Do you think there will be a second Long Night? What will be the trigger?

[LmL]

I don't think its any surprise that I like your version better.

ETA: And of course your version is actually supported by the text. ;)
 
Agreed, as another poster stated up thread, it would kinda be disappointing to not see at least the beginning of a long night.

 

Well it's always cool when people come to similar conclusions via different routes. It means more than one person is seeing a similar picture. But it's important to realize that "nuclear winter" doesn't necessarily imply nuclear weapons.

[Darkstream]

 
But it's important to realize that "nuclear winter" doesn't necessarily imply nuclear weapons.

Oh yeah, I'm aware of that, I haven't seen any of the Preston Jacobs theories, I was asking if that's what he implies?

[Ramsay Gimp]

 

One of my stronger ideas about this is that the destroyed moon was a fire moon, and our remaining moon an ice moon. Each moon would be tied to our earth hearts - the heart of winter and whatever the Shadow by Asshai used to be - the heart of... summer? When the fire moon was destroyed, fire magic was corrupted and weakened, and this is reflected in Asshai's status as a dark and shadowy wasteland where dark magic can be harnessed and practiced.  Before the collision, ice and fire magic were in some kind of equilibrium, but when the fire moon was destroyed and fire magic corrupted, ice magic was unchecked, and so it expanded into the void. Basically, this is a magical version of what actually happens when a large comet causes a nuclear winter scenario - first, a fiery dragon explodes, but afterwards, we get floods, earthquakes, and darkness.  And then a prolonged winter. In magic speak, this translated as an invasion of magical entities which personify winter itself.

 

 

Hmm. What would a "fire moon" even mean, though? Wouldn't that just be a sun?  :P And if destroying the fire moon led to the Long Night/Winter, wouldn't destroying the "ice moon" just restore the balance? Or trigger a long summer? 

 

Plus fire magic has had periods of dominance since the Long Night, while ice magic has seemingly been hiding in the far North. I think the comet could have just hit Planetos itself rather than a moon.

 

But I agree with the bolded part.

 

 

 

 

 

I do agree that a "nuclear winter" is possible in the story, and I don't think it requires any celestial collisions or anything else; the answer can simply be magic. I don't see a problem with the Others attack happening simultaneously with some sort of effort on their part to freeze/place into darkness most of Westeros, if for no other reason that it would likely be an ideal setting for the Others themselves. That said, the whole comet/moons strikes me as far too esoteric and far too unrelated to actual characters that are in play to really be a useful story mechanism. LmL, while you do an excellent job, I think you're going down the rabbit hole of trying to find reasonable explanations for things in the story that don't have a better explanation than "it's magic" - sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. It's like trying to explain why Sauron was somehow able to place all his power in an inanimate object; you aren't going to find a scientifically viable explanation for it, just like you won't find a scientifically viable explanation for winters that last 5 years, or dragons flying around. You can't out-deus the machina.

 

But just saying "it's magic" is lame, and begs a lot of questions. Nothing we've seen from the Others so far suggests that they are capable of engulfing the world in darkness/blotting out the sun on their own.

 

And while I think LmL goes too far with some of his theorizing, his essential idea that comets/moons are important to the magical side of the story has lots of textual support. See the red comet, the Daynes and Dawn, the legendary cracked moon giving birth to dragons, the Bloodstone, etc. I can't imagine why GRRM would include the red comet in ACOK if it didn't have some significance

[Darkstream]

I've heard a couple times that PJ theories were pretty crackpot, but not sure if my sources were reliable, I'd really value your opinion, are they worth checking out?

[LmL]

I've heard a couple times that PJ theories were pretty crackpot, but not sure if my sources were reliable, I'd really value your opinion, are they worth checking out?

 

 

I have only seen a couple of them.  I felt like he has a tendency to draw dramatic conclusions, but he's always got some interesting nuggets on the way, even if you disagree with the ending.  So yes, certainly worth checking out.  I tend to keep an open mind when I read far fetched sounding stuff, because there's often good observations which may be insightful, regardless of the conclusions drawn. But I don't know anything about his nuclear winter ideas, so I cannot help you there.

[LmL]

 

Hmm. What would a "fire moon" even mean, though? Wouldn't that just be a sun?  :P And if destroying the fire moon led to the Long Night/Winter, wouldn't destroying the "ice moon" just restore the balance? Or trigger a long summer? 

 

Plus fire magic has had periods of dominance since the Long Night, while ice magic has seemingly been hiding in the far North. I think the comet could have just hit Planetos itself rather than a moon.

 

But I agree with the bolded part.

 

 

All I can say is that I am just doing my best to interpret what is in the text. Nothing "needs" to happen any which way - anything is theoretically possible in George's mind. The scenario I have hypothesized is based on my strictest interpretation of many, many passage of text. Of course my interpretations could be wrong, in part or in whole, but that's my approach. The text seems to say the sun killed & impregnated the moon with a comet. It happens over and over again... so that's my theory.  :dunno:

 

Ultimately, the destruction of the remaking moon, or stripping of its icy layer, may be necessary to restore balance. It's hard to say exactly, because its not just a matter of celestial actions - the celestial actions will accompany the actions of the characters, which are of course more important. They should be working in tandem somehow. But there are a lot of ways that could happen. George likes to do the dual-edged sword thing; the solution may be painful, you know?

[Mithras]

Yes, the Long Night will happen again but it should not take that long to end. The saga should be concluded with a dream of spring.

 

I think this time; the Long Night might take place with the comet crashing directly on earth instead of the moon.

 

I think there is a fairly good chance that the Others are creatures of shadowbinding, not thematically different than the shadow assassins. They are called white shadows. They are cold, like it got cold when the shadow assassin came to slay Renly. The shadow assassins were created by blood/seed sacrifice. That seems to be the case for the Others.

[Lateral]

your essays are quite thoughtful and when you read them as they are it actually makes kind of sence. but imho you are very wrong about a very important, basic thing: you think that GRRM tries to write "Modern Mythology". I'm very sure that he doesn't. ASOIAF is a story about the human heart in conflict with itself, refined with a little piece of magic. the story is about making important decision, not about a comet that will cause a doom that nobody could have prevented.

[LmL]

your essays are quite thoughtful and when you read them as they are it actually makes kind of sence. but imho you are very wrong about a very important, basic thing: you think that GRRM tries to write "Modern Mythology". I'm very sure that he doesn't. ASOIAF is a story about the human heart in conflict with itself, refined with a little piece of magic. the story is about making important decision, not about a comet that will cause a doom that nobody could have prevented.

Ah, but the thing is, almost all of these stories name people - greenseers or cotf or godlike people - as the ones who somehow caused the collision to happen. Of course the story always comes back to the characters - but these characters have to deal with a world with screwy nature magic and weird seasons, etc. I mean that's the story.

But even if we "people," broadly speaking, DIDN'T cause the collision, dealing with natural disasters is a part of life, and there are plenty on human heart in conflict stories that result. Think about the stories of the Titanic, Pompeii, etc. Large scale disasters don't steal from the human story at all. In ASOIAF we have magical disasters... same diff, though.

As for mythology... you act as though writing with heavy symbolism and metaphor is somehow in conflict with telling stories about hearts in conflict. I don't understand that at all. Have you read much mythology? I mean almost all classic literature is heavy metaphor and symbolism, it's not exactly unusual.

ETA: at least my theories make sense to you when you red them, that's not bad ;)

[StarkofWinterfell]

I certainly think there will be a second Long Night. Hell, we don't even know how many Long Night's there were in the past before recorded history.

While it is true that large volcanic eruptions or asteroid impacts block out the sun for a while, for how long is up to debate. Instead, we should look to the areas of the world where it is dark for months out of the year due to the tilt of the Earth's axis. It's entirely possible that over the span of thousands of years, the days will get progressively shorter and lead to another Long Night.

The equinoxes symbolize this.

[LmL]

I certainly think there will be a second Long Night. Hell, we don't even know how many Long Night's there were in the past before recorded history.

While it is true that large volcanic eruptions or asteroid impacts block out the sun for a while, for how long is up to debate. Instead, we should look to the areas of the world where it is dark for months out of the year due to the tilt of the Earth's axis. It's entirely possible that over the span of thousands of years, the days will get progressively shorter and lead to another Long Night.

The equinoxes symbolize this.

The Long Night cannot be explained with axial tilt or extreme polar latitudes - we know it was felt all over the known world, all through Essos and all the way to Asshai and the Far East. It was a global phenomena, as far as we know. But it's interesting to contemplate the idea of multiple cycles of humanity thing. I tend to think the original LN was the first, the initial disruption to the cosmic harmony, which will need to rectified somehow, but who knows. But axial tilt, no. I think the Long Night needs a specific cause to fall. Something has to block out the sun.

It sure does seem like it is coming back though.

[StarkofWinterfell]

I am not so sure that it's not possible. Certainly if Planetos wobbled horizontally so that both Westeros and Essos were facing away from the sun, we'd have a situation where axial tilt could explain the long winters and nights. Of course, without knowing the actual size of Planetos, I can only speculate but axial tilt seems plausible to me. 

[Tucu]

I am not so sure that it's not possible. Certainly if Planetos wobbled horizontally so that both Westeros and Essos were facing away from the sun, we'd have a situation where axial tilt could explain the long winters and nights. Of course, without knowing the actual size of Planetos, I can only speculate but axial tilt seems plausible to me. 

Axial tilt would not explain a multi-year night, but a temporary tidal lock would. One side permantely facing the star and the other always dark.

[StarkofWinterfell]

Axial tilt would not explain a multiyear night, but a temporary tidal lock would. One side permantely facing the star and the other always dark.

 

 

Could an axial tilt not be extreme enough to account for it?

[Tucu]

 

 

Could an axial tilt not be extreme enough to account for it?

Good question. I think an extreme 90 degres tilt could account for 6 months of day and 6 months of night (around half a rotation around the sun each) if Westeros and Essos are near the poles.

To get a multiyear night you need to synchronize tilt, rotation speed and orbital speed.

[winterfellbeyondthewall]

It's definitely a good question, but even so fairly hard to answer. The first LN was triggered by the Bloodstone Emperor, right? It has to be something equally terrible or even more horrendous as to bring forth a second long night.

While I do believe that there is going to be a LN, caused by what reason how so ever, I highly doubt that we will get a saviour this time. Anyone with me on this?

[Tucu]

It's definitely a good question, but even so fairly hard to answer. The first LN was triggered by the Bloodstone Emperor, right? It has to be something equally terrible or even more horrendous as to bring forth a second long night.

While I do believe that there is going to be a LN, caused by what reason how so ever, I highly doubt that we will get a saviour this time. Anyone with me on this?

An old synopsis for the end of the "trilogy" mentions two desperate journeys to the hearts of ice and fire and a final battle at Winterfell with life itself on the balance. So I expect a lot of dead people but some survivors too.

[Victarion Chainbreaker]

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George has confirmed (at the end of this SSM) that the erratic nature of the seasons is not scientific. I think the Long Night is intrinsically connected to winter, so the Long Night wouldn't have a scientifically accurate rationale either. I could be wrong, of course, but it makes sense to me.

[LmL]

 
 
Could an axial tilt not be extreme enough to account for it?

If I could just interrupt the speculation for a second here, three things. One, axial tilt is not hinted at, either directly or indirectly in the text. A second moon exploding is right out of the book. The comet being compared to dragons, fire and blood, etc, is right out of the book.

Second, axial tilt explanations for the Long Night kind of go against the "the reason for the seasonal wackiness is magic" thing. We have to at least stick to magically-infused natural disasters, as that's the template given to us in the books (Doom of Valyria, Hardhome, etc).

Third, if the earth suddenly flipped on to its side, everything on earth would be incinerated. Now perhaps George could just wave the magic wand if he wanted to, but that's a "total death of all living things and scouring the earth with fire" scenario. A meteor impact, however, fits very well inside the confines of what we know about the Long Night without any massively flagrant violations of the laws of physics. A moon exploding is a bit of a stretch, but I think a little bit of magic there makes it happen in a reasonable fashion. And again, a moon exploding is laid out in the text, halfway through book one in the middle of a ton of dragon birth foreshadowing.

That's what I mean when I say I never make anything up - my entire theory, every bit of it, comes from interpreting what is in the text in he most straightforward way that I can.

[winterfellbeyondthewall]

An old synopsis for the end of the "trilogy" mentions two desperate journeys to the hearts of ice and fire and a final battle at Winterfell with life itself on the balance. So I expect a lot of dead people but some survivors too.

Where is the heart of fire? Valyria?