Heresy 217 Dreams and Dust

[Brad Stark]

Quaith talks to Dany about a mage climbing a ladder of fire, saying a year ago he could barely light any and telling Dany she's responsible. 

[Lady Rhodes]

I'm inclined to think that the glass candles burning predates or occurs when the dragons are born. The Others are active before the dragons are born, so there is something magical stirring.  however, the news of magic seems to occur around the same time as the dragons, so I am inclined to think that the dragons birth caused the glass candles to burn.

An interesting thought, though, that I had while typing the above is that the wights are brought across the Wall into Castle Black, and then the dragons are born...did the crossing the Wall threshold/barrier start the fraying that @Feather Crystal posited earlier in this thread?  I have posited in another thread months ago that Bloodraven and Aemon arriving at the Wall at the same time may be the reason that the Others started up again.  Why now? I wonder if Bloodraven crossing the border to go on a ranging caused a magical barrier to start to break.

Just some errant thoughts.

[Tucu]

2 hours ago, LynnS said:

Sure.  I still entertain the notion that the Black Gate is the middle head of the god Trios; the head that nobody knows how it functions.  So far, Bran is the only Stark who has interacted with the Wall in the form of the Gate; receiving a blessing of sorts when the Gate drops a salt tear of Bran's forehead.   Bran is 'the one' whom Coldhands is sent to collect.  

I had thought of the idea that Bran is completing a trinity/Trios of Starks greenseers/weirwoods: The weirwood in Winterfell devouring the corpses in the crypts, the Black Gate/Brandon the Builder and now the weirwood/Bran surrounded by "reborn" wights.

[St Daga]

24 minutes ago, Lady Rhodes said:

I'm inclined to think that the glass candles burning predates or occurs when the dragons are born. The Others are active before the dragons are born, so there is something magical stirring.  however, the news of magic seems to occur around the same time as the dragons, so I am inclined to think that the dragons birth caused the glass candles to burn.

1 hour ago, Janneyc1 said:

As to Dany releasing magic, it was already out there. I think that the candles were lit before Dany arrived in Qarth. 

The first mention of glass candles in the text comes in the Daenerys chapter after she was in the House of the Undying. If the candles were burning before this, there is no mention in the text. Of course it is possible that the candles were already burning, but the text never says they are. There is no mention of glass candles at all before this time.

ETA

38 minutes ago, Brad Stark said:

Quaith talks to Dany about a mage climbing a ladder of fire, saying a year ago he could barely light any and telling Dany she's responsible. 

You make a good point about the fire mages ladder. Quaithe does reference dragonglass burning in relation to this fire mage and this does occur before the trip in the House of the Undying. But, are glass candles regular dragon glass/obsidian or are they something more?

 

 

[The Snowfyre Chorus]

From the chapter immediately following Dany's trip through the HotU:

Quote

"You are several thousand jars ahead of the best estimate you gave me when last we met."

"We have been working very hard, my lord Hand, hmmm."

"That would doubtless explain why you are making so much more of the substance than before." Smiling, Tyrion fixed the pyromancer with his mismatched stare. "Though it does raise the question of why you did not begin working hard until now."

Hallyne had the complexion of a mushroom, so it was hard to see how he could turn any paler, yet somehow he managed. "We were, my lord Hand, my brothers and I have been laboring day and night from the first, I assure you.. It is only, hmmm, we have made so much of the substance that we have become, hmmm, more practiced as it were, and also"—the alchemist shifted uncomfortably—"certain spells, hmmm, ancient secrets of our order, very delicate, very troublesome, but necessary if the substance is to be, hmmm, all it should be…"

Tyrion was growing impatient. Ser Jacelyn Bywater was likely here by now, and Ironhand misliked waiting.

"Yes, you have secret spells; how splendid. What of them?"

"They, hmmm, seem to be working better than they were." Hallyne smiled weakly. "You don't suppose there are any dragons about, do you?"

"Not unless you found one under the Dragonpit. Why?"

"Oh, pardon, I was just remembering something old Wisdom Pollitor told me once, when I was an acolyte. I'd asked him why so many of our spells seemed, well, not as effectual as the scrolls would have us believe, and he said it was because magic had begun to go out of the world the day the last dragon died."

-- ACOK Chapter 49, TYRION

[Lady Rhodes]

39 minutes ago, St Daga said:

But, are glass candles regular dragon glass/obsidian or are they something more?

If you go to the ReRead page, you will see my "interesting tidbit project" where I am rereading Feast (and encouraging others to do the same in other texts!) and finding an interesting tidbit or fact on each page.  Some are mundane, but it is forcing me to think about things and see things I have missed previously.  Including a tidbit referring to this - Pg. 12 of the paperback version of Feast (American edition, if it matters) the novices at the Citadel are talking and they remark that there are four glass candles 3 black and 1 green.  However, the way it is written, I am inclined to think that there are 4 total, of which the Citadel has only 1.  But that could be up for interpretation.  Regardless, a slight answer to your question above. I think they are something more, at least the green one.

@The Snowfyre Chorus Excellent quote.  It seems to indicate that the dragons are the root.  Even though it appears after the Undying sequence, I would hazard to put it chronologically so.  Dany only has 5 chapters throughout that whole book, so it is hard to say where other events fall in relation to hers.

[Melifeather]

I don't think dragons are the source of magic, but rather a creature made from magic. They just happened to be the last magical creature in existence since the white walkers hadn't been seen for thousands of years. 

The Wall contains magic - think of it as a prison for magic, but now the iron bars are rusting away and magic is slowly seeping back out into the world. There were people in different parts of the world practicing rituals that had stopped working thousands of years ago as a type of religious ceremony, like the breath of fire Thoros gave to Beric. He wasn't expecting it to work. He was simply performing a last rights type of ritual that his religion had practiced for thousands of years, but this time it worked, because magic was back and Beric was resurrected.

The street vendor that performed the fire ladder must have also performed an ancient ritual and was surprised when it worked. 

When Aegon V attempted whatever it was he attempted at Summerhal and burned himself, his son, and his Kingsguard - it didn't work, because magic was still imprisoned. The Wall's wards were still holding, even if the threads were getting thin and worn. It's kind of like having worn fabric in your pants. You wear them all the time, but then one day you squat down and you rip a big hole and end up showing a lot more than you were expecting! 

The white walkers returned, because somebody north of the Wall was practicing an ancient ritual and created a white walker purely by accident.

[The Snowfyre Chorus]

39 minutes ago, Lady Rhodes said:

Excellent quote.  It seems to indicate that the dragons are the root.

I'd say it suggests that the pyromancers consider dragons the root.  But I find it unsurprising that dragons impress them.

Still, correlations can be interesting.

[LynnS]

1 hour ago, Tucu said:

I had thought of the idea that Bran is completing a trinity/Trios of Starks greenseers/weirwoods: The weirwood in Winterfell devouring the corpses in the crypts, the Black Gate/Brandon the Builder and now the weirwood/Bran surrounded by "reborn" wights.

Quote

The Sailor's Wife once told Arya Stark that the first head of Trio devours the dying and the reborn emerge from the third, but she did not recall the purpose of the middle head.^[1]

I'm reminded of Whitetree with it's mouth filled with burnt offerings.  The reborn sound like the white walkers.  Both  Bran and Dany pass through a mouth that symbolically devours them.  This, to me, is the middle head of Trios.

I

[JNR]

30 minutes ago, The Snowfyre Chorus said:

I'd say it suggests that the pyromancers consider dragons the root.  But I find it unsurprising that dragons impress them.

Still, correlations can be interesting.

It's an important distinction, yes.

What is magic, even? 

If we decide skinchanging is magic, it plainly has little to do with dragons or any other recent phenomenon. Varamyr's memories clearly establish skinchanging worked long before Dany was even born.

[Frey family reunion]

We also can’t forget that according to Melisandre, she had been summoning shadows back when she was in Asshai and seeing visions in the fire since she was a Red Priestess.  All of these events would have predated the return of the dragons.

We also have the suspicion that Bloodraven may have been casting a glamor (or someone on his behalf) to turn him into “Maynard Plumm” during the events of the Mystery Knight.

[Brad Stark]

I am not implying magic didn't exist before Dany hatched her dragons, we have several examples showing it did, including the fire mage I mentioned. 

All I meant to say is that Quaith clearly told Dany:

1) hatching dragons greatly strengthened magic 

2) this is relative to physical distance to the dragons

This doesn't even mean Quaith is right, she could be lying or just wrong.  But it does give us some evidence on our chicken and egg problem.  Quaith at least, says the dragons bring magic and not the other way around. 

[Matthew.]

5 hours ago, JNR said:

What is magic, even? 

If we decide skinchanging is magic, it plainly has little to do with dragons or any other recent phenomenon. Varamyr's memories clearly establish skinchanging worked long before Dany was even born.

This is true, and I'm having trouble spotting any sort of consistent pattern in the way in which magic waxes and wanes. For example, even if we categorize magic - eg, Dany has strengthened 'fire magic' - there are certain things that do not seem to entirely fit with that idea, such as the tales (granted, unconfirmed by the reader) of recent events in Qarth:
 

Quote

Xaro had learned that Pyat Pree was gathering the surviving warlocks together to work ill on her.

Dany had laughed when he told her. "Was it not you who told me warlocks were no more than old soldiers, vainly boasting of forgotten deeds and lost prowess?"

Xaro looked troubled. "And so it was, then. But now? I am less certain. It is said that the glass candles are burning in the house of Urrathon Night-Walker, that have not burned in a hundred years. Ghost grass grows in the Garden of Gehane, phantom tortoises have been seen carrying messages between the windowless houses on Warlock's Way, and all the rats in the city are chewing off their tails. The wife of Mathos Mallarawan, who once mocked a warlock's drab moth-eaten robe, has gone mad and will wear no clothes at all. Even fresh-washed silks make her feel as though a thousand insects were crawling on her skin. And Blind Sybassion the Eater of Eyes can see again, or so his slaves do swear. A man must wonder."

There's a lot of stuff there that doesn't really seem to align with "fire magic," or Valyrian magic, per se.


Looking at skinchangers, there's also the Starks themselves; Varamyr's tale creates the impression of skinchangers discovering their gifts by accident, perhaps first bonding with a domesticated animal, yet the Stark's gifts appear to have all awakened at the same time, catalyzed by the arrival of the direwolf mother, rather than, say, the older Starks having bonded with dogs or horses by accident.
______

It may be that Melisandre's comments about her magic being stronger at the Wall and Asshai, her comments about "hinges of the world," and the difference between the Starks and Varamyr give some potential context, that access to 'magically strong' things (dragons, weirwoods, direwolves, the heart of winter?) has an influence on the efficacy of magic.

Accordingly, the death of the dragons, a decline in weirwood sacrifice (south of the Wall, anyway), decline in direwolf populations, and something about the Wall's nature as a ward (a closed hinge?) might be factors in the waxing and waning of magic.

[asongofheresy]

17 hours ago, Brad Stark said:

I don't have my book, but believe she is called 'Daughter of Death' not 'Daughter of Dead'. 

What if she caused the death of these 3 people?  She is responsible for killing her son by agreeing to the ritual, she is responsible for killing Visceris. The prince is interesting, especially if it is Rhaegar, as we can come up with all kinds of theories on the rebellion if Dany is somehow responsible for Rhaegar's death. 

Writing mistake - will fix :) thank you 

[Lady Rhodes]

13 hours ago, Feather Crystal said:

I don't think dragons are the source of magic, but rather a creature made from magic. They just happened to be the last magical creature in existence since the white walkers hadn't been seen for thousands of years. 

The Wall contains magic - think of it as a prison for magic, but now the iron bars are rusting away and magic is slowly seeping back out into the world. There were people in different parts of the world practicing rituals that had stopped working thousands of years ago as a type of religious ceremony, like the breath of fire Thoros gave to Beric. He wasn't expecting it to work. He was simply performing a last rights type of ritual that his religion had practiced for thousands of years, but this time it worked, because magic was back and Beric was resurrected.

The street vendor that performed the fire ladder must have also performed an ancient ritual and was surprised when it worked. 

When Aegon V attempted whatever it was he attempted at Summerhal and burned himself, his son, and his Kingsguard - it didn't work, because magic was still imprisoned. The Wall's wards were still holding, even if the threads were getting thin and worn. It's kind of like having worn fabric in your pants. You wear them all the time, but then one day you squat down and you rip a big hole and end up showing a lot more than you were expecting! 

The white walkers returned, because somebody north of the Wall was practicing an ancient ritual and created a white walker purely by accident.

The thinning pants metaphor - omg! Too funny! But I see your point exactly. 

 

8 hours ago, Matthew. said:

This is true, and I'm having trouble spotting any sort of consistent pattern in the way in which magic waxes and wanes. For example, even if we categorize magic - eg, Dany has strengthened 'fire magic' - there are certain things that do not seem to entirely fit with that idea, such as the tales (granted, unconfirmed by the reader) of recent events in Qarth:
 

There's a lot of stuff there that doesn't really seem to align with "fire magic," or Valyrian magic, per se.


Looking at skinchangers, there's also the Starks themselves; Varamyr's tale creates the impression of skinchangers discovering their gifts by accident, perhaps first bonding with a domesticated animal, yet the Stark's gifts appear to have all awakened at the same time, catalyzed by the arrival of the direwolf mother, rather than, say, the older Starks having bonded with dogs or horses by accident.
______

It may be that Melisandre's comments about her magic being stronger at the Wall and Asshai, her comments about "hinges of the world," and the difference between the Starks and Varamyr give some potential context, that access to 'magically strong' things (dragons, weirwoods, direwolves, the heart of winter?) has an influence on the efficacy of magic.

Accordingly, the death of the dragons, a decline in weirwood sacrifice (south of the Wall, anyway), decline in direwolf populations, and something about the Wall's nature as a ward (a closed hinge?) might be factors in the waxing and waning of magic.

I should have phrased better - the dragons arrival certainly sprouted more magic but it clearly was around prior, given what we know about the eights and the Others. That said, what caused the Others to return? Or, if you prefer, what caused the hinges to start fraying? 

[Black Crow]

20 hours ago, Janneyc1 said:

Well Euron does have some Odin references, though not as many as Bloodraven. In TWOW theon chapter, we see that Theon wanted to pull up Crow Foods eye patch to ensure that it wasn't Euron. Only, euron is said to have a black eye under his patch and Crow's Food wears an obsidian eye where he lost his. I could see Euron sacrificing his Eye so that he could gain a magical eye, perhaps similar in funciton to a glass candle. 

 

we've discussed this one in the past, and although Mr Umber appears innocuous and doesn't exactly stride on to the centre of the stage, his explanation for the obsidian eye may not be as innocent as he claims - and remember too the stories of Symeon Star Eyes. 

[JNR]

18 hours ago, Feather Crystal said:

It's kind of like having worn fabric in your pants. You wear them all the time, but then one day you squat down and you rip a big hole and end up showing a lot more than you were expecting! 

Scratch out "pants," and write in "theories," and this metaphor will eventually apply very well to certain folks, I think.

4 hours ago, Lady Rhodes said:

That said, what caused the Others to return?

Wight privilege.

[St Daga]

19 hours ago, Lady Rhodes said:

20 hours ago, St Daga said:

But, are glass candles regular dragon glass/obsidian or are they something more?

If you go to the ReRead page, you will see my "interesting tidbit project" where I am rereading Feast (and encouraging others to do the same in other texts!) and finding an interesting tidbit or fact on each page.  Some are mundane, but it is forcing me to think about things and see things I have missed previously.  Including a tidbit referring to this - Pg. 12 of the paperback version of Feast (American edition, if it matters) the novices at the Citadel are talking and they remark that there are four glass candles 3 black and 1 green.  However, the way it is written, I am inclined to think that there are 4 total, of which the Citadel has only 1.  But that could be up for interpretation.  Regardless, a slight answer to your question above. I think they are something more, at least the green one.

Thanks for the heads up about your thread. I will have to check it out. I am currently rereading Feast and it seems like each time I journey through a novel, I see more things that I missed the previous times I read it, or my perspective has altered my interpretation!

It does seem like the glass candles are special in some way. They can't be ordinary dragonglass, or they would not be noted to be so important!

[St Daga]

18 hours ago, JNR said:

18 hours ago, The Snowfyre Chorus said:

I'd say it suggests that the pyromancers consider dragons the root.  But I find it unsurprising that dragons impress them.

Still, correlations can be interesting.

It's an important distinction, yes.

What is magic, even? 

If we decide skinchanging is magic, it plainly has little to do with dragons or any other recent phenomenon. Varamyr's memories clearly establish skinchanging worked long before Dany was even born.

The story does imply, even out right gives the dragons credit for the return of magic, and I guess that is why I am suspicious that it wasn't the dragons being born that brought magic back into the world. It was probably always in the world, just diminished or muted in some way. Somehow it was flared or freed, probably before the phrase "we should start back" is uttered by Gared.

I don't know how to define magic, but I think the White Walkers have to be tied to magic, so they are a force in the very first chapter of the story, long before Dany's dragon eggs hatched. And perhaps the return of direwolves is part of this, too! Even if it can be argued that skinchanging isn't a form of magic, it is unusual that the Stark kids all seem to show the promise of this gift after they get their direwolf pups, and not before it. As we hear from Varamyr, he started a skinchanger bond with his families dogs before he was six years old. The only Stark child younger than this is Rickon, so if they all had the gene prior to the direwolves showing up, why didn't it start to reveal itself? There are dogs at Winterfell but the Stark children seem to have no special bond with any of them!

It just seems to me that magic is increasing in the world before our story even starts, and that return of magic is why the direwolves came to the Stark's and helped ignite a powerful bond between the kids and the pups and magic is increasing and that same return of magic is what allowed Dany to understand how to incubate and hatch dragon eggs that most people seemed to think were stone. Did the same magic cause the White Walker's to return? And if so, and magic caused all of these things to be put into motion, what caused the magic to return?

Maybe we really wont understand what happened until we finally get a conclusion of the series and then it will all click into place!

[Matthew.]

7 hours ago, Lady Rhodes said:

I should have phrased better - the dragons arrival certainly sprouted more magic but it clearly was around prior, given what we know about the eights and the Others. That said, what caused the Others to return? Or, if you prefer, what caused the hinges to start fraying? 

I wasn't disagreeing with the point you made above--I agree that either the dragons being born or Rhaego being sacrificed in MMD's ritual has a relationship with the glass candles burning and magic strengthening. I put a lot of stock in what Quaithe has to say, even though I don't have a substantial reason to do so; for some reason, it just feels intuitively true to me that Quaithe knows more about magic than any other character, with the exception of Bloodraven.

As for why the Others have returned, that seems like one of the major mysteries, and I haven't really come up with a good answer. Instead, there's some things that I think could be relevant:

- Brandon and Rickard's deaths
- Bran, Jon, or Dany's birth
- Howland Reed's visit to the Isle of Faces
- Whatever Mance was doing after he deserted, but before the Others began slaughtering the Free Folk
- Bloodraven becoming a greenseer

When it comes to Melisandre's "hinges," I have even less to go on, save that I can't help but feel that the Wall, and the Black Gate in particular, are central to that idea. Again, just intuition