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And as for the direwolves: it is a very fine observation that their disappearance south of the Wall roughly coincides with Alysane's visit. But to me, the other question to raise is: what makes possible their reappearance now?

I am immediately taken to Halley's comet, which comes every 75 years. In GRRM's world and the red comet; I'm not sure we are given an exact timeline on when the red comet appears; but I equate these two (Halleys and the red comet) with Mark Twain and the coming and going of magic. Twain (aka Samuel Clement) was born in 1835 the year that Halley's comet passed. He predicted (jokingly) that he would die the next time it would pass. He did (1910).

Maybe this is a coincedence and I'm totally off track. But I wonder if the cycle of the red comet might have something to do with the comings and goings of magic (aka dragons and direwolves)?

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Gared ran from Craster's boys and suddenly he's south of the Wall and the direwolf pups are found nearby. I don't know how they all got through, but I have to assume it was at the same time. I think Martin purposely left out the details.

So it's up to us to figure out how Gared got past the Wall and how the direwolf mother and her pups did the same at presumably the same time.

Maybe Gared went through the Black Gate, but that doesn't explain the direwolves. Something happened that we haven't been told about. Unless the clues are there and we've all missed them.

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I am immediately taken to Halley's comet, which comes every 75 years. In GRRM's world and the red comet; I'm not sure we are given an exact timeline on when the red comet appears; but I equate these two (Halleys and the red comet) with Mark Twain and the coming and going of magic. Twain (aka Samuel Clement) was born in 1835 the year that Halley's comet passed. He predicted (jokingly) that he would die the next time it would pass. He did (1910).

Maybe this is a coincedence and I'm totally off track. But I wonder if the cycle of the red comet might have something to do with the comings and goings of magic (aka dragons and direwolves)?

I posted this on the first page,we are of like mind.

This crackpot was inspired by a statement from BC about the possible origin of Dragons.

"When the red star bleeds and the darkness gathers, Azor Ahai shall be born again amidst smoke and salt to wake dragons out of stone”( Melessandre ASOS). The Red Star we all know is a comet or a Meteorite- depending on if it broke off .A Comet is a celestial object consisting of a nucleus of ice and dust and, when near the sun, a “tail” of gas and dust particles pointing away (literally a composite of fire and ice).

In many ancient myths Comets were called red or firey Dragons. (Draig) a Welsh word today is translated to mean Dragon, but in the past it was called (Maen Mellt) the word used in reference to Meteorite.

It should be noted that ( Maen) in Welsh means stone and Mellt means lightning-so put together lightning-stone. For some comparisons the ancient Chinese called Comets Firey Dragons and even the Bible spoke of The Red Dragon falling from the heavens like a Star. Clearly ancient people made a connection that these celestial objects were Dragons come to Earth and that Dragon was a person per se.

1. Seeing as the comet was already on its path before it was seen,could it be the reason Magic was returning it was the only thing that consists of the four elements and three different states ( solid,liquid and gas)

2. Also comets were seen as heralds to the birth or reincarnation of someone very important.

So could the combination of all these elements in one person be the reason magic returned,because this person came of age?

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Gared ran from Craster's boys and suddenly he's south of the Wall and the direwolf pups are found nearby. I don't know how they all got through, but I have to assume it was at the same time. I think Martin purposely left out the details.

So it's up to us to figure out how Gared got past the Wall and how the direwolf mother and her pups did the same at presumably the same time.

Maybe Gared went through the Black Gate, but that doesn't explain the direwolves. Something happened that we haven't been told about. Unless the clues are there and we've all missed them.

This is a well established theory here in Heresyland that this is likely the case, with the addendum that the reason why the White Walkers let Gared live was because they tasked him with bringing the direwolf mother south of the Wall with him

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Do you have someone in mind; who would have become of age?

Both Dany and Jon were coming of age, and Tyrion, in being given the role of Acting Hand, was finally coming into his own vis-a-vis his skills and abilities

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The coming of age i speak of isn't a name day,but kind of a rite of passage in death and life. Interestingly 298AL was when the Comet was seen; it was also the year all the Direwolves were born/ emerged from their dead mother and when the Dragons hatched.

Note: Tyryan is right Dany,Jon and Tyrion were coming into there own, so i will amend my statement to add the birth of the DW's and Dragons and Jon,Dany and Tyrion coming into their own.

Edit: Props to Tyryan nice catch.

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This is a well established theory here in Heresyland that this is likely the case, with the addendum that the reason why the White Walkers let Gared live was because they tasked him with bringing the direwolf mother south of the Wall with him

So Gared said the words to pass through and the direwolf followed him through? Is this the real reason why Mance snuck his way into Winterfell during Robert's visit? To check and see if the Stark children had bonded with the wolf cubs?

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So Gared said the words to pass through and the direwolf followed him through? Is this the real reason why Mance snuck his way into Winterfell during Robert's visit? To check and see if the Stark children had bonded with the wolf cubs?

Never thought of that before... maybe, just maybe

And hell, for all we know a woods witch told him (in cryptic words, of course--but Mance is smart enough to have figured it out!) that Jon would soon be coming to the Wall and that he would be the one to save the wildlings, so he wanted to have a look at him himself. Spitballing

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This is a well established theory here in Heresyland that this is likely the case, with the addendum that the reason why the White Walkers let Gared live was because they tasked him with bringing the direwolf mother south of the Wall with him

Thank you. Taken everything into account it makes sense.

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I figured I'd throw my hat into the ring with a mini essay of my own and try to provide a brief summary of the heretical thoughts on the historical timeline and the questions which surround it.

The conventional timeline referred to in Westeros as the True History states that the Wall was built 8000 years ago at the end of the Long Night, the Andals arrived between 6000 and 4000 years ago, the Rhoynar arrived 700 years ago and Aegon the Conqueror 300.

Now apart from that fact that 8000 years seems like an improbably long time, the main problem with the reliability of the histories is outline by Sam here.

The oldest histories we have were written after the Andals came to Westeros. The First Men only left us runes on rocks, so everything we know about the Age of Heroes and the Dawn Age and the Long Night comes from accounts set down by septons thousands of years later. There are Archmaesters at the Citadel who question all of it.

This essentially means that nothing prior to the Andal Invasion can be reliably dated. This is an issue which occurs a lot in real life archeology, for example due to translation difficulties we are unable to reliably reconstruct the histories of the mesoamerican civilizations, there is also difficulty in synching up dates of events relative between ancient Greece and ancient Egypt as both cultures used a different system of counting years. The Phantom Time Hypothesis theorizes that we have this in our own modern timeline with approximately 300 years of invented history in the Middle Ages putting us really in the late 1700s AD currently.

This is all coherent with GRRM's stated desire to create a realistic world with it's own mythos.

So what then can be reliably dated. Obviously the arrival of Aegon is not in question, there are detailed accurate histories covering those centuries. By the same token the arrival of the Rhoynar around 700 years ago only a few centuries before Aegon is well within the bounds of accurately recorded history, as by this time the Septons were firmly established in Westeros and chronicling current events not trying to translate ancient ones.

So this brings us to the Andal Invasion which the True History places somewhere between 6000 and 4000 years ago but as Sam mentioned there are Archmaesters at the Citadel who question all of it. This is further elaborated upon by Rodrik the Reader when speaking of the last kingsmoot as recorded in Hareg's History of the Ironborn which says of the last kingsmoot.

House Greyiron ruled unchosen for a thousand years from that dark day, until the Andals came.

When asked by Asha how long it has been since that kingsmoot the Reader replies.

Four thousand years, if Hareg can be believed. Half that if you accept Maester Denestan's arguments in Questions.

So we have Maesters placing the Andal Invasion much more recently then the conventional histories say, even Hareg's date while different from the Maesters is still more recent the the conventional history. This is again further illustrated by the bookish Hoster Blackwood when speaking to Jaime of history.

Only no one knows when the Andals crossed the Narrow Sea. The True History says four thousand years have passed since then, but some Maesters claim that it was only two. Past a certain point, all the dates grow hazy and confused, and the clarity of history becomes the fog of legend.

So again we have Maesters placing the coming fo the Andals much more recently then the conventional histories. Where some light can be shed on this is in looking at the reasons for the Andals coming. GRRM has explained it as part of a migration chain in which the Rhoynar were being driven out by the Valyrians and so they in turn where driving out the Andals.

The thing about Essosi history is that it doesn't suffer from the same mistranslation and after-the-fact recording as Westerosi history does. The cultures in Essos such as the Ghiscari, Valyrians and Rhoynar have been lettered and in constant existence from these ancient events to the present day. We are told that the Valyrians and the Ghiscari fought a series of major wars around 5000 years ago, if the True Histories are to be believed this would place these Valyrian/Ghiscari wars at the same time as the Andals were invading Westeros. This would therefore have to mean that the Valyrians were fighting a major war with the Rhoynar simultaneously to their major war with the Ghiscari, which is unlikely. It is much more likely that only after subjugating the Ghiscari and spending some time consolidating their hold on the East, that the Valyrians would turn West and come in to confrontaion with the Rhoynar.

The Rhoynar would only have been pushing the Andals out because the war with Valyria was going badly for them and they were themselves being driven out. Taking the Maesters lead and placing the Andal Invasion somewhere between 2000 and 1000 years ago would thus place the Rhoynar's eventual arrival 700 years ago not really that far apart from the Andal's, which would be consistent with their war already going badly when the Andals left. This would thus place the arrival of the Rhoynar at the tail end of the Andal Invasion, which again is consistent with some of the historical facts. For example from what we can tell the Andals conquered the Southern Kingdoms whole as large kingdoms. However when the Rhoynar arrived in Dorne, it was a group of several petty kingdoms feuding with one another, not only that but there were still significant populations of First Men so it would seem that the Andals had not yet fully conquered Dorne. This is all consistent with the Rhoynar arrival not being that far separated from the Andals.

So by moving the Andal Invasion forward to somewhere between 2000 and 1000 years ago as the Maesters and other learned characters believe, we can develop a fairly consistent narrative which accounts for many of the discrepancies and separate events.

As to the pre-Andal Invasion history, the condenscing of the more recent timeline virtually demands that all of this also be brought forward. As these histories are largey myth and legend the degree with which they can be condensced is probably much higher. There is a not unreasonable theory that the Long Night may have been concurrent with the rise of Valyria around 5000 years ago and that it was a time much like the present day when magic was on the rise. Which can explain how the Valyrians could live int he area for generations before one day finding there were dragons in the mountains because much like the present day the rise in magic awoke the dragons while simulatneously allowing the Others to raise their armies of wights.

So that's the basic outline of the historical timeline and how it is condensced to try and bring some of the "Clairty of history" back to the "fog of legend". If I get the time later I will try and write a summary of some of the many diseparate historical events that we have been able to link together or provide alternate explanations for given the condensced timeline. These include things such as the events surrounding Lord Commander Osric Stark, the Stark/Crannogmen conflict, Andal landings in White Harbor and the business with the Nights King (although that one probably deserves it's own post).

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What makes 8,000 years seem improbable?

Because it is much longer then the entirety of our real life recorded history, and because the only accounts that support the 8000 years date are the unreliable myths that have been translated thousands of years after the events.

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Because it is much longer then the entirety of our real life recorded history, and because the only accounts that support the 8000 years date are the unreliable myths that have been translated thousands of years after the events.

I found it believable, so if it was a red herring of sorts, then I'm the demographic to fall for it. In real life I deviate drastically from the generally accepted timeline in real life. I could say more but a debate about real life should be saved for PM or a different thread.

Btw, that was an amazing essay and I look forward to reading the rest :)

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A splendid essay indeed which saves me from having to write it :bowdown:

The only thing I'd add, which we've touched on before, is that according to Mel (and who are we to doubt her) the Azor Ahai prophecy was recorded 5,000 years ago, which would be contemporary with the wars between the Valyrians and the Ghiscari

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What exactly is the significance of the well in the Nightfort?

I think that the term is misleading. Because its in the kitchen or purported kitchen Bran and the gang make the immediate assumption that its a well for the drawing of water, but a better way of describing it would be as a shaft. Basically a well is just another word for a vertical shaft going into something. An obvious alternative example would be a light well in a large building.

In this case we have a well or shaft going deep into the earth, not for water but to access that magic portal. In this connection its also worth noting that when they are later approaching the cave of the children Coldhands mentions that there is another entrance in the form of a sinkhole, which is a natural shaft and perhaps if we ever see it something not at all unlike the "well" in the Nightfort.

As to using wells for sacrifice, there are easier ways of drowning unwanted children and puppies without making the water taste funny. What's actually happening is that the sacrifice is being put into the earth - deep into the earth.

And just a naughty thought to finish, who sings the songs of the earth?

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Well noone wants to put a sacrificial well in the middle of kitchen think about it do you know how those dead bodies smell?

Ah well, based on the description of the kitchen with its domed roof, and of course the well or shaft with its stair leading down to that secret magic portal (worth remembering that the portal can't be found if you don't know how to), the conclusion was that the building wasn't originally built as a kitchen and may indeed predate the rest of the Nightfort.

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