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The Others & Evil: GRRM's Words


LordStoneheart

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[ Includes spoilers from the show based on the books, and the 1993 letter. Proceed at your own risk ]


I'm not sure if there is really a rise in the topic or if I'm just now noticing the talks, but ever since the episode "Hardhome" of that show, it seems there is a lot of discussion about whether or not the Others are "evil." So I decided to collect some quotes and share my own thoughts about the subject.

To many in the fandom, I don't think this really needs clarification, but often I see someone say that there has to be more to the Others because "GRRM doesn't write evil." Let's ignore the fact that many of his human characters are just plain evil for a second and focus on some quotes by GRRM that may have given fans the impression that GRRM "doesn't write evil."

 

About my question. Melisandre, I hope I am not butchering the spelling, really seems to be evil to me. She births shadow babies, and talks very much of blood. This seems to be blood magic to me. Perhaps its not.


But if it is, then is it evil, for Mirri was evil. Or just a vengeful bitch like the terriorists.


Mirri Maz Duur considered herself a hero, and no doubt Melisandre feels the same. What they are in truth... well, that's for each reader to determine for himself. I don't intend to make it easy.

Thoros is a totally different person. He is kind hearted and nice. Is this just because he washed out and became a fake priest. Or is this the way most red priests act?

Red priests are human beings, and like other human beings, they vary greatly.

Are the Others just pure evil, or are we going to find out more about their motives later on?

Keep reading

Another interesting thing from the con, at one point in a panel GRRM was commenting that he didn't like how in a lot of fantasy stories various races are all defined by a single personality (i.e. all orcs are evil, all elves are wise, etc), whereas it would be more realistic for various individuals within a race to have different personalities, viewpoints, etc. Some quick-witted audience member asked him how that idea applied to the Others in his own books, to which he replied, "I'm not gonna answer that." Food for thought.


He also answered some questions, and had some interesting things to say. He repeatedly emphasized that he prefers to write grey characters, because in real life people are complex; no one is pure evil or pure good. Fiction tends to divide people into heroes who do no wrong and villains who go home and kick their dogs and beat their wives, but that reality is much different. He cited a soldier who heroically saves his friends' lives, but then goes home and beats his wife. Which is he, hero or villain? Martin said both and that neither act cancels out the other.

 

In all of these quotes, I believe he is only referring to humans when it comes to black-white-gray morality. Whenever he speaks of conflict and every person considering themselves the hero, I think he is only referring to the human wars that are going on. The Lannisters can't be called "evil" because we know that there are sympathetic aspects to Tyrion, Jaime, Tommen, and Myrcella. Many of the Lannister relatives have nothing to do with the main conflict with the North and Riverlands. They are simply fighting for their families. (There are probably other quotes like this in various interviews across the web, but I'm willing to bet that they can be seen the same way.)

With the Others, it's different. I think that GRRM isn't being inconsistent here because the Others are not a "real" race. They're not humans. They're not "people." We don't know for certain what exactly they are, but I personally think that we have enough hints to say that they are not a race; they're created. They've been called "Neverborn." We had a clue about Craster's sons coming back from one of his wives, and the show seemingly confirmed that theory in season four, episode four "Oathkeeper."

Let's look at what GRRM has said specifically about the Others:
 

The Others are not dead. They are strange, beautiful… think, oh… the Sidhe made of ice, something like that… a different sort of life… inhuman, elegant, dangerous.


“(We’ll learn more about their) history, certainly, but I don’t know about culture,” he said. “I don’t know if they have a culture.”

From the 1993 letter:

The greatest danger of all, however, comes from the north, from the icy wastes beyond the Wall, where half-forgotten demons out of legend, the inhuman others, raise cold legions of the undead and the neverborn and prepare to ride down on the winds of winter to extinguish everything that we would call "life."

 

Basically, GRRM doesn't consider the Others human, so they can't really have what we know as shades of gray. Is this a poor explanation? Maybe. But I don't consider this story "above" that kind of trope. If GRRM was writing knock-off orcs, like trollocs or urgals, then it might be different. Actually, in my eyes, because his wights are seeming just puppets used by the Others who haven't made much of an appearance, he has made a much more pure evil than Tolkien, who is often derided for that. His orcs could speak. His orcs are named. I'd say the fight between Ugluk and Grishnahk is more interesting in terms of characterization than anything GRRM has done with the Others and wights so far. Perhaps one day, when GRRM writes more about the Others there can be a different tale told but if the unspeakable should happen, what he has written now does not suggest there is anything more to the Others besides the ultimate enemy against humanity.


I think there is nothing wrong with GRRM playing the evil card straight. He has no problems making atrocious characters like Gregor Clegane, Ramsay Snow, Tywin Lannister, Vargo Hoat & the Bloody Mummers, and many Ghiscari. Some may get a line or two "explaining" their motivations, but for most of them that little tidbit of info doesn't make their reputation or actions any better. (I couldn't care less that Gregor gets headaches or the baseborn Ramsay's mother was unstable in terms of judging their atrocities.)
 

tl;dr

In my opinion, GRRM's words about good vs evil only applies to humans

The Others are not human, so GRRM's words about good vs evil do not apply

The Others being evil does not take away from the story, especially one filled with vile characters beyond redemption

The Others & wights are more evil than Tolkien's orcs, until such a time that GRRM can explain more about them.

Feel free, no, welcome, to disagree. After all, I didn't collect every quote. :)

 

EDIT: Forgot to add in this quote. It's from another GRRM work, "And Seven Times Never Kill Man." Could be relevant, could also not be. Interesting though.

 


Do you believe in evil?” Arik neKrol asked Jannis Ryther as they looked down on the City of the Steel Angels from the crest of a nearby hill…

“Evil?” Ryther murmured in a distracted way…

“Evil,” neKrol repeated. The trader was a short, pudgy man, his features decidedly mongoloid except for the flame-red hair that fell nearly to his waist. “It is a religious concept, and I am not a religious man. Long ago, when I was a very child growing up on ai-Emerel, I decided that there was no good or evil, only different ways of thinking.” His small, soft hands felt around in the dust until he had a large, jagged shard that filled his fist. He stood and offered it to Ryther. “The Steel Angels have made me believe in evil again,” he said.


 
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In all of these quotes, I believe he is only referring to humans when it comes to black-white-gray morality.

So the quotes where he refuses to answer how the Others fit into the "no orcs-vs.elves" idea except to say "keep reading" or "I'm not gonna answer that" is about humans, not Others?

With the Others, it's different. I think that GRRM isn't being inconsistent here because the Others are not a "real" race. They're not humans. They're not "people." We don't know for certain what exactly they are, but I personally think that we have enough hints to say that they are not a race; they're created. They've been called "Neverborn." We had a clue about Craster's sons coming back from one of his wives, and the show seemingly confirmed that theory in season four, episode four "Oathkeeper."

You could make exactly these same arguments about Tolkien's orcs. In-universe, we're explicitly told that they're not even "really" alive, because Morgoth and his followers can't create life, only Illuvatar can. And that means Tolkien could use them as a way out of writing realistic moral struggles. And that's exactly what GRRM means when he says he doesn't want to write an orcs-vs.-elves story.

But couldn't you write realistic moral struggles against the backdrop of an orcs-vs.-elves story? Well, sure. Tolkien himself did that--he had his heroes reflect on the Southrons who were caught up in the war, and made it clear to us that Saruman's fall was understandable if not justifiable, and gave us grey human characters like Boromir whose stories were effective only because of the melodramatic backdrop. And surely GRRM knows Tolkien well enough to understand this. So if GRRM tells us that he's not writing orcs-vs.-elves, it's not because he thinks that there's no way to write human struggles within such a story, but because he doesn't want to write such a story in the first place.

In other words, what you're claiming is, in effect, that GRRM failed at his intentions and went with a cheap cop-out, one that he would surely know is a cop-out. Maybe that's true, as you seem to be arguing at the end, but I can't imagine GRRM would keep telling people that he doesn't want to write an orcs-vs.-elves story even after deciding, "Ah, screw it, they're orcs."
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So the quotes where he refuses to answer how the Others fit into the "no orcs-vs.elves" idea except to say "keep reading" or "I'm not gonna answer that" is about humans, not Others?

 

Oh, whoops, I honestly just forgot to address those ones when I meant to. I was going to say that his "keep reading" answers rarely mean anything, in most of his SSMs. He doesn't answer every question. Simple.

 

In other words, what you're claiming is, in effect, that GRRM failed at his intentions and went with a cheap cop-out, one that he would surely know is a cop-out. Maybe that's true, as you seem to be arguing at the end, but I can't imagine GRRM would keep telling people that he doesn't want to write an orcs-vs.-elves story even after deciding, "Ah, screw it, they're orcs."

 

No, what I'm claiming is that GRRM's intentions apply only to the human aspect of the story. Five novels in and we have no Other POV and only rampant violence from them, and a few different quotes about them that suggest they're just demons or monsters. From the beginning he's done that with the prologue. It's not a cop-out. It's what he's been doing since the Others first swarmed Waymar and stabbed him to death while laughing, for seemingly no reason besides him being human. It wouldn't be contradictory to anything he's said.

 

 

 And surely GRRM knows Tolkien well enough to understand this.

 

Surely?

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No, what I'm claiming is that GRRM's intentions apply only to the human aspect of the story. Five novels in and we have no Other POV and only rampant violence from them, and a few different quotes about them that suggest they're just demons or monsters. From the beginning he's done that with the prologue. It's not a cop-out. It's what he's been doing since the Others first swarmed Waymar and stabbed him to death while laughing, for seemingly no reason besides him being human. It wouldn't be contradictory to anything he's said.

Sure they would. Again, Tolkien had human struggles against a backdrop of an orcs-vs.-elves war. If GRRM meant that he wanted to write real humans with real human struggles against a backdrop of an orcs-vs.-elves war, why would he tell us that he didn't want to write an orcs-vs.-elves war?

Surely?

Yes, I am. And don't call me Shirley.
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So if GRRM tells us that he's not writing orcs-vs.-elves, it's not because he thinks that there's no way to write human struggles within such a story, but because he doesn't want to write such a story in the first place.

 

I didn't say there could be no human struggles in orcs vs elves. I didn't say GRRM thought so. I said that GRRM was writing his story about humans not being wholly evil on either side. Very few aspects of his north of the wall story so far can even apply to those quotes. Those quotes don't explain anything to do with the Others or the wights. They explain why he wrote from the POV of the Lannisters, Greyjoys, Martell, and Targaryen. There are no viewpoints or personality with the Others. That's the big clue. Unless the talk of Puddles isn't sarcastic?

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That line about "I don't know if they have a culture" really struck me.

 

Doesn't every kind of typical life, organism, or what have you have some kind of culture? I mean an ants culture and a human's are very different (totalitarian hivequeens versus uhhh... oligarchy and television?), or dogs and fish, etc. Some kind of system. Did GRRM not plan it out, because it is not important and we will never see their side of things, or is there something else about that line?

 

Perhaps the Others really DON'T have a culture, for a specific reason, or reasons. Could they be more an archetype of some sort, or some sort of elemental force? Grrr. I want answers about the Other more than anything. Please write an Others POV or short story someday, Mr Martin!

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The fact that the Others want to kill all the humans is not debatable it is also inexcusable that they want to do this because of some backstory. From a human POV they are evil. From their own POV this may not matter because killing a competing race is just business. Who can presume to know the mind of an other.

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In other words, what you're claiming is, in effect, that GRRM failed at his intentions and went with a cheap cop-out, one that he would surely know is a cop-out. Maybe that's true, as you seem to be arguing at the end, but I can't imagine GRRM would keep telling people that he doesn't want to write an orcs-vs.-elves story even after deciding, "Ah, screw it, they're orcs."

 

I don't really think it's necessarily a cop-out to admit orcs v elves and others v westeros is an apt analogy.  I doubt there will be much characterization to explain the moral complexity of the Others in the following editions, and that's fine.  I think what Martin was getting at in using the Tolkien analogy is that he wanted to create a much more nuanced (and broad) human world than we see in Middle Earth.  I mean, sure there's discussion of the Southrons and Easterlings falling prey to Morgoth and/or Sauron's will, and Denethor's corruption, but it does not approach the moral and political complexity of most of the characters in ASOIAF.

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I think what Martin was getting at in using the Tolkien analogy is that he wanted to create a much more nuanced (and broad) human world than we see in Middle Earth.  I mean, sure there's discussion of the Southrons and Easterlings falling prey to Morgoth and/or Sauron's will, and Denethor's corruption, but it does not approach the moral and political complexity of most of the characters in ASOIAF.

 

I think Martin needs to revist Tolkien's work if he thinks it's as morally simplistic as good elves and men vs evil orcs.

Just a few examples of morally questionable acts in Tolkien's work include The kinslaying at Alqualondë, the Oath of Fëanor, Eöl the Dark Elf throwing a poisened javelin at his own son and killing his wife instead. In fact The Silmarillion is largely about elves and men doing morally questionable things while there's a greater threat of pure evil looming... which really isn't any different to ASoIaF.

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I think the OP may be onto something.

 

We won't know if he is before the next book is out - but he may be.

 

In my mind it is possible that GRRM uses the Others and the Dragons not really as persons but as the elemental forces that they are. And those elemental forces aren't 'evil' or 'good' in and of themselves. They just are what they are. Elements.

 

Which means being exposed to them can be a very cruel experience for the human protagonists of the story. Just like freezing to death on a failed north pole expedition or bein subjected to a volcanic eruption is cruel RL.

 

The 'evil' and 'good' comes in when someone tries to use these elemental forces for their own ends and gives them a human purpose.

 

Then that person does something evil or good - but this does not reflect on the nature of the used elemental itself.

 

What seems to contradict this are the mocking voices of the Others in the prologue of the first book. I admit that. So maybe I am wrong. But I think its possible those voices signify not an evil of the elemental nature of ice but rather that was someone using - or misusing rather - the ice element. Or the voices were just a personification of how an elemental force can seem to be mocking in RL (like for instance water: You build dams but the water keeps tearing them down as if it was mocking you.)

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I think the OP may be onto something.

 
Thanks
 

In my mind it is possible that GRRM uses the Others and the Dragons not really as persons but as the elemental forces that they are. And those elemental forces aren't 'evil' or 'good' in and of themselves. They just are what they are. Elements.
 
The 'evil' and 'good' comes in when someone tries to use these elemental forces for their own ends and gives them a human purpose.

 

I wrote something before that touched a little bit on this kind of theme. It was about GRRM's Ice Dragon story. In it I said that in the books so far, we only get the "fire" side of the story through Dany. We see her and (some of us) connect with her and get invested in her storyline. It could be said that fire is personified in her and to some, sympathetic. With ice, it's the opposite. The Starks are sometimes called icy, but we don't really see ice magic with them, not like we see with Dany and the dragons. So later we may gradually get the opposite, some sort of personification of ice, but I'm not sure how GRRM could manage it at this point. If maybe there was a Dany-equivalent of the Others from the beginning.

 

(Here's the thread if you're interested. http://asoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/topic/88169-reconciling-grrms-the-ice-dragon-as-canon/ )

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The fact that the Others want to kill all the humans is not debatable it is also inexcusable that they want to do this because of some backstory. From a human POV they are evil. From their own POV this may not matter because killing a competing race is just business. Who can presume to know the mind of an other.

The Others want to kill all humans ? So, why did they never attack the wildlings in force ? Why did they let one third of the Watch got away ? Why did they accept Craster's sons as sacrifice and leave him alone ? Seems to me it's a better treatment they give their foes than the one the Lannisters gave the Starks. 

 

The Others sure hate or at least have a distaste for humans and want them off their lands, but that doesn't equal killing everyone and everything. They have showed some dignity as one dueled Waymar Royce instead of all of them ganging up on him, they never joined their minions on the Fist during the battle to make sure all Black Brothers were dead. It's just too soon to say for certain anything, should wait till at least tWoW.

 

 I wrote something before that touched a little bit on this kind of theme. It was about GRRM's Ice Dragon story. In it I said that in the books so far, we only get the "fire" side of the story through Dany. We see her and (some of us) connect with her and get invested in her storyline. It could be said that fire is personified in her and to some, sympathetic. With ice, it's the opposite. The Starks are sometimes called icy, but we don't really see ice magic with them, not like we see with Dany and the dragons. So later we may gradually get the opposite, some sort of personification of ice, but I'm not sure how GRRM could manage it at this point. If maybe there was a Dany-equivalent of the Others from the beginning.

 

 

 There is, just that it's way more subtle, read the following and guess who it refers to :

 

She was born the third child of a great noble family of ancient royal blood . From a young age, she had to live a life on the run as her family were destroyed and she herself was hunted. During her journey, she witnessed horror and wonders beyond imagining, hearing prophecies and encountering beings who defied the laws of life and death. She also got to know a lot of strange yet fascinating people, many of which either died or left her. Perhaps the dearest companion of hers was an animal that is the sigil of her house, reminding her of her true origins. Finally, she came to a foreign city where she has tried her best to adapt to, suppressing her true nature in the process, yet in her that nature lives on, waiting to burst out again.

 

 Ice and Fire are equal and opposite, so the two representing them should have a similar journey but reversed development. 

 

 

 

 

I didn't say there could be no human struggles in orcs vs elves. I didn't say GRRM thought so. I said that GRRM was writing his story about humans not being wholly evil on either side. Very few aspects of his north of the wall story so far can even apply to those quotes. Those quotes don't explain anything to do with the Others or the wights. They explain why he wrote from the POV of the Lannisters, Greyjoys, Martell, and Targaryen. There are no viewpoints or personality with the Others. That's the big clue. Unless the talk of Puddles isn't sarcastic?

 

 The point is that there won't be an orcs vs elves war ( aka war between good and evil ). The closest things we have to elves in ASOIAF are tCotF ( forest people) and the Valyrians (beautiful otherworldly race) . Both of which have showed to be capable of extreme acts of violence, more than anything the elves did in tLotR ( I know the elves can be selfish and foolish, but not to this level ). 

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The Others want to kill all humans ? So, why did they never attack the wildlings in force ? Why did they let one third of the Watch got away ? Why did they accept Craster's sons as sacrifice and leave him alone ? Seems to me it's a better treatment they give their foes than the one the Lannisters gave the Starks. 

 

The Others sure hate or at least have a distaste for humans and want them off their lands, but that doesn't equal killing everyone and everything. They have showed some dignity as one dueled Waymar Royce instead of all of them ganging up on him, they never joined their minions on the Fist during the battle to make sure all Black Brothers were dead. It's just too soon to say for certain anything, should wait till at least tWoW.

 

To your first, I believe they did not have the force to take humanity yet. That is why they're slowly attacking. The Starks and Lannisters at least know why they became embroiled in a war. The Others are just warring with no reason or outreach to say why they are fighting. The humans are fighting because they are being hunted. Big difference between the Others' genocide and the War of the Five Kings.

 

 

The point is that there won't be an orcs vs elves war ( aka war between good and evil ). The closest things we have to elves in ASOIAF are tCotF ( forest people) and the Valyrians (beautiful otherworldly race) . Both of which have showed to be capable of extreme acts of violence, more than anything the elves did in tLotR ( I know the elves can be selfish and foolish, but not to this level ). 

 

Good and evil, maybe not, but life and death. We've seen that humans have the capability to be destructive and violent for little reason, but in the end they are still human. We sympathize with them because we are them. But they are not pure "good." So I guess you could say the humans vs Others isn't good vs evil but gray vs evil, which is different enough to make GRRM's words count. If that's even what he's saying, which I've argued that he's not. One day we'll know for sure.

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I don't think George made detailed decisions about the Others and how exactly they will invade so far. He must have broad outlines but the details must still be missing. That might be the reason why he said "keep reading" and "I am not gonna answer that" in this particular topic. George did lots of foreshadowing to the War of the Five Kings and the Second Dance but I am unable to find even very basic ones about the War against the Others. After 5 books, all we have is a Checkov’s horn and that went far away from the Wall beside being broken in the first place.

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If the Others have to grow their numbers by taking human children, they will not increase in number very fast. Also, they can not go south of the Wall until the power there that prevents them from passing is demolished.

 

I agree with you, LordStoneHeart, that the Others are evil and are the dark force in the storyline. The prologue in Game makes that clear. I believe that GRRM has deliberately given us very little to go on regarding their motivation other than hearsay from Mance that their numbers and powers are growing, and that the free folk had to go south of the Wall or be destroyed. Still, it is hard to discount Mance's opinion of their character. He was exposed to them while the Nightwatch and the people of the north had only folk tales on which to form their opinions.

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To your first, I believe they did not have the force to take humanity yet. That is why they're slowly attacking. The Starks and Lannisters at least know why they became embroiled in a war. The Others are just warring with no reason or outreach to say why they are fighting. The humans are fighting because they are being hunted. Big difference between the Others' genocide and the War of the Five Kings.

 

 They had enough force to take all the men of the Night's Watch at the Fist, and they let some escape. They had Waymar outnumbered, yet they gave him a chance. These are not behavior of some monsters bent on complete genocide. The motive for the Others' war is not certain, so we should not assume that they war for no reason, and to say that they outreach is definitely untrue. All of the Others' attacks so far have happened beyond the Wall, on their land ( even the Watch's vow confirmed this: shield that guards the realm of men), so if anything, the humans are the ones outreaching themselves, going into another race's realm.

 

Good and evil, maybe not, but life and death. We've seen that humans have the capability to be destructive and violent for little reason, but in the end they are still human. We sympathize with them because we are them. But they are not pure "good." So I guess you could say the humans vs Others isn't good vs evil but gray vs evil, which is different enough to make GRRM's words count. If that's even what he's saying, which I've argued that he's not. One day we'll know for sure.

Life and death is also an incorrect way to look at it, Martin himself said that the Others are alive, just a different soft of life. Humans have showed ability to raise the dead as well. So both sides consist of life and death,  just different kind of life and death, so there is no reason for one to be gray and the other pure evil, more likely both gray, but different softs of gray.

 

Also we don't really sympathize with humans because we are them, we sympathize with them because so far we've read the story from their perspective. There are lots of stories written from other beings' pov with humans as villains invading their land and killing them without thinking, and the readers/viewers sympathize with these creatures over the humans anyway ( the Others and CotF being interestingly quite similar to these). All we need is a pov of an Other or someone close to them, which can be achieved if a pov character gets touched by the coming winter which is implied to be possible ( through the Ice dragon story, legend of the Night's King, and  possibly Val )

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I think Martin needs to revist Tolkien's work if he thinks it's as morally simplistic as good elves and men vs evil orcs.

Just a few examples of morally questionable acts in Tolkien's work include The kinslaying at Alqualondë, the Oath of Fëanor, Eöl the Dark Elf throwing a poisened javelin at his own son and killing his wife instead. In fact The Silmarillion is largely about elves and men doing morally questionable things while there's a greater threat of pure evil looming... which really isn't any different to ASoIaF.

 

1.  All three of your examples are from The Silmarillion, wherein the Orcs play a bit role.  Clearly this is not what Marting was referring to.

 

2.  Comparing the mythos in the Silmarillion which enjoys little characterization and was only published by Christopher to the 5 volumes Martin has thusfar written dealing with moral complexity and political intrigue is apples and oranges.

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GRRM's plans have changed a lot since that letter. If the Others want to extinguish all life then they certainly are taking their time - look at the wildlings and the giants - they battled the Wildlings for years and either the WWs are extremely weak or they just did not want to kill all the wildlings. Quite a lot of the Wildling population is still alive

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Can someone make sense out of "Others are more neutral, only appearing on their chunk of land, having the children-taking pact with at least some humans in past" and "Others just want to kill everything in their line of sight during the Long Night"?

 

Did they change their views after the Long Night? Was there a peace treaty? Are they playing keep away temporarily due to their numbers being dwindled?

 

Then if they can be killed but can't reproduce except in the way of turning human children into more Others, and said pact was effectively not carried out (at least not in en masse) for many years already, and their sudden activity is caused by breaking of pact, why didn't they act sooner? Or if (just a speculation) they became active due to soon-to-be-approaching winter and the broken pact has nothing to do with it, how will they suddenly turn into hordes and hordes scourging across the Westeros (to present any meaningful threat)?

 

If the theory of "their main force is still waiting in lands of far north and we just haven't seen it yet / they were just in some sort of slumber during the summer" is correct, then whole children-turned-Others loses its significance.

 

So maybe as middle ground, it works like this: Others can reproduce and boost their numbers naturally only during winter, and during summer they have only one working way to do so: convert children? If the population of Others grows at winter but is somehow endangered during summer, and supposed peace treaty at the end of last Long Night was about both races ensuring each others survival, then it for Others it could from "we need to absolutely cover Westeros in our kind at winter for at least some of it to persevere through next summer" approach to "we will not overrun humans if they sustain us through the summer with their offerings", and Night's Watch / CotF as mediator between two groups - this would also explain the Wall created by Others and held by humans as borderline through which this kind of sustenance crucial for Others' survival would be passed.

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