We’ll learn more about the bonds between dragons and humans in future Game of Thrones books

What makes a dragon bond to a human? A Song of Ice and Fire author George R.R. Martin promises answers in his forthcoming book(s).

Dragons are hugely important to the world of ice and fire, but the ones we know best — Drogon, Rheagal and Viserion from Game of Thrones — were born after dragons had been dead for over 100 years. Much of the knowledge of how to raise and handle them had been lost, leaving Daenerys Targaryen to basically figure it out herself.

Back when dragons ruled the skies above Westeros, a period HBO will explore in its upcoming series House of the Dragon, it was known that the bonds between dragon and rider were very special, to the point where dragons would generally only bond with one rider at a time, usually lasting the rest of that rider’s life. But how do dragons and humans form bonds?

Apparently, that’s something we’ll learn in the books to come, as George R.R. Martin explained when he was interviewed on a Portuguese TV show during Worldcon 2019, which was his last public appearance. (Thanks to Redditor zionius for recording it and to Los Siete Reinos for finding it!) “You have to bond with the dragon, there’s no way you can physically intimidate a dragon to obey you,” Martin said. “I mean I know people who write horses and horses are big powerful animals too, but where we’re able as riders to…propel the horse and so forth. You annoy a dragon, he’ll just turn his head around and roast you or bite you in half.”

"[I]t takes something more than physical force, it takes this kind of psychic bond and the precise nature of that bond is something that I’m still exploring in the world of Ice and Fire, and you know the novels yet to come, and also the Targaryen histories."

By “the novels yet to come,” Martin means the final two books in his Song of Ice and Fire series, The Winds of Winter and A Dream of Spring. By “the Targaryen histories,” he means the second volume of Fire & Blood, which tells the story of the Targaryens from their arrival in Westeros up to the Dance of the Dragons, which will be dramatized in HBO’s prequel show.

Generally, Targaryens have been the only people who seem capable of bonding with dragons, although there have been exceptions. Any particular reason they have this relationship? “Well that’s that’s something you have to keep reading to find out,” Martin said, teasingly. “They’ll be more of that in both the novels to come and in Fire and Blood Vol. II. But you know the Targaryens are the last surviving noble house of the Freehold of Valyria which fell 400 years before the start of Game of Thrones in a cataclysm…

The fall of Valyria is a fascinating, little-explored era of this world’s history. Is Martin suggesting that the secrets to dragon-bonding might be found there? After all, back then, it wasn’t just Targaryens who were doing it. “[T]here were a lot of rival dragon riding families,” Martin said. “But only the Targaryen saw the Doom of Valyria coming and were able to get themselves away long enough to spare them and their beasts.”

Dragons are tremendously powerful, but at the end of the day, there are plenty of things they can’t help you do, as Martin reminds us:

"The Dragons can win wars for you, that’s established in the histories. But they can’t necessarily produce peace or prosperity or help you rule the nation. You know Daenerys Targaryen is finding it out in Meereen when she defeats the cities of Slavers Bay with her three dragons. In trying to rule as Queen, she can destroy Meereen any time she wants by just unleashing the dragons, she could kill a lot of people, wipe out most of the population of the city, reduce the entire city to a fiery inferno, but that doesn’t help her come up with good laws or to establish peace between the original inhabitants and the freedmen and people that she’s brought in. So ruling is more than just the power to destroy, and that’s a lesson that she’s definitely learning."

And that’s where we’ll pick up with The Winds of Winter when it comes out, hopefully sooner rather than later.

Or possibly HBO will put out House of the Dragon first. The race is on!

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