the smiling weirwood said:
No matter how little discipline she has her dragons still love her. They have an emotional attachment(of some sort), she is their mother after all. Maybe it's like impressions on young animals. She was there when they were hatched and fed them. They're hers.
I do agree on that point, which is why I don't see them defecting either, as one theory posited - but they're animals. They cannot speak her language, and no matter how much they love her, they're not going to.
I'll use an example that will probably be roundly condemned, but here goes:
When a dog (or any animal, imo) is trained, it is carefully taught to respond with an action to a one word (usually) command. The dog doesn't speak english (in my case), but it memorises the sound of the word or the action and associates an expected response - from itself and from me. That is, if I train my dog to sit down when I blow a whistle, she knows I will reward her for the action and punish her if she does not. She may not wish to sit down at that time and wait, but she will because she's learnt that I'm dominant over her. She loves me but she can't understand that if I let her go and do whatever she wants, its not in her best interests. So she obeys me because I impose my will with a variety of rewards and penalties.
I believe the dragons are the same - they don't understand why (for example) its wrong to eat children - they look the same as any other meat. So Dany has to enforce that and reign in her draons natural desires to devour certain kinds of food. The dragons will probably always want to eat people, but hopefully they won't because their training will prevent them. And it is the same with the rest of their desires - to go where they want, when they want, flame if they feel like it and so forth. Love alone for their mother isn't going to see them go into battle with a rider and risk death to follow her commands.
Which brings me to my second point - its easiest to train dogs when they are young, before they have set behaviour patterns of "I'll do whatever the hell I please" and because puppies are usually still smaller and weaker than humans. You convince them of humans (or atleast one human's) superior strength and leadership when they are young, and they will mostly continue to obey even when they are big and strong enough to defeat us in a physical battle. My dog could overpower and kill me - but she won't, because I've convinced her of my physical (and mental) dominance. She loves me, but it's in her instincts to dominate where she can. And I believe thats the case with most animals. So why not dragons? We've already seen them fight for dominance between each other.
However, it seems Dany's dragons have no fear of her now - again, referencing the Dany chapter in ADWD, they seem to have worked out she can't physically punish them and they are strong enough to seek out their own food, so what hold does she really have? She can clap them in irons, but can she prevent them flying away when they are released? As weirwood says, they love her - but animals outgrow their parents. There has to be something more to compel their obedience, IMO.
