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The house with the red door in Braavos

@lovinhistorywithswords asked:

Hi Butterfly!  @racefortheironthrone pointed me your way for this question. Why do you think the “house with the red door” is in Braavos?  And where is it in the city?

Interesting question. The “house with the red door”, the house where Dany lived her earliest childhood, is in Braavos because that’s where Ser Willem Darry fled with the Targaryen children after their escape from Dragonstone. So the real question here is, why did Darry choose Braavos?

Per the map of the Narrow Sea, the Free City of Pentos looks a lot closer to Dragonstone than Braavos does, right? So why does it seem that Darry went out of his way?

Well, there’s more to it than just a simple glance at the map. The text of the book is illuminating:

She had been born on Dragonstone nine moons after their flight, while a raging summer storm threatened to rip the island fastness apart. They said that storm was terrible. The Targaryen fleet was smashed while it lay at anchor, and huge stone blocks were ripped from the parapets and sent hurtling into the wild waters of the narrow sea. Her mother had died birthing her, and for that her brother Viserys had never forgiven her. She did not remember Dragonstone either. They had run again, just before the Usurper’s brother set sail with his new-built fleet. By then only Dragonstone itself, the ancient seat of their House, had remained of the Seven Kingdoms that had once been theirs. It would not remain for long. The garrison had been prepared to sell them to the Usurper, but one night Ser Willem Darry and four loyal men had broken into the nursery and stolen them both, along with her wet nurse, and set sail under cover of darkness for the safety of the Braavosian coast.

–AGOT, Daenerys I

So, first of all, we see that that Stannis’s fleet was coming up from Storm’s End. Willem Darry surely thought he couldn’t trust traveling south when a fleet that might intercept them was right there in the south. Secondly, we see that Darry’s ship didn’t land in Braavos itself, but the Braavosian Coastlands, which are a lot closer to Dragonstone, just about equidistant to Pentos. Thirdly, geography is much more complicated than what you see on the map – it involves weather as well:

The storms that blow up the narrow sea are infamous throughout the Seven Kingdoms, and in the Nine Free Cities as well. Though they may arise in any season, seafarers say that the worst of them come each autumn, forming in the warm waters of the Summer Sea south of the Stepstones, then roaring north across those bleak and stony islands.

–The World of Ice and Fire

The prevailing winds in the Narrow Sea come from the south and blow north. There had just been a “raging summer storm” at Dragonstone, and the weather was probably still very unsettled. So, a small ship (with sails, not a galley with oars) traveling across the Narrow Sea would probably find it more difficult to go south-east – better to make use of the winds and go north-east instead, up to Braavosi territory, and eventually to the city of Braavos.

And lastly, there’s politics. The spymaster Varys had come from Pentos, and Varys had just been pardoned by Robert and was now on his side. Willem Darry might not have been as politically astute as some, but he almost certainly believed that with Varys’s connections in Pentos, it wouldn’t be safe to take the Targaryen children there. (The fact that Dany and Viserys eventually ended up in Pentos… well, they had long since lost Darry’s guidance, since he had died years before.)

So, that’s why Braavos. As for where the house with the red door might be in the city:

That was when they lived in Braavos, in the big house with the red door. Dany had her own room there, with a lemon tree outside her window. After Ser Willem had died, the servants had stolen what little money they had left, and soon after they had been put out of the big house. Dany had cried when the red door closed behind them forever. 

–AGOT, Daenerys I

Trees did not grow on Braavos, save in the courts and gardens of the mighty.

–AFFC, Samwell III

This is not a contradiction (or some ~conspiracy~ that Dany’s beliefs about her childhood are a lie, as some crack theorists would have it). No, what it tells us is that this “big” house, with a lemon tree in its courtyard or garden, was in a neighborhood where the mighty of Braavos live.

Now, you can see the northeasternmost part of the city is where the Sealord’s Palace is, near the Purple Harbor where only Braavosi can dock. (It’s much nicer and cleaner and richer than the Ragman’s Harbor in the west.) The northeast of Braavos is also where the Iron Bank is located, and on the map there are many palaces and large houses with courtyards depicted in that area of the city. Also, we know that the Sealord was a witness to the secret betrothal contract between Viserys and Arianne Martell (arranged by Willem Darry and Oberyn Martell).

So I think it’s very likely that the house with the red door was located in the northeast of the city, probably not very far from the Sealord’s Palace. It might have been in some other wealthy neighborhood (near the palaces of the Prestayns or Antaryons maybe), but I’d still give odds on the northeast. But hopefully we’ll get an exact location of the house with the red door before the series is over, and then we can know for sure. :)

hello! do you have any theories considering Dany's childhood? like the house w the red door, the lemon trees that don't exist in braavos, etc?

I have no beliefs about Dany’s childhood other than what’s stated in the text, and find the “alternative” theories that certain people have suggested frankly ridiculous. It is known to many that Daenerys was born in a storm on Dragonstone before the Targaryen children escaped to Braavos with Willem Darry, where they lived until he died of illness, and then wandered the Free Cities afterwards. There are records. People talk about it, Stannis among others. Her identity is not in doubt.

Oh, I suppose I might have an extrapolation from the text that the house with the red door was near the Sealord’s Palace, in the district of Braavos where trees grow in the courts and gardens of the mighty. And it could be possible that the lemon tree was a gift from Oberyn Martell to the Targaryens for the betrothal contract between Viserys and Arianne. But that’s about it for my theories of any type. Please follow my links, hope that helps, and if you have any further questions just let me know.

Hi there! Love your blog

I don’t believe in lemongate. This post here is very good and has many links that explain many of the evidences against the theory that Dany’s origins are somehow a lie. But to summarize, there are records of Dany’s birth, people know about it. And Viserys himself was 8 years old. This is young, but not too young that he wouldn’t remember his sister being born.

Maybe you could try to say that Rhaella gave birth to a stillborn and somehow someone brought a new baby to take the place of her child. But why would anyone do that? The Targaryens were being hunted. If Rhaella gave birth to a stillborn, wouldn’t it be better to simply tell the truth, that the child died? Why bring another random kid to pretend to be Rhaella’s child, only so that this kid can be hunted for being a Targaryen? And if the theory about Ashara and Ned being Dany’s parents was somehow true, why would Ned or Ashara or anyone want to have their kid pose as a Targaryen kid that was being hunted down exactly because she was a Targaryen? And wouldn’t Viserys remember if he had waited for a new baby to travel the distance to join them? Because if Rhaella had a stillborn, they wouldn’t immediately have a new baby ready to replace her dead baby. They would have to wait for someone to send this kid to them to replace Rhaella’s baby. And Viserys would remember having to wait for a baby to arrive after his mother’s death. So yeah, I don’t really think it makes sense. Besides, it’s not true that trees don’t grow in Braavos:

Trees did not grow on Braavos, save in the courts and gardens of the mighty. - Samwell III, AFFC

Trees grow in the gardens of the mighty. So most likely, Dany lived there, and the big “mystery” about the house with the red door is probably going to be revealed when we find out someone powerful in Braavos has some connections to the Targaryens. Maybe even the Sealord, because the Sealord was a witness of the marriage pact between Arianne and Viserys. So maybe, the Sealord will have some interest in Dany.

Finally, I just don’t see any narrative purpose in having Dany not be Aerys and Rhaella’s child. How is this important to the story? So, Dany is not Aerys’s daughter. So what happens? Does she find out and gives up on her claim? But if the point of the story is for Dany to give up on her claim, wouldn’t it make more sense for it to be Dany’s choice to do it for the greater good, and not something that happens just because Dany’s not the heir anymore? And if Dany is portrayed as a good person because she gave up her claim in favor of someone else who has the right blood, wouldn’t this just endorse the narrative that blood is the most important thing in a ruler? Why would GRRM write something like that? And if Dany is a bastard, what does this add to the narrative? It shows that anyone can rise despite being a bastard? But we already have that story with Jon Snow. And with Dany as well. Because she rose from nothing, whether she’s a trueborn princess or a bastard, Dany’s achievements are her own, they don’t change if her parentage changes. And what happens to Dany’s concerns that she might be mad like her father? With this theory, her concerns can conveniently go away and you lose all of her internal struggle about it. You lose the theme of children not having to be like their parents, because in this case, Dany would no longer be Aerys child, so if she’s not mad, people will simply say that it’s because she’s not Aerys’ daughter, and not because “children are not their parents”. So this theory undermines one of the themes in her story. The only other thing I can think is that maybe this could cause political conflict if someone can prove that Dany is not Aerys’ daughter (which is very unlikely to be proved). But I just don’t see anything that I would consider to be really meaningful in the idea that Dany is not who she thinks she is, and I also think it’s redundant, because we already have a secret parentage with Jon. The fandom has a ton of secret parentage theories, but I don’t think that every single character has to fit into some kind of big conspiracy of baby exchange or secret parentages, I tend to think those theories are all really far-fetched and unnecessary.

dany remembers a lemon tree near the house with the red door in braavos

arya notices that there are no trees in bravos

sam mentions that the exception is courts and gardens

there’s the sealord palace in braavos and as depicted on the map it has greenery

dany describes house with the red doors as having ‘wooden beams with carved animal faces adorning them’

“The Sealord’s Palace contains the Sealord’s menagerie.”

elissa farman stole three of rhaena’s dragon eggs and sold them to the sealord….

house with the red door is the sealord’s palace and dany’s dragons hatched from rhaena’s stolen eggs. what is also interesting is as @adreamofspring​ mentioned, rhaena was the one who started the tradition of putting dragon eggs to baby targaryens’ cradles to make them bond quicker and as @etherealdany​ noticed dany becomes stronger after her second dragon dream. did dany have those eggs since she was born and was separated from them because of illyrio?