Nymeria: Mother Rhoyne (Part 1)

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:47):
Then through the Twisted, half-drowned trees and wide wet
streets, a glimpse, the Silvery Sheen of sunlight upon water
Another River. He knew at once rushing toward
the roin the ruins grew taller as the land grew narrower until
the city ended on a point of land.
West, of the remains of a colossal, Palace of pink and

(01:08):
green marble. Its collapsed domes and broke
inspires looming, large above a row of covered archways, Tyrion.
So more Snappers sleeping and the slips were half a hundred
ships. Might once have docked he knew
where he was then that was nymeria as palace and this is
all that remains of nice are herCity.

(01:31):
YOLO shouted. Yeah, Andre of the shy made past
the point. Tell me again.
All those westerosi Rivers as big as mother Rowan.
I did not know he called back, no River and the Seven Kingdoms
is half. So, why does this the New River
that I joined them was a close. Twin to the one, they had been
sailing down and that one alone had almost matched the mandrel

(01:55):
or the Trident. This is nice are were the mother
gathers in her wild daughter? Knowing said he Andre but she
will not reach her widest point until she meets her other
daughters a dagger Lake, the coin comes rushing.
In the darkling Daughter full ofgold.
Amber from the axe and pine cones or the forest of core

(02:15):
south of their mother meets law rule The Smiling daughter from
the golden Fields where they join.
Once stood Korean Festival City with the streets were made of
water and the houses made of gold, then south and east again
for long leagues. Until at, last comes, creeping
in slowly through the shy daughter who hides, her course
in reads and writes, their mother.

(02:38):
Roy and wax is so wide that the man up on a boat in In the
center of the stream. Cannot see, ashore to either
side. You shall see.
My little friend. Awesome, is a word that gets
thrown around quite a bit generally as a synonym for
great, or similar words like that.
And that's funny because it's a word used to exaggerate when in

(03:01):
literal terms, it describes situations like the opening,
quote perfectly mother. Ryan is awesome.
And it's not just an opening quote about how cool and huge.
The Rhine is, though it's not just that at all.
Nor is it just as seen preluding, the reveal of egg on
the 6th? This is a scene that's also

(03:23):
about Tyrion getting his groove back after a long depression.
And part of the way, this is accomplished is through all he's
recalling. His love as a child for the
stories of Lomas long Strider, and the Wonders, the world
things that were a big part of his childhood things.
Inspired him growing up. Tyrion is extra special to us

(03:43):
for many reasons. But, let me draw your to
attention to his love of history, as well as these
stories of travel. It's something that he grew into
you after that, and they featurein his chapters more than most
others, because we're in his head, and when you're in the
head of someone who loves history, well, you're going to
get a lot of history via their thoughts, and of course,

(04:04):
conversations It wouldn't make sense for say Victorian to
debate Halden Hofmeister on Dragon lore or even think in
great detail about the ironborn in their history.
That would be weird. I mean, he's going to remember,
maybe his grandfather and maybe a few other famous guys, he's
not an expert on that. But for Tyrion, it's totally
natural for him to think about things like that.

(04:25):
Imagine Tyrion thinking how badly he wants to test his acts
against the Knight of flowers. Imagine Tyrion like, Victorian
wanting to give half his teeth to get involved in a Famous
duel. I mean, that's not like Tyrion
at all. Jorah, gives Danny books of
songs and stories and she's barely looked at them.
Arianne, is locked in a library with a bunch of Awesome books on

(04:47):
hand, but no and John shuts downSam, mid-sentence, while he's
giving us all a cool history lesson on the Nights Watch and
chronology. Kids those days I tell you, the
reader is kind of a version of this character smaller version.
Well, not smaller than Tyrion smaller is, unless important,
someone for whom history, matters and the speaks to it

(05:08):
competently someone who fits it into scenes without it seeming
out of place because this is a guy like history.
So he's going to talk about history.
He talks about kingsmoot in the ironborn chapters, for example,
and this kind of comes in othersforms as well.
It's not just history, sometimes, history comes in
other Like in Brands chapters wehave stories, which are

(05:29):
basically history, but they're delivered in a different format,
you know, it's whether it's folktales from old Nan or the
tournament at harrenhal from theReeds.
It's all history. So a good reason to be aware of
this device is that it's really fun for one, but it can also be
really important because A Song of Ice and Fire is history.

(05:51):
Tells us A Song of Ice and Fire is Future.
These characters are in effect looking at the passed to tell us
what's next. When Tyrion looks at a history
book. He sees the past but we see the
future. Cool trick George.
But how much more powerful is that effect?
When the character is living it?Instead of reading about it for

(06:14):
Tyrion, he laughs about snarks and grumpkins Beyond the Wall
beforehand. But once he's actually standing
on top of 700 feet of ice gazingout of that, vast dark
Wilderness. He takes it pretty seriously.
It's like, wow, and it's that feeling again, he's filled with
awe. It's kind of a dark foreboding,
ah, but Still the experience that he had was nothing like

(06:38):
what he heard and read about thereal thing couldn't be described
in words. And here we are in a similar
spot in the opening quote like he did with the wall.
He looked down on what he had heard, he trusted over much and
what had been written, but when he saw the Rhine with his own
two eyes, he understood that words would never have been able

(06:58):
to convey what he was seeing. It's like he expected the
stories to be exaggerated which to be fair.
They so often are you're not wrong when you hear exaggerated
rumors and think, maybe I shouldtone that down.
Maybe that's probably exaggerated.
We all in our daily lives. Understand this.
Phenomena people love to take pride in local landmarks and

(07:21):
features like that after all butsometimes the stories are true.
Sometimes the truth is so stunning.
That exaggerating is almost pointless.
Imagine reading say that the wall is 1,000 feet high which
probably some people in Westeroshave heard they probably heard
that it's probably rounded off like that even though that's a
300 feet is of rather large rounding.
But then imagine actually going to the top and standing way up

(07:44):
there in the cold, like Tyrion did feeling that fear that
Indescribable dread. Then someone leans in and says
actually the walls only 700 feethigh.
Are you really going to feel less off because so it's only
700 feet I thought this was a thousand foot wall.
I was dead. Can a matter, your overwhelming
feelings are still overwhelming,that's what it was like for

(08:05):
tearing into. So you know urinating
off-the-wall, something he planned on doing it, he forgot
about that, it just the jokes and all the books and everything
he'd read was gone. It was just this overwhelming,
beautiful disturbing, primal thing that he was witnessing and
hard logic and rationality were nowhere to be seen in that

(08:26):
moment. Maybe he should have known
better. Meaning, one, staring seen the
wall. Maybe should have realized that,
you know, the Rhine. Maybe it was true.
Maybe should have prepared himself mentally, but he didn't
heal of the tales of Loma strongStrider.
You know, he almost makes sense that he would have hoped that
they were really as true as theysounded like, So Loma throat of

(08:46):
the wall and tearing read about that.
Apparently, he didn't do it justice.
So maybe Lomas isn't just, it's just isn't a great writer.
Oh, mrs. No George r.r.
Martin. The information is great, but,
you know, he didn't exactly have, you know, selfies at the
wall to put in his book. So yeah, we'll give Terry in a
past there and Lomas to, but really the wall it's just and

(09:09):
the Roaring. They're just so incredibly
unbelievably huge bigger than tyrion's and A nation could
conceive of and tearing can imagine quite a bit.
He read about it. Countless times, of course, he
literally did imagine it a lot, but it still wasn't enough to
prepare him for the real thing. So for keeping score, unlike the
wall, Tyrion did pee in the roinbut hey, that's that only makes

(09:32):
it a little bit deeper, right? Seriously though, he spends a
lot of time on the Rhine and notthat much time on the wall.
He just goes up there. That one time, he's near it a
lot. But there's a lot more Ryan
seeing for him. Let's put it that way.
A lot of opportunity for him to see all the sights along it,
varied and vast, and ancient, and interesting.

(09:53):
And I'm areas Palace is a big site that he sees a The way and
of course, because of who he is,he sees these things and gets to
think about the history that he knows of them, or someone like
hauled in half Meister, or yeah,Andre, and you Scylla fill him
in on those things and of coursehe gets to interact with some of
the legacies of nymeria in the rhoynar like the stone man.

(10:15):
Something he'd probably rather not do and this all goes beyond
Tyrion, of course, this episode isn't about tearing, he's just
our witness to a lot of these things.
He's the only character, Stir with POV that goes to the wrong
line for any length of time. So, this really important, of
course, he's our key there and the name nymeria, not only

(10:35):
stands out because of re at her direwolf, obviously, you're
going to think of her when we talk about nymeria, but because
nymeria is story is key to the history of all Dorn.
That's another reason it's important.
That's our main reason why we'rehere today.
Aria introduces us to the idea of nymeria with her direwolf, of
course, Arianne Martell is inspired by nymeria to act on

(10:57):
her great. Bold plan of crowning myrcella.
And of course, Tyrion visits mother one person while hearing
her many of our ancient Tales, but it's actually Daenerys whose
story most matches that of nymeria herself.
So, when I was talking earlier about the history of A Song of
Ice and Fire tells us the future, it's specifically
Danny's future that is most relevant to this.

(11:18):
And that's kind of ironic, isn'tit?
Because It's nymeria and her people fled their ancient home
in large part thanks to Danny's ancestors which, you know, maybe
helps conceal the parallel. But once you see it, you can't
unsee it. Right?
Last of the Valyrian nobility compared to last of the rhoynar
nobility. Yes.
Indeed check a very young femaleruler.

(11:40):
Check let their people through avariety of strange and exotic
lands. Jack again face slavery disease
and starvation. Check married.
Three times. Okay well Danny is only married
twice but who really expects herto settle in with his Dar like
that's where she's done. She's just going to marry his
daughter and never marry again. Nobody is who believes that?

(12:02):
That's who that's a political marriage and hey nymeria, second
husband was also a political marriage.
How about that? Well, probably is very old,
seems likely. So both Danny and nymeria.
Also held power after their first husband's death, a
difficult thing to do in generalas a woman.
But even harder to do when you're a foreigner and yet they

(12:22):
both have pulled that off. So Danny's third marriage is Yet
to Come and maybe she'll get married a fourth time, maybe who
knows? We can't see the future, but I'm
guessing it's going to be 3 and that would if so that would give
us another parallel to nymeria. Now, Mary's third husband was
Davos Dane. Dane I could mean something I

(12:45):
will see. And that's the point.
The best part of all this. Might be that while nine lawyers
story ended long ago Daenerys, this is still ongoing and given
how many strong parallels we have already.
It makes sense that there are more left for us to uncover like
this marriage thing that could be just one of many parallels.
So this a series on the history of nymeria in the rhoynar is

(13:08):
very likely going to tell us quite a bit about the future of
Daenerys and her callous are Butit's also an amazing fun story
all by itself. We get to talk about a great
number of places. None of our favorite characters
have been to ones Tyrion is onlyread about some.
He would love to see himself andmany, he'd do anything to avoid.
So hello and welcome back to another episode of history of

(13:32):
Westeros podcast. It's good to be back, we have
had a busy several months with cons and with writing and with
all sorts of fun stuff going on the fandom and we're excited
for. Fire and Blood coming out in a
few months. That's going to give us a lot
more ammunition, not that we really need it.
We have so much to cover. We got another bloodraven
episode coming up in the future.And this series is going to take

(13:53):
us probably three episodes. Number one here is actually
going to be mostly about the history of Fallen kingdoms like
the rhoynar and valyria and eventhough it's a lot of ancient
history, there's a lot of we already saw a lot of tyrion's,
can be more at Erie and of course, Danny can be a little
Aria stuff like that. Part two is going to be I will

(14:13):
say travel log in adventure. I'm going to call it ten
thousand ships, I believe that'smy working title and it's got to
be. We're gonna see all these cool
places like South Oreos and the Basilisk Isles 1/8 and the
Summer Isles, it's going to be really cool because we each of
those places. Of course, we're going to do
what we always do. Give you history of those
places, tell you what we know about them, and that'll be a lot

(14:35):
of fun. Then part three is going to be
about once nymeria and her people get to Dorne.
That's a whole story Conquest. War, Intrigue politics,
marriages backstabbing Intrigue.Like I said, lots of fun stuff
that's going to be great so and it'll be a little more familiar.
We might get into some really deep parallels.

(14:55):
Well I'm sure we're going to getsome really deep parallels,
you'll see. But what's interesting here too.
But this first episode, even though this is a series on
nymeria, it's going to have the least of her out of the three
because there's so much backstory and we're not shy
about dialing into the backstory.
So this episode's going to end with People being led away from
the Rhine as there, they've justlost this giant war and of

(15:19):
course, before that we'll have alot of Tyrion will talk magic
will talk water Wizards and floods and how that interacts
with dragons and Fire and Blood and all the magic of the
Freehold other topics, like grayscale, the Water Gardens of
Dorne. I've got a theory about that,
the fate of volantis, of course,volantis is right there on the
mouth of the Rhine and they're abig part of this history, and

(15:41):
that's going to relate to Daenerys of Course anything to
do with volantis it's going to be tied in with her.
So yet again, historical topic that gives us a ton of insight
into future of A Song of Ice andFire.
Something you guys are really familiar with all regular
listeners, know that our patronsare particularly familiar with
that. And in fact, this episode was
chosen by patrons past patreon episodes.

(16:03):
Include septon Barth Joanna Lannister the crypts of
Winterfell while probably our most famous famous.
Well what if famous work our most popular most viewed?
Patron voters episodes a lot of big hits there.
You guys have done a great job of coming up with topics or
voting on the topics that I put out there and it's really fun.
I'm really glad that we are doing that and of course they

(16:26):
managed to pick a big topic that's going to take me a few
episodes. We're going to take a few
episodes to get through this, but it's going to be awesome.
It's gonna be so much to talk about.
You too can support the show on patreon and get things like
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Potentially artwork, cool names,things like that, lots of
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(16:49):
history of Westeros. And speaking of shout outs, let
me say thanks to the Long Snapper, Jeff, gnarly, history
of Westeros is first sword, as well as Lord, Mark of house
Joseph, the snow in Winterfell Rider of maslach arthaud, a
white dragon with green scales, horns wings, and Talons rest in
peace to Laney's the Talon king of gaseous Rider of hilarious.

(17:10):
A red dragon with scales horns and Talons of midnight black
Jinx of Housley are green. Queen of the rain would rumored
daughter of woods, which writer of e Regina Pacific albino
dragon with an amethyst. Eyes and opalescent wings.
We also have a new Dragon Rider.He doesn't have art yet, but his
name is really cool and the description of his dragons

(17:30):
really cool. So I can't wait to share that
with you guys. I could have waited till we
actually had art but I'm gonna say it now.
The name is Robert, the fourth of House are daheck or burned
king of Blaze Water Bay Rider ofat Roxas.
A black dragon with bioluminescent spots.
Like smoldering Embers in abandoned blue tail.
That is awesome. You're wanting to read Plato

(17:52):
Aristotle lock Kant, Wittgenstein etcetera, but thank
you might need a little push to get it done.
Well, online. Great books is the place to go.
It's a unique program, helping people learn the classics
together. Go to online.
Great books.com /w e. S to get started nine meta as
the Rhine is made great by so many lesser Rivers combined into

(18:13):
one Epic River. So is Song of Ice and Fire great
in part due to so many differentplot threads combined into Epic
story. Most of the stories are, of
course, inventions of George r.r.
Martin. But also, of course, George r.r.
Martin being a human being is heavily influenced by the world
around him and the life experiences he's had.
So, let's think about that a minute Europe, okay.

(18:36):
Has two rivers that sound like the ruining the Rhine and the
Rhone. Now, we just need the ring, the
Rune and the rain to complete the set.
I'm not sure we can go much further than name, similarity,
actually both the Rhine and the runner Very important rivers as
borders, the sources of water, as facilitators of trade, Etc,
but that's basically what all Rivers do.

(18:57):
Besides the rhoynar people parallel better to non-european
people's anyway, so they're not really, They Don't Really match
up that well, with a lot of European cultures.
That's mostly something. We learn later in A Song of Ice
and Fire, though the Rhine are aren't thoroughly explained,
until feast. And before that, most of what we
know is inferred. The first time, we just hear it

(19:18):
every so often as part of Kings title, which you've heard, but
I'll repeat here, King of the Andals, and the Rhine are.
And the first men titles titles titles, like Robert would say,
we here at applied to Robert andviserys and Stan is an Joffrey
and currently tommen. But it's also shall we say
strongly suggested, for his sister myrcella who at long last

(19:38):
asks for an explanation on the rhoynar myrcella here is playing
a bit of the Classic Fish Out ofWater Trope here, asking
questions to acclimate herself in a way that also acclimates
the Reader to the setting and details and kind of a natural
way. Specifically myrcella thought
that the rhoynar were the darkness and so do most readers

(19:58):
at that point on their first read-through in part because
they were not major players early on.
And in Feast, that's when they you know, start to become more
and more major more part of the story so as they become more
important, we need more details.An area.
Martel here gives us the answer tumor cells, question, A Feast

(20:19):
for Crows. The queen maker we are in part
Your Grace nymeria, as blood is in me.
Along with that of Morris, Martel the dornish.
Lord, she married on the day, they were wet nymeria, fired her
ships. So our people would understand
that there could be no going back.
Most were glad to see those Flames for their voyaging had
been long and terrible before they came to Dorne and many and

(20:40):
more had been lost to storm disease and slavery.
They were a few who mourned. However they did not love this
dry red land or it seven faced God.
So they clung To their old ways hammered boats together, from
the Hulk's of the burned ships and became the Orphans of the
green blood the mother. And their songs is not our
mother, but the mother roin whose Waters nourish them from

(21:01):
the dawn of days. Marianne is a good example of
someone. That's a big fan of nymeria.
When she's having her princess in the tower chapter, she's
wishing, she had some of my memory has stories to read.
In Dorne and I marry his popularity is huge.
And mainstream mean that's not astretch.
Not no one should be surprised by that but some of the Nuance

(21:25):
to that is interesting. The famous princess of Dorne who
stood up to aegon and his sister's nicknamed, The Yellow
Toad. Well her name was Maria which is
nymeria without the NY and I think the NY is probably a
meaningful prefix. I don't know what it means, but
nymeria is city was nice are twowords so that's an important.
And word or prefix or something.I don't know.

(21:47):
Arys. Oakheart.
Know it's a tapestry of nymeria in the 10,000 ships during his
singular chapter but that's surely not an uncommon sight
around the shadow City or Dorn in general, you know art of
nymeria, that makes sense. Aria, of course, as we mentioned
is another huge fan, but this iswhere it's a little different.
You know, she names are dire wolf after nymeria, of course

(22:08):
and later she names herself, Nan/ nymeria, when she's in
Disguise. And then she invents the name of
of a ship called nymeria. That is part of one of her made
up backstories for one of her. Many characters assumed
identities. We could call them, but nymeria,
fandom in the north, that's unusual.

(22:28):
I think it doesn't seem to have a lot of other examples.
Sansa, never thinks her talks ofnymeria, nor anyone else in the
north that we've noted. Maybe not so much in the rest of
the South either. Honestly, she given she doesn't
conform to the kind of womanly virtues that the seven espouse.
You know, she's not known eitherMaiden mother or current while

(22:50):
she's mother but and I guess shewas a crown at some point but
really those, you know, that wouldn't describe her very well.
And of course, the fact that shedoesn't behave like a proper
westerosi lady is, in fact, a huge part of why she's a hero to
Aria and RN and not to Sansa, right?

(23:11):
It's also kind of hard to imagine nymeria being popular
and say the stormlands or the reach places that historically
have hated the dornish and only relatively recently, they've
come to live in peace with them.So, let's say, Brienne, born and
raised in the stormlands. Not a proper westerosi lady but
also doesn't ever seem to mention or think of nymeria.

(23:31):
But maybe that's because of where she's from tens L2 tall
from the Hedge Knight, and Novella performed a nymeria tail
is when her puppet shows. And this took place in the
reach, but let's not forget 10 cells, not from the reach, he's
from Dorne. So that kind of fits at least
one semi important person the iron Islands thinks, well, of
her here during the kingsmoot. This is kind of cool.
Maybe a little out of place, butI like it.

(23:53):
A Feast for Crows the drowned man.
Lord Gilbert began to speak. He told of a wondrous land
Beyond The Sunset. See a land without winter.
Or want where death had? No Dominion.
Mm, your king and I shall lead you there.
He cried. We will build 10,000 ships as
nymeria once did and take sale with all our people to the land

(24:18):
Beyond The Sunset there. Every man shall be a king and
every Wi-Fi, Queen because Lord,Burton is can are unpopular and
perhaps is mention of 90. Miriam means less than we would
like, but I suspect many ironborn would give at least
grudging respect to someone who sailed so far and so wide.
Seeing so many places, they do respect that they respect

(24:41):
sailing as much as they do fighting prowess if you do it,
bravely. But the rhoynar themselves
weren't actually a sailing people, this is something they
were forced into. I mean, they certainly get
around on the water really well,but that's River travel.
It's a lot different than sea travel.
They use boats all over but again riverboats seagoing

(25:01):
vessels different kind of thing,but and the right are shunned,
the sea, but not from Fear, it'sjust from preference.
So many centuries, the rhoynar lived in peace.
There, many a Savage people dwelt in the hills and forests
around. Mother roin all knew better than
to molest the river folk and therhoynar themselves.
Showed little interest in expansion.

(25:22):
The river was their home, their mother and their God, and Hugh
of them wish Well, beyond the sound of her Eternal song.
Simply put they didn't want to go to other places land or sea.
They really liked where they were in real world terms.
There's no one perfect parallel.For the rhoynar.
As I said earlier, it's not really European people's.

(25:42):
I think that the best matches ifwe're looking, you would start
with the ancient river cultures of the world because that's what
the rhoynar are in this setting.I think the close is Egypt, the
Nile is a vast fertile River. One of the biggest in the world
and the Egyptians Didn't expand terribly far away from it.
They were an old people, powerful Advanced artistic

(26:02):
dark-skinned, highly influentialand Builders of spectacular
monuments. That still Fascinate people
thousands of years later, all those things are true, the Rhine
are, as well and eventually conquered by powers that
included, Rome Egypt. Of course, not the rhoynar, but
that adds nicely to the comparison.
Really, because Rome is so oftencompared to valyria and valyria,
conquered the rhoynar. So, there you go.

(26:25):
And if Daenerys eventually takesDorn, the are to valyria taking
the kingdom of The Heirs of the rhoynar, I'll wrap that Circle
up nicely and recall that her ancestors only ever succeeded in
this via marriage Danny's that is.
And of course, it was a princessDaenerys that was in that
marriage on top of it all. So delving into the lore of the

(26:48):
rhoynar means taking a long. Look at mother ruin herself she
who has been giving life for countless eons.
That's where it starts so we should start back over history.
Western mother of rivers. The mightiest river in the
world, the Royals many tributaries stretched across
much of Western are sauce along their Banks.

(27:09):
Had Arisen a civilization and culture a storied and ancient.
As the old Empire of geese, the rhoynar had grown rich off the
Bounty of their River mother. Roin they named her since we're
talking so much about Daenerys Mother of Dragons.
The mother of rivers fits nicelyas a title here but it's not
actually the comparison, we had in mind.

(27:30):
The real inspiration for the title of this section is the
mother of mountains. Worshipped, of course, by the
Dothraki, this isn't just a hey look at this nice even naming
convention. But it's a point about ancient
peoples, both in the real world and the Martin world and to
simplify things a bit. We can say that the most ancient
peoples wherever they were had some things in common like work.

(27:54):
Being things that give life and things that Inspire, awe, early
versions of worship. A lot of times took generally
look like this, the mother Mountain certainly qualifies as
awe-inspiring and look at how much horses are wrapped up in
the Rocky spirituality. Of course, it's a big part of
that, it's part of their naturalenvironment living on the plains

(28:17):
Mountain on the plains is a rarething and it really stands out.
So there's a lot to there's a lot of sense to be made from is
the kind of you can kind of go. Go back and see how the earliest
people would have been inspired by these natural features and
the elements around them. But really it's nothing compared
to the drawing, which talk aboutstanding out.

(28:38):
This river is utterly gigantic dwarfing, the rivers of Earth.
If it were in Westeros, let's say it ended at the southernmost
point of Dorne. It would start all the way up in
the neck or thereabouts right around there.
Just it's huge and hearing it's a Will down a long portion of
it. He thinks it is five times wider

(28:59):
than the black water during one portion wax.
So, you see what I mean? When I talk about the literal
definition of the word, awesome,you know, I throw it around all
the time. I'm just as guilty of using it
on literally, but this time it'sliteral mother Ryan inspires off
again, literally awesome, she gives life a lot more than any

(29:22):
mountain or Great Grass sea could.
And those To give a pretty good amount of life.
But she's also been doing it forso much longer.
The Dothraki are a young people compared to the Rhine are though
if there's Rocky were here to comment on that, they would
point out that, hey, they're still around and the Rhine are
mostly gone. But there's also similarity here

(29:44):
in their worship. Instead of the horse gods, for
the Dothraki is the crab God andeternal God, for example, for
the Rhine are, in fact, the ancient ruin our didn't just
worship mother roaring as a deity.
They worshipped her. The mother of all the other
deities not exactly monotheism, but sort of a hierarchy where
she was at the top. We see here that in this quote,

(30:04):
which also reveals its rhoynar have a cultural memory older
than the long night itself. So it gives just goes to show
how long they've been around. I miss long Strider in his
wonders made by man. Recounts meeting descendants of
the rhoynar and the ruins of theFestival City of Kroy, an who
have Tales of a darkness that made the wrong dwindle and
disappear her water. Is Frozen as far south as the

(30:26):
joining of the solaro, accordingto these Tales, the return of
the sun came only when a hero convinced mother, Royals many
children, lesser Gods such as the crab king and the old man of
the river to put aside their bickering and join together to
sing a secret song that brought back a day.
So that bickering sounds kind ofme like fighting for the Iron

(30:48):
Throne. The hero is the one who turns
everyone's attention to the realenemy in the north.
The old man. End of the river.
Is a turtle and the crab king well he's a crab that's more
straightforward even though the rhoynar have fallen as a United
people, their bloodlines physical traits and many
traditions and beliefs still exist.

(31:09):
Tyrion for A Dance with Dragons,I shall the dwarf was thinking
when he spied a Rippling ahead not six yards from the boat he
was about to point it out to learn more when it came to the
surface, with a wash of water that rocked the shine.
Made sideways. It was another turtle.
A horned Turtle of enormous size.

(31:30):
It's dark, green, shell, mottledwith brown and overgrown with
water, moss, and crusty. Black River mollusks.
It raised its head and bellowed a deep throated thrumming roar
louder than any warhorn that Tyrion had ever heard.
We are blessed. It's either was crying loudly as
tears streamed down her face. We are blessed.

(31:51):
We are blessed from a nature. Is not nurture from a nature
versus magical nature. Point of view, huge turtles
aren't necessarily Fantastical real-world.
Turtles can be up to 7 feet long.
Prehistoric turtles could have been up to 13 feet or 4 meters,
long and even wider than that. So that's huge.

(32:15):
But in this case all right, we're getting even larger.
The one Tyrion sees he considerslarger than the hole pull boat
that they're on On the shy made isn't large but it's surely more
than 13 feet long. There's way too many people
wanted for that. So this turtle is indeed, huge.
And Fantastical probably is the right word, especially when you

(32:37):
throw in that louder than war-horn Bellow that it's got.
That's like, that's pretty cool.And recall that Tyrion is
already prior to this scene, seeing countless Turtles on the
wrong, including ones that were large enough to ride.
And you Andre even says that therhoynish princes, did that road
Turtles. There's your sense of awe.
Again, again and again we just keep getting inundated with

(32:59):
amazing things. Is ill a cries and calls it a
blessing and a moment later. Yeah, Andre cries.
It was him. The old man of the river.
They're just overcome. I mean, it is a damn you Turtle.
What can you say? And George r.r., Martin gave it
a damn huge home. They truly be impressed with

(33:20):
that as well. I mean, imagine Landry and he
still has ancestors just gazing out over this giant body of
water and all these giant thingsthat come out of it.
What a place for their ancestorsto Driven away from ya, get sad,
doesn't it this sighting in particular of the giant turtle?
Tyrion thinks of what he's learned about young grips

(33:40):
identity and how God's often appear to witness the birth of
Kings, but he's also having thismoment, he's saying this line to
himself in his head while at a palace whose final owner before
it was destroyed was nymeria herself.

(34:00):
Hmm, birth of Kings, birth of queens and princesses indeed,
this giant Palace, this giant turtle, this giant River.
It was nothing like it compare with.
In Westeros, maybe not even all of Martin's world.
The closest thing in Westeros tothe wrong is the Trident, but
it's really not that close despite being so huge and
expansive, it only gets a darn instead of a damn not that kind

(34:25):
of, damn, we've got lots of damson the Trident.
We hear that the four ancient first men worshipped Things
before they adopted, the worshipof the old gods.
So here's another example. That maybe they used to worship
the Trident as some kind of god or goddess, but I'm not sure
they worship any River. Animal Gods, like the Run are
still do to this day. We don't have any mentions of
such. So if we do have an engine to

(34:46):
the first men worshipping, the lady of the waves, and the lord
of the Skies, Didi's like that. Well, maybe if there had been
gigantic turtles or something inthe river, they might have
worshipped that but maybe not. I mean, no one worship.
The Giants are the dire wolves or the great Krakens or liens
that we know of. I mean the ironborn think those
Krakens are cool but they don't worship them, right?

(35:09):
You can eat trout in front of a Tully without offending them.
But if you even talk about trying to eat one of those large
Turtles of the Rhine watch out Wars have been fought over that
seriously Wars plural. Maybe a bit like the children.
Eventually, the first men were hostile to people that attack
their heart trees. That's the closest example I can
think of. But now like the children, the

(35:32):
rhoynar are a tiny minority and it's normal to see this, just
for sale. Another displayed, a gigantic
Turtle strung up by its legs on iron chains.
Heavy as a horse as sad as that is.
It's also kind of cool because it shows how George is great and
just putting a lot into a seemingly.
Ali throw away detail. I mean, this is just another

(35:54):
animal hung up in a market in the context that line is
delivered. But in it terms of deeper
meaning, in terms of people paying attention, like anyone
who listens to this show is paying attention, that's just
how it is. So, you know, from seeing that
Turtle hung up, it's not just ananimal at a market.
It's a sacrilege. It's a horror.

(36:16):
It's like I said, kind of sad really imagine seeing a Heart
Tree, freshly cut down and hung.For sale at a market for the
whole you know our whole and in parts of someone saying hey have
a branch chop off a couple of branches just for sale some you
know Heart Tree Lumber you kind of get in the idea what I'm
getting at here and how this kind of thing would be offensive
to the rhoynar, an earlier, quote, referred to a secret song

(36:39):
that brought back the day. Well, the notion that A Song of
Ice and Fire perhaps ended, the long night is a bit off topic
but certainly worth noting. So is the About the water's
freezing as far south as the cell horu, that's pretty
specific. And if it's accurate, well, it

(37:01):
might just be a huge clue if we draw a straight line, West to
see where that corresponds in Westeros, we wind up in the
vicinity just north of Starfall.So will the new long night in
Westeros? Be so bad.
That even the rivers in the red mountains of Dorne, freeze,

(37:22):
Children of the ROI, we were speaking of children of the
forest for a moment there, but the Rhine are used the term as
well. And of course, fits with that,
they call themselves children, giving it, they call the river
mother. And in line with that naming
convention, the green blood, thepeople who are descendants of
the rhoynar they call themselvesorphans.
Since they've lost their mother,though, some like yeah, Andre

(37:45):
and you Scylla who are orphans themselves from the green blood,
they heed the call. Yeah, and renew Sila felt the
urge to go to Mother ruined, even though they were born in
Dorne and they live there. Now we'll see later that heeding
the call to return to Mother. Ryan got quite a few other
people killed or enslaved but that was when valyria still

(38:07):
existed, it's still dangerous but less so the injury and you
still are happy with their life as vast as mother rhoyne is.
There are many forms her children come in and the term
gets thrown around applying the tributary rivers and living
Things like probably other things to as River, people to
ruin. Our did River, people type

(38:27):
things they made use of what theriver gave them.
But not all rivers are created equal.
Not all Rivers, give the same things and many people lived in
relative. Peace on the Rhine as things
often go. When there's resources and
space, a plenty for all mother. Ryan helped in her own way.
Keep them peaceful by giving them everything they needed to

(38:49):
live. And by making it appealing to
stay instead of looking elsewhere to conquer and expand.
And since they only expanded along the river and never away
from it, they had more time for looking inward building and
growth, fishes, Traders teachers, Scholars workers, and

(39:10):
wood, and stone, and metal. They raise their elegant towns
and cities from the headwaters of the rowing down to her mouth.
Each Lovelier than the last. There was go ahead and draw in
the Velvet Hills with its Grovesand waterfalls.
Nice are the city of fountains alive with song are annoyed.
On the coin with its Halls of green marble pale Farm.

(39:31):
L the flowers, see guitar Hawaiiwith its canals and Salt Water
Gardens and Kroy. Mm greatest of all the Festival
City with its great palace of love.
In the next section we'll discuss structures these palaces
and such right now. I want to draw your attention to
their Gardens art music culture,they grew culture, and in those

(39:52):
Creations, they imbued themes oflove and beauty.
Tyrion notes that the pole boatson the Green Even now are
brightly painted and exquisitelycarved, which is very likely
what it was, like, back on the Rhine.
Prior to nine, Miri has day, when the waters were safe for
travel and trade. And Leisure are in sees a very
excellently painted, Paul boat, and it makes me think of how

(40:13):
only the poorest of the orphans,don't bother don't decorate,
there's because they can't afford it.
And then right after that area, jota appears from within this
poll boat and suddenly she's no longer thinking about design or
art work or the Orphans of the green blood or any of that.
She's just saying, okay. Nowadays tearing notes that many
have to go with drab, boats to keep a low profile, they don't
want to 10 Pirates. So that's a far cry from when

(40:34):
even the poorest people would decorate their boats because the
situation the violence the threats doesn't allow them to
let their creativity fly. Now recurring Phantom question
that gets asked it's been asked since 1996 when the first book
came out, people have been playing around with this

(40:55):
concept, this idea. Which is would you live in
Westeros if you could and if so what time period?
I always say no hell no definitely.
Not hard pass. Even if SOS was an option and
even if we get to Eliminate all options that have things, like,
human sacrifice or slavery. They're still very little to
like you're still left with mostly heinous options.

(41:17):
But a major, shining exception seems to be living as one of the
right art during their long golden age, that might be
amazing. For what should be obvious
reasons? Most women would be even quicker
with the old? Hell, no hard pass on living in
Westeros that question, but the Rhine are apparently had gender
equality. So this might be appealing to

(41:38):
everyone as far as a place to live.
Is some point during the historyof Martin's World.
They had in their system of inheritance and property in
ruling women inheritors, the just on equal footing women were
Warriors 2 The United by Blood and culture and the river that
had given them birth. The rhoynar cities were elsewise

(41:59):
fiercely independent each with its own Prince or princess for
amongst these River folk women were regarded as the equals of
men. It is Mother Ryan, not Father,
Ryan after all putting a feminine figure first
worshipping life-giving properties.
These are consistent related elements in their society that
also reflect real world examplesof.

(42:23):
Teas that put women highly or equally things like that.
Contrast to another feminine symbol though, the harpy she
doesn't give life though she is portrayed as a slaver, got
chains, and everything. And while women can wear the tow
Car, none of them are Masters. Women do seem to have some
power. We do see The Graces head,
priestesses and all that, and they're all women, but still,

(42:46):
it's not equal and contrast to volantis a city that is going to
feature prominently in this episode because they're such a
big part of the story of the wrong.
They're on the Rhine. Valenta says that a female try.
Our can 300 years though, given that women can be voted in and
have that's still better than most places in Westeros.
Except for where the rhoynish influence is strong Dorne but

(43:08):
don't be fooled. Yeah, about volantis.
There is because they have voting, they're not a real
democracy and that's another topic we're getting.
It gets you all, these cultures had examples of women holding
various forms of power, but onlyin the Rhine, our cities is
there. Well, seems to be full Quality.
That's the biggest takeaway thatwe can get from that.

(43:29):
And the Rhine our head out reputation for letting other
people come to live alongside them, you know, they were open
to new neighbors as long as those new neighbors lived in
peace. Nice literally.
They were nice people. I guess I wonder if it's perhaps
relates to their own diversity as a people as it's hard to
imagine that the people at the mouth of the Rhine were
completely identical culture andbloodline to those way up at the

(43:51):
top. I mean, remember how long I told
you this river is But clearly these differences, whatever they
may have been were not used as an excuse for conflicts at least
not often enough for the storiesto stand out.
And you have come down to us with all these forms of
acceptance alongside art music. Love prosperity and security.
Yeah, you can see why I had no pain Westeros but yep.

(44:13):
On this, just compare them to the other.
Super ancient people of the world were here of, like, the
ghiscari slavery, and Conquest was their ideal.
They worship a feminine figure, but she's a cruel mistress.
And, of course, the whole thing about having, right, This car is
society with regards to ruling the rhoynar had princes and
princesses, though, not kings and queens.
They had, what could be called city-states independent, but

(44:36):
connected, but not so quarrelsome.
As other neighbors might be independent, doesn't necessarily
mean, they fought each other. I suppose that might be properly
called principalities, but that's just semantics.
We are 100% sure new princes andprincesses always passed their
titles down to their eldest, to are, but it's pretty likely
because that's what the dornish.System does and the Darkness

(44:56):
system is apparently built on the Rhine our system.
So despite their disinterest in expansion and Conquest, their
warriors were considered Fierce not to be taken lightly.
We hear a potential foes nearby.Were generally reluctant to try.
The Rhine are a state of affairs.
That may have lasted thousands of years, like, I'm a lover, not
a fighter, but I'm also a fighter, so watch yourself that

(45:17):
sort of thing on a more practical note as is so common,
people are just more motivated when the defending their own
homes. You go Gunfight in the world.
People tend to be the most fierce when it's their home at
stake. Extra Fighters, extra
motivation, you know, with the women helping out, you got twice
as many potential Warriors and all that motivation to go with

(45:40):
and add to that. They were apparently the first
in the known world to learn ironworking and eventually
steel, they made armor to look like the scales of a fish which
we still see now, even when it seems more like the scales of a
snake. Well it can be both as we see
from this very familiar figure here quote, elsewise Oberyn was

(46:00):
clad in some Leather and flowingsilks over his Bernie, he wore
his scales of gleaming copper. And rivers themselves.
Look a lot like snakes when seenabove or on a map, maybe
oberon's fierceness has a rhoynish Twist to it.
Imagine an Elite Squad of rhoynar Spearman, like a few
hundred red vipers or something.Maybe red turtles.
In this case, red crabs that would keep away.

(46:23):
Most would Vie Invaders, I wouldthink one exception, one
culture, not intimidated by any of the above was the Andals, a
people very, unlike the rhoynar very interested in, Engine and
later, very familiar with how metalworking superiority can
play a huge role in war before their success attacking the

(46:45):
steel lacking first men, they had some not so successful
Ventures on their home continent.
We hear tell of end all adventurers, trying to conquer
rhoynar cities, seeing that lackof unity as a weakness in an
opportunity only to find they would in fact, unite to help
each other against Invasion. After all the rhoynish warrior
with his silver scaled, armored fish head helm Tall, Spear and

(47:07):
turtle shell Shield was esteemedand feared by all those who
faced him. In battle, we saw the scales on
Oberon though his work oper and the spear is familiar there as
well over and use it, because he's a guy facing a larger fo I
needed to keep his distance until he could you know get that
poison in there. But that's a one-on-one fighting
tactic. That's not how it works for a
large armies Spears work. Great as a defensive weapon when

(47:31):
there's a whole bunch of them all at once pointing in One
Direction, you know, the EternalShield wall with their Spears.
The turtle shell Shield is really cool sounding.
I wonder what that looked like, probably like a turtle shell.
Probably came in a variety of colors.
Given the turtle imagery and hisstatus as a minor deity.

(47:52):
I imagine the old man of the river was prayed to on the eve
of countless battles. Might matter a lot that Turtles
are everywhere on the Rhine. You know, symbol of battle here.
In there may be like Ravens on more traditional battlefields
and again I'm Tyrion sees them all over the place when he's
traveling down the Rhine and that's a bit relevant because
George does love Turtles in reallife.

(48:14):
They were the only pets. He was allowed to have through a
long portion of his childhood. You lived in a housing project
and you're not allowed to have cats or dogs or animals like
that. He actually had names for these
Turtles. He would give them names that
were like knight names or King names and he would imagine them
having mock battles. I picture these chapters were,

(48:35):
maybe a little extra fun for himto write because of the turtle
memories. Maybe you have like different
color designs and stuff for eachrow in your city state.
You know, pink Force are high green for Kroy and something
like that. You know, like like different
houses in Westeros. Have their colors and sigils ser
dontos, man. He loves those banners the

(48:55):
colors, right? He's he got all hyped about
that, but Westeros has Banners are probably nothing like what
the rhoynar had you read. Keep is cool and all, but the
rhoynar had much bigger places with More exotic colors for
building with, I mean, pink marble like whole building whole
Palace made of pink marble. That's hard to imagine.

(49:18):
And that is what the end I was faced.
When they came to conquer and failed, they may have thought
all the color and design was a sign of weakness.
Warriors don't do that sort of thing, but it was certainly not
a sign of weakness. The maesters, believe the and
alls learned ironworking from the rhoynar which seems rather
ungrateful if you ask me. But conquerors are rarely
polite. If the end I was attacked before

(49:41):
they had learned the secret of iron working.
Well, no wonder went so badly for them and it reminds us of
the end. I was having steel verse.
The first men who did not and metalworking is probably just
one example of the things. The rhoynar were ahead of the
curve on. It's just one of the few, we
have explicit examples of Someone eventually even farther

(50:02):
ahead of the curve on metalworking.
It's fair to say would be valyria and their fancy smancy
Valyrian steel, but that seems to involve magic probably blood
magic slavery and Human Sacrifice coming up again.
Something not exactly available to the runner as an option as
far as their culture goes. It didn't seem to be cool or
permitted or practiced at all. Though, it was valyria and her

(50:24):
subjects that finally ended the long stretch of this rhoynar.
Peace, and prosperity era, eventually overpowering, even
their wartime, Unity. Well, the remains of the once
great cities of the right are still exist.
While the same cannot be said for the Freehold there, blowed
up. But both Valyrian steel, and
countless rhoynar Technologies are gone, but still there are

(50:46):
reminders Echoes of the past andsome of it is dangerous even
now. Legacy of the ancient since.
Valeriya basically, you know exploded, there's just not much
left to see, you know, we there's the smoking ruins but
those aren't really buildings. Those are volcanoes.
We get ideas, though Dragonstoneis a good example.

(51:08):
And then on the Rhine we have volantis which was built by
valyria, and it's got its famousblack walls.
And it's even more famous, the Long Bridge, which is another
one of the wonders of the world.According to lomez, longstride.
It spans, one of the rinds Delta's.
It's huge and the gateway to it.The passageway into it is

(51:29):
decorated kind of like Dragonstone.
You got some of the same like, beasts and such fun fact there
for you. So there are some examples out
there but I'm not sure that eventhose are going to really tell
you what Valeri, looked like, because honestly volantis and
Dragonstone. I imagine that the valyrians of

(51:49):
the Freehold itself, the like, big Hoyt.
You types the most wealthy and fancy types would probably
considered, volantis like rural,they probably would look down on
it is just something rustic and just oh, how cute those country
folk. So, I don't know, Lomas didn't
see any of that. So we don't know for sure.
Just how amazing and epic. It was, maybe it wasn't quite as

(52:10):
amazing as I think it is, but I think it was pretty amazing.
Lomas would have certainly wrotea lot about it, if he could
have, but we don't get that. On the other hand, the children
of the forest they lift little sign of their existence in the
Realms of men. They didn't do a lot of building
the creepy stuff in the cave of the three-eyed.
Crow side. The faces of the heart trees are
basically all there is to remindthe ancient westerosi of the

(52:33):
children and the few children left, keep out of sight.
So yeah, but the children of theRhine still exist in the world
and they're not hidden though, they are in vastly reduced
numbers. And ruins from the time when
they were plentiful are still there to keep some piece of the
past alive. The sunken Temple loomed up out

(52:54):
of the grayness as yeah, Andre and duck, leaned upon their
poles and paced slowly from proud to stern, pushing they
passed a marble stair that spiraled up from the mud and
ended jaggedly in are Beyond half, seen what other shapes
shattered spires headless, statues trees with roots bigger

(53:14):
than their boat. Boat.
This was the most beautiful cityon the river and the richest
city, Andre groin the Festival City.
Okay, the past. It's sad but still a Festival
City man. That's a really cool idea.
I really wonder about what that was like this.
Jagged marble staircase we see in that quote and being an empty

(53:37):
air. That's a real poignant image to
be sure at the very least implying, how much larger the
place had once been and the mostbeautiful and richest, imagine
that. But also know what isn't their
fortifications walls? Any sign of Defense those things
weren't destroyed. So much is never present.
In the first place you don't build in Marble because it's

(53:59):
good for warding off enemies. In fact, it's pretty terrible at
that. And the right are built, huge
temples, and palaces and other large buildings in the same
manner using marble and other really cool and beautiful
looking materials of dubious practicality.
Lomez, long Shredder would have had much to write about, had he
not been born so long after it was well-liked, like it is now

(54:24):
Separate from what the City Planning and Building says about
war. The marble tells us another
interesting story, one, consistent with what we've seen
so far all this marble. Had to come from somewhere and
the vastness of the Rhine would offer quite a few nearby sources
is options, big Trade Network, right?
The raw at the network allowed ideas and raw materials alike,

(54:48):
to be shared along the area of the Rolling.
I imagine architectural, secret spread faster building technique
spread faster Because everythingmoves along quickly on a river.
It's just faster than land travel, and people use it so
much. And if it's weird, and if things
aren't shared, then they're at least sold in the area.
They're at least they're, they're least available and

(55:09):
Tyrion passes by a lot of it andgives us an idea.
Well, Tyrion could see with something massive rising from
the river humped and ominous. He took it for a hill, looming
above a wooded island or some colossal Rock, overgrown with
moss and Ferns and hidden by thefog.
As the shy me, Drew nearer, though, the shape of It Came

(55:31):
clearer. I wouldn't keep could be seen
beside the water rotted and overgrown.
Slander spires took form above it.
Some of them snapped off like broken Spears.
Roofless Towers appeared and disappeared thrusting, blindly
upward halls, and galleries drifted past graceful,

(55:51):
buttresses Delicate. Arch has fluted columns,
Terraces and Bowers All ruined, or desolate all Fallen.
The gray Moss grew thickly here,covering Fallen stones and
great, mounds and bearding. All the towers black Vines,

(56:12):
crept in and out of Windows through doors and over, archways
up the sides of the high stone walls.
The fog concealed 3/4 of the palace but what they glimpsed
was more than enough for Tyrion to know that this island
Fasteners had been ten times thesize of the red keep once and
100 times more, beautiful. He knew where he was.

(56:35):
The Palace of love, he said, Softly.
That was the Rhine. Our name said, Holden
Hofmeister. But for a thousand years, this
has been the palace sorrow. The ruin was sad enough, but
knowing what had had been made it even sadder.
There was laughter here. Once Tyrion thought there were

(56:58):
Gardens bright with flowers and fountains sparkling golden, the
Sun These steps once rang to thesound of lovers footsteps and
beneath that broken Dome, marriages Beyond count was
sealed with a kiss. Now, imagine someone saying to
Tyrion tap on the shoulder coming up saying I actually it's
only been the Palace of Sorrow for 700 years.

(57:20):
Not a thousand you think he'd feel less sad.
You think that would matter? Of course not he was thinking a
bit or maybe a lot about Taisha here and his family and all
these other things. He's lost the math on how long
ago is beautiful place was destroyed as irrelevant.
It was a long time ago, the couple couple of years, couple
centuries, give or take does notchange anything anyway.

(57:42):
You look at it. The relevant parts are the love,
and laughter are gone for the Palace of sorrow, and all the
great works of ruin our Beauty. And for Tyrion.
And Taisha, the mother flows on the Rhine are of Fallen.
But mother, Ryan is still there.And perhaps in the coming eons,
our children will flourish as they once did.
She's patient and inexorable andit's certainly not as if her

(58:05):
banks are empty. Now it still did that there's so
much more potential for Life along her vast and varied
shorelines as there. Now, of course, part of that is
due to things like threats nearby, like the Dothraki, the
Eastern side of the Rhine and the Northern Area, it's a bit
threatening, that's a very legitimate thing to worry about.

(58:25):
So, not a lot of people live in that area on the western side,
the Western Bank, that is where the Dothraki won't go, because
they're not so big on Crossing bodies of water.
Well, we're told by Andre quote,there is no law above the
Sorrows, not for a thousand years.
Nola sure. But there are pirates.

(58:46):
Well, that's often where Piratesgo to places where there is no
laws and this includes the infamous shrouded.
Lord. And arguably worse.
Things like the stone men. Not much in the way of safe
havens. Like towns this area of the
upper row in used to belong to volantis and they kept it
reasonably. Well, in hand at least kept away

(59:06):
Pirates and well, there weren't Stone men for a while at least
no one can do anything about them.
But violence is lost all that during the century of blood.
So currently it is not civilized.
Once you get past those super fogs, it's kind of like night
and day. In terms of civilization where

(59:27):
what we just saw is night and where we're headed with this
quote is day. Now the round I should see us.
Clear of the Sorrows said HoldenHoffmeister from there on this
should be a pleasure Cruise. There's a village around every
Bend along the lower Rhine Orchards and Vineyards and
Fields of grain ripening. The sun fisherfolk on the water,

(59:50):
hot baths, sweet, wines. So Loris various are and
voluntary this walled towns. So large they would be cities in
the Seven Kingdoms. In recall.
There are only five true cities in Westeros.
So in this Alone. There are probably like three
white Harbors or three Lana sports or something like that.

(01:00:12):
And there's so much more than that.
That's just one section. They're still volantis one of
the largest cities in the known world.
For example, then consider all the ruined cities, we just
pulled noted past with Tyrion inthe crew of the shy made, and
imagine them full as they once had been.
So the people living on the rowing and just the wrong mind,
you not even the surrounding area, which can support a lot of

(01:00:34):
Life to just that during the height of the row in our city
stays, I think we're talking vastly larger numbers in the
whole of Westeros, probably or close.
Speaking of volantis they claimed Dominion of everything
below, the Sorrows we hear it istheir dollies and control.
It's too much of a tangent you know, to discuss the possible

(01:00:55):
Uprising in volantis. Fully but we're going to touch
on it briefly a couple differentspots here in this episode.
It could get very interesting ifvolantis is thrown into chaos
and their control over this areais lost because it's such an
important valuable place that Port area.
Meanwhile, up in the north, we saw what was going on in the

(01:01:17):
Sorrows, but the ROI is so huge.We didn't actually deal with the
parts farther north of the Sorrows.
The map shows us the area on theworld of Ice and Fire gives us
the details. The headwaters of the rhoynar
controlled by nor vas which is nestled right in there.
So make sense, they would have control of the surrounding area
and Navas, is a really rigid Society.
So I imagine they keep it tight lock on trade and piracy.

(01:01:40):
No, I'm just guessing, but this is a place that Rings bells to
indicate when it's okay to have sex and eat.
So I don't know that I'm stretching things too much here.
Seems like they would have strict attitudes about that.
It doesn't seem like this kind of attitude would have been
prominent when the reuter, We'rerunning the area though.
I don't think they would have been so strict.
They seem more relaxed and peaceful and happy easygoing.

(01:02:03):
Yeah. Who knows north of our Neu?
We have the area controlled by cohort.
We know they deal quite a lot inTimber and Furs and other goods
from the great florist of cohort.
That's a stands to reason havingthe ability to defend their
nearby Waters being important for making sure trade is going
smoothly. But it also, this is a city

(01:02:24):
known for cruelty and possibly human sacrifice and blood magic.
It not unlike what we said aboutnor Voss is probably not what
this area was like, culturally when the rhoynar were around,
but it would be interesting to know if some vestiges of ruin
our civilization influence theseplaces.
Now, it is this area between ourNeu and the Sorrows that we

(01:02:45):
talked about is considered Lawless, but Wallace isn't
always so bad when the alternative is slavery.
Say practice in volantis, norvosand coal or like, And these are
among the so-called the free cities.
Yeah. Though many of the inhabitants
are miserable or dangerous or cruel many are not.

(01:03:07):
And no matter the quality of thepeople's.
There's a lot of Life along the Rhine as we should expect.
There's no reason to think such a fertile, River would cease to
be such. I mean this isn't a shy by the
Shadow, or the whole river is turned it.
Whatever it's turned into out there.
So I guess there's some reason to think this could happen but
it didn't. I suppose we could say, the
people there now are as much or more children of valyria than

(01:03:31):
they are. Children of mother roin I'll see
her in the same light. They see her as a right, not a
privilege. The attitude of allowing others
to share mother ruins Bounty paid off for uncounted years but
eventually it was taken advantage of at first valyria
win. For easier pickings Conquering
the ghiscari, then finally, the N dolls while simply moving in

(01:03:51):
alongside the ruin. Our they were fighting these
other people while just living amongst the rhoynar grabbing the
empty space before they got to the phase of fighting over it
all. The Freehold was strong and
sorcery as we all. Well know, and I wonder how that
came into play when they were building colonies, was it
relevant at all? Maybe not, but it might have

(01:04:13):
helped grow. That might have had something to
do with farming or establishing cities and towns and places the
Rhine are hadn't, maybe, you know, affecting the terrain, I
don't know. There's there's different
possibilities who were talking about large-scale magic, who
knows? And they had eons to do this.
Meaning filling in these gaps where the rowing our weren't.

(01:04:36):
Why didn't the rhoynar live in some of these places that the
valyrians took? I mean, they had thousands of
years to move into the spots andthey never did.
So I that's part of why I'm guessing maybe magic and
something to do with that baby Valeri.
The valyrians had magic that allowed them to settle in areas
at the runner, couldn't, you know?
Turning swamp into something solid who knows?

(01:04:57):
Who knows? And but maybe we're talking,
maybe while we're on the subjectof magic here Melisandre talks
about hinges of the world, a concept that seems to indicate
magic works better in some places than others.
Maybe certain parts of the Rhine, we're more potent than

(01:05:17):
others and that's why the Rhine are picked those specific bends
or turns, or just, who knows howthey In debt.
But that would explain why they lived in some areas on the Rhine
and not others. They definitely have Tales of
water-based sorcery you know kind of like the Fire and Blood

(01:05:37):
Tales of sorcery from valyria and that my fandom family is our
next topic. Coming up after the mid-roll
break, we're going to get into the water magic.
A fierce shout out to our blood Riders.
Versace wielder of a Valyrian steel arakh with a dragon bone.
Hilt and kohal coey called some piercer wielder of a dragon

(01:06:00):
bone, Bo kho. All Kali has kneecapped a client
who dodged calls that were keeping him out of jail.
Honestly, that's rather mercifulif you ask me, Also shout-out to
Sir Terrence night of the Cedarsand the Mangum talks podcast.
Check them out at Mangum talks.com.
That's spelled man, gum talks.com and to our sellsword.

(01:06:24):
Captain's Peter, blaze of the Emerald Isle captain of The
weirwood Wanderers to Long lives.
Quick deaths, cold beer, and warm women, Day Grand Marshal of
the axe, captain of the red tideresistance is futile.
Chiron calls. BeIN captain of the stone
Shields, the torrent breaks uponthe stone.
Hey, Melman. Captain of the whispering.
Children, dead men, tell, no secrets, introducing shepherd,

(01:06:47):
shepherd of essos. All men are sheep before ship
part of essos. He is are true.
Hema ailment of the whispering children.
One day, he shall be Captain lady, Lazar Adagio.
The iron Lily Master Archer castellan of the summer Island.
Keep arboreal Point captain of The all-female Wailing widows
Women & Children. First Cody, the Crimson bastard

(01:07:07):
of bracken captain of the red waste Exiles and recruiter of
the free Folk. Cameron.
The hammer of horn would captainof the English lions with the
motto. Honor is the reward of virtue
Lord, Brandon Brewer of Castle. Black Rune is captain of The
Shadow. Wolves are steel is cold our
Vengeance colder, and last but not least, black Alex, and the
bastard of Spears leader of the Bermuda Vanguard.

(01:07:30):
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(01:08:12):
the cities of the roin and it issaid that people had their own
magic, a water magic, very different from the Sorceress of
valyria which were woven of blood and fire later in the
episode will be discussing War. And in the accounts we have of
those Wars. The term water wizard is used a
couple of times and implied quite a few other times.

(01:08:34):
I think it's a safe assumption that this is awesome.
Instead of fire volcanoes lava sulfur and such we have water
walls, waterspouts floods, harrowing fogs, and swamps and
such. So let's delve into that.
See what there is to see here. It was said the mother ruin
herself whispered to her children of every threat and the

(01:08:55):
rhoynish princes wielded. John Kenny Powers that rhoynish,
women fought as fiercely as rhoynish men and that their
cities were protected by watery walls that would rise to drown
any foe. As it is with anything magical,
the stories are usually inflated.
The maesters don't exactly know how to record magic perfectly

(01:09:16):
right there just because this really what happened.
You know, the measures are a lotof times are against magic so
you know it's a difficult challenge for them to record
these things, but we can Be nonetheless pretty sure that
these stories are real inflated stories doesn't mean made up
stories, right? The part about whispering to her

(01:09:36):
children that bit of the quote about letting them know if
threats that sounds like readingthe future in Flames or
something you know like some kind of foretelling but it could
be something more mundane like Word of Mouth travels faster.
When you have ships to send a messenger boats going back and
forth. That's a lot faster.
And you know on foot or by horse, maybe not faster than

(01:10:00):
Ravens though but still fast enough.
And then we hear the stories of water levels rising and falling
at very specific times. Very opportune times for the
rhoynar. Now, I tend to think a lot of
these stories are more mundane in nature but only some of them

(01:10:22):
because after all, these are people who have lived along the
river for eons, they understand flooding and flooding cycles and
dams and things of that, I thinkthey would Have a very
sophisticated understanding of these Concepts and they would
have some technology like dams and sluice Gates and all sorts
of stuff like imagine riverrun and how they can put up dams and

(01:10:45):
isolate the castle on the river like a giant mode stuff like
that but even more fancy now stuff that's now long destroyed
though. So we wouldn't be able to know
exactly what it is. But also the magic right.
These things can overlap we herenow Of how when the rhoynar
first settled in Dorne that quote, it is said that the

(01:11:07):
ruinous water, which is new secret spells that made dry
streams flow again and deserts bloom.
But this I'm a little skeptical about this.
Sounds like just advanced irrigation techniques like new
technology that the locals weren't familiar with.
Kind of like how your on was called magical by some fellow
ironborn for simply sailing moreefficiently.

(01:11:30):
All right. He went out of sight of land
which the iron more like whoa, what's he doing?
This is sorceress but really, that's just good sailing.
That's just a more advanced technique, nothing magic about
it. And in this case, also, if the
water, which is, were making thedeserts Bloom and making dry
streams flow again. Where is that now, Doran doesn't

(01:11:51):
seem to have evidence of long-term expansion of their
water, right? It's still mostly desert down
there if they could have done that back.
Then either the effect is worn off or they lost the ability to
do it or it was all exaggerated in the first place.
So I think that's knowledge not Magic.
But sometimes within the shadow of mystery lies the possibility

(01:12:15):
for that mundane explanation here.
But other times magic is the only possible explanation Meyer
and flood. Yeah, I was really proud of
myself for this pun. Sorry, on the side of examples
that we can't rationalize away. Here we go.
We have one example here from Prince Garin, the great quote,

(01:12:37):
so long as the Army remain beside mother Roy in the prince
declare, they need not fear, thedragons of valyria, their own
water. Wizards would protect them
against the fires of the Freehold it's entirely possible.
This is not an actual quote, butjust majorly embellishment.
But if it is, the idea that something mundane like just
water, the river could stop dragon flame.
That's a bit over the top. So I think he's referring to

(01:12:59):
real magic. Right water alone gonna stop.
Dragon fire, I don't think so. So earlier we mentioned the lack
of fortifications on the ruined,ruined our cities.
Well, this might Explain the lack of fortifications who needs
real stone walls, when you have so-called watery walls that rise
when you need them. Maybe they weren't so lacks on

(01:13:23):
defense. After all, they just had other
options that maybe we didn't give them credit for it first.
Similarly, we have these Tales of flooding and like I said, a
lot of them seem like they couldbe mundane but some of them are
just undeniably magical. Assuming what we're told is
accurate, the rhoynar didn't enslave people as far as we
know, this is an interesting side topic because what did the

(01:13:46):
ruin our do with captured prisoners is it possible?
They sacrificed enemies to mother rhoyne like Drowning like
the ironborn do. Yeah, we have nothing to suggest
this so I'll guess no. But a recurring theme were
presented with. In Martin's world, is that
great? Magic has great cost, flooding,
whole City's, doesn't sound likea lesser magic, so maybe they're

(01:14:08):
just that powerful. But Maybe they had to offer
something. Maybe it did take blood or
sacrifice of some kind to generate this kind of magic.
I mean, think about the childrenof the forest and their nature
magic. They have, you know, similar
related, kind of Magic. The flooding of the neck is a
perfect example that is attributed to them.

(01:14:31):
And that's water, right? Huge amounts of water.
And there's some tales that maybe there was some blood magic
involved in making that happen. This could be another one of
those cases of magical overlap still, there's no evidence
whatsoever that the running. Our sacrifice people to create
Magic, just started out there though because it parallel so
well with some of these other things that are awfully similar,

(01:14:53):
As we saw in the last section, all those Old Roy in our cities
are mostly below water level nowand that's why Paul boats are
such a great choice in these parts and that reminds us of
braavos. They have all the same kind of
situation there. There's water all over their
city and pull. Those are perfect there.
And hey, braavos is pretty foggy.
To but Bravo's is partly under water because it's been sinking,

(01:15:16):
very gradually volantis says been sinking too.
Well, maybe that's why the ruinsof cities are flooded now, just
because it's been so long and they've gradually sunk under
water. I mean, we can understand why
they're ruined, that's thanks tovalyria but to valyrians use
fire they didn't flood them. As far as we know, it's sad we
said and but we don't see a lot of burn ruins either.

(01:15:38):
They're all just flooded. So, hmm, if there were burned,
burned ruins. Those are either gone or built
over or just something, but the underwater ones are still there.
That's what remains that's what we have.
To see into the past with. Maybe the flooding was caused by
destroyed system of dams or Unleashed, you know, something

(01:15:58):
simple like that. But again, in several cases,
it's the conquerors themselves that are get flooded.
We're not going to guess that valeriya took a city, then blow
the dams up and fled to themselves, right?
That doesn't make any sense. Yeah, I kind of flood their own
people. They're not they may not know
what they're doing with these dams but they're not that dumb
so that's probably not it. Here's an idea.

(01:16:19):
Perhaps like the valyrians sorcerers holding back the Fire
and force of the Fourteen Flameswith sorcery.
Maybe rhoynish water. Wizards prevented mother ruin
from flooding certain spots fromflooding her cities.
And during these wars may be so many of these magic users were

(01:16:40):
killed off. That mother Owen was started to
run rampant again. You know, it wasn't quite the
effective, the volcanoes all blowing up at once, but the
concept is similar, I think you can, you can see that.
I think it's pretty close. And of course, the religious
significance, here is huge. To many it would look like
mother. Ryan was rejecting the

(01:17:01):
newcomers. Flooding them.
They're not her children. After all, they came from
elsewhere. So you can see why Believers
would interpret these natural events as engineered by their
goddess. But whatever the truth of the
runner capabilities. They're like I said with the
dornish deserts, there's not a lot of hint of it existing.

(01:17:23):
Now we don't see any of it in the song of ice and fire but
magic is on the upswing in the series, isn't it?
So maybe we will see it because,well, if we did, this would be
the time soon or near the end orand then whatever the last two
books, whatever we get And I saylittle sign of it literally.

(01:17:43):
Meaning there is some, it's not all gone, and it might turn out
to be a big part of the story. So let's talk about that.
The gray, death Tyrion 5, A Dance with Dragons damper said
to be the culprit. He said foul humors in the are
not curses. The Congress did not believe

(01:18:04):
either. He were Hill said, he Scylla the
man of volantis and valyria Hungarian in a golden cage and
made mock as he called upon his mother to destroy them.
But in the night the waters Roseand drowned them and from that
day to this, they have not rested.
They are down there. Still beneath the water.
They who are once the Lords of fire, they're called breath

(01:18:24):
rises from the Merc to make these frogs.
And their flesh has turned a Stony as their hearts.
The stump of Tyrion to nose was itching fiercely.
He gave to scratch, the old woman, may be right.
This place is no good grayscale.Well, it's definitely a fantasy
disease, so my calling it magical holds up, right?

(01:18:46):
Especially with tyrion's Sense on the matter slowly turning
into a stone person that attackspeople.
Yeah, that's that's fantasy and it does remind us a bit of
what's going on in North. Not the north of the Rhine,
which I've been referring to you, but The north of Westeros,
the normal North that we talked about.
Don't forget that Val, normally kind of flip it person.

(01:19:06):
Adamantly declares that Shireen is a dead.
Girl Val is rarely serious. But this is one of those times,
John says, during was cured of it.
She only has scarring, Val says it's only sleeping.
She says, quote, the child is not clean the wildlings, call it
the gray death. That's a nasty, your name.

(01:19:27):
Imagine it Awakening in poor Shireen and her Coming a little
girl Stone man. Who Stone?
Girl? If Serena is going to be burned
bring back John hey she's the stone.
He's the dragon awaken dragons from Stone not going to work if
it's decided Shireen has to die because of her infection.

(01:19:49):
Well, peaches infecting people that would be a reason to have
to regrettably put her down sounds harsh.
But Melisandre could suggest this would give her death more
meeting like we have to put her to death, She's infecting people
but we could benefit from it at the same point, you know.
This strikes me as more plausible than burning her for

(01:20:10):
you know really bad weather but we're talking about a different
kind of crap weather here in on the Rhine we have creepy fog.
That are kind of magical and, you know, these, the water
moving in certain ways. It doesn't really make sense.
Exactly. So we've got the same kind of
natural magic going on bad snow storms, bad fogs different part

(01:20:36):
of the world. On that note, we have magical
evidence Beyond grayscale, though.
She mentions the drowning of many men from volantis and
valyria and the fog. Yeah, here we go.
Let's talk about this fog. It's unnatural to the lanterns
had been lit for and aft, but the fog was so thick that all
the dwarf could see from amidships was a light floating

(01:20:57):
out ahead of him. And another following behind his
own task, was, to tend the Brazier and make certain that
the fire did not go out. I will remind you again, the
Tyrion is a fairly grounded guy,but he's willing to believe
quite a lot in this case, because his own senses and
thoughts are pointing to a conclusion that this is Magic.

(01:21:19):
This is real, and this is frightening and it's about to
get worse. This is no common folk who got
Hill. He still insisted it stinks of
sorcery, as you would know, if you had a nose to smell it, many
of Voyager has been lost here. Paul.
Boats and Pirates and Great River galleys to they wander
forlorn. Do the myths, searching for a

(01:21:40):
son. They cannot find until Madness
or hunger claim their lives. There are restless spirits in
the air here and tormented Soulsbelow the water.
There's one now. So Tyrion off to starboard a
hand large enough to crush. The boat was reaching up from
the murky depths only the tops of two fingers broke the river

(01:22:01):
surface, but does the shy made. He's Don passed.
He could see the The upper hand Rippling below the water and a
pale face looking up though, histone was light, he was uneasy.
This was a bad place rank with Despair and death is still has
not wronged. This fog is not natural.

(01:22:22):
Something foul, grew in the waters here and festered in the
air. Small.
Wonder the stone men, go mad is that really a stone Valerian or
volunteen person down there thathe's seeing like a their final
pose as they died. I could be a statue that could
be a dead Snowman. No I can see it go either way

(01:22:42):
and the fact that we don't know that mystery makes it even
cooler and creepier it's great writing, great decision making
by George on how to lay this out.
But even that isn't as overtly magical as this next bit.
It's one of the most overtly magical things.
We see in the whole series, something that even a skeptic

(01:23:04):
can't explain away something that the half Meister, who is a
bit of a skeptic calls inconceivable like The Princess
Bride. On the labboard side of the boat
a huge stone hand was visible. Just below the water, two
fingers, broke the surface. How many of those are there?

(01:23:25):
Tyrion wondered a trickle of moisture and down his spine and
made him shudder the Sorrows drifted by them peering Through
The Mists, he glimpsed a broken Spire, a headless hero, an
ancient tree, torn from the ground and upended.
It's huge Roots twisting throughthe roof and windows of a broken
do. Why does all of this seem so

(01:23:48):
familiar? Straight on a tilted stairway of
pale marble, rose up out of the Dark Water and a graceful,
spiral ending abruptly, 10 feet,above their heads.
No, Tyrion thought that is not possible.
This is the scene where the homeof the stone, man.

(01:24:09):
The bridge of dream, a spot they've already passed comes
again. The passage is really well
written and hits us with quite the surprise.
This kind of overt magic is not what we're accustomed to.
So It really kind of comes out of nowhere and it tells us there
is Magic on the Rhine, and therecan be little doubt of it.
It drew if you hadn't gotten it by that point in those chapters.

(01:24:29):
If this is like George is makingsure that we get it here.
And as I said earlier, in this section, the Magical elements
are picking up as we go deeper into the Epic of A Song of Ice
and Fire. And we're learning more about
Dorn and we'll probably spend more time there in the Winds of
Winter than we have before. So we might see some of this or

(01:24:50):
something else like it after all, grayscale came around as
they say because of garin's curse, which may not be true.
But regardless they say it and it matters that they say this it
came after Garrett had lost thisfinal war against Bolivia.
His moment. His curse came in this waning
moments of the war when he was forced to watch his people die

(01:25:11):
and be enslaved. This is the same war that
featured much of the magic. We've just discussed along with
the magic of the Freehold and there.
Against this, is that same war that left, the cities of the
Rhine that Tyrion just saw in the state.
They are now and it's the same war that led to nine areas,
great Odyssey. And of course, the winners of

(01:25:31):
this great series of Wars was valyria, who are now gone and
volantis, who are still there and very powerful.
But in the descriptions, we get of volantis.
It's clear that this power of theirs is waning, we mentioned
the strong possibility of a slave revolt and it's Worse than
that because said, slave revolt,if it happens is not unlikely to

(01:25:53):
be backed by the Temple of real,or obviously, not a force to be
taken lightly and the worshippers of real, or have
their largest temple in volantis.
So they have a huge presence there, Tyrion and Quentin both.
Go there in person to volantis and notice the rot, the Decay,
the corruption, The Great Divideand rights between rich and

(01:26:15):
poor, even setting aside slaverythat divided.
Here's a, quote, the tells us about it.
Tyrion 7A Dance with Dragons, Mighty volantis grandest and
most populous of the nine free cities.
Ancient Wars had a populated much of the city.
However and large areas of Atlantis had begun to sink back

(01:26:36):
into the mud on which it, stood,beautiful, volantis city of
flowers and fountains but half fountains or dry.
Half the pools cracked and stagnant flowers.
In Vines sent up creepers from every crack in the wall or
pavement and young trees are taken root in the walls of
abandoned shops. And roofless temples sinking

(01:26:59):
into the mud. That's some straightforward
symbolism for the decline. I mentioned and the rest of
description leaves, no doubt. As to that the quote mentions
ancient Wars. Also, that would mostly be those
wars during the century of blood, but those as far back as
the conflicts, with the Our might have an impact as well,

(01:27:21):
Fight Fire with water. So we've already talked about
Garin skirts and the ruins of the rowing, our cities and a lot
of what it's like now. But we haven't talked about the
wars that triggered the curse and caused the ruination.
So let's rewind a bit. Oh, that was bad.
Right after. Conquering, the ghiscari, the

(01:27:41):
valyrians turned West. As slavers Bay is pretty far to
the East. And for a while Beyond it is
mostly desert. Not as much worth.
Conquering over there, they started settling alongside the
runner, like we said earlier, just settling, not fighting
because well, the wrong number welcoming.
They allow this to happen. So no need to fight for
something that's being given to you.
Also, there were easier pickingsto the north.

(01:28:03):
The and also we mentioned earlier So instead of attacking
the runner cities, they just lived their founding their own
cities in relative peace, nearbywhile sending armies North to
conquer and enslave the N dolls in the opening, quote of the
episode. We hear that there's gold in
that area where the end all is used to live which we know the
valyrians lust for like they do in their minds.
Ironically this led to the and Al's fleeing to Westeros where

(01:28:27):
they would eventually find the rhein are showing up looking for
Refuge fleeing from the same threat, many centuries later.
Living alongside the rhoynar eventually caused issues as we
know. But these issues started slowly
and gradually at first, there were small conflicts usually
resolved quickly. But over time, the conflicts

(01:28:48):
grew bloodier and involve progressively larger numbers of
soldiers, more people involved until it was eventually like a
full-scale fair. The Rhine are verse the Freehold
the earliest violence began about 250 years before nymeria
led the survivors away in their tents.
Thousand ships. So yeah, 250 years before the
worst of the violence occurred, like I said, it took a while to

(01:29:10):
get going in, this was indeed a slow burn, but it also means
that under nymeria and Garin thegreat and all their
contemporaries, they had been living under and directly facing
the threat of valerian expansionfor Generations.
They grew up in this situation, it wasn't something that
happened during their lifetimes.They were born into it, the
peaceful idyllic history, we Glimpse through tyrion's Journey

(01:29:32):
Down, mother Rowan was already athing of the past.
Prior to nightmare is day. They were already in this sort
of state of. I don't know.
Decline may not be the right word, but it wasn't as
prosperous. It wasn't as say safe for
peaceful. There's probably a shadow
hanging on the horizon. Before the conflict with
valyria, it seems they never faced a threat anywhere near as

(01:29:53):
remotely dangerous or greedy or cruel as the Freehold whatever
had come before. They had managed to defeat.
But even though the Freehold eventually took them down, it
wasn't directly them. Who got it started.
Not if we're being precise. It was volantis, volantis Drew
valyria into it. But originally, it was simply

(01:30:16):
those valyrians who had settled along.
Ryan, they were the trigger tigers and elephants the two
political parties of the line. Just to this day, are the tigers
and elephants. And they can tell us a lot about
how these clashes began. The tigers are the old blood of
Leiria. They tend to look down on those
who aren't, and don't marry Outsiders to not, you know,

(01:30:37):
water down the Bloodlines and asa political body, they're what
we call at least here in the US.A war hawks, a different animal,
similar point. They both favor military
intervention and the Tigers case, it's particularly cynical.
As it's a largely a means to expand and enrich their city or
more likely themselves. The elephants are also enriching

(01:30:58):
the city or more likely themselves but they push this
through trade and mercantilism which make no mistake can be
very ugly, brutal and cruel and they trade in human beings, but
they don't trade in War ll, theydon't push forward.
I'm sure they're fine to profit off of it, but they also don't
care nearly as much about old blood, so they're bad.
Not as bad as the Tigers. These two parties took over

(01:31:20):
after the doom and it seems likely they existed prior to
that though, just with less power valyria is unlikely to
have been involved in the day-to-day Affairs of volantis
member. Before I talk about how volantis
would have been important, but, you know, still kind of rustic
and Rural. So they're not going to get too
involved in local politics, likemany empires which do, you know,

(01:31:41):
they weren't really an Empire but they were close enough to an
Empire. They would expect taxes and
troops and Allegiance. As long as I got that they're
not really going to care about local politics tigers and
elephants who cares? They got Sorcerers and dragon
lord and volcanoes to worry about but still the point is the
tigers and elephants were probably a major factor in
Volant volunteer politics beforethey became the major factor in

(01:32:04):
volunteen politics. So the Tigers led volantis to
near ruin as they overreach during the century of blood and
the volunteers learned a lesson about conquest and War.
I strongly believe Atlantis had their Collective heads in the
past At this time yet, it was selective memory because they
somehow forgot the historical lesson of dragons, which was

(01:32:24):
they had success when valyria was there to back up them in
these wars? Because a lot of times it's said
that when things went badly for them, they called in, you know,
the big boys back at the Freehold and that got them out
of the fire. Well, I got them into the fire
but that was a good thing anyway.
The reason volantis comes out ontop in the long term after all.

(01:32:47):
This is for a couple of reasons.It's the disunity of the ROI in
our cities at first was a big part and the fact that they were
willing to be more cruel and dastardly, but once the Royal
tart unite, they started winninguntil the dragons got involved
until lots of dragons got involved.
So I think the tiger faction back in ancient days, the

(01:33:09):
trigger these, when these conflicts were triggered.
I think the elephants were Ones who were like.
Yeah, let's live alongside them and trade with them.
Let's just do that. That's great.
That makes us money. We were all benefit from that
the Tigers though, know that I wasn't cool with them.
They want to conquer. That's just how they are.
They pushed they provoked. They escalated, you name it.
They wanted to fight. They thought they could win and

(01:33:31):
they were right. This may be part of why the
tiger faction Rose to prominencein the early days, following the
Doom. After the Doom things didn't go
well for volantis, but it took decades for things to go bad.
We at first it went well in other words War had worked out
well for them in the past. So why not keep up that
tradition? The Tigers were doing, well,

(01:33:52):
leading them to victories. Why not let the Tigers lead them
to more victories? Well because they didn't have
dragons backing them anymore. That's why, you know fought
against volantis when they triedto take over Larry's,
possessions during the century of blood, aegon the Conqueror
and he's one of them kind of by their standards, they prize the

(01:34:13):
old blood, Didn't his blood is better than theirs.
You know, again by their standards is blood of the Dragon
versus just you know blood behind the Black Walls, whatever
they call that the elephants have ruled volantis since the
Tigers great failure. They're like, well, I'm not
gonna let them screw us over like that again because in
politics failure is partisan. The elephants are the winners

(01:34:35):
they have been doing well, they've been bringing great
profits to the city. Why would anyone want to mess
with that? Well, well, let me tell you
until now, things might be changing.
It may be that the Tigers are inpower.
Again, we do not yet know, the result of the recent volunteen
elections, which we saw taking place in a dance of dragons, but

(01:34:58):
the city is getting ready for war.
We here even that the elephants have stripes which is a,
obviously, a way of saying that the elephants are acting like
tigers which means they're acting warlike and their target
of This is Daenerys Targaryen another parallel to nymeria
here, and like, aegon the Conqueror, she has better blood

(01:35:22):
than these volunteers who are all hoity-toity about being, you
know, ancient blooded. So, also like the century of
blood, like, egg on volantis is going to have to deal with a
Targaryen on a huge black dragon.
Will they ever learn? And even though she's directly
related to egg on the first Danny, again is much more like

(01:35:45):
nymeria here as she is like hangon despite being at that same
quote, unquote, better bloodlinethen the Black Walls of Atlantis
families. Danny is their enemy because
she's smashing the slave trade and eventually, she'll probably
smash them if they don't get themselves smashed some other
way before she gets chance to doit.

(01:36:06):
What a change. What a reversal that is.
And yet volantis still has theirCollective heads in their ass.
I mean, past not only did they try to conquer vast swaths of
essos without dragons and fail. Not only did they face a dragon
and fail? They are set to run that all
back again. Well, also facing a possible
slave revolt. Thanks to the red priests I

(01:36:28):
mentioned earlier, and don't forget that these red priests
are openly calling Daenerys as Aura.
Hi, good luck. Ordering zealots to stand by.
While you attack their literal savior, the city and the Navy of
the Dentists are full of real orworshipping slaves.
Volantis is screwed folks. I believe we're going to see it
fall and fall spectacular, Ali. I've seen it compared to

(01:36:51):
Atlantis. The name is similar and Atlantis
sunk into the sea as volantis isalready doing slowly as we saw
in the quote. But despite ruin our magic
though, and the fact that so many of the cities of the Rhine
are flooded. I don't know, that I'd guess
flooding will do in, volantis I expect it will burn.
Whether it sinks down or burns up or both, either way, it's

(01:37:13):
kind of facing. Its own sort of mini Doom
somewhere, close on the horizon and the children of mother.
Roin may have some small measureof Revenge for what was done to
them long ago and what was done to them long ago, all started
over a turtle and in a sense Song of Ice and Fire started on
Turtles to on NPR. After George mentioned, how he

(01:37:36):
imagined his pet turtles is Knights and kings and
interviewer. Ask him, wait a minute.
Are you telling me that the original model for the warring
houses of Stark and Lannister were two turtles and George said
yes. Turtles and spices, the rhoynar
themselves showed little interest in expansion.

(01:37:58):
The river was their home, their mother and their God and few of
them wish to dwell beyond the sound of her Eternal song.
When adventurers Exiles and Traders from the Freehold of
valyria began to expand beyond the lands of the long summer,
after the end of the fifth ghiscari War, the rhoynish,
prince has embraced them at first and their priests glad

(01:38:19):
that all men were welcomed to share in the Bounty of mother.
I mean, as those first Valyrian outposts grew into towns and
those towns into cities, however, some rhoynar came to
regret the forbearance of their fathers Amity gave way to emnity
particularly upon the Lower River with the ancient city of
San Mel and the Wold Valyrian Townville on the Terrace faced

(01:38:42):
each other across the waters. And on the shores of the summer
sea, with a free city of Atlantis soon.
Rivaled the storied Port of Sorrow Joy.
Each of them Landing one of mother Owens for mouths.
Stage is set. We're given the names of the
players who got it going? Sorry, Mel versus voluntary sand

(01:39:02):
volantis versus sorry. Why are the big names?
But clearly went beyond those for those two sets of Rivals,
proximity was an issue. They appear to have competed
over trade opportunities, probably among other things.
Maybe fishing got crowded or disrupted by industry.
There's lots of things neighborscould fight over and we see how
both traditional major ruler types, the princes and the
priests both were welcoming Outsiders, which is about as

(01:39:24):
strong as an endorsement. So, we can get when the to, you
know, most uplifted parts of society or saying, yes, do this.
Then that's that's a really strong endorsement.
So it's basically policy but again, they're all these things
neighbors can fight over policy,doesn't mean that things are
actually working out that well, on the ground floor, the princes
and Priests wanted to believe this would work out, but it may

(01:39:45):
not have been so smooth for the Common People disputes between
the citizens of the Rival citiesbecame ever more common and
ever, more rancorous finally giving To a series of short but
bloody wars Star, Mel and Valen.Theris were the first cities to
meet in battle, Legend claims that The Clash began.
When the valyrians netted and butchered one of the gigantic

(01:40:07):
Turtles. The rhoynar called the old men
of the river and held sacred as the consorts of mother roin
herself. The first Turtle War, lasted,
less than a moons turn. Sorry Mel was raided and burned.
Yet emerged Victorious, when rhoynish water Wizards called up
the power of the river. River and flooded voluntarist

(01:40:27):
half the city was washed away. If the Tails can be believed, we
talked about the turtles causingWars earlier and here we are.
It may have been as simple as some, you know, unknowing
Valyrian fisherman. Just killing the turtle without
realizing how much it meant though.
Seriously how would be hard as hell to kill one of those
things? I think it would take a lot of
people to do that. Mario and Luigi would be

(01:40:49):
valyrians for sure. Father, fighting Turtles.
I wonder if The water Wizards have their own form of for
telling I talked about that earlier, some way of seeing in
the future, like the greenseers,and the priests of real, or
gazing into the flame, why not gazing into mother roin, right?
It's a pretty cool place to see Visions.
Actually, this is a fun idea to play with.
So did they see these wars coming?
In other words, did they see their own fall?

(01:41:12):
Did they see their own City's flooded and ruined, they seem
nymeria in Dorne. What did that mean to them?
If they saw that? Did they see the stone man?
Did they see the Doom of valyriain the Future and misread it as
their own eventual victory. Lot of possibilities.
Here is very fertile ground for fun, theorizing, and perhaps

(01:41:35):
we'll learn more someday. You know, there's more to come,
there's Fire and Blood Part 2 and there's more books coming.
He met delve deeper into some ofthis stuff, but for now, we do
know that this proximity continue to cause friction.
So we'll work with that all the rules followed, however, the war
of three princes, the second Turtle War, the Fisherman's
Wharf salt War, the third TurtleWar, the war on dagger Lake the

(01:41:58):
spice Or and many more too numerous to recount here.
Cities and towns were burned. Drowned we built thousands were
killed or enslaved and these conflicts.
The valyrians emerged as Victor's more often, than not,
the princes of the roin fiercelyproud of their independence
fought alone whilst the Valyriancolonies aided one another and

(01:42:20):
when hard-pressed called upon the power of the Freehold
itself. That's a great name for the
right spice War, not unlikely tobe a nod to And by the way,
where the spice must flow is a major part of the story.
It's very valuable. And so is real spices though.
Real world spices and spices from essos, very valuable.

(01:42:41):
So, it could be a fight over money and it could be both the
warm three. Princes, that's a cool name.
Sounds interesting. And very didn't have princes, so
maybe this is one of those rare cases where multiple rhoynish
city states joined together. But obviously, I'm just guessing
and earlier, I made the point about volantis needing help
sometimes right knowing that they could count On it when
needed. And that was mentioned here.
That's where kind of where I gotthe idea.

(01:43:03):
And what form did that help comein.
Well, usually it would probably be money or soldiers.
Sometimes it might involve Sorcerers of the Freehold and
certainly they were sometimes dragons.
We're not sure how often though getting dragons involved might
have been rare you know it's what I suspect and here's why
when the war's Reach the TurningPoint?

(01:43:23):
Look what happened? This series of conflicts,
reached a bloody climax, A Thousand Years.
And the second spice War when three Valyrian dragonlords
joined with their kin and cousins and volantis to
overwhelm sack and destroys our Hoy, the great rhoynar Port City
upon the summer. See the Warriors of Sorrow
Hawaii. Were slaughtered savagely, their

(01:43:46):
children, carried off into slavery and they're proud pink
City. Put to the torch afterward the
volunteen, sewed. The smoking ruins with salt.
So that's our boy might never rise again.
A brutal breakthrough for volantis and I suspect it may
have been the first time the dragonlords got directly

(01:44:06):
involved. If not one of the first is not
hard to see why. Either, if we look closely, it
only took three dragons to destroy a huge City where
presumably before armies hadn't been enough to do that.
Right there were told that what happened to sorrow?
I shocked the rhoynar because other large cities hadn't been
destroyed. So it stands to reason that They

(01:44:28):
weren't able to destroy these large cities until dragons got
involved. We would have another words we
would have already seen a large range of city destroyed with
Dragons involved and there's more though these dragonlords by
and large we can assume they were absurdly absurdly wealthy
what with Conquest paying them tribute looting, those conquests
in the first place, mining operations and then their

(01:44:51):
ancestors doing all of that for who knows how long and storing
up all this wealth to pass on totheir descendants just Huge,
huge on calculable amounts of money.
So in other words, if you're trying to get a Valyrian
dragonlord interested in your business venture, your
money-making Venture, it's got to be pretty outstanding to get
their attention. It's not going to be worth their

(01:45:11):
time otherwise and the case of Sorrow here really shows what
the valyrians were after. That wealth was a primary
driver. Of course we have plenty of
evidence that valyrians were just Lusty about wealth are very
greedy as a people. So think about what this meant
for volantis, they would have full control over the mouth of

(01:45:33):
the Rhine now not necessarily full control.
I mean let me copy at that a little by saying there's four
mouths to the Rhine but they'd be the only city on any of those
mouths with sorrow aegon's. It was just them those two
before and with with sorrow egg on it was just the one now
recall. What I said from the manderley
episodes and other episodes about How the mouth of a river

(01:45:57):
is really valuable for trade. Now, consider how much vastly
larger the rowing is than the Mander or the white knife and
how much bigger esos is than Westeros.
You get the largest river in theworld with all that River trade
and all that sea trade, it mightbe the single most valuable like
City location anywhere and if not it's probably really close.

(01:46:21):
It's most certainly in that absurdly wealthy.
Worried that might need to get the valyrians attentions.
It's kind of similar in that. It's like, those endless Minds
because it's the utterly cynicaland greedy exploitation of a
natural resource, right? Volantis literally destroyed the
competition in an extremely lucrative spot.

(01:46:44):
Both sides could have you need to make out really well.
They could have coexisted in made.
Lots of money and done really well just by each other's
presence. There was enough to go around
but nope, the powers that be behind the Black Walls.
I wanted it all and got valyria on board with destroying sorrow
Joy, which made all the difference if volantis and
sorrow had a child, it might be a bit like nymeria sand, who is

(01:47:08):
the daughter of Oberyn Martell and a lady of volantis from a
family high and nobility. Among those permitted to live
behind the Black Walls. Interestingly nymeria may have
been named by her mother. The tale of the affair between
this woman in the Red, Viper would probably be a fun.
Pale and good chance. It took place when he was in
essos with the sellsword companythat he formed and ran for a

(01:47:31):
while nymeria is an elegant woman and very vengeful from
what we've seen so far, she called for the deaths of Tywin,
Jaime Cersei and Tom. And after hearing of her
father's death, she's pretty dangerous with knives,
apparently 200. And she's headed to the small
Council to take up her father's seat, with myrcella in tow.

(01:47:51):
No big deal. Nothing could go wrong here.
Garden Theory. All right.
A little detour here is needed before we continue with these
wars. We love talking about the
history but as always the reasonwe talk about the history is
also mostly because it's really fun.
But because it teaches us thingsabout the future.
I've talked about that a lot this episode and that's because

(01:48:13):
it comes up so much. You know, I bet a lot of people
thought an episode on my mirror would be fun, but you probably
didn't realize how much relevance it has to so many
different ongoing story lines. Here's another one.
There's another Here to be told with regards to the destruction
of Sorrow Joy, which is why I can't tell it later.
We can talk about it now, even though it interrupts are Wars,

(01:48:34):
but because the structure of Sorrow is seems really similar
to something that a lot of people have theorized is coming,
so it might be foreshadowing, other words an important detail,
George r.r. Martin mentioned about sorrow,
Joy, a city, overlooking the seais that it has Salt Water
Gardens, and the city itself is made of pink, marble the Water
Gardens of darn Overlook the seaand are made of pink.

(01:48:55):
Marble does? This matter is that just some
common details? Well, what I like to do in
cases, like this is. Look at how unique these common
traits are. If there's a lot of pink marble
out there than this is probably meaningless.
Pink, marble appears in a few other places along the rowing
and there's mention of some envelopes near valyria, but that
was wiped out by the doom and there are no other mentions in

(01:49:18):
Westeros and none anywhere else.Period accepting ruins.
So the Water Gardens of Dorne are the Lee standing pink.
Marble structure were told aboutin the Known World, The Water
Gardens of Dorne were made for Daenerys.
Was the desert too hot for her. It is, is it meant to be
symbolic that the desert was toohot even for a dragon.

(01:49:39):
None other than meraxes. He's was slain in Dorne at the
hell, Holt a very hot sounding place.
And it is So the Water Gardens of Dorne are filled with
children, many of whom are nobles.
Noble children, tend to make good hostages and the people of
Sorrow are we're enslaved when it was destroyed.
As for house, our whole day was destroyed.

(01:50:01):
It was burned mostly. So it seems by Three Dragons.
So what am I saying? Well, I think the Water Gardens
are going to be destroyed quite possibly by fire not necessarily
by dragons but that's on the table too.
Especially if door insides with egg on the 6th over Daenerys
making them her enemy which is itself not unlikely given Danny

(01:50:22):
may be blamed for Quentin's death right and egg on the 6 has
to jump on her. He's there already already
making a lasagna About to talk to Aryan already starting
things. We're while Daenerys is in the
Dothraki sea. So if we're right about this and
there's more to consider those kids will probably be taken
hostage but it could get ugly. My not might be some casualties

(01:50:43):
along the way. Doran Martell may very well be
there to watch the worst like maybe a bit, like are in the
Great instead of watching the kids play, he might have to
watch them. Well you know let that sink in
like volantis is sinking will learn who has good fortune in
the wars to come later, though. Let's get back.
Wars that have already come and remember, to keep our eyes and

(01:51:05):
ears peeled for more clues as toFuture plots.
Like this one, the lands of Ice and Fire Maps, reveal that
Daenerys passes through going and row, not long after leaving
pentose on our way to vaes dothrak with Khal Drogo.
Tyrion follows the same path when he leaves.
Pentose with lirio to meet up with a shy made and head on down
river. But curiously there's a Valyrian

(01:51:29):
Road running from pentos to go and row a city tea.
Korean notes was destroyed by dragons.
Since the valyrians, probably didn't build a road from pentos
to a ruin. What does that mean?
Did the rhoynar and valyrians here get along?
So, well that the valyrians built this road to share with
them Garin the great since the rhoynar were so independent.

(01:51:53):
And the histories aren't as detailed as they could be, we
only know of two great rhoynar figures who were United.
Their people one of course is nymeria and she was extremely
successful with it. The other came right before her
and directly contributed to the circumstances that nymeria,
enter people found themselves inbefore she unified them.
This first person was Prince, Garin of crying and he rose to
prominence after the destructionof Sorrow.

(01:52:13):
Joy? Finally something had gotten
through to the overly independent rhoynar that they
needed to band together or in. Karen's words quote, we shall
all be slaves unless we join together to end this threat.
Only nine areas spoke against him.
Not the banding together was a bad idea, but that they could
not win this war, he intended tostart.
She must have advocated for peace, perhaps arguing that, I

(01:52:34):
don't know. They could use a piece to buy
time to come up with a better long-term solution, but even her
own warriors, were against her. They kind of shouted, her down
in a sense. And she relented to
overwhelmingly popular opinion. Garin's plan would be carried
out. We don't know a lot about him,
he was a warrior Prince and as ruler of Croix, and he was
clearly wealthy and Powerful. Giving his city was considered

(01:52:56):
the greatest on the Rhine given the later curse famously name
for him. He may have been a known water
Wizard or at least a I don't know damp wizard Wet Willie, I
don't know. What do you call that a line
from ferriero for Ells play? Rough of the dragonlords has
Prince Garin saying, quote, it shall go ill for any man who

(01:53:17):
fails me which hints at an imperious personality, but this
is just a play. And also may have related to
some sense of urgency like, hey,we all got to do this right?
Or we're all doomed, so no screw-ups, that kind of thing.
And enduring comparison, though is Dark Star who himself
disparages garan is a bit of a loser because he led a quarter

(01:53:37):
Million men to their deaths yet,ironically Darkstar, wanted to
kill myrcella to start a war against the Iron Throne, which
would probably be a disaster forDorne.
In both cases, we have a men clamoring for war against a
superior foe, like nymeria speaking up against Karen,
Arianne was against dark stars plan to start a war but both
Geraldine and Garen. The great got their wish War

(01:53:58):
hasn't come to Dorne yet to be clear to be fair and more cells
injury. May not cause it directly, but
war is coming to door in one wayor the other and the descendants
of Of the wrong in our will suffer if I won't go bad right
away. I mean, Michael, well, for a
time, obviously, we can't expectthis kind of parallel, be too
perfect but that is what happened for Guerin and his
army. He gathered them all at his
Festival City, not the typical Festival but it would have been

(01:54:20):
a spectacle. Nonetheless all those soldiers
and ships because he's put the huge hose into three parts and
March South towards the Valyriancities.
One part of the army was on the western side, another on the
East and the third was a fleet, sweeping the river.
Clean will let the world of Ice and Fire.
Up the tail from here. That's of Horace.
He won his first battle overwhelming, a Valyrian Army,

(01:54:43):
30,000 strong, and taking the City by storm Valley.
Psalm at the same fate at Valen,theris Garin found himself
facing 100,000 foes, 100 war, elephants.
And three dragonlords here to heprevailed though at Great cost,
thousands burned, but thousands more sheltered in the shallows

(01:55:03):
of the river, whilst there, Wizards raised, enormous,
waterspouts, Against the first dragons rhoynish archers brought
down to of the Dragons. Whilst the third fled wounded in
the aftermath mother roin Rose in raged swallow voluntarist.
That's another example of the flooding being large and clearly

(01:55:24):
in favor of the Rhine are right.The timing was right in their
favor, right? During the war.
Also have this mention of these huge armies hundred elephants to
what a sight to imagine another awesome visual All image there.
I think about that for a minute,but given all the consideration
regarding the future of dany's dragons.
The idea that rhoynish archers brought down two of them is

(01:55:47):
eyebrow-raising. See, eyebrows are up perhaps
these archers actually used. You know, large scorpion bolts
and something that weren't really arrows are bigger like a
giant Heroes, but if we're talking actual normal arrows,
there could be sorcery. Helping the aim, the bow, the
arrows are all three kind of like what people accuse
bloodraven of doing with his gunshots at the red grass field.

(01:56:10):
If something to wonder about though, for sure, either way,
and I say that because during the dance of the Dragons regular
archers didn't do much at all the dragons.
There's one case of a dragon being killed by an arrow to the
eye and that was a case of Mercy.
The dragon to sorry--and was already dying and thus not
exactly a hard target still. It took Lord Blackwood best

(01:56:30):
Archer who had to fire three shots in the dragon's eye to
finish her and she was kind of on the younger side.
She wasn't even like a big adultdragon.
Point being dragons are hard to kill with regular arrows.
So I'm suspicious. Perhaps this is a major factor
as to how the war escalated as well.
They're off term and began to name the Victorious, Prince

(01:56:53):
Garin the grapes and it is said that in volantis great, Lords
trembled in Terror as his host Advanced rather than face him in
the field of the volunteers retreated, back behind their
black walls and appealed to the Freehold for help.
What I mean is Maybe they told certain connected families that
their Holdings in volantis and thus great wealth was at risk.

(01:57:14):
Maybe the Freehold didn't like the idea of dragons being
defeated. They don't want people saying
that you can't have word spreading that our dragons were
beaten, right? Whatever the reason was
whatever. Got the moving the appeals for
help were heard and the dragons came not three as Prince, Garin
had faced set voluntarist, but 300 or more.

(01:57:37):
If the tales that have come downto us can Believed against their
fires, the rhoynar could not stand.
Tens of thousands. Burnt, whilst others rushed into
the river. Hoping that the Embrace of
mother, roin would offer them protection against dragon flame
only to drown in their mother's Embrace, some chroniclers insist

(01:57:57):
that the fires burned. So hot that the very Waters of
the river boiled, and turned to steam.
Even in these seemingly obscure stories, we see something that
might be in A Song of Ice and Fire clue.
Which is part of the fun in delving deep with Song of Ice
and Fire history. Three Dragons is a deliberate
Choice by George r.r., Martin. He could have made the number of
the counting 45 would not have been right out, not at all

(01:58:21):
princess nymeria. Prince Garin, not King Arthur
but also the notion of hiding inthe water.
No, not the Lady of the Lake. I keep, I refer to avoiding
dragonflay. My notion that's been around
since Danny's house of the undying Visions.
Let me remind you all of a key line from said, Visions, quote
beneath the mother of mountains,a lie, Of naked groans crept
from a great lake and knelt shivering before her.

(01:58:43):
They're great heads bowed, this appears to be the Crown's of the
dosh, Killeen kneeling in submission before Danny and I've
long believed, like, many othersthat they take shelter in the
lake when she came on them with Dro guns fire.
So, you can see why I'm making this connection here.
And, of course, we have this also from Danny, quote, 10,000

(01:59:04):
slaves, lifted blood-stained hands as he raced by on her
silver writing, like the wind mother, they cried mother
mother. They were reaching for her,
10,000 slaves, 10,000 ships, full of people who would have
been enslaved. I think we have another
parallel, ladies and germs. Holman tens of thousands of
others did not escape. And we're enslaved, probably a

(01:59:27):
lot more than tens of thousands really malaria had quite a cruel
windfall, and the Palaces of thewealthy, would soon be filled
with the children of the wrong. Not only orphaned, but enslaved
and in a Land of great Heat and death said of Cool Waters and
life of Screams instead of Music.
It was this future Garin foresaw.
For his people, not through magic, but through common sense.

(01:59:50):
That's what the valyrians do, right?
Very cruel things. Like what they did to him.
He was captured alive and forcedto watch the fall of his people.
And this is when he had his timeto contemplate what was coming,
but he probably knew this ahead of time.
It was why he gathered everyone to fight in the First place
because he saw this potential future and it did come to pass.

(02:00:15):
He was captured alive and forcedto watch the fall of his people
started with the slaughter of his army.
And the harbor of volantis was said to turn the color of blood
then they gathered their armies.Having been used for defense and
advanced with them sacks Armel enslaving the people while
destroying it and presumably allthe smaller towns along the way.

(02:00:36):
Reprisal for garen's. Campaign was Swift and brutal.
And he was made to watch it all locked in a golden cage.
At the command of the dragonlords, Guerin was carried
back to the Festival City, to witness its destruction and cry.
An the cage was hung from the walls so that the prince might
witness the enslavement of the women and children, whose

(02:00:57):
fathers, and brothers had died in his Gallant hopeless War.
But the prince, it is said called down a curse upon the
conquerors. Treating mother roin to avenge
her children. And so that very night, the roin
flooded out of season and with greater force than was known in
living memory, a thick fog full of evil humors fell and the

(02:01:20):
Valerian conquerors began to dieof greyscale.
Interestingly, the story of Garin ends here we don't hear
about his final moment. His actual moment of death
perhaps he too contracted grayscale inflicted on his
captors, or perhaps the survivors.
Put him out of his misery. Perhaps maybe maybe They Carried
him all the way back to valyria and dropped him in a volcano.

(02:01:41):
Like he was the one ring or maybe they used his Royal Blood
for spells or experiments or experimental spells, maybe they
dropped his golden cage. In the water, letting him drown
in his mother's Embrace maybe somewhere in mother ruins
depths. Is it golden cage with a
skeleton or a stone Prince lock inside for eternity?

(02:02:03):
Think of all the cities that areon the run now?
And think of how many there would have been at the height of
their own, our people, a lot more.
It's a staggering amount, and a huge portion of that population
was enslaved by the Freehold. Garin's curse was said to have
created grayscale, but it was the Doom that truly took out the
Freehold some suggestion turn that the Doom was, the real

(02:02:24):
garin's curse. I don't think so.
But there's certainly a way we can.
Imagine the Doom coming at the hands of those with blood of the
Rhine are in their veins. Tho I suggested many would be
enslaved in palaces quite a few others would most likely end up
in those Deep Dark Minds. It's a flare that beneath the
Fourteen Flames at the valyriansgot so much wealth out of the

(02:02:46):
same mines. Where the faceless man,
originated. No one knows who the first
faceless man was, but given the Magic in their people.
Perhaps it was a slave of rhoynish descent.
Hmm. It would be rather fitting for
the rhoynar to have a hand and taking down valyria through a
blood descendant. Born In fire, the Doom wouldn't

(02:03:06):
come for another roughly. Few centuries will say so, it
would be a distant kinship to besure, but that shouldn't bother
us too much. We see Bloodlines lasting for
long periods of time in A Song of Ice and Fire, we see magical
blood sticking around and we're going to see that specifically

(02:03:27):
in the case of the rhoynar blood, how it still sticks
around. Still very strongly, especially
in Dorne but in a few other places, too.
Exodus higher on the roin in nice.
Our princess nymeria soon, received the news of Karen's
shattering defeat and the enslavement of a people of cry
on and saw Mel. The same fate, awaited her own

(02:03:50):
City. She saw accordingly, she
gathered every ship that remained upon the ROI that large
or small, and filled them, full of as many women, and children
as they could carry for almost all the men of fighting age, had
marched with Geron and died downthe river.
Mariah LED this ragged feet pastruined and smoking towns and

(02:04:10):
Fields of the Dead through Waters, choked with bloated
floating corpses to avoid volantis and its hosts.
She chose the older Channel and emerged into the summer.
See where once sorrow Joy had stood like Garen nymeria.
Didn't need magical foresight tosee what was coming for her
people after they lost. She knew the valyrians and there

(02:04:34):
was nothing to be done but flee as painful as it was to leave
their mother. What choice did they have?
Well, actually, some actually did think they had a choice and
will see that the call of motherwine is incredibly potent enough
to make people make bad decisions.
But these are always people in avery tough spot, making these

(02:04:55):
bad decisions so we'll be fair to them in that spot.
These stuff these tough spots include exotic locations, like
the Basilisk Isles, 30's nathe summer Islands, those people's
creatures and unexplained phenomena in all those decisions
related, good or bad. Well, that will be the story of
our next episode on nymeria. It will be called ten thousand

(02:05:17):
ships. Join us for it until then,
Valerie, Reedus. Oh, damn it.
Come discuss this episode in ourFacebook group, it's easily
findable on Facebook history of Westeros podcast is what it's
called. There's a couple of easy
questions, man, to weed out Botsand trolls, so you need to

(02:05:39):
answer them to get in. Other than that, we're not
trying to keep anybody out. Is just a very simple
countermeasure. Now, there's others fun stuff
there too. It's not just discussions about
this and past episodes. For example, a sham posted, some
outtakes from the recording of this episode in there.
We love to do fun stuff like that.
So there's definitely extras available there.

(02:06:01):
There were a lot of quotes in this episode from the world of
ice and fire, in fact, more thanhalf of them.
So I'm a big fan of that book, of course.
And if you have never actually purchased it, if you haven't
gone through all of it, I highlyrecommend audible.com, they're
owned by Amazon and the world ofIce and Fire through audio book
is a great way to take it all inbecause you can do other things

(02:06:24):
while you're doing it. You can be out doing chores, you
can be walking, the dogs, you can be taking care of your kids,
whatever. It's a great way to 92
activities. Make sure it's fun.
I think that's a great thing. That's the thing about podcast
too but it works great for audiobooks as well.
So you can get two free audiobook downloads from audible
by going to history Westeros.comand clicking on the link in the
right sidebar, even if you don'tkeep the subscription you get to

(02:06:47):
keep those two free downloads. So I basically just told you how
to get a free copy of the world of Ice and Fire inaudible.
Now you may like the subscription and keep it and pay
for it, but if you don't, you just got a free copy of the
world was on fire on. Audio, that's great.
Shana is the best and that's true, whether she's in front of
or behind the camera for this episode.

(02:07:08):
Of course, she did a lot of the production video Work,
especially and recording. Big thanks to rainey's Targaryen
for, helping me with the script.She did a lot of catches on my
timeline stuff as always. That's her expertise, but she's
caught me making a few other mistakes as well and added a few
nice thoughts, as on top of that.
So even more than usual, she helped with this episode, thanks

(02:07:31):
to McCall shik of Hyperbole, andvassals of Kings grave for The
Voice work. In this one big.
Thanks to Michael Clarke failed for the maps and video intro.
Check him out at Claire docks dot d e.
He's currently working. On a map of Dorne.
He's already done an iron Islands one which we're going to
have on display in a future episode.

(02:07:52):
Thanks to Joey Townsend and Jesse Coe all for the intro and
outro music respectively. Also thanks to my good friend,
Rudy Edwards for reading the headers, this time, if you want
to support the show, you can rate US on iTunes, you'd be
surprised how much value that has for getting us noticed.
Leaving a review. Helps even more to support us

(02:08:12):
financially go to his Three of Westeros.com, and there's a
variety of ways to help the mainway, but not the only way is
through patreon. Thanks to supporters like the
mysterious, be our hand, to the king, Lord Jim, the fortuitous
of Wars, the politics of Ice andFire and Warden of the West
Lord, George storms, build a cunning lord of the Chiliad in
Warden of the East Quebec, the unfrozen, lord of the bricks and

(02:08:34):
Castle Crimson, light defender of the old gods.
And Warden of the north lady, Kelly McMath of Covington, Lady
of the Villa, Hills and CrescentSprings, Warden of the South, my
hand. In position is currently open.
So please for the love of the many-faced.
God, please give me a hand. Lord James title as king of the
stepstones. In the narrow sea, commander of

(02:08:55):
the royal Fleet consisting of the narrow Fleet led by Flagship
crack seas and the Bloodstone Fleet led by Flagship Prince
Damon, Lord. James was heard recently to say
that he had been around during Nigeria's time.
She never would have made it to Westeros.
Charlotte austere, Corsair, Queen of the western shivering
sea is commander of the Briny Fleet, whose Flagship is the
barnacle-encrusted. Violet, Hold mercenary.

(02:09:16):
She carries the nacre inlaid shucking.
Blade crass, lover. And the Corsair Queen is said to
have I'd claiming that the king of the stepstones would be the
one to have not made it in nymeria.
Would have easily sailed on the small Council consists of Lord.
James Inc, Blade The Scholar night, master of Whisperers
Lord. Robert Jacobs master of coin.

(02:09:36):
Lord, Daniel the sneaky Russian master of ships, Grand maester
via James and lord benjin of House, hornwood master of laws.
Currently the Queen's High Council has two members lady, my
emerald eyes voice of how Swan Mistress of Whisperers.
And Grand maester M Elizabeth middle daughter of lyanna
Mormont first lady to forge boththe silver and Valyrian steel

(02:09:58):
link. So if you're interested in
joining the queenside council, let us know on patreon.
Meanwhile the Queen's guard is full up with Lord, Captain
Commander him a helmet, The sellsword Sentinel lady nymeria
house. See Pirtle Alexander of house
Atreides from the seat of Doom. I must not fear.
Fear is the mind, killer back ofthe Bard.

(02:10:19):
Songbird of the North. Sarek Redbeard Odin sun' wielder
of Tempest. Monstrous Warhammer Michonne the
melodious star of Old Town, mine's over master and Sarah
Rambo night of house Gannon. First Blood the alpha Patron is
Lady dire, Liz of Castle. Naki Lord, and of the red

(02:10:42):
mountains and Castle, great Bell, visbreaker of the second
Stone Lord skip of the veldt is Lord of Castle Ganges.
Gregor, the toasty is Lord of the Bridgeport Alicia
Everlasting of Green blood is Lady of Desert Rose.
Lord, Ryan of Castle. Stone Gate is guardian of the
Rocky Mountain Pass. Lord Garin to Havilland is of
Devil's Hand. Keep Ashlyn winter is the Hawks
I Lady of Castle. Skyfall, Lady mikkel of moonacre

(02:11:03):
is leader of the where would protect her at Alliance, the
lord of the halls of Castle Hill.
Crest is wielder of the Valyriansteel machete, ever glazed Lord.
Alistair Whitaker is Lord of theDawn hold Lord, Bellamy snuggle
bunny is guardian of the Hidden Hundred Acre Wood, dual-wielding
glorious morning and little light wise and keeping me on my
toes. For pronunciation, Brian.
The defender is Lord of the spear for and the free lands

(02:11:25):
last sky on of Clan, McCulloch, strength and courage.
The bastard of the wolfswood is first Forrester of the old gods
sworn to house ironware would listen for the silence.
Connor, the dungeon master is Lord of Catamount, keep and
guardian of the Smoky Mountain Pass lady Baelish is dark Widow
of harrenhal. Lord Sydney, Jesse is the fall
warn Lord of Blue Spring. Sir Valentine of Hostage in is

(02:11:47):
creator of the game of predictions.
Free Game of Thrones predictions/peugeot.
Is Market lady Liana. Kelly of wolf island is
Protectors of the steel. Hold and Casey Stark is of house
acres are King's Justice is Sir Troy, the steady wielder of the
Valyrian steel blade. Fate our Council of the beard is
led by Lady. Suzanne Sinister.
All the learned' holder of the left-handed Valerian shears

(02:12:08):
called. Penance Mistress of laws are
kingsguard is led by The Smilingwolf.
Lord Commander, Stephen Stark, cartographer of Kings, who
earned a white cloak through wisdom and learning as much as
skill at Arms, our nights watch is led by Lord.
Sir Benja number. The silent giant wielder of the
Valyrian steel, Greatsword, Winters kiss and first Steward.
Surgery on of the Turin. Teen called pale win.

(02:12:30):
Welcome to Stephanie the Peerless dwarf of the lowlands
sir Rutherford the brave knight of the lizards and Wilson's,
vain, Carol of the House of black and white and red all over
the podcast that.com, family of podcast.
Hey guys, Mary of house. Frumious.
Keeper of the library in the trees and Marrow Woods, which of
the where Woodgrove sworn to Shepherd of the whispering

(02:12:50):
children. That concludes this episode of
history of Westeros. Thank you for listening, Valerie
Reedus.

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Nymeria: Mother Rhoyne (Part 1)

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