Heresy 218 a brief walk on the dark side

[Janneyc1]

3 minutes ago, St Daga said:

I have been thinking on this a little bit, and the timeline as a whole. We are told that the Pact came after the CotF and the First Men fought to a standstill. It seemed like the CotF used weapons like obsidian, while the First Men used weapons made of bronze. We are told that the Andal's are the race that brought iron weapons to Westeros. If that is true, then iron should not have a part to play in any oath's related to the Pact, because iron wasn't in use at that time in Westeros.

But, we have the idea that iron is a substance that the Other's hate. Old Nan tells us this and we also see iron weapons in the crypts with the Kings of Winter. The KoW are supposed to be a primarily First Man group, so why the association with iron weapons, a type of weapon that is associated with the Andal's? Perhaps in the deeper levels of the crypts we will see weapons made of bronze. But we are also told that some of these iron weapons have rusted to dust in the crypts, at least that is part of Ned's thought process. However, bronze (or copper, which is used to make bronze) cannot rust because they do not contain iron.

Is GRRM being sloppy? Is there something that we are supposed to understand is "off" about the known timeline, or these people that inhabit Westeros?

Or have there been three such Pact's that are important and we have only been told of two? I could see a Pact between the CotF and the First Men involving a Pact of Earth and Water, especially if earth and water were used as weapons, such as earth quakes and floods. A pact between the First Men and the Andals would almost make sense if it was known as the Pact of Bronze and Iron, a pact that settled years of war between these two races and the weapons they used to fight it. And then we have heard of the Pact of Ice and Fire, something that seemed to be dreamed up between Cregan Stark and Jace Velaryon, an agreement between House Stark and House Targaryen/Velaryon, something we are told has not yet been fulfilled. But perhaps it has been in some way, just not in the way that we think it was meant to be? Or perhaps Ice and Fire hasn't really happened yet, and we are being given a hint of a pact that will have to be agreed upon to settle the a war that uses Ice and Fire as weapons?

And if this above speculation is so, why do Bran and Meera seem to be the  only people who know about it. And perhaps they don't really even know, but they are just repeating something that Howland told them to say. Something he learned from dreams or his time on the Isle of Faces?

This has been an interesting point for me as well. I think that what we are seeing is the misconstruction of a timeline, made to make the Andals appear way more sophisticated than they are. I don't see the First Men as being a group that would care to form an organization like the Citadel. It just isn't one of their priorities. 

We know that the FM built Storm's End and Winterfell, we have the sneaking suspicion that the Others hate iron, as well as references to dragonsteel (likely an iron-based sword) being used against the Others. We have a lot of contradictory information. We also have stories about Knights, long before the Andals came over from Andalos. 

I am betting that the inconsistencies start at the Citadel, which is likely a more Andal based society. I don't think that it has anything to do with the Others though, I think it has to do with power and having every ear at court. 

[Janneyc1]

6 minutes ago, St Daga said:

It is hard for me to not be aware of the similarities between the Other's blade and the descriptions of Dawn, BUT would a human be able to hold such a weapon? It is a very good question! What if such a sword had a special hilt applied to it, a hilt that allowed mankind to hold it?

A few posts ago, I ran through the numbers about the temperatures needed to cause a steel sword to become brittle and break (about -137). The thing about that though is that is the internal temperature of the sword needed to become brittle enough to shatter. In order to get the material that cold, the area and other sword would have to be much colder. IMO a new hilt wouldn't be enough to prevent the human from losing the hand that gripped the sword.

 

But... that is just with materials alone. This story has magic and if there was a way to do it, it might be based off of the runes that we see on the Royces. Runes in the armor, runes left on rocks, runes everywhere from the FM. In addition, Mel has that ruby that heats up, so I think a special hilt could be made, though it would be costly in both creation and maintenance. Not to mention that the heat differences would probably play with the material structures inside the sword... 

[St Daga]

2 hours ago, Janneyc1 said:

This has been an interesting point for me as well. I think that what we are seeing is the misconstruction of a timeline, made to make the Andals appear way more sophisticated than they are. I don't see the First Men as being a group that would care to form an organization like the Citadel. It just isn't one of their priorities. 

We know that the FM built Storm's End and Winterfell, we have the sneaking suspicion that the Others hate iron, as well as references to dragonsteel (likely an iron-based sword) being used against the Others. We have a lot of contradictory information. We also have stories about Knights, long before the Andals came over from Andalos. 

I am betting that the inconsistencies start at the Citadel, which is likely a more Andal based society. I don't think that it has anything to do with the Others though, I think it has to do with power and having every ear at court. 

The timeline certainly could be jumbled. But rumors claim the Citadel goes back as far as the son of Uthor of the Hightower. Uthor married Maris the Maid, the daughter of Garth Greenhand, so even if the Andal's have skewed history, they are claiming that the Citadel, the Hightower and the start of all that knowledge was in Westeros before the Andals arrived. Perhaps how the Citadel is organized or worked has changed since the arrival of the Andal's but it seems to have been in place already. If the Andal's truly wanted to associate themselves with sophisticated thought at the Citadel, would they not just go a head and claim that they are behind the creation of it?

As to dragonsteel, we really don't know what that is. Jon assumes it must be Valyrian steel, but my guess is that will be an incorrect assumption on Jon's part. But it does seem like dragonsteel predates Valyria. My wild guess is that dragonsteel is in some way associated with Asshai. I don't know if it matters to dragonsteel or not, but dragonbone is said to have a high iron content and that contributes to it's black color. Of course, iron seems to be something that the Other's do not love.

Recently someone posted as SSM about Valyria and dragonbone and how dragonbone is not part of the making of Valyrian steel, but perhaps it is part of making "dragonsteel"? Something that might have to do with Asshai and the black color of that city! Just tossing out ideas and I have no idea if they could work or not.

[St Daga]

2 hours ago, Janneyc1 said:

A few posts ago, I ran through the numbers about the temperatures needed to cause a steel sword to become brittle and break (about -137). The thing about that though is that is the internal temperature of the sword needed to become brittle enough to shatter. In order to get the material that cold, the area and other sword would have to be much colder. IMO a new hilt wouldn't be enough to prevent the human from losing the hand that gripped the sword.

Well, not just any human is able to wield Dawn, it seems, so perhaps there is something physically important about that human that allows them to hold such an unhuman blade?

 

2 hours ago, Janneyc1 said:

But... that is just with materials alone. This story has magic and if there was a way to do it, it might be based off of the runes that we see on the Royces. Runes in the armor, runes left on rocks, runes everywhere from the FM. In addition, Mel has that ruby that heats up, so I think a special hilt could be made, though it would be costly in both creation and maintenance. Not to mention that the heat differences would probably play with the material structures inside the sword... 

Honestly, in this world, magic makes almost anything possible, it just depends on how far GRRM wishes to take it.

[redriver]

On 2/17/2019 at 3:45 PM, JNR said:

The problems with LmL's theory here are the same as always, though. 

A comet is not going to shatter a moon comparable in mass to ours, which GRRM's moon seems to be, but will instead just strike and create a crater, just like the thousands of craters on our moon, which no comet has shattered in over four billion years.

If a comet did shatter a moon of such size, the stupendous amount of fallout would soon, through mass impacts, obliterate all life on the surface of the world -- it would dramatically exceed the effect of the bolide that we think killed the dinosaurs 65m years ago.  If our Moon suddenly exploded, that would be the end of humanity.

If that somehow didn't happen, then the idea that the fiery ejecta somehow create the Long Night, meaning an invasion of ice demons and wights in Westeros, still just doesn't work for me at a basic level.

And of course GRRM has told us outright the seasons have a magical cause.  Comets striking moons don't seem to qualify as magical.

Last point first.Yes I can see this creates problems with many readers.The sticking point seems to be that comet theory is more science fiction than fantasy to the extent that most rebuttals are essentially "this cannot be the case because I don't like it".

However the reader is not required to like it.Comets striking moons are magical if it they as actioned by sorcery.And why do we put our fantasy red lines there?Most readers seem reasonably happy with earthquakes and tsunamis as a causal catastrophe but balk at the notion of comets.That they exist in canon is beyond dispute nor is the fact that they actually inform the actions of certain characters.

Your'e science is a bit out of kilter too.No one has said the second moon was similar in size to our moon.If you can provide some reference to this notion within canon feel free to share.

Not essential.A moon of larger mass that's further away will appear of similar size  as will a smaller moon that's closer.

Not that faux science stands in the way of fantasy.The author can make the moon any size he wants.

[Brad Stark]

4 hours ago, redriver said:

Last point first.Yes I can see this creates problems with many readers.The sticking point seems to be that comet theory is more science fiction than fantasy to the extent that most rebuttals are essentially "this cannot be the case because I don't like it".

However the reader is not required to like it.Comets striking moons are magical if it they as actioned by sorcery.And why do we put our fantasy red lines there?Most readers seem reasonably happy with earthquakes and tsunamis as a causal catastrophe but balk at the notion of comets.That they exist in canon is beyond dispute nor is the fact that they actually inform the actions of certain characters.

Your'e science is a bit out of kilter too.No one has said the second moon was similar in size to our moon.If you can provide some reference to this notion within canon feel free to share.

Not essential.A moon of larger mass that's further away will appear of similar size  as will a smaller moon that's closer.

Not that faux science stands in the way of fantasy.The author can make the moon any size he wants.

It has nothing to do with whether I like it.  I really enjoy fantasy and sci-fi that blend elements of both.  GRRM has said he would not be mixing sci-fi elements into ASOIAF, so I have a hard time believing any sci-fi heavy theories can be correct.

BTW - at least as far as we have other examples, Earth's moon is unusual.  Most moons are much smaller, and the larger ones, like Ganymede, are really tiny compared to what they orbit.

[JNR]

 

4 hours ago, redriver said:

Comets striking moons are magical if it they as actioned by sorcery.

4 hours ago, redriver said:

Most readers seem reasonably happy with earthquakes and tsunamis as a causal catastrophe but balk at the notion of comets.

That's because we have some foundational text to support the idea of greenseers causing earthquakes or tsunamis (by which I mean every reference to greenseers and Hammers).  

There isn't any text to support the idea of sorcerers steering comets into moons... and even the myth associated with the trader from Qarth, that seems to have inspired LmL at a basic level, just says:

Quote

Once there were two moons in the sky, but one wandered too close to the sun and cracked from the heat.

A moon wandering into a sun doesn't sound like sorcery to me.  (It sounds like bullshit, given what we know of the distance between a planet's moon and the sun, that the trader evidently did not know).

4 hours ago, redriver said:

Your'e science is a bit out of kilter too.No one has said the second moon was similar in size to our moon.If you can provide some reference to this notion within canon feel free to share.

Well, it seems pretty apparent that GRRM has based his planet on ours, his sun on ours, his moon on ours, etc. 

I think it's pretty clear from LmL's  belief in solar eclipses in GRRMworld that he is assuming this too. He's not picturing a tiny moon, that could never cause a solar eclipse.

But if you like, let's imagine GRRM's moon really is in fact much smaller than ours... which is more than two thousand miles across.

Imagine GRRM's moon is only 5% as wide as ours.  That would make it somewhat more than a hundred miles wide.

Well, the bolide that struck Earth 65m years ago and, we think, ended the age of dinosaurs was an estimated 3-9 miles across.   So this tiny, tiny moon in GRRM's world we have imagined, only 100 miles across, would still be more than ten times wider than that one. Might be thirty times wider.

So you can see that GRRM's moon could be very small compared to ours -- dinky and wee, even -- and yet still  absolutely destroy all human life on the face of the planet, should it ever (somehow, against all odds) be shattered by a comet.

But beyond all this, it still doesn't seem likely to me that a shattered moon would create an invasion of Popsicles and wights (the most notable aspect of the historical Long Night).

[Brad Stark]

Mars has a moon only 7 miles wide. 

[Black Crow]

9 hours ago, JNR said:

 

That's because we have some foundational text to support the idea of greenseers causing earthquakes or tsunamis (by which I mean every reference to greenseers and Hammers).  

 

But it don't necessarily mean of course that its true. In King Solomon's Mines the protagonists discover than an eclipse is due [its marked in a pocket diary] and use that fore-knowledge to convince the locals that they are causing it.

[Melifeather]

22 hours ago, St Daga said:

I have been thinking on this a little bit, and the timeline as a whole. We are told that the Pact came after the CotF and the First Men fought to a standstill. It seemed like the CotF used weapons like obsidian, while the First Men used weapons made of bronze. We are told that the Andal's are the race that brought iron weapons to Westeros. If that is true, then iron should not have a part to play in any oath's related to the Pact, because iron wasn't in use at that time in Westeros.

But, we have the idea that iron is a substance that the Other's hate. Old Nan tells us this and we also see iron weapons in the crypts with the Kings of Winter. The KoW are supposed to be a primarily First Man group, so why the association with iron weapons, a type of weapon that is associated with the Andal's? Perhaps in the deeper levels of the crypts we will see weapons made of bronze. But we are also told that some of these iron weapons have rusted to dust in the crypts, at least that is part of Ned's thought process. However, bronze (or copper, which is used to make bronze) cannot rust because they do not contain iron.

I think the reason why the Others hate iron is because it wards against magic. Bronze is supposed to have magical elements that iron blocks.

[Melifeather]

22 hours ago, Janneyc1 said:

This has been an interesting point for me as well. I think that what we are seeing is the misconstruction of a timeline, made to make the Andals appear way more sophisticated than they are. I don't see the First Men as being a group that would care to form an organization like the Citadel. It just isn't one of their priorities. 

We know that the FM built Storm's End and Winterfell, we have the sneaking suspicion that the Others hate iron, as well as references to dragonsteel (likely an iron-based sword) being used against the Others. We have a lot of contradictory information. We also have stories about Knights, long before the Andals came over from Andalos. 

I am betting that the inconsistencies start at the Citadel, which is likely a more Andal based society. I don't think that it has anything to do with the Others though, I think it has to do with power and having every ear at court. 

Maesters were of First Men origin, but the Citadel came after the Hightower’s had already converted to the Faith, so the training of future maesters became Andalized or influenced by the Faith.

22 hours ago, Janneyc1 said:

A few posts ago, I ran through the numbers about the temperatures needed to cause a steel sword to become brittle and break (about -137). The thing about that though is that is the internal temperature of the sword needed to become brittle enough to shatter. In order to get the material that cold, the area and other sword would have to be much colder. IMO a new hilt wouldn't be enough to prevent the human from losing the hand that gripped the sword.

 

But... that is just with materials alone. This story has magic and if there was a way to do it, it might be based off of the runes that we see on the Royces. Runes in the armor, runes left on rocks, runes everywhere from the FM. In addition, Mel has that ruby that heats up, so I think a special hilt could be made, though it would be costly in both creation and maintenance. Not to mention that the heat differences would probably play with the material structures inside the sword... 

Maybe Ice was a bronze sword? A bronze sword could potentially have magical qualities, but too soft to engage a hard iron sword, which would be a good reason to ‘retire’ it and get a new Ice made of dragonsteel.

[Melifeather]

Just throwing this thought out there...maybe dragonsteel is an alloy of iron and bronze? The magic spells would be necessary to remove the warding properties of iron.

[Brad Stark]

Could the Others hating iron tie to the First Men using bronze and Andals using iron?  Maybe the Others weren't the enemy before the Andals. 

[Melifeather]

2 minutes ago, Brad Stark said:

Could the Others hating iron tie to the First Men using bronze and Andals using iron?  Maybe the Others weren't the enemy before the Andals. 

I’m a proponent that the Others are the wildings - First Men that refused to kneel to a long ago son that became Lord of Winterfell.

[Melifeather]

Both science fiction and fantasy require rules. Just because fantasy is not based on scientific facts or speculation doesn't mean that anything can go in fantasy. Certain laws must govern a fantasy world as well; the difference is that in fantasy, the author makes up the rules.

Like JNR, I believe GRRM has based Planetos on Earth and Earth has rules. Earth never had two moons, but scientists believe it collided with another planet called Theia, knocking it onto it's axis, leaving a disk of orbiting debris, which over time coalesced into our moon. This is the complete opposite of the two moons theory. If one of two moons shattered, where did the debris go?

To me it makes more sense that Planetos is the sister 'moon' to the moon in the sky, and that it was Planetos that was hit by a comet the size of the one that hit our Earth, causing a rapid deep freeze, but for some reason the seasons are still out of whack.

https://www.psi.edu/epo/ktimpact/ktimpact.html

Quote

 

During the impact, the kinetic energy in the asteroid (or energy of motion) is converted to explosive energy, blowing debris of dust, soil, and rocks not only into the atmosphere, but out into space, where it fell back into the top of the atmosphere. Early calculations in the 1980s (using in part ideas worked out by Carl Sagan and his colleagues) showed that so much dust entered the high atmosphere that the Earth was shrouded in a dust layer that blocked sunlight for several weeks or months. This would have killed some plants, disrupting the food chain.

Later calculations (especially by Jay Melosh at the University of Arizona) indicated that for the first few hours after the impact, rocky debris would have fallen back into the high atmosphere, creating a storm of glowing fireballs in the sky. The radiant energy from these would have heated the surface to boiling temperatures for some minutes, and would have been enough to kill many animals and plants on the surface. However, in regions of heavy rainstorms or snowstorms, these organisms would have survived the first few hours. Sea creatures would have been buffered from effects in the first hours, but plankton on the surface might have died out over the weeks of darkness, decreasing the food supply for small fish, which affected the bigger fish, and so on.

These examples show how hard it is to predict the exact effects of the impact. Many species who lived on the surface (such as dinosaurs) might have been decimated in hour or weeks. Species who lived in burrows, or hibernated (like some mammals) might have survived. This may explain why mammals replaced giant reptiles after the impact. Tiny primitive mammals may have emerged from their dens, to find that their giant reptile competitors were mostly gone.

 

There's a fabulous show on Netflix right now called One Strange Rock that has episodes about the Earth as told from the point of view of seven or eight astronauts. Watching it I could not help but think about some of the things in ASOIAF. If you're looking for a new show to binge watch, give it a look.

[JNR]

3 hours ago, Black Crow said:

But it don't necessarily mean of course that its true

No, it doesn't, but it's a lot easier to believe because GRRM has overtly set it up  and provided evidence in the Neck that there was indeed some sort of mind-boggling event.  Such as:

Quote

Immense blocks of black basalt, each as large as a crofter's cottage, lay scattered and tumbled like a child's wooden blocks, half-sunk in the soft boggy soil.

Quote

Where once a mighty curtain wall had stood, only scattered stones remained, blocks of black basalt so large it must once have taken a hundred men to hoist them into place. Some had sunk so deep into the bog that only a corner showed; others lay strewn about like some god's abandoned toys, cracked and crumbling, spotted with lichen.

Something -- some staggering force -- destroyed that curtain wall, and scattered those gigantic black stone blocks. 

Because I refuse to believe human beings arbitrarily decided  to pull down the curtain wall and toss those blocks willy-nilly in random places.  It would just defy all human nature to do a kooky thing like that, given the enormous effort required and the loss of what had been an impressive defensive fortification.

And finally, the canon says the Hammer(s) happened via magic.  GRRM said the weather has a magical basis.  So there's no contradiction there... whereas there is a contradiction if the Long Night was caused by a comet somehow shattering an imagined moon (for which there's no evidence except a myth).  It's a little hard to believe there were once two moons in the sky and the only reference to it we ever get is this one dubious myth.

[JNR]

32 minutes ago, Feather Crystal said:

This is the complete opposite of the two moons theory. If one of two moons shattered, where did the debris go?

LmL says it was rained down on the planet, was perceived as dragons because it left fiery trails in the sky as it fell, thus inspired the myth of the two moons and dragons, and also caused the Long Night.

That it would have exterminated all human life... well, he doesn't get into that.

[Brad Stark]

Moat Caitlin is very old.  The blocks could have been thrown about suddenly during some disastrous event, but could also have moved slowly over the years.  We know the ground isn't solid in the neck. 

First you have a straight wall standing for hundreds of years, then it leans a little more every day for another hundred until it topples, and the blocks slowly shift, move, sink and rise as the ground gets wet and muddy and dried out. 

[JNR]

1 minute ago, Brad Stark said:

We know the ground isn't solid in the neck.

Well, it isn't now.

If it wasn't solid then... when this impressive curtain wall made of mighty basalt blocks that each took a hundred men to lift was first built... you have to laugh at the stupidity of whoever built the wall.  I mean, seriously, maybe you don't build such a structure on unstable turf.

"We built a third castle. It burned down, fell over, and sank into the swamp." -- Holy Grail

[Melifeather]

21 minutes ago, JNR said:

LmL says it was rained down on the planet, was perceived as dragons because it left fiery trails in the sky as it fell, thus inspired the myth of the two moons and dragons, and also caused the Long Night.

That it would have exterminated all human life... well, he doesn't get into that.

A shattered moon wouldn't just have one large meteor - theoretically it would be many, many, many chunks - like thousands and thousands of six or seven or more mile wide meteors. It's just unbelievable really. Our Earth only withstood Theia, because our mass was denser and some of Theia's core and mantle merged with Earth's. Our astronauts brought back moon rocks that are now believed to be remnants from our Earth's core. Some scientists do believe though, that there may have initially been two smaller moons when the material was massing together, but eventually they merged.