Why is magic getting stronger?

[RoamingRonin]

I know fire-based magic is getting stronger due to the return of dragons but I don't recall anyone saying magic, in general, has gotten stronger.

The only magical person I see associated with the dragons hatching is Mirri. You say that Dany must be magical because other Targs had failed — it doesn't occur to you that maybe being a Targaryen has nothing to do with it? ;)

So why is Mirri dead?

[assjfjgjsgjljljglgjfjsduar]

So why is Mirri dead?

[sifth]

because Dragons have returned to the world, ha ha ha

[Lord Ben]

BR warging the Mormont's crow

Why do we assume this? I might have missed something...

[Lord Ben]

As far as we can tell, the earliest 'magic', if you regard the White Walkers as magical, was the killing of Waymar Royce, right at the start. Do we hear about any magical occurrences shortly before this? Another important question(s)- What about magic after the long night/before the death of the last dragon?

North of the Wall it seems to have always been. You hear NW people mentioning "strange" stuff they've seen before the WW killed Royce. Prophecies for example were around before. Maggi the Frogs of Cersei when she was a little girl, etc.

[assjfjgjsgjljljglgjfjsduar]

Why do we assume this? I might have missed something...

I kind of take Bloodraven warging the raven as a given at this point, but I can see where people might be skeptical.

[Lord Ben]

I haven't read any of the D&E stuff, and really know nothing of Bloodraven from the core books. I'm just wondering why people assume this? Because he says a few words on occasion and such? It's certainly plausible I just tend to think of Ravens as having a bit of their own magic.

[assjfjgjsgjljljglgjfjsduar]

I haven't read any of the D&E stuff, and really know nothing of Bloodraven from the core books. I'm just wondering why people assume this? Because he says a few words on occasion and such? It's certainly plausible I just tend to think of Ravens as having a bit of their own magic.

If you do a search for Mormont's raven, you'll find a ton of discussion about it. It's pretty convincing.

[Free Northman]

Here's the basics of magic in Westeros, according to me:

All magic is powered by the life force of living things. All magic is therefore ultimately blood magic. Fire magic consumes life (blood), cold magic extinguises life (blood), and the magic of the Children stores the life force (blood) of all dead creatures in the weirwoods, which powers their magic.

Fire and Ice magic waxes and wanes depending on some celestial cycle stretching over thousands of years. The magic of the Children remains constant, based on the number of weirwoods that remain.

Magic has NOT come back because of the dragons. The dragons are, like someone said earlier, a barometer indicating that the level of magic has risen sufficiently to allow them to exist again. Daenerys did not bring the magic back. Instead, Daenerys was able to raise the dragons because unlike in the many previous cases of Targaryens using blood magic to try and hatch dragon eggs, the ambient level of magic this time happened to be high enough to allow her ritual to succeed.

If Daenerys had tried the same ritual 100 years before, she would have burned to death, and the eggs would have remained encased in stone - kind of like what apparently happened at Summerhall.

Magic is naturally emerging again. And the dragons and Others are signs of this reemergence.

Throughout all of this, the magic of the Children has been constant, silent and watching, waiting for the time when they would need to step up again to counter the threats of both Ice and Fire, if life on this planet is to survive.

[PatrickStormborn]

Here's the basics of magic in Westeros, according to me:

All magic is powered by the life force of living things. All magic is therefore ultimately blood magic. Fire magic consumes life (blood), cold magic extinguises life (blood), and the magic of the Children stores the life force (blood) of all dead creatures in the weirwoods, which powers their magic.

Fire and Ice magic waxes and wanes depending on some celestial cycle stretching over thousands of years. The magic of the Children remains constant, based on the number of weirwoods that remain.

Magic has NOT come back because of the dragons. The dragons are, like someone said earlier, a barometer indicating that the level of magic has risen sufficiently to allow them to exist again. Daenerys did not bring the magic back. Instead, Daenerys was able to raise the dragons because unlike in the many previous cases of Targaryens using blood magic to try and hatch dragon eggs, the ambient level of magic this time happened to be high enough to allow her ritual to succeed.

If Daenerys had tried the same ritual 100 years before, she would have burned to death, and the eggs would have remained encased in stone - kind of like what apparently happened at Summerhal.

Magic is naturally emerging again. And the dragons and Others are signs of this reemergence.

Throughout all of this, the magic of the Children has been constant, silent and watching, waiting for the time when they would need to step up again to counter the threats of both Ice and Fire, if life on this planet is to survive.

This is a nice theory, but do you have any supporting evidence from the text?

[Free Northman]

This is a nice theory, but do you have any supporting evidence from the text?

Plenty of evidence.

There was magic long before the Dragons arrived. Bloodraven was using magic 100 years ago already.

The Long Night and the coming of the Others is linked to the cycle of magic. But for the Long Night to happen, the Long Summer had to preceed it first. So the Long Summer is already a sign of the returning magic, and it started more than a decade before Dany's dragons were born.

Magic depending on dragons being alive is a troublesome theory, because it suggests that should Dany's dragons be killed, magic will disappear from the world again, and this is highly unlikely, given that Bran's powers are linked to the trees and not to dragons, and that the Others will be around whether there are Dragons or not.

Furthermore, Leaf says that the Children have been around for 1 million years, and therefore their magic long predates the arrival of dragons, which it is strongly hinted occurred sometime during the cultural memory of human civilization. Both the Qartheen origin legend and the Faceless Men origin tale speak of a time before there were dragons on earth.

That implies it happened somewhere in the last 12,000 years or so.

And yet the Children and their Old God magic had been present for about 1 million years before that time. Clearly, magic is not dependent on the presence of dragons in the world.

[PatrickStormborn]

Plenty of evidence.

There was magic long before the Dragons arrived. Bloodraven was using magic 100 years ago already.

The Long Night and the coming of the Others is linked to the cycle of magic. But for the Long Night to happen, the Long Summer had to preceed it first. So the Long Summer is already a sign of the returning magic, and it started more than a decade before Dany's dragons were born.

Magic depending on dragons being alive is a troublesome theory, because it suggests that should Dany's dragons be killed, magic will disappear from the world again, and this is highly unlikely, given that Bran's powers are linked to the trees and not to dragons, and that the Others will be around whether there are Dragons or not.

Furthermore, Leaf says that the Children have been around for 1 million years, and therefore their magic long predates the arrival of dragons, which it is strongly hinted occurred sometime during the cultural memory of human civilization. Both the Qartheen origin legend and the Faceless Men origin tale speak of a time before there were dragons on earth.

That implies it happened somewhere in the last 12,000 years or so.

And yet the Children and their Old God magic had been present for about 1 million years before that time. Clearly, magic is not dependent on the presence of dragons in the world.

To me, all you've done is prove that there are different forms of magic. It seems clear that the magic of the Children of the Forest is unrelated to the magic of dragons/fire, etc.

[Free Northman]

To me, all you've done is prove that there are different forms of magic. It seems clear that the magic of the Children of the Forest is unrelated to the magic of dragons/fire, etc.

Similarly the Others are not dependent on the presence of Dragons. So the magic of Ice is also unrelated to dragons.

The magic of the Faceless Men is also unrelated to dragons.

Mirri Maz Duur's magic is ALSO not dependent on dragons.

That means that dragons are only linked to fire magic. And whether they are the cause of fire magic or simply correlated to the rise of fire magic is then unproven.

However, what is clearly incorrect is the contention that the presence of magic in general in the world is dependent on the presence of dragons.

[Kanon]

Similarly the Others are not dependent on the presence of Dragons. So the magic of Ice is also unrelated to dragons.

The magic of the Faceless Men is also unrelated to dragons.

Mirri Maz Duur's magic is ALSO not dependent on dragons.

That means that dragons are only linked to fire magic. And whether they are the cause of fire magic or simply correlated to the rise of fire magic is then unproven.

However, what is clearly incorrect is the contention that the presence of magic in general in the world is dependent on the presence of dragons.

Marwyn said once that all valyrian sorcery was based on fire and blood, maybe MMD was doing some form of fire magic

[Drogo_BR]

The presence of dragons is probably a barometer, not the thing causing magic. I think magic builds up in the world the same way you preheat the oven. You turn the oven on and then after a while the buzzer sounds to tell you the oven is ready. The appearance of dragons is like the buzzer. They're the proof that the world is now filled with magic, enough to sustain their presence, and we're now ready for baking ????? What is it that the Others plan to bake? Or the fire priests. Or the warlocks. What is the endgame of their magical agendas? Hopefully we'll see what the children of the forest are all about, at least. And the other question that arises is "Who turned the oven on?" Who invoked the return of magic by flipping some kind of switch? Was it...... dun dun dun...... the Great Other??? Or does the planet's unstable orbit sometimes carry it to the outer reaches of the solar system until it passes through an Oort cloud of magical residue floating in space? Remember the Comet??? Maybe it was a magical asteroid, one of thousands that fell into the atmosphere as the planet passed through a magical asteroid belt.

Also, dragons might be like the hot rocks used during a massage. In other words, they don't create magic but they keep large doses of it caged within themselves and then they come to our world and their magical heat transfers to us through osmosis. The fire of magic burns so hotly in them that they can't help but broadcast magical power to the rest of the world as they fly overhead, much like rocks retain heat and then transfer that warmth into your back during a hot rock massage.

:agree:

[Drogo_BR]

I mean, lets face it guys, magic is little bit rare before the events written in ASoIaF and a few, very few believe in magic.

Usually it's more object of mockery, am I wrong? Well, sure thing we have Bloodraven and the Maggy the Frog, but magic is pretty rare.

So, if there is a switch, what turned it on? That's the question I keep wondering.

[sarah.jenice]

I agree that there has always been magic to an extent in Westeros and Essos (Bloodraven is a good example) but something did happen to awaken more powers - whether it was the comet or the dragons - something has made fire magic more powerful.

- We have Quaithe's comments about the fire ladder already posted.

- Thoros of Myr is able to bring Beric back from the dead multiple times.

- And according to Xaro in Clash of Kings, the warlocks of Qarth suddenly have more powers after their visit from Dany and Drogon - "It is said that the glass candles are burning in the house of Urrathon Night-Walker, that have not burned in a hundred years. Ghost grass grows in the Garden of Gehane, phantom tortoises have been seen carrying messages between the windowless houses on Warlock's Way, and all the rats in the city are chewing off their tails. The wife of Mathos Mallarawan, who once mocked a warlock's drab moth-eaten robe, has gone mad and will wear no clothes at all. Even fresh-washed silks make her feel as though a thousand insects were crawling on her skin. And Blind Sybassion the Eater of Eyes can see again, or so his slaves do swear. A man must wonder."

- Qyburn is able to make UnGregor

- Mel admits her powers are growing

- Moqorro has really accurate visions

- Marywn lit his obsidian candle

I like the idea that magic is cyclical. It seems that whatever the ice power is has awoken and the Others are able to create wights and send them south to attack, which we know hasn't happened in a long time. Then a red comet comes and dragons are magically born and all of these other fire powers are waking up, too.

On the warging, this power in the Starks doesn't start to awaken until after the dragons/comet. The kids were born with the ability but it doesn't come out until then even though they are all different ages. Bloodraven (if he is the 3eyed crow) visited Bran before the comet and gave him visions, but we know he has had powers for a very long time so this may not have anything to do with awakening all of their powers since he only comes to Bran.

I can't say for certain that I know what started this magical rebirth, but I do think that magic is growing in this world as a result of something.

[jon stark I]

About Dany able to hatch dragons i tihnk she was able to because she used blood and fire together she gave 3 soul to awaken them but the other Targs used stupid methods such as praying.I think there is nothing magical about the girl she was sad and she tried killing herself after losing both her husband and her unborn son.And i can understand why maesters killed dragons in a way dragons are WWs but never taking their leave from the world of men on the other hand WWs go to sleep for a long time such as 8000 years.And there is a magical wall that protects the realm against WWs but dragons has ultimate power and noone knows how to tame them if noone stops them there is a possiblity that they will do more harm then WWs.With just 3 dragon Targeryans conquered Westeros think that there was noone to give the orders and these monsters were free then only 3 dragons would be enough to destroy the world of men.

[NotSoSilentSister]

I support all the "It's cyclical/cosmic/environmental"-theories (although I'm agnostic about the involvement of any deities; I strongly suspect the series will never resolve that issue), but I also suspect that there's a man-made component, that heightens the phenomenon - just like with global warming.

The man-made component probably won't be down to a single actor (I'm pretty sure Dany for instance is fairly magical, but she's hardly the sole cause for the return of magic). Plausible suspects are Rhaegar with his AA-genetic engineering project, Dany with the Dragons, Mance with Horn, whatever Euron is up to, etc.

Basically I believe there are various factors, reenforcing each other, and it will be rather difficult to identify the direction of causation between them, because the arrow is probably going to point in both direction in many cases, just as in real life. All of these factors probably have been in play at various other points in history already, and the reason why the effect is now more pronounced than usually doesn't lie in any single one of them, but rather in their uniquely (un)fortunate combination due to bad/good timing.

Take for instance the White Walkers. There is certainly an environmental component - their strenght is plausibly assumed to be greater in longer winters, and since seasons in Westeros are irregular, it makes sense to wait with invasion plans for one of the longer winters. So the Others can probably feel that the coming winter is going to be one of the longer ones, which provides one factor for their rise. But it doesn't necessarily have to be an exceptionally long winter - one of the longer winters doesn't yet amount to "the long night" of mythical proportions. The causal relationship between Others and Winters might go in both directions however - the Others probably need Winter to gain sufficient strenght to make a move in the first place, but once their magic reaches critical mass, their mere presence might contribute to prolonguing the winter. The cold brings the Others, but the Others maintian it. Two factors reenforcing each other.

One could speculate that the Others might have tried to seize such opportunities at previous occassions as well, but were repelled by a more efficient Night-Watch (eg. the Night's King story). But now the Nightwatch is at low point in its history - that's an entirely man-made aspect of the dilemma, and it's probably not a coincidence. Now let's assume that the magic of the Others grows exponentially with every Wight created/every baby sacrificed to the Others. The Night Watch at the height of its power might have been able to nipp it in the bud; but this opportunity has already been missed. And now, what might have otherwise been not more than a couple of skirmishes at the Wall suddenly turns into an impending Zombie Apoklypse.

So the reason why the Others are now much stronger than ever is that they could make use of a cyclically returning opportunity more effeciently than usual, because the Night-Watch was to weak to keep them in check.

I suspect that it might be similar with the Dragons - only here it's probably the Maesters who dropped the ball (getting maybe too distracted by their invovlement in the Game of Thrones).

[NotSoSilentSister]

Or take Melisandre for instance. Let's assume that Red Priest magic is indeed fueled by people killed by fire. Now before Mel, Red Priests have not been terribly effective with their magic, But before Mel, Red Priests lacked political influence and simply did not have the opportunity to burn people on a sufficiently large scale to make their magic work.

One might argue that Morroquo seems to be even more efficient than Mel, and quite a bit less burn-happy. And the same applies to Thoros. He hasn't been burning anyone. But there has certainly been no shortage of people dieing in fires in Essos and the Riverlands due to the exploits of Dany's dragons and the wildfire at the Battle of Blackwater. Maybe all the people who died on this occasion also count as sacrifices to Rhollor. So Red Priest Magic has become more efficient because more people are killed by fire.