To touch the light you must pass beneath THE SHADOW: Two moons, geosynchronous orbit, and the nature of the shadow by Asshai

[LmL]

On October 18, 2016 at 4:51 PM, Kurus said:

The corona projects well outside the diameter of our own sun, and also it would depend on the stellar characteristics of the star in question. Also, the corona might indeed not be visible all the time, but might be visible sometimes.

As to the duration of time the sun would be blocked out, it could be blocked out far longer if the apparent size of the moon was much larger, as it would be if it were very close to the surface.

I believe the biggest hole in my theory is found in neither of the two comments you bring up, but in that Stygai only seems to get sunlight AT midday. That is why I posited my "hole through the moon" idea, but that is admittedly grasping at straws. I still like the idea of a moon hanging overhead, though, in the context of the "Shadows in the Moonlight"/Stygia connection.

Hey @Kurus, cool speculation here.  I wanted to briefly say that I have a facet of my theory which I haven't talked about yet which is sort of close to your thinking here. 

Mao, the capital S Shadow. Is it the moon's shadow? I say yes, but only kind of. Think of it as more like the ghost or shade of the moon. Nissa Nissa is analogous to the second moon which died in dragonbirth, and her soul and blood and strength and courage was all sucked up by Lightbringer the vampire sword. So what was left? 

Her shadow. An empty corpse, so to speak. I think about the moon meteors the same way. There's some indication in TWOIAF that it is the stone itself which "drinks the light" and makes everything dark. So when a large piece of that burnt and blackened fire moon feel to earth at Asshai, it brought with it the moon's shadow, in a manner of speaking. 

When Mel talks about the fiery heart of R'hllor, the God of flame and shadow, that heart is (I think) the heart which was ripped out of the moon. It's a black heart. It's actually the same image as the black moon eclipse surrounded by penumbra, fwiw. So basically I think about the "Shadow's heart" (as it is called) as the black moon meteor which may be poisoning the land in that area. It's a moon shadow in a less literal way. 

A similar idea is that before the fire moon went kaput, it was magically linked to the heart of summer which Asshai might have once been, and of course the heart of winter linked to the ice moon. When the fire moon was burned and blackened, Asshai and the peninsula simply manifested the same sickness, like ET and Elliot. This would still be the moon's shadow hanging over Asshai, but again not in so literal a sense. 

[LmL]

@Kurus I like all your speculation about the possible motives of the BSE and what he may have been trying to do. That's a fun thing to imagine. If we can accept that magicians might have a way to steer comets and moons, the question immediately becomes "why." Maybe there wasn't a second moon but an asteroid moon which the Bloodstone Emperor wisely steered in between Planetos and the huge comet that was about to hit us and wipe out all life. This would get the sacrifice aspect of Nissa Nissa. And moons do indeed take impacts for the planets they "guard". 

However, I believe that the themes point to a general hubris on the part of the BSE / AA (who I think are the same person) - it's all about stealing the fire of the gods, becoming a god-man, etc. The most likely motivation was personal power, I think. 

[cgrav]

I picture a story in which the BSE performs the initial sacrifice and moon smashing with heroic intentions but is then corrupted by the power he realizes he has. It's a twist on the classic "hero's sword" theme, in which heroes never come down from the peak of their moral arc. Being a big LoTR fan, I can't help but see the BSE as being like Isildur: he did one awesome heroic deed and then became corrupted by power, condemning future generations to years of bloodshed.

I like the idea that what first looks like a simple hero myth deep in the past of Planetos may be a more complex story of righteousness going to ruin and then being redeemed in part by the following generation. The evil was locked away for a while, but has found a chance to reemerge. The present narrative is about finally  ending the conflict begun millennia before (though I think GRRM might leave it a bit more ambiguous than "happy ever after"). 

 

[Kurus]

He has come.

[Kurus]

@LML:

1) I still fall a little bit on the "Secret Sci Fi" part of the line, probably because that's just how my mind works. It also strikes me that there are nigh-on-irrefutable links to the thousand worlds: Bakkalon, Lomas Longstrider, Lizard Lions, the Veil, and potentially the Theta, among others. The theory proposed here doesn't totally make scientific sense, and the info we have on Stygai doesn't seem to add up. I will keep digging though.

2) Check out my Ghiscari Dawn Post back on the world of Ice and Fire. It's essentially a "fan" made continuation of children of the dawn. I would really, really, really like to see what you think about it, and if you have any thoughts on any of the other peoples of Essos.

I need to see if I can pick some more stuff to directly support my thesis for a literal shadow. Right now it's just at more of a "I think it's cool" stage. I fully agree that there is something going on with an eclipse. I really like the idea

@cgrav: the ending of a millennia long conflict is basically what I'm arguing Daenerys is turning away from in not taking peace with the slavers seriously. That's in the Ghiscari Dawn too. It's a little ranty, but whatevs.

Basically, I like the idea of something still being up there. something bad.

[LmL]

1 hour ago, Kurus said:

He has come.

* puff of smoke *

* checks pentagram for broken lines *

50 minutes ago, Kurus said:

@LML:

1) I still fall a little bit on the "Secret Sci Fi" part of the line, probably because that's just how my mind works. It also strikes me that there are nigh-on-irrefutable links to the thousand worlds: Bakkalon, Lomas Longstrider, Lizard Lions, the Veil, and potentially the Theta, among others. The theory proposed here doesn't totally make scientific sense, and the info we have on Stygai doesn't seem to add up. I will keep digging though.

I certainly agree that there are many themes and ideas and even characters incubating in his 1000 worlds stories which are realized in ASOIAF, for sure. What I object to is when people try to find a way things which are magical in ASOIAF might not be magical. That seems foolish, because this is a fantasy series which is explicitly stated to be a magical world. However, George is an SF writer and he seems to base his magical ideas on loosely scientific concepts (I always use the Doom and dragonglass as examples, as you know), so I think it is good to think along semi-rational lines, as long as you take magic into account (meaning, don't try to write magic out of the equation) and don't take scientific accuracy to far. Even in his sci-fi is loose with details and physics. He's a storyteller, blah blah blah. I think we're mostly on the same page here. I didn't have a problem with how you thought your theory though at all.  

50 minutes ago, Kurus said:

2) Check out my Ghiscari Dawn Post back on the world of Ice and Fire. It's essentially a "fan" made continuation of children of the dawn. I would really, really, really like to see what you think about it, and if you have any thoughts on any of the other peoples of Essos.

For sure, will do. I would have liked to continue that series but I went on to different topics. You read my one about the Dothraki, right? The other main Essos culture I wanted to get to was Qarth, but we are gonna talk about Qarth in the live Q&A this Saturday. I'll post the link here for that asap. 

I'll leave some feedback when I read your essay, cheers

50 minutes ago, Kurus said:

I need to see if I can pick some more stuff to directly support my thesis for a literal shadow. Right now it's just at more of a "I think it's cool" stage. I fully agree that there is something going on with an eclipse. I really like the idea

Yeah I think your idea is really cool too, even though I think it is unlikely. When I read it I was like "oh that's wicked, I wonder if..." and i had to think through various symbolism and whatnot to see if that could line up. There's nothing symbolically to really rule it out - I am sketchy on the impacts of the meteors on Planetos as far as details anyway, I just know a few of them hit and caused the darkness. I think the main thing that rules your idea out are the more logical, rational arguments which you guys hashed out above. That and the fact that Marwyn has been to Asshai and has described it to the maesters, per Yandel in TWOIAF, and we got a fair amount of detail, but nothing about a large object floating mysteriously above the peninsula. If Martin wanted to hide that kind of secret, he would have (imo) given us clues - it would have said the haze is too thick to see the sky clearly or some other excuse for why Marwyn wouldn't have perceived the low orbit moon. 

But symbolism-wise, I think you are right to connect the shadow that hangs over Asshai with he shadow of the moon which gave birth tot dragons. That is all correct... I just don't think it's a literal thing as you posited here. I think it's more a matter of the black meteors bringing some kind of magical shadow to the planet where they landed, especially at Asshai. But of course that's only a theory and I love to see people speculating along different lines.

50 minutes ago, Kurus said:

@cgrav: the ending of a millennia long conflict is basically what I'm arguing Daenerys is turning away from in not taking peace with the slavers seriously. That's in the Ghiscari Dawn too. It's a little ranty, but whatevs.

Basically, I like the idea of something still being up there. something bad.

 

[LmL]

12 hours ago, cgrav said:

I picture a story in which the BSE performs the initial sacrifice and moon smashing with heroic intentions but is then corrupted by the power he realizes he has. It's a twist on the classic "hero's sword" theme, in which heroes never come down from the peak of their moral arc. Being a big LoTR fan, I can't help but see the BSE as being like Isildur: he did one awesome heroic deed and then became corrupted by power, condemning future generations to years of bloodshed.

I can see something like that fitting; I am honing in on such conflicted, mixed-bag narratives for AA as well. My favorite idea is that his initial act was essentially hubristic and wrong-headed, probably an attempt to gain power as opposed to something as overly malevolent as trying to destroy the moon and the world because he's insane or something, and that he later worked towards his own redemption. The thing I am unsure of mostly is the role of AA's child or children. I feel strongly that either the LH or the NK was AA, and the LH was likely AA's son with a Westerosi woman... but what I do not know if it is the son committing evil at the Wall or the father. I guess I should mention that I do not think the NK lived after the LN, but during. He's the "Night's King" - of course he was the king of the Long Night. And that almost has to be Azor Ahai, or his son wearing the same symbolism and using the same magic, etc. But we don't know if the NK was really a villain, or if the LH was really a hero. Some have proposed the NK was sacrificing his children to the Others to keep a fucked up sort of peace pact, or that the LH could have essentially been a sacrifice (to atone for his own evil).

There are so many variations on how this could play out, but the point is that you are seeing the same sort of themes that I am. And twisting the idea of Isildur makes a ton of sense for Martin... and I think he might be doing a 'broken sword that is reforged' thing with Lightbringer and the LH's dragonsteel, which supports your notion. 

12 hours ago, cgrav said:

I like the idea that what first looks like a simple hero myth deep in the past of Planetos may be a more complex story of righteousness going to ruin and then being redeemed in part by the following generation. The evil was locked away for a while, but has found a chance to reemerge. The present narrative is about finally  ending the conflict begun millennia before (though I think GRRM might leave it a bit more ambiguous than "happy ever after"). 

 

Exactly, and I tend to think the conflict might not be ultimately resolved either, or at least that that is very possible. What's interesting is that the obvious tale would be the son atoning for or paying for the evil of his father... but don't we have examples of the opposite, such as the 79 sentinels? Rickard Stark? Perhaps Roose Bolton? (Ramsay is the bad son archetype, certainly) So we have to keep that idea in mind as well. Still, our main characters are all youngish people, so I assume they will atone for or pay for the sins of their parents and ancestors... that's the only thing that makes sense, since their parents are all dead.

[LmL]

@Lord Martin, you mentioned a lot of the things I did in my comments above when you commented on my thread, so I wanted to take you here. I more or less agree in full, but I expounded on that above.  

Oh and the OP is worth reading here too, it's pretty interesting and fun.

[cgrav]

12 minutes ago, LmL said:

Some have proposed the NK was sacrificing his children to the Others to keep a fucked up sort of peace pact, or that the LH could have essentially been a sacrifice (to atone for his own evil).

There are so many variations on how this could play out, but the point is that you are seeing the same sort of themes that I am. And twisting the idea of Isildur makes a ton of sense for Martin... and I think he might be doing a 'broken sword that is reforged' thing with Lightbringer and the LH's dragonsteel, which supports your notion. 

 

The consistent theme of moral ambiguity makes it tricky to tease out what happened so far back. It's easy to put a clear villain or hero in the past, but with 10,000 years distance it's hard to even tell what's good and bad. AA's words in the myth sound like he'd rather not stab his wife, but was it a Jamie Lannister-ish sacrifice of his own honor, or was it Littlefinger-esque euthanasia of his own conscience? It really brings to light how much we, as readers and people in general, use the lens of good vs evil not just to form opinions, but to determine facts, as well. 

Or what if AA was actually just like Stannis: a boring guy bumbling reluctantly through his terrible fate because he thinks he has to. Sort of an ancient Eichmann, the most mundane of evils. (hopefully I am only kidding, the real AA reborn better be way cooler than Stannis)

As for the reforging thing, I've been thinking it for a while. It might be the only Norse myth trope that hasn't shown up in the books yet, and the splitting of Ice seems to set it up so perfectly.

 You may have looked into this already, but for anyone else curious about Norse stuff: the Starks/North are utterly soaked in Norse mythology. Literally everywhere. There's even an important tree in Norse myth sometimes called the Branstock (barnstokkr). It was the household "guardian tree" in Sigmund's hall, occupying pretty much the same role as the Heart trees. One day Odin came and stuck the magical sword Gram in the Branstock, which only Sigmund could remove, and which was later shattered. Later on, Sigmund's son Sigurd needed to do some slaying, so he had a dwarf forge a sword. The first two attempts were of course failures, but the third time, he said the sword required material "not of this earth", so he got the shards of Gram and had them put back together. Three forgings, unearthly material... my money's on Ice, or half of it, being put back together to make the new magical sword. Ice + Dawn = new LB? One can only hope.

[Greywater-Watch]

And what does all of this mean for Daenerys? I assume she still has to fulfill Quaithe's prophecy.

[Victarion Chainbreaker]

So the Shadow is where the sun don't shine.

I like it.

The scientific explanations for it are kind of a stretch though. If there were a moon hanging 100 km up in the sky, you'd think it would be common knowledge.

George has said that magic is reason for the abnormal seasons, and I think we have to go that route with this. If the Long Night was when

Quote

the Maiden-Made-of-Light turned her back upon the world

then perhaps She continues to keep her back turned towards the Shadow.

[Lord Martin]

On October 21, 2016 at 0:43 AM, LmL said:

@Lord Martin, you mentioned a lot of the things I did in my comments above when you commented on my thread, so I wanted to take you here. I more or less agree in full, but I expounded on that above.  

Oh and the OP is worth reading here too, it's pretty interesting and fun.

Thanks LmL and cool thread here.

I don't want to hijack the OP.  But I think Asshai has to have been heavily affected by the moon meteor impacts.  Or perhaps instead, I wonder what happened to the original comet itself as it smashed through the moon.  Could it have landed near Asshai and be the cause of the taint over that land?

LmL makes some nice points to heads impaled on ash wood spears as being symbols of the moon meteors.  Asshai itself is at the end or "head" of the River Ash.  Rivers of course often have serpentine descriptions and Asshai is made of black stone.  So a black stone at the head of a snake or Ash river brings to mind the moon meteors.  

However, Asshai seems to be affected differently from other areas of Planetos that where moon meteors struck.  The arm of Dorne was broken and submerged.  The Iron Islands may have formed this way as well as the waters drowned whole islands.  So I again wonder if the comet itself landed near Asshai?

To carry this forward symbolically to the BSE, I think he is a real enigma of a tale.  LmL makes a very compelling case that he was a villain and the world book seems to set him as such.  The similarities to Night's King are certainly there.  But how often does history remember great figures accurately?  Especially those who make hard choices, unpopular choices or sacrifices for the greater good.  Jaime, Tyrion, Jon Snow, Ned Stark all could be misremembers as terrible people for the wrong reasons (King Slayer, Kin Slayer, Oath Breaker and Usurper/Betrayer)... just to give a few examples.

So I've come to think the NK might not have been all that bad.  Very hard to know.

But what I really love is LmL suggestion that characters can be "reborn" either through literal resurrection or through having a child.  In that sense the redemption of a single person can be a microcosm for the redemption of humanity.   In other words a reborn person could redeem themselves, but we all love the story of the son who fulfills his destiny by not walking in the shoes of their father (think Luke Sky Walker, Richard Rahl, just about any Greek hero, etc...)  We all love a good reception tale, why?  Because of what it says about humanity and the ability of one person to do good despite the odds against it.

So for that reason, I am very torn on the link between AA-LH-NK (and perhaps BtB).  LmL has the right of it, that all we can do currently is speculate.  

I will throw out one piece of speculation here however most inspired by LmL's and Aziz's GEOTD Q&A and the concept of magic swaping or trading.  Asshai is supposedly where dragons originated from  And there is some suggestion that the GEOTD were the first dragon lords.  But I think much of their dragon lore was "primitive" compared to say Valyrias.  Of course we know just how evil they turned out to be.

So I wonder if one of the magics the GEOTD wanted to learn from the CotF was warning, but not to warg as we know it, but to increase control over their dragons.

In fact, this sort of fits the Lightbringer multiple meanings pretty well.  

Many have theorized that the aid the CoTF gave to the LH was either a sword of Dragon Steel or the ability to forge it.  In other words they gave him Lightbringer which he used to defeat the Others.  But LmL's stock in trade is making comparisons between swords and dragons.  So perhaps the aid given by the CoTF was a higher level of dragon lore?  The ability to use Dragons as weapons to defeat the Others rather than a magic sword?  Hard to say, but I could see it happening.  In fact, both could be true.  There could have been a version of AA that wielded a sword and one that rode dragons.  Perhaps one pre-rebirth and one post or a father/son as LmL suggests.

This could make some sense then for Dany having to pass under the Shadow.  To the extent Dany is an AA reborn character, her weapon are the dragons themselves, not a sword.  So she could pass under the Shadow by riding her dragons east to Westeros rather than west over the narrow sea.  This would also enable both her and Jon to take on AA like aspects with neither really being perfect parallel.  But as Aunt/Nephew, there is a cool relation there that could echo an AA/LH/NK relationship.  Dany is the daughter of the Mad King.  He isn't quite the BSE, but there are some parallels, a crazy leader who marks the end of his line, the end of a dynasty...

Now to get totally tinfoil... what if the Amethyst Empress had a child?  A true heir that escaped the BSE?  Sort of a Jon hiding from Robert?  And where better to hide him/her than Westeros much like Ned hid Jon in the far north?  Could this be where House Dayne or Hightower comes from?  And could this nephew of the BSE have ended up taking on a major role in the Long Night?

[LmL]

26 minutes ago, Lord Martin said:

Now to get totally tinfoil... what if the Amethyst Empress had a child?  A true heir that escaped the BSE?  Sort of a Jon hiding from Robert?  And where better to hide him/her than Westeros much like Ned hid Jon in the far north?  Could this be where House Dayne or Hightower comes from?  And could this nephew of the BSE have ended up taking on a major role in the Long Night?

Yes, absolutely, there are a lot of parallels for such an idea. Even Edric Storm, though not a babe, is smuggled away from an Azor Ahai character - in this case their uncle who might have killed him to work blood magic. It gets tinfoil when you lock on to one specific narrative, but I feel ok about at least identifying potential narratives and relationships. I think there has to be more than one child of AA, I can say that much.

[Isobel Harper]

@LML

Quote

What I object to is when people try to find a way things which are magical in ASOIAF might not be magical. That seems foolish, because this is a fantasy series which is explicitly stated to be a magical world. 

"Magic is just science that we don't understand yet."  

I agree with you that ASoIaF is fantasy, not sci-fi.  However, there do seem to be connections in this series to other of GRRM's stories:  telepathy, telekinesis/Teek (sp?), races living underground, an apocalyptic event that blots out the sun.  These are all things that this series shares with some of GRRM'S other stories.

I personally don't think these allusions to GRRM'S past work makes the series sci-fi in itself, but is more an Easter egg for the fans of GRRM'S earlier work.  Does that make sense? 

 

[LmL]

11 hours ago, Isobel Harper said:

@LML

"Magic is just science that we don't understand yet."  

I agree with you that ASoIaF is fantasy, not sci-fi.  However, there do seem to be connections in this series to other of GRRM's stories:  telepathy, telekinesis/Teek (sp?), races living underground, an apocalyptic event that blots out the sun.  These are all things that this series shares with some of GRRM'S other stories.

I personally don't think these allusions to GRRM'S past work makes the series sci-fi in itself, but is more an Easter egg for the fans of GRRM'S earlier work.  Does that make sense? 

 

Oh yeah sure it does - and I'd go farther and say that his early works are incubators for ideas and characters which are fully realized in ASOIAF. What's interesting to note is that most of the things you just mentioned are actually fantasy elements that Martin brought into his sci-fi.

[Victarion Chainbreaker]

The more I think on it, the more convinced I am: The magical force that blocked out the sun during the Long Night is the same force blocking the sun from shining on the Shadow. 

I've read the theories that the Long Night was a nuclear winter caused by the comet/moon meteorite impact. That sounds a bit too scientific consider that George has said the explanation for the long seasons is magical, not scientific.

Edit: Not to say there wasn't a comet/moon meteorite impact or that it didn't indirectly cause the Long Night. I just find the idea of the Long Night being caused by airborne particles a bit too mundane.