"Balerion the dread."
"The Beast that Aegon rode across the sea. His flames forged the Iron Throne and brought the seven kingdoms to heel."
"Powerful."
"But not invincible."
"This place was the beginning of the end for my family."
"Zaldrīzes buzdari iksos daor. A dragon is not a slave."
"They were terrifying."
"Extraordinary."
"They filled people with wonder and awe and we locked them in here."
"They wasted away."
"They grew small"
"and we grew small as well."
Hey everybody, so I got a lot of requests to do a video about the origin and history of dragons and because they're so tied
up in the history of the Targaryen family,
I wanted to talk a little bit about them too.
Because the origin of the dragons is tied up in the rise of the Valyrian freehold
and some themes of Ice and Fire. There are a lot of creation myths that they get into in the books.
Then as Daenerys implies, sort of the downfall of the dragons and the downfall of the Targaryen family and how those are linked up.
But if you're finding me for the first time I do Game of Thrones every week so be sure to subscribe to get everything.
There'll be giveaway stuff at the end of the video too, so just to begin with the creation myth of dragons.
There's a fictional book with in Game of Thrones called Septon Barth's
Unnatural History where he digs into some of the larger beliefs about dragons.
So it reads, "The Valerians themselves claimed the dragons sprang forth as the children of the fourteen flames.
While in Qarth, the tales states that there was once a second moon in the sky.
One day this moon was scalded by the sun and cracked like an egg and a million
dragons poured forth. In Asshai the tales are many and confused
but certain texts, all impossibly ancient, claimed that the dragons first came from the shadow. This place over here.
These Asshai histories say that people so ancient they have no name first tamed dragons in the shadow and brought them to
Valyria teaching the Valyrians their arts before departing from the annals. Yet, if men in the shadow had tamed dragons first,
why did they not conquer as the Valyrians did? It seems likelier
the Valerians tale is the truest but there were dragons in Westeros once.
Long before the Targaryens came as our own legends and histories tell us. If dragons did first spring from the 14 flames,
they must have been spread across much of the known world before they were tamed and in fact
there is evidence for this, as dragon bones have been found as far north as Ibben and even in the jungles of the southern
continent.
But the Valerians harnessed and subjugated them as no one else could."
So that sort of details the myths behind the origin of dragons. That doesn't answer exactly
how we got to the point where people were riding dragons. That gets into a little bit of blood magic and selective breeding over
centuries. Looking at the general timeline of events in Game of Thrones, the rise of the Valyrian freehold
coincided with the end of the first Long Night. So right as Bran the Builder was building the wall, the Valyrians were taming their dragons
and conquering all the lands in the east. The TV show hasn't officially confirmed the truest origin of dragons
but it has sort of backed up the idea of dragons in the shadow of Asshai. So Asshai is where
Melisandre comes from. She's a shadowbinder. That's where she learned how to make shadow babies.
That's where she became a follower of the Red God. When Illyrio gives Daenerys the gift of dragon eggs in the first episode,
he actually got those from Asshai.
We've never actually been there on the TV show and maybe one of the spin-offs will touch on it at some point. But the
belief is, is that this coastline is just pockmarked with ancient dragon caves.
So there are a lot of
petrified dragon eggs left there and, as far as we know, we haven't seen any dragons other than Daenerys'.
But the idea is, is that the gift that he gives her of dragon eggs are petrified dragon eggs.
And it's through blood magic and Mirri Maz Duur that they come back to life and hatch.
So there are many different types of magic on the TV show,
but as they've started to sew things together: the origin of the White Walkers, the children of the forest, the Old Gods, it
sounds like a lot of that magic flows from the same source. So while the show hasn't officially canonized any real consciousness
behind the Old Gods, like you know their power through their actions, but you never hear them speak directly.
There's no astral projection saying, "I am the God of everything.
This is the reason I do things." and I don't think that it's ever gonna happen that way.
But cycle of Ice and Fire, myths about Azor Ahai,
go back to the beginning of time.
So it's just the idea that the Valerians are put forth as this great people that brought dragons to the world.
But these other people from who Melisandre comes, learned about it a long time before that.
"You heard a voice call out from the flames? Do you remember?"
"Should I tell you the name of the one who spoke?"
So I think it's important to remember that other red priests probably came to Valyria
sensing that they would be important
eventually. Taught them some of their magic. Then they took that, refined it, and you get to where dragons are today.
The thing that a lot of you have realized is that the dragons themselves
look more like wyverns. Like the idea that they started out as wyverns and through selective breeding a lot of animal husbandry,
they became the much larger creatures that you see today. So when people talk about bonding with dragons
That's a refinement of the blood magic taught to them by the people of Asshai. So you can see how selective breeding
amongst themselves as well as in their dragons was a very big thing for Valyrian culture.
Which is why it's, you know, not that big of a deal that Jon Snow and Daenerys are together.
It's just a continuation of something that happened for thousands of years with the rise of the freehold.
"Targaryen's wed brothers and sisters for 300 years to keep bloodlines pure."
Probably the most important thing that people have started asking now
is, is how do dragons reproduce? There are only two of them that are still alive on the TV show. So unless they
reproduce somehow, that's it. But sort of thematically and the idea with Daenerys and the rise again of the Targaryen family.
"This isn't the end of your family," as Jon Snow tells her. She might become pregnant again.
We'll probably have some
dragon eggs again on the TV show. So we learned through Maester Aemon in his correspondence
with Rhaegar in the books, that they believe that dragons actually can switch sexes.
Meaning that Rhaegal could lay eggs with Drogon eventually. They in fact,
they don't really refer to the dragons through gender. Daenerys just calls them her children, but again, it's just sort of that
eye wink from behind the camera. Like, ah, you know the Valyrian prophecies are gender-neutral
It could be the princess who was promised.
"The prince who was promised will bring the dawn."
"I'm afraid I'm not a prince."
"Your Grace, forgive me, but your translation is not quite accurate."
"That noun has no gender in high Valyrian, so the proper translation for that prophecy would be the prince or princess
who was promised will bring the dawn."
Just in that same vein the dragons can be both male and female.
But just because
Targaryens use a lot of blood magic to tame dragon and a lot of animal husbandry to make them grow larger and more powerful,
you still actually have to tame them when they're born.
It's just like taming a new horse. You have to win them over.
But a lot of you've also probably heard the story about Sheepstealer and Nettles. So also sort of in the expanded material,
there's a story about a dragon seed, someone who has Targaryen blood, named Nettles who won over a
dragon named Sheepstealer by giving it sheep every day for about a month.
So eventually,
the dragon just sort of cozied up to her. So the example of the TV show is that just because the dragons trust Jon Snow,
doesn't mean that
he'll just be able to hop on one and take off and fly around.
Like he'll have to actually win them over a little bit.
But because of the way the show treats time, like it'll jump forward a week
between scenes in a single episode,
that stuff will probably
happen off screen.
So if we see Jon Snow ride a dragon, you just have to assume that he spent some time up at Winterfell winning them over.
But the fall of dragons actually begins after Aegon conquers the Seven Kingdoms.
So as long as you let dragons roam free and be spectacular as Daenerys talks about, they'll just continue to grow.
But what happens is, is one of his eventual sons becomes king called Maegor the Cruel.
He actually does the exact same thing that Cersei did at the end of season six. During a faith militant uprising at
another Sept, he blows it up and on that site
he builds this dragon pit, and they start keeping dragons there chained up. So that was around
250 years
before events on the TV show pick up. So it took less than a couple hundred years for dragons to go from the size of
Balerion the Black Dread, down to this little cat sized skull you see here.
And that was actually many many years before events on the TV show. So it was less than two hundred years for that to happen.
But even though all this focus has been on the Targaryens and their dragons, the origin stories state the dragons were found all over
the earth at one point. Meaning that there are clutches of petrified dragon eggs all over the earth.
But again if more dragons were to be born that were not born of these two live dragons it would require some
crazy blood magic and some really special circumstances. So it's not like it would never happen again,
but the whole idea here is that Daenerys is trying to break the wheel. They're trying to kill the Night King.
So that, that wouldn't need to happen again.
So if there are new dragons on the TV show they will probably flow from Rhaegal and Drogon.
But let me know in the comments
What is your favorite part of dragon history on either the TV show or in the books and what do you think the future of
dragons are? Do you actually believe that they'll lay dragon eggs and at some point in the future,
maybe after the show has ended, you just have to assume that new dragons are hatched.
But if there are any other history videos that you guys want me to do, just let me know in the comments below.
There'll be new Game of Thrones in the next couple days.
New York Comic Con is this week, so there'll be a bunch of trailers for other related things.
But congratulations to the latest giveaway winner "Tommy's Kanal." You win one of the pre-orders for the DVDs.
Please private message me on the back end of my channel so I can get your contact details.
There'll be a new round when I post that new Game of Thrones video.
You can click here for all my season 8 videos, and you can click here for brand new Thor Ragnarok footage.
Thank you so much for watching. Everybody stay awesome. I'll see you guys tonight.