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Astronomy of Planetos: Children of the Dawn, Part One


LmL

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And if not, it may turn to blood and carnage . “Remember,” Jon said, “Tormund’s people are hungry, cold, and fearful. Some of them hate us as much as some of you hate them. We are dancing on rotten ice here, them and us. One crack, and we all drown. If blood should be shed today, it had best not be one of us who strikes the first blow, or I swear by the old gods and the new that I will have the head of the man who strikes it.”

JON, ADWD

Again we see the connection of melting ice and flooding / drowning. And again, blood is mentioned in close proximately. There are a lot of connections between the dark tide and black blood. I believe that the black blood represents the blood of the destroyed fire moon.

“We’ve had a raven from Ser Denys Mallister at the Shadow Tower,” Jon Snow told her. “His men have seen fires in the mountains on the far side of the Gorge. Wildlings massing, Ser Denys believes. He thinks they are going to try to force the Bridge of Skulls again.” “Some may.” Could the skulls in her vision have signified this bridge? Somehow Melisandre did not think so. “If it comes, that attack will be no more than a diversion. I saw towers by the sea, submerged beneath a black and bloody tide. That is where the heaviest blow will fall.” “Eastwatch?” Was it? Melisandre had seen Eastwatch- by- the- Sea with King Stannis. That was where His Grace left Queen Selyse and their daughter Shireen when he assembled his knights for the march to Castle Black. The towers in her fire had been different, but that was oft the way with visions. “Yes. Eastwatch, my lord.” “When?” She spread her hands. “On the morrow. In a moon’s turn. -- ADWD, Melisandre

And here's another comparing the tide to Others:

“Scared? Of what? The chidings of old men? Sam, you saw the wights come swarming up the Fist, a tide of living dead men with black hands and bright blue eyes. You slew an Other.” “It was the d- d- d- dragonglass, not me.” “Be quiet,” Jon snapped. After Gilly, he had no patience for the fat boy’s fears. “You lied and schemed and plotted to make me lord commander. You will obey me. You’ll go to the Citadel and forge a chain, and if you have to cut up corpses, so be it. At least in Oldtown the corpses won’t object.” “My lord, my f- f- f- father, Lord Randyll, he, he, he, he, he … the life of a maester is a life of servitude . No son of House Tarly will ever wear a chain. The men of Horn Hill do not bow and scrape to petty lords. Jon, I cannot disobey my father .” Kill the boy , Jon thought. The boy in you, and the one in him. Kill the both of them, you bloody bastard . “You have no father. Only brothers. Only us. Your life belongs to the Night’s Watch, so go and stuff your smallclothes into a sack, along with anything else you care to take to Oldtown. You leave an hour before sunrise. -- ADWD. Jon

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Good Job LmL! I have been waiting for this .

Thanks LordImp, it's good to be anticipated. ;) This was a fun one, and there's a lot of fun stuff looking at the Faith and Oldtown, the Dothraki, Sarnor, Leng... there's a lot to cover. It really seems like George is picturing the GEotD like an Atlantis / Lemuria type civilization which scattered and left seeds of culture everywhere which then grew into their own things. Pretty freaking cool, if you ask me.

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Finally had the opportunity to read it as a whole. Great work as always LmL. Here are some brief notes:



That night she dreamt that she was Rhaegar, riding to the Trident. But she was mounted on a dragon, not a horse. When she saw the Usurper’s rebel host across the river they were armored all in ice, but she bathed them in dragonfire and they melted away like dew and turned the Trident into a torrent. Some small part of her knew that she was dreaming, but another part exulted. This is how it was meant to be. The other was a nightmare, and I have only now awakened.



This dream of Dany, which was most probably fed to her by Quaithe, seems to be aligned with the earliest dreams of Dany in AGoT.



Yet that night she dreamt of one. Viserys was hitting her, hurting her. She was naked, clumsy with fear. She ran from him, but her body seemed thick and ungainly. He struck her again. She stumbled and fell. “You woke the dragon,” he screamed as he kicked her. “You woke the dragon, you woke the dragon.” Her thighs were slick with blood. She closed her eyes and whimpered. As if in answer, there was a hideous lipping sound and the crackling of some great fire. When she looked again, Viserys was gone, great columns of flame rose all around, and in the midst of them was the dragon. It turned its great head slowly. When its molten eyes found hers, she woke, shaking and covered with a fine sheen of sweat. She had never been so afraid…



In this dream, Dany gives birth to a dragon that kills the abusive brother. This dragon is not Drogon as some Dany fans like to believe. It is Dany herself, reborn as a dragon. It is like Viserys is being equated to the Bloodstone Emperor and Dany is the Amethyst Empress, but this time, Quaithe is trying to reverse the outcome.



Day followed day, and night followed night, until Dany knew she could not endure a moment longer. She would kill herself rather than go on, she decided one night…


Yet when she slept that night, she dreamt the dragon dream again. Viserys was not in it this time. There was only her and the dragon. Its scales were black as night, wet and slick with blood. Her blood, Dany sensed. Its eyes were pools of molten magma, and when it opened its mouth, the flame came roaring out in a hot jet. She could hear it singing to her. She opened her arms to the fire, embraced it, let it swallow her whole, let it cleanse her and temper her and scour her clean. She could feel her flesh sear and blacken and slough away, could feel her blood boil and turn to steam, and yet there was no pain. She felt strong and new and fierce.



These two dreams from AGoT are basically what Quaithe achieved as for the end of ADwD. Dany embraced Fire&Blood as Quaithe has been trying to make her since the beginning. Dany released the dragon inside her. “The other was a nightmare” (meaning that the previous cycle in which the Bloodstone Emperor slew the Amethyst Empress and usurped the crown.) “This is how it was meant to be” (meaning that this time, the Amethyst Empress should kill the usurper).



Re: Church of Starry Wisdom



We have talked several times that the Starry Sept, which was the center of the Faith until the Great Sept of Baelor was built, is a giant homage to the Church of Starry Wisdom. When the Andals came, Lord Hightower set aside his wife and took an Andal princess to wife. His grandson Lord Damon Hightower built 7 septs. He died from bad belly (which should raise the suspicion of poisoning to us) and Septon Robeson became the regent of his newborn son. Septon Robeson was practically the ruler of Oldtown for 20 years. The kid he trained and shaped built the Starry Sept in his honor after his passing.



This is a fine little coup out there, don’t you think? As soon as a Septon acquired the chance to grab the power, he killed the Lord and assumed the regency of his son. He ruled Oldtown as he liked and shaped the boy as he liked. I am sure that Lord Triston Hightower, the boy trained and shaped by Septon Robeson and built the Starry Sept in his honor, was the first Hightower who worshipped the Church of Starry Wisdom. This makes sense because the son of Triston established the office of High Septon.



Finally, "Robeson" sounds like "rob son". This high ranking member of the CoSW "robbed" the "son" of Damon Hightower when he killed him and raised the boy as a CosW worshipper.


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No comment on this post LmL? Anyone?

Hey Voice, check out the scene in ADWD where Dany is dozing in the pond right before Quaithe appears to her- she's getting nibbled by the fish. If the ants were ice spiders or whatever in that other scene, what's going on with the fish here?

"...dead things in the water..."

Oh without a doubt, Ser. Clear spider imagery.

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Re: Church of Starry Wisdom

We have talked several times that the Starry Sept, which was the center of the Faith until the Great Sept of Baelor was built, is a giant homage to the Church of Starry Wisdom. When the Andals came, Lord Hightower set aside his wife and took an Andal princess to wife. His grandson Lord Damon Hightower built 7 septs. He died from bad belly (which should raise the suspicion of poisoning to us) and Septon Robeson became the regent of his newborn son. Septon Robeson was practically the ruler of Oldtown for 20 years. The kid he trained and shaped built the Starry Sept in his honor after his passing.

This is a fine little coup out there, don’t you think? As soon as a Septon acquired the chance to grab the power, he killed the Lord and assumed the regency of his son. He ruled Oldtown as he liked and shaped the boy as he liked. I am sure that Lord Triston Hightower, the boy trained and shaped by Septon Robeson and built the Starry Sept in his honor, was the first Hightower who worshipped the Church of Starry Wisdom. This makes sense because the son of Triston established the office of High Septon.

Finally, "Robeson" sounds like "rob son". This high ranking member of the CoSW "robbed" the "son" of Damon Hightower when he killed him and raised the boy as a CosW worshipper.

Hugor of the Hill is like founder of the Faith of the Seven, his crown was made by Father pulling down seven stars from the heaven, Maid gave him maid with deep blue eyes (getting wife from the gods was kinda thing among ancient kings) and Smith made his sons iron armors, see this is really coming together. Hugor took ceremonial and theology from old GeoDawn faith and tried to restore it but now with Seven wanderers for obvious reason and patriarchy because eight wanderer's demise disrupted the balance it being strong female deity.

He is probably son of BSE and same guy as Huzhor Amai founder of Sarnor. Huzhor Amai as a son supplanting last FQ and transforming peaceful oasis into expansionist empire is another nod to change from matriarchy to patriarchy, maybe it was a usurpation on the sons part, parallel to the Blood Betrayal and maybe it is even just the legend about Blood Betrayal. Huzhor has three wives and learns about iron working, she made him an armor from Cymerii one (Cymerians, Howard homage). Sarnori and Andals exterminated some kind of Hairy men.

So, he can as well be original leader of Essos, Hugor/Huzhor, it fits the theme of running away, first Sarnor, then Andalos then Westeros, bringing pieces of old GeoDawnian culture. And final clue, he didn't worshiped AA's demon god, it fits with Hugor reinstate worship of remaining Seven wanderers instead of worshiping eight fallen one.

Church of Starry Wisdom on the other had has similar ceremonial and theology, both faiths probably changed slightly in time, but it's darker faith worshiping fallen celestial wanderer as BSE intended, like a Promethean figure who brought enlightenment to the earth with it's descent (it brought corrupted fire magic, but it can be viewed as enlightenment too, if you are crazy tyrant).

I doubt Seven equals COSW, it makes no sense, why would then Faith/Citadel/Hightowers work to bring down Targs, when COSW wants fire despots for rulers? Why would Marwyn be outcast if Faith is COSW Marwyn would be champion. COSW are like Freemasons, they have members in some other religions, like R'hllorist faith or even Faith of the Seven but they are not same organization. Current Hightowers may as well be COSW cultists, but it's against the Faith not because of it.
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As for Dany getting nibbled by fishes, the sigil of House Sunderly is a drowned man whose body is nibbled by fishes.

Ok now this is a good find. Those fishes nibbling Dany are Deep Ones, must be, as Ironborn are children of Deep Ones and people. And the Deep Ones are again linked with Others, as Dany is eaten by ants, which represent ice spiders, in one scene, and eaten by the fishes before that. Every time I see a deep ones clue, it seems to be linked to Others.

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^^The corrupted Seven equals to CoSW. We know that they had two symbols when they came to Westeros and they dropped one of them, which shows a change in the Faith.

I tend to agree - it seems the Faith did change when it came to Westeros. Interesting that we never hear of anyone building septs on Essos before coming here - the Starry Sept had no precedent. They went from Axe-carving barbarians, no better than Ironborn, and all the sudden they are making something like the Starry Sept? I really wonder what happened here.

Mithras, you're suggesting it was this Septon who converted the Hightowers, but I wonder. The Hightowers just have so much creepy stuff going on around them... that sigil too... I was wondering if the very first Hightowers weren't in fact Bloodstone Emperor loyalists / COSW folks. But you're right, this Septon definitely seems to have seized power here through murder.

I have a bunch of stuff ready to go on the Faith, maybe I'll push that forward and add it on here, since we are already talking about it and Hugor and such.

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Actually, there were septs in Essos. Theon Stark raided Andalos and burned a fortified sept.



I think the Hightowers were good at the beginning but that Septon Whoreson Robeson converted them. Recall that the foundation of the Citadel and the first stone Hightower imply a good relationship with the CotF.


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I need to reread that part of TWOIAF. You're right though, the early citadel was COTF friendly. Hmm.

A couple of creepy things about Oldtown that we haven't talked about: the two towns at the head of the whispering sound: Blackcrown, which should make us think of the Barrow King and Euron's sigil, and Three Towers, who's lights bring Sam no comfort.

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We are told of other half-human children as well. I can't remember if it was in my hierarchy thread, Evolett's crab thread, or heresy, but I tossed around another, more sinister idea for ice spiders in this regard as well. We are told of Others riding ice spiders as mounts, but it could also be that one variant of Other is a terrible half-human, half-ice spider creature. I'm reminded of the story of Arachne (worth a read). Apply her story to whatever power instigated the Others, and you have another layer of disturbing stuff to haunt your dreams.

Anyway, I digress... These ice spider-riding Others might simply have eight spiderific legs, a nice bulbous spider abdomen, and nice blue spinnerets to emit their icy webbing. These spiders-Others might be accompanied by our garden variety ice spiders "large as hounds." :devil:

Yes, I know I like this stuff way too much... LOL

But however horrific, or unlikely, such a cross-breeding might seem, there is some possible foreshadowing for it to occur. Bran I AGOT:

The man had been taken outside a small holdfast in the hills. Robb thought he was a wildling, his sword sworn to Mance Rayder, the King-beyond-the-Wall. It made Bran's skin prickle to think of it. He remembered the hearth tales Old Nan told them. The wildlings were cruel men, she said, slavers and slayers and thieves. They consorted with giants and ghouls, stole girl children in the dead of night, and drank blood from polished horns. And their women lay with the Others in the Long Night to sire terrible half-human children.

I should add "sweet dreams" to my signature line sometime. LOL

I guess I should add the obligatory "..kill me... kill... me...."

That's an interesting concept, ice spiders as human hybrids. In Jon's Azor Ahai dream, the foemen "scuttle up the wall like spiders." Those aren't spiders, but men scuttling like spiders. There is a scene on the mountains in the pass where Jon scuttles sideways like a crab, I'll have to pull that one.

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Hey folks, this isn't even directly relevant to this particular thread, but rather my entire theory as a whole, but it was too good to pass up, so I am sharing it here. My entire approach to the mythology of Planetos that Martin has created is shaped by my understanding of real mythology, which I have acquired primarily through a few authors or works on comparative mythology. Chief among them is Graham Hancock. Mr. Hancock stands on the shoulders of many giants, as all researchers do, and I have read the works of those giants after being captivated by Graham's work. In any case, the connection between astronomy and mythology is gradually becoming more and more mainstream, whereas it used to be only occasionally accepted in certain instances. Turns out, basically all mythology in the wolf dis based on astronomy at some level.



Graham has a great website where he showcases books by other authors. One such, Kevin Curran, has written a book called, if you can believe this, Fall of a Thousand Suns. Here's the capsule, just take a look at this:




Please welcome Kevin Curran as our Author of the Month. In this article, he discusses past comet fragment impacts and the long-term cultural ramifications of such cataclysms. We should take heed, Kevin believes, of the warnings our ancestors passed down to us about these disasters.


In 2007, a team of twenty-four scientists presented evidence that massive comet fragments exploded over North America 12,850 years ago, killing millions of creatures and people. If this event happened in the not so distant past, why didn’t our ancestors share this horrifying experience with their children and stress the importance of telling the story to future generations? Fall of a Thousand Suns: How Near Misses and Comet Impacts affected the Religious Beliefs of our Ancestors proves that they did. There are descriptions of the cataclysmic event in dozens of religious texts and myths around the world.



Lacking science, each culture described the comet impact as best they could: as a lion sent by the Sun that “roared” and scorched the land, a giant fiery snake that flew through the air and killed people, a sun that fell on distant lands, or an angel that fell from the heavens to Earth. With the help of religious scholars, anthropologists, and astrophysicists from JPL and NASA, the author of Fall of a Thousands Suns spent years investigating what our ancestors knew about comets and their godlike destructive power.



Frighteningly, as the author dug deeper, he discovered that some religious texts, myths, and sciences pointed to a more recent near-miss by a comet, a snake-like comet that spanned the entire night sky, small asteroid impacts that leveled cities, and yet another massive comet that hit our planet and killed millions. This more recent impact appears to have created megatsunamis hundreds of feet high that decimated coastal civilizations. That story too was passed down orally, until it was eventually recorded in popular religious texts known to every Jew, Christian and Muslim alive today.



Don’t we owe it to our ancestors, who struggled to survive in the wake of these celestial cataclysms, a progressive world where we use science and comparative religion to search for past truth? Fall of a Thousand Suns attempts to do just that. After reading it, you won’t look at comets, meteor showers or religion in the same way.






There's more to read (click me) including this quote from Plato:





Beliefs in the End of the World

Several cultures and religions believed the world ended multiple times with “fire from the sky”. In light of several religions believing in multiple cataclysms, not simply one in recent human history, Plato’s words in Timaeus (360 BCE) are haunting, even though scholars are uncertain whether they’re a completely fictionalized narrative or based partially on truth. In Timaeus, a Greek legislator named Solon – a real man who lived during the seventh century BCE – traveled to Egypt in order to determine what Egyptian priests knew about ancient history. While in the city of Sais, an Egyptian priest told Solon,



“There have been, and will be again, many destructions of mankind arising out of many causes; the greatest have been brought about by the agencies of fire and water, and other lesser ones by innumerable other causes. There is a story, which even you have preserved, that once upon a time Phaëton, the son of Helios, having yoked the steeds in his father’s chariot, because he was not able to drive them in the path of his father, burnt up all that was upon the Earth and was himself destroyed by a thunderbolt. Now this has the form of a myth, but really signifies a declination of the bodies moving in the heavens around Earth and a great conflagration of things upon Earth, which recurs after long intervals…And whatever happened either in your country or in ours, or in any other region of which we are informed, if there were any actions noble or great or in any other way remarkable, they have all been written down by us of old and are preserved in our temples. Whereas just when you and other nations are beginning to be provided with letters and the other requisites of civilized life, after the usual interval, the stream from heaven, like a pestilence, comes pouring down and leaves only those of you who are destitute of letters and education, and so you have to begin all over again like children and know nothing of what happened in ancient times, either among us or among yourselves.”


At least Plato identified one possible real-world cataclysm that, even in 350 BCE, was dismissed as a myth (Phaëton). After the publication of Timaeus, some Greeks undoubtedly reexamined other myths and religious texts, which hinted at real cataclysms in the past including the war between the Titans and Olympians to end the Golden Age, the destruction of the world by Zeus at the end of the Silver Age, the end of the Bronze and Iron Ages, some of Herakles twelve labors, and the fall of Hephaestus to Earth.



Unfortunately for Greeks living in the fourth century BCE, they didn’t understand the nature or power of comets. So they couldn’t identify comets as the direct cause of the destruction described in their ancient myths and religious stories. Still, Plato’s words prove that everyone was made aware, or at least forced to consider the possibility, that “after the usual interval, the stream from heaven…comes pouring down” to kill nearly everyone.


The Greeks had all the puzzle pieces. They just couldn’t put the puzzle together.





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Now, take a look at these quotes again, all from the same chapter:

But it was not the plains Dany saw then. It was King’s Landing and the great Red Keep that Aegon the Conqueror had built. It was Dragonstone where she had been born. In her mind’s eye they burned with a thousand lights, a fire blazing in every window. In her mind’s eye, all the doors were red.
[...]
Dany gave the silver over to the slaves for grooming and entered her tent. It was cool and dim beneath the silk. As she let the door flap close behind her, Dany saw a finger of dusty red light reach out to touch her dragon’s eggs across the tent. For an instant a thousand droplets of scarlet flame swam before her eyes. She blinked, and they were gone. Stone, she told herself. They are only stone, even Illyrio said so, the dragons are all dead. She put her palm against the black egg, fingers spread gently across the curve of the shell. The stone was warm. Almost hot. “The sun,” Dany whispered. “The sun warmed them as they rode.”
[...]
“Once there were two moons in the sky, but one wandered too close to the sun and cracked from the heat.
A thousand thousand dragons poured forth, and drank the fire of the sun. That is why dragons breathe flame. One day the other moon will kiss the sun too, and then it will crack and the dragons will return.”
AGOT, DAENERYS
And then before lighting Khal Drogo's pyre:
She told herself that there were powers stronger than hatred, and spells older and truer than any the maegi had learned in Asshai. The night was black and moonless, but overhead a million stars burned bright. She took that for an omen.
AGOT, DAENERYS
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And now, this scene from Bravos where Arya goes to the "heart of the city" and sees three bridges:

The city had seemed like one big island from where the Titan stood. But as Yorko rode them closer, she saw that it was many small islands close together, linked by arched stone bridges that spanned innumerable canals. Beyond the harbor, she glimpsed streets of grey stone houses built so close they leaned one upon the other. To Arya's eyes, they were queer looking, four and five stories tall, and very skinny, with sharp peaked tile roofs like pointed hats. She saw no thatch, and only a few timber houses of the sort she knew in Westeros. "They have no trees," she realized. "Bravos is all stone, a grey city in a green sea." Yorko swung them north of the docks and down the gullet of a great canal, a broad, green waterway that ran straight into the heart of the city. They passed under the arches of a carved stone bridge, decorated with half a hundred kinds of fish and crabs and squids. A second bridge appeared ahead, this one carved in lacey, leafy vines, and beyond that a third, gazing down on them from a thousand painted eyes.

AFFC, Arya I
I have always thought this was a description of the three moon meteors:
  1. one landed in the sea, and is associated with squids, fish, and crabs - obviously a reference to Ironborn, possibly all Deep Ones, and the crabs may have something to do with those ice spiders, maybe.
  2. one landed in... the jungle? what are the lacey, leafy vines? sounds like Oldtown / the reach, but there's no crater there...
  3. this is our thousand eye meteor shower.

I'm going to do a whole essay on the God's Eye, but let me just say this here (I've mentioned it before): the "God's Eye" is the fire moon superimposed over the sun, but not completely eclipsing it, because it is too small (smaller than the fire moon). My avatar is a photshop I did of this very thing - the black fire moon, superimposed over the sun, being hit by a comet, while the other half of the comet barely misses and streaks in between the two moons (that's the ice moon at the bottom of the picture).

The phrase "a thousand eyes and one" has another meaning, besides the obvious Bloodraven meaning: the God's Eye, and a thousand flaming meteors.

What I need from everyone is to help me figure out where that lacey, leafy vine meteor fell and what it refers to.

I am pretty sure what we have is two large impacts and the third meteor breaking into a meteor shower. Thus, we should have three impact zones: two devastating impacts, and one firestorm meteor shower. I tend to place the meteor shower in the far east - the legend of it comes from Qarth, for one, and I think it may have either fallen over the red waste / Dothraki Sea / Hyrkoon area or over Asshai itself. It may be that nothing actually landed at Asshai, and that Asshai and the 'heart of summer' were corrupted by the very fact of the fire moon's death... but that black stone the Bloodstone Emperor worshipped had to fall somewhere in his empire, right?

I really, really think that the "Hammer of the Waters" was a meteor impact - specifically, the one which shattered the Arm of Dorne. I have many, many reasons for thinking this, a few of them:

  1. One of the stepstones is called bloodstone!
  2. We don't have any external corroboration that the cotf are even capable of anything like the Hammer of the Waters. It's only the story that says they did... I'm not one to discount myth lightly, but I just think this was attributed to them after the fact
  3. If they had the power to do a huge Hammer like this, why didn't they smash the First Men's ring forts with smaller hammers requiring less magic? There is no answer to this.
  4. Even TWOIAF points out that breaking the arm after the First Men had already been crossing for centuries was a big case of closing the barn door after the horses were out
  5. A meteor impact would be capable of rupturing the land bridge, or triggering earthquakes which do
  6. The climate shifted after the Long Night ended. Warm water from the Summer Sea flowing into the Shivering Sea for the first time would absolutely have the effect of warming up northern Westeros and Northern Essos, just as the Atlantic current makes Europe much warmer than Canada and Rissia, which are at similar latitudes.
  7. This quote: The sun was beating down like a fiery hammer, but it did not matter with their journey at its end. -- AFFC, ARIANNE
  8. The abundance of comet imagery around "sunspear." I mean, sunspear, guys. Sun-spear. Think about it. Plenty more though...

This breaking of the arm could been seen as the comet associated with water, or perhaps the lacy vines. It landed on land, but was called the "hammer of the waters" and caused flooding, so...

The Iron Islands are a really good candidate for an impact too - they would seem to connect to the fish, squids, and crabs one. There's a bunch of clues about a comet hitting there, which Idon't want to give away because I have to save something for the future, you now? But's a likely candidate too.

So my questions for everyone are: where did these meteors land? What do the lacey, leafy vines represent?

One note: its possible (even probable) that the three impacts mirror the three forgings. There are other three impacts patterns too, and the middle one is sometimes associated with animals or beasts, which taken with the vines, makes me just think "land." But we have the water association with the first bridge, and the thousand eyes is the origin of dragons, and this likely the Nissa forging... which leaves the middle one, the one I am stumped on.

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I guess I should add the obligatory "..kill me... kill... me...."

That's an interesting concept, ice spiders as human hybrids. In Jon's Azor Ahai dream, the foemen "scuttle up the wall like spiders." Those aren't spiders, but men scuttling like spiders. There is a scene on the mountains in the pass where Jon scuttles sideways like a crab, I'll have to pull that one.

LOL @ the "kill me..." is that from The Fly?

But yes, in the dream the foemen themselves scuttle up the wall like spiders. How is this possible? Either they are riding ice spiders, or have ice spider-legs :devil:

I think the dream-quote is enough to suffice, but here's the crab-walk quote:

Jon VI ACOK

For a long way they stayed to the trail, following its twists and turns as it snaked along the side of the mountain, upward, ever upward. Sometimes the mountain folded back on itself and they lost sight of the fire, but soon or late it would always reappear. The path Stonesnake chose would never have served for the horses. In places Jon had to put his back to the cold stone and shuffle along sideways like a crab, inch by inch. Even where the track widened it was treacherous; there were cracks big enough to swallow a man's leg, rubble to stumble over, hollow places where the water pooled by day and froze hard by night. One step and then another, Jon told himself. One step and then another, and I will not fall.

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Quotes like this leave me in awe of how clever Martin is to create the opportunity for specific metaphors. In this quote, the mountain is a sword, one made from a moon rock. The mountain is Jon's mother, it says earlier. Jon's mother is the Ice Moon, Lyanna. He manages to conceive of a way of having the mountain be a snake (implying dragonglass that needs to go in the sword), a thing folded back on itself (Valyrian steel, hello), and a thing that lights on fire, goes out, and lights on fire again. Later in that same part, remember that "the Wall" is a metaphor for a sword, and this particular "wall" here is a part of the mountain:

The wall was broken two- thirds of the way up by a crooked fissure of icy stone.Up they went, and up, and up, black shadows creeping across the moonlit wall of rock.

​Remember that the Last Hero's sword was broken. All the broken swords in the story, I think, are referring to the LH's sword - Azor Ahai's sword, which was broken against an icy blade, just like Ser Waymar's was, and just like this moonlit "wall" ("moonlit" meaning lit up by the moon's fire) which represents Lightbringer was broken by a crooked fissure of Ice. It was reforged with dragon glass added in, became dragon steel.

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He also managed to cram in someone called "Stonesnake," just to drive the point home. I mean, it's really heavy. And it's like this... all through the series. Once you know what to look for... It's like he's beating us over the head with it.

To the crabs here: I think this is basically yet another "Jon as an Other" clue. Or at least, his half-Other blooded lineage via the Starks.

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Awesome thread, as per usual!



Sorry it took me so long, but I come armed with extensive comments:



My take on R'hllorists:


They follow the Lord of Light and revere Azor Ahai. I think this strongly implies that their religion originated during the Long Night. This is further implicated by the custom of night-fires, their slogan, and their philosophy of light and shadow coexisting, of light trying to defend against and master darkness rather than dispel it.



I don't think all fire magic is corrupt--I think magic in ASOIAF is conceptually different than in WoT. I don't think it can be corrupted any more than electricity can be corrupted. It can be used for corrupt ends, by corrupt people, and I think that the corruption that led to the Long Night is woven into the fundamental worldview of the R'hllorists. I believe they may have been founded by a sorcerer who brought the Bloodstone Emperor/Last Hero back for his third life as Azor Ahai--thus why resurrection is so fundamental to their religion that the common death rite involves a ceremonial attempt at resurrection.



Of course our view of R'hllorism is probably stilted because Melisandre is our main source of reference. Thoros of Myr seems to see the Lord of Light more as a figure of justice and healing. (Of course many of his converts seem more interested in burning septs than finding justice.) Moqorro is still a cipher but it's safe to say he differers from Mel on certain critical points of theology. Mel actually seems to be a bit of a R'hllor fundamentalist while others of her religion have evolved their philosophies to edit out some of the *ahem* darker points endemic to its origins.



The parallels between R'hllorism and evangelical Christianity are certainly there. This seems to imply that it's based on someone who came back from the dead, became savior of the world, and inspired widely varied reactions and interpretations.



It seems that mainstream R'hllorism has evolved into a gentler and more socially acceptable thing, much as the gnostic-cultish CoSW (begun by the Bloodstone Emperor) branched off into the more socially-minded Faith of the Seven. This certainly seems to be the case in the Free Cities, where Red Priests co-exist pretty peacefully with many other religions without burning anyone at the stake.



But, the thing about fundamentalists is that they are getting back to fundamentals. However evolved modern mainstream R'hllorism may be, Mel likely does give us a very good idea of its original nature, constructed when the Long Night was dark and full of terrors. Harsh environments breed harsh creeds.



Re: Quaithe



So…I'm weirdly not that cynical about Quaithe. I think she's got good intentions. Dany *is* dragonblood, and magical, and she does need to embrace that, in order to come to terms with it if nothing else. Quaithe didn't hatch those dragons, Dany did. Quaithe didn't bring the comet and she's not controlling the Others. Yes, Dany will likely suffer a lot and may well die in her confrontation with the Others, but…I mean, what's the alternative? Ask them over for lemon cakes? Quaithe is in so many words telling Dany to kill the girl and let the dragon woman be born. Planting trees is great but this is neither the time nor the place.



And this is my take on the prophecy:


south/north: Go to Starfall and pick up Dawn so you can drop it off with unJon aka AAR when you go to the wall.


east/west: You must learn your eastern heritage if you are going to win in the west.


light/shadow: to arrive at a Dream of Spring you must get through the Winds of Winter (so to speak, lol). Or to win you have a lot of suffering ahead, that sort of thing. Perhaps Dany even has a death and rebirth ahead, symbolic if not literal. (Fits with "child of three" thing.) Dany assumes Quaithe means Asshai when she says shadow, but Quaithe doesn't confirm that. Just tells her she would learn truth in Asshai.



"We heard that the Citadel posses four glass candles - three black and one green. We saw one in Marwyn’s study, a black one, which he has been using extensively to keep up with things at the Wall and elsewhere. Do you really think he would leave Oldtown and not bring a candle with him? Not bloody likely. "



Ha, good catch. I hadn't considered that but very good point.




Thanks for the shout out and link!


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Quotes like this leave me in awe of how clever Martin is to create the opportunity for specific metaphors. In this quote, the mountain is a sword, one made from a moon rock. The mountain is Jon's mother, it says earlier. Jon's mother is the Ice Moon, Lyanna. He manages to conceive of a way of having the mountain be a snake (implying dragonglass that needs to go in the sword), a thing folded back on itself (Valyrian steel, hello), and a thing that lights on fire, goes out, and lights on fire again. Later in that same part, remember that "the Wall" is a metaphor for a sword, and this particular "wall" here is a part of the mountain:

The wall was broken two- thirds of the way up by a crooked fissure of icy stone.Up they went, and up, and up, black shadows creeping across the moonlit wall of rock.

​Remember that the Last Hero's sword was broken. All the broken swords in the story, I think, are referring to the LH's sword - Azor Ahai's sword, which was broken against an icy blade, just like Ser Waymar's was, and just like this moonlit "wall" ("moonlit" meaning lit up by the moon's fire) which represents Lightbringer was broken by a crooked fissure of Ice. It was reforged with dragon glass added in, became dragon steel.

The sword described in this quote is made from icy stone and lit by the moon, so I colored it blue. This is a sword of milkglass from the cold forge, not a Valyrian blade. Brothers of the Night's Watch find their doom in its edge.

He also managed to cram in someone called "Stonesnake," just to drive the point home. I mean, it's really heavy. And it's like this... all through the series. Once you know what to look for... It's like he's beating us over the head with it.

To the crabs here: I think this is basically yet another "Jon as an Other" clue. Or at least, his half-Other blooded lineage via the Starks.

I see the "Jon as Other" clues. But don't want to. They're literally everywhere. I've even found myself pointing them out to people from time to time. But I don't want them to be true.

I guess GRRM hasn't yet completely succeeded in killing my inner-romantic. He lives, beaten, bloody, a wolf's head lying next to him... rasping though his breath may be, he breathes!

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