Wise Masters

Razdal mo Eraz, one of Yunkai's Wise Masters

"The Wise Masters of Yunkai have sent a gift for the Silver Queen."

―Razdal mo Eraz to Daenerys Targaryen

The Wise Masters are the ruling elite of the city of Yunkai, one of the three cities of eastern shores of Slaver's Bay, composed of slave-traders.

After hearing about what Daenerys Targaryen did to Astapor's Good Masters during the Sack of Astapor, the Wise Masters of Yunkai sent an envoy to her army, which had camped just outside the city, offering gold so that she abandoned Essos and left the slavers in peace to continue with their affairs. She rebuffed their offer, although she kept the gold. After Daario Naharis betrayed his commanders, breached the contract the Second Sons had with Yunkai and put the two thousand mercenaries at the service of Daenerys, the Wise Masters were overthrown during the Battle of Yunkai. Soon after, many of the newly freed slaves vacated the city and proclaimed Daenerys as their "mother." However, eventually the Wise Masters regained control of the city and re-enslaved the inhabiting freedmen. Daenerys, now ruler of Meereen, sent Daario Naharis and his Second Sons back to Yunkai alongside Hizdahr zo Loraq, a Meereenese Great Master at her service, so that he could offer the Wise Masters the option of abandoning slavery once and for all, or else they would be put to the sword. The Wise Masters agreed to renounce slavery, with the proposal that the fighting pits be reopened, though only with willing participants using them now. Daenerys initially rejected this, but later reconsidered after Daario relates to her winning in the pits had helped him make his fortune, join the Second Sons and thus meet her. After the burning of the Meereen shipyards, Varys informs Tyrion Lannister, Grey Worm, and Missandei that slavery was reinstated in Yunkai.

Known Wise Masters

• Razdal mo Eraz
• {Bezzaq}, killed by Tazal to collect a reward from the Wise Masters by blaming Asher Forrester and Beskha on his death and attempting to enact 'justice' for it.

In the novels

In the A Song of Ice and Fire novels, the Wise Masters manage to reassert themselves as best they can in Yunkai after Daenerys leaves, and continue to politically threaten her new rule over Meereen.

Razdal mo Eraz is named "Grazdan mo Eraz" in the novels; the TV series apparently changed his name to avoid confusion, as "Grazdan" is a very common name in Slaver's Bay held by multiple characters.

In the novels, Yezzan zo Qaggaz is actually one of the Wise Masters from Yunkai, morbidly obese and one of the leading slave-masters. The TV series heavily condensed the role so when he appears in Season 5, he is just a normal-looking slave-trader who purchases Tyrion and Jorah at auction when they arrive in Meereen - without specifying if he is actually one of the Great Masters "from" Meereen, or if he is a Yunkish slaver-master who just happens to be in Meereen for the Great Games.

The Wise Masters endlessly bicker among themselves over who has precedence, both in terms of raw power and more arcane and complex principles of peerage which are confusing and inscrutable to outsiders. When their armies march out against Daenerys there are a disproportionately large number of "captains" and "commanders", about forty, because any slave-master who can muster up a two hundred poorly trained slaves considers himself the equal of one of the more powerful ones who actually possesses two thousand well-trained footsoldiers. The Wise Masters heavily rely upon hired sellsword companies and slave-soldiers: even the sellswords that accept their contracts for good payment consider the slave-masters themselves to generally be foppish aristocrats playing at politics and war.

Two of the most capable of the Wise Masters are Grazdan mo Eraz and Yezzan zo Qaggaz. Eraz is a skilled diplomat, first attempting to simply bribe Daenerys to leave, and later he seeks to make common cause with the slaver-masters in Volantis, deftly flattering them with gifts and propaganda about what a tyrant Daenerys has become. Qaggaz, meanwhile, is the leading voice against war with Daenerys, more intelligently urging caution and diplomacy - saying that fighting Daenerys's Unsullied and her growing dragons is more trouble than it is worth, and if they start fighting her again they might lose and end up being overthrown.

Unlike the Great Masters of Meereen, of which six slaver families were identifies as the major ones (alongside other smaller ones), the leading families of Wise Masters haven't been clearly identified. The family names of some of the Wise Masters leading Yunkai's army against Daenerys are Qaggaz, Eraz, Myraq, Rhaezn, Ahlaq, Zerzyn, and Faez - but it wasn't clarified if all of these are "major" families, given the direct complaint that less powerful slave-masters were claiming equal right to command over their combined forces, etc.

See also

• Wise Masters on A Wiki of Ice and Fire

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