Heresy 95 The Magic of Ice and Fire

[TheTowerOfJoy]

Don't forget the blood and Ygritte's assertion that it is evil.

Well, I think I've stated that I believe it was the 3rd hammer, which we've been told was "dark magic" by the text, which implies that it both required sacrifice most likely of a large amount of blood and is on the "eviler" side of magic :)

[TheTowerOfJoy]

With Dany in Valyria, bringing balance to Fire as Jon will with Ice, I think it'll be harder as Valyria is worse than the Wall, and we still don't know what caused it and what it's really like there. So for Dany it's a harder job.

Well I personally think that Valyria may have been permanently "balanced". I'm thinking something similar may happen to Ice. A cataclysm at the Heart of Winter could be an equivalent.

[The Snowfyre Chorus]

Remind me not to perturb you.

:agree: :rofl:

[TheTowerOfJoy]

Indeed. And perhaps it is also the threat of a hammer - a hammer-in-waiting, as it were..

I've often wondered if the Horn of Joramun doesn't cause the instant melting of ice. We were told Joramun "woke the giants" with it. Perhaps they were frozen? If so, then blowing the Horn of Joramun would create a gigantic tsunami which would flood most of the gift. Someone on the main board did the math, and it was crazy how much water the wall would turn into if it insta-melted.

[Tyryan Lannister]

Well I personally think that Valyria may have been permanently "balanced". I'm thinking something similar may happen to Ice. A cataclysm at the Heart of Winter could be an equivalent.

There is also the question of what exactly happened at Hardholme; regardless of whether it was a mostly natural thing (a dormant volcano erupting) or a magic incident a la the Doom, Fire was the culprit, and this occurred within the domains of Dark Narnia

[Tyryan Lannister]

I've often wondered if the Horn of Joramun doesn't cause the instant melting of ice. We were told Joramun "woke the giants" with it. Perhaps they were frozen? If so, then blowing the Horn of Joramun would create a gigantic tsunami which would flood most of the gift. Someone on the main board did the math, and it was crazy how much water the wall would turn into if it insta-melted.

Don't have the numbers with me, but likely all of Whitetree, Craster's, Last Hearth, Karhold, and maybe even Bear Island would get flooded

[Black Crow]

Well, I think I've stated that I believe it was the 3rd hammer, which we've been told was "dark magic" by the text, which implies that it both required sacrifice most likely of a large amount of blood and is on the "eviler" side of magic :)

To be exact it was the breaking of the Arm which we're told was accomplished by dark magics:

The old songs say that the greenseers used dark magics to make the seas rise and sweep away the land, shattering the Arm, but it was too late to close the door.

And this one as I've suggested above sounds pretty much like the breaking of the anticline in what's now the Straits of Dover, which was the result of ice closing the north end of the sea, but it wasn't a hammer although there may well be some confusion in Westerosi folklore.

As to the Wall, yes, once again ice(and blood and evil) is involved but I wouldn't describe it as a hammer.

ETA: thinking about it I suppose its possible that a Wall was raised across the Neck but something went wrong and it melted...

[TheTowerOfJoy]

Actually the Faceless Men uses glamours in the same way. In the Ugly Girl chapter, the Kindly Man explains to Arya that mummers use artifice and glamours use light and shadow. He says she will learn to use both but that both have their downsides, the glamour in particular because the keen eye can see through the mists being cast. That's why they attach the face on her instead, it is nearly undetectable. So it is not fire magic or blood magic but an illusion.

Right, but they don't seem to be using fire magic to produce the illusion like Mel does. Of course, it's possible that what we're talking about here is shadow binding type of magic, that really isn't related to fire the way Mel says it does.

[TheTowerOfJoy]

To be exact it was the breaking of the Arm which we're told was accomplished by dark magics:

The old songs say that the greenseers used dark magics to make the seas rise and sweep away the land, shattering the Arm, but it was too late to close the door.

And this one as I've suggested above sounds pretty much like the breaking of the anticline in what's now the Straits of Dover, which was the result of ice closing the north end of the sea, but it wasn't a hammer although there may well be some confusion in Westerosi folklore.

As to the Wall, yes, once again ice(and blood and evil) is involved but I wouldn't describe it as a hammer.

ETA: thinking about it I suppose its possible that a Wall was raised across the Neck but something went wrong and it melted...

While I agree that the hammer of the waters wasn't called "dark magic" specifically in the text it seems to be the same thing as the "shattering" of the Arm of Dorne, which doesn't sound like ice closing anything, it sounds like the land bridge was smashed by water so hard that it shattered the land, sending large chunks of the earth that made up this land bridge into the seas.

[TheTowerOfJoy]

Don't have the numbers with me, but likely all of Whitetree, Craster's, Last Hearth, Karhold, and maybe even Bear Island would get flooded

In your opinion do you think the amount of water generated from such an event would be approximately the same as the amount of water that flooded the neck?

[Black Crow]

While I don't recall the wording, the World App did basically confirm that Mel was a bit of a charlatan, heavily relying on powders, potions and illusion. That isn't to say she doesn't work magic, but she's certainly likely to claim that her magic comes from Fire whether it does so or not.

[TheTowerOfJoy]

There is also the question of what exactly happened at Hardholme; regardless of whether it was a mostly natural thing (a dormant volcano erupting) or a magic incident a la the Doom, Fire was the culprit, and this occurred within the domains of Dark Narnia

Do we know time frames? Did Hardhome happen right before the Doom of Valyria for instance? If so, could it have been a "test" for whatever was done to cause the Doom?

[Black Crow]

While I agree that the hammer of the waters wasn't called "dark magic" specifically in the text it seems to be the same thing as the "shattering" of the Arm of Dorne, which doesn't sound like ice closing anything, it sounds like the land bridge was smashed by water so hard that it shattered the land, sending large chunks of the earth that made up this land bridge into the seas.

Ah no, you've not read the link. What shattered the Wealden-Artois Anticline at the southern end of what's now the North Sea was not ice but a dramatic raising of the water level in the sea caused by ice closing its northern outlet. Thus if we translate that into Westerosi terms it means that the Children used Ice to block off the northern end of the Narrow Sea between the Fingers and Braavos, the sea, still fed by the Trident, the Blackwater and the smaller rivers would have risen up to smash through the Arm.

Investigations have revealed dramatic scour marks in the Straits of Dover demonstrating that in the real world the breaching of the land bridge was sudden and dramatic.

[Black Crow]

Do we know time frames? Did Hardhome happen right before the Doom of Valyria for instance? If so, could it have been a "test" for whatever was done to cause the Doom?

With the usual reservations as to things happening in the world of long long ago, the destruction of Hardhome was said to have occurred 600 years ago and the Doom 400 years ago.

[redriver]

Personally I tend to think of the attacks on the Arm and Neck as meteors.Whether they were asteroids or icy comets is neither here nor there,for the time being.They all turned into meteors/meteorites once they entered the atmosphere.

ACOK is full of references to comets.Both the Targaryen and Asshai prophecies are centered around comets.Comets can explain the Others and the dragons both.Shoemaker-Levy broke into 5 pieces and crashed into Jupiter in 1992 just when Martin was writing the original novel.

What happened in our world with regard to floods,glacial melts is only partially relevant here as Martin is doing his own world building.

The Hammer of the Waters has its name for a reason.

ETA -Hardhome and the Doom were both obviously volcanic disasters,both with a hint of human/magical interference,

[TheTowerOfJoy]

Ah no, you've not read the link. What shattered the Wealden-Artois Anticline at the southern end of what's now the North Sea was not ice but a dramatic raising of the water level in the sea caused by ice closing its northern outlet. Thus if we translate that into Westerosi terms it means that the Children used Ice to block off the northern end of the Narrow Sea between the Fingers and Braavos, the sea, still fed by the Trident, the Blackwater and the smaller rivers would have risen up to smash through the Arm.

Investigations have revealed dramatic scour marks in the Straits of Dover demonstrating that in the real world the breaching of the land bridge was sudden and dramatic.

Ah, ok, and no I didn't read the link. My bad.

It's an interesting thought, just not one I share. I guess I'm under the impression that the Children called on the same "magic" at the Arm of Dorne and the Neck, even if it's not explicitly stated as such, and that said magic was a tsunami type event of a tremendous amount of sea water rising and being flung at the Arm, and later across the neck.

I'm also surmissing that a similar occurance may have happened at the wall, with the Children raising a large amount of water on top of the foundation blocks and gates built by Brandon the Builder, and then someone or something insta-freezing it in place. (my guess to this would be the Others or whomever created their icy bodies in the first place).

Clearly I understand this is all theoretical, and it's not supported directly by text, but IMO by inference from text.

[TheTowerOfJoy]

Personally I tend to think of the attacks on the Arm and Neck as meteors.Whether they were asteroids or icy comets is neither here nor there,for the time being.They all turned into meteors/meteorites once they entered the atmosphere.

ACOK is full of references to comets.Both the Targaryen and Asshai prophecies are centered around comets.Comets can explain the Others and the dragons both.Shoemaker-Levy broke into 5 pieces and crashed into Jupiter in 1992 just when Martin was writing the original novel.

The Hammer of the Waters has its name for a reason.

While I agree there is a lot of mentions of comets, I guess I'm struggling with why you would name a comet crashing as the "hammer of the waters"? Are you suggesting that they pulled a comet from the sky which hit the water causing a tsunami type event, because we're literally told that sea water swept away the land of the Arm of Dorne, and bogs and marshes would imply lots of water, not a crashing of a meteor into the land.

I'm not naysaying, I'm just trying to understand your argument here.

ETA -Hardhome and the Doom were both obviously volcanic disasters,both with a hint of human/magical interference,

Are you aware of the timelines involved in Hardhome and the Doom? This is a subject I'm not well versed on, and I would like to learn more about.

[TheTowerOfJoy]

With the usual reservations as to things happening in the world of long long ago, the destruction of Hardhome was said to have occurred 600 years ago and the Doom 400 years ago.

Awesome, so theoretically Hardhome could have been a "test run" for the Doom.

What do we think is at the Heart of Winter?

I personally think it's some magical mountain/spire of never-melting ice (and yes I know this isn't directly supported by text).

What would happen if a chunk of said never-melting ice were flung into a volcano?

Nevermind, that's just a pet theory of mine that is probably way too far out there to discuss at this juncture until we get more info in TWOW.

[King of Winters]

Awesome, so theoretically Hardhome could have been a "test run" for the Doom.

What do we think is at the Heart of Winter?

I personally think it's some magical mountain/spire of never-melting ice (and yes I know this isn't directly supported by text).

What would happen if a chunk of said never-melting ice were flung into a volcano?

Nevermind, that's just a pet theory of mine that is probably way too far out there to discuss at this juncture until we get more info in TWOW.

I think that the Heart of Winter maybe a metaphor for something else. I don't think it's anything physical.

[Black Crow]

Agreed, my pet theory as always remains that what Bran saw was the future.