Rachael E Writes

I don't remember any specific interaction between the characters to say one way or another.

Baela wasn't kept close. Rhaenyra took King's Landing and Baela remained on Dragonstone and never left because, unlike in the show, Moondancer was not large enough to fly. Rhaena was sent the Vale and kept there. Once the city was secured, Rhaenyra sent for her sons, but not for her stepdaughters. Baela goes between Driftmark and Dragonstone, Rhaena stays in the Eyrie.

They don't see one another again.

rhaenyra and laena were great friends (and speculated to be lovers) in the books and often went riding their dragons together. she was close enough to baela and rhaena that she was willing to bethroth her sons to the dragon twins (fire & blood, heirs of the dragon - a question of succession), was kept close enough that she made sure to raise them with daemon after her friend/lover dies rather than what was portrayed in the show (fire & blood, the dying of the dragons - the blacks and the greens).

baela was the one who was not just kept to dragonstone. she also flew back and forth from driftmark to dragonstone during the war as well (fire & blood, the dying of the dragons - rhaenyra triumphant), which is more than likely because she was the one put in charge of making sure there is defense there on dragonback, while the capital was held by rhaenyra. because again, the blacks were split through the kingdoms.

rhaena was specifically chosen by rhaenyra to be sent to be entrusted with her brothers, dragons and drgaon eggs to the vale where she was a ward of lady jeyne arryn and was sent there almost as an envoy where she herself would have aided with relations between the vale and the rest of the blacks just by being there with dragon eggs and her siblings and their dragons (fire & blood, the dying of the dragons - the red dragon and the gold.)

those decisions would not happen without rhaenyra specifically putting forward her stepddaughters and supposed-to-be daughter in laws in the position of agency and authority. the fact alone that she's given them responsibilities is enough to see how much she trusts them with such roles, when at this period, rhaenyra is starts to become paranoid with betrayals and isolation.

also, baela WAS KEPT CLOSE, because dragonstone and driftmark were a fly away from dragonstone. if rhaenyra wanted her stepddaughter to be with her, she can send a missive and make it happen. the issue is that while dragonstone is easy to defend, driftmark isn't. so this was logical, to keep her between those isles. it was more logical to keep baela at dragonstone, so its easier to defend their strongholds with her young dragon.

this is proven by the fact that baela herself could have killed aegon the usurper pretty well, because with her baby dragon and inexperience in battle, she was able to incapacitate a much older, much more battle experienced dragon (even when said dragon was already pained from other battles).

another thing is that rhaenyra sending rhaena with dragon eggs, her brothers and dragons to the vale is a big deal, because not only was she entrusted with keeping the heirs of the throne safe, she was being told to safeguard the magic, history and agency of the family through rearing literal dragon eggs. and that made sense, because even in the books, rhaena has a strong connection with valyrian magic, to the point she was hatching her sister's dragon egg by herself.

the fact that jeyne arryn was rhaenyra's blood relative, but she was not close enough to her, meant that rhaenyra also needed to have someone that could be a go-between. the whole reason we don't see how it works is because fire and blood, and even princess and the queen and the rogue prince, were all history books.

its a good choice to do because the vale is one of rhaenyra's strongest allies. they have the infamous knights of the vale as the fleet that they have at gulltown could provide assistance to her. so sending someone like rhaena over is good. she integrates herself well enough with the vale that she becomes a lady of the vale through marriage, which also smooths out the relationship of the vale further with the crown.

it has always been pretty easy to see. i mean, i can dive deep in historical echoes of these in real life and in-universe wise. but this is what i have from the top of my mind.

the thing about it is that you have to pick through the information and how they are in layers. rhaenyra was and never has been the stepmother alicent was. in fact she was better, because she cared and loved the daughters laena had and trusted them deeply.

House of the Dragon, HBO’s prequel to the widely-discussed Game of Thrones, promised a return to political intrigue and emotional depth through the rise and fall of House Targaryen in the Dance of the Dragons.

At its center stood Rhaenyra Targaryen: a character positioned as a feminist figure, a mother, and a queen. But most of all, someone who we can consider to be a challenger to patriarchy within the oppressive institution of Westeros. 

However, as the first season unfolded and promotional material for the second gained traction, a troubling pattern emerged: the show is largely told through a male gaze perspective, and in doing so, it has compromised the complexity and dignity of Rhaenyra’s story. 

The whitewashing of the Greens as characters within the story, both narratively and literally, further reinforces this distortion, turning what could have been a raw, tragic tale of female power and resistance into another chapter of sanitized palace drama favoring patriarchal narratives, to reinforce the mold that we have seen in society for eons, into today.

In this little thing I’ve come up with, we are going to discuss some things I have thought about for a while and why I think they are important to be pointed out for austerity, peace of mind and of course, discourse.

To define the “male gaze” is to understand it not merely as the act of looking, but as a system of storytelling that positions women as objects rather than agents. As characters whose primary function is to reflect or provoke male emotion, desire, or violence. 

The male gaze dictates not just what is shown on screen, but how it is shown: who gets interiority, who is allowed complexity, and whose suffering matters. In the case of House of the Dragon, the male gaze insidiously shapes the portrayal of Rhaenyra Targaryen, despite the show’s premise being centered on her fight for legitimacy in a deeply misogynistic world.

While House of the Dragon appears on the surface to champion a feminist narrative, which to some degree is true, as the plot points are still hit, it doesn’t understand how to tell a story that understands the underlying crux of the story. 

Rhaenyra is named heir, challenges gender roles, and occupies the symbolic center of the Dance of the Dragons yet this framing is ultimately superficial. Everything is somehow taken away from Rhaenyra. 

The deeper narrative attention consistently drifts toward the men around her: Daemon’s volatile moods are explored with nuance and sympathy; Viserys’ failures are treated as tragic rather than negligent; 

Criston Cole’s escalating cruelty is granted emotional justification; even the trauma experienced by Alicent’s sons is shown with more visceral weight than Rhaenyra’s repeated losses.

In this light, the show gestures toward feminism but stops short of actually honoring Rhaenyra’s arc. Her storyline is rarely told from within. Instead, she is filtered through male emotion, often infantilized, occasionally eroticized especially in how her relationship with Daemon is handled. 

Rather than the political alliance and shared ambition that Fire & Blood implies, the show presents Daemon as a domineering, sometimes abusive figure whose inner turmoil is given far more attention than Rhaenyra’s own political or maternal grief, when that isn’t even the case in the books. 

Scenes such as the infamous choking incident are never followed up with serious narrative reflection; they simply pass, the way women’s pain often does in male-authored media. And perpetuate the need to use pain, especially ones inflicted by men, as a means to put forth a woman towards a path of empowerment. 

This is never the case when we first meet Rhaenyra in The Princess and the Queen nor in Fire and Blood. There, she is not a hesitant, whispering figure in the background of her own rebellion. 

We witness her go from a child who had just lost her mother, thrust into a position she never wished to be in, into a woman grown, a dragon heiress who would one day be queen with fire in her blood and steel in her resolve. 

Of course, as a protagonist, Rhaenyra is not perfect, but that’s what made her so good, so enjoyable. She is formidable. She is politically strategic, at times ruthless, and deeply aware of the cost of power in a world built to resist her.

The show dilutes that presence. Rhaenyra is reduced to a reactive figure, often defined by how she responds or fails to respond to male action. She weeps, whispers, wavers, but rarely acts with the same command of narrative space that her male counterparts are afforded. 

The storytelling undermines her claim not just to the throne, but to emotional authority in her own tale. Her grief over the deaths of her children is given fleeting moments, while Daemon’s brooding, Aegon’s volatility, and Aemond’s trauma receive extended screen time and richer cinematographic treatment. This is not a coincidence, of course. It is a re-centering of the male gaze.

The same narrative flattening is applied to Alicent Hightower, who in the source material is as politically ambitious and calculating as Rhaenyra,  if not more so, as her greed permits her to do as she wishes. 

Alicent Hightower is not merely a mother; she is a power broker who plays the court with ruthless precision, leveraging her femininity, religion, and family status to shape the realm. But in the show, she is rewritten through a softer, more palatable frame.

In the show, she is a woman coerced by her father, motivated by fear, and victimized by circumstance. Her ambition is made sympathetic by aligning it with “maternal duty” rather than self-driven power, once again sanitizing a woman’s desire to rule in a way that appeals to patriarchal comfort. 

She is not allowed to be vicious or Machiavellian without apology, to be a woman who stands on her own convictions and her own choices, to wield her influence and her ruthlessness and yet the men around her are, constantly.

This reluctance to portray Rhaenyra and Alicent as fully autonomous, politically potent women is not a minor storytelling flaw, when the story is about their identity as women in power, is a fundamental failure of perspective. 

The series chooses to reframe its female leads through lenses that diminish their agency, instead giving narrative weight to the emotional journeys of the men around them. 

This failure to grant Rhaenyra and Alicent the sharpness, ugliness, and command they wield in Fire & Blood reveals how deeply the male gaze has shaped the adaptation, not just in what is shown, but in whose pain matters, and whose story is truly being told.

One of the most jarring narrative distortions in House of the Dragon lies in its treatment of Daemon Targaryen who is a character who, in the source material, is complex, morally gray, and deeply loyal to Rhaenyra’s cause. 

He is a rogue, yes. He is a warrior and a prince who walks the edge of insanity and control, but he is also a devoted partner to her in every way he could be and is her most precious champion of her claim, besides her three eldest sons and the Velaryons.

Their relationship in Fire & Blood is not clean or easy, but it is forged in ambition, shared grief, and political understanding. Yet, the show recasts Daemon Targaryen not as a partner, but as a volatile man whose emotional swings often destabilize the narrative  and Rhaenyra’s autonomy in their relationship.

The infamous scene in which Daemon chokes Rhaenyra, an outlandish, outrageous invention of the show, epitomizes this shift from textured political alliance to patriarchal spectacle. It does not deepen our understanding of their bond, but also replaces political intrigue with male rage. 

It prioritizes the shock value of gendered violence over the slow burn of strategic partnership. Worse, the moment passes without consequence. Rhaenyra is not allowed to respond, not meaningfully.

Her silence, likely intended to convey strength or shock, is left uncontextualized, flattening her into a passive figure in her own story. This is not a woman in command; this is a woman narratively benched by the men around her.

This sidelining becomes even more egregious when we consider how other key characters, particularly her children are treated. Jacaerys Velaryon (Jace), her eldest son and heir, is perhaps the most underwritten and underappreciated casualty of the adaptation. 

His story is one of the most disappointing arcs in the show as they reductively shaped it around insecurity, resentment, and a judgmental preoccupation with his mother’s sexuality. 

Unlike his book counterpart in Fire & Blood, who demonstrates early political acumen, a strong sense of duty, and even proposes the pragmatic idea to call upon the dragonseeds in the war effort.

The show reduces Jace to a brooding, petulant figure whose primary emotional beats are rooted in angst over his bastardy and open discomfort with Rhaenyra’s romantic and sexual autonomy. 

Rather than portraying a young man shaped by the political machinations of court and the burdens of leadership, the adaptation leans heavily into a shallow depiction of maternal slut-shaming and identity anxiety. 

This simplification not only undermines his potential as a compelling political actor in the Dance of the Dragons, but also distorts the more progressive, strategic character originally outlined by GRRM, flattening Jace into yet another frustrated boy lashing out at his mother, rather than an heir trying to unify a fractured realm.

In the books, Jace is the golden son: brave, intelligent, politically adept, and loyal. He is raised with the weight of leadership on his shoulders, groomed not just to inherit a throne but to reshape the realm in his mother’s image. And more than ever, Jace knows that he must step up, in order to raise the claim of his mother in her darkest hours, in her time of need.

During the short time of his life, Jace attempts diplomatic missions, shows compassion, exercises caution, and displays the political instinct his family needs.

He is the kind of character whose goodness makes his later death a profound tragedy for the Blacks. That is why he was  the kind of prince that Westeros can only mourn for, the king that could have been greater than any one that could have come before him.

And yet, House of the Dragon has chosen to leave Jacaerys Velaryon almost entirely underdeveloped. His motivations, ideals, and inner life are barely explored, despite his role as heir to Rhaenyra and a key political figure in the coming war. 

His intelligence, compassion, and diplomatic skill, all central to his character in Fire & Blood are scarcely given narrative room to breathe. In contrast, we’re already seeing those same qualities being quietly reassigned to characters on the Green side, particularly Alicent’s sons, Aemond and Daeron Targaryen.

Jace’s defining achievement in the source material, his diplomatic mission across Westeros to secure support for his mother’s claim, is one of the few moments of true political success in the early war. 

He is strategic, persuasive, and deeply aware of the realm’s fragile loyalties. Yet the show has given Aemond far more screen time, stylized presence, and emotional layering, allowing him to dominate the narrative space. 

Aemond, who in the book is characterized by cruelty and warmongering, is repackaged onscreen as a calculating, tortured antihero. His smirks and stares are filmed like tragic poetry, while Jace, whose choices actually shape the course of the war is left in the background. 

The political weight and emotional significance that should belong to Jace’s arc are instead redirected toward framing Aemond as a compelling rival, rather than a dangerous provocateur.

Meanwhile, Daeron, who has yet to appear onscreen, has been cast as a soft-featured, unassuming young boy, which is a creative choice that points toward a sanitized portrayal. One which does not make any sense whatsoever.

In the source material, Daeron is a dragonrider responsible for one of the most horrifying acts of the war: the burning of countless civilians in the Riverlands and the Reach. And yet everything about the show’s setup suggests a rebranding from war criminal to misunderstood golden boy. 

Jace’s honor, his capacity to unite lords, his promise as a future king, these are being quietly lifted from the Blacks and repurposed to create a more emotionally balanced (or morally confused) version of the Greens. 

The effect is not just revisionist, but it actively undermines the narrative of a woman and her son fighting to preserve legitimacy in a world that is built to deny it to them, a world which claims that they cannot rule because they are “tarnished” by womanhood and their appearance.

This reallocation of virtue is no coincidence. Jace’s integrity, empathy, and diplomacy traits that should make him central to the Black cause and deeply beloved by the audience are being withheld from him and redistributed to Green characters in order to balance audience sympathy. 

Aemond receives more screen time, character nuance, and emotional grounding; Aegon is given trauma to justify his depravity; and Daeron, it seems, will be handed the nobility that rightfully belongs to Rhaenyra’s heir.

This erasure is not limited to individuals, it is structural. Rhaenyra’s camp, the Blacks, are portrayed as increasingly unstable, volatile, or sidelined. Which misses the entire point of the story that has been expressed as a story against patriarchy’s greed and violence.

Yet this is what we have. Daemon is violent and unpredictable. Rhaenyra is passive and grieving. Jace is barely present. The rest of the Blacks are considered NPCs who can just be rewritten out whenever the writers want to. 

Meanwhile, the Greens are made legible and sympathetic: Alicent is a victim, her sons are misunderstood, and her cause is painted as a tragic miscommunication rather than a coup. 

The writers have actively softened their crimes, rewritten their motivations, and blurred the lines of accountability all while depriving the Blacks of their emotional and political center.

In doing so, the show has not only distorted the source material, but gutted the emotional heart of the Dance of the Dragons. It has taken a story about female resistance, familial loyalty, and political tragedy, and filtered it once again through the familiar lens of male dysfunction and patriarchal storytelling. 

Daemon is no longer Rhaenyra’s sword, he is her burden. Jace is no longer her light, he is fading into narrative irrelevance. And Rhaenyra herself is no longer a dragon queen with fire in her voice.

Instead, she is rendered voiceless, watching the men around her shape her fate and steal her story. And the Blacks and her movement against the patriarchy is no longer about her rights, it's about the Greens continuing the male gaze and institutions of patriarchy.

In parallel to the diminishing of Rhaenyra Targaryen’s complexity is the glaring whitewashing of the Greens, both visually and thematically.

From casting to characterization, the series makes a series of aesthetic and narrative choices that reframe the Greens not as antagonists or political usurpers, but as fragile, sympathetic victims of circumstance.  This is a shift that subtly reinforces white Eurocentric, patriarchal values under the guise of moral nuance.

Visually, the show casts Alicent Hightower and her children as far more pale-skinned, delicate-featured, and conventionally attractive by Western standards. This immediately aligns them with traditional cinematic codes of innocence and legitimacy. 

They are framed in soft lighting, draped in modest greens and golds, often filmed in moments of prayer or quiet vulnerability. These aesthetic choices prime the audience to feel for them, to perceive them as human first and political actors second.

This becomes even more problematic when contrasted with Rhaenyra’s children by Laenor Velaryon, who are not only different in looks and in heritage, but are also repeatedly subjected to suspicion and ridicule for their appearance. 

Even as they themselves are white, they are subjected to suspicion, because they do not meet the standards, which Alicent’s children do have. Even at the likely notion that they could have been bi-racial and claimed more features from their mother, they are viewed as someone else, rather than the princes they are.

Despite even Fire & Blood suggesting the possibility that Laenor may still be their father or at the very least, that Westerosi gossip may not be the truth , the show plays into the optics: the boys are visibly coded as “other” and that being used against them, children, marked as evidence of illegitimacy.  One which Alicent and co., use to their advantage greatly.

The camera lingers on their faces in scenes of tension. Their paternity is a punchline, a political liability, a weapon used against Rhaenyra again and again. The implicit message is unsettling and familiar: specific features are equated with truth and purity and any sense of them being the other is viewed with deception, scandal, and instability.

The implications deepen when we factor in how the show treats Daemon’s daughters, Baela and Rhaena Targaryen. In the books, Daemon is deeply affectionate toward them. He is proud of their potential and mindful of their status. 

Baela, in particular, plays a central role in the war, a dragonrider and political force in her own right. Yet the show sidelines them almost entirely, relegating them to the background, barely granting them dialogue, agency, or emotional depth. 

Their Targaryen lineage is not centered. If anything, the show uses their Velaryon identity and weaponizes it against the Velaryon boys by the fandom and in effect against them, to cancel out their Targaryen identity. 

Most critically, their Blackness, as young women of color descended from two powerful houses is visually present but narratively erased. That erasure is not incidental, of course. 

If anything, it reflects a broader discomfort within the show’s framework when it comes to fully centering Black or brown characters as agents of political power and personal complexity.

Moreover, the show softens the political sharpness of Alicent Hightower, reimagining her not as the shrewd, calculating figure of Fire & Blood, but as a passive, pious woman coerced into power plays she never truly wanted. 

The onscreen Alicent is forced to be a victim first to her father, then later a wife first and then a mother first, a queen second which is defined more by her Catholic-coded modesty and maternal anxiety than by ambition or strategic intelligence. 

Her feud with Rhaenyra is framed less as a struggle for power and more as a tragic misunderstanding rooted in hurt feelings and miscommunication, in desire to be more than what Rhaenyra is. 

This portrayal culminates in the infamous “misheard” deathbed whisper which is a transparent invention of the show in which Viserys allegedly names “Aegon” without clarity, thereby allowing Alicent to believe he was reversing his line of succession.

This moment is not just historically inaccurate within the world of Fire & Blood; it is politically dishonest. It transforms a deliberate act of usurpation. This is a coordinated, months-long conspiracy to crown Aegon over Rhaenyra into an emotionally ambiguous accident. 

It allows Alicent to become a woman caught in grief, clinging to what she believes is a final wish, rather than a political architect of treason. In doing so, the show absolves her of true culpability and redirects narrative tension toward emotional confusion, not ideological conflict. 

What was once a power grab becomes a soft, tragic fumble that is caused by someone’s bad decisions, calculations, a fib, a misunderstanding. The Greens, once usurpers, become mourners. Rhaenyra, once betrayed, becomes melodramatic.

This kind of narrative restructuring matters. It reshapes the viewer’s sense of justice and accountability. It tells us that Rhaenyra’s outrage is excessive, that her losses are personal but not political, and that the true story is not about a woman wronged, but a world misunderstood. 

It flattens the raw, fiery heart of the Dance of the Dragons into a drama about feelings, not systems. And crucially, it does so by centering white pain, white beauty, and white innocence while sidelining the underlying issue of imposing the othering of many identities including that of Black and brown characters and punishing them for simply existing in defiance of it.

What’s most disheartening is that House of the Dragon had, at its foundation, the raw material for a genuinely feminist tragedy. Not one defined by hollow girlboss aesthetics or sanitized empowerment arcs, but a brutal, emotionally rich story about a woman born into a system designed to destroy her. 

Rhaenyra’s arc in Fire & Blood is not about being flawless, nor is it about easy victories. It is about endurance. About the slow, devastating erosion of a woman’s power, not because she was weak, but because the world would not allow her to be strong on her own terms. Her tragedy is not that she failed, but that she was never allowed to be fully human: ambitious, flawed, grieving, angry and still worthy of the crown.

The story of Rhaenyra is one of resistance: a woman hemmed in by expectations, reduced by rumors, slandered for her sexuality, scrutinized for her body, and eventually broken by a society that demanded either perfection or silence from its women. 

Her power was conditional. Her motherhood weaponized her. Her grief, politicized. She is not a tragic heroine because of her own moral collapse, but because no matter how hard she fought, no matter how much legitimacy she held, the weight of patriarchal tradition was always heavier.

And yet, the show resists this reading. Rather than lean into the complexity of female rage, such as Rhaenyra’s seething anger at her usurpation, the fury of a mother who has lost child after child, the righteous violence of a woman tired of appeasing a world that will not bend. The series sands down those edges. 

It reduces her to silence, softness, and strategic restraint. Her pain is aestheticized, her decisions dulled. She becomes not a fire, she is not the dragon, but a symbol of how patriarchy views a woman, how they want a woman to be. 

Patriarchy views women to be what they never are. And it is insulting. Women are expected to be mournful, quiet, and narratively submissive. They force Rhaenyra’s internal fire to be suppressed in favor of palatable, male-approved grief.

Moreover, another glaring imbalance in House of the Dragon is the way maternal nuance is afforded to Alicent Hightower but withheld from Rhaenyra Targaryen. While Alicent is allowed to be both a mother and a political player, framing her actions as rooted in maternal devotion, Rhaenyra's motherhood is often sidelined, weaponized, or stripped away entirely. 

Alicent and her confidant Criston Cole are directly responsible for instilling the very insecurities in the Velaryon boys that the show later pins on Rhaenyra’s failure to coddle him or maintain a spotless reputation. 

Yet Rhaenyra is never granted the emotional space to confront this; instead, she remains strangely empathetic toward Alicent, still haunted by the memory of a broken friendship while Alicent is permitted to nurse her grudges with righteous conviction. 

If the roles were reversed, if Rhaenyra had emotionally manipulated or undermined Alicent’s children, the writing would almost certainly validate Alicent's anger as maternal instinct. 

But in contrast, Rhaenyra is expected to endure betrayal, slut-shaming, and political sabotage without letting it define her, because her own personhood is repeatedly subordinated to the emotional arcs of others. 

Alicent, who often functions as the fantasy of the ideal victim, one who is chaste, wounded, loyal, gets to be human. Rhaenyra, meanwhile, is left to carry the crown without ever being allowed to fully carry her own narrative.

Therefore, in parallel, the agents of the patriarchy, such as Alicent and her sons are recontextualized as sympathetic, misunderstood, and in many cases, victims themselves. 

Alicent is no longer a woman actively playing the game of thrones, manipulating alliances, and orchestrating a coup; she is reimagined as a pious, regretful mother just trying to protect her children. 

Her sons are not power-hungry usurpers, but traumatized boys lashed by a system they never asked for. In stripping them of their culpability and agency, the show doesn’t complicate them in any plausible way that GRRM had, if anything, it excuses them. Their decisions are softened, their violence sanitized, their betrayal turned into miscommunication.

In doing so, the show fails to deliver on its central thematic promise: to show how the patriarchy devours women in vastly different ways, how it forces some into monstrous ambition and others into saintly self-sacrifice. 

It had the opportunity to interrogate how the structures of inheritance, motherhood, marriage, and power crush the women caught within them. Instead, House of the Dragon recycles the tired dichotomy we’ve seen too many times: the good mother vs. the mad queen. 

It refuses to allow Rhaenyra to be both powerful and broken, both grieving and wrathful. It narrows her into digestible shapes, denying her the emotional contradiction that makes great female characters unforgettable.

What should have been a generational war shaped by ideology, betrayal, grief, and resistance is instead reframed as a tragic misreading. Somewhat of a petty feud between two women misunderstood by a dying king, which they magically transfer into their children. 

The larger machinery of misogyny is blurred, the political stakes reduced to familial missteps. And in reorienting the audience’s empathy toward male characters invented by the show. 

Aegon’s torment, Viserys’ suffering, Aemond’s resentment, the show sidelines the very woman whose name would one day inspire revolution in the dynasty and lead to countless women, who would inspire the birth of Daenerys Targaryen.

Rhaenyra Targaryen was never meant to be a martyr of miscommunication. Rather, she was meant to be a symbol of what it costs to challenge the patriarchal world as a woman who dares to lead. 

1. The "Kidnapping" of Lyanna Stark

Robert Rebellion’s spark was Rhaegar “abducting” Lyanna Stark, but this rests on shaky ground from the start. Westeros is full of rumors but we know for a fact that even Ned Stark before his death, was telling Robert that he never truly knew Lyanna and that even before, Lyanna was confiding in him that she did not like Robert and did not wish to be with him.

Because of this, it’s fair to assume that Lyanna would have wanted to leave rather than marry Rhaegar. She was a teenage girl who didn’t want to suffer a loveless, constricted marriage where she has no agency, other than being projected as a desirable wife to a man who would never truly see her or love her. 

Even when Ned reassures her of Robert, at the very least perhaps convincing himself that Robert will be good to his sister, Lyanna corrects her brother. Because at the end of the day, she was not marrying Robert out of her own will. No amount of goodness in Robert will reassure her that Robert was and ever will be the right choice for her, and that she will never be happy with him. 

A Game of Thrones - Eddard IX

Ned let him prattle on. After a time, he quieted and they rode in silence. The streets of King's Landing were dark and deserted. The rain had driven everyone under their roofs. It beat down on Ned's head, warm as blood and relentless as old guilts. Fat drops of water ran down his face.

"Robert will never keep to one bed," Lyanna had told him at Winterfell, on the night long ago when their father had promised her hand to the young Lord of Storm's End. "I hear he has gotten a child on some girl in the Vale." Ned had held the babe in his arms; he could scarcely deny her, nor would he lie to his sister, but he had assured her that what Robert did before their betrothal was of no matter, that he was a good man and true who would love her with all his heart. Lyanna had only smiled. "Love is sweet, dearest Ned, but it cannot change a man's nature."

From Eddard Stark’s memories of Lyanna, we find someone who has never been shy about her opinions and her perspectives. She was most honest and blunt, sharp witted in his memories of her. Lyanna Stark was a force of nature, she wanted her freedom. She wanted her say. And Ned saw her when their brothers or their father didn’t. Ned knew who his sister was. 

That’s why in various points of the first book, Ned does his best in correcting Robert about his perceptions and misconceptions of Lyanna, because they are untrue and false and does great damage to who Lyanna actually was. He wants even his closest friend, the one who is said to love Lyanna most, to know Lyanna as she was. As she truly was. 

Because to Ned, there’s no greater disservice than everyone remembering Lyanna as though she was a meek, weakened maiden who had nothing of the sharp strength that lets a wolf survive winter. When she was always capable of survival, always capable of having that bite in her that could make anyone feel fear. 

A Game of Thrones - Eddard VII

The mirth curdled on Robert's face. "The woman tried to forbid me to fight in the melee. She's sulking in the castle now, damn her. Your sister would never have shamed me like that."

"You never knew Lyanna as I did, Robert," Ned told him. "You saw her beauty, but not the iron underneath. She would have told you that you have no business in the melee."

"You too?" The king frowned. "You are a sour man, Stark. Too long in the north, all the juices have frozen inside you. Well, mine are still running." He slapped his chest to prove it.

From what has been alluded from the start, even by George himself, is that Lyanna went willingly, and even other characters corroborate this as a fact. Because they know fully well that Lyanna is someone that wants to take control of her destiny. And if this was her only choice, rather than living a life formulated for her by people who didn’t have her perspective in mind, then she will actually do it.

Regardless of the fact that if it was a forbidden story of love or one made for the sake of choice, Lyanna still chose to go with Rhaegar and leave her powerless situation, and had a child with him, a child whom she made out of her own choice to leave and make her own agency out of the situation she was in. 

And the thing is, while Robert feels very wronged about the situation and feels great hatred for the Targaryens, primarily blaming Rhaegar only, this puts a lot of agency away from Lyanna herself. This entitlement by Robert expresses such a concept of ownership, which he is not privy to. 

And one which Ned finds himself turning down, such as when Robert insists that Lyanna should be buried somewhere else, because he said so. But Ned himself knows that it would not be what Lyanna wanted. She was her own person, a Stark of Winterfell. Her place was at Winterfell.

A Game of Thrones - Eddard I

"She was more beautiful than that," the king said after a silence. His eyes lingered on Lyanna's face, as if he could will her back to life. Finally he rose, made awkward by his weight. "Ah, damn it, Ned, did you have to bury her in a place like this?" His voice was hoarse with remembered grief. "She deserved more than darkness …"

"She was a Stark of Winterfell," Ned said quietly. "This is her place."

A lot of fans and readers of the books don’t like or desire to give Lyanna any agency in the situation of her running away and that in itself is misogynistic and forgetful of the fact that the narrative has always implied that Lyanna is a strong headed young woman, who likes to make choices for herself and her life. 

If Ned himself is telling us that Lyanna Stark is a force of nature who does her things her way and that all that Robert Baratheon considers about Lyanna to be misconceptions, why are we denying Lyanna her agency to be someone who is capable of making decisions about her life.

Even regarding Rhaegar Targaryen, we find that Ned who has lost his sister and lost a lot because of the situation that had occurred in the course of that time, still thinks that Rhaegar is more honorable than Robert Baratheon.

In all the perspectives of Ned Stark about Rhaegar, he thinks about Rhaegar from three perspectives — from Robert’s anger, from the war and from what he remembered Rhaegar being. One of them being him pointing out that Rhaegar would not have been dishonorable to be someone who takes in vices that Robert does.

A Game of Thrones - Eddard IX

Littlefinger shook the rain from his hair and laughed. "Now I see. Lord Arryn learned that His Grace had filled the bellies of some whores and fishwives, and for that he had to be silenced. Small wonder. Allow a man like that to live, and next he's like to blurt out that the sun rises in the east."

There was no answer Ned Stark could give to that but a frown. For the first time in years, he found himself remembering Rhaegar Targaryen. He wondered if Rhaegar had frequented brothels; somehow he thought not.

When various characters think of Rhaegar, they remember him fondly. Very few hated him outright the way Robert did, projecting his hatred onto all Targaryens. To many, Rhaegar was likable enough, and if not likable, then agreeable, and if not that, then at least human. He was no saint, and his flaws are clear. But he was not the monster Robert Baratheon painted him to be.

Rhaegar Targaryen had done wrongs, and even his supporters would admit that. His choice to follow his heart over his duty had devastating consequences. Yet George himself has been clear that Rhaegar and Lyanna’s relationship was consensual. 

He has repeatedly reinforced this through many ways. Commissioning artwork, writing supplementary material about them, and depicting them as two people who knowingly defied the expectations of their world. 

Even Rhaegar’s marriage to Elia is written and described with nuance by George, both in-universe and within other mediums such as his blog. George describes  a relationship that was not loveless, but complicated, burdened by frailty, expectation, and growing sense of destiny.

Through Viserys’s perspective, George even hints that Rhaegar could have been unhappy in his marriage with Elia. In Viserys’s mind, he thinks that otherwise, why risk everything? Why jeopardize his position, his safety, and his family’s security? 

All of these thoughts and considerations do not truly excuse his choices or his actions, but it situates them in the reality that Rhaegar Targaryen was a man struggling between love, prophecy, and duty, and he chose wrongly, but consciously. Almost as human as anybody else.

Yet his actions were not without care for his family. In 281 AC, according to The World of Ice and Fire, Rhaegar relocated Elia and their children to Dragonstone for safety before leaving on his own course. This decision shows that he was not indifferent. That he understood the dangers circling them and tried, at least in part, to shield them from his actions.

The tragedy is that his father, Aerys, undermined this and all his other efforts. Aerys, furious at Dorne’s refusal to commit troops, kept Elia and her children in King’s Landing as virtual hostages as the war progressed, bait to force Doran Martell’s hand. 

The blame for their peril lies squarely with Aerys Targaryen’s cruelty and paranoia as much as it does to Tywin Lannister’s desire to capitalize on murder to the Mountain’s inhumane brutality to Amory Lorch’s lack of humanity, to Robert Baratheon’s anger and indifference. 

Rhaegar’s mistake was following his desires to be as human as everyone else, and being someone who wished to be more with destiny. This then leads to his lack of foresight, knowing the fact that his father was a mad man who saw knives and daggers and betrayals and defiance everywhere. 

In that light, Rhaegar and Lyanna’s story reads less like an abduction and more like two people breaking free of the cages built around them. They become even real, more human, more like everyone else in this story, not mere shadows full of mystery. 

They left the comforts of their bubbles to seize a world they could not otherwise reach, bound together by their own choices and their own will. But such will, especially Lyanna’s, was doomed to be rejected. 

She was surrounded by patriarchy, by men who saw her not as a person but as a tool. Her marriage was used as a means to an end, a contract where her body, her identity, her ability to have children is the currency to a patriarchal world’s prosperity. 

Her lack of agency, her silencing, became the fuel for Robert Baratheon’s narrative of something that could be far from the truth. That she was stolen, wronged, and needed saving, whether she agreed or not. And by extension, it was all the men in her life, like Robert who were robbed, wronged and needed reparations.

And that is where the rebellion loses its mask of righteousness. In the perspectives provided by canon, Robert’s fury was never about Lyanna’s safety, but his need to keep the existence of his pride and his identity as a man who had liberties to things he never should have.

He was outraged that someone else had “taken” what he believed was his. He waged a war on assumptions, on misinformation, on a wound to his ego and in dragging the world into bloodshed, he left a legacy of ashes. If a war is built on rumor, on half-truths and unchecked anger, can it ever be called justified?

2. The Deaths of Rickard and Brandon Stark

Their executions were horrific, yes, but context matters. Brandon Stark did not ride to King’s Landing to seek clarification or justice. He stormed in demanding that Rhaegar come out and “die” which amounted to openly challenging the crown prince of Westeros to a duel or a fight based on rumors he had never verified. 

To be fair, it is natural for a brother to panic when his sister vanishes, fearing she might be in danger and desperate to ensure her safety. But Brandon Stark never stopped to confirm the truth.

He took a rumor, that Rhaegar Targaryen had abducted Lyanna, as unquestionable fact, and by calling for the prince of Dragonstone’s death, he elevated unproven hearsay into treason against the royal family.

That in itself was treason: to openly threaten the heir to the Iron Throne without evidence was an attack not just on Rhaegar, but on the stability of the monarchy. Even though it was shaky, it was still an attack on what stability there was left. 

In the feudal order of Westeros, threatening the prince in the royal capital no less, where you know that the royal authority is loudest, was no small act of defiance. It was a declaration that House Stark stood above royal law and that the matter of such import, such as the safety of a noble lady, is being treated with such carelessness and the need to benefit the male ego, the order in which patriarchy is set.

Lord Rickard Stark followed, but instead of calming the situation, he escalated it by demanding “justice” for the actions Brandon took, essentially treating his son’s threats against the crown and the crown prince as legitimate grievances which were justified. When they haven’t even verified whether or not Lyanna was actually with Rhaegar and whether or not, the rumours were true.

From Aerys II Targaryen’s perspective, which was already consumed by paranoia and betrayal, this still looked like outright rebellion brewing. In a position of kingship and rulership in general, in such a time as that of feudal times, it was pertinent that the king commands justice for acts of treason such as these.

We have examples such as Elizabeth I of England who after years of her cousin Mary, Queen of Scots plotting against her within the confines of imprisonment, decided to execute her for such conspiracies.

Elizabeth managed to put aside their personal, for the sake of correcting the wrong and continuing peace within the realm, by ensuring that there will be no rebellion or more conspiracy which could destabilize Elizabeth’s ability to rule. 

A punishment for a situation wherein threats were exposed in the open, in front of the king and the court, is required, which is most of the time, death.

Of course, a fair and just trial most of the time is provided. That is not always the case and with Aerys, it did not happen. But most of the time it did and it was provided as part of the process.

Had there been any semblance of normalcy in the thinking of Aerys, he should have been wise and provided that fair trial and then sent them off to the Wall or ended up providing a clean bill of execution, without inhumanity. 

Now, Aerys’s reaction was monstrously cruel and tyrannical, no doubt. That is a fact. He was horrible about it.  Burning Rickard alive and strangling Brandon in a trap were insanely inhumane punishments that went beyond any legal justification and we have the right to hate him for it. 

But the Starks had, knowingly or not, walked straight into the deep end of the dragon's lair, shouting treason and accusations against the royal family, without a shred of proof for their unsubstantiated accusations.  

If they had felt strongly about this, about the wrong Rhaegar had done, they should not be demanding him to die. They should be demanding that he answer the crimes he had supposedly committed against them and subsequently demand that Lyanna be returned. 

In their insistence to the treason being righteous, Brandon and Rickard have acted as though they were above the law, or they expected the common courtesy of a sane king in Aerys, knowing who he was openly, for many years prior to this. 

Either way is impossible though, as they had committed treason. Whether or not Aerys could have been sane, it would have led to the same conclusion. The reason is often punishable by death, more than it is punishable by exile in medieval times. Even for noblefolk. This is unavoidable, and often we see it in the story. 

In fact, we begin the books through Ned punishing a man who ran for his safety back to the south, by beheading him, for abandoning his duty and hence committing treason, for he turned his back on his vows as a member of the Night’s Watch and forcing Bran to watch it and learn lessons from it.

The key issues in this matter is this: one family’s rashness to believe rumours, leading to treason and Aerys’s madness echoing through inhumane punishment plunged the realm into a situation which it cannot come back from.

Westeros had mechanisms for dealing with royal misrule for a long long time, ones which had worked over and over again. A Great Council could have been called to depose Aerys for years. They had no qualms about his madness so long as it didn’t affect them. 

Rhaegar, who had the respect of many lords for so long, could have been urged by these lords to intervene to curb his father’s excesses which was something he was already planning at the time of the rebellion and perhaps even prior to this.

Instead, Robert Baratheon, Jon Arryn, and their other allies seized on the Starks’ deaths as a pretext for open war, for something that could have been prevented years and years ago had they stepped in. No one had the desire to change things, until it got personal.

Even if it were true that Lyanna Stark had been kidnapped and assaulted, the proper thing to do was demand a trial, and plead with the king to hear the case and the concern, not go on impulse and scream about how the crown prince should die.

The thought of a trial exists in this context, because there is a claim, which needs substantiation by proof, and not just hearsay. The Starks are claiming the truth of a massive accusation against the crown prince.

Someone who is an important figure in the realm regardless of the good or bad relationship between him and the king. Without proof, that causes damage to the crown prince and by extension, the realm.

This is akin to when Ned came to court and proclaimed Joffrey illegitimate in front of everyone else, ultimately also altering the will of the king, which led to Joffrey ordering for his detainment in front of everyone.

Because he believed that he was truthful in that and that the legal process matters, when everyone knows and believes at this point in time that Joffrey is Robert’s biological son. 

As Joffrey is the legal, legitimate acknowledged son of the king, Ned denouncing that and saying that he believes otherwise is something that disrupts the peace and the process of lawful succession. This doubt, and considered legal falsehood is something he did, which led to him committing treason. 

That’s why he was arrested and executed without trial because his supposed treason was irrefutable, because at the end of the day, he defied the system of succession legally reinforced and considered truthful as it was expressed so by the previous king.

Which is why the Tyrells when allying with the crown, expressed that the claims of the other claimants are hearsay because in the eyes of legal law, Joffrey Baratheon and then later Tommen Baratheon are Robert’s children. 

This was an avoidable family tragedy that became a kingdom-wide conflagration because many  of these lords preferred the sword over diplomacy, or even accepting the truth of the rule based system which they also participate in.

All of these repeat in the books like clockwork. Because lords did not care until the comforts of their being and existence within the feudal system were rocked personally and were expressed to be unlawful, because they felt so. 

It took a mad king, or a king who felt he was wronged, being mad about something legally considered treason and an act against the crown and the security of the kingdoms and the governance thereof, for them to actually put their foot down. 

It was not his innocent people alive in the capital, which was an openly kept secret among everyone in the realm. It wasn’t the fact that he was willing to destabilize the realm with much of his actions against those who had the realm in their best interests over the years of inept governance on his part. 

As horrible and sick as the matter of unjust treatment, it was the death of high-ranking noblefolk, in particularly, men of high standing, over something that was truly treason against the royal family, over a rumour they believed as fact, that they couldn’t verify, that shook the lords of the realm into action.

The death of Brandon Stark was inhumane, but it was not unlawful. The death of Rickard Stark was inhumane, dishonorable, and unnecessary, but not unlawful in the eyes of the law, because he backed his son who had just committed treason. And that was answered lawfully, and inhumanely.

What is lawful is not always going to be good or leave a good taste in our mouths. Oft, it is something that makes us wonder about things and why that is the case. Yet that desire to think about is often removed for the sake of black and white perspectives, which lead to arguments instead of conversation and debate, regarding a very complex, grey existence of characters who are more human than anything else. 

3. Robert’s Motives Were Self-Serving

Robert Baratheon and those who were his sycophants constantly framed the war around “honor” and “love” for Lyanna, but in truth, his personal desires and ambition drove it from the start until the end. 

His so-called love for Lyanna was less about her as a person and more about what she represented to him: a prize to be won, a symbol of his masculinity, and the fantasy of a happy ending crafted entirely for his own satisfaction. 

In Robert’s mind, Lyanna Stark was not a woman with her own thoughts, fears, and desires. Instead, she was an ideal, a dream, an ornament to complete the image of Robert Baratheon the great warrior and future lord and later, even king. 

Even before they were betrothed, he never truly saw or understood her. Lyanna herself recognized this, telling Ned that Robert would never be faithful, that he would treat her as one of many, not as the one. Her words prove she knew her agency was irrelevant to him. Her life and choices were already written for her in Robert’s imagination.

When she disappeared, Robert’s fury was not born out of genuine fear for her well-being. If it were, he might have demanded proof of her situation, sought her voice in the matter, or even questioned the narrative he had been told.

Instead, his rage came from wounded pride over this matter. The idea that another man, especially someone like Rhaegar Targaryen, had dared to take what he considered his property, his ownership over someone that he didn’t own. Because you cannot own a human being without letting that be anything else but exploitation. 

Lyanna Stark was not a sister, a daughter, or a woman in her own right to Robert. Instead, she was his, and the theft of her shattered his sense of control over the perfect story he had already written for himself. That is not love; that is possession dressed up as honor.

The hypocrisy only deepened during the war itself. While raising banners and swearing vengeance in Lyanna’s name, Robert openly slept with countless women, fathered bastards, and left behind trails of broken promises along the way. 

He repeated this cycle throughout his life, proving that his war cry of “love for Lyanna” was never about her, but about feeding his own appetites in this patriarchal society. It was about his identity as a man who takes what he wants, consequences be damned.

In this matter, Lyanna was the excuse that gave Robert’s actions the veneer of honor to everyone in their society. In truth, she was the justification he wielded to indulge in war, in violence, and in conquest, while continuing to gratify himself without restraint.

It was obvious, then, even from the start that it was never about Lyanna. It was about Robert’s ego, his wounded pride, and his desire for a world that bent to his wants and his needs and his desires alone. 

His “love” for her was nothing more than a story he told himself over and over again. It was a convenient mask, a justifiable comfort to hide his lust and for war and power, subsequently so, his discomfort about being held accountable for such mistakes and horrors. 

And once Aerys was gone and the war had wrapped up and ‘justice’ was already had, Robert had a choice. If the war were truly about justice and changing the system and providing betterment for the realm, he could have supported the rightful Targaryen heirs, Rhaegar’s children, who were innocent of their father’s actions and legitimate successors to the throne. 

He would have allowed Elia Martell to be regent, for Rhaella and her children to be at peace and to be able to fix what was broken in the realm. Hell, he could have participated in that and ensured the influence of the lords on the crown be pushed.

He could go on and to try and wipe away the influence of the Iron Throne on the realm. Which could have been a situation such as that of John Lackland and the Magna Carta. That would be revenge enough, to take control in a way which keeps the security of the realm.

Instead, Robert Baratheon did the opposite. He legitimized and justified the murder of children and women, dismissing their deaths as collateral damage in ‘war’. This was not justice served; it was vengeance masquerading as righteousness. 

The deaths of Elia Martell and her children were not necessary for peace.Instead, they were only necessary for Robert to erase the Targaryen line and secure his own shaky claim. It never was something that was going to be good, for him or for the realm. He was going to cause harm in that. And he knew that. Still, he didn’t care.

Robert’s bloodline had only the faintest tie to the Targaryens, through his grandmother. By the standards of Westerosi succession, his claim was weak at best, but he propped it up with the bodies of innocents and the rhetoric of “justice” and conquest, based on something that was a misconception, a falsehood, a lie. 

The fact that he took the throne instead of seeking a peaceful regency, a Great Council, or the protection of legitimate heirs reveals his true motives about it all. It was not love for Lyanna, not honor, but ambition. But for the centering of his pleasures, of his desires, of his wants. Of a version of justice only which he benefits. 

His rebellion looks far less like a righteous fight against tyranny and far more like a naked power grab fueled by personal vendettas and opportunism. And in the end, that hollow essence of “justice” never satisfied even him. 

Lyanna Stark was dead, the woman he claimed to fight for had slipped forever beyond his reach, and the throne he gained brought only instability and bitterness. His reign unraveled quickly, drowning in debts, unrest, and his own personal dissatisfaction. 

The rebellion left Westeros weaker, not stronger. What was won in fire and blood was squandered in wine, feasts, and hollow victories. Robert’s debauchery, his gluttony, and his pride corroded the very foundations of the realm he had fought to rule. 

Though the surface of his reign looked prosperous, all full of jousts, tourneys, lavish banquets, and the illusion of peace. The truth was rotten beneath the gold for those who looked close enough to see its ugliness. 

The crown was drowning in debt, its coffers emptied by Robert’s indulgence. The kingdom was not united; it was fractured, with old wounds festering quietly beneath a mask of celebration. Every part of Robert’s rule was proof that the rebellion had never been about justice. 

It was about satiating his own desires at all costs. For power, for validation, for the image of a king who had taken everything he wanted. Yet no matter how much he consumed, wine, women, glory and yet, it was never enough. 

That gnawing emptiness remained, and Robert Baratheon’s endless hunger left the realm unstable, unprepared for the storms to come. His personal failures rippled outward.

The debts he piled onto the crown empowered the Lannisters, his neglect of governance left the smallfolk vulnerable, and his lack of foresight left the realm teetering on the edge of collapse the moment he died.

And so, his “victory” turned into poison. His legacy was not stability but chaos: a shattered succession, a throne stained by the blood of children, and a kingdom that bled even further during the War of the Five Kings. Robert’s rebellion planted the seeds of disaster, what he began in the name of love ended in the ruin of a realm.

Perhaps that is why, in the bitter years of civil war, some smallfolk whispered that they longed for the days of Aerys II. That is how devastating Robert’s reign was: it made people nostalgic for a tyrant. 

For all of Aerys’s cruelty, horrors and paranoia, the smallfolk remembered that they were not starving and suffering, that the realm’s coffers were full, that their lives, though precarious, were not yet shredded by endless wars and famine. 

Robert’s “golden years” were revealed for what they truly were in the end, and even now as the story continues to unfold. It was all glamour written in blood, fleeting pleasures bought at the price of Westeros’s long-term ruin.

When blizzards of despair held me captive

You came, as wings stirring in golden amber

In what kind of snowfall shall our paths cross?

By which star shall we gauge the endless night?

commission art by @errorerooooooo

An analytical framework for the birth of Dany's dragons and the forging of Lightbringer.

(Analysis by Hallowed-Harpy)

Strap in, this is going to be a LONG one...

What follows is an analysis of the sacrificial machinations at play in the miraculous births of Viserion, Rhaegal, and Drogon, culminating in the forging of Lightbringer and rebirth of Azor Ahai.

"'It was a time when darkness lay heavy on the world. To oppose it, the hero must have a hero’s blade, oh, like none that had ever been. And so for thirty days and thirty nights Azor Ahai labored sleepless in the temple, forging a blade in the sacred fires. Heat and hammer and fold, heat and hammer and fold, oh, yes, until the sword was done. Yet when he plunged it into water to temper the steel, it burst asunder…the second time it took him fifty days and fifty nights, and this sword seemed even finer than the first. Azor Ahai captured a lion, to temper the blade by plunging it through the beast’s red heart, but once more the steel shattered and split…a hundred days and a hundred nights he labored on the third blade, and as it glowed white-hot in the sacred fires, he summoned his wife. 'Nissa Nissa' he said to her, for that was her name ‘bare your breast, and know that I love you best of all that is in this world’...she did this thing, why I cannot say, and Azor Ahai thrust the smoking sword through her living heart…her cry of anguish and ecstasy left a crack across the moon, but her blood and her soul and her strength and her courage all went into the steel. Such is the tale of the forging of Lightbringer, the Red Sword of Heroes.' - Davos I, ACoK

This passage describes the hero's journey to understanding. It follows a series of trial-and-error as Azor Ahai attempts to identify the elements necessary to forge an otherworldly weapon of light and hope, capable of combating the darkness. First, he learns that sacred fire alone is inadequate. Even the combination of sacred fire and blood proves insufficient. It is not until sacred fire, blood, and willing self-sacrifice are combined that Lightbringer is successfully forged.

The dragon (Lightbringer) has three heads.

It is Nissa Nissa's willing self-sacrifice that is rewarded. She came 'bearing her breast' - willingly - in truly selfless sacrifice. It is her strength, courage, and blood that merge with the 'blade' (dragon) to forge Lightbringer.

Through her sacrifice Nissa Nissa becomes a dragon - a flaming sword across the world - and as she 'wakes the dragon,' her 'cry of anguish and ecstasy' leaves a 'crack across the moon'...

“'A trader from Qarth once told me that dragons came from the moon,' blond Doreah said... Dany turned her head, curious. 'The moon?' 'He told me the moon was an egg, Khaleesi,' the Lysene girl said. 'Once there were two moons in the sky, but one wandered too close to the sun and cracked from the heat. A thousand thousand dragons poured forth, and drank the fire of the sun. That is why dragons breathe flame. One day the other moon will kiss the sun too, and then it will crack and the dragons will return.'" - Dany III, aGoT

The mythos of the forging of Lightbringer is the same mythos as the origin of dragons, and the 'Azor Ahai' returned prophecy is the same prophecy as the 'return of the dragons' - the difference is that one version is told through the cultural lens of Asshai, while the other is told through the cultural lens of Qarth. The reason that Azor Ahai is prophesized to 'wake dragons from stone,' is because Lightbringer was always a dragon, never a literal sword.

"...A true sword of fire, now, that would be a wonder to behold. Yet at such a cost…when he thought of Nissa Nissa, it was his own Marya he pictured…the best woman in the world. He tried to picture himself driving a sword through her, and shuddered. I am not made of the stuff of heroes, he decided. If that was the price of a magic sword, it was more than he cared to pay...” - Davos I, ACoK

These themes of fire, blood, sacrifice and 'paying the price' guide the following analysis of the rituals and sacrifices leading to the birth of the dragons, forging of Lightbringer, and rebirth of Azor Ahai.

Beginning with Dany VIII, AGoT -

“'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.' "Dany went cold all over. 'Then you truly are a maegi...' 'Am I?' Mirri Maz Duur smiled. 'Only a maegi can save your rider now, Silver Lady.' 'Is there no other way?' 'No other.' Khal Drogo gave a shuddering gasp. 'Do it,' Dany blurted. She must not be afraid; she was the blood of the dragon. 'Save him.' 'There is a price,' the godswife warned her. 'You’ll have gold, horses, whatever you like.' 'It is not a matter of gold or horses. This is bloodmagic, lady. Only death may pay for life.' 'Death?' Dany wrapped her arms around herself protectively, rocked back and forth on her heels. 'My death?' She told herself she would die for him, if she must. She was the blood of the dragon, she would not be afraid… 'No,' Mirri Maz Duur promised. 'Not your death, Khaleesi.' Dany trembled with relief. 'Do it.' The maegi nodded solemnly. 'As you speak, so it shall be done. Call your servants.' Khal Drogo writhed feebly as Rakharo and Quaro lowered him into the bath. 'No,' he muttered, 'no. Must ride.' Once in the water, all the strength seemed to leak out of him. 'Bring his horse,' Mirri Maz Duur commanded, and so it was done."

Mirri Maz Duur is a maegi - a spell caster - words are her weapon. She chooses what she says (or doesn't say) with great intention and care. It is up to Daenerys (and the reader) to hear what Mirri is (or isn't) saying. Mirri relies heavily on omission, and does not volunteer many details, instead putting the onus on Daenerys to ask the right questions, while also relying on Dany's naivety, trust, and panic to cloud her understanding of the gravity of the 'cost.'

Mirri begins by offering Daenerys a warning and anecdote, explicitly stating this is dark magic that she learned at great personal cost. Despite being vague, the implication is that the cost was something significant. Yet Dany tells her, 'You can have gold, horses, whatever you like,' to which Mirri states that this is 'not a matter of horses - only death may pay for life.'

Daenerys asks for clarification here, and while Mirri cedes that the price is not Dany's own life, she intentionally omits further explanation of the sacrifice that is required - and Dany does not inquire any further. At this juncture of their agreement, Mirri has not so much as mentioned Drogo's horse, so Dany has no reason to yet believe the price to be paid is the life of the stallion. Instead, she agrees to make a seemingly unidentified sacrifice.

However, that she is described as wrapping her arms around herself protectively, is a subtle tell that she may, at least subconsciously, suspect the sacrifice to be Rhaego.

"She stood to answer. 'He shall be called Rhaego,' she said, using the words that Jhiqui had taught her. Her hands touched the swell beneath her breasts protectively as a roar went up from the Dothraki. 'Rhaego,' they screamed. 'Rhaego, Rhaego, Rhaego!' - Dany V, AGoT

"'I want what I came for...he can keep his bloody foal. I'll cut the bastard out and leave it for him.' The sword point pushed through her silks and pricked at her navel. Viserys was weeping she saw... Viserys began to scream the high wordless scream of the coward facing death...'Turn away, my princess, I beg you.' 'No.' She folded her arms across the swell of her belly. protectively." - Dany V, AGoT

"'My brother?' Her sob was half a laugh. 'He does not know yet, does he? The Usurper owes Drogo a lordship.' This time her laugh was half a sob. She hugged herself protectively. 'And me, you said only me?' 'You and the child,' Ser Jorah said, grim. 'No. He cannot have my son.'" - Dany VI, AGoT

This subconscious awareness is then explicitly discussed between Dany and Mirri after Daenerys wakes from her labor:

"'You warned me that only death could pay for life. I thought you meant the horse.' 'No,' Mirri Maz Duur said. 'That was a lie you told yourself. You knew the price.' Had she? Had she? If I look back I am lost." - Dany VIII, AGoT

"If I look back I am lost," is ultimately Daenerys' admission, as well as her acceptance that she cannot undo what is done -- she can only move forward in survival.

"Khal Drogo writhed feebly as Rakharo and Quaro lowered him into the bath. 'No,' he muttered, 'no. Must ride.' Once in the water, all the strength seemed to leak out of him. 'Bring his horse,' Mirri Maz Duur commanded, and so it was done. Jhogo led the great red stallion into the tent... 'What do you mean to do?' Dany asked her. 'We need the blood,' Mirri answered. 'That is the way.'... 'This is bloodmagic,' he said. 'It is forbidden.' 'I am khaleesi, and I say it is not forbidden. In Vaes Dothrak, Khal Drogo slew a stallion and I ate his heart, to give our son strength and courage. This is the same. The same.'" "'Strength of the mount go into the rider,' Mirri sang as horse blood swirled into the waters of Drogo's bath. 'Strength of the beast, go into the man.'" - Dany VIII, AGoT

It is not until Drogo's 'strength' leaks out of him that Mirri calls for the blood of his horse. The blood, not the life. This language is intentionally misleading - while the blood bath is preparation for the sacrifice, it is not the sacrifice itself.

Later in Dany X, Mirri reiterates:

“'It is not enough to kill a horse,' she told Dany. 'By itself, the blood is nothing.'

Dany likens this blood exchange to eating the stallion's heart to give Rhaego 'strength,' after which Mirri explicitly directs the stallion's 'strength' into Drogo. The purpose of blood bathing in-world is explained through an anecdote from Samwell in Jon IV, AGoT:

'"...two men came to the castle, warlocks from Qarth with white skin and blue lips. They slaughtered a bull aurochs and made me bathe in the hot blood, but it didn't make me brave like they promised...'"

Ultimately, the blood bath is for show. Mirri is leaning into this misdirect in order to lull Daenerys into a false sense of security: that the sacrifice is a horse rather than her unborn child.

It is a flimsy sense of security, especially when Dany herself reflects:

"Only a horse, Dany thought. If she could buy Drogo's life with the death of a horse, she would pay a thousand times over." - Dany VIII, AGoT

This reflection should trigger alarm bells for Dany - how meaningful can a sacrifice be if it is one you would willingly 'pay a thousand times over'? It also contradicts Mirri's earlier revelation of having 'paid dearly' for the lesson. Still, Dany clings to the misdirect as a means of survival. If I look back I am lost.

"She sent her handmaids away. 'Go with them, Silver Lady,' Mirri Maz Duur told her. 'I will stay,' Dany said. 'The man took me under the stars and gave life to the child inside me. I will not leave him.' - Dany VIII, AGoT

(Note the sting of hindsight tragedy in Dany saying that Drogo gave life to the child inside her - only for her to surrender that life back to him.)

"'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 upon them.' Dany bowed her head, helpless. 'No one will enter.' She bent over the tub, over Drogo in his bath of blood, and kissed him lightly on the brow. 'Bring him back to me,' she whispered to Mirri Maz Duur before she fled." - Dany VIII, AGoT

Mirri explicitly establishes that the ritual starts when she begins to sing. Her song is her invocation. Her invitation to death to administer the sacrifice.

"Mirri Maz Duur's voice rose to a high ululating wail that sent a shiver down Dany's back. Some of the Dothraki began to mutter and back away. The tent aglow with the light of braziers within. Through the blood-spattered sandsilk, she glimpsed shadows moving. Mirri Maz Duur was dancing, and not alone." - Dany VIII, AGoT

As Mirri begins to sing, kicking off the ritualistic sacrifice of Rhaego within Daenerys' womb, Dany experiences an immediate and palpable physical response - a response that grows in intensity as Mirri's song builds:

"Inside Dany's womb, her son kicked wildly...Dany felt a sharp pain in her belly, a wetness on her thighs...The Dothraki were shouting, Mirri Maz Duur wailing inside the tent like nothing human...Dany cried out for help, but no one heard...'no, please, stop it, it's too high, the price is too high.'...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, shadows whirled...She convulsed in his arms as the pain took her again...another pain grasped her, and Dany bit back a scream. It felt as if her son had a knife in each hand, as if he were hacking at her to cut his way out...when she opened her mouth a great wail of pain escaped, and the sweat broke over her skin. What was wrong with them? Couldn't they see? Inside the tent the shapes were dancing, circling the brazier and the bloody bath, dark against the sandsilk, and some did not look human. She glimpsed the shadow of a great wolf, and another like a man wreathed in flames...the sound of Mirri Maz Duur's voice grew louder, until it filled the world. The shapes! she screamed. The dancers!" - Dany VIII, AGoT

While the fandom largely accepts this passage as Dany experiencing a trauma-induced early labor, I do not.

Dany's pain builds and evolves alongside Mirri's song. 'The sound of Mirri Maz Duur's voice was like a funeral dirge...another pain grasped her...as if her son had a knife in each hand, as if he were hacking at her to cut his way out.' Mirri's song is a funeral dirge - calling out for Rhaego's death - and Rhaego violently responds. This is more than labor - this is death reaching inside Dany's womb to take the life within her. It is also the reason why Daenerys is able to see death's shadows - she is, in this particular moment, one with death.

The passage culminates with Mirri's song filling the world - as Rhaego succumbs to sacrifice.

"'You knew,' Dany said when they were gone. She ached, inside and out, but her fury gave her strength. 'You knew what I was buying, and you knew the price, and yet you let me pay it.' 'It was wrong of them to burn my temple,' the heavy, flat-nosed woman said placidly. 'That angered the Great Shepherd.' 'This is no god's work,' Dany said coldly. If I look back I am lost. 'You cheated me. You murdered my child within me.' 'The stallion who mounts the world will burn no cities now. His khalasar shall trample no nations into dust.'" - Dany IX, AGoT

When confronted, Mirri reveals her intent: to prevent the fulfilment of the Stallion Who Mounts the World prophecy. She sacrificed Rhaego knowing that the sacrifice would be insufficient to fully restore Drogo, eliminating the possibility of Rhaego being the stallion, as well as the potential for Drogo to father another child of prophecy. I will take this a step further by postulating that Mirri also intentionally sterilized Dany to prevent her from ever carrying another potential 'stallion.' In sterilizing Daenerys during a blood-sacrifice ritual, Mirri made an unintentional sacrifice of Dany's fertility to Viserion. (More on this later).

Of course, the great irony in all of Mirri's prophecy-prevention scheming is that her actions serve as the catalyst for Daenerys herself becoming the prophesized Stallion (aka Azor Ahai, aka The Promised Prince).

It is the loss of Rhaego and Mirri's lesson - 'only death may pay for life' - in conjunction with her earlier dragon dreams, which ultimately allow Daenerys to decipher the elements needed to birth her dragons and forge Lightbringer.

"A word and Dany could have her head off...yet then what would she have? A head? If life was worthless, what was death?" - Dany IX, AGoT

With this lesson in mind, Dany resolves to prepare her first sacrifice - Drogo.

"They led Khal Drogo back to her tent, and Dany commanded them to fill a tub, and this time there was no blood in the water. She bathed him herself... ...The memory of her first ride was with her when she led him out into the darkness, for the Dothraki believed that all things of importance in a man's life must be done beneath the open sky. She told herself that there were powers stronger than hatred, and spells older and truer than any the maegi had learned in Asshai. The night was black and moonless, but overhead a million stars burned bright. She took that for an omen... ...and when the bleak dawn broke over an empty horizon, Dany knew that he was truly lost to her. 'When the sun rises in the west and sets in the east,' she said sadly. 'When the seas go dry and mountains blow in the wind like leaves. When my womb quickens again, and I bear a living child. Then you will return, my sun-and-stars, and not before.' Never, the darkness cried, never never never. Inside the tent Dany found a cushion of soft silk stuffed with feathers. She clutched it to her breasts as she walked back out to Drogo, to her sun-and-stars. If I look back I am lost. It hurt to even walk, and she wanted to sleep, to sleep and not to dream. She knelt, kissed Drogo on the lips, and pressed the cushion down upon his face." - Dany IX, AGoT

This passage (and chapter) ends with the Dany, moon-of-my-life, kissing Drogo, sun-and-my-stars, thus initiating the prophesized return of the dragons - 'One day the other moon will kiss the sun too, and then it will crack and the dragons will return.'

Having begun her ritual and made her first sacrifice, Dany moves to constructing her sacred fire - Drogo's funeral pyre.

"Over the carcass of the horse, they built a platform of hewn logs...they laid the wood east to west, from sunrise to sunset. On the platform they piled Khal Drogo's treasures...another layer of brush was piled about the khal's treasures, and bundles of dried grass scattered over them... ...The third level of the platform was woven of branches no thicker than a finger, and covered with dry leaves and twigs. They laid the north to south, from ice to fire, and piled them high with soft cushions and sleeping silks." - Dany X, AGoT

While a pyre, by definition, is already sacred, this imagery of 'east to west, sunrise to sunset' and 'north to south, ice to fire' creates an invocation of sacred geometry often seen in ritualistic magic. Dany is building the first element required to birth dragons and forge Lightbringer: sacred fire.

It's also interesting that this language seemingly foreshadows a prophecy from Quaithe:

"'To go north you must journey south (north to south). To reach the west, you must go east (east to west)...'" - Dany III, ACoK

While the pyre is being built, Daenerys and Jorah have words:

"'You are my queen, my sword is yours, but do not ask me to stand aside as you climb on Drogo's pyre. I will not watch you burn.' 'Is that what you fear?' Dany kissed him lightly on his broad forehead. 'I am not such a child as that, sweet ser.' 'You do not mean to die with him? You swear it, my queen?' 'I swear it,' she said in the Common Tongue of the Seven Kingdoms that by rights were hers." - Dany X, AGoT

Here, Dany is demonstrating a clear understanding that surrendering herself to the flames will not end with her death, but instead with her rebirth.

She then thinks to herself:

"Forgive me, sun of my life, she thought. Forgive me for all I have done and must do. I paid the price, my star, but it was too high, too high..." - Dany X, AGoT

Bringing to mind the Davos passage referenced earlier:

"...A true sword of fire, now, that would be a wonder to behold. Yet at such a cost…when he thought of Nissa Nissa, it was his own Marya he pictured…the best woman in the world. He tried to picture himself driving a sword through her, and shuddered. I am not made of the stuff of heroes, he decided. If that was the price of a magic sword, it was more than he cared to pay.” - Davos I, ACoK

The next step in Dany's ritual is to place the dragon's eggs on the pyre:

"'They were not given to me to sell,' Dany told him. She climbed the pyre herself to place the eggs around her sun-and-stars. The black beside his heart, under his arm. The green beside his head, his braid coiled around it. The cream-and-gold down between his legs." - Dany X, AGoT

The placement and color of the eggs are the first indicators of the future themes and narrative roles associated with each of the dragons: Legacy, Opposition, Lightbringer.

Drogon's egg is placed next to Drogo's heart, under his arm. The heart is associated with courage and destiny, which is thematically similar to the mythos of the forging of Lightbringer, wherein Nissa Nissa is stabbed through the heart, and her courage and strength merge with the 'steel.' That the egg is tucked under Drogo's arm speaks to Drogon, as Lightbringer, being Dany's support, propping her up in the fight for the dawn.

Drogon's egg is black and red - black being associated with protection, power, and death; red being associated with action, strength, and passion. Themes which also align with the mythos and role of Lightbringer - of the heart and destiny.

Rhaegal's egg is placed next to Drogo's head, with his braid coiled around it. The head is associated with cognition, lessons, and wisdom, and it is a notably common theme for the head (Rhaegal) and the heart (Drogon) to be in opposition of one another. Drogo's braid, a symbol of his violence and prowess in battle, being coiled around Rhaegal's egg also feels significant.

Rhaegal's egg is green and bronze - green being associated with both greed and envy, as well as growth (lessons) and healing. Bronze, an alloy of copper, tin, and silver, is a metal whose components are symbolically oppositional. This is because copper is associated with fire and the sun, while tin and silver are associated with water and the moon.

Furthermore, in looking at Drogon, who is black, and Rhaegal, who is green, there is a potential callback to the factions of the Dance of the Dragons - team black and team green. This may further foreshadow opposition between Drogon (the heart) and Rhaegal (the head).

Consider this excerpt from Dany I, ASoS:

"As his sharp black teeth snapped shut around it, Rhaegal's head darted close, as if to steal the prize from his brother's jaws, but Drogon swallowed and screamed, and the smaller green dragon could only hiss in frustration... 'Stop that, Rhaegal,' Dany said in annoyance, giving his head a swat. 'You had the last one. I'll have no greedy dragons.'

Finally, Viserion's egg is placed between Drogo's legs - in his groin. The groin is associated with virility, passion, fertility, and reproduction - legacy. This symbolism is particularly poignant in the context of my earlier assertion - that Mirri intentionally sterilized Daenerys and in doing so, inadvertently made a sacrifice of Dany's fertility to none other than Viserion.

Viserion's egg is cream and gold - cream, or white, being associated with purity and innocence, and gold being associated with prestige, prosperity, abundance, and light. Purity and innocence align with the theme of fertility, while gold aligns with the theme of a New Dawn - legacy.

It is my belief that, since the days of Old Valyria, in order for a dragon to produce a fertilized clutch of eggs, they must be bonded with a Valyrian women. Meaning it is the bond itself that quickens the eggs. This fertility reliance allowed the Valyrians to monopolize dragons through reproduction. That Rhaenyra and Daenerys gave birth to dragon-human hybrid infants seemingly confirms a fertility connection between Valyrian women and dragons.

While I believe that Mirri intentionally sterilized Dany as she sacrificed Rhaego, I do not believe she had any awareness beforehand that a) Rhaego was a hybrid dragon baby, and b) there is a complex magical connection between Dany's fertility and dragons. Lacking this knowledge, and performing sterilization during a blood sacrifice, Mirri unknowingly and unintentionally made a sacrifice of Dany's fertility.

During Daenerys' fevered dragon dream she experiences:

"...a terrible burning in her womb. Her son was tall and proud, with Drogo's copper skin and her own silver-gold hair, violet eyes shaped like almonds. He smiled for her and began to lift his hand toward hers, but when he opened his mouth the fire poured out. She saw his heart burning through his chest, and in an instant he was gone, consumed like a moth by a candle, turned to ash." - Dany IX, AGoT

The terrible burning in her womb is the moment in which Mirri sacrifices Dany's fertility. The burning is immediately followed by a vision of Rhaego, breathing fire, then disappearing - Dany's only future children, her truest legacy, will be her dragons.

Mirri all but confirms Dany's sterilization when she flippantly and cruelly tells her that Drogo will return as he was when 'her womb quickens again, and she bears a living child.' Mirri knows this cannot happen because she herself ensured it.

Upon waking from the sacrifice of both Rhaego and her fertility, it is Viserion's egg that she clings to:

"When she woke a third time, a shaft of golden sunlight was pouring through the smoke hole of the tent, and her arms were wrapped around a dragon's egg. It was the pale one, its scales the color of buttercream, veined with whorls of gold and bronze, and Dany could feel the heat of it. Beneath her bedsilks, a fine sheen of perspiration covered her bare skin. Dragondew, she thought. Her fingers trailed lightly across the surface of the shell, tracing wisps of gold, and deep in the stone she felt something twist and stretch in response. It did not frighten her. All her fear was gone, burned away." - Dany IX, AGoT

It is Viserion who stretches in response to Dany's touch after the sacrifice of her fertility. And while she notes that Drogon and Rhaegal's eggs feel warm, she makes no mention of them stretching or stirring:

"Ser Jorah and Mirri Maz Duur entered a few moments later, and found Dany standing over the other dragon's eggs, the two still in their chest. It seemed to her that they felt as hot as the one she had slept with, which was passing strange." - Dany IX, AGoT

The eggs being warm is not a wholly new experience for Daenerys. She has been attuning herself to the kinetic life trapped in stone throughout her arc in AGoT, alongside her dragon dreams. She feels heat, and even sees visual auras, but she has never felt them move:

"She touched one, the largest of the three, running her hand lightly over the shell. Black and scarlet she thought, like the dragon in my dream. The stone felt strangely warm beneath her fingers." - Dany III, AGoT

"As she let the door flap close behind her, Dany saw a finger of dusty red light reach out to touch her dragon's eggs across the tent. For an instant a thousand droplets of scarlet flame swam before her eyes. She blinked, and they were gone. Stone, she told herself. They are only stone, even Illyrio said so, the dragons are all dead. She put her palm against the black egg, fingers spread gently across the curve of the shell. The stone was warm. Almost hot. 'The sun,' Dany whispered. 'The sun warmed them as they rode.'" - Dany III, AGoT

"Irri fetched the egg with the deep green shell, bronze flecks shining amid its scales as she turned it in her small hands...She liked to hold them. They were so beautiful, and sometimes just being close to them made her feel stronger, braver, as if somehow she were drawing strength from the stone dragons locked inside." - Dany IV, AGoT

Daenerys could sense kinetic life within her eggs because they had been fertilized before turning to stone - by the bond between Rhaena and Dreamfyre. Assuming that Dany's eggs are the same eggs Elissa Farman stole from Dragonstone, then they would have been fertilized by the bond between Dreamfyre and Rhaena. However, having been taken so far from Dragonstone, Dreamfyre, and Rhaena, the eggs fossilized rather than hatched, trapping the dragons inside. Had the eggs not been fertilized, there would not have been any kinetic life for Daenerys to tap into - no stone dragons to wake.

Assuming then that Viserion stirs because Dany's fertility was sacrificed alongside Rhaego, the significance of Rhaego being a dragon-human hybrid cannot be overstated. The sacrifice of Dany's fertility, and by proxy, the sacrifice of Rhaego, freeing Viserion of the fertility reliance unites the dragon-woman fertility exploitation in liberation. Meaning that from her hatching, Viserion is born free of a fertility reliance - she does not require a human bond in order to produce fertilized eggs. In this way, Viserion is a beacon of dragon-liberation...

"Viserion had shattered one chain and melted the others, she clung to the roof of the pit like some huge white bat, her claws dug deep into the burnt and crumbling bricks... ...When she flapped her wings, a cloud of grey ash filled the air. Broken chains clanked and clattered about her legs." - ADwD, Dany VIII

And again, in the Dragontamer chapter of ADwD:

"'I thought there were two?' Viserion. Yes. Where is Viserion? The prince lowered his torch to throw some light into the gloom below...Shattered links were strewn across the floor of the pit amongst the blackened bones - twists of metal, partly melted. Rhaegal was chained to the wall and the floor the last time I was here, the prince recalled, but Viserion hung from the ceiling. Quentyn stepped back, lifted the torch, craned his neck back... ...Viserion launched herself from the ceiling, pale leather wings unfolding, spreading wide. The broken chain dangling from her neck swung wildly...the dragon turned back toward the Windblown and lurched for the door..."

Liberatory imagery aside, ADwD supports the sacrifice of Dany's fertility to Viserion in two ways - while Dany is having a miscarriage in the Dothraki Sea, Viserion is back in Meereen showing signs of nesting:

"For a moment he saw only the blackened arches of the bricks above, scorched by dragonflame. A trickle of ash caught his eye, betraying movement. Something pale, half-hidden, stirring. She's made herself a cave, the prince realized. A burrow in the brick...Viserion had dug herself a hole in the walls with flame and claw, a hole big enough to sleep in. - Dragontamer, ADwD

A burrow large enough to nest in.

Meanwhile, Daenerys is in the Dothraki Sea showing signs of miscarriage:

"When she woke, gasping, her thighs were slick with blood. For a moment she did not realize what it was. The world had just begun to lighten, and the tall grass rustled softly in the wind. No, please, let me sleep more. I'm so tired. She tried to burrow back beneath the pile of grass she had torn up when she went to sleep. Some of the stalks felt wet. Had it rained again? She sat up, afraid that she had soiled herself as she slept. When she brought her fingers to her face, she could smell the blood on them. Am I dying? Then she saw the pale crescent moon, floating high above the grass and it came to her that this was no more than her moon blood. If she had not been so sick and scared, that might have come as a relief. Instead she began to shiver violently. She rubbed her fingers through the dirt, and grabbed a handful of grass to wipe between her legs. The dragon does not weep. She was bleeding, but it was only woman's blood. The moon is still a crescent, though. How can that be? She tried to remember the last time she had bled. The last full moon? The one before? The one before that? No, it cannot have been so long as that.... ...it seemed to her that the cramping had grown worse...She saw fresh blood on her thighs. The ragged hem of her undertunic was stained with it. The sight of so much blood frightened her. Moon blood, it's only my moon blood, but she did not remember ever having such a heavy flow." - Dany X, ADwD

That both Viserion and Daenerys are described in these passages as 'burrowing,' which is synonymous with nesting, feels very significant.

Even more telling is that in this same passage, there are themes of legacy and liberation:

'I am blood of the dragon,' she told the grass, aloud. Once, the grass whispered back, until you chained your dragons in the dark. ...'I will never have a little girl. I was the Mother of Dragons.' Aye, the grass said, but you turned against your children." - Dany X, ADwD

The irony here is palpable - Viserion is Dany's little 'girl' - the liberatory beacon of Daenerys' legacy.

Returning to the pyre ritual in Dany X, AGoT:

"The godswife did not cry out as they dragged her to Khal Drogo's pyre and staked her down amidst his treasures. Dany poured the oil over the woman's head herself. 'I thank you, Mirri Maz Duur,' she said, 'for the lessons you have taught me.' 'You will not hear me scream,' Mirri responded as the oil dripped from her hair and soaked her clothing. 'I will,' Dany said, 'but it is not your screams I want, only your life. I remember what you told me. Only death can pay for life.' Mirri Maz Duur opened her mouth but made no reply. As she stepped away, Dany saw that the contempt was gone from the maegi's flat black eyes; in its place was something that might have been fear. Then there was nothing to be done but watch the sun and look for the first star. - Dany X, AGoT

Here Daenerys begins her second sacrifice - that of Mirri Maz Duur. It is essential that Daenerys 'poured the oil' herself; this is her ritual, and it needs to be backed up with her intent.

Dany repeatedly associates Mirri with 'lessons,' which, as discussed earlier, is a theme associated with Rhaegal both in terms of the placement of his egg (the head), and his coloring (green).

This is also the moment that Mirri realizes that Daenerys does know what she is doing with this ritual...it is the first time Mirri doubts herself for the choices she has made. It is not that she fears death - it is that she fears she has accelerated the very prophecy she meant to halt.

"Jhogo spied it first. 'There,' he said in a hushed voice. Dany looked and saw it, low in the east. The first star was a comet, burning red. Bloodred; fire red; the dragon's tail. She could not have asked for a stronger sign. Dany took the torch from Aggo's hand and thrust it between the logs. The oil took the fire at once, the brush and dried grass a heartbeat later..." - Dany X, AGoT

Again, it is essential that Daenerys herself lit the pyre - her ritual, her intent. None of this is happenstance. Daenerys is making intentional and active choices as she performs her ritual.

"Dany's lips parted and she found herself holding her breath. Part of her wanted to go to him and Ser Jorah had feared, to rush into the flames to beg for his forgiveness and take him inside her one last time, the fire melting the flesh from their bones until they were one, forever." - Dany X, AGoT

This clearly demonstrates Dany's understanding that there is a specific moment in which she needs to walk into the pyre: after the second hatching, because she herself is the third and final sacrifice.

"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. The flames writhed before her like the women who had danced at her wedding, whirling and singing and spinning their yellow and orange and crimson veils, fearsome to behold, yet lovely, so lovely, alive with heat. Dany opened her arms to them, her skin flushed and glowing. This is a wedding, too, she thought. Mirri Maz Duur had fallen silent. The godswife thought her a child, but children grow, and children learn." - Dany X, AGoT

Like Azor Ahai, Daenerys learns, through trial and error, that sacred fire alone is not sufficient to forge Lightbringer (or hatch dragons).

Her conceptualizing the pyre as a wedding (Bride of Fire) adds to the sanctity of the pyre.

And again - Mirri, like Rhaegal, is thematically associated with growth and lessons.

"Another step and Dany could feel the heat of the sand on the soles of her feet, even through her sandals...the flames were so beautiful, the loveliest things she had ever seen...She saw a horse, a great grey stallion limned in smoke, it's flowing mane a nimbus of blue flame. Yes, my love, my sun-and-stars, yes, mount now, ride now... ...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. She heard a crack, the sound of shattering stone. The platform of wood and brush and grass began to shift and collapse in upon itself. Bits of burning wood slid down at her, and Dany was showered with ash and 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." - Dany X, AGoT

This passage explicitly connects Drogo's sacrifice to the hatching of Viserion. This establishes that the first hatching is associated with Dany's first sacrifice - meaning that there is an identifiable order and process to the outcome of this ritual.

Drogo's sacrifice was one that Daenerys made out of love and mercy, but it is not one that had consent - it was not a willing sacrifice. While sacred fire and blood sacrifice were sufficient to birth a dragon - only death can pay for life - they were insufficient to forge Lightbringer. Thus, Viserion is the first 'failed' forging of Lightbringer.

That Viserion goes on to be Dany's most affectionate child speaks to her having been born of Daenerys' mercy. Her hatching was born of love, and this is reflected in her personality.

There is immense bittersweet poetry in Viserion being brought forth through the sacrifice of Drogo(/Rhaego) and Dany's own fertility, to then become the literal Mother of Dragons - the lasting legacy of Daenerys Targaryen, the Lady of Light. Viserion will have the children that Daenerys (and Drogo) could not.

Similarly, Viserion will do what Viserys, her namesake, could not - carry on the Dragon's legacy.

"'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.'" - Dany I, ACoK

Furthermore, 'Viserys,' is the masculine 'Visenya.' Had it not been for male primogeniture, Visenya would have been ruling queen over Aegon - she was the eldest. Viserion is also the eldest of the dragons, she hatched first. Her becoming the 'queen' of a New Dawn of liberated dragons course-corrects the wrongs of male primogeniture down the Targaryen line.

"Her vest had begun to smolder, so Dany shrugged it off and let it fall to the ground. The painted leather burst into sudden flame as she skipped closer to the fire, her breasts bare to the blaze, streams of milk flowing from her red and swollen nipples." - Dany X, AGoT

Here Daenerys recreates Nissa Nissa 'bearing her breast' in willing self-sacrifice.

Then:

"The roaring filled the world, yet dimly through the firefall Dany heard women shriek and children cry out in wonder." - Dany X, AGoT

Invoking an earlier Davos excerpt:

"...A true sword of fire, now, that would be a wonder to behold." - Davos I, ACoK

The dragons are repeatedly referred to as 'wonders' throughout the series.

“'Beware…of all. They shall come day and night to see the wonder that has been born again into the world...'” - Dany II, aCoK

“In all the world there were but three living dragons, and those were hers; they were a wonder, and a terror, and beyond price.” - Dany I, aSoS

“'…sailors back from the Jade Sea report that a three-headed dragon has hatched in Qarth, and is the wonder of that city.'” - Tyrion III, aSoS

“'When your dragons were small, they were a wonder.'” - Dany III, aDwD

“'Dragons and darker things…the grey sheep have closed their eyes, but the mastiff sees the truth. Old powers waken. Shadows stir. An age of wonder and terror will soon be upon us, an age for gods and heroes.'” - Prologue, aFfC

“'Once a man has seen a dragon in flight, let him stay at home and tend his garden in content…for this wide world has no greater wonder.'” - Tyrion IV, aDwD

“'We’ll see these dragons and all the wonders of the world.'” - Davos II, aDwD

That Lightbringer is described as a 'wonder to behold' is not coincidental.

Returning to the pyre:

"Only death can pay for life. And there came a second crack, loud and sharp as thunder, and the smoke stirred and whirled around her and the pyre shifted, the logs exploding as the fire touched their secret hearts." - Dany X, AGoT

Here we get Dany reflecting on Mirri's lesson - only death can pay for life - followed immediately by the second hatching. Just as the first sacrifice correlated with the first hatching, the second sacrifice - Mirri - correlates with the second hatching - Rhaegal.

Both Mirri and Rhaegal are thematically associated with lessons, but also themes of healing or healers - green being associated with healing, where Mirri herself is a healer.

Again, while sacred fire and blood sacrifice were sufficient to bring forth a living dragon, Rhaegal's hatching lacks the element of willing self-sacrifice - making him the second failed attempt to forge Lightbringer.

Where Drogo was sacrificed of Dany's mercy, Mirri is sacrificed of Dany's vengeance. While Viserion, born of mercy, is affectionate and loving, Rhaegal, born of retribution, is more aggressive and temperamental, seemingly attuned to Dany's anger. I believe that this pretext primes Rhaegal to be oppositional toward Daenerys. Not because he 'hates' her, but because he, like Mirri, exists narratively to teach her (painful) lessons - a dragon should not be chained, tamed, or otherwise enslaved, not even to their mothers. I see him doing this by choosing his own rider, likely one with enmity toward Daenerys.

Recall that this conflict is further reinforced by egg placement - with Drogon, the heart, being at odds with Rhaegal, the head, as well as Rhaegal's bronze coloring being symbolically conflicted.

There is also a bit of foreshadowing in the text:

"I have the dragons. The dragons are all the difference. She stroked Rhaegal. The green dragon closed his teeth around the meat of her finger and nipped hard." - Dany III, ACoK

Dany thinks 'I have the dragons' and Rhaegal seems to say, 'are you sure?'

Rhaegal's priming for disconnect and opposition toward Dany is reinforced in his namesake, Rhaegar, being the only one of the three namesakes that Daenerys did not personally know. It also creates a thematic connection between Rhaegal and Young Griff, the supposed son of Rhaegar - the Mummer's Dragon. A mummer 'gives the hero something to fight' - in this case, the hero being Daenerys (and Drogon).

A connection between Rhaegal and Young Griff brings us back to the black and green color symbolism between Drogon and Rhaegal - a potential second Dance of Dragons. Drogon and Daenerys being 'the blacks,' where Rhaegal and Young Griff are 'the greens.'

Should something of this nature unfold, I could see a tragic callback to Vermithor and Silverwing between Rhaegal and Viserion, who I very much believe to be a bonded pair. According to Fire and Blood, the singers say that after Vermithor had been slain, Silverwing descended from the sky at nightfall to lay beside him. Songs tell of her attempting to lift Vermithor's wings three times with her snout, as if to make him fly again. At sunrise, Silverwing took 'listlessly' to the skies, ultimately retiring to a small island in the Red Lake. In the case of Rhaegal and Viserion, I see this being the catalyst for Viserion retreating to the Mother of Mountains (which is where I believe she will retire for nesting and reproduction by the end of the series).

"She heard the screams of frightened horses, and the voices of the Dothraki raised in shouts of fear and terror, and Ser Jorah calling her name and cursing. 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? With a belch of flame and smoke that reached thirty feet into the sky, the pyre collapsed and came down 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." - Dany X, AGoT

'Do not fear for me,' demonstrates Dany's knowledge that this is the precise moment in which she must step forward in self-sacrifice and rebirth. She is the third sacrifice, the third forging. In this moment, she is Nissa Nissa, breasts bared for sacrifice. The crack in response to Dany's sacrifice is described as the 'breaking of the world,' where Nissa Nissa's sacrifice is said to have 'cracked the moon.'

She is 'unafraid' because her dragon dreams have already shown her what will happen:

"There was only her and the dragon. Its scales were black as night, wet and slick with blood. Her blood, Dany sensed. Its eyes were pools of molten magma, and when it opened its mouth, the flame came roaring out in a hot jet. She could hear it singing to her. She opened her arms to the fire, embraced it, let it swallow her whole, let it cleanse her and temper her and scour her clean. She could feel her flesh sear and blacken and slough away, could feel her blood boil and turn to steam, and yet there was no pain. She felt strong and new and fierce." - Dany III, AGoT

She dreams of Drogon, specifically, covered in her blood. Born of her self-sacrifice. The Red Sword of Heroes:

"'...her blood and her soul and her strength and her courage all went into the steel...such is the tale of the forging of Lightbringer, the Red Sword of Heroes.'" - Davos I, ACoK

Then she dreams:

"A great knife of pain ripped down her back, and she felt her skin tear open and smelled the stench of burning blood and saw the shadow of wings. And Daenerys Targaryen flew. '...wake the dragon...'" - Dany IX, AGoT

These dreams demonstrate Daenerys functioning in three specific capacities - Nissa Nissa, Lightbringer, and Azor Ahai. Child of Three.

First, Drogon is covered in her blood - her sacrifice. She then 'opens her arms to the fire,' embracing it - in parallel to Nissa Nissa embracing the sword.

She dreams of 'waking the dragon' - becoming the dragon. When she walks into the pyre, what was Daenerys Targaryen is sacrificed to the flames, merging with Drogon, to forge an otherworldly weapon of light and hope - Lightbringer.

She is then reborn - 'strong and new and fierce' - as Azor Ahai.

"'The frightened child who sheltered at my manse died on the Dothraki Sea and was reborn in blood and fire.'" - Tyrion, ADwD

Daenerys and Drogon are one, connected at a soul level.

"Dany and Drogon screamed as one." - Dany IX, ADwD

They scream as one, despite not yet being bonded as dragon-rider. Something else connects them. Something deeper, stronger, and more magical.

"In the smoldering red pits of Drogon's eyes, Dany saw her own reflection. How small she looked, how weak and frail and scared." - Dany IX, ADwD

Here Dany is quite literally seeing the part of herself that was sacrificed to Drogon.

After she bonds with Drogon as his rider, she thinks:

"On Drogon's back she felt whole." - Dany X, ADwD

Similar to how Viserion will do what Viserys could not, Drogon will accomplish what Drogo never could have - guiding and protecting Daenerys on the path to her greater destiny as the 'Lady of Light and Hope.' The herald of a New Dawn and the restoration of balance between the seasons. Drogo would have deterred Dany from her greater purpose. The farthest he would have carried her would have been the Iron Throne, the ultimate red herring of the series.

"When the fire died at last and the ground became cool enough to walk upon, Ser Jorah Mormont found her amidst the ashes, surrounded by blackened logs and bit of glowing ember and the burnt bones of man woman and stallion. She was naked, covered with soot, her clothes turned to ash, her beautiful hair all crisped away...yet she was unhurt." - Dany X, AGoT

She is as naked and bald as the day she was first born. Amidst the smoke of the pyre, and the salt of Dany's tears as they turned to steam, Azor Ahai is born again.

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

The placement of the dragons in this scene supports the order in which they hatched. Viserion and Rhaegal hatched before Daenerys walked into the pyre - she calls to them as she steps forward. Their placement suggests that they came when called and took to nursing, during which Drogon, having hatched last, landed on her shoulder.

IN SUM:

Daenerys recreates the conditions required to forge Lightbringer - sacred fire, blood, and willing self-sacrifice - in her ritual to birth the dragons

She is the Child of Three - functioning as Nissa Nissa, Lightbringer, and Azor Ahai

Viserion and Rhaegal are the failed forgings of Lightbringer

Viserion is Legacy: born of mercy (and fertility). She will live on to be the literal Mother of Dragons - the Ivory Empress of the New Dawn, nesting atop the Mother of Mountains. Her children will be born free of bloodmagic and fertility bonds, to maintain the necessary magical homeostasis between ice and fire

Rhaegal is Opposition: born of vengeance and painful lessons, Rhaegal is primed to take an oppositional stance in Dany's story

Drogon is Lightbringer: born of willing self-sacrifice, Drogon will guide and protect Daenerys as she fulfills her greater purpose

Writing Ideas: Fantasy Animals & Plants

How to Create Fantasy Creatures/Animals

Writing Worksheet: Fictional Plants

Yup, this is the right blog, haha. Here are some tips to create fantasy creatures/animals from different sources, and a worksheet to help guide you in creating fictional plants, which you can add fantasy elements into. And below are some additional references for inspiration. Choose which ones you prefer to incorporate in your story to help create your fantasy animal/plant:

Types of Animals ⚜ List of Legendary Beasts & Monsters

Word List: Animals (1) (2) ⚜ Animal Adjectives ⚜ Birds

Flightless Birds ⚜ Fantasy Creatures ⚜ Fictional Monster

Fantasy Character Names ⚜ Medieval Beasts (1) (2)

Medieval Plants ⚜ Medicinal Herbs ⚜ Meat-Eating Plants

Poisonous Plants ⚜ Poison Ivy & Poison Oak ⚜ Roses

Shade-Loving Plants ⚜ List of Flowers ⚜ Flower Remedies

Some Ecology Vocabulary

Resources on Creature Design (Wildlife Fact Sheet)

World-Building Template (with sections on flora and fauna)

Rhaenyra and Laena

Here's the video version of my discussion of the leaked emails that prove the Hugo Awards removed finalists (me, RF Kuang, Paul Weimer, Neil Gaiman & Ep 6 of Sandman) for political reasons, despite us having the required votes. Because too many of you are making assumptions without bothering to read the full exposé.

There's a lot of nuance in this case that I hope people can acknowledge. No, it is not "sinophobic" to criticize the Chinese government's severe censorship policies when anyone who's spent more than ten minutes on the Chinese internet knows how bad it is, and there IS evidence of pressure in this case. There's nothing to accomplish by pretending like it's not a thing. You're not furthering the world proletarian revolution by speaking over the lived experiences of Chinese comrades and denying factually shitty aspects of your favorite AES.

Yes, the Western and presumably white members of the Hugo admin team DID circle back to racism by trying so hard to appease the Chinese government that they preemptively censored Chinese diaspora ~ to be safe ~ on extremely flimsy reasons without even reading our books. And of course, confusing Nepal for Tibet.

Chapter 17. The Panther Goddess

Shuri waited for three heartbeats before poking her head out to look around. Seeing no one, she swam in the opposite direction she believed they had gone. The undersea tunnel led her to the vast, empty ocean, well, devoid of people.

Various schools of fish and sea turtles swam around her, rainbow-colored jellyfish fluttering like fireflies. Shuri giggled as they swam around her, several fish coming to bop her nose or swish through her hair. The undersea world was breathtakingly beautiful, but Shuri couldn’t stop and look around.

Although she didn’t see any Talokanil, Shuri wasn’t safe. Kicking her feet, she swam to the surface, her muscles aching but she pushed through it. She broke through and looked around franticly—the ocean was vast and endless… except for a blob in the distance.

Shuri squinted her eyes, unable to stop herself from exclaiming in excitement when she saw that it was trees! There was land nearby! She had made it out, but now, she had to send a distress signal for Nakia, Okoye, someone to find her.

‘Oh, the translator bead!’

Taking out the translator bead, Shuri began to tinker and reprogram it. It took her a moment, but she eventually was able to change the signal.

“Praise Bast!” she exclaimed when it beeped and flashed green. “I did it!”

She went to work, connecting it to Okoye’s line, holding her breath. At first, there was nothing but static, but then, broken up, Shuri heard Okoye’s voice.

“Hello?” Okoye said. “Who is this?”

“Thank Bast!” Shuri cried. “Okoye, it’s me!”