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What should be known of Long Night?


Jaak

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Something to note:

The Starks of Winterfell would have had little reasons to remember the prehistory of Starks of Reach before Brandon the Builder. It would have concerned petty feuds and alliances with the unimportant and now remote Reach noble houses.

But these Reach noble houses would have had a reason to remember. "Starks were OUR bannermen before they went away to North", "We beat Brandon the Builder" - these would be memorable boasts for a petty noble family in Reach that did hear of distant Winter Kings and Night Watch, like Manderly or Peake.

Do we hear the name of Brandon the Builder's overlord? Especially if he was not a Gardener?

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On 6/21/2018 at 9:55 PM, Jaak said:

Sure.

But why is the full story of Brandon the Builder not "known" the way the full story of Odysseus or David is "known" - that is, a single universally recognized account that no one is going to contradict

Not going to touch on David, but there isn't a single, universally recognised account of Odysseus, that no one contradicts... Or, certainly, that hasn't always been one accepted narrative. In Homer's Illiad and Odyssey he was represented as a mythological, cultural hero... intellectually impressive, resourceful, cunning but ultimately decent and honourable. But if you look to the writings of Virgil, from the Roman perspective, he's viewed as dishonest, a deceiver, lacking in respect for the Gods, manipulative and dishonourable.

Even within the same culture (Greek) the details of Odysseus differ between author... for example, whether he had children with Circe and Calypso. Further to that, later writings, such as Dante's (which were heavily based on Ovid and Virgil's works in the Roman tradition), depict his journey after Circe's island completely differently to the Greek tradition... In the Inferno, he abandons his family and home to explore the Mediterranean and beyond, eventually sailing beyond the Pillars of Hercules and into oblivion. 

 

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