The Fires of the Earth Made Flesh: a draconic origins spitball

[hiemal]

"For dragons are fire made flesh, and fire is power."... Quaithe, ACoK

I have hinted elsewhere that I believe this could well be literally true and I would like explore this idea a little in its own space. The similarities between the descriptions of firewyrms and subterranean streams of molten rock and of Nagga with a Pacific-rim-esque tectonic zone of volcanic activity started me down this line of thought and what I see as a curious lack of tectonic activity on Planetos aside from the Doom of Valyria and a few volcanoes such as Dragonstone, which apparently still generate heat but have no history of eruptions has kept me walking.

I postulate that whatever event brought magic to this world was primarily an attempt to harness the tectonic power of the planet itself for some enormous purpose- the exact nature of which I am unsure of but judging by the state of the world I would guess was at least only partially successful.

One guess is that this was done as an effort to simply stop an ongoing volcanic event- a fantastic-fictional precursor would be Saberhagen's post-technological magical world featured in the Book of Swords series (given the focus on magic swords and counterfit deities I suspect it may have had some influence of GRRM's world, though not as much as Lovecraft or Moorcock). The gist is that at sometime in the past in order to avert nuclear annihilation a computer of some kind named ARDNEH somehow changed the nature of reality itself in what became appropiately known as Ardneh's Change- which resulted, among other things, in the computers apotheosis and the nuclear bombs in mid-explosion transforming into beings that came to be known as demons.
I could see dragons and their ilk being the products of such a change- firewyrms from cthonic magma, sea dragons from undersea vents, and dragons themselves from such lave as had actually been ejected into the air at the time of the Change. Pretty out there, I know, but I think it worth a ponder.

Another possibility is that some ancient civilization (The GEoDawnians? The CotF? The nefarious Deep Ones?) wished to directly control or harvest the seemingly inexhaustible energy of the planet itself. TBH, my fovrite tinfoil is that the original crisis was caused during the war between the Deep Ones and the Children. Since the Deep Ones presumably lost and retreated beneath sea that makes it seem likely that CotF were the ones who (mis)used this power first but I could see it going either way or perhaps even more likely a CoTF magic perverted by Deep One influence. In any event, the result is the same- the fires of the earth becoming flesh as previously wildly speculated.

The next crisis likely was influenced by all three parties. The Bloodstone Emperor worshipped a black stone and had a tiger bride.The GEoDawninans get their bloodlink with the dragons created in the previous crisis, and the world gets the Long Night and the White Walkers (Ice made flesh? The forces of glaciation and ice ages? Or are ice dragons ice made flesh and the Others those who made pacts with them? So much tinfoil so little time), and I suspect that the BSE managed some sort of only-partially successful ascent to godhead. But that's another tinfoil, isn't it?
 

 

[hiemal]

Just finished "Sons of the Dragon" and had a few thoughts. Doesn't seem worth a new thread, though so time to zombie this beeeyotch:

For some reason, a line in GRRM's brief history of Aenys and Maegor that mentioned a pair of eggs hatching on Dragonstone got some wheels turning. What if the reason the Targs had such trouble hatching their eggs was their relocation to Kings Landing- where there is no volcano and thus no access to the geothermal energy that I postulate makes flesh from fire? I don't know what goes into wildfire, but it seems to make a poor substitute.

This begs the question- could eggs be hatched at Winterfell where there appear to be hot springs. IIRC these springs do not smell of sulfur so I'm honestly not sure. Quicksilver dropped a clutch of eggs there, so maybe?

And what about Hellholt? TWoIaF mentions stinking springs nearby, and Meraxes' doom (fitting in with the sex and death theme of that kingdom) makes it seem a place of significance.