The Blood of Old Valyria VI: Valyrian Gods (Spoilers Extended)
Another day, another post and another corny title but this is Part VI of what should be an 9 or 10 part series (I originally said 3-4 and kept adding, hey George I can do it too) on the Gods of Old Valyria, in which I hope to discuss any of any and all things involved.
Part I: Current Cast of Characters(about current characters with Valyrian blood)
Part II: Here There Be Dragons(about dragon history/origin/myths)
Part III: The Last of the Dragons(about the last dragons alive)
Part IV: How to Kill your Dragon(how to kill/who killed the dragons)
Part V: How to Build a a Dragon(attempts to bring dragons back)
Part VI is about the gods of ancient Valyria
In Valyria there were thousands of gods:
The tradition amongst the Targaryens had always been to marry kin to kin. Wedding brother to sister was thought to be ideal. Failing that, a girl might wed an uncle, a cousin, or a nephew; a boy, a cousin, aunt, or niece. This practice went back to Old Valyria, where it was common amongst many of the ancient families, particularly those who bred and rode dragons. "The blood of the dragon must remain pure," the wisdom went. Some of the sorcerer princes also took more than one wife when it pleased them, though this was less common than incestuous marriage. In Valryia before the Doom, wise men wrote, a thousand gods were honored, but none were feared, so few dared to speak against these customs. -TWOIAF, The Targaryen Kings: Aenys I
But none were feared:
Bastards were common enough, but incest was a monstrous sin to both old gods and new, and the children of such wickedness were named abominations in sept and godswood alike. The dragon kings had wed brother to sister, but they were the blood of old Valyria where such practices had been common, and like their dragons the Targaryens answered to neither gods nor men. -ACOK, Catelyn V
They were considered gods by others at times:
Many a night she had watched Prince Rhaegar in the hall, playing his silver-stringed harp with those long, elegant fingers of his. Had any man ever been so beautiful? He was more than a man, though. His blood was the blood of old Valyria, the blood of dragons and gods. -AFFC, Cersei V
#Names
Balerion, Meraxes and Vhagar
"Aegon's dragons were named for the gods of Old Valyria," she told her bloodriders one morning after a long night's journey. "Visenya's dragon was Vhagar, Rhaenys had Meraxes, and Aegon rode Balerion, the Black Dread. It was said that Vhagar's breath was so hot that it could melt a knight's armor and cook the man inside, that Meraxes swallowed horses whole, and Balerion . . . his fire was as black as his scales, his wings so vast that whole towns were swallowed up in their shadow when he passed overhead." -ACOK, Daenerys I
Of which they were apparently named by singers:
From there the skulls ranged upward in size to the three great monsters of song and story, the dragons that Aegon Targaryen and his sisters had unleashed on the Seven Kingdoms of old. The singers had given them the names of gods: Balerion, Meraxes, Vhaghar. Tyrion had stood between their gaping jaws, wordless and awed. You could have ridden a horse down Vhaghar's gullet, although you would not have ridden it out again. Meraxes was even bigger. And the greatest of them, Balerion, the Black Dread, could have swallowed an aurochs whole, or even one of the hairy mammoths said to roam the cold wastes beyond the Port of Ibben. -AGOT, Tyrion II
Dany renames her ships after them:
She could see her ships standing out to sea. Balerion floated nearest; the great cog once known as Saduleon, her sails furled. Further out were the galleys Meraxes and Vhagar, formerly Joso's Prank and Summer Sun. They were Magister Illyrio's ships, in truth, not hers at all, and yet she had given them new names with hardly a thought. Dragon names, and more; in old Valyria before the Doom, Balerion, Meraxes, and Vhagar had been gods. -ASOS, Daenerys V
Syrax
The singers dubbed her the Realm's Delight, for she was bright and precocious—a beautiful child who was already a dragonrider at the age of seven as she flew on the back of her she-dragon Syrax, named for one of the old gods of Valyria. -TWOIAF, The Targaryen Kings: Viserys I
Since we know that 4 of the dragons in Westeros are named after valyrian gods and that there are possibly thousands of Valyrian gods, it remains possible that other dragons were named after gods as well.
#Still Worshipped
Myr, Lys and Tyrosh
I think it is fair to assume that some of these gods remain the same as those from Valyria:
All three are slave cities, where bondsmen outnumber the freeborn three to one. All are ports, and the salt sea is their life's blood. Like Valyria, their mother, these three daughters have no established faith. Temples and shrines to many different gods line their streets and crowd their waterfronts. -TWOIAF, The Free Cities: The Quarrelsome Daughters: Myr, Lys, and Tyrosh
Volantis
The Old Blood in Volantis seems to mirror Valyrians of old often:
Many of the Old Blood of Volantis still keep the old gods of Valyria, but their faith is found primarily within the Black Walls. Without, the red god R'hllor is favored by many, especially among the slaves and freedmen of the city. -TWOIAF, The Free Cities: Volantis
Norvos, Lorath, Qohor
Dozens of such sects flourished in Valyria, sometimes quarreling violently with one another. Inevitably, some found the tolerance of the Freehold to be intolerable and set out into the wilderness to found cities of their own, godly cities where only the "true faith" would be practiced. We have already spoken of the followers of the Blind God Boash who founded Lorath and what befell them there. Qohor was settled by worshippers of that grim deity known only as the Black Goat, as shall be related shortly. But the sect that settled Norvos is as strange, or stranger, than either of these, and far more secretive. Even the very name of their god is revealed only to initiates. That he is a stern deity cannot be doubted, for his priests wear hair shirts and untanned hides and practice ritual flagellation as part of their worship. Once initiated, they are forbidden to shave or cut their hair. -TWOIAF, The Free Cities: Norvos
Braavos and Pentos
The last 2 of the free cities aren't mentioned as having any as still serving the ancient valyrian gods, but it must be remembered that not only are numerous gods served in Pentos, but they ritually sacrifice their prince in certain cases.
WRT to Braavos, the origins of the city and the FM originate in Valyria and I think we can count it as well (although I can see how it would be open to debate).
#Other Information
Many Volumes Written
While the reader doesn't seem to get a ton of information about Valyrian gods, there is apparently plenty of information available:
Of the history of Valyria as it is known today, many volumes have been written over the centuries, and the details of their conquests, their colonizations, the feuds of the dragonlords, the gods they worshipped, and more could fill libraries and still not be complete. Galendro's The Fires of the Freehold is widely considered the most definitive history, and even there the Citadel lacks twenty-seven of the scrolls. -TWOIAF, Ancient History: Valyria's Children
Promiscuity in their religion
To this day, no one knows what caused the Doom. Most say that it was a natural cataclysm—a catastrophic explosion caused by the eruption of all Fourteen Flames together. Some septons, less wise, claim that the Valyrians brought the disaster on themselves for their promiscuous belief in a hundred gods and more, and in their godlessness they delved too deep and unleashed the fires of the Seven hells on the Freehold. 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. -TWOIAF, Ancient History: The Doom of Valyria
and:
Many Valyrians worshipped more than one god, turning to different deities according to their needs; more, it is said, worshipped none at all. Most regarded freedom of faith as a hallmark of any truly advanced civilization. Yet to some, this plethora of gods was a source of continuing grievance. "The man who honors all the gods honors none at all," a prophet of the Lord of Light, R'hllor the Red, once famously declared. And even at the height of its glory, the Freehold was home to many who believed fiercely in their own particular god or goddess and regarded all others as false idols, frauds, or demons, bent on deceiving mankind. -TWOIAF, The Free Cities: Norvos
One particular thing I love is how R'hllor isn't directly tied to valyrians, even though often associated with them. They both use a form of "fire magic" that they attribute to different things.
There are other quotes that could (if read in certain ways) be attributed to valyrian gods but names aren't mentioned such as:
The infamy of Gogossos outlived even the Doom. During the Century of Blood, this dark city waxed rich and powerful. Some called her the Tenth Free City, but her wealth was built on slaves and sorcery. Her slave markets became as notorious as those of the old Ghiscari cities on Slaver's Bay. Seven-and-seventy years after the Doom of Valyria, however, it is said their stink reached even the nostrils of the gods, and a terrible plague emerged from the slave pens of Gogossos. The Red Death swept across the Isle of Tears, then the rest of the Basilisk Isles. Nine men of every ten died screaming, bleeding copiously from every orifice, their skin shredding like wet parchment. -TWOIAF, Beyond the Free Cities: The Basilisk Isles
TLDR: Thoughts and Discussion on the Valyrian Gods
Posted May 8, 2020, 2:25 PM UTC