Valyrian Sacrifice

A handful of maesters, influenced by fragments of the work of Septon Barth, hold that Valyria had used spells to tame the Fourteen Flames for thousands of years, that their ceaseless hunger for slaves and wealth was as much to sustain these spells as to expand their power, and that when at last those spells faltered, the cataclysm became inevitable.

Of these, some argue that it was the curse of Garin the Great at last coming to fruition. Others speak of the priests of R’hllor calling down the fire of their god in queer rituals. Some, wedding the fanciful notion of Valyrian magic to the reality of the ambitious great houses of Valyria, have argued that it was the constant whirl of conflict and deception amongst the great houses that might have led to the assassinations of too many of the reputed mages who renewed and maintained the rituals that banked the fires of the Fourteen Flames.

Do you think that like the Night’s King made sacrifices to the Others, the Valyrians made sacrifices to beings (maybe fire versions of the Others) in Fourteen Flames in exchange for learning sorcery?

If the FM whacked the mages, then the shortage of sacrifices could have pissed those beings off enough to cause the Doom.

I don’t think that’s quite how it worked. The Valyrians were not the kind of people to sacrifice to a metaphysical entity; as the WOIAF puts it:

“Some scholars have suggested that the dragonlords regarded all faiths as equally false, believing themselves to be more powerful than any god or goddess. They looked upon priests and temples as relics of a more primitive time, though useful for placating “slaves, savages, and the poor” with promises of a better life to come.

The Valyrian practice of human sacrifice was squarely focused on blood magic (as Marwyn puts it “All Valyrian sorcery was rooted in blood or fire.”) rather than religious ritual.

Any idea where the Valyrian Dragonlords odd powers come from, as well as their unique physical ethnic features? I’ve read some thing implying or speculating that they might actually be partially Dragons in a physical literal sense either through what I imagine would be challenging inter-species copulations or some bizarre black magic? Thoughts on this?

I’ve talked about this here, but I might as well lay out the evidence:

Sheltered there, amidst the great volcanic mountains known as the Fourteen Flames, were the Valyrians, who learned to tame dragons and make them the most fearsome weapon of war that the world ever saw. The tales the Valyrians told of themselves claimed they were descended from dragons and were kin to the ones they now controlled…

The great beauty of the Valyrians—with their hair of palest silver or gold and eyes in shades of purple not found amongst any other peoples of the world—is well-known, and often held up as proof that the Valyrians are not entirely of the same blood as other men. Yet there are maesters who point out that, by careful breeding of animals, one can achieve a desirable result, and that populations in isolation can often show quite remarkable variations from what might be regarded as common. This may be a likelier answer to the mystery of the Valyrian origins although it does not explain the affinity with dragons that those with the blood of Valyria clearly had. (WOIAF)

“T///in the deep mines beneath the Fourteen Flames that lit the Freehold’s nights of old. Most mines are dank and chilly places, cut from cold dead stone, but the Fourteen Flames were living mountains with veins of molten rock and hearts of fire. So the mines of old Valyria were always hot, and they grew hotter as the shafts were driven deeper, ever deeper. The slaves toiled in an oven. The rocks around them were too hot to touch. The air stank of brimstone and would sear their lungs as they breathed it. The soles of their feet would burn and blister, even through the thickest sandals. Sometimes, when they broke through a wall in search of gold, they would find steam instead, or boiling water, or molten rock. Certain shafts were cut so low that the slaves could not stand upright, but had to crawl or bend. And there were wyrms in that red darkness too…Firewyrms. Some say they are akin to dragons, for wyrms breathe fire too. Instead of soaring through the sky, they bore through stone and soil. If the old tales can be believed, there were wyrms amongst the Fourteen Flames even before the dragons came. The young ones are no larger than that skinny arm of yours, but they can grow to monstrous size and have no love for men.” (AFFC)

“In Septon Barth’s Dragons, Wyrms, and Wyverns , he speculated that the bloodmages of Valyria used wyvern stock to create dragons. Though the bloodmages were alleged to have experimented mightily with their unnatural arts, this claim is considered far-fetched by most maesters, among them Maester Vanyon’s Against the Unnatural contains certain proofs of dragons having existed in Westeros even in the earliest of days, before Valyria rose to be a power.” (WOIAF)

So the theory is that Valyrian sorcerors knew fire magic and blood magic, and created dragons by unnaturally crossbreeding firewyrms and wyverns together, and then learned to form bonds with dragons by unnaturally crossbreeding dragons and Valyrians together.

Maester Steven, I can’t find anything on the borders of the Valyrian Freehold. They don’t seem to have ever spread east of the Bone Mountains, but there’s also nothing stating the Sarnorians or Qartheen were under their control. So, what are your thoughts on the extent of their territory?

Good question!

The Valyrian empire did not extend into the lands of the Sarnori: “the confederation of cities later called the Kingdom of Sarnor survived the Valyrian expansion thanks to the great plain that separated one from the other.” Indeed, the Valyrians tended to look west rather than east (”once the Ghiscari wars had ended, the dragonlords of Valyria turned their gaze to the west…With the destruction of the Rhoynar, Valyria soon achieved complete domination of the western half of Essos, from the narrow sea to Slaver’s Bay, and from the Summer Sea to the Shivering Sea.”) for conquest.

The Lands of Ice and Fire are also helpful here:

Essaria (now known as Vaes Khadokh) was a Valyrian colony due east of Qohor, connected to the Free Cities by the Valyrian roads that connected the Freehold to its trading partners – to the port city of Saath in the north and Sarnath of the Tall Towers in the east. So we can conclude with a high degree of confidence that Valyria’s eastern border was somewhere around Essaria (perhaps at the banks of that enormous river?) and that at some point Valyria managed to work out a treaty allowing them to extend their roads into the Kingdom of Sarnor for the purposes of trade.

Further to the south, we can look to the extent of Ghiscari territory to guess at how far east Valyria extended once old Ghis was conquered. Krazaaj Has, Vaes Mejhah, Vaes Efe, were all Ghiscari colonies, but Yinishar and Adakhakileki were not. So I’d say the furthest east Valyria got through its conquest of Old Ghis is Vaes Efe.

Hullo, I’m not sure if this was asked before, but here goes: do you think there is a reason as to why no one in Essos was able to hatch dragons while the Targaryens’ were still alive? We know that across the Narrow Sea a) dragonblood still runs strong 2) magic is much more common and less reviled than in Westeros and 3) dragon eggs are still extant, if exceedingly costly. I find it especially odd that no one in Qohor or Gogossos managed it, given the expertise of the latter two in bloodmagic…

1. Dragonblood and the Blood of Old Valyria not the same thing. Dragonriders were an elite within Valyrian society, and almost all of them died during the Doom and the rest not on Dragonstone died thereafter:

“The dragonlords had been gathered in Valyria as was their wont…except for Aenar Targaryen, his children, and his dragons, who had fled to Dragonstone and so escaped the Doom. Some accounts claim that a few others survived, too … for a time. It is said that some Valyrian dragonlords in Tyrosh and Lys were spared, but that in the immediate political upheaval following the Doom, they and their dragons were killed by the citizens of those Free Cities. The histories of Qohor likewise claim that a visiting dragonlord, Aurion, raised
forces from the Qohorik colonists and proclaimed himself the first Emperor of Valyria. He flew away on the back of his great dragon, with thirty thousand men following behind afoot, to lay claim to what remained of Valyria and to reestablish the Freehold. But neither Emperor Aurion nor his host were ever seen again.
The time of the dragons in Essos was at an end.
Volantis, the mightiest of the Free Cities, quickly laid claim to Valyria’s mantle. Men and women of noble Valyrian blood, though not dragonlords, called for war upon the other cities”

2. While magic was more common in the east, it was still less common than it had been. Hence the reports from Qohor of the return of magic with the dragons.

3. While it’s true that dragon eggs exist, the ones that Dany got were not fresh viable eggs: “the eons have turned them to stone,” as Magister Illyrio says. He got them for her as hugely expensive curios, but it took an act of spontaneous magic which GRRM has described as a miracle to make them hatch.

As for the blood magic angle, I think it takes more than just that – remember, Dany didn’t know blood magic when she hatched the eggs, and it took not just lives but also her presence as a Targaryen and the convergence of the very cosmos.