Why you can't forecast the weather in ASOIAF

Potential Spoilers Below

The Wheel of Time:  Winter isn’t coming

It isn’t natural, my Lady. The first snows should have been here weeks ago, but it might as well be the middle of summer. We’re not worried, my Lady, we’re frightened!

The quote above sums up the weather in the world of the Wheel of Time after the Great Seals of the Dark One starts to break.  When it should be winter and snowing something has happened that has caused the climate to remain hot and scorching. 

The Game of Thrones: Winter is coming

Any fan whether a book reader or TV show viewer knows that these are the words of House Stark. 

The Wheel of Time:  What is happening with the weather

Nynaeve wanted a bath, and it had nothing to do with the heat. “We will talk about the weather,” she said bitterly.

Nynaeve

“You know more about controlling weather than I do.” Moghedien sounded weary, and an echo slid through the bracelet. There had been enough questions on the subject. “All I know is that what is happening is the Great — the Dark One’s work.” She had the nerve to smile ingratiatingly at the slip. “No mere human is strong enough to change that.”

It took effort for Nynaeve not to grind her teeth. Elayne knew more about working weather than anyone else in Salidar, and she said the same. Including the Dark One’s part, though any but a fool would know that, with the heat so strong when it should be coming on for snow, with no rain and the streams drying.

“It isn’t the rain,” Milla muttered. “Not exactly, anyway. It isn’t natural. You see, none of us can Listen to the Wind.” She hunched her shoulders under the others’ sudden frowns. Plainly she was saying too much, and giving away secrets besides. Supposedly all the Wisdoms could predict the weather by Listening to the Wind; at least, they said that they all could. But even so Milla plowed on doggedly. “Well, we can’t! We look at clouds instead, and how the birds behave, and the ants and caterpillars and... ” Drawing a deep breath, she straightened, but still avoided the other Wisdoms’ eyes. Faile wondered how she managed to deal with the Women’s Circle in Taren Ferry, much less the Village Council. Of course, they were as new at it as Milla; that village had lost its whole population when the Trollocs came, and everyone there now was new. “It isn’t natural, my Lady. The first snows should have been here weeks ago, but it might as well be the middle of summer. We’re not worried, my Lady, we’re frightened! If nobody else will admit it, I will. I lie awake most nights. I haven’t slept properly in a month, and... ” She trailed off, color blooming in her face as she realized she might have gone too far. A Wisdom was supposed to be in control in all times; she did not run around saying she was frightened.

Faile

Village Councilors of Emond's Field gathering to meet in the Winespring Inn

Tollocs attacking

Faile understood, now. Milla had spoken simple truth. The weather was not natural; it was most unnatural. Faile often lay awake herself, praying for rain, or better still snow, trying not to think of what lurked behind the heat and drought. Yet a Wisdom was supposed to reassure others. Who could she go to when she needed reassurance herself?

Not a breath of breeze stirred, and the parched air seemed to pull perspiration from every pore. There must be something that could be done about the weather. Of course, if there was, Sea Folk Windfinders would probably already have done it, but she still might think of something, if only the Aes Sedai would give her time enough away from ter’angreal.

Sea Folk Man

Sea Folk Windfinder

Nynaeve woke the next morning at first light feeling grumpy. She had a sense of bad weather coming, yet a glance out of the window revealed not a single cloud marring the still gray sky. Already the day promised to be another oven.

To top it all off, her weather sense still told her a storm was on its way, closer now, while the cloudless sky and burning sun taunted her.

Nynaeve picked herself up, dusted herself off, stumped the rest of the way to her room and slammed the door behind her. It was hot and close, the beds were unmade until Moghedien could get around to them, and worst of all, Nynaeve’s weather sense told her there should have been a hailstorm breaking over Salidar right that minute. But she would not be surprised there, or trampled.

Nynaeve rubbed her arms irritably. She had no answers, only hopes, and her weather sense told her that that hailstorm that was not there was beating the roofs of Salidar like drums. The feeling went on for days.

Most of the muted talk seemed to be about the weather. That and tales from elsewhere about strange happenings, twoheaded calves talking and men smothered by swarms of flies, all the children in a village disappearing in the middle of the night and people struck dead by something unseen in broad daylight. Anyone who could think clearly knew that the drought and unseasonable heat were the Dark One’s hand touching the world, but even most Aes Sedai doubted Elayne and Nynaeve’s claims that the other happenings were as real, that bubbles of evil were rising from the Dark One’s prison as the seals weakened, rising and drifting along the Pattern till they burst. Most people could not think clearly. Some blamed it all on Rand. Some said the Creator was displeased that the world had not gathered behind the Dragon Reborn, or displeased that the Aes Sedai had not captured and gentled him, or displeased that Aes Sedai were opposing a seated Amyrlin. Nynaeve had heard people say the weather would come right as soon as the Tower was whole again. She pushed through the crowd.

Rand

Amyrlin

“Once more?” Nynaeve suggested. “It could not hurt.” Elayne shrugged. Eyes shut. Need.

Nynaeve reached out, and her hand came down on something hard and rounded, covered with crumbling cloth. When she opened her eyes, Elayne’s hand was right next to hers. The younger woman’s grin nearly split her face in two.

Getting it out was not easy. It was not small, and they had to shift tattered coats and dented pots and parcels that crumbled to reveal figurines and carved animals and all sorts of rubbish. Once they had it out, they had to hold it between them, a wide flattish disc wrapped in rotted cloth. With the cloth stripped away, it turned out to be a shallow bowl of thick crystal, more than two feet across and carved deeply inside with what appeared to be swirling clouds.

“Nynaeve,” Elayne said slowly, “I think this is... ”

Nynaeve gave a start and nearly dropped her side of the bowl as it suddenly turned a pale watery blue and the carved clouds shifted slowly. A heartbeat later, the crystal was clear again, the carved clouds still. Only she was certain the clouds were not the same as they had been.

“It is,” Elayne exclaimed. “It’s a ter’angreal. And I will bet anything it has something to do with weather. But I’m not quite strong enough to work it by myself.”

Gulping a breath, Nynaeve tried to make her heart stop pounding. “Don’t do that! Don’t you realize you could still yourself, meddling with a ter’angreal when you don’t know what it does?”

The fool girl had the nerve to give her a surprised stare. “That is what we came to look for, Nynaeve. And do you think there is anyone who knows more about ter’angreal than I do?”

Nynaeve sniffed. Just because the woman was right did not mean she should not have given a little warning. “I’m not saying it isn’t wonderful if this can do something about the weather — it is — but I don’t see how it can be what we need. This won’t shift the Hall one way or the other about Rand.”

“Do you think it will do any good?” Nynaeve asked quietly.

“I do not know.” Elayne stopped to muffle a yawn behind her hand. How could the woman manage to look pretty yawning, with her hair a mess and a red wrinkle from a pillow marring one cheek? That was a secret Aes Sedai ought to investigate. “What I do know is that bowl may be able to do something about the weather.

“Are you certain this bowl is a ter’angreal? Sheriam asked when Nynaeve ran down. ”It can affect the weather?"

Sheriam

“Yes, Aes Sedai,” Elayne answered simply. Simple was best, to begin. Morvrin grunted; the woman doubted everything.

Sheriam nodded, shifting her shawl. “Then you have done well. We will send a letter to Merilille.” Merilille Ceandevin was the Gray sister sent to convince the queen in Ebou Dar to support Salidar. “We will need all the details from you.”

Merilille

“She’ll never find it,” Nynaeve burst out before Elayne could open her mouth. “Elayne and I can.” Aes Sedai eyes chilled.

“It probably would be impossible for her,” Elayne put in hastily. “We saw where the bowl is, and it will be difficult for us. But at least we know what we saw. Describing it in a letter just won’t be the same.”

That caused a small commotion, of course. Carlinya gasped, and Morvrin muttered to herself, and Sheriam’s mouth actually fell open. Nynaeve gaped as well, but just for an instant; Elayne was sure she covered before the others noticed. They were too stunned to see very much. The thing was, it was a lie, pure and simple. Simple was the key. Supposedly the greatest achievements in the Age of Legends had been done by men and women channeling together, probably linked. Very likely there were ter’angreal that needed a man to work. In any case, if she could not work the bowl alone, certainly no one in Salidar could. Except Nynaeve, maybe. If it required Rand, they could not pass up the chance to do something about the weather, and by the time she “discovered” that a circle of women could manage the bowl, the Aes Sedai in Salidar would have tied themselves to Rand too tightly to break loose.

Carlinya

Pausing in the shade in front of the Little Tower, Nynaeve carefully dabbed at her face, then tucked the handkerchief back up her sleeve. Not that it did much good — sweat popped out again right away — but she wanted to look her best inside. She wanted to look cool, serene, dignified. Small chance of that. Her temples were throbbing, and her stomach felt... fragile; she had not been able to look at breakfast this morning. Just the heat, of course, but she wanted to go back to her bed, curl up and die. To top it off, her weather sense was nagging at her; the molten sun should have been hidden by roiling black clouds and threatening bolts of lightning.

“It’s a bowl,” Elayne continued, “a ter’angreal, and I think it might be strong enough to change the weather.”

“Only, the bowl is somewhere in Ebou Dar, in an awful, tangled warren of streets with no signs or anything to help. The Hall sent a letter to Merilille, but she’ll never find it.”

“Especially since she is supposed to be busy convincing Queen Tylin that the real White Tower is here.”

“We told them it needed a man in the channeling.” Nynaeve sighed. “Of course, that was before Logain, though I don’t think they would trust him.”

“It doesn’t really need a man,” Elayne said. “We just wanted to make them believe they needed Rand. I don’t know how many women it does need; maybe a full circle of thirteen.”

“Elayne says it’s very powerful, Egwene. It could make the weather right again. I’d welcome that just to get my weather sense straight again.”

Egwene

“The bowl can make it right, Egwene.” Elayne exchanged happy looks with Nynaeve. “All you have to do is send us to Ebou Dar.”

“To make the weather right again would be a miraculous blessing,” Tylin said slowly, “but the quarter you describe sounds like the Rahad, across the river. Even the Civil Guard steps lightly there. Forgive me — I understand that you are Aes Sedai — but in the Rahad, you could have a knife in your back before you knew it. If the clothes are fine, they use a very narrow blade so there is little blood. Perhaps you should leave this search to Vandene and Adeleas. I think they have had a few more years than you to see such places.”

Adeleas and Vandene

This high, an almost constant breeze lessened the unnatural heat gripping the world. The Feast of Lights past, snow should have covered the ground deep, yet the weather belonged in the depths of a hard summer. Another sign that the Last Battle approached and the Dark One touched the world, if more were needed. 

Worst of all, her weather sense told her a storm was on the way, told her the wind should be howling outside and the rain sheeting down so thick no one could see ten feet. It had taken her some time to understand about the times she Listened to the Wind and seemed to hear lies. At least, she thought she understood. Another kind of storm was coming, not wind or rain. She had no proof, but she would eat her slippers if Mat Cauthon was not part of it somehow. 

“She sent us to find the Bowl of the Winds. With it, we can mend the weather.”

Come to think, once they used the Bowl of the Winds, it would rain again. It seemed years since rain last fell. Something tugged at his thoughts, something about the weather, and Elayne, which made no sense, but he shrugged it off. 

Elayne made an exasperated sound. “This is no time to stop for an argument, Nynaeve. The Bowl is upstairs! The Bowl of the Winds!” A small ball of light suddenly appeared, floating in front of her, and without waiting to see whether or not Nynaeve was coming, she gathered her skirts and darted up the stairs. Vanin dashed after her with a startling turn of speed for his bulk, followed by Reanne and most of the Wise Women. Roundfaced Sumeko and Ieine, tall and dark and pretty despite the lines at the corners of her eyes, hesitated, then remained with Nynaeve.

Wise Women

Mat would have gone, too, if Nynaeve and Lan had not been in his way. “Would you let me by, Nynaeve?” he asked. He deserved to be there, at least, when this fabulous bloody Bowl was uncovered. “Nynaeve?” She was so focused on Lan she seemed to have forgotten anyone else. Mat exchanged glances with Beslan, who grinned and squatted easily with Corevin and the remaining Redarms. Nalesean leaned against the wall and yawned ostentatiously. Which was a mistake with all that dust about; the yawn turned into a coughing fit that darkened his face and doubled him over.

Lan

The balding man in green and white who had slipped into the small room bowed deeply before falling to his knees. One of the upper servants in the palace, Madic, with his long face, possessed a pompous dignity that he tried to maintain even now. Moridin had seen men who stood far higher do far worse. “Great Master, I have learned what the Aes Sedai brought to the palace this morning. It is said they found a great treasure hidden in ancient days, gold and jewels and heartstone, artifacts from Shiota and Eharon and even the Age of Legends. There are said to be things among them that use the One Power. It is said that one can control the weather. No one knows where they are going, Great Master. The palace is aquiver with talk, but ten tongues name ten different destinations.”

Moridin

Moridin went back to studying the stableyard below as soon as Madic spoke. Ridiculous tales of gold and cuendillar held no interest. Nothing would make a gateway behave that way. Unless... Could she actually have unraveled the web? Death held no fear for him. Coldly he considered the possibility that he had been within sight of an unraveling web. One that had been unmade successfully. Another impossibility casually offered up by these...

Something Madic had said caught his ear. “The weather, Madic?” The shadows of the palace spires had barely lengthened from their bases, but there was not a cloud to shield the baking city.

“Yes, Great Master. It is called the Bowl of the Winds.”

The name meant nothing to him. But... a ter’angreal to control the weather... In his own Age, weather had been carefully regulated with the use of ter’angreal. One of the surprises of this Age — one of the smaller, it had seemed — was that there were those who could manipulate weather to a degree that should have required one of those ter’angreal. One such device should not be enough to affect even a large part of a single continent. But what could these women do with it? What? If they used a ring?

He seized the True Power without thought, the sea billowing black across his sight. His fingers tightened in the wroughtiron grille across the window; the metal groaned, twisting, not from his grip but from the tendrils of the True Power, drawn from the Great Lord himself, that wreathed around the grillework, flexing as he flexed his hand in anger. The Great Lord would not be pleased. He had strained from his prison to touch the world enough to fix the seasons in place. He was impatient to touch the world more, to shatter the void that contained him, and he would not be pleased. Rage enveloped Moridin, blood pounding in his ears. A moment past, he had not cared where those women went, but now... Somewhere far from here. People fleeing ran as far and as fast as they could. Somewhere they felt safe. No use sending Madic to ask questions, no use squeezing anyone here; they would not have been fool enough to leave anyone behind alive who knew their destination. Not to Tar Valon. To al’Thor? To that band of rebel Aes Sedai? In all three places he had eyes, some that did not know they served him. All would serve him, before the end. He would not allow chance slips to spoil his plans now.

Tar Valon

The Game of Thrones:  Let’s talk about the weather

The morning had dawned clear and cold, with a crispness that hinted at the end of summer. They set forth at daybreak to see a man beheaded, twenty in all, and Bran rode among them, nervous with excitement. This was the first time he had been deemed old enough to go with his lord father and his brothers to see the king’s justice done. It was the ninth year of summer, and the seventh of Bran’s life.

Ned about to issue out the King's Justice

Bran watching

“You are a young man, Tyrion,” Mormont said. “How many winters have you seen?”

Mormont and Tyrion

He shrugged. “Eight, nine. I misremember.”

“And all of them short.”

“As you say, my lord.” He had been born in the dead of winter, a terrible cruel one that the maesters said had lasted near three years, but Tyrion’s earliest memories were of spring.

“When I was a boy, it was said that a long summer always meant a long winter to come. This summer has lasted nine years, Tyrion, and a tenth will soon be upon us. Think on that.”

“When I was a boy,” Tyrion replied, “my wet nurse told me that one day, if men were good, the gods would give the world a summer without ending. Perhaps we’ve been better than we thought, and the Great Summer is finally at hand.” He grinned.

The Lord Commander did not seem amused. “You are not fool enough to believe that, my lord. Already the days grow shorter. There can be no mistake, Aemon has had letters from the Citadel, findings in accord with his own. The end of summer stares us in the face.” Mormont reached out and clutched Tyrion tightly by the hand. “You must make them understand. I tell you, my lord, the darkness is coming. There are wild things in the woods, direwolves and mammoths and snow bears the size of aurochs, and I have seen darker shapes in my dreams.”

Maester Aemon

Direwolf

Mammoth

Snow Bear

The common people pray for rain, healthy children, and a summer that never ends,” Ser Jorah told her.

Ser Jorah

As the girl went to fetch their drinks, the Grand Maester knotted his fingers together and rested his hands on his stomach. “The smallfolk say that the last year of summer is always the hottest. It is not so, yet ofttimes it feels that way, does it not? On days like this, I envy you northerners your summer snows.” The heavy jeweled chain around the old man’s neck chinked softly as he shifted in his seat. “To be sure, King Maekar’s summer was hotter than this one, and near as long. There were fools, even in the Citadel, who took that to mean that the Great Summer had come at last, the summer that never ends, but in the seventh year it broke suddenly, and we had a short autumn and a terrible long winter. 

Grand Maester Pycelle

King Maekar I

Beyond the castle lay the market square, its wooden stalls deserted now. They rode down the muddy streets of the village, past rows of small neat houses of log and undressed stone. Less than one in five were occupied, thin tendrils of woodsmoke curling up from their chimneys. The rest would fill up one by one as it grew colder. When the snow fell and the ice winds howled down out of the north, Old Nan said, farmers left their frozen fields and distant holdfasts, loaded up their wagons, and then the winter town came alive. Bran had never seen it happen, but Maester Luwin said the day was looming closer. The end of the long summer was near at hand. Winter is coming.

Old Nan

Maester Luwin

The old men called this weather spirit summer, and said it meant the season was giving up its ghosts at last. After this the cold would come, they warned, and a long summer always meant a long winter. This summer had lasted ten years. Jon had been a babe in arms when it began.

Jon

They know, Jon realized. “My father is no traitor,” he said hoarsely. Even the words stuck in his throat, as if to choke him. The wind was rising, and it seemed colder in the yard than it had when he’d gone in. Spirit summer was drawing to an end.

“You know,” Mormont grumbled. “How is it that everyone knows everything around here?” He did not seem to expect an answer. “It would seem there were only the two of … of those creatures, whatever they were, I will not call them men. And thank the gods for that. Any more and … well, that doesn’t bear thinking of. There will be more, though. I can feel it in these old bones of mine, and Maester Aemon agrees. The cold winds are rising. Summer is at an end, and a winter is coming such as this world has never seen.”

“Oh, my sweet summer child,” Old Nan said quietly, “what do you know of fear? Fear is for the winter, my little lord, when the snows fall a hundred feet deep and the ice wind comes howling out of the north. Fear is for the long night, when the sun hides its face for years at a time, and little children are born and live and die all in darkness while the direwolves grow gaunt and hungry, and the white walkers move through the woods.”

The Long Night

White Walker

“You mean the Others,” Bran said querulously.

“The Others,” Old Nan agreed. “Thousands and thousands of years ago, a winter fell that was cold and hard and endless beyond all memory of man. There came a night that lasted a generation, and kings shivered and died in their castles even as the swineherds in their hovels. Women smothered their children rather than see them starve, and cried, and felt their tears freeze on their cheeks.” Her voice and her needles fell silent, and she glanced up at Bran with pale, filmy eyes and asked, “So, child. This is the sort of story you like?”

“Well,” Bran said reluctantly, “yes, only …”

Old Nan nodded. “In that darkness, the Others came for the first time,” she said as her needles went click click click. “They were cold things, dead things, that hated iron and fire and the touch of the sun, and every creature with hot blood in its veins. They swept over holdfasts and cities and kingdoms, felled heroes and armies by the score, riding their pale dead horses and leading hosts of the slain. All the swords of men could not stay their advance, and even maidens and suckling babes found no pity in them. They hunted the maids through frozen forests, and fed their dead servants on the flesh of human children.”

Wights eating the flesh of humans

Autumn had come, the Conclave had declared, but the gods had not seen fit to tell the winds and woods as yet. For that Catelyn was duly grateful. Autumn was always a fearful time, with the specter of winter looming ahead. Even the wisest man never knew whether his next harvest would be the last.

By that afternoon the trees had begun to thin, and they marched east over gently rolling plains. Grass rose waist high around them, and stands of wild wheat swayed gently when the wind came gusting, but for the most part the day was warm and bright. Toward sunset, however, clouds began to threaten in the west. They soon engulfed the orange sun, and Lenn foretold a bad storm coming. His mother was a woods witch, so all the raiders agreed he had a gift for foretelling the weather. “There’s a village close,” Grigg the Goat told the Magnar. “Two miles, three. We could shelter there.” Styr agreed at once.

Styr

Snow in the riverlands. If it was snowing here, it could well be snowing on Lannisport as well, and on King’s Landing. Winter is marching south, and half our granaries are empty. Any crops still in the fields were doomed. There would be no more plantings, no more hopes of one last harvest. He found himself wondering what his father would do to feed the realm, before he remembered that Tywin Lannister was dead.

King's Landing

Tywin Lannister

When morning broke the snow was ankle deep, and deeper in the godswood, where drifts had piled up under the trees. Squires, stableboys, and highborn pages turned to children again under its cold white spell, and fought a snowball war up and down the wards and all along the battlements. Jaime heard them laughing. There was a time, not long ago, when he might have been out making snowballs with the best of them, to fling at Tyrion when he waddled by, or slip down the back of Cersei’s gown. You need two hands to make a decent snowball, though.

Jaime

Cersei

It was Riverrun’s old maester, with a message clutched in his lined and wrinkled hand. Vyman’s face was as pale as the new-fallen snow. “I know,” Jaime said, “there has been a white raven from the Citadel. Winter has come.”

The white ravens of the Citadel did not carry messages, as their dark cousins did. When they went forth from Oldtown, it was for one purpose only: to herald a change of seasons.

The Wheel of Time:  What set the weather right?

At that moment, Caire drew deeply. Saidar flooded through Elayne, almost as much as she could hold; an unbroken ring of light blazed into being, joining the women in the circle, brighter wherever one used an angreal, but nowhere faint. She watched closely as Caire channeled, forming a complex weave of all Five Powers, a fourpointed star that she laid atop the Bowl with what Elayne somehow was sure was exquisite precision. The star touched, and Elayne gasped. Once, she had channeled a trickle into the Bowl — in Tel’aran’rhiod, to be sure, and only a reflection of the Bowl, though still a dangerous thing to do — and that clear crystal had turned a pale blue, and the carved clouds moved. Now, the Bowl of the Winds was blue, the bright blue of a summer sky, and fleecy white clouds billowed across it.

The fourpoint star became fivepointed, the composition of the weave altered slightly, and the Bowl was a green sea with great heaving waves. Five points became six, and it was another sky, a different blue, darker, winter perhaps, with purple clouds heavy with rain or snow. Seven points, and a graygreen sea raged in storm. Eight points and sky. Nine and sea, and suddenly, Elayne felt the Bowl itself drawing saidar, a wild torrent far greater than all the circle together could manage.

The changes continued unabated inside the Bowl, sea to sky, waves to clouds, but a writhing, braided column of saidar shot up from that flattish crystal disc, Fire and Air, Water and Earth and Spirit, a column of intricate lace as wide as the Bowl, climbing up and up into the sky, until its top rose out of sight. Caire continued her weaving, sweat streaming down her face; she paused seemingly only to blink salty drops away from her eyes as she examined the images in the Bowl, then laid a new weave. The pattern of the braiding in the thick column altered with every weave, subtly echoing what Caire wove.

It was a very good thing she had not wanted to focus the flows for this circle, Elayne realized; what the woman was doing required years more study than she had. Many years more. Suddenly, she realized something else. That everchanging lacework of saidar bent itself around something else, something unseen that made the column solid. She swallowed, hard. The Bowl was drawing saidin as well as saidar.

Her hope that no one else had puzzled that out vanished with one glance at the other women. Half stared at the twisting column with a revulsion that should have been reserved for the Dark One. Fear grew stronger among the emotions shared in her head. Some were approaching the level of Garenia and Kirstian, and it was a wonder those two had not fainted. Nynaeve was a hair from sicking up, for all her suddenly too smooth face. Aviendha appeared just as calm outwardly, but inside, that tiny fear quivered and pulsed, trying to grow.

From Caire came only determination, as steely hard as her expression. Nothing was going to stand in Caire’s way, certainly not the mere presence of Shadowtainted saidin mixed into her weaving. Nothing was going to stop her. She worked the flows, and abruptly spiderwebs of saidar blossomed from the unseen top of the column, like uneven spokes of a wheel, almost a solid fan to the south, sparser fans reaching north and northwest, single lacy spokes stretching in other directions. They changed as they grew, never the same from one moment to the next, spreading across the sky, farther and farther, until the ends of the pattern also passed out of sight. Not just saidar there either, Elayne was certain; in places that spiderweb caught and curved around something she could not see. Still Caire wove, and the column danced to her bidding, saidar and saidin together, and the spiderweb altered and flowed like a lopsided kaleidoscope spinning across the heavens, vanishing into the distance, on and on and on.

The Bowl of Winds

Without warning, Caire straightened, knuckling her back, and released the Source completely. Column and spiderweb evaporated, and she collapsed as much as sat down, breathing hard. The Bowl turned clear again, but small patches of saidar flashed and crackled around its edges. “It is done, the Light willing,” she said tiredly.

Elayne hardly heard. That was not the way to end a circle. When Caire let go in that way, the Power disappeared from every woman simultaneously. Elayne’s eyes popped. For one instant, it was as though she stood atop the highest tower in the world, and suddenly the tower was not there anymore! Just an instant, yet hardly pleasant. She felt tired, if not anywhere near what she would have had she actually done anything beyond serve as a conduit, but what she felt most was loss. Letting go of saidar was bad enough; having it simply vanish out of you went beyond thinking about.

Others had suffered far worse than she. As the glow joining the circle winked out, Nynaeve sat down right where she stood as though her legs had melted, sat stroking the bracelet and rings, staring at it and panting. Sweat rolled down her face. “I feel like a kitchen sieve that just had the whole mill poured through it,” she murmured. Carrying that much of the Power had its cost even if you did nothing, even with an angreal.

Talaan wavered, a reed in the wind, casting surreptitious glances at her mother, plainly afraid to sit. Aviendha stood straight, her fixed expression saying that willpower had as much to do with that as anything else. She gave a slight smile, though, and made a gesture in Maiden handtalk — worth the price — and then another — more — right behind. More than worth the price. Everyone looked weary, if not so much as those who had used angreal. The Bowl of the Winds went quiet at last, just a wide bowl of clear crystal, but decorated now with towering waves. Saidar still seemed to be there, though, not being wielded by anyone, not visible, but in dimly felt flashes like those that had played around the Bowl at the end.

Maiden handtalk

Moiraine's angreal

Rand's angreal

Nynaeve raised her head to glower at the cloudless sky, then lowered her gaze to Caire. “All that, for what? Did we do anything, or not?” A breath of air stirred across the hilltop, warm as the air in a kitchen.

The Windfinder struggled her feet. “Do you think Weaving the Winds is like throwing the helm over on a darter?” she demanded contemptuously. “I just moved the rudder on a skimmer with a beam as broad as the world! He will take time to turn, time to know he is supposed to turn. That he must turn. But when he does, not the Father of Storms himself will be able to stand in his way. I have done it, Aes Sedai, and the Bowl of the Winds is ours!”

The Game of Thrones:  What will restore the balance and bring about A Dream of Spring?

Once they had it out, they had to hold it between them, a wide flattish disc wrapped in rotted cloth. With the cloth stripped away, it turned out to be a shallow bowl of thick crystal, more than two feet across and carved deeply inside with what appeared to be swirling clouds.

Nynaeve gave a start and nearly dropped her side of the bowl as it suddenly turned a pale watery blue and the carved clouds shifted slowly. A heartbeat later, the crystal was clear again, the carved clouds still. Only she was certain the clouds were not the same as they had been.

The changes continued unabated inside the Bowl, sea to sky, waves to clouds, but a writhing, braided column of saidar shot up from that flattish crystal disc, Fire and Air, Water and Earth and Spirit, a column of intricate lace as wide as the Bowl, climbing up and up into the sky, until its top rose out of sight.

What will be the bowl of winds counter part in ASOIAF?  I would say it will be the circle that Craster’s son was taken to and turned into a baby White Walker.  If you look at it you see ten ice crystal stalagmites jutting up from the frozen ground and in the middle lies a pedestal.  I can imagine an energy field surrounding the stalagmites forming a bowl of sorts and from the pedestal an energy source being projected into the sky much the same way as with the Bowl of Winds. 

Craster

Craster taking his son to the Other

One of the surprises of this Age — one of the smaller, it had seemed — was that there were those who could manipulate weather to a degree that should have required one of those ter’angreal. One such device should not be enough to affect even a large part of a single continent. But what could these women do with it? What? If they used a ring?

What we know of the Others and weather:

The Others come when it is cold, most of the tales agree. Or else it gets cold when they come. Sometimes they appear during snowstorms and melt away when the skies clear. They hide from the light of the sun and emerge by night . . . or else night falls when they emerge. Some stories speak of them riding the corpses of dead animals. Bears, direwolves, mammoths, horses, it makes no matter, so long as the beast is dead. The one that killed Small Paul was riding a dead horse, so that part’s plainly true. Some accounts speak of giant ice spiders too. I don’t know what those are. Men who fall in battle against the Others must be burned, or else the dead will rise again as their thralls.”

Giant Ice Spider

I believe that the Others have the power to control the weather in their vicinity but not much further than that so this is why it appears to get colder when they come much the same as those in TWOT who could do the same.  I also believe that R’hllor has a lot to do with what has gone wrong with the treaty and may have found a way to manipulate the Other’s themselves paving the way for his return as a savior but really being a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

Summation:

Like I keep saying major story arcs between the two books are essentially the same but flipped in a way to make them different but anyone paying attention can see where the idea’s came from IMO.  The weather in the world of ASOIAF isn’t cyclical in that it follows the planets revolution around it’s sun.  Something seems to control the climate in a way that doesn’t allow anyone to reliably forecast the weather from year to year.  This to me was thrown in as a homage to the Dark One breaking free in TWOT and his touch causing winter not to come like it should have until the Bowl of Winds countered his touch.  As I have been saying for some time now I don’t believe the Others to be the bad guys that we have been led to believe.  I believe that they are going to be shown to be the contingency plan to a “Pact” that was struck during the aftermath of the Long Night.  I believe that over the 8,000 years that have passed their true purpose has been distorted and now parents teach their children to fear them as snarks and grumpkins. Long ago it could have been said that those who violated the “Pact” would be subject to the justice wielded by the Others.  Over time as there wasn’t a violation to the “Pact” and the Other’s weren’t seen they became legend and legend was turned into fairy tales to tell your children when they misbehaved.

Comments encouraged.  Love to hear the idea’s of others.  Most believe that since I present my idea’s as “fact like” I’m not open to change my viewpoints which is far from the truth.  I simply look at the information presented and go from there.  If you can shine a light on another way of thinking that opens the door to debate.