You assume that her powers come from a deity and that her deity is the only one.
this post was submitted on 12 Jan 2026
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I mean, thats quite the crapshoot otherwise
Ehh... While I haven't read the books, the GoT universe strikes me as one of those with quite the variety of powers. After all, the White Walkers are their own power, one that supposedly is greater than the flame. The faceless men are also supernatural in ability.
There are quite a large variety of magics also demonstrated. Natural magics like the stone curse, too. Brand's power literally transcends time. etc, etc.
The whole universe is very clearly way, way deeper than the show mostly ever hinted at, especially near the end when the tv show became trash.
You're correct. Book Melisandre had been using chemistry to perform magic tricks, as was the normal practice in a world where magic had ceased to work and was starting to be considered mythological. She's as surprised as anyone when suddenly her spells start having a bit of kick behind them not explainable by anything other than actual magic.
Where the books end, a character is joining an ancient order of mages, and new recruits are sent into a dark room to light a candle made of obsidian. The task is understood to be an exercise in recognizing one's limits. Magic is not real; we cannot do the impossible. But it's heavily implied to the reader that lighting this candle was the bare minimum magical skill required at the time of the order's founding, and that this character will in fact light it.
We don't know where magic comes from, but we do know that it waxes and wanes in sort of meta-seasons. Is it related to other celestial bodies maybe? There seems to be a heavy focus on a cyclical nature of time rather than linear, and gods seem so far to be social constructs corresponding to phenomena, ideals, and powerful people.
Sorry, how is that a "crapshoot"? I'm not a native speaker so maybe I'm missing some nuance here?
Crapshoot is referencing the dice game of craps, as in, "it's a roll of the dice", so the outcome is left to chance. There's nothing to say the Lord of Light is actually the one responsible for her powers, or that said powers even come from a deity, hence, an outcome of chance.
Thank you, so I didn't misunderstand that part, at least. Now I'm wondering why OP seems to disapprove of this.
I don't know. I stopped reading the books partway through Book 4 and stopped watching the show after Season 3ish(?). I just got bored with the premise of the whole story boiling down to political intrigue without a satisfying progression of the characters and plolines I personally enjoyed. I didn't want to slog through hours and hours of reading to only get a sprinkling of the action I craved on top of the chapters of scheming and plotting. It just got stale for me.
R'hllor is a real god.
The Drowned God, the Old Gods, and the god worshipped by Mirri Max Duur are also shown to have power, so they are also real gods. Also, the patron deity of the Faceless Men is apparently an aspect of the Stranger, which means that at least one of the Seven Gods is also real and powerful.
Side note, there is a fan theory (several people including me came up with it independently) that R'hllor is the Storm God, and the Drowned God is the Great Other. If this is true, it means that the Red Priests and the Ironborn each worship the other's devil.
How fo you drown a God?
Not really? In that world, all the religions are real in some way, so it's not possible to decide your faith based on realness. It's a world of supernatural forces. But the forces have some rules and logic, which is interesting to me. Does the red god have some kind of weird backstory, like the northern religion does? I'm afraid we'll never know.
BTW, I miss the times of exciting ASOIAF discussions. Thank you for starting this one.