- "He truly thought of himself as a Sun God. His mind was... broken. He believed that blood sacrifice would solve... well, everything."
- ―Avad speaking of Jiran to Aloy
Jiran, ceremonially referred to as His Radiance Jiran, 13th of the Line of Luminance, was the 13th Sun-King of the Carja Sundom. His reign is almost universally reviled, notorious not only for his brutality and despotism, but for the terror he inflicted on every tribe in the known world via the Red Raids. After a decade of pointless war and senseless brutality, he was finally deposed by his second son Avad. The fallout from his reign and eventual overthrow play a crucial role in the contemporary events depicted in Horizon Zero Dawn and Horizon Forbidden West.
History[]
Background[]
Jiran was the son of Hivas, the 12th Sun-King.[1] He had at least two wives, with whom he sired three children, all sons. His first wife, name unknown, presumably bore both of his two elder children; first Kadaman and then Avad. He is presumed to have married his second wife Nasadi after the death of his first, since the Carja appear to be monogamous. Nasadi bore him a third child, Itamen.
Early reign[]
Jiran inherited a strong military from his father, and he used this strength to defend the Sundom from encroachment by other tribes. The start of his reign indicated that he had strong command skills and his support for his troops earned him fanatical loyalty from some of his military commanders and priests. However, it was during his reign that a phenomenon known as the Derangement began. His steadfast strength and command of the military provided capable defence of his people from the machines even as they became more hostile by the day. His unflinching strength despite his challenges, gave him an initial reputation as a good leader.[1]
Descent into madness[]
Jiran’s success, however, was accompanied by a steadily growing megalomania. He began to perceive himself not just as the Sun’s chosen vessel, but as the very incarnation of the Sun itself. As his mental state became more fanatical and untempered, he created a cult of personality among his most devoted followers. They would soon become his most brutal enforcers and carried out some of the worst atrocities in his name with his growing need for obedience and control. As his God complex grew he began to see any dissent or slight against him as blasphemy and sacrilege. Jiran's temper grew short and bloodshed became common, he would punish even the lowliest crime with death or torture, a favourite being to watch people be trampled by machines in the Sun Ring. Fuelled by his zealots and his own ego, his madness caused the Carja to be in a perpetual state of war against every other tribe they encountered, the most brutal opponents being the Tenakth. Ego and vanity lead him to commission of an order of elite soldiers and personal guard, fanatically loyal, not to the Sundom or its monarchy, but rather to him and him alone. These men would become known as Kestrels. The first of them were the survivors of a training regimen that took place in the Sandwhisper Valley, lashed by sandstorms strong enough to scour armor.[2] He chose the Kestrel commander Helis, the strongest, fiercest and most capable of these first Kestrels, to be his personal champion. Helis himself would become infamous as Jiran's most fanatical follower and most brutal executioner.
Domestic cruelty[]
As Jiran’s rule degenerated into tyranny, so too did tyranny spread throughout Carja society like a vile cancer. Slavery, introduced by Jiran’s father Hivas, became a prominent feature of Carja life. Inhumane treatment of servants such as the severe floggings inflicted on the Carja spy Vanasha and her family, all servants during Jiran’s reign, were the norm. Even the free underclass was under the whims of the nobility and the Sun-Priests; no one in the underclass could refuse an instruction from a noble or priest, no matter how base, or they could be flogged as punishment, or worse. Many nobility used it as an excuse to gain favour with the Sun King while indulging their own cruelty. The Carja hunter Furahni, for example, was flogged as a teenager during Jiran’s reign for refusing the sexual advances of a Sun-Priest.
The Red Raids[]
Jiran’s despotism continued to grow, culminating in the Red Raids, the worst atrocities ever committed in the known world to date. Over time, the Derangement produced machines that were stronger and more heavily armed as a result of Hephaestus seeing humans as a threat to the machines preserving the biosphere. These new combat machines caused Jiran to believe the Sundom had faltered in their faith, and such impiety could be cleansed through ritualistic human sacrifice. When the slaughter of his own criminals and perceived heretics proved to be insufficient, he ordered the Carja army, including his Kestrels, to raid and pillage the lands of every other tribe they could find. They were to seize any people, young or old, and bring them back to the Carja capital of Meridian to be slaughtered by deranged machines in an attempt to satiate their hostility and bloodlust, and by proxy, Jiran's.
For ten long and gruelling years, every known tribe, from neighbours like the Nora, to distant tribes such as the Utaru, were pillaged and razed. Victims were seized, for no reason other than Jiran's bloodlust, and transported to the Sundom to await their deaths. While none could understand the Mad Sun King's motives, Jiran applied a cruel and ruthless calculus in how these raids were conducted; he would order an entire generation taken from an attacked village, to break the spirit of the tribe, and reduce the number of defenders his men had to contend with in future raids.[3]
At Meridian, and at Jiran’s summer palace at Sunfall when he was there, in a huge arena known as the Sun-Ring, victims would be held in cells beneath the Ring before being paraded in before the Mad Monarch and his people. Before the thousands gathered to watch, huge, powerful machines such as Behemoths were loosed on any victims at Jiran's cruel whim. The machines trampled, gored, and eviscerated any victims as the crowds watched, many to cheers, and others aghast in horror. Jiran's spectacle allowed his loyal subjects to indulge their cruelest fantasies, while showing would be rebels what their fate would be.
Not all captives met their end in the ring, as many tribes' traditions and skill with machines grew since the Derangement began. Would be victims like the Banuk shaman Ourea, managed to avoid being sacrificed because of their skill at capturing machines. Even in his madness Jiran saw their utility, and used their skills in machine capture to gather more and further the bloody spectacle. Others, such as the Oseram warrior Ersa, survived the Sun-Ring, impressing Jiran so much that he made them palace slaves. Additionally, Red Raid commanders such as Zaid and Jiran’s champion Helis were notorious for their egregious cruelty during raids conducted by their units, all with Jiran’s approval.[3]
Public opposition[]
Not all Carja were in favor of the raids and sacrifices and some spoke against the madness of the Sun King and his cruelty. Those brave enough to speak soon found themselves as the machines latest victims, as Jiran used the dissident Carja as an example for the price of defiance against his will. It was not limited to commoners alone as several Hawks of the Carja Hunters Lodge, warriors and hunters of high renown, including then-Sunhawk Talavad Khane Padish, died in the Sun-Ring after publicly condemning the bloodshed.[3] As for the Sun-Priests, while a few objected, most of them blessed the killing, believing it to be the will of the Sun, as well as out of loyalty to Jiran.
Avad's liberation[]
Then came the breaking point. Prince Kadaman, Jiran’s eldest son, demanded of his father that the raids and sacrifices end. Jiran did not spare members of his house his wrath if they opposed him; he had Kadaman condemned as a traitor, and sacrificed to a Behemoth in the Sun-Ring.[3] His brother, Prince Avad, was also a dissident and Kadaman’s execution drove him to action against his father's deranged and bloodthirsty reign. He and his honor guard fled Meridian in order to find any allies they could against Jiran's cruelty and make an attempt to depose him. Upon discovery of their flight, Jiran saw a clear and present threat to his reign and acted with haste: Avad's right to succeed him was revoked, and Itamen became the heir apparent. Avad soon found himself in the tribal lands of the Oseram, The Claim, where he reunited with Ersa, an Oseram warrior and former palace slave who he struck up a friendship with and had helped escape. She and her brother, Erend, had multiple connections to Oseram warlords and freebooters who were fighting against the Carja raiders while inventing new weapons. The siblings' connections and Avad's diplomacy forged the beginnings of an alliance with many Oseram that grew to spawn Avad's liberation army.[4]
Overthrow and death[]
After months of preparation, the liberators marched on Meridian. According to the Carja spymaster Marad, Jiran’s chief advisor and a dissident himself, he helped prepare them from within Jiran’s court though as yet unrevealed means. As the liberators advanced deeper into the Sundom, Carja soldiers, thought to be loyal to the Sundom, joined the rebellion's ranks instead, swelling their numbers. Jiran soon found himself facing a large invasion force composed of much of his formerly loyal Carja army. Only the Kestrels and a relatively small number of Carja soldiers remained loyal to him. Among the civilians, much of the nobility remained loyal to him, but the underclasses, furious with Jiran's oppression, sided with Avad.
The liberators successfully invaded the city, but Jiran’s megalomania would not allow him to surrender. “Ever the strong are beset upon by the weak,” he told Helis as he gave him his final orders: take his queen Nasadi and his youngest son Itamen, along with all his loyalists - the Kestrels, nobles and Sun-Priests, as well as their slaves - to his summer palace at Sunfall, while he remained in Meridian to parlay with his wayward son.[4] With his Kestrels and loyal soldiers gone, Jiran was alone in his Solarium when Avad, accompanied by Ersa, confronted him. Officially, Avad pled with his father to surrender, and reluctantly slew Jiran when he refused. In truth, Ersa laid the killing blow, charging forward in Avad's moment of hesitation (whether Avad pled or not is unclear).
Carja belief holds that the murder of the Sun-King would destroy the world by extinguishing the Sun. To the Carja who supported Avad, the aftermath of Jiran’s death at his hand was, therefore, conclusive proof that the Sun had never been in support of his brutality and had renounced him, as the Sun continued shining.[5]
Legacy[]
By the time Jiran’s reign was finished, he became the most despotic and despised ruler in the history of the Carja. The atrocities spawned by his growing madness and megalomania are universally considered, with the exception of his fanatics, to be the darkest and most horrific period in the history of the Sundom, if not of the known world. In addition to those who were killed in his despotic rule over his people, untold numbers of foreign tribespeople, likely numbering in the thousands, were killed in the Red Raids and the human sacrifices he ordered. It is rare to find consensus among so many different people, yet among both Carja and other tribes, Jiran is considered as a deranged and homicidal tyrant. Most Carja records, and almost all other tribes accounts, have him universally derided as “the Mad Sun-King”.
Even in death, his brutal reign and madness had far-reaching consequences, some of which festered for years. While most of the tribes accepted the peace that Avad attempted to offer, many among them could only ever see the Carja as cruel and vicious conquerors and raiders. One Oseram warlord, Dervahl, a brilliant weapons engineer, heard of his wife and daughter being slaughtered in the Sun-Ring, on Jiran's personal order. The tale became more commonplace with other Oseram undergoing similar grief, such as Asera. Their loss caused Dervhal to burn with an obssesive hatred for the Carja that would never die, seeing all Carja as guilty of the atrocities committed by the Mad Sun-King. Years after the Liberation, he planned and almost succeeded in a terrorist bombing of Meridian that would have destroyed most of the city, as part of his plan of genocide against the Carja, while personally torturing and murdering Avad to get his own twisted revenge. The plan was foiled by the Nora huntress Aloy. This was not the end however, as multiple followers and Oseram freebooters like Asera, shared Dervahl's goal, and escaped Marad's assassins. They would attempt to bring down the Sundom as well, and would forge alliances with others who's hatred for the Carja burned as intense as their own.
Even greater consequences almost resulted years after Avad’s Liberation, one of which was the worst possible: the destruction of life on Earth. The Carja who went to Sunfall became a splinter tribe known as the Shadow Carja. Their de facto rulers were Helis and the High Priest Bahavas. The two men’s desire to retake the Sundom and kill Avad was used by the artificial intelligence HADES to manipulate them into forming a secret death cult known as the Eclipse. Their fanatical loyalty to Jiran, which he had made key to their position, helped them be an ideal weapon to use. This cult almost destroyed the Nora, first in an attack ordered by HADES to kill Aloy known as the Proving Massacre, then in a genocidal attack ordered by Helis as retribution against Aloy’s dogged interference in Eclipse operations. HADES’ ultimate purpose for the Eclipse was to use them to secure the ancient monument in the Sundom known as the Spire, the means by which it intended to reactivate the Faro Plague and allow it to permanently exterminate all life on Earth. It had ordered the attack on Aloy because it knew her, as a clone of Elisabet Sobeck, to be a threat to its existence. The Proving Massacre failed to kill Aloy, however, and she went on to rally the Nora to defeat the Eclipse and ultimately assemble an alliance of warriors from various tribes that came together to foil HADES’ plan in a vast battle at the foot of the Spire.
Consequences that were less dire for the other tribes, but equally severe for all Carja, would emerge mere months after the Eclipse's attack on Meridian. The Carja's most brutal opponents had been the warrior tribes of the Tenakth out in the Forbidden West. Many Tenakth had hoped that after a late victory against the Carja, a full force would march on Meridian itself and annihilate what was left. Tenakth Clan Cheif Hekkaro, surprised and infuriated many when he accepted Avad's offer for peace and parlay. After the cruelty of Jiran, many Tenakth refused to lay down their arms against the Carja, and those old hatreds would be left to fester. Chief among them, was a Tenakth Marshal named Regalla, who nursed a hatred for the Carja ever since her brothers were burned alive during the Red Raids, and looked for any excuse exact vengeance against the Carja for it, even if it meant civil war. She soon found allies in Oseram weapon makers who shared her grudge like Asera, leader of the Sons of Prometheus. Asera and the Oseram offered Regalla an army of overridden machines using technology they gained, which Regalla could then use to exact her brutal reprisals on Tenakth who she deemed softhearted, and finally, the Carja and Meridian itself. In truth, Asera was conspiring with Sylens to use Regalla for their own ends, before using those same machines to allow Asera to destroy the Sundom. Both plans were thwarted by Aloy, with the help of Erend and Kotallo, respectively.
Personality[]
At the start of his reign, Jiran was a strong, capable leader, although this was largely due to the successful reign of his father who had built up the Carja's strength. As Jiran continued to be successful in defending the Sundom from threats including the Derangement of the Machines, he grew grandiose and arrogant, believing himself to be the Sun's incarnation, and therefore a god among men. This unchecked arrogance led him to treat every criticism as defiance of his divine rule. The added stress of the Derangement of the Machines, his inability to stop it, and his own belief of being the embodiment of the Sun caused Jiran to descend into madness, becoming a cruel and tyrannical despot. As the Derangement grew worse, Jiran became more paranoid that the Derangement would not stop and he would be seen as a failure. His already fragile ego could not comprehend or accept that he was mistaken, and those he kept by his side affirmed this belief, knowing that agreeing with his madness would lead to their own advancement. This only aided in worsening the brutal reprisals he exhibited for every slight and raids for human sacrifices in a deranged belief that these atrocities would end the Derangement, while the reality of the situation was beyond his control.
Nonetheless, Jiran maintained one somewhat redeeming quality: rewarding loyalty. For example, while the exact timeframe is unknown, when Helis' wife died in childbirth, Jiran allowed them to be buried at the Alight, an honor reserved for the royal family and national heroes.[6] It must be noted, however, that he rewarded people who exemplified service to him, rather than service to the Sundom. Any perceived disloyalty, however minor, was met with deadly wrath, even if was from his own heir, as was the case with Kadaman.
Trivia[]
- Jiran is referred to as Jahadin in the Art of Horizon Zero Dawn companion book.
- Jiran has the longest known reign of any Sun-King, having served as Sun-King for approximately 21 years.[5]
- The three versions of Song to the Sun - sung at dawn, midday, and dusk - include the names of all the Sun-Kings, but Jiran's name is never heard. It is likely that his name was removed due to his legacy.
- When starting the quest Honor The Fallen, the Sun-Priest Mournful Namman mentions his sun-robes were originally dyed red with cinnabar. Cinnabar contains mercury, which is highly toxic and causes psychotic reactions, and could be what caused Sun-King Jiran to go mad.
- The Oseram produce an alcoholic beverage known as Jiran's Tears.[7]