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Gods of Old Valirya


vuk

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We know Balerion, Vhagar and Meraxces got their names after the Gods of Old Valirya. And we know Aegon the Conqueror accepted Faith of the Seven when he had come to Westeros. But I dont know anything else about these old Gods. Do you have some knowledge about this subject? Who were those Gods, on what was based the religion of old Valirya?
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By the time of Aegons conquest the Gods of Valirya were probably the stuff of legend, not of faith (you would name your dog Zeus but not Christ after all...)  My gest would be that they were either the products of ancestor worship or a pantheon like the ancient greek/roman one absorbing local deities from the conquered lands.

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I think Syrax was the name of one of the gods, too.

I agree that these are ancient gods that weren't actively being worshipped in Valyria even at the time of the Doom. The Freehold had a lot of territory outside of Valyria itself, so if this religion was being practiced right up until the Doom, you would think at least some of the Valyrian settlers in the Free Cities would have kept it going.

It's also said that the first Tagaryens who settled on Dragonstone built the idols of the Seven in the castles's Sept from the masts of the ships that brought them to the island.
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Other than Balerion, Vhaegar, Meraxes, and Syrax, here are some Targ dragon names that were possibly names of Valyrian gods:

 

Arrax

Caraxes

Meleys

Morghul (valar morghulis, after all)

Shrykos

Tessarion

Vermax

Vermithor

 

Other legendary dragons with Valyrian-sounding (at least) names:

 

Urrax - supposedly slain by Serwyn of the Mirror Shield

Terrax - dragon of Valyrian lady Jaenara Belaerys, who with her dragon was said to have explored Sothoryos for three years

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Other than Balerion, Vhaegar, Meraxes, and Syrax, here are some Targ dragon names that were possibly names of Valyrian gods:

 

Arrax

Caraxes

Meleys

Morghul (valar morghulis, after all)

Shrykos

Tessarion

Vermax

Vermithor

 

Other legendary dragons with Valyrian-sounding (at least) names:

 

Urrax - supposedly slain by Serwyn of the Mirror Shield

Terrax - dragon of Valyrian lady Jaenara Belaerys, who with her dragon was said to have explored Sothoryos for three years

Fourteen names and fourteen flames of Old Valyria. I wonder if these volcanoes, where the Valyrians first found dragons nesting, are the gods of Old Valyria?

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Other than Balerion, Vhaegar, Meraxes, and Syrax, here are some Targ dragon names that were possibly names of Valyrian gods:

 

Arrax

Caraxes

Meleys

Morghul (valar morghulis, after all)

Shrykos

Tessarion

Vermax

Vermithor

 

Other legendary dragons with Valyrian-sounding (at least) names:

 

Urrax - supposedly slain by Serwyn of the Mirror Shield

Terrax - dragon of Valyrian lady Jaenara Belaerys, who with her dragon was said to have explored Sothoryos for three years

 

 

Fourteen names and fourteen flames of Old Valyria. I wonder if these volcanoes, where the Valyrians first found dragons nesting, are the gods of Old Valyria?

 Hot damn, nice list and nice connection!

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Why was Aegon so ready to surrender his faith and adopt the religion of southern Westeros? It'd be like the American Coloniolists adopting Native American spirtuality...Aegon had the superior firepower (literally) and dominated everyone. Why would he then forgo the gods of his people and take on the gods of the people he just conquered??

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Why was Aegon so ready to surrender his faith and adopt the religion of southern Westeros? It'd be like the American Coloniolists adopting Native American spirtuality...Aegon had the superior firepower (literally) and dominated everyone. Why would he then forgo the gods of his people and take on the gods of the people he just conquered??

The had their own gods, but they weren't exactly pious.  They had a tendency to view themselves as gods or at least, above the common man.  Aegon adopted the faith in what seems like a more political move. 

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By the time of Aegons conquest the Gods of Valirya were probably the stuff of legend, not of faith (you would name your dog Zeus but not Christ after all...)

Plenty of Hispanics name their kids Jesus and their dogs Jesucristo; it's only Anglo-Americans who find that weird or subtly blasphemous (while seeing nothing odd about naming their kids Chris).
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Why was Aegon so ready to surrender his faith and adopt the religion of southern Westeros? It'd be like the American Coloniolists adopting Native American spirtuality...

It would also be like the Danes adopting Catholicism from the English that they conquered, which actually happened. Or the half-dozen or so conquerors in eastern Europe who did the same thing. Or the various conquerors in western Asia who adopted Christianity, Islam, or Zoroastrianism.
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Fourteen names and fourteen flames of Old Valyria. I wonder if these volcanoes, where the Valyrians first found dragons nesting, are the gods of Old Valyria?

Wait, are people taking this seriously?

The fact that there are 14 names on this list means absolutely nothing.

This is a list of names of dragons mentioned up to ADwD/TMK/TWoIaF that someone pulled out of their memory that sound Valyrian-ish. Even if there were actually 14 such names, what would that mean? There were fewer of them before the last book, and there will be more of them after the next book. But there aren't actually 14 in the first place; for example, surely Tyraxes fits the Targaryen-sounding names too?

This is just a random sampling of some Targaryen dragons, plus one dragon from centuries earlier. There are 14 because the user who was making the list happened to stop at 14.

That's not a clue from GRRM, any more than the fact that I'm on page 42 in my current reread is a Hitchhikers' Guide connection.
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Why was Aegon so ready to surrender his faith and adopt the religion of southern Westeros? It'd be like the American Coloniolists adopting Native American spirtuality...Aegon had the superior firepower (literally) and dominated everyone. Why would he then forgo the gods of his people and take on the gods of the people he just conquered??

To the Valyrians, religions were just a means to subjugate the people. The gods of his people were the gods of their own choosing.

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I don't think the Valyrians at the time of the Doom were religious. They were kind of seeing themselves as superiors, and might have started to think themselves superior to even the Gods (if they did that it was a terrible mistake, Gods tend to be grumpy about stuff like that).

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Wait, are people taking this seriously?

The fact that there are 14 names on this list means absolutely nothing.

This is a list of names of dragons mentioned up to ADwD/TMK/TWoIaF that someone pulled out of their memory that sound Valyrian-ish. Even if there were actually 14 such names, what would that mean? There were fewer of them before the last book, and there will be more of them after the next book. But there aren't actually 14 in the first place; for example, surely Tyraxes fits the Targaryen-sounding names too?

This is just a random sampling of some Targaryen dragons, plus one dragon from centuries earlier. There are 14 because the user who was making the list happened to stop at 14.

That's not a clue from GRRM, any more than the fact that I'm on page 42 in my current reread is a Hitchhikers' Guide connection.

Actually there are 14 because the wiki article on dragons only had 14 Valyrian-sounding named dragons listed.  Either Tyraxes wasn't in the list, or somehow I missed him/her.

 

Do not doubt the signs.  And do not panic. ;)

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