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When is 'The World of Ice and Fire' coming out v.2


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Cannibal would be around 300 years old or more, right now.

More like 250-ish. He was born in Jaeherys' lifetime. Edit: Actually, scratch that, I got him a little confused with Sheepstealer. Still, he was probably born after the Conquest, so he would be under 300.

FWIW, it would make no sense for any dragon to have been alive in the last 100 years or so. Otherwise, the birth of Dany's dragons wouldn't have had such a profound effect on fire-magic across the world.

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But they could have laid eggs somewhere at a remote place, which hatched? Then no one would be around to see it.

Though the pyromancers line about their spells getting stronger, and their wonderings about if there might be dragons in the world again, since that would explain it, suggests that there was a time that there were no dragons at all.

As many have said before, it is highly contentious that dragons actually are the CAUSE of the strengthening magic, rather than a symptom thereof.

If a dragon was in some kind of hibernation in a volcanic pit somewhere on Skagos for example, it might well be that it was waiting for magic to strengthen again before it could awaken and become active again.

The previous dragons were waning and dying off despite the best attempts of the Targaryens of the time, so it could as easily be that the dragons were dying out BECAUSE magic was fading, rather than the other way around.

So the direction of causality applying to this correlation is highly debatable.

And either way, magic was not COMPLETELY gone in the interim. Just much weaker. Perhaps a dragon on Skagos - NORTH of the latitude of the Wall, was magically cut off from the rest of the world as much as the Wall cuts off the magic of the Others from extending to the South.

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If Sheepstealer and Netty eventually north beyond the Wall, or to Skagos, I could see Sheepstealer be still alive today. 'Fire consumes, but the cold preserves.' If Maester Aemon only lived see more than one hundred years because he spent many decades (and winters) at the Wall, it's not impossible that a dragon could live well beyond his natural lifespan beyond the Wall.



And I'm pretty sure that it would have been known in Westeros what happened to Sheepstealer if Nettles had gone to Essos. Pretty much everyone would have courted Nettles, trying to convince her stay with them, to put her dragon to their uses, and so on.


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If Sheepstealer and Netty eventually north beyond the Wall, or to Skagos, I could see Sheepstealer be still alive today. 'Fire consumes, but the cold preserves.' If Maester Aemon only lived see more than one hundred years because he spent many decades (and winters) at the Wall, it's not impossible that a dragon could live well beyond his natural lifespan beyond the Wall.

And I'm pretty sure that it would have been known in Westeros what happened to Sheepstealer if Nettles had gone to Essos. Pretty much everyone would have courted Nettles, trying to convince her stay with them, to put her dragon to their uses, and so on.

Agreed. Also, I don't take Balerion's 200 years as the maximum lifespan possible. Maybe he died in his "60's", to use a human comparison.

In any case, the coal black and ferocious Cannibal sounds like a more interesting dragon to me than Sheepstealer. I wouldn't mind THAT monster still being alive. And hungry for more flesh. That one would probably push 300 now, but again, with the preservative magic of the Wall it could probably still be in its prime.

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Well, I really hope the Cannibal ends up getting a rider in the remainder of the Dance, and/or plays a huge role in whatever deciding battles there are still to come. I can't imagine him being killed during the remainder of the war, by the way. He must be the biggest dragon by far now, being older than Silverwing. And Ran has already indicated that Silverwing's life extends way into the post-Dance era, indicating that she did not face the Cannibal in battle during the Dance (I don't think she would have survived such an encounter unharmed).



Without many big dragons alive out there, I guess the Cannibal could only have been killed some time into the reign of Aegon III by a concentrated effort, i.e. a big army. The people of Dragonstone know and fear the Cannibal, so I don't think they would try to challenge him on his own island, and most certainly not during the remainder of the Dance since pretty much everyone has something else to do right now...


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Well, I really hope the Cannibal ends up getting a rider in the remainder of the Dance, and/or plays a huge role in whatever deciding battles there are still to come. I can't imagine him being killed during the remainder of the war, by the way. He must be the biggest dragon by far now, being older than Silverwing. And Ran has already indicated that Silverwing's life extends way into the post-Dance era, indicating that she did not face the Cannibal in battle during the Dance (I don't think she would have survived such an encounter unharmed).

Without many big dragons alive out there, I guess the Cannibal could only have been killed some time into the reign of Aegon III by a concentrated effort, i.e. a big army. The people of Dragonstone know and fear the Cannibal, so I don't think they would try to challenge him on his own island, and most certainly not during the remainder of the Dance since pretty much everyone has something else to do right now...

The Cannibal hibernating on the Isle of Cannibals? Nice bit of coincidence there.

Also, a great place to wake a dragon from stone. On the Isle named "Stone" in the Old Tongue.

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Agreed. Also, I don't take Balerion's 200 years as the maximum lifespan possible. Maybe he died in his "60's", to use a human comparison.

But if someone died in their 60's would you say they died of old age? I'm not sure I would.

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But if someone died in their 60's would you say they died of old age? I'm not sure I would.

It depends, as always, on the circumstances. I had a great-aunty who was seemingly healthy as can be, 63 years old, and she died without any appsrent reason. I'd put her death down to old age, but I do see your point.

Regarding Cannibal, has anyone ever thought that he is a literal Stone Dragon now? Is it at all possible Cannibal became stone? Unlikely I know, and somewhat crackpot but still. Stannis and Mel seemingly visited the deep volcanic areas of Dragonstone, is it possible that Cannibal's remains, or Stone-Cannibal are in those areas?

ETA: To clarify, my basis for this is the dragon "sculptures" on dragonstone. Is it really so wild to imagine one is an actual dragon?

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But if someone died in their 60's would you say they died of old age? I'm not sure I would.

I depends on the person saying it, I guess. If someone dies in his sleep at the age of 70, while previously healthy, I'd say it was old age. But I'd use the exact same words for someone at the age of 90 under the same circumstances.

But Balerion dying of old age at the age of 200 could be a nice guideline. It doesn't mean that dragons can't get any older. They most likely can, seeing as how Vhagar was 181 when she died (IIRC), and she seemed a healthy dragon.

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Anyway, it was really nice to see something about this on GRRM's blog (I don't check it often). So grats to Elio and Linda, this is my longest standing pre order on Amazon, even beating out a few very speculative games. I am sure Amazon will be happy to clear that backlog heh



I am very excited.


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Arya Summer Child,



I know you didn't ask, but I'd just like to say that the end of ASOS makes for a better "waiting point" than the end of ACOK. The series is supposed to be structured in some kind of two archs, and ASOS kinda finishes the first one.


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As many have said before, it is highly contentious that dragons actually are the CAUSE of the strengthening magic, rather than a symptom thereof.

If a dragon was in some kind of hibernation in a volcanic pit somewhere on Skagos for example, it might well be that it was waiting for magic to strengthen again before it could awaken and become active again.

The previous dragons were waning and dying off despite the best attempts of the Targaryens of the time, so it could as easily be that the dragons were dying out BECAUSE magic was fading, rather than the other way around.

So the direction of causality applying to this correlation is highly debatable.

And either way, magic was not COMPLETELY gone in the interim. Just much weaker. Perhaps a dragon on Skagos - NORTH of the latitude of the Wall, was magically cut off from the rest of the world as much as the Wall cuts off the magic of the Others from extending to the South.

Well, the pyromancers believe that the magic started to fade only after the death of the last dragon. So that option should not be ruled out at all.

Also, if the maesters truly did have a role in the death of the last dragons, than it would make more sense for the magic to fade because of the death of the last dragons, than of the dragons dying because of fading magic.

We know of no reason why the magic should suddenly fade, but if it happened because the dragons died, that would be a reason.

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Yeah, there may be no novelizations, but it really seems as if the books are the book to the show, and the supplementary material as well. I don't want 'The World of Ice and Fire' to be appear as if it's also the world of GoT when I put it into my bookshelf...


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Thank you Ran :)





Arya Summer Child,



I know you didn't ask, but I'd just like to say that the end of ASOS makes for a better "waiting point" than the end of ACOK. The series is supposed to be structured in some kind of two archs, and ASOS kinda finishes the first one.





I have watched all three seasons of HBO production. Ok then, I will skip my big plan. I will do all the reading in summer and will be able freely to read "The World of Ice and Fire"!


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Fairly sure I've always said it was mostly done in respect to the writing, which is true. Getting that last few percent took awhile, but that's because no one was really working on it, as the art was and is the thing that tends to get finished last so it put less pressure on us having to finish the MS immediately and allowed George more time to work on TWoW and other things in the interim. But it's done now (well, it's more-or-less done; George's part is done, but editing continues).

The text is written by a maester, drawing on various other resources, with the intention of presenting it to the crown. Things may, perhaps, go a bit awry in the course of doing so... ;)

Do we know which year the maester is writing this work or at least to which king?

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More like 250-ish. He was born in Jaeherys' lifetime. Edit: Actually, scratch that, I got him a little confused with Sheepstealer. Still, he was probably born after the Conquest, so he would be under 300.

FWIW, it would make no sense for any dragon to have been alive in the last 100 years or so. Otherwise, the birth of Dany's dragons wouldn't have had such a profound effect on fire-magic across the world.

Well, the wiki says Sheepstealer was around 80 at the time of the Dance of Dragons. And that the Cannibal was older and larger than him.

So, since Sheepstealer was born around the year 50 AC, the Cannibal must have been born a few decades before that. Possibly in one of the first batches of eggs after the Conquest.

A reasonable estimate for his age, should he still be alive today, would be around 270-290 years.

EDIT.

Also, he was said to be coal black and ferocious. Sounds very much like an offspring of Balerion himself.

Imagine someone riding a black dragon of monstrous size today. It would look like Balerion the Black Dread come again. Even Drogon is not pure black. He is black with red patterns.

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