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Heresy 195 and the Mists of Time


Black Crow

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There is also Varys on the opposing forces of magic although I am not sure what part he has played so far.

 

 

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A Clash of Kings - Tyrion X

Finally the eunuch cleared his throat. “My lord, do you believe in the old powers?”

“Magic, you mean?” Tyrion said impatiently. “Bloodspells, curses, shapeshifting, those sorts of things?” He snorted. “Do you mean to suggest that Ser Cortnay was magicked to his death?”

“Ser Cortnay had challenged Lord Stannis to single combat on the morning he died. I ask you, is this the act of a man lost to despair? Then there is the matter of Lord Renly’s mysterious and most fortuitous murder, even as his battle lines were forming up to sweep his brother from the field.” The eunuch paused a moment. “My lord, you once asked me how it was that I was cut.”

“I recall,” said Tyrion. “You did not want to talk of it.”

“Nor do I, but . . .” This pause was longer than the one before, and when Varys spoke again his voice was different somehow. “I was an orphan boy apprenticed to a traveling folly. Our master owned a fat little cog and we sailed up and down the narrow sea performing in all the Free Cities and from time to time in Oldtown and King’s Landing.

“One day at Myr, a certain man came to our folly. After the performance, he made an offer for me that my master found too tempting to refuse. I was in terror. I feared the man meant to use me as I had heard men used small boys, but in truth the only part of me he had need of was my manhood. He gave me a potion that made me powerless to move or speak, yet did nothing to dull my senses. With a long hooked blade, he sliced me root and stem, chanting all the while. I watched him burn my manly parts on a brazier. The flames turned blue, and I heard a voice answer his call, though I did not understand the words they spoke.

“The mummers had sailed by the time he was done with me. Once I had served his purpose, the man had no further interest in me, so he put me out. When I asked him what I should do now, he answered that he supposed I should die. To spite him, I resolved to live. I begged, I stole, and I sold what parts of my body still remained to me. Soon I was as good a thief as any in Myr, and when I was older I learned that often the contents of a man’s letters are more valuable than the contents of his purse.

“Yet I still dream of that night, my lord. Not of the sorcerer, nor his blade, nor even the way my manhood shriveled as it burned. I dream of the voice. The voice from the flames. Was it a god, a demon, some conjurer’s trick? I could not tell you, and I know all the tricks. All I can say for a certainty is that he called it, and it answered, and since that day I have hated magic and all those who practice it. If Lord Stannis is one such, I mean to see him dead.”

 

I've wondered who the certain man might be and if we have been introduced to him already.  The voice from the flames suggests a glass candle was used because I think candles are used in conjunction with burnt offerings in a brazier.  Something that is suggested when Sam meets Marwyn and in Bran's dream of the gargoyle/lions with eyes burning like hot coals.  Melisandre's ruby may be obsidion as well, not used just for glamor; but to enhance her ability to see visions in the flames.    
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5 hours ago, Feather Crystal said:

If the hatching of dragons reawakened magic in the east, then an equivalent and inverse event happened in the west to bring about the return of white walkers. 

That runs into a bit of a timeline problem.The dragons were undoubtedly hatched in the time of the comet, which in both Westeros and Essos occurred at the end of A Game of Thrones. Whether or not you accept that the blue eyed lot have been in the woods all the time or are of more recent origin, they were certainly around at the beginning of the book and seemingly for some time before that.

Given what we're told I can see Dragons increasing the magic in the world, but they needed priming. There had to be enough magic to hatch the eggs in the first place.

We do get a lot of associations with the comet, but whether it scatters the magic pixie dust from its tail to initiate the return of magic, or whether it is drawn by the growing magic is probably moot and perhaps will always remain a mystery. However if there is a connection, the answer may lie further back with the previous visit by the comet - during the Year of the False Spring. Rhaegar reckoned it as a sign and portent of dragons, but instead nothing happened - or did it? Was it the Ice magic which was re-awakened; hence the unheralded return of Winter. That would allow time for things to go bump in the night up north before the story opens.

 

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12 minutes ago, Brad Stark said:

I never put those 2 together,  the comet and false spring.  Do we know it is the same comet?  Wouldn't it be more likely a different one,  as comets are on a fixed period.   If people saw the comet every 25 years, they'd probably predict it.

There seems to be an implication that they are one and the same and the fact Maester Luwin was sent a Myrish lens [albeit with a double meaning] suggests that on an astronomical level the arrival of Danaerys' comet was indeed predicted and anticipated.

As to Rhaegar's comet, whether the two were one and the same he, and presumably other scholars, looked for powerful things happening but were disappointed. I'm suggesting that the return of Winter points to their being right about the powerful things, only they were looking in the wrong direction.

 

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8 minutes ago, Black Crow said:

There seems to be an implication that they are one and the same and the fact Maester Luwin was sent a Myrish lens [albeit with a double meaning] suggests that on an astronomical level the arrival of Danaerys' comet was indeed predicted and anticipated.

As to Rhaegar's comet, whether the two were one and the same he, and presumably other scholars, looked for powerful things happening but were disappointed. I'm suggesting that the return of Winter points to their being right about the powerful things, only they were looking in the wrong direction.

 

And we're back to Lyanna and Ned's dream of the storm of petals, blue as the eyes of death.  The birth of the Great Wolf whose powers are yet to be awakened?  Melisandre tells Jon that there is power in Jon which he refuses to acknowledge or use.

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1 hour ago, Brad Stark said:

I never put those 2 together,  the comet and false spring.  Do we know it is the same comet?  Wouldn't it be more likely a different one,  as comets are on a fixed period.   If people saw the comet every 25 years, they'd probably predict it.

If something (or someone) is drawing the comet to the planet, then what we should expect to see is that the comet will orbit the planet and gradually get closer over successive orbits, until it makes landfall.  So we should expect the sighting of the comet to become more frequent over time, and the comet itself to appear successively larger on each sighting.

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2 hours ago, Black Crow said:

That runs into a bit of a timeline problem.The dragons were undoubtedly hatched in the time of the comet, which in both Westeros and Essos occurred at the end of A Game of Thrones. Whether or not you accept that the blue eyed lot have been in the woods all the time or are of more recent origin, they were certainly around at the beginning of the book and seemingly for some time before that.

I had already posted up thread that the white walkers appeared two years before the dragons and that wasn't my point. I was trying to say that Dany's ritual had nothing to do with white walkers, but that there should be something similar but inverted to stimulate the return of magic in Westeros.

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1 hour ago, Feather Crystal said:

I had already posted up thread that the white walkers appeared two years before the dragons and that wasn't my point. I was trying to say that Dany's ritual had nothing to do with white walkers, but that there should be something similar but inverted to stimulate the return of magic in Westeros.

They were active for rather longer than two years before Danaerys hatched her dragons. As I said earlier, whether or not you accept the proposition that they have always been ranging the woods, something stirred them up at least five years before Mance Rayder became King-beyond-the-Wall. 

In general terms I'm inclined to suspect that the magic business is a bit like a see-saw, with Ice and Fire going up and down in turn; Ice in the Long Night;Fire in the Doom of Valyria, then Ice and the return of Winter under Rhaegar's comet; Fire and the return of dragons under Danaerys' comet.

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Just a thought, following from that suggestion above that the Doom of Valyria represented a high point in Fire magic. 

There is an assumption both inside and outside the text that the Doom was some kind of disastrous science experiment gone wrong, but what if it wasn't? Valyria is supposedly still a fiery hell, and is haunted by demons. Are those demons the transformed Valyrians. Mel is fire made flesh and we know she looks forward to being fully translated to glory, with no need to sleep etc. Perhaps the Valyrians are already there.

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16 hours ago, Black Crow said:

I'm not so sure. The other elements in the oath are opposite but equal - Ice and Fire most obviously - but bound together because the land is one. Bronze and Iron almost certainly represent men and suspect that the significance of the pairing lies in the different factions united together under the Starks.

Well, yes, that's somewhat my point. The other elements are equal but opposite, but they also appear to be representative of different types of known magic.We know that the CotF practiced earth magic. We know that the Rhoynar practiced water magic. The Valyrians practiced fire magic. We suspect the Others have something to do with ice magic. It seems rather exclusionary, when looking at that oath to conclude that four of the six have something to do with magic, but to not consider that the other two might as well.

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“To Winterfell we pledge the faith of Greywater,” they said together. “Hearth and heart and harvest we yield up to you, my lord. Our swords and spears and arrows are yours to command. Grant mercy to our weak, help to our helpless, and justice to all, and we shall never fail you.”

“I swear it by earth and water,” said the boy in green.

“I swear it by bronze and iron,” his sister said.

“We swear it by ice and fire,” they finished together.

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2 hours ago, Black Crow said:

Just a thought, following from that suggestion above that the Doom of Valyria represented a high point in Fire magic. 

There is an assumption both inside and outside the text that the Doom was some kind of disastrous science experiment gone wrong, but what if it wasn't? Valyria is supposedly still a fiery hell, and is haunted by demons. Are those demons the transformed Valyrians. Mel is fire made flesh and we know she looks forward to being fully translated to glory, with no need to sleep etc. Perhaps the Valyrians are already there.

Which then leads to the opposing idea. If the Valyrians are now transformed into immortal demons of fire, just like Mel is flesh turning fire, then are the Others humans transformed into immortal demons of ice? Was Valyria the end result of that transformation? Are we looking at an equal but opposite cataclysm in the North? 

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I think the Valyrians are connected to The Long Night.   They got dragons at the same time.  Perhaps Azor Ahai was the first dragon rider, and his descendents became the dragonlords.  The Daynes have the same features because they decended from him before he left Westeros,  and kept Lightbringer as Dawn.

The return of The Others could be tied to The Doom,  but most likely is more recent. 

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9 hours ago, Lady Dyanna said:

Which then leads to the opposing idea. If the Valyrians are now transformed into immortal demons of fire, just like Mel is flesh turning fire, then are the Others humans transformed into immortal demons of ice? Was Valyria the end result of that transformation? Are we looking at an equal but opposite cataclysm in the North? 

It is an old heresy that Craster's boys and the likes of Mel and Moqorro are the same in that one lot are Ice made Flesh while the others are Fire made Flesh. An alternative but similar interpretation, which I lean closer towards these days, might be to equate Coldhands and Mel on the one hand, and the white shadows and the black shadows on the other. 

 

 

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17 hours ago, Black Crow said:

It is an old heresy that Craster's boys and the likes of Mel and Moqorro are the same in that one lot are Ice made Flesh while the others are Fire made Flesh. An alternative but similar interpretation, which I lean closer towards these days, might be to equate Coldhands and Mel on the one hand, and the white shadows and the black shadows on the other. 

I think  I'm more inclined to go along with your alternative interpretation as well. It seems that there are a lot of dualities and equal but opposites in our story. The Shadowlands beyond Asshai and the Curtain of Light. The Land of Always Summer and the Land of Always Winter, Valyria and Hardhome. Makes me wonder.... It seems pretty clear that the Shadowlands are lands poisoned by magic. So are the Sorrows. Does that mean that's what happened with Valyria, with Hardhome, with the area beyond the Curtain of Light? And what was the purpose of using enough magic that it poisoned the environment? Immortality? 

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6 hours ago, Lady Dyanna said:

I think  I'm more inclined to go along with your alternative interpretation as well. It seems that there are a lot of dualities and equal but opposites in our story. The Shadowlands beyond Asshai and the Curtain of Light. The Land of Always Summer and the Land of Always Winter, Valyria and Hardhome. Makes me wonder.... It seems pretty clear that the Shadowlands are lands poisoned by magic. So are the Sorrows. Does that mean that's what happened with Valyria, with Hardhome, with the area beyond the Curtain of Light? And what was the purpose of using enough magic that it poisoned the environment? Immortality? 

I'd say that's certainly got to be a strong possibility. Its what the residents of the House of the Undying were striving for and I think that the same is true of Mel. It just comes with a price

That's why I suggested that the Doom of Valyria was a deliberate act and that the "demons" are the intended outcome. Remember that Targaryen aspiration to become dragons - fire made flesh

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2 hours ago, Brad Stark said:

War is motivation enough.   I was wondering when GRRM would give us a direct metaphore for nuclear war, this might be as close as we get.

Oh I think that there are allusions there, but that's not the same as the motivations driving some of the seen and unseen characters behind whats going on.

Valar Morghulis is a pretty powerful one.

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On 2/17/2017 at 6:59 AM, Feather Crystal said:

If the hatching of dragons reawakened magic in the east, then an equivalent and inverse event happened in the west to bring about the return of white walkers. 

My guess is that the Doom of Valyria caused the WW to awaken and that it has simply taken them this long to rub the sleep from their eyes so to speak.

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