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Are the extended seasons evidence of time loops?


Melifeather

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Just now, Feather Crystal said:

Now that we've (somewhat) settled days, months, and years on Planetos are about the same as earth, I'd like to hear other's ideas for the erratic seasons.

As GRRM has said... It's Magic. Not your Dungeons and Dragons, Joseph Campbell, adhering to logic within a system style Magic. But GRRM's wild, unpredictable, defying rational or common sense explanation style Magic. Magic that is, actually, Magical... defying, violating, challenging, or ignoring the laws of nature and the natural world. Magic we can't comprehend because it's beyond comprehension, or explanation, or understanding, or even, perhaps, definition and description. 

Beyond the very vague notion of "history repeating itself", there's no time-loops present, to me. Who or what is being looped even? Will ADoS start with Gared, Will and Waymar North of the Wall again? 

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1 hour ago, Unacosamedarisa said:

As GRRM has said... It's Magic. Not your Dungeons and Dragons, Joseph Campbell, adhering to logic within a system style Magic. But GRRM's wild, unpredictable, defying rational or common sense explanation style Magic. Magic that is, actually, Magical... defying, violating, challenging, or ignoring the laws of nature and the natural world. Magic we can't comprehend because it's beyond comprehension, or explanation, or understanding, or even, perhaps, definition and description. 

Beyond the very vague notion of "history repeating itself", there's no time-loops present, to me. Who or what is being looped even? Will ADoS start with Gared, Will and Waymar North of the Wall again? 

I agree it magic, but its not magic just for the sake of magic. Surely there's a reason why it was done?

It could be argued that Ser Waymar Royce repeated the encounter between the Last Hero and the the white walkers: 

  “Now these were the days before the Andals came, and long before the women fled across the narrow sea from the cities of the Rhoyne, and the hundred kingdoms of those times were the kingdoms of the First Men, who had taken these lands from the children of the forest. Yet here and there in the fastness of the woods the children still lived in their wooden cities and hollow hills, and the faces in the trees kept watch. So as cold and death filled the earth, the last hero determined to seek out the children, in the hopes that their ancient magics could win back what the armies of men had lost. He set out into the dead lands with a sword, a horse, a dog, and a dozen companions. 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 his sword froze so hard the blade snapped when he tried to use it. And the Others smelled the hot blood in him, and came silent on his trail, stalking him with packs of pale white spiders big as hounds—”

The Last Hero's sword "snapped when he tried to use it". Sounds a bit like how it went with Ser Waymar:

  Ser Waymar Royce found his fury. “For Robert!” he shouted, and he came up snarling, lifting the frost-covered longsword with both hands and swinging it around in a flat sidearm slash with all his weight behind it. The Other’s parry was almost lazy. When the blades touched, the steel shattered. A scream echoed through the forest night, and the longsword shivered into a hundred brittle pieces, the shards scattering like a rain of needles. Royce went to his knees, shrieking, and covered his eyes. Blood welled between his fingers.

 

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2 hours ago, Unacosamedarisa said:

Beyond the very vague notion of "history repeating itself", there's no time-loops present, to me. Who or what is being looped even?

There's a very long list of events repeating itself. Upthread I provided the abducted maiden event that all echo Durran Godsgrief's marriage to Elenei, of which I have noted six separate instances not including Lyanna, a missing Ashara, and a near missed attack on Elia. And I suspect there are more. Ygritte, Jeyne, Arya, Sansa, Myrcella, and Tasha were all abducted during the most current summer.

We are also witnessing a reversal of the conquests. The order of migration and conquest of Westeros are: 1) the First Men, 2) the Andals and their Faith of the Seven, 3) the Rhoynar marriage alliance with Dorne, and 4) the Targaryens. 

So what is the current status of Westeros by the end of Dance? 1) Robert Baratheon (an Andal) overthrew the Targaryen regime. 2) After Robert's death then Joffrey's, Tommen's reign (still Andal) is in jeopardy of losing the Iron Throne to a theocracy enforced by the Faith Militant. 3) Arianne is on her way to Griffin's Roost to propose a marriage alliance between Dorne and fAegon VI aka "Young Griff" (the Rhoynar) who was brought to Westeros by Jon Connington by way of the river Rhoyne. The last repeat conquest will be a return to 4) First Men rule. How will this be achieved? I have a couple-three ideas, but recall how the First Men lost their supremacy in the first place: Torrhen Stark knelt to Aegon the Conqueror. If we are reversing history, the First Men have to take the Iron Throne, and then not yield to dragons. 

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36 minutes ago, Feather Crystal said:

There's a very long list of events repeating itself. Upthread I provided the abducted maiden event that all echo Durran Godsgrief's marriage to Elenei, of which I have noted six separate instances not including Lyanna, a missing Ashara, and a near missed attack on Elia. And I suspect there are more. Ygritte, Jeyne, Arya, Sansa, Myrcella, and Tasha were all abducted during the most current summer.

It's nothing like the Doctor Strange example you yourself used. If you have a plot thread where Doctor Strange fights Dormammu and gets killed and then Doctor Strange fights Dormammu and gets killed and then Doctor Strange fights Dormammu and gets killed and so on and so on, then, please, find something that actually repeats over and over with the same actors (so, if with kidnapped maidens - then you need the same maiden being kidnapped time and again by the same perpetrators). And if not, then you need to rethink your theory.

Because right now, it looks like an ancient (literally!) literary trope being maybe a little overused. Damsels get in distress, what else's new?

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32 minutes ago, Ferocious Veldt Roarer said:

It's nothing like the Doctor Strange example you yourself used. If you have a plot thread where Doctor Strange fights Dormammu and gets killed and then Doctor Strange fights Dormammu and gets killed and then Doctor Strange fights Dormammu and gets killed and so on and so on, then, please, find something that actually repeats over and over with the same actors (so, if with kidnapped maidens - then you need the same maiden being kidnapped time and again by the same perpetrators). And if not, then you need to rethink your theory.

Because right now, it looks like an ancient (literally!) literary trope being maybe a little overused. Damsels get in distress, what else's new?

I used Dr Strange as an example. I'll leave the Marvel analysis to @Pretty Pig  I was using the example of how putting time into a continual loop was an effective weapon to defeat Dormammu - a powerful ruler of an alternate dimension. Why does anything have to be exactly like an example? :dunno:   Does magic have parameters? History itself is what is continually repeated, and my theory proposes that its locked into an ouroboros - the dragon that eats it's own tail. You're missing the point if you think I'm promoting a fantasy trope of damsels in distress.

 

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13 minutes ago, Feather Crystal said:

I used Dr Strange as an example. I'll leave the Marvel analysis to @Pretty Pig  I was using the example of how putting time into a continual loop was an effective weapon to defeat Dormammu - a powerful ruler of an alternate dimension. Why does anything have to be exactly like an example?

Then use a better example. Because "this thing is like that another thing, which is completely unlike this thing" isn't completely convincing.

Or, considering that the similes you yourself pick are so blatantly dissimilar, maybe rethink if your theory has legs to stand on.

13 minutes ago, Feather Crystal said:

 :dunno:   Does magic have parameters? History itself is what is continually repeated, and my theory proposes that its locked into an ouroboros - the dragon that eats it's own tail. You're missing the point if you think I'm promoting a fantasy trope of damsels in distress.

Huh?

How did you interpret anything I wrote as me suggesting that you're "promoting a fantasy trope of damsels in distress"? :dunno: 

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1 hour ago, Ferocious Veldt Roarer said:

please, find something that actually repeats over and over with the same actors (so, if with kidnapped maidens - then you need the same maiden being kidnapped time and again by the same perpetrators). And if not, then you need to rethink your theory.

Why do they have to be the same "actors" repeating the same events? Why can't it be the same events repeated with different actors? 

The Cyvasse game mentioned in the books is actually an overview of how the history loop works. 

Cyvasse is played on a board which changes from game to game. The players arrange the tiles on the board with a screen in the middle so neither player can see how the other arranges their board. Amongst the squares where players can place themselves are mountains. In turn, the players move their pieces across the board. The dragon is the most powerful piece in the game. While it is not exactly known how many pieces each player has of each different kind, one player has multiple elephants. The goal of the game is to "kill" the King. 

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13 hours ago, kissdbyfire said:

No, not seasons but how long it takes for the planet to revolve around the sun. Martin has talked about this ages ago.

 

MEASURING TIME

[Summary of initial mail: The people in the books count their ages in years. These seem to have the same lengths as our years. But ours come from the seasons we have: The seasons in the seven kingdoms are much longer. How do they come to this way of counting time?]

Years are not based on seasons, even in the real world. They are based on how long it takes the earth to revolve around the sun... i.e., on astronomy, the position of the sun and moon and stars. Ancient monuments like Stonehenge and Newgrange served astronomical purposes as well as religious, and helped measure the passage of years, the summer and winter solstices, etc.

 

GRRM has this one wrong. Human societies all used seasons to track the passage of time. Astronomy was a separate discipline, and the only reason it could be used to track time is if you track constellations, the moon, or planets. But that requires the earlier knowledge of already knowing how long a year is. As stated here, but there is still an issue:

 

18 hours ago, Therae said:

They could measure the year by using the position of the constellations as a reference. We know they study astronomy and that they have twelve houses defined, so it seems like they have a pretty reasonable astronomical calendar.

The next issue is that observing the skies takes a clear day. Winter is rarely clear, so most astronomy was done in summer in the ancient world. Furthermore, the discovery of the correlation between seasons recurring and constellations recurring is not an easy one to make - unless you already know what you are looking for. It wasn’t until Copernicus that our society finally realised that the Earth revolves around anything - and even then, that was a theory only firmly proven with the advent of powerful telescopes.

Most astronomy uses fixed regular and fast objects. This is why the moon gives us a month. Planets like Venus and Jupiter, conspicuous and easy to spot, also have recurring patterns.

BUT, and this is again where GRRM’s reasoning falls down, only the moon is regular every time. Some constelations drift and recur on three or four year cycles - they are, after all, made of many distant objects. Some planets will rise and fall over a decade long cycle in our sky and from our perspective as they go through an illiptical orbital plane.

The stars also drift over time. To use the twelve houses as an example; they are different in the northern and Southern Hemispheres. Furthermore, they have drifted considerably since first being mapped out and no longer correspond to their original dates. Using them as a calendar would take an update every few centuries.

To say nothing of the fact that even when, in real life, the period of the earth’s orbit was know, the calendar was still wrong. Why did Pope Gregory change the Julian calendar? Because the seasons no longer quite matched what they were meant to. Over time, they were slightly off.

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17 hours ago, Feather Crystal said:

It could be argued that Ser Waymar Royce repeated the encounter between the Last Hero and the the white walkers

It could be argued, badly. Where were his 12 companions? Where were the Giants and Wights that the Last Hero fought? Was he going to see the Children when they killed him? afaik he and the others were just on a ranging, looking for Wildlings. In this "loop" was Waymar the Last Hero, and he's dead, so humanity's screwed? When did this loop start, when does it end? Your links between events are just too tenuous for me... The Others magic allows them to wield cold as a weapon, and that lets them break steel, that's why Dragon or Valyrian steel will be important for the end game. But, every time they snap a sword they aren't repeating the Last Hero's encounter with them. 

Same with everything else... swords break, maids are abducted, Kings die. These are things that happen in a continent stretching, feudal set, fantasy epic. 

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17 hours ago, Clegane'sPup said:

Spin it to me, please. Thamks.

I have been trying! :P

16 hours ago, Dorian Martell's son said:

Yes, because different "actors" mean it isn't looping time but repeating history in a fantasy setting 

Exactly what I have been saying! 

15 hours ago, Yukle said:

GRRM has this one wrong. Human societies all used seasons to track the passage of time. Astronomy was a separate discipline, and the only reason it could be used to track time is if you track constellations, the moon, or planets. But that requires the earlier knowledge of already knowing how long a year is. As stated here, but there is still an issue:

 

The next issue is that observing the skies takes a clear day. Winter is rarely clear, so most astronomy was done in summer in the ancient world. Furthermore, the discovery of the correlation between seasons recurring and constellations recurring is not an easy one to make - unless you already know what you are looking for. It wasn’t until Copernicus that our society finally realised that the Earth revolves around anything - and even then, that was a theory only firmly proven with the advent of powerful telescopes.

Most astronomy uses fixed regular and fast objects. This is why the moon gives us a month. Planets like Venus and Jupiter, conspicuous and easy to spot, also have recurring patterns.

BUT, and this is again where GRRM’s reasoning falls down, only the moon is regular every time. Some constelations drift and recur on three or four year cycles - they are, after all, made of many distant objects. Some planets will rise and fall over a decade long cycle in our sky and from our perspective as they go through an illiptical orbital plane.

The stars also drift over time. To use the twelve houses as an example; they are different in the northern and Southern Hemispheres. Furthermore, they have drifted considerably since first being mapped out and no longer correspond to their original dates. Using them as a calendar would take an update every few centuries.

To say nothing of the fact that even when, in real life, the period of the earth’s orbit was know, the calendar was still wrong. Why did Pope Gregory change the Julian calendar? Because the seasons no longer quite matched what they were meant to. Over time, they were slightly off.

Exactly so. I am familiar with the precession of the equinoxes, and ancient man was too if the Bible is any indication. Taurus, Aries, Pisces, and Aquarius. All mentioned in the Bible. The passage about the golden Bull were people that reverted to worshipping the outgoing Taurus rather than moving into Aries the Ram when Moses came down with the stone tablets. When Aries gave way to the age of Pisces we read about Jesus and his two fish, and when his disciples asked him who they should follow after he's gone - he tells them to look for a man bearing a pitcher of water (Aquarius).

15 hours ago, Quoth the raven, said:

Time and climate are cyclical, according to Maester Rigney.

"Archmaester Rigney once wrote that history is a wheel, for the nature of man is fundamentally unchanging. What has happened before will perforce happen again, he said..."

 

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4 hours ago, Unacosamedarisa said:

It could be argued, badly. Where were his 12 companions? Where were the Giants and Wights that the Last Hero fought? Was he going to see the Children when they killed him? afaik he and the others were just on a ranging, looking for Wildlings. In this "loop" was Waymar the Last Hero, and he's dead, so humanity's screwed? When did this loop start, when does it end? Your links between events are just too tenuous for me... The Others magic allows them to wield cold as a weapon, and that lets them break steel, that's why Dragon or Valyrian steel will be important for the end game. But, every time they snap a sword they aren't repeating the Last Hero's encounter with them. 

Same with everything else... swords break, maids are abducted, Kings die. These are things that happen in a continent stretching, feudal set, fantasy epic. 

By the time the Last Hero finds the Others his companions are dead. We are possibly being given what happened to the Last Hero when Ser Waymar fights them and dies? Perhaps the Last Hero did die? Bran said the Children helped him. Did they help him by resurrecting him to a different sort of life like Coldhands, or Beric Dondarrion, or Catelyn Stark? 

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16 hours ago, The Fattest Leech said:

Are you Starlady??? :D

Hello! I am very happy to see you here! I was so inspired by some of your comments on mirrors that I recycled something you said to make a comment about Euron:

Euron represents the ugly underbelly of man, the reflection of one's self in dark distorting mirrors where we glimpse things that disturb us, things that we did not really want to look at.

The wheel of time or in this story, the wheel of history is like the ouroboros or dragon eating it's own tail. History is trapped in a continual loop. Bloodraven's time on the wheel is setting (or fading) while Euron's time is rising. Training Bran to take his place is Bloodraven's plan to interrupt the wheel or at the very least try to manipulate it. I'm thinking the erratic seasons are side effects of attempts to manipulate the looping historic events. Weirwood trees have no concept of time...past, present, future, its all the same to a tree, but the greenseer sees all the historic events that have happened, are happening, and will happen. A greenseer cannot change the past, but they can control who "history" happens to. It's like playing Cyvasse. The players set up the board and lay out their pieces behind a screen. After every piece is in place the screen is lifted and play begins...the same historic events play out, but different playing pieces and different players affect who wins the game.

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