Origin of Asshai and Leng - Great Empire of the Dawn - A Song of Ice and Fire

@GreyWasteTimand I will be holding a hardcore world-building workshop to try to determine: the origins of Asshai, the truth of the Old Ones on Leng, what those two things had to do with the Great Empire of the Dawn and settling Westeros, whether the green men came from somewhere else, who the Grey King really is, and what the squishers might have to do with all of this. Wow. I’m going to squeeze Tim’s mind like a sponge, don’t miss it!

Twitter: @thedragonLML | Instagram: @davidlightbringer

title image uses "City of Asshai" by Rene Aigner

[subliminal-damage]

This came on while I was sleeping, and it made for a very interesting dream. At 16:23 when he starts talking about how it's not logical to not have a maximum human population, and how squishers farm humans, my dream took an aerial dive into the depths of Asshai, like the inside of a hollow tower, and the outer ring was all prison-like cells packed full of skeletons of humans that had burned alive in the hypothesized meteor strike. Very cool imagery.

[bloodyneptune]

"Forget about the moon part of it" something I never thought I'd hear on this channel 😂

[tracymetherell]

Please leave a like and a comment to support David and Tim. This is some of the most interesting ASOIAF content on UTube

[lucaschapel]

On the most commonly shared ASOIAF map, Ulthos is shown to be extremely dense in the shade of the evening trees. Interestingly, a short distance from Ashai.

[sterlingorganicfarm]

Thank you for continuing to make great ASOIAF content. I barely noticed the squishes on my first read through, but I’m more and more convinced they are off the coast of everywhere in planetos. There are so many layers and nuances to GRRM’s work.

[iSlack]

Watching them grow their ability to have a streamlined conversation and interact is, almost, better than the topic.

[MykeFahrenheit]

The name Yi Ti seems to me like a reference to the Yuan-ti from Forgotten Realms/Greyhawk lore, who are snake/human hybrids created in blood rituals. Some of the stuff in Leng reminds me of them:

- they live underground
- mostly live in the jungle
- big yellow eyes because they’re sneks
- darkvision
- xenophobic and suspicious (“kill all the foreigners”)

The yuan-ti often inhabit the remains of the cities of ancient fallen civilisations, so if GRRM is imaging snake-people currently living in the jungles of Leng, it would imply they were not the original builders of those cities

One of the popular yuan-ti religions attempts to awaken a sleeping ancient god, which I believe to be a Lovecraft reference. Another sect work to unleash a primordial serpent who is destined to devour the Sun and plunge the world into eternal darkness, which links them with the Long Night as well

[cernunnos_lives]

Love that George made it apparent that Asshai and the whole region went through a magical apocalypse, due in part to a world ending war. It has the after effects of something similar to radiation.
He's made cyclical periods of upheaval a regular thing in his world.
There's even periods of golden ages of discovery that civilizations go through like bronze age, iron age, and even valyerian steel age, hell even a dragon age, or black oily stone age. That different sentient races had their own age of glory or discovery and a cataclysmic end.

[garthvader]

Asshai and Leng is the kind of content I'm here for.

[kelseythreepio]

just went through huge trauma and i just want to thank you both for what you do for us.

[ShelbyOfOldStones]

Another fabulous stream. Between being an old theater kid myself and praising Garth for my adhd, watching David Lightbringer and Grey Waste Tim together is like hanging out with the coolest voices in my head.

[WeesanTV]

"The dragon must have three heads" - the comet and moon meteors are refered to as dragons - 3 impact sites around the world - could they have been West to East, long ago; 1st on the Iron Islands, then at the Hammer of the Waters and finally at Asshai.

I'm unsure how much time is possible between these three dragon head landings, but just something I was thinking on this evening, during the stream.

Thanks for the great content per usual @greywastetim and excellent stream and always love this topic.

[cantabrian]

Bless Tim, don't worry man, easy mistake to make if you're not overly familiar with AI images. I'm an artist myself and have managed to learn to spot AI pieces now but they still occasionally catch me out. Some things to look for to spot AI imagery - Odd looking eyes and fingers, scenes and environments that have points where 'physics' seem to be broken (clouds below horizon lines etc), and oft times they'll be very painterly in style.

Most importantly, Great stream as always fellas - Thank you. Really like hearing the back and forth of conversation between you both, you're enthusiasm really draws the listener in and makes me realise that my bookshelf is in need of a few more novels...

[zegreeno]

I love you and Tim together, and talking about Asshai! Amazing content. Love it.

[particles]

I'd really love to see an animated series about the Empire of the Dawn and the lands and peoples of Essos. Even Jaenara Belaerys flying over Sothoryos.

[shay]

These discussions are absolutely feeding my love for history and mythology and now I want to binge documentaries on the Celtic pantheon. Also I love, LOVE how you guys address the fact that any giant empire is going to be multi-racial and multi-ethnic and point out China being aware of the Roman Empire and Rome being aware of China as a real world example. (And thank both you and Tim for your stance and comments on ai 'art'. I don't want to go into a tangent about it, but it just really means a lot to hear the harm ai 'art' does to artists, being addressed in more fandom spaces. You guys are awesome! )

[justjet]

I had never read a ASOIAF book until I came across David's videos. Phenomenal content. You and Quinn are the fantasy GOATS.

[TSmith-yycc]

What if Dawn is the ancestral sword of the Gemstone Emperors that was brought to Westeros by Amethyst Empress loyalists (Dayne ancestors) fleeing from the BSE?
That has parallels (which GRRM _loves_ ) with Alyssa Velaryon taking Dark Sister in her flight from Maegor.

As for the blood sacrifice I have a theory that there's a huge difference between forced blood sacrifice and sacrifices of willing subjects (which will come into the endgame imo).

In YI-Tish history there's a dynasty of Eunuch Emperors who sacrifice their bits willingly upon ascension.

This, again, shares narrative parallels with Varys, arguably the shadow babies and the general theme of magic powered by life/ reproductive essences/child-birth etc. being extremely powerful (although these are all part of the "dark" iteration of blood magic).

Perhaps this willing sacrifice of "bits/essence etc." could be a throwback to a different, less malign version of blood magic as opposed to the BSE and the following Valyrian's concept of blood magic, that seems extremely malign with Valyrian steel consuming light in juxtaposition to Dawn that seems to refract it being an example of this difference.

Also has possible parallels with the Others. If they are, say, the spirits of those exiled from the WWN who are created from willing sacrifices to become soldiers/weapons against the invaders of the WWN that pushed them out.
Dawn and The Others *do* share noted physical similarities...

Maybe I'm lost in the sauce but I really appreciate your work and the ones with Tim are always fantastic (Anyone reading go subscribe to his channel). I really wouldn't have thought much about this series without your work.

Take care of yourselves everybody!

[tiffanyhill-rice]

David, my dad is an old Blues Bassist who used to watch Reading Rainbow with me when I was a young mermaid. I am desperate to send him your Reading Rhaegar cover! I need a 😂

[rickglaze]

I really like the distributed meteor theory. It encapsulates the theme of mixing random things together and then exploring how they interact. Such that...there is not intention, only cosmic chaos that ends up resulting in interesting things. This feels very GM.