Norse Mythology and ASOIAF

[LiveFirstDieLater]

1 hour ago, By Odin's Beard said:

The story of the Faith of the Seven is alerting us to a foreign Black planet-like object in our solar system, that is a wanderer from far off places, and is just sort of drifting around.

Neptune, Uranus, and Pluto can only be seen with very sophisticated telescopes, which they do not possess on Planetos.  So we limit the planet count to: Mercury, 2 for Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and the Stranger. 

"the red wanderer that septons preached was sacred to their Smith up here was called the Thief."  For some reason Mars is the Smith, just to show us that the parallels with Greek mythology are not exact.

 

 

Uranus can be seen without any optics, and Lewin clearly has more than simple optics... as it is an early plot point. 

Again, I have to ask, is the theory that Planetos is really earth, because you are going to totally lose me there... I don’t see any reason to believe that the constellations described are real world constellations any more than I would expect real world planets circling sol to appear in the story. 

Having rough parallels for literary reasons I completely understand...

And if this story took place in an earth equivalent solar system, that would rule out multiple moons right?

[Fun Guy from Yuggoth]

5 minutes ago, The Fattest Leech said:

but you know what fire breathing "ship" does blot out the sun and create shadows in ASOIAF? Dragons. Drogon especially.

I think you and I are in agreement here.  There is a lot of foreshadowing that the sun is going to be eclipsed again.

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But most dreaded of all is the shadow-wing, a nocturnal monster whose black scales and wings make him all but invisible...until he descends out of the darkness to tear apart his prey.

 

I drew the comparison earlier with Freyr's magical flying ship Skidbladner from Norse mythology.  In one old book it is called "the ship of the universe."  and it is described as being a very intricately-crafted ship, that could disappear when not in use.  Viking longships are called Drakkar (dragon) longships, and another mythic one was called a "winged dragon" that could outpace an eagle.   

I think George is running with the idea that Norse myth was really ancient aliens.

In the Qartheen moon event, a celestial body eclipsed the sun and dragons fell to the Earth. 

The origin of dragons is also traced back to the Great Empire.  The Great Empire was founded by the God-on-Earth who descended from heaven from a spaceship that blots out the sun.  Black dragons also blot out the sun.  Black dragons carry a rider.  They have the same origins and same properties.  Dragons have no gender, the Stranger has no gender. 

The Stranger emerges out of the darkness also.

 

[White Ravens]

18 hours ago, By Odin's Beard said:

 

The spaceship(s) is a way to explain the eclipses that have occurred, the arrival of the God-on-Earth, the Qartheen moon event, the Long Night, and the upcoming Long Night.  It is a wanderer (planet) from far off places.  It can also explain the irregular seasons.

The seven planets are:

 

1: Mercury is Warrior

 

2: Venus morningstar is the Maiden

 

3: Venus evenstar is the Mother

 

4:Mars is the Smith (red wanderer) (Ares)

 

5:Jupiter is the Father (Jupiter)

 

6:Saturn is the Crone (Cronus)

 

7:The Stranger

 

 

 

2 hours ago, By Odin's Beard said:

The story of the Faith of the Seven is alerting us to a foreign Black planet-like object in our solar system, that is a wanderer from far off places, and is just sort of drifting around.

Neptune, Uranus, and Pluto can only be seen with very sophisticated telescopes, which they do not possess on Planetos.  So we limit the planet count to: Mercury, 2 for Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and the Stranger. 

"the red wanderer that septons preached was sacred to their Smith up here was called the Thief."  For some reason Mars is the Smith, just to show us that the parallels with Greek mythology are not exact.

 

 

In earths antiquity they believed that the planets and their movements in the sky directly influenced things on earth.  Eventually people started taking note of the positions of the planets as they all passed through the night sky against a backdrop of stars and constellation.  The planets followed the same path through the sky as the moon and the sun.  As the planets move along this path (the ecliptic) they always pass through the same twelve constellations.  These constellations are known as the Zodiac.  The belief that lives and events can be predicted based on the activities and influences of the planets as they pass through the constellations of the Zodiac is called astrology.  Astrologers make charts by determining where all of the planets were during a specific event (like when a king is born) and make predictions based on that.  As you mentioned above they couldn't see Neptune, Uranus or Pluto because they didn't have telescopes and they didn't know that they exist.  But they included the sun and moon as planets as well and they were the most influential (naturally).  So  wouldn't the Faith and other religions tend to do the same thing?

 

Your Seven Planets:                                                                                 

1: Mercury is Warrior                                                                                

2: Venus morningstar is the Maiden                                                         

3: Venus evenstar is the Mother                                                              

4:Mars is the Smith (red wanderer) (Ares)                                               

5:Jupiter is the Father (Jupiter)                                                                

6:Saturn is the Crone (Cronus)6                                                              

7:The Stranger           

 

My Seven Planets:

1:  Sun - Father  

2:  Moon - Mother  

3:  Mercury - Crone  

4:  Venus - Maiden       

5:  Mars - Smith    

6:  Jupiter - Warrior        

7:  Saturn - Stranger                                                   

 

I only counted Venus once .  Ancient astronomers on earth realized that Venus was associated with the rising and setting sun so they knew that the morningstar and the evenstar were both the same thing and I suspect the maesters are just as smart.  The word planet actually means "wanderer" because the stars and constellations are fixed and constant but the planets move and wander among them (although only along the predictable line of the ecliptic) all of these planets are wanderers in a sense.  I chose to make Saturn represent the stranger because it is faint and subtle making it harder to spot and observe against the backdrop of stars it passes through as it slowly makes its way across the night sky.  I didn't include your dark wandering planet as the stranger because I don't believe it exists in the books (or spaceships).

[Fun Guy from Yuggoth]

10 minutes ago, LiveFirstDieLater said:

Uranus can be seen without any optics

It was discovered in 1781, they would have had better-than-medieval optics by then. But I quoted Luwin's telescope in this thread earlier, I think he was keeping an eye on the Stranger.

 

12 minutes ago, LiveFirstDieLater said:

Again, I have to ask, is the theory that Planetos is really earth, because you are going to totally lose me there... I don’t see any reason to believe that the constellations described are real world constellations any more than I would expect real world planets circling sol to appear in the story.

And if this story took place in an earth equivalent solar system, that would rule out multiple moons right?

We covered this in another thread, maybe you weren't there.  But yes, our Earth. 

the Blue Eye of the the Ice Dragon's rider is the star blue Vega, which was the North Star 10,000 years ago.  and will be the North Star again in ~10,000 years.

The Crone's Lantern is the Pleiades,

the Sword of the Morning is Cygnus, bright star in the hilt is Deneb.

 

Just the one moon.  The Qartheen moon was a spaceship --I think it is a reference to "that's not a moon, its a spacestation" from Star Wars.

[Fun Guy from Yuggoth]

13 minutes ago, White Ravens said:

 

My Seven Planets:

1:  Sun - Father  

2:  Moon - Mother  

3:  Mercury - Crone  

4:  Venus - Maiden       

5:  Mars - Smith    

6:  Jupiter - Warrior        

7:  Saturn - Stranger                                                   

 

I only counted Venus once :).  Ancient astronomers on earth realized that Venus was associated with the rising and setting sun so they knew that the morningstar and the evenstar were both the same thing and I suspect the maesters are just as smart.  The word planet actually means "wanderer" because the stars and constellations are fixed and constant but the planets move and wander among them (although only along the predictable line of the ecliptic) all of these planets are wanderers in a sense.  I chose to make Saturn represent the stranger because it is faint and subtle making it harder to spot and observe against the backdrop of stars it passes through as it slowly makes its way across the night sky.  I didn't include your dark wandering planet as the stranger because I don't believe it exists in the books (or spaceships).

Saturn is actually pretty bright, and they called the Stranger always the outcast, unknowable, from far off places, black, and unlike the rest of the planets.  None of that fits Saturn.

The venus morningstar/evenstar is just for storytelling, to emphasize the maiden/mother story, the maester's knew they were the same planet. 

I am not sure why, but the ancients always thought the moon and the sun were different from the planets.

[White Ravens]

3 minutes ago, By Odin's Beard said:

I am not sure why, but the ancients always thought the moon and the sun were different from the planets.

The ancients also thought that the sun was in orbit around earth.  It even follows the same path through the sky as the moon and planets. 

[Fun Guy from Yuggoth]

" Stranger's half-human face . . . if not the Stranger come to judge them?"

" The Stranger's face was the face of death. "

" the Stranger, who was death. "

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"Him of Many Faces."

"And many names," the kindly man had said. "In Qohor he is the Black Goat, in Yi Ti the Lion of Night, in Westeros the Stranger. All men must bow to him in the end, no matter if they worship the Seven or the Lord of Light, the Moon Mother or the Drowned God or the Great Shepherd. All mankind belongs to him . . . else somewhere in the world would be a folk who lived forever. Do you know of any folk who live forever?"

"No," she would answer. "All men must die."

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the Seven watched over their children wherever they might wander. Ser Barristan had said a prayer to the Crone, beseeching her to grant him a little of her wisdom, so that he might lead his men to victory. To his old friend the Warrior he prayed for strength. He asked the Mother for her mercy, should he fall. The Father he entreated to watch over his lads, these half-trained squires who were the closest things to sons that he would ever know. Finally he had bowed his head to the Stranger. "You come for all men in the end,"

The Kindly man says the Stranger is the Lion of Night, the god of death, the only real god.

The Fattest Leech quoted Martin in another thread, that he thinks it is odd that more people don't worship death, since he is the only god that follows through with his promises.

[kissdbyfire]

This is what Martin had to say when Dance came out:

 

Q: This may be a silly question, but: When you think of the world you’ve created, where seasons last for years, where is it? It is another planet?

M: It’s what Tolkien wrote was “the secondary world.” It’s not another planet. It’s Earth. But it’s not our Earth. If you wanted to do a science fiction approach, you could call it an alternate world, but that sounds too science fictional. Tolkien really pioneered that with Middle Earth. He put in some vague things about tying it to our past, but that doesn’t really hold up. I have people constantly writing me with science fiction theories about the seasons — “It’s a double star system with a black dwarf and that would explain–” It’s fantasy, man, it’s magic.

[LiveFirstDieLater]

2 hours ago, By Odin's Beard said:

It was discovered in 1781, they would have had better-than-medieval optics by then. But I quoted Luwin's telescope in this thread earlier, I think he was keeping an eye on the Stranger.

William Herschel discovered it was a planet... he didn’t “discover it”... you can see it with the naked eye. It doesn’t seem like people on Planetos know what planets are, so the distinction is sort of moot.

I understand the idea of using the ancient definitions of fixed stars and moving stars... but then you had seven moving stars to work with, the five proper planets you listed but also the sun and the moon.

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Maester Luwin had taught him his stars as a boy in Winterfell; he had learned the names of the twelve houses of heaven and the rulers of each; he could find the sevenwanderers sacred to the Faith

It seemed to me Lewin was looking at the comet through his telescope. But there is no reason to think the red comet is one of the wanderers.

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We covered this in another thread, maybe you weren't there.  But yes, our Earth. 

Hmmmmm... astronomical parallels for literary purposes I can stomach, I just don’t see the story going full planet of the apes...

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the Blue Eye of the the Ice Dragon's rider is the star blue Vega, which was the North Star 10,000 years ago.  and will be the North Star again in ~10,000 years.

The Crone's Lantern is the Pleiades,

the Sword of the Morning is Cygnus, bright star in the hilt is Deneb.

I’m not saying there aren’t parallels, and could even see it being left open to speculation... but I have a hard time imagining this reveal appearing in the series. Still the associations are fun.

And since this is a mythology thread, how about this one:

The King’s Crown, is known to the Wildlings as the Cradel (a Child?), as I said before I believe King’s blood to be that of descendents with Children blood. 

I would equate this with Orion’s Belt.

Orion’s myth is one  we don’t have a difinitive version of... in some cases he is a giant or a child of men or a child of gods... he is described as “earth born”. With his dog Sirius, he was beloved of the dawn and a slayer of great beasts. His constelation’s rising and setting with the sun are used to reckon the year.

He could “walk on water”, and is responsible for the current strait between Italy and Sicily (arm of dorne?). He got drunk and raped/slept with a princess. Her dad, Oenopion, “wine drinker”, blinds him and casts him out. Hephaestus, the crippled smith god, sends Cedalion, his former tutor, a dwarf (compared with Prometheus). Cedalion rides on Orion’s shoulder and directs him into the east toward the rising sun and the dawn, restoring his sight. Orion goes to seek vengeance, but Oenopion is hidden in an underground fortress (can’t make this shit up)... eventually Orion thretens to kill every animal on earth. Naturally Gaia, Mother Earth, objects and sends a giant scorpion to kill him (Scorpio). The scorpion succeeds... Another version has the reason for his death being that Eos, the dawn, fell in love with him... and he is associated with not just Scorpio, but said to be chasing the Pleiades (crones lantern? wisdom?) and having dogs or wolves at his feet (Canis Major and Canis Minor)

Night King?

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Just the one moon.  The Qartheen moon was a spaceship --I think it is a reference to "that's not a moon, its a spacestation" from Star Wars.

It’s a trap

[Fun Guy from Yuggoth]

44 minutes ago, kissdbyfire said:

 I have people constantly writing me with science fiction theories about the seasons — “It’s a double star system with a black dwarf and that would explain–” It’s fantasy, man, it’s magic.

Yeah but, the 1,000 worlds have planets with messed up seasons and long winters that are explainable by science and natural phenomena, so I would say that is kind of a misdirect or a red herring.  In Bitterblooms, Morgan's magic was just unexplained science.  Now you say "he has said this isn't the 1,000 worlds universe" and I say "correct, but it shares so many parallels and plot ideas with his other stories, that it might as well be."

 

39 minutes ago, LiveFirstDieLater said:

William Herschel discovered it was a planet... he didn’t “discover it”... you can see it with the naked eye.

"Uranus is visible to the naked eye, but it was never recognized as a planet by ancient observers because of its dimness and slow orbit.   Uranus had been observed on many occasions before its recognition as a planet, but it was generally mistaken for a star " 

I learned something new.

43 minutes ago, LiveFirstDieLater said:

I just don’t see the story going full planet of the apes...

Just so we are clear, it would be "full reverse planet of the apes"  Since we were here the whole time, it is in the past, and the aliens came to us.

The bit about Valyrian Lemurs has got to be a clue about this.

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These lemurs are said to have silver-white fur and purple eyes, and are sometimes called Little Valyrians.

Valyrians were genetically engineered from these lemurs.

Dany says that:

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Viserys had oft claimed that Targaryens were untroubled by the pestilences that afflicted common men, and so far as she could tell, it was true. She could remember being cold and hungry and afraid, but never sick.

Targaryens are descendants of the Great Empire, who have magical King's Blood--enhanced DNA, fire-resistance, disease-resistance, dragon-bonding ability.

[LiveFirstDieLater]

21 minutes ago, By Odin's Beard said:

Uranus is visible to the naked eye, but it was never recognized as a planet by ancient observers because of its dimness and slow orbit.   Uranus had been observed on many occasions before its recognition as a planet, but it was generally mistaken for a star " 

I learned something new.

Cheers! 

And as I said above, I like the idea of using the ancients idea of moving/fixed stars to relate to the series, but that means including the sun and the moon.

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1 hour ago, LiveFirstDieLater said:

I just don’t see the story going full planet of the apes...

Just so we are clear, it would be "full reverse planet of the apes"  Since we were here the whole time, it is in the past, and the aliens came to us.

Haha fair enough

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The bit about Valyrian Lemurs has got to be a clue about this.

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These lemurs are said to have silver-white fur and purple eyes, and are sometimes called Little Valyrians.

Valyrians were genetically engineered from these lemurs.

Or are the little Valyrian Lemurs are, like the Servitors of the Undying, another color of Children of the Forest. The black Goat appears among the other gods impaled on Euron’s Iron Throne... and there is still a significant forest there. Otherwise the lemur is only found in the Summer Isles and Sothoryos.

[Luddagain]

Goodness

 

Why do you think GRRM would try to redo the seven heavenly bodes when already there are established relationships in Europe and India.

 

I think if he wished to do this he would have used a different number and not had so many representing their Indian/Greek/Roman and Norse equvlents

 

So we have:

Father - Jupiter - the father - Zeus/ Thor/ Guru (India)   Robert is a good representation of Jupiter and as King he was also the leader - Stomlands

Warrior - Mars -Ares/Tyr/Mangola - War   Tywin first followed by others  He is obviously the warrior - Westerlands

Smith - Mercury was associated with metals and mining so this suggests that ths is him but it is not a good fit for Odin

The three women blend since a maiden becomes a mother who becomes a crone

Crone - Moon - also ambiguous sex but Mani/Artemis, White goddess, Chandra - The Vale

Mother -Venus - Aphrodite/Venus/Shukra/Freya or Frigg  (probably one of the three women 

Maiden - The Sun - Sol/Apollo/Suya - Just  little ambiguous re sex Dorne

Stranger - Saturn but also Odin

[Fun Guy from Yuggoth]

4 hours ago, Luddagain said:

Father - Jupiter - the father - Zeus/ Thor/ Guru (India)   Robert is a good representation of Jupiter and as King he was also the leader - Stomlands

Warrior - Mars -Ares/Tyr/Mangola - War   Tywin first followed by others  He is obviously the warrior - Westerlands

Smith - Mercury was associated with metals and mining so this suggests that ths is him but it is not a good fit for Odin

The three women blend since a maiden becomes a mother who becomes a crone

Crone - Moon - also ambiguous sex but Mani/Artemis, White goddess, Chandra - The Vale

Mother -Venus - Aphrodite/Venus/Shukra/Freya or Frigg  (probably one of the three women 

Maiden - The Sun - Sol/Apollo/Suya - Just  little ambiguous re sex Dorne

Stranger - Saturn but also Odin

 

A planet is established in text as a wandering star, not including the sun and moon.  Jon looking at the moonless night sky says "he could find the seven wanderers" nobody would ever say they could "find the sun or moon" in the night sky.  And you don't have to be taught to find the moon.

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The last night fell black and moonless, but for once the sky was clear . . . So many stars, he thought as he trudged up the slope through pines and firs and ash. Maester Luwin had taught him his stars as a boy in Winterfell; . . . he could find the seven wanderers sacred to the Faith; . . . the red wanderer that septons preached was sacred to their Smith up here was called the Thief.

 

The Smith is clearly stated in the text to be Mars, not Mercury.  Mercury as the warrior Arya works because it is fast and small.  I already said why Saturn is not the Stranger, it is black, irregular/no orbit, unknowable, has no gender and no face, wanderer from far off places, god of death, none of which describes Saturn.   Crone = Cronus/Saturn, and she is the Father's mother or grandmother, and her orbit is slow because she is old.  Her Crone's Lantern is the Pleiades. 

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The name "planet" comes from the Greek term πλανήτης (planētēs), meaning "wanderer", as ancient astronomers noted how certain lights moved across the sky in relation to the other stars. Five planets can be seen with the naked eye: Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn, the Greek names being Hermes, Aphrodite, Ares, Zeus and Cronus. Sometimes the luminaries, the Sun and Moon, are added to the list of naked eye planets to make a total of seven. Since the planets disappear from time to time when they approach the Sun, careful attention is required to identify all five. Observations of Venus are not straightforward. Early Greeks thought that the evening and morning appearances of Venus represented two different objects, calling it Hesperus ("evening star") when it appeared in the western evening sky and Phosphorus ("light-bringer") when it appeared in the eastern morning sky. They eventually came to recognize that both objects were the same planet. Pythagoras is given credit for this realization.

five planets and the Sun and Moon

It is true that some ancients included the sun and moon in their lists, some Greeks, Babylonian, Roman, Indian, but I don't think the Faith of the Seven does.

[Pukisbaisals]

Skinchanging concept is quite common in ancient beliefs of various nations. There are fylgjas in Norse mythology, sort of animal counterparts of humans' souls- (link).  Mezoamericans have naguals.

Concept of souls of the dead living in the trees is also very common in mythology of various people  around the world.

[Sigella]

On 4/16/2018 at 8:10 AM, By Odin's Beard said:

I do see Weirwood everywhere.  I think it is the main antagonist of the story.  Westeros itself is described as a living organism.  Its locations are body parts, it has the God's Eye, the Fingers, the Neck.  The Weirwood network runs under the soil throughout all of Westeros, except through solid rock, it is the life-force that animates Westeros.  It is everywhere and sees everything and manipulates people and events to suit its interests--and its interests are mainly just blood sacrifice.

 

How about Weirwood as a nod to Frej's midsommarstång? (=midsummers pole: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maypole#Scandinavia )

 

Also Frey and Frej; lord Frey is uncommonly blessed (or cursed) in the fertility-department. Black Walder sleeps around and so does gatehouse Ami, not to mention the Frey bride in TMK ( making eyes at Dunk at her wedding celebration  )