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In the original book series (A Game of Thrones) and those set afterwards, the seasons seem to be very long, and a winter can last several or many years.

In the prequel book Fire & Blood, there are many mentions of ordinary annual seasons like in the real world.

In discussion on this forum and elsewhere I have seen statements or guesses that the dragons are part of the fire-and-heat part of the scenario's world's inbuilt magic, which helps to control how warm the climate or weather is.  If so, it could be that under the early Targaryens,. there were plenty of dragons about, and this kept the magical effect on the weather steady, and thus the effect of time of year versus the tilt of the planet's  axis had a chance to show itself, as in the real world.

 

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If the Maiden-Made-of-Light is one of the 2 Moons in this myth..  

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Once there were two moons in the sky,

Then this might suggest she became or is in the process of becoming tidally locked. 

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the Maiden-Made-of-Light turned her back upon the world,

So the natural seasons might become less chaotic over time as orbits stabilize. 

Though with magic involved...
Things like the Red Comet's distance to the planet may contribute some random seeming changes to the temperature. 

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Astronomical orbit stabilizing tends to need millions of years.

I suspect that on the world of these stories (some people call it Planetos), even when in the future it reaches a scientific and technological and industrial age, magic will persist and need to be factored into scientific discussions and considerations -- the same as that in the world of the Star Wars stories, which has technology up to space travel, "The Force" still exists and needs to be factored into scientific discussion and considerations.

 

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11 hours ago, Anthony Appleyard said:

Astronomical orbit stabilizing tends to need millions of years.

That seems like it would depend a lot on the specifics of what one is looking at. 
A moon and planet might be on a much shorter timescale than a planet and sun. 

It might be that Maesters suggesting the world is 40k years old, could be pointing to around when the seasons first became highly chaotic.

With the current randomness actually being the most stable it's been in all that time. 
Perhaps eventually ending with what we would consider modern seasons. 

12 hours ago, Anthony Appleyard said:

when in the future it reaches a scientific and technological and industrial age, magic will persist and need to be factored into scientific discussions and considerations

I find the mechanics of GRRM's world to make a bit more sense when assuming the Aether exists. 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aether_(classical_element)

Acting as souls and allowing for astral projection and possession of physical bodies. 

So it might be factored into scientific discussion or eventually discarded like in our own world. 

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On 11/3/2019 at 7:10 AM, Anthony Appleyard said:

In the original book series (A Game of Thrones) and those set afterwards, the seasons seem to be very long, and a winter can last several or many years.

In the prequel book Fire & Blood, there are many mentions of ordinary annual seasons like in the real world.

In discussion on this forum and elsewhere I have seen statements or guesses that the dragons are part of the fire-and-heat part of the scenario's world's inbuilt magic, which helps to control how warm the climate or weather is.  If so, it could be that under the early Targaryens,. there were plenty of dragons about, and this kept the magical effect on the weather steady, and thus the effect of time of year versus the tilt of the planet's  axis had a chance to show itself, as in the real world.

Even in AGoT we're told that five and nine-year seasons are incredibly rare. Tyrion's seen nine summers, including the nine-year-one which just ended when he was 25, so ergo he had to get through eight summers in his first 16 years. That suggests an average season length of six months through Tyrion's early life.

I think this is just a sign that the "long seasons" thing is a bit overblown, as we only really hear about the really long and terrible seasons. On average, a "normal" season in the world would appear to be more like twice the length of one in the real world, not years and years long.

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On 11/12/2019 at 7:48 AM, Werthead said:

I think this is just a sign that the "long seasons" thing is a bit overblown, as we only really hear about the really long and terrible seasons.

There are not many data points, but it seems as if the max length of the longest winters increases, the farther back in time one looks. 

So the Long Night may have been a "normal" long season for that time period. 
The Battle for the Dawn perhaps being what made it noteworthy. 

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12 hours ago, Narsil4 said:

There are not many data points, but it seems as if the max length of the longest winters increases, the farther back in time one looks. 

So the Long Night may have been a "normal" long season for that time period. 
The Battle for the Dawn perhaps being what made it noteworthy. 

I don't think the long seasons existed before the Long Night. It was the Long Night and the arrival of the Others which threw the seasons out of balance, and presumably their final defeat which will return them to "normal".

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8 hours ago, Werthead said:

I don't think the long seasons existed before the Long Night.

Considering how our moon stabilizes Earth. It seems fairly likely that their original seasons first became unstable with the destruction of the moon in this myth.  

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Once there were two moons in the sky, but one wandered too close to the sun and cracked from the heat. A thousand thousand dragons poured forth, and drank the fire of the sun.

Events like the Hammer of the Waters seem to indicate debris from that destruction was impacting 1000's of years before the Long Night. 

So it may be that if the Others are magically responsible for the extremely long seasons, that there is still an underlying instability with the natural seasons, which may just take time to resolve on it's own.

 

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On 11/20/2019 at 12:15 AM, Back door hodor said:

I think that the one that's missing was probably destroyed by a comet impact,

I'm still not quite sure. There seems to be the possibility of an immaculate conception. 
So the moon cracking may not have needed to be caused by a physical impact. 
Perhaps just getting too close to the sun god was enough?  

15 hours ago, #1dolFAN said:

One moon was definitely a dragon’s egg!

Yea, at the very least they may be magically related due to their similar symbolic implications. 

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