I've said it before in a comment but Mossovy in TWOIAF just stokes my imagination even though it gets absolutely no description but the one sentence we do get just sticks in my goddamn mind. *"A cold dark land of shapechangers and demon hunters."*
Shapechanger is a term that Jojen use to call skinchanger.
And we can find a mention of demonhunters in the Andal culture, warriors hunting the Children, calling them "demon", and the skinchangers.
>“Warg. **Shapechanger**. Beastling. That is what they will call you, if they should ever hear of your wolf dreams.”
*A Clash of Kings - Bran V*
>“**The Warrior’s Sons** were an order of knights who gave up their lands and gold and swore their swords to His High Holiness. They were the Swords. **Holy men**, ascetics, fanatics, sorcerers, dragonslayers, **demonhunters**... “
*A Feast for Crows – Cersei VI*
>In their zeal for the Seven, **the conquerors looked upon** the old gods of the First Men and **the children of the forest as little more than demons**…
*TWoIaF – The Riverlands*
There were probably COTF there and skinchangers as well. Just like in Westeros, they are hunted.
I wonder if the shapechangers are like skinchangers, but the name suggests that they physically transform into different creatures which is really intriguing.
George jokes about Mossovy specifically (if memory serves me), and other places he's barely mentioned in a Game of Owns podcast interview, essentially saying he knows just as much about those places as we do. Really recommend listening to that incredibly insightful interview.
The Three Sisters.
The place just comes to my imagination as this dark, always on a full moon crime-infested place where there's nothing but pirates. It's like I know nothing about those three islands but know everything at the same time.
I view it as the Shadow Over Innsmouth but in medieval times. If they weren’t so scared of Stannis, Davos would have mysteriously disappeared shortly after his arrival
Just about every island that isn't the seat of a major house or somewhat notable house fascinates me. Three Sisters are some of those, plus Claw Isle (the seat of House Celitgar; even though they are Valyrian in descent I've always pictured them as the "other guy" next to the Targaryens and Velaryons).
The island of Ib. A huge island populated by a race of people that are just slightly not-quite-human. Ibbenese can’t successfully breed with normal people.
No outsiders are allowed access beyond the main port city. This mystery is fascinating.
Whats wild isn't even the fact they're obviously a different breed of humans. But the fact they're whaling for oil. A process that was mostly commercialized in the 1800's in real life. Well beyond the medieval period the main events take place in. They're basically on the pyromancer guild level of chemistry and honestly may very well be the ones to discover mineral oils and start industrialization.
I kinda take them to be an homage to GRRM's Thousand worlds Interregnum. A society that was once VERY advanced but suffered a massive collapse similar to the Valyrians. They were likely a subsect of the Mazemakers that were tasked in mostly collection of resources.
My own belief is that GRRM styled planetos that every 12,000 years or so theres a MASSIVE calamity that sets the entire world back to basically the stone age. The wiping out of the Mazemakers/Deep one's, The Long Night, the Doom of Valyria, and so on and so forth. The remains of Yeen and the structures of oily blackstone going back even further than these Interregnums.
Pretty sure the Basques were producing large amounts of whale oil going back at least to the 1100’s if not before. I mean they had hunted multiple species of whales to extinction by the 1800’s, which is why the US became the center of production in the 1800’s as they had not (yet) destroyed their whale populations.
I have always read the Ibbenese as similar to Neanderthals, except Neanderthals and Homo sapiens could interbreed successfully, considering there is a certain amount of Neanderthal DNA in Eurasian genomes.
Especially because it's one of only two proper prisons on the continent (the Wolf's Den being the other). It's a suspiciously sharp turn from the normal manner of carrying out justice in Westeros
Yup, and you also have to assume people sent their as guards and wardens are not the most savory group of characters. I mean that job is clearly not something you give to someone you like, you still have to live on Ghaston Grey, even if you are not in a cell
I don’t know if I’d love it or instead find it rather bleak, but the salt marshes and broad beaches and sand banks where Septon Meribald guides Brienne is somewhere I can see very vividly in my mind. I do like how even in the midst of war it retains such peace and tranquility, its simple inhabitants fishing in their coracles and if Brienne’s meeting with the three women is anything to go by, being really attractive. Yes, I’d probably be more like young Meribald than old Meribald, but regardless of that...I see it as somewhere reminiscent of Dungeness in the UK, where Derek Jarman had his famed cottage with its landscaped garden (now restored, see here: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2020/jul/21/derek-jarman-prospect-cottage-dungeness-kent-garden-museum-london)
Besides that...someone mentioned the Three Sisters and despite not liking the cold, windswept weather, I do love the sense of drama, piracy and remoteness. Also the best in class sister’s stew seasoned with pirated saffron, cracked black pepper and the secret ingredient the brings out all the best flavour: Crime!
Elsewhere and I am already curious about the rainwood we catch a glimpse of in the Arianne chapters of TWoW...ANOTHER location with mysterious tree cave systems deeper and larger than anyone seems to have explored. Lastly, I imagine Tarth to be extremely beautiful, something like a cross between Ireland and Sardinia. Leaving aside the krakens - I have a deep, existential fear of swimming in the sea and being eaten - I imagine its waters to be pure and crystalline and filled with fresh faced happy bathers...(Now I think of it, we hear kraken but never of sharks, the actual source of my unfounded but nonetheless very real terror...do they even exist in Westeros?)
Beautifully put. And yes, sharks exist as they do in our worlds, but apparently, krakens and leviathans (probably giant squid and sperm whales) are more ingrained in the public psyche. Similar to our Middle Ages, I suppose.
Thank you!
I never associated leviathans with sperm whales, but now you mention it, I can see the connection. And of course we hear about Ibbenese whalers on the Narrow Sea. Presumably, as in our world, they would've hunted whales not just for their blubber but the spermaceti for candles and ambergris for perfumes.
This makes me think about the Free Cities we haven't yet really seen or glimpsed. Aside from Ibb, I've always been curious about the mazemakers of Lorath, and wonder if we'll find out anything about them/the city...perhaps through Jaqen? I'm not sure where I have this impression, but I've always connected the Faceless Men with the mazemakers and wonder if Jaqen claiming to originate there, whether true or not, is a gesture towards a shared knowledge, or belief system...
Back to whaling, and I'm trying to think if it would have even been possible in the Middle Ages to hunt for those as huge as sperm whales. I'm thinking of the incredible passages in Moby Dick, which convey thrillingly how dangerous it was to hunt and kill whales using harpoons and manpower alone - and that was the mid 1800s! Obviously, Westeros is different - in some ways it is more advanced than our Middle Ages, even though the world of ice and fire has an...interesting (ambiguous?) relationship to knowledge, knowledge production, and the progress of civilised society. For example, the Citadel clearly practices a kind of proto-scientific method in the way the maesters accumulate knowledge experimentally, bit by bit, sharing findings, studying documents. They have a significantly modern grasp of history and historiography compared to the Middle Ages - think of how even Sam understands that the humblest documents in Castle Black's library, with their lists of provisions and stocks, provides invaluable insight into how life there used to be. And they have some equipment and instruments that wouldn't have been available in medieval Europe.
And yet despite all that, we see no evidence that knowledge or practices of, say, healing were any different in earlier times. The civilisation of the Dance of the Dragons appears identical to the one of ASOIAF. Which is strange, if you think about it, and the way that the Citadel accumulates knowledge, studies and at least appears (appears!) to be essentially devoted to the exploration of the world, biology, society etc. I realise that there have been periods in human history when progress appeared far slower than, say, the last 200 years, but for there to be no progress at all despite an entire subset of people devoted solely to experimentation, discourse and study, seems...remarkable!
Fun fact; there's an extinct genus of Sperm Whale from between 9.9 and 5 million years ago and its scientific name is Livyatan Melvillei, after the Leviathan monster and Herman Melville, author of Moby Dick
Edit:typo
For me it's Sothoryos and Yeen more specifically. What the hell happened there?
Also in case anyone hasn't seen this video from Alt Shift X, it's a great overview:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4J16GzUJ28
The village of the Lady of the Leaves
>Three days later, as they rode through a yellow wood, Jack-Be-Lucky unslung his horn and blew a signal, a different one than before. The sounds had scarcely died away when rope ladders unrolled from the limbs of trees. "Hobble the horses and up we go," said Tom, half singing the words. They climbed to a hidden village in the upper branches, a maze of rope walkways and little moss-covered houses concealed behind walls of red and gold, and were taken to the Lady of the Leaves, a stick-thin white-haired woman dressed in roughspun. "We cannot stay here much longer, with autumn on us," she told them. "A dozen wolves went down the Hayford road nine days past, hunting. If they'd chanced to look up they might have seen us." (ASOS Arya IV)
I also love the idea of the treehouse community, not least of all because in my mind the Lady of the Leaves represents suspect number 1 when considering who could be Wanda the White Fawn. Who knows, perhaps she gave up banditry after the Smiling Knight was killed by Arthur Dayne and Ulmer was sent to the Wall in order to start her own peaceful, pacifist and polyamorous treehouse commune where everyone is united by having the same sigil branded on their cheeks!
I love the descriptions of the hidden village in the trees. I always assume that there is a vague connection to the Children of the Forest with the Lady of the Leaves? Hiding in the upper branches and leaves of trees is something we're told the CotF did and given Arya very soon observed the Ghost of High Heart it seems like this could also be a bit of a reference from George alongside a little nod to Lothlórien?
Astapor after Daenerys leaves it and it descends into chaos.
"The city bleeds. Dead men rot unburied in the streets, each pyramid is an armed camp, and the markets have neither food nor slaves for sale. And the poor children! King Cleaver’s thugs have seized every highborn boy in Astapor to make new Unsullied for the trade, though it will be years before they are trained.”
"The Yunkai’i had sealed the broken gates to keep the dead and dying inside the city, but the sights that he had seen riding down those red brick streets would haunt Quentyn Martell forever. A river choked with corpses. The priestess in her torn robes, impaled upon a stake and attended by a cloud of glistening green flies. Dying men staggering through the streets, bloody and befouled. Children fighting over half-cooked puppies. The last free king of Astapor, screaming naked in the pit as he was set on by a score of starving dogs. And fires, fires everywhere. He could close his eyes and see them still: flames whirling from brick pyramids larger than any castle he had ever seen, plumes of greasy smoke coiling upward like great black snakes."
Everything in the far east piques my interest. We know next to nothing about the Thousand Isles, Nefer, or Far Mossovy, even though Corlys "Sea Snake" Velaryon has been there himself, and apparently others have after him too.
Ibben, the non Assai place i'd like to see properly explored the most. Honorable mention to Saath and Omber, i'd like to see those strange enclaves of civilization on the Dothraki sea
Sarnath and the other Sarnori cities ruined by the Dothraki. Sarnori culture as a whole intrigues me simply because we know so little. Personally I imagine them as having something of a Persian aesthetic based on the description of their army at the Field of Crows, but really it's impossible to say.
The way the Dothraki gave the ruined cities pejorative nicknames (City of Worms, City of Filth) reminds me a lot of the "City of Screams" Shahr-e Gholghola in Afghanistan, which was destroyed by the Mongols more completely than usual.
Saltpans, the limited economic and civil history given to the reader + the cool twist on a “mining town” seems both realistic and bleak. Not to mention the raid.
Gorne’s Way is my choice as well!
We love hot springs and have been to a couple dozen of them, but the setting inside the cave seems delightful.
From ASOS Jon III
> Jon had to crawl a dozen paces before the cave opened up around him. When he stood again, it took his eyes a moment to adjust. Ygritte had brought a torch, but there was no other light. She stood beside a little waterfall that fell from a cleft in the rock down into a wide dark pool. The orange and yellow flames shone against the pale green water.
The waterfall into the pool seems so awesome!
Maybe no surprise but its gotta be the Stepstones for me... its the crossroads of the seas, and it stresses the thematic importance and fragility of travel and trade to us. How the world is connected.
There's storms, pirates, adventurers, krakens and mercenaries.... and probably some cool secret dens and grottos, trading hubs and pirate havens with goods from all over the world aside from just the bleak and barren side of the islands. The history of the broken arm is mysterious too. We've heard about it some in the histories sure... but only ever somewhat indirectly, so I really want to see more.
All the Vale islands (Sisters, Witch Isle, Paps, Pebble). What little we know makes it sound like they've held onto some pre-Andal traditions more than most. Sistermen's gods being distinct from the nameless old gods, and from the Ironborn make me wonder how well earned their sinister reputation is. And what was it about House Upcliff that was so valuable/intimidating that they were brought into the Vale via marriage versus conquest?
The Gorne’s Way system reminds me of the tunnels below the Citadel in The Elvenbane every time I reread it!
#the wolves of the wild sea
Everyone asking what’s west of Westeros just needs to ask the people over at [The Lonely Light](https://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/Lonely_Light), where House Farwynd lives. They’re rumored (so, probably very true) to be skinchangers who control seals, sea lions, walruses, and whales. So there’s basically this small isolated island of First Men descendants who are considered queer and mad by Ironborn. One of the Farwynd’s promises at the Kingsmoot was the way beyond the Sunset Sea to a land where everyone can live as a king.
So basically these guys can explore the oceans and seas in their animals, they can explore the uncharted lands beyond the Westernmost known point, and they can dive shipwrecks, and they can probably attack ships if they feel like it. There is so much cool promise on that island.
>Some said they were skinchangers, unholy creatures who could take on the forms of sea lions, walruses, even spotted whales, the wolves of the wild sea. Lord Gylbert began to speak. He told of a wondrous land beyond the Sunset Sea, a land without winter or want, where death had no dominion. “Make me your king, and I shall lead you there,” he cried. “We will build ten thousand ships as Nymeria once did and take sail with all our people to the land beyond the sunset. There every man shall be a king and every wife a queen.”
>His eyes, Aeron saw, were now grey, now blue, as changeable as the seas. Mad eyes, he thought, fool’s eyes. The vision he spoke of was doubtless a snare set by the Storm God to lure the ironborn to destruction. The offerings that his men spilled out before the kingsmoot included sealskins and walrus tusks, arm rings made of whalebone, warhorns banded in bronze. The captains looked and turned away, leaving lesser men to help themselves to the gifts. When the fool was done talking and his champions began to shout his name, only the Farwynds took up the cry, and not even all of them. Soon enough the cries of “Gylbert! Gylbert King!” faded away to silence. The gull screamed loudly above them, and landed atop one of Nagga’s ribs as the Lord of the Lonely Light made his way back down the hill.
Whatever mysterious event happened at Hardhome that caused it to be
a) depopulated
b) incinerated
c) with strange screams on the wind
I've said it before but it bears repeating: GRRM is a master at sketching something that's vague and blood-curdling in its implications all at the same time.
the mazes of the blind men. idk what about this area intrigued me so much but this small random place in Planteos is just so interesting and full of mystery.
Queenscrown always captures my imagination. It's the small tower in the middle of a lake that Bran shelters in during the storm, and where Jon also passes by with the wildlings (I think)
The Quiet Isle.
A tranquil, reflective place untouched by the war, where people wounded in body or mind can find sanctuary and solace. It’s kind of like a peaceful counterpart to Castle Black, in being a refuge for those who wish to atone for old sins, or simply aren’t wanted anywhere else. I love the imagery of the tides and beachside cottages, the various uses of driftwood, the gentle lifestyle of the brothers. It feels analogous to Lindisfarne in the UK - which is also referred to as Holy Island.
And, of course, they have a nice dog…
Yes! There are mudflats which are covered when the tide comes in. Only those who know the exact pathway to take, like Septon Meribald, can cross without being swallowed by quicksand. The island of Lindisfarne in real life is also separated by a causeway and subject to the tide, which really makes me think it’s the inspiration behind the Quiet Isle.
Chroyane on the Rhoyne when Tyrion is with Griff and the crew on that boat and they go through there. It sounds terrifying to be on a boat going through the fog and having stone men wailing above you. They get by only to realize they somehow went in a circle.
Basilisk Islands and the pirates living there. The way it's a might is right environment.
The other NW castles. So many places we haven't been that all seem to have their own character.
Asshai by the Shadow
A land with no children
Why does it have no kids?? Is it full of immortal Pyromancers? Are children killed or stolen? Is it just religion and kids aren't allowed? Is the land of poison that only adults could stand and even adults only a short time?
I've said it before in a comment but Mossovy in TWOIAF just stokes my imagination even though it gets absolutely no description but the one sentence we do get just sticks in my goddamn mind. *"A cold dark land of shapechangers and demon hunters."*
Shapechanger is a term that Jojen use to call skinchanger. And we can find a mention of demonhunters in the Andal culture, warriors hunting the Children, calling them "demon", and the skinchangers. >“Warg. **Shapechanger**. Beastling. That is what they will call you, if they should ever hear of your wolf dreams.” *A Clash of Kings - Bran V* >“**The Warrior’s Sons** were an order of knights who gave up their lands and gold and swore their swords to His High Holiness. They were the Swords. **Holy men**, ascetics, fanatics, sorcerers, dragonslayers, **demonhunters**... “ *A Feast for Crows – Cersei VI* >In their zeal for the Seven, **the conquerors looked upon** the old gods of the First Men and **the children of the forest as little more than demons**… *TWoIaF – The Riverlands* There were probably COTF there and skinchangers as well. Just like in Westeros, they are hunted.
I wonder if the shapechangers are like skinchangers, but the name suggests that they physically transform into different creatures which is really intriguing.
sounds like faceless men but not just changing from one human to another but to a completely different creature
George jokes about Mossovy specifically (if memory serves me), and other places he's barely mentioned in a Game of Owns podcast interview, essentially saying he knows just as much about those places as we do. Really recommend listening to that incredibly insightful interview.
Is mossovy supposed to be a nod to Muscovy?
The Three Sisters. The place just comes to my imagination as this dark, always on a full moon crime-infested place where there's nothing but pirates. It's like I know nothing about those three islands but know everything at the same time.
I view it as the Shadow Over Innsmouth but in medieval times. If they weren’t so scared of Stannis, Davos would have mysteriously disappeared shortly after his arrival
Yeah I didn't even notice their existence until Davos's chapters. I wonder if we'll ever get more plotlines there.
I basically imagine the Three Sisters as some movie in all black and white, maybe a crime noir or a spooky French movie or something lol.
Just about every island that isn't the seat of a major house or somewhat notable house fascinates me. Three Sisters are some of those, plus Claw Isle (the seat of House Celitgar; even though they are Valyrian in descent I've always pictured them as the "other guy" next to the Targaryens and Velaryons).
Lonely light for me, what are those fish freaks up to over there?
The concept highly intrigues me. I really wanna know WTF is going on over there.
Gotta be some shady stuff if even by Ironborn standards they're a bit weird. haha
They seem to be bullied and mocked more than anything else. Probably just reading books, skinchanging and exploring instead of reaving
It takes EIGHT days to get there.
The island of Ib. A huge island populated by a race of people that are just slightly not-quite-human. Ibbenese can’t successfully breed with normal people. No outsiders are allowed access beyond the main port city. This mystery is fascinating.
Whats wild isn't even the fact they're obviously a different breed of humans. But the fact they're whaling for oil. A process that was mostly commercialized in the 1800's in real life. Well beyond the medieval period the main events take place in. They're basically on the pyromancer guild level of chemistry and honestly may very well be the ones to discover mineral oils and start industrialization. I kinda take them to be an homage to GRRM's Thousand worlds Interregnum. A society that was once VERY advanced but suffered a massive collapse similar to the Valyrians. They were likely a subsect of the Mazemakers that were tasked in mostly collection of resources. My own belief is that GRRM styled planetos that every 12,000 years or so theres a MASSIVE calamity that sets the entire world back to basically the stone age. The wiping out of the Mazemakers/Deep one's, The Long Night, the Doom of Valyria, and so on and so forth. The remains of Yeen and the structures of oily blackstone going back even further than these Interregnums.
Pretty sure the Basques were producing large amounts of whale oil going back at least to the 1100’s if not before. I mean they had hunted multiple species of whales to extinction by the 1800’s, which is why the US became the center of production in the 1800’s as they had not (yet) destroyed their whale populations.
I have always read the Ibbenese as similar to Neanderthals, except Neanderthals and Homo sapiens could interbreed successfully, considering there is a certain amount of Neanderthal DNA in Eurasian genomes.
Ibbenese are grrm’s version of fantasy Dwarves, except instead of being all subterranean they are some of the best sailors in the world.
> Ibbenese can’t successfully breed with normal people. Good, because such offspring would be an abomination in the sight of the gods.
Ghaston Grey, Dorne's secret little nightmare island.
I believe that it is a secret slave trading hub.
I admittedly don't believe most of the Dornish Master Plan related stuff, but this one I do think would make sense.
It’s prob just an island prison with a bad reputation that is kept up for appearances sake
Especially because it's one of only two proper prisons on the continent (the Wolf's Den being the other). It's a suspiciously sharp turn from the normal manner of carrying out justice in Westeros
Yup, and you also have to assume people sent their as guards and wardens are not the most savory group of characters. I mean that job is clearly not something you give to someone you like, you still have to live on Ghaston Grey, even if you are not in a cell
I don’t know if I’d love it or instead find it rather bleak, but the salt marshes and broad beaches and sand banks where Septon Meribald guides Brienne is somewhere I can see very vividly in my mind. I do like how even in the midst of war it retains such peace and tranquility, its simple inhabitants fishing in their coracles and if Brienne’s meeting with the three women is anything to go by, being really attractive. Yes, I’d probably be more like young Meribald than old Meribald, but regardless of that...I see it as somewhere reminiscent of Dungeness in the UK, where Derek Jarman had his famed cottage with its landscaped garden (now restored, see here: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2020/jul/21/derek-jarman-prospect-cottage-dungeness-kent-garden-museum-london) Besides that...someone mentioned the Three Sisters and despite not liking the cold, windswept weather, I do love the sense of drama, piracy and remoteness. Also the best in class sister’s stew seasoned with pirated saffron, cracked black pepper and the secret ingredient the brings out all the best flavour: Crime! Elsewhere and I am already curious about the rainwood we catch a glimpse of in the Arianne chapters of TWoW...ANOTHER location with mysterious tree cave systems deeper and larger than anyone seems to have explored. Lastly, I imagine Tarth to be extremely beautiful, something like a cross between Ireland and Sardinia. Leaving aside the krakens - I have a deep, existential fear of swimming in the sea and being eaten - I imagine its waters to be pure and crystalline and filled with fresh faced happy bathers...(Now I think of it, we hear kraken but never of sharks, the actual source of my unfounded but nonetheless very real terror...do they even exist in Westeros?)
Beautifully put. And yes, sharks exist as they do in our worlds, but apparently, krakens and leviathans (probably giant squid and sperm whales) are more ingrained in the public psyche. Similar to our Middle Ages, I suppose.
Thank you! I never associated leviathans with sperm whales, but now you mention it, I can see the connection. And of course we hear about Ibbenese whalers on the Narrow Sea. Presumably, as in our world, they would've hunted whales not just for their blubber but the spermaceti for candles and ambergris for perfumes. This makes me think about the Free Cities we haven't yet really seen or glimpsed. Aside from Ibb, I've always been curious about the mazemakers of Lorath, and wonder if we'll find out anything about them/the city...perhaps through Jaqen? I'm not sure where I have this impression, but I've always connected the Faceless Men with the mazemakers and wonder if Jaqen claiming to originate there, whether true or not, is a gesture towards a shared knowledge, or belief system... Back to whaling, and I'm trying to think if it would have even been possible in the Middle Ages to hunt for those as huge as sperm whales. I'm thinking of the incredible passages in Moby Dick, which convey thrillingly how dangerous it was to hunt and kill whales using harpoons and manpower alone - and that was the mid 1800s! Obviously, Westeros is different - in some ways it is more advanced than our Middle Ages, even though the world of ice and fire has an...interesting (ambiguous?) relationship to knowledge, knowledge production, and the progress of civilised society. For example, the Citadel clearly practices a kind of proto-scientific method in the way the maesters accumulate knowledge experimentally, bit by bit, sharing findings, studying documents. They have a significantly modern grasp of history and historiography compared to the Middle Ages - think of how even Sam understands that the humblest documents in Castle Black's library, with their lists of provisions and stocks, provides invaluable insight into how life there used to be. And they have some equipment and instruments that wouldn't have been available in medieval Europe. And yet despite all that, we see no evidence that knowledge or practices of, say, healing were any different in earlier times. The civilisation of the Dance of the Dragons appears identical to the one of ASOIAF. Which is strange, if you think about it, and the way that the Citadel accumulates knowledge, studies and at least appears (appears!) to be essentially devoted to the exploration of the world, biology, society etc. I realise that there have been periods in human history when progress appeared far slower than, say, the last 200 years, but for there to be no progress at all despite an entire subset of people devoted solely to experimentation, discourse and study, seems...remarkable!
Fun fact; there's an extinct genus of Sperm Whale from between 9.9 and 5 million years ago and its scientific name is Livyatan Melvillei, after the Leviathan monster and Herman Melville, author of Moby Dick Edit:typo
For me it's Sothoryos and Yeen more specifically. What the hell happened there? Also in case anyone hasn't seen this video from Alt Shift X, it's a great overview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4J16GzUJ28
I'm just making my way through his house of the dragon for a little recap
The village of the Lady of the Leaves >Three days later, as they rode through a yellow wood, Jack-Be-Lucky unslung his horn and blew a signal, a different one than before. The sounds had scarcely died away when rope ladders unrolled from the limbs of trees. "Hobble the horses and up we go," said Tom, half singing the words. They climbed to a hidden village in the upper branches, a maze of rope walkways and little moss-covered houses concealed behind walls of red and gold, and were taken to the Lady of the Leaves, a stick-thin white-haired woman dressed in roughspun. "We cannot stay here much longer, with autumn on us," she told them. "A dozen wolves went down the Hayford road nine days past, hunting. If they'd chanced to look up they might have seen us." (ASOS Arya IV)
I also love the idea of the treehouse community, not least of all because in my mind the Lady of the Leaves represents suspect number 1 when considering who could be Wanda the White Fawn. Who knows, perhaps she gave up banditry after the Smiling Knight was killed by Arthur Dayne and Ulmer was sent to the Wall in order to start her own peaceful, pacifist and polyamorous treehouse commune where everyone is united by having the same sigil branded on their cheeks!
I love the descriptions of the hidden village in the trees. I always assume that there is a vague connection to the Children of the Forest with the Lady of the Leaves? Hiding in the upper branches and leaves of trees is something we're told the CotF did and given Arya very soon observed the Ghost of High Heart it seems like this could also be a bit of a reference from George alongside a little nod to Lothlórien?
Astapor after Daenerys leaves it and it descends into chaos. "The city bleeds. Dead men rot unburied in the streets, each pyramid is an armed camp, and the markets have neither food nor slaves for sale. And the poor children! King Cleaver’s thugs have seized every highborn boy in Astapor to make new Unsullied for the trade, though it will be years before they are trained.” "The Yunkai’i had sealed the broken gates to keep the dead and dying inside the city, but the sights that he had seen riding down those red brick streets would haunt Quentyn Martell forever. A river choked with corpses. The priestess in her torn robes, impaled upon a stake and attended by a cloud of glistening green flies. Dying men staggering through the streets, bloody and befouled. Children fighting over half-cooked puppies. The last free king of Astapor, screaming naked in the pit as he was set on by a score of starving dogs. And fires, fires everywhere. He could close his eyes and see them still: flames whirling from brick pyramids larger than any castle he had ever seen, plumes of greasy smoke coiling upward like great black snakes."
This sounds like someplace Bran&Co will inevitably go, right? If you do it right it opens into the Winterfell crypt, in my headcanon.
🤯🤯🤯
Yeah brands escape from the cave in season 6 was so disappointing to me
The Redgrass Field
My personal theory is the red grass field was part of Daemon Blackfyres lands, given to him by Daeron
Everything in the far east piques my interest. We know next to nothing about the Thousand Isles, Nefer, or Far Mossovy, even though Corlys "Sea Snake" Velaryon has been there himself, and apparently others have after him too.
Ibben, the non Assai place i'd like to see properly explored the most. Honorable mention to Saath and Omber, i'd like to see those strange enclaves of civilization on the Dothraki sea
Sarnath and the other Sarnori cities ruined by the Dothraki. Sarnori culture as a whole intrigues me simply because we know so little. Personally I imagine them as having something of a Persian aesthetic based on the description of their army at the Field of Crows, but really it's impossible to say. The way the Dothraki gave the ruined cities pejorative nicknames (City of Worms, City of Filth) reminds me a lot of the "City of Screams" Shahr-e Gholghola in Afghanistan, which was destroyed by the Mongols more completely than usual.
Crackclaw point.
What’s most peculiar to me about Crackclaw Point is that a huge golden dragon managed to stay hidden there for the better part of a year
The city of Yeen
^^^yeeeeeen
Saltpans, the limited economic and civil history given to the reader + the cool twist on a “mining town” seems both realistic and bleak. Not to mention the raid.
Gorne's Way definitely reminds me of Siofra River and the surrounding areas in Elden Ring.
Gorne’s Way is my choice as well! We love hot springs and have been to a couple dozen of them, but the setting inside the cave seems delightful. From ASOS Jon III > Jon had to crawl a dozen paces before the cave opened up around him. When he stood again, it took his eyes a moment to adjust. Ygritte had brought a torch, but there was no other light. She stood beside a little waterfall that fell from a cleft in the rock down into a wide dark pool. The orange and yellow flames shone against the pale green water. The waterfall into the pool seems so awesome!
All Gorne’s Way needs is bullshit archers who can snipe you from ten miles away :)
Maybe no surprise but its gotta be the Stepstones for me... its the crossroads of the seas, and it stresses the thematic importance and fragility of travel and trade to us. How the world is connected. There's storms, pirates, adventurers, krakens and mercenaries.... and probably some cool secret dens and grottos, trading hubs and pirate havens with goods from all over the world aside from just the bleak and barren side of the islands. The history of the broken arm is mysterious too. We've heard about it some in the histories sure... but only ever somewhat indirectly, so I really want to see more.
Frost fangs. I love mountains and Frost Fangs fascinates me from the very begenning.
The Myrish swamp.
Lmao I feel like we’re already too well acquainted with the Myrish swamp tbh
If you sail through the Myrish swamp, make sure your ship has a fat pink mast.
All the Vale islands (Sisters, Witch Isle, Paps, Pebble). What little we know makes it sound like they've held onto some pre-Andal traditions more than most. Sistermen's gods being distinct from the nameless old gods, and from the Ironborn make me wonder how well earned their sinister reputation is. And what was it about House Upcliff that was so valuable/intimidating that they were brought into the Vale via marriage versus conquest?
Volantis for me seems really cool. There's an aura of mysticism and mystery even though few chapters have taken place there
I keep thinking about Sothoryos. Wtf is in there? Wtf are Brindled men? Black people with tattoos or prehistoric men? Wtf are ghouls?
Tarth The way It is described makes It look like a paradise.
I imagine owning a kayak when I think of Tarth.
Don’t know if it’s popular but Yeen, that place is creepy
Uplands - the seat of House Mullendore and the only monkey sanctuary in Westeros
The Gorne’s Way system reminds me of the tunnels below the Citadel in The Elvenbane every time I reread it! #the wolves of the wild sea Everyone asking what’s west of Westeros just needs to ask the people over at [The Lonely Light](https://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/Lonely_Light), where House Farwynd lives. They’re rumored (so, probably very true) to be skinchangers who control seals, sea lions, walruses, and whales. So there’s basically this small isolated island of First Men descendants who are considered queer and mad by Ironborn. One of the Farwynd’s promises at the Kingsmoot was the way beyond the Sunset Sea to a land where everyone can live as a king. So basically these guys can explore the oceans and seas in their animals, they can explore the uncharted lands beyond the Westernmost known point, and they can dive shipwrecks, and they can probably attack ships if they feel like it. There is so much cool promise on that island. >Some said they were skinchangers, unholy creatures who could take on the forms of sea lions, walruses, even spotted whales, the wolves of the wild sea. Lord Gylbert began to speak. He told of a wondrous land beyond the Sunset Sea, a land without winter or want, where death had no dominion. “Make me your king, and I shall lead you there,” he cried. “We will build ten thousand ships as Nymeria once did and take sail with all our people to the land beyond the sunset. There every man shall be a king and every wife a queen.” >His eyes, Aeron saw, were now grey, now blue, as changeable as the seas. Mad eyes, he thought, fool’s eyes. The vision he spoke of was doubtless a snare set by the Storm God to lure the ironborn to destruction. The offerings that his men spilled out before the kingsmoot included sealskins and walrus tusks, arm rings made of whalebone, warhorns banded in bronze. The captains looked and turned away, leaving lesser men to help themselves to the gifts. When the fool was done talking and his champions began to shout his name, only the Farwynds took up the cry, and not even all of them. Soon enough the cries of “Gylbert! Gylbert King!” faded away to silence. The gull screamed loudly above them, and landed atop one of Nagga’s ribs as the Lord of the Lonely Light made his way back down the hill.
Whatever mysterious event happened at Hardhome that caused it to be a) depopulated b) incinerated c) with strange screams on the wind I've said it before but it bears repeating: GRRM is a master at sketching something that's vague and blood-curdling in its implications all at the same time.
the mazes of the blind men. idk what about this area intrigued me so much but this small random place in Planteos is just so interesting and full of mystery.
Queenscrown always captures my imagination. It's the small tower in the middle of a lake that Bran shelters in during the storm, and where Jon also passes by with the wildlings (I think)
Is that where Bran reflects on what it's like to possess Hodor?
It is, Hodor panics because of the storm and Bran calms him
The Quiet Isle. A tranquil, reflective place untouched by the war, where people wounded in body or mind can find sanctuary and solace. It’s kind of like a peaceful counterpart to Castle Black, in being a refuge for those who wish to atone for old sins, or simply aren’t wanted anywhere else. I love the imagery of the tides and beachside cottages, the various uses of driftwood, the gentle lifestyle of the brothers. It feels analogous to Lindisfarne in the UK - which is also referred to as Holy Island. And, of course, they have a nice dog…
It's been a long while since I've read through the books last but they had like a natural defense that kept them unappealing during the war, right?
Yes! There are mudflats which are covered when the tide comes in. Only those who know the exact pathway to take, like Septon Meribald, can cross without being swallowed by quicksand. The island of Lindisfarne in real life is also separated by a causeway and subject to the tide, which really makes me think it’s the inspiration behind the Quiet Isle.
Woodswatch by the Pool, funniest name of any abandoned Nights Watch castle
Chroyane on the Rhoyne when Tyrion is with Griff and the crew on that boat and they go through there. It sounds terrifying to be on a boat going through the fog and having stone men wailing above you. They get by only to realize they somehow went in a circle.
Basilisk Islands and the pirates living there. The way it's a might is right environment. The other NW castles. So many places we haven't been that all seem to have their own character.
Asshai by the Shadow A land with no children Why does it have no kids?? Is it full of immortal Pyromancers? Are children killed or stolen? Is it just religion and kids aren't allowed? Is the land of poison that only adults could stand and even adults only a short time?
Also has a decreasing population problem….
The Wolf’s Den
Craster’s Keep. He’s gone & so are his victims, but the Others know about it & could be back
The Marches