Heresy 95 The Magic of Ice and Fire

[Black Crow]

Welcome to Heresy 95, the latest edition of the very fast moving thread that looks behind the struggle for the Iron Throne to try and work out what’s really going in the over-arching Song of Ice and Fire.

And welcome too to the fifth part of Mace Cooterian’s Centennial Seven project aimed at defining the seven major heresies and bringing together the textual evidence, current thinking and arguments surrounding them.

This one by Tyryan is the eagerly awaited piece on the opposing magics of Ice and Fire.

Both Part 3, on Winterfell, and Part 4 on the White Walkers took us just over 60 hours to run through 20 pages of discussion, rather than the usual week, so I suggest you clear your diary, fill the coffee pot, cancel the papers and above all don’t blink, because this could be another fast one.

Once again, what has always made Heresy so different and more vibrant and exciting than other threads is that while the theories discussed here have evolved and are often fiercely debated, in general we take a holistic approach. We’ve covered the Wall, the dodgy timelines, Winterfell and its mysteries, and now the blue-eyed lot, but they are not to be considered in isolation. Tyryan’s essay sets out a starting point for discussion without preconditions. This all about a free exchange of ideas and the further the Centennial Seven project goes on its way the more apparent it becomes that all of the themes being discussed here are inextricably intertwined and this will become even more apparent when we consider the magic.

We can’t claim to know as much as we’d like to, far less definitively predict how this is all going to turn out, (or have the arrogance to pretend that we do) but I do think we can fairly claim that the ongoing discussion on these pages takes us far deeper into the story than we have ever been before and into a far better understanding of the Song of Ice and Fire.

In the meantime if you’re already actively involved in the Heresy business the thread needs no further introduction. Here’s a link to Wolfmaid's essential guide to Heresy: http://asoiaf.wester...uide-to-heresy/, which provides annotated links to all the previous editions of Heresy and will house the archives created by the Centennial Seven project. Above all please don’t be intimidated by the size and scope of Heresy. We’re very good at talking in circles and we don’t mind going over old ground again, especially with a fresh pair of eyes, so just ask.

Otherwise, all that we do ask of you as ever is that you observe the house rules that the debate be conducted by reference to the text, with respect for the ideas of others, and above all great good humour.

[Black Crow]

MAGIC: ICE AND FIRE

DISCLAIMER: Our dear friend, wolfmaid7, is far more knowledgeable in all aspects Magic and mystical within the real world than I could ever hope to be, so take everything I put forth here with a grain of salt and please defer to her whenever there is a disagreement vis-à-vis the real world and Martin’s influences.

SECOND DISCLAIMER: For the most part, this entire OP is a combination of my own ramblings on the subject of Magic: Ice and Fire and a PM thread between wolfmaid7 and myself.

THIRD DISCLAIMER: As almost all of what is put forth here is drawn from memory (and anything not being drawn from memory is from wolfmaid7), there are many individual posters who should be considered contributors to this OP—but I have no idea who any of those posters would be. So, please, if you find something below that you feel was one of your ideas, take this as an acknowledgement of your work. If anything, these are my interpretations of the intellectual property of Heresy.

Ok, now that the legal is out of the way, it’s time for:

JAZZ HANDS!

Despite the best efforts of (some of) the Archmaesters, Magic is an integral part of Westeros. Whether it be Ice, Fire, Water, Earth, or Blood (or whatever else you can make the case for), Magic exists all over. As this is the Song of Ice and Fire, our focus will be on those two aspects of Magic within Westeros, but the others (particularly Blood) will be brought in as needed to reinforce and/or contradict what is put forth here.

THE OATH

If you were to go back and reread all of Heresy, you would find that the impetus for us delving deep into the Magicks of Westeros was a discussion on the Reeds Oath, which contains the following:

“To Winterfell we pledge the faith of Greywater. Hearth and heart and harvest we yield up to you, my lord. Our swords and spears and arrows are yours to command. Grant mercy to our weak, help to our helpless, and justice to all, and we shall never fail you. I swear it by earth and water. I swear it by bronze and iron. “We swear it by ice and fire.” ACOK Bran III

Points of import:

“I swear it by earth and water” – stated by Jojen, the greendreamer

“I swear it by bronze and iron” – stated by Meera, the huntress

“We swear it by ice and fire.” – stated by both

So, we have a triple dichotomy of Earth and Water, Bronze and Iron, and Ice and Fire.

In discussing what these dichotomies could mean, a certain drunken imp posited the following:

Earth and Water = Natural Magic

Bronze and Iron = Mankind

Ice and Fire = Worked Magic

This gives us a situation with the following: Mankind, in the form of the First Men, comes to Westeros/Valyria/Asshai/what have you. In this various “magical” places, these groups of Men encounter Natural Magic. Some of them embrace the naturalness of the magic and become one with the land. Others, being Men, seek to control the magic and use it to their own purposes. Thus comes Worked Magic.

Some quick definitions*:

Natural Magic – the innate ability to connect with energies of nature; magic which is intuitive to the user; also called “low magic”

Worked Magic – the manipulation and bending of energy to attain a desire result; bending magic to ones will; also called “high magic”; requires payment and/or rituals to attain

Chaos Magic – the implementation of change and progression; perverting Natural Magic through the use of Worked Magic so as to attain a goal.

*the above definitions provided to me by wolfmaid7, interpreted in my own words—that is to say, she might clarify/contradict some of the above

When you look at the various times a human has utilized Magic within ASOIAF, you find that, with the exception of after Bran ate of the paste, all of the greenseeing, warging, and skinchaninging Magic exhibited by the Starks and others of First Men blood are of an intuitive nature that require no payment, no real thought to occur. Yes, in order to happen on a substantive, lasting level, payment of self seems to be required, and training is needing. But the ability to utilize the Magic is natural to all who possess the abilities.

Contrast that to the Red Lot. Every time we see Mel, Thoros, or Moqorro perform an aspect of Magic that is beyond a simple parlor trick, rites and/or sacrifices were used. Same thing with MMD and what I at least believe was a Blood Magic ritual. These are all examples of Worked Magic.

So, why would the Reeds, who seem to be in tune with the Natural Magic side of the equation, BOTH swear by Ice and Fire? Because it was likely Man that caused Ice and Fire Magicks to become heavily manifest within the world due to Man’s innate need to control.

THE SEASONS

Another way to look at the magic of ASOIAF is through the seasons. First, we will harken back to Ancient Greek thought, wherein it was held, and most notably promulgated by Aristotle, that there were five main forces in the World: Fire, Water, Air, Earth, and Æther. This appears to be relatively the same within Martin’s world, with two adjustments. Instead of Æther, it is Blood, and in place of Air is one of its children, Storms, in the form of Ice. Having established that, we will now move back to the Seasons.

The relationship between the elements and the seasons are as follows:

Summer = Fire = Life

Autumn = Earth = Decay

Winter = Ice = Death

Water = Spring = Rejuvenation and Rebirth

As you’ll notice, there is a third column. This is the most important column of the three, for it is what establishes the Cycle, or, if you prefer, The Circle of Life. This Cycle is one of Life, Decay, Death, and Rebirth, ever going, ever renewing, constantly under attack by the forces of Ice and Fire. For a reason not yet revealed, the White Walkers, who appear to be the embodiment of the Ice-Death part of the equation, are actively seeking dominance of their Element over others.* For a reason that seems to be very apparent (“life” everlasting), the Priests of R’hllor and others who appear to be the embodiment of the Fire-Life part of the equation are actively seeking their own dominance. And it is for this reason that BOTH the forces of Ice and Fire need to be stopped. If either side wins, the Balance becomes disrupted, and the Natural order falls about, leading to Ragnorok.

*For me, I would say that they are actively pursuing a course of Death-to-All because that’s just what they do---it is, for lack of a better term, their nature. They are not evil, they are not immoral, they just are. Is Death morally evil? No, it simply exists, and it is an integral part of the Cycle, for without Death, there is no Rebirth, and without Rebirth, Life loses its Fire. I see the White Walkers as Death incarnate—and, as such, while they might seem Evil to those who view the concept of Death as “evil”, they are not; they simply are.

OTHER OBSERVATIONS

From a PM between myself and wolfmaid7; all of the quote is her words, mine being whatever is in a set of brakets:

“As far as the nature of Westeros goes, beings such as the COTF, WWs, even Dragons are Elementals. Elementals are Nature Spirits who rule over aspects of Nature. Elementals create Balance. Air Elementals are spirits the govern communication and inspiration and are represented by such things as birds, butterflies and the wind. [Hence the ravens as the communicators of Westeros?] Water Elementals govern adaptability [unCat, who is from a “house of water” and was found by Beric et al beside a river… and I would say she has adapted quite nicely to her new lot in life]. Fire Elementals govern the divine spark in all and is heavily intertwined with spirituality and passion. [sEE: R’hllor, Faith of; especially the version of it as espoused by Mel] Lastly, Earth Elementals work with humans and are the guardians of sacred sites and ancient groves and temples. [the Children seem to fit this pretty damn well].

“So what does this mean with regards to ASOIAF? It means that all these Elementals serve Nature and have a purpose integral to how the land is supposed to run. Not Evil or Good, just a tool to protect the Balance; you can run afoul of them and incur some backlash, but they aren’t [actively] out to kill Mankind.”

Once more, I would like to point out the importance of Balance.

Summerhall: I did post this in the Timelines thread, as there are aspects that pertain to that, but, from the magical standpoint, it belongs here as well, so going to quote myself:

“We know that Summerhall occurred in 259; we also know that Rhaegar was born on this exact same day. It is safe to assume, given his description in book and what Martin has stated about Craster in various interviews, that Craster is roughly 55 at the time of Game of Thrones etc. Summerhall's date puts it at 40 years ago; forty years ago puts Craster at around 15 years old at the time of Summerhall, and 15 seems to be the age at which the Westerosi women start having families, and, from what we know of human nature and how the wildlings operate, 13-15 years old is likely when wildling men start thinking about and actually go and steal their wife, meaning first child is 14-16.

If we take Craster's age as around 55 at time of novels, it puts him at around 15 at time of Summerhall, meaning that right around Summerhall was probably when he had his first child; if Craster has always sacrificed his boys from the beginning, then him starting his sacrifices occurred at almost the exact time as the incident at Summerhall (also provided it didn't take Craster a significant number of years to have a son instead of a daughter).”

TAKEAWAYS

The main question(s) I have for the forum are thus:

Thoughts on Balance? How close are we to Balance? Is Balance needed/lacking? Are Ice and Fire in opposition or different sides of the same coin?

How to you see religion and the Elemental properties of Planetosi Magic interacting with which other?

Any thoughts on anything else not included in the above?

My personal opinion: at its core, this series is about Balance and the need to maintain it. If either Ice or Fire were to win, Balance would be upset and the end result would be catastrophic. The politics of the series fall into this question of Balance as well. Martin has come out in many interviews as anti-war---period. Martin has also stated in these interviews that he includes the wars and the aftereffects to show his reasons for being against war: the common man gets screwed, and the socio-political Balance is disrupted, further screwing over the common man (my paraphrasing). As such, the end game of not only the Ice and Fire aspects but of the Game of Thrones itself is also Balance, and until such a Balance is maintained, Chaos shall reign. Who will be the one to bring the Balance? I have an idea as to whom.

I feel that Varys’ end game is to reach Balance, whereas Littlefinger is doing everything in his power to keep Balance away—to quote TV show Varys “[Littlefinger] would burn us all if it meant he could be king of the ashes”. How Varys will ultimately play into the following, I’m not quite sure, but here’s my fought on the Balance in the Game:

Balance will be maintained through Sansa—and Tyrion. Sansa, who ironically learned the finer arts of statecraft from the one trying to undermine Balance, will in the same stroke learn of the necessity for Balance; Tyrion, because he is, as Moqorro put it, “snarling in the middle of it all”, and he is already Balanced—hated equally by all, having been to the various places of import, a black and a green eye, and technically still married to Sansa, and through this union shall come the reunion of North and South, and thus Balance will be maintained. And it’s possible that Varys, through his “friendship” with Tyrion, will finally achieve his goals of Balance.

Be fruitful and multiply (your posts, that is)

Tyryan

[redriver]

Very good intro Tyryan.I suspect that Martin's "rules of magic" don't differ greatly from the ideas yourself and Wolfmaid have outlined,but there may be some.My take is that,yes magic or sorcery comes with a price and the outcome,more specific to Martin's rules may not be quite what you asked for.

I know we don't like to stray onto Targ turf too often,but the entire Dany/Drogo/Mirri/Dragon arc illustrates this quite well.

[King of Winters]

Great introduction Tyryan.

To answer one of your questions, re is balance needed?, I think it is. I think the Wall is the cause for the screwed up season and that it's because there's too much Ice and because it's "winning" against Fire, it has upset the natural balance of the seasons.

[aDanceWithFlagons]

This may tie-in to natural vs worked magic, yet im not sure there is a difference. I am not sure that skinchanging, greenseeing, dragon bonding and such are actual 'magic.' Magic is - what the Others can do with ice; hammer of the waters; a dragon binding horn; reading the flames; creating a fire ladder to distract the crowd from pickpockets etc. Greenseeing and such seemz to be an ability. You are either born with it or not. That being said there is the unknown detail of how the first men came to pozsess these abilities. Did the Children or FM use magic to give men this ability, then pass it on through bloodlines? Perhaps. I have an idea that this happened at the time of the pact on the isle of faces. How exactly im not sure. Earth and blood magic?

Again, you can read this as natural vs worked which may be different, but im not realy on that wagon

[wolfmaid7]

Very good intro Tyryan.I suspect that Martin's "rules of magic" don't differ greatly from the ideas yourself and Wolfmaid have outlined,but there may be some.My take is that,yes magic or sorcery comes with a price and the outcome,more specific to Martin's rules may not be quite what you asked for.

That is true even of those of us who follow the psth.A person using high magic may think that their price is a fair trade.It may work, how you want, not at all or not in the way you hope.

When doing rituals we make it a point not to have our working"harm any".if it does work then it meant the price was fair and the effect on the thread compensateble.

I know we don't like to stray onto Targ turf too often,but the entire Dany/Drogo/Mirri/Dragon arc illustrates this quite well.

[wolfmaid7]

This may tie-in to natural vs worked magic, yet im not sure there is a difference. I am not sure that skinchanging, greenseeing, dragon bonding and such are actual 'magic.' Magic is - what the Others can do with ice; hammer of the waters; a dragon binding horn; reading the flames; creating a fire ladder to distract the crowd from pickpockets etc. Greenseeing and such seemz to be an ability. You are either born with it or not. That being said there is the unknown detail of how the first men came to pozsess these abilities. Did the Children or FM use magic to give men this ability, then pass it on through bloodlines? Perhaps. I have an idea that this happened at the time of the pact on the isle of faces. How exactly im not sure. Earth and blood magic?

Again, you can read this as natural vs worked which may be different, but im not realy on that wagon

"Being" a skinchanger would be classified as natural "low magic"it is intuitive it just happens, you practice at it to get better but its something you're born with.

As to the Others, lets say they were created by tge COTF, then they are "auras" bellow elementals yo fo their work but while useful they can be really distructive.especially if their conjurer were beaten.They could loose their putpose and be a real pain.

If the Others are elementals themselves then the same applies.

But elementals ate integral to how nature works.

[Black Crow]

Partially following on from the previous thread and taking up Tyryan's thoughts on balance I think its worth looking at a possible equivalence between the forces of Ice and Fire.

I stress equivalence because the linkage is neither exact nor complete. Maester Aemon spoke of Ice preserving and Fire consuming and while he doesn't apprear to have been specifically talking of the different forces we've tended to take it as having a wide meaning which would allow for equivalent but different.

The Dead:

As to Ice we obviously have the wights, who are indeed cold dead things; whether they consciously hate all living things is open to question but their behaviour is certainly open to that interpretation mistaken or otherwise. I tend to follow Gilly in this in the business of Small Paul (deceased) "smelling" the life in her son. In other words they home in on heat signatures.

As to Fire; it does indeed bring life, or a semblance of it but as we've seen with Beric Dondarrion it also consumes and I'd suspect that Catelyn/Lady Stoneheart is also being consumed.

The Demons:

Stannis says it all here; the Others are "Demons, made of snow and Ice and cold"

As to the other side, we have stories of demon haunted Valyria. We haven't knowingly seen them, but I would suggest that just as the white walkers lurk (or supposedly lurk) in the Land of Always Winter so too do those of Fire in Valyria. In the previous thread I suggested that the white walkers are golems made of ice (and snow and cold) animated by the spirits of skinchangers, ie; Craster's sons. Their equivalent I suggest are Mel's shadow babies, made of smoke and animated by Stannis' spirit. They're not as "durable" as the Ice lot partly because the nature of fire is to consume and partly because they are in a hostile environment. In short its not hot enough. Valyria though might be a different matter.

The Priests

This is probably the more controversial bit.

For Ice I suggest we have the Likes of the White Queen, Symeon Star Eyes and latterly perhaps Val. Outwardly human but for their starry blue eyes, but capable of working magic and perhaps controlling or creating the white walkers and the wights. To be honest, with the possible exception of the White Queen we've not seen them performing such magic, but it is what we've seen red-eyed Mel do and Moqorro also seems gifted in that direction.

The Lords

As heretics we seem pretty well agreed that the Starks are connected to Ice as Kings of Winter, just as the Targaryens are connected to Fire through their dragons.

The question remains therefore as to what comes next. Are the Children, as some of us suspect, linked to the Ice, or is it just the Starks, wittingly or otherwise whose function it is to rein in the Ice? And what of Fire. Is the problem that Fire must be reined in by the Targaryens?

ETA: spelling

[Varmyr]

"Being" a skinchanger would be classified as natural "low magic"it is intuitive it just happens, you practice at it to get better but its something you're born with.

As to the Others, lets say they were created by tge COTF, then they are "auras" bellow elementals yo fo their work but while useful they can be really distructive.especially if their conjurer were beaten.They could loose their putpose and be a real pain.

If the Others are elementals themselves then the same applies.

But elementals ate integral to how nature works.

Why don't we stick to the magic in GRRM's World? No one wants to hear about "auras" & "elementals" unless GRRM said it.

[TheTowerOfJoy]

This may tie-in to natural vs worked magic, yet im not sure there is a difference. I am not sure that skinchanging, greenseeing, dragon bonding and such are actual 'magic.' Magic is - what the Others can do with ice; hammer of the waters; a dragon binding horn; reading the flames; creating a fire ladder to distract the crowd from pickpockets etc. Greenseeing and such seemz to be an ability. You are either born with it or not. That being said there is the unknown detail of how the first men came to pozsess these abilities. Did the Children or FM use magic to give men this ability, then pass it on through bloodlines? Perhaps. I have an idea that this happened at the time of the pact on the isle of faces. How exactly im not sure. Earth and blood magic?

Again, you can read this as natural vs worked which may be different, but im not realy on that wagon

I agree with the bolded part. Something happened at the Pact that I believe changed the first men, integrating them closer to the Old Gods and I suppose "Earth Magic" for the purposes of this discussion.

One thing that interests me is the Hammer of the Waters. If the Children are supposedly of Earth Magic, how did they call the Hammer of the Waters (at least once, and likely twice)?

[Dagda]

There is one other form of magic that is missing from the list, and for the sake of having a term, I'll call it Null magic. Null magic would be the absence of magic in Eartheros.

Magic in this world seemingly has created the imbalances and strife that the struggles for balance has caused. Destroy magic, destroy the causation, and balance will resume. The Maesters seem to be a center of resistance to the magical world. Varys seems to have an inner profound disgust for magic. What if they are correct?

Maybe the only way to save the world is to destroy the magic.

[Dagda]

Why don't we stick to the magic in GRRM's World? No one wants to hear about "auras" & "elementals" unless GRRM said it.

Sure, and we can hold the rest of the conversations without alliteration too. Dull, dull, unimaginative. :o

[wolfmaid7]

Why don't we stick to the magic in GRRM's World? No one wants to hear about "auras" & "elementals" unless GRRM said it.

ats,we are sticking to GRRM's world and he has drawn magic from the pagan world.....Sorry if you don't know about it.

[wolfmaid7]

With your leave Ty, i think its important before we spend 4 pages debating what he said we need to put down what GRRM said with regards to magic in his world.GRRM has constructed his magical world as real as the myths in our own.Form the "Reeds Oath" that Mirrors " calling the quaters/watchtowers" and is a play on the Wiccan "Rede" to Animism and Elementals.So lets dispense with the neys

Varymyr no disrespect but you're concrete and narrow mindedness has stopped you from seeing what is clearly an amazing recreation of magic as practiced by pagans.....Not fanicful but a way of life that hinges on balance.If you knew anything anything about the path you would have recognized the "Rede" ,animism,and elemental themes in this

Some people have said

1. GRRM said that he doesn't want his readers to know how magic works.Or they should be concerned with "how magic works"

Based on GRRM's interviews it is clear that he doesn't want us nor his characters to know the mechanics of magic( his words) ...I.e the Recipes,words ingriedents.This is different to identifying "types" of magic used seeing as he himself has made us aware of the types.So wrt knowing spells and "the how" someone made something happen there is none of that in totality.He teases us as in the case of MMD and Mel,but we never know every detail of the spells or invocations.Putting in these thing cheapen it as he says.....Excerpts fromhis interviews and the links to them.

http://www.austinchronicle.com/daily/books/2013-08-29/lonestarcon-3-the-george-r-r-martin-interview/

AC: What are the dangers of using magic? What can go wrong?

GM: Magic should never be the solution to the problem. My credo as a writer has always been Faulkner’s Nobel Prize acceptance speech where he said, “The only thing worth writing about is the human heart in conflict with itself.” That transcends genre. That’s what good fiction, good drama is about: human beings in trouble. You have to make a decision, you have to do something, your life is in danger or your honor is in danger, or you're facing some crisis of the heart. To make a satisfying story, the protagonist has to solve the problem, or fail to solve the problem – but has to grapple with the problem in some kind of rational way, and the reader has to see that. And if the hero does win in the end, he has to feel that that victory is earned. The danger with magic is that the victory could be unearned. Suddenly you're in the last chapter and you wind up with a deus ex machina. The hero suddenly remembers that if he can just get some of this particular magical plant, then he can brew a potion and solve his problem. And that's a cheat. That feels very unsatisfying. It cheapens the work. Well-done fantasy – something like Tolkien – he sets Lord of the Rings up perfectly, right at the beginning. The only way to get rid of the ring, the only way, is to take it to Mount Doom and throw it in the fires from which it comes. You know that right from the first. And if we'd gone through all that, and then at the end of the book suddenly Gandalf had said, wait a minute, I just remembered, here's this other spell, oh, I can get rid of the ring easily! You would have hated that. That would have been all wrong. Magic can ruin things. Magic should never be the solution. Magic can be part of the problem.

http://www.newrepublic.com/article/112791/game-thrones-season-three-review-george-rr-martin-interview

As fantasy writers go, Martin makes minimal use of magic in A Song of Ice and Fire—he calls his otherworldly elements a kind of “low magic.” And in the first two seasons of the show, the supernatural moments can feel joltingly unreal...............The contrast between magic and assaultive biological reality is by design; Martin likes to keep the mechanics of his magic unknowable and the mechanics of the body concrete. “A lot of fantasists invent very elaborate magical systems but that to my mind is a mistake,” he said. “That reduces magic to a kind of false science. If you just mix some newt’s eye with blood of unicorn to get some result, then you don’t have to be a magician do to it. Then anyone who has a recipe can do it. It’s just science that doesn’t work.”

http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/01/his-beautiful-dark-twisted-fantasy-george-r-r-martin-talks-game-of-thrones/?_php=true HYPERLINK "http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/01/his-beautiful-dark-twisted-fantasy-george-r-r-martin-talks-game-of-thrones/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0" HYPERLINK "http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes

(read question before last question)

http://weirdtalesmagazine.com/2007/05/24/george-rr-martin-on-magic-vs-science/

WT: This raises a point which others have raised before: that science fiction is a kind of language. You can have a fantasy novel within a science-fiction framework, as opposed to a fantasy novel not within a science-fiction framework. This implies a science-fiction discourse which can handle fantasy material. Wasn’t that the whole point of the Unknown Worlds school, fantasy written as if it were science fiction?

GRRM: Yes, and Unknown Worlds was a particular subset of fantasy, driven, I think, by Campbell’s very deep rationalism, his desire to make magic obey the laws that engineering might obey. So you could discover the seven principles of magic and apply them. To my mind the ultimate Unknown Worlds stories were always the Incomplete Enchanter stories — the Harold Shea stories — by Pratt and de Camp. Harold Shea is always going into these worlds, and there is magic at work, but it’s not mysterious. It is strange to him at first, but when he works out the underlying principles, he can easily become a magician, because he is basically an engineer. That was an amusing and, I think, an original take on it all at the time, in the 1930s and ‘40s, but it’s certainly not my take. I find myself more in sympathy with the way Tolkien handled magic. I think if you’re going to do magic, it loses its magical qualities if it becomes nothing more than an alternate kind of science. It is more effective if it is something profoundly unknowable and wondrous, and something that can take your breath away.

October 21, 1998

MAGIC IN FANTASY

Good question, Jason. The proper use of magic is one of the trickiest aspects of writing fantasy. If badly done, it can easily unbalance a book.

In my case, one of the things I did was go back and reread the Master, J.R.R. Tolkien. Virtually all high fantasy written today, including the work of most of the authors in LEGENDS, in heavily influenced by Tolkien.

Rereading LORD OF THE RINGS, it struck me very forcefully that Tolkien's use of magic is both subtle and sparing. Middle Earth is a world full of wonders, beyond a doubt, but very little magic is actually performed on stage. Gandalf is a wizard, for instance, but he does most of his fighting with a sword.

That seemed to be a much more effective way to go than by having someone mumbling spells every paragraph, so I tried to adapt a similar approach in A GAME OF THRONES.

So now we can focus on the types of magic used,the parallels and how they relate to ASOIAF instead of the BS arguement about terms used. GRRM's use of certain things and phrases are proof of where he's drawing from.

[Black Crow]

I agree with the bolded part. Something happened at the Pact that I believe changed the first men, integrating them closer to the Old Gods and I suppose "Earth Magic" for the purposes of this discussion.

But not necessarily all First Men. Some of what we know points to the possibilities of the Starks being a sort of Priest Kings.

[JNR]

Tyryan -- excellent job introducing such a complex and controversial topic, man.

:cheers:

More later, but I find this very persuasive in particular:

In discussing what these dichotomies could mean, a certain drunken imp posited the following:

Earth and Water = Natural Magic

Bronze and Iron = Mankind

Ice and Fire = Worked Magic

I have just discussed this with someone very well-informed, who never uses the Westeros boards, and we are both of the opinion you have nailed it there.

[Black Crow]

So now we can focus on the types of magic used,the paralles and how they relate to ASOIAF.

Splendid (and useful) post

[Black Crow]

One thing that interests me is the Hammer of the Waters. If the Children are supposedly of Earth Magic, how did they call the Hammer of the Waters (at least once, and likely twice)?

I refer to that analysis of the Reeds' oath; Earth and Water are linked as natural magic.

[Black Crow]

Just as an aside, in the Winterfell thread there was some discussion of the iron swords placed across the dead lords' knees and the importance placed on cold iron in our own mythologies as a specific against magics, including the raising of the dead. JNR rightly pointed out that the early Starks will have had bronze not iron weapons. While I seem to recall it has certain magic qualities it doesn't work as bronze does.

Is there a problem here or, bearing in mind thoughts that the Long Night may not have been as long ago as reputed and may have been the catalyst for the Pact, and taking into account also that reference to the Last Hero using a blade of dragonsteel - is it possible that by the time all of this went down and the Starks were elevated to their special status they were already using iron rather than bronze?

Indeed perhaps this may be what set them apart.

[JNR]

[GRRM]: The only way to get rid of the ring, the only way, is to take it to Mount Doom and throw it in the fires from which it comes. You know that right from the first. And if we'd gone through all that, and then at the end of the book suddenly Gandalf had said, wait a minute, I just remembered, here's this other spell, oh, I can get rid of the ring easily! You would have hated that.

Still, Frodo could have hopped on a giant eagle, flown over Orodruin, and dropped the Ring in from above, at the point in Fellowship when the Nine were out of commission and couldn't interfere.

But I try not to think too much about that...