Episode 64: A GAME OF THRONES, DAENERYS VIII: "Shadow Puppets" SHOW NOTES!

Hello and welcome to the Not A Cast … podcast: the one true chapter-by-chapter podcast going through A Song of Ice and Fire one chapter a week. I’m one of your hosts Jeff better known as BryndenBFish. 

And I’m your other host Emmett, better known as PoorQuentyn. 

Welcome to the sixty-fourth episode of the Not A Cast, entitled: “Shadow Puppets: An Analysis of AGOT, Daenerys VIII,” in which George gets his horror on as everything collapses around Dany--personally, politically, and of course, magically. 

This episode is brought to you by our Small Council: 

• Hand of the King WolfmanZack 
• Grand Maester Timothy W
• Lord Commander of the Kingsguard Mark N. 
• Lord Travis, Master of Ships and Warden of the Waves
• Ser Keith J, Master of Whisperers
• Lord Philip the Merciful, Master of Laws
• Jancy O, Lady Commander of the Night’s Watch
• Lord Gene Master of Coin
• Archmaester June, Healer of the Lesser Poxes
• Ragged Michael, Warden of the North
• Nelson the Hammer, Prince of Dragonstone
• Scarlett the Other Red Woman and Mistress of Whisperers
• Lord Baby the Onion Baby
• Lord Blackheart the Defiant, Master of Zorse 
• Lord Micah Warden of the West and the Kraken’s Bane
• Lord James: the Jim that was Promised
• The High Bearded Priest
• The Blue-Ringed Octoling
• And our latest member of the small council, Lord Jake, Assistant (to the) Hand of the King! Welcome, Lord Jake!

Thank you councillors very much!

Spoiler warning: All published books - 5 novels, 3 Dunk and Egg novellas, histories, interviews, TWOW sample chapters, as well as Game of Thrones the TV show. Anything and everything!

Question

Lady Karalee asks:

Are there any theories, essays or predictions that Dany will turn into an actual dragon at some point? I keep thinking about the Targs that tried or thought they could (esp. the Mad King hoping too rise like a Phoenix), as well as lightbringer being tempered 3 times. Dany has burned twice (do you think she will burn something to get out of her Dothraki situation in the book?) I wonder what would happen if she burns 3 times.

Also, is there a character you really want to make it? Mine is Gilly. She has had so much sadness and I just want her to be warm and safe and happy.

Synopsis

Bloodflies, large as bees, gross, purplish, glistening close-in on Khal Drogo to Daenerys Targaryen’s horror. Death is coming for Khal Drogo, and Daenerys knows it at a subconscious level. Where Drogo had once reached out, quick as a cat, and snatched bloodflies from the air before crushing them to death, the bloodflies are now landing on Drogo’s horse, low-crawling up the hide and making their way towards the great khal. All the while, Drogo stares at distant hills.

Well, this is an utterly horrifying way to open a chapter. Sure hope George subverts our expectations and the chapter closes with flowers, sunshine and gumdrop smiles!

Oh, and then he began to scream.

We flashback to Drogo after their departure from the Lhazarene Town. The poultice that Mirri Maz Duur placed over Drogo’s wound had caused an unbearable itch and Drogo had ripped it off. A mud plaster the eunuch slaves fashioned for him had soothed Drogo’s itch while herbwomen made Drogo poppy wine, fermented mare’s milk and pepper beer that the Khal had drank vigorously.

But even though he wasn’t itching so bad while they rode, the nights showed Drogo’s true state. He would writhe in pain, groaning and his face stretched out in anguish. And while all this was happening, the unborn Rhaego grew restless in Daenerys’ belly. And very sadly, Drogo’s interest even in Rhaego had drifted away. 

And now, ahorse, his eyes fixed on distant hills, Drogo is silent. And that was scaring Dany.

We return to the present as one of the flies lands on Drogo’s shoulder, another on his neck. And Drogo begins to lean to left, lean to the right. Criss-cross this time. But his stallion presses on.

My lord, Dany said. Drogo. My sun-and-stars.

Drogo doesn’t seem to hear here. Another fly settles on his cheek. Dany reaches out for him, touching his arm and Drogo falls from his horse, the flies scattering from Drogo’s body.

A pregnant Dany vaults from her horse and rushes over to a Drogo crying out in pain. His breath rasps as he cries out for his horse. Dany touches Drogo and feels Drogo’s hot and burning skin with her finger. Drogo’s bloodriders come pounding up from behind, shouting as they dismount their horses and rush over to Drogo.

No, Khal Drogo groaned, struggling in Dany’s arms. “Must ride. Ride. No.”

Drogo’s bloodrider Haggo states that Drogo fell from his horse, but Dany tells him to shut it. They’re making camp here. Haggo is skeptical. This brown, waterless ground is no campsite. Where will they even park their camper? Another bloodrider Qotho helpfully puts in that he’s not taking orders from some woman, not even a khaleesi. But Dany won’t let let them refuse her command. They’re camping here, and if anyone asks, Drogo commanded it. Her time to give birth was near.

Dany orders Drogo’s tent to be erected, but her bloodriders scoff at her. But when she orders Mirri Maz Duur to be brought to Drogo, the khal’s bloodriders practically mutiny right then and there. Qotho says he will NOT do that, but Dany tells him there’s a goddamn chain of command, and you know what that means? To paraphrase Jayne from Firefly, it means that if you don’t go and get Mirri, Drogo is going to beat you to death with a chain when he wakes up. Qotho scurries away, galloping off in anger. But Dany knows that he’ll return with Mirri.

Daenerys orders the slaves erect Drogo’s tent beneath a shadow underneath a black rock which … Dany, we really should talk about how you are consistently choosing incredibly, fucking ominous sites to rest your feet for a minute before major plot beats erupt in the narrative. It’s as if you are a book character and the author is thumbing the scales or something.

Ahem. Where was I? Ah, yes.

Everyone helps Drogo get inside the tent as he continues to cry out No, no, no. Doreah and Jhiqui get Drogo nice and nude, and then Jhiqui suggests opening the tent flap to let the cool breeze in, but Dany ain’t gonna let the khalasar catch a glimpse of Drogo in the state that he’s in.

Admit no one without my leave. No one.

Eroeh, the Lhazarene girl Dany saved in Dany VII, whispers that Drogo is going to die, and Dany proceeds to slap her, saying that he’s not going to die. He’s a champion. His hair has never been cut. But Khaleesi, Jhiqui says, he fell from his horse. 

And it’s in that moment that Dany knows the truth. Drogo had fallen from his horse, and lots of people saw that event. And they wouldn’t keep it a secret. Dany realizes that Drogo’s fall would have big, fucking consequences.

A khal who could not ride could not rule, and Drogo had fallen from his horse.

Dany engages in some cognitive dissonance, ordering cool water to be fetched and Drogo to be bathed in cool water. When he’s placed into his tub, his mouth and eyes open, but Dany hears no words coming from his mouth and realizes that no sight is reaching his eyes.

Aggravated and scared, Dany wonders where the hell Mirri Maz Duur is as tepid water is placed into the tub. She undoes Drogo’s braid, laying his bells aside, thinking that Drogo would want them when he wakes. But then a gust of air comes from outside, and her kha Aggo comes in to tell Dany that Jorah is waiting for her outside of the tent. Dany bids Aggo to tell Jorah to come into the tent.

Jorah Mormont enters the tent, wearing his best Lawrence of Arabia costume he picked up from the local Party City, and tells Dany that word is getting around about Drogo’s fall. Dany tells him to help Drogo, and the knight goes to Drogo’s side. The knight orders Dany to dismiss her handmaid, then he then takes his knife out and cuts away the dry plaster that the eunuchs put on Drogo’s wound. A foul smell of death fills the room as Dany sees that the wound has festered.

No, Dany whispered as tears ran down her cheeks. No, please, gods hear me, no.

But Jorah tells Dany that Drogo is good as dead. Dany does some stage-1 grief, saying that Drogo can’t die. He must not. She won’t let him die. But Jorah only tells her that he’s gonna die, dude. And then Jorah, probably realizing that this is his big chance to spirit away the girl he’s projecting Lynesse Hightower onto, tells Dany that now ain’t the time for tears. Later, sure (after we’ve boned). Now we gotta get the fuck outta here.

Wait, what? Why? Where the hell would they even go? 

Asshai, I would say. It lies far to the south, at the end of the known world, yet men say it is a great port. We will find a ship to take us back to Pentos. It will be a hard journey, make no mistake. Do you trust their khas? Will they come with us?

Yeah, Dany trusts them, but if Drogo dies … she leaves the thought unfinished, but we know what she’s thinking. She doesn’t understand why they need to go though. She’s carrying Drogo’s unborn child, a boy who will be khal after Drogo.

But Jorah knows better. That ain’t gonna happen, Dany. The Dothraki follow strength. When Drogo dies, his kos are going to have a merry civil war over who will be khal, and Rhaego will be taken from Dany and fed to dogs. 

Buy why, Dany cries. Why should they kill a little baby?

He is Drogo’s son, and the crones say he will be the stallion who mounts the world. It was prophesied. Better to kill the child than to risk his fury when he grows to manhood.

Gotta admit, there’s a sick, evil logic to what the Dothraki would do to Rhaego even as I fundamentally recoil at a moral horror of it all. At least, the unborn Rhaego recoils with me at the thought of being murdered as he kicks Dany’s belly, and Dany remembers what the “Usurper’s dogs” had done to poor Rhaenys and Aegon: Rhaegar’s kids. They’d been babies too, but that hadn’t prevented their murders either.

Dany boils over in emotion, stating that the Dothraki can’t hurt Rhaego. Her khas will protect her. But, again, Jorah is there to remind Dany of the cultural context she’s currently in:

A bloodrider dies with his khal. You know that, child. They will take you to Vaes Dothrak, to the crones, that is the last duty they owe him in life … when it is done, they will join Drogo in the night lands.

Dany ain’t about going back to Vaes Dothrak. So, she states that she’s not going to leave Drogo. And who should arrive at the very moment but Mirri Maz Duur to help ensure that Drogo doesn’t die -- sort-of, not really, oh my god, not really at all.

The godswife enters the tent with Qotho and Haggo carrying her chest of poisons - WAIT - medicines behind her. When his bloodriders see the state Drogo is in, they drop the chest of magic poisons to the ground as Mirri examines Drogo. 

Mirri’s analysis is that Drogo’s wound has festered. Yeah, it’s your fault, you fucking murderer, Qotho and Haggo say with their words and punch Mirri Maz Duur in the face and subsequently kicks her when she falls to the ground. Dany’s screams at them to stop, but Qotho says that these kicks are too merciful for Mirri:

Take her outside. We will stake her to the earth, to be the mount of every passing man. And when they are done with her, the dogs will use her as well. Weasels will tear out her entrails and carrion crows feast upon her eyes. The flies off the river shall lay their eggs in her womb and drink pus from the ruins of her breasts.

Well, no one’s gonna top that.

But Dany won’t let them hurt her. But Qotho mock-smiles at Dany and says that no woman tells him no. She’s lucky that they don’t stake her to the ground next to Mirri. Drogo’s death is as much Dany’s fault as Mirri’s. Then Jorah steps between the bloodriders and Dany, telling him to get fucked. Dany is still khaleesi.

Only while the blood-of-my-blood still lives. When he dies, she is nothing, Qotho retorts.

Dany feels a tightness in her.

Before I was khaleesi, I was the blood of the dragon. Ser Jorah, summon my khas.

But before we can get some hot Dothraki on Dothraki action, Qotho and Haggo go scurrying away for now.

When they’re gone, Jorah tells Dany that these guys are fearless -- no, not because they’re Dothraki. Because they know they’re dead men. A Dead man is beyond fear. Dany shoots back that no one has died yet. But Jorah, you’re going to need to get your armor and sword on quick fast and in a hurry. Jorah bows and leaves the tent.

Now alone with Mirri, the godswife tells Dany that she’s saved her yet again. Well, return the fucking favor, Mirri. Save Drogo, please. Mirri gets all sarcastic, saying you don’t ask a slave, you tell her. Mirri takes another look at Drogo and comes back with the same conclusion as before. No healer is going to help Drogo now. Mirri adopts her best doctorly you haven’t quit smoking yet after I told you to quit, have you, Jeff tone of voice and states that Drogo has been drinking milk of the poppy and hasn’t kept the poultice she made for him on the wound. Dany admits that all these things are true, but Doc, I’m going to quit smoking this time. I swear it.

Mirri tells Dany that it’s too late. Drogo’s already got the lung cancer (is this joke getting annoying? Whatever.) He’s going to die. All Mirri can do now is not be the doctor anymore. She’ll be Drogo’s medic though. And what is the difference between a medic and a doctor? Well, to quote my favorite line from the hottest viral video from 2004: Red vs. Blue. A doctor cures people. A medic just makes people feel better … while they die.

Mirri Maz Duur’s words hit Dany like a bag of avocado toast dropped from a very high height. (It would still hurt, guys) She begs Mirri to save Drogo. Y’know, use some magic spells or some shit. 

And then Mirri leans back, smiling on the inside:

There is a spell. Her voice was quiet, scarcely more than a whisper. But it is hard, lady, and dark. Some would say that death is cleaner. I learned the way in Asshai, and paid dear for the lesson. My teacher was a bloodmage from the Shadow Lands.

Oh shit, bloodmages? Dammit, Emmett. I thought this was a historical fiction novel. Where the hell did all these fantasy elements come in?

Dany grows cold all over and says that Mirri truly is the maegi everyone said she was. 

Am I? Mirri Maz Duur smiled. Only a maegi can save your rider now, Silver Lady.

It just doesn’t seem all that appropriate to speaking in riddles and smiling at this moment, Emmett. I mean, Drogo is lying there dying, and Mirri’s got this shit-eating grin stretching across her face. Wonder if there’s more at work behind that smile? Oh well. Go listen to Episode 61 to find out more! 

Dany asks if there’s no other way to save Drogo’s life. Mirri says, nope, sorry. Can’t you help there. It’s either sorcery or the highway to hell. Dany tells her to do it, but Mirri says there’s a price to pay. Okay, fine. Dany will pay her in gold, gems. Whatever money she wants. Uh, no. That’s not what Mirri Maz Duur means. She needs blood. Only life may pay for death.

Dany shudders and thinks that Mirri is talking about her death. Not your death, khaleesi, Mirri tells her. Whew! Bring his horse instead.

Well, next Jhogo is leading Drogo’s terrified, screaming red stallion into the tent. Dany asks Mirri what she plans to do, and Mirri says they need blood. She already said this, Dany. Jhogo puts his hand on his arakh and pleads with Dany not to do this. And can we please now just kill Mirri Maz Duur? But, no. Dany won’t have her killed and even if it is forbidden blood magic. It’s the same as when Dany ate the horse heart to give Rhaego strength. The same. The same.

Aggo and Jhogo then pull the horse towards the tub where Drogo floats as if he’s already dead with blood and pus seeping into the water, and then Mirri Maz Duur chants words and draws a knife that Dany never saw coming, and this is just such an interesting description of the knife, I have to read it:

It looked old; hammered red bronze, leaf-shaped, its blade covered with ancient glyphs.

Mirri cuts the horses throat with her sacrificial knife, and the horse screams as blood pours into the bath. Dany’s bloodriders hold the horse in place so it doesn’t collapse as Mirri chants and sings about the strength of the beast going into the man. All the while, Jhogo looks fucking terrified, because OH MY GOD, WE’RE DOING FUCKING BLOOD MAGIC IN THIS HISTORICAL FICTION NOVEL, EMMETT. 

When the horse finally bleeds out into a tub now filled with blood, Dany’s khas let the beast fall to the ground. Burn it, Dany tells Jon, no wait, Dany tells her khas per Dothraki custom. But now, let’s focus more attention on all the blood, because the tent now looks like a room in Patrick Bateman’s house with blood spatter all over the walls and rugs. Hooray?

Braziers are then lit as Mirri Maz Duur tosses some red powder she borrowed from Melisandre onto the coals. Dany and her handmaids are, y’know, a little scared of all this ritual sacrifice and magic rituals. So, Mirri tells Dany and her buds to get out of the tent and don’t come back. Dany says No thanks, I’m not going anywhere, but Mirri tells her:

You must. Once I begin to sing, no one must enter this tent. My song will wake powers old and dark. The dead will dance here this night. No living man must look on them.

For all Mirri Maz Duur is y’know, like not your friend, Dany. This seems like decent advice. So, Dany says, Okay. Fine.

Bring him back to me.

Now outside, Dany finds the sun setting and the sky as a non-foreshadow-y bruised red color.  A hot wind is blowing too. Jhogo and Aggo dig a firepit to burn Drogo’s horse, and Dany finally sees Ser Jorah Mormont in his mail and leather, sweating in the desert heat. He pushes his way over to Dany and asks her what she’s done adding in a you little fool which first off, how dare you, and second-off: She’s saving Khal Drogo of course. But Dany, Jorah whines (and sort-of says), you could have played Lynesse Hightower for me in Asshai. 

Dany stops him. Does Jorah truly consider Dany his princess? Yep, he does. Well, then fucking help, slavebear. But Jorah doesn’t know how.

Then Dany hears Mirri’s voice rising to a high, ululating wail. She turns back and sees the tent alive with light … and shadows. And the shadows were moving. 

Mirri Maz Duur was dancing, and not alone.

Oh my god. What story have we just stepped into? 

Qotho and Haggo step up next to Dany, shouting that This must not be! But Dany gives them the whole This will be response. The two bloodriders are joined by Cohollo, Drogo’s oldest and kindest bloodrider. This man spits full in Dany’s face and joins Qotho and Haggo in calling for Mirri to come out and die. 

Drogo’s bloodriders draw their arakhs and move towards the tent. Dany tries to stop them, but she gets shoved aside by Qotho for her trouble. 

Stop them, she commands her khas, kill them.

Rakharo and Quaro block Qotho, Haggo and Cohollo’s entrance to the tent. Quaro takes a step forward, but Qotho’s arakh cuts into him below the arm and slicing into the muscle and rib bone of Dany’s young ko. He falls backward gasping. Qotho’s just about to go kill the shit out of Mirri, but Jorah Mormont steps forward.

Try me.

Qotho whirls, curses and moves fast with his arakh. It nearly gets Jorah’s face, but Jorah is able to parry with his longsword. Jorah had gotten most of his armor on, but he hadn’t put a helmet on. It’s hardly heroic. Qotho dances around trying to get a Jorah’s head or gaps in his armor, and slavebear does his best to dodge, dip, duck, dive and … dodge away from Qotho’s cuts. One of arakh blows glances off Jorah’s lobstered gauntlet and next Dany sees Jorah stumbling backwards, blood running down his face as Qotho calls him a dickless milkman which makes me giggle. I shouldn’t.

You die now! Qotho screams, making me giggle less.

Another savage cut, this one at Jorah’s hip where the armor was gapped, and Jorah grunts but sadly, sadly doesn’t die. The arakh catches in Jorah’s bone, and Jorah brings his longsword down on Qotho cutting his arm nearly off. The next sword blow lands on Qotho’s ear resulting in, and I quote George RR martin here, Qotho’s face seeming to explode.

Then, utter fucking chaos breaks out all around Daenerys. Dothraki shout. Mirri Maz Duur wails with the shadows, Quaro dies pleading for water. Rakharo fights with Haggo until Jhogo coils his whip around Haggo’s throat before Rakharo brings his arakh down on Haggo’s head. Someone throws a rock which lol, who was the jabroni who did that?

But Dany begins pleading with universe to make it stop. She weeps that the price is too high. She tries crawling towards the tent, but Cohollo catches her and starts dragging her back by her hair. He puts a knife to her throat, and dany screams My baby. And the gods seemingly hear Dany as one of Aggo’s arrows (Remember the Dothraki using arrows?) catches Cohollo under his arm, killing him.

Exhausted, Dany raises her head to find the crowd dispersing with the Dothraki returning to their tents and sleeping bags. The sun is gone and the sky has turned black. But fires burn orange against the night sky. Dany rises to her feet with no strength left. She gasps, still hearing Mirri Maz Duur. But now her voice is like a funeral dirge. And the shadows still dance and whirl.

Jorah Mormont’s arm hooks under her waist and lifts her off her feet. She sees that his face is still sticky with blood and part of his left ear was gone. She convulses in pain, hears the knight shouting her Dany’s handmaids to help. Doreah timidly comes forward and tells Dany and Jorah that no one will come. The Dothraki think Dany cursed. Jorah threatens to behead people who won’t come, but Doreah tells him They are gone, my lord. 

The maegi, someone else said. Was that Aggo? Take her to the maegi.

Dany tries to say no, not that, you mustn’t. But when she opens her mouth, only a long wail of pain comes out.

What was wrong with them, couldn’t they see?

Dany turns to the tent, seeing shadows circling and dancing. And some of the shadows, well, they don’t look human anymore. 

She glimpsed the shadow of a great wolf, and another like a man wreathed in flames.

Irri tells Jorah that Mirri knows the secrets of the birthing bed, and Doreah agrees. Dany tries to scream NO again, but nothing comes out of her lips again. She was being carried and had lost her mouth to scream.

Her eyes opened to gaze up at a flat dead sky, black and bleak and starless. Please, no. The sound of Mirri Maz Duur’s voice grew louder, until it filled the world. The shapes! She screamed. The dancers!

Ser Jorah carried her inside the tent.

And that is AGOT, Daenerys VIII.

Did …

What …

How …

Why …

What did I just read, Emmett?

Depth

Dany VIII is the ultimate bad trip. Everything is bleak, everyone is miserable, every square inch of this chapter is oozing blood and sweat and pus and sorcery and death. It makes me sick to my stomach, every time I read it. Which I do a lot, because I love it so much. 

As with the Whispering Wood and all the gorgeous prose we discussed last week, Dany VIII is a case study in writing an effective mood piece. This one is exploring a very different mood, though. It’s as if George turned to the audience and said “Enjoying the high fantasy, everybody? Good, good! Now you may have forgotten since the prologue, but I cut my teeth in horror…”

And the audience goes “wait, what?”

And George goes “HERE WE GO!” He snaps his fingers, and the nightmare begins. Like the prologue, it’s all about the descent. The sense of a trap slowly agonizingly springing shut. Before we get into all the imagery and themes and ways this chapter builds on what’s come before in Dany’s story, that viciously precise structure is what makes Dany VIII such a stand-alone masterpiece of horror. It’s a perfectly constructed highway to hell. 

• Setting the mood
  • As with the prologue, Dany VIII wouldn’t be nearly as effective if the horror took the form of a jump scare suddenly emerging 90% of the way through the chapter
  • GRRM understands that meticulous pacing is the key to great horror (and that by the same token, sloppy pacing is the downfall of mediocre horror) 
  • It’s all about striking a balance between expectation and shock. You don’t want the audience to know what’s going to happen before it happens, but you still have to prime them for the gut-punch. Per the prologue, you need this sort of thing: 
    • Until tonight. Something was different tonight.
  • It’s the distinction between “wait, WHAT!!” and “wait, WHAT??” The former is good, the latter bad, and that may sound like too fine a distinction, but I think it’s one of the reasons this fantasy series made all the money when others didn’t
  • This is why my favorite artists tend to be those with a mastery of tone, because if you properly establish your tone, the audience will follow you wherever you go
  • GRRM is working overtime in Dany VIII to establish this singular tone of skin-crawling discomfort and fear *before* the events that justify that tone
  • As such, when Mirri Maz Duur starts dancing with eldritch shadows as the khalasar collapses into fire and blood, it’s all the more exciting because it doesn’t feel arbitrary, and that’s because the tone fits those plot points like a glove
  • So let’s go over how GRRM cements that queasy horror tone:
    • Sensory details (sweat, bad smells, flies buzzing, bloodred everywhere)
    • Body horror
    • Physical violence (or the threat of it) 
• “He fell from his horse”
  • This chapter more than any other is where GRRM nails Dothraki worldbuilding
  • For the most part, this worldbuilding has largely served as window dressing or fodder for Dany’s identity/assimilation arc that will continue throughout the series, more than it does drive the plot itself
  • To be fair, Viserys’ death was rooted in Dothraki mores, but even more than that, this chapter is the perfect marriage of worldbuilding and plot progression
  • The problem Dany is responding to, the ways she tries to deal with it, and the catastrophic outcome of her attempts are all rooted in the culture of the khalasar
  • It’s not just that Drogo is sick or wounded. It’s that “he fell from his horse.” 
  • This is a political death sentence among the Dothraki; as Dany knows by now, a khal who cannot ride cannot lead
    • Horses are how you get around on the Dothraki Sea
    • They’re how you escape wastelands like this for better pastures
    • They’re crucial to Dothraki warfare
  • As we saw with Viserys, to ride in a cart is a sign of power and authority in Westeros, but among the Dothraki, it makes you a khal raggat
  • Drogo controls the khalasar through his unquestioned monopoly on violence rooted in his physical strength and that of his bloodriders
  • Now that monopoly is failing, and his bloodriders know it; everything is public in the khalasar, and word spreads dangerously quickly
  • In that political context, they transform from Dany’s servants to potential enemies. Her authority over them is rooted in Drogo, and Drogo fell from his horse. Without him, what is she? How can she protect herself, let alone the likes of Eroeh?
  • Dany desperately leverages her last scraps of power as they slip away like sand in an hourglass, all to try and save Drogo’s life
  • It’s enough to get a tent set up and get Jorah and MMD brought to her
  • But Dany still lacks a complete understanding of Dothraki culture, as her conversation with Jorah about what will happen next makes clear
  • She thinks she can protect herself and rule through baby Rhaego, not dissimilar from how Cersei intends to rule through Joffrey (Drogo-as-Robert, as we’ve said)
  • That’s not how the Dothraki work, though. Rhaego cannot ride his horse in the first place, let alone fall from it. The khalasar will not obey Dany, and the bloodriders traditionally fall their khal into the grave
  • It works so well that Drogo is reduced to saying “no” like their wedding night, because it’s all come full circle: again Dany is afraid and fears she has no protection
  • Jorah is used very appropriately here, because he knows enough to tell Dany all that, but isn’t Dothraki himself, so his loyalties are to her (I mean…kind of.)
  • As such, he counsels her to run. This is the great temptation crucible for Dany: George has trapped her in a corner, no way out, and yet she refuses to go, for the most sympathetic of reasons. Not power, but love.
  • And it’s in that moment that Mirri Maz Duur walks in. It could be no other.
• When the student is ready, the master shall appear
  • GRRM immediately works to make us sympathize with MMD by having Qotho (truly one of the series’ worst people) not only blame her for Drogo’s fate, but propose the most gruesome of punishments and threaten Dany with the same
  • So as a first-time reader, we’re right where George wants us to be: rooting for Dany and MMD and hoping they can work together, not just to save Drogo (because really, to hell with Drogo) but to save themselves from rape and murder
  • As soon as they’re left alone, MMD sets up the dynamic between her and Dany that brought them both here and will guide her actions:
    • Dany turned back to Mirri Maz Duur. The woman’s eyes were wary. “So you have saved me once more.” 

“And now you must save him,” Dany said. “Please . . . ”

“You do not ask a slave,” Mirri replied sharply, “you tell her.” 

• That’s Drogo’s line from Dany VII she’s quoting there, as if to subtly remind Dany that no matter how many times she “saves” MMD, the latter is only in this position because of Dany, her claim to the Iron Throne, and Drogo setting out to act on it
• It’s so crucial, however, that Dany is not acting malignantly. Here are her motives:
  • What had she ever done to make the gods so cruel? She had finally found a safe place, had finally tasted love and hope. She was finally going home. And now to lose it all…
• It’s important that we both relate to Dany psychologically while understanding sociologically that MMD is not wrong to view both her and Drogo as villains
• This is also important so we can see that the road to hell is paved with good intentions, that the things we love destroy us every time
• Dany engages in blood magic not out of a desire for power or vengeance, but to save love and hope and home, that which she has never had
• MMD finally admits that while the bloodriders’ violence was horrifying, they were not wrong about her. She is indeed a maegi...and only a maegi can save Drogo!
• It’s the same theme we see in the best Star Wars movie, Revenge of the Sith, in which Anakin is tempted to the Dark Side because Palpatine convinces him that the Jedi will be unable to prevent Anakin’s wife from dying in childbirth
• Of course, Dany also thinks that she has no fear because of the blood of the dragon
• Having no fear is a baaaad thing in this story. Jorah says in this very chapter that Qotho has no fear in the face of death and so will do terrible things, Waymar Royce’s lack of fear got him killed by the Others, and then there’s Night’s King, who reportedly knew no fear and was thus seduced by his icy pale queen
• “A dead man knows no fear” is also about the wights, who lack all human emotions, and so George is suggesting that fear is an important part of humanity
• Ned would agree: “that is the only time a man can be brave”
• Dany is definitely brave here, but she really oughta be listening to those fears!
• Instead, she goes all in on blood magic, and GRRM immediately emphasizes the costs
• “Only death may pay for life.” And while MMD confirms that it is not Dany’s life she speaks of, she also lets slip that Drogo’s horse will not be enough
• Again, a mixed picture for Dany: she is courageous enough to be willing to sacrifice herself, but so relieved when she doesn’t have to that she doesn’t question MMD any further about the real sacrifice at work
• They bring in Drogo’s horse and kill it, and Jhogo is there to voice anti-maegi sentiment from more sympathetic perspective than Qotho
• Dany insists that this is the same as her eating a horse heart, but everything in this chapter tells us that she’s wrong--she’s fucking with the laws of nature
• Now Drogo is in his bath of blood, like Robert in his bed of blood. Would Ned make this decision, to save his friend and try to keep his kingdom together?
• Such a haunting line from Dany: “bring him back to me.” Then she steps outside the tent, and everything goes absolutely fucking insane
• Colossal clusterfuck
  • The sky is a bruised red, a hot wind is blowing, a crowd has gathered to glare at Dany...again, such a brilliantly unified aesthetic all working to support the tone
  • Dany walks on bloody footprints (boy, now that is some symbolism) which lets Jorah know what’s up
  • He calls her a “little fool” again to emphasize how far she’s stepped over the line, and reminds her that they could’ve run...but now they can’t. And then: 
    • Through the blood-spattered sandsilk, she glimpsed shadows moving.
  • Gods, that’s good! Not only is it an extremely vivid image, but it links the blood and the shadows. Death and suffering has called forth the demons
  • This is a great example of how GRRM handles magic: he keeps the specifics vague to make it spooky and occult and not boring, but the themes come through
  • What is happening is (appropriately) unclear, but what it means is crystal clear.
  • The bloodriders return with the culturally sanctioned healers to see the shadows at work, and the cultural conflict gets boiled down to two lines: “This must not be” v. “This will be”
  • The bloodriders turn on her for good, prepare to kill MMD, and it all goes to hell
  • Dany orders her khas to stop him; young Quaro tries and dies for it
  • That says so much!! This is the game of thrones in which innocents die for the high lords’ fights. This is the price of blood magic, it’s already spinning out of control, Dany’s trying to save lives but is already helping end them
  • Jorah kills Qotho (thanks to his armor, more cultural commentary), but he’s wounded in the process, and the death is so grisly that it’s hard to take satisfaction from it
  • A head exploding again feels so unnatural, like all the laws of physics are breaking down; you get that sense from this extraordinary passage:
    • The Dothraki were shouting, Mirri Maz Duur wailing inside the tent like nothing human, Quaro pleading for water as he died. Dany cried out for help, but no one heard. Rakharo was fighting Haggo, arakh dancing with arakh until Jhogo’s whip cracked, loud as thunder, the lash coiling around Haggo’s throat. A yank, and the bloodrider stumbled backward, losing his feet and his sword. Rakharo sprang forward, howling, swinging his arakh down with both hands through the top of Haggo’s head. The point caught between his eyes, red and quivering. Someone threw a stone, and when Dany looked, her shoulder was torn and bloody. “No,” she wept, “no, please, stop it, it’s too high, the price is too high.” More stones came flying. She tried to crawl toward the tent, but Cohollo caught her. Fingers in her hair, he pulled her head back and she felt the cold touch of his knife at her throat. “My baby,” she screamed, and perhaps the gods heard, for as quick as that, Cohollo was dead. Aggo’s arrow took him under the arm, to pierce his lungs and heart.
      
      When at last Daenerys found the strength to raise her head, she saw the crowd dispersing, the Dothraki stealing silently back to their tents and sleeping mats. Some were saddling horses and riding off. The sun had set. Fires burned throughout the khalasar, great orange blazes that crackled with fury and spit embers at the sky. She tried to rise, and agony seized her and squeezed her like a giant’s fist. The breath went out of her; it was all she could do to gasp. The sound of Mirri Maz Duur’s voice was like a funeral dirge. Inside the tent, the shadows whirled.
  • That sense of escalation, a pot boiling over, the earth shaking under her feet as everything flies apart. The khalasar is collapsing in the wake of Drogo’s death just like the Seven Kingdoms after Robert’s death
  • At the heart of it all, MMD sings her song of death, and the shadows dance
  • It feels like Dany has summoned the apocalypse! “The price is too high” says it all; that’s how GRRM feels about blood magic and other grasps at power
    • Father, why? Four men dead in as many heartbeats, and for what? “Fire and blood,” he whispered, “blood and fire.” 
  • What a bitter irony that in the midst of all that, Dany goes into labor. Just as with Stannis’ attack at the Wall, battle and birth (life and death) go hand in hand
  • This nightmarish chapter ends with a sky without stars, Dany’s futile attempts to escape, and her being taken into the heart of the storm she summoned
  • “Ser Jorah carried her into the tent.” And this chapter’s final accomplishment is that you don’t need any more than that. Anything more would sully it. It’s perfect.

Foreshadowing/Groundwork

Jorah proposing to take Dany to Asshai might be another case of abandoned foreshadowing in book one, as Dany was eventually supposed to visit Mordor Town in person. This seems to have persisted in book two, in which our favorite character Quaithe also urges Dany to go to Asshai, specifically to find “truth.” This storyline probably died with the five-year-gap.

Qotho proposing to stake MMD out to be assaulted by every passing man comes true at Harrenhal, where the women who slept with Lannister soldiers are raped by Stark loyalists. I can’t blame people who raise their eyebrows at the sheer amount of sexual violence in the series; beyond any question of realism, it can be numbing in its repetition and thus lose any impact. But most of the individual instances make structural and thematic sense--Qotho’s behavior in this chapter gets us to side with MMD just as Dany does, and the fate of those women at Harrenhal emphasizes that both sides exploit people and Arya needs to get past her assumption that anyone who serves her family are automatically the good guys.

Theory/Discussion

So, we’ve done enough of the character and emotional analysis of scenes from this chapter and touched on the magic, but Emmett, I have to admit something: I’ve read these books numerous times now, and I’ve read and re-read this chapter about a half-dozen times in the past two weeks alone. BUT! I still don’t fully understand what’s going on at the end with Mirri Maz Duur. I mean, I get the basic plot mechanics, but I don’t understand several things at a more deeper level. Broadly, I don’t understand: what was Mirri Maz Duur hoping to achieve here? What was the type of magic she was using? I mean, hell, I’ll start with a fundamental question that I still don’t have a good answer to:

• What was MMD’s motivation? Was Mirri Maz Duur actually trying to save Drogo or was she trying to kill Rhaego? The next chapter sort-of answers this question, I guess. But it’s still ambiguous. What do you think, Emmett?
• What sort of magic was Mirri Maz Duur invoking here? Is it similar to Melisandre’s shadowbinding we see in ACOK? But I’m also a little confused by the glyph-covered knife Mirri Maz Duur draws -- it reminds me of the Dragonbinder horn - also covered in glyps -- Valyrian glyphs -- that Victarion carries to Meereen in ADWD. 
  • Is Mirri Maz Duur’s magic connected to Valyrian blood magic? 
  • Are we supposed to draw a line between the sorceries that went into the creation of things like valyrian steel and MMD ritually slaughtering the horse?
  • We’ve mentioned the connections between Melisandre and Mirri Maz Duur before, but this chapter is really where they stand out on reread. Not just blood magic, but the summoning of shadows. Not just a temptation figure playing on the protagonist’s hopes and fears to get them past cultural taboos, but one who cloaks her ultimate aim (the sacrifice of children in the name of the ostensible greater good) in the pretense that sacrificing animals will be enough. Just kill this horse, just burn these leeches, and I’ll wait for you to bring me the children! Perhaps the most telling, however, is not a parallel but a contrast. MMD isn’t loyal to Dany, and quickly exposes her deconstructive ends. Mel turns out to be sincere about Stannis...terrifyingly so.
• When the shadows changed from human to animal shapes, what is that communicating thematically, character-wise and plot-wise?
  • Here I think we see how important a chapter Dany VIII really is to the overall magical plot, and how different it is from the magic that’s come before
    • Before: magic is northern, blue and white, “winter is coming”
    • Now: magic is eastern, red and black, “fire and blood”
    • Before: magic is male, associate with Last Hero’s Journey archetypes like Jon, Bran, and Waymar Royce
    • Now: magic is female, with two women descending into blood magic on the basis of a bond forged in the promise of the bloody bed
    • Before: magic is a bolt from the blue, an inhuman force that our heroes must simply react to and deal with
    • Now: magic is a choice made by our characters, a product of the human heart in conflict with itself
  • That last one especially is critical for how GRRM writes magic going forward
  • Look at Stannis and Melisandre, or Arya and Jaqen, or Bran and Hodor
  • What does this have to do with human forms transforming into animalistic god-like forms? Because that’s what the choice to do blood magic is: transformation of the self from human to divine, or the attempt to do so
  • And while George keeps the motivations generally sympathetic (aside from Euron, and that’s a whole ‘nother story) he very firmly comes down on the side of blood magic being bad, that seizing the fire of the gods hollows out your humanity and inevitably results in the death of innocents (particularly children)
  • Dany thinks of herself in ASOS as a lonely god, and the theme applies here. In the name of that which she loves about her humanity, she has sacrificed it, because she is the blood of the dragon and knows no fear
  • That’s the Valyrian mindset in a nutshell, and well...how’d that end for them?
• How much LSD did George take while writing this chapter?
  • Quite a bit!! The structure of an acid trip is definitely baked into this chapter, implicit where HOTU is explicit; this is more a bad trip like I said
  • The gradual ramp-up is part of that. Ok, I’m fine...took a little too much, but I can manage...oh shit, I’m in trouble! Save me from the inside of my own head!!!
  • LSD at its best makes you feel like you’re a god, and at its worst like you’ve stranded yourself in hell. It’s a great metaphor for summoning magic forces you then can’t control
  • But like a lot of great drug-influenced fiction, you don’t need to take drugs to enjoy this, because this chapter is the drug

Conclusion

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