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Heresy 213 Death aint what it used to be


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4 hours ago, Feather Crystal said:
6 hours ago, St Daga said:

The Stark blood is important, I think.

It must be important since it is stressed that there must always be a Stark in Winterfell. 

6 hours ago, St Daga said:

Perhaps I misunderstood you in another post, but I though you said the wheel turned back wards when Dany's dragons were born!

The wheel of time was reset at the Harrenhal tourney, and it began rolling in reverse. When the dragons hatched it "broke" and turned inside out - effectively applying history to opposite directions. In other words east became west and the north was turned upside down (and is under water). The historical events that had happened to the Lannisters are now happening to the Martells, and the Greyjoys are following the same historical events as Blackfyres and Targaryens. Historical events have been occurring in reverse order since Harrenhal, but since they're happening to different areas on the map the outcomes have changed. 

Thank you for clarifying this for me! :thumbsup:

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1 hour ago, St Daga said:

When the sun rises in the west and sets in the east," said Mirri Maz Duur. "When the seas go dry and mountains blow in the wind like leaves. When your womb quickens again, and you bear a living child. Then he will return, and not before."  AGOT-Daenerys IX

I believe this passage is another reference to the wheel of time after it’s been turned inside out. Quaithe told Dany how to navigate this new world - to go east you must go west, etc...but look again at Mirri’s words. She too points out the reversed east and west directions, plus she talks of mountains blowing in the wind and seas going dry. IMO these prophecies relate to the Wall and winter coming. The Narrow Sea will likely freeze over and become like “dry” land. Maybe that is how Dany will get the khalasar across? And the Wall is like a mountain. I’ve posited before that the magic that raised it is being released, that the Wall is disintegrating, and blowing away in the form of a blizzard.

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4 hours ago, Feather Crystal said:

I believe this passage is another reference to the wheel of time after it’s been turned inside out. Quaithe told Dany how to navigate this new world - to go east you must go west, etc...but look again at Mirri’s words. She too points out the reversed east and west directions, plus she talks of mountains blowing in the wind and seas going dry. IMO these prophecies relate to the Wall and winter coming. The Narrow Sea will likely freeze over and become like “dry” land. Maybe that is how Dany will get the khalasar across? And the Wall is like a mountain. I’ve posited before that the magic that raised it is being released, that the Wall is disintegrating, and blowing away in the form of a blizzard.

"Mountain blowing in the wind" sounds like a reference to ash during a volcanic eruption.

We have several references linking Winterfell to volcanic activity. The most obvious one are the hot springs. A less obvious one if the Horn of Joramun waking giants from the earth that is probably a reference to the giant Enceladus sleeping under Mount Etna. Going down this rabbit hole takes us from Mount Etna to its other name Mongibello that takes us to the Arthurian romances and Morgan le Fay Mongibel castle in the otherworld and the King in the Mountain myths. It also is a reference to the god of fire Vulcan via its other name Mulciber (qui ignem mulcet, "who placates the fire")

This is a long winded way to say that the Kings of Winter were custodians that guarded the volcanic weapon that could bring a new volcanic winter.

 

 

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5 hours ago, Tucu said:

"Mountain blowing in the wind" sounds like a reference to ash during a volcanic eruption.

We have several references linking Winterfell to volcanic activity. The most obvious one are the hot springs. A less obvious one if the Horn of Joramun waking giants from the earth that is probably a reference to the giant Enceladus sleeping under Mount Etna. Going down this rabbit hole takes us from Mount Etna to its other name Mongibello that takes us to the Arthurian romances and Morgan le Fay Mongibel castle in the otherworld and the King in the Mountain myths. It also is a reference to the god of fire Vulcan via its other name Mulciber (qui ignem mulcet, "who placates the fire")

This is a long winded way to say that the Kings of Winter were custodians that guarded the volcanic weapon that could bring a new volcanic winter.

 

 

This is interesting, because while Winterfell is said to be built into a hill it's not described as a mountain - however - anyone that has been to Yellowstone understands how large the caldera of a super volcano can be. The Yellowstone caldera is 35 by 45 miles (55 by 72km). It could be that the rolling hills around Winterfell are actually inside a huge caldera, but the only mention of mountains are northwest of the Wall. To be inside a caldera you would see mountains in the distance all the way around Winterfell.

The park itself has four main entrances: west, north, east, and south.  Coming into Yellowstone from the west entrance will get you to the most famous parts of the park with the Old Faithful section located in the southwest part, and the Mammoth Hot Springs section in the northwest part. If the Yellowstone supervolcano should erupt again, it's blast of ash would cover nearly all of the continental United States, clogging the atmosphere enough to block out the sun, and disrupting our entire global climate enough to cause mass famine.

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The last full-scale eruption of that kind occurred 640,000 years ago, and the ones prior to that occurred 1.3 and 2.1 million years ago. Interspersed with the big ones have been smaller-scale but still major eruptions, most recently 70,000 years ago.


 

 

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I don't know. From a logical perspective an erruption every 8000 years is more or less the time period of the Vesus. There is also no need for super calderas just to get a drop in temperature.

Plus, and that is the hot point here, it would be inconsistent within the series. The doom, a gigantic vulcanic erruption, happened about 400 years ago and there is no long night. 

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2 hours ago, Feather Crystal said:

This is interesting, because while Winterfell is said to be built into a hill it's not described as a mountain - however - anyone that has been to Yellowstone understands how large the caldera of a super volcano can be. The Yellowstone caldera is 35 by 45 miles (55 by 72km). It could be that the rolling hills around Winterfell are actually inside a huge caldera, but the only mention of mountains are northwest of the Wall. To be inside a caldera you would see mountains in the distance all the way around Winterfell.

The park itself has four main entrances: west, north, east, and south.  Coming into Yellowstone from the west entrance will get you to the most famous parts of the park with the Old Faithful section located in the southwest part, and the Mammoth Hot Springs section in the northwest part. If the Yellowstone supervolcano should erupt again, it's blast of ash would cover nearly all of the continental United States, clogging the atmosphere enough to block out the sun, and disrupting our entire global climate enough to cause mass famine.

 

Checking the official map the area around Winterfell doesn't look like a caldera, but several of the areas nearby do look like volcanic islands or crater lakes: Bear Island/Bay of Ice, Skagos/Bay of Seals, Three Sisters/The Bite, the area around Long Lake and 3 unamed lakes near Torrhen Square and Barrowton. Winterfell is kind of at the centre of all these.

Further south we have two main ones: the Iron Islands and the Gods Eye/Isle of faces.

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11 minutes ago, Feather Crystal said:

IMO a supervolcano would be necessary to bring about a Long Night. Smaller volcanoes wouldn't spread enough ash to mitigate a climate change.

It would have to be bigger than the Lake Toba eruption 75000 years ago. This is the second biggest eruption that we know of and left a 100km by 30km creater. The Toba catastrophe theory says that it created a ~10 year volcanic winter and might be responsible for killing most humans.

 

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9 minutes ago, SirArthur said:

So what you are saying is, that it has to be bigger than the Doom. 

My short-best-guess is "yes".

How far did the Long Night extend geographically? If a Doom-like event occurred in Westeros, would that be large enough in scale to last a whole generation? 

Looking to real-life examples for perspective, Mt St Helens's 1980 eruption drifted across the United States in 3 days time, and circled the globe in 15 days. Certainly not enough to qualify in scope/scale to cause a generation's long night, so it would have to be something much, much, much larger.

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3 minutes ago, Tucu said:

It would have to be bigger than the Lake Toba eruption 75000 years ago. This is the second biggest eruption that we know of and left a 100km by 30km creater. The Toba catastrophe theory says that it created a ~10 year volcanic winter and might be responsible for killing most humans.

 

It's facts like these that make me wonder if the Long Night wasn't a literal winter, but rather a period of time that the Children fled and lived underground due to human migration? The Long Night could be the early years of the Andal invasion.

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19 minutes ago, Feather Crystal said:

It's facts like these that make me wonder if the Long Night wasn't a literal winter, but rather a period of time that the Children fled and lived underground due to human migration? The Long Night could be the early years of the Andal invasion.

Some of the inconsistencies around the Long Night legends make me guess that we are looking at multiple events and not just one. The Last Hero could not find any of the friendly CoTFs; this is more consistent with the Andal era than the Age of Heroes. We also have the multiple Night's King:

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“Some say he was a Bolton,” Old Nan would always end. “Some say a Magnar out of Skagos, some say Umber, Flint, or Norrey. Some would have you think he was a Woodfoot, from them who ruled Bear Island before the ironmen came. He never was. He was a Stark, the brother of the man who brought him down.”

Plus the multiple eastern legends of heroes that ended the Long Night, the stagnation of civilization and the diverse list of pre-Long Night civilizations.

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1 hour ago, Feather Crystal said:

My short-best-guess is "yes".

How far did the Long Night extend geographically? If a Doom-like event occurred in Westeros, would that be large enough in scale to last a whole generation? 

Looking to real-life examples for perspective, Mt St Helens's 1980 eruption drifted across the United States in 3 days time, and circled the globe in 15 days. Certainly not enough to qualify in scope/scale to cause a generation's long night, so it would have to be something much, much, much larger.

If the Wall explodes, how much volume would be thrown in the air compared to a large vulcano ?

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3 minutes ago, SirArthur said:

If the Wall explodes, how much volume would be thrown in the air compared to a large vulcano ?

Assuming a cuboid of 480km by 200meters by 20 meters, we would get around 2 cubic kilometers. The Toba eruption is rated at 2800 cubic kilometers.

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43 minutes ago, Tucu said:

Some of the inconsistencies around the Long Night legends make me guess that we are looking at multiple events and not just one. The Last Hero could not find any of the friendly CoTFs; this is more consistent with the Andal era than the Age of Heroes. We also have the multiple Night's King:

Plus the multiple eastern legends of heroes that ended the Long Night, the stagnation of civilization and the diverse list of pre-Long Night civilizations.

It has now fully been scientifically proven that real-life changes occur (cycle) once on a smaller scale every 5,125 years, and on a massive scale roughly once every 26,000 years. While many of our ancestors have managed to live through these cycles, large populations and civilizations did get wiped out at roughly every 5,125 cycle.

The Mayan people were aware of these 5,125 and 26,000 year cycles, and viewed the 26,000 year cycle as a completely new beginning. The year 2012 has been recognized as the end of one such 26,000 year cycle. This longer 26,000 year cycle was calculated by observing the stars and noticing the precession of the constellations across the night sky, along with the timing of the solstices and equinoxes, which is due to the wobble in the earth's axis. Can you imagine the diligent record keeping this would've entailed considering the average human lifespan?

We all know - flat-earther's excluded - that our earth rotates, and most of us recall learning that the earth's rotation also wobbles. As our rotating Earth orbits the sun, this wobble has it's own ecliptic pattern, and that revolution takes 25,920 years to complete. That long 25,920 year revolution is called Plato's Great Year, and it too is broken down into four seasons and twelve 2,160 year long ages. Thus the view of the stars over our heads does change. Ancient humans broke each solar cycle into four seasons, with each season consisting of three smaller ages, with twelve ages in all. Each age has a name that we recognize as a sign of the zodiac. More information can be read here.  Today we use a calendar year developed by the Romans that include four seasons and twelve months per year, only today the signs of the zodiac straddle the months. 

To circle back to my main point - I think GRRM's use of a wheel of time is based on real scientific fact. Even we don't acknowledge that our history does tend to repeat itself. There's even evidence of advanced technological civilizations going back 10,000, 15,000, and more years ago, even though most people believe our most advanced technologies have only existed during the last two thousand years. Whenever evidence is found that contradicts the accepted record it's labeled "OOPART" or out-of-place artifacts. I think GRRM is trying to incorporate these mysterious facts into his fantasy world, only a more simplified version.

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The most recent record of a Long Night is from before Valaryia rose.  The Doom is less than a 1000 years ago.  So while these events could be related or happened multiple times, we need to rule anything out where they happen at regular intervals. 

GRRM has explicitly ruled out an astronomical reason for the seasons, so I doubt we get a geological one.  This is a case where magic overrides science. 

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11 minutes ago, Brad Stark said:

The most recent record of a Long Night is from before Valaryia rose.  The Doom is less than a 1000 years ago.  So while these events could be related or happened multiple times, we need to rule anything out where they happen at regular intervals. 

GRRM has explicitly ruled out an astronomical reason for the seasons, so I doubt we get a geological one.  This is a case where magic overrides science. 

Kinda pulling from different threads here, but what if the potential supervolcano has a magic property to it. Perhaps the Others are remnants of a society the survived the first supervolcano, kept a record of it, and are now trying to get away from it. The Wall may have been built to act as a shield against the explosion. It explains why Mel might feel stronger at the Wall.

 

Anyways getting to the magic parts, in most fiction, magic is just another type of energy. It obeys the physics that govern it and that energy can reside outside of the body. Perhaps the decline of magic is leading to a storing of that energy and said energy is about to burst the magic pressure vessel. 

 

Edit: magic pressure vessel bursting would also set off the volcano or super charge it.

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1 hour ago, Brad Stark said:

The most recent record of a Long Night is from before Valaryia rose.  The Doom is less than a 1000 years ago.  So while these events could be related or happened multiple times, we need to rule anything out where they happen at regular intervals. 

GRRM has explicitly ruled out an astronomical reason for the seasons, so I doubt we get a geological one.  This is a case where magic overrides science. 

Most information going beyond ~1250 years have been lost and is just legend. Valyria, the Old Empire of Ghis and the Rhoynar are gone. The oldest we can really get in western Essos is Volantis founded not long before the Rhoynish Wars; these wars expanded a period of 250 years and ended a 1000 years ago. Valyria's "history" also puts several thousand years between the last war with Old Ghis and the first war with the Rhoynar; it doesn't make much sense for an expansionist empire armed with dragons. For comparison, it took Aegon one year to conquer most of Westeros with just 3 dragons; the Freehold had hundredths during the wars with Old Ghis, Andalos and the Rhoynar.

I would say that the 8000 or so years of Valyrian history can be compressed to around a 1000 years or maybe even less if those war expanding centuries are really shorter.

Even the history of the Citadel is just legend and can't be traced much earlier than the Doom of Valyria. Their estimates for the Andal invasion that would establish the arrival of the Common Tongue goes from 2000 years to 6000 years.

 

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5 hours ago, Brad Stark said:

GRRM has explicitly ruled out an astronomical reason for the seasons, so I doubt we get a geological one.  This is a case where magic overrides science. 

While GRRM has said that the broken seasons have a magical cause, I do think it's possible for that idea to be applied too strictly and literally--for example, the Hammer of the Waters is an event with a magical cause that can, nonetheless, be partially described in scientific terms.

My own argument in the past for the "Long Night as Volcanic Winter" premise is that, like the flooding of the Neck and breaking of the Arm of Dorne, it's something that could technically fall into the purview of CotF magic--violent seismic activity unleashed by the song of earth. Along those lines, the Long Night could represent a final act of desperation, a volcanic winter to cleanse the surface while the CotF huddle in their warded caves. 

These days, I don't really expect GRRM to go that route, but I do selfishly like the idea of Joramun's horn being a "Horn of Winter" because it unleashes a volcanic winter--and, accordingly, its sounding would be a far more widespread narrative moment than just localized damage to the Wall, and instead be an event that could be covered from several different POVs as people feel the fallout.

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50 minutes ago, Brad Stark said:

The most recent record of a Long Night is from before Valaryia rose.  The Doom is less than a 1000 years ago.  So while these events could be related or happened multiple times, we need to rule anything out where they happen at regular intervals. 

GRRM has explicitly ruled out an astronomical reason for the seasons, so I doubt we get a geological one.  This is a case where magic overrides science. 

Yes, I agree that the delayed length of a season has a magical source, but it does eventually move onto another season. What I have suggested is that specific historic events are also seasonal. There could not be a Nights King without winter, so delaying winter by having an extended summer solves that "problem", but other seasons have their own problematic seasonal events. For example, tournaments are associated with Spring. Abductions are also associated with Spring. I am guessing the Defiance of Duskendale and Jon Arryn's refusal to give up Ned and Robert both occurred during Winter. The War of the Five Kings and Robert's Rebellion may have occurred heading into a Spring thaw. The Ironborn seem to time uprisings during late Summer or early Autumn. The 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Blackfyre Rebellions along with the rebellions of Renly, Stannis, and Robb Stark occurred in Autumn.

"There is an appointed time for everything. And there is a time for every event under heaven--"
Ecclesiastes 3:1 - New American Standard Bible

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