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Warning: Spoilers ahead for “Game of Thrones” season seven, episode six, “Beyond the Wall.”
Any “Game of Thrones” fans knows Daenerys Targaryen is the Mother of Dragons, but what the series hasn’t made clear is exactly why she believes they are the only children she will have in her lifetime. For that, we turn to George R.R. Martin’s “A Song of Ice and Fire” and an ominous warning given to Daenerys.
In season seven’s penultimate episode, “Beyond the Wall,” there were multiple references to Daenerys’ supposed infertility and the prospect of both Daenerys and Jon having children in the future.
“The dragons are my children,” Daenerys told Jon during their romantic boat scene. “They’re the only children I’ll ever have — do you understand?”
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Tyrion also discussed the problem of Daenerys’ lineage with her. “How do we ensure your vision endures? After you break the wheel how do we make sure it stays broken?” he asked. “You say you can’t have children, but there are other ways of choosing a successor.”
And lastly, Jorah Mormont brought up the idea of Jon Snow having kids when Jon tried to return Longclaw to Jorah. “May it serve you well, and your children after you,” Jorah told Jon, refusing the Valyrian steel blade.
All the chatter about children and lineage in an episode when Jon and Daenerys finally seemed to open up to each other about their growing affections does not seem coincidental. What if Jon and Daenerys have a child together (yes, even though they are aunt and nephew)? Is that even possible?
Daenerys believes she’s infertile because of Mirri Maz Duur
Everything goes horribly wrong for Daenerys in the first book and season when her first husband, Khal Drogo, is dying from an infected wound. She asks a maegi (a woman of Essos who practices blood magic) name Mirri Maz Duur to save him at whatever cost.
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“Only death can pay for life,” Duur tells Daenerys.
Daenerys agrees, thinking Duur only meant to kill Drogo’s horse as a sacrifice. But after Daeneys leaves the tent and hears Duur chanting, her unborn child Rhaego begins kicking in her womb and she starts feeling sharp pains. Daenerys eventually collapsed from the pain as Jorah brought her back into the tent, and when she wakes up she’s told Rhaego was dead when she gave birth to him.
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Daenerys then asks to see Drogo, to see what she “bought with her son’s life.” Jorah reveals to Daenerys that Drogo is now effectively in a vegetative state — alive but unable to see, speak, or move on his own.
“This is not life,” Daenerys tells Duur. “When will he be as he was?”
“When the sun rises in the west and sets in the east,” Duur said on the show. “When the seas go dry and the mountains blow in the wind, like leaves.”
However, “Game of Thrones” omitted a significant portion of Duur’s warning. Here’s what she said in the books:
When the sun rises in the west and sets in the east
When the seas go dry and mountains blow in the wind like leaves
When your womb quickens again and you bear a living child
Then he will return, and not before.
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In the books, Daenerys frequently thinks back to this “prophecy” from Duur, and believes the maegi was telling the truth about her never bearing a living child again, just as Khal Drogo would never return to her.
Though the show omitted that line from Duur, Daenerys still repeated the idea in later seasons. On the second season, when the warlocks of Qarth stole her dragons, Daenerys and Jorah spoke about leaving them behind.
“They have my dragons — a mother does not flee without her children,” Daenerys said.
“They’re not your children,” Jorah told her. “I know they call you the Mother of Dragons and I know you love them but you didn’t grow them in your womb and they didn’t suckle at your breast.”
(Oddly enough, Martin did write that the dragons nursed from Daenerys when they were first born and she emerged naked from the fire of Drogo’s pyre: “The cream-and-gold dragon was suckling at her left breast, the green-and-bronze at her right.”)
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“They are my children,” Daenerys told Jorah. “And they are the only children I will ever have.”
Emilia Clarke, who plays Daenerys, also spoke toward this point in a season two behind-the-scenes interview. “In her eyes they really are her children,” Clarke said. “Dany knows this is it — this is the only family she has.”
Book readers believe Daenerys has a miscarriage in the fifth book
As several discussions on the “A Song of Ice and Fire” subreddit have explored, it’s possible that Daenerys got pregnant again in the fifth book, “A Dance With Dragons,” but then had a miscarriage. In her final chapter of the last published book, Daenerys experiences severe cramps and bleeding while she’s wandering in the Dothraki sea.
“She was bleeding, but it was only woman’s blood,” Martin wrote. “The moon is still a crescent, though. How can that be? She tried to remember the last time she had bled. The last full moon? The one before? The one before that? No, it cannot have been so long as that.”
If we assume this was meant to be showing Daenerys miscarrying, it means she can still get pregnant — but we don’t know if she can carry a living child to term.
The show omitted this small detail entirely, but they did include a scene with Daenerys and Khal Moro on the sixth season where this “prophecy” comes up again.
“I will not lie with you, and I will bear no children for you, or anyone else,” Daenerys told Moro. “Not until the sun rises in the west, and sets in the east.”
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What does all this talk of infertility mean for her future?
As Tyrion pointed out, there’s little point in Daenerys conquering Westeros only to have her legacy die with her. She needs an heir, and even though there are more democratic methods of choosing a successor it would be more in line with the Targaryen history if she bore a legitimate child.
Which brings us to Jon Snow — or should we say Jon Targaryen? If the episode five truth bomb dropped by Gilly bears out, that means Rhaegar Targaryen, Daenerys’ older brother, annulled his marriage to Elia Martell and married Lyanna Stark before she gave birth to Jon. For a explanation of who Prince Rhaegar was and what motivated his choices, read our breakdown here.
Incestuous marriages have been a part of Targaryen culture for centuries, a practice meant to keep their bloodline and connection with dragons strong. If Jon and Daenerys marry and conceive a child, that would be the best possible way for the Targaryen dynasty to carry on — even if the idea skeeves out modern viewers of the show (or maybe Jon and Daenerys themselves).
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Of course, “Game of Thrones” fans need to wait and see if Jon and Daenerys take their hand-holding affections to the next level, and even then we might come to realize Daenerys has been right all along about her barren status.
Plus none of this will matter if the Night King’s army decimates the realm and destroys the world of men to the point where those left standing barely have the human race to rule over, let alone a kingdom. But that’s a discussion for another time.
The “Game of Thrones” season seven finale airs Sunday, August 27.
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