PupsOfWar posted:

my issue with things like this is that I'm generally pro-fanfic, and feel that, if you're gonna write out thousands of words of plot speculation about some books you read, you should just write a fic

so when people don't do this, i assume they are cowards

Son of a Vondruke! posted:

Hell, he's already extrapolating single throwaway sentences into complex sequences of events that's aren't even hinted at in the books. It's not much of a leap to just write something original at that point.

PupsOfWar posted:

can we blame ASOIAF in a general sense for the modern practice of fandom theorycrafting

or is the X-Files the more appropriate scapegoat

Evil Fluffy posted:

Modern?

Star Trek fans have done this stuff since the 70s.

quote:

Chapter 1: The Green God (Spoilers Extended)
Introduction

Hello! This is the first chapter in a six part series that will detail the western half of a broader, Grand Unified Theory of the Dawn. I believe it convincingly explains the legends surrounding the Dawn Age, the Age of Heroes, and the Long Night in Westeros. We will be touching on Garth, the Grey King, the Fisher Queens, the Drowned God, the Night’s King, the First King, Durran Godsgrief, and many others.

Our first topic is Garth Greenhand and his deeds. So extraordinary was the life he led that we actually can’t do it justice in one chapter, so we’ll still be talking about him in chapter 2. Substantial parts of this theory were inspired by posts made by u/Genghis_Kazoo, but I’ve gone in a different direction. Just wanted to give him a well-deserved shout out here.

Fertility God

In the Dawn of Days, it is said that Westeros was peopled only by the Elder Races: the Children of the Forest and the Giants (and some legends say, the Others). Mankind had only just begun to spread across the world, and they had not yet invented agriculture or writing.

It is not written in any book that we know, for in the first age of the world, the Dawn Age, men were not lettered. - The World of Ice and Fire - Ancient History: The Dawn Age
And so, we must rely on legends and songs to piece together what this ancient world looked like. The Dawn Age is so ancient, however, that it’s hard to find even legends from that time period. Remember, this was a time before the likes of Durran Godsgrief, Bran the Builder, the Grey King, and Lann the Clever. Theirs was the Age of Heroes, and it came after the Pact. There’s only a scant few legends this old, and they all seem to center around legendary figures from a bygone age so ancient that their very names have been forgotten.

Except one. He looms large in the history of Westeros, and indeed many places of the world, if the legends are to be believed. He’s also the only named person whose legend places him firmly in the Dawn Age (I theorize there were plenty of others, but we’ll get to that later).

Garth Greenhand brought the gift of fertility with him. - The World of Ice and Fire - The Reach: Garth Greenhand
Where he walked, farms and villages and orchards sprouted up behind him. About his shoulders was slung a canvas bag, heavy with seed, which he scattered as he went along. - The World of Ice and Fire - The Reach: Garth Greenhand
It was Garth who first taught men to farm, it is said. Before him, all men were hunters and gatherers, rootless wanderers forever in search of sustenance, until Garth gave them the gift of seed and showed them how to plant and sow... - The World of Ice and Fire - The Reach: Garth Greenhand
Nor was it only the earth that he made fecund, for the legends tell us that he could make barren women fruitful with a touch—even crones whose moon blood no longer flowed. Maidens ripened in his presence, mothers brought forth twins or even triplets when he blessed them, young girls flowered at his smile. - The World of Ice and Fire - The Reach: Garth Greenhand
There was never a maid that he deflowered who did not deliver a strong son or fair daughter nine moons later, or so the stories say. - The World of Ice and Fire - The Reach: Garth Greenhand
...other tales would have us believe that he preceded the arrival of the First Men by thousands of years, making him not only the First Man in Westeros, but the only man, wandering the length and breadth of the land alone and treating with the giants and the children of the forest. Some even say he was a god. - The World of Ice and Fire - The Reach: Garth Greenhand
This is a fascinating story, but can it possibly be true? A god who lived as a man, and walked the earth, teaching mankind to farm? It seems far-fetched. Outside of magic fueled by blood sacrifice, there doesn’t seem to be any precedent for the miracles Garth supposedly produced. But here we have a strong indication that Garth may have been real:

A few of the very oldest tales of Garth Greenhand present us with a considerably darker deity, one who demanded blood sacrifice from his worshippers to ensure a bountiful harvest. - The World of Ice and Fire - The Reach: Garth Greenhand
r/asoiaf - Cernunnos by IrenHorrors
Cernunnos by IrenHorrors
Blood sacrifice seems proven to be a true means of fueling powerful magic. From the funeral pyre that hatched Dany’s eggs to Melisandre’s leeches to tales as ancient as the Hammer of the Waters, blood sacrifices are the stuff of true magic. The maesters do not recognize this truth, but this is a big clue that Garth could have been real and could have done the things the legends say he did. Let’s look at hint number 2 that he was a real figure:

Many of the more primitive peoples of the earth worship a fertility god or goddess, and Garth Greenhand has much and more in common with these deities. - The World of Ice and Fire - The Reach: Garth Greenhand
It’s interesting that Yandel mentions that many peoples across the world share a deity similar to Garth. In the real world, many cultures have nature and fertility deities, and obviously that doesn’t mean that there was some wandering god who taught mankind on Earth how to farm. But this is a fantasy series; the fact that these different cultures around the world share a deity with the characteristics of Garth bears examination. After all, like our flood myths, the tales of the Long Night were told the world over, and it’s been all but explicitly confirmed that this is because the Long Night was real.

We are already told that Garth wandered the length of Westeros; perhaps his travels took him elsewhere as well.

Garth was the High King of the First Men, it is written; it was he who led them out of the east and across the land bridge to Westeros. - The World of Ice and Fire - The Reach: Garth Greenhand
If he led the First Men across the Arm of Dorne, his journeys must have taken him to Essos at some point or another.

Further, he must have lived an incredibly long life to have both predated the First Men in Westeros AND been a contemporary of figures in the Age of Heroes, but this would not be unthinkable. There are many legendary figures from ancient days that are said to have lived hundreds (and in a few cases, thousands) of years. Even today, there are people who have sustained their unnaturally long lives through magic (the Undying of Qarth and possibly Mellie, to name a few).

But we’ve created a problem. The legend of Garth conflicts with another story from the Dawn Age. In the south it is said that Garth, High King of the First Men, led mankind to Westeros, but in the North they tell another tale.

First King

He had to stop to steady them, staring up at the grassy slopes of the Great Barrow. Some claimed it was the grave of the First King, who had led the First Men to Westeros. Others argued that it must be some King of the Giants who was buried there, to account for its size. A few had even been known to say it was no barrow, just a hill, but if so it was a lonely hill, for most of the barrowlands were flat and windswept. - A Dance with Dragons - Reek III
Here we have our first contradiction among the tales told of the Dawn Age. It’s to be expected; after all, what do we know of our own history 12,000 years ago?

We don’t know very much about this mysterious first sovereign. He is said to have ruled over all of the First Men, and brought them across the Arm of Dorne, but he’s buried in the far North of Westeros, at the Great Barrow. Who was he? What was his name? Did he rule the First Men before Garth? Were they rival monarchs of the First Men?

There are no stories of him being worshipped as a god as Garth was, but instead there’s a strange tale told about the power he wielded as a monarch:

“The old tales recorded in Kennet's Passages of the Dead claim that a curse was placed on the Great Barrow that would allow no living man to rival the First King. This curse made these pretenders to the title grow corpselike in their appearance as it sucked away their vitality and life.” - The World of Ice and Fire - The North
It seems that Garth could not have been his rival, then, or even contemporary with him. Vitality and life were things that Garth Greenhand seemingly had in spades. He was so fertile that every time he had sex, his partner conceived. He was so bursting with youth and vigor that even old women would become fertile again and bear him sons, and the very ground beneath his feet bloomed with life. Such is not the description of a corpse-like man suffering from an aging curse.

It is said that Garth walked the length of Westeros before the crossing occurred and lived until well after the crossing happened (making them necessary contemporaries). It almost seems impossible for these two figures to have missed one another, considering they ruled the same people, lived at the same time, and seem to have both been wandering Kings. Perhaps the First King simply never existed.

But the First King has descendants as Garth does, and his grave is real (something not even Garth can boast). This grave is huge, befitting a king of all First Men, lending some credence to the northern version of the crossing. Sometimes the grave is said instead to be the grave of a “king of the giants”, but the giants never had kings.

We are left with more questions and contradictions.

God-on-Earth

There’s another figure whose existence should have verged on the First King’s title:

In ancient days, the god-emperors of Yi Ti were as powerful as any ruler on earth, with wealth that exceeded even that of Valyria at its height and armies of almost unimaginable size. - The World of Ice and Fire - The Bones and Beyond: Yi Ti
In the beginning...all the land between the Bones and the freezing desert called the Grey Waste, from the Shivering Sea to the Jade Sea (including even the great and holy isle of Leng), formed a single realm ruled by the God-on-Earth, the only begotten son of the Lion of Night and MaidenMade-of-Light, who traveled about his domains in a palanquin carved from a single pearl and carried by a hundred queens, his wives. For ten thousand years the Great Empire of the Dawn flourished in peace and plenty under the God-on-Earth... - The World of Ice and Fire - The Bones and Beyond: Yi Ti
Another man who lived an unnaturally long life.

Another wandering king.

Another deity who walked the earth.

We now have another challenger to rival the First King, and this one reigned for 10,000 years! And given when his descendents ruled, this one is placed firmly in the Dawn Age:

Dominion over mankind then passed to his eldest son, who was known as the Pearl Emperor and ruled for a thousand years. The Jade Emperor, the Tourmaline Emperor, the Onyx Emperor, the Topaz Emperor, and the Opal Emperor followed in turn, each reigning for centuries...yet every reign was shorter and more troubled than the one preceding it... - The World of Ice and Fire - The Bones and Beyond: Yi Ti
If each monarch ruled a little less long than the previous one, the Pearl Emperor would have begun his rule somewhere between 2500 and 6000 years before the onset of the Long Night. I reason a good estimate here would be 4000 years, placing the start of his reign near the signing of the Pact and the beginning of the Age of Heroes (this will be important next chapter). Regardless, most of the God on Earth’s 10,000 year reign must have occurred during the Dawn Age.

His domain was continentally vast; was Garth his rival as a god who walked the earth? It seems unlikely that these two gods would have suffered each other’s existence in this mythical time, but we have no record of them conflicting over the thousands of years they coexisted. Perhaps they simply never crossed paths; the world is a big place after all.

In Yi Ti itself, the priests insist that mankind's first towns and cities arose along the shores of the Jade Sea and dismiss the rival claims of Sarnor and Ghis as the boasts of savages and children. - The World of Ice and Fire - The Bones and Beyond: Yi Ti
How could they have avoided each other if Garth was the one who taught mankind to farm? Garth (or a deity like him) was said to be worshipped by primitive people all around the world, not just in the West. It seems all but certain that these two figures would have known of each other if the tales were true.

As a side note: it’s possible that the Holy Isle of Leng is called a “Holy Isle” because it was the homeland of the God on Earth, which would make him tower over his non-Lengii subjects. This is mostly speculation, though. We have more important questions to be answering:

The God on Earth ruled half the world under the Great Empire of the Dawn, and his power was never matched again by his descendents. Did this god-king rival the First King’s power? Did he surpass it?

It seems almost impossible for the First King to be more powerful than the emperor of the Great Empire of the Dawn, so how did the God on Earth avoid the consequences of the First King’s curse? Perhaps there was a geographical range to the curse, but it seems a strange coincidence that these two monarchs both founded empires that entered a descent after their death, with no man ever challenging their rule again.

Upon further examination, this is not the only similarity between the legends.

King of All Men, Everywhere

This God-on-Earth, the First King, and Garth are the only heroes (barring the Fisher Queens) we have an explicit record of pre-dating the Age of Heroes. It’s a very exclusive club, and one populated by pretty extraordinary people.

They can’t all be true though, can they? They contradict each other.

The northern legends say that the First King led mankind to Westeros, but that contradicts the legends from the Reach about Garth leading mankind to Westeros.

The First King was the most powerful monarch who ever lived, but the God-on-Earth was a monarch without equal in the far east. While we’re at it, how could the First King have been the most powerful king to ever live when Garth ruled as High King of all First Men, everywhere (a title the Gardener Kings would claim for thousands of years after his death).

The God-on-Earth lived for 10,000 years and travelled about his domain in a pearl palanquin, while Garth also lived an unnaturally long life and wandered the world, teaching men everywhere to farm, including the God-on-Earth’s subjects.

These stories seem contradictory on their face, but there’s a hint of redundancy. Each of these three figures has much in common with the other two.

Two of the three were worshipped as gods who walked the earth. Two of the three were said to lead the first men to Westeros. Two of the three ruled a vast empire that would be unmatched by their descendants. Two of the three ruled supreme over all of the First Men. Two of the three lived unnaturally long lives. And of course, all three were great monarchs during the Dawn Age.

Could they, in fact, be the same man?

Could it be that the Greenhand really lived and taught mankind the world over to farm? In the days before mankind was lettered, was there a First King who ruled over all of mankind? A Green God who walked the earth and demanded tribute. A dark civilizer from the far east who taught men everywhere to cultivate the earth and demanded their submission in return.

r/asoiaf - The Green Man by Peter Williams
The Green Man by Peter Williams
He would have been a sorcerer so powerful that all of primitive mankind could not stand before him (as in these days there were no cities, no great armadas, no dragonriders, not even written language). A wanderer, who rather than rule through a bureaucratic apparatus or a feudal hierarchy simply wandered his kingdom and demanded subservience. And in each tribe and village he found, there were none who could refuse him:

We can be certain that the world was far more primitive, however—a barbarous place of tribes living directly from the land with no knowledge of the working of metal or the taming of beasts. - The World of Ice and Fire - Ancient History: The Dawn Age
No groups could refuse him, of course, save for two.

Defiance of the Children and their Demon Tree

It is said that Garth came to Westeros for the first time alone:

In some tales, he tried to teach the elder races [to farm] as well, but the giants roared at him and pelted him with boulders, whilst the children laughed and told him that the gods of the wood provided for all their needs. - The World of Ice and Fire - The Reach: Garth Greenhand
Unlike the many people of the Eastern continent, these races refused his gifts and his rule. As the King of all the world, and a man who had likely never heard the word “no” before, one imagines that Garth didn’t take their refusal well. Indeed, there is some evidence of this:

The Grey King also...carved the first longship from the hard pale wood of Ygg, a demon tree who fed on human flesh. - The World of Ice and Fire - The Reach: Garth Greenhand
The legend of the Grey King states that he carved the first longship from Ygg (a glaring reference to Yggdrasil, the World Tree from Norse mythology). We also know that an ancient trading port at the site of Oldtown has existed since the Dawn Age, so it stands to reason that there were ships in the Dawn Age (otherwise why build a port city?).

This seems to date the Grey King’s deed of carving the first longship to the Dawn Age, and since Ygg was evidently a weirwood tree, it also places this deed in Westeros. I’ll continue to speak on this topic of a Dawn Age weirwood longship and Ygg in the context of Garth, but I won’t return to the Grey King’s larger role until the next chapter (where I will much further substantiate his relationship to the Green God).

There is a well-supported theory that Nagga, the Sea Dragon, was actually this weirwood longship. To give a quick rundown of the theory (fuller version here), it boils down to the following three facts:

Multiple viewpoint characters characterize Nagga’s ribs as looking like white trees:
On the crown of the hill four-and-forty monstrous stone ribs rose from the earth like the trunks of great pale trees. The sight made Aeron's heart beat faster. Nagga had been the first sea dragon, the mightiest ever to rise from the waves...Nagga's ribs became the beams and pillars of his longhall, just as her jaws became his throne. - AFFC, The Drowned Man
Ahead loomed the sacred shore of Old Wyk and the grassy hill above it, where the ribs of Nagga rose from the earth like the trunks of great white trees, as wide around as a dromond's mast and twice as tall. - AFFC, The Iron Captain
2. Weirwood petrifies to stone once it’s been dead a while, like Nagga’s ribs have petrified:

"The Brackens poisoned it," said his host. "For a thousand years it has not shown a leaf. In another thousand it will have turned to stone, the maesters say. Weirwoods never rot." - A Dance with Dragons - Jaime I
She fed on krakens and leviathans and drowned whole islands in her wrath, yet the Grey King had slain her and the Drowned God had changed her bones to stone so that men might never cease to wonder at the courage of the first of kings. - A Feast for Crows - The Drowned Man
Interesting to include another soft reference to the First King, here. Continuing:

3. Galon’s White Staff and the Grey King’s crown are described as being from Nagga’s bones and made of wood (depending on the tale):

From here he ruled both stone and salt, wearing robes of woven seaweed and a tall pale crown made from Nagga's teeth. - A Feast for Crows - The Drowned Man
The crown he wore was made of driftwood, so all who knelt before him might know that his kingship came from the sea and the Drowned God who dwells beneath it. - The World of Ice and Fire - The Iron Islands: Driftwood Crowns
The greatest of the priests was the towering prophet Galon Whitestaff, so-called for the tall carved staff he carried everywhere to smite the ungodly. (In some tales his staff was made of weirwood, in others from one of Nagga's bones.) - The World of Ice and Fire - The Iron Islands: Driftwood Crowns
Bonus: Long means “dragon” in Chinese, and longships were called “dragon ships” by the English

The Grey King’s throne made from Nagga’s jaws could well have been made from the carved mouth of the weirwood tree, Ygg. The “drowning of islands” could be the conquest of islands. Feeding on krakens and leviathans could be a description of Garth hunting down the great sea monsters of old to carve out a less hostile world for mankind.

When it was time to retire the ship, Nagga, the Grey King flipped it over and made the hull his longhall (many real viking longhouses were built to resemble a longship flipped upside down).

If this ship was carved from a single weirwood tree, that tree must have been colossal. This ship was ENORMOUS; the ribs of the ship were as wide as a dromond's mast and twice as tall. This is a feat of naval construction rivalling that of Noah’s Ark, and to be carved from one tree is incredible. This tree, if it existed, must have exceeded the size of any weirwood we’ve seen by an order of magnitude or more. It's a small wonder that George borrowed from the name of Yggdrasil, the World Tree, to name this stupendous shrub.

How long would such a tree have needed to grow so large? How unfathomably old were its roots? This is a question I haven’t seen many people ask about Ygg, but I think it’s an important one.

Ygg may well have been the first weirwood tree to ever sprout from the soil. Not only would it have probably been the oldest tree on earth, and not only the oldest living thing in history, but it may very well have been the very first tree. A sapling from the very beginning of the world, untold thousands of years old.

Some of that was speculation, but there can be no doubt that Ygg would have been sacred to the Children of the Forest. Perhaps the tree was cut down as punishment for the Childrens’ refusal to bend the knee to Garth. Perhaps it was cut to build the ship, with no destructive intent. Whatever the case, this first act of violence against the Children would have surely left them stunned and mortified. They’d likely never seen a tree cut down for lumber before, let alone such a malicious act as killing the most ancient creature on earth to carve its corpse into some Garth’s boat.

But aren’t I getting ahead of myself? What makes me think that the Grey King’s longship has anything to do with Garth? What makes me think it existed at all? Wouldn’t there be legends of the Green God travelling the earth in his great floating longship?

The Floating Palace

There exists another legend of a great ship from the Dawn Age:

Ten thousand years ago or more...the first true towns arose beside the banks of the river Sarne... - The World of Ice and Fire - Beyond the Free Cities: The Grasslands
From such we know of the Fisher Queens, who ruled the lands adjoining the Silver Sea—the great inland sea at the heart of the grasslands—from a floating palace that made its way endlessly around its shores. - The World of Ice and Fire - Beyond the Free Cities: The Grasslands
...none doubt that the YiTish civilization is ancient, mayhap even contemporary with the realms of the Fisher Queens beside the Silver Sea. - The World of Ice and Fire - The Bones and Beyond: Yi Ti
Another first civilization? More wandering monarchs? At least these ones can’t be Garth (he was one man, not several women). But they DID travel about their domain in a ship so gigantic that it was called a “floating palace”. The First Men were known to take thralls, and the Ironborn practice of taking many “salt wives” dates back to very ancient days:

On the Iron Islands, however, a man may have only one "rock wife" (unless she should die, whereupon he may take another), but any number of "salt wives." - The World of Ice and Fire - The Iron Islands
The number of salt wives that a man can support speaks to his power, wealth, and virility. - The World of Ice and Fire - The Iron Islands
We are told time and time again that Garth had innumerable children; how many wives did he have?

We're told little and less about the women he married, and here we have a mysterious group of women who lived together in a gigantic ship in the Dawn Age. The title “Fisher Queens” seems strange as well. How could they have all been queens? Did they rule together, like a council? What gives?

There may be a simple explanation: they weren’t the true ruler. They were married to him.

The number of salt wives speaks to a man’s power, wealth, and virility. Garth was said to be the most powerful monarch who has ever lived. He was said to have wealth that exceeded even Valyria at its height. The Green God’s virility was legendary. How many wives did the First King have?

In the Far East they remember the God-on-Earth’s 100 wives, and they say that those 100 wives carried him about his domain in a palanquin. Specifically a palanquin carved from a single pearl.

Others have postulated that this pearl palanquin of Garth was some sort of suspended spacecraft (lookin at you, Kazoo), but hear me now, ya big nerds: The Grey King carved a great Longship from a weirwood tree in the Dawn Age, the age of the Green God. The Fisher Queens floated upon the Silver Sea on a big ship in the Dawn Age, the age of the Green God. In this period of history so ancient that even the legends have barely survived, a startling percentage of the scant few tales we have speak of a big boat.

And to my ear, a pale palanquin carved from a single pearl and carried by Garth’s 100 wives sounds awfully similar to a pale longship carved from a single weirwood and oared by Garth’s 100 wives.

They even seem to conjure a similar mental image; a palanquin with banks of handholds arrayed beneath it on both sides looks like a longship and its banks of oars.

r/asoiaf - Art by Fantasy Flight Games and edited by Lauren (my girlfriend)
Art by Fantasy Flight Games and edited by Lauren (my girlfriend)
As the northern and southern seas were divided at this time (by the Arm of Dorne), and the Silver Sea was on the North of Essos, it seems that the weirwood longship sailed the northern sea before the Breaking. It also seems likely that Ygg would have grown on the Isle of Faces in the God’s Eye, and that Nagga would have sailed down the Blackwater upon her completion.

We now have legendary links tying three civilizations together: the Great Empire of the Dawn, the Fisher Queens, and the First Men. Garth and his weirwood longship are a bridge between them, linking them into one great kingdom spanning the globe.

There are also historical links; it is said that the Fisher Queens and the early Yitish civilization were contemporaries in the Dawn Age, which would place them as the two, lone, first civilizations. And there’s a big historical link between the kingdom of the First Men and the Fisher Queens:

Beyond their domains, however, other peoples rose and fell and fought, struggling for a place in the sun. Some maesters believe that the First Men originated here before beginning the long westward migration that took them across the Arm of Dorne to Westeros. - The World of Ice and Fire - Beyond the Free Cities: The Grasslands
The Coming of the First Men

After Ygg was cut down, Garth seems to have left Westeros for a time. Perhaps the Children drove him out; perhaps he showed himself the door. The Weirwood longship made its way endlessly around the Silver Sea, and men far and wide came to the Fisher Queens for council.

But where was the Fisher King?

Interesting note to make here: I believe that the Bran = Fisher King theory may be correct, and that Garth was, loosely, the original Fisher King in the world of A Song of Ice and Fire (a king whose health is tied to the health of the land he rules).

Back to my question: where was Garth?

Ten thousand years ago or more, when Westeros was yet a howling wilderness inhabited only by the giants and children of the forest, the first true towns arose beside the banks of the river Sarne... - The World of Ice and Fire - Beyond the Free Cities: The Grasslands
He was busy civilizing (right next door to his wives)!

The soil of Essosi grasslands was coming under the plow, and seeds were being sown to grow the population of men. Garth had a mission to accomplish, as there were lands that had not yet submitted to his rule.

If the Children of the Forest and the Giants would not bow to him, he would lead mankind to Westeros and colonize it.

In those days, the Arm of Dorne allowed passage into Westeros, making for any easy foot crossing (the First Men were not seafarers). As I’ve laid out elsewhere, the land bridge was actually "Y" shaped, allowing passage directly into the Stormlands, where the First Men fought the children over Rainwood logging rights. Thus, Garth never set foot in Dorne, and the place that the Children called “the Empty Land” never bloomed.

Garth led the First Men into Westeros and settled them up and down the continent. They came into conflict with the Children as the First Men deforested to clear fields, but there were no serious attempts at total genocide (yet). The Green God’s efforts greatly accelerated the colonization of Westeros (to the puzzlement of the Maesters), and there are many signs of his presence on the continent:

On a hill above them was another roundtower, ancient and empty, thick green moss crawling up its side almost to the summit. "Who built that, all of stone like that?" Ygritte asked him. "Some king?"

"No. Just the men who used to live here." - A Storm of Swords - Jon V
You know nothing, Jon Snow. This brings me to a symbol I believe George has made use of in describing ancient architecture: moss.

When looking through some of the ancient Dawn Age structures in Westeros, I began to notice a pattern:

...it was the ringwall that drew Jon's eye, the weathered grey stones with their white patches of lichen, their beards of green moss. It was said that the Fist had been a ringfort of the First Men in the Dawn Age. - A Clash of Kings - Jon IV
Across the godswood...the wall that loomed above was thick with moss. - A Game of Thrones - Bran VI
They all bear a mark. The mark of a man who made the land bloom, and could turn even bare rocks green.

These ruins bear the mark of the Garth.

In fact, if you run a search on “moss” in all of A Song of Ice and Fire, you’ll find something very interesting. It’s not 100% true, but 9 in 10 references to moss are related to the First Men. Of all the structures that have moss on them? Almost all are ancient First Men structures in Westeros so old as to have no known builder.

Winterfell is an interesting case, because Yandel’s account tells us the following:

The greatest castle of the North is Winterfell, the seat of the Starks since the Dawn Age. - The World of Ice and Fire - The North: Winterfell
Brandon the Builder was descended from Garth by way of Brandon of the Bloody Blade, these tales would have us believe... - The World of Ice and Fire - The Reach: Garth Greenhand
From this we can glean that Brandon the Builder was not the first Stark. The family dates back to the Dawn Age, and their ancient seat was Winterfell. What’s interesting is that the only place in Winterfell that bears the Green mark is a single wall of the Godswood, suggesting that the Godswood enclosure dates back to Garth’s time while the rest was raised by Bran the Builder 4000 years later. And indeed there is more to support this:

The castle itself is peculiar in that the Starks did not level the ground when laying down the foundations and walls of the castle. Very likely, this reveals that the castle was built in pieces over the years rather than being planned as a single structure. Some scholars suspect that it was once a complex of linked ringforts... - The World of Ice and Fire - The North: Winterfell
...the First Keep of Winterfell (which a past maester in service to the Starks examined and found to have been rebuilt so many times that a precise dating could not be made)... - The World of Ice and Fire - The Stormlands: Storm’s End
Another interesting thing to note is that the Fist of the First Men, another ringfort complex (a staple of Dawn Age construction), was raised long before the Long Night. Some ancient legends say that the Others were a third elder race, contemporary with the Children and Giants in the Dawn Age. They were a far cry from the nightmares of the Long Night, but this could be explained by their aversion to the sun (permanent darkness in the Long Night made them much more dangerous).

What other buildings bear the mark of the Green God?

The Ravenry of the Citadel:

"The Ravenry is the oldest building at the Citadel," Alleras told him, as they crossed over the slow-flowing waters of the Honeywine. "In the Age of Heroes it was supposedly the stronghold of a pirate lord who sat here robbing ships as they came down the river."

Moss and creeping vines covered the walls, Sam saw, and ravens walked its battlements in place of archers. - A Feast for Crows - Samwell V
(More on that Pirate Lord next chapter.)

Pyke:

...the castle seemed one with the rest, its towers and walls and bridges quarried from the same grey-black stone, wet by the same salt waves, festooned with the same spreading patches of dark green lichen... - A Clash of Kings - Theon I
The base of the tower was white from centuries of salt spray, the upper stories green from the lichen… - A Clash of Kings - Theon I
Pyke is so ancient that no one can say with certainty when it was built, nor name the lord who built it. Like the Seastone Chair, its origins are lost in mystery. - The World of Ice and Fire - The Iron Islands: Pyke
I believe that Pyke’s construction and the seastone chair are related to Garth through a great Sea People, but we’ll revisit them in the next chapter.

In this chapter, there’s one final structure from the Dawn Age I want to discuss:

Just beyond, through the mists, she glimpsed the walls and towers of Moat Cailin … or what remained of them. Immense blocks of black basalt, each as large as a crofter's cottage… - A Game of Thrones - Catelyn VIII
All three towers were green with moss. - A Game of Thrones - Catelyn VIII
Moat Cailin is described as an enormous citadel. Its scale is especially impressive considering that it’s at least 10,000 years old:

He will break himself on Moat Cailin, as every southron army has done for ten thousand years. - A Clash of Kings - Theon VI
Since the Children gathered in the Children’s Tower of Moat Cailin to sink the Neck of Westeros, the fortress must predate the sinking of the Neck as well:

...through the broken masonry that crowned the Children's Tower, where legend said the children of the forest had once called down the hammer of the waters to break the lands of Westeros in two. - A Dance with Dragons - Reek II
Interestingly, this suggests that Moat Cailin’s original purpose was not the repulsion of Southron armies. The fort is only useful as a chokepoint because it sits upon the Causeway, and could've been easily circumvented before the Neck sank.

Considering the size of the fortress and how oppressively overgrown it is, I believe that this castle was originally the seat of the First King. It was a symbol of his wealth and a monument to his power in Westeros; the fact that it still stands today is a testament to such.

But something changed between the construction of the other buildings and Moat Cailin. The others are built from common stone, but Moat Cailin is built with great, monstrous blocks of black stone. The moss testifies that the builder was the same, but something’s different.

Black stone construction exists the world over, and as I’ve talked about extensively in my eastern series, powerful fire magics are required to construct them.

The Garth we’ve known up until now practiced only Green magic; he sang the song of the earth. He brought fertility, not fire.

Some of you (shoutout to u/Spinosaurus-729) may be familiar with the ancient Babylonian myth of Tiamat (the sea serpent) and Marduk (the storm god). In some versions of the legend, Marduk slays Tiamat; in other versions, it’s Enki who slays the great serpent and uses her ribs to hold up heaven. These Sumerian legends served as inspiration for GRRM’s legends surrounding an event in mankind’s history, and the two different versions of the tale that were told thereafter.

It was a paradigm-shift that would set the course of history; an occurrence so primordial and archetypal that, in the real world, a hundred legends have told it in a hundred ways. It’s when humans conquered the elements of the natural world, and no longer had to fear the beasts of the woods. The critical moment when mortals stole a piece of divinity for themselves.

It was the Grey King who brought fire to the earth by taunting the Storm God until he lashed down with a thunderbolt, setting a tree ablaze. - The World of Ice and Fire - The Iron Islands: Driftwood Crowns
A burning brand it is, such as our people carried of old. It is the flame the Drowned God brought from the sea, and it proclaims a rising tide. It is time to hoist our sails and go forth into the world with fire and sword, as he did. - A Clash of Kings - Theon I
I’m referring, of course, to when mankind seized fire.

That’ll wrap this one up. Next time I’ll be discussing the Grey King, the Sea Peoples, the Drowned God, and much more! If you'd like to read other chapters or see when I'm going to post new ones, check out the Table of Contents. As always, thanks for reading!

quote:

Introduction

Hello! This is the second chapter in a six part series that will detail the western half of a broader, Grand Unified Theory of the Dawn. I believe it convincingly explains the legends surrounding the Dawn Age, the Age of Heroes, and the Long Night in Westeros. We will be touching on Garth, the Grey King, the Fisher Queens, the Drowned God, the Night’s King, the First King, Durran Godsgrief, and many others.

In the last one, we discussed the Green God, and the evidence to suggest he ruled over all of mankind in the Dawn Age. Today, we will discuss the ties he had to the Ironborn, the Grey King, and ancient Sea Peoples. We will also discuss The Breaking, a critical turning point in mankind’s history on Planetos.

Several portions of this theory are inspired by Crowfood’s Daughter, whose content I highly recommend, and who pointed out almost everything I’ll be touching on here with regard to the Ironborn.

Sea Peoples

Last chapter I left you guys on a bit of a cliffhanger. Before we can get into mankind’s seizure of fire, we need to lay some of the groundwork by talking about the settling of the Summer Sea:

These Deep Ones, as he names them, are the seed from which our legends of merlings have grown, he argues, whilst their terrible fathers are the truth behind the Drowned God of the ironborn. - The World of Ice and Fire - The Reach: Oldtown
There are a collection of legends and settlements across the Summer Sea that may warrant examination. “Deep Ones”, I believe, are what remains of a Dawn Age people who Garth led across the Summer Sea in the days before he brought the First Men to Westeros.

This race was set apart from the First Men, and I believe accounts for Dawn Age settlements in Westeros that were created by seafarers (which the First Men were not).

Qarth:

It is the center of the world, the gate between north and south, the bridge between east and west, ancient beyond memory of man... - A Clash of Kings - Daenerys II
Basilisk Isles:

Ruins found upon the Isle of Tears, the Isle of Toads, and Ax Island hint at some ancient civilization, but little is now known of these vanished men of the Dawn Age. - The World of Ice and Fire - Beyond the Free Cities: The Basilisk Isles
On the Isle of Toads can be found an ancient idol, a greasy black stone crudely carved into the semblance of a gigantic toad of malignant aspect, some forty feet high. - The World of Ice and Fire - Beyond the Free Cities: The Basilisk Isles
The Qartheen pirate Xandarro Xhore was the first to raise his banner there, using the stones he found on Ax Isle to erect a grim black fort above his anchorage. - The World of Ice and Fire - Beyond the Free Cities: The Basilisk Isles
Yeen:

A ruin older than time, built of oily black stone, in massive blocks so heavy that it would require a dozen elephants to move them... - The World of Ice and Fire - Beyond the Free Cities: Sothoryos
Myr:

There are certain signs that a city stood where Myr now stands even during the Dawn Age and the Long Night, raised by some ancient, vanished people... - The World of Ice and Fire - The Free Cities: The Quarrelsome Daughters: Myr, Lys, and Tyrosh
Starfall:

Legend says the first Dayne was led to the site when he followed the track of a falling star and there found a stone of magical powers. - The World of Ice and Fire - Dorne: Kingdoms of the First Men
"My House goes back ten thousand years, unto the dawn of days," - A Feast for Crows - The Queenmaker
Oldtown:

We can state with certainty, however, that men have lived at the mouth of the Honeywine since the Dawn Age. The oldest runic records confirm this, as do certain fragmentary accounts that have come down to us from maesters who lived amongst the children of the forest. One such, Maester Jellicoe, suggests that the settlement at the top of Whispering Sound began as a trading post... - The World of Ice and Fire - The Reach: Oldtown
Iron Islands:

According to their faith, the ironborn are a race apart from the common run of mankind. - The World of Ice and Fire - The Iron Islands
Pyke is so ancient that no one can say with certainty when it was built, nor name the lord who built it. Like the Seastone Chair, its origins are lost in mystery. - The World of Ice and Fire - The Iron Islands: Pyke
I’ve plotted out this migration pattern below (Sea Peoples in Blue, Garth wandering on foot in Green, First Men invasion in Purple). An interesting thing to note, here, is that Oldtown would have been the first valid harbor that Sea Peoples would have reached in Westeros. The Arm of Dorne blocked access to the entire eastern coast, and Dorne’s southern coast is said to be bereft of valid harbors:

Nor is the long southern coast of Dorne more hospitable, being for the most part a snarl of reefs and rocks, with few protected anchorages. Those ships that do put ashore there, whether by choice or chance, find little to sustain them; there are no forests along the coast to provide timber for repairs, a scarcity of game, few farms, and fewer villages where provisions might be obtained. - The World of Ice and Fire - Dorne
The one notable exception to this is the Greenblood, which seems to be the only fertile place in Dorne and the only place Garth could have made landfall in that barren land.

r/asoiaf - Art from the Lands of Ice and Fire, edited by Lauren
Art from the Lands of Ice and Fire, edited by Lauren
In the last chapter, I discussed that the first cities arose on the coast of the Jade Sea, and this is where I speculate the Sea People’s migration originated.

I believe that Green God came from the region surrounding the Jade Sea, and originally made his way to Westeros by sea, founding Oldtown and Pyke as trade outposts before journeying further inland by foot. While inland, he and the Grey King chopped down Ygg on the Isle of Faces, and sailed Nagga down the Blackwater into the Narrow Sea. Then the Greenhair came to the Sarne, where he taught the men there to farm while the Fisher Queens, his wives, sailed the Silver Sea. Finally, he led these people, the First Men, to colonize Westeros’ interior in his name.

This ancient migration of the Sea Peoples from the Far East was what I believe to be the first iteration of the Great Empire of the Dawn, and would be the genesis of legends about mermaids (including the mermaids in my Triple Patchface theory), Sea Dragons (longships), and the green-haired Merling King come from.

It’s also possible that the Merling King’s Driftwood Throne (which he gave to the Velaryons in ancient days) is the ancient weirwood throne of Garth, which sat atop Nagga in the Dawn Age. This ancient civilization, I believe, are the original progenitors of the Iron Islands that predate the arrival of the First Men, and left behind the Seastone Chair and Pyke.

Ironborn Ties

Until now I’ve been skirting around the Ironborn and the Grey King, and what relation they had to Garth Greenhair in the Dawn Age. What makes me think the two are related? Why do I think the weirwood longship was Garth’s, when the Grey King was the one who carved it?

To answer this, we must first begin with the Ironborn more generally.

“We do not Sow” are the house words of he who holds the title “Lord Reaper" of Pyke. It’s meant to refer to the Old Way of raiding the mainland, but “We do not Sow” is an oddly specific way of saying it. Right off the bat, it seems like we’re looking at two neon middle fingers to the Green God and the men of the Green Lands. House Harlaw doubles down on the harvest imagery, taking the Scythe as their sigil.

Aside from the harvest, we’re hit with a lot of death associations. “What is dead may never die” is a colloquial phrase, and many ironborn houses have death symbols (like skeleton hands and nooses) as their heraldry. We’re beginning to build a pretty strong association with the harvest, death, and winter (anathema to Garth’s sowing, vitality, and summer symbols). This association between death, winter, and the harvest is common across many cultures in the real world, and it’s no accident in A Song of Ice and Fire:

And when battle was joined upon the shores, mighty kings and famous warriors fell before the reavers like wheat before a scythe, in such numbers that the men of the green lands told each other that the ironborn were demons risen from some watery hell… - The World of Ice and Fire - The Iron Islands
Aside from the Ironborn more generally, the Grey King himself is a strong opposite to Garth the Green.

The Grey King ruled the sea itself and took a mermaid to wife, so his sons and daughters might live above the waves or beneath them as they chose. His hair and beard and eyes were as grey as a winter sea, and from these he took his name. - The World of Ice and Fire - The Iron Islands: Driftwood Crowns
The Grey King's greatest feat, however, was the slaying of Nagga, largest of the sea dragons, a beast so colossal that she was said to feed on leviathans and giant krakens and drown whole islands in her wroth. The Grey King built a mighty longhall about her bones, using her ribs as beams and rafters. From there he ruled the Iron Islands for a thousand years, until his very skin had turned as grey as his hair and beard. - The Iron Islands: Driftwood Crowns
Unlike the Green God, the Grey King grew old. Garth was known for sowing seeds, but the Grey King is only known for sowing death. Even teaching men to weave nets is a form of agriculture that involves only killing, while growing crops, in a sense, is creating life. Here again we see the winter imagery to contrast Garth’s spring/summer.

In the last chapter we brought up the curse on the Great Barrow:

The old tales recorded in Kennet's Passages of the Dead claim that a curse was placed on the Great Barrow that would allow no living man to rival the First King. This curse made these pretenders to the title grow corpselike in their appearance as it sucked away their vitality and life. - The World of Ice and Fire - The North
It certainly evokes the image of the Grey King, who ruled for a thousand years as he slowly grew older and more corpse-like.

Here’s a man who was a living foil to Garth the Green and suffered the symptoms of the Great Barrow's curse. His followers would war with the men of the Green Lands for generations, and adopt phrases like “We do not Sow”. While Garth’s First Men were adopting sigils of flowers and trees, the ironborn were adopting nooses and scythes. The obvious conflict (both recorded historically and symbolically) between the followers of these two men suggests a conflict between them.

We are reminded of a couple key phrases oft-repeated in A Song of Ice and Fire:

"The kinslayer is accursed in the eyes of gods and men."

"No man is so accursed as the kinslayer."
Let’s delve a little more into this duality and symbolic conflict between Garth and the Grey King:

In some stories the green god dies every autumn when the trees lose their leaves, only to be reborn with the coming of spring. This version of Garth is largely forgotten. - The World of Ice and Fire - The Reach: Garth Greenhand
As Garth the Green most closely resembles the pagan deity most commonly known as the Green Man (based on old Celtic mythology), this tale resembles the story of the Oak and Holly Kings.

Every year, the Oak (summer) King and the Holly (winter) King would do battle, slaying the other at the turn of the seasons. This pattern is not unique to the British pagan myths, as many fertility myths around the world have the fertility god leaving in winter and returning in summer (often due to the meddling of a rival winter deity). The Oak and Holly Kings, in particular, were usually depicted as brothers, fighting each other for the crown. The story of jealous fratricide, of course, is a tale dating back thousands of years, perhaps most famously in the tale of Cain and Abel.

You must be wondering why I’m harping on the brotherly aspect so much. When looking for a relationship between Garth and the Grey King (aside from rivalry), you’ll find something interesting. While Garth is not recorded as having any brothers, the Grey King certainly is.

All the great houses of the ironborn claim descent from the Grey King and his sons save, curiously, the Goodbrothers of Old Wyk and Great Wyk, who supposedly derive from the Grey King's leal eldest brother. - The World of Ice and Fire - The Iron Islands: Driftwood Crowns
It is pretty curious that House Goodbrother, alone, descends from the brother of the Grey King instead of from one of the Grey King’s sons. Let’s examine House Goodbrother for clues.

Here’s their first introduction in A Clash of Kings:

Lord Goodbrother of Great Wyk had come in the night before with his main strength, near forty longships. His men were everywhere, conspicuous in their striped goat's hair sashes. It was said about the inn that Otter Gimpknee's whores were being hosed bowlegged by beardless boys in sashes. - A Clash of Kings - Theon II
In case it wasn’t clear, we were just beat over the head with a fertility symbol bat. They’re so numerous that they’re everywhere. They’re wearing goat’s hair sashes (an accessory unique to this house). They’re loving the whores bow-legged. They’re “beardless boys”, or “green boys” as they are often called in the books (“grey beards and green boys” means old men and young men). The head of House Goodbrother has a lot of kids too; FIFTEEN to be precise, including a set of triplets. The location of their seat is seemingly the only forested place in the Iron Islands.

It seems like the Goodbrothers are swimming in symbolic fertility, in stark contrast to the other ironborn houses. What else can we glean from reading Goodbrother passages?

The tent grew hot and smoky. Two of Gorold Goodbrother's sons knocked a table over fighting; Will Humble lost a wager and had to eat his boot; Little Lenwood Tawney fiddled whilst Romny Weaver sang "The Bloody Cup" and "Steel Rain" and other old reaving songs. - A Feast for Crows - The Iron Captain
The Goodbrothers aren’t a very prominent house in the story, and the passages they do have are filled with two things: fertility and brothers fighting.

The Goodbrothers, as fertile and numerous as they are, have many cadet branches with seats called Crowspike Keep, Corpse Lake, and Shatterstone. Keep in mind these references to crows, corpses in the water, and shattered stones (they’re references to an event).

Even aside from House Goodbrother, fratricide features prominently as a theme among the Ironborn. Victarion fantasizes about murdering his brother Euron, and Aeron is wracked with guilt over his brother Urri. The Damphair inadvertently killed Urri, who died from fingerdance-related complications in the days before Aeron was a priest.

I hope I’ve convinced you by now that the Grey King and Garth were likely brothers, and that they fought at some point in the past, with one killing the other. It is said that the Grey King’s greatest achievement was slaying Nagga, a creature we know to have been Garth’s weirwood longship; let’s keep that in mind for now.

But we know the greatest foe of the Ironborn, and his name is not Garth. His name is the Storm God.

For a thousand thousand years sea and sky had been at war. From the sea had come the ironborn, and the fish that sustained them even in the depths of winter, but storms brought only woe and grief. - A Feast for Crows - The Prophet
Silently he cursed the Storm God for his malice… - A Dance with Dragons - The Iron Suitor
Nagga's ribs became the beams and pillars of his longhall, just as her jaws became his throne. For a thousand years and seven he reigned here, Aeron recalled. Here he took his mermaid wife and planned his wars against the Storm God. - A Feast for Crows - The Drowned Man
Though most ironborn have naught but scorn for the Seven of the south and the old gods of the North, they do recognize a second deity. In their theology, the Drowned God is opposed by the Storm God, a malignant deity who dwells in the sky and hates men and all their works. He sends cruel winds, lashing rains, and the thunder and lightning that bespeak his endless wroth. - The World of Ice and Fire - The Iron Islands
The greatest enemy of the Ironborn is a malignant deity who hates mankind and all their works. This god sends storms to make the men of the islands miserable. This god is the enemy of the god who Drowned for mankind (whose colors are green, grey, and blue).

What else do we know of the Storm God?

Their ravens were creatures of the Storm God... - A Feast for Crows - The Prophet
The vision he spoke of was doubtless a snare set by the Storm God to lure the ironborn to destruction. - A Feast for Crows - The Drowned Man
Interesting. Ravens are creatures of the Storm God, and the Storm God likes to set snares. Is this starting to sound familiar?

Slight as they were, the children were quick and graceful. Male and female hunted together, with weirwood bows and flying snares. - A Game of Thrones - Bran VII
"The old gods of the north have sent this storm upon us." - A Dance with Dragons - The King’s Prize
Were the Children of the Forest truly able to send storms? Let’s look:

And then the seas came rushing in, and the Arm of Dorne was broken and shattered by the force of the water, until only a few bare rocky islands remained above the waves. The Summer Sea joined the narrow sea, and the bridge between Essos and Westeros vanished for all time. - The World of Ice and Fire - Dorne: The Breaking
In their wroth, they sent howling winds and lashing rains to knock down every castle Durran dared to build, until a young boy helped him erect one so strong and cunningly made that it could defy their gales. - The World of Ice and Fire - The Stormlands: House Durrandon
The point of land on which the Greyjoys had raised their fortress had once thrust like a sword into the bowels of the ocean, but the waves had hammered at it day and night until the land broke and shattered, thousands of years past. All that remained were three bare and barren islands and a dozen towering stacks of rock that rose from the water like the pillars of some sea god's temple, while the angry waves foamed and crashed among them. - A Clash of Kings - Theon I
It is my strong belief that the Hammer of the Waters was a powerful storm magic that the children could call upon in times of dire need. This image of the Storm being a Hammer is strong in the books (look no further than Storm Lord Robert's Hammer), but also has its basis in mythologies in the real world (Thor and Mjonir being the most famous).

I believe that the Storm God is a vague remembering of an ancient truth: the storms are sent by the great enemy across the waves. Ravens are his creatures, and he hates mankind.

Indeed, Ironborn have historically loved chopping down trees:

Archmaester Haereg has argued that it was a need for wood that first set the ironborn on this bloody path. In the dawn of days, there were extensive forests on Great Wyk, Harlaw, and Orkmont, but the shipwrights of the isles had such a voracious need for timber that one by one the woods vanished. So the ironborn had no choice but to turn to the vast forests of the green lands, the mainland of Westeros. - The World of Ice and Fire - The Iron Islands
In fact, often the trees themselves are framed as the enemies of the Ironborn:

These trees will kill us if they can. - A Dance with Dragons - The Wayward Bride
We are fighting shrubbery, Asha thought as she slew a man who had more leaves on him than most of the surrounding trees. - A Dance with Dragons - The Wayward Bride
The trees were huge and dark, somehow threatening. - A Dance with Dragons - The Wayward Bride
The trees hate us all, deep in their wooden hearts. - A Dance with Dragons - The Wayward Bride
Ygg was described as a demon tree, and it is said that the Children could turn the trees themselves into soldiers to fight for them. (Though I don’t think that this is literally true.)

The point here is simple: the trees are your foe’s ally. They hide among the brush and peer through their eyes. You are not welcome here, man of the Grey King.

That was why they cut down the trees whenever they warred upon the children. - A Clash of Kings - Bran IV
It seems that the greatest foe of the Ironborn was the Children of the Forest, and in a close second was Garth and his men of the green lands.

On the other hand, the greatest friend to the Ironborn and mankind is the Drowned God, enemy of the Storm God and champion of mankind.

What’s interesting here is that Garth fought the Children of the Forest on behalf of mankind, and was known as a God on Earth. There are some very very good reasons to believe that Garth was this Drowned God the Ironborn worshipped.

But how could one of the greatest enemies of the Ironborn be their guardian deity?

The answer lies in the fact that Garth and the Grey King were brothers, and the events surrounding the Drowning.

The Drowning

Let's return to the moment I left you with in the last chapter. There’s an unexplained discrepancy in the architecture Garth left behind. A sudden shift that suggests a turning point. When did Garth and mankind begin to practice fire magics?

It was the Grey King who brought fire to the earth by taunting the Storm God until he lashed down with a thunderbolt, setting a tree ablaze. - The World of Ice and Fire - The Iron Islands: Driftwood Crowns
Outside, beneath the snoring of his drowned men and the keening of the wind, he could hear the pounding of the waves, the hammer of his god calling him to battle. - A Feast for Crows - The Prophet
Let’s read that again. The Grey King brought fire to the earth by goading the Storm God into striking a tree with a bolt of lightning, setting the tree ablaze.

Re-examined through the scope of some of what we’ve discussed, the Grey King brought fire to the earth when he taunted the Children of the Forest into striking a tree with the Hammer of the Waters, setting it ablaze. But what is the tree?

Or rather, who is the tree?

Some of you may already see where I’m going with this; we’ve already touched on the possibility that Garth was the Drowned God. But last we saw him, he was the Green God. His magic was Green magic, and he’s never described as coming with “fire and sword”. The Green God is associated with many things, but war was not one of them. His was not the pounding of the waves, calling his people to battle.

That’s because he wasn’t Drowned yet.

Legend says that the great floods that broke the land bridge that is now the Broken Arm and made the Neck a swamp were the work of the greenseers, who gathered at Moat Cailin to work dark magic. Some contest this, however: the First Men were already in Westeros when this occurred, and stemming the tide from the east would do little more than slow their progress. - The World of Ice and Fire - Ancient History: The Coming of First Men
“Even if we accept that the old gods broke the Arm of Dorne with the Hammer of the Waters, as the legends claim, the greenseers sang their song too late...so many of their forebears had already made the crossing that they outnumbered the dwindling elder races almost three to one by the time the lands were severed, and that disparity only grew in the centuries that followed, for the women of the First Men brought forth sons and daughters with much greater frequency than the females of the elder races. - The World of Ice and Fire - Dorne: The Breaking
Aside from more clues that Garth was present among the First Men, these passages introduce doubt to the Childrens’ motives in The Breaking. Why shatter the Arm when so many men were already in Westeros? Stemming the tide could do little more than stem their progress.

But we know of something that could cripple mankind in the Dawn Age.

A target that, if hit, would disrupt the very psyche of the human race. A man who, if killed, would take with him a crippling amount of humanity’s magical power. Their very fields would bloom less vibrantly, and mankind would splinter into a thousand factions.

If the Children could kill their leader, the man who had killed the world tree, they could stop the First Men in their tracks. If the Children could break the Green Hand that guided mankind, they could set the world to rights again.

So they gathered upon the Isle of Faces, and a thousand throats were opened beneath the weirwood trees. They called upon their ancient gods of wood and leaf to Break Garth as he crossed the Arm of Dorne.

And instead, they set the Green God ablaze.

She cackled again. "Look in your fires, pink priest, and you will see. Not now, though, not here, you'll see nothing here. This place belongs to the old gods still… they linger here as I do, shrunken and feeble but not yet dead. Nor do they love the flames. For the oak recalls the acorn, the acorn dreams the oak, the stump lives in them both. And they remember when the First Men came with fire in their fists." - A Storm of Swords - Arya VIII
A burning brand it is, such as our people carried of old. It is the flame the Drowned God brought from the sea, and it proclaims a rising tide. It is time to hoist our sails and go forth into the world with fire and sword, as he did. - A Clash of Kings - Theon I
Being a God, it was not for Garth to simply die. As the land collapsed around him, he knew who had summoned this hurricane to destroy him, and he swore a bloody vengeance.

And when he came from the sea, he had a fire in his heart; a terrible fury the likes of which the Children had never seen.

So began the scouring of the forest, and the slaughter of the Children.

Brandon of the Bloody Blade, who drove the giants from the Reach and warred against the children of the forest, slaying so many at Blue Lake that it has been known as Red Lake ever since. - The World of Ice and Fire - The Reach: Garth Greenhand
They drove the elder races before them, slaughtering giants wherever they found them, hewing down weirwood trees with their bronze axes, making bloody war against the children of the forest. - The World of Ice and Fire - Dorne: The Breaking
"The First Men killed half of them with bronze blades, and the Andals finished the job with iron." - A Storm of Swords - Samwell II
We are inundated with tales of the crusade against the children. The war was brutal, swift, and bloody; they painted the landscape with the blood of the children. These are no mundane conflicts over timber; this is a genocide led by an angry god.

"What is dead may never die," his uncle echoed, "but rises again, harder and stronger." - A Clash of Kings - Theon I
We are told that there was once a great forest stretching from the Crownlands to Cape Kraken; we can visibly see what remains of the bloody swathe that the Drowned Garth cut across Westeros:

r/asoiaf - Art from the Lands of Ice and Fire, edited by Lauren
Art from the Lands of Ice and Fire, edited by Lauren
It looks as though he sailed his weirwood longship up the Mander, slaughtering and axing and burning all in his path.

Trees grow no longer, and where there were once forests, now only fields and farms remain.

But it was not all violence. In this time, Garth would accomplish wonders as well. Built atop the bones of ten thousand woods dancers, of massive basalt blocks likely hauled into place by enslaved Giants, Moat Cailin stands as a testament to all he accomplished. His final achievement, the seizure of fire, was his most significant in the end, and the great blocks of volcanic stone are a monument to the greatness and madness that was Garth the Drowned.

r/asoiaf - Theon Greyjoy arrives at Moat Cailin - by Marc Simonetti
Theon Greyjoy arrives at Moat Cailin - by Marc Simonetti
As abruptly as the war began, it ended. The advance of the First Men was stopped in the North. It is said that the men of the green lands made peace with the children not long after The Breaking.

What happened?

The Betrayal

Garth’s grave is in the North of Westeros. He fell on the field at the Great Barrow, not far from his ancient seat at Moat Cailin. If even the Hammer of the Waters could not slay the Green God, what could?

The Grey King's greatest feat, however, was the slaying of Nagga, largest of the sea dragons, a beast so colossal that she was said to feed on leviathans and giant krakens and drown whole islands in her wroth. - The World of Ice and Fire - The Iron Islands: Driftwood Crowns
It seems that the only force who could prove a match for Garth was his immortal brother, the Grey King. Who can say why he did it? Perhaps it was a feeling of inadequacy nurtured for millenia, living in his brother’s shadow. Perhaps, paralleling Euron and Victarion, Garth the Green had seduced and slept with the Grey King’s wife. Perhaps it was greed, and he coveted his brother’s throne for himself. It was he who should rule mankind, not Garth.

Whatever the reason, the Grey King betrayed Garth in the North. The Grey King slew Garth at the site of the Great Barrow, and with his dying breath, Garth spoke into being a curse more formidable than any other.

The old tales recorded in Kennet's Passages of the Dead claim that a curse was placed on the Great Barrow that would allow no living man to rival the First King. This curse made these pretenders to the title grow corpselike in their appearance as it sucked away their vitality and life. - The World of Ice and Fire - The North
From there he ruled the Iron Islands for a thousand years, until his very skin had turned as grey as his hair and beard. Only then did he cast aside his driftwood crown and walk into the sea, descending to the Drowned God's watery halls to take his rightful place at his right hand. - The World of Ice and Fire - The Iron Islands: Driftwood Crowns
If Garth could not kill his brother, he would make life an unbearable agony for him, until it inevitably drove him to suicide. For the kinslayer is accursed in the eyes of gods and men.

Bonus Theory: Aside from the name, there are many things tying Greyscale to the Grey King’s curse. Greyscale thrives in the iron islands (and wet places in general). It was summoned as a curse by Garin the Great to kill the Valyrian invaders (a disease called a curse). In the Sorrows (a sort of leper colony for “stone men”, Greyscale victims), there exists a figure called the Shrouded Lord, who is also called “his Grey Grace”, who leads the stone men.

It is said that there have been multiple Shrouded Lords dating back centuries, and that the current one is a corsair from the basilisk isles. Perhaps the first “Grey Grace” was also a pirate from a far away land. What happened to the Grey King sounds very similar to the symptoms and progression of Greyscale (possibly including blinding them), happening over a prolonged period of time (perhaps due to his immortal body). Eventually the agony of the slow Grey Death became too unbearable to live any longer, and the Grey King killed himself by walking into the sea.

In the wake of Garth’s death, the throne of humanity was left open, and many claimants seized the opportunity. Garth left many children in Westeros: Garth the Gardener claimed the mantle of High King of the First Men. The Barrow Kings claimed the title of King of all First Men, everywhere. Humanity in Westeros was disorganized and vulnerable, and there was one more claimant who loomed over them all: The Grey King.

Garth’s brother claimed his throne and his ship, Nagga, sailing it back to the Iron Islands and building his longhall there. The First Men knew of his treachery, but the other peoples of the Great Empire did not. When he returned to the Sea Peoples upon the Iron Islands (who revered Garth, and remember him as the Drowned God), he told them that the Storm God struck Garth down, and that he rules beneath the waves now.

So humanity was split into two camps, believing two stories. The men of the green lands knew the Grey King to be Garth’s murderer, and despised him. The Sea Peoples heard only the Grey King’s tale, and knew of the treachery of the demons and beast-men of Westeros.

The Grey King was not content to merely rule the Sea Peoples; he wanted to claim that same title Garth had: King of all Men.

The Pearl Emperor and The Pact

The Children of the Forest and the men of the green lands now had a common foe in the Grey King and the ancient ironborn. They could no longer afford to fight each other, for in those days the Ironborn presented a far greater threat than they do today. They may have possessed iron (or primitive valyrian steel?) weapons and armor, and ships that far outstripped those of the bronze-wielding First Men and glass-wielding Children:

The feeble fishing boats and trading cogs of the First Men, which seldom ventured out of sight of land, were no match for the swift longships of the ironmen with their great sails and banks of oars. And when battle was joined upon the shores, mighty kings and famous warriors fell before the reavers like wheat before a scythe, in such numbers that the men of the green lands told each other that the ironborn were demons risen from some watery hell, protected by fell sorceries and possessed of foul black weapons that drank the very souls of those they slew. - The World of Ice and Fire - The Iron Islands
Most infamous of all was Balon Blackskin, who fought with an axe in his left hand and a hammer in his right. No weapon made of man could harm him, it was said; swords glanced off and left no mark, and axes shattered against his skin. - The World of Ice and Fire - The Iron Islands
r/asoiaf - Victarion Greyjoy - by Matt Olson
Victarion Greyjoy - by Matt Olson
So the Children and First Men made a Pact. A peace born of necessity: the Children kept what forests remained, and mankind lived in the fields and hills and adopt the Old Gods (abandoning the worship of Garth). The Giants were left out of the agreement.

The alliance between the Children and the First Men proved strong. They resisted the Grey King as he came forth again and again, ravaging Westeros. In spite of the fact that the Grey King had a global empire to rule, he obsessed over the men of Westeros. He could not stomach his failure to measure up to his brother. Of the thousand and seven years he reigned, he would spend almost all of them on Old Wyk, planning his wars against the Storm God and the men of Westeros.

Let it not be said that he spent all of his time in Westeros, however, for there is substantial evidence he visited the Far East. The scribes of Yin know him as the Pearl Emperor, for his eyes were Pearl (all the gemstone emperors were named for their eyes, as I discussed in my eastern series). Each of the gemstone emperors ruled a smaller empire than the one before, and this trend began with the Grey King losing Westeros (with no king ever again being as powerful as Garth).

His obsession with reversing this loss of territory drove him insane, because I believe it was the catalyst for a mission that would be carried on long after his death:

We hear of cities where the men soar like eagles on leathern wings...of a race of bloodless men who dwell between the deep valley...of the Shrykes who live there, half-human creatures with greenscaled skin and venomous bites...even the Shrykes supposedly live in terror of K'dath in the Grey Waste, a city said to be older than time... - The World of Ice and Fire - The Bones and Beyond: Yi Ti
In my eastern series I outline the Great Empire of the Dawn’s great fixation and pursuit of the Red Sword; the ultimate weapon of fire that could conquer any foe. I believe this pursuit began with the Grey King, who intended to use it to bring the Children and the First Men to heel.

I believe that he erected the Five Forts as sort of laboratories for blood magic abominations. There they created twisted human and animal chimeras in their attempts to realize their dream of reunification. The failed experiments were “the Grey King’s waste”, the byproducts of the pursuit of the Sword (hence, the region’s name is the Grey Waste).

The Grey King was only the first, and it would be continued at the Five Forts, in Sothoryos (where there were once lizard men and eyeless cave-dwellers, before the Brindled Men wiped them out), and elsewhere on the outskirts of the Empire. Over centuries the dream of reunification evolved into something greater and more sinister, as the desire to conquer was replaced by the pursuit of the Red Sword itself, but that will have to come in the next chapter.

The death of the Green God and the Pact were a turning point for humanity; a first fragmentation, and the end of an Age. It is said that the Grey King ruled in the Age of Heroes, and so it was, for his reign began at the signing of the Pact, at the end of the Dawn Age.

Thus began the Age of Heroes.

That’ll wrap things up for this chapter. In the next chapter, we’re going to pick up after the death of the Grey King, and talk about Durran Godsgrief, the splintering of the First Men, and Dragon Dreams in the East. If you’d like to see when future chapters are likely to be posted, check out the Table of Contents. See you in the next one!

Shimrra Jamaane posted:

Communist Thoughts posted:

I listened to some of PJs poddasts recently while cooking and half his ideas are obviously true while his cohost is like "no way whaaat?" and then sometimes he'll go on for ages about how like Maegor the cruel has XXY chromosomes and George is really into rare genetic disorders until some offhand line makes it clear its definitely not a thing and then he goes "Well it still might be possible"

Collateral posted:

Why wouldn't you put your energies into writing your own tales with esoteric histories? If there is a market for that cradle horseshit the anything will sell. Pieces of paper smeared in literal horseshit would have more value than this.

Boogle posted:

Is it just me or could he have avoided the "Meerenese Knot" by getting the magic pirate dude to just drop by, kidnap Danerys, and nuke the place with a lot of raping and pillaging and salting the earth Carthage-style and finally drag her rear end back to relevance?

What's with wasting her entire arc on a whole lot of nothing? You could excise all her chapters and not lose anything.

Boogle posted:

Is it just me or could he have avoided the "Meerenese Knot" by getting the magic pirate dude to just drop by, kidnap Danerys, and nuke the place with a lot of raping and pillaging and salting the earth Carthage-style and finally drag her rear end back to relevance?

What's with wasting her entire arc on a whole lot of nothing? You could excise all her chapters and not lose anything.

Hasselblad posted:

Her entire storyline in the published work could be entirely removed, and the books would have been better for it, and no "knot" would have prevented a satisfying conclusion of the series.

Take the plunge! Okay! posted:

It should’ve been a couple of books a about the Stark children and their direwolves, as set by the first chapter or so. A trilogy at the most.

emanresu tnuocca posted:

Instead he's gonna die and people will continue believing he had a story planned and that there were satisfying conclusions penned out.

Just own up to it George, the novel took you by surprise like it did the rest of us, you shoulda never wrote them dragons in.

emanresu tnuocca posted:

When you read his short stories (of which I read a whole two!) It's quite apparent that George isn't really a big writer of 'plots', he writes decent characters with high concept sci fi schticks, the man can hint at intrigue but ultimately he was never going to keep it up for 5000 pages, he never did anything even close to that