Roose Trollton. Posted December 9, 2019 Share Posted December 9, 2019 The death and rebirth of Magic and the supernatural powers in the world is one of the themes in asoiaf i find most interesting. There is an innate curiosity in human nature for things that transcend the boring "normal" world, ruled by physical laws, where human life is defined by paying bills, arriving on time at the work and sharing cat videos on Facebook. Humans hunger for more. All the religions and mystical beliefs are proof of how the world we have simply does not satisfy our curiosity entirely. This is, of course, a well-known trope; take LOTR: for the One Ring to be destroyed, the power of the Three Elven rings had to fade as well, along with the power of the elves. The most recent movie I can think of that deals with it is the Glass trilogy, that literally ends with a speech about humans discovering superpowers and how there are forces that don't want humans to know what they're capable of. On the other hand, in a "boring" world there are not countless horrors that could make human life much worser. Like all the monsters and demons from horror movies. Or,well, the Others. The maesters from the Citadel could reason that a more boring human existance would be preferrable to one where mankind is the plaything of extremly powerful higher forces. In the Glass trilogy, for example, there was the order that wished to destroy the superhumans out of the belief that it wouldnt be fair to have gods among us. This tension between a normal, boring but secure universe and one full of wonders and horrors beyond human understanding is a very interesting theme that has been only mildly alluded to apart from Sam's conversation with Marwynn. Given how interesting and how deeply associated with humans' deepest desires and how it was alluded to in Sam's POV, do you think this theme might assume a more central role in the upcoming novels or , like in the show, it won't? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrisdaw Posted December 10, 2019 Share Posted December 10, 2019 It is going to get extremely fantastical and readers are probably going to cry about it. ADWD prologue and The Forsaken chapters are the beginnings. Marwyn asks what feeds a dragon's flame, and the answer to that is basically the answer to 99 questions out of 100 ASOIAF questions, and the answer is a person's, or people's, soul. People are going to die and second life animals and magical beasts. Aeron is going to die and become a whale. Euron and Arianne are going to die and become dragons. Euron's dragon is going to change form to represent his blood and nature, it will not breathe dire. He's going to enslave people with his breath, be defeated and banished to the ocean, create a stone labyrinth hall from his beastly stone flesh, force mate his followers to create an army of monstrous sphinxes by the sacrifice of their children, plan his revenge and war against Westeros and when the ocean runs dry make his assault. Arya will take faces. Melisandre will glamour Dany as Ygritte to get Jon to impregnate her. Stannis will die and second life ice, either becoming its rider or the actual ice dragon. Jon will kill Dany and his sword will fire up. Dany will second life a stone dragon, wake it from its stone, it will be huge and massive, Jon will ride this dragon into combat against the Ice Dragon. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Commentator Posted December 10, 2019 Share Posted December 10, 2019 The Maesters are pseudo academics who refuse to believe in what they could not understand. ASOIAF is not an equal opportunity universe. There are people with super abilities. Most don’t. Marwyn is more open-minded because he has travelled far and wide. Most maesters only know what they know from books. The big, wide world is the best teacher. Sadly, most maesters are not well travelled. Their ignorance is understandable. Jorah, Tyrion, and Barristan are sent eastwards in order to open their mind’s eye and serve the Dragon and succor her return to Westeros. They are gaining a lot of valuable education during their travels. Martin himself has travelled extensively and values exposure to the wider world. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Ghost Beyond the Wall Posted December 11, 2019 Share Posted December 11, 2019 I would like to see it appear more in the story yes, and I think it will. I think GRRM is showing the rebirth of magic as a crescendo of the forces of fire and ice magic before they go out of the world (part of his bittersweet ending to the franchise). This may be why the dragons have returned, and the Others are on the march. I would love to see more magical stuff in the books, it's one of the most fascinating aspects of the story to me, especially how GRRM uses magic in an manner that is not keeping with the standard, traditional fantasy magic tropes, namely that one ritual solves all the problems or that magic doesn't have a cost Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rose of Red Lake Posted December 11, 2019 Share Posted December 11, 2019 On 12/9/2019 at 2:27 PM, Roose Trollton. said: This tension between a normal, boring but secure universe and one full of wonders and horrors beyond human understanding is a very interesting theme that has been only mildly alluded to apart from Sam's conversation with Marwynn. I like this summation. I think fantasy and reality will always have a tension, but magic doesn't have to be the only way to explore it. "Magic" can mean the characters' imaginations, i.e. their whimsical or fairy tale image of something or someone. Like Sansa's views on King's Landing or the fantastical hype surrounding Dany herself. I personally prefer a low magic series, and am more interested in the fantastical being explored (and subverted) through characters' grand expectations, confronted by reality. That crash is very interesting. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jay21 Posted December 11, 2019 Share Posted December 11, 2019 On 12/9/2019 at 8:53 PM, chrisdaw said: It is going to get extremely fantastical and readers are probably going to cry about it. ADWD prologue and The Forsaken chapters are the beginnings. Marwyn asks what feeds a dragon's flame, and the answer to that is basically the answer to 99 questions out of 100 ASOIAF questions, and the answer is a person's, or people's, soul. People are going to die and second life animals and magical beasts. Aeron is going to die and become a whale. Euron and Arianne are going to die and become dragons. Euron's dragon is going to change form to represent his blood and nature, it will not breathe dire. He's going to enslave people with his breath, be defeated and banished to the ocean, create a stone labyrinth hall from his beastly stone flesh, force mate his followers to create an army of monstrous sphinxes by the sacrifice of their children, plan his revenge and war against Westeros and when the ocean runs dry make his assault. Arya will take faces. Melisandre will glamour Dany as Ygritte to get Jon to impregnate her. Stannis will die and second life ice, either becoming its rider or the actual ice dragon. Jon will kill Dany and his sword will fire up. Dany will second life a stone dragon, wake it from its stone, it will be huge and massive, Jon will ride this dragon into combat against the Ice Dragon. Hey, you read that computer generated ending they did up a few years ago didn't you? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Curled Finger Posted December 12, 2019 Share Posted December 12, 2019 It's a given that a fantasy tale contain magic. That's part of fantasy. Where many fantasies are populated with ready and abundant magic, it is these few lower level magic stories that captivate my imagination. You've really got to work for magic here. We suspect quite a lot about magic and timing of magic in ASOIAF, but we know very little. Like most, I suspect the dragons did require a blood sacrifice among many other things to come into existence...as may have well been the case with their humanish counterparts. While I agree with the OP, I think Osha tells a lot about magic peculiar to the north with the same casual acceptance Ygritte reveals the truths of Wildling culture and Jon struggles with his sort of nobility. We know so little about the Others, the actual song of ice and fire and Targaryens. We know even less about the Ironborn and Hightowers and so many families that are hinted to possess some magical quality. I'm thinking of House Crane and House Farwynd in this. These houses are said to have had the ability to skinchange for a very long time, perhaps their at their foundings. It's possible the Mormonts are actually telling the truth about their own brand of skinchanging magic. Mormont isn't even a truly ancient house, for crying out loud. From this I gather magic happens in it's own time. A perfect daughter of a god here, perfect genetic blending there and voila! magic skingchanging for the whole house. The Starks seem to have lost their magic for a long stretch of time. Could it be the introduction of Targaryen blood that jumpstarted or reactivated Stark magic? Did the power regenerate exclusively in generations following Lyanna or could Benjen be magical too? According to the World Book, those early Starks certainly seemed to purposefully seek to gain magical powers in marrying the daughters and killing the males of their foes. How come the Reeds seem to have maintained some of their magic (Jojen's greendreams, Crannog's general ability to bend nature to their will)? Bloodraven had all this great magical ability yet no other Blackwoods since seem to have much magic at all. Even their weirwood seems to be dead. The pyromancers tell Tyrion that wildfyre suddenly works because magic has returned to the world right around the same time Osha declares the red comet to be a sign of the return of dragons. IIRC the conversation takes place shortly after Dany hatches her little wonders in the pyre. Could it be that easy? Or is it possible that the magic in ASOIAF follows some specific timeline? Could the same sort of events--the comet, the dragons--be the same events that caused Marwyn to return tot the Citadel? Leyton Hightower has been reading spells for 10 years now and that doesn't actually coincide with anything--too early for Euron's banishment and years too late for Jon or Dany's birth. Where does Melisandre's appearance fit into the magic timeline? All in all these are some pretty intriguing whys. Nothing makes a reader question why like ASOIAF does. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lady Dacey Posted December 12, 2019 Share Posted December 12, 2019 @Curled Finger my heart jumped a little when your avatar showed up as “last commenter” on this thread (I’ve been meaning to post here since Monday but haven’t found the time). I missed reading you! Welcome back! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Curled Finger Posted December 12, 2019 Share Posted December 12, 2019 @Lady DaceyThat's too funny Lady, I was just thinking about your avatar and Tshirts that still need to be made. It's good to see you too old friend! This OP gives me hope that the boring conversations are maybe over and we can get back to talking about the good stuff in this excellent series! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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