This is essentially my post from Reddit: Euron and Astronomy. It relates to Bloodstone Emperor as well. I might edit and polish it, but not significantly change it. Original date: July 27.
> Many scholars count the Bloodstone Emperor as the first High Priest of the sinister Church of Starry Wisdom, which persists to this day in many port cities throughout the known world.
Let’s start with the obvious: Church of Starry Wisdom. If you search Internet on that, you’ll quickly find Lovecraft. So, readers with knowledge of both IaF and Lovecraft say: it is just a reference to Cthulhu or Nyarlathotep, a homage. And that’s it – case closed. In my view, to say: “This is just a lovecraftian reference” is to explain nothing. For starters, *why is this reference here*?
I haven’t read Lovecraft, although definitely want to. Life is short and the list of books to read grows exponentially if actually followed. Wikipedia is invented as a remedy for the conundrum. It reveals: Lovecraft -> tentacles. So, this reference should be really considered not an external reference, but rather an internal connection. A way to say: the ironborn, and specifically House Greyjoy.
The last part “many port cities throughout the known world” leaves no doubt about the identity of the particular Greyjoy: Euron. Indeed, that’s one of the first things we learn about him – he has traveled all over the known world on his ship.
> From Ib to Asshai, when men see my sails, they pray.
On the show he is accused of “gallivanting around the world”. Now when we see a rather firm connection: the Bloodstone Emperor (BE) -- Euron, one can ask: Why? What does that connection mean? One rather vague, but simple, answer is: Euron is supposed to be “kind of like” BE. May be doing things “kind of like” BE. A little bit of “reign of terror”, that sort of thing. Well, in the gem/Zodiac post, I discuss the expected cyclicity, the implied return of the emperors. Plus, we deal with rather mythical entities. The connection here is probably deeper than “kind of like”.
For further speculation regarding “first” in the “first priest” see [this remark at my web site](https://fractal-affinity.com/got/current2017/FirstPriestSpeculation.html). Now let’s go straight to the astronomical part. Here is my overall speculation of what’s happening in the vicinity of the World of IaF. World = a planet. There is a sun. The Sun shines with light. Unlike our Solar system, however, in IaF there is also something dark in the system. It may be a second star that emits darkness instead of light. In addition to that, or instead, we might have a light-absorbing astronomical object – a star, a planet or a moon. Here, basically, how the logic goes.
The existence of light-absorbing material is without doubt (the oily black stone). Some black stone came from space:
> … worship a black stone that had fallen from the sky
The passage is about BE, actually. So, the hypothesis suggests: there is an astronomical light-consuming object. Every decent theory should explain more than the premises on which it is built. Here is that explanation/prediction. What would happen if besides the planet and its sun there would be a light-consuming object going around? The irregular winters would happen. But that’s the defining feature of the IaF world. That’s one of the inspirations that came to GRRM in the very early days – puppies found in the late summer snow. The irregularity of winters is with us from the very beginning of the books. They should play a role in its end, and the endgame is Euron and whatever he represents.
As explained in the [Active Dark Object post] (https://www.reddit.com/r/asoiaf/comments/6fn0f5/spoilers_extended_winters_and_active_dark_object/) how would a dark star or a planet be observable? Directly, it wouldn’t, because by definition it consumes the light around it. It is invisible. Not transparent, though. If Yi Ti astronomers observe the sky very carefully, they could find something blocking the stars or planet. So, if we want to connect Euron with this astronomical phenomenon, we should hope to find hints regarding something hidden in the sky, something hiding other objects from view and menacing (a phantom menace – a title that deserved a better movie). Honestly, I didn’t hope to find anything of this sort, because GRRM is not obligated to provide hints for every crazy theory we, readers, come up with. So, when reading the quotes below and perhaps thinking: “It is not much”, I understand, but I personally find some of them pretty revealing. Well, revealing is a funny word, because we are discussing a well-hidden object.
> The clouds rolled in to cloak the moon and stars, and the darkness lay as thick upon the sea as it did upon his soul.
Yes, the clouds. Nothing astronomical. Simple clouds. But what did they cover? The moon and stars. That was Aeron contemplating on the night before he announces the kingsmoot, which will give us Euron. I am not saying the Dark Star covered the moon on that particular night and then disappeared. I read the sentence as *hinting* at the presence of something dark in space.
This method of reading the books is, of course, prone to errors. It is dangerously similar to, for instance, Lucifer’s method of taking the text, putting in bold whatever he finds important, and somehow claiming it proves things. I remember reading pages upon pages with “pale” and “white”, those pages trying to convince me on something. They didn’t. It’s not to say he doesn’t have right ideas sometimes. He does. It’s just the textual analysis methods he uses are invalid. His ideas are fine. The methods are not. Speaking of his main idea, though – or what I (mis)remember being his main idea, I guess I have to address it as this is an astronomy related post. Long Night as a result of planetary wise cooling caused by debris from an asteroid hitting the planet or destroying the second moon, whose pieces fall on the planet as “dragons” and cause the cooling. My main objection to that theory: it implies the Long Night was a one-off event. Some rare random astronomical thing happening. Well, all the characters in the book who know anything of importance live with absolute certainty of the Long Night coming again. And the character who knows nothing is to be dealing with its consequences. The people who don’t know but want to (maesters) build models of orbs and rings spinning – things of circular nature, things that return. Our scientists do allow the possibility of the dinosaur-killing event happening again, but nobody builds their lives around this rather theoretical probability (at least before a Giant Meteor’s rise in the polls in 2016). The magic of IaF is built on it.
So, it would be nice to have a general theory explained first – we did. *Then*, not prior, we should be reading the text – and only as not-contradicting our theory, not as something that proves it. We are trying to follow that advice and quietly celebrate strictly when find something truly special. Like Euron’s election speech:
> Crow’s Eye, you call me. Well, who has a keener eye than the crow?
The books indeed make a frequent mention of Euron’s eye. Is Euron implying he sees something others don’t, at least not yet? What does he see?
> A crow can espy death from afar.
You have already guessed where I am heading with it. Euron is talking in no uncertain terms: Something is approaching our world. And I see it. This something brings death to our world. Where can he see it? In the air? In the sea? No reason to think that (there could be something in the sees stirring with the approach of the Dark Object, but that’s a consequence, not the cause). Where people needed a keen eye historically? To observe stars. Some people see the night sky better than others.
“Death from afar” means that, at least metaphorically, what Euron feels or sees is a physical astronomical object and it is far – for now. By the way, I am not claiming that Euron actually sees the Dark Star: he may just know about it. Or he may know the direction it is approaching from and sees the black spot. So do all people but for them it is just a patch of the night sky. A light-absorbing astronomical object will look just like a black spot on the black night sky, indistinguishable from it. When it comes, the results will be planet-wide:
> And I say that all of Westeros is dying.
What I suspect Euron is saying is not just Westeros, but the entire world is dying. It is just GRRM doesn’t have word Planetos in the books and even if he did, it would look strange here. What can kill an entire world? Something of astronomical size or impact, something from space.
We will talk somewhere else about the effect this knowledge of the dark star has on Euron – morally, politically, etc. This post is trying to focus on astronomy. Let’s summarize what we have: In the beginning we, convincingly enough I hope, connected Euron with Church of Starry Wisdom. So, he has some wisdom, some knowledge not available to others. This wisdom is about stars. At the kingsmoot he speaks in plain terms what this knowledge is: he is aware of the death coming from afar. “Starry Wisdom” and “from afar” – where else could that object be if not in space?
The magnitude of what GRRM is revealing in Euron’s speech might be surprising, but he doesn’t have much choice. There is no Euron PoV. (I suspect because Euron is truly mad – whatever true madness is – our minds can’t comprehend this level of madness. Or alien mind – whatever is on that dark star might have a mind and it might be taking over the priest(s) of Starry Wisdom.) So, everything we need to learn about Euron must come from other characters PoV’s – characters who have their own stories. That’s why all mentions of Euron and interactions with him are so significant – GRRM can’t afford to waste space; there are only few opportunities to tell us about Euron and he needs to use them fully.
That’s why even minor hints about Euron and whatever he represents perhaps should be taken more seriously than for other characters. He is the major antagonist of the books, but other PoV’s must present his story. With this understanding in mind, let’s return to the quote:
> The clouds rolled in to cloak the moon and stars, and the darkness lay as thick upon the sea as it did upon his soul.
Could it be just something random, about the weather, simply explaining Aeron’s state of mind? Sure. It could be a way of saying: Aeron subconsciously feels the approaching storm. But in case of Euron that analogy immediately ceases to be just a meteorological observation: he *is* the gathering storm. He might be, quite possibly, although I don’t subscribe to that, championing the Storm God (=R’hllor) who sends rains and winds. But does the quote have any astronomical significance? Not in isolation, no. But let’s look at this sentence from The Iron Captain:
> Clouds raced across the moon’s pale face.
That’s Victarion PoV right after parting with Euron. Now can we say if it is astronomy-related? I would argue that the proper way to look at quotes in ASoIaF is not to isolate them – this is astronomy, that one is meteorology, and those are character developments – but treat them as an amalgam of all. It is astronomy and weather, because weather is his domain, and character foreshadowing. Cersei – Euron’s future and hopefully final victim – often linked with moon and paleness. I am not going to defend (here) the Cersei connection. I am discussing the Dark Object approaching the planet. Couple of sentences later:
> The stars were few and faint.
Oversimplifying, but essentially I am asking: “Why were the stars few and faint?” Answer: because of the light-stealing Dark Object approaching the World and stealing the light of stars. The object’s existence is known to very few (Euron, may be somebody in the Citadel, Marwyn, perhaps).
TLDR: No TLDR. Read or read not. Stay tuned for the Zodiac and gems part later today.
UPDATE: the entire previous text was written before watching anything from Season 7. Tomorrow, I hope to discuss the astronomical chart Sam sees in Episode 1.