Blood Magic

A life for a life.

Blood magic in Game of Thrones is sorcery paid for with a life. Its best-known use is Mirri Maz Duur's ritual: when Khal Drogo is dying, Daenerys asks the enslaved priestess to heal him with blood magic, and the spell takes her unborn son and leaves Drogo in a permanent catatonic state.

Quick Facts

Price: A life for a life

Lore & Background

Daenerys burns Mirri on Drogo's pyre with the three dragon eggs, and it is that blood magic that lets the eggs hatch.

Reader's Guide

Daenerys hears that in Asshai, spellsingers, warlocks and aeromancers practise openly while shadowbinders and bloodmages work their sorceries in the dark; Quaithe, who warns her in Qarth, is a shadowbinder from that city.

The red priestess Melisandre of Asshai works related magic: she gives birth to a shadow that kills Renly Baratheon, and burns leeches of king's blood to curse Balon Greyjoy, Robb Stark and Joffrey. In the books she tries to persuade Stannis to wake Dragonstone's stone dragon through blood magic, until Davos Seaworth convinces him to go north to the Wall instead.