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Kingblood, Magic, Elitism, and 10,000 Years of Sex in Westeros.


The Green Bard

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Update: This essay has been posted as a YouTube Video, as a podcast on Spotify under "The Bard's Truth," and as a podcast at anchor.fm/Bards-Truth.  If you like it, please submit your reactions, share, like, follow, and subscribe at your preferred medium.  

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I was reading a tweet from Davos Fingers and Joe Magician, and it sparked these thoughts. Now I am sharing them with you, my blog-readers, podcast listeners and Youtube.

Edit: Credit where credit is due, some of this is obviously based upon @the dragon LML's Great Empire of the Dawn ideas, which I kind of take for granted as mostly true at this point.

Even as I subscribe to the idea that the "kingsblood" of the scions of the great empire of the Dawn may be a requirement for magic in ASoIaF, the "man of the people" in me tells me that this concept is very elitist.

This brings me to the other side of the thought; I think that this kingsblood has been spread far and wide over the last 10,000 years since the long night, so we may find in the next 2 books that GRRM plans to show that A LOT of his characters are capable of magic and the supernatural!  As magic ramps up, more and more people will begin to exhibit what Varamyr calls "the gift." Early in the story only certain people show it, but that’s mainly because their experiences as elites make it far more likely for them to develop magical power in this world.

One example is that Bran develops telepathy from his coma and his subsequent sensory deprivation in the crypts of Winterfell, trauma in the north, and finally more sensory deprivation in the cave.  Masked in this story is the elitism; he is fortunate to have people devoted to him, servants, sworn to protect and defend him. Without that supporting cast, he could not shine so brightly.  I'd say that some of his supporting cast may end up being magical too, (even as the others are sacrificed) to underscore their earlier importance to the story; Meera was critical to their survival. I hope she gets a moment to shine later.

Another example is in AGoT, where the fortunate-up-to-that-time Sansa can watch tourneys and  Arya can practice "looking with her eyes" and chasing cats to develop her gifts, while Gendry has to concentrate on his hammer, and hot pie has to concentrate on his pies. They just don’t have the opportunities elites have.  Job one for them is simply to survive.  While Gendry is implied to have kingsblood, I do wonder if Hot Pie might end up being exceptional before the end. Even if not, we already know that he is an exceptional baker, so that may be enough to prove my point.

Gendry being a bastard actually proves my point in another way.  All these bastards feed the genetic pool of common folk to such an extent that it is impossible that theses genes aren't ubiquitous in the story.  Sure, the Starks, Daynes, Hightowers, Blackwoods, Lannisters, and Targaryens may have retained this magical blood through careful breeding practices, but at the same time, they shared it far and wide in the blood of their bastards and vassals.

You see the elitism at the wall, with Jon and the recruits and the senior officers.  However, as GRRM points out through Jon's lessons from terrific characters like Donal Noye , Maester Aemon, Qhorin Halfhand, Ygritte, and Mance Rayder, wildling, night's watchmen, high-born, low-born, they are all men and women, not so different from any other man or woman.  I’d bet the magic is in the blood of the likes of Cotter Pyke, and Harwyn, and Anguy, and Dareon, and Missandei, and Rakharo, and Hot Pie, and Wex, and Big Bucket, and Alyayah, and Yandry, and Pya, and Old Nan, and, yes, Moonboy for all I know!

And that is the Bard's Truth!

... I am also a big fan of Butterbumps, so maybe him too.

Addendum

When I look at my inclusion of Wex in the list, I think of other mutes. It occurs to me that anti-magic Varys may’ve unwittingly fostered the gift in his mutes. As seen with Bran, traumatic experiences can trigger powers. I’d say little birds likely have it! And there’s Ser Ilyn... I should stop there... ;)

So, I was talking or Reddit, with my friend u/rachelseacow and she mentioned that Brandon Startk might have left several Snows running around Westeros.  This is probably true, Brandon is "just the tip" of this iceberg, so to say. Imagine how many more there are like him, and like Roose Bolton and the Sea Snake, Corlys Velaryon, over the last 10,000 years.  And that is just for the Valyrians and first men on the Westerosi side of things, the same would be true of other cultures that can be traced back to the Great Empire of the dawn.

I see many cultures where this type of genetic firehose is highly likely. I'd certainly include all in the far east , the Dothraki, Sarnori, Ghiscari, Llazarene, Naathi, Summer Islanders, Valyrians, and Rhoynar as well, mayhaps also the Andals ... so basically everybody ... except for the hairy men of Ib ... and I'm probably wrong about them, too.

On the Question of Greenseers Being Specific to Weirwood Magic

I think that you need 2 things to trigger the expression of magical power, 1) special genetics and 2) personal experience. I don't think many things in the genes really drive how the magic is expressed, the possible exception being the heat resistance of Valyrian dragonlords. To me magic is magic, whether it is expressed as skinchanging, greendreams/prophetic visions, visual arts / illusion, aural arts / hypnosis, fire magic, ice magic, blood magic, telekinesis, temporal manipulation, etc.

To me, how magic is expressed in likely affected by the experiences that one has. For instance, if one is a knight, it might be expressed in the ability to skinchange your horse and/or in incredible speed of your sword through telekinesis. If one is a Stark who obtains a direwolf at a young age, it might be expressed through skinchanging, or later, as illusion though being forced to hide one's identity as a Stark or skinchanger a la Arya.

Looking at it another way, Melisandre seems to have the power of vision/prophecy, glamor, shadowbinding, fire magic, and blood magic. I don't think that she got those powers specifically because her genes say she gets those powers specifically. She got them because she has innate magical ability and was being taught these skills or developed them spontaneously due to need.

So, in the case of Bran and other Weirwood users, they use the weirwoods because their personal experiences led them to to the weirwoods. Now, on the difference between having green dreams or being a skinchanger, and having the ability to become a "greenseer," I can only go by the text and assume that the ability to be a full greenseer is genetic:

Quote

"Only one man in a thousand is born a skinchanger," Lord Brynden said one day, after Bran had learned to fly, "and only one skinchanger in a thousand can be a greenseer."

Genetics are a condition of your birth, so it is definitely genetic. To me, the likely extrapolation of the text is that there is a gene for skinchanging (and probably all other magical ability due to my logic above). [this part is pure conjecture and just one possible way it might work, included only as an example] If you have it on one of your chromosomes, you can be a skinchanger in this case (or the garden variety magical user in the broader sense), and if you have it on both chromosomes, you can be a greenseer in this case (or an the uber talented magic user in the general case).

By and large, my post is talking about the garden variety skinchanger and magic user, not the greenseer or uber powerful mage. I think there are five or six people alive in our story now where we have enough information about that I consider them to possibly be the uber-variety of mage: Bran, Bloodraven, Arya, Dany, Euron, and Melisandre. There may be others (perhaps in Asshai or maybe woods-witches like Maggy or TGoHH), but these six are the only ones we know a lot of detail about from the text.

TL;DR Sure, magical ability is probably hereditary in ASoIaF, but 10,000 years after the first long night, a LOT of common people might have this ability, and I look for them to develop it soon.

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