Stygai, âthe corpse city at the Shadowâs heartâ
Hello Butterfly I love so much your blog and your metas!
I was wondering about AsshaĂŻ by the shadow, and more precisly about Stygai. When I read the passage where itâs mentioned in TWOIAF, I was extremely creeped out about this âcityâ, its alleged demons and dragons, and I would love to hear your theories about that. What is Stygai, some kind of R'lyeh? Maybe itâs tied with the great empire of dawn, Iâve heard some theories who placed the Great Empire of the Dawn at the west of Westeros, across the sunset sea. It could make sense because it was said that after the horrors committed by the Bloodstone Emperor, the Maiden-Made-Light turned her back upon the world. Maybe itâs not tied at all, but the fact that this lands are in a perpetual shadow or darkness make sense to me. Iâm sorry if Iâm not understandable, English is not my first language.
Have a nice day!
Thanks so much! And donât worry, youâre perfectly understandable. :)
Stygai is not Râlyeh, Stygai is most likely a reference to Stygia, from Robert E. Howardâs Conan. In GRRMâs Dreamsongs, thereâs an essay about his introduction to fantasy:
It was five years after Have Space Suit, Will Travel that I stumbled across the book that would give me my first real taste of fantasy: a slim Pyramid anthology entitled Swords & Sorcery, edited by L. Sprague de Camp and published in December of 1963. And quite a tasty taste it was. Inside were stories by Poul Anderson, Henry Kuttner, Clark Ashton Smith, Lord Dunsany, and H. P. Lovecraft. There was a Jirel of Joiry story by C. L. Moore and a tale of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser by Fritz LeiberâŚand there was a story titled âShadows in the Moonlight,â by Robert E. Howard.
âKnow, O prince,â it opened, âthat between the years when the oceans drank Atlantis and the gleaming cities, and the years of the rise of the sons of the Aryas, there was an age undreamed of, when shining kingdoms lay spread across the world like blue mantles beneath the starsâNemedia, Ophir, Brythunia, Hyperborea, Zamora with its dark-haired women and towers of spider-haunted mystery, Zingara with its chivalry, Koth that bordered on the pastoral lands of Shem, Stygia with its shadow-guarded tombs, Hyrkania whose riders wore steel and silk and gold. But the proudest kingdom of the world was Aquilonia, reigning supreme in the dreaming west. Hither came Conan, the Cimmerian, black-haired, sullen-eyed, sword in hand, a thief, a reaver, a slayer, with gigantic melancholies and gigantic mirths, to tread the jeweled thrones of the Earth under his sandaled feet.â
The worldbuilding of Conan, the random name drops and hints to mythical and wondrous lands and cities that the reader may never see, is distinctly an influence on GRRMâs worldbuilding of ASOIAF.
Also, Iâm afraid youâre a bit confused about Stygai.
On its way from the Mountains of the Morn to the sea, the Ash runs howling through a narrow cleft in the mountains, between towering cliffs so steep and close that the river is perpetually in shadow, save for a few moments at midday when the sun is at its zenith. In the caves that pockmark the cliffs, demons and dragons and worse make their lairs. The farther from the city [Asshai] one goes, the more hideous and twisted these creatures become⌠until at last one stands before the doors of the Stygai, the corpse city at the Shadowâs heart, where even the shadowbinders fear to tread. Or so the stories say. âTWOIAF
Stygai: Known as the City of the Night, it sits within the Vale of Shadows, where it is said that no light falls except at noon. Legends claim that it is haunted, and little is known of it by outsiders. â WOIAF app
So Stygai itself is not where the demons and dragons live, those reportedly live in the caves of the cliffs of the Mountains of the Morn. Stygai is a âcorpse cityâ, most likely a necropolis, a city of the dead (per the Conan reference). The near-perpetual darkness is creepy, yes, and the fact that even shadowbinders donât want to go there is unnerving, but itâs not that supernaturally weird. The endless darkness is not because of some curse by the Bloodstone Emperor, but because the mountain cliffs are so high that the valley is always in shadow. And if it is a necropolis, itâs a good reason why nobody wants to hang out there, most people donât like visiting cemeteries, especially city-sized ones, reportedly haunted ones even less.
Note: the city of Stygai makes for a nice Watsonian explanation for why the word âstygianâ exists in ASOIAF, a world without the River Styx or Greek mythology. :)
Though if you do want Râlyeh-like cities in ASOIAF, thereâs K'Dath (Lovecraftâs Kadath) and Carcosa (The King in Yellow), Ib (Lovecraftâs The Doom that Came to Sarnath), Sarnath (ditto), and Leng (Lovecraftâs Plateau of Leng). GRRM borrowed from everywhere when building his world, but especially Lovecraft and Howard. As for the city of horrors itself, the city of Great Old Ones, of monsters diametrically opposed to humanity and indeed all living things⌠look no further than what lies beyond the curtain of light at the end of the world, the home of the Others.
Also, Iâm not sure whoâs theorizing that the Great Empire of the Dawn was to the west of Westeros, but it isnât. It was to the far east of Essos, between the Bones and the Grey Waste, where Yi Ti is today. The Great Empire is a Yi Ti legend, for goodness sake. Furthermore, âDawnâ suggests âeastâ, not west. Oh, I mean, technically, it is to the west of Westeros, because the world is round, but thereâs the unknown unmapped âNew Worldâ continents in the way.