New Fire and Blood excerpt in Spanish with a travel to the Sunset Sea!

[Lord Varys]

The idea that the ship floated back after they all died and was then taken by some people who took it to Asshai the eastward route sounds too far-fetched to me to be more probable than the idea that she got at least to some lands in the west from where it then went on.

But, sure, Lady Elissa may no longer have been alive or on board when Corlys supposedly saw the ship, nor may have any of her crew still been around.

[Ran]

It's the totality of all the other possibilities that I'm talking about. Betting on a bunch of a set of improbable outcomes  vs. one particular probable outcome is, of course, a smarter option.

But the likeliest possibility of all is it wasn't her ship.

[The Grey Wolf]

41 minutes ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

Monarchies of god did this reasonably well, Feist even had some of it in the search for Novindus. And I recall some other similar books the names of which escape me now.

Remind me what they found again? I haven't read those books in a while and all I remember is most of them dying or going mad.

[Lord Varys]

35 minutes ago, Ran said:

But the likeliest possibility of all is it wasn't her ship.

Is it? Corlys was very much into ships, sure, but he would have never seen it, nor would he, one assumes, have expected to see it at Asshai, no?

This is the kind of thing one can see as him seeing something familiar, later thinking about it more, and the concluding that the way it was described was the Sun Chaser.

But, sure, he can be mistaken about it. As a hopeless romantic having read stories about Magellan and Columbus at the age of ten or so I completely buy the story ;-).

The overall probability that it is true is very low.

[The Dragon Demands]

I’m having trouble with the auto translation:  what did we learn of Sothoryos?  

[Three-Fingered Pete]

1 hour ago, Ran said:

... But I think one can admit it's highly improbable that a beaten-up old Braavosi galley, in a world with hundreds of them, just happened to be a particular ship _and_ that it was also a ship that managed to feat of crossing the Sunset Sea and discovering what was on the other side.

 

 

Was it an actual galley or are you just using that as a generic term for a sailing ship? Because if it was a galley, it would be even more improbable since galleys are particularly ill suited to long, open ocean voyages.

[Tucu]

20 minutes ago, The Dragon Demands said:

I’m having trouble with the auto translation:  what did we learn of Sothoryos?  

Google Translate seems to work fine for me on the Sothoryos part. I got this (minor corrections done by me):

Spoiler

There were also great riches there, and we did not fail to notice them. Emeralds, gold, spices ... Yes, all that and more. Strange creatures: monkeys that walk like men, men who howl like monkeys, wyverns, basilisks, a hundred varieties of snakes, all of them mortal. Some of my men disappeared at night. Those who had not started to die. One was stung by a fly. A slight sting in the neck, nothing to fear. Three days later the skin fell to strips and bled from ears, cock and ass. Drinking salt water makes you crazy, every sailor knows it, but fresh water is no more harmless in that place. It contains worms, so small they can hardly be seen, and if someone swallowed them, they put eggs inside. And the fevers ... Hardly a day went by when half of the men were fit for work.

I think most of this was already mentioned in the world book.

[Ran]

1 minute ago, Trefayne said:

 

Was it an actual galley or are you just using that as a generic term for a sailing ship? Because if it was a galley, it would be even more improbable since galleys are particularly ill suited to long, open ocean voyages.

No, not a galley. Braavosi ship, I should say.

[Three-Fingered Pete]

1 minute ago, Ran said:

No, not a galley. Braavosi ship, I should say.

 

OK, that's better! I didn't want to get someone hung up on an erroneous detail in a sea of erroneous details.

[The Dragon Demands]

Your translator is better than mine.  What did it say about summer islanders and the green he’ll on the next paragraph?

[The Grey Wolf]

@Ran

Will F & B get it's own subsection like TWOIAF forum-wise?

[Ran]

Just now, The Grey Wolf said:

@Ran

Will F & B get it's own subsection like TWOIAF forum-wise?

I think we'll just put all "World of ASoIaF" stuff in one category rather than separate subsections.

[The Grey Wolf]

1 minute ago, Ran said:

I think we'll just put all "World of ASoIaF" stuff in one category rather than separate subsections.

Ok. I was worried that F & B-related topics might flood the general section.

[The Dragon Demands]

Might want to update the subheading for World to state “Fire and Blood stuff goes here” to avoid confusion

[Ran]

Already did it a couple of days ago

[Tucu]

10 minutes ago, The Dragon Demands said:

Your translator is better than mine.  What did it say about summer islanders and the green he’ll on the next paragraph?

That section is not very translator friendly. It says something like this:

Spoiler

We would all have perished, I think, but for several Summer Islanders that were passing through and approached us. They know that hell better than they admit, I believe. With their help I managed to take the Lady Meredith to Tall Trees and from there home.

 

[The Dragon Demands]

Thanks and thanks, respectively.

[Lord Varys]

Back to the world thing:

George has gone on record saying that his globe is somewhat larger than ours, meaning that the Sunset Sea without any land between Westeros and whatever is the eastern coast of Ulthos and Essos would have to be, as large or perhaps even larger (depending on the size of Essos) than the Atlantic and Pacific combined.

And that would make for a nearly impossible or at least very dangerous trip for just one ship which has no inclination where there are islands and such to take on new supplies.

In that sense - if the Sun Chaser got to Asshai the western way, I'd say it is very likely that she would have made that journey by quite a few detours and such. The really daunting task is not crossing the Sunset Sea, but to actually navigate your way to Asshai.

And since we already discussed the whole trustworthiness of Gyldayn, sources, etc. issues I think I'll make a thread in the proper forum which one could make a sticky thing we could categorize the various scenes and events and theories Gyldayn gives us in a spectrum from 'looks like that's well attested' to 'seems to be nonsense the man (or the sources he never mentions) made up'.

I hope some of you are interested in that kind of thing after you have enjoyed the book ;-).

[The Dragon Demands]

It's larger than our world...yet not so large that travel from King's Landing to Sothoryos results in a negligible change of latitude.

Rather, the latitude at Winterfell compared to the latitude of Valyria results in drastic temperature change:  Winterfell to Sothoryos isn't all in the "Temperate Zone".  Stars also noticeably change with latitude.  

I've seen multiple independent models trying to figure this out over the years, and I think the general guess is that Westeros to Yi Ti is more or less like England to China:  one QUARTER of the world.  Northern half of the eastern hemisphere. 

[Lord Varys]

9 hours ago, The Dragon Demands said:

It's larger than our world...yet not so large that travel from King's Landing to Sothoryos results in a negligible change of latitude.

Rather, the latitude at Winterfell compared to the latitude of Valyria results in drastic temperature change:  Winterfell to Sothoryos isn't all in the "Temperate Zone".  Stars also noticeably change with latitude.  

I've seen multiple independent models trying to figure this out over the years, and I think the general guess is that Westeros to Yi Ti is more or less like England to China:  one QUARTER of the world.  Northern half of the eastern hemisphere. 

Well, with the whole magical seasons thing we cannot really base such things on that. Or rather: We perhaps can, if we know the climate zones remained the same after things go back to non-magical freak seasons.