Land of the King
Chapter 44: Beyond Arnor
To talk about the lands beyond Arnor, Arnor itself must first be defined. The Kingdom of Arnor as of the writing of this text is made up of everything in Westeros south of the Neck and south-west of the Mountains of the Moon, along with all corresponding islands. Once the Kingdom also held the Stepstones and Lys which are currently occupied by Valyria. Perhaps one day, the flag of the White Tree will return there as well.
Over the course of Arnor's long history, it conquered numerous kingdoms and territories. The Hooded Kingdom of Banefort was the first to be conquered by force, but it would later be followed by the Grey Islands, the Reach, Oldtown, the Arbor, the Stormlands, the Riverlands, Crackclaw Point, and finally Dorne. The kingdoms and realms that had once held these lands were utterly destroyed and their populaces assimilated into Arnor, giving us the modern borders of the kingdom.
Though undoubtedly the hegemon of the continent of Westeros, Arnor is not the only kingdom on the map of Westeros in the modern day and we will look first to the North.
The Kingdom of the North
The peoples of the north are nearly all descended from the First Men, who settled the land nearly thousands of years ago. Little is known of that time, but cryptic runes carved in old stones and the barrows the First Men lived in can still be found in the barrowlands. Ancient forts of the First Men are scattered throughout the north, including a ringfort atop Seal Rock near White Harbor and ruins in Sea Dragon Point. The children of the forest also made weirwood circles
About five thousand years ago, the legendary Long Night occurred when the Others invaded from the Lands of Always Winter. The event defined and shaped the north, leading to the founding of the Wall, the order of the Night's Watch, the castle of Winterfell and the first Stark Kings of Winter. Brandon the Breaker is said to have allied with Joramun, a King-Beyond-the-Wall, to bring down the Night's King, the thirteenth commander of the Night's Watch who was rumoured to be a Stark himself.
Winterfell itself was built by the legendary Brandon the Builder who is also said to have built the Wall, the Hightower, and Storm's End. His descendants slowly expanded throughout the North, defeating their rival kings such as the Marsh Kings of the Neck, the Barrow Kings of Barrowton, and the Warg Kings of Sea Dragon Point.
In the year, 2965 E.L. of Arnor's reckoning, King Brandon the 'Great' defeated his rival King Royce Bolton and finally united the entirety of the North as one realm. House Stark now held over dominion of all lands between the southern edge of the Neck and the Gift of the Night's Watch, as well as Bear Island in the Bay of Ice.
Yet the Kingdom of the North would soon become intertwined with the affairs of their southern neighbour. A year after the Northern unification, Prince Araphant, the Crown Prince of Arnor, arrived in Winterfell as an envoy of his father King Araval. Brandon's daughter, Lyarra, became besotted with Araphant and the two later married, with their marriage resulting in a son, Arvedui, born in 2978 in Winterfell.
The birth of a halfblood heir to the Arnorian throne resulted in the Kin-Strife, the full telling of which can be found elsewhere. In relation to the North however, support was offered to Arvedui during the Kin-Strife though the offer was turned down. Arvedui needed to win the war on his own for his victory to be seen as legitimate by his people.
The North was consequently little affected by the Kin-Strife itself though all rooted for the half-Northman Arvedui to win. Arvedui's victory was celebrated in the North but unfortunately it caused the North to come under attack as a consequence.
The losers of the Kin-Strife fled to the Iron Islands where they soon became a menace to all the western coasts of Westeros, becoming known as the Corsairs of Angren. And the Corsairs blamed the North for the Kin-Strife and laid waste to its western coasts. The prosperous ports and cities of the west coast were sacked numerous times, including Barrowton and the Stark port of Seawinter on Sea Dragon Point.
There was much suffering in the North during the years of the Corsairs' predations and soon the North was beset on its east coast as well by the Andals. As a base for their attacks on the North, the Andals had conquered the islands of the Three Sisters in the Bite and were landing all along the western shores of the North.
So it came that the North and Arnor made a formal alliance and swore an oath of friendship. In the south, Arvedui, now King Arvegil, drew back both the Corsairs and the Andals whilst in the North, Theon Stark defended his western coasts and drove the Andals from the North, decisively beating them at the Battle of the Weeping Water.
Following his victory, Theon Stark launched a great fleet to raid Andalos, burning a score of Andal villages, killing hundreds and capturing three tower houses and a fortified sept. Theon then returned to the North and displayed the spiked heads of his victims along his coastline to deter future invaders.
In the later years of his reign, Theon once more drove the Corsairs from his western coasts, defeated a rebellion by House Ryder of the Rills (who were replaced by House Ryswell), aided the Night's Watch in war against the wildlings and invaded the Three Sisters. He earned his nickname, the Hungry Wolf, from the constant state of war the north was in during his reign and his own gaunt appearance
Theon's attack on the Three Sisters is immortalised as the song 'The Rape of the Three Sisters'. The fall of the Andal Three Sisters sparked horrors in the Andal Kingdom of the Vale to the south which immediately attacked to liberate the isles. This began the War Across the Water, a long intermittent conflict which saw the two kingdoms feuding and warring over the Three Sisters for the next thousand years.
Later Kings in the North would also do great deeds, such as King Brandon IX, who conquered and subdued Skagos or his son, Brandon the Shipwright, who built great fleets and joined the Arnorian sailors in their explorations in the reign of Aranuir Falconbane.
The Shipwright's son, Brandon the Burner, earned his nickname when he burned the entire Andal fleet anchored in the Three Sisters during the Falconbane's war on the Vale, reconquering the Three Sisters for the last time. In the Treaty of Gulltown, Arnor demanded that the Vale recognise Northern control of the islands and so ended the War Across the Water.
With the end of the War Across the Water, peace came to the eastern coasts of the North and so the lands around the Wolf's Den on the mouth of the White Knife was again settled, and in time the city of White Harbor, directly ruled by House Stark, would grow around it.
Brandon the Burner was also gifted a herd of mammoths by the Arnorian king and from them came a great populace both wild and domesticated that populated the North in the following years.
During the reign of Aravir in Arnor, there was rebellion in the North against House Stark. By treachery and deceit, Houses Bolton and Frost defeated King Benjen and burned Winterfell. Benjen's three sons, Harlon, Karlon, and Greylon fled to Seawinter on Sea Dragon Point and led a mighty campaign against their foes, winning back the North after great struggle.
Arnor in the south had sent aid to its ally, but it was turned down just as Arnor had denied Northern aid during the Kin-Strife.
Harlon became known as Harlon the Harsh when he brutally destroyed Houses Bolton and Frost for their rebellion. Every single son of both houses was either executed or sent to the Wall, and the eldest daughters were wed to Harlon's brothers to whom he bestowed the Frosthold and the Dreadfort respectively. In time the cadet branches of House Stark founded by Karlon and Greylon Stark would become known as House Karstark and House Greystark.
House Stark and the Kingdom of the North would join the Alliance of the Three Kingdoms during the reign of Aragorn I. The North was often considered to be the second most senior of the alliance though their fleets could never compare to the Arnorian navy.
In the years following their alliance with Arnor under Theon, the nobility of the North intermarried rarely with the nobility of Arnor. These matches were uncommon but did occur, and little by little the Blood of Númenor entered the Northern Kingdom, prolonging its rulers' lives.
The Night's Watch and the Lands Beyond the Wall
The history of the Night's Watch is intertwined deeply with the history of the Kingdom of the North and the Lands Beyond the Wall, and beginning in the year 1158, with Arnor as well.
According to legend, at the end of the Long Night, the Wall was built to ensure that the Others could never again return to plague the lands of men. Unfortunately, a not insignificant populace was on the northern side when the Wall was built and their descendants would later become the wildings.
The thirteenth Lord Commander was a man who later became known as Night's King. He lived during the Age of Heroes, not long after the Wall was complete. While serving as the Lord Commander of the Night's Watch, he fell in love with a white-skinned woman, and when he gave his seed to her he gave his soul as well. Night's King brought her back to the Nightfort and after the unholy union, he declared himself king and her his queen. He ruled the Nightfort as his own castle for thirteen years with his corpse queen by his side.
During the dark years of his reign, horrific atrocities were committed, of which tales are still told in the north. It was not until Brandon the Breaker, the King of Winter, and Joramun, the King-Beyond-the-Wall, joined forces that Night's King was brought down and the Night's Watch freed. After his fall, when it was discovered that Night's King had been making sacrifices to the Others, all records of him were destroyed and his very name was forbidden and forgotten. It is likely this led the lords of the north to forbid the Night's Watch to construct walls at their keeps, ensuring the keeps would always be accessible from the south.
The histories of the Night's Watch see little of note beyond constant fights with the wildlings until the coming of Cirion and his men in the year 1158. Cirion was the second son of King Earendur of Arnor and he was the loser of the War of the Three Brothers. The full tale of Cirion and his surrender in that war is told elsewhere.
Cirion's coming strengthened the Night's Watch like never before as almost a thousand men of Númenórean descent now manned the Wall and Cirion's good relationship with his nephew Beleg resulted in a strong alliance between Arnor and the Watch upon Cirion's ascension to Lord Commander.
Shortly before becoming Lord Commander, Cirion was instrumental in the defeat of the twin brothers, Gendel and Gorne, and was the only living witness to the first encounter with an Other since the Long Night. The Others have not been seen since and have passed back into legend but Cirion prepared for their eventual return nonetheless.
Under Cirion, the Night's Watch became stronger than ever before. On the mouth of the Milkwater, Westport was built to facilitate easy trade and communication with faraway Arnor whilst beyond the Wall, the Night's Watch seized the Fist of the First Men and built a castle there as a forward base.
The Night's Watch became wealthy trading wood, ice and furs with Arnor and began conquering territory north of the Wall and making alliances with various wildling clans who were more friendly. This later lead to the establishment of Hardhome, a wildling town where the most civilised wildlings lived and traded, and it was allied with the Night's Watch.
Arnorians became common recruits in the Night's Watch, seeking glory and honour on the Wall, and one of the Dúnedain would almost always serve as Lord Commander of the Watch in the coming years. This superb leadership lead to the Watch becoming one of the most elite military forces in Westeros, second only to the Arnorian military itself. Furthermore, to supplement their manpower, the Watch began recruiting non-brother militias and auxiliaries from their tenants in the Gift and Beyond the Wall.
In the far north, the Dúnedain became greatly feared and respected by the wildlings beyond the Wall. They were tall, strong, and long-lived, and the wildlings were in awe of them. There are rumours of wildling spear wives 'stealing' some of these Dúnedain men and those that could claim descent from them were much respected in the far north.
During the many wars fought in the south, the Night's Watch ranks swelled with the defeated, and at times there was no space for them to be garrisoned. By the time of this book's writing, the Sworn Brothers of the Night's Watch are twenty thousand strong and man nine and ten castles along the length of the Wall, along with Westport at the Milkwater's mouth and Hardhome and the Fist beyond the Wall.
The Andals
The Andals were a tall and dark-haired people said to have originated in the Axe of northern Essos, although some say they came from south of the Silver migrated and established Andalos in northwestern Essos, stretching south as far as the Flatlands and the Velvet Hills and engaging in conflict with the tribes that inhabited those lands, such as the so-called "hairy men" Legend tells that they were visited by the incarnations of the Seven, who crowned their first king, Hugor of the Hill. They learned the art of working iron from early Arnorian explorers.
For many millennia the various petty kingdoms of Andalos squabbled with one another and thrived, even as they heard tales of rich, prosperous, and powerful Arnor merely on the other side of the Narrow Sea.
Sometime after 2800 E.L, Andal mercenaries and adventurers began landing in the Vale and by 3173 E.L, the entire region was united under Andal rule by House Arryn.
A large cause of the Andal migration was the Scouring of Lorath in 3010. The year before, Qarlon the Great had foolishly marched against the Valyrian colony of Norvos and was destroyed. In their fury, the Valyrians burned his stone castle on Lorath to the ground, the intense heat of dragonfire twisting and melting the stone.
In the following years, Valyria expanded into Andal territories, conquering and enslaving as they went, and the Andals fled to Westeros.
The tales of the Andal Invasions of Arnor have already been told in the Annals and those few Andals that remained in Andalos became subjects of Valyria. We will thus now turn to the last truly independent Andal realm.
The Kingdom of the Vale
The Kingdom of the Vale was established after the Battle of Seven Stars where Artys Arryn slew Robar Royce. In the aftermath of that battle, the Andals destroyed every First Men noble house in the Vale, replacing them with Andal lords like the Vances, Vyprens, Martells, and Tyrells.
Artys Arryn took the seat of his defeated rival, Runestone for himself and renamed it Falconrest. The Gates of the Moon at the foot of the Giant's Lance were also constructed to watch the pass where the Arnorian-controlled Bloody Gate lied.
In later years, House Grafton became extinct and House Arryn seized Gulltown for themselves, building a university there for learning and the Starry Sept as the seat of the High Septon.
House Arryn fought a long war with the Starks over the Three Sisters which continued intermittently until House Arryn gave up its claims to the islands in the Treaty of Gulltown.
During the reign of Aragorn I, the Vale and its rulers were reconciled with Arnor and the North, joining the Alliance of the Three Kingdoms. As part of the Alliance, the religious authorities of the three kingdoms convened to settle the religious differences between them and discuss the possibilities of syncretisation. This is known as the Council of Osgiliath and it determined that the three religions practiced in the three kingdoms were all true and simply different means of worshipping the same god. The Seven worshipped by the Andals were determined to be different facets of the personality of Eru Ilúvatar expressed in his Seven Maiar who are noted to have similar personalities to those of the Seven worshipped by the Andals. The weirwood trees of the North and Arnor were determined to be sacred to a few particular Maiar and thus to be protected, with the Vale agreeing to no longer cut them down and safeguard all remaining weirwoods in their kingdom.
The surprisingly easy syncretisation is often attributed to House Arryn and the King of Arnor 'convincing' the High Septon and the Most Devout.
The Summer Islands
The Summer Isles are an archipelago of islands south of Westeros and west of Sothoryos and are often used as the marker separating the Sunset and Summer Seas.
Its people are tall, dark, and handsome, wielding bows made of goldenheart that are overshadowed only by the steelbows of Arnor and the dragonbone bows of Valyria.
The people Isles had for much of their history believed themselves the only humans in the world with their home archipelago the only land, that is until Arnorian explorers landed on the islands.
After which the Islands took to the seas and became renowned seafarers in their own right.
However, the islands are not united, and each island is ruled by a prince or princess, with the three largest having multiple rival principalities.
Arnor has much trade relations with the islands and some kings have entertained ideas of taking the Isles for Arnor though such plans have never truly materialised. For the most part, relations are friendly, apart from the rivalry between the two cultures over whose bows and ships are superior.
Naath
North of Sothoryos, east of the Summer Isles, and west of the Basilisk Isles, Naath is a large island populated by the pacifist Naathi people who are united under the rule of the Prince of Naath.
Being pacifist and so close to neighbouring Gogossos, one may question why Naath was never conquered by Valyria or Ghis before them and the answer is the butterfly fever, a terrible disease spread by butterflies native to Naath that kill any foreigner who stays for too long.
Curiously the Dúnedain are immune to the butterfly fever just as the local Naathi are and thus are most trusted by them.
The primary export of Naath is their butterfly silks, which are extremely beautiful and world renowned.
The Kingdom of Sarnor
Sarnor has a very similar name to Arnor and the similarities do not end there. The Sarnori are a tall people, and their own name for themselves, Taegaz Fen, quite literally means Tall Men.
They were thus understandably disappointed when the first Arnorian explorers came and towered over even them.
Despite being called a kingdom, Sarnor is not actually truly united, being divided into countless kingdoms, each of whom nominally swear allegiance to the High King in Sarnath.
The entire civilisation is based around the Sarne river basin and the Sarnori are a fierce and strong people who warred with Ancient Ghis and drove the Qaathi away.
They maintain friendly relations with both Arnor and Valyria though due to distance, gravitate closer to the latter.
Ibben
The islands of Ibben are home to the Ibbenese people, a stout and hairy race incapable of breeding with all other men.
The Ibbenese are expert seafarers and dominate the Shivering Sea in their giant whaling ships. They have a rivalry with the Kingdom of the North over fishing and whaling waters and rights and so are quite wary around the North's allies of Arnor, the Vale, and Braavos.
On the rare occasions that Arnorian ships enter the Shivering Sea however, the Ibbenese know better than to pick fights with them, lest they incur the wrath of the Dúnedain.
Qaathi
The Qaathi are a race of pale-skinned people often called the Milk Men for their extremely pale complexion.
In ancient times they were driven from the Sarne river by the Sarnori and they settled in the lands that later became the Red Waste. The chief and greatest of their cities is Qarth, which controls the Jade Gates, the major trade route to neighbouring Yi Ti.
Arnor has little in the way of relation with Qarth beyond trade.
Beyond the Bone Mountains
There are a number of civilisations and lands beyond the Bone Mountains such as the Patrimony of Hyrkoon, the Nefer in the Thousand Isles, the Jhogos Nhai, the Golden Empire of Yi Ti, Mossovy, Asshai-by-the-Shadow, and the Grey Waste.
Like Qarth, Arnor has little in the way of relations with these nations beyond trade. There are some stories of Arnorian explores purchasing zorses from the Jhogos Nhai and bringing them back to Arnor, as well as Arnorian merchants being impressed with the cities of Yi Ti and amazed by some of its innovations and ideas.
Of Asshai and the lands past the Five Forts, Arnorian explorers and traders have little good to say, calling them cursed, blasted, and empty lands.
Braavos
The Free City of Braavos was established by an escaped Valyrian slave fleet in 4053. In Braavos, all races and all religions are welcome.
Braavos was aided in its early years by the Alliance of the Three Kingdoms and traded primarily with them until it revealed its existence to the world a century after its founding. The Braavosi paid the descendants of the original owners of the slave fleet the price for the stolen ships but refused to pay a single copper for any slaves.
It maintains a powerful navy and bank though both are inferior to their Arnorian counterparts.
Interestingly, the Faceless Men of Braavos refuse to accept contracts targeting any Arnorian person. This is attributed to the Arnorians being difficult to impersonate due to incredible height and their inherent telepathy.
The Arnorians for their own part disapprove of the Faceless Men worshipping death, the Gift of Men, and seeking to give it to others early for a fee, not that it has stopped them from sometimes using their services.
The Freehold of Valyria
We come at long last to Valyria, where dragons fly in the skies and their riders are more beautiful than any in the world but malice and evil hides beneath that beauty.
In ancient times, the Valyrian peninsula was ruled by various petty kingdoms who payed tribute to the neighbouring Empire of Ghis. During this time, dragons were extinct and even believed mythical.
In the old Kingdom of Valyris, shepherds in the foothills of the Fourteen Flames discovered dragon eggs. By some chance, the eggs hatched and the shepherds reared the young dragons, feeding them with their sheep.
When the dragons were full grown, the shepherds turned dragon riders rode them to the capital where they overthrew the tyrannical king. Valyris was renamed slightly and Valyria was born.
The first Valyrian dragons were wild and unruly, obeying their riders only due imprinting on them upon their hatching. In time, the Valyrians turned to magic to control their dragons and the magic turned their previously blue eyes purple and brightened their blonde hair into gold and silver.
Through magic, the Valyrians became the ethereally beautiful race they are today but it was magic on the likes none should ever practice as the Valyrians sacrificed their defeated enemies to power their magic. In time the entire peninsula was united under their rule and it was then that they came into conflict with the Empire of Ghis.
Over the course of Five Ghiscari wars, the Valyrians mastered their dragons and bred them to be larger and stronger until by the Fifth War, they utterly crushed Ghis and razed it to the ground, salting its fields to ensure there would be no Sixth War.
From there, Valyria began establishing various colonies. Volantis in 2231 E.L, Qohor in 2308, Norvos in 2356, and Gogossos in 2401.
For a time after that, Valyria expanded no more but after the Scouring of Lorath, Valyria established the colonies of Lorath, Pentos, and Myr in former Andal lands, but the supply lines to these new colonies were long and laborious, especially as Arnor forbade the shipping of slaves through the Stepstones. Thus during the Arnorian Kin-Strife, Valyria gave secret aid to the Dornish and during the latter's rebellion, invaded and seized Lys and the Stepstones. The last major Valyrian colony established was the military outpost of Tyrosh, built on the site of the Arnorian city of Peluicarnë.
Words can hardly describe the horrors done to the captured Dúnedain from Lys and the Stepstones. The Valyrians experimented with them, trying to discover the secrets of their longevity through their magicks, dissecting and killing some of them like lab rats. When they ultimately failed to discover any hidden reason for the longevity of the Dúnedain people, the Valyrians resorted to selling them as slaves to the Forty Families, to be used as breeding stock.
Undoubtedly many a Dúnadan was raped by their Valyrian masters in the hopes of breeding the Arnorian traits of longevity into their dynasties, while carefully maintaining the Valyrian looks.
This method showed promise at first as the resulting children were stronger and longer-lived than their Valyrian parents but to the utter disappointment of the Valyrians, the gifts bestowed upon them for their Dúnedain heritage began swiftly diminishing with every generation and not even reintroducing fresh Númenórean blood from the slaves had any effect on stemming this waning.
By the time of the Arnor-Valyria war, the lifespans of the Forty Families were little more than a hundred years, hardly more than ordinary men, and in their inability to gain their longevity, the Valyrians' envy of the Arnorians turned into hatred.
The government of Valyria is composed of a Senate, composed of 300-500 senators who served for life. Theoretically, any Valyrian Freeholder, that is a citizen with sufficient wealth and property, could sit in the Valyrian Senate. In practice however, the council was dominated almost entirely by members of the Forty Families, an unofficial group of families who privately controlled the dragons of Valyria. The executives of Valyria were the Three Triarchs, elected for three year terms and ruling together.
Two major political factions came to hold power and sway in Valyria. The Elephant Party, which favoured trade and diplomacy, and the Tiger Party, which favoured militarism and expansion by force.
Surprisingly it was the Elephant Party who controlled both the Triarchy and the Senate during the Arnorian Kin-Strife and they were the orchestrators of the Valyrian Invasion of the Stepstones and Lys.
In the aftermath of the Rhoynar Wars and their exodus from the Rhoyne however, the Tiger Party came to hold power in Valyria as Valyria nervously watched the build-up of military forces in Arnor.
The World Beyond
All of the above mentioned civilisations and lands have been known to Arnor for thousands of years. However, the rest of the world was not explored until after the Kin-Strife.
During their explorations of the rest of the world, the Arnorians discovered that the world had only four continents, Westeros, Sothoryos, Essos, and Ulthos, all of which extended far beyond their previously mapped portions.
Sothoryos extended down so far south that it almost reached the South Pole whilst Essos wrapped around the globe until its far eastern end met the Sunset Sea, with 15000 miles of open ocean and countless islands separating the eastern coast of Essos and the western coasts of Westeros.
Westeros extended north into the Lands of Always Winter which wrapped around the northern end of the globe before dipping down slightly near Essos past the Grey Waste where it is believed an ice bridge could have connected the two landmasses in ancient times, perhaps explaining the lack of civilisation east of the Five Forts.
The Arnorians did not find any new civilisations in these faraway regions however, only primitive savages and ruins. Relics of a long gone era. Their importance is little in the rest of Arnor's history and they will remain so until the time comes that Arnor or some other civilised land decides to colonise or settle them though that is unlikely to be anytime soon.
One thing was made clear in their explorations of the world to the Arnorians, and that was the nature of the seasons. They were not unnaturally long as had been previously thought but rather each season naturally passed over the course of a year as they should. In the Southern Hemisphere this cycle was reversed, yet the average temperature in the world changed according to the supposed long season they were in.
It was determined that the natural cycle of the four seasons in one year was being obscured by a larger cycle of intermittent cooling and warming periods, which were the 'winters' and 'summers' previously known, which lasted for years on end, their cause being unknown.
Author's Note: Analoguing the land area of Planetos and taking its total size to be slightly larger than Earth, we have roughly 58 million square miles from the seven continents not accounting for islands.
Westeros is already mentioned to be South America size and Essos and Sothoryos are compared to Eurasia.
Subtracting those off we have roughly 9 million square miles left. This is presumably in either Ulthos, a hypothetical Antarticos or a hypothetical Americos. Due to Ulthos's dubious status as a continent, Australia's three million square miles would be realistic, leaving 6 million sq miles for Antarticos compared to IRL Antarctica's 5.4 million. For this story I have concluded that Planetos is in a proto-Pangea stage and so put all this landmass in Ulthos.
Furthermore, due to the shape of Essos, the continent is far less lengthy in a north-south orientation and is rather extremely long in an east-west orientation. Estimates by the atlas of Ice and Fire place the east-west distance of Known World Essos at 6000 miles and an area of 12 million square miles. We can use this figure to guesstimate a rough total east-west length of Essos to be around 10-12000 miles. Taking the total guesstimated east-west distance of the Known world map of 7000 miles leave us with roughly 12-15000 miles of the Sunset Sea. Seeing as the IRL Pacific is an astonishing 12,427 miles at widest. this is not unfeasible.
As for the seasons, it is a theory that I have seen in some places used and as the normal growing seasons still seem to exist, I think it makes sense and explains how on Earth people survive. It would also still cause crop failures during the cold periods, fitting canon, as the IRL Little Ice Age did.
