Post by Maester Sam on Mar 16, 2018 1:31:38 GMT
Hello?
Hellooooo ? Is anyone here?
I realize this thread is ancient, but after listening to some of LmL's podcasts on my way to work lately, I dug this up and am finding sooo many interesting theories and comments! This has really revitalized my interest in ASOIAF, which had hit rock bottom last year after that god-awful HBO season, followed by the season 8 leaks that gave away the ending. Not to mention the almost 7 year wait now for TWOW... I was pretty much done with this series - or so I thought! Something always draws me back in, and this time it was LmL! Hat off to you,ser.
Since this thread has been dead for so long, I'm just going to comment on whatever I find especially interesting in no particular order. Hopefully we can bring this old gal back to life!
I've been toying with the idea that the light-drinking materials act a bit like magical solar panels. I first thought of this when the roof of the HOTU was described this way. Then it kept popping up elsewhere... and I wondered why anyone would want a "light-drinking" material. What's the point? Why create it, why use it? When you now combined this with soul-drinking, that fits nicely: these materials drink light (or souls, or possibly shadows but that may be the same thing?), and somehow make this energy/essence available to the user. So for example, the magic in the HOTU would be at least partly powered/maintained by the light-drinking roofing. Asshai is insanely powerful because it's full of the stuff. The Hightowers are a magical family. The natives on Toad Island are the only ones not to be killed by the corsairs or pirate kings - for some reason, they leave them well alone. The iron islands produced Euron, BSE reborn.
This would explain why, anywhere that this stone was available, whatever culture was there put it to use and built something from it. There is power in black stone! But it is dirty power that soon corrupts the user...
This gave me goosebumps! I really didn't like WOT, but this concept was amazing. Tolkien used it too, of course, and we know George is a fan. This would make the black meteor stone the equivalent of the "9 rings for mortal men" that corrupted the nazghul...
Voice, I hope you are reading this.
This idea would find a parallel if there turns out to be some black stone under the Wall, as some have already speculated.
So the Others neutralize harmful corrupted fire magic? Now we're talking! voice, where are you? The Others are antibodies after all - against fire, like you've said all along! Except the fire is that of the ancient dragonlords, the present-day descendants of whom presumably include the Red Priests and possibly Dany. And Euron. Definitely Euron.
I am very slowly warming up to the idea of a black stone wall being under/inside the ice Wall. Only b/c now there is a plausible reason: the harmful black stone had to be covered up so that it could not pollute Westeros. It had to be shielded from the world by strong spells but also physically. (Also the ice would stop the stone from drinking the sun, thereby preventing it from "recharging" itself.)
Just to play devil's advocate here - do you think there is a possibility that the "flood" is symbolic as well and it is the take-over of the ironborn (specifically Euron, the BSE reborn) that is being foreshadowed here instead of a literal flood? You know, similar to how the sea came to Winterfell?
As well as the Jade Compendium (WB):
In my mind, these "hidings" are mere translations of "solar eclipse" and GRRM has recreated such celestial events by means of magic and song, rather than gravity. Admittedly, the incredible duration of such an event sounds quite fantastical, but there be dragons.
The duration could be explained if the moon were being held in place somehow. By sorcery.
A new idea is forming in my mind where thousands of years ago, fire magic was getting out of control and the only way to stop it was to cause the Long Night. Without light, there can be no shadows. I'm calling it now: the LN was caused by the "good guys" in order to save the world. I'm not entirely sure of the role of the Others, but they are clear counterparts to the Red Priests who can similarly resurrect the dead to fight for them and would probably catch on fire if killed. Regarding the non-selective killing they are accused of ... I imagine magic strong enough to move a moon would require an immense amount of blood sacrifice. An almost unbelievable amount. To support all the hard work the greenseer is doing.
This will be Bran's role. He will have to bring about the next Long Night in order to save the world from God-Euron and his dragons. He will have to unleash the Others upon the world to collect the blood he needs to do this.
I don't know about this... You think the greasy black stone of Asshai is of different origin than greasy black stone elsewhere in the world? That seems unlikely to me. But it is perplexing that on the one hand, having this stuff come from meteors fits very well (and I don't necessarily have a problem with the amount needed to build cities like Yeen or Asshai since it's a magical world and we don't know how much came down in the first place), and I really like the idea of various societies finding and using this stone and becoming slowly corrupted by it. On the other hand, it seems that the builders of Asshai would have noticed it was toxic (pregnancy category D !!) long before completing such a gigantic city. In addition, as you pointed out, Asshai would not have been built over the course of the Long Night, so the material must have been available long before the moon cracked.
But why would anyone build a city of toxic stone? And not just the houses - every inch of it! This was clearly done deliberately; they didn't just include some oily black stone here or there, it was the only building material they used.
While I like the idea of a meteor in the Shadow being the source of corruption in the stone, this would not explain the other cases of this stone elsewhere in the world. A meteor in Asshai would not cause the stone of Yeen or Toad Isle or Oldtown to suddenly change into something toxic, IMO.
So what options are left? Perhaps, the builders of Asshai were somehow immune to the harmful effects of the stone? They were presumably a magically advanced society, and perhaps they could have magically contained the toxic fallout for some time, only for the spells to falter as they did in Valyria? Or maybe the stone gains power via magic rituals (blood sacrifice, binding shadows in it, etc), and it's relatively harmless unless strengthened this way?
Yes!!!! I am still baffled by how the fandom as a whole ignores the fact that starting with Aegon the Unlikely's (Egg's) children, all "Targaryens" are actually half Blackwood! His kids are obviously 50% Targ and 50% Blackwood due to their mother being Black Betha Blackwood. From there on, all children were produced via incest (Jahearys and his sister wife, then Aerys and Rhaella), so the % of each bloodline wouldn't have changed. Dany is not "100% fire" or Valyrian, she is half Blackwood of Raventree Hall. As were her parents, and this was the lineage the witch said would produce the PTWP ... The Blackwoods are a Northern First Man family, and have already produced at least one greenseer when crossed with a Targaryen....
Amusingly, this also means that if RLJ is true, Jon is still only 1/4 Targaryen and 3/4 Northern Westerosi FM. So he would have about as much dragon blood as Robert or Stannis Baratheon. On the other hand, his skinchanging abilities should be considerable, given the Stark and Blackwood lineage. By blood he should be stronger than Bran.
So you are differentiating between Valyrian and GEOTD magic? Interesting. I would definitely agree that the Valyrians learned most of their magic from GEOTD descendants, and that Valyrians themselves descend from these people. It would have been only a small subset of Empire inhabitants to come to the 14 flames, of course, so only a fraction of the original dragonlords would be represented. Most likely the Amethyst line, going by modern day Valyrian eye color.
So are you suggesting this "founder group" was already wielding corrupted red fire magic? And that Valyrians therefore all practice tainted fire magic since that's what they were taught by their ancestors? OR are you saying that ALL fire magic was corrupted by whatever happened in the LN? It does kind of seem that way, with both Dany and Mel having to burn living people to get their desired outcomes...
Changing gears a little, I would love to get some feedback on this new crackpot theory I am thinking of right now:
The pre-dragonlords of the GEOTD rode the ancestors of dragons - similar creatures, maybe wyverns, probably from the Shadow, but who did not breathe fire. They had a skinchanger-type bond, presumably. They had other magics too, such as making the pale fire swords, and they used firewyrms to build their fused stone structures. Actually let me rephrase that. Their bond would have been with the firewyrms, because that would explain all the tunnels under all the ancient cities oh-so-nicely. The tunnels were where they kept their pets, just as the Targaryens used a dragon pit. Summer at least thinks of dragons as "winged serpents", so that leaves only one question ... where did the wings come from?
I propose that AA was a sorcerer who magically created dragons out of firewyrms and wyverns. We know that Valyrians - the descendants of AA and his people - mated animals to slave women just for fun, to get terrible half-human children. There is no reason to think that these magical experiments were not also performed using animals of different species. Surely it would have occurred to the Emperors that their wyrms would be way more useful if they could fly!
AA was the creator of fire breathing dragons. He was "the first dragon". He lit the flaming sword above the world using blood magic. Just like Dany did. It even says in her dragon waking passage that the third crack (Drogon) was so loud it sounded like it split the Earth. That's why Doreah says the cracking of the moon (the same moment AA woke the first fire dragon by sacrificing Nissa Nissa) is the origin of dragons. It truly was. And it probably happened in Asshai or thereabouts. So it's also true that dragons come from the Shadow. (AA/BSE probably used dark magic from the Shadow that was not available to his ancestors before the meteor). After everything fell apart, all the Asshai'i dragons were dead, believed extinct. They hadn't existed for very long, so few remembered them. The LN was more memorable, and most people were dead. Others scattered, to faraway outposts to start anew. A few ended up in Valyria... and soon found that eggs had been left.
The End.
Agreed. As George often reminds us: By night, all red things are black. Doors, cloaks ... it really wouldn't surprise me to learn that the NW started out dressed in red.
Hellooooo ? Is anyone here?
I realize this thread is ancient, but after listening to some of LmL's podcasts on my way to work lately, I dug this up and am finding sooo many interesting theories and comments! This has really revitalized my interest in ASOIAF, which had hit rock bottom last year after that god-awful HBO season, followed by the season 8 leaks that gave away the ending. Not to mention the almost 7 year wait now for TWOW... I was pretty much done with this series - or so I thought! Something always draws me back in, and this time it was LmL! Hat off to you,ser.
Since this thread has been dead for so long, I'm just going to comment on whatever I find especially interesting in no particular order. Hopefully we can bring this old gal back to life!
Aug 30, 2016 19:12:02 GMT LmL said:
The Grey King stories of the slaying the sea dragon which drowns whole islands is easy to understand if you once again replace "dragon" with "meteor." A fiery meteor which drowns islands makes perfect sense. It was "slain" when it fell from the sky, and when the Grey King is said to have possessed Nagga's fire, this means he made some kind of weapon form the moon meteors, in my opinion. The ancient Ironborn had black weapons which drank the should of those they slew. In case you have never read any of my stiff, Azor Ahai was a and guy, not the hero, and Lightbringer, his sword, was no light-bringer. It was a night-bringer. The astronomy backs up what our conscience intrinsically tells us - only doom and darkness come from murdering your wife with a sword in a blood magic ritual. The comet's striking of the second moon caused the Long Night, as opposed to ending it. Similarly, the Bloodstone Emperor is said to have caused the Long Night when he murdered his sister. He then dove headfirst into dark magic and worshipped a black meteor. if I am right that AA = BSE, then AA made his terrifying sword from a black meteor... and I have found so much evidence for this.. it's one of the rings nobody will ever talk me out of. Nightbringer, the black sword, burning with red and black fire to match that of the black dragons. Aegon, rider of the black dragon, bears the sword "Blackfyre" - that's a major clue. Lightbringer drank the blood and soul of Nissa Nissa, matching the soul drinking black weapons of the Ironborn. The Dornishman's blade was made of black steel, and its kiss was a s sharp and cold as a leech - leeches drink blood, just like Lightbringer, the black sword. There's a whole concept hear about drinking the light - the greasy black stone (moon meteors) do it, Ned's sword does it, a few others. It's the opposite of light-bringing. I've been toying with the idea that the light-drinking materials act a bit like magical solar panels. I first thought of this when the roof of the HOTU was described this way. Then it kept popping up elsewhere... and I wondered why anyone would want a "light-drinking" material. What's the point? Why create it, why use it? When you now combined this with soul-drinking, that fits nicely: these materials drink light (or souls, or possibly shadows but that may be the same thing?), and somehow make this energy/essence available to the user. So for example, the magic in the HOTU would be at least partly powered/maintained by the light-drinking roofing. Asshai is insanely powerful because it's full of the stuff. The Hightowers are a magical family. The natives on Toad Island are the only ones not to be killed by the corsairs or pirate kings - for some reason, they leave them well alone. The iron islands produced Euron, BSE reborn.
This would explain why, anywhere that this stone was available, whatever culture was there put it to use and built something from it. There is power in black stone! But it is dirty power that soon corrupts the user...
Aug 30, 2016 19:12:02 GMT LmL said:
Basically, I'm saying magical fire seems very black and shadowy, while ice magic is all bright, pale, white shadows, pale shadows, reflecting light like crystal, etc etc. The reason for this, based on my reading of the text, is that the fire moon's destruction corrupted the heart of summer and thus fire magic on Planetos. It's George's tip o the hat to Robert Jordan and the "taint." *chuckle chuckle* This gave me goosebumps! I really didn't like WOT, but this concept was amazing. Tolkien used it too, of course, and we know George is a fan. This would make the black meteor stone the equivalent of the "9 rings for mortal men" that corrupted the nazghul...
Aug 30, 2016 19:12:02 GMT LmL said:
And so, I think that what has happened is that a black moon meteor, post comet - fire moon explosion, has lodged itself inside of the ice moon. I've oufnd symbolic representations of this, *I think,* and it explains a lot about the Others and the Heart of Winter. The Ice Moon wasn't destroyed, but it has an inner fire, a corrupted, necromantic fire. This is why the Others have internal fire - those burning blue star eyes, It's a different spin on "frozen fire," as if the Others swallowed some shadow fire and froze it. But it animated them, and made their cold burn. Some thing like that. Voice, I hope you are reading this.
This idea would find a parallel if there turns out to be some black stone under the Wall, as some have already speculated.
So the Others neutralize harmful corrupted fire magic? Now we're talking! voice, where are you? The Others are antibodies after all - against fire, like you've said all along! Except the fire is that of the ancient dragonlords, the present-day descendants of whom presumably include the Red Priests and possibly Dany. And Euron. Definitely Euron.
I am very slowly warming up to the idea of a black stone wall being under/inside the ice Wall. Only b/c now there is a plausible reason: the harmful black stone had to be covered up so that it could not pollute Westeros. It had to be shielded from the world by strong spells but also physically. (Also the ice would stop the stone from drinking the sun, thereby preventing it from "recharging" itself.)
Aug 30, 2016 19:12:02 GMT LmL said:
Interestingly, someone named Lady Barbrey on Westeros.org has decode a chunk of TWOIAF which seems to be specific foreshadowing - Voice I think you've read this thread - and she thinks it predicts a major flood as well, for what it is worth. Just to play devil's advocate here - do you think there is a possibility that the "flood" is symbolic as well and it is the take-over of the ironborn (specifically Euron, the BSE reborn) that is being foreshadowed here instead of a literal flood? You know, similar to how the sea came to Winterfell?
Note Old Nan's word choice:
"Oh, my sweet summer child," Old Nan said quietly, "what do you know of fear? Fear is for the winter, my little lord, when the snows fall a hundred feet deep and the ice wind comes howling out of the north. Fear is for the long night, when the sun hides its face for years at a time, and little children are born and live and die all in darkness while the direwolves grow gaunt and hungry, and the white walkers move through the woods."
As well as the Jade Compendium (WB):
In the Jade Compendium, Colloquo Votar recounts a curious legend from Yi Ti, which states that the sun hid its face from the earth for a lifetime, ashamed at something none could discover, and that disaster was averted only by the deeds of a woman with a monkey's tail.
In my mind, these "hidings" are mere translations of "solar eclipse" and GRRM has recreated such celestial events by means of magic and song, rather than gravity. Admittedly, the incredible duration of such an event sounds quite fantastical, but there be dragons.
The duration could be explained if the moon were being held in place somehow. By sorcery.
A new idea is forming in my mind where thousands of years ago, fire magic was getting out of control and the only way to stop it was to cause the Long Night. Without light, there can be no shadows. I'm calling it now: the LN was caused by the "good guys" in order to save the world. I'm not entirely sure of the role of the Others, but they are clear counterparts to the Red Priests who can similarly resurrect the dead to fight for them and would probably catch on fire if killed. Regarding the non-selective killing they are accused of ... I imagine magic strong enough to move a moon would require an immense amount of blood sacrifice. An almost unbelievable amount. To support all the hard work the greenseer is doing.
This will be Bran's role. He will have to bring about the next Long Night in order to save the world from God-Euron and his dragons. He will have to unleash the Others upon the world to collect the blood he needs to do this.
Aug 30, 2016 19:12:02 GMT LmL said:
I'm not sure if there needs to be a meteor near every black stone location, or if the GEotD might have quarried the stone and carried it places. Yeen and the Isle of Toads are close to each other, so it's likely there's a deposit pif this stuff near there on Sothoryos. The seastone chair is a small piece, but the legends of the Ironborn suggest a meteor landed nearby, shattering the land of Pyke. I've got that research and a full breakdown of Ironborn myth right over here: The Language of Leviathan. Asshai I believe is not made of meteor stone - that would just require too much of it, and I don't see massive public works projects going down during the Long Night - so I think it was made of clean stone and it became greasy, sun drinking stone because of the effects of the Shadow. The city became shadowed of corrupted along with the Shadow when the fire moon was destroyed. I don't know about this... You think the greasy black stone of Asshai is of different origin than greasy black stone elsewhere in the world? That seems unlikely to me. But it is perplexing that on the one hand, having this stuff come from meteors fits very well (and I don't necessarily have a problem with the amount needed to build cities like Yeen or Asshai since it's a magical world and we don't know how much came down in the first place), and I really like the idea of various societies finding and using this stone and becoming slowly corrupted by it. On the other hand, it seems that the builders of Asshai would have noticed it was toxic (pregnancy category D !!) long before completing such a gigantic city. In addition, as you pointed out, Asshai would not have been built over the course of the Long Night, so the material must have been available long before the moon cracked.
But why would anyone build a city of toxic stone? And not just the houses - every inch of it! This was clearly done deliberately; they didn't just include some oily black stone here or there, it was the only building material they used.
While I like the idea of a meteor in the Shadow being the source of corruption in the stone, this would not explain the other cases of this stone elsewhere in the world. A meteor in Asshai would not cause the stone of Yeen or Toad Isle or Oldtown to suddenly change into something toxic, IMO.
So what options are left? Perhaps, the builders of Asshai were somehow immune to the harmful effects of the stone? They were presumably a magically advanced society, and perhaps they could have magically contained the toxic fallout for some time, only for the spells to falter as they did in Valyria? Or maybe the stone gains power via magic rituals (blood sacrifice, binding shadows in it, etc), and it's relatively harmless unless strengthened this way?
I think the in story significance has to do with magical traits that are passed down from mother to daughter. For example, there is a strong suspicion that the "warg gene" may be something that is passed on from mother to child, thus a long family history of warg is going to depend on a maternal lineage. They exist but they are hidden, because there is no sigil or words signifying the line like there is for the paternal lines.
Yes!!!! I am still baffled by how the fandom as a whole ignores the fact that starting with Aegon the Unlikely's (Egg's) children, all "Targaryens" are actually half Blackwood! His kids are obviously 50% Targ and 50% Blackwood due to their mother being Black Betha Blackwood. From there on, all children were produced via incest (Jahearys and his sister wife, then Aerys and Rhaella), so the % of each bloodline wouldn't have changed. Dany is not "100% fire" or Valyrian, she is half Blackwood of Raventree Hall. As were her parents, and this was the lineage the witch said would produce the PTWP ... The Blackwoods are a Northern First Man family, and have already produced at least one greenseer when crossed with a Targaryen....
Amusingly, this also means that if RLJ is true, Jon is still only 1/4 Targaryen and 3/4 Northern Westerosi FM. So he would have about as much dragon blood as Robert or Stannis Baratheon. On the other hand, his skinchanging abilities should be considerable, given the Stark and Blackwood lineage. By blood he should be stronger than Bran.
Aug 30, 2016 19:12:02 GMT LmL said:
The problem for RLJ alternates is that there are many angles which seem to point at RLJ. The sigils, as I mentioned, the two moons pattern, the idea that Azor Ahai means "fire dragon" and represents the oldest ancestor of Valyrian magic - I see the V magic as a legacy of AA / the Bloodstone Emperor's legacy of corrupted fire magic. Azor Ahai reborn should really come from Valyrian blood, the blood of the dragon. Jon's Azor Ahai reborn imagery is way too thick to be denied, in my opinion.So you are differentiating between Valyrian and GEOTD magic? Interesting. I would definitely agree that the Valyrians learned most of their magic from GEOTD descendants, and that Valyrians themselves descend from these people. It would have been only a small subset of Empire inhabitants to come to the 14 flames, of course, so only a fraction of the original dragonlords would be represented. Most likely the Amethyst line, going by modern day Valyrian eye color.
So are you suggesting this "founder group" was already wielding corrupted red fire magic? And that Valyrians therefore all practice tainted fire magic since that's what they were taught by their ancestors? OR are you saying that ALL fire magic was corrupted by whatever happened in the LN? It does kind of seem that way, with both Dany and Mel having to burn living people to get their desired outcomes...
Changing gears a little, I would love to get some feedback on this new crackpot theory I am thinking of right now:
The pre-dragonlords of the GEOTD rode the ancestors of dragons - similar creatures, maybe wyverns, probably from the Shadow, but who did not breathe fire. They had a skinchanger-type bond, presumably. They had other magics too, such as making the pale fire swords, and they used firewyrms to build their fused stone structures. Actually let me rephrase that. Their bond would have been with the firewyrms, because that would explain all the tunnels under all the ancient cities oh-so-nicely. The tunnels were where they kept their pets, just as the Targaryens used a dragon pit. Summer at least thinks of dragons as "winged serpents", so that leaves only one question ... where did the wings come from?
I propose that AA was a sorcerer who magically created dragons out of firewyrms and wyverns. We know that Valyrians - the descendants of AA and his people - mated animals to slave women just for fun, to get terrible half-human children. There is no reason to think that these magical experiments were not also performed using animals of different species. Surely it would have occurred to the Emperors that their wyrms would be way more useful if they could fly!
AA was the creator of fire breathing dragons. He was "the first dragon". He lit the flaming sword above the world using blood magic. Just like Dany did. It even says in her dragon waking passage that the third crack (Drogon) was so loud it sounded like it split the Earth. That's why Doreah says the cracking of the moon (the same moment AA woke the first fire dragon by sacrificing Nissa Nissa) is the origin of dragons. It truly was. And it probably happened in Asshai or thereabouts. So it's also true that dragons come from the Shadow. (AA/BSE probably used dark magic from the Shadow that was not available to his ancestors before the meteor). After everything fell apart, all the Asshai'i dragons were dead, believed extinct. They hadn't existed for very long, so few remembered them. The LN was more memorable, and most people were dead. Others scattered, to faraway outposts to start anew. A few ended up in Valyria... and soon found that eggs had been left.
The End.
2. Yes--red and black are Targ. But the Wall isn't red and black. It's red to grey to black. Color going out. I know I am opening myself up to charges of "crazy semantics"--but it seems more like an erasing of all the color sunlight brings (IE outside of Craster's) vs. what's happening here--no color. The Targ sigil isn't colorless.
Agreed. As George often reminds us: By night, all red things are black. Doors, cloaks ... it really wouldn't surprise me to learn that the NW started out dressed in red.