#posts i added
Drogon has oldest sibling energy, but I always think of him as technically the youngest of Dany’s children because I associate the third really loud cracking of the egg as his egg hatching
Oh, and it would fit the order of the Targaryen siblings the dragons are associated with. Rhaegal for Rhaegar as the oldest, Viserion for Viserys the middle child, and Dany being Drogon’s rider as the youngest.
It also is connected with the domino of power. If Rhaegar had lived, he would have been the head of Dany’s family. Then when he died it became Viserys. Then through marriage, as a third, it was Drogo. In the same domino order, her destiny would have been, in turn, to live as the consort of one the three, as well.
Rhaegal is not the oldest, though. Viserion is the oldest, Rhaegal is the middle child, and Drogon is the youngest:
She heard a crack, the sound of shattering stone. The platform of wood and brush and grass began to shift and collapse in upon itself. Bits of burning wood slid down at her, and Dany was showered with ash and cinders. And something else came crashing down, bouncing and rolling, to land at her feet; a chunk of curved rock, pale and veined with gold, broken and smoking. The roaring filled the world, yet dimly through the firefall Dany heard women shriek and children cry out in wonder.
Only death can pay for life.
And there came a second crack, loud and sharp as thunder, and the smoke stirred and whirled around her and the pyre shifted, the logs exploding as the fire touched their secret hearts. She heard the screams of frightened horses, and the voices of the Dothraki raised in shouts of fear and terror, and Ser Jorah calling her name and cursing. No, she wanted to shout to him, no, my good knight, do not fear for me. The fire is mine. I am Daenerys Stormborn, daughter of dragons, bride of dragons, mother of dragons, don’t you see? Don’t you SEE? With a belch of flame and smoke that reached thirty feet into the sky, the pyre collapsed and came down around her. Unafraid, Dany stepped forward into the firestorm, calling to her children.
The third crack was as loud and sharp as the breaking of the world. - Daenerys X AGOT
The first to hatch is Viserion, as we can see by the first crack being the egg that was “pale and veined with gold”. Drogon is probably be the last to hatch, given that Drogon is the one most associated with Lightbringer (he is even named after Drogo, Dany’s Nissa Nissa, and just like Nissa Nissa’s strength is said to have gone into Lightbringer, it could be said that Drogo’s strength went into Drogon), and the description of the third crack (“as loud and sharp as the breaking of the world”) is similar to the description of Nissa Nissa’s cry (“It is said that her cry of anguish and ecstasy left a crack across the face of the moon”). So by elimination, Rhaegal is the middle child.
But what you said really is interesting. Drogon is the youngest, but he is described as the fiercest of Dany’s dragons, the biggest,and the bravest, just like Dany ends up being the most important of the Targaryen siblings and the one who accomplishes the most, despite being the youngest and a girl.
Also, just like Drogon is the youngest sibling with oldest sibling energy, it’s interesting that Viserion is the oldest sibling with youngest sibling energy, as he is the most affectionate and the momma’s boy of the three.
Drogon has oldest sibling energy, but I always think of him as technically the youngest of Dany’s children because I associate the third really loud cracking of the egg as his egg hatching
Oh, and it would fit the order of the Targaryen siblings the dragons are associated with. Rhaegal for Rhaegar as the oldest, Viserion for Viserys the middle child, and Dany being Drogon’s rider as the youngest.
It also is connected with the domino of power. If Rhaegar had lived, he would have been the head of Dany’s family. Then when he died it became Viserys. Then through marriage, as a third, it was Drogo. In the same domino order, her destiny would have been, in turn, to live as the consort of one the three, as well.
Rhaegal is not the oldest, though. Viserion is the oldest, Rhaegal is the middle child, and Drogon is the youngest:
She heard a crack, the sound of shattering stone. The platform of wood and brush and grass began to shift and collapse in upon itself. Bits of burning wood slid down at her, and Dany was showered with ash and cinders. And something else came crashing down, bouncing and rolling, to land at her feet; a chunk of curved rock, pale and veined with gold, broken and smoking. The roaring filled the world, yet dimly through the firefall Dany heard women shriek and children cry out in wonder.
Only death can pay for life.
And there came a second crack, loud and sharp as thunder, and the smoke stirred and whirled around her and the pyre shifted, the logs exploding as the fire touched their secret hearts. She heard the screams of frightened horses, and the voices of the Dothraki raised in shouts of fear and terror, and Ser Jorah calling her name and cursing. No, she wanted to shout to him, no, my good knight, do not fear for me. The fire is mine. I am Daenerys Stormborn, daughter of dragons, bride of dragons, mother of dragons, don’t you see? Don’t you SEE? With a belch of flame and smoke that reached thirty feet into the sky, the pyre collapsed and came down around her. Unafraid, Dany stepped forward into the firestorm, calling to her children.
The third crack was as loud and sharp as the breaking of the world. - Daenerys X AGOT
The first to hatch is Viserion, as we can see by the first crack being the egg that was “pale and veined with gold”. Drogon is probably be the last to hatch, given that Drogon is the one most associated with Lightbringer (he is even named after Drogo, Dany’s Nissa Nissa, and just like Nissa Nissa’s strength is said to have gone into Lightbringer, it could be said that Drogo’s strength went into Drogon), and the description of the third crack (“as loud and sharp as the breaking of the world”) is similar to the description of Nissa Nissa’s cry (“It is said that her cry of anguish and ecstasy left a crack across the face of the moon”). So by elimination, Rhaegal is the middle child.
But what you said really is interesting. Drogon is the youngest, but he is described as the fiercest of Dany’s dragons, the biggest,and the bravest, just like Dany ends up being the most important of the Targaryen siblings and the one who accomplishes the most, despite being the youngest and a girl.
Also, just like Drogon is the youngest sibling with oldest sibling energy, it’s interesting that Viserion is the oldest sibling with youngest sibling energy, as he is the most affectionate and the momma’s boy of the three.
If you believe the theory that Tyrion, Jon, and Dany are the three headed dragon (which I do), and that they’ll ride Viserion, Rhaegal, and Drogon respectively, then their own birth order matches their corresponding dragons as well!
“It seems like it should make sense for them to, for Dany to see the truth of her family’s reign beneath the careful lies and imagery that Aegon is clothed in, and to also confront the bloody legacy of Valyiria, personified in the Greyjoy Brothers.”@orangedodge
I did not know if I should reblog on your post or write my own because I think I’m going a bit off-topic from the original post, but i have problems with this statement. Not because it is baseless but because it has a base and the problem of that base is a double standard between
a) slavery/feudalism as oppressive systems that made individuals unequal by law. If dehumanizing Slavers is a point, why humanize feudal lords? And still Slavers have no PoV while feudal lords and their children hold 90% of them. This evolves in the biggest overall problem that Asoiaf has for me, a lack of conexion between structure and message. It condemns feudalism as a system but shows it mostly through the privileged by the system, and villanizes characters that successfully thrive on it (Little Finger) against the rules set by it. It condemns racism but mostly through white PoV, in a story centered around a white culture, while what he thinks are Mediterranean inspired people are identified as exoticized PoC (with good reasons) by most of the Fandom, a much more developement of White Savages compared to “brown” savages, etc.
b) House Targaryen/other cool feudal houses, specially First Men houses like the Starks. Why has everyone noticed that facing the bad of House Targaryen ruling is a theme, but facing the bad of House Stark (or Blackwood, or Dayne) is not a common discussion? Is because in general Stark PoV generate less political discussion? And why is that? Because he still can do this with Bran but there are not as half as clues as with Daenerys there, or people hasn’t stopped to look, either because Bran is less interesting or because this double standard between different houses is clouding that perception? Because we don’t really have a bad Stark ruler in Canon that actually peaks the attention on it?
This unbalances enormously the gray areas on the political topics he addresses. Which is a pity because a dressing those topics is the thing that makes the whole series special on his own, in my opinion, a very biased one because systems of social oppression would have been my speciality if I have prosecuted a PhD.
And yeah, I analysed this saga as the unfinished work it is, and that will be for a long time if not forever.
Thank you for your thoughts, and for giving me the opportunity to clarify.
I don’t disagree about the double standards Daenerys is held to, they exist plainly within both the fandom and the in-universe world of asoiaf. Yes, she shouldn’t be held uniquely responsible for the crimes of her ancestors, especially when the Starks, Lanisters, Greyjoys, and Martells have many of the same atrocities in their histories that the Targaryens do, but Daenerys remains the only character who is placed in a position where she has the chance to confront the negative aspects of her family legacy and work past them. She’s the character who is dismantling a slave system that her people maintained for thousands of years. She’s the one character whose story has involved working in opposition to systemic violence and injustice. She’s one of only two rulers who agonizes over what it means to rule well, if such a thing is possible. The other rulers tend to be either oblivious to how they’ve unfairly benefited from the exploitation of others, or just don’t care, in other cases.
In short, we devote this extra focus on injustice and responsibility to Daenerys herself and to House Targaryen, because they’re the ones who that focus has been given to by the author, while the Starks and the Lannisters rarely consider such things, or in the case of houses like the Greyjoys would be unwilling to in any case. There are fandom biases driving that focus as well, but I think it’s largely just attributable to our attention being drawn where Martin has invited it.
Should Martin not also begin to have other his other POV characters begin to interrogate themselves over how they’ve wielded political power in a feudal system, and benefited from the crimes of their ancestors? Yes, of course, but I don’t foresee him actually doing that, beyond what he’s already done with Stannis via Davos’ chapters. So when Dany is singled out (as I single her out), I believe it is because confronting the past is a structural part of her journey alone, both because of the unique placement of her character (as the last of the Valyrian dragonlords, and as the leader of a Dothraki khalassar, and as the leader of a Ghiscari city-state), and because she’s been the sole vehicle for the author’s exploration of his own sense of collective guilt.
I agree with both here. Yes, the reason these discussions tend to center on Dany has a lot to do with the fact that the character herself and her narrative end up questioning these injustices and legacy. However, I still think it’s a very valid criticism of ASOIAF, because the narrative does seem to have a double standard, and I don’t think Martin should do this. I mean, if fandom speculation is correct, Dany will end up accidentally burning King’s Landing. And the reason for this is that “she has to confront her family’s legacy”. And in the end the narrative will punish Dany for this, and she’ll have to die to “redeem” herself. And this is a very unfair narrative. Why aren’t other characters forced to confront their ancestors’ legacy? Why doesn’t the narrative punish them for their ancestors’ legacy in the same way that the narrative will punish Dany, by having her do something horrible and then kill her off? Why is Daenerys that will be punished by the narrative, when her character is one of the only characters that actually questions the injustices in the society, while characters that never questioned these injustices or the costs of war will not be punished by the narrative and get to live and rule in the end?
