Bijan (بیژن)

Bijan, son of the knight Giv and Banu Goshasp (who is herself the daughter of Rostam), which makes him less a standalone hero and more a walking compilation of the most problematic greatness in the family tree.

He meets Manijeh, daughter of Afrasiab, king of Turan. Because of course he does. This universe cannot allow a simple genealogy without immediately turning it into cross-border emotional chaos.

They fall in love. Deeply. Immediately. With the kind of intensity that suggests neither of them checked what side of the geopolitical map the other one was on.

Manijeh smuggles him into her palace using a sleeping potion. Which is romantic in the same way a felony can be romantic if you zoom in on the emotions and ignore the logistics.

Afrasiab finds out. As he always does when happiness appears unapproved.

Manijeh is exiled. Bijan is thrown into a pit, sealed under a massive boulder. No trial. No dialogue. Just containment.

Manijeh stays anyway. Loyal, persistent, feeding him through a small hole in the stone. Love reduced to logistics: survival passed through a crack in the world.

Eventually, Key Khosrow, king of Iran, sees Bijan’s situation in a magical crystal cup. Because in this world, even rescue requires surveillance technology that borders on divine.

He sends Rostam.

Rostam lifts the boulder, breaks the imprisonment, and retrieves Bijan. No drama about it, just raw inevitability. Then brings both lovers back to Iran.

So the rescue happens not because systems are fair, but because one person is strong enough to override them when they become absurd.

Later, Bijan joins Key Khosrow’s final journey into the mountains, when the king renounces the throne to seek God. Bijan follows, along with other heroes like Giv (his father) and Fariborz, son of Key Kavus, even after warnings to turn back.

They don’t.

Then the mountain responds.

A supernatural snowstorm sweeps in. Heavy, total, indifferent. It buries Bijan and the others completely. No battle, no warning that matters in time, just disappearance under accumulated silence.

So Bijan’s story ends twice: once with survival through impossible love, and once with erasure under impossible weather.

In between those two points is everything this world seems to offer its heroes: rescue, loyalty, and the reminder that even saved lives don’t always stay saved.