Theories on Magic in Westeros

The Mother of The Others · October 21, 2018

Okay. Novel-Sized Thoughts. (Up through post #33):

Craster is giving away the future for magic shielding now. This strangely resonates. Why? Because the Western world is currently burning the future for a bigger house and car now, more government spending while debt balloons, etc.

If infants and Varys' nutsack were both potent sacrifices separately, imagine the power of an infant nutsack!

I think George is having his cake and also eating it (i.e. having it both ways) with his line, ~ "there will be no gods in this story." He wants us to know that no actual gods will be players in the ice and fire conclusion, so all such speculation is 'useless' and don't get your hopes up....but on the other hand AWOIAF seems to have invited people to obsess over the bloodstone emperor's apotheosis. An Easter egg god and alternate way of seeing world history, for those in the G.R.R.M. illuminati . And the warlocks, or R'hollr, fit as the modern continuation of that unwholesome Power tradition. To join with fire like R'hollr is the dream of every mad Targ, after all. To become a dragon. To cross over in the other direction the way dragons crossed over into our reality.

To me, this is the pull of the cosmic energy that wants to reshape us, it gets in our brains and makes us want to be remolded away from Life's normal path. (The warlocks.) It gets bonded into our blood through ancient rituals (Daenerys' bloodline was long ago infused, turning her into a magic antenna which is how she was able to intuit her way into magical success. "True dragon" = best candidate = best magic radio reception.)

Re: Deep Ones vs. Merlings - ---Uhhhhhhhh, so they're two different things? (Out of my...depth....as I didn't read World Of...)

Re: multiple WeirNets

I liked your various NETS idea for each kind of magic user to tap into. My studio executive style "notes" would be to suggest weirwoods don't need to be the source of all of them (feels too redundant?), merely the magic portal the Children found among possible others- - - the Drowned God's weir portal could reflect the ocean's own bottom- feeder ecology. That's a hell of a Cycle right there, some huge undead coral thingee attended by merfolk who attach the minds and bodies of shipwreck victims, with massive schools of fish as the huge slaughtered life force offerings. Though the driftwood crown being weir feels right! and Euron tapping into visions for heightened awareness thru his sacrificed eye, sort of like stealing cable tv from the Children.

The House of black and white seems to include weirwood as an homage to fellow magicians more than a power source. Like they're thanking the weir for showing them the way, but they took the concept and adapted their cult's own magic onramp.

Warlock Net: who knows what their deal is. They're like checkers and the Undying are the king checkers? Your dragon heart foci isn't far- fetched- - - - where else would they get a giant heart? Well, from a giant maybe. Remember that Bloodstone Theory Guy who did some seminal work on here? (Meaning he totally, totally went down the rabbit hole for like a year straight? That one.) Anyway, one thing that amazed me from all of that was the idea that:

Weirwoods are engaged in a millennia long struggle against the sentient trees of Essos. Different tree species, each staking out their own continent and itching for ....worldwide root domination? Jojen Paste vs. Shade of the Evening. Oily black stone vs. Whatever. Each warping humans into puppets for their agenda. And all the major human migrations of history (First Men, Roynar, etc.) and cultural conflicts were.... Rooted.... in us being used as pawns by the sentient trees, as fodder in their intercontinental war. (That was hot.)

The Others' icemagic source? I hope it's awesome. Like a vampire curse broadcast over the Weirnet involving deep betrayal, all that. Whatever Night King & bride were up to (on the cusp of breeding Others the quick and easy way like humans?) it scared the Citadel into smothering magic out of common practice to avoid a sequel. But taking the guns (magic) away from Westerosi left only the criminals (Others) with guns, as the Dems (Maesters) are about to find out.

Space meteor swords to the rescue! That vulnerability to alien metal implies Ice Life has otherworldly origin, right? Eco- poisoning of Planetos. Like invasive Chinese toads! Goodnight now.

Fun Guy from Yuggoth · October 21, 2018

20 hours ago, Lady Barbrey said:

The Rhlorr and Great Other as real live, made in the image, gods seems doubtful to me.

I think they are two "gods" inside the weirwood network. R'hllor has a lot of weirwood imagery: the Heart of Fire/fiery heart, the 1000 Fiery Hands, and weirwood leaves are hand-shaped, and they are a blaze of flame, heart tree,

"the weirwood's bark was white as bone, its leaves dark red, like a thousand bloodstained hands."

" The red leaves of the weirwood were a blaze of flame"

Both gods seem to want human sacrifice and King's Blood, and can offer glimpses of the future.

In the Forsaken chapter Euron takes control of the weirwood network and the weirwoods are a burning forest.

" Clad head to heel in scale as dark as onyx, he sat upon a mound of blackened skulls as dwarfs capered round his feet and a forest burned behind him"

And the Storm God set the tree ablaze with a thunderbolt.

"On one side is R'hllor, the Lord of Light, the Heart of Fire, the God of Flame and Shadow. Against him stands the Great Other whose name may not be spoken, the Lord of Darkness, the Soul of Ice, the God of Night and Terror."

"A wooden face, corpse white. Was this the enemy? A thousand red eyes floated in the rising flames. He sees me. Beside him, a boy with a wolf's face threw back his head and howled."

"But beyond the Wall, the enemy grows stronger, and should he win the dawn will never come again. She wondered if it had been his face that she had seen, staring out at her from the flames. No. Surely not. His visage would be more frightening than that, cold and black and too terrible for any man to gaze upon and live. The wooden man she had glimpsed, though, and the boy with the wolf's face … they were his servants, surely … his champions, as Stannis was hers."

The Great Other is Bran and Bloodraven.

Beric is a R'hllorist but he is depicted as a Bloodraven/Odin character seated on a weirwood throne in his cave.

Lady Barbrey · October 21, 2018

1 hour ago, hiemal said:

Last time. Probably.

He doesn't make a big deal of it, but the Navigators are the key to the whole thing apparently.

The pearl mothership does seem a long shot, but I like to tinfoil big. I've also tinfoiled the Dawn Emperors literally warging the heavenly bodies the Seven are associated with leaving AE and BSE trapped together in the Red Comet as the Stranger, the Wanderer from Far Places. I get around, theory-wise.

Interesting- perhaps they acquired their silver hair and purple eyes by interbreeding with folks from the Shadow or do you think it could be a result of a magical bond with dragons?

I started with Ygdrassil, CotF, and ravens and just kind of ran with it.

No, I think a fair proportion of the First Men might have run to purple eyes and silver hair. In fact, if you remember that purple eyed, fair-furred lemur on Essos, that colouring might go even further back to a common ape ancestor to lemurs and humans! (You are not the only one that makes leaps based on bizarre examples in the World Book). So when the First Men first arrived in Westeros some of them had that coloring. The Daynes retained it as a dominant gene, the Dustins/Starks and others of the First Men lost it, and the Valyrians bred it true time and again because they practiced incest, not for the colouring, but to retain their fire magic, dragonbonding affinities after they were transformed into dragonriders. The coloring might originally be tied to a First Family of First Men that had the potential of mutability - they could easily be transformed into skinchangers, Greenseers, Others and Valyrians. And that's where all the transformed magical humans originate - Westeros.

This theory actually has lots of supporting evidence and makes sense of a lot of anomalies, but this is not the place to go into it. If you remember, George stated the Daynes did not have Valyrian ancestry. He never stated the Valyrians could not have had a Dayne ancestry, or more accurately, shared a pre-ancestor in Westeros.

So TLDR: the coloring is not tied to the shadow or dragons or anything magical at all really. It just happened to be the natural colouring of the First Men, or First Man (the Last Hero) who were transformed into Valyrians to stop the Others the first time around. And the Others themselves might stem from a different branch of that same proto-family.

(Another reflection of Norse myth by the way - the old gods, the giants, good guys and bad alike - they were all from the same family. That's why Dany's vision of gem-eyed ancestors holding a sword that looks like Dawn - the Amethyst (Purple-eyed) Empress ancestors with Dawn? - only makes sense if we assume common ancestry, first in Essos, then a migration to Westeros, then a branching off of dragon riders back to Essos after the Long Night leaving Dawn behind with the Dayne branch of the family. Also, there were dragons in Westeros we're told, but the only obvious place we know of they might have resided on the continent proper was Winterfell with its hot springs. So that's where the Last Hero must have been transformed into a Valyrian and collected a few dragons.

This just goes on and on. There is so much evidence right down to architecture for it! But I keep digressing! Sorry!)

hiemal · October 21, 2018

1 hour ago, The Mother of The Others said:

Okay. Novel-Sized Thoughts. (Up through post #33):

I think George is having his cake and also eating it (i.e. having it both ways) with his line, ~ "there will be no gods in this story." He wants us to know that no actual gods will be players in the ice and fire conclusion, so all such speculation is 'useless' and don't get your hopes up....but on the other hand AWOIAF seems to have invited people to obsess over the bloodstone emperor's apotheosis. An Easter egg god and alternate way of seeing world history, for those in the G.R.R.M. illuminati . And the warlocks, or R'hollr, fit as the modern continuation of that unwholesome Power tradition. To join with fire like R'hollr is the dream of every mad Targ, after all. To become a dragon. To cross over in the other direction the way dragons crossed over into our reality.

Exactly! Like moths to the flame...

1 hour ago, The Mother of The Others said:

To me, this is the pull of the cosmic energy that wants to reshape us, it gets in our brains and makes us want to be remolded away from Life's normal path. (The warlocks.) It gets bonded into our blood through ancient rituals (Daenerys' bloodline was long ago infused, turning her into a magic antenna which is how she was able to intuit her way into magical success. "True dragon" = best candidate = best magic radio reception.)

That's a good analogy. And we have different frequencies being broadcast, and different champions arising to answer the call.

1 hour ago, The Mother of The Others said:

Re: Deep Ones vs. Merlings - ---Uhhhhhhhh, so they're two different things? (Out of my...depth....as I didn't read World Of...)

I think so? There is so little information that it's tinfoil on tinfoil with those guys. One of the Ironborn PoV's (Aeron?) mentions the drowned god making the merlings slaves and I think the idea of being served by them in the afterlife is mentioned as well.

1 hour ago, The Mother of The Others said:

Re: multiple WeirNets

I liked your various NETS idea for each kind of magic user to tap into. My studio executive style "notes" would be to suggest weirwoods don't need to be the source of all of them (feels too redundant?), merely the magic portal the Children found among possible others- - - the Drowned God's weir portal could reflect the ocean's own bottom- feeder ecology. That's a hell of a Cycle right there, some huge undead coral thingee attended by merfolk who attach the minds and bodies of shipwreck victims, with massive schools of fish as the huge slaughtered life force offerings. Though the driftwood crown being weir feels right! and Euron tapping into visions for heightened awareness thru his sacrificed eye, sort of like stealing cable tv from the Children.

That would be interesting as well- I'm mostly basing the usurped weirnet idea on a desire for simplicity (entirely flexible and arbitrary) and a preoccupation with the theme of usurpation.

1 hour ago, The Mother of The Others said:

The House of black and white seems to include weirwood as an homage to fellow magicians more than a power source. Like they're thanking the weir for showing them the way, but they took the concept and adapted their cult's own magic onramp.

Contrasting the weirwood with a mundane hardwood like ebony (is it ebony in the door?) could even indicate that the choice is entirely aesthetic.

1 hour ago, The Mother of The Others said:

Warlock Net: who knows what their deal is. They're like checkers and the Undying are the king checkers? Your dragon heart foci isn't far- fetched- - - - where else would they get a giant heart? Well, from a giant maybe.

Or it was just a "normal" disembodied heart that's just been slowly, ickily growing over the centuries. I do love the imagery of these warlocks ritually poisoning a dragon like the fremen drowning a sandworm on Arrakis.

1 hour ago, The Mother of The Others said:

Remember that Bloodstone Theory Guy who did some seminal work on here? (Meaning he totally, totally went down the rabbit hole for like a year straight? That one.) Anyway, one thing that amazed me from all of that was the idea that:

Weirwoods are engaged in a millennia long struggle against the sentient trees of Essos. Different tree species, each staking out their own continent and itching for ....worldwide root domination? Jojen Paste vs. Shade of the Evening. Oily black stone vs. Whatever. Each warping humans into puppets for their agenda. And all the major human migrations of history (First Men, Roynar, etc.) and cultural conflicts were.... Rooted.... in us being used as pawns by the sentient trees, as fodder in their intercontinental war. (That was hot.)

That must have been before my time, but it sounds interesting. All the right notes, but...

I have, incidentally, played with the idea that CotF are literally the Children of the Forest, little sentient fruit babies. It's an amusing idea.

1 hour ago, The Mother of The Others said:

The Others' icemagic source? I hope it's awesome. Like a vampire curse broadcast over the Weirnet involving deep betrayal, all that.

Right!?

1 hour ago, The Mother of The Others said:

Whatever Night King & bride were up to (on the cusp of breeding Others the quick and easy way like humans?) it scared the Citadel into smothering magic out of common practice to avoid a sequel. But taking the guns (magic) away from Westerosi left only the criminals (Others) with guns, as the Dems (Maesters) are about to find out.

That has a good beat and I can definitely dance to it. The tension between the Maesters and the alchemists and the Faith for the control of knowledge and with the bards for the control of history and their crusade against magic as it relates to both is worthy of a thread in itself.

1 hour ago, The Mother of The Others said:

Space meteor swords to the rescue! That vulnerability to alien metal implies Ice Life has otherworldly origin, right? Eco- poisoning of Planetos. Like invasive Chinese toads! Goodnight now.

Funny you should mention that but I have also speculated that the Others have liquid oxygen for blood but that's almost certainly way too sci-fi...

Fun Guy from Yuggoth · October 21, 2018

5 hours ago, Lady Barbrey said:

You can see why I told you recently I am uninterested in aliens! I have an entirely different world-wide of Westeros that does not include them, or at least I'd need more in-text evidence for them.

I think @hiemal is on the right track that the Great Empire was alien. I think it was a world-spanning civilization that was founded by a single alien that arrived in 3 huge black spaceships. It is essentially Haviland Tuf from Tuf Voyaging arriving in an all-powerful spaceship and establishing a civilization and playing god. He came down from a spaceship, rode around in his pearl car, lived 10,000 years, and ascended to the stars when he died. He was a master of genetic engineering and bred the lemurs into humans ("Lemures may represent the wandering and vengeful spirits of those not afforded proper burial, funeral rites or affectionate cult by the living") You have said that George is Garth Greenhand, he is also the God-on-Earth, who single-handedly builds civilizations. All the black stone structures were built by the Great Empire.

Check out my thread on the ideas that George recycled from the 1000 worlds he uses the black stone, the valyrian looks are genetically engineered, psi-powers are genetic, the Others ice armor is chameleon cloth, he has aircars and spaceships that are shaped like dragons and wolves,

In George's other stories what people think is obsidian is actually some kind of plastic, space-age building material. And in ASOIAF the black dragonstone building material is harder than diamond or steel and is found all over the world, the Daynes in Westeros are a remnant of the Great Empire, so is Battle Isle. Where it all when wrong was that the God-on-Earth tried to eliminate some of the weirwoods, not knowing they were sentient, and sparked a war that has continued to this day. (Tywin plays the part of the God on Earth, Elia and her children are the weirwood and CoTF, totally unprovoked he orders her and her children killed, Oberyn is the weirwood seeking revenge, the Mountain is one of the spaceships, Tyrion is the Bloodstone Emperor who kills his father) This is a theme of George's story Guardians. The weirwood corrupted the mind of the Bloodstone Emperor by giving him the bloodstone (shining trapezohedron), and he brought down the empire from within, and they attacked it from without with the undead army. The Bloodstone Emperor parked on of the spaceships in orbit to eclipse the sun, and that was the Long Night. The spaceship may have bombarded Great Empire cities with shadow fire

"From a smoking tower, a great stone beast took wing, breathing shadow fire"

and that is why they are still radioactive and poisonous. That might be why the shade of the evening trees are black, they got irradiated, and/or the Bloodstone Emperor contaminated them when he joined the network.

There are two short stories in the Lovecraft mythos (To Clear the Earth, and Black Fire) about alien black spheres that shoot black flame and turn everything they hit into greasy black stone. In the first one a guy named Stark goes to Antarctica (the heart of winter?) and inadvertently turns it on.

The Valyrians were refugees from the Great Empire, got too advanced and they got taken out as well.

The Grey King was a crash-landed Great Empire citizen, Nagga was his aircar. It crashed, and he just lived in the wreckage for 1,000 years. Nagga's jaw was his captain's chair, Nagga's living fire was an artificial power source that heated the hall. The weirwood killed him too and maybe absorbed him into the net (he went into the sea), and destroyed everything he built.

What is pumping the hot water through the wall of Winterfell? And then a dragon flew out of Winterfell when it was burned.

Dragonbone is black because of it high iron content, but it is flexible and makes the world's best bows. If it is full of iron, then a dragon would be too heavy to fly. Bird bones are hollow and lightweight. And bones are not flexible. I think dragonbone is also an advanced metal alloy, so is valyrian steel, and Dawn was built from the heart of a falling star--literally extraterrestrial--and in The Men of Greywater Station, a falling star is a crash-landing spaceship.

"dragons once roosted on the Battle Isle until the first Hightower put an end to them" maybe they found parked dragon-shaped aircars on Battle Isle and pushed them off the cliff into the river?

All of the artifacts of the Great Empire are advanced tech, not magic. The glass candle gives off artificial light, and is very similar to a alien black stone artifact from Lovecraft's The Whisperer in Darkness, which is about aliens coming here on a black planet to set up mining colonies.

How can you explain the generation long eclipses without spaceships? LmL has struggled with how the Long Night can be such a long and recurring event if it is really just a moon causing an eclipse--for on thing a moon would only cover a small part of the Earth in darkness, and moons orbit around the Earth and are not tidally locked. Check out my post about the red comet and the eclipses associated with it.

hiemal · October 21, 2018

14 hours ago, Lady Barbrey said:

No, I think a fair proportion of the First Men might have run to purple eyes and silver hair. In fact, if you remember that purple eyed, fair-furred lemur on Essos, that colouring might go even further back to a common ape ancestor to lemurs and humans! (You are not the only one that makes leaps based on bizarre examples in the World Book). So when the First Men first arrived in Westeros some of them had that coloring. The Daynes retained it as a dominant gene, the Dustins/Starks and others of the First Men lost it, and the Valyrians bred it true time and again because they practiced incest, not for the colouring, but to retain their fire magic, dragonbonding affinities after they were transformed into dragonriders. The coloring might originally be tied to a First Family of First Men that had the potential of mutability - they could easily be transformed into skinchangers, Greenseers, Others and Valyrians. And that's where all the transformed magical humans originate - Westeros.

This theory actually has lots of supporting evidence and makes sense of a lot of anomalies, but this is not the place to go into it. If you remember, George stated the Daynes did not have Valyrian ancestry. He never stated the Valyrians could not have had a Dayne ancestry, or more accurately, shared a pre-ancestor in Westeros.

This meshes quite well with some vague thoughts I've had regarding Tarth/Evenfall/Morne/Starfall/Dawn and the repetition of history (repeating cataclysms/ragnaroks). It's got some legs on it.

14 hours ago, Lady Barbrey said:

(Another reflection of Norse myth by the way - the old gods, the giants, good guys and bad alike - they were all from the same family. That's why Dany's vision of gem-eyed ancestors holding a sword that looks like Dawn - the Amethyst (Purple-eyed) Empress ancestors with Dawn? - only makes sense if we assume common ancestry, first in Essos, then a migration to Westeros, then a branching off of dragon riders back to Essos after the Long Night leaving Dawn behind with the Dayne branch of the family. Also, there were dragons in Westeros we're told, but the only obvious place we know of they might have resided on the continent proper was Winterfell with its hot springs. So that's where the Last Hero must have been transformed into a Valyrian and collected a few dragons.

This just goes on and on. There is so much evidence right down to architecture for it! But I keep digressing! Sorry!)

Never apologize for tinfoil! So shiny!

Lord Varys · October 21, 2018

17 hours ago, hiemal said:

To me it seems to be echoed enough thematically that I am willing to provisionally accept it; at least for the purposes of this project (the grand Unified Theory of Magic).

Such a theory could not claim to accurately portray anything happening in ASoIaF.

17 hours ago, hiemal said:

Another seems to be "There is power in king's blood".

That seems to be a mistaken belief. There might be power in certain bloodline one of which happens to be royal bloodline of Houses Targaryen and Baratheon, but there is no real evidence that a crown or a title makes you more special than the next man.

17 hours ago, hiemal said:

In this case I argue that it was R'hlorr and not Thoros who raised Beric. The Red Priest was merely the conduit by which the Lord of Flame and Shadow interacted with the linear-time world from within the Firenet, but of course that it is unlikely to convince anyone not already bought into the system to at least some degree. I also point out that Thoros has sacrificed himself to R'hlorr- all of his priests are temple slaves, hierodules (one of my favorite 5-stag words so I never miss a chance to trot it out...).

Indeed, you have no evidence for any such claims. I could just as well claim that the Father is behind everything that happens in the series. Which he actually is, considering that it is crystal clear that the Seven do exist and speak through the High Septon ;-).

17 hours ago, hiemal said:

I'm arguing here, because it is more interesting to me and is also the minority opinion, that he does exist and he doesn't need to show up directly in the story to be confirmed to my satisfaction. For example, in this specific tinfoil that I've been arguing in this thread R'hlorr's ascension is directly linked to the Long Night and the nature of prophecy and the quasi-repetition of history/anachronisms/mis-aligned seasons/etc. Obviously I don't know how the series is going to end and this isn't really thread to speculate but if there is at least an attempt to "put things right" I think we might get more info on "what went wrong". GRRM also loves him some GRRMarillion, as next month's installment hopefully shows. I am hopeful that from one of the sources we might get something to tie it all together, but until then I have my tinfoil.

All that has no bearing in the story. We have no information on who or what R'hllor is, what he wants, or how and why he makes his will known - if he even exists. There is no R'hllor mythology or theology in the books aside from the idea that he doesn't like this Great Other fellow - who also doesn't seem to exist.

17 hours ago, hiemal said:

She claims she is full of fire, but when "Mance" burned she writhed in agony. I'm not sure what Melisandre is, or even if she is strictly speaking or alive or some kind of revenant or intermediate between the two. Regardless, I've lent my copy of ASoS out (I can be quite evangelical about ASoIaF) but I seem to recall that her pendant flashed or shone during the Strangler affair? Either way, we don't really know what it does.

Because she was connected to the glamor of Rattleshirt. Melisandre being imbued fire magic doesn't mean she cannot burn. Even dragons, who are living fire, can burn to ash.

17 hours ago, hiemal said:

I don't see it that way- the Valyrians also brought in plenty of blood in the form of slaves and while we don't know that any were directly sacrificed I find it suggestive that the book mentions that Qohor was known to have done so in their efforts to recreate Valyrian Steel.

Oh, there may have been blood sacrifices, but we do know that not all fire magic is based on that stuff. That's just a fact. We see the fire mages of Qarth climb fiery ladders without sacrificing people, just as the pyromancers can make wildfire without sacrifices.

It is just nonsense to try to reduce every magic to blood magic.

17 hours ago, hiemal said:

I think I should also point out that the Fourteen Flames were not literally flames but almost certainly volcanoes- the Fires of the Earth. We don't know what their grand sorceries were meant to do or how they involved the Flames.

We don't need to know that. All we do need to know - and which we do know - is that the fire of the Fourteen Flames was an important ingredient to Valyrian magic.

17 hours ago, hiemal said:

Indeed, it all costs. The question is when. It could be that the gifts of skinchanging and greendreams are inherited from ancestors who "bought into" the Old Gods' system by blood sacrifice and that becoming a greenseer requires an additional sacrifice. Are you alluding to Jojen Paste here? I'm not sure on board with that one, but the idea of sacrifice is sound enough.

No, I meant that there is a strong hint that the weirwoods and greenseers do need those sacrifices to the trees to properly function. This is not *natural magic* that just works.

Magical talents might be inherited or just randomly manifest themselves - as greenseeing and skinchanging do. Those are talents that are not, in fact, hereditary according to the Children and Bloodraven.

In general, we don't even know whether anyone can work magic, or whether one has to have an innate magical talent of this or that sort. If it were easy to learn to work magic anyone could do it, no?

hiemal · October 21, 2018

4 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Such a theory could not claim to accurately portray anything happening in ASoIaF.

If you say so?

4 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

That seems to be a mistaken belief. There might be power in certain bloodline one of which happens to be royal bloodline of Houses Targaryen and Baratheon, but there is no real evidence that a crown or a title makes you more special than the next man.

I have no arguments with that and would add that with the way those ancient kings bred it might be harder to find completely common blood at this point.

4 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Indeed, you have no evidence for any such claims. I could just as well claim that the Father is behind everything that happens in the series. Which he actually is, considering that it is crystal clear that the Seven do exist and speak through the High Septon ;-).

Which is what tinfoil is for. Bridging the gaps between facts with speculation in order to try and piece together something that makes sense to us for the purpose of this discussion. ;-)

4 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

All that has no bearing in the story. We have no information on who or what R'hllor is, what he wants, or how and why he makes his will known - if he even exists. There is no R'hllor mythology or theology in the books aside from the idea that he doesn't like this Great Other fellow - who also doesn't seem to exist.

That's obviously the simplest, least-entity-multiplying explanation. I have no idea when GRRM is aiming for that or for bucking that trend and going full-bore sillymarillion-level complexity.

4 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Because she was connected to the glamor of Rattleshirt. Melisandre being imbued fire magic doesn't mean she cannot burn.

But she wasn't burning. Rattleshirt was. Something about the magic she was using created a psychic link that exhausted her physically and caused her to feel as though she were burning. To me that seems more than just "magic is magic".

And indeed it doesn't mean that she can't burn, but I don't think not feeling the cold means she can't freeze either? As I said, I'm not sure what's going on with Melisandre. I'm sure we're not meant to be.

4 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Oh, there may have been blood sacrifices, but we do know that not all fire magic is based on that stuff. That's just a fact. We see the fire mages of Qarth climb fiery ladders without sacrificing people, just as the pyromancers can make wildfire without sacrifices.

We don't see what the fire mage did to perform that conjuration or to learn the art itself, only that this feat was something he could not have done until recently. As for wildfire that seems to be more alchemy than sorcery in that the "substance" can be produced even during a time of "magic drought" with apparently only a minor loss of efficiency.

Tyrion speculates as to the mundane nature of the traps that they use to extinguish runaway cubicles and then we are presented with an increase in production after the return of dragons/red comet/whatever. Not sure what the magic part of wildfire's production is but I wouldn't bet money it didn't involve some kind of bloodshed. These guys were in pretty thick with the Mad King and generous with green stuff and of course there was Westeros' own Fiery Hand, extinguished during the Sack. I don't think they would flinch from it but I also doubt it would be the kind of thing that would require slitting a throat for every batch- but we don't really know. Valyrian steel swords swallowed the incomes of families and kingdoms, wilfire seems to be much more modest. What is the going rate for magic and for human life?

4 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

It is just nonsense to try to reduce every magic to blood magic.

Yes. It would be a gross oversimplification.

4 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

We don't need to know that. All we do need to know - and which we do know - is that the fire of the Fourteen Flames was an important ingredient to Valyrian magic.

Or at least we know that some maesters said that?

4 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

No, I meant that there is a strong hint that the weirwoods and greenseers do need those sacrifices to the trees to properly function. This is not *natural magic* that just works.

I don't think any magic is natural, or that it "just works". I do think it involves tapping into a network of energy that exists outside of linear space-time. This is why things like greendreams and prophecy are possible and why sacrifice is not always directly associated with action but is always a part of the process. In the cases that we see the best, the Stark children and their various inheritances, we can see through Bran's vision the progression of his ancestors up to that point where I believe they first became part of this system through blood sacrifice.

As for additional sacrifices, I'm open to the idea(s). What do you mean, exactly?

4 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Magical talents might be inherited or just randomly manifest themselves - as greenseeing and skinchanging do. Those are talents that are not, in fact, hereditary according to the Children and Bloodraven.

In general, we don't even know whether anyone can work magic, or whether one has to have an innate magical talent of this or that sort. If it were easy to learn to work magic anyone could do it, no?

Exactly. I think that the world is already paying a heavy toll for the use of magic.

As for who can do it, my suspicion is that anyone willing to pay the price can do blood magic and anyone who is part of a system of soul energy has at least some potential to participate in some of that system- only a small number of those in the Old Gods' system are skinchangers, for example, and a smaller number greenseers it has been said. I don't know why certain people are "chosen" but I feel that taking part in said systems has the explanatory power of "destiny fulfillment", perhaps? The weirnet to some extant exists beyond time as humans perceive it. The acorn, the tree, the stump, yadda yadda yadda. Perhaps the cycle itself has some influence over how it manifests its gifts- the weirnet certainly seems to be devoid of any guiding intelligence so perhaps it is either chance or "fate"?

Incidentally, I do think it is possible that the sacrifice of body parts may also play a role- is that what you mean? BR's eye, Bran's legs?

Lady Barbrey · October 22, 2018

3 hours ago, hiemal said:

-

That's obviously the simplest, least-entity-multiplying explanation. I have no idea when GRRM is aiming for that or for bucking that trend and going full-bore sillymarillion-level complexity.

But she wasn't burning. Rattleshirt was. Something about the magic she was using created a psychic link that exhausted her physically and caused her to feel as though she were burning. To me that seems more than just "magic is magic".

And indeed it doesn't mean that she can't burn, but I don't think not feeling the cold means she can't freeze either? As I said, I'm not sure what's going on with Melisandre. I'm sure we're not meant to be.

We don't see what the fire mage did to perform that conjuration or to learn the art itself, only that this feat was something he could not have done until recently. As for wildfire that seems to be more alchemy than sorcery in that the "substance" can be produced even during a time of "magic drought" with apparently only a minor loss of efficiency.

Tyrion speculates as to the mundane nature of the traps that they use to extinguish runaway cubicles and then we are presented with an increase in production after the return of dragons/red comet/whatever. Not sure what the magic part of wildfire's production is but I wouldn't bet money it didn't involve some kind of bloodshed. These guys were in pretty thick with the Mad King and generous with green stuff and of course there was Westeros' own Fiery Hand, extinguished during the Sack. I don't think they would flinch from it but I also doubt it would be the kind of thing that would require slitting a throat for every batch- but we don't really know. Valyrian steel swords swallowed the incomes of families and kingdoms, wilfire seems to be much more modest. What is the going rate for magic and for human life?

Yes. It would be a gross oversimplification.

Or at least we know that some maesters said that?

I don't think any magic is natural, or that it "just works". I do think it involves tapping into a network of energy that exists outside of linear space-time. This is why things like greendreams and prophecy are possible and why sacrifice is not always directly associated with action but is always a part of the process. In the cases that we see the best, the Stark children and their various inheritances, we can see through Bran's vision the progression of his ancestors up to that point where I believe they first became part of this system through blood sacrifice.

As for additional sacrifices, I'm open to the idea(s). What do you mean, exactly?

Exactly. I think that the world is already paying a heavy toll for the use of magic.

As for who can do it, my suspicion is that anyone willing to pay the price can do blood magic and anyone who is part of a system of soul energy has at least some potential to participate in some of that system- only a small number of those in the Old Gods' system are skinchangers, for example, and a smaller number greenseers it has been said. I don't know why certain people are "chosen" but I feel that taking part in said systems has the explanatory power of "destiny fulfillment", perhaps? The weirnet to some extant exists beyond time as humans perceive it. The acorn, the tree, the stump, yadda yadda yadda. Perhaps the cycle itself has some influence over how it manifests its gifts- the weirnet certainly seems to be devoid of any guiding intelligence so perhaps it is either chance or "fate"?

Incidentally, I do think it is possible that the sacrifice of body parts may also play a role- is that what you mean? BR's eye, Bran's legs?

I'm following this discussion with some interest, agreeing with Lord Varys in some areas, and hiemal's in others.

The idea that there's something special about King's blood is a very old one, probably having to do with them being supposedly related to gods in many areas of the world, and even in Britain kings were thought to have had healing hands and special blood at some points in history.

What I wonder about is whether, because this is a fantasy, George hasn't made that something real in this series, just as, I suspect, he's made the need for blood sacrifice real. It wouldn't work the way Mel seems to think, just because someone is called a king or child of a king wouldn't make their blood special. She's either wrong, therefore, or she is, once again confused.

But on the premise that she's not wrong, just confused - and this is often her defining characteristic when it comes to magic and prophecy - is there a line of Kings, a First Family if you will, that had something particularly potent in their blood that powers spells better than others?

Hiemal can see where I'm going with this I suspect, related as it is to my theory upthread regarding purple eyes and silver hair. But it's interesting that Varys was chosen seemingly for his looks out of a mummer's troupe to provide sacrifice, that the Night Queen seemed to choose an LC that might have been a Stark to regenerate the Others, that Dany's rebirth of herself and dragons involved the sacrifice of a khal, equivalent to a king, and a prince, whose ancestral lands near the silver sea just happen to be near where we're told the First Men come from, themselves descendents through Sarnor and Huhzor Amai (!) of the Fisher Queens. The immigrants even seem to have brought someone from that line with them as their own first King of the First Men, a title inherited by the Dustins.And of those who did not emigrate to Westeros, did some intermarry with the Dothraki?

Skinchanging might skip generations or show up randomly but there does seem to be an initial bloodline involved because it runs in families. Many have speculated that the Others need a particular bloodline to work their magic, because of Craster and the incest, and we also have wondered if the Other bloodline requires a Dustin or Stark. As the Starks are skinchangers and Greenseers, the First Others might have had skinchanging ability too. We also know dragon-riding runs in the Valyrian bloodline. One of the Maesters in Woiaf suggested, before being shut down, that they had lineal descent from the Reach or Westerlands. As stated upthread, we also have a plethora of clues that the Valyrians might have had pre-ancestry in Westeros before migrating to the 14 Flames.

So is it the blood of Kings that provides greater power, or it the bloodline of Fisher Queen son Huzhor Amai's descendents that provides greater power? A bloodline that runs through many First Men nowadays, and Valyrians too if they came from Westeros and branched off from the same magic potent family. But even more power in that blood with incest, of course.

This is such a cliche fantasy trope - the blood of gods or power running in one special family, that I know It's easy to shy away from when it comes to Martin and his story, but he doesn't hesitate to use the chosen one trope, another fantasy staple, for more than one of his characters - Bran, Dany and Jon, for instance - so one has to wonder if he might be using this one.

Maybe there really is something special about the blood of THE king, Huzhor Amai, scion of the suspected oldest human royalty in the world, whose name sounds suspiciously like Azor Ahai, suggesting the name has been garbled over the years or it at least derives from the same language.

Fun Guy from Yuggoth · October 22, 2018

17 hours ago, hiemal said:

contrasting the weirwood with a mundane hardwood like ebony (is it ebony in the door?) could even indicate that the choice is entirely aesthetic.

I think ebony is shade-of-the-evening tree lumber.

Shade of the evening trees are "black-barked trees whose inky blue leaves made the stuff of the sorcerous drink the Qartheen called shade of the evening."

Black bark, blue leaves, and black lumber. Weirwood have white bark and white lumber.

The door in the house of the undying was weirwood and ebony:

"They were fashioned of ebony and weirwood, the black and white grains swirling and twisting in strange interwoven patterns. They were very beautiful, yet somehow frightening."

"Even Drogon seemed disquieted by the sight of it. The black dragon hissed, smoke seeping out between his sharp teeth."

"Drogon leapt from her shoulder. He flew to the top of the ebony-and-weirwood door, perched there, and began to bite at the carved wood. "

Drogon really doesn't like weirwood.

pyat means magpie, and magpies are black and white crows

Tobho Mott's shop:

" The double doors showed a hunting scene carved in ebony and weirwood."

And the House of Black and White

"At the top she found a set of carved wooden doors twelve feet high. The left-hand door was made of weirwood pale as bone, the right of gleaming ebony. In their center was a carved moon face; ebony on the weirwood side, weirwood on the ebony. The look of it reminded her somehow of the heart tree in the godswood at Winterfell. The doors are watching me, she thought."

Any item built out of weirwood is still connected to the network and can spy for it.

" Eleven servants of the Many-Faced God . . . They wore their robes of black and white, but as they took their seats each man pulled his cowl down to show the face he had chosen to wear that day. Their tall chairs were carved of ebony and weirwood, like the doors of the temple above. The ebon chairs had weirwood faces on their backs, the weirwood chairs faces of carved ebony."

"She seated herself in a weirwood chair with a face of ebony"

They had carved ebony faces, just like the carved weirwood faces.

There are weirwood thrones and ebony thrones.

"Beyond her was a man with a lion's head seated on a throne, carved of ebony. "

The Lion-of-Night is seated on an ebony throne. The phrase "the lion of ____" means "the badass ruler of ____" so "the Lion of Night" is the "badass ruler of Night" aka Night's King/Bloodstone Emperor/Lion of Night

"Night's King was only a man by light of day, Old Nan would always say, but the night was his to rule."

Dany sits on an ebony bench in Mereen, which could be a type of weirwood throne.

Then there are ironwoods, which might be the same tree also

" black-barked ironwoods"

" two of his guardsmen dragged the ragged man to the ironwood stump in the center of the square. They forced his head down onto the hard black wood"

" ironwoods as old as the realm itself. Here thick black trunks crowded close together while twisted branches wove a dense canopy overhead and misshapen roots wrestled beneath the soil. This was a place of deep silence and brooding shadows, and the gods who lived here had no names. "

" The door to the crypts was made of ironwood."

" When burned, ironwood gives off a blue flame."

House Yronwood is in Dorne, and I think Dorne is a metaphor for the weirwood network. There is probably something going on with Blackwood too, Bloodraven's mother was a Blackwood.

The moon door is weirwood, the crypt door is ironwood, the black gate is weirwood (black gate/white door), the HoBW door is weirwood and ebony, the door to the House of the Undying is very similar to the black gate:

"When they reached the door—a tall oval mouth, set in a wall fashioned in the likeness of a human face"

They don't say what color the door is, but "Black tiles covered the palace roof" and " it drinks the morning sun"

so it is probably a black door.

Lady Barbrey · October 22, 2018

23 hours ago, The Mother of The Others said:

Okay. Novel-Sized Thoughts. (Up through post #33):

Craster is giving away the future for magic shielding now. This strangely resonates. Why? Because the Western world is currently burning the future for a bigger house and car now, more government spending while debt balloons, etc.

If infants and Varys' nutsack were both potent sacrifices separately, imagine the power of an infant nutsack!

I think George is having his cake and also eating it (i.e. having it both ways) with his line, ~ "there will be no gods in this story." He wants us to know that no actual gods will be players in the ice and fire conclusion, so all such speculation is 'useless' and don't get your hopes up....but on the other hand AWOIAF seems to have invited people to obsess over the bloodstone emperor's apotheosis. An Easter egg god and alternate way of seeing world history, for those in the G.R.R.M. illuminati . And the warlocks, or R'hollr, fit as the modern continuation of that unwholesome Power tradition. To join with fire like R'hollr is the dream of every mad Targ, after all. To become a dragon. To cross over in the other direction the way dragons crossed over into our reality.

To me, this is the pull of the cosmic energy that wants to reshape us, it gets in our brains and makes us want to be remolded away from Life's normal path. (The warlocks.) It gets bonded into our blood through ancient rituals (Daenerys' bloodline was long ago infused, turning her into a magic antenna which is how she was able to intuit her way into magical success. "True dragon" = best candidate = best magic radio reception.)

Re: Deep Ones vs. Merlings - ---Uhhhhhhhh, so they're two different things? (Out of my...depth....as I didn't read World Of...)

Re: multiple WeirNets

I liked your various NETS idea for each kind of magic user to tap into. My studio executive style "notes" would be to suggest weirwoods don't need to be the source of all of them (feels too redundant?), merely the magic portal the Children found among possible others- - - the Drowned God's weir portal could reflect the ocean's own bottom- feeder ecology. That's a hell of a Cycle right there, some huge undead coral thingee attended by merfolk who attach the minds and bodies of shipwreck victims, with massive schools of fish as the huge slaughtered life force offerings. Though the driftwood crown being weir feels right! and Euron tapping into visions for heightened awareness thru his sacrificed eye, sort of like stealing cable tv from the Children.

The House of black and white seems to include weirwood as an homage to fellow magicians more than a power source. Like they're thanking the weir for showing them the way, but they took the concept and adapted their cult's own magic onramp.

Warlock Net: who knows what their deal is. They're like checkers and the Undying are the king checkers? Your dragon heart foci isn't far- fetched- - - - where else would they get a giant heart? Well, from a giant maybe. Remember that Bloodstone Theory Guy who did some seminal work on here? (Meaning he totally, totally went down the rabbit hole for like a year straight? That one.) Anyway, one thing that amazed me from all of that was the idea that:

Weirwoods are engaged in a millennia long struggle against the sentient trees of Essos. Different tree species, each staking out their own continent and itching for ....worldwide root domination? Jojen Paste vs. Shade of the Evening. Oily black stone vs. Whatever. Each warping humans into puppets for their agenda. And all the major human migrations of history (First Men, Roynar, etc.) and cultural conflicts were.... Rooted.... in us being used as pawns by the sentient trees, as fodder in their intercontinental war. (That was hot.)

The Others' icemagic source? I hope it's awesome. Like a vampire curse broadcast over the Weirnet involving deep betrayal, all that. Whatever Night King & bride were up to (on the cusp of breeding Others the quick and easy way like humans?) it scared the Citadel into smothering magic out of common practice to avoid a sequel. But taking the guns (magic) away from Westerosi left only the criminals (Others) with guns, as the Dems (Maesters) are about to find out.

Space meteor swords to the rescue! That vulnerability to alien metal implies Ice Life has otherworldly origin, right? Eco- poisoning of Planetos. Like invasive Chinese toads! Goodnight now.

Ain't it the truth? George having and eating his cake both.

This post made me laugh. We seem to share the same dislike for aliens and too much emphasis on oily black stone and the apotheosis of the Bloodstone Emperor!

The pull of cosmic energy, or at least the pull of the old gods of Ragnarok possibly still existing in a spiritual sense within the weir network, on the potential and shaping the behaviour of the characters is something I'm coming to terms with. I frankly dislike the idea of gods - I prefer them, if they must exist,to be hidden as metaphors somewhere if possible - but I'm coming to the conclusion that, while we'll never see them, we might be supposed to believe that they as spiritual or disembodied entitities really are working behind the scenes, within the weir network, and/or as the spirits of fire and ice magic that want to consume the world. Actually, I've always though Jung and his archetypes were full of s**t but I prefer the idea of deep time and deep myth recycling archetypes with difference to gods operating in any sentient way. We'll have to see if we're just supposed to interpret in any way we wish.

Fun Guy from Yuggoth · October 22, 2018

39 minutes ago, Lady Barbrey said:

So is it the blood of Kings that provides greater power, or it the bloodline of Fisher Queen son Huzhor Amai's descendents that provides greater power? A bloodline that runs through many First Men nowadays,

I think you are on the right track, but that King's Blood refers to descendants of the Great Empire who carry enhanced DNA.

The Undying wanted Dany because she had precious bodily fluids

"this is an evil place, a haunt of ghosts and maegi. See how it drinks the morning sun? Let us go before it drinks us as well."

And the Undying try to eat her:

" Dany's gasp turned to horror. The Undying were all around her, blue and cold, whispering as they reached for her, pulling, stroking, tugging at her clothes, touching her with their dry cold hands, twining their fingers through her hair. All the strength had left her limbs. She could not move. Even her heart had ceased to beat. She felt a hand on her bare breast, twisting her nipple. Teeth found the soft skin of her throat. A mouth descended on one eye, licking, sucking, biting . . . "

They were going to hook her up to the trees and drain the blood out of her.

"Only a king's blood can wake the stone dragon."

"Long and low, without towers or windows, it coiled like a stone serpent through a grove of black-barked trees"

Dragon comes from greek drakon meaning "large serpent"

Weirwood roots are compared to snakes

"huge white roots twisting through them like a thousand slow pale snakes"

and weirwoods turn to stone.

The weirwood craves the blood of the descendants of the Great Empire, it wakes the stone serpent, that is, activates the weirwood. That is why Bloodraven was drained of blood by the trees, and possibly Rhaenys was as well.

There is some connection between the Starks and the Valyrians because of the gargoyles on Winterfell and the gargoyles on Dragonstone, so Bran might be a descendant of Valyrians/Great Empire as well, and that is why the trees want him.

Lady Barbrey · October 22, 2018

4 hours ago, By Odin's Beard said:

I think you are on the right track, but that King's Blood refers to descendants of the Great Empire who carry enhanced DNA.

The Undying wanted Dany because she had precious bodily fluids

"this is an evil place, a haunt of ghosts and maegi. See how it drinks the morning sun? Let us go before it drinks us as well."

And the Undying try to eat her:

" Dany's gasp turned to horror. The Undying were all around her, blue and cold, whispering as they reached for her, pulling, stroking, tugging at her clothes, touching her with their dry cold hands, twining their fingers through her hair. All the strength had left her limbs. She could not move. Even her heart had ceased to beat. She felt a hand on her bare breast, twisting her nipple. Teeth found the soft skin of her throat. A mouth descended on one eye, licking, sucking, biting . . . "

They were going to hook her up to the trees and drain the blood out of her.

"Only a king's blood can wake the stone dragon."

"Long and low, without towers or windows, it coiled like a stone serpent through a grove of black-barked trees"

Dragon comes from greek drakon meaning "large serpent"

Weirwood roots are compared to snakes

"huge white roots twisting through them like a thousand slow pale snakes"

and weirwoods turn to stone.

The weirwood craves the blood of the descendants of the Great Empire, it wakes the stone serpent, that is, activates the weirwood. That is why Bloodraven was drained of blood by the trees, and possibly Rhaenys was as well.

There is some connection between the Starks and the Valyrians because of the gargoyles on Winterfell and the gargoyles on Dragonstone, so Bran might be a descendant of Valyrians/Great Empire as well, and that is why the trees want him.

Thanks! I do not see the Great Empire the same way as you do though. We're told it is an ancient legend, and it has been heavily Asianized but almost everything in the Yi Ti section is a mirror reflection of Westeros. It's a puzzle piece. The God-Emperors are parallels to the Starks, Baratheons, Lannisters, Greyjoys, Illyrio, Targaryens (including Bloodraven and Tyrion!). The capitals changing, if we trace backwards, give us the only High Kings of Westeros - (Grey, Indigo and White Emperors) Ned, Robert, Jon Arryn because of the Rebellion, back to the Scarlet (Targs), the Purple (proto-Daynes, kings of the First men, In their "western hills"), and the Maroons (the shipwrecked sailors we've seen traces of, on their 'martial isle'- Battle Isle - likely the Hightowers).

The GSE story is also a transformation story that marks the advent of the Long Night but no transformations took place in Yi Ti. No Others appear in their legends so they only heard about it. Luckily they had writing long before anyone else.

I am therefore persuaded the Blood Betrayal is a reflection, an orientalized legend, of events in Westeros, not in any way antecedent to them, that explain the advent of the Long Night and birth of the First Other, even though they didn't know that's what they were describing.

The story reverberates with Dany's rebirth story, the Night King story, the AA story. But it is all about the north and the Others, if you look at what the BSE subsequently does: necromancy (Dustins, Others) weds a skinchanger (Starks/Blackwoods) cannibalism (Skagos), torture (flayed men of Boltons). He turns his back on the "old gods" - the weirwood and Children - to worship something else. Thematically, this has nothing to do with Valyrians or Valyria except slavery, and that seems endemic to the east, and easily something the Others could be doing too. The only real thing related to the Valyrians is the colour purple - the Amethyst Empress - which in Yi Ti colour symbolism when related to Westeros almost always indicates eye colour. But purple is the eye colour shared by Valyrians AND the Daynes. And in Yi Ti symbolism, scarlet is not an eye colour and represents Targs so purple represents the Daynes or proto-Daynes.

The story I read is that a pre-ancestor to Daynes/Valyrians and Dustin/Starks (and other FM) killed a member of his or her family, usurped a throne, married a skinchanger, turned his/her back on the old gods and became an Other. If you relate that back to the Dustin curse, we likely know what title he was trying to usurp. This is NOT the Night's King story, though reverberates with it, because the NK story is about REgenerating the Others after they've almost died out; its direct parallel is Dany REbirthing herself and dragons.

The Fisher Queens, the Tall Men of the Sarnor, Huzhor Amai seem by the Maesters to be taken as fact or real history to a large degree, and they outright state this is the area where the First Men came from. So I see the BSE as a distraction from that real history. It is true that Dany sees some gem eyed statues holding Dawn urging her to run in a vision she has. However, the gem-eyed gods and ancestral counterparts in Westeros are the old gods and the proto-Daynes. They are urging her towards a dragon transformation. This I suggest is a reflection of the proto- Dayne to Valyrian transformation, not the Other transformation.

The rest of your post could well be what you state!

And yes, what I see happening is fairly simple. There's this First Man proto-family in Westeros, some with purple eye coloring, whose genes are particularly mutable, and perhaps somewhat magical, so they can transform or change, and the Children do transform some of them into skinchangers.

Later, in some form of the Blood Betrayal, the Others are created from the same family, likely someone with colder affinities.

Later still, when the Others are out of control, the Children create the Valyrians from these pre-ancestors with fire affinities to combat them. They know of dragons and where to find them. Winterfell wasn't built till after the Long Night. I suggest if dragons existed in Westeros - and we are specifically told they did - then the place to find them would be the hot spring caverns that existed before the keep was built.This would also likely be a place to find dragonsteel or dragonbone.

The Battle of the Dawn was fought with dragons, dragonsteel and dragonglass.

Dragons were also likely used after the battle to fuse stone for the base of the Wall, possibly the Winterfell crypts, at Oldtown and possibly Storm's End. Interesting isn't it, that these are all attributed to a Brandon the Builder. A Stark you would think, and you'd be right - they're all from the same family! (Where else, by the way do we find fused stone? The Five Forts! And the Five Forts, just like everything else in Yi Ti, has its Westeros equivalent in the Wall). But it soon became clear that fire magic and dragon-riders were antithetical to weirwood groves, and if the dragon population was increasing they had to move. Maybe something worse happened.

So they left, leaving Dawn behind with their 'worthier' proto-Dayne cousins, first to Dragonstone's volcano, where we can trace the gargoyle architecture from the Winterfell first keep to the Dragonstone old inn, and then on to Valyria. The Valyrians don't come back because either they made and kept a pact with the CotF, who were a lot more powerful back then, or they were scared to. I sometimes wonder if that had something to do with Casterly Rock, which along with Winterfell and Dragonstone, we're told by the maesters was subterranean-ly connected to the 14 Flames.

Anyway, this is connected to theories of magic because I speculate that there is only one magical family that all the the "changed" magic-users descended from, though from different branches, where the performed and latent ability runs through bloodlines but takes incest to fully bring out. Other magic users might have a talent for magic use but not for transformation and transmission in a bloodline. It's pretty clear to me Mel is from that same line cause she seems to be spontaneously transforming on her own!

And one last thing - if this theory is true and the more I look at it the more certain of it I am - then the bones we might find in the oldest part of the Winterfell crypts, closest to the hot springs, is not only Starks with direwolves but Daynes with dragons. It'd just be cool, that's all I'm saying. He's the reforging of the two lines that split off, the reforging of a broken sword into one. Jon if he can practice necromancy like the Others and ride dragons like the Valyrians (I'm convinced the show ripped this off and gave the ability to the Night's King when it belongs to Jon), doesn't need one of Dany's, he might have a whole army of dead ones, along with their riders, and Starks with their wolves, to call forth in the last battle.

Free Northman Reborn · October 22, 2018

Kings Blood is not genetic. It’s spiritual. Theon has King’s blood, but his grandfather didn’t, because the Iron Isles had no King in his day.

Robb had King’s blood, but Ned didn’t, or at least, it was heavily diluted by 300 years of the Starks not being Kings anymore.

Mance has King’s Blood, but his nameless father didn’t. Drogo had King’s blood enough to raise a Dragon, even though he was descended from a savage.

King’s blood has power invested in it due to the intangible status imbued into a King by some spiritual aspect of his status. Not by some genetic lineage to some ancient hero, which a hundred million people on the planet will share after so many generations.

I liken it to a scene in one of David Gemmell’s Druss the Legend books, where a shaman looks at Druss and Ulric Khan through his second sight, seeing not their physical statures but their spiritual auras. And in spiritual form they tower as giants over lesser men. It is that spiritual power that is akin to the lifeforce generated by a blood sacrifice.

Fun Guy from Yuggoth · October 22, 2018

7 hours ago, Lady Barbrey said:

Night's King when it belongs to Jon), doesn't need one of Dany's, he might have a whole army of dead ones,

Quick thought, I think Jon Snow will be the new Night's King, "Jon Snow" is an "evil name" and he has had dreams of usurpation taking Winterfell for himself and killing his siblings, he has strong ambitions that he has kept repressed, but when he is raised from the dead he will be colder/harder all memory of warmth drained from him. And he or Bran could reanimate the giant bat skeletons in Bloodraven's cave, or the one's under Harrenhal.

I just listened to the Call of Cthulhu again yesterday and there is a line

"There were legends of a hidden lake unglimpsed by mortal sight, in which dwelt a huge, formless white polypous thing with luminous eyes; and squatters whispered that bat-winged devils flew up out of caverns in inner earth to worship it at midnight."

The hidden lake is the God's Eye, the white polypous thing with luminous eyes is the weirwood on the Isle of Faces, and the bat-winged devils that flew out of caverns are the Harpies, midnight is the Long Night, they offer blood sacrifices to the polypous thing.

hiemal · October 22, 2018

17 hours ago, Lady Barbrey said:

I'm following this discussion with some interest, agreeing with Lord Varys in some areas, and hiemal's in others.

The idea that there's something special about King's blood is a very old one, probably having to do with them being supposedly related to gods in many areas of the world, and even in Britain kings were thought to have had healing hands and special blood at some points in history.

What I wonder about is whether, because this is a fantasy, George hasn't made that something real in this series, just as, I suspect, he's made the need for blood sacrifice real. It wouldn't work the way Mel seems to think, just because someone is called a king or child of a king wouldn't make their blood special. She's either wrong, therefore, or she is, once again confused.

But on the premise that she's not wrong, just confused - and this is often her defining characteristic when it comes to magic and prophecy - is there a line of Kings, a First Family if you will, that had something particularly potent in their blood that powers spells better than others?

Hiemal can see where I'm going with this I suspect, related as it is to my theory upthread regarding purple eyes and silver hair. But it's interesting that Varys was chosen seemingly for his looks out of a mummer's troupe to provide sacrifice, that the Night Queen seemed to choose an LC that might have been a Stark to regenerate the Others, that Dany's rebirth of herself and dragons involved the sacrifice of a khal, equivalent to a king, and a prince, whose ancestral lands near the silver sea just happen to be near where we're told the First Men come from, themselves descendents through Sarnor and Huhzor Amai (!) of the Fisher Queens. The immigrants even seem to have brought someone from that line with them as their own first King of the First Men, a title inherited by the Dustins.And of those who did not emigrate to Westeros, did some intermarry with the Dothraki?

Good questions! How closely tied to humanity are the Hairy Men of Ib? Might they be neandrathals? Could Westeros represent a kind of dumping ground for excess population from Essos (or other continents) which then suffer some catastrophe and are then repopulated by the folks who originally left as seems to be the case in your First Men/Valyrian theory? How many times has this happened?

This is an interesting topic.

17 hours ago, Lady Barbrey said:

Skinchanging might skip generations or show up randomly but there does seem to be an initial bloodline involved because it runs in families. Many have speculated that the Others need a particular bloodline to work their magic, because of Craster and the incest, and we also have wondered if the Other bloodline requires a Dustin or Stark. As the Starks are skinchangers and Greenseers, the First Others might have had skinchanging ability too. We also know dragon-riding runs in the Valyrian bloodline. One of the Maesters in Woiaf suggested, before being shut down, that they had lineal descent from the Reach or Westerlands. As stated upthread, we also have a plethora of clues that the Valyrians might have had pre-ancestry in Westeros before migrating to the 14 Flames.

So is it the blood of Kings that provides greater power, or it the bloodline of Fisher Queen son Huzhor Amai's descendents that provides greater power? A bloodline that runs through many First Men nowadays, and Valyrians too if they came from Westeros and branched off from the same magic potent family. But even more power in that blood with incest, of course.

And what exactly defines kingship? The changing scope of a king's dominion from something that extends no further than his sight to larger, more feudally hiercharchical kingdoms is remarked on more than once so whatever is going on in the blood is almost certainly more complicated that did someone within the last x generations wear crown at some point.

17 hours ago, Lady Barbrey said:

This is such a cliche fantasy trope - the blood of gods or power running in one special family, that I know It's easy to shy away from when it comes to Martin and his story, but he doesn't hesitate to use the chosen one trope, another fantasy staple, for more than one of his characters - Bran, Dany and Jon, for instance - so one has to wonder if he might be using this one.

And how is he twisting it defy expectations?

17 hours ago, Lady Barbrey said:

Maybe there really is something special about the blood of THE king, Huzhor Amai, scion of the suspected oldest human royalty in the world, whose name sounds suspiciously like Azor Ahai, suggesting the name has been garbled over the years or it at least derives from the same language.

Is he really THE king, or THE usurper? Is there a distinction in the blood? For that matter, is bastard blood all of the things the common folk say it is? It is tempting to say that it is just peasant superstition, but as with kings' blood I could see GRRM going either way with this one.

hiemal · October 22, 2018

16 hours ago, By Odin's Beard said:

I think ebony is shade-of-the-evening tree lumber.

Shade of the evening trees are "black-barked trees whose inky blue leaves made the stuff of the sorcerous drink the Qartheen called shade of the evening."

Black bark, blue leaves, and black lumber. Weirwood have white bark and white lumber.

The door in the house of the undying was weirwood and ebony:

Could be, but I feel that GRRM would make a distinction between ebony-colored wood and actual ebony if it were important. Of course, shade-of-the-evening could be corrupted ebony instead of weirwood. It's hard to say when weirwood is being used for ritual purposes and when it is simply being used for its superior durability and pretty color. The weirwood throne in the eyrie is suggestive to me, weirwood rafters in someone's keep less so.

16 hours ago, By Odin's Beard said:

pyat means magpie, and magpies are black and white crows

That's a great catch! They are also notorious thieves, and love to collect various bright and shiny things to decorate their nests. To me this suggests that the undying have stolen their magical traditions and stitched them together to make their House.

16 hours ago, By Odin's Beard said:

And the House of Black and White

"At the top she found a set of carved wooden doors twelve feet high. The left-hand door was made of weirwood pale as bone, the right of gleaming ebony. In their center was a carved moon face; ebony on the weirwood side, weirwood on the ebony. The look of it reminded her somehow of the heart tree in the godswood at Winterfell. The doors are watching me, she thought."

Any item built out of weirwood is still connected to the network and can spy for it.

Possibly.

16 hours ago, By Odin's Beard said:

" Eleven servants of the Many-Faced God . . . They wore their robes of black and white, but as they took their seats each man pulled his cowl down to show the face he had chosen to wear that day. Their tall chairs were carved of ebony and weirwood, like the doors of the temple above. The ebon chairs had weirwood faces on their backs, the weirwood chairs faces of carved ebony."

"She seated herself in a weirwood chair with a face of ebony"

They had carved ebony faces, just like the carved weirwood faces.

There are weirwood thrones and ebony thrones.

And shade-of-the-evening growing outside. Why call it ebony if it is identical? IIRC ebony is mentioned as one of the hardwoods found in Sothoryos.

16 hours ago, By Odin's Beard said:

Then there are ironwoods, which might be the same tree also

" black-barked ironwoods"

" two of his guardsmen dragged the ragged man to the ironwood stump in the center of the square. They forced his head down onto the hard black wood"

" ironwoods as old as the realm itself. Here thick black trunks crowded close together while twisted branches wove a dense canopy overhead and misshapen roots wrestled beneath the soil. This was a place of deep silence and brooding shadows, and the gods who lived here had no names. "

" The door to the crypts was made of ironwood."

" When burned, ironwood gives off a blue flame."

Ironwood seems to be an anomaly- such a dense hard wood (phrasing) growing so far North (I'm not a botanist but that seems odd to me?) and burning with a blue flame (again, not a botanist, but...) so it probably is somewhat magical but what color is the wood itself? The bark is black which matches with SotE but no blue leaves are mentioned (which would be hard to miss). I'm inclined to think Ironwood represents another mystery.

17 hours ago, By Odin's Beard said:

House Yronwood is in Dorne, and I think Dorne is a metaphor for the weirwood network.

?

Mostly Dorne seems to be metaphorical of sex.

17 hours ago, By Odin's Beard said:

There is probably something going on with Blackwood too, Bloodraven's mother was a Blackwood.

Almost certainly. There name might predate their arrival in the Riverlands but it might not, as well. I think the area around Raventree Hall is called Blackwood Vale, but is it Blackwood after the family or vice-versa. It could be they called themselves something different before driven south.

17 hours ago, By Odin's Beard said:

The moon door is weirwood, the crypt door is ironwood, the black gate is weirwood (black gate/white door), the HoBW door is weirwood and ebony, the door to the House of the Undying is very similar to the black gate:

"When they reached the door—a tall oval mouth, set in a wall fashioned in the likeness of a human face"

They don't say what color the door is, but "Black tiles covered the palace roof" and " it drinks the morning sun"

so it is probably a black door.

Sounds about right. Marking points of transitions, like life to death and vice versa.

Lady Rhodes · October 22, 2018

On 10/19/2018 at 3:00 PM, 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.

Very interesting, and this connects to a heresay 210 (maybe? It was babe in the woods/eight cairns) with the theory that the tower of Joy was a sacrificial pyre meant for Jon and lyannaand Lyanna

Lady Barbrey · October 22, 2018

1 hour ago, hiemal said:

Good questions! How closely tied to humanity are the Hairy Men of Ib? Might they be neandrathals? Could Westeros represent a kind of dumping ground for excess population from Essos (or other continents) which then suffer some catastrophe and are then repopulated by the folks who originally left as seems to be the case in your First Men/Valyrian theory? How many times has this happened?

This is an interesting topic.

And what exactly defines kingship? The changing scope of a king's dominion from something that extends no further than his sight to larger, more feudally hiercharchical kingdoms is remarked on more than once so whatever is going on in the blood is almost certainly more complicated that did someone within the last x generations wear crown at some point.

And how is he twisting it defy expectations?

Is he really THE king, or THE usurper? Is there a distinction in the blood? For that matter, is bastard blood all of the things the common folk say it is? It is tempting to say that it is just peasant superstition, but as with kings' blood I could see GRRM going either way with this one.

Ha! Good point about bastards's blood, but they don't really equate.

Wouldn't matter whether usurper, bastard, commoner, king, male, female - you can be Gilly or Dany, Varamyr or Rhaegar, Orell or Jon and be of Kings blood as I've defined it.

The irony of the baby switch is that Gilly's baby is very obviously from that kingsblood line, whereas Mance's baby, as far as we know, isn't. Poor Mel never gets it right.

It does make me think about Jon's resurrection if Mel uses Gilly's baby as sacrifice to accomplish it. A Fire witch but with an Ice gene pool sacrifice, and a human of both ice and fire affinities as resurrectee. It would be apropos, if grisly. Starting to sound an awful lot like Dany's rebirth players.

hiemal · October 22, 2018

30 minutes ago, Lady Barbrey said:

Ha! Good point about bastards's blood, but they don't really equate.

Not in the sense of magic, I was just thinking about the possibilities of blood as a carrier of information(?) or power(?) in non-traditional ways. I think GRRM mentioned in one of his missives that genetics worked differently in this world. I assumed at the time it was a bit of creative ass-covering to paper over some dodgy genetics in his over-complicated family trees combining in arbitrary, plot-driven ways, but perhaps it is really all different in that is completely non-Mendelian? Just kind of spitballing on your ideas of native magic here...

30 minutes ago, Lady Barbrey said:

Wouldn't matter whether usurper, bastard, commoner, king, male, female - you can be Gilly or Dany, Varamyr or Rhaegar, Orell or Jon and be of Kings blood as I've defined it.

Indeed- I was thinking more in terms of mythic symbolism? For example could kings' blood be virgin's blood- as in your namesake and Brandon's bloody blade, first night, etc- and queen's blood be moon blood/childbirth-related?

30 minutes ago, Lady Barbrey said:

The irony of the baby switch is that Gilly's baby is very obviously from that kingsblood line, whereas Mance's baby, as far as we know, isn't. Poor Mel never gets it right.

Exactly- I have a tinfoil that "Melisandre" is a combination of Cassandra of Troy (true visions but never believed) and the children's story character Amelia Bedelia (who takes all instructions literally with amusing consequences). Amelia+Cassandra=Melisandre

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