The Flight of the Ice Dragon

[Durran Durrandon]

. . . the constellation not the mythical creature.

 

So, something is bothering me about the Ice Dragon. When we first are told about the constellation, Osha tells Bran that he can find the way north by following the blue star that is the eye of the Rrder of the Ice Dragon. Later Bran recalls this, but he is following the eye of the Ice Dragon, but does not explicitly mention its rider. This is repeated in three other POV’s one in which Jon is following the Ice Dragon north, not mentioning which star he is following, one in which Davos identifies the eye of the Ice Dragon as pointing north, and one in the Sworn Sword in which Duncan the Tall uses the eye of the Ice Dragon to find north. So, this could be an error in writing, or it could be that we are to understand that the eye of the dragon actually refers to the eye of the dragon rider. There is another weird seeming error, where in Sam’s POV the Night’s Watch is following the tail of the Ice Dragon to find the way south, which would not work. If the eye is the pole star, then the tail would actually appear to rotate around it just as the Little Dipper rotates around Polaris, like the hand of a clock as the night passed, so it wouldn’t consistently point south, like so:

 

You would think Sam would have read about this in a book, (and every ranger would be aware of it as well.)

Okay, that bugs me, but now here is what is really bugging me, in the World of Ice and Fire we get the following quote regarding the irregular seasons:

 

Quote

“Septon Barth appeared to argue, in a fragmentary treatise, that the inconstancy of the seasons was a matter of magical art rather than trustworthy knowledge. Maester Nicol’s The Measure of the Days —otherwise a laudable work containing much of use—seems influenced by this argument. Based upon his work on the movement of stars in the firmament, Nicol argues unconvincingly that the seasons might once have been of a regular length, determined solely by the way in which the globe faces the sun in its heavenly course. The notion behind it seems true enough—that the lengthening and shortening of days, if more regular, would have led to more regular seasons—but he could find no evidence that such was ever the case, beyond the most ancient of tales. (WoIaF 39-40)”

 

I hate the way the passage is written, because the line “the seasons might once have been a regular length determined, solely by the way in which the globe faces the sun in its heavenly course” seems to imply that seasons are not solely determined  by the way the globe faces the sun, but the very next line “the notion behind it seems true enough—that the lengthening and shortening of days, if more regular, would have led to more regular seasons” implies that the seasons are determined by the tilt of the globe, thus the lengthening and shortening of days, but the problem is that the lengthening and shortening of days is not regular. Whereas, our days on Earth lengthen and shorten on a consistent annual basis, due to our planet's constant axial tilt and regular movement around the sun, Planetos has days that lengthen and shorten without a clear pattern.

 

The days stay consistently long for years at a time and then someone like Maester Aemon notes they are getting shorter, writes the Citadel, and the Citadel confirms that the days are getting consistently shorter, which is what Jeor Mormont tells Tyrion has happened towards the beginning of Game of Thrones. Sometimes later, the White Ravens fly as an official announcement. Sometimes, it would seem to be a fake out, and the days that are starting to get longer, start to get shorter again, as in the False Spring, but I digress.

 

So. if this is the case, the planet does not have a fixed axial tilt, which means throughout a year which is consistently winter and has consistently short days, the tilt of the planet, relative to the sun stays consistent (the northern hemisphere always tilts away from the sun), which means the tilt of the planet in regards to the stars, should be shifting in a manner similar to procession, as the planet orbits the sun on an annual basis. Precession is a wobble in the Earth’s axial tilt that reliably moves the pole in a circular rotation once every 25,000 years or so. Thus, the pole star is currently Polaris, but over next couple thousand years, we would see it shift so that there was either no pole star at all, or some other pole star. Like this:

On the Wolrd of Ice and Fire, we would expect that say during a ten year long winter, where the northern hemisphere of the planet is consistently tilted away from the sun, that a full precision would take place on an annual basis. Thus, the eye of the Ice Dragon would only be the pole star for a brief period each year. For maybe a month, the eye would be the pole star, with the dragon nightly flying  in a circle around the pole each night, but after that, the eye itself would drift in a circular precession off of 0 degrees latitude, in a southerly counter clockwise direction before heading off in a northern counterclockwise direction half way through the year. Possibly, one of the notable things it would do during a shift of seasons is to stop entirely, which would be pretty darn obvious to any Maester or navigator that is paying attention. Aemon, Lewin, Davos, Euron, none of these people have mentioned any such thing happening, so my questions are these: Is this an error on Martin’s part? am I misreading the World of Ice and Fire? or is there some other explanation I am missing?

[Lord Ravenstark]

The Ice Dragon has a rider? It totally escaped me.

As for following the tail… uh, you will go South, since stars don't go that fast, but it is possible that you may go a little off course. Or maybe the sky in ASOIAF is weird, and stars are just small holes that let light in and such.

In Earth, I doubt a star would be pole star for thousand of years.

As for day and night, I blame the children. Maybe they make their planet spin crazily, and as such the Winter would be worldwide, not on hemispheres. But I don't think it has an explanation other than magic.

[Brian Powers Of Palantíri]

None that would make sense, the best I can come up with is Magic, or its a Plague Star, Volcryn or who knows?Really Nice Catch!!

[Blackfyre Bastard]

1 hour ago, Durran Durrandon said:

. . . the constellation not the mythical creature.

 

So, something is bothering me about the Ice Dragon. When we first are told about the constellation, Osha tells Bran that he can find the way north by following the blue star that is the eye of the Rrder of the Ice Dragon. Later Bran recalls this, but he is following the eye of the Ice Dragon, but does not explicitly mention its rider. This is repeated in three other POV’s one in which Jon is following the Ice Dragon north, not mentioning which star he is following, one in which Davos identifies the eye of the Ice Dragon as pointing north, and one in the Sworn Sword in which Duncan the Tall uses the eye of the Ice Dragon to find north. So, this could be an error in writing, or it could be that we are to understand that the eye of the dragon actually refers to the eye of the dragon rider. There is another weird seeming error, where in Sam’s POV the Night’s Watch is following the tail of the Ice Dragon to find the way south, which would not work. If the eye is the pole star, then the tail would actually appear to rotate around it just as the Little Dipper rotates around Polaris, like the hand of a clock as the night passed, so it wouldn’t consistently point south,

So that's why Sam got lost and could never find the Wall!!!

btw: I don't think is the Night's Watch as a whole, just Sam and Gilly after fleeing Craster's.

[Durran Durrandon]

43 minutes ago, Blackfyre Bastard said:

So that's why Sam got lost and could never find the Wall!!!

btw: I don't think is the Night's Watch as a whole, just Sam and Gilly after fleeing Craster's.

Well, that helps a bit on that point, thanks.

[Daendrew]

Durran, there is a typo in your title. It should be spelled Flight of The IceBrandon.

[Durran Durrandon]

9 minutes ago, Daendrew said:

Durran, there is a typo in your title. It should be spelled Flight of The IceBrandon.

Hah, little did I know.

[Durran Durrandon]

2 hours ago, Lord Ravenstark said:

The Ice Dragon has a rider? It totally escaped me.

As for following the tail… uh, you will go South, since stars don't go that fast, but it is possible that you may go a little off course. Or maybe the sky in ASOIAF is weird, and stars are just small holes that let light in and such.

In Earth, I doubt a star would be pole star for thousand of years.

As for day and night, I blame the children. Maybe they make their planet spin crazily, and as such the Winter would be worldwide, not on hemispheres. But I don't think it has an explanation other than magic.

Well, a quick recheck leaves me thinking that Polaris has been considered a pole star for around 1500 years and will likely be for 500 more years at least, so I'll stick by the barest definition our a couple thousand. A pole star is never going to be exact. But,I don't want to split hairs. There was no pole star 2300 years ago, so 3000 years would likely be pushing it..

As for the tale, it's going to swing 15 degrees per hour, I think, so you would be best off looking behind you, finding the eye and walking the opposit direction.

[hiemal]

That could also explain the problems that they seem to have with navigation.

[Durran Durrandon]

17 minutes ago, hiemal said:

That could also explain the problems that they seem to have with navigation.

Can you point to where you see them having a problem with navigation? I would love to find some evidence of shifting stars.

[hiemal]

They hug the shore and even the Ironborn seem to have a healthy fear of open ocean, there is no evidence- despite their having telescopes- of their using the sun or stars to navigate beyond (as you pointed out) identifying a pole star, maps seem to be crude. That was impression, anyways- that they had not progressed to the use of astrolabes or sextants which seems odd.

 

[Cagey Bee]

Just throwing it out there, but...

If there were once another moon,(see LmL's astrology theory) then the moon that was formerly there stabilized the orbit. Once the moon (Nissa Nissa) was knocked out by the comet (Lightbringer) then I could see how it could happen that the seasons would fluctuate. I actually think the irregularity of the seasons of gives some credit to the theory, myself..

[Durran Durrandon]

 

16 minutes ago, Cagey Bee said:

Just throwing it out there, but...

If there were once another moon,(see LmL's astrology theory) then the moon that was formerly there stabilized the orbit. Once the moon (Nissa Nissa) was knocked out by the comet (Lightbringer) then I could see how it could happen that the seasons would fluctuate. I actually think the irregularity of the seasons of gives some credit to the theory, myself..

LML, never heard of him. He's not like that Preston Jacobs guy? Is he?

[Durran Durrandon]

51 minutes ago, hiemal said:

They hug the shore and even the Ironborn seem to have a healthy fear of open ocean, there is no evidence- despite their having telescopes- of their using the sun or stars to navigate beyond (as you pointed out) identifying a pole star, maps seem to be crude. That was impression, anyways- that they had not progressed to the use of astrolabes or sextants which seems odd.

 

It does seem odd given that they have heliocentric model of their solat system. One would expect navigation to be a bit more advanced.

[hiemal]

52 minutes ago, Durran Durrandon said:

It does seem odd given that they have heliocentric model of their solat system. One would expect navigation to be a bit more advanced.

So the maesters, navigators, and skygazers could have failed to notice the pole star's migration because they lack the equipment, which they could lack because the conditions that cause the pole star to shift could make it meaningless... I think?

[Victarion Chainbreaker]

Unless of course the eye and the tail were both stationary. Then the Ice Dragon constellation could be a massive space station anchored over the north pole.

[SevasTra82]

This seems like a classic case of over-analyzing.  

GRRM simply states that the Ice Dragon faces North.  It was called the Ice Dragon simply because its eye points north towards Winterfell and The Wall.  The tail, which is the opposite site of the eye, would point south.

GRRM is by no means an astrologer and in his mind, this probably made sense.  I'm sure he's not looking up in an encyclopedia what the polarity of the earth's axis would be.  

As for the comment on the Rider, considering it only appears a single time by Osha, and GRRM's notorious nature for making little mistakes (eyes changing color, horses changing sex, Jaime cupping his hands when he only had 1 left etc), I'm sure this is just one of those small mistakes that GRRM has been known to make.

I highly, highly doubt it goes any further than this.

[Durran Durrandon]

9 hours ago, hiemal said:

So the maesters, navigators, and skygazers could have failed to notice the pole star's migration because they lack the equipment, which they could lack because the conditions that cause the pole star to shift could make it meaningless... I think?

Yeah, I could see that for everything but the pole star. If your pole star began rotating around another pole star during the course of a night at certain parts  of the year, you wold notice. The only way I see getting around that is if your pole isn't that close to 0 degrees to begin with, say it's off by five degrees at the best of times. So it always rotates a bit, making it less notable when it rotates in a larger circle vs a smaller circle. You would also need for there to be no alternate pole star that comes closer than five degrees. Maybe?

[FuzzyJAM]

I think the answer is just "magic" and George not much caring for astrology, sorry.  

[Durran Durrandon]

6 hours ago, Victarion Chainbreaker said:

Unless of course the eye and the tail were both stationary. Then the Ice Dragon constellation could be a massive space station anchored over the north pole.

Anchored as in not oribiting? I guess that could explain it being stationary to the pole. I doubt and would be disappointed with that type of science fiction explanation though.