George R. R. Martin is Writing Modern Mythology

[LmL]

Now, if I may, I'd like to turn the conversation to the specific myths and ideas in ASOIAF. I'd like to briefly outline the myths which I think are all describing the cataclysmic events surrounding the Long Night. I'm not going to pull quotes here for this and get into the weeds, I'm just going to paraphrase and speak in conversational terms to keep it moving.

We have the following myths which I believe describe nature phenomena, specifically that of the Long Night disaster:

The myth: Qathine legend of the second moon wandering too close to the sun and cracking like an egg to pour forth dragons

What does it say: dragons = meteors and comets the world round, so "A moon used to exist, but it was destroyed somehow, resulting in fiery meteors"

The myth: Nissa Nissa's cry of anguish & ecstasy cracked the moon when Lightbringer was forged

What does it say: Lightbringer is symbolically = to the red comet, so "the moon's cracking is connected to a comet and a large burst of fire"

The myth: the children of the forest called down the Hammer of the Waters broke the Arm of Dorne and the flooded the Neck

What does it say: "something came down from the sky which caused enough violence to collapse the land bridge, and likely caused flooding" (as a meteor impact on an isthmus would do)

The myth: the Hammer also involved giants waking from the earth, and all of Westeros shook and trembled

What does it say: giants awakening in the earth = earthquakes (most people got this already), so "the meteor strike called the Hammer of the Waters caused massive earthquakes"

The myth: Durran Godsgrief stole the daughter of the gods, and the gods sent hellacious storms up the narrow sea which killed all but Durran and Elenei

What does it say: "when the hammer meteor broke the arm of Dorne, the tsunamis ravaged the coasts of Westeros," Storm's End being directly in its path of the tsunamis which WOULD have certainly resulted from a meteor strike on the broken arm. Additionally, stealing the daughter of the gods is another way of saying "stealing fire from heaven," or describing a fallen star, so again the tsunamis resulted after something fell from heaven

The myth: the Grey King tricked the Storm God into striking a tree with a thunderbolt, thereby stealing fire from the gods

What does it say: trees struck by lightning and broken swords are compared many times in ASOIAF, and the point of land on which Pyke sits "thrusts like a longsword into the ocean," but because the land is broken, it's called "the broken sword." Swords = comets and meteors, so "a fiery meteor plunged into the ocean, causing the breakup of some of the land around the Iron Islands."

The myth: the Grey King slew the Sea Dragon and made a long hall from her bones, a crown from her teeth, a throne from her jaws, and kept her living fire as a thrall

What does it say: if dragons are meteors, a sea dragon is a fiery meteor which lands in the ocean, which corroborates the last interpretation. "a fiery meteor crashed into the ocean," and again we are given the suggestion of the Grey King possessing the power of this fire from heaven. It doesn't make sense to say that the Grey King stole fire from the Storm God AND the Sea Dragon, unless the Storm God's thunderbolt and the Sea Dragon are the same thing. We have one other story of how the Ironborn got their fire:

The myth: the Drowned God himself carried a burning brand from the sea

What does it say: this would not make sense except that we know it is still talking about the same fire - the one which fell into the sea, and again, the Ironborn possess this fire from heaven. All three myths are the same: "a fiery meteor fell from heaven and landed in the sea."

The myth: the Long Night happened, everywhere

What does it say: only two things have ever caused the world to go dark: supermassive volcanic explosions, and massive meteor impacts. Both produce a similar phenomena: nuclear winter. The sky goes dark as it is filled with ash and debris, and it doesn't come down for several years. The climate cools, plants die, people starve. Sometimes, everything but little voles and fish and bugs die - recall the KT event which killed the dinos. And as we have seen, we have multiple stories which suggest one of those two phenomena - large meteor strikes. So, "the Long Night was a nuclear winter caused by meteor impact(s)."

The myth: Azor Ahai stabbed Nissa Nissa in the heart to forge Lightbringer

What does it say: the moon is the wife of the sun, it is known. We already have the formerly existent second moon placed as the origin of these dragon meteors, and we have associated the comet with the moon's cracking, and we know the comet is symbolically = to Lightbringer, so, putting this together...

Azor Ahai is the sun, the solar king, and Nissa Nissa is his wife, the second moon, making her the original "mother of dragons." Lightbringer was white hot from the forge when it plunged into her heart, but took fire with red flame after, so, unlit lightbringer represents the comet before it struck the moon, and flaming Lightbringer represents the fiery meteors which resulted from the explosion. Those would have burned red as they fell through the atmosphere. Last detail: the only way the moon would seem to crack by wandering too close to the sun would be if it was in an eclipse position. In order for the comet to be seen as being held by the sun, the eclipse positioning would also be necessary. This means that the AA story is actually telling us that "the second moon was in eclipse position as it was struck by a comet, which resulted in a giant fireball in the sky, followed flaming meteors descending to earth (which caused the Long Night.)" Because the heavenly equivalent of the forging of Lightbringer caused the Long Night, we are left with the suggestion that Azor Ahai the man might have also been the cause of the Long Night, and therefore, Nissa Nissa's death may have been a murder.

The myth: The Bloodstone Emperor usurped the throne of the Great Empire of the Dawn, murdering his sister, the Amethyst Empress (the rightful ruler). He also cast down the true gods, worshipped a magical black stone that fell from the sky and practiced a long list of abominations. This is said to have caused the Long Night.

What does it say: just like the legend of Azor Ahai, we have a "King" murdering a "Queen" to cause the Long Night. Casting down the gods implies things falling from heaven, and then we hear about the black stone which fell from heaven. We find black stone associated with Hammer of the Waters sites and impact sites: the Iron Islands via the Seastone Chair; Moat Cailin at the neck; Asshai; and best of all, one of the remaining Stepstones Islands, the remnants of the broken Arm of Dorne, is called Bloodstone. And right next to the broken arm, we have a city called "sun-spear." In a Dorne chapter, the sun even "beats down like a fiery hammer." Lots of other quotes connect the sun to the hammer, but I said I wouldn't quote you to death, so I will leave it at that.

I have a whole essay dedicated to making the case that Azor Ahai = the Bloodstone Emperor, and Nissa Nissa = the Amethyst Empress, but suffice it to say that I believe the story of the Bloodstone Emperor is telling us that: "the murder of the moon "goddess" resulted in black stone meteors falling to earth, which caused the Long Night."

​I have lots, and lots, and lots of quote pulls from metaphors in the main text to support each one of these interpretations of the background myths. That is how this works, according to me: when you read the Iron Islands chapters, the metaphors created will explain the astronomy events which their founding myths describe. When Theon sees Pyke of the first time... I mean, just read this:

The point of land on which the Greyjoys had raised their fortress had once thrust like a sword into the bowels of the ocean, but the waves had hammered at it day and night until the land broke and shattered, thousands of years past. All that remained were three bare and barren islands and a dozen towering stacks of rock that rose from the water like the pillars of some sea god’s temple, while the angry waves foamed and crashed among them. {…}

The Sea Tower rose from the outmost island at the point of the broken sword, the oldest part of the castle, round and tall, the sheer- sided pillar on which it stood half- eaten through by the endless battering of the waves. The base of the tower was white from centuries of salt spray, the upper stories green from the lichen that crawled over it like a thick blanket, the jagged crown black with soot from its nightly watchfire.

[LmL]

Falcotron I just wanted to say I liked your last comments a lot and I *think* that I agree, to the extent I can understand what you are saying. You're using some terms there that seem to have very familiar and nuanced meanings to you, and I can't escape the feeling I am not understanding that context fully. That's why I there out the disclaimer that I am not expert, and have never analyzed any other literature in anywhere near the detail and depth that I / we are subjecting ASOIAF to here. I do not have the greater context that you and others would have after years of literary analysis on many works. I can tell you the next few books I read will all be classics which are recommended to me as being highly symbolic, as well as a LOTR re-read, of course. Anyway, I enjoyed your comments there and it sounds like you are understanding what I am trying to say to some extent, at least. Comparing the in-world myths one to another is exactly what I am doing.

A word about the part which I disagree with, regarding the usefulness and"wrongness" of Campbell. First, I don't think one has to come to the same conclusion about why there are universal themes in mythology that Campbell did to make use of his ideas about those themes and the roles they play. Whether you think these ideas come from one old, universal myth (from Atlantis or something I guess) which has been spread around the world, or whether you point to the Jungian collective unconscious, or merely simple independent invention, we can still learn a lot by using comparative mythology, and Campbell's ideas which I have quoted from here specifically.

Very off-topic Atlantis talk which you are not allowed to respond to

I mean it - no Atlantis arguments

promise?
Secondly, -- don't throw your shoes at me -- I don't think we can rule 'Atlantis' out, or something like it. That's a whole 'nuther can'o'worms, but i will just point out that we don't know very much about anything before 5,000 BC as far as human culture; many megalithic monuments cannot be reliably dated or their building techniques explained; recennt discoveries at Gobekli Tepe and Catal Huyak are reliably dated to 9,000 BCE or earlier, and show complex astronomical alignments (as all the old megalithic monuments do). Then we have the strange case of haplogroup X, the inexplicably well-travelled genome..

Look, I know you hate everything I said in the last paragraph, so please, let's not debate Atlantis. Please. We have a good thread going here. I just wanted to say just maybe Campbell isn't as wrong as the establishment thinks.

[falcotron]

You're using some terms there that seem to have very familiar and nuanced meanings to you, and I can't escape the feeling I am not understanding that context fully. That's why I there out the disclaimer that I am not expert, and have never analyzed any other literature in anywhere near the detail and depth that I / we are subjecting ASOIAF to here. I do not have the greater context that you and others would have after years of literary analysis on many works.

I've mostly picked this stuff up from pop books, and writers' comments on their own work (which is why I mention Moorcock and Gaiman so often--they write about writing with the skill of a writer, rather than the lack of skill of a university literary critic...), rather than professional study. I, like most people, found Campbell's ideas fascinating when I first encountered them, and even after a college girlfriend pointed me to the criticisms of his work, I didn't really get the point until she told me that Zelazny's Amber series was in part a deconstruction of the monomyth idea, and I was lucky enough to be able to ask Zelazny himself about that.

But anyway:

A word about the part which I disagree with, regarding the usefulness and"wrongness" of Campbell. First, I don't think one has to come to the same conclusion about why there are universal themes in mythology that Campbell did to make use of his ideas about those themes and the roles they play. Whether you think these ideas come from one old, universal myth (from Atlantis or something I guess) which has been spread around the world, or whether you point to the Jungian collective unconscious, or merely simple independent invention, we can still learn a lot by using comparative mythology, and Campbell's ideas which I have quoted from here specifically.

The criticism of Campbell's style of comparative mythology isn't that he's wrong about why there are universal themes, but that he's wrong that there are universal themes--or, rather, wrong that they're interesting. Not just because the method encourages pareidolia (seeing connections that aren't there, and then convincing yourself that they are), but because, even when the comparisons are valid, focusing on them means ignoring everything interesting about the myths. The most interesting things about Loki are all the ways in which he's not like Coyote. Reading him as a Trickster archetype, instead of in terms of his relationships with Thor, Odin, Fenrir, his true parents, etc., means missing what makes him an interesting character and an interesting plot device, both specifically for the Norse and universally.

But even that isn't the big problem. It's not that there are no human or cultural universals (although there are still deconstructionists who claim that). After all, there is obviously something universal about Loki that makes him still work 1000 years later, as the villain in the third highest-grossing movie of all time.... But if you start off assuming everything is universal, as Campbell does, makes it impossible to find the things that really are.

I think you intuitively see this. After all, your idea is that we can read the past from how people connect up to archetypes; Stannis picking up a flaming sword actually tells us more about AA than it does about Stannis. But I think you're hampering yourself by trying to fit it into Campbellian terms. Which is a shame, because you have a lot of interesting ideas, and it's hard to see which ones to try to draw out. (Fortunately, you're willing to spell them all out, in great depth, whether anyone asks you to or not, which means anyone with the patience to read it all can find them anyway. And your writing is compelling enough that it's not hard to find the patience to read it all. But it still would be better if that weren't necessary.)

[Daendrew]

Every author, especially ones that have worked in Hollywood is familiar and highly influenced by Cambell and the Hero's Journey. GRRMS worked on Beauty and The Beast for TV, of course he is influenced by Campbell.

What GRRM has done is try to break tropes from it and tell the the story from a different angle. He is trying something very new with the monomyth; playing the game of oppoItes.

But that doesn't change the fact that the heroes of ASOIAF still go through the hero path laid out by Campbell. It's that the heroes may not turn out to be who you think they are.

The heroes just turn out to be the ones you least expect. Craven Lord Ham will be the biggest hero, a soiled white knight that murdered his king and through an innocent child off a tower will be great, Theon who betrayed the people who trusted him and lead t their almost destruction i believe will also turn out a hero. Potentially, this one is the shakiest Roose Bolton may wind up a hero by killing unJon. I will get to how I think happens soon enough.

The way I see it, and of course I may well be wrong is that he is still writing Campbell's monomyth, GRRM has just masterfully hid the heroes seemingly in the darkness, while putting the anti-heroes in the light to make us love them, only to break our hearts.

The antiheroes are the people we once loved the most and the heroes are redeemed fallen men and women we once despised. It will make us root for people we once hated to kill the people we once loved who have become dark and corrupted shells of who they once were. It tears us apart from all angles.

This is why George is nothing less than a genius.

He is writing The Hero With A Thousand Faces, And One.

http://www.thewritersjourney.com/hero's_journey.htm

[chambraigne]

"GRRM is writing..." You lost me right there.

[evita mgfs]

I've mostly picked this stuff up from pop books, and writers' comments on their own work (which is why I mention Moorcock and Gaiman so often--they write about writing with the skill of a writer, rather than the lack of skill of a university literary critic...), rather than professional study. I, like most people, found Campbell's ideas fascinating when I first encountered them, and even after a college girlfriend pointed me to the criticisms of his work, I didn't really get the point until she told me that Zelazny's Amber series was in part a deconstruction of the monomyth idea, and I was lucky enough to be able to ask Zelazny himself about that.

snip

Har! Campbell borrows "monomyth" from Joyce's Finnigan's Wake - and he considered himself a Joycean.

I thought I'd share that tidbit because I find literary influences on writers curiouser and curiuoser.

[Associate Maester]

Har! Campbell borrows "monomyth" from Joyce's Finnigan's Wake - and he considered himself a Joycean.

I thought I'd share that tidbit because I find literary influences on writers curiouser and curiuoser.

Yes Campbell was a scholar of Joyce. Those of us are that are scholars of religion wish he'd stuck with Joycean scholarship and stayed out of ours!

[oursisthefury69]

I think analyzing ASoIaF as modern mythology is missing something huge: Modern mythology is old hat. As Michael Moorcock put it, that ended with Star Wars.

Moorcock's point was that nobody can write modern mythology unless they think they're the first one to discover Campbell. Moorcock, and the rest of the new wave of fantasy and science fiction that followed him, were writing postmodern mythology, consciously deconstructing the common language of myth, as applied to Robert E. Howard and Fritz Lieber as much as to Gilgamesh and Völuspá, and doing it with full knowledge of not only Campbell but of his particularist critics.

And what about the current generation, the one after Moorcock? Well, as stupid as the term "postpostmodern" is, I don't know of a better one. They've read modern mythology and postmodern mythology. They also know about deconstructionism and its critiques, and about the post-sociobiology search for human universals that underlie myths. They know that everyone who actually studies this stuff has decided the monomyth idea is bunk, but they want to know why it's so appealing anyway. They are, in Neil Gaiman's terms, looking for the human stories buried inside myths instead of forcing human stories into mythical wrappings.

To take an example: the fact that all of the cultures in ASoIaF have a myth of a great hero who won the War for the Dawn is interesting, but what's really interesting is the reason they all share such a myth: that there really was a worldwide concrete catastrophe so dramatic that it has echoes in cultures scattered around the world even 8000 years later. You don't need Campbell to explain that.

That's not to say that there aren't both traditional and postmodern themes to find. For example, Quentyn's story is a pretty obvious deconstruction of the hero's journey, while Dany largely plays it straight but with a gender twist. And, in the same way, some of the echoes of real-life mythology are probably used for straightforward inspiration and others for contrast. But I think trying to analyze the whole thing in modernism terms is going to miss most of the point.

Yea this cant top star wars lol. And when you read things what terms do you analyze them in? Non-modern terms? As if the themes GRRM is conveying are only applicable to medieval times and have zero sense of modern signifigance.

Um, with your initial reply to me and the recent ones, I'm not sure you're the best judge at Tolkien and his writings. Because of that, I don't have a defense to present you. Pearls before swine.

Considering your the person who just made a Dany's gona warg Ghost thread, I'd probably have to say you aren't the best judge of Martin and his writings/ASOIAF

[LmL]

Yes Campbell was a scholar of Joyce. Those of us are that are scholars of religion wish he'd stuck with Joycean scholarship and stayed out of ours!

That's funny, because it is precisely Campbell's view of religion / myth (myth is just old religion, there is no difference) which I am citing here, not the monomyth for which he is famous. That's why I only spent about two sentences discussing monomyth and several paragraphs talking about the fact that theism and atheism are both false choices and both are misapplications of divine knowledge, for all the reasons stated in the OP and in subsequent comments. They are both missing the entire point of esoteric knowledge. One is getting stuck in its own metaphor, and the other is simply denying a most critical aspect of human existence.

Campbell understood religion as well as anyone ever has, IMO.

[Lointain]

I must ask, did you read the entire essay? I feel like you are perhaps missing the point I was trying to make (which may be my fault). I would say that you are talking about the cosmological function of myth here, which is only one purpose that mythology plays in the lives of humans.

Any people with a mythology (that is, every people in the world), at first saw that histories has true, religious and heroic texts, songs, hymns, poems, oral stories, etc. that "explained" why the world exists, how they come into existence, why they live there, habits, traditions, lore, gods, thunder, sky, wind, etc. In another words: the myriads of myths are the effort to explain and find an order in the cosmos.

Inventing legends, heroes, mythos of other, literary and invented, worlds in fantasy, how much well elaborated they may be is only the writer showing his qualities has an an artist with words, and, thankfuly, Martin is wonderful at that.

ASOIAF is not any modern or ancient recollection or creation of myths, is "only" a literary fantasy master-piece, in wich the author create myths that only work inside the story.

Of course, people can say that ASOIAF is modern mythology, but that is completly false, because the author know very well that this is a completly fictional and fantastic story, that take a great inspiration from other stories and traditional myths, but in no way he is trying to explain how the cosmos works and is organized. The ancient persons that invented religion and legendary tales of heros and gods, yes, they tried very hard to find a explanation for not only their society, but for all the universe they could grasp, creating the stories that we call myths.

[LmL]

I even think people misunderstand what he was trying to say with the monomyth. I think the point was that all religions are "true," as he says, as long as they do not interpret esoteric knowledge in a literal fashion. Mythology absolutely does have common themes and archetypes the world round, and I disagree that there is anything unhealthy about comparing the commonalities and uncovering universal truths which everyone seems to have found their way to. It would be wrong to do that that to the exclusion of examining the differences, unique characteristics, and contexts of those myths, but there is no inherent conflict between the two perspectives - both are valuable for different reasons. Campbell, I believe, is talking about this universality of truth, and to me that's the most important part of the monomyth idea, that all humans share common ideas and rituals, and that truth is self evident and universal. What particular religion or rituals anyone chooses to use as a vehicle for truth exploration matters not if your head and heart are in the right place.

Consider the moral clarity here: he's just done away with all possible motivations for religious war. If Christians and Muslims understood this truth, that they are both valid paths to obtaining "truth," and if they both realized how many things their religions have in common.... well, a lot less people would be dead, you know?

[LmL]

Any people with a mythology (that is, every people in the world), at first saw that histories has true, religious and heroic texts, songs, hymns, poems, oral stories, etc. that "explained" why the world exists, how they come into existence, why they live there, habits, traditions, lore, gods, thunder, sky, wind, etc. In another words: the myriads of myths are the effort to explain and find an order in the cosmos.

Inventing legends, heroes, mythos of other, literary and invented, worlds in fantasy, how much well elaborated they may be is only the writer showing his qualities has an an artist with words, and, thankfuly, Martin is wonderful at that.

ASOIAF is not any modern or ancient recollection or creation of myths, is "only" a literary fantasy master-piece, in wich the author create myths that only work inside the story.

Of course, people can say that ASOIAF is modern mythology, but that is completly false, because the author know very well that this is a completly fictional and fantastic story, that take a great inspiration from other stories and traditional myths, but in no way he is trying to explain how the cosmos works and is organized. The ancient persons that invented religion and legendary tales of heros and gods, yes, they tried very hard to find a explanation for not only their society, but for all the universe they could grasp, creating the stories that we call myths.

Unfortunately you are only addressing one of the functions of myth, and you are entirely missing my point about symbolic thinking. You're not making an effort to understand what I am talking about at all, instead you're just giving your general opinion on mythology without understanding that you are using the word in a different and very narrow sense, when it means quite a bit more than just the cosmological application of myth. You're also acting like a know-it-all, you lack any sense of humility, and you're also being rather condescending, and so I invite you to not comment on this thread any more.

[oursisthefury69]

ASOIAF is not any modern or ancient recollection or creation of myths, is "only" a literary fantasy master-piece, in wich the author create myths that only work inside the story.

"Asoiaf isnt a modern day creation of myths, only a modern fantasy work where the author creates myths." Got it

[Associate Maester]

That's funny, because it is precisely Campbell's view of religion / myth (myth is just old religion, there is no difference) which I am citing here, not the monomyth for which he is famous. That's why I only spent about two sentences discussing monomyth and several paragraphs talking about the fact that theism and atheism are both false choices and both are misapplications of divine knowledge, for all the reasons stated in the OP and in subsequent comments. They are both missing the entire point of esoteric knowledge. One is getting stuck in its own metaphor, and the other is simply denying a most critical aspect of human existence.

Campbell understood religion as well as anyone ever has, IMO.

You are free to view Campbell as one that understood religion as well as anyone ever has. Those of us that actually are experts in the field are free to disagree. Campbell was part of the later fad in religious studies that lasted for a while where all the rage was Jungian analysis. He made some excellent points in some of his work. However, his stripping of religion and myth from their sitz in leben (amongst other things) was not one of them. Where it is useful to bring up Campbell is in his influence on popular culture (even to this day) and it seems like that's part of what you're trying to do?

[Fitcherman]

Have you ever seen this guy's blog page about ASOIAF and Norse Mythology? He goes by Dorian the Historian.

http://gameofthronesandnorsemythology.blogspot.com/

I thought his theories were amazing but probably a bit radical.

[LmL]

What I am trying to do is explain the value of symbolic thinking and esoteric knowledge transmission. George is writing mythology in the sense that he is using the language of myth, which is symbolism and metaphor. Consider the quote at the top of the essay - it concerns the role that myth plays in our lives, a role which is being taken up currently by some of our best artists and philosophers, and I consider George to be such.

I'm actually not trying to say "look! George Martin is writing the Hero's Journey! He must have read Campbell!" because, well duh. As Falcotron has noted, this is standard fare at this point. What I am saying is that Campbell's observations about the role of myth and the power of myth, and likewise the power of symbolic thinking, explain why what George is doing is so important and powerful and significant.

More specifically, the phenomena I am trying to point at is the way George uses metaphor. His chapters are written like mythology in that every component of many scenes is symbolic and intentionally chosen. Many writers do this, and many filmmakers (Kubrick comes to mind), but George is doing this at a very high level. The reason this essay exists is not because I am an expert on Campbell and am trying to understand ASOIAF in Campbell's terms. I started off by discovering a couple of metaphorical scenes which seem to be telling a story about a destroyed moon. Five months later, having found dozens of these metaphors, I was trying to figure out WTF George is doing here, and it eventually occurred to me that George is writing ASOAIF in the same way language and form that religious myth takes. Describing meteors showers and floods in terms of human dramas, like the Grey King or AA stories, is exactly what people did when creating mythology. It's not the only purpose of myth - hence my inclusion of the four fold fiction of myth - but that is a phenomena that George seems to be recreating, and that is why I am able to treat the disparate chapters of ASOAIF as if they were myths from different cultures, and use comparative mythology analysis to show that the Grey King story and the AA story are actually describing the same phenomena.

Is the Grey King AA? That's a completely different question. We could view these similar myths as independent invention, two people from opposite sides of the world describing a meteor strike / Long Night experience in similar terms, or we could try to say "monomyth! Atlantis! Common origin!" That is a secondary question, apart from the primary, which is discerning whether or not there is a commonality in the two myths.

Since this is a fantasy novel, the chances of the answer being common origin are much higher than in the real world, if you get my meaning. Atlantis makes for a great story, and the Great Empire of the Dawn from whence the Bloodstone Emperor (who is Azor Ahai according to me) came is very much an Atlantis story. So the Grey King might have been a legend started by actions of AA in Westeros, which were combined with the celestial events of that time, or not. I am trying to suss that out, but I hope you take my meaning regarding monomyth and common origins.

[Daendrew]

"Asoiaf isnt a modern day creation of myths, only a modern fantasy work where the author creates myths." Got it

By the end of the series I bet you will see new myths will be created. New stories heroes, legends and prophesies. What we call the Long Night looking back, future generations will call the Song of Ice and Fire.

The names, the deeds, the descirptions will be different. But they are the same hero's reborn.

We have not even to risk the adventure alone

for the heroes of all time have gone before us.

The labyrinth is thoroughly known ...

we have only to follow the thread of the hero path.

And where we had thought to find an abomination

we shall find a God.

-Campbell

These new stories and prophesies will be symbolic and not literal. That is where GRRM hides his foreshadowed goodies.

Yes Campbell was a scholar of Joyce. Those of us are that are scholars of religion wish he'd stuck with Joycean scholarship and stayed out of ours!

What he has done has gone far beyond Jung. You see it in almost every modern book and show. The reason why we love ASOIAF so much is that he shakes it up the story that has been told a thousand times, and once.

As a nonbeliever, he makes the stories real and relevant to me. Exponentially more than any religious thinker. Quite the opposite, from my experience when religious people speak to me my mind shuts down because the premise is almost always, aside from some Eastern faiths based on accepting historical events that are nonstarters for me. Through Campbell I get the message without having to put logic aside.

It is a message I get when reading ASOIAF, when reading a poem, seeing a film about an alien world/religion. It is a prism that has added more richness to my literary life than anything else I have found.

With his works, especially his spoken word more than books (I have read them all and listened to every single recording 4-5x) There is a direct line to the mythic imagination without any expectation from any party for it to be true. That is what magic is for me. And patronus charms.

He never claimed to offer the peak religious experience as you can see from the quote below. But what he offers me the millions others is a peak mythological understanding. A prism for understanding symbols in a world of prose.

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: In my own life, I’ve had many opportunities to commit myself to a system and to go with it, and to obey its requirements. My life has been that of a maverick; I would not submit.

...Now, similarly in mythology, each religion is a kind of software that has its own set of signals and will work. It’ll work. But suppose you’ve chosen this one. Now, if a person is really involved in a religion and really building his life on it, he’d better stay with the software that he’s got. But a chap like myself, who likes to play with and cross the wires.

BILL MOYERS: Cross the wires?

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: the various softwares, I can run around, but I probably will never have an experience comparable to that of a saint.

BILL MOYERS: But do you think that the machine is inventing new myths for us, or that we with the machine are inventing new myths?

JOSEPH CAMPBELL: No. The myth has to incorporate the machine.

Yea this cant top star wars lol. And when you read things what terms do you analyze them in? Non-modern terms? As if the themes GRRM is conveying are only applicable to medieval times and have zero sense of modern signifigance.

Considering your the person who just made a Dany's gona warg Ghost thread, I'd probably have to say you aren't the best judge of Martin and his writings/ASOIAF

With dog treats and blood, Dany will warg Ghost and claim the trees that are hers by pee.

[Daendrew]

Have you ever seen this guy's blog page about ASOIAF and Norse Mythology? He goes by Dorian the Historian.

http://gameofthronesandnorsemythology.blogspot.com/

I thought his theories were amazing but probably a bit radical.

His posts are not radical. They are more right than wrong. He will flip things around, throw big curve balls but Ragnarok has shown to be a primary influence in the initial shaping.

I think how it ends will be similar but not quite. Dorian The Historian did a great feat in connecting them. But this is ASOIAF, Georges story not Ragnarok.

The stories will rhyme but won't be the same.

[LmL]

Have you ever seen this guy's blog page about ASOIAF and Norse Mythology? He goes by Dorian the Historian.

http://gameofthronesandnorsemythology.blogspot.com/

I thought his theories were amazing but probably a bit radical.

I read all his work about three years ago and was quite impressed.... until he said Jamie is AA and has to fight Bran for the final duel, and that Tommen was the PTWP. Bascially, his norse - ASOIAF analysis is superb, magnificent and wonderful, and I :bowdown: before it... but he really screwed it up by thinking that ASOIAF would follow the entire plot and end the same way as Ragnarok. I think most people have a similar opinion - the archetypal correlations are undeniable. Martin def used Norse characters to make his characters, and used their themes and symbols... but he is also drawing from a thousand other things, including comics and old sic-fi, the War of the Roses and other history, all manner of myth, Vance, Tolkein, Lovecraft... So you know.

I would have listed his site in my list of people who have done symbolic analysis (that's on the mythology thread that is going right now), but held off because the way he ended it turned off a lot of people and I didn't want to closely associate myself with that. I do however really admire the work and it was one of the things which inspired me... so I am quite torn. I mean... when you first read the correlations, it's simply amazing, especially if you were only vaguely aware of Norse myth beforehand. I just wish he hadn't have made "the mistake."

[Daendrew]

I read all his work about three years ago and was quite impressed.... until he said Jamie is AA and has to fight Bran for the final duel, and that Tommen was the PTWP. Bascially, his norse - ASOIAF analysis is superb, magnificent and wonderful, and I :bowdown: before it... but he really screwed it up by thinking that ASOIAF would follow the entire plot and end the same way as Ragnarok. I think most people have a similar opinion - the archetypal correlations are undeniable. Martin def used Norse characters to make his characters, and used their themes and symbols... but he is also drawing from a thousand other things, including comics and old sic-fi, the War of the Roses and other history, all manner of myth, Vance, Tolkein, Lovecraft... So you know.

I would have listed his site in my list of people who have done symbolic analysis (that's on the mythology thread that is going right now), but held off because the way he ended it turned off a lot of people and I didn't want to closely associate myself with that. I do however really admire the work and it was one of the things which inspired me... so I am quite torn. I mean... when you first read the correlations, it's simply amazing, especially if you were only vaguely aware of Norse myth beforehand. I just wish he hadn't have made "the mistake."

But it is true. He will fight and "kill Bran" via Winter the ice dragon he is skinchanged into. I still think Bran will live after that.

After my Night's King series I will show how I think Azor Ahai dies. I bet 50 golden dragons it will blow you away with my new find on why Jaime has already become AA. Maybe I will finish that up and post it this weekend, in your honor kind Ser.