Post by stdaga on Jan 2, 2019 16:17:01 GMT
I have long doubted that Bran is the strongest Stark in this batch! Mostly been thinking of Jon and Rickon in that line, but Arya should be counted in that as well from what we get in her arc. Robb I find harder to place in this regard, as he doesn't have a POV.
It's hard with both Robb and Rickon, since we don't have a POV from them. Rickon is perhaps easier to read, because as a young child, he has no reason (or ability) to hide some of his impulses, where as Robb is pretty nearly an adult, and would have some better control over his actions. Although we know he has a temper and doesn't always behave with complete calmness!
It's the girls I find myself interested in lately. Arya, with her ability to warg Nymeria over incredibly long distances, and this talent with cats, which Varamyr tell's us is an animal normally quite hard to skinchange is very interesting. And Sansa, even though she lost Lady, might still have a connection with her. She has a ton of bird imagery in her story (another animal that we are told is hard to skin-change but if you succeed can leave you with your head in the clouds, lost in dreams. She also has some interesting interactions with dogs, not just The Hound, although dogs are said to be easy to bond with. I am wondering if skinchanging comes more naturally, or perhaps with more ease, to women than to men. Looking back into Varamyr's prologue, he mentions a woman, Briar, who had a shadowcat as a familiar. Varamyr tells us he is strong, and he eventually get's a shaodow cat and a snow bear, who both fight him for a time, but Briar seem's to be associated with only a shadowcat, which leads me to think it was her only skinchanged animal. Varamyr started with dogs and worked his way up to harder animals, but Briar seems to have perhaps started with a shadowcat, which seems like an animal that is harder to skinchange than others. So, it could mean that women can skinchange with greater ease, or perhaps it's just that cat's are more inclined to a women? Just some working thoughts.
Yes, as I said above, I found it rather suspicious that we don't actually hear how this madness showed itself other than "acting erratic". Mostly its more just saying he showed "signs of madness" that other kings had before him, but didn't cause any harm. No example is given, either of Aerys' "madness" or which other Targaryen king who behaved "mad" that Aerys reminded of.
Maybe it was something like talk of wildfire, or talk of dragon dreams (if he did this), or even talk of "becoming" a dragon (like Jaime reports)? That's all speculation, but those things are the types of things that are said about Aerion Brightflame. Cruelty to people and animals, interest in the black arts. I suppose if Aerys showed any of these traits (and he had more than a few) then those would be easily seen by others, even his own family, as signs of "madness"! Maybe just ordering a person to be burned alive was enough for people to hang the "madness" concept on him?
They had a hatchery, or maybe more. Here's Cannibal's introduction, and I type from page 443:
The largest and oldest of the wild dragons was the Cannibal, so named because he had been known to feed on the carcasses of dead dragons, and descend upon the hatcheries of Dragonstone to gorge himself on newborn hatchlings and eggs. Coal black with baleful green eyes, the Cannibal had made his lair on Dragonstone even before the coming of the Targaryens, some smallfolk claimed. (Grand Maester Munkun and Septon Eustace both found this story most unlikely, as do I.) Would-be dragontamers had made attempts to ride him a dozen times; his lair was littered with their bones.
More than one hatchery, if the quote is to be believed. Why more than one? Perhaps females will not lay eggs in the same place as another female dragon? Perhaps you can only hatch/brood so many eggs in one location? It's interesting, anyway.
As to the escaped dragons coming from hatcheries (except Cannibal, perhaps) I don't remember that line, but it might be the case. Some things really stuck out to me in the text, and other's did not.
Well, not something I've thought much on, to be honest, in the way of forming a concrete theory/line of thought on it. It's just sounded odd to me that dragon eggs turn to stones in the first place. Mind you, I cracked the books knowing the eggs would hatch at the end of Game, but still I found it odd. Could it be that all dragon eggs appear like stone (in a lack of better phrasing... ) with the only difference really being if they hatch or not? What is the difference between a fresher egg and an old one that "has turned to stone"? We don't get any info on that as far as I've seen. Also, when Septon Barth is negotiating with the Sealord of Braavos, it is said that as long as the eggs don't hatch they are only beautiful and expensive stones. (I don't have the energy to find and type the quote right now.) So to be that sounds like they appear like stones in general.
Could be some eggs hatch easier than others, the latter needing "something" to be able to hatch maybe? Some eggs might also be duds, like an unfertilized egg or something.
While viable eggs might be different than non-viable eggs, I don't think its something that is outwardly obvious. If it was, then an non-viable egg would never get chosen or be placed in a cradle, I wouldn't think, unless you were intentionally setting the child up for failure. I suppose that is possible to some extent. But dragon scales are said to be hard, almost like armor, and I would guess that eggs are very similar to this. So, perhaps on the outside, they do seem armored, and that could be easily seen as "stone" in a casual way. I think we are told that the older a dragon gets, the harder it's scales are. So, perhaps dragon eggs age in the same way. The phrase "turn to stone" is used often enough that I think that there must be some process that changes them, and one possibility that we are told is that perhaps taking them away from a heat source could cause this to happen. What the truth actually is, I have no idea.
Yes, the implication is that the stolen eggs are those that end up with Dany. Including, from page 209:
"Then some spicemonger in Pentos will find himself possessed of three very costly stones," Jaehaerys said.
Not anything I've looked into closely yet, so I'm neither convinced or denying it right now.
It is implied, and rather heavily, too. I have really come to mistrust the heavy implications in the story, so for now, I am going to leave it open, but I am having a great deal of doubt that those were Dany's eggs.
That spice monger line seems like GRRM is taking a large, exaggerated wink at us! I could be reading that wrong, but in truth he is rather subtle, and that line is anything but subtle!
We also hear that of the three dragon eggs that were taken to the Vale, only one hatched (Morning). So, what happened to the other two eggs? Still in the Vale? Were they taken back to Dragonstone or Kings Landing? Maybe Fire and Blood mentions and I just don't remember. If an egg doesn't hatch, I doubt it get's discarded, so is there a pile of eggs that failed to hatch somewhere in Westeros?