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The Unnatural Origins of Dragons


Mithras

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As a side note, that spider goddess and serpent god fighting an endless war might be a hint for the Great Other and Rhlorr. The only female Other we heard was the one who seduced the NK. Perhaps there is only one female other and that one is the Great Other. The Others are said to ride icy spiders whereas the serpent god sounds like favoring dragons.

This is a reference to The Big Time by Fritz Leiber.

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Like you, I have noticed House of the Undying drinks light too.



I think it's because darkness increases magical powers or reveals them? Didn't Bloodraven said something like this in aDwD to Bran?



I think Valyrian dragons are larger than their wyvern cousins because of blood magic. They are even in every aspect save that wyverns can't breath fire but dragons being larger doesn't make any sense imo. They can be tamed whilst wyverns rule over the southern skies freely. So I guess blood magic is the answer. If they were natural animals like wyverns or firewyrms, I think they should stop growing at some point, right?



I think all oily black stone structures at Sothoryos is made by Deep Ones (plus Seastone Chair). I always thought proto-Asshai and Deep Ones were enemies, but what if they were allies or something?


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The Freehold of Valyria thrice established colonies on Basilisk Point: the first was destroyed by the Brindled Men, the second lost to plague, and the third was abandoned when the dragonlords captured Zamettar in the Fourth Ghiscari War.



The largest of the Basilisks is the Isle of Tears, where steep-sided valleys and black bogs hide amongst rugged flint hills and twisted, windswept rocks. On its southern coasts stand the broken ruins of a city. Founded by the Old Empire of Ghis, it was known as Gorgai for close on two centuries (or perhaps four; there is some dispute), until the dragonlords of Valyria captured it during the Third Ghiscari War and renamed it Gogossos.



The Valyrian colonies in the Basilisk Isles (which were attempted thrice) existed before the Fifth Ghiscari War which was 5000 years ago.



By any name, it was an evil place. The dragonlords sent their worst criminals to the Isle of Tears to live out their lives in hard labor. In the dungeons of Gogossos, torturers devised new torments. In the flesh pits, blood sorcery of the darkest sort was practiced, as beasts were mated to slave women to bring forth twisted half-human children.



These “experiments” of the dragonlords sound intriguing, don’t you think?



Brindled wyverns, with their distinctive jade-and-white scales, grow up to thirty feet long.



The Sothoryi are big-boned creatures, massively muscled, with long arms, sloped foreheads, huge square teeth, heavy jaws, and coarse black hair. Their broad, flat noses suggest snouts, and their thick skins are brindled in patterns of brown and white that seem more hoglike than human. Sothoryi women cannot breed with any save their own males; when mated with men from Essos or Westeros, they bring forth only stillbirths, many hideously malformed.



Some say that there were other races here once— forgotten peoples destroyed, devoured, or driven out by the Brindled Men. Tales of lizard men, lost cities, and eyeless cave-dwellers are commonplace. No proof exists for any of these.



Maesters and other scholars alike have puzzled over the greatest of the enigmas of Sothoryos, the ancient city of Yeen. A ruin older than time, built of oily black stone, in massive blocks so heavy that it would require a dozen elephants to move them, Yeen has remained a desolation for many thousands of years, yet the jungle that surrounds it on every side has scarce touched it. (“A city so evil that even the jungle will not enter,” Nymeria is supposed to have said when she laid eyes on it, if the tales are true). Every attempt to rebuild or resettle Yeen has ended in horror.



One cannot fail to notice the resemblance of the Brindled Men to the Brindled Wyverns. As we saw above, beast-human cross-breeding “experiments” were conducted on slaves in the neighborhood. There are also the tales of the lizard men. Considering the Valyrian experiments about cross-breeding beasts and humans, it is possible that the brindled men are descended from wyvern/human hybrids and the lizard men were descended from wyrm/human hybrids.



We know from Visenya that sorcery can be used to affect the conception. Maegor was such a child. Considering the monstrosities born from Targaryens on occasions (especially from Maegor's seed), the Valyrians might be "the fruits of successful experiments". The Valyrians have this inhumane and otherworldly beauty. Perhaps they are the products of a good design.



I think it is clear that the Asshai’i committed their atrocities before the LN but considering that Valyrians tried similar things, it makes sense that the descendants of those Asshai’i who caused the LN survived and taught the Valyrians their “trade”. Perhaps the people we know as the Valyrians are actually descendants of those asshole Asshai’i who survived the LN. Perhaps the peaceful sheepherding Valyrians were wiped out by the Asshai’i long time ago.





I think all oily black stone structures at Sothoryos is made by Deep Ones (plus Seastone Chair). I always thought proto-Asshai and Deep Ones were enemies, but what if they were allies or something?





I think all those underground dwellings, labyrinths, cave cities etc. are specifically built/chosen so that the residents would be safe from the fiery wrath of the Asshai’i dragonriders. We get this idea from the Casterly Rock and how Visenya remarked that even Balerion’s fire could not have penetrated into it. So, the elder races must be the enemies of the Asshai’i dragonlords.


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Great topic and nice catch about the sphinxes, Mithras Stoneborn! A few additions there (summary at the end of the post):






Perhaps the peaceful sheepherding Valyrians were wiped out by the Asshai’i long time ago.








Do you really think the peaceful sheepherding Valyrians ever existed? I don't have a problem with peaceful sheepherder living somewhere in south Essos, it's just blond, purple-eyed sheepherder (1) who decided to live right next to fourteen volcanoes and a Ghiscari slaver empire (2) and then accidentally discovered dragons in a cave (3), tamed them with the help of a passing Asshai (4) and peacefully conquered the world with their new pets.... You see where I'm going ;)



(1) Blond hair and pale skin usually go with blue eyes and origin from a northern country... or some place that seldom gets much sunlight. I wonder if the proto-Asshai controlled their dragons and how - blood magic perhaps, maybe even some sort of magical binding of one blood line to another? Just mentioning, purple is the color you get when you mix blue (looking very naturally with blond hair as Germans, Russians and other people demonstrate) and red (accidentally the color of blood). Make of this whatever you want.



(2) Since Valyrians look nothing like the Ghsicari, Lhazareen, Dothraki, Dornishmen and other folks who live relatively south on Essos or Westeros, I'll just assume these sheepherder got extremely lucky when moving from wherever they came. They got one of the few places where dragons or their eggs could still be found.



(3) Then the lucky person who disturbed the dragons in their hidden cave wasn't burnt, he actually thought these huge fire-breathing beasts with razor-sharp teeth would make wonderful pets. Also interesting that they found the dragons and not the dragons found them. Poor Mereneese sheepherder weren't that lucky. The moment dragons came near the area everybody knew, including sailors, travelers and other folks who love to spread tales. Strange no one from Asshai heard the tale and came to tame the beasts.



(4) Of course, now the Asshai come to help. They are very helpful by nature. And then they went back to their country. One would almost think some pale-skinned people can ride dragons and others can't. Oh, wait...



Okay, if we forget the tale of peaceful sheepherders who got extremely lucky, what do we have?






I think it is clear that the Asshai’i committed their atrocities before the LN but considering that Valyrians tried similar things, it makes sense that the descendants of those Asshai’i who caused the LN survived and taught the Valyrians their “trade”. Perhaps the people we know as the Valyrians are actually descendants of those asshole Asshai’i who survived the LN.






That fits perfectly. Now we know why Valyrians look so different - they probably have Asshai blood and don't get tanned that easily. If a dragon is a mixture of a firewyrm, a wyvern and human blood(sacrifice) and if they were originally made by some Asshai family, then their dragons were tied to their bloodline and descendants. Who were marked as a result of the blood spell with this strange eye color. Which leads to your pint:





The Valyrians have this inhumane and otherworldly beauty. Perhaps they are the products of a good design.





Maybe the problem wasn't in just creating the beast, but also in controlling it. If only couple of Asshai found the right formula and tied the creatures to their own bloodlines, it would explain why not everybody in Asshai can tame a dragon.



It seems some of the descendants of these Asshai decided to go and search for dragon eggs around the Fourteen Flames. Apparently they found them and about 40 families had pure enough dragon blood to tame dragons. They probably had to reinforce the spells with some new blood magic, but keeping the dragon genes pure seems to be important for this magic to continue working.



Note that in TPATQ and D&E, all Targaryen children get a dragon egg in their cradle and it would seem the physical and/or emotional proximity between the child and his/her egg is important for the hatching. There are at least 15 dragons hatched this way before the Dance and only Sheepstealer and Grey Ghost were born in the wild (but still on the same island as the Targaryen stronghold). And if you believe the story about the dragon eggs in Winterfell and the dragon Bran saw through Summer (I personally don't) - even that happened after Jon spent 15 years in the castle.



So the conclusion:



I think it's plausible that some Asshai dragonlord descendants discovered some forgotten information about creating, hatching and bonding with dragons and decided to try their chances. They traveled to a place where dragons or dragons eggs can be found, where fire magic might be especially strong and where the first dragons were possibly made by mating a firewyrm with a wyvern - the Fourteen Flames. Some managed to awaken or hatch dragons and to perform the magic, which ties the beasts to a human bloodline and makes them controllable. Then they built an empire which lasted for 5000 years.The blood magic used to tame the dragons has interesting side effects. The physical appearance changes - eye color is mixed with red; incest is recommended to keep the bloodline pure and thus the magic strong; sometimes infants may present dragonesque appearance, especially when some other blood magic comes in play.



Man, was that a long post. Hope you enjoyed it and agree with some points.


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  • 3 weeks later...

Farther south lie the regions known as the Green Hell, where beasts even more fearsome are said to dwell. There, if the tales are to be trusted, are caverns full of pale white vampire bats who can drain the blood from a man in minutes. Tattooed lizards stalk the jungles, running down their prey and ripping them apart with the long curved claws on their powerful hind legs. Snakes fifty feet long slither through the underbrush, and spotted spiders weave their webs amongst the great trees.



Some say that there were other races here once—forgotten peoples destroyed, devoured, or driven out by the Brindled Men. Tales of lizard men, lost cities, and eyeless cave-dwellers are commonplace. No proof exists for any of these.



Of the lands that lie beyond the Five Forts, we know even less. Legends and lies and traveler’s tales are all that ever reach us of these far places. We hear of cities where the men soar like eagles on leathern wings, of towns made of bones, of a race of bloodless men who dwell between the deep valley called the Dry Deep and the mountains. Whispers reach us of the Grey Waste and its cannibal sands, and of the Shrykes who live there, half-human creatures with green-scaled skin and venomous bites. Are these truly lizard-men, or (more likely) men clad in the skins of lizards? Or are they no more than fables, the grumkins and snarks of the eastern deserts? And even the Shrykes supposedly live in terror of K’dath in the Grey Waste, a city said to be older than time, where unspeakable rites are performed to slake the hunger of mad gods. Does such a city truly exist? If so, what is its nature?



Both Yeen and Five Forts have greasy black stones which I think points to the presence of the pre-LN Asshai civilization. Both in Sothoryos and the Grey Waste, we have the tales of lizard-men. I have speculated that the Brindled Men of Sothoryos look like wyverns and considering that the Valyrians experimented heavily on mating beasts and slave women in close neighborhood, it is not far-fetched to assume that the Brindled Men are descended from such experiments most probably done by the ancient Asshai’i. It is interesting that these lizard-men supposedly live beyond the Five Forts too.



Moreover, there are pale white vampire bats living in caverns and eyeless cave-dwellers of unknown nature. If we compare Sothoryos and Grey Waste agains, we see that there are cities where men soar like eagles on leathern wings in the Grey Waste. Note that George used “leathern wings” several times to describe bats. That means these men have vampire bat wings. Therefore, the eyeless cave-dwellers in Sothoryos should be some creatures coming from interbreeding vampire bats and humans. And the same creatures are found in Grey Waste again.



It is said that the Brindled Men destroyed the elder races (lizard-men and eyeless cave-dwellers). This makes me think that perhaps the Asshai’i created the lizard-men and the batmen very long time ago. When the Valyrians took the trade on their hands, they went further and created the Brindled Men which proved to be stronger than these elder races. Such studies eventually led the Valyrians to create their own race of dragons.



Another possible scenario is that the Asshai'i created all these races but when the Brindled Men posed threat to other races, they moved those "pets" to the Grey Waste, probably thinking that they are too valuable to let die.



I also find the bloodless men in the Grey Waste interesting. They look like a different sort of wights.


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It seems pretty clear that dragons existed long before a "young Valyria" defeated Old Ghis 5000 years ago. So in my mind there is no doubt that dragons were created by the pre-Long Night civilization. It is further confirmed by Martin's statement that dragons once existed all over the world, and by the statement that the Valyrian shepherds discovered dragons nesting in the Fourteen Flames at the dawn of their civilization.



This means that by the time the Valyrians discovered dragons, all the dragons in other parts of the world had long since died out.



So to me, it seems likely that the Valyrians were not in fact the ones who succeeded in cross-breeding different species to create new hybrid life forms. Instead, it was the much older Ashaii who mastered and practiced this form of sorcery. And they did this long before the Long Night.



Most likely, there is a vast ancient pre-history that we know nothing about (and which Martin has probably not fleshed out fully even in his own mind), which consisted of fantastical races waging war against each other with unspeakable blood sorceries, and these hybrid creatures were bred as weapons in this ancient series of wars.



The Long Night pretty much wiped out all of these ancient races, but for a few remnants in remote parts of the world. And it was a remnant of the ancient Ashaii who taught the Valyrians their blood sorcery, and how to master the surviving dragons that nested in the Fourteen Flames.



The Valyrians are therefore only "modern" copycats of the much older Ashaii. And likely only mastered a much more rudimentary version of the advanced magic that the Ashaii perfected in their golden age.



EDIT



I would not be surprised if the Others are another remnant of this time. Another unnatural race created in this magical war between ancient masters of blood magic. Maybe to counter the dragons bred by the Ashaii.


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/snip

In the other thread starting from this post; I have speculated that the pre-LN Asshai civilization that created the dragons perished in a cataclysmic event which we call the Long Night today. However, they were using their glass candles similar to the weirwood trees and in them they stored their memories, histories, spells etc.

What the Valyrians did was to crack the code of these strange stones they had found in the Fourteen Flames. And once they did that, the Asshai’i who had perished long time ago became their masters. Perhaps the glass candles contain the souls of the mightiest sorcerers of the Asshai’i just like the weirnet seems to contain the souls of all the greenseers. The Bloodstone emperor was said to worship a black stone that had fallen from the sky.

With the knowledge they got from the glass candles, Valyrians hatched the dragon eggs they found but that were probably not enough for them. So, they built colonies in Basilisk Isles and continued the experiments of the Asshai’i. Vhagar died more than a century later than Meraxes yet it could not reach the size of Meraxes. Perhaps in time, the eggs get contaminated and the quality of the dragon genes deteriorates from interbreeding; so they needed to replenish them with new rituals of dragon creation. Balerion and Meraxes seemed to come from a freshened line whereas Vhagar’s line seemed to need a good reboot.

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It seems pretty clear that dragons existed long before a "young Valyria" defeated Old Ghis 5000 years ago. So in my mind there is no doubt that dragons were created by the pre-Long Night civilization. It is further confirmed by Martin's statement that dragons once existed all over the world, and by the statement that the Valyrian shepherds discovered dragons nesting in the Fourteen Flames at the dawn of their civilization.

This means that by the time the Valyrians discovered dragons, all the dragons in other parts of the world had long since died out.

So to me, it seems likely that the Valyrians were not in fact the ones who succeeded in cross-breeding different species to create new hybrid life forms. Instead, it was the much older Ashaii who mastered and practiced this form of sorcery. And they did this long before the Long Night.

Most likely, there is a vast ancient pre-history that we know nothing about (and which Martin has probably not fleshed out fully even in his own mind), which consisted of fantastical races waging war against each other with unspeakable blood sorceries, and these hybrid creatures were bred as weapons in this ancient series of wars.

The Long Night pretty much wiped out all of these ancient races, but for a few remnants in remote parts of the world. And it was a remnant of the ancient Ashaii who taught the Valyrians their blood sorcery, and how to master the surviving dragons that nested in the Fourteen Flames.

The Valyrians are therefore only "modern" copycats of the much older Ashaii. And likely only mastered a much more rudimentary version of the advanced magic that the Ashaii perfected in their golden age.

EDIT

I would not be surprised if the Others are another remnant of this time. Another unnatural race created in this magical war between ancient masters of blood magic. Maybe to counter the dragons bred by the Ashaii.

Can you imagine if this pre-civilization created dragons, CotF, Others, et al not by magic, but science -- some sort of chemo/genetic, test-tube thing. Then these magical beings went native when the next Ice Age arrived. All traces of the civilization were wiped out and man was push back into a prehistoric hunter-gather situation, only to rediscover farming and civilization all over again and begin the march of history back to the feudal period we see now.

In that scenario, it's easy to imagine the story takes place not in some mythical, alternate past, but in our future.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Great thread.. just wanted to point out that the Five Forts are not greasy or oily - they are fused stone, just like the Hightower Fort. Specifically, fused stone in an unadorned style, as compared to the Valerians, who tended towards extravagant flourishes and ornamentation. The only explanation we are given to make ‘fused stone’ is through dragon fire, which is more evidence for the existence of Dragons before Valyria and likely the Long Night as well. Either that, or the Ancient Asshai (who I think is remembered as the Great Empire of the Dawn by some) harnessed firewyrms to make the five forts.. that sounds a bit like Dune, though, only the worms breath fire. Kinda funny actually. But no - I think this long vanished people had dragons and used them to make fused stone structures.

As for the greasy stone, I think that’s connected to the greasy black stone that the Bloodstone Emperor worshipped. Check this out, regarding Bloodstone or ‘Heliotrope’:

The mineral heliotrope, also known as bloodstone, is a form of chalcedony (which is a cryptocrystalline mixture of quartz and its monoclinic polymorph moganite). The "classic" bloodstone is green chalcedony with red inclusions of iron oxide or red jasper. Sometimes the inclusions are yellow, in which case the mineral is given the name plasma.

The red inclusions are supposed to resemble spots of blood; hence the name "bloodstone". The name "heliotrope" (from Greek ήλιος helios, Sun, τρέπειν trepein, to turn) derives from various ancient notions about the manner in which the mineral reflects light. These are described, e.g., by Pliny the Elder (Nat. Hist. 37.165). [1]

This sounds an awful lot like the dragons which poured forth from the moon and ‘drank the light of the sun,’ as well as Ned’s sword when it kept darkening Tobho Mott’s coloring, “as if the blade was drinking the sun from it."

Heliotrope is also a genus of flowering plants, one of which makes little purple flowers and is called a ‘Valerian.’ ;)

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To be fair, unless they have Godzilla skin, the 3 currently alive dragons could not be a major threat to an organised army with extremely skilled archers...



Dispatching a large hit-and-cover force of fire/poisoned arrows from different fronts surrounding the dragon, it´s bound to hit him, but this is fantasy and they are magic so...


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Unless the dragon flies above the range of the arrows, in which case your hit-and-cover force will have a problem.

But you need a pretty powerful magical dragon to spit fires from that altitude and hit the ground, and i don´t believe the dragons in asoiaf are THAT powerful, they´re not Ancalagon the Black... at least that´s what it seems from the art and descriptions

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  • 2 months later...

I still contend that dragons, children, others and everything else "magical" in the books is the result of advanced genetic/chemical engineering conducted by our own military industrial complex over, say, the next 5000 years. Then along comes the next Ice Age that wipes out all traces of our civilization, but these artificial creatures go native and start to live and breed just like any other living thing.

Mankind, of course, survives the Ice Age as well, just as it has done in the past, and then begins the slow process from hunter-gatherer/caveman to civilized farmer to the feudal period we have now, except that there are all these exceptional beings that appear to have magical properties.

So the story doesn't take place in some alternate, mythical path, but in our future.

It is interesting to think, but I have to disagree. Certainly GRRM is aware of Terry Brooks' Shannara series? It is also a magical place with elves, dwarves, trolls, and many other things. But at the same time, it is the world of our future, hundreds of years after the Great War that took place in our time.

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