Yeah, the fact that certain things keep on cropping up again and again across regions and cultures is fairly telling.
[collapse=Thoughts on the Grand Scheme]
[collapse=Black Stone and Ancient Beings]I did notice Maester Yandel's knowledge of geology, which seemed to fail him only when it concerns these black oily stones. So you have the Black Stones in Yeen, on the Basilisk Isles, and in Asshai. The Five Forts are apparently made of this material, and possibly the Seastone Chair of the Iron Islands (which all histories and legends suggest predates the arrival of the First Men). K'Dath is probably a Black Stone City also.
So there's the implication of ancient races going WAY back. You have hints of the Old Ones in Leng, who dwelt beneath the vast subterranean cities found there. The Mazemakers of Lorath probably were of an ancient kind as well. And there's the Deep Ones, the deep-sea fish-race that legend suggests were responsible for scouring the Thousand Isles way back when. They may also be the architects of the Seastone Chair, and may have interbred with humans (such as with the alleged inhabitants of the Thousand Islands, or the people of the Three Sisters, who sometimes bear webbed digits, perhaps implying the Deep Ones held sway there in the ancient past). The mythos of the Drowned God and the Ironborn reverence of the sea may stem from past dealings between the First Men and the Deep Ones (and Martin said that the Drowned God faith is basically Cthulhu worship, so there you have it).
This is all very Lovecraft, by the way. The
Old Ones and the
Deep Ones are terms lifted right out of Lovecraft lore. The ancient ruin of K'Dath is reminiscent of
Kadath (as in,
The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath). And in the world map of the Lands of Ice and Fire, you have the city of
Carcosa at the very eastern edge, a clear reference to
The King in Yellow. So all of this is very cool.
Concerning races, the Ifequevron are/were probably Children of the Forest (or are related to them), since the term is Dothraki for "wood-walkers". There are a lot of references to Hairy Men as well, who are either the Ibbenese or are the ancestors to them, and are allegedly not capable of reproducing with humans (implying a distinct race). Are the Hairy Men possibly related to the Giants in some way? The Brindled Men and the Shrykes may also be non-humans (or if not, then cousins to humans).[/collapse]
[collapse=The Long Night]
There's also the note on the Long Night happening in Yi Ti, so the entire world was likely affected by the Long Night. It also seems that the mythical figure of Azor Ahai recurs across cultures -- you have Azor Ahai proper, in the R'hllorian mythos of Asshai, and we know that a "last hero" is spoken of in the North of Westeros, a figure who helped end the Long Night. But you also have Hyrkoon the Hero (the Kingdom of Hyrkoon historically being north of Yi Ti), and other names as well (Yin Tar, Neferion, Eldric Shadowchaser).
Yin Tar is probably the YiTish variant, due to linguistic similarity. Neferion is probably of the N'Ghai (the sedentary cousins of the Jogos Nhai), since their ancestral city is Nefer to the northeast, near Mossovy. Eldric is probably either of Asshai or Mossovy. Also, a hero king named Huzhor Amai (Azor Ahai?) is said to be the ancestor of many of the Sarnori, and perhaps found that ancient kingdom of the Tall Men. And Huzhor is similar to Hughor of the Hill, the King of the Andals back when they first came to the Vale (and who was known as Hukko by the pre-Valyrian inhabitants of the Pentos area, if those tales be true).
It also seems the whole Lightbringer-Nyssa Nyssa stuff may have a basis in facts. Tales of a Maester who resided in Qohor noted that blood sacrifice may have a role to play in the secret to forging and reworking Valyrian Steel. Which makes sense, since basically all magic in the World of Ice and Fire has some basis in blood, life, and death (bloodlines, blood magic, the power of a person's blood, life for death, etc.).
[/collapse]
[collapse=Greater Implications]So you have ancient black, oily structures cropping up around the world, and the recurrence of the Long Night phenomenon and this mythic hero-saviour figure whose shows up everywhere. Did the Long Night happen around the world at the same time? Or did several "Long Nights" happen over several thousand years? Perhaps several cataclysms led to the gradual undoing of the Old Ones (and/or Deep Ones or whoever else). And the Bloodstone Emperor apparently worshiped a black stone that fell from the sky, as part of the Blood Betrayal that unleashed the Long Night upon Yi Ti. Is this tied to the "second moon" legend? Are the Black Stones of extraterrestrial origin? Are they weird meteors or something?
All of this makes you wonder about the Others. Were they human, of the First Men, or are they remnants of the Old Ones? If you venture to the Lands of Always Winter, finding the Heart of Winter, will you find ruined cities or fortresses of Black Stone? Was it always cold in the Far North, or did some ancient magical cataclysm create a wasteland of ice?
Speaking of ice, we get mentions of Ice Dragons, which is cool. Also, near Asshai is the corpse city of Stygai. Could undead, necromantic beings like the Others be dwelling there?
I also wonder if each of these magical cataclysms has to do with the misuse of one of the elements. The Others pertain to Ice, clearly. For Fire, we have Valyria. Asshai is a land of shadowbinders, so perhaps Shadow is another. The Deep Ones are tied to Water, and the Rhoynar had access to waterbending (as did the Children of the Forest, apparently); perhaps the Scouring of the Thousand Islands was the Water cataclysm. And if the Old Ones are subterranean, maybe they're tied to the Earth.
Perhaps the seasons are in disarray because long ago, the Elements were made to be in disarray to due misuses or unintended exploitation of magic. Who knows? Martin did say that by the end, we'll definitely know why the seasonal cycle went awry (though he didn't state if the problem would ever be rectified). I would imagine that whatever answer we'll get will focus on the Elements of Ice & Fire (via the Others and the R'hllor business), though this explanation may indirectly give insight into how the Long Night and/or individual cataclysms were caused in other regions.
[/collapse]
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Clearly, there's a lot to think about in light of this book. I'm glad this offering has given us some food for thought, to tide us over until the next Ice & Fire release (which will hopefully be Winds).
