A Game of Souls: Beyond Fire and Blood

[hiemal]

The Deep Ones and the Scaled Ones: On Cycles of Magical Catastrophe

The Lovecraft nods are so many and so glaring that I don't hesitate to gleefully spread the tinfoil between point of trivia to point of trivia in my efforts to get a good look at the underlying world-building (or world-weaving- because that's what I GRRM shines at, taking fairy tale and history and horror trope and making a Frankenstory) and so I'm pretty confident in my overall idea that the present Cycle is but one turn of a Wheel; humanity now rules beut berfore them there were others...

Generally. we start with the Long Night but I have reasons involving Lovecraft and his crew, Carter, Smith and Bloch in particular and including Howard of Conan fame, but also the Lebor Gaballa Erenn and other "fairy" mythology to believe that there was at least one, possibly two Cycles before that. I've already mentioned the Nagga incident, which I think was the culmination a war between the Deep Ones and the Children, which the Deep Ones lost, retreating beneath the sea.

I think the Deep Ones were possibly involved in another Catastrophe event, however, or two more if you think their tentacles were involved in the Lightbringer incident (and given the rumor the BSE started the Cult of Starry Wisdom and the Black Stone I most certainly do) one in which they fought Snake People of Sothoryos, whose center of power was Yeen. The Deep Ones original home was K'Dath, obviously, but they moved to Leng after that incident, during which Sothoryos was turned into the Green Hell it is now, the powers of fecundity and growth having gone amok as the powers of cold and death ruled in K'Dath and the seasons were first unbalanced. Also it was during this war that the serpent people (GRRM's Valusians) first tamed wyverns and wyrms. It was during the second Cycle, during the Nagga incident that they were infused with the tectonic powers of the planet and dragons and firewyrms were created. The Lightbringer Incident "tamed" them by creating the Firenet.

[hiemal]

On Cycles of Catastrophe and Magical Poles (Axes... hmmmmm, now there is some wordplay... ) and the Seasons

 

I've decided to use this thread as a general catchall for random bits of tinfoil that relate worldbuilding and the grand Unified Theory of Magic rather than clutter the forum with multiple threads of such limited interest and admittedly wild speculation:

While I stand by tinfoil of the usurpation of the world's magnetic forces by the skinchanging the world's molten inner core and tectonic forces I also have (of course) alternate theories and I think it's time to muddy the waters with what is either a completely different idea or an addendum to the R'hlorr warging the world's dark and fiery places.

The points of catastrophe from previous Cycles are where the world's magical "Poles" are, which control the Telluric currents of magical/soul energy that functions instead of a magnetic field- either "just cuz" or because of usurpation of nature by alien power (magic). The catastrophes either caused or were caused by a magical Pole-shift (all bets are off with causality when magic is involved). K'Dath is left a place of cold desolation, an always Winter, that nevertheless is rumored to spawn demons. It is also said to be surrounded by reptilian "shrikes" which if I tinfoil correctly are the mutated remnants of invading serpent people from the previous Land of Always Summer, Yeen. This Pole has become a place of cursed pestilance, an island of death in a sea of wild growth.

Stygai was obviously such a Pole and the Land of Always Winter is obviously one now. Valyria may have been one as well as places like Pyke (or somewhere near it that is now Drowned), God's Eye (or is that one yet to be? Not sure), and Asshai,  I think the staggered movement of these Poles is what produces the unbalanced seasons as the life energies of the world are disrupted and their flows are redirected.

 

[hiemal]

The Enigma of Ice: A Soul Divided?

VS swords seem to have an identity- what happens to that identity when the sword is reforged?

In the case of ice and Oathkeeper, it seems an obvious speculation that Ned's soul has found its home. My own tinfoil, that when Ice was recast at least part of Ned (those follies of mercy and honor that cost the Just Ruler so dear) became the blade of the Perfect Knight/Perfect Fool who I believe may now be on her way with her Jonquil her own test:

" "So many vows . . . they make you swear and swear. Defend the king. Obey the king. Keep his secrets. Do his bidding. Your life for his. But obey your father. Love your sister. Protect the innocent. Defend the weak. Respect the gods. Obey the laws. It's too much. No matter what you do, you're forsaking one vow or the other." ... ACoK

But what of Widow's Wail? I suspect there is more to the name of the sword than Joffrey being a c()nt  but is its essence another part of Ned (perhaps actions in one, consequences in another? Or Light/Dark?) or is some more primal soul from Ice's past? The "widow" could be Cat, for example and this sword represent the part that he repressed in order to keep his oaths? Or his guilt at lying to her about Jon?

My shiny new tinfoil, however, is that the "widow" is Lyanna and that somehow, for some reason, at the Tower of Joy Ned allowed Ice to drink his sister's blood.

Of course, it could refer to both widows or neither, but I like my version.

 

[hiemal]

Non-Sword Valyrian-Steel Artifacts

Although most of the VS we know of is in the form of swords and a small number of other bladed weapons as well as

Spoiler

Euron's suit of armor fror TWoW "The Forsaken" chapter

there are also a small number of non-martial artifacts including Aegon I's crown, the bands on Dragonbinder, and the links the maesters use for their chains. The links are probably most like ingots- we don't know how VS is forged but I imagine that most of the sorcery is done when something is forged rather than whenever it is first cast into ingots or bars or whatever. I'd love to know if there is anything special about that crown or if it is of Valyrian Steel just as a status symbol and reminder of their exotic origins. Several characters seem to find their crowns physically uncomfortable so I guess the weight would be a bonus but it seems at odds with the message he claims the Iron Throne's siege perilous embodies.

An idea I've been playing around with is that Rhaegar's harp doesn't have silver strings after all- but Valyrian Steel strings. VS puppet strings making the Valyrian dance to prophecy's tune, basically. I suspect that the strings either belonged to Rhaenys originally, or were inteded for her, or that Rhaegar made them himself. Two swords for three heads always seemed unbalanced.

[hiemal]

A little tinfoil that is woth mentioning but too narrow in interest for its own thread:

A Game of Names: Long Night Edition

 

So we have titles for some of the major players in the Lightbringer Incident that I believe ushered in the previous Long Night but few proper names. This could be the effects of time on human memory, as history blends with legend but it could also be because the names would be too... spoilery. I read somehwere, for example, that the words of House Dayne fall into that category so I don't think it's too much of a stretch to include some names from the previous cycle that may be too loaded with hints to reveal (my guess for the Dayne words, btw, is "After the Long Night, the Dawn" so it kind of ties in with today's theme. Two of these names I've discussed elsewhere so just a brief mention of:

Rhaellor: Basically, retrofitted R'hlorr with the Targ penchant for names beginning "Rhae...". R'hlorr has a glottal stop in an odd place, I think that R'hlorr is either the Bloodstone Emperor hissownself -or- simply a garbled memory of him.

Valerys (or Valerion or possibly even Balerys): This one is even more tenuous (but that's what I do)- but Valyria, Balerion, Viserys to Viserion, and even our own Pole Star, Polaris all factor into this one. I think Valyria is obviously named after this person. Originally I speculated that this is the Amethyst Empress' name and I still think that the most likely case (given of course that it is a name at all) but I think there is also a good chance that this could be Azor Ahai's proper name. Since I have another candidate for that, however, I'm sticking with AE for now.

 And finally, the new one:

Garyen: A few steps here, but I speculate that "Tar"Garyen may mean in some fashion "descended from Garyen" in the same way that "Kar"Stark indicated that the inhabitants of Karhold are of the Stark pack. I don't know what the "Kar" means, but it seems a reasonable guess. Anyways, that could make "Garyen" either the family name of the Gemstone Emperors or the given name of Azor Ahai. "Garion" is the name of the hero in more traditional fantasy series (One I recommend highly to people new to the fantasy genre, younger readers in particular) so I could that either as a nod (which GRRM has done more times than I can count, but not usually with so... mainstream a series?) or just a coincidence.

Those are my guesses for the three names I most strongly identify with the Long Night. I'm sure that the name Stark is involved somewhere, but I doubt it will be as a hero- I firmly believe that in those days the words "Winter is Coming" was more threat than warning.

That's my wild speculation for the day. Please list any names you think might pop in a history of the Long Night.

[hiemal]

Valyrian Steel, the Targ Crown and the Doom

Obviously, there are a lot of questions about the creation of Valyrian Steel. Did the Targs ever have the art to create it or to reshape it? They obviously knew how to melt and shape stone. Was the VS crown created in Westeros or brought from Valyria? If the former, does the process of shaping VS into a non-sword artifact differ from either making a sword or melting and reshaping an existing one (both of which I am almost positive require fire, blood, AND souls- I don't think Tobho Mott kept Gendry around just for his skill at the forge. Qohorik smiths know the value of children's blood, I think, and almost certainly of king's blood)? If the latter, was this part of Daenys' vision or did they have this crown from some previous plateau of power? Did the Valyrians even wear crowns?

It seems likely to me that the Tagrs probably did NOT have the art of creating VS swords (either that or the supply of blood and souls on Dragonstone was simply insufficient to the task). The art itself seems to have vanished with valyria, but did the Doom and the centuries-later Dance also fundamentally change to magical landscape in the same way that the alchemists describe in relation to creating the Substance. Is it possible that the Qohoriks actually DO know how to make VS, but that the lack of dragons (or whatever agency is responsible for dragons and empowering those forces associated with them) made the process ineffectual? Now that Dany's dragons have hatched perhaps the dark and blood-drenched forges will begin making new VS weapons?

 

[hiemal]

Better late than never:

On Aerea and Valyria : Fire and Blood through the "soul magic" lens

I think that the things inside of poor Aerea were not larval firewyrms, but the souls of Valyrians who died in the Doom and were lost in resulting arcane chaos until some managed to bond with her Targaryen blood. The bit about hands and faces screams becoming "human" to me and I think that these soul were burning the poor girl from within  trying creating "fire and blood" to create bodies for themselves- bloodbabies instead of shadowbabies?

What intrigues me is the question of "why now"? Aerea had been missing for almost a year I think (I loaned my copy out so details are fading) but from the way the infestation seems progress I think that she was either only recently infected or the infestation was dormant until she left Valyria and whatever magical weirdness might linger there or it was triggered in some other way by Aerea's actions. Assuming, of course, that she was ever in Valyria- iirc we have only the speculation of one person that this was where she was.

Balerion's injuries aren't described as fresh, I think but I don't know how quickly dragons heal so that doesn't help a whole lot but if she was in Valyria I wonder what she ate/drank beyond whatever Balerion might have brought back on wide-ranging (I hope) hunts. I really hope we get some peeks into what happens to someone who isn't of Valyrian blood steps onto Valyrian soil...