Dragons didn't bring magic back

[Rippounet]

I always thought the Drowned God ritual was just intentionally drowning people then immediately resuscitating them.  Dangerous for sure, but no more magical than CPR.

It's quite ambiguous. I paid close attention to thoses passages and it could go either way.

 

[Lost Melnibonean]

Half a year gone, that man could scarcely wake fire from dragonglass. He had some small skill with powders and wildfire, sufficient to
entrance a crowd while his cutpurses did their work. He could walk across hot coals and make burning roses bloom in the air, but he could no
more aspire to climb the fiery ladder than a common fisherman could hope to catch a kraken in his nets.
 
 
If Quaithe doesn't lie, we can see an increase in fire magic - wildfire is more potent, the red priests can resurrect. Not sure if glass candles fall into this category, though.

The glass candles have to burn to work, right? And what the seer sees, the seer sees in the flame, not the candle, right?

[JonSnow4President]

I don't remember it being stated that they were on the rise at all.  Damphair says something like he's awesome at it, and has never lost anyone, and takes it as a sign of the power of his personal devotion compared to other drowned men, but there isn't anything else (that I recall, preparing to eat these words with some tasty spicy ketchup) that could imply overall resurrections were on the rise.

[Lost Melnibonean]

What I mentioned before - are glass candles fire-related? They are from Valyria, so, probably. But resurrecting drowned men? That has nothing to do with Valyrian arts, IIRC. 

Is the resurrection of "drowned men" on the Iron Islands magic or CPR, at which Damphair is exceptionally proficient? Or are you talking about Patchface and Davos?

[mmenolas]

trashing of Dany & dragons, how refreshing :bang:

 

Nobody trashed Dany or Dragons... If you think questioning whether or not dragons are the cause of the resurgence of magic is somehow a slight to dany/dragons, I think you may be a little too defensive.

 

Thats a lot of words for Dany sucks big time.

 

It's not actually that many words, nor does it imply Dany sucks big time...

 

Did I miss something here? I'm not sure how anything said by anyone is bashing Dany. Or dragons.

:agree:

[Vastet]

Magic was already present, so dragons couldn't have brought it back. If they did anything at all, they strengthened it. But I don't think that is true. I think the dragons were only able to come back because magic was already being strengthened. Why is a question I can only speculate at, but I suspect it is the Others at the epicentre.

[Lady Blizzardborn]

Yea, that's what I'm saying. The birth of the dragons can be related to an increase in fire magic, but not all magic.

I've said from the beginning that the dragons did not "bring back" magic, but that because magic was already returning it became possible once again to hatch them.  

 

Then it started ramping up (at least in the fire magic department) because the dragons somehow multiply the force.  It's like the magic feeds on itself and grows.

 

There's something very magical about the Wall as well. Mel's powers are stronger there.  And that's interesting given that she uses fire magic, but the wall is ice.  I do think magic overall was on the rise as the series started, or just before.  

 

Really the first clue we have about magic returning is the return of the Others, established in the prologue of AGoT.  The dragons don't show up until much later in the book.

[Mithras]

If Quaithe doesn't lie, we can see an increase in fire magic - wildfire is more potent, the red priests can resurrect. Not sure if glass candles fall into this category, though.

 

Quaithe might not be an omnipotent authority in this matter. There is certainly an increase of global magic activity but the hatching of the dragons might be a result of this phenomenon just like everything else.

 

If I were to guess, I would say that the damn comet is the cause of the increase of global magic level.

[Not a kneeler]

I'm not so sure about the comet being the cause. The first sign we see is the return of the others in the Prologue of Book 1. Then we see MMD crank up her spell in the tent. Then we see dragons and then the whole thing starts to cascade.  And this is all either fire magic or ice magic. prior to that we have Bloodaven and his magics and we have Maggi the frog and we have Patchface who drowns and is resurrected when Stephan Baratheon drowns.  It's as if fire magic and ice magic are one thing and the Old Gods are something else.

 

There is a phrase by Moqorro who says that the Drownded God is a thrall of the Great other, who I suspect is R'hllor's name for the Old Gods.

[Jubal]

Regarding glass candles, they are made of obsidian, otherwise known as dragonglass.

 

I'd put them firmly on the "fire magic" side of things.

[caravaggio]

Regarding glass candles, they are made of obsidian, otherwise known as dragonglass.

 

I'd put them firmly on the "fire magic" side of things.

 

Right.

 

I do think the "fire" and "ice" magic labels are clumsy of me, but it does feel to me that there are at least two distinct forms of magic.

 

Dragons, glass candles, Rh'llor followers, all seem like they can be classified into one related group. Meanwhile weirwood, green dreams, warging/skinchanging, all seem closely related in another. I personally think you can add all the stuff the Others are doing to the second list. Also, both of these seem to have different places of origin; group 1 in Essos and group 2 in Westeros.

 

I haven't seen anything that has made me think the second group (cold) has felt any particular rise or fall. The Others would be the strongest case for a rise in that type of magic, but we really don't know what their strength has been since the last Long Night. Varamyr doesn't seem to have had a shift in his power. Bloodraven is more well trained now for sure, but there are hints he may have been tapping into the weirwoods in D+E and he has said that he has been watching Bran his whole life.

 

Structures like Storm's End and The Wall might fall under a different category or maybe they were made with a combination of both types of magic. Still, The Wall doesn't seem to have changed in its strength. If its level of strength depended on the same power that dragons do, you'd think it would be shrinking or that some of its higher parts would start crumbling off.

 

I'm not sure if Faceless Men could be put in either group. If I could see arguments that their power is related to group one and/or two. Still, it doesn't seem like their power has increased in the time of the novels. It doesn't sound like they just regained the ability to change faces or anything like that.

[Jono of Oldtown]

• obsidian (what the smallfolk call dragonglass, while the Valyrians knew it by a word meaning "frozen fire") - TWOIAF - Children of the Forrest Section

This is the connection between fire magic and glass candles. The candles are made from obsidian and evidently infused with some kind of fire magic that only works when dragons are alive. How do I know that, it is said that glass candles in Qarth stopped working not long after the dance.

• It is said that the glass candles are burning in the house of Urrathon Night-Walker, that have not burned in a hundred years. - ACOK - Daenerys 5

And lastly a quote to connect glass candles to both dragons and fire magic

• "What feeds the flame?" asked Sam. ​"What feeds a dragon's fire?" Marwyn seated himself upon a stool. "All Valyrian sorcery was rooted in blood or fire." - AFFC - Samwell 5

But I don't think the dragons returning are responsible for this, just connected. All these events are symptoms of something larger at work. There was clearly some weird magic stuff going on with Drogons egg long before Drogo died.