Echoes of the Last Hero or separate heroes?

[falcotron]

1 hour ago, LiveFirstDieLater said:

Ok, here goes, but for the record I don't for a second pretend this is more than my current toy theory... and it's not without holes.

OK, this is a very complicated theory that doesn't seem very relevant to this thread. I'd suggest you get your ideas together and post a new thread about it, because it could be interesting to discuss.

Meanwhile, I'm assuming that most of what we've heard is close to the truth, and just questioning the Maesters' position that all of the separate myths are reflections of the same event by suggesting maybe they were separate events.

The idea that there could be one event, but still separate heroes who were the Last Hero's companions, is attractive at first glance, but it falls apart because the companions didn't make it to the Battle for the Dawn, and the whole reason we were trying to include these heroes is that they have myths about (something like) the Battle for the Dawn.

The idea that the myths are mostly wrong, and maybe the Last Hero was actually Night's King, and he fled dragons in Asshai and a Yi Tish emperor who was also actually from Asshai, and he worked with the Others against them, and none of the other heroes we're talking about even come into the story—again, interesting, but it doesn't seem at all relevant here.

[thehandwipes]

On ‎8‎/‎24‎/‎2017 at 4:19 PM, falcotron said:

Yeah, that's a third possibility that I remember someone else bringing up a few years ago. But I don't think it works.

The 12 companions all died on the quest to find the Children. That was already pretty clear from Old Nan's original story ("For years he searched until he despaired of ever finding the children of the forest in their secret cities. One by one his friends died, and his horse, and finally even his dog…"), and the TWoIaF entry on the Long Night makes it even clearer. So, if the foreign heroes were the 12 companions, none of them could have been involved in the climactic Battle for the Dawn (as Azor Ahai was, unless the red priests are totally off base and the whole myth is useless*), much less returned home or built new cities the Night ended (as Hyrkoon did).

Of course you could just adjust the theory to say that the foreign heroes weren't the 12 companions, they were the original members of the Watch, who the Last Hero gathered after making his pact with the Children. But then you can't fit the parts of their story that echo the quest for the Children (which sounds like the entire Rhoynish version), and you still can't have them returning home or doing other stuff afterward, because the original Watch members all swore the original oath, stuck around as Bran built the Wall, and spent the rest of their lives guarding it.

You can always fall back on "Well, that's just local misinterpretations over 8000 years", and people merged the story of Hyrkoon who traveled to Westeros to join the Watch with another Hyrkoon who built the first fortress city. But once you go down that road, you might as well accept that the Maesters and Yi Tish scholars are right, and the whole thing is just a local interpretation of the Last Hero story.

---

* I suppose you could make it work with Jojen or Hodor as AAR, which would be pretty funny…

The legends don't fit and without more info all we can do is speculate based on how the truth might fit into our current story.

My best guess would be Last Hero=Night's King.  The pact with the children wasn't to join forces to fight the Others, but to convince the children to call the Others off.  The horrors of the Night's King were a part of the pact.  The battle for the Dawn is an invented story from after the true history was forgotten or a glamorized version of the pact between Joramun and King Brandon the Breaker (of the peace treaty? of his vows?) to bring down the Night's King.

Azor Ahai is about the Bloodstone Emperor.

 

[LordImp]

The question is why would Yi ti and Hyrkoon care about what happens in Westeros unless they experience something similar. So I think the most plausible explanation is that the essosi cultures had their own heroes who fought the darkness. Then when LH ends it in Westeros the essosi heroes thinks it was them. 

The AA myth dosen't seem to have anything to do with Westeros and the Others. The red priests dosen't mention the Others either . Mel didn't worry about the Others until Davos showed her the letter from NW , Moqorro is concerned about Euron and Benerro talks about the dark eye. 

It seems like AA is more connected to Bloodstone emperor. The similarities between Euron and BSE and the red priests concern about Euron strengthens that theory. It's possible that the BSE was dealt with in Westeros and that it was tied to the Others somehow.

[falcotron]

15 hours ago, LordImp said:

The question is why would Yi ti and Hyrkoon care about what happens in Westeros unless they experience something similar. So I think the most plausible explanation is that the essosi cultures had their own heroes who fought the darkness. Then when LH ends it in Westeros the essosi heroes thinks it was them. 

Yes, that's basically my theory. The Maesters and red priests and Yi Tish scholars are all wrong, those heroes aren't just echoes of the Last King story, they're legends about local heroes fighting the darkness in their own part of the world.

But the interesting question is, what were they fighting? Are the "demons of the Lion of Night" the same thing as Others? It seems like the most obvious answer. But if so, why is the Last Hero's victory in Westeros in any way special? And look at the Rhoynar myth, which isn't about fighting anything except incidentally, but about getting the river gods to sing a song. If that song had nothing to do with ending the Long Night, it's a pretty big coincidence that it happened at the right time so everyone in western Essos thought it did.

And, likewise, how could the emergence of the Others in Westeros, the Blood Betrayal in Yi Ti, and so on all have caused the Long Night if they're separate events?

That's what leads into the variant possibilities, like the Eternal Champion version raised above…

15 hours ago, LordImp said:

The AA myth dosen't seem to have anything to do with Westeros and the Others. The red priests dosen't mention the Others either . Mel didn't worry about the Others until Davos showed her the letter from NW , Moqorro is concerned about Euron and Benerro talks about the dark eye. 

That's a good point—except that Melisandre went to Westeros to find Azor Ahai Reborn. And, while she didn't mention the Others, she did see a connection between the AAR myth and the PtwP myth, which implies (even if the PtwP isn't connected to the Last Hero or the Others) a direct connection to Westeros, right?

Is it all happening in Westeros just because Euron happened to return to Westeros, and it's just a coincidence that the Bloodstone Emperor story is going to play out in parallel with, and right next door to, the Others this time, instead of thousands of years and a whole continent away?

Meanwhile, is it relevant that the Bloodstone Emperor is the great^7-grandson of the Lion of Night and the Maiden Made of Light? Could the Greyjoys have some ancestry from both Others and… whatever their opposition is (Children, Giants, etc. don't seem to work here)?

16 hours ago, LordImp said:

It seems like AA is more connected to Bloodstone emperor.

Well, that may just be because Asshai is much closer to Yi Ti than to Westeros. And we've already got a local Yi Tish hero who supposedly solved the problems caused by the Bloodstone Emperor, the monkey-tailed girl who slew the head demon of the Lion of Night, so there doesn't seem to be any more room for AA there than in Westeros.

I don't mean to argue against what's basically a variation on my own theory, but I'd love to find answers to all these questions.

[Yet Another ASOIAF Fan]

I am going to play the devil's advocate and argue for a skeptical side in order to explain the existence of some of the separate solutions to the Long Night.  The skeptical side is basically that "Correlation does not imply Causation" could apply when dealing with multiple 'solutions' independently solving a global problem.  For example, assuming the Song of the Rhoynar was done around the same time as the Battle for the Dawn and that the Battle for the Dawn was the cause of the end of the Long Night, people in the Rhoynar might have naturally assumed that their actions ended the Long Night.  There is evidenced for this as despite the Rhoynar legend being the only other legend to specify a change in temperature during the Long Night, it is the only* legend to not reference any evil force.  This confused me until I looked at a map to see where the Rhoynar region is.  If you look at a map of Planetos, don't know if we still use that word, and draw a circle the length of Westeros with the center being the Lands of Always Winter, the Rhoynar falls into that circle.  As the Others are only a Westeros threat, the natural fallacy would be that the cold associated with them would be bound to Westeros.  This does not by definition mean that the lesser known theories, like the Rhoynar theory, are useless as GRRM might have hidden clues in these theories. While the skeptical side works for lesser known solutions to the Long Night,  it would be foolish to wave off the Azor Ahai theory in the same way due to the amount of time GRRM has focused on it.

*I am amusing that the two Yi Ti legends are the part of a larger legend, with the Blood Betrayal starting the Long Night and the monkey-tailed woman ending the Long Night.

Also, for the theory that the 13^th Commander of the Night's  Watch is actually the 1^st Commander of the Night's Watch, most explain the change in number to honor the fallen companions.  Another possibility that people might have missed is that we assume that the Last Hero was the leader of the group of thirteen as he is the Last Hero.  While it would be silly to believe that all twelve of his companions lead before him, it would allow a reason, however weak,  to honor someone if they lead the group before abandoning the trip.

[LordImp]

7 hours ago, falcotron said:

Yes, that's basically my theory. The Maesters and red priests and Yi Tish scholars are all wrong, those heroes aren't just echoes of the Last King story, they're legends about local heroes fighting the darkness in their own part of the world.

But the interesting question is, what were they fighting? Are the "demons of the Lion of Night" the same thing as Others? It seems like the most obvious answer. But if so, why is the Last Hero's victory in Westeros in any way special? And look at the Rhoynar myth, which isn't about fighting anything except incidentally, but about getting the river gods to sing a song. If that song had nothing to do with ending the Long Night, it's a pretty big coincidence that it happened at the right time so everyone in western Essos thought it did.

And, likewise, how could the emergence of the Others in Westeros, the Blood Betrayal in Yi Ti, and so on all have caused the Long Night if they're separate events?

That's what leads into the variant possibilities, like the Eternal Champion version raised above…

That's a good point—except that Melisandre went to Westeros to find Azor Ahai Reborn. And, while she didn't mention the Others, she did see a connection between the AAR myth and the PtwP myth, which implies (even if the PtwP isn't connected to the Last Hero or the Others) a direct connection to Westeros, right?

Is it all happening in Westeros just because Euron happened to return to Westeros, and it's just a coincidence that the Bloodstone Emperor story is going to play out in parallel with, and right next door to, the Others this time, instead of thousands of years and a whole continent away?

Meanwhile, is it relevant that the Bloodstone Emperor is the great^7-grandson of the Lion of Night and the Maiden Made of Light? Could the Greyjoys have some ancestry from both Others and… whatever their opposition is (Children, Giants, etc. don't seem to work here)?

Well, that may just be because Asshai is much closer to Yi Ti than to Westeros. And we've already got a local Yi Tish hero who supposedly solved the problems caused by the Bloodstone Emperor, the monkey-tailed girl who slew the head demon of the Lion of Night, so there doesn't seem to be any more room for AA there than in Westeros.

I don't mean to argue against what's basically a variation on my own theory, but I'd love to find answers to all these questions.

You are asking some hard questions . The demons of the lion does sound similar to the Others , but I think they where something different. More like Lovecraftian horrors. 

The rhoynish song are more a hint on how the series end imo. Put down our difference , stop fighting for the throne and svolve the problem together . I think it was ended this way the last time aswell . 

Not sure what causes the Long night , but I think the likes of Bloodstone emperor and the Others just ushered and took advantage of the darkness . They where simply just a result of the catastrophe.

Melisandre went to Dragonstone because it fitted the prophecy of salt and smoke. Dosen't necessary mean that AA myth has something to do with Westeros.

As for Euron and BSE. Not sure if the Greyjoys are descendants of something , but clearly has a important connection to all of this. I think perhaps that Euron learnt something in the east and is now following the BSE footsteps. 

@LmL Has a theory that the BSE invaded Westeros from the west and was defeated at Battle Isle . 

 

[chrisdaw]

There's no answer, it doesn't matter. The process is Jon is going to do X, Dany Y, and Z is going to happen, he siphons off portions of their feats and events to roll into legends near and far. That's all the worth of the scattered fables about the great heroes and Long Night, there is no rhyme or reason to them otherwise.

[Dorian Martell's son]

On 8/24/2017 at 0:18 AM, falcotron said:

The standard assumption among fandom—and among Maesters, red priests, and Yi Ti scholars, according to the World app—is that the Last Hero, Azor Ahai, Hyrkoon, Yin Tar, etc. are all the same person, and the different myths are all just echoes of the same event that happened in Westeros in the War for the Dawn.

And you can see how this could work. For example, the Yi Ti myth of the Long Night has the Emperor building the Five Forts and then the monkey-tailed girl defeating the Lion of Night, and this is just the Last Hero defeating the Others and Bran the Builder building the Wall in reverse. Not hard to see how small changes like that could creep in over thousands of years and thousands of kilometers.

But the thing is, those Five Forts do exist, and they are as old as the Wall, and there aren't any other myths to explain them. (There is a theory that they were built by Valyrians, but there's the same theory for everything from Hightower to Ib, and, as with all those theories, the timeline doesn't work, and there's no evidence of Valyrians ever coming anywhere near the area.) The fortress city that Hyrkoon built after saving the world also exists, and has no other foundation myth. And so on. That's kind of weird.

And meanwhile, not all of the stories are as easy to match up to the Last Hero as Azor Ahai. The Rhoynar version has their hero traveling to the source of the Rhoyne and getting the river gods to stop fighting and sing a magic song together.

And finally, it seems like the Long Night happened everywhere (although I'm really curious what happened south of the equator, if anyone lives in deep Sothoryos…), but it also doesn't sound like it was equally bad in all places. The entire world covered in night and winter compared to the Rhoyne freezing to half its length aren't really comparable. It's like the post-medieval "little ice age" that had terrible effects around the Atlantic coasts from Europe to Mexico, but was only mildly annoying in Asia.

So, what would it mean if these were all entirely separate events? What would have happened if, say, the river gods sang their song, but the monkey-tailed girl had failed to defeat the Lion? Would the night have receded in western Essos but not far eastern Essos? Or is that not possible because one of them succeeding would be enough somehow, or because the outcome was predestined in the first place?

I suppose we'll get the answer if the Others pass the Wall. What will happen in Braavos or Ib? Will Others climb out of the Shivering Sea, or will they face ice giants or sentient mists or some other threat connected to their own history instead of Westeros's, or will it just get colder and darker and there's nothing they can do about it except help the fight in Westeros?

There won't be any answers, even when the others get south of the wall. Assuming the stories about the last hero are true, it makes sense that the story of the battle for the dawn, an event that happened 8000 years previous, would spread, but details would be adapted for hte culture telling it. An example is the the great flood in the black sea deluge. the bible, sumeria, greece, and a host of other cultures have a great flood story. All different, but about the flood. So AA, lightbringer, the golden empire of the dawn, all bullshit. They are simply a bastardized retelling of an event that happened on a different continent  

[falcotron]

On 8/28/2017 at 11:48 PM, Yet Another ASOIAF Fan said:

I am going to play the devil's advocate and argue for a skeptical side in order to explain the existence of some of the separate solutions to the Long Night.

I'm not sure what you're suggesting, but it sounds something like this:

There was a global catastrophe that caused all kinds of different problems, some global, some local. There was no single thing that ended the catastrophe; different heroes did different things that reversed different effects—maybe the Rhoynar Song ended the worldwide cold, the Last Hero ended the worldwide darkness, the monkey-tailed girl killed the demon that was spawning monsters all over the world, Hyrkoon just killed the monsters in his region and kept his people safe for the duration, whatever. If so, it sounds more like a plausible solution to the biggest hole in my theory than a devil's advocate argument against it.

Or, alternately, are you arguing that all of these heroes only did local things, which kept their people alive but didn't do anything else, and then one of them (Azor Ahai) actually did the single thing that ended the whole Long Night?

[falcotron]

20 hours ago, LordImp said:

You are asking some hard questions . The demons of the lion does sound similar to the Others , but I think they where something different. More like Lovecraftian horrors. 

That's an interesting idea—that the Long Night allowed all kinds of things to invade the planet in different regions. That doesn't really affect what we're talking about here, except that it raises the question of how we know that the Others are the ones who are connected to the cause of, and solution to, the Long Night.

20 hours ago, LordImp said:

The rhoynish song are more a hint on how the series end imo. Put down our difference , stop fighting for the throne and svolve the problem together . I think it was ended this way the last time aswell .

Sure. The whole first half of the Last Hero legend is his quest to find the Children and make peace between them and humanity to work together to solve the problem. The Rhoynish legend ends with the song ending the Long Night; the Last Hero legend has a whole second part where the Watch that he creates out of that unity goes on to defeat the Others in a battle, and that ends the Long Night—but those aren't incompatible ideas, just a different focus.

But that only explains what the Rhoynish Song means out-of-universe. My question is, in-universe, where did this legend come from, and what does it mean?

20 hours ago, LordImp said:

@LmL Has a theory that the BSE invaded Westeros from the west and was defeated at Battle Isle . 

Yeah, I know. But his theories all hang together because he's basically built his own internally-consistent fantasy world almost entirely independent of GRRM's, and I'm really not that interested in discussing it.

[falcotron]

9 hours ago, Dorian Martell's son said:

There won't be any answers, even when the others get south of the wall. Assuming the stories about the last hero are true, it makes sense that the story of the battle for the dawn, an event that happened 8000 years previous, would spread, but details would be adapted for hte culture telling it. An example is the the great flood in the black sea deluge. the bible, sumeria, greece, and a host of other cultures have a great flood story. All different, but about the flood. So AA, lightbringer, the golden empire of the dawn, all bullshit. They are simply a bastardized retelling of an event that happened on a different continent  

To put it simply: Why would you assume that the stories about the Last Hero are true, but the stories about, say, Azor Ahai are bullshit?

[Dorian Martell's son]

9 hours ago, falcotron said:

To put it simply: Why would you assume that the stories about the Last Hero are true, but the stories about, say, Azor Ahai are bullshit?

It is simple. The story of the last hero searching through a terrible winter searching for the children of the forest to learn their magic to fight the others is what characters in the books are doing now. We have seen the others, the children, the wierwood magic wards in the wall and visions from the past. Literally everything we have seen about AA reborn and lightbringer have all been bullshit. Aemon calls it. The Stannis' sword produced no heat. It was a trick. A trick by Mel who seeks to put her man on the Iron throne

[falcotron]

8 hours ago, Dorian Martell's son said:

It is simple. The story of the last hero searching through a terrible winter searching for the children of the forest to learn their magic to fight the others is what characters in the books are doing now. We have seen the others, the children, the wierwood magic wards in the wall and visions from the past. Literally everything we have seen about AA reborn and lightbringer have all been bullshit. Aemon calls it. The Stannis' sword produced no heat. It was a trick. A trick by Mel who seeks to put her man on the Iron throne

So you don't think Melisandre is at all sincere about fighting the Great Other and his minions, she just came all the way across the world because she wanted to put Stannis on the Iron Throne? And her religion has been making up stories for 5000 years for similar reasons, and Thoros and Moqorro and so on actually have some other agenda too?

[Dorian Martell's son]

3 hours ago, falcotron said:

So you don't think Melisandre is at all sincere about fighting the Great Other and his minions, she just came all the way across the world because she wanted to put Stannis on the Iron Throne? And her religion has been making up stories for 5000 years for similar reasons, and Thoros and Moqorro and so on actually have some other agenda too?

I'm not sure where all that came from but OK, 
The point was, everything about AA, the lightbringer creation story, Nissa Nissa etc are all baseless, just Stories "in book."   As for the last hero story, the readers, and characters in book have seen the children, seen the others, seen the wights, seen the others die by dragonglass, gone past the giant barrier built to keep the others out and know more is to come. AA reborn and all the other BS had nothing to show for it but an old man talking shit about a fake flaming sword. Mel's main drive is Stannis. She is wrong on the regular and despite all her powers, she is always more riddle than action  

[Armand Gargalen]

I find the concept of the "Eternal Champion" intriguing. 

Also, Planetos seems to have been stuck in an eternal pseudo middle age for a long time. That is quite different to the history of our world, much more dynamic. 

I am kind of thinking that GRRM is exploring an universe where history is not linear, but cyclical, as many earth cultures believed in the past.

Maybe there was not a single Long Night, but several. That would help to explain the different myths.

[falcotron]

1 hour ago, Armand Gargalen said:

Also, Planetos seems to have been stuck in an eternal pseudo middle age for a long time. That is quite different to the history of our world, much more dynamic. 

I think there's an explanation for that, which I'll get to at the bottom (tl;dr: Valyria), but first:

It's not just stagnant, it's also stuck on a weirdly anachronistic set of features, with caravels and Byzantine dromons sharing the seas for millennia, and early Renaissance bankers funding high medieval feudalism, and so on.

Meanwhile, if you take their Maesters' history at face value, it isn't actually all stagnation. Their development from the neolithic to the medieval era took about as long as in our world, and was accompanied by the same kinds of migrations and technological advancements and and cultural changes and so on. It's only somewhere around 4000-8000 years ago that everything stopped moving. And there are signs that things are now moving again—and not just moving toward collapse.

1 hour ago, Armand Gargalen said:

I am kind of thinking that GRRM is exploring an universe where history is not linear, but cyclical, as many earth cultures believed in the past.

Lots of people have suggested that ASoIaF is basically just Wheel of Time in disguise, but it really doesn't work. I mean, clearly this is at least the second Long Night, but the world is very different from the last time. Everything we hear about First Men culture implies early bronze age, not a more advanced civilization that was lost and then gradually rebuilt.

ETA: Old Nan's story about the Last Hero tells us that "the Others came for the first time". Given that Old Nan is usually right, that implies that this really is only the second Long Night, not the latest in a long cycle.

So now, my explanation.

I once had a crackpot theory was that Valyria did some kind of large-scale magic that essentially stopped the progress of history to make sure nobody could ever eclipse them, but there's really no textual evidence for that, and it really isn't necessary, because a mundane explanation works just as well.

After the first few centuries, Valyria's dragons, blood magic, etc. were just so overwhelming that nobody could compete with them. With no avenue for competition, there's no reward for any kind of advancement, so nobody's going to advance. Maybe a few new inventions came along every so often, but they couldn't transform society the way they did in our world, they just got integrated into the existing system.

It's only after the Doom and the initial shocks of the Century of Blood that Essos is competitive again, but they're also still recovering from a near collapse of civilization, so no wonder it's not moving as smoothly into the Renaissance as our world. And meanwhile, Westeros's progress was significantly retarded by Aegon, who had a similar effect to Valyria, just locally and on a smaller scale.

Which all makes it somewhat ironic that it's the rebirth of Valyrian dragons that has really kicked things into overdrive all across the world. But I think that's just GRRM having a bit of a great man theory of history—or, more likely, just adopting one for the story, because it's kind of built into the epic fantasy model—and Dany being one hell of a great man figure.

[Armand Gargalen]

1 hour ago, falcotron said:

I think there's an explanation for that, which I'll get to at the bottom (tl;dr: Valyria), but first:

It's not just stagnant, it's also stuck on a weirdly anachronistic set of features, with caravels and Byzantine dromons sharing the seas for millennia, and early Renaissance bankers funding high medieval feudalism, and so on.

Meanwhile, if you take their Maesters' history at face value, it isn't actually all stagnation. Their development from the neolithic to the medieval era took about as long as in our world, and was accompanied by the same kinds of migrations and technological advancements and and cultural changes and so on. It's only somewhere around 4000-8000 years ago that everything stopped moving. And there are signs that things are now moving again—and not just moving toward collapse.

Lots of people have suggested that ASoIaF is basically just Wheel of Time in disguise, but it really doesn't work. I mean, clearly this is at least the second Long Night, but the world is very different from the last time. Everything we hear about First Men culture implies early bronze age, not a more advanced civilization that was lost and then gradually rebuilt.

ETA: Old Nan's story about the Last Hero tells us that "the Others came for the first time". Given that Old Nan is usually right, that implies that this really is only the second Long Night, not the latest in a long cycle.

So now, my explanation.

I once had a crackpot theory was that Valyria did some kind of large-scale magic that essentially stopped the progress of history to make sure nobody could ever eclipse them, but there's really no textual evidence for that, and it really isn't necessary, because a mundane explanation works just as well.

After the first few centuries, Valyria's dragons, blood magic, etc. were just so overwhelming that nobody could compete with them. With no avenue for competition, there's no reward for any kind of advancement, so nobody's going to advance. Maybe a few new inventions came along every so often, but they couldn't transform society the way they did in our world, they just got integrated into the existing system.

It's only after the Doom and the initial shocks of the Century of Blood that Essos is competitive again, but they're also still recovering from a near collapse of civilization, so no wonder it's not moving as smoothly into the Renaissance as our world. And meanwhile, Westeros's progress was significantly retarded by Aegon, who had a similar effect to Valyria, just locally and on a smaller scale.

Which all makes it somewhat ironic that it's the rebirth of Valyrian dragons that has really kicked things into overdrive all across the world. But I think that's just GRRM having a bit of a great man theory of history—or, more likely, just adopting one for the story, because it's kind of built into the epic fantasy model—and Dany being one hell of a great man figure.

This is quite plausible. 

Now I am trying to think how the existence of wondrous structures that seem to have magical origin and humanity is unable to reproduce at the current time, such as the Wall, fits in this scenario. 

When I talked about cyclical history I was not thinking on story repeating again, more than there are different "seasons", some are more magical, some are less so... When a high magical season comes, technology may suffer a setback for the reasons you stated, and maybe because there is more chaos and therefore human societies suffer more. 

If that were the case, not all legends would make reference to the Long Night and the Others, but other "chaotic magical cycles". 

What reminds me of another book I have read recently "The Three Bodies Problem". I don´t want to spoil it, but the theme of "chaotic seasons" and how they set civilization back is one of it main themes.

[falcotron]

7 hours ago, Armand Gargalen said:

Now I am trying to think how the existence of wondrous structures that seem to have magical origin and humanity is unable to reproduce at the current time, such as the Wall, fits in this scenario.

That's a great point. I think I may not have even noticed that needs an explanation, because it's just such a standard fantasy trope. But of course it's not a standard fantasy trope for good reasons, and I don't think the usual bad reasons apply to GRRM (ripping off Tolkien, even though he actually had a good in-universe reason that his imitators ignore; borrowing from new-age silliness even without borrowing the assumptions that make it semi-consistent; general laziness because it's just hard to show/explain great works of magic in a way that feels believable; etc.).

Magic definitely does seem to ebb and flow on Planetos, even if civilization isn't cyclical. The fact that magic is returning now pretty much proves that. (I have a crackpot on that, that magic doesn't actually ebb and flow but just realigns along a new paradigm, and people are just better at figuring how how to apply some paradigms to some tasks, but it doesn't really change anything here.)

7 hours ago, Armand Gargalen said:

When I talked about cyclical history I was not thinking on story repeating again, more than there are different "seasons", some are more magical, some are less so... When a high magical season comes, technology may suffer a setback for the reasons you stated, and maybe because there is more chaos and therefore human societies suffer more. 

If that were the case, not all legends would make reference to the Long Night and the Others, but other "chaotic magical cycles". 

It seems to make sense that in some high-magic eras there would be less pressure for other kinds of development, as with the domination of the Valyrian Freehold, while in other high-magic eras that were more "magitech" and less pure magic, or just where magic was spread out in a more egalitarian way, it would actually spur cultural development instead. But I'd have to think about that some more.

Another possibility is that these were basically one-time things. People 8000 years ago didn't have the kind of magic to produce stuff like the Wall whenever they needed to; there was just a unique combination of cooperation with the Children, desperate need, etc. that allowed Bran to build the Wall, Winterfell, Storm's End, etc., and he could no more have done so a few years earlier or later than the Starks could do so today.  But I'm not sure whether that works. (Could it explain, say, the Five Forts?)

Finally, whenever they find some ancient magical structure besides the Wall, some septons want to tie it to Valyria, while others want to tie it to pre-human races like the Deep Ones who left no other lasting impact on human culture. If either of those are true, there's not much that needs to be explained, but I've never been very convinced by either of those theories.

Anyway, you've given me a lot to think about; thanks.

[Armand Gargalen]

1 hour ago, falcotron said:

Magic definitely does seem to ebb and flow on Planetos, even if civilization isn't cyclical. The fact that magic is returning now pretty much proves that. (I have a crackpot on that, that magic doesn't actually ebb and flow but just realigns along a new paradigm, and people are just better at figuring how how to apply some paradigms to some tasks, but it doesn't really change anything here.)

It seems to make sense that in some high-magic eras there would be less pressure for other kinds of development, as with the domination of the Valyrian Freehold, while in other high-magic eras that were more "magitech" and less pure magic, or just where magic was spread out in a more egalitarian way, it would actually spur cultural development instead. But I'd have to think about that some more.

Another possibility is that these were basically one-time things. People 8000 years ago didn't have the kind of magic to produce stuff like the Wall whenever they needed to; there was just a unique combination of cooperation with the Children, desperate need, etc. that allowed Bran to build the Wall, Winterfell, Storm's End, etc., and he could no more have done so a few years earlier or later than the Starks could do so today.  But I'm not sure whether that works. (Could it explain, say, the Five Forts?)

Finally, whenever they find some ancient magical structure besides the Wall, some septons want to tie it to Valyria, while others want to tie it to pre-human races like the Deep Ones who left no other lasting impact on human culture. If either of those are true, there's not much that needs to be explained, but I've never been very convinced by either of those theories.

Anyway, you've given me a lot to think about; thanks.

Magic going ebb and flow cycles, specially if they are not regular but chaotic ones would probably have the effect we see in the books. 

There is a video by The Dragon Demands analyzing the economy in Planetos. It is quite dense and just text but if you are into History is quite interesting.

An important part is the analysis of how longer and irregular seasons affect the economy with quite intense boom and boost periods. 

If we apply this model to the more extreme seasons that seem to be linked to "high magical periods", the result would probably be civilizations that raise and collapse, with a steady much slower technological development.

[falcotron]

1 hour ago, Armand Gargalen said:

If we apply this model to the more extreme seasons that seem to be linked to "high magical periods", the result would probably be civilizations that raise and collapse, with a steady much slower technological development.

I've seen similar theories, but it doesn't work, at all.

Civilizations don't raise and collapse more often in Planetos than in our world, but rather far less often. Rome lasted a few hundred years; Valyria lasted thousands. Rome destroyed the rapidly-expanding Carthaginian state that was barely older than they were; Valyria destroyed the millennia-old Ghiscari Empire. The Anglo-Saxons had a few centuries of domination before the Normans showed up; the Andals had millennia. And so on.

And meanwhile, if frequent collapses were the explanation for technological stagnation, why is it that things seem to have stagnated most during 4000-5000 years of almost total political stability (at least west of the Bone Mountains)?

So, the theory assumes a world history that's almost the opposite of Planetos's, and uses it to predict almost the opposite results to what we see.