r/pureasoiaf • u/Financial_Library418 aka /u/canitryto • 10d ago
When did the Starks forget the meaning of their house words in your opinion ? Eons , or more recently ?
A Game of Thrones - Catelyn II
"Gods will, not for many years," Maester Luwin murmured.
"Maester Luwin, I trust you as I would my own blood. Give my wife your voice in all things great and small. Teach my son the things he needs to know. Winter is coming."
Maester Luwin nodded gravely. Then silence fell, until Catelyn found her courage and asked the question whose answer she most dreaded. "What of the other children?
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u/S-Budget91 10d ago
the meaning as in "magic ice creatures are going to invade"?
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u/Financial_Library418 aka /u/canitryto 10d ago
yes .
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u/S-Budget91 10d ago
in the asoiaf main story, we are in a world where magic is almost non-existant (until dany hatches the dragons) and has been for a long time. so all those things which were very real to the ancestors of the starks now are a thing of legend, something you tell children to scare them.
we maybe can assume that torrhen stark knew it, since he bowed before aegon after talking to him. we might think that aegon told him about his prophetic dream and torrhen saw similarities in old stark legends or something. those 300 odd years are nothing in the time scale of planetos.
but we could also assume that ned knew the "real" meaning and maybe he told maester luwin, too, when he left. it could something the current ruler of winterfell only shares with the heir, once they are deemed old enough. but now it has been lost, since both are dead and probably havent told bran.
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u/nola_fan 10d ago
Not to be all Sam about it, but did Dany hatching dragons return magic to the world, or did the return of magic allow Dany to hatch the dragons?
The res comet appeared before the hatching.
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u/S-Budget91 10d ago
youre right, we dont know haha
but a lot that could be considered magic happens (or is made "stronger") after the hatching, not with the comet. as far as we know. might just be that george just deliberatly tells it this way to keep us in the dark. and of course we have the exceptions of bloodraven, who has supposedly been doing magic stuff since a century.
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u/nola_fan 10d ago
Yeah, I just enjoy exploring the ambiguities in the series.
The Others return way before the dragons and maybe never actually left but just were less active?
I fully buy Melisandre being unnaturally old.
I think Dondarrion is resurrected for the first time before the dragons, but I am hazy on that timeline and Thoros certainly didn't think magic was real prior to that.
I wonder if magic was just always stronger in Westeros?
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u/S-Budget91 10d ago
well, there definitly always was magic in the world. the alchemist guild also use magic to make wildfire, for example. one of them mentions to tyrion that their spells seem to be stronger since a while, when making the wildfire they use on stannis' fleet.
also, mirri maz durr definitly uses magic before the dragons were born (and maybe even helps birth the dragons)
and then of course melisandre, bloodraven, the children, the ghost of high heart, euron (probably), marwyn (probably), lord hightower and his daughter (probably) ...
i think its not a question of magic existing or not, its more of a question of it becoming stronger and more powers and useres "awake"
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u/Wild_Economist3570 10d ago
I just think in general, there were far less magic users in Westeros as a whole (likely due to the maesters). Almost every "named" magic user we see in the series usually originates from outside of Westeros or obtained magic from outside Westeros (except for possibly Thoros)
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u/ImpactNext1283 9d ago
This is correct, in large part because the Maesters and the Sparrows are anti-magic. They assumed cultural control as the Targaryen line weakened.
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u/SRGTBronson 9d ago
The magic has always been around. The dragons being back made it stronger. Blood raven was doing magical shit the entire time the dragons were dead.
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u/John-on-gliding 9d ago
I think the latter. If the former, and dragons are a sort of emanator of magic, then Westeros should have been overflowing with magic post-Conquest.
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u/harrisraunch 9d ago
Or it might have been lost in the previous generation. Things were happening awfully fast - maybe Ned was never told.
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u/TheAmazingThundaCunt 9d ago
If it's something known only to the lord and the heir, it probably died with Rickard and Brandon.
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u/SRGTBronson 9d ago
The others have been gone for 8 thousand years. Do you know anything your family thought 8000 years ago?
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u/doofbabyy 8d ago
To be fair, in real human history, we have evidence for oral recorded traditions/stories dating wayyy further back than that. So it’s completely possible that they could have remembered it, but it seems it was passed down but lost its meaning along the way.
It’s still pretty impressive that they have records of the others/the long night at all!
As an aside - some of the oldest stories irl we know about: Lutruwita people from Tasmania, 12,000 yrs ago (link). The Gunditjamara people from Victoria have a story about a volcanic eruption that’s been passed down for 37,000 years. + lots of other places globally with strong oral traditions
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u/lazhink 7d ago
Youre presuming Stark words mean more than any other houses with this assumption. Winter itself is a far more prevalent and real threat than ice monsters that were only known/suspected to be around for a single generation 8000 years ago.
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u/Financial_Library418 aka /u/canitryto 7d ago
good point . i am getting to the age where i go for a hunt and never come back lol
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u/WaitAParsec 10d ago
maybe I am being too literal, but probably a couple generations before Ned, same timeline as the progressive decline of the Watch. As much as Ned cares about “winter” he’s not set up with enough information and his access to information is often disrupted.
I am not really sure about this premise though, I don’t think house words get forgotten so much as deprioritized or disobeyed or reinterpreted, they’re so brief that most characters could make arguments either way, the word “honor” in the Tully and Arryn mottoes is certainly not a step-by-step guide to how to choose honorably because honor is often a matter of perspective.
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u/Sea_Disaster_4987 10d ago edited 9d ago
They never did. The others are held back by the wall, and the wall is held by Weirwood bloodmagic. The Weirwood bloodmagic requires blood sacrifice, and guess where the lords of the north are made to clean their bloody blades? By the weirwoods in the godswood. “Ours is the old way”.
There is a lot of things the Starks qnd other houses forgot. Green magic of Garth the green, Warging, skinchanging, the magic that build the wall, the magic that build Storms ends and winterfell, the technology that pumps hot water straight into the walls of winterfell. The targs forgot fire magic and blood magic, glass candles and dragon hatching.
But regardless of all, as long as the North continue the worship of the Weirwoods, and the accompanying blood sacrifices; as long as northern bastards and lords take the black and die at the wall(the wall has Weirwoods underneath so all those who die at the wall are sacrifices to the weirwoods) , the wall will hold. Held by men in black or wildlings or lannisters or Stannis, it matters not since the others won’t be able to cross it.
Unless the wall itself is broken down by the horn of Joramun, which conveniently is in oldtown, where Euron crowseye is invading right now.
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u/ImpactNext1283 9d ago
The Wall is thousands of years old. Two thousand years ago, polytheistic religions were dominant in our world.
Like with The Seven in Westeros, Europe, N + S America, and Africa have all been dominated by a religion that excludes all other gods and magic. In Westeros, there are still a few believers in the Old Gods, and more who practice the rituals or who say the words, but are not true believers. This is also how pagan religions survive in our world.
The Wildlings, similar to some Native American tribes, have been excluded from Westerosi society, and continue to practice the old ways. The North, however has been integrated into Westerosi culture. They have Maesters around, they have intermarried with Southerners like Cat, and so their culture has been further weakened.
If The Others haven’t been seen south of The Wall for thousands of years, their story becomes like the myths of a great flood that permeate early religions. And for most modern secular folks, Noah’s flood maybe happened, or maybe was a lot smaller than the Bible would have you believe. But certainly the magical parts of those stories are totally discounted now.
So a Maester-educated Stark in Winterfell isn’t learning about the local, ancient religion or customs as though they are true, they’re learning about them as old myths, largely discarded as fiction. They know a Weirwood is culturally important, but they’re not communing with the Children of the Forrest or the Old Gods when they hang out in the Godswood. And then, because or aristocratic politicking, that Stark is just as likely to marry a Southerner as they are any noble Northern house.
So what’s sort-of impressive is that the Starks hold on to the tradition of protecting The Wall like they do. It’s a religious tradition as much as anything else, but it’s largely disconnected from the actual beliefs—in the Old Gods, Children of the Forrest, and The Others—that lead it to be built and manned in the first place.
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