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History of the "grasslands" includes a whopper of a detail


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That doesn't sound anything like the tweet we are discussing:

"@westerosorg: The history of the "Grasslands" includes a whopper of a detail... or a whopper of a red herring... #GRRM #WorldOfIceAndFire #PtwP #ASoIaF"

Ahh my bad. All I can think is that the Hairy Men sound like Skagosi. Unless there is foreshadowing of some sort? Like the khalasars being previously all united which can relate to Dany.

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Did anyone find this? I read the section and came up with nothing...

Well, on page 287, we learn about the city states of the Qaathi who became the Red Waste and Qarth. I always assumed the Red Waste was created by dragons in wars against the Valyrians. This says they were killed by the Tall Men. (I find this interesting, but I'm not sure its a whopper.)

Also, there is no Qarth section! This makes me think that Qarth and its secrets will play a big role later.

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Did anyone find this? I read the section and came up with nothing...

I'm pretty sure the red herring is that the Ifequevron are Children of the Forest and were wiped out by the Ibbenese. This appears to be a red herring because explorers from the North later visit the woods and see the carvings and things left behind, but they don't recognise anything (no weirwoods, no heart trees, no carved faces etc) which you'd expect them to. Either the Wood Walkers are Children with completely different customs and traditions or, more likely, they were never Children in the first place, just vaguely similar forest-dwellers.

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I'm pretty sure the red herring is that the Ifequevron are Children of the Forest and were wiped out by the Ibbenese. This appears to be a red herring because explorers from the North later visit the woods and see the carvings and things left behind, but they don't recognise anything (no weirwoods, no heart trees, no carved faces etc) which you'd expect them to. Either the Wood Walkers are Children with completely different customs and traditions or, more likely, they were never Children in the first place, just vaguely similar forest-dwellers.

From the hashtag I gathered that this detail/red herring was related to The Prince that was Promised.

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I'm going with wyverns on this. Here's a bit of the sidebar on p285

Anything from Barth might qualify as a "whopper". Don't forget that whatever-it-was with the leathery wings flapping though the Sorrows in Tyrion's chapter in aDwD.

That was the Sothoryos section iirc.

I assumed it was something to do with Dany and the SwMtW. But not really turning anything up. I'd have to read again

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At page 288 there is a mention of an ancient Hero of the Tall Men/ Sarnori called "Huzhor Amai" (the Amazing) which sounds ominiously simliar to Azor Ahai.

That's what I was talking about at the time!

Bear in mind that we had the Grasslands from George long before we got his material on Yi Ti and Leng and so on, so his introducing different names for this alleged hero in different regions was not something we saw...

But even so. "Huzhor Amai" seems like quite coincidentally close to "Azor Ahai".

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That's what I was talking about at the time!

Bear in mind that we had the Grasslands from George long before we got his material on Yi Ti and Leng and so on, so his introducing different names for this alleged hero in different regions was not something we saw...

But even so. "Huzhor Amai" seems like quite coincidentally close to "Azor Ahai".

If that's the case, what what does it mean?

That ultimately the prophecies of ASOIAF are like the real life legends of our world, distant events deformed into myth that have no power to predict the future?

I'm biased because I'd like that to be the case, honestly.

We know there exist some magical powers to see through time in the serie. We've seen a limited ability of Planetos seers to see the near future with some accuracy, especially when the gears were already in motions. We also have seen them delve into the past. But the absolute farthest in the future a seer has proven able to see was the Targaryen who predicted the Doom (Daenarys the dreamer, I think?). The vast majority of what we've seen in terms of prediction of the future from seers was much shorter term than that. A few weeks, sometime maybe just a few hours (Mel anticipating Davos murder attempt).

But prophecies wrote thousands of years ago? That's another game entirely, a complete different order of magnitude. At this point we don't even have a case of a prophet anticipating events two or three centuries in the future, so we are supposed to trust those written thousands of years ago?

What if they are entirely made up and are produced much as in our world, with ancient history changing over time and humanity's natural inclination to look for messiahs getting mixed in? What if Azor Ahai is basically just the King Arthur of this world? Some distant figure who struck the imagination thousands of years ago and whose tale has been deformed over the centuries and mean diddly squat for the future?

In a world where exists a limited ability to see in the near future, there would be a natural inclination to believe that prophecies wrote thousands of years ago are accurate, but... What if they are not?

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That's what I was talking about at the time!

Bear in mind that we had the Grasslands from George long before we got his material on Yi Ti and Leng and so on, so his introducing different names for this alleged hero in different regions was not something we saw...

But even so. "Huzhor Amai" seems like quite coincidentally close to "Azor Ahai".

There is also the fact, as somebody pointed out in another thread, that the other Sarnori name that we get in that section, that of the last High King of Sarnor, is Mazor Alexi, which at least points to a linguistically similarity.

This, coupled with the revelation that the Grasslands (the area around the Silver Sea in particular) is one of the three Cradles of Civilization in Planetos would point out to Azor Ahai being Sarnori in origin. Not necessarily another name for Huzhor Amai, but from the same culture.

Placing the origin of Azor Ahai in the region of Sarnor makes his involvement in the Battle for the Dawn much more coherent than if he was from Asshai.

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At page 288 there is a mention of an ancient Hero of the Tall Men/ Sarnori called "Huzhor Amai" (the Amazing) which sounds ominiously simliar to Azor Ahai.

Thats what i thought was going to be the red herring indeed too.

Huzhor also seems similar to Hugor, the legendary Andal.

Hugor of the hill. But youre right about that first name.

But in what way does it connect with the usual Azor Ahai legend? Or that of hugor of the hill? There is symboligy in these legends, the three attempts at forging lightbringer, the tempering of the sword in water, lion heart and nissa nissa, the sacrifice, the time it takes (30,50 and 100 days) , for hugor there is the 7 who he witnessed and gave him a wive by which he had 44 sons iirc. etc, how does that fit in with these legends of Sarnor and Huzhor?

I do think there is a very god chance for a connection, and hints given regarding ecology of the area, the fact that humans originitated from ther etc also seem relevant.

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