GRRM ends all speculation of an ice dragon

[Jubal]

I never heard anyone once make reference to an ice dragon until that childrens story came out last year.  Every since that Novella was released, EVERYONE seems to now believe that there is an Ice Dragon in ASOIAF.

 

There is no connection between THE ICE DRAGON an ASOIAF.  None.  Zero.  Ziltch.  He wrote THE ICE DRAGON in 1979, nearly 15 years before he even starting *thinking* about Westeros.

 

The sooner people let go of this silly made-up connection the sooner we can all move onto more important theories.  Like Tyrion being a secret Targ  :box:

In The Ice Dragon, after it dies all that remains is a pond of icy cold water.

 

You know, like the one in Winterfell, which is always icy cold despite being situated pretty much on top of hot springs?

 

Not proof of any kind, but there are possible connections.

[caravaggio]

I think one of the side effects of such much analysis and five years in between books is that people develop a fairly rigid idea of how things are going, etc. But if you look back to before and after ADWD, a lot of people were shocked by several things. I would expect the same in the last two books - some of the things that happen will no doubt have been foreshadowed and picked up in by readers, but there will be a few big surprises also. Between the "Winterfell Dragon," Cannibal and Sheepstealer, the Ice Dragon, etc, there is foreshadowing that we would look back on and go "oh there it was" if any of those things drop out of the sky. I'm not counting on any of them, but we should keep an open mind.

Squishers included - they've been talked about in one form or another in every book.

 

 

Agreed!

 

Here is an out there squishers idea for you... maybe the Others are traveling south because the squishers have returned and they mean to defeat them once and for all. The humans are merely in the way, like ants on a battlefield, and a source the Others can draw upon for their fight.

 

Edit: What are the chances of my 666th post being to Lucifer?

[LmL]

Uh, like, horns high or something? I dunno, I'm not like a black metal, pentagram wearing type, but yeah. Seems appropriate. Watch out for lightning I suppose. ;)

The main thing that makes me see the Squishers again in some form is the "dead things in the water" from Cotter Pyke's letter. I'm pretty sure they used to exist, but the question is "will we see them in the story." It seems like if we do, hey would probably be simply an adjunct to the Others. We don't really have room for an entirely new force like some sort of massive Deep Ones Invasion,IMO, but who knows.

[LmL]

In The Ice Dragon, after it dies all that remains is a pond of icy cold water.
 
You know, like the one in Winterfell, which is always icy cold despite being situated pretty much on top of hot springs?
 
Not proof of any kind, but there are possible connections.

Yes, if there's any ice dragon activity that's on the short list of places to look. The Wall, the heart of Winter, Winterfell's black pond. There's something up with that pond.

[Darkstream]

Just wanted to say I really enjoyed reading your Bloodstone compendium essays. I can't imagine how much work you must have put into them. Great stuff, very interesting.

[LmL]

Just wanted to say I really enjoyed reading your Bloodstone compendium essays. I can't imagine how much work you must have put into them. Great stuff, very interesting.

Oh thanks a lot Darkstream :) They kind of took on a life of their own once I put the first few connections together and began thinking about the ancient myths in terms of describing the LN disaster. I read a lot of Graham Hancok so I already had the astronomy-mythology relationship fresh in my mind, I just hadn't thought to apply it to the myths of ASOIAF until I thought about that "thousand thousand dragons poured forth" after listening to Radio Westeros and History or Westeros podcasts about the Long Night.

They're a lot of fun to work on - the main problem is not spending too much time on it. ;)

[40 Thousand Skeletons]

OP, I disagree, and your title is misleading, since obviously a bunch of us are still speculating. Personally I think there will be an Ice Dragon for a few key reasons:

 

1. BR tells Bran You will never walk again, but you will fly.

2. The story the Ice Dragon describes a fight between 1 ice dragon vs 3 fire dragons in which all the dragons die, which seems like it could definitely happen.

3. There needs to be a balance between ice and fire. Without an ice dragon the fire dragons will kick the shit out of the WW.

4. The Wall seems to cut off warg abilities, which makes me think it is possible that there is an ice dragon in the Wall that will be released when the Horn of Winter is blown.

[Victarion Chainbreaker]

The ice dragon in George's story of the same name has vastly different powers from his fire dragons. George has in no way ruled out ice dragons.

[40 Thousand Skeletons]

The ice dragon in George's story of the same name has vastly different powers from his fire dragons. George has in now way ruled out ice dragons.

Essentially it has the opposite powers, in fact. Fire destroys, Ice preserves.

 

And if you think about it, an ice dragon would be the perfect weapon for the WW. You can kill tons of people with pure cold (frost breath) so that when they become wights their bodies are still totally intact.

[idio]

GRRM was recently in the news for comments made regarding comic book based movies and heroes/villains. Here is his quote:
 
"I am tired of this Marvel movie trope where the bad guy has the same powers as the hero. The Hulk fought the Abomination, who is just a bad Hulk. Spider-Man fights Venom, who is just a bad Spider-Man. Iron Man fights Ironmonger, a bad Iron Man. Yawn. I want more films where the hero and the villain have wildly different powers. That makes the action much more interesting."
 
The ice dragon concept has a dedicated group of fans but I think this comment ends forever the speculation that one does or will exist in the asoiaf universe. Whatever power the Others have (beyond simply raising wights) it isn't control of an ice dragon. Perhaps they can freeze a dragon out of the air, perhaps they have scorpion bolts tipped with the ice equivalent of dragonglass, or more likely GRRM will simply surprise us, but what we won't see is ice dragons fighting fire dragons.

It's also entirely possible that Ice Dragons exist in the ASOIAF universe and simply are incredibly rare and wielded by specific power. Just because they exist wouldn't mean they are automatically involved in giant Ice vs Fire / Others vs Humans dragon fight...

I know it's not "canon" but considering he wrote a book called Ice Dragon that described a very ASOIAF-like world where ice dragons battled fire dragons... And then hinted they exist in the ASOIAF canon... It's a very reasonable thing to imagine that Ice Dragons exist in the ASOIAF universe.

I don't think the quote means anything other than: we won't see that trope as a central theme in the Battle for Dawn.

Edit: sorry I skimmed, everyone brought up most of my points. So yes, in agreement with you fine folk.

[Jaemi Chinaski-Stark]

Somebody's probably already said this, but Ice Dragons don't have the same power set as Valyrian Dragons, so it's not a relevant comparison

[Chinoiserie]

First of all, ice dragons and Fire dragons can have somethat similar powers in function yet they clearly are not the same powers.

Secondly critique of superhero film gendre does not mean he has the same opinion for fantasy films. Big reason for the appeal of the superhero gendre is seeing people fight and obviously it would be more exiting not to always have people with really similar set of powers fight each other the way it is very common in the Marvel films. The appeal of asoiaf is not waiting for some end fight, most of readers do not probably even have considered a ice dragon/fire dragon possibility. So it would not come arross as predictable the way Ant-Man fighting a person with similar suit is.

And I regards to Dany if her dragons are going to be only used for brief distraction of a civil war there would not be no need to give her so many chapters. Clearly GRRM does not really care about Essos and if her dragons never amount to much it is hard to see why would she. She would not ever have to be a POV character. Now obviously if you feel the others are the good guys and Dany and her dragons bad you can not say her dragons are not used agains Others can you?

[Hot π]

An ice dragon resides in the North Grove. It is known.

[plectrum]

For everyone saying ice and fire dragons aren't the same, consider this: if you look at yourself in the mirror, your left and right are reversed, but I doubt anyone would say that makes you and your reflection unrelated. 

 

That kind of what ice/fire dragons would be--reflections.  I personally don't even believe a climax like that would be very satisfying from a storytelling perspective, though GRRM is a talented enough writer to make it passably interesting, I'm sure.

 

So yeah, it's probably still technically possible, but I'm with the OP--the quote is a fairly emphatic hint that you won't be getting ice dragons.  That's a good thing.

[40 Thousand Skeletons]

For everyone saying ice and fire dragons aren't the same, consider this: if you look at yourself in the mirror, your left and right are reversed, but I doubt anyone would say that makes you and your reflection unrelated. 

 

That kind of what ice/fire dragons would be--reflections.  I personally don't even believe a climax like that would be very satisfying from a storytelling perspective, though GRRM is a talented enough writer to make it passably interesting, I'm sure.

 

So yeah, it's probably still technically possible, but I'm with the OP--the quote is a fairly emphatic hint that you won't be getting ice dragons.  That's a good thing.

If I breath fire in front of a mirror, my reflection will be breathing fire in the other direction. I would say it's really more of a hint that the final battle will not be fire vs fire and also will not be good vs evil.