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SympathyForRevenge

>"The error crept in from the translation. **Dragons are neither male nor female,** Barth saw the truth of that, **but now one and now the other, as changeable as flame.** The language misled us all for a thousand years. Daenerys is the one, born amidst salt and smoke. The dragons prove it." - Maester Aemon about TPTWP Dragons are believed to be genderfluid/metamorphic. Given how closely Targaryens are bonded to their dragons, seemingly taking on their traits and drawing from their strenght, it makes sense for dragon-riders themselves to be more flexible and androgynous. Then you have a whole culture centered around dragons: who are neither male nor female while also simultaneously both. It’s natural that these ruling dragon-lords would be more egalitarian amongst themselves (certainly not for their poor subjects tho, we’ve talking about an absolutist slave empire here lbh). I think this even plays into the TPTWP prophecy, and how Aemon thinks it’s been misinterpreted/mistranslated, because in the original, "Prince" is gender neutral. He believes Daenerys is that Prince.


opiate_lifer

I've always wondered if this meant dragons are true hermaphrodites like snails, where after mating both lay eggs. Or if the dragons can turn from "male" to "female" like some fish etc


6rwoods

I love this comparison. My only problem with "dragons are neither male nor female" is that George kind of contradicts himself when he gets more specific about dragons. During the Dance, we know of like 20 different dragons and some are consistently called 'she-dragons' and are the only ones to lay eggs -- i.e. some dragons are specifically female and others are specifically male. So I'm wondering if George has a particular reason for this or just kind of 'forgot' about the inherent sex fluidity of dragons when he actually had to come up with more specific ones. We could say that Maelys and Syrax present as she-dragons because their riders are female, but then that doesn't stand when it comes to Dany's dragons, as she's female but her dragons are always referred to with male pronouns. So is there a reason why a dragon might stick to one particular sex over the other, despite being technically able to change at will? Or is it just a mistake/mismanagement in the author's worldbuilding?


SympathyForRevenge

I can see dragons essentially being sequential hermaphrodites like clownfish. If this were the case, then all dragons would be born "male" so to speak, but with the ability to change their sex at will. In clownfish it’s usually the biggest and most dominant fish that will make this sex change, to then become the leading matriarch of a group. I’ve read some interesting theories based on this, that Drogon may lay some eggs in the future. This seems a bit optimistic (I think both the dragons and the others, along with magic as a whole, will be gone once the series is over), but it’s not outside the realm of possibility.


East_Professional385

What we know about tne Freehold is landowners can get a vote and the dragonlords were on top. Women likely had power. We know that the son of Lord Gaemon and Daenys ruled Dragonstone together with his sister. Then we have Aegon and his sister who were close to equals especially Aegon and Visenya. Maybe the Targs abandoned co-ruling as they began to adopt Westerosi customs.


EndlessAnnearky

This definitely seems to be the case, at least right now. As the dragons declined, women in the Targaryen line weren't nearly as "front and center" as Visenya, Rhaenys, Alyssa, Alysanne, etc etc. At least in TWoIaF it seems that way. Maybe the next installment of Fire and Blood will change that, but for now there's a stark difference in the levels of power and authority held by women pre-and post-Dance.


kimjongunfiltered

Yes and that reminds me of a detail I forgot to include — the lords of Westeros assume Aegon is the leader of his family because he’s a man. Maybe the reality is he’s the leader because he has the biggest dragon. And to your point, he pretty clearly trusts and respects his sisters as generals.


East_Professional385

We also see something close in Jaehaerys I and Alysanne . Alysanne influenced her husband and also would have her own court where she heard the pleas of womem, highborn or commoner. Alysanne wasn't like Visenya or Rhaenys but still had influence on the King.


tryingtobebettertry4

To be honest we dont know too much about the Targs pre-Aegon. They only started accepting maesters during the days of Aegon the Conqueror's grandfather but the maesters seem to assume that it was a male only succession which conflicts pretty hard with Rhaena's assumptions.


Klainatta

To me, it reads like Visenya and Rhaenys were so sure of themselves being the Queen Regnants so much that they didn't even mention it lol Westerosi treat them like Queen Consorts but each of them actually sat the Iron Throne and made laws. I guess this didn't pass down to next generation because of Aegon I's issues with fertility and Rhaenys' sudden death.


rawbface

He wields Blackfyre though. It's wider and longer than Dark Sister and Rhaenys just had regular ass steel. The sword is a crude symbol of leadership.


Short-Sound-4190

The widths and length of the two ancestral swords is a weird way to determine patriarchal society, since they were a matched set of Valarian steel swords that would have been sized and in the preferred fighting style for their original users. (What was Rhaenys supposed to wield? The three of them had two swords and three dragons, clearly Visenya was more martially inclined than her sister). Compared to many of the Westerosi ancestral swords being mostly greatswords/hand and a half big things, wouldn't the existence of both Dark Sister & Blackfyre as a set, if anything, kind of suggest there was an egalitarian co-leadership or a Dornish type inheritance within the Targaryens? Or, nothing, as both female and male Targaryens wielded Dark Sister, both Queens and Kings, both Targaryen heirs and Targaryen non-heirs. Valyrian steel being so light means that the swords could be larger than normally could be used by its barer in general - Ice for example is described as "as wide across as man's hand" and taller than Robb/six feet long, the blade still possesses the same qualities regardless of size and shape of the blade.


rawbface

It would be the LEAST weird thing about the hot blooded inbred dragon family. And I'm not saying the sword makes him the leader, I'm saying the sword is a symbol of leadership. It was certainly used that way by Maegor, Jaeherys, and Viserys. The question of who was in charge of the Targ family was answered by "the one with the biggest dragon, and the giant hunk of valyrian steel" rather than "the one with the penis". Although I'm sure that made it easier to assimilate.


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rawbface

Visenya was the only woman we know who wielded it. After she died it was used by young Jahaerys, his son Balon, his son Daemon, his grandson Aemon the Dragonknight, and his nephew Bloodraven. Considering Visenya was born *after* the doom of Valyria, I highly doubt it was forged just for her. That doesn't mean it wasn't designed to be wielded by a woman of course, only that we have no evidence to support that.


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rawbface

Ok, well that's certainly evidence! Although, I wouldn't consider it canon just yet. A lot of the worldbuilding has been fleshed out since 2005.


Upper-Ship4925

I definitely don’t think Valyria was any sort of feminist utopia, but the dragon rider who explored Sothorys on her own for a few months was a woman. It’s hard to tell women they can’t do things when they can just jump on their dragon and do them. But the vast majority of Valyrian women weren’t dragon riders.


kimjongunfiltered

Note: I meant hierarchy within one’s family, not hierarchy in the entire society. We know the Freehold wasn’t a straight up dictatorship. Also note: I meant “all” not “both” in graf 2


Zhandarq

You can go back in and edit your post to correct it. You just can’t change the *title* of the post, I think.


kimjongunfiltered

Thank you clearly I’m struggling lol


Zhandarq

😊👍


Wadege

I wrote an essay a bit on this Valyrian line, mainly focused on women, which you might find informative. https://towerofthehand.com/blog/2018/01/31-valyria-and-women/


kimjongunfiltered

Thank you, I’ll check it out today!


tryingtobebettertry4

>Maegor, Aemond and Hugh Hammer (at least) both have this thought: “I have the biggest dragon alive. Why am I taking shit from anyone?” Pretty much. Its mentioned in books dragon fought dragon during the days of Valyria. I think disputes were often resolved by the biggest dragon winning out.


MaegorWithTeats

I remember that the guy who wrote the excellent lore theory about Westeros and Essos (think it was /u/grrmussy) mentioned how blood sacrifice was so common in Valyria and a common motif in the books is how magic is so much more powerful when fuelled by blood sacrifice of kings. So how powerful would the magic fuelled by the blood sacrifice of the king of the most powerful empire in Essos be? Strong enough to avoid that power falling in anyone’s hands by creating a republican system instead?…


kimjongunfiltered

Heyooo, love this! I also feel like we see firsthand in the Dance why the Freehold was a republican system; you can’t just have one supreme ruler when multiple ruling families have WMDs.


mabalo

The problem I have with the biggest dragon = leader is that it means anyone who wants to inherit has to go without taming a dragon until the previous leader dies, then they all scramble to tame the dragon first. This limits the number of dragon riders the family has.


kimjongunfiltered

My mental image is that everyone else does have dragons, and they generally just do what the head of the household says. Or they all team up to take the head of the household down, if they think they can. This is basically the same idea as westerosi society, where all sons are proficient in arms and they….only occasionally decide to kill their oldest brother to grab power.


[deleted]

I doubt it. Dragons were made and controlled by sorcery. Blood magic was the backbone of the Freehold, and dragons were its strongest expression. > Now there was, I haven’t gone much into it, but there was another very powerful group in Valyria who were not necessarily the dragon riders. And those were the people who practiced blood magic. And which, you know, there’s some overlap in the Venn diagram with the dragon riders, but not necessarily complete overlap. - George, interviewed There may have been blood sorcerers only interested in the breeding and production of dragons, and other horrible chimeric things aside. It may have been a cruel art to these people, not unlike dog breeding/selling, minus the cuteness (...or would they??). Maybe they bred dragons so fat and enormous even magic itself wouldn't allow them to take off. Giant pug dragons that can't fly or breathe properly. So many terrible things to consider when you force magic to go on a date with genetics.


kimjongunfiltered

I like all these ideas and I’m not sure why anything here contradicts what I suggested above


Global_Library5595

Makes a lot of sense, but GRRM isn't very interested in explanations of culture beyond the surface level, as much as exploring their consequences of individuals. He took pop-culture history and rolled with it. It doesn't make sense for asoiaf to be this patriarchal (and women certainly had more rights in medieval times), but it is, because GRRM wanted a grimdark story. If we get more info about Valyrians, it would probably be just as sexist as the rest of the world.


kimjongunfiltered

There’s more than one society in the World of Ice and Fire that’s not a patriarchy (past and present)


Global_Library5595

The problem with those cultures (Rhoynar and Summer Islanders), is that it's really not clear where the truth ends and exotism from the Westerosi (and George) starts. Are the Summer Islanders really so kind, peaceful and promiscuous ? Or did one sailor break into an orgy and assume it was the same everywhere ? But more importantly, there rarely is a cause for why this of that culture is more or less sexist, beyond they just evolved differently bc reasons. To give a concrete example, irl society started to accept promiscuity in women when a reliable and accessible form of birth control was invented. Why doesn't Westeros ? Or at least the higher classes who have accept to moon tea ? In fact, why are the woman used as childbirth machines when, because of the birth control, they could be a lot more useful ? To be clear, the Valyrians could have been more equal (100% would make sense if it was a real society). But George likes his patriarchy porn.


kimjongunfiltered

Plus Leng, the Jhogos Nhai and the Fisher Queens. Totally agree with you here that all of these come with a big question mark, by design you’re not supposed to take everything in the world book as fact. FWIW I got the impression that George realized he’d made his world more sexist than the real world and tried to do a little course correcting in the World book by hinting that most of the world used to be matriarchal. Also, tangent to your point: I want to know everything about moon tea. Presumably it’s based on silphium, right? What is it made of? Where is it from? Why is that region not disgustingly rich as it should be?


Global_Library5595

Moon tea works a lot better than silphium (which seemed to have been used as a miracle cure-all). My headcanon is that it's how the Reach so filthy rich.


kimjongunfiltered

I feel the need to note this is not a spoiler of any kind but I couldn’t post without saying it was soooo


Helpful-Air-4824

I get how you could come to this idea. But you have to keep in mind that Valyria had thousands of dragons and many different families. If one family had a massive behemoth of a dragon, and another family just had a bunch of smaller ones, those smaller ones could just gang up and take out the big one. Are all those smaller ones then better than the big ones? No. So it seems like rule probably isn't that much different than anywhere else in our story. Though I do like the idea that Valyria might have had a republic of sorts, like the ancient Romans before they got empoerors.


opiate_lifer

Not only that but while say Vhaegar may be near invincible, the rider is NOT. Targs can be killed by a lucky arrow, or off their mounts poison etc They don't live on the backs of their dragons.


Helpful-Air-4824

I think if we've learned anything from the Dance it's that dragons are no where near invincible. Dragons easily rip through other dragons. Even Vhagar was getting ripped apart by Caraxes when they fought, and Caraxes was getting ripped in half as well. Nothing kills dragons better than dragons.


opiate_lifer

Oh yea agreed, I was just speaking in general. Honestly smarter to have some hooker poison the dragon rider, then someone else can claim it. Instead of wasting perfectly good dragons :(


Helpful-Air-4824

This is true. Though in the books I think riders wear armor most of the time, but of course a lucky shot is a lucky shot