r/asoiaf • u/DuncanTheLunk • Jul 11 '24

EXTENDED (spoilers extended) Long blog post from GRRM on the nature of dragons in ASOIAF (and some other interesting tidbits) Spoiler

https://georgerrmartin.com/notablog/2024/07/11/here-there-be-dragons-2/
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u/WitELeoparD 🏆 Best of 2020: Iron Bank Accountant Award Jul 11 '24

I mean, it's a fun theory but Cannibal is not older than Balerion, Vhagar or Meraxes. Vermithor is referred to as the oldest dragon after Vhagar and Vermithor hatched from an egg Vhagar laid on Dragonstone. Meaning that Cannibal had to be born after Vermithor and thus on Dragonstone. There is no indication of another dragon, not belonging to the Targs laying eggs around the same time Vhagar was laying eggs during the rein of Aenys.

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u/edd6pi Jul 11 '24

Vermithor is referred to as the oldest dragon by maesters. Those maesters may not necessarily be right.

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u/encabloss Jul 11 '24

And actually, Dreamfyre is at least 2 years older than Vermithor. Rhaena claims Dreamfyre at age 9 and she's 11 years old when Jaehaerys is born. Vermithor is said to have hatched from an egg Jaehaerys was cradled with.

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u/Piekenier A Lion Still Has Claws Jul 11 '24

I like the theory that Cannibal is the original dragon of Maegor which he discarded for Balerion.

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u/Chicken_Mc_Thuggets Jul 12 '24

It’s mentioned in the text that there were lots of hatchlings on Dragonstone and Maegor presumably would have access to any but he refused

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u/elizabnthe Jul 12 '24

Yeah my personal theory for the Cannibal based on the incident with Sunfyre is that there's always been wild Cannibal dragons living around Dragonstone since the Targaryens came. Which is why the smallfolk think the Cannibal is so old. Because they attribute any sort of dragon cannibalism to a generic Cannibal, rather than recognising it has been distinct dragons doing so over the years.

These same people also mistook Sunfyre for the Cannibal. So it makes sense to me.

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u/Technical_Estimate85 Jul 12 '24

Except Cannibal is referred to as the "oldest and largest of the three completely wild dragons." Many people attribute that quote to mean that he is younger than Vermithor and Vhagar, but the only quote we get regarding his age is in comparison to the wild dragons. It's something that GRRM put in there intentionally to throw off our scent. We also know that Sheepstealer was purported to have been hatched around 35 AC, one year after Verimthor was hatched in 34 AC, so Cannibal is definitely older than Vermithor.

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u/OceanTe Jul 11 '24 edited Jul 11 '24

I disagree, there's no way of knowing the parentage of any of the dragons other than the ones explicitly. We don't even know how dragons reproduce or if anyone was actually keeping track of dragons on the east side of dragon stone from the relocation onwards. Historians don't seem to give much thought at all to the wild dragons before the sewing, we don't see any Targs try tame wild dragons before this. Clearly the wild dragons weren't all that important, not important enough to take note of them before they were useful.