#essos

[soncee]

Dothraki Dany !!!

Here are some khaleesi fits. The wasted potential in the show is so depressing.

#fanart #a song of ice and fire #asoiaf fanart #daenerys targaryen #dothraki #khalessi #daenerys targeryan #daenerys stormborn #asoiaf hair and clothing #essos #house targaryen

[daenysthedreamer101]

Daenys the Dreamer, the woman who foresaw the Doom of Valyria

When Daenys was still a maiden she had a powerful prophetic dream, showing the destruction of Valyria by fire.

#moodboard #game of thrones #asoiaf #a song of ice and fire #house of the dragon #hotd #daenys the dreamer #daenys targaryen #doom of valyria #old valyria #valyrian freehold #valyrianscrolls #high valyrian #targaryen aesthetic #house targaryen #hotd aesthetic #got aesthetic #dragonstone #seven kingdoms #westeros #essos #targaryen #I know she was traumatised #poor girl #she was never the same

[barbieaemond]

Qarth is the greatest city that ever was or ever will be. It is the center of the world, the gate between North and South, the bridge between East and West, ancient beyond memory of man and so magnificent that Saathos the Wise put out his eyes after gazing upon Qarth for the first time, because he knew that all he saw thereafter should look squalid and ugly by comparison. - A Clash of Kings

#asoiaf #qarth #essos #gotedit #game of thrones #barbieaemondgifs #cities of essos #a song of ice and fire #gameofthronesedit #westeros #daenerys targaryen

[bbygirl-aemond]

the children of the forest will always be so interesting to me for many reasons but primarily and originally this one. thousands of years ago, they used their magic to turn this map:

into this one:

during their war with the first men, who were invading westeros. it's part of what led to the pact between the two groups.

do you see the difference? take a closer look:

these bitches made the stepstones.

they broke westeros and essos in two.

they broke a continent.

#whew they are so interesting #they did it through some wacky mass sacrifice on the isle of faces apparently #it's called the hammer of the waters #asoiaf #children of the forest #hammer of the waters #stepstones #westeros #essos

[thewatcher0nthewall]

design studies

#a song of ice and fire #asoiaf #drawing #fanart #illustration #the winds of winter #game of thrones #essos #valyrian scrolls #asoiaf fanart #drogo #daenerys #dothraki #warlords #horselords #khal drogo #character design #studies #sketches #art #daenerys targaryen #house targaryen #khaleesi

[chiaracognigniart]

TDIOBCB challenge - day 7:

First Meeting - The Wedding of Prince Viserys and Larra Roagre in the Throne Room

"Many years later, the prince, reminiscing about how he and his wife had first encountered each other, would confess to his children, not without a blush, that even before laying eyes on her, the words Larra wrote during those years were enough to make him fall completely in love with her. He almost dismissed the revelation of her true appearance as playing any significant role in his infatuation. According to Prince Viserys, it was the eloquence and magnetic personality of his then-fiancée that enchanted him to the extent that concerns about her beauty took a back seat. Whether this is the whole truth remains uncertain; however, it is worth noting that the marriage between Prince Viserys and Larra Rogare, though not initially under the most auspicious circumstances, evolved into a great love story that culminated in a long and happy union. If, before the arrival of his promised bride, the mind of the young prince was primarily occupied with the company of beautiful courtesans and high-born prostitutes, from the moment the stunning Lyseni maiden graced King's Landing, no other woman crossed the threshold of the young man's bedroom except her. This continued until her demise in 165 AC. Every ounce of his energy, both physical and mental, from the day of their marriage, was devoted solely to his wife. She, no longer a girl, possessed not only extraordinary intelligence and culture but also breathtaking beauty, affirming the reality that the most beautiful women in the known world indeed hailed from Lys. Their union stood as a testament to the enduring power of love. Still, even if, want to believe him for the sake of historical honesty, I must report the multiple testimonies of some members of the court, present at this marriage at the time, who claim that the newlywed groom, who had never seen his bride before the ceremony, remained anything but indifferent to her appearance. According to them, during the grand entrance of the noblewoman, who arrived in the castle's Sept dressed in an exquisite and lightweight gown made entirely of golden silk that vividly revealed the perfect curves of her womanly form, accompanied by her fifteen ladies-in-waiting, the groom, was so dazzled by her dazzling beauty, that he needed to be supported by his brother Aegon to prevent himself from falling on the spot from sheer emotion. The young prince, who had always been famous for being an easygoing lad, remained dumbfounded in front of her like a statue of salt throughout the ceremony, unable to find the words to express his wonder, to the point that, for a whole minute, he mistakenly recited the marriage formula almost three times before starting to recite his vows correctly. It seems that the young prince was not the only one to be astonished by the entrance of the new princess. The same witnesses claim that even Prince Daemon was amazed by his new daughter-in-law, as evidenced by the widening of his eyes. During the celebration, he went so far as to congratulate his son conspiratorially, calling him "the luckiest man in the Seven Kingdoms."

- from TDIOBCB chapter 1

(warning: these illustrations are inspired by an AU Divergence and have nothing to do with canon (book or tv show) events and are not meant to be reposted outside of their contest)

#illustration #artists on tumblr #chiara cognigni's art #chiara's art #digital illustration #digital art #fanart #art #the doom in our blood comes back #pre asoiaf #asoiaf #a song of ice and fire #asoiaf fanfic #asoiaf fanart #tdiobcb #fanfic #fanfic ao3 #ao3 writer #ao3 fanfic #wedding #lys #house targaryen #house rogare #essos #roman empire #ancient rome fashion #alexandra moloney #viserys the cleaver #viserys targaryen #visenya targaryen

[sunfyre-targaryen]

Mother and sons

🖤💚💛

#game of thrones #dreamfyre #drogon #rhaegal #viserion #daenerys targaryen #daenerys stormborn #queen rhaena #elissa farman #westeros #essos #house targaryen #dragons #asoiaf

[game-of-style]

The Jade Empress of Yi Ti - Iris van Herpen Couture Fall 2023

#yi ti #essos #iris van herpen #haute couture #green #a song of ice and fire #game of thrones

[thesunwillshineonusagain757]

𝗧𝗢𝗨𝗥𝗜𝗦𝗧 𝗔𝗨- 𝗔 𝗦𝗢𝗡𝗚 𝗢𝗙 𝗜𝗖𝗘 𝗔𝗡𝗗 𝗙𝗜𝗥𝗘

So this is the second entry on the next book for West Essos. For those who don’t know this is the city where Daenerys is at the start of game of thrones. I actually liked this a lot, but it’s kind of very complicated to do it so it might not be a daily series anymore like once or twice a week so tell me if you guys like it. I liked doing this a lot and next year I plan on doing this again. So Merry Christas to everyone ( because in my country we celebrate 24 and 25 ), and happy New Year.

WEST ESSOS. BRAAVOS. MYR. VOLANTIS. LYS. TYROSH. STEP-STONES. QOHOR. LORATH.

#west essos guide for tourists #game of thrones #a song of ice and fire #got #asoiaf #essos #essos guide for tourists #illyrio mopatis #lord varys #varys #essos tourist au #rhaena of pentos #baela of pentos #tyanna of pentos

[corolineisconfused]

#jamie lannister #brienne of tarth #house lannister #got #hotd #cersei lannister #jon snow #gwendolyn christie #nikolaj coster waldau #game of thrones #house of the dragon #game of thrones season 3 #the north #westeros #essos

[thaliajoy-blog]

Singing Jonerys, with lyre & lute. Rhaegar and his musical talent got passed down ! And like him they are into love songs.

Daenerys sings "Amour, Amour" (from Peau d'Âne) and Jon sings "Our Secret" from Les Sept Vies de Léa.

#jonerys #daenerys targaryen #jon snow #asoiaf art #valyrianscrolls #musical instruments #house targaryen #essos #the north #weirwood #lyre #lute #greek fashion

[racefortheironthrone]

In your WoIaF review and some old post of yours (635974015314509824/what-could-be-the-inspiration-for-sothoryos-is-it), you mentioned that Edgar Rice Burroughs was an influence for GRRM to create Hyrkoon and Sothoryos. May I ask which work of his influenced Martin in creating these places? I am interested in the influences he had in creating the World of Ice and Fire.

So mainly I was thinking of Barsoom for Hyrkoon - the sharp contrast between harsh environments and opulent cities, the ultraviolence between the Jogos Nhai and the Hyrkoon similar to the various Martian races, the dress code of the warrior women, the All Amazons Want Hercules approach to gender roles, the ultraviolent conflict between the Jhogos Nhai and the Hyrkoon is quite similar to the conflicts between the different Martian peoples, etc. (Although there's also some Moorcock and Howard there too.)

As for Sothoryos, I see more Tarzan there, what with the jungles and the wild animals and the giant gorillas and the deeply, deeply racist Darkest Africa stuff about human-animal hybrids that inspired a lot of Howard's bizarre ideas about devolution.

#asoiaf #asoiaf meta #sothoryos #edgar rice burroughs #hyrkoon #essos

[gwenllian-in-the-abbey]

Is there anything good (positive achievement) about the Valyrian/ghiscarian empires? I feel GRRM didn't bother giving them nuanced and interesting history beside mass slavery, rape and genocide, esp the ghiscarians they are mash up of the all the racist oriental tropes you can think of

Hi anon, this is a really good question. I think you can look at it two ways.

On the one hand, if we're analyzing the books from a literary perspective, GRRM's portrayal of the entire continent of Essos is pretty Orientalist and doesn't hold up that well. And we can blame this to some extent on GRRM being a white boomer who clearly did not think all that deeply about the stereotypes he was playing into when he created his "exotic" eastern continent. 90s fantasy was rife with this stuff (even my beloved Robin Hobb is not completely immune-- I'm looking at you, Chalcedeans), and at the time Orientalism was, much like critical race theory or decolonization, a grad school level concept, unless you ran in activist circles. You didn't have Tumblr and Twitter and TikTok and Youtube generating Discourse, you had to actively seek out different perspectives. And ex-hippie liberal white boomers often assumed that they already had the right perspectives, that they knew what traps to avoid, and so you'd get 90s SFF authors thinking they were very cleverly subverting these tropes by going, "I know, I'll have an intensely misogynistic culture of desert dwelling nomads who have harems and slaves but I'll make them white." It was pretty bleak. Luckily for all of us, fantasy has come a long way since then.

And yeah, once you see the Orientalism in ASOIAF, you can't unsee it. Lys is basically the fantasy version of the "pleasure planet" trope, the Dothraki are a stereotype of the Mongol armies without any of the many positive contributions the Molgols made, Qarth is like the Coleridge poem come to life with people riding camels with jeweled saddles and wearing tiger skins, with its women baring one breast and it's sophisticated assassin's guild, and Mereen has its pyramids. The entire continent is brimming with spices and jewels and pleasure houses and people saying "Your Magnificence." It is also a place of blood magic and dragons and Red Gods and shadowlands. It is everything exciting and "exotic," juxtaposed against what appears to most readers to be very mundane--septas and pseudocatholicism and maesters in the citadel. So yeah, it's an Orientalist's fantasy world, and the point of all this is not necessarily to cast it as evil per se, but to cast it as "Other" (and to be clear, Orientalism is harmful and GRRM deserves the criticism he gets for leaning into stereotypes). Valyria and the Valyrians are certainly included in that-- they are explicitly Other as foreign born ruling family in Westeros, and they are treated that way both in-world and by the narrative.

The question then becomes, although GRRM's depictions of Essos lean heavily and inelegantly into Orientalist tropes, why did he create these worlds the way he did? Why is Valyria an "Other" and what significance does it have to the story? And I think that some of this is GRRM's shorthand for something magical that is lost and forgotten and fading away, just like Valyria itself is in the memories of the Targaryen family. It is the Xanadu of Coleridge's Kubla Khan, not just the East viewed from the West, but the past viewed from the present, a nostalgic yearning for a place that only ever existed in the imagination. When the narrative does visit these places in person, rather than telling us about them secondhand, they become ugly and brutal, the jeweled facade hiding a rot underneath. In ASOIAF we have Dany ripping that facade off of Meereen and Yunkai, but she idealizes her own Targaryen heritage, and that is not insignificant, and as readers, we are invited to idealize it right along with her, in spite of plenty of hints that perhaps we should not (like the aforementioned slavery). We even hear Astapori and Yunkish slavers speaking to Dany echo sentiments about the even older Ghiscari empire, also lost, "Ours is the blood of ancient Ghis, whose empire was old when Valyria was yet a squalling child." Old Ghis and the Valyrians who conquered them are both long gone at this point, and yet their descendants are clinging to the legacies of cultures that would be wholly foreign to both of them. Because if Valyria is Xanadu, the Old Valyrians and Old Ghiscari are also Ozymandias, the mighty who have fallen, their once grand civilizations nothing but forgotten ruins. The Targaryens don't yet realize that they are that "half-sunk shattered visage," that they are yearning for something that is gone and never returning, something they never really knew in the first place.

Westeros is not immune to this either. I think it's a consistent theme that GRRM plays with is the ways which the past is glorified and distorted and romanticized. Even in a meta-sense, his entire medieval world is, in many ways, a half-remembered medieval fantasy, the medieval world as imagined by people who read Ivanhoe, rather than a medieval world as actually was. And GRRM simultaneously presents this romanticized world alongside the brutality of the past (and to drive that point home, George's medieval world is much more brutal than the real medieval world was), and so he asks us, just like Dany must ask herself at some point, is the past really all that romantic? Or are we simply yearning for something unnamable and Other? And if we yearn for that, why?

On the other hand, from an in-world perspective, if you are Westerosi, are there any redeeming qualities to Valyrian culture? And I think we can answer that question by asking ourselves, is there anything salvageable from the past, even if the past was terrible? Even if what we perceive of Old Valyria wavers between a horrific empire based on conquest and slavery, and an idealized homeland full of magical dragonriders, depending on who is doing the telling, if we accept it as a fully fleshed out world, then I think we can remember no cultures are monoliths. Old Valyria had art, architecture, fashion, music, literature, and I like to imagine that there were good freeholders, perhaps even Valyrian versions of the Roman Stoics and the Cynics, who raised moral objections to slavery. Certainly the Valyrian "freeholder" government itself, a kind of proto-democracy, similar to that of Athens, was innovative for its particular time and place, even if it was not as democratic as our modern democracies are, and that model of government is replicated throughout Essos, where strict hereditary monarchy seems to be relatively uncommon. Valyria also had a great deal of religious freedom, which persists throughout Essos as well. And as with any empire, it's important to keep in mind that the ruling class made up only a small percentage of actual Valyria, and we know there were Valyrians who were not dragonlords but just normal people, going about their lives who had nothing to do with the atrocities committed, and those people were telling stories, creating art, writing songs, and producing culture too. So I think, tying back into how GRRM uses Valyria and Essos in his narrative, we do not have to discard the past entirely, nor do in-world Targaryens, but it's the romanticization that's the problem, and I think that's something that both in-world characters and readers are cautioned against.

#asks #old valyria #grrm #asoiaf #orientalism in asoiaf #essos #house targaryen #anti targ restoration #grrm critical #anti targaryen

[queenalicentofravka]

Mellario of Norvos, mom of Arianne & Quentyn Martell

#pre asoiaf #asoiaf #mellario of norvos #house martell #arianne martell #quentyn martell #norvos #essos

[thewatcher0nthewall]

·Bloody walls, from a Bloody City of bleeding men·

The Great City of Astapor.

#fanart #drawing #illustration #asoiaf #a song of ice and fire #the winds of winter #game of thrones #asoiaf fanart #valyrian scrolls #art #Essos #astapor #unsullied #eunuch #ghis #ghiscari #sons of the harpy #slaves #a storm of swords #daenerys targaryen #kraznys mo nakloz #grey worm

[wweskywalker]

Northern-Lengii noblewomen and their pet basilisk 🐊

Northern Leng is the formerly Yi Ti colonized parts of Leng, meaning the features would be more Yi Tish than Lengii. Though from the depictions of Douglas Wheatley they seem to look similar. The idea is to convey real-life Chinese-Indonesian features to these Lengii ladies.

#asoiaf #leng #fanart #asoiaf art #game of thrones #art #artist #a song of ice and fire #essos #yi ti #open commission artist #open commission #george r r martin