Jon Snow -- Beware of Spoilers

[Narkalui]

I did post a theory on Valyrian origins in the GRRM Confirms That Fans Have Guessed The Ending thread the other day...

 

[Brian G Turner]

Targs have above average resistance to heat, but that's about it.

Yes, I seem to recall an issue being made of Dany bathing in water considered too hot for normal people. I might have been connecting that too much with the later pyre scene.

 

[Anushka Mokosh]

Yes, I seem to recall an issue being made of Dany bathing in water considered too hot for normal people. I might have been connecting that too much with the later pyre scene.

Yeah. It was what prompted people to ask. Also, the resistance to fire misconstruct was also fanned by the TV Show and Dany holding an egg which burned the hand of a maid and the scene from the House of the Undying where Drogon blows fire at the warlocks without singeing Dany. I mostly blame those for the exaggeration of Targaryen abilities. Basically, Targaryen heat resistance allows them to be the dragonriders and user dragons effectively in a battle, but they have no direct fire resistance and people took the two to be the same.

I did post a theory on Valyrian origins in the GRRM Confirms That Fans Have Guessed The Ending thread the other day...

I had a half-baked theory few months ago elsewhere about something like that too.

Srylanna - 02-24-2014, 07:49 PM
So, when Mirri Maz Duur spoke of Daenerys' baby she said

"Monstrous. Twisted. I drew him forth myself. He was scaled like a lizard, blind, with the stub of a tail and small leather wings like the wings of a bat. When I touched him, the flesh sloughed off the bone, and inside he was full of graveworms and the stink of corruption. He had been dead for years."

Naturally, at that time, we had assumed that it was due to the fact that Jorah carried Daenerys inside the tent where Mirri Maz Duur was preforming blood magic to return Drogo to life. Even Mirri Maz Duur implied it to be so.

However, Martin's latest novella connected to ASOIAF series implies it might not be so. Or at the very least not fully.


"When the babe at last came forth, she proved indeed a monster: a stillborn girl, twisted and malformed, with a hole in her chest where her heart should have been and a stubby, scaled tail.

...

The dead girl had been named Visenya, Princess Rhaenyra announced the next day, when milk of the poppy had blunted the edge of her pain."

Basically, Blood Magic may have been what had killed the child, but his appearance might be completely unrelated to it. It is notable that the appearance of the stillborns is reminiscent of the appearance of a dragon giving the phrase Blood of a Dragon a whole new level of meaning. This implies that Targaryens basically have a dragon like stage in their foetal development and that they quite literally are of dragon's blood.

Any thoughts on the matter?

Credit to Zulkuss because we both came up with this.

BTW; since WoIaF came out, I've learnt about more than one such babe. I'll try to dig up the passages about it.

 

[Anushka Mokosh]

More babies

Alys Harroway, Bride of Maegor The Cruel

She was the first woman to become pregnant by the king in the year 48 AC, but she lost the babe soon after. What was expelled from her womb was a monstrosity, eyeless and twisted, and in his fury Maegor blamed and executed her midwives, septas, and the Grand Maester Desmond.

Elinor of House Costayne, Bride of Maegor the Cruel

She, too, became pregnant, and like Alys before her, she gave birth to a stillborn abomination said to have been born eyeless and with small wings.

Jayne Westerling, Bride of Maegor the Cruel

In 47 AC she was with child, but three moons before the child was due, her labor began, and from her womb came another stillborn monster.

About Maegor's several children

He made brides of women whom he had widowed—women of proved fertility—but the only children born of his seed proved monstrosities: misshapen, eyeless, limbless, or having the parts of man and woman both. His descent into true madness, some say, began with the first of these abominations.

There were many other stillborn babes mentioned there, but no accounts were given of them. :/

 

[Deɑth.]

So basically, it's entirely possible Targaryens go through a physical transformation from some kind of fetus with reptile-like characteristics to a normal human being?

I guess that really puts in perspective how different Valyrians (or at least, House Targaryen) are from your ordinary human being.

 

[Anushka Mokosh]

So basically, it's entirely possible Targaryens go through a physical transformation from some kind of fetus with reptile-like characteristics to a normal human being?

I guess that really puts in perspective how different Valyrians (or at least, House Targaryen) are from your ordinary human being.

I'd say there are far too many stillborn children with certain deformities that resemble traits of the dragons not to consider the boost of blood of the dragon a bit more credible than just a boost. Now, whether it is that all Targaryens had such a stage or if such deformities were brought on by interbreeding, only Martin can say with any degree of certainty. Fact would remain that such traits exist in their bloodline either way.

If it is really so, then I'd say it was so for all Dragonlords as Targaryens were a lesser house of dragonriders. Not necessarily all Valyrians though as not all had been dragonrider families.

OFC, I should note that it isn't theoretically impossible for any human.

 

[Koopa]

some wife or lover of Maegor did say she poisoned all his other wifes to stop them from giving birth.
Ofcourse this confession may have come forth out of spite/torture/....

 

[Anushka Mokosh]

some wife or lover of Maegor did say she poisoned all his other wifes to stop them from giving birth.
Ofcourse this confession may have come forth out of spite/torture/....

She confessed for those that came before her, but even after her death kids were born as abominations.

She just admitted to what he wanted to hear, I guess.

 

[ArstenWhitebeard]

I had always assumed Dany's malformed baby was due to Miri's blood magic, but the descriptions of Maegor's babies are so similar that it can't be a coincidence (can it?).

What if the dragon traits are like a dormant genetic trait? Like how 2 brown eyed people can have a blue eyed baby. it would still point to the idea that targs really do have the blood of dragons. It would make sense (to me) that some dragon traits are passed down kind of randomly, like the high tolerance for heat. Not every targ would be born like that, but some would get that genetic trait. The same could go for the scales, tails and wings.

 

[Anushka Mokosh]

I had always assumed Dany's malformed baby was due to Miri's blood magic, but the descriptions of Maegor's babies are so similar that it can't be a coincidence (can it?).

I think so too.

So, when Mirri Maz Duur spoke of Daenerys' baby she said

"Monstrous. Twisted. I drew him forth myself. He was scaled like a lizard, blind, with the stub of a tail and small leather wings like the wings of a bat. When I touched him, the flesh sloughed off the bone, and inside he was full of graveworms and the stink of corruption. He had been dead for years."

Naturally, at that time, we had assumed that it was due to the fact that Jorah carried Daenerys inside the tent where Mirri Maz Duur was preforming blood magic to return Drogo to life. Even Mirri Maz Duur implied it to be so.

However, Martin's latest novella connected to ASOIAF series implies it might not be so. Or at the very least not fully.

And don't forget Rhaenyra's baby girl too. Visenya

"When the babe at last came forth, she proved indeed a monster: a stillborn girl, twisted and malformed, with a hole in her chest where her heart should have been and a stubby, scaled tail.

...

The dead girl had been named Visenya, Princess Rhaenyra announced the next day, when milk of the poppy had blunted the edge of her pain."

What if the dragon traits are like a dormant genetic trait? Like how 2 brown eyed people can have a blue eyed baby. it would still point to the idea that targs really do have the blood of dragons. It would make sense (to me) that some dragon traits are passed down kind of randomly, like the high tolerance for heat. Not every targ would be born like that, but some would get that genetic trait. The same could go for the scales, tails and wings.

Yes. That is a possibility too. There are essentially two possibilities I accounted for. In both Targ's have the dragon traits in their blood already.

One is, babies were such due to interbreeding causing those rare traits to manifest and cause the death and premature births of the babies.

Other is, all Targaryen's have such a phrase as foetuses and the reason such stillborns happened was because their development was interrupted.

It is worth of mention that most of these malformed babies were premature (Rhaenyra, Daenerys, Alys, Jayne,...) and there can be found an outer cause of their premature birth (stress/rage, Blood Magic, stress and stress I'd presume since Maegor lol) as opposed to stillborns of say Queen Rahella that were born at normal term and were presumably normal as there was no mention of malformations with them.

 

[Boaz]

ADWD SPOILER ALERT!!

Okay... so a coworker told me that there is no way Jon is surviving his wounds since the NW will refuse to treat him. (He watched the Season Five finale last Sunday.) He wanted to know if there is a way Jon can survive and I told him of the two prevailing theories regarding Melisandre and Ghost. I told him that GRRM established the abilities of the servants of R'hllor in the second book and that Melisandre is the most powerful of them, i.e. she can resurrect Jon. I also reminded him of the prologue to ADWD. In it Varamyr remembered how he controlled six animals, how he even drove his mentor's spirit from an animal. Jon has these abilities as well, but does not really know how to use them. In theory, his spirit could pass into Ghost and live on... and yet this probably would not work out well for the story. It's better if Jon is a human. But what if Jon's spirit inhabited a person? I know he does not know how to do this, but could his spirit attempt to deny death by entering another person?

I know this is crazy, but what if...

Who?

Probably someone who was weak. Someone who could not fight back effectively. Someone who needed to believe they were touched by the divine...

Shireen and Selyse come to mind, but the TV show leads me to believe neither is a real candidate.

Gilly's son... but then we'd have to wait fourteen years for him to grow up.

Wun Wun. Jon as a giant.... hmmmm. Was his introduction to Mag, his observations, and Ygritte's song only for fleshing out the world or was Martin foreshadowing something? Probably nothing.

Melisandre. Would she fight Jon or believe she was being gifted by R'hllor? Could she accept him and think it made her not just a prophet, but an actual part of a victorious prophecy?

 

[Warren_Paul]

I'm pretty sure it's going to be Ghost. Melisandre knew something was going to happen, she told him to keep Ghost close, and Ghost was also the last thought he had as he died. That thought could cause him to subconsciously warg into Ghost.

The showrunners also back this up. Even though they are currently trying to make us believe he isn't coming back, previously they had let the "warg" out of the bag at a panel and implied Jon would warg into Ghost in season six. It's recorded on youtube. I made a post about it on the TV forum.

The video can be found here.

Kit Harington: "I want to be a warg. I want to put myself inside a wolf."
Dan Weiss: "I've got two words for you. Season Six. Season Six."


So they say Kit Harington won't be in Season six, yet they also told us Jon Snow is going to warg into a wolf in season six. Seems to me that Jon is going to spend the entire season in Ghost. He'll probably come back to his original body, or a new one before the end of the book, but I imagine we won't see that happen on the show until season seven.


Since D&D dropped that big TWOW spoiler, I suspect Melisandre is going to burn Shireen to restore Jon's body so that he can return to it. That will make a lot of good drama, because he will hate her for it, yet would be "dead" without her.

 

[Keebs411]

I think he's alive still. Someone pointed out via the show his eyes change color at the end which in the books would be hard to convey being its his POV chapter and he can't seem himself or his own eyes. But I found it to be a very interesting thing many haven't noticed or mentioned until I saw this article.
http://www.mtv.com/news/2188831/game-of-thrones-jon-snow-dies-eyes/

 

[Koopa]

that seems farfetched, probably just the camera.

 

[Warren_Paul]

It's an optical illusion.

 

[Knott]

ADWD SPOILER ALERT!!


I know this is crazy, but what if...

Who?

Probably someone who was weak. Someone who could not fight back effectively. Someone who needed to believe they were touched by the divine...

Shireen and Selyse come to mind, but the TV show leads me to believe neither is a real candidate.

Gilly's son... but then we'd have to wait fourteen years for him to grow up.

Wun Wun. Jon as a giant.... hmmmm. Was his introduction to Mag, his observations, and Ygritte's song only for fleshing out the world or was Martin foreshadowing something? Probably nothing.

Melisandre. Would she fight Jon or believe she was being gifted by R'hllor? Could she accept him and think it made her not just a prophet, but an actual part of a victorious prophecy?

Here's a possibility in the books for you Boaz. Patchface, his mind is already shot, he's at the Wall. On the show, maybe he wargs to Hodor, and comes back with Bran. Although, in the books, I subscribe to the Ghost theory myself.

 

[ArstenWhitebeard]

ADWD SPOILER ALERT!!

Okay... so a coworker told me that there is no way Jon is surviving his wounds since the NW will refuse to treat him. (He watched the Season Five finale last Sunday.) He wanted to know if there is a way Jon can survive and I told him of the two prevailing theories regarding Melisandre and Ghost. I told him that GRRM established the abilities of the servants of R'hllor in the second book and that Melisandre is the most powerful of them, i.e. she can resurrect Jon. I also reminded him of the prologue to ADWD. In it Varamyr remembered how he controlled six animals, how he even drove his mentor's spirit from an animal. Jon has these abilities as well, but does not really know how to use them. In theory, his spirit could pass into Ghost and live on... and yet this probably would not work out well for the story. It's better if Jon is a human. But what if Jon's spirit inhabited a person? I know he does not know how to do this, but could his spirit attempt to deny death by entering another person?

I know this is crazy, but what if...

Who?

Probably someone who was weak. Someone who could not fight back effectively. Someone who needed to believe they were touched by the divine...

Shireen and Selyse come to mind, but the TV show leads me to believe neither is a real candidate.

Gilly's son... but then we'd have to wait fourteen years for him to grow up.

Wun Wun. Jon as a giant.... hmmmm. Was his introduction to Mag, his observations, and Ygritte's song only for fleshing out the world or was Martin foreshadowing something? Probably nothing.

Melisandre. Would she fight Jon or believe she was being gifted by R'hllor? Could she accept him and think it made her not just a prophet, but an actual part of a victorious prophecy?

I will echo Knott and put Patchface forward as a Candidate for John's host body. His mind is shot, but also remember that he has his own kind of special power and seems to have been touched by a god. Not sure if that makes him more or less likely as a candidate, but if Jon WERE to warg into Patchface, then their two souls would be in there together. in the Varamyr prologue, it is stated that once your body dies, and you warg into another body, then slowly your spirit binds with that of the animal you warged into.

 

[Narkalui]

Sudden thought, just now: they put Jon's corpse in the ice cells: ice. Then they burn it: fire. Back comes Jon as Azor Ahai...

 

[Boaz]

I've wondered before if the NW itself is not Azor Ahai. Maybe his name means night watchman or something... Anyway, they'll all wield dragonglass for the final showdown and they just killed their dear commander, the one for whom they had so many hopes...

 

[Anushka Mokosh]

ew. I always saw that AA's Lightbringer was a sword tampered in betrayal. While Jon was getting backstabbed, I was hoping the entire time someone would just use Longclaw. :/