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loyalannister · 4 years

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UNDER THE LENS : Daenerys I, A Game of Thrones

The first perspective of Daenerys Targaryen opens in Magister Illyrio's manse at Pentos, where we meet the last scions of House Targaryen and get a glimpse of the contrasting traits, dreams and ambitions of the two siblings even as the chapter ends with a step forward in the narrative of the future mother of dragons.

• Probably no PoV other than her very first one does a better job of showing us exactly what Dany really wants - momentarily and for her future:

Dany could hear [...] 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...

The text explicitly says that the Iron Throne & the lost glory of the Targaryens was something exclusive to Viserys' desire - not his sister's:

Viserys lived for that day.

It's absurd to claim that Daenerys would have rejected an opportunity to return to Westeros & reclaim the prosperity of her house at this point in the narrative but Martin does sharply contrast Viserys' desire with that of his sister's in the very next sentence :

All that Daenerys wanted back was the big house with the red door, the lemon tree outside her window, the childhood she had never known.

• The house with the red door looms large on Dany's innermost desires not only in A Game of Thrones but in her journey throughout the series. There have been various speculations on this house and its location, even some theorizing that it exists only as a figment of her imagination. But Daenerys recalls her emotions surrounding the red door with sharp clarity :

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.

Of course, one might argue that Daenerys was younger and she might not be recalling certain things correctly. But that begs the question - which parts of her childhood memories are trustworthy & which parts are not?

• One thing which captured my attention early on in the chapter was the fact that Daenerys is far more observant, intuitive & wary of everything offered to her compared to her older brother :

“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.

Dany is right to be wary of Illyrio though, She even thinks back to the words spoken of Illyrio in the streets - 'he’d never had a friend he wouldn’t cheerfully sell for the right price.' When Illyrio assures Viserys that the common people of Westeros are sewing dragon banners & awaiting his return, she knows better than to hang on to his every word:

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.

When Viserys vows to kill powerful people like Jaime Lannister and Robert Baratheon, Daenerys is quick to note Illyrio's reaction, which her brother misses:

Dany saw the smallest hint of a smile playing around his full lips, but her brother did not notice.

• As much as Viserys is and should be criticized by the readers for his abusive behavior, this chapter lays out the psychological basis for his behavior and makes me feel somewhat sympathetic for him. Viserys is essentially stuck in the past even though the events occuring around his escape from Westeros has long transpired:

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.

He is desperate to reclaim the glory and power of House Targaryen (which is essentially why he arranges Dany's match with Drogo):

“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.”

Though he spins his own 'web of dreams', Viserys is not as confident as he might appear at first glance - his resolution wavers at times & he looks for reassurance from Illyrio to validate his desires and plans:

“The realm will rise for its rightful king. [...] And the smallfolk will be with us. They cry out for their king.” He looked at Illyrio anxiously. “They do, don’t they?”

• Daenerys shares a number of parallels with Tyrion Lannister (widely believed to be one of the three heads of the dragon with good reason). This sentence, in particular, sharply reminded me of the dynamic between Tyrion and Cersei:

Her mother had died birthing her, and for that her brother Viserys had never forgiven her.

Much like Viserys did to Daenerys, Cersei too has physically abused Tyrion (on more than one occasion, I dare say)

• This PoV introduces us to slaves for the first time in the series. Daenerys is astute enough to note that :

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.

These are the servants (or rather slaves) who inform Dany of the many slaves working under Khal Drogo :

“Drogo is so rich that even his slaves wear golden collars...”

What many people seem to forget along the line is that Dany did not randomly take pity on slaves along her journey and decide to free them. Her revolution to end this horrible tradition stems from her own experience : she was essentially sold as a slave to Drogo. Even in her very first PoV, she is made to wear a collar before meeting Drogo - a very fancy collar but a collar nonetheless:

Last of all came the collar, a heavy golden torc emblazoned with ancient Valyrian glyphs.

• Obviously the Targaryens are not fireproof but they are resistant to heat to some extent. Will this come in useful for Daenerys in the future?

The water was scalding hot, but Daenerys did not flinch or cry out. She liked the heat. It made her feel clean.

• It's interesting that Viserys refers to Khal Drogo as 'Aegon the Dragonlord come again', while later on Tyrion Lannister refers to Daenerys herself as 'Aegon the Conqueror with teats'.

(I think it's high time antis stop denying that if Daenerys is to be compared to any of her forebears, it's Aegon the Conqueror, NOT Aerys the Mad King and if she is to be compared to any of her brothers, it's Rhaegar, NOT Viserys. Martin does a really good job of pointing out these comparisons throughout the series)

TRIVIA :

• Daenerys meets the Unsullied for the first time in her very first PoV.

• Magister Illyrio possesses a menagerie (which boasts of a panther among other animals).

#valyrianscrolls #a song of ice and fire #asoiaf meta #daenerys targaryen #asoiaf #loyalannister rereads asoiaf #my agot reread #text from loyalannister #daenerys under the lens

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loyalannister · 4 years

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UNDER THE LENS : Eddard I, A Game of Thrones

Eddard I, A Game of Thrones, starts with the arrival of King Robert Baratheon and his retinue to Winterfell and ends in the crypts where the dead Lords of the castle stare with disapproving eyes as Robert asks Ned Stark to be his Hand.

• Tyrion is present in the King's party and not lingering in a brothel when we see him for the first time in the series. Tyrion is in the Winterfell library when we first see him in his own PoV. Book! Tyrion does frequent brothels often but it speaks volumes about what the author wanted the reader's first impression of Tyrion to be in contrast to how the writers of Thrones wanted to present Tyrion to the viewers for the first time.

• I know that this excerpt is often considered as foreshadowing for Jon Snow becoming King:

Ned jested [...] “Kings are a rare sight in the north.”

Robert snorted. “More likely they were hiding under the snow. Snow, Ned!”

But also it's ironic that Ned says Kings are a rare sight in the North when his own son Robb will soon be declared King in the North although Ned himself wouldn't be alive to see it :(

• This PoV is rich in imagery/references to the dead Starks, the crypts, the Others but also it provides hope : hope that the Starks will eventually triumph against against all odds :

“The Others take your mild snows,” Robert swore. “What will this place be like in winter? I shudder to think.”

“The winters are hard,” Ned admitted. “But the Starks will endure. We always have.”

Unbeknownst to Robert, his words will come true - the Others will take away the mild snows and bring a much harsher & fiercer winter which the readers will shudder to read about in A Dream of Spring.

Later when Ned tells Robert to return to the castle from the crypts as his wife would surely be waiting, Robert says, “The Others take my wife,” - will this come true as well? (This actually reminds me of a favorite personal theory of mine which I was lowkey hoping to see in the show - Jaime would kill Cersei after being converted to a wight, thereby fulfilling the prophecy of the valonqar making it seem less like a heroic deed on Jaime's part and more like a gruesome one!)

• George does an excellent job of giving the crypts of Winterfell a very horror filled mystical vibe in this PoV - the crypts are almost personified in every other line starting from the very stairs leading down to them :

He could feel the chill coming up the stairs, a cold breath from deep within the earth.

[...]

He swept the lantern in a wide semicircle. Shadows moved and lurched.

The stone statues in the crypts seem to come alive eerily as the light from Ned's lantern illuminate them:

The shifting shadows made the stone figures seem to stir as the living passed by.

When Robert laughs uproariously at a joke, his laughter echoes through the darkness and :

[...] all around them the dead of Winterfell seemed to watch with cold and disapproving eyes.

In fact, George chooses to end the chapter on a very ominous note, as if the inhabitants of the crypt know the fate of Ned if he fulfils Robert's wish to be his Hand:

He looked at the stone figures all around them, breathed deep in the chill silence of the crypt. He could feel the eyes of the dead. They were all listening, he knew. And winter was coming.

• Jon Snow's parentage has long been a subject of discussion and debate in the fandom. Although it's widely believed that he is Rhaegar's son, other theories claim that he is Ned and Ashara's son.

Robert Baratheon had always been a man of huge appetites, a man who knew how to take his pleasures. That was not a charge anyone could lay at the door of Eddard Stark.

If Ned had really been with Ashara and birthed Jon as a bastard, it's unlikely that he would think along these lines. Although the events occuring at the Tower of Joy unfold later as a part of Ned's fever dream, in this PoV, he distinctly recalls Lyanna in his full senses beseeching him to promise her something (it might not be about a son, some might argue, but then what is the 'promise' all about? It definitely seems like a dead end if it's not about Jon.)

• Aside from their beauty and wildness, one Arya/Lyanna parallel I always really liked was when Arya searched for some purple and green flowers & brought them to Ned while they were crossing the Neck on their way to King's Landing. This would have undoubtedly reminded Ned of Lyanna:

“I bring her flowers when I can,” he said. “Lyanna was…fond of flowers.”

• The long dead lords of Winterfell are associated with further ominous symbolism:

By ancient custom an iron longsword had been laid across the lap of each who had been Lord of Winterfell, to keep the vengeful spirits in their crypts. The oldest had long ago rusted away to nothing, leaving only a few red stains where the metal had rested on stone. Ned wondered if that meant those ghosts were free to roam the castle now.

Not only would the iron longswords keep the dead Lords at bay, they would protect any possible people hiding in the crypts from the Others as well! As Old Nan puts it:

“They [the Others] were cold things, dead things, that hated iron and fire and the touch of the sun...”

Interestingly, some swords are missing from the stone statues currently as they were taken by Bran and his companions while fleeing from the ruined castle.

• Early on in the series, it becomes evident that Rhaegar did not rape Lyanna; Ned doesn't harbour any ill thoughts about Rhaegar when Robert speaks about him. Furthermore, he remains silent & his inner monologue provides no ill feelings about the silver prince :

“In my dreams, I kill him every night,” Robert admitted. “A thousand deaths will still be less than he deserves.”

There was nothing Ned could say to that.

• Rhaegar's rubies are brought up time and again in the series with various people actively seeking them out:

When Ned had finally come on the scene, Rhaegar lay dead in the stream, while men of both armies scrabbled in the swirling waters for rubies knocked free of his armor.

Arya and Mycah later team up to look for Rhaegar's rubies on the ford and later in A Feast for Crows, the Elder Brother informs Brienne that six rubies have been washed up with the water. Might these rubies have any significance in the future? Can they be used as a glamour by someone to appear as Rhaegar?

• The Starks belong to Winterfell and Winterfell belongs to the Starks:

For a moment Eddard Stark was filled with a terrible sense of foreboding. This was his place, here in the north.

This is why, I feel extremely skeptical whenever I hear of King Bran endgame in the books. Bran is a Stark through and through, he is connected to Winterfell & the North like no one else. All signs point to him being King in the North rather than of entire Westeros. This is also why Sansa as Lady of the Vale in the end seems unlikely unless she marries someone from the Vale, given that Sansa herself has no claim to the Vale.

TRIVIA :

• Cersei Lannister rode to Winterfell in a wheelhouse pulled by forty (40) horses. It was too wide to pass through the gates of Winterfell.

• King Robert brought fruits from Highgarden for Ned to taste.

#asoiaf #valyrianscrolls #a song of ice and fire #asoiaf meta #loyalannister rereads asoiaf #Ned Stark under the lens #jon snow #Rhaegar targaryen #Lyanna Stark #my agot reread #text from loyalannister

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