The Citadel's Grand Conspiracy

[Parwan]

But as you say in your previous post, it is hard to control.

Also the primary reason they want magic to go away I think has to do with the known fluctuations that works the seasons, like we see currently in Westeros and Essos. The magic can not be "hidden" from everybody else, it's there for the taking for those who know how to do it.

I think they are correct in their belief that magic is too dangerous, their methods are cruel but serve a higher purpose. The R'hllor maniacs and the Others are products of magic, they wield the magic of fire and ice respectively (that is my opinion) and they are not serving humanity. Magic is a source of power that no one person or group should wield, or civilization will continue as it is, with the game of politics and the war for the throne, only the horrors that come of it will be enhanced to a level that risks the entire world. I think that is what we are seeing at the moment in Westeros.

I believe that you and BrosBeforeSnows are missing Jape's main point. The problem is not that the maesters' methods are cruel. The problem is that these methods are extremely unlikely to work. If you do not study the Others, perhaps even voice doubts that such entities ever existed, then you will give more power to the Others. The same is true with other areas of magic. Lazy Leo put it well in the Prologue of A Feast for Crows: "The grey sheep have closed their eyes, but the mastiff sees the truth."

The search for truth should be a scholar's goal. That was Jape's main point. All this stuff about "wanting to destroy magic" or wanting it to go away comes to little more than wishful thinking. If you do not study nuclear physics, that does not destroy the facts about the atom and the energy within it. Somebody's going to study the subject. If honest scholars do not do so, they will just leave the field open to less worthy individuals. That will make it more likely that one person or group will gain overwhelming power.

[Parwan]

According to Marwyn, The Citidel will be sending someone to kill Dany and her dragons as soon as they learn of it because in the world they are building, magic has no place. I think Lady Dustin speaking of Maesters being the true masters of some great house and lords was significant. I wonder what role they will play in the battle of with the Others? I see them plotting out matters of Empire to suit them or what they think is best but they seem as corrupted an organization as any others we've seen so maybe they aren't as smart as they think they are. By discounting magic and shunning it's use they could be endangering the Realm they mean to rule over. And is it only me or does the fact the Qyburn mentions Marwyn kind of give you the creeps. I don't think they ever hung out ( hope not) but they do have similar areas of interest. I want Marwyn to be a good guy and help Dany. Could Qyburn have been sent to Westeros (being chainless is a good cover story) and attached himself to a group associated with the Lannisters so that the Maesters of the Citadel could have a true inside man in KL? Maybe someone to watch Varys?

It seems to me that the maesters are indeed endangering the realm. See my reply to Eira. Lazy Leo's comment that they have closed their eyes is right on target. This is something that scholars and advisers should never do. A grab for power may be part of the problem, but I don't think it's the only factor. Even as decent a fellow as Luwin seems to be very much involved in refusing to see that which the Citadel doesn't want seen. In A Game of Thrones, Ned's gentle but condescending attitude toward Catelyn's fears about darker things north of the Wall appears to have come from Luwin's teaching: Don't worry about such things. The Children of the Forest are long gone. The Others never lived at all.

On what basis do the maesters make these assertions? Has any one of them ever been north of the Wall? As far as I can tell, the answer is "no."

I don't remember Qyburn mentioning Marwyn. What was the context? What exactly did he say? My impression is that Marwyn is basically a good guy. I could be wrong though.

[Jape]

I'd agree with your post if you didn't include Qyburn in the "curious and eager to learn" category. True, the man wants to learn, no doubt about it. That leaves out far too much though. Little boys who torture puppies are often eager to learn. Nazi scientists were eager to learn. One should not classify them with, say, today's university professors. It seems to me that you are doing this when you say, "...even have chain links to award for such."

I like Qyburn's curious side, but not his methods.

Could Qyburn have been sent to Westeros (being chainless is a good cover story) and attached himself to a group associated with the Lannisters so that the Maesters of the Citadel could have a true inside man in KL? Maybe someone to watch Varys?

I doubt it. He couldn't have known that Jaime was coming to his doorstep for some healing. He was working for Vargo Hoat too, which makes it unlikely for him to infiltrate the king's council. I think whoever the Citadel sends as replacement for Pycelle, would be the guy that serves as their true inside man. Qyburn's simply a mad scientist, in my eyes. He took Varys' spot at the court, so watching him is probably not one of his motives.

[Lord Damian]

The Valaryian Empire was one of slavery and dominance. Not inclusion and cooperation. They were feared. The Targs brought this to Westeros but were more gentle than their Valaryian ancestors but still, the manner of the conquest, The Field of Fire, They were true outsiders that tended to marry among themselves and only outside when they had to. Assimulation was not complete enough to be accepted and the Maesters wanted to rid the land of their magic and their might. You cannot tell me that these kingdoms who once had their own kings did not resent bending the knee to the Iron Throne even after the last dragons died.

[bemused]

tjm335.. I'm hoping, between Sam and Arya, both the Citadel and the Faceless Men will have some light shed on them. But I have some other niggling uncertainties as well as the ones you mention.

I"m thinking there won't be an alliance ? contract ? between the Faceless Men and Euron because since Braavos was founded by those escaping Valyria and the Dragonlords , I don't think they'll feel like helping anyone acquire a host of Dragons. As Tycho Nestoris tells Jon , Dragons are not a subject for joking in Braavos.

I've wondered about the "Dwarf" woman's visions.. Whether she meant the faceless man on the bridge with the seaweedy crow on his shoulder was an actual Faceless Man or just a man whose face she couldn't see ? On the one hand, he could be an unidentified man sent by Euron , or Euron himself ...waiting for Balon . On the other hand ,it could take place in the future ; he could be a genuine Faceless Man with a contract on Euron ( contract = crow) , taken out by someone else , perhaps because Euron has an interest in acquiring dragons , and knowing his ruthless , rapacious nature. ( I can't quite remember if she said the crow was dead or drowned . The seaweed was dripping from it's wet wings )

( .. Aside : Dany must be an enigma to Braavos . She has dragons , but she's freeing slaves everywhere she goes. ..And , um , what's up with Daario ? ..)

With a key to open every door in the Citadel , Jaqen / Pate could be learning quite a lot..I wonder if he can see with the candle ? Hope we get some clarity on his agenda in TWoW.

I hope Marwyn is an agent of much needed change in the Citadel and not just a baddie..( Because I think there're enough baddies and blindies in the Citadel as it is .)

[LuisDantas]

ADWD certainly supports the idea that dragons are ultimately just too difficult to control to be considered a good thing to have around. The comparison with nuclear weapons is quite apt.

The Maesters are humans, and no doubt a few bad apples exist among them (Qyburn, anyone?), but there is no particular need of malice on them to justify a desire of seeing dragons extinct.

Consider, too, that dragons rarely obey anyone who is not a Targaryen. And by any measure, Targaryens are at least as prone to become madmen as they are to become fair rulers.

[Fatmo]

It seems to me we just simply don't know enough about Marwyn to judge what his game is. We do know that he is into some crazy stuff that most other maesters won't touch, either because they are not powerful/intelligent/open minded enough or because he just has a different agenda. In addition to having ties to Qyburn, didn't he also teach that Bloodmage (or whatever she was) who Dany saved in AGOT who did all that stuff at the end of that book (brought back a zombie Drogo, did whatever she did to Dany's baby, and got burned by her to help bring the dragons to life)? I could swear I remember that character mentioning that she had learned from Marwyn.

We have no real idea as to what his motivations are, and how much they might deviate from the rest of the maesters and the plans of the Citadel in general.

There is also another thing that intrigues me about the Citadel and the power of Oldtown in general, the Hightowers. They are an extremely old and powerful house, if I recall they are as old as the Starks and Daynes, or close to it. I also seem to remember that the Citadel itself has been around for a very very long time, possibly as far back as the time of the First Men.

This is just a theory of mine I thought of right now, but maybe Citadel might be one of the results of the peace that was reached between the COTF and the First Men, having been established to make sure that certain knowledge was not forgotten (Others). Similar to the Night's Watch, the Citadel may have forgotten it's true purpose to a large extent. I'm not sure how crackpot the theory is because I can't quite recall the timing between when this peace was reached and whenever the Long Winter happened when AA defeated the Others.

Anyway, the Hightowers are obviously a factor here, being the benefactors of the Citadel. We have not really heard many specifics about the Hightowers currently in power, except that the Lord Hightower has supposedly been in his High Tower for years and has not been seen by anyone. Isn't it said somewhere that the Hightowers could field a huge army on their own? I am very curious to know just how closely the Citadel and the Hightowers are working together and sharing information.

[Valmorfëa]

Remember that Valyria had dragons and magic. And was completely destroyed. To the point where it still simmers. Valyria had many dragons... and yet they all died with the Doom. Erupting volcanoes are destructive, yes, but a dragon can fly... and escape. They even used to live in the volcanoes. But they didn't. Only the three that were at Dragonstone at the time made it.

This leads me to believe that the Doom was not a natural disaster (at least, not completely).

Following from that, two options come to mind:

- The Valyrians were experimenting, and brought about their own destruction. Thus the Maesters are trying to prevent this from happening at all costs in Westeros.

- Someone else set Valyria up. They clearly made many ennemies, so what if it there was a plot to destroy Valyria? We know at least parts of the Citadel predate Aegon's Landing by a few thousand years (that is one old building...). Maybe the discovery of dragons ruined the "general plan" the world was supposed to follow? Valyria became a nuisance and had to be dealt with... by the Maesters' predecessors.

:idea:

[SeanF]

Clearly, not all Maesters want to eradicate magic from the world (eg Qyburn, Marwyn). But, I do find the analogy with wishing to eradicate nuclear weapons upthread a very good one.

Alternatively, it may be that they just hate something that they don't understand and can't control.

[Eyron]

I believe that you and BrosBeforeSnows are missing Jape's main point. The problem is not that the maesters' methods are cruel. The problem is that these methods are extremely unlikely to work. If you do not study the Others, perhaps even voice doubts that such entities ever existed, then you will give more power to the Others. The same is true with other areas of magic. Lazy Leo put it well in the Prologue of A Feast for Crows: "The grey sheep have closed their eyes, but the mastiff sees the truth."

The search for truth should be a scholar's goal. That was Jape's main point. All this stuff about "wanting to destroy magic" or wanting it to go away comes to little more than wishful thinking. If you do not study nuclear physics, that does not destroy the facts about the atom and the energy within it. Somebody's going to study the subject. If honest scholars do not do so, they will just leave the field open to less worthy individuals. That will make it more likely that one person or group will gain overwhelming power.

I think you are missing my point too. I did not say anything about whether the maesters should study the field of magic or not. My opinion is that they should (and they do). They should not practice magic. I responded to the opinion that it is not bad to use magic. I don't think it is any difference in maesters practicing magic than any other elitist group.

What do we know of the particulars of the subjects of the maesters' studies? Nothing, all we know is that they are the most knowledgeable of all people in Westeros and that they study all things possible (we know what some of the links represent). We know that "magic" is a subject they study. Marwyn is the senior of that field in the Citadel.

Most of the maesters are not very interested in that field (understandable since magic has been latent for a few thousand years) but there are some. As far as we know Qyburn got excluded from the Citadel because he practiced tha dark arts he studied, namely necromancy.

Since we know of the "unreliable narrator" problematics, we can not simply make our assumptions from the way the maesters act towards other characters. If they indeed are up to something they will not likely discuss that with their masters. They have no reason to discuss what they know of magic with anybody, that information should most likely be reserved for initiates only.

What do we know of magic so far? It has grown strong lately, from being of minimal consequence for a long time.

Magic is also the reason for the extreme seasons, that we know because GRRM said so.

As said above magic was probably involved in the destruction of Valyria. (Moria anyone? They were too greedy and dug too deep...)

Fire magic and necromacy comes from blood and sacrifices. It is likely the case with ice magic too.

The Others come with winter, we don't know what comes first yet, but the maesters might know, of that we can only speculate.

The long summer came with the dragons, are we now witnessing the backlash of that? I happen to think so. But again we can only speculate.

My theory is that both dragons and Others must be destroyed to restore balance. Magic will then go back to being a latent force and seasons will be normalized.

Do we have any reason to think any magic is good? The only acceptable forms of magic I have seen is the powers of the Children of the Forest, greenseeing, wargs and also prophetic dreams (the latter is debatable though, it does not seem to do any good for the ones receiving them). I am of the opinion that these types of magic is not related to ice and fire, but of a different kind, inherent in those who can wield them and not a force of destruction.

[Howlin' Howland Reed]

Skinchanging can be used as a form of mind control, and can as such be used for quite destructive purposes as well. The problem with magic as the maesters see it, likely has to do with apparent random nature of it --- who gets to wield it, and in what ways. The analogy with nuclear power (although I like it) falters a bit, since the anti-magic cabal is apparently not only trying to make sure no one knows about magic, but are also trying to remove it.

[voodooqueen126]

I also think the Maesters know that the seasons are unnaturally long and that these unnaturally long seasons are seriously hindering technological and economic progress in Westeros (in contrast to say unaffected Myr which has Renaissance levels of technology).

They suspect magic, since dragons are the most visible source of magic, the sought to eradicate magic and thus Westeros could have normal seasons

However the real source of the abnormal seasons was not the dragons, but rather the Others. Of whom the Maesters had no idea about.

In fact the Maesters by killing the dragons, made the Others more powerful and destroyed the greatest threat to the Others other than the Wall (namely fire breathing monsters).

[ARYa_Nym]

Warging comes off like a violation sometimes. Varamyr was a terrible person imo and I'm glad the spearwife killed him. I don't blame Bran because he doesn't know better but on some level he should know that Hodor doesn't like it.

If someone like Varamyr could warg a dragon that would be trouble. This is why I hope only greenseers can do it because the wildlings have wargs too.

[Capon Breath]

ADWD certainly supports the idea that dragons are ultimately just too difficult to control to be considered a good thing to have around. The comparison with nuclear weapons is quite apt.

Perhaps Doran Martell, Westerosi equivalent to Hans Blix, can write a strongly worder letter to Dany about her dragons.

[Eyron]

Howlin'

I agree that skinchanging can be used for bad purposes, but as far as we know it is too hard to do, (even Varamyr did not succeed in warging another human) unless you find someone like Hodor that lets you inside. I don't agree with skinchanging but it does not seem to be a very destructive force as of yet. That can change however.

About warging animals, how is that any worse than regular weapons? It is just sneakier.

About removing the threat of magic, there are many examples in real world of people and institutions working for the disarmament of nuclear weapons. The UN for example.

Voodooqueen126

What you say is just speculation, just like mine, we have no way of knowing what made the Others come. And we don't know if the maesters plan was to take out the dragons to stabilize magic so that the Others will NOT come back. Maybe the waking of magic was a product of the earlier attempts to wake dragons, and that brought the Others back to? We just don't know yet.

ARYa_Nym

If there are no dragons, wargs can't use them for destruction.

[ARYa_Nym]

Varamy said that his animals hated him. They fought back just like the spearwife did. When he lost control over them one or two of them wanted to kill him. He violated them as well. They can be used to kill. Even though it's not as destructive as a dragon it can still do some damage.

ARYa_Nym

If there are no dragons, wargs can't use them for destruction.

While true, they're currently available for a warg to use for destruction if they so choose. I think that only a skilled, powerful warg could control them though.

[Capon Breath]

The Citadel agenda is indeed a fascinating one, it never really occurred to me until thinking through some of this thread what an unusual position the Maesters are in:

- They are present all over Westeros making them seemingly neutral to North / south or other regional politics

- They are present in every house making them seemingly neutral to Noble house petty politics

- They are present in houses that honour different religions and exist along side weirwoods, septons etc making them seeming neutral to religion

- Maesters seem to stay in role inspite of changes of leaders in the various houses making them seemingly neutral to individual agendas and politics.

However...

- I dont recall any Maester presence outside of Westeros (barring odd individuals such as "Septa" Lemore?

- I dont think we hear of any Maestering or equivalent North of the wall in Westeros?

So for an organisation to be embraced by almost all of Westerosi houses when they conflict on so many other issues raises some questions?

1 - What do they actually bring to the Houses that makes them so welcomed (seems like a bit of counsel & the old glass of milk of the poppy?) & how did they attain such a pervassive role

2 - Why only Westeros? Is it a cultural thing in that different orgs do the same function in Essos, or is it that there is something in Westeros that makes it so important? (Which incidentally made me look at a map and twig that the Isle of faces is not far off slap bang the centre point of westeros and has some historical significance that I cant recall! Mayhaps something "special" is stored there?)

So sorry - went a bit off topic but possibly answering some of those questions will help with insight into the Citadels motives?

[Eyron]

ARYa_Nym,

I did not mean that it is not morally wrong to warg animals uninvited, I only meant that as a force of destruction it is not comparable to blood sacrifices, burning humans for magic powers, necromancy, uncontrolled dragons and Others. It is more comparable to wielding a sword.

[Howlin' Howland Reed]

I agree that skinchanging can be used for bad purposes, but as far as we know it is too hard to do, (even Varamyr did not succeed in warging another human) unless you find someone like Hodor that lets you inside. I don't agree with skinchanging but it does not seem to be a very destructive force as of yet. That can change however.

About warging animals, how is that any worse than regular weapons? It is just sneakier.

About removing the threat of magic, there are many examples in real world of people and institutions working for the disarmament of nuclear weapons. The UN for example.

I think what Varamyr did could be sufficient enough in many circumstances. Gaining complete possession of another seems difficult, I agree, but making someone go completely bonkers in a critical situation might suffice...

Warging animals is only part of what the magic associated with the old gods offers.

Nuclear disarmament has to do with official agreements between several involved parties, not to use the technology to build bombs. What I meant was that the Citadel seems to be trying to remove magic, making it impossible to even wield it.

[ARYa_Nym]

ARYa_Nym,

I did not mean that it is not morally wrong to warg animals uninvited, I only meant that as a force of destruction it is not comparable to blood sacrifices, burning humans for magic powers, necromancy, uncontrolled dragons and Others. It is more comparable to wielding a sword.

I definitely agree that it's not on the same level. I do think that it could cause death. We haven't seen this in the story I guess because they were being ridden but say if someone warged the mammoths or the elephants they could kill/trample a lot of people that way for example. I don't think warging is good or bad. It depends on how the warg plans to use that power. The Stark kids haven't used it to do anything bad save what Bran does to Hodor but I don't think I could say the same for Varamyr.