I never noticed before, but the dragon eggs turning to stone over time is paralleled with a dead weirwood turning to stone. Both of which may well be unnatural creations. Probably nothing in it but amusing none the less.
Oh wow! And some of the people too infected with greyscale. "Greyscale is a rare but often fatal disease that rots the skin, giving it a stone-like appearance and texture. "
The other thing about the Maesters links is that there is an emphasis on Qohor’s smiths be able to keep the edge and strength of Valyrian steel. Maybe the Maesters can rework it but can’t retain its properties. Like they can melt it and forge into a link but it’s not strong. Because it’s also establish in the lore that people know they can’t rework Valyrian steel and keep it strong, so people have probably tried and failed to keep it strong. That means that melting the steel isn’t the problem, it’s just normal steel to start. The issue is just with reworking it into something as strong as before.
Way late to this party but I just wanted to add a little something. A lot of folks talk about the Targaryens having blood of the dragon but given far less attention is dragons having blood of the human...? I guess lmao. I just finished my first read of A Game of Thrones and something that immediately grabbed my attention was Rhaegal and Viserion suckling from Dany in their first appearance. While dragons are not explicitly described as "reptiles", dragons are understood as predominantly having reptilian features. Reptiles do not have mammary glands or often require care from a "mother", they equally cannot digest milk or latch onto a nipple like a young mammal. Yet the hatchling dragons are, in place of Rhaego, feeding from their mother, Dany. There's apparently a whole cross-cultural phenomenon of milk-suckling reptile myths, stories, and folklore [see "The Comparative Milk-Suckling Reptile" by Davide Ermacora]. In particular, snakes are often associated with milk drinking. These snakes are attracted to milk and its smell, so much as to become parasitic and enter the mouths of sleeping children and adults that recently drank milk. They seem fine except their bellies begin to swell. Sometimes they just stay in the belly other times they rise out of the gut and then out of the mouth of their host, like a second mouth *cough*, to catch and steal any incoming milk. Other times they replace the baby when it's time for feeding. In any and all cases, a child host for the snake weakens and eventually dies. These snakes remind me of the wyrmy dragon that hatched next to Laena Velaryon. The milky-smelling baby attracted the snake-wyrm-dragon and it attacked her to eat her or to replace her. These snakes also remind me of the dragons that replace baby Rhaego in Dany's arms. Other Dracomorph related Alien content includes the Xenomorph in Alien 3 being called a "dragon" by a character (though the Xenomorph in that film is technically part dog or bull depending on the cut). And in Alien: Resurrection both the queen Xenomorph and Ellen Ripley are part Xenomorph and part human--but not in the regular Xenomorph life cycle way. The military cloned Ripley from DNA taken before she died in Alien 3. She had a Xenomorph queen gestating inside of her at that time and the military wanted the queen. The military needed a clean clone with separate Ripley and Xenomorph aspects but many attempts ended in clones with Xenomorph and human characteristics expressed randomly and to a gruesome effect. Even the final clone that the military deemed suitable for their purposes had some mixed Human-Xenomorph DNA. Ripley 8 had acidic blood, enhanced strength, reflexes, senses and a link with the Xenomorph hive-mind. The clone's Xenomorph Queen had a link with Ripley and a human womb. That Xenomorph Queen would later give live birth, laying on its back, to another part-human Xenomorph that had both male and female human genitalia (though that aspect was digitally edited out of the film). Perhaps this is part of what informed George's ideas about the Valyrians and the dragons, they're two sides of the same coin, two unnaturally developed varieties of the same species.
Yeah you know I think George is inspired by Alien… it’s just too awesome not have inspired him when we see how many parallels there are. And dragons potentially having human DNA… I tend to think it’s more likely they have human spirits inside them, but you raise an interesting point with the milk and the snakes. And George has milksnakes in the bogs of the Neck I want to say. Interesting.
In regards to multiple Long Nights; the saying is “it’s always darkest BEFORE the dawn” so perhaps there was an even deeper night preceding The Empire of The Dawn
Them being enslaved class (Valyrian) that was experimented on I like a lot especially if day they overthrew or took over from the overlords. It would match so well with their enslaving of others and link back to Danys current campaign too
Could this explain why the Targaryens were abolitionists? If we assume that to be true and the Doom to be an inside job, could it be that the Targaryens (who iirc were like the lowest of the dragon riding families) held an ancestral memory of enslavement? It puts a new spin on Dany’s « a Dragon is not a slave » line, too.
@@cloverazar5315 I'd go the easiest route and say that they're abolitionist just because it's easier for the reader to like them, haha. Kind of like the sympathetic underdogs and opposition to the evil empire
Danny is the moon, Drogo called her the moon of his life, when Drogo and her child died her mind cracked she walked into a fire expecting to die but instead hatched Dragons. The maids tale matches Danny’s rebirth
@@DavidLightbringer thanks I only have the audiobooks at the moment the narration is a bit annoying with the accents but I’m reading them again or spend all day listening TH-cam while I’m working it’s such a fascinating world thanks for creating such interesting videos
In the second book Brans wolf refuses to quit howling at the comet. Master leuwin tells bran that the wolves think it's the moon. The maid was told the moon was a dragon egg that hatched out a thousand dragons. There are actually a few indications of the comet being mistaken or confused with the moon itself. It implies that the Comet is a giant dragon egg. And could explain why the white walkers are marching because they would know it means fire they've seen it B4. My interpretation anyway, im sure there's others
The Bloodstone Emperor really reminds me of pharaoh Nephren-Ka from Lovecraft's work. He was influenced by the Outer God Nyarlathotep, who eventually filled him up and made him one of his avatars. Nyarlathotep is associated with the Church of Starry Wisdom, which GRRM referenced directly. During his reign as pharaoh, Nephren-Ka began the worship of animal-headed gods and sacrificed tons of people to Nyarlathotep in return for the gift of prophecy... which may have come in the form of the Shining Trapezohedron, a shiny blood-red gem activated in darkness... See what I mean :P
Nephren means kidney. Classic Lovecraft, deciding something sounds foreign and scary without researching. He gave lots of writers something to be inspired by and to build upon, but sometimes it just hits you how much it reflects the ignorances and biases of the creator. Shakespeare did the same thing really.
Since it was likely all valyrians and not just targaryens who had genetic modifications, I wonder what the other northern houses are potentially mixed with? Umbers and giants? Mormonts and bears? Also the ironmen of the lonely light and seals? How does all this go down
I don't think fused black stone and oily black stone are the same, while Asshai which is greasy black stone (nitpicking I know)I believe is corrupted fused black stone from the black stone meteor in Stygai (the one worshipped by the blood stone emperor) The oily black stone is always associated with the squishers or deep ones and an aquatic race using dragon fire for there architecture seems off. Maybe it's stone found in the ocean and brought on land?
Yeah, I like that idea if it isnt my theory about the meteor strikes creating oily black stone. Falling meteors push a wave of superheated air as hot as 1200 degrees in front of them as they fall, and they often vaporize the top layers of soil and rock where they land. Many people have pointed out the lumpy, oily texture of the black stone could be vitrification. But that doesn't explain the link to the Deep Ones, which I agree with you - they're pretty strongly associated with the oily stone. perhaps the Deep ones are just another experiment of the Bloodstone emperor, and the oily stone helped create them.
I agree the fused black stone and oily black stone are different things. But I've also wondered if the oily black stone is meant to be a metaphor for building a civilization based upon unsustainable means. Just as the season imbalance/Others represent the ignored issues of climate change, I think the oily black stone could literally be a reference to...oil. Could it be that the oily black stone didn't so much become corrupted, but rather over time the negative aspects of it overtook the positive. Just as we have done with oil up til now, the GEOTD ignored the negative consequences of using such a stone because it provided them with other beneficial things.
This theory seems to make the most sense to me. It fits with everything we've been told. It's also worth noting that Targaryens may not simply inbreed just to keep the dragon blood pure but some of them seem pheromonally compelled to incest, as though they are more attracted to a member of their own hybrid species than to normal humans, Egg obviously wasn't like this but his children were despite his attempts to keep them apart. And you're right that this also explains other hybrids in the universe such as the Winged Men, the Lizard Men and the Eyeless Cave-Dwellers. The Winged Men would be failed attempts at creating dragon human hybrids who would have exhibited more of the wyvern traits of the Dragons and the Eyeless Cave-Dwellers seem to obviously favor the Firewyrms whereas the Lizard Men are obviously just exhibiting reptilian traits in general. Probably the soundest theory about this subject.
@@DavidLightbringer So having watched House of the dragon, we can safely conclude that the wyrms are way more ferocious, from what we see of Deamon's dragon Caraxase. And the case of the worm that hatched immediately bitting the poor girl.
And she started normal, her transformation into a monster was a foced apon her after she slept, willingly or not with the god of the ocean. Nice line of associations there
@@SingingSealRiana Gaia gave birth to Pontus (who had no father). Then Gaia and Pontus had five sea-godly children, including Phorcys and Ceto. The Gorgons (including Medusa) are the children of Phorcys and Ceto. That genealogy is the closest we get to a backstory for Medusa in the original Greek myth. But then along a few hundred years later came Ovid, a roman poet, who wrote his version of the Medusa story where Poesidon rapes her in Athenas temple. Then Athena curses Medusa for the crime of being raped (this is really uncharacteristic for Athena, it's usually Aphrodite who does this stuff) and turns her into a hideous monster no man can ever look at again
@@boredofmindgames4662 this sounds a bit like the Harpy, doesn't it? She was certainly a hybrid but also worshipped as a goddess. Perhaps we should take a closer look at the Ghiscari, who after all were around long before Valyria and thus likely co-existed with the Great Empire of the Dawn.
Old Nan to Bran,"When the first long night came"...well then Nan,how many Long Nights WERE there??Man,I love this stuff...yes,I agree...Valyrians bad,Targaryens good(shepherds,they were)...and oily black stone...is it cursed bloodstone?
I think that Valyria was a colony of GEOTD and when the empire collapse. Valyria took over if there shepherds before on Valyria they were enslaved. It people of GEOTD who brought the dragons to the peninsula.
I really love watching any of your videos because you are a very kind and considerate creator. I truly enjoy when someone can say "i don't agree, but i won't say you're wrong" and even try to understand why someone may hold on to a specific theory or idea. Appreciate the thorough and interesting content you give us! About to light one up and watch from beginning to end (caught the live stream midway through)
I don't know if I support it, but I love the idea of the Targaryens being experiments from the earlier Empire and then using it to their advantage later.
For someone who hasn’t read the books I simply love watching your videos filling in the bits I didn’t know about, especially in bed as I run 3 businesses and come bedtime my eyes are too tired to read but your channel has been a godsend so I can listen and relax. I’m looking forward to the new House Of The Dragon series and looking forward to seeing your breakdown of the series on HBO/SKY Atlantic (Sky Atlantic is the channel it’s shown on in England, which it’s shown twice. Once the same time HBO shows it but it’s like 2am here, then 9pm later on in the day). Since I’m a new subscriber I’ve already got a lot of content I can listen to why I’m out working. Keep up the great work David I appreciate the time you put into your videos
I bet the Valyrians used there slave population for that, with gogossos being the epicenter for that experiment. If something useful was discovered they might use it on themselves but I don't think any house with dragons would be used for experimentation or even a freeman when slaves were so plentiful.
@@nathankroening3687 For testing they would use the slaves yes, but at some point they would have needed real blood of the dragon hence my question. Also maybe that would explain their premonition dreams ability (magic), the propensity to madness and their very words.
Lml mentions the connection between qohor and valerian steel. Qohor was where one valyrian dragonlord happened to be visiting when the doom happened. He then marched with an army to try and reclaim valyria never to return, but if he outfitted said army at qohor he would have told their smiths how to make valyrian steel to outfit them. Aka the qohoric make v. Steel makes total sense.
I feel like the half dragon children have been progressing each time a Targaryen has one. Dany’s seems like the most progressed, having wings and what not. I feel so bad for Aerea, what an awful death.
Dany isn't the first Targaryen to give birth to a winged abomination. It's pretty common tbh. Some of the Targaryen women exclusively had winged and clawed babies.
Ok I’m totally sold on this theory of dragons being made and so are the Valyrians. It makes way more sense of how the Valyrians were shepards or something like it before and so they got a peaceful people to merge with a dangerous out of control beast to get dragons. Now when I hear dragons are magic, fire made flesh, and how intelligent they are, it makes sense. Before I thought they were natural beasts, animals, and that the deformed babies were black magic done to the pregnant valyrian because there is always a dark magic practitioner around those pregnancies, but this is waaaaay more in tune. I hear CFD’s theories over a year ago and it blew my mind! You’re train of thought and logic makes it all clear! Great content as always!
What if Nissa Nissa was a dragon? That would explain a lot. Blood of the dragon, her heat and fire going into the blade, her bearing her breast (exposing a weak spot in scales). Her being AA's "wife" could be akin to Areo Hotah being wedded to his long axe or Bran being wedded to the trees. As to the question of a dragon being better than a sword; a dragon can be used by a select few, and could be warged, killed or raised from the dead. A sword can be wielded by anyone, and must be taken from the hand that wields it.
I've had a similar thought, but one sword just seems far less a threat. You literally have to send 30 guys at once to tackle the sword wielder and then boom...it's completely neutralized. A dragon on the other hand, definitely requires a warg to control it, but I would argue that any dragon rider has warg abilities as well.
This assumes brute force tactics. A person with a sword can get much closer incognito than a person on a dragon. Also, there is textual evidence that the ice/ snow magic beyond the wall greatly affects dragons. Note queen Alyssann when she tried to fly her dragon over the Wall, the dragon refused, not once but thrice. It unnerved her. Edit: interesting take, dragon (Nissa Nissa) refuses/ unable to serve, but blood magic makes her serve in death.
@@Sinfjotli22 I tend to think of the ASOIAF magic systems as more akin to Rock, Paper, Scissors - each type has a superiority & inferiority to other types. To me, a magic 'savior' sword just seems far to cliched for Martin, not to mention unrealistic. How many times in history have wars been won by a one on one fight between two people? It's almost always been one army beating another. In regards to it allowing for incognito stuff, why then make a magic sword? Why not a magic dagger, or short sword that would allow someone to better sneak around?
@@kevj4584 by that logic you shouldn't even try to use dragons but the third magic type, in which case our whole debate and the story of nissa Nissa becomes pointless. Why forge a sword when an altogether different type of magic is needed?
Considering everything we know of the Valyrians was that all of their magic was rooted in blood magic and that they had dark practices this theory makes total sense. It would be completely on brand for how Valyrian culture was described
Hey Aussie contingent here! Watched it 2 hrs after you finished, when I finished work about 2pm. Also awesome stream , loving all your recent content !
Interesting point about Damascus steel, IT's now been found that the steel contains Carbon Nanotubes, likely an interaction between the impurities in the iron ore (Primarily Vanadium) and the process used in Damascus.
Blood, blood is how. It's about the only part of the process we actually know, but not the details. It is weird, because apart from the quenching in blood, the description is of Japanese swords, and modern 'Damascus style' not of actual Damascus. It creates the appearance, but not the attributes. Which I guess does fit the Idea that Valyrian steel is a worse version made based on a myth.
Valyrian Steel is described as alive. I imagine these might've even been made FROM the soul of a former Family member. making them even more valuable, sentimental, and, i just thought of this, what does that mean for Ice?!?! If Ice had a Soul, is it split in half now? wow. anyway, it says they forge every link of their chain, but forging a link of the steel isn't necessarily the same thing as creating the steel from scratch. i imagine they just reforge some rando Valyrian daggers or something. and what is the cat's paw dagger? if a Valyrian Soul Sword is a status symbol, then a matching dragonbone handle Valyrian Soul Dagger sounds just insanely braggadocios. "All her courage and strength went into the blade"
We have 0 idea what happened to Rheago. Mind you, Jorah is big lying piece of sh*t, who for some mysterious reasons wanted to take Dany to Asshai. Why? Asshai is FURTHER FROM VAES DOTHRAK THAN PENTOS. My point is: we dont know what happened to Rheago, he may even still be alived, but nonetheless, we have 0 (zero, null) prove that he looked like some dragon-human hybrid
Paweł Marszał Have you looked into realistic science? Humans are sometimes born with animalistic features; like tails. Rare but does happen. So you’re saying scientists are lying about science? Just because you don’t want to believe it, doesn’t make it wrong. Remember, George bases his world in as logical a place as magic allows. He is a Sci-Fi writer gone Fantasy. So if SCIENCE in OUR world says we can birth half monkey looking babies, because we have those genetic materials from our ancestors (evolution is a thing in ASOIAF, FYI); then I think you can see where a DRAGONlord would have MALFORMED DRAGON BABIES. Did the caps help? Sometimes people tend to soak up emphasis, so hope that helped. If not, do your research. :3
Interesting that Gendry might have been trained in some of those Qohoric secrets if his apprenticeship had continued and, in the show, he was almost made into a blood sacrifice for Lightbringer. If that had happened in the books we'd think it was genius :P
Here I am....after watching LMLs livestream from 8/20/22, the day before HotD premieres.....watching this livestream to prepare for his final Prepare for HotD video series. I am officially an LML David Lightbringer nerd!!!!! LOL Thank you for all the videos you have made and all your hard work!! You are EASILY one of my top 5 favorite TH-camrs!!! And yes, I agree....definitely one of the hardest working TH-camrs out there!!!!
I dont think humans came from sothoryos because the entire continent as far as we know is jungle ( and has dinosaurs apparently) while humans evolved in the semi Forrested semi savanna great rift Valley. I think the plains of the jogos nhai is the most likely area as Yi Ti has the habitat range along with animal species that most resemble the great rift Valley. Although Sothoros is definitely an Africa analog. I comment on your videos a lot and I usually sound like a contrarian but I like your content a lot and I think all the theories you have are really interesting, keep up the good work!
Thanks Nathan, that's interesting speculation. I see the logic behind it, and we should probably look somewhere in the far East in general. The thing I had my eye on were those apes almost as smart as humans on the Isle of Leng - at the very least it shows the potential "missing link," if you will. One of the reasons to consider Sothoryos would be the strong resemblance between the Brindled Men and cro-magnon... Perhaps it wasn't all jungle tens of thousands of years ago? Do jungles expand, ever?
@@DavidLightbringer they do but most jungles on earth haven't due to the amount of rainfall necessary. Leng is an interesting idea, I think crow foods daughter has a video about the dothraki sea once actually being a sea and there are magical examples of dramatic changes to geography. Maybe Leng was once part of the mainland and split sometime after. This could also example the unique fitures of the Lengese who look a lot like the people of Yi Ti in the artwork just a lot taller. Maybe the long night had some geographic consequences that we don't know about?
Just to let you know all of your theories and analysis could be incorrect and I still found it very valuable as inspiration for my games of dungeon and dragons just about as much as the first time I read through the books you are covering (implying I have missed a ton of the details you discuss).
A Wyrm in British and Norse mythology weren’t worms (as people keep saying they are in the comments) they were “A huge limbless and wingless dragon or dragon-like creature.” And as It’s thought that Firewyrm’s and Wyverns were the basis of dragons in planetos then surely The Firewyrms would just look like wingless dragons
My head-canon is that the places where there are mysterious mazes and tunnels reflect early an early version of wyvern-firewyrm hybridization, with some remaining wyrm-like burrowing behavior. I dont 100% believe that the dragons we see in the books are the earliest and only version.
This is off topic but Hyrkoon the Hero, Azor Ahai, Yin Tar, and Neferion are all named after the cities/cultures they come from. Perhaps........ Night King = Nightfort? Maybe this is a warning that the Azor Ahai figure has a "darker" history than we are lead to believe. Also we are kinda lead to believe to that these are different names for the same person yet in the story we see multiple people all fitting the description of azor ahai. Maybe there is actually more than one Azor Ahai?
I have the theory (probably not alone) that each culture had a hero (about 5 in total), during that period. If you think about it, Essos would of been attacked on a larger scale, given the size of the continent. Also where the Forts are, seems to be a harder vantage point to defend from with a single hero. Hence the three heroes. Plus The Last Hero and Eldric, which seemed to be a Westeros based story/stories. If we keep on this idea that one person started all of this, we are cutting out a whole lot of things. Perhaps multiple horrible tyrants all took control over a span of time, relative to each other and inevitably came the Long Night, across the globe. Multiple clues lead to the idea that a bunch of black magic started spreading across the world and some really bad people did really bad things. Ergo Night’s King and Night’s Queen, or The Bloodstone Emperor.
An interesting thing I'm still trying to wrap my head around for all this dragon talk is the connection to the Balkan (perhaps specifically Serbian, as those I'm more familiar with) variant of the Slavic dragon. While Russian and Northern Slavic dragon stories make the dragons evil monsters, like many European stories do, the Balkan ones are different. They are protectors of the land (and often connected to weather and water). They are highly intelligent and rich, owning castles. However, they are some perfect beings. They have personalities, like humans, that can make them more bad or more good. Interestingly, they can turn into a human. Often, they do that to go and have sex with humans, especially a male dragon finding women to sleep with. You know this is happening when the woman is tired, pale, and gaunt suddenly (the women can't handle the dragons for long). They sometimes give birth to half dragon children. Multiple of our princes, kings, and heroes were said to be decendants of dragons. The word for dragon in Serbian is "zmaj", which is similar to "zmija" (snake) and "zemlja" (earth/Earth). Some stories say that the way that a dragon (or, possibly an evil monster/dragon, which has a different name - aždaja/ala) is by a snake living to a very old age or it eating other snakes. Also, I find it interesting that "Dracula" is made into a vampire, when his name comes from the fact that his father was called "The Dragon" in connection to the Order of the Dragon - an Eastern Orthodox/Catholic order bent on keeping the Ottoman empire fron spreading. Which sounds a tad like Valyria vs. Old Ghis. And makes a "blood sucking" connection to dragons and their power (Dracula is famous for military power). I'm not sure what to do with all this - there just seem to be a lot of parallels that are interesting.
I never knew this about Serbian folklore. Very interesting. I've never heard dragon stories of them turning into humans to have sex with human women lmao
sounds similar to ancient Greek mythic conceptions of dragons as large snakes that live underground and guard precious resources, often wellsprings and rivers. There's another comment on this video that expounds on myths in both our world and Planetos of women as sources of power that men must dominate if they want access to/ownership of that power, and that reminds me again of ancient Greek myths, specifically myths of serpent women that can shapeshift into human women and mate with men, often producing powerful lineages of nobles as a result of the union.
I think this is interesting and they idea of genetically engineering humans is definitely something George has written about multiple times (Whether it is magic or science). I just think that you are missing one important piece of evidence when you build up this theory. What I mean is the unreliable narrator. We must assume that through history somebody has exaggerated (at least sometimes). The best evidence for this is the rumors about Tyrion as a baby. Quote from the wiki "it was said that Tyrion was a monster, with a tail, monstrous huge head, thick black hair, a beard, an evil eye, lion's claws, with teeth so long he was not able to close his mouth, and both male and female genitals". This is very similar to the description of the Targaryen babies, though, he is slightly more a kind to a lion-monster (which is not true at all). It would be fair to assume that the same thing would be the case for Targaryens. Al though, the number of times it is repeated makes it a bit more likely. Thoughts?
Partialy yes, in itself I dismissed it, even the quite recent one Rhegal, but in combination with other evidance it actualy makes a case, explaining the heattolerance why wyvern and firewyrm exist with the trades we know, to perfectly make up a dragon, why dragons bond with humans . . . Skinchangers become part of animal kingdom, but with dragons it is the other way around, mostly, they still influence eachother. Why dragoneggs do not just hatch on itself. . . Typical grrm writing, letting us make aassumptions only to later learn it was way more literaly ment than we thought
That what I was thinking. The thing about GRRM is that he uses the kind of medieval "lack of knowledge" to flesh out his world. People don't KNOW things definitively, the distances are too great for easy direct study. There were medieval stories of dog men, who had a whole civilization, of humans with faces on their torsos and no heads, of giants related to those in the bible. The brindled men may just be men with tattoos or scars that give them their pattern, and traveling tales embellished them. The deformed stillbirths may just be a human fetus at early stages of development, making them look less than human. The Summer Islanders legends of monsters may be their excuse for being exiled by local tribes. However, every so often a point will hit home, and make the theory more palatable: the Targareyans resistance to disease, the connection of Bloodstone to Dareon, the strange blackstone edifices across the world. GRRM uses that medieval veil of ignorance to hide the real magic of his world. As magic returns, it becomes impossible to distinguish the tall tales from eyewitness accounts. He switches between medieval drama to high fantasy magics as his story progresses.
Dude! Finally got to watch. This was incredible. 100% sold. I’m really interested in diving into this a bit more. Particularly worms and snakes. So I just did a quick search and I have no doubt that there’s more material but outside of characters like joff being referred to as black worms eating the heart of the realm and corrupting it, there are a few instances where this process plays out. For instance, during the red wedding and Cat’s ww stigmata scene she actually feels like their are red worms crawling through her skin. Interestingly after she is pulled out of the river and resurrected via fire she has a heart of stone and a voice which is a death rattle. GRRM actually casts her as this amphibian or serpentine monster. May be reaching a bit on that but let’s keep going and revisit the sack of winterfell. So Ramsay, literally has lips that theon refers to as two red worms fucking. He finally resurfaces and is welcomed into winterfell. So Ramsay, aka worm with faces sets the castle afire and even breaks stone which causes the heated water to gush out as we find out in bran’s chapter. This chapter also contains the infamous wolf dream where through the fire and smoke the “smoky shadow” of a “great winged snake” emerges from the broken castle.
Thank you TH-cam, for being one more place on the internet where you can find others that think like you! I've been feeling all this in my gut! It just makes too much sense. Wonderful videos. :)
@@DavidLightbringer I've watched most of your material. Genius. As I read through them, I can't help but agree with most, if not all of your research. I hope, to join a live event soon. I have some questions that hold a cash value. :) 420 Thank you for your dedication.
Damascus steel wasn't simply folded steel, that's called wootz and we can make it today. It was some sort of specially forged wootz that we needed modern steelmaking to surpass in quality, and we still don't understand it
@Serena Odonata Medusa’s father was basically the sea Titan her mother was a sea goddess (daughter and grand daughter of gia) her fathers children are pretty much the sea monsters of Greek mythology, the desecration of Athena’s temple, her beauty and her attack via Poseidon where all later additions to the story. Ps could find original reply lol
@@Aprlrain9987 No, not necessarily but when it's connected to their human riders? Plus all the indications that some sort of blood magic was involved? I don't think it would be out of the realm of possibility that they have dragon dna or perhaps both the Valyrians and dragons have a bit of each other's dna in them. Maybe that was the only way for the magic to work and create that psychic link between them?
I loved this live stream! It really changed my perspective on the oily Blackstone, I never realized how similar this concept is to the black gue that spurts from the jar that David finds. This is so horrifying, I cannot think about something more terrifying than forced alien pregnancy...really I've been pregnant with normal babies and the body changes so much, I cannot even phantom a xenomorph/ fire warm parasitic baby
I despise a double-tap, but all this talk on the "blood of the dragon" and kin-selection have me thinking about the Greenblood, its "Orphans", water-magic, and turtles.
Regarding Sothyros, could it be that the jungle itself has its own magical powers and that for a time the Great Dawn controlled it like the Valyrians controlled The 14 Volcanoes. But after the Bloodstone incident, the death of so many socercers allowed the jungle to overthrow and only places like Yeen were untouched.
Kunti from Mahabarata was able to conceive 3 sons through parthenogenesis ( apparently) but it is said that she did this by the use of a mantra and it would sort of allow her to procreate an offspring from the god /force controlling of the material elements she would intend to. she did this with 3 elements : earth (green) Yudishtira, water(blue)Vhima and fire(red) Arjuna , I say the colors cuz it correlates the analogy of got with these major predominant elements and its respective ppl from whom we have these big characters green man, ashor ahai , night king. not tryna compare these 3 with the kurus from the Hindu epic, but you get the idea, higher forces controller of the elements manifesting themselves in the lower planes by the mean of sound/spells and life force .. what else could be done when tchnology available is psychic/nuchlear. magic left ,right and center
Wyrm is an archaic word for dragon, so in hindsight it shouldn't be surprising Martin, who loves words and double meanings, would have his dragons be related to magic fire worms.
The one Targaryen dragon rider who flew over Sothyros said it was endless land of jungle desert, etc.. Thats almost parallels Admiral Byrd's description one of his flights over Antarctica when he got past the tundra region of snow and ice. (He fought Nazi UFO's on one of his other missons down there
You mean Admiral Byrd saw jungles, deserts, etc. after seeing a vast coverage of ice? I heard about the Nazi UFOs but not this 👀 Must look into his journeys more
I just though of something. The whole point of the GEOTD is that it began with the Lion of Night (ice) and the Maiden made of Light (fire) having their child the God on Earth (both fire and ice). What if the Targaryens and the Others are related and that is the reason why theirmagic is stronger than all the rest? What if it explains why Targaryens have their heat tolerance and dragon dreams and the Others have their ice powers? Maybe they are all descendants of the emperors of the GEOTD and they developed different kinds of magic depending on the side they decided to be loyal. The Targaryens being loyal to the Amethyst Empress (fire) and the Others being loyal to the Bloodstone Emperor (ice). Maybe, for this declared loyalty they were blessed each by the Lion or the Maiden. Since they were from the blood of the gods they already had those magic habilities within them and they just were more inclined for one type of them. Something like that.
The alien talk reminded me of a Dr Who episode called "Kill the Moon" "This story reveals that the Earth's moon is actually an egg where a giant dragon has been incubating for billions of years, with bacteria living on it that looks like giant spiders for some reason." 😆
At first I thought those references to hybrid creatures and strange humanoids in faraway places were just historiograpic homages (George's equivalent of the traveler's journals from the medieval period: pulling claims that there were weird creatures and magical kingdoms on the African continent right out of their butts)... but you have convinced me otherwise, LmL!
its a mixture of both, we dont know the extent of the power of magic in game of thornes, asoif is a post apocolyptic, so anything anyone says could b real
I like the idea that the source of some black stone comes from petrified shade of the evening trees. The disputed lands channel had a video that brought that to my attention.
What if this wyrm parasite is what the fire mages were controlling in the Fourteen Flames and that with (or since) the eruption they’re now spread all over Valyria, which is why no one who goes there ever returns (except, allegedly, Euron)?
Aren't dragons kinda both male or female or able to change sexes? So the babe born with both genitalia does follow the theme! And some types of worms, for example, earthworms are actually hermaphrodite organisms.
Again timezones (and work) made me miss this live, but thanks for wasting two hours of my life again ;). Loved the tidbit about the history and origins of the Summer Islanders. General rule of thumb: if the maesters of the Citadel doubt something, it's probably true :).
Shao Khan was the Bloodstone Emperor, Reptile was the first Targaryen, Sub-Zero the Night’s King. No?????? Hehehe Great stuff as usual man. Those two hours flew by!!
@@DavidLightbringer I feel the vaylarians are like Elric of melnibone people original served law or balance then chaos gods came corrupted them they had a civil war chais followers won. Or like in the magicians nephew the kings of charn fought a great evil did horrible things to beat it but ended up becoming evil themselves
Mileena herself was created through sorcery as a hybrid clone of Kitana and Barakas species the Tarkatan (Like the theory of the Valyrian people created by GEOTD)
I like to believe that the bloodmages of Asshai and the Great Empire of the Dawn bred and rode a species of Proto-Dragon which was large and powerful but not fire-breathing. There are bones of dragons throughout the world but no one could tell from such remains whether those beasts could actually breathe fire. Perhaps they were even closer to the Ice Dragons. I like to imagine that they only produce the first Fire breathing dragons after discovering the natural Fireworms living among the Fourteen Flames. The first Valyrians were local shepherds whom the Asshaii enslaved and experimented upon when trying to find the right formula to create the first Fire Dragons. Those victims would then rise up and overthrow the Asshai Blood Mages and combining Blood and Fire is more powerful than the original Blood Magic alone.
Dragons, at least in Westeros, stopped breeding because the magic waned. Which probably caused Aegon V's eggs at Summerhall and Daeny's 3 eggs to be "petrified" and required some kind of magical ceremony to try to hatch them. If Daeny's dragons live, and one of them is female, they could breed naturally assuming magic remains at a high enough level.
Just listening while working and need to be a stickler. Damascus steel just refers to a type of steel from Damascus that had patterns in it that is not related to folding steel, it is likely a result of the process of making crucible steel (which is more a smelting process than a forging process). This is of course the historical terminology, but modern terminology uses “Damascus steel” to refer to any steel with a pattern in it, whether folded or not. The modern term only associated with folding steel is called “pattern welding”. Sorry for being a stickler, couldn’t help my self
The brindled men would probably be something closer to homo erectus or homo habilus, whereas the Ibbenese are more like Neanderthals or Denisovans, a closer relative to modern humans and capable of breeding with them.
Yeah, they - like the Giants and even the Children - are clearly Hominids. Different genuses of human. Different kettle of snakes from the various --men around Yi Ti.
Small sword-nut nitpick; Damascus steel was never actually folded. That is a modern misconception, which posited that because the appearance of Damascus steel was similar to examples of pattern-welded steel, that Damascus steel was produced via pattern-welding. Modern 'Damascus' steel is made by pattern-welding. Historical Damascus steel was made via a crucible process that resulted in liquid iron being exposed to carbon, resulting in a homogeneous amalgamation of both low and high-carbon steel, with a flux, in this case glass, helping to remove impurities. Given iron's very high melting temperature, liquefying it requires a blast furnace... or a dragon.
I always thought the idea of having two moons in the sky would be less beneficial to the earth than one. The axis we spin on would wobble about, like on Mars. However, thinking of this as more magical balance would change that, thanks for clearing that up.
1:36:30 I want to see this depicted in episode of House of the Dragon! Also Rhaneyra cursing her baby reminds me of the Mother Leeds cursing her baby before giving birth to the Jersey Devil
Wow, this episode got into some gross stuff, can't begin to count the number of times I ringed at all the parasitic worm theories. Aere's death story is already such a gruling tale, this right here ramped it up to top notch dIsGOstiNG, at some points. But I do agree that it also reflects the way some things work, especially when you look at parasites. I also noticed some of the Alien parallels, though I never watched all of it since I sawvat least part of one at age 5 and was scarred for life. As for Ashai, I'm so happy the similarity to the toxicity of radiation, because that's what it always reminds me of. And Martin would have grown up during the US's atomic bomb testing craze... And since dragons are pretty much the nuclear weapons of Planetos and there are claims of them (or some of them) being native to Ashai, I always wonder what the link might be there... Also how Valeria seems also contaminated in some way, whether similar or totally different. It all sounds so much like nuclear fallout. Plus Aerea's symptoms feel similar to radiation sickness: high fever, flesh burning more and more, worms moving underneath her skin remind me of radiation liquifying internal organs too... Poor, poor Aerea... and ew, ew, ew, ew, EWWW!
I'm not sure that the Bloodstone Emperor could've ruined an entire continent with his experiments. I think given the history of the world and GRRM's magical evolution that each human race might've evolved independently from various pre-human animalistic ancestors. There's circumstantial evidence that some humans in westeros evolved from squishers (how could they breed with men if not sharing common genetics? not all creature pairings are viable reproductively in asoiaf). There are hybrids everywhere in planetos, and most of them seem to pre-date humanity's rise. Maybe some could be explained by interbreeding, but humanity had to evolve from something. Wouldn't it make sense for GRRM to "fantasy-ify" the evolutionary process by making man's ancestors more animal?
yeah I got into this idea at the end of the Great Empire of the Dawn iceberg stream, I do think it's possible GRRM is implying humans were engineered by like, green men or something and that the human animal hybrids may be older, exactly. I was thinking maybe children were crossed with giants or green men to make mankind
Great stuff. Watching your recent videos has definitely returned my interest in game of thrones and in Winds of Winter which I may or may not resent pretty soon 😆👍
What if Asshai wasn’t built of fused black oily stone, what if it was carved from a massive grove of massive weir wood trees that spanned eastern planetos in the pre dawn era… I’ve thought this since the chapter where Jamie visits Raven Tree Hall “The Maesters say it will turn to stone”…
I think the Valyrians were punished for hubris by an offended diety. If you were a vengeful god, how would you react to an entitled Targaryen princess dairing to ever show her face on the peninsula? Do you think they looked kindly on Daenys meddling? They didnt feel robbed or cheated? We're talking about beings more petty than Cersei Lannister. And having the audacity to flaunt Balerion in their faces: The only creature alive to escape their wrath and a symbol of Targaryan supremacy/old Valyrian legitimacy. Not a smart move Aerea. Even the dragon came back wounded. I think Valyria is just simply cursed but you might be on to something with the dragon bonds/stillborns (incest for dragon bond monopoly = one form of hubris). I think the parasites are meant to put Alysanne's dragon not going north of the wall into better context than "Oh no white walkers bad". Creatures of fire cannot survive in worlds of ice, and vice versa. Like how the parasite died in the ice water and White Walkers hate the sun so hunt at night
@David Lightbringer So you are suggesting that Valyrian dragonlord families (including Targaryens) could be results of successful dracomorph experiments of the Great Empire of the Dawn. If that was the case, their silver-haired gemstone ancestors (the emperors) were dracomorphs too : they were the first blood of the dragon. This means they were created before the meteor crash , the meteor that brought the alien fire parasitic worms with it. If these dracomorph Emperors of the GEOTD existed before the alien parasites began to be used to create dracomorphs, how the first "blood of the dragon" emperors with gemstone eyes and silver hair came to be in the first place ? If they were not constructed as dracomorphs themselves, did they become "blood of the dragon" through a different procedure ? I am confused with the timing... Am i missing something chronologically ?
I am binging all the longer videos I didn't have time for before these days. You are so precious, it's calming to watch :) Hope Quinn and you can do a collaboration again sometime. His schedule is probably very much full with Talia right now. No stress ☺️
The fact that only one tribe or lineage of the Great Empire of the Dawn survived its doom is a hint that the entirety of the Valyrians were themselves like Targaryens, remnants of a once great empire. This is clearly imo a reference to Aeneas, the prince of Troy who (in a fictional legend) is the founder of Rome, only for that Empire to then lead to Byzantium, there and back again.
With the xenomorph worms, is it possible that Valayrians used magic to make their DNA pliable, so they could be "of the blood of dragons", and it effected the worms?
Maybe this is brought up later in the stream, but how do you think Mantarys fits into this (I think it’s Mantarys, I’m talking about the city that Tyrion learns about in book five that supposedly is filled with freaks and weird mutations of humans)
1:46:05 I have to lean to the side of "hermaphrodite", since it combines the two names of the gods who supposedly produced the first entity with both sex organs- Hermes (Who has a very androgynous description himself, and is one of my personal faves) and the goddess of love, Aphrodite. Sure you can be offended, but I just don't see it at all.
Theory: oily black stone is just fireproofed fused stone. The oily substance is a coating used for fireproofing. Coatings are often used for fireproofing structures… even concrete aka stone. I’m a little late to the party I know. Thanks for the awesome vids!
1:38:55 I also think Brindle Men is a reference to The Fly - isn't the scientist protagonist in that film called Brindle? And it's of course about human animal merging
Hey, so I have a question about the Empire of the Dawn. If they were as bad or even worse than Valyrians, with all their crazy experiments, blood magic, and so on, then how was Bloodstone Emperor worse than the rest? Cuz what he's accused of seems like regular Friday for those sickos. EDIT: I guess the question here could be phrased 'is murder and worship of a black rock really that bad'?
well it's unknown who would have been conducting these experiments - it could have been the Bloodstone E who did it all. After all, these titles of the gemstone rulers could be dynasties for all we know. But it also says there was a gradual decline into sin and chaos or whatever, so maybe things were getting bad before then. I think of Numenor and Al Pharazon - things got worse up to the point that they could rip out Nimloth and burn it and defy the gods
If there was a fire moon, and the moon they know is the ice moon, would that mean there could have also been an ice sun? Meteors and comets also feel like a good parallel. The red comet could be a meteor(not related to ice) and thus waking the dragons and certain magic. Maybe there's an actual comet somewhere that woke the others.
I did send it in the chat but dont think you see the non-superchat stuff. The idea you raised with the dracomorph is interesting and I just found it funny that I think in Alien 3 the xenomorph (or maybe more so in the directors cut?) is referred to as The Dragon.
As to the chat questions, it really depends on whether or not I'm doing an actual Q&A session, or whether I have a script like I did yesterday. If I'm working from a script, I miss most of the chat the first time through - so thanks for commenting here. I also watch the chat replay after the stream is done, just because there's always somebody interesting comments that I miss :)
@@DavidLightbringer I think the Patience question was asking if Dany's baby was deformed from the cursed magic to save drogo or somehow she was pregnant already with a dragon but needed to give birth in fire.
@@DavidLightbringer I purchased the HR Giger Artbook which covers stuff with xenomorphs and he was pretty disturbed, the facehuggers were representation of his fear of sex (they really look like warped vaginas when you see his sketches yikes )
I’m the one or one of many, who DMed you on Twitter right after I read that and very excitedly tried to explain my thoughts on it and you poopooed me lol
Hi there! I’m new to the channel but read the books a decade ago 😅 - loving your stuff so far. Now, I haven’t watched your moon videos yet (I’ve gone through the first 2 GEotD vids and the black stone one) so I don’t know if this is something you’ve discussed or not. But what if it was the Ice Moon that was destroyed and a piece of its core landed far north of The Wall, in the place known as the Heart of Winter? It could have brought some crazy moon magic with it, sort-of creating a magical mega-winter in the area it landed and giving the land north of where the Wall stands its severe northern climate and giving AA/Bloodstone Emperor/Night King their Ice magic? I’m imagining its effects to be similar to radiation fallout from the elephant’s foot at Chernobyl, causing changes to the surrounding land, animals, people, and magic-wielders. Yeah, like magical radiation. And the magic of The Wall may be able to keep the “magical radiation” from this ice magic moon core piece from spreading farther down Westeros. The area where the piece of moon core landed could have so much power it can protect itself from those that would look upon it (like Bran), either by straight up magical means on its own or by the NK somehow bending the land/creatures closest to it to his will to protect it. (Its late here and I’m a tid bit stoned so this might be wacko, but I felt inspired) Idk if that would even work chronologically with the proper timelines, and I know you are thinking its some black oily stone up there, but maybe?
no you're not too stoned or anything, a meteor in the heart of winter makes a lot of sense for many many reasons, the 1st of which is lovecraftian vibes
is it possible that the worms themselves are the method of hybridization? if they pick up more and more outside dna from horizontal gene transfer eventually resulting in something with only the gene for hybridization?
Great stream. I have just been watching Forgotten Magical Creatures of A Song of Ice and Fire and I had a thought regarding the great Other. You mentioned that it would be interesting if the great other was a female, a counter to the masculine R'hollr, that would mean you would refer the the great other as she. Could this be word play on Sidhe since it would make the great other an "The She made of Ice"
@DavidLightbringer just something for you to think about as well... Egyptians considered moisture to be central and imperative to life and its preservation, and associated it with the soil and the colours black and green; dryness, reviled and associated with sickness, aging, and the colour red. White, too, was associated with the sickness of being "cold-burned". All these white and red things may have had the life burned out of them. I feel like I've heard you say something similar before.
I never noticed before, but the dragon eggs turning to stone over time is paralleled with a dead weirwood turning to stone. Both of which may well be unnatural creations. Probably nothing in it but amusing none the less.
Oh wow! And some of the people too infected with greyscale.
"Greyscale is a rare but often fatal disease that rots the skin, giving it a stone-like appearance and texture. "
The other thing about the Maesters links is that there is an emphasis on Qohor’s smiths be able to keep the edge and strength of Valyrian steel. Maybe the Maesters can rework it but can’t retain its properties. Like they can melt it and forge into a link but it’s not strong. Because it’s also establish in the lore that people know they can’t rework Valyrian steel and keep it strong, so people have probably tried and failed to keep it strong. That means that melting the steel isn’t the problem, it’s just normal steel to start. The issue is just with reworking it into something as strong as before.
Way late to this party but I just wanted to add a little something. A lot of folks talk about the Targaryens having blood of the dragon but given far less attention is dragons having blood of the human...? I guess lmao.
I just finished my first read of A Game of Thrones and something that immediately grabbed my attention was Rhaegal and Viserion suckling from Dany in their first appearance. While dragons are not explicitly described as "reptiles", dragons are understood as predominantly having reptilian features. Reptiles do not have mammary glands or often require care from a "mother", they equally cannot digest milk or latch onto a nipple like a young mammal. Yet the hatchling dragons are, in place of Rhaego, feeding from their mother, Dany.
There's apparently a whole cross-cultural phenomenon of milk-suckling reptile myths, stories, and folklore [see "The Comparative Milk-Suckling Reptile" by Davide Ermacora]. In particular, snakes are often associated with milk drinking. These snakes are attracted to milk and its smell, so much as to become parasitic and enter the mouths of sleeping children and adults that recently drank milk. They seem fine except their bellies begin to swell. Sometimes they just stay in the belly other times they rise out of the gut and then out of the mouth of their host, like a second mouth *cough*, to catch and steal any incoming milk. Other times they replace the baby when it's time for feeding. In any and all cases, a child host for the snake weakens and eventually dies.
These snakes remind me of the wyrmy dragon that hatched next to Laena Velaryon. The milky-smelling baby attracted the snake-wyrm-dragon and it attacked her to eat her or to replace her. These snakes also remind me of the dragons that replace baby Rhaego in Dany's arms.
Other Dracomorph related Alien content includes the Xenomorph in Alien 3 being called a "dragon" by a character (though the Xenomorph in that film is technically part dog or bull depending on the cut).
And in Alien: Resurrection both the queen Xenomorph and Ellen Ripley are part Xenomorph and part human--but not in the regular Xenomorph life cycle way. The military cloned Ripley from DNA taken before she died in Alien 3. She had a Xenomorph queen gestating inside of her at that time and the military wanted the queen. The military needed a clean clone with separate Ripley and Xenomorph aspects but many attempts ended in clones with Xenomorph and human characteristics expressed randomly and to a gruesome effect. Even the final clone that the military deemed suitable for their purposes had some mixed Human-Xenomorph DNA. Ripley 8 had acidic blood, enhanced strength, reflexes, senses and a link with the Xenomorph hive-mind. The clone's Xenomorph Queen had a link with Ripley and a human womb. That Xenomorph Queen would later give live birth, laying on its back, to another part-human Xenomorph that had both male and female human genitalia (though that aspect was digitally edited out of the film). Perhaps this is part of what informed George's ideas about the Valyrians and the dragons, they're two sides of the same coin, two unnaturally developed varieties of the same species.
Yeah you know I think George is inspired by Alien… it’s just too awesome not have inspired him when we see how many parallels there are. And dragons potentially having human DNA… I tend to think it’s more likely they have human spirits inside them, but you raise an interesting point with the milk and the snakes. And George has milksnakes in the bogs of the Neck I want to say. Interesting.
Nailed it
In regards to multiple Long Nights; the saying is “it’s always darkest BEFORE the dawn” so perhaps there was an even deeper night preceding The Empire of The Dawn
"A long Summer means an even longer Winter"
I like the idea if it being a cycle
After which the Pearl Emperor could emerge with his good magic meteor
@@alabaster275i dont think so
Them being enslaved class (Valyrian) that was experimented on I like a lot especially if day they overthrew or took over from the overlords. It would match so well with their enslaving of others and link back to Danys current campaign too
Yeah that's kind of what I got from Crowfood's Daughter videos. Like the abused becoming the abusers, it happens in real life
the faceless man would come to give their gift to the masters too... or so they allude
Could this explain why the Targaryens were abolitionists? If we assume that to be true and the Doom to be an inside job, could it be that the Targaryens (who iirc were like the lowest of the dragon riding families) held an ancestral memory of enslavement? It puts a new spin on Dany’s « a Dragon is not a slave » line, too.
@@cloverazar5315 I'd go the easiest route and say that they're abolitionist just because it's easier for the reader to like them, haha. Kind of like the sympathetic underdogs and opposition to the evil empire
Danny is the moon, Drogo called her the moon of his life, when Drogo and her child died her mind cracked she walked into a fire expecting to die but instead hatched Dragons. The maids tale matches Danny’s rebirth
yes, it does! welcome to channel. that’s the premise of my very first essay & video, in fact. It’s a major tenet of how we read the books. cheers
@@DavidLightbringer thanks I only have the audiobooks at the moment the narration is a bit annoying with the accents but I’m reading them again or spend all day listening TH-cam while I’m working it’s such a fascinating world thanks for creating such interesting videos
In the second book Brans wolf refuses to quit howling at the comet. Master leuwin tells bran that the wolves think it's the moon. The maid was told the moon was a dragon egg that hatched out a thousand dragons. There are actually a few indications of the comet being mistaken or confused with the moon itself. It implies that the Comet is a giant dragon egg. And could explain why the white walkers are marching because they would know it means fire they've seen it B4. My interpretation anyway, im sure there's others
The Bloodstone Emperor really reminds me of pharaoh Nephren-Ka from Lovecraft's work. He was influenced by the Outer God Nyarlathotep, who eventually filled him up and made him one of his avatars. Nyarlathotep is associated with the Church of Starry Wisdom, which GRRM referenced directly. During his reign as pharaoh, Nephren-Ka began the worship of animal-headed gods and sacrificed tons of people to Nyarlathotep in return for the gift of prophecy... which may have come in the form of the Shining Trapezohedron, a shiny blood-red gem activated in darkness... See what I mean :P
Yeah totally! Quinn and I plan to delve into this with a livestream about Euron getting body snatched after I finish Euron p2
@@DavidLightbringer Oh, *hells* yeah. :D
Nephren means kidney. Classic Lovecraft, deciding something sounds foreign and scary without researching. He gave lots of writers something to be inspired by and to build upon, but sometimes it just hits you how much it reflects the ignorances and biases of the creator. Shakespeare did the same thing really.
@@aubreyackermann8432 H.P. Lovecraft was incredibly flawed but we owe him so much. His life was mEsSeD uP so that explains (not excuses) most of it.
but…your name…research the origins for the punchline 😂😂
Since it was likely all valyrians and not just targaryens who had genetic modifications, I wonder what the other northern houses are potentially mixed with? Umbers and giants? Mormonts and bears? Also the ironmen of the lonely light and seals? How does all this go down
I don't think the iron Islanders are above a good seal fucking now and again myself
@@DavidLightbringer Toad islanders have left the chat
@@DavidLightbringer the origin of house Swyft would be weird though...
@lucifer means Lightbringer That's what "salt wives" really means!
@@joejejeo hahaha good one
I don't think fused black stone and oily black stone are the same, while Asshai which is greasy black stone (nitpicking I know)I believe is corrupted fused black stone from the black stone meteor in Stygai (the one worshipped by the blood stone emperor) The oily black stone is always associated with the squishers or deep ones and an aquatic race using dragon fire for there architecture seems off. Maybe it's stone found in the ocean and brought on land?
Yeah, I like that idea if it isnt my theory about the meteor strikes creating oily black stone. Falling meteors push a wave of superheated air as hot as 1200 degrees in front of them as they fall, and they often vaporize the top layers of soil and rock where they land. Many people have pointed out the lumpy, oily texture of the black stone could be vitrification. But that doesn't explain the link to the Deep Ones, which I agree with you - they're pretty strongly associated with the oily stone. perhaps the Deep ones are just another experiment of the Bloodstone emperor, and the oily stone helped create them.
I agree the fused black stone and oily black stone are different things.
But I've also wondered if the oily black stone is meant to be a metaphor for building a civilization based upon unsustainable means. Just as the season imbalance/Others represent the ignored issues of climate change, I think the oily black stone could literally be a reference to...oil.
Could it be that the oily black stone didn't so much become corrupted, but rather over time the negative aspects of it overtook the positive. Just as we have done with oil up til now, the GEOTD ignored the negative consequences of using such a stone because it provided them with other beneficial things.
@@kevj4584 that civilization proceeded to go to decades war against a desert nation to get more oily stone
This theory seems to make the most sense to me. It fits with everything we've been told. It's also worth noting that Targaryens may not simply inbreed just to keep the dragon blood pure but some of them seem pheromonally compelled to incest, as though they are more attracted to a member of their own hybrid species than to normal humans, Egg obviously wasn't like this but his children were despite his attempts to keep them apart. And you're right that this also explains other hybrids in the universe such as the Winged Men, the Lizard Men and the Eyeless Cave-Dwellers. The Winged Men would be failed attempts at creating dragon human hybrids who would have exhibited more of the wyvern traits of the Dragons and the Eyeless Cave-Dwellers seem to obviously favor the Firewyrms whereas the Lizard Men are obviously just exhibiting reptilian traits in general. Probably the soundest theory about this subject.
Horrific, yet plausible - the ASOIAF theory sweet spot, lol
I totally agree. The lore is so complicated and fascinating ❤💘 JRRM is indeed a genius 😍🔥
Thank you for saying this. I have thought about this for a while. It definitely seems like they're innately drawn to their own, especially siblings
@@DavidLightbringer So having watched House of the dragon, we can safely conclude that the wyrms are way more ferocious, from what we see of Deamon's dragon Caraxase. And the case of the worm that hatched immediately bitting the poor girl.
@@DavidLightbringer Then isn't Nissa Nissa the one who was secrificed to make dragon blood people.
Gogossos sounds like Gorgon. The gorgons of greek mythology was human snake hybrids, most famous of the gorgons was Medusa.
And she started normal, her transformation into a monster was a foced apon her after she slept, willingly or not with the god of the ocean. Nice line of associations there
@Serena Odonata that was a retelling the original story has her has a winged, fanged, moustached and serpent haired without being cursed.
@@boredofmindgames4662 realy? What is her backstory there? Liniage and stuff?
@@SingingSealRiana Gaia gave birth to Pontus (who had no father). Then Gaia and Pontus had five sea-godly children, including Phorcys and Ceto. The Gorgons (including Medusa) are the children of Phorcys and Ceto.
That genealogy is the closest we get to a backstory for Medusa in the original Greek myth.
But then along a few hundred years later came Ovid, a roman poet, who wrote his version of the Medusa story where Poesidon rapes her in Athenas temple. Then Athena curses Medusa for the crime of being raped (this is really uncharacteristic for Athena, it's usually Aphrodite who does this stuff) and turns her into a hideous monster no man can ever look at again
@@boredofmindgames4662 this sounds a bit like the Harpy, doesn't it? She was certainly a hybrid but also worshipped as a goddess. Perhaps we should take a closer look at the Ghiscari, who after all were around long before Valyria and thus likely co-existed with the Great Empire of the Dawn.
Old Nan to Bran,"When the first long night came"...well then Nan,how many Long Nights WERE there??Man,I love this stuff...yes,I agree...Valyrians bad,Targaryens good(shepherds,they were)...and oily black stone...is it cursed bloodstone?
Oh HOT DAMN Inever noticed that before!
I think that Valyria was a colony of GEOTD and when the empire collapse. Valyria took over if there shepherds before on Valyria they were enslaved. It people of GEOTD who brought the dragons to the peninsula.
I really love watching any of your videos because you are a very kind and considerate creator. I truly enjoy when someone can say "i don't agree, but i won't say you're wrong" and even try to understand why someone may hold on to a specific theory or idea. Appreciate the thorough and interesting content you give us! About to light one up and watch from beginning to end (caught the live stream midway through)
The Laena who gives birth to Daemon Targaryen’s lizard child is a different Laena than the one who gets bitten by the maggot white, wingless dragon.
I don't know if I support it, but I love the idea of the Targaryens being experiments from the earlier Empire and then using it to their advantage later.
For someone who hasn’t read the books I simply love watching your videos filling in the bits I didn’t know about, especially in bed as I run 3 businesses and come bedtime my eyes are too tired to read but your channel has been a godsend so I can listen and relax. I’m looking forward to the new House Of The Dragon series and looking forward to seeing your breakdown of the series on HBO/SKY Atlantic (Sky Atlantic is the channel it’s shown on in England, which it’s shown twice. Once the same time HBO shows it but it’s like 2am here, then 9pm later on in the day). Since I’m a new subscriber I’ve already got a lot of content I can listen to why I’m out working. Keep up the great work David I appreciate the time you put into your videos
Do you think the Targ and the lesser houses in Valyria were experimented further on with blood magic by the rulling and more powerful houses?
I bet the Valyrians used there slave population for that, with gogossos being the epicenter for that experiment. If something useful was discovered they might use it on themselves but I don't think any house with dragons would be used for experimentation or even a freeman when slaves were so plentiful.
@@nathankroening3687 For testing they would use the slaves yes, but at some point they would have needed real blood of the dragon hence my question. Also maybe that would explain their premonition dreams ability (magic), the propensity to madness and their very words.
Lml mentions the connection between qohor and valerian steel. Qohor was where one valyrian dragonlord happened to be visiting when the doom happened. He then marched with an army to try and reclaim valyria never to return, but if he outfitted said army at qohor he would have told their smiths how to make valyrian steel to outfit them. Aka the qohoric make v. Steel makes total sense.
I feel like the half dragon children have been progressing each time a Targaryen has one. Dany’s seems like the most progressed, having wings and what not. I feel so bad for Aerea, what an awful death.
Dany isn't the first Targaryen to give birth to a winged abomination. It's pretty common tbh. Some of the Targaryen women exclusively had winged and clawed babies.
Been a follower for maybe 2 years, and I want you to know bro- I still find old content of yours super fun to go back and listen too
Ok I’m totally sold on this theory of dragons being made and so are the Valyrians. It makes way more sense of how the Valyrians were shepards or something like it before and so they got a peaceful people to merge with a dangerous out of control beast to get dragons. Now when I hear dragons are magic, fire made flesh, and how intelligent they are, it makes sense. Before I thought they were natural beasts, animals, and that the deformed babies were black magic done to the pregnant valyrian because there is always a dark magic practitioner around those pregnancies, but this is waaaaay more in tune. I hear CFD’s theories over a year ago and it blew my mind! You’re train of thought and logic makes it all clear! Great content as always!
3³4😢😮⁴r7😅
What if Nissa Nissa was a dragon? That would explain a lot. Blood of the dragon, her heat and fire going into the blade, her bearing her breast (exposing a weak spot in scales). Her being AA's "wife" could be akin to Areo Hotah being wedded to his long axe or Bran being wedded to the trees. As to the question of a dragon being better than a sword; a dragon can be used by a select few, and could be warged, killed or raised from the dead. A sword can be wielded by anyone, and must be taken from the hand that wields it.
I've had a similar thought, but one sword just seems far less a threat. You literally have to send 30 guys at once to tackle the sword wielder and then boom...it's completely neutralized. A dragon on the other hand, definitely requires a warg to control it, but I would argue that any dragon rider has warg abilities as well.
This assumes brute force tactics. A person with a sword can get much closer incognito than a person on a dragon. Also, there is textual evidence that the ice/ snow magic beyond the wall greatly affects dragons. Note queen Alyssann when she tried to fly her dragon over the Wall, the dragon refused, not once but thrice. It unnerved her. Edit: interesting take, dragon (Nissa Nissa) refuses/ unable to serve, but blood magic makes her serve in death.
@@Sinfjotli22 I tend to think of the ASOIAF magic systems as more akin to Rock, Paper, Scissors - each type has a superiority & inferiority to other types.
To me, a magic 'savior' sword just seems far to cliched for Martin, not to mention unrealistic. How many times in history have wars been won by a one on one fight between two people? It's almost always been one army beating another.
In regards to it allowing for incognito stuff, why then make a magic sword? Why not a magic dagger, or short sword that would allow someone to better sneak around?
@@kevj4584 by that logic you shouldn't even try to use dragons but the third magic type, in which case our whole debate and the story of nissa Nissa becomes pointless. Why forge a sword when an altogether different type of magic is needed?
@@Sinfjotli22 Sorry, I don't understand..what do you mean "third type of magic"?
Considering everything we know of the Valyrians was that all of their magic was rooted in blood magic and that they had dark practices this theory makes total sense. It would be completely on brand for how Valyrian culture was described
Hey Aussie contingent here! Watched it 2 hrs after you finished, when I finished work about 2pm. Also awesome stream , loving all your recent content !
Interesting point about Damascus steel, IT's now been found that the steel contains Carbon Nanotubes, likely an interaction between the impurities in the iron ore (Primarily Vanadium) and the process used in Damascus.
Blood, blood is how. It's about the only part of the process we actually know, but not the details.
It is weird, because apart from the quenching in blood, the description is of Japanese swords, and modern 'Damascus style' not of actual Damascus. It creates the appearance, but not the attributes.
Which I guess does fit the Idea that Valyrian steel is a worse version made based on a myth.
Wait...so Areas Parasite-Worms were third in the legitimate line of succession to the Iron Throne?
Of course
King Bran about to marry a wiggly-ass, human-faced worm.
@@TobeWilsonNetwork And what could be more amazing a story than this?
Our community is like a chimera of a lot of different thoughts.
Jon Hauge-Evaldsson kind of like how Tyrion is a chimera. Preston Jacobs has a video mentioning it.
Very true!!
@@dustinsmith2021 I believe Grayarea made Her video on Tyrion being "chimera" first...
You are right!
@V Money A chimera is a mythological creature, made up of different parts from other animals.
Valyrian Steel is described as alive. I imagine these might've even been made FROM the soul of a former Family member. making them even more valuable, sentimental, and, i just thought of this, what does that mean for Ice?!?! If Ice had a Soul, is it split in half now? wow. anyway, it says they forge every link of their chain, but forging a link of the steel isn't necessarily the same thing as creating the steel from scratch. i imagine they just reforge some rando Valyrian daggers or something. and what is the cat's paw dagger? if a Valyrian Soul Sword is a status symbol, then a matching dragonbone handle Valyrian Soul Dagger sounds just insanely braggadocios.
"All her courage and strength went into the blade"
random thought but Dannys baby had grave worms in him before he was born..maybe they were like the parasite Targ worm.
We have 0 idea what happened to Rheago.
Mind you, Jorah is big lying piece of sh*t, who for some mysterious reasons wanted to take Dany to Asshai. Why? Asshai is FURTHER FROM VAES DOTHRAK THAN PENTOS.
My point is: we dont know what happened to Rheago, he may even still be alived, but nonetheless, we have 0 (zero, null) prove that he looked like some dragon-human hybrid
@@pawemarsza9515 I recommend watching Preston Jacobs' videos
@@eriks1765 That's funny, because i have watched almost all of them
@@pawemarsza9515 He IS a lying POS, THANK YOU!!
Paweł Marszał Have you looked into realistic science? Humans are sometimes born with animalistic features; like tails. Rare but does happen. So you’re saying scientists are lying about science?
Just because you don’t want to believe it, doesn’t make it wrong. Remember, George bases his world in as logical a place as magic allows. He is a Sci-Fi writer gone Fantasy. So if SCIENCE in OUR world says we can birth half monkey looking babies, because we have those genetic materials from our ancestors (evolution is a thing in ASOIAF, FYI); then I think you can see where a DRAGONlord would have MALFORMED DRAGON BABIES.
Did the caps help? Sometimes people tend to soak up emphasis, so hope that helped. If not, do your research. :3
Interesting that Gendry might have been trained in some of those Qohoric secrets if his apprenticeship had continued and, in the show, he was almost made into a blood sacrifice for Lightbringer. If that had happened in the books we'd think it was genius :P
Here I am....after watching LMLs livestream from 8/20/22, the day before HotD premieres.....watching this livestream to prepare for his final Prepare for HotD video series. I am officially an LML David Lightbringer nerd!!!!! LOL
Thank you for all the videos you have made and all your hard work!! You are EASILY one of my top 5 favorite TH-camrs!!! And yes, I agree....definitely one of the hardest working TH-camrs out there!!!!
I dont think humans came from sothoryos because the entire continent as far as we know is jungle ( and has dinosaurs apparently) while humans evolved in the semi Forrested semi savanna great rift Valley. I think the plains of the jogos nhai is the most likely area as Yi Ti has the habitat range along with animal species that most resemble the great rift Valley. Although Sothoros is definitely an Africa analog. I comment on your videos a lot and I usually sound like a contrarian but I like your content a lot and I think all the theories you have are really interesting, keep up the good work!
Thanks Nathan, that's interesting speculation. I see the logic behind it, and we should probably look somewhere in the far East in general. The thing I had my eye on were those apes almost as smart as humans on the Isle of Leng - at the very least it shows the potential "missing link," if you will. One of the reasons to consider Sothoryos would be the strong resemblance between the Brindled Men and cro-magnon... Perhaps it wasn't all jungle tens of thousands of years ago? Do jungles expand, ever?
@@DavidLightbringer they do but most jungles on earth haven't due to the amount of rainfall necessary. Leng is an interesting idea, I think crow foods daughter has a video about the dothraki sea once actually being a sea and there are magical examples of dramatic changes to geography. Maybe Leng was once part of the mainland and split sometime after. This could also example the unique fitures of the Lengese who look a lot like the people of Yi Ti in the artwork just a lot taller. Maybe the long night had some geographic consequences that we don't know about?
@@nathankroening3687 most jungles on earth haven't because of massive deforestation, let's make things clear.
The climate of Sothoryos could have been very different in the past. During the African Humid Period ~14k years ago the Sahara wasn't a desert.
Just to let you know all of your theories and analysis could be incorrect and I still found it very valuable as inspiration for my games of dungeon and dragons just about as much as the first time I read through the books you are covering (implying I have missed a ton of the details you discuss).
I'm getting ready to start a D&D Campaign starting in 129 AC and LML is absolutely my go to for "answers" to these mysteries
Hell yes! His theories are great for world building in your own medium!!!
A Wyrm in British and Norse mythology weren’t worms (as people keep saying they are in the comments) they were “A huge limbless and wingless dragon or dragon-like creature.” And as It’s thought that Firewyrm’s and Wyverns were the basis of dragons in planetos then surely The Firewyrms would just look like wingless dragons
I myself always thought “wyrms “ was more like “worm” as in like earthworms and nematodes instead of serpents
@@sean5558 nope
Wyrm is another word for _snake._
My head-canon is that the places where there are mysterious mazes and tunnels reflect early an early version of wyvern-firewyrm hybridization, with some remaining wyrm-like burrowing behavior. I dont 100% believe that the dragons we see in the books are the earliest and only version.
A wyworm😂
This is off topic but Hyrkoon the Hero, Azor Ahai, Yin Tar, and Neferion are all named after the cities/cultures they come from. Perhaps........ Night King = Nightfort? Maybe this is a warning that the Azor Ahai figure has a "darker" history than we are lead to believe.
Also we are kinda lead to believe to that these are different names for the same person yet in the story we see multiple people all fitting the description of azor ahai. Maybe there is actually more than one Azor Ahai?
I have the theory (probably not alone) that each culture had a hero (about 5 in total), during that period. If you think about it, Essos would of been attacked on a larger scale, given the size of the continent. Also where the Forts are, seems to be a harder vantage point to defend from with a single hero. Hence the three heroes. Plus The Last Hero and Eldric, which seemed to be a Westeros based story/stories.
If we keep on this idea that one person started all of this, we are cutting out a whole lot of things. Perhaps multiple horrible tyrants all took control over a span of time, relative to each other and inevitably came the Long Night, across the globe.
Multiple clues lead to the idea that a bunch of black magic started spreading across the world and some really bad people did really bad things. Ergo Night’s King and Night’s Queen, or The Bloodstone Emperor.
If Azor Ahai is a title like he suggested in another video it would make a lot of sense. He could be a villain, a hero, anyone really.
An interesting thing I'm still trying to wrap my head around for all this dragon talk is the connection to the Balkan (perhaps specifically Serbian, as those I'm more familiar with) variant of the Slavic dragon. While Russian and Northern Slavic dragon stories make the dragons evil monsters, like many European stories do, the Balkan ones are different. They are protectors of the land (and often connected to weather and water). They are highly intelligent and rich, owning castles. However, they are some perfect beings. They have personalities, like humans, that can make them more bad or more good.
Interestingly, they can turn into a human. Often, they do that to go and have sex with humans, especially a male dragon finding women to sleep with. You know this is happening when the woman is tired, pale, and gaunt suddenly (the women can't handle the dragons for long). They sometimes give birth to half dragon children. Multiple of our princes, kings, and heroes were said to be decendants of dragons.
The word for dragon in Serbian is "zmaj", which is similar to "zmija" (snake) and "zemlja" (earth/Earth). Some stories say that the way that a dragon (or, possibly an evil monster/dragon, which has a different name - aždaja/ala) is by a snake living to a very old age or it eating other snakes.
Also, I find it interesting that "Dracula" is made into a vampire, when his name comes from the fact that his father was called "The Dragon" in connection to the Order of the Dragon - an Eastern Orthodox/Catholic order bent on keeping the Ottoman empire fron spreading. Which sounds a tad like Valyria vs. Old Ghis. And makes a "blood sucking" connection to dragons and their power (Dracula is famous for military power).
I'm not sure what to do with all this - there just seem to be a lot of parallels that are interesting.
I never knew this about Serbian folklore. Very interesting. I've never heard dragon stories of them turning into humans to have sex with human women lmao
sounds similar to ancient Greek mythic conceptions of dragons as large snakes that live underground and guard precious resources, often wellsprings and rivers. There's another comment on this video that expounds on myths in both our world and Planetos of women as sources of power that men must dominate if they want access to/ownership of that power, and that reminds me again of ancient Greek myths, specifically myths of serpent women that can shapeshift into human women and mate with men, often producing powerful lineages of nobles as a result of the union.
I think this is interesting and they idea of genetically engineering humans is definitely something George has written about multiple times (Whether it is magic or science). I just think that you are missing one important piece of evidence when you build up this theory. What I mean is the unreliable narrator. We must assume that through history somebody has exaggerated (at least sometimes). The best evidence for this is the rumors about Tyrion as a baby. Quote from the wiki "it was said that Tyrion was a monster, with a tail, monstrous huge head, thick black hair, a beard, an evil eye, lion's claws, with teeth so long he was not able to close his mouth, and both male and female genitals". This is very similar to the description of the Targaryen babies, though, he is slightly more a kind to a lion-monster (which is not true at all). It would be fair to assume that the same thing would be the case for Targaryens. Al though, the number of times it is repeated makes it a bit more likely. Thoughts?
Partialy yes, in itself I dismissed it, even the quite recent one Rhegal, but in combination with other evidance it actualy makes a case, explaining the heattolerance why wyvern and firewyrm exist with the trades we know, to perfectly make up a dragon, why dragons bond with humans . . . Skinchangers become part of animal kingdom, but with dragons it is the other way around, mostly, they still influence eachother. Why dragoneggs do not just hatch on itself. . . Typical grrm writing, letting us make aassumptions only to later learn it was way more literaly ment than we thought
That what I was thinking. The thing about GRRM is that he uses the kind of medieval "lack of knowledge" to flesh out his world. People don't KNOW things definitively, the distances are too great for easy direct study. There were medieval stories of dog men, who had a whole civilization, of humans with faces on their torsos and no heads, of giants related to those in the bible.
The brindled men may just be men with tattoos or scars that give them their pattern, and traveling tales embellished them. The deformed stillbirths may just be a human fetus at early stages of development, making them look less than human. The Summer Islanders legends of monsters may be their excuse for being exiled by local tribes.
However, every so often a point will hit home, and make the theory more palatable: the Targareyans resistance to disease, the connection of Bloodstone to Dareon, the strange blackstone edifices across the world.
GRRM uses that medieval veil of ignorance to hide the real magic of his world. As magic returns, it becomes impossible to distinguish the tall tales from eyewitness accounts. He switches between medieval drama to high fantasy magics as his story progresses.
he knows
Dude! Finally got to watch. This was incredible. 100% sold. I’m really interested in diving into this a bit more. Particularly worms and snakes. So I just did a quick search and I have no doubt that there’s more material but outside of characters like joff being referred to as black worms eating the heart of the realm and corrupting it, there are a few instances where this process plays out. For instance, during the red wedding and Cat’s ww stigmata scene she actually feels like their are red worms crawling through her skin. Interestingly after she is pulled out of the river and resurrected via fire she has a heart of stone and a voice which is a death rattle. GRRM actually casts her as this amphibian or serpentine monster. May be reaching a bit on that but let’s keep going and revisit the sack of winterfell. So Ramsay, literally has lips that theon refers to as two red worms fucking. He finally resurfaces and is welcomed into winterfell. So Ramsay, aka worm with faces sets the castle afire and even breaks stone which causes the heated water to gush out as we find out in bran’s chapter. This chapter also contains the infamous wolf dream where through the fire and smoke the “smoky shadow” of a “great winged snake” emerges from the broken castle.
Bael the bard even wrote a song about it. It's called "Wyvern and Fire worm DNA just won't splice"
as performed by Isaac Hayes
Thank you TH-cam, for being one more place on the internet where you can find others that think like you! I've been feeling all this in my gut! It just makes too much sense. Wonderful videos. :)
Feeling it in your gut, ay...
@@DavidLightbringer I've watched most of your material. Genius. As I read through them, I can't help but agree with most, if not all of your research. I hope, to join a live event soon. I have some questions that hold a cash value. :) 420 Thank you for your dedication.
Damascus steel wasn't simply folded steel, that's called wootz and we can make it today. It was some sort of specially forged wootz that we needed modern steelmaking to surpass in quality, and we still don't understand it
I think the dragons have human dna in them it would explain the bond and type of emotions a dragon and rider can experience
@Serena Odonata Medusa’s father was basically the sea Titan her mother was a sea goddess (daughter and grand daughter of gia) her fathers children are pretty much the sea monsters of Greek mythology, the desecration of Athena’s temple, her beauty and her attack via Poseidon where all later additions to the story. Ps could find original reply lol
Idk. Animals don’t have to be part human to have emotion. But it does work I suppose.
@@Aprlrain9987 I’m assuming that dragons would be somewhat reptile like and reptile and mammalian cognition are quite different
@@boredofmindgames4662 that is true but we’re talking about magical beings so maybe they are different. Idk it’s fun to talk about though.
@@Aprlrain9987 No, not necessarily but when it's connected to their human riders? Plus all the indications that some sort of blood magic was involved? I don't think it would be out of the realm of possibility that they have dragon dna or perhaps both the Valyrians and dragons have a bit of each other's dna in them. Maybe that was the only way for the magic to work and create that psychic link between them?
I loved this live stream! It really changed my perspective on the oily Blackstone, I never realized how similar this concept is to the black gue that spurts from the jar that David finds. This is so horrifying, I cannot think about something more terrifying than forced alien pregnancy...really I've been pregnant with normal babies and the body changes so much, I cannot even phantom a xenomorph/ fire warm parasitic baby
I despise a double-tap, but all this talk on the "blood of the dragon" and kin-selection have me thinking about the Greenblood, its "Orphans", water-magic, and turtles.
First of all - great job! Another amazing live stream
Regarding Sothyros, could it be that the jungle itself has its own magical powers and that for a time the Great Dawn controlled it like the Valyrians controlled The 14 Volcanoes. But after the Bloodstone incident, the death of so many socercers allowed the jungle to overthrow and only places like Yeen were untouched.
Kunti from Mahabarata was able to conceive 3 sons through parthenogenesis ( apparently) but it is said that she did this by the use of a mantra and it would sort of allow her to procreate an offspring from the god /force controlling of the material elements she would intend to. she did this with 3 elements : earth (green) Yudishtira, water(blue)Vhima and fire(red) Arjuna , I say the colors cuz it correlates the analogy of got with these major predominant elements and its respective ppl from whom we have these big characters green man, ashor ahai , night king. not tryna compare these 3 with the kurus from the Hindu epic, but you get the idea, higher forces controller of the elements manifesting themselves in the lower planes by the mean of sound/spells and life force .. what else could be done when tchnology available is psychic/nuchlear. magic left ,right and center
Great stuff thank you for adding that...
Wyrm is an archaic word for dragon, so in hindsight it shouldn't be surprising Martin, who loves words and double meanings, would have his dragons be related to magic fire worms.
The one Targaryen dragon rider who flew over Sothyros said it was endless land of jungle desert, etc.. Thats almost parallels Admiral Byrd's description one of his flights over Antarctica when he got past the tundra region of snow and ice. (He fought Nazi UFO's on one of his other missons down there
You mean Admiral Byrd saw jungles, deserts, etc. after seeing a vast coverage of ice? I heard about the Nazi UFOs but not this 👀 Must look into his journeys more
I just though of something. The whole point of the GEOTD is that it began with the Lion of Night (ice) and the Maiden made of Light (fire) having their child the God on Earth (both fire and ice). What if the Targaryens and the Others are related and that is the reason why theirmagic is stronger than all the rest? What if it explains why Targaryens have their heat tolerance and dragon dreams and the Others have their ice powers? Maybe they are all descendants of the emperors of the GEOTD and they developed different kinds of magic depending on the side they decided to be loyal. The Targaryens being loyal to the Amethyst Empress (fire) and the Others being loyal to the Bloodstone Emperor (ice). Maybe, for this declared loyalty they were blessed each by the Lion or the Maiden. Since they were from the blood of the gods they already had those magic habilities within them and they just were more inclined for one type of them. Something like that.
something like that, yeah! i think AA = Bloodstone Emperor = Night’s King, so he’s definitely team Others by the end
The alien talk reminded me of a Dr Who episode called "Kill the Moon"
"This story reveals that the Earth's moon is actually an egg where a giant dragon has been incubating for billions of years, with bacteria living on it that looks like giant spiders for some reason." 😆
oh Jesus what now
that's right in George's wheelhouse as far as inspiration
I guess the Maesters only have budget Valerian Steel. They (and many others) probably know the folding technique, but not the spells.
At first I thought those references to hybrid creatures and strange humanoids in faraway places were just historiograpic homages (George's equivalent of the traveler's journals from the medieval period: pulling claims that there were weird creatures and magical kingdoms on the African continent right out of their butts)... but you have convinced me otherwise, LmL!
Well, it could well be both a reference to medieval real world maps, and actually be real in George’s world
its a mixture of both, we dont know the extent of the power of magic in game of thornes, asoif is a post apocolyptic, so anything anyone says could b real
I like the idea that the source of some black stone comes from petrified shade of the evening trees. The disputed lands channel had a video that brought that to my attention.
You nailed this one bro 💪 when you said "think about the movie aliens" and it all clicked in my head... Chills
What if this wyrm parasite is what the fire mages were controlling in the Fourteen Flames and that with (or since) the eruption they’re now spread all over Valyria, which is why no one who goes there ever returns (except, allegedly, Euron)?
Euron has a crow for an eye. Birds need wyrms.
I like that theory!
Aren't dragons kinda both male or female or able to change sexes? So the babe born with both genitalia does follow the theme! And some types of worms, for example, earthworms are actually hermaphrodite organisms.
Again timezones (and work) made me miss this live, but thanks for wasting two hours of my life again ;).
Loved the tidbit about the history and origins of the Summer Islanders. General rule of thumb: if the maesters of the Citadel doubt something, it's probably true :).
I actually made it to the livestream last night!!! @lml answered some of my questions, that was the high point of my week hahaha
Shao Khan was the Bloodstone Emperor, Reptile was the first Targaryen, Sub-Zero the Night’s King. No?????? Hehehe
Great stuff as usual man. Those two hours flew by!!
Scorpion was the last hero! A fire wight, lol
@@DavidLightbringer I feel the vaylarians are like Elric of melnibone people original served law or balance then chaos gods came corrupted them they had a civil war chais followers won. Or like in the magicians nephew the kings of charn fought a great evil did horrible things to beat it but ended up becoming evil themselves
Mileena herself was created through sorcery as a hybrid clone of Kitana and Barakas species the Tarkatan (Like the theory of the Valyrian people created by GEOTD)
I swear JRR Martin is a damn genius with all those hidden gems he has to offer in his books universum ❤❤
I like to believe that the bloodmages of Asshai and the Great Empire of the Dawn bred and rode a species of Proto-Dragon which was large and powerful but not fire-breathing. There are bones of dragons throughout the world but no one could tell from such remains whether those beasts could actually breathe fire. Perhaps they were even closer to the Ice Dragons. I like to imagine that they only produce the first Fire breathing dragons after discovering the natural Fireworms living among the Fourteen Flames. The first Valyrians were local shepherds whom the Asshaii enslaved and experimented upon when trying to find the right formula to create the first Fire Dragons. Those victims would then rise up and overthrow the Asshai Blood Mages and combining Blood and Fire is more powerful than the original Blood Magic alone.
Dragons, at least in Westeros, stopped breeding because the magic waned. Which probably caused Aegon V's eggs at Summerhall and Daeny's 3 eggs to be "petrified" and required some kind of magical ceremony to try to hatch them. If Daeny's dragons live, and one of them is female, they could breed naturally assuming magic remains at a high enough level.
All dragons are hermaphroditic, like frogs.
well opening this up to listen to during lunch was a terrible idea 😂
🤣🤣🤣
Just listening while working and need to be a stickler. Damascus steel just refers to a type of steel from Damascus that had patterns in it that is not related to folding steel, it is likely a result of the process of making crucible steel (which is more a smelting process than a forging process). This is of course the historical terminology, but modern terminology uses “Damascus steel” to refer to any steel with a pattern in it, whether folded or not. The modern term only associated with folding steel is called “pattern welding”. Sorry for being a stickler, couldn’t help my self
The brindled men would probably be something closer to homo erectus or homo habilus, whereas the Ibbenese are more like Neanderthals or Denisovans, a closer relative to modern humans and capable of breeding with them.
Yeah, they - like the Giants and even the Children - are clearly Hominids. Different genuses of human.
Different kettle of snakes from the various --men around Yi Ti.
Small sword-nut nitpick; Damascus steel was never actually folded. That is a modern misconception, which posited that because the appearance of Damascus steel was similar to examples of pattern-welded steel, that Damascus steel was produced via pattern-welding.
Modern 'Damascus' steel is made by pattern-welding.
Historical Damascus steel was made via a crucible process that resulted in liquid iron being exposed to carbon, resulting in a homogeneous amalgamation of both low and high-carbon steel, with a flux, in this case glass, helping to remove impurities.
Given iron's very high melting temperature, liquefying it requires a blast furnace... or a dragon.
I always thought the idea of having two moons in the sky would be less beneficial to the earth than one. The axis we spin on would wobble about, like on Mars. However, thinking of this as more magical balance would change that, thanks for clearing that up.
Love the content LML. Started tuning in a a few months ago and really enjoy it.
1:36:30 I want to see this depicted in episode of House of the Dragon! Also Rhaneyra cursing her baby reminds me of the Mother Leeds cursing her baby before giving birth to the Jersey Devil
I thought my fire alarm was chirping from low battery. Took me so long to realize it was your birds tweeting in the background.
Wow, this episode got into some gross stuff, can't begin to count the number of times I ringed at all the parasitic worm theories. Aere's death story is already such a gruling tale, this right here ramped it up to top notch dIsGOstiNG, at some points. But I do agree that it also reflects the way some things work, especially when you look at parasites. I also noticed some of the Alien parallels, though I never watched all of it since I sawvat least part of one at age 5 and was scarred for life. As for Ashai, I'm so happy the similarity to the toxicity of radiation, because that's what it always reminds me of. And Martin would have grown up during the US's atomic bomb testing craze... And since dragons are pretty much the nuclear weapons of Planetos and there are claims of them (or some of them) being native to Ashai, I always wonder what the link might be there... Also how Valeria seems also contaminated in some way, whether similar or totally different. It all sounds so much like nuclear fallout. Plus Aerea's symptoms feel similar to radiation sickness: high fever, flesh burning more and more, worms moving underneath her skin remind me of radiation liquifying internal organs too... Poor, poor Aerea... and ew, ew, ew, ew, EWWW!
I'm not sure that the Bloodstone Emperor could've ruined an entire continent with his experiments.
I think given the history of the world and GRRM's magical evolution that each human race might've evolved independently from various pre-human animalistic ancestors. There's circumstantial evidence that some humans in westeros evolved from squishers (how could they breed with men if not sharing common genetics? not all creature pairings are viable reproductively in asoiaf).
There are hybrids everywhere in planetos, and most of them seem to pre-date humanity's rise. Maybe some could be explained by interbreeding, but humanity had to evolve from something. Wouldn't it make sense for GRRM to "fantasy-ify" the evolutionary process by making man's ancestors more animal?
yeah I got into this idea at the end of the Great Empire of the Dawn iceberg stream, I do think it's possible GRRM is implying humans were engineered by like, green men or something and that the human animal hybrids may be older, exactly. I was thinking maybe children were crossed with giants or green men to make mankind
What if the blood stone emperor was skin-changing a tiger?
So, He "married" Himself?? Sound's like every Male fantasy combined lol
There a suggest that Tiger was a Children. From the Race.
Great stuff. Watching your recent videos has definitely returned my interest in game of thrones and in Winds of Winter which I may or may not resent pretty soon 😆👍
What if Asshai wasn’t built of fused black oily stone, what if it was carved from a massive grove of massive weir wood trees that spanned eastern planetos in the pre dawn era… I’ve thought this since the chapter where Jamie visits Raven Tree Hall “The Maesters say it will turn to stone”…
Maybe they used the slaves to make the dragons, then the dragons had a connection with them so the dragons set the slaves free
Yeah someone else suggested that once, that would be really cool if so
I think the Valyrians were punished for hubris by an offended diety. If you were a vengeful god, how would you react to an entitled Targaryen princess dairing to ever show her face on the peninsula? Do you think they looked kindly on Daenys meddling? They didnt feel robbed or cheated? We're talking about beings more petty than Cersei Lannister. And having the audacity to flaunt Balerion in their faces: The only creature alive to escape their wrath and a symbol of Targaryan supremacy/old Valyrian legitimacy. Not a smart move Aerea. Even the dragon came back wounded. I think Valyria is just simply cursed but you might be on to something with the dragon bonds/stillborns (incest for dragon bond monopoly = one form of hubris). I think the parasites are meant to put Alysanne's dragon not going north of the wall into better context than "Oh no white walkers bad". Creatures of fire cannot survive in worlds of ice, and vice versa. Like how the parasite died in the ice water and White Walkers hate the sun so hunt at night
@David Lightbringer So you are suggesting that Valyrian dragonlord families (including Targaryens) could be results of successful dracomorph experiments of the Great Empire of the Dawn. If that was the case, their silver-haired gemstone ancestors (the emperors) were dracomorphs too : they were the first blood of the dragon.
This means they were created before the meteor crash , the meteor that brought the alien fire parasitic worms with it. If these dracomorph Emperors of the GEOTD existed before the alien parasites began to be used to create dracomorphs, how the first "blood of the dragon" emperors with gemstone eyes and silver hair came to be in the first place ? If they were not constructed as dracomorphs themselves, did they become "blood of the dragon" through a different procedure ?
I am confused with the timing... Am i missing something chronologically ?
I am binging all the longer videos I didn't have time for before these days. You are so precious, it's calming to watch :)
Hope Quinn and you can do a collaboration again sometime. His schedule is probably very much full with Talia right now. No stress ☺️
@LmL thanks for your content. Love the way you dig into the symbology and history of events.
The fact that only one tribe or lineage of the Great Empire of the Dawn survived its doom is a hint that the entirety of the Valyrians were themselves like Targaryens, remnants of a once great empire. This is clearly imo a reference to Aeneas, the prince of Troy who (in a fictional legend) is the founder of Rome, only for that Empire to then lead to Byzantium, there and back again.
With the xenomorph worms, is it possible that Valayrians used magic to make their DNA pliable, so they could be "of the blood of dragons", and it effected the worms?
Regular human intestinal parasites from eating undercooked meat. Also got enchanted along with their host. :D
I love it that you can and will change up your livestream times, so that we may all be included 🥰
Maybe this is brought up later in the stream, but how do you think Mantarys fits into this (I think it’s Mantarys, I’m talking about the city that Tyrion learns about in book five that supposedly is filled with freaks and weird mutations of humans)
That’s Bloodstone Emperor’s Island of Doctor Moreau, something like that
1:46:05 I have to lean to the side of "hermaphrodite", since it combines the two names of the gods who supposedly produced the first entity with both sex organs- Hermes (Who has a very androgynous description himself, and is one of my personal faves) and the goddess of love, Aphrodite. Sure you can be offended, but I just don't see it at all.
Ooh loving the new thumbnails xD
Theory: oily black stone is just fireproofed fused stone. The oily substance is a coating used for fireproofing. Coatings are often used for fireproofing structures… even concrete aka stone. I’m a little late to the party I know. Thanks for the awesome vids!
1:38:55 I also think Brindle Men is a reference to The Fly - isn't the scientist protagonist in that film called Brindle? And it's of course about human animal merging
Hey, so I have a question about the Empire of the Dawn.
If they were as bad or even worse than Valyrians, with all their crazy experiments, blood magic, and so on, then how was Bloodstone Emperor worse than the rest? Cuz what he's accused of seems like regular Friday for those sickos.
EDIT: I guess the question here could be phrased 'is murder and worship of a black rock really that bad'?
well it's unknown who would have been conducting these experiments - it could have been the Bloodstone E who did it all. After all, these titles of the gemstone rulers could be dynasties for all we know. But it also says there was a gradual decline into sin and chaos or whatever, so maybe things were getting bad before then. I think of Numenor and Al Pharazon - things got worse up to the point that they could rip out Nimloth and burn it and defy the gods
@@DavidLightbringer or like the pangtang of Elric of melnibone
If there was a fire moon, and the moon they know is the ice moon, would that mean there could have also been an ice sun? Meteors and comets also feel like a good parallel. The red comet could be a meteor(not related to ice) and thus waking the dragons and certain magic. Maybe there's an actual comet somewhere that woke the others.
I did send it in the chat but dont think you see the non-superchat stuff. The idea you raised with the dracomorph is interesting and I just found it funny that I think in Alien 3 the xenomorph (or maybe more so in the directors cut?) is referred to as The Dragon.
Yes I caught that comment on the rewatch, very cool. A natural comparison
As to the chat questions, it really depends on whether or not I'm doing an actual Q&A session, or whether I have a script like I did yesterday. If I'm working from a script, I miss most of the chat the first time through - so thanks for commenting here. I also watch the chat replay after the stream is done, just because there's always somebody interesting comments that I miss :)
@@DavidLightbringer I think the Patience question was asking if Dany's baby was deformed from the cursed magic to save drogo or somehow she was pregnant already with a dragon but needed to give birth in fire.
@@DavidLightbringer I purchased the HR Giger Artbook which covers stuff with xenomorphs and he was pretty disturbed, the facehuggers were representation of his fear of sex (they really look like warped vaginas when you see his sketches yikes )
Love your commentary, you have the best ideas. Glad I came across you.
I’m the one or one of many, who DMed you on Twitter right after I read that and very excitedly tried to explain my thoughts on it and you poopooed me lol
Read what? Are we talking about Victarion’s arm? It doesn’t have wyrms in it
Hi there! I’m new to the channel but read the books a decade ago 😅 - loving your stuff so far. Now, I haven’t watched your moon videos yet (I’ve gone through the first 2 GEotD vids and the black stone one) so I don’t know if this is something you’ve discussed or not.
But what if it was the Ice Moon that was destroyed and a piece of its core landed far north of The Wall, in the place known as the Heart of Winter? It could have brought some crazy moon magic with it, sort-of creating a magical mega-winter in the area it landed and giving the land north of where the Wall stands its severe northern climate and giving AA/Bloodstone Emperor/Night King their Ice magic? I’m imagining its effects to be similar to radiation fallout from the elephant’s foot at Chernobyl, causing changes to the surrounding land, animals, people, and magic-wielders. Yeah, like magical radiation. And the magic of The Wall may be able to keep the “magical radiation” from this ice magic moon core piece from spreading farther down Westeros.
The area where the piece of moon core landed could have so much power it can protect itself from those that would look upon it (like Bran), either by straight up magical means on its own or by the NK somehow bending the land/creatures closest to it to his will to protect it.
(Its late here and I’m a tid bit stoned so this might be wacko, but I felt inspired) Idk if that would even work chronologically with the proper timelines, and I know you are thinking its some black oily stone up there, but maybe?
no you're not too stoned or anything, a meteor in the heart of winter makes a lot of sense for many many reasons, the 1st of which is lovecraftian vibes
Nightbringer is the series you want for that by the way, the meteor talk
is it possible that the worms themselves are the method of hybridization? if they pick up more and more outside dna from horizontal gene transfer eventually resulting in something with only the gene for hybridization?
Great stream.
I have just been watching Forgotten Magical Creatures of A Song of Ice and Fire and I had a thought regarding the great Other.
You mentioned that it would be interesting if the great other was a female, a counter to the masculine R'hollr, that would mean you would refer the the great other as she. Could this be word play on Sidhe since it would make the great other an "The She made of Ice"
I recently re-read Fire and Blood, and I think you're spot on with the "Aliens franchise" borrowing.
Weirwoods: white worms with hands and faces?
oh boy. yes they are aren't they. they tunnel into Bloodraven body too. I think GRRM just like body horror and Japanese tentacle porn
@DavidLightbringer just something for you to think about as well... Egyptians considered moisture to be central and imperative to life and its preservation, and associated it with the soil and the colours black and green; dryness, reviled and associated with sickness, aging, and the colour red. White, too, was associated with the sickness of being "cold-burned". All these white and red things may have had the life burned out of them. I feel like I've heard you say something similar before.