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Post by Some Pig No Doubt on Aug 21, 2016 14:27:00 GMT
Placeholder to continue discussion of min 's brilliant observation of GRRM's tendency to hide people in brothels. Will move the original sidebar posts from the other thread; please feel free to carry on. From the original:
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Post by Some Pig No Doubt on Aug 21, 2016 16:13:39 GMT
Apologies to min - I accidentally deleted one of your posts from the Mockingbird thread while trying to move it here. Thankfully it wasn't a major one.
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Post by Some Pig No Doubt on Sept 30, 2017 4:02:58 GMT
Idea triggered from a quote min posted in another thread. I did a search on "scented oils" in the books, and there are 7 mentions. 6 in Dany's chapters in AGOT, when she is being tended by slaves in preparation for something intimate with Drogo, and 1 in Arya's ADWD Blind Girl chapter, when she encounters some braavos at a tavern in Ragman's Harbor. Interesting that this particular chapter is also the one in which Arya skinchanges into a cat to finally best the Kindly Man, an act that results in her regaining her eyesight - literally, she remembers who she is, and then she sees again. Anyway....scented oils, association with Dany, and particularly with her handmaids getting her ready for sexy time. Red door also associated with Dany, obviously. Then, it occurred to me: Sex. Red door. RED LIGHT. All quotes mentioning the red door: The "Wake the Dragon" Dream...House of the Undying: There is a fascinating theme running through these - more tomorrow.
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Post by min on Sept 30, 2017 11:04:52 GMT
There is a fascinating theme running through these - more tomorrow. LOL! What a great pick-me-up to start the day. Where does Dany learn to speak old valyrian as a child?
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Post by Some Pig No Doubt on Sept 30, 2017 17:07:30 GMT
LOL! What a great pick-me-up to start the day. This will definitely go off the beaten path, that's for sure! Where does Dany learn to speak old valyrian as a child? Since she not only speaks old Valyrian, but speaks it with a Tyroshi accent per the market vendor, I'm going to say she picked it up in Tyrosh...where the house with the red door actually is. Tyrosh is also the last of the Free Cities to speak High Valyrian - the others abandoned it and now have their own dialects. Tyrion mentions it: But in a search of Tyrion's chapters, there's also this: This is at Chataya's brothel on the Street of Silk. I'd originally intended to discuss brothels and the low-level undercurrent of prostitution that is running through the series - the old trope of "hooker with a heart of gold" that we see glimmers of in Chataya/Alayaya, the Black Pearl, even Tysha and Shae to a degree. Also, there are a LOT of inferences to this with regard to Dany and with regard to Lyanna. I'll come back to that with quotes. The theme I mentioned up above with all those quotes - the big house with the red door represents home and happiness to Dany, but it also has a tinge of...licentiousness. Earthly delights. Almost a bacchanal flavor to it. Dany associates the HwtRD with arms to keep her warm, Daario being intimate with her, lounging around eating fruit in a very leisurely fashion; at one point she's dreaming of it while naked in bed. I am also intrigued that the HwtRD features so prominently in her visions inside the House of the Undying - and if you think of the HwtRD representing something of sexuality, like a brothel, it's super telling to me that the very first thing she sees once inside is "In one room, a beautiful woman sprawled naked on the floor while four little men crawled over her. They had rattish pointed faces and tiny pink hands, like the servitor who had brought her the glass of shade. One was pumping between her thighs. Another savaged her breasts, worrying at the nipples with his wet red mouth, tearing and chewing. " A beautiful woman being used in a sexual way by four "little" men - "little" perhaps representing "common". Later in the HotU, after she hears the words of the Undying and is seeing the visions flash before her, including ones with the red door, she is lulled into passiveness only to awaken to the Undying getting handsy with her: Dany's long strange trip through the House of the Undying begins with a woman being violated by little men, and ends with Dany herself being violated by the Undying. And the HotU journey is basically chronicling her LIFE.... I mean, wow. Returning to the Tyrosh thing for a sec before I forget about it - So we've gone through Lemongate ad nauseam, and we have the original publication of the Dany chapters from Wayback Days that placed the red door in Tyrosh instead of Braavos. Most everyone has written that off as a GRRM change of mind, a retcon that wasn't fully addressed/all references not fully corrected in AGOT. Ok, that's great, but...why did George make the change in the first place? And if this is merely a retcon goof, why not clear it up instead of continually muddying the waters about it? Regardless, Dany HAS a connection to Braavos. Everything about her early life is associated with Braavos, yet she has all these incongruent memories and feelings that are distinctly not-Braavos. It's almost like she was two places at once. And here's where I veer into crackpot territory a little bit. Okay, a lot. I was thinking about baby swapping and Weasel Pie 's mention of gender-changing dragons with regard to switched babies, and something struck me: A Dance with Dragons - The Ugly Little Girl "Bring me the face," said the kindly man. The waif made no answer, but she could hear her slippers whispering over the stone floor. To the girl he said, "Drink this," and pressed a cup into her hand. She drank it down at once. It was very tart, like biting into a lemon. A thousand years ago, she had known a girl who loved lemon cakes. No, that was not me, that was only Arya.
"Mummers change their faces with artifice," the kindly man was saying, "and sorcerers use glamors, weaving light and shadow and desire to make illusions that trick the eye. These arts you shall learn, but what we do here goes deeper. Wise men can see through artifice, and glamors dissolve before sharp eyes, but the face you are about to don will be as true and solid as that face you were born with. Keep your eyes closed." She felt his fingers brushing back her hair. "Stay still. This will feel queer. You may be dizzy, but you must not move." Then came a tug and a soft rustling as the new face was pulled down over the old. The leather scraped across her brow, dry and stiff, but as her blood soaked into it, it softened and turned supple. Her cheeks grew warm, flushed. She could feel her heart fluttering beneath her breast, and for one long moment she could not catch her breath. Hands closed around her throat, hard as stone, choking her. Her own hands shot up to claw at the arms of her attacker, but there was no one there. A terrible sense of fear filled her, and she heard a noise, a hideous crunching noise, accompanied by blinding pain. A face floated in front of her, fat, bearded, brutal, his mouth twisted with rage. She heard the priest say, "Breathe, child. Breathe out the fear. Shake off the shadows. He is dead. She is dead. Her pain is gone. Breathe."
This last part is so much like Dany's "wake the dragon" dreams, particularly this one:
...that I have wondered if this is Dany experiencing a "past life" moment. This dream happens before she is even wed to Drogo, yet it sounds like she is heavily pregnant and being beaten by "Viserys". But is it? Viserys, was her first thought the next time she paused, but a second glance told her otherwise. The man had her brother’s hair, but he was taller, and his eyes were a dark indigo rather than lilac. “Aegon,” he said to a woman nursing a newborn babe in a great wooden bed. “What better name for a king?”
Arya's experience is, of course, at the House of Black and White...in Braavos.
A thousand faces were gazing down on her.
They hung upon the walls, before her and behind her, high and low, everywhere she looked, everywhere she turned. She saw old faces and young faces, pale faces and dark faces, smooth faces and wrinkled faces, freckled faces and scarred faces, handsome faces and homely faces, men and women, boys and girls, even babes, smiling faces, frowning faces, faces full of greed and rage and lust, bald faces and faces bristling with hair. Masks, she told herself, it's only masks, but even as she thought the thought, she knew it wasn't so. They were skins.
Even so, there is the seeing, the true seeing. Some people, like Faceless Men, red priestesses, etc, can see through glamors and tricks to the true face. Want to bet who else can do that? Shadowbinders.
"I remember the way. I go north to go south, east to go west, back to go forward. And to touch the light I have to pass beneath the shadow." She squeezed the water from her silvery hair. "I am half-sick of riddling. In Qarth I was a beggar, but here I am a queen. I command you—" "Daenerys. Remember the Undying. Remember who you are."
Then she saw. Her mask is made of starlight. "Remember who you are, Daenerys," the stars whispered in a woman's voice.
Remember what else can see through disguises? Animals. Like cats, or direwolves, or... "The dragons know. Do you?"
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Post by Weasel Pie on Sept 30, 2017 18:19:28 GMT
Before I forget, here's some support... more in a bit, this is awesome stuff!
Agot Jon IX
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Post by Some Pig No Doubt on Sept 30, 2017 18:25:24 GMT
AHHHHHHAAAAAAHHHHH!!!! I was going to check on Mole's Town, because it would place Dany in the north!!! Probably too small, but now we have the association with red lights/red doors/whorehouses.
I need to see of George took a trip to Amsterdam prior to writing AGOT. :?
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Post by Weasel Pie on Sept 30, 2017 18:35:25 GMT
A Dance with Dragons - The Ugly Little Girl "Bring me the face," said the kindly man. The waif made no answer, but she could hear her slippers whispering over the stone floor. To the girl he said, "Drink this," and pressed a cup into her hand. She drank it down at once. It was very tart, like biting into a lemon. A thousand years ago, she had known a girl who loved lemon cakes. No, that was not me, that was only Arya. "Mummers change their faces with artifice," the kindly man was saying, "and sorcerers use glamors, weaving light and shadow and desire to make illusions that trick the eye. These arts you shall learn, but what we do here goes deeper. Wise men can see through artifice, and glamors dissolve before sharp eyes, but the face you are about to don will be as true and solid as that face you were born with. Keep your eyes closed." She felt his fingers brushing back her hair. "Stay still. This will feel queer. You may be dizzy, but you must not move." Sooo could Dany have been glamoured/face changed without knowing it? Meaning Dany and Jon are not twins but face-swapped/gender-swapped? I already know I'm crazy no need to remind me, just fleshing out this thought. Or perhaps Dany is the "saved" Aegon beneath the face of his baby sister? I want to also mention you and I are obsessed with the Mormonts being involved in human trafficking, and that Lynesse can be included in the "wherever whores go" master list...
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Post by Weasel Pie on Sept 30, 2017 18:46:15 GMT
"Remember who you are, Daenerys," Dany "remember who you are" Targaryen and Jon "never forget who you are" Snow are both fed the same sentiment. I think we're onto breaking into new territory because Jon could now easily be the Targ (Aegon VI) and Dany is the Stark? Dany already has plenty of warginess and Starkness about her. Ashara/Ned or Brandon? Ashara's Targ looks have to means something and Jon's "I am not a Stark" has to mean something. Also about those brothels - Chataya's has a secret tunnel, trying to think this out. Maybe this turned out to be the smuggling point for Aegon VI, say Aegon VI was face-swapped/gender-swapped into a female baby, she could be hidden nearby much as the Stark Maiden hid with her baby- both via underground/tunnel areas? Chataya's from wiki
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Post by min on Sept 30, 2017 19:40:20 GMT
Hah! Tyroshi ships have green sails:
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Post by Some Pig No Doubt on Sept 30, 2017 22:02:52 GMT
' Continuing...
Dumping in some thoughts from an earlier thread.
Re: the famous chapter supporting RLJ from AGOT ...the one that everyone forgets is about the discovery of the bastard daughter of the KING. AGOT Eddard IX:
Ned is at Chataya's brothel visiting Barra, Robert's newest bastard. Just prior to this, Littlefinger pokes at Ned a bit about their destination. This is after he has already poked at him once by arranging for him to meet Catelyn at a brothel, mind you, something that enraged Ned greatly. "Chataya runs a choice establishment," Littlefinger said as they rode. "I've half a mind to buy it. Brothels are a much sounder investment than ships, I've found. Whores seldom sink, and when they are boarded by pirates, why, the pirates pay good coin like everyone else." Lord Petyr chuckled at his own wit. Ned let him prattle on. After a time, he quieted and they rode in silence. The streets of King's Landing were dark and deserted. The rain had driven everyone under their roofs. It beat down on Ned's head, warm as blood and relentless as old guilts. Fat drops of water ran down his face.
So Ned is quiet on his way to the whorehouse, and we get an internal association to 'blood' and 'guilts'. And, Littlefinger seems to be taunting him repeatedly with the brothels - a nod that he knows this is a sore spot?
Back to little Barra.
"Robert will never keep to one bed," Lyanna had told him at Winterfell, on the night long ago when their father had promised her hand to the young Lord of Storm's End. "I hear he has gotten a child on some girl in the Vale." Ned had held the babe in his arms; he could scarcely deny her, nor would he lie to his sister, but he had assured her that what Robert did before their betrothal was of no matter, that he was a good man and true who would love her with all his heart. Lyanna had only smiled. "Love is sweet, dearest Ned, but it cannot change a man's nature." The girl had been so young Ned had not dared to ask her age. No doubt she'd been a virgin; the better brothels could always find a virgin, if the purse was fat enough. She had light red hair and a powdering of freckles across the bridge of her nose, and when she slipped free a breast to give her nipple to the babe, he saw that her bosom was freckled as well. "I named her Barra," she said as the child nursed. "She looks so like him, does she not, milord? She has his nose, and his hair . . . " "She does." Eddard Stark had touched the baby's fine, dark hair. It flowed through his fingers like black silk. Robert's firstborn had had the same fine hair, he seemed to recall. "Tell him that when you see him, milord, as it . . . as it please you. Tell him how beautiful she is." "I will," Ned had promised her. That was his curse. Robert would swear undying love and forget them before evenfall, but Ned Stark kept his vows. He thought of the promises he'd made Lyanna as she lay dying, and the price he'd paid to keep them. "And tell him I've not been with no one else. I swear it, milord, by the old gods and new. Chataya said I could have half a year, for the baby, and for hoping he'd come back. So you'll tell him I'm waiting, won't you? I don't want no jewels or nothing, just him. He was always good to me, truly." Good to you, Ned thought hollowly. "I will tell him, child, and I promise you, Barra shall not go wanting." She had smiled then, a smile so tremulous and sweet that it cut the heart out of him. Riding through the rainy night, Ned saw Jon Snow's face in front of him, so like a younger version of his own. If the gods frowned so on bastards, he thought dully, why did they fill men with such lusts?
Lusts that have to be sated by visiting whores. Okay, so soopar interesting that Lyanna musing about Robert's whoring nature segues to a conversation with an actual whore - a VIRGIN whore, no less - that has just birthed one of Robert's children, and THAT leads him to promise said whore that all will be well, and her reaction makes him think of Jon and bastards of lustful men...Lustful men who have sex with whores at brothels.
So a couple of things here: Ned thinks of bastards born of lust, and is reminded of Jon. This tells me that Ned believes Jon to be a bastard. Next, Ned thinks this after taking leave of the bastard baby's mother, who is a whore. And all of this is tied to Lyanna. His next thought comes somewhat AFTER this association:
"For the first time in years, he found himself remembering Rhaegar Targaryen. He wondered if Rhaegar had frequented brothels; somehow he thought not."
Ned's thoughts of Lyanna and Jon do not dovetail with Rhaegar and his presumed avoidance of brothels; they dovetail with the young whore that has just borne the bastard child of a king.
Leaving the brothel, Ned has conversation with Baelish about Robert's other bastards.
He gave Ned a sideways glance. "I've also heard whispers that Robert got a pair of twins on a serving wench at Casterly Rock, three years ago when he went west for Lord Tywin's tourney. Cersei had the babes killed, and sold the mother to a passing slaver. Too much an affront to Lannister pride, that close to home." Ned Stark grimaced. Ugly tales like that were told of every great lord in the realm. He could believe it of Cersei Lannister readily enough . . . but would the king stand by and let it happen? The Robert he had known would not have, but the Robert he had known had never been so practiced at shutting his eyes to things he did not wish to see. "Why would Jon Arryn take a sudden interest in the king's baseborn children?" The short man gave a sodden shrug. "He was the King's Hand. Doubtless Robert asked him to see that they were provided for." Ned was soaked through to the bone, and his soul had grown cold. "It had to be more than that, or why kill him?" Littlefinger shook the rain from his hair and laughed. "Now I see. Lord Arryn learned that His Grace had filled the bellies of some whores and fishwives, and for that he had to be silenced. Small wonder. Allow a man like that to live, and next he's like to blurt out that the sun rises in the east." There was no answer Ned Stark could give to that but a frown. For the first time in years, he found himself remembering Rhaegar Targaryen. He wondered if Rhaegar had frequented brothels; somehow he thought not.
Cersei taking her measures with the bastards and Robert's willful ignorance of it now has me wondering about Elia. Or Rhaella. Maybe Aerys had returned to his old ways? Or never gave them up in the first place? Or was someone else using the secret passageway to Chataya's pleasure house? Also, how about that segue from a Hand of the King being killed for learning about the king's bastard kids, to Rhaegar? It isn't until later that we realize that Jon Arryn wasn't killed for learning about the king's bastard kids, he was killed because he learned that the king's 'legitimate' kids weren't his at all. (And it isn't until WAY later than THAT that we learn that that wasn't really why he was killed - he was actually killed because a jealous miserable woman plotted with her lover to get her husband out of the way and blame someone else for it.) ETA: I am torn here about the parentage of Rhaegar's kids, and the parentage of Rhaegar himself. We find out in the Mercy chapter that Tywin - as Hand - took a trip to Lys during Aerys' reign. Why? Is this the equivalent of Jon Arryn finding Malleon's book?
Anyway, the Queen murders the twins and then ships the mother into slavery. Lots of examples in the books to show that women taken into slavery become prostitutes in the Free Cities. Ironically, we also learn that the reason Ned Stark hates Jorah Mormont's guts is for selling "poachers" to a Tyroshi slaver. Semi-related quote:
Grazdan shrugged expansively. "If blood is what you wish, let it flow. I am told you have freed your eunuchs. Freedom means as much to an Unsullied as a hat to a haddock." He smiled at Grey Worm, but the eunuch might have been made of stone. "Those who survive we shall enslave again, and use to retake Astapor from the rabble. We can make a slave of you as well, do not doubt it. There are pleasure houses in Lys and Tyrosh where men would pay handsomely to bed the last Targaryen."
In Ned's next chapter, he confronts Robert about his indiscretion.
"I've talked to Littlefinger," Robert said. "He claims he rode off to bring the gold cloaks before the fighting began, but he admits you were returning from some whorehouse." "Some whorehouse? Damn your eyes, Robert, I went there to have a look at your daughter! Her mother has named her Barra. She looks like that first girl you fathered, when we were boys together in the Vale." He watched the queen as he spoke; her face was a mask, still and pale, betraying nothing. Robert flushed. "Barra," he grumbled. "Is that supposed to please me? Damn the girl. I thought she had more sense." "She cannot be more than fifteen, and a whore, and you thought she had sense?" Ned said, incredulous. His leg was beginning to pain him sorely. It was hard to keep his temper. "The fool child is in love with you, Robert."
Ned is stunned that a grown man could think that a teenaged girl could have sense - does his reaction sound like he has encountered this situation before?
Cersei, the Queen, later sends two Gold Cloaks to kill mother and child. Varys later discusses little Barra's death with Tyrion.
Varys: "I confess, I never dreamed the babe would be at risk. A base born girl, less then a year old, with a whore for a mother, what threat could she pose?" Tyrion: "She was Robert's, that was enough for Cersei it would seem."
Base born child in a brothel, mother is a whore = no threat to the Queen. Is this another hint of involvement by Elia or Rhaella? Also, it's hint of what was supposed to be a perfect safe space...a brothel, where the Queen would never go or care about. Was Varys actually involved in hiding a woman and her child in a brothel during RR? Disguising a noble woman as a whore with her baseborn child that should fly under the radar?
Varys knew Robert's bastard daughter was at Chataya's and supposedly said nothing; Cersei found out via Littlefinger - more clues that Petyr Baelish may have also known something about Lyanna during the Rebellion?
Ned talking with Cersei in the godswood:
"I remember Robert as he was the day he took the throne, every inch a king." he said quietly. "A thousand other women might have loved him with all their hearts. What did he do to make you hate him so?" Her eyes burned, green fire in the dusk, like the lioness that was her sigil. "The night of our wedding feast, the first time we shared a bed, he called me by your sister's name. He was on top of me, in me, stinking of wine, and he whispered Lyanna." Ned Stark thought of pale blue roses, and for a moment he wanted to weep. "I do not know which of you I pity most."
What is a common practice for men who visit whores? They get drunk first. Also, Cersei describes her drunk husband having drunk sex with her and calling her by another name, and Ned immediately thinks of blue winter roses. That's an odd connection to make. If we go back to the Bael story, the blue roses are most definitely a symbol - of a maiden...who wasn't actually a maiden anymore. The fairest rose of Winterfell had already been plucked.
Finally, a random quote I happened upon while researching....from D&E, most eyebrow-raising.
The Mystery Knight
"Oh, I do hope so. Hero's blood should be good for two to one. Whore's blood draws poorer odds. Ser Glendon speaks about his purported sire at every opportunity, but have you noticed that he never makes mention of his mother? For good reason. He was born of a camp follower. Jenny, her name was. Penny Jenny, they called her, until the Redgrass Field. The night before the battle, she fucked so many men that thereafter she was known as Redgrass Jenny. Fireball had her before that, I don't doubt, but so did a hundred other men. Our friend Glendon presumes quite a lot, it seems to me. He does not even have red hair." Hero's blood, thought Dunk. "He says he is a knight." "Oh, that much is true. The boy and his sister grew up in a brothel, called the Pussywillows. After Penny Jenny died, the other whores took care of them and fed the lad the tale his mother had concocted, about him being Fireball's seed. An old squire who lived nearby gave the boy his training, such that it was, in trade for ale and cunt, but being but a squire he could not knight the little bastard. Half a year ago, however, a party of knights chanced upon the brothel and a certain Ser Morgan Dunstable took a drunken fancy to Ser Glendon's sister. As it happens, the sister was still a virgin and Dunstable did not have the price of her maidenhead. So a bargain was struck. Ser Morgan clubbed her brother a knight, right there in the Pussywillows in front of twenty witnesses, and afterwards little sister took him upstairs and let him pluck her flower. And there you are."
Any knight could make a knight. When he was squiring for Ser Arlan, Dunk had heard tales of other men who'd bought their knighthood with a kindness or a threat or a bag of silver coins, but never with a sister's maiden-head. "That's just a tale," he heard himself say. "That can't be true."
My my. Sound familiar?
Do you want to wake the dragon, you stupid little whore? Drogo's khalasar was mine. I bought them from him, a hundred thousand screamers. I paid for them with your maidenhead.
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Post by Some Pig No Doubt on Sept 30, 2017 22:40:22 GMT
Also, anyone think Dany is repressing here?
Dany took the warlock's words well salted, but the magnificence of the great city was not to be denied. Three thick walls encircled Qarth, elaborately carved. The outer was red sandstone, thirty feet high and decorated with animals: snakes slithering, kites flying, fish swimming, intermingled with wolves of the red waste and striped zorses and monstrous elephants. The middle wall, forty feet high, was grey granite alive with scenes of war: the clash of sword and shield and spear, arrows in flight, heroes at battle and babes being butchered, pyres of the dead. The innermost wall was fifty feet of black marble, with carvings that made Dany blush until she told herself that she was being a fool. She was no maid; if she could look on the grey wall's scenes of slaughter, why should she avert her eyes from the sight of men and women giving pleasure to one another?
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Post by freyfamilyreunion on Oct 1, 2017 2:54:49 GMT
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Post by Some Pig No Doubt on Oct 1, 2017 3:11:03 GMT
Love that one. Was one of the first that came to mind when thinking about Dany and brothels. And Mero is Braavosi.
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Post by freyfamilyreunion on Oct 1, 2017 3:32:11 GMT
This does make a lot of sense. If you live in a world where certain bloodlines are “magical”, then it only makes sense to try and cultivate these bloodlines. And if you are not of the aristocracy, where a handful of lords agree to certain specific marriage proposals, the next best way to cultivate these bloodlines is to get in the prostitution business. Find royal bastards, train them to be prostitutes, and then make them available to those with royal, “magical” blood.
Note that Illyrio treats Viserys to his “servants”. And Illyrio treats Tyrion to his “servants”.
And then we have the Braavosi who specialize in their brothels. And of course there is Littlefinger.
So if Dany’s ability to hatch dragons came from a bit of breeding, it sholdn’t come as a surprise that they may have been breeding bloodlines in whorehouses.
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