God's Eye: An Ancient Asteroid Impact Crater?

[LmL]

4 minutes ago, Blue Tiger said:

Sorry if someone has already noticed this - I admit I haven't read the whole thread.

I think this whole scene shows whole history of Gods Eye. 

Firstly, some celestial catastrophe happens (IMO Second Moon's destruction, but really it doesn't matter), sending debris/metheors down to Plannetos.

"Prince Daemon took Caraxes up swiftly, lashing him with a steel-tipped whip until they disappeared into a bank of clouds. Vhagar, older and much the larger, was also slower, made ponderous by her very size, and ascended more gradually, in ever widening circles that took her and her rider out over the waters of the Gods Eye. The hour was late, the sun was close to setting, and the lake was calm, its surface glimmering like a sheet of beaten copper. "

The metheors (or whatever) enter upper atmosphere. Smaller fragments, assuming that there was some kind of explosion, reach Planetos faster than that larger chunk of rock. This makes no sense when it comes to gravity - but logically the parts of whatever celestial body that were closer to the explosion broke into smaller pieces and gained bigger momentum than larger (less affected) parts. 

So, smaller meteors enter atmosphere as first, but they burn.

Calm lake glimmering like a copper = that area before the cataclysm, just flat earth.

The attack came sudden as a thunderbolt. Caraxes dove down upon Vhagar with a piercing shriek that was heard a dozen miles away, cloaked by the glare of the setting sun  - this paragraph evokes Thor and his hammer Mjolnir, and let's compare this to this passage from ACoK:

'The air was full of birds, crows mostly. From afar, they were no larger than flies as they wheeled and flapped above the thatched roofs. To the east, Gods Eye was a sheet of sun-hammered blue that filled half the world. Some days, as they made their slow way up the muddy shore (Gendry wanted no part of any roads, and even Hot Pie and Lommy saw the sense in that), Arya felt as though the lake were calling her. She wanted to leap into those placid blue waters, to feel clean again, to swim and splash and bask in the sun.'

Note the 'lake were calling here' - pararelling the COTF 'calling down the Hammer of Waters'. On the shore of Gods Eye there is:

'.... a holdfast called Briarwhite, some fieldhands surrounded them in a cornfield, demanding coin for the ears they'd taken. Yoren eyed their scythes and tossed them a few coppers. "Time was, a man in black was feasted from Dorne to Winterfell, and even high lords called it an honor to shelter him under their roofs," he said bitterly. "Now cravens like you want hard coin for a bite of wormy apple." He spat.'

Briarwhite plays the role of weirwood here, hinting that COTF or human greenseers did it - after all they live on isle which is now in the middle of the lake.

So bright did their flames burn that fisherfolk below feared the clouds themselves had caught fire. Locked together, the dragons tumbled toward the lake - So there might have been two large meteors that crashed into each other high above it.

'Daemon ripped off his nephew’s helm and drove the sword down into his blind eye, so hard the point came out the back of the young prince’s throat. Half a heartbeat later, the dragons struck the lake, sending up a gout of water so high that it was said to have been as tall as Kingspyre Tower.' 

 Sword driven into blind eye is meteor hitting the future lake. Note that Aemond's eye socket is empty, dry - just like the hole would be dry and empty right after the crash. Over many years it'd fill with water, creating our modern Gods Eye.

Aemond One Eye (note the Odin imagery - some say that story of Odin's lose of one eye to gain wisdom was used to explain why the sky has only one eye - sun) lost his eye to Lucerys Velaryon - and Velaryons have strong connections with greenseers and sea dragons (via Driftwood Throne, High Tide castle etc) - that gives us another clue who is responsible for creating Gods Eye - a dragonlord greenseer - we can go even further and use 'Bloody Wyrm' and the rest of that black and red sky imagery to coclude who is directly responsible - Azor Ahai himself, the Bloodstone Emperor - he is the one who 'cast down the true gods', by 'stealing' their eye.

The 'piercing shriek that was heard a dozen miles away' might actually be Nissa Nissa's cry of anguish and ecstasy.

 

 

 

I think you have most of this right, and I had not noticed the connection to a Velaryon being the one who took Aemond's eye. Very fitting, and that will certainly go into an upcoming essay.  I actually did talk about this scene in the Mountain vs. The Viper and the Hammer of the Waters, though I held back a bit because I have not officially laid out the concept of the God's Eye yet. But this scene is really great, it has the whole picture. Daemon targaryen, the Lord of Bloodstone, and Bloodwyrm the red dragon, are pretty clear symbols of red comets and fiery red meteor dragons. They attack cloaked in the glare of the setting sun - that means that they get in between the sun and Vhagar before attacking. It's the eclipse alignment, with Daemon playing the role of flaming dragons that come from the exploding fire moon. He's not the red comet, and Vhagar isn't the moon which gave birth to dragons. No, this is all post moon explosion imagery. What's happening is that Aermon One Eye, who has a star sapphire in his blind eye and rides a hoary white dragon, is the ice moon. Daemon shows us the meteors coming from the fire moon, from the sun / fire moon conjunction which IS the original God's Eye.  You are familiar with that, right? The God's Eye represents the sun / moon conjunction which happened at the time of the comet strike. The sun is the eyeball, the moon is the pupil. That's what my logo depicts. Anyway...

So Daemon and the red dragon fall from the celestial God's Eye, a fire moon meteor streaking through the blood streaked sky at sunset (as the LN falls). He strikes the ice moon, and everything about the fight shows us fire moon meteors being embedded in the ice moon. Daemon himself leaps from the red dragon to the white, showing us the meteor inhabiting or skinchanging the ice moon. He also shoves dark sister, a black steel sword (#1 moon meteor symbol) into the cold star sapphire eye of Aemond. That's as literal as you can get - a black meteor being stuck into the ice moon. The both dragons fall into the God's Eye, mimicking the original impact event, where the God's Eye was in effect blinded by the comet. That is what Serwyn tale is all about - the eye of Urrax the dragon is the God's Eye, and the spear thrown is the red comet. The tale flips around the sword wielder though; instead of seeing the comet as a sword in the hands of the sun, it is a spear in the hands of the ice moon. Serwyn the white knight was haunted by the ghosts of those he slew just as the ice moon is haunted with the ghost (black meteor) of the slain fire moon. 

And again the Velaryon connection is awesome, because once more we are being shown a greenseer dragon bringing down the moon. As for Aemond's sacrifice of his one eye in regards to Odin, yes, absolutely - he gave up his eye but gained a white dragon. Sounds familiar right?

Even the winking icon is ironic! Ha!

And yes, Odin losing his eye is linked to the sun and moon, as are many myths which equate them with he eyes of god, such as the Horus myth. That's why Martin conceiving the God's Eye as a celestial alignment of sun and moon is far from out of the ordinary.  As an aside, this equates the moon itself with the Isle of Faces - hence, I would not be surprised to see black stone somewhere on the Isle itself. My fantasy tinfoil is that the black stone smith have been used there to create the Others or undead greenseers or something like that. But that aside, the equation of the moon with the Isle of Faces suggests a direct link or association between greenseers and those moon meteors. 

 

[LmL]

12 minutes ago, sweetsunray said:

Oh absolutely. Geologically speaking we're talking about hundred thousands of years ago here imo, not ten thousand, which sort of fits the world book. For most places we have some remnant of a legendary astronomical or geological event: the Iron Islands, the Neck, the Arm, Hardhome, Doom of Valyria, Ashai, Starfall, heck even the moon destruction. We don't have stories about the Gods Eye creation though. We only have the Pact story, which establishes that it was already long there. The oral leftovers about the Gods Eye lacking any origin story also suggest it predates the oral witnesses on Westeros.

Now @LmL that's not necessarily an issue for your mythological astronomy. The comet returns, and it's a cycle. Maybe the "crack of the moon" part of the legends was a deducted legend: that is the crack on the moon's face may have been there before mankind made a story about it. They might not even have bothered with the crack initially. It's not until the moon kisses the sun and pours dragons out with devestating results that mankind could deduce how the crack on the moon's face may have gotten there. Maybe the Gods Eye is an impact crater of the crack of the moon event that might predate at least humans.

For all we know it might be a crater impact that brought the building blocks of life onto the planet. I could see the lake and its island as a source of life. 

Yes it's impossible to know how many cycles there may have been. My theory is flexible in general and is not dependent on any one part of it. It doesn't fall apart if I am wrong about a coupe of things - I expect this is the case, since I am not a delusional egomaniac.  But I also think that it is possible GRRM is playing loose with the science here and that even though an impact lake that looks like the God's Eye should been hundreds of thousands and possibly millions of years old, it might not be. How much did George research impact craters, or meteor impacts, or any of this? To make a fantasy story, it's not necessary to have the kind of expertise a sic-fi author would have. George seems to simply be basing his magic ideas on loose scientific principles - dragonglass is literally cooled magma, so it has fire magic power. Dragons are like flying volcanoes or falling meteors. In real life, a comet would not explode a moon unless the moon was very very tiny and the comet very very big, and maybe this is what George has in mind, but I expect the answer is that the moon and comet were magic, and it made a big magical explosion.

So for the God's Eye, it's possible he was thinking that one of the meteor impacts in Westeros should create a crater lake which would then become a sacred spot. That's hardly strange - this has happened in the real world, minus the lake part (people making shrines or temples where meteors land).  If Martin wanted a crater lake for this reason, he might have just taken a few pictures of crater lakes and drawn one on his map. Not sure there needs to be any more science to it than that. 

As for the timeline, it's not worth the paper it isn't written on, you know? We are told the greenseers called down the Hammer from the Isle of Faces... but elsewhere we are told they called it down form the Children's Tower at Moat Cailin. It could be either one or neither. I definitely think the Isle of Faces is associated with the events of the Hamemr, but these events could easily be shuffled around. I already assert that the Hammer of the Waters event took place at the time of the Long Night - that indeed, the Hammer was really a moon meteor impact which helped to cause the Long Night. I do agree the Pact came after the Hammer, but I think this is all happening concurrent with the Long Night, not thousands of years before. The Hammer is called down by my naughty greasers (who I do not think were children, although that's beside the point), the Long Night falls, the children at some point help mankind defeat Others and survive the Long Night, and after that, the First Men are so grateful to the cotf and impressed with heir power that they take up their religion and practices. In this scenario, it could be true that the Pact was signed on the newly formed Isle of Faces, a few years after it was formed, after the LN was over. 

[Bluetiger]

4 minutes ago, LmL said:

I think you have most of this right, and I had not noticed the connection to a Velaryon being the one who took Aemond's eye. Very fitting, and that will certainly go into an upcoming essay.  I actually did talk about this scene in the Mountain vs. The Viper and the Hammer of the Waters, though I held back a bit because I have not officially laid out the concept of the God's Eye yet. But this scene is really great, it has the whole picture. Daemon targaryen, the Lord of Bloodstone, and Bloodwyrm the red dragon, are pretty clear symbols of red comets and fiery red meteor dragons. They attack cloaked in the glare of the setting sun - that means that they get in between the sun and Vhagar before attacking. It's the eclipse alignment, with Daemon playing the role of flaming dragons that come from the exploding fire moon. He's not the red comet, and Vhagar isn't the moon which gave birth to dragons. No, this is all post moon explosion imagery. What's happening is that Aermon One Eye, who has a star sapphire in his blind eye and rides a hoary white dragon, is the ice moon. Daemon shows us the meteors coming from the fire moon, from the sun / fire moon conjunction which IS the original God's Eye.  You are familiar with that, right? The God's Eye represents the sun / moon conjunction which happened at the time of the comet strike. The sun is the eyeball, the moon is the pupil. That's what my logo depicts. Anyway...

So Daemon and the red dragon fall from the celestial God's Eye, a fire moon meteor streaking through the blood streaked sky at sunset (as the LN falls). He strikes the ice moon, and everything about the fight shows us fire moon meteors being embedded in the ice moon. Daemon himself leaps from the red dragon to the white, showing us the meteor inhabiting or skinchanging the ice moon. He also shoves dark sister, a black steel sword (#1 moon meteor symbol) into the cold star sapphire eye of Aemond. That's as literal as you can get - a black meteor being stuck into the ice moon. The both dragons fall into the God's Eye, mimicking the original impact event, where the God's Eye was in effect blinded by the comet. That is what Serwyn tale is all about - the eye of Urrax the dragon is the God's Eye, and the spear thrown is the red comet. The tale flips around the sword wielder though; instead of seeing the comet as a sword in the hands of the sun, it is a spear in the hands of the ice moon. Serwyn the white knight was haunted by the ghosts of those he slew just as the ice moon is haunted with the ghost (black meteor) of the slain fire moon. 

And again the Velaryon connection is awesome, because once more we are being shown a greenseer dragon bringing down the moon. As for Aemond's sacrifice of his one eye in regards to Odin, yes, absolutely - he gave up his eye but gained a white dragon. Sounds familiar right?

Even the winking icon is ironic! Ha!

And yes, Odin losing his eye is linked to the sun and moon, as are many myths which equate them with he eyes of god, such as the Horus myth. That's why Martin conceiving the God's Eye as a celestial alignment of sun and moon is far from out of the ordinary.  As an aside, this equates the moon itself with the Isle of Faces - hence, I would not be surprised to see black stone somewhere on the Isle itself. My fantasy tinfoil is that the black stone smith have been used there to create the Others or undead greenseers or something like that. But that aside, the equation of the moon with the Isle of Faces suggests a direct link or association between greenseers and those moon meteors. 

 

To be honest, I admit I've read Hammer of Waters only once... Lol I need Mythical Astronomy re-read. I'll just put it on my 'Things to do list', on place 974 798 133, right after 'Read whole ASOIAF in English again' and 'Read whole ASOIAF concentrating on symbolism'.

Speaking of Isle of Faces, perhaps the most important location of this story, if you look at TWOIAF artwork entitled 'The Pact' the COTF in the background are standing on some large black rock - a coincidence?

 

 

[LmL]

45 minutes ago, Blue Tiger said:

To be honest, I admit I've read Hammer of Waters only once... Lol I need Mythical Astronomy re-read. I'll just put it on my 'Things to do list', on place 974 798 133, right after 'Read whole ASOIAF in English again' and 'Read whole ASOIAF concentrating on symbolism'.

Speaking of Isle of Faces, perhaps the most important location of this story, if you look at TWOIAF artwork entitled 'The Pact' the COTF in the background are standing on some large black rock - a coincidence?

 

 

Also, the splash form the dragons hitting the lake sent up a spout of water higher than Kingpyre Tower, equating their splash with the smoke of a pyre - a meteor impact, in other words. Of course the dragon attacking like a thunderbolt simply shows that the Storm God's thunderbolt = moon meteor dragon. 

As for re-reading, hey, at least I make it easy on you by recording an audio version

[sweetsunray]

53 minutes ago, LmL said:

Yes it's impossible to know how many cycles there may have been. My theory is flexible in general and is not dependent on any one part of it. It doesn't fall apart if I am wrong about a coupe of things - I expect this is the case, since I am not a delusional egomaniac.  But I also think that it is possible GRRM is playing loose with the science here and that even though an impact lake that looks like the God's Eye should been hundreds of thousands and possibly millions of years old, it might not be. How much did George research impact craters, or meteor impacts, or any of this? To make a fantasy story, it's not necessary to have the kind of expertise a sic-fi author would have. George seems to simply be basing his magic ideas on loose scientific principles - dragonglass is literally cooled magma, so it has fire magic power. Dragons are like flying volcanoes or falling meteors. In real life, a comet would not explode a moon unless the moon was very very tiny and the comet very very big, and maybe this is what George has in mind, but I expect the answer is that the moon and comet were magic, and it made a big magical explosion.

So for the God's Eye, it's possible he was thinking that one of the meteor impacts in Westeros should create a crater lake which would then become a sacred spot. That's hardly strange - this has happened in the real world, minus the lake part (people making shrines or temples where meteors land).  If Martin wanted a crater lake for this reason, he might have just taken a few pictures of crater lakes and drawn one on his map. Not sure there needs to be any more science to it than that. 

As for the timeline, it's not worth the paper it isn't written on, you know? We are told the greenseers called down the Hammer from the Isle of Faces... but elsewhere we are told they called it down form the Children's Tower at Moat Cailin. It could be either one or neither. I definitely think the Isle of Faces is associated with the events of the Hamemr, but these events could easily be shuffled around. I already assert that the Hammer of the Waters event took place at the time of the Long Night - that indeed, the Hammer was really a moon meteor impact which helped to cause the Long Night. I do agree the Pact came after the Hammer, but I think this is all happening concurrent with the Long Night, not thousands of years before. The Hammer is called down by my naughty greasers (who I do not think were children, although that's beside the point), the Long Night falls, the children at some point help mankind defeat Others and survive the Long Night, and after that, the First Men are so grateful to the cotf and impressed with heir power that they take up their religion and practices. In this scenario, it could be true that the Pact was signed on the newly formed Isle of Faces, a few years after it was formed, after the LN was over. 

Well, on the aside, George is also a sci-fi writer

But geology aside, while we may have meteor scene allusions, we don't actually have in world origin stories about the Gods Eye. Doesn't that strike you as odd? If we have origin stories about the Neck and the Arm, about the sea dragon in relation to the Grey King, no matter how conflicting they may be, and if Gods Eye was formed of a related event in same related foggy times of the Long Night, then surely we'd have an in world oral origin story, from men's POV or even CotF POV transmitted to the men they made a pact with. But we don't have such a story at all.

It's the holiest of the holiest places and unrelated to king seats, except for Harren who seems to troll the Green Men by building the biggest castle on its shores, and he hardly got to enjoy the result of it. Sure, we have comet-related worhsip places, such as Starfall or Nagga's Ribs, but men made it their seat of power. Gods Eye never was a seat of power for men. Sure we have other groves, such as the one where Bloodraven sits, High Hill (hacked down), probably the Fist, and while some of those are hard to get to, the isle of the Gods Eye is protected really by magic alone. It would be less physically difficult to take a boat and get to the isle than it is to journey to a cave beyond the Wall as a boy who can't walk. And yet by all accounts it's impossible to go there, unless invited, and the majority of people don't even seem all that interested in trying, as if the idea doesn't even occur to them, except for Arya. It's not like Starfall, not like Nagga's ribs, not like the Fist, and it sure isn't "broken". 

And then the name. It's not the Children's Eye, or even the sun's Eye or the Eye of the First Men. It's the Gods Eye, the place where the gods can watch the world, can see what's in animals and humanoids hearts. The Gods mentioning should not be overlooked, not when George uses names to indicate mythologically related time framing, with the Fist of the First Men (the Age of Men) or with the Age of Heroes. The naming suggests it stems from the Age of the Gods, the age of creation and origin, before men, before heroes.

 

[Maester of Valyria]

On 03/01/2017 at 5:57 PM, LmL said:

How distant in your mind?

At least in the tens to hundreds of thousands of years ago range. I tend to believe that geological formations are often best explained by natural processes, and in this case I am sticking to the abundance of geological evidence demonstrating that the God's Eye was carved by glacial action. That is not to say by any means that there are not other possible explanations, that's just my opinion as warranted by the information I consider most relevant.

On 03/01/2017 at 9:40 PM, Blue Tiger said:

Sorry if someone has already noticed this - I admit I haven't read the whole thread.

Not at all! A very interesting find there, and a good explanation. Thanks for that

On 03/01/2017 at 9:50 PM, sweetsunray said:

Oh absolutely. Geologically speaking we're talking about hundred thousands of years ago here imo, not ten thousand, which sort of fits the world book. For most places we have some remnant of a legendary astronomical or geological event: the Iron Islands, the Neck, the Arm, Hardhome, Doom of Valyria, Ashai, Starfall, heck even the moon destruction. We don't have stories about the Gods Eye creation though. We only have the Pact story, which establishes that it was already long there. The oral leftovers about the Gods Eye lacking any origin story also suggest it predates the oral witnesses on Westeros.

Oh good. I agree that the timeline doesn't match up with the geological evidence, which is one of the reasons I am so pro-mundane cause on this issue.

Sidenote: I believe that most of the locations you list there can in fact be explained by volcanic activity (which we have mostly discounted as a potential cause for the God's Eye I think?).

On 03/01/2017 at 9:50 PM, sweetsunray said:

Maybe the Gods Eye is an impact crater of the crack of the moon event that might predate at least humans.

For all we know it might be a crater impact that brought the building blocks of life onto the planet. I could see the lake and its island as a source of life. 

IIRC, wouldn't that contradict Lml's theory? Apologies if I'm remembering wrong.

I would be careful with assumptions like that, do we know enough about evolution and the spread of life on Planetos? Genuine question: I'd love to read a topic about that.

 

On 03/01/2017 at 10:13 PM, LmL said:

But I also think that it is possible GRRM is playing loose with the science here and that even though an impact lake that looks like the God's Eye should been hundreds of thousands and possibly millions of years old, it might not be. How much did George research impact craters, or meteor impacts, or any of this? To make a fantasy story, it's not necessary to have the kind of expertise a sic-fi author would have. George seems to simply be basing his magic ideas on loose scientific principles

While I do think this is valid, and of course magic plays a big role in the series, GRRM definitely does his research. He's proved that on countless occasions in many different areas. It's even possible to identify volcanoes and tectonic plate boundaries (my personal favourite) by looking at the geographical evidence on the maps. So I think to claim that GRRM doesn't take the science into consideration when writing is a tad disingenuous. Plus he is also a sci-fi writer The magic can augment the science as you suggest, sure.

On 03/01/2017 at 10:15 PM, Blue Tiger said:

Speaking of Isle of Faces, perhaps the most important location of this story, if you look at TWOIAF artwork entitled 'The Pact' the COTF in the background are standing on some large black rock - a coincidence?

Very very interesting...the artwork is only semi-canon but you might have hit upon something there. Good spot!

[sweetsunray]

14 minutes ago, Maester of Valyria said:

I believe that most of the locations you list there can in fact be explained by volcanic activity (which we have mostly discounted as a potential cause for the God's Eye I think?).

Those that are legends and stories related to volcanic activity are Hardhome and the Doom. Ashai is possible, but the oily stone suggests meteorites.

The Neck and the Arm could be plate tectonics or meteor impact. There are no stories imo indicative of volcanic activity. Both events would also cause tidal waves, but with fire taken from the sky elements meteors seems most likely.

Starfall has nothing to do with volcanic activity whatsoever. That's very clearly a meteorite story.

I agree that we could exclude volcanic activity for the Gods Eye. Just because there's evidence of volcanic activity beneath WF and at Hardhome, does not mean there's evidence for it in the Riverlands. Westeros is as big as the Americas. In Europe Iceland and Italy have active volcanoes. But there's no activity whatsoever in the Netherlands or Belgium or Britain and Ireland. And when there's volcanic activity it's usually in multiple locations nearby. If the Riverlands once had a volcano as big to form the Gods Eye, you'd need a pyroclastic collapse to create a huge caldera with a maar, and you would find evidence for it in the area. We lack any such evidence.

26 minutes ago, Maester of Valyria said:

IIRC, wouldn't that contradict Lml's theory?

While I often agree with LmL's finds of scenes that symbolize parallels of astronomical events, I hope I'm still free to make up my own mind in the details?  

[sweetsunray]

29 minutes ago, Maester of Valyria said:

I would be careful with assumptions like that, do we know enough about evolution and the spread of life on Planetos? Genuine question: I'd love to read a topic about that.

We don't know much, other than that the world book states that the Giants seem to be the oldest race in Westeros, then the Children of the Forest and they lived in Westeros, not always peacefully, for thousands of years without humans.

[Maester of Valyria]

6 minutes ago, sweetsunray said:

Those that are legends and stories related to volcanic activity are Hardhome and the Doom. Ashai is possible, but the oily stone suggests meteorites.

The Neck and the Arm could be plate tectonics or meteor impact. There are no stories imo indicative of volcanic activity. Both events would also cause tidal waves, but with fire taken from the sky elements meteors seems most likely.

Starfall has nothing to do with volcanic activity whatsoever. That's very clearly a meteorite story.

Hardhome and the Doom are beyond reasonable doubt volcanic events. The Shadowlands are I believe also volcanic as they lie near a plate margin, the Neck may be as well. I believe the Arm was more a case of rising sea levels (although indirectly linked to volcanoes: top link in my signature). We're agreed on Starfall and the God's Eye 100%.

12 minutes ago, sweetsunray said:

While I often agree with LmL's finds of scenes that symbolize parallels of astronomical events, I hope I'm still free to make up my own mind in the details?

Yes of course, I didn't mean to imply otherwise.

 

11 minutes ago, sweetsunray said:

We don't know much, other than that the world book states that the Giants seem to be the oldest race in Westeros, then the Children of the Forest and they lived in Westeros, not always peacefully, for thousands of years without humans.

Hmm right. I did a quick search and found nothing. Shame really.

It's interesting you bring up giants. I postulate an evolutionary (well, natural selection) link between them and the Jhogwin in my theory on the Ifeqevron.

[LmL]

@Maester of Valyria do you have a link to your evidence for the Gods Eye as a glacial lake? I've heard you talk about this before but I am not familiar with the evidence. 

Did you happen to watch that youtube video I linked to about the Gods Eye being a crater lake?

[Maester of Valyria]

25 minutes ago, LmL said:

@Maester of Valyria do you have a link to your evidence for the Gods Eye as a glacial lake? I've heard you talk about this before but I am not familiar with the evidence. 

Did you happen to watch that youtube video I linked to about the Gods Eye being a crater lake?

I outlined my evidence earlier in this topic, but there's a very good synopsis on this webpage.

I'm afraid I seem to have missed that, and I can't seem to find the link on the last few pages. I'd very much like to watch it though.

EDIT: never mind, found it.

[Bluetiger]

28 minutes ago, LmL said:

@Maester of Valyria do you have a link to your evidence for the Gods Eye as a glacial lake? I've heard you talk about this before but I am not familiar with the evidence. 

Did you happen to watch that youtube video I linked to about the Gods Eye being a crater lake?

Well... If that impact happened during The Long Night, then surely that area would be covered by glaciers - I imagine some glacier that came down from the Mountains of the Moon is source of Gods Eye's water.

As that TPaTQ quote shows, Daemon drove his sword into Aemond's sapphire eye - we can either interpret it as meteor hitting glacier (Brienne often compares water around Tarth to sapphires, so sapphire eye = ice) or as meteor hitting  land - creating giant hole (empty socket) which was later filled with water from glaciers.

This suggests that glacier was hit:

Quote

And it was then, the tales tell us, that Prince Daemon Targaryen swung a leg over his saddle and leapt from one dragon to the other. In his hand was Dark Sister, the sword of Queen Visenya. As Aemond One-Eye looked up in terror, fumbling with the chains that bound him to his saddle, Daemon ripped off his nephew’s helm and drove the sword down into his blind eye, so hard the point came out the back of the young prince’s throat. Half a heartbeat later, the dragons struck the lake, sending up a gout of water so high that it was said to have been as tall as Kingspyre Tower.

Surely, such gout of water would be sent up if large object hit enormous ice block.

Actually, that might be the truth behind flooding of the Neck - glacier was destroyed, creating those boggs and marshes.

Btw, Here we have a dragonlord going to Isle of Faces:

Quote

The dragon was Seasmoke, his rider Ser Addam Velaryon, determined to prove that not all bastards need be turncloaks. How better to do that than by retaking Tumbleton from the Two Betrayers, whose treason had stained him? Singers say Ser Addam had flown from King’s Landing to the Gods Eye, where he landed on the sacred Isle of Faces and took counsel with the Green Men. The scholar must confine himself to known fact, and what we know is that Ser Addam flew far and fast, descending on castles great and small whose lords were loyal to the queen, to piece together an army.

Also, LML I think I know why there are so many Targaryen stillborn babies - they are a hint about the sea dragons, just like Aegon's ships - they all die in wombs, and here wombs are metaphor for lakes or water in general (just like the Womb of World, the sacred lake of the Dotkraki). House Velaryon is another clue.

[LmL]

2 hours ago, Blue Tiger said:

Well... If that impact happened during The Long Night, then surely that area would be covered by glaciers - I imagine some glacier that came down from the Mountains of the Moon is source of Gods Eye's water.

As that TPaTQ quote shows, Daemon drove his sword into Aemond's sapphire eye - we can either interpret it as meteor hitting glacier (Brienne often compares water around Tarth to sapphires, so sapphire eye = ice) or as meteor hitting  land - creating giant hole (empty socket) which was later filled with water from glaciers.

I think the blue star sapphire represents a blue star - namely, the ice moon and meteors which come from it. Just as the red star woman represents the fire moon,  and just as the corpse queen with blue star eyes had moon pale skin - she is a symbol of an icy moon.  the thing is, ice moons are covered in glaciers, and I very strongly believe that the heart of Winter functions as a parallel to the ice moon, just as Asshai serves as a parallel to the fire moon. In other words, hitting an ice moon and hitting a glacier is much the same, especially in terms of symbolism. If there is an upcoming moon disaster of some kind at the end of the story, and lots of icy flooding.

Quote

This suggests that glacier was hit:

Surely, such gout of water would be sent up if large object hit enormous ice block.

Actually, that might be the truth behind flooding of the Neck - glacier was destroyed, creating those boggs and marshes.

Btw, Here we have a dragonlord going to Isle of Faces:

Also, LML I think I know why there are so many Targaryen stillborn babies - they are a hint about the sea dragons, just like Aegon's ships - they all die in wombs, and here wombs are metaphor for lakes or water in general (just like the Womb of World, the sacred lake of the Dotkraki). House Velaryon is another clue.

In general, the moon meteors are synonymous with Lightbringer, the child of sun and moon.  It is in every way a dead baby, like Rhaego.

[Maester of Valyria]

2 hours ago, LmL said:

Did you happen to watch that youtube video I linked to about the Gods Eye being a crater lake?

Ok, all caught up now.

AnAmericanThinks makes several interesting points in the video you link to. I have a few quibbles:

• I'm afraid he largely ignores the potential for glacial action to have carved the lake, even to dismiss it with evidence.
• Several times he mentions the sheer size of the God's Eye on the maps. I have a few problems with this:
  • First: we know that GRRM isn't great with distances and sizes etc.
  • Second: natural features on the maps may be drawn (in-universe) disproportionately large because they are still prominent features on the landscape and technological constraints mean accurate measurements are impossible.
  • The maps in the books and Lands are intentionally inaccurate, again to keep a sense of realism, highlight prominent features and maintain a sense of ambiguity for the reader

That said, the God's Eye certainly is very large.

• If indeed an impact was responsible for the lake, then it was so long ago that all evidence of a crater wall has been lost to time.
• Contrary to AnAmericanThinks' assertion, during previous ice ages the glaciers did in fact come down all the way to the Riverlands, as evidenced by the vast expanse of flat land in the region, as well as all the way up through the centre of the North. If this process was repeated erosion could easily carve out the God's Eye (it would be nice to know more about the underlying geology of the region: my guess would be the lake's basin is made of softer rock than the surrounding area). The Isle of Faces could be explained by an erosion-resistant area of harder rock being present, or by the glacier being horseshoe shaped, curving around the Isle which remained connected to the mainland. Over time this land bridge was worn away as well.
• The Isle of Faces is shown to be a different shape in different map collections. I believe that it is actually fairly small, just exaggerated on the maps to make it more obvious.

In entry 1.5  into this video series, AnAmericanThinks brings up Black Duck Lake. It seems to me that the God's Eye may have started out this way and then undergone erosion and weathering.

Lake Nicaragua is also mentioned. AnAmericanThinks dismisses the possiblility of the lake being a volcanic formation. I am inclined to agree with him but if it were then other possibilities of volcanic landforms in the area include the Neck and the Mountains of the Moon.

 

Finally, AnAmericanThinks posits a truly enormous meteorite for the role of God-maker (heh). Such an impact would represent an extinction level event for most surface life, including all large animals. No human civilisation could survive. Therefore, if the lake was indeed created by a meteorite impact, it would have to have been millions of years ago, long enough for evolution to have pushed up humanity from smaller and less intelligent lifeforms (like our ancestors after the dino-killer) in the intervening time.

 

[Waters Gate]

I won't be the only one who has ever wondered what the nature of ligthbringer is. Not so much in the sense in what it exactly is, but what it eactly does to "bring light".

The threat that is the long night for a large part seems to be about the others, but otoh it's also about a genneration long winter and perhaps darkness too. The latter can certainly be the cause of a meteor inpact, but are the others then waiting for those things to drop to commence their invasions? Perhaps they see it comming, a meteor has been visible for a while, not sure about the timing in regard to the appearence of the others and the meteor though, but they could have spotted it earlier perhaps.

But then, is it lightbringers function to bring a sollution to a cataclysimic meteor inpact? One can understand Lightbringer as a weapon against the others, but also against climate change?

Though an option i have considered to the nature of lightbringer is that it would create a safe area around which humans could survive in such a climate change scenario, being less a sword and more a device that allows humans to survive trough the long night, i have considered the hightower for that function before.

Don't get me wrong, i think this thread is great work and i feel somewhat compelled to believe that a meteor did fall on the gods eye, but i'm not sure if the long night resulted from that. Crucially, how does lightbringer and Azor Ahai solve the issue of a long winter caused by a meteorite rather than so much being a device against the others?

 

 

[LmL]

12 minutes ago, Waters Gate said:

I won't be the only one who has ever wondered what the nature of ligthbringer is. Not so much in the sense in what it exactly is, but what it eactly does to "bring light".

The threat that is the long night for a large part seems to be about the others, but otoh it's also about a genneration long winter and perhaps darkness too. The latter can certainly be the cause of a meteor inpact, but are the others then waiting for those things to drop to commence their invasions? Perhaps they see it comming, a meteor has been visible for a while, not sure about the timing in regard to the appearence of the others and the meteor though, but they could have spotted it earlier perhaps.

But then, is it lightbringers function to bring a sollution to a cataclysimic meteor inpact? One can understand Lightbringer as a weapon against the others, but also against climate change?

Though an option i have considered to the nature of lightbringer is that it would create a safe area around which humans could survive in such a climate change scenario, being less a sword and more a device that allows humans to survive trough the long night, i have considered the hightower for that function before.

Don't get me wrong, i think this thread is great work and i feel somewhat compelled to believe that a meteor did fall on the gods eye, but i'm not sure if the long night resulted from that. Crucially, how does lightbringer and Azor Ahai solve the issue of a long winter caused by a meteorite rather than so much being a device against the others?

 

 

I have to admit,  I don't even have a theory as to how the long night was actually ended.  I think everyone can grasp the idea of a magic sword being used to defeat the others, whether through combat or through simply bringing light or heat in a more magical sense.. and of course I'm fairly well convinced that the long night was the result of meteor impacts... but as I always say, we know there's a component of magic at work. I operate on the working assumption that George is taking natural cataclysms like a volcanic eruption or a meteor strike and simply trumping them up with magic, as he did with the Doom, so this meteor impact should also have magical fall out in addition to the smoke and Ash and debris that meteor impacts throw up into the atmosphere.  there's really not a rational way to think about somehow chasing away the clouds and smoke of an impact winter - at least not that I can think of. I would think that the key has to be whatever the magical effects of the meteor impacts were.  that should be the mechanism that needs to be reversed, and that's the only way I can think of that humans on the ground could take an action which would end the long night.  the meteor impacts affected the equilibrium of planetos through magic somehow, and this must be restored I would think. But again, I don't really have a good theory as to how that works. My speculation would run towards ideas about the meteors being toxic comma having some sort of evil magical influence that needs to be neutralized or transmuted. @ravenous reader, any ideas?

[ravenous reader]

7 minutes ago, LmL said:

@ravenous reader, any ideas?

I haven't read the whole thing in depth, but one thing I can say is that you can't apply geophysical principles with scientific precision to GRRM -- since he's gone and muddied it up, the way he muddles around the genetics, by introducing all kinds of whimsical fancies and above all a dimension of morality into the mix -- the idea we've discussed previously that human beings somehow brought about the cataclysm via a transgressive gesture of 'original sin', i.e. 'abomination' and a long inherited concatenation of transgenerational mishaps.  Therefore, you can't apply a narrow view of the science, the same way a solid knowledge of medicine, biology and genetics is not going to help you, because GRRM is resorting to what we'd call 'magical thinking' in the realm of anthropology and psychology.  That's a good way of thinking about it: Astronomy and Geophysics meets Anthropology and Psychology (with an emphasis on Forensic Psychology!)

I'll return later (like the errant lion child that I am...) 

[LmL]

3 hours ago, ravenous reader said:

I haven't read the whole thing in depth, but one thing I can say is that you can't apply geophysical principles with scientific precision to GRRM -- since he's gone and muddied it up, the way he muddles around the genetics, by introducing all kinds of whimsical fancies and above all a dimension of morality into the mix -- the idea we've discussed previously that human beings somehow brought about the cataclysm via a transgressive gesture of 'original sin', i.e. 'abomination' and a long inherited concatenation of transgenerational mishaps.  Therefore, you can't apply a narrow view of the science, the same way a solid knowledge of medicine, biology and genetics is not going to help you, because GRRM is resorting to what we'd call 'magical thinking' in the realm of anthropology and psychology.  That's a good way of thinking about it: Astronomy and Geophysics meets Anthropology and Psychology (with an emphasis on Forensic Psychology!)

I'll return later (like the errant lion child that I am...) 

That actually wasn't what I was asking your opinion on, haha. I was specifically asking your opinion on my last comment, and the issue of how one goes about ending a long night which was caused by a comet impact. The question would be the same if you think the long night is the result of a volcanic winter. Normally these things end on their own because the smoke and Ash gradually dissipates. But if we are looking for some sort of more heroic mechanism... What would it be? We have talked about ways in which a human magician might steer a comment into a move - clearly this idea relies on Magic, but we have things laying around like horns and songs and greenseer magic which might be able to do it. But how do we clear the skies? How does this happen in a way which is connected to some sort of human action?

[Waters Gate]

Even in real life we wouldn't be able to, some volcanic erruption happens and we endure it too, as to particle's in the atmosphere we can only try not to add to much ourselfs. Trees clean up aerial pollution to some extend, but i don't think you can weirwood yourself out of this one, though there is some magic there and the iron islands used to have an ygdrasil by lore.

Alternativly atleast the dragons can get "up there" and maybe do something magical? Something something sacrifice? Sounds quite farfetched.

I have thought about the relation of "lightbringer" and the end of the long night a lot before. Crucially to me is that "lightbringer" is called just that and not "other slayer". lightbringer could always be somethign abstract rather than a literal flaming sword, that it would be usefull against the others seems logical at first but it doesn't have to be it's main function, indeed i always considered it's function primarily to be "to bring light" in darkness.

We could have gotten the impression that Dawn might have automaticly come when the others were defeated, as if winter came and went with them. When the explenation would just have been "magic" like that, there would hardly have been much of a reason to build more legend around it, including the comet and especially in regards to "darkness". At the very least there seems to be plenty of religious aspects to it with the great other and the lord of Light who in turn seem to have a connection to astronomical elements.

As to astronomical ellements i have done some research in there aswell and i think there is a lot of value in it. It's not so much about astronomical science though rather than astronomical religion. The stars and planets are part of many religious pantheons in this world as it was in ours, and there are legends regarding astral objects that have some practical effect in the real world. A very good example of this is the Aztecs and the legend of Quetzalcotl. I presume LML knows the legend and it's connections to the books given such names like the "dawnstar" (venus) and the practical real life event of Hernan Cortez being (by legend) seen as this legendary "god who would return from the east". The meat of this then seem to be about comparing historical interpretations of astronomical events to how Planetosi interpret theirs, and then the real life events that followed upon it.

So one perception i had was that lightbringer might be something that brings about astronomical chances, though more in a magic than science sort of way, as if there had been a fight going on between gods among the stars and that lightbringer had to set things right. In that sense the last line of "left a crack on the face of the moon"  in the AA legend had always been an interresting one as to equate the function of lightbringer to something that would bring about astronomical changes. So was the usage of things like "30 days and 30 nights", the first could have hinted to the same moon. Most notobly when going this route the most likely thing for lightbringer to be would be a comet, and the red comet sure was candidate for a "red flaming sword" too. (too make things a bit complicated)

Another alternative for me would be that Lightbringer is something that brings light/heat to an area around it, an area large enough to support farming during the long night and to ward of others from entering that zone. Lightbringer then wouldn't nessecarily bring about dawn rather than allow humans to survive until dawn arrives and to use dawn as a time to throw the others back to the north. That would work with the comet, but then lightbringer might not be so much a litteral flaming swords rather than a heat/energy source.

What would be rather weird would be to see humans to defeat the others (perhaps with help of Azor Ahai) just to find out that it doesn't bring about Dawn and they still have to wait a few gennerations before the atmospheric dust/the long night to go away.

You recognise that problem, it's just hard to make a judgement in regards to comets and the purpose they serve. You know the story of how the bloodstone Emperor came to worship a mysterious stone that had fell from the sky, appearing to make that meteor an magical entity rather than just a rock. A metor inpact is an "option". But perhaps another option is that the meteor has a function in the story now as a object of magic currently being used by the Cotf.

 

 

[Turandokht]

I don't mean to revive too old of a thread, but it was this thread that sparked my interest in actually joining the forum. 

On 1/5/2017 at 0:24 PM, sweetsunray said:

Those that are legends and stories related to volcanic activity are Hardhome and the Doom. Ashai is possible, but the oily stone suggests meteorites.

The Neck and the Arm could be plate tectonics or meteor impact. There are no stories imo indicative of volcanic activity. Both events would also cause tidal waves, but with fire taken from the sky elements meteors seems most likely.

Starfall has nothing to do with volcanic activity whatsoever. That's very clearly a meteorite story.

I agree that we could exclude volcanic activity for the Gods Eye. Just because there's evidence of volcanic activity beneath WF and at Hardhome, does not mean there's evidence for it in the Riverlands. Westeros is as big as the Americas. In Europe Iceland and Italy have active volcanoes. But there's no activity whatsoever in the Netherlands or Belgium or Britain and Ireland. And when there's volcanic activity it's usually in multiple locations nearby. If the Riverlands once had a volcano as big to form the Gods Eye, you'd need a pyroclastic collapse to create a huge caldera with a maar, and you would find evidence for it in the area. We lack any such evidence.

While I often agree with LmL's finds of scenes that symbolize parallels of astronomical events, I hope I'm still free to make up my own mind in the details?  

Sweetsunray, I appreciate the effort you put into this, but I feel you're overlooking a volcano, which is probably a hotspot -- and hotspots like to produce fairly predictable lines of eruptive events. Dragonstone, of course, is only three hundred miles from the Gods Eye, and we don't know all that much about any potential volcanic activity between the two. Driftmark is further west, and might conceivably be an extinct volcano just like the Gods Eye is. An impact crater is even so, surely more likely; but I think that one might imagine for practical reasons that if there was still a legacy of volcanic activity in the Gods Eye then it would be a natural place for an order of Greenseers to use as a holdfast because the lake might remain ice free during a really bad winter...