Theories on Magic in Westeros

[Lady Barbrey]

2 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

 

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Well, the old gods seem to be just the greenseers. There is no other supernatural element to them - basically they are powerful, long-lived, nearly omniscient sorcerers. The whole animism behind the greenseers doesn't have any deities or gods we are aware of.

I half agree, but while the greenseers seem to have god-like abilities, they also seem to be augmented when they enter the weir network.  Whether there is sentience in the weir network, a directing force other than the greenseers themselves, is an open question right now, but I think it's certainly possible (though hardly desirable).  My feeling is that there will be indications both ways and we'll have to make up our own minds.

 

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But R'hllor - if exist - could actually be a real god. He obviously would have the power over life and death which would make him a very powerful being, closer to being actually divine than any other supernatural entity that has shown up to this point. Especially since he can work his miracles/spells without actually showing up.

I think if Rhllor actually exists then the old gods and a Great Other have to exist as well - they're all part of the Norse cosmology.  We haven't seen anyone practicing ice magic because who does that? The old god magic - we see it all the time in Greenseers and skinchangers. Does that mean the old gods don't exist as you say above?

Magic exists.  Elemental magic exists.  These are forces in the World.  The question is whether there is sentience associated with these magics, a directing force, or whether they're mechanically following their own paths because of innate properties, and humans are merely ascribing godhood to them?

Myself, I think George is indicating gods existing on a mythic level, in a mythic battle that repeats in cycles, but I doubt he wants to go further than that, just suggestions of it.  But as said above, still an open question.

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Oh, I've a convoluted theory about the Dondarrion thing. I think the kiss brought Beric back because he is Targaryen descendant. I think you need the blood of the dragon to some degree for the spell (which has become part of the funeral rites of the red priests) to work. The basis for this idea is the fact that Baelor Breakspear was married to Jena Dondarrion, and I think that only happened because Jena was a Targaryen cousin through the female line (like Aelinor Penrose, the wife Baelor's brother, King Aerys I), descended either from a daughter of Alyn Velaryon and Baela Targaryen (possibly that new Laena Velaryon we got in the new FaB family tree) or from one of the six daughter of Garmund Hightower and Rhaena Targaryen.

The origin of that whole thing would then be some sort of immortality/resurrection spell the Valyrian sorcerer worked on before the Doom

 

I didn't go into this detail but I did wonder if Dondarrion had Targ blood and that was what allowed him to resurrect, though even then wasn't sure how.  But I couldn't get past the Stoneheart thing.

Somehow, I keep getting the feeling we're looking at this all wrong. Something should be given for something to be taken - Beric giving up a bit of his soul in exchange for full life animation, it doesn't compute unless we take a page from The Golden Bough and the idea of sympathetic magic.  But we see this working nowhere else.  I think it's a wait and see event.

 

 

[Lady Barbrey]

1 hour ago, hiemal said:

That makes sense.

I am also reminded of the woman of the singers that Bran encounters when he rides a raven AND of the seeming duality of  Bloodraven and the three-eyed crow. A while back I had a thread "Greendreams,redreams" (I think?) in which I examined the possibility that all of the divination type magics are in a sense variation on the same theme but centered around a different "soul cycle" as described previously and so on and so on. The bond between a dragon and rider may be somehow related to the skinchanging ability seen in the OG's system and the wearing of faces for the FM.

Variations on the same theme.

Indeed. I'll be giving this line of reasoning more thought in the future.

"Variations on the same theme" - absolutely agree regarding divination, though not sure regarding dragonriding.  I think normally the Children only work with earth magic.  Only out of desperation would they have turned to fire and ice magic, if that's what they did.  I'm not altogether convinced they made the Others, though it's a strong possibility, but I'm pretty convinced they made the Valyrians to take the Others down, because we're specifically told they helped the Last Hero end the Others and the Long Night.  

So why would they need to create this separate people?  They're powerful skinchangers themselves, why not skinchange already existing dragons (we're told they existed) and ride them themselves, or recruit human skinchangers to do it?  

Obviously, they couldn't.  George tells us as much, too, that dragons probably have too much force of will to be skinchanged. So instead the Children transformed a member of their special little mutable family with dragon fire magic, so that the dragons would recognize him as kin and allow a bond to form, particularly if raised from an egg.  It's the Valyrians that were skinchanged in this variation, by dragonfire!  If you want to call it that.  There does seem to be a little bit of 'sensing' the dragon-rider going on, on the part of the dragon, but it's not true skinchanging because it wouldn't work.

The FM, on the other hand, do seem to have a variation on skinchanging thing going on.  Have to think about it.

[Lord Varys]

9 hours ago, hiemal said:

I agree. I think if there is a natural state of magic this is probably it, or close to it.

The greenseer thing? I'm not sure. It seems to be based on an innate talent, but you have to refine it, train it, learn how to actually do it, etc. It is not just something that people naturally do. And we don't even know whether the weirwoods are 'natural trees' as such. The ancient Children could have created/bred them with magic, etc. Immortal trees are strange...

9 hours ago, hiemal said:

It depends on how much of his power is like Melisandre's, trickery and illusion. I think I'd be more inclined to believe that R'hlorr is nothing but a name on an impersonal force than an actual god. That's a pretty complicated issue, though, and I suppose I stand corrected as to the possibilities at play. Perhaps I spend too much time thinking of magic as an infection.

Mel uses trickery and illusion in addition to magic. R'hllor doesn't do that, considering he never shows up. I mean, he most likely isn't the guy manufacturing Mel's powders and potions, no?

9 hours ago, hiemal said:

Apropos this and FaB- I wonder of Megor died during the Trial of Seven and was brought back by Alys or Tyanna?

Could be. But if this was the case then the text doesn't reflect it, meaning historians and contemporaries didn't realize this was the case. The tale of Maegor also doesn't show a fundamental change between the Maegor before and after the Trial of Seven.

And if the reports are correct then Maegor did indeed still breathe at the end of the trial. He certainly could have died back in the castle - but if that was the case we do not know it. However, I'm very sure magic was used to wake/heal him.

9 hours ago, hiemal said:

I think that she has given up pieces of herself like the skinchanger, exchanging them with "no one." But a girl is deep and it is hard to tell with her.

From what we know the memories and images from a face don't stick with the wearer, so there is no reason to assume that this involves a fundamental change. This wouldn't make all that much sense, anyway, considering that an assassin losing himself slowly but surely beneath all those mask wouldn't be all that effective an assassin...

9 hours ago, hiemal said:

I also think there was some influence from more traditional alchemy somewhere along the line? If they are a transplant, I think found shelter among "fellows".

Oh, one assumes the schools of pyromancy spread from Valyria to the Free Cities and Dragonstone, and from there eventually to KL. Valyria would also have been the world's capital of magic, so one imagines all the schools of magic would have been prevalent there.

9 hours ago, hiemal said:

I don't see this as a world where magic is dying, but as world where it should die? That this was a world that once made sense, and had normal seasons and natural laws that were the same everywhere and all the time and couldn't be changed with spilled blood and mumbled words and that some foreign agent is responsible for corrupting those laws and warping reality.

No, there is no indication that magic as such is a problem or to be blamed for the freak seasons. Just certain spells/magics. That has to be corrected, not magic as such. And, sure, sorcerers and the like should not try to repeat the Long Night and Others thing, but one assumes that this was a very powerful and difficult spell, one driven by desperation and hate, and done by the most powerful sorcerers that ever existed.

If the Children are indeed behind the Others, then the crucial hint there has been given in ADwD. Bran's realization that he would do something about dying. He would fight against that fate. The Children tried and tried and tried - and those creating the Others and the Long Night and the Heart of Winter, etc. might not have done that to save their kind and restore thing to how they were in the past - they might have understood and accepted that their time was over and they would all die (like the Children in the cave also have) with the addition that they decided if they had to go they would take those short-lived human vermin with them, and the entire world, too.

[Lady Rhodes]

12 hours ago, Lady Barbrey said:

Somehow missed this one.  Lady Rhodes!  What a disturbing idea!  And yet...can it be completely dismissed in light of what Dany had to do to rebirth dragons into the world?

I am not anywhere near convinced, but there's a grisly logic here I find delightful.

Forgive me folks, as I am trying to catch up with everyone's post on this thread and I have only read up to page three!

Lady Barbrey, I feel the same. Not entirely convinced, but there were various trains of thought revolving around this, and tying it to the principles of magic makes it seem all the more plausible.  In any case, it cannot be discounted out of hand.  It was not my original theory, but if we want to connect the two threads further, this is how I feel you could:

-Rhaegar becomes preoccupied with the PtwP/AA theory.
-Rhaegar begins to form a group with like minded peers dedicated to do whatever means necessary to stop the Long Night. Group includes Elia of Dorne, Arthur Dayne, and Ashara Dayne, with others possibly involved as well.
-Rhaegar believes that the prophecy involves "the dragon having three heads". However, Elia cannot have more children.
-Tourney of Harrenhal occurs and Lyanna Stark is brought into the fold.
-Lyanna is taken.
-Ned arrives at the ToJ, where we know he fights Arthur Dayne and tears the ToJ down stone by stone. 

A couple of things to note with this: We don't know if Rhaegar intended to kill Jon and Lyanna. Like Dany, she enters the pyre but is reborn with three dragons. To be fair, Mirri Maz Duur was a blood sacrifice, but there could be something more going on and I feel we should keep an open mind to that. Another thing, in Ned's dream, he and Arthur Dayne have words before their fight. "And so it begins, said Arthur. No, now it ends." That is paraphrased, but in essence, is it possible that this fight was even part of the prophecy? Or Arthur's way of saying that this is how it all beings - the Others returning, etc.

NOTE! I am not saying that I agree with this theory, but that if we wanted to connect the idea posited that Lyanna and Jon were meant as a sacrifice, this is possibly how it could be done. Also - I cannot find the thread now and I would like to properly credit the person that posited it in the first place and ask for their opinions.  Does anyone have the link or was it you? It has been a few months since I read.

I just threw a lot of things out there, none of which particularly pertaining to the topic at hand, but still in reference to how magic effects Westeros, I suppose.  Just now I had another thought: Could Jon's birth - the birth of a Targaryen and Stark - Valyrian blood and First Men - be what caused the Others to return? Does anyone have any thoughts on this?

[The Mother of The Others]

On 10/20/2018 at 4:17 PM, Lady Barbrey said:

one of the organizing principles of the series. The giants - frost and fire - are forces of chaos, integral to the land so can't be completely destroyed (the land itself is made from the corpse of a frost giant, Ymir) but it's necessary to control or restrain them - that's the old Norse idea anyway - or they take over.  You'd get Long Nights or Dooms, etc.  Ridding the land of the weir network also rid the land of the forces of order, and in that vacuum these other "networks" of magic - frost and fire - gain force.

So, in answer to the age old question, "Why now, White Walkers?" ,  the world is catching a Cold because its immune system is compromised.  The magical antibodies of westeros that would oppose the rise of the Others are uprooted, the planet's lifeblood is experiencing low cell count in its white platelets.  Whatever.  I'm not a medical professional.  And now at the moment when the Children are finally collapsing, the Cold overcomes the remaining magic wards.  As it would, were the world a high fever patient with cold sweats (remember Fever Dream?).  So the remedy is.... a magic booster shot for the land?   Jamming some herbal aspirin of a magical sort to burn the sickness out of Westeros' arteries. 

--Injecting some fire into the planet's blood.- -

(You know what's weird is the way frost giants were dropped into this world in such an offhand way their presence doesn't even factor in to my thinking.  It never tripped the norse alarm before.  Probably not supposed to, either.  Wouldn't Martin be undercutting his creation by grafting Fenris and Company onto it?  Still, the Ymir style origin myth does seem to be represented here.)

 

A new over-simplification to consider:  magic is received by anyone who sacrifices something on the altar of chaos.  In some symbolic way, you make a show of dedicating yourself to chaos.  And the elemental forces of chaos take note.  Like a fly senses airflow changes around it, Fire and Ice feel it when you further their agendas, and they extend some of their good will toward you.  Some Magic flows through your body as a payment for services rendered to their cause.  Which is ragnarok.  So the magician must perform acts of cultural suicide.  They must help proove that "the center cannot hold."

So the only thing keeping Cersei from receiving magical rewards from her anarchist behaviors is that she never cast a symbolic spell to awaken her blood- - the gods can't send her magic because she never set up her soulbank account for direct deposit.

 

Holy Shit!  This would also explain why The Seven come off as the weakest faction of gods, without any magic to their name.  The least real deities.  A fake sham of a religion, in a world where all the other cultures' Powers have demonstrated their magical gravitas to our satisfaction!  It's because The Seven are well intentioned mooks who actually want society to succeed!  That's why their worship inspires no magic!  Magic goes to the anarchists, the skaters, the nutsack burners in the night, the child surrenderers, the regicide assassins of kings who would topple Order.   

Ha.  Westeros solved.   Now back to Sansa hate and traffic & weather together.

[White Ravens]

I think Martin wants the magic to be mysterious.  I mean magic doesn't really exist so how would he go about defining it to the point that it can be explained other than in general terms?  Magic appears to always have a price and I like that.  He has stated that the crazy seasonal fluctuations on GRRth are caused by magic and that they can't be explained with a scientific theory but still, there must have been a trigger that created the imbalance in the first place.  We see blood magic at work numerous times in the story and it is easy to see a link between sacrifice and magical events, actions and characters.  It is implied that strong and powerful magic requires greater or more sacrifice.  But we are also shown that the return of living dragons has made magic stronger everywhere or easier to tap into and exploit at least.  This increase in magic fascinates me and causes me to think that it is a key to understanding what drives magic in this story.  What was it about the return of living dragons that made it easier for the Alchemists Guild to create wildfire?  How did living dragons cause the glass candles to re-light?

[The Mother of The Others]

Dragons are the pilot light that lets you know the magic furnace is lit and burning steady....because they're steadying and focussing it now that they're here?   The process has become self- aware, actively governed.  The Ice is woke too in similar fashion.

Dragons are the reverse of the canary in the mines.   When the canary in the mineshaft stopped moving, that told you something.  When the dragons start moving, that tells you something.  (But both of these somethings are Danger).

[hiemal]

6 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

The greenseer thing? I'm not sure. It seems to be based on an innate talent, but you have to refine it, train it, learn how to actually do it, etc. It is not just something that people naturally do.

Not human people, anyways.

6 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

And we don't even know whether the weirwoods are 'natural trees' as such. The ancient Children could have created/bred them with magic, etc. Immortal trees are strange...

Well, quite.

As I'm sure surprises no one, I have a few different ideas on that ranging from the weirwoods are an alien "invader" species that created the Children either directly from themselves like strange fruit or by adapting local species into servitors to the weirwoods and the children being native symbiotes and quite a few in between. My "best" guess is that if there is a "native" system of soul activity it began here, but there are many other options, including the theory in which each continent represents a parallel universe or timeline that has somehow been stitched into one confusing whole so that the CotF represent a timeline that diverged from the main one very early on compared to the ones that allow things like mammoth and stone age peoples to coexist with dinosaurs and iron and bronze and steel age and etc etc.

Or, as you say, the Children could be the ones driving the process rather than trees.

6 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Mel uses trickery and illusion in addition to magic. R'hllor doesn't do that, considering he never shows up. I mean, he most likely isn't the guy manufacturing Mel's powders and potions, no?

I would hope not. That would be some extreme slumming, like having the Father show up to light the candles at the Sept of Baelor. I do wonder to what extant these powders are official temple practice- Melisandre seems unorthodox and such things aren't specifically mentioned in regards to Thoros, although iirc he mentioned that the pyromancers had better tricks so...?

Benerro makes flaming glyphs appear, but we don't know if that is genuine power or more trickery. I think my suspicion of R'hlorr has a lot to with with his ties to Azor Ahai.

6 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Could be. But if this was the case then the text doesn't reflect it, meaning historians and contemporaries didn't realize this was the case. The tale of Maegor also doesn't show a fundamental change between the Maegor before and after the Trial of Seven.

But it represent a hardening or crystalization of character, which is what led me down this rabbit hole of wondering if some of the "bad" Targs were in fact revenants who had essentially become something like parodies of themselves as their personalities are "purified".

Anyhoo- hopefully that will be one of my questions answered in FaB.

6 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

From what we know the memories and images from a face don't stick with the wearer, so there is no reason to assume that this involves a fundamental change. This wouldn't make all that much sense, anyway, considering that an assassin losing himself slowly but surely beneath all those mask wouldn't be all that effective an assassin...

 I think it is the ability to don these faces that requires a fundamental change, not the act of first doing so. I do wonder if the personality fragments might retain memory of their former lives to aid a skilled FM in assuming their guise.

As for losing themselves in the masks, that seems unlikely, especially since the FM seem to focus on on the negation of the self. No one can't lose themselves since there is nothing to lose. This is a very different experience than Bran losing himself in his wolf dreams.

7 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Oh, one assumes the schools of pyromancy spread from Valyria to the Free Cities and Dragonstone, and from there eventually to KL. Valyria would also have been the world's capital of magic, so one imagines all the schools of magic would have been prevalent there.

That seems reasonable- I wonder to what extant the alchemists were doing their own thing and if they we represented in Valyria. IIRC one of the pyromancers mentions the transmutation of metals as an art that was abandoned in favor of pyromancy when that art won the favor of a Targ king (Aegon I? I don't remember). Does anyone still practice this art?

7 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

No, there is no indication that magic as such is a problem or to be blamed for the freak seasons. Just certain spells/magics. That has to be corrected, not magic as such. And, sure, sorcerers and the like should not try to repeat the Long Night and Others thing, but one assumes that this was a very powerful and difficult spell, one driven by desperation and hate, and done by the most powerful sorcerers that ever existed.

I suppose that depends on how you interpret the themes of the Song as a whole? I see the themes of invasion, conquest, and usurpation coming up again and again and this is where it leads me. The history of Westeros is one of successive invasions and while it is not thematically necessary that any of these invaders be alien or otherworldly I think the inclusion of so many Lovecraft references makes it at least plausible that the problem is not strictly speaking homegrown.

Regardless of whether or not magic is native or alien, the question of whether or not it can be safely manipulated by humans is another one. I think the theme of usurpation can be satisfied either way and I'm really not sure that humans were meant to tinker with it in any form so even if the CotF, for example, can "naturally" use magic I think it's possible that use of magic by humans represents misuse, a usurpation of the natural order.

7 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

If the Children are indeed behind the Others, then the crucial hint there has been given in ADwD. Bran's realization that he would do something about dying. He would fight against that fate. The Children tried and tried and tried - and those creating the Others and the Long Night and the Heart of Winter, etc. might not have done that to save their kind and restore thing to how they were in the past - they might have understood and accepted that their time was over and they would all die (like the Children in the cave also have) with the addition that they decided if they had to go they would take those short-lived human vermin with them, and the entire world, too.

Could be. Did the Children misalign the seasons/break time in this scenario?

[hiemal]

14 hours ago, Lady Barbrey said:

"Variations on the same theme" - absolutely agree regarding divination, though not sure regarding dragonriding.  I think normally the Children only work with earth magic.  Only out of desperation would they have turned to fire and ice magic, if that's what they did.  I'm not altogether convinced they made the Others, though it's a strong possibility, but I'm pretty convinced they made the Valyrians to take the Others down, because we're specifically told they helped the Last Hero end the Others and the Long Night. 

I could see that going either way, but I'm inclined to think that the Others are their own thing and that their shape is somehow imposed on them by outside forces so that they currently come in at least two varieties, the White Walkers and Ice Dragons.

Alternately, I have speculated that CotF, the Mazemakers, the Lengii, the merlings, the giants, and possibly the Naathi and the brindled men are all members or descendants of one very morphologically mutable race that can change quickly to adapt to any environment. The Others could be an extreme example?

14 hours ago, Lady Barbrey said:

 

So why would they need to create this separate people?  They're powerful skinchangers themselves, why not skinchange already existing dragons (we're told they existed) and ride them themselves, or recruit human skinchangers to do it? 

bviously, they couldn't.  George tells us as much, too, that dragons probably have too much force of will to be skinchanged. So instead the Children transformed a member of their special little mutable family with dragon fire magic, so that the dragons would recognize him as kin and allow a bond to form, particularly if raised from an egg.  It's the Valyrians that were skinchanged in this variation, by dragonfire!  If you want to call it that.  There does seem to be a little bit of 'sensing' the dragon-rider going on, on the part of the dragon, but it's not true skinchanging because it wouldn't work.

Dragons are creatures of a different order. I don't they can be skinchanged by someone in OGs soul cycle because the souls go into a dragon are part of the Firenet. So, for example, Aerion Brightflame might indeed have become a dragon when he had his nightcap, just not in the way he imagined. Or if dragons have a human soul, it may that it is like warging a human, something only a greenseer can do?

 

[The Mother of The Others]

On 10/20/2018 at 8:00 PM, By Odin's Beard said:

[Streamlined] -

House of Black and White :(Bran realized suddenly the world was black soil and white wood)

Braavos: the unmasking Celebrates [the ending of] the long night.

H'gar = Hagar From Hebrew “stranger”

"he will establish the stranger"?

According to the Bible, Boaz and Jachin were two pillars which stood in the porch of Solomon's Temple.

"Jachin--the white pillar of light…Boaz--the shadowy pillar of darkness. … 

The white and black pillar parallel the white weirwoods and the black (shade of the evening) weirwoods. 

The Jaqen persona is Lorathi, and in Lorath they worship Boash (Boaz). Also, Biter is whiteish, and Rorge is blackish, and Arya thinks maybe Jaqen is a wizard and they are his demon thralls.

Jaqen is also a wandering Odin figure.

The Breaking of the Arm of Dorne wasn't to stop the humans migrating, it was to sever the weirwood connection between the Westeros and Essos.  I think that is why Jaqen wants the glass candle to unite the networks again.

Wow.  Just wow to that whole #55 post.

Here's another mythically HUGE bible tie- in:  the Faceless cult are reaching for godhood the way Eve did in the Garden.  And they're making more progress than she managed to!  They're synthesizing the Two Trees  (Knowledge and Life).  White and Black weir.  Maybe even blending the pastes?!?!   Eve had only grabbed at one tree before we got booted out, Hubris being her crime.  

In mythic stories, punishment is what usually follows a display of hubris like what we're seeing from the Faceless Men....   But Georgie ain't leaning that way!   He's made the Faceless into the punishers in this story, not the punished.  It looks like George is saying this is a Worthy undertaking from the House of Black & White----that Mankind must risk hubris and lay our hands on god power if we are ever to mature into something better than the rapacious infant species we've been during our stint as 'God's children.'   

To succeed (to avoid a divine backlash or self- destruction ), we just have to make sure our attempt at apotheosis is proper.  Wise.  Humanity's best foot forward.  As the actions of the Faceless have historically been.  They broke a people away from slavery to independence.  And they gave human society our own access to deific power and precision , independent of the Children's previous monopoly on such guidance. 

House of Black & White became the Gardeners of humanity.  As the CotF were magical shepherds to Nature, so the Faceless prune and hone Civilization.  The Faceless run circles around all the other powers and factions because their wise ways have made them into 4 dimensional beings operating in a 3 dimensional world, easily able to see their way around the corners we can't in our 'kingdom of the blind.'

Now, i still don't believe they log on to the Weirnet to get this done.  They rely on a different network of ravens....namely, their human informants, as we see during Arya's training.  The Faceless are more like Varys than the CotF in how they operate. 

But I toally agree that they're making a run at becoming Odin, at growing beyond Good and Evil by standing taller than those infantile moralities.  Sturdier.  Like the tree that outgrows all others in the forest by feeding on....the blended paste of all the gods (all the options , all the potential paths are known to them, considered,  surveyed, and the best growth path is selected.   They're taking the continent's reins away from the seven kingdoms right now.  I don't think they're doing it as a powermad conquest.  They're world gardeners.  Right now they're the only ones living in their enlightened world of blended trees and peacefully pasted gods.  But that may change fast.  The Dothraki are subjugating the gods too, albeit without any respect...but it's a sign that the world may one day catch up to the Faceless philosophy.  The Westerosi will soon be desperate enough to listen....even to wisdom, everyone's last resort!  Then, perhaps the faceless will finally be able to take off their masks and live openly in daylight, having shown humanity the way into a lasting Spring.

[Lady Barbrey]

8 hours ago, White Ravens said:

I think Martin wants the magic to be mysterious.  I mean magic doesn't really exist so how would he go about defining it to the point that it can be explained other than in general terms?  Magic appears to always have a price and I like that.  He has stated that the crazy seasonal fluctuations on GRRth are caused by magic and that they can't be explained with a scientific theory but still, there must have been a trigger that created the imbalance in the first place.  We see blood magic at work numerous times in the story and it is easy to see a link between sacrifice and magical events, actions and characters.  It is implied that strong and powerful magic requires greater or more sacrifice.  But we are also shown that the return of living dragons has made magic stronger everywhere or easier to tap into and exploit at least.  This increase in magic fascinates me and causes me to think that it is a key to understanding what drives magic in this story.  What was it about the return of living dragons that made it easier for the Alchemists Guild to create wildfire?  How did living dragons cause the glass candles to re-light?

It's an excellent question and I think a key to understanding how magic works relative to the cosmic magic that changed the seasons.

Magic is on the rise North of the Wall too, and has been for some time, pre-dating the dragon rebirth.  The Wildlings know it.  That's why they were looking for the Horn.  The cold mists have been extending further and further south.

On another thread, Ran speculated that the Wall does not just contain the wights, it actually contains ice magic itself.  So suddenly for me it made sense why we see no ice magic conducted south of the Wall.  Practitioners have no access to the source.  The Wall blocks it. That's why it is effective, because even if an Other came around it or slipped through it, they'd be cut off from their magic source and could not raise wights.  The wights that were brought across during the day were already magicked beings and could operate beyond the Wall without the connection to necromancer and ice magic.

So if fire magic is rising because of the birth of the dragons, and ice magic is rising because of ____, only we don't see it much because of the Wall, is earth magic increasing too, also pre-dating the birth of dragons?  I suspect so, because in a family that doesn't seem to have produced skinchangers in generations, six of them are gifted to one degree or another just in that family and who knows where else they might be cropping up?

So the rise in fire magic might be connected to the birth of the dragons, but the rise of ice and earth magic is also on the rise, seemingly unconnected to dragons because pre-dating them, unless it's some kind of preparation for their return, which I don't really like as a premise. There have also been sightings of "things in the water" so we might be treated to magical beings, long unseen, from the ocean too.

What this means to me is that magic potency in total in and of  itself is increasing everywhere with or without dragons, so this should be in effect the reverse: dragons can be reborn after a long hiaitus because magic is rising. 

Do the Others bring the (magic) cold or does the cold bring the Others?  Do the Dragons bring the magic rise or does magic rising bring the Dragons?  They happen simultaneously to observers, so cause and effect could be understandably mixed up.

I don't think I've settled it, but my working theory is that magic, as a force of physics in this world, is rising across the board irrespective of dragons being born.

[The Mother of The Others]

On 10/21/2018 at 10:11 AM, By Odin's Beard said:

the Mountain is one of the spaceships

It was working fine, the characters from ASOIAF as modern day stand- ins for the original empire bunch.  Then you had to....then you said the Mountain was a spaceship. ....

 

Weir Origin Theory That Explains The World Entirely (w.o.t.t.e.w.e.):

Hey, for simplicity's sake, why not just say the pale weirwoods are the alien-uplifted trees who remained loyal to the God on Earth and his more humane rule, evidenced by how they run their weir afterlife as an open system, like a meritocracy for any souls strong enough to grab the brass ring and live on.  Whereas the ebony weirwoods fell sway to the BSE's repressive dictatorship over souls that slammed the door shut on freedom in the afterlife.  Under him, the pharaoh system was used, with only 'gods' being worthy to log into the weirnet.  Dark trees hunted white weirs extinct on Essos and even now work to bring the BSE's will to bear on "our" weirwoods, which is why the land bridge had to be blown up.   

#NoPearlMothershipForever

But if you allow me to immediately blow up any and all spaceships upon their arrival to the planet and have their debris = dragonglass, then I'll allow alien origin.  Maybe.  On probation!   This would fit with how their Empire was unsustainable.  They were weakening with each emperor, as in they were running low on the shit from their homeworld that made them godlike.  Then, limited resources became an ethical dilemma, and the BSE was the one whose shallow soul caved in and he went vampire rather than suffer a further drop in his standard of living.  He would no longer take the high road of self sacrifice and decided the world's vitality should be sacrificed for his own ascendance to dark glory.

The Others could then be his Balrogs / fallen angels among the Children who were offered the same vampiric deal to turn against their continent's weir network from within.  They would in return be forever spared from suffering the same decline as the Children.  They'd suffer other nightmares instead which probably weren't spelled out to them when they took the faustian bargain.   The Others then infected the weirwoods with that vampirism as best they could as an act of war / sabotage, which is why the trees are bloodthirsty today and appear to demand sacrifices.   In other words, the CotF didn't design it that way!  Rather, it's what destroyed their culture.

Bloodraven, true to character, is doing something necessary but Unclean by plugging in to that mess, which is why the remaining Children are letting him do it so they don't have to.  And he gots the alien designer dna that makes you a targ superstar.

[Lady Barbrey]

11 hours ago, Lady Rhodes said:

Forgive me folks, as I am trying to catch up with everyone's post on this thread and I have only read up to page three!

Lady Barbrey, I feel the same. Not entirely convinced, but there were various trains of thought revolving around this, and tying it to the principles of magic makes it seem all the more plausible.  In any case, it cannot be discounted out of hand.  It was not my original theory, but if we want to connect the two threads further, this is how I feel you could:

-Rhaegar becomes preoccupied with the PtwP/AA theory.
-Rhaegar begins to form a group with like minded peers dedicated to do whatever means necessary to stop the Long Night. Group includes Elia of Dorne, Arthur Dayne, and Ashara Dayne, with others possibly involved as well.
-Rhaegar believes that the prophecy involves "the dragon having three heads". However, Elia cannot have more children.
-Tourney of Harrenhal occurs and Lyanna Stark is brought into the fold.
-Lyanna is taken.
-Ned arrives at the ToJ, where we know he fights Arthur Dayne and tears the ToJ down stone by stone. 

A couple of things to note with this: We don't know if Rhaegar intended to kill Jon and Lyanna. Like Dany, she enters the pyre but is reborn with three dragons. To be fair, Mirri Maz Duur was a blood sacrifice, but there could be something more going on and I feel we should keep an open mind to that. Another thing, in Ned's dream, he and Arthur Dayne have words before their fight. "And so it begins, said Arthur. No, now it ends." That is paraphrased, but in essence, is it possible that this fight was even part of the prophecy? Or Arthur's way of saying that this is how it all beings - the Others returning, etc.

NOTE! I am not saying that I agree with this theory, but that if we wanted to connect the idea posited that Lyanna and Jon were meant as a sacrifice, this is possibly how it could be done. Also - I cannot find the thread now and I would like to properly credit the person that posited it in the first place and ask for their opinions.  Does anyone have the link or was it you? It has been a few months since I read.

I just threw a lot of things out there, none of which particularly pertaining to the topic at hand, but still in reference to how magic effects Westeros, I suppose.  Just now I had another thought: Could Jon's birth - the birth of a Targaryen and Stark - Valyrian blood and First Men - be what caused the Others to return? Does anyone have any thoughts on this?

I like this sinister theory and once ages ago speculated on a small group dedicated to bringing the PtwP into the world, though I was spitballing.  I never made that leap to sacrificing him.

It makes me think of Summerhall.  If they really wanted dragons reborn, then Rhaegar should have been sacrificed.  Aerys's next children, Viserys, Dany and Tyrion could have been the three heads. But someone messed it up, poor Egg finds out too late they mean to sacrifice the baby and immolates himself instead.  Dunno, but one can't help thinking they were playing with forces beyond their understanding and things got rapidly out of control.

I know you were going with Bloodraven on your other thread instead, but I still think the Others are coming because magic is on the rise, a long night is coming, and they have their own prophecy about a PtwP that will break the Wall's magic defenses.  Jon, who is as much Nightbringer as Lightbringer.

This is not to say he'll become an Other, but it is to say whatever he becomes he might break the Wall's spells in his resurrection.

At the risk of repeating myself: Ran, on another thread, speculated the Wall exists to keep ice magic to its far side.  Thinking about it, this very likely means the spells fused into the Wall are not ice-based but fire-based. Mel has no problems with the magic at the Wall, in fact to her it becomes stronger.  So Five Forts style, fire-fused and fire magically infused black stone, then covered in ice over time and to make it higher.

And as I said before upthread, Mel seems confused about kingsblood power as if it attaches to title, but we know that's ridiculous.  It could, however, be a special magic, once in a line of Kings, now spread throughout the land, but can become particularly potent again with incest. Mel has inadvertently been given by Jon access to a little bundle of joy just seething with untapped kingsblood of the Other variety.

Don't you think It's feasible she might sacrifice the Gilly-baby in a ritual to resurrect Jon?  Baby blood, magical or not, is one of those life-potent things powerful magic likes in exchange for its gifts.  And what an unexpected energizer Gilly-baby might be!  Certainly as power potent as Rhaego.

So here we have Mel, drawing heavily on the fire magic infused at the Wall (and maybe herself), using as conduit and sacrifice a magical Other baby - throwing all that life of Fire and Ice into its perfect fire and ice receptacle, and two miracles are born!  One for the Others - Mel just cracked the defensive spells in the Wall.  And one for our Westerosi - King Icefire, who will do - we don't know what - but according to my speculation upthread, raise all the dead Stark- Daynes with their dragons buried under Winterfell in the oldest crypts and hot spring caverns to obliterate the Others.

It's plausible!  

[Lady Barbrey]

On 10/22/2018 at 8:49 PM, hiemal said:

No, not her- she is something else entirely and I feel I've beaten that drum enough for now.

I do find it interesting that being born of a woman who died in childbirth (a broken grail?) seems to be the defining characteristic of heroes rather than say, virgin birth.

Broken grail- by way of Davinci's Code, or TS Eliot and Jesse Weston?

It is kind of a defining feature - a lot of fantasy, especially gothic, uses it.  I wonder if it has more significance.  Googling......

[Lady Barbrey]

13 hours ago, The Mother of The Others said:

So, in answer to the age old question, "Why now, White Walkers?" ,  the world is catching a Cold because its immune system is compromised.  The magical antibodies of westeros that would oppose the rise of the Others are uprooted, the planet's lifeblood is experiencing low cell count in its white platelets.  Whatever.  I'm not a medical professional.  And now at the moment when the Children are finally collapsing, the Cold overcomes the remaining magic wards.  As it would, were the world a high fever patient with cold sweats (remember Fever Dream?).  So the remedy is.... a magic booster shot for the land?   Jamming some herbal aspirin of a magical sort to burn the sickness out of Westeros' arteries. 

--Injecting some fire into the planet's blood.- -

No, you need to obliterate every creature whose blood has been bonded to fire and ice magic, all the Others, Dany and Dragons, Jon and possibly Tyrion.  Then you make incest and small pool intermarriage absolutely taboo for commoners and nobles alike.

13 hours ago, The Mother of The Others said:

(

Quote

You know what's weird is the way frost giants were dropped into this world in such an offhand way their presence doesn't even factor in to my thinking.  It never tripped the norse alarm before.  Probably not supposed to, either.  Wouldn't Martin be undercutting his creation by grafting Fenris and Company onto it?  Still, the Ymir style origin myth does seem to be represented here.)

Fenris the Wolf and Rhlorr the burning man seemed to appear for a few moments as shades in Dany's tent when the magic too place.

Interesting.  No need for Fenris.  We've got frost giants, surely they fill the bill.

 

 

 

[Lady Barbrey]

11 hours ago, hiemal said:

I could see that going either way, but I'm inclined to think that the Others are their own thing and that their shape is somehow imposed on them by outside forces so that they currently come in at least two varieties, the White Walkers and Ice Dragons.

Alternately, I have speculated that CotF, the Mazemakers, the Lengii, the merlings, the giants, and possibly the Naathi and the brindled men are all members or descendants of one very morphologically mutable race that can change quickly to adapt to any environment. The Others could be an extreme example?

Dragons are creatures of a different order. I don't they can be skinchanged by someone in OGs soul cycle because the souls go into a dragon are part of the Firenet. So, for example, Aerion Brightflame might indeed have become a dragon when he had his nightcap, just not in the way he imagined. Or if dragons have a human soul, it may that it is like warging a human, something only a greenseer can do?

 

The thing about the dragon transfer is that Targs, who don't have dragons, seem like they crawl out of their skins wanting that bond.  Dragons died out.  These crazy Targs who want them as almost a part of their own body would very likely have bonded one if an egg had been around.  Others it's no big deal, the bond was gone anyway.  Aerys I'm almost convinced was meant to bond a dragon, but wouldn't sacrifice Rhaegar st Summerhal so lived a life of increasing insanity instead.

 

[The Mother of The Others]

On 10/22/2018 at 3:59 PM, Lady Barbrey said:

I just can't subscribe to the idea that just naming someone a king would give that person more spiritual power in essence than someone not so titled.  

What if 100,000 people named you queen, though.  What about all their spirit, their will, now bound up with your own?   Even as a non- Targ mudblood royal, being the central figure of a society would make you a bright star in the realm of power physics where magic lives and breathes.  Magic would jealously sense royals as competition, as both deal in the same currency of Influence and power over the world of Man.   As your loyal subjects bent all their thoughts in your direction, magic would perceive you as a local black hole bending lines of gravity all around it.  The sacrificial value of your blood would skyrocket like good real estate.  Like how the power of prayer boosts as more creepy monks in flowing robes join in.   Or like how gods get stronger as they gain more worshippers.-- reliable source: dungeons & dragons. 

[Springwatch]

On 10/22/2018 at 11:59 PM, Lady Barbrey said:

I just can't subscribe to the idea that just naming someone a king would give that person more spiritual power in essence than someone not so titled.

Alternatively, the 'gods'  could interest themselves, invest themselves in kings and queens. It would fit with the theme of mummers and puppeteers, like Tyrion feeling he's dancing on someone's strings.

[Lady Rhodes]

10 hours ago, Lady Barbrey said:

I like this sinister theory and once ages ago speculated on a small group dedicated to bringing the PtwP into the world, though I was spitballing.  I never made that leap to sacrificing him.

It makes me think of Summerhall.  If they really wanted dragons reborn, then Rhaegar should have been sacrificed.  Aerys's next children, Viserys, Dany and Tyrion could have been the three heads. But someone messed it up, poor Egg finds out too late they mean to sacrifice the baby and immolates himself instead.  Dunno, but one can't help thinking they were playing with forces beyond their understanding and things got rapidly out of control. 

I know you were going with Bloodraven on your other thread instead, but I still think the Others are coming because magic is on the rise, a long night is coming, and they have their own prophecy about a PtwP that will break the Wall's magic defenses.  Jon, who is as much Nightbringer as Lightbringer.

This is not to say he'll become an Other, but it is to say whatever he becomes he might break the Wall's spells in his resurrection.

At the risk of repeating myself: Ran, on another thread, speculated the Wall exists to keep ice magic to its far side.  Thinking about it, this very likely means the spells fused into the Wall are not ice-based but fire-based. Mel has no problems with the magic at the Wall, in fact to her it becomes stronger.  So Five Forts style, fire-fused and fire magically infused black stone, then covered in ice over time and to make it higher.

And as I said before upthread, Mel seems confused about kingsblood power as if it attaches to title, but we know that's ridiculous.  It could, however, be a special magic, once in a line of Kings, now spread throughout the land, but can become particularly potent again with incest. Mel has inadvertently been given by Jon access to a little bundle of joy just seething with untapped kingsblood of the Other variety.

Don't you think It's feasible she might sacrifice the Gilly-baby in a ritual to resurrect Jon?  Baby blood, magical or not, is one of those life-potent things powerful magic likes in exchange for its gifts.  And what an unexpected energizer Gilly-baby might be!  Certainly as power potent as Rhaego.

So here we have Mel, drawing heavily on the fire magic infused at the Wall (and maybe herself), using as conduit and sacrifice a magical Other baby - throwing all that life of Fire and Ice into its perfect fire and ice receptacle, and two miracles are born!  One for the Others - Mel just cracked the defensive spells in the Wall.  And one for our Westerosi - King Icefire, who will do - we don't know what - but according to my speculation upthread, raise all the dead Stark- Daynes with their dragons buried under Winterfell in the oldest crypts and hot spring caverns to obliterate the Others.

It's plausible!  

Re: Aegon and Summerhall - I think that whatever tragedy occurred at Summerhall is deeply intertwined with the workings of this story. 

I agree that magic is on the rise, but again, the question is why now? It was occurring before the dragons were born/hatched.  I am becoming more and more of the persuasion that Bloodraven crossing beyond the Wall broke or damaged a magical barrier.  Some thoughts regarding this:

1) Melisandre's magic is stronger at the Wall. Why? Fire magic infused at the Wall - makes sense. I have also heard that the Wall is located at a magical pulse point, like magic radiates from there.

2) As has been mentioned, Jon and Ghost's warging connection is broken when they are separated by the Wall. Why is this? Why is theirs broken when Bran seems to be able to connect to weirwoods out of network? He doesn't seem to be out of service (haha! brings new meaning to communication when not in service!)

3) I believe the Others have been amassing an army, but Coldhands also leads us to believe that there is still a magical barrier that keeps them from returning. So we know that from this plus Jon's and Ghost's broken connection plus Mel's increased magic that the Wall does still have some magical barrier/defense. But this does not explain why Bran can connect to outside weirwoods.

4) How do we know Bran can connect to outside weirwoods? the sample WoW chapter seems to indicate he will see things that occur at the Winterfell hearttree, but regardless of that, we have canonical knowledge that he has seen events from Winterfell (at a minimum) concerning his father. At the very least, this means that the weirwood network is connected in such a way that memories/time/images/whatever we are calling it can be seen even if they are from weirwoods beyond the Wall.

5) The magic still exists, but appears to be fragmented.  It also appears that for a true invasion to occur, the barrier has to be broken. - not saying the Wall has to come down, just the magic broken.

6) Have other Targaryens been sent to the Wall prior to Aemon and Bloodraven (who arrived on the same ship)? It has been awhile since I have read World book. They arrived at the same time and with Dark Sister.  Could that much magic at a magic pulse point cause things to start breaking down?

7) Bloodraven has blood of the First Men - the Blackwoods and Valyrian blood - Aegon IV. Perhaps this mix started breaking down the magical bonds of the Wall?

 

[Bobity.]

Their seems to be some consensus that sacrificing and magic are strongly, but probably not exclusively linked. I got a theory that generational sacrificing is also part of the unexplained phenomenon of certain cultures and families having animal traits passed down.

Here are a couple observations I had drafted up.

Ghiscari

Quote

men seemed to be named Grazdan, presumably after Grazdan the Great who had founded Old Ghis in the dawn of days. They all looked alike; thick fleshy men with amber skin, broad noses, dark eyes. Their wiry hair was black, or a dark red, or that queer mixture of red and black that was peculiar to Ghiscari. - A Storm of Swords - Daenerys III

In the absence of an actual description of a harpy, this is the best we will get I think.  Fleshy, broad nose and queer wiry punky hair.  

Quote

Nine. The word was a dagger in her heart. Every night the shadow war was waged anew beneath the stepped pyramids of Meereen. Every morn the sun rose upon fresh corpses, with harpies drawn in blood on the bricks beside them. - A Dance with Dragons - Daenerys II

While the Sons of the Harpy nightly killings are clearly acts of resistance to Dany’s rule, I propose that there is more to it, and that these killings were performed as blood sacrifices with the blood drawn hapries part of the ritual.  Considering that the Ghiscari have been slavers since Grazdan the Great, victim availability would not have been an issue.

The use of “dawn of days” to describe Grazdan The Great’s history raises a flag for me.  The phrase is often used to describe ancient times, with a figure of 10,000 provided by Darkstar. “My House goes back ten thousand years, unto the dawn of days,”.  I dispute the maester narrative that Essos was a blank slate with the end of the Long Night, and that the empires of Valyria and Old Ghis do not have histories during the Age of Heroes.

Sister Islanders

I absolutely love rereading ADWD Davos l, everyone gets in a tizzy about the rumor of Jon’s patronage at the end, but it's everything before that Lord Godric Borrell tells abouty of the Sister Islands that fascinates me.

Quote

 

He was an ugly man, big and fleshy, with an oarsman's thick shoulders and no neck. Coarse grey stubble, going white in patches, covered his cheeks and chin. Above a massive shelf of brow he was bald. His nose was lumpy and red with broken veins, his lips thick, and he had a sort of webbing between the three middle fingers of his right hand. Davos had heard that some of the lords of the Three Sisters had webbed hands and feet, but he had always put that down as just another sailor's story.

The woman brought them a fresh loaf of bread, still hot from the oven. When Davos saw her hand, he stared. Lord Godric did not fail to make note of it. "Aye, she has the mark. Like all Borrells, for five thousand years.”

 

While big and fleshy are ambiguous, webbed hand and mysterious marks are genetic trait passed along by family.  There is some type of marine animal affinity going on.  Any evidence of sacrificing?

Quote

 

"When there were kings on the Sisters, we did not suffer dwarfs to live. We cast them all into the sea, as an offering to the gods. The septons made us stop that. A pack of pious fools. Why would the gods give a man such a shape but to mark him as a monster?"

"Storms were sacred on the Sisters before the Andals came. Our gods of old were the Lady of the Waves and the Lord of the Skies. They made storms every time they mated."

 

Ok, history of sacrificing to old gods, and a dismay in the banning of the practice by the Andals.  But did they really stop?

Quote

Sisterton's streets were mud and planks, its houses daub-and-wattle hovels roofed with straw, and by the Gallows Gate there were always hanged men with their entrails dangling out.

Grisley, not direct evidence of current sacrificing, but a long history (possibly continuing) of Sister Islander sacrificing are I believe the source of their physical peculiarities of marks and webbed hands.

Dothraki

Quote

Copper-skinned Dothraki with black hair and almond-shaped eyes. - A Game of Thrones - Daenerys II

Would it be a stretch to say that a Dothraki resembled a horse?  Well, you are what you eat I suppose.  

Quote

"Meat is meat," Bronn said with a shrug. "The Dothraki like horse more than beef or pork." - A Game of Thrones - Tyrion IV

Aside from the daily slaughter for their diet of horse, I can find two sacrificial rituals including horses.

- Ritually sacrifice a horse so a pregnant women may consume its heart. 

Quote

The heart was steaming in the cool evening air when Khal Drogo set it before her, raw and bloody. His arms were red to the elbow. Behind him, his bloodriders knelt on the sand beside the corpse of the wild stallion, stone knives in their hands. - A Game of Thrones - Daenerys V

- Sacrificing a horse to be used as the core of a ritualistic funeral pyre.

Quote

Rakharo chose a stallion from the small herd that remained to them; he was not the equal of Khal Drogo's red, but few horses were. In the center of the square, Aggo fed him a withered apple and dropped him in an instant with an axe blow between the eyes…..over the carcass of the horse, they built a platform of hewn logs; trunks of smaller trees and limbs from the greater, and the thickest straightest branches they could find. They laid the wood east to west, from sunrise to sunset. -  A Game of Thrones - Daenerys X

I believe that these sacrificial rituals and preferred diet have been deeply woven into Dothraki society and are not perceived to be blood magic, but are passively  contributing to the Dothraki physiological affinity to horses.