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Slaver's Bay
Slaver's Bay

"Many great fighters have died trying to make it to the Great Games. When most of you worthless scum join them in death this afternoon, it will represent a significant rise in your station. But if you do happen to triumph here, you will fight at the Great Pit of Daznak itself, in front of the queen. So, whatever happens, the gods have smiled upon you today. This is the day your lives actually start to mean something."
―Yezzan zo Qaggaz to his pit fighter servants[src]

Yezzan zo Qaggaz[a] is a slave trader from the city of Yunkai, on the coast of Slaver's Bay.

Biography[]

Background[]

Yezzan zo Qaggaz is a slaver who purchases and trains pit fighters. He owns one of the lesser fighting pits.[1]

Besides the Valyrian dialect of Slaver's Bay, Yezzan also speaks the Common Tongue of Westeros.[1]

Game of Thrones: Season 5[]

Yezzan

Yezzan buys Jorah and Tyrion at an auction.

Yezzan is present at an impromptu slave auction of Malko's. He purchases Jorah Mormont for use in the recently reopened fighting pits. When Tyrion demands to be bought as well, Yezzan is uninterested in Tyrion's claims that he and Jorah are a team. He changes his mind when Tyrion savagely beats the slaver holding his chain, and pays for him, agreeing with Malko's assertion that Tyrion is "funny". When Tyrion suggests that he and Jorah be paid for their labor to avoid the Queen's ire for practicing slavery, Yezzan hits Tyrion and tosses him a single coin, teasing that it should last the rest of his life. Later, at one of the "lower" pits, Yezzan addresses his fighters and announces that those who survive the day will fight at the Great Pit of Daznak. Yezzan is shocked to see that Daenerys and Hizdahr zo Loraq themselves are present and hastily has his gladiators dedicate their kills to them. Yezzan is later knocked down by Jorah, who emerged from the dungeon early in a desperate attempt to reach the queen.[1]

Later, he is still at the pit observing two of his warriors when Jorah returns from Meereen, seeking "employment" from the slaver again as a gladiator fighting in Yezzan's name and even throwing to the slaver a coin as payment. Thinking it over, Yezzan, who has yet to let Jorah's earlier assault of him slide, wonders why he didn't just leave as Jorah was now free to find "saner occupations", Jorah alludes that he'd be better off "with the devil he knows than one he doesn't" and then asks Yezzan to allow him to fight in the pit in front of the queen, and that if he wins, Yezzan will be allowed to sell Jorah.[2]

Game of Thrones: Season 6[]

Book of the Stranger 37

Yezzan, Razdal and Belicho negotiate with Tyrion.

At the diplomatic negotiations with Tyrion in Meereen, Yezzan returns to represent Astapor, whose slave-masters were reconstituted by Yunkai. He quickly recognizes Tyrion as the dwarf slave and remarks that he has literally climbed to the top of the Great Pyramid. The slaving cities offer Daenerys and her supporters a pot of gold to sail away from Slaver's Bay. However, Tyrion proposes a counteroffer that slavery be phased out over a seven-year period and that all slave masters be compensated. He leaves them to contemplate his offer.[3]

Yezzan zo Qaggaz kneels to Tyrion

Tyrion gives a message to a surrendered Yezzan.

The slaving cities later besiege Meereen with a large fleet.[4] When the time comes to discuss terms of surrender, Yezzan represents the slavers along with Razdal mo Eraz and Belicho Paenymion; he puts forward the slavers' terms that Daenerys and her allies are to leave Meereen, save Missandei and the Unsullied who are to be resold, and Rhaegal and Viserion are to be killed. When Daenerys, Drogon and Grey Worm turn the tables on the slavers, Missandei announces that one of the masters must die as punishment for their disobedience. Razdal and Belicho scapegoat Yezzan, citing his low birth, but Grey Worm chooses to cut the throats of Razdal and Belicho instead. Yezzan is sent home with a warning for Astapor - the consequences of opposing Daenerys are dire.[5]

In the books[]

In the A Song of Ice and Fire novels, Yezzan zo Qaggaz is a Yunkish Wise Master. He has yellow eyes and is morbidly obese to the point that he can no longer stand, hence his derogatory nickname "the yellow whale". He contracted a jungle disease while on a slaving raid in Sothoryos which he has been suffering from for years; he cannot hold his water so he always smells of urine, which even perfume cannot hide. He wears yellow silk tokars with a gold fringe. He is obsessed with the grotesque and often purchases slaves with physical deformities to add to his "collection". While obese, he is still shrewd and intelligent, a trait some of the other Wise Masters don't share. He is rumored to be the the richest man in Yunkai.

Despite his personal grotesquerie, it is remarked that Yezzan isn't that bad compared to some of the other slavers, and isn't particularly cruel. So long as his slaves obey him, Yezzan treats them relatively well, and makes sure that they are well-fed and looked after (though this is in the same sense that a man will make sure that the horses he owns are well-fed and are not beaten, because he doesn't want to needlessly damage his own valuable property). Unlike him, however, his slave overseer, Nurse, tends to be cruel and harsh towards his master's slaves.

Yezzan is also one of the few Wise Masters who urges that Yunkai should try to make peace with Daenerys, fearing that further conflict with her Unsullied legions and increasingly large dragons is more trouble than it is worth, and perhaps also because he is not naturally cruel. He objects to those who want to assault Meereen, and also to the sellsword Bloodbeard's proposition to return the Meereenese hostages (Daario, Hero and Jhogo) by catapulting them into the city.

Yezzan is not involved in pit fights. There is a Meereenese crone called Zahrina that purchases cheap slaves to fight in the arenas; "meat" to be slaughtered by the more formidable fighters.

Yezzan purchases Tyrion and his dwarf companion Penny for entertainment. Tyrion notices that Zahrina is about to purchase Jorah, and he persuades Nurse to buy Jorah too, claiming that he is a part of their show. Tyrion and Penny comply to their new master and are treated correctly. Jorah, however, does not cooperate, and as a result is treated very brutally by Nurse; he is locked in a cage and beaten severely every evening.

Yurkhaz zo Yunzak, the commander of Yunkai's army, persuades Yezzan to have Tyrion and Penny entertain the crowd at Daznak's Pit - and afterwards the lions will be turned loose on them (Tyrion is not informed of the last part). Yezzan agrees, but Tyrion spots a hint of anger in his eyes. Apparently Yezzan did not like the idea of allowing his slaves to be killed and eaten by beasts, but had to obey Yurkhaz. Luckily for Tyrion and Penny, Daenerys spares their lives and forbids that the lions slaughter them.

Shortly after Daenerys departs from Meereen, Yezzan and Nurse catch a fatal disease called the "bloody flux" (also known as "pale mare") that spreads throughout the Yunkai camps. Yezzan is treated (in vain) by Tyrion and his other slaves, because he was kind to them, while no one bothers to help the wicked overseer. Tyrion, certain that Yezzan has no more than a few hours to live and then his heirs will sell them into slavery, seizes the opportunity to escape with Jorah Mormont and Penny - but not before he "helps" Nurse die by feeding him soup laced with poisonous mushrooms that he picked earlier at Illyrio Mopatis's mansion. They join the Second Sons who betrayed Daenerys and switched sides earlier, and convince them to rejoin Daenerys in exchange for the wealth of Casterly Rock.

Some time later, the Tattered Prince, the leader of the Windblown mercenary company, confirms that Yezzan is dead. He comments that Yezzan had the most support to replace Yurkhaz (who was trampled to death at the commotion caused by Drogon's attack on the Great Pit) as the supreme leader of the Yunkai lords, had he survived. The remaining Wise Masters are incompetent fools who rotate the supreme command amongst themselves.

In the novels, Yezzan was from Yunkai, but in Season 5, he only appeared at Meereen to buy slaves to use in the gladiator games - but Yezzan does the same in the novels, and thus he could be a Yunkish slaver simply visiting Meereen. Subsequently in Season 6, however, Yezzan returned to represent Astapor at the diplomatic negotiations. At the very least, this casts doubt that he should automatically be assumed to be from Meereen. Given that Yunkai reconquered Astapor and reconstituted the slave-masters there, it is possible that he is still a Yunkish slave-master, simply appointed to oversee the re-establishment of the other slavers in Meereen. Exactly which of the three major cities of Slaver's Bay Yezzan is supposed to be from is therefore unclear. Then again, he is not necessarily "from" any of them, as there are slave-masters and merchants that move around between the slave-markets of all three cities to conduct trade.

Appearances[]

References[]

  1. 1.0 1.1 1.2 Game of Thrones: Season 5, Episode 7: "The Gift" (2015).
  2. Game of Thrones: Season 5, Episode 8: "Hardhome" (2015).
  3. Game of Thrones: Season 6, Episode 4: "Book of the Stranger" (2016).
  4. Game of Thrones: Season 6, Episode 8: "No One" (2016).
  5. Game of Thrones: Season 6, Episode 9: "Battle of the Bastards" (2016).

Notes[]

  1. Conjecture based on information from A Song of Ice and Fire; may be subject to change.

External links[]

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