The Big Mysteries (top-level summary)

This blog is a growing series of connected essays suggesting solutions for the "Big Mysteries" of A Song of Ice and Fire. This post is a summary of the suggested solutions, with links to the essays explaining the rationale behind them.

Spoiler note: This blog includes unmarked spoilers for all published material related to A Song of Ice and Fire (including secondary works and GRRM quotes) and all released episodes of the show Game of Thrones, as well as possible spoilers for the final season. Read at your own peril.

The "Big Mysteries"

Those are some big questions about the nature and history of the world that have been left unanswered since the beginning of A Song of Ice and Fire:
  • Why are the seasons so uneven and so unpredictable?
  • What caused the Doom of Valyria?
  • What do the Others want?
There are some other events and places about which both the books and secondary works have been conspicuously silent, even while repeatedly hinting at their significance. Most notable among events is the tragedy at Summerhall; most notable among places is Asshai-by-the-Shadow.

It is likely that the answers to these questions will figure in the conclusion to the series. (George R.R. Martin explicitly promised a finale that would address all the big open questions.) This blog is an attempt to predict what the answers may be, judging from both textual and real-life evidence.

Suggested solutions

This is a top-level summary. Click through to detailed explanations of each point.
  • The Children of the Forest are manipulating the seasons to control human populations and development. They were the original inhabitants of Westeros, and possibly of Essos as well before they took refuge there. We know they used strong magic to hold back the advance of the First Men: they broke the arm of Dorne and took a Bite out of the continent, but nothing helped. Ultimately one faction created the Others as a desperate weapon, causing the Long Night. Eventually the other Children of the Forest helped the First Men push back the Others and build the wall to keep them contained. Since then, at least one faction of the Children of the Forest has been using the same kind of magic to create hard winters whenever humans multiplied or developed too much. (Essays: The Song of the Earth; Factions and Evil; Why is Winter Coming?)
=> The untold story underlying "A Song of Ice and Fire" is the song of the earth -- the one the Children of the Forests are singing.
  • At Summerhall, Aegon V. created something that made one faction of the Children determined to eradicate humanity. Summerhall was destroyed in a miniature version of the doom that came to Valyria (and earlier to Asshai). Now, as in the Long Night, the Children are divided between those who want to see humanity gone and those who are working with them and through them (e.g. with Bloodraven, Jojen and Bran; possibly also with Varys) to save them. (Essays: Wounds in the World; Did we learn nothing from Summerhall?)
=> The "bittersweet ending" that GRRM promised us may well involve the passing of both the Children and the dragons, and the end of the enforced stagnation that kept the civilizations of Westeros and Essos stuck in the feudal age.

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