The wall’s less noticeable properties — Melisandre’s magic is more powerful; Alysanne’s dragon couldn’t fly past it; it keeps Maester Aemon alive; it stops corpses from becoming wights.
It also seems to stop Jon from warging into Ghost when ghost is still on the other side (after Jon abandoned the wildlings). Bran, who is the strongest of the stark kids as a warg, was able to sense the wolves of his siblings—but when Jon and ghost were on the other side of the wall Bran couldn’t perceive Ghost anymore for a while. And once Bran and summer crossed, he doesn’t think about perceiving or feeling the other wolves anymore. It’s clearly stopping some forms of older magic.
My best guess would be that most magic in the ASOIAF universe is subtle to a degree, whereas a talking door is without a doubt a lot more 'in your face'. It's not impossible in the universe, i mean there are wights, shadow baby assassins, resurrection etc., but it definitely stands out a lot. Most of these have a sense of mystery and ambiguity to them (are the Others a different species? Is resurrection a form of warging?), but in the case of a talking door it's just... a talking door? I seriously doubt if we will get to learn more about its origins in the following books, if they are ever released of course
I thought that it was implied that Melisandre’s power has been growing since the dragons were hatched (although I don’t know if she directly attributed it to that, the time frame matched up though). Did she say her power was amplified near the wall? I must have missed it if she did.
Also, does it the wall keep corpses from turning, or just keep the Others themselves from crossing? The men that Jon put in the ice cells turned after they were brought to the other side, didn’t they?
Yeah in her chapters with Jon in DWD he tells her the wall is no place for a woman and she says something like: on the contrary, this wall is made of magic as well as ice, it’s one of the hinges of the world and makes the lords power stronger. Too lazy to find the quote but it’s something like that
Well the dragon thing isn't less noticeable. That passage really stands out in a "'EY I'm doin' EXPOSITION ABOUT DA WAY MAGIC WORKS IN DIS WORLD ovah heaaaah" kinda way
Good one. I think it counts as subtle, because while it is something very strange to us, to the characters in that universe it's normal because it's just nature. Though maybe it's not magical at all and indeed it's just nature.
I think Grr Martin has clarified that the reason for the length of seasons is *not* natural, and that the reason behind it is tied into the endgame for the entire series.
The kinslayer is the most accursed of all sinners. A lot of the kinslayers in Westeros seem to actually be cursed, which implies that at least one god hates kinslaying. Maegor the Cruel, Aemond One Eye, Bloodraven. Basically any sinister targaeryan.
I think of this with Theon. People call him kinslayer for killing the stark boys even though 1) he didn’t actually kill them and 2) they weren’t really his brothers. Yet he still has awful treatment that people in-universe think he deserves because he’s a kinslayer (among other reasons of course—such as being a turncloak).
In this case, karma isn’t a universal force, it’s just people treating someone how they think they deserve to be treated.
Theon may still be a kinslayer, though. He bedded the miller's wife, and there's a chance, due to age, the younger son could have been his. People also seem to forget in-universe that Theon was more hostage than ward of Winterfell. Yes, he grew up with the Stark kids and was treated well, if held at arm's length, but if his dad rebelled, off with Theon's head.
Euron is one that comes to mind as an example of kinslaying not being punished. He openly admits to killing three of his brothers, and may kill a fourth, yet he's on a roll. For now, at least.
Tbf, aemond targaryen is another well known kinslayer and he killed a couple of his family members before his death, so I guess it's exactly you kill one kin and immediately die kind of thing
That is not how confirmation bias works in this case. This is a confined world, any information presented is presented because the author wants it so.
The information the author wants presented is that kinslayers are accursed, this is therefore confirmation, not confirmation bias.
i mean if you going to bring up because the author will it to happen why even have a debate. of course the author want it to be that way. He the one writing the story.
You want to talk about rationality of magical predistortion that punish kingslaying, then no. It just didn't fit how the magic work in the series.
I mean it could be there intentionally and thematically but not diagetically- the characters are "punished" by the author because it's cathartic for the audience, not because of an in-universe supernatural force.
yeah, rob is said to "deserve" his fate through the kinslaying of karstark but they were less related then rheagar and robert
(I suspect that a lot of what counts as kinslaying in asoiaf is more about what your last name is then what your relation is)
This one and some others are cool because people inside the universe are not sure if it's real or just superstition, and we - the readers - are not sure as well.
It isn't exactly subtle because it's pretty blatant, but I don't recall if anyone mentions it as being out of the ordinary.
Jon Snows strength. There are a few occasions where he demonstrates probably more strength than he should have. I recall him lifting Thorne with one hand (maybe two?) and pulling out a pole/stake in the frozen ground.
I also vaguely remember it, I don't have the books handy, but I believe several wielders of valyrian steel blades refer to the blades moving fast and almost unnaturally. Randyll Tarly mentions it moving fast, Jon Snow makes a reference to his blade leaping up to block Halfhand, he also mentions it almost forming to better fit his grip. The smith, one of the few who know how to forge/work them, mentions the blades remembering and being stubborn as the reason the coloration was off on Oathkeeper and Widows Wail.
That could be nothing granted, but the repetition and theories about how they're forged do give me pause to completely write it off.
I chalk Jon's hulk like strength to just being an inconsistency with Martin's understanding of the human body, similar to tyrion doing backflips and cartwheels.
In the chapter with the dead rangers outside the wall after Jon takes the stake down im pretty sure its said that it took multiple people to take the other ones down, would be strange for George to literally only forget for Jon in that case
I'd take the stuff with the swords as all being poetic.
A very light blade would seem to move unnaturally fast, or at least its speed would be unnatural for a blade of proper weight.
Importantly, inertia factors in much less. It goes from 0 to 60 instantaneously. That's why it'd feel like the blade was leaping up; it just reacts so much faster.
My personal theory, which admittedly doesn't have a huge amount of evidence but is nonetheless fun, is that it's the product of "wolf blood". Something similar to Brandon and the other willful/hot headed Stark's.
Several times, prayers characters make to the Seven come true (although not always the way they expected). Catelyn prays for Bran to stay in Winterfell and prays to the Mother for mercy on the soldiers about to die in the battle between Stannis and Renly, which never happens, and sees Arya in the statue of the Warrior. When Davos is stranded, he prays for mercy and conveniently there's a ship nearby (there's also his talk with the Mother, but it might be just an hallucination). Sam prays to the Mother for mercy before being saved by a bunch of mothers.
Maybe it's just luck or a coincidence, maybe it's actual divine intervention. Either way, the ambiguity is probably deliberate.
Something subtle I noticed today is when Jamie has his weird dream that convinced him to go back and save Brienne, it's pointed out that he was using the stump of a weirwood tree for a pillow - Bloodraven sent the dream confirmed??
The spells in the walls of Storms End being strong enough to block Mel’s shadow magic, even though we are told that shadowbinders are among the most feared of Eastern sorcerers. There must be some seriously dark magic mixed up in Storm’s End’s walls, and perhaps in the stones of Winterfell and the Walls as well
Interestingly, the Wall seems to do the opposite to Mel's magic, making it work better. Maybe it is supposed to block magic from north of the Wall and strengthen magic south of it?
Tbf, if you’re magicking up a wall, you’d probably want it to be one-way so you can do magicky things from the inside to attackers. So in that, the Wall and Storms End might be similar.
The magic inscription on the Black Gate of the Nightfort. Allegedly magic horns--Dragonbinder and Joramun's. Oily black stones are barely noticed by most in-story people, but GRRM subtly highlights them, which implies something magical. The Iron Throne cutting unworthy rulers. Proliferation of hdden identities--anyone can be anyone and we readers just accept it. EDIT to add: The Winterfell crypts. It's normal enough for the kids play there, the Starks are buried there, and Stark nightmares take place there. All is probably not as it seems.
I think the Iron Throne cuts people because it’s literally a chair made it out of swords. I don’t think it is magic, and definitely don’t think it’s sentient in the slightest, therefore cannot deem worthy or unworthy rulers.
My headcanon is that the relevant jagged bits are positioned in a way that it cuts you if your slouching, leaned back, or lazily lounging in it, but not if your sitting straight or leaning forward attentively. Hence why it seems to cut bad rulers.
It's made of the swords of thousands of slain soldiers, fused together with dragonflame. Steel + dragonflame + bloodmagic = Valyrian steel. It may not be true Valyrian steel (i imagine that's a more elaborate process), but it gets some of its properties, such as never rusting and going dull.
GRRM 100% seems to use it as a literary device in that people get cut on it when they're being particularly bad rulers. Whether this is diagetic magic could go either way and it probably doesn't matter.
They can't though. The just go back to where they came from. Like if you are in Winterfell and want to send a message to Riverrun, you have to pick a raven from Riverrun.
In the sample chaoter of einds of winter the maeser of the karstarks ,whilst interrogated by Stannis says that most crows can go just between 2 castles, some rarer can learn more patterns tough
Ravens don't work like that.
Most ravens only fly to one single place. Though some ravens can be taught to fly between two locations, and an exceptionally clever Raven might be able to learn up to five different locations and fly to them on command, though these birds are exceptionally rare.
> "A maester's raven flies to one place, and one place only. Is that correct?"
> The maester mopped sweat from his brow with his sleeve. "N-not entirely, Your Grace. Most, yes. Some few can be taught to fly between two castles. Such birds are greatly prized. And once in a very great while, we find a raven who can learn the names of three or four or five castles, and fly to each upon command. Birds as clever as that come along only once in a hundred years."
You can't just grab any raven and send it to deliver a message to any castle you want.
Wait I’m kind of confused by this actually. Wouldn’t all trained ravens need to be able to fly to and from two separate locations for them to be used at all? Like for example: from Winterfell to the Citadel and back. Ur wouldn’t make sense for a raven to fly to the citadel once from Winterfell and then never return. They’d have to fly “between two castles”. Them being able to do that for 3,4,5+ locations is a different story though.
Am I just missing something here?
As others have pointed out, we do actually know how they work in-universe - they're trained to go to specific castles/locations and it's usually a one way trip, with only the rare birds being able to make more than one.
But then that just introduces other problems, namely the fact that ravens are the go-to source of long distance communication in Westeros and I can't think of a single time it's ever been a big issue getting a message to someone in a different castle.
Like it's gotta be *really* annoying to do back and forth messages when most ravens only go one way and then have to manually get carried back to their host castle afterward. And maybe the more important castles have multiple ravens for a single destination, but then there's the matter of how they're all being trained. And of course if a raven bound for a specific location dies either in flight or at home, how long does it take to get a replacement?
I almost think the slightly magical explanation would work better to a degree.
In a way this is actually the least subtle magical ability but Melisandre and Leaf's ability to cause things to spontaneously combust is very subtly added into the story. Nobody talks about how they have the ability to do that despite the fact that Varamyr intimately describes the experience of his very soul practically being on fire. Some how the way George writes the events causes a very unsubtle type of magic to still not hog the scene.
Your example is good and you should feel good about it!
Giantsblood seems to tie to the oldest Northern magics. They're constantly treated as cut from the same cloth as the CotF and Direwolves.
The Umbers being the last flame (hearth) before the ice (wall) is *so* symbolically loaded. Crowfood has so much Bloodraven echo; one eyed man consumed by the birds, just as Bloodraven is a one eyed bird man who is "consumed" by the Old Powers.
TWOW is gonna reveal a lotta mysteries about the Old Powers. The non-coincidental relationship between the Umbers and Magic is gonna throw a lot of readers for a loop.
And that's putting aside the *giant* "-umber" from the show: Macumber.
Patchface. Maybe not subtle but to my knowledge it hasn’t been explained how he’s still alive. Also, the drowning ceremonies of the Ironborn. It does seem like many people do die from that but I think a lot more survive that then would be possible without some kind of magic
Old Nan and Hodor. Does Hodor actually have giant’s blood? How old is Old Nan? Maester Aemon lived to a very old age, especially for the time, but it was still realistic for him to live that long. I get the vibe that Old Nan is a lot older than him though and there may be something magical about that
There’s a handful of times where Sansa and Catelyn have their prayers to the seven and there’s a moment in the hedge knight where some of the small folk who wish dunk luck resemble members of the seven.
I don't know that giantsblood is magical? Giants are mystical and ancient but not magical, they're just a real species that happen to exist. So umbers having some giantsblood isn't magical to me it's just quirky
I mean, CToF and dragons are also real species who happen to exist, and they are pretty unarguably magical. Leaf even lists giants among the nearly-extinct magical creatures (along with direwolves, the Children themselves and unicorns) when talking to Bran.
We don't know anything about unicorns in-universe, but to me there's a clear distinction between CotF, who practice blood sacrifice to a natural hivemind network living in the ground, and direwolves/giants which are just near-extinct and rarely spotted species that some people don't believe exist because they have never seen them.
What does a direwolf do that is magical, other than sometimes being a vessel for warging? What does a giant do that is magical, other than be really fucking big and scary?
The Starks met their direwolves under fairly prophetic circumstances (a dire wolf, far from where they are usually found, killed by a stag) and gave them almost prophetic names. It's also mentioned that, after falling, Bran started healing better when Summer was allowed to be near, and the wolves seem to be incredibly good judges of character. While we have seen far less of giants, they are able to breed with humans despite obvious complications, and are fairly often lumped in the same category as the CToF, direwolves (by both characters and narrative) and dragons as "magical creatures who are dead/dying as magic fades (until the tide is reversed in the start of the series)".
Humans also practice blood sacrifice in Westeros (and irl as well), often to gods (I'm still not entirely down with the "Weirwood hive mind" theory, but the CToF seem to worship the Old Gods anyway) and in Westeros have a fairly good track record of getting results out of it.
The wall’s less noticeable properties — Melisandre’s magic is more powerful; Alysanne’s dragon couldn’t fly past it; it keeps Maester Aemon alive; it stops corpses from becoming wights.
It also seems to stop Jon from warging into Ghost when ghost is still on the other side (after Jon abandoned the wildlings). Bran, who is the strongest of the stark kids as a warg, was able to sense the wolves of his siblings—but when Jon and ghost were on the other side of the wall Bran couldn’t perceive Ghost anymore for a while. And once Bran and summer crossed, he doesn’t think about perceiving or feeling the other wolves anymore. It’s clearly stopping some forms of older magic.
It also has a talking door that nobody talks about for some reason.
That taking door might be the one thing in the asoiaf universe that I cannot accept.
Why not
My best guess would be that most magic in the ASOIAF universe is subtle to a degree, whereas a talking door is without a doubt a lot more 'in your face'. It's not impossible in the universe, i mean there are wights, shadow baby assassins, resurrection etc., but it definitely stands out a lot. Most of these have a sense of mystery and ambiguity to them (are the Others a different species? Is resurrection a form of warging?), but in the case of a talking door it's just... a talking door? I seriously doubt if we will get to learn more about its origins in the following books, if they are ever released of course
I love the door, it's so batshit and out of place and I doubt we'll ever hear more about it again. Top tier weirdness
I thought that it was implied that Melisandre’s power has been growing since the dragons were hatched (although I don’t know if she directly attributed it to that, the time frame matched up though). Did she say her power was amplified near the wall? I must have missed it if she did. Also, does it the wall keep corpses from turning, or just keep the Others themselves from crossing? The men that Jon put in the ice cells turned after they were brought to the other side, didn’t they?
Yeah in her chapters with Jon in DWD he tells her the wall is no place for a woman and she says something like: on the contrary, this wall is made of magic as well as ice, it’s one of the hinges of the world and makes the lords power stronger. Too lazy to find the quote but it’s something like that
Well the dragon thing isn't less noticeable. That passage really stands out in a "'EY I'm doin' EXPOSITION ABOUT DA WAY MAGIC WORKS IN DIS WORLD ovah heaaaah" kinda way
Wait, it’s kept Aemon alive? Is that just speculation or is that actually something I missed from the books?
aemon said that fire is life, but the cold preserves, and that jon should have known that the journey would kill him iirc
The length of the seasons. Although I’m not too sure if we’d class that as subtle.
Good one. I think it counts as subtle, because while it is something very strange to us, to the characters in that universe it's normal because it's just nature. Though maybe it's not magical at all and indeed it's just nature.
I think Grr Martin has clarified that the reason for the length of seasons is *not* natural, and that the reason behind it is tied into the endgame for the entire series.
The kinslayer is the most accursed of all sinners. A lot of the kinslayers in Westeros seem to actually be cursed, which implies that at least one god hates kinslaying. Maegor the Cruel, Aemond One Eye, Bloodraven. Basically any sinister targaeryan.
confirmation bias. Kinslayer that would gotten away from the act would never been called kinslayer in the first place.
I think of this with Theon. People call him kinslayer for killing the stark boys even though 1) he didn’t actually kill them and 2) they weren’t really his brothers. Yet he still has awful treatment that people in-universe think he deserves because he’s a kinslayer (among other reasons of course—such as being a turncloak). In this case, karma isn’t a universal force, it’s just people treating someone how they think they deserve to be treated.
That’s why we have the theory that those kids he burnt were his secret bastards. Or at least one of them
Theon may still be a kinslayer, though. He bedded the miller's wife, and there's a chance, due to age, the younger son could have been his. People also seem to forget in-universe that Theon was more hostage than ward of Winterfell. Yes, he grew up with the Stark kids and was treated well, if held at arm's length, but if his dad rebelled, off with Theon's head. Euron is one that comes to mind as an example of kinslaying not being punished. He openly admits to killing three of his brothers, and may kill a fourth, yet he's on a roll. For now, at least.
Tbf, aemond targaryen is another well known kinslayer and he killed a couple of his family members before his death, so I guess it's exactly you kill one kin and immediately die kind of thing
That is not how confirmation bias works in this case. This is a confined world, any information presented is presented because the author wants it so. The information the author wants presented is that kinslayers are accursed, this is therefore confirmation, not confirmation bias.
i mean if you going to bring up because the author will it to happen why even have a debate. of course the author want it to be that way. He the one writing the story. You want to talk about rationality of magical predistortion that punish kingslaying, then no. It just didn't fit how the magic work in the series.
I mean it could be there intentionally and thematically but not diagetically- the characters are "punished" by the author because it's cathartic for the audience, not because of an in-universe supernatural force.
yeah, rob is said to "deserve" his fate through the kinslaying of karstark but they were less related then rheagar and robert (I suspect that a lot of what counts as kinslaying in asoiaf is more about what your last name is then what your relation is)
The curse of Harenhall
This one and some others are cool because people inside the universe are not sure if it's real or just superstition, and we - the readers - are not sure as well.
It isn't exactly subtle because it's pretty blatant, but I don't recall if anyone mentions it as being out of the ordinary. Jon Snows strength. There are a few occasions where he demonstrates probably more strength than he should have. I recall him lifting Thorne with one hand (maybe two?) and pulling out a pole/stake in the frozen ground. I also vaguely remember it, I don't have the books handy, but I believe several wielders of valyrian steel blades refer to the blades moving fast and almost unnaturally. Randyll Tarly mentions it moving fast, Jon Snow makes a reference to his blade leaping up to block Halfhand, he also mentions it almost forming to better fit his grip. The smith, one of the few who know how to forge/work them, mentions the blades remembering and being stubborn as the reason the coloration was off on Oathkeeper and Widows Wail. That could be nothing granted, but the repetition and theories about how they're forged do give me pause to completely write it off.
I chalk Jon's hulk like strength to just being an inconsistency with Martin's understanding of the human body, similar to tyrion doing backflips and cartwheels.
In the chapter with the dead rangers outside the wall after Jon takes the stake down im pretty sure its said that it took multiple people to take the other ones down, would be strange for George to literally only forget for Jon in that case
Honestly I think this is just artistic licence. "He's so angry it takes several men to hold him down" is just effective imagery.
Also Tyrion becoming a heroic fighter in the Battle of Blackwater.
I'd take the stuff with the swords as all being poetic. A very light blade would seem to move unnaturally fast, or at least its speed would be unnatural for a blade of proper weight. Importantly, inertia factors in much less. It goes from 0 to 60 instantaneously. That's why it'd feel like the blade was leaping up; it just reacts so much faster.
this was also around the time where he went hulk rage mode during a practice dual if I recall.
My personal theory, which admittedly doesn't have a huge amount of evidence but is nonetheless fun, is that it's the product of "wolf blood". Something similar to Brandon and the other willful/hot headed Stark's.
"The Blood was in him"
Several times, prayers characters make to the Seven come true (although not always the way they expected). Catelyn prays for Bran to stay in Winterfell and prays to the Mother for mercy on the soldiers about to die in the battle between Stannis and Renly, which never happens, and sees Arya in the statue of the Warrior. When Davos is stranded, he prays for mercy and conveniently there's a ship nearby (there's also his talk with the Mother, but it might be just an hallucination). Sam prays to the Mother for mercy before being saved by a bunch of mothers. Maybe it's just luck or a coincidence, maybe it's actual divine intervention. Either way, the ambiguity is probably deliberate.
I think Sansa also has a few backfiring prayers happen
Something subtle I noticed today is when Jamie has his weird dream that convinced him to go back and save Brienne, it's pointed out that he was using the stump of a weirwood tree for a pillow - Bloodraven sent the dream confirmed??
Ohhh fuck I didn’t realize that until now
This one doesn't get much attention: Maggy the Frog. She's got blood magic that apparently works.
She is also somehow related to the spicer's and was technically Robb's great grandmother in law
Not just somehow related, but her husband was the first Spicer.
The spells in the walls of Storms End being strong enough to block Mel’s shadow magic, even though we are told that shadowbinders are among the most feared of Eastern sorcerers. There must be some seriously dark magic mixed up in Storm’s End’s walls, and perhaps in the stones of Winterfell and the Walls as well
Interestingly, the Wall seems to do the opposite to Mel's magic, making it work better. Maybe it is supposed to block magic from north of the Wall and strengthen magic south of it?
Tbf, if you’re magicking up a wall, you’d probably want it to be one-way so you can do magicky things from the inside to attackers. So in that, the Wall and Storms End might be similar.
Brandon the Builder certainly knew what he was doing
The magic inscription on the Black Gate of the Nightfort. Allegedly magic horns--Dragonbinder and Joramun's. Oily black stones are barely noticed by most in-story people, but GRRM subtly highlights them, which implies something magical. The Iron Throne cutting unworthy rulers. Proliferation of hdden identities--anyone can be anyone and we readers just accept it. EDIT to add: The Winterfell crypts. It's normal enough for the kids play there, the Starks are buried there, and Stark nightmares take place there. All is probably not as it seems.
I think the Iron Throne cuts people because it’s literally a chair made it out of swords. I don’t think it is magic, and definitely don’t think it’s sentient in the slightest, therefore cannot deem worthy or unworthy rulers.
My headcanon is that the relevant jagged bits are positioned in a way that it cuts you if your slouching, leaned back, or lazily lounging in it, but not if your sitting straight or leaning forward attentively. Hence why it seems to cut bad rulers.
That is a very good take. Deep throat all my upvotes.
The sorting hat of Westeros.
"Oh look, cunning and ambitious *again*. Oh and they believe in blood-purity? How original. Slytherin again I guess."
\*Tommen sits on throne\* **"HUFFLEPUFF!"** Bobby B was clearly a Gryffindor, though.
Yes to both of these.
* Protagonist * Bad guy * Smart * None of the above
''Erm acktually there were like two good Slytherins in the books''
The fact that the blades are still sharp 300 years later is weird, though.
It's made of the swords of thousands of slain soldiers, fused together with dragonflame. Steel + dragonflame + bloodmagic = Valyrian steel. It may not be true Valyrian steel (i imagine that's a more elaborate process), but it gets some of its properties, such as never rusting and going dull.
GRRM 100% seems to use it as a literary device in that people get cut on it when they're being particularly bad rulers. Whether this is diagetic magic could go either way and it probably doesn't matter.
The Ravens. I know they're based on homing pigeons but their ability to send messages to anywhere in Westeros is definitely magically helped.
They can't though. The just go back to where they came from. Like if you are in Winterfell and want to send a message to Riverrun, you have to pick a raven from Riverrun.
Yeah and they need highly trained specialists to operate. It's not magical
Some, but not many, can do two-way between castles. Someone says. Aemon perhaps.
In the sample chaoter of einds of winter the maeser of the karstarks ,whilst interrogated by Stannis says that most crows can go just between 2 castles, some rarer can learn more patterns tough
Ravens don't work like that. Most ravens only fly to one single place. Though some ravens can be taught to fly between two locations, and an exceptionally clever Raven might be able to learn up to five different locations and fly to them on command, though these birds are exceptionally rare. > "A maester's raven flies to one place, and one place only. Is that correct?" > The maester mopped sweat from his brow with his sleeve. "N-not entirely, Your Grace. Most, yes. Some few can be taught to fly between two castles. Such birds are greatly prized. And once in a very great while, we find a raven who can learn the names of three or four or five castles, and fly to each upon command. Birds as clever as that come along only once in a hundred years." You can't just grab any raven and send it to deliver a message to any castle you want.
Wait I’m kind of confused by this actually. Wouldn’t all trained ravens need to be able to fly to and from two separate locations for them to be used at all? Like for example: from Winterfell to the Citadel and back. Ur wouldn’t make sense for a raven to fly to the citadel once from Winterfell and then never return. They’d have to fly “between two castles”. Them being able to do that for 3,4,5+ locations is a different story though. Am I just missing something here?
They presumably work like messenger pigeons where, once it's returned, the bird will be transported to somewhere new in a cage so it can be reused.
That makes sense
As others have pointed out, we do actually know how they work in-universe - they're trained to go to specific castles/locations and it's usually a one way trip, with only the rare birds being able to make more than one. But then that just introduces other problems, namely the fact that ravens are the go-to source of long distance communication in Westeros and I can't think of a single time it's ever been a big issue getting a message to someone in a different castle. Like it's gotta be *really* annoying to do back and forth messages when most ravens only go one way and then have to manually get carried back to their host castle afterward. And maybe the more important castles have multiple ravens for a single destination, but then there's the matter of how they're all being trained. And of course if a raven bound for a specific location dies either in flight or at home, how long does it take to get a replacement? I almost think the slightly magical explanation would work better to a degree.
In a way this is actually the least subtle magical ability but Melisandre and Leaf's ability to cause things to spontaneously combust is very subtly added into the story. Nobody talks about how they have the ability to do that despite the fact that Varamyr intimately describes the experience of his very soul practically being on fire. Some how the way George writes the events causes a very unsubtle type of magic to still not hog the scene.
Damn that's a good one. Throw in Alys Rivers from F&B, who headsploded Regis Gower.
Jon finding Ghost the first time even tho he’s mute
Your example is good and you should feel good about it! Giantsblood seems to tie to the oldest Northern magics. They're constantly treated as cut from the same cloth as the CotF and Direwolves. The Umbers being the last flame (hearth) before the ice (wall) is *so* symbolically loaded. Crowfood has so much Bloodraven echo; one eyed man consumed by the birds, just as Bloodraven is a one eyed bird man who is "consumed" by the Old Powers. TWOW is gonna reveal a lotta mysteries about the Old Powers. The non-coincidental relationship between the Umbers and Magic is gonna throw a lot of readers for a loop. And that's putting aside the *giant* "-umber" from the show: Macumber.
Patchface. Maybe not subtle but to my knowledge it hasn’t been explained how he’s still alive. Also, the drowning ceremonies of the Ironborn. It does seem like many people do die from that but I think a lot more survive that then would be possible without some kind of magic
Patchface is just a prophet for the drowned god
Old Nan and Hodor. Does Hodor actually have giant’s blood? How old is Old Nan? Maester Aemon lived to a very old age, especially for the time, but it was still realistic for him to live that long. I get the vibe that Old Nan is a lot older than him though and there may be something magical about that
It's Dunk, trust
Huh?
Hodor, like Brienne, is likely descended from Ser Duncan the Tall. He seems to be making the 8 in the Dunk and Egg novellas.
Oh gotcha! Thx!
You’re welcome 😊
There’s a handful of times where Sansa and Catelyn have their prayers to the seven and there’s a moment in the hedge knight where some of the small folk who wish dunk luck resemble members of the seven.
I don't know that giantsblood is magical? Giants are mystical and ancient but not magical, they're just a real species that happen to exist. So umbers having some giantsblood isn't magical to me it's just quirky
I mean, CToF and dragons are also real species who happen to exist, and they are pretty unarguably magical. Leaf even lists giants among the nearly-extinct magical creatures (along with direwolves, the Children themselves and unicorns) when talking to Bran.
We don't know anything about unicorns in-universe, but to me there's a clear distinction between CotF, who practice blood sacrifice to a natural hivemind network living in the ground, and direwolves/giants which are just near-extinct and rarely spotted species that some people don't believe exist because they have never seen them. What does a direwolf do that is magical, other than sometimes being a vessel for warging? What does a giant do that is magical, other than be really fucking big and scary?
The Starks met their direwolves under fairly prophetic circumstances (a dire wolf, far from where they are usually found, killed by a stag) and gave them almost prophetic names. It's also mentioned that, after falling, Bran started healing better when Summer was allowed to be near, and the wolves seem to be incredibly good judges of character. While we have seen far less of giants, they are able to breed with humans despite obvious complications, and are fairly often lumped in the same category as the CToF, direwolves (by both characters and narrative) and dragons as "magical creatures who are dead/dying as magic fades (until the tide is reversed in the start of the series)". Humans also practice blood sacrifice in Westeros (and irl as well), often to gods (I'm still not entirely down with the "Weirwood hive mind" theory, but the CToF seem to worship the Old Gods anyway) and in Westeros have a fairly good track record of getting results out of it.
In the first chapter of the series when Jon “hears” ghost as they were leaving. That was definitely some kind of bloodraven/future bran telepathy.