Potshards in a puddle of burnt soup: HOTU vision one and 988,000 years

[MinotaurWarrior]

Introduction

 

A while ago I was re-reading the House of the Undying chapter, and it struck me that, just as the black-barked blue-leafed tree obviously mirrors the weirwood tree, the race of rat-faced pink skinned dwarfs that serve Dany shade of the evening and are seen raping a woman in her vision "of days gone by" might mirror the CotF. And that's weird that we get a vision of a bunch of dwarves violently raping a beautiful woman. Why was that up there in importance with seeing Aegon's naming, predicting the Red Wedding, et cetera?

I haven't been able to get this out of my head.

Here's what we know with certainty about the black barked trees:

• They look like color-opposite weirwoods
• Their leaves can be used to make ingredients for multiple magical potions
• One of those potions (pure shade of the evening) physically discolors users, and was heavily consumed by the Undying warlocks.
• They grow in Qarth

Here's what we know with certainty about the rat-faced pink skinned people:

• They currently live as servants in Qarth
• Neither Dany, her bloodriders, nor Jorah name their race
• They don't have cat's eye's (meaning they're not CotF)
• Dany had a vision of four of them violently raping a beautiful human woman

I think we can further reach a few very solid implications. They're not Southyrosi, because they're too pale. They do not drink shade of the evening, again, because they're too pale. They're not found in Westeros or the Free Cities or the Dothraki sea, because if they were, they would have a name. Further, within Qarth, only the Warlocks are seen to employ them. They're sexually attracted to human women.

A little more loosely, I think we can say that the ratkin (to give them a name) don't have old gods living in the dykewoods (to give them a name). If they did, then the dykewoods would likely have faces. I also think that the ratkin don't have wargs, in part because that talent is related to becoming gods of the wood, but also because if they did, there might have been animals raping that woman (we know from Varmyr and Bran that wargs have sex as animals, and it was interspecial rape regardless of what skin the ratkin wore).  I also think it's likely that raping human women is characteristic of the ratkin  (i.e. the vision wasn't misconstruing a noble people) and that the particular scene we saw was also significant as a particular act.

Further, I think, from pure symmetry, we can assume that there was some sort of bond between the black-barked blue-leaved dykewoods and the pink skinned rat-faced ratkin, just as there was between the white-barked red-leaved weirwoods and the dark-skinned squirrel-faced CotF. I think that they likely had to have been specifically conquered and subdued at some point, and that the Warlocks keep them around because they're important to the production of shade of the evening (which I think mirrors weirwood paste, which is a real thing and not 100% Jojen 100% of the time), else the Warlocks wouldn't bother preserving this dying race with its small breeding pool.

I also think all of this must matter, or else Dany could have just had a vision after desperately eating strange fruit found in Vaes Telloro.

So, this leaves me with three big questions: who was the rape victim in the vision, what did ratkin society do in the past, and what could this mean today?

Who was the woman in the vision?

Quote

In one room, a beautiful woman sprawled naked on the floor while four little men crawled over her. They had rattish pointed faces and tiny pink hands, like the servitor who had brought her the glass of shade. One was pumping between her thighs. Another savaged her breasts, worrying at the nipples with his wet red mouth, worrying and tearing and chewing.

This scene is very, very sparse on details. The woman is only described as 'beautiful' with thighs and breasts. We don't know her skin color, we don't know her eye color, we don't know her hair color, or if she even had hair. This scene could have taken place at any time in the past.

That might make it seem like we don't have much to go on, but that's not entirely true. We know, for instance, that it wasn't Joanna Lannister, because she was in westeros, where ratkin aren't. That single problem (location) rules out the vast majority of female figures. We also know that, if the woman survived this incident, she's have an at least partially eaten breast. That rules out all of the essosi women whose breasts we've seen (a surprisingly large proportion of essosi women). The woman also has to have had breasts, meaning it couldn't be a young girl or, say, Brienne's long lost twin.

Based on weirwoodnet data, that leaves nine options. Barsena, Ezzara, Galazza Galare, Rylona Rhee, Senerra, Zahrina, Pretty Meris, and Quaithe. Barsena and Rylona would be very boring, because they died so soon after being introduced. Ezzara, Galazza Galare, Senerra, and Zahrina, and the four Ghiscari candidates all have nothing in particular going for them, but I can't definitively say it wasn't them. Meris and Quaithe are the best two candidates.

What Meris has going for her is her deformity. She definitely had her breasts removed, and it's already speculated that it happened in a violent sexual encounter. What this connection would directly add to her character is a connection to the deeper magical layer of the story. However, there's another explanation for her condition provided in the text, and nothing so far has explicitly tied her to the Ratkin... unless the "sellsword company" that left her that way was her tie to eastern magic. Tying together two loose ends, what if she actually used to be a sellsail, and was handed over to the Ratkin of Qarth as part of the deal that earned Euron his blue lips? If so, Meris could become a major force in the story, possibly convincing Dany to act against both Qarth and the Ironborn, or foiling some arcane plan of Euron's, or (to tie into my new favorite crackpot) her role as a torturer could help plausibly lead up to Damphair drowning Euron in piss.

The other major loose end that comes to mind when talking about breastless women is, of course, Biter, who explicitly says that he bit off the breasts of a Septa, and then went on to die somewhat unspectacularly. Meris could just be that Septa, or she could be another Biter - a character whose strangeness is somewhat of a red herring, and doesn't directly contribute to any plot developments.

Quaithe, on the other hand, is clearly important to the plot and has strong ties to magic. it's not clear that her breasts are deformed, but neither have they been confirmed to be whole, and while I never considered that strange on my earlier read-throughs, it actually is somewhat peculiar. The Qartheen fashion is to walk around with one breast exposed, and when in Qarth Dany does as the Qartheen do, but Quaithe doesn't. Now, it's possible that this just has to do with some sort of Shadowbinder pride or conservative Asshai'i fashion... except that the only other Shadowbinder we meet (Melissandre) seems to have absolutely no shame or modesty when it comes to her body and sexuality. Of course, we've only met two Shadowbinders, so it's really hard to say what's a typical shadowbinder trait, and what's just individual personality. It's entirely possible that either Mel has consciously rejected Shadowbinder norms of modesty, or that Quaithe just has a particularly modest fashion sense.

However, I tend to think, based off of what we know of shadow magic, that it's a very sexual practice, and Mel isn't the weird one here. Mel needs to have dangerous sex with men in order to give birth to her Shadow Babies. Shadows demanded Varys' cock as summoning price. Shadows similarly removed Dany's reproductive capacity when MMD summoned them. If you get concrete magical power from certain sexual acts, conspicuously conservative apparel is disadvantageous and requires some sort of justification (though that justification could, I'll admit, be purely personal).

Now, the big thing that a ratkin-Quaithe encounter would give us is a tie between the Shadowbinders and the ratkin, and through them, the dykewoods and Warlocks. For certain, the ratkin rape scene ties ratkin to sexual mutilation and life-threatening sex... which seems to be the core of how shadow magic works. If Quiathe was the one being raped by the ratkin, that would tie up nearly all the branches of Essosi magic into one great chain. Warlocky and Shadowbinding together in Quaithe, Shadowbinding and R'hlloric Pyromancy together in Mel. It's also possible that the red lacquer mask serves to hide the mark of shade of the evening in some shadowbinders, though obviously Mel doesn't take it (because she's a pseudo-albino).

It would also give Quaithe an interesting motive in ACoK and beyond. Quaithe is always encouraging Dany's paranoia, telling her to beware "of all" and warning her that people are going to try and steal her dragons. She's saying these things to a traumatized young girl who's known to be wanted by seven kingdoms and several khalasars. Quaithe could have been, in essence, putting Dany on edge so that she'd overreact and burn down Quaithe's enemies.

Those are my thoughts on the two lead candidates  for the ratkin rape victim. But, of course, there's nothing conclusively pointing towards either one being the victim, and given that Meris is probably the stronger candidate and only appeared three books after ACoK, I can't rule out the possibility that it's someone we haven't met, but will meet in the future. Or, of course, it could be someone in the far distant past.

There aren't that many female essosi historical figures we know much about, and I couldn't find any centralized list of them to check off. But two figures come to my mind: The Harpy of Ghis, and Daenys the dreamer. The Harpy of Ghis is a figure we know nothing about, and may have absolutely zero basis in a particular person, but if she were a person, she'd be over 5,000 years dead and easily lost to the mists of myth. The only thing directly pointing to her is that the statue in Astapor has water gushing from her breasts in a way that milk doesn't but blood does. Daenys the dreamer is just an Essosi woman who Dany certainly would see as beautiful, and who had a prophetic vision that could have been induced the same way Dany's was. There's some direct evidence that she wasn't raped by a bunch of ratkin, in that she's said to have been a maiden when she had her vision, but that fits with a theme of virgin sacrifice if you allow for the centuries to have fuzzed the chronology.

So, really, I can't figure out any solid evidence pointing towards a single individual as being the woman in this vision, but the field of suspects is surprisingly narrow, and interesting to think about. I'm curious if I missed anyone in here? Or if there's any reason why e.g. the Green Grace might make more sense?

What was going on in Essos for 988,000 Years?

So, sentient life on Planetos started at least a million years ago according to the Children of the Forest. In Westeros, they are said to have had conflict with the giants, but there were no big wars or fallen kingdoms or anything else you might normally call "historical events" until 12,000 years ago when mankind shows up on Westeros and starts building the kingdoms of the first men. Now, a great deal of this is clearly mythologized, but the Children of the Forest seem to support the idea that something like that definitely happened, and they would know. This raises two major questions: what had been keeping the humans out of Westeros up until ~12,000 years ago, and what was going on in Essos for the past million years?

My basic idea is that dykewoods and weirwoods are close relatives, having been isolated long ago by the narrow sea and the dry arm of Dorne. When the Children came to be, their range was limited by their close relationship to the weirwoods. However, giants (who are similarly old) and humans (who are at least a little bit older than 12,000 years) would have had no such strict environmental barriers. Instead, their ranges were limited by ratkin, who were tied to the dykewoods on Essos and loved to rape and eat other forms of intelligent life. Giants, being nearly blind and somewhat clumsy besides, would have been easy prey for the ratkin to swarm over and devour. Humans would likely be tougher prey, but the one thing we know for certain about the ratkin is that they sometimes succeeded in ganging up on humans. It would have been pointy sticks and thrown rocks against... whatever the ratkin had. And I'm going to guess that it was magic.

There are three reasons why I think the ratkin had magic. First, they're associated with the dykewoods, which produce the warlock's drink and many other potions besides. Second, they seem to roughly parallel the Children of the forest, who had magic. Third, there's the shared dangerous sexual nature of essosi magic and the ratkin. I think there's likely some connection between the race of people who eat and rape women of another species, the shadows who love cock and being born and taking women's reproductive capacity, and the bronze-age culture that used magic on eunuchs to transform them into lockstep legions immune to pain (instead of, you know, eunuchs, with their osteoperosis and hotflashes and whatnot). I don't think we have any way of knowing more about what exactly the relationship between these things is, but I think there probably is one (just as I don't think we can know what the relationship between stone-age "venus" statues and later goddesses like freya is, but we know there probably is one).

What does this mean for the story moving forward?

Most of all, I think the ratkin and the dykewoods are meant to serve as context. There's no way we're going to sit down with one and hear the full history of their people, the way we did with the Children, and so the little peek we've got serves to say, "Essos is has as deep and mysterious as past as westeros, even if it's not the center of this story."

If Quaithe or Meris are the raped woman, their response could be hugely important in determining Dany's direction. In particular, this could drive her to fiercely pursue the utter destruction of all those involved with the Warlocks.

It also hints at ties between the major streams of Essosi magic, which might pay off big, since "The Shadows come to stay my lord."

Really, I don't know. It's all crazy. I considered tossing this thread like twelve times. I just can't shake the feeling that there's something there.

[StarkofWinterfell]

We simply don't know how old the human race is on Earthos. It's a possibility they are 12,000, 50,000, 100,000, or 500,000 years old. 

In some ways, if they are only 12,000 years old as a race, I'd say this is almost a prehistoric fiction. Modern humans, by our scientist's estimates are around 200,000 years old.

[Illyrio Mo'Parties]

That's a crazy idea alright!

It's interesting to reconsider that vision of Dany's. We've always looked at it as strictly metaphorical, but what if the Wot5K reference was merely a red herring, and it was really a vision of some actual thing that happened?

But I don't think we hvave enough info to go on yet.

[Maester of Valyria]

I just scanned through your post (I'll try and digest it properly later) and you've got some very good points. One issue I can see is here:

On 10/07/2016 at 5:31 PM, MinotaurWarrior said:

My basic idea is that dykewoods and weirwoods are close relatives, having been isolated long ago by the narrow sea and the dry arm of Dorne.

How could the 'dykewoods' and weirwoods be related (biologically at least) given that their two environs are thousands of miles apart, with no apparent dykewoods outside Qarth, and very few weirwoods outside Westeros.

Also, have you considered Ulthos? That purple jungle looks quite interesting...

[MinotaurWarrior]

14 minutes ago, Maester of Valyria said:

I just scanned through your post (I'll try and digest it properly later) and you've got some very good points. One issue I can see is here:

How could the 'dykewoods' and weirwoods be related (biologically at least) given that their two environs are thousands of miles apart, with no apparent dykewoods outside Qarth, and very few weirwoods outside Westeros.

Also, have you considered Ulthos? That purple jungle looks quite interesting...

The same way European and American Pines are related. The two species were distinct 1mya and probably diverged millions of years before that. Perhaps the Arm of Dorne was once green and proto-weirwoods (waterblockerwoods?) spanned it, maybe there was a migratory species tgat pooped out seeds across the Narrow sea, maybe a lucky wind was responsible. Lots of things can happen over very long stretches of time. 

[Tucu]

One event that we know of before the arrival of the First Men is the CoTF adopting the True Tongue. Leaf says: Our name in the True Tongue means those who sing the song of earth. Before your Old Tongue was ever spoken, we had sung our songs ten thousand years.

I take this is the point that they learnt to link with the weirwoods. Maybe this marks the beggining of the weirwood conciousness.

[Raisin' Bran]

46 minutes ago, Tucu said:

One event that we know of before the arrival of the First Men is the CoTF adopting the True Tongue. Leaf says: Our name in the True Tongue means those who sing the song of earth. Before your Old Tongue was ever spoken, we had sung our songs ten thousand years.

I take this is the point that they learnt to link with the weirwoods. Maybe this marks the beggining of the weirwood conciousness.

Saying, "adopting" makes it sound like the True Tongue was not theirs first but belonged to another race. But I don't think that is what you meant.

[Tucu]

1 hour ago, Raisin(g) Bran 2 Greenseer said:

Saying, "adopting" makes it sound like the True Tongue was not theirs first but belonged to another race. But I don't think that is what you meant.

We don't know if the CoTF developed the language or if they borrowed it from the weirwoods and/or ravens. But it sounds like "the song of stones in a brook, or the wind through leaves, or the rain upon the water".

[Raisin' Bran]

2 hours ago, Tucu said:

We don't know if the CoTF developed the language or if they borrowed it from the weirwoods and/or ravens. But it sounds like "the song of stones in a brook, or the wind through leaves, or the rain upon the water".

true we do not know who developed the language, nor how. The True Tongue may be a language based on natural/magical rhythms and was developed out of nothing. 

But I have been under the assumption that sentinent beings are the only ones able to develop language beyond that of grunts, cries, howls, and snarls. Maybe that is why the progress of mankind has detrimentally affected magic.

Perhaps you could develop a theory about the origins of the True Tongue.

[Maester of Valyria]

On 15/08/2016 at 7:02 PM, MinotaurWarrior said:

The same way European and American Pines are related. The two species were distinct 1mya and probably diverged millions of years before that. Perhaps the Arm of Dorne was once green and proto-weirwoods (waterblockerwoods?) spanned it, maybe there was a migratory species tgat pooped out seeds across the Narrow sea, maybe a lucky wind was responsible. Lots of things can happen over very long stretches of time. 

Fair enough, although this would still beg the question of why the trees seem unique to their own particular enclaves.