There have definitely been more Long Nights. Keep in mind the long history of the Great Empire of the DAWN, which in my opinion rose after a similar Long Night event. That would also explain some of the most ancient ruins in this world that nobody really knows anything about: remnants of cultures from before that Long Night, i.e. from before the GEotD.
I feel like the magic that created the whites is just necromancy and quiburn discovered his own version of necromancy with the mountain, who was basically a new strain of zombie. I could see this being an issue for many cultures throughout time with the undead that being the "long night" maybe even varying by culture and what was done to raise them. The white walkers were turned with dragon glass shoved into their great and it came with their power over cold and storms. Gregor may not have fully died, but was turned subservient like a ghoul. I wonder how many different kinds of undead there are.
This reminds me of the endless ruins the Dothraki owned in Vaes Dothrak, plus the ruin city of Vaes Tolorro that Dany and her people find while lost in the Red Waste. So many forgotten God's that were once prayed to and revered, so many cultures lost that once thought they would remain forever... Planetos has a much bigger history, its own Dark Ages if you will, sad to know we'll never learn what happened, but it's another way George created built an amazing world that truly feels lived in
The Night's Watch oath mentions "watchers on the walls," walls being plural. There is only one Wall. Unless the Watch adopted it from an earlier oath meant for generic sentries, this implies there has been more than one wall. What if the Long Night was the magical fallout of a previous Wall's destruction? I think David Lightbringer made something of the plural walls once.
Cause there are other walls, in other lands with their own watchers. Maybe in the past, there were some kind of communication between them which had been lost
There’s also the possibility that the long night(s) start as a global problem but get solved on a local level. Maybe Asshai is so dark because they never ended their long night? Or maybe it started there? The possibility of Asshai being the capital of the Empire of the Dawn and where the blood betrayal would happen support the idea that Asshai is the epicenter of some great magical disaster. The seasons being out of whack is another monkey wrench to deal with. Early blurbs for the books talk about a magical event that brought them out of order, which points to some big magical original sin that affected the whole world.
Asshai is also the epicenter of blood magic. The great empire of the dawn developed blood magic rituals and likely dragons as well. Everything the Valyrians had was stolen from the Empire of the Dawn. The oily black stone is interesting though. It makes me believe in a god like entity that exists that worked with the empire of the dawn. The 5 forts are made entirely of that mysterious oily black stone (classic HP Lovecraft, shout out to the Elder Things they true homies). That black stone substance comes from old ones or essentially gods. I believe the world of Planetos is a lot like Bloodborne and HP Lovecraft. There are legitimately beings of greater power that exist and seek dominion over the mortals.
@@misanthropicservitorofmars2116 One thing, the Five Forts were made by the Dawn Empire through their use of fire magic and dragon. The archmaesters specifically describe it as resembling the works of Old Valyria, "but it couldn't be them", but George has left enough hints to tell us that the Valyrian's are descendants of the Dawn Empire and Asshai was almost certainly the Capital city (Bigger than the 3 biggest Westerosi cities combined) - They weren't always oily, and Asshai wasn't always cursed. I think it's a much better theory that Asshai and all the lands around it became cursed ~during~the first Long Night, probably because being completely unprepared for this new enemy, they actually fell to it and what we see is the result of the Other's winning Although, the world of Planetos is nothing like Lovecraft (cosmic horror), it might contain elements of Lovecraftian literature specifically (Deep Ones, Fish people), but ASOIAF isn't a Cosmic Horror, and whatever motivations the Others end up having in the books, it will be a carefully thought out and logical reason, GRRM doesn't write evil characters who are evil just because, which is more or less the essence of Lovecraft's novellas. Honestly, it's more like Elden Ring's world, ironically largely crafted by GRRM - The Gods are real, but they are silent mostly, they're in the background playing out a larger game that spans several human lifetimes, some have maybe abandoned their people who simply do not realize it, others may know but still wait for them to come back. The thing about cosmic horror, is it's a portrayal of human insignificance in the face of a truly existential threat, but ASOIAF for the most part, is about human triumph, as much as it's about human degradation.
@@AFlyingCoconut none of lovecrafts work is about inherent evil….every single one is about indifference or disdain. Not evil. The old gods aren’t evil, they’re incomprehensible. Their motives aren’t clear, and the ancient alien races aren’t evil either. They’re sentient species and full civilizations.
@@AFlyingCoconut GRRM has a character who eats faces and others who flay people. Youre saying those aren’t evil characters, but a creature that doesn’t even care about humans is inherently evil? Thats such a silly comment. Makes me believe you know nothing about either authors or their work.
I think it's more likely it was a global phenomenon that different peoples across the world interpreted through their lens at the time and then mythologised according to their culture. For example in ancient Yi Ti, there was likely total collapse of the empire as a result of the Long Night, and may have been infighting and treachery in whichever dynasty ruled. The locals could then look at the Long Night as divine wrath from these betrayals and sins. Also, even in our world myths and religions have and changed as they've moved across continents and time, to the point that they are barely recognisable except for certain key features like the Long Night (look at how many cultures have flood myths). I think the more likely alternative to a global phenomenon interpreted by different peoples is an ancient disaster that destroyed a civilisation whose people then migrated and spread the myth across the world.
@@hircenedaelenthis take is very disputed. There are tons of more common reoccurring seasonal disasters, none of which have any analogue to the global flood myths. Additionally, the international flood myths point to the same range of centuries. You presumably have no problem with the ice age (the more likely inspiration for the long night) being an actual historical event, and global flooding would follow the meltdown of said ice. Maybe you shouldn’t presume our ancient ancestors are stupid.
My head-cannon is that the others fatal weakness was going to be greyscale. A disease forged in the same place as the steel that kills the others, which is described to crack skin like it's thin ice...
Martin has said that Lady Stoneheart and Berric are fire weights, whereas the WW are ice weights. His story is all about how history is cyclical and everything repeats itself. My best guess is that the children are far from the only ones to reanimate the dead; in every war, there’s death, and things only get worse if magic is involved, so there will always be a long night waiting to happen.
I think the long night itself is basically a reoccurring natural phenomenon. Everything else that happens, White Walkers and such, is a localized phenomenon.
All the history he wrote i think is just basically to show how everything just repeats itself with every generation. Same wars, same stories, same heroes and villains and historical figures. Basically all of it just to tell us how life is a circle that needs to be broken.
Regarding Asshai I think moon debris is locked in orbit over it. It gets brighter at noon which makes me think there's a physical impediment to light getting through. Not that magic might not be involved, but George likes to keep you guessing where the magical and the mundane meet.
Thats an interesting idea. Would explain why its called "Asshai by the shadow" and everything in that area seems to be described with shadow symbolism.
It seems much more GRRMish to have the Long Night be a natural phenomena that cultures have different responses to that, in fact, had no effect. However, all these different legends have given rise to whole cultural/political structures that have had a profound effect on the structure of their respective societies.
I think it can have a supernatural cause and the rest of that still be true. Multiple people in the story are likely to fulfil the Azor Ahai prophecy this time around, so perhaps there were multiple people worldwide who played a small part last time? Or maybe they didn't do anything but just happened to be leading the local fight against the Others when the night came to an end by some other means.
It’s more GRRMish for it to be an advanced AI system and the whole world is actually after a post apocalyptic event involving machines. He’s a sci fi writer mostly. That was his main hobby writing.
I agree GRRM will have magic leave the world at the end of ice and fire when spring comes back as it happens in the Lord of the rings with the departure of the eleves in the end. On the other side I think the long night is at first a phenomenon of the East of his world brought on by the corruption of fire magic through blood magic and creating thus Shadow-magic and shadowbinding. But it is brought on in a scientific way by transforming the lifegiving fire magic through human sacrifice into a weapon that creates darkness > the long night as a kind of price but somehow man made by using it without knowlede of the consequences. In westeros on the other hand what we see is a long Winter, so not only a long Darkness but also Ice. I think this is scientifically explained by the fact that the through blood sacrifice corrupted and weaponized "magic" is not fire magic but water/earth magic from the children of the forest. Water as livegiving element is frozen to stop the natural cycle of life and death with the seasons and creates immortal beeings like the Whitewalkers (ICE-ghosts/soldiers like dragons are created as FIRE-weapons/soldiers in the east). So i think in both cases the "punishment" is brought on for the same reason: corruption of the natural magic of water and fire through human sacrifice, but it has a slightly different form Darkness in the East with Asshai at its center and Ice in Westeros with the North beyond the wall.
Love this theory! Makes me think about the World flood Mythos. In almost every religion there is some kind of flood-cleansing of the world that has the same "base ingredients" but small "flavor" variations due to culture, place and time.
Great theory. I think indeed that the long night is comparable to the flood myth in more senses then one too. Its a backlash for corruption/abuse of the natural "magic" system. The flood in christian tradition (thats George's tradition) was send to wipe out all the sinners and only spared a few chosen. I think the sin against the natural order commitet the first time was to turn the fire "magic" to provide heating, coocking and backing and forging of tools, through blood sacrifice to create dragons, bring down the second moon and to forge unbreakable valyrian steel weapons with fire AND blood (sacrifice). What happens when you burn humans on a pyre is that you transform the bright burning fire into black billowing smoke. Also when fragments of a moon crush to the ground they throw up dust and debrie to cloud the atmosphere for years. A long night brought on by fire "magic" corrupted through blood sacrifice to turn it into a weapon produces shadow/darkness.
Warrior trees...sounds like Soldier Pines and Sentinels. The wisest and the heroes of BOTH sides...THAT line always gets me. It tells me that not all agreed-and there were heroes and leaders on both sides. The Andals DID start coming before the Invadion. THAT is what screwed stuff up, mixing blood with Andals. I do not think that The Others can kill people who are First Men. How do I say it-I can think of only one clear example. Gerrod from the 1st prologue. The Others let HIM live after they kill Waymar and Will. At first, I thought they just let him live-but then I realized that they didn't let him live-they could't kill him. There have been multiple Long Nights. This is WHY there are 'knights' and iron BEFORE there should be. The Reeds Oath, swearing by bronze and iron, the Stark crown, it's weird. Lann the Clever was likely an Andal that snuck past defenses and started mixing blood between the two, screwing shite up. And what Harren Hoare {frost?} does when he builds Harrenhall is most DEF a violation of the Pact. Aegon invading when he did stopped something there, delayed it, I think.
Remember that Azor Ahai (and Westeros's "last hero") had twelve companions aiding them. Likely each culture's leader/hero contributed to the effort as a group but are only remembered individually in their respective histories.
I dont recall Azor Ahai ever being talked about with 12 companions. That was Last Hero myth only. Night's Watch had the 13th Lord Commander in honor of the 12 slain companion and there were 13 main White Walkers in the show but Ive never heard of Azor Ahai linked with 12 or 13.
its also entirely possible the story of the nights king is shifted in time and actually took place before the long night, when the wall may have been just that, a literal wall bordering two kingdoms, and was pushed after the long night to match the consensus that the wall was built to keep the others out, as opposed to maybe being built by the others themselves
I believe the existence of multiple similiar-but-not-quite-the-same myths and stories in regards to the long night is inspired by reallife cultural drift and the way myths wander and evolve - specifically if you look at reconstructed proto-indo-european mythology. Peoples in our real-life world, through migrationevents and trade and cultural exchange and what not, have beliefs and storys and myths that, allthough seemingly seperate, can be traced back to a common origin - even though the peoples in question now live on seperate continents even. What I'm trying to say, is that it is certainly not unrealistic for all those different long night stories to trace back to some sort of common story/event.
Something about "The Song that was sung to bring back the Day" echoes in my mind. Is it the same thing as The Song of Ice and Fire? In Martin's writing a song isn't just music, it's a story, an idea do powerful it can unify people. In Song for Lya, the mental Song of Harmony of the joined and the Greeshka is able to make her join it, because it's so beautiful. Lamiya Baylis is able to make a song so terrifying and sad that it makes people end their lives and go mad. For some reason I am thinking of a song that will make everyone understand that there is need for peace, not to fight to the death and win. That's just me though. Maybe the humans will destroy their enemies the Others, but in the song they discover the fact that the Others' destruction was entirely unnecessary and the sorrow their death causes makes people lose hope? THat's what the song The Last of the Giants is about. Humans fear the giants and harrass them to death. But if the giants all die then their song is gone from the world forever. "The silence will last long and long". Once a part of the music is gone, the silence of that part is gone forever. In Lamiya Baylis' city the music lost its notes as the city lost the towers that were playing it, once a creature is gone, the harmony it would have brought to the music is also gone.
That was Max Von Sydow. He was the Bloodraven of the seasons after Bran gets to him. The one with short hair. The dude who played against Death in a game of chess in the Burgman film, The Seventh Seal. I have to give him his flowers. My bad
My theory is that not only is the Long Night a global phenomenon it's a natural SEASONAL phenomenon. Based on my own head-cannon on the properties of the soul in ASOIAF (they can exist outside the body, they degrade in the heat, and blood or seawater can conduct them) the natural course of events in Westeros would be for dead bodies would rise again in Westeros every time the weather gets too cold. Each winter, the encroaching cold would naturally cause a tide of dead souls to sweep in from the north or south poles, like a river breaching its banks, scrambling to inhabit any dead bodies they can claim. On Westeros, the natural cycle was only broken with the building of the Wall. Just like a dam (or weir) can regulate flooding events, the Wall stops the tide of dead souls from flooding further south. The fact that (from a magical/spiritual perspective) the Wall is a giant dam holding back a literal ocean of dead spirits also explains why dragons refuse to fly past it. To a creature whose soul is literally made up of stitched-together parts, flying north past the wall is like a man made up of gingerbread diving into the Hoover dam.
I have to say i just found this channel and find it awesome. I listened to altshift x and some other creators before, but this content is so fascinating and well made, its really impressing
The clips from the history animation with the "evil they unleashed" over glassy eyed Bran at 4:29 made it sound like warging was the main evil! Is that the magic of the children and the cause/functioning of the others? The previous pact/s may have just kicked the can down the road if your Wall theory is true in that it was controlling not eliminating it. And Bloodraven is creepy as hell, so that would check out!
I think I'm with you on Long Nights being multiple and localized. I feel like there have been multiple just due to the fact the Five Forts exist like the Wall exists. If it was global I feel like there would have been more movement from Essosi parties to assist like Stannis is at the Wall, maybe R'hllorists and Faceless Men? I have a feeling R'hllorists and Faceless Men know the impending Long Night is coming, but I am curious why they haven't made movement to help, I feel like both of those groups have some type of anti-Other/pro-Last Hero interest.
ur obvs correct that there have been multiple long nights, but i think the in story reason old nan said the others came “for the first time” is to scare bran, by implying they could come again
so dope to see this video, like five years ago i wrote up a theory about how there had been at least two long nights, one in yi ti thousands and thousands of years ago, then another in the north of westeros a long time ago but nowhere near as long as is said, but i never published it lol
The different stories of "a long night" ended by local heroes look like one original myth passed on and adapted through different cultures to become several. This is very similar to the various creation and flood myths that were passed on through Mesopotamian and Indo-European cultures. The idea that the original "long night" ended by itself is also interesting in that it allows for all sorts of hero stories to be invented on top of it. It also fits with the absence of a "Night King" or any centralised enemy. GRRM uses prophecy to show how fools believe in them, not to have one be fulfilled in his books. All the talk about Azor Ahai or The Prince Who Was Promised is only there to make audiences look like the gullible idiots they are.
I like to think of The Long Night being like a Biblical legend like Noah and the Flood. Many cultures have some sort of flood myth, the most famous being Noah and the Ark. Some theories are the Flood myths were created because of the end of ice age. In a Song of Ice and Fire the legends of The Long Night fact and fiction merged since there were no records and it was passed down through oral tales. I like to think that Qyburn's necromancy will end up causing another Long Night or some other catastrophe in the future, but this is me going into fan fiction territory.
i personally dont think any of tha poinys towards multiple long nights. they came "for the first time" because theyre still around. But thats not the same as saging therre were mutiiple Long Nights. Theres really no evidence thats the case. When people say something happened five thousand or eight thousand or ten thousamd years ago, its all approximation. They dont have reliable records. its all just "thousands of years ago"
The other reason to think there's only been one long night is because there's not really any sort of dramatic ramification for the story that emerges if you suppose there were two or three. It doesn't change anything
and the Andal thing is a total no starter. They kept historical records. If they had experienced a Long Night in Westeros they'd have a record of that. But they do not, only references to the legends of the First Man.
no it's not weird every different culture has their own long night story, that's exactly how history and mythology works, with all respect. when people migrate, they carry their own form of an original myth, and over time, the place names and people names change to fit the new locality. and then finally, long nights are caused by meteor impacts, and they are global. They are not local events, at least imo
like, nobody has ever even proposed another mechanism for the long night other than magical meteor impacts. there's not even another theory about it. if all of Westeros was covered in darkness, that means the entire northern hemisphere was covered in darkness, and the legends from around the world line up with that
I saw a video once which explained that if Westeros existed on a planet with a wobbly axis that it could possibly be the reason for the long nights and long summers. I don’t understand the science but if that were true it could also explain why some places might get light and others may have shadows like Westros/Ashai.
I always thought that the long night might be something like the red meteor in the beginning of the story. EVERYONE things its about themselves but it might just be a thing that happens sometimes and ends again. I personaly like that from a worldbuilding point, but it does seem a little anti George to have his symbolic catastrophy broughgt on by war to just come and go as a natural cycle. I do agree that localiced long nights would be interesting in thesmselfs but I feel like it would go against us knopwing that the seasons where normal at some point and smth fucked them up. The seasons are weird globaly and not just in westeros and since I think the weird seasons and the long night have the same originator I would would have to go with it being global. One could argue that maybe winter is global but long nights are be local but from the very little we know it seems that long nights also mean especially long winters which would again mean global long nights (they also just seem more epic). But we just know so little I wouldnt through my hands in the air if they turn out to be local phenomea that happen during global winters.
I love your videos! Just came across your channel earlier this week and I think I've binged just about everything! I'm so on board with your theory about the wall and the world tree, maybe localised long nights are solved when there's a sort of pruning of the world tree in that region, allowing it to grow back healthy. But in asshai the corruption was just too much and it spread throughout more than just the world tree so it's unable to grow back healthy. Plus if you keep pruning a plant over and over without giving it long enough to have some healthy growth you're going to damage it permanently, perhaps leading to the big ragnarok style rebirth being required?
I think it makes perfect sense that it happened or some other type of dark event happened many times around the world. Dang, it you're making sense again.
I can totally see how when the next Long Night is triggered (basically the moon meteor crash), gets interpreted by different people in different ways. Some will say it was caused by the blowing of the horn, some by Jon's resurrection or other things.
I don't fully understand the physics behind the damage caused by comets or asteroid strikes, so if this is too erratic an idea please mention it. What if a bunch of meteors rapidly struck the planet,(sound familiar with something else the COTF did?) with a few hitting every few centuries or so? Maybe these impacts kicked up small dust clouds that temporarily blocked out sunlight? To this end, that could be why the legends differ/overlap on when exactly the "long night" occured. And to give appropriate credit, I would like to acknowledge this idea is heavily informed by Lightbringer's videos, especially the fantastic "Mysteries of the Long Night" series.
hundreds if not thousand of meteorites (they hit land) hit the earth every year. there are at least thousands of meteors (they burn up in the atmosphere before they can hit the ground). A comet (a large dirty ball of ice-rock) would create a meteor shower as the earth passes through the debris (like bugs hitting a windscreen, but the bugs would dissintergrate). An asteroid (a lump of rock the size of a city/mountain) could create a 'long night' but there would be all sorts of other things going on.
Multiple Long Nights, global phenomenon, _The Hero_ is an Alexander or Genghis Khan like historical figure known by different names to different cultures and associated with and assimilated into local legends.
Do long nights affect Essos as well? Maybe this is why Planetos is stuck in the middle ages. The planet is obviously on a very eliptical orbit. Every long night is basically Planetos being pulled far from its sun. So every thousands of years they build up their civilization up to middle-ages equivalent, the long night comes and wipes most progress out. Summer comes around eventually, the white walkers head far north again, and the rest of Planetos needs to start their civilizations all over again.
What if it were a global phenomenon, and the different regions all have different myths about the same events, but thousands of years have caused details to shift and become intermingled with local mythology?
the others being creations of children of the forest is all but confirmed when Sam tells people back at the wall that he killed an other, and one of them asks him “are you sure it wasnt just a childs snow knight? lol” which is GRRM speak for the children made the others
I think it’s likely there have been multiple long nights, but they were all global events. There is a tendency for cultures to interpret global events as unique to their culture, there’s a tendency for cultures to find out that they have similar creation/other myths, etc. and I think Martin would want to reflect that.
I think it’s entirely possible and likely that there have been multiple battles with the Others, but only one Long Night. I also believe the Long Night was global in scope, and while it’s possible it was ended by a hero or heroes, I think it’s also possible it just ended on its own, for magical or natural reasons. People in all corners of the world might have local heroes who did great things, but didn’t actually end the Long Night through their own efforts. However, the state of global communication being what it probably was in an Iron Age post-apocalypse, nobody knew of anyone else’s heroes, and just assumed theirs saved the world.
I lean towards multiple localized Nights, brought on by human atrocities. The Blood Betrayal and Varamyr's list of abominations read to me as recipes for inducing TLN. It's like "if you break *these* commandments, you'll provoke the wrath of god(s)." Kinslaying, mixing animal an beast, violating guest right, forsaking the gods. Between Euron and Bran, it seems like Bloodraven's goal is to *induce* these conditions. Possibly just because he's pro-Winter. But my gut says he's anti-Winter, trying to bait out the apocalyptic forces. If that's GRRM's endgame, it would line up with the show using Bran as Other bait. (Also a lotta little things going back to book one. Jeor says the Great Ranging is so Benjen can find them. Dany and Jorah talk about whether Viserys [the walker] will find the Khalasar or the Khalasar will find him.) I also kiiiinda think the meteorology is less important than the human depravity. Ned tells Arya that Bran's fall and Mycah's death were tastes of Winter, "the cruel hard times." In 300-10k years of history, we barely hear about notably bad weather. But generation-defining horrors abound everywhere you look. So I could see "Winter" being one of many ways to describe a period of horror. The century of blood following the Doom was a "winter" in this respect. And if you wanna get *real* tinfoil: This is why both GOT and HotD keep having these "too dark to see" episodes. "The Long Night" and "Driftmark" both take place in "winter." Though in the latter case, the title the series prefers is "the storm." They keep talking about stormclouds, the storm coming, etc. 120 AC was a winter in all but name. That screen-darkening is diegetic, experienced by the characters. Corlys is being super literal when he talks about "casting an even darker shadow."
I alway kinda assumed that when the catastrophe of the Long Night was happening in Westeros folks were experiencing a pleasant moderately cool spell in Essos.
I don't really know enough about this to make a guess in any particular direction but the idea that there was one long night and different places mention different solutions wouldn't necessarily indicate to me that none of them worked. That sounds more like all of them together might have worked and the credit for the ultimate solution varies depending on who tells the story.
Awesome video! 6:08 is definitely the timeline is subscribe to the most Also unrelated note, but do you think there’s any kind of deeper meaning behind the Sunless Seas beneath Westeros? I know it’s a reach but the way it’s described reminds me of Tehom from Christian cosmology a bit. Plus if Bran uses it to escape Bloodraven’s cave then it’s like River Styx
The long winter seems like it would be a global happening, things like The Others and other long night monsters seem like local problems, I think it’s a combo of many local hero’s doing something that helps defend their area from a threat but that didn’t fix the global issue. If it’s truly a magic induced problem, maybe the combined efforts of all the local heros’ deeds did a thing and that ended the night. The first men call their hero “The Last Hero” that means there were other heroes, they say we went with companions, perhaps the story is being a bit poetic with that detail
i think another real world inspired idea is that there has been one long night a long time ago, but it was such a big event the story spread, like how in the real world some myths migrated tgru the world, like the idea of the constellations of the zodiac oroginating in babylon and eventually soreading, something like that
I feel like the Long Night might be something akin to the Reapers in Mass Effect. Reapers in Mass Effect (Sci-fi game, really popular) essentially work as a reset procedure for the Universe, to stop intelligent lifeforms from expanding too much and essentially removing the possiblity of a civilization that would be either too powerful or destructive. The reason I see huge mirrors here is the fact that in Mass Effect is that the Reapers "capture" the civilizations, or...reap... if you will, and then turn their genetic mass into more Reapers, fueling the "reset" with the universes own civilizations, so it never runs out.
I think its both a local and global phenomenon. The Shadowlands seems like a local phenomenon. But "long night" can also just be a metaphor for any sort of negative magical war in which monsters or Others appear. The Global Long Night seems to be caused by the global Empire of the Dawn or its precursors. Magical shadows do not always have to take the form of something not quite human. Sometimes they can just be magical clouds that blot out the sun and rain poison ink onto the ground.
Have just started reading game of thrones, I know late to the party. Having viewed a few vids, might the Long Night be an astronomical event? I believe moons in the plural are mentioned- at different times. It might explain the planet’s tilt and the seasons correspondingly.
I think is a global phenomenon that has happened multiple times, if it is local, salvation is as easy as...migrate. I think is a global thing, and that is the reason why Melisandre travels to Westeros and all the red priests in Volantis are crazy with Dany. The only problem of "the global phenomenon" is...we would dont know what is happening in YiTi, Sothorys, Asshai etc during the Long Night, we do not have POVs there and even if Martin can reveal to us things that happened in the few POVs after the event it is not the same (maybe Bran saees different places or Dany flies to search for a place to move the Westerosies that survive the first attacks otr Theon/Davos/Asha/Victarion travels to another places to gather survivors?)
In my head Canon the children of the forest would not stand for people cutting down the werewoods so wherever the people started cutting them down they made the others go after them.
Consider that on our world winter is something that happens to different regions at different times of the year. The long night, or long winter could have traveled with the changing seasons to different parts of the world as those parts entered their winter and others entered their summer. Each surviving and fighting it off with their own methods and hero's as it passes over them and continues around the globe. This makes it both a regional threat, but also a global one as its not stopped until it has passed over the world back to its point of origin.
Definitely at least twice. I wouldn't call my empire the Empire of the Dawn unless it grew out of a Long Night. So if there was a Long Night during or after the Bloodstone I would say that area had at least two. Curiously, a shryke is a member of the corvid (raven) family of birds. Never sure if that's significant for the grey waste. Now, an issue to resolve if you want to bring the show in. The man tied to a tree is described as an Andal. How far can you push this back? Was that a first, second or third leader of the Others? If it was the first, what can we actually trust about history? If it's the second or third, why do the CotF keep summoning it and then helping men defeat it? The show drops the idea that the power returned, but curiously doesn't frame it as the CotF sent it after men again. So if it wasn't intended, why did it happen? What seems to be set up is an actual cycle for the planet where Long Nights have probably been happening forever. Two of them in Westeros may have been connected to appearance of Others. But in most of the world they resolve naturally and they make up a myth for something ending it. The Others may take advantage of it but aren't necessarily connected to how or when it happens.
There is a possibility Empire of the Dawn is a not their self given name, but a name given by the YiTi-ish to them. It could be that Yi Ti just called its predecessor Empire of the Dawn because it was the Dawn of the Yi Tish civilization
@@igorlopes7589 To a point I concede that's a possibility. But most civilizations, even though gone, have a name of some sort. Even if we might assume the name's been altered by time. I say that only because the suggestion it was an empire should suggest a level of advancement that lends itself to being remembered within and outside it. The only way it might be forgotten entirely is if it's collapse was so harsh it's people had to rebuild entirely from scratch. The only other possibility within the context of this world is that it was connected to the same people who are said to have brought dragons to Valyria. The same people with no name that built Asshai. This is possible, but it would suggest a faction of the CotF. Also, the idea that it was just a name applied to an Empire with a forgotten name conflicts with theories suggesting House Dayne is connected. Those theories draw the connection by the name of their sword. If that empire had a different name then it doesn't make sense to suggest that name goes farther back than the Long Night in Westeros. That's not a bad thing, it's just a consequence of the name not being Dawn. And to be fair could just as easily be true, so I can't say it's wrong. I leave the suggestion because it supports the idea of many Long Nights. It's a play on words that could go either way. Even calling it the Dawn Age is a potential double entendre that works for any location in the story. It also fits the symbolism the channel is arguing for. What's interesting is that it might also suggest the God on Earth had purple eyes. If so, the first and last emperor/empress would have purple eyes, which is he colour of the sky in both dusk and dawn.
"Dawn" is synonomous with beginning like dawn is the beginning of the day or the dawn of man. I think GEOTD was the very first advanced civizilization. I just wish we had a definitive timeline showing what was happening in Westeros at the same time the GEOTD was in existance. Thats the problem. We get bits and pieces of myths and legends and we have no idea in what order anything happened.
@@williamhermann6635 Indeed. And that may be a part of the problem with timelines. A lot of the story often seems to imply a cycle, and the title itself suggests a coming Ragnarok of sorts. If there was a Long Night in the past and we believe another is coming that's two. If there's two and there is a repeating cycle how can you know how many times you've been through it? The next question is, can you be sure the Great Empire is something from outside the cycle? If there are stories carried over from a previous cycle how do you know which one they came from? If there's more than one within the active legends, but we are trying to sort them based on just two instances then we end up with conflicting stories trying to exist in the same place in the timeline. As for Dawn, if there are cycles then the recovery is always a sort of beginning. People reemerge during a Dawn. Take the context of the Adam and Eve story and the Noah story. Now imagine Adam and Eve were actually the protected survivors of a Ragnarok for which there is no record of the previous cycle. To them it's the Dawn of civilization and might be referred to as such. But for Noah we have survivors that recall the world before their new cycle. They'd refer to the Adam and Eve part as the Dawn of man, but is it really? That's the question I'm posing. It could imply both a Dawn of their civilization, but it could also imply their civilization formed in an event where Dawn returned. These two idea could have originally existed together but one was lost. The two don't have to be mutually exclusive. Just because humans weren't there or capable of passing on the information doesn't mean the planet didn't have Long Night events before they could. And the reason we have conflicting timeline events may be because there have been more than two but history is trying to place all the stories between only the last and next.
@@BeteBlanc The only full encompassing theory that truly makes sense to me is that no long night has happened yet and all the stories are prophecies about to be fulfilled. Kinda hoping this is the case. The biggest clue that led me to this is the Night's King tale. This allegedly happened just a few years after the alleged long night concluded. A Stark who was the the Lord Commander of the Night's Watch was said to spot his soon to be Night's Queen from atop the wall. Excuse me, what? How could the wall already be built? That must have taken decades, maybe even centuries. No way was there a wall just years after the long night concluded. This leads me to believe its a story that hasnt happened yet. Most of these tales come from Old Naan too so we can even paint her as some kind of prophet.
I'm thinking localized insofar as what we're seeing happen is Planetos is tilting away from its sun in in the direction of one of its poles. I think it's equator must be far down into Sothoryos where Jaenara and Terrax flew. All the cultures probably had the same experiences at the same times, but maybe the myths are from different Long Nights?
Im thinking that all the past events and mythical characters are all just like the characters and events we see in asoiaf. Sam is going to write about all the events and make his friends and foes seem much larger than life to spice up the story.
Do we really think that the problems in the world, of the world, can be solved? Much less, that they can be solved by fire, by a dragon, a human, a sword, or a song? No. the bad times come and go, and will continue to come, and continue to go. "Winter is Coming" is the ASOIAF equivalent of "This Too Shall Pass", and the point isn't to solve the problem of evil. It's not a problem that CAN be solved, no more in their world than our own. If the hard times of the world are the result of something wrong with it, then it's a rot that runs all the way through it, and to remove the rot is to kill what remains of the tree. Instead the point isn't to fix the world but to endure it, to remain strong throughout the suffering, to learn to survive the hard times and not give in to despair. It might be that there are things that have been done before that have made the long-nights worse, and that these can be stopped or somehow remedied. But the Nights will come again. And again. Until, one day, there truly is no sun to rise.
I always thought that "The others came for th efirst time" is simply explained by the fact that the others DIDNT only come in The Long Night. They never made it past the Wall, but there was the whole incident with the Night's King, there's the Wildlings strong up-close history with the Others, there might well have been more incursions leading to the status of the others as a general boogeyman as they seem to be
My take on all the legends being so similar is that they are all dirivitives of the same story that drifted over time so that that everyone just made it there own, Joseph Campbells hero with 1000 faces, and that the long night was more global
So this whole theory is built on three pretty unlikely/stretchy assumptions. Those are fun. (1. That fighting Others only happens when there is a long night so many wars with Others means many long nights. 2. that Old Nan is a reliable historian. 3. "for the first time" meaning some kind of waves of long nights as opposed to its more simple and direct meaning of being simply when they showed up for the first time. That other wording maybe doesn't help someone primed to assume the creative interpretation presented here. How about: If I said "Nymeria's thousand ships brought the Roynar to Westeros for the first time", it is instantly obvious that there were not waves mass Roynish migration to Westeros, and that Roynish people are only in Westeros during such an event. Why the creative interpretation for what Nan said? Other than crackpot theory having to start somehow I guess.)
Personally I think there has only been one true "Long Night", that is to say a winter that lasted a generation. However when the Others were defeated & the Wall was constructed, I believe that each winter after that the Others would march south & the Watch would need to fight them.
Only thing i find unlikely in the world of ice and fire, is that the world stays mediaval, it never industrializes (while true in our world certain circumstances had to happen, the creation of fenced farms, rich deposits of coal, the creation of methods to mine that coal, the coal itself is used and so on, but the westerlands, the lannister's lands, would fulfill these conditions), so it's sorta a bit weird, because it's not like magic is prevalent enough to make technology obsolete (if anything we see how technology dominates magic)
The show is to be taken with a humongous grain of salt but it shouldn’t be entirely disregarded when trying to uncover lore. George worked on it for many episodes, and divulged endgame secrets to the show executives
@@warpedwhimsical George also worked on Game of thrones and didn't give anything away that hasn't been published in the books. It's the same with this new show. They find a little bit in the books lore and use that, without any clues to where George is going with it. You can't use anything from the shows.
What if the myths are more similar than we think? WoIaF was written by a maester and we know their stance about magic and similars, few people in Westeros could confirm if the myths about shrykes are really believed by people from there. Maybe a way to discard legends could be contrasting between the myths in Asoiaf and the ones mentioned in WoIaF
Or, as GRRM has read World in Collision, then the long ight was global as the astral events were personified by earthbound witnesses. Thus the same event with different points of view from the planet's surface. "A woman with a monkey's tail" could be a moon with a cometary plume coming from it.
What if the night king is not the first white walker at all? What if...the one guy we see in the show being turned into a white walker by the children of the forest is still up there in the far north making another night king and making him slowly raise another army of the death?
It could have two simple meanings. 1. The others are going to come for the second time. 2. They fought many battles with the others. Like in the show. They fought in hardhome, then when dany saved the group, then finally in the long night, or whatever that horrible episode was.
Mythical characters being remembered or celibrated differently is actually a completely normal thing. Just look up contemporary mythology. There are multiple such myths that play a part in asoiaf like the Chaoskampf or the King Under The Mountain. So different cultures separated do indeed develop their myths in their own ways.
the long nights seem to happen west to east, tracing the path humans probably first took into essos and westeros when they arrived from sothryos or ulthos, the long nights being the children (ifequevron) attempting to stop the advance of the humans across what was at the time the one continent of westeressos
Hadn’t thought about it but if it was global unless you had some active covering up - the global aspect makes it less plausible there wouldn’t have a unified account. World War 2 we all know it happened and all countries have accounts of when it started, local one would make sense - maybe almost like level 6 hurricane some factor or environmental factor triggers it
I don't get the long night deal on the one hand no one bar the north cares about the long night yet it is mentioned elsewhere in the world book. Then you have the whole thing of the night king only appears in the north with his army. Maybe it is that they marched through ice covered sea's to the far lands? but then it began in westoros because of the children of the forest how then do the other lands know about it or have legends about it ? Very confusing
I think the Long Night is kind of like the real world Great Flood myth. Every culture has one. However, I am hesitant to change THE Long Night into A Long Night without pretty concrete evidence that there is a Ragnarok-like cycle happening. Despite the prevalence of Norse mythology references in the story I’m not yet convinced. So for now I’m still on the one Long Night train. That said, I do question the worldbuilding thesis at work for Planetos. Is it “what if mythology is true?” or is it “how would fictional fantasy cultures conflate science and myth?” If it’s the second, then the Long Night might have just been a nuclear winter brought on by the moon meteors, and everything else gets conflated with it because it was so dramatic.
I think it was global. I think there was a second moon that broke and meteors hit the planet seeing up debris that blocked the sun. That’s the original long night which coincides with the children creating the others to defeat the first men. Later I think the others returned during nights king time and their return caused a type of darkness/long night. Then they returned again when the andels came. So I think the last 2 long nights were just in the north of Westeros or at least Westeros, where the first one was global.
and preston jacobs thinks this story takes place in some post-apocalyptic earth. i don't grrm would be that sloppy and unimaginative to have his epic tale be simply a post-apocalyptic world. lol. not chance.
After they come for the first time, they come the next day. That’s the second time. The day after that? Third time. Guess what, day after that….. you’ll never believe this FOURTH TIME!
Also, the Night's King and the "Night King" are completely different character. the Night King is completely made up for show and has nothing to do with the original lore in the book. the Night's King is just as Commander of the night's watch that married a one of the women (female) of the Others and it was he nickname! Thats it!
I just have a hard time suspending my disbelief about the supposed time spans claimed in the storyline. I just assume its all in world mythology that pretends lineages, culture, languages, and technologies go back many thousands of years without any change. I mean it is a low magic fantasy world that claims everything cycles, so maybe nothing ever changes in the world, but I just assume these are just stories believed by the characters in the books.
There have definitely been more Long Nights. Keep in mind the long history of the Great Empire of the DAWN, which in my opinion rose after a similar Long Night event. That would also explain some of the most ancient ruins in this world that nobody really knows anything about: remnants of cultures from before that Long Night, i.e. from before the GEotD.
I feel like the magic that created the whites is just necromancy and quiburn discovered his own version of necromancy with the mountain, who was basically a new strain of zombie. I could see this being an issue for many cultures throughout time with the undead that being the "long night" maybe even varying by culture and what was done to raise them. The white walkers were turned with dragon glass shoved into their great and it came with their power over cold and storms. Gregor may not have fully died, but was turned subservient like a ghoul. I wonder how many different kinds of undead there are.
This reminds me of the endless ruins the Dothraki owned in Vaes Dothrak, plus the ruin city of Vaes Tolorro that Dany and her people find while lost in the Red Waste. So many forgotten God's that were once prayed to and revered, so many cultures lost that once thought they would remain forever... Planetos has a much bigger history, its own Dark Ages if you will, sad to know we'll never learn what happened, but it's another way George created built an amazing world that truly feels lived in
The Night's Watch oath mentions "watchers on the walls," walls being plural. There is only one Wall. Unless the Watch adopted it from an earlier oath meant for generic sentries, this implies there has been more than one wall. What if the Long Night was the magical fallout of a previous Wall's destruction?
I think David Lightbringer made something of the plural walls once.
5 forts of Essos always struck me as a Night's Watch type deal. Would explain the plurality you mentioned as well.
Cause there are other walls, in other lands with their own watchers. Maybe in the past, there were some kind of communication between them which had been lost
@@cck4863 Im also developing a theory that there may have been a huge wall at the Neck that went through what is now Moat Cailin.
@@williamhermann6635 this is basicly exactly why its wallS
@@cck4863I would say they communicated, more likely that they just guard their post and hope that the other locations don't screw up.
There’s also the possibility that the long night(s) start as a global problem but get solved on a local level. Maybe Asshai is so dark because they never ended their long night? Or maybe it started there? The possibility of Asshai being the capital of the Empire of the Dawn and where the blood betrayal would happen support the idea that Asshai is the epicenter of some great magical disaster.
The seasons being out of whack is another monkey wrench to deal with. Early blurbs for the books talk about a magical event that brought them out of order, which points to some big magical original sin that affected the whole world.
Asshai is also the epicenter of blood magic. The great empire of the dawn developed blood magic rituals and likely dragons as well. Everything the Valyrians had was stolen from the Empire of the Dawn.
The oily black stone is interesting though. It makes me believe in a god like entity that exists that worked with the empire of the dawn. The 5 forts are made entirely of that mysterious oily black stone (classic HP Lovecraft, shout out to the Elder Things they true homies).
That black stone substance comes from old ones or essentially gods.
I believe the world of Planetos is a lot like Bloodborne and HP Lovecraft. There are legitimately beings of greater power that exist and seek dominion over the mortals.
@@misanthropicservitorofmars2116 One thing, the Five Forts were made by the Dawn Empire through their use of fire magic and dragon. The archmaesters specifically describe it as resembling the works of Old Valyria, "but it couldn't be them", but George has left enough hints to tell us that the Valyrian's are descendants of the Dawn Empire and Asshai was almost certainly the Capital city (Bigger than the 3 biggest Westerosi cities combined) - They weren't always oily, and Asshai wasn't always cursed. I think it's a much better theory that Asshai and all the lands around it became cursed ~during~the first Long Night, probably because being completely unprepared for this new enemy, they actually fell to it and what we see is the result of the Other's winning
Although, the world of Planetos is nothing like Lovecraft (cosmic horror), it might contain elements of Lovecraftian literature specifically (Deep Ones, Fish people), but ASOIAF isn't a Cosmic Horror, and whatever motivations the Others end up having in the books, it will be a carefully thought out and logical reason, GRRM doesn't write evil characters who are evil just because, which is more or less the essence of Lovecraft's novellas.
Honestly, it's more like Elden Ring's world, ironically largely crafted by GRRM - The Gods are real, but they are silent mostly, they're in the background playing out a larger game that spans several human lifetimes, some have maybe abandoned their people who simply do not realize it, others may know but still wait for them to come back. The thing about cosmic horror, is it's a portrayal of human insignificance in the face of a truly existential threat, but ASOIAF for the most part, is about human triumph, as much as it's about human degradation.
@@AFlyingCoconut none of lovecrafts work is about inherent evil….every single one is about indifference or disdain. Not evil. The old gods aren’t evil, they’re incomprehensible. Their motives aren’t clear, and the ancient alien races aren’t evil either. They’re sentient species and full civilizations.
@@AFlyingCoconut GRRM has a character who eats faces and others who flay people. Youre saying those aren’t evil characters, but a creature that doesn’t even care about humans is inherently evil?
Thats such a silly comment. Makes me believe you know nothing about either authors or their work.
@@AFlyingCoconut please re think about what you wrote, realize it’s nonsense, and adjust your perspective and thoughts accordingly. Have a nice day.
I think it's more likely it was a global phenomenon that different peoples across the world interpreted through their lens at the time and then mythologised according to their culture. For example in ancient Yi Ti, there was likely total collapse of the empire as a result of the Long Night, and may have been infighting and treachery in whichever dynasty ruled. The locals could then look at the Long Night as divine wrath from these betrayals and sins.
Also, even in our world myths and religions have and changed as they've moved across continents and time, to the point that they are barely recognisable except for certain key features like the Long Night (look at how many cultures have flood myths). I think the more likely alternative to a global phenomenon interpreted by different peoples is an ancient disaster that destroyed a civilisation whose people then migrated and spread the myth across the world.
I partially agree, that for Sure does Play into IT, but there still IS a lot of evidance, that Point towords IT having been noot Just one
I do agree with you broadly, but flood myths are a bad example. They're a global myth, because every culture experiences flooding occasionally
@hircenedaelen if the long night is a seasonal disaster, then every culture will have experienced it too
@@hircenedaelenthis take is very disputed. There are tons of more common reoccurring seasonal disasters, none of which have any analogue to the global flood myths.
Additionally, the international flood myths point to the same range of centuries.
You presumably have no problem with the ice age (the more likely inspiration for the long night) being an actual historical event, and global flooding would follow the meltdown of said ice.
Maybe you shouldn’t presume our ancient ancestors are stupid.
@@OrchinX I never said they were stupid.
Chill out. Can you give me a source for every flood myth pointing to roughly the same time period?
My head-cannon is that the others fatal weakness was going to be greyscale.
A disease forged in the same place as the steel that kills the others, which is described to crack skin like it's thin ice...
Martin has said that Lady Stoneheart and Berric are fire weights, whereas the WW are ice weights. His story is all about how history is cyclical and everything repeats itself. My best guess is that the children are far from the only ones to reanimate the dead; in every war, there’s death, and things only get worse if magic is involved, so there will always be a long night waiting to happen.
I think the long night itself is basically a reoccurring natural phenomenon. Everything else that happens, White Walkers and such, is a localized phenomenon.
All the history he wrote i think is just basically to show how everything just repeats itself with every generation. Same wars, same stories, same heroes and villains and historical figures. Basically all of it just to tell us how life is a circle that needs to be broken.
George is big on the whole "history doesn't repeat, it rhymes"
@@kevmey6yes, like a song
@@forest9000wry Of Ice and Fire
Only broken people would believe the circle of life needs to be ‘broken.’
@@DmDrae Damn that is some comment. I think maybe you misunderstood my comment
Regarding Asshai I think moon debris is locked in orbit over it. It gets brighter at noon which makes me think there's a physical impediment to light getting through. Not that magic might not be involved, but George likes to keep you guessing where the magical and the mundane meet.
Thats an interesting idea. Would explain why its called "Asshai by the shadow" and everything in that area seems to be described with shadow symbolism.
It seems much more GRRMish to have the Long Night be a natural phenomena that cultures have different responses to that, in fact, had no effect. However, all these different legends have given rise to whole cultural/political structures that have had a profound effect on the structure of their respective societies.
I think it can have a supernatural cause and the rest of that still be true. Multiple people in the story are likely to fulfil the Azor Ahai prophecy this time around, so perhaps there were multiple people worldwide who played a small part last time? Or maybe they didn't do anything but just happened to be leading the local fight against the Others when the night came to an end by some other means.
It’s more GRRMish for it to be an advanced AI system and the whole world is actually after a post apocalyptic event involving machines.
He’s a sci fi writer mostly. That was his main hobby writing.
I agree GRRM will have magic leave the world at the end of ice and fire when spring comes back as it happens in the Lord of the rings with the departure of the eleves in the end.
On the other side I think the long night is at first a phenomenon of the East of his world brought on by the corruption of fire magic through blood magic and creating thus Shadow-magic and shadowbinding. But it is brought on in a scientific way by transforming the lifegiving fire magic through human sacrifice into a weapon that creates darkness > the long night as a kind of price but somehow man made by using it without knowlede of the consequences.
In westeros on the other hand what we see is a long Winter, so not only a long Darkness but also Ice. I think this is scientifically explained by the fact that the through blood sacrifice corrupted and weaponized "magic" is not fire magic but water/earth magic from the children of the forest. Water as livegiving element is frozen to stop the natural cycle of life and death with the seasons and creates immortal beeings like the Whitewalkers (ICE-ghosts/soldiers like dragons are created as FIRE-weapons/soldiers in the east).
So i think in both cases the "punishment" is brought on for the same reason: corruption of the natural magic of water and fire through human sacrifice, but it has a slightly different form Darkness in the East with Asshai at its center and Ice in Westeros with the North beyond the wall.
Love this theory! Makes me think about the World flood Mythos. In almost every religion there is some kind of flood-cleansing of the world that has the same "base ingredients" but small "flavor" variations due to culture, place and time.
Great theory. I think indeed that the long night is comparable to the flood myth in more senses then one too. Its a backlash for corruption/abuse of the natural "magic" system.
The flood in christian tradition (thats George's tradition) was send to wipe out all the sinners and only spared a few chosen. I think the sin against the natural order commitet the first time was to turn the fire "magic" to provide heating, coocking and backing and forging of tools, through blood sacrifice to create dragons, bring down the second moon and to forge unbreakable valyrian steel weapons with fire AND blood (sacrifice). What happens when you burn humans on a pyre is that you transform the bright burning fire into black billowing smoke. Also when fragments of a moon crush to the ground they throw up dust and debrie to cloud the atmosphere for years. A long night brought on by fire "magic" corrupted through blood sacrifice to turn it into a weapon produces shadow/darkness.
Warrior trees...sounds like Soldier Pines and Sentinels. The wisest and the heroes of BOTH sides...THAT line always gets me. It tells me that not all agreed-and there were heroes and leaders on both sides. The Andals DID start coming before the Invadion. THAT is what screwed stuff up, mixing blood with Andals. I do not think that The Others can kill people who are First Men. How do I say it-I can think of only one clear example. Gerrod from the 1st prologue. The Others let HIM live after they kill Waymar and Will. At first, I thought they just let him live-but then I realized that they didn't let him live-they could't kill him. There have been multiple Long Nights. This is WHY there are 'knights' and iron BEFORE there should be. The Reeds Oath, swearing by bronze and iron, the Stark crown, it's weird. Lann the Clever was likely an Andal that snuck past defenses and started mixing blood between the two, screwing shite up. And what Harren Hoare {frost?} does when he builds Harrenhall is most DEF a violation of the Pact. Aegon invading when he did stopped something there, delayed it, I think.
Remember that Azor Ahai (and Westeros's "last hero") had twelve companions aiding them. Likely each culture's leader/hero contributed to the effort as a group but are only remembered individually in their respective histories.
I dont recall Azor Ahai ever being talked about with 12 companions. That was Last Hero myth only. Night's Watch had the 13th Lord Commander in honor of the 12 slain companion and there were 13 main White Walkers in the show but Ive never heard of Azor Ahai linked with 12 or 13.
its also entirely possible the story of the nights king is shifted in time and actually took place before the long night, when the wall may have been just that, a literal wall bordering two kingdoms, and was pushed after the long night to match the consensus that the wall was built to keep the others out, as opposed to maybe being built by the others themselves
It's made of Ice. Maybe it was the Others who built it to keep the Humans out?
I believe the existence of multiple similiar-but-not-quite-the-same myths and stories in regards to the long night is inspired by reallife cultural drift and the way myths wander and evolve - specifically if you look at reconstructed proto-indo-european mythology. Peoples in our real-life world, through migrationevents and trade and cultural exchange and what not, have beliefs and storys and myths that, allthough seemingly seperate, can be traced back to a common origin - even though the peoples in question now live on seperate continents even. What I'm trying to say, is that it is certainly not unrealistic for all those different long night stories to trace back to some sort of common story/event.
Something about "The Song that was sung to bring back the Day" echoes in my mind. Is it the same thing as The Song of Ice and Fire? In Martin's writing a song isn't just music, it's a story, an idea do powerful it can unify people. In Song for Lya, the mental Song of Harmony of the joined and the Greeshka is able to make her join it, because it's so beautiful. Lamiya Baylis is able to make a song so terrifying and sad that it makes people end their lives and go mad. For some reason I am thinking of a song that will make everyone understand that there is need for peace, not to fight to the death and win. That's just me though.
Maybe the humans will destroy their enemies the Others, but in the song they discover the fact that the Others' destruction was entirely unnecessary and the sorrow their death causes makes people lose hope? THat's what the song The Last of the Giants is about. Humans fear the giants and harrass them to death. But if the giants all die then their song is gone from the world forever. "The silence will last long and long". Once a part of the music is gone, the silence of that part is gone forever. In Lamiya Baylis' city the music lost its notes as the city lost the towers that were playing it, once a creature is gone, the harmony it would have brought to the music is also gone.
I. Love. This channel. You rock dude
That was Max Von Sydow. He was the Bloodraven of the seasons after Bran gets to him. The one with short hair. The dude who played against Death in a game of chess in the Burgman film, The Seventh Seal. I have to give him his flowers. My bad
He was also Ming the Merciless in the Flash Gordon film :)
He needs more flowers
My theory is that not only is the Long Night a global phenomenon it's a natural SEASONAL phenomenon.
Based on my own head-cannon on the properties of the soul in ASOIAF (they can exist outside the body, they degrade in the heat, and blood or seawater can conduct them) the natural course of events in Westeros would be for dead bodies would rise again in Westeros every time the weather gets too cold.
Each winter, the encroaching cold would naturally cause a tide of dead souls to sweep in from the north or south poles, like a river breaching its banks, scrambling to inhabit any dead bodies they can claim. On Westeros, the natural cycle was only broken with the building of the Wall.
Just like a dam (or weir) can regulate flooding events, the Wall stops the tide of dead souls from flooding further south.
The fact that (from a magical/spiritual perspective) the Wall is a giant dam holding back a literal ocean of dead spirits also explains why dragons refuse to fly past it. To a creature whose soul is literally made up of stitched-together parts, flying north past the wall is like a man made up of gingerbread diving into the Hoover dam.
A good point. Much like Winter, you don't defeat the Long Night, you survive it.
I have to say i just found this channel and find it awesome. I listened to altshift x and some other creators before, but this content is so fascinating and well made, its really impressing
The clips from the history animation with the "evil they unleashed" over glassy eyed Bran at 4:29 made it sound like warging was the main evil! Is that the magic of the children and the cause/functioning of the others? The previous pact/s may have just kicked the can down the road if your Wall theory is true in that it was controlling not eliminating it. And Bloodraven is creepy as hell, so that would check out!
I think I'm with you on Long Nights being multiple and localized. I feel like there have been multiple just due to the fact the Five Forts exist like the Wall exists. If it was global I feel like there would have been more movement from Essosi parties to assist like Stannis is at the Wall, maybe R'hllorists and Faceless Men? I have a feeling R'hllorists and Faceless Men know the impending Long Night is coming, but I am curious why they haven't made movement to help, I feel like both of those groups have some type of anti-Other/pro-Last Hero interest.
ur obvs correct that there have been multiple long nights, but i think the in story reason old nan said the others came “for the first time” is to scare bran, by implying they could come again
The longest night is the waiting for TWOW
This comment hit way harder than i expected
@@ThommyofThenn 13 years and counting
Just need to wait until 12/21/2024
@@christianweibrecht6555 why?
@@jurgenparkour9337 that would be the most appropriate day to release it
The long night is like the Flood myth in our world. Every culture has their own version of it.
so dope to see this video, like five years ago i wrote up a theory about how there had been at least two long nights, one in yi ti thousands and thousands of years ago, then another in the north of westeros a long time ago but nowhere near as long as is said, but i never published it lol
The different stories of "a long night" ended by local heroes look like one original myth passed on and adapted through different cultures to become several. This is very similar to the various creation and flood myths that were passed on through Mesopotamian and Indo-European cultures.
The idea that the original "long night" ended by itself is also interesting in that it allows for all sorts of hero stories to be invented on top of it. It also fits with the absence of a "Night King" or any centralised enemy. GRRM uses prophecy to show how fools believe in them, not to have one be fulfilled in his books. All the talk about Azor Ahai or The Prince Who Was Promised is only there to make audiences look like the gullible idiots they are.
I like to think of The Long Night being like a Biblical legend like Noah and the Flood. Many cultures have some sort of flood myth, the most famous being Noah and the Ark. Some theories are the Flood myths were created because of the end of ice age. In a Song of Ice and Fire the legends of The Long Night fact and fiction merged since there were no records and it was passed down through oral tales.
I like to think that Qyburn's necromancy will end up causing another Long Night or some other catastrophe in the future, but this is me going into fan fiction territory.
i personally dont think any of tha poinys towards multiple long nights. they came "for the first time" because theyre still around. But thats not the same as saging therre were mutiiple Long Nights. Theres really no evidence thats the case. When people say something happened five thousand or eight thousand or ten thousamd years ago, its all approximation. They dont have reliable records. its all just "thousands of years ago"
The other reason to think there's only been one long night is because there's not really any sort of dramatic ramification for the story that emerges if you suppose there were two or three. It doesn't change anything
and the Andal thing is a total no starter. They kept historical records. If they had experienced a Long Night in Westeros they'd have a record of that. But they do not, only references to the legends of the First Man.
no it's not weird every different culture has their own long night story, that's exactly how history and mythology works, with all respect. when people migrate, they carry their own form of an original myth, and over time, the place names and people names change to fit the new locality.
and then finally, long nights are caused by meteor impacts, and they are global. They are not local events, at least imo
like, nobody has ever even proposed another mechanism for the long night other than magical meteor impacts. there's not even another theory about it. if all of Westeros was covered in darkness, that means the entire northern hemisphere was covered in darkness, and the legends from around the world line up with that
I saw a video once which explained that if Westeros existed on a planet with a wobbly axis that it could possibly be the reason for the long nights and long summers. I don’t understand the science but if that were true it could also explain why some places might get light and others may have shadows like Westros/Ashai.
I always thought that the long night might be something like the red meteor in the beginning of the story. EVERYONE things its about themselves but it might just be a thing that happens sometimes and ends again. I personaly like that from a worldbuilding point, but it does seem a little anti George to have his symbolic catastrophy broughgt on by war to just come and go as a natural cycle.
I do agree that localiced long nights would be interesting in thesmselfs but I feel like it would go against us knopwing that the seasons where normal at some point and smth fucked them up. The seasons are weird globaly and not just in westeros and since I think the weird seasons and the long night have the same originator I would would have to go with it being global.
One could argue that maybe winter is global but long nights are be local but from the very little we know it seems that long nights also mean especially long winters which would again mean global long nights (they also just seem more epic).
But we just know so little I wouldnt through my hands in the air if they turn out to be local phenomea that happen during global winters.
I love your videos! Just came across your channel earlier this week and I think I've binged just about everything! I'm so on board with your theory about the wall and the world tree, maybe localised long nights are solved when there's a sort of pruning of the world tree in that region, allowing it to grow back healthy. But in asshai the corruption was just too much and it spread throughout more than just the world tree so it's unable to grow back healthy. Plus if you keep pruning a plant over and over without giving it long enough to have some healthy growth you're going to damage it permanently, perhaps leading to the big ragnarok style rebirth being required?
There's a line in the world book about how there are three cities underneath every city in Yi Ti
I think it makes perfect sense that it happened or some other type of dark event happened many times around the world. Dang, it you're making sense again.
I can totally see how when the next Long Night is triggered (basically the moon meteor crash), gets interpreted by different people in different ways. Some will say it was caused by the blowing of the horn, some by Jon's resurrection or other things.
I don't fully understand the physics behind the damage caused by comets or asteroid strikes, so if this is too erratic an idea please mention it. What if a bunch of meteors rapidly struck the planet,(sound familiar with something else the COTF did?) with a few hitting every few centuries or so? Maybe these impacts kicked up small dust clouds that temporarily blocked out sunlight? To this end, that could be why the legends differ/overlap on when exactly the "long night" occured.
And to give appropriate credit, I would like to acknowledge this idea is heavily informed by Lightbringer's videos, especially the fantastic "Mysteries of the Long Night" series.
hundreds if not thousand of meteorites (they hit land) hit the earth every year. there are at least thousands of meteors (they burn up in the atmosphere before they can hit the ground). A comet (a large dirty ball of ice-rock) would create a meteor shower as the earth passes through the debris (like bugs hitting a windscreen, but the bugs would dissintergrate). An asteroid (a lump of rock the size of a city/mountain) could create a 'long night' but there would be all sorts of other things going on.
@@nicklomas181 The grey wastes outside of the five forts looks like it either had a major asteroid impact or a bomb went off.
Multiple Long Nights, global phenomenon, _The Hero_ is an Alexander or Genghis Khan like historical figure known by different names to different cultures and associated with and assimilated into local legends.
Do long nights affect Essos as well?
Maybe this is why Planetos is stuck in the middle ages. The planet is obviously on a very eliptical orbit. Every long night is basically Planetos being pulled far from its sun. So every thousands of years they build up their civilization up to middle-ages equivalent, the long night comes and wipes most progress out. Summer comes around eventually, the white walkers head far north again, and the rest of Planetos needs to start their civilizations all over again.
What if it were a global phenomenon, and the different regions all have different myths about the same events, but thousands of years have caused details to shift and become intermingled with local mythology?
the others being creations of children of the forest is all but confirmed when Sam tells people back at the wall that he killed an other, and one of them asks him “are you sure it wasnt just a childs snow knight? lol” which is GRRM speak for the children made the others
I think it’s likely there have been multiple long nights, but they were all global events. There is a tendency for cultures to interpret global events as unique to their culture, there’s a tendency for cultures to find out that they have similar creation/other myths, etc. and I think Martin would want to reflect that.
Excellent video 🔥
Good vid👍🏽
I think it’s entirely possible and likely that there have been multiple battles with the Others, but only one Long Night. I also believe the Long Night was global in scope, and while it’s possible it was ended by a hero or heroes, I think it’s also possible it just ended on its own, for magical or natural reasons. People in all corners of the world might have local heroes who did great things, but didn’t actually end the Long Night through their own efforts. However, the state of global communication being what it probably was in an Iron Age post-apocalypse, nobody knew of anyone else’s heroes, and just assumed theirs saved the world.
I lean towards multiple localized Nights, brought on by human atrocities.
The Blood Betrayal and Varamyr's list of abominations read to me as recipes for inducing TLN. It's like "if you break *these* commandments, you'll provoke the wrath of god(s)." Kinslaying, mixing animal an beast, violating guest right, forsaking the gods.
Between Euron and Bran, it seems like Bloodraven's goal is to *induce* these conditions. Possibly just because he's pro-Winter. But my gut says he's anti-Winter, trying to bait out the apocalyptic forces. If that's GRRM's endgame, it would line up with the show using Bran as Other bait. (Also a lotta little things going back to book one. Jeor says the Great Ranging is so Benjen can find them. Dany and Jorah talk about whether Viserys [the walker] will find the Khalasar or the Khalasar will find him.)
I also kiiiinda think the meteorology is less important than the human depravity. Ned tells Arya that Bran's fall and Mycah's death were tastes of Winter, "the cruel hard times." In 300-10k years of history, we barely hear about notably bad weather. But generation-defining horrors abound everywhere you look. So I could see "Winter" being one of many ways to describe a period of horror. The century of blood following the Doom was a "winter" in this respect.
And if you wanna get *real* tinfoil: This is why both GOT and HotD keep having these "too dark to see" episodes. "The Long Night" and "Driftmark" both take place in "winter." Though in the latter case, the title the series prefers is "the storm." They keep talking about stormclouds, the storm coming, etc. 120 AC was a winter in all but name. That screen-darkening is diegetic, experienced by the characters. Corlys is being super literal when he talks about "casting an even darker shadow."
I alway kinda assumed that when the catastrophe of the Long Night was happening in Westeros folks were experiencing a pleasant moderately cool spell in Essos.
I don't really know enough about this to make a guess in any particular direction but the idea that there was one long night and different places mention different solutions wouldn't necessarily indicate to me that none of them worked. That sounds more like all of them together might have worked and the credit for the ultimate solution varies depending on who tells the story.
Awesome video! 6:08 is definitely the timeline is subscribe to the most
Also unrelated note, but do you think there’s any kind of deeper meaning behind the Sunless Seas beneath Westeros? I know it’s a reach but the way it’s described reminds me of Tehom from Christian cosmology a bit. Plus if Bran uses it to escape Bloodraven’s cave then it’s like River Styx
The long winter seems like it would be a global happening, things like The Others and other long night monsters seem like local problems, I think it’s a combo of many local hero’s doing something that helps defend their area from a threat but that didn’t fix the global issue. If it’s truly a magic induced problem, maybe the combined efforts of all the local heros’ deeds did a thing and that ended the night.
The first men call their hero “The Last Hero” that means there were other heroes, they say we went with companions, perhaps the story is being a bit poetic with that detail
i think another real world inspired idea is that there has been one long night a long time ago, but it was such a big event the story spread, like how in the real world some myths migrated tgru the world, like the idea of the constellations of the zodiac oroginating in babylon and eventually soreading, something like that
I feel like the Long Night might be something akin to the Reapers in Mass Effect. Reapers in Mass Effect (Sci-fi game, really popular) essentially work as a reset procedure for the Universe, to stop intelligent lifeforms from expanding too much and essentially removing the possiblity of a civilization that would be either too powerful or destructive. The reason I see huge mirrors here is the fact that in Mass Effect is that the Reapers "capture" the civilizations, or...reap... if you will, and then turn their genetic mass into more Reapers, fueling the "reset" with the universes own civilizations, so it never runs out.
I think its both a local and global phenomenon. The Shadowlands seems like a local phenomenon. But "long night" can also just be a metaphor for any sort of negative magical war in which monsters or Others appear. The Global Long Night seems to be caused by the global Empire of the Dawn or its precursors. Magical shadows do not always have to take the form of something not quite human. Sometimes they can just be magical clouds that blot out the sun and rain poison ink onto the ground.
Have just started reading game of thrones, I know late to the party. Having viewed a few vids, might the Long Night be an astronomical event? I believe moons in the plural are mentioned- at different times. It might explain the planet’s tilt and the seasons correspondingly.
I think is a global phenomenon that has happened multiple times, if it is local, salvation is as easy as...migrate. I think is a global thing, and that is the reason why Melisandre travels to Westeros and all the red priests in Volantis are crazy with Dany.
The only problem of "the global phenomenon" is...we would dont know what is happening in YiTi, Sothorys, Asshai etc during the Long Night, we do not have POVs there and even if Martin can reveal to us things that happened in the few POVs after the event it is not the same (maybe Bran saees different places or Dany flies to search for a place to move the Westerosies that survive the first attacks otr Theon/Davos/Asha/Victarion travels to another places to gather survivors?)
In my head Canon the children of the forest would not stand for people cutting down the werewoods so wherever the people started cutting them down they made the others go after them.
Consider that on our world winter is something that happens to different regions at different times of the year. The long night, or long winter could have traveled with the changing seasons to different parts of the world as those parts entered their winter and others entered their summer. Each surviving and fighting it off with their own methods and hero's as it passes over them and continues around the globe. This makes it both a regional threat, but also a global one as its not stopped until it has passed over the world back to its point of origin.
Definitely at least twice. I wouldn't call my empire the Empire of the Dawn unless it grew out of a Long Night. So if there was a Long Night during or after the Bloodstone I would say that area had at least two.
Curiously, a shryke is a member of the corvid (raven) family of birds. Never sure if that's significant for the grey waste.
Now, an issue to resolve if you want to bring the show in. The man tied to a tree is described as an Andal. How far can you push this back? Was that a first, second or third leader of the Others? If it was the first, what can we actually trust about history? If it's the second or third, why do the CotF keep summoning it and then helping men defeat it? The show drops the idea that the power returned, but curiously doesn't frame it as the CotF sent it after men again. So if it wasn't intended, why did it happen?
What seems to be set up is an actual cycle for the planet where Long Nights have probably been happening forever. Two of them in Westeros may have been connected to appearance of Others. But in most of the world they resolve naturally and they make up a myth for something ending it. The Others may take advantage of it but aren't necessarily connected to how or when it happens.
There is a possibility Empire of the Dawn is a not their self given name, but a name given by the YiTi-ish to them. It could be that Yi Ti just called its predecessor Empire of the Dawn because it was the Dawn of the Yi Tish civilization
@@igorlopes7589 To a point I concede that's a possibility. But most civilizations, even though gone, have a name of some sort. Even if we might assume the name's been altered by time. I say that only because the suggestion it was an empire should suggest a level of advancement that lends itself to being remembered within and outside it. The only way it might be forgotten entirely is if it's collapse was so harsh it's people had to rebuild entirely from scratch.
The only other possibility within the context of this world is that it was connected to the same people who are said to have brought dragons to Valyria. The same people with no name that built Asshai. This is possible, but it would suggest a faction of the CotF.
Also, the idea that it was just a name applied to an Empire with a forgotten name conflicts with theories suggesting House Dayne is connected. Those theories draw the connection by the name of their sword. If that empire had a different name then it doesn't make sense to suggest that name goes farther back than the Long Night in Westeros. That's not a bad thing, it's just a consequence of the name not being Dawn. And to be fair could just as easily be true, so I can't say it's wrong.
I leave the suggestion because it supports the idea of many Long Nights. It's a play on words that could go either way. Even calling it the Dawn Age is a potential double entendre that works for any location in the story. It also fits the symbolism the channel is arguing for. What's interesting is that it might also suggest the God on Earth had purple eyes. If so, the first and last emperor/empress would have purple eyes, which is he colour of the sky in both dusk and dawn.
"Dawn" is synonomous with beginning like dawn is the beginning of the day or the dawn of man. I think GEOTD was the very first advanced civizilization. I just wish we had a definitive timeline showing what was happening in Westeros at the same time the GEOTD was in existance. Thats the problem. We get bits and pieces of myths and legends and we have no idea in what order anything happened.
@@williamhermann6635 Indeed. And that may be a part of the problem with timelines. A lot of the story often seems to imply a cycle, and the title itself suggests a coming Ragnarok of sorts.
If there was a Long Night in the past and we believe another is coming that's two. If there's two and there is a repeating cycle how can you know how many times you've been through it?
The next question is, can you be sure the Great Empire is something from outside the cycle? If there are stories carried over from a previous cycle how do you know which one they came from? If there's more than one within the active legends, but we are trying to sort them based on just two instances then we end up with conflicting stories trying to exist in the same place in the timeline.
As for Dawn, if there are cycles then the recovery is always a sort of beginning. People reemerge during a Dawn. Take the context of the Adam and Eve story and the Noah story. Now imagine Adam and Eve were actually the protected survivors of a Ragnarok for which there is no record of the previous cycle. To them it's the Dawn of civilization and might be referred to as such. But for Noah we have survivors that recall the world before their new cycle. They'd refer to the Adam and Eve part as the Dawn of man, but is it really?
That's the question I'm posing. It could imply both a Dawn of their civilization, but it could also imply their civilization formed in an event where Dawn returned. These two idea could have originally existed together but one was lost. The two don't have to be mutually exclusive. Just because humans weren't there or capable of passing on the information doesn't mean the planet didn't have Long Night events before they could. And the reason we have conflicting timeline events may be because there have been more than two but history is trying to place all the stories between only the last and next.
@@BeteBlanc The only full encompassing theory that truly makes sense to me is that no long night has happened yet and all the stories are prophecies about to be fulfilled. Kinda hoping this is the case. The biggest clue that led me to this is the Night's King tale. This allegedly happened just a few years after the alleged long night concluded. A Stark who was the the Lord Commander of the Night's Watch was said to spot his soon to be Night's Queen from atop the wall. Excuse me, what? How could the wall already be built? That must have taken decades, maybe even centuries. No way was there a wall just years after the long night concluded. This leads me to believe its a story that hasnt happened yet. Most of these tales come from Old Naan too so we can even paint her as some kind of prophet.
I'm thinking localized insofar as what we're seeing happen is Planetos is tilting away from its sun in in the direction of one of its poles. I think it's equator must be far down into Sothoryos where Jaenara and Terrax flew. All the cultures probably had the same experiences at the same times, but maybe the myths are from different Long Nights?
Saying "the first time" could imply more than once but it *is* a scary story.
Im thinking that all the past events and mythical characters are all just like the characters and events we see in asoiaf. Sam is going to write about all the events and make his friends and foes seem much larger than life to spice up the story.
Do we really think that the problems in the world, of the world, can be solved? Much less, that they can be solved by fire, by a dragon, a human, a sword, or a song?
No. the bad times come and go, and will continue to come, and continue to go. "Winter is Coming" is the ASOIAF equivalent of "This Too Shall Pass", and the point isn't to solve the problem of evil. It's not a problem that CAN be solved, no more in their world than our own. If the hard times of the world are the result of something wrong with it, then it's a rot that runs all the way through it, and to remove the rot is to kill what remains of the tree. Instead the point isn't to fix the world but to endure it, to remain strong throughout the suffering, to learn to survive the hard times and not give in to despair. It might be that there are things that have been done before that have made the long-nights worse, and that these can be stopped or somehow remedied. But the Nights will come again. And again. Until, one day, there truly is no sun to rise.
I always thought that "The others came for th efirst time" is simply explained by the fact that the others DIDNT only come in The Long Night. They never made it past the Wall, but there was the whole incident with the Night's King, there's the Wildlings strong up-close history with the Others, there might well have been more incursions leading to the status of the others as a general boogeyman as they seem to be
Still so upset we never got any more lore on the children of the forest and the white walkers and thier motives,history, etc.
My take on all the legends being so similar is that they are all dirivitives of the same story that drifted over time so that that everyone just made it there own, Joseph Campbells hero with 1000 faces, and that the long night was more global
So this whole theory is built on three pretty unlikely/stretchy assumptions. Those are fun.
(1. That fighting Others only happens when there is a long night so many wars with Others means many long nights. 2. that Old Nan is a reliable historian. 3. "for the first time" meaning some kind of waves of long nights as opposed to its more simple and direct meaning of being simply when they showed up for the first time. That other wording maybe doesn't help someone primed to assume the creative interpretation presented here. How about: If I said "Nymeria's thousand ships brought the Roynar to Westeros for the first time", it is instantly obvious that there were not waves mass Roynish migration to Westeros, and that Roynish people are only in Westeros during such an event. Why the creative interpretation for what Nan said? Other than crackpot theory having to start somehow I guess.)
Personally I think there has only been one true "Long Night", that is to say a winter that lasted a generation. However when the Others were defeated & the Wall was constructed, I believe that each winter after that the Others would march south & the Watch would need to fight them.
Only thing i find unlikely in the world of ice and fire, is that the world stays mediaval, it never industrializes (while true in our world certain circumstances had to happen, the creation of fenced farms, rich deposits of coal, the creation of methods to mine that coal, the coal itself is used and so on, but the westerlands, the lannister's lands, would fulfill these conditions), so it's sorta a bit weird, because it's not like magic is prevalent enough to make technology obsolete (if anything we see how technology dominates magic)
You really shouldn't mix the books and tv shows together. The shows clearly has their own simple lore to it then the books have.
they did still follow George's outline, so I think it's fair to use the show to infer what happens in the books
The show is to be taken with a humongous grain of salt but it shouldn’t be entirely disregarded when trying to uncover lore. George worked on it for many episodes, and divulged endgame secrets to the show executives
@@warpedwhimsical George also worked on Game of thrones and didn't give anything away that hasn't been published in the books. It's the same with this new show. They find a little bit in the books lore and use that, without any clues to where George is going with it. You can't use anything from the shows.
What if the myths are more similar than we think? WoIaF was written by a maester and we know their stance about magic and similars, few people in Westeros could confirm if the myths about shrykes are really believed by people from there. Maybe a way to discard legends could be contrasting between the myths in Asoiaf and the ones mentioned in WoIaF
Or, as GRRM has read World in Collision, then the long ight was global as the astral events were personified by earthbound witnesses. Thus the same event with different points of view from the planet's surface. "A woman with a monkey's tail" could be a moon with a cometary plume coming from it.
What if the night king is not the first white walker at all? What if...the one guy we see in the show being turned into a white walker by the children of the forest is still up there in the far north making another night king and making him slowly raise another army of the death?
It could have two simple meanings.
1. The others are going to come for the second time.
2. They fought many battles with the others. Like in the show. They fought in hardhome, then when dany saved the group, then finally in the long night, or whatever that horrible episode was.
I think the “came for the first time,” might either refer to their emergence, or to the fact that they will return.
Mythical characters being remembered or celibrated differently is actually a completely normal thing. Just look up contemporary mythology. There are multiple such myths that play a part in asoiaf like the Chaoskampf or the King Under The Mountain. So different cultures separated do indeed develop their myths in their own ways.
the long nights seem to happen west to east, tracing the path humans probably first took into essos and westeros when they arrived from sothryos or ulthos, the long nights being the children (ifequevron) attempting to stop the advance of the humans across what was at the time the one continent of westeressos
Algormancy!
Watch the andals caused the long night theory, it really works with this theory
ever think the others have stories about long summers that happened in times past and strange invaders that came with fire in their blood
I took the story more to be like Gilgamesh that is such a great story that other cultures adapt their own version.
think its entirely possible the song the rhoynar sang was the song of ice and fire that rhaegar spoke of
Hadn’t thought about it but if it was global unless you had some active covering up - the global aspect makes it less plausible there wouldn’t have a unified account. World War 2 we all know it happened and all countries have accounts of when it started, local one would make sense - maybe almost like level 6 hurricane some factor or environmental factor triggers it
I don't get the long night deal on the one hand no one bar the north cares about the long night yet it is mentioned elsewhere in the world book. Then you have the whole thing of the night king only appears in the north with his army. Maybe it is that they marched through ice covered sea's to the far lands? but then it began in westoros because of the children of the forest how then do the other lands know about it or have legends about it ? Very confusing
There is also the possibility that there was only one hero but the story has spread and mutated into the different versions.
The problem with a localized long night is that it's connected to the seasons and they seem to be global
wouldnt be surprised if it turned out that the sun is a variable star that darkens and brightens based upon the flow of magic
Long night lasts one night. But it was a long one.
A bit like there's a flood in many religious stories. Multiple long nights, localised.
I think the Long Night is kind of like the real world Great Flood myth. Every culture has one. However, I am hesitant to change THE Long Night into A Long Night without pretty concrete evidence that there is a Ragnarok-like cycle happening. Despite the prevalence of Norse mythology references in the story I’m not yet convinced. So for now I’m still on the one Long Night train.
That said, I do question the worldbuilding thesis at work for Planetos. Is it “what if mythology is true?” or is it “how would fictional fantasy cultures conflate science and myth?” If it’s the second, then the Long Night might have just been a nuclear winter brought on by the moon meteors, and everything else gets conflated with it because it was so dramatic.
Michael Talks About Stuff : How Many Long Nights Have There Been ?
Me : Ages beyond counting 😁😁😊😊😁😁😊😊😏😏😁😁😊😊😏😏
isnt their a timeline presented by George where the long night happened 5000 years ago at the same time as the andal invasion
Long nights are cosmic events... like a sister planet passing by... magic and all is stronger when close
I think it was global. I think there was a second moon that broke and meteors hit the planet seeing up debris that blocked the sun. That’s the original long night which coincides with the children creating the others to defeat the first men. Later I think the others returned during nights king time and their return caused a type of darkness/long night. Then they returned again when the andels came. So I think the last 2 long nights were just in the north of Westeros or at least Westeros, where the first one was global.
2, I think there have been two.
one for the firstmen, one for the andals.
Why should there be a long night whenever the others come?
and preston jacobs thinks this story takes place in some post-apocalyptic earth. i don't grrm would be that sloppy and unimaginative to have his epic tale be simply a post-apocalyptic world. lol. not chance.
After they come for the first time, they come the next day. That’s the second time. The day after that? Third time. Guess what, day after that….. you’ll never believe this FOURTH TIME!
Grrm says long night was 5000 years ago not 8000, it just history people in universe have got it wrong and say its 8000
Also, the Night's King and the "Night King" are completely different character. the Night King is completely made up for show and has nothing to do with the original lore in the book.
the Night's King is just as Commander of the night's watch that married a one of the women (female) of the Others and it was he nickname! Thats it!
Empire of the Dawn, not Yi Ti
I just have a hard time suspending my disbelief about the supposed time spans claimed in the storyline. I just assume its all in world mythology that pretends lineages, culture, languages, and technologies go back many thousands of years without any change. I mean it is a low magic fantasy world that claims everything cycles, so maybe nothing ever changes in the world, but I just assume these are just stories believed by the characters in the books.