Demon Babies

     So we've learned quite a bit about the King of Tars and it's lump baby, and several stories like it, but there are also other sources we can look at that might've taken inspiration from the story as well. One of these source is none other than Game of Thrones. Game of Thrones seems to get a lot of it's content from big titles that get their inspiration from history. King of Tars surprisingly also seems to make an appearance in the series.


    In what way you might ask? Well, during the first seasons we learn all about the great Khal Drogo and how Daenerys was sold to him in exchange for a crown and his people. Skipping ahead in time a bit, they fall in love and the great stallion that will mount the world is conceived. Although this doesn't exactly fit the bill word for word when compared to that of King of Tars, it definitely has it's similarities. We have the Islamic
Sultan of Damascus that wants the princess of Tars who is Christian and then we have the Khal Drogo who worships the Great Stallion being married to Daenerys who, assuming she follows what her family followed, the "old gods". We do not know for sure if religion plays any role in what happens next for Game of Thrones, but we do know that it did for the King of Tars side. Difference in religion on the princess's part caused a lump of a child to be born, creating a conflict between the two of them and creating a battle of religions. This is much different from Game of Thrones because it's a witch that causes Daenerys's scaled mutated baby to be born. The context being that the witch hated the Khal Drogo for what he's done so when asked for help in healing his illness, she took a life to give life, that being the life of their great stallion child who was supposed to mount the world. Again, religion might not have had anything to do with the Game of Thrones side, but there are definitely similarities as far as how it started and how it ended.

     The television series has proven time and time again that it's taken many thoughts from history and popular authors like the kingdom of Westeros being the 7 kingdoms in England, Hardians wall and the big ice wall, Tolkien's books, etc. It's very interesting to see that the series might've also taken some inspiration from King of Tars, even if it's not much.

Sex and Dragons: How Dany’s “Tasteful Nudity” and Dragon Children Symbolize Her Role as White Imperialist

         Daenerys has been known to proclaim “I am the mother of dragons.”  Anyone with Internet access and a mediocre sense of humor knows this.  But what do these dragons mean in a world where everybody is associated with a symbol or identity of sorts, including the bastardy of Jon Snow as incongruent with his genuine goodness and Tyrion’s malformed façade as a means of shaping him as a Richard III figure? Dany has her dragons.  The majority of her segment of the first book builds up to the moment at which she claims her matriarchal role and it lingers throughout the rest of the series, television and novel.  These dragons are symbolic of Dany’s imperial power.

            First, the dragons emerge in suspicious timing with the death of Khal Drogo and Rhago’s ill-fated monstrous birth.  They emerge at a time when Dany, at least in the show’s depiction, has begun to adorn herself in her original attire.   The dragons were the emblem of her family, her ancestors, really.  In this sense, they represent Dany reclaiming her heritage and seizing that power, that identity.  Normally, this gesture would be seen as empowering, however, Dany’s Targaryen roots present the much more problematic action of Dany demeaning the Dothraki people, ultimately. Upon the death of her husband, she rises from the pyre along with her dragons and she takes the role of white imperialist in place of indigenous warrior and utilizes those people to reclaim her prize.  Fire cannot burn the dragon, as she says.  Instead, it bolsters her and gives rise to the birth of her dragons.  The dragons rise and so does Dany. 

Both mythological reptile and white-haired princess are unclothed, in a high fantasy recreation of “The Birth of Venus,” a repetition of one of Dany’s first scenes in which she, naked, steps into the scalding bath.  While nudity could draw Dany closer to the carnal and atavistic depictions of the Dothraki people, we, the viewers, do not see her extremities.  The assets both the camera and the male characters draw attention to are now covered by dragons.  Dany’s armor is now her small dragon family.  Assuming dragons equate to white imperialism, Dany’s reptilian fig leaves seem to better her in juxtaposition to the nude Dothraki women.  She is still nude, she is still somewhat vulnerable, but the parts of her body both representative of her role as prize and potentially role as Dothraki Khaleesi, are shrouded by civilized imperialism.

Perhaps the dragons in their roles as Dany’s “children” as opposed to her “pets” further this imperialistic nature.  Even though mythological and ancient in appearance and nature, these dragons represent a new future.  Somehow they are a more civilized generation than the Dothraki people.  Even Dany exclaims that dragons eat horses.  Dragons, essentially the symbol of the white imperial Dany, conquer the symbols of the Dothraki.  In this sense, Dany takes over the Dothraki with her “seed,” her lineage.  It just so happens to be super convenient that her half—Dothraki son didn’t quite make it past the lump child stage.

Dany as both sexualized being and mother of dragons serves an interesting purpose.  Dany uses her dragons not quite as an armor but as a distraction from what the male characters had been determining her worth by.  Through using her dragons as form of empowerment, she proves she is more than her sexuality.  She reclaims a new identity as woman, as matriarch and not sex thing, and, further, heightens her role as an imperialist force that cannot be stopped.

image source:fanpop

             

What does Game of Thrones and History of the Kings of Britain have in common?

So the obvious answer is dragons right. Wrong. At least for my post it is. Sigils are the answer to my hard hitting question. They are the icon of the family and they have been around for many a year. They are the identifying picture that can tell a person who your family is, who you ally with, or even where you're from. 

As mentioned, sigils have been around for a long time and being that George R.R. Martin pulls from history itself, I figured why not look into it. So I did and I found this awesome Game of Thrones picture of the main houses and their sigils. 

So this has excluded some of the main ones, like House Stark and Targaryen, but most of the others are here in this picture. This goes along with this fantastic blog I read here*. It has this chart of about what possibly inspired the sigils for the GoT houses, like House Targaryen and the red 3-headed dragon as their sigil is inspired by King Arthur and Merlin the dragonlord.

In History of the Kings of Britain, Merlin has a prophecy about the red and white dragons and Arthur’s family symbol is the almighty dragon. As the sign of this family, the dragon image has solidified the stories of King Arthur being so powerful much like his father Uther. So, much like Henry Tudor, who claimed to be a descendant of King Arthur to help strengthen his claim to the throne, the use of the dragon symbol aids Daenerys in her claim to the throne because of the power that comes with it.  No one is going to willingly fight a dragon, and as seen throughout the lore, dragons strike fear into those brave enough to look upon it.

*the chart mentioned in the blog post is the imaginings and thoughts of what might be the inspiration of the sigils for the show. None of the explanations were confirmed by Martin.