So, Winter has Come, The Long Winter

[littleRickon]

Yeah, I'm aware of that. Doesn't mean we can't try to make sense of it. I was interedted to know what's the minimum change from reality (the magic) that allows you to explain the seasons in Westeros. My answer: Kepler's second law doesn't hold - instead the planet moves around the sun at whatever the speed it "magically" wants. That explains what we see while keeping in line with what we know, like "the days were already getting shorter".

I agree, it's not a terribly relevant topic. As a physicist, it's something I like to think about. Putting together the clues, even the ones the author didn't put in intentionally, is fun. But yeah, it's not like we will discover another hidden layer of meaning here.

[A spoon of knife and fork]

57 minutes ago, littleRickon said:

Yeah, I'm aware of that. Doesn't mean we can't try to make sense of it. I was interedted to know what's the minimum change from reality (the magic) that allows you to explain the seasons in Westeros. My answer: Kepler's second law doesn't hold - instead the planet moves around the sun at whatever the speed it "magically" wants. That explains what we see while keeping in line with what we know, like "the days were already getting shorter".

I would agree that magic speed change is simplest.  The only problem with this is that things like ages in calendar years are known as well (and are equivalent to earth years).  Like Jon is known to be 14 at the start, etc.  How are years a separate concept if the planet doesn't rotate Around then sun once per year?  Where would the idea of a year even come from?

i suppose we could imagine that a calendar was "set" in some distant past, back before magic seasons started - and to keep sense of things like name days and holidays and such, they stuck with it even after the seasons got out of whack?

[Larger than Average Finger]

9 hours ago, A spoon of knife and fork said:

I would agree that magic speed change is simplest.  The only problem with this is that things like ages in calendar years are known as well (and are equivalent to earth years).  Like Jon is known to be 14 at the start, etc.  How are years a separate concept if the planet doesn't rotate Around then sun once per year?  Where would the idea of a year even come from?

i suppose we could imagine that a calendar was "set" in some distant past, back before magic seasons started - and to keep sense of things like name days and holidays and such, they stuck with it even after the seasons got out of whack?

Is it that much different than large parts of this world using lunar months for their religious calendar?  I understand its not exactly the same, but conceptually there are the seasons and there is the way in which time is recorded.  To us it makes sense to link the two, but others have chosen not to.

[A spoon of knife and fork]

3 hours ago, Larger than Average Finger said:

Is it that much different than large parts of this world using lunar months for their religious calendar?  I understand its not exactly the same, but conceptually there are the seasons and there is the way in which time is recorded.  To us it makes sense to link the two, but others have chosen not to.

I mean sure, if they counted their ages in months.  But they don't - they clearly use something like a 12 month calendar.  Why would that be?  What doe s ayear mean if it takes more than a year to go around the sun?  

[littleRickon]

22 hours ago, A spoon of knife and fork said:

I would agree that magic speed change is simplest.  The only problem with this is that things like ages in calendar years are known as well (and are equivalent to earth years).  Like Jon is known to be 14 at the start, etc.  How are years a separate concept if the planet doesn't rotate Around then sun once per year?  Where would the idea of a year even come from?

i suppose we could imagine that a calendar was "set" in some distant past, back before magic seasons started - and to keep sense of things like name days and holidays and such, they stuck with it even after the seasons got out of whack?

I think this is exactly what GRRM said in one of his interviews. Again, sorry, I don't have the reference, but I distinctly remember a thread where they talked about him saying that the seasons haven't always been messed up - and might not always be. In that line, people got used to count in (normal) years, developed habits like name-days etc. Then, when the seasons became irregular, they kept those names and traditions, but turned to the lunar cycle as the measure for time progress.

While the concept of years is a problem for any explanation of seasons, I don't think it's specific to the "arbitrary orbital velocity" model. We know that seasons can last "years", yet the concept of a year is (at least for us) based on the passage of seasons. That contradiction is right there in the source material, and any explanation will have this flaw.