Vermithor

Not to be confused with Vermithrax.

Vermithor
Biographical information
Species	Dragon
Personal information
Also known as	The Bronze Fury
Affiliation	{Jaehaerys I Targaryen} Hugh
Family	Silverwing (mate)
World of Westeros
Series	House of the Dragon
Season(s)	1 · 2
Appeared in	2 episodes (see below)
First seen in	"The Black Queen"

"The dragon named Vermithor is the largest in the world after Vhagar, and perhaps the most fierce. He's called the Bronze Fury."

―Rhaenyra Targaryen

Vermithor, called the Bronze Fury, is a dragon that belongs to House Targaryen. He was the mount of King Jaehaerys I Targaryen, and later of the king's bastard grandson, Hugh.

Biography

Background

Vermithor was the mount of the Old King, Jaehaerys the Conciliator. He has bronze scales, orange eyes, and black horns, and is called the "Bronze Fury" for the color of his scales and his ferocious nature. His mate is Silverwing, the dragon of Jaehaerys's queen Alysanne. When Vermithor and Silverwing visited the Wall, they refused to fly over it. After Jaehaerys's passing, Vermithor dwelled in the Dragonmont. By the time of the Dance of the Dragons twenty-nine years later, he is the second largest and second oldest dragon in Westeros, after Vhagar.

House of the Dragon: Season 1

In an effort to find more dragons to gain advantage over the Greens and their dragons, Daemon Targaryen visits Vermithor in his lair, singing the dragonsong "Hāros Bartossi" to get his attention. Vermithor blasts fire above him, but he calms as he and Daemon stare into each other's eyes.

House of the Dragon: Season 2

Vermithor is drawn to the Dragonstone gantry upon listening to Rhaenyra's summons. Rhaenyra calms the growling Vermithor before she leaves and commands the dragonseeds to claim Vermithor. However, Vermithor massacres most of the dragonseeds by burning and devouring most of them in a fiery rampage. Eventually, Hugh distracts and stands up to Vermithor, and Vermithor accepts Hugh as his rider. Vermithor later roars alongside Silverwing and Syrax to deter Vhagar and Aemond from attacking.

Behind the scenes

Vermithor was apparently named by George R.R. Martin after Vermithrax Pejorative,^{[citation needed]} the dragon in the film Dragonslayer, which he has cited as one of his favorite movies. Additionally, D.B. Weiss used the name Vermithrax for a different dragon.

In the books

Vermithor was famously the mount of King Jaehaerys I Targaryen, the Old King whose great and prosperous reign lasted 55 years. Jaehaerys I's sister-wife Queen Alysanne Targaryen was also a dragon-rider, and her mount was Silverwing. It has been speculated that there is some sort of magical/psychic or at least emotional bond between dragons and their riders, so that they like friends of their rider and scorn their enemies. In this case, Vermithor and Silverwing were actually a mated pair, mirroring the marriage between their two riders, and continued to remain so even after their original riders died. They "oft coiled about each other in the fields" when their armies weren't on the move during the Dance. Their matings may have produced some of the younger dragons at the time of the Dance.

At one point Jaehaerys I rode Vermithor on a royal visit to Winterfell, along with Queen Alysanne riding Silverwing, and four other as-yet-unidentified dragons. On a whim, Alysanne rode further up to the Wall itself, and Jaehaerys I followed on Vermithor.

The novels never give the lineage of any of the Targaryen dragons, though it is fairly clear that Vermithor was one of the powerful second-generation dragons hatched after Aegon's Conquest. Vermithor was nearly 100 years old during the Dance, putting his hatching somewhere around the years when Aegon I died.

Live-readings that George R.R. Martin has done of his more extensive private notes mention that towards the end of Aegon I's life, there were about half a dozen dragon hatchlings. When Aegon I died several localized rebellions sprang up against his weak older son Aenys Targaryen, but Maegor helped put them down riding Balerion. Following this, two new dragons hatched at the same time, which was taken as a good omen for relations between the two brothers in the future (which turned out to be false). These two hatchlings may have been Vermithor and Silverwing, given how they were always a pair (Vermithor ultimately grew larger than the previous half-dozen, such as Dreamfyre, but this may just be up to individual variation). This also matches the dates given: if Vermithor was one of the earlier half-dozen dragons he would have been slightly over 100 years old during the Dance.

In A Feast for Crows, Sam muses that Alysanne visited Castle Black on her dragon, and Jaehaerys came after her on his own - without mentioning the second dragon's name. This is the only reference to Vermithor in the A Song of Ice and Fire novels.

Appearances

• The Dance of Dragons (illustrated)
• – "Maegor the Cruel" (mentioned indirectly)
• – "The Black Queen"
• – "A Son for a Son" (mentioned indirectly)
• – "Regent" (mentioned)
• – "Smallfolk" (mentioned)
• – "The Red Sowing"
• – "The Queen Who Ever Was" (mentioned indirectly)

External links

• Vermithor on A Wiki of Ice and Fire (potential spoilers for House of the Dragon)
• Vermithor on The Official Guide