Hey youtubers it’s Charlie and my Season 4 countdown continues.
For this video I thought it would be fun to talk about the History of Dragons in the World.
A lot of their history gets tied up with the Targaryens at some point, but as much as possible
let’s just try and stick to flame and scale for this video.
If you’re finding me for the first time I’m just doing fun bonus videos counting
down to the Season 4 Premiere.
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So at the start of Book 1 and season 1 dragons had been believed extinct for over 150 years,
the last living dragon died during the reign of Aegon the Third, nicknamed Dragonbane.
At the point in where we are currently in the chronology of ice and fire, there are
several historical texts about dragonlore.
So if someone in the series, like Samwell, wanted to learn more, he’d either have to
learn from someone else like old Aemon at the Night’s watch or from one of the rare
existing texts.
One of the things I love about Ice and Fire is that George RR Martin includes details
like this, hopefully someday someone will actually write all these texts so we can read
them in real life.
Here they are in no particular order:
Number 1 - Blood and Fire, also known as The Death of The Dragons.
It’s one of the rare texts about Dragons in King’s Landing, it’s supposed to be
hidden somewhere underneath the Maester’s Citadel in Oldtown.
For some reason it’s covered in Blood.
They’re not clear on whether that’s Dragon’s blood or human blood.
Number 2 - Dragons, Wryms and Wyverns: Their Unnatural History.
Written by Septon Barth.
He was the hand of the king during the reign of Jaehaerys the first.
The septons considered Barth to be a Sorcerer, so later during the reign of Baelor the first,
who was also a septon.
All the copies of this book were burnt.
But a few pages survived to present day.
It’s notable for claiming that dragons are neither male nor female.
They can switch gender, meaning that Daenerys’ dragons will be able to reproduce with each
other.
Number 3 - The Dance of The Dragons a True Telling by Grand Maester Munkun.
It’s the fictional text of The Targaryen civil war the Dance of The Dragons.
In real life George RR Martin published a pretty inclusive re-telling of The Dance of
The Dragons called the Princess and The Queen.
Which you can read as part of the Dangerous Women Anthology.
Number 4 - Dragonkin by Maester Thomax, which is a book that exist at Castle Black at the
Night’s Watch.
The copy belonged to Maester Aemon until he died, when Jon Snow took it.
If you remember in the trailer, you can see Samwell and Jon pouring over texts in the
Night’s Watch library.
Careful for spoilers on this last book.
Because it includes a small detail from Book 5.
Number 5 - The Shy Maid’s Dragonlore is a book being planned by Tyrion.
But because he needs to do more research, he’s hoping to get another famous book,
“The Fires of the Freehold”, a concise history of Old Valyria.
Which is actually a good transition to the known beginning of Dragons, or at least Dragons
co-existing with humans.
Very little is known about the actual lineage of the great dragons before the Targaryens
brought them to Westeros, but here are some cool facts about how they were used in Valyria
as a source of influence and power.
So the Valyrians actually started out as Sheepherders in the east and about 5000 years before current
events they found dragons roosting in the Fourteen Fires, a ring of volcanoes around
the peninsula where they lived.
They eventually learned to tame them and with the use of traditional domestication and magic,
used the Dragons to carve out what would become the great Valyrian empire that existed until
the Doom.
Their territory basically ran along the entire eastern continent.
And they were ruled by a group of people, not just one king and queen.
The most powerful were called the Dragonlords.
Quick side note - The magic the Valyrians used was specifically tied to Dragons, but
the other kinds you can find in the world include Elemental Control, Divination, Skinchanging,
Raising The Dead, Necromancy and Glamouring.
The cool thing is that during all this the Targaryens were actually one of the minor
houses amongst the Dragonlords, which comprised about 40 families.
So they weren’t that big a deal, but they were the only house that survived the Doom.
So when they came to Westeros, they used dragons to rule unchallenged.
We do know the names of most of the Dragons beginning with the three the Targaryens escaped
with starting with Aegon the first’s Balerion, Rhaeny’s dragon Meraxes and Visenya’s
dragon Vhagar.
Balerion is the most famous just because of his size.
You can see how Daenerys kind of mirrors Aegon in that she brought three dragons back into
the world.
Drogon being the closest analog of Balerion.
He ended up living to about 200 years and just died of old age unlike all the dragons
during the civil war.
If you ever wondered why Harenhaal looks so melty and ominous, it’s because Aegon used
Balerion and the other dragons to roast Harren the Black right after he finished the castle
and moved in.
He had boasted it was impregnable.
But walls can’t keep Dragons out.
Supposedly after Aegon took all the blades from the Six conquered Kings of Westeros,
Balerion helped to melt the blades with dragonfire so that they could be forged into the Iron
Throne.
After their death the only recorded dragon names were the six that belonged to Jaeharys
the first and then the many that were part of the Dance of The Dragons.
During that there were six Greens, 10 blacks, two that changed from blacks to greens, two
neutral dragons and one that survived.
The last living dragon existed during the time of Aegon the third.
Obviously Daenerys couldn’t have brought dragons back if there weren’t eggs.
So when people say Dragon’s died out of the world, they’re really just talking about
living breathing dragons.
Dragons lay a lot of eggs and not all of them get hatched.
If they go unhatched long enough they’ll become petrified.
The ones that Dany was given were petrified, but the magic of Mirri Maz Duur combined with
Dany sacrificing her on Khal Drogo’s funeral pyre brought them back.
In the book it said that Mirri used blood magic and her own sacrifice made it complete.
I choose to believe that it was connected to the same type of magic practiced by the
Valyrians.
It’s interesting to note that in present day Euron Greyjoy had a Dragon Egg briefly,
but he claims he threw it into the sea, as it was also probably petrified.
So if you want to learn more about Dragons in Game of Thrones I recommend you read George
RR Martin’s short story, the princess and the queen.
It covers things with fascinating detail.
Be sure to let me know who your favorite dragon is, it doesn’t have to be one that’s alive
right now.
As cool as Drogon is becoming, it would have been fun to fly on Balerion.
He was like as big as house.
Like a fire breathing jumbo jet.
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for future videos in the comments.
Right now click here to learn more about Winds of Winter, there are a few sample excerpts
available and click here for my season 4 trailer breakdowns.
Thanks for watching, see you guys tonight.
High Fives!