Are the Lhazareen/ the Maegi conspicuous by their absence?

[DamnDirtyApe]

I've got to ask the question above because I loved TWOIAF and I'm fascinated by the Lamb Men's culture, but they don't appear among the many disparate cultures described in TWOIAF, while plenty of cultures I don't recall ever reading about in the five novels do (the Sarnori, the peoples of the Five Forts and the Thousand Islands). And I'm not complaining, mind you. That stuff is great and makes the world deeper.

But I always just had this feeling that Lhazareen would end up being more significant than ACoK through ADwD have so far painted them to be. For one thing, Mirri Maz Duur's blood magic was at least somewhat effective, and comparable in effect to what Thoros and Melisandre can do, in terms of resurrection and peering into the future. As regards the first of these, I realize Drogo wasn't as far gone as Beric or Cat, but I figure you've got to give Mirri some credit for pulling off her intentionally botched resurrection of Drogo before the dragons came back into the world and brought the magic of the old times back with them. As to the second, if Maggy the Frog was indeed a Maegi of Essos as most people think, then she's part of a shared tradition with Mirri, even if she wasn't Lhazareen, and her visions of Cersei's future were at least as accurate as what Mel routinely cranks out for Stannis and Jon.

And so, you've got a tradition of necromancers and seers whose powers may rival or at least approach those of the priests of Rh'llor, and that's interesting enough, but then there's those names and the scraps of culture information associated with them. The Lhazareen are called Lamb Men and follow a "Great Shepherd", and their priestesses are called Maegi, which Mirri tells us means "wise".

Lhazareen. Lamb Men. Great Shepherd. Maegi. Mirri. That is to say, "the people of Lazarus, gentle as lambs, who follow a good shepherd, whose coming was heralded by the Magi, and who was born to a woman named Mary, or Maryam, or Miriam, or maybe even Mirri, if you're willing to stretch. Now obviously, the Faith of the Seven has its parallels to the Catholic Church of the Middle Ages, but the Lhazareen seem to have an even tighter tie to Christianity as described in the Gospels, an apocalyptic (that is to say, concerned with the revealing of the future through prophecy) faith defined by pacifism, miraculous healing and even resurrection of the dead.

Now maybe I'm off my nut, but before all this gets tied up in TWoW and ADoS, I think we're going to have to be exposed to more concrete information about how resurrection of the dead works on Planetos, and about how the power of human sacrifice is tied up with it. I've always thought that anyone who can resurrect a dead person is doing it by the same means, be they an Other raising a Wight or Thoros raising a Beric--it just happens that the Others are more completely sold out to the power, whatever it might be, that makes resurrection possible, and can do it on a grander scale. And finally, to get back to my original point, I think there might be a clue to this in the Lamb Men's culture, or more specifically, in their foundational mythology, and that they might not be present in TWOIAF for the same reason. I note that we really don't learn much more about the faith of Rh'llor than we already know in TWOIAF either. And while it's obviously completely believable that Maester Yandel simply wouldn't have access to such a small and obscure culture, I still find it suspicious.

And that's why I authored this obnoxiously long post. That and I'm bored.

[TheSovereignGrave]

I don't think 'maegi' is the term for the priestesses of the Great Sheperd. They're called Godswives; I think Mirri Maz Duur just happened to be both a maegi and a godswife.

[Mrs.Grumpy]

Ran said they are too uninteresting for Yandel's taste. (and unimportant)

There are a couple of places in the worldbook that doesn't even get a proper mention, Great Moraq comes to mind.

Kingdom of Omber sounds lame as hell btw

Wish we were told some other stuff after the mention of their craven kings and feeble princes.

[TheSovereignGrave]

Ran said they are too uninteresting for Yandel's taste. (and unimportant)

There are a couple of places in the worldbook that doesn't even get a proper mention, Great Moraq comes to mind.

Kingdom of Omber sounds lame as hell btw

Wish we were told some other stuff after the mention of their craven kings and feeble princes.

I don't think it's that lame; they're hardly the only ones who give the Dothraki gifts to leave them alone. I wonder why they were singled out as craven and feeble though...

[Hanybal The Obsidian]

I think the Red Lamb's feelings about his people give enough insight into what they're all about. They're simply a meek race in a very cruel world. And no, the meek shall not inherit the earth, which apparently really gets the Red Lamb's goat(pun intended).

[Mithras]

“My mother was godswife before me, and taught me all the songs and spells most pleasing to the Great Shepherd, and how to make the sacred smokes and ointments from leaf and root and berry. When I was younger and more fair, I went in caravan to Asshai by the Shadow, to learn from their mages. Ships from many lands come to Asshai, so I lingered long to study the healing ways of distant peoples. A moonsinger of the Jogos Nhai gifted me with her birthing songs, a woman of your own riding people taught me the magics of grass and corn and horse, and a maester from the Sunset Lands opened a body for me and showed me all the secrets that hide beneath the skin.”

[LmL]

I don't think 'maegi' is the term for the priestesses of the Great Sheperd. They're called Godswives; I think Mirri Maz Duur just happened to be both a maegi and a godswife.

Godswife is an excellent description of the Virgin Mary - she bore God's son but didn't have, eh, 'carnal relations' with a man - she's the wife of God.

I think this correlation is dead on, great observations here DamnDirtyApe! I was definitely looking for the Lhazareen in the worldbook, especially given the tangential link between the Valyrians (who may have been simple sheep tenders at one time - I forget where we hear that) and the Lhazareen.

I tend to agree that if George left something like that out - we also don't get the origins of the former Qarth-people who built cities in the red waste - it's intentional . The Valyrians also receive very little page time - we know they arose shortly after the LN, and we know a bit about the Doom, and that's it.

Seems like the origins of the Lhazareen, and maybe the former Qarth civilization could be wrapped up in the origins of Valyria, which George seems to be intentionally keeping us in the dark about. The whole question of what Blood of the Dragon really means and how to tame a dragon.

I think of Nettles, who may have had some Targ blood (if so, probably very little), but seems to have gotten Sheepstealer the Dragon to let her ride in the normal manner in which you tame a wild animal - offering it food, and getting just a little closer each time. George is opening the window of possibility here that dragon riding may not necessarily be genetic or wholly genetic. Not saying I buy this - just that he's deliberately obscuring here, just as he might be with the Lhazareen. I don't buy that bit from Ran - George could have given them a quick mention as a sidebar to slavers bay / Ghiscari / Qarth sections. But no. Seems suspect.

Plus, the sheep connection. Indicates potential common origin as shepherds.