Connecting House Hightower/Dayne AKA The Dawn Empire mirrors

[Lady Blizzardborn]

12 hours ago, 40 Thousand Skeletons said:

Sure that does make sense. But that isn't what the OP said. The OP said that the first Long Night was the one that happened when the GEotD fell, and the second was the one in Westeros with the Others. This directly contradicts TWOIAF.

There may have been previous Long Nights in the past, but I doubt it, and we have no evidence there were any others in the distant past, or that another one is even coming in the current story. It strikes me as a one-time event, caused by some crazy thing like a giant meteor impact or something along those lines. I wouldn't be surprised if Planetos has gone through ice ages and significant climate change over long periods of time like Earth, but I am betting that the Long Night 1.0 or something related to it is what made the seasons go crazy and it is not a naturally recurring event.

Okay. I hadn't read the first post all the way through yet. But I think we should keep in mind that the info in TWOIAF is not all accurate. GRRM has made a point of saying more than once that the history isn't necessarily correct. It could very well be that (first post aside) there have been two Long Nights, and that the maester who "wrote" TWOIAF has conflated the two events into one.

[Lady Blizzardborn]

10 hours ago, OberynBlackfyre said:

I definitely think that there has been two Long Nights.   The one that the Rhoynish experienced could have also been from the one that happened in Westeros, I would imagine.  We don't get an exact date on how many thousands of years this occurred though.  The only reason I kinda think it could could have been the one connected in Westeros is because the Valyrians came to power basically right after the Long Night in Westeros- so they could have known that the Ice Magic was vanquished or dormant if they caught wind about what happened with the Rhoyne.

Not exactly. The Long Night we know for certain happened was 8,000 years ago. The Valyrian Freehold was still in it's "early days" 3,000 years later. I doubt their early days lasted 1,000+ years. But I think there's a good point to be made in that they could not have arisen if ice had been the dominant magic. 

It's got to be complicated. I wonder how the different magics got split in the first place, and if they've been sort of yo-yo-ing ever since. But now we have both ice and fire magic coming forward at the same time so clearly there has to be a showdown. If there was a split, I wonder how the two can be fused back together, and thus balance be brought back to the force (for lack of better words).

[OberynBlackfyre]

20 minutes ago, Lady Blizzardborn said:

Not exactly. The Long Night we know for certain happened was 8,000 years ago. The Valyrian Freehold was still in it's "early days" 3,000 years later. I doubt their early days lasted 1,000+ years. But I think there's a good point to be made in that they could not have arisen if ice had been the dominant magic. 

It's got to be complicated. I wonder how the different magics got split in the first place, and if they've been sort of yo-yo-ing ever since. But now we have both ice and fire magic coming forward at the same time so clearly there has to be a showdown. If there was a split, I wonder how the two can be fused back together, and thus balance be brought back to the force (for lack of better words).

that is my question as well.  Because I kind of wonder if they were split, or if one entity was created to fight the other, and therefore it made disaster...and they both have to be kinda "eliminated".  I think their power as a battery could be lessening though...like possibly this is the last of both the Ice Magic and the Fire Magics power so thats why they are both sending essentially all they can at each other.  


As for Valyria it definitely states that it was only the seeds of the empire sprouting when the Long Night was done, so essentially I think it rose because it was the dominant magic at the time.....but yet they still never went to Westeros proper, simply because i think they knew what was there

[Lady Blizzardborn]

15 minutes ago, OberynBlackfyre said:

that is my question as well.  Because I kind of wonder if they were split, or if one entity was created to fight the other, and therefore it made disaster...and they both have to be kinda "eliminated".  I think their power as a battery could be lessening though...like possibly this is the last of both the Ice Magic and the Fire Magics power so thats why they are both sending essentially all they can at each other.  


As for Valyria it definitely states that it was only the seeds of the empire sprouting when the Long Night was done, so essentially I think it rose because it was the dominant magic at the time.....but yet they still never went to Westeros proper, simply because i think they knew what was there

What definitely states that? Is it TWOIAF? 

[OberynBlackfyre]

27 minutes ago, Lady Blizzardborn said:

What definitely states that? Is it TWOIAF? 

well yeah as the whole "just beginning" means that Valyria was nowhere near full power.  Like i believe it was a few thousand years before they even took on the Rhoynish

[OtherFromAnotherMother]

4 hours ago, AlaskanSandman said:

There is evidence though that can be construed as them having a presence in Westeros and possibly being kicked out. 

Oh. 

You're post said that "members of the Empire of the Dawn possibly expelled from Westeros as the text seems to imply".

I guess I took that to mean there was text (which could be quoted) which implied that members of the Empire of the Dawn were possibly expelled from Westeros.

My mistake. 

[AlaskanSandman]

36 minutes ago, OtherFromAnotherMother said:

Oh. 

You're post said that "members of the Empire of the Dawn possibly expelled from Westeros as the text seems to imply".

I guess I took that to mean there was text (which could be quoted) which implied that members of the Empire of the Dawn were possibly expelled from Westeros.

My mistake. 

No, Yandel is too stupid to make that one extra leap of logic and suggest the obvious. He doesn't even mention the Empire of Dawn in Westeros at all, and simply thinks it was Valyrians but that that conflicts with Valyria's founding. So assuming he's right about Valyria's founding, then it had to be the GEOTD

[40 Thousand Skeletons]

9 hours ago, Reekazoid said:

Some Mesoamerican cultures built ceremonial temple cities that were as large or larger than their actual political seats of government, sometimes due to the location being better for astronomy or what have you, even if they weren't as good for trade or military defense. 

 

I dont think anyone should get too hung up on whether it was the actual capital vs. just an important, if somewhat remote, city. 

Well that's a good point. I suppose the more important question is, was Asshai part of the GEotD, and I think its size alone makes that likely.

[40 Thousand Skeletons]

On 9/19/2017 at 9:15 AM, OberynBlackfyre said:

mmm I hear what you're saying but i don't think it contradicts what it says in TWOIAF.  We know that "A" Long Night happened in The Great Empire of Dawn, then we know of "A" Long Night affecting Westeros.  However as George even says Essos does NOT connect with Westeros.  So why would the Long Night of the Dawn Emmpire affect Westeros?  Especially in an area that came from the North......if it was from the Empire of the Dawn wouldn't it have to come from the East or West?

Nah  

Again, it is totally possible as other people have said that the "known history" of ancient times is just wrong, and we should actually assume it is wrong about lots of things. But TWOIAF clearly refers to THE Long Night and considers it to be a single event that spanned Westeros and Essos.

Quote

As the First Men established their realms following the Pact, little troubled them save their own feuds and wars, or so the histories tell us. It is also from these histories that we learn of the Long Night, when a season of winter came that lasted a generation—a generation in which children were born, grew into adulthood, and in many cases died without ever seeing the spring. Indeed, some of the old wives' tales say that they never even beheld the light of day, so complete was the winter that fell on the world. While this last may well be no more than fancy, the fact that some cataclysm took place many thousands of years ago seems certain. Lomas Longstrider, in his Wonders Made by Man, recounts meeting descendants of the Rhoynar in the ruins of the festival city of Chroyane who have tales of a darkness that made the Rhoyne dwindle and disappear, her waters frozen as far south as the joining of the Selhoru. According to these tales, the return of the sun came only when a hero convinced Mother Rhoyne's many children—lesser gods such as the Crab King and the Old Man of the River—to put aside their bickering and join together to sing a secret song that brought back the day.

It is also written that there are annals in Asshai of such a darkness, and of a hero who fought against it with a red sword. His deeds are said to have been performed before the rise of Valyria, in the earliest age when Old Ghis was first forming its empire. This legend has spread west from Asshai, and the followers of R'hllor claim that this hero was named Azor Ahai, and prophesy his return. In the Jade Compendium, Colloquo Votar recounts a curious legend from Yi Ti, which states that the sun hid its face from the earth for a lifetime, ashamed at something none could discover, and that disaster was averted only by the deeds of a woman with a monkey's tail.

And then later...

Quote

In the annals of the Further East, it was the Blood Betrayal, as his usurpation is named, that ushered in the age of darkness called the Long Night. Despairing of the evil that had been unleashed on earth, the Maiden-Made-of-Light turned her back upon the world, and the Lion of Night came forth in all his wroth to punish the wickedness of men.

How long the darkness endured no man can say, but all agree that it was only when a great warrior—known variously as Hyrkoon the Hero, Azor Ahai, Yin Tar, Neferion, and Eldric Shadowchaser—arose to give courage to the race of men and lead the virtuous into battle with his blazing sword Lightbringer that the darkness was put to rout, and light and love returned once more to the world.

I don't think the Long Night "came from" a particular direction. I think it was simply a world-wide event that temporarily and drastically altered the global climate. Personally, I think the atmosphere simply was filled with dust and debris from either the second moon exploding (from the Qartheen myth) or a large meteor striking Planetos or both. The Others were able to wage a war in Westeros because everything got colder and the sun was blocked out (they normally stay underground in their caves because they can't withstand sunlight), and they came from the north (their creation may have been directly tied to the LN but that's beside the point). And at the same time, something came out of the Grey Waste in Essos to fight the GEotD, again possibly facilitated by the change in climate. And I don't think that "defeating the forces of darkness" ended the LN. I think it simply ended naturally as the dust settled to the surface of Planetos.

[falcotron]

On 9/20/2017 at 1:44 AM, 40 Thousand Skeletons said:

Well that's a good point. I suppose the more important question is, was Asshai part of the GEotD, and I think its size alone makes that likely.

Why does its size make that likely?

The fact that Asshai is a giant city of oversized buildings made of greasy black stone that's older than any legends makes it less likely that it's part of the Dawn Empire, not more likely. The Yi Tish cities that go back to the Dawn Empire don't sound anything like that.

And that fits with the little we're told. We're given the legendary extent of the Dawn Empire, and Asshai is outside that extent. We're told that there were people in the Shadow Lands before civilizations even had names—which obviously means before the Great Empire of the Dawn.

There don't seem to be any Asshai'i legends about the Dawn Empire, only Yi Tish legends. If Asshai were part of the Empire, surely that wouldn't be true?

And if GRRM (or, rather, Ran and Linda, who wrote WoIaF) intended us to connect Asshai to the Empire, why would they have put it entirely within the Yi Ti section and not mentioned it at all in the Asshai section?

Why are people so desperate to connect Asshai and the Dawn Empire in the first place? What does it get you? What's wrong with the story that's actually in the books?

[LynnS]

22 minutes ago, falcotron said:

Why are people so desperate to connect Asshai and the Dawn Empire in the first place? What does it get you? What's wrong with the story that's actually in the books?

There's no closure.  At least, that's what drives me to keep looking for answers.  Although, I prefer to stick with the text without becoming absorbed in an enormous construct of some kind based on WoIaF or someone else's head canon.  I still think there is much to be discovered in the books themselves.    

[LmL]

Hey y'all. In case anyone is curious, my full arguments about the Great Empire of the Dawn being the ancestors of Valyria who built Asshai can be found in these two videos I did with History of Westeros:

Although my very first write-up on this was back in March of 2015, and the arguments are basically the same:

I will know respond to @falcotron, who's arguments I consistently disagree with:

On 9/21/2017 at 4:07 AM, falcotron said:

Why does its size make that likely?

The fact that Asshai is a giant city of oversized buildings made of greasy black stone that's older than any legends makes it less likely that it's part of the Dawn Empire, not more likely. The Yi Tish cities that go back to the Dawn Empire don't sound anything like that.

Yi Ti is a descendent of the Great Empire, they are not the same. The GEOTD was completely destroyed during the Long Night, and Yi Ti sprung up afterward, in the same place. They preserve the myth of the GEOTD, and we can assume they probably descend from people of the GEOTD, but the GEOTD was said to completely collapse and was not reformed, so Yi Ti is the culture that came after. 

I simply disagree with your point about the size. The factthat is is the largest city ever built in the history of the world does indeed suggest it was built by a great civilization with the resources and the need to build it. Ritual temples like Machu Pichu or Teotihuacan are nowhere near the size of a large city, let alone the "largest city in the world." Asshai also has huge land walls, which speak of defenses of a populus city and not a ritual temple city. 

We don't know what the oldest Yi Tish cities are like, anyway, as we are told all the current cities sit on many layers of ruins from older cities.

Finally, it's fairly obvious some sort of disaster or transformation has occurred at Asshai, so it may not have always been greasy black stone. 

On 9/21/2017 at 4:07 AM, falcotron said:

And that fits with the little we're told. We're given the legendary extent of the Dawn Empire, and Asshai is outside that extent. We're told that there were people in the Shadow Lands before civilizations even had names—which obviously means before the Great Empire of the Dawn.

Maybe, maybe not. The territory is very loosly defined, and included all the lands bordering the Jade Sea including the Isle of Leng. Asshai is in the same neighborhood and is connected to Yi Ti by a land route. The phrasing about there being people in Asshai as far back as anyone can remember is not a technical statement which tells us when they existed in relation to the GEotD. We are told the GEOTD existed for tens of thousands of years, up until the LN. If people were in Asshai before the LN, they would have been concurrent with the GEOTD, according the myth (which is of course a myth and is subject tot he fog of history). 

On 9/21/2017 at 4:07 AM, falcotron said:

There don't seem to be any Asshai'i legends about the Dawn Empire, only Yi Tish legends. If Asshai were part of the Empire, surely that wouldn't be true?

We don't have any idea what legends they might have in Asshai. We are given a couple of them, who knows what all they have record of. In particular, the legend of Azor Ahai and Lightbringer comes from Asshai according to Mel, and look who pops up in the "Yi Tish" version of the GEotD myth - Azor Ahai and Lightbringer. 

On 9/21/2017 at 4:07 AM, falcotron said:

And if GRRM (or, rather, Ran and Linda, who wrote WoIaF) intended us to connect Asshai to the Empire, why would they have put it entirely within the Yi Ti section and not mentioned it at all in the Asshai section?

Wrong wrong wrong. GEotD wrote the vast majority of TWOIAF, and he wrote 100% of the eastern stuff. As to why George put the Asshai section a couple pages after Yi Ti and put the GEotD in the YiTish section, that's easy to explain. 1.) to preserve a bit of mystery - the GEoTD is one of the big secrets hidden in TWOIAF imo, it's no fun to give it all away. 2.) Yi Ti is far more accessible to the maesters than Asshai. Of course we would be more familiar with the records of Yi Ti that Asshai. Asshai probably has records of the GEoTD also, if my theory is correct. The maesters just don't know much about Asshai.

On 9/21/2017 at 4:07 AM, falcotron said:

Why are people so desperate to connect Asshai and the Dawn Empire in the first place? What does it get you? What's wrong with the story that's actually in the books?

Your last sentence is extremely condescending and pedantic. We are all attempting to interpret the legends in the story, which are intentionally obscured and disguised as real legends are. Pretending like your reading of the text is "what's in the books" and other people's interpretations are not is just a jerk move. 

The reason why MANY people besides myself have made the exact same set of connections is because the evidence is abundant and the theory suggests itself when you read TWOIAF and think about certain scenes in the books, such as Dany's vision of the gemstone-eyed kings, all the stuff about dragons first coming from Asshai that is found in AGOT, the weirdly purple eyed Daynes, the fused stone fortresses at Battle Isle in Oldtown and the 5 Forts in former GEotD territory, etc. You don't have to agree with the theory but it's a solid theory based on lots of evidence, and that's why I wasn't the only one to think of it. Nobody is "desperate" to do anything, it simply makes a lot of sense. 

[cgrav]

On 9/21/2017 at 5:07 AM, falcotron said:

Why are people so desperate to connect Asshai and the Dawn Empire in the first place?

Because that's the link that makes GEotD relevant to the main series. The GEotD stuff was written for a reason, so there must be some connection and meaning within the present day story. It's not like it was written by mistake.

If you have different ideas as to why GRRM felt the GEotD was important enough to publish, we're all ears. Incredulity by itself isn't the same as skepticism, and it doesn't really further our understanding of the story.

[Tucu]

5 minutes ago, cgrav said:

Because that's the link that makes GEotD relevant to the main series. The GEotD stuff was written for a reason, so there must be some connection and meaning within the present day story. It's not like it was written by mistake.

If you have different ideas as to why GRRM felt the GEotD was important enough to publish, we're all ears. Incredulity by itself isn't the same as skepticism, and it doesn't really further our understanding of the story.

I think their significance to the story is that the Long Night hit eastern Essos too. Not much more than that.

 

[cgrav]

@Tucu

More than just hitting Essos, the Blood Betrayal story posits an Essosi cause of the Long Night. If we take that to be true, then it's selfsame with the AA story,  thus linking it directly to the main series. The other point of entry is Dany's tent dream, which strongly implies that she descends from the Great Empire.

[Tucu]

I personally see the myths on who triggered and who stopped the Long Night as cargo cult(ish). Every group of survivors found scapegoats and heroes once the Long Night ended. Then over generations some of the stories merged.

 

[Falcon2909]

I'm glad more and more people are starting to believe in this theory.

[LynnS]

1 hour ago, Falcon2909 said:

I'm glad more and more people are starting to believe in this theory.

I certainly enjoy reading other people's ideas and theories.  However, I don't feel it's necessary to believe in them.  That would be like asking me to believe in a crossword puzzle.  I resist taking anything as an article of faith.

 

[Durran Durrandon]

On 9/19/2017 at 4:06 PM, Reekazoid said:

Some Mesoamerican cultures built ceremonial temple cities that were as large or larger than their actual political seats of government, sometimes due to the location being better for astronomy or what have you, even if they weren't as good for trade or military defense. 

 

I dont think anyone should get too hung up on whether it was the actual capital vs. just an important, if somewhat remote, city. 

I've made this argument regarding ceremonial cities several times regarding Asshai, and it always seems to fall on deaf ears. It still doesn't answer whether or not it was part of Asshai of the Golden Empire, which seems likely, but i debatable..

That said we already have another impossibly large city in the story, Vaes Dothrak, and we know why that city is that big. It is supposed to fulfill a prophecy that at one point all the Dothraki will gather there at one time, presumably, but not directly stated, under the Stallion Who Will Mount the World.

 

[Durran Durrandon]

Though, I will note that the land walls, casually referenced in the description of Asshai's walls, do argue against a purely ceremonial city, and Vaes Dothrak does not have walls.

At the same time, the residents of Asshai "do not claim to know who built their city", so they aren't claiming it was the Golden Empire in the same way the Yi Ti claim to have descended from the Golden Empire.