Shade of the Evening Tree... I would bet money it does this.
The Shade of the Evening Tree... it’s the Essosi version of the Weirwood except inversed in a dark and creepy kind of way. Our writer loves to use symbolism and literary devices to drop clues from time to time...something he does well and does often. There have been many inversions and parallels drawn between the Essosi Shade of the Evening tree and the Westerosi Weirwood noted by readers throughout the fandom. Today we are going to discuss a possible connection between these two trees and speculate on the enigmatic oily black stones peppered throughout the ASOIAF mythos and worldbuilding. Before we get started I need to disclose that spoilers from the Forsaken and Arianne chapters will be discussed. Now let’s get started.
Blackwood / Weirwood
You don’t have to look hard to see the what our writer is doing with these two magical trees. One only has to look at how the two are described. We have white trees with red leaves and black trees with blue leaves; this seems ostensibly contradicting and opposing at first glance from a sheer aesthetic point of view. There are however some striking similarities as both trees are magical and have the potential to both extend life and provide visions.
What has especially captured the attention of the fandom is how our author has chosen to describe the tasting experience of the two trees vision inducing byproducts. There is an eerie similarity that cannot be denied. For example, here we have Danny ingesting Shade of the Evening:
“The first sip tasted like ink and spoiled meat, foul, but when she swallowed it seemed to come to life within her. She could feel tendrils spreading through her chest, like fingers of fire coiling around her heart, and on her tongue was a taste like honey and anise and cream, like mother’s milk and Drogo’s seed, like red meat and hot blood and molten gold. It was all the tastes she had ever known, and none of them””
And now Bran with weirwood paste:
“The first spoonful was the hardest to get down. He almost retched it right back up. The second tasted better. The third was almost sweet. The rest he spooned up eagerly. Why had he thought that it was bitter? It tasted of honey, of new-fallen snow, of pepper and cinnamon and the last kiss his mother ever gave him.”
Interestingly, in addition to there being vision inducing trees located in Essos, there was also once a race of small, shy forest folk called woods walkers or Ifequevron who once inhabited the Essosi mainland.
Immediately south of Ib itself, a densely wooded region that had formerly been the home of a small, shy forest folk. Some say that the Ibbenese extinguished this gentle race, whilst others believe they went into hiding in the deeper woods or fled to other lands. The Dothraki still call the great forest along the northern coast the Kingdom of the Ifequevron, the name by which they knew the vanished forest-dwellers. The fabled Sea Snake, Corlys Velaryon, Lord of the Tides, was the first Westerosi to visit these woods. After his return from the Thousand Islands, he wrote of carved trees, haunted grottoes, and strange silences. A later traveler, the merchant-adventurer Bryan of Oldtown, captain of the cog Spearshaker, provided an account of his own journey across the Shivering Sea. He reported that the Dothraki name for the lost people meant “those who walk in the woods.”
TWOIAF further goes on to hint that the Dothraki horselords shunned the forests either from reverence for vanished wood walkers, or because they feared their powers and Corlys Velaryon even reported finding ‘carved trees’ in their forests. Another hint we have of a forgotten CotF-type presence can be found in the secretive peoples of the great and holy Isle of Leng. A people who are known for their large golden eyes, keen eyesight/night vision and their subterranean gods known as the ‘old ones’ lurking beneath the earth. This bit of information we have of the people of Leng has caused speculation of a possible mixture of bloodlines between the natives and the CotF in the ancient past. Knowing there was a CotF-type presence in Essos, it is quite possible the black barked relative of the weirwood was a part of that magic from years gone by.
“It will have turned to stone”
So we can see a possibility that the white barked trees of Westeros and the black barked trees of Essos could be lighter and darker versions of one another so to speak. Now this is where it gets interesting: We know the weirwood petrifies when it dies, pretty simple to comprehend, the trees don't rot they just turn to stone...
“For a thousand years it has not shown a leaf. In another thousand it will have turned to stone, the maesters say. Weirwoods never rot.”
That was some Tytos Blackwood wisdom for you there. Yes, a guy named Blackwood gave us that little nugget. Knowing the weirwood turns to stone, if the trees are somehow relatives of each other the same logic could likely apply to the darker version of this tree. Basically, if the white stuff petrifies then the black stuff does too. So, imagine for a moment what black wood actually becomes when it is petrified…it becomes black stone.
Let’s continue this train of thought and ponder the most mentioned relic of black stone we have in the series, the Seastone chair. As I mentioned in the beginning, our writer likes to use some symbolism every now and then to drop clues…
Then she saw it: an uprooted tree, huge and dark, coming straight at them. A tangle of roots and limbs poked up out of the water as it came, like the reaching arms of a great kraken.
“No.” Aeron Damphair did not weigh his words. “Only a godly man may sit the Seastone Chair. The Crow’s Eye worships naught but his own pride.”
Let’s look at the very first time we see someone drink Shade of the evening:
Dany raised the glass to her lips. The first sip tasted like ink and spoiled meat, foul, but when she swallowed it seemed to come to life within her. She could feel tendrils spreading through her chest, like fingers of fire coiling around her heart"
Our writer decided to hide two little hints in our first view of this sorcerous drink, but before Dany actually partakes in the wine of the Warlocks, we are introduced to the grove of shade trees Dany sees outside the HotU.
Long and low, without towers or windows, it coiled like a stone serpent through a grove of black-barked trees whose inky blue leaves made the stuff of the sorcerous drink the Qartheen called shade of the evening. No other buildings stood near. Black tiles covered the palace roof, many fallen or broken; the mortar between the stones was dry and crumbling. She understood now why Xaro Xhoan Daxos called it the Palace of Dust. Even Drogon seemed disquieted by the sight of it. The black dragon hissed, smoke seeping out between his sharp teeth. “Blood of my blood,” Jhogo said in Dothraki, “this is an evil place, a haunt of ghosts and maegi. See how it drinks the morning sun? Let us go before it drinks us as well.” Ser Jorah Mormont came up beside them. “What power can they have if they live in that?” “Heed the wisdom of those who love you best,” said Xaro Xhoan Daxos, lounging inside the palanquin. “Warlocks are bitter creatures who eat dust and drink of shadows.
The wording here is interesting, if you have noticed, the Qartheen warns Dany that the warlocks ‘drink shadows’ and the Dothraki are disquieted by the way the place ‘drinks the morning sun’. If these words seem familiar, you will notice it is echoed in TWOIAF when Asshai in the shadowlands is described.
“Some say as well that the stone of Asshai has a greasy, unpleasant feel to it, that it seems to drink the light, dimming tapers and torches and hearth fires alike.
Asshai is a haunt of sorcerers known for a ridiculous amount of black oily stone. The city is supposedly made entirely of the stuff and is said to be the size of Volantis, Qarth, King’s Landing, and Oldtown put together. For some reason Asshai is still much a mystery to maesters and readers alike. The sheer mass of the materials required tends to rule out most opinions and theories. What you may find interesting however, is there is a high possibility Asshai was once a very fertile and forested area much like Yeng and Yi Ti. If you take a glance at a map, you will see that in the past Asshai would have been a part of a forest/jungle fertile that would have stretched from Sothoryos and the Basilisk Isles all the way to Ulthos.
Another thing that I do want to draw your attention to is Ulthos, a land mass just as close to Asshai as any settlement found in Essos. This nearby land mass is a heavily jungled area that is a noticeably distinct color than any of the other forested areas on the map of the known world. Recently /u/Werthead on Reddit published a tremendous undertaking of his Atlas of Ice and Fire which piqued my interest because the atlas mentions that the jungles of Ulthos are specifically purple-black in coloring on the map. When I asked for his reference he pointed me to the actual mapmaker Jonathan Roberts who, on his fantastic maps website, mentions that the jungles of Ulthos are in fact meant to be depicted as purple-black in coloring. I think it is highly possible this was not artistic license and was part of the guidance provided by our writer who commissioned his maps, but who knows, maybe the artist decided it would be good to have a purple-black colored jungle. The purple part is somewhat confusing, but the black coloring of this tree depot next to Asshai, it has my attention.
Despite Ulthos being extremely close in proximity to Asshai, the possibility exists they were once even closer. As we have noticed, there are some hints the sea level was lower at some point in the ancient past. The Thousand Isles, the Neck and the Arm of Dorne are just a few examples. One detail I would also point to is the artwork for Asshai in TWOIAF. In the worldbook, it appears Asshai is a half-drowned city. Again, I’m not sure if the artist just decided that Asshai should be half-drowned in appearance without any guidance, but there is definitely something there. So not only is it quite possible Asshai was part of a forested and fertile crescent, but there is also the possibility this massive “purple-black” jungle was located closer to Asshai in the ancient past than we realize.
The years pass in their hundreds and their thousands, and what does any man see of life but a few summers, a few winters? We look at mountains and call them eternal, and so they seem … but in the course of time, mountains rise and fall, rivers change their courses, stars fall from the sky, and great cities sink beneath the sea. Even gods die, we think. Everything changes. -Maester Luwin to Bran
I know what you are thinking, if a shade tree were to truly petrify what are the mechanics that would cause it to be oily? If this is the same stuff, it has to be oily or become oily in some form or fashion. Well as it turns out, Shade of the Evening is also described as OILY.
The Crow’s Eye filled two cups with a strange black wine that flowed as thick as honey. “Drink with me, brother. Have a taste of this.” He offered one of the cups to Victarion. The captain took the cup Euron had not offered, sniffed at its contents suspiciously. Seen up close, it looked more blue than black. It was thick and oily, with a smell like rotted flesh. He tried a small swallow, and spit it out at once. “Foul stuff. Do you mean to poison me?”
Current storyline significance
From here we now have pondered the possibility of what could be the origins for the black oily stone. Now let’s look at another quote and see what we make of it:
Though Aeron clamped his mouth shut, twisting his head from side to side he fought as best he could, but in the end he had to choke or swallow. The dreams were even worse the second time. He saw the longships of the Ironborn adrift and burning on a boiling blood-red sea. He saw his brother on the Iron Throne again, but Euron was no longer human. He seemed more squid than man, a monster fathered by a kraken of the deep, his face a mass of writhing tentacles.
This last quote is somewhat confusing to some readers as this plainly looks like some straight up Lovecraft monster reference, but remember that Euron is kind of a Shade of the Evening junkie so to speak and Shade of the Evening is basically a brother from another mother to Weirwood paste... and what does weirwood paste do? It weds you to the tree, the writhing tentacles is a greenseer/tree man symbol in Aeron’s dream. See for yourself:
Your blood makes you a greenseer,” said Lord Brynden. “This will help awaken your gifts and wed you to the trees.” Bran did not want to be married to a tree … but who else would wed a broken boy like him? A thousand eyes, a hundred skins, wisdom deep as the roots of ancient trees. A greenseer.
The sight of him still frightened Bran— the weirwood roots snaking in and out of his withered flesh, the mushrooms sprouting from his cheeks, the white wooden worm that grew from the socket where one eye had been. He liked it better when the torches were put out.
So, the Shade of the Evening vision basically showed Aeron what his brother actually is... a terrible man with wisdom as deep as the roots of ancient trees… but we are not done yet.
Let's talk about some hairy men for a minute. The hairy men were kind of everywhere when you look at the text of TWOIAF at least in central and western Essos. I noticed that there was once a forest inhabited by these CotF-type woods walkers who came into direct contact with the hairy men and not in the diplomatic kind of way. More in the, I am going to commit genocide, take your land and bleed your resources type of way:
The God-Kings of Ib, before their fall, did succeed in conquering and colonizing a huge swathe of northern Essos immediately south of Ib itself, a densely wooded region that had formerly been the home of a small, shy forest folk. Some say that the Ibbenese extinguished this gentle race, whilst others believe they went into hiding in the deeper woods or fled to other lands.
At its greatest extent, the Ibbenese foothold on Essos was as large as Ib itself and far richer. More and more of the hairy men crossed over from the islands to make their fortunes there, cutting down the trees to put the land under the plow, damming the rivers and streams, mining the hills
It is safe to say the Ibbenese didn't get along well with this forest folk that worshipped the black wood trees. In fact, it seems like the Ibbenese kind of persecuted them in a sense and cut down a bunch of their trees and the maesters even theorize the Ibbenese caused the woods-walkers extinction. That’s bad right?
What made my eyes completely bug out of their sockets was this line:
The eunuch drew a parchment from his sleeve. “A kraken has been seen off the Fingers.” He giggled. “Not a Greyjoy, mind you, a true kraken. It attacked an Ibbenese whaler and pulled it under.
So, a "kraken" has pulled under an Ibbenese whaler...makes sense now doesn't it? Tree roots can look like the reaching arms of a kraken as our writer has pointed out. This has caused me to speculate that there indeed might be something under the sea. I think there might be a good chance there is a network of huge roots, which could be why there is the Greensee/Green sea pun that ravenous reader has pointed out in the Westeros.org forums and explains why Patchface came back from the depths with the gift of prophetic vision. And here is why… detailed in one of Aeron's Shade of the Evening trips:
“Urri!” he cried. There is no hinge here, no door, no Urri. His brother Urrigon was long dead, yet there he stood. One arm was black and swollen, stinking with maggots, but he was still Urri, still a boy, no older than the day he died. “You know what waits below the sea, brother?” “The Drowned God,” Aeron said, “the watery halls.” Urri shook his head. “Worms... worms await you, Aeron.”
In Aeron's dream, Urri is telling him there is no Drowned God, no watery halls, just worms, worms await him. From what we have seen in the House of the Undying, shade visions are supposed to be cryptic and somewhat prophetic in nature right? So, what if there is actually something that looks similar to worms or the reaching arms of a kraken under the sea? Let’s take a peek:
The way the shadows shifted made it seem as if the walls were moving too. Bran saw great white snakes slithering in and out of the earth around him, and his heart thumped in fear. He wondered if they had blundered into a nest of milk snakes or giant grave worms, soft and pale and squishy.
The sight of him still frightened Bran— the weirwood roots snaking in and out of his withered flesh, the mushrooms sprouting from his cheeks, the white wooden worm that grew from the socket where one eye had been.
I guess this means we may actually get to see this play out in the chapters due to whatever Euron is doing at the moment. According to the Arianne I sample chapter there are ‘krakens’ stirring around the Arm of Dorne being drawn to blood of the current hostilities and our Shade of the Evening drinking Euron has something planned in his upcoming battle with the Redwyne and Hightower fleet. So yeah maybe there will be an Eldrich Apocalypse of sorts, just not the kind most were expecting.
Before moving on, we are going to take this idea and look at two cultures in Essos who both fear the sea: The Thousand Isles and the Dothraki. As we have read, the maesters suggest the Thousand Isles is something of a drowned kingdom that has been reduced to hundreds of scattered islands. Before the Thousand Isles were drowned, it was most likely connected to the dark forests of Mossovy ”. A place whispered to be the haunt of shapechangers. Additionally, the Dothraki whom the maesters hint could fear the Ifequevron also have a very real fear the sea and will not even plow the earth.
Ebony and Weirwood
So, let’s back up for a moment and take a look at ebony. There have been many in the forums who have drawn attention to hints of the relationship between the two sets of trees through the writer’s use of ‘ebony’ and weirwood. These hints are casually floated in front of our faces in the shape of weirwood and ebony doors seen in both the House of Black and White and the House of the Undying.
In the real-world ebony is a black wood of a few species that is so dense and heavy that it sinks or ‘drowns’ in water. Each time our characters encounter ebony, I’m not sure if they can distinguish one type of black wood from another when it comes certain items. It is kind of a tinge of the unreliable narrator that our writer uses from time to time; just like when Bran sees Jaime and Cersei wrestling naked. He is familiar with wrestling, so they are wrestling. You see, characters might easily have difficulty categorizing a wood that they have never seen before and are unfamiliar with. The shade of the evening tree is not seen in Westeros or the Free Cities that we have seen, so far, so what makes us so certain our characters can identify it when they happen across seeing it? Basically, they think they see ebony and so ebony is how it is described.
“At the top she found a set of carved wooden doors twelve feet high. The left-hand door was made of weirwood pale as bone, the right of gleaming ebony. In their center was a carved moon face; ebony on the weirwood side, weirwood on the ebony. The look of it reminded her somehow of the heart tree in the godswood at Winterfell. The doors are watching me, she thought.”
Here we have ebony and weirwood superimposed and contrasting one another with a carved face that does an excellent job reminding Arya (and the reader) of the heart tree in Winterfell. Pretty simple symbolism, basically black tree/white tree=heart tree.
In addition to Arya, Dany experienced a similar door in the House of the Undying:
To her right, a set of wide wooden doors had been thrown open. They were fashioned of ebony and weirwood, the black and white grains swirling and twisting in strange interwoven patterns. They were very beautiful, yet somehow frightening. The blood of the dragon must not be afraid.
It seems the writer is trying to describe these doors as an allusion to being made of one wood. Notice how the wording makes it seem as if they were not mechanically pieced together from two different types of wood with descriptions such as the grains twisting and swirling? The description itself makes it seem almost as if it is made from the same slab of wood. This imagery makes a great deal of logic knowing there is a black barked tree with similar qualities to weirwood and were possibly one species at one time before they split in their evolution. Later, shade drinking Dany is fittingly given further symbolism in Mereen as she is sitting equivalent of an Essosi weirwood throne, an ebony bench. Also, TWOIAF mentions that the people of Asshai ride around in palanquins made of ebony…hmm... must be an abundance of that stuff somewhere nearby.
There is also another set of doors that should be mentioned although not as enigmatic. We also have ebony and weirwood doors all the way back in Game of Thrones at the forge of Tobho Mott, our friendly neighborhood Qohorik. This one is a little trickier, but it gets cleared up in TWOIAF.
Qohor stands on the river Qhoyne on the western edge of the vast, dark, primordial forest to which she gives her name, the greatest wood in all of Essos.
The Forest of Qohor also yields up furs and pelts of all kinds, many rare and fine and highly prized, as well as silver, tin, and amber. The vast forest has never been fully explored, according to the maps and scrolls at the Citadel, and it likely conceals many mysteries and wonders at its heart.
The artisans of Qohor are far famed. Qohorik tapestries, woven primarily by the women and children of the city, are just as fine as those woven in Myr, though less costly. Exquisite (if somewhat disturbing) wood carvings can be bought in Qohor’s market, and the city’s forges have no peer.
We also learn of the God of Qohor, the Black Goat. A deity that requires daily blood sacrifice, and is frequently mentioned when the Lion of Night is mentioned.
“And many names,” the kindly man had said. “In Qohor he is the Black Goat, in Yi Ti the Lion of Night, in Westeros the Stranger.
“Warlocks, wizards, alchemists, moonsingers, red priests, black alchemists, necromancers, aeromancers, pyromancers, bloodmages, torturers, inquisitors, poisoners, godswives, night-walkers, shapechangers, worshippers of the Black Goat and the Pale Child and the Lion of Night, all find welcome in Asshai-by-the-Shadow, where nothing is forbidden.”
Beyond her was a man with a lion’s head seated on a throne, carved of ebony. On the other side of the doors, a huge horse of bronze and iron reared up on two great legs. Farther on she could make out a great stone face, a pale infant with a sword, a shaggy black goat the size of an aurochs, a hooded man leaning on a staff.
Basically, Qohor is known for its special wood being the largest forest in Essos and which is described as not fully explored and primordial. Additionally, what I am seeing with the Black Goat is a deity that is worshipped in the most heavily forested area in Essos, is a fan of blood sacrifice (like a heart tree) and is often associated with another deity that is depicted in the House of Black and White as carved out of ebony…oh yes, and their worshippers can find refuge in Asshai, go figure.
Also, in Lovecraft mythos, Shub-Niggurath is known as the Black Goat of the Woods. But wait!! What about all of the Lovecraft references? Isn’t C’thulhu coming for the Redwynes? No, but the trees are.
Lovecraft and the Old Gods
The Lovecraft references peppered throughout the story do seem to focus on some watery stuff going on, but there are other Lovecraft nods that cannot be explained with a watery hall. These places include Ib, Qohor with its Black Goat, N'Gai with its underground city, and the Sarnori are a few examples. I believe the Lovecraft references could be, at least in part, referring to Old Gods presence surrounding the Long Night narrative. As you can see…
Ib:
Ib is mentioned quite a few times in this post pertaining to Huzhor Amai and the destruction of the Ifequevron. Ib is also mentioned in "The Doom that Came to Sarnath", Ib was an ancient civilization destroyed by Sarnath. Interestingly, the Sarnori and the Ibbenese also fought in the ancient past.
Leng:
As previously mentioned, Leng is also has some possible links to the Old Gods with their golden cat eyes, night vision, subterranean gods and blood sacrifice. Leng is possibly inspired by the Plateau of Leng mentioned in various Lovecraft stories.
The Black Goat:
The Black Goat is of course mentioned above in Lovecraft terms is known as “The Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young", "The Black Goat of the Woods", and "The Lord of the Wood".
Sarnor/Sarnath:
TWOIAF mentions that the Sarnori got into more than a few skirmishes with the Ibbenese and their Long Night hero, Huzor Amai, “wore the pelt of the king of the hairy men" so he may have been in conflict with them or even descended from them. Awhile back, I also read an excellent thread that provided a very reasonable argument that the Lengii may possibly descend from the tall men or proto-tall men also known as the peoples of Sarnor.
N’Gai:
N'Gai's capital Nefer is an underground city located next to the Mossovy forest which is said to be full of shapechangers. Coincidentally, the N’Gai also have a Long Night hero of their own Neferion. In Lovecraft legend, N'Kai is an underground dominion where Tsathoggua is said to sleep.
The Iron Islands:
The Iron Islands are another drowned area with Lovecraft nods and with their own Azor Ahai like figure and black oily stone. The Grey King literally has weirwood in his legend as he slew the pale demonic flesh eating tree Ygg. The Iron islands of course also have various references such as characters named Dagon, and religious mantras such as “what is dead may never die”.
Stygai:
Stygai is a part of the Shadowlands right next door to Asshai which has black oily stone and a Long Night Hero of its own and was most likely fertile and forested in the ancient past. This is possibly inspired by Stygia from the Conan stories (influenced by Lovecraft) It is a city where magic is strong with promises of sorcery and witchcraft for scholars and dabbling warlocks. It is said a dark shadow has been cast along this land for centuries.
The Church of Starry Wisdom:
This church was founded by the Bloodstone Emperor, possibly another version of a Long Night hero such as Azor Ahai. In Lovecraft’s world, the Cult of Starry Wisdom is from "The Haunter of the Dark".
The Isle Of Toads:
This is a site of a black greasy stone statue, similar to various Lovecraft stories where there are statues of black or greenish stone with aquatic like aspects. The Isle of Toads is located in the same forested/jungled fertile crescent that contains Sothoryos, Yi Ti, Leng and Ulthos.
In essence, Lovecraft wasn’t just about C’thulhu, he had a whole slew of different Gods with various aspects. The thing that Lovecraft did with many of these deities is refer to them as the "old ones" and the "elder gods". What our author is doing is GRRM is at various Lovecraft lore and carefully throwing these Easter eggs out there because he has his own version of old ones/elder gods… these are the Old Gods… and in his world they are the trees.
GRRM has done everything possible to make the Shade tree an Essosi Weirwood, so if the white stuff petrifies, the black stuff probably does too.
If I had money to bet...I'd place it on the warlock tree taking a note from its Westerosi cousin.