Heresy 205 bats and little green men

[Black Crow]

3 hours ago, SirArthur said:

 

A lot of legend. And only 2 quoted people with the possibility of using the same source: Maester Luwin. On the other hand 3 mentions is one too many for some random bit of world building. But the best part is we get three different bits of information:

- the hammer has been called from the Children's tower (called upon)
- the hammer has been called upon the Neck
- the hammer has been called on or from (not sure) the Children's tower to break the lands in two (called down)...

 

My conclusion: Moat Cailin is as old as Winterfell (build with the same height and heavy stone material) and the hammer was called from here. But Dorne has been seperated 12000 years ago, before Winterfell was build. So unless we need some history rewriting or Winterfell is older than the first men, the hammer has been called a second time upon the Children's tower itself. 

It's pretty clear that there was only one "Hammer", sweeping away the Arm of Dorne and its association with the Moat Caillin and the Neck is a touch dodgy, we're dealing with legends rather than recorded history per this SSM:

Oh, and he did mention that he put lots of legends into the books such as Bran the Builder. Bran the builder is supposed to have built the Wall, Winterfell, and Storms End. GRRM mentioned that he has become a legend so that people will look at a structure and say "wow, it must have been built by Bran the Builder" when it actually was not. This is GRRM's attempt on creating a world with myths and legends so if at some point you see, "They say it was built by Bran the Builder or Lann the Clever" realize that its part of the mythos.

Nor is the comparison between Moat Caillin and Winterfell valid - the latter isn't constructed from black basalt and has only reached its present size after centuries of building

[Black Crow]

52 minutes ago, Feather Crystal said:

From the wiki:

When the First Men and the children of the forest first went to war, the old songs say greenseers of the children used dark magics to make the seas rise and sweep away the land, shattering the Arm, in a futile attempt to end the invasion of the First Men. Although the shattering of the Arm was successful, it was too late, for the First Men in Westeros had already crossed and the wars went on until the Pact.

The Arm of Dorne was washed away by rising sea levels, but the hammer of waters is only associated with the Neck. We can insert more than one explanation for what the hammer was, but I’m inclined to think it was a meteor. 

Although Maester Luwin doesn't use the term I'd say that the Hammer and the Breaking are intended to refer to the same event [and as I recall this is confirmed by the World Book] though perhaps from slightly different perspectives depending on geography. As described the breaking of the arm was a catastrophic event rather than rising sea levels, just as the breaching of the Anticline was - in fact historically it happened in two phases with the initial breach leaving the equivalent of the Stepstones, as to what caused it, a meteor is possible but historically its reckoned that what's now the North Sea was then a huge lake enclosed in the North by ice [or Ice?] fed by the European rivers until the pressure became too great and it burst through. An alternative however might be something like the Storegga Slide - a massive undersea landslide which sent a giant tsunami across the North Sea and drowned the Scottish Neck. Historically the two are separate events but GRRM may well have combined them.

If you still prefer the [unhistorical] meteor theory, a splashdown in the middle of the Narrow Sea would have affected coastal areas and especially low-lying ones all around, not just the Arm.

[SirArthur]

45 minutes ago, Black Crow said:

It's pretty clear that there was only one "Hammer", sweeping away the Arm of Dorne and its association with the Moat Caillin and the Neck is a touch dodgy, we're dealing with legends rather than recorded history per this SSM

With one slim little text problem. The hammer is only mentioned 3 times so far. I quoted all 3 mentionings above and they all take place in Moat Cailin, nowhere else. The arm of dorne is never directly used with hammer of water. The connection is "dark magic".

 

Quote

"But some twelve thousand years ago, the First Men appeared from the east, crossing the Broken Arm of Dorne before it was broken. [...]  The old songs say that the greenseers used dark magics to make the seas rise and sweep away the land, shattering the Arm, but it was too late to close the door.

Bran VII - aGOT 

 

49 minutes ago, Black Crow said:

Nor is the comparison between Moat Caillin and Winterfell valid - the latter isn't constructed from black basalt and has only reached its present size after centuries of building

I was talking about the inner Wall in the oldest part of Winterfell. I actually don't know the material used in the rest of Winterfell. And conveniently both castles are over 10000* years old. So they have the same building period and as Cat mentions share the same wall height. 

 

*at least that's what the wiki says. Must be world book information.

[JNR]

8 hours ago, SirArthur said:

The histories say the crannogmen grew close to the children of the forest in the days when the greenseers tried to bring the hammer of the waters down upon the Neck.

Yes, this passage clearly means that (according to the myth), the hammer of the waters is associated with the Neck, not the Arm.  

The historical reality of what happened remains to be seen... but if the scattered gigantic blocks of basalt at Moat Cailin (which is not close to the coast) are an outcome of the hammer, we can reasonably extrapolate it was a vast tsunami.

As to the Arm, I think it's apparent that it too, in myth at least, was a tsunami, because

Quote

The old songs say that the greenseers used dark magics to make the seas rise and sweep away the land, shattering the Arm

"Shattering" is not a verb we would use to describe a gradual rise of the ocean over a period of hundreds of years.

This event isn't called a hammer of the waters, probably because far less force was required because the Arm was much smaller, but it amounts to the same sort of thing.

Of course, it's still only a myth, so we can't be sure what happened.

[Black Crow]

5 hours ago, JNR said:

Yes, this passage clearly means that (according to the myth), the hammer of the waters is associated with the Neck, not the Arm.  

The historical reality of what happened remains to be seen... but if the scattered gigantic blocks of basalt at Moat Cailin (which is not close to the coast) are an outcome of the hammer, we can reasonably extrapolate it was a vast tsunami.

As to the Arm, I think it's apparent that it too, in myth at least, was a tsunami, because

"Shattering" is not a verb we would use to describe a gradual rise of the ocean over a period of hundreds of years.

This event isn't called a hammer of the waters, probably because far less force was required because the Arm was much smaller, but it amounts to the same sort of thing.

Of course, it's still only a myth, so we can't be sure what happened.

As I said in my previous post, in book terms we start off with a watery cataclysm which shatters the Arm, later we get some legends associating said cataclysm with Moat Caillin/The Neck, but there really is no reason not to suppose that the legends and stories refer to the same event as perceived in different parts of Westeros. In simple terms someone in say Storms End will focus on the breaking of the Arm, while someone in Winterfell will be more concerned about the Neck. It was a very long time ago and Westeros is a big place.

[Black Crow]

As some improbable dates are being bandied about uncritically its worth digging this one out of the archives:

 

Timelines

Anent the timeline business, it’s important to distinguish between a timeline and a chronology. The first sets out a sequence of events and the other takes that sequence and applies dates to it. With certain exceptions the issue here is not the timeline but the dates and that issue rests not on the fertile imaginations of those here present, but in what GRRM himself has said and very largely in text at that.

In the beginning we were told that men first came to Westeros 12,000 years ago, that the Pact was concluded 10,000 years ago and that the Wall and the Watch date from 8,000 years ago, while the Andals turned up in the Vale 6,000 years ago. There was also an alternative date of 4,000 years offered for the coming of the Andals but this isn’t necessarily a contradiction because as the World Book makes plain there was no conquest like that enacted by Aegon but rather a succession of different groups at different times and different places.

Then we get Rodrik the Reader and Hoster Blackwood, with the first rather precisely dating their arrival by reference to the last Kingsmoot as just 1,500 years ago, while Hoster rather more moderately explains:

Only no one knows when the Andals crossed the narrow sea. The True History says four thousand years have passed since then, but some masters claim that it was only two. Past a certain point, all the dates grow hazy and confused, and the clarity of history becomes the fog of legend.

So let’s play safe and go for Hoster’s 2,000 years ago. It’s not unreasonable in itself but it does have an immediate impact on the earlier chronology in that it suddenly increases the gap between the supposed date of the Long Night and the arrival of the Andals from 2,000 years to 6,000 years. It’s surely reasonable therefore to infer that the Long Night was also, proportionately nearer in time and indeed we have now have references in the World Book to it occurring 6,000 years rather than 8,000 years ago.

Now there are two immediate points arising from this. Clearly it was not contemporary with the supposed arrival of the Andals in the Vale 6,000 years ago, but if the Andals did in fact turn up 4,000 years ago then the 2,000 year gap is preserved. So far so good, but does that therefore mean that if there is a solid tradition that the Andals came 2,000 years after the Long Night? If so then the Long Night could be as recent as only 4,000 years ago.

Now turn to the Watch. Sam as we know is unhappy about what he finds in the records, and remember once again this passage is important enough to be told from two different POVs:

The oldest histories we have were written after the Andals came to Westeros. The First Men only left us runes on rocks, so everything we think we know about the Age of Heroes and the Dawn Age and the Long Night comes from accounts set down by septons thousands of years later. There are archmaesters at the Citadel who question all of it. The old histories are full of kings who reigned for hundreds of years, and knights riding around a thousand years before there were knights. You know the tales, Brandon the Builder, Symeon Star-eyes, Knight’s King…we say that you’re the nine-hundred-and-ninety-eighth Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch, but the oldest list I’ve found shows six hundred seventy-four commanders, which suggests that it was written during-“

“Long ago,” Jon broke in…

According to legend the Wall was built 8,000 years ago at the end of the Long Night and has been manned by the Watch ever since. Jon Snow is reckoned to be the 998^th Lord Commander which would imply a very reasonable average of 8 years for each of his predecessors. Bring that forward to 6,000 years and the average drops to an average of 6 years apiece, while 4,000 years ago…

But there’s more to it than that. Why was Sam cut off? Because the list was written during what? Evidently something that would invalidate the chronology. Let’s look again at the list. Now the point about any list of Lord Commanders is that depending on how its arranged it will either begin or end with the current incumbent. Once again, although Jon cuts him off, it’s easy to work out that it was only compiled about 324 Lord Commanders ago, or if we apply the 8 year average approximately 2600 years ago.

And that’s where it really gets interesting, because let’s stick with the World Book date of 6,000 years ago for the Long Night and the foundation of the Wall. That means, allowing for a tolerable degree of inexactitude the list was probably compiled halfway through – at the point when Castle Black and mayhap all the other castles were built.

Now OK you can argue that the arithmetic changes if you try to squeeze a reputed 998 Lord Commanders into 6,000 years rather than 8,000 years but all of this is why Sam is unhappy with the list and why we’re not allowed to know why.

So far so good, but then we are explicitly told that the Nightfort is the oldest castle on the Wall and twice as old as the others. So how old is that? The Black Gate beneath the fort is as old as the Wall itself. We have discussed in the past the possibility that originally there was just the well-house and that the castle came later, but lets keep it simple and work on the proposition that the Nightfort itself in one form or another has existed on that site since the Wall was built – 8,000 years ago.

A quick calculation on the fingers therefore tells us that the other castles were built or started to be built 4,000 years ago. Whatever way you look at it for the first 4,000 years of the Wall’s existence it had no castles apart from the Nightfort and presumably no garrison patrolling those 300-odd miles of ice. The Watch were in effect no more than gatekeepers.

Then 4,000 years ago a programme of castle-building begins, and it comes at an interesting time.

1. We’re talking about the Andal invasion period and the creation or consolidation of the Seven Kingdoms under Andal rule. Yet against this backdrop massive resources are devoted to building castles along the Wall.
2. The Andals are incomers who neither experienced the full rigours of the Long Night in its awfulness, nor ran from the blue-eyed lot.
3. The North beyond the Neck was never conquered by the Andals, so this massive building programme and the men to carry out the work and then populate the castles can only be there with the consent of the Starks of Winterfell.
4. This consent and oversight is not inconsistent with what we see; a Watch not always commanded but certainly dominated by Starks and castles which serve as barracks but have no defences and cannot form a threat to the Stark kingdom of the North. There is also the business of pledging to play no part in the affairs of the realm, ie; they are allowed to go north for the purpose of manning those castles and the Wall but no other.

So why now, what has changed and why are the Starks of Winterfell co-operating? What are the Andals so afraid of?

And just as final point there’s that list of Lord Commanders discovered by Sam. There are reasonable explanations for his findings, after all he himself complains that he hasn’t had time to look properly and that there might be more as yet undiscovered. Yet that interview with Jon is important. There’s something in there that he says, and we know its important because quite uniquely GRRM tells it twice, first as a Sam POV and then for a second time as a Jon POV.

One of the things Sam talks about is the oldest list of Lord Commanders he’s discovered, with 674 names on it. Now the point about any list of Lord Commanders is that depending on how its arranged it will either begin or end with the current incumbent. Once again, although Jon cuts him off, its easy to work out that it was only compiled about 324 Lord Commanders ago, or if we apply the 8 year average approximately 2600 years ago, which is well within the second phase of the Wall’s existence, but it does beg one more question given that GRRM through Sam draws our attention to it. How reliable is the list and did the compiler use an average of 8 years a pop to reach back to that legendary foundation date?

Again anent the Andals, here’s Lord Rodrik aka Rodrik the reader in A Feast for Crows:

“I have been consulting Haereg’s History of the Ironborn. When last the salt kings and the rock kings met in Kingsmoot, Urron of Orkmont let his axemen loose among them, and Nagga’s ribs turned red with gore. House Greyiron ruled unchosen for a thousand years from that dark day, until the Andals came…

 Asha smiled. “And miss the first kingsmoot called in…how long has it been, Nuncle?”

“Four thousand years, if Haereg can be believed. Half that, if you accept Maester Denestan’s arguments in Questions.”

This of course comes back to Hoster Blackwood’s statement that some masters the Andals didn’t turn up until 2,000 years ago. In this case. Haereg is giving the arrival of the Andals as 3,000 years ago with Maester Denestan arguing a more recent date. That there’s not a consensus is probably down to perspective with the Andals landing in the east and not causing problems for the Ironborn until much later.

Either way where there is consistency is in bringing the Andal arrival forwards and perhaps much further forwards from that 6,000 years bragged of by the Arryns.

On one level the chronology question is straightforward enough. At the outset we were presented with some impossibly mouldy dates; that the First Men came to Westeros 12,000 years ago; that the Long Night fell 8,000 years ago and the Andals arrived between 6,000 and 4,000 years ago. However we’ve since been told through Rodrik the Reader and Hoster Blackwood that some of these dates are nonsense and that the Andals rather more credibly only tooled up about 2,000 years ago and perhaps as recently as 1,500 years ago. No such correction has yet been offered on the earlier events like the Long Night but it would not be unreasonable to apply a similar discount, Thus, we could see the First Men rather more realistically turning up as recently as 6,000 years ago and the Long Night as recently as 4,000 years ago.

But does it go further than that? GRRM himself has gradually revealed the chronology to be wrong, but is it wrong because the historians can’t count, or is it wrong because its false?

[LynnS]

It's odd that the events in the original timeline are 2000 years apart: 12,000, 10,000, 8,000, 6,000 4,000, 2,000 ...  That seems a bit tidy for reality unless there is some recurring event every 2000 that causes an upheaval; how do you account for it?  Otherwise it seems too convenient for a realistic timeline but not out of the question for a chronology of events with a false timeline.    

[Black Crow]

6 minutes ago, LynnS said:

It's odd that the events in the original timeline are 2000 years apart: 12,000, 10,000, 8,000, 6,000 4,000, 2,000 ...  That seems a bit tidy for reality unless there is some recurring event every 2000 that causes an upheaval; how do you account for it?  Otherwise it seems too convenient for a realistic timeline but not out of the question for a chronology of events with a false timeline.    

There certainly doesn't appear to be a common factor underlying these events; its not as if they are tied to long winters or long summers, which are in any case uncertain in pattern and duration. So yes, I'd say that they are far too convenient to be realistic.

The question which then arises is whether GRRM was simply being sloppy in constructing his own history, or whether he was deliberately constructing a false history - or perhaps it was both - but he's certainly engaged in changing it and showing us that what we were first told isn't entirely the truth.

[SirArthur]

3 hours ago, Black Crow said:

As some improbable dates are being bandied about uncritically its worth digging this one out of the archives:

I don't see how the scaling changes our story unless one specific NW commander at a certain very specific date has a deeper meaning. The only real change happens when we can turn events around. Was Winterfell build before the First Man came to the continent ? Did the Andals invade before the pact ? Not many events can even be turned around because the events are build upon another: the first men have to come before the andals, the arm of dorne has to be destroyed before the andal invasion because the andals come with ships.

The only impact I can see in event flipping is the destruction of the arm of dorne as a consequence against the Valyrians. 

This also includes the Nightsfort and its age. It has the same problem as my comparison of Moat cailin with Winterfell: we are told some age but we do not know if it is indeed older than the other castles on the Wall or how old older means. Once we invalidate* one number, we have to invalidate all numbers.  

 

edit: *invalidate numbers with only one original source. If we find a second source we can work from there on. Like Valyrian events we can cross reference. 

[Black Crow]

18 minutes ago, SirArthur said:

edit: *invalidate numbers with only one original source. If we find a second source we can work from there on. Like Valyrian events we can cross reference. 

That's part of the point; we have stuff going on in Essos and beyond of seeming importance; the rise and ultimately the fall of the Valyrian empire just for a start, which may be possible to link with Westerosi events. 

But ultimately as Hoster Blackwood says Past a certain point, all the dates grow hazy and confused, and the clarity of history becomes the fog of legend 

In other words it isn't to be relied on and in reality its GRRM himself who is telling us this.

[wolfmaid7]

On 2/22/2018 at 10:04 AM, Feather Crystal said:

Euron Greyjoy said, "I am the storm, my lord. The first storm, and the last." He is also nicknamed the Crow's Eye. This supports what I have suspected that the Ironborn are the Others.

I don't know if it says that....I took it as meaning that the 3er was opportunistic.I think he's attempting to do what BR and the COTF are doing -snagging possible greenseers.

On 2/22/2018 at 9:23 AM, Brad Stark said:

Ravens connection to the storm god is another hint of a connection to the Children. 

My theory is Bran himself,  in the future,  is the 3 eyed raven.

Its possible but imo Jon seeing him as the weir wood tree tells me that is his position or state.

I wouldn't be surprised if Jon himself is the 3er.We are imo looking for someone who was,is and still to come.

On 2/22/2018 at 0:22 PM, JNR said:

I think so too.

True dat.

Dang I just missed this by a day or so and like 4 pages went by.

[Brad Stark]

6 hours ago, Black Crow said:

As some improbable dates are being bandied about uncritically its worth digging this one out of the archives:

 

Timelines

Anent the timeline business, it’s important to distinguish between a timeline and a chronology. The first sets out a sequence of events and the other takes that sequence and applies dates to it. With certain exceptions the issue here is not the timeline but the dates and that issue rests not on the fertile imaginations of those here present, but in what GRRM himself has said and very largely in text at that.

In the beginning we were told that men first came to Westeros 12,000 years ago, that the Pact was concluded 10,000 years ago and that the Wall and the Watch date from 8,000 years ago, while the Andals turned up in the Vale 6,000 years ago. There was also an alternative date of 4,000 years offered for the coming of the Andals but this isn’t necessarily a contradiction because as the World Book makes plain there was no conquest like that enacted by Aegon but rather a succession of different groups at different times and different places.

Then we get Rodrik the Reader and Hoster Blackwood, with the first rather precisely dating their arrival by reference to the last Kingsmoot as just 1,500 years ago, while Hoster rather more moderately explains:

Only no one knows when the Andals crossed the narrow sea. The True History says four thousand years have passed since then, but some masters claim that it was only two. Past a certain point, all the dates grow hazy and confused, and the clarity of history becomes the fog of legend.

So let’s play safe and go for Hoster’s 2,000 years ago. It’s not unreasonable in itself but it does have an immediate impact on the earlier chronology in that it suddenly increases the gap between the supposed date of the Long Night and the arrival of the Andals from 2,000 years to 6,000 years. It’s surely reasonable therefore to infer that the Long Night was also, proportionately nearer in time and indeed we have now have references in the World Book to it occurring 6,000 years rather than 8,000 years ago.

Now there are two immediate points arising from this. Clearly it was not contemporary with the supposed arrival of the Andals in the Vale 6,000 years ago, but if the Andals did in fact turn up 4,000 years ago then the 2,000 year gap is preserved. So far so good, but does that therefore mean that if there is a solid tradition that the Andals came 2,000 years after the Long Night? If so then the Long Night could be as recent as only 4,000 years ago.

Now turn to the Watch. Sam as we know is unhappy about what he finds in the records, and remember once again this passage is important enough to be told from two different POVs:

The oldest histories we have were written after the Andals came to Westeros. The First Men only left us runes on rocks, so everything we think we know about the Age of Heroes and the Dawn Age and the Long Night comes from accounts set down by septons thousands of years later. There are archmaesters at the Citadel who question all of it. The old histories are full of kings who reigned for hundreds of years, and knights riding around a thousand years before there were knights. You know the tales, Brandon the Builder, Symeon Star-eyes, Knight’s King…we say that you’re the nine-hundred-and-ninety-eighth Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch, but the oldest list I’ve found shows six hundred seventy-four commanders, which suggests that it was written during-“

“Long ago,” Jon broke in…

According to legend the Wall was built 8,000 years ago at the end of the Long Night and has been manned by the Watch ever since. Jon Snow is reckoned to be the 998^th Lord Commander which would imply a very reasonable average of 8 years for each of his predecessors. Bring that forward to 6,000 years and the average drops to an average of 6 years apiece, while 4,000 years ago…

But there’s more to it than that. Why was Sam cut off? Because the list was written during what? Evidently something that would invalidate the chronology. Let’s look again at the list. Now the point about any list of Lord Commanders is that depending on how its arranged it will either begin or end with the current incumbent. Once again, although Jon cuts him off, it’s easy to work out that it was only compiled about 324 Lord Commanders ago, or if we apply the 8 year average approximately 2600 years ago.

And that’s where it really gets interesting, because let’s stick with the World Book date of 6,000 years ago for the Long Night and the foundation of the Wall. That means, allowing for a tolerable degree of inexactitude the list was probably compiled halfway through – at the point when Castle Black and mayhap all the other castles were built.

Now OK you can argue that the arithmetic changes if you try to squeeze a reputed 998 Lord Commanders into 6,000 years rather than 8,000 years but all of this is why Sam is unhappy with the list and why we’re not allowed to know why.

So far so good, but then we are explicitly told that the Nightfort is the oldest castle on the Wall and twice as old as the others. So how old is that? The Black Gate beneath the fort is as old as the Wall itself. We have discussed in the past the possibility that originally there was just the well-house and that the castle came later, but lets keep it simple and work on the proposition that the Nightfort itself in one form or another has existed on that site since the Wall was built – 8,000 years ago.

A quick calculation on the fingers therefore tells us that the other castles were built or started to be built 4,000 years ago. Whatever way you look at it for the first 4,000 years of the Wall’s existence it had no castles apart from the Nightfort and presumably no garrison patrolling those 300-odd miles of ice. The Watch were in effect no more than gatekeepers.

Then 4,000 years ago a programme of castle-building begins, and it comes at an interesting time.

1. We’re talking about the Andal invasion period and the creation or consolidation of the Seven Kingdoms under Andal rule. Yet against this backdrop massive resources are devoted to building castles along the Wall.
2. The Andals are incomers who neither experienced the full rigours of the Long Night in its awfulness, nor ran from the blue-eyed lot.
3. The North beyond the Neck was never conquered by the Andals, so this massive building programme and the men to carry out the work and then populate the castles can only be there with the consent of the Starks of Winterfell.
4. This consent and oversight is not inconsistent with what we see; a Watch not always commanded but certainly dominated by Starks and castles which serve as barracks but have no defences and cannot form a threat to the Stark kingdom of the North. There is also the business of pledging to play no part in the affairs of the realm, ie; they are allowed to go north for the purpose of manning those castles and the Wall but no other.

So why now, what has changed and why are the Starks of Winterfell co-operating? What are the Andals so afraid of?

And just as final point there’s that list of Lord Commanders discovered by Sam. There are reasonable explanations for his findings, after all he himself complains that he hasn’t had time to look properly and that there might be more as yet undiscovered. Yet that interview with Jon is important. There’s something in there that he says, and we know its important because quite uniquely GRRM tells it twice, first as a Sam POV and then for a second time as a Jon POV.

One of the things Sam talks about is the oldest list of Lord Commanders he’s discovered, with 674 names on it. Now the point about any list of Lord Commanders is that depending on how its arranged it will either begin or end with the current incumbent. Once again, although Jon cuts him off, its easy to work out that it was only compiled about 324 Lord Commanders ago, or if we apply the 8 year average approximately 2600 years ago, which is well within the second phase of the Wall’s existence, but it does beg one more question given that GRRM through Sam draws our attention to it. How reliable is the list and did the compiler use an average of 8 years a pop to reach back to that legendary foundation date?

Again anent the Andals, here’s Lord Rodrik aka Rodrik the reader in A Feast for Crows:

“I have been consulting Haereg’s History of the Ironborn. When last the salt kings and the rock kings met in Kingsmoot, Urron of Orkmont let his axemen loose among them, and Nagga’s ribs turned red with gore. House Greyiron ruled unchosen for a thousand years from that dark day, until the Andals came…

 Asha smiled. “And miss the first kingsmoot called in…how long has it been, Nuncle?”

“Four thousand years, if Haereg can be believed. Half that, if you accept Maester Denestan’s arguments in Questions.”

This of course comes back to Hoster Blackwood’s statement that some masters the Andals didn’t turn up until 2,000 years ago. In this case. Haereg is giving the arrival of the Andals as 3,000 years ago with Maester Denestan arguing a more recent date. That there’s not a consensus is probably down to perspective with the Andals landing in the east and not causing problems for the Ironborn until much later.

Either way where there is consistency is in bringing the Andal arrival forwards and perhaps much further forwards from that 6,000 years bragged of by the Arryns.

On one level the chronology question is straightforward enough. At the outset we were presented with some impossibly mouldy dates; that the First Men came to Westeros 12,000 years ago; that the Long Night fell 8,000 years ago and the Andals arrived between 6,000 and 4,000 years ago. However we’ve since been told through Rodrik the Reader and Hoster Blackwood that some of these dates are nonsense and that the Andals rather more credibly only tooled up about 2,000 years ago and perhaps as recently as 1,500 years ago. No such correction has yet been offered on the earlier events like the Long Night but it would not be unreasonable to apply a similar discount, Thus, we could see the First Men rather more realistically turning up as recently as 6,000 years ago and the Long Night as recently as 4,000 years ago.

But does it go further than that? GRRM himself has gradually revealed the chronology to be wrong, but is it wrong because the historians can’t count, or is it wrong because its false?

History is written by the Maesters and Septons, with a Pro-Andal viewpoint.  Maybe they prefer to believe they were in Westerous longer than they were.  The important questions is what is the significance of the history being wrong?  Is GRRM just trying to add a level of realism since before modern times, history was a mix of myths and no one agreed what happened when?  Or does this have an impact on the plot?

The castle building on the Wall is something I wanted to see discussed more.  Castle Black is said to be half as old as the NightFort, which is probably not an extremely accurate description.  Still, it seems for half the Wall's existence, the NightFort was the only fort.  How was the Wall manned and defended?  What changed?  And I think we had 2 big changes:

1000 years is a long time, so I think we have to be careful - can we say in our world that against the massive backdrop of the Crusades, resources were devoted to flying Neil Armstrong to the moon?  But something did change.  We have 4000 or so years of an unmanned Wall, then Castle Building and Fortification and a massive build up of military forces for 3000 years, then 300 years of those forces decaying into "a midden heap for all the misfits of the realm."

This goes back to my saying there had to be a real threat being defended by the Wall when Harren's brother was there.  The castle building shows it was not the same threat the Wall was built to defend against.  And that threat disappeared around when Aegon invaded.  So we have a conventional timeline:

1. The First Men come to Westerous and war with the Children
2. The Pact is signed
3. The Long Night and The Wall is built
4. Years of First Men and Children living in relative peace
5. The Andals invade, Castle Black is built
6. Nymeria lands in Dorne
7. Aegon conquors, Harren's brother has 10,000 fighting men on the Wall
8. The Night's watch is an obsolete force of 1000 men, only a scant third can fight

Shifting things around I like:

1. The First Men come to Westerous and war with the Children
2. The Long Night created by the Children and The Wall is built
3. Men give up and sign the Pact

Or:

1. The First Men come to Westerous and war with the Children
2. The Pact is signed
3. The Pact is broken, Children cause The Long Night, men surrender

Lots of different things could have happened for 1-3, but we always get to 4) without much being different.  So did the Andal invasion cause the castle building?  Perhaps the Wall once defended against the Andals to the South.  But that doesn't fit with what we know of the Starks control of the Northeast or the Andal armies being stopped at the Neck. 

Suppose the Andals invading pushed the First Men North, and caused a war with someone North of the Wall.  Or there was already a battle against someone North of the Wall, and the south used castle building technology and culture from the Andals.  This makes more sense, but doesn't really fit with what we know about Wildlings.

And then, did Aegon cause a reduction or elimination of the threat to the North?  We've discussed this before, and we disagree about whether fewer men were sent to the Wall because of Pax Targanya, but we have no reason to believe Aegon actually eliminated any threat to the North.  I still like my theory - a force associated with The Children and Greenseers was eliminated by Harren and/or his brother, and it was something the Targaryans didn't want to fight.

 

 

 

 

[Black Crow]

Its worth bearing in mind that there is no three-eyed crow [and the three-raven exists only in the mummers version] t least not in the physical sense, and that it only appears in dreams, or if you prefer in Bran's imagination, although that said there's no doubt its an avatar used by another party to commune with him.

Now if we say for the sake of argument that it is indeed Bloodraven behind the mask, its easy to see why he should use an avatar. If he were to appear as he really is then for Bran it would quite literally be a nightmare. The crow on the other hand is more... intriguing.

We have of course discussed before whether Bloodraven may himself be aware of the form of the Avatar, which may be quite involuntary but one thing I would suggest is that all we actually get are appearances and conversations in dreams, aimed at enticing Bran into the cave. There's no actual evidence of manipulation of events. 

[Black Crow]

2 minutes ago, Brad Stark said:

And then, did Aegon cause a reduction or elimination of the threat to the North?  We've discussed this before, and we disagree about whether fewer men were sent to the Wall because of Pax Targanya, but we have no reason to believe Aegon actually eliminated any threat to the North.  I still like my theory - a force associated with The Children and Greenseers was eliminated by Harren and/or his brother, and it was something the Targaryans didn't want to fight.

The problem there is that 300 years ago is well within what passes for recorded history in Westeros and while we have stories such as the Manderleys coming north to settle at White Harbor, the fall of House Mudd and so on. We appear to have even more on House Hoare but nowhere is there any mention of such a conflict.

[SirArthur]

14 minutes ago, Brad Stark said:

The castle building on the Wall is something I wanted to see discussed more.  

I don't want to discuss it, because it is a mess. It is not comparable with anything we have in our history, even without the wall itself. The only thing remotely comparable is a pop-culture version of Hadrian's Wall. It lacks supporting towns and routes, it lacks in depth defence ideas and most certainly it lacks fast support forces. And on top of that you have the Night's watch. Usually you settle areas, the Night's watch is not allowed to have children. 

Nobody in our history has ever build a bunch of large castles without any supporting structures around them. The only conclusion I can draw is, that it is an occupation force and the land belongs to someone else. And that is the reason why the area is not settled. There are hints to this, like the lack of gates or trading posts or the caves under Mole's town. The wall can be anything, but the thing it most certainly is not is a border wall in roman style. 

[JNR]

7 hours ago, Black Crow said:

there really is no reason not to suppose that the legends and stories refer to the same event as perceived in different parts of Westeros. In simple terms someone in say Storms End will focus on the breaking of the Arm, while someone in Winterfell will be more concerned about the Neck

I think it's pretty clear these events happened long before there were any First Men as far north as Winterfell or Moat Cailin, though.  Winterfell would not even have existed yet.

You can see this as just a common sense idea of the CotF.  If there were First Men that far north, then it would make no sense to try to split Westeros in half with the Hammer at the Neck... because the First Men would already be well established in both halves.

(This also, of course, suggests that the crannogmen were not First Men.  Because if the myths are right, the CotF grew close to the crannogmen at the exact same time they were trying to protect themselves from the First Men.)

[JNR]

5 hours ago, LynnS said:

It's odd that the events in the original timeline are 2000 years apart: 12,000, 10,000, 8,000, 6,000 4,000, 2,000 ...  That seems a bit tidy for reality

There are major historical events referenced that don't fit the pattern.  For instance, the traditional timeline says Valyria is around 5,000 years old, and that Gendel and Gorne invaded the North about 3,000 years ago.  (That Jon and Ygritte both think this -- coming from two completely different cultures -- is pretty impressive.)

[Black Crow]

11 minutes ago, SirArthur said:

I don't want to discuss it, because it is a mess. It is not comparable with anything we have in our history, even without the wall itself. The only thing remotely comparable is a pop-culture version of Hadrian's Wall. It lacks supporting towns and routes, it lacks in depth defence ideas and most certainly it lacks fast support forces. And on top of that you have the Night's watch. Usually you settle areas, the Night's watch is not allowed to have children. 

Nobody in our history has ever build a bunch of large castles without any supporting structures around them. The only conclusion I can draw is, that it is an occupation force and the land belongs to someone else. And that is the reason why the area is not settled. There are hints to this, like the lack of gates or trading posts or the caves under Mole's town. The wall can be anything, but the thing it most certainly is not is a border wall in roman style. 

Surely that's a pretty good reason to discuss it. WHY, if its supposed to be a bulwark protecting the realms of men against whatever's beyond it, does it not conform to Hadrian's model despite the latter being familiar enough to GRRM for him to cite it as his primary inspiration? 

[Black Crow]

3 minutes ago, JNR said:

  (That Jon and Ygritte both think this -- coming from two completely different cultures -- is pretty impressive.)

I blame Old Nan

[SirArthur]

27 minutes ago, Black Crow said:

Surely that's a pretty good reason to discuss it. WHY, if its supposed to be a bulwark protecting the realms of men against whatever's beyond it, does it not conform to Hadrian's model despite the latter being familiar enough to GRRM for him to cite it as his primary inspiration? 

Because roman border defence is not build for invasion defence. It is build for movement control. The wall is the opposite: it blocks movement in general and is far too huge for the purpose. 

 

edit: To talk a little bit more about the point: the roman defence system explicitly and everywhere has legions AWAY from the border, stationed in the backyard as a reaction force. They are the key forces and the fast reaction forces and the core of the border defence. Not our Wall. Our wall has an overkill wall and some men guarding it. But no solution once the wall is penetrated. The castles are too close to the wall for that purpose. That is the opposite of the roman system. And there are also no hints of large abandoned structures in the gift or the new gift or even further in the south. 

edit2: And that is why for me it is a pop-culture version of Hadrian's Wall and why I think it is a mess to discuss it. I doubt it was GRRM's intention and I will leave it there. If it works in his world, it works in his world. That is fine for me. But I cannot discuss this because it clearly only follow inworld rules.