Ghiscari Dawn: The Ethnolinguistics of Ice and Fire Pt. 1 (aka Dragons Riddling with Harpies).

[Kurus]

Long time lurker, first time poster.

A lot of the work here is predicated on understanding the material produced by LmL, Blind Beth and Durran Durrandon. This great community has an enzymatic effect on the otherwise indigestible cellulose of GRRM’s work, and to me it has been more than that: it has provided me with an endless source of diversion and fascination, helping me get through tough periods in my life. That’s ironic, considering it’s dedicated to works depicting an uncompromisingly brutal, poverse, and oppressive society.

…yay!...

So today I wanted to talk about one of the story’s most important but least loved societies: the Ghiscari. This begins as a rumination on the relationships of the Ghiscari to both the GeoDawn and Valyrian societies, and ends on an interesting idea: that the harpies depicted in Ghiscari culture were once real, and their connection to so-called “Valyrian” sphinxes points to a potential for dynastic reunification (Hizdahr and Dany) MORE important than any Targaryen heritage Dany could hope to reclaim.

CONNECTIONS BETWEEN THE GHISCARI AND VALYRIA

To start, Ghiscari territory and particularly Slavers bay are both close to Valyria, and Valyrians and Ghiscari seemed to colonize in the same zones, sometimes living in apparent peace (see Velos and Ghozai).

Beyond this, we know that there is linguistic similarity, often attributed to Valyrian conquest:

“Even the Ghiscari tongue was largely forgotten; the slave cities spoke the High Valyrian of their conquerors, or what they had made of it.”

“Kraznys’s High Valyrian was twisted and thickened by the characteristic growl of Ghis, and flavored here and there with words of slaver argot.”

These conclusions come from the unreliable narration of Daenerys, who is correctly identifying the similarity, but may be misattributing its cause. Elsewhere in the story we hear of Valyrian itself “on its way to becoming separate languages,” much like Latin developing into French, Spanish, etc., and we have to wonder if at least some of the Ghiscari/Valyrian similarity comes not from conquest but from an ancient commonality.

Linguistics is in some ways more difficult than genetics, because horizontal transfer of information across organisms is rare whereas among languages it is very common. Modern Japanese has taken in an enormous amount of American vocabulary to describe every-day aspects of modern life, and English itself has a complicated relationship with (for example) French. If ‘name’ in English and nom in French look and sound the same and mean the same thing, it’s actually pretty hard to tell why. Is it because of the 1066 Norman Conquest? Is it because of an earlier Roman conquest of BOTH Gaul and Britain? Is it because of a yet more ancient Indo-European connection binding the otherwise separate Germanic and Romance Languages? (It’s probably the last one. In Hindi the same word is नाम: ‘naam,’ and ‘ainm’ is the word in Irish.) What about ‘munya’ and ‘mhysa’?

Ghiscari is, like Valyrian, a glyph-based language, and Missandei refers to it as the “old pure tongue.” Let’s zoom out for a moment, and talk about Ghis’s pedigree as a true heir to the Great Empire of the Dawn.

The lowest-hanging fruit on this count comes from city names, but honestly, they’re pretty intriguing. The two GeoDawn cities we know of are Asshai and Stygai, and the Ghiscari give us Ghozai, Gorgai and Yunkai (along with Astapor and Meereen). Additionally, we see that the name Ghiscar(i) fits into a series of ethnonyms for GeoDawn legacy civilizations:  the Sarnor(i), Roynar, Lhazar(ene), and even maybe, Nefer. This need not show that these were all one people in the past (LmL correctly points out that ancient empires were by their very nature poly-ethnic), but can show an imperial/international order. Think about the collapse of Persian and Soviet empires and the rise of countries like Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Afghanistan and Tajikistan.

If anything, Missandei’s weird reference to “the old pure tongue” may be an indication that Ghiscari is closer to the GeoDawn lingua Franca, that Ghiscar was more of a Geodawn Volantis: preserving the old culture and drifting less from the mother tongue (Italian); than a Bravos or Norvos. Kraznys deep-seeded contempt for ethnic Valyrians seems rooted in a sense of racial purity. He talks about the Valyrians “fucking sheep”, but we have heard this BEFORE in the story as a metaphor for breeding with a supposedly inferior class of people. When Dany demanded that the Lazharene women be taken as wives, the Dothraki objected by saying that the horse cannot marry the sheep, prompting Dany to say that they both run in fear from of the dragon. Animals here are metaphors for ethnicities. This realization could help decode the confused stories of Valyrian ethnogenesis: some stories saying that people came from another land to teach the Valyrians how to use dragons, others saying that dragons were simply “found” by simple shephards. What we are seeing is the merger of two peoples into one, a merger hinted at by dragons’ love of mutton. If you were a refugee bloodstone heir on dragon-back, wouldn’t you flee to a society of overawed shephards? The Ghiscari physical description: olive complexion, tightly curled or frizzy hair, streaks of red on black; might be closer to a pure GeoDawn ethnic description than the silver Valyrians. (QUICK SIDE NOTE: The shared animal-worship culture/physical description/geographic proximity of the Dothraki and Lhazareen would indicate that they too have a recent common ancestry.)

So why did these two brother peoples not embrace and weather the storm of the Blood Betrayal together? Well, besides potentially being on opposite sides of a dynastic squabble, the idea of brother peoples turning on eachother fits right into GRRM’s theme of “Othering” and world history.

Let’s talk about a controversial example: that of Japan and Korea. Long considered linguistic and cultural “isolates”, archaeological, genetic and linguistic evidence has recently revealed a much deeper connection between these two peoples than between either and other large North-East Asian ethnicities. This is not to say they are the same people, but that the basic cultural and genetic substrate of each may have started as more-or-less the same. The archeaological evidence supports a narrative that is easy to reconstruct and accept: 2-4 thousand years ago, iron age fishermen from Korea seasonally set up camps in southern Japan where they processed their fish. Over time they decided to stay more permanently. Some brought their families over, while others intermarried with native people (contributing to a singificant contribution of aboriginal DNA to the Japanese genome). Crucially , this cultural boundary was much more porous BEFORE political organization. As soon as kings and emperors started popping up, war after terribly brutal war severed the two peoples and increased a sense of othering right up through the twentieth century (and today). That is why, ironically, the strongest opponents of this otherwise widely accepted idea are in Japan and Korea, with some Japanese anthropologists creating a narrative of proto-Japanese people simply riding “through” Korea, and somehow not interacting with or being related to Koreans. Entrenched patterns of othering are difficult even for academics to shake off.

Kraznys behavior highlights the foolishness of such othering. I was honestly surprised that he felt free to insult this silver queen who had lived her life in Essos IN VALYRIAN. If you were wondering what he was thinking, the answer is that he just wasn’t. His behavior was as dumb as assuming that you are safe insulting an Italian person in Latin. Dany’s ultimate retort is a tragic revelation of the commonality between her and Kraznys.

 STOP: HARPY TIME

Watch this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVWQ9uZ4rRU

At 1:13, did it look to you like a giant harpy was fighting a dragon in mid-air? ‘Cause that’s what it looked like to me. Now, these videos often depict things that probably didn’t literally happen (like battles with sea dragons), but I think it’s significant that Jorah is talking about the FIVE Valyrian Ghiscari wars at that moment in the video. That plus the tapestry of a Valyrian defeat in Hizdhar’s room has always struck me is counter to the historical narrative we have been given. First, how would the Ghiscari not have been easily wiped out in one war? The Rhoynar had 1/3 of a million men and water-tornado mages and they still got their shit ROCKED. Second, are we hearing that the  Valyrians always won because {eventual} victors/recorders write the history? For decades after the Vietnam you heard people saying we “won” the war, or at least didn’t “lose”, but this position can only be maintained with clever manipulation of what our objectives were and what time periods mattered. If the Ghiscari managed to stave off the Wroth of the Dragon Lords for centuries, giant harpy-women sure would have helped.

And why not? The Valyrians had literal dragons, the Starks had literal direwolves, the ironborn may have real Krakens, the Manderlies may have real Merling buddies, and the Tullies have/had real fish! Yandel can’t stop talking about deep-ones. Sothyros has dinosaurs, and Essos has a city of winged men.

Wait… a city of what now? “A city of winged men?” What a band name! That’s almost as good as my idea for a Supreme Court themed punk rock band called “Naked Power Organ.” Anyway…

Harpies are EVERYWHERE in Ghiscari life. The FIRST THING we hear about Astapor, in our FIRST SLAVERS BAY CHAPTER, is a paragraph-long depiction of the Harpy of Astapor and its relationship with the Harpy of Old Ghis. Harpies are everywhere in the Ghiscari architecture, harpy statues, harpy columns, harpy banners, an aesthete that the show has made sure to emphasize. This mirrors the dragon-fascination of dragonstone, and even the term “son of the harpy” bears a resemblance to “blood of the dragon.”

There’s definitely a harpy-shaped hole in the Masters’ hearts. Who was the great pyramid of Meereen for, anyway? Why is there a tradition of combat ammounting to human sacrifices, with the fighting pits conveniently visible from Dany’s roost? What’s inside the harpy statues? Are they reliquaries: full of bones from a revered figure? Why can dragons so easily nest in the pyramids, only to swoop down when they spot fresh meat?When Dany considers death in the pit of Daznak, she thinks about Harpies coming to drag her down to hell. Is this the kind of myth the Masters needed to come up with when the last of the literal terrifying harpies died out?

And harpies seem somehow related to the actual peace that could have occured in slavers bay. The Masters seemed to be following the Green Grace’s lead on this one,  and the Graces seem to double as a kind of female maester class, particularly with respect to healing and biology. Galazza Galare demanded two things for peace: 1) that Daenerys marry a nobleman, and 2) that that nobleman be specifically Hizdahr zo Loraq. Only then, apparently, could there be an heir “half dragon, half harpy, in whom prohecies will be fulfilled.”

Wait, what prophecies?

One of the interesting things about Daenerys is how culturally Westerosi she is while never (ostensibly) having stepped foot in Westeros. Viserys, Jorah, Illyrio, the Songs and Stories of the Seven kingdoms, they always pull her back to a Westeros-focused, Targaryen restoration-focused view of the world and her importance in it. She doesn’t notice how everyone in Essos seems to see her as an incredibly important figure TO THEM (Watch Preston Jacobs for this stuff). It’s a bit like the white male narrative of contacting a primitive tribe and being worshipped like a god. Did they really worship you as a god? What god? Is this a society that has gods, or did they see you more as an ancestor figure? Were you a god of love or a god of war? Were they worshipping you out of love and respect, or out of fear of what you might do? Were they just making fun of you? Dany doesn’t notice how Drogo plans to have a son with her who will be a great conqueror of cities TO THE EAST. She doesn’t get how wierd it is that the Tourmaline Brotherhood sends her a three-dragon crown IN QARTH.  She doesn’t bother to ask what prophecies the Green Grace is following, or indeed much of what is going on in Ghiscari religion at all: barely commenting on her four hour marriage ceremony, almost as if she slept through it. Dany’s utter derision for what she sees as a morally bankrupt culture prevents her from seeing her deeper significance.

GHISCARI DAWN

Most readers and viewers probably have the warm fuzzies for the Fires of the Freehold. It is a fun, dragon-themed Rome/Atlantis that seemed to value principles of liberty in a medieval setting. Our key Valyrian character: Dany; is a bright and beautiful queen with a burning sense of social justice. “The Masters” on the other hand are cruel, dehumanizing, decadent, lazy, rapacious and often cowardly. They eat dogs, puppies even, something that immediately alienates Western readers (despite not necessarily being more morally culpable than eating pork, lamb or veal).

TWoIaF readers and man/woman-child fanatics like me will comment that Valyria was in fact (fiction) no better than the Ghiscari Empire. Valyrians operated hellish volcanic mines, committed heinous forced bestiality in attempts to create… something(?), and crushed the peaceful, productive Rhoynar to nothing. They may also have been direct descendants of the nef(e)rious Bloodstone Emperor: a connection teased out by LmL and the use of the word ‘heliotrope’ and its relationship between both bloodstone and “valerian” flowers. At least they didn’t eat puppies?

Wait, I have a menu here that survived Doom. It was from a charming little sea side bistro in Velos. Let’s see here… Gosh darn it! Puppy glazed in honey! It’s right there on the lunch menu! Am I reading those glyphs wrong?  I guess that’s what you get for sharing an island with Ghozai.

So what if the Ghiscari are not meant to be caricatures of evil?

This brings us to Stonehenge. You see, Stonehenge was not built by the people long assumed to have built it. Often attributed to the work of druids operating around 1,000 B.C., it has now become clear that the structure was built two-thousand years earlier by earlier British inhabitants following largely lost religions. The druids continued henge building, but they inherited it from earlier people.

“Valyrian” sphinxes may not be Valyrian at all. In a dance with dragons, Tyrion describes a Valyrian sphinx as having the body of a dragon and the head of a woman. Despite many artistic depictions to the contrary, we know that dragons in this setting have only two legs and two wings, so we are already starting to see something that looks like a harpy, particularly as Ghiscari harpies have leathery wings similar to those of dragons. Both these harpies and any sphinx statues Valyrians did build may have been in a tradition following from Geodawnian times. And what would these statues have been to the GeoDawnians: Gods with gemstone eyes? Kings and Queens? That’s what Illyrio seems to think, refering to one such female sphinx as having lost her “king” to the Dothraki horde. Illyrio seems to know a thing or two. And what about those sphinxes at the Citadel in Oldtown? Do you really think someone found two matching sphinxes from Essos, somehow got them onto an ocean going vessel, transported them across sees and moved them into position down Oldtown’s narrow streets? Or were they simply constructed there at the same time as the citadel’s crude five-forts style blackstone construction was being completeted, before the rise of Valyria?

If the sphinxes were gods and kings, it helps explain why the harpy was so revered in Ghis: it was a continuation of that tradition. It also might help explain what the Green Grace wants out of Dany. You see, Harpies seem to have died out of natural causes, much like the Targaryen dragons. And yet Tagaryen women have a tendency of producing still-born children with dragon-like features, including leathery wings. The Ghiscari don’t care about the mother of dragons. They care about the mother of monsters. That focus helps us get a little deeper into what actually happened with the blood betrayal.

The sword that the BSE forged may have been dragons. This is not a new idea. I would qualify it, though, by saying that dragons probably already existed by the time the BSE was born: construction with fused black stone in Asshai occured on a massive scale. The dragons of his time may have been the four-legged, elephant-sized belly kind closer to living construction vehicles than nuclear weapons. The BSE may have merged into them whatever harpy genes were making the royal monster family tick. When the BSE “stabbed a monster with a sword” and “made her blood boil” that monster may have BEEN Nissa Nissa, and the BSE may have been fighting her to break his slowly decaying civilization away from the stasis of the God Kings. This angle and its potential embrace of more normal people as opposed to genetically engineered ones may explain why the BSE/AA was a polarizing figure, not a universally hated one.

This is why the citadel has sphinxes: they are a sign of authority at a far-flung outpost. This may also be why “the Sphinx is the riddle, not the riddle.” Understanding the nature of the Sphinx may help you unravel the original sin of the World of Ice and Fire: that original dynastic betrayal our of which flowed the Long Night, the scattering of the peoples and the loss of human control of “magic.” Understanding the Sphinx would be understanding that the Valyrians were the original Blackfyres, the upstarts willing to cause devastation in an attempt to bring about good government. If sphinxes riddling with dragons were replaced with harpies MARRYING dragons, it would mean healing a dynastic split at very root of all devastation in Essos. Viewed in a more sinister light: it would also be putting the tools back in the Ghiscari’s hands to rebuild a world-spanning empire. A veritable Ghiscari Dawn.

Puppy anyone?

[Arya_Stormborn]

This is fascinating and brilliant. I'm not knowledgeable enough to respond to it intelligently (I've only read WOIAF once), but I am impressed. Thank you for sharing this!

[Kurus]

Ur welc. One person has said one positive thing to me over the internet. My life is now validated. Anyway, if you want to see even cooler stuff in this area, really check out the stuff by Lucifer Means Lightbringer on this part of the forum, which in turn directs you to some other cool stuff.

[watcher of the night]

On 2016. 05. 20. at 7:57 PM, Kurus said:

Ur welc. One person has said one positive thing to me over the internet. My life is now validated. Anyway, if you want to see even cooler stuff in this area, really check out the stuff by Lucifer Means Lightbringer on this part of the forum, which in turn directs you to some other cool stuff.

Make it two. Well written, I enjoyed it. 

[Others Take Them]

This could all fit in to the narrative with narry a tinfoil hat in sight! Great stuff!

[Lord Parker]

Dude, this is great stuff. While I personally prefer Daenerys restoring her heritage, as you put it, this is a great theory and I'm digging a potential part two, since your title says part one. 

[Maester of Valyria]

Great theory; well done! Just a few minor points:

 

On 19/05/2016 at 8:56 PM, Kurus said:

At 1:13, did it look to you like a giant harpy was fighting a dragon in mid-air?

The lore videos often use heavy symbolism to illustrate their points: it may be no different to saying 'the wolf and stag fought the dragon' to describe Robert's Rebellion: there were no actual wolf-stag-dragon fights (pity though; that would have been awesome!)

 

On 19/05/2016 at 8:56 PM, Kurus said:

First, how would the Ghiscari not have been easily wiped out in one war? The Rhoynar had 1/3 of a million men and water-tornado mages and they still got their shit ROCKED.

The Valyrians were still developing as a people at the time of the Ghiscari wars: it may have been that the Valyrians didn't have the power or the inclination the first four times to wipe the Ghiscari out. At the time of the Rhoynish wars Valyria had expanded greatly and probably had more dragons at its disposal.

On 19/05/2016 at 8:56 PM, Kurus said:

citadel’s crude five-forts style blackstone construction was being completeted, before the rise of Valyria?

As far as we know the Citadel is not constructed of Black Stone; are you thinking of the Hightower? Seeing as Yandel mentions the Hightower base being made of this Black Stone, it would seem unlikely that he would neglect to tell us if the Citadel was made of the same thing.

[TheSovereignGrave]

Well, that was pretty well thought out and pretty interesting too. Though I did notice another minor issue: there's no fused black stone in Asshai. Asshai is built of the greasy, black stone but there's no mention of it being made from fused, single pieces of stone. The Five Forts on the other hand, are fused stone (though they aren't ever described as oily).

[The Grey Wolf]

On Thursday, May 19, 2016 at 2:56 PM, Kurus said:

First, how would the Ghiscari not have been easily wiped out in one war?

I've often wondered about this myself and the few details we're given in TWOIAF really makes me wish GRRM gave us more on the ancient Ghiscari civilization, which seems to have been more mulch-faceted and realistic, and whose conquests would make for a great short story or fake history that would really highlight the tragedy of the Valyrians' utter destruction of the Ghiscari culture and people. 

As for how they fought five wars I have a few ideas. One, maybe the Ghiscari had mages of their own and being the first empire a lot of them. Two, they had more manpower and resources than Valyria, at least initially. Three, the Freehold in the beginning probably didn't have that many dragons and they probably weren't as fearsome as the ones the Rhoynar faced so they couldn't risk them all that often, especially not when the class levels were being formed by those who could ride dragons and those who could not. Four, maybe the Valyrians didn't feel a pressing need or desire to wipe out Old Ghis the first four times. After all in RL Rome only destroyed Carthage in the Third Punic War (which to sidetrack momentarily was the Romans being monumental assholes). Fifth, maybe the Ghiscari were masters at fortification and siege weaponry and could shoot down dragons with a shit ton of ballistas and scorpions, which seems reasonable given they were able to build an 800-ft pyramid whose ruins are described even in the current day as "colossal".

If anyone else has any more good ideas I'd like to hear them. The Valyrian-Ghiscari Wars and the Old Empire of Ghis are among my favorite obscure things I wish we knew more about.     

[Kurus]

Thanks for all the positive feedback!

Yeah: the lore videos do depict some stuff that almost certainly did not happen. I think the whole actual harpy thing is best justified by references to winged people in the story, the phenomenon of Valyrian sphinxes and the Targaryen miscarriage pattern. Some of the stuff in my theorization here is probably stretching a bit, but I'm almost certain that there is supposed to be SOME kind of Valyrian/Ghiscari Harpy/Sphinx linkage probably touching on the Great Empire of the Dawn. AND when you start really delving into sphinx stuff, its hard not to go for that "riddle, not riddler" connection.

The black stone is also an issue, as we get varying references to oily-ness and some stone that has a strong GEotDawn connections (5 forts) and some with strong sea-people connections (like most of the rest of it). Someone needs to go all Strange Stone on that and really tease out the correlations. The base of the hightower is kind of in between: it could conceivably come from either source. Also I think I mentally conflated it with the Citadel, so there's that. It's possible that the the two types of stone are connected, though, as we hear patchface talk about fires under water. This might actually bring back up the specters of sea dragons (ironically) and move us back towards most things in the lore videos being literally accurate.

I also agree that the Ghiscari wars were probably more complicated, and that dragons may have been weaker and less numerous at that point. One of the most tantalizing quotes from the books is Barristan saying that the Targaryen dragons were "bred for war" and "in war they died." I read that long before I had the slightest inkling of black stone, or gemstone emperors, and it was kind of like "wut?" Up to that point I just assumed the image of standard fantasy dragons, and that quote opened up to me the idea of these animals being bred and potentially engineered over a long period of time. The statement also coincides with my belief that the dragons mk. 1 that Tyrion mentions: four legged with giant bellies; may have used primarily in a non-war role. The Ghiscari getting a head start, though, indicates to me that they represented kind of a fringe like Mantarys: not a "free city" per se but more of one of the last surviving peripheries of the contiguous empire.

In a general sense, I think this post was motivated by my feeling that the Ghiscari don't get enough love. The Dothraki barely figure in the story after season/book one (until now, I guess), yet they really captured people's imaginations. The Ghiscari deserve the same: their a really cool unplaceable mish mash of Ancient Greece, Rome, Egypt, and Phoenicia. And they honestly come across as pretty badass in the right light. Their kind of terrible, yet the Dothraki are no better and they get a pass.

Look at this shit: http://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/File:New_ghis.jpg

Anyway, I was thinking of posting something about the tenuous connections among 'Velaryon,' 'Valyrian,' the BSE and perhaps a little Salladhor Saan, but I got to figure out how that all fits together. I also want to do the Rhoynar at some point: perhaps focusing on how their traditional title of "prince" indicates acknowledgment of a defunct higher unit of governance and how their empowerment of women might connect to the fisher queens and might even connect to Greywater Watch, Meera Reed and the Celtic "fisher king" thing. So, one day in the future one of those will probs come out as a part 2.

I am a generator of internet content.

[TheSovereignGrave]

16 hours ago, Kurus said:

Anyway, I was thinking of posting something about the tenuous connections among 'Velaryon,' 'Valyrian,' the BSE and perhaps a little Salladhor Saan, but I got to figure out how that all fits together. I also want to do the Rhoynar at some point: perhaps focusing on how their traditional title of "prince" indicates acknowledgment of a defunct higher unit of governance and how their empowerment of women might connect to the fisher queens and might even connect to Greywater Watch, Meera Reed and the Celtic "fisher king" thing. So, one day in the future one of those will probs come out as a part 2.

I am a generator of internet content.

I don't necessarily think the title of 'Prince' is an acknowledgement of a higher power. It's another culture, and there's plenty of Principalities that were never in vassalage to anyone above them. Heck, if I remember correctly IRL the world originates from a Latin word that means someone who governed a sovereign territory. So another culture in Westeros just using it for their rulers doesn't seem out of the question for me.

 

Though the mention of the Fisher Queens made me remember something I noticed the other day. Huzhor Amai supposedly was the first of the Tall Men and the son of the Fisher Queen who took wives from the Gipps, Zoqora, and Cymmeri. The Zoqora were said to ride to war in chariots (which brings to mind the Sarnori who did the same) and the Cymmeri are said to be the first people to have learned to work iron (the Rhoynar were known to have worked iron and steel early as well). Plus you have the fact that both cultures were somewhat more egalitarian than the norm, with the Rhoynar allowing women to rule and the Sarnori having their women fight alongside them (plus they actually claim descent from the Fisher Queens).

[Kurus]

Yeah, also the Cimmerians were the iron working people Conan the Barbarian came from, so...

[Kurus]

I just want to throw something in here that I just realized and no one will probably see. In support of the theory that Geodawnian monarchs were weird sphinx/harpy creatures, remember that Maester Aemon's eventual shift to seein Dany as the Prince who was promised had to do with a realization that linguistically the word 'prince' had a changeable gender component linked to the changeable sex of dragons. Why would the word for leader in Valyrian be directly linked to dragons and dragon biology? Perhaps because the proto-Valyrian society followed leaders who had a good deal of dragon biology.