Shade-of-the-evening, weirwood paste, and wildfire: elemental elixirs?

[hiemal]

This is to a large extent a spitball, equal parts tinfoil and intuition, but...

In light of idea of the elements and certain symmetries that may or may not be present, I have been toying with the idea of there being for each of the elements certain traits that are manifest in the tangible objects that represent them.

For the element of earth, I am ascribing the materials weirwood, both fresh and fossilized, and the properties of generation and decay. The elixir, made of weirwood paste and other unknown ingredients (possibly blood, possibly human), acts upon the mind and the body of one who is suitable, attuning them to the weirnet and possibly beginning a presumably symbiotic relationship with the roots. What it would do to someone who was not a greenseer or not a First Man are unknown.

For the element of fire I have the materials dragonglass and dragonsteel and the traits of purification and consumption (hmmm, is that right? I'm not talking about TB). My guess for the elixir is wildfire or something close to it. Some of the Targaryans at least believed that under some circumstance it could lead to a very physical transformation. Whether there are conditions that were not met, the "substance" was not prepared properly, or there is simply no truth to the idea I have no real idea, but it is more interesting to assume there is some spark of truth among the smoke. It is interesting that wildfire burns green, one of the colors that burns underwater in one of Patchface's moments.

For the element of darkness or shadow (which I propose to be a thing, btw, and I think the existence of shadow-binding backs me up) I speculate that the material is oily black stone and the properties are illusion and corruption. The elixir is shade-of-the-evening, which seems to derange the mind and may or may not lead ultimately to something like the Undying or the merlings. I'm torn on that one.

I have no elixirs on tap for water, air, or light. If there existed one for water it was probably lost with the fall of the Rhoynar (or has something to do with greyscale). If Ice were an element I could imagine an elixir that transformed humans into Others but I could as easily imagine them doing so by some other method. The traits of water would be those of creating and sustaining, while ice would be preservation and stasis.

Air is mentioned so little I have no real speculation- I can recall only one mention of aeromancers in Asshai and the Storm God is the only representative of that power I can even guess at.

As for light, if it is a thing, the only material I can find is the ore from which Dawn was forged. I would guess that its properties would be illumination and restoration. The Maiden-Clothed-In-Light is a good fit for divine representation.

So, incomplete and wildly speculative as it is, I can't help but wonder if there isn't something here.

 

[Blind Beth the Cat Lady]

Well you know how much I like spitballing. :-D

 

I have had similar-but-different thoughts on how to break down magical elements. This is something I've been tweaking and re-drafting for awhile. My base organizing principal is color, but each color has an element (but is not constrained to that element, i.e. blue magic works with ice but is not limited to ice)

 

Color coded magic:

Color - element, characteristics; objects; elementals; historic champions; blood description; descendants

 

Red - fire, consumption, cleansing; rubies, blood, dragon glass; dragons; Azor Ahai; “hot blood” —descendants are human red-eyed greenseers + Melisandre (who for my money is BR & Shiera’s daughter)

 

Blue - ice, preservation; sapphires, things pale as milk-glass (e.g. Dawn); Others, ice spiders, ice dragons; Symeon Star-Eyes, Serwyn of the Mirror Shield, “Great Other”; no human blood description we’ve encountered; Starks (clearly associated with ice), probably also houses linked to sapphires like Arryns (pure Andal blood my arse); possibly blue-eyed Valyrian descendants also have the ability to work blue/ice magic; Undying of Qarth seem to also be using blue magic

 

Grey - iron, salt, reanimation, violent expansionist tendencies; Seastone Chair, oily black stone; scary things under the sea; the Grey King, the Drowned God; “black blood”; Ironborn 

 

Green - Growing/organic things, animal bonding, fertility & proliferation; emeralds, wildfire; Green Men maybe green-magic elementals; Garth Greenhand and successive Age of Heros Garths; the main river in Dorne is called the Greenblood but not sure if that relates or not; Garth and his children founded most of the great First Men houses, so potential green-magic descendants are everywhere. Cercei is strongly linked with emeralds *and* wildfire in the novels so I’m interested to see where her character goes. 

 

Violet - Love (all kinds), loyalty; amethysts, maybe also silver; no violet magic elementals so far; Amethyst Empress; no blood descriptions; violet-eyed Targaryens and Daynes - violet-magic descendants possibly can use both blue and red magic IMO

 

 

To me, these are "human magics", mostly evolved in the Great Empire of the Dawn. There are other magics besides this; CotF magic can work with green magic but isn't fundamentally the same thing. Thus weirwoods, ww paste, black & blue trees, and Shade of the Evening could be used by various colors but are not fundamentally the same as those color-magics. Weirwoods seem to work well with both green and red magic, Shade-of-the-Evening trees with blue and possibly gray magic. 

And gray magic may actually be its own thing, not fundamentally human; I'm not sure. 

But I am sure about wildfire and green magic. I think assigning wildfire as part of normal (i.e. red) fire magic is a big and misleading mistake, made by readers and Targaryen kings alike. Wildfire will not hatch dragon eggs or transform Targs into red-magic dragons. It's fundamentally green magic, which is why 1) it's always described in organic terms--Aery's "fruit", the blood of a great beast as it leaks from a ship in the Blackwater, a living demon of flame--and 2) it works better for green-eyed Cercei and Tyrion than it ever did for any Targ. Because they are green-magic descendants and Cercei especially may be a latent green-magic user. (All color of magics, of course, may be used for good or ill.)

 

ETA: It's also very possible (even likely) that ice magic itself is not fundamentally human, that ice elementals existed before blue magic ever came to Westeros, but blue magic and ice magic work well together so by this point they've become conflated in human history. 

[Blind Beth the Cat Lady]

10 hours ago, hiemal said:

This is to a large extent a spitball, equal parts tinfoil and intuition, but...

In light of idea of the elements and certain symmetries that may or may not be present, I have been toying with the idea of there being for each of the elements certain traits that are manifest in the tangible objects that represent them.

For the element of earth, I am ascribing the materials weirwood, both fresh and fossilized, and the properties of generation and decay. The elixir, made of weirwood paste and other unknown ingredients (possibly blood, possibly human), acts upon the mind and the body of one who is suitable, attuning them to the weirnet and possibly beginning a presumably symbiotic relationship with the roots. What it would do to someone who was not a greenseer or not a First Man are unknown.

This seems spot-on, if we consider earth magic separately from "green magic" which I think we should do.

I also wonder if sea water in some ways acts as an elixir for "grey magic," slowly transforming the right person into...idk...at least transforming them to have greater rapport with the Drowned God. Aeron seems to fantasize about being sustained by seawater as Mel fantasizes about being sustained only by the fire of R'hllor. 

10 hours ago, hiemal said:

For the element of fire I have the materials dragonglass and dragonsteel and the traits of purification and consumption (hmmm, is that right? I'm not talking about TB). My guess for the elixir is wildfire or something close to it. Some of the Targaryans at least believed that under some circumstance it could lead to a very physical transformation. Whether there are conditions that were not met, the "substance" was not prepared properly, or there is simply no truth to the idea I have no real idea, but it is more interesting to assume there is some spark of truth among the smoke. It is interesting that wildfire burns green, one of the colors that burns underwater in one of Patchface's moments.

As I said above, I don't think it's wildfire; the fiery nature of wildfire misdirects from its fundamental green nature. It may have to do with some other sort of transformation, though, just not dragon-based. Meeting the Green Men may be very educational. 

There does seem to be a fire transformation process, as we see happening with Melisandre, but I guess it's unclear what kicks it off. I'm guessing something to do with fire itself. She gets her smoking blood as she's staring into the flames. Moqorro also seems to fire-transform Victarion in some way, using actual fire. 

And shadows seem to play a roll as well. I tend to think shadow is not its own element, but that Mel is correct saying shadows are servants of flame. (MMD's use of fire and shadow-servants seems to back this up IMO) Though I do think she's incorrect interpreting all usage of fire as inherently good; clearly its not. But red priests do seem to know a lot more about fire transformation than Targs ever did, so I tend to trust her words in that particular area.

10 hours ago, hiemal said:

For the element of darkness or shadow (which I propose to be a thing, btw, and I think the existence of shadow-binding backs me up) I speculate that the material is oily black stone and the properties are illusion and corruption. The elixir is shade-of-the-evening, which seems to derange the mind and may or may not lead ultimately to something like the Undying or the merlings. I'm torn on that one.

I have no elixirs on tap for water, air, or light. If there existed one for water it was probably lost with the fall of the Rhoynar (or has something to do with greyscale). If Ice were an element I could imagine an elixir that transformed humans into Others but I could as easily imagine them doing so by some other method. The traits of water would be those of creating and sustaining, while ice would be preservation and stasis.

I tend to think Greyscale is not a normal part of Rhoynar water magic. I think of Rhoynar magic as "pink magic", as they are remembered for a beautiful pink-stone city and their magic seemed mostly fun and positive (and pro-woman). Greyscale is a much darker thing, to the point I wonder if it's actually a form of "gray magic" and not to do with usual Rhoynar stuff. Gray and pink also have a certain synchrony--pink the color of healthy flesh, gray the color of dead flesh (if you're caucasian, which let's be honest is definitely Martin's default human color scheme). So the Rhoynar "pink magic" is perhaps the bright side of the darker "gray magic" of the Ironborn? Maybe someone who can use one type can theoretically use both types? 

10 hours ago, hiemal said:

Air is mentioned so little I have no real speculation- I can recall only one mention of aeromancers in Asshai and the Storm God is the only representative of that power I can even guess at.

IMO, air and fresh water are part of "earth magic," potentially controlled by greenseers. I'm not sure what kind of human magic correlates to aeromancers...and we've heard so little about them that it doesn't seem very important to the story. 

10 hours ago, hiemal said:

As for light, if it is a thing, the only material I can find is the ore from which Dawn was forged. I would guess that its properties would be illumination and restoration. The Maiden-Clothed-In-Light is a good fit for divine representation.

So, incomplete and wildly speculative as it is, I can't help but wonder if there isn't something here.

 

Hm, "light magic" may be star- and space-based magic. Dawn is supposed to be forged from a fallen star, and Maiden Made of Light seems likely to be a star or constellation, perhaps the Starry Wanderer who represents the Maid, or the constellation of the Moon Maid. (If you ask me or Evolett; LmL thinks it's the sun, which is still a star, so it still works kind of.) This may relate to Church of Starry Wisdom? Maybe they have an elixir infused with meteorite dust that makes you more in tune with the stars...

 

[hiemal]

I am loving the color angle, it makes a lot of sense. Time to put on my thinking cap and absorb and stew.

Off the top of my head, though:  I reckon  violet would be a good match for water if the Palace of Love is any indication of the Rhoynar and grey is a natural fit with shadow, Green and red puzzle me a bit, as weirwood have white bark and red leaves and dragonglass is black and wildfire burns green. The idea of human magic/non-human magic could have explanatory legs. I will be pondering that especially in light of the nature of eyes, catlike or gemlike.

Thanks for diving in!

 

[Blind Beth the Cat Lady]

6 minutes ago, hiemal said:

I am loving the color angle, it makes a lot of sense. Time to put on my thinking cap and absorb and stew.

Off the top of my head, though:  I reckon  violet would be a good match for water if the Palace of Love is any indication of the Rhoynar and grey is a natural fit with shadow, Green and red puzzle me a bit, as weirwood have white bark and red leaves and dragonglass is black and wildfire burns green. The idea of human magic/non-human magic could have explanatory legs. I will be pondering that especially in light of the nature of eyes, catlike or gemlike.

Thanks for diving in!

 

True about the Palace of Love. And violet is probably the rainbow shade closest to pink. Purple/pink may be thematically conflated in violet in this story. Would make a lot of sense actually. 

And to further complicate green and red, greenseers can also have red eyes, seemingly without any difference in abilities. o.O

I will also be eager to hear about and dialog with your thoughts on eyes. I have a long running interest in eyes, especially gemstones & eyes.

 

[Isobel Harper]

19 minutes ago, hiemal said:

I am loving the color angle, it makes a lot of sense. Time to put on my thinking cap and absorb and stew.

Off the top of my head, though:  I reckon  violet would be a good match for water if the Palace of Love is any indication of the Rhoynar and grey is a natural fit with shadow, Green and red puzzle me a bit, as weirwood have white bark and red leaves and dragonglass is black and wildfire burns green. The idea of human magic/non-human magic could have explanatory legs. I will be pondering that especially in light of the nature of eyes, catlike or gemlike.

Thanks for diving in!

 

He had left her in her chambers, bent over a gaming table opposite Prince Trystane, pushing ornate pieces across squares of jade and carnelian and lapis lazuli. - AFfC, The Soiled Knight

Jewels danced when he moved his hands; onyx and opal, tiger's eye and tourmaline, ruby, amethyst, sapphire, emerald, jet and jade, a black diamond, and a green pearl.  - ADwD, Tyrion I

Regarding the color theme (and I'm just kinda spit-balling here too), red, green, and blue are recurring color schemes in ASoIaF: the three forks of the Trident, for example.  Red, green, and blue can be paired with three of the four basic elements referred to in the series, and the religions associated with them: fire (The Red Priests), earth (Children of the Forest), and ice/water (The Others/Ironborn (The Drowned God)).  (Air isn't really touched on, is it?)  Red, green, and blue are the primary colors of a prism, so I'm tempted to say that it touches on the Seven in some way.  The Seven teaches that the Gods can be interpreted as aspects of a single God, so why not all the religions in the series as being an interpretation of one God?

Anywho, don't wanna get to off-topic.

We have blue and red in the Shade of the Evening tree and the Weirwood, as well as black and white (black, white, and grey is another common color scheme).  What's missing is the grey and the green.  I think this is the grey-green sentinel. 

Will turned away, wordless. There was no use to argue. The wind was moving. It cut right through him. He went to the tree, a vaulting grey-green sentinel, and began to climb. Soon his hands were sticky with sap, and he was lost among the needles.  Fear filled his gut like a meal he could not digest. He whispered a prayer to the nameless gods of the wood, and slipped his dirk free of its sheath. ... It was cold. Shivering, Will clung more tightly to his perch. His face pressed hard against the trunk of the sentinel. He could feel the sweet, sticky sap on his cheek.  A shadow emerged from the dark of the wood. It stood in front of Royce. ... They emerged silently from the shadows, twins to the first. Three of them… four… five… Ser Waymar may have felt the cold that came with them, but he never saw them, never heard them. Will had to call out. It was his duty. And his death, if he did. He shivered, and hugged the tree, and kept the silence. - AGoT, Prologue

In the AGoT Prologue, the grey-green sentinel plays an active role in not only protecting Will, but also the Others, whose armor is said to have matched the grey-green of the trees.  Will prays to the "gods of the wood" while up in the sentinel and comes into direct physical contact with the sentinel's sap various times in this scene.

In short, I think there is something significant here, but am not sure exactly what to deduce from it.

3 minutes ago, Blind Beth the Cat Lady said:

 True about the Palace of Love. And violet is probably the rainbow shade closest to pink. Purple/pink may be thematically conflated in violet in this story. Would make a lot of sense actually. 

And to further complicate green and red, greenseers can also have red eyes, seemingly without any difference in abilities. o.O

I will also be eager to hear about and dialog with your thoughts on eyes. I have a long running interest in eyes, especially gemstones & eyes.

 

Purple and pink are common colors that describe dawn: https://asearchoficeandfire.com/?q=purple+pink&scope%5B%5D=agot&scope%5B%5D=adwd&scope%5B%5D=acok&scope%5B%5D=twow&scope%5B%5D=twoiaf&scope%5B%5D=asos&scope%5B%5D=thk&scope%5B%5D=affc&scope%5B%5D=tss

Red, green, and gold (and sometimes black, green, and gold) are another common color scheme.  It is present mostly in Daenerys chapter, and usually alludes (directly or indirectly) to her dragons.  Red, green, and gold (in addition to the black, white, and grey color scheme) are also the colors of the Stark direwolves.  Jon's white wolf has red eyes. Robb, Sansa, Arya, and Bran's grey wolves have gold eyes.  Rickon's black wolf has green eyes.

 

[hiemal]

Nice catch with the sentinel pines- GRRM brings them up far too often for them to not to be standing sentry over something interesting. Sentinel pines seem to mark a kind of arboreal barrier, as the tree line. Boundary conditions and all that, perhaps?

Some fascinating worms in this colorful can!

[Blind Beth the Cat Lady]

1 hour ago, Isobel Harper said:

He had left her in her chambers, bent over a gaming table opposite Prince Trystane, pushing ornate pieces across squares of jade and carnelian and lapis lazuli. - AFfC, The Soiled Knight

Jewels danced when he moved his hands; onyx and opal, tiger's eye and tourmaline, ruby, amethyst, sapphire, emerald, jet and jade, a black diamond, and a green pearl.  - ADwD, Tyrion I

Regarding the color theme (and I'm just kinda spit-balling here too), red, green, and blue are recurring color schemes in ASoIaF: the three forks of the Trident, for example.  Red, green, and blue can be paired with three of the four basic elements referred to in the series, and the religions associated with them: fire (The Red Priests), earth (Children of the Forest), and ice/water (The Others/Ironborn (The Drowned God)).  (Air isn't really touched on, is it?)  Red, green, and blue are the primary colors of a prism, so I'm tempted to say that it touches on the Seven in some way.  The Seven teaches that the Gods can be interpreted as aspects of a single God, so why not all the religions in the series as being an interpretation of one God?

Anywho, don't wanna get to off-topic.

We have blue and red in the Shade of the Evening tree and the Weirwood, as well as black and white (black, white, and grey is another common color scheme).  What's missing is the grey and the green.  I think this is the grey-green sentinel. 

Will turned away, wordless. There was no use to argue. The wind was moving. It cut right through him. He went to the tree, a vaulting grey-green sentinel, and began to climb. Soon his hands were sticky with sap, and he was lost among the needles.  Fear filled his gut like a meal he could not digest. He whispered a prayer to the nameless gods of the wood, and slipped his dirk free of its sheath. ... It was cold. Shivering, Will clung more tightly to his perch. His face pressed hard against the trunk of the sentinel. He could feel the sweet, sticky sap on his cheek.  A shadow emerged from the dark of the wood. It stood in front of Royce. ... They emerged silently from the shadows, twins to the first. Three of them… four… five… Ser Waymar may have felt the cold that came with them, but he never saw them, never heard them. Will had to call out. It was his duty. And his death, if he did. He shivered, and hugged the tree, and kept the silence. - AGoT, Prologue

In the AGoT Prologue, the grey-green sentinel plays an active role in not only protecting Will, but also the Others, whose armor is said to have matched the grey-green of the trees.  Will prays to the "gods of the wood" while up in the sentinel and comes into direct physical contact with the sentinel's sap various times in this scene.

In short, I think there is something significant here, but am not sure exactly what to deduce from it.

Purple and pink are common colors that describe dawn: https://asearchoficeandfire.com/?q=purple+pink&scope%5B%5D=agot&scope%5B%5D=adwd&scope%5B%5D=acok&scope%5B%5D=twow&scope%5B%5D=twoiaf&scope%5B%5D=asos&scope%5B%5D=thk&scope%5B%5D=affc&scope%5B%5D=tss

Red, green, and gold (and sometimes black, green, and gold) are another common color scheme.  It is present mostly in Daenerys chapter, and usually alludes (directly or indirectly) to her dragons.  Red, green, and gold (in addition to the black, white, and grey color scheme) are also the colors of the Stark direwolves.  Jon's white wolf has red eyes. Robb, Sansa, Arya, and Bran's grey wolves have gold eyes.  Rickon's black wolf has green eyes.

 

I may be reaching on this, but in general I find Clash to have a lot of War for the Dawn/Long Night allegories. Somehow I never put together that comet description in the prolog--red gash bleeding in a pink and purple sky...may be allegorical of the red-magic Bloodstone Emperor 's stabbing of the Amethyst Empress. And the pink & purple dawns may be subtly associating AE and violet magic with Dawn. Which makes sense given Daynes sometimes have violet eyes.

Good catch on dragons and direwolves having similar color scheme.

[aryagonnakill#2]

On ‎2‎/‎7‎/‎2016 at 11:24 PM, hiemal said:

This is to a large extent a spitball, equal parts tinfoil and intuition, but...

In light of idea of the elements and certain symmetries that may or may not be present, I have been toying with the idea of there being for each of the elements certain traits that are manifest in the tangible objects that represent them.

For the element of earth, I am ascribing the materials weirwood, both fresh and fossilized, and the properties of generation and decay. The elixir, made of weirwood paste and other unknown ingredients (possibly blood, possibly human), acts upon the mind and the body of one who is suitable, attuning them to the weirnet and possibly beginning a presumably symbiotic relationship with the roots. What it would do to someone who was not a greenseer or not a First Man are unknown.

For the element of fire I have the materials dragonglass and dragonsteel and the traits of purification and consumption (hmmm, is that right? I'm not talking about TB). My guess for the elixir is wildfire or something close to it. Some of the Targaryans at least believed that under some circumstance it could lead to a very physical transformation. Whether there are conditions that were not met, the "substance" was not prepared properly, or there is simply no truth to the idea I have no real idea, but it is more interesting to assume there is some spark of truth among the smoke. It is interesting that wildfire burns green, one of the colors that burns underwater in one of Patchface's moments.

For the element of darkness or shadow (which I propose to be a thing, btw, and I think the existence of shadow-binding backs me up) I speculate that the material is oily black stone and the properties are illusion and corruption. The elixir is shade-of-the-evening, which seems to derange the mind and may or may not lead ultimately to something like the Undying or the merlings. I'm torn on that one.

I have no elixirs on tap for water, air, or light. If there existed one for water it was probably lost with the fall of the Rhoynar (or has something to do with greyscale). If Ice were an element I could imagine an elixir that transformed humans into Others but I could as easily imagine them doing so by some other method. The traits of water would be those of creating and sustaining, while ice would be preservation and stasis.

Air is mentioned so little I have no real speculation- I can recall only one mention of aeromancers in Asshai and the Storm God is the only representative of that power I can even guess at.

As for light, if it is a thing, the only material I can find is the ore from which Dawn was forged. I would guess that its properties would be illumination and restoration. The Maiden-Clothed-In-Light is a good fit for divine representation.

So, incomplete and wildly speculative as it is, I can't help but wonder if there isn't something here.

 

Shadows cannot exist without light, I do not believe they are elemental.  I think actually that if there is anything to this, that shade of the evening is the air elixir.  Pyat Pree tells Dany he can give her something that will let her see air currents or something like that, and then later Euron uses the Worlocks to find a previously unknown current that brings them out into the sunset sea and then back in to the shield isles.

[hiemal]

Air would work for me, and not require a countering element. Linking it to OBS might be tricky, but if it could be done it would be good symmetry.

I'll be looking for clues during my current reread.