Theories on Magic in Westeros

[Lady Barbrey]

4 hours ago, hiemal said:

Magic is soul energy forced through or into an elemental matrix. Fire and blood, for example- the recipe for Valyrian Steel involves human sacrifice in its creation and I think that swords made from it drink in the soul energy of those who die on them and those who wield them.

When Melisandre makes a shadow baby she is forcing the soul of an unborn child into elemental shadow. I'm not sure how here ruby pendant works but when she glamored Rattleshirt she was drawing on her own life energy, leaving her exhausted, in real time, leaving her in agony as "Mance" burned. Despite the protestations of R'hlorrites perhaps light is not the same as heat?

Totally fits the life force, including aether or soul, trade-off with magic.  You had lots of excellent ideas in that former thread of yours on soul exchange, hiemal.  Any chance for a shortened version on this thread?  You and I see eye to eye on a lot of it, but in a few parts we diverge, so could be part of this newer discussion (I admit to posting this thread in part to suck you into this discussion).

[hiemal]

1 minute ago, Lady Barbrey said:

Totally fits the life force, including aether or soul, trade-off with magic.  You had lots of excellent ideas in that former thread of yours on soul exchange, hiemal.  Any chance for a shortened version on this thread?  You and I see eye to eye on a lot of it, but in a few parts we diverge, so could be part of this newer discussion (I admit to posting this thread in part to suck you into this discussion).

I'll try to summarize as I go along but I'm kind of a hot mess in that regard as my tinfoils tend to be many and sometimes contradictory.

Quote

"Dalla told me something once. Val's sister, Mance Rayder's wife. She said that sorcery was a sword without a hilt. There is no safe way to grasp it."

"A wise woman." Melisandre rose, her red robes stirring in the wind. "A sword without a hilt is still a sword, though, and a sword is a fine thing to have when foes are all about.

ADwD

Whether or not magic represents the natural order of this world or a perversion of it manipulating it directly always seems to me to be ultimately monstrous and the grander the magic the higher the price. I think that even the Children had to abide by that rule when they used their magic to change the very shape of their continent.

The simplest magic we come across is divination. It can be practiced by directly absorbing the supplicant's life energy in the form of blood as practiced by Maggy the Frog and the whore at the Happy Port but to see anything beyond that person's individual fate requires into one the the time/space- spanning magical "networks". The weirnet requires one to "buy into" the Old Gods' faith through blood. R'hlorr speaks to his slaves through his flames and glass candles apparently require blood to operate.

Summary: I tinfoil that the Long Night was at partially caused by the Bloodstone Emperor's partial apotheosis into the god of flame and shadow, creating a "firenet" not unlike that created by the interwoven roots of the weirwood trees and the cycle of souls that flows through it. R'hlorr is lord of the world's tectonic energies, meaning there are no "accidental" earthquakes or volcanoes. The Doom of Valyria was not an accident, but otherwise Dragonstone broods on with no recorded explosion thousands of years and Winterfell squats atop ground riddled with thermal vents but nary a tremor in the same time frame. This is also the power of dragons, given to them during the Nagga incident when the Children used their power to shatter the continent for the first time.

 

[Darth Sidious]

The magic is in the old blood.  Ancient blood.  Which the Starks possess, Craster donates, and the Others covet.  

[Free Northman Reborn]

To me it aligns with Martin’s overarching message that nothing is for free. Everything comes at a cost. A life for a life, sacrifice to gain power, etc.

Even the Children’s nature magic uses the stored up life force of “those who have gone into the Earth” to sustain their passive magic such as skinchanging, greenseeing etc.

But for major spells that require more power, they need human sacrifices.

[John Suburbs]

14 hours ago, Lady Barbrey said:

I havd to disagree it would go beyond his literary intent.  He's not creating a magic system like Sanderson does, for instance, with mathematical precision in rules and how much of this equals how much magic from that.  But as with many fantasy writers, he seems to have an organizing principle and touchstone for magic in Westeros, so that most discrete incidents can be measured or understood within that context.  There is absolutely nothing unliterary about doing this so perhaps I am misunderstanding.

I dunno. I tend to take Martin's words on this topic at face value:

Quote

Fantasy needs magic in it, but I try to control the magic very strictly. You can have too much magic in fantasy very easily, and then it overwhelms everything and you lose all sense of realism. And I try to keep the magic magical — something mysterious and dark and dangerous, and something never completely understood. I don’t want to go down the route of having magic schools and classes where, if you say these six words, something will reliably happen. Magic doesn’t work that way. Magic is playing with forces you don’t completely understand. And perhaps with beings or deities you don’t completely understand. It should have a sense of peril about it.

Meduza interview, August 2017

So in that sense, you are right that there are underlying magical forces at work in aSoIaF, but they cannot be measured or understood, even by the most expert practitioners.

[Bobity.]

I believe that sacrifices are the magic currency, with the scale of return being proportional to the sacrifice.   Small self sacrifices like bleeding one's finger to grant an omen, vs 1,000 butchered First Men before the Isle of Faces weirwoods so the COTF could break the Dorne land bridge. 

Not all sacrifices are equal, Mel gets regular sacrifices via the night fires to perform her glamours and feats of fire, but it's kings blood she seeks for shadowbinding.  I also suspect that infant sacrifices brings a greater return, there are Qohor and COTF references to infant sacrifices being done in desperation, not to mention Caster fueling the Others.  

I also believe that an act of self sacrifice carries weight.  Where a sacrificed lion failed, Nissa Nissas bare breasted self sacrifice successfully created Lightbringer.

I also suspect that the House of Black and White poison pool is a passive self sacrifice assembly line, enabling the rather ghoulish face shifting capability in the deep basement.
 

[Curled Finger]

Oh @Lady Barbrey, very nice.   

@Ellard Stark, may i add aeromancers to your list? 

@hiemal--I was just about to bring in in some of the very cool stuff we have researched and discussed.   My initial thought went straight to you, Ser.  

My own thoughts are more observations mixed with my own religious/metaphysical persuasions.   I believe it was hiemal who opened the discussion about power struggles between the elements.   (Please correct me where I've gone off the rails--it's been a while and I've conducted lots of research on my own since our first discussions, @hiemal)  The magical element, fire, lost some great struggle for dominion.   I liken wildfyre to a nuke in my own mind.    My, my, doesn't Asshai just ooze an ancient disaster vibe?   So then might the far north.   

Mostly this is a fairly balanced world containing all the elements essential to human existence.   Just as our own world undergoes changes in elemental force--the ice ages and deserts come most immediately to mind--Planetos seems to have undergone similar changes.    Being a fantasy I have to accept that magic is a very real force here--but that doesn't have to mean it isn't logical magic.   The Brackens are accused of poisoning the Blackwood Raven Tree, yet the ravens flock back every night.   Poison?   I doubt it.  Perhaps the weirwood net in the south is damaged and simply works differently and Raven Tree is just an example of the damage.   This weirwood damage is no doubt due to the deforestation of weirwoods, yet the magic remains bringing at the very least dreams.  This is the smallest and most inconsequential example I could dream up on the fly.   I'm sure there are far better, bigger and stronger examples of the evolution of magic in ASOIAF.   

Is magic still strong on the Rhoyne without the natives to practice this?  That causes me to question if the little earth magic COTF guys were really the force behind the breaking of the arm of Dorne and/or the flooding of the Neck.   Seems to me earth magic guys would find maybe earthquakes or landslides easier to summon than floods?   Are the Others out and about in response to the rise in the popularity of those nutty R'hllorists raising folks from death and setting good steel alight with their blood?   If so, what did the Others think of real honest to goodness Valyrians taking up residence on their continent?   Or is Valyrian magic just wrong and unworthy of note?   Is the fire power R'hllorists wield really that scary?   I think so, but dragons are awfully darned impressive.   Or is it all way off and both types of fire worship are wrong--the only difference being the sheer power of fire harness by the Valyrians?   

I wish I was explaining more comprehensibly.  In a nut shell, I think the tale about our humans is a sort of mirror into what's happening with the forces of magic and that magic is elemental.   Really enjoying the comments--lots to consider and lots to discuss.   Great topic, @Lady Barbrey.

[hiemal]

The Darknet

In Braavos we encounter what I am calling the Darknet, although perhaps Moon-net might be better. I believe that either the Faceless Men alone or in conjunction with the Moonsingers I think they are basically an order or phase of (the new or dark moon obviously as indicated by the dark moon pool in the House of Black and White) they have created their own cycle of souls and thereby source of soul energy for working magic using the moon pools as foci. I think it it is likely that the faces they harvest are treated in the dark pool and the bulk of the soul energy of the slain person enters the Darknet while a small portion remain attached to the face itself in the same way that Bran encounters a fragment of CotF in one of the Ravens he inhabits. The Many-Faced (phased) God probably grants some kind of divination ability to his followers- how else would Jaqen have known where and when to find Arya?- but I don't know if that would be through the pool, through the moon itself, or through the faces.

Incidentally, how does the Kindly Man wear a "face" that is essentially not a face, but mostly just bare bone?

 

The Deepnet

When the Children warred with the Deep Ones and sank portions of the Western Shore (and possibly elsewhere) I believe they also ended up sinking at least one grove of weirwood trees in such a state that they remained alive, although Drowned. The Deep Ones corrupted this grove into Shade-of-the-Evening with Oily Black Stone and created the Deepnet, the true face of the Drowned God. This is probably where the driftwood that the Iron Kings traditionally make their crowns from and that the Drowned Men make their truncheons from. I think this grove is attended by merlings, who are the Children of the Forest that survived their submersion and adapted either through their own power or the influence of the Deep Ones who enslaved them.

I'm not sure how the merlings of the East coast relate to the ones on the West- is the grove that I believe is controlling Patchface also the Deep One's or is the Merling King a different deity altogether?

 

 

The Shadenet

As with the Deepnet, I think the Undying of Qarth created a cycle using corrupted weirwoods, also known as Shade-of-the-Evening using the giant blue heart as a focus. I tinfoil, btw, that this is the heart of a dragon that was poisoned with Shade-of-the-Evening. Probably the souls of the warlocks power this network, whose primary function appears to sustaining the Undying themselves. Rather than "overwrite" themselves onto this network of souls as I believe R'hlorr did to become a "god" they are channeling some portion of this energy through the heart and into their physical bodies.

 

The Icenet

This is the one we know the least about, but will that stop me from bold and reckless speculation? Of course not.

I tinfoil that the Amethyst Empress, Valerys, died in childbirth bringing forth Azor Ahai, Garyen who later rode the dragon Rubilaxes, the fruit of magically-manipulated pregnancy by her twin brother Rhaellor. The AE did not stay dead, however- in the magical backlash of the Lightbringer Incident she rose again as Night's Queen, the Mother of Undeath.

I think she created an Icenet which uses planet's cycle of glaciation and ice ages in the same way that the Firenet uses tectonix energy. There is probably some sort of ice towers or spires in the Land of Always Winter that act as the focus of the souls that flow through it into the bodies of the wights, which the Others control through a variation of skinchanging.

[Lady Barbrey]

On 10/18/2018 at 7:33 PM, hiemal said:

I'll try to summarize as I go along but I'm kind of a hot mess in that regard as my tinfoils tend to be many and sometimes contradictory.

Whether or not magic represents the natural order of this world or a perversion of it manipulating it directly always seems to me to be ultimately monstrous and the grander the magic the higher the price. I think that even the Children had to abide by that rule when they used their magic to change the very shape of their continent.

The simplest magic we come across is divination. It can be practiced by directly absorbing the supplicant's life energy in the form of blood as practiced by Maggy the Frog and the whore at the Happy Port but to see anything beyond that person's individual fate requires into one the the time/space- spanning magical "networks". The weirnet requires one to "buy into" the Old Gods' faith through blood. R'hlorr speaks to his slaves through his flames and glass candles apparently require blood to operate.

Summary: I tinfoil that the Long Night was at partially caused by the Bloodstone Emperor's partial apotheosis into the god of flame and shadow, creating a "firenet" not unlike that created by the interwoven roots of the weirwood trees and the cycle of souls that flows through it. R'hlorr is lord of the world's tectonic energies, meaning there are no "accidental" earthquakes or volcanoes. The Doom of Valyria was not an accident, but otherwise Dragonstone broods on with no recorded explosion thousands of years and Winterfell squats atop ground riddled with thermal vents but nary a tremor in the same time frame. This is also the power of dragons, given to them during the Nagga incident when the Children used their power to shatter the continent for the first time.

 

So do you think Rhlorr is an actual god of Westeros?  Some god-entity directing magical and tectonic energies? It's okay if you do, of course, I've just always doubted George was going in that direction.  I thought Rhlorr more a label people use when focusing fire magic, which nevertheless can and does exist without him.  We know the Valyrians worshipped gods that weren't Rhlorr, though he was possibly among them, and still did great sorceries with magic.  The Rhlorr and Great Other as real live, made in the image, gods seems doubtful to me.  I do wonder about soul, however, in that when life-potency is sacrificed to magic, it seems to take something that might be 'soul' with it.  So does magic have and therefore need 'soul' and could gods be created from it?

[Lady Barbrey]

On 10/18/2018 at 7:36 PM, Silver Bullet 1985 said:

The magic is in the old blood.  Ancient blood.  Which the Starks possess, Craster donates, and the Others covet.  

I think we have good indications that this or a variation of it is true.  What about the Targs?

[Lady Barbrey]

On 10/18/2018 at 7:44 PM, Free Northman Reborn said:

To me it aligns with Martin’s overarching message that nothing is for free. Everything comes at a cost. A life for a life, sacrifice to gain power, etc.

Even the Children’s nature magic uses the stored up life force of “those who have gone into the Earth” to sustain their passive magic such as skinchanging, greenseeing etc.

But for major spells that require more power, they need human sacrifices.

Yes, that is one of his overarching messages.  Well put.

[Lady Barbrey]

15 hours ago, John Suburbs said:

I dunno. I tend to take Martin's words on this topic at face value:

So in that sense, you are right that there are underlying magical forces at work in aSoIaF, but they cannot be measured or understood, even by the most expert practitioners.

If we're taking at face value, he says magic can't be 'completely' understood.  I think most of us would be happy with 80-90% of a unifying principle or principles (not the details) but we'll never even get that if we don't think and theorize about it.  He is never going to summarize it so that's the only way to come close.

[Lady Barbrey]

12 hours ago, Bobity. said:

I believe that sacrifices are the magic currency, with the scale of return being proportional to the sacrifice.   Small self sacrifices like bleeding one's finger to grant an omen, vs 1,000 butchered First Men before the Isle of Faces weirwoods so the COTF could break the Dorne land bridge. 

Not all sacrifices are equal, Mel gets regular sacrifices via the night fires to perform her glamours and feats of fire, but it's kings blood she seeks for shadowbinding.  I also suspect that infant sacrifices brings a greater return, there are Qohor and COTF references to infant sacrifices being done in desperation, not to mention Caster fueling the Others.  

I also believe that an act of self sacrifice carries weight.  Where a sacrificed lion failed, Nissa Nissas bare breasted self sacrifice successfully created Lightbringer.

I also suspect that the House of Black and White poison pool is a passive self sacrifice assembly line, enabling the rather ghoulish face shifting capability in the deep basement.
 

I agree that infants (more life-potent than adults, this is so grisly) are better sacrifice material.  I have speculated that self-sacrifice is more powerful too but we have yet to see this proven in-text, just in the AA prophecy, which might be a riddle we don't yet understand.  Like you, I'll be looking to see if we do see a power surge from self-sacrifice.  I wonder if the older Northmen sacrificing themselves in times of hard winter is not solely for the community to survive but if they power magic as well. That's one self-sacrifice we might see now that winter has finally arrived.

[hiemal]

6 hours ago, Lady Barbrey said:

So do you think Rhlorr is an actual god of Westeros?

Essos? Planetos? I think he is something that might be considered a god. Rather than flowing "naturally" through a soul cycle as the Old Gods' system is described I think R'hlorr altered that system so that his "personality" permanently and consciously inhabits the entire system. Rather than tap into the weirnet, imagine if Bran could somehow "second life" it?

6 hours ago, Lady Barbrey said:

  Some god-entity directing magical and tectonic energies? It's okay if you do, of course, I've just always doubted George was going in that direction.

Despite my confident tone, I realize that it is a longshot given the available data. I do have a reputation to uphold. I suppose this would be my "best-or-at-least-most-interesting" theory. I think it has explanatory power and fits what facts we know and I think that the theme of the usurpation of power and the natural order is one we see in history, politics, and of course in magic.

6 hours ago, Lady Barbrey said:

 I thought Rhlorr more a label people use when focusing fire magic, which nevertheless can and does exist without him.  We know the Valyrians worshipped gods that weren't Rhlorr, though he was possibly among them, and still did great sorceries with magic. 

Yup. Or R'hlorr could be a corruption of some magic word or phrase of importance from the Long Night and a completely insensate force of nature or against nature.

6 hours ago, Lady Barbrey said:

 I do wonder about soul, however, in that when life-potency is sacrificed to magic, it seems to take something that might be 'soul' with it.  So does magic have and therefore need 'soul'

That's an interesting way of putting it but I suppose so? I think the soul energy in a "network" is a like water flowing through an endless cycle of pipes beneath the ground that irrigates the ground above. The water is soaked back up and rejoins the cycle unless it is diverted to do some other work. R'hlorr in this case would be some kind of grand "work" that would be carried out by the action of the water pressure in the entire network of pipes and the only way for a third party to "tap into" this waterworks would be some kind of osmosis requiring the expenditure of water on their own end in order to open a pipe. Not a perfect analogy, I suppose but...

6 hours ago, Lady Barbrey said:

 and could gods be created from it?

Not real ones.

[hiemal]

The Seven

I've saved this one for last because I know you won't like it but...

The Great Empire of the Dawn represent an alien race, an invader species. Hear me out- I'm thinking of the Sithi in Tad Williams' Memory, Sorrow, Thorn (who travelled to Osten Ard from their homeworld of Garden by means of largely unexplained magical space(?)craft) which GRRM cites as a major influence onASoIaF as well the Tuatha de Dannon from the Irish Book of Invaders I mentioned in leaf-Lif. I think the second moon may have been a mothership the pearl palanquin of YiTish myth a misremembered lander.

I think these invaders brought their own system of souls with them and each Gemstone Emperor in turn ascended to some kind of immortality- becoming those who are now remembered as the Seven. The Bloostone Emperor broke this cycle obviously, possibly destroying the mothership during the Lightbringer Incident. The Stranger, incidentally, could some kind of combination of the BSE and his sister. It appears that the Seven do grant powers every once in a while- appearing bodily at least occasionally and possibly granting healing powers to a select few.

Incidentally, this appears to be the only linear, non-cyclical soul-cycle. The Seven Heavens and Seven Hells seem to be eternal, like judgement. Alien!

[Lord Varys]

Magic is magic. There is no system to it. This is not a role-playing game.

And not every magic is blood magic or requires a sacrifice. This is a world where you can revive people with a simply (fiery) kiss, after all.

[hiemal]

2 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

 

And not every magic is blood magic or requires a sacrifice. This is a world where you can revive people with a simply (fiery) kiss, after all.

Thoros admits it was the Lord of Light who revived Beric while Thoros was simply performing the rituals of last rites, which usually do not bring back the dead. When Beric does make a conscious choice to revive Cat the sacrifice is his own borrowed flame.

[Lord Varys]

2 minutes ago, hiemal said:

Thoros admits it was the Lord of Light who revived Beric while Thoros was simply performing the rituals of last rites, which usually do not bring back the dead. When Beric does make a conscious choice to revive Cat the sacrifice is his own borrowed flame.

Thoros claims his god has something to do with it, but the man is no expert on religion or magic, no?

Beric transfers the magic keeping him alive to Catelyn. This is not a sacrifice. It is a transfer.

[hiemal]

55 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

Thoros claims his god has something to do with it, but the man is no expert on religion or magic, no?

Beric transfers the magic keeping him alive to Catelyn. This is not a sacrifice. It is a transfer.

I think it is functionally both. That's what I think magic boils down to- moving soul energy from one place to another for a specific purpose. It may be as you suggest that there is ultimately no rhyme or reason behind the hidden forces, but I don't think that is necessarily the case: if any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic then it could also be any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology. At the very least there must be at least some degree of predictability between cause and effect.

[Lord Varys]

2 minutes ago, hiemal said:

I think it is functionally both. That's what I think magic boils down to- moving soul energy from one place to another for a specific purpose. It may be as you suggest that there is ultimately no rhyme or reason behind the hidden forces, but I don't think that is necessarily the case: if any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic then it could also be any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology. At the very least there must be at least some degree of predictability between cause and effect.

George himself has said that his magic is magic. There is no general system to it. It is supposed to be magical, which means it is unpredictable and strange.

We also have Melisandre being imbued with fire magic, Moqorro healing/changing Victarion with fire magic which didn't involve sacrifice, Melisandre saving herself from the Strangler, etc.

There is blood magic there, too, but that's not all. The very talk about 'fire and blood' means that fire is rather important in the whole Valyrian magic, too. And there there is the Rhoynar water magic, etc. The Children certainly also can use blood magic and do sacrifices for certain spells, but not for all.

Trying to impose a system on the magic which isn't there does not also simplify a complex concept but also twists things around in a direction the author didn't want it to go.