Why was Qarth left out of TWOIAF?

[The Commentator]

On 3/18/2018 at 3:46 AM, Ckram said:

TWOIAF speaks little about Qarth, and in relation to its history, Yandel states: "While as for mysterious Qarth, I can point to no better source than Colloquo Votar's Jade Compendium, the foremost work on the lands around the Jade Sea." (The World of Ice and Fire - Other Lands).

However, in an interview with Adria's News (also reported on reddit), Elio stated that GRRM deliberately withheld information on Qarth, Meeren and Summerhall from TWAOIF. While it is easy to understand that information on Meereen and Summerhall may spoil the plot of both ASOIAF and Dunk & Egg novellas, suppressing information on Qarth's history did not seem a clear move to me.

We know Jade Compendium have the text of Azor Ahai Prophecy, and that's why we don't expect to have access to it either.

What's in Qarth's story that could spoil ASOIAF plot at this point?
Maybe something related to the dragon's bones in the Red Waste? 
Should we interpret that Yandel is also deliberately trying to hide information from the reader (Tommen)?

The House of Undying is there.  I suspect it is an important location to the eastern equivalent of the greenseers, the Undying Ones.  The cave in the west, the house in the east.  Yandel may have little information beyond what he could get from his sources.  

[Lord Varys]

5 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

There are a number of problems with that argument. Firstly, it would not explain the eradication of dragons in wild places like Sothoryos and other sparsely populated areas.

There are men and other intelligent species on Sothoryos, are there not? Who is to say that those cannot kill dragons? And who is to say that there are no dragons in the unknown southern reaches of Sothoryos right now?

5 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

And secondly, one struggles to think how primitive humans could have wiped out dragons across the known world.

That wouldn't have been that difficult if weirwood arrows/spears were very effective anti-dragon weapons, as some people have suggested. And then there is the whole power of magic. If the ancient Valyrians could tame dragons, then other men certainly could have created spells helping them to kill them.

More importantly, nobody ever said there were hundreds of dragons in Westeros. It could have been just scores or dozens. It shouldn't have been that difficult to take one dragon at a time when it became necessary to ensure the survival of the villages and settlements in the region.

5 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

As for dragons and their prey, it is about the equation of energy spent vs energy gained from a hunt. The further a dragon has to fly to consume sufficient pounds of protein to fuel it, the more energy is expended. This gets worse the bigger the dragon gets. And once large prey animals become scarce enough that the equation of energy gained vs energy spent gives a negative result, the dragon will slowly start starving. Not overnight, but over a 10 year winter it is very plausible.

Sorry, but using pseudo-scientific arguments in relation to dragons makes no sense. Dragons are magical creatures. They cannot exist, and they cannot possibly follow rules analogous to real world biochemistry.

If they were, then dragons could neither fly, breathe fire, or, you know, exist.

5 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

Given the state of the world prior to the First Men migration, we know Essos was a patchwork of primitive barbarian tribes, with large areas of wilderness all over the world. It seems implausible that humans would have eradicated every dragon between Asshai and Casterly Rock in that era.

See above. Only if dragons were ever numerous - and we don't have any reason to assume they were. 

5 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

And granted, even with the Long Night argument, the issue of dragons in the southern hemisphere is not addressed. But then, we have no idea how the southern hemisphere was affected by the Long Night. You don't need ice everywhere to disrupt the eco system. Massive droughts to compensate for the northern winter could have had a similar devastating effect on animal life.

If we don't have any idea how the southern hemisphere was affected by the Long Night we should shut up about that and not invent possibilities out of thin air. 

5 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

And it all then comes back to density of prey per square mile. And as the dragon has to fly further per calory consumed, it slowly starts to starve.

See above.

4 hours ago, Ckram said:

There's textual evidence of it? All I can remember is Yandel saying "But there were dragons in Westeros, once, long before the Targaryens came, as our own legends and histories tell us." In other words, Yandel doesn't have archaeological evidence (ie. dragon bones) to support his statement, just legends and histories. 

There is talk about dragon bones being found in Westeros, just as George actually confirmed that they once lived pretty much everywhere.

[Free Northman Reborn]

1 hour ago, Lord Varys said:

There are men and other intelligent species on Sothoryos, are there not? Who is to say that those cannot kill dragons? And who is to say that there are no dragons in the unknown southern reaches of Sothoryos right now?

That wouldn't have been that difficult if weirwood arrows/spears were very effective anti-dragon weapons, as some people have suggested. And then there is the whole power of magic. If the ancient Valyrians could tame dragons, then other men certainly could have created spells helping them to kill them.

More importantly, nobody ever said there were hundreds of dragons in Westeros. It could have been just scores or dozens. It shouldn't have been that difficult to take one dragon at a time when it became necessary to ensure the survival of the villages and settlements in the region.

Sorry, but using pseudo-scientific arguments in relation to dragons makes no sense. Dragons are magical creatures. They cannot exist, and they cannot possibly follow rules analogous to real world biochemistry.

If they were, then dragons could neither fly, breathe fire, or, you know, exist.

See above. Only if dragons were ever numerous - and we don't have any reason to assume they were. 

If we don't have any idea how the southern hemisphere was affected by the Long Night we should shut up about that and not invent possibilities out of thin air. 

See above.

There is talk about dragon bones being found in Westeros, just as George actually confirmed that they once lived pretty much everywhere.

Pretty funny reply. One of your poorer attempts, I would say. The lack of consistency of argument is rather brazen, dismissing logic when it suits you, because "magic", and other inconsistencies in service to your own argument makes it seem pointless to take this further. 

[Lord Varys]

1 minute ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

Pretty funny reply. One of your poorer attempts, I would say. The lack of consistency of argument is rather brazen, dismissing logic when it suits you, because "magic", and other inconsistencies in service to your own argument makes it seem pointless to take this further. 

Sorry, but your attempt is just as laughable. Why didn't feed those dragons of Westeros on the wights? They would have trouble running away, no? Or the the many starving and freezing humans.

But you are clearly confusing the 'magical' and the 'normal' sphere in the novels. Magic doesn't follow any rules - or rather, it follows made-up rules that can change constantly and aren't necessarily coherent with everything else. Dragons are in no way realistic creatures, and the idea that they behave in any way, shape, or form analogous to real animals doesn't make any sense.

If your speculation about the feeding habits of dragons had any bearing then dragons simply wouldn't exist in Martinworld because they could not. Because no animal based on real world biochemistry could breathe fire or fly in the ridiculous manner of George's dragons.

[Ckram]

13 hours ago, Widowmaker 811 said:

The House of Undying is there.  I suspect it is an important location to the eastern equivalent of the greenseers, the Undying Ones.  The cave in the west, the house in the east.  Yandel may have little information beyond what he could get from his sources.  

Are you saying that because little is known about the cave of the children of the forest north of the Wall, little would be also known about the House of the Undying? The problem with that is that since Yandel refers to a book whose content we do not know, we automatically don't know what Yandel actually knows.

On the other hand, it would be very odd the Masters of the Citadel didn't know about these peculiarities of Qarth when people like Randyll Tarly are able to bring warlocks to Horn Hill. In addition, since "all across the east", warlock's "power and wisdom are revered" (ACOK, Daenerys II), it's is unlikely that Jade Compedium doesn't tells their history in the most detailed way possible for a Volantane.

However, understanding the omission of GRRM is more important than that of Yandel. The interview referred to in the OP reveals that Qarth was not omitted for reasons of being inconsistent with the knowledge of the Citadel, but because GRRM deliberately wanted to hide spoilers away, if I may:

"The spoilers are mostly hidden by having certain things he doesn’t discuss very much, like Qarth and Mereen, because he thinks they are horrible places, with the slavery and so on, and also because George would not give us anything about Qarth. The other big spoilery stuff was Summerhall, but George didn’t want to give us much about this one either."

8 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

There is talk about dragon bones being found in Westeros

Got it: no text.

[Free Northman Reborn]

10 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Sorry, but your attempt is just as laughable. Why didn't feed those dragons of Westeros on the wights? They would have trouble running away, no? Or the the many starving and freezing humans.

But you are clearly confusing the 'magical' and the 'normal' sphere in the novels. Magic doesn't follow any rules - or rather, it follows made-up rules that can change constantly and aren't necessarily coherent with everything else. Dragons are in no way realistic creatures, and the idea that they behave in any way, shape, or form analogous to real animals doesn't make any sense.

If your speculation about the feeding habits of dragons had any bearing then dragons simply wouldn't exist in Martinworld because they could not. Because no animal based on real world biochemistry could breathe fire or fly in the ridiculous manner of George's dragons.

Ok, so, I don't say that the Long Night theory makes perfect sense, but I do think it makes a lot more sense than primitive humans killing off the most powerful species on the planet. Especially a species as mobile as dragons. Most likely humans would have banded together to drive a local dragon away that was threatening villages in the area. But they weren't going to pursue dragons into mountains, forests, jungles or other areas, over distances of hundreds or thousands of miles. While questions remain over how exactly the Long Night impacted the entire planet, this is at least a catastrophe of global impact that can plausibly be linked to the extinction of a species.

It may well turn out that there was something else that happened that we are not even aware of yet, which made dragons extinct, and that it had nothing to do with the Long Night. But the Long Night is at least more plausible than humans wiping dragons out in primitive times.

[Lord Varys]

5 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

Ok, so, I don't say that the Long Night theory makes perfect sense, but I do think it makes a lot more sense than primitive humans killing off the most powerful species on the planet. Especially a species as mobile as dragons. Most likely humans would have banded together to drive a local dragon away that was threatening villages in the area. But they weren't going to pursue dragons into mountains, forests, jungles or other areas, over distances of hundreds or thousands of miles. While questions remain over how exactly the Long Night impacted the entire planet, this is at least a catastrophe of global impact that can plausibly be linked to the extinction of a species.

Honestly, if we followed this kind of argument then the First Men most definitely wouldn't have defeated the Others and ended the Long Night, either, because there is no way that primitive humans could have defeated a magical species as powerful as the Others, right?

And thinking about the effect of the Long Night - it may have well caused the dragons still in Westeros at that time to migrate out of the land to warmer places. The dragon bones which are still found in Westeros don't have to be from dragons that were killed or extinct there, they could be from dragons who just died of natural causes.

If the Others had killed the dragons there would have been dragon wights in addition to the human and common animal wights we know of already - and as of yet there is no indication that dragon wights were ever a thing.

The Sarnori, Ghiscari, Rhoynar, Yi Tish, and Qaathi already had sophisticated cultures by the time of the Long Night. They would certainly have been able to hunt down wild dragons. In the end they are just animals, and territorial animals at that. All you have to do is find their lairs and put them down. It is not that hard if you have enough men and are able to surprise them (which shouldn't be that hard considering that dragons actually do sleep and are usually not accustomed to being hunted or threatened).

And if weirwood spears and arrows went through their armor like cheese then the First Men and other ancient cultures would actually stand a better chance against dragons than the Westerosi of the main series, considering that they would have had much better access to spears and arrows made of weirwood.

9 hours ago, Ckram said:

Got it: no text.

George told us that there are such bones. I don't think it was ever mentioned in the main series aside from Nagga.

[Rufus Snow]

Well, joining dots...

1) We have legends etc about dragon bones in Westeros, but no legends about dragons themselves.

2) Because magic

3) Men were not the first inhabitants of Westeros

... so could the extinct Westerosi dragons have been killed off by one or more of the Elder Races? Such as the highly ecologically-attuned and powerful magic-wielders, the CotF? Or something Deeper and darker?

As far as the text goes we don't know whether the wild dragons died out or were killed - either is possible. One legend would have it that dragons came from a shattered moon around the time of the Long Night, but that would seem to be at odds with them having existed in Westeros before the First Men came. One can't help but wonder whether the passing of the dragons and the coming of the Others are somehow linked....

[Free Northman Reborn]

17 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Honestly, if we followed this kind of argument then the First Men most definitely wouldn't have defeated the Others and ended the Long Night, either, because there is no way that primitive humans could have defeated a magical species as powerful as the Others, right?

And thinking about the effect of the Long Night - it may have well caused the dragons still in Westeros at that time to migrate out of the land to warmer places. The dragon bones which are still found in Westeros don't have to be from dragons that were killed or extinct there, they could be from dragons who just died of natural causes.

If the Others had killed the dragons there would have been dragon wights in addition to the human and common animal wights we know of already - and as of yet there is no indication that dragon wights were ever a thing.

The Sarnori, Ghiscari, Rhoynar, Yi Tish, and Qaathi already had sophisticated cultures by the time of the Long Night. They would certainly have been able to hunt down wild dragons. In the end they are just animals, and territorial animals at that. All you have to do is find their lairs and put them down. It is not that hard if you have enough men and are able to surprise them (which shouldn't be that hard considering that dragons actually do sleep and are usually not accustomed to being hunted or threatened).

And if weirwood spears and arrows went through their armor like cheese then the First Men and other ancient cultures would actually stand a better chance against dragons than the Westerosi of the main series, considering that they would have had much better access to spears and arrows made of weirwood.

George told us that there are such bones. I don't think it was ever mentioned in the main series aside from Nagga.

Worth pointing out that the First Men didn't defeat the Others. They needed the magic of the Children to do so.

Regarding the migration to warmer places, sure, I fully agree. Which is why I ask the question why there are no dragons in the wild, warm places of the world. We don't have an answer to that. But similarly, we know that there are many wild places in the world, places where dragons could easily have survived away from humans. Heck, even in our world today there would be places far enough away from humans that a mobile creature as free and powerful as a dragon could easily remain out of reach of medieval level humans.

And the thing is, if there are pockets of dragons in Sothoryos, in some remote mountains in eastern Essos, in Ulthos, or wherever, they would eventually multiply and be seen beyond those areas. So you would end up hearing of a dragon periodically arriving in a populated area out of the blue, threatening the locals and then either being driven off or killed or the village is evacuated. But the source of the dragons would remain out of reach as they are in distant, hard to reach places.

So there must be a reason why we don't know of other dragons anywhere, other than legends from Asshai, which could be references to ancient dragons rather than current ones for all we know.

In any case, something must have wiped out dragons everywhere, not just in areas populated by humans. And we don't have a perfect solution to that. But we do have a hint of a global catastrophe. And that was the Long Night. So if anything is a good candidate for wiping out dragons, it is that.

 

[Lord Varys]

8 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

Worth pointing out that the First Men didn't defeat the Others. They needed the magic of the Children to do so.

We don't really know how they were beat back the last time. It is implied that the help the Last Hero may have gotten from the Children did help with that, but we don't know that for certain, nor do we know whether he had already the (complete) key to victory after he reached and talked to the Children.

But then - if the magic of the Children could defeat the Others, why on earth shouldn't the magic of the Children not be able to put down the dragons? Or the magics of various ancient human cultures, First Men included? After all, the First Men also put down the Children and giants, never mind that the former had stronger magics and the latter were physically stronger than they.

8 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

Regarding the migration to warmer places, sure, I fully agree. Which is why I ask the question why there are no dragons in the wild, warm places of the world. We don't have an answer to that. But similarly, we know that there are many wild places in the world, places where dragons could easily have survived away from humans. Heck, even in our world today there would be places far enough away from humans that a mobile creature as free and powerful as a dragon could easily remain out of reach of medieval level humans.

Again, the peoples and species living in those places may have put the dragons down, just as they were put down by other human cultures. Dragons may also have never been numerous.

8 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

And the thing is, if there are pockets of dragons in Sothoryos, in some remote mountains in eastern Essos, in Ulthos, or wherever, they would eventually multiply and be seen beyond those areas.

Only if they are naturally fertile species. We don't know how often wild dragons mate, how many eggs they produce, how many such eggs hatch, how great the hatchling mortality rare is, etc.

Aenar Targaryen came with five dragons to Dragonstone and 200+ years later there were only about twenty dragons in all of Westeros. And those were pampered domesticated dragons.

8 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

So you would end up hearing of a dragon periodically arriving in a populated area out of the blue, threatening the locals and then either being driven off or killed or the village is evacuated. But the source of the dragons would remain out of reach as they are in distant, hard to reach places.

Aside from Grey Ghost, the wild dragons don't seem to hide all that well. The lairs of Sheepstealer and the Cannibal were well-known an accessible, and Silverwing later settled on an island in Red Lake in the populated Reach.

8 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

So there must be a reason why we don't know of other dragons anywhere, other than legends from Asshai, which could be references to ancient dragons rather than current ones for all we know.

We have no information whatsoever on Ulthos or the southern reaches of Sothoryos. We cannot say what we would have to know about regions we don't know anything at all, nor why don't know anything about those regions. If stories simply don't travel that far then stories about dragons there wouldn't travel that far, either.

8 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

In any case, something must have wiped out dragons everywhere, not just in areas populated by humans. And we don't have a perfect solution to that. But we do have a hint of a global catastrophe. And that was the Long Night. So if anything is a good candidate for wiping out dragons, it is that.

The Long Night wasn't a global catastrophe. It was just a catastrophe that affected the known world to various degrees. Simply assuming that the entire world was affected by it doesn't make sense at this point.

[Free Northman Reborn]

1 hour ago, Lord Varys said:

We don't really know how they were beat back the last time. It is implied that the help the Last Hero may have gotten from the Children did help with that, but we don't know that for certain, nor do we know whether he had already the (complete) key to victory after he reached and talked to the Children.

But then - if the magic of the Children could defeat the Others, why on earth shouldn't the magic of the Children not be able to put down the dragons? Or the magics of various ancient human cultures, First Men included? After all, the First Men also put down the Children and giants, never mind that the former had stronger magics and the latter were physically stronger than they.

Again, the peoples and species living in those places may have put the dragons down, just as they were put down by other human cultures. Dragons may also have never been numerous.

Only if they are naturally fertile species. We don't know how often wild dragons mate, how many eggs they produce, how many such eggs hatch, how great the hatchling mortality rare is, etc.

Aenar Targaryen came with five dragons to Dragonstone and 200+ years later there were only about twenty dragons in all of Westeros. And those were pampered domesticated dragons.

Aside from Grey Ghost, the wild dragons don't seem to hide all that well. The lairs of Sheepstealer and the Cannibal were well-known an accessible, and Silverwing later settled on an island in Red Lake in the populated Reach.

We have no information whatsoever on Ulthos or the southern reaches of Sothoryos. We cannot say what we would have to know about regions we don't know anything at all, nor why don't know anything about those regions. If stories simply don't travel that far then stories about dragons there wouldn't travel that far, either.

The Long Night wasn't a global catastrophe. It was just a catastrophe that affected the known world to various degrees. Simply assuming that the entire world was affected by it doesn't make sense at this point.

Lord Varys

Here's what's exasperating about debating issues with you (and I say this with a wry smile and a sigh which I cannot convey with words alone).

When you get your head stuck on something you have a tendency to dismiss theories with sweeping statements of opinion disguised as evidence, and then the icing on the cake is that you don't apply the same standards to your own arguments.

You just spent a fairly lengthy post dismissing almost every suggestion I made on the grounds of us not knowing enough about what transpired in ancient times, but then you proceed to state that your theory is true despite us having even less evidence for that than the evidence I presented for my argument!

It leaves one devoid of hope for humanity's ability to conduct a reasoned conversation, and tempts one to just pack up and end the affair as it is not worth the effort. It is intellectual dishonesty. But I don't think you intend it maliciously. I think you just don't realize the double standards you apply, due to your passion for your own argument.

You can't say we don't know that the magic of the Children defeated the Others, because the snippet of information that we do have actually states exactly that this is what transpired. Sure, that might be incorrect, but we have no evidence to the contrary. What evidence is there that humans wiped out ancient dragons everywhere in the known world? None whatsoever. There is more evidence for the Children's magic defeating the Others than there is for humans wiping out dragons.

You say that the Long Night left much of the world unaffected, but just like you claim we don't have enough information to make definitive statements on the Long Night killing off the dragons, in the same way we don't know that the Long Night DIDN'T make Sothoryos and the Summer Isles and Ulthos and every other place virtually uninhabitable too. Just because the ice ended at the lower Rhoyne doesn't meant that the climate wasn't messed up all across the globe.

You say we don't know this and we don't know that. Sure, I agree with you. We don't know. But we have hints. Will you equally admit that we know even less about ancient humans wiping out dragons?

Currently, we know there were dragons all over, and then there were dragons nowhere to be found other than Valyria. If there is only 10% evidence that the Long Night wiped out the dragons, then that is still better than the zero percent evidence that humans did so.

SOMETHING wiped them out. And we just happen to know of one planetary level catastrophe from that ancient era. I don't know why you resist it so passionately.  Maybe it was something else entirely that we have no clue about, like the mythical Deep Ones, or whatever, but we know the Long Night happened, and we know it caused mass death amongst every known species for decades on end.

We know nothing about ancient humans wiping out dragons.

Just be intellectually honest and admit that. To stop me from chewing on this desk in front of me out of sheer frustration at the obstinance I'm dealing with.

[Lord Varys]

@Free Northman Reborn

Where does the text actually state that dragons were killed by a global tragedy? Where does the text state that dragons were affected by the Long Night in any meaningful way, or that they care about climate change?

There are no such hints in the story.

What we do know is that men can and did kill dragons in this world. They did in the past, and they did try to do it in the present. They tried to kill Drogon in ADwD, and nearly succeeded.

Dragonslayers are a very common trope in fairy-tales in Westeros.

You have built a theory by presupposing a lot of things that simply aren't in the text.

There is no precedent about the dragons caring about the Long Night, while there is ample precedent that human beings eradicated not only powerful animals, but also powerful intelligent magical species (like the Children).

On 22.3.2018 at 6:34 PM, Free Northman Reborn said:

You can't say we don't know that the magic of the Children defeated the Others, because the snippet of information that we do have actually states exactly that this is what transpired. Sure, that might be incorrect, but we have no evidence to the contrary.

The point here is that we simply do not know what ended the Long Night yet. Nor how the Others were defeated - assuming they were defeated at all. Perhaps they just played the Minbari card and ran away at the moment when victory was all but complete? We don't know. We don't know what happened back then. And there is a reason why we don't know that. Because there will be a twist there.

Saying we know how the Others were defeated is in the same league as to say we know that Eddard Stark is Jon Snow's father. We 'know' that, too. We just have reason to doubt it.

But again - even if the magics of the Children helped defeat the Others, the First Men still eradicated and triumphed over the Children. Which means they are very effective at eradicating other species who have (superior) magical abilities. And we know men can kill dragons. That's not even a question. Nobody ever said anything about men having to slay all dragons with their hands to eradicate them. They could target their eggs. They could poison them. They could poison their food, etc.

Men are smart. Dragons are not smart. They are stupid animals.

On 22.3.2018 at 6:34 PM, Free Northman Reborn said:

What evidence is there that humans wiped out ancient dragons everywhere in the known world? None whatsoever. There is more evidence for the Children's magic defeating the Others than there is for humans wiping out dragons.

Sure, I never said humans most definitely eradicated the dragons. I just said they and other intelligent species (like the Children) could have done it. And that we have no evidence whatsoever the Long Night did affect the dragons in any way, shape, or form. We don't even know whether there were still dragons in Westeros by the time of the Long Night.

They could have been gone from that corner of the world long before the Age of Heroes. You don't know that they were. So stop giving the impression we know there were dragons in Westeros during the Long Night.

On 22.3.2018 at 6:34 PM, Free Northman Reborn said:

You say that the Long Night left much of the world unaffected, but just like you claim we don't have enough information to make definitive statements on the Long Night killing off the dragons, in the same way we don't know that the Long Night DIDN'T make Sothoryos and the Summer Isles and Ulthos and every other place virtually uninhabitable too. Just because the ice ended at the lower Rhoyne doesn't meant that the climate wasn't messed up all across the globe.

I said we have no reason to assume the Long Night was truly a global catastrophe considering that we don't even know this entire world. It may have been felt everywhere, but we don't know that it was.

What we do know is that it was it not felt in a meaningful way in the southern reaches of the world. The Summer Islanders have no gruesome tales about the Long Night. There is no reason to believe the Long Night brought cold and snow to Yi Ti. And so on.

On 22.3.2018 at 6:34 PM, Free Northman Reborn said:

You say we don't know this and we don't know that. Sure, I agree with you. We don't know. But we have hints. Will you equally admit that we know even less about ancient humans wiping out dragons?

Again, never said I know they did. All I say is that it is more likely on the basis of the knowledge we do have that intelligent species dealt with the dragons than that some global event that apparently didn't exterminate a single animal (or plant) species should have exterminated the dragons nearly everywhere, even in regions where the Long Night wasn't (or may not have been) felt.

On 22.3.2018 at 6:34 PM, Free Northman Reborn said:

Currently, we know there were dragons all over, and then there were dragons nowhere to be found other than Valyria. If there is only 10% evidence that the Long Night wiped out the dragons, then that is still better than the zero percent evidence that humans did so.

There is no evidence that the Long Night exterminated any species, but there is evidence that human beings can and did kill dragons. And human beings do live and dominate all reaches of the known world, exterminating species left and right (direwolves, mammoths, lions in the West, etc.).

On 22.3.2018 at 6:34 PM, Free Northman Reborn said:

SOMETHING wiped them out.

LOL, no. There is actually no evidence that something wiped them out. Perhaps they simply died out, because they had fertility issues and were never all that numerous in the first place.

You presuppose what you want to prove. But you have no reason to assume that 'SOMETHING wiped them out'. All we know is that they are just gone.

On 22.3.2018 at 6:34 PM, Free Northman Reborn said:

And we just happen to know of one planetary level catastrophe from that ancient era. I don't know why you resist it so passionately.  Maybe it was something else entirely that we have no clue about, like the mythical Deep Ones, or whatever, but we know the Long Night happened, and we know it caused mass death amongst every known species for decades on end.

Speaking about them, the mythical Deep Ones - in the guise of the squishers from the Crackclaw Point stories - also happen to have been eradicated (or at least drawn back into the sea for good) by humanity. Another example for a (potentially) powerful magical species being crushed by primitive mankind.

George's humans are as much a pest as the our species in the real world. They exterminate other species very effectively.

[Joshua Lowe]

Maybe Qarth is left out because it would be a spoiler to unveil too many details regarding the political structure of the city. Maybe GRRM doesn't want to let us know that Xaro is no real threat, and the Thirteen are but petty lords in the Greatest City that Ever Was or Will Be. Or reveal exactly how much power Quaithe wields.  

[Ckram]

I think I have a new clue, and it have to do with the Jade Compendium. But it depends of a much wider discussion, more fit to the "General" subforum. See you there.

[The Commentator]

The story arc has been steadily moving to the east.  I guess Martin will take us back to Qarth.  I prefer to go to Asshai though.  

[rotting sea cow]

Very interesting thread if you ask me.

I agree with @Lord Varys here. The only way we can interpret this "omission" is that Qarth will play an important role in the next book and so GRRM decided to withheld that information. This means that it is very likely that Dany will go to Qarth and discover some important secrets there. It is possible that given the near impossibility that Dany will ever visit Asshai, Qarth will replace it thematically (btw, in my opinion tHoU was originally located in Asshai, which makes more sense).

Qarth also features prominently in the Dothraki imagery, a rich city they have been unable to conquer. Dany can give them that and prove herself as the khal(-esi) of khals.

I was able dubious that the timeline would allow to pull up all the above, because Dany still needs to reach Westeros before the Wall falls, but maybe there are things we are not considering and certain events in Westeros are going to move at a slower pace we are often assuming.

 

[Lord Varys]

28 minutes ago, rotting sea cow said:

I was able dubious that the timeline would allow to pull up all the above, because Dany still needs to reach Westeros before the Wall falls, but maybe there are things we are not considering and certain events in Westeros are going to move at a slower pace we are often assuming.

Things might not go much slower that way, considering that Vaes Dothrak should be nearly as far away from Slaver's Bay as it is from Qarth. And at Qarth Dany's people going there could just as well catch a fleet carrying them to Slaver's Bay and then farther west as they could if she just returned to Slaver's Bay overland.

Also keep in mind that Dany controlling all the Dothraki would allow her to send different khalasars to different places.

I assume, though, that the armies going to deal with Qarth are going to be the ones she will accompany - or at least join once they are there.

Her acquiring a glass candle by that time could also greatly help with coordinating her attacks.

I still very much like my idea that one of the Undying may have been a Valyrian dragonlord, by the way. The question why the Undying were interested in Dany in the first place has yet to answered. Nobody even wondered about that at this point, nor why Qartheen warlocks should be ones giving Dany crucial information about her own future and destiny.

But it was really made clear with the Euron stuff and Xaro's return in ADwD that the Qartheen story is not yet over.