List of Magical "Things" in the Books

[The Knight of Flours]

King's blood

 

ETA - Obsidian & Mirri Maz Duur bringing Drogo back to life

[Graydon Hicks]

side question, came across a comment in a fic; do you think that the ability the Others have to control wights, might actually be them warging the dead they raise?

[40 Thousand Skeletons]

4 hours ago, Castellan said:

Umm so you think telepathy and telekinesis are real? Or real in ASOIF? and because they are real in ASOIF they aren't 'magic'?

How would you classify reviving a green rotting corpse?

LOL real in ASOIAF  

But GRRM is almost definitely trying to trick readers into thinking that a fantasy level of "magic" beyond telepathy and telekinesis is present in ASOIAF. You could certainly call it "magic" if you want, but I would consider it a misleading term. The term "magic" basically implies that anything is possible, while the "laws of physics" established in GRRM's Thousand Worlds - if indeed they are applicable to asoiaf - would imply there are lots of practical limitations on the abilities of the Old Gods, and Melisandre, and everyone else. 

Are you talking about UnCat?

That seems to be a form of telepathy. Someone's consciousness, probably Cat's, seems to be animating Cat's dead body. Cat, Coldhands, and Beric act as though they are fully conscious and coordinated, in contrast with the wights who are described as being clumsy and are likely being controlled through telekinesis, which is made apparent by the fact that they can be controlled even after being decapitated.

[Foot_Of_The_King]

13 hours ago, 40 Thousand Skeletons said:

So really we should make a list of telepathic and telekinetic things in the books  

X-Men powers are pretty magical to me. 

[40 Thousand Skeletons]

4 hours ago, Foot_Of_The_King said:

X-Men powers are pretty magical to me. 

They certainly are, but they are far less magical than, for instance, Mel pretends to be. For example, just look at the practice of staring into flames to receive divine guidance from R'hllor. There is probably nothing magical about fire that allows her to do this. The fire simply makes her blind. It is just like when Bran is able to open his third eye in the crypts because he was in complete darkness. And Arya went through similar blind training.

Assuming that all these things are directly related and follow the same mechanics of telepathy makes it much easier to figure out what is going on in the story.

In the other hand, if you label such things as magic, people make incorrect assumptions like: Mel is using "fire magic" to see into the future, and Bran is using some totally different form of magic. But really it is all the same shit. It is all basic telepathy.

[Castellan]

12 hours ago, 40 Thousand Skeletons said:

 

Are you talking about UnCat?

That seems to be a form of telepathy. Someone's consciousness, probably Cat's, seems to be animating Cat's dead body. Cat, Coldhands, and Beric act as though they are fully conscious and coordinated, in contrast with the wights who are described as being clumsy and are likely being controlled through telekinesis, which is made apparent by the fact that they can be controlled even after being decapitated.

If Cats consciousness is animating Cat's body then I'd say Cat is alive! Maybe not naturally alive, but alive. If you say her consciousness is animating her body her consciousness must be in her body or somewhere else. If its somewhere else, that's even more supernatural. 

If you want to take an ASOIF world view I'd take the yardstick as things that contradict what educated Westerose believe can happen in the world. The southern view seems pretty widespread - even Eddard may have prayed to the weirwood and believed in Gods, I don't think he thought the tree could see him etc. So the question is what things that would be regarded by as supernatural by such people are gradually revealed in the book?

I will perhaps have a look at Thousand Worlds. For the time being I thought it was an interesting idea to track this stuff as clearly more is being revealed and we are heading perhaps for more high fantasy stuff. I can see you want to classify it according Thousand Worlds, so have fun doing that.

[Dorian Martell's son]

18 hours ago, The Knight of Flours said:

King's blood

Not at all 

[Dorian Martell's son]

On 6/24/2017 at 7:59 PM, Foot_Of_The_King said:

I was trying to compile a list(in my head) of all the instances in the books in which magic was clearly involved. When discussing this with a friend I realized I was overlooking a few. Can everyone here help me out? I'll start with a few of the big ones off the top of my head. And I'd like you guys to fill in the ones I've missed.

-Skinchanging 

-The birth of Dany's dragons

-Faceless Men "face changing"

-Green Dreams and Dragon Dreams

-Prophesies

-the door under the Night Fort

-Shadow babies

By the way, I'm just looking for magical events in the main series of books, not in the entire history (such as events found in the World Book).

So, are you going to edit the post to make the list coherent? 

 

[40 Thousand Skeletons]

2 hours ago, Castellan said:

I will perhaps have a look at Thousand Worlds. For the time being I thought it was an interesting idea to track this stuff as clearly more is being revealed and we are heading perhaps for more high fantasy stuff. I can see you want to classify it according Thousand Worlds, so have fun doing that.

What I "want" or think would be more interesting doesn't matter. I simply think it is clear that everything "magical" in asoiaf so far can be easily explained by the "laws of physics" established in the Thousand Worlds, and the gods don't actually exist in some omnipotent form. The Old Gods actually exist within the weirnet, but they are by no means all-powerful like a traditional "god" is generally thought to be.

2 hours ago, Castellan said:

If Cats consciousness is animating Cat's body then I'd say Cat is alive! Maybe not naturally alive, but alive. If you say her consciousness is animating her body her consciousness must be in her body or somewhere else. If its somewhere else, that's even more supernatural. 

Cat's body is certainly dead in a medical sense. She doesn't have any blood left in her body, and she probably doesn't need to breathe, like Beric and Coldhands. None of these people's bodies are alive, but they are moving around.

It is possible that Cat's consciousness, as well as Beric's and Coldhands', is now contained inside the weirnet. We do know that when Varamyr died his blood was probably absorbed by the weirwood next to him, and this may have facilitated his pov death experience of first going into the weirnet and then One-Eye. The same thing may have happened with Cat, Beric, and Coldhands. Specifically with Cat, all of her blood drained out of her body into the green fork. And it is certainly possible that a drop or 2 got absorbed by some weirwood roots on the way downriver.

As for the Mountain, he was almost certainly not absorbed into the weirnet. Instead, it seems that Qyburn has been somehow using the bodies of Senelle and others (given to him by Cersei) to facilitate his necromancy. Overall, the implications seem to be that a consciousness, or a soul, can be transferred via blood and that it requires some sort of living vessel to be contained inside

[ravenous reader]

2 minutes ago, Dorian Martell's son said:

So, are you going to edit the post to make the list coherent? 

 

Charming as always...

4 minutes ago, 40 Thousand Skeletons said:

We do know that when Varamyr died his blood was probably absorbed by the weirwood next to him, and this may have facilitated his pov death experience of first going into the weirnet and then One-Eye.

Excellent catch!