Jump to content

Heresy 225 and the Snowflakes of Doom


Black Crow

Recommended Posts

On 7/22/2019 at 8:38 PM, JNR said:

This is really easy to explain.  The oldest documents could have been copied over as soon as they began to degrade.

As for the part about writing -- the First Men had writing, via runes on rocks.  Such runes, in our world, often contain remarkably detailed information about battles, lords, dates -- events of all kinds.

Finally, of course, even if a list of LCs has 674 names... there is no way to know what period of time that list covers. Because the first name doesn't have to correspond to the first LC in Watch history. 

It's conceivable that the first LC on that list never lived until after the Andals showed up with their alphabet. 

The list being copied like this is bc's interpretation.   My issue is that there would probably never be more than 2 lists, as the oldest would disintegrate or be thrown out long before the newer started to degrade.   And the newest list would contain all the information on the old list, so Sam would have no interest in an older list if it existed. 

It is possible the list Sam references is runes on rock and not paper, but this seems unlikely. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

20 hours ago, JNR said:

There would be no apparent motive, especially since Westeros is not a place with high literacy, and the Watch is no exception.   Few black brothers can even read.  There would be literally no point.

The Bible and its list of people and ages, the list of Popes (there is even a list including future Popes), and the Japanese Emperor's family tree are similar lists. 

Some of the people listed are real, but historians don't believe the Shinto gods are really the Emporer's ancestors.   The first 9 Emperors are thought to be fictional, at least according to wikipedia.  After that, you have a series of Emporers some historians believe were real and others think are fictional.  Then we get to Emporers who are undisputed real historical figures. But the lines are fuzzy.  There was no grand conspiracy where someone suddenly made up the list.  It was probably oral tradition and myths and legends, then someone decided to write it down and kept adding to it. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The actual date something occurred may be "mince", but it's obviously important, otherwise the author wouldn't have written Sam getting interrupted by Jon so that the reader is refused a clue! I think it's important if it coincides with another notable event. If the older LC list was destroyed in order to wipe out the memory of the Nights King during the peak of the Andal invasion for instance, it might make the claim that the Andals were held back at the Neck sound quite false.

I suspect that an elder bastard denied a younger trueborn son his birthright. Not only that - what if this elder bastard was born of an Andal mother, or of an Andal father on a daughter of Winterfell? Securing Winterfell and then saying he's the rightful heir might be a falsehood that he would want quickly forgotten.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, Brad Stark said:

The list being copied like this is bc's interpretation.   My issue is that there would probably never be more than 2 lists, as the oldest would disintegrate or be thrown out long before the newer started to degrade.   And the newest list would contain all the information on the old list, so Sam would have no interest in an older list if it existed. 

It is possible the list Sam references is runes on rock and not paper, but this seems unlikely. 

Sam's reference to the oldest one he could find clearly indicates that there were more than just two, and apart from anything else its worth remembering that the archives in Castle Black were collected from all the other castles as they were shut down and evacuated. It doesn't take any gymnastics to see how copies of lists would find themselves being made or sent to any number of different castles before finding their way to Castle Black.

Sam's interest in the oldest list, as he makes very clear, is that it isn't very old at all - comparatively speaking

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, Feather Crystal said:

The actual date something occurred may be "mince", but it's obviously important, otherwise the author wouldn't have written Sam getting interrupted by Jon so that the reader is refused a clue! I think it's important if it coincides with another notable event.

I'm rather in two minds about this one. Its clearly an important passage since it is told in both AFFC and ADWD from opposing POVs, but try as I might I haven't been able to figure out why GRRM did it.

Sam's revelation as to when the list was written might have been important, if it wasn't that we don't discover it as an aside or inward thought, or even an afterthought in Sam's POV

So on the whole I'm more inclined to think that Sam is trying to warn Jon that the dates and "history" which Jon thinks he knows are fake, because there are no true records, and that the significance of Jon cutting him off is that because he believes the legend he isn't looking for the truth.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

14 hours ago, Jova Snow said:

@JNR is it possible Arryn as pre-Andal house existed before Winged Knight married into the family? Could Alyssa be a Velaryon name instead of an Andal name? 

I couldn't rule it out, though I don't see much evidence for it.

6 hours ago, Brad Stark said:

My issue is that there would probably never be more than 2 lists

How can we guess that?  People make multiple copies of things all the time, and always have. 

The Rosetta Stone is a famous instance in which one set of ideas, covering one decree, was rendered three different times on one piece of stone in three scripts and two languages.  And we have discovered more of that same decree, too... there may well be even more. 

So it's really hard for me to say what the First Men or Andals might have done, re copies, thousands of years ago.

What seems clear is that nobody who wanted such a list read, or known, would ever hide it in the Castle Black archives. 

Also, because Sam says "the oldest list," it seems quite clear there are more such lists. 

Are they all fake?  What was the motive to make them all?  Why were they all stashed in such an obscure place?  Doesn't that seem odd, that the Watch would bother to keep known bullshit?

Meanwhile, the archives are loaded with old Watch trivia that is considered true, and was stashed there over the centuries/millennia.  Sam tells us about it, such as this instance:

Quote

My lord, when I was looking through the annals I came on another boy commander. Four hundred years before the Conquest. Osric Stark was ten when he was chosen, but he served for sixty years. That's four, my lord. You're not even close to being the youngest ever chosen. You're fifth youngest, so far.

Notice it's seven hundred years old.  Yet Sam doesn't seem to consider it ancient at all.  He's seen older, by far.

6 hours ago, Brad Stark said:

The Bible and its list of people and ages, the list of Popes (there is even a list including future Popes), and the Japanese Emperor's family tree are similar lists. 

Those are meant to glorify the past, for instance by connecting the Japanese emperors to literal gods through a chain of descent.

But the LCs are not being glorified in any way.   They're just random names Sam doesn't seem to recognize... and the lists were buried away where they couldn't glorify the LCs even if that was the goal.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, Feather Crystal said:

The actual date something occurred may be "mince", but it's obviously important, otherwise the author wouldn't have written Sam getting interrupted by Jon so that the reader is refused a clue! I think it's important if it coincides with another notable event.

Perhaps other posters have some better ideas on this front, but the most noteworthy consequence I can see for moving the LN closer to 5,000/6,000 years ago, rather than 8,000 years ago, is that it's moving closer and closer to the point at which we might hypothesize that Valyria was founded.

Granted, the founding of Valyria is yet another area where exact dates are hard to come by, though Dany references the notion of a "young Valyria" conquering Old Ghis 5,000 years ago, so that might give us some rough guidance. Martin's most recent comments on the subject would preclude the notion that Valyria proper - the expansionist city state with its hordes of dragons - exists, but that doesn't necessarily mean that some Proto-Valyrian culture did not exist, or even the magic that would lay the foundation for Valyrian's eventual rise did not exist, magic that may have originated somewhere other than the Fourteen Flames.

In short, this is an era in which the Valyrian Freehold doesn't exist, but what about dragonbinding? Glass Candles? Fire sorcery? Valyrian steel?

Returning to the conversation between Sam and Jon, this is also the point at which the reader is introduced to the notion of the Last Hero wielding "dragonsteel." I've always been content to say that "dragonsteel" could just as easily have been a term that was coined to describe a firebrand, or any magical weapon that might be efficacious against the Others (eg, Dawn), rather than literal Valryian steel; nonetheless, the more one shortens the timeline, the less anachronistic the latter notion becomes.

It's not an interpretation I would favor, but it's the closest I can come to an argument for why, in story terms, it would be important for the "traditional" dates to be wrong.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

27 minutes ago, Matthew. said:

nonetheless, the more one shortens the timeline, the less anachronistic the latter notion becomes

It never seemed much of an anachronism to me because the very word "dragonsteel" struck me as Andal.

In other words, I think the Andals heard some ancient tales in Westeros of the Last Hero in the Long Night, and whatever the tales said, it inspired them to call the blade in the tales "dragonsteel." The Andals definitely had steel; it was natural for them to think of swords as steel.

But that is not the term the First Men necessarily used for such a blade, in Old Tongue, at all.  Ergo, no anachronism.

Also, a little point.  Even Sam, in the passage where he supposedly is arguing for a short timeline, is really saying it was a long timeline.  Because:

Quote

everything we think we know about the Age of Heroes and the Dawn Age and the Long Night comes from accounts set down by septons thousands of years later.

So Sam clearly believes thousands of years went by, just in the time between the Long Night and the coming of the Andals.

How much time does Sam think passed in the entire history of Westeros? 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, JNR said:

It never seemed much of an anachronism to me because the very word "dragonsteel" struck me as Andal.

I wasn't saying the term itself is anachronistic--"dragonsteel" would fit as a term that was coined by Andals after the fact if the LH was wielding Dawn or a firebrand, but Jon also floats the speculation that it could mean Valyrian steel. If the LH lived 8,000 years ago, that premise would seem anachronistic, but if he lived 5,000 or 6,000 years ago, then what's possible becomes a little more open to debate.

For example, there may not have been a Valyrian empire 6,000 years ago, but some of the magic that would subsequently become associated with Valyria might have been in play--early dragonbinders, glass candle users, fire sorcerers, forgers of magical swords, etc. 

As to what Sam might think a shorter time line looks like, the quotes from Hoster Blackwood (if I recall correctly) that you posted on the prior page give a potential range for the Andals of anywhere from 2,000 to 4,000 years ago. So, a shortened timeline could be LN 6,000 years ago, Andal invasion 2 - 3,000 years ago, and Sam's sentiment that the septons set down their accounts thousands of years after the LN would still stand.

To reiterate, I say all of this as someone who favors the longer timeline laid out by Luwin and Bran in AGOT, but it seems fair to ask what the implications would be if these more recent passages in AFFC/ADWD are building toward some kind of revelation, or shift in our understanding of the traditional timeline.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, Matthew. said:

Jon also floats the speculation that it could mean Valyrian steel. If the LH lived 8,000 years ago, that premise would seem anachronistic, but if he lived 5,000 or 6,000 years ago, then what's possible becomes a little more open to debate.

Well, Jon has no authority in or knowledge of metallurgy; his kneejerk notion isn't grounded in any sort of fact.

It seems to me he's just free associating from "dragonsteel" to Valyrian steel, because Valyrians had both dragons and a unique form of steel.  But his free association isn't a fact that needs explaining.

4 hours ago, Matthew. said:

So, a shortened timeline could be LN 6,000 years ago, Andal invasion 2 - 3,000 years ago, and Sam's sentiment that the septons set down their accounts thousands of years after the LN would still stand.

Technically possible, but it remains hard to see how the various myths, from local populations all over Westeros, collectively suggest a longer timeline.  Which I imagine is why you're with me in the Long Timeline camp.

I also note that GRRM is as shifty and evasive on this topic, even in very recent years, as everything else.  For instance, we have this, from his blog only one year ago:

Quote

This one really puts the PRE in prequel, since it is set not ninety years before GAME OF THRONES (like Dunk & Egg), or a few hundred years, but rather ten thousand years (well, assuming the oral histories of the First Men are accurate, but there are maesters at the Citadel who insist it has only been half that long).

So he pits folklore against maesters, just as he does in canon.

But I notice GRRM all but laughs at the maesters' accuracy, on the very first page of the World book, when it comes to timelines:

Quote

There are none who can say with certain knowledge when the world began, yet this has not stopped many maesters and learned men from seeking the answer. Is it forty thousand years old, as some hold, or perhaps a number as large as five hundred thousand—or even more?

Heh.  I'm going with more.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, JNR said:

Well, Jon has no authority in or knowledge of metallurgy; his kneejerk notion isn't grounded in any sort of fact.

It seems to me he's just free associating from "dragonsteel" to Valyrian steel, because Valyrians had both dragons and a unique form of steel.  But his free association isn't a fact that needs explaining.

I'm still wondering how and when the Starks got hold of a valyrian steel sword.  Was it taken during the Andal conquest as a prize of war?  Were there a few scattered dragonsteel swords among the Andals?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think dragonsteel and Valyrian steel are two different things, but steel wasn't a known substance until at least Andal times. IMO a dragonsteel sword is one made of obsidian. In the real world that wouldn't be practical, because obsidian just isn't that strong of a substance. It would be easily snapped or broken in two, but this is a fantasy world so obsidian could be a very strong substance. The "dragon" part of the name hints at the molten rock of obsidian as well as the fiery connotation.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, LynnS said:

I'm still wondering how and when the Starks got hold of a valyrian steel sword.  Was it taken during the Andal conquest as a prize of war?  Were there a few scattered dragonsteel swords among the Andals?

AGOT has the answer:

Quote

Catelyn had no love for swords, but she could not deny that Ice had its own beauty. It had been forged in Valyria, before the Doom had come to the old Freehold, when the ironsmiths had worked their metal with spells as well as hammers. Four hundred years old it was, and as sharp as the day it was forged.

So Ice came to the Starks quite recently.  It was among the very last blades Valyria produced over its long history, forged thousands of years after the Andals came to Westeros.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

20 minutes ago, JNR said:

AGOT has the answer:

So Ice came to the Starks quite recently.  It was among the very last blades Valyria produced over its long history, forged thousands of years after the Andals came to Westeros.

Makes you wonder what happened 400 years ago, a hundred years before Aegon and his sisters. It's hard to even know where to look, but I started with Harren the Black, because his completion of Harrenhal is what triggered the dragons to come.

Harren was the grandson of Harwyn Hoare, who conquered the Riverlands and became the first King of the Isles and Rivers. He also defeated Storm King Arric Durrandon. In his youth, Harwyn raided the Stepstones and visited the Free Cities including Valyria. He was a captive in the Basilisk Isles for two years, served as a sellsword in the Disputed Lands, and joined the Second Sons.

The timing of Harwyn isn't listed, but two generations prior to the conquest seems close to that 400 year mark, or maybe even Harwyn's father Qhorwyn, although Qhorwyn was known more as a peacemaker than a conqueror and sat the Seastone Chair. He was known to be wealthy and built a lot of ships. What I'm thinking is that the Ironborn may have obtained these Valyrian steel blades through raids or trade and then sold them to wealthy lords in the Seven Kingdoms.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

38 minutes ago, Feather Crystal said:

The timing of Harwyn isn't listed, but two generations prior to the conquest seems close to that 400 year mark, or maybe even Harwyn's father Qhorwyn, although Qhorwyn was known more as a peacemaker than a conqueror and sat the Seastone Chair. He was known to be wealthy and built a lot of ships. What I'm thinking is that the Ironborn may have obtained these Valyrian steel blades through raids or trade and then sold them to wealthy lords in the Seven Kingdoms. 

This makes sense.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, JNR said:

So Ice came to the Starks quite recently.  It was among the very last blades Valyria produced over its long history, forged thousands of years after the Andals came to Westeros.

Do we know if any of the Starks travelled to Valyria? 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 minutes ago, LynnS said:

Do we know if any of the Starks travelled to Valyria? 

It's conceivable someone like the Wandering Wolf did; we're told he went to Essos and served in the Second Sons.

But I don't find it at all surprising the Starks would have such a blade; it could have come to them in many ways.  Could have bought it from Essos, could have won it in combat, could have received it as tribute, from another house trying to curry favor. 

There are dozens of such weapons all over Westeros.  Minor houses like Harlaw and Drumm are known to have pretty impressive examples:

Quote

The Drumm came next, another old man, though not so old as Erik. He climbed the hill on his own two legs, and on his hip rode Red Rain, his famous sword, forged of Valyrian steel in the days before the Doom.

What's actually more surprising to me is that the Lannisters were never able to buy a replacement for Brightroar. 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

12 minutes ago, JNR said:

It's conceivable someone like the Wandering Wolf did; we're told he went to Essos and served in the Second Sons.

But I don't find it at all surprising the Starks would have such a blade; it could have come to them in many ways.  Could have bought it from Essos, could have won it in combat, could have received it as tribute, from another house trying to curry favor. 

There are dozens of such weapons all over Westeros.  Minor houses like Harlaw and Drumm are known to have pretty impressive examples:

What's actually more surprising to me is that the Lannisters were never able to buy a replacement for Brightroar. 

 

Interesting that the Second Sons came up again. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

12 hours ago, JNR said:

Well, Jon has no authority in or knowledge of metallurgy; his kneejerk notion isn't grounded in any sort of fact.

Right, which is why I explicitly characterized it as speculation, and not a statement of fact. Nonetheless, at the narrative level, GRRM is not necessarily writing that character speculation in a vacuum--it is occurring in the broader context of Jon and Sam's conversation about the quality of the oral histories (and the Watch's information), with similar conversations being repeated between Hoster Blackwood and Jaime, as well as Asha and Rodrik the Reader.

I'm content to label all of that as worldbuilding, but even so, the author has now planted sufficient seeds that one might wonder whether or not he plans to cultivate those seeds into something more, which returns to the question Feather raised: is this just character speculation, or are they clues? If so, what are some consequences those clues would point toward?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...