[TWoIaF spoilers] The Curious Tale of Hyrkoon the Hero

[butterbumps!]

After re-reading the Yi Ti legend, this makes sense. It seems the darkness there was more political rather than cataclysmic.

Or, people like LF and Varys have been at this game a long time, lol. Exploiting the chaos of a "natural" disaster has its virtues if you're looking for a good time to strike and appoint yourself king of everything in that vacuum.

The Rhoynar one is also political in nature. That hero who called for unity was unnamed, but that was about the disjointed Rhoynar trying to stand up (admittedly unsuccessfully) to Valyrian oppressors. Maybe the unsuccessful part is why he's not named or something. Though, iirc, they named him Garin on the poleboat in DwD.

[Lord Varys]

We should keep in mind that half-gods are ruling back then. The Jewel Emperors, not the color Emperors. They would have ruled the world itself as well as its people, and vice and sin and stuff may supposedly caused the darkness and the cold (i.e. the cataclysm). The Lion of the Night did not just people encourage to frequent brothels, I guess...

[Marcus Agrippa]

No, not really a timeline. It's sort of ambiguous whether these are all supposed to have occurred at the same time. I'm genuinely unsure, and it could be argued both ways (that there were in fact multiple long nights or a single one that affected the world). Essosi cultures have accounts of "long nights," and what's common to them is an emphasis on political disunity.

In the Yi Ti legend, they believe that their Long Night was ushered in by the "blood betrayal" of a a jealous younger brother to his Empress sister (The "Bloodstone Emperor" kinslayed, killing his sister, the "Amethyst Empress"). "Reign of Terror" is the actual phrase used to describe his subsequent rule, and he's accused of practicing necromancy, slavery and cannibalism, to name a few.

This darkness went on for a while, until a hero rose to overcome him. This hero is said to be known as "AA, Hyrkoon, Yin Tar, Neferion and Edric Shadowchaser" according to various cultures. He led the virtuous into battle with his blazing sword Lightbringer, and light returned.

So, basically, the "bad guy" in this tale is a dictator who caused a great darkness, and some hero rallied the kingdom to defeat him.

I suppose we still don't know what the others mean to the story. Ouside of them being made from magic and the long night... I also wonder if Varys knows anything. We have the story about him and the magician and I am starting to wonder if he wa telling a half truth... and the half truth was the voice he heard.

[butterbumps!]

We should keep in mind that half-gods are ruling back then. The Jewel Emperors, not the color Emperors. They would have ruled the world itself as well as its people, and vice and sin and stuff may supposedly caused the darkness and the cold (i.e. the cataclysm). The Lion of the Night did not just people encourage to frequent brothels, I guess...

Is your position that the Others are a separate, alien race? If so, is your position that they came from the Lands of Always Winter, through Westeros and over to Essos such that the same exact Long Night with the same exact Others is implicated in them all, bringing darkness with them? (if this is what you're saying than I might be confused by the argument in the OP).

Or do you favor the Others= transformed humans/ human product angle? If so, is your position that at exactly the same time across all continents, humans started going a bit heavy on their blood magic and sinning, causing a full blown Long Night, where each culture had it's form of tyrant/ Others at exactly the very same time, and one by one separate heroes beat them back?

Or is it something else you're getting at?

[Lord Varys]

In regards to Yi Ti I was just trying to argue that the Yi Tish may have been believing that their vice and sin caused all that cold dark stuff (i.e. the very real Long Night).

As I see it there was very long and cold winter without much (or any light) everywhere in the world.

For the Yi Tish this was caused by the sinful people and the Blood Betrayal of their semi-divine usurper ruler.

But my guess is that the real cause for all that was in Westeros, whatever happened there. The freak seasons trouble not only Westeros, too, and thus the return of the Others and the coming bad winter will also trouble the whole world.

[Queen‍‍‍‍‍‍ Alysanne‍‍™]

Or, people like LF and Varys have been at this game a long time, lol. Exploiting the chaos of a "natural" disaster has its virtues if you're looking for a good time to strike and appoint yourself king of everything in that vacuum.

The Rhoynar one is also political in nature. That hero who called for unity was unnamed, but that was about the disjointed Rhoynar trying to stand up (admittedly unsuccessfully) to Valyrian oppressors. Maybe the unsuccessful part is why he's not named or something. Though, iirc, they named him Garin on the poleboat in DwD.

Just like after the Doom (a natural disaster) Volantis exploited that event to try and conquer the free cities.

I think that story was Garin the great, where he was forced in a cage to watch his people get slaughtered? But destroyed the Valyrian Oppressors with water magic. I don't remember too well

[History of Westeros]

"The sun hid in shame from what it had done"

Well that is very interesting. Of course, we KNOW what the sun had done. It had cracked open the second moon, spilling forth a million dragons.

So that heavily implies that the Long Night was caused by the celestial event remembered as the second moon that cracked open after wandering too close to the sun, and which spilled forth the million dragons. Thus it seems to link the birth of the dragons shortly BEFORE the Long Night, to the Long Night that followed relatively shortly thereafter.

I like this idea a lot.

It would be interesting if the destruction of this moon/celestial event sent fragments to Planetos and this is the source for the metal that Dawn is forged from.

[tze]

I thought it was interesting that none of the non-Westerosi stories of the Long Night seemed to associate it with Westeros, let alone seemed to believe it, or anything that came with/during it, had in any way originated with Westeros. (Admittedly, Yandel's writings here are necessarily truncated.) People have been wondering for a while why the Red Priests never seem to associate "Azor Ahai reborn" with Westeros/the Wall, and this could be the answer: their legends might not even mention the idea of the Long Night originating in Westeros, let alone contemplate some sort of Westerosi-centric battle.

I see people pointing out the possibility that Azor Ahai (at the very least, the person or people that were the source for that particular hero) really did have nothing to do with defeating the Others/the Long Night in Westeros, but was responsible for fighting some conflict in the eastern region(s) that actually mention him. I think that makes a lot of sense, not just logistically, but also thematically: ASOIAF is written as generally Westerosi-centric, but GRRM has also gone to pains to highlight how events outside of Westeros are ignored at one's peril. The point might be that the Long Night is coming to all of Planetos, and while the series will primarily focus on the Westerosi "theater", that doesn't mean that success in Westeros will necessarily save the rest of the world, as threats will be arriving on multiple fronts.

If Azor Ahai really was based in the general Asshai-esque region, then if the Red Priests are correct that Azor Ahai will be reborn (admittedly, they may not be---it's interesting how TWOIAF attributes the legend of a hero with a sword to Asshai, but seems to attribute the naming of that hero and the idea of him being reborn to the Red Priests, themselves of uncertain origin), then the point might be that "Azor Ahai reborn" is supposed to fight on a front in the east, not in Westeros. (That would cast Quaithe's apparent attempt to get Dany to head for Asshai in an interesting light.) And if there's a prophecy that a hero associated with a particular Eastern region is needed to reappear, then by implication, something terrible is probably about to hit in the East around Asshai.

The legendary backstory of Yi Ti mentions its origin as a Golden Empire ruled by demigods who literally descended from an "entity" (the Lion of Night) threatening the Golden Empire during the Long Night. It also specifies that this empire included "the holy isle of Leng". Given what supposedly dwells beneath Leng, what does it mean that people in Yi Ti considered Leng "holy"?? What, exactly, was being worshiped in Yi Ti prior to (and maybe during?) the Long Night? Was the Lion of Night just one half of an "ordinary" dualistic light/dark religion, or might he perhaps have been more in line with the Old Ones/Deep Ones/General Lovecraftian Horrors category of gods? (And what might that mean for the Maiden-Made-of-Light? Or even R'hllor, given the possible similarities between these two dualistic light/dark religions?) Supposedly the Bloodstone Emperor "practiced dark arts, torture, and necromancy" and "cast down the true gods to worship a black stone that had fallen from the sky", with obvious Lovecraftian implications. But it might fit with the underlying Lovecraftian theme that seems to permeate the history of Planetos if perhaps the "true gods" being cast down in Yi Ti weren't of a particularly different . . . nature . . . from that newly arrived "black stone". As in, maybe it wasn't evil fighting good, or even weird fighting ordinary. Maybe it was "Lovecraftian horror" fighting "different Lovecraftian horror" with humans caught in the middle? (Or themselves embodying those "Lovecraftian" horrors?)

Supposedly the Hyrkoon "were sacrificing tens of thousands of the zorse-riders to their dark and hungry gods", and while we don't know what the connection is between the legendary "Hyrkoon" and the Patrimony of Hyrkoon, that "dark and hungry gods" part is rather sinister. And given the extremely sinister nature of Asshai, what does it mean if the Asshai'i consider someone a hero? (And why would the Asshai'i in particular (Mel's delusions notwithstanding) venerate someone who fought against darkness, given that Asshai is supposedly a place steeped in darkness?) I keep coming back to this, because if the stories of the actual entity that the prophecy refers to originated in Asshai (nightmare central), with a possible counterpart in a Yi Ti that considered an island home to Lovecraftian horrors as "holy", and possibly with a connection to Hyrkoon ("dark and hungry gods"), I'm left with the question of whether we can assume the force fighting "the darkness" in this region was by implication any less terrifying than the thing "causing" or "arriving in" that darkness.

The Rhoynar aren't mentioned having stories of a hero that saved the day; they have stories of a bunch of lesser river gods "join[ing] together to sing a secret song that brought back the day". That could be a reference to the COTF, as they're associated with singing. It's not clear if the woods walkers are literal COTF or a cousin species, but nothing in their description seemed really different than what we've seen with the Westerosi COTF. There's quite a distance between the Kingdoms of the Ifeqrevon and the Rhoyne, but if woods walkers once lived in the Forest of Qohor, the logistics might work out. (I was going to postulate some water-based cousins to the COTF---"the ones that sing the songs of water?"---but . . . maybe the Deep Ones, or some river-dwelling equivalent, are water-based cousins to the COTF. Which goes back to the point about what "sides" actually existed during the Long Night, and whether it was necessarily all of the humans vs. all of the nonhumans.)

We know the Five Forts sit to the northeast of Yi Ti's borders, which makes no sense if they were raised to combat a threat initially coming from anywhere to the west. And the Five Forts were also, according to some stories,

raised by the Pearl Emperor during the morning of the Great Empire to keep the Lion of Night and his demons from the realms of men.

In the "origin story" of Yi Ti, two apparent gods---the Maiden-Made-of-Light and the Lion of Night---have a son, who rules the Great Empire of the Dawn until passing it to his own son, the ruler known as the Pearl Emperor. (The Pearl Emperor is therefore the grandson of the Lion of Night, one of the forces associated with causing some sort of destruction during the Long Night.) But supposedly the actual Long Night doesn't occur in Yi Ti until the succession battle between the Amethyst Empress and the Bloodstone Emperor, who have five rulers (Jade, Tourmaline, Onyx, Topaz, and Opal) coming between them and the Pearl Emperor who supposedly built the forts. (Could that number be relevant? Five Forts, and five emperors?) The stories of the Long Night in Westeros seem to imply that the Wall was raised after the War for the Dawn, not before, so I thought it was interesting that there seems to be a Wall counterpart that supposedly predates the Long Night. What's more, we have the idea of the person building the Five Forts actually descending from the force the Forts were meant to keep out (the Pearl Emperor being the Lion of Night's grandson), which might dovetail with the "the Starks built the Wall and are somehow connected to the Others, the force the Wall is keeping out" idea people have been floating for a while.

Either the Five Forts have nothing to do with the Long Night, or the Others spread out from Westeros in multiple directions rather than just heading (south)east, or multiple threats existed during the Long Night, of which the Others were merely one, and any "Others" that the people of Yi Ti fought against were not necessarily the same "Others" that the people of Westeros fought against. (I see Butterbumps has proposed something similar to that upthread.) The first choice is the least interesting, but could easily be true. The second choice has a number of implications about the Others' abilities to travel, if indeed they had the logistical capabilities to head west from Westeros. (Even possibly that the Others as we know them exist in places outside of Westeros---what's going on at the south pole?) And the third choice could have some pretty huge implications about ASOIAF's upcoming Others plotline. We think about the situation as if the events at the Wall will determine the fate of humanity. But if attacks are going to come on multiple fronts, then even if the Others never manage to pass the Wall, the Long Night could still end up falling (somewhere, at least).

[Black Crow]

After re-reading the Yi Ti legend, this makes sense. It seems the darkness there was more political rather than cataclysmic.

The "time of great darkness" [per Azor Ahai] being metaphorical rather than literal is certainly something we've discussed before, and on the question of the multiple hero stories I'd just make the following observations:

• The last hero was just that, the last of 13 heroes. The others didn't make it through.

None of the other stories [apparently] refer to companions

The other heroes are all local and sort things out locally

Therefore I think that we can rule out multiple heroes travelling from the ends of the earth to Westeros to sort out the Others and bring light back into the world. Rather that each culture had its own local hero - and that includes Meddlesome Mel's Azor Ahai.

[David C. Hunter]

No, not really a timeline. It's sort of ambiguous whether these are all supposed to have occurred at the same time. I'm genuinely unsure, and it could be argued both ways (that there were in fact multiple long nights or a single one that affected the world). Essosi cultures have accounts of "long nights," and what's common to them is an emphasis on political disunity.

In the Yi Ti legend, they believe that their Long Night was ushered in by the "blood betrayal" of a a jealous younger brother to his Empress sister (The "Bloodstone Emperor" kinslayed, killing his sister, the "Amethyst Empress"). "Reign of Terror" is the actual phrase used to describe his subsequent rule, and he's accused of practicing necromancy, slavery and cannibalism, to name a few.

This darkness went on for a while, until a hero rose to overcome him. This hero is said to be known as "AA, Hyrkoon, Yin Tar, Neferion and Edric Shadowchaser" according to various cultures. He led the virtuous into battle with his blazing sword Lightbringer, and light returned.

So, basically, the "bad guy" in this tale is a dictator who caused a great darkness, and some hero rallied the kingdom to defeat him.

This sounds like the Night King all over again, or rather....a story that proceeded it

[David C. Hunter]

I thought it was interesting that none of the non-Westerosi stories of the Long Night seemed to associate it with Westeros, let alone seemed to believe it, or anything that came with/during it, had in any way originated with Westeros. (Admittedly, Yandel's writings here are necessarily truncated.) People have been wondering for a while why the Red Priests never seem to associate "Azor Ahai reborn" with Westeros/the Wall, and this could be the answer: their legends might not even mention the idea of the Long Night originating in Westeros, let alone contemplate some sort of Westerosi-centric battle.

I see people pointing out the possibility that Azor Ahai (at the very least, the person or people that were the source for that particular hero) really did have nothing to do with defeating the Others/the Long Night in Westeros, but was responsible for fighting some conflict in the eastern region(s) that actually mention him. I think that makes a lot of sense, not just logistically, but also thematically: ASOIAF is written as generally Westerosi-centric, but GRRM has also gone to pains to highlight how events outside of Westeros are ignored at one's peril. The point might be that the Long Night is coming to all of Planetos, and while the series will primarily focus on the Westerosi "theater", that doesn't mean that success in Westeros will necessarily save the rest of the world, as threats will be arriving on multiple fronts.

If Azor Ahai really was based in the general Asshai-esque region, then if the Red Priests are correct that Azor Ahai will be reborn (admittedly, they may not be---it's interesting how TWOIAF attributes the legend of a hero with a sword to Asshai, but seems to attribute the naming of that hero and the idea of him being reborn to the Red Priests, themselves of uncertain origin), then the point might be that "Azor Ahai reborn" is supposed to fight on a front in the east, not in Westeros. (That would cast Quaithe's apparent attempt to get Dany to head for Asshai in an interesting light.) And if there's a prophecy that a hero associated with a particular Eastern region is needed to reappear, then by implication, something terrible is probably about to hit in the East around Asshai.

The legendary backstory of Yi Ti mentions its origin as a Golden Empire ruled by demigods who literally descended from an "entity" (the Lion of Night) threatening the Golden Empire during the Long Night. It also specifies that this empire included "the holy isle of Leng". Given what supposedly dwells beneath Leng, what does it mean that people in Yi Ti considered Leng "holy"?? What, exactly, was being worshiped in Yi Ti prior to (and maybe during?) the Long Night? Was the Lion of Night just one half of an "ordinary" dualistic light/dark religion, or might he perhaps have been more in line with the Old Ones/Deep Ones/General Lovecraftian Horrors category of gods? (And what might that mean for the Maiden-Made-of-Light? Or even R'hllor, given the possible similarities between these two dualistic light/dark religions?) Supposedly the Bloodstone Emperor "practiced dark arts, torture, and necromancy" and "cast down the true gods to worship a black stone that had fallen from the sky", with obvious Lovecraftian implications. But it might fit with the underlying Lovecraftian theme that seems to permeate the history of Planetos if perhaps the "true gods" being cast down in Yi Ti weren't of a particularly different . . . nature . . . from that newly arrived "black stone". As in, maybe it wasn't evil fighting good, or even weird fighting ordinary. Maybe it was "Lovecraftian horror" fighting "different Lovecraftian horror" with humans caught in the middle? (Or themselves embodying those "Lovecraftian" horrors?)

Supposedly the Hyrkoon "were sacrificing tens of thousands of the zorse-riders to their dark and hungry gods", and while we don't know what the connection is between the legendary "Hyrkoon" and the Patrimony of Hyrkoon, that "dark and hungry gods" part is rather sinister. And given the extremely sinister nature of Asshai, what does it mean if the Asshai'i consider someone a hero? (And why would the Asshai'i in particular (Mel's delusions notwithstanding) venerate someone who fought against darkness, given that Asshai is supposedly a place steeped in darkness?) I keep coming back to this, because if the stories of the actual entity that the prophecy refers to originated in Asshai (nightmare central), with a possible counterpart in a Yi Ti that considered an island home to Lovecraftian horrors as "holy", and possibly with a connection to Hyrkoon ("dark and hungry gods"), I'm left with the question of whether we can assume the force fighting "the darkness" in this region was by implication any less terrifying than the thing "causing" or "arriving in" that darkness.

The Rhoynar aren't mentioned having stories of a hero that saved the day; they have stories of a bunch of lesser river gods "join[ing] together to sing a secret song that brought back the day". That could be a reference to the COTF, as they're associated with singing. It's not clear if the woods walkers are literal COTF or a cousin species, but nothing in their description seemed really different than what we've seen with the Westerosi COTF. There's quite a distance between the Kingdoms of the Ifeqrevon and the Rhoyne, but if woods walkers once lived in the Forest of Qohor, the logistics might work out. (I was going to postulate some water-based cousins to the COTF---"the ones that sing the songs of water?"---but . . . maybe the Deep Ones, or some river-dwelling equivalent, are water-based cousins to the COTF. Which goes back to the point about what "sides" actually existed during the Long Night, and whether it was necessarily all of the humans vs. all of the nonhumans.)

We know the Five Forts sit to the northeast of Yi Ti's borders, which makes no sense if they were raised to combat a threat initially coming from anywhere to the west. And the Five Forts were also, according to some stories,

In the "origin story" of Yi Ti, two apparent gods---the Maiden-Made-of-Light and the Lion of Night---have a son, who rules the Great Empire of the Dawn until passing it to his own son, the ruler known as the Pearl Emperor. (The Pearl Emperor is therefore the grandson of the Lion of Night, one of the forces associated with causing some sort of destruction during the Long Night.) But supposedly the actual Long Night doesn't occur in Yi Ti until the succession battle between the Amethyst Empress and the Bloodstone Emperor, who have five rulers (Jade, Tourmaline, Onyx, Topaz, and Opal) coming between them and the Pearl Emperor who supposedly built the forts. (Could that number be relevant? Five Forts, and five emperors?) The stories of the Long Night in Westeros seem to imply that the Wall was raised after the War for the Dawn, not before, so I thought it was interesting that there seems to be a Wall counterpart that supposedly predates the Long Night. What's more, we have the idea of the person building the Five Forts actually descending from the force the Forts were meant to keep out (the Pearl Emperor being the Lion of Night's grandson), which might dovetail with the "the Starks built the Wall and are somehow connected to the Others, the force the Wall is keeping out" idea people have been floating for a while.

Either the Five Forts have nothing to do with the Long Night, or the Others spread out from Westeros in multiple directions rather than just heading (south)east, or multiple threats existed during the Long Night, of which the Others were merely one, and any "Others" that the people of Yi Ti fought against were not necessarily the same "Others" that the people of Westeros fought against. (I see Butterbumps has proposed something similar to that upthread.) The first choice is the least interesting, but could easily be true. The second choice has a number of implications about the Others' abilities to travel, if indeed they had the logistical capabilities to head west from Westeros. (Even possibly that the Others as we know them exist in places outside of Westeros---what's going on at the south pole?) And the third choice could have some pretty huge implications about ASOIAF's upcoming Others plotline. We think about the situation as if the events at the Wall will determine the fate of humanity. But if attacks are going to come on multiple fronts, then even if the Others never manage to pass the Wall, the Long Night could still end up falling (somewhere, at least).

Love everything you wrote. My two cents,

Regardless of the wall, the Long Night is coming, even if the White Walkers are stifled for a bit. It's snowing in the Riverlands now. it's coming, which means the Wall has nothing to do with the Long Night itself, but just the White Walkers.

But apparently, there are "dead things in the water" now which means, that at the very least, the wights are not bound by land.

Also, it was proposed a long time ago that the ancient Ironborn concept of drowning, dying and being revived stronger than before was inspired by the Islander's dealings with the wights.

So they will at least get to Westeros.

Also, The White Walkers...seem to be very intelligent. I don t see many of them attacking the wall, trying to climb it or trying to go around it or whatever.

They attack very strategically, mainly, scaring the wildlings completely out of ther lands.

They also seem to be building their numbers via baby snatching (Though, not original White Walkers)

Point Im making, they are acting like theyve done this before and probably have a plan.

The Children/Blood Raven also seem to have a pretty good plan, despite teh fact that they are choosing not to explain any of it.

Where am I getting at? It seems like...this has happened before.

I have always been a fan of the cyclical theory.

Dragons, Walkers, Children, perhaps other beings, human settlements, cultures have come and gone over and over again.

This Song of Ice and Fire seems to have been song many many times, with each side holding sway over an "age".

To me, the implication that the seasons were normal is just like a typical fairy tale. "Once the land was beautiful, then the monsters came, then the hero saved the day. And it was beautiful again." If they cant even remember what happened during the Long Night, how can they know what life was like before?

As for everyone that says the Long Night may have been just political dark ages exaggerrated? No. Thats not the way this story is unfolding. Of course they were political dark ages, they are living through a 40 year winter, are you kidding? The politics during that time was probably worse then during the Mad King's era.

This is a cycle, each cycle last a "generation." but Im starting to think that it was much longer than this. I think it possibly couldve lasted hundreds or even thousands of years. I think it was an entire era in which the Ice/Moon/Darkness was prominent. And that the cultures who represented this magic were the most powerful (Think Northerners). Then they fell...that age left...then the Valyrians tamed the Dragons, and the era of fire was started. See what Im saying? And the Valyrians ruled for thousands of years. To add more fuel to the fire, if the Yi Ti built the Five Forts to keep out the Darkness/Demons, then that means they built it during the Long Night. Im pretty sure they didnt have that much of a warning about the Demons, either that or they built it after they beat the Demons back, but that's not how the book worded it. So...how long did it take them to build huge fortresses during a time where food was probably scarce? 20 years? 40 years? longer? I think the people of the world are describing the end of an era of Winter/Ice/Darkness

What Ice Kings ruled during the Long Night? Hell the Starks are called "The Kings of Winter". During this Long Night Ice cycle it seems that many cultures were destroyed, lost, and even the Dragons were pused back all the way to the 14 fires. (Just like the White Walkers were supposedly pushed back to the Lands of Always Winter at the end of the Ice age) Was the Last Ice King crazy just like the Mad Last Targ King?

Now the Ice Age is returning to rule the world once more. Nothing can stop it, unless a balance is reached. It all depends on the story GRRM wats to tell. Does he want to find a balance somehow? Or is it just time for Wolves? Not sure yet, but what I am sure of is that the Last Hero and the Light Bringer are enemies.

Asshai is the wild card because I do not believe their leaders are honest with this whole AA thing. They do live in darkness, they practice dark magic. Their world views seem to be closer to a world in which COTF, Giants and necromancers rule...They are anti-Andal it that regards. Why would they not want the White Walkers to take over Westeors as well as Essos? Im sure they have books on how to deal with them, and Dragons and the Children.

Same goes for the the Red Priests. Are they really trying protect the Fire side's will, or are they just brining Dany to her doom? Makes me think....

[Mithras]

How the AA legend was formed is no different than this:

During the Middle Ages, founding myths of the medieval communes of northern Italy manifested the increasing self-confidence of the urban population and the will to find a Roman origin, however tenuous and legendary. In 13th-century Padua—when each commune looked for a Roman founder and if one was not available, it invented one—a legend had been current in the city, attributing its foundation to the Trojan Antenor.

The Long Night happened 8k years ago and the return of AA was prophecized in Asshai 5k years ago. The Long Night was witnessed as a supernatural phenomenon and all the local religions needed to explain it (or risk losing believers).

[Lord Varys]

Interesting tidbits are:

- Only Lightbringer originated with the ancient Asshai'i, and that's particularly interesting because they are supposed to be the first dragonriding people, too. Whether the hero of the ancient Asshai'i was the same guy the Yi Ti remember as Hyrkoon is unclear. But it is very unlikely that R'hllorism could have originated in present day, dark Asshai. Which leaves the possibility that it did not, and merely incorporated ancient Asshai'i traditions into their lore, or that Asshai was not always as dark as it is today. In fact, if you subtract all the magical eeriness, what remains is awfully reminiscent of radioactive pollution...

- I took the Rhoynish legend as hint that humanity/all factions/people/races must unite to defeat whatever is threatening them. Sort of obvious, right, and thus perhaps to literal?

- Hyrkoon the Hero is essentially a Yi Tish hero. I'd not take any Yi Tish story from before the Long Night seriously. The succession of the Jewel Emperors and the expanse of their Golden Empire resembles the story of the Ancient Chinese Empire before there was an Epire (or an Emperor) all too much. In that regard, the inclusion of Leng as a province of the Realm is necessary, because all the lands the Emperor ever ruled at one point in history always belonged (and ever will belong) to the Empire.

The Lion of the Night and the Maiden-Made-Of-Light just seem to me as a night/death god and a sun/life goddess. Their union brought forth the first divine Emperor, but this does not necessarily mean the Yi Tish particularly liked that deity (hence the story about the Pearl Emperor keeping him out).

- An interesting is that the Patrimony of Hyrkoon, possibly founded by Hyrkoon, a practicer of fire magic, was destroyed by an unnatural, possibly, magical heat. I think the Hyrkoons built their patrimony on fire and blood, and just as with the Valyrians that meant blood sacrifice in abundance. The Valyrians could not tame the volcanoes forever, and the Hyrkoons possibly were unable to control their magics, too.

Elaborating on that:

- The piece on Qohor strongly implies that the creation of Valyrian steel involves blood sacrifice. Another hint that Lightbringer may have been nothing but Valyrian steel before there was Valyria (i.e. possibly the first blade made in the magical process later perfected and industrialized by the Valyrians)

- In hindsight of the sinister nature of Asshai, and all the Lovecraftian references, especially in regards to the island people, we could, perhaps, also consider an ancient Ironborn involvement in the Long Night (I've long argued that Aeron may try to turn to the Others to continue his opposition against Euron)

- Being naive, my guess is that the Eastern cultures did not face any specific supernatural Long Night (whatever the Five Forts are guarding Yi Ti against have nothing to do with the Long Night itself, although whatever is still out they may have tried to flee/invade Yi Ti around the time/after the Long Night) but rather only the cold and the dark itself. The Westerosi had their ice demons, too, but the rest of the world just the cold, the dark, their fears, and a lack of answers. Thus they made up stories.

And, perhaps, if the ancient Asshai'i really played a role back then, they could have been the catalyst uniting the warriors of various races to go to Westeros and wage the last battle of the War for the Dawn on Battle Island at Oldtown. Supposedly dragons once lived there, and the idea that the Valyrians or any other advanced ancient civilization hung out there to treat with the Children and the giants is a little far-fetched for my taste. The stories about Garth Greenhand's children do not include a founder for House Hightower (nor House Manderly, for that matter). That is curious, and it is explicitly discussed that the Hightowers may be not descended from the First Men. Another curious thing in hindsight of the Valyrian reluctance to set foot on Westeros itself (because the Doom of Mankind would come from there) is the fact that both the Hightowers and the Daynes have their ancestral seats on island just off the coast of Westeros. That is not a coincidence.

[Ibbison from Ibben]

In regards to Yi Ti I was just trying to argue that the Yi Tish may have been believing that their vice and sin caused all that cold dark stuff (i.e. the very real Long Night).

As I see it there was very long and cold winter without much (or any light) everywhere in the world.

For the Yi Tish this was caused by the sinful people and the Blood Betrayal of their semi-divine usurper ruler.

But my guess is that the real cause for all that was in Westeros, whatever happened there. The freak seasons trouble not only Westeros, too, and thus the return of the Others and the coming bad winter will also trouble the whole world.

This story from Yi Ti sounds like a typical bit of propaganda spewed out by an alliance between an emperor and his closely allied priests. "Rebelling against the divinely sanctioned god-king and his holy servants will bring doom on us all, so behave and don't rebel." Any natural disaster can be conveniently used to chastise the population and keep them in line. But yeah, there really was some sort of worldwide event that they reacted to.

How the AA legend was formed is no different than this:

During the Middle Ages, founding myths of the medieval communes of northern Italy manifested the increasing self-confidence of the urban population and the will to find a Roman origin, however tenuous and legendary. In 13th-century Padua—when each commune looked for a Roman founder and if one was not available, it invented one—a legend had been current in the city, attributing its foundation to the Trojan Antenor.

The Long Night happened 8k years ago and the return of AA was prophecized in Asshai 5k years ago. The Long Night was witnessed as a supernatural phenomenon and all the local religions needed to explain it (or risk losing believers).

Seven Hecks! A thousand years before that, the Franks made up stories about how they were descended from the Trojans. That way, they had a legend to compete with he Roman's Aeneas legend.

And I agree that most of the legends, especially the ones from the East, were nothing more than populations or religions making up new heroes or reworking old ones to explain a real worldwide phenomenon. The political/religious authorities needed to claim they did something to solve the problem, or they would be deemed useless.

Westeros was probably different. There was one real, concrete result of the Long Night, and that was the newly screwed up seasons. The fact that Westeros has so much land mass at high latitudes makes it a likely ground zero for the magical disruption that caused the wonky seasons.

[cgf]

I don't see why westeros should be different. Who knows what came out of the east upon Yi Ti when the long night descended upon the world, and their forts are clearly placed before the long night in their legends, so unlike westeros they may have had their magical defenses already up before the long night and still had the devastation permeate through the eons. I just don't see why "hinge" of the world wouldn't have seen it's own local manifestation of the long night? That seems much more reasonable and interesting than a cliche fantasy gathering of heroes from every different race who symbolize all of the traits of their peoples to defeat the one true evil. Especially if the long night was more complex than just humans banding together to stop the unHumans.

[Mithras]

In the Vale, however, the deeds of this real historical personage have become utterly confused with those of his legendary namesake, another Artys Arryn, who lived many thousands of years earlier during the Age of Heroes, and is remembered in song and story as the Winged Knight.

The first Ser Artys Arryn supposedly rode upon a huge falcon (possibly a distorted memory of dragonriders seen from afar, Archmaester Perestan suggests). Armies of eagles fought at his command. To win the Vale, he flew to the top of the Giant’s Lance and slew the Griffin King. He counted giants and merlings amongst his friends, and wed a woman of the children of the forest, though she died giving birth to his son.

A hundred other tales are told of him, most of them just as fanciful. It is highly unlikely that such a man ever existed; like Lann the Clever in the westerlands, and Brandon the Builder in the North, the Winged Knight is made of legend , not of flesh and blood . If such a hero ever walked the Mountains and Vale, far back in the dim mists of the Dawn Age, his name was certainly not Artys Arryn, for the Arryns came from pure Andal stock, and this Winged Knight lived and flew and fought many thousands of years before the first Andals came to Westeros.

Like as not, it was the singers of the Vale who conflated these two figures, attributing the deeds of the legendary Winged Knight to the historic Falcon Knight, perhaps in order to curry favor with the real Artys Arryn’s successors by placing this great hero of the First Men amongst their forebears.

Martin, George R.R.; Garcia, Elio; Antonsson, Linda (2014-10-28). The World of Ice & Fire: The Untold History of Westeros and the Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire) (Kindle Locations 4787-4798). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

The deeds attributed to the first Ser Artys Arryn belong to the anonymous Last Hero (Brandon the Builder or his father). It is another example of importing distant heroic deeds to a founding hero that came thousands of years later.

[butterbumps!]

I thought it was curious that Yandel commented on the oddness of how Asshai apparently never expanded its empire in light of their claim that dragons originated there. He rejects the Asshai account claiming that they'd been the first to tame dragons and teach this art to the Valyrians since there's no record of their conquering.

But I'm unclear about Asshai's nature-- was Asshai ever really an empire, or even a civilization in the common sense? It reminds me of the Land of Always winter/ post Doom Valyria/ the Sorrows in the sense that it's wholly inhospitable to humans according to this (no food, no children, no potable water, tiny population). Is that just how it is, the way presumably the Lands of Always Winter is excessively cold, or is the shadow the result of something akin to the Doom/ Sorrows that created a totally unwholesome landscape?

Both have interesting implications. If it's just a land of magical darkness by its "nature," it may simply have never been an empire, but rather, a hinge the bold have gone to pursue some power or wealth to apply elsewhere. So the question of why Asshai never apparently conquered would be self-evident, and would render the account of dragon-taming as originating in Asshai potentially true (the implication being that some proto-Valyrian may have taken info gained there back with him). Oppositely, if the current state of Asshai is a product of a Doom of some sort, maybe it is the case that they had in fact conquered and had a Valyrian-like empire going on, perhaps were even proto-Valyrians or something. Like in similar fashion to how the Targs fled to Dragonstone before the Doom, had some renegade Asshai'i gone forth to the 14 Flames and set up shop there prior to whatever happened there? It seems rather interesting that the exports of Asshai-- precious jewels and metals-- are the same things the Valyrians set their slaves to mine in the Flames.

Perhaps it's something else entirely-- those aren't really the only two possibilities by any means, and maybe Asshai'i and Valyrian dragon-taming are completely unrelated.

Also of note, those 5 forts divide Yi Ti from lands that sound occupied with what might be skinchangers-- "half human" lizard men and "men soaring on eagles wings" sound like they could be bastardized accounts of skinchanging. (There's also cannibals and "bloodless men" beyond those forts; are the bloodless men addicted to leeches, lol?). This is potentially curious to me in light of how the Wall seems to interfere with skinchanging.

[Lord Varys]

We don't know since when Asshai is in its present state. My guess is that this was not necessarily the state before/during/shortly after the Long Night.

My original guess was that, if the ancient Asshai'i played a role during the War for the Dawn, and if some of them passed on the dragonriding knowledge to the first Valyrians (or one of them was among the founders of Valyria), then any surviving Asshai'i may have went on to the horizon (i.e. may have gone west across the Sunset Sea).

The monstrous size of Asshai suggests that the people who built the city were a very advanced civilization, possibly older and more advanced than any other civilization (that fact could explain why they did not care to build an empire). If the fallout in the Asshai region is there since back then, then the ancient Asshai'i may have wanted to get away from there, anyway.

[Ibbison from Ibben]

I'm not sure what to think of the Five Forts. The further the lands Yandel describes get from Oldtown, the more fantastical they get. That's to be expected, of course, but it also makes the accounts less reliable. The Five Forts are very well positioned to protect the hinterlands of Yi Ti from perfectly normal, non-magical raiders from the northeast.

Asshai, on the other hand, sounds akin to an experimental colony on another planet. It doesn't seem to be able to support a large enough population to run an empire. (ETA - at the present. Lord Varys posted above while I wrote this.) It's just a particularly good place for magic users to work, and for gold seekers to base their operations. Yandel cites an account by Marwin (who we know has been to Asshai), then proceeds to claim no one comes back from Asshai to confirm the tales.

[Lord Varys]

The Marwyn sidebar would have been one of his last additions - he most likely did not have the time to correct his already finished account on Asshai. Marwyn came back from the East only shortly before the beginning of AFfC, and then left again for Meereen. Yandel would have spoken with him, but apparently didn't have the heart to ask him about really interesting things...

The Five Forts are not so interesting in regards to the Asshai'i. The fact that the Lightbringer story comes from there, and the fact that they supposedly were the first dragonriders are.