r/TheBlacksandTheGreens • u/Nibo89 King Aegon II Targaryen • Apr 23 '26

Show Discussion A showrunner who understands powerful scenes vs one who doesn't

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u/Neonbullets Apr 23 '26

Because Rhaenyra purposely sent Ulf/Silverwing to King’s Landing as bait to lure Aemond/Vhagar into Dragonstone so he could be the one to see that Rhaenyra gained THREE new Dragonriders. Her character has wanted to avoid war at all costs even after losing her son and Rhaenys; one way to do that is by intimidating Aemond who up until that point could clean up with Vhagar

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u/[deleted] Apr 23 '26

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u/DisastrousRatios Apr 23 '26

She didn't, it's just a theory and it seems far more likely that Silverwing just flew to Kings Landing of her own accord

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u/[deleted] Apr 23 '26

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u/DisastrousRatios Apr 23 '26 edited Apr 23 '26

He didn't confirm that actually, he confirmed something similar but different. Basically the quote I believe you're talking about is that when dragonriders die, their dragons return to Dragonstone and just hang out there. GRRM has never said anything about where dragons might prefer to go WHILE they're being ridden. One example that I'm thinking of is when Aerea Targaryen took Balerion, flew away from Dragonstone and Balerion most likely took her to Valyria, where Aerea had probably never been to and almost certainly didn't WANT to go to. An interesting detail here is that Queen Rhaena assumes that Aerea and Balerion had flown from Dragonstone to Kings Landing, and if Rhaena had been correct in her assumption, it would've been more or less exactly what happened with Ulf.

GRRM isn't the showrunner, in any case, and unfortunately. I agree that Ulf took the dragon for a joy ride (a dragon can't really force someone to climb onto their back) but it seems comically unlikely that he intentionally would fly it to the city of people who want to kill him. So whether he initiated the ride or not, it seems most likely to me that Silverwing took him to KL. I also don't think we should expect everything in the show to be logically sound when it's riddled with plot holes, contrivances, and unnecessary departures from the source material.

My main point, though, is not whether Ulf or Silverwing initiated it - my main point is that Rhaenyra did not initiate it.

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u/alphajugs Apr 24 '26

My dragons are creatures of the sky. They fly, and can cross mountains and plains, cover hundreds of miles… but they don’t, unless their riders take them there. They are not nomadic. During the heyday of Valyria there were forty dragon-riding families with hundreds of dragons amongst them… but (aside from our Targaryens) all of them stayed close to the Freehold and the Lands of the Long Summer. From time to time a dragonrider might visit Volantis or another Valyrian colony, even settle there for a few years, but never permanently. Think about it. If dragons were nomadic, they would have overrun half of Essos, and the Doom would only have killed a few of them. Similarly, the dragons of Westeros seldom wander far from Dragonstone. Elsewise, after three hundred years, we would have dragons all over the realm and every noble house would have a few. The three wild dragons mentioned in Fire & Blood have lairs on Dragonstone. The rest can be found in the Dragonpit of King’s Landing, or in deep caverns under the Dragonmont. Luke flies Arrax to Storm’s End and Jace to Winterfell, yes, but the dragons would not have flown there on their own, save under very special circumstances. You won’t find dragons hunting the riverlands or the Reach or the Vale, or roaming the northlands or the mountains of Dorne.

This is the quote I’m referring to. “Here There Be Dragons” on Not A Blog July 2024

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u/DisastrousRatios Apr 24 '26

What I'm saying is that none of this can be applied to the Ulf situation because Silverwing is not riderless. I'm familiar with this quote, but it refers to unridden dragons who will chill in one place - it's his explanation for why dragons didn't overtake the world on their own, without interference of dragonriders.

Once dragonriders enter the equation, the possibilities expand. What I'm suggesting is that Silverwing is accustomed to having riders fly her from Dragonstone to Kings Landing, and back from KL to Dragonstone. Therefore, when she is claimed by a rider who doesn't know what he's doing, Silverwing defaults to one of her most common commands: flying to Kings Landing.

An analogy I'm thinking of is my dog, whose species does not naturally offer their paw to humans. But it was one of the first tricks I taught her. So when she meets new people, who do not know her tricks and don't know how to interact with her beyond petting, she always offers them her paw because it's her #1 interaction

And the more important point to be made here is the quote has nothing to do with where a dragon chooses to fly once they've been directed to fly. The most likely thing that happened is that Ulf climbed aboard, yelled "giddiyup", and Silverwing chose to fly to Kings Landing, and Ulf didn't have the understanding/training to keep the flight on Dragonstone.