The Lands of the Long Summer (Spoilers Extended)
I've posted before on how Westeros and Essos are basically mirrors of each other. But one thing I've never thought to compare before are the Land of Always Winter and its direct opposite: The Lands of the Long Summer.
Thoughts on "The Lands of the Long Summer
#Background
The Land of the Long Summer is the northern part of the valyrian peninsula:
Viserys had told her that the last Targaryen dragons had died no more than a century and a half ago, during the reign of Aegon III, who was called the Dragonbane. That did not seem so long ago to Dany. "Everywhere?" she said, disappointed. "Even in the east?" Magic had died in the west when the Doom fell on Valyria and the Lands of the Long Summer, and neither spell-forged steel nor stormsingers nor dragons could hold it back, but Dany had always heard that the east was different. It was said that manticores prowled the islands of the Jade Sea, that basilisks infested the jungles of Yi Ti, that spellsingers, warlocks, and aeromancers practiced their arts openly in Asshai, while shadowbinders and bloodmages worked terrible sorceries in the black of night. Why shouldn't there be dragons too? -AGOT, Daenerys III
Which has basically turned it into a desert:
"Some smaller than others." Valyria. It was written that on the day of Doom every hill for five hundred miles had split asunder to fill the air with ash and smoke and fire, blazes so hot and hungry that even the dragons in the sky were engulfed and consumed. Great rents had opened in the earth, swallowing palaces, temples, entire towns. Lakes boiled or turned to acid, mountains burst, fiery fountains spewed molten rock a thousand feet into the air, red clouds rained down dragonglass and the black blood of demons, and to the north the ground splintered and collapsed and fell in on itself and an angry sea came rushing in. The proudest city in all the world was gone in an instant, its fabled empire vanished in a day, the Lands of the Long Summer scorched and drowned and blighted. -ADWD, Tyrion VIII
Some historical context:
When adventurers, exiles, and traders from the Freehold of Valyria began to expand beyond the Lands of the Long Summer in the centuries after the fall of the Old Empire of Ghis, the Rhoynish princes embraced them at first, and their priests declared that all men were welcome to share the bounty of Mother Rhoyne. -TWOIAF, Ancient History: Ten Thousand Ships
and:
The proudest city in all the world was gone in an instant, the fabled empire vanished in a day. The Lands of the Long Summer—once the most fertile in all the world—were scorched and drowned and blighted, and the toll in blood would not be fully realized for a century to come. -TWOIAF, Ancient History: The Doom of Valyria
and:
The Targaryens were of pure Valyrian blood, dragonlords of ancient lineage. Twelve years before the Doom of Valyria (114 BC), Aenar Targaryen sold his holdings in the Freehold and the Lands of the Long Summer and moved with all his wives, wealth, slaves, dragons, siblings, kin, and children to Dragonstone, a bleak island citadel beneath a smoking mountain in the narrow sea. -TWOIAF, The Reign of the Dragons: The Conquest
#Contrasting with "The Land of Always Winter"
The Lands of Always Winter is where the children of the forest/giants get pushed to by the first men, basically we get the "heart of ice vs. the heart of fire".
Way north of the Haunted Forest:
Not ten yards from the door, Rowan dropped her empty pail, and her sisters did likewise. The Great Keep was already lost to sight behind them. The yard was a white wilderness, full of half-heard sounds that echoed strangely amidst the storm. The icy trenches rose around them, knee high, then waist high, then higher than their heads. They were in the heart of Winterfell with the castle all around them, but no sign of it could be seen. They might have easily been lost amidst the Land of Always Winter, a thousand leagues beyond the Wall. "It's cold," Jeyne Poole whimpered as she stumbled along at Theon's side. -ADWD, Theon I
Children of the Forest:
There are none who can say with certain knowledge when the world began, yet this has not stopped many maesters and learned men from seeking the answer. Is it forty thousand years old, as some hold, or perhaps a number as large as five hundred thousand—or even more? It is not written in any book that we know, for in the first age of the world, the Dawn Age, men were not lettered. We can be certain that the world was far more primitive, however—a barbarous place of tribes living directly from the land with no knowledge of the working of metal or the taming of beasts. What little is known to us of those days is contained in the oldest of texts: the tales written down by the Andals, by the Valyrians, and by the Ghiscari, and even by those distant people of fabled Asshai. Yet however ancient those lettered races, they were not even children during the Dawn Age. So what truths their tales contain are difficult to find, like seeds among chaff. What can most accurately be told about the Dawn Age? The eastern lands were awash with many peoples—uncivilized, as all the world was uncivilized, but numerous. But on Westeros, from the Lands of Always Winter to the shores of the Summer Sea, only two peoples existed: the children of the forest and the race of creatures known as the giants. -TWOIAF, Ancient History: The Dawn Age
and:
Ravens are amongst the cleverest of birds, but they are no wiser than infant children, and considerably less capable of true speech, whatever Septon Barth might have believed. A few maesters, devoted to the link of Valyrian steel, have argued that Barth was correct, but not a one has been able to prove his claims regarding speech between men and ravens.
Yet no matter the truths of their arts, the children were led by their greenseers, and there is no doubt that they could once be found from the Lands of Always Winter to the shores of the Summer Sea. They made their homes simply, constructing no holdfasts or castles or cities. Instead they resided in the woods, in crannogs, in bogs and marshes, and even in caverns and hollow hills. It is said that, in the woods, they made shelters of leaves and withes up in the branches of trees—secret tree "towns." -TWOIAF: Ancient History: The Dawn Age
and:
What is commonly accepted is that the Age of Heroes began with the Pact and extended through the thousands of years in which the First Men and the children lived in peace with one another. With so much land ceded to them, the First Men at last had room to increase. From the Land of Always Winter to the shores of the Summer Sea, the First Men ruled from their ringforts. -TWOIAF, Ancient History: The Age of Heroes
The Others:
Yet there are other tales—harder to credit and yet more central to the old histories—about creatures known as the Others. According to these tales, they came from the frozen Land of Always Winter, bringing the cold and darkness with them as they sought to extinguish all light and warmth. The tales go on to say they rode monstrous ice spiders and the horses of the dead, resurrected to serve them, just as they resurrected dead men to fight on their behalf. -TWOIAF, Ancient History: The Long Night
The Heart of Winter
Finally he looked north. He saw the Wall shining like blue crystal, and his bastard brother Jon sleeping alone in a cold bed, his skin growing pale and hard as the memory of all warmth fled from him. And he looked past the Wall, past endless forests cloaked in snow, past the frozen shore and the great blue-white rivers of ice and the dead plains where nothing grew or lived. North and north and north he looked, to the curtain of light at the end of the world, and then beyond that curtain. He looked deep into the heart of winter, and then he cried out, afraid, and the heat of his tears burned on his cheeks. -AGOT, Bran III
#The Main Story
Outside of characters who have possibly seen Valyria, I really wasn't sure how this could affect the main storyline until I remembered that it is very possible that Dany will have to split her troops with some taking the Demon Road and others sailing.
"As Aegon did," Ser Jorah said, "with fire. By the time we reach the Seven Kingdoms, your dragons will be grown. And we will have siege towers and trebuchets as well, all the things we lack here . . . but the way across the Lands of the Long Summer is long and grueling, and there are dangers we cannot know. You stopped at Astapor to buy an army, not to start a war. Save your spears and swords for the Seven Kingdoms, my queen. Leave Meereen to the Meereenese and march west for Pentos." -ASOS, Daenerys V
Some geography on it:
is a region located in the southern part of central Essos. To the northwest is the Sea of Sighs. Directly to the north lie the city Mantarys and the Valyrian demon road. To the south is the Smoking Sea and the ruined Valyrian peninsula. A Valyrian road runs through the Lands of the Long Summer, running south from Mantarys to the ruined city of Oros, from where it runs westward along the coast past another ruined city back to the demon road.
So in order to get to Volantis (the next most likely stop on her journey back) a portion of her army (Dothraki most likely imo) will have to take the Demon Road which runs along the shadow of The Land of the Long Summer.
I just noticed this and thought the details lined up well comparing the two opposites. Let me know your thoughts.
TLDR: Just some thoughts comparing the descriptions of the the Land of Always Winter and the Lands of the Long Summer
Posted Aug 18, 2020, 12:25 PM UTC · edited