Mythological deep-dives

In my first post I gave one line of thought this quote gave me, but ny first thought was of course Pegasus. As I couldn't remember much about that myth off the top of my head, I decided to look into it after posting the OP. Here's the gist of the mythological Pegasus:

Of his birth there are several versions, but they are not that different all things considered. He was the son of Poseidon and Medusa. Poseidon is the father of all horses in greek mythology, so in a way we could say they are a water creature. Medusa was one of the three Gorgons (monsters) generally depiced as a man-hating winged human female with venomous snakes instead of hair; older sources say she and her sisters were these monsters from the start, but later this changed to her being a very beautiful but terrifying maiden. It was said that Poseidon either had willing sex or raped her in Athena's temple, which infuriated the goddess. As punishment Medusa was changed into the monster we know. The hero Perseus beheaded her while she was pregnant by Poseidon, and Pegasus and his brother Chrysaor was birthed a) from her severed neck, a “higher birth”, b) from her blood feeding the earth (Gaia), or c) the mingling of her blood, pain and sea foam, in similar fasion as Aphrodite.
Chrysador was often depicted as a young man, his name means "He who has a golden sword". He was said to be king of Iberia and had the three-headed son Geryon who was killed by Perseus' half-brother and great grandson Hercules.
The white stallion was given the name Pegasus as he was believed to have made his appearance near the sources (pêgai) of Oceanus. Several places it is mentioned that he sprang forth with a “blood spattered mane” at his birth.
After he roamed free and no one was able to tame him until the hero Bellerophon. He was sent on a suicide mission to kill the Chimera, a fire breating monster, and was adivised to tame Pegasus in order to do this. He was able to catch and tame Pegasus only after he got the help of Athena, with different versions here as well. They then preceded to kill the Chimera by flying high over the monster and Bellerophon flinging a spear, or shooting an arrow, with a piece of lead at the monster. The lead melted in it's throat and choked it to death. Some sources say they then went on several adventures together, but all agree that Bellerophon in his hubris decided he was to go to Olympus and the gods, but that he fell back down to earth while Pegasus went on to Plympus and stayed there. Some say Bellerophon looked down and fell due to fear, others that Pegasus threw him off or that Zeus sent a biting fly causing Pegasus to shake Bellerophon off his back.
As said, Pegasus went on to Olympus where he was stabled and charged to carry lightning for Zeus. It is said that Zeus awarded him for loyal service with getting his constallation in the sky, also known as Horse. As it is best seen in the spring, which is the season for thunderstorms in Greece, this could be the source of this image of lightning bearer.
It was said that where Pegasus' hoof touched the ground a spring would appear, including the Hippocrene that was the sacred spring of the Muses on Mount Helicon in Boiotia. In this sense he is connected with both fertility and poetry.
Related to this is the term pegasoi, or winged horses (hippoi pteretoi), often drawing the chariots of the gods. Like the sun-god Helios and the moon-goddes Selene. The hero Pelops also got a winged horse from Poseidon. Another related species is known as Pegasoi Aithiopikoi, indigenous to the mysterious land Aithiopia or now known as Ethiopia.
For more information including classical sources, this page is a good one. But be carefull, it's easy to get lost there...

So, how does this connect to Dany? Well, in true Martin style there is no direct connection imo. We see elements but it's not a transplant of the older story into his world. There is the general and well used trope of the hero on the white horse, but can this be used for the silver? In my oppinion yes, as most white horses actually are grey horses that get a a progressively white coat as they mature. As the silver is a fiily when Dany is gifted her, there is the chance she will end up as a white horse. And Dany herself has an arc reminicent of the heros journey. Here we see the parallell with Pegasus assisting in the killing of the Chimera with Dany defeating the harpies of the old Ghis, though an inversion is that Dany is the one with the fire breating monsters. With the expected fight between her and Aegon, she would come up against another chimera closely connected to him: JonCon with his griffin image. Bellerophon's flight to Olympus could be seen as her flight on Drogon, but on a dragon instead of a stallion; also her intent was anything but reaching the gods. Pegasus' connection with lightning connects with Dany's storm image. Another interesting detail I noticed is that Pegasus' mane was spattered with blood when he sprang forth at his birth, and me being me I instantly connected this to the Kingsguard and the repeated image of bloodspattered white cloaks.

As I didn't find a strong image with Pegasus, I also wanted to look into other winged horses and this in turn led me to the general theme of white horses in mythology. So it turned out to quite the rabbit hole labyrinth! The connections with different parts of the story gave me a real headspin. Here I'll try to keep it to Dany.


White horses and flying horses

The theme of White Horses is found in mythologies around the world, which centers around four general themes: sun-chariots, warrior-heroes, fertility and end-of-time saviour. Here we find true white horses, but also grey hoses are considered to be in this group.

Sun-chariots: While I don't see this in direct connection with Dany, it could be argued that we see it indirectly with Dany and Drogo combined. She calls him her «sun-and-stars» while he calls her his «moon». Many cultures have the sun-chariot image, but as of now I'm unsure of how many also had a moon equivalent – I suspect most had. In a sense Dany and Drogo fills those two roles minus the chariots I think, at least they give each other nicknames that imitates this.

Warrior-hero: This one is easier to see. Though Dany doesn't actually fight herself, she commands warriors and armies to fight for her and now she's nearing the point of using Drogon to fight herself.
Here we have the aforemetnioned Bellerophon, and probably more greek heroes (the color of the horses are not always mentioned in the texts), the norse hero Sigurd, and Indra to name some.

Fertility: Dany has so far more of the opposite of this in her arc imo, from the latter part of Game to the end of Dance. Here she «looses» her child, looses her husband that could give her more children, and if Mirri is right her fertility is lost. For the people around her, the path she's taken hasn't really been that fruitfull yet. While the fight against slavery is comendable, it also has cost many lives and will cost many more before it's all over. We see the difficulty of feeding her people, and a plague is ravaging within and outside her city. Her daydream of growing olives shows her wish for fertility, but it's yet to manifest in her arc.
While there is few actual fertility deities that is strongly connected to riding a white horse, the horse itself as a symbol is closely connected to fertility. In the case of older Finno-Urgic traditions, there was a belief that stolen land would lose its fertility, which led to a custom where sending a white horse as payment in exchange for land means casus belli.

End-of-time saviour: Of course we have the prophecy of Azor Ahai. This is in many ways two-fold with her restoring Targaryen rule and saving Westeros from further civil war, and taking up the fight agains the Others with her dragons. Much like we see in the show.
The best known examples are Kalki from hinduism, the return of Jesus Christ, and Mahdi in islamic tradition.

Another image is the flying horse (with or without wings) that can be seen as a carrier between worlds in a shamatic sense. One example is Sleipner, Odin's steed. In a way Dany's journey is kinda shamanistic in her transformation from the scared girl we first meet, via the conqueror we see midway, to the young queen struggeling to handle the responsibilities she had taken upon her shoulders in her new lands and with her big reforms. Of course, this is mostly connected to the dragondreams, but she is also riding almost all that way on her silver.


Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse

To me, the most interesting image connected to this is the white horses found in the Bible. At one hand we have the return of Jesus on a white horse, but we also find one in Revelations and the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. They ride a white, a red, a black, and a pale horse respectively. The quotes are from Wikipedia which uses New American Standard Bible (NASB).
Taking a closer look at the rider of the white horse, the passage is as follows:



This rider is also known as the White Rider; as the text tells us he is refered to as Conquest, but depending on which translation one uses he can also be seen as Victory. The Greek words are derived from the verb νικάω, to conquer or vanquish. Others have him as Pestilence, and this is often used in pop culture.
Seeing Dany in this isn't very hard. After the attempted poisoning she starts on her journey to becoming the conquering mother of dragons. Aegon I is mentioned several times in her chapters. She might not carry a bow herself, but:



Those bride gifts were


As for the crown, so far in the story we have this:


Now, she uses the word pressed here, and I looked it up to be sure. The definition here would be: To insist that someone accept (something). Often used with on or upon. So if this would fit into the crown the first rider was given would be up for debate. But as the story isn't over yet, she still has the chance to have a crown put on her head that is freely given.
In adittion to this, she clearely sees herself as a conqueror after emerging from the Red Waste. She wants her family's throne back, and after diverting to Slavers Bay she more or less goes on a conquering rampage. We do see her tempering this impulse while in Mereen with wanting to learn how to rule there, but I wouldn't say she's given up on the Iron Throne either! And many question if she is really going down the path to become a villain of the story, and going on a real rampage in future books.
As for the pestilence part of this rider, she does have some responsibility for the spread of «the pale mare». The gates should've been locked at the first sight of it, and she presses those who were distributing food to the sick outside the walls to help her taking care of the sick, and so exposes them to a very dangerous disease that they could take with them inside the city for more sources of infection. To her defence here, these things spread very quickly in an enviroment like we have in this kind of world. The knowledge isn't good enough, and the hygiene far from making this safer. Still, the element of sickness is here.

For me, this part leads to the other interesting rider of these four, the one on the pale horse.


Now, the color of this horse really has a bit of a range, depending on how you translate it. In Wikipedia they say this of the color:

The color of Death's horse is written as khlōros (χλωρός) in the original Koine Greek,[27] which can mean either green/greenish-yellow or pale/pallid.[28] The color is often translated as "pale", though "ashen", "pale green", and "yellowish green"[20] are other possible interpretations (the Greek word is the root of "chlorophyll" and "chlorine"). Based on uses of the word in ancient Greek medical literature, several scholars suggest that the color reflects the sickly pallor of a corpse.[3][29] In some modern artistic depictions, the horse is distinctly green.

So the NASB chose to use “ashen” in their translation, but I really took notice with the explanation. As someone that isn't really interested in the Bible, I haven't thought much about what pale really means, but have heard of the use of green. So the wider range here was interesting.
Some of this line of thought comes via “the pale mare” and the death that follows, connecting Dany with it. But she also has herself what could possibly be a pale mare in the ashen sense, and with the time that has passed, the filly might just be a mare at this point in the story. But it goes deeper than just this connection. One part of her is trying to save lives and relieve suffering, she wants to grow olives and really just live a simple lifte. But the other is disturbingly blood thirsty and cold.
Taking a critical look at Dany in her arc, imo she takes an ominous step during the execution of Viserys with not speaking up. She took it suprisingly calm considering her emotional state before this dinner. Granted he wasn't good to her and all that, but he is her only living family. As voice pointed out in another thread, she is willing to sacrifice her child for the life of Drogo:


And after it is done, she hardly asks about her child. I would agree that she is damned, or very close to it. Hades (or the Stranger?) could be following her where ever she goes. From here she leads her little khalasar on a walk of death (yes, she didn't have many options available, but it was still a walk of death), she decimates a city (Astapor) in her effort to take down slavery, and the spreading of disease has now occured in Astapor, Mereen and the armies that surround her. Drogon took out quite a few when he took off with her, and now two of her dragons are free to burn as they wish. And war awaits her city and people. That's quite a lot of death! Will it be any different if she ever reaches Westeros? By putting Rhaegal and Viserion in the dungeon, I think she damaged her relationship with them, in adittion to them maturing and the possible detatchment that could follow that. They might not burn her, but they might be less willing to do as she wants. And possibly open them up for others to «take». As dragons are the nuclare part of this story, that might not end well... To tie this back to this horseman, the dragons could be seen as one of the the wild beasts of the earth.


So, after getting seriously lost in the labyrinth of that damnable net, including those dark places full of terror, I hope I've made some semblance of sense here. Martin doesn't use direct parallells, so it looked like he chopped up several myths and sprinkled them all over his story. Not that this would be any news to anybody, but making sense of it in that labyrinth was a bit harder than I thought. And I do love mythologies as well, making things more difficult for myself on top of that. None the less, and interesting search!


Bonus connection:

One of the mythological white horses mentioned comes from Blackfoot mythology. Aisoyimstan is a snow deity there, he is all white and dresses in all whith as well, making him difficult to see. He is supposed to bring snow and cold weather with him. Does that remind you of someone? Or maybe several someones?



Gives a somewhat different impression now, doesn't it?
I have wondered why Val showed up with a new set of clothes (where did they come from?) and why her eyes suddenly became blue. If there is some link to Aisoyimstan, is there a link here to the Others? It does make me think of the woman the Night's King saw from the Wall.

I really tried! Honestly! But those wildlings keep popping up in Dany's arc... Even indirectly through Blackfoot myths...

And my answers to that, and to danl:


So that was the summed up conversation we've had so far in Dany II. Thought it was nice to include it here.

That would be hilarious! Fortunately, that is highly unlikely to happen, so your books are probably safe. Mine might still be subject to burning, though...

Interesting finds you had there! I need more time to think about them, but my initial thought on Cersei is her comparison to the sun. Lion is also a sun symbol, but Kevan actually thinks of her as the rising sun in his epilogue. That implies to me a sun goddess imagery, which is interesting. Not really sure what to do with it yet... A loose tie with her being the Light of the West and Jamie's likness to Chrysaor with the golden sword, is that Chrysaor was said to have been the king of Iberia. We all know that as the Iberian Peninsula, consisting of Spain and Portugal, in the west. Again not sure what to do with it...




Reading the Rapunzel fairytale yesterday, as it came up in connection with Val, I did see three or four elements in total twisted up in Jon's arc in Dance.

1. The obvious Rapunzel imagery to Val, locked in a tower with her long braid.
2. A baby being locked up in a tower after it's father climbed a wall for forbidden fruit so to speak.
3. In the fairytale the prince is saved from death, but at the same time blinded by landing on a thornebush. This makes me think of the Wheeper blinding people, and Alliser Thorne.
4. The usual love and marriage aspect of fairytales is in a way mirrored in Jon and Val as there seems to be a mutual attraction there. Not really sure I'd have this as a nod, though, as it's so obvious.

There is also the idea of Lord Jonnel Stark, also known as One-Eye. Jonnel was the second son of Cregan Stark, our dear, dear "hour of the wolf" Cregan. We are never told how Jonnel Stark lost his eye, but I think that him being a son of Cregan, who was a Stark who went south but did return to the North and had a brood of children (just like Ned did) is interesting. Also, Jonnel married twice, to a Ryswell, and to his niece, Sansa. Jonnel's mother was Lynara Stark, and though the degree of connection between Cregan and Lynara Stark is never mentioned, they are both Stark's.

Lynara sounds a bit like both Lyanna and her mysterious mother Lyarra. Could that be a clue to Jon's mother being Lyanna, and who maybe a close familial relation to Jon's father? (A little nod to Starkcest love! )

Anyway, I think there is another lost eye connection for Jon, so I will continue to think on it!

One-eye is one of Varamyr's wolf companions, and I think Beric Dondarrion lost an eye, and I am trying to think of other one-eyed people in our story. Sorry, didn't mean to take your thread off into a One-Eye tangent!