“House of the Dragon” takes place throughout the Targaryen golden age, centuries earlier than “Game of Thrones” and through an period full of dragons and their highly effective human riders. How does the bond between dragon and rider kind? It’s sophisticated, nevertheless it’s additionally pivotal to the energy performs that happen inside House Targaryen.
What Is Dragon Bonding?
Dragon bonding is a sophisticated factor, and it might probably occur at any time, although often when the human riders are youthful. Rhaenyra, for example, bonded together with her dragon Syrax when she was simply seven years previous.
The bond between a dragon and its human rider is a one-on-one relationship: as soon as a dragon has bonded with a rider, they won’t permit every other human, even one other dragonrider, to journey them. However, in the ebook “Fire and Blood,” Westeros’s historians do notice a couple of circumstances the place dragons with dwelling bonded riders have allowed different people on them, so long as their bonded rider can also be using at the identical time.
The bond between a dragon and their human rider lasts till demise. Given their lengthy lifespans, dragons often outlive their riders. In some circumstances, a dragon could bond with a brand new rider after the first rider’s demise. Technically talking, a dragonrider who outlives their dragon may try to bond with a brand new dragon, however nobody in historical past has ever truly tried it.
How Do the Targaryens Get Bonded With Their Dragons?
The precise “science” of the bond between human dragonriders and their dragons is a bit murky and laborious to foretell. Still, the Targaryens developed a ritual to attempt to make sure that every member of their household is bonded with a dragon early in life.
To attempt to enhance the odds of a dragon hatching and bonding with a human, the Targaryens historically place an unhatched dragon egg in the cradle of an toddler. “House of the Dragon” exhibits this custom early on when the household plans to place considered one of Dreamfyre’s unhatched eggs in the cradle of Baelon, Viserys and Aemma’s long-awaited son. The identical egg turns into the middle of controversy, nonetheless, after Baelon dies and Daemon tries to steal the egg for his future firstborn, solely to be stopped by Rhaenyra.
The bond between a dragon and its rider is a pivotal a part of Targaryen historical past — and of the Dance of the Dragons — and we’ll undoubtedly be seeing extra of it all through “House of the Dragon.”
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