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Heresy 220 and the nature of magic


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2 minutes ago, Feather Crystal said:

See, now I thought the ice dragon was breathing a super cold blue ‘flame’.

It was certainly blue.  But it doesn't seem likely to me that blasts of cold would destroy the Wall.

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3 hours ago, JNR said:

So there is simply no way a wighted dragon is going to bring down the Wall in two minutes flat.  That's the sort of hilariously insane concept only a Hollywood production could roll out to the world... certainly not GRRM.

Certainly not, though I've seen it alternately suggested - under the purview of "Crow's Eye serves the 3EC, the 3EC is bad" style theories - that Euron will bind a dragon and attack the Wall, as an interpretation of Melisandre's "smoking towers" vision, along with Moqorro and Aeron's visions of Euron. Not really a read I'm inclined toward, but I see more of a case for it than whatever it is that the show was thinking.
 

2 hours ago, Feather Crystal said:

See, now I thought the ice dragon was breathing a super cold blue ‘flame’.

You might be right, as the show doesn't seem to quite agree on what they're doing with Viserion. In D&D's script (presumably before filming and VFX) he was supposed to be an "ice dragon," and the script specifically states it was a transformation like Craster's sons; however, the director for the episode decided it was a wight, and that he wanted it to breathe blue flame "because we'd already done green flame at the Blackwater." Maybe the theory was that an Ice Dragon would exhale cold 'flame' with such high pressure that it would physically shatter the Wall, but who knows.

Either way, I think this is a general issue with D&D's showrunning, as we also see Sam being written differently in Ep. 3 than he was in Eps. 1 and 2--we have writers and directors that don't seem to all be on the same page with each other.

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Is it of topic to ask if the goddess Unsullied worships is Daenerys herself? Lady of Spears, Mother of Hosts and Bride of Battle... That's just her titles changed a little... Still does it mean Varys whose genitals were cut and burn on her altar heard her through the flames or was he manipulating us to think he hates magic as he tells a flavored version of Unsullied rituals? What is the chance of statue at Illyrio's palace is a Bakkalon figure? I don't think the statue is Aegon, because I think Aegon will end up being a thicc Targaryen like Maekar. Still both Targaryens tied to war deities is interesting. Is there another war deities in asoiaf? 

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5 hours ago, JNR said:

Why yes, I stand corrected. 

It's just so hard to believe the show did anything as insane as Jon secretly being named the same thing as his brother, I constantly forget it.

And hence my serious suggestion that any Heretic who wants to know what it is could get a fair approximation just by sketching it out.

All one has to do is put the show completely out of one's mind... focus exclusively on the canon and the SSMs -- which is to say, the products of GRRM's thinking... and see what logically emerges.

One thing that definitely emerges is that the Long Night is going to be a long and difficult matter.  Otherwise, it would be called the Short Night.  So the Wall will not easily fall, and when it does, a single battle is not going to settle everything.

Or if we like, we can zero in on the Wall and how it falls.  For instance, we know that canonical wights are freeze-dried and super-flammable as a result.  This means if a Popsicle could kill and then wight a dragon... and that dragon attempted to generate fire... it would instantly catch fire in a vast airborne conflagration, like the Hindenburg.  It would pose no threat to anyone except those riding it.   Those riding it, if wights, would similarly catch fire instantly, and if Popsicles, would do no better because as Sam explicitly told us, "fire dismays them." 

So there is simply no way a wighted dragon is going to bring down the Wall in two minutes flat.  That's the sort of hilariously insane concept only a Hollywood production could roll out to the world... certainly not GRRM.

The first Long Night was at least a generation long.   That doesn't mean if similar circumstances happen again, we will see the same thing.   A short battle is more likely than a 60 year old Jon Snow finally saving the day.

The Wall falling in the books will be from someone blowing the Horn of Winter.  I'd bet the entire idea of the dragon bringing down the Wall was the idea of the computer graphics folks talking about how much more awesome it would look.   The horn being blown likely would add too much story and plot to finish in 2 seasons. 

But I think we will see a wighted Viserion, as we've seen plenty of foreshadowing in the books that this dragon is going to cause Dany major problems. 

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One thing that the show did that they didn't resolve (yet?) was the infant the Night's King took back to some ritualistic place and touched it's cheek turning it's eyes blue. I guess they're just going to let that one hang?

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11 hours ago, Feather Crystal said:

One thing that the show did that they didn't resolve (yet?) was the infant the Night's King took back to some ritualistic place and touched it's cheek turning it's eyes blue. I guess they're just going to let that one hang?

That was just their realisation of:

"The boy’s brothers,” said the old woman on the left. “Craster’s sons. The white cold’s rising out there, crow. I can feel it in my bones. These poor old bones don’t lie. They’ll be here soon, the sons."

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On 5/5/2019 at 11:40 AM, Matthew. said:

Maybe the theory was that an Ice Dragon would exhale cold 'flame' with such high pressure that it would physically shatter the Wall, but who knows.

Well, yeah, it looked like the Wall was getting hammered by an invisible wrecking ball made of Valyrian steel about half a mile across.

This was just bizarre... really unfounded in either show or books.  But Hollywood's gonna Hollywood.  The Wall had to come down somehow, so D&D went for the epic visual that makes no sense, because of course they did.

I also note that if it were easy to bring down dragons with giant crossbows, Aegon would never have conquered Westeros in the first place, so I think we can state with confidence that that just isn't the case.

Also, if I wanted to kill Cersei without thousands of innocents getting slaughtered, I might scratch my chin and say "If only we had a Faceless Man who felt like killing her.... for free... but of course that would be too good to be true.  Oh wait!" 

And then there's Ghost.  Anybody who watched Jon give Ghost away to somebody else, and still seriously thinks the show is based on the books, just has no respect for the canon IMO. 

For me that was the most shocking thing in the whole episode.

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On 5/5/2019 at 2:25 PM, Brad Stark said:

The first Long Night was at least a generation long.   That doesn't mean if similar circumstances happen again, we will see the same thing.

I expect it won't last twenty years, no.

But there is no chance at all IMO that killing one guy, in the books, is going to kill every Popsicle and wight in Westeros. 

At best, there will be a series of battles in different locations over a period of months.  It will not be all about one event at Winterfell.

On 5/5/2019 at 2:25 PM, Brad Stark said:

The Wall falling in the books will be from someone blowing the Horn of Winter. 

In a sense.

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1 hour ago, JNR said:

I also note that if it were easy to bring down dragons with giant crossbows, Aegon would never have conquered Westeros in the first place, so I think we can state with confidence that that just isn't the case.

And then there's Ghost.  Anybody who watched Jon give Ghost away to somebody else, and still seriously thinks the show is based on the books, just has no respect for the canon IMO. 

For me that was the most shocking thing in the whole episode.

Technology advancements.  Mounting scorpions to your floating armada and on every turret of your castle wall.  I believe this is what put Amazon on the map as these scorpions are popping up everywhere.

Alas.  A final missed opportunity to the whole skinchanging/warging/first men blood mystique that remains unresolved in the books.

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I don't even understand how scorpions have the power to fly high up in the air and then on top of that hit with power and then on top of that hit without exploding (as AA does). And the best part is, a scorpion has a very limited arc. So a dragon with a dive attack or an attack above the scorpion's arc can take out a scorpion without problems. A longbow would actually be better for shooting dragons, because you can aim it in an instant. 

Investing a giant amount of resources into scorpion building is likely from the same idea box as shooting arrows on top of a 700 feet high wall. 

 

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Drogon took a spear to the neck in the fighting pit so there must be some vulnerable areas. Their scales are like armor and should be able to deflect arrows or spears that lack enough thrust, but I suppose D&D figured a giant crossbow would be able to penetrate anything. The amount of thrust was demonstrated by taking out five or more foot sections of ship planking.

Poor Ghost, who was missing an ear, didn’t even get a pat on the head!

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11 hours ago, Mace Cooterian said:

Technology advancements.  Mounting scorpions to your floating armada and on every turret of your castle wall. 

It seems mighty convenient for HBO that (in their retelling) no one in Westeros, in Aegon the Conqueror's day, had the "technology" to create such things when they were all being slaughtered.

I prefer the version given in the World book:

Quote

So again the Targaryens turned to their dragons, unleashing their fury upon Starfall and Skyreach and Hellholt. It was at Hellholt where the Dornish had their greatest success against the Targaryens. A bolt from a scorpion pierced the eye of Meraxes, and the great dragon and the queen who rode upon it fell from the sky.

This heavily implies the hide of a dragon is impenetrable to such bolts, no matter their size, so you have to hit it in the eye to have a hope in hell of bringing it down.

We have even more reason to believe this is the case thanks to Selmy, student of warfare in Westeros.  Because he tells us flat-out that even the World book's account is bullshit:

Quote

Ser Barristan had heard that too. “It is no simple thing to slay a dragon in the sky. In Westeros, many tried to bring down Aegon and his sisters. None succeeded.”

Many tried, none succeeded.  Now that would explain the Conquest.

8 hours ago, SirArthur said:

I don't even understand how scorpions have the power to fly high up in the air and then on top of that hit with power

It wouldn't.  It was just nuts.

I also note that if such an ultra-powerful device could somehow be made, it would, from an elevated position on the walls as in the last scene, have been able to take out a stationary Drogon below it, a few hundred yards away, rather easily.  Or Dany, for that matter.  Apparently this never crossed Cersei's mind.

But we shouldn't be surprised.  Because a week ago, it also never crossed anyone's mind to try hitting Night King with obsidian-tipped arrows in the godswood using hidden archers.  Common sense is just not what the show is all about.

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32 minutes ago, Feather Crystal said:

Drogon took a spear to the neck in the fighting pit so there must be some vulnerable areas.

He's still a juvenile at this stage, though swiftly growing.  What will he be like by the end of ADOS, if he's still alive?

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5 minutes ago, JNR said:

It seems mighty convenient for HBO that (in their retelling) no one in Westeros, in Aegon the Conqueror's day, had the "technology" to create such things when they were all being slaughtered.

This heavily implies the hide of a dragon is impenetrable to such bolts, no matter their size, so you have to hit it in the eye to have a hope in hell of bringing it down.

We have even more reason to believe this is the case thanks to Selmy, student of warfare in Westeros.  Because he tells us flat-out that even the World book's account is bullshit:

Many tried, none succeeded.  Now that would explain the Conquest.

It wouldn't.  It was just nuts.

I also note that if such an ultra-powerful device could somehow be made, it would, from an elevated position on the walls as in the last scene, have been able to take out a stationary Drogon below it, a few hundred yards away, rather easily.  Or Dany, for that matter.  Apparently this never crossed Cersei's mind.

But we shouldn't be surprised.  Because a week ago, it also never crossed anyone's mind to try hitting Night King with obsidian-tipped arrows in the godswood using hidden archers.  Common sense is just not what the show is all about.

I think it's more a case that hitting a flying dragon with a bolt from a moving, boat-mounted, scorpion, without the use of laser sights/heat-seeking guided bolts,  is very very very very difficult.  

That Euron did it with such apparent ease suggests maybe a touch of magic?  

Now, anyone seen a dragon-binding horn lying around anywhere?

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13 hours ago, Mullocose said:

I think D&D has realized that the book ending is going to shatter their work...

It will expose a core truth, I think: GRRM only ever gave them table scraps from his plans for future books.  The "broad strokes" we've read about were only things like "the Wall will fall and there will be a great struggle for survival."

He's just far too cagey.  He was with them too.

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41 minutes ago, Feather Crystal said:

Poor Ghost, who was missing an ear, didn’t even get a pat on the head!

I'm guessing that they are keeping Ghost around for Jon's final act when he dies and begins his second life.  That will be the final scene for Jon/Ghost and it will be another one of those big surprise twists that everyone will talk about.

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