This is part II in my series on Dany and her bonds to her three dragons, focusing on the events of A Clash of Kings. Back in 2020, I did a series on Dany and her bond to and hatching of her dragon’s eggs in A Game of Thrones. Now we continue the series with their adventures in a Clash of Kings.
Part I can be found here. Part III can be found here. Part IV can be found (UNPUBLISHED). Part V can be found (UNPUBLISHED).
We continue our study of Dragon Bonds. This volume shows some evidence of each of Dany’s three dragons following the same types of magical bonded themes we studied in our series on direwolves. However, we see that the evidence is strongest for a telepathic bond with Drogon, consistently.
As the dragons grow, the power that they represents becomes real. This foreshadows how Dany will use them in A Storm of Swords.
A Clash of Kings – Daenerys I
Our first mention of the dragons is about their value in the world and to Dany. The question and thought of them inspires ferocity and determination in Dany, continuing those themes from the last book.
No, Dany thought. I have four. The rest are women, old sick men, and boys whose hair has never been braided. “I have the dragons,” she pointed out.
“Hatchlings,” Ser Jorah said. “One swipe from an arakh would put an end to them, though Pono is more like to seize them for himself. Your dragon eggs were more precious than rubies. A living dragon is beyond price. In all the world, there are only three. Every man who sees them will want them, my queen.”
“They are mine,” she said fiercely. They had been born from her faith and her need, given life by the deaths of her husband and unborn son and the maegi Mirri Maz Duur. Dany had walked into the flames as they came forth, and they had drunk milk from her swollen breasts. “No man will take them from me while I live.”
The theme of their commercial value comes up twice again in the story, once at the end of this volume with Xaro, and later in Slaver’s Bay with the bargain struck in Astapor, where it is made clear that none should attempt setting a commercial value on dragons because they are not property.
The next mention of the dragons is of the one she’ll name Viserion. he is clinging to her body fiercely, much like a babe would to its mother. Note also that in the following chapter she has fully adopted the title Mother of Dragons, as it is used in capitalization.
Dany had named him the first of her Queensguard . . . and when Mormont’s gruff counsel and the omens agreed, her course was clear. She called her people together and mounted her silver mare. Her hair had burned away in Drogo’s pyre, so her handmaids garbed her in the skin of the hrakkar Drogo had slain, the white lion of the Dothraki sea. Its fearsome head made a hood to cover her naked scalp, its pelt a cloak that flowed across her shoulders and down her back. The cream-colored dragon sunk sharp black claws into the lion’s mane and coiled its tail around her arm, while Ser Jorah took his accustomed place by her side.
“We follow the comet,” Dany told her khalasar. Once it was said, no word was raised against it. They had been Drogo’s people, but they were hers now. The Unburnt, they called her, and Mother of Dragons. Her word was their law.
In the next passage she discusses how humans and dragons are the only beasts who cook their meat before consuming it. This is one of the few pieces of dragon lore that Viserys seems to have taught her. In the future, she will have need of advisors that can tell her about dragons. We know that Tyrion is attempting to get to her side to fulfill that role.
Aemon wanted to go to her , but he died first. Curiously though, another of his order, Archmaester Marwyn, is en route to her side. Notably he is on the Cinnamon Wind, the boat where Aemon died, and where his body may remain entombed in a cask of blackbelly rum. I do speculate as to whether Marwin might make use of this in a short tinfoil essay about the identity of the perfumed seneschal. Perhaps I’ll make that into a video?
Back to the dragons, she fears for them as a mother until she learns to feed them.
Dany hungered and thirsted with the rest of them. The milk in her breasts dried up, her nipples cracked and bled, and the flesh fell away from her day by day until she was lean and hard as a stick, yet it was her dragons she feared for. Her father had been slain before she was born, and her splendid brother Rhaegar as well. Her mother had died bringing her into the world while the storm screamed outside. Gentle Ser Willem Darry, who must have loved her after a fashion, had been taken by a wasting sickness when she was very young. Her brother Viserys, Khal Drogo who was her sun-and-stars, even her unborn son, the gods had claimed them all. They will not have my dragons, Dany vowed.
They will not.
The dragons were no larger than the scrawny cats she had once seen skulking along the walls of Magister Illyrio’s estate in Pentos . . . until they unfolded their wings. Their span was three times their length, each wing a delicate fan of translucent skin, gorgeously colored, stretched taut between long thin bones. When you looked hard, you could see that most of their body was neck, tail, and wing. Such little things, she thought as she fed them by hand. Or rather, tried to feed them, for the dragons would not eat. They would hiss and spit at each bloody morsel of horsemeat, steam rising from their nostrils, yet they would not take the food . . . until Dany recalled something Viserys had told her when they were children.
Only dragons and men eat cooked meat, he had said.
When she had her handmaids char the horsemeat black, the dragons ripped at it eagerly, their heads striking like snakes. So long as the meat was seared, they gulped down several times their own weight every day, and at last began to grow larger and stronger. Dany marveled at the smoothness of their scales, and the heat that poured off them, so palpable that on cold nights their whole bodies seemed to steam.
It’s poignant how she worries for them, having experienced so much loss in her life, and how tiny they are before she learns how to feed them. After that though, the grow quickly and “prosper” with plentiful horse flesh in the red waste as the khalasar “withers and dies.” Next, notice how seems to give equal attention to them as well. choosing one each day. Little thing like this are important in showing Dany’s character and the personality development of the dragons. We also get a little more of the dragon lore that she learned from her brother. The Conqueror’s three dragons are Balerion, Meraxes and Vhagar, named for Valyrian gods.
Each evenfall as the khalasar set out, she would choose a dragon to ride upon her shoulder. Irri and Jhiqui carried the others in a cage of woven wood slung between their mounts, and rode close behind her, so Dany was never out of their sight. It was the only way to keep them quiescent.
“Aegon’s dragons were named for the gods of Old Valyria,” she told her bloodriders one morning after a long night’s journey. “Visenya’s dragon was Vhagar, Rhaenys had Meraxes, and Aegon rode Balerion, the Black Dread. It was said that Vhagar’s breath was so hot that it could melt a knight’s armor and cook the man inside, that Meraxes swallowed horses whole, and Balerion . . . his fire was as black as his scales, his wings so vast that whole towns were swallowed up in their shadow when he passed overhead.”
The similarities jump out between those three dragons and Dany’s set. There are three and the largest is black. Aggo agrees that Drogon fits the coloring of Balerion. The color similarities may end there though, as we learn in TWoIaF that Meraxes, Rhaenys’s mount, had silver scales and golden eyes, while Vhagar has bronze scales with Green eyes. We learned this about Vhagar recently from Artist Sam Hogg. By contrast, Viserion has cream scales and gold eyes, and Rhaegal has green scales and bronze eyes. All three are named and described in the next passage.
The Dothraki looked at her hatchlings uneasily. The largest of her three was shiny black, his scales slashed with streaks of vivid scarlet to match his wings and horns. “Khaleesi,” Aggo murmured, “there sits Balerion, come again.”
“It may be as you say, blood of my blood,” Dany replied gravely, “but he shall have a new name for this new life. I would name them all for those the gods have taken. The green one shall be Rhaegal, for my valiant brother who died on the green banks of the Trident. The cream-and-gold I call Viserion. Viserys was cruel and weak and frightened, yet he was my brother still. His dragon will do what he could not.”
“The black,” she said, “is Drogon.”
As I mentioned in my previous essay, Dany names these dragons for those she lost, and it may be that some shadow of the identities of their namesakes live on in the dragons. Viserys was vain and moody, and Drogo was dominating and ferocious; we’ll look for these traits in their corresponding dragons. Rhaegal I see as more immature like the baby Rhaego instead of Rhaegar, whose death was too long ago as compared to Rhaegal’s birth for a piece of his soul to linger and be implanted in the dragon. Through the next couple books we’ll test these hypotheses.
We get an indication of Viserys in Viserion at his next mention. After traversing the red waste and coming upon the abandoned city of Vaes Tolloro, Dany sees a missing statue on a plinth and assumes it was taken by Dothraki to Vaes Dothrak. Viserion hisses at the sight. Viserys certainly would not have liked this either, given his opinions about the Dothraki. He’s again clinging to her shoulder as he’d done in the earlier scene.
[…] At a place where six alleys came together, Dany passed an empty marble plinth. Dothraki had visited this place before, it would seem. Perhaps even now the missing statue stood among the other stolen gods in Vaes Dothrak. She might have ridden past it a hundred times, never knowing. On her shoulder, Viserion hissed.
Later, Dany again uses the dragons as her courage upon entering the ghost city.
“I fear no ghosts. Dragons are more powerful than ghosts.” And figs are more important. “Go with Jhiqui and find me some clean sand for a bath, and trouble me no more with silly talk.”
We next see Rhaegal, learning to use his wings and throwing a bit of a temper tantrum (like a toddler) when it doesn’t work. Dany anticipates riding a dragon. I am glad I started reading this series around the time ADwD was published, because I could not have waited 15 years for her to ride one!
Across the tent, Rhaegal unfolded green wings to flap and flutter a half foot before thumping to the carpet. When he landed, his tail lashed back and forth in fury, and he raised his head and screamed. If I had wings, I would want to fly too, Dany thought. The Targaryens of old had ridden upon dragonback when they went to war. She tried to imagine what it would feel like, to straddle a dragon’s neck and soar high into the air. It would be like standing on a mountaintop, only better. The whole world would be spread out below. If I flew high enough, I could even see the Seven Kingdoms, and reach up and touch the comet.
Next, Dany has another dream of dragons, which includes her and Drogo riding dragons. It is an indication of her bond to Drogon; Drogo riding with her might mean that a piece of him rides on in Drogon, foreshadowing her later riding Drogon.
No ghosts troubled her sleep that night. She dreamed of Drogo and the first ride they had taken together on the night they were wed. In the dream it was not horses they rode, but dragons.
We then learn that Rakharo found the bones of a dragon in the red waste. I wonder how old they are? Could they be from after the doom, some time earlier during the reign of Valyria? Might they be ancient fossils, or more recent, perhaps even being the bones of the Cannibal (a large dragon of Dragonstone)? If so, we might learn more about that in F&B II.
Rakharo was the first to return. Due south the red waste stretched on and on, he reported, until it ended on a bleak shore beside the poison water. Between here and there lay only swirling sand, wind-scoured rocks, and plants bristly with sharp thorns. He had passed the bones of a dragon, he swore, so immense that he had ridden his horse through its great black jaws. Other than that, he had seen nothing.
Finally, the chapter ends with two men and a woman coming from Qarth to seek dragons. They are very interested, just as Jorah had expected.
The woman in the lacquered wooden mask said in the Common Tongue of the Seven Kingdoms, “I am Quaithe of the Shadow. We come seeking dragons.”
“Seek no more,” Daenerys Targaryen told them. “You have found them.”
A Clash of Kings – Daenerys I
Dany’s Dragon Bonds Volume II, Part II: 3 Dragons, 3 Walls
… continuing our investigation of Dany and her dragons in A Clash of Kings as they enter Qarth.
A Clash of Kings – Daenerys II
Qarth is presented to Dany as another world, ancient and modern at the same time. It is interesting that the architecture includes dragons. How old are those depictions? Could it possibly predate Valyria?
Dany continues to alternate which dragon remains in her presence. The dragon on her shoulder as they enter the city is Drogon, the largest and most impressive. We see the high society of the Qartheen elite and nobility, which Dany contrasts with the more savage Dothraki, a trait shared with dragons. In this volume, an awestruck Dany doesn’t yet dwell on slavery, the ugly underbelly of Qartheen culture. Our author reserves that for Slaver’s Bay in the next volume.
The Qartheen lined the streets and watched from delicate balconies that looked too frail to support their weight. They were tall pale folk in linen and samite and tiger fur, every one a lord or lady to her eyes. The women wore gowns that left one breast bare, while the men favored beaded silk skirts. Dany felt shabby and barbaric as she rode past them in her lionskin robe with black Drogon on one shoulder. Her Dothraki called the Qartheen “Milk Men” for their paleness, and Khal Drogo had dreamed of the day when he might sack the great cities of the east. She glanced at her bloodriders, their dark almond-shaped eyes giving no hint of their thoughts. Is it only the plunder they see? she wondered. How savage we must seem to these Qartheen.
Flattery and political grift are also themes in Qarth, as Dany’s moniker of Mother of Dragons is used by flatterers and her own followers several times in this and the next chapter while navigating Qarth.
Warning her of these flatterers is Quaithe. In the previous encounter Quaithe her only words were to say that they came seeking dragons. She is very mysterious in this meeting, telling Dany to “beware,” and elaborating as follows:
“Of all. They shall come day and night to see the wonder that has been born again into the world, and when they see they shall lust. For dragons are fire made flesh, and fire is power.”
The idea of dragons being “fire made flesh” is mentioned for the first time here. It is repeated twice in an early Daenerys chapter in ADwD, as well as in her final chapter on f that volume as she is struggling with her purpose and identity. It is safe to say that this is an important part of dragonlore. Indeed, the second mention says that Dany already learned it from the book Jorah gave her at her wedding.
My take from this line is that Fire Magic is part of what constitutes a dragon. They are beings of fire magic. This fits with my theory about the Dany’s magical healing in her second dragon dream in AGoT. It also fits my theory that, through the bond, Dany draws magical strength from Drogon.
Dany is perplexed, though that Quaithe is so mysterious and opaque. Consequently, she doesn’t trust her. Given that we learn later in The World of Ice and Fire that Quaithe is likely part of the church of Starry Wisdom, a faith started by the Bloodstone emperor, a personage implicated in causing the long night, she may be right not to trust her. In any case, Dany’s first instinct is to protect her dragons.
“I do not understand her.” Pyat and Xaro had showered Dany with promises from the moment they first glimpsed her dragons, declaring themselves her loyal servants in all things, but from Quaithe she had gotten only the rare cryptic word. And it disturbed her that she had never seen the woman’s face. Remember Mirri Maz Duur, she told herself. Remember treachery. She turned to her bloodriders. “We will keep our own watch so long as we are here. See that no one enters this wing of the palace without my leave, and take care that the dragons are always well guarded.”
Speaking of treachery, Dany later worries that her dragons will not be enough to conquer Westeros. She is still determined to do so, and has been since the death of Viserys and the attempt on her life in Vaes Dothrak. Now, she learns, though, that the man who sent that murderer, Robert, is dead.
In the scene Dany feeds her dragons. It seems a running theme in this volume that she always has at least one dragon in her company; in this case it is all of them.
It was near evenfall and Dany was feeding her dragons when Irri stepped through the silken curtains to tell her that Ser Jorah had returned from the docks . . . and not alone. “Send him in, with whomever he has brought,” she said, curious.
When they entered, she was seated on a mound of cushions, her dragons all about her. The man he brought with him wore a cloak of green and yellow feathers and had skin as black as polished jet. “Your Grace,” the knight said, “I bring you Quhuru Mo, captain of the Cinnamon Wind out of Tall Trees Town.”
When she is told of Robert’s death, Drogon has a direct reaction, hissing. I think this likely mirroring. Could this be a reflection of Dany wishing to have killed him herself? Vengeance seems part of her character. Then again, Being at the top of the food chain, Dragons are aggressive by nature. Dany will have to manage her vengeful instincts especially feelings she gets mirrored through her bond to Drogon. In this scene, Drogon is on her lap, so if our study of direwolves is analogous, her bond to drogon ought to be heightened by their physical contact.
Also mentioned is Viserion’s reaction, to flap his wings from her shoulder. It seems a happy gesture, which fits, as Viserys would be overjoyed at the usurpers demise.
“A gift of news. Dragonmother, Stormborn, I tell you true, Robert Baratheon is dead.”
Outside her walls, dusk was settling over Qarth, but a sun had risen in Dany’s heart.
“Dead?” she repeated. In her lap, black Drogon hissed, and pale smoke rose before her face like a veil. “You are certain? The Usurper is dead?”
“So it is said in Oldtown, and Dorne, and Lys, and all the other ports where we have called.”
He sent me poisoned wine, yet I live and he is gone. “What was the manner of his death?” On her shoulder, pale Viserion flapped wings the color of cream, stirring the air.
After that we get Rheagal’s reaction, too, only to observe. Note that Dany is in physical contact with all three dragons. We know that her nascent bond to Drogon is already formed, but it may be that her parent-child bond to Rhaegal also includes mirroring.
Beneath Dany’s gentle fingers, green Rhaegal stared at the stranger with eyes of molten gold. When his mouth opened, his teeth gleamed like black needles. “When does your ship return to Westeros, Captain?”
It must be a sight to see her with all three dragons, per the ship’s captain:
His eyes gleamed. “I have seen dragons.”
Robert’s death and the denial of vengeance does not change Dany’s trajectory, though. Her excitement at the disarray in Westeros due to Robert’s death obviously excites her. It is mirrored in Drogon, as he half flies up a lintel. while the others try to fly at floor level.
“This changes everything.” Dany rose abruptly. Screeching, her dragons uncoiled and spread their wings. Drogon flapped and clawed up to the lintel over the archway. The others skittered across the floor, wingtips scrabbling on the marble. “Before, the Seven Kingdoms were like my Drogo’s khalasar, a hundred thousand made as one by his strength. Now they fly to pieces, even as the khalasar did after my khal lay dead.”
Dragons are invoked two more times in this chapter in her discussion with Jorah. In one instance she compared her age to that of her dragons, while returning to the mantra that she is the blood of the dragon.
“I am not the frightened girl you met in Pentos. I have counted only fifteen name days, true . . . but I am as old as the crones in the dosh khaleen and as young as my dragons, Jorah. I have borne a child, burned a khal, and crossed the red waste and the Dothraki sea. Mine is the blood of the dragon.”
In the final mention Jorah counsels caution, but Dany’s blood is on fire.
“No,” he admitted. “There is more of Rhaegar in you, I think, but even Rhaegar could be slain. Robert proved that on the Trident, with no more than a warhammer. Even dragons can die.“
“Dragons die.” She stood on her toes to kiss him lightly on an unshaven cheek. “But so do dragonslayers.”
There is an ominous note in that last bit, both in Dany’s aggressive response, and in the fact that to be a dragonslayer, you arguably need to slay a dragon first. This may not end well.
A Clash of Kings – Daenerys III
This chapter continues the politics of Qarth and Dany’s closeness to her dragons. Rhaegal accompanies her to a meeting with the Pureborn, the old power of the city. We join her and Xaro in a closed palanquine as she traverses the city from the meeting after they rejected her pleas for help in conquering Westeros. Rhaegal does seem to be mirroring her to some degree, as he’s digging his claws into her shoulder. It’s also an indication that the dragons are growing. In a bit of humor, Dany seems to be hitting the bottle to drown her sorrows over the rejection.
Rhaegal hissed and dug sharp black claws into her bare shoulder as Dany stretched out a hand for the wine. Wincing, she shifted him to her other shoulder, where he could claw her gown instead of her skin.
The rejection stings because she’s been use; they just wanted to see her dragon. Yet, she uses her mantra and identity as blood of the dragon as a cloak of dignity and source of fortitude for her convictions.
They came because they were curious. They came because they were bored, and the dragon on my shoulder interested them more than I did.
[…]
“The blood of the dragon does not weep,” she said testily.
She considers the aid that she has gotten through the merchant Xaro. He is not much different from Illyrio, who had sold her at the beginning of her story, so that is cause for concern, but he has been an ally so far, sheltering her and helping her to earn some coin and possessions through her dragons.
She would have been lost without Xaro. The gold that she had squandered to open the doors of the Hall of a Thousand Thrones was largely a product of the merchant’s generosity and quick wits. As the rumor of living dragons had spread through the east, ever more seekers had come to learn if the tale was true—and Xaro Xhoan Daxos saw to it that the great and the humble alike offered some token to the Mother of Dragons.
Literally, the crown jewel of the possessions she gained from the exposition of the dragons is her crown. It is fitting that it matched her dragons and is also the Targaryen sigil.
And the Tourmaline Brotherhood pressed on her a crown wrought in the shape of a three-headed dragon; the coils were yellow gold, the wings silver, the heads carved from jade, ivory, and onyx.
I do wonder if the Tourmaline Brotherhood is somehow tied back to the Tourmaline Emperor who I hypothesize to be among the ancestors Dany that saw in a dream / vision in AGoT.
Dany goes on to think that all this still amounts to charity, making her a beggar king, much like her brother, but she draws conviction from her dragons. The passage goes on to again show that Rheagal is again mirroring her mood, nipping at her hand.
No, that is defeat. I have something Viserys never had. I have the dragons. The dragons are all the difference.
She stroked Rhaegal. The green dragon closed his teeth around the meat of her hand and nipped hard. Outside, the great city murmured and thrummed and seethed, all its myriad voices blending into one low sound like the surge of the sea. “Make way, you Milk Men, make way for the Mother of Dragons,”
Rhaegal may be sensing that Dany is getting drunk a bit. I can’t think of any other reason that he would hiss at the wine, unless the his was for its provider, Xaro. The affectionate bite is reminiscent of the affection we see with the direwolves. Xaro, as we mentioned earlier is another flatterer, though a more useful one than the others. Still, he has designs on her, but Dany is wary.
As Dany lifted her goblet to drink, Rhaegal sniffed at the wine and drew his head back, hissing. “Your dragon has a good nose.” Xaro wiped his lips. “The wine is ordinary. It is said that across the Jade Sea they make a golden vintage so fine that one sip makes all other wines taste like vinegar. Let us take my pleasure barge and go in search of it, you and I.”
She deflects him while we see with another piece of affection from Rhaegal.
“I mean to sail to Westeros, and drink the wine of vengeance from the skull of the Usurper.” She scratched Rhaegal under one eye, and his jade-green wings unfolded for a moment, stirring the still air in the palanquin.
After she leaves Xaro’s presence, she takes counsel from Jorah, now Drogon is the dragon that takes center stage. He keeps it for the rest of this volume. Notably, Drogon has been present for all her interaction with the knight; this may be important later. Either way, as Drogon looks on beside her, Jorah explains that Xaro’s marriage proposal above comes with the caveat that he’d need to give her one of her possessions, assuredly one of her dragons.
“Xaro assures me that in Qarth, man and woman each retain their own property after they are wed. The dragons are mine.” She smiled as Drogon came hopping and flapping across the marble floor to crawl up on the cushion beside her.
Amidst more warnings from Jorah, we get two simultaneous dragon interactions. First, Drogon is hot against her body. emanating heat to her, almost certainly an indication of the bond as it was when he was an egg. At the same time the other two are playing, as children. This scene further cements my theory that Drogon, paired with her, has always been her mount, even possibly her equal, while Viserion and Rhaegal are her children, destined to part from her company, to leave the nest, likely with other riders. Who will ride them?
[…] The name Targaryen still frightens them, so much so that they sent a man to murder you when they heard you were with child. What will they do when they learn of your dragons?“
Drogon was curled up beneath her arm, as hot as a stone that has soaked all day in the blazing sun. Rhaegal and Viserion were fighting over a scrap of meat, buffeting each other with their wings as smoke hissed from their nostrils. My furious children, she thought. They must not come to harm. […].
After this, it seems Dany decides to visit the Undying Ones, having not received what she wishes from the Xaro and the Merchants, the Tourmaline Brotherhood, the Pureborn, or any other faction. We’ll cover that visit in the next episode, when Drogon makes his mark.
Dany’s Dragon Bonds Volume II, Part III: Black Trees Cannot Corrupt Black Scales
… continuing our investigation of Dany and her dragons in A Clash of Kings as they enter The House of the Undying in Qarth, escorted by the warlock Pyat Pree.
A Clash of Kings – Daenerys IV
Drogon, who is with her for this entire chapter, hisses in the first scene, as they approach the palace of dust, obviously disliking the place, and with good reason. He may be mirroring Dany’s own disquiet, but I think this is more an indication of his own sense of the place. In our direwolves series it was determined that the wolves can sniff out falsehood and danger. I get the impression from this chapter that Drogon has the same ability. His sense of danger seems to show throughout the chapter, and it even seems that he is shepherding Dany away from some of the more dangerous places in the complex, suggesting the theme of protection.
[…] She understood now why Xaro Xhoan Daxos called it the Palace of Dust. Even Drogon seemed disquieted by the sight of it. The black dragon hissed, smoke seeping out between his sharp teeth.
Side note: I know that dragons do not have an obvious gender, so I beg you to forgive me if I apply male gender pronouns to them from time to time. I choose to do this for 3 reasons, 1st that their namesakes were male, 2nd, that GRRM does it as in the prior excerpt, and 3rd, that a male pronoun makes it easier to delineate the dragons from Dany in a sentence. I’ll use a male pronoun with Drogon for the duration of this chapter analysis. If anyone as any specific textual evidence about of the gender of any of the 3 dragons (setting aside the assertion by Septon Barth that dragons are gender fluid), please send me a note on what you’ve discovered!
The next time Drogon is mentioned, it seems apparent that something is tracking Dany through the walls of the place. Again, Drogon seems to sense it, trying in vain to get at it. Given that Dany and Drogon both seem sense the same things, I do wonder to what degree their minds are melded at this point in the story. Could Dany be hearing with Drogon’s ears, much as Jon senses what Ghost can smell and hear at certain times in the story?
The fourth room was oval rather than square and walled in worm-eaten wood in place of stone. Six passages led out from it in place of four. Dany chose the rightmost, and entered a long, dim, high-ceilinged hall. Along the right hand was a row of torches burning with a smoky orange light, but the only doors were to her left. Drogon unfolded wide black wings and beat the stale air. He flew twenty feet before thudding to an undignified crash. Dany strode after him.
[…] Dany could hear sounds within the walls, a faint scurrying and scrabbling that made her think of rats. Drogon heard them too. His head moved as he followed the sounds, and when they stopped he gave an angry scream. Other sounds, even more disturbing, came through some of the closed doors. […]
In this next scene they almost work as one to run away from whatever is frightening them. The theme of protection is evident.
The long hall went on and on and on, with endless doors to her left and only torches to her right. She ran past more doors than she could count, closed doors and open ones, doors of wood and doors of iron, carved doors and plain ones, doors with pulls and doors with locks and doors with knockers. Drogon lashed against her back, urging her on, and Dany ran until she could run no more.
After that, she sees one of several visions in the chapter. This one seems to be Aerys talking to his hand, the pyromancer Rossart after receiving a report from the battle of the Trident. We learn elsewhere int he text that Jaime overheard this conversation, although his account has slightly varied dialogue to what Dany sees. Drogon’s part is to shriek. It is unclear if the dragon is in agreement with Aerys or not, but I lean toward the negative because they quickly move on. He may be protectively breaking the spell the vision is casting upon Dany’s mind.
Finally a great pair of bronze doors appeared to her left, grander than the rest. They swung open as she neared, and she had to stop and look. Beyond loomed a cavernous stone hall, the largest she had ever seen. The skulls of dead dragons looked down from its walls. Upon a towering barbed throne sat an old man in rich robes, an old man with dark eyes and long silver-grey hair. “Let him be king over charred bones and cooked meat,” he said to a man below him. “Let him be the king of ashes.” Drogon shrieked, his claws digging through silk and skin, but the king on his throne never heard, and Dany moved on.
In another vision she sees Rhaegar and his wife, the Dornish Princess Elia, with their second child, the babe Aegon, who was purportedly murdered by Gregor Clegane along with his mother. Drogon doesn’t figure in this scene, but it seems very important to Dany’s character development and dragon identity, so we cover it. Rhaegar is convinced that one of his children is the “prince that was promised” in a seemingly ancient prophecy. This scene shows that he thinks there must be three Targaryens to fulfill the prophecy, all his own children, which drives him to insist upon fathering another child, one that Elia cannot bear.
Most believe that he went on to father his third child on Lyanna Stark and that this child is Jon Snow. Dany and Jon are the characters most linked to the prophecy of the prince that was promised. Could Rhaegar have been right that the dragon must have 3 heads? Will there be a third person who carries the kingsblood, perhaps the Aegon we meet in ADwD (who is probably a Blackfyre pretender posing as the babe we see in this scene). Or, could it be that someone else is the third head (for instance, Tyrion and his siblings have been hypothesized to be Targs; Quentyn tries to ride a dragon and possibly survived; and Victarion, Euron or any number of Daenerys’s suiters and supporters want a dragon).
“He has a song,” the man replied. “He is the prince that was promised, and his is the song of ice and fire.” He looked up when he said it and his eyes met Dany’s, and it seemed as if he saw her standing there beyond the door. “There must be one more,” he said, though whether he was speaking to her or the woman in the bed she could not say. “The dragon has three heads.” He went to the window seat, picked up a harp , and ran his fingers lightly over its silvery strings. Sweet sadness filled the room as man and wife and babe faded like the morning mist, only the music lingering behind to speed her on her way.
After that Dany and Drogon again start to run, escaping strange sounds and guttering torches while trying to stay in a lighted area of the maze-like structure. Drogon doesn’t like it one bit and has a very dragonish/angry reaction to the situation; this is possibly more protection.
Yet another torch went out as she stood pondering, and the sounds grew faintly louder. Drogon’s long neck snaked out and he opened his mouth to scream, steam rising from between his teeth. He hears it too. Dany turned to the blank wall once more, but there was nothing. Could there be a secret door, a door I cannot see? Another torch went out. Another. The first door on the right, he said, always the first door on the right. The first door on the right.
Not long after that scene, Dany invokes her mantra that “the blood of the dragon must not be afraid” to give herself courage, also saying a prayer, something that seems associated with telepathic magic in the story. Even though she prays to a horse god, the prayer may be heard by her dragon with the Dothraki namesake.
When Dany arrives at a chamber that purports to be the undying ones, Drogon shows his acute sense of danger, going right to the door, leading Dany away from this forged scene. Note that they offer to teach her about dragons. Such an offer would be very much a temptation to Dany, who knows very little on the subject and is clearly learning on the fly. It’s a clever ploy, but, fortunately, she takes her cue from Drogon and not the false vision.
She took a step forward. But then Drogon leapt from her shoulder. He flew to the top of the ebony-and-weirwood door, perched there, and began to bite at the carved wood.
“A willful beast,” laughed a handsome young man. “Shall we teach you the secret speech of dragonkind? Come, come.”
Doubt seized her. The great door was so heavy it took all of Dany’s strength to budge it, but finally it began to move. Behind was another door, hidden. It was old grey wood, splintery and plain . . . but it stood to the right of the door through which she’d entered. The wizards were beckoning her with voices sweeter than song. She ran from them, Drogon flying back down to her. Through the narrow door she passed, into a chamber awash in gloom.
The door leads to the actual undying ones. They are described as nearly unmoving, nearly dead. Throughout her time in this room, they invoke her moniker “mother of dragons”
. . . mother of dragons . . . came a voice, part whisper and part moan . . . dragons . . . dragons . . . dragons . . . other voices echoed in the gloom. Some were male and some female. One spoke with the timbre of a child. The floating heart pulsed from dimness to darkness. It was hard to summon the will to speak, to recall the words she had practiced so assiduously. “I am Daenerys Stormborn of House Targaryen, Queen of the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros.” Do they hear me? Why don’t they move? She sat, folding her hands in her lap. “Grant me your counsel, and speak to me with the wisdom of those who have conquered death.”
They also tend to add new moniker’s to her title, here calling her “child of three,” although it is unclear how to interpret this.
. . . mother of dragons . . . child of three . . .
Dany asks them to elaborate on the new moniker, but their response doesn’t clarify anything. They first mention the three heads that Rhaegar mentioned, but then they list three sets of three experiences she’ll have. My current interpretation is that her character will embody or be a reflection of the results of the three fires, the three mounts, and three treasons she will experience. In that way, she’ll be the child of those experiences, or she’ll be re-born of them.
. . . three heads has the dragon . . . the ghost chorus yammered inside her skull with never a lip moving, never a breath stirring the still blue air. . . . mother of dragons . . . child of storm . . . The whispers became a swirling song. . . . three fires must you light . . . one for life and one for death and one to love . . . Her own heart was beating in unison to the one that floated before her, blue and corrupt . . . three mounts must you ride . . . one to bed and one to dread and one to love . . . The voices were growing louder, she realized, and it seemed her heart was slowing, and even her breath. . . . three treasons will you know . . . once for blood and once for gold and once for love . . .
One worry is that experiencing treason, or betrayal, is generally not the type of thing to make you a better person. Some of these are probably in the past, but some have not yet come to pass. Then, we get another trio of trios, this time trios of visions, each with another moniker, first ‘daughter of death,’ then ‘slayer of lies,’ and finally ‘bride of fire,’ always accompanied by “Mother of Dragons” representing nine more experiences, again, some past and some present.
Then phantoms shivered through the murk, images in indigo. Viserys screamed as the molten gold ran down his cheeks and filled his mouth. A tall lord with copper skin and silver-gold hair stood beneath the banner of a fiery stallion, a burning city behind him. Rubies flew like drops of blood from the chest of a dying prince, and he sank to his knees in the water and with his last breath murmured a woman’s name. . . . mother of dragons, daughter of death . . . Glowing like sunset, a red sword was raised in the hand of a blue-eyed king who cast no shadow. A cloth dragon swayed on poles amidst a cheering crowd. From a smoking tower, a great stone beast took wing, breathing shadow fire. . . . mother of dragons, slayer of lies . . . Her silver was trotting through the grass, to a darkling stream beneath a sea of stars. A corpse stood at the prow of a ship, eyes bright in his dead face, grey lips smiling sadly. A blue flower grew from a chink in a wall of ice, and filled the air with sweetness. . . . mother of dragons, bride of fire . . .
So, to enumerate, she is ‘child of three’ in that has three children, her dragons, and she is reborn in her 3 fires, 3 mounts, 3 treasons, 3 familial deaths, 3 lies to slay, and 3 suitors, not to mention the other 2 heads of the dragon. That’s 23 things. (Eureka! 23 is also the number of chromosomes pairs in humans, so she is the daughter of her kingsblood! LOL, joking). To try to put more meaning to these visions in not our errand here, but I do have some reddit posts exploring these sets of visions, and perhaps I’ll release some of them as videos eventually.
Moving on, she has another round of visions, highlighted by a dragon bursting from the brow of Mirri Maz Duur. I take this to mean that Dany does believe that the maegi’s life was a required sacrifice for hatching her dragons. Again, some of these visions are past and some are possible futures.
Faster and faster the visions came, one after the other, until it seemed as if the very air had come alive. Shadows whirled and danced inside a tent, boneless and terrible. A little girl ran barefoot toward a big house with a red door. Mirri Maz Duur shrieked in the flames, a dragon bursting from her brow. Behind a silver horse the bloody corpse of a naked man bounced and dragged. A white lion ran through grass taller than a man. Beneath the Mother of Mountains, a line of naked crones crept from a great lake and knelt shivering before her, their grey heads bowed. Ten thousand slaves lifted bloodstained hands as she raced by on her silver, riding like the wind. “Mother!” they cried. “Mother, mother!” They were reaching for her, touching her, tugging at her cloak, the hem of her skirt, her foot, her leg, her breast. They wanted her, needed her, the fire, the life, and Dany gasped and opened her arms to give herself to them . . .
With Dany immersed in the visions, it falls to Drogon to save her from the undying ones, who appear to be trying to envelop her and force her into their ranks. The visions apparently did not affect the dragon through their bond, or at least they weren’t effective enough to hypnotize Drogon. The black dragon breaks through to her with a trifecta of communication through the bond, physical contact, a scream, and probably psionic contact. Sound and especially touch typically accompany stronger than normal telepathic bond interactions in our study of direwolves, so this is consistent. We also see further examples of this later in Dany’s story, especially as related to screams.
But then black wings buffeted her round the head, and a scream of fury cut the indigo air, and suddenly the visions were gone, ripped away, and Dany’s gasp turned to horror. The Undying were all around her, blue and cold, whispering as they reached for her, pulling, stroking, tugging at her clothes, touching her with their dry cold hands, twining their fingers through her hair. All the strength had left her limbs. She could not move. Even her heart had ceased to beat. She felt a hand on her bare breast, twisting her nipple. Teeth found the soft skin of her throat. A mouth descended on one eye, licking, sucking, biting . . .
Drogon’s scream cut to Dany’s core and ripped away the façade of the visions. When Dany realizes the truth of it all, I hypothesize that her fury and desperation mirror to Drogon through the bond, compounding his existing emotions, as he immolates the undying ones, the dark heart, the room at large, the fire spreading eventually to the entire compound.
Then indigo turned to orange, and whispers turned to screams. Her heart was pounding, racing, the hands and mouths were gone, heat washed over her skin, and Dany blinked at a sudden glare. Perched above her, the dragon spread his wings and tore at the terrible dark heart, ripping the rotten flesh to ribbons, and when his head snapped forward, fire flew from his open jaws, bright and hot. She could hear the shrieks of the Undying as they burned, their high thin papery voices crying out in tongues long dead. Their flesh was crumbling parchment, their bones dry wood soaked in tallow. They danced as the flames consumed them; they staggered and writhed and spun and raised blazing hands on high, their fingers bright as torches.
… and that was Drogon’s Victory. We’ll come back for the conclusion of the chapter and the rest of the volume next time.
Dany’s Dragon Bonds Volume II, Part IV: Flight of Fury and Fear
This episode picks up at the end of the chapter Daenerys IV – ACoK, as Dany and Drogon exit the palace of dust.
As with their entrance, Drogon and Dany exited the compound as one. The final interaction with Drogon in the chapter happens outside as the enraged and desperate Pyat Pree attacks Dany. Drogon, Jhogo, and Rakharo combine to save Dany. Drogon by again flying.
Howling curses, Pyat Pree drew a knife and danced toward her, but Drogon flew at his face. Then she heard the crack of Jhogo’s whip, and never was a sound so sweet. The knife went flying, and an instant later Rakharo was slamming Pyat to the ground. Ser Jorah Mormont knelt beside Dany in the cool green grass and put his arm around her shoulder.
A Clash of Kings – Daenerys IV
I am not quite sure why George doesn’t have one of them kill Pyat here. Perhaps it was mercy, akin to sparing Gollum in Lord of the Rings?
Either way, Drogon’s bond to Dany saved her several times in this chapter, just as we had came to expect from the direwolves in our other series. In fact, several of the themes we studied there apply to the bond in this chapter, including mirroring, the sense touch magnifying the bond (similar to affection), protection / the sense of danger / ferocity, independence and obedience, and the danger of separation. The latter only happened when Dany was telepathically isolated during the visions. Fortunately, Drogon was still physically there, so no bad things happened. Only one theme is missing, pack. Dragons, it seems are more solitary. It is replaced in my list with Dany’s motherhood and the value she places on the dragons, her children. To some, though, they represent power.
A Clash of Kings – Daenerys V
As Dany’s story in ACoK comes to a close, the dragons and the power and dangers they represent loom large even as they are not seen directly in this chapter. Dany and Jorah contemplate the visions, and she calls the result “Drogon’s victory.”
That was Drogon’s victory, not mine, Dany wanted to say, but she held her tongue. The Dothraki would esteem her all the more for a few bells in her hair. She chimed as she mounted her silver mare, […].
Notice that Dany shares the scene with another beast with which she likely shares a telepathic bond, her silver mare.
Just as the hatching of the dragons brought the khalasar to respect Dany, Drogon’s victory raises Dany in their eyes again. The dragons continue to increase Dany’s power in the world, but her adversaries take note as well.
Xaro Xhoan Daxos saw the destruction of the undying, and it confirmed his wish to own a dragon, power-hungry as he is. However, the rest of the city does not seem to approve. Some want Dany and the dragons dead. In the end, it means that Qarth is no longer a safe place to remain. She contemplates her next move:
[…] Dany herself had toyed with the idea of settling in Vaes Tolorro until her dragons grew great and strong. […]
In a flashback, Dany and Xaro banter about gifting him a dragon. We return full circle to our discussion of the value of the dragons, from Dany’s first ACoK chapter. That value theme has progressed to mean the power of dragons.
Give you a dragon, you mean. “I will not wed you, Xaro.”
Denied Dany’s hand (and the forced “gift” of a dragon) earlier, Xaro tries to make something of his investment in the khalasar by bargaining for one of the dragons. Dany, knowing already that dragons are not property, despite their perceived value, prices him out of the market!
[…] For one of your dragons, you shall have ten of the finest ships in my fleet. […]
Dany refuses. Drogon is her companion and Rhaegal and Viserion are her children. She asks if Xaro would part a mother from her children, to which he answers:
“Whyever not? They can always make more. Mothers sell their children every day.”
“Not the Mother of Dragons.”‘
She continues to refuse him; Dany then makes it very clear how priceless she considers the dragons.
“I am trying to set a price on one of the three living dragons in the world.” Dany smiled at him sweetly. “It seems to me that one-third of all the ships in the world would be fair.”
Dany’s valuation of the dragons here should be a major clue that her seeming to sell one in the next volume is a feint. Otherwise, she would have wanted 1/3 of all the armies in the world, right?
Dany goes on to contemplate the visions in the palace of dust. They are no more comprehensible to her than to us, but dragons are mentioned so many times that we can be sure they are extremely important to what will come for Dany. Some of it ties back to her kingsblood, some to the “three-headed dragon.”
[…] Child of three, they had called her, daughter of death, slayer of lies, bride of fire. So many threes. Three fires, three mounts to ride, three treasons. “The dragon has three heads,” she sighed. “Do you know what that means, Jorah?”
“Your Grace? The sigil of House Targaryen is a three-headed dragon, red on black.”
“I know that. But there are no three-headed dragons.”
“The three heads were Aegon and his sisters.”
Mormont, of course later suggests that Dany should conquer Westeros with her own “three-headed dragon” of dragon and dragonrider pairs, hoping to become one of the riders himself, something that will never come to pass.
The next dragon mention foreshadows the Aegon plot. Will Young Griff perhaps ride a dragon along-side Dany? While the passage points to Varys and his mummery, I think the term “mummer’s dragon” also hints that Aegon may be a false dragon, so I have a feeling he will never be one of Dany’s 3 head’s of the dragon. Should it ever come to pass that Dany and 2 others ride dragons together, my initial guesses to the identities of the other 2 would be Jon Snow (on his father’s namesake), and Tyrion on Viserion.
[…] A mummer’s dragon, you said. What is a mummer’s dragon, pray?”
“A cloth dragon on poles,” Dany explained. “Mummers use them in their follies, to give the heroes something to fight.”
The Aegon plot may indeed be a folly, but one that will get many killed. The next dragon mention goes back to the “three-headed dragon.” That Rhaegar is also mentioned, brings to mind Rhaegar’s actual son, Jon Snow as well as the claimed Aegon. Rhaegar after all was trying to make his own three-headed dragon with his children, Aegon, Rhaenys and Jon Snow, mentioned here as the missing Visenya.
[…] “They murdered Rhaegar’s daughter as well, the little princess. Rhaenys, she was named, like Aegon’s sister. There was no Visenya, but he said the dragon has three heads. What is the song of ice and fire?”
The Song of ice and fire is, of course, complicated. Rhaegar said “his is the song of Ice and Fire” referring to his first son, Aegon, the babe in Elia’s arms from Dany’s vision, who I believe was indeed killed at the hands of Gregor Clegane, meaning that the boy we meet as Aegon in ADwD would be a fake Targaryen, a mummer’s dragon, truly a boy of Blackfyre lineage, though he could still be one of the three-headed dragon in the end.
What is the Song of Ice and Fire? In short it is the combination of the Azor Ahai prophecy, and the prophecy of “the Prince that Was Promised” and the reliving of the story of the Last Hero.
The Targaryen part to play in this song was a large part of the plot in the first season of House of the Dragon on HBO. King Viserys I learned that Aegon the conqueror received a prophecy that suggested that the Targaryens and their dragons must save Westeros from the coming of the long night. I believe that Rhaegar was also privy to this prophecy though his reading in the library at the red keep. His ill-fated three-headed dragon was an attempt to fulfill the prophecy. He may have been partially successful if you believe that Jon Snow is his son and is one of the dragon-riders that will succeed against the others.
Also, for more insight into what the “Song of Ice and Fire” means to our author, I would refer you to my Kingsblood series, specifically Kingsblood III, where I discuss George RR Martin’s fascination with Robert Frost’s Poem “Fire and Ice,” and Dylan Thomas’s “Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night”. The song of Ice and Fire, to me, then, is the struggle between love and hate, coldness and passion, desire and calculation, life and death.
Moving to the next passage, the story of Drogon’s destruction of the “House of Dust” spread throughout the city, so the city has abruptly turned on Dany and her people because of fear of the dragons.
[…] Perhaps she had lingered in Qarth too long, seduced by its comforts and its beauties. It was a city that always promised more than it would give you, it seemed to her, and her welcome here had turned sour since the House of the Undying had collapsed in a great gout of smoke and flame. Overnight the Qartheen had come to remember that dragons were dangerous. No longer did they vie with each other to give her gifts. Instead the Tourmaline Brotherhood had called openly for her expulsion, and the Ancient Guild of Spicers for her death. It was all Xaro could do to keep the Thirteen from joining them.
However, the danger represented by dragons also impedes their attempts to book passage from Qarth.
“You require passage for a hundred Dothraki, all their horses, yourself and this knight, and three dragons?” […] The cargomaster of the Myrish galley Silken Spirit opined that dragons were too dangerous at sea, where any stray breath of flame might set the rigging afire. The owner of Lord Faro’s Belly would risk dragons, but not Dothraki.
Things are so bad that while she is negotiating with a merchant, she is assaulted by an assassin. Both men use her moniker Mother of Dragons. It is clear that this dragon has worn out her welcome.
[…] And for the Mother of Dragons, only thirty honors.”
[…]
A Qartheen stepped into her path. “Mother of Dragons, for you.” He knelt and thrust a jewel box into her face.
She is rescued from the assassin by Arstan Whitebeard, who is Ser Barristan Selmy in disguise, along with Strong Belwas, a book-only character who was a slave of Illyrio Mopatis. Belwas says of his master:
“He would have dragons,” said Belwas gruffly, “and the girl who makes them. He would have you.”
His lack of eloquence makes it clear that Ilyrio is power-hungry for her dragons, just like Xaro. Combining these with those who want her gone or dead, Dany’s adversaries are piling up. Fortunately, she turns Illyrio’s people into her own people.
In any case, the assassination attempt lays bare Dany’s need for haste in quitting Qarth. She needs to protect her people and her children, as expressed in her responses to Belwas and Arstan, as follows.
Joy bloomed in her heart, but Dany kept it from her face. “I have three dragons,” she said, “and more than a hundred in my khalasar, with all their goods and horses.”
… after introducing her bloodriders …
They crossed the red waste with me, and saw my dragons born.”
The bloodriders are also her protection. This brings to mind our dragon themes, and we remember the theme of separation, because this attack happened when her dragons weren’t there to protect her.
“Regal?” Dany laughed. She had no dragon with her […]
In closing this volume, every mention of dragons in this chapter hit on our dragon themes or other important themes in the story. Combined, the 4 mentions of three heads of the dragon (coupled with 2 mentions of the Targaryen conquerors), 4 mentions of the danger or strength of dragons, 3 mentions of dragons existing, 2 mentions of blood of the dragon, and 2 mentions of a mummer’s dragon are references to the inherent power of dragons, implying that they bring such power to Dany.
The mentions of having a dragon (8) or the value of a dragon (3) entwine with 3 mentions of Dany being the mother of dragons. This familial connection is in opposition to the idea of dragons as a possession or commercial item. I believe that this tension and Dany’s stance on selling one of them to Xaro is a foreshadowing of the coming storm of Dany’s “selling” one of her dragons in Astapor and her smashing the slave trade. Drogon proved in the prior chapter that a dragon can think for itself. Dragons have free will.
Both these concepts, the independent identity and inherent power of a dragon, will be put to good use in the next volumes. Drogon’s escapade in the House of the Undying was only a taste, foreshadowing the dragons playing a much more active role in future, I leave you with the last mention of dragons in the volume.
Three heads has the dragon, Dany thought, wondering. “I shall tell my people to make ready to depart at once. But the ships that bring me home must bear different names.”
“As you wish,” said Arstan. “What names would you prefer?”
“Vhagar,” Daenerys told him. “Meraxes. And Balerion. Paint the names on their hulls in golden letters three feet high, Arstan. I want every man who sees them to know the dragons are returned.”
A Clash of Kings – Daenerys V
Indeed. Dany gets the last word here. We’ll see you next time for our coverage of Dany and her dragons in A Storm of Swords.
The Green Bard 