Chapotraphouse

the long night of the show. It doesn't happen naturally or magically from the white walkers, it's a blacked out sky from a massive meteor like the one that killed the dinosaurs. It already happened before is how we know, the original long night coincides with the Bloodstone Emperor calling down a meteor and then worshipping it in the World of Ice and Fire, it's how the Great Empire of the Dawn was destroyed (the proto-Valyrian dragon riding empire). The Children of the Forest also call down the Hammer of the Waters and split the arm of Dorne.

Dragons are easy. They're just animals in this world. That isn't even divorced from the actual, textual origin of dragons in ASOIAF. GRRM put a lot of effort into making sure his designs resembled 'real animals' and the world is also inhabited by non fire breathing dragons that seem entirely naturalistic and could've been a base species bred into modern dragons.

The ice wall or shadow babies or Jon's resurrection all have their associated sci fi explanations, from self-servicing forgotten technology to telekinesis, an important piece of context to this theory is that GRRM has previously written about all of these things under a sci-fi lens. GOTs time travel plot is almost 1:1 copied from a sci-fi work of his dealing with hive minds and sending memories through time.

The story is fantasy, to be sure, but I think its a damn good one to inspire these sorts of ideas.

complete with all the wizards have early warning radar when their warrens get opened

I'm pretty baked rn and i think my point was a little muddled but I'm saying i think it's really hard to write and so there are a lot of bad examples.

If you haven't checked it out, the book series "Malazan: Book of the Fallen" it's 10 books long and is very high fantasy and still has great political intrigue. Unique magic system, imperialism, slave uprisings led by the coolest fictional character in all of fantasy who basically has a final fantasy storyline leading to a fight against a god.

There's a more but its mostly background or ancient history and usually quite minor to the plot, in contrast with most other fantasy series/settings where magic/magical items are often McGuffins and the deus ex machinas. Eschewing the centrality of magic and instead focusing on very detailed worldbuilding allowing for 'realistic' portrayals of political intrigue/military conflicts and even what mundane life would be like with the implications of the setting is what made the series unique and popular even prior to the adaption

ASOIAF as always been more about the political intrigue, but in the books it is actually done well, and the depth of the world and number of fleshed out characters is impossible to translate to screen well(I'm pretty sure GRRM expressed the same opinion about its inadaptability before the show deal, and he was a screenwriter for years so he should know lol)

As for Sam at the point the book are at(which is around season 5 in the show iirc although the cutting, melding and changing of plotlines and characters makes direct comparison inaccurate, but its been a 15 year gap since the last book and there's supposed to be 2 more ) he just started training to become a Maester, which he does in the show but iirc they kind of rush the whole thing, their more like scientists/philosophers/alchemists than actual wizards but he is his apprenticing with a Maester who knows ravenspeach which is implied to be kind of magical, and has come into contact with Glass Candles which are basically non-evil lotr Palantirs which I don't think were in the show at all? so he is brushing up against magic a bit

But yeah magic is explicitly not the focus of ASOIAF, it's basically war of the roses in a fantasy setting. The show sucks give the books a go, if its up your alley you'll be hooked after a few chapters