Heresy 237 The Ballad of Trouserless Bob Baratheon

[alienarea]

The Others are the survivors of the Dharma initiative.

[LynnS]

It seems to me that wargs and skinchangers fit all the various descriptions of the Others,

[Black Crow]

16 hours ago, Melifeather said:

Sam understood the word "Other" to fit with whatever it was that killed Small Paul:

Sam didn't call the thing that killed Small Paul a wight. He called him an Other.

Edited to add: right away in the Prologue the author calls the white walkers "Others".:

The first line here encapsulates the problem. We have stories, some oral, some written and both often fragmentary, inconsistent and even contradictory. What is understood by these stories may not be accurate.

As readers we're able to build up a good picture/theory of the White Walkers, but while all Walkers are Others, not all Others are Walkers.

Nevertheless, Old Nan's statement that they came for the first time during that Long Night underlines how both Winter and Walkers were unprecedented and that the existing balance had been upset by something 

[LynnS]

6 minutes ago, Black Crow said:

Nevertheless, Old Nan's statement that they came for the first time during that Long Night underlines how both Winter and Walkers were unprecedented and that the existing balance had been upset by something

The Long Night is another ambiguous term,  It doesn't necessarily imply a nuclear type winter, instead all winter seasons are long nights with less daylight and shorter days the further north one is situated.  The issue is extended winters beyond the normal seasons rather than less daylight.  In those conditions, the population might retreat to cave living and living in the dark to survive.

I think Martin said the white walkers/Others were inhuman, alien, the sidhe who could use ice in ways we can't imagine... or something like that.  

It seems to me that the appearance of the Others becomes associated with winter at some point rather than specifically creating the first long night.   Except in this first appearance of WW, the seasons become abnormal by extending winter conditions that last years.   I'm going to attribute that to the power of the GSeers.

I don't know if this is a reaction to the first men clearing forest with iron and fire in their fists or something to do with the emergence of fire magic in Essos.  Were there dragons in Westeros at one time?

 

 

 

  

[Black Crow]

7 minutes ago, LynnS said:

Were there dragons in Westeros at one time?

Its ambiguous. There was an SSM in which GRRM supposedly said there were once dragons everywhere, but I have the impression it was a very offhand remark. On the other hand there are very much more specific  stories of dragons evolving from "fire wryms" in the mines of Valyria and the Dothraki stories of their hatching from a shattered moon. Both, like the Long Night, imply the advent of something that wasn't there before.

[Tucu]

About the Bloodmoon prequel GRRM said this on interviews:

Quote

“10,000 years” is mentioned in the novels. But you also have places where maesters say, “No, no, it wasn’t 10,000, it was 5,000.” Again, I’m trying to reflect real-life things that a lot of high fantasy doesn’t reflect. In the Bible, it has people living for hundreds of years and then people added up how long each lived and used that to figure out when events took place. Really? I don’t think so. Now we’re getting more realistic dating now from carbon dating and archeology. But Westeros doesn’t have that. They’re still in the stage of “my grandfather told me and his grandfather told him.” So I think it’s closer to 5,000 years. But you’re right. Westeros is a very different place. There’s no King’s Landing. There’s no Iron Throne. There are no Targaryens — Valyria has hardly begun to rise yet with its dragons and the great empire that it built. We’re dealing with a different and older world and hopefully that will be part of the fun of the series

Quote

It's set thousands of years before Game of Thrones. King's Landing does not exist. The Iron Throne does not exist. There are no dragons there

 

[alienarea]

The doom of Valyria might be a natural cause for the unprecedented long night.

[LynnS]

22 minutes ago, alienarea said:

The doom of Valyria might be a natural cause for the unprecedented long night.

It didn't happen that long ago and there is no mention or memory of a long night affecting Westeros to coincide with it.

[Black Crow]

22 minutes ago, alienarea said:

The doom of Valyria might be a natural cause for the unprecedented long night.

I think that we discussed this one years ago and that it didn't add up, which isn't to say that they aren't related, insofar as the Dragons may have originally upset the balance and the Doom was retaliation

[Matthew.]

4 hours ago, Tucu said:

About the Bloodmoon prequel GRRM said this on interviews:

I was thinking of those quotes as well in the context of this conversation. In theory "Valyria had hardly begun to rise" might give us wiggle room to suggest that a Dany-esque figure might have arisen during that period and awakened dragons from stone near the Fourteen Flames, even if the dragons never moved westward.

Nonetheless, I do think there is reason to speculate that "fire magic," in some form or another, was present on Westeros, and perhaps exerting an influence.

The Daynes are an incredibly old First Men family, yet they share certain superficial features with Valyrians - violet eyes, some silver hair in the case of Gerold Dayne - which may represent their bloodline being marked by 'fire.' Additionally, Dawn is said to be like Valyrian steel in properties, though not in appearance.

There's also Moat Caitlin, a fortress built of basalt blocks "the size of cottages," which is suggested to be incredibly ancient, yet seems unlikely to have been the product of a culture that was primarily building ringforts.

[Tucu]

2 hours ago, Matthew. said:

I was thinking of those quotes as well in the context of this conversation. In theory "Valyria had hardly begun to rise" might give us wiggle room to suggest that a Dany-esque figure might have arisen during that period and awakened dragons from stone near the Fourteen Flames, even if the dragons never moved westward.

Nonetheless, I do think there is reason to speculate that "fire magic," in some form or another, was present on Westeros, and perhaps exerting an influence.

The Daynes are an incredibly old First Men family, yet they share certain superficial features with Valyrians - violet eyes, some silver hair in the case of Gerold Dayne - which may represent their bloodline being marked by 'fire.' Additionally, Dawn is said to be like Valyrian steel in properties, though not in appearance.

There's also Moat Caitlin, a fortress built of basalt blocks "the size of cottages," which is suggested to be incredibly ancient, yet seems unlikely to have been the product of a culture that was primarily building ringforts.

Not sure if it is significant, but basalt is formed from the quick cooling of some types of lava. Not something that you would expect to find in plains and bogs like the Neck.

[Frey family reunion]

For what’s it worth here is what the Worldbook says concerning dragons in Westeros(from one of the bits written by George): 

Quote

Yet if men in the Shadow had tamed dragons first, why did they not conquer as the Valyrians did? It seems likelier that the Valyrian tale is the truest. But there were dragons in Westeros, once, long before the Targaryens came, as our own legends and histories tell us. If dragons did first spring from the Fourteen Flames, they must have been spread across much of the known world before they were tamed.

 

[Matthew.]

I suppose I have no real justification for this, but back when I originally read GRRM's comments about there once being dragons everywhere, I'd just assumed he was talking about a long, long, long time ago--like pre-human Planetos, and that the dragons had gradually receded to a few areas that could accommodate them (the Shadowlands, the Fourteen Flames), or maybe even gone extinct entirely, with their fossilized eggs being reawakened through unnatural means.

[Matthew.]

1 hour ago, Tucu said:

Not sure if it is significant, but basalt is formed from the quick cooling of some types of lava. Not something that you would expect to find in plains and bogs like the Neck.

Yes, there's a lot about both the location and the skills that would have gone into building it that make it stand out as a bit of mystery; not necessarily inexplicable, because if we go with a relatively long timeline - let's say, humans arrive 12,000 years ago, the Pact is formed 10,000 years ago - that's a relatively large window in which humans could have progressed toward something like Moat Cailin, which I'm assuming was damaged and broken during the flooding of the Neck.

Nonetheless, I do find it tempting to wonder whether some "fire magic" utilizing culture had a foothold in Westeros at some point--not literally Valyria, but maybe Valyria-esque, and that some of their techniques - both magic and mundane - went into making a place like Moat Cailin.

[alienarea]

17 hours ago, LynnS said:

It didn't happen that long ago and there is no mention or memory of a long night affecting Westeros to coincide with it.

 

17 hours ago, Black Crow said:

I think that we discussed this one years ago and that it didn't add up, which isn't to say that they aren't related, insofar as the Dragons may have originally upset the balance and the Doom was retaliation

Yes, we discussed. And yes, it doesn't fit with the timeline we are told.

However, there is a connection between volcanic eruptions and longer cold periods, like in Europe in 1258 supposedly caused by a volcano in Indonesia.

The moon split open and the dragons got born sounds like a reverse Yucatan scenario, i.e. deep impact from outer space and the dinosaurs go extinct.

 

 

[LynnS]

44 minutes ago, alienarea said:

The moon split open and the dragons got born sounds like a reverse Yucatan scenario, i.e. deep impact from outer space and the dinosaurs go extinct.

This Photo Shows a 65-Foot-Tall Lava Dome | PetaPixel

[Black Crow]

2 hours ago, alienarea said:

The moon split open and the dragons got born sounds like a reverse Yucatan scenario, i.e. deep impact from outer space and the dinosaurs go extinct.

Or in this case the ship carrying the dragons crashed 

[Black Crow]

14 hours ago, Tucu said:

Not sure if it is significant, but basalt is formed from the quick cooling of some types of lava. Not something that you would expect to find in plains and bogs like the Neck.

Curiously enough, in geographical terms, the Neck is very closely modelled on the one which links the northern and southern parts of Scotland at Stirling. As GRRM knows this lies in the Forth Valley and until modern times couldn't be avoided except by boat, and required traversing large and near-impassable bogs, either by following obscure and inconvenient pathways, or for armies, by only means of a single artificial causeway [built by the Romans as it happens] dominated by a great castle sitting on a high basalt plug

[Black Crow]

13 hours ago, Matthew. said:

I suppose I have no real justification for this, but back when I originally read GRRM's comments about there once being dragons everywhere, I'd just assumed he was talking about a long, long, long time ago--like pre-human Planetos, and that the dragons had gradually receded to a few areas that could accommodate them (the Shadowlands, the Fourteen Flames), or maybe even gone extinct entirely, with their fossilized eggs being reawakened through unnatural means.

Likewise, I tended to equate this with the dinosaurs. Long gone by the time men tooled up but perhaps "remembered" through fossil remains

[Tucu]

2 hours ago, Black Crow said:

Curiously enough, in geographical terms, the Neck is very closely modelled on the one which links the northern and southern parts of Scotland at Stirling. As GRRM knows this lies in the Forth Valley and until modern times couldn't be avoided except by boat, and required traversing large and near-impassable bogs, either by following obscure and inconvenient pathways, or for armies, by only means of a single artificial causeway [built by the Romans as it happens] dominated by a great castle sitting on a high basalt plug

Ice&Fire at a geological timescale :-)