Heresy 202 and still going

[Matthew.]

15 hours ago, JNR said:

So far from binding or disrupting the sorcery that makes Small Paul the Wight function, the wight is actually wearing iron -- as a style choice, because iron is in that season?  -- perhaps, we cannot say -- and what gets disrupted is Sam's dagger.   In any case, wearing the iron doesn't seem to be doing it any particular harm.

To briefly revisit this, there is one instance where maybe, maybe cold iron (or, in this case, fine steel with iron in it) had an effect on magic--in the prologue, with Royce.
 

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His fine clothes were a tatter, his face a ruin. A shard from his sword transfixed the blind white pupil of his left eye.

The right eye was open. The pupil burned blue. It saw.

Only one eye is burning blue; compare this with Thistle, who claws out her own eyes, yet the burning blue is still present where her eyes had been.

I'll grant that it's far more likely that there's no real significance to that passage - especially since the iron did nothing to prevent Royce from being claimed as a wight - but maybe the shards of Royce's sword were preventing whatever it is that 'claims' the wights from being able to watch through that eye, that the iron was partially disrupting the sorcery.

[Black Crow]

32 minutes ago, Matthew. said:

I agree that the text doesn't really support the superstitions - the Winterfell crypts, and Old Nan's assertion that the Others 'hated iron,' - but I was wondering to what extent GRRM is playing on the mythological idea of iron being anathema to faeries. To use the example of Howland Reed, I was wondering whether or not it might be considered offensive to wear iron among the green men.

To go in the opposite magical direction, given that the FM used bronze for their runes, it may be that a superstitious notion developed in post-Pact FM culture that bronze is somehow more 'sacred' than other metals--not because it's actually true, but just because of tradition.

Leaving aside magical implications, I suspect that tradition and cultural pride at least plays a role with the Thenns; we're told that they're a proud people, so it may be that they'd rather use armor and weapons they've forged themselves, even if they could trade or raid for better options. 

 I'm not sure that the Thenns had any real interaction with the Watch before recent events and used their ability to work copper and bronze to dominate or at least overawe their neighbours. Its stressed how poorly armed most Wildlings are, so a tribe or kingdom with proper access to weapons has to have an advantage

As to the superstitions I agree that GRRM is playing on pretty standard Faerie lore about iron, and there appears to be an in-story belief as to its powers, but belief and actuality may not be the same thing. Bronze Yon Royce might have magic armour but could find it of little real protection against a decent blade of castle-forged steel.

Mind you I wouldn't rule out that same magic offering protection against a blade made of ice...

[Brad Stark]

16 hours ago, JNR said:

So far from binding or disrupting the sorcery that makes Small Paul the Wight function, the wight is actually wearing iron -- as a style choice, because iron is in that season?  -- perhaps, we cannot say -- and what gets disrupted is Sam's dagger.   In any case, wearing the iron doesn't seem to be doing it any particular harm.

I hate pink shirts, but my wife occasionally makes me wear one.

[Matthew.]

5 hours ago, Black Crow said:

I'm not sure that the Thenns had any real interaction with the Watch before recent events and used their ability to work copper and bronze to dominate or at least overawe their neighbours. Its stressed how poorly armed most Wildlings are, so a tribe or kingdom with proper access to weapons has to have an advantage

I'm not suggesting that they had any regular interactions with the Watch; my point was more about how, say, Sigorn wears a bronze sword, even though we might reasonably assume that the organizational superiority of the Thenns means that they occasionally acquire iron and steel as spoils of war from rival wildlings, or would have the opportunity to trade for that which other raiders have acquired.

In that light, I'm viewing Styr and Sigorn's choice to wear bronze as deliberate, that their social status affords them the opportunity to access steel, and they choose instead to utilize Thennish forged equipment as a point of cultural pride.

The broader point is that there are a variety of irrational reasons - pride, tradition, superstition, relations with the CotF(?) - that might have lead to bronze remaining in widespread usage among the FM by the time the Andals were invading, even if iron existed as a viable option.

And that's before we even go down the more complicated road that what was economically viable in, say, the Reach was not necessarily economically viable in the Vale; presumably, the presence of the Iron Throne as a standardizing force has had a profound effect on the safety and stability of trade in Westeros.

[Black Crow]

Wouldn't disagree, except to add a relatively [?] minor caveat which I mentioned earlier. Bronze weapons and iron/steel weapons have different handling techniques and therefore require different fighting techniques.

Remember the difference as taught by Syrio Forel between the clumsy style of Westerosi knights and water dancing. Adapting to a new fighting style isn't easy without teachers and that too would encourage conservatism

[LynnS]

What is cold iron?  Is it wrought iron?   I'm not sure of the differences between iron, cold iron,black iron etc and how GRRM is using it. 

Black iron contains a certain amount of magnetite. Maesters forge a black iron ring when they master ravenry.  Martin has switched up ravens for homing pigeons.

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Magnetite has been found as nano-crystals in magnetotactic bacteria (42-45 nm)^[4] and in homing pigeon beak tissue^[2

Ravens can't find Greywater Watch for some reason and Howland Reed wears a shirt of bronze scales.  The weapons of the Crannogmen are not made of metal.

The others hate cold iron, you can kill an other with cold iron.  I think the 'others' in this case are the cotf rather than the white walkers. 

I can see the coft using ravens at one point to locate men carrying cold iron; whereas bronze might shield you from detection by the ravens since it is a non-magnetic metal.  The ravens do the scouting and the crows follow the ravens.

Wights are attracted to hot blood or perhaps the iron content of blood. Perhaps bronze provides some protection from wights by shielding the blood. 

 

[SirArthur]

29 minutes ago, LynnS said:

Ravens can't find Greywater Watch for some reason and Howland Reed wears a shirt of bronze scales.  The weapons of the Crannogmen are not made of metal.

Which would make sense if there is a strong magnet near Greywater Watch. However the Kingsroad seems to be passable with iron. 

[LynnS]

21 minutes ago, SirArthur said:

Which would make sense if there is a strong magnet near Greywater Watch. However the Kingsroad seems to be passable with iron. 

Electromagnetism can be blocked by copper and nickel, ie. bronze.  What's implied, I guess is that bronze provides protection from the storm gods.

 

[Tucu]

3 hours ago, LynnS said:

What is cold iron?  Is it wrought iron?   I'm not sure of the differences between iron, cold iron,black iron etc and how GRRM is using it. 

Black iron contains a certain amount of magnetite. Maesters forge a black iron ring when they master ravenry.  Martin has switched up ravens for homing pigeons.

The cold iron from the tales could be a reference to meteoric iron that was used in small quantity for thousands of years before the discovery of methods to smelt iron ore.

This could explain its presence during the Long Night and it relates to the Dayne's using a meteor (and some magic) to create Dawn.

[Brad Stark]

Wrought iron is iron that has been folded and worked many times, as opposed to cast iron which is unworked.

Cold iron really isn't a metal making term.  The best reference I could find is a literary term for a weapon.  If I stab your stomach with cold steel (or cold iron) it says nothing about the actual metal or its temperature.

All iron and steel is magnetic.

The difference between steel and iron is less distinct than the difference in steelmaking and ironmaking.  Any iron alloy with some carbon can be considered steel, the distinction is really about whether the level of carbon was intentionally controlled by someone who knew what they were doing vs nautrally occurring.  Man did make weapons from meteorites which were superior alloys to other natural iron before learning to make steel.

 

[Brad Stark]

Came across "iron in folklore" on Wikipedia. 

 

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Another theory concerning the placing of horseshoes above doorways is to ward off Faeries; the theory being that supernatural beings are repelled by iron and as horseshoes were an easily available source of iron, they could be nailed above a door to prevent any unwanted, otherworldly guests.

 

[LynnS]

16 minutes ago, Brad Stark said:

Came across "iron in folklore" on Wikipedia.

Another theory concerning the placing of horseshoes above doorways is to ward off Faeries; the theory being that supernatural beings are repelled by iron and as horseshoes were an easily available source of iron, they could be nailed above a door to prevent any unwanted, otherworldly guests.

Completely forgot about the lucky horseshoe.  We wouldn't want any faeries to steal someone's body. 

Cold iron is used a few times in the text.  In the prologue, Will puts his knife between his teeth and climbs the tree.  He is comforted by the taste of cold iron in his mouth.  Knives, axes etc are cold weapons for fighting the cotf as opposed to hot weapons like fire.  The first men came with fire in their fists...   I wonder if the wights are the cotf's version of cold iron seeking out the hot blood of the living, or hot iron. 

Will's thought of the taste of iron is curious, since blood has a metallic taste.  

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(Fun fact: Blood tastes like metal because of its iron content.) Some studies also show that intense exercise can increase pressure on the lungs, which allows red blood cells to leak into air sacs, possibly causing that metallic taste.

 

[LynnS]

Theon's crown is made of cold iron and chunks of black diamond, likely hematite.  Theon is wearing a magnet on his head.  LOL

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A Clash of Kings - Theon V

Last of all, he donned his crown, a band of cold iron slim as a finger, set with heavy chunks of black diamond and nuggets of gold. It was misshapen and ugly, but there was no help for that. Mikken lay buried in the lichyard, and the new smith was capable of little more than nails and horseshoes. Theon consoled himself with the reminder that it was only a prince's crown. He would have something much finer when he was crowned king.

 

 

 

[LynnS]

Given Bran's view of the curtain of light;  I wonder if this is a reference to Planetos' magnetic field and if the Wall disrupts the field causing the weather to behave as it does.

[JNR]

On 9/26/2017 at 1:40 AM, Black Crow said:

My real point is that except in the very earliest days when the Andals came to the Vale its unwise to make too sharp a distinction between the First Men with bronze and the Andals with iron and steel. Rather that in the beginning the First Men had bronze

How do you know, though?

What we know is that the First Men had bronze when they first invaded Westeros.  Then thousands of years went by.  Then the Andals rolled along.   So it seems very hard to establish that in those thousands of years, the First Men never entered an Iron Age and forged iron weapons.  Perhaps they did, and that's why the ancient crown of the Kings of Winter has iron swords.  

I'm not making the affirmative case for this; I'm just saying GRRM has left it ambiguous on purpose, as he so often does.  It's part of the timeline he started fuzzing up in AFFC.

On 9/26/2017 at 1:40 AM, Black Crow said:

A good analogy would be Native Americans who started out with bows and encountered European firearms, then very quickly scrambled to catch up through trade and capture. Some still carried bows for a very long time, but firearms for preference.

I follow that analogy, but I think that was because the Native Americans were separated from Europe and Asia by gigantic oceans.  

The Narrow Sea is -- as you've said before -- so much tinier, it seems likely that metallurgical ideas could far more easily have drifted across it via trade.  

But I also think it's pretty clear knowledge of steel hadn't had time to spread to Westeros on a mass scale, or the Andals would likely have failed in their invasion of the Vale.  And that in turn tells us something quite interesting about dragonsteel.

On 9/26/2017 at 1:45 AM, Black Crow said:

I'd like to think that the Stark swords are laid across the tombs with ancient incantations, but I suspect its more likely that GRRM overlooked the inconsistency

Always possible, but we also have the Popsicles shattering Waymar Royce's steel sword (steel being primarily iron), and of course the wights and Popsicles at the Fist annihilating the steel-equipped Watch.  In general it doesn't appear to me that iron or steel makes a lick of difference to... well, to that particular form of sorcery, at least.

[JNR]

On 9/26/2017 at 10:54 AM, Matthew. said:

I was wondering to what extent GRRM is playing on the mythological idea of iron being anathema to faeries. To use the example of Howland Reed, I was wondering whether or not it might be considered offensive to wear iron among the green men.

It's possible.  I definitely think Howland had some sort of reason, and Meera does too, to go with bronze.  Which is why she goes out of her way to draw the reader's attention to that parallel.

I also agree that GRRM was clearly inspired by the British myth re the iron/faerie connection to have included this idea in his series.

On 9/26/2017 at 10:54 AM, Matthew. said:

Leaving aside magical implications, I suspect that tradition and cultural pride at least plays a role with the Thenns; we're told that they're a proud people, so it may be that they'd rather use armor and weapons they've forged themselves, even if they could trade or raid for better options. 

That's exactly how I've always interpreted it - that, and the fact that their valley is so far north, they don't very often encounter the Watch (which would be their primary alternative option for metal weapons).

[JNR]

23 hours ago, Brad Stark said:

I hate pink shirts, but my wife occasionally makes me wear one.

The pink shirt binds and disrupts the power of the husband, empowering the wife mystically.

[SirArthur]

1 hour ago, LynnS said:

Given Bran's view of the curtain of light;  I wonder if this is a reference to Planetos' magnetic field and if the Wall disrupts the field causing the weather to behave as it does.

I don't think the Wall disrupts the field. The field is all over Planetos, not just in Westeros. It's more like the Wall is at the position of the artic circle and my stupid idea of the second Wall north of Oldtown is the position of the Tropic of Cancer. In any case the Long Night is more like a gigantic El Nino and the seasons in between are small temperature exchange durations. 

Somehow the temperature exchange on Planetos is not working and I would assume the Wall and the Five Forts try to repair the problem. There would be possible more Long Winters without the Wall. 

Also the Eyrie is exactly between my two proposed lines. Winterfell (winter is there first) and Storm's End act as local temperature stabilizers or in the case of Storm's End as storm generator to exchange temperature. 

 

From what we know (long summer before long winter) the cold air somehow can't reach the south. But the Wall itself is not even as high as some mountains, that alone would never stop air exchange. Much like El Nino the temperature change is then forced through the system. 

[LynnS]

12 hours ago, SirArthur said:

From what we know (long summer before long winter) the cold air somehow can't reach the south. But the Wall itself is not even as high as some mountains, that alone would never stop air exchange. Much like El Nino the temperature change is then forced through the system.

The problem is to restore the initial state of the cube. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metamagical_Themas

 

[Black Crow]

14 hours ago, JNR said:

, something often overlooked here is that bronzHow do you know, though?

What we know is that the First Men had bronze when they first invaded Westeros.  Then thousands of years went by.  Then the Andals rolled along.   So it seems very hard to establish that in those thousands of years, the First Men never entered an Iron Age and forged iron weapons.  Perhaps they did, and that's why the ancient crown of the Kings of Winter has iron swords.  

I'm not making the affirmative case for this; I'm just saying GRRM has left it ambiguous on purpose, as he so often does.  It's part of the timeline he started fuzzing up in AFFC.

I follow that analogy, but I think that was because the Native Americans were separated from Europe and Asia by gigantic oceans.  

The Narrow Sea is -- as you've said before -- so much tinier, it seems likely that metallurgical ideas could far more easily have drifted across it via trade.  

But I also think it's pretty clear knowledge of steel hadn't had time to spread to Westeros on a mass scale, or the Andals would likely have failed in their invasion of the Vale.  And that in turn tells us something quite interesting about dragonsteel.

Always possible, but we also have the Popsicles shattering Waymar Royce's steel sword (steel being primarily iron), and of course the wights and Popsicles at the Fist annihilating the steel-equipped Watch.  In general it doesn't appear to me that iron or steel makes a lick of difference to... well, to that particular form of sorcery, at least.

Just by the by something often overlooked in this is the fact that iron is a lot cheaper than bronze, which is consistent with what we've discussed before about the First Men being aristos rather than first men. They will have had [short] bronze swords and scale armour because they could afford it. Their followers will have to have made do with spears and other small bladed weapons. 

Andals on the other hand with a lot of cheap and cheerful iron and steel weapons...