Measuring Time in Westeros

[rgrekejin]

It is a well-established fact that seasons do not work the same in the Game of Thrones universe as they do in ours. Whereas we have the regular summer/fall/winter/spring progression, they have years-long summers followed by years-long winters. So here's my question: without the regular changing of the seasons, where did the concept of the "year" as a unit of time even come from in Westeros?

...seriously, though, that planet must have one hell of an interesting orbital pattern. I mean, they only have one sun, so the weirdness of a binary star system is right out.

[Razade]

It is a well-established fact that seasons do not work the same in the Game of Thrones universe as they do in ours. Whereas we have the regular summer/fall/winter/spring progression, they have years-long summers followed by years-long winters. So here's my question: without the regular changing of the seasons, where did the concept of the "year" as a unit of time even come from in Westeros?

...seriously, though, that planet must have one hell of an interesting orbital pattern. I mean, they only have one sun, so the weirdness of a binary star system is right out.

I''m pretty sure they've brought up that the long seasons isn't a natural event but some event linked with the Long Night.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

It is a well-established fact that seasons do not work the same in the Game of Thrones universe as they do in ours. Whereas we have the regular summer/fall/winter/spring progression, they have years-long summers followed by years-long winters. So here's my question: without the regular changing of the seasons, where did the concept of the "year" as a unit of time even come from in Westeros?

...seriously, though, that planet must have one hell of an interesting orbital pattern. I mean, they only have one sun, so the weirdness of a binary star system is right out.

A year is the period between two high (or low) solstices. Anyone that has an even passing interest in the route of the sun in the sky can't fail to notice that the sun reaches a high point then a low then back to a high, taking the exact same number of days every time (give or take one day).

Now, it is true that equatorial cultures, by and large, had less of an interest in the concept of "year" than cultures beyond the tropics (see mayan calendars), because without seasons it is hard to tell, but they still knew that the sun went through a regular pattern, and gave it a name.

That said, the "year" is a good unit of measure for the length of human life and thus other human activities, it is not surprising it is in common usage. Still I'll grant you that it would've been a tad more "realistic" if Westeros had a moon-based calendar (say, every 10 or 12 or 15 full moons makes a [moon]year, in a similar fashion as to how the islamic calendar operates), which, while unmentioned, could actually be the case. I don't expect an answer to this in the upcoming history of Westeros book, but for all I know they will drop a hint or two.

As to what causes the seasons to be all screwed up, there have been a few astronomers giving different possibilities that could make it so. There is a youtube video with 5 or so, although none that particularly grabbed me. As Razade said, it could simply be magic, too.

Yours,

Grey Wolf

[tomandtish]

Well, it's official (http://www.westeros.org/citadel/ssm/entry/2997) that Westeros has a standard year similar to ours. Years have nothing to do with seasons.

Martin in Weird Tales in 2007 said that the effect was magical, so the answer is "who knows".

For a possible scientific explanation (http://climatesight.org/2014/06/02/explaining-the-seasons-on-game-of-thrones/)...

[sktarq]

Now since the novels are the Song of Fire and Ice. . . the idea that a dualistic magical force driving the seasons instead of increased or decreased solar angle would certainly be an option. Thus even if the sun did make a regular pattern to be called a year it wouldn't much matter. What would be interesting is to see how all this plays out in the southern temperate zones-which would give key understandings based on how they sync up with northern summers/winters.

[Grinner]

Wild speculation here, but since they're explicitly magical, I don't think it's too farfetched to say that they're linked to some fundamental cosmic force. (On the other hand, he could just be toying with our hearts again.) Furthermore, the two seasons appear to wax and wane alternately, with one becoming dominant and then bowing to the other. I think Sansa says something about there being one great summer before the advent of a great winter. Soon thereafter, the maesters say that autumn has arrived.

I don't think it's by coincidence that the Others decided to wait until the longest winter possible to strike into the southern lands either. What remains unclear is how they're connected to it. Are they intrinsically linked to winter? Or do they merely take advantage of the same observations as the people of Westeros do?

[Razade]

Wild speculation here, but since they're explicitly magical, I don't think it's too farfetched to say that they're linked to some fundamental cosmic force. (On the other hand, he could just be toying with our hearts again.) Furthermore, the two seasons appear to wax and wane alternately, with one becoming dominant and then bowing to the other. I think Sansa says something about there being one great summer before the advent of a great winter. Soon thereafter, the maesters say that autumn has arrived.

I don't think it's by coincidence that the Others decided to wait until the longest winter possible to strike into the southern lands either. What remains unclear is how they're connected to it. Are they intrinsically linked to winter? Or do they merely take advantage of the same observations as the people of Westeros do?

From the wording the event that triggered their drive from the Land of Always Winter, where they came from, was unprecedented. The Long Night wasn't some event that happened all the time, it was something that happened and the effects are still happening depending on how you read it. It's not clear. I had thought they'd said at the start that a meteor hit had knocked the planet out of alignment but I can't find any sources pointing to that.

[Soras Teva Gee]

You'll pardon me for not hunting down the exact reference but when a Maester announces the end of summer there's a mention of a length in time that makes it rather evident in the books that they measure time... more or less how anyone did before the invention and distribution of clocks.

I should also point out that it is relatively more plausible to manipulate a planet's climate then it would be to interfere with celestial mechanics which are both fairly simple in their workings and yet utterly unyielding. An orbit is pretty literally falling and missing so if you slowed down a planet's orbit you'd have to also deal with not falling into the sun you were orbiting. So you would need to be constantly exerting planetary mass moving force.

Climate alone in contrast you don't have to deal with the mass of the planet or physics chief architect of the universe at all just create a force over the (much smaller) surface to accelerate and exacerbate regular shifts. We have in billions of years of regular rotation the phenomena Ice Ages, proposed Snowball Earths, and while I don't know if they have a catchy name periods when there were no polar ice caps. Honestly might be as "simple" as modifying albedo or greenhouse effect in the upper atmosphere or having some big supernatural something inhale/exhale the proper amount of heat.

As much as one can analyse supernatural phenomena at all... modifying climate should NOT imply messing with orbital mechanics which is sorta like sending an aircraft carrier to ferry someone across a bay. Way more raw power then is needed for the task.