Astronomy of Ice and Fire: Black Hole Moon

[Lady Blizzardborn]

double post

[LmL]

You know what they say: "nothing burns like the cold." That was in the prologue of AGOT.

Blue stars also the hottest stars, just as the purest flames are pale or blue. Contaminated fuel sources turn flames darker colors.

I hear you, Durran, as far as Dawn, and the gemstone Emperors. There a link there to, and I do think Dawn involves a meteorite. I haven't put all that together like I have Lightbringer, so I'm very open minded. Dawn does have icy imagery, but comets are frozen balls of rock, so a pale stone form a comet would be icy in nature. Perhaps cold other magic was used to temper or forge the pale comet steel. That's generally what I see, symbolically, but I have no idea what the logistics were on that. I am tempted to think about the cold black pool as a good place to temper an ice sword.

[Nozlym]

I know everyone but me seems to be sold on the idea that Dawn is connected with the Others because of its pale milkiness and all, but while we have been told that Lightbringer has a red flame, the flaming swords in Daenerys' dream sequence are pale fire, as is he flaming sword in Jaime's dream. Jon's dream has a flaming red sword, but it is specifically Longclaw in his dream.If his is a tale of two swords, then they both appear to be swords of fire. Just as wildfire produces green fire, the bloodstone and blood sacrifice produced a red flamed weapon, and the heart of a star produced a white flame.

“Ghosts lined the hallway, dressed in the faded raiment of kings. In their hands were swords of pale fire. They had hair of silver and hair of gold and hair of platinum white, and their eyes were opal and amethyst, tourmaline and jade.” GoT 802

I was going to say something else here, but family duties call.

i literally just linked that quote in another topic siting my belief that Dawn is a proto-valrian sword.

ur not alone.

its pretty clear that their weapons are made out of ice though not exactly specified. but i think its a simple conclusion we can all make.

[LmL]

The clue there, Nozlym would be the ghost grass that grows near Asshai and sounds very like Dawn- milkglass, tall as a man, glowing with faint ghost light. There is a connection there. But milkglass is found in the bones of the Others two, so... There is something going on there.

[Lady Blizzardborn]

Wow. How did it end up triple-posted? This calls for a celebration!

:cheers:

[Nozlym]

Okay. I haven't put much thought into it, as I said it's just a brainwave. Perhaps the Valyrian Targaryens were descended from ProtoValyrian/GeoDawnian First Men, say the Daynes? If you were the Last Hero, you might get tired of the fame and move to a nice, quiet sheep-herding community in Essos.

I was thinking that would explain why it is that TDtwP is to be of House Targaryen--the next "last" hero is descended from the first "last" hero.

I tried to work out a connection between the forging of Dawn and the blood-bonding to dragons, but my brain can't get that far tonight, so I'll leave that to fresher, less-stressed minds.

yes, it is said that after the long night the great empire was never the same and went its different ways.

we have evidence that some went to westeros where it is now called Oldtown.

its easy to also say that some probably went to what became Valyria.

[Nozlym]

LmL if u could be so kind as to link the quote where it says the Others bones are like milk glass.

[Nozlym]

straight from the wiki

Had many talks with George. He told me of the ice swords, and the reflective, camouflaging armor that picks up the images of the things around it like a clear, still pond. He spoke a lot about what they were not, but what they were was harder to put into words.

[LmL]

The full text is here, in my analysis of the moonsingers of the Jogos Nhai, but the relevant quotes about milk-glass:

The Temple of the Moonsingers:

“The Moonsingers led us to this place of refuge, where the dragons of Valyria could not find us,” Denyo said. “Theirs is the greatest temple.

[…]

That is the Temple of the Moonsingers.” It was one of those that Arya had spied from the lagoon, a mighty mass of snow-white marble topped by a huge silvered dome whose milk-glass windows showed all the phases of the moon. A pair of marble maidens flanked its gates, tall as the Sealords, supporting a crescent-shaped lintel. (AFFC, Arya)

It certainly sounds like a splendid structure, and it’s densely packed with moon imagery - icy moon imagery at that. Actually, I can’t resist unpacking this a bit. To start, we see the "colors of winter," silver / grey and white - Stark colors, of course. Arya should feel right at home here. The marble is described as "snow-white," adding to the imagery.

We get the only appearance of actual milk-glass, which is significant because of three things which are described as appearing like milk-glass: the sword Dawn, and the bones of the Others, and the stalks of ghost grass that grow near Asshai.

“And now it begins,” said Ser Arthur Dayne, the Sword of the Morning. He unsheathed Dawn and held it with both hands. The blade was pale as milkglass, alive with light. (AGOT, Eddard)

Sam rolled onto his side, eyes wide as the Other shrank and puddled, dissolving away. In twenty heartbeats its flesh was gone, swirling away in a fine white mist. Beneath were bones like milkglass, pale and shiny, and they were melting too. (ASOS, Sam)

"Down in the Shadow Lands beyond Asshai, they say there are oceans of ghost grass, taller than a man on horseback with stalks as pale as milkglass. It murders all other grass and glows in the dark with the spirits of the damned. The Dothraki claim that someday ghost grass will cover the entire world, and then all life will end.” (AGOT, Daenerys)

The Other slid forward on silent feet. In its hand was a longsword like none that Will had ever seen. No human metal had gone into the forging of that blade. It was alive with moonlight, translucent, a shard of crystal so thin that it seemed almost to vanish when seen edge-on. There was a faint blue shimmer to the thing, a ghost-light that played around its edges, and somehow Will knew it was sharper than any razor.

[…]

The pale sword came shivering through the air. (AGOT, Prologue)

The Other slid gracefully from the saddle to stand upon the snow. Sword-slim it was, and milky white.

[…]

The weight of him tore the strange pale sword from the Other’s grip. (ASOS, Sam)

My working theory about Dawn the sword is that is was the original “Ice” of House Stark, and infused with some level of icy Others magic. I’m developing a whole theory about his, of course, which I won’t get into here. I do think it was made from the heart of a falling star, but it also seem to have some Other-ness to it. It’s always described with the term milkglass, which is why I think it’s worth the time to consider these milkglass quotes. The ghost grass and the Others’s swords glow with "ghost light,” while Dawn glows with a “pale light.” Dawn is “alive with light,” the Other’s sword is “alive with moonlight.” The Others’s swords are called a “pale sword” twice; of course the tower at Starfall is called the "Palestone Sword.” The ghost grass which is taller than a man on horseback and murders everything else in an attempt to cover the world and extinguish all life sounds a lot like an army of Others during the Long Night “riding down on the winds of winter to extinguish everything we would call life.” ('93 GRRM letter to the editor) Naturally this grass is, like Dawn, “as pale as milkglass.”

Why the ominous connotations for the sword Dawn? Because (hypothesis) it was originally the sword of the King of Winter, the first Stark. We are supposed to believe that Bran the Builder, founder of House Stark, built the Wall (or at least the first part of it). That’s a pretty strong sign of the ancient Starks having some real ability with ice magic. If anyone could infuse a sword that mortals can hold with Others' ice magic, this might be the guy.

[LmL]

Wow. How did it end up triple-posted? This calls for a celebration!

:cheers:

Yeah I saw that. Just when you thought the board was acting stable...

To your idea about the Valyrians coming fro the Dayne family, I haven't really picked up on any clues in that direction. It seems more likely that the Valyrians came from the GEotD, as for the Daynes, both separated at the time of the Long Night. But I will keep your idea in mind in case I see something indicating that. :)

[Nozlym]

alright someone just linked this in another thread

http://web.archive.org/web/20051103091500/nrctc.edu/fhq/vol1iss3/00103009.htm/

Shaw: Do you know what substance an Other sword is made from.

Martin: Ice. But not like regular old ice. The Others can do things with ice that we can't imagine and make substances of it.

[Lady Blizzardborn]

Yeah I saw that. Just when you thought the board was acting stable...

To your idea about the Valyrians coming fro the Dayne family, I haven't really picked up on any clues in that direction. It seems more likely that the Valyrians came from the GEotD, as for the Daynes, both separated at the time of the Long Night. But I will keep your idea in mind in case I see something indicating that. :)

Not all Valyrians, just the Targaryens. There would of course have been other ProGeoDawnyrians who settled on the Valyrian peninsula prior to Last Hero's moving to Essos.

It's the bloodline bit that intrigued me. Dayne last hero founds Targs; new last hero must be a Targ and thus is from the bloodline of the Dayne who was the Last Hero last time around.

It just seems to me that with the emphasis in the series on specific bloodlines having power(s) it would make sense that the Targaryen Prince(ss) that was Promised would be descended somehow from the Last Hero.

[LmL]

alright someone just linked this in another thread

http://web.archive.org/web/20051103091500/nrctc.edu/fhq/vol1iss3/00103009.htm/

I don't think Dawn is a regular Others sword. Others's swords are transparent crystal. Dawn is white as milkglass. The Pale Sword language is merely a clue to compare Dawn to icy swords, but it is clearly different in some way to an Others's sword. I wouldn't be surprised if Dawn contains melted down Other bones or swords. In fact, that black pool in Winterfell just screams out with significance. Ned dips "Ice" in the black pool, that may simply be a clue that the original Ice was forged by dipping it in the pool, perhaps with blood sacrifice.

Martin likes to do this, I am finding. It's one of the newer revelations I have had - he's replaying all kinds of Dawn Age stuff throughout the whole book, not just AA and Lightbringer. Euron invading Oldtown and the Westerlands is just what the Red Kraken (a huge Bloodstone / AA metaphor) did, and I think thats how the BSE invaded too - he went east from Asshai and landed on the west coast. I was saving that but there you have it. Anyway, back to Dawn, what IS that cold black pool? It represents space, as I have shown in the essay, and the comets do come from space. But the metaphor should be literally true also - the comet sword (one of them) should involve or come from the black pool of space. So... is that pool an Ice Dragon? The Night's King? A thousand Others? A thousand SWORDS of the Others, like a watery iron throne? I kinda like that idea, actually.

[LmL]

Ok. I totally call dips on that idea: the black pool of Winterfell is a thousand (ok well a bunch of ) melted down Others's swords, an opposite of the Iron Throne.

I have no idea if this is true, I'll have to do a study of the black pool. But if it is true, I totally just thought of that.

The womb of the world is a direct analog to the black pool at Winterfell, so I'll be comparing those two. Perhaps the pool Dany sits in on the terrace of the pyramid too. If anyone has any black pool ideas or catches, let me know. That scene where Osha emerges from the pool seems significant... Osha is slender as a spear, iirc, and in the crypts she lights a candle in front of her face and the flame is like a slender maiden or some such... I need to re-read those chapters.

[LmL]

Not all Valyrians, just the Targaryens. There would of course have been other ProGeoDawnyrians who settled on the Valyrian peninsula prior to Last Hero's moving to Essos.

It's the bloodline bit that intrigued me. Dayne last hero founds Targs; new last hero must be a Targ and thus is from the bloodline of the Dayne who was the Last Hero last time around.

It just seems to me that with the emphasis in the series on specific bloodlines having power(s) it would make sense that the Targaryen Prince(ss) that was Promised would be descended somehow from the Last Hero.

Perhaps you can think of the Valyrians / Targaryens and Daynes as two splinter branches. Last time, the LH was a Dayne, this time, a Targ.

Also, the Starks themselves could have come from Daynes. Their eyes could have been turned grey and icy through whatever magic brought Other blood into their line. We can't soley base things on eye color... I have a feeling the BSE eye's were black, to match the black bloodstone by which he is named, as the other gemstone emperors do.

[Nozlym]

Pale, milkglass is just imagery of the Moon imo or the comet that hit it. the sword is made during the GEotD from the debris that fell to earth from the comet or moon. there are many swords like it but only one now known in existance.

maybe its possible some debris also fell near the Others, who also learnt to harness the magic surrounding it, hence why some of the same imagery being used for them.

[Lady Blizzardborn]

Perhaps you can think of the Valyrians / Targaryens and Daynes as two splinter branches. Last time, the LH was a Dayne, this time, a Targ.

Also, the Starks themselves could have come from Daynes. Their eyes could have been turned grey and icy through whatever magic brought Other blood into their line. We can't soley base things on eye color... I have a feeling the BSE eye's were black, to match the black bloodstone by which he is named, as the other gemstone emperors do.

So basically, it's all relative? ;)

If the Starks had Other blood their eyes would more likely be blue, wouldn't they?

Maybe BSE's eyes were a break with tradition. He could be the sole GEotD emperor NOT known by his eye color, but instead by the color/name of the stone that he made so important.

[Nozlym]

ive said my theory on the Daynes before, that they were first men from westeros who came into contact with the proto-valyrians who sailed to westeros and landed at Oldtown.

during this time the long night is happening, a hero emerged from the proto-v's who had a magical glowing sword(dawn). after the long night, some ppl followed this man wielding this beautiful sword.

he settled at what is now called Starfall. and then after the ppl living there have guarded this weapon and trusted it only with the best man that deemed worthy.

this hero would have been named Azor Ahai who we can correlate with the sun

the sun is a star. Azor Ahai possibly deceased at Starfall. A fallen star, and with him a sword.

[J. Stargaryen]

Of course the whole dream foreshadows Drogon, but I always felt metaphorically this part foreshadowed the black dragon as Jon and this fire cleansing her as the process of making another Lightbringer,or in other words, Jon conceiving a child with her and Dany dying with happiness,"finally finding home" that alluded her whole life. I strongly believe that the dream she had about sex with a corpse with a cold manhood referred to Jon in his resurrected form,as King of Winter or the Ice Dragon.

Its scales were black as night, wet and slick with blood. Her blood.

Notice that it is HER blood on him. I interpret this as the dragon and she are related. The only living dragons related to her by blood are Jon (I mean,black scales here are direct reference to him) and Jaime (yes,I am a believer of A+J=C+J,but it is another topic). I dunno,might be wrong.

I had the same thought too. That "her blood" = her family.

As for Jaime and Cersei, it seems that the World book pretty firmly ruled out the possibility that Aerys is their father.

i keep seeing the 2 moons as 2 wives.

rhaegar had 2 wives. a lot of ppl in the books see him as the bad guy, son of an evil king, kidnapping lyana and fighting against our chief characters in Game of Thrones, Ned and Robert. as u relate Azor Ahai as not being the hero.

but he made one of the moons(wife) hatch a dragon but at the cost of her life(nissa nissa).

thus lightbringer was born (jon).

Rhaegar thought he was the one to fullfil the prophecy, but was mistaken. I think the same thing can be said about Azor Ahai being the saviour.

I had the same thought a while back. "Moon is god, woman wife of sun." If the moon is the wife of the sun, then ...Once there were two moons should = two wives. I think this is a hint that Rhaegar and Lyanna were married.

[LmL]

^^ Hey Jstar, thanks for dropping by. For the purposes of symbolism, it doesn't matter whether they married or not, or that Rhaegar was a prince and not a king - he was a "solar king," which is all that matters.

Did you read Julia H's comment on page 2?