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Dragons are magic


aceluby

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This is hinted at throughout the tale as well as flat out said by Stannis and a few others. This got me thinking... what kind of magic are dragons? Are they the old magic of the First Men/CotF, the magic of fire like Mel, or some different kind of magic.

My thoughts are that they are the same as the old magic which does not rely on dragons for power (wights, direwolves, the wall, Storm's End, etc... don't seem to get 'stronger' due to dragons) and that the magic from the Red God, HotU, and alchemists whose magic increased dramatically with the dragons are born from dragon magic. Kind of in the same way that the old magic (greenseeing, warging, etc...) is more powerful north of the wall.

Thoughts? Insights?

I doubt we'll ever get a true answer to this since GRRM doesn't like to focus on this aspect of the story, so let's hear some theories.

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We don't know how dragons will react to the Wall yet... And I'm willing to bet all magic is connected on some level. Mel feels the wall is linked to R'hillor's fire and that's why her abilities got more powerful as she went North. But maybe ALL magic gets stronger then farther North you go, and that's why Greenseers and Wargs pop up there when they don't further south.

We've heard dragonfire likened to R'hillor's Light before (admittedly by people with less-then-firsthand knowledge) which is why I think dragons will also get stronger when they go North. That's just a theory though.

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I'm also partisan of a unified theory of magic, even though there are different types. And I hope GRRM will at least give us some explanation on how magic works. Not that I want some "scientific" explanation (no midichlorians please), but I like to know what I can expect and what I can't.

I'm not really a fantasy fan, so magic feels kind of weird to me. I mean... Shadow babies, the first time magic appears big time, is kind of ok. It could have been an assassin or whatever.

But Cat resurrecting bummed be out.

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I'm of the opinion magic is probably like any other force of nature: it's neutral. It's not until a human will drives it one way or the other that it becomes clearly benevolent vs. not.

Doesn't change the fact that certain spells are surely very icky.

Which makes you wonder about the Others, does it not? Assuming that a human is not 'the great other' and the theory of unified, neutral magic, could they not also be neutral and not the 'enemy' as everyone thinks? Linking this back to dragons, couldn't it be that dragons and the others are more like wild animals surviving vs representing a 'side'?

The subdued magical elements and lack of explanation in this world intrigues me.

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