying to parse a difference between being "resistant to fire" and being "immune to fire" is nonsensical. If a person is set on fire but doesn't burn, that person is immune. What circumstances could possibly lead to a person being "fire resistant" but not "fire immune"? Getting second degree burns instead of third-degree burns? You would have no way to know you were "supposed" to get third-degree burns in the first place!

And GRRM's quote says nothing of a "high heat tolerance" in the first place. It says "The Targaryens can tolerate a bit more heat than most ordinary people, they like really hot baths and things like that". I think this is why you're getting a lot of people arguing with your premise---because your premise is flawed. "A bit more heat" is not synonymous with "high heat tolerance". Liking hot baths is not a symptom of a superhuman ability. (And GRRM said the Targs could tolerate a bit more heat than most ordinary people. Not even all ordinary people.) You're twisting the actual words to say things that they expressly do not say.

As Dr. Pepper pointed out, Dany's love of hot baths in AGOT sets the groundwork for her later fire-and-heat-related beliefs. In fact, when Dany first thinks about liking hot baths in AGOT, she thinks:

Her love of hot baths is one reason she feels comfortable starting down the path of believing some of the pretty obvious BS Viserys told her about her family. Dany herself makes the same mistake in logic that this thread is making----that tolerating a bit more heat than most ordinary people, by liking hot baths and things like that, can in any way be evidence of a superhuman fire/heat ability. But Dany liking heat is not evidence that she has the capability of pulling some fire/heat related magical ability out of the air. Clearly she believes the opposite, which is why she's willing to attempt the pyre. But notice how Dany shows no heat resistance (and certainly no fire resistance) on the pyre at all until the actual witch casting a spell in the background burns alive---and notice how, when she first lights the pyre, the heat soon grows "too hot to bear", and Dany has to step away from it because she can't tolerate it. The pyre didn't confirm her "fire resistance' or even her "heat resistance", because it's pretty clear when you examine what actually happened there that Dany wasn't just naturally heat resistant or fireproof.

The point of the "heat resistance" in the form of "hot baths and things like that" is that it's meant to build the foundation for Dany to start believing in some very false ideas about her own capabilities. The pyre was a one-off magical event, and readers know it---but Dany does not. She thinks it further validated the BS Viserys was telling her about Targaryen capabilities. The point is that she's wrong. That's why she tries to tell herself Daznak's Pit mirrored the pyre, when readers can look at the two events and see all the ways the author is pointing out to us that they differed---we can see she's wrong but she cannot, because she doesn't realize that the foundations for her beliefs are faulty. And the reason she's amenable to this sort of idea in the first place is because she's convinced herself that liking hot baths was a symptom of a larger ability, a false belief that created this false foundation.

First, heat didn't kill Quentyn---fire did. That's the whole point: Drogon's "furnace wind" was just hot breath without any fire, while Rhaegal's "furnace wind" was accompanied by actual fire. We know this because Rhaegal's furnace wind presaged someone being set on fire, while Drogon's furnace wind did not. (And if you're trying to argue that Drogon's "furnace wind" did include fire, you're going to need some actual evidence of that in the text other than "the same phrase was used by two different people who were describing two very different dragon encounters." I mean, there aren't really a ton of easy-to-remember metaphors for what a dragon's breath feels like in the first place.)

And second, what we have are multiple limited narrators who have no access to each other's information base. The author clearly used the same phraseology in both events for a reason, but it's equally clear from the surrounding circumstances and effects shown that that reason was not to indicate that Dany and Quentyn were experiencing the same thing. By encouraging readers to compare the two events, GRRM actually highlights to readers the pretty stark differences between the two encounters.

Notice, for example, that Quentyn's "furnace wind" comes from behind him, where he can't "see" what's coming with it.

Quentyn didn't initially realize Rhaegal was breathing fire because Rhaegal was initially behind him, and when Quentyn turned, he shielded his eyes from the "furnace wind", which is why he doesn't see the fire coming, and also why he's then capable of seeing his body on fire when Rhaegal starts breathing fire at him---if he hadn't shielded his eyes from the furnace wind, his face would have been set on fire when he turned. But it's unmistakeable to readers that Rhaegal's "furnace wind" is followed by him breathing fire.

Dany's "furnace wind", in contrast, comes from right smack in front of her. We know this because Dany gives us a running description of Drogon's every movement immediately before, during, and after the "furnace wind". If she wasn't looking at him, she wouldn't have been able to do that. And if Drogon had actually been breathing fire at her there, Dany would have seen it. It's not like she can't recognize what a dragon breathing fire looks like---after all, after she grabs the whip and starts hitting him, she tells us that Drogon does start spitting fire at her. Given her later attempt to tell herself she'd had another Pyre incident, had Drogon actually been breathing fire along with his "furnace wind", Dany would have had every reason to highlight that fact while she was actually experiencing it. (In fact, her ducking under the fire a few paragraphs later makes zero sense had Drogon's "furnace wind" actually been accompanied by fire, as if she'd just experienced a full face of fire and been unharmed, she would have had no reason whatsoever to be afraid of, and therefore try to dodge, Drogon's fire later on. That she was afraid, and dodged, indicates quite clearly that she knew at the time the furnace wind was just hot air.)

The whole point here is to highlight to readers that these two POV characters were experiencing two very different things. In Dany's case, actual fire did not accompany the furnace wind---in Quentyn's case, the furnace wind was directly followed by fire. Later, when Drogon does start spitting actual fire at her (with no accompanying furnace wind), Dany was able to mostly dodge it (her hair gets ignited when she dodges under the actual fire, but it seems like nothing else did) because Drogon is within her eyeline and she can see his movements. Quentyn, however, couldn't dodge Rhaegal's fire because Rhaegal got the drop on him from behind while he was distracted with Viserion.

Dany's dragon encounter is clearly connected, from a literary and a plot standpoint, with Quentyn's dragon encounter, and it's pretty obvious that the two events are meant to be compared (I mean, Dany's actions in Daznak's Pit are at least partially the impetus, and definitely the blueprint, for Quentyn's later dragontaming attempt). If/when Dany finds out about Quentyn's fate, there's no doubt in my mind she'll attribute her success and his failure to differences in blood. However, when we as readers make that comparison, it becomes clearer and clearer that Dany and Quentyn were not actually experiencing the same thing. Quentyn died when his body was set on fire. Dany survived when her body was not set on fire. This is not evidence that Dany's immune to (or resistant---though what difference there could possibly be between "resistant" and "immune" when it comes to this topic eludes me) fire.

Dany later tells herself that she was fireproof in the Pit as she was on the Pyre, which is actually one major reason why the clothes, "furnace wind", and things like that keep getting brought up. Because Dany, one of our unreliable narrators, had every reason in the world to clearly describe herself being "bathed" in fire during her Pit POV, because she knows that's what happened to her on the Pyre. Dany had every reason in the world to painstakingly outline the fire's deleterious effects on her clothes, because again, fire-destroyed clothes were a hallmark of what happened to her on the Pyre. That she tries desperately to tell herself she's had another Pyre incident, while never admitting to having experienced the same things (body set on fire, clothes destroyed by fire) that clearly happened to her on the Pyre, is pretty clear evidence that she didn't have another fireproof event but is desperately trying to convince herself she did.

I really, really can. This is what she describes happening to her while she's in the Pit:

No indication there whatsoever of her "sitting with her knees up and with her arms crossed". For a scenario to be plausible, you need some indication in the text to believe your speculation is actually happening (and "because it's required for my theory to work" isn't an indication in the text).

What she actually says is this: first,

She mentions what happens to her other clothes---her sandal, her tokar, and her veils---in Daznak's Pit. What she doesn't mention is how her linen undertunic was somehow burnt into rags there. Given that the undertunic's fate is the only one not tied to the events of the Pit, that's an indication the undertunic didn't become "rags" in the Pit. And what she does mention, vis a vis the undertunic, is the wear and tear the environment of the Dothraki Sea has been having on it. Later in the same chapter, she mentions "As she walked, she tapped her thigh with the pitmaster’s whip. That, and the rags on her back, were all she had taken from Meereen." Given that by this point she's already described the wear and tear her clothes have undergone on the Dothraki Sea, mentioned what happened in the Pit to every other article of clothing except for her undertunic, there's really no logical way to infer that her clothes are rags because of dragonfire from the Pit, or that she's indicating the rags she currently has were rags in Daznak's Pit. Rather, the rags are all she has left by this point in time.

The idea that she's resistant to heat in some superhuman way, or that the pyre was the rule instead of a one-off, wishes away so many facts, provided in the books and by the author, that I really don't see how it makes any sense whatsoever.

What tze says. Plus, what both descriptions have in common is that "furnace wind", i.e. hot breath, is produced when dragons roar.

"Drogon roared... a furnace wind engulfed her."

"Then a hot wind buffeted him....and a monstrous roar went echoing"

Note that at this point, Quentyn is not burning yet, as there is no point in his friends yelling "behind you" at an already burning person. He turns, shielding his eyes from "furnace wind", which clearly is used as synonym for "hot wind", and only then he sees himseld engulfed in flames and starts screaming. Being turned with his back, and shielding his eyes with his hand, he never saw the flame coming after the roar.

ETA: Note also that when Dany falls on her backside over the pitmaster's body and Drogon roars full into her face, the pitmaster's clothes are not set on fire, and nor is the whip which is lying right within her reach. The whip is warm to the touch but not burning, like Quentyn's was, though givent he proximity, it should have been set afire, as well. The "furnace wind" is not hot enought to set objects afire.

[lady m]

That seems to be more of a natural inborn magical ability then a spell based around ritual. I mean Dany's involved in the first successful spell that we see happen "onscreen" so to speak.

While this is true, the person casting a spell at the pyre is not Dany, it's Mirri. She sings her spells, and she begins singing when Dany lights the pyre. Dany does not think or say any words that affect anything, she clearly does not understand blood magic when she requests that Mirri heal Drogo in her previous chapter. She also has never cast a spell since, either. Spell casting seems to be as much craft as it is art, so it's not just something you can do without having learned how to do it.

What is more precise is to say that Dany is a witness and present when the first spell we see performed is performed, which really was the one involving Drogo, not the pyre. But either way, Dany is not the one casting any of these spells. She wouldn't know how.

[assjfjgjsgjljljglgjfjsduar]

While this is true, the person casting a spell at the pyre is not Dany, it's Mirri. She sings her spells, and she begins singing when Dany lights the pyre. Dany does not think or say any words that affect anything, she clearly does not understand blood magic when she requests that Mirri heal Drogo in her previous chapter. She also has never cast a spell since, either. Spell casting seems to be as much craft as it is art, so it's not just something you can do without having learned how to do it.

What is more precise is to say that Dany is a witness and present when the first spell we see performed is performed, which really was the one involving Drogo, not the pyre. But either way, Dany is not the one casting any of these spells. She wouldn't know how.

And this goes to back to my question, which I think is entirely fair:

To everyone who thinks Dany was the key component here, what is it that she did, specifically, that made her the key component? Where did her "magic," that she allegedly has, come into play? She's not chanting any spells (Mirri is), she's not the king's blood sacrifice (Drogo and/or Rhaego would be), she's not in the pyre the entire time (the eggs are hatching anyway). If you witnessed this, totally unawares, and wondered who played the bigger role, would you say it was the person who happened to light the fire or the actual magical witch who's chanting a spell nearly the entire time?

[caravaggio]

And this goes to back to my question, which I think is entirely fair:

To everyone who thinks Dany was the key component here, what is it that she did, specifically, that made her the key component? Where did her "magic," that she allegedly has, come into play? She's not chanting any spells (Mirri is), she's not the king's blood sacrifice (Drogo and/or Rhaego would be), she's not in the pyre the entire time (the eggs are hatching anyway). If you witnessed this, totally unawares, and wondered who played the bigger role, would you say it was the person who happened to light the fire or the actual magical witch who's chanting a spell nearly the entire time?

Well in fairness, you could say it was Dany's special need for vengence due to her grief at the time that set the chain of events in motion. What the heck was Mirri chanting anyway? In that situation I'd either be chanting something to protect myself from fire (maybe that is why Dany doesn't get burned) or some curse upon the person burning me...

But the magic? No, there is no magic Dany has that is contributing to all of it. Even if she were fire proof (and she isn't) that wouldn't have helped the ritual along in some magical way.

[lady m]

Or to put it another way, Apple, other than the eggs being Dany's, how is she different from Jorah, Irri, Doreah, Jhiqui, etc., etc. They also all witness the pyre and the spells being cast by Mirri, and are all outside of the pyre when the eggs begin to crack.

What is the X-Factor that Dany contributes to the pyre, besides the eggs themselves.

[assjfjgjsgjljljglgjfjsduar]

Well in fairness, you could say it was Dany's special need for vengence due to her grief at the time that set the chain of events in motion. What the heck was Mirri chanting anyway? In that situation I'd either be chanting something to protect myself from fire (maybe that is why Dany doesn't get burned) or some curse upon the person burning me...

But the magic? No, there is no magic Dany has that is contributing to all of it. Even if she were fire proof (and she isn't) that wouldn't have helped the ritual along in some magical way.

I think you'd find this interesting:

[The Idiots Lantern]

Most of what you're asking has already been explained by Tze in her Pyre Revisited thread, which should be required reading.

I have already read it. And I wish you wouldn't imply that the only reason one might disagree with you is because they obviously haven't done enough research. This is the hostility we've been talking about.

If you witnessed this, totally unawares, and wondered who played the bigger role, would you say it was the person who happened to light the fire or the actual magical witch who's chanting a spell nearly the entire time?

I think Dany did more then light the fire. Everything that happened that night happened because she arranged it. She arranged Drogo's corpse on the pyre and put her three dead stone eggs on the platform with him. She had them tie the witch to the pyre. She poured the oil on the witch. She stood back. And she KNEW it was going to work. That part should not be overlooked. We were inside her head as she assembled all these pieces, and one thing we didn't see was any doubt or worry about what Mirri was going to sing or chant, which implies to me that either she predicted what spell she was going to use and how it was going to misfire and fireproof her and everything else, or she knew that nothing Mirri could cast would change anything. She was exchanging death for life, these eggs were being hatched, and nothing was going to stop it.

Which seems more magical to you, I suppose: the woman screaming and burning to death on a pyre or the one who arranged the fire, waits until the right time, then walks right into that selfsame fire and walks right out again, unscathed, holding three newborn baby dragons? Who's plan worked?

We know the Valyrians had magic that modern Westerosi don't understand. Maybe the centuries that the Valyrians spent using dragon-related blood magic means that the descendants of their noble lines MIGHT have an affinity for that kind of magic.... It'd make a certain kind of sense: blood magic affecting the bloodlines... and it might explain the "royal blood" thing that Melissandre says is so important to her spellwork. Just maybe.

[Ygrain]

I would throw in a little speculation:

Fire and blood is actually a recipe how to hatch dragons - you need very hot fire, and blood.

Dragon has three heads means that they hatch in triplets. Possibly, you also need a body per an egg, and here we again have three (Drogo, the stallion, Mirri)

It would seem that the phrases were passed on while their original meaning got lost along the way, and Dany, whether by chance or by intuition, finally got it right.

As for Mirri's contribution, a botched fireproofness spell, as suggested in tze's thread, or simply releasing some magic potential which incidentally combined with other factors to allow the hatching, seem plausible. I don't think there would plausibly be any attempt on Mirri's part to do something about the eggs as such.

BTW, what was Mirri talking about when she told Dany that this is not how things are done and that she would show her? Did she have anything specific on mind, or was she just stalling to save herself from being burnt?