Old Valyria and the Doom

[AdmiralKyrd]

I wish they would have shown some VFX volcanoes spewing a little ash into the air in the distance.

[I am a Dragon]

Man, how awesome were the ruins? Now that the doom is introduced, do you think they'll drop hints as to the reason for its occurrence? Especially now that Bravos and house of B&W are such a big part of this season?

Valyria got a bit foggy so everyone left [yawn]

[Lordsteve666]

Meh...whilst this scene was pretty cool it was such a jumble of randomly picked sections of the books that it just felt an insult to the source material to me.

1. GRRM wrote a brilliant bit of world building with the story of the Doom and also that of the Sorrows/remains of the Rhoynar civilization. Blending the two together might make sense to make a short TV series even shorter and cut time need down but it destroys the world the characters are passing through.
   This place could have been far, far better if it just appeared as a distant fiery glow seen from a passing ship, just as was done in the books. This leave the air of mystery and dread surrounding the place but leaves room for a nice cinematic shot of the place with some CGI or something, added with some nice sailors tales to set the scene.
   
2. They could easily have had T&V get a boat part of the way from Pentos to Volantis and spent a single scene sailing past the ruins of Chroyane just to show some extra background to the Valyrians. After all we are supposed to be rooting for a queen who is at least partly a re-birthing of the old Valyrians, so any background on them would be useful. And what better way than to show what they did to their enemies. They didn't really need them to get attacked by Stonemen. In the books the only relevance greyscale has is that Jon Con has it but as he's cut it's unimportant now. Tyrion probably has it too in the book but why not just cut it out as they have so much else? Do we really need a deadly virus outbreak added to the mix of plot lines.
   
3. Valyria...it's supposed to be a volcanic wasteland, I mean really it should not have look like a badly overgrown version of Kings Landing!!!
   I realize they just blended the story of Valyria with the looks of the Sorrows (nice to see the Bridge of Dreams realised on screen at least) but come on! The ruins of Valyria is the one MASSIVE mystery in the books that nobody should ever see. Hear the sailors tales sure, see the red glow of the volcanoes on the horizon sure, but never actually go there and see it. It should remain a mystery, a cursed place, somewhere to let your imagination run wild.
   
   Nobody knows what caused the Doom but we can be fairly certain it involved a lot of fire and ash. The place should look like a scorched desolate wasteland at the very least, this was a Krakatoa or Santorini style explosion...it literally blew the place to pieces leaving a shattered ruined land!

The Sorrows and the Doom/ruin of Valyria are two of my favourite parts of world building from Essos and I thin this scene really butchered them when it could have been some amazing TV. There was so much potential with these two, even with all the cuts and the like.

[Sunspear Warrior]

I actually like the idea of Valyria being more myth and superstition than anything else.

Maybe at one point, things were really bad there, obviously it had to be if it wiped out an entire civilization. But that was so long ago and now things have since calmed down with people still staying away due to superstition and legend (and stone men, it least in the show)

[mirthula]

The location shots have been great so far, but not Valyria I don't understand why they needed to go there to begin with.

I imagined Valyria to be like Mordor with 14 Mount Dooms bursting ash into red sky. Why couldn't they show that obviously it would cost too much to CGI all that.

I was laughing when Tyrion was talking about the smoking sea I was like dude there is just some fog.

And how the heck did Jorah save Tyrion and swim ashore all those miles, no way that is physically possible.

[mirthula]

I actually like the idea of Valyria being more myth and superstition than anything else.

Maybe at one point, things were really bad there, obviously it had to be if it wiped out an entire civilization. But that was so long ago and now things have since calmed down with people still staying away due to superstition and legend (and stone men, it least in the show)

I don't think the climate being volatile is legend in fact from a distance there should be like red sky as if something is burning. It being haunted might be just ghost tales, but with Valyria being bound my magic I won't be surprised if lot of that is true since when does Magic makes sense.

But the books state that several expeditions to Valyria failed and no one returned back. Now the rumors might have stemmed from all that but it doesn't take away from the fact that people still go there and come back alive.

[lostinwesteros]

I may be in the minority, but I loved seeing Valyria, thought it had a truly magical and other-worldly eeriness. Can only imagine how magnificent it was in its day. And Drogon flying over it - how symbolic (and 'foreshadow-y'?)

[King Zee]

No they don't.

How do stone men end up in the Sorrows ?

[ShadowKitteh]

I always envisioned Valyria as highly, actively volcanic. With so much thick VOG pouring out of the vents that you could die by breathing the air if you sailed to close.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vog

[Mistress of Lemon Cakes]

Once I got over my initial "One does not simply sail into Valyria" ... I found the CGI to be quite beautiful.

The Valyria of the books clearly still has a great amount of volcanic activity going on making it uninhabitable but the only way I am able to enjoy this show now is to try and separate it from the books. The Valyria of the show is not the same Valyria of the books.

As to the sorrows: people who contract greyscale are generally sent there to live out the rest of their lives, similar to the leper colonies of the medieval ages.

[ummester]

I think at the time of the doom Valyria was all volcanoes exploding and ash in the sky. 1000s of years later, as seen when Tyrion and Jorah sail through, nature has began to reclaim it.

Grass and animals can survive in Chernobyl now, less than 100 years after the fact.

The book POVs are overly superstitious - it makes sense, as they have a basically medieval knowledge of their world. The show can't show things via medieval POV - it just has to show things.

[I am a Dragon]

I think at the time of the doom Valyria was all volcanoes exploding and ash in the sky. 1000s of years later, as seen when Tyrion and Jorah sail through, nature has began to reclaim it.

Grass and animals can survive in Chernobyl now, less than 100 years after the fact.

The book POVs are overly superstitious - it makes sense, as they have a basically medieval knowledge of their world. The show can't show things via medieval POV - it just has to show things.

400 years later. The volcanoes are still erupting in the books as well.

Only the brightest stars were visible, all to the west. A dull red glow lit the sky to the northeast, the color of a blood bruise. Tyrion had never seen a bigger moon. Monstrous, swollen, it looked as if it had swallowed the sun and woken with a fever. Its twin, floating on the sea beyond the ship, shimmered red with every wave. “What hour is this?” he asked Moqorro. “That cannot be sunrise unless the east has moved. Why is the sky red?”

“The sky is always red above Valyria, Hugor Hill.”

[ummester]

400 years later. The volcanoes are still erupting in the books as well.

Only the brightest stars were visible, all to the west. A dull red glow lit the sky to the northeast, the color of a blood bruise. Tyrion had never seen a bigger moon. Monstrous, swollen, it looked as if it had swallowed the sun and woken with a fever. Its twin, floating on the sea beyond the ship, shimmered red with every wave. “What hour is this?” he asked Moqorro. “That cannot be sunrise unless the east has moved. Why is the sky red?”

“The sky is always red above Valyria, Hugor Hill.”

Perhaps Tyrion, being from Westeros, had never seen a sky like that before. It is not necessarily volcanic activity.

When Tyrion saw those big turtles, I always wondered exactly how big the turtles were. How much of the world ,as described in books, is POV interpretation of things they don't understand?

[Pashernate Reader]

If Valyria weren't as hellish as the book says, people would know about it several centuries on. People would have visited in spite of the rumors, and instead of disappearing, they'd come back all smiles, reporting how lovely it was. It would have been thoroughly explored by now. Heck, since the book's stone men are in the Sorrows, it would have been thoroughly repopulated by now. No, show!Valyria and book!Valyria are very different places. Stop trying to reconcile them.

[jbob]

No they don't.

Um, yeah. Not Valyria, but to the Sorrows? Tyrion is attacked by Stonemen.

[WolfgangII]

Although I understand the need to cut some of the story and difficult that it will be to the show to explain the war between the dragonlords and the Rhoynar, the way D&D display Valarya does not only made it lost his mistery and danger, diminish the size of the Doom and the Valaryan Freehold. I mean if that's Valarya and after 400 years that's how the Doom has left it, why does not all the Free Cities have tried to snatch the treasures of the lost dragons.

But my main problem is the lack of the Rhoynar and Chroyane. The story of how the Rhoynar were almost extint and how they lost all their cities is one of the saddest tales of ASIOAF. GoT lost the opportunity to show why does the Meereenese, Qarth, the Free Cities and all across Essos, really fear the dragons and are against the Dragon Queen. The slaughter and destruction of the Festival City shows how cruel and dangerous the dragons are.

Also, I believe Prince Garin's curse on the Valaryans are the origin of greyscale. Given how important that condition seem to get in the show, is a shame they could not tell his story.

[D-Shiznit]

Th Valyria described in books is superstition, myth and legend rolled into one. Just like our ancestors believed all sorts of wacky things about unexplored parts of the world that turned out be absolutely false.

[Pashernate Reader]

Th Valyria described in books is superstition, myth and legend rolled into one. Just like our ancestors believed all sorts of wacky things about unexplored parts of the world that turned out be absolutely false.

Valyria isn't "unexplored." It's avoided.

[D-Shiznit]

Valyria isn't "unexplored." It's avoided.

Just like the Americas was, by the Spanish, they avoided it because they were convinced they would fall off the edge of the world.

[The_Watcher_On_The_Walls]

I think they have combined Valyria (volcanoes) with the Sorrows (swampy, damp and full of Stone Men)

I wondered about this. In the show it seemed that they went into Valyria and that's where they came upon the swamps and SM. I'm gonna have to do a re read but that's not even close to correct is it? I dont recall going into Valyria at all in the books yet.