Age of Heroes and Long Night: Closer to 5,000 years ago than 10,000? [EW Interview with GRRM]

[Black Dragons]

What does this mean? The fact the wall of ice is 5000 years and not 8000 years.  So the White Walkers or Others attack after the Andals landed or during The Age of Heroes?   What was going in Westeros 5000 years ago?  We all know that Valyrias was raising and the 1000 years later Andals were coming into shore of Westeros in waves.

[Black Dragons]

I just wanted add the story of Cain and Abel many people believe this was start of Mankind. Timeline of this event was 6000 years ago that when the Jewish people started to write events down.  We all know that Mankind is way older than 6000 years.  But cause the story of creation was set 6000 years, by the bible so SOME people believe that was real beginning of MANKIND.  LOL

[Black Dragons]

Please look these videos: Asoiaf Theories: When the Long Night Really Happened Part 3 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0pxW9mj5HU0

[Megorova]

My version of what happened:

First Men came to Westeros, and the Children has broken The Arm of Dorne, to stop their advancement. But they were too late. First Men originally has settled in Dorne, but over time they were advancing further and further. Eventually they were living nearly all over Westeros, below the Neck, and the Children were pushed to the North. So to stop their further advancement, the Children used Hammer of the waters, to separate the continent into two parts, and to keep First Men from seizing the rest of their land. But that ritual has also failed, same as first time. So they had to make a truce pact with invaders. After that they moved further north, from God's Eye to location of future Winterfell. That's where they created the Others, and caused First Long Night.

Meanwhile in Essos - Red Priest, named Azor Ahai, was serving in R'hllor's temple, located in Asshai. He saw a falling star (either in a dream, or in a fire vision, or by his own eyes). So he went after that star, all the way to Dorne, to location of future Starfall of Daynes. From the site of that crash, he took meteorite ore, and returned back to Asshai. Then for 6 months he was forging Lightbringer in sacred flames of R'hllor's temple. And then he defeated/killed all the Others in Essos.

Back to Westeros - the Last Hero, named Bran Stark, went north above the Neck, in search of the Children, to negotiate. He came to location of future Winterfell, and that's where the Children were living. Bran made with them a truce pact, according to which they helped First Men to lead the Others further north, and with usage of magic helped Bran to build The Wall and Winterfell. The Children went beyond The Wall, together with the Others. And Starks were obliged to give blood sacrifices to Old Gods, thru the Weirwood located at the heart of Winterfell (the castle was build around ceremonial grounds, where the Children were making blood sacrifices to the Old Gods, and where in exchange of those sacrifices, the Gods has created the Others, to serve a role of protectors for the Children).

Back to Essos - after Long Night has ended, Azor Ahai took his family and his people, and went west. Majority of them settled at south-western peninsula of Essos. In volcanoes on that peninsula they have found dragons, and tamed them. Azor Ahai kept going west, until he arrived to the location of meteorite crash. There he has build Starfall. He was first Lord Dayne, and first Sword of the Morning. When he left Asshai, he took Lightbringer with him. Dawn sword of Daynes is Azor Ahai's Lightbringer. The city Asshai was named after its hero - Azor Ahai. And Valyrians are his descendants. That's why Daynes have violet and purple eyes, same as Targaryens - because they have the same ancestor.

Westeros - Probably Hightowers also came with Azor Ahai from Asshai. Their motto is "We Light the Way". That's because they were escorting AA, when he brought Lightbringer to Westeros. They were seafarers and traders. After settling in Westeros, they have build four wooden beacon towers atop their fortress. And then King Uthor of the High Tower commissioned Bran the Builder or his son Brandon to design the fifth tower. Thus they have settled in Westeros, shortly after First Long Night ended. Bran has build The Wall and Winterfell, and then Hightowers hired him to build fifth tower of their fortress.

Essos - after AA's descendants tamed Valyrian dragons, they seized Ghiscari Empire. All five Ghiscari wars against Valyrians happened shortly after First Long Night, and each next one happened not much time after the previous one.

So 5000 years ago the following events occurred - First Long Night; construction of The Wall, Winterfell, Starfall and Hightower; discovery and taming of Valyrian dragons; five Ghiscari wars against Valyrians and creation of Valyrian Freehold; in Asshai was foretold the prophecy about Second Long Night and the Prince that was promised (who will be descendant/s of first Azor Ahai. The dragon has three heads. The Dragon in Valyrian is the Prince. So there will be three people of royal blood, descendants of Azor Ahai thru Queen Dyanna Dayne, that together are the threeheaded Dragon, or the Holy Trinity of ASOIAF - Dany/The Mother, Rhaego/The Son, and Jon/The Holy Ghost).

[Clegane'sPup]

I'm gonna try to post a link to the interview that martin did with John Hodgman about the F&B book.

It's long. Over an hour.

It has probably been posted in another thread. I found it via Reddit.

I find it interesting to actually hear martin speak for himself.

For fun and for free. Has nada to do with ASOIAF.

 

[MaesterSam]

On 11/21/2018 at 5:13 PM, Lord Varys said:

And overall - a very weird blank spot in the setting is that the North's culture actually got andalized without even being conquered. There are no Children there anymore, never mind the Pact, nor do the Starks and other Northmen actually have their own greenseers beneath their weirwoods - which would be an infinitely better way to store and transfer knowledge than runes on trees, tales and songs, or chronicles written on parchment.

How and why is it that this never happened?

Yes, excellent point! This often gets overlooked when we talk about the "illiterate" First Men/ Northmen and their "inaccurate" histories. The First Men didn't need to write down histories or other knowledge because after the Pact they should have had their own greenseers - most likely residing under the castle's heart tree - to access all knowledge accumulated by that House and very likely communicating with the entire weirnet. Who needs books when you have the internet?

So the real question we need to ask is when did the First Men lose the ability to access knowledge from the weirnet? Clearly, greenseer blood is still found in some FM families (Bran and BR being proof of that), and the ancient weirwoods are still standing in many godswoods. So especially in a place like Winterfell, which combines greenseer genetics with a living, ancient weirwood and plenty of underground access to the root system .... how could such a superior form of storing and accessing knowledge be completely forgotten?? 

And not only forgotten - I would argue that weirnet access was deliberately closed off within the crypts, based on the absence of white roots anywhere down there. We know from Bran's cave and Berric's cave that weirwood roots extend deep underground and form a dense network all throughout the walls of any caves or passages. From Bran's cave we learn that they like to snake their way through greenseers and also bones that are stored down there. So at one point, it seems very likely that the crypts resembled this cave, with roots in the walls and the dead being brought there not just for burial but for a reason (like the dead Singers and other bones in Bran's cave). There also would have been a greenseer down there, on a throne like Bran's, and likely many "dead" greenseers like the one Bran sees when he explores his cave system as Hodor.

But at some point, someone built an inner wall, closing off the natural earth walls and hiding the weirwood roots (along with the dead & the greenseers they snaked through). I am not the first to suggest that if one were to open a crypt, inside would be roots consuming the dead. But why hide this? And what happened to the weirwood throne(s) that should have been down there? Now the tombs are sealed with heavy stones and warded with iron swords... suggesting a certain fear of the dead or the greenseers. A fear so great that it justified the price that was paid: loss of access to all the knowledge in the world. I suspect this was the time the FM stopped building round towers and magical structures like Storm's End, and regressed to their current medieval state from a society that was clearly more advanced once. And this is probably when they stopped communicating with the COTF, as the weirwoods would have been the primary means by which this was done - explaining why the Last Hero had to go searching for them, and thus placing this loss of weirnet access before the Long Night. 

ETA: It may not have been fear of the dead or the greenseers, but fear of the knowledge itself that caused the weirnet to be sealed off and intentionally "forgotten". Maybe something happened that needed to be hidden from later generations, or some power accessed that should have been left alone. This would be a parallel to how the Citadel hides certain scrolls in its deepest vaults (cough cough, Unnatural History, cough cough) because the knowledge within them is too dangerous to share. The maesters don't want anyone replicating the process by which Valyrians created dragons, and someone decided long ago that the trees, too, harbored knowledge best forgotten. 

[Sly Wren]

3 hours ago, MaesterSam said:

And what happened to the weirwood throne(s) that should have been down there? Now the tombs are sealed with heavy stones and warded with iron swords... suggesting a certain fear of the dead or the greenseers. A fear so great that it justified the price that was paid: loss of access to all the knowledge in the world. I suspect this was the time the FM stopped building round towers and magical structures like Storm's End, and regressed to their current medieval state from a society that was clearly more advanced once. And this is probably when they stopped communicating with the COTF, as the weirwoods would have been the primary means by which this was done - explaining why the Last Hero had to go searching for them, and thus placing this loss of weirnet access before the Long Night. 

ETA: It may not have been fear of the dead or the greenseers, but fear of the knowledge itself that caused the weirnet to be sealed off and intentionally "forgotten". Maybe something happened that needed to be hidden from later generations, or some power accessed that should have been left alone. This would be a parallel to how the Citadel hides certain scrolls in its deepest vaults (cough cough, Unnatural History, cough cough) because the knowledge within them is too dangerous to share. The maesters don't want anyone replicating the process by which Valyrians created dragons, and someone decided long ago that the trees, too, harbored knowledge best forgotten. 

1. I think "fear of the greenseers" is possible--and likely tied to fear of the wargs. The Starks hold on to the trappings of wargdom with their sigils. But they haven't been active wargs for at least as long as direwolves stopped being seen south of the Wall.

And we have that trace in the World Book about the Staks defeating the Warg King and his "inhuman allies, the children of the forest." Seems like the Starks have a testy relationship with wargs, despite their own abilities.

2. That said, your second hypothesis works, too--the name of the Night's King has been stricken. Why? What does that name reveal? 

And I agree with the parallel to the dragon creation--I've bought for a while that the Others are the Ice Dragons--power gone amok. The Night's King was tied to the Others--striking his name seems like proof that fear of the Others drove  hiding the knowledge about the Night's King.

All that said--the fear seems to have hidden needed information. Not only hiding the timeline (per the OP) but hiding how to deal with these threats. Am thinking that fear is maintaining the imbalance of the seasons vs. dealing with it once and for all.

[SirArthur]

My personal problem with the theory is the list of NW commanders. If you count them back the 8k years more or less is the timespan the popes have. So unless that list is forged, the 8k would have some merit. We have 266 popes so far, so a list of 1000 people would suggest something between 7k and 8k years. 

[Bael's Bastard]

Just now, SirArthur said:

My personal problem with the theory is the list of NW commanders. If you count them back the 8k years more or less is the timespan the popes have. So unless that list is forged, the 8k would have some merit. 

What do you mean? Popes have not existed for anywhere near 8K years.

As for the list, the oldest list Sam has found indicates only about two thirds (674) of the number of LCs claimed (998).

[SirArthur]

13 minutes ago, Bael's Bastard said:

What do you mean? Popes have not existed for anywhere near 8K years.

I don't like the playing stupid game. Don't do that please. 

13 minutes ago, Bael's Bastard said:

 As for the list, the oldest list Sam has found indicates only about two thirds (674) of the number of LCs claimed (998).

You know the tales, Brandon the Builder, Symeon Star-Eyes, Night's King . . . we say that you're the nine hundred and ninety-eighth Lord Commander of the Night's Watch, but the oldest list I've found shows six hundred seventy-four commanders, which suggests that it was written during . . ."

It is giving the possibility that the numbers don't match. But there is an addition. An addition that seems to hint that the first commanders do not stand on that list. 

Anyway, crossreferencing the lifespan of popes with the 674 gives about 5k years. Don't get me wrong here, there are many indications that hint at a forged history, but this single list is the central evidence, as it can debunk or proove the theory. And there are explanations why the list is not older, including the Andal invasion and the fact that it is written in andal. 

And so far the theory has not worked the list in a way that explains, how either the Old Tongue was translated in Common or how the Andal invasion influenced the NW.

And that is the reason this theory does not convince me, as it cannot explain the difference in the list. 

[MaesterSam]

40 minutes ago, Sly Wren said:

1. I think "fear of the greenseers" is possible--and likely tied to fear of the wargs. The Starks hold on to the trappings of wargdom with their sigils. But they haven't been active wargs for at least as long as direwolves stopped being seen south of the Wall.

And we have that trace in the World Book about the Staks defeating the Warg King and his "inhuman allies, the children of the forest." Seems like the Starks have a testy relationship with wargs, despite their own abilities.

2. That said, your second hypothesis works, too--the name of the Night's King has been stricken. Why? What does that name reveal? 

And I agree with the parallel to the dragon creation--I've bought for a while that the Others are the Ice Dragons--power gone amok. The Night's King was tied to the Others--striking his name seems like proof that fear of the Others drove  hiding the knowledge about the Night's King.

All that said--the fear seems to have hidden needed information. Not only hiding the timeline (per the OP) but hiding how to deal with these threats. Am thinking that fear is maintaining the imbalance of the seasons vs. dealing with it once and for all.

As I think about it more, I am leaning more toward #2. At the time, all the great Houses would have had a weirwood and a greenseer, so it would have been a normal thing. Why would the First Men suddenly fear them after (presumably) benefitting from the greenseers for centuries or millennia?

Unless of course something happened that caused them to mistrust the greenseers. We see the parallel in Lady Barbrey's distrust of the maesters who, come to think of it, were the ones who replaced the greenseers within the households. Maesters are now the source of information about the world, they offer counsel and advice, and importantly are solely responsible for long-distance communication. They also know all the family secrets, and educate the children. Come to think of it, they are excellent candidates for making the First Men "forget" the greenseers: all it would take is one generation in which the parents died young and the maester thus raised the children from an early age. He simply wouldn't teach them about the benefits of having a greenseer, or tell them it was an abomination. Over the years, all the FM Houses would gradually move away from the tradition, while the helpful maester took over the greenseer's responsibilities. 

And why would the maesters go to all this trouble? Probably for the same reason they got rid of the dragons and are hiding those books: as you suggested, the trees know too much about the Others. And they can't let that info back into the world. 

[MaesterSam]

9 minutes ago, SirArthur said:

You know the tales, Brandon the Builder, Symeon Star-Eyes, Night's King . . . we say that you're the nine hundred and ninety-eighth Lord Commander of the Night's Watch, but the oldest list I've found shows six hundred seventy-four commanders, which suggests that it was written during . . ."

It is giving the possibility that the numbers don't match. But there is an addition. An addition that seems to hint that the first commanders do not stand on that list. 

Indeed, and neither do the last. Sam says this is the oldest list he has found, so it was written .... "long ago", according to Jon who interrupts him. We don't know how long ago, but we know that all the LCs between then and the present are not on that old list. 

12 minutes ago, SirArthur said:

Anyway, crossreferencing the lifespan of popes with the 674 gives about 5k years.

While I applaud your creative way of measuring time, in order to have any degree of accuracy we would have to assume that the duration of the average regency of a pope was very close to that of an LC. Even an 18-month difference in the average length of rule (multiplied by 674 rulers) will distort the timeline by roughly a thousand years. If that difference is in favor of the popes (so they rule longer than LCs), we can fit all the 674 LCs into 4000 years instead of 5000.

That being said, I am not at all certain that the point Sam was trying to make was that the NW is younger than we think. He is in the middle of making the point that all histories before the Andals came are suspect, and that some archmaesters at the Citadel question all of it. He then gives examples, citing heroes that lived for hundreds of years and legends like Bran the Builder. That's where he finishes with our passage:

You know the tales, Brandon the Builder, Symeon Star-Eyes, Night's King . . . we say that you're the nine hundred and ninety-eighth Lord Commander of the Night's Watch, but the oldest list I've found shows six hundred seventy-four commanders, which suggests that it was written during . . ."

It sounds to me like what Sam is questioning is whether Jon is truly the 998th commander, because the list somehow suggests he may not be. It is the oldest list he found, so it may be from the time when septons were first arriving at the Wall and writing down information. So then it would be thousands of years old. But even if it's "only" 2000 years old, going by your pope timeline, that would add another 200-something LCs, bringing us very close to the 1000 we're supposed to be at ... except that we are reminded that the oldest LCs aren't on the list b/c there was no writing back then. So in other words, there may have been significantly more than 1000 LCs in the NW since its founding. 

I have long enjoyed a crackpot theory that the NW predates the Wall and the Long Night. I won't get into it all here, but evidence includes the black garb against a backdrop of white which is the opposite of camouflage, and the "I am the fire that burns against the cold" when they are just a bunch of shivering single men on a freezing Wall of ice. There are also no weirwoods or godswoods on the Wall, which would be expected if the Watch was indeed founded by the First Men. Something is off here, and I suspect an entirely different origin for this order. But I digress. My point was that, if we uncouple the founding of the NW from the Long Night, the LC list can't be evidence for the date of the LN . 

[kissdbyfire]

2 minutes ago, MaesterSam said:

Indeed, and neither do the last. Sam says this is the oldest list he has found, so it was written .... "long ago", according to Jon who interrupts him. We don't know how long ago, but we know that all the LCs between then and the present are not on that old list. 

Do you mean between the list being written and the present? If so, how do “we know” that?

[kissdbyfire]

Also, this pope timeline doesn’t really work for me. It’s not like we have several examples to draw conclusions from, we have only... popes. What I mean is, both popes and LC of the NW occupy their offices for life, but that’s it. Just because we’ve had x popes in so many years doesn’t at all mean we can extrapolate the number of LCs. Some took office as young men and died old, others were young and died shortly after being elected, other were elected as middle-aged men and were in office for decades, etc etc etc. 

[SirArthur]

21 minutes ago, kissdbyfire said:

Just because we’ve had x popes in so many years doesn’t at all mean we can extrapolate the number of LCs.

That is the thing with the pope idea. It matches the initial assumption of a ruling time of 8 years per LC. (1k in 8k years) and gives a real life reference that the ruling time of 8 can fit a realistic approach. 

 

But I get your point. You are right that it is a cirle assumption. A real life circle assumption, but still circle logic.

edit: Anyway, my point was, that any theory I could follow,should be able to explain the LC list. A list so important, that the scene is mentioned in two POV chapters.

[Lord Varys]

We have no complete list of LC nor confirmation that the number of LCs that supposedly served is actually factually correct. This is a dead end. There is no way to get to the bottom of this, since we have no (independent) confirmation that tradition is correct there.

7 hours ago, MaesterSam said:

Yes, excellent point! This often gets overlooked when we talk about the "illiterate" First Men/ Northmen and their "inaccurate" histories. The First Men didn't need to write down histories or other knowledge because after the Pact they should have had their own greenseers - most likely residing under the castle's heart tree - to access all knowledge accumulated by that House and very likely communicating with the entire weirnet. Who needs books when you have the internet?

This is what they should have had - but what they apparently never actually had, or else they would still have greenseers. No sane person or culture would ever give up the power and knowledge a greenseer can give you about, well, basically everything.

Which means that if the Others and the Children are linked in the sense that the Children created the Others, then this would have happened after the Pact. Which also means the First Men - as would be expected of short lived creatures like humans - forgot/broke the Pact some time after it was made, resulting in the Children finally deciding to end them once and for all.

That the First Men didn't remember/pass on that particular part of the story makes a lot of sense, considering it shames them and weakens their position. That we know the ancient First Men kings warred against the Children in defiance of the Pact after the Long Night is established - the Starks fought against the Warg King and his Children and greenseers, and the Durrandons actually took the Rainwood from the Children.

If the Pact had been honored in the North the forests up there would not only still belong the Children but they would also be still around and on pretty good footing with the First Men.

Reports on the Children around the time of the Andal invasions also indicates the First Men slowly but surely pushed the Children out of their lands considering certain kings had trouble finding them by the time they wanted their assistance in the fight against the Andals.

Finally, it is kind of glaring how the Children and Bloodraven do not actually work with or are in contact with Mance and the wildlings. Not even the wildlings seem to have kept the Pact...

[Megorova]

If First Long Night has happened 5000 years ago, and Jon is really 998th LC of NW, then maybe they have a list, that goes only as far back in time as 674 LCs, because that list was written during/or after the Andal Invasion, that has happened less than 5000 years ago.

That list may be not 1st->674th, and not 674th->1st, but actually - "LC number X" -> 672 others LCs between them -> "LC number Y".

Maybe Jon, who is LC-998 is this "LC number Y", so "LC number X", who is the oldest recorded (by Andals) LC of NW, was LC-326 (998 - 674 = 326). So Andal Invasion has happened when NW was ruled by its 326th LC.

If in span of 5000 years, there was 998 LCs, then the average amount of years, that each of them has served as LC, is (5000/998) 5 years. So if the Andal Invasion has happened 674 LCs ago, and each of them has served for 5 years, then Andals has invaded (674*5) 3370 years ago, or 1630 years after First Long Night. So between First LC of NW and first recorded LC of NW was 1630 years, and in the span of that unrecorded by historians time, NW was ruled by 326 unknown/unnamed LCs.

It is known, that LC Mormont and LC Bloodraven has served for many years, more than 5. Though it's highly likely, that there were LCs, that ruled for less, much less, than 5 years.

For how long Jon Snow was an LC, before he was (possibly) killed? -> Just a few months. Or even less? 

There was a 10-years old LC, who was a Stark. For how long did that boy lived, if he was commanding attacks of Watchers on Wildlings? Maybe he didn't ruled NW for long. Maybe they have chosen this boy, as their LC, because he was mortally ill and dying, so making him LC was their way of giving condolences to House Stark.

Maybe in span of those 5000 years, there were multiple epidemics in NW, and its people were dying from infectious diseases. One LC died, then they have chosen another one, but that one also has died, just a few days after becoming LC. If the epidemy lasted for long, then they could have changed several LCs in short span of time. There was winter chill, there was summer chill, grey scale, pox, syphilis, cholera, diphtheria, plague, etc. Probably, it would have been hard, or nearly impossible, to establish an effective quarantine in a place such as NW, where many people sleep in one room, where all of them eat food prepared by the same cook, where they keep all their weapons in the same place, etc. So if several of them became ill, it was hard to prevent the others from also getting infected.

Aside from illnesses, and winters, that lasted for several years (so many people could have died from cold or hunger), there were also wars against Wildlings. What happens if LC has died on the battlefield, and the war/battle is lasting for a long time? They won't be able to go back to their castle, to hold an election. They would have needed to quickly chose a replacement. So, probably, in span of long-lasting wars, they had a preliminarely chosen number of candidates, that will become LCs, after the previous one will die/be killed on battlefield. For example, if current LC will be killed, then the First Ranger will replace him, after him Second Ranger, if he will also die, then next is First Steward, then master-at-arms, etc. So in span of some gruesome battles they could have lost/changed several LCs.

Maybe they have lost many LCs in span of Andal Invasion.

So even though some LCs, such as Mormont and Bloodraven, were LCs for 10+ years, there were others, that have lasted for less than a day, and thus 5 years, as an average "life span" of LC, is a fairly realistic number.

[MaesterSam]

1 hour ago, kissdbyfire said:

Do you mean between the list being written and the present? If so, how do “we know” that?

Yes, that's what I meant. I thought of it like this: the NW keeps records of its Lord Commanders, and they likely have a list they are currently adding to. That list would include Jeor Mormont, for example, and Jon Snow would have just been added. We have no idea how many LCs are on that list, but we do know that (since it's actively being added to) it's not hidden away somewhere in the back of the library. It is a current document; the "newest" list so to speak. Since it clearly doesn't include all LCs  from the start of time, this strongly suggests that the NW every so often sends a list to the library and starts a new list. 

The list Sam found was somewhere in the library collecting dust, and was the oldest list he could find. He doesn't tell us when it was written, but the context (along with Jon's interruption of "long ago") suggests it was quite some time ago. He doesn't say "someone started this list long ago" - but that it was written during a specific time. To me, that sounds like someone wrote that list (possibly many someones over centuries), and at some point it was placed in the library and a new list was started. Between the day this happened and the present, it would not have been added to; newer lists would simply join it every so often. (The fact that Sam calls it the oldest list he's found also suggests he found multiple lists, which wouldn't make sense if the one master list kept being added to).

[kissdbyfire]

@MaesterSam, gotcha. Interesting idea. I still think it’s more likely that the list has fewer LCs than expected because the NW only started listing its LCs in such manner after the Andal invasion (and septons and Andals started joining the organisation). But as I said, yours is an interesting take, and may well be correct. 

[Bael's Bastard]

I suppose there are a number of ways to read Sam's statement, since Jon doesn't allow him to elaborate, but I think Sam's point is that the oldest written record he could find was written down after two thirds of the supposed LCs had already gone. Whether it listed names or just gave a number and maybe some info on some of the more famous LCs, it was written down long after any of those real and/or imagined LCs. Even if it was written down two thousand years ago, there are no contemporary written accounts of the thousands of years it gives an account of.