#the rhoynar

[horizon-verizon]

In general, I don't like to call out individuals for contributing to what I see as a larger trend, if I don't think they're intentionally, actively, or regularly doing so. Which is why I didn't really get into it, didn't rant the way I wanted to, when I corrected yet another person about Nymeria's... conquest. A conquest that very much parallels Aegon's Conquest, similar to how post-Nymeria Dorne very much parallels post-Conquest Westeros.

And I do think this larger trend of trying to deny any similarities or parallels between Targaryens and other Westerosi families is motivated by the not-always-conscious desire to frame the Targaryens as a singular evil for doing... what literally everyone else does but just with evil-coded-by-Catholic-worldview symbols, "queer customs," and foreign "oriental" aesthetics (jk those are the same thing).

And it's especially obvious with that post (which, with how CLOSE in the book their passages were to the passages that I added, came off to me as dishonest but I can acknowledge that it might have just been wishful thinking and negligence) that people really want to craft this narrative where all was well and good until everything changed when Fire Nation attacked those bio-essentially evil degenerate pagans came along to subjugate the peaceful, medieval european feudal lords and ruin the Realm held together by Catholic-patriarchal hegemony by turning it into... a land of medieval european feudal lords held together by Catholic-patriarchal hegemony.

It's a sentiment that's equal parts annoying, fucked up, and impossible to reason with. Because it makes it impossible for these people to truly engage with the text or how it parallels real-world issues because that is the very motivation of that sentiment. If there's one singular evil that ruined everything, it means they don't need to examine how the underlying system is flawed, how every character participates in that system, and most importantly, how ASoIaF criticizes that system.

But these people want to be "fans" of ASoIaF without needing to struggle with that complexity. They want the parts of the "complexity" that make the eurocentric worldbuilding feel rich, but they don't want to pay the price by acknowledging the other side of that eurocentric coin. So to preserve their rich, "complex" eurocentric fairytale, they point their fingers at the participants who stand out the most specifically because they are the most different from those who wholly embody those problems.

It's honestly one of the most blatant examples of scapegoating I've ever seen, to the point where I wonder if it could be studied as an abstract example and used to examine real-world parallels. And that... I actually do find troubling in a way that goes beyond literary analysis or media literacy.

If there's one singular evil that ruined everything, it means they don't need to examine how the underlying system is flawed, how every character participates in that system, and most importantly, how ASoIaF criticizes that system.

@rhaenin-time talks about this ask they reblogged.

it gets tiring, repeating the same points to people abt the Targs and what "conquest" means.

[helaenas-queen]

Aegon trying to broke the circle of abuse that his father did with him and his siblings, by being a better dad to jaehaerys and jaehaera and also being a king that worries about the small folk is everything that's right

[ride-thedragon]

Hey i'm doing a hotd rewrite and was wondering assuming nettles had gotten introduced with the dragonseeds and her arc had not been given to rhaena how would you write her?

Hey, I just wrote this because either got a very similar ask, so I will leave my rational answer here

But with that in mind I do think we could have a very different adaptation of her character by doing one thing.

Making her Rhoynish.

I've talked about this entirely wild headcanon for a bit to looking but I do think if they wanted to include her and add her arc but thought the audience would confuse her and Addam in their adaptation as characters with similar parentage, they could go for the cultural aspect.

What this does in length is ensure that there is always some level of mistrust between Nettles and the Valyrians. There is a long history there that they could wistfully exploit.

It also allows for a more grounded approach to the introduction of Martell/ Rhoynar and Valyrian hate. Imagine Nettles shocking herself by claiming a dragon and just refusing to bow. Simply because she won't be the Rhoynish person to start.

It also allows us to parallel her with a character like Ser Criston, who is from the Dornish Marches. It shows the cultural difference between those who wouldn't integrate into Westeros entirely and those who did to that extreme degree.

That way, Nettles' question of Targaryen Exceptionalism I the narrative isn't just a theory, but she has an actual narrative as to why she won't claim it.

Lastly, she lives on an island, and the second she gets close to a Targaryen (Jace), he dies in the water. Walk with me down the road of psychological torture.

Hotd is many things , especially completely unaware of racial tropes that they fall into time and again and Nettles narrative inherently subverts that but I do think if they wanted to do their own thing, it would be easy to take her real world tropes and balance them with an in world narrative about prejudice by using the stereotypes against both Dorne and the Rhoynish.

For instance with the Maidenpool arc:

Instead of Nettles being casually called a witch, she can use the fact that Daemon is too prideful as a Targaryen to lower himself to sleep with Nettles. Have mysaria egg it on with the whole the Rhoynish have yet to bend before. She takes liberties as she sees fit. Then we get witch accusations.

I just think if they wanted to ensure her and build her into the world not just as a mystery there would be an easy route.

Even her connection to burning Driftmark and losing Driftmark I this instance can be tied to the identity crisis they could conjure up for her. Choosing fire over water leads to destruction, and it's not hers.

But that's just me.

[witchthewriter]

𝑼𝒏𝒅𝒆𝒓𝒏𝒆𝒂𝒕𝒉  𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝑨𝒑𝒑𝒍𝒆 𝑻𝒓𝒆𝒆

𝐇𝐨𝐮𝐬𝐞 𝐌𝐚𝐧𝐟𝐫𝐢

House Sigil: A first quarter moon next to a five pointed star that has a flowing river underneath

House Motto: Unto Ourselves 

Sworn to: In truth, whoever is sitting on the Iron Throne, and in this era it is King Viserys Targaryen. However, because the Manfri’s are ever-moving, (and aren’t power-hungry) they aren’t seen as a threat. 

Descendants of the Rhoynar, an ever-evolving culture that had been progressing more and more each year. House Manfri are direct descendants of those who saw what the world could be, rather than what it is. 

Their progression surpassed many things, particularly in equality. The Rhoynar didn’t pass women over in favor of male leaders, no, women were in line for the throne as well. 

A lot of the Rhoynar culture is seen in House Manfri, for example, it is ruled under a matriarchy. It is because of this, that the House is still alive and thriving, although it does not have ownership of one land. Instead, these people are travellers; never using too much of one piece of earth, nor claiming ownership over one territory. 

Over time the Rhoynar culture has shifted and transformed, but the heart of it remains: freedom, fairness, and creativity. 

The people of House Manfri are allowed to dress however they desire; there are no rules that tell them who they are or how they should be. Women can wear pants, and those that choose to hunt usually do. However, it is typical for Manfri women to don layered skirts, scarves, and shawls. 

Both men and women commonly have long hair in which they braid important traits of themselves into. For example, a feather for freedom and wisdom, beads represent a love for creating and making, trinkets for being noticed etc. It is typical for them to also use the ashes of burnt herbs in and around the eye. It is so the eye’s colour is enhanced and to look intimidating. 

On special occasions they embellish themselves with coins and bells so that they jingle as they move. It’s a physical depiction of their feelings for the event. 

The Manfri men are tall, muscular, and seemingly brooding. Some would say they looked similar to Dothraki men, but they aren’t like them in personality at all. What sets the men apart from the wild horse riders are the fact that they don’t take part in wars, nor do they treat their women so unkindly. 

House Manfri is well-educated in herbal remedies, plants, hand-sewing, hunting and gathering. They have had years upon years to learn how to live off the land, and pack up without a moments notice. 

Their history, what their taught and their stories are told verbally. Passed on from generation to generation gathered with each other in front of a raging fire. 

@leniabranch. 

[trogthefrog]

Theory: the Rhoynish water mages didn’t just use floods and water spouts to fight the Valyrians. They used rain, and storms.

Rain is a very powerful grounding tool against dragons as shown in the battle of the Last Storm and how Meraxes was grounded. A storm grounded the dragon onto the killing field. Because this is so effective against dragons and because the Rhoynar fought for so long I hypothesize that summoning rain was one of the ways that the Rhoynar were able to fight dragon wars.

It’s already said that Rhoynish water mages were the key to fighting dragons. With torrential rain, they could negate dragons.

[beyondmistland]

Why do you think there weren’t any new Dornish houses formed during Nymeria’s conquest that were purely Rhoynar in origin?

Because Nymeria and her descendants, the Red Princes in particular, were keen on both integrating into the existing paradigm as well as establishing a uniform Dornish identity.

Thanks for the question, anon

[atopvisenyashill]

(with no expectations or pressure intended) i hope you do post something about how the fandom is weird about dorne, bc even as segmented into little mini standoms as the fandom is, all the corners have their own brand of Being Weird About Dorne. sometimes even posts that discuss racist aspects of grrm's worldbuilding and lopsided povs will be weird and act like anti-dorne racism just doesn't exist within the narrative and so has no place in meta and theories

i’ve thought about it tbh because yes, basically every mini standom has their own specific weird opinion about dorne, like to the point that i will see the weirdest opinions On My Dash, just like a single line in otherwise fine meta and it makes me insane!!!! i get we all have our blind spots and hang ups and biases but it does feel like sometimes people will just go “george doesn’t characterize dorne well enough” and then that’s it. that’s all the reflection they do which is Crazyyyy because we get think pieces about every other ethnic group in westeros, every other house, but every time someone digs into dorne they get like 50 weirdos yelling at them. i definitely think i’d want more knowledge of the moors and the maghreb before i do something more in depth beyond bitching and specific character and scene analysis because it’s like - idk if you’ve seen that movie a thousand years of solitude but it’s really similar racism where it’s a one two punch of old school “the exotic and free east” with a very american “but don’t worry we all know middle easterners are white!!” that turns into this hellish pit of discourse lmao.

i think a really good example of that is oberyn - i have seen (again On My Dash, in the vs tag, we’re not talking show only locals we’re talking people who have read and reread this series) people say he’s white bc dorne is spanish (give me a fucking break), he’s “white coded”, he’s not bisexual, he has no redeeming qualities, he takes his “vendetta” over elia & her children too far, and all of this is said by people who will acknowledge that dorne isn’t fleshed out as much by the narrative bc of george’s biases. it’s a thing i call the raven reyes effect from my cursed the 100 fandom days, where fans will notice and rightly acknowledge a character of color is written in a lopsided way compared to the white characters, but then go out of their way to not engage with that character the way they do white characters. it is. frustrating to say the least.

[queenlorea]

You know when you talked about water magic been the only magic that has not come back I got me think about doran and how they are having problems with a lack of water and when oberyn was taking to his daughters how one of the cities is now dyed up now and how it used to be water there and now is a end city. This made me think that water magic would come back when I first read these chapters because why bring them up you know what the point of grrm writing about it if he is not going to do some thing with it because he could of easily not bring it up however now am not so sure because there is so much grrm has to explain and write about would he have time to do so and if he does would he have to cut it cut it from the books like he had to do to other storys and also I don't think grrm really cares that much about doran or the martel that much

hello first of all sorry this is from 2020 and i literally havent opened my ask box I’m sorry!! I hope this answer finds you well; link to the original post here: https://www.tumblr.com/hangrybluewhale/620233733056888832/as-annoyed-that-i-am-that-the-water-magic-of-the

i don’t know if the Rhoynar/Dornish water magic is going to make an appearance in the books because i think as you said grrm has A Lot of ground to cover in the next two books.

However i do think that even if water magic etc isn’t featured i think there’s a case to be made for water being an important symbol/motif in Dorne — water as a precious resource that sustains life in the desert, water and the water gardens as a symbol of love (the implied romance between maron martell and daenerys daughter of naerys, the protective love and responsibility prince doran feels for the children playing in the gardens).

i love house martell and idt grrm gives 0 fucks about the martells but i think it’s possible that his framing of the martells as side characters in a sub-plot does affect how he write about them

i think asoiaf would be a different story if house martell was introduced as the main POV characters with cool waterbending powers. that would be incredible! but i think grrm’s primary intention in developing the martell/dornish sub-plot was to engage with the question of the price of seeking vengeance and justice and what does it cost. which are very compelling questions and i think grrm handles it in a nuanced way

but also i think this is the reason why grrm never thought to give the martells magic powers etc because that’s not their “role” in the story of asoiaf (it’s kind of like the reason why the tyrells/lannisters don’t seem to have much magical stuff going on either, because that’s not their “space” in the narrative.)

[theredpharaoah]

Lmao. Liurna is literally the primordial Rhoyne.

[westeroswisdom]

Ten Thousand Ships is back!

In a rather understated way, George R.R. Martin mentioned at Not a Blog that the Game of Thrones spinoff Ten Thousand Ships is back on course.

GRRM was writing about Pulitzer Prize winner Eboni Booth and casually mentioned that she was working on a new pilot for Ten Thousand Ships.

She’s an amazingly talented young playwright, and a joy to work with; when not writing and producing her prize-winning plays on- and off-Broadway, she has been kept busy by me and HBO, working on a new pilot for TEN THOUSAND SHIPS, a GAME OF THRONES spinoff about Nymeria and the Rhoynar. We’re all very excited about this one… though we’re still trying to figure out how we’re going to pay for ten thousand ships, three hundred dragons, and those giant turtles.

If House of the Dragon starts 179 years before S01E01 of Game of Thrones, Ten Thousand Ships begins about 1,000 years before GoT.

In the unlikely event that GRRM and HBO ever asked my opinion on possible spinoffs, I'd enthusiastically recommend one based on Arya's voyages. It would be the first GoT sequel.

[ginny-anime]

I find it hilarious when people hate on House Martell and dorne.

Why because they didn’t bow down to the conquerors?

They killed Rhaenys the conqueror and her dragon?

They didn’t fight in the dance of the dragons when it wasn’t their war to fight?

Because they were the only kingdom that defied the Targaryens and remained an independent kingdom until the reign of Daeron ii?

What is there to even hate about House Martell and Dorne

[horizon-verizon]

It is said that, amongst the Rhoynar who came to Dorne with Nymeria, eight of every ten were women ... but a quarter of those were warriors, in the Rhoynish tradition, and even those who did not fight had been hardened during their travels and travails. As well, thousands who had been boys when fleeing the Rhoyne had grown into manhood and taken up the spear during their years of wandering. By joining with the newcomers, the Martells increased the size of their host by tenfold. When Mors Martell took Nymeria to wife, hundreds of his knights, squires, and lords bannermen also wed Rhoynish women, and many of those who were already wed took them for their paramours. Thus were the two peoples united by blood. These unions enriched and strengthened House Martell and its Dornish allies. The Rhoynar brought considerable wealth with them; their artisans, metalworkers, and stonemasons brought skills far in advance of those achieved by their Westerosi counterparts, and their armorers were soon producing swords and spears and suits of scale and plate no Westerosi smith could hope to match. Even more crucially, it is said the Rhoynish water witches knew secret spells that made dry streams flow again and deserts bloom. To celebrate these unions, and make certain her people could not again retreat to the sea, Nymeria burned the Rhoynish ships. “Our wanderings are at an end,” she declared. “We have found a new home, and here we shall live and die.”

A World of Ice and Fire, pg. 25

[spearsndragons]

i hate it when asoiaf fans try to deny the racism against dornish people in canon.

“race is a social construct!” YES! “race doesn’t exist in the asoiaf world like it does in reality…” uhhh say that to alleras when leo tyrell described his mom as “a monkey from the summer isles.” how people stereotype dornishmen as small and dark with beady eyes. how tyrion complained of how dornish smelled. it’s been established canonically how most westerosi characters viewed non-white people and foreigners.

sure, some of dornish are white and white-passing, but that doesn’t erase the fact that they are mostly brown and black people??? just like how africa, middle east, asia, latin america and many oppressed regions are? GRRM has written MANY, MANY times how much the rest of westeros “other”s them. we’ve seen them reduce dorne as a land of sex and hedonism, which parallels to how the western world viewed (and many still view) asia and the middle east. they see them as “less civilized.”

when myriah martell became daeron’s wife, the kingdoms were quick to shit on her because she brought dornish people to her court. when elia married rhaegar, people thought she was unworthy to marry the beloved, handsome, white prince because of her health and her dornishness.

don’t get me started on the whole “elia would have been okay being cheated on! dornish are okay with extramarital affairs and bastards!” like do you guys not hear yourself??? this hyper-sexualization is literally a classic racist trope.

and i’m certain grrm intended to write it this way to show that racism, in fact, exists in westerosi life and dominates in their politics, just as in real life. he’s even said before he considered giving targaryens dark skin: “I’d had dark-skinned dragonlords invade and conquer and dominate a largely white Westeros.” so him making dorne, a largely non-white population, being the only one to resist conquest and the only kingdom to join westeros on their own terms, is very much intended.

too many fucking fans reduce our arguments to us “pulling the race card.” well guess what? BECAUSE IT MATTERS. just as racism is embedded in our society, everything about how this fandom and characters view dorne go back to race and racism. just because you can’t admit to yourself that you’re upholding white supremacy ideals doesn’t mean it’s not happening.

YOU CANNOT DENY THAT RACE AND CULTURE ARE IMPORTANT ELEMENTS IN ASOIAF.

DORNE BEST KINGDOM! MARTELL BEST HOUSE! IDC IDC! WHO ELSE IN WESTEROS SAID FUCK YOU TO THEIR COLONIZERS AND LIVED TO TELL THE TALE?

(i can say more on the matter but i will just get more heated and end up writing a 10 page essay. when i tell you the law student in me comes alive when i have to defend dorne-)

[duxbelisarius]

The Dragon has Three Heads or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Believe That Young Griff is the Real Deal

Before going any further, I want to warn anyone reading this analysis that it will contain spoilers for A Dance With Dragons, so proceed at your own risk.

This essay came about from an 'epiphany' I had while reading ADWD on break at work, specifically chapter Daenerys VII. In this chapter, Quentyn Martell and his companions present themselves to Daenerys and offer her a marriage alliance with Dorne. This being the day of her wedding to Hizdahr zo Loraq, Dany refuses and makes note mentally of Quaithe's earlier warning about not trusting "the Sun's Son." The identification seems simple enough, with House Martell's sigil featuring the sun and Quentyn being the son of Doran Martell, Prince of Dorne, but there are serious problems with this conclusion.

The issue with labeling Quentyn Martell the Sun's Son stems from how Dany reaches this conclusion; for starters, this is the original quote given by Quaithe in Daenerys II:

"No. Hear me, Daenerys Targaryen. The glass candles are burning. Soon comes the pale mare, and after her the others. Kraken and dark flame, lion and griffin, the sun's son and the mummer's dragon. Trust none of them. Remember the Undying. Beware the perfumed seneschal."

And this is how Dany identifies Quentyn as the Sun's Son in Daenerys VII and VIII:

Something tickled at her memory. "Ser Barristan, what are the arms of House Martell?"

"A sun in splendor, transfixed by a spear."

The sun's son. A shiver went through her. "Shadows and whispers." What else had Quaithe said? The pale mare and the sun's son. There was a lion in it too, and a dragon. Or am I the dragon? "Beware the perfumed seneschal." That she remembered. "Dreams and prophecies. Why must they always be in riddles? I hate this. Oh, leave me, ser. Tomorrow is my wedding day."

...

The pale mare. Daenerys sighed. Quaithe warned me of the pale mare's coming. She told me of the Dornish prince as well, the sun's son. She told me much and more, but all in riddles.

George has talked about the fickle nature of prophecy in the books and publicly, citing the Duke of Somerset's death at the Battle of St. Albans in Shakespeare's Henry VI as an example of why the literal or easiest interpretations are not always the most reliable. While Dany's conclusion that Quentyn is the 'Sun's Son' seems straightforward, she bases it solely on Barristan's description of the Martell arms. Her reasoning is mainly to justify marrying Hizdahr by dismissing the Martell offer, as Dany herself barely remembers Quaithe's warning and bemoans her 'riddles'.

Assuming that the 'Pale Mare' refers to the 'bloody flux' that the Astapori refugees bring to Meereen, and that the Kraken, dark flame, lion, griffon and mummer's dragon refer to Victarion Greyjoy, Moqorro, Tyrion, Connington and Young Griff respectively, the sequence of Quaithe's warning makes no sense with Quentyn as the 'Sun's Son.' At the end of ADWD, Tyrion is outside the walls of Meereen while Victarion and Moqorro are en route with the Iron Fleet, and Connington and Young Griff are in Westeros. If Dany's return to Meereen from the Dothraki Sea is followed by her journeying westwards, then this sequence makes sense. Victarion will likely destroy the Slaver's fleets and is seeking Dany's hand in marriage, while Moqorro is with him for the purpose of acknowledging her as Azor Ahai and encouraging her to free the slaves of Volantis. Given Tyrion's association with Varys, Illyrio, Jorah and now 'Brown Ben Plumm,' and his family's role in Robert's rebellion, it makes sense that he would not immediately seek out Daenerys on her return to Meereen. Connington and Young Griff await her in Westeros, but Quentyn as the 'Sun's Son' precedes all of them, breaking Quaithe's otherwise sensible sequence. If Quentyn were the 'Sun's Son' he could just as easily have been paired with the Kraken, since both are sent by the heads of their houses to offer her an alliance, while Tyrion and Moqorro travel together on the Selaesori Qhoran (the 'Perfumed Seneschal') and Connington and Griff are in league with Varys.

The far greater issue with Dany's interpretation is that we have access to Quentyn's POV, and there is nothing to suggest that he seeks to betray Daenerys. His purpose was to approach Dany with a marriage alliance, to assist her in reclaiming her crown; his party was even sent by Tatters to scope out the situation in Meereen for a possible double-crossing of the Yunkai'i, specifically to aid Dany. The only thing close to untoward that he does is attempt to claim one of her Dragons, and this was a desperation move driven by his insecurities and his fear of returning to his father empty handed, which would mean that his fallen companions died for nothing:

"What name do you think they will give me, should I return to Dorne without Daenerys?" Prince Quentyn asked. "Quentyn the Cautious? Quentyn the Craven? Quentyn the Quail?" (The Discarded Knight, ADWD)

Volantis, Quentyn thought. Then Lys, then home. Back the way I came, empty-handed. Three brave men dead, for what?

...

His father would speak no word of rebuke, Quentyn knew, but the disappointment would be there in his eyes. His sister would be scornful, the Sand Snakes would mock him with smiles sharp as swords, and Lord Yronwood, his second father, who had sent his own son along to keep him safe … (The Spurned Suitor, ADWD)

Disqualifying Quentyn as the Sun's Son leaves us with only three options, of which only one really works. Trystane is the only other son of House Martell aside from Quentyn via Prince Doran, and given his limited roll in the story thus far I think it's safe to cross him off the list. Doran could theoretically work as the 'Sun's son,' as his mother was Princess of Dorne before him; given that Quaithe describes the figures as going to Dany, Doran's limited mobility and poor health would disqualify him. This leaves us with only one 'son of a sun,' that being 'Young Griff,' aka Aegon VI Targaryen, the son of Rhaegar Targaryen and Elia Martell, Princess of Dorne.

This association of Aegon with the Martells via his mother fits with the copious amounts of imagery linking him to the Rhoynar and to 'Egg' aka Aegon V of "Dunk and Egg" fame, specifically that character's travels in Dorne. Tyrion finds him living on a pole boat in the Rhoyne River, home of the ancient Rhoynar culture that Dorne descends from. The Shy Maid is operated by Yandry and Ysilla, so-called 'orphans of the Greenblood' which are another allusion to Dunk and Egg's travels on the Greenblood River in Dorne:

A poleboat had taken them down the Greenblood to the Planky Town, where they took passage for Oldtown on the galleas White Lady.

...

When they’d been poling down the Greenblood, the orphan girls had made a game of rubbing Egg’s shaven head for luck. (The Sworn Sword)

In Tyrion IV of ADWD, a massive horned turtle appears in the river by the Shy Maid, an obvious reference to the Rhoynish 'Old Man of the River,':

It was another turtle, a horned turtle of enormous size, its dark green shell mottled with brown and overgrown with water moss and crusty black river molluscs. It raised its head and bellowed, a deep-throated thrumming roar louder than any warhorn that Tyrion had ever heard. “We are blessed,” Ysilla was crying loudly, as tears streamed down her face. “We are blessed, we are blessed.”

Duck was hooting, and Young Griff too. Haldon came out on deck to learn the cause of the commotion . . . but too late. The giant turtle had vanished below the water once again. “What was the cause of all that noise?” the Halfmaester asked.

“A turtle,” said Tyrion. “A turtle bigger than this boat.”

“It was him,” cried Yandry. “The Old Man of the River.”

And why not? Tyrion grinned. Gods and wonders always appear, to attend the birth of kings.

When Tyrion and Haldon visit the Painted Turtle inn to find information about Daenerys' whereabouts, we have an interesting description of the inn from Tyrion:

The ridged shell of some immense turtle hung above its door, painted in garish colors. Inside a hundred dim red candles burned like distant stars. (Tyrion VI, ADWD)

We once more have Rhoynish symbolism in the turtle, while the 'garish colors' are reminiscent of Young Griff's hair, which is dyed blue in the Tyroshi fashion. Tyrion's description of inside the 'Painted Turtle' is one of dim red candles burning like stars, which can be seen as an oblique reference to the red rubies on Rhaegar's black breastplate, thereby associating the red of Targaryen heraldry with the cultural symbols of the Rhoynar.

The 'Dunk and Egg' imagery goes further, with both Egg and Aegon wearing distinctive straw sun hats, and being accompanied by their Hedge Knights from the Stormlands, both of whom have titles derived from their own simplistic personalities (Duncan the Tall, Rolly Duckfield). Moreover, Egg's journeying to Dorne ends up giving him refuge from the Spring Sickness that ravages Westeros, while Aegon's time in Essos serves as a refuge from Robert's spies and the chaos of the War of the Five Kings. While these similarities might be viewed as a doomed attempt by Varys to recreate Egg through Aegon, I think the purpose of these parallels is to establish both princes as following similar trajectories: both are sons of a Targaryen prince (Maekar, Rhaegar) and a Dornish noblewoman (Dyana Dayne, Elia Martell); become King of the Seven Kingdoms through unexpected circumstances: and if George plans to end ADOS with a mini-Dance of the Dragons, I would expect Aegon VI to meet a fiery end like Egg did.

If Young Griff is actually Aegon VI Targaryen as well as the 'Sun's Son,' this leaves the 'mummer's dragon' without any clear identity. Part of this is due to the conviction that Dany's identification of the cloth dragon from the undying visions with a 'mummer's dragon' or puppet dragon must be correct. In truth, there are countless cases from ADWD alone that show us that a mummer's object is not necessarily a puppet, but more broadly means something which is not as it appears:

I know one stands before me now, weeping mummer's tears. The realization made her sad. (Daenerys III, ADWD)

"Not here," warned Gerris, with a mummer's empty smile. "We'll speak of this tonight, when we make camp." (The Windblown, ADWD)

"My lord, I bear you no ill will. The rancor I showed you in the Merman's Court was a mummer's farce put on to please our friends of Frey."

...

I drink with Jared, jape with Symond, promise Rhaegar the hand of my own beloved granddaughter … but never think that means I have forgotten. The north remembers, Lord Davos. The north remembers, and the mummer's farce is almost done. My son is home." (Davos IV, ADWD)

His reign as prince of Winterfell had been a brief one. He had played his part in the mummer's show, giving the feigned Arya to be wed, and now he was of no further use to Roose Bolton. (The Turncloak, ADWD)

Fat Wyman Manderly, Whoresbane Umber, the men of House Hornwood and House Tallhart, the Lockes and Flints and Ryswells, all of them were northmen, sworn to House Stark for generations beyond count. It was the girl who held them here, Lord Eddard's blood, but the girl was just a mummer's ploy, a lamb in a direwolf's skin. So why not send the northmen forth to battle Stannis before the farce unraveled? (A Ghost in Winterfell, ADWD)

Mummer's tears and smiles are obviously false emotions, being affectations put on to hide what someone truly feels. Wyman Manderly is engaged in a mummer's farce wherein he pretends to be loyal to King Tommen and Roose Bolton, but in truth is scheming to restore the Starks to Winterfell and assist Stannis against the Boltons. Roose Bolton, Petyr Baelish and the Crown have in turn engaged in their own mummer's farce by sending Jeyne Poole north to wed Ramsay Snow in the guise of Arya Stark, "a lamb in direwolf's skin." If the 'mummer's dragon' is in fact a dragon that has been made to appear as something else, then Jon Snow more than fits this bill. By birth he should be a Targaryen, having been fathered by Rhaegar Targaryen upon Lyanna Stark; instead, his fortuitous Stark features inherited from his mother, and Ned's claiming Jon as his bastard and raising him amongst his children at Winterfell, has allowed Jon to hide in plain sight from those who would kill him for being Rhaegar's son.

The significance of Dany, Jon and Aegon being the three heads of the dragon is due to their mirroring a less conspicuous triad in George's World: elemental magic and it's connections to the Long Night. We are aware of three forms of elemental magic in the story, being pyromancy, cryomancy and hydromancy. Pyromancy is the most obvious, being the control and use of fire as we see with followers of Rhllor, and also tied to dragons. Cryomancy or ice magic appears in the powers of the Others and in the Wall separating the Seven Kingdoms from the lands beyond. Finally we have hydromancy or water magic, which was used by the Rhoynar against the Valyrian Freedhold and by Nymeria's Rhoynar settlers to support their communities within the deserts of Dorne. Company of the Cat has an excellent video discussing these three 'schools' of magic, but to summarize what she's said: Blue, Red and Green are the colours commonly associated with Ice, Fire and Water/the Sea in ASOIAF; in addition to being featured on the arms of ancient houses such as Massey and Strong, these elements are in turn associated with three magical items in the books. The first, The Horn of Joramun, can raise and lower The Wall (Ice); Dragonbinder, a horn that was likely used alongside similar horns to control the volcanoes of the fourteen flames in Valyria (Fire); and the 'Kraken summoning horn' which is most likely the Hammer of the Waters, since the Hammer raised the seas to swamp the 'Arm of Dorne,' which would have filled the seas fill with corpses of the dead and 'summoned' krakens, which would have fed on the bodies of the drowned.

The Valyrian, Northern and Rhoynish heritage of Dany, Jon and Aegon ties them to these three forms of magic respectively, and by extension to the Long Night. We are given three accounts of the Long Night between ASOIAF and TWOIAF, which I dub the 'western,' 'far eastern' and 'near eastern' versions. The 'western' account concerns the First Men, the Night's Watch, the Last Hero and the Others; the 'far eastern' account covers the 'Jade Compendium' and the Yi Tish account of the Blood Betrayal; and the 'near eastern' or Rhoynar account in which the children of Mother Rhoyne sang a song to return light to the world. Aegon is tied to the Rhoynish account through his mother's heritage, with references to the Rhoynish account in the 'Old Man of the River' appearing in ADWD and Dany's vision of Rhaegar talking about Aegon's 'Song' (that of Ice and Fire):

The Rhoynar tell of a darkness that made the Rhoyne of Essos dwindle and disappear, her waters frozen as far south as the joining of the Selhoru, until a hero convinced the many children of Mother Rhoyne, such as the Crab King and the Old man of the River, to put aside their bickering and join in a secret song that brought back the day. (TWOIAF: Ancient History: The Long Night)

...

“Will you make a song for him?” the woman asked.

“He has a song,” the man replied. “He is the prince that was promised, and his is the song of ice and fire.” (Daenerys IV, ACOK)

Jon's connection to the Northern account is obvious given his Stark lineage and service in the Night's Watch, as well as his dreams in ADWD:

Burning shafts hissed upward, trailing tongues of fire. Scarecrow brothers tumbled down, black cloaks ablaze. "Snow," an eagle cried, as foemen scuttled up the ice like spiders. Jon was armored in black ice, but his blade burned red in his fist. As the dead men reached the top of the Wall he sent them down to die again. He slew a greybeard and a beardless boy, a giant, a gaunt man with filed teeth, a girl with thick red hair. Too late he recognized Ygritte. She was gone as quick as she'd appeared.

The world dissolved into a red mist. Jon stabbed and slashed and cut. He hacked down Donal Noye and gutted Deaf Dick Follard. Qhorin Halfhand stumbled to his knees, trying in vain to staunch the flow of blood from his neck. "I am the Lord of Winterfell," Jon screamed. It was Robb before him now, his hair wet with melting snow. Longclaw took his head off. Then a gnarled hand seized Jon roughly by the shoulder. He whirled … (Jon XII, ADWD)

Finally, Dany is directly referred to as Azor Ahai in the books while her visions from Daenerys IX of AGOT connect her bloodline to the Great Empire of the Dawn. The eye colours of the figures she sees match the titles of four of the eight emperors of the GEOTD, Opal, Jade, Tourmaline and Amethyst, with the Bloodstone Emperor killing his sister the Amethyst Empress and causing the Long Night. Azor Ahai and the Bloodstone Emperor are themselves connected, and I recommend David Lightbringer's Nightbringer series and "Azor Ahai the Bad Guy" video for a concise explanation. It's worth noting that David is well within the Faegon Blackfyre camp, but I think his theories here more than fit my own conclusions also.

Aegon being one of the three heads also fits in with the symbolic relationship between water, fire and ice and the green, red and blue colour scheme. As Company of the Cat points out in her video about the magic horns (timestamp 26:52), green is a secondary colour made from a 'cool' and a 'warm' colour, placing it in the middle of the spectrum while red and blue are polar opposites. Similarly, fire can melt ice back into water and water in turn quenches fire, situating Aegon at a middle ground between Jon's ice and Dany's fire. Whereas Jon's only aspect of himself that ties him to House Targaryen is his father and otherwise he is firmly associated with his mother's house, Dany is tied symbolically to her Targaryen identity in the books, being a product of Targaryen incest, the first to hatch dragons in over a century, and her ties to fire through her 'rebirth' on Mirri's pyre under the Red Comet. While Aegon's physical appearance and his father tie him clearly to House Targaryen like Dany, the support of his mother's family alongside his Rhoynar lineage and symbolism place him in a similar situation to Jon, besides their being half-brothers. This also calls to mind the three accounts of the Long Night: if Jon is the Last Hero leading the Night's Watch and Dany is Azor Ahai driving out the darkness with her 'lightbringer' (ie her dragons), Aegon is the unnamed hero who rallied the children of Mother Rhoyne to sing a secret song which brought back the day. To quote alexis_something_rose's essay about Young Griff, "I can wager who will be bickering and who will tell them to set their differences aside and join together in a secret song that will bring back the day."

Whether or not all three or some combination of them will play a decisive role in defeating the Others, or if that will be Bran's part to play, I believe strongly that Dany, Jon and Aegon will be the 'three heads of the dragon.' If 'Young Griff' is truly Sun's Son, Aegon son of Rhaegar, his joining with Dany and Jon represents a unification of the three Dawn Age narratives of the Long Night and it's eventual end. Uniting the icey North, the dragon lord's fire and the songs of Mother Rhoyne would make the endgame a true 'Song of Ice and Fire.'

[synchodai]

Not too keen on how the first scene of HotD made show-only viewers think that Aegon the Conqueror diplomatically convinced Torrhen Stark to give up Northern independence because they both believed in stopping a prophesized apocalyptic Long Night because it downplays the brutality of Aegon's Conquest.

Not the show's fault since it is realistic that Cregan and Jace would frame it like an amiable peacetalk given their current goals and circumstances (and they did touch on the intimidation aspect of it). But show-onlies don't get the context that:

Torrhen was the person who started a dialogue with Aegon I, not the other way around.

Aegon didn't fly North to meet with Torrhen. Torrhen was the one who marched south with his armies to stop the man who was burninating the entire countryside.

Because he was marching south, Torrhen saw the utter carnage of Aegon's Conquest. At least three entire dynasties of kings were extinguished at that point. Torrhen was thus faced with the possibility that the entire Stark line would be wiped out like them if he fought.

Aegon and Torrhen exchanged letters at the Riverlands when both their armies were about to meet, but those weren't what convinced Torrhen to kneel. Torrhen had to actively stop his brother Brandon from attacking Aegon's dragons when they got there. The Northern King had already made his mind prior to talking to Aegon that he didn't want to fight.

Aegon's Conquest wasn't him making buddy-buddy with the 6 kings. It was him and his sister-wives intimidating them into submission by threatening to wipe out their families.

[warsofasoiaf]

Is it realistic from a world building standpoint that the Rhoynar cities were never rebuilt? They were burned 1000 years ago and the Valyrians have been dead for 400 years + the Rhoyne is like the in-universe Nile river

The real question is, who would be willing to fund colonies to rebuild the Rhoynish cities? Cities like Ny Sar and the Sorrows (formerly Chroyane) are fairly far from bases of financial power that might be able to expend the liquid capital to fund a colony as it gets off the ground. Small settlements along the Rhoyne are a given, but rebuilding the Rhoynish cities as opposed to just squatting in the ruins and salvaging them for quarried stone might be a tall order without significant financial backing.

Thanks for the question, Anon.

SomethingLikeALawyer, Hand of the King