HBO Game of Thrones, Season 2

[Winner]

The existence of Gods is deliberately left ambiguous in the books and I really like it that way. Take the "divine intervention" that saves Davos for example. But I don't think there are actual atheists in Westeros, save Tyrion maybe.

That's why I said that the concept would probably be alien to a mediaeval mind. Before the advent of modern

So the timeline on Magic is something like
Long Night / Early Ages : White Walkers roam Westeros (Something with the Shadow in Asshai?), Afterwards (!) the Wall is built

And the Wall acts as a huge magic shield - things touched by the magic of the Others clearly can't pass through it, not even under it.

Doom of Valyria: wipes out a lot of Dragons, the only dragons left are with the Targaryens, but die out 200 (or so) years after they conquer Westeros. After those dragons vanish, the last of the magic vanishes.

Better word would be "dormant".

Present Time: White Walkers "awake" (or just weren't active before?), afterwards the Dragons are born and after that, magic grows stronger (also far away from Dany in Kings Landing = the Wildfire).

Still the question remains - what if Dany was only able to hatch the dragon eggs because magic has already began getting stronger again? Correlation isn't causation, you know

The Drowned God (Patchface, Aerons First Aid) could also have some sort of power (brr... Krakens). It does however seem as if any kind of magic has some relation to undeadness/ressurection.

I was under impression that what the Drowned God priests do is just a simple cardiopulmonary resuscitation. No magic is involved there.

But I agree there clearly are different types of magic.

What sort of Magic do we qualify the Dragonglass Candles Maester Marwyn uses as? (Also does the Citadel use Magic of its own or is it "Magic Hunting Magic" or just "science", or what?).

And don't forget about "Maester" Qyburn and his "experiments" in the dungeons.

My Point is that it seems premature to make clear statements on what Magic is or how it works in Westeros as there seem to be so many conflicting and different variations of it. And the unreliable narrator GRRM uses makes it kinda hart do distinctively qualify something as being of that type of magic, not?

Yep. Magic exists in ASOIAF, but its source is unknown. So far it seems to me that Gods don't really play any role and probably don't exist at all. On the other hand, there are some "higher powers" at play - the name of the series implies a struggle between two principles, I'd say they represent the coldness and death of the Others and fire and blood of the dragons. We'll see, if GRRM even manages to finish the bloody books

 

[holy king]

yeah, even the old gods turned out to be nothing but an endangered species of hominids.

 

[Winner]

yeah, even the old gods turned out to be nothing but an endangered species of hominids.

Old Gods? Children o.t.F. are not the Old Gods. They just taught this "faith" to the First Men if I remember correctly.

It's not really a proper religion anyway - it's a sort of pantheism mixed with paganesque ancestor worship that lacks many clear-cut rituals. It probably wouldn't work in reality.

 

[mitsho]

And the Wall acts as a huge magic shield - things touched by the magic of the Others clearly can't pass through it, not even under it.

What about the Wights brought over by the Night's Watch who killed that Jafer Flowers guy and attacked Jeor Mormont?

But I am eager to see what happens when the Seas freeze over (That's how I see Dany's "when the seas go dry" prophecy come true, if it is a prophecy at all which I doubt ).

Will the White Walkers be able to walk around the wall? Can they swim? That's why...

I was under impression that what the Drowned God priests do is just a simple cardiopulmonary resuscitation. No magic is involved there.

I'm not so sure about that. Why? Rule of Cool! How badass are (un)dead Kraken? Also there's that huge skeleton at the Kingsmoot place and apparently there are some "horns" around to summon the seas? But yes, what the Drowned God priests do could very well be CPR.

Better word would be "dormant".

Still the question remains - what if Dany was only able to hatch the dragon eggs because magic has already began getting stronger again? Correlation isn't causation, you know

But I agree there clearly are different types of magic.

And don't forget about "Maester" Qyburn and his "experiments" in the dungeons.

Agree.

Yep. Magic exists in ASOIAF, but its source is unknown. So far it seems to me that Gods don't really play any role and probably don't exist at all. On the other hand, there are some "higher powers" at play - the name of the series implies a struggle between two principles, I'd say they represent the coldness and death of the Others and fire and blood of the dragons. We'll see, if GRRM even manages to finish the bloody books

Could be. It could also be a giant Red Herring by GRRM What an epic troll that would be if everybody's expecting a giant battle between others and dragons and what we get is a simple lovestory between Jon (Ice) and Dany (Fire).

Regarding the Old Gods and the Children of the Forest. They are interlinked as we see in Bran's Chapter so even if they are not technically the same, for the arguments sake it's good enough

 

[holy king]

Old Gods? Children o.t.F. are not the Old Gods. They just taught this "faith" to the First Men if I remember correctly.

It's not really a proper religion anyway - it's a sort of pantheism mixed with paganesque ancestor worship that lacks many clear-cut rituals. It probably wouldn't work in reality.

i think it's pretty clear from bran's chapters that they ARE the old gods. who else hears people praying to weirwood trees?

 

[Winner]

What about the Wights brought over by the Night's Watch who killed that Jafer Flowers guy and attacked Jeor Mormont?

They were frozen solid and brought to the other side by the Night's Watch. The undead guy we see later in the story cannot pass underneath the wall.

But I am eager to see what happens when the Seas freeze over (That's how I see Dany's "when the seas go dry" prophecy come true, if it is a prophecy at all which I doubt ).

Yeah, I also think it was just a poetic way to say "go screw yourself"

Will the White Walkers be able to walk around the wall? Can they swim? That's why...

Nothing much is known about them, except that they prefer to use their undead minions to the fighting for them.

I'm not so sure about that. Why? Rule of Cool! How badass are (un)dead Kraken? Also there's that huge skeleton at the Kingsmoot place and apparently there are some "horns" around to summon the seas? But yes, what the Drowned God priests do could very well be CPR.

It most surely is. I never got any hint there that there was any magic in it. Maybe there is some Iron Islands magic, but we haven't seen it yet.

Could be. It could also be a giant Red Herring by GRRM What an epic troll that would be if everybody's expecting a giant battle between others and dragons and what we get is a simple lovestory between Jon (Ice) and Dany (Fire).

Or an even bigger troll if

Spoiler :

Jon really died at the end of the last book

Regarding the Old Gods and the Children of the Forest. They are interlinked as we see in Bran's Chapter so even if they are not technically the same, for the arguments sake it's good enough

i think it's pretty clear from bran's chapters that they ARE the old gods. who else hears people praying to weirwood trees?

Well, I admit I don't remember the exact details. I'll have to read the book again, but they believed that as they die, they become one with nature, a kind of spirits, right? These spirits are what the First Men call the "Old Gods". So, naturalistic pantheism - hippies and their spiritual followers would approve

 

[PeteAtoms]

Well, I admit I don't remember the exact details. I'll have to read the book again, but they believed that as they die, they become one with nature, a kind of spirits, right? These spirits are what the First Men call the "Old Gods". So, naturalistic pantheism - hippies and their spiritual followers would approve

Interesting. So the faces carved into the trees are meant to be their ancestors? And why would the First Men worship the ancestors of a completely different group of creatures, unless maybe the First Men also believed their own ancestors became spirits as well?

I also think the Drowned God priests are just doing some sort of medical procedure/CPR. I remember they made a big deal about Theon's uncle having a really good success rate for resuscitating initiates. It sounds a lot like a medical skill than drowned god voodoo.

 

[Winner]

Interesting. So the faces carved into the trees are meant to be their ancestors? And why would the First Men worship the ancestors of a completely different group of creatures, unless maybe the First Men also believed their own ancestors became spirits as well?

I am not sure. I always assumed it had something to do with "greenseers" of the Children o.t.F., who carved the faces so that they could see through them. Basically it was their CCTV network The First Men and the Andals after them knew it and that's why they cut the weirwoods down to weaken the Chilren o.t.F.'s magic.

I think that they believe everything eventually becomes part of the nature-god. Makes sense, you can't really have a religion without at least some belief in afterlife, right?

I also think the Drowned God priests are just doing some sort of medical procedure/CPR. I remember they made a big deal about Theon's uncle having a really good success rate for resuscitating initiates. It sounds a lot like a medical skill than drowned god voodoo.

Exactly. It's a neat little trick they use to keep the savages from hacking them apart with axes (or something similarly drastic, you can see I am not a fan of the Iroborn).

 

[Set]

Exactly. It's a neat little trick they use to keep the savages from hacking them apart with axes (or something similarly drastic, you can see I am not a fan of the Iroborn).

Spoiler :

I agree with you here but what about the red priest resurrection techniques? They can seemingly revive people who have been dead for days (Catelyn/Stone Face)

 

[North King]

Magic =/= religion, and I think it's entirely debatable as to whether the red priests' abilities stem from their god or from some sort of magic force which they're harnessing.

 

[Yeekim]

Magic =/= religion, and I think it's entirely debatable as to whether the red priests' abilities stem from their god or from some sort of magic force which they're harnessing.

For me, at least the Curious Case of Thoros

Spoiler :

suddenly being able to revive the dead

seems to suggest the first option.

Spoiler :

Of course, we never got into his head directly, but I see no reason to doubt his claim that he didn´t learn to harness anything, but rather discovered his "prayers" are suddenly getting answered.

 

[Leoreth]

Corollary to Clarke's Third Law: any sufficiently powerful magic is indistinguishable from divine intervention.

 

[Winner]

Spoiler :

I agree with you here but what about the red priest resurrection techniques? They can seemingly revive people who have been dead for days (Catelyn/Stone Face)

Yeah, that's a bit harder to explain

Spoiler :

I am still not convinced that the R'hllor figure is real in ASOIAF universe. I think the Red Priests and other charlatans are simply doing magic, whether they realize what its source is or not. They may believe it comes from a god, but really - imagine a medieval society accidentally discovered some unknown natural phenomenon that allowed people to, say, do telekinesis. What would they think? Would they guess correctly that they just stumbled upon a perfectly natural phenomenon, or would they believe God gave them this powers? Remember, these people believed diseases were God's punishment for imaginary sins.

So, I think that the whole Lord of Light religion is basically a load of crap, a primitives' explanation of why some of their magic works. We'll see - but I hope GRRM avoids all the "It's all Gods' work and Gods are unknownable" cliché in ASOIAF.

 

[innonimatu]

That's why I said that the concept would probably be alien to a mediaeval mind. Before the advent of modern

Frederick II Hohenstaufen?

And the Wall acts as a huge magic shield - things touched by the magic of the Others clearly can't pass through it, not even under it.

And that's not the worst of it... too many dead people running around by the end of the latest book.

Yep. Magic exists in ASOIAF, but its source is unknown. [...] We'll see, if GRRM even manages to finish the bloody books

I really, really think he lost the plot.

 

[North King]

Spoiler :

I realize that the vast majority of Drowned God priests are using CPR, but Aeron most definitely brings people back in much the same way as the Red God's priests -- or at least it's extremely heavily implied in the books. The most we can get out of it is that there's the ability to bring people back to life by breathing into their lungs and harnessing some kind of magic. To say that magic is divine just because the practitioners believe it is... well, I'm not buying it.

 

[Winner]

Spoiler :

I realize that the vast majority of Drowned God priests are using CPR, but Aeron most definitely brings people back in much the same way as the Red God's priests -- or at least it's extremely heavily implied in the books. The most we can get out of it is that there's the ability to bring people back to life by breathing into their lungs and harnessing some kind of magic. To say that magic is divine just because the practitioners believe it is... well, I'm not buying it.

Where is it implied? I never caught that.

 

[Winner]

I really, really think he lost the plot.

I want to believe that he didn't. He just got stuck in the middle, prolonging it more than necessary. (Maybe the planned 5 year gap was a good idea after all.) But I think he actually knows pretty well how it will all end, it's just a matter of getting there before he kicks the bucket

 

[Leoreth]

I hope Martin at least takes notes. Then we could hire Sanderson.

 

[Winner]

I hope Martin at least takes notes. Then we could hire Sanderson.

I bet he doesn't. But I suspect he told the producers of the HBO show some of the crucial twists and solutions to certain mysteries.

 

[holy king]

i read somewhere he has the outline of story in written form. i think.