Asshai by the Shadow is dying!

[ummester]

That is very possible, but haven't travellers said that ulthos is covered in dense jungle not forest.

Jungle's are tropical forests

Oh, I just read this comment. I think it is a common misunderstanding that a jungle is tropical and a forest is not. There is no actual difference other than vegetation density. I think the word jungle originalted from a word that had the meaning 'forest'. A jungle is just a very dense forest.

A bit of internet reading reveals that a rain forest can grow in both tropical and temperate regions. The formation of a rain forest is dependent on mositure/rainfall, not climate. A jungle can occur in any forest (rain forest or not) in which sufficient light can reach the undergrowth to make it thick enough to be impenetrable.

Besides this, how would the POVs in ASoIaF even know the difference? This is where I've always found GRRM cheats a bit, his characters have word use, technical and emotional understanding that real people in his proposed environment just wouldn't have. But, I can see how it would be hard to write an exciting fantasy story without taking these liberties.

TLDR - The vegetation in Ulthos just has to be very thick and look impenetrable to technically be a jungle, position in relation to the equator has nothing to do with it.

[John Doe]

Maybe its already dead.

[John Suburbs]

"I dont remember reading anything about extra moons in the books, except for that time i read about a legend involving an extra moon in the books" (not a dothraki legend either, but you could only misinterpret it as such if you dismembered it within its context- indicative of having literally read it yourself and not simply coming by it elsewhere)

You read your own post? Its a debate in an of itself

Sorry, my intent was to find out if there was some text that I had forgotten related to more than one moon in the sky. Apparently not.

I don't put any stock in the tale about dragons hatching from a second moon. It's just an old legend tossed off by a minor character who didn't really believe it herself.

So I don't see any reason to think there is or ever was anything but one moon around Planetos which waxes and wanes in roughly a 28-day cycle just like our own. That, plus the extraordinary similarity between the map in ASoIaF and our own world leads me to conclude that this is indeed Earth, but the Earth of our future, not some mythical, alternate past. Consider this:

Our own technological development proceeds largely unchecked for, say, the next five thousand years, during which time all manner of chem/bio/etc discoveries are made, including the creation of dragons, elf-like woodland people, fearsome ice warriors and ESP, far-seeing, future-telling and the like. Then, along comes the next Ice Age that wipes out all traces of our civilization, but leaves these creations to fend for themselves, along with human beings.

When the glaciers recede, mankind follows the same path from hunter/gatherer to basic agriculture to large sophisticated civilizations to the feudal period we see now, except this time there really are dragons and wizards and giants.

[TheSovereignGrave]

Hasn't GRRM pretty much explicitly stated that it's not Earth?

[oursisthefury69]

Sorry, my intent was to find out if there was some text that I had forgotten related to more than one moon in the sky. Apparently not.

I don't put any stock in the tale about dragons hatching from a second moon. It's just an old legend tossed off by a minor character who didn't really believe it herself.

Wow again.

"Sorry, my intent was to find out if there was some text that I had forgotten related to more than one moon in the sky. Apparently not."

"I don't put any stock in the tale about dragons hatching from a second moon. It's just an old legend tossed off by a minor character who didn't really believe it herself."

So here we have you saying { oh yea apparently there is Not any text related too more than one moon in the sky, then proceed immediately to acknowledge the concept that it exists as something said by a minor character.}

This is the same thing i got into with post 63 literally, idk if its some type of gimmick of yours; But your posts are debates in and of themselves, so blatantly contradicting.

[John Suburbs]

OK, let me try again. The only tale I am aware of is the one about two moons and one hatched full of dragons, uttered by Doreah I think, that she overheard from one of her clients a long time ago. Apparently, there is no other text related to multiple moons, so I hardly think that we can conclude definitively that there were based on one half-understood comment from a relatively minor character. If I am in error, please clarify with the appropriate text.

Clear enough?

[ummester]

I can see how your idea would fit, John Suburbs - though D&D have definitely stated that the only fan theory for an ending they would find silly is a 'Planet of the Apes' one, which yours is. I can't recall GRRM making a statement re Earth either way. It is also possible that there may have only ever been one moon. It's the trouble with how GRRM has delivered his world mythology, it is very open to interpretation and subjective analysis.

The truth, I fear, is that he really hasn't thought about his world that much. That the fandom and interest in the details of ASoIaF has become bigger than he expected and he never started designing with a complete picture in mind. I've heard GRRM say in an interview that he can't keep track of all the names of places in his world. This world is not Middle Earth, it is not something the creator has developed and thought about with any kind of exactness. It's a mish mash of ideas from Middle Earth, Hyperborea and our very real world.

I think Essos was never intended to be explored or dealt with in any detail other than as a place for Dany to wait and to provide some mythology. Westeros was intended to be the only place the story was originally supposed to explore, a USA sized medieval British Isles where GRRM could focus only mainly character based drama, based on historical drama and played out against a backdrop of fantastic Western styled mythology. I think that GRRM world, like his story, has literary gotten away from him.

[John Suburbs]

Agreed, none of this is relevant to the story, and I highly doubt that either the show or the books will have an Aha! moment where the reader/viewer discovers that they are planet Earth. It's been done to death already and would seem forced and out of place in aSoIaF.

It's just fun to think about how it could all have happened.

[Nymeria_Stark]

Dragons first came out of Asshai, and now it is part of the Shadowlands. Then they showed up in Valyria, now scene of the Doom.

Something tells me that dragons are not conducive to long-term human habitation.

THIS is why I love these forums, because people think of stuff I could never come up with!

This is a great thought. This whole time, I've been thinking dragons + Others = return of powerful magic.

BUT, what does the return of dragons today say about Daenerys and her role as Khaleesi?

[LmL]

Personally I think there were two comets that moved closely together, one of them struck the first moon destroying it. The other comet is the red star we see in the sky

Its always good to see my astronomy theory making the rounds! Cheers!

[LmL]

OK, let me try again. The only tale I am aware of is the one about two moons and one hatched full of dragons, uttered by Doreah I think, that she overheard from one of her clients a long time ago. Apparently, there is no other text related to multiple moons, so I hardly think that we can conclude definitively that there were based on one half-understood comment from a relatively minor character. If I am in error, please clarify with the appropriate text.

Clear enough?

If you would like to see the definitive "case for the existence of the second moon which was destroyed by a comet" theory, feel free to consult Astronomy of Planetos Part 1 in my signature. There actually is quite a bit of evidence for it. :)

[John Suburbs]

Sorry, I see little evidence in all that and whole lot of speculation involving comets, dragons, Lightbringer, et al. The only mention of more than one moon is in an ancient Qartheen legend, but if this were in fact true, why is it that only the Qartheen speak of it? It should be part of the creation myth of every culture on the planet.

And as you say, here on Earth there are legends connecting comets to dragons, but does that mean there were real dragons flying around at one time?

[LmL]

Sorry, I see little evidence in all that and whole lot of speculation involving comets, dragons, Lightbringer, et al. The only mention of more than one moon is in an ancient Qartheen legend, but if this were in fact true, why is it that only the Qartheen speak of it? It should be part of the creation myth of every culture on the planet.

And as you say, here on Earth there are legends connecting comets to dragons, but does that mean there were real dragons flying around at one time?

Well John, thanks for taking a look at my theory, first off. I don’t want to go into the weeds of debating my theory on someone else’s thread of course, so mainly I was throwing it out there for anyone interested in a theory about the second moon. I’m sorry you didn’t see the evidence there. It’s true there is only the one direct mention of the second moon in the Quarthine legend, but I believe there is significant metaphorical clues, such as the scenes I quoted - Ned’s sword splitting, Dany sending out her three bloodriders, the apple-splitting scene with Alleras, and a couple others, some of which may be in part 2 or 3, I can’t recall precisely. There are more which I haven’t posted yet...

I believe this is one of the big secrets of the backstory of ASOAIF, so George didn’t want to give us too much to go on - that’s why he only gave us the story of the Quarantine tale about the moon cracking. But the tale of Nissa Nissa also has the moon cracking, and whether or not you buy my premise that the Bloodstone Emperor is or Ahai or not, Azor Ahai undoubtedly lived at the time of the Long Night. So we have two references to the moon cracking, one connected to the Long Night and the other to a meteor shower remembered as flaming dragons in the sky. That’s where I started from with the idea that the destruction of this hypothetical second moon caused a meteor shower and the Long Night. Light bringer as the comet simply provides the mechanism for the moon’s destruction. The image of the sun stabing a moon with a red comet is a match for Azor Ahai, warrior of fire, stabbing his wife (“moon is wife of sun, it is known”) with a flaming sword.

As to why nobody other than the very ancient city of Qarth remembers the second moon... let me ask: what do we know about 10.000BC that historians agree on, or even treat as credible hypothesis? I mean, I myself am a believer in Atlantis, or at least an advanced maritime culture which existed on islands in the Atlantic ocean and the coats of Europe and the Americas in 10,000 BC during the end of the last ice age. I believe the evidence is overwhelming, when you look at it, that ancient peoples were advanced in astronomy, stone making, maritime skills, and possibly metalworking, and that culture reached a high point which we barely remember, and was subsequently destroyed by the global flooding which we know accompanied the melting of the Ice caps from 15,000 BCE to 7,000 BCE. The point is - what record do we have of this culture? It’s all in scattered myth, and the name “Atlantis” or any derisive is only used in a couple places. There actually are myths about a tall, red haired, bearded people who fled some destroyed island civilization and brought advanced knowledge to indigenous peoples all around the world, particularly join both sides of the Atlantic - but how many people have heard of them? Not many. It was 10,000 years ago.

On top of that,anything that happened or existed before the Long Night will only be a hazy memory at best. During a global nuclear winter that lasted more than a couple of years, there would be widespread famine and starvation, and most life on earth would die. All governments, kingdoms, civilization would collapse, as anarchy and chaos prevailed. The survivors of the Long Night would be reduced to stone age living, and many traditions and cultures would be erased. Everything starts over. That’s why the emery of a smaller, darker, further-out-from-the-planet second moon wouldn’t be remembered by many 10,000 years later.

And like I said, I think it’s a big mystery George wanted to lay out.

[LmL]

As for Asshai by the Shadow dying, I have an explanation for that from my third essay, Fingerprints of the Dawn. In the previous section, I lay out the proof for Asshai being the capital of the Great Empire of the Dawn, the photo-Valyrians who tamed dragons first at Asshai, and whose ghosts appear to Daenerys in A Game of Thrones, during her miscarriage dream (they are the ghosts in the faded raiment of kings, with hair of gold and silver and platinum, with eyes of various gemstones which match the Gemstone Emperors of the Great Empire of the Dawn). According to this premise, Asshai and the surrounding area was once a healthy, fertile land, and Asshai, the largest city in the world, was built BEFORE the Long Night disaster corrupted it.

------------------------------------------------------------------

If this is correct, and Asshai was at one time the crowning glory of the Great Empire of the Dawn, then what happened to it?

Well, two things. First off, the Bloodstone Emperor usurped the throne and began a "reign of terror," bringing on the Long Night:

When the daughter of the Opal Emperor succeeded him as the Amethyst Empress, her envious younger brother cast her down and slew her, proclaiming himself the Bloodstone Emperor and beginning a reign of terror. He practiced dark arts, torture, and necromancy, enslaved his people, took a tiger woman for his bride, feasted on human flesh, and cast down the true Gods to worship a black stone that had fallen from the sky. (Many scholars count the Bloodstone Emperor as the first High Priest of the sinister Church of Starry Wisdom, which persists to this day in many port cities throughout the known world).

In the annals of the further east, it was the Blood Betrayal, as his usurpation is named, that ushered in the age of darkness called the Long Night.

- The World of Ice and Fire

It's possible the sheer scope of his dark magic, or perhaps some magical-experimental disaster akin to Summerhall or the Doom caused the peninsula to be as it is today. Certainly, there's an obvious connection between Asshai-by-the-Shadow as it is now and dark magic, so it must play a part, at least. But since I believe the stories of the Blood Betrayal and that of Azor Ahai's forging of Lightbringer to have their roots in an astronomical event, which then in turn manifested on the earth in form of these interpersonal dramas, let's consider the state of Asshai with this in mind.

Remember that the Bloodstone Emperor worshipped a black stone which fell from the sky at the time of the beginning of the Long Night: “..it was the Blood Betrayal.. that ushered in the age of darkness called the Long Night."

If my initial hypothesis is correct and the explosion of the second moon is the initial cause of the Long Night, then it seems overwhelmingly likely that the black stone he worshipped at the onset of the LN was a piece of exploded moon rock. That’s why his reign of dark magic is associated with the cause of the Long Night - it was empowered by the magic of the black moon rocks which fell from space at the begging of the Long Night, likely on Asshai and its surrounding peninsula. This is the other "thing that happened to Asshai": it got hit by a truly hellacious meteor explosion of some kind. If there’s a deposit of this moon rock, it’s likely to be found in "The Shadow," which is just upstream from Asshai proper. The polluted and toxic river Ash flows from the Shadow, so perhaps the moon rock is polluting the river and the entire peninsula.

But I think I may have a more specific answer to why Asshi is the way it is.

"The Shadow" seems to be heart of darkness and dark magic, a source a both which dark magicians of all stripes come to Asshai to draw on. Let's reverse engineer this, based on the idea that Asshai was once a majestic city in a rich and fertile land, the capital of the greatest empire in the world's memory. If this is true, then "The Shadow" must have been something else at one time. It could have been nothing - merely a fertile land with no source of any kind of magic. But perhaps it was at one time a source of not-so-icky magic, and was corrupted to become "The Shadow." If so, what was its nature? Probably something having to do with natural fire, light, and summer, I would guess. Then a piece of a corpse of a dead fire-moon goddess dropped on it (either the meteor shower / firestorm or a large meteor impact), corrupting the heart of fire to become the heart of shadow.

He lifted his eyes and saw clear across the narrow sea, to the Free Cities and the green Dothraki sea and beyond, to Vaes Dothrak under its mountain, to the fabled lands of the Jade Sea, to Asshai by the Shadow, where dragons stirred beneath the sunrise.

Finally he looked north. He saw the Wall shining like blue crystal, and his bastard brother Jon sleeping alone in a cold bed, his skin growing pale and hard as the memory of all warmth fled from him. And he looked past the Wall, past endless forests cloaked in snow, past the frozen shore and the great blue- white rivers of ice and the dead plains where nothing grew or lived. North and north and north he looked, to the curtain of light at the end of the world, and then beyond that curtain. He looked deep into the heart of winter, and then he cried out, afraid, and the heat of his tears burned on his cheeks.

- A Game of Thrones, Bran

The Frozen North is the Heart of Winter. Does an opposite 'heart of summer' exist? "The Shadow" obviously isn't the opposite of the heart of winter, but if "The Shadow" is merely its corrupted form, we might have something here. If a 'heart of summer' does exist, it would be along the equator, in the tropics, the warmest part of the world. Valyria was known as the 'lands of the long summer,' so that's pretty close. But we have seen that the Valyrians had ancient predecessors - the Great Empire of the Dawn, with its proposed capital of Asshai. Asshai sits next to an ancient source of magic which seems to parallel the frozen north, and we've seen the evidence that it used to be a rich and fertile land, perhaps extremely so. If Asshai was the capital of the GEotD, then it was the home of the Bloodstone Emperor, and thus was heavily involved in the events of the LN and battle for the Dawn, as was the frozen north (the Last Hero confronting the Others, which I associate with the cure for the Long Night). Valyria wasn't a player at this time.

I think Valyria was likely a re-flowering of some part of the GEotD culture. It makes a lot of sense that this re-flowering occurred on a source of uncorrupted fire magic, but I don't think it was the original 'heart of summer' or source of fire magic. Whatever "the Shadow" was before its corruption is a better fit. Even today it is still tied to some sort of fire magic, albeit a very shadowy variety, as we have seen that dragons roost there in the Shadow (TWOAIF seems to confirm this part of Bran's vision). It's also on a similar latitude to Valyria, seemingly close to the equator and certainly in the warmest part of the planet.

George gave us a clue about dragons and what the the heart of darkness looks like in ADwD:

At her command, one produced an iron key. The door opened, hinges shrieking. Daenerys Targaryen stepped into the hot heart of darkness and stopped at the lip of a deep pit. Forty feet below, her dragons raised their heads. Four eyes burned through the shadows— two of molten gold and two of bronze. Ser Barristan took her by the arm. “No closer.”

“You think they would harm me ?”

“I do not know, Your Grace, but I would sooner not risk your person to learn the answer.” When Rhaegal roared, a gout of yellow flame turned darkness into day for half a heartbeat. The fire licked along the walls, and Dany felt the heat upon her face, like the blast from an oven. Across the pit, Viserion’s wings unfolded, stirring the stale air. He tried to fly to her, but the chains snapped taut as he rose and slammed him down onto his belly. Links as big as a man’s fist bound his feet to the floor. The iron collar about his neck was fastened to the wall behind him. Rhaegal wore matching chains. In the light of Selmy’s lantern, his scales gleamed like jade. Smoke rose from between his teeth. Bones were scattered on the floor at his feet, cracked and scorched and splintered. The air was uncomfortably hot and smelled of sulfur and charred meat.

- A Dance with Dragons, Daenerys

I think this is indicative that the Shadowlands beyond Asshai, home of dragons and demons, may in fact be a kind of "heart of darkness." But there's an interesting silver lining suggested here - the dragon's flame can turn "darkness into day for half a heartbeat." This may suggest that dragons and the source of magic now known as the Shadow were once sources of light and fire instead of darkness and fire.

Returning to Bran's vision, I don't think it's a coincidence that Asshai by the Shadow and its dragons are seen right before his glimpse of the frozen north and the heart of winter. The dragons are fire made flesh, and the Others certainly seem to be ice made flesh. I'm not saying they are exact opposites or analogs, but they do seem to be fairly pure incarnations of Ice and Fire Magic, respectively. The North is the source of Others - could Asshai and the Great Empire of the Dawn, camped around this hypothetical "heart of summer," be the source of dragons? Why yes, absolutely they could.

[John Suburbs]

Well John, thanks for taking a look at my theory, first off. I don’t want to go into the weeds of debating my theory on someone else’s thread of course, so mainly I was throwing it out there for anyone interested in a theory about the second moon. I’m sorry you didn’t see the evidence there. It’s true there is only the one direct mention of the second moon in the Quarthine legend, but I believe there is significant metaphorical clues, such as the scenes I quoted - Ned’s sword splitting, Dany sending out her three bloodriders, the apple-splitting scene with Alleras, and a couple others, some of which may be in part 2 or 3, I can’t recall precisely. There are more which I haven’t posted yet...

I believe this is one of the big secrets of the backstory of ASOAIF, so George didn’t want to give us too much to go on - that’s why he only gave us the story of the Quarantine tale about the moon cracking. But the tale of Nissa Nissa also has the moon cracking, and whether or not you buy my premise that the Bloodstone Emperor is or Ahai or not, Azor Ahai undoubtedly lived at the time of the Long Night. So we have two references to the moon cracking, one connected to the Long Night and the other to a meteor shower remembered as flaming dragons in the sky. That’s where I started from with the idea that the destruction of this hypothetical second moon caused a meteor shower and the Long Night. Light bringer as the comet simply provides the mechanism for the moon’s destruction. The image of the sun stabing a moon with a red comet is a match for Azor Ahai, warrior of fire, stabbing his wife (“moon is wife of sun, it is known”) with a flaming sword.

As to why nobody other than the very ancient city of Qarth remembers the second moon... let me ask: what do we know about 10.000BC that historians agree on, or even treat as credible hypothesis? I mean, I myself am a believer in Atlantis, or at least an advanced maritime culture which existed on islands in the Atlantic ocean and the coats of Europe and the Americas in 10,000 BC during the end of the last ice age. I believe the evidence is overwhelming, when you look at it, that ancient peoples were advanced in astronomy, stone making, maritime skills, and possibly metalworking, and that culture reached a high point which we barely remember, and was subsequently destroyed by the global flooding which we know accompanied the melting of the Ice caps from 15,000 BCE to 7,000 BCE. The point is - what record do we have of this culture? It’s all in scattered myth, and the name “Atlantis” or any derisive is only used in a couple places. There actually are myths about a tall, red haired, bearded people who fled some destroyed island civilization and brought advanced knowledge to indigenous peoples all around the world, particularly join both sides of the Atlantic - but how many people have heard of them? Not many. It was 10,000 years ago.

On top of that,anything that happened or existed before the Long Night will only be a hazy memory at best. During a global nuclear winter that lasted more than a couple of years, there would be widespread famine and starvation, and most life on earth would die. All governments, kingdoms, civilization would collapse, as anarchy and chaos prevailed. The survivors of the Long Night would be reduced to stone age living, and many traditions and cultures would be erased. Everything starts over. That’s why the emery of a smaller, darker, further-out-from-the-planet second moon wouldn’t be remembered by many 10,000 years later.

And like I said, I think it’s a big mystery George wanted to lay out.

Actually, Atlantis is grounded in an actual event:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minoan_eruption

But regardless, I think we can conclude that by definition myths cannot be proven or unproven. So while it is fun to speculate that one myth or the other may have had some basis in reality, it is jumping the gun to say "these myths are facts because they all have some commonality."

My original contribution to this thread was that people should not rule out the possibility that Planetos is indeed Earth simply because of the "multiple moons" that once appeared in the sky. There is no real evidence that more than one moon ever existed, just as there is no real evidence that the real world was carved out of the ground by a giant snake, as Australian aboriginal culture believes, or that a supreme deity created it with the wave of his hand as Judeo-Christian-Islamic tradition holds.

Now, if you want to get into stuff like this:

http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/08/03/earth-once-had-second-moon-astronomers-say/

and this:

http://earthsky.org/space/does-earth-have-a-second-moon

they would satisfy both of positions, although in neither case did one moon break apart and shower asteroids or dragons down on the earth, and the first on happened well before life appeared.

So in the end, I weigh the spottiness of the second moon legend against the clear and undeniable similarities between modern-day Eurasia and the known world of aSoIaF to conclude that this is indeed Earth of the future.

But as I said, none of this really matters. It will never come up in the story and has no bearing whatsoever on the events taking place. There will be no "Planet of the Apes" reveal at the end, at least I hope not.

And as an aside: I don't think the Long Night was all that devastating to the planet as a whole. You never hear anyone in Essos mentioning it, nor the normal cycle of long summers/winters. It seems to be strictly a Westerosi phenomenon, and even then it's the north that gets the brunt of it; note that Stannis' southron lords, many of whom have seen a fair number of winters, are unable to cope with the snow, and even the Freys are having a tough time in Winterfell. So in a normal cycle, at least, the southern realms don't suffer nearly as much during winter. Indeed, it's probably quite nice in Dorne.

And even after the LN the historical record is hazy for another 2,000 years until the Andals came along and started writing things down. So by that reckoning, I prefer to label the Long Night and the entire Age of Heroes as more myth than fact and tread lightly when trying to interpret current events through the lens of a past that may not have happened the way the text suggests.

[LmL]

And as an aside: I don't think the Long Night was all that devastating to the planet as a whole. You never hear anyone in Essos mentioning it, nor the normal cycle of long summers/winters. It seems to be strictly a Westerosi phenomenon, and even then it's the north that gets the brunt of it; note that Stannis' southron lords, many of whom have seen a fair number of winters, are unable to cope with the snow, and even the Freys are having a tough time in Winterfell. So in a normal cycle, at least, the southern realms don't suffer nearly as much during winter. Indeed, it's probably quite nice in Dorne.

Ok, I see that you haven't read The World of Ice and Fire. Yes, the stories of the Long Night exist all around the world. A lot of what I am talking about wont make much sense if you haven't read TWOAIF.

If it was dark across the entire earth for more than a year or two, almost all plants would die, and thus, everyone would run out of food. Almost everyone would die. It's happened in the past a few times that we know, on earth.

I absolutely think the two moons idea is consistent with Planetos being ancient earth. Planetos only has one moon left, so... Or were you proposing Planetos as a future earth? That, I don't see as possible. But ancient earth, absolutely.

And let's not sidetrack in Atlantis, but the Minoan hypothesis has a lot of problems, and I don't find it convincing at all. It doesn't explain many of the mysteries surrounding Atlantis, such as DNA and crop dispersal evidence in the Americas. But I digress.

Rememeber that this is a fantasy series. While there may not have been dragons on earth, there clearly are dragons on Planetos. I'm not sure what point you're trying to make there. On earth, all mythology does have a root in truth, of some kind. It's never spun out of thin air. On Planetos, the same is true - there's a,ways some kind of kernel of truth in each myth - but Planetos is a magical planet, so those truths may be magical in nature

[John Suburbs]

I have read the world book, and the LN was more than a year or two -- a lifetime in some tellings and 1000 years in others. Clearly, civilization survived and even thrived after the LN.

I should have edited myself more carefully, though, because when I said it was strictly a W phenom, I was speaking of the long summer/winters, not the LN, but I can see how it looks that way. My bad.

But sorry, you cannot argue that Planetos is earth from the past because if there were two moons around the real earth they would have existed about 3.5 billion years before life appeared, unless you want to argue that life flourished long enough for humans, dragons, et al to evolve and then was wiped out leaving no geological record. Magic would take care of that I suppose, just as it does with everything.

And sorry, a civilization like aSoIaF would leave evidence behind each and every ice age of the last half billion years or so. The only truly global-scrubbing events like the Huronion and the Cryogenian happened when all we had were single-cell organisms. Yes, I know, magic again.

Check back to post 68 and I explain how dragons, white walkers and everything else that is magic can be explained (semi) rationally on dear old planet Earth of our future. It's crackpot, of course, but some of us prefer our fantasy to be grounded in at least theoretical possibility rather than just rely on the trope "it was magic". Makes for a more interesting read IMHO.

The proven, historical fact of Minoa at least lays the basis for the original Platonic stories of Atlantis, if not the legend.

[LmL]

I’m not really a proponent of Planetos as ancient earth, I thought that was what you were suggesting and I was trying to give it credit a plausible idea. I’m not really that concerned with that particular issue.

[John Suburbs]

Might I suggest a Grand Unified Theory? Dragons et al are created through yet-to-be-developed advances in chem/bio, and then our modern civ ceases to exist for whatever reason.

As the eons go by (our future but still the distant past in aSoIaF) the earth grabs a passing asteroid and takes it into orbit causing all kinds of havoc on earth due to gravity and such as you suggest. Then the powers-that-be (the children, others, warlocks... all of whom are genetically enhanced beings from our own science) decide the second moon has to go and they pool their resources to take it out.

How they do this is pure speculation, and it wouldn't jive with the idea that dragons came out of the second moon, but it could provide the factual underpinning for a legend that got embellished over time.

[LmL]

Yeah perhaps, you seem pretty into this idea of Planetos being earth... I was commenting on this thread in regards to Asshai and the Shadow. Maybe you should write up your theory since you seem to have strong ideas about it. Go for it. :)