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Astronomy of Planetos: Children of the Dawn, Part One


LmL

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and which animal is it anyway? HUMAN. if it was cow they wouldn't need the hush hush special code.

See this is why I :kiss: you TMoTO :thumbsup:

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Hey Mother of the Others, I don't know if you read my solar cycle thread or not (you'd like that one, I think, and it's short for a change), but did you know that Bennero knows about the moon destruction theory? I think he's basically explaining it to the R'hloor followers in the scene in ADWD... this is the kind of heavy handed hint george was forced to put in the book because NOBODY has picked up on this astronomy backstory, even though all the clues are in the first book. Anyway, check this out, and remember that all the quotes about a thousand fiery things refer to the meteor shower :



The knight nodded. “The red temple buys them as children and makes them priests or temple prostitutes or warriors. Look there.” He pointed at the steps, where a line of men in ornate armor and orange cloaks stood before the temple’s doors, clasping spears with points like writhing flames. “The Fiery Hand. The Lord of Light’s sacred soldiers, defenders of the temple.”


Fire knights. “And how many fingers does this hand have, pray?”


“One thousand. Never more, and never less. A new flame is kindled for every one that gutters out.” Benerro jabbed a finger at the moon, made a fist, spread his hands wide. When his voice rose in a crescendo, flames leapt from his fingers with a sudden whoosh and made the crowd gasp. The priest could trace fiery letters in the air as well. Valyrian glyphs. Tyrion recognized perhaps two in ten; one was Doom, the other Darkness.
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Is there any obvious reason I'm missing that the emperors of the dawn couldn't be the Seven? I've been gnawing on this for a while and I can't deny the appeal of merging these entites and reducing the mythical clutter.


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Point of clarification. I take this as Benerro talking about the destruction of the second moon before the original Long Night. You aren't suggesting that he is predicting a collision with the remain moon, are you?

If you take it together with him saying that those that die in Daenerys's cause will be "reborn", it seems the general gist of the passage is that Benerro (and the Red Priests) are mouthing off about things they don't fully understand, and are more sinister than they sound. He may be omitting important parts that he does know (like exactly what being "reborn" means) but it's more likely that they are just zealots with good intent. Meaning they will do some serious damage. So whatever story Benerro is telling, the imagery invokes destruction in the sky and a rain of fire in the context of Daenerys - and the repeated use for fiery hand imagery suggests the Red Priests will have a hand in it. They would see their actions as supporting Azor Ahai, but in the end they will "have a hand" in the conflagration that's coming.

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Point of clarification. I take this as Benerro talking about the destruction of the second moon before the original Long Night. You aren't suggesting that he is predicting a collision with the remain moon, are you?

Gosh it's hard to know, DD. Either one is eminently kick ass as far as I'm concerned. Either would powerful - if you're telling everyone about the last time the moon blew up and caused doom and darkness, the ostensible point would be to warn about its potential to happen again, or that some effects of this event are still needing to be dealt with in some way. The crowd reacts in pretty spirited fashion... that indicates more than a history lesson, right?

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Lord Pepsi, here's what I am seeing. The anatomy we are given for R'hllor is a fiery eye (note the singular) and a fiery hand made up of a thousand flames. That's my logo. Gods Eye fire moon eclipse formation, a thousand dragons pouring forth. The fiery hand and eye of god.

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That's George's spin on the whole "one-eyed seer" trope. When something has one eye, that's a god's eye metaphor. If something has one white eye, that's the other eye of god, the moon. This is all about the eyes of Horus. I am actually really excited to write this essay, it's a fascinating concept.

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Is there any obvious reason I'm missing that the emperors of the dawn couldn't be the Seven? I've been gnawing on this for a while and I can't deny the appeal of merging these entites and reducing the mythical clutter.

There were more than seven of them.

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There were more than seven of them.

I'm not counting Amethyst. I don't think she ever actually reigned, did she?

The reason I wandered off on to this train of thought was Brienne's story about the Perfect Knight being given his sword by the Maiden.

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The story of Galladon of Morne and the Just Maid is absolutely another version of the Azor Ahai story. The Maiden is Nissa, she lost her heart to make a magic sword, just as Nissa did, and Galldon unsheathed the magic sword here times, just as we got three fiery sword meteors from the moon's destruction. They also mention a random person named "Lord Lucifer" right before they launch into the Galladon story. The Just Maid is a reference to Virgo, the virgin (maiden), who holds the scales of Libra in her hand ("Just" or "Fair")

All of the fair maiden stuff is referencing Virgo holding Libra... that's the "Maiden" constellation, the Moonmaid

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The story of Galladon of Morne and the Just Maid is absolutely another version of the Azor Ahai story. The Maiden is Nissa, she lost her heart to make a magic sword, just as Nissa did, and Galldon unsheathed the magic sword here times, just as we got three fiery sword meteors from the moon's destruction. They also mention a random person named "Lord Lucifer" right before they launch into the Galladon story. The Just Maid is a reference to Virgo, the virgin (maiden), who holds the scales of Libra in her hand ("Just" or "Fair")

All of the fair maiden stuff is referencing Virgo holding Libra... that's the "Maiden" constellation, the Moonmaid

"As above, so below," eh? I noticed the Lucifer reference, but I thought it was in reference to some "crazy" Dornishman. The idea of the BSE as the Stranger does have some appeal, but I don't think the GEotD extended as far as Andalos anyways. Oh well.

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"As above, so below," eh? I noticed the Lucifer reference, but I thought it was in reference to some "crazy" Dornishman. The idea of the BSE as the Stranger does have some appeal, but I don't think the GEotD extended as far as Andalos anyways. Oh well.

The Bloodstone Emperor certainly did not (as far as we know) have anything to do with Essos West of the Bones. However, because the Andals came out of the Silver Sea area i the time following the long night, its possible that survivors of the GEotD fleeing over the mountains brought certain starry wisdom with them. The Kingdom of Sarnor, which formed at least 5,000 years ago, shows some potential GEOTD influence, which makes sense since we know that peoples did flee over the Bones mountains to the West. We have no idea when Hugor Hill "happened," how old that story is, etc. They were a migratory people prior to building towns in the hills of Andalos.

I think it's very possible that some of the more "Starry" aspects of the Faith developed AFTER they got to Oldtown and were infiltrated / assimilated by the Hightower's.

I am almost done with Children otD part 2 which will cover Dothraki, Jogos Nhai, Sarnori, Andals, Faith ot7, and Oldtown, which will have my thoughts about those topics.... looking forward to digging into that stuff with everyone. :)

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I am almost done with Children otD part 2 which will cover Dothraki, Jogos Nhai, Sarnori, Andals, Faith ot7, and Oldtown, which will have my thoughts about those topics.... looking forward to digging into that stuff with everyone. :)

I can't wait! Migration patterns and linguistic changes and what not fascinate me in RL history - I'm very interested to see what you've got up your sleeve for this!

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Just found this in ASOS:

His hand swept across the Painted Table. “How many boys dwell in Westeros? How many girls? How many men, how many women? The darkness will devour them all, she says. The night that never ends. She talks of prophecies … a hero reborn in the sea, living dragons hatched from dead stone … she speaks of signs and swears they point to me.

Usually, we hear the phrase "reborn amidst salt and smoke." In this scene, Stannis paraphrases his understanding of this idea: a hero reborn in the sea. A couple of pages later, we get a detailed description of Dragonstone, including the Sea Dragon Tower (and the Windwyrm). Why would a fire hero be reborn in the sea? Because the fire from heaven was a meteor that fell into the sea. A sea dragon. This is really close to the Grey Kings myths here, a drowned god / lightning from heaven and a drowned god who carries a burning brand from the sea, who slew the sea dragon and possessed it's fire and used its trappings to convey divine authority.

By know, it should be obvious what the real meaning of waking dragons from stone is. Astronomically, it refers to flaming meteors - stone dragons. They were woken by Azor Ahai, the red comet-wielding sun, when he impregnated his moon wife with dragon seed. Terrestrially, this takes the form of literally waking dragons from stone eggs. As I've pointed out before, this scene of Dany immolating herself in the sun's fire to wake three dragons from stone is an exact replication of the celestial events. It's cool to see Stannis kind of sneakily enlighten us about the sea dragon connection. Of course all of Dany's "Stormborn" symbolism leaps to mind here. Windwyrm sounds like a storm-born dragon.

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The Bloodstone Emperor certainly did not (as far as we know) have anything to do with Essos West of the Bones. However, because the Andals came out of the Silver Sea area i the time following the long night, its possible that survivors of the GEotD fleeing over the mountains brought certain starry wisdom with them. The Kingdom of Sarnor, which formed at least 5,000 years ago, shows some potential GEOTD influence, which makes sense since we know that peoples did flee over the Bones mountains to the West. We have no idea when Hugor Hill "happened," how old that story is, etc. They were a migratory people prior to building towns in the hills of Andalos.

Bah. DP

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