Magic returning, or realigning?

[falcotron]

I don't actually know if this theory works, but I'm going to lay it out for comments so people can point out the obvious things I've missed that make it stupid.

One of the obvious theories behind what's going on is that, for some reason (which is itself subject to a zillion theories), magic in all forms is returning to the world, which will lead to a big showdown, after which (depending on who wins and how) all the magic will be gone—normal seasons, no more dragons or wargs, etc.

But it's not really all magic. We've got dragons and Others, fire visions, glass candles, wargs, and Bran's seeing, but no krakens or leviathans, no Rhoynar water magic, none of the kind of mass torture magic Gogossos used in the early Century of Blood (unless that's what Qyburn is up to), no hints that the Black Goat sacrifices are suddenly working, nothing to do with the oily black stones.

And this isn't the first time magic has returned. Of course things are complicated by uncertain dating, but it seems like many kinds of magic exploded around the beginning of the First Men-Children wars, and the War for the Dawn a few millennia later, and the Valyrians' discovery of dragons a few millennia after that, and so on. So, what's different this time?

What I've been thinking is: Nothing is different this time. It isn't all magic returning, leading up to an apocalypse that will leave the world completely mundane. Instead, each time, there's a realignment. A different way of understanding magic takes hold, and the magic that fits into that new way of understanding becomes more powerful, while everything else subsides.

This time (possibly just like around 5000 years ago), the new paradigm is based on R'hllorism: Everything is a struggle between a fire god of light and truth and the forces of night and darkness.

So, fire magic that hasn't worked in a long time works again, including the red priests' magic, and dragons are reborn, but at the same time the Others return.

And meanwhile, things like glass candles and greensight, even if they may have worked in some past time for some other reason, are now working because they're about truth and sight, which fits with R'hllor's domain. But maybe they don't seem to have returned quite as hard, because people are still trying to see them the wrong way—look at greenseeing as nature magic instead of truth magic and it still works, but not as well as it could.

And finally, water magic and torture magic don't fit the paradigm, so they fade away.

There's nothing about these realignments that inherently leads to apocalyptic conflict; the current conflict is just inherent in the current paradigm. To the red priests, everything is about the struggle, and everyone who isn't a champion of R'hllor is a servant of the Great Other, so of course magic has to be set into two opposing sides, fire and ice, and they have to head for a big showdown. If you get a paradigm based on seas vs. storms or water vs. fire, there has to be a war, but if you get one based on sacrificial murder, or self-sacrifice, or illusion and glamour, or meditation and inner sight, there isn't.

This raises another question: what was the last paradigm before the R'hllorian one, which stretched from a few decades ago back to at least the end of the Century of Blood, if not farther? Was there really no almost magic then? Maybe there are dead periods between the alignment shifts, or maybe the paradigm was something inherently non-magical like brute force? Or maybe there's always magic, but the paradigm was, say, a celestial bureaucracy, and all kinds of Yi Tish magic fit into it, but very little in the west except a few Maester experiments?

And I don't want to get too deeply into how this fits with other fan theories, but I have to mention the Maester anti-magic conspiracy theory: maybe the Maesters aren't against magic; instead, they're trying to channel it into paradigms that they can control, or that can't be used against them, or just that don't lead to inherent conflicts like the current one.

Anyway, I'm sure there are facts that don't fit this very well that I haven't thought of, and I'd love to be reminded of them so I can see whether they can be taken into account, or the theory just doesn't work.

[Reisendame]

6 minutes ago, falcotron said:

I don't actually know if this theory works, but I'm going to lay it out for comments so people can point out the obvious things I've missed that make it stupid.

One of the obvious theories behind what's going on is that, for some reason (which is itself subject to a zillion theories), magic in all forms is returning to the world, which will lead to a big showdown, after which (depending on who wins and how) all the magic will be gone—normal seasons, no more dragons or wargs, etc.

But it's not really all magic. We've got dragons and Others, fire visions, glass candles, wargs, and Bran's seeing, but no krakens or leviathans, no Rhoynar water magic, none of the kind of mass torture magic Gogossos used in the early Century of Blood (unless that's what Qyburn is up to), no hints that the Black Goat sacrifices are suddenly working, nothing to do with the oily black stones.

And this isn't the first time magic has returned. Of course things are complicated by uncertain dating, but it seems like many kinds of magic exploded around the beginning of the First Men-Children wars, and the War for the Dawn a few millennia later, and the Valyrians' discovery of dragons a few millennia after that, and so on. So, what's different this time?

What I've been thinking is: Nothing is different this time. It isn't all magic returning, leading up to an apocalypse that will leave the world completely mundane. Instead, each time, there's a realignment. A different way of understanding magic takes hold, and the magic that fits into that new way of understanding becomes more powerful, while everything else subsides.

This time (possibly just like around 5000 years ago), the new paradigm is based on R'hllorism: Everything is a struggle between a fire god of light and truth and the forces of night and darkness.

So, fire magic that hasn't worked in a long time works again, including the red priests' magic, and dragons are reborn, but at the same time the Others return.

And meanwhile, things like glass candles and greensight, even if they may have worked in some past time for some other reason, are now working because they're about truth and sight, which fits with R'hllor's domain. But maybe they don't seem to have returned quite as hard, because people are still trying to see them the wrong way—look at greenseeing as nature magic instead of truth magic and it still works, but not as well as it could.

And finally, water magic and torture magic don't fit the paradigm, so they fade away.

There's nothing about these realignments that inherently leads to apocalyptic conflict; the current conflict is just inherent in the current paradigm. To the red priests, everything is about the struggle, and everyone who isn't a champion of R'hllor is a servant of the Great Other, so of course magic has to be set into two opposing sides, fire and ice, and they have to head for a big showdown. If you get a paradigm based on seas vs. storms or water vs. fire, there has to be a war, but if you get one based on sacrificial murder, or self-sacrifice, or illusion and glamour, or meditation and inner sight, there isn't.

This raises another question: what was the last paradigm before the R'hllorian one, which stretched from a few decades ago back to at least the end of the Century of Blood, if not farther? Was there really no almost magic then? Maybe there are dead periods between the alignment shifts, or maybe the paradigm was something inherently non-magical like brute force? Or maybe there's always magic, but the paradigm was, say, a celestial bureaucracy, and all kinds of Yi Tish magic fit into it, but very little in the west except a few Maester experiments?

And I don't want to get too deeply into how this fits with other fan theories, but I have to mention the Maester anti-magic conspiracy theory: maybe the Maesters aren't against magic; instead, they're trying to channel it into paradigms that they can control, or that can't be used against them, or just that don't lead to inherent conflicts like the current one.

Anyway, I'm sure there are facts that don't fit this very well that I haven't thought of, and I'd love to be reminded of them so I can see whether they can be taken into account, or the theory just doesn't work.

I love this concept! I'm going to let it marinate and comment more, but I'm definitely interested in hearing what others have to say. 

One thing that fascinates me is the unknown continents, etc. We know so little of TWOIAF, and its history. Do you think the unknown parts follow the same paradigm as Essos and Westeros? What if there is another Azor Ahai, on a yet-undiscovered land?

I would love for Planetos to be explored further (maybe after The Doom of Westeros?), and that knowledge could help bring a balance as well? Or would the paradigm shift again, with migration and exploration and new civilizations?

[Graydon Hicks]

very interesting. just wish we new more about how things have been happening east of quarth. i know magic still worked in asshai, but not much out of it. i mel actually comments on when she gets to the wall.

[falcotron]

51 minutes ago, Reisendame said:

One thing that fascinates me is the unknown continents, etc. We know so little of TWOIAF, and its history. Do you think the unknown parts follow the same paradigm as Essos and Westeros? What if there is another Azor Ahai, on a yet-undiscovered land?

I would love for Planetos to be explored further (maybe after The Doom of Westeros?), and that knowledge could help bring a balance as well? Or would the paradigm shift again, with migration and exploration and new civilizations?

I was assuming here that the same paradigm dominates the whole world at once.

But I've actually been thinking about that question separately, just in terms of the parallel Last Hero/Azor Ahai/Hyrkoon/etc. myths. But I think maybe that belongs in a separate thread, and I'm not sure what I want to say yet.

I will agree that I'd love to see more. I can't see a map like that, where the land just ends, even though we have characters who've been to (and even come from) the far end of it, without wanting to scroll right, damn it. And even without expanding the map, I want to know if anyone lives in Sothoryos (besides the Summer Sea coast), and, if not, why not? And did people really sail across the western Sea at least once, or were the pre-First Men artifacts actually Deep Ones, or were the First Men just not the first men?

[Ser Petyr Parker]

10 hours ago, falcotron said:

But it's not really all magic. We've got dragons and Others, fire visions, glass candles, wargs, and Bran's seeing, but no krakens or leviathans, no Rhoynar water magic, none of the kind of mass torture magic Gogossos used in the early Century of Blood (unless that's what Qyburn is up to), no hints that the Black Goat sacrifices are suddenly working, nothing to do with the oily black stones.

Krakens don't ever seem to have gone away. There's at least one report of a kraken attacking a ship in one of the books, and the news isn't received as if it's an amazing event. And anyway, do we have reason to think krakens are magical at all?

As for the other kinds of magic, how do we know we just haven't heard about them? We only heard about the warlocks in Qarth getting their powers back because Daenerys was there. We've had characters visit the Rhoyne, but not in circumstances where you'd necessarily expect to hear about magic. So can we really be sure this Rhoynar water magic isn't back?

[falcotron]

4 hours ago, Ser Petyr Parker said:

Krakens don't ever seem to have gone away. There's at least one report of a kraken attacking a ship in one of the books, and the news isn't received as if it's an amazing event. And anyway, do we have reason to think krakens are magical at all?

As for the other kinds of magic, how do we know we just haven't heard about them? We only heard about the warlocks in Qarth getting their powers back because Daenerys was there. We've had characters visit the Rhoyne, but not in circumstances where you'd necessarily expect to hear about magic. So can we really be sure this Rhoynar water magic isn't back?

For krakens, you're right. Krakens don't sound any more unnatural than direwolves or mammoths, except for the name people use for them. They're basically just colossal squid, except they live in sub-arctic waters instead of sub-antarctic waters.

For the bigger issue, you do have a point, but… if Rhoynar water magic is back, who would be doing it?

• The Greenblood orphans still consider the Rhoyne, not the Greenblood, to be their mother and god, and it's far away, and there aren't even any tall tales about them using magic to resist the First Men houses of the Greenblood or the Martells, who periodically try to oppress them.
• The mainstream "salty Dornish" haven't adopted any of the local rivers at all.
• Surely there are people with Rhoynish blood all over the Free Cities, but if so, they seem to have completely assimilated over the last millennium (as you'd expect for a culture that doesn't try to preserve their identity in diaspora). The romantic-era idea of seeking out your ancestral connections and becoming a neo-Druid or the like would be pretty anachronistic in a pre-Renaissance society.
• So, that just leaves the myth that the Shrouded Lord is really Garin the Great, still wreaking vengeance on the children of Valyria, but there are plenty of other myths about the Shrouded Lord that are at least as popular.

If this were science we were talking about—or quasi-scientific magic as found in Campbell and Vance, or Dungeons & Dragons—that wouldn't matter. If all the spellbooks disappeared, someone could do the same research Bixby did and re-invent the exact same Bixby's Hand spells, just as if all the science textbooks disappeared someone could rediscover Newton's theories. But GRRM's magic is explicitly not supposed to be quasi-scientific. If the old magic is gone, maybe it's gone for good. Maybe if new people started worshipping the Rhoyne they'd eventually come up with some kind of water magic, but maybe not, and even if they did, it wouldn't be the same magic.

Admittedly, this is pretty speculative. And even if it weren't, proving that Rhoynish magic hasn't come back wouldn't prove my theory, it would just eliminate one possible disconfirmation that could have disproven in. (And I see the irony in me trying to apply mid-20th-century philosophy of science to GRRM's magic here… but I don't really know how else to talk about theories. Hopefully someone can do better, and maybe even use my ideas to cast a spell that makes GRRM finish the last two books faster.)

Anyway, I think that, given all the evidence we've seen, the general pattern seems to hold. But there may be something I've missed. Or there may not, but the pattern may not be strong enough to draw any conclusions. (I mean, you can stretch fire/light/truth pretty far, but it's hard to know when you've stretched it past the breaking point.)

[Seams]

The way you describe the waves of magic reminds me of upgrading an operating system.

"Hello, Tech Support? I'm having trouble with my glass candle. I recently upgraded from new gods magic to R'hllor magic, and I can't get it to download new prophecies."

[The Fattest Leech]

I believe GRRM said once that he is having magic increase in the world again (aside from what we currently see happening). I'm at work and on my phone so I will have to check for it later. 

13 minutes ago, Seams said:

The way you describe the waves of magic reminds me of upgrading an operating system.

"Hello, Tech Support? I'm having trouble with my glass candle. I recently upgraded from new gods magic to R'hllor magic, and I can't get it to download new prophecies."

For some weird reason, when I first read about the glass candle and reading how they "work", I always pictured a lightbulb in use, a common item to the reader, but totally alien and mysterious to the inworld characters 

[falcotron]

6 hours ago, Seams said:

"Hello, Tech Support? I'm having trouble with my glass candle. I recently upgraded from new gods magic to R'hllor magic, and I can't get it to download new prophecies."

Well, that's what you get for upgrading to 3.0 instead of waiting for 3.1. Don't the Maesters know anything?