Fans of the television game “Game of Thrones” noticed a lot of unusual facts. We will not go into the details of who is dying and who is not, but suffice it to say that none of the main characters survived. And sometimes it seems that people were saved by magic alone. Suffice it to recall the notorious event when three young dragon hatched from eggs, heated in a funeral pyre.
The scientific meaning of the “Game of Thrones”
But is there really an astronomical story, carefully hidden behind a veil of magic, images of dragons and exclamations of the approach of winter? David Beers believes there is. The co-founder of “Brimstone Audio” (a guitar sound effects company) is an avid fantasy reader. He began to read and re-read “Game of Thrones” shortly before the start of the television series in 2011. And only in the last four months, he noticed astronomical relationships in history.
Beers theory is very long. In a nutshell, he claims the following: about 10,000 years before the events described in “Game of Thrones,” a huge comet swept over the planet and exploded under the force of gravity. A large fragment hit one of the two moons of our planet, as a result of which it exploded. Then, the debris from the collision fell on the planet and provoked a phenomenon known to the fans of the series as “Long Night”, when the Others (ice demons) killed almost all the inhabitants. The other half of the comet, according to Beers, flew over our world as the “Red Comet” (in some series it is repeatedly referred to as a kind of omen).
“This whole celestial story was deftly veiled by book myths and legends — one of the stories about how the Moon approached the Sun too much, broke, and dragons appeared in the world,” he told Discovery News. “The dragons in this case are the burning meteorites entering the atmosphere after the destruction of the moon.” To find out how true such a story is, Discovery News turned to Russell Daytrik, a graduate student at the University of Washington, who previously mentioned “Game of Thrones”, planets and astronomy at the nearby “Astronomy on Tap” event. Daytrik said that the force of a cosmic collision would hardly be enough for a comet to destroy the moon (since a small object crashed into a much larger celestial body). Moreover, given the celestial dynamics, it is unlikely that the remaining fragment of the comet will fall in almost the same place.
However, other parts of his theory can be explained with the help of astronomy. For example, “Long Night” is similar in description to an incident when a large object (for example, a comet or a meteorite) crashed into the ground, destroying dinosaurs. Presumably, this happened about 65 million years ago. As for the duration of the Long Night, the dust could remain in the atmosphere for several years. He says that perhaps large fragments fell again after a few years, and then several shorter winter periods followed.
“Debris from the moon and a comet were supposed to hit the planet in the form of meteorites. Presumably, at least some of these meteorites were of enormous size (very small meteorites burn in the atmosphere), ”he e-mailed to Discovery News.
“These large fragments could drastically change the climate - first the atmosphere warmed up, then forest fires began, and dust, fog and soot (from fires) formed. In the atmosphere, something like a “darkening of the sky” could occur, when sunlight is reflected by fog and a long period (even years) of global cooling begins — by analogy with a nuclear or volcanic winter. ” Could such consequences explain the Long Winters in “Game of Thrones”? Daytrik is skeptical, as the fragments most likely fell at different points in time. And in the story, the heroes believe that a long winter is followed by a long winter, and the change of the year is something regular. (This topic was touched on in April Fool's essay on Arxiv a few years ago.)
Daytrick also added that one of the strengths of the “Game of Thrones” is the ability to interest readers in what previously could be indifferent. And among all the astronomical theories, he singles out the Beers theory separately.
“This is one of the most interesting and, of course, the most mystical theories that I met on the subject of astronomical meaning in Game of Thrones,” he wrote. “I admire David’s attention to detail and his ability to find a relationship between the text and the real world of mythology and symbols (although I have no idea whether George R. R. Martin really tried to draw such parallels).”
Byrs added that from his point of view, Martin was very intelligent in building his mythology. By the way, it was mythology that caused Beers interest in astronomy (amateur hobby). Now he carefully re-reads the series to analyze all possible astronomical metaphors, which he is going to immediately share on fan forums.
