Hey youtubers it’s Charlie, this week for my Game of Thrones video I’m going to talk
about ancient Valyria and the future of the Targaryen’s in book form.
Martin has teased that he really wants to write a Fire and Blood compendium after he’s
done with A Song of Ice And Fire. It would be a complete historical record of the Targaryen
Family from Ancient Valyria to Daenerys, it might even extend past her lifetime.
We don’t really know what her fate is in the books. But if you’ve read any of his
short stories, I think it will read like those instead of the POV style that the Song of
Ice and Fire novels have.
Real quick reminder, I’m doing a weekly World of Ice and Fire book giveaway. All you
have to do to enter is be a subscriber and leave a comment.
So just general spoiler warning for everything on the show so far and everything up to book
4. That’s pretty much where the show is right now, with a few exceptions.
Starting with a breakdown of the rise of Valyria. World of Ice and Fire adds some nice context
to what was previously discussed in the regular novels. Coolest fact: Dragons, at one time
covered the earth.
They weren’t like a swarm of locusts or anything, just imagine how as predators they
flourished during a pre-historic period when geographical conditions were favorable and
they were the apex predators.
There have been dragon bones found all over the world, not just in the warmer part of
Westeros and the Eastern Continent.
They are critical to the rise of Valyria but they predate Valyrians by a long long time.
Valyrians, as we know, discovered them roosting in the Fourteen Flames. The peninsula of Volcanoes
here at the south of the Eastern Continent. This is the area that became The Valyrian
Freehold.
That took a long time, even though the books make it sound like an overnight thing. Think
of the Valyrians learning to bond with Dragons like the Dothraki domestication of Horses.
It’s not the same thing. Dragons were never domesticated. But as close as you can get
to domesticating Dragons.
As that started to happen Valyrians socially became a much more isolated group of people.
If you had the world’s greatest super weapons you’d probably start acting a little xenophobic.
That’s why over time Valyrians developed certain genetic characteristics like the Silver-Gold
Hair and Purple eyes.
The show changed the eyes. The Producers said that Purple eyes didn’t look good on camera
so they had to drop that bit about Daenerys and Viserys.
Some of you may also have noticed how some of the characters hair colors have changed
just a little since the pilot episode. Tyrion is the biggest change. He went from Lannister
Blonde to a much dirtier mix.
Not a huge deal, it was only weird the first time I saw it and then by the time season
4 rolled around last year I wasn’t even thinking about it anymore.
So over time the Valyrians are mastering Dragons with a combination of Blood and Fire Magic,
Enchanted Items, like the dragon horns and Sorcery.
The show hasn’t really addressed this in detail but I do think by the time season 6
and 7 are here they will. As we get on in the seasons characters like Samwell, Tyrion,
Varys, they’ll probably be given most of that exposition.
Jon Snow is awesome when it comes to brooding, but he’s not the scholar that Samwell is.
My only minor complaint about the books so far is that the mechanics of how Valyrians
tamed dragons and what it has to do with their blood is still a mystery. But affinity with
Dragons became a genetic thing. Which is why the Valyrians practiced selective breeding.
That raises all kinds of issues like the increased risk of negative genetic anomalies but The
Doom took care of that problem.
One of the most critical periods of time during the rise of Valyria was it’s war with the
Ghiscari Empire. Before Valyria expanded all over the eastern continent. The Ghiscari Empire
was the greatest civilization.
Right now where we are on the show you only see their legacy in the architecture around
Slaver’s Bay. But as we spend more time in Meereen during Season 5 we’ll probably
get a better look at the really cool buildings. The Pyramid and the fighting pits are only
the beginning.
The Valyrians warred back and forth with the Ghiscari in five great battles. After the
fifth battle the Valyrians razed all the land and plowed it with salt so that the Ghiscari
would never be able to grow crops again. And that was the end of them.
Valyrian expansion continued unchecked, but they kept one really important aspect of Ghiscari
Culture. Slavery.
They started taking slaves from all over their Empire to work the mines near the fourteen
flames. The fourteen flames are a series of volcanoes, so they bring up all kinds of precious
metals and ore from the earth. So the area around Valyria was very literally a gold mine.
But that’s also where they mined the ore for creating Valyrian Steel.
Their empire wasn’t ruled by a single individual, it was much more democratic. Every great family
had a vote. But during really important periods sometimes they’d appoint a single decision
maker.
And in order to consolidate their power throughout the empire sometimes they’d arrange political
marriages with the locals. Or if cities wouldn’t do what they wanted, they’d appoint an archon
to rule there, to make sure everything ran smoothly.
So even though Valyrians guarded their bloodlines closely, they’d still marry people off to
neighboring rulers if necessary.
Later in their expansion, the Valyrians inspired the creation of the Free Cities as well as
migration to Westeros. Qohor and Norvos, which are right here were founded during religious
schisms, Old Volantis and Lys right here were orginally created to be Trading colonies set
up by wealthy merchants who had purchased the right to rule as clients of the Valyrian
Freehold.
In doing so, those cities were allowed to appoint their own rulers.
In other cases some cities like Pentos and Lorath, which are right here, chose to pay
tribute when the Valyrian’s came with their dragons. So they were allowed to retain the
infrastructure as long as they kept paying tribute.
One of the few exceptions to all these situations was Braavos, it’s story is kind of unofficial.
In the books it’s told as if characters aren’t sure it’s true. So it’s canon.
But the story is that a couple of Valyrian slave ships were sailing in the narrow sea.
The Valyrians used slave labor so the slaves outnumbered the Valyrians and mutinied. I
guess the valyrians in charge didn’t have any dragons with them at the time.
The slaves were so afraid of the Freehold coming after them that they sailed to where
modern day Braavos is and created a secret city. For hundreds of years they remained
secret before revealing themselves to the world, after the Doom.
But because the original settlers were slaves taken from all over the empire, they all had
different customs and different gods. That’s why today there are so many shrines to different
gods in Braavos.
We will see some of the city. I don’t know how many episodes will spend there in season
5, but there’s an area in the middle of town here where you can find the biggest temples.
All to different gods.
So Braavos, the Free Cities all part of the Rise of Valyria and a big part of it’s legacy.
I’ll spend more time talking about different cities specifically in future bonus videos
so be sure to subscribe to get everything. And be sure to let me know which ones you
want to talk about first.
The rest of Valyria’s history is a little more well known. The Doom of Valyria was a
cataclysm like the eruption of Vesuvius on Pompeii.
Think about it this way. Vesuvius was just one volcano, Valyria had 14. So when they
say Doom, it was Hell on Earth.
There’s a lot of theories about what caused The Doom, I think it was a combination of
the Valyrians Over-Mining the Volcanoes, there were geographical changes happening naturally
and I think there was a little bit of magic involved.
Just a confluence of events that blew the shit out of the peninsula here.
The Targaryen’s we know escaped after Danearys the Dreamer had a vision of the Doom, her
father sold all the families assets in the freehold and moved everything they had along
with five Dragons to Dragonstone.
Only one of those dragons survived to the time of Aegon the Conqueror, Balerion the
Black Dread. But eventually more dragons were hatched and the rest we can talk about in
another bonus video.
Let me know if you think we’ll see characters from the show travel to where Valyria used
to be ever.
George RR Martin has already confirmed there will be more flashbacks to ancient valyria.
But he hasn’t promised that we’ll travel there in present day.
Just more awesome things to look forward too.
Speaking of which, congratulations to this week’s Book winner Kalel Greece. You win
a copy of world of ice and fire. Be sure to message me on my channel or twitter or facebook
for details.
The next round of the giveaway will start when I post my next bonus video.
And real quick update on the Game of Thrones Telltale video game. There are five confirmed
playable characters all from the same house. They didn’t confirm which house it is, but
I think it will not be one of the main houses from the books or the tv show. I think it
will be House Forrester.
That would fall in line with what they did with the Walking Dead game, they created Clementine
and used characters that weren’t from the comics or the tv show. So it makes sense they’d
do the same thing for the Game of Thrones game.
And they confirmed it’s coming out before the end of the year. So just plan on December.
I’ll be giving away a couple copies when they release it. And doing gameplay videos.
So get pumped about that.
In the meantime you can click here to learn more about the City of Braavos and you can
click here to learn about some of the Season 5 changes the show is making to the book story.
Thanks for watching, now let’s all high five and I’ll see you guys tomorrow!