Sorry, I misunderstood.
The difference between Duncan and Egg’s reaction to the prediction was amusing. Duncan thought it was something ridiculous because of course, how could this kid ever become king, while Egg was horrified by it, because he knew it was possible.
And the relationship between the two is great, but it’s been based on their common status. That’s going to change now, of course, so I’m looking forward to seeing it develop.
I think I just worded it kinda weirdly.
One constant in Westeros though, is that soothsayers, psychics and often dreams, are all true.
One thing this series is hitting me hard on is how much this time period represents the final stages of the Targaryen dynasty. After the disastrous Dance of Dragons which caused the loss of their irresistible air power advantage in battle and then the costly Dornish campaigns and the ongoing Blackfyre rebellion, the ruling family is in a good place with Baelor and Valarr poised to take on the kingship. The loss of that line, leaving the Iron Throne to Maekar’s descendants, ends with the Mad King. Just look at Maekar’s sons: the oldest is a drunkard, the second is Aerion who is wholly unfit and gets what he deserves, the third prefers to skip on power entirely in favor of a maester’s chain, and the fourth is a puny kid. No wonder Maekar is so pissed off. Now Aegon, despite being the fourth son of a fourth son hence Aegon the Unlikely, does end up on the Iron Throne and is viewed favorably amongst his subjects (much of which is due to Dunk’s influence and seeing the world as a squire instead of a prince), he’s really the exception in this era of the dynasty. Rhaegar might have been the one to reverse that trend had he not fallen to Robert at the Trident.
The trend with Targaryens was ALWAYS that some of them are amazing and some of them were mad.
I looked up who Egg was before the big reveal, but it wasn’t exactly a surprise.
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When is a precious child in these sort of shows NOT something other than he seems?
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Why would a little kid have a shaved head unless he was trying to hide distinctive hair? And who has distinctive hair besides Targareons?
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“Egg” is probably short for something and half the Targaryen’s are named “Aegon” or “Aeg…” something.
To be honest, I thought perhaps he had alopecia and the nickname was due to the baldness.
Edited to add, I was about to post to ask why he was bald.
Yeah, a bald kid named Egg just makes sense. Specially to someone named “Dunk”.
It’s an old saying in Westeros, “When a Targaryen is born you flip a coin.”
In Game of Thrones, it’s mentioned that once the dragons were confined to the Dragon Pit, their descendants became progressively smaller until they were the size of cats. I find it hard to believe this happened in way less than 80 years since apparently no one even remembers real dragons in this time period. Also, there were young dragons during The House of the Dragons and dragons live for hundreds of years. So I have a question for anyone familiar with the lore. Spoilered for anyone who doesn’t want to know what happens to them.
Do all the dragons die during the Dance of Dragons leaving only eggs that hatch progressively smaller dragons which lay eggs that hatch even smaller ones? It would make more sense if all the dragons in HOTD just died around the same time but that doesn’t fit the story told in GOT. Or is it never explained how they eventually died out? This text will be blurred
House of the Dragon spoilers below:
You’ve been warned.
Not ALL the dragons die, just the grand majority. What does get exterminated during the dance is all the dragon keepers. And more importantly there is basically a single Targaryen around and its a very young boy with SEVERE dragon trauma who hates and fears dragons, so they simply did not care for them any more. And the dragons getting smaller due to the dragon pit is not like evolution or selective breeding, the dragons simply had no room to grow.
Thanks. I don’t have any problems with spoilers.
I can see how they would die out from neglect. Still, ending up the size of cats in a very short time seems extreme. Maybe that idea was just fanciful lore passed down from ashamed Targaryens. This text will be blurred
Yes I am. I didn’t watch the original Game Of Thrones because I had read the books and the thought of hours of bleak misery just sounded unappetising, so my memory of the specifics of the history of Westeros is vague. I thought I had read The Hedge Knight too, but I can’t find my copy so maybe I was confusing it with something else.
This is my kind of story. Simple, uncomplicated, with charismatic characters. Maybe too scatalogical, but a fun watch.
About the dragon size:
Originally they got smaller because they were kept in the dragon pit chained up, mostly because there simply was too many of them to let them roam free. Daenerys also had one dragon significantly larger than the other two simply because it roamed free while the other two were chained, and this was over just a few years. After the dance when all the dragon keepers died and the only Targaryen didn’t care about dragons they were probably just handed over to maesters and kept caged or just killed. There is a theory that maesters simply sabotaged the remaining dragons because they were magic and they are men of science.
The bleak misery doesn’t begin until season 7.
Overall I really like it. Egg sounds way too much like Caillou though, and I think that’s going to wear on me.
Dunc is perfectly cast, and he’s doing great work. The guy who plays Aerion is almost too good - horrifically evil. I hope we get to know Maester Aemon as a young man - at least a bit.
I’m very confused by the logistics of the “tournament.” I thought Dunk was going to have to fight his way up the ranks but it seems like he just has to challenge (and beat) someone to become a champion? Might be a moot point now.
It’s explained further in the book - essentially at any given time, there are 5 champions. I think they’re appointed by the host lord or his daughter at the beginning (and, symbolically, they’re defending/representing the honor of the tournament maiden - the host lord’s daughter). Then, challenger knights can choose which existing champion to challenge, and if they win, they take their place as a champion, until/unless they’re defeated by another challenger. That’s why Dunk talks about becoming “a champion”, not “the champion”. If he wins just one joust, he becomes a champion, even for an hour.
Yeah, I don’t get it either. It’s sort of portrayed as this medieval “Coachella Festival” which is kind of cool and gives us this need POV of the people of Westeros doing normal day to day stuff other than waging war and committing atrocities against each other.
But how many matches are there?
How long does the tourney last (I assume a fairly long time by modern festival standards)? Like are there different brackets or classes?
Is there a round-robin or double elimination? Or is it whoever has “next” on the sign up sheet for each champion?
Is it all joust or are there other weapons?
Apparently there’s no deadline to sign up and even the entry criteria doesn’t seem super strict.
And I wasn’t clear what happens when you lose. It sounded like the winner gets all your tourney shit and you have to ransom it back?
I guess maybe I’m also not clear if Dunk expects to get paid by Daniel Larussoing his way to champion or if he can make some money by winning a few jousts at the lower levels.
Does Dunk have any reason to doubt his initial instincts that he might actually suck at this? Aside from being unusually big and tall, he’s never done this before as far as I can tell and most of his training was from a hedge knight he described as “not particularly gifted with sword”.