The Endgame - a thought

[aryagonnakill#2]

2 hours ago, House Cambodia said:

Okay, I've had a ponder and I have some questions:

So the structure on the Iron Islands - is it weirwood or kraken bone? It's bone, isn't it?

I'm having difficulty seeing Children mating with giants. 

Where are the Deep Ones and the Green Men now?

The Iron born say the structure is Naggas Ribs, Nagga being the first sea dragon, but they also mention her bones turning to stone, which is what weirwoods do.  In the worldbook it says the Grey King made his longship out of a white tree that ate men, aka a weirwood.  So if the ship was overturned in a tsunami or something over time all the regular wood would rot away and the weirwood would turn to stone leaving smooth stone beams that would resemble a rib cage.

The Deep Ones may be gone, noticing that everywhere there are oily black stones it is associated with a calamity or hammer of the waters type event.  The Green men seem to still be on the isle of faces.

[House Cambodia]

Update to the beginning and endgame, as a result of reading Weirwood Leviathan's latest blog entry:

 

For the last 8,000 years the Others have been mosying along north of Thennland, occasionally venturing south a bit to worry the Wildlings, but in the main sticking to where they come from, of no threat whatsoever to the South. The odd NW ranging party venturing over the agreed divide are fair game, but there was no aspiration on the Other's side to hit the Wall. 

Until Stannis and Melissandre brought a (fake) flaming sword and the R'hllor banners North of the Wall into agreed Others territory - that was a gamechanger. R'hllor's devotees are pledged to utterly wipe out the Others in their religious fanaticism. Now they know the Man-induced Planetosi Armageddon is imminent and they're raising an undead army to prepare for it.

Remember that in my book Melissandre is wrong about Azor Ahai. It never was Stannis and it isn't Jon. Azor Ahai is Daenerys. With less confidence, I'm maintaining that Jon is The Last Hero, The Prince That Was Promised, but even with a different interpretation here, my endgame is an Apocalyptic Battle between the followers of R'hllor and the other side. I regard R'hllor as effectively Satan and AA as the antichrist. I do think the Others follow The Great Other, and I think Jon will bring his forces to join with the Others to defeat Daenerys.

Furthermore, the Others always simply lived in the far north where it is coldest. The onset of Winter has brought them further south where NW rangers have encountered them. Encroachment by the NW caused them to strengthen their numbers for defensive purposes, but they have only set their sights on the Wall since Men brought the threat of religious genocide in the shape of Stannis and Melissandre.

And as a parting shot, I'm exploring the thought that the Long Night was a natural event - an ice age basically (retrospectively mythologised), in which COTF helped some First Men to survive by helping them with their magic to adapt to the extreme cold. A second ice age is now impending.  

[House Cambodia]

And there's more:

An overlooked sentence at the beginning of TWOIAF (p.20) states, "The gods the children worshipped were the nameless ones...". R'hllor's dualistic adversary is 'The One Who Cannot Be Named'. I'm making the connection that we have an Ice God from the West and a Fire God from the East. Both involve blood magic and human sacrifice. I wonder if some of the invading Andals brought R'hllor worship up north, which was the specific threat that prompted the COTF to create the Others. 

[House Cambodia]

Prophecy of the Quaith:

Quote

"To go north, you must journey south, to reach the west you must go east. To go forward you must go back and to touch the light you must pass beneath the shadow"

This isn't about Dany going to Vaes Dothrak (apart from the 'going back' bit). This is about her conquest of Westeros. The route she and her pillaging, plundering murderous Dothraki/Iron Born rabble take will be to land at Oldtown (south). Whilst the Iron Born fleet head up the west coast to sack Lannisport and Casterly Rock before consolidating their rule of the Iron Islands, Dany on Drogon will fly ahead to King's Landing (east) and then with her Dothraki Horde head north and west - to where? To rendezvous with the IB at the Shadow Tower. The Great Battle will take place either north of the Wall there, or the Wall will have come down and they'll meet at Winterfell, but that will be the location.

[Victor Newman]

On 5/8/2016 at 0:49 AM, House Cambodia said:

 

 

 

Dany, seeing how her land has been mismanaged and abused by the Usurpers, she takes her massive armies and her three mature dragons to Westeros.  She travels to the North first and confronts the Bastard of Winterfell, Jon Snow.  Jon refuses to bend the knee out of pride , preferring instead to fight the White Walkers with his wildlings and his mangy white dog.  Dany agrees to leave them alone.  The White Walkers overwhelms the north, every human in the north gets turned to a frozen zombie popsicle.  Zombie Jon and Ghost the Popsicle lead their army of ice to the Trident.  There, Dany and Drogon bathe them in Dragonfire, thereby putting the wights, the White Walkers, one bitter Bastard, and his furry cur out of their misery.   Eventually, the winter gives way to Spring.  The north, having been cleansed of white walkers and those pesky Starks are now open for recolonization by the former slaves of Meereen, Astapor, and Yunkai.  And they all lived happily ever after. 

[House Cambodia]

^ Umm, thanks for that, sort of 

I just read a superb theory and wrote and extremely long response, only for it to be deleted as I hit submit. Bummer. Did it come too close to the truth??? So, without being able to reference the OP, let me try to summarise the ideas I liked, tweaked to fit it into my structure:

Let me preface by considering where the author's real sympathies lie. He hides too well behind his various characters, but his world reveals much. His sympathies lie with the harmony and balance of the natural world. He is antagonised by the hubris, greed, pride and aggrandizement of humans. Let's see how this plays out in the book.

In the beginning, Westeros was populated by the Children and giants, who lived in harmony with nature - the trees and animals. It wasn't a vegetarian Eden - there was conflict between Children and giants, but a balance was maintained that put no stress on the environment for millennia. Presumably they used greenseer abilities, and maybe they used ice magic too (mystified who these greenseers were if Men hadn't yet arrived - thoughts?). 

Meanwhile, contemporaneously in the far east of Essos, Men had arisen and were using fire magic to build a 'civilization' based on exploitation, militarisation, slavery and environmental degradation. Did an Essosi equivalent of The Children bring something out of the Shadowlands in an unsuccessful attempt to stop them? Did Men build a string of 5 forts to keep them at bay?

The point is, there was balance in Westeros, sustained the the ice magic of the Children. The poster was speculating that the First Men who arrived in Westeros had Fire magicians among them - perhaps 'First Men' referred to their elitist standing in Essosi society and they combatted the Ice magic of the Children to devastating effect. Even if Ice and Fire magic were equal in some way, the Children had no experience in using Ice magic for such violent purposes. In short, Fire (boo! hiss!) devastated Ice. Behind the vanguard, thousands of ordinary Men came pouring through the Arm to populate Westeros.

That's my interpretation with bits added - I wish the original post was still here to link to. Anyway, I'm stressing the dichotomy between Essos-Fire-Men-badthing and Westeros-Ice-Children-goodthing. Despite the antithesis, the Children and First Men eventually came to The Pact, part of which was an agreement that neither side would use their magic on each other. Then the Andals came and the Children and First Men in desperation agreed for one time to combine their Fire and Ice magic to salvage the north of Westeros from their advances. Thus, the Children sacrificed a Man to bring forth the Others, The Night, but also the Night's Watch and eventually, the Wall.

The Starks have been a hereditary symbol of the Pact between First Men and Children, hence their blood has been the guarantor of keeping what is north and what is south of the Wall separated. The NW's rangings disturbed the agreement but not critically, whereas Stannis and Melisandre rocking up with R'hllor banners flying shattered it - the power of the god from Asshai is a flagrant provocation to bring down the full wrath of The Great Other.

Dany will bring untold numbers of R'hllor followers with her along with Dothraki who worship Azor Ahai as personified by Daenerys. Today's GRRM reveal suggests that Euron could even see himself as R'hllor but we need not go there.

[LordImp]

I agree that Dany is heading down a darker path and will be some kind of warlord who will be a threat to Westeros with her dragons and Dothraki . I also think that the red priests is the ones to turn Dany into this warlord .

 

but i dont think Dany is a villain . I think she will die a hero , at least do a heroic act. 

[House Cambodia]

An updated explanation of my big picture (with hat tip to poster voice for inspiring me to add more ideas):

 

Let me preface by considering where GRRM, the author's real sympathies lie. He hides too well behind his various characters, but his world reveals much. His sympathies lie with the harmony and balance of the natural world. He is antagonised by the hubris, greed, pride and aggrandizement of humans. Let's see how this plays out in the book.

In the beginning, Westeros was populated by the Children and giants, who lived in harmony with nature - the trees and animals. It wasn't a vegetarian Eden - there was conflict between Children and giants, but a balance was maintained that put no stress on the environment - and, crucially, the weirwood trees, for millennia. That balance was maintained with the aid of greenseer abilities and ice magic too.

Meanwhile, contemporaneously in the far east of Essos, Men had arisen and were using fire magic to build 'civilization' based on exploitation, militarism, slavery and environmental degradation (did an Essosi equivalent of The Children bring something out of the Shadowlands in an unsuccessful attempt to stop them? Did Men build a string of 5 forts to keep them at bay? That's a separate discussion).

The point is, there was balance in Westeros, sustained the the ice magic of the Children and their connection to the weirnet. One could speculate that the First Men who arrived in Westeros had Fire magicians among them - perhaps 'First Men' referred to their elitist standing in Essosi society and they combatted the Ice magic of the Children to devastating effect. Even if Ice and Fire magic were equal in some way, the Children had no experience in using Ice magic for such violent purposes. In short, Fire (boo! hiss!) devastated Ice. Behind the vanguard, thousands of ordinary Men came pouring through the Arm to populate Westeros.

What I'm stressing here is the dichotomy between Essos-Fire-Men-badthing and Westeros-Ice-Children-goodthing. Despite the antithesis, the Children and First Men eventually came to The Pact, part of which was an agreement that neither side would use their magic on each other. Most importantly, the Men agreed not to do any further harm to the weirwoods. In time the Men came to adopt the old gods as their religion and gained access to greenseer abilities. However, unknown to Men and Children, their prior destruction of the weirwoods had set something in motion. I'll return to that.

Then the Andals came and the Children and First Men in desperation agreed for one time to combine their Fire and Ice magic to salvage the north of Westeros from their advances. And the Long Night came. In desperation, the Children sacrificed a Man - probably a human greenseer - to bring forth the Others, but also the Night's Watch and eventually, the Wall. All understandable errors.

My original contribution to this picture is where I believe that GRRM has working in James Lovelock's Gaia theory, with a twist of the known laws of nature being pervaded by equally rational but unknown (to us) laws of magic. For anyone unfamiliar, I'll just extremely briefly summarise Gaia: it's the idea that the Earth's ecosystem has a natural balance, and that when that balance is upset, the Earth will right itself. Crucially, there is usually a delay - hundreds or thousands of years between cause and effect. Hence, if humankind miraculously switched to a sustainable lifestyle tomorrow, climate change would still continue to worsen because of our abuses that haven't yet worked through. That's why the Long Night arrived thousands of years AFTER the Pact. And that is why the Second Long Night is coming long after the Andal genocidal invasions. The trigger both times has been the damage to the weirnet. As early posters have noted, treetime (weirgaia) works very differently to mantime.

There's a bit more. Lovelock was strictly scientific, and his theories were utterly ridiculed by the mainstream scientific community for decades, if not any more. But his ideas were welcomed by new agers, many of whom went beyond scientific credibility in adding notions of sentience or consciousness to 'Mother Earth'. I think that's what we've got in ASOIAF. This 'mysticism' manifests itself as 'magic'; voice here articulates it through scientific metaphors such as 'miasma', LmL uses language of 'mythical astronomy' - all such metaphorical language is legitimate in trying to describe the 'Song' since GRRM has so far given us only the most tantalizing glimpses of the laws of ice and fire magic, insufficient to draft a grand theory as yet.

So what does this all mean for the 'final countdown'? Bad news, I'm afraid. A lot of ASOIAF eschatological theories hinge on where the balance lies - is Jon the balancing force, is it Dany? My point is that the bad guys are Men in general, and I'm in agreement with voice in deeming the Others to basically be environmentally-destructive human nature seen through a distorted lens. The First Men did eventually achieve a balance with Westerosi Nature and so have a future, which is good news for the Starks, but nothing good has come out of Essos and that means Dany, purveyor of Fire along with her Dothraki, R'hllor and also Ironborn pals (especially in the light of 'The Forsaken'), the Lannisters, Tyrells and other Andals of Westeros who have been parasites on the sacred land for thousands of years have a reckoning coming. It would be only just if the Apocalypse were to scorch Essos too, but I don't think we have the data to say much about that.

And ... breathe .....

[Illyrio Mo'Parties]

http://imgur.com/LJ24Hey

Jesus Christ!

[House Cambodia]

4 minutes ago, Illyrio Mo'Parties said:

http://imgur.com/LJ24Hey

Jesus Christ!

[Regular John Umber]

39 minutes ago, Illyrio Mo'Parties said:

http://imgur.com/LJ24Hey

Jesus Christ!

 

 I feel you've fundamentally misunderstood how that works.

[House Cambodia]

A few points added to my theory here:

The earliest prehistoric legends have the human Essosi practising fire/blood magic, which in my view was instrumental in developing civilization in Old Ghis or earlier. Civilization was build on militarism, slavery and exploitation of the environment. In short, magic and violence went hand-in-hand in Essos.

At the same time in Westeros the Children and their greenseers were using earth magic to sustain a harmony with nature and thereby never developed 'civilization'. Even if, in some sense, fire and earth magic have equivalent power, the children simply had no experience in using their magic for violent purposes. In the face of being slaughtered by the genocidal Essosi First Men, and seeing the destructiveness of their fire magic and the weapons fire magic created (as it would have seemed to them), the Children may in desperation have attempted to use their magic in a way they'd never done before. Small wonder the result turned out to be unforeseen and unpredictable. The result was ice magic; the Breaking of the Arm appears to have been a one-off in their struggle with the First Men. Subsequently, some two millennia later when even more vicious Essosi arrived with even darker fire magic, the Children's allies the human greenseers (being the Starks) were driven into even more desperate experiments with ice magic which might have had some success in the short term, but in the long term (by weirwood standards) are turning out to have even worse, darker implications.

[House Cambodia]

On 02/06/2016 at 6:04 PM, House Cambodia said:

 

I've had some further thoughts after reading this post:

Theory: The Cause and Impact of the Breaking; with possible explanations for the Pact, Hardhome's destruction, and the Others' return by  Maester of Valyria.

Here is an except of my response to him:

A Krakatoan-like volcanic eruption somewhere in the Lands of Always Winter - your evidence is good. I'm tempted to buy into it. I do think there was a massive natural(ish) cataclysm and maybe your volcano is a better theory than an exploding moon. Rocks thrown out by the force of the explosion could fall back to Planetos like blackened meteors, but how many hundreds/thousands of kilometres would be feasible - any idea? 

It fits perfectly with the theory that I'm forming of Planetos being Gaia with an input of 'magic' - or to be more accurate, the planet reacting against the misuse of magic. According to my Gaian hypothesis, the Children didn't actively do some magic that caused a volcanoes to erupt or Break the Arm; it was the planet itself reacting against the ecological imbalance caused by Men (I think the destruction of the weirwoods was more the direct cause, but of course the Children are tied into the Weirnet, so they weren't uninvolved - I just don't think they acted as 'actively' as you suggest). That the Children might retrospectively take credit and Men assume they were responsible is another matter!

I also see a pattern emerging from these ancient timescales - I want to say the planet fights back roughly every 4000 years.

12,000 years ago First Men invaded and cut down the weirwoods. Gaia hits back with your volcanoes and Broken Arm and flooding of the Neck (hence the uninhabitable ecosystem except for adapted Crannogmen, with noxious sulphuric bubbles and warm enough for crocodiles and lion-lizards). First Men come to their senses and agree the Pact.

8,000 years ago Men have been reneging on the Pact and Children try to retaliate by using magic to create the Others. Gaia reacts to this abomination by sending the Long Night (a second volcanic activity spewing out dust into the atmosphere blocking out the sun) and co-opting the Others as its tangible manifestation. The Children (and giants) realise they've messed up and join with the First Men to combat the renegade Others, and then construct the Wall.

4,000 years ago Gaia tried to react to the Andal invasion and further destruction of the weirwoods. I'd speculate that the Others rose again which caused the Wildling invasion of the North under Gendel and Gorne but memories are sketchy since the Starks defeated them and the Wall kept the real threat at bay and unknown. However, the Andals succeeded in all but eliminating the Children from the surface of the planet.

0,000 years ago Gaia is hitting back once again with the Others.

[House Cambodia]

Okay, thanks to  Maester of Valyria (link above) and Lord Vance II The Broken Arm and Global Climate Change I'm ready to post a full update to my theory of the prehistory of Westeros. Strap yourself in ...

 

I think that ASOIAF is such a vast world that no one other than GRRM, who's been conversant in it for half a century (as I now see from starting to read his early works), can be a specialist in the whole thing, so we need to find our niches, and my primary interest is in beginnings (well my BA degree all those years ago was in Biblical Studies, with minors in Ancient History and Prehistory - the interest never truly went away).

I've posted bits and pieces of ideas I have in various threads but here I'd like to tie them together. My overall quasi-original idea is to see a Gaia Theory underpinning the ASOIAF universe, and with my thoughts developing weekly, this week I've been enjoying the notions of two posters over on westeros who have written about hypotheses involving Westerosi volcanic activity and the climatic impact of geological shifts. I'll start with copying and pasting posts I've made earlier (in full or extract form) and go on to embed my newer ideas. Warning - this will be a long one! I'll break it down into multiple posts to make it easier to digest. I'm hoping those of you with enough patience will consider my ideas and point out the flaws therein.


My original contribution to this picture is where I believe that GRRM has working in James Lovelock's Gaia theory, with a twist of the known laws of nature being pervaded by equally rational but unknown (to us) laws of magic. For anyone unfamiliar, I'll just extremely briefly summarise Gaia: it's the idea that the Earth's ecosystem has a natural balance, and that when that balance is upset, the Earth will right itself. Crucially, there is usually a delay - hundreds or thousands of years between cause and effect. Hence, if humankind miraculously switched to a sustainable lifestyle tomorrow, climate change would still continue to worsen because of our abuses that haven't yet worked through. That's why the Long Night arrived thousands of years AFTER the Pact. And that is why the Second Long Night is coming long after the Andal genocidal invasions. The trigger both times has been the damage to the weirnet. Treetime (weirgaia) works very differently to mantime.


There's a bit more. Lovelock was strictly scientific, and his theories were utterly ridiculed by the mainstream scientific community for decades, if not any more. But his ideas were welcomed by new agers, many of whom went beyond scientific credibility in adding notions of sentience or consciousness to 'Mother Earth'. I think that's what we've got in ASOIAF. This 'mysticism' manifests itself as 'magic'; poster voice articulates it through scientific metaphors such as 'miasma', LmL uses language of 'mythical astronomy' - all such metaphorical language is legitimate in trying to describe the 'Song' since GRRM has so far given us only the most tantalizing glimpses of the laws of ice and fire magic, insufficient to draft a grand theory as yet.
 

Let me preface by considering where GRRM's real sympathies lie. He hides too well behind his various characters, but his world reveals much. His sympathies lie with the harmony and balance of the natural world. He is antagonised by the hubris, greed, pride, militarism and aggrandizement of humans. Let's see how this plays out in the book.

In the beginning, Westeros was populated by the Children and giants, who lived in harmony with nature - the trees and animals. It wasn't a vegetarian Eden - there was conflict between Children and giants, but a balance was maintained that put no stress on the environment - and, crucially, the weirwood trees, for millennia. 

Meanwhile, contemporaneously in the far east of Essos, the earliest prehistoric legends have the human Essosi practising fire/blood magic, which in my view was instrumental in developing civilization in Old Ghis or earlier if Asshai can be considered as having had 'civilization'. Civilization was built on militarism, slavery and exploitation of the environment. In short, magic and violence went hand-in-hand in Essos.

The point is, there was balance in Westeros, sustained by the Children and their connection to the weirnet. One could speculate that the First Men who arrived in Westeros had Fire magicians among them - perhaps 'First Men' referred to their elitist standing in Essosi society and they combatted the Ice magic of the Children to devastating effect. Even if Ice and Fire magic were equal in some way, the Children had no experience in using Ice magic for such violent purposes. In short, Fire (boo! hiss!) devastated Ice. Behind the vanguard, thousands of ordinary Men came pouring through the Arm to populate Westeros. Actually we can omit Fire and Ice magic from the picture at this stage and just accept the the weirnet as the key addition to natural/physical laws and the processes of historical 'progress'.

We know that the hunting weapons of the Children were no match for the fire, and metal swords and armour of the First Men. The Weirnet hit back (I'm going to explain later how I see the relationship between Children and weirwoods, and the relation between 'Gaia' and the weirnet). The Arm was broken Again, how will be revealed soon; first. let's consider the ecological effect of that cataclysm.

Pre-Breaking of the Arm the Narrow Sea was perpetually very cold. The cold winds and temperatures would render east Westeros and West Essos unsuitable for human habitation or agriculture. Given that Westeros was populated by COTF and giants who didn't practice agriculture and were comfortable in cold temperatures this would have been unproblematic and unrecorded. In West Essos there was no civilization (seven millennia pre-Valyria, no Pentos, no Myr, no Tyros), agriculture or Men. Whoever lived there hasn't left any extant records, so again it's entirely plausible that we have no records on the ecosystem there either.

Here lies a deep and tragic irony in the Children's action. Prior to the Breaking, the Narrow Sea was cut off from the warm waters of the Summer Sea. The Narrow Sea was basically a bay of the Shivering Sea whose currents would barely remain above freezing. North of Dorne, Westeros was not an attractive proposition for Men. So the very measure that the Children took to prevent further immigration of Men had the opposite effect. Without the Breaking, First Men would likely have settled in only the southern third and west coast of Westeros since a settled agricultural way of life would have been preferable to a Wildling lifestyle any further north. The climate change actually made all Westeros up to the line of the future Wall an attractive proposition to colonise. Furthermore, the irony doesn't stop there. The action pushed the Children into inhabiting a smaller area, an area that overlapped with the subsequently-created Others' living-space. This also implies that the climate change following the Breaking caused the retreat north of mammoths and giants more so than the hunts of Men.

So HOW did the Breaking (and the Necking) occur? Here comes my Gaia Hypothesis. Planetos naturally tries to sustain a planetary equilibrium. That equilibrium is upset by environmental destruction, misuse of magic and especially/crucially, destruction of the weirwood trees. I'm saying there is an extremely strong mystical relationship between the weirwoods and the planetary ecosystem itself.

Here's where it gets subtle - I don't see the Children as actively practising any magic (with one disastrous exception - to come) to control nature; rather Nature reacts to assaults on the Children. to explain this I need to lay out my idea about the relationship between the weirwoods and the Children. I hope you like this! 

There are two kinds of Children - sort of. There are The Children OF The Forest, and The Children ARE The Forest. Mobiles and immobiles; mortals and immortals. Except that they are not separate sub-species, but separate stages of development. Children are born and live for centuries, and when they get old they fuse with the roots of the weirwood to become more fully part of the weirnet. So naturally, Children are immortal but they can be killed - by giants, hunting mishaps - but the death rate was extremely low hence the extremely low and slow birth rate. This was of course wrecked by Men, who also cut down and destroyed the otherwise immortal weirwood trees.

So, the initial assault on the weirwoods and Children precipitated a planetary (Gaian) response.  Cataclysmic earthquakes and tsunamis would have significantly shaken Westeros and altered the landscape from the Neck to Dragonstone to the Iron Islands to the Arm.


As I mentioned, the event backfired. It did eventually shock the First Men into ceasing their genocidal campaigns - once they'd pretty much grabbed all the valuable land, which they reneged on anyway. Gaia responded again - in Gaia time, weir time, not the timescales Men understand. Gaia tends to hit back in a predictable timescale of every 4000 Man-years.



MoV has helped me see what I think is a more viable cause of the Long Night than an exploding second moon - namely a Krakatoa-type volcano deep in the Land of Always Winter. Consider - in the deep frozen north there are lakes, habitable land where the Thenns live, further south there's the Winterfell spring, the basalt of Moat Cailin, what I speculate to be sulphurous fumes rendering the Neck uninhabitable to all but Crannogmen, the destruction by fire of Hardhome seven centuries before the events of the story (look closely at that description) and, I further speculate, great cave systems that are warm enough to allow the Children to survive for millennia. There is actually a lot of evidence for volcanic activity in prehistoric times. The God's Eye with its Isle of Faces is a crater lake formation typical of a particular kind of volcanic eruption. Since ash and lava eventually break down into nutrients that greatly enrich the soil, the high fertility of the Riverlands (plus proximity to the God's Eye) could be another indication of prehistoric volcanic activity.

We also know that the Long Night was followed by the 'Dry Times' in Essos. The Silver Sea dried up and the region east of the Bones experienced considerable desertification as well. The prolonged presence of volcanic ash in the atmosphere can explain this change in climate as well. Volcanoes fling massive amounts of ash into the atmosphere, which drifts into the stratosphere where chemicals within the ash (mainly bromine and chlorine) destroy the ozone layer, ozone depletion in turn leading to global warming and associated effects including a reduction in fertility of the land in affected areas of the planet. This can occur far off from the point of origin.

The chemicals associated with volcanic ash can also pollute surface waters - perhaps Blackwater Bay, the Winterfell pool and the Womb of the World are examples. I'm also thinking of Asshai. The name of this place Ash), its description, the poisonous waters of River Ash and the region's inability to sustain life. 

Here is my provisional rough Gaian (Planetosi)  timescale:

12,000 years ago First Men invaded and cut down the weirwoods. Gaia hits back with volcanic eruptions and tsunamis and the Broken Arm and flooding of the Neck (hence the uninhabitable ecosystem except for adapted Crannogmen, with noxious sulphuric bubbles and warm enough for crocodiles and lion-lizards). First Men come to their senses and agree the Pact.



8,000 years ago Men have been reneging on the Pact and Children try to retaliate by using magic to create the Others. Gaia reacts to this abomination by sending the Long Night (a second, arctic, volcanic activity spewing out dust into the atmosphere blocking out the sun) and co-opting the Others as its tangible manifestation. The Children (and giants) realise they've messed up and join with the First Men to combat the renegade Others, and then construct the Wall.



4,000 years ago Gaia tried to react to the Andal invasion and further destruction of the weirwoods. I'd speculate that the Others rose again which caused the Wildling invasion of the North under Gendel and Gorne but memories are sketchy since the Starks defeated them and the Wall kept the real threat at bay and unknown. What we are told has some interesting possible parallels such as the NW arriving too late, which echoes the current ineffective state of NW and their having forgotten their true purpose. Also relevant is Ygritte telling this tale while she is with Jon in 'their' cave. In the end the Andals succeeded in all but eliminating the Children from the surface of the planet.



0,000 years ago Gaia is hitting back once again with the Others.

 

We'd better look more closely at this Long Night. I must admit I've had to alter my theories in the light of the TV reveal. And what did we see on the TV? After the Breaking and the Necking failed to hold back the invasions and genocidal activities of Men, the Children directly tried one desperate measure. A First Man was fused to the weirwood heart tree, thus creating the first human/weirChild hybrid, a creature intended to have the strength of Men and mind of weir. The children thought they had created their WMD to use against Men. Big mistake, of course. Gaia no more likes hubristic Earth or Ice magic any more than it does Fire or Blood magic. The Children couldn't control the Others and subsequently found themselves trapped north of the new Wall with them for millennia.

Thank you and congratulations if you've read this far!

[House Cambodia]

On 10/06/2016 at 4:54 PM, House Cambodia said:

We also know that the Long Night was followed by the 'Dry Times' in Essos. The Silver Sea dried up and the region east of the Bones experienced considerable desertification as well. The prolonged presence of volcanic ash in the atmosphere can explain this change in climate as well. Volcanoes fling massive amounts of ash into the atmosphere, which drifts into the stratosphere where chemicals within the ash (mainly bromine and chlorine) destroy the ozone layer, ozone depletion in turn leading to global warming and associated effects including a reduction in fertility of the land in affected areas of the planet. This can occur far off from the point of origin.

I was recently alerted to this post from last year

On Asshai, Rivers, and Oceans by DominusNovus

 

He uses oceanographic evidence to demonstrate how the Breaking of the Arm brought not only warm water to eastern Westeros and western Essos, but also caused massive environmental changes to the most populous part of Planetos, the cradle of civilization at Asshai. It fits in with my theory perfectly, namely that Gaia hit back at the root cause of the planetary imbalance as I've previously described. Whereas the atmospheric effect of a volcanic eruption can last some years, the change in currents is permanent and would cause long-lasting desertification, thus disallowing the remnants of the civilization a chance to recover.