u/N-AmelessCreative

During some studying of history I stumbled across a portrait of this fella and noticed a strong resemblance between him and Shabriri. "Who is he?" You may be asking. Well, he isn't insane nor is his mass killer bent on destroying all life but he certainly is famous and is a name you are likely to recognize...

This is Nicolaus Copernicus, the man who proposed the heliocentric model of the solar system.

I think it is an absolutely *fascinating* twist on history. In a world where alchemy and astrology are real and the mystical is something that can be directly interacted with, the theory that the Earth isn't the center of the universe would have cataclysmic implications. And this astronomical theory isn't the only thing in his life that may have noteworthy, in-lore connections (that said, this is ultimately a creative endeavor and while using historical parallels/inspirations *is* George RR Martin's writing process, it will be impossible to know what parts of history he is referencing, twisting, exaggerating, and omitting without talking to the man himself).

((TL;DR at the bottom))

Things to keep in mind about Shabriri:

Everyone HATES him; his empty eye sockets are the first place Frenzy Flame appeared in the world; while Midra's Manse is clearly Frenzy related, how Shabriri is tied to it is entirely unknown; things with the "yelough" descriptor seem to come from Consecrated Snowfield/Mountaintops; there is a small cluster of Frenzy and "yelough" in Liurnia; Mountaintops is the location of Castle Sol and seemingly the home of the headless, Eclipse Knights; and Mountaintops is the home of the Fire Prelates and the guilty, thorn sorcerers.

Points of Copernicus' life that may be a parallel:

Copernicus was born in Royal Prussia (aka Poland) in the city of Torun in 1473. The English spelling of "Torun" is "Thorn" and the city's motto is "I will endure."

Off the bat we have thorns and endurance, relating to the thorn sorcerers, the inquisition and Midra's curse. Admittedly superficial but we gotta start somewhere. (The Eclipse Knights have these odd angel wings on the back of their armor, this is the design of Prussia's winged hussars)

Now, Poland at the time was having struggles of rulership between the Polish monarchy and the rule of the Teutonic Knights, a religious order of knights. Both sides of Copernicus' family were very anti-Teutonic Order, and when his parents passed, Copernicus (and his three older siblings) lived with their uncle. Their uncle (a bishop) was so well known and so against the knights that the Grand Master of the order had called him the "devil incarnate" (Both the Knights and the uncle were Catholic).

This—in addition to the controversy of Copernicus' later heliocentric model—I think sets a decent foundation for Shabriri's character to be bitterly hated.

Copernicus seemingly studied a little bit of everything, religious canon law, medicine, astronomy, finance, Greek, philosophy, astrology, and likely other subjects as well. Though interestingly, he had little interest in astrology while simultaneously having a strong fascination with astronomy. He read Ptolemy and Aristotle and it was the conflict in those writings (spheres vs orbits?) that set the seed of questioning for the structure of the solar system.

While Shabriri's intelligence is never commented on, I quite like the idea that he was wickedly intelligent. And Frenzied Flame *does* have an association with academia through the sage, Midra and his home/discussion hall.

Copernicus, unsurprisingly, made many astronomical observations including part of the Taurus constellation being obstructed by the moon, several lunar eclipses, at least one solar eclipse, and positions of all the planets visible with the naked eye.

The eclipses are important due to proximity to Castle Sol, the headless Eclipse Knights, and the Lord of Frenzied Flame's own solar eclipse head. I also threw in the Taurus observation because maybe it has something to do with Torrent and his fear of Frenzy?

Besides his involvement with ecclesiastical affairs through his uncle, diplomacy and politics also through his uncle, the medical advice that he gave, and his astronomical studies he also wrote about economic and monetary affairs. He wrote about debased coinage and how if coins of lower physical metal value are introduced into the market, coins of higher value will be pushed out (the coins are both "one dollar," but one coin has more gold in it than the other). He also wrote about how if more coins are introduced into the market, prices of goods and services will also go up.

The fact that in-game currency for stores is the same resource for leveling up your character make economic theory a potentially interesting avenue of research. The creative twist here is probably chaos entering "the market" in the guise of runes with real value which ultimately degrades or replaces runes with valueless chaos.

Copernicus dragged his feet on releasing his heliocentric theory out of fear/worry of the criticism it would come under. When his friends and colleagues finally convinced him to actually publish his work towards the end of his life, the Pope actually liked it. The people who did not like it were the Protestants with Martin Luther himself having been recorded insulting the theory (though he did not openly mention Copernicus by name).

If this part of Copernicus' life was used as inspiration for Shabriri, then it is talking about a part of the lore we don't have access to. I think it is likely that George RR Martin changed Copernicus' timid behavior to the irritating smugness that we see in the Shabriri's Woe talisman. Though I suppose it could also be interesting if Shabriri did used to be timid, but taking on Frenzied Flame gave him a new personality. This also would frame Marika and her offspring as Protestant, which is interesting and kinda fitting given Marika's rebellious nature but that analysis is a different rabbit hole.

One interesting part of all the hate he got from Protestants was their word choice, they consistently mocked him for "stopping the sun and moving the earth." I don't know about you guys, but that insult feels like a badass compliment to me. Copernicus was not persecuted heavily by the Catholics during his lifetime, though in ~100 years he and his theories get dragged up and dragged through the mud when Galileo got persecuted. But before that, several academic circles readily accepted the new model.

If the sun in game literally functions as it does in astrology—the sun moving around a stationary earth—then Shabriri could very literally be attempting to "throw" the world into chaos by breaking the structure of the universe. This also potentially makes Midra Galileo as he was the one most harshly persecuted.

Eventually, Copernicus died. Even this has an eye-catching parallel as Copernicus died from apoplexy and paralysis. "Apoplexy" was traditionally/informally/metaphorically associated with anger and fury. It typically occurs as a ruptured blood vessel in the brain. There's no evidence that Copernicus was actually angry when he died, as a matter of fact, it is said that he died at peace after seeing his work published. Though that doesn't have much of a historical basis.

Copernicus died of "fury?" Frenzied Flame's whole thing is dying in extreme emotional unrest.

Whimsical imaginings:

Now we can start looking at all these little bits and bops and string them together to form a narrative of Shabriri's life:

Shabriri could have been born from a pair of thorn sorcerers in the Mountaintops who were in constant contention with the original occupants of Castle Sol. Shabriri grew and left the Mountaintops and spent time in Altus and/or Liurnia and found a "gap" in their teachings. Much like how the Primeval Sorcerers Lusat and Azur went mad (to varying degrees) Shabriri turned his gaze to the sun instead and lost his marbles. Afterwards, he returned to his home in the Mountaintops and lingers there still.

The influence of Frenzy was not immediately spotted, but as people died with Frenzied Flame in their eyes and returned to the Erdtree, they started to corrupt it from within. Frenzy now existed within the Erdtree's system and was diluting the value of the blessings Marika and the tree could bestow.

Midra may have been the one who (accidentally) brought the dangerous of Frenzied Flame to everyone's attention. Perhaps as the Erdtree was weakening and nobody had a clear understanding as to why the called upon Midra to figure out the cause an a solution. Midra and the other scholars eventually agreed that the best way to find out what was happening was to ask the Erdtree directly. So they gathered fingers from the ruins and constructed the Three Fingers, not knowing that doing so unleashed something catastrophic upon the Abyssal Woods.

(The fact that the Lord of Frenzied Flame is headless like the Eclipse Knights bothers me and I am frustrated that I can't come up with an explanation that feels satisfying.)

And that's all I have to say about that. I enjoy applying history to the lore and then use that information to make up a creative story line. If George and Miyazaki won't give us the whole story, then I'll just imagine one up dammit. I may make more of these history inspiration things. Thank you for reading or even just skimming, I hope you enjoyed or saw a new angle from what I presented.

TL;DR

Copernicus' family was already reviled by a religious Order of Knights, he witnessed eclipses, he was well educated, he had economic theories regarding debased currency and inflation, Protestants hated him, Catholics eventually hated him when they also hated Galileo, and he died from a condition associated with fury. Some of those parallel what we know about Shabriri, and George RR Martin may have purposefully twisted history for a story.