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Astronomy of Planetos: Children of the Dawn, Part One


LmL

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(1) Nissa Nissa's scream: there's an inconsistency in the sequence of events?

It's indicated that it was Nissa Nissa's scream that cracked the second moon, if we take the order of events in the story literally. Azor Ahai killed Nissa Nissa to forge a weapon to fight the darkness. This suggests that the Long Night had already descended by the time Azor Ahai is forging his weapon. However, if the Long Night was physically caused by huge chunks of moon rock hitting Planetos, this leaves us with a circular argument about what happened first.

If we take it for granted that there was a second moon that did crack, then it's almost certain that this is what triggered the Long Night; it has to be - it's satisfactory from all angles.

This causes me trouble with the interpretation of the astronomical event.

It causes me trouble as well. Really, I don't buy the second moon scenario. I think it was put in Dany's ear to help her realize her eggs needed fire to hatch. Simple as that.

But, if I'm wrong, I do agree that the destruction of the second moon is satisfactory from all angles.

Luckily, I don't think I'm wrong ;) According to the author, the seasons on Planetos cannot be explained through physical science. Rather than caught in universe governed by physical laws, Planetos finds itself in a universe governed by magical laws.

The destruction of a moon would be a physical cause, for the long night, rather than magical.

What is the long night? I think it's simply an extreme, magical, Winter... in a world already experiencing extreme magical seasons. On our own planet, daylight shortens during winter months. In summer, we enjoy more daylight. On Planetos, this dynamic has been taken to magical extremes.

As I said in the first Astronomy thread, a magical solar eclipse seems more likely to me.

Solar Eclipse = a hiding of the sun

Long Night = the sun hiding for years at a time

"Oh, my sweet summer child," Old Nan said quietly, "what do you know of fear? Fear is for the winter, my little lord, when the snows fall a hundred feet deep and the ice wind comes howling out of the north. Fear is for the long night, when the sun hides its face for years at a time, and little children are born and live and die all in darkness while the direwolves grow gaunt and hungry, and the white walkers move through the woods."

(2) CotF

You haven't said much about the CotF, other than you don't necessarily believe they broke the Arm of Dorne.

I disagree with this.

I agree with LmL here... We've no evidence Greenseers can in fact accomplish such feats. Their primary activity seems to be 'seeing.' They do little else.

And earthquakes do not effect a planet's rotation.

I do agree that the cotf will not prove to me morally infallible, however.

(3) The Others (... fair warning, here comes the crazy... )

The Others are creatures of the second moon before it was destroyed. They are wholly "alien" to Planetos, and were brought there when the second moon (or what was left of it), crashed - not being living in any sense that's familiar to us, and thriving in the freezing cold, is how they made it. Everything about them suggests that they are alien to all other life on Planetos. Sure, the special type of cold that is associated with them (not the bone-freezing cold of northern winter, but the kind of cold described as freezing the air in your lungs etc) might be seen as a special type of Planetos ice-magic. But to me it really evokes something of outer space; the coldness of a moon with no atmosphere - the Others' natural habitat.

This feels like the untold second part of the dragon origin story; both dragons and the Others come from the second moon.

Very interesting, and new, approach to the Others, but there are some serious issues with this. First, the Others, for all their alien qualities, behave almost exactly like Men. They laugh, speak an oral language, wear armor, fence with longswords, ride horses (and other things ;)), and even share a similar build and stature with Men.

(4) The second moon, dragons, the Others and magic

So where do dragons come from precisely? I love your analysis of dragons/meteors and how they would have appeared at the time the second moon broke - superb.

In a literal sense though, where do dragon eggs come from? All we know for sure is the Shadow. The lethal lands around blighted Asshai... just screams "impact site", doesn't it?? I think dragon eggs and the Others both crashed on Planetos with pieces of the second moon (dragons in the Shadow, the Others elsewhere), or less literally were magicked from bloodstone that crashed in the same way.

The second moon is the source of ice and fire magic on Planetos (unlike the magic practiced by the CotF), both figuratively as the origin of the Others and dragons, and literally as the source of the bloodstone that was, I think, essential to the fire/blood magic we've seen at least.

There's an elegance to this: the CotF (the neutral, natural, “green” force) brought upon Planetos both the "cold made flesh" (the Others) and the "fire made flesh" (dragon eggs), neither of which belong on Planetos.

Incidentally, the Others didn't cause the Long Night in this scenario. They were ripped from their home, their home was destroyed, and then they find themselves on Planetos where suddenly THEY are the bad guys?

This certainly does wrap a nice pretty bow around all of this, and the official timeline has often been questioned in this regard. It makes more sense if Ice and Fire magic came into the world simultaneously, but according to the text, this does not seem to have been the case.

I also see the Others in a refugee sort of light, but in a much different scenario. Rather than alien, I see them as antibodies created by a living continent.

(5) The Hightowers

I think we also know why the small Hightower-dominated clique within the Citadel is so hell-bent on destroying magic and dragons. It's not because they don't believe in the Others; after all, wanting to destroy magic assumes you believe in it. It's precisely because they know more of their history than most (thanks, the Hightowers) and believe in the link between magic, dragons and the Others; and perhaps also that the CotF and their magic are not smelling of roses either. All must go.

I think I agree with this part. The Citadel knows far too much of history, and has a far too curious origin, to not believe in magic. And I take Marwyn at his word, that order of Maesters have actively sought to suppress the influence of magic in the realm.

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Dude, I love you, but please stop saying this. It's a total straw man argument.

The destruction of a moon would be a physical cause, for the long night, rather than magical.

The Fire moon was the source of fire magic, directly tied to the heart of summer which is now the shadow. Its destruction unbalanced the cosmic forces of magic and created the vacuum which the Others filled. That's my theory.

All of the magic in the book is coupled with nature. The Others are the ice winds and winter. The deep ones are the dark tide. The dragons are fire made flesh. The cotf sing the song of earth. They are joined at the hip... I don't understand why you can't seem to get this concept, Voice. There is no separation between science and magic.

There are piles and piles of evidence for the two moons, and you keep insisting there isn't a second moon, but you don't refute the evidence to show why it doesn't mean what I say it does. The sun and two wives pattern is everywhere. And if there's only one moon, how did one blow up last time and yet we still have a moon? All I am staying is, address my evidence, and show your evidence. Otherwise... You just seem stuck to an idea because you're attached to it.

You're my homie and everything but you're not dealing with the evidence of my argument, and you keep acting as those I am proposing a purely scientific explanation for the Long Night, which I am not.

​And the prolonged eclipse thing is just beyond impossible. That really makes no sense to me. Andit complete ignores the piles and piles of evidence that the sun killed the moon. It happens over, and over, and over... an eclipse does not fit that pattern. Daenerys, who matches Nissa Nissa and the fire moon (Dany is not an ice moon) goes and burns herself in the sun's fire to hatch three dragons. That's not an eclipse. It's just not.

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How does the Bloodstone Emperor murdering and usurping his sister represent an eclipse? How does AA murdering NN represent the moon eclipsing the sun? Again you're my homie :kiss: but I really don't understand where you are coming from.


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What is it that can stop the seasons?

Bran asked Septon Chayle about the comet while they were sorting through some scrolls snatched from the library fire. “It is the sword that slays the season,” he replied, and soon after the white raven came from Oldtown bringing word of autumn, so doubtless he was right.

(ACOK, BRAN)

When do mountains rise and fall? When do rivers (and seas) change their course? When do cities sink beneath the sea? When god's die, and stars fall from the sky. ;)

We look at mountains and call them eternal, and so they seem … but in the course of time, mountains rise and fall, rivers change their courses, stars fall from the sky, and great cities sink beneath the sea. Even gods die, we think. Everything changes.

ACOK, Bran

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Just one look to the Targ words in this manner makes more clear situation. Fire and blood. Use fire to make a blood or use blood to make a fire. That looks to me as those two types of magic are somekind compatible and even issuing. The fact is that blood magic (blood sacrifice) becomes from the BSE. In that case, one can say they are bad guys, because their work gloryfies the values of BSE. W8 a secund, does Euron talks about the gods with gemstone eyes? If God on Earth left the Planetos and joined his forbearers (Lion of Night and Maid made of Light), is wrong to think that every Emperor since joined too? Even BSE? After all, when he became to rule GEotD was actually his Empire. The way he did this caused the wrath of Lion of Night which manifests through Long Night and Others, as well. In that case, one can say Others are good guys, cause they are sent from the goods.

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Another issue with there not being two moons: all of the multitude clues about the eighth and into wanderer, a pattern which appears everywhere. The Am Empress was the 8th GEotD ruler, and the BSE the ninth. There were 8 wise masters, until the dragon, the into wanderer, showed up and burned the eighth. I mean... this pattern is everywhere, but only makes sense if there were two moons.


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Hey guys, I have debuted my theory on Reddit, although I had to chop it into like 5 pieces because they are trying to encourage rely short attention spans or something, I dunno... anyway if nobody upvotes it, it gets buried, so if anyone is a reddit user and would like to give me an up vote, I would be super duper grateful.

http://www.reddit.com/r/asoiaf/comments/371f55/spoilers_all_the_astronomy_behind_the_legends_of/

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A thought on Storrhold's Point / Hardhome: I suspect this is the heart of the shadow in the north of Westeros. Like Asshai, Storrholds Point is a peninsula, Stygai and Hardhome are located near or at the tip of their respective peninsulas. In spite of it's far north location, Hardhome's climate is mild and can support a good sized population. Hardhome itself kind of mirrors Stygai. After the mysterious conflagration that took place 600 years ago, ash rained on the Haunted forest for half a year (we can imagine diffuse light and even darkeness during this time because of the ash). Ash. The poisoned river flowing through Asshai is of that name. Unspeakable things seem to be going on at Hardhome, including talk of demons and ghouls, all those horrible screaming noises etc. Ghouls are not necessarily ghosts but are thought of as evil spirits or phantoms,that rob graves and feed on dead bodies.



This brings me to Mother Mole: I find the name very suspicious - could she be living up to her name? A mole - an undercover agent in the guise of a woods witch with a prophecy designed to lure the wildlings to their doom at Hardhome? This certainly appears to be happening. Dead things in the water....



Also interesting in this regard is the Lysene ship, the Elephant, which together with the Goodheart takes women and children on board, only to enslave them. The Elephant seems to reach its destination while the Goodheart is intercepted by Braavosi ships. The name Elephant brings the Volanteen rulers to mind, the so called passive, unwarlike faction of that City. Who knows what they are really up to?



And another thing which may or may not be related: the underground river/stream in Bloodraven's cave is home to white blind fish. So is the Ash in Asshai. The blind fish of the Ash are described as blind, twisted and hideous to look upon. I don't really know where the cave is in relation to Hardhome and the fish appear to be pleasing enough to the eye to eat. But there seems to be some connection there.


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What resolution to what problem? I am lost. What timeline issue> Did you read my last comment in response to Lord Pepsi Cupps, by chance?

I think I was typing my response when you posted your actually, but what I wrote didn't discount what you wrote. I am merely saying that any theory on the subject has to make some point to resolve what seem to be discrepancies in the traditional timeline. Your working hypothesis resolves it by discounting part of traditional Azor Ahai story, That is one viable solution to the problem.

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I think I was typing my response when you posted your actually, but what I wrote didn't discount what you wrote. I am merely saying that any theory on the subject has to make some point to resolve what seem to be discrepancies in the traditional timeline. Your working hypothesis resolves it by discounting part of traditional Azor Ahai story, That is one viable solution to the problem.

O gotchya. Yes that was a key to making everything make sense.

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Wow, great comments, I got to think on that for a minute. That horn existing north of the Wall is quite... mysterious.

As far as the third crack being as loud as the breaking of the world, I was basically saving that one, thanks Mithras. ;) Yes, it seems clear that the breaking of the world is directly connected to the destruction of the fire moon (Daenerys burning in the fire of the sun, Drogo's pyre) and hatching three dragon meteors, the third of which broke the world - the arm of Dorne. And one of the Stepstones is named BLOODSTONE, guys, wake up and smell the coffee. Heh. I kid. But seriously.

And there's the God's Eye, also connected to this event. Why? Because the God's Eye is the fire moon in partial eclipse formation, superimposed over the sun, like a blackl pupil, the exact alignment that was in place when the comet struck.

But, the cotf are involved in this somehow... there's still some mysteries left to discover here, so everyone needs to keep thinking about this.

Bors the Breaker is the legendary ancestor of House Bulwer. In ADwD, Black Jack Bulwer was leading one of the ranging parties Jon sent. They were captured by the Weeper and their heads were mounted on pikes near the Wall. Recalling that the Weeper has a scythe like the Grim Reaper, this is another reference to the sacrificial bull in relation to the Bulwers.

And Ghost pissed on the spear on which Black Jack's head was mounted. That is another connection between Ghost/bull similar to Ghost gnawing on the bones of an ox twice in ADwD.

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Bors the Breaker is the legendary ancestor of House Bulwer. In ADwD, Black Jack Bulwer was leading one of the ranging parties Jon sent. They were captured by the Weeper and their heads were mounted on pikes near the Wall. Recalling that the Weeper has a scythe like the Grim Reaper, this is another reference to the sacrificial bull in relation to the Bulwers.

And Ghost pissed on the spear on which Black Jack's head was mounted. That is another connection between Ghost/bull similar to Ghost gnawing on the bones of an ox twice in ADwD.

!

Would this make Jon Mithras/AAR, maybe "born" out of grendal's (sp?) cave to end the night? Man, this is good stuff! I can see a militarized mystery religion playing well in the NW.

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Check this out as far as sacrificial bulls:

Here and there a torch burned hungrily, casting its ruddy glow over the faces of the wedding guests. The way the mists threw back the shifting light made their features seem bestial, half- human, twisted. Lord Stout became a mastiff, old Lord Locke a vulture, Whoresbane Umber a gargoyle, Big Walder Frey a fox, Little Walder a red bull, lacking only a ring for his nose. Roose Bolton’s own face was a pale grey mask, with two chips of dirty ice where his eyes should be.

Walder is a Red Bull. Aquan the Red Bull has a white calf sacrificed every 13 days. Once again we see a connection between the LH and the sacrificial animal. Mithras slays the white bull, which is reborn as the moon. Sacrificial bull = moon. It's unclear if the LH is himself the sacrifice, or if the sacrifice empowered the Last Hero, but there's a very tight connection there.

Jeyne’s words seemed to echo in his head, to the beat of the drums two of Abel’s other girls were pounding. Another one had pulled Little Walder Frey up onto the table to teach him how to dance.

On the table is where the sacrifice happens. More like an altar. But roast pig is certainly served on the table, or roasted boar...

Outside the snow was swirling, dancing. Theon groped his way to the wall, then followed it to the Battlements Gate. He might have taken the guards for a pair of Little Walder’s snowmen if he had not seen the white plumes of their breath. “I want to walk the walls,” he told them, his own breath frosting in the air.

Little Walder has been making snow sentinels, which certainly suggest Others. Also, where those snow sentinels are, there is also the "treacherous black ice," the same black ice Jon was armored in atop the Wall while holding Lightbringer in his dream. A direct connection between the Wall and the walls of Winterfell. Considering the constant analogies between the NW and the Others, and Jon's connections to the Others, we are again presented with the idea of Others as watchers on the walls.

The doors of the Great Hall opened with a crash. A cold wind came swirling through, and a cloud of ice crystals sparkled blue- white in the air. Through it strode Ser Hosteen Frey, caked with snow to the waist, a body in his arms. All along the benches men put down their cups and spoons to turn and gape at the grisly spectacle. The hall grew quiet. Another murder .

Snow slid from Ser Hosteen’s cloaks as he stalked toward the high table, his steps ringing against the floor. A dozen Frey knights and men- at- arms entered behind him. One was a boy Theon knew— Big Walder, the little one, fox- faced and skinny as a stick. His chest and arms and cloak were spattered with blood. The scent of it set the horses to screaming. Dogs slid out from under the tables, sniffing. Men rose from the benches. The body in Ser Hosteen’s arms sparkled in the torchlight, armored in pink frost. The cold outside had frozen his blood. “My brother Merrett’s son.” Hosteen Frey lowered the body to the floor before the dais. “Butchered like a hog and shoved beneath a snowbank. A boy.

The Red Bull is sacrificed. The dead body is carried by one man leading a group of 12 - this would suggest that the Last Hero, played by Hosteen, was not himself the sacrifice but was intimately tied to it. Perhaps the LH was the son or father of the sacrifice (which I am pretty sure was Garth). Bulls and Elk and pigs are all sacrificial animals. Here we see Walder, a red bull, compared to a pig in the way he was slaughtered, indicating that the point here is "sacrificial animal."

Now we have a sparkling body, armored in frost, whose blood has frozen. Little Walder was crating snow sentinels (Others?), then died and became a wight? Or a weirwood? (Frozen blood being the purview of weirwoods also). This all reeks (pun intended) of greenseer involvement in the creation of Others.

Sorry Voice. This keeps coming up - you're probably going to have to accept that the greenseers had something to do with creating Others. I keep running into this connection - there is something there, although I don't know exactly what. But it's not nothing.

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Dude, I love you, but please stop saying this. It's a total straw man argument.

The Fire moon was the source of fire magic, directly tied to the heart of summer which is now the shadow. Its destruction unbalanced the cosmic forces of magic and created the vacuum which the Others filled. That's my theory.

All of the magic in the book is coupled with nature. The Others are the ice winds and winter. The deep ones are the dark tide. The dragons are fire made flesh. The cotf sing the song of earth. They are joined at the hip... I don't understand why you can't seem to get this concept, Voice. There is no separation between science and magic.

There are piles and piles of evidence for the two moons, and you keep insisting there isn't a second moon, but you don't refute the evidence to show why it doesn't mean what I say it does. The sun and two wives pattern is everywhere. And if there's only one moon, how did one blow up last time and yet we still have a moon? All I am staying is, address my evidence, and show your evidence. Otherwise... You just seem stuck to an idea because you're attached to it.

You're my homie and everything but you're not dealing with the evidence of my argument, and you keep acting as those I am proposing a purely scientific explanation for the Long Night, which I am not.

​And the prolonged eclipse thing is just beyond impossible. That really makes no sense to me. Andit complete ignores the piles and piles of evidence that the sun killed the moon. It happens over, and over, and over... an eclipse does not fit that pattern. Daenerys, who matches Nissa Nissa and the fire moon (Dany is not an ice moon) goes and burns herself in the sun's fire to hatch three dragons. That's not an eclipse. It's just not.

I'm not ignoring your argument LmL, but I do see this working quite differently. I'll keep adding relevant citations that support your scenario. As I've said before, I would prefer there to be a physical/scientific angle to all this. My brain works that way.

And while I agree that science=magic in the series, I think magic is enough. I don't think GRRM needs the physical destruction of a moon in order to accomplish a "long night."

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I'm not ignoring your argument LmL, but I do see this working quite differently. I'll keep adding relevant citations that support your scenario. As I've said before, I would prefer there to be a physical/scientific angle to all this. My brain works that way.

And while I agree that science=magic in the series, I think magic is enough. I don't think GRRM needs the physical destruction of a moon in order to accomplish a "long night."

Right, but he is telling us the moon was destroyed. It's not a matter of needing anything - it's just about following the text.

Khal Drogo looked down at her. His face was a copper mask, (Drogo is the sun) yet under the long black mustache, drooping beneath the weight of its gold rings, she thought she glimpsed the shadow of a smile. “Is good name, Dan Ares wife, moon of my life,” he said. They rode to the lake the Dothraki called the Womb of the World, surrounded by a fringe of reeds, its water still and calm. A thousand thousand years ago, Jhiqui told her, the first man had emerged from its depths, riding upon the back of the first horse. The procession waited on the grassy shore as Dany stripped and let her soiled clothing fall to the ground. Naked, she (the moon) stepped gingerly into the water. Irri said the lake had no bottom, but Dany felt soft mud squishing between her toes as she pushed through the tall reeds. The moon floated on the still black waters, shattering and re- forming as her ripples washed over it. Goose pimples rose on her pale skin as the coldness crept up her thighs and kissed her lower lips. The stallion’s blood had dried on her hands and around her mouth. Dany cupped her fingers and lifted the sacred waters over her head, cleansing herself and the child inside her while the khal and the others looked on. She heard the old women of the dosh khaleen muttering to each other as they watched, and wondered what they were saying. (AGOT, Daenerys)
Why did she hurt so much? It was as if her body had been torn to pieces and remade from the scraps.
[...]
The tent grew dimmer, and sleep took her again. This time she did not dream. She floated, serene and at peace, on a black sea that knew no shore.
(AGOT, Daenerys)
Seek the hill of Nagga and the bones of the Grey King’s Hall, for in that holy place when the moon has drowned and come again we shall make ourselves a worthy king, a godly king.” He raised his bony hands on high again. “ Listen! Listen to the waves! Listen to the god! He is speaking to us, and he says, We shall have no king but from the kingsmoot! ”
(AFFC, THE PROPHET)
The point of Ser Gregor’s lance had snapped off in his neck, and his life’s blood flowed out in slow pulses, each weaker than the one before. His armor was shiny new; a bright streak of fire ran down his outstretched arm, as the steel caught the light. Then the sun went behind a cloud, and it was gone. His cloak was blue, the color of the sky on a clear summer’s day, trimmed with a border of crescent moons, but as his blood seeped into it, the cloth darkened and the moons turned red, one by one.
(AGOT, SANSA)
Only the brightest stars were visible, all to the west. A dull red glow lit the sky to the northeast, the color of a blood bruise. Tyrion had never seen a bigger moon. Monstrous, swollen, it looked as if it had swallowed the sun and woken with a fever. Its twin, floating on the sea beyond the ship, shimmered red with every wave. (ADwD, Tyrion)
Promise me, Ned. The fever had taken her strength and her voice had been faint as a whisper, whisper, but when he gave her his word, the fear had gone out of his sister’s eyes. Ned remembered the way she had smiled then, how tightly her fingers had clutched his as she gave up her hold on life, the rose petals spilling from her palm, dead and black. (AGoT, Eddard)
“Hagen, blow your horn and make the forest shake. Tris, don some mail, it’s time you tried out that sweet sword of yours.” When she saw how pale he was, she pinched his cheek. “Splash some blood upon the moon with me, and I promise you a kiss for every kill.”
Asha took Tris Botley by the ears and kissed him full upon the lips. He was red and breathless by the time she let him go. “What was that?” he said. “A kiss, it’s called. Drown me for a fool, Tris..
The room was cold. Asha rose from Galbart Glover’s bed and took off her torn clothes. The jerkin would need fresh laces, but her tunic was ruined. I never liked it anyway . She tossed it on the flames. The rest she left in a puddle by the bed. Her breasts were sore, and Qarl’s seed was trickling down her thigh. She would need to brew some moon tea or risk bringing another kraken into the world.
"When you speak to King Stannis (Azor Ahai), mention if you would that he will owe me another thirty thousand dragons come the black of the moon."
“A trader from Qarth once told me that dragons came from the moon,” blond Doreah said as she warmed a towel over the fire ….
Silvery-wet hair tumbled across her eyes as Dany turned her head, curious. “The moon?”
“He told me the moon was an egg, Khaleesi,” the Lysene girl said. “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.”
We look at mountains and call them eternal, and so they seem … but in the course of time, mountains rise and fall, rivers change their courses, stars fall from the sky, and great cities sink beneath the sea. Even gods die, we think. Everything changes.
(ACOK, Bran)
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