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Who or what attacked Essos during The Long Night?


Mordor

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Creatures who favored the darkness.  Vampires!  People who don't tan.  The servants in the Palace of Dust are dwarves like the children of the forest.  So two species that are alike doing the same thing.  A species similar to the Others existed in Essos and attacked during the period of darkness.  Like Mathias and his gang in Omega Man.  

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18 hours ago, Anck Su Namun said:

Who or what attacked Essos during The Long Night?  The White Walkers

The 5 Forts should give us a clue.  The Essosi felt they needed to build fortifications this high.   Essos suffered in the past what Westeros is about to experience.  

Given that GRRM took inspiration from the history of Great Britain for parts of the story including the idea of successive waves of invading cultures,  maybe the white walkers were actually the very first species to invade Westeros, followed by the Children, the First Men, and then the Andals. 

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On 4/17/2019 at 6:09 PM, Mordor said:

Was Lion of The Night and his demons wights that came from the Grey Waste that attacked The Five Forts? And maybe LOTN was a second commander of the Night King, charged to take Essos? 

That was probably just the tales of the long night that changed and mutated over generations and thousands of leagues of travel. After something as destructive as the long night, with people starving and dying from the cold and famine, communication lines would not be very strong. 

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Wants fire demons for essos.   Wider world that way.  And Night Guy in shadowland could be someone infused with dark matter.  Maybe a person by day and a Melisandre shadow creature by night, like a new take on the werewolf.     You guys talk about the five forts a lot.  That's not doing anything for me, so I'll start picturing them as supercool temples from India or Thailand to see if that helps.

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5 hours ago, The Mother of The Others said:

Wants fire demons for essos.   Wider world that way.  And Night Guy in shadowland could be someone infused with dark matter.  Maybe a person by day and a Melisandre shadow creature by night, like a new take on the werewolf.     You guys talk about the five forts a lot.  That's not doing anything for me, so I'll start picturing them as supercool temples from India or Thailand to see if that helps.

So Essos wights might be zombies\stonemen types, White Walkers are fire demons, maybe with a physical form riding possessed dragons? :D

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On ‎4‎/‎17‎/‎2019 at 9:09 PM, Mordor said:

Was Lion of The Night and his demons wights that came from the Grey Waste that attacked The Five Forts? And maybe LOTN was a second commander of the Night King, charged to take Essos? 

IMHO, if GRRM makes an effort to make his world large, we should not go out of our way to make it small again. Even if these beings are somehow in league, which is vaguely possible if they serve or worship analogous godlike beings, I think it more fun to assume that they are demons of a different type.

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The Grey Waste is a cold region like the Gobi desert right? It would to me make sense, that whatever came from that area during the Long Night must be similar to WW and wights. But other different demons are also possible, like shadow creatures or evil dragons. 

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Given the landscape of Essos and descriptions of The Shadow it was probably some massive event like Pompeii--just this natural side of a nuclear holocaust.  There are many things that could cause global darkness, a celestial event or megatons of ash.  The Others seem to be peculiar to the North of Westeros, though there are many mentions of pale or bloodless people throughout Essos (thanks @Crowfood's Daughter--great video!).  They just aren't described as cold.   I often wonder if the cold Others aren't some response to some earlier hot creatures who ruled the world?   

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1 hour ago, Curled Finger said:

Given the landscape of Essos and descriptions of The Shadow it was probably some massive event like Pompeii--just this natural side of a nuclear holocaust.  There are many things that could cause global darkness, a celestial event or megatons of ash.  The Others seem to be peculiar to the North of Westeros, though there are many mentions of pale or bloodless people throughout Essos (thanks @Crowfood's Daughter--great video!).  They just aren't described as cold.   I often wonder if the cold Others aren't some response to some earlier hot creatures who ruled the world?   

So was the Five Forts build to hold off the races that inhabited Eastern Essos, and they were somewhat summoned by the The Great Other(Lion of The Night as Essos saw him)to attack?

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14 minutes ago, Mordor said:

So was the Five Forts build to hold off the races that inhabited Eastern Essos, and they were somewhat summoned by the The Great Other(Lion of The Night as Essos saw him)to attack?

Bah, the fort was likely built to hold off something.   You idea is as good as any other.   That oily stone is unsettling to the humanoid creatures on Planetos---nothing says it's repugnant to other creatures who are not humanoid.   We don't have enough information to pin point why any ancient structure was built.   It could be a memory stone or a power conductor or a safe room for all we know.   TBH I'm not sure I understand your question as stated.   I'm sorry, I hope this is an acceptable reply.   

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On ‎4‎/‎17‎/‎2019 at 9:09 PM, Mordor said:

Was Lion of The Night and his demons wights that came from the Grey Waste that attacked The Five Forts? And maybe LOTN was a second commander of the Night King, charged to take Essos? 

K'dath in the Grey Waste, is obviously a reference to H.P. Lovecraft's "Kadath in the Cold Waste".   So let's take that reference and run with it.

The "cold waste" that surround's Kadath is evidently the same as the "Plateau of Leng", since Kadath is also said to be situated on the Plateau of Leng, which Lovecraft describes as a "grey barren plain" and a "cold desert plateau".

The denizens of Leng are evil satyr-like creatures, with horns, hooves tail, and wide mouths, who live in stone huts on the Plateau of Leng, and dance to weird piping (perhaps that of the Moon Beasts).  Their preferred food, evidently, is human flesh.  When they travel (for instance, in black galleys with unseen rowers, who are probably Moon Beasts) they may conceal their non-human features with appropriate headgear and other garb.  They serve the Moon-Beasts (often as food) and one of HPL's protagonists concludes therefore that the Moon-Beasts must also have some connection with the Plateau of Leng.

The Moon Beasts are great greyish-white slippery things, somewhat amorphous in shape, but who most often resemble great toads with no eyes, and with feelers or tentacles in place of a mouth.  They may be somehow related to the "Beings of Ib" from "The Doom that Came to Sarnath", who also come from the Moon.  They apparently eat humans and, sometimes, Leng-satyrs.  They serve the evil outer gods, and apparently have a particular connection to Nyarlathotep, the crawling chaos.

Leng is also home of the "Shantak-birds" or "Shantaks", great scaly winged creatures, with slimy skin, batlike wings, and heads like horses.   These too seem to serve Nyarlathoteop.

Night Gaunts, whom the Shantaks fear, inhabit the mountain peaks surrounding the plateau of Leng.  They are allied with the god Nodens, who opposes Nyarlathotep.

Leng is also home to the "high priest not to be described" who wears a yellow silken mask, in a prehistoric stone monastery.

Given his connection to the creatures of Leng, and his ability to appear in various forms, including human form, one is tempted to identify Nyarlathotep with the "Lion of the Night".  Nyarlathotep certainly seems to seek the destruction of humanity, among his many other incomprehensible goals.

 

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On 4/18/2019 at 6:50 PM, Anck Su Namun said:

Who or what attacked Essos during The Long Night?  The White Walkers

The 5 Forts should give us a clue.  The Essosi felt they needed to build fortifications this high.   Essos suffered in the past what Westeros is about to experience.  

Similar but not the exact same threat.  History seldom repeats itself perfectly.  Cold and dark extinguish life.  Everything depends on photosynthesis.  Surviving that apocalypse necessitated the removal of all the evil weirwood trees in Essos.

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19 hours ago, Platypus Rex said:

K'dath in the Grey Waste, is obviously a reference to H.P. Lovecraft's "Kadath in the Cold Waste".   So let's take that reference and run with it.

The "cold waste" that surround's Kadath is evidently the same as the "Plateau of Leng", since Kadath is also said to be situated on the Plateau of Leng, which Lovecraft describes as a "grey barren plain" and a "cold desert plateau".

The denizens of Leng are evil satyr-like creatures, with horns, hooves tail, and wide mouths, who live in stone huts on the Plateau of Leng, and dance to weird piping (perhaps that of the Moon Beasts).  Their preferred food, evidently, is human flesh.  When they travel (for instance, in black galleys with unseen rowers, who are probably Moon Beasts) they may conceal their non-human features with appropriate headgear and other garb.  They serve the Moon-Beasts (often as food) and one of HPL's protagonists concludes therefore that the Moon-Beasts must also have some connection with the Plateau of Leng.

The Moon Beasts are great greyish-white slippery things, somewhat amorphous in shape, but who most often resemble great toads with no eyes, and with feelers or tentacles in place of a mouth.  They may be somehow related to the "Beings of Ib" from "The Doom that Came to Sarnath", who also come from the Moon.  They apparently eat humans and, sometimes, Leng-satyrs.  They serve the evil outer gods, and apparently have a particular connection to Nyarlathotep, the crawling chaos.

Leng is also home of the "Shantak-birds" or "Shantaks", great scaly winged creatures, with slimy skin, batlike wings, and heads like horses.   These too seem to serve Nyarlathoteop.

Night Gaunts, whom the Shantaks fear, inhabit the mountain peaks surrounding the plateau of Leng.  They are allied with the god Nodens, who opposes Nyarlathotep.

Leng is also home to the "high priest not to be described" who wears a yellow silken mask, in a prehistoric stone monastery.

Given his connection to the creatures of Leng, and his ability to appear in various forms, including human form, one is tempted to identify Nyarlathotep with the "Lion of the Night".  Nyarlathotep certainly seems to seek the destruction of humanity, among his many other incomprehensible goals.

 

I liked the idea of Lovercraft creatures in the cold Grey Waste. Like beyond the Walls, we got giants, direwolves, wights and WW. In eastern Essos, mythical creatures the ones you describe. Maybe not as grotesque as the Moon beasts, but the Shantaks is something I could envision exist there. Wights, but maybe a slower and less intelligent breed like traditional zombies and vampire bats. 

The Lion of The Night as Nyarlathotep is a intriguing idea. I would imagine him as a shapeshifter entity, serving the Great Other. As the Night King, he is one of the generals of the dark god. 

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