GRRM talks about what it means title Ice and Fire

[GravyFace]

12 minutes ago, teej6 said:

If you argue that the Starks are not associated with ice and winter, then I can make the argument that Dany and the Targs are not truly associated with fire, instead that's their dragons. You can't have your cake and eat it too. 

As to why Dany is given the information about the promised prince and the Song and Ice and Fire, it's because she is at the HotU and having the vision and will eventually have to figure out that this implies to her actual nephew, Jon. Why does she have her other visions? For example, why does she see the red wedding? Was she there? Does it relate to her? No. Her visions in the HotU is just Martin's way of narrating future events to the reader, some of which will have an impact on Dany's story. You can twist yourself as much as you want and argue to the contrary but it's very intuitive and self evident to a lot of people that one of the meanings of the title is the bloodline of Jon. And I  believe that "song" implies balance not conflict. 

Just butting in here but...

The Targaryens have strong intense bonds with dragons, they can control them, and communicate with them. They can feel each other from thousands of miles away. So yes they are more associated with fire. They're even more heat resistant than the usual human. The Starks don't truly have the same association with ice. The others are ice, the Starks don't have bonds with them, they don't control them or manipulate them. The Targaryens use fire/dragons to fight, to conquer. The Starks don't use the Others for that. The Starks are eventually going to have to fight the Others. So is ice going to have to fight ice? That doesn't really make sense, they can't both be "ice".

 

As for Dany's vision, it's not about Jon being the song of ice and fire. It's about her one day realizing that HER song is the song of ice and fire. That her destiny is not to sit the throne, but to fight against ice. To use her fire to "dance" against ice, the tale people tell afterwards will be the song of her dance. Rhaegar thought Aegon's song was the song of ice and fire, and not because he was part ice, but because he thought his destiny was to one day fight ice, that that would be his song. He was wrong of course, and Dany will one day realize it's her who that destiny belongs to.

[Lord Varys]

2 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

Well, we are told that Dragons are unnatural creatures by Septon Barth.

That is not clear. The origin of the dragons is unclear. Considering that once there were dragons in Westeros I'd actually doubt that they were artificially created. There was dragonbreeding, yes, but that's not necessarily the same thing as actually creating them.

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And the Seasons are certainly unnatural as well. Whatever causes the imbalance of the Seasons on Planetos does not only cause Long Winters. It causes equally long Summers. Who knows what impact the rise of the Valyrian Freehold would have had on a Planet that did not already have the Others to neutralize their escalation of Fire Magic in the world? Gradually hotter and hotter temperatures perhaps, leading to runaway global warming?

We don't have any reason to believe that some force is consciously creating the long summers. Considering that the only unnatural/evil power with an agency are the Others I'm inclined to believe that they or their existence are responsible for this kind of thing. Perhaps the existence of fire magic and stuff sort of served as a counter weight in the whole thing, perhaps not. But I'm pretty sure the Others are at the root of this freak seasons thing because we have reason to believe that prior to the Long Night there were normal seasons.

The idea that Valyria and its dragons had any lasting impact on the climate is also not supported by the text. The only hint we have is that the death of the last dragon supposedly caused shorter summers and longer, crueler winters. And even that isn't confirmed to be true beyond a doubt.

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Remember that the Children are not masters of Ice magic. They are masters of Earth magic. Those who sing the songs of the Earth. So whatever they did to create the Others, if they indeed did so in the books, was achieved by tapping into the existing elemental magic of Ice, which occurs naturally in the Far North of the world. Just like the dragon creators tapped into existing Fire elemental magic to create the Dragons, originally.

Well, we don't know in what magical disciplines the Children were good at. Considering the Reed vow there I'd assume that they might have been more than fluent in fire and ice magic. We defintely know they could pull off quite a few things back in the days, the Breaking, the Hammer of the Waters, and of which supposedly included a lot of blood magic as well. And we see that people mastering one magical discipline are often also great practioners in others (Bloodraven can make glamors and is both a skinchanger and a greenseer; Melisandre has mastered at least fire magic and shadowbinding; Marwyn and Qyburn are studying every branch of sorcery, and Mirri Maz Duur also could more than just one branch of magic). Thus it makes no sense to restrict the Children to one branch of magic.

And by the way: If there once existed fire-breathing dragons in Westeros and dragons are artificially created creatures, then it is actually very likely that the Children made the first dragons. They are a very old species and civilization, after all.

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Perhaps the Others in themselves are a hybrid between humans and "Ice Spiders", similar to how Dragons are a hybrid of Wyverns and Fire wyrms".

Again, the idea that dragons have been artificially created is just a theory. And we have yet to meet some ice spiders. I guess we will but you never know. Some parts of Old Nan's stories might just be stories, after all (the part about the Others fathering half-human children on human women, for example).

2 hours ago, teej6 said:

Maester Aemon's quote does not simply imply that cold preserves the wights. When it suits your views, you seem to have a very narrow interpretation of things. If you read that entire paragraph, it implies that Aemon has figured out something that he thinks Jon does not know. Well, we know Jon knows about ice preserving wights. And Aemon regrets having left the Wall once he has this knowledge. So is that him just thinking about preserving wights? No. And Aemon is not rambling, he's quite lucid and aware in this instance.

Actually, there is a pretty obvious literal meaning to this quote. Aemon thinks the cold has preserved his own life, and now that he has left the Wall he is dying. Whether this is true or not isn't clear (my guess is that Aemon was just stupid to hang out in the rain, caught a cold there, and subsequently died of it because he was a very old man). We know too little about the people at the Wall and how old they get under normal circumstances.

There is no hint that there is any deeper meaning to that quote - and if it is then the Others and their wights are meant by that, not something else. And any positive effects of 'the cold' have to be seen in context of Gared's description of the cold as an insidious evil power that creeps inside you, weakens you, and then kills you. That's what winter and the Others are. And it might very well have been a description how the spell of Others to create wights works.

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If you argue that the Starks are not associated with ice and winter, then I can make the argument that Dany and the Targs are not truly associated with fire, instead that's their dragons. You can't have your cake and eat it too.

It depends. The Targaryens are most definitely connected to more closely to fire than the Starks are to ice. The Targaryens supposedly have dragon blood while it is nowhere stated or implied that the Starks have the blood of the Others. On a magical level the Others stand for ice and the dragons for fire. On a less magical level the Targaryens stand for fire, too (and on the same level they are also dragons; similar stuff can also be said of the various skinchangers). And on a rather mundane level the Starks are ice since that is only referring to personal traits.

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As to why Dany is given the information about the promised prince and the Song and Ice and Fire, it's because she is at the HotU and having the vision and will eventually have to figure out that this implies to her actual nephew, Jon. Why does she have her other visions? For example, why does she see the red wedding? Was she there? Does it relate to her? No. Her visions in the HotU is just Martin's way of narrating future events to the reader, some of which will have an impact on Dany's story. You can twist yourself as much as you want and argue to the contrary but it's very intuitive and self evident to a lot of people that one of the meanings of the title is the bloodline of Jon.

So the point of Dany's story is that she should find out that Rhaegar meant his other son as the promised prince in that vision? Then why was he looking at her when he said that? The other visions have little to do with Dany, true, but the ones referring to her special destiny have to do with her. And there are a lot of those prophecies, actually. No character has so many layers of prophecy dumped upon her story arc.

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And I  believe that "song" implies balance not conflict. 

So what? I don't. It certainly doesn't mean balance in regards to the title of the series. A Song of Ice and Fire isn't a story about people figuring out how to keep peace and be nice, it is a story about multiple and successive wars. I'm reading a lot of this stuff but hardly anybody goes in the details of what that means. Can you change that? What means 'balance, not conflict' in your mind? How is this balance going to be achieved, and between whom?

2 hours ago, teej6 said:

In TWoW, Teora Toland narrates her dream and notes that "everywhere the dragons danced, the people died." I would say that this is a strong indication of the future destruction and mayhem that dragons are going to inflict on the people of Westeros. Are they going to be as destructive as the Others? Probably not. But then here we are down to arguing the magnitude of destruction. Does it matter if it's 10,000 people dying instead of 50,000? 

I actually like that interpretation. My own first interpretation in light of the original placing of the chapter in the middle of ADwD was that Teora was actually dreaming about Viserion and Rhaegal killing people in Meereen (and Drogo in the Dothraki Sea). But the idea that three little dragons are going to cause all that many deaths doesn't make much sense. Right now Nymeria and her wolf pack most likely have killed more humans than all of Dany's dragons combined.

[Black Crow]

7 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

 

I'd challenge your claim that an eternal summer is as devastating as an eternal winter. Winter sucks, summer is great. And there is an eternal summer of sorts on earth, too, right? You know that there is nothing but continuous warmth and rain in the tropics, right? No winter of the sort there is elsewhere. Yet life flourishes in those regions as it does in nowhere else. And the Summer Islands also seem to be a region where there is either no winter under normal circumstances or no winter that is actually felt. Yet they have no problem with that, either.

 

This passage suggests that the summer that never ends isn't necessarily a good thing:

“Benerro has sent forth word from Volantis. Her coming is the fulfilment of an ancient prophecy. From smoke and salt was she born to make the world anew. She is Azor Ahai returned… and her triumph over the darkness will bring a summer that will never end… death itself will bend its knee, and all those who die fighting in her cause shall be reborn…”

[tugela]

On ‎7‎/‎17‎/‎2016 at 6:48 AM, Drogonthedread said:

A drink from cup of ice and a drink from cup of fire really tells who is song of ice and fire ..a child of three

Or you know someone who will be a part of massive changes in both essos ( summer)and westeros ( ice )

Or as benioff and Weiss put she summers in essos and winters in westeros ..

Couple of things: 

Draongs as athreat to civilization :

I can't but stop laughing at this .when people talk about dany and her conquest and how much she will succeeded they come up with a reminder how these dragons are babies compared to past ..

And these same people will tell that this baby dragons are threat to civilization..

Make up your minds ...last time I checked dragons coexisted with humans for thousands of years..

So is there any son of WW and dany ...to be called as song of ice and fire ..

The only person in the story who is a child of three is Jon. His parents are Ned, Lyanna and Rhaegar. His biological parents and the parent who claimed him as his own child.

[Starkdirewolf]

"Anarchy can thrive in a chaotic situation......but we we'll see who's having fun at the end" (laughs)

[tugela]

17 hours ago, teej6 said:

There's nothing really new or revealing in this interview. Yes, we knew Dany and her dragons represent Fire and the Others represent Ice, nothing new here. The one thing that Martin did say that might be interpreted as revealing is when he states (paraphrasing) that people in KL and by extension Westeros are so consumed by their petty struggle for power that they fail to see the threats developing in the periphery. Now an argument can be made that by using the plural, Martin is implying that Dany and her dragons are a threat to Westeros just as the Others are.

As to the argument that the conflict between Ice and Fire is the Song of Ice and Fire, I believe GRRM uses "a dance" as a metaphor for war/conflict. "A song" in my opinion is a metaphor for a union/harmony of opposites, as in Rhaegar's statement that "his is the Song of Ice and Fire." So I don't think Song implies war instead I think it implies just the opposite, that is, the bringing together of two opposing forces, in this case two opposing natural elements -- Ice and Fire -- that are equally necessary for the survival of humanity.

Martin reiterates in this interview that he does not believe in pure evil (although I fail to see how he's going to make the Others' army of mindless zombies capable of making a distinction between good and evil) and most evil acts are done by people who believe they are doing righteous acts. So I doubt we are going to have a final battle where the forces of good team up and defeat the forces of evil in the traditional sense. There most likely will be a battle for dawn but who the players are and what their motives are is still anybody's guess.   

"A song" means a story. In medieval times oral history was communicated by bards. The stories would form the basis of their songs.

[Lord Varys]

11 minutes ago, Black Crow said:

This passage suggests that the summer that never ends isn't necessarily a good thing:

“Benerro has sent forth word from Volantis. Her coming is the fulfilment of an ancient prophecy. From smoke and salt was she born to make the world anew. She is Azor Ahai returned… and her triumph over the darkness will bring a summer that will never end… death itself will bend its knee, and all those who die fighting in her cause shall be reborn…”

Don't see anything negative there. Benerro is imagining some sort of earthly paradise and promises people that they will be reborn. Not sure what's wrong with that.

[Quyen Thuy Tran]

I am living in a tropical country and this is what I want to say to all the tolks who love summer: "come here and trade place with me!"

come here and live under the sun with 46 degrees real feel (115 F) with humidity always over 85% and you will say summer is great. 

Roll eyes at those who think that fire is the only solution of this. If GRRM thinks so, I'd happily ask him to come to my country and live here for the rest of his life. Mind you, tropical countries have more diseases. 

[tugela]

16 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

@teej6

The Targaryens in exile were a threat to the Baratheon regime and its allies back in AGoT (and they are still a threat to whoever rules in KL when Dany arrives). But she is not necessarily a threat to Westeros.

Viserys was a threat since he was the rightful heir of the crown. But after his death the next male in line for the crown was Robert Baratheon, and his male children after him. Daenerys was not a legitimate claimant for the crown, but could be a banner that disgruntled lords might rally behind.

As things currently stand, the usurper wannabe is Daenerys herself.

Daenerys IS a threat to Westeros, because she will bring not only Dragons, but also 100000 Dothraki warriors who will rape, pillage and generally lay waste to the land.

[Lord Varys]

1 minute ago, tugela said:

Viserys was a threat since he was the rightful heir of the crown. But after his death the next male in line for the crown was Robert Baratheon, and his male children after him. Daenerys was not a legitimate claimant for the crown, but could be a banner that disgruntled lords might rally behind.

As things currently stand, the usurper wannabe is Daenerys herself.

Daenerys IS a threat to Westeros, because she will bring not only Dragons, but also 100000 Dothraki warriors who will rape, pillage and generally lay waste to the land.

We'll have to wait and see whether that's going to happen. I'm not sure there will be a lot of raping and pillaging in the middle of winter.

[tugela]

16 hours ago, Dorian Martell said:

That is her nephew and future enemy/lover Jon Snow 

Brother you mean.

[tugela]

10 hours ago, Poupsi said:

So, the "great good hero" at the end is no handsome super warrior ?! Who could that be ?

Littlefinger.

[John Suburbs]

On ‎7‎/‎17‎/‎2016 at 9:48 AM, Drogonthedread said:

 

Draongs as athreat to civilization :

I can't but stop laughing at this .when people talk about dany and her conquest and how much she will succeeded they come up with a reminder how these dragons are babies compared to past ..

And these same people will tell that this baby dragons are threat to civilization..

Make up your minds ...last time I checked dragons coexisted with humans for thousands of years..

 

Well, they have, but every time humans gained control of dragons the end result was not good for humans: ie, the Shadowlands, Valyria...

[ShadowCat Rivers]

9 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

Don't see anything negative there. Benerro is imagining some sort of earthly paradise and promises people that they will be reborn. Not sure what's wrong with that.

That the generic teleological narrative of Zoroastrianism (and its derrivatives). Meaning, it's the end of the world, the end of life - as we know it, at least. Normally life requires death as it's its natural conclusion and a logical prerequisite for new life. That's what would be wrong with that, assuming (of course) that the R'hllorian existential myth holds water. Which we (kind of) should, considering that we are already taking them much at their wold -in the current discussion, at least- regarding Azor Ahai and the rest of their mythology.

[Lady Blizzardborn]

31 minutes ago, tugela said:

The only person in the story who is a child of three is Jon. His parents are Ned, Lyanna and Rhaegar. His biological parents and the parent who claimed him as his own child.

Child of three could refer to having two siblings which Jon did (Rhaenys and Aegon), Dany did (Rhaegar and Viserys), and Tyrion does (Cersei and Jaime). One child of three. Each, potentially a head of the dragon. 

[Lady Blizzardborn]

12 minutes ago, tugela said:

Brother you mean.

If Jon is the son of Rhaegar Targaryen, then he is Dany's nephew. 

[John Suburbs]

34 minutes ago, tugela said:

The only person in the story who is a child of three is Jon. His parents are Ned, Lyanna and Rhaegar. His biological parents and the parent who claimed him as his own child.

The Undying refer to Dany as "child of three"

[tugela]

8 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

But we are told explicitly by various sources that Dragons represent destructions, Fire and Blood. Death, even.

A summer that never ends is as devastating as an eternal Winter. Jojen states that there is a strength in living wood that can withstand even the hottest flames. Bloodraven states that Darkness equates to security and safety.

Only Mellisandre and the Fire cult of R'hlorr seems to believe that Fire has to win this coming battle. And are we really going to side with the fanatics on this issue? In the Reeds' ancient oath to Winterfell they refer to various base elements that are intrinsic to the world. Earth and Water. Bronze and Iron. Ice and Fire.

We have seen a world dominated by Fire. It was the Valyrian Freehold, and it was awful. And if left unchecked, who knows what its end result would have been. The destruction of the world in a Siberian traps type decades long super eruption?

 

Yes, that is what I was thinking about. I believe it is the first reference to ice and fire in the books. The oath they swore to Bran was one that he had not heard before, but was apparently an old one. It implies that the Reeds know a lot more about what is going to be happening than everyone else in the story.

[Lady Blizzardborn]

12 hours ago, joluoto2 said:

Ice and Fire will join in a duet of the elements and destroy everything in between.

When ice and fire join the result is water. So the Ironborn should be really stoked about this.

10 hours ago, Poupsi said:

So, the "great good hero" at the end is no handsome super warrior ?! Who could that be ?

I think an exiled princess with otherwordly beauty, magic blood, and dragons would be on par with great good hero.  The only surprise would be if Tyrion and/or Bloodraven/Bran are the hero(es) 

 

8 hours ago, blckp said:

one more thing, since Daenerys is Azor Ahai then Stallion Who Mounts The World is same as PTWP,Yin Tar,Shadowchaser,Last hero , just dothraki version

 

The Last Hero - Westeros

Azor Ahai- Asshai

The Prince That Was Promised - Valyria/targaryen

in some other essos culture -Hyrkoon the Hero, Yin Tar, Neferion

The Stallion Who Mounts the World -Dothraki

Is that the case or did each of those places send a champion to find the way to destroy the Others and when one man survived and succeeded each culture claimed their guy was the hero? The Last Hero wasn't alone, he had buddies and they had to come from somewhere.

We haven't heard yet whether the Last Hero is supposed to come again. Nothing so far indicates that either TDTWP or TSWMTW are supposed to be second incarnations of anything, and TSWMTW has nothing to do with defeating the Others. The Andal's Seven are supposed to be heroes of old who will come again when Westeros has most need of them, but no details on what that "most need" situation is, or whether they faced it before (the Warrior and/or Smith might have come in handy on TLH's quest).

We also don't know yet that Dany is both AAR and TDTWP. Jon fits most of the criteria already and may meet the other requirements in the next book. Going back to my point that the heroes my NOT all be the same person, we could end up with Dany being AAR and Jon being TDTWP or vice versa. 

[tugela]

6 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

Well, we are told that Dragons are unnatural creatures by Septon Barth. And the Seasons are certainly unnatural as well. Whatever causes the imbalance of the Seasons on Planetos does not only cause Long Winters. It causes equally long Summers. Who knows what impact the rise of the Valyrian Freehold would have had on a Planet that did not already have the Others to neutralize their escalation of Fire Magic in the world? Gradually hotter and hotter temperatures perhaps, leading to runaway global warming?

Remember that the Children are not masters of Ice magic. They are masters of Earth magic. Those who sing the songs of the Earth. So whatever they did to create the Others, if they indeed did so in the books, was achieved by tapping into the existing elemental magic of Ice, which occurs naturally in the Far North of the world. Just like the dragon creators tapped into existing Fire elemental magic to create the Dragons, originally.

Perhaps the Others in themselves are a hybrid between humans and "Ice Spiders", similar to how Dragons are a hybrid of Wyverns and Fire wyrms".

The Others just happened to have been hybridized with intelligent creatures (humans) with a mastery over greenseer magic. By contrast, the Dragons were hybridized with non-intelligent wyverns, thus not giving them the sentience associated with the Others.

Long winters would be something to the little ice age during the middle ages, which was caused by volcanic eruptions. For a period there were unusually cold winters, including some years in which summer never came. It caused tremendous hardship.

http://www.history.com/news/little-ice-age-big-consequences

That is probably what they are referring to as long summers and long winters. It doesn't mean that there is no summer, or no winter, just that those seasons were moderated to be relatively mild so that their overall impact was negligible compared to the opposite season.

The medieval little ice age is probably the inspiration for the concept of "winter is coming" in the books.