Blood of the Rhoynar: The Long Night

[Alexis-something-Rose]

This is related to AA/TPtwP and the blood of the Rhoynar. I thought I'd keep it short and sweet.

I was writing a bit about Young Griff and going back over his journey down the Rhoyne when I realized that there is a connection between the legend of the Long Night and Rhaegar's words at the HotU. 

So we know that the current crop of Martells are descendants of Nymeria. Every descendant of Daeron II Targaryen also has her as an ancestor because of his marriage to Mariah Martell. It's possible that Dyanna Dayne had her as an ancestor if she was a descendant of the son Nymeria had with her Dayne husband. Rhaegar, Dany and Jon have the blood of the Rhoynar.

The Rhoynar have been singled out as having their own legend of the Long Night in Essos;

“The Rhoynar tell of a darkness that made the Rhoyne of Essos dwindle and disappear, her waters frozen as far south as the joining of the Selhoru, until a hero convinced the many children of Mother Rhoyne, such as the Crab King and the Old man of the River, to put aside their bickering and join in a secret song that brought back the day.” (The World of Ice and Fire, Ancient History: The Long Night)

So we have a hero who convinced different "people" (lesser goes in this case) to make common cause and join in a secret song that brought back the day. 

Rhaegar's words at the HotU relate a song or a "song" to the Long Night.

“Will you make a song for him?” the woman asked.
"He has a song," the man replied. "He is the prince that was promised, and his is the song of ice and fire." (Daenerys IV, ACoK 48)

Rhaegar tends to be judged very harshly as an idiot who didn't really understand what he was talking about. I personally wondered how a guy who has been touted as extremely intelligent can err like that and be so out in the left field when reading what he said in the visions at the HotU. 

But when we take the legend of the Long Night from a Rhoynar perspective, what he says has logic to it and actually makes sense. The hero of legend who I'm assuming is AA/TPtwP joined others in a secret song. So setting aside the idea that Rhaegar is probably the one who gave that song its name (he was a singer after all), what he is doing is looking at his son's lineage. Rhaegar's marriage to Elia reintroduced the blood of the Rhoynar into the Targaryen line. And I think that's the reason Rhaegar is associating the song to Aegon who in his mind was the prince that was promised. 

In Westeros, the last hero, the Night's Watch and the legend of the Long Night come from the north. In Essos, the legend comes from the Rhoynar. AA and the Blood Betrayal come from the Far East. So it seems to me that the people who were really leading the charge against the Long Night were the northmen in Westeros and the Rhoynar in Essos since the stories come from them. 

[broken one]

I think the song sung by a crab and  a turtle and the song of ice and fire from the vision do not have to be one and the same song. GRRM seems to like the word and uses it whenever he can. aemon steelsong, a song for lya, the song jaime is going to sing to his father after roose releases him....

[Isobel Harper]

7 hours ago, broken one said:

I think the song sung by a crab and  a turtle and the song of ice and fire from the vision do not have to be one and the same song. GRRM seems to like the word and uses it whenever he can. aemon steelsong, a song for lya, the song jaime is going to sing to his father after roose releases him....

I disagree.

"Ice and Fire" and Crab King and Old Man of the river two opposing binaries that must work together to create harmony.  (Deliberate word play on the author's party, "peace" and "complementary notes" both means harmony.)

[Curled Finger]

Bravo, @Alexis-something-Rose.  My buddy @Cridefea explained this thinking to me when she and I joined forces on a writing project a few years back.  You put some skin on those bones, Lady, and the idea is shaping up nicely.   This recalls to me so many sparks and ideas so many of us just can't get the point across with, well I don't seem to be able to at any rate.   The OP sounds like this was some sudden inspiration and those are such fun when they turn out so well, but it reads like something you've been studying for a while now.  It's not easy to tie the Rhoynish into Westeros at large, much less an event so integral to Westeros and so far from Dorne.   The Dornish are other.  The Rhoyne is far from the heart of the story.   What I really like here is your naming this event as The Long Night.  So often we focus in on the local events that impacted a single place when in truth it was a global event.  Perhaps there is something to all those local heroes flung so far across Martin's world.  Perhaps this even shaped some of the civilizations we see and traditions in Westeros maybe for some.   The Rhoynish worship animalistically from the bit we read.  The Crab King and Old Man Turtle and their kin and kith had to stop what they were doing and unite in a peaceful demonstration of power that healed their habitat.  Stateside we have the brave black Knights of the Watch pushing strange invading forces back into the heart of winter.  Western Long Night sounded like a bitter campaign, but we have more information there.  The Rhoynish people simply drew on their old gods with faith and concerted consciousness, not unlike what I imagine the COTF pray like.   No mention of a sacrifice unless the old gods of the Rhoyne really valued bickering higher than everything.  Nah, that doesn't fit the open-minded, determined and progressive free spirit of traditions of these folks. 

Alexis, I know you are looking at Rhaegar in this and my comments do nothing to further that conversation.   I think I just wanted to thank you for bringing a really cool look in parallel at the two cultures during their apocalypse.       

[Alexis-something-Rose]

22 hours ago, Curled Finger said:

The Rhoyne is far from the heart of the story. 

The Rhoyne is far, but the Rhoynar are in Westeros. They are included in the kingly titles.

Aegon Targaryen, First of His Name, King of the Andals, the Rhoynar and the First Men. They are one of the three acknowledged cultural groups in Westeros. 

The Rhoynar came and brought their culture and stories with them. A Rhoynar introduces us to Mother Rhoyne and the lesser gods. Then that gets picked up by Yandry and Ysilla, two Orphans who went back home. And then we spend I think 3 chapters traveling down the Rhoyne, through Ny Sar and Chroyane, centers of Rhoynar culture and water magic. This is Nymeria's (the woman) first introduction;

He was still trying to decide on a name. Robb was calling his Grey Wind, because he ran so fast. Sansa had named hers Lady, and Arya named hers after some old witch queen in the songs. (Bran II, AGoT 8)

At first, I thought it was just some misogynistic view on a strong woman who was a queen and led her people to safety, warred and changed some of the culture in Dorne from Andal to Rhoynar. But I'm not so sure that she didn't practice magic after reading that Oberyn used sorcery with the poison he used on Gregor Clegane, and Garin the Great calling down a curse on the Valyrians in Chroyane.  

That trip down the Rhoyne was very intentional and I think it's meant to reinforce Young Griff's ties to that cultural heritage. 

I always found Elia's marriage to Rhaegar a bit weird, mainly because her health is fragile and she is expected to produce heirs. But when we start looking at who the Martells are, Andals who married the Rhoynar, who have their own legend of the Long Night, it's not so weird anymore. On the surface, the marriage happened because Elia had some Valyrian blood from 3 or 4 generations before, Aerys and her mother were sticking it to Tywin. But I think that the reason GRRM chose her to be Rhaegar's wife had to do with her Rhoynar blood. I really don't think that it's a coincidence that Rhaegar mentions a song in relation to his newborn when the Rhoynar's legend of the Long Night has their lesser gods coming together with the hero in some secret song that brought back the day. 

Anyway . . . this stuff cropped up when I was writing about YG and now I'm looking at Long Night related things, which has been a lot of fun. 

[Lollygag]

I agree with the importance of the song and we do see it elsewhere. In the Reach where a lot of this stuff seems to have originated, they have weirwoods called the Three Singers. The CotF are reported to use magic through song. MMR sings a song with elements of water/ice and fire, sees a wolf (water/ice) and a man aflame (fire) where she says,

AGOT Daenerys VIII

"You must. Once I begin to sing, no one must enter this tent. My song will wake powers old and dark. The dead will dance here this night. No living man must look on them."

The World of Ice and Fire - Dorne: The Breaking

Most scholars do agree that Essos and Westeros were once joined; a thousand tales and runic records tell of the crossing of the First Men. Today the seas divide them, so plainly some version of the event the Dornish call the Breaking must have occurred. Did it happen in the space of a single day, however, as the songs would have it? Was it the work of the children of the forest and the sorcery of their greenseers? These things are less certain. Archmaester Cassander suggests elsewise in his Song of the Sea: How the Lands Were Severed, arguing that it was not the singing of greenseers that parted Westeros from Essos but rather what he calls the Song of the Sea—a slow rising of the waters that took place over centuries, not in a single day, and was caused by a series of long, hot summers and short, warm winters that melted the ice in the frozen lands beyond the Shivering Sea, causing the oceans to rise.

 

The stories addressing the end of the Long Night come from all over the world. I disagree with the importance of Azor Ahai and TPTWP specifically though as archtypes, I think they're very important. GRRM has told us to be skeptical of these stories as there are others and we've been given nothing to lead us to believe one is more or less true than the other. The readers' focus on Azor Ahai and TPTWP reads as leading the reader to make the same mistakes as the characters: Mel and the Targs are (unjustifiably) focused on these, so the reader is too. Also, I have to say, a Targ thinking they're like some kind of hero savior god type sounds awfully Targy and I have serious doubts the story is really going in this direction.

We've been given a heavy hint that Azor Ahai might be linked to Huzhor Amai - so best not to take this stuff too literally.

The World of Ice and Fire - Beyond the Free Cities: The Grasslands

Westeros remembers their conquerors as the Sarnori, for at its height their great kingdom included all the lands watered by the Sarne and its vassals, and the three great lakes that were all that remained of the shrinking Silver Sea. They called themselves the Tall Men (in their own tongue the Tagaez Fen). Long of limb and brown of skin they were, like the Zoqora, though their hair and eyes were black as night. Warriors, sorcerers, and scholars, they traced their descent to the hero king they called Huzhor Amai (the Amazing), born of the last of the Fisher Queens, who took to wife the daughters of the greatest lords and kings of the Gipps, the Cymmeri, and the Zoqora, binding all three peoples to his rule. His Zoqora wife drove his chariot, it is said, his Cymer wife made his armor (for her people were the first to work iron), and he wore about his shoulders a great cloak made from the pelt of a king of the Hairy Men.

 

The World of Ice and Fire - The Bones and Beyond: Yi Ti

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.

Mel would think Azor Ahai was the truth as this is her culture. It's immediately followed by another completely different tale with nothing to give either of them any rl credibility to the reader beyond Mel's obsession. If the monkey tail sounds outlandish, recall the monkey's paw story.

The World of Ice and Fire - Ancient History: The Long Night  

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.

 

Adding: in the Amai story, you can see echos of Azor Ahai in there being 3, water (Fisher Queens), metal working, and instead of a lion, we have a king of beast (men).

[Loose Bolt]

Red sword => Sith

Woman with a monkey's tail. => Saiyan

So it seems that that SoIaF will have serious copy right issues.

[Mourning Star]

I would suggest that perhaps the Last Hero's twelve companions came from all over the world.

This could explain a number of oddities, including why stories say the Others hated iron but iron supposedly came to Westeros with the Andals, why Winterfell's oldest towers are round (as is Stormsend) while Jaime notes Raventree hall is all square since it predates round towers (meanwhile the Starks are said to have chased the Blackwoods out of the North, so Winterfell should be older than Raventree hall), not to mention the gargoyles in Winterfell.

I also think the three wives of Huzor Amai quote above was interesting, not just because Westeros is predominantly populated by three peoples , the First Men, the Andals, and the Rhoynar. But also because remarkable horsemanship, smithing (as remarked on above), and flaying the skins off of defeated foes and wearing them as cloaks (Boltons?) are all noticeably present in the North.

[Alexis-something-Rose]

1 hour ago, Mourning Star said:

This could explain a number of oddities, including why stories say the Others hated iron but iron supposedly came to Westeros with the Andals

And the Rhoynar taught the Andals how to smith iron;

"Your Smith must have been Rhoynish," Illyrio quipped. "The Andals learned the art of working iron from the Rhoynar who dwelt along the river. This is known." (Tyrion II, ADwD 5)

I do take issue with the Others hating iron, though, because they have no issue fighting with men who carry weapons made from iron. In the prologue of AGoT, the Other who fights Waymar Royce takes a very long hard look at his weapon before he engages him. 

There are contradictions in Old Nan's story about the Others. She tells Bran that the Others hated iron, but then tells him that all the swords of men could not stay their advance. I'm assuming that it's swords made from bronze and swords made from iron that we are talking about since the Long Night seems to have fallen all over Planetos. 

Just to go back for a second to the song, after the attack on the Fist of the First Men (because I'm reading it right now), in Sam I, ASoS, when Sam is with Grenn and being carried by Small Paul, Grenn tells Sam to sing a song in his head to get his mind off the horrors they witnessed, and Sam replies that he doesn't know any songs even though he knows hundreds of them.

That's the appetizer for the actual Long Night and dawn comes after Sam stabs the Other who came for him, Grenn, and Small Paul with his dragonglass dagger. Sam I, ASoS 18 is such an awesome chapter and has everything from the attack, to the AA imagery with Torren Smallwood and his sword, to a last hero type symbolism with Sam and Grenn and Small Paul.

[Mourning Star]

21 minutes ago, Alexis-something-Rose said:

And the Rhoynar taught the Andals how to smith iron;

"Your Smith must have been Rhoynish," Illyrio quipped. "The Andals learned the art of working iron from the Rhoynar who dwelt along the river. This is known." (Tyrion II, ADwD 5)

I do take issue with the Others hating iron, though, because they have no issue fighting with men who carry weapons made from iron. In the prologue of AGoT, the Other who fights Waymar Royce takes a very long hard look at his weapon before he engages him. 

There are contradictions in Old Nan's story about the Others. She tells Bran that the Others hated iron, but then tells him that all the swords of men could not stay their advance. I'm assuming that it's swords made from bronze and swords made from iron that we are talking about since the Long Night seems to have fallen all over Planetos. 

Just to go back for a second to the song, after the attack on the Fist of the First Men (because I'm reading it right now), in Sam I, ASoS, when Sam is with Grenn and being carried by Small Paul, Grenn tells Sam to sing a song in his head to get his mind off the horrors they witnessed, and Sam replies that he doesn't know any songs even though he knows hundreds of them.

That's the appetizer for the actual Long Night and dawn comes after Sam stabs the Other who came for him, Grenn, and Small Paul with his dragonglass dagger. Sam I, ASoS 18 is such an awesome chapter and has everything from the attack, to the AA imagery with Torren Smallwood and his sword, to a last hero type symbolism with Sam and Grenn and Small Paul.

And who taught the Rhoynar? There is certainly reason to debate where ironworking started in Essos.

However, the point I was trying to make is that iron was in Westeros before the Andal invasion, but wasn't widely used or normal for First Men, but iron swords lie on the statues of the Stark crypt, and the crown of the kings of Winter was made of Iron and Bronze. 

Also, the Others hate iron, and fire and anyone with hot blood in their veins. This doesn't mean they can't fight those things (a case could even be made that the iron in blood may play a role), and I think it is a mistake to conflate/confuse this with "dragonsteel" which the Last Hero used to fight the Others, as much as it is to confuse and conflate dragonsteel with Valyrian Steel (Valyria had not been founded when the long night occurred).

I would argue that dragonsteel is not a "sword of men", I think it is a sword of the morning, a sword of the evening, a sword that slays the seasons, a red sword of heroes forged by a woman's sacrifice.

I'm not at all sure what you are talking about in regards to Sam, or even what song you mean. The Bear and the Maiden Fair?

[Alexis-something-Rose]

On 11/16/2020 at 4:01 PM, Mourning Star said:

And who taught the Rhoynar? There is certainly reason to debate where ironworking started in Essos.

Sure. Everything has to start somewhere. I think that the Rhoynar an offshoot of the Sarnori.

As far as the Andals go, I've been under the impression that they are a post-Long Night civilization, or a much younger civilization than the First Men and the Rhoynar. 

I think my larger point about what happened at the Fist of the First Men and Sam's memories is that there are various legends converging there. There are Lightbringer/AA and last hero references at the very least. There's the song too, not the Bear and the Maiden Fair, but the secret song that comes from the Rhoynar legend of the Long Night instead, and that Sam doesn't know. But I do acknowledge that I'm pushing a bit with this one.

 

[Loose Bolt]

There are some differences between steel and pure iron. So if pure iron has some "magical" effect that steel lacks then that would explain why steel do not work against Others. After all iron seems to cause some special problems for certain mythological beings in myths and fairy tales. So it is possible that iron would lose that effect during process that produces steel. Or just makes that effect too weak to be useful against White Walkers.

[Alexis-something-Rose]

15 hours ago, Loose Bolt said:

There are some differences between steel and pure iron. So if pure iron has some "magical" effect that steel lacks then that would explain why steel do not work against Others. After all iron seems to cause some special problems for certain mythological beings in myths and fairy tales. So it is possible that iron would lose that effect during process that produces steel. Or just makes that effect too weak to be useful against White Walkers.

I think the problem the Others have with iron or anything to do with iron is that it hinders their ability to raise the dead. The Stark tombs have iron swords on them. And the corpses that Jon brought back with him from the weirwood grove are bound with iron chains inside the ice cells, something that as far as we know was not done with Jafer Flowers and Othor. 

ETA: 

I just noticed something in the Huzor Amai passage about his wives. He married women from Gipps, Cymerri and Zoqora peoples. His Zoqorra wife rode his chariot and his Cymerri wife made his armor because her people were the first to work iron. But there's no mention of his Gipps wife and what she did.