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Heresy 227 and the Great Turtle


Black Crow

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22 hours ago, alienarea said:

Now let's take a look at the true age of the Sphinx.

yesss...

I don't recall the detail but there's a good theory that its much older than was thought

There are a couple of issues here. First there are various histories in our own world which go a long way back, but are complicated by gaps and by the difficulty of harmonising them without a common calendar.

GRRM talks a few times about world-building and the mists of time, which suggests that we ought to avoid looking for a common world history. And at the same time be very wary of the relevance of "events" beyond recent history and their dating

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1 hour ago, Black Crow said:

yesss...

I don't recall the detail but there's a good theory that its much older than was thought

There are a couple of issues here. First there are various histories in our own world which go a long way back, but are complicated by gaps and by the difficulty of harmonising them without a common calendar.

GRRM talks a few times about world-building and the mists of time, which suggests that we ought to avoid looking for a common world history. And at the same time be very wary of the relevance of "events" beyond recent history and their dating

Not saying it's true but very interesting:

www.robertschoch.com/sphinx.html

www.youtube.com/watch?v=YiCyhOyayyM

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I read other research that suggests that the sphinx was built when the skys were in the Age of Leo. 

Ancient civilizations were very much tuned into astrology. The Biblical Moses ushered in the Age of the Ram and that is why he was so angry when he came down from Mount Sinai and found his people had reverted to worshipping the outgoing Age of Taurus and made that golden bull.

Astrology is also why Jesus is depicted with two fishes. He is the prophet for the Age of Pieces just as Moses was the prophet for the Age of Aries. When Jesus's apostles asked him at passover what they should do after he died, he instructed them to look for a man bearing a pitcher of water (Aquarius). 

Prior to the Age of Aries and Moses was the Age of Gemini, and before then the Age of Cancer. Leo was the age before Cancer - a very long time ago considering an "age" is 2155 years long. If we are on the cusp, or dawning of the Age of Aquarius, then the Age of Leo was 10,775-12,930 years ago depending on whether you're counting 5 or 6 ages ago. Robert Schoch in that website even says he estimates the sphinx was built around 10,000 years ago, which would place it right within the Age of Leo.

The reason why it's facing east is because astrology is also very much a sun-worshipping "religion". Its also possible the lion may be facing or looking in expectation for the next age, which would have been Cancer. I wouldn't be surprised if some archeologist finds evidence of something on Leo pointing directly to it's own Leo constellation. There is evidence that suggests that the Egyptians were very aware of astrology and even built their three pyramids of the Giza to correlate to the positions of the three stars of Orion's belt as it appeared 10,000 years ago.

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6 hours ago, Feather Crystal said:

I read other research that suggests that the sphinx was built when the skys were in the Age of Leo. 

Ancient civilizations were very much tuned into astrology. The Biblical Moses ushered in the Age of the Ram and that is why he was so angry when he came down from Mount Sinai and found his people had reverted to worshipping the outgoing Age of Taurus and made that golden bull.

Astrology is also why Jesus is depicted with two fishes. He is the prophet for the Age of Pieces just as Moses was the prophet for the Age of Aries. When Jesus's apostles asked him at passover what they should do after he died, he instructed them to look for a man bearing a pitcher of water (Aquarius). 

Prior to the Age of Aries and Moses was the Age of Gemini, and before then the Age of Cancer. Leo was the age before Cancer - a very long time ago considering an "age" is 2155 years long. If we are on the cusp, or dawning of the Age of Aquarius, then the Age of Leo was 10,775-12,930 years ago depending on whether you're counting 5 or 6 ages ago. Robert Schoch in that website even says he estimates the sphinx was built around 10,000 years ago, which would place it right within the Age of Leo.

The reason why it's facing east is because astrology is also very much a sun-worshipping "religion". Its also possible the lion may be facing or looking in expectation for the next age, which would have been Cancer. I wouldn't be surprised if some archeologist finds evidence of something on Leo pointing directly to it's own Leo constellation. There is evidence that suggests that the Egyptians were very aware of astrology and even built their three pyramids of the Giza to correlate to the positions of the three stars of Orion's belt as it appeared 10,000 years ago.

I read plenty of literature about this. I'm with Sphinx as a Leo because it fits with the end of the last ice age.

Civilization moved North with the climate [note: I'm not denying a human-made change in climate, but there's a natural one as well], from Africa to Europe. 

And maybe we're living within our own wheel of time until we leave Earth and start spinning the wheel again elsewhere. Which allows me to link back to my favorite quote from LOST: "It only ends once. Everything else is just progress."

 

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18 hours ago, alienarea said:

Civilization moved North with the climate [note: I'm not denying a human-made change in climate, but there's a natural one as well], from Africa to Europe. 

Humans as a whole are a very mobile species. We can survive in a multitude of conditions and pretty much thrive as apex predators. Yes we moved North as the climate became more hospitable. We also adapted to how it can be much colder there. And I think that is something George could be playing with. Have the Others doing the opposite, fleeing from a changing climate. Or advancing as the Hot age is receding. They could be tuned to a natural disaster in the making or just coming South as the winter hits Westeros. 

I think that the Long Night (and the coming one) are going to be caused by the comet impacting in the Far North. The others appear to be herding the Wildlings south, removing obstacles in their path. They could be trying to get people out of the impact zone. 

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GRRM has taken some liberty with taking elements from various times in our world, but modern technology is exceptional in history. 

Wikipedia lists the first reference to gunpowder as 808.  The steam engine was a 1st century invention.   Phoenicians has huge industrial plants to make their famous purple dye.  It isn't inconceivable these things existed thousands of years earlier, and unlikely we'd have evidence.

 Civilizations have gone up and down for at least 10,000 years.  Whatever happened in the past 200 years or so is completely different from the 9800 or so years earlier. 

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There is also the history of literacy which goes back in various cultures over 3500 years although few people learned to read and write.  Literate populations can also be wiped out or experience a loss of literacy.     

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On 9/28/2019 at 6:53 PM, alienarea said:

The biggest mystery of ASoIaF is that there isn't any progress in technology or society for hundreds (thousands?) of years. 

GRRM actually addressed this topic in one of the SSMs:

Quote
TECHNOLOGY IN WESTEROS
SUBMITTED BY: G. ROME

There is an aspect of a SOI&F (and all high/medieval fanatasy) which has me puzzled. Why is there so little technological procees? The Starks have been medieval lords and kings for millenia, and it seems that there is very little chance of Westeros ever progessing beyond a medieval society. Is this becuase the existence of magic inhibits or precludes linear technological progress?

Oh, I wouldn't go that far.

I don't know that "linear technological progress" is necessarily inevitable in a society. In fact, if you look at our real world, it only happened once. Other cultures and societies existed for hundreds and in some cases thousands of years without ever experiencing major technological change.

In the specific case of Westeros, the unpredictable nature of the seasonal changes and the harshness of the winters must play a role.

I do think that magic perhaps makes development of the scientific method less likely. If men can fly by means of a spell, do you ever get the Wright Brothers? Or even daVinci? An interesting question, and I'm not sure I know the answer.

 

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On 9/16/2019 at 6:53 PM, Black Crow said:

In looking at the influences acting on GRRM, I still hold that the single most important factor is that he is a child of the Cold War; of a seemingly endless struggle between light and darkness, of mutual assured destruction and above all the Wall.

Its difficult 30 years on to convey the centrality of “The Wall”, especially to those of us who actually watched on the Wall, or at least dug in and waited for the Others to come bursting through.

In the end of course there was no Apocalypse Now and the Others never came crashing through the Wall. Tellingly perhaps the Others officially designated the Wall as the Anti-Fascist Protection Barrier, but in reality, far from protecting their realms of men it was a structure of great evil and its fall wasn’t the disaster so direly predicted, but on the contrary the fall of the Wall heralded the land once again becoming one.

This is why I have argued and still hold that exactly the same thing is going to happen with GRRM’s Wall and that the conflicts are going to be resolved not by mythical heroes drawing burning swords from stones and slaying monsters, but by the fall of the Wall.

 

"There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, ‘Good fences make good neighbors.’
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
‘Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it
Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offense.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down.’ I could say ‘Elves’ to him,
But it's not elves exactly..."
 
ROBERT FROST, from 'Mending Wall'
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Quote

A blue flower grew from a chink in a wall of ice, and filled the air with sweetness...

Quote

She smiled again, a flash of white teeth.  "And she never sung you the song o' the winter rose?

Quote

"Winterfell's not in the south," Jon objected.  

"Yes it is.  Everything below the Wall's south to us."

He had never thought of it that way.  "I suppose it's all in where you're standing."

"Aye," Ygritte agreed.  It always is."

Quote

"Be that as it may, what's certain is that Bael left the child in payment for the rose he'd plucked unasked, and that the boy grew up to be the next Lord Stark.  So there it is - you have Bael's blood in you, same as me."

Quote

"And when I told you the tale o' Bael the bard, and how he plucked the rose o' Winterfell, I thought you'd know to pluck me then for certain, but you didn't.  You know nothing, Jon Snow."  She gave him a shy smile.  "You might be learning some, though."

Quote

 

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10 hours ago, ravenous reader said:

 

"There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, ‘Good fences make good neighbors.’
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
‘Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it
Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offense.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down.’ I could say ‘Elves’ to him,
But it's not elves exactly..."
 
ROBERT FROST, from 'Mending Wall'

Oh yes indeed and we know that GRRM has quoted Frost before

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22 hours ago, Frey family reunion said:

GRRM actually addressed this topic in one of the SSMs:

 

This is, of course, crap. Maybe not every advance in technology is as visible as within the last two centuries, but for example the first Romans at 753 BC (picking the date from history class) did not have the same technology than those 476 AC. 

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1 hour ago, alienarea said:

This is, of course, crap. Maybe not every advance in technology is as visible as within the last two centuries, but for example the first Romans at 753 BC (picking the date from history class) did not have the same technology than those 476 AC. 

Nor did the British, in 1000 ad, have the same technology as the ancient Greeks in 500 ad, who were more advanced. Progress isn't linear, people in different eras aren't the same, but newer ones were not necessarily more advanced. 

I also agree with his views on magic.   Cannons and early muskets were impractical weapons, expensive, slow to fire, inaccurate and rarely killing more than one person in a shot.  Compared to crossbows and longbows, they didn't make sense.  But they took over warfare as they had enormous psychological impact with incredible power, loud noise and smoke and sparks.   I don't know if they ever become refined enough as weapons without that advantage, which certainly doesn't exist in a world with dragons. 

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1 hour ago, alienarea said:

This is, of course, crap. Maybe not every advance in technology is as visible as within the last two centuries, but for example the first Romans at 753 BC (picking the date from history class) did not have the same technology than those 476 AC. 

Arguably that's true, although it depends how you define technological advances, but whether its crap or not, if its GRRM's justiification that makes it unlikely that there is some kind of magical brake on technology

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6 hours ago, alienarea said:

This is, of course, crap. Maybe not every advance in technology is as visible as within the last two centuries, but for example the first Romans at 753 BC (picking the date from history class) did not have the same technology than those 476 AC. 

And the same is true in Westeros. There are changes, small ones maybe, but changes, in armour and equipment, for example, over time. A (most up to date) Knight of Aegon I's time is differently equipped to a(n up to date) Knight of 'current' times. 

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10 hours ago, Frey family reunion said:

There seems to be an unwritten rule among fantasy writers that the technology in their worlds had to be the technology that existed some time prior to the first printing press (1430).  Which is kind of funny when you think about it.

As a general rule yes, but I do recall [though not the author]* a dimension-shifting story in which the hero found himself in a world with a military technology which paralleled the 30 years war, ie; pikes and matchlock muskets. Similarly Poul Anderson's Midsummer Tempest is set in an alternative English Civil War.

 

*Tuttle ?

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And on the subject of authors, it interesting that on the Google news stand a lot of articles have been cropping up very recently in which GRRM has been very forcefully repudiating the Mummers version and no longer pretending that he's working towards the same ending.

Not the place to discuss that in any detail here, but as the Mummers version was fan-fiction made flesh, it does suggest that we miserable heretics are groping in roughly the right direction

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