Did the Maesters kill all the dragons?

did the maesters kill all the dragons archmaester marwin says that they did but when and how is there any evidence that he's right hi everyone this is robert welcome to in deep geek this video is sponsored by skillshare the online learning community please do stick around to the end for an exclusive offer from them or if you'd like to see more videos about great fantasy stories like the lord of the rings a song of ice and fire and the witcher please click on the subscribe button in the bottom right of your screen and click on the bell icon the theory that the maesters killed all the dragons in westeros really stems from something that archmaester marwyn marwyn the mage says to sam right at the end of a feast for crows sam asks about maester eamonn but marwyn almost as a throwaway comment pivots to talk about the maester's world views more broadly marvin smiled a ghastly smile the juice of the sour leaf running red through his teeth who do you think killed all the dragons the last time around gallant dragon slayers armed with swords he spat the world the citadel is building has no place in it for sorcery or prophecy or glass candles much less for dragons this is an archmaester of the citadel accusing the maesters of killing all the dragons last time around marwyn is far from being an objective witness here his own area of study and expertise has been sidelined and mocked by the citadel for decades but is he speaking the truth he exits the room and old town before sam has a chance to press him on the point if this were just a random accusation from someone who doesn't know we could probably dismiss it quite quickly but although he is a bit of an outsider at the citadel as an archmaester marwyn does have access to all the maester's secret stores of knowledge and it has to be said that his accusation does ring true the maesters do hate magic and their cause would be advanced immensely if it would all just go away so did they kill the dragons it would be in their interest and if anyone has the knowledge and ability it's them well i guess we should start by clarifying what the last time means there have been two mass exterminations of dragons in ice and fire history the first was the doom of valyria i'm not going to get into that here although i do think there's a chance the maesters were involved in that i did a video on it ages ago if you're interested there were many dragons before it but then after it and after a series of reckless acts and mob killings in its aftermath the only ones left were the five the targaryens took with them to dragonstain four of them died and two more were born in the century before the targaryens invaded westeros with three dragons and over the following 130ish years the number of dragons in westeros grew significantly in the build-up to the dance of the dragons we're told that some dragons were regularly producing clutches of eggs at the start of the dance there were 20 living dragons plenty of dragon eggs and lots of targaryens or parched targaryens potentially able to ride them if things had remained unchecked there is every reason to believe that the number of dragons would have kept increasing exponentially but then the dance happened and let's call it what it really was it wasn't a dance it was a westerosi civil war and as well as the immense human loss lots of dragons died now there are conspiracy theories out there that the maesters started the dance certainly it's very suspicious that the usually above such things hightowers suddenly launched a coup attempt the hightowers of course are the founders and sponsors of the citadel but even if they did start it somehow once war had started its course was dictated by people and events beyond their reach they definitely weren't personally responsible for killing the dragons during the war and during the war 17 of the 20 living dragons died 10 died fighting other dragons veigar melis arax sunfire moondancer karaxis grey ghost vermithor sea smoke and tessarion five died in the storming of the dragonpit shrikhos taraxis morgul dreamfire and cyrax basically by being overwhelmed by thousands of foes and unable to escape and two vermax and stormcloud were killed by lucky shots from the ground the maesters may have been influencing events behind the scenes but they couldn't really have controlled any of the individual deaths now the only time that the maesters might have killed all the dragons was after the war when the number of live dragons was limited once more only four are known to have survived the war one of which morning was born during the dance crucially the other three grown dragons were not in possession of house targaryen at the time cannibal was a feral dragon living on dragonstone many had tried to bond with it or just approach it but no one had ever succeeded in fact it killed almost anyone who did try to get close it was called cannibal because it ate other dragons and dragon eggs as well as humans everyone with any sense just left it alone on the eastern side of the dragonmont the last confirmed sighting we have is from 129 ac when the blacks in the civil war were experimenting with getting dragon seeds to try to bond with and ride dragons that didn't go well after that there were a couple of alleged sightings but nothing confirmed given that it was apparently very old some dragonstone small folk legends claim it was even there before the targaryens arrived and rarely emerged from its cave in later years it's probably fair to say that it just died at some point even though we're yet to learn exactly when the second of the three dragons sheepsteeler was ridden by nettles during the dance of the dragons remember she was one of those so-called dragon seeds the blacks recruited to try to bond them with their extra dragons however after a couple of them had turned coat rhaenyra decided that the rest of the dragon seeds couldn't be trusted and nettles and sheepsteeler fled the last confirmed sighting we have of them is when sir robert rowan and his army stumbled across them hiding out in a cave in the mountains of the moon rowan's army didn't fare too well out of that encounter and sheep steeler flew off still further into the mountains it's likely that the fire which with the dragon one of the mountain clans later came to worship was her sheepstealer was already a mature dragon at that point and probably died at some point later in any event it was in no way a targaryen dragon anymore the third and final grown dragon to survive the dance was silverwing this was queen alison's dragon and was ridden by alph white in the dance when ulf was poisoned and vermithor king jiharis's old mount had been killed silverwing rejected any new potential riders and went feral ending up on a small island in red lake in the reach and that's the last we hear of silverwing again silverwing was quite mature at this point over a hundred years old so in the absence of any other sightings we can assume that silverwing died at some point after so the three mature dragons that survived the war were all outside targaryen control which makes mourning super important because morning was the fourth dragon to survive it had been born in the vale during the dance and reina targaryen swiftly bonded with it bringing it to king's landing where it grew until it was large enough to fly this is what we read in fire and blood on the third day of the third moon of that year the people of king's landing woke to a site that had not been seen since the dark days of the dance a dragon in the skies above the city lady rainer at the age of 19 was flying her dragon morning for the first time that first day she circled once around the city before returning to the dragonpit but every day thereafter she grew bolder and flew further queen daenery was so delighted with morning that she was hurt to say that she wanted a dragon of her own it's easy to underestimate the importance of what was going on here the dragons had been all but destroyed by the dance briefly the targaryen family had no dragon riders at all and then suddenly they did again and the other targaryens wanted dragons too if things went by their natural course within a couple of generations the dragons would be ruling the skies of westeros once more if anyone wanted to stop that happening to kill the dragons once and for all now was the only and best time to do it and it's not just that there weren't many dragons around the only dragon in targaryen's control was still quite young morning was only around 5 years old when it was first written so not as fearsome a prospect as facing mature dragons and crucially although individual targaryens may have wanted dragons to return the king did not in fact the king aegon iii actively loathed dragons having lost his own dragon at a young age seen most of his family killed by the dance of the dragons and watched his own mother eaten by a dragon so if the maesters were going to kill all the dragons the time was then and of course the dragons did die out then which could of course have been a coincidence correlation does not always employ causation but is there any evidence that the maesters did react suddenly and viciously to rid to the world of dragons once and for all about then yes in fact i think if we look objectively at what happened next there's a lot of evidence that the maesters launched a silent and unseen full-blown coup at exactly that point taking power over the seven kingdoms poisoning the dragons then slipping back into the shadows which seems like quite a big claim and as you'd expect it's all rather glossed over in fire and blood but it is indisputable that at this exact moment in time and for the only time in its history the maesters in the form of grand maester monken assumed absolute power over the entire seven kingdoms we'll get to that in just a second suspicious things started happening from the moment when rainer first rode mourning shortly after leina velaryon was born on driftmark and soon after that the dragon egg in her cradle hatched but that dragon that emerged was deformed and dangerous and attacked her it was killed immediately king aegon responded by immediately banning all dragon eggs from the red keep presumably leading to them being taken elsewhere to less secure destinations then there was a curious apparent attempt to poison the king with no obvious suspects or motivation but one clear hero grand maester monken who saved the queen's life presumably leaving him above reproach for a while then one of the three remaining regents of aegon iii corwin corbray was killed in the vale aegon had started with seven regions to rule in his stead until he grew old enough to take the throne himself just four years earlier and yet astonishingly during that following three years four of the seven died and two resigned their post only grand maester monken survived three more were appointed but one resigned and one died leaving just munkan and thaddeus rowan a rather distracted man who had tragically lost his wife and son during that period then still in this same few months following rayner's first ride on morning thaddeus rowan was inexplicably accused of treason and thrown into the black cells leaving monken the sole regent rowan was eventually vindicated and the person allegedly behind this curious plot to remove rowan from his post martin waters was killed dying we're told after monken gave him some milk of the poppy not that rowan stayed long back as a regent he was relieved of his post by the king soon after it was grand maester monken again we're told who persuaded the king to relieve rowan of his offices intriguingly in the world of ice and fire we're told that monken was reticent to discuss what happened during this period all this five dead regents four resigning or being forcibly retired left just one regent grand maester monken he was sole regent and hand of the king for the rest of the year 135 and into 136. effectively he was acting king as the king had confined himself to his quarters he was hand of the king as well as in charge of the knowledge and power of the citadel and the raven mail communications across the continent and there was no small council left to consult or hold into account monken could rule with absolute power and do whatever he wanted in the name of the king with no one questioning him for those few months he held more power and influence in his hands than anyone before or since in westeros what did he do with all that power of course the maesters don't tell us monken was reticent to discuss it but connecting this back to the dragons we know that the three mature dragons that survived the dance were never seen again and presumably died at some point a bit later morning the only grown dragon in targaryen control also died we haven't been told how yet and at least two more small misshapen dragons were born in dragonstone tyrion remembers seeing their skulls in a cellar beneath the red keep one of these may have been what became known as the last dragon which lived in king's landing and was described as being sickly small misshapen and stunted with withered wings that died in one five one rumor was that it was poisoned to death after that point there were no more dragons just a lot of dragon eggs and these would not hatch no matter how much the targaryens tried so although we talk about the maesters possibly killing all the dragons mourning aside and we won't know what happened there until fire and blood part two it's actually a matter of what happened to the eggs because after morning was hatched most of the dragon eggs didn't hatch anymore instead turning to stone and those few that did produced deformed dragons stunted and misshapen at which point i think we can safely disregard the reason that most people in world seemed to blame for the dragons dying out the last time that they were confined in the dragonpit we hear this asserted a couple of times in a song of ice and fire by sir barristan and quentin martell both apparently having read it somewhere now there is a reasonable amount of evidence that confining dragons does impair their development but the evidence before us seems to contradict the idea that it might lead to dragons dying out quite the contrary morning set up a lair in the dragon pit and grew large enough to be ridden and while dragons are small they don't seem to need to be free all the time dany kept hers in cages for quite a long time and vicerion and rhaegal were locked up beneath the great pyramid soon after and they grew not as quickly or as large as drogon but there's not even a hint that captivity left them stunted or deformed or could have killed them no this feels like a convenient lie spread by the maesters the maesters needed a reason for why the dragons died out and this was it despite the evidence so where does all of this leave us well fundamentally it leaves us even more eager for fire and blood part 2 even when that ever surfaces but in the meantime we can say with some certainty that the maesters did want the dragons gone they did have the perfect opportunity they did have absolute power in the seven kingdoms at exactly the right time and were reticent to say what they did with it they did very probably know how to poison dragons remember the vaults beneath old town contain a legendary tome known as the death of dragons and they did spread a story about how the dragons die that is palpably untrue all of which is very very suspicious and there is one more thing we've noted that all the attempts to hatch targaryen dragon eggs after morning and after the maesters briefly assumed absolute power in westeros failed or produced stunted and deformed dragons despite the targaryens increasingly using ancient magic and fire and sacrifice this all ties in with the idea that the dragon eggs were all poisoned it would be much easier to poison dragon eggs after all than kill full-grown dragons but what about dany's eggs at the end of book one they hatched doesn't that undermine the theory that all the eggs were poisoned well herein lies an interesting twist because those eggs are almost certainly the three that alyssa farman stole and sold to the sealord of braavos i did a video on that ages ago if you're interested in that but alyssa farman stealing those eggs happened well before the dance of the dragons and they were safely hidden in braavos at the time the maesters were probably or possibly poisoning the eggs in westeros so dany's eggs weren't poisoned in other words eventually the only targaryen dragon eggs that the maesters did not have access to while they controlled westeros hatched all the dragon eggs the maesters did have access to didn't or produced stunted deformed dragons marwyn the mage who has access to the most secret writings of the citadel claims that the maesters killed all the dragons all the evidence suggests that he may be right or more accurately the maesters assumed absolute power in westeros for a few months in 135 or 136 and poisoned all the dragon eggs they could lay their hands on but i told you i'd say a bit more about skillshare who sponsored this video skillshare is an online learning community with thousands of inspiring classes for creative and curious people you can explore new skills deepen existing passions and get lost in creativity personally i recently watched finding instagram success building an account people care about by taylor lauren because i have an instagram account for in deep geek and put pictures up there but i'm sure i could do better and this course has given me some really practical tips about how to do that skillshare also has ad-free classes across a whole range of other creative areas like writing design and animation and that's all for only ten dollars a month and i said i had an offer for you the first 1000 people to click the link in the description will get a free 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Channel: In Deep Geek

Views: 99,214

Keywords: in deep geek, deep geek, game of thrones, got, asoiaf, a song of ice and fire, fire and blood, house of the dragon, house of the dragon hbo, dance of the dragons game of thrones, dance of the dragons, the dance of the dragons, did the maesters kill the dragons, did the maesters kill all the dragons, maesters killed the dragons, maesters kill dragons, maesters conspiracy, maesters got, maesters, munken, dragon eggs, poison, maester conspiracy asoiaf, maester conspiracy, marwyn

Id: Cx8ZFzW0Y-I

Length: 20min 8sec (1208 seconds)

Published: Sat Jan 30 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/[deleted]]

Yes

[u/__angie]

Most definitely

[u/ColonelMitche1]

Never heard this theory. Expand anyone?

[u/Narsil13]

It seems possible that Maesters just suppressed information on how to create dragons, then sat back and let the dragons kill themselves off.

[u/Ilhan_Omar_Milf]

You know morning should still be alive by the main series

Rhaena should have usurped her half brother