The epic fantasy novel series A Song of Ice and Fire is best known for two things: inspiring HBO’s Game of Thrones and being unfinished. However, that incompletion has cultivated a passionate fandom with plenty of time to craft intricate theories and headcanon based on George R.R. Martin’s writing – even some parts that weren’t published. Read on for a deep-cut fan theory that could be relevant for the books, and for HBO’s potential spinoff series about Aegon’s Conquest.
While he is infamous for writer’s block in the last few years, Martin is a very prolific author, and this theory draws on some of his more obscure works. First there are his books Fire & Blood and The World of Ice and Fire – two companions to A Song of Ice and Fire which flesh out the history of Westeros and the rest of its fictional world. These are the primary inspiration for House of the Dragon, and will be the source material for Aegon’s Conquest if it gets greenlit. The second source here are Martin’s earlier drafts of his books, as you’ll see below.
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House of the Dragon has already showed us how TV spinoffs will work in concert with Martin’s writing by turning his historical accounts with unreliable narrators into more straightforward narratives on screen. They can also reveal important secrets in the lore – most notably, Aegon the Conquerer’s prophecy about The Long Night, and how it was passed down between Targaryen monarchs. We should expect other TV shows to reveal things that the fictional narrators of Fire & Blood and The World of Ice and Fire would not know, and the theory I outline below seems to fit that bill.
Cushing Memorial Library
Like many of the great recent ASoIaF fan theories, this one stems from a Reddit post by user u/gsteff. They traveled to the Cushing Memorial Library at Texas A&M University, which is home to one-of-a-kind collection of Martin’s personal correspondence, books and manuscripts. That includes unpublished drafts of the ASoIaF books, along with letters between Martin and his editors as they tried to finalize the writing. Examining these drafts and their differences from the final product has allowed users like u/gsteff to come up with all kinds of new fan theories – though it can be perilous, as the material in the drafts is not technically “canon.”
One of the most intriguing changes to the story came in the early drafts of the prologue to the fourth book, A Feast For Crows. The prologue follows Pate, an acolyte at the Citadel in Oldtown, in training to become a maester. This chapter is about Pate getting bribed to steal something by a mysterious figure who seems to be a Faceless Man – and whom the fandom generally agrees is actually Jaquen H’Ghar himself. In the published version, Pate is bribed to steal a set of master keys that can unlock any door in the Citadel, but that wasn’t Martin’s original plan. In several of the early drafts, Pate was asked to steal a Valyrian glass candle instead.
Glass Candles
Glass candles have not been shown on Game of Thrones or House of the Dragon, but they are fairly significant in the books. These obsidian artifacts were an important part of Valyrian fire magic, and we are told they can be used to “scry” across vast distances, and even communicate. To do so, they must be “lit,” though they glow with a magical light and are not consumed like wax. In these drafts, Martin ascribed another significant power to the glass candles: they could grant a form of immortality. The Faceless Man tells Pate:
“The night is dark and full of terrors, and light can keep some fearful things at bay. Even death. Fire was at the root of all Valyrian magic. With such candles men made themselves immortal. Dragonglass burns but it is not consumed… and so long as the flame lasts, the man whose life is bound to it cannot die… The bond did need to be renewed from time to time. With blood.”
This is a huge revelation, and while it wasn’t included in the final draft or any of the published books, it’s reasonable to expect that it’s still true – Martin just hasn’t found the right time to reveal it yet. Glass candles were already counterparts to the Wierwood trees, as both granted the ability to see things happening far way. The trees also keep greenseers alive as long as they stay tangled in the roots, like Bran’s teacher, Bloodraven. From the sound of it, glass candles could accomplish something similar, but they require blood sacrifice to do so.
There are plenty of ways that this new magical plot device could impact the story – YouTuber “Michael Talks About Stuff” made a compelling case that Melisandre’s mysterious immortality is linked to a glass candle, for example. Fans have already applied this form of magic to plenty of other mysteries in ASoIaF, but there’s one part of the story where I think it’s applicable, and I haven’t seen anyone else bring it up yet: Aegon’s Conquest. If Queen Rhaenys Targaryen was bound to immortality by a glass candle, it might be the best explanation yet for her mysterious disappearance.
Rhaenys Targaryen
According to Fire and Blood and The World of Ice and Fire, starting about 112 years after the “Doom of Valyria,” Aegon I Targaryen and his two sister-wives, Visenya and Rhaenys, set out to take over Westeros and unite all Seven Kingdoms under one monarch. All three siblings were dragon-riders, making this a relatively easy conquest. However, they never managed to to truly subdue Dorne, the desert-like kingdom at the southern end of Westeros. Dorne did not submit but did not go to war either, simply fleeing the dragonriders when they came to demand homage and sabotaging any rulers or armies the Targaryens tried to put in place. The Targaryens crowned Aegon king anyway, but continued trying to establish true control over Dorne in the “Dornish Wars.”
As far as Westerosi historians know, Rhaenys Targaryen was last seen in the year 10 AC (“after conquest”) while flying her dragon, Meraxes in the First Dornish War. A javelin launched by a “scorpion” device took Meraxes down near a castle called the Hellholt. The Targaryen forces couldn’t be certain if Rhaenys survived the fall, but neither she nor her dragon were recovered in the battle. It’s worth noting that the Hellholt was the home of House Uller, and they had a reputation for torture – similar to that of House Bolton in the North.
This is where the mysteries really start. Aegon and Visenya used their two remaining dragons to burn as many Dornish castles and villages as possible over the next three years – including the Hellholt – meaning either they didn’t think Rhaenys was still alive as a prisoner, or they weren’t concerned about burning her to death. The only castle they spared this fate was the capital, Sunspear. They still never succeeded in conquering Dorne this way, but in 13 AC the kingdom’s ruler, Princess Meria Martell, died of old age and was replaced by her son, Prince Nymor. This opened a new opportunity for peace.
Nymor’s Letter
Nymor sent a peace envoy to King’s Landing led by his daughter, Deria, presenting the bones of Meraxes to the Targaryens as a peace offering. They did not bring Rhaenys’ remains, and at first Aegon did not want to consider their offer, but Deria handed him a private letter from Nymor that got a truly inexplicable response from the king.
“King Aegon read Prince Nymor’s letter in open court, stone-faced and silent, while seated on the Iron Throne. When he rose afterward, men said, his hand was dripping blood. He burned the letter and never spoke of it again, but that night he mounted Balerion and flew off across the waters of Blackwater Bay, to Dragonstone upon its smoking mountain. When he returned the next morning, Aegon Targaryen agreed to the terms proposed by Nymor. Soon thereafter he signed a treaty of eternal peace with Dorne.”
The fictional historians narrating this book propose several theories about what this letter might say, and the fandom has agonized over it with no satisfactory answer. However, if we consider that Rhaenys – and perhaps all three of the conquering siblings – were magically bound to glass candles, a real answer finally begins to take shape.
New Possibilities
Visenya, Aegon and Rhaenys Targaryen were only one generation removed from Valyria, so it’s possible that many of the empire’s magical secrets had not been lost yet. In fact, Visenya was rumored to be a “dabbler” in sorcery, so it’s strongly implied that she knows some of the old secrets the Valyrians used to tame dragons and control volcanoes. Visenya also created the Kingsguard to protect her family personally, so it would make sense if she used blood magic to bind them to immortality in a time of war. Even if they didn’t mean to live forever, it would give them an advantage for a while.
This would also explain why Aegon and Visenya were willing to torch Dorne again and again, knowing that their sister was magically empowered to survive – if she still lived down there at all. Finally, it would explain Aegon’s odd one-night trip to Dragonstone and back. Perhaps he needed to check on Rhaenys’ glass candle, or sacrifice more blood to it, or put it out once and for all. Perhaps this was the first he had learned of it, and he went to see what Visenya had done.
As for the contents of the letter, the use of a glass candle here would open up several possibilities. It’s possible that House Uller tortured Rhaenys to the point where a normal person would have died, and that by sacrificing blood to the candle, Visenya and/or Aegon was able to restore her. She may also have asked them to extinguish the candle and put her out of her misery – a grim explanation, but definitely in keeping with Martin’s style. It could be that, after three years, the Dornish had figured out some way to kill a person even if they are bound to a glass candle, just as the Night’s Watch figured out that Valryian Steel could kill a white walker. Nymor might have threatened to kill Rhaenys and to reveal the secret to other great houses in Westeros, meaning Aegon and Visenya would be in danger as well, and none of their descendants would be able to use this magic.
As you can see, there are many permutations this theory can take, but in general it helps overcome some of the biggest issues with the maesters’ more conventional theories on what happened to Rhaenys, and why Aegon finally conceded to Nymor. This may even represent a happy ending, in a way – Aegon traveled to the Dornish capital Sunspear ten years later for a celebration of their long-standing peace. He brought along his heir, Aenys, the son he had with Rhaenys. If Rhaenys was still secretly alive in the desert, she had this chance to be reunited with both of them at least once.
TV Revelation
This theory isn’t perfect, but it neatly explains the mysteries around Rhaenys’ death left by Martin’s unreliable narrators. However, even if this is the right answer, there’s no reason for it to be explained in Martin’s upcoming books. That’s where the HBO series comes in. Just as House of the Dragon revealed the secret prophecy that drove the Targaryens to conquer, Aegon’s Conquest could explain more about how mighty those conquerers were – not just as dragonriders and politicians, but potentially as magic users as well.
You can read more about the materials at the Cushing Memorial Library on the ASoIaF subreddit, along with plenty of other related fan theories. Martin’s books are available in print, digital and audiobook format, and he has reported great progress on the next installment, The Winds of Winter, so it is coming soon. House of the Dragon Season 2 premieres on Sunday, June 16 on HBO and Max. The Aegon’s Conquest spinoff is in development now, but there’s no telling if it will ever make it to air or not.
