Episode 72: A GAME OF THRONES, DAENERYS X: "Bride of Fire" 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 seventy-second episode of the Not A Cast, entitled: “Bride of Fire: An Analysis of AGOT, Daenerys X,” in which an exiled widowed teenager stranded in the wasteland is reborn as the Mother of Dragons. Now that’s how you end a book.

This episode is brought to you by our Small Council: 

• Hand of the King WolfmanZack 
• Grand Maester Timbob
• 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
• Lord Jake, Assistant (to the) Hand of the King
• Lady Xena Valyrian

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!

E Mail!

Lady Sarah C, a Poor Fellow patron, sent us a really sweet note that we wanted to read

Good day, Jeff and Emmitt!  

I am not sure that I can adequately convey how grateful I am, in several respects, for your podcast.  But I will attempt to.  

I voluntarily left a job in Dec, despite being well compensated, because the atmosphere was toxic and negative.  I spent ten years in the legal industry and ten years in the energy industry.  I'm not sure what's next but I decided to take a hiatus from being a worker bee in order to decompress and get some much needed rest.

Though some may wish the two of you would disagree and argue more, I am deeply appreciative of your mutually respectful discourse.  Even when your opinions differ, you give each other time and space to express yourselves.  You're willing to listen and you're open to learn.  Your friendship is a positive model for the way we should treat one another and the respect we should afford one another.  Thank you for that!

I had never seen GoT until this Jan, when I binge watched the first seven seasons.  I enjoyed it so much that I bought the ASOIAF books.  A friend suggested your (Not A) podcast and I became instantly hooked.  I listened to each chapter episode as I read GoT, which was a real treat.  I am now reading CoK and can't wait to hear your insights.

My step-father of almost 30 years passed away in April so I decided to extend my worker bee hiatus so that I can truly "be there" for my mom as she goes through this challenging time.  I live in MA but I drive up to NH several times a week to see her.  Your podcasts have been like a bright, warm light, keeping me company on those drives.  Thank you for creating such a pleasant diversion.

Alas, of all the content you've created I only have a few Patreon episodes left to listen to so I eagerly look forward to your future content.  You both seem like such authentically kind, good people.  Your insight into the world GRRM created is always thought provoking and artfully conveyed.  I feel so fortunate to be part of the family of fans who have cultivated a special bond in our shared enjoyment of GRRM's universe.

Your grateful Patreon,

Lady Sarah of the North 

Btw, today is my 46th name day!

Although I sent this to you privately, you're welcome to share it.  In the early days you would often share fan feedback at the beginning of your episodes, which I enjoyed hearing -- even the Robert Baratheonesque comment that you're very feminine, which, incidentally you are not.  You are just the right balance of masculine and feminine that every man should strive towards.  Amen, Brothers!

Question

Lord Travis, our master of ships and Warden of the waves on our small council, asks:

I took Mirri's "when the sun rises in the west and sets in the east" comments more as narrative poetry than prophecy. Like you all said, it's almost that she was saying it's impossible, Dany. But within that arrogance, does Mirri sow the seeds of her own destruction? She tried to prevent the Stallion Who Mounts the World - and she said as it relates to Drogo and Rhaego - but she pushed Dany into the role and the fulfillment of the prophecy. Additionally, I think her attitude about having defeated Dany also backfired as things are like to do in ASOIAF in general.

Synopsis

The chants of “King in the North!” fade into black, and you’d be forgiven when you read for the first time to think the end credits are coming. Instead, the ultimate chapter of AGOT opens to Targaryen colors (a red, dead land, bereft of water, fire and blood, baby) with Daenerys Targaryen standing in the midst of it. 

Dany’s Dothraki gather firewood, brown grass and brush, hacking limbs off the trees and shaving the bark down to mend together with the grass. Rakharo gets a stallion. Aggo gives it an apple and then buries his ax between its eyes. All the while, Mirri Maz Duur watches, disquiet in her eyes.

“It is not enough to kill a horse,” Mirri tells Dany. “By itself, the blood is nothing. You do not have the words to make a spell, nor the wisdom to find them. Do you think bloodmagic is a game for children?”

Besides, “maegi” only means “wise” in Lhazarene, and Dany is just an ignorant, arrogant kid. It’s not going to work whatever you’re planning … unless you free Mirri. She’ll help of course!

“I am tired of the maegi’s braying,” Dany told Jhogo.

Jhogo then whips Mirri, and she shuts up. 

The Dothraki build a pyre of logs, trunks from smaller trees and branches over the corpse of the horse, laying wood east to west and north to south. They then get all of Drogo’s treasures and put them in a pile atop the pyre. Drogo’s saddles, harnesses, whips, arakhs, a dragonbone bow Everything must go! Except the things that Dany has. She’s keeping all those weapons that Drogo’s bloodriders gave as bride gifts. 

A layer of grass and brush go over top the treasures, and the pyre is almost complete. And it’s in that moment that Jorah Mormont returns from probably submitting his latest Gamergate essay. He addresses Dany as “princess” and gets an immediate corrective from Dany. Viserys is dead, bro. She ain’t a princess anymore.

“My … queen. My sword that was Viserys’ is yours, Daenerys. And my heart as well, that never belonged to your brother. I am only a knight, and I have nothing to offer you but exile, but I beg you, hear me. Let Khal Drogo go.”

And what would Jorah offer Dany? Oh, himself and a sweet vacation in Yi Ti, Qarth, the Jade Sea and Asshai. Jorah knows what Dany intends to do, and he tells her not to do that -- come visit my Bone Moun- erm, the bone mountains with me.

“I must, you do not understand.”

Jorah thinks he understands, talking about how Dany loved Drogo. He loved his Lady Lynesse once too. But don’t think to ask him to stand aside while she immolates herself. Dany is a little surprised. She isn’t planning on burning. When Jorah asks her to swear it, Dany swears it, speaking with the Common Tongue of Westeros -- the kingdom that belonged to her by rights.

Another layer goes over top the platform of thin interwoven branches and dry leaves and twigs. These went north to south “from ice to fire.” There it is, ladies and gentlemen: the song of ice and fire: dry leaves and twigs. On top of them went soft cushions and Dany’s sleeping silks. By the time they’re done, the sun is low in the sky and Dany gathers the last Dothraki left around her -- about 100 in total.

“You will be my khalasar. I see the faces of slaves. I free you. Take off your collars. Go if you wish, no one shall harm you. If you stay, it will be as brothers and sisters, husbands and wives.”

Everyone just sort of stares at her, thinking this is some trick. It’s not, but you can understand the suspicion. Dany sees children, women, the elderly are the ones still with her.

“I was a child yesterday. Today I am a woman. Tomorrow I will be old. To each of you I say, give me your hands and your hearts, and there will always be a place for you.”

She then tries to offer gifts to her khas. She tries to give Jhogo a silver-handled whip, Aggo the dragonbone bow and Rakharo a great arakh. All of these men refuse their gifts or take them, flummoxed by this break in tradition. It is not Dothraki tradition for her khas to stay on with her any farther than returning her to Vaes Dothrak. 

Finally, she turns to Ser Jorah Mormont, tells him that he doesn’t get a sweet-ass gift. But one day he’s going to have a Valyrian steel blade. Do you know what Valyrian steel is, Jorah? Ever felt one of those swords before? Do you miss Longclaw, Jorah? Anyways, Dany wants Jorah’s oath, and he says that it’s hers … whatever may come.

Dany plans to hold him to that oath, which, uh, yeah, we’ll see how that one plays out in ASOS. Jorah will also become the first knight of Dany’s queensguard. Dany goes back into her tent and Dany notices all the Dothraki looking at her like she’s mad. Maybe she was. She’d know soon enough.

If I look back, I am lost.

Inside the tent, Dany gets into a scalding hot bath. She likes the heat though, and the water is scented with oil. Doreah washes her hair and Dany feels the heat of the water soaking into the soreness in her thighs. She floats in the water. When clean, Dany’s handmaids fan her dry (lol, guess leadership has its perks), brush her hair and then anoint her with oil all over the place (including the nether regions).

Now dressed in the finest priestess garb available, Dany dresses Drogo for the sacrifice. He washes his body, oils his hair, running her fingers through his uncut hair for the last time. She smells his hair one last time, and it smells of grass, earth, smoke, horses and semen. Delish. 

Forgive me, sun of my life. Forgive me for all I have done and all I must do. I paid the price, my star, but it was too high, too high.

Dany braids Drogo’s hair, puts the silver rings on, puts the many bells into his hair. She gets him into his horsehair leggings, high boots and then she gets his gold and silver medallions around his waist. Finally, she puts his favorite faded leather vest over his scarred chest. With Drogo dressed, Dany gets into some loose fitting clothes and high boots as the sun goes down.

Aggo and Jhogo carry Drogo from the tent to the funeral pyre with Dany trailing them. They place the body of the giant khal onto the cushions and silks with his head facing to the northeast -- to the Mother of Mountains. Then Dany orders oil poured over top of the pyre until everything is drenched. 

Bring my eggs.

Jorah tries to stop her, suggesting that they could sell the eggs and purchase a ship back to the Free Cities, but the eggs were not Dany’s to sell. 

Dany climbs the pyre, placing the eggs around Drogo’s body. She kisses him one last time tasting the oil and notices Mirri Maz Duur as she climbs off the pyre.

“You are mad.” 

“Is it so far from madness to wisdom? Ser Jorah, take this maegi and bind her to the pyre.”

Jorah protests, but Dany reminds him that he swore to obey her. So, he and Rakharo drag Mirri to the pyre, staking her down around the treasures. Dany then pours oil over MMD’s head, because don’t fuck with the khaleesi, saying:

“I thank you, Mirri Maz Duur for the lessons you have taught me.”

Mirri says she ain’t gonna scream, but Dany says that Mirri is going to scream. Regardless, she’s not interested in MMD’s screams as much as her life. Only death can pay for life. Again, MMD gets good and fucking quiet, and Dany notices that her earlier contempt is gone. Then, they watch the setting sun and look for the first star.

George via Daenerys’ thoughts provides some worldbuilding about Dothraki funeral customs. When khals die, their horse is killed with him so that the khal can ride into the night lands. The bodies of khal and horse and burned in the night so that the khal can ride his fire horse into the stars. 

The more fiercely the man burned in life, the brighter his star will shine in the darkness.

What George is saying here is that Dothraki funeral rites are metal as fuck. #Analysis

Jhogo sees the first light in the night, but it ain’t a star. It’s our red comet burning low and red in the east. Blood-red of course, fire-red, because sure, and it’s the dragon’s tail, because why not. Dany thinks this is an incredibly strong sign. She ain’t wrong.

Dany grabs the torch and throws it onto the pyre, and the oil ignites the grass and brush. Fire blasts into the night sky as heat puffs at Dany’s face soft and sudden as a lover’s breath. Targaryens, lol. But a moment later it was too hot to handle, and Dany steps back. 

Mirri Maz Duur sings in a shrill, ululating voice as flames whirl and writhe, racing up the platform towards Drogo. The fire grows so hot that Dany thinks the air is liquefying from the heat. The flames rush over MMD, and her singing grows loud and shrill. She starts gasping, and her voice becomes a wail and full of agony. Yikes.

The fire reaches Drogo and his clothes go up in flames. Smoke curls around Drogo’s body, and Dany nearly rushes up to Drogo, wanting to beg his forgiveness and have sex with him one last time, letting the fire melt the flesh from their bones until they were as one forever. That is some stark imagery! But then Dany smells burning flesh, thinking it doesn’t smell any different than horseflesh in a fire.

And then the pyre roars like a great beast overwhelming MMD’s screams. Smoke billows and grows. The Dothraki back away. Flames unfurl banners in a hellacious wind. Logs hiss, crack, cinders rise on smoke into the air. 

The heat beat at the air with great red wings, driving the Dothraki back, driving off even Mormont, but Dany stood her ground. She was the blood of the dragon, and the fire was in her.

Dany had known the truth all along. She steps towards the flames. The brazier that she had lit way back in Dany III wasn’t hot enough.The flames high and hot, dancing lovely like the dancers did at her wedding, Dany spreads her arms to the fire.

This is a wedding, too. The godswife thought her a child, but children grow, and children learn.

Dany takes another step forward, feeling the heat in the sand itself. Sweat pours off her body. Jorah shouts at her, but none of that shit matters. Only the flames matter. Dany looks deep in the fire, seeing much and more: a yellow sorcerer, crimson firelions, great yellow serpents, unicorns, fish, foxes, monsters, wolves, bright birds, flowering trees, a horse, a great grey stallion, and Dany thinks that this is Drogo’s horse. She urges him to mount and ride in her thoughts. 

Dany’s vest smolders, and Dany shrugs it off. The leather bursts into flames as she steps towards the fire again. Milk flows from her swollen and red nipples.

Now, she thought, now, and for an instant she glimpsed Khal Drogo before her, mounted on his smoky stallion, a flaming lash in his hand. He smiled, and the whip snaked down at the pyre, hissing.

A thunderclap of a crack shatters around her as the pyre shifts and begins to collapse, burning wood slides down around Dany as she’s showered with ash and burning cinders. 

And something else came crashing down, bouncing and rolling, to land at her feet; a chunk of curved rock, pale and veined with gold, broken and smoking.

Is this … is this a cracked dragon egg? How have I never caught that before!?

Dany hears screams and shouting in wonder, and Dany reminds herself that only death can pay for life. 

Another crack, and oh my god, I think, I finally, FINALLY understand what all this cracking is about. Holy shit.It’s only take me umpteen times reading these books. We’ll get to this! Dothraki shout and scream behind her. Jorah curses and calls her name.

No, she wanted to shout to him, no, my good knight, do not fear for me. The fire is mine. I am Daenerys Stormborn, daughter of dragons, bride of dragons, mother of dragons, don’t you see? Don’t you SEE?

A belch of flames blows thirty feet into the air, the pyre falling down all around her.

Unafraid, Dany stepped forward into the firestorm, calling to her children.

The third crack was as loud and sharp as the breaking of the world.

Those cracks! Three of them! Why! How! Ughhhhhhhhh. I’m so stupid.

When the ground cools enough, Jorah Mormont finds Dany amidst the ashes and blackened logs. Dany is naked, blackened with soot, her clothes in ashes, her hair gone. But she was unhurt. But something or somethings move around Daenerys.

The cream-and-gold dragon was suckling at her left breast, the green-and-bronze at the right. Her arms cradled them close. The black-and-scarlet beast was draped across her shoulders, its long sinuous neck coiled under her chin.

Jorah falls to his knees, her khas come next, laying their arakhs at Dany’s feet. “Blood of my blood,” they whisper, say or shout at her. Then her handmaids come, then the Dothraki men, women and children. Dany knew that they were hers forever as they had never been Drogo’s.

And Emmett, you get the honors, man. Can you read the last paragraph of AGOT? You’ve earned it.

As Daenerys Targaryen rose to her feet, her black hissed, pale smoke venting from its mouth and nostrils. The other two pulled away from her breasts and added their voices to the call, translucent wings unfolding and stirring the air, and for the first time in hundreds of years, the night came alive with the music of dragons.

And that is AGOT, Daenerys X and the end of AGOT the book for the Not A Cast … pod-cast. 

I am stunned, shaken that we are here now. 72 chapters, 72 episodes (lots more if you count our Thrones Reviews, patreon episodes and our one holiday special episode). But I’m also stunned that there are still things for me to discover in this 23 year old chapter -- one that I’ve read many, many times before. 

This is such a weird chapter. It’s so freaking weird. And it’s spellbinding, amazing, brilliant. But it’s that weirdness that distinguishes it from so many other magical chapters in the fantasy genre. Magic isn’t cool unless it’s fucked up and weird, and here we are in the year of our Lord 2019, and I am still slack-jawed at this chapter and how George does it.

What did you think, Emmett?

Depth

I’m not an especially religious person. When I talked about my relationship to Judaism before, it was almost entirely in terms of culture and history. But I have spiritual yearnings like anyone else. You can find that catharsis in God, nature, family--all are viable paths to becoming a whole person who can do others good. For me, spiritual catharsis comes through most strongly in art. My favorite books and movies and museum pieces are often those that awake something in me that direct appeals to divine authority never did: awe, the true sensation of the sublime. 

There are few better examples of that than AGOT Daenerys X, and while there may have been one or two chapters I enjoyed more on this reread of book one, Dany X burns itself into you forever. Like all these late Dany chapters, it’s intimidating to analyze, in part because it’s been discussed by so many for so long, in part because of the sheer elevated quality of the writing (it’s like Beethoven or Shakespeare or early Spielberg--how do you elaborate on “perfect”). But it’s also because of the reverence it inspires. You gotta do this one right; it’s sacred ground. 

I was struck, Emmett, by you talking about your relationship to your Judaism. It ginned up something deep from my Protestant Sunday School recollections of the elaborate rituals behind the sacrifices made in the desert tabernacle and Temple of Jerusalem. You have to select a spotless lamb, it needs to be dressed a specific way, only the high priest can enter the inner sanctum. But then after the sacrifice, the deed is done and you move on.

It strikes me how vivid the imagery is in the build-up to Dany walking into the flames, calling to her children and then how sparse the writing gets immediately after. The vividness is in the magic ritual, the fact-telling isn’t dry, but it’s to the point. I guess what I’m saying is that George seems emotionally invested in the rituals that birth the dragons. And when they’re born, we are onto them as something more than magic. They’re physical beings, emerging into the world, wondrous and terrible. 

• Tone: grounded scavenger hunt v. psychedelic blood magic ritual
  • Dany X feels very similar to Dany VIII in that they both start small with environmental details before building to the sorcerous fireworks 
    • Dany IX inverts that pacing, starting with the trippy nightmare and Rhaego’s monstrous form before ending with Dany and Drogo alone
  • The chapter focuses first on just gathering ingredients--beyond Drogo and his possessions, we’ve got MMD, lots of wood and oil, and yet another poor horse
  • George goes into a lot of specifics here, grounding the ritual in our mind’s eye as he did with the sweat and bloodflies and so on in Dany VIII
  • In part that’s just solid establishing shots for a setpiece, but it’s also to firmly cement the mundane so the transition into unabashed magic is super effective
  • Dany X is all about that tipping point, and the framing of that tipping point makes Dany X very different from Dany VIII in terms of tone, albeit similar in structure
  • Dany VIII was an unmitigated nightmare, in which Dany’s relationship to her environment was thrown into chaos and her decision-making in regards to everything from blood magic to Dothraki politics was called into question
  • Dany X still features horror elements and questionable decisions, but instead of feeling like everything is falling apart, it feels like everything is coming together
  • That’s reinforced at every level--not just the successful magic ritual at the end, but the painstaking preparation for it, the khalasar reforming itself behind Dany, her internal sense of destiny, and the otherworldly perfection of the writing
  • Somehow, everything is changing yet everything feels in its right place, and that’s the perfect way to express this particular moment in Dany’s story
• Structure: what Dany is planning v. what George reveals to us
  • Because Dany is now in the driver’s seat of blood magic (unlike Dany VIII and IX, in which it’s MMD), George can now play with information in her thoughts
  • It’s very similar to how he handles “dracarys,” in which he never has Dany think directly about her plan even as she puts it into action
  • There’s the fig leaf of building Drogo a pyre; Mirri Maz Duur sees that it’s actually some kind of ritual, but is silenced quickly before anyone gets into the specifics
    • Weirdly, this reminds me of Stannis’ queen’s men gagging Rattleshirt as he cries, “I’m not the king!” as he’s dragged to the pyre.
  • As such, the reader will assume it has something to do with Drogo, not the dragons, because GRRM holds back on the eggs until just the right moment
  • Jorah assumes that she’s going to burn with Drogo, a contrast of romantic v. messianic; far from embracing death, Dany is throwing her arms open to new life
  • The chapter as a whole has an exquisite clockwork structure, each phase giving way to the next, mirroring the overall process of transformation
  • The sun moves from its zenith to the horizon and then vanishes; they construct the platform from “sunrise to sunset” and “ice to fire,” hint hint; Dany says that “I was a child yesterday. Today I am a woman. Tomorrow I will be old.” Three platforms, three bloodriders, three dragons…
    • Three burnt offerings, three handmaids, lots more threes when we get into the HoTU in ACOK. So many threes!
  • One gets the sense that the threefold revelation isn’t just a literary construct, but a metaphysical reality; Dany’s tapping into the rhythm of the universe
  • Other little hints that Dany has something major cooking behind the scenes:
    • They thought her mad, Dany realized. Perhaps she was. She would know soon enough.
    • Forgive me, sun of my life, she thought. Forgive me for all I have done and all I must do.
    • “Bring my eggs,” Dany commanded her handmaids. Something in her voice made them run.
  • Dany’s not the only character he does this with (he pulls the same trick with Tyrion vis-a-vis the wildfire at the Blackwater) but there’s a mood specific to her
  • It’s a spiritual sense of inevitability--that life itself is guiding Dany, author as god
  • If Dany VIII was the bad trip, everything spinning out of control and getting more horrifying with every breath, Dany X is (for the most part) the good trip
• Character: swept along by destiny v. seizing control of destiny
  • The tone and structure and fireworks are all ultimately in service of Dany’s arc
  • This is arguably the best arc-closer in AGOT for how well it takes the tensions and imagery of all the previous Dany chapters, ramps ‘em up, and resolves them
    • She had sensed the truth of it long ago, Dany thought as she took a step closer to the conflagration, but the brazier had not been hot enough.
  • So this has been coming for Dany the whole time, and the question is whether she’s bringing it about or being moved around on the chessboard by fate
  • There’s plenty in Dany X to suggest both perspectives, and both have utility
  • On the one hand, Dany is acting with real courage and confronting her inner doubts and fears as she does so
  • To a large degree, the Mother of Dragons is a face she wears just like King in the North is a face Robb will have to wear; just another set of floppy ears
  • She doesn’t turn away from her bloodriders’ refusal because she is genuinely that arrogant--she does so to hold her authority together in a fragile moment
  • She feels the weight of House Targaryen settle on her shoulders:
    • “Princess . . . ” he began.
      
      “Why do you call me that?” Dany challenged him. “My brother Viserys was your king, was he not?”
      
      “He was, my lady.”
      
      “Viserys is dead. I am his heir, the last blood of House Targaryen. Whatever was his is mine now.” 
  • Which is interesting because Viserys died 26 chapters ago!
  • Why is it official only now? Because Dany embracing her status as queen is only something she could do after the crucible of her last couple chapters
  • Given that the dragons are House Targaryen’s sigil and that Viserys literally referred to himself as a dragon, the dragonbirth is in part a giant overwrought metaphor for Dany’s agency and growth; they are her self-actualization
    • Children grow, and children learn.
  • On the other hand, there’s this line that looks like parallel to Viserys’ ideology (as much as he had one)
    • "I swear it," she said in the Common Tongue of the Seven Kingdoms that by rights were hers.
    • Our land," he called it. The words were like a prayer with him. If he said them enough, the gods were sure to hear. "Ours by blood right, taken from us by treachery, but ours still, ours forever. You do not steal from the dragon, oh, no. The dragon remembers."
  • That’s to say that behind the dragon magic, behind the revolutionary “free the slaves” ideology, the shadow of Viserys remains and isn’t getting nipped in the bud even as late as ADWD where Viserys appears as one of the ghosts in Dany’s vision quest on the Dothraki Sea.
  • On the other hand, there’s also a sense of Dany being moved by fate
  • She doesn’t really know the details of what she’s doing, after all
  • If her Targaryen blood is the necessary spark (more on that later), then there’s an element here that goes beyond her choices
  • That’s not to devalue her character, but acknowledge the presence of a miraculous force that she interacts with and absorbs
  • Part of becoming a godlike figure is attaining a consciousness beyond choice, as we see with Bran in Seasons 7 and 8
  • You can see that in the chapter: the rising in Dany’s chest, the fusion of her and the fire, the way she feels like she’s carrying out an inevitable pre-existing design
  • The prose itself sometimes takes on a semi-omniscient role instead of the usual third person limited POV of the series
    • When a horselord dies, his horse is slain with him, so he might ride proud into the night lands. The bodies are burned beneath the open sky, and the khal rises on his fiery steed to take his place among the stars. The more fiercely the man burned in life, the brighter his star will shine in the darkness.
  • This adds to the feeling of Dany transcending this mortal vale and seeing everything through the...wait for it...God’s Eye
• Politics: Transforming the khalasar v. rigid societal roles
  • Not everything in this chapter is about the magical side of things!
  • Dany X is also the chapter in which Dany takes charge of what’s left of the khalasar, a huge political moment for her arc
  • And she does it through magic, with the miracle of dragonbirth cementing her bold statements of transformation, equality, and freedom
    • George has a very clear idea in his mind for Dany’s identity and how they are two parts of a whole
      • Before the magic ritual begins, Daenerys completes what she started in claiming the slaves to prevent their rape back in Dany VII to actually freeing them in this chapter.
        • She’s showing herself the mhysa in parallel to becoming the Mother of Dragons
  • Hence her comparison to Aegon the Conqueror:
    • How many had Aegon started with, she wondered? It did not matter.
  • That’s not just about dragons, but using dragons to forge a new state
  • The two strands go hand in hand--Dany taking charge in her own right is a radical moment, and so she needs to accomplish something radical to pull it off
  • It starts with Jorah, before she speaks to the khalasar
  • Robb was King in the North last week, and now Dany is Queen of Westeros, considering in her thoughts that the lands of the common tongue are hers by right
  • Telling Jorah to address her as such forces him to take her more seriously
  • If that’s a successful conversion, the khas force Dany to reckon with failure
  • They explicitly refuse her on the basis of gender--they won’t serve a woman, she has a prescribed role that doesn’t involve weapons, it would publicly shame them
  • You gotta love the poise with which she accepts this and keeps going
  • Her statement to the khalasar is more radical, because it asks consent from everyone and puts them on a level playing field
  • As you say, she’s enacting the ideas she only gestured at before
  • Of course, that’s only possible because so few are left, and “feel free to go” doesn’t mean much when there’s nowhere to go (see also: the Unsullied)
  • But you can definitely see Dany reaching for acclamation and love rather than pure conquest, and earning them by performing a miracle before their eyes
• Dragonbirth: life v. death, madness v. wisdom, GRRM’s ultimate magic moment
  • Dany’s prep for the ritual mirrors her preparation for Khal Drogo

The girl brushed her hair until it shone like molten silver, while the old woman anointed her with the spiceflower perfume of the Dothraki plains, a dab on each wrist, behind her ears, on the tips of her breasts, and one last one, cool on her lips, down there between her legs. (AGOT, Dany I)

They scented her with spiceflower and cinnamon; a touch on each wrist, behind her ears, on the tips of her milk-heavy breasts. The last dab was for her sex. Irri's finger felt as light and cool as a lover's kiss as it slid softly up between her lips. (AGOT, Dany X)

• Connection: Dany’s wedding to Khal Drogo
  • Dancers, violence, sex, magic
  • This is a wedding too
• I love that line, because it’s very unexpected
• Marriage isn’t the natural reference point here--childbirth is, given that Dany and Drogo are (in a sense) coming together along with their faithful midwife Mirri Maz Duur to produce three scaly lil babies, Dany’s milk flowing as she skips closer
• So it’s both, in the way Dany is child and mother and crone--everything at once
• She’s come full circle, but in control, reshaping everything from the politics to the magic in her own image rather than being powerlessly shaped by them
• And just like her wedding came with corpses (or ‘twould be an especially dull affair), this event is a fusion of life and death
• It starts as a wake and ends as a birth; it starts with a khalasar in collapse and ends with one in new life; Dany gives with one hand and takes with the other
• There’s immense danger but also powerful beauty, which goes hand in hand with how George describes war
• “The breaking of the world” could be taken to mean the end of the old one or the start of the new one. It’s both-- “now it begins” v “now it ends.”
• I think about the Big Bang, about how the universe might’ve sprung into being, stretched, and collapsed many times over by now
• Dany cuts to the core, the heart of creation, in which all is made and unmade
• And it works, which really throws the “is it so far from madness to wisdom” question into sharp relief
• Dany emerges unburnt, having transformed dead stone into living beings 
• Is this a difference of degree or kind from Aerion Brightflame...or her father?
• I’m sure they felt this way from the inside, but were received by mutters and stares from the outside, just like Dany as this chapter starts
• She changes what is possible, and so our definitions of sane and insane should change with it
• This is George’s ultimate magical moment, in which the tangible and the intangible come together to produce something truly spectacular that reshapes both the big picture and the character’s arc
• Returning to it, you can see echoes of it in all the magic moments to come--from Melisandre birthing shadowbabies to the resurrections in the Riverlands
• And there’s something bittersweet about that--this is a standard that they all reach for, but none of them can match. This is the star you try to grasp, overreach, and fall.
• Dany, too, will always try to live up to this. This is the one moment when she’s at home with her family, and it’ll never be the same again
• And are dragons any replacement for children?

Foreshadowing/Groundwork

Daenerys X sets a pattern in which George ends each book with magical apotheosis. Dany brings back the dragons in AGOT; Bran finally opens his third eye in ACOK; Catelyn returns as Stoneheart in ASOS; the glass candles burn again in AFFC (along with all the other elements at play in Oldtown). The only exception to the rule is ADWD, which ends with Kevan’s wholly secular epilogue. Could it (should it) have ended with that Bran chapter cut to TWOW?

Could have! I think that chapter would have revealed Jojenpaste and ushered Bran towards becoming the Last Greenseer.

So many bells, gold and silver and bronze. Bells so his enemies would hear him coming and grow weak with fear.

Hoo boy, does that stand out after Season 8...

Theory/Discussion

In a 1999 webchat. Yes, youngins, the internet existed back in the 1990s, George RR Martin was asked a question:

Granny: Do Targaryens become immune to fire once they "bond" to their dragons?

George_RR_Martin: Granny, thanks for asking that. It gives me a chance to clear up a common misconception. TARGARYENS ARE NOT IMMUNE TO FIRE! The birth of Dany's dragons was unique, magical, wondrous, a miracle. She is called The Unburnt because she walked into the flames and lived. But her brother sure as hell wasn't immune to that molten gold.

So, that’s George’s characterization of the event, but this chapter and the magic that occurs towards the end of it is so f’n weird and has me wanting to know more!

As with Mirri’s ritual, GRRM keeps the magic occult and mysterious so as to maintain the intrigue, while also writing it in such a tantalizing fashion that you can’t help but ask: what really happened here? 

We can ask that, and I shall. Remember when we did Dany VIII, and I posed as annoying interloper regarding the magic we saw there, Emmett? Ready for round two!?

How do the quantifiable elements (Drogo, Mirri, the fire, the eggs, the comet) intersect with the purely miraculous? 

Could anyone other than Dany have pulled this off? 

Was this Dany’s plan from the outset and how did she come by it?

What is up with all the various things Dany sees in the flames --  a yellow sorcerer, crimson firelions, great yellow serpents, unicorns, fish, foxes, monsters, wolves, bright birds, flowering trees, a horse? 

There’s a theory out there that Mirri Maz Duur was attempting to spellsing protection against the flames and that the spell didn’t work and sort of ricocheted onto Daenerys, protecting her from the flames. Do you think this is true?

Conclusion

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