A Song of Ice and Fire (Released Spoilers)

khorum

khorum

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One of the interesting theories is that Mirri Maz Duur's dying curse ("When the sun rises in the west and sets in the east, when the seas go dry and mountains blow in the wind like leaves, when your womb quickens again, and you bear a living child.") isn't actually a curse but a prophecy. The conditions of the sun rising in the west, seas going dry, etc. are symbolic conditions that will be or already have been met.

Since the last time we see dany she's bleeding mestrually again (heavy "moon blood" at the end of adwd) the implication is that her womb can be quickened again and Jon or someone can knock her up.
 
Olscratch

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Yeah googling pulled up this theory,
"When the sun rises in the west and sets in the east: The Martell sigil is a sun with a spear through it. Quentyn Martell comes to Daenerys who is in the east. Quentyn was born in the west (rose) and died in the east (set) from Viserion's flames. Quentyn seems to fulfill the sun rising in the west and setting in the east criteria.

When the seas go dry: During Daenerys' last chapter in ADwD, she notes that the Dothraki Sea is drying up and dying because autumn is beginning to affect Essos.

When mountains blow in the wind like leaves: During Daenerys' ASoS and ADwD chapters she describes some of the pyramids in Meereen as mountain-like. When Viserion and Rhaegal escape the fighting pit they were held in, they destroy several pyramids by burning them to ash and rubble, causing the debris to blow in the wind like leaves."

But Drogo how could drogo come back? I'm guessing as a wight.
 
StoiCynic

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Pretty interesting theory that guy wrote up. In retrospect, the Others building the wall seems pretty obvious.
 
Chris

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Scratch_sl said:
Yeah googling pulled up this theory,
"When the sun rises in the west and sets in the east: The Martell sigil is a sun with a spear through it. Quentyn Martell comes to Daenerys who is in the east. Quentyn was born in the west (rose) and died in the east (set) from Viserion's flames. Quentyn seems to fulfill the sun rising in the west and setting in the east criteria.

When the seas go dry: During Daenerys' last chapter in ADwD, she notes that the Dothraki Sea is drying up and dying because autumn is beginning to affect Essos.

When mountains blow in the wind like leaves: During Daenerys' ASoS and ADwD chapters she describes some of the pyramids in Meereen as mountain-like. When Viserion and Rhaegal escape the fighting pit they were held in, they destroy several pyramids by burning them to ash and rubble, causing the debris to blow in the wind like leaves."

But Drogo how could drogo come back? I'm guessing as a wight.
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Oh wow I didn't know this, it's a perfect match.

How does Drogo come back? He doesn't but the Dragon that bears his name does
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It's a dragon taming prophecy.
 
Sylas

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There's so much wrong with that reddit post that it's hard to understand how anyone supports it. just off the top of my head without doing any sort of line by line book retorting:

1. There is no fire magic south of the wall at the time the wall was built (no targs, no dragons, no r'hllor, etc)

2. There is no fire magic anywhere, period. If we take the age of heroes at face value, the wall was built 8k years ago. This is before the Ghiscari Empire, much less Valyria. The proto-valyrians are still sheep herders at this point, if they even existed at all. There are no tamed dragons, anywhere on Earth. The ones we learn about are still living inside volcanos at this time. Even if we assume shady math due to no written record keeping and myth/lore angle, we know that the wall was built after the first men made contact with, fought, and then made peace with the Children of the Forest. So it was after the arm of Dorne was shattered which stopped the flow of the First men from Essos into Westeros. I forget what that's called, the age of legends or some shit. Anyway, at that time the children + first men encounter the others and the long night and age of heroes occurs. Then the wall is built. Then a long time after this, the Andals invade via the narrow sea, "rediscovering" westeros. It's not until after the Andal invasion that the Valyrian's discover the dragons and go from being sheep herders to magical dragon tamers and form their empire. And there is no real magic in Essos until the dragons appear, thousands of years after the Other's/long night/wall is built/etc.

3. it is mentioned that the last hero fights and wins against the others with dragonsteel, which Jon Snow interprets as Valyrian steel*. It's an additional weapon useful against them just like dragonglass (obsidian)

4. The Night's king was the 13th LC of the NW, the NW being created to guard the wall. Thus the wall existed for 12 other LCs before the Night's King.

5. The others do attack and kill wildlings all the time, they attack all men not just the NW.

6. The "hints" that the starks having blood from beyond the wall is spelled out completely with the bael the bard story from Mance, the starks aren't some other/human hybrid. They have Wildling blood in them, but since both wildlings and the rest of the "north" (including starks, excludling Manderly/white harbor) are descendants of the first men it's basically nothing.

7. The starks don't have some special affinity for "cold magic". Ned (and anyone else) can sleep in the nude in winterfell because the castle is built on a natural hot springs that pumps scorching hot water through the walls and keeps the castlevery warmeven throughout winter. That combined with the green houses is how they survive the ridiculously bad winters that exist in grrm's world and it's why winterfell is the seat of power in the north.

*yeah Valyria didn't exist at the time of the Last Hero, so it's not valyrian steel. Jon isn't exactly a student of history. unreliable narrator. Also I just think GRRM fucked this up, more than any other conspiracy theory thing. That or Valyrian's didn't invent Valyrian Steel, they are just known for it.
 
M

mimirswell_sl

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Sylas_sl said:
1. There is no fire magic south of the wall at the time the wall was built (no targs, no dragons, no r'hllor, etc)
2. There is no fire magic anywhere, period.
3. it is mentioned that the last hero fights and wins against the others with dragonsteel, which Jon Snow interprets as Valyrian steel*. It's an additional weapon useful against them just like dragonglass (obsidian)
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Why do the ancient records of the Night's Watch use the terms Dragonsteel/Dragonglass when these records predates Valyria if there were no dragons?

"I found mention of dragonglass. The children of the forest used to give the Night's Watch a hundred obsidian daggers every year, during the Age of Heroes." -- AFFC, Samwell V
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"I found one account of the Long Night that spoke of the last hero slaying Others with a blade of dragonsteel. Supposedly they could not stand against it." -- AFFC, Samwell V
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Sylas_sl said:
4. The Night's king was the 13th LC of the NW, the NW being created to guard the wall. Thus the wall existed for 12 other LCs before the Night's King.
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If the Night's king is the Last Hero, his 12 fallen friends could be the symbolic 1-12th lord commander. Even if that's not true, Sam has on multiple occasions questioned the records of the list of Commanders of the Night's Watch so its not an automatic deal breaker.

Sylas_sl said:
5. The others do attack and kill wildlings all the time, they attack all men not just the NW.
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Agreed, that was a spurious claim of the author but doesn't really affect the viability of the theory, a minor modification at most.

Sylas_sl said:
6. The "hints" that the starks having blood from beyond the wall is spelled out completely with the bael the bard story from Mance, the starks aren't some other/human hybrid. They have Wildling blood in them, but since both wildlings and the rest of the "north" (including starks, excludling Manderly/white harbor) are descendants of the first men it's basically nothing.

7. The starks don't have some special affinity for "cold magic". Ned (and anyone else) can sleep in the nude in winterfell because the castle is built on a natural hot springs that pumps scorching hot water through the walls and keeps the castlevery warmeven throughout winter. That combined with the green houses is how they survive the ridiculously bad winters that exist in grrm's world and it's why winterfell is the seat of power in the north.
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Old Nan says the Night's King was a Stark, so I think that's where the author is pulling this from. I don't think modern Starks have other's blood or anything like and this is a serious, perhaps fatal issue with the "ice" portion of his theory. That is, unless Jon is later converted to an other via the process of (possibly) the Night's King or Craster's babies.



Sylas_sl said:
*yeah Valyria didn't exist at the time of the Last Hero, so it's not valyrian steel. Jon isn't exactly a student of history. unreliable narrator. Also I just think GRRM fucked this up, more than any other conspiracy theory thing. That or Valyrian's didn't invent Valyrian Steel, they are just known for it.
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I think given the discrepancies, there are two possible solutions. One, Valyrians simply rediscovered Dragonsteel when they acquired their own dragons separate to the Long Night/Age of Heroes period. Alternatively, Dragonsteel could be dragonbone, which Tyrion describes the properties of:

"Dragonbone is black because of its high iron content, the book told him. It is strong as steel, yet lighter and far more flexible, and of course utterly impervious to fire."
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I am not a huge proponent of this theory, I think it is certainly wrong in parts and almost certainly wrong in its overall thrust but pieces of it such as the Night's King == Last Hero or the possibility of a pact between Man and Others via the Night's King being probable.
 
chaos

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Do you guys ever think he just makes it up as he goes? Sometimes I read these theories I imagine how much effort people put into researching them, and I wonder if Martin does the same. Probably, i am sure. But part of me always wonders.
 
Dandai

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chaos_sl said:
Do you guys ever think he just makes it up as he goes? Sometimes I read these theories I imagine how much effort people put into researching them, and I wonder if Martin does the same. Probably, i am sure. But part of me always wonders.
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I remember reading an interview with him once where he said that he relies on several fact checkers, loremasters, and historians for his writing. He says the world is so big it's impossible for him to keep every tiny detail straight. I don't remember who he specifically mentioned, but he said he employs the editors of various wiki fansites for fact checking. I guess he just asks them very specific questions so as to not reveal too much plot?

That didn't really address your question in its entirety, so I'll say that he's said many times to many different people that he knew all along how the series ends. He's been working backwards and trying to get to the ending as organically as possible. One of my favorite quotes from him (though I'm not going to look for the exact quote) was that he allows his characters to suffer the consequences of their actions/personality flaws. Oberyn wittling the Mountain down and winning the fight but ultimately losing because of his showmanship comes to mind. Ned refusing to accept the [good] advice of Renly and take control of the Lannisters before Robert died and being executed because of his honor is another.

At the end of the day, who knows whether he just pulls it out of his ass? He says he writes and rewrites chapters all the time.
 
Sylas

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mimirswell_sl said:
Why do the ancient records of the Night's Watch use the terms Dragonsteel/Dragonglass when these records predates Valyria if there were no dragons?
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The records say obsidian, not dragonglass. dragonglass is just the common, modern day term for the substance known to the educated, maesters, and children of the forest as obsidian.

The dragonsteel is the only mention of the word "dragon" revealed to us thus far in the old records of the NW, which jon assumes is valyrian steel. As I mentioned already, I think this is simply an error on GRRMs part and he got the timeline confused. I don't think dragons really existed during this era of cold magic, and I don't think the Other's had any power or existed in any real numbers (save for a small few waaaaaay to the north in the lands of always winter) during the time of the Valyrian empire and the era of Fire magic.

I don't think GRRM puts nearly as much thought into the story as the fan's do. I think a song of Ice and Fire really is as simple as that. There was ice, then there was fire, and now for the first time (possibly in history) that they both exist at the same time and they will duke it out. fin
 
Dandai

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Sylas_sl said:
I don't think GRRM puts nearly as much thought into the story as the fan's do. I think a song of Ice and Fire really is as simple as that. There was ice, then there was fire, and now for the first time (possibly in history) that they both exist at the same time and they will duke it out. fin
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The success of the series and fan's colossal expectations are probably the root of his slow writing problem. When he started out he had this itch he needed to scratch. It ended up being the chapter where the Starks find the direwolf pups. So he plotted out the high points of the series and wrote the first three books in 5-6 years. But when the critical reception was over the top for Storm of Swords, and he couldn't get the publisher to agree to a five year gap, his creativity ground to a halt because he was afraid of fucking it up.

I think you're on to something, Sylas.
 
Nebuchadnezzar

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Never heard the publisher get blamed for the Five Year Gap disappearing before, it's always been Martin saying it didn't work for Jon and Cersei so he scrapped it, got a source on that one?
 
Quaid

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Everybody is faking their way through their lives. Why would he be any different?
 
chaos

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Thank GOD I thought it was just me. At least once a day I have this paralyzing fear that I'm found out, I have been exposed, they all know I am full of shit. But it never really happens.
 
M

mimirswell_sl

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Sylas_sl said:
The records say obsidian, not dragonglass. dragonglass is just the common, modern day term for the substance known to the educated, maesters, and children of the forest as obsidian.
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He and Jon have both used the word obsidian multiple times prior and Maester Luwin already clarifies that obsidian is the term that the maesters prefer (Marywn being a notable exception). Given that, I can only assume that Sam found an explicit mention of dragonglass specifically when he said:

"I found mention of dragonglass. The children of the forest used to give the Night's Watch a hundred obsidian daggers every year, during the Age of Heroes." -- AFFC, Samwell V
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Otherwise, it would make a lot more sense for him to say "I found mention of obsidian", then use the layman's term in the second sentence. The mention is from the old records, he establishes that in the previous paragraph and is about to go into the period of time when the list was at 675 Lord Commander's of the Night's Watch when Jon cuts him off and asks about how to defeat the Others.

Sylas_sl said:
The dragonsteel is the only mention of the word "dragon" revealed to us thus far in the old records of the NW, which jon assumes is valyrian steel. As I mentioned already, I think this is simply an error on GRRMs part and he got the timeline confused. I don't think dragons really existed during this era of cold magic, and I don't think the Other's had any power or existed in any real numbers (save for a small few waaaaaay to the north in the lands of always winter) during the time of the Valyrian empire and the era of Fire magic.
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I actually think he meant dragon, I'm just not certain he meant Fire dragon. He wrote a children's story before ASOIAF called "The Ice Dragon" in 1990 and its set in Westeros or a proto-Westeros (the world has its same notion of seasons and its same rough geography). Either way, I think saying the author erred, while potentially correct, is an invalid basis for dismissing any theory, at least from any point of credibility unless the error is plainly obvious (like characters eyes changing colors between books or the size of Jeyne's hips fluctating).
 
Springbok

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chaos_sl said:
Thank GOD I thought it was just me. At least once a day I have this paralyzing fear that I'm found out, I have been exposed, they all know I am full of shit. But it never really happens.
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Ha, ain't it the truth.

Hope he finishes, but I feel sort of at ease with it knowing the show is going on full speed ahead. I just want a satisfying conclusion, doesn't have to be epic or the greatest ending ever told. Just something that gives a semblance of finality.
 
pysek

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chaos_sl said:
Thank GOD I thought it was just me. At least once a day I have this paralyzing fear that I'm found out, I have been exposed, they all know I am full of shit. But it never really happens.
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Because letting the air out of your lies exposes all of our lies as well and the entire house of cards our existence is built on vanishes and we're all naked in the dark, and no one wants that. I believe in you, Chaos.
 
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