DoD Princess and the Queen discussion (SPOILERS!!!)

Come on man, the title should be "The Princess and the Queen" before people get confused with ADWD. With that said, here we go...

The tone and manner that the story was written in is very reminiscent of Martin's rambling historical speak in Dunk and Egg and Tyrion's POV regarding historical events. I enjoyed the fact that we weren't subjected to major gaps due to POV story telling. It was a bit draining to go through all of the names, especially the Targ lines given the use of the same first names over and over again, but that is to be expected with any of Martin's writings. Some key points:

DRAGON'S SEEDS - The "seeds" were the most interesting and useful portion of the novella given that we have had virtually no knowledge as to how the Targaryen's used dragons in combat (other that roasting suckas alive) nor how they chose a dragon. We knew from ADWD that they were fickle creatures (RIP Quentyn) but I had no idea that it was such a trial and error process with regard to the seeds. Naturally the true blooded Targs had no problem finding a lizard given that they usually had their own eggs from birth, but for the seeds it is down right dangerous. I think this will present a really difficult problem for Dany given that she will be going through white haired Targ wannabes like crazy before actually finding anyone to pair with. There is hope for Dany given that Nettle was able to trick her dragon by feeding it and gaining familiarity but I wonder how well that will go over. Plus do you really want to see Ben Plumm on a dragon?

The story also added a bit of intrigue with regard to who in the current story could be a possible seed to ride the dragons. If you will recall Corlys Velaryon was the lord of Driftmark, the other largest island in the Blackwater. What is not commonly known is that House Velaryon are long time common allies with the Targs from Valryia. Driftmark is crawling with dragon's seed, such as Addam Velaryon fka Addam of Hull, the rider of Seasmoke. So naturally, Corlys decided to basically adopt Addam because he shared some trace of Valyrian blood, and made him the heir to Driftmark. So you are probably asking yourself, "Where do I know that name Driftmark from?" The answer is that it belongs in the title of a well known handsome bastard, a bastard that just happened to abscond with the newly built royal navy. I give you Aurane Waters, the bastard of Driftmark and one of a handful of likely Dragon's Seed candidates.

DRAGONS IN COMBAT - The manner in which dragons fight has been glossed over quite a bit in the books. We knew that they burned Harrenhal, we knew that they roasted whole armies at will, but we didn't know how they fought with each other or how vulnerable their riders are. The novella was able to layout a lot those technicalities especially showing that even dragons can be killed by people. They aren't as impervious as the stories of Aegon the Conqueror make them out to be. This will be especially telling when Dany attempts to use her dragons in battle. We know from the novella that dragons need to be a fairly decent size before they are useful in combat, but does that translate into modern dragon combat. Dany has the only three dragons in the world. There are no other dragons to compete with (unless Cannibal and Sheepstealer are still alive) so their usefulness against foot soldiers and troops still make them quite formidable.

I'll have some more thoughts later but I want to put these out there!

LEFTOVER DRAGONS - We know from the novella that Vhagar was one of the original dragons ridden in the conquest by Viseyna. According to AWOIAF, it was born in 51 BC and died in 130 AL making it roughly 180 years old. Given that it clearly showed no signs of slowing down, I think it is completely feasible that Sheepstealer and Cannibal could still be alive and viable. The question remains, where are they? Is one residing in Crackclaw Point being hidden by Targ loyalists? Is one hidden at Winterfell making the hot springs warm? Who could know for sure? Where does a girl on a dragon go to when the world decides that it hates dragons? The idea that there could be two fully grown dragons still in play mean that ASOIAF could get flipped on its head at any time.

There is definitely a need for a re-read, there are a lot of moving parts with this one and I don't think that they were haphazardly thrown in there. I think Martin is trying to show us something.

Where does a dragon go? Valyria. That's where.

I like that. Maybe the dragons feel an instinctual pull back to the motherland.

Where do I go to read about this?

Go to read about what in particular?

Just a general question: how long does it take to read PatQ?

It ate up an entire afternoon of productivity.

Just finished reading it. The description of nettles sure sounds like arya. There are definitely still more dragons and dragon eggs out there.

Yeah, one of them went to the children of the forest. Could have been Aemon...or any of the others with similar phonetics...don't remember, and I'm going to start a re-read this weekend. I just powered through Season 3 and need a GoT break.