Does anyone else think ASOIAF takes place in a distant future?

[Littlefinger's dagger]

Giants, ibbenese dwarves, Dagonesque fish people, CotF (elves or gnomes), all seem like genetically manipulated humans. Bio-manipulation like that is pretty common in the GRRM thousand worlds.  My money is on Planetos being one of the worlds that never left the Interregnum.

[Taenqyrhae]

There is a crackpot theory that Varys is Haviland Tuf from the Thousand Worlds shared universe that GRRM wrote many stories in.  The characters share a lot of similarities, and the differences can be explained by the advanced bioengineering available to Tuf.  The Thousand Worlds series are set thousands of years into a future where man has spread throughout the galaxy, but in some places reverted to a more primitive state of being.  Extinct animals can easily be explained by seedships - an ancient human empire in the distant past of the setting created these giant ships that can either create a full biosphere on a world or utterly destroy it with biological weapons.  They can produce not only any known living creature (and there are a LOT of freaky aliens), but they also have extinct life…in one of the stories, Tuf released a tyrannosaurus rex on someone trying to steal his ship.

If you look online, you can see lists of things in ASoIaF that tie it to the Thousand Worlds, but it's not solid proof that it actually is set in the Thousand Worlds…he may have just re-used ideas that he originally created for that setting, like lizard-lions and such.

 

[Taenqyrhae]

Giants, ibbenese dwarves, Dagonesque fish people, CotF (elves or gnomes), all seem like genetically manipulated humans. Bio-manipulation like that is pretty common in the GRRM thousand worlds.  My money is on Planetos being one of the worlds that never left the Interregnum.

I've only read a few of the books in that setting (the Tuf stories, Sandkings), is there anything like time warps in the other stories?  Regions of space where the speed of light and the flow of time are changed while still being habitable?  If so, it would really tie in to some of my more SF theories about ASoIaF.

 

[ShadowCat Rivers]

No. Simply because it is not necessary for anything, solves nothing and adds extra complexity for ..., what, really?

How this would be revealed and what would be its importance? Nothing that I can see, just extra fat that's not even tasty.

With one word: irrelevant

[OldGimletEye]

No. Simply because it is not necessary for anything, solves nothing and adds extra complexity for ..., what, really?

How this would be revealed and what would be its importance? Nothing that I can see, just extra fat that's not even tasty.

With one word: irrelevant

I think you should tell us how you really feel about this issue.

[ShadowCat Rivers]

I think you should tell us how you really feel about this issue.

Eh, I just did?

Sorry, I get it's a joke, but I don't really get the meaning.

[OldGimletEye]

Eh, I just did?

Sorry, I get it's a joke, but I don't really get the meaning.

I know. It's just a little sarcasm. I did not mean to offend. You pretty much laid it out why the theory is kind of pointless in a pretty direct manner. I got a little laugh out of that. I agree with you.

[Stannis in the middle]

Jacobs, Preston Jacobs. PRESTON JACOBS SAID THIS!!! People on this forum love to bag Preston and then steal his ideas and try to pretend they're their own....

[joluoto2]

Jacobs, Preston Jacobs. PRESTON JACOBS SAID THIS!!! People on this forum love to bag Preston and then steal his ideas and try to pretend they're their own....

No, that's what Preston does.

[Stannis in the middle]

No, that's what Preston does.

HOW DARE YOU INSULT LORD PRESTON!!!

[Littlefinger's dagger]

There is a crackpot theory that Varys is Haviland Tuf from the Thousand Worlds shared universe that GRRM wrote many stories in.  

 

Same person? pretty farfetched. However, the characters have a VERY similar set of personality traits, so I can see the confusion. it's basically a recycled stock character in GRRM's imagination. I could totally see a Tuf Voyaging TV miniseries starring Conleith Hill.

[Sir Bounce]

LOL you guys are nuts.

Tbh I think this would actually kind of make it less interesting than if it's simply just a straight fantasy. Explaining magic away as some sort of advanced science makes it lose all its mystery, which is what is cool about it in the first place. I mean genetically enginered clones are a hundred percent less interesting than just weird creatures that have evolved naturally and existed for some vast, unknowable amount of time before the coming of man. Part of whats cool about giants and ibbanese and children of the forest is that we kind of have more insight into their existence than people in the story do, since we are at least aware of the theory of evolution. In our own prehistory there were loads of other species of human like, speaking people. Thats way more interesting to me than some geneticaly enginered species developed by some lame military industrial complex, fuck that cliched bullshit.

Sorry but I'm a bit sick of fantasy and adventure fiction that sort of fetishises the government and the military. We have enough of this bullshit in real life without having to encounter it in escapist fiction as well.

[Taenqyrhae]

LOL you guys are nuts.

Tbh I think this would actually kind of make it less interesting than if it's simply just a straight fantasy. Explaining magic away as some sort of advanced science makes it lose all its mystery, which is what is cool about it in the first place. I mean genetically enginered clones are a hundred percent less interesting than just weird creatures that have evolved naturally and existed for some vast, unknowable amount of time before the coming of man. Part of whats cool about giants and ibbanese and children of the forest is that we kind of have more insight into their existence than people in the story do, since we are at least aware of the theory of evolution. In our own prehistory there were loads of other species of human like, speaking people. Thats way more interesting to me than some geneticaly enginered species developed by some lame military industrial complex, fuck that cliched bullshit.

Sorry but I'm a bit sick of fantasy and adventure fiction that sort of fetishises the government and the military. We have enough of this bullshit in real life without having to encounter it in escapist fiction as well.

I think the idea that this takes place on Earth in the future is ridiculous…it's clearly not Earth for a number of reasons.  However, GRRM has written a ton of stories set in the same universe where man seeded thousands of worlds with Earth life, both existing and extinct, and then for thousands of years many of these worlds descended into primitivity and forgot their origins.  Planetos could EASILY be one of these planets, and there are quite a few clues that this may be the case.

 

[Sir Bounce]

I think the idea that this takes place on Earth in the future is ridiculous…it's clearly not Earth for a number of reasons.  However, GRRM has written a ton of stories set in the same universe where man seeded thousands of worlds with Earth life, both existing and extinct, and then for thousands of years many of these worlds descended into primitivity and forgot their origins.  Planetos could EASILY be one of these planets, and there are quite a few clues that this may be the case.

 

But wanting to sort of explain the magic of Essos and Westeros with a scientific explanation is just really lame though, I mean from an artistic viewpoint. I hope G Martin would not feel the need to stoop to such a level of bad storytelling simply to appease some geeky urge to have everything tie up scientifically.

[John Suburbs]

But wanting to sort of explain the magic of Essos and Westeros with a scientific explanation is just really lame though, I mean from an artistic viewpoint. I hope G Martin would not feel the need to stoop to such a level of bad storytelling simply to appease some geeky urge to have everything tie up scientifically.

He won't, because this is all irrelevant to the story and since weirwoods don't exist in our time, not even Bran or the children can look back this far.

But I look at the map and I don't see how anyone can argue that it bears no resemblance to our own. It looks the way it might appear given a few thousand millennia of plate tectonics and rising/falling sea levels. And since science appears magical at first (everything from electricity to airplanes. Heck, they're even working on an invisibility cloak), all of these things could have a scientific basis if you're the sort of person who likes to keep even a fantasy story grounded in some form of reality.

The problem with magic just being magic is that it opens the door to literally anything happening at any time with wizards and warlocks and whatever conjuring up anything they want to rescue themselves from any situation, no matter how dire. Magic based on science, however, has rules and limits, which produces a more human-driven narrative.

[Taenqyrhae]

He won't, because this is all irrelevant to the story and since weirwoods don't exist in our time, not even Bran or the children can look back this far.

But I look at the map and I don't see how anyone can argue that it bears no resemblance to our own. It looks the way it might appear given a few thousand millennia of plate tectonics and rising/falling sea levels. And since science appears magical at first (everything from electricity to airplanes. Heck, they're even working on an invisibility cloak), all of these things could have a scientific basis if you're the sort of person who likes to keep even a fantasy story grounded in some form of reality.

The problem with magic just being magic is that it opens the door to literally anything happening at any time with wizards and warlocks and whatever conjuring up anything they want to rescue themselves from any situation, no matter how dire. Magic based on science, however, has rules and limits, which produces a more human-driven narrative.

We know where continental drift is going, it's really predictable.  For any kind of recognizable change, we are talking tens of millions of years, at least…there isn't enough time left before the oceans begin to boil for the continents to get close to the relative distances they are on Planetos.  It just cannot be Earth.  For one thing, Eurasia and the Americas are moving apart from each other and will continue to do so for at least 100 million years.

[Sir Bounce]

Sorry John Suburbs, are you trying to say the fact that the map at the beginning of the Ice and Fire books does not resemble Earth somehow constitutes evidence that the stories are set in our own universe, but in a distant future (perhaps on another planet)? I mean, I can see how saying it's all potentially in our own future makes this world seem ever so slightly closer to being real, and many hardcore fantasy fans I guess want that. It's not enough that it is simply a fantasy. But come on... understanding that Martin has made this story up, why is it less likely for the books to simply be set in some arbitrary, alternate reality? Surely that is the simpler (and therefore more likely) explanation? 

Also there is no such thing as "magic based on science". By definition they are mutually exclusive. If what you are describing is the case, then what we see as magic in the stories, isn't (assuming that magic doesn't exist). It's just some sort of advanced form of science we do not understand, and is therefore just as potentially boundless as any magic. Nothing you have said strengthens the theory put forward on this thread.

That said I don't want to Raine on any one's parade.

[Melisandre's White Pubes]

Sorry John Suburbs, are you trying to say the fact that the map at the beginning of the Ice and Fire books does not resemble Earth somehow constitutes evidence that the stories are set in our own universe, but in a distant future (perhaps on another planet)? I mean, I can see how saying it's all potentially in our own future makes this world seem ever so slightly closer to being real, and many hardcore fantasy fans I guess want that. It's not enough that it is simply a fantasy. But come on... understanding that Martin has made this story up, why is it less likely for the books to simply be set in some arbitrary, alternate reality? Surely that is the simpler (and therefore more likely) explanation? 

 

GRRM has written many stories (maybe even most of his stories, not sure) set in a future version of our universe that includes a number of features found in ASoIaF, such as lizard-lions.  The setting has numerous human-inhabited worlds that have, after the collapse of the human empire, descended to a medieval level of technology, and some stayed at that level far longer than in Earth history.  Many of these worlds were terraformed and seeded with Earth life, including extinct species.  The setting has magic-like psychic powers, and wraith-like alien creatures that come with cold mists.

Yes, it does seem a little less likely that he would just create a new arbitrary alternate universe when he has a universe he has been writing in for decades that ASoIaF fits in perfectly.

 

[Kaibaman]

I would believe it if it weren't for the fact that the Andals were able to create the same English we speak by themselves.

[John Suburbs]

Sorry John Suburbs, are you trying to say the fact that the map at the beginning of the Ice and Fire books does not resemble Earth somehow constitutes evidence that the stories are set in our own universe, but in a distant future (perhaps on another planet)? I mean, I can see how saying it's all potentially in our own future makes this world seem ever so slightly closer to being real, and many hardcore fantasy fans I guess want that. It's not enough that it is simply a fantasy. But come on... understanding that Martin has made this story up, why is it less likely for the books to simply be set in some arbitrary, alternate reality? Surely that is the simpler (and therefore more likely) explanation? 

Also there is no such thing as "magic based on science". By definition they are mutually exclusive. If what you are describing is the case, then what we see as magic in the stories, isn't (assuming that magic doesn't exist). It's just some sort of advanced form of science we do not understand, and is therefore just as potentially boundless as any magic. Nothing you have said strengthens the theory put forward on this thread.

That said I don't want to Raine on any one's parade.

You don't see any similarity between the map in the book and modern-day Europe and Asia? I can easily see Westeros as a combined UK/Western Europe, with Essos and points west being Eastern Europe and Asia. I also see the Ural mountains, a broader, less defined Mediterranean Sea and Africa (Sothoryos). Even the people match up: The Dornish as Spanish, YiTi as Asians, Summer Islanders are Africans.

Forgetting about continental drift over 100s of millions of years, this could easily be the result of changing sea levels over 25k years or so even if continents are drifting closer.

And what we call science today (air travel, television, hoverboards) would certainly look like magic to Dark Age Europe. So anything that we consider magic (dragons, ice beings, prophecy) might be explainable through some underlying mechanism that we don't yet understand, like genetic manipulation or advanced brain chemistry engineering, but could develop over, say, the next thousand years or so. Heck, the military is already working on an invisibility cloak.

But as I said, none of this matters. It's just off-the-top thinking for anyone who wants to couch the series within the real world. Personally, I don't need to. It works fine as is for me.