7 intriguing mysteries from A Song of Ice and Fire

Where is Daenerys Targaryen’s house with the Red Door?

Throughout the A Song of Ice and Fire books, Daenerys Targaryen thinks back on the years she spent living Free City of Braavos as a child, in a house with a red door. She and her brother Viserys lived there under the care of Ser Willem Darry.

• In A Game of Thrones, before Daenerys introduces herself to Khal Drogo, she thinks longingly of the house with the red door.
• In the Red Waste, during her recovery after giving birth to her stillborn son, Dany sees the house with the red door in her fever dreams. She tries to reach it, but can’t.
• In A Clash of Kings, in Qarth, Daenerys Targaryen goes to seek answers in the House of the Undying. Inside, she passes through many rooms containing visions. One of the visions shows a room from the house with the red door. She recognizes the great wooden beams with the carved animal faces on them, and sees a lemon tree outside of the window, as well as Ser Willem Darry. Daenerys longs to enter, but knows that Darry has been dead for years and that the vision is false.
• In A Storm of Swords, shortly after the conquest of Meereen, Daenerys Targaryen looks out over the city from her terrace. When Missandei asks what she is doing, Daenerys replies that she was looking for a “house with a red door,” but did not find it, as by night all doors are black.
• In A Dance with Dragons, Dany dreams of a house with a red door and of her and Daario Naharis living as man and wife, simple folk living a simple life. Daenerys also realizes that the marriage pact that arranged for Prince Quentyn Martell to marry her had been signed in Braavos while she was living in the house with the red door. The realization makes her feel strange.

The house with the red door is the closest thing to a home that Daenerys has ever known. It symbolizes her dream her dream of normality. But she is a dragon queen, anything but normal, and her memory of the house is fuzzy.

In fact, it’s so fuzzy that the house might not be in Braavos at all. George R.R. Martin answered a fan’s question about the house back in 2015:

"Q: “Dany remembers a lemon tree outside the house with the red door in Braavos, but citrus trees shouldn’t really grow in Braavos’s cold, foggy climate. Is this discrepancy significant? Does it point to future revelations about Dany’s past. Thank you so much.” GRRM: “Very perceptive of you. Yes, it does point to … well, that would be telling.”"

Where is this house with the red door? The mystery endures.