Episode 144: A CLASH OF KINGS, DAENERYS V: "It Was All A Dream" SHOW NOTES! (Patreon)

Hello and welcome to the Not A Cast … podcast: the one true chapter-by-chapter podcast going through A Song of Ice and Fire one chapter a week. I’m one of your hosts Jeff better known as BryndenBFish.

And I’m your other host Emmett, better known as PoorQuentyn.

Welcome to the one hundred and forty-fourth episode of the Not A Cast, titled: “It Was All A Dream: An Analysis of ACOK, Daenerys V,” in which Dany and her followers leave Qarth, accompanied by a nice old man who saved her life and who is totally not Barristan.

This episode is brought to you by our NotASmallCouncil:

• Hand of the King WolfmanZack
• Grandmaester Timbob, troubleshooter of systems and designer of circuit boards
• Lord Commander of the Kingsguard Mark N.
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• Ser Keith J, Master of Whisperers
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• Lord Micah, the Quilled Lion, Warden of the West, Herald of the Golden Tooth, Master of the Banefort and the Kraken’s Bane
• Lord James: the Jim that was Promised
• The High Bearded Priest
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• Lady Xena Valyrian
• Ser Jack, Lord of Ser Arthur Dayne and Prince Rhaegar Targaryen's Sad Prophecy Boys Club
• His Grace’s High Inquisitor Frank
• Ser Jasper the Cruel, the King’s Justice
• Laurence, Prince of Dorne
• Kelly, Warden of the East and Mistress of (Old) Bay of Crabs
• Steven the Steadfast, Master of Hounds
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• Lord Adam T
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• Marshall Harrison—Absent, shipwrecked in the Jade Sea
• Grave-Robb Stark, the Cadaver King and Horror of Harrenhal
• Olaf, proponent of establishing a feudal, pseudodemocratic system of Great Councils, wherein every count votes
• Ser Tim: The Knight Who Was Guided By Voices
• Lord Nick
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• Lord Charles Tyrell of Highgarden, Lord Paramount of the Mander, Defender of the Marches, High Marshal of the Reach, Warden of the South, and The Heir of House Tyrell
• Luke, Lord of Lone Leaf & The Pillar of Autumn
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• Squire Matt S, future Ser Matt S, the one who will bring balance to the Kingdoms
• BWord, Queen Beyond the Wall
• Lord Kyle
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• Blackberry the Bold, Champion of Feel Good Times
• Lady Ivory Dayne, aspiring noble author in the seven kingdoms, lady of Starfall, wardeness of the south, and patron of freewheeling bisexuals
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Spoiler warning: All published books, 5 novels, 3 Dunk and Egg novellas, histories, interviews, TWOW sample chapters, as well as Game of Thrones the TV show. Anything and everything!

Question

Sir Lady Jordan Defender of the God's Eye, our newest high lady who we’ll shout-out properly at the end of this episode asks:

Throughout asoiaf there’s no mention of hard alcohol that I’m aware of. It’s all beer and wine, and that’s great, but IF there were liquors and liqueurs, which ones do you think (some of) the main characters (Jon, Dany, Tyrion) would be partial to? Do you think the folks in the north would enjoy some dark whiskeys or moonshine? Would the seafaring iron islanders prefer rum, in true pirate fashion? Would Cersei drink gin or vodka, something pure but strong? Would Sam, Brienne, and Stannis (definitely) not enjoy the hard alcohols and prefer to abstain ? (Fun other discussions along this topic could be: where would different alcohols come from in asoiaf and/or what would each region prefer? And what would other main and side characters prefer to drink? Lastly, how would characters’ relationships to alcohol be different, if at all, if there were these other options, for example, do you have any thoughts on how Sansa’s relationship with alcohol/other characters might be different with different drink options?)

So, thank you Sir Lady Jordan for the question. If you’d like to ask us questions we’ll answer here on the NotACast pod-cast, you are welcome to become a Sworn Sword or higher level patron over at patreon.com/NotACastASOIAF where you can get show notes for every episode, 36 bonus ASOIAF episodes, eighteen Fevre Dream episodes, free merch, and for our two highest tiers: access to the NotASlack, shout-outs every week and weekly minisodes!

Absolutely, and just as a reminder, because I haven’t reminded you all recently: our next patreon stretch goal is looming on the horizon. There’s been a lot of talk recently about adapting Dunk and Egg to the small screen, and wouldn’t you know it, but our next stretch goal is to hit $7,000/month. When we get there, we’ll do a full, multi-part analysis of the first Dunk and Egg novella The Hedge Knight. So! Come on over and join your friends and mine at patreon.com/NotACastASOIAF.

But enough about patreon. When we last checked in with Daenerys, she taken a little field trip to a little place called the House of the Undying where she had seen visions of wonder and terror and almost been eaten by the Undying. Let’s find out how George follows up his utter triumph of writing with a chapter that I regret to inform everyone here is set in Qarth with this synopsis of ACOK, Daenerys V!

Synopsis

She was breaking her fast on a bowl of cold shrimp-and-persimmon soup when Irri brought her a Qartheen gown, an airy confection of ivory samite patterned with seed pearls. "Take it away," Dany said. "The docks are no place for lady's finery."

With that thrilling open, we open to Dany’s final chapter set in Qarth. Thank God.

Dany decides that if everyone thinks she’s a savage, she’s going to look the part with by putting on some dothraki garb. Thankfully, in this loose-fitting dothraki garb, her boobs boob boobily unlike her old Qartheen garb, and she has a Dothraki braid that Jhiqui braided for her along with the bells. She doesn’t think she’s earned the braid though as she’s won no battles, but Jhiqui tells her that Dany defeated the maegi and warlocks and sent their souls to hell.

That was Drogon's victory, not mine, Dany wanted to say, but she held her tongue. The Dothraki would esteem her all the more for a few bells in her hair. She chimed as she mounted her silver mare, and again with every stride, but neither Ser Jorah nor her bloodriders made mention of it. To guard her people and her dragons in her absence, she chose Rakharo. Jhogo and Aggo would ride with her to the waterfront.

Dany and her company move into the poorer part of Qartheen, but even here Dany knows that the people know her, and they love her not. Jorah wanted her to be inside her palanquin, hiding, but she’s tired of resting. She wants to ride, as if she’s moving somewhere. It’s meta.

She’s here on the waterfront for a reason though. She’s running again, much as she did her entire life. Xaro had warned her that Pyat Pree and the rest of the warlocks were out to get her. Dany thinks this is silly, because Xaro had told her that the warlocks were powerless before she went to the House of the Undying.

Xaro looked troubled. "And so it was, then. But now? I am less certain. It is said that the glass candles are burning in the house of Urrathon Night-Walker, that have not burned in a hundred years. Ghost grass grows in the Garden of Gehane, phantom tortoises have been seen carrying messages between the windowless houses on Warlock's Way, and all the rats in the city are chewing off their tails. The wife of Mathos Mallarawan, who once mocked a warlock's drab moth-eaten robe, has gone mad and will wear no clothes at all. Even fresh-washed silks make her feel as though a thousand insects were crawling on her skin. And Blind Sybassion the Eater of Eyes can see again, or so his slaves do swear. A man must wonder." He sighed. "These are strange times in Qarth. And strange times are bad for trade. It grieves me to say so, yet it might be best if you left Qarth entirely, and sooner rather than later." Xaro stroked her fingers reassuringly. "You need not go alone, though. You have seen dark visions in the Palace of Dust, but Xaro has dreamed brighter dreams. I see you happily abed, with our child at your breast. Sail with me around the Jade Sea, and we can yet make it so! It is not too late. Give me a son, my sweet song of joy!"

But Dany is not interested in marrying Xaro, and that causes Xaro to go cold. He tells her to leave Qarth, and he doesn’t care where -- just as long as he’s far away from the city. Dany thinks that’s not the worst idea in the world. Her khalasar had recovered from the red waste, and they were nomadic warriors at heart, not staying in one place for too long. But Dany, too, has probably stayed here for too long. Strangely, everyone didn’t really like her after she destroyed the House of the Undying. Maybe the dragons were dangerous after all. The Tourmaline Brotherhood wanted her exiled, and the Ancient Guild of Spicers wanted her dead. Thankfully, Xaro had kept the Thirteen from joining the “Expel Dany” or “Kill Dany” factions in Qarth.

But where am I to go? Ser Jorah proposed that they journey farther east, away from her enemies in the Seven Kingdoms. Her bloodriders would sooner have returned to their great grass sea, even if it meant braving the red waste again. Dany herself had toyed with the idea of settling in Vaes Tolorro until her dragons grew great and strong. But her heart was full of doubts. Each of these felt wrong, somehow . . . and even when she decided where to go, the question of how she would get there remained troublesome.

Xaro wasn’t going to help her anymore though. Sure, he played at being devoted to her, but when Dany asked her for a small gift, he said no. Well, he didn’t say no. He just stopped talking about gifts. Let’s trade instead, like real businessmen. And what would they trade? A dragon for ten ships. Deal?

"No," Dany said.

That wasn’t what Xaro wanted to hear. Dany counters by asking whether a mother would see one of her children? Yeah. Happens all the time, according to Xaro. But that ain’t Dany’s way. She wouldn’t sell one of her dragons for ten, twenty, thirty-two (the actual number of ships Xaro has on-hand), eighty-three ships(the total # of ships Xaro has in total), one-hundred ships, a thousand ships the Thirteen possess in total, the 2,000 or so ships that the Spicers and Tourmaline Brotherhood have in total. Okay, what about the Free Cities, Asshai, Braavos, the Summer Islands, Ib, everyone else who sails the ocean. How many do they have?

"Many and more," [Xaro] said irritably. "What does this matter?"

"I am trying to set a price on one of the three living dragons in the world." Dany smiled at him sweetly. "it seems to me that one-third of all the ships in the world would be fair."

Xaro's tears ran down his cheeks on either side of his jewel-encrusted nose. "Did I not warn you not to enter the Palace of Dust? This is the very thing I feared. The whispers of the warlocks have made you as mad as Mallarawan's wife. A third of all the ships in the world? Pah. Pah, I say. Pah."

That was the last time Dany had seen Xaro. He sent texts though. She had to leave his house, he wasn’t going to feed her anymore. The gifts he gave were to be returned at once. At least Dany didn’t marry this dude. Dany wonders if maybe Xaro or Pyat were the second or third treasons that Mirri Maz Duur talked about. But she doesn’t think so. Pyat wasn’t doing this for gold, and Xaro didn’t love her.

Back to the present, the streets grow empty as Dany walks along the dockside. She thinks about the House of the Undying, wondering at the things she heard. What was all that dragon has three heads talk, she asks Jorah. Probably symbolic of the sigil of House Targaryen, Jorah answers. Okay, but there are no actual three-headed Ghidorah about. It’s just symbolism, Jorah the redditor answers. The three heads were Aegon and his two sisters. Indeed. Dany descends from Rhaenys, Aenys and Jaehaerys.

Talk turns to the warlocks and the Undying. They’re obvious liars according to Jorah. Not so fast, Dany says. She saw some shit in the HoTU.

"A dead man in the prow of a ship, a blue rose, a banquet of blood . . . what does any of it mean, Khaleesi? A mummer's dragon, you said. What is a mummer's dragon, pray?"

"A cloth dragon on poles," Dany explained. "Mummers use them in their follies, to give the heroes something to fight."

Ser Jorah frowns, but Dany refuses to let it go.

"His is the song of ice and fire, my brother said. I'm certain it was my brother. Not Viserys, Rhaegar. He had a harp with silver strings."

Ser Jorah's frown deepened until his eyebrows came together. "Prince Rhaegar played such a harp," he conceded. "You saw him?"

She nodded. "There was a woman in a bed with a babe at her breast. My brother said the babe was the prince that was promised and told her to name him Aegon."

Jorah goes on to say that Aegon was Rhaegar’s son by Elia Martell and Rhaegar’s heir. But the kid was dead. Dany knows that he was murdered. So, too, was Princess Rhaenys. But there was no Visenya. So, three heads of the dragon? Doesn’t make sense. P.S. what is the song of ice and fire?

"It's no song I've ever heard."

"I went to the warlocks hoping for answers, but instead they've left me with a hundred new questions."

But we can’t answer these questions. This is only book two. They’re still in fucking Qarth, and they need to get out.

Jhogo smells the air suspiciously, commenting that he smells the sea. His nose is suspicious because the Dothraki distrust the poison water. Gee, wonder if we’re ever going to hear about that again. But Dany thinks she survived the Dothraki Sea, they can survive her sea.

Then George decides on doing some worldbuilding of Qarth, trying to make it seem really awesome, but the takeaway is that Qarth is a big city, and it has a big port. Aggo buys a skewer of honey-rosted mice to nibble on from one of the market stalls while Jhogo eats some white cherries. Dany sees lots of merch lying around that’s being sold or loaded onto ships. She does see some slaves that are being offloaded from a ship and bid on too.

Dany and Jorah, back in his knight’s attire, decide to go talk with the captains of various ships to see if they can get passage out of Qarth. Negotiations don’t go well. Some laugh at her. A Lyseni thinks she’s joking. One captain would take the dragons on board but not the Dothraki. And even the captains that weren’t assholes had too high of an asking price, too small of a ship or ships that looked more likely to sink than sail.

So, having failed to find a ship, they walk back towards their Dothraki. But then Jorah notices something. He very non-creepily puts his hand on the small of Dany’s back and leans towards her:

"Your Grace. You are being followed. No, do not turn." He guided her gently toward a brass-seller's booth. "This is a noble work, my queen," he proclaimed loudly, lifting a large platter for her inspection. "See how it shines in the sun?"

The brass was polished to a high sheen. Dany could see her face in it . . . and when Ser Jorah angled it to the right, she could see behind her. "I see a fat brown man and an older man with a staff. Which is it?"

"Both of them," Ser Jorah said. "They have been following us since we left Quicksilver."

Dany looks into the plate and sees that one dude seems long and gaunt, the other fat and broad. The merchant starts praising the platter when Dany knows it’s worthless. Three honors at best is all it’s really worth. The merchant and Dany haggle over the price as she continues to see the men behind her, watching their movements.

The old man had the look of Westeros about him, and the brown-skinned one must weigh twenty stone. The Usurper offered a lordship to the man who kills me, and these two are far from home. Or could they be creatures of the warlocks, meant to take me unawares?

The bartering continues as Dany and Jorah continue to observe the men. The fat dude has an arakh with tons of scars across his belly. The thin man had a hardwood staff. But Dany notices something else. The old man stares at her. Would someone who meant to kill her stare at her so openly? Still, Dany should head back. Jorah comments that the staff can crack Dany’s head open as the merchant keeps dropping his price down to four honors. They start to leave the merchant stall ostensibly because they’re done with negotiation, but in reality, they want to see if the two men will follow them.

"Four! I know you want it!" He danced in front of them, scampering backward as he thrust the platter at their faces.

"Do they follow?"

"Lift that up a little higher," the knight told the merchant. "Yes. The old man pretends to linger at a potter's stall, but the brown one has eyes only for you."

The merchant finally says he’ll sell it for two, and Dany orders the man paid. She turns back, and then a Qartheen man steps in her path.

"Mother of Dragons, for you." He knelt and thrust a jewel box into her face.

Dany took it almost by reflex. The box was carved wood, its mother-of-pearl lid inlaid with jasper and chalcedony. "You are too generous." She opened it. Within was a glittering green scarab carved from onyx and emerald. Beautiful, she thought. This will help pay for our passage. As she reached inside the box, the man said, "I am so sorry," but she hardly heard.

The scarab unfolded with a hiss.

Dany sees a glimpse of the manticore’s face: black, almost human face, tail full of venom, and the bow flies from her hand, blasted into pieces. Pain well in her finger. A woman screams. The Qartheen shout and push each other. Jorah slams into her. Dany falls to the floor and she hears a hiss as the old man drives the butt of his staff into the ground.

"Your Grace, a thousand pardons." The old man knelt. "It's dead. Did I break your hand?"

She closed her fingers, wincing. "I don't think so."

"I had to knock it away," he started, but her bloodriders were on him before he could finish. Aggo kicked his staff away and Jhogo seized him round the shoulders, forced him to his knees, and pressed a dagger to his throat. "Khaleesi, we saw him strike you. Would you see the color of his blood?"

Dany does not want to see this. She orders him released and sees that Jorah has been shoved off his feet by the big eunuch. Jorah comes up with his sword in hand and meets the eunuch’s arakh. Dany screams for everyone to stop. But Jorah thinks these men attacked Dany.

"They were defending me." Dany snapped her hand to shake the sting from her fingers. "It was the other one, the Qartheen." When she looked around he was gone. "He was a Sorrowful Man. There was a manticore in that jewel box he gave me. This man knocked it out of my hand."

Dany goes over to the brass merchant and helps him up. She asks if the manticore stung him. It didn’t, but it had touched him. Dany notices that he shit himself. She gives the man a silver and sends him away before turning back to the old man. She asks who she owes her life to.

"You owe me nothing, Your Grace. I am called Arstan, though Belwas named me Whitebeard on the voyage here."

Arstan, huh? Weird that sounds like this other guy I know. His name is Barstan, maybe? I’ll workshop this.

The old man asks about Belwas, and Belwas is Strong Belwas. He was a veteran of the fighting pits of Meereen. He lets every man cut him once before he kills them. It’s his trademark PS, do you want to count the cuts, Dany? You wanna see how many men he’s killed? Uh, no. But she would like to know why Strong Belwas is here.

As to that, he came via way of Meereen by way of Qohor and then Pentos when he was dispatched by a fat man whose hair smelled sweetly. Irish Spring, perhaps? Dany realizes who this might be. Illyrio! Were they sent by Magister Illyrio?

"We were, Your Grace," old Whitebeard replied. "The Magister begs your kind indulgence for sending us in his stead, but he cannot sit a horse as he did in his youth, and sea travel upsets his digestion." Earlier he had spoken in the Valyrian of the Free Cities, but now he changed to the Common Tongue. "I regret if we caused you alarm. If truth be told, we were not certain, we expected someone more . . . more . . . "

"Regal?" Dany laughed. She had no dragon with her, and her raiment was hardly queenly. "You speak the Common Tongue well, Arstan. Are you of Westeros?"

Why yes he was. He came from the Dornish Marches, and he was a squire for one of Lord Swann’s knights. But now Arstan is a squire for Belwas. Jorah thinks this Arstan is a bit old to be a squire. But he’s not too old to serve his liege. Isn’t that right, LORD MORMONT?

So Arstan knows Jorah? He does. He saw him fight at Lannisport in tourney and on Pyke. Jorah says this guy’s face seems familiar, but there were so many people at Lannisport and Pyke. But Jorah ain’t a lord. Bear Island was stolen from him for reasons we don’t need to get into. But Jorah is a knight. That he is.

"A knight of my Queensguard." Dany took his arm. "And my true friend and good counselor." She studied Arstan's face. He had a great dignity to him, a quiet strength she liked. "Rise, Arstan Whitebeard. Be welcome, Strong Belwas. Ser Jorah you know. Ko Aggo and Ko Jhogo are blood of my blood. They crossed the red waste with me, and saw my dragons born."

Belwas immediately calls the Dothraki horse boys which I think is hilarious. But Aggo doesn’t share my sense of humor as he leaps up with his arakh in hand ready to kill Belwas. Dany, again, tells everyone to put up their steel. These people are here to serve her. But Belwas is to keep a chaste tongue, or he’s gone. Belwas stops smiling, and Dany realizes that the guy doesn’t get scolded often.

So now that the boys aren’t threatening each other with swords and arakhs, Dany wants to know why Illyrio would order these guys to come from Pentos. They’re here for the dragons, says Belwas gruffly. And for Dany too. Arstan says that Belwas is right. They were going to bring Dany and the dragons back. Westeros needs her. Robert Baratheon is dead, and the realm bleeds.

“When we set sail from Pentos there were four kings in the land, and no justice to be had."

Joy bloomed in her heart, but Dany kept it from her face. "I have three dragons," she said, "and more than a hundred in my khalasar, with all their goods and horses."

Belwas says who cares. They’ll take everyone as Illyrio has provided three ships for Daenerys and her party. Three ships, like THREE HEADS OF THE DRAGON, Dany thinks wondering. But she doesn’t like the names of Saduleon, Summer Sun and Joso’s Prank. She’s renaming them

"Vhagar," Daenerys told him. "Meraxes. And Balerion. Paint the names on their hulls in golden letters three feet high, Arstan. I want every man who sees them to know the dragons are returned.”

And that is the synopsis of ACOK, Daenerys V. Alright. Well as far as POV character conclusions for a book, that is definitely a POV character conclusion for Dany in ACOK. What’d you think, ser?

Depth

So...this is probably my least favorite chapter in ACOK. This is the anticlimax of the Qarth storyline, where the city that’s supposed to be a dangerous source of temptation lets Dany go without much of a fight. Every other Dany storyline ends with a bang: she brings dragons back in AGOT, resolves to rule in Slaver’s Bay in ASOS, and embraces “fire and blood” instead in ADWD. Here, she...decides to leave Qarth...because it sucks...and then some new characters pop up to help. It’s weak tea by comparison.

That being said, there is still a lot to like about this chapter at a granular level. I love all the little details, and we get a crucial and very meta conversation between Dany and Jorah. I promise not to be negative!

Okay, okay. I’ll reciprocate and promise not to be negative too. Well, I promise not to be too negative after these opening remarks. Best I can do! Because ugh, this chapter. Sure, there’s world-building. I like the check-in on the latest iteration of Illyrio’s plan. There’s something to be said for Jorah. And Euron, I mean, Urrathon Nightwalker gets a mention. But that’s it. This is the weakest chapter in ACOK and definitely the weakest Dany chapter in all of ASOIAF.

Why is that the case? Was George phoning it in? Yeah. Kind-of! The sense I get from George’s writing of Qarth and all the extra-textual material we have on Qarth (barely anything at all as I talked about in our analysis of ACOK, Dany II) is that George was bored by his own setting, and he wanted to move on as quickly as possible from it.

It didn’t have to be this way. I am repeating myself from Dany I, II and III (but so is George), but Dany’s Slaver’s Bay arc in ASOS could also be viewed as a narrative speedbump for Dany. But there, George really nailed Dany’s story: her reckoning with her own slavery, her taking on a messianic conquering role on a violent-yet-moral crusade to end slavery in Slaver’s Bay, the aftermath that winning the war doesn’t solve shit. And her deciding to rule a city-state at the end of that arc rather than move forward to Westeros. It’s thrilling stuff. But what’s the takeaway from Qarth? You said it more succinctly than I could: it sucks, and she’s moving on.

• Breaking up with XXD
  • After the Fall of the House of Usher the Undying, Dany’s warm welcome in Qarth has run out. As she says: they remembered dragons are dangerous
  • The Qartheen saw her as spectacle, a shadow on a wall. She was a way to make money, a circus act no different than the fiery ladder
  • Qarth is like Hollywood: a city of beautiful surfaces. As in The Wizard of Oz, the mortal sin of any dreamworld is looking behind the curtain, breaking the fourth wall. HOTU was the literal heart of that image factory, fantasy made flesh. Dany burned it down, and is now being blacklisted
  • Xaro warns her that the remaining warlocks are planning on getting their revenge. Dany reminds him that he said the warlocks are powerless
  • And so he did….back when he was trying to seduce Dany to stay in Qarth with him. It served his interests to downplay the warlocks
  • Now Xaro wants Dany to leave town with him, so it serves him to play up the warlocks as a threat. Xaro is never genuine; like Qarth itself, there is nothing meaningful underneath the glittering surface, only self-interest
  • I love the passage where Xaro explains the changes in Qarth that have him worried. It’s all these weird little details that don’t add up
  • You could argue that this is self-indulgent worldbuilding. But I think it fits with the nature of Xaro and of Qarth, as well as Dany’s story as a whole
  • Glass candles and ghost grass; phantom tortoises and rat tails. The images are so vivid, so specific, but what do they actually mean?
  • All they really suggest is that something is happening, something has changed. But the observer has to decide what that something is
  • There is a concept in the Hindu faith called kaka-taliya. The Sanskrit text Yoga Vasistha gives this example: a bird lands on a tree branch. Simultaneously, a fruit falls from the branch. Did the bird cause that? Or was the fruit ripe, and would’ve fallen anyway? The limits of perception, especially bound within linear time, make it impossible to answer
  • Along the same lines, George neither confirms nor denies that the warlocks have gained power. It is a possibility that never resolves
  • This is relevant to Dany because all she has to work with in terms of home is signs and signifiers. She doesn’t remember Westeros, so she has to rely on suggestions that don’t add up to reality any more than these do
  • Last week, we talked about how Dontos didn’t witness the conclusion to the Battle of Blackwater. He could only pass on the story, the detached image shot through with his own limited perception. Same applies here
  • Xaro says that a blind man can now see, the definition of a divine miracle...or so his slaves say, anyway. We have no direct, unmediated access to the truth. All we have are stories, images out of context. We might as well be that blind man, eating eyes and hoping to see
  • All Xaro can do is wonder. But the truth isn’t important to him. All that matters is that strange things are happening, and that’s bad for trade
  • Xaro cares about profit, full stop, and wields the power of perception to make money. He counters the dark visions of HOTU with his own bright dream of marrying Dany...but just as the Undying lured Dany in with images before trying to suck her dry, Xaro is luring Dany in with words while trying to make off with one of her dragons
  • He offers her ships in exchange, but as Dany points out, this is hardly equal. Her dragons are unique. How do you put a price tag on a miracle? She loves them like children. Would you ask a mother to sell her children?
  • Yes, Xaro says, he would! That’s his worldview. People are units of currency, negotiable as anything else. He has no heart, no humanity
  • It’s a classic argument over the worth of the individual. Stannis and Davos will have a similar exchange: what worth a single child? Everything, Davos says, and Dany agrees. Her dragons are living beings, equivalent in worth to all the lifeless ships in world. Money can’t buy love, Tywin says. Dany makes the same argument, but on behalf of love rather than money
  • Xaro can only interpret this as madness. This child queen is so arrogant that she wants a third of all ships in the world! He fails to see the metaphor, the idea that each individual contains the world entire. A city without meaning cannot comprehend meaning; there is no love here
  • This, Dany finally understands, is how Qarth works. It promises you more than it can ever deliver, while stripping away what little you have. As she thinks, Xaro and Pyat were playing the same game, magical and political
  • Xaro kicks her out with a series of hilariously bitchy messages. I do wish there was more teeth to his rejection, but it fits the nature of Qarth
  • In the end, you become passive. All your surface desires have sated, and you’ve lost the will to dig deeper. Qarth can be seen as George interrogating the utopian ideal. He’s building on More’s Utopia, Plato’s Republic, and Campanella’s City of the Sun to create a city in which individual wealth and splendor doesn’t solve the conflict in the heart
  • A striking feature for our final Xaro/Dany interactions (until ADWD anyways) is that Xaro doesn’t use compulsion to try to seize a dragon from Daenerys.
  • He merely asks and then suggests a trade when asking fails.
  • And yet, we know from earlier Dany chapters in ACOK that Qarth has something of a military force: camel-riders and such.
  • So, why didn’t Xaro try to steal dragon ala what the warlocks attempt in Game of Thrones, Season Two.
  • The answer I think is in what you were saying about the passivity of Qarth.
  • Sure, the Tormaline Brotherhood demand her expulsion, and the Ancient Guild of Spicers demand Dany’s death, but they do fuck-all to accomplish that objective.
  • All of the wealth that Qarth receives from its place as a trading hub in Essos has made the wealthiest of Qarth indolent, lazy, passive.
  • It’s simply not worth the effort for Xaro here, and that begs the question of why he was after a dragon in the first place.
  • To Xaro and the Qartheen, I don’t think they wanted a dragon to conquer the world or restore Qaathi military supremacy.
  • What I think is that Xaro and the rest of Qartheen aristocracy (minus the warlocks) simply wanted a trophy, another thing that displays Qarth’s fabled wealth and beauty.
  • Dany’s dragons are a thing to be possessed. Much as most of Xaro’s manse was. Again, the Hollywood parallel is spot-on as this could be George’s annoyance that some of his IP is owned by Hollywood studios.
  • But now that possession is a danger to trade, to business, and they have go. Just business, Dany.
  • Come ADWD, though, Qarth will finally stir, the ships that Dany so desperately wants to take her somewhere will finally depart Qarth for war.
  • But it’s a war against Daenerys Targaryen in Meereen?
  • What stirs Qarth to take up arms against Daenerys Targaryen in ADWD, to pull them from their passivity?
  • I think Qavo from Tyrion’s sixth ADWD chapter sums it up nicely:
    • This arrogant child has taken it upon herself to smash the slave trade, but that traffic was never confined to Slaver's Bay. It was part of the sea of trade that spanned the world, and the dragon queen has clouded the water.
  • Dany’s dragons don’t threaten Qarth’s wealth now in ACOK; they merit passivity, but come ADWD, Qarth bestirs itself and sails a fleet and army to Meereen to defend the slave trade: a part of the economic order which allows them their manses, glories and wealth.
  • What a damning indictment of Qarth!
• HOTU debriefing
  • Dany interprets Xaro kicking her out as a sign of the untrustworthy nature of Qarth, but she also puts it in context with the images of HOTU
  • Was Xaro one of the three treasons? What about Pyat? She doesn’t think so, although she is sure MMD was the treason for blood
  • What matters here isn’t whether Dany is right or wrong, so much as the changes HOTU has wrought on her thought process
  • She is retrofitting her life to suit this prophetic narrative. Everything that has happened and will happen to her now exists in relation to HOTU
  • The events and people of her life carry a new significance. They exist in context now; they are links in a chain, pictures in a frame
  • The experience was so powerful that it changed her perspective, like a spiritual awakening...or, more literally, like the aftermath of tripping
  • Drugs, religion, narrative itself--George is aiming for a sweet spot at the center of all of them. They all make you look at things differently
  • The tricky question is whether the things themselves have changed, or only you. That’s all the trickier because again, there’s no such thing as an unmediated perspective; there’s no neutral control to compare things to
  • Reality and perception are like the chicken and the egg. Is color the property of an object, or is it a property of your mind, or somehow both?
  • Who makes the world? Does our perspective reveal things or change them? Physics can’t answer these questions any more than philosophy
  • “So many threes,” Dany thinks to herself. The Rule of Three in stories is well established. George uses this pattern over and over again. So why is that? Is that an artifact of nature, or do our brains like it just because?
  • Throughout Dany’s conversation with Jorah about HOTU, George calls attention to his own storytelling mechanisms, showing us how they work
  • Dany asks Jorah what the Undying could have meant by “the dragon has three heads.” Jorah points out that the Targaryen dragon banner has three heads. Dany says she knows that, which of course she does…
  • ...but she’s never seen it herself. It’s an abstract concept in her mind. Like Westeros itself, it has nothing to do with the life she has actually lived
  • She says that there are no three-headed dragons. Jorah says the sigil refers to Aegon and his sisters. It’s a metaphor, and George is showing us how metaphors aren’t just in stories. They’re part of everyday life
  • For Dany, this image is a synecdoche of her history: she is descended from two of those three heads. My reality is drawn from that metaphor
  • Jorah cautions against projecting so much of herself into images. “Blue lips tell only lies,” he says...but he’s quoting Xaro, who’s also a liar!
  • Jorah himself has pointed out before how untrustworthy Xaro is. Now, however, it suits him to quote Xaro, as it suited Xaro to interpret mysterious signs around the city so as to support his plans for Dany
  • This is definitely the most podcast-y part of this chapter where our two hosts debate the meaning of the text.
  • You can sense that George was writing this while sitting back and remembering that time he and such-and-such talked about the meaning of the One True Ring. Is it symbolism? Is it actually powerful?
  • And boy, Jorah quoting Xaro - someone he thinks is a liar - lol, how many times have you heard someone quoting that war criminal Tywin Lannister as an authority about something to prove a point?
  • In seriousness though, George has talked about how he writes ASOIAF to reward re-reading and discussion of his books, and it’s great that we have that occurring in-universe.
  • But I think it’s speaking to something else beyond just the meta: it’s the human desire to understand the world we live in and the mysteries that surround us.
  • And when we have questions about something that’s bothering us, we turn to other people to try to come to something resembling an answer.
  • As far as my own life goes, often, I don’t find a definitive answer to something even when talking with friends.
  • Often, I’m left with more and more questions that I feel like require more investigation, and the cycle goes on and on.
  • But sometimes even if there’s not an answer, there’s comfort in just discussing the deeper mysteries of this world and our destinies.
  • And even though it’s Jorah (obligatory: he sucks so bad), Dany seems to find comfort in conversation, of unburdening herself of the visions she experienced in the House of the Undying.
  • But she’s not going to find the answers, or maybe better-put, she’s not going to find the right answers.
  • Everyone in this chapter believes they can access an unclouded vision of the truth; everyone is wrong. Even as Dany concedes the point, she can’t help but analyze what she saw in HOTU. George uses a terrific simile:
    • ,,,Dany found her thoughts returning to the Palace of Dust once more, as the tongue returns to a space left by a missing tooth.
  • The space left by a missing tooth: is it a thing in itself, or the absence of something? It’s dead air, but it has a form around it suggesting shape
  • That’s how HOTU works; that’s how stories work. We can’t help ourselves. We have to prod that empty space, filling it up with ourselves
  • Even the specific images themselves point to this dynamic. Dany defines the mummer’s dragon as something mummers put into their shows to give the heroes something to fight. Stories aren’t born organically from the ether. They’re constructed by storytellers. Whatever in-universe motivation the villain may have, the real reason they’re there is to fight the hero
  • It’s as if Dany briefly glimpsed George behind the veil, and realized that she is in an artificial universe, playing by deliberate narrative rules
  • She even stumbled upon the title of the series itself: a song of ice and fire, spoken by her fallen brother Rhaegar. This starts to sway Jorah
  • Rhaegar’s harp, his wife with his newborn child--these are tangible connections to the Westeros that Jorah (unlike Dany) knows well. It’s the proof of concept, demonstrating that HOTU is not pure bunk
  • That’s as far as they can get, though, because whatever was supposed to happen with Rhaegar and Aegon VI was wiped out by Robert’s Rebellion
  • Dany is in the position of the reader, picking up scraps, wondering at the meaning of the cryptic title. It’s no song Jorah has heard; he’s in it!
  • I love this kind of meta-gambit, from Hamlet’s play-within-the-play to the comic hero Animal Man declaring he can see the reader
  • It only resonates, however, if you give it an emotional hook. In this case, Dany gradually realizes that she’s not going to find the answers
  • She briefly perceived the hand of fate, and then woke back up in a world in which all she has are her choices. Are those choices meaningful?
  • HOTU was a dream that seemed more real than real. Per Nabokov:
    • ...the wonder of that brief abyss of absolute reality between two bogus fulgurations of fabricated life.
  • Dany is now in the worst of both worlds: aware of her cage but unable to escape it, aka the human condition. We can only imagine our way out, through faith, empathy, art, dreams, as Dany and Jorah do here
  • The Dothraki see the fall of the House of the Undying as a victory for Dany, worthy of a bell in her braid. You bearded the lions in their den!
  • But Dany thinks that it was Drogon who saved the day, and anyway, it wasn’t victory she wanted. It was wisdom; she’s not sure she found it
• Walking the port
  • Dany realizes that the whole point of Qarth is to trap you in place, and so it’s time for her and her people to move on. Move onto where, though?
  • That question will be answered at the end of the chapter. As it begins, Dany isn’t sure. None of the options feel right, and then there’s the how
  • In order to leave, Dany and her khalasar must head out to the port. Right away, we get a sense that this is a different part of Qarth from the rest
  • As the chapter begins, Dany is dining on shrimp-and-persimmon soup, a typical Qarth delicacy, but she refuses the fancy samite gown
  • The docks are no place for such finery, she says. Instead, she will ride there in Dothraki garb. It represents her leaving Qartheen culture behind
  • If the Milk Men are determined to see her as a horse girl, she may as well dress the part. As Tyrion says: I will become what you think of me
  • There’s some good character beats for Dany early in this chapter, showing early sparks of the leader she’ll become.
  • She abandons the palanquin she was carried around in and opts to ride her silver that Drogo gave her.
  • She’s also donned Dothraki garments again and refuses a Qartheen gown
  • Finally, she allows Jhiqui to braid a bell into her hair, signifying her first victory which, as you pointed out, she feels she doesn’t deserve as it wasn’t her victory. It was Drogon’s.
  • Why are all these important?
  • For one, it demonstrates that Dany is opting to live like her people, not an exalted princess who is literally borne upon their backs.
  • She’ll face the same dangers as they face which contrasts with Cersei ordering Joffrey withdrawn from the walls.
  • It also shows that Dany is finally moving again. The palanquin and Qartheen gowns slowed her movement down. Ergo Qarth only slowed Dany down, and she is moving on. Metaphor much, George?
  • Finally, the bell in her hair is doing good visual politics for her people. It may not be a crown, but it acts as a Roman victor’s laurel, symbolizing her as a victor.
  • People will be more inclined to follow someone they view as success.
  • The port is Dany’s entryway back to the world outside the mirage pocket universe of Qarth. This is where all cultures mingle together. Dany has to ride through a poorer part of town to reach it--the golden illusion is fading
  • On this reread, I noticed the parallels between Qarth’s port and the Western Market of Vaes Dothrak back in AGOT
  • Both settings overwhelm the senses. Someone tries to kill Dany in both places; in both cases, she turns toward Westeros...before being diverted
  • The port in Qarth is even more vivid than in Vaes Dothrak. Dany’s bloodriders eat honey-roasted mice and fat white cherries; Dany smells frying fish and hot tar and sperm all at once
  • But she’s also learned enough about Qarth to realize that this is the city’s black market. People who can’t afford the official bazaars come here
  • Like everywhere else in Qarth, it runs on deception. Dany notices “dragon’s eggs” for sale that look a lot like painted rocks
  • Dany has the real deal: living breathing miracles. All Qarth can offer is the image, the concept, the surface appeal, as with Xaro’s miniature army
  • But Dany’s authenticity won’t serve her with the ship captains. They refuse her for a variety of reasons. Every part of her coalition offends someone. Some are afraid of dragons. Some are bigoted against Dothraki. Some, though, just don’t believe her legend. She’s too good to be true
  • Great catch on the Western Market/murder attempt parallel! I love it!
  • The thing that caught my attention on this re-read is that for all I criticize Dany’s Qartheen arc (and I’ll get to that in just a moment), there is something to be said for the vibrancy of Qarth as a setting.
  • Dany is a figure of prophetic destiny, the mother of dragons, but the world doesn’t simply exist to react to her presence.
  • The port in Qarth goes about buying and selling and conducting today’s business and only interacts with Dany and her party as they make contact with them in buying honeyed mice and white cherries.
  • The messiah may move among them, but they have their own lives and jobs to attend to. The bustle makes the place feel alive and not just a stage for Dany to act upon.
  • There’s also something to be said for how George does a great job of making Dany the reader avatar for a new and unfamiliar place (again, similar to the Eastern/Western markets from Vaes Dothrak).
  • Dany doesn’t say a word for four long paragraphs here. She’s taking in the sights and sounds of Qarth much as we are. George has Dany watching the experience of Qarth on our behalf, and that allows us to see Qarth in our mind’s eye.
  • But again, this is Qarth, and there is something always just a little off about the writing.
  • Before Arstan and Belwas show up, Dany with her followers about where she might go.
  • Jorah suggests heading farther east while her bloodriders want her to head back to the Dothraki Sea.
  • Dany, herself, thinks she might return to Vaes Tolorro until her dragons grow up.
  • But she doubts herself and finally decides on going somewhere else, despite Dany describing the journey and how she would get there as “troublesome.”
  • You, Emmett, smart and observant, will probably know the answer here, but I have a question: where does Dany decide to go?
  • It’s not explicitly said in the text, but the inference is that Dany decides that she’s going to Westeros, and we can infer this as she heads all the way over to the part of the port where the sailors and captains speak Valyrian or the Common Tongue and also thinks that the thirty ships Xaro has could land a small army in Westeros, but she doesn’t have a small army.
  • But here, the less-than-great writing of Qarth rears its ugly head again.
  • Why is this supposed to be a mystery? Why does Dany decide to go for Westeros? What’s Dany’s plan to take Westeros when she gets there?
  • As for the ambiguity of where Dany is going, the argument could be that George wanted it to be a surprise, but that doesn’t work as narrative, because Arstan and Belwas show up and convince Dany to go to Pentos before Dany scotches that plan after Jorah convinces her to try for Astapor and the Unsullied.
  • As to why Dany is heading for Westeros, I think George tries to tie it together obliquely with Dany and Jorah attempting to analyze the prophecies from the House of the Undying.
  • But it doesn’t work, because Dany isn’t making the connections of what she saw in the House of the Undying with her wanting to go Westeros.
  • Furthermore, I would just guess that maybe Dany’s plan was that the dragons will grow in size during the long journey to Westeros, and that would be how she attempts to conquer Westeros.
  • But that’s not made explicit in the text as entering Dany’s mind.
  • Instead, she’s going to Westeros, because she has to leave Qarth, and she’ll go home, I guess.
  • I think if George had been writing Qarth with the similar precise writing he does for Dany’s AGOT, ASOS and ADWD arc, he might have tied her decision to the prophecies she experienced in the House of the Undying and her desire for home, connecting that desire to her memories of Viserys and her constantly being on the run and Viserys’ desire for home, etc.
  • But he doesn’t do the necessary character work to make “Dany wants to go home” believable or compelling.
  • Again, Qarth is an enigma of writing for me. At points, it’s some of George’s finest prose with the following the bleeding star across the Red Waste and the House of the Undying.
  • But at other points (like here), it’s uninspired work, and I return back to my opening thoughts that the lack of inspiration for Dany in Qarth can be sourced to George’s boredom with the place and how that bled into Dany’s less-than-stellar characterization in this book.
• New friends (and enemies)
  • At last, the plot arrives, as Jorah notices they’re being followed. I like the gambit with the brass tray--it’s another perfect microcosm of Qarth
  • It’s a reflective surface that distorts whatever you’re looking at, and rips you off in the process. That’s HOTU, that’s the fiery ladder
  • Everything is a performance, a “mummer’s farce.” Jorah pretends to admire the brass. The salesman pretends that it’s worth more than it is, and also pretends not to hear their whispered conversation
  • The presence of the stalkers adds tension to the scene, but the salesman’s haggling is comedic--he drops the price without blinking, chewing the scenery as he goes on about his wives beating him
  • The scene is so extended, and he becomes so desperate for a sale, that he offers it for less than Dany thought it was worth!
  • And yet after the assassination attempt, Dany ends up paying him a silver for his trouble. Qarth rips Dany off one last time on the way out
  • So yeah, that assassination attempt. I’m with Steven Attewell that it’s disappointingly low-key. This is the biggest threat Dany faces in Qarth?
  • But it’s still a solid misdirection. You think the threat is coming from Dany’s stalkers, and then they’re the ones who wind up saving her
  • Dany gets a chance here to show off her leadership skills, which have mostly been on the back burner in Qarth
  • She has to manage these new members of her coalition. She has to calm Jorah down, bring Strong Belwas to heel without offending him
  • Belwas is a fun comic relief character, who gets an awesome spotlight scene in ASOS. A lot of Dany’s supporting cast get stiff, functional dialogue; Belwas is an exception. His lines are always a delight
  • Arstan is Barristan Selmy, of course; it’s not one of George’s more subtle mysteries. Already, the groundwork is being laid down
  • He says he is called Arstan, and he skips over decades of his life story in between squiring as a boy and squiring for Belwas
  • He knows Jorah, and pokes the bear (so to speak) by calling him “Lord Mormont,” an easy way to get across his disdain for the informer
  • Jorah says his face looks familiar, a clue to the audience: we’ve seen this man before! George even reminded us via Renly that Barristan is missing
  • Again: everyone is performing, everyone wears a mask. Dany herself doesn’t look like Barristan expected. Only Belwas is really genuine
  • The first time reader isn’t likely to think about whether there might be more to these guys, because we’re focused on the message they bring
  • It was Illyrio who sent them. Remember him?? It looks like the movers and shakers back west have finally taken notice of Dany’s new dragons. Belwas and “Arstan” have arrived with ships to take her home
  • But wait, Emmett, why in the world did Illyrio (and Varys) send Barristan to Daenerys instead of to Young Griff? Wouldn’t it have made more sense for these two conspirators to further enshrine Young Griff’s with another exemplar of Westerosi chivalry to win the optics game against the Lannisters?
  • Young Griff has Jon Connington with him by now. Adding in Ser Barristan Selmy to Young Griff’s entourage would make people in Westeros turn their heads. Just look at everyone - from Renly to Joffrey to Catelyn to Stannis to Tywin - wondering where Ser Barristan is.
  • And do recall what Tywin Lannister said about Barristan’s dismissal back in AGOT, Tyrion IX:
    • "And dismissing Selmy, where was the sense in that? Yes, the man was old, but the name of Barristan the Bold still has meaning in the realm. He lent honor to any man he served.”
  • So, this is either just really, really dumb on Varys and Illyrio’s part, or it’s another example of George not having invented Young Griff yet, right?
  • Not so fast! Let’s talk about the endless debate about when Young Griff came about first.
  • Though there may not have been a character named “Young Griff” that existed in name here, and there may not have been a “Jon Connington” by this point as well, I would say that both characters existed.
  • Daenerys saw a mummer’s dragon in the House of the Undying and went so far as to define what that meant as we talked about earlier.
  • Meanwhile, we’ll meet Red Ronnet Connington by name in Sansa’s final chapters as one of the knights pledging fealty to Joffrey after serving Stannis.
  • And early in ACOK, Tyrion mentions two unnamed hands of the king who died penniless in exile (One of them is Owen Merryweather. The other is Jon Connington).
  • And here in ACOK, Dany V, Aegon gets a nice little name-drop within the context of Dany and Jorah discussing what she saw in the House of the Undying.
  • George had a mummer’s dragon and an exiled hand already in play in ACOK (though he may have retconned ‘dying in exile’ to ‘reported dead in exile but actually very much alive Jon Connington’), and he was talking specifically about Aegon VI in this very chapter.
  • So, I think George very much had Young Griff in play here, even if he hadn’t come up with the name by this point.
  • Let’s turn back to Barristan Selmy. Was this a massive clusterfuck on Varys and Illyrio’s part to send Barristan first to Daenerys?
  • I don’t think so.
  • For one, Varys and Illyrio now knew about the dragons (thanks to ol’ slavebear’s reports), and the plan was to bring Dany and her party back to Pentos as Belwas and Arstan tell Dany in this chapter.
  • Obviously, Dany makes a Slaver’s Bay detour, but we should wonder: what would have happened if Daenerys showed up to Pentos?
  • This is where we get into some theory territory, but here’s what I think sending Barristan to Dany was a clever ploy.
  • Besides Illyrio waiting for Dany in Pentos, I think someone else would have been there: Young Griff, AKA the purported son of Rhaegar Targaryen and Elia of Dorne.
  • And Young Griff would have had the Golden Company with him. Let’s fast-forward ahead to Connington’s “Lost Lord” chapter to find out what Illyrio was planning
    • "Which plan?" said Tristan Rivers. "The fat man's plan? The one that changes every time the moon turns? First Viserys Targaryen was to join us with fifty thousand Dothraki screamers at his back. Then the Beggar King was dead, and it was to be the sister, a pliable young child queen who was on her way to Pentos with three new-hatched dragons.”
  • What I think happened was that once Illyrio and Varys learned that Daenerys birthed dragons, that they decided on the “hitch Young Griff and Dany” scheme.
  • What changed over the course of time is where that hitching would occur. I think the original plan was for the meeting of the two Targaryens would have taken place at Pentos, and then they FRAGO’d that to have the meeting occur at Volantis after Dany went to Slaver’s Bay (the thinking being that she would continue conquering her way across Essos on her way back to Westeros)
  • All of that is interesting, but how does it connect with sending Barristan to Daenerys?
  • What I think is that Illyrio needed some sort of connecting glue between Aegon and Daenerys. And they thought that Barristan could serve as that connection.
  • Barristan was a storied knight and knew the Robert’s Rebellion backstory.
  • If Daenerys had any ambitions that she - rather than Aegon - was the rightful heir to the throne, Barristan could be there to tell Daenerys that Aegon actually had the rightful and better claim.
  • Moreover, if Illyrio envisioned a marriage alliance between Daenerys and Aegon at this point in ACOK, Barristan could aid in this — reminding Daenerys of the Targaryen custom of marrying close relatives.
  • All said, this is admittedly speculative, but I hope it provides a possible reason for why Illyrio sends Barristan onto Dany, rather than fold him into Young Griff’s entourage.
  • It’s her dream come true...and she immediately thinks of it in terms of HOTU. It’s probably a coincidence that there are three ships. But Dany’s encounter with prophecy has left her seeing the pattern everywhere
  • She orders the ships’ names changed to reflect that: they will now be the three original Targaryen dragons, so she may properly ride them home
  • I think this gesture sums up Dany’s story. It’s a personal expression of her desire for home, a political statement of Targaryen restoration and renewal, and a self-fulfilling prophecy in which she makes HOTU real
  • Would Dany have made that decision without HOTU? Are the Undying responsible, or her? Do we make the world or are we made by it?
  • Dany is going to have a much more hands-on approach to power in ASOS, but she will still be as confused by these questions as anyone else
  • Earlier I criticized how George did Dany’s character work in relation to her deciding to take ship for Westeros, but let me not end our time with Dany in Qarth on a wholly negative note.
  • You’re absolutely right that Dany has fashioned the world that swirls around her from earlier into what she saw in the House of the Undying.
  • Three heads of the dragon, three sibling Targaryens who conquered Westeros, three ships are here. It’s all connected!
  • Of course, as you were saying earlier, on a Watsonian level, it’s probably just a coincidence that Illyrio sent three ships, and it’s not likely that Rhaegar’s statement that the dragon must have three heads relates to these ships.
  • On that Doylist level, though, George might be having a bit of a gag with Dany here. He knows what “the dragon must have three heads means” even if Dany and we, the readers, don’t.
  • But like all of us when we see what appears to be a series of dots to connect, Dany sees the world oh-so-clearly.
  • She orders the letters painted in huge gold letters: a declaration to her that the dragons have returned, but it’s also a declaration of certainty, of destiny.
  • A Storm of Swords and especially A Dance with Dragons will put that certainty and destiny to the test.

Foreshadowing/Groundwork

The Aegon VI backstory returns with a vengeance in ADWD.

Speaking of Rhaegar’s kids, Dany mentions that there was no Visenya, no third...and that third will turn out to be Jon Snow.

There are two moments in this chapter which basically set up the first half of her ASOS arc. The first is that she likes hearing Valyrian at the Qartheen docks and can understand it. The second is that she needs an army. Astapor can’t come soon enough.

Dany attempts to gain passage aboard The Sloe-Eyed Maid, and that ship gets a mention in Davos’ second ADWD chapter as visiting White Harbor and bringing news of Dany and her dragons to the people of White Harbor.

Theory/Discussion

Who is Urrathon Nightwalker? (It’s Euron.)

Conclusion

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