#Illyrio's Manse

[bastardofharrenhal]

i love that all 3 of the lannister siblings r chronic yappers both in their internal monologues and dialogues. cersei doom yapping to sansa about the what-if if stannis took over the city jaime info dumping on his teenage new hire loras about kingsguard knight number 86 dead 2 centuries ago and tyrion monologuing to himself about taking it up the ass for passage across the narrow sea to the wall. the siblings of all time

[branwinged]

Will you accept a mad dany arc if grrm does it in a different, more sensical way or would that always narratively suck for you?

it has nothing do with my personal feelings regarding the character. i dislike speculation of dany having a downfall arc because it reveals a misreading of the text and the narrative role she plays within it. i don't believe it can be done in a satisfying way because she was always intended to be a heroic character. the 'mad dany' reading relies on certain initial assumptions about her character that are being problematised within the story—which is difficult to discuss because grrm's intent regarding dany is at odds with the orientalist framework he employs in the construction of essos, but i'll try to be comprehensive about it. so dany is an exile, homeless and perpetually seeking a home. she was told by viserys that westeros is "our land" but she's not culturally westerosi the same way the rest of our cast is because she's also never known westeros. all she has are second hand, romanticised accounts from viserys (These places he talked of [...] they were just words to her). dany has lived her entire life in essos and absorbed their cultural norms and slavery is normalised in most of essos (There was no slavery in the free city of Pentos. Nonetheless, they were slaves), it's especially apparent in her first chapter which pointedly draws attention to the various slaves serving at illyrio's manse, something dany doesn't express any moral objection to, because nobody has taught her this is wrong. and that understanding only comes after viserys sells her to drogo and she personally experiences a similar loss of autonomy.

Do you know what it is like to be sold, squire? I do. My brother sold me to Khal Drogo for the promise of a golden crown. Well, Drogo crowned him in gold, though not as he had wished, and I . . . my sun-and-stars made a queen of me, but if he had been a different man, it might have been much otherwise. Do you think I have forgotten how it felt to be afraid? DAENERYS II, A Storm of Swords

and when mirri reveals to dany that her act of 'saving' her was no saving at all. rescuing her through the offer of a place in drogo's khalasar is a meaningless gesture since it does nothing to address the systems that have enabled mirri's enslavement in the first place. yeah, she's fourteen and possesses no power in her own right and is not complicit in drogo's crimes but mirri's presence in the story is meant to teach her that lesson. dany does not arrive already possessed with a political consciousness that opposes slavery, she learns and reorients her worldview just as jon did once he became familiar with the free folk. this is an important detail because without it her crusade in slaver's bay is no longer a story about a former enslaved and sexually abused girl being provided the means to begin a revolutionary counter-struggle against a culture of dehumanisation, but about a civilising mission where a culturally westerosi (westeros, where slavery is outlawed. westeros which is clearly imagined as the occident to essos's orient) character with superior ideals travels to foreign lands to educate the barbarians—which would've made her a straightforward white saviour figure. this IS undermined by the way her storyline is rife with orientalist tropes and i'm getting to that, but my main point is that dany's character is very deliberately written to be someone who is stateless and doesn't belong anywhere. she is an other. which is compounded by her targaryen heritage—the targaryens are narratively imagined as white enough to co-exist with the rest of westeros but they're also being othered because they're a family originating from the east with 'depraved' inbreeding and blood magic practices (practices that are reviled throughout the whole continent), which simultaneously makes them too other to ever fully assimilate despite the family being culturally westerosi in all the ways that matter. this especially comes through in the coin quote, every house has had occasional despots for rulers but people only bother to pathologise the targaryens and that's because they're foreigners. "the gods flip a coin" is presenting this dichotomy of targaryens as either mad - violent barbarians from the east, or great, in which case they're exoticised as otherworldly, above the laws of gods and men. and the final thing that serves to other her is her association with the dothraki. the dothraki are initially introduced as violent savages, but that view has been challenged since then as dany adopts dothraki customs and comes to love their people as her own and even sees herself as more of a khaleesi than a queen. and i must emphasise that this is no way done well because a) the dothraki are constructed out of offensive stereotypes about steppe cultures b) five books later grrm hasn't bothered to give any of them interiority because he clearly doesn't care about the dothraki, they're an afterthought in his narrative about dany and c) i think the subversion of their introduction as the inferior racial other basically amounts to "they're noble savages".

so you see all this at work when in-universe those who revile her speak of alleged violent tendencies, that she's coming to burn the continent down, that she hatched her dragons through foul blood magic and that she tricked her khal husband into murdering her brother and has acquired an army of savages, that her court is made up of foreigners and 'honourless' westerosi men (jorah, barristan, and soon tyrion), while others talk of her supposed otherworldly beauty ("The last of her line. They say she is the fairest woman in the world.")—the mad dany reading of her is taking all this at face value, it's falling for that in-universe narrative her enemies have come up with, which associates her and her allies' foreignness with moral depravity. (this is also what the show did, which i said "achieved her s8 ending by fully leaning into the horror of the savage oriental horde come to oppress the civilised westerosi landowning class" and that hysterical randyll tarly speech "at least cersei wasn't a FOREIGNER"). a very early example of this is in the first book. robert wanted a teenager dead because she was a targaryen: aerys's daughter, rhaegar's sister, because she married a khal and adopted dothraki customs as her own. and it was ned who put up a fight against this. ned is flawed in my ways but do you suppose the narrative will diminish ned's legacy in this, in his stance against dehumanisation. and asoiaf is primarily about that, every major character has had experience with being othered (cripples, bastards, and broken things is about this) and within this narrative dany is meant to be The Other who is working to end institutions of otherisation. her upcoming invasion of westeros is not playing into the the threat of the foreign invader but raising questions of whether westeros is also in need of some reform (at one point tyrion directly compares a serf to a slave, something that might be narratively painting westeros as not culturally superior at all for having outlawed slavery). the problem, of course, being that the way grrm subverts the image of essos as the inferior racial other is by first populating it with orientalist stereotypes. he parallels some of the violence found in ghiscari culture and the dothraki raid of the lhazareen village with ramsay and amory lorch and gregor clegane et al operating in the riverlands in acok but the ghiscari are also portrayed almost as a monolith, as uniformly morally suspect individuals because our only introduction to them is through the slavers. it's the way dany is the only active abolitionist with a narrative voice in essos (there's the shavepate. but he's also a scheming violent extremist so), i said her story is not a civilising mission but when you fail to give any of the ghiscari oppressed a voice it doesn't result in great optics. and it is undeniable that the story is About Westeros, dany's great narrative destiny lies over there, when the long night arrives—an apocalyptic threat meant to affect the entire world—the battle for the dawn will also take place over there, i doubt the essosi will play a role in that.

[goodqueenaly]

Do you think that Saera Targaryen became a slave owner? A lot of the fandom takes it as a fact that she was a slave owner because, well, Volantis. But I don’t know, wouldn’t Gyldayn point it out if that was the case? He never pulled any punches when it comes to Saera

Yes, I would say it's very likely. As I’ve noted before, Volantis as a society is thoroughly drenched in slavery - and that includes its sex workers. The tears forcibly tattooed upon the faces of Volantene sex workers do not simply reflect their “profession” (to the extent the term can be used, at least) but define them all as slaves, visibly and bureaucratically classified by Volantis as lesser than those who are not so marked. Nor do we need to look far for an example of a Volantene brothel populated by enslaved people: think only of the brothel in the Volantene town of Selhorys, with its tear-tattooed "slave girls" as Tyrion refers to them (including the unnamed "sunset girl", whose enslavement is reflected not just in her place at this brothel but the scars of whippings on her back). I don't know that it's necessarily impossible for freeborn women or freedwomen to be sex workers in Volantis, but I would say it's probably likely that at least the majority of sex workers in Volantis are enslaved people (as, indeed, the vast majority of people in Volantis generally are enslaved people).

So if Saera did in fact become "the proprietor of a famous pleasure house" in Volantis, then I think it is quite likely that she owned enslaved people - for herself, as sex workers, or both. Saera would have already encountered, and likely become familiarized with, slavery both generally and specifically in the context of sex work before she came to Volantis, given the years she spent in Lys - a city-state where not only do "bondsmen outnumber the freeborn three to one" but also where the people are "great breeders of slaves mating beauty with beauty in hopes of producing ever more refined and lovely courtesans and bedslaves". If Saera was not herself enslaved in Lys (though her actual legal status may have been somewhat vague, as a foreign royal voluntarily serving as a sex worker), I would guess most if not all of the other sex workers at that "pleasure garden" where Saera worked were enslaved people; likewise, I would also say that same pleasure garden was likely staffed for non-sex work labor by enslaved people (much as we see with Illyrio's manse in Pentos, fully staffed by enslaved people despite the official ban on slavery). While I certainly disdain Gyldayn's (and by extension GRRM's) portrayal of Saera, openly criticize Alysanne and especially Jaehaerys for their failures as parents with her, and hesitate to assume that Saera had the same personality and attitude for her entire life, it is worth noting that, as portrayed by Gyldayn/GRRM, Saera in her youth seems to have had very little empathy for others, including those of lower social position - not only her septas but most infamously "the king's half-witted fool, Tom Turnip", victim of several abusive "pranks" dreamed up by Saera. Therefore, Saera may not have seen slavery as the evil institution it was (and is), but viewed it as simply a way of life in Essos which distinguished the upper classes (in which she had been so highly born) from the lower; if so, Saera may not have been particularly bothered by participating in the ownership of enslaved people once she decided to establish herself and her pleasure house in Volantis.

Nor do I think it odd that Gyldayn would not have mentioned Saera's ownership of slaves. Indeed, Gyldayn spends very little time detailing Saera's post-Westerosi life, providing only the briefest snippets. In reference to her time in Volantis, Gyldayn only notes that at roughly te turn of the section century AC "Saera still lived, somewhere in Volantis (she had departed Lys some years before, an infamous woman but a wealthy one)", and adds as a parenthetical a bit later that "Princess Saera herself was still alive and well in Volantis, and only thirty-four years of age", quoting her statement that "I have my own kingdom here" to the question of "if she meant to return to Westeros". The fact that Saera ended her days as "the proprietor of a famous pleasure house" comes from Yandel (who provides no other information); Gyldayn does not bother any further with Saera beyond those notes, even to say when, where, and/or how she might have died. For Gyldayn - and I think for GRRM - the importance of Saera post-Westeros is not Saera herself as a character but the impact the memory of Saera had on Jaehaerys and Alysanne; the day-to-day running of her life in Volantis (or, indeed, in Lys) was not worthwhile to record (except as typically salacious additions from Gyldayn, like Saera portraying herself as a Faith novice in Lys).

Ultimately, I think the takeaway here is that two objective statements can be true at the same time without either lessening the truth of the other. Saera can have willingly engaged in the evil of slavery and still have been a victim of one of the worst fathers the series has presented. Saera would have been no less a victim of Jaehaerys' cruelty and abuse because she owned slaves, nor would her awful treatment by her father in any way justify or lessen the evil of slavery (and by extension her participation in it).

[marwyn]

"We know that Dany is conscious of the weight that unhealthy relationships could leave" but DO we know that? And I don't mean this negatively, I don't think anyone in this series is "conscious" of that in that way. How would Dany define what's an "unhealthy relationship"? Certainly not using those words. I don't think Dany's personal trauma made her conscious of every relationship dynamic there is. She hasn't even fully unpacked that trauma like that. And she has not as of yet had any relationship that's not "unhealthy" so what would her model of one be? Criticism of how he writes the dothraki is as always valid, perhaps the most valid criticism of GRRM, I'm really just commenting on this specific bit of that ask because it seems like a completely unfair expectation to put on Dany, especially if it's because she herself is a victim.

Dany’s attitude toward relational power dynamics is definitely realistically conflicted due to her past experiences! In ACOK she bristles at the reminder that Illyrio sold her to Drogo in light of the good she was able to derive from their relationship (again, unsurprising given where she was coming from with Viserys) but accepts that it’s true, with some reservations:

“My brother and I were guests in Illyrio’s manse for half a year. If he meant to sell us, he could have done it then.” “He did sell you,” Ser Jorah said. “To Khal Drogo.” Dany flushed. He had the truth of it, but she did not like the sharpness with which he put it. “Illyrio protected us from the Usurper’s knives, and he believed in my brother’s cause.” “Illyrio believes in no cause but Illyrio. Gluttons are greedy men as a rule, and magisters are devious. Illyrio Mopatis is both. What do you truly know of him?” (ACOK, Daenerys III)

Of note is the fact that she had little trouble seeing through Illyrio and distrusting his motives at the beginning of AGOT but now seems to cling to the idea that he was at least somewhat altruistic in accordance with the positive spin she has been able to put on her experiences since. It’s only in ASOS as her campaign against slavery begins to takes shape that her anger over these experiences clearly begins to emerge:

“Better to come a beggar than a slaver,” Arstan said. “There speaks one who has been neither.” Dany’s nostrils flared. “Do you know what it is like to be sold, squire? I do. My brother sold me to Khal Drogo for the promise of a golden crown. Well, Drogo crowned him in gold, though not as he had wished, and I … my sun-and-stars made a queen of me, but if he had been a different man, it might have been much otherwise. Do you think I have forgotten how it felt to be afraid?” Whitebeard bowed his head. “Your Grace, I did not mean to give offense.” “Only lies offend me, never honest counsel.” Dany patted Arstan’s spotted hand to reassure him. “I have a dragon’s temper, that’s all. You must not let it frighten you.” (ASOS, Daenerys II)

Another signficant example, of course, is “a dragon is no slave” (ASOS, Daenerys III). She continues to express similar sentiments in ADWD but is discouraged by the “eloquent” arguments given by those in favor of slavery compared to her raw emotion (ADWD, Daenerys III), and the daunting tasks of governance in Meereen lead to her reluctant agreement to marry yet another slave owner in order to make a compromise that ultimately cedes too much power to her new husband and the slaving class at large. This false peace is disrupted when the metamorphosis of Drogo’s namesake into a frightening monster results in his feral appearance at the fighting pit and necessitates Dany’s reclaiming him, leading to their first flight together, which I believe represents a symbolic reclamation of her personal and sexual autonomy and politics of liberation. And yet she may continue to have fond feelings toward Drogo for the rest of her life; these books depict many purposefully complex situations that are well-nigh impossible for the characters to navigate 100% neatly

[baleriontheblackkitten]

More about AGOT - Daenerys I

Something I forgot to mention in my latest post but makes me want to chew glass:

The nine-towered manse of Khal Drogo sat beside the waters of the bay, its high brick walls overgrown with pale ivy. It had been given to the khal by the magisters of Pentos, Illyrio told them. The Free Cities were always generous with the horselords. “It is not that we fear these barbarians,” Illyrio would explain with a smile. “The Lord of Light would hold our city walls against a million Dothraki, or so the red priests promise … yet why take chances, when their friendship comes so cheap?”

When you realize that Dany's marriage to Khal Drogo has nothing to do with winning the throne back for Viserys, but Dany is just another cheap gift to make the Dothraki happy.

Viserys has always been the decoy, the Targaryen prince for the Usurper's hired knives to chase after, while the actual boy Illyrio means to put on the Iron Throne was kept safe shrouded in secrecy.

And Dany was even less than that, some kind of curious item for collectors not unlike their mother's jewels. The last Targaryen princess, blood of Old Valyria, pretty and blonde like a prized bed-slave from Lys, but with the added value of her unique family history.

You don't even need Dany to be suspicious of Aegon's identity to create a conflict there. Even assuming Aegon is exactly who they claim he is, and that Dany believes it, there cannot be joy in Dany about the reveal. Because she's going to understand what was the plan all along. Sure, she always knew Viserys was not going to win back the throne, that the promises were false, that she was sold to Khal Drogo like an object, but Aegon's existence is solid proof that her brother was just a piece in someone else's game whose purpose was to be discarded once he were no longer needed, and she was even less than that.

[ladyofchroyane]

Finished my reread of Daenerys i, and my god, I love her so much. I don’t personally relate to Dany’s endless wandering or her search for a home, but it evokes a visceral sadness and hopelessness that’s hard to ignore.

To Dany, Westeros is just an idea—her “home” exists in forms that are “foreign” (Rhaesh Andahli, the Sunset Kingdoms) to Westerosi. But for Dany, who has spent her entire life on the other side of the Narrow Sea, these names aren’t foreign at all (which is why I put foreign in quotations). And yet, she doesn’t see herself as belonging to the Free Cities either—she holds herself apart from them, despite having spent her entire life in Essos. What a terrible thing it is to feel forever lost, to always see yourself as an outsider.

Important locations like Casterly Rock and Highgarden are nothing more than words, not tangible realities. When she tries to picture Westeros, it’s almost childishly idealized: green hills, flowered plains, blue-grey mountains. That tells me she has very little concept of what Westeros is actually like. Yet, for all the homesickness and the sense of being forever lost, she is such a stark contrast to Viserys. Her quiet detachment versus his desperate fixation is deeply tragic.

That detachment, though, will serve her well when she finally reaches Westeros. She has never truly set foot there, so she will be able to see the land for what it is rather than what she’s imagined it to be. Unlike Viserys, she hasn’t shackled herself to a fantasy. And because of that, she’ll have the ability to move forward in reality. That clarity will be a strength—once she overcomes the inevitable disappointment.

There are so many strangers in Drogo’s manse, but Jorah Mormont is the strangest of all. Like Dany, he’s on the wrong side of the Narrow Sea, and that alone makes him intriguing to her.

Illyrio is truly terrible, but it’s this next part that always breaks my heart:

Dany is someone who creates her own stability, crafting happiness wherever and whenever she can. This is both a trauma response and a testament to her adaptability.

And yet, for all her efforts, she is still so so lost. She is constantly being pulled in different directions—mentally, emotionally, physically (!!). This becomes painfully clear in her very first chapter, where she has no agency, wearing a literal golden collar as she is sold as a bridal slave to a man she fears. She is reduced to a pawn when she should be playing in plazas, dancing with other children her age.

All because her erratic brother has a direction and a dream he refuses to let go of—a direction and dream that Dany lacks. But she doesn’t get the option to say no or dig her heels in. She is the chip used to push Viserys forward.

And yet, his fixation on the future made him incapable of appreciating the present. His mind drifted across the Narrow Sea until he became nothing more than a gaunt shadow—one Dany no longer loved. And that shadow sold her to a man twice her age, from a culture she doesn’t understand. A man she fears at first sight.

:((

Eventually, Dany will become the player Viserys only dreamed of being. I can’t wait for her to find her purpose and step into her confidence. But until then… these next Dany chapters are going to be rough. Oh my poor pookie 🥺

[horizon-verizon]

Dreamfyre laid Daenerys’ dragon eggs when Rhaena was her rider. Elissa Farman stole the eggs 75 YEARS BEFORE THE DANCE OF THE DRAGONS and sold them to the Sealord of Braavos.

The reason we know that these eggs are the gifts Daenerys receives is because of two easter eggs: that firstly, Daenerys lived in the Sealord of Braavos’ manse, and secondly, Jaehaerys I makes a comment about to Rhaena about the importance of getting the eggs back, lest they fall into the hands of “some Pentoshi spicemonger.” Illyrio Mopatis, the man who gifts Daenerys the eggs, happens to be a Pentoshi merchant who deals in spices.

The Greens have absolutely NOTHING to do with Daenerys getting her dragon eggs. Also, why are TG fighting for their right to claim ownership over the imperialist mad queen’s genocidal nuclear weapons ?

Hateful. Just hateful. The people who claim Dany will go Mad also don't think that the very man who describes how they describe Targaryens--Aemond--is a maniac with a genocidal weapon. Or they say he's at least being used to reinforce male primogeniture through Aegon's claim. So you know, we know what they really are about.

[heireign]

🚶

send me 🚶and I’ll introduce you to an npc in my muse’s life | @lcerys

SILVARIO HAEN. sailor turned lyseni merchant prince who sided with king stannis baratheon in the war of the five kings. her husband, in her main asoiaf verse in which she, viserys and daenerys are all in exile in essos. it was a match that was made with the assistance of illyrio mopatis, one of his initial displays of proof of his loyalty to the young viserys iii, and to house targaryen, and an attempt to gain his trust while the three stayed in essos for a few months in the late months of 292. prince silvario offered the young king a large sum of gold in exchange for the hand of his twin sister, and swore his support and loyalty to him as the true king of the seven kingdoms. yet after viserys died and it became clear that his wife had no wish to press whatever claim she might have had as the elder of the remaining children of king aerys and queen rhaella, the arrival of ser davos seaworth, a man who he had crossed paths with a few times during his days as a sailor before the death of his elder brothers made him take up his place as the head of the family - davos, who came searching for allies in support of the claim of stannis baratheon, placed his suit before silvario and he was definitely considering an allegiance with the man. though silvario, though ambitious, became rather careful about to whom he would pledge his gold and time and men, after the death of viserys iii. he wanted to meet the man in person before he made a decision. taking his wife and children with him across the narrow sea to dragonstone, to meet with the man.

he and rhaenyra married in the early months of 293AC, at which point she moved to lys with him after a very difficult goodbye from her younger sister, daenerys, who she wasn't sure if she would ever get the chance to see again. their marriage was ? he approached it very clinically, very pragmatically in a way that did not make adjusting to such an abrupt seemingly final change any easier ( re: leaving behind the only family she's ever had and the only real home she's ever known within said family even though ? they didn't have a steady home for long ) he was polite enough, and cordial enough, but it was very much an arranged marriage, and she had to come to terms with the fact she was never going to feel the sort of connection that she wanted with someone. she never went without any material comforts, she never went without a guard anywhere, but there was never any genuine romantic love between them. there was respect, as the years went on, but there wasn't love there. she did her duty where her marriage was concerned and spent most of her time prior to the marriage of her younger sister, and the on set of the war of the five kings, tending to her boys and running the manse that they lived in's household. she had heavy reservations with the choice to get involved with westerosi politics at all, before they had sailed, but he had been set on it, and so they had done it.

they have three children together. baelon ( born in late 293 AC ), andro ( born in late 294AC ), and lysaro ( born in 296AC ), who are five, four, and two during the initial events of the song of ice and fire story, who turn six, five, and three during it, and who at the end of a dance with dragons are ? seven, six and four. baelon was the only one of her first three children that she was able to name, and who she named after a famed targaryen prince who claimed ? the dragon of the conqueror visenya, and who was nicknamed ' the brave'. she wanted him to be brave, and strong, and good. she wanted to be able to protect her children from whatever was to come, because she didn't ? she didn't know how true her twin's claims that they were constantly being hunted by hired knives of the usurper were, but she also didn't doubt it, either, and she did not want to risk the disastrous, devastating result of what could have happened if she was lax and they were attacked, and she lost them. she taught them to defend themselves, and to defend each other above absolutely all, above such things like ambition and the constant seemingly never ending pass-time of the nobility grappling for power. she taught them her family history, she told them stories of the days where dragons were, and when they were able to soar the skies upon them and what it meant to bond to them. she told them all about her mother rhaella, and what she remembered of her older brother and her good sister, elia. she told them about their cousins rhaenys and aegon. about rhaenys' little cat balerion.

[nedstarkfortnite]

Mikey reads ASOIAF: Daenerys I AGOT

Short summary: Daenerys is taken to Khal Drogo’s manse along with Illyrio and Viserys, who are planning to wed her to the khal. As the story progresses we get some glimpses of Targaryen history.

Viserys

Viserys can be hard for me to assess sometimes. I’m trying to avoid thinking of his show actor who definitely made him seem more goofy than the books did, but I do still think he’s one of those unintentionally comedic characters. It’s easy to laugh at him for being so naive and inflated, but it is also hard to look past the depressing aspects of his life we see through Daenerys’ recollections and observations. Throughout this entire chapter (and dare I say his entire life) he seems like a hurt child lashing out and simultaneously begging for approval. “The beggar king” is sadly just true. Let's settle on "hurt people hurt people". It's overall just tragic for the both of them, though Viserys is 21 and needs to grow up a little.

Frequently mentioned throughout this chapter is how inappropriate he is toward Dany: pinching her nipple, mentioning her breasts and wanting her to “show them off more”, you name it. There’s a bit of an obsession going on with her supposed “womanhood”, though I will not call her anything but a child and I literally do not care to hear anything else. “Medieval standards blah blah blah” even Viserys worries that she is too young!! Example cited below: 

“Are you sure that Khal Drogo likes his women this young?” - Viserys, to Illyrio

Even in this setting Daenerys is a questionable choice of a bride.

Viserys is said to be 8 years older than Daenerys, making them 21 and 13. I want to make note of this because Daenerys later on has a pattern of seeking out men that are frankly too old for her, even being flattered by Jorah’s inappropriate interest in her (Jorah as far as I can tell is 50 or older…). Not to be an armchair psychologist, but I do wonder if his sexually charged treatment of her has traumatized her in some ways, making her think this is normal and replicating a dynamic that feels “familiar”.

The show did kind of make Viserys less threatening, I suppose. If I recall correctly there will be more instances of him wanting to or outright sexually abusing her throughout her childhood and in the present. He’s a lot harder to feel pity for in the books because of this, at least for me. A very well written character though, and sadly not all too unrealistic. Men can be quite horrible when they feel humiliated.

Daenerys

Short version: Poor babygirl

Long version: This first look at Daenerys is heartbreaking to me. Beyond the abuse and objectification she endures you can just tell she has no fight in her, standing silently by Viserys trembling, frozen in fear. Even in her thoughts she can come off as timid, usually her thoughts are almost absent in some scenes. When they do appear she seems to be caught up in dread, attempting to dream herself away like Viserys does but failing to do so (not surprising all things considering). This is a shadow of a person and it is, albeit brilliantly written, awful to read.   

A crucial difference between her in Dance and AGOT is how unambitious she comes off in this first part of her journey. All she wants is to “go home to the red door in Braavos and the lemon tree” (we’re NOT opening the Lemongate can here), that’s it. It is as if her ambitions moving forward are null, completely absent. Even when Viserys insists on their supposedly shared dream of returning to Westeros she has to be reminded of the fact, and does not share his enthusiasm at all. I do hope this will be touched upon in future books. Maybe Daenerys grew to be some grand player in the game, but I suspect her true heart might still be in this early childhood memory. Would she be willing to lay down her claim in order to have it back? Or maybe this is a lost cause, one she will not return to as she embraces her nature as a Targaryen, “Fire and Blood”. 

Anyway, my thoughts on this chapter is that I want to hold and protect Daenerys. Not to be aggressive but I genuinely, truly despise the “fans” that romanticized her relationship with Khal Drogo or even made excuses for it (Mostly show fans because Jason Mamoa is hot or whatever). A blind person could see that she was never given any choice in this and that her “love” for Drogo is just a survival instinct commonly known as “Fawn”; in order to avoid a dangerous situation a victim will appease and placate the abuser, sometimes even convincing themselves that this reflects their own feelings. Even for this setting her marriage to him is seen as sketchy, and I don’t think the world of ASOIAF should stand immune to a contemporary critical analysis either. After all, is that not what GRRM wants to do? I doubt he considers this patriarchal system an endgame, we will most likely see some changes in it after the Long Night ends. The point with this series as I see it has been to highlight how dark and unpleasant the fantasy world is below the surface. 

I don’t know if it’s mostly limited to the show (which is still fucked up and insane btw), but just so you know I am the world’s biggest Dany x Drogo hater. It can burn in hell. It’s truly disgusting and not a single line of copium from Daenerys’ later chapters can change that fact. Yes she is deluded about her own feelings, and I will stand by it. Literally nothing will change my mind. His treatment of her is traumatizing.

Ugh. Not looking forward to her upcoming chapters. 

[jozor-johai]

Revisiting the Rat Cook, Part 8: Rats in the walls of the Red Keep

Back to usual, this is observational and you can read this part alone, but I've developed my analysis of these symbols across the entire series. You can find links to the full series here, or even just read part five, which contains most of the arguments I've built this series on.

To anyone who is reading this part first, "Revisiting the Rat Cook" is a series that is built on the understanding that GRRM's use of metadiegetic legends provide a "road map" of symbols and meaning, used in their abstract form, which we, as readers, can use to better understand the relationships between symbols, motifs, and themes as they reoccur throughout ASOAIF as a whole. The Rat Cook story is about a rat which eats rats, or a cook who serves kings; The Rat Cook story is about fathers and sons, about cannibalism, about trust, about vengeance, and about damning one's legacy.

Rats in the walls of the Red Keep

In previous parts, especially parts four and five, I argued that the rats symbolize a powerlessness that comes from low status on the hierarchy of rule in ASOIAF and also a desire for vengeance against that hierarchy, just as in the Rat Cook story, where the lowly cook becomes a "rat" as he kills the King's son.

However, what few insights we get into the plight of the smallfolk come from niche perspectives and experiences; otherwise, ASOIAF is written from the perspective of nobility. Even in settings like the Red Keep, though, where nearly all of the players are nobility, the symbol of the “rat” still maintains its associations, signifying other ways in which those without formal power are able to enact their vengeance.

-

In chapters where the POV perspective is a person with formal power, the fear of “rats” manifests like paranoia, and the concern that, like with the Rat Cook, there may be people within the bounds of the keep who are quietly resisting that rule. In AGOT Eddard XI, Ned sees informers as rats while serving as Hand of the King:

From his vantage point atop the throne, he could see men slipping out the door at the far end of the hall. Hares going to ground, he supposed … or rats off to nibble the queen's cheese.

Although Cersei was certainly not the only one with rats running around the Red Keep, this is a moment of clarity which displays Ned’s developing understanding of court politics. As Ned has well learned, Cersei—or, at least, someone—is listening, and moving to act against him.

When it is Tyrion’s turn to be Hand of the King, he too imagines the agents of Cersei as “rats” in ACOK Tyrion X:

If Cersei has someone stalking me tonight, he must be disguised as a rat.

Interestingly, though, this moment is an early example of Varys’ abilities, as though Cersei stays ignorant of Tyrion’s behavior, Varys appears later in the chapter having followed Tyrion to Shae's manse. As Tyrion suspected, those stalking “rats” were there, in truth—and, appropriately for their rathood, they are overlooked, their provenance mistaken.

Later, Tyrion’s paranoia—and fear of rats—more appropriately extends to the entirety of the Red Keep in ASOS Tyrion I:

There were rats in the walls, and little birds who talked too much, and spiders.

These three phrases are often used in the Red Keep to describe the underside of these political machinations; many of these are interchangeable, and many serve double duty. “Little birds” might well refer to Varys’, whose spies are “little birds”, but also to Littlefinger, who is also “little” and bearing a bird for a sigil. If both the little birds and the “spiders” of Tyrion’s worries are the realm of Varys, “the Spider”, then one might wonder if Varys possesses an army of little “rats,” too, like the ones who stalked Tyrion to Shae’s manse.

Illyrio almost suggests this in ADWD Tyrion II:

We both grew rich, and richer still when Varys trained his mice." "In King's Landing he kept little birds." "Mice, we called them then.

Mice are not rats, though, and have a much less treacherous connotation. Perhaps these are more appropriate words, considering he was benefactor of their actions and not the betrayed.

As it happens, though, competing “little bird” Petyr Baelish offers a less polite interpretation to Sansa in ASOS Sansa V:

It had to be the godswood. No other place in the Red Keep is safe from the eunuch's little birds . . . or little rats, as I call them.

Both Ned’s assessment of the “rats” reporting on him and Tyrion’s concern that a “rat” might be following him were accurate, but misplaced. Littlefinger, by contrast, shows that he understands better than any other what is going on in the Red Keep. Baelish means to be derogatory, but the comparison reveals the truth of the association between Varys’ spiders, little birds, and the rats in the walls.

-

Even Varys’ official role is ratlike, as is his person. As we saw in earlier parts, the “rats” accompany a lack of agency, but not a total powerlessness; the Rat Cook was still able to enact his vengeance, after all. Varys, too, excels in the space where lacking status and being overlooked makes certain powers available.

The Small Council understands Varys’ usefulness in being a man who commands the power of the metaphorical rat’s non-power. His title, Lord Varys, illustrates this allowance, as well as the power that his lack-of-power is able to afford him; he is no Lord, in truth, yet sits among the Lords as though he were. Varys wields the power of information rather than of swords, which is also a fitting role for a eunuch—a man lacking a “sword.”

Varys explains his understanding of that power to Ned in AGOT Eddard XV:

The master of whisperers must be sly and obsequious and without scruple. A courageous informer would be as useless as a cowardly knight.

Like the Rat Cook, Varys understands the important characteristics of this rat-role: to be deceitful even as one is servile, and—importantly—to be “without scruple.” The Rat Cook violated the Old God’s own laws in his search for vengeance, and if Varys were to be successful, he should be willing to stop at no less.

In the same conversation, Varys also makes this declaration:

I serve the realm, and the realm needs peace.

As Dany saw in the House of the Undying, the realm is a woman’s body, beset by the rat-faced kings. As I argued in an earlier part, the realm is Reek, a prisoner bitten by rats in his cell—and for whom there is no other choice, to eat or be eaten. In the event that the rat-bitten body of the realm might yet bite back in vengeance for the violence wrought upon it, Varys serves the realm.

-

If we see Varys as a “rat” in the Red Keep, his words about the uselessness of “courageous informers” and “cowardly knights” also illustrate something essentially misguided in the Hound’s words from the last part. In ACOK Sansa IV The Hound announced to Sansa that:

A dog doesn't need courage to chase off rats.

As Varys points out, the “dog” and the “rat” are playing the game by entirely different rules altogether. A courageous informer would be useless, and in response to the Hound’s boast, Varys might have said: a dog might not need courage to kill rats, but a rat doesn’t need courage to kill Kings—a rat doesn’t need courage at all, actually.

-

Fittingly, Varys acknowledges verbatim the symbol of “rats” as secretive betrayers when Tyrion misguidedly demands obedience in ASOS Tyrion II:

“You will bring Shae to me through the walls, hidden from all these eyes. As you have done before." Varys wrung his hands. "Oh, my lord, nothing would please me more, but … King Maegor wanted no rats in his own walls, if you take my meaning.”

We, this far into this series, do take his meaning. Rats would kill the King, or his son, so of course King Maegor would want to keep them out of his Holdfast.

In this instance, Varys defends himself by saying that his inability—or unwillingness—to obey Tyrion is out of his control. However, this is just yet another example of Varys’ ability to use his apparent lack of agency to his advantage. Like in so many other instances, his “rat” command comes from pointing out how the King controls all, even down to the walls, even down to the kitchens. If we took that level of control at face value, it would totally obfuscate Varys’ own decisions.

In truth, though, that control may not be realized in practice—and, as in the Rat Cook story, when the cook ceased to believe in the power of the King over the kitchens, perhaps realizing the King never came into the kitchens himself, then he may have realized that practically, the cook is a king in his own domain, and free to take his revenge. Varys understands this, too, of course, as he tells Tyrion in ACOK Tyrion II:

“Power resides where men believe it resides. No more and no less."

Does the King have power over the cook? Not so much as he might like.

-

However, Varys’ deference to Maegor’s command—and his own impotence by result—is doubly interesting knowing what Tyrion does not: that Varys is a “rat” in the Red Keep in more ways than one. The Small Council may understand that he commands “little birds,” but the reader is privy to the knowledge that Varys is playing a second game of his own, given as early as AGOT Arya III, and then later more completely in the ADWD Epilogue. Like all true rats, Varys' obedience—even his obedience to the throne in regards to his sneaking—is, in truth, defiance. Varys is the man who is no man in truth, a lord who is no lord in truth, the humble servant who is no servant in truth.

The Rat Cook story is one where sons pay for the sins of their fathers. The prince was killed in an act of vengeance against the king, and the Rat Cook is punished for his sins by being forced to hunt down his own children. All of Varys’ plotting, and the point of all these rats in the walls, is building to the reinstatement of Aegon VI, who is, notably, the prince who was supposedly killed for the sins of his grandfather, the Mad King. Thus, vengeance begets vengeance once again, and in a reshuffling of the Rat Cook motifs, our rat Varys seems to offer Kevan a version of the story where he claims that the prince survived the pie and has returned with a cook of his own.

After all, King Maegor may have wanted no “rats” in his walls, but what of the possibility that the dragons become the rats? “Rats,” like in the Rat Cook story, are those who quietly defy the King… but when the role of "King" changes, the status of “rats” changes too. Varys himself, master of all the little birds and rats in the walls, claims to support the Targaryen cause now that the Baratheons control the Red Keep.

The imagery of rats as allies of vengeful dragons in the context of the Baratheon-Lannister rule appears in AFFC Jaime I:

And all for naught. They found only darkness, dust, and rats. And dragons, lurking down below…

Jaime is searching for Tyrion here, but as we later learn, it is once again Varys instead who lurks in that darkness, waiting for a chance to install his “dragon.” As with Tyrion, the fear of rats is appropriate, only misplaced.

The association Jaime draws returns again to the transformational aspect of the Rat Cook story. Like the cook who became a rat, or like the “dogs” who became “rats” that I looked at in the last two parts, even the dragons have their turn finding allies in the dungeons. The dragon skulls, relegated to the dungeons, are a reminder that the “rat” status can be circumstantial, and those who lose their power and status might become rats themselves.

Though Dany and Varys are not entirely on the same side, we’ve already seen how Dany herself, another outcast dragon, has made the “rats” her allies as well, as she thinks in ASOS Daenerys VI:

Aegon the Conqueror had won Westeros with three dragons, but she had taken Meereen with sewer rats and a wooden cock, in less than a day.

Aegon may have had dragons, but Dany has her sewer rats by her side, just like the dragons Jaime finds, lurking beneath the keep in dust and darkness. As Dany points out, the “sewer rats” might be just as effective at overthrowing the rulers, just with different means.

-

Dragons and dogs are not the only rulers that turn to rats for allies once they lose their power, lions may as well. Tyrion, once fearing the rats tailing him, becomes a rat, too, when he is disgraced at the end of ASOS.

Truly without agency for the first time ever, in ASOS Tyrion XI, “rats” appear in Tyrion’s mind, as he confides to Jaime:

“You'll have to help me with my last words, my wits have been running about like a rat in a root cellar.”

Not only do “rats” reappear here, but also the same words, “rats and roots,” like Stannis resisting the siege at Storm’s End, or the Blackwoods resisting the Brackens’ siege. Like those instances, this is a turning point where Tyrion’s mind is cellar-low and, like the Rat Cook, primed to consider his potential vengeance. Comparing his “wits” specifically to “rats” signals the change in his mentality.

Only then, after rats have run through his mind, does Varys aid him, as he notes ASOS Tyrion XI:

“I arrived here a King's Hand, riding through the gates at the head of my own sworn men, Tyrion reflected, and I leave like a rat scuttling through the dark, holding hands with a spider.”

In these new circumstances, he and Varys are now equals, both in their lack of direct power and—though Tyrion does not fully know it yet—their desire for vengeance against the ruling party. As Tyrion notes, and as we have seen, being “like a rat” comes from the exact lack of his former authority of office and name. Yet, true to the Rat Cook story, there are still avenues to vengeance, as Lord Tywin discovers later in the same chapter. Like in the Rat Cook story, this rat can still kill—rats may not wield swords, but perhaps they can wield crossbows.

Tyrion’s self-identification as a rat in the walls makes for a brilliant moment, because amidst the hilarious levels of paranoia that make up Cersei’s AFFC chapters, her fear of the “rats” in the walls is one of the few things she is right about. At the very moment that Tyrion is thinking of himself “like a rat”, Cersei is having the exact same thought, as we learn in AFFC Cersei I:

She imagined Tyrion creeping between the walls like some monstrous rat. No. You are being silly. The dwarf is in his cell.

Perfect irony. Being Cersei, she’s wrong every time—so the one time she was about a “rat” Lannister, she assumes she is mistaken.

-

Cersei spends the rest of the book obsessing about Tyrion’s presence in the Walls, as when she burns the Tower of the Hand in AFFC Cersei III:

“If the gods are good, the fire may smoke a few rats from the rubble." Jaime rolled his eyes. "Tyrion, you mean."

Like Jaime and Tyrion before her, she’s misplaced the origin of this presence. There is someone lurking in the walls, but, as always, it’s Varys.

Even Kevan gets to very briefly make the same mistake in the ADWD Epilogue, wondering:

Could Cersei have been right all along?

What Kevan discovers in death, however, is how Varys really has been hiding in the walls, justifying Cersei’s paranoia but not her search for Tyrion.

With that too-late knowledge that Varys takes advantage of his “little birds”—or little rats, as Baelish calls them—to kill Kevan and Pyecelle, we can look back on the series of accidents from AFFC Cersei III:

They had found a thousand rats as well . . . but neither Tyrion nor Varys had been amongst them, and Jaime had finally insisted on putting an end to the search. One boy had gotten stuck in a narrow passage and had to be pulled out by his feet, shrieking. Another fell down a shaft and broke his legs. And two guardsmen vanished exploring a side tunnel.

The revelation from the Epilogue that Varys is able and willing to kill from his secret places in the walls, and that he has a small army of loyal children, makes this passage read differently. Knowing Kevan's fate, it’s easy to imagine how a guard falling down a shaft might have been subtly pushed, or that two guardsmen vanishing in a side tunnel might have run into the web of a Spider who didn’t want to be found. Jaime may have found “a thousand rats,” but it appears as though there's another thousand rats which Jaime didn’t find, rats which look like lost “little birds” and still creep around, acting on Varys’ commands.

-

Of course, these rats have to remain hidden when Jaime searches for them, because “rats” operate without any courage. Rats aren’t fighters, they’re deceivers and disloyal servants.

Returning to Baelish’s words to Sansa from ASOS Sansa V, Baelish actually has more to say on that exact subject. Littlefinger displays a real understanding of the nature of the relationship between the sword-wielding men in power—the Andal Kings of the story, and their dogs—versus the rats underfoot.

“There are trees in the godswood instead of walls. Sky above instead of ceiling. Roots and dirt and rock in place of floor. The rats have no place to scurry. Rats need to hide, lest men skewer them with swords.”

Baelish shows that he has always understood the truth of what Ned, Tyrion, and Cersei have only suspected: the walls are full of rats, “scrabbling in the dark.” While being able to retreat into the hidden spots of the world is a weakness which they use to their advantage, it is still a weakness, for the rats will die if found.

His words echo the advice of Myles Toyne, which Jon Connington recalls in ADWD The Griffin Reborn:

“Lord Tywin would not have bothered with a search. He would have burned that town and every living creature in it. Men and boys, babes at the breast, noble knights and holy septons, pigs and whores, rats and rebels, he would have burned them all.”

Toyne, too, specifically links “rats and rebels,” an association that should be familiar by now. Varys explained how these rebels act on a paradigm entirely separate from courage, and Toyne tells us why the creeping is necessary from the other perspective, for he understands the Lords’ treatment of those same “rats.”

Rats are “burned”, like Toyne says Tywin would, or they are “skewered”, like Baelish says—which is strikingly consistent with the imagery alongside the earlier quotes from the smallfolk of King’s Landing. It’s the fate of the rats that Tyrion walks past in ACOK Tyrion I:

“One peddler was hawking rats roasted on a skewer.”

Or that Cersei walks past in ADWD Cersei II:

“A man just ahead was selling skewers of roast meat from a cart … The meat looked suspiciously like rat to Cersei's eyes”

If we see those smallfolk as “rats” themselves who would be skewered with swords and roasted if they rebelled, the act of eating “skewered” and “roasted” rats portends that oncoming punishment. This comparison adds new depth to the understanding that those smallfolk are eating themselves—not just eating themselves as rats, but as rats who have faced, and who will face, the full retribution of the Lords above them. These skewered and roasted rats simultaneously symbolize those seeking vengeance against the injustices of rulership, and also how those with direct power try—and often succeed—to kill them outright and squash the dissent.

-

However, Jaime’s search of the Tower of the Hand reveals how difficult that task may be, far more difficult than Toyne or Baelish make it seem. Jaime may have found a “thousand rats,” but Kevan still dies to more rats, the ones that Jaime doesn’t find, just as Gregor Clegane searches everywhere for Beric Dondarrion, finding nothing but rat-smallfolk, but never the one that matters.

Even when he is caught, Beric Dondarrion, as a symbol of that resistance, is literally unkillable. Replacing him as the leader of those “rats” in a cave is the undead Lady Stoneheart, because, like with ratlike Reek and “ghost” Theon, what is dead may never die. The Rat Cook, too, is immortal—and the Rat Cook's children, that endless army of progeny succeeding their father like the splinter groups of rebels succeed Beric, reveal another element within the Rat Cook's story.

No matter how many rats they might find, there are still more hiding in the walls. Even if the rats are caught, lions or dogs might transform into rats to take their place. The Rat Cook himself, after his punishment, is able to eat and eat and eat his children, the rats of the Nightfort, yet never be sated, because his endless hunger is matched by an endless supply of rats. One simply cannot hunt them all and succeed. Or can you?

-

In the next, final part, and also in my series epilogue, I’ll examine two different ways in which ASOIAF looks at this question. In the next part, I’ll examine the Lannister legacy that leads to Tyrion’s rat transformation, and Dany’s ruminations on the futility of hunting the sons, sons of the sons, and the sons of the sons of the sons.

[d0reah]

𝕯𝖔𝖗𝖊𝖆𝖍 𝖔𝖋 𝕷𝖞𝖘

Doreah is a Lysene handmaid to Daenerys Targaryen. Magister Illyrio Mopatis found Doreah in a pleasure house in Lys. Viserys Targaryen bedded her while he was a guest at Illyrio's manse. Doreah, Irri, and Jhiqui, are given to Daenerys Targaryen as wedding gifts to serve as her handmaidens; Doreah is to instruct the young bride in the "womanly" arts of love. Daenerys remembers Doreah's lessons when she sleeps with Khal Drogo. Doreah became Viserys Targaryen's lover while the Khalasar. Upon his death, Doreah follows Daeneys through Essos, and while in Mereen, she rejoins her Lyseni culture, helping the ambient of the new court there to rejoice. Still a follower of her Lyseni Gods, she often prays for the Love Goddess and practices in the fertility chase, where maidens are chased and taken by whoever lord finds them. She wears in a style similar to Daenerys but with her Lyseni touches, a lot of chains and golden details and pears that adorn her body and often hide behind her dress.

[sigilsongs-a]

𝐕𝐄𝐑𝐒𝐄𝐒 ... HOTD and AGOT AUs + verse tags

𝐀𝐥𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐢𝐧 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐃𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞, 𝐌𝐚𝐢𝐧 𝐀𝐮, 𝐈.

Helaena, upon the approach of her marriage to her brother Aegon, suffers a breakdown; her Dreaming suddenly plaguing her with visions of death, a dragons piercing roar of grief, of bones crumbling to ash, and the sensation of plummeting towards endless, horrifying darkness. Utterly overwhelmed, beyond any point she has ever been before, Helaena flees the Keep; disappearing into the night like a pale spectre. She lives alone in the wilderness, avoiding people and interactions, save for an eventual purchase of a horse she names Shrykos. Helaena fades from some memory, though rumours and questions hang in the air of how the Princess could have vanished, and the Dance unfolds. She becomes a nomad, a pale ghostfly Dreaming under the moonlight, some wary and some believing she is a harbinger of prophecy. She wanders freely, curiously, quietly, craving peace. [ Unless plotted otherwise, she had not bonded with Dreamfyre ]

𝐅𝐨𝐥𝐥𝐨𝐰 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐃𝐫𝐚𝐠𝐨𝐧𝐬, 𝐌𝐚𝐢𝐧 𝐀𝐮, 𝐈𝐈.

An assumed bastard-born who was intended to be a companion to the newborn Daenerys Targaryen, she was abducted or lost in transit to the Free Cities; left with only a three-headed dragon sigil from that time. Her abilities as a Dreamer foretold her potential sale as a bedslave, her selective mutism forestalled her fate for some time — no one wanted a silent whore. Now often called Elaena (her name misheard and then rarely used), she became an invisible, all-but silent attendant to the pillowhouse, its' workers, and its' patrons. Around the time her once-cradlemate is wed to Khal Drogo, Elaena is purchased by the Pentoshi Magister Illyrio Mopatis as a slave within his manse, wherein she begins to learn of the tales of Viserys & Daenerys Targaryen.

[isefyres-archive]

𝕯𝖔𝖗𝖊𝖆𝖍 𝖔𝖋 𝕷𝖞𝖘

Doreah is a Lysene handmaid to Daenerys Targaryen. Magister Illyrio Mopatis found Doreah in a pleasure house in Lys. Viserys Targaryen bedded her while he was a guest at Illyrio's manse. Doreah, Irri, and Jhiqui, are given to Daenerys Targaryen as wedding gifts to serve as her handmaidens; Doreah is to instruct the young bride in the "womanly" arts of love. Daenerys remembers Doreah's lessons when she sleeps with Khal Drogo. Doreah became Viserys Targaryen's lover while the Khalasar. Upon his death, Doreah follows Daeneys through Essos, and while in Mereen, she rejoins her Lyseni culture, helping the ambient of the new court there to rejoice. Still a follower of her Lyseni Gods, she often prays for the Love Goddess and practices in the fertility chase, where maidens are chased and taken by whoever lord finds them. She wears in a style similar to Daenerys but with her Lyseni touches, a lot of chains and golden details and pears that adorn her body and often hide behind her dress.

[asoiafreadthru]

A Game of Thrones, Daenerys I

Inside the manse, the air was heavy with the scent of spices, pinchfire and sweet lemon and cinnamon.

They were escorted across the entry hall, where a mosaic of colored glass depicted the Doom of Valyria. Oil burned in black iron lanterns all along the walls.

Beneath an arch of twining stone leaves, a eunuch sang their coming.

“Viserys of the House Targaryen, the Third of His Name,” he called in a high, sweet voice, “King of the Andals and the Rhoynar and the First Men, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms and Protector of the Realm.

“His sister, Daenerys Stormborn, Princess of Dragonstone.

“His honorable host, Illyrio Mopatis, Magister of the Free City of Pentos.”

[spamgot189]

A Game of Thrones

GEORGE R.R. MARTIN

prev + next

wc: 4,129

warning(s): Dothraki, aggressive behavior

masterlist

DAENERYS

HER BROTHER HELD THE CROWN up for her inspection. “This is beauty. Touch it. Go on. Caress the fabric.”

Dany touched it. The cloth was so smooth it seemed to run through her fingers like water. She could not remember ever wearing anything so soft. It frightened her. She pulled her hand away. “Is it really mine?”

“A gift from the Magister Illyrio,” Viserys said, smiling. Her brother was in a high mood tonight. “The color will bring out the violet in your eyes. And you shall have gold as well, the jewels of all sorts. Illyrio has promised. Tonight you must look like a princess.”

A princess, Dany thought. She had forgotten what that was like. Perhaps she had never really known. “Why does he give us so much?” she asked. “What does he want from us?” For nigh on half a year, they had lived in the magister’s house, eating his food, pampered by his servants. Dany was thirteen, old enough to know that such gifts seldom come without their price, here in the free city of Pentos.

“Illyrio is no fool,” Viserys said. He was a gaunt young man with nervous hands and a feverish look in his pale lilac eyes. “The magister knows that I will not forget my friends when I come into my throne.”

Dany said nothing. Magister Illyrio was a dealer in spices, gemstones, dragonbone, and other, less savory things. He had friends in all the Nine Free Cities, it was said, and even beyond, in Vaes Dothrak and the fabled lands beside the Jade Sea. It was also said that he’d never had a friend he wouldn’t cheerfully sell for the right price. Dany listened to the talk in the streets, and she heard these things, but she knew better than to question her brother when he wove his webs of dream. His anger was a terrible thing when roused. Viserys called it “waking the dragon.”

Her brother hung the gown beside the door. “Illyrio will send the slaves to bathe you. Be sure you wash off the stink of the stables. Khal Drogo has a thousand horses, tonight he looks for a different sort of mount.” He studied her critically. “You still slouch. Straighten yourself.” He pushed back her shoulders with his hands. “Let them see that you have a woman’s shape now.” His fingers brushed lightly over her budding breasts and tightened on a nipple. “You will not fail me tonight. If you do, it will go hard for you. You don’t want to wake the dragon, do you?” His fingers twisted her, the pinch cruelly hard through the rough fabric of her tunic. “Do you?” he repeated.

“No,” Dany said meekly.

Her brother smiled. “Good.” He touched her hair, almost with affection. “When they write the history of my reign, sweet sister, they will say that it began tonight.”

When he was gone, Dany went to her window and looked out wistfully on the waters of the bay. The square brick towers of Pentos were black silhouettes outlined against the setting sun. Dany could hear the singing of the red priests as they lit their night fires and the shouts of ragged children playing games beyond the walls of the estate. For a moment she wished she could be out there with them, barefoot and breathless and dressed in tatters, with no past and no future and no feast to attend at Khal Drogo’s manse.

Somewhere beyond the sunset, across the narrow sea, lay a land of green hills and flowered plains and great rushing rivers, where towers of dark stone rose amidst magnificent blue-grey mountains, and armored knights rode to battle beneath the banners of their lords. The Dothraki called that land Rhaesh Andahli, the land of the Andals. In the Free Cities, they talked of Westeros and the Sunset Kingdoms. Her brother had a simpler name. “Our land,” he called it. The words were like a prayer with him. If he said them enough, the gods were sure to hear. “Ours by blood right, taken from us by treachery, but ours still, ours forever. You do not steal from the dragon, oh, no. The dragon remembers.”

And perhaps the dragon did remember, but Dany could not. She had never seen this land her brother said was theirs, this realm beyond the narrow sea. These places he talked of, Casterly Rock and the Eyrie, Highgarden and the Vale lf Arryn, Dorne and the Isle of Faces, they were just words to her.

Viserys had been a boy of eight when they fled King’s Landing to escape the advancing armies of the Usurper, but Daenerys had been only quickening in their mother’s womb.

Yet sometimes Dany would picture the way it had been, so often had her brother told her the stories. The midnight flight to Dragonstone, moonlight shimmering on the ship’s black sails. Her brother Rhaegar battling the Usurper in the bloody waters of the Trident and dying for the woman he loved. The sack of King’s Landing by the ones Viserys called the Usurper’s dogs, the lords Lannister and Stark. Princess Elia of Dorne pleading for mercy as Rhaegar’s heir was ripped from her breast and murdered before her eyes. The polished skulls of the last dragons staring down sightlessly from the walls of the throne room while the Kingslayer opened Father’s throat with a golden sword.

She had been born on Dragonstone nine moons after their flight, while a raging summer storm threatened to rip the island fastness apart. They said that storm was terrible. The Targaryen fleet was smashed while it lay at anchor, the huge stone bricks were ripped from the parapets and sent hurling into the wild waters of the narrow sea. Her mother had died birthing her, and for that her brother Viserys had never forgiven her.

She did not remember Dragonstone either. They had run again, just before the Usurper’s brother set sail with his new-built fleet. By then only Dragonstone itself, the ancient seat of their House, had remained of the Seven Kingdoms that had once been theirs. It would not remain for long. The garrison had been prepared to sell them to the Usurper, but one night Ser Willem Darry and four loyal men had broken into the nursery and stolen them both, along with their wet nurse, and set sail under cover of darkness the safety of the Braavosian coast.

She remembered Ser Willem dimly, a great grey bear of a man, half-blind, roaring and bellowing orders from his sickbed. The servants had lived in terror of him, but he had always been kind to Dany. He called her “Little Princess” and sometimes “My Lady,” and his hands were soft as old leather. He never left his bed, though, and the smell of sickness clung to him day and night, a hot, moist, sickly sweet odor. That was when they lived in Braavos, in the big house with the red door. Dany had her own room there, with a lemon tree outside her window. After Ser Willem had died, the servants had stolen what little money they had left, and soon after they had been put out of the big house. Dany had cried when the red door closed behind them forever.

They had wandered since then, from Braavos to Myr, from Myr to Tyrosh, and on to Qohor and Volantis and Lys, never staying long in one place. Her brother would not allow it. The Usurper’s hired knives were close behind them, he insisted, though Dany had never seen one.

At first the magisters and archons and merchant princes were pleased to welcome the last Targaryens to their homes and tables, but as the years passed and the Usurper continued to sit upon the Iron Throne, doors closed and their lives grew meaner. Years past they had been forced to sell their last few treasures, and now even the coin they had gotten from Mother’s crown had gone. In the alleys and winesinks of Pentos, they called her brother “the beggar king.” Dany did not want to know what they called her.

“We will have it all back someday, sweet sister,” he would promise her. Sometimes his hands shook when he talked about it. “The jewels and the silks, Dragonstone and King’s Landing, the Iron Throne and the Seven Kingdoms, all they have taken from us, we will have it back.” Viserys lived for that day. All that Daenerys wanted back was the big house with the red door, the lemon tree outside her window, the childhood she never known.

There came a soft knock on her door. “Come,” Dany said, turning away from the window. Illyrio’s servants entered, bowed, and set about their business. They were slaves, a gift from one of the magister’s many Dothraki friends. There was no slavery in the free city of Pentos. Nonetheless, they were slaves. The old woman, small and grey as a mouse, never said a word, but the girl made up for it. She was Illyrio’s favorite, a fair-haired, blue-eyed wench of sixteen who chattered constantly as she worked.

They filled her bath with hot water brought up from the kitchen and scented it with fragrant oils. The girl pulled the rough cotton tunic over Dany’s head and helped her into the tub. The water was scalding hot, but Daenerys did not flinch or cry out. She liked the heat. It made her feel clean. Besides, her brother had often told her that it was never too hot for a Targaryen. “Ours is the house of the dragon,” he would say. “The fire is in our blood.”

The old woman washed her long, silver-pale hair and gently combed out the snags, all in silence. The girl scrubbed her back and feet and told her how lucky she was. “Drogo is so rich that even his slaves wear golden collars. A hundred thousand men ride his Khalasar, and his palace in Vaes Dothrak has two hundred rooms and doors of solid silver.” There was more like that, so much more, what a handsome man the Khal was, so tall and fierce, fearless in battle, the best rider ever to mount a horse, a demon archer.

Daenerys said nothing. She has always assumed that she’d wed Viserys when she came of age. For centuries the Targaryens had married brother and sister, since Aegon the Conqueror had taken his sisters to bride. The line must be kept pure, Viserys had told her a thousand times; theirs was the kingsblood, the golden blood of old Valyria, the blood of the dragon. Dragons did not mate with the beasts of the field, and Targaryens did not mingle their blood with that of lesser men. Yet now Viserys schemed to sell her to a stranger, a barbarian.

When she was clean, the slaves helped her from the water and toweled her dry. The girl brushed her hair until it shone like molten silver, while the old woman anointed her with the spiceflower perfume of the Dothraki plains, a dab on each wrist, behind her ears, on the tips of her breasts, and one last one, cool on her lips, down there between her legs. They dressed her in the wisps that Magister Illyrio had sent up, and then the gown, a deep plum silk to bring out the violet in her eyes. The girl slid the glided sandals onto her feet, while the old woman fixed the tiara in her hair, and slid golden bracelets crusted with amethysts around her wrists. Last of all came the collar, a heavy golden torc emblazoned with ancient Valyrian glyphs.

“Now you look all a princess,” the girl said breathlessly when they were done. Dany glanced at her image in the silvered looking glass that Illyrio had so thoughtfully provided. A princess, she thought, but she remembered what the girl had said, how Khal Drogo was so rich even his slaves wore golden collars. She felt a sudden chill, and gooseflesh pimpled her arms.

Her brother was waiting in the cool of the entry hall, seated on the edge of the pool, his hand trailing in the water. He rose when she appeared and looked her over critically. “Stand there,” he told her. “Turn around. Yes. Good. You look…”

“Regal,” Magister Illyrio said, stepping through an archway. He moved with surprising delicacy for such a massive man. Beneath loose garments of flame-colored silk, rolls of fat jiggled as he walked. Gemstones glittered on every finger, and his man had oiled his forked yellow beard until it shone like the gold. “May the Lord of Light shower you with blessings on this most fortunate day, Princess Daenerys,” the magister said as he took her hand. He bowed his head, showing a thin glimpse of crooked yellow teeth through the gold of his beard. “She is a vision, Your Grace, a vision,” he told her brother. “Drogo will be enraptured.”

“She’s too skinny,” Viserys said. His hair, the same silver-blond as hers, had been pulled back tightly behind his head and fastened with a dragonbone brooch. It was a severe look that emphasized the hard, gaunt lines of his face. He rested his hand on the hilt of the sword that Illyrio had lent him, and said, “Are you sure that Khal Drogo likes his women this young?”

“She has had her blood. She is old enough for the Khal,” Illyrio told him, not for the first time. “Look at her. That silver-gold hair, those purple eyes… she is the blood of old Valyria, no doubt, no doubt…and highborn, daughter of the old king, sister to the new, she cannot fail to entrance our Drogo.”

When he released her hand, Daenerys found herself trembling.

“I suppose,” her brother said doubtfully. “The savages have queer tastes. Boys, horses, sheep…”

“Best not suggest this to Khal Drogo,” Illyrio said.

Anger flashed in her brother’s lilac eyes. “Do you take me for a fool?”

The magister bowed slightly. “I take you for a king. Kings lack the caution of common men. My apologies if I have given offense.” He turned away and capped his hands for his bearers.

The streets of Pentos were pitch-dark when they set out in Illyrio’s elaborately carved palanquin. Two servants went ahead to light their way, carrying ornate oil lanterns with panes of pale blue glass, while a dozen strong men hoisted the poles to their shoulders. It was warm and close inside behind the curtains. Dany could smell the stench of Illyrio’s pallid flesh through his heavy perfumes.

Her brother, sprawled out on his pillows beside her, never noticed. His mind was way across the narrow sea. “We won’t need his whole Khalasar,” Viserys said. His fingers toyed with the hilt of his borrowed blade, though Dany knew he had never use a sword in earnest. “Ten thousand, that would be enough, I could sweep the Seven Kingdoms with ten thousand Dothraki screamers. The realm will rise for its rightful king. Tyrell, Redwyne, Darry, Greyjoy, the have no more love for the Usurper than I do. The Dornishmen burn to avenge Elia and her children. And the smallfolk will be with us. They cry for their king.” He looked at Illyrio anxiously. “They do, don’t they?”

“They are your people, and they love you well,” Magister Illyrio said amiably. “In holdfasts all across the realm, men lift secret toasts to your health while women sew dragon banners and hide them against the day of your return from across the water.” He gave a massive shrug. “Or so my agents tell me.”

Dany had no agents, no way of knowing what anyone was doing or thinking across the narrow sea, but she mistrusted Illyrio’s sweet words as she mistrusted everything about Illyrio. Her brother was nodding eagerly, however. “I shall kill the Usurper myself,” he promised, who had never killed anyone, “as he killed my brother Rhaegar. And Lannister too, the Kingslayer, for what he did to my father.”

“That would be most fitting,” Magister Illyrio said. Dany saw the smallest hint of a smile playing around his full lips, but her brother did not notice. Nodding, he pushed back a curtain and stared off into the night, and Dany knew he was fighting the Battle of the Trident once again.

The nine-towered manse of Khal Drogo sat beside the waters of the bay, its high brick walls overgrown with pale ivy. It had been given to the Khal by the magisters of Pentos, Illyrio told them. The Free Cities were always generous with the horselords. “The Lord of Light would hold our city walls against a million Dothraki, or so the red priests promise…yet why take chances, when their friendship comes so cheap?”

Their palanquin was stopped at the gate, the curtains pulled roughly back by one of the house guards. He had the copper skin and dark almond eyes of a Dothraki, but his face was hairless and he wore the spiked bronze cap of the Unsullied. He looked them over coldly. Magister Illyrio growled something to him in the rough Dothraki tongue; the guardsman replied in the same voice and waved them through the gates.

Dany noticed that her brother’s hand was clenched tightly around the hilt of his borrowed sword. He looked almost as frightened as she felt. “Insolent eunuch,” Viserys muttered as the palanquin lurched up toward the manse.

Magister Illyrio’s words were honey. “Many important men will be at the feast tonight. Such men have enemies. The Khal must protect his guests, yourself chief among them, Your Grace. No doubt the Usurper would pay well for your head.”

“Oh, yes,” Viserys said darkly. “He has tried, Illyrio, I promise you that. His hired knives followed us everywhere. I am the last dragon, and he will not sleep easy while I live.”

The palanquin slowed and stopped. The curtains were thrown back, and a slave offered a hand to help Daenerys out. His collar, she noted, was ordinary bronze. Her brother followed, one hand still clenched hard around his sword hilt. It took two strong men to get Magister Illyrio back to his feet.

Inside the manse, the air was heavy with the scent of spices, pinchfire and sweet lemon and cinnamon. They were escorted across the entry hall, where a mosaic of colored glass depicted the Doom of Valyria. Oil burned in black iron lanterns all along the walls. Beneath an arch of twining stone leaves, a eunuch sang their coming. “Viserys of the House Targaryen, the Third of his Name,” he called in a high, sweet voice, “King of the Andals and the Rhoynar and the First Men, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms and Protector of the Realm. His sister, Daenerys Stormborn, Princess of Dragonbone. His honorable host, Illyrio Mopatis, Magister of the Free City of Pentos.”

They stepped past the eunuch into a pillared courtyard overgrown in pale ivy. Moonlight painted the leaves in shades of bone and silver as the guests drifted among them. Many were Dothraki horselords, big men with red-brown skin, their drooping mustachios bound in metal rings, their black hair oiled and braided and hung with bells. Yet among them moved bravos and sellswords from Pentos and Myr and Tyrosh, a red priest even fatter than Illyrio, hairy men from the Port of Ibben, and lords from the Summer Isles with skin as black as ebony. Daenerys looked at them all in wonder…and realized, with a sudden start of fear, that she was the only woman there.

Illyrio whispered to them. “Those three are Drogo’s bloodriders, there,” he said. “By the pillar is Khal Moro, with his son Rhogoro. The man with the green beard is brother to the Archon of Tyrosh, and the man behind him is Ser Jorah Mormont.”

The last name caught Daenerys. “A knight?”

“No less.” Illyrio smiled through his beard. “Anointed with the seven oils by the High Septon himself.”

“What is he doing here?” she blurted.

“The Usurper wanted his head,” Illyrio told them. “Some trifling affront. He sold some poachers to a Tyroshi slaver instead of giving them to the Night’s Watch. Absurd law. A man should be able to do as he likes with his own chattel.”

“I shall wish to speak with Ser Jorah before the night is done,” her brother said. Dany found herself looking at the knight curiously. He was an older man, past forty and balding, but still strong and fit. Instead of silks and cottons, he wore wool and leather. His tunic was a dark green, embroidered with the likeness of a black bear standing on two legs.

She was still looking at this strange land from the homeland she had never known when Magister Illyrio placed a moist hand on her bare shoulder. “Over there, sweet princess,” he whispered, “there is the Khal himself.”

Dany wanted to run and hide, but her brother was looking at her, and if she displeased him she knew she would wake the dragon. Anxiously, she turned and looked at the man Viserys hoped would ask her to wed before the night was done.

The slave girl had not been far wrong, she thought. Khal Drogo was a head taller than the tallest man in the room, yet somehow light on his feet, as graceful as the panther in Illyrio’s menagerie. He was younger than she’d thought, no more than thirty. His skin was the color of polished copper, his thick mustachios bound with gold and bronze rings.

“I must go and make my submissions,” Magister Illyrio said. “Wait here. I shall bring him to you.”

Her brother took her by the arm as Illyrio waddled over to the Khal, his fingers squeezing so hard that they hurt. “Do you see his braid, sweet sister?”

Drogo’s braid was black as midnight and heavy with scented oil, hung with tiny bells that rang softly as he moved. It swung well past his belt, below even his buttocks, the end of it brushing the back of his thighs.

“You see how long it is?” Viserys said. “When Dothraki are defeated in combat, they cut off their braids in disgrace, so the world will know their shame. Khal Drogo has never lost a fight. He is Aegon the Dragonlord come again, and you will be his queen.”

Dany looked at Khal Drogo. His face was hard and cruel, his eyes as cold and dark as onyx. Her brother hurt her sometimes, when she woke the dragon, but he did not frighten her the way this man frightened her. “I don’t want to be his queen,” she heard herself say in a small, thin voice. “Please, please, Viserys, I don’t want to, I want to go home.”

“Home!” He kept his voice low, but she could hear the fury in his tone, “How are we to go home, sweet sister? They took our home from us!” He drew her into the shadows, out of sight, his fingers digging into her skin. “How are we to go home?” he repeated, meaning King’s Landing, and Dragonstone, and all the realm they had lost.

Dany had only meant their rooms in Illyrio’s estate, no true home surely, though all they had, but her brother did not want to hear that. There was no home there for him. Even the big house with the red door had not been home for him. His fingers dug hard into her arm, demanding an answer. “I don’t know…” she said at last, her voice breaking. Tears welled in her eyes.

“I do,” he said sharply. “We go home with an army, sweet sister. With Khal Drogo’s army, that is how we go home. And if you must wed him and bed him for that, you will.” He smiled at her. “I’d let his whole Khalasar fuck you if need be, sweet sister, all forty thousand men, and their horses too if that was what it took to get my army. Be grateful it is only Drogo. In time you may even learn to like him. Now dry your eyes. Illyrio is bringing him over, and he will not see you crying.”

Dany turned and saw that it was true. Magister Illyrio, all smiles and bows, was escorting Khal Drogo over to where they stood. She brushed away unfallen tears with the back of her hand.

“Smile,” Viserys whispered nervously, his hand falling to the hilt of his sword. “And stand up straight. Let him see that you have breasts. Gods know, you have little enough as is.”

Daenerys smiled, and stood up straight.

[notenoughmuses]

@westerosiqueens

He doesn't know how to take in everything but the past year has allowed him more understanding. He's grateful for Aerion and his eternal unwavering loyalty. His bones were in Westeros and he'd managed to make it to Essos though the kindness of the small folk as he used to, singing in taverns and the like. He'd gotten a lead of the exact whereabouts of his siblings and sent out to find his lost siblings. He hadn't seen his baby brother in so long. (It's hard to do that when you 've been a corpse for fourteen years). Rhaegar had just pissed them from Illyrio Montapis's manse but after more tracking the Khaalassar Rhaegar saw two figures that he knew in an instance was Viserys and Daenerys.

His heart stopped as he saw Viserys. He'd been so young last he'd seen his brother. What had it been? His sixth name day? Fifth since he'd last saw him? He couldn't recall now. Viserys was skinnier than he imagined, looked as if he lacked a life, like a shell of a person who had tried to cling to survival. Even from far away he could see a sliver of their father in him and it sent a chill down to his bones.

Daenerys looked petite and small, coming into her womanhood and reminded him of their mother, her smile bright and happy despite her circumstances. She should be in fine silks and velvets, riding a well kept horse and full of good filling foods. She should enjoying the gardens of the Red Keep, living the life of a princess.

But Rhaegar had fucked it all up for his siblings. He had ruined them and their house. For fourteen years he had inadvertly forced his siblings to scrap together enough coin and food to live. Forced to rely on themselves or the kindness of strangers and the dangled hope of men who couldn't care less. Rhaegar felt a pit of guilt building in his gut the closer he got to Viserys, Dany having ran off to go to her Khal Drogo's tent.

"Viserys..." It's almost a whisper as he says it, as if he's terrified he's dreaming and speaking will cause this to all vanish. "Viserys" he repeats, stronger this time wondering if he'd be recognized by his young brother after all these years while he's not changed at all, Viserys certainly has.