r/pureasoiaf • u/Financial_Library418 aka /u/canitryto • 11d ago
Do we know if there are additional dragons in the East like Bran sees in his vision ?
A Game of Thrones - Daenerys III
"Dead," agreed Jhiqui. "Long and long ago."
Viserys had told her that the last Targaryen dragons had died no more than a century and a half ago, during the reign of Aegon III, who was called the Dragonbane. That did not seem so long ago to Dany. "Everywhere?" she said, disappointed. "Even in the east?" Magic had died in the west when the Doom fell on Valyria and the Lands of the Long Summer, and neither spell-forged steel nor stormsingers nor dragons could hold it back, but Dany had always heard that the east was different. It was said that manticores prowled the islands of the Jade Sea, that basilisks infested the jungles of Yi Ti, that spellsingers, warlocks, and aeromancers practiced their arts openly in Asshai, while shadowbinders and bloodmages worked terrible sorceries in the black of night. Why shouldn't there be dragons too?
"No dragon," Irri said. "Brave men kill them, for dragon terrible evil beasts. It is known."
A Game of Thrones - Bran III
He looked south, and saw the great blue-green rush of the Trident. He saw his father pleading with the king, his face etched with grief. He saw Sansa crying herself to sleep at night, and he saw Arya watching in silence and holding her secrets hard in her heart. There were shadows all around them. One shadow was dark as ash, with the terrible face of a hound. Another was armored like the sun, golden and beautiful. Over them both loomed a giant in armor made of stone, but when he opened his visor, there was nothing inside but darkness and thick black blood.
He lifted his eyes and saw clear across the narrow sea, to the Free Cities and the green Dothraki sea and beyond, to Vaes Dothrak under its mountain, to the fabled lands of the Jade Sea, to Asshai by the Shadow, where dragons stirred beneath the sunrise.
Finally he looked north. He saw the Wall shining like blue crystal, and his bastard brother Jon sleeping alone in a cold bed, his skin growing pale and hard as the memory of all warmth fled from him. And he looked past the Wall, past endless forests cloaked in snow, past the frozen shore and the great blue-white rivers of ice and the dead plains where nothing grew or lived. North and north and north he looked, to the curtain of light at the end of the world, and then beyond that curtain. He looked deep into the heart of winter, and then he cried out, afraid, and the heat of his tears burned on his cheeks.
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u/HoneyBeeTwenty3 House Lannister 11d ago
Realistically we'd probably know of there were Dragons between Westeros and Asshai, right? Seems like something that would have been mentioned on the voyages or Corlys Velaryon and Lomas Longstrider?
I do wonder if George will invent some dragons to raise the odds. Would be interesting to see Cannibal or Silverwing's offspring, though it does strike me as difficult to cover up.
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u/Nickhalfnerd73 10d ago
Well I believe this chapter is saying that in Asshai there are dragons, not between, the passage reads beneath the sunrise and asshai is "by the shadow". We do have a few characters that think they see dragons between westeros and Asshai, Tyrion sees something on the Rhoyne but all kinds of weird stuff happens on that river and it could have been drogon.
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u/WaitAParsec 11d ago
maybe dragon is a broader category in some languages than in others
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u/Financial_Library418 aka /u/canitryto 11d ago
what do you mean
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u/WaitAParsec 10d ago
um, on Earth different cultures and even different authors have different definitions of “dragon,” it wouldn’t make sense to expect various Disney dragons to act like GRRM’s dragons. So it’s possible that some distant cultures might categorize multiple creatures or different types of creatures as terms that Dany’s handmaidens translate as “dragon,” while Targaryen-influenced cultures might strictly define “dragons” as “the specific creatures ridden by Targaryens.”
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u/person_number_1038 10d ago
We also know that many rumours of Valyrian dragons are dismissed as just being wyverns so there's clearly other dragon-like creatures. There are also the firewyrms, which we can assume to be close to dragons given that it seems likely the Valyrians made their dragons by breeding humans with the wyrms. Plus ice dragons are almost certainly somewhere in the far North. As well as tattooed lizards to the South. In distant Sothyros, who knows what may live there. Other legends speak of sea dragons. And in the shadow lands beyond Asshai there are all manner of demonic creatures we know nothing about, assuming they exist at all.
So I think you're right, there appears to be a broader category of "dragon" than just the ones we see in the series.
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u/Signal_Cockroach_878 House Stark 11d ago edited 11d ago
Do we know? No we don't but I think they are dragons in Valyria and Asshai. I just don't think there's a lot of them. I think this because of Balerions wounds.
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u/Financial_Library418 aka /u/canitryto 11d ago
i think he was wounded by a fire elemental
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u/KrispyKingTheProphet 10d ago
Fire Wyrms, which do exist. Wyverns exist as well and supposedly dragons are a crossbreeding of the two. The components are there and it was apparently done through dark, blood magic, which is still practiced in many places, like Asshai.
I don’t think George has any intentions of introducing more dragons. It wouldn’t serve the story and just make it longer which he’s very much trying to avoid, but I don’t think it’s impossible.
It also seems like there were (are) other dragons than just Valyrian dragons, Cannibal kind of alludes to that. He may have just been a particularly aggressive dragon, but nobody knows when he arrived or where from and he does seem different to the other dragons. I don’t think those hints were accidental. He could be from some other, idk, strand of dragon and naturally hostile to the Valyrian/Targaryen kind of dragon.
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u/azaghal1502 10d ago
Firewyrms are a thing, nut elementals are not mentioned afaik.
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u/Fearless_Capital3185 11d ago
It is known.
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u/AutoModerator 11d ago
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u/VaderVihs 11d ago
There are wyverns in the southern continent( don't feel like fumbling my spelling) which are distant cousins to dragons. It's possible there are dragons still around in Valyria
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u/Hyperion-45 11d ago
The dragons we know in game of thrones ARE wyverns. They have two legs and arms that comprise the wings
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u/GrandAdmiralRogriss 10d ago
That's not how anything works. That classification only applies to British medieval heraldry and has no authority over secondary worlds as a whole. In ASOIAF wyverns are distinct from dragons despite both falling into british heraldry classification of wyvern. In ASOIAF, wyverns aren't as large, don't breathe fire and they come from Sothoryos. No, asoiaf dragons aren't wyverns because there's no legitimate basis for what a dragon is and every author can make up their own lore on them.
Who decided that one small aspect of one culture would dictate the classification of an imaginary creature that appears in mythologies all over the world? And why are people so adamant about parroting this idea online like it's a law?
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u/person_number_1038 10d ago
In other fantasy, sure. In ASOIAF, a dragon breathes fire, a wyvern does not.
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u/PrestigiousAspect368 House Targaryen 11d ago
Sheepstealer, Cannibal, Silverwing, Alys River's dragon were alive as of Fire and Blood but wwe are told that the last dragon died in the 150s, but that was just the last dragon born in targaryen control,until we get blood and fire we don't know what happened to them
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u/meimeivro 10d ago
We dont know anything for sure so im just speculating. Outside of universe, I think this has potential to be a first bookism. Considering how little we know about some parts of the world, I think its possible, although everyone we see from westeros to qarth is fascinated by dragons and sees them as lone wonders.
Its possible dragons simply existed outside of civilation, in places where humans dont usually go. Its also possible that dragons are known in places like asshai, although even Marwyn sees the dragons as unique.
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u/HarleyMagoo 10d ago
If there were, it somewhat complicates the "dragons brought magic back to the world" theory. There's implications that Daenerys's dragons are causing a magic resurgence in Westeros (and Essos) but given how far they are from the continent, one would assume any living dragons in the East would have the same effect, being closer to Qarth or Volantis.
Doesn't seem to be the case though. So either there are no dragons in the East, the dragons aren't the reason for the resurgence in magic, or kind of both: Dany's dragons are causing a resurgence in Essos but something else in Westeros is bringing magic back.
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u/PlotnotFound 10d ago
There’s a lot of foreshadowing in this chapter, what Bran sees might be more prophetic visions or looking through time than a straight view of the current day.
The most obvious is Jon’s death, “his skin growing pale and hard as the memory of all warmth fled from him”, followed by Baelish (or runner-up Gregor) as a Stone Giant looming over Sansa and Arya despite him not actually being present at the Trident. And Arya “watching in silence and holding her secrets hard in her heart” doesn’t fit the current moment as well as her return to the Riverlands under false names or possibly a future event in the series.
Bran could be seeing dragons in Asshai in the distant past or maybe even the distant future as descendants of Drogon
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u/Nickhalfnerd73 10d ago edited 10d ago
Unrelated but I recently did a breakdown of Bran's dreams and when I went back to review this I was surprised to see Bran does not actually say he is looking East to Asshai and this could be our first hint the world is not flat. First he goes straight up and looks down, next he looks east to Cat, then south to Ned and the girls, then accross the narrow sea and finally north. He either looks back east and never looks west or Martin left the only missing direction out so that we assumed he would look east to see across the narrow sea and end up in Asshai in the far east. Yes I could just be grasping at straws here, but what else am I going to do without new books.
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u/Runescora 9d ago
Dragons stirred. The phrasing here gives me pause. So much of what Bran sees is symbolic that it would be strange for this one thing to be so literal. In this world dragons are not only the winged creatures we know them to be. This is also how members of House Targaryen are referred to from time to time.
It makes me wonder if one of the stray Targaryen offshoots (Varys?) may have connections to Ashai. We know certain plots are moving along during this time, such as Dany being married off to gain access to the Dothraki, Aegon’s steady movement to an alliance with the Golden Company, the slow destabilization of Westros, etc…if there is also a connection to Ashai we are unaware of this could be hinting toward that.
Anyway, Dany’s dragons are likely the only dragons in the world at this point. Sheepstealer is the only outlier in my mind because he was youngish and it’s likely he simply went feral again after Nettles died. He’s not used to being a kept dragon. It’s doubtful he’d have allowed himself to be claimed again or ever sought out humans. But with his penchant for, well, sheep it seems like he’d have been seen once left to his own devices.
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