Mythical Astronomy theory in an audio nutshell

Aye carumba! That's quite the fiesta!! I'll take it, thanks very much. I'll be anxious to hear what you think, particularly the second half of the cast.

Now where is @serfrozenass when I need him? No, that wasn't it... @alliceallthetime ? @presidentoftheonemoonfanclub ? Dammit, what WAS his name... oh yeah, voice. Dude, whaddaya think? Look at me, I'm a podcaster! You've been here for the whole ride, from the beginning... I'd really like your opinion, chilly or otherwise...



::: ::: = emoticon for "he who worships ice spiders"

Thanks regular jon umber for the endorsement.

I am sort of seeing the same idea - fire magic being alien, and greenseer magic being of the earth. At least, in the current form. I'd actually expand on this a bit - I think the fire and ice elements of the earth have been corrupted by moon meteors. That is (imo) the reason why ice magic "burns," and why the ice demons have burning blue star eyes - the shadow fire associated with the black meteors is influencing both ice and fire - or perhaps you might say that the moon meters have joined with greenseer magic, corrupting it into the shadowy ice and fire magics we see in the book. I've got a few variations on a hypothesis about how the moon meteors are involved with the Others - a moon meteor from the destroyed moon being lodged in either the ice moon or the heart of winter, or perhaps one was simply used to create the Others - but the point is that i see the moon meters as alien, corrupted fire magic, which manifests as burning ice magic or shadowy fire magic, respectively. 

One related idea I have had more recently is the idea that Dawn the sword was made from the pale stone of a petrified weirwood tree, not the pale stone of a meteorite. The "sword made from a meteor" story would have been transplanted by the ancestors of the Daynes, and that story really refers to Azor Ahai's black sword, Lightbringer... while Dawn was made from a tree. Weirwoods turn to pale stone when petrified, and the idea of an earth sword to battle a meter sword makes a lot of sense to me, along the lines of the dichotomy you are proposing. There is also a damn lot of stuff about wooden swords in the book, and I don't think it is a coincidence. There should be some kind of tree sword in here, somewhere. Fwiw, Odin has a sword pulled from a tree as well. 

I think the milkglass descriptions of the Others's bones and Dawn is a clue - because I think the Others come from trees, from transformed or resurrected greenseers. Thus, the bones of the Others and the sword Dawn might bear a common appearance because they both come from dead trees. Ghost grass, also like milkglass, glows in the dark with the spirits of the damned, and the Other's swords give off a faint ghost light. The weirwood door under the Nightfort, the black gate, gives off a faint glow like milk. It may be a thing. 

As for horses and dragons, George has used them as symbolically interchangeable in many instances, but I suspect each may have their own subtle variations in connotation. In particular, when we have a fiery horse, a red horse, or a black horse, I think we are definitely talking about fiery dragon meteors, which were black stones that burned red. The ravens are basically a more northern manifestation of the moon meteor symbol, with the emphasis being on the extreme blackness and the association with carrying messages and omens. 

Yes, I do think the Last Greenseer and the Last Dragon have a kind of symmetry. In the ancient past, these may have been the same person, as weird as that sounds. I have to introduce some of my greenseer ideas to explain that, but I do see them as related. Since i see fire magic as a form of greenseer magic, I think the two are certainly interconnected. It kind of sets up as Dany as the Last Dragon, Bran as the Last Greenseer, and Jon in the middle somehow, bearing both gifts perhaps. 

Sometimes when a thing is confusing you just have say "hey this is kinda freaky." Kidding aside though, deities giving birth to themselves (a new form of themselves) is pretty popular in Vedic mythology. The new God form sometimes springs from the forehead of the old, such as Kali springing forth from Durga to slay the Asuras (demons kinda). This gets a direct shoutout when a dragon bursts forth from Mirri Maz Dur's forehead in Dany's dream, which we seem meant to interpret as MMD's life lying for one of the dragons, or even that some part of her life essence is inside the dragon.



I'm glad you thought so - that was exactly the intent. When I first wrote my first essay, I use the first couple of metaphorical scenes that I had found - the Oldtown scenes and Vaes Tolorro. But looking back over the essay as I prepared to record it, I realized I had much more centrally important material (Dany's waking dragon from stone) to use. Then as I dug into Dany's Alchemical Wedding I realized it was really a template for all Lightbringer forging scenes, and that it also tied the two moon-cracking myths together into one scene, strengthing my hypothesis that they tell two parts or versions of the same story.

I'm very glad you and a couple of others have picked up on this and given me the thumbs up - it lets me know I succeeded to some extent.



Thanks for the specific feedback here. It's very possible I could have used a couple more "summarizing statements" in the first section, it does move pretty fast. It's sometimes a challenge to take esoteric concepts of symbolic association and explain them in plain English... you have to have your brain in one place to really understand symbolism and abstract concepts, and another entirely to think about logical order of presentation of ideas and writing clear explanations. That's something I have on my radar to improve upon, the ability to be very direct and plain-spoken every few paragraphs to kind of say "hey, this is the deal here." Otherwise it becomes a "comets dragons flaming swords dragons meteors fiery swords blah blah" word salad. That said, this first essay / podcast is introducing a lot of groundwork which I will build upon in future episodes, and so there a few different threads being developed. The next couple essays are less abstract and more terrestrial in nature, having to do with the Bloodstone Emperor, Asshai, the Great Empire of the Dawn, the greasy black stone, the magic swords, stuff you can really sink your teeth into.

Thanks again for the detailed feedback, I need that so I know what to improve on. Glad you enjoyed the cast, looking forward to making a new one.

If you do re-listen to the first section that was a bit fuzzy for you, perhaps you would so kind as to let me know how it went. Cheers

Thanks @serduncan

I'm a musician, so I already had nice microphones and recording software, and I'm very lucky with the music - one of my favorite bands randomly said "sure, you can use our music." As for the second voice, I knew I had to do something to 1.) have a clear delineation between text and my analysis, and 2.) not put people to sleep with one person reading for an hour and half. In the text versions of my essays all the quotes are indented and colored, but I needed something equally clear for audio or it would get confusing as to what is text and what is me rephrasing the text. Luckily, my wife is a vocal major and has a terrific voice, so I figured it was a no brainer to have her read the text... seems like it turned out well, everyone likes her being included.

Thanks very much for the complement about my reading; it's hard not to be self conscious hearing the sound of your own voice played back to you.

I've listened to a book on librivox before, but hadn't thought about reading. I have several more essays to read, I know that.