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The Cannibal is a minor character in the A Song of Ice and Fire series and the novel Fire & Blood.
As his name implies, he is a wild dragon who is notoriously known for engaging in cannibalism, where he would feast on dead dragons, baby dragons, and dragon eggs. The Cannibal lived throughout the Targaryen civil war, known as the Dance of the Dragons, and is one of the few dragons that survived.
Biography[]
Not much is known about the Cannibal's exact age. As the wild dragon Sheepstealer was said to have hatched when King Jaehaerys I Targaryen was young, which could mean the early years of the Old King's reign or generally during his youth, the Cannibal is said to have been the largest and oldest of the wild dragons.
Some of the smallfolk living on the island of Dragonstone claimed that the Cannibal lived on the island even before the Targaryens arrived from Valyria in 114 BC. This possibility would make the Cannibal the oldest living dragon in Westeros during the Dance of the Dragons and even older than Vhagar. A claim on why he is so hostile towards other dragons was because he was from a different lineage of dragons. However, the claims on the Cannibal were doubted by Grand Maester Munkun and Septon Eustace.
Having made its lair at the back of a volcano called the Dragonmont on the eastern side of Dragonstone, the Cannibal, prior to the Dance of the Dragons, attacked many would-be dragontamers when they made a dozen attempts to ride him, and this caused his lair to be littered with their bones. In 129 AC, when Jacaerys Velaryon called for more dragonriders to support his mother's cause, none of the dragonseeds dared disturb the Cannibal, as they knew of its feared reputation. Anyone else who tried to tame the wild dragon never returned from his lair. After Silver Denys, a man living on Dragonstone, tried to claim Sheepstealer but had his right arm torn off, the Cannibal descended on Denys' three sons as they tried to tend to their father's wound. After driving away Sheepstealer, the Cannibal proceeded to devour Silver Denys and his sons alive.
A year later, when Ser Robert Quince, the castellan of Dragonstone, discovered the burned, mangled, and partially eaten corpse of the Grey Ghost, another wild dragon, he quickly named it the Cannibal as the killer (though in reality it was Sunfyre, the dragon of King Aegon II). Fearing that the Cannibal would attack them as well, some fisherfolk asked Ser Robert to send knights to kill the dragon; this was refused, however, and Robert assured that the Cannibal would not attack if he wasn't disturbed. He confined Princess Baela Targaryen to her chambers so as to prevent her from discovering the truth, as it would prove to be risky for her.
In the aftermath of the Dance of the Dragons, which saw the death of both Queen Rhaenyra and Aegon II, the Cannibal was one of the four surviving dragons to live throughout the entirety of the civil war. A few years later, in 132 AC, it was said that during the funeral of Lord Corlys Velaryon, the Cannibal flew to give a salute to the dead, though Archmaester Gyldayn notes that it may be a later embellishment to the story, as the Cannibal would just eat Corlys' corpse instead of saluting. Sometime later, the Cannibal vanished from Dragonstone, never to be seen again, and his current whereabouts and fate are unknown.
External Links[]
- The Cannibal on the A Wiki of Ice and Fire.
