Mythical Astronomy of Ice and Fire: the Grey King and the Sea Dragon

[LmL]

Ever wonder why there is so much weirwood in Ironborn mythology? Perhaps you haven't noticed - much of it is disguised and veiled.  But it is there in three separate Ironborn myths, and there's a very good reason.

Hello there friends and family of the Westeros forum!  I am back with a heavy duty episode about Ironborn mythology and... greenseers, as odd as that pairing might sound.  I'm calling this new essay the start of a new compendium - the Weirwood Compendium, which will explore all things greenseer and weirwood from the Dawn Age. I'll also show that there is a very good reason of the subtle entanglement of weirwood in Ironborn mythology, and this will in turn lead to some fairly bold (if I may say so myself) assertions about Azor Ahai, the Grey King, and greenseers in the Dawn Age. Below is the first section of the essay, and the full version (which is a bit long to post here) is available on lucifermeanslightbringer.com.  Of course my essays are also a podcast (which is doing pretty well so far! Thanks everyone!) if you would prefer to listen as opposed to read.  Let's assassinate some highway miles together! We can clean the garage and talk about Ironborn mythology! You get the idea, and the podcast is linked and embedded in the page linked above. 

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Hey there friends and fellow mythical astronomers! Today we are going to talk about weirwoods, burning trees, and fiery greenseers.  Hearken back, if you will, to chapter four of our own little Bloodstone Compendium project, where we analyzed the trial by combat between Ser Gregor the Mountain vs. Oberyn Martell, the Red Viper of Dorne.  The highlight of that entire scene was the Gregor eclipse – Gregor the moon warrior creates a solar eclipse by standing in between Oberyn and the sun.  At that moment, Oberyn’s oily black sun-spear flashed like lightning and finally made contact with Ser Gregor, punching through his armor to strike him in the arm.  We interpreted this and many other arm-wounding scenes where lightning is featured as clues about the Hammer of the Waters and the Storm God’s thunderbolt really being ancient, mythical accounts of moon meteor impacts.  We talked about how the Norse Storm God Thor has a hammer which hurls thunderbolts, cluing us in to a link between divine hammers and thunderbolts from the Storm God.  We also talked about how meteorites were sometimes called “thunder stones” in the ancient world.  We examined scenes in which dragon attacks from the sky were described as being like thunderbolts.  All in all, I think I laid out a strong case that the Hammer of the Waters and the Storm God’s thunderbolt were indeed moon meteors.

The most important aspect of the Grey King story, however, is that he stole the fire of the gods and possessed it for mankind, like Prometheus and Lucifer and so many others.  We have identified this as a major, defining theme of the Azor Ahai story, and it’s certainly got out attention that this idea is prominently featured in the Grey King folklore.  The Grey King was actually said to posses fire by two different methods: by taunting the Storm God into setting a tree ablaze with a thunderbolt, and also by slaying the sea dragon Nagga.  He’s got a taste for godly fire, this Grey King!  Aaron Damphair gives us the quick summary of the sea dragon in A Feast for Crows:

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Nagga had been the first sea dragon, the mightiest ever to rise from the waves. She fed on krakens and leviathans and drowned whole islands in her wrath, yet the Grey King had slain her and the Drowned God had changed her bones to stone so that men might never cease to wonder at the courage of the first of kings. 

And then a bit, later, we hear about the Grey King’s possessions of the Sea Dragon’s fire:

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The hall had been warmed by Nagga’s living fire, which the Grey King had made his thrall.

The World of Ice and Fire tells us about the stealing of fire from the Storm God’s thunderbolt:

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The deeds attributed to the Grey King by the priests and singers of the Iron Islands are many and marvelous.  It was the Grey King who brought fire to the earth by taunting the Storm God until he lashed down with a thunderbolt, setting a tree ablaze.

According to our theory, both the Storm God’s thunderbolt and the sea dragon are mythicized descriptions of moon meteor impacts.  Azor Ahai stole the fire of the gods by stealing the moon from the sky and by making Lightbringer out of the moon’s corpse which fell from the sky like a storm of fiery dragons.  Grey King, meanwhile, called down fire from heaven, just like Azor Ahai, and then somehow possessed that fire.  Just as Azor Ahai possessed the fire of the gods in the form of black weapons made from the moon meteorite, I think the Ironborn also quite literally possessed black moon meteor material.  Consider this quote from The World of Ice and Fire which I left you at the end of chapter three, Waves of Night and Moon Blood:

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“And when battle was joined upon the shores, mighty kings and famous warriors fell before the reavers like wheat before a scythe, in such numbers that the men of the green lands told each other that the Ironborn were demons risen from some watery hell, protected by fell sorceries and possessed of foul black weapons that drank the very souls of those they slew.”

 Recall that Lightbringer supposedly drank Nissa Nissa’s blood and soul when it slew her.  I have been proposing that Lightbringer was a black steel sword made from a moon meteor, so it’s very tempting to draw a connection between Lightbringer and these soul-drinking black weapons in the hands of the Ironborn.  Lightbringer was the fire of the gods, and I believe it was a black weapon.  The Grey King and the Ironborn possessed the fire of the gods, and they also had these suspicious black weapons.

And then we have that big, mysterious Seastone Chair, carved in the shape of a kracken from an oily black stone.  As we examined in The Mountain vs. The Viper, there is abundant evidence tying the oily or greasy black stone to moon meteors – I have proposed that the oily black stone is either moon meteorite material, or else earth stone burnt black by the toxic magical fire of the moon meteors.  The fact that the Ironborn possess the fire of the gods AND an oily black stone tends to make me wonder if that wasn’t the truth of those soul-drinking black weapons – that they were weapons made from oily black stone, the fire of the gods which was pulled down to earth.

And then there is the issue of the weirwoods, which pop up in every single Grey King myth.  For example, the means by which the Grey King took possession of the Storm God’a fire was the burning tree, set ablaze by the divine thunderbolt.  As we mentioned at the end of the Mountain vs. the Viper essay, the weirwood tree is a symbol of a burning tree.  Its five pointed red leaves are described alternately as “bloody hands” and “bits of flame,” and together with the screaming face weeping blood, it’s basically the image of a flaming tree person.  The weirwood magic of the greenseer bond can indeed be seen as the the fire of the gods, and the Yggdrasil mythology behind the weirwood trees has a direct connection to the notion of obtaining the fire, magic, and knowledge of the gods, as we will explore in the very near future.  To say it simply, the fire of the gods as a bra concept represent he knowledge and power of the gods, and this is exactly what the weirwood bond bestows upon the greenseer.

The Sea Dragon myth is also related to weirwood trees, because the arching pillars of pale stone know as Nagga’s Ribs are almost certainly made of petrified weirwood, which turns into pale stone after thousands of years.  A third Grey King myth has him making the first longships of the Ironborn from the “hard pale wood of Ygg, a demon tree who fed on human flesh.”  The name Ygg is a pretty blatant call-out to Yggdrasil, the mythical world tree on which the weirwood ideas are heavily based, so again we see an entanglement of weirwood ideas in the myths of the Grey King and the first Ironborn.  In fact, there’s a good theory we will talk about that speculates that the pale stone pillars that are seen as the ribcage of the sea dragon may actually be the upside-down hull of a large boat made of weirwood.  This is exactly what the Worldbook is suggesting the Grey King did – build ships from weirwood.

So, in our first foray in the stormy world of Ironborn theology, we’ll answer the question of why the Sea Dragon, Storm God’s thunderbolt, and the other elements of the Grey King mythology seem to reference both meteors and weirwoods.  As strange as it sounds, there is a very logical and clear answer, and it reveals a dramatic truth about Azor Ahai, perhaps the most important thing I’ve told you about him since I first told you he was a bad guy who broke the moon and caused the Long Night.  But you’ll have to wait till the end of the episode for that one

Let’s get this weirwood compendium underway!

(...continue reading)

[LmL]

...and since the 'follow' function of the forum does not and has never seemed to work(?), I shall tag all of the people who have followed me, theoretically indicating a desire to know when I publish a new post (at least I think that is how it is supposed to work):

@AlaskanSandman, @Arya-Jon, @Blue Tiger, @Daendrew, @DarkSister1001, @Darkstream, @Durran Durrandon, @evita mgfs, @Falcon2908, @Faveo, @Flying Cat. @Garett Hornwood, @Greystark Reborn, @J. Stargaryen, @Jak Scaletongue, @JonDayne,  @Kathleen The Ruthless , @Lady Dyanna, @Lady Fishbiscuit, @Lord Wraith, @LordToo-Fat-to-Sit-a-Horse, @Meera of Tarth, @MethylEthylBS, @Miss007els, @Nissa, @NorwegianRage, @RhoynishBlood, @Ruhail, @Sly Wren, @sweetsunray, @The Lady Titus, @The Ned's Little Girl, @wiredup, and of course @Pain killer Jane

Thanks everyone, I hope you enjoy. Lots of new ideas to talk about here.

[Meera of Tarth]

3 minutes ago, LmL said:

...and since the 'follow' function of the forum does not and has never seemed to work(?), I shall tag all of the people who have followed me, theoretically indicating a desire to know when I publish a new post (at least I think that is how it is supposed to work):

@AlaskanSandman, @Arya-Jon, @Blue Tiger, @Daendrew, @DarkSister1001, @Darkstream, @Durran Durrandon, @evita mgfs, @Falcon2908, @Faveo, @Flying Cat. @Garett Hornwood, @Greystark Reborn, @J. Stargaryen, @Jak Scaletongue, @JonDayne,  @Kathleen The Ruthless , @Lady Dyanna, @Lady Fishbiscuit, @Lord Wraith, @LordToo-Fat-to-Sit-a-Horse, @Meera of Tarth, @MethylEthylBS, @Miss007els, @Nissa, @NorwegianRage, @RhoynishBlood, @Ruhail, @Sly Wren, @sweetsunray, @The Lady Titus, @The Ned's Little Girl, @wiredup, and of course @Pain killer Jane

Thanks everyone, I hope you enjoy. Lots of new ideas to talk about here.

Now It has worked! Do you have a new podcast?

[LmL]

3 minutes ago, Meera of Tarth said:

Now It has worked! Do you have a new podcast?

Yep, the link is above and also right here .  The podcasts are now embedded in the wordpress version of the essay, and of course you can find the podcast on iTunes as always.

[Meera of Tarth]

8 minutes ago, LmL said:

Yep, the link is above and also right here .  The podcasts are now embedded in the wordpress version of the essay, and of course you can find the podcast on iTunes as always.

greenseers + ironborn!!!

[LmL]

3 minutes ago, Meera of Tarth said:

greenseers + ironborn!!!

Yes, lots of new stuff great parts of George's material. I've been trying to work my way to the greenseers for a while now... it's hard to stop writing about dragons and blood and lightbringer though... you know how that is, lol. And of course there are still dragons and blood and lightbringer, but yeah, Ironborn theology and greenseer talk. Have at it, see what you think. 

[Meera of Tarth]

ok!! Yes everything related to greenseers is fascinating and there is a lot o explore about that topic

[Bluetiger]

Congrats LML, a great episode, might be my favourite so far.

Now I'm uncertain if I should continue translating Bloodstone Compendium to Polish, or translate this episode first... So far 'George RR Martin is writing modern mythology' and 'Astronomy Explains Legends of Ice and Fire' are done and published on That forum, me and my friend are currently working on 'Bloodstone Emperor Azor Ahai' translation. 

Translated essays had positve responses, one poster said that Astronomy 'beats all the theories he'd read'. Poster under nickname Nan pointed out that name Daenerys might be based on greek Damaris - wife or cow. There were other responses as well, but I don't remember them now.

 

 

 

[LmL]

1 hour ago, Blue Tiger said:

Congrats LML, a great episode, might be my favourite so far.

Now I'm uncertain if I should continue translating Bloodstone Compendium to Polish, or translate this episode first... So far 'George RR Martin is writing modern mythology' and 'Astronomy Explains Legends of Ice and Fire' are done and published on That forum, me and my friend are currently working on 'Bloodstone Emperor Azor Ahai' translation. 

Translated essays had positve responses, one poster said that Astronomy 'beats all the theories he'd read'. Poster under nickname Nan pointed out that name Daenerys might be based on greek Damaris - wife or cow. There were other responses as well, but I don't remember them now.

 

 

 

Right on Blue Tiger! Great to hear all that. I'd probably keep up with "The BSE AA" because that one lays out the foundation for a lot of what is to come. I mean I think they are all important but hey you do whatever you like, I appreciate it all very much. It's quite a thrill to have it translated into another language. 

As for this new one, it kind of needs episode 4 (Mountain and Viper) as a setup, since so much is building on the Hammer of the Waters ideas in that episode. I'm glad you're liking it, it's one of my favorites so far as well. I love Georges Ironborn myth and I feel like I cracked it open pretty good. I've written about some of these things previously but I wasn't seeing the full weirwood connection until more recently (I've had the "sea dragon=meteor" thing for a while now). It gets really wild near the end so let me know what you think when you are done (as you would anyway of course). 

[Durran Durrandon]

Happy times. I'll look forward to my drive home.

[The Fattest Leech]

I have a bunch of felting to do tonight. I know what I will be listening to!

[LmL]

3 hours ago, Durran Durrandon said:

Happy times. I'll look forward to my drive home.

 

3 hours ago, The Fattest Leech said:

I have a bunch of felting to do tonight. I know what I will be listening to!

sweet! I love hearing what people do while they listen. Our most recent patreon supporter is a truck driver who, like all truck drivers, has many hours to kill with audio. 

Drive and felt safely, as always! Look forward to your feedback guys..

[ravenous reader]

@LmL  Your essay is brilliant!  I knew I'd heard it all somewhere before...

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Ye elves of hills, brooks, standing lakes and groves,
And ye that on the sands with printless foot
Do chase the ebbing Neptune and do fly him
When he comes back; you demi-puppets that
By moonshine do the green sour ringlets make,
Whereof the ewe not bites, and you whose pastime
Is to make midnight mushrooms, that rejoice
To hear the solemn curfew; by whose aid,
Weak masters though ye be, I have bedimm'd
The noontide sun, call'd forth the mutinous winds,
And 'twixt the green sea and the azured vault
Set roaring war: to the dread rattling thunder
Have I given fire and rifted Jove's stout oak
With his own bolt; the strong-based promontory
Have I made shake and by the spurs pluck'd up
The pine and cedar: graves at my command
Have waked their sleepers, oped, and let 'em forth
By my so potent art. But this rough magic
I here abjure, and, when I have required
Some heavenly music, which even now I do,
To work mine end upon their senses that
This airy charm is for, I'll break my staff,
Bury it certain fathoms in the earth,
And deeper than did ever plummet sound
I'll drown my book.

:

I have some other comments, which I'll provide later.

[Ser Creighton]

Well so far I am only a half hour in, and I am enjoying, Stone Snake, the Broken sword symbolism and colors, the burning brand, the parallel to Jon's chapters. Sets up nicely, good insight, nice uses of literary devices. Some interesting context on the relationship of Euron and Asha, which draws some parallels to the Bloodstone Emperor and the Amethyst empress. Not that this is the only parallel of that, but you understand. Of course she it tied to her own sort of burning brand. Moon blood and tides, Womb of the world the flowing water that leads to children. 

So far so good man, nice work. It's long so I can't listen to it all at once, or comment on it all at once, but I will finish it. Still not sure if Azur being good or evil matters though, in context of the series, some will have found him good as we see in the world book and any enemies would of probably thought of him as evil. Kind of like asking what is Stannis? Although he could of been a very Euron like person who is very Bloodstone emperorish. You know crazy and brutal. For a parallel it works well with him being nasty, but those things can always be juxtaposed. You could have a Euron a Stannis or a Jon Snow, or even a Dany, and you could draw that parallel but totally different people. It can get tough with these shadows of reality, it's often not one thing.

Second sons and last hero's was nice, nice little symbolic effect in the context of the series with Dany, Jon and Euron. Or Dany, Darrio and Brown Benn. I am sure that theme will repeat.

Anyway enjoying it, and again nice nob, must have taken some time. I would give you a gold star but they don't have one. Yellow emoticon okay? I mean not really a fan of emoticons, but you know. This one ok? No I don't like that one, looks like an overly eager cellmate in prison. How about this one? See that is not me giving a gold star, I don't smile. Hmmm There we go that's a winner, I like this one, it says I am not happy with anything really, especially handing out gold stars but you get one anyway and this is the face I would make while doing it. Although I reserve the right to remove anything until I finish the pod cast. So you may not want to get comfortable with angry happy face circle?  

Question before I bolt, later in the cast did you make the connection between Stone Snake and Nagga, Nagga is stone and of course means snake. You probably did, or Naga I should say, Hindu. Or I may have already missed it. It happens.

Okay wait one other question. The burning brand, not that I disagree with the 3 aspects of it, but it could also be a person right? Carried from the see, I ask because of this, " The hall had been warmed by Nagga’s living fire, which the Grey King had made his thrall" This reminded me of Aerys and the Pyromancers, but given the period of time, a sort of Proto Red Priest, maybe someone from that ship. Who the Grey King enslaved, a wizard so to speak someone with powerful magic back in the day. Perhaps a woman, a salt wife, maybe that even helped create the culture, salt, from the sea. Sort of an inverse of Moqorro who was pulled from the sea by the Iron Born. A Burning sort of brand for Vic. Lets say your meteor hit, and that was ship at sea, it gets run aground and the priest had been thrown over board, or maybe it was storm that did it, and it's what is on the ship that may have been used.

We had these Valyrian wizards that could bend stone to their will, the black stone, I know you know all that stuff, but I am just curious if the living fire was a person. It seems like Moqorro draws a nice parallel here with his Iron Born and Iron staff and living flame.

[Lord Wraith]

Thanks for the notice @LmL reading it now.

[LmL]

4 hours ago, The Fattest Leech said:

I have a bunch of felting to do tonight. I know what I will be listening to!

BTW smelting would be more appropriate for this episode that felting but whateves man it's all good  

[LmL]

2 hours ago, Ser Creighton said:

Well so far I am only a half hour in, and I am enjoying, Stone Snake, the Broken sword symbolism and colors, the burning brand, the parallel to Jon's chapters. Sets up nicely, good insight, nice uses of literary devices. Some interesting context on the relationship of Euron and Asha, which draws some parallels to the Bloodstone Emperor and the Amethyst empress. Not that this is the only parallel of that, but you understand. Of course she it tied to her own sort of burning brand. Moon blood and tides, Womb of the world the flowing water that leads to children. 

Hey Ser Creighton, always a pleasure to converse with you  and glad you are liking this episode so far. I'm glad you felt free to comment before you finish - with essays this long it's only fair. I encourage everyone else to do the same - you don't have to wait till the end if you notice something and have a comment. Pipe in whenever. The worst that can happen is I might say "I actually address that later."

So Asha, yeah, her symbolism is terrific. I could have done an entire episode on the Wayward Bride chapter, it's one of my favorites. There is no less that six versions of the lightbringer forging that appear via metaphor in that chapter... it's really great. And yes, any time you see a would-be queen usurped in some manner... any time you see a usurpation, period... think Bloodstone Emperor. That's how I got on to the idea that Robert and the Horned God figure is a part of the Azor Ahai archetype... but wow that's a whole other topic (one which I get to by the end of this episode actually). And of course Euron is a wonderful Bloodstone Emperor manifestation - he's showing that aspect of AA the most clearly of anyone.  

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So far so good man, nice work. It's long so I can't listen to it all at once, or comment on it all at once, but I will finish it.

Yep, that's the idea with the sections... I try to give good stopping points every 20-30 min max. If I made each section a separate podcast, I would waste too much time summarizing and recapping, so I think this is the format I have to roll with. I'm trying very hard to keep it under 2 hours (20,000 words) but sometimes that is difficult. This one is 25,000 / 2.5 hours. And I have to cut all kinds of further examples of similar metaphors. It's the hardest part of the process, containing the idea flow. The web of symbolic connections is anything but linear, and I am stuck presenting it in a linear fashion. It's very hard not to wander off topic constantly. I do my best, hopefully I am getting better.  Thanks very much for your kind words. 

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Still not sure if Azur being good or evil matters though, in context of the series, some will have found him good as we see in the world book and any enemies would of probably thought of him as evil. Kind of like asking what is Stannis? Although he could of been a very Euron like person who is very Bloodstone emperorish. You know crazy and brutal. For a parallel it works well with him being nasty, but those things can always be juxtaposed. You could have a Euron a Stannis or a Jon Snow, or even a Dany, and you could draw that parallel but totally different people. It can get tough with these shadows of reality, it's often not one thing.

Sure, I understand what you are saying. I think most of all I am stressing that he is the guy who 1.) broke the moon, and 2.) brought on the Long Night. He very well may have also had something to do with ending it - I believe he or his son did - but what we are not told is that he caused it, so in that sense he's a "villain." We can't know if he was an evil madman like the BSE or Euron, or if he had ostensibly good motives and simply meddled with powers he should not have, and both narratives would make sense. And yes, you're exactly right that characters can parallel each other in symbolism but not in character, morals, motives, etc. I' comparing all these various black dragon archetype figures, and they are all indeed different in many ways. There like shadows or echoes, yes. 

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Second sons and last hero's was nice, nice little symbolic effect in the context of the series with Dany, Jon and Euron. Or Dany, Darrio and Brown Benn. I am sure that theme will repeat.

Not sure if you have read / listened to all of the ones in the series, but in Tyrion Targaryen I went into a bit more detail about the broken sword. And I still haven't found the space to include my analysis of the Titan of Bravos... he's a dude with fiery star eyes that rises from the sea with a broken sword... and he's made of rock and metal.. ya know?  He blows his horn at nightfall and dawn. Just saying.

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Anyway enjoying it, and again nice nob, must have taken some time. I would give you a gold star but they don't have one. Yellow emoticon okay? I mean not really a fan of emoticons, but you know. This one ok? No I don't like that one, looks like an overly eager cellmate in prison. How about this one? See that is not me giving a gold star, I don't smile. Hmmm There we go that's a winner, I like this one, it says I am not happy with anything really, especially handing out gold stars but you get one anyway and this is the face I would make while doing it. Although I reserve the right to remove anything until I finish the pod cast. So you may not want to get comfortable with angry happy face circle?  

Heh, you had me a-chuckling there. Yes, it does take a certain amount of time, both to write and research and to record and edit. Thats why I have started a patreon account, so that those who enjoy the cast can help keep it going. Response has been great so far, really encouraging. I'd like to keep going, because I have a lot more notes on other topics like the greenseers and the Others and the green men and the children, etc. I'm really excited to start the pivot to greenseers in this episode... see what you think when you have it all finished. 

Oh and I agree this guy  is a little creepy. I prefer to go with my ole buddy 

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Question before I bolt, later in the cast did you make the connection between Stone Snake and Nagga, Nagga is stone and of course means snake. You probably did, or Naga I should say, Hindu. Or I may have already missed it. It happens.

Kinda yes, kinda no. I linked the stone snake to the comet and I talked about Naga in Hindu myth a bit further on that where you are, but I did not link the stone snake back to naga explicitly. But yes, that's exactly what I am claiming the sea dragon is, a stone snake. 

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Okay wait one other question. The burning brand, not that I disagree with the 3 aspects of it, but it could also be a person right? Carried from the see, I ask because of this, " The hall had been warmed by Nagga’s living fire, which the Grey King had made his thrall" This reminded me of Aerys and the Pyromancers, but given the period of time, a sort of Proto Red Priest, maybe someone from that ship. Who the Grey King enslaved, a wizard so to speak someone with powerful magic back in the day. Perhaps a woman, a salt wife, maybe that even helped create the culture, salt, from the sea. Sort of an inverse of Moqorro who was pulled from the sea by the Iron Born. A Burning sort of brand for Vic. Lets say your meteor hit, and that was ship at sea, it gets run aground and the priest had been thrown over board, or maybe it was storm that did it, and it's what is on the ship that may have been used.

We had these Valyrian wizards that could bend stone to their will, the black stone, I know you know all that stuff, but I am just curious if the living fire was a person. It seems like Moqorro draws a nice parallel here with his Iron Born and Iron staff and living flame.

Haha... keep listening. Yes, it could be a person, just as Lightbringer can be a person. There's often no distinction made in terms of symbolism between sword and swordsman, between horse and rider, etc. The drowned god carrying fire from the sea can be a weapon or thing or a person carrying that thing, just as the moon meteors are both Azor Ahai reborn and Lightbringer, symbolically. The stars are a fiery khalasar - each star is a horse with a rider. 

And yeah, Moqorro is basically a terrific example of a red priest playing into the black lightbringer symbol. I plan on breaking down all the Victorian scenes very soon and I'll talk Moqorro at that time. 

But yeah... keep reading. I focus on the burning tree more than the burning brand, but I do make that assertion exactly, that the burning tree which gave the fire of the gods tot he Grey King actually represents a person transforming through fire (the fire of the gods of course). 

Cheers my man. 

[LmL]

8 hours ago, ravenous reader said:

@LmL  Your essay is brilliant!  I knew I'd heard it all somewhere before...

:

I have some other comments, which I'll provide later.

Thanks! 

I recognize some ideas in here, where is this from?

[Falcon2908]

Thanks for the notif!
I thoroughly enjoyed reading the essay on your blog, I can't wait for more!

[Ser Creighton]

Yep the Titan of Braavos, also interestingly enough associated with Valyrians and Purple, the history of purple die on Braavos comes from the actual history of purple die, and the name of that die was Tyrian die, which was something I put on the Tyrion Targaryan thread awhile back. Learned that in school when I was kid, and they say you will never learn what you use in school, ha! I showed them, little did they know it would be important when discussing a the history of a fantasy novel and the possible hidden origin on a main POV character, and come up in conversation on the Euhemerism  of the yet to be written ASOIAF mythos on a internet forum when there was no such thing as the internet.

My belief has and remains that the mythos has to be approached as Euemerism, you are just going backwards mythos to legend and legend to history. The only tough part is it's a magical world so you don't get to count out the magic, you just gotta get it within reason. Another tough part from what I have seen and been through is that symbolic and literal aspect can become grey, and the cyclical nature often has it repeat and it can be literal, symbolic, both.  It can get your head spinning. The Horned God, in world lots of different depictions and not all of them are the same some things may be and others aspects are nothing alike. I also bring it up because you are talking about the hammer and the storm and it's hard to avoid that topic, when you talk about those two things. Plus he is mentioned in the video a lot so it's hard to get into that aspect of it.

You get into Mithra a lot, and it's not to disagree because that exists within the context of the series, but it's not limited to that. From what I can tell there is a lot of over lapping mythology, this is pretty typical Martin he is picking and choosing what he likes for his story just like he does with history. You can go into the Wicca Aspect of the Horned lord and the great goddess in Neopaganism, demonology, the Greeks and Romans.

Martin tends to try and avoid good and evil even though he sucks at, Gregor and Ramsey the worst non evil people ever. I think with fantasy Martin kicks back a little to childhood and then tries to pass it off as well maybe the Mountain likes puppies, so now it basically not totally good or evil. Which is just to make the characters a little more 3 dimensional. Early mythology is very 2 dimensional, which is why his focus is on the characters and the mythology tends to relate towards symbolism and foreshadowing. 

You know you get into the repetition, and it points to cyclical nature, and the core theme still follows the title which is natural opposition which is classic mythology, Ice and Fire, Sun and Moon, Storm and Dragon. Which creates those shadows, aka foreshadowing. As an example Robert, Renly, Stannis, Joff, Coldhands, Horned Lord, Horn of Winter, they all relay something both about the past and the future of those ideas. You gotta be careful because he does pick and blend his stuff, it may look like a duck and it may act like a duck and it may not be a duck. I'll talk about that later.

Same with the Moon Maiden (I am just going to call it moon themes cause even that is 4 day conversation), and Sun and Moon stuff, the broken swords, Lightbringer mythos, crows, trees, colors etc...

So we have this fundamental difference, you know that we have talked about that. My translation of the mythology leans more towards Euhemerism the grander the mythology gets, and you lean more towards the literal. I mean you use a ton of symbolism but you go towards this more literal cause and effect action when you get into the striking of moons, which is really as grand as it gets in the books. You know I look at Dany's pyre and go okay that works, for those themes and ideas, it's all there it's just more symbolic. The metaphor, the archetypes and personifications, the allusions all work there.

We had a moon kiss the sun, we had a breaking of the world, we got dragons, a comet, flaming sword, burning brand and all that. It's an elegant scene. It's also a very magical scene and full of classical mythology, the ancestor of the broken sword (Dragons) reforged the blade and began her quest. The loss of the dragons, the loss of Targaryen honor, the breaking of the blade through civil war and infighting, the failure and the loss of their honor. The reforging, the restoration of the house and all it once stood for. 

Right now you have Euron trying to capture the god fire (Dany's dragons) from Dany the Storm goddess (Stormborn). History becomes legend, and legend becomes myth and they become gods.

I don't know if Azor failed a third time, I don't know if he should not have been messing with that, it's horrible choice to make either way. We have a parallel to Dany but I don't see a long night. We saw the Others first, though it could just come down to a mythological naturally opposing forces theme. Maybe they just always exist together, it happened before after all. That's the repetition, and the cyclical nature he plays with.

Your theory has that, the repetition of the Storm lord, the repetition of the Dragon. A good example is the ship, the mythology much more grand, a sea dragon grrrrr scary, and the history, probably a boat. That is where Euhemerism comes into play and Martin plays with that because he does have a strong fundamental understanding of mythology and history. Tiamat and Abzu and Marduk is really more about don't you usurp your daddy.  It had it's lesson in it's writings.

You have this moon rock meteorite playing the role as an agent of change, the ripple effect in the symbolism of a rock hitting water. In the current books we have Dany playing that role. In Tiamat and Marduk we are sort of missing Abzu. This is were we see what I am talking about with the Duck though and his picking and choosing mythology. Drogo, not a horned lord Martin made a sort of weak link to the Stallion constellation, clearly has sun symbolism which in mythology is often tied to Horned Lords as well, different from Abzu, he is a lot more like Marduk. But look where that relationship went, look what happened to that Horned Lord. Does not exactly fit traditional mythology.

Like Robert himself has no sun symbolism, but his wife Cersei has lots of it, but he does have the horned lord symbolism.

Now Tiamat and Abzu are opposites, Salt water and Fresh water. We know how Drogo felt about Salt water. So you went and drew a parallel to Lotan and Ba'al with Tiamat and Marduk. This of course lead you to Leviathan, the Hebrew translation and sea serpent. But also whale, which is the exact same way Martin uses it, the mythological sea serpent, but also in the books big whales. You also have Temtum and  Hadad. All the same theme. You have your horned lords and solar, and your serpent and moon goddess. Though not a lot of Moon floating around and not a lot of goddess.

But the fresh water and salt water idea theme also exists in both the Iron born, you know they river lands and the iron Islands. I want to get back to salt and fresh but I need to sum up some stuff.

Then you have Dany and you have different versions of Dany. So pre pyre Dany is a maiden, tied to the moon (Moon maiden) and stone dragon eggs, fresh water (The Womb of the world), her husband is a King, Slaver, Sun diety Archtype minus the horns, not a fan of salt water. So then comes the pyre, and the alchemic transmutation. Kind of like Tiamat, Tyrion gives a good example when talking about the moon over Valyria, the moon looks like it swallowed the sun. It's symbolic but works just fine. Stone eggs become Dragons, Maiden becomes Mother, she is pointing towards crossing the salt water, though not as connected as the Iron born. You have here Azor theme pop up, the breaking of the world, the comet aka Dragons, flaming sword, burning brand, changing of seasons, takes on sun symbolism but still has moon symbolism and still her connection to fresh water. So we get this blend really. Looks like a few different ducks right now, she also has some male and female symbolism. One thing stayed the same though, in both versions, she is connected to the sky and the storm as well, as her dragons are connected swords and thunderbolts. Lots of aspects, and the man likes to mix things up.

So I come back to Abzu, because we kind of see both him and Tiamat with Dany. But I don't think that is the only transformation we will see with her. Now the Dothraki have a nice Juxtaposition to the Others right? Dothraki are suns, stars and fire and Horns, the Others are ice and moons and have some connection to Horned lords and Horns of Winter,  and I think the fresh water theme actually goes pretty well with them. Both have a certain connection to slavery weather it's slaves or thralls. And the Dothraki may move away from slavery in the future will see. Now you sort of get Dany and the Dothraki together and you get something similar to Robert and Thoros on Pyke, but Dany is both, strange but true. The Iron Born also do a nice job of juxtaposing the others with the salt and fire especially the more recent version with Euron the wanna be Bloodstone Emperor/ Valyrian.

Then you got Sansa, who has some of that Amethyst Empress, Amethysts in the hair, connected to stone and Moon, and even roses, and of course she had her own sort of horned lord in Joff. Now in this case it didn't look like a duck, it did quack like duck, it just kept saying I'm a fucking duck deal with it or I will kill you. But I think there is merit to this theme as well. You like to look at the symbolism in sigils, me too been doing it a very long time. And that sigil above KL has that lion and Stag juxtaposed. It's like Tyrion or Jon, looks like one thing probably another. And I think that is out there, and it's coming. I think like Dany he transformed, I think he is coming. I think he started out as a sun and transformed into a moon and it's marked by more literal versions of swallowing the moon. The lion became the horned lord, which is sort of odd in Martins books. The horned lord has sort of taken on the opposite symbolism of it's nature. I guess it's not even just transformation but combination.  

I am not finished with the pod cast yet, just going through it as I find the time, about an hour and 20 minutes in.

Need a break, my head is spinning a little bit from playing connect the symbolic dots for to long.

Just to be clear about one thing, I am not saying meteorites and the like don't hit Planetos, and the moon, I am not sure if Comets do, that would be really bad, there is generally no coming back from that one. Probably happens pretty regularly like with us. But it's more like the level of it. I still say go back to the apples, the apples know all. The apples could be about people of course, could also be about 3 long nights. Could be 3 events from the past and all three could be happening again right now. The Azor myth fits well with the first Apple but so does Dany and Drogo. The Second Apple that's more of the Knight's king myth and again we see that division like in the Stag and Lion sigil. And you have that last apple that ends up in water. Could be a flood, could be a symbolic flood or symbolic water, truth is probably somewhere in the middle. You know kind of like giving birth can be both literal and symbolic.