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Connecting House Hightower/Dayne AKA The Dawn Empire mirrors


OberynBlackfyre

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SO, it never occurred to me that the hearts, as in the heart of shadow and the heart of winter, were mobile. I'm still not sure what I think of the notions, but metaphorically speaking we see hearts popping up a lot. The heart trees, the sword that was forged from the heart of a fallen star, a sword the was tempered by being plunged into the heart of Nissa Nissa.

On a more literal level, I have always assumed that the black stone of the Bloodstone Emperor and the pale stone from which Dawn was forged are likely to be real objects that could be moved, and they could be the hearts, I had, however, assumed that the pale stone was still in the Pale Stone Tower at Starfall, so I don't know if either of the stones could be the mobile hearts. (I think the Seastone Chair could be the black stone. So it couldn't be in Stygia.)

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On 9/23/2017 at 9:20 AM, Durran Durrandon said:

SO, it never occurred to me that the hearts, as in the heart of shadow and the heart of winter, were mobile. I'm still not sure what I think of the notions, but metaphorically speaking we see hearts popping up a lot. The heart trees, the sword that was forged from the heart of a fallen star, a sword the was tempered by being plunged into the heart of Nissa Nissa.

On a more literal level, I have always assumed that the black stone of the Bloodstone Emperor and the pale stone from which Dawn was forged are likely to be real objects that could be moved, and they could be the hearts, I had, however, assumed that the pale stone was still in the Pale Stone Tower at Starfall, so I don't know if either of the stones could be the mobile hearts. (I think the Seastone Chair could be the black stone. So it couldn't be in Stygia.)

Hi all - I peek in after about a year and see almost all my fave posters on one thread! Warning that I will be referring to the show in what follows respecting the creation of the Others, which I think might have some changes in the novel, but will be more or less the same.

I like your theory OberynDF but I tend to think the Bloodstone Emperor/Amethyst Empress story was a precursor to the Long Night rather than simultaneous to it.

Moreover, in reply to what Durran Durrandon says, I think the heart of winter is a real heart - the one residing in the head honcho of the Others (I'll call him the Night King for ease of use though I know the reservations about it) - and lodged in that heart is the weapon imbued with all the COF magics that created a new race and sunk the world into a Long Night.  It is both a literal heart and a metaphysical heart - it is where Bran travels and finds it terrible, this heart of the Night King. If Martin is using this trope, it comes from the story of Kay and The Snow Queen, and Martin has already used that story once as the basis for The Ice Dragon.

If we conclude this, then it makes sense that the other Heart of Shadow or Fire or whatever, is lodged in the skeleton chest of the man or woman who defeated the Others, the Last Hero, who I believe is buried at Winterfell.  The secret of the Winterfell crypts, the reason certain Targaryans have been interested in Winterfell, is that their ancestor is buried there.  He or she is the Dragon buried beneath Winterfell, created by the COF from the Last Hero (or his wife) to try to balance out overwhelming winter magic and defeat the Others. A real Dragon?  Probably not, but the spirit of a man-dragon clinging still to its bones?  I think it likely.  

The same key ingredients to both - a heart, a weapon, and magic.  But was it any man or woman the Children chose to become the first of a new race - the icy Others or the fiery Valyrians?  Or were these people likely of the same original family because they had an essential inheritance in their bloodline - a nascent ability to transform?

Defeating the Night King will mean removing (death? melting?) the weapon lodged in his heart.  Ice preserves, the guy is still alive, but all the wights are dependent on him, and so it seems are the beings he created in his image with possibly no real magic of their own.  I have visions of a fiery hand plunging into the Night King's chest and pulling out the weapon.  Is this related to all the hand imagery of the story?

So how to defeat the Day King/Heart of Fire?  The Last Hero is dead - fire consumes.  But it rebirths in his descendents if they intermarry.  Defeating the Heart of Fire means killing off all his descendants. Jon, Dany, maybe Tyrion if he's a Targ - doomed.  It might possibly mean obliterating the Last Hero's remains, and almost certainly means destroying or transforming the weapon that changed him from a proto-Valyrian human being into something ... Other

Okay, so that's been my framework for a long time, and so far (though I haven't seen season 7 of the show) nothing has derailed it as a framework in ASOIAF, the show or WOIAF.  How does this connect to your theory OberynDF?

My reading of the Great Empire of the Dawn, the Bloodstone Emperor, Asshai, etc., is that they marked both the end of a cycle and the beginning of one.  Something happened - perhaps a la LML's theories - and something changed.  Something was introduced into Planetos that seems to have plunged a great many humans into experimenting with hybridization - of the body and the mind.  In Asshai, they still practice this kind of magic, and it unsettles the region because Planetos not only has to maintain an elemental balance, but a magical one.  One of the main laws of physics is that with every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction, and the wastes and the semi-destruction of civilizations in Asshai seem to me to tell a tale of the misuse of magic.  Even the more recent events with the Rhoynar tell the same story - they sang magical floods down on their enemies, sure, but what happened immediately afterwards?  The plague of grayscale - hybridization/transformation again, humans and stone.  Magic has a cost. 

And so the peoples of the region fled.  And with them traveled descendants of the Amethyst Empress.  And with them travelled a sword, the sword of office of the Great Empire - a sword called Dawn, that was made from a meteorite, but not one that fell in Westeros, it fell in the Great Empire and is made of the same stuff that fuelled the  hybridization/transformation experiments there.  It is likely the sword that changed the Last Hero into something more, something Other and dragon-like, and that quality has been inheritable - with incest - by his descendants since.

With a meteorite comes a Long Night, but a natural one.  It's the stone instead that seems to have caused the weirdness in Asshai and surrounding regions.  One might argue that the greasy black stone of the Empire is nothing like Dawn and its milkglass appearance, but it's interesting, isn't it, that the Black Gate at the Nightfort is described as gleaming like milkglass, alive with light.  The doors of black and white.  Somehow white and black go together.  Is the greasy black stone the detritus after magically using the pale stone gleaming, alive with light? Is the sword Dawn the only remainder of that meteorite, the rest of it used up and transformed to greasy black stone.  I mean, who builds a city in black stone?  Was it originally built of pale stone, gleaming, that turned black as its magic was used up?  But I meander...

Just like humans are called Dragons if they carry a bloodline, humans are called Swords if they carry another.  Sword of the Morning. Hybridization with animals or swords.  It's not just purple eyes that Valyrians and Daynes have in common.  And despite their non-purple eyes, the Starks seem to have this hybridization ability too, at least in mind.

So it makes sense to me that there was a great exodus to Westeros, and among the First Men who arrived, were those with a bloodline that if concentrated enough through interbreeding, could seem magical because they could through mind meld/transform with other species, animals, even meteorites.  Trees (is it a coincidence that the only human full greenseers we know of are a Stark and a Targaryan?) These people arrived in the south, some of them retained knowledge of these powers, and because of nobility in-breeding, the traits were more concentrated in the nobility but didn't preclude commoners and outliers descended from the same.  Some kept moving north, and because their communities were more isolated, they also tended to breed the trait more.  Thus - Hightowers, Daynes, Starks, interrelated - were more likely to exhibit the trait, though it died out in the south and almost in the north. 

It's possible that the Last Hero and the Night King (not the one at the wall, the head honcho) were brothers.  I believe they were related, at any rate, because they carry that bloodline of potential hybridization.  One was changed through an ice-magic imbued weapon (original Ice?) into a powerful semi-human being that could raise the dead and live forever; the other was changed through a fire-magic imbued weapon (possibly Dawn) into a charismatic semi-human who could control dragons and still breed.  His proto-Valyrian descendants had to leave Westeros or die once the Others left, or destroy Westeros, something the Last Hero obviously did not want.  And so they left to go to Valyria, sought out volcanoes and learned the art, with or without magicians from Asshai, of really controlling dragons and conquering a continent.

None of what I've said is likely new to you.  Nothing earth-shattering, though I do find it interesting that I've never read people thinking of the Hearts as actual hearts pierced with magic, but always of some kind of centre of evil in a definite location.  As for Dawn, Martin has said he's not taking characters to Asshai, where one could reasonably expect to find a Heart of Darkness or Heart of Fire, so if that's the case, somehow something of Asshai might have come to Westeros.  That's why I wonder if Dawn could have played a role, and that's due to Durran Durrandon pointing out that Dany's ancestors in her vision all seemed to be holding a milkglass sword.  People have hypothesized that they carried many of these swords, and that could be true, but it seemed to me if each king or queen was holding one, and they were all meshed together out of time, that it was the same sword handed down through the generations.  That is Dawn's heritage for me, therefore.  The Excalibur of ASOIAF and it would be a let down if it doesn't play a role or didn't play one in the past.  It makes sense that if there is a location for a Heart of Summer/Darkness/Fire/Shadows, etc., it might reside in the weapon that made the Last Hero into a Dragon, and that might be Dawn.

Cheers guys.  As usual, you all got me thinking and putting thoughts together.   

 

 

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On ‎9‎/‎19‎/‎2017 at 7:06 PM, Reekazoid said:

Some Mesoamerican cultures built ceremonial temple cities that were as large or larger than their actual political seats of government, sometimes due to the location being better for astronomy or what have you, even if they weren't as good for trade or military defense. 

 

I dont think anyone should get too hung up on whether it was the actual capital vs. just an important, if somewhat remote, city. 

Also, what about Vaes Dothrak?  The city is supposed to be made large enough for all the Dothraki to converge at one time because of a certain prophesy.  Maybe Asshai had a similar prophesy. 

Most of the halls, even the largest, seemed deserted. “Where are the people who live here?” Dany asked. The bazaar had been full of running children and men shouting, but elsewhere she had seen only a few eunuchs going about their business. “Only the crones of the dosh khaleen dwell permanently in the sacred city, them and their slaves and servants,” Ser Jorah replied, “yet Vaes Dothrak is large enough to house every man of every khalasar, should all the khals return to the Mother at once. The crones have prophesied that one day that will come to pass, and so Vaes Dothrak must be ready to embrace all its children.”

 

 

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1 hour ago, Crowfood's Daughter said:

Also, what about Vaes Dothrak?  The city is supposed to be made large enough for all the Dothraki to converge at one time because of a certain prophesy.  Maybe Asshai had a similar prophesy.

 

Asshai is large not for fulfilling prophecy, but because it was highly populated once. The entire shadow region must have been a fertile vale, with plenty of farms. How else to feed a large population?

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6 hours ago, Falcon2909 said:

Asshai is large not for fulfilling prophecy, but because it was highly populated once. The entire shadow region must have been a fertile vale, with plenty of farms. How else to feed a large population?

No doubt it was once fertile.  If Ulthos and Leng around Asshai are any indicator, Asshai was once heavily forested at one time.  I feel there is a good chance the Safron Straits separating Ulthos and Asshai was once quite smaller seeing as there is evidence around the rest of the world to suggest that water levels rose. 

Just something to chew on with the Dothraki legend. 

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18 hours ago, Falcon2909 said:

Asshai is large not for fulfilling prophecy, but because it was highly populated once. The entire shadow region must have been a fertile vale, with plenty of farms. How else to feed a large population?

High functioning ice/fire servants don't eat, a la Coldhands, Beric, Mel, Bloodraven. 

I'm pretty comfortable positing Asshai as a direct counterpart to the far North. They are both death realms, home to wights and their sentient overlords. They also both drawn straight from two death realms in Norse mythology: Niflheim, the frozen realm of the dead, and Muspelheim, the fiery realm.

So I'd say it's entirely possible that after the Blood Betrayal, Asshai was a city of zombies.

But why not play with potential connections between Vaes Dothrak and Asshai? They do have one notable thematic element in common: black water.  And twice we see black water running: Blackwater bay/river and the described canals of Asshai. Both symbols convey terror from the night sky.

Maybe there's no significance to the still/running distinction, but if we look at the broader setting, it's more illustrative. Blackwater Bay features mostly in the fiery battle beneath the Red Keep, in Westeros's seat of power. Asshai was the eastern ancient seat of power, and we suspect a lot of terrible fiery, bloody stuff happened there, too. And in a philosophical view, a seat of power is also a source of power; sovereignty flows from the throne down to the lords and vassals... just as the terror of the Long night flows from its sources, in Westeros and Essos respectively. Interestingly, both places where dragonriders ruled. 

Still black water acts often as mirror reflecting the past disaster. And At least twice a pregnant woman is emerging from it (the moon "coming out" of the sky). Once at Winterfell in Bran's weirtrip, and once when Dany is done eating the horse heart, and she comes out of the water to take sun-symbol Drogo's "lightbringer". And the stillness reminds me of ice. As a mirror of the past, it's frozen. Quite in contrast to those places with fire and moving water.

So maybe we can see these as indicating the living nature of the terrible fiery stuff still happening in contrast to the frozen terrors of the past. Cold = old. 

In this view, then, Vaes Dothrak is an analog of Winterfell, while Kings Landing is an analog of Asshai. After all we kind of expect a winter muster at Winterfell against the Others, just as Vaes Dothrak is prophesied to fill one day. We don't need to have POVs in Asshai because events in KL are the present day iteration of Asshai's past.

 

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  • 1 month later...

 

On 9/18/2017 at 5:53 PM, OberynBlackfyre said:

So lets say that some of them come to Valyria and see that its volcanic....a land that kind of like Asshai. And there definitely seems like the people who settled Asshai may have done so for its volcanic origins....as its also said that it may have been people from ASSHAI AKA THE DAWN EMPIRE THAT TAUGHT THE VALYRIANS ABOUT THE DRAGONS

Just wanted to propose a variation of this theory.  I am on board with the GEOTD being dragonlords and that they probably hung out around volcanoes because dragons tend to do better there, as evidence with the Valyirans in Vlayria and the Targs at Dragonstone. While I would not dispute that Asshai has potential volcanic elements, (it does have a river named Ash) there is actually another volcanic candidate right in the middle of the Jade Sea. Marahai.

Quote

Marahai, the paradise isle, a verdant crescent attended by twin fire islands, where burning mountains belch plumes of molten stone day and night. - The World of Ice and Fire - The Bones and Beyond: Leng

Check it out on a map, the island configuration is a classic volcanic caldera, and judging by the description, extremely active.  I don't know if GRRM was deliberate in its cartographic size, but its big....like really big, bigger than Yellowstone big.  Calderas have a cycle, a gradual build up of lava rock and an eventual BOOM when the mass blocks too much pressure, then it starts the cycle again. Krakatoa is a familiar example.  If the GEOTD and their dragons had been based on Marahai during its last eruption, well, all evidence of them would have been decimated.  Also, the Jade Sea coast would have been pummeled with a tsunami, including Asshai. 

Furthermore, large caldera eruptions can create events called volcanic winters when too much ash blocks the sun, and the Long Night does correspond with the end and disappearance of the GEOTD.  Admittedly it's a lot of tin foil based on 23 words and the shape of islands on a map, but by putting those two details together GRRM did create a repeating massive bomb with a long fuse in the middle of the Jade Sea.

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