The Candle that doesn't flicker...

[Ursa major]

The maesters may well have poisoned the dragons. (Or perhaps they didn't.) If they did, their reason may well have been that they believed that this would prevent the continuance of magic. Neither proves that they were right, though. One might argue - I can't really be bothered to (and its a weak argument anyway) - that the maesters were able to poison all of the dragons because the magic that may have protected them was growing weaker.

As to the wildfire, it is true that its increased in power was noticed after the hatching of the dragons, but that doesn't prove causality. Was it used just before the dragons were hatched? Was its efffectiveness less than we saw later? We simply do not know.

(By the way, I've only read one of the novellas, The Hedge Knight, so I have no idea whether any other information is out there on this matter.)

 

[the smiling weirwood]

I don't recall any mention of magical protection of dragons. Certainly they are creatures of magic, and very powerful, but they can and could be killed by mortal means.

Well, what the pyromancers said is that it has become easier to create wildfire, which is how they are able to fulfill the huge order that Tyrion placed. Apparently in the recent past wildfire was quite difficult to correctly manufacture, presumably because of the decline of magic. Presumably then, wildfire is partially magical in nature.

 

[Ursa major]

If one of the Wisdoms had identified a particular day on which wildfire became more effective/volatile/whatever and we also knew that was the day of the hatching (or the day after), then there might be a case for saying the latter caused the former (although even then, both may have been the result of a third event or process).

We have no such identification of dates. All we know is that wildfire is "now" more effective/volatile/whatever and that the dragons were hatched. There is no proof whatsoever that one caused the other, although we can't rule it out either. It is, for the moment, entirely a matter of conjecture (and may remain so, though I hope not).

 

[the smiling weirwood]

Wow, you're really hung up on this.

 

[Ursa major]

Better than stringing it out, though.


And sorry for not being apathetic.

As I've said before, I'm primarily a reader of SF, where cause and effect are more important than in some (inferior?) fantasy. So I really would like to know, rather than just assume, what's causing the growth of magic.

 

[the smiling weirwood]

Why is it important? It's happening, the end.

Maybe its a metaphor for global warming, or for the increasing proliferation of nuclear weapons, or maybe magic got tired of its vacation retreat and decided to come back to work early.

 

[Ursa major]

Given that - and I'd better whisper this - A Song of Ice and Fire is fiction eek, none of it is important. It's all been made up. It isn't real. None of it is happening.

However, a lot of things are "happening" in GRRM's fictional world. And given that some folk are interested in the story, its plot, its setting and the "history" it's based upon, we get to discuss it and them.

I don't see why this topic in particular is to be shunned. You might as well not talk about Jon's parentage, because we'll find out in the end (or not). Or about who the three heads of the dragon are, bacause, well, GRRM will tell us.


Or do you think we should simply start chanting the phrase, "Promise me end" rolleyes and hope GRRM gets the message?

 

[Winters_Sorrow]

I don't know (and probably only GRRM does) which came first, the return of magic or the dragons but, anecdotally there is a lot more magic in the books after the dragon's are 'born' - A Game of Thrones was conspicious by it's absence of magic and the first chapter of A Clash of Kings is Melissandre magically protecting herself from a virulent poison? More than coincidence I think.

After all the only 'evidence' for magic before the dragon's births were the Others and, as they weren't around (as far as we could see) when the Targs arrived in the Conquest, that doesn't help proof that magic was on the increase before their return.

Having said that, there is little evidence of anything magical in the Dunk & Egg stories so far and their dragons are all dead so that points to a dragon = magic connection.

 

[Ursa major]

I'm not sure Melissandra is a good example. On the one hand, her magic is meant to come from far afield (which some folk think makes it different to what we see in Westeros**). On the other, Melissandra seems to be quite the expert, what with her shadow creatures; it's hard to think she gained this expertise in the short time since the hatching.

Closer to home, we do see a form of magic in AGoT: warging. (In fact, this is the most "common" form of magic shown so far in the series.) Did warging start with the hatching? (Yes, it's shown as Bran dreaming when in the coma, but it's a dream that comes true, so perhaps it isn't a dream***.)

Anyone want to argue that Bran's "awakening" initiated the increase in magic?





** - I'm not sure I buy totally into this, by the way.

*** - It's been a while since I last read AGOT, so there may well be more "solid" examples of Bran's warging before the hatching.

 

[chairface]

Okay Ursa, I'm beginning to come around. Another point - Beric's first resurrection at the hands of Thoros happened before the dragons hatched, though we learn about it much later. And Thoros wasn't even trying.

 

[the smiling weirwood]

My point was this, Ursa: It's magic, so by its definition it can't be analyzed or fully explained, if it could, it would be something else, but not magic.

I take all my ideas about magic(in Westeros) from essentially that interview with Varys and some comments that I can't remember who said them. They talk about how magic is a sword with no hilt, that wielding it is dangerous to the user as well. Another comment made about magic is that it comes at a cost.

That's why I think the foreign magic works, even without dragons, is because they do not hesitate to pay a terrible cost in blood and other things, for it. This is true also of warging, I think. I feel that the price Bran paid was his legs.

It seems as if dragon-enhanced magic is essentially free magic. The pyromancers aren't doing anything differently to achieve greater effects, they just received some sort of increase in efficacy from thin air.

 

[Culhwch]

Having said that, there is little evidence of anything magical in the Dunk & Egg stories so far and their dragons are all dead so that points to a dragon = magic connection.

But the dragons might be dead because the magic left the world. Hence magic = dragons.

 

[Ursa major]

My point was this, Ursa: It's magic, so by its definition it can't be analyzed or fully explained, if it could, it would be something else, but not magic.

You are quite free to see it that way. I don't; not quite, at least: unless magic is going to be the channel for deus ex machine effects, it has to follow some rules. Even if we don't know what the rules are, I think we need to believe that they exist. Otherwise what we see as an epic tale is no more than a very long fairy tale. Everything about ASoIaF argues against this. GRRM's world is one where there actions have consequences (though, as in real life, not always what we might hope or expect). It is a cruel world where bad things happen to "good" characters, where good deeds (e.g. Ned warning Cersei) do not necessarily go unpunished. In such a world, I find it hard to think that something as important as the growth of magic would not have a reason (whether it's the hatching or - more likely, in my opinion - not).

I take all my ideas about magic (in Westeros) from essentially that interview with Varys and some comments that I can't remember who said them. They talk about how magic is a sword with no hilt, that wielding it is dangerous to the user as well. Another comment made about magic is that it comes at a cost.

That's why I think the foreign magic works, even without dragons, is because they do not hesitate to pay a terrible cost in blood and other things, for it. This is true also of warging, I think. I feel that the price Bran paid was his legs.

I don't think (most of) this divides us: even if it turned out that the magic we see in ASoIaF has some sort of basis in what we'd call science (though I don't think it does), it is still powerful and mostly unknown and therefore dangerous. As to the warging for legs, I'm not convinced. Apart from anything else, where is the procedure to invoke magic at the expense of Bran's legs? (If such a procedure had occurred, we could spend many more-or-less happy hours arguing about who performed it and why....)

It seems as if dragon-enhanced magic is essentially free magic. The pyromancers aren't doing anything differently to achieve greater effects, they just received some sort of increase in efficacy from thin air.

Certainly there appears to be more free magic about. Or perhaps it arises from the contemporaneous suffering of the people of Westeros.

 

[the smiling weirwood]

Apart from anything else, where is the procedure to invoke magic at the expense of Bran's legs? (If such a procedure had occurred, we could spend many more-or-less happy hours arguing about who performed it and why....)

Why should there be a procedure? Magic isn't a bank teller demanding forms in triplicate. I feel there's a certain amount of poetic or mythic logic at work in the parts dealing with magic. Like, there's no reason Dany should have been unburnt, except that she was the mother of dragons.

 

[Winters_Sorrow]

But the dragons might be dead because the magic left the world. Hence magic = dragons.

I got the distinct impression that it was a combination of old age & no more births which led to a natural extinction of (in westeros at least) the Targaryen dragons. Wasn't there a 'flashback' in the first Dunk & Egg story where Egg recalled going to see the last dragon as it lay dying of infirmity in the Dragonpit?

I think there was also an implication that knowledge of how to hatch dragon eggs was lost (or subscribing to SW's Oldtown conspiracy, hidden) over time. I do wonder though whether or not dragons were able to hatch their own eggs? This would help explain whether or not they are just normal (if magical in nature) creatures, native to Valryia and tamed by an ancient Targaryen ancestor or wholly magical and 'summoned' by the destruction of 'dragon eggs' and a suitable sacrifice or something inbetween.

Why should there be a procedure? Magic isn't a bank teller demanding forms in triplicate. I feel there's a certain amount of poetic or mythic logic at work in the parts dealing with magic. Like, there's no reason Dany should have been unburnt, except that she was the mother of dragons.

I don't think that Bran 'sacrificed' his legs to gain the warging ability. The wildling "Sixskins" showed no deformity. The accidental loss of his legs (and subsequent coma) may have allowed him to access a dormant ability. Either that or he landed in some chemicals like some Westerosi Daredevil

 

[southron sword]

Bran is Maester Luwins lab experiment.

 

[chairface]

Either that or he landed in some chemicals like some Westerosi Daredevil

If Arya or anyone else does anything that reminds me of Elektra, I am going to be very cross with you.

 

[the smiling weirwood]

I don't think that Bran 'sacrificed' his legs to gain the warging ability. The wildling "Sixskins" showed no deformity. The accidental loss of his legs (and subsequent coma) may have allowed him to access a dormant ability. Either that or he landed in some chemicals like some Westerosi Daredevil

Yes, but Sixskins was beyond the wall and a wildling and knew about and was open to the magic of warging.

Bran was guided by a spirit beast, first to just survive, and then to warg. I don't think he would have awoken to his powers if he hadn't fallen, so if you look at it as a sacrifice or as the necessary break from normal experience that enabled him to reach a different level of experience is immaterial, the result is the same: loss of legs = awakening of warg powers.

I think GRRM's whole point about magic is that it doesn't have to be an offered sacrifice, or even one asked for, but it stills takes a price. And actually, I just thought of this, the greatest instances of magic so far have been unasked for. Dany didn't set out to hatch dragon eggs, and Bran didn't ask to be a warg, but it just happened to fall out that way. That doesn't mean magic and sacrifice weren't involved, however.

 

[viZion]

Yes, but Sixskins was beyond the wall and a wildling and knew about and was open to the magic of warging.

Bran was guided by a spirit beast, first to just survive, and then to warg. I don't think he would have awoken to his powers if he hadn't fallen, so if you look at it as a sacrifice or as the necessary break from normal experience that enabled him to reach a different level of experience is immaterial, the result is the same: loss of legs = awakening of warg powers.

I think GRRM's whole point about magic is that it doesn't have to be an offered sacrifice, or even one asked for, but it stills takes a price. And actually, I just thought of this, the greatest instances of magic so far have been unasked for. Dany didn't set out to hatch dragon eggs, and Bran didn't ask to be a warg, but it just happened to fall out that way. That doesn't mean magic and sacrifice weren't involved, however.

You can take this a step further. Both Arya and Jon have had wolf dreams and both made some pretty steep sacrifices before gaining that ability. Yes? No?

 

[TK-421]

Yes, I agree that both did make such sacrifices. However, one could argue that Jon has no other meaningful route to follow as a ******* than to join the Night's Watch and Arya has been fighting to survive ever since leaving for King's Landing.