the thing that bothers me about dragon riders is that the dragon absolutely does not have to let you climb on its back. your ability to 'ride' the dragon is entirely dependent on the dragon allowing you to do that. it could fly just fine without you sitting there. which means you are not a dragon rider, not really. that beast is not your pet. you're the dragon's pet. you're its trophy wife.
People really are missing the point of a character like Nettles. Being the a non-Valyrian dragonrider is what makes her different(in every positive definition of that word) and helps to serve a larger purpose in this story.
Valyrian blood is not special. It’s not needed to do great things. No one is special because of what family they happen to be born into.
A non-Valyrian Nettles shows that we are more than the circumstances which we are born into. Our birth, our names, and our very blood does not define us. Our actions are what do. We can overcome so much and rise to become absolutely extraordinary with a little bit of determination, patience, and a dash of help along the way. Nettles exemplifies that to the fullest extent.
She's more than a Black Valryian. She doesn’t have to be Valyrian. She shouldn’t have to be Valyrian.
She’s a survivor. She’s a final girl. She’s a Black low-born girl likely without a drop of dragons blood that tames a wild dragon with patience that killed countless others who had dragons blood. She survived the Dance where others high and low alike fell and perished to become a firewitch to the Burned Men.
Her legacy is immortalized in the history books(and by the Burned Men cause they still worship her) as one of the last(if not the last) dragonrider(s) before Dany all without having any known Valyrian ancestry.
Been wanting to try to digitally paint sunset clouds for a while now, remembered this shot in FOTR exists, and sort of blacked out the past few days working on it.
hate it when there's a book where the premise is good but the execution is limp dicked because now i have to read it and grind my teeth over how good it could have been the entire time. look what you've done to me.
it was Appreciate A Dragon day earlier this week, so i drew this! for dragon appreciation!
it's the End dragon- you know the one. From Minecraft. If you cracked open my skull right now you'd just see 'minecraft minecraft minecraft' oozing out like a runny yolk.