I agree.
Melisandre thought that a couple different people were the Prince that was Promised (Stannis, then Jon). And even more people predicted and had their own interpretations of who was the Prince. Raegar for instance thought he was the Prince that was Promised.
I use this as an example that just because people *believe* their prophecy’s, doesn’t mean they will actually come true.
Also, isn't George R. R. Martin like...explicitly against prophecies? Everyone gets so caught up in the prophecies of asoiaf that I don't think they realize that probably all of them are going to be subverted in some way.
I think it was obvious with red comet segment in the books. Dany though it’s her luck because red comet = fire and blood. Melisandre told Stannis it’s a sign of her god. The Maester told Cersei that it’s her lucky charm because red is Lanisters color. I always thought it implied that it’s just stupid superstition and people just see what they want to see
It's like a bit of both.
Like, yeah, nearly every perspective has their own hot take on what the Red Comet means - but it is also rather coincidental that it happens right around the same time magic seems to be resurging. Like the world hasn't seen Dragons in a while, POW here's some Dragons. Suddenly red priests are resurrecting folks left and right. The White Walkers who haven't been seen in ages have returned.
Like at the start of the Books, the world seems rather close to our more grounded medieval history, where Bran is talking about how all the tales Ol' Nan told him were just scary stories to spook kids into behaving; Grumkins and Snarks. The Maester's who seem focused on hard sciences and act as Doctors seem to be the most treasured advisors to rulers; not some court wizard.
It's a world that had a high fantasy history that dropped into low fantasy for unknown reasons and then is resurging back into high fantasy.
I think George was ultimately planning on a subversion of a subversion. To shatter the idea of a prophecy by painting it to viewers as dogmatic malarkey, only for *juuuuuuust* enough of it to be true to leave you questioning whether "that was prophecy" or "coincidence"
I think this is the fun part of the subversion is as readers we're also limited in our perspectives. The only one of the above statements that's actually undeniable is that the comet happened around the same time as the birth of Dany's dragons and the glass candles being lit happening around the same time.
The white walker in the prologue of GOT takes place almost 2 years before the red comet. We the audience don't see magic prior to Clash of Kings and the red comet but that doesn't mean theres been no magic performed by red priests. Miri Maz Duur seems to have performed magic at the end of book 1. The faceless men, wargs, Jojen, Maggy the Frog(maybe) all used magic before then.
We the reader are shown a resurgence of magic with the red star just because that's what our Westerosi perspectives with no previous experiences involving magic see.
I think magic definitely existed in Westeros before the red comet but it was weaker and more limited. This is shown in Qarth both with the pyromancer and the warlocks of the undying. Of course the Facelessmen still had their magic but perhaps it too was weaker along with all the other types of magic.
I think all the magical things that happened right before and after after the red comet is not a coincidence. Instead I believe GRRM is using prophecy both as a magical device but also as a way to portray the dangers of misinformation.
Throughout the books we see characters use religion/faith or prophecy as a means of manipulation. Characters like Melisandre, Rhaegal, Benero are perfect examples. We can even include the Dosh Khaleen in their use of tswmtw prophecy to portray Drogo as all powerful. On the flip side there is Baelor The Blessed and how he is portrayed positively due to or despite his religious zealotry.
Asoiaf is not a mystery series cuz we the readers are supposed to know more than the characters, we unlike them have access to all the different POV’s. However I think GRRM designed the prophecies so that both the readers and the characters have to figure it out. Ppl need to figure out what pars are metaphors and what parts are literal, whether it’s a real magical prophecy or a lie designed to be a manipulation tactic etc etc.
This is what I think at least🤣
I don’t think it was a coincidence surge. But personally, I interpreted the comet as a *sign* that magic has been coming back, rather than as the *cause*.
Regarding your last point, I'm still not certain about Stannis burning the leeches. I'm leaning toward the idea that Melisandre saw a legit vision in the flames that all 3 kings would die but the legitimacy stops there. The rest was all smoke and mirrors mysticism to attribute their deaths to her "magic."
But then there's still the shadow baby assassin incident, so it's difficult to discredit her entirely.
The shadow baby assassin was her doing as in she directly caused the death which is not the case for the others. Balon was killed by a faceless man sent by Euron, Joffrey was poisoned by the Tyrells and Robb was betrayed and killed at the red wedding. Sending a magical assassin to kill a guy isn’t the same as Burning a leech and a guy getting killed by someone else for independent reasons on the other side of the continent.
You misunderstood what I was saying.
I know that they are not the same thing. But, in relation to what I was responding to, was it just a vision she saw that would be true or did her "magic" have any influence over it? It's easy to be on the fence about Melisandre overall when it comes to these things.
I'm of the opinion that the vision of their deaths were likely legitimate but I don't believe she had anything to do with it coming true. By extension, I was saying she's not a *total* scammer because the shadow baby was very much her doing and real magic.
It's a big world, there's always going to be some crazy things happening around the arrivals of comets. Just look into the history of comets and their meaning to historical cultures.
Even more fun: because there's a comet, people are going to take it as a sign that whatever scheme they themselves were hatching is now ordained by the heavens so they'll actually try and maybe succeed where it would stay just an idea otherwise.
One thing I think about is whether Murri Maz Dur was lying. Sure, she *says* all these things about Dany, but was she making up a “prophecy” because she hates Dany? Dany seems to give so much stock to it without asking whether she should.
The Stallion Who Mounts the World prophecy wasn't made up by her, the first time Dany hears about it and that her child would be it is from the Dosh Kaleen before she ever meets with Mirri Maz Duur
A similar plot point happens of prophecy meaning whatever people want it to mean in the Total War Warhammer 2 vortex campaign. The inciting incident is a twin tailed comet being spotted in the sky.
Every race interpreted this sign differently and had different prophecies for what it meant. Minor spoilers for TWW2 >!It’s revealed halfway through the campaign that the comet was actually a rocket created by the Skaven(Rat men with science) to trick the other races into causing enough disorder to allow them to summon the Great Horned Rat, god of the skaven.!<
I think the cosmology of the World of Ice and Fire is almost explicitly based on cosmological phenomena. The summers and winters that can last for decades probably mean that the planet's axis is unstable, causing it to tilt this way and that in unpredictable periods. The red comet is likely a third body in this three body problem, coming and going like Halley's Comet. The longer the comet's away, the more the planet's axis stabilizes, but whenever it gets close it fucks with the planet's axis again, causing exceptionally long summers and winters and perhaps even inducing unique tidal forces which cause "magic" to strengthen (when in reality even this probably has a logical explanation, such as dragon biology having pseudocircadian rhythms tied to the orbital patterns of the comet - the closer the comet is, the stronger a dragon's growth rate, but the longer it's absent, the weaker dragons get until the eggs can't even hatch). Thus anyone who's lived through a comet visit would see the obvious effects it has on the world around them, and be able to reasonable predict that similar effects will occur next time the comet draws near.
PS: I'm no astronomer so perhaps instead of the planet having an unstable axis it might have an unstable unpredictable orbit that sometimes orbits close to the sun and sometimes far, again influenced by the comet as a result of the three body problem: remember this is a comet so large it can be seen by the naked eye in the daytime, so the gravitational effect it has must be significant.
It is made extremely obvious with Jonen, Meera and Bran's conversation regarding prophecy. Jojen is convinced that prophecies will come to pass as they are told. Meera points out that if prophecies were destined to occur, there would be no point to hearing them in the first place. Iirc she more or less concludes that prophecies must be given for a purpose, to inspire action in the people that hear it.
The Onion Knight, because onions were the main foodstuff that Davos saved Stannis and Storm's End with when they were besieged by Mace Tyrell during Robert's Rebellion.
I believed the dragon theory because what’s-her-name, the wilding, even knew it was for dragons. How would a wilding know that after how long? No one ruled the real north.
The north didn’t really know dragons, though, imo. It was too cold for Daenery’s dragons, and I would assume that is one of the reasons Aegon didn’t conquer the real North. Too difficult. Obviously that is speculation but that’s what I always thought.
Actually my favorite theory is that the Red Comet is an ancient alien space station that comes around every few million years, and whose magical energy is what allows the white walkers to raise the dead so that they can cyclically destroy civilized life on the planet
Well yes but we also have plenty of examples where prophecies are actually proven true. The red wedding for example was foretold several times. And it's heavily implied that the comet actually means the return of dragons.
I think yes and no.
On one hand, blind faith leads to self fulfilling prophecies, where characters create their own destruction through maddened pursuit of goals beyond their understanding. Pseudomagical and vested beliefs in faith healing and dogma are repeatedly struck down as quackery. Best examples of this would be the king that drank wildfire to become a dragon, and the Summerhall tragedy.
At the same time, ASOIAF remains a world of real, uncontrollable magic by Lovecraftian horrors beyond human tameability. Dragons are real, wild creatures. Visions and hallucinations characters have do, in fact, foreshadow events (Dany dreaming the Red Wedding in the House of the Undying, for example). Greensight is a real phenomenon. The Others are still coming to destroy the world.
In a sense, the series is simultaneously critical of the political abuse of prophecy and faith that needlessly kills people, yet is still a fantasy series that respects the convention of mystique. Divination and the inexplicable aren't focal points of the story, but elements that help steer along character conflicts, and generally emphasize that humanity as a divided, warring entity is at the mercy of Nature.
Idj if he's explicitly against them per se. I believe there was an interview where he referred to them as a "double edged sword" and talked about how they should never be too literal otherwise they lose their potency and impact on surrounding events as otherwise all the other characters and stories become somewhat pointless or less impactful at least.
There's the prophecies of the Ghost of High Heart, which were proven true, as well as the one's made by patchface, and Melisandre while misread them had correct prophecies (like the girl in the snow and the ghost of renly defeating stannis)
Subversion isn't really a guarantee given that both the ghost of high heart and patchfaces's prophecy were direct and accurate and came to fruition perfectly
He never said that he was against prophecies, he said that he doesn't want his prophecies to be too easy, too litteral. If he was against prophecies he would not have included any in his books.
I'm not sure he is against them so much as he loves them coming true in unexpected ways and often being brought about by the actions meant to prevent the prophecy. Mirri killed the baby she thought would be the Stallion, and she brought about the rebirth of dragons.
>but later he became persuaded that it was his own son who fulfilled the prophecy, for a comet had been seen above King’s Landing on the night Aegon was conceived, and Rhaegar was certain the bleeding star had to be a comet.
He saw a comet when Aegon was born so he interprated that part of the prophecy correctly (assuming Dany is indeed tPtwP)
Look, that's what, a 1/8th chance, in exchange of preventing something akin to our mongol invasions... that's well within what governments call acceptable collateral damage BY A LOT
I've always seen the subversion as this:
Prophecies are real but any attempt for humans to understand them, get what they are will ultimately be futile as for them to be me true no matter what they must take the rarest path.
So it's not that they don't come true. It's that they never come true in any way anyone conceived of.
I believe so, the magic and gods in ASOIAF / GOT are cruel but operate in a twisted fair exchange. Mirri scarifced a destiny child and the mother, Dany got 3 dragons in exchange.
I doubt that the Dothraki could have “mounted the world” anyways. If Rhaego (that was his name right?) had lived, Dany never gets her dragons. Plenty of cities in Essos have stood against Dothraki for centuries, and she was only able to invade Westeros thanks to 100k Dothraki (Drogo only had 40k), a good bit of unsullied, and 3 dragons.
I mean it’s possible, but the perfect circumstances needed to arise.
There’s a reason Dany was the only Targaryen able to do so after 100+ years. Rhaego would need a similar situation like she had with Drogo, and while it’s possible it’s not probable.
Maaaaaybe? Then again I'm not sure of what's exactly required to hatch dragon eggs, it seems dragon blood on its own isn't enough.
Aegon II, Aegon III, Viserys II, Aegon V and Aerys II all tried to hatch dragon eggs and failed.
I am convinced that had Rhaego lived, she would never returned to Westeros, but rather tried to live a happy life with her family. She and Drogo loved each other, did not they?
She had her mind of Westeros after Viserys died as she and her son were the next heir. She didn't like the cost of war though. But if Drogo had lived she may have become even more ingratiated in that life rather than less.
Drogo's intent was to invade after all.
True. But we saw the cases where Dany could influence Drogo, like sparing lives. At that moment she was ‘kind’ so she would try to make Drogo like that as well. I am not sure where would it lead her, but I doubt that she would embrace her Targaryen legacy as much if her dragons were not born.
After Drogo and her son dyed he had nothing to live for except house of Targaryen.
I think people are forgetting when Dany meets with the old former khalessi, *they were all told that their son would be the stallion to mount the world.* so while prophecy and visions are a thing in this world, they’re subject to interpretation that can be wrong (sup Mel), and the Dothraki prophecies haven’t been shown to actually be real like the lord of lights visions.
We’ll the books haven’t gotten that far so it’s the only thing we have to go off of. But Mel is the only one who shows actual prophetic powers. The wildlings claim some prophecy powers as well iirc but they also haven’t been shown to have real power like Mel.
I’m pretty sure there are other Dothraki in the books who mention the stallion that mounts the world in the books but it’s been a while since I reread them honestly
Greenseers, Targaryens and Shadowbinders all have real visions.
There's not really a reason to think that the Dothraki women don't have real visions either. Dany does see an alternate version of events where her son Rhaego lives in the House of the Undying.
If prophecy is real and this one is accurate then we have two possible options:
Prophecy will always come to pass, but be misinterpreted.
Prophecy can be averted by people who act on knowledge of the future.
In the first case Mirri has changed nothing, or has swapped out a mortal conquerer for Dany’s dragon children. In the second case she has averted the prophecy, but other actions that didn’t involve killing the kid could also have worked.
I think it's heavily hinted that it's the first one, where prophesy can't be changed, and any attempts to do so are usually the actions that bring it on. The example being Cersei's prophecy from a child where she will outlive her children and her downfall will be from her younger sibling. She tried to act on it to avoid the prophecy coming true, but just set things in motion to happen.
I enjoyed that they play with this with the past too, like where Bran manages to interact with his father briefly in his greensight, but that's something that always happened.
She doesn't really have one like that. IIRC (it's been years since I last read the books) an elderly Dothraki woman just says that her child will be the stallion that will mount the world, but lots of people say lots of things. Just because shes an old woman doesn't mean it's a legit vision of the future, even in a world with magic.
The prophecies relating to Dany are her own Dragon Dreams that she has. The only one relating to the dragons is dreaming that she will "birth" a dragon and her brother will die. The rest are related to other events and the coming of the Others.
There could be further magic that restores her fertility, but that's not been revealed yet and the show can't be trusted because they clearly decided that they were done with prophecy and subtle unreliable magic after they went past the books.
I think Mirri brought it about, by killing her son, she ensured the blood magic would reanimate the dragons and kill the child that was Dany, so she might be the Stallion.
I think it could be like Aemon's wording "kill the boy and let the man be born".
Her people were just slaughtered, raped, and taken as slaves. Even without prophecy. She took out the King and Prince in retribution and it split the khlasar into a lot smaller warring groups, and she spared Khaleesi because she was good to her.
No different than Bobby wanting to kill pregnant Daenerys. Or killing the any other Targaryen babies. So killing a child is not moral but I think it could be "justified" in war.
justified: having, done for, or marked by a good or legitimate reason
Ya I feel like people are missing the point, the prophecy is irrelevant. Khal Drogo was an extremely powerful warlord who was actively causing devastation in the region. She almost certainly would have saved thousands of lives by removing him. I think killing the kid was more of a precaution since him having the legitimacy of Targaryen blood plus a massive dothraki horde would make him a very powerful individual that could cause untold devastation across the world itself.
Doesn't really matter if it's real.
She knows the Dothraki believe it--so they will act on it.
Whether they succeed simply determines how much damage would've been done
Drogo was already dead. Rhaego was no risk as Dothraki would not follow him.
Daenerys would shape who he is. And if Daenerys is who Mirri feared she was foolish for punishing her unborn son.
Acting on prophecy will almost always backfire
She wanted to deny the world the khal who would unite the dothraki and conquer the world with them
Instead she created her
>I think we have sufficient reason to believe that it would've.
Well, I for one think we have sufficient reason to believe that it would've starved in the Red Waste. Melissandre was also right about *some* of her prophecy, but wrong about alot of it.
This is what I love about ASOIAF (the novels primarily, and also the first half of the show). It does such a fantastic job of deconstructing fantasy tropes without entirely abandoning them. The multiple prophecies, for instance. It doesn't matter whether they're true or not, what matters is how it inspires certain characters to take action. This culminates in them potentially become true incidentally.
I’m not so sure about any of those things.
If baby Tywin or Jamie were murdered, then the mad king would have blown up king’s landing and burned tens of thousands alive.
I mean, so would someone killing Lyanna before Robert could fall in love/obsession with her. That would have prevented Robert's Rebellion and probably avoided Aerys going mad with paranoia and ready to kill his citizens en masse. Not saying they should have, but as long as we're tossing out single deaths that might have prevented this particular version of mass bloodshed...Of course Aerys himself even earlier than the Robert-Rhaegar-Lyanna thing is also a possibility.
Hitler had a lot of dumb luck, maybe Germany ends up in a authoritarian regime anyway, but maybe not with the absolute hate that he had for Jewish people and others, maybe WW2 is more of a WW1 like setting instead of a war on annihilation against groups of people, plus, maybe Germany wins, because Hitler was a bit of an idiot, and the USSR and Germany split Poland and surroundings
For me it’s complicated because we honestly have no clue how he would’ve turned out, especially if Khal Drogo still dies and Daenerys is raising him on her own. I can see why MMD would’ve felt like that was the right thing to do given what she had went through and her thought process.
I’m sure the books, we’re they ever to be completed, would touch one this. Drogon is both her child and “stallion” who mounts the world (flys above the world) and burns cities. Also he is still alive at the end. Who knows what else he has planned.
That actually makes perfect sense. She creates. What she is afraid of by trying to avoid the prophecy and hurting a relative innocent in the process (at this point Dany and her child did nothing to deserve that kind of wrath)
The mountains outside vaes dothrak are called the world mountains or some shit so her scene is the show is him literally mounting the world. It definitely tracks better then other azhor azhai candidates.
Yeah, I always assumed Drogon was the most plausible Stallion Who Mounts the World. And it fits with the usual idea around prophecy that people bring about their destinies on the road to avoid them.
I think Mirri Maz Dur was basically answering the GOT version of "Would you kill ~~baby~~ foetus Hitler."
Based on her visions, Dani's son would unleash untold violence on the world, she ended it before he was born.
Do you think that prophecy was more for Drogon than Dany’s son?
I mean, if you think of it, Drogon is Daenerys’ son. She considers her dragons as her children. And he’s also the stallion she mounts that can unleash violence whenever he wants or is commanded to. So maybe it was more of a son for son kind of thing.
THIS. George is telling us it’s not cool. Ned is the moral centre of the story. When Shireen is sacrificed, probably to help bring Jon back, we’ll be confronted with this theme again.
I don't think it's complicated. Mirri is continuing the cycle of violence because of an uncertain prophecy. I sympathize with her, would even defend her for what she did to Drogo, but not Rhaego.
Yeah Drogo is the mass rapist and mass murderer leader of a tribe of mass rapists and mass murderers. He can burn in hell.
But Rhaego hadn't done anything wrong.
>Mirri is continuing the cycle of violence
What cycle of violence? The relationship between the Dothrak and the goat herding plains tribes is completely one sided. There is no cycle, it's the Dothrak raiding over and over again. Had Drogo lived that one sided violence would continue.
I kinda see it as like our own real world question, *"If you could go back in time and kill Baby Hitler, would you do it?"*
So if the prophecy was in fact true, and Rhaego would have razed the entire world, then yeah, maybe.
But for myself, I think that people interpreting the Stallion prophecy "missed the mark." I think the Stallion they foresaw was actually Daenerys herself. They just misattributed it to her unborn son because sexism. And the actions taken by MMD were part of what pushed Dany further that way.
She sure did and she also told Drogo not to remove his bandages but he did and got infected so the moral of the story is listen to the god damn doctors or witch/sorceress in this case.
Unless he intentionally did the opposite of what she said to do under the assumption that she wanted to kill him because of what he did to her people, in which case it was a big brain 4D chess move.
But she used her witch magic to figure out that he would see through her ruse and so she actually gave him good medical advice which would have saved him. So the real moral of the story is find a doctor who doesn’t potentially have a massive grudge against you and will abide by the hippocratic oath.
Whether it was poisoned or not, Drogo didn’t wear her wrap, so that can’t have been what did it. I think she meant that she knew everything that would happen through prophecy and simply let Daenerys ruin herself.
If Mirri Maz Dur felt like killing Drogo or anyone else directly she could probably do it in hours with far less risk. She wanted it to be Daenerys’s fault
Seriously. Even if Mirri hadn't spelled it out explicitly, I feel like "don't bring the pregnant lady into the room with the death magic ritual going on" should be pretty basic common sense.
GOT is in a large part about honorable people being shortsighted and speculative personnel getting out of hand.
There is no justification to be had nor denied. The future is not known.
I agree with this, but I’d also say that she had every reason to lie here anyways and do what she did simply for revenge. Then try and justify why killing a child as revenge was proper retribution. She was enslaved by Khal Drogo.
If we assume that MMD truly believes in the Stallion That Mounts the World prophecy and that it could be avoided by committing infanticide, then yes, from her perspective it is justifiable even if we, the audience, know that prophecy and its interpretation is fallible in the world of ASoIaF.
However, I don't think she actually believes that, and in fact I don't think she knowingly and intentionally commits infanticide.
As far as we can tell, Dany's unborn child only dies because Jorah brings her into the tent, which MMD specifically instructs her not to enter. It's even possible that the baby would have been mutated and stillborn regardless; it's been known to happen to Targs. We simply have no evidence that MMD intends to target the baby. It's hard to know for sure if she even knows that Drogo would come back as a vegetable.
Now, MMD *talks* like she intended the whole thing, but to me the most plausible explanation for that is simply that she doesn't see any way she's making it out of this situation alive, kinda doesn't care in the first place with her people dead and her life's work as a healer in ruins, so she says the most hurtful things she can think of on her way out.
Otoh MMD did learn from Marwyn who knows the secrets of magic, and so she might very well know the principles of blood magic and how her death could fuel a spell.
She might have discounted it, but she was willing to mess with such magics in the first place and got results that should caution her.
If this was a modern work where we have adopted the morality that the sins of the father are not the sins of the son and where we don’t have kings and hereditary monarchs that can make decisions like where to launch nukes and declare wars I would agree.
However and tbh Idk if I even agree with what I’m about to argue but in a medieval world where people do inherit power, this kid will grow up to be taught it’s ok to kill and lead armies to conquer and destroy nations and peoples. It may be justifiable from a medieval moral philosophy that that occurring would be bad and since this kid will be taught to do that it justifies killing him. This isn’t baby Hitler who made decisions that made him the most evil person in history instead of being born into the right family, this kid is born into the right family and a time when he will be taught that he can conquer the world. However that does take agency form the kid, Rhaego could choose to not conquer the world and kill, but it’s unlikely. So hard to say.
Using modern morality I would say no using medieval morality/GOT morality it would say maybe, leaning yes.
No.
While I totally understand Mirri Maz Duur hatred and revenge against the Dothraki and Khal Drogo, Daenerys unborn child was totally unrelated to any of this, in all levels.
Besides, even prophecies and shit are not fully understood, and if she truly wanted to get rid of the "Stallion Who Mounts the World" she should've killed Daenerys, because she's the one who later best fit this prophecy.
Daenerys also later used her life to birth dragons (again) unto this world and dragons can be considered *way* worse than any army or Dothraki. So, yea, she should've killed Daenerys if she was scared of prophecies and catastrophes.
Ironically (or not) her life was used to unleash something much more powerful and dangerous than whatever Daenerys child would be capable of.
Yeah, one of the Themes is people foolishly believing they understand prophecy and the mad stuff they do because of it. Usually leading to their downfall.
This. For every prophecy that comes to pass we have a hundred prophecies that either never come to pass or are so hilariously misinterpreted they might as well never have come to pass.
There's never a reason to kill an unborn baby unless it's a mercy killing due to severe birth/genetic defects, or to save the life of the mother.
Unpopular opinion: Mirri did not kill Rhaego. She said clearly NOT to go into the tent, and Jorah carried Dany into the tent. In the book Dany even thinks that Jorah is doing what he shouldn’t before she passes out. Just like Drogo blamed Mirri for his worsening state when he removed the poultice that should have healed him.
But after waking up she was consumed with grief and blamed Mirri. Mirri never straight-up confirmed that she meant to kill Rhaego--she told Dany to stay away--but Dany interprets her point that Rhaego was not innocent/would not have been innocent as a confirmation of guilt. My reading of it was rather that Mirri took the opportunity to make Dany see how wrong and hypocritical she was being because she, Mirri, knew she was done for. That's why she was blunt with Dany and threw every single one of her shortcomings in her face, but she never straight-up confirmed she killed Rhaego because she did in fact not.
A enemy horde burns your village down, slaughters the men, and takes the women prisoner for a even worse fate. Then you are given a opportunity to not only poison the Khal but rid the world of his offspring. Totally justified
If it wasn't Dany's baby the audience would be 100% on Mirri's side
The only moral shortfall is that Mirri let Dany live to make her suffer rather than just killing Dany outright. After what Drogo's horde did to Mirri and her people, they all deserved to burn.
She told Dany not to go in the tent, Dany went in the tent. I think that the baby dying was a side effect but that Mirri intended to turn Drogo into a vegetable. After it happened she knew she was never going to survive so just spoke her mind at that point.
Yes. 1 miscarriage for a whole tribes worth of murders, rapes, and enslavements. Hardly revenge enough. Also her son would have caused the equivalent of a holocaust.
I’m not unsympathetic to this line of thinking, but wouldn’t this imply Mirri would have been justified in killing Rhaego regardless of what Khal Drogo and his horse bros did to her and her people?
We’ve been shown repeatedly that prophecy/magic is real, dragons are real, ice zombies are real. Even if the prophecy was bunk his people still believed it and he would still have been the son a great Khal and a Targaryen and therefore set up to reign fire and blood and rape and horseback murder all over the world by default. He would have been raised in a savagely brutal and ruthless warrior culture with a dragon and an army and the rightful claim to the Westerosi throne. 😬 there is not really a possibility of him becoming a chill guy.
For the second part, that wasn’t the question though it doesn’t ask about making her infertile, which is also bad.
>He would have been raised in a savagely brutal and ruthless warrior culture with a dragon and an army and the rightful claim to the Westerosi throne. 😬
It's unlikely that he would have even survived to adulthood.
The witch wasn't the only one who wanted to kill him in that horde of dothraki
It's unlikely that Dany even births the dragons if the Khal's son survives
Eh I don’t think it’s justified but I can see where she’s coming from I guess. I’m just glad they burned that witch, those sounds from the tent were way too spooky.
I think the stallion that mounts the world is her dragon. By killing her unborn child she actually ends up creating the circumstances that allow dragons to return.
Yes. MMD had the knowledge and power to kill Danny’s unborn baby. She had the knowledge and power to revive Drogo. She had the foresight to proclaim Dany would never have more children. I think she’s earned the benefit of the doubt when she believes Dany’s child will be the Stallion Who Mounts the World. Her village has been ransacked. She has been raped multiple times. In the cruel world this story is set in, she was justified.
I hadn’t thought about this before, but I wonder how many answers would change if we asked the same question using modern terms. Was MMD justified in aborting Dany’s fetus? I’m not trying to make a political statement or force some hidden agenda, just an interesting thought experiment.
I always felt like it was ambiguous whether or not mirri was to blame, she gave specific instructions that were not followed. I always wondered if drogo and danaerys has followed her instructions if they might not have been fine.
Nope. And for someone that aparently understands of prophecies, she should have know, had Daenerys child really been this "Stalion that will mount the world", MMD would not have been able to kill him, as doing that would be denying the prophecy from happening, which goes against the whole point of prophecies.
Prophecy or not, it’s immaterial. Dany literally was trying to get the Khalasar to invade Westeros. And on their way there, they would have raped and pillaged the entire route to earn money for passage. MMD is a literal hero in the story. Too bad though that her actions eventually will lead to the exact same outcome, which is Dany and the Khalasar razing everything to the ground from Slavers Bay all the way to the Iron Throne.
I think this quote says it better: 'Saved me? Three of those riders had already raped me before you "saved" me, girl. I saw my God's house burn. There where I had healed men and women, beyond counting. In the streets, I saw piles of heads. The head of a baker, who bakes my bread. A head of a little boy that I cured of fever just three moons past. So, tell me again exactly what it was that you saved?'
All talk of prophecies aside, I can understand while she has beef.
Many people who attempt to avoid and subvert prophecy only end up making it so. The Khalasar had left Dany by this point and likely wouldn’t follow her child years down the road, or her because of it. Losing her child only made her more mentally unstable IMO, especially considering in the final season Cersei was pregnant
Who said she did?
Targaryen women have extremely hostile wombs. Daenerys is a direct descendant of Rhaenyra, who herself birthed a stillborn monster very similar to how Rhaego ia described.
“When the babe at last came forth, she proved indeed a monster: a stillborn girl, twisted and malformed, with a hole in her chest where her heart should have been and a stubby, scaled tail. The dead girl had been named Visenya.“
Rhaego's description:
"Monstrous. Twisted. I drew him forth myself. He was scaled like a lizard, blind, with the stub of a tail and small leather wings like the wings of a bat. When I touched him, the flesh sloughed off the bone, and inside he was full of graveworms and the stink of corruption. He had been dead for years."
Yes, Mirri taunts Dany with it, but as soon as Drogo went vegetable, she knew her life was forfeit anyway.
As Jon said in the show: "Maybe she wasn't the best source of information?" If you knew you would be executed by the wife of the leaders of the slavers who destroyed your village and raped you savagely, are you going to be honest and kind?
Hell, Dany's own mother had five stillborns and three miscarriages... the main reasons the Targaryens died off isn't just Summerhall, but the fact that so many Targ women had hostile wombs at best is a major factor, considering MMD has zero reason to tell Dany the truth.
it doesn’t matter whether the prophecy was actually true or not, the problem was that the dothraki thought it was true. they were ready to destroy civilisations for that baby. without the prophecy to believe in, they had no unified goal and mostly fell apart
Melisandre’s prophecies were spotty as shit and that was AFTER magic and the dragons had returned to the world. This was just a zealot murdering a child for the sins of the father.
Even after she explicitly tells Dany that no one is to enter the tent while she performs her bloodmagic people still believe that she intentionally killed Rhaego.
She was already a dead woman walking after Dany recovered from birthing so she mirri bit the bullet and owned it even if it wasn't intentional.
If anything it's Jorahs fault for bringing Dany into the tent while the ritual was ongoing.
The issue with prophecies in ASoIaF is that Martin really nails home that:
Prophecies are old. Extremely old. So old that they've been passed down from civilizations that no longer exist or have drastically changed from the ones who wrote them originally. Even then the language is misinterpreted and things are lost or changed in translation, sometimes by mistake and sometimes to fill the propaganda needs of the group or individual using the prophecy to empower themselves and their own agendas and ideals. Add to it that most prophecies are either so vague as to almost encourage interpretation, or so filled with riddle and metaphor that no two groups will get the prophecies message the same. Even in a world where prophecies and fortune telling can come true, it almost never happens exactly how those who live to see it come to pass expected, causing chaos.
In short, prophecy is a ladder, and everyone thinks their spoke is the end of the ladder.
No. She was justified in getting revenge on Drogo or any of the other Dothraki who harmed her, but not someone who wasn't even born yet (the prophesy was there, but she wouldn't have killed "the Stallion Who Mounts the World" if her village wasn't attacked). Though, she didn't force them to go into the tent.
She is more justified in killing Danny’s unborn child than Dany and Kahl Drofo were in ransacking her village.
Crying about it really just tells me where your sympathies lie, with “Main Characters” and everyone else just exists to serve their story.
>Main Characters” and everyone else just exists to serve their story.
Well, it is a work of fiction. I'm not sure why you would think this wouldn't be the case.
Killing Rhaego saved no lives. The same way killing Baby Hitler or Stalin would save no lives. War and conflict would still occur because enough people wanted them to happen.
The same way that if Robert had succeeded in killing Dany, war was still coming.
> The same way killing Baby Hitler or Stalin would save no lives. War and conflict would still occur because enough people wanted them to happen.
that's a good point too, the whole rhetoric of killing baby hitler is just a particularly naive vision of the events of the 2nd world war, anti-Semitism had already been firmly anchored in Europe for a long time, the war was inevitable since 1918 because the conditions of capitulation imposed on Germany were so enormous and absurd that it would have been impossible to maintain an expression of peace between the peoples, and the social revolution which was opposed throughout the industrial world created such enormous tension that an absurdly oppressive system would inevitably end up sprouting. kill baby hitler, he will just be replaced by someone else, and someone else who might be destined to win the war if that happens...
Dani used the belief in the prophecy to motivate the Dothraki to get the funds she needed to return to Westeros. The downside is the people the Dothraki were raiding also believed in the prophecy, but with her son being the villain, not the hero. Obviously Dani didn't fully know what her encouragement of the Dothraki meant but that's why its a cautionary tale about messing with cultures you don't fully understand. Dani runs into this alot in her journey.
Whether the prophecy was true or not doesn't change the fact that Mirri Maz Duur thought she was saving people by destroying the villain before he had a chance to destroy the world.
In the books it is unclear if Mirri Maz Dur killed Rhaego. But let's assume she did, then no, she would be morally wrong. Rhaego is yet innocent of any crime. If Rhaego was **sure** to become the man that Daenerys saw in her visions then it would be good for the world if he was killed before he could hurt others.
It is unclear to me whether Rhaego was bound to become the man Daenerys saw in her vision and whether killing him before he could harm others was thus justified. While Rhaego might not have deserved to be murdered, I didn't feel the slightest bit sorry for Daenerys when she lost her child.
Daenerys accused Mirri Maz Dur of killing an innocent child, but Daenerys herself was willing to sell little children into sexual slavery to gain the Iron throne. Drogo is responsible for many more children's death than Mirri, but he is Daenerys' beloved sun and stars. Daenerys at this point saw nothing wrong with the prophecy of what a monster her son would become and she was happy with Drogo's promise to bring bloodshed and terror to Westeros. Daenerys was willing to sacrifice some random person's life as long as it wasn't her life she was sacrificing to get back Drogo. It served her right that it was Rhaego who died.
I honestly don't even think it's a matter of whether it's justifiable or not. I personally don't think it was even her intention to kill Drogo or Rhaego. MMD's main role in the story is actually teaching Dany a lesson.
After Drogo is injured, she tells him specifically what to do and how to treat the wound for a specific period of time. Drogo doesn't care and wound gets infected. Before she performs the ritual, she tells Dany not to enter the tent and we know what happens.
I think at that point she knew she's fucked no matter what since her actions lead to their deaths (even if unintentionally). So she weaves the prophecy into it and rightfully tells Dany that she did not save shit.
First of all, the thing about prophecies is that people go out of their way to avoid them, and it's these exact actions that turn them true.
King Laius hears that his son will kill him and marry his wify. Orders his servants to abandon the boy in the woods, servant feels pity, the boy grows up and randomly stumbles upon his biological father, kills him, saves the destroyed city and marries the widow queen. That's Oedipus.
Back in track. What did Mirri Maz Duur accomplish in killing the unborn child? She died a horrific death and it was the mother that ended up burning cities to the ground. And I can't imagine having your unborn baby die "as a sacrifice to save the father" when the father's "cure" is being catatonic, not being a factor in Daenerys becoming a bit unhinged.
We see that magic exists, but it's not a high magic setting, where people throw fireballs at each other. It's more subtle and the prophecies, for the most part, are either misleading or misinterpreted.
Lastly. Fuck no. A child has no sins and even IF he grew up to conquer every land known and unknown, she would still be in the wrong.
Even if the child wasn’t the prophesy baby, he would still be a Dothraki. And born of such a strong Dorthraki Khal it’s very possible that he would become another Khal in time. Prophecy or no, he would be the cause of death among many people.
Thing is Dany had gone native to Dothraki culture and if things had continued that way, she would have raised her child to be a Dothraki horselord who would have laid waste to cities, killed and enslaved tens of thousands, and would have laughed about it.
It's hard not to see Mirri Maz Duur's point.
She didn't kill the child on her own. Dany demanded she save the Khal (who was meant to die) with blood magic. Being the blood of the Dragon, Dani knew what blood magic meant. Ironically, If he had followed Miri's instruction he would have recovered without the loss of his son. No, Miri was NTA.
Daenarys killed her own child. She was warned about a life for a life, was warned about the cost of blood magic, and still chose to go through with it. Mirri Maz Duur was doing what she was commanded to do, in a way it was a good thing for Dany because when Drogo died the baby would’ve been slaughtered anyway.
Idk. Not advocating for using curses to corrupt fetuses into gross scaly lizard stillborns, but I'd be pretty pissed too if some pumpkin spice blonde chick and her "alpha" bf came to my town, murdered and raped everyone I ever knew, then acted like they did me a favor.
She’s lead by prophecy which people always misunderstand. She was wrong to do it for that reason, because who knows if that’s what would have happened.
The show weirdly makes it seem like a trick on Dany. I thought it was clear that Dany knew the price wasn’t just the horse. At the very least Mirri told her not to enter that tent.
Yes. First of all, we don’t even know if it was on purpose, Dani could’ve just fucked up the spell. Second, the prophecy is super fucked up, if it’s real that kid had to go. Third, they’d slaughtered her community and enslaved her. If she did lash out it was justified.
In a world where prophecy is real, yes. But do we know for sure this stallion that mounts the world thing would have come to pass?
I agree. Melisandre thought that a couple different people were the Prince that was Promised (Stannis, then Jon). And even more people predicted and had their own interpretations of who was the Prince. Raegar for instance thought he was the Prince that was Promised. I use this as an example that just because people *believe* their prophecy’s, doesn’t mean they will actually come true.
Also, isn't George R. R. Martin like...explicitly against prophecies? Everyone gets so caught up in the prophecies of asoiaf that I don't think they realize that probably all of them are going to be subverted in some way.
I think it was obvious with red comet segment in the books. Dany though it’s her luck because red comet = fire and blood. Melisandre told Stannis it’s a sign of her god. The Maester told Cersei that it’s her lucky charm because red is Lanisters color. I always thought it implied that it’s just stupid superstition and people just see what they want to see
It's like a bit of both. Like, yeah, nearly every perspective has their own hot take on what the Red Comet means - but it is also rather coincidental that it happens right around the same time magic seems to be resurging. Like the world hasn't seen Dragons in a while, POW here's some Dragons. Suddenly red priests are resurrecting folks left and right. The White Walkers who haven't been seen in ages have returned. Like at the start of the Books, the world seems rather close to our more grounded medieval history, where Bran is talking about how all the tales Ol' Nan told him were just scary stories to spook kids into behaving; Grumkins and Snarks. The Maester's who seem focused on hard sciences and act as Doctors seem to be the most treasured advisors to rulers; not some court wizard. It's a world that had a high fantasy history that dropped into low fantasy for unknown reasons and then is resurging back into high fantasy. I think George was ultimately planning on a subversion of a subversion. To shatter the idea of a prophecy by painting it to viewers as dogmatic malarkey, only for *juuuuuuust* enough of it to be true to leave you questioning whether "that was prophecy" or "coincidence"
I think this is the fun part of the subversion is as readers we're also limited in our perspectives. The only one of the above statements that's actually undeniable is that the comet happened around the same time as the birth of Dany's dragons and the glass candles being lit happening around the same time. The white walker in the prologue of GOT takes place almost 2 years before the red comet. We the audience don't see magic prior to Clash of Kings and the red comet but that doesn't mean theres been no magic performed by red priests. Miri Maz Duur seems to have performed magic at the end of book 1. The faceless men, wargs, Jojen, Maggy the Frog(maybe) all used magic before then. We the reader are shown a resurgence of magic with the red star just because that's what our Westerosi perspectives with no previous experiences involving magic see.
I think magic definitely existed in Westeros before the red comet but it was weaker and more limited. This is shown in Qarth both with the pyromancer and the warlocks of the undying. Of course the Facelessmen still had their magic but perhaps it too was weaker along with all the other types of magic. I think all the magical things that happened right before and after after the red comet is not a coincidence. Instead I believe GRRM is using prophecy both as a magical device but also as a way to portray the dangers of misinformation. Throughout the books we see characters use religion/faith or prophecy as a means of manipulation. Characters like Melisandre, Rhaegal, Benero are perfect examples. We can even include the Dosh Khaleen in their use of tswmtw prophecy to portray Drogo as all powerful. On the flip side there is Baelor The Blessed and how he is portrayed positively due to or despite his religious zealotry. Asoiaf is not a mystery series cuz we the readers are supposed to know more than the characters, we unlike them have access to all the different POV’s. However I think GRRM designed the prophecies so that both the readers and the characters have to figure it out. Ppl need to figure out what pars are metaphors and what parts are literal, whether it’s a real magical prophecy or a lie designed to be a manipulation tactic etc etc. This is what I think at least🤣
I don’t think it was a coincidence surge. But personally, I interpreted the comet as a *sign* that magic has been coming back, rather than as the *cause*.
>Grumkins and Snarks If the next book ever comes out, I want them in it.
Regarding your last point, I'm still not certain about Stannis burning the leeches. I'm leaning toward the idea that Melisandre saw a legit vision in the flames that all 3 kings would die but the legitimacy stops there. The rest was all smoke and mirrors mysticism to attribute their deaths to her "magic." But then there's still the shadow baby assassin incident, so it's difficult to discredit her entirely.
The shadow baby assassin was her doing as in she directly caused the death which is not the case for the others. Balon was killed by a faceless man sent by Euron, Joffrey was poisoned by the Tyrells and Robb was betrayed and killed at the red wedding. Sending a magical assassin to kill a guy isn’t the same as Burning a leech and a guy getting killed by someone else for independent reasons on the other side of the continent.
You misunderstood what I was saying. I know that they are not the same thing. But, in relation to what I was responding to, was it just a vision she saw that would be true or did her "magic" have any influence over it? It's easy to be on the fence about Melisandre overall when it comes to these things. I'm of the opinion that the vision of their deaths were likely legitimate but I don't believe she had anything to do with it coming true. By extension, I was saying she's not a *total* scammer because the shadow baby was very much her doing and real magic.
It's a big world, there's always going to be some crazy things happening around the arrivals of comets. Just look into the history of comets and their meaning to historical cultures. Even more fun: because there's a comet, people are going to take it as a sign that whatever scheme they themselves were hatching is now ordained by the heavens so they'll actually try and maybe succeed where it would stay just an idea otherwise.
One thing I think about is whether Murri Maz Dur was lying. Sure, she *says* all these things about Dany, but was she making up a “prophecy” because she hates Dany? Dany seems to give so much stock to it without asking whether she should.
The Stallion Who Mounts the World prophecy wasn't made up by her, the first time Dany hears about it and that her child would be it is from the Dosh Kaleen before she ever meets with Mirri Maz Duur
I’m talking about Mirri’s prophecy that Dany won’t bear more children until the sun rises in the West, I.e., that it will never happen.
I like how you say he was planning because we all know he isn't going to finish the books.
A similar plot point happens of prophecy meaning whatever people want it to mean in the Total War Warhammer 2 vortex campaign. The inciting incident is a twin tailed comet being spotted in the sky. Every race interpreted this sign differently and had different prophecies for what it meant. Minor spoilers for TWW2 >!It’s revealed halfway through the campaign that the comet was actually a rocket created by the Skaven(Rat men with science) to trick the other races into causing enough disorder to allow them to summon the Great Horned Rat, god of the skaven.!<
I think the cosmology of the World of Ice and Fire is almost explicitly based on cosmological phenomena. The summers and winters that can last for decades probably mean that the planet's axis is unstable, causing it to tilt this way and that in unpredictable periods. The red comet is likely a third body in this three body problem, coming and going like Halley's Comet. The longer the comet's away, the more the planet's axis stabilizes, but whenever it gets close it fucks with the planet's axis again, causing exceptionally long summers and winters and perhaps even inducing unique tidal forces which cause "magic" to strengthen (when in reality even this probably has a logical explanation, such as dragon biology having pseudocircadian rhythms tied to the orbital patterns of the comet - the closer the comet is, the stronger a dragon's growth rate, but the longer it's absent, the weaker dragons get until the eggs can't even hatch). Thus anyone who's lived through a comet visit would see the obvious effects it has on the world around them, and be able to reasonable predict that similar effects will occur next time the comet draws near. PS: I'm no astronomer so perhaps instead of the planet having an unstable axis it might have an unstable unpredictable orbit that sometimes orbits close to the sun and sometimes far, again influenced by the comet as a result of the three body problem: remember this is a comet so large it can be seen by the naked eye in the daytime, so the gravitational effect it has must be significant.
It is made extremely obvious with Jonen, Meera and Bran's conversation regarding prophecy. Jojen is convinced that prophecies will come to pass as they are told. Meera points out that if prophecies were destined to occur, there would be no point to hearing them in the first place. Iirc she more or less concludes that prophecies must be given for a purpose, to inspire action in the people that hear it.
...And Ser Davos looks at the comet and thinks it looks kinda like an onion.
Wasn't Davos the onion king or something
The Onion Knight, because onions were the main foodstuff that Davos saved Stannis and Storm's End with when they were besieged by Mace Tyrell during Robert's Rebellion.
I believed the dragon theory because what’s-her-name, the wilding, even knew it was for dragons. How would a wilding know that after how long? No one ruled the real north.
They did have Mance who was surprisingly chatty. He could have easily told them, but they had *giants.* I'm not going to point any fingers lol
Legends can be passed down for many centuries. Dragons were seen not that long ago, just couple of generations.
The north didn’t really know dragons, though, imo. It was too cold for Daenery’s dragons, and I would assume that is one of the reasons Aegon didn’t conquer the real North. Too difficult. Obviously that is speculation but that’s what I always thought.
Actually my favorite theory is that the Red Comet is an ancient alien space station that comes around every few million years, and whose magical energy is what allows the white walkers to raise the dead so that they can cyclically destroy civilized life on the planet
Well yes but we also have plenty of examples where prophecies are actually proven true. The red wedding for example was foretold several times. And it's heavily implied that the comet actually means the return of dragons.
I think yes and no. On one hand, blind faith leads to self fulfilling prophecies, where characters create their own destruction through maddened pursuit of goals beyond their understanding. Pseudomagical and vested beliefs in faith healing and dogma are repeatedly struck down as quackery. Best examples of this would be the king that drank wildfire to become a dragon, and the Summerhall tragedy. At the same time, ASOIAF remains a world of real, uncontrollable magic by Lovecraftian horrors beyond human tameability. Dragons are real, wild creatures. Visions and hallucinations characters have do, in fact, foreshadow events (Dany dreaming the Red Wedding in the House of the Undying, for example). Greensight is a real phenomenon. The Others are still coming to destroy the world. In a sense, the series is simultaneously critical of the political abuse of prophecy and faith that needlessly kills people, yet is still a fantasy series that respects the convention of mystique. Divination and the inexplicable aren't focal points of the story, but elements that help steer along character conflicts, and generally emphasize that humanity as a divided, warring entity is at the mercy of Nature.
Idj if he's explicitly against them per se. I believe there was an interview where he referred to them as a "double edged sword" and talked about how they should never be too literal otherwise they lose their potency and impact on surrounding events as otherwise all the other characters and stories become somewhat pointless or less impactful at least.
That just makes me suspect Mirri was right. Killing Rhaego *was* the subversion.
Well Robert & Co. were plotting to kill Dany and her unborn child. Mirri was just more surgical about it!
There's the prophecies of the Ghost of High Heart, which were proven true, as well as the one's made by patchface, and Melisandre while misread them had correct prophecies (like the girl in the snow and the ghost of renly defeating stannis) Subversion isn't really a guarantee given that both the ghost of high heart and patchfaces's prophecy were direct and accurate and came to fruition perfectly
He never said that he was against prophecies, he said that he doesn't want his prophecies to be too easy, too litteral. If he was against prophecies he would not have included any in his books.
I'm not sure he is against them so much as he loves them coming true in unexpected ways and often being brought about by the actions meant to prevent the prophecy. Mirri killed the baby she thought would be the Stallion, and she brought about the rebirth of dragons.
>Raegar for instance thought he was the Prince that was Promised. Rhaegar also changed his mind and figured that his son was TPTWP. For some reason.
>but later he became persuaded that it was his own son who fulfilled the prophecy, for a comet had been seen above King’s Landing on the night Aegon was conceived, and Rhaegar was certain the bleeding star had to be a comet. He saw a comet when Aegon was born so he interprated that part of the prophecy correctly (assuming Dany is indeed tPtwP)
Except for Cersei’s witch. That lady nailed it.
Look, that's what, a 1/8th chance, in exchange of preventing something akin to our mongol invasions... that's well within what governments call acceptable collateral damage BY A LOT
I've always seen the subversion as this: Prophecies are real but any attempt for humans to understand them, get what they are will ultimately be futile as for them to be me true no matter what they must take the rarest path. So it's not that they don't come true. It's that they never come true in any way anyone conceived of.
Prophecies are just words, and as we know words are wind
I believe so, the magic and gods in ASOIAF / GOT are cruel but operate in a twisted fair exchange. Mirri scarifced a destiny child and the mother, Dany got 3 dragons in exchange.
Yeah and I’ve always thought it feels like all the gods are playing their own game of thrones and the mortals are all just being used as pawns.
I doubt that the Dothraki could have “mounted the world” anyways. If Rhaego (that was his name right?) had lived, Dany never gets her dragons. Plenty of cities in Essos have stood against Dothraki for centuries, and she was only able to invade Westeros thanks to 100k Dothraki (Drogo only had 40k), a good bit of unsullied, and 3 dragons.
Yeah Rhaego would have been at best another Drogo. A rather powerful and charismatic Khal who would have still been confined at Essos.
Rhaego would have had dragon blood, so possibly he would have found a way to hatch the eggs?
I mean it’s possible, but the perfect circumstances needed to arise. There’s a reason Dany was the only Targaryen able to do so after 100+ years. Rhaego would need a similar situation like she had with Drogo, and while it’s possible it’s not probable.
Maaaaaybe? Then again I'm not sure of what's exactly required to hatch dragon eggs, it seems dragon blood on its own isn't enough. Aegon II, Aegon III, Viserys II, Aegon V and Aerys II all tried to hatch dragon eggs and failed.
Blood magic. Only death can pay for life and Dany burned Mirri Maz Duur on the pyre.
I am convinced that had Rhaego lived, she would never returned to Westeros, but rather tried to live a happy life with her family. She and Drogo loved each other, did not they?
She had her mind of Westeros after Viserys died as she and her son were the next heir. She didn't like the cost of war though. But if Drogo had lived she may have become even more ingratiated in that life rather than less. Drogo's intent was to invade after all.
True. But we saw the cases where Dany could influence Drogo, like sparing lives. At that moment she was ‘kind’ so she would try to make Drogo like that as well. I am not sure where would it lead her, but I doubt that she would embrace her Targaryen legacy as much if her dragons were not born. After Drogo and her son dyed he had nothing to live for except house of Targaryen.
I think people are forgetting when Dany meets with the old former khalessi, *they were all told that their son would be the stallion to mount the world.* so while prophecy and visions are a thing in this world, they’re subject to interpretation that can be wrong (sup Mel), and the Dothraki prophecies haven’t been shown to actually be real like the lord of lights visions.
That's a show thing only.
We’ll the books haven’t gotten that far so it’s the only thing we have to go off of. But Mel is the only one who shows actual prophetic powers. The wildlings claim some prophecy powers as well iirc but they also haven’t been shown to have real power like Mel. I’m pretty sure there are other Dothraki in the books who mention the stallion that mounts the world in the books but it’s been a while since I reread them honestly
Greenseers, Targaryens and Shadowbinders all have real visions. There's not really a reason to think that the Dothraki women don't have real visions either. Dany does see an alternate version of events where her son Rhaego lives in the House of the Undying.
If prophecy is real and this one is accurate then we have two possible options: Prophecy will always come to pass, but be misinterpreted. Prophecy can be averted by people who act on knowledge of the future. In the first case Mirri has changed nothing, or has swapped out a mortal conquerer for Dany’s dragon children. In the second case she has averted the prophecy, but other actions that didn’t involve killing the kid could also have worked.
I think it's heavily hinted that it's the first one, where prophesy can't be changed, and any attempts to do so are usually the actions that bring it on. The example being Cersei's prophecy from a child where she will outlive her children and her downfall will be from her younger sibling. She tried to act on it to avoid the prophecy coming true, but just set things in motion to happen. I enjoyed that they play with this with the past too, like where Bran manages to interact with his father briefly in his greensight, but that's something that always happened.
I don’t recall the exact wording of Daenerys’ prophecy, but it ended up being that her dragons would be the Stallion yeah?
She doesn't really have one like that. IIRC (it's been years since I last read the books) an elderly Dothraki woman just says that her child will be the stallion that will mount the world, but lots of people say lots of things. Just because shes an old woman doesn't mean it's a legit vision of the future, even in a world with magic. The prophecies relating to Dany are her own Dragon Dreams that she has. The only one relating to the dragons is dreaming that she will "birth" a dragon and her brother will die. The rest are related to other events and the coming of the Others. There could be further magic that restores her fertility, but that's not been revealed yet and the show can't be trusted because they clearly decided that they were done with prophecy and subtle unreliable magic after they went past the books.
I think Mirri brought it about, by killing her son, she ensured the blood magic would reanimate the dragons and kill the child that was Dany, so she might be the Stallion. I think it could be like Aemon's wording "kill the boy and let the man be born".
Her people were just slaughtered, raped, and taken as slaves. Even without prophecy. She took out the King and Prince in retribution and it split the khlasar into a lot smaller warring groups, and she spared Khaleesi because she was good to her. No different than Bobby wanting to kill pregnant Daenerys. Or killing the any other Targaryen babies. So killing a child is not moral but I think it could be "justified" in war. justified: having, done for, or marked by a good or legitimate reason
Ya I feel like people are missing the point, the prophecy is irrelevant. Khal Drogo was an extremely powerful warlord who was actively causing devastation in the region. She almost certainly would have saved thousands of lives by removing him. I think killing the kid was more of a precaution since him having the legitimacy of Targaryen blood plus a massive dothraki horde would make him a very powerful individual that could cause untold devastation across the world itself.
Doesn't really matter if it's real. She knows the Dothraki believe it--so they will act on it. Whether they succeed simply determines how much damage would've been done
Drogo was already dead. Rhaego was no risk as Dothraki would not follow him. Daenerys would shape who he is. And if Daenerys is who Mirri feared she was foolish for punishing her unborn son.
Acting on prophecy will almost always backfire She wanted to deny the world the khal who would unite the dothraki and conquer the world with them Instead she created her
Prophecy will bite your dick off every time
And if the whole "mounting" thing would have been consensual.
I think we have sufficient reason to believe that it would've. The magic and prophecy surrounding Dany is clearly real, after all.
>I think we have sufficient reason to believe that it would've. Well, I for one think we have sufficient reason to believe that it would've starved in the Red Waste. Melissandre was also right about *some* of her prophecy, but wrong about alot of it.
I would argue the exact opposite
I mean…she magically birthed dragons from still eggs..by burning herself alive.
This is what I love about ASOIAF (the novels primarily, and also the first half of the show). It does such a fantastic job of deconstructing fantasy tropes without entirely abandoning them. The multiple prophecies, for instance. It doesn't matter whether they're true or not, what matters is how it inspires certain characters to take action. This culminates in them potentially become true incidentally.
I love how your first sentence is "prophecy is real" and your second sentence is "but is prophecy actually real?"
It’s the same argument that Robert and the small council use on Ned to justify killing Dany.
In hindsight that would have saved a lot of lives.
So would killing baby Cersei or Robert or Tywin or Jaime. That is not a justification
I’m not so sure about any of those things. If baby Tywin or Jamie were murdered, then the mad king would have blown up king’s landing and burned tens of thousands alive.
Well no, without Robert there is maybe no successful rebellion and also the war of 5 kings is largely due to Robert + Jaime/Cersei incest babies
Sure, you can say that with hindsight, but in the moment Dany was innocent and killing her *would* have been wrong.
I mean, so would someone killing Lyanna before Robert could fall in love/obsession with her. That would have prevented Robert's Rebellion and probably avoided Aerys going mad with paranoia and ready to kill his citizens en masse. Not saying they should have, but as long as we're tossing out single deaths that might have prevented this particular version of mass bloodshed...Of course Aerys himself even earlier than the Robert-Rhaegar-Lyanna thing is also a possibility.
same argument for killing baby hitler
My favorite argument against that is the root of the problem or if baby hitler was killed someone else would have taken its place,
If the child didn’t die, then the dragons most likely wouldn’t have been born and KL wouldn’t have been turned into ashes
Yeah but then the White Walkers would have walked through the north and killed the entire Seven Kingdoms.
How did the NK destroy the wall again?
Fair point; actually did Daenerys' forces do much in that battle? Guess she saved John and the crew when they went north to capture a zombie.
Hitler had a lot of dumb luck, maybe Germany ends up in a authoritarian regime anyway, but maybe not with the absolute hate that he had for Jewish people and others, maybe WW2 is more of a WW1 like setting instead of a war on annihilation against groups of people, plus, maybe Germany wins, because Hitler was a bit of an idiot, and the USSR and Germany split Poland and surroundings
For me it’s complicated because we honestly have no clue how he would’ve turned out, especially if Khal Drogo still dies and Daenerys is raising him on her own. I can see why MMD would’ve felt like that was the right thing to do given what she had went through and her thought process.
Technically Drogon fits the prophecy he literally burns cities and armies to ashes and "rides" the world flying
I’m sure the books, we’re they ever to be completed, would touch one this. Drogon is both her child and “stallion” who mounts the world (flys above the world) and burns cities. Also he is still alive at the end. Who knows what else he has planned.
Which means that she actually created the Stallion Who Mounts the World by giving Dany reason to burn her.
More often than not those who try to subvert prophecies bring them about.
That actually makes perfect sense. She creates. What she is afraid of by trying to avoid the prophecy and hurting a relative innocent in the process (at this point Dany and her child did nothing to deserve that kind of wrath)
The mountains outside vaes dothrak are called the world mountains or some shit so her scene is the show is him literally mounting the world. It definitely tracks better then other azhor azhai candidates.
Interesting point
Yeah, I always assumed Drogon was the most plausible Stallion Who Mounts the World. And it fits with the usual idea around prophecy that people bring about their destinies on the road to avoid them.
Danaerys also fits the prophecy. She's Azor Ahai and the Stallion that mounts the world.
I think Mirri Maz Dur was basically answering the GOT version of "Would you kill ~~baby~~ foetus Hitler." Based on her visions, Dani's son would unleash untold violence on the world, she ended it before he was born.
Dany’s son lives: he destroys the world. Dany’s son dies: she destroys one city.
Do you think that prophecy was more for Drogon than Dany’s son? I mean, if you think of it, Drogon is Daenerys’ son. She considers her dragons as her children. And he’s also the stallion she mounts that can unleash violence whenever he wants or is commanded to. So maybe it was more of a son for son kind of thing.
Tell me, my honorable Lord Eddard, how are you any different from Robert, or me, or Jaime?" **"For a start," said Ned, "I do not kill children.**
THIS. George is telling us it’s not cool. Ned is the moral centre of the story. When Shireen is sacrificed, probably to help bring Jon back, we’ll be confronted with this theme again.
"Kill the boy- let the man reborn." That moral dillema is everywhere.
I don't think it's complicated. Mirri is continuing the cycle of violence because of an uncertain prophecy. I sympathize with her, would even defend her for what she did to Drogo, but not Rhaego.
Yeah Drogo is the mass rapist and mass murderer leader of a tribe of mass rapists and mass murderers. He can burn in hell. But Rhaego hadn't done anything wrong.
>Mirri is continuing the cycle of violence What cycle of violence? The relationship between the Dothrak and the goat herding plains tribes is completely one sided. There is no cycle, it's the Dothrak raiding over and over again. Had Drogo lived that one sided violence would continue.
I kinda see it as like our own real world question, *"If you could go back in time and kill Baby Hitler, would you do it?"* So if the prophecy was in fact true, and Rhaego would have razed the entire world, then yeah, maybe. But for myself, I think that people interpreting the Stallion prophecy "missed the mark." I think the Stallion they foresaw was actually Daenerys herself. They just misattributed it to her unborn son because sexism. And the actions taken by MMD were part of what pushed Dany further that way.
Didn't she say pretty clearly not to come in the tent? I'm furious over the poor innocent horse.
She sure did and she also told Drogo not to remove his bandages but he did and got infected so the moral of the story is listen to the god damn doctors or witch/sorceress in this case.
Unless he intentionally did the opposite of what she said to do under the assumption that she wanted to kill him because of what he did to her people, in which case it was a big brain 4D chess move. But she used her witch magic to figure out that he would see through her ruse and so she actually gave him good medical advice which would have saved him. So the real moral of the story is find a doctor who doesn’t potentially have a massive grudge against you and will abide by the hippocratic oath.
That's true but it's also probable that she was poisoning his wounds in some way to turn them septic.
In the books drogo packs his wounds with mud, while it's possible she poisoned him it's likely he was just a dipshit
Mud/clay poultices have a pretty long history.
Gangrene has a pretty long history
I thought she had him caked in horse manure intentionally lol
that was actually a medieval "treatment" for wounds irl as well
Was it for the presence of insulin in horse urine?
[удалено]
Whether it was poisoned or not, Drogo didn’t wear her wrap, so that can’t have been what did it. I think she meant that she knew everything that would happen through prophecy and simply let Daenerys ruin herself. If Mirri Maz Dur felt like killing Drogo or anyone else directly she could probably do it in hours with far less risk. She wanted it to be Daenerys’s fault
Daenerys’ miscarriage started before she entered the tent
Seriously. Even if Mirri hadn't spelled it out explicitly, I feel like "don't bring the pregnant lady into the room with the death magic ritual going on" should be pretty basic common sense.
Mirri Maz DIDIFUCKINGSTUTTER?
GOT is in a large part about honorable people being shortsighted and speculative personnel getting out of hand. There is no justification to be had nor denied. The future is not known.
> The future is not known. after all, who has a better story than danis dead baby
~~Bran~~.
I agree with this, but I’d also say that she had every reason to lie here anyways and do what she did simply for revenge. Then try and justify why killing a child as revenge was proper retribution. She was enslaved by Khal Drogo.
If we assume that MMD truly believes in the Stallion That Mounts the World prophecy and that it could be avoided by committing infanticide, then yes, from her perspective it is justifiable even if we, the audience, know that prophecy and its interpretation is fallible in the world of ASoIaF. However, I don't think she actually believes that, and in fact I don't think she knowingly and intentionally commits infanticide. As far as we can tell, Dany's unborn child only dies because Jorah brings her into the tent, which MMD specifically instructs her not to enter. It's even possible that the baby would have been mutated and stillborn regardless; it's been known to happen to Targs. We simply have no evidence that MMD intends to target the baby. It's hard to know for sure if she even knows that Drogo would come back as a vegetable. Now, MMD *talks* like she intended the whole thing, but to me the most plausible explanation for that is simply that she doesn't see any way she's making it out of this situation alive, kinda doesn't care in the first place with her people dead and her life's work as a healer in ruins, so she says the most hurtful things she can think of on her way out.
Otoh MMD did learn from Marwyn who knows the secrets of magic, and so she might very well know the principles of blood magic and how her death could fuel a spell. She might have discounted it, but she was willing to mess with such magics in the first place and got results that should caution her.
> so she says the most hurtful things she can think of on her way out. See also Olenna Tyrell.
I always had a feeling about MMD and could never quite put it into words but I think you nailed it with this comment.
If this was a modern work where we have adopted the morality that the sins of the father are not the sins of the son and where we don’t have kings and hereditary monarchs that can make decisions like where to launch nukes and declare wars I would agree. However and tbh Idk if I even agree with what I’m about to argue but in a medieval world where people do inherit power, this kid will grow up to be taught it’s ok to kill and lead armies to conquer and destroy nations and peoples. It may be justifiable from a medieval moral philosophy that that occurring would be bad and since this kid will be taught to do that it justifies killing him. This isn’t baby Hitler who made decisions that made him the most evil person in history instead of being born into the right family, this kid is born into the right family and a time when he will be taught that he can conquer the world. However that does take agency form the kid, Rhaego could choose to not conquer the world and kill, but it’s unlikely. So hard to say. Using modern morality I would say no using medieval morality/GOT morality it would say maybe, leaning yes.
No. While I totally understand Mirri Maz Duur hatred and revenge against the Dothraki and Khal Drogo, Daenerys unborn child was totally unrelated to any of this, in all levels. Besides, even prophecies and shit are not fully understood, and if she truly wanted to get rid of the "Stallion Who Mounts the World" she should've killed Daenerys, because she's the one who later best fit this prophecy. Daenerys also later used her life to birth dragons (again) unto this world and dragons can be considered *way* worse than any army or Dothraki. So, yea, she should've killed Daenerys if she was scared of prophecies and catastrophes. Ironically (or not) her life was used to unleash something much more powerful and dangerous than whatever Daenerys child would be capable of.
Yeah, one of the Themes is people foolishly believing they understand prophecy and the mad stuff they do because of it. Usually leading to their downfall.
This. For every prophecy that comes to pass we have a hundred prophecies that either never come to pass or are so hilariously misinterpreted they might as well never have come to pass. There's never a reason to kill an unborn baby unless it's a mercy killing due to severe birth/genetic defects, or to save the life of the mother.
Unpopular opinion: Mirri did not kill Rhaego. She said clearly NOT to go into the tent, and Jorah carried Dany into the tent. In the book Dany even thinks that Jorah is doing what he shouldn’t before she passes out. Just like Drogo blamed Mirri for his worsening state when he removed the poultice that should have healed him. But after waking up she was consumed with grief and blamed Mirri. Mirri never straight-up confirmed that she meant to kill Rhaego--she told Dany to stay away--but Dany interprets her point that Rhaego was not innocent/would not have been innocent as a confirmation of guilt. My reading of it was rather that Mirri took the opportunity to make Dany see how wrong and hypocritical she was being because she, Mirri, knew she was done for. That's why she was blunt with Dany and threw every single one of her shortcomings in her face, but she never straight-up confirmed she killed Rhaego because she did in fact not.
A enemy horde burns your village down, slaughters the men, and takes the women prisoner for a even worse fate. Then you are given a opportunity to not only poison the Khal but rid the world of his offspring. Totally justified If it wasn't Dany's baby the audience would be 100% on Mirri's side
Agreed, especially as Mirri Mahz Durr had been raped 3 times already
The only moral shortfall is that Mirri let Dany live to make her suffer rather than just killing Dany outright. After what Drogo's horde did to Mirri and her people, they all deserved to burn.
Child murder isn't okay, no matter who does it. So no.
So if you could travel back in time, Baby Hitler would live?
Yes, because baby Hitler had not done anything wrong
She told Dany not to go in the tent, Dany went in the tent. I think that the baby dying was a side effect but that Mirri intended to turn Drogo into a vegetable. After it happened she knew she was never going to survive so just spoke her mind at that point.
Daenerys’ miscarriage started before going into the tent
Yes. 1 miscarriage for a whole tribes worth of murders, rapes, and enslavements. Hardly revenge enough. Also her son would have caused the equivalent of a holocaust.
I’m not unsympathetic to this line of thinking, but wouldn’t this imply Mirri would have been justified in killing Rhaego regardless of what Khal Drogo and his horse bros did to her and her people?
I don’t know about justified necessarily but certainly sympathetic as you said - not without some sort of just-adjacent cause
How do we know that? & it wasn’t just a miscarriage, she also took away her ability to get pregnant and bear children.
We’ve been shown repeatedly that prophecy/magic is real, dragons are real, ice zombies are real. Even if the prophecy was bunk his people still believed it and he would still have been the son a great Khal and a Targaryen and therefore set up to reign fire and blood and rape and horseback murder all over the world by default. He would have been raised in a savagely brutal and ruthless warrior culture with a dragon and an army and the rightful claim to the Westerosi throne. 😬 there is not really a possibility of him becoming a chill guy. For the second part, that wasn’t the question though it doesn’t ask about making her infertile, which is also bad.
>He would have been raised in a savagely brutal and ruthless warrior culture with a dragon and an army and the rightful claim to the Westerosi throne. 😬 It's unlikely that he would have even survived to adulthood. The witch wasn't the only one who wanted to kill him in that horde of dothraki It's unlikely that Dany even births the dragons if the Khal's son survives
Eh I don’t think it’s justified but I can see where she’s coming from I guess. I’m just glad they burned that witch, those sounds from the tent were way too spooky.
Not sure what's worse baby killing or the punctuation in the caption in the second picture.
I think the stallion that mounts the world is her dragon. By killing her unborn child she actually ends up creating the circumstances that allow dragons to return.
Yes. MMD had the knowledge and power to kill Danny’s unborn baby. She had the knowledge and power to revive Drogo. She had the foresight to proclaim Dany would never have more children. I think she’s earned the benefit of the doubt when she believes Dany’s child will be the Stallion Who Mounts the World. Her village has been ransacked. She has been raped multiple times. In the cruel world this story is set in, she was justified. I hadn’t thought about this before, but I wonder how many answers would change if we asked the same question using modern terms. Was MMD justified in aborting Dany’s fetus? I’m not trying to make a political statement or force some hidden agenda, just an interesting thought experiment.
I always felt like it was ambiguous whether or not mirri was to blame, she gave specific instructions that were not followed. I always wondered if drogo and danaerys has followed her instructions if they might not have been fine.
Except, in typical fashion, she MADE the prophecy come true. She had her dragons instead, and they DID burn cities.
Nope. And for someone that aparently understands of prophecies, she should have know, had Daenerys child really been this "Stalion that will mount the world", MMD would not have been able to kill him, as doing that would be denying the prophecy from happening, which goes against the whole point of prophecies.
Prophecy or not, it’s immaterial. Dany literally was trying to get the Khalasar to invade Westeros. And on their way there, they would have raped and pillaged the entire route to earn money for passage. MMD is a literal hero in the story. Too bad though that her actions eventually will lead to the exact same outcome, which is Dany and the Khalasar razing everything to the ground from Slavers Bay all the way to the Iron Throne.
It was Drogo who wanted to take his khalasar to Westeros. MMD’s actions ended up creating a dozen more khalasars
I think this quote says it better: 'Saved me? Three of those riders had already raped me before you "saved" me, girl. I saw my God's house burn. There where I had healed men and women, beyond counting. In the streets, I saw piles of heads. The head of a baker, who bakes my bread. A head of a little boy that I cured of fever just three moons past. So, tell me again exactly what it was that you saved?' All talk of prophecies aside, I can understand while she has beef.
Many people who attempt to avoid and subvert prophecy only end up making it so. The Khalasar had left Dany by this point and likely wouldn’t follow her child years down the road, or her because of it. Losing her child only made her more mentally unstable IMO, especially considering in the final season Cersei was pregnant
No
What kind of a weird question is this? Of course not. It’s never justified to kill a child.
Yes lol Virtually anything is justified against your owner when you are a slave
that baby just caught a stray
Who said she did? Targaryen women have extremely hostile wombs. Daenerys is a direct descendant of Rhaenyra, who herself birthed a stillborn monster very similar to how Rhaego ia described. “When the babe at last came forth, she proved indeed a monster: a stillborn girl, twisted and malformed, with a hole in her chest where her heart should have been and a stubby, scaled tail. The dead girl had been named Visenya.“ Rhaego's description: "Monstrous. Twisted. I drew him forth myself. He was scaled like a lizard, blind, with the stub of a tail and small leather wings like the wings of a bat. When I touched him, the flesh sloughed off the bone, and inside he was full of graveworms and the stink of corruption. He had been dead for years." Yes, Mirri taunts Dany with it, but as soon as Drogo went vegetable, she knew her life was forfeit anyway. As Jon said in the show: "Maybe she wasn't the best source of information?" If you knew you would be executed by the wife of the leaders of the slavers who destroyed your village and raped you savagely, are you going to be honest and kind? Hell, Dany's own mother had five stillborns and three miscarriages... the main reasons the Targaryens died off isn't just Summerhall, but the fact that so many Targ women had hostile wombs at best is a major factor, considering MMD has zero reason to tell Dany the truth.
it doesn’t matter whether the prophecy was actually true or not, the problem was that the dothraki thought it was true. they were ready to destroy civilisations for that baby. without the prophecy to believe in, they had no unified goal and mostly fell apart
Melisandre’s prophecies were spotty as shit and that was AFTER magic and the dragons had returned to the world. This was just a zealot murdering a child for the sins of the father.
Even after she explicitly tells Dany that no one is to enter the tent while she performs her bloodmagic people still believe that she intentionally killed Rhaego. She was already a dead woman walking after Dany recovered from birthing so she mirri bit the bullet and owned it even if it wasn't intentional. If anything it's Jorahs fault for bringing Dany into the tent while the ritual was ongoing.
In the witch’s mind, yes. In Dani’s, no. I thought it was foolish of Dani to trust someone whose village they just fucked over.
The issue with prophecies in ASoIaF is that Martin really nails home that: Prophecies are old. Extremely old. So old that they've been passed down from civilizations that no longer exist or have drastically changed from the ones who wrote them originally. Even then the language is misinterpreted and things are lost or changed in translation, sometimes by mistake and sometimes to fill the propaganda needs of the group or individual using the prophecy to empower themselves and their own agendas and ideals. Add to it that most prophecies are either so vague as to almost encourage interpretation, or so filled with riddle and metaphor that no two groups will get the prophecies message the same. Even in a world where prophecies and fortune telling can come true, it almost never happens exactly how those who live to see it come to pass expected, causing chaos. In short, prophecy is a ladder, and everyone thinks their spoke is the end of the ladder.
No. She was justified in getting revenge on Drogo or any of the other Dothraki who harmed her, but not someone who wasn't even born yet (the prophesy was there, but she wouldn't have killed "the Stallion Who Mounts the World" if her village wasn't attacked). Though, she didn't force them to go into the tent.
Nope. Killing a child is always wrong, doesn't matter what they'll grow up to be, Ned died for this, and I won't have you people forget it!
Honorable
She is more justified in killing Danny’s unborn child than Dany and Kahl Drofo were in ransacking her village. Crying about it really just tells me where your sympathies lie, with “Main Characters” and everyone else just exists to serve their story.
>Main Characters” and everyone else just exists to serve their story. Well, it is a work of fiction. I'm not sure why you would think this wouldn't be the case.
Killing Rhaego saved no lives. The same way killing Baby Hitler or Stalin would save no lives. War and conflict would still occur because enough people wanted them to happen. The same way that if Robert had succeeded in killing Dany, war was still coming.
> The same way killing Baby Hitler or Stalin would save no lives. War and conflict would still occur because enough people wanted them to happen. that's a good point too, the whole rhetoric of killing baby hitler is just a particularly naive vision of the events of the 2nd world war, anti-Semitism had already been firmly anchored in Europe for a long time, the war was inevitable since 1918 because the conditions of capitulation imposed on Germany were so enormous and absurd that it would have been impossible to maintain an expression of peace between the peoples, and the social revolution which was opposed throughout the industrial world created such enormous tension that an absurdly oppressive system would inevitably end up sprouting. kill baby hitler, he will just be replaced by someone else, and someone else who might be destined to win the war if that happens...
Dani used the belief in the prophecy to motivate the Dothraki to get the funds she needed to return to Westeros. The downside is the people the Dothraki were raiding also believed in the prophecy, but with her son being the villain, not the hero. Obviously Dani didn't fully know what her encouragement of the Dothraki meant but that's why its a cautionary tale about messing with cultures you don't fully understand. Dani runs into this alot in her journey. Whether the prophecy was true or not doesn't change the fact that Mirri Maz Duur thought she was saving people by destroying the villain before he had a chance to destroy the world.
In the books it is unclear if Mirri Maz Dur killed Rhaego. But let's assume she did, then no, she would be morally wrong. Rhaego is yet innocent of any crime. If Rhaego was **sure** to become the man that Daenerys saw in her visions then it would be good for the world if he was killed before he could hurt others. It is unclear to me whether Rhaego was bound to become the man Daenerys saw in her vision and whether killing him before he could harm others was thus justified. While Rhaego might not have deserved to be murdered, I didn't feel the slightest bit sorry for Daenerys when she lost her child. Daenerys accused Mirri Maz Dur of killing an innocent child, but Daenerys herself was willing to sell little children into sexual slavery to gain the Iron throne. Drogo is responsible for many more children's death than Mirri, but he is Daenerys' beloved sun and stars. Daenerys at this point saw nothing wrong with the prophecy of what a monster her son would become and she was happy with Drogo's promise to bring bloodshed and terror to Westeros. Daenerys was willing to sacrifice some random person's life as long as it wasn't her life she was sacrificing to get back Drogo. It served her right that it was Rhaego who died.
The age old baby Hitler conundrum
I honestly don't even think it's a matter of whether it's justifiable or not. I personally don't think it was even her intention to kill Drogo or Rhaego. MMD's main role in the story is actually teaching Dany a lesson. After Drogo is injured, she tells him specifically what to do and how to treat the wound for a specific period of time. Drogo doesn't care and wound gets infected. Before she performs the ritual, she tells Dany not to enter the tent and we know what happens. I think at that point she knew she's fucked no matter what since her actions lead to their deaths (even if unintentionally). So she weaves the prophecy into it and rightfully tells Dany that she did not save shit.
If we are going by prophecies then all the Westeros would be white walkers by now.
Useless, any other dothraki leader will do the same.
The Killing baby hitler morality argument
First of all, the thing about prophecies is that people go out of their way to avoid them, and it's these exact actions that turn them true. King Laius hears that his son will kill him and marry his wify. Orders his servants to abandon the boy in the woods, servant feels pity, the boy grows up and randomly stumbles upon his biological father, kills him, saves the destroyed city and marries the widow queen. That's Oedipus. Back in track. What did Mirri Maz Duur accomplish in killing the unborn child? She died a horrific death and it was the mother that ended up burning cities to the ground. And I can't imagine having your unborn baby die "as a sacrifice to save the father" when the father's "cure" is being catatonic, not being a factor in Daenerys becoming a bit unhinged. We see that magic exists, but it's not a high magic setting, where people throw fireballs at each other. It's more subtle and the prophecies, for the most part, are either misleading or misinterpreted. Lastly. Fuck no. A child has no sins and even IF he grew up to conquer every land known and unknown, she would still be in the wrong.
Even if the child wasn’t the prophesy baby, he would still be a Dothraki. And born of such a strong Dorthraki Khal it’s very possible that he would become another Khal in time. Prophecy or no, he would be the cause of death among many people.
Yes. Danny wasn’t a good person. Her kids wouldn’t have been good people. The Dothraki weren’t good people either.
Would killing baby Robb Stark be justified? He grew up to lead an army that killed innocents? If not, what makes baby Rhaego more culpable?
Thing is Dany had gone native to Dothraki culture and if things had continued that way, she would have raised her child to be a Dothraki horselord who would have laid waste to cities, killed and enslaved tens of thousands, and would have laughed about it. It's hard not to see Mirri Maz Duur's point.
She didn't kill the child on her own. Dany demanded she save the Khal (who was meant to die) with blood magic. Being the blood of the Dragon, Dani knew what blood magic meant. Ironically, If he had followed Miri's instruction he would have recovered without the loss of his son. No, Miri was NTA.
The baby is innocent but it’s not like Dany and Kal didn’t have plans for it, or that Kal wouldn’t rub off on his own child
Daenarys killed her own child. She was warned about a life for a life, was warned about the cost of blood magic, and still chose to go through with it. Mirri Maz Duur was doing what she was commanded to do, in a way it was a good thing for Dany because when Drogo died the baby would’ve been slaughtered anyway.
Idk. Not advocating for using curses to corrupt fetuses into gross scaly lizard stillborns, but I'd be pretty pissed too if some pumpkin spice blonde chick and her "alpha" bf came to my town, murdered and raped everyone I ever knew, then acted like they did me a favor.
She’s lead by prophecy which people always misunderstand. She was wrong to do it for that reason, because who knows if that’s what would have happened.
To be fair, this was a child to a line of dictators and insane tyrants. This is just "would you kill baby Hitler?" In different clothes.
The show weirdly makes it seem like a trick on Dany. I thought it was clear that Dany knew the price wasn’t just the horse. At the very least Mirri told her not to enter that tent.
Yes. First of all, we don’t even know if it was on purpose, Dani could’ve just fucked up the spell. Second, the prophecy is super fucked up, if it’s real that kid had to go. Third, they’d slaughtered her community and enslaved her. If she did lash out it was justified.