Long Night

[walkingWITHcersei]

Rereading World and it struck me that despite numerous references to the LN in the histories of many different cultures in many different parts of the world that something is missing. We do get a page on the WW's in Westeros but outside of that there's no mention of what attacked the rest of the world. Plenty of talk of darkness and cold and death and destruction but not so much as a legend as to what actually killed everyone. Does this mean that the legends of WW's is the same every where else so the Maester didn't bother repeating it? If so then why bother repeating the same 'generation of darkness' legend multiple times? I wonder if it's possible that it's simply a great evil that descended from the far north and took different forms one of which being WW's in Westeros? I've had this creepy suspicion lately that the WW's would have some type of correlation with Stark ancestors if not actual 'dead' Starks. We've subtly been shown that the Ned generation of Starks were the exception not the rule. That their ancestors might be terrible people. In the first prologue when killing Royce the WW's laugh at him. Mocking him with cruelty as they stab him repeatedly. No respect for a foe that fought bravely even though death was certain. Even the Dothraki would show a certain respect for that type of fallen opponent. Could this be what the original Starks were like? Hard men for hard times? So what does this mean? Page after page of darkness chaos death and despair but hardly a mention of what killed them? Anyone else find this odd?

Unrelated observation....the YiTish legend of a monkey tailed woman saving the world. Any chance a CotF could have a tail? Maybe the jungle version?

[Free Northman Reborn]

The rest of the world had no physical enemy during the Long Night. Their civilizations were destroyed by the collapse of their food supply as a result of a 10 year Winter, and the famines and societal chaos that followed as a result.

[aryagonnakill#2]

1 thing about the long night legends that is said in the book that no 1 has touched upon yet, is that it says that after the long night the golden age of man ended, and that all the tribes split up, it basically implies that humanity was united before the long night.

[TheSovereignGrave]

I don't think humanity was united before the long night, since there's mention of different rulers prior to the Long Night; after all, the Long Night was (supposedly) what heralded the Age of Heroes. You had the Grey King, the first Storm Kings, Garth Greenhand, the Great Empire of the Dawn, etc. Even if they're just legends, it still points to mankind being divided.

[GottfreyUndRoy]

The rest of the world I don't think experienced WW per se, since as far as we know Essos has no connection to the North Pole. Just the WW moving south brought winter with them, which killed people off through famine/ hypothermia in addition to being killed by the WW. Only the Westerosi had to deal with both. The rest of the world still barely survived.

[joluoto2]

We do have legends from Essos about a Last Heroish character (Azor Ahai, Hyrkoon the Hero etc.), and those 5 forts were built for some reason.

Whether the Long Night heralded the Age of Heroes? Not sure about that. The Age of Heroes begin with the Pact with the Children. The Long Night happened at some point during this age. We don't know if Houses like the Starks, the Lannisters and the Gardeners existed before the Long Night or not. We only know they rose during the Age of Heroes, which can mean both before and after the Long Night. We don't have sufficient information to any claim regarding this. I do think legendary heroes like Garth Greenhand, Lann the Clever and Brandon the Builder could be echoes of the pre-pact First Men religion. Basically some of the Gods were relegated to Heroes.

[Mithras]

The Others were only in Westeros and it was the LH who fought them and ended the LN.

People in Essos didnot suffer the terrible winter as Westeros did but they suffered greatly due to the blocking of sun and the death of vegetation. No doubt, they paid great importance to this phenomena and produced myths to explain it.

Azor Ahai and all the other Essossi heroes mentioned in TWOIAF do not exist or they might be local heroes to whom foreign heroic myths were attributed. The Last Hero was the one true hero and his tales no doubt reached East. Since the Dawn age, there is trade between Essos and Westeros. This makes it possible for the myths to travel.

So, the Essossi heard the Westerosi hero who ended the LN but in time they attributed those deeds to their local heroes or created new heroes as a figurehead of their newly created cults.

[Lord Varys]

Winter was in Essos as well during the Long Night - the Rhoyne froze down to the mouth of Selhoru. The whole northern part of Essos should have feared as bad during the Long Night as the Vale, the Riverlands, and the West.

The southern reaches (Lands of the Long Summer, Summer Isles, Sothroyos) may have fared better, but if the sun was gone everywhere, even in the South, that in and of itself would have created cold and winter, especially if the sun was away for, well, a generation...

[Mithras]

I think "the LN lasted a generation" is an exaggeration that is normal in the telling of such stories. I think it was 13 years or so. Enough for people to be born and grow enough to sire children during the LN.

[Lord Varys]

Whether or not it lasted a generation, 13 years, or only one year - if the sun was not shining for a year, there would have been a pretty hard winter anyway (and that is, everywhere were there was no sun, not just in the northern half of the world). But considering that Old Nan is supposed to tell pretty accurate stories, I go with the generation (i.e. 20+ years), rather than doubting stuff when I've no reason to.

[joluoto2]

The Others were only in Westeros and it was the LH who fought them and ended the LN.

People in Essos didnot suffer the terrible winter as Westeros did but they suffered greatly due to the blocking of sun and the death of vegetation. No doubt, they paid great importance to this phenomena and produced myths to explain it.

Azor Ahai and all the other Essossi heroes mentioned in TWOIAF do not exist or they might be local heroes to whom foreign heroic myths were attributed. The Last Hero was the one true hero and his tales no doubt reached East. Since the Dawn age, there is trade between Essos and Westeros. This makes it possible for the myths to travel.

So, the Essossi heard the Westerosi hero who ended the LN but in time they attributed those deeds to their local heroes or created new heroes as a figurehead of their newly created cults.

I'm pretty sure the legends from Essos have an Essosi origin, but I think you're right that the enemy they fought were not the Others of Westeros. I think Essos was attacked by some other weird force during the Long Night. I used to think the dragons were the counter part of the Others, the spirits of fire as opposed to the spirits of Ice. But we learn in the World book there might at least at some point have existed Ice dragons, and maybe they still exists. Could be how the Others will put up a fight agains the dragons when they arrive in Westeros.

But this all got me thinking. Could there be more spiritual beings. If there is a force of Darkness and Cold, a Great Other, maybe that force has some kind of arsenal to unleash on Essos too. Maybe something more akin with darkness than with cold? Maybe something lurking in the Shadow.

[Mithras]

I'm pretty sure the legends from Essos have an Essosi origin, but I think you're right that the enemy they fought were not the Others of Westeros. I think Essos was attacked by some other weird force during the Long Night. I used to think the dragons were the counter part of the Others, the spirits of fire as opposed to the spirits of Ice. But we learn in the World book there might at least at some point have existed Ice dragons, and maybe they still exists. Could be how the Others will put up a fight agains the dragons when they arrive in Westeros.

But this all got me thinking. Could there be more spiritual beings. If there is a force of Darkness and Cold, a Great Other, maybe that force has some kind of arsenal to unleash on Essos too. Maybe something more akin with darkness than with cold? Maybe something lurking in the Shadow.

There does not have to be supernatural foes. With the sun gone and starvation and whatnot, the Essossi should have faced serious dynastic struggles and perhaps religious wars. It might be even possible that there happened great migrations during the LN and those events cause serious conflicts. A political leader who led his people to a better place during the LN might be seen as the hero although in fact he had nothing to do with the emergence and the end of the LN.

[FranklynFowler]

The name eldric shadowchaser suggests that there might have been some supernatural fighting involved somewhere in essos

[GottfreyUndRoy]

IMO, it means he was either a Shadowbinder, or a hunter of Shadowbinders. The latter makes more sense- could the Shadobinders have been involved with the onset of the long night?

[aryagonnakill#2]

In the story of the forging of lightbringer we are told that AA went to fight the WW's, but that he didn't go alone. Perhaps he sought out all the champions from many places, and instead of bringing a ton of men to fight and have those men killed only to rise as more wights, only the best warriors went. We see from leaf that with quickness and a couple torches killing wights is childs play, but we saw from Rymer that Others are good swordsmen, so bringing some untrained peasants to a fight will probably just result in more wights.

[The Snark of Winterfell]

The LN affected the world globally, and the easterners had their own hero's dealing with the same cataclysm (i.e. Hyrkoon, Azor Ahai, Elric, etc). In the prophecies we've heard about, AA fights the darkness, the Last Hero specifically seeks out the children for help in fighting the others.

I believe the Long Night affected everyone, but can't believe the Other's were everywhere, especially with the wall being in Westerns, only. I also believe that the myths describe the same cataclysmic event and each race created their own hero who battled the cataclysm that was the LN. Just like the global flood myth's, Gilgamesh (Mesopotamia), Manu (Hindu), Noah (Christian), Deucalion (ancient Greek); there was a flood and all of them built an ark to save people/animals. The flood stories are all pretty close, which lends me to believe that there was a cataclysmic flood and a giant ark was built by someone. This was disseminated and each religion/region wrote it into their creation stories. I think the idea of several hero's with different names is the same thing here.

My guess is the Last Hero is the closest thing to the real story and that all the others were the interpretations that made it to the rest of the world. With that said I am not convinced that the Other's brought forward the LN, but something deeper in this battle of light vs darkness. I think the oily black stone from the elder race (possibly of gods) is somehow related. I don't think the WW are just Starks. I also believe that the several different stories around the world, with no mention of how to kill them is the flood myth and the cause of the flood/LN comes from a deity.

[Free Northman Reborn]

There is no way it really lasted a generation, or even 13 years. Or if it did, then the sun was not totally gone for all that time.

Else there would hardly be a single species of fauna left in the world, and probably no men either.

[Clueless Northman]

Putting things together, I've some possible hypothesis here. Though it might be dead wrong obviously and I don't feel strongly about it - just a working hypothesis.

Doom of Valyria seems to have come from Valyrian wizards using spells/sacrifices/blood magic to tame the 14 volcans and use them for their own means - and to avoid having the Land of Long Summer threatened by volcanic eruptions too, I suppose. I mean, if we have lava flowing freely across the Freehold without causing alarm, odds are that something weird's going on. Eventually, they couldn't maintain the spells and it backfired spectacularly. Fire rained all over the place, and it was affected by some kind of magical taint/radiation afterwards.

The seasons' cycle was supposed to be normal at the beginning, and went wrong at the time of the Long Night.

Asshai by the Shadow was built eons ago, possibly by non-human race, deep ones for instance. Inhabitants obviously got wiped out in some catastrophe. Whole area seems to be magically tainted afterwards, with some kind of magical radiation affecting living beings and possibly making them infertile.

Asshai is also far bigger than any current city, so it must have been the capital city of an empire as big as Valyria.

Could it be that the Long Night wasn't created by the Children of the Forest to fight the First Men, and that Westeros had nothing to do with it?

What if Asshai was the capital of some huge empire covering half Essos at least, if not more, and where spellbinders eventually tried something foolish that eventually backfired and destroyed the whole area, covering it in shadow and radiations?

For instance, let's say the Asshai wizards decided to boost their city and empire by ensuring a constant Summer. This couldn't last forever, and when the spells failed, Asshai was destroyed and covered by the Shadow for a very long time. And since tinkering with seasons affect the whole world, it backfired with the Long Night.

What isn't clear is if Asshai was human or some other race, who got wiped out by the catastrophe just like dragons and Valyrians by the Doom.

Yi Ti's legends state that there was a huge empire of Dawn before the Long Night. In this case, could this Empire of Dawn ruling over the known world not being based in Yi Ti but in Asshai, Yi Ti being the parallel to the Free Cities - provinces far from the centrer, and which survived the catastrophe and were able to take over as big powers on their own since they were all that was left of the previous huge empire?

Would Yi Ti's humans, before the destruction of Asshai, be slaves or subjects of the race from Asshai?

If not, then my take is that Asshai ruled over most if not all the world - hence black stone stuff in Westeros -, and got destroyed way before humans became civilized in any way, and before the First Men reached Weseros in the Dawn Age. But this wouldn't explain the Long Night...

[Mithras]

Could it be that the Long Night wasn't created by the Children of the Forest to fight the First Men, and that Westeros had nothing to do with it?

What if Asshai was the capital of some huge empire covering half Essos at least, if not more, and where spellbinders eventually tried something foolish that eventually backfired and destroyed the whole area, covering it in shadow and radiations?

For instance, let's say the Asshai wizards decided to boost their city and empire by ensuring a constant Summer. This couldn't last forever, and when the spells failed, Asshai was destroyed and covered by the Shadow for a very long time. And since tinkering with seasons affect the whole world, it backfired with the Long Night.

I am leaning towards this idea because

1. In HotU chapter, one of the Dothraki observed that the building kind of drinks the sunlight.
2. There are these black oily stones in Asshai and other places that seem to drink sunlight. Asshai feels colder and dimmer than it should. Something still drinks the sunlight there.
3. The blocking of the sun during the LN might be the result of a great sorcery that consumed all the sunlight coming down to the Earth which messed the seasons up.
4. In legend, dragons drank the fire of the sun so that they could breathe fire. Septon Barth claimed that the dragons are unnatural creations of magic. Quaithe said that the dragons are fire made flesh which means they are creatures of fire magic. the oldest residents of Asshai were said to be dragontamers or perhaps the creators of the dragons. Yandel asks, if they were the first nation to tame dragons, why they never conquered the world like Valyrians. Perhaps that is because the sorcery needed to create of the dragons destroyed their nation and caused the LN by blocking the sun. The emergence of the Others and their ice dragons might be a natural response to this.

[kompaya]

I think that the reason only westerosi have tales of the actual threat is because they made the nights watch, which made it possible to spread the tales until books were written. I do think that whatever force it was, struck essos aswell, and thats how the five forts were built, if there are landbridges to the north pole, we dont know, but the Others might have crossed the icy ocean if there was a mini ice age. But the fact that everyone has tales of the hero, it seems that there actually was a person who did outstanding feats in the war of the dawn.