Did the Others build the walls?

[falcotron]

why the CotF are all behind that Wall

People like to bring this up as a mystery, but we already have a perfectly good explanation.

The Children retreated to the deep forests and the untouched lands. Then the Andals came and chopped down the forests and hunted down the Children. And, over the centuries, humanity spread out to cover all of Westeros except some of the lands beyond the Wall. So, it's not in the slightest bit surprising that the only remaining Children that we've seen are beyond the Wall.

ETA: Of course we know that the First Men didn't exactly keep to the Pact even before the Andals came. But even ignoring that, the coming of the Andals is already enough, in itself, to explain the lack of Children below the Wall. And meanwhile, the fact that we're told that Children sometimes fought alongside First Men against the Andals pretty much proves the Andal explanation. It's both necessary and sufficient to explain the "mystery", so there is no unexplained mystery left.

[LmL]

Really? No one in history has ever negotiated an exception to any treaty without invalidating the entire treaty?

 

 

If there was a treaty with the Others, it may well have involved sacrificing babies to them, just as Craster is doing.  The NK may have been the first to do it - he was found to have been sacrificing to the Others. In this scenario, Craster may be KEEPING the pact, or trying to. We don't know if other wildlings have done the same.  Where did Craster get the idea, after all? 

 

As for timeline - this was 8,000 years ago or more. Anyone who is stuck on the idea of the NK living after the LN because he was the 13th LC is kidding themselves. We don't know. We don't know when the NW was created, and many have suggested that if the LH = NK, those first 12 LC's were actually his friends who died. He called himself 13th LC to honor his bros. Definitely possible - I don't have a strong opinion one way or the other, but I find it plausible, certainly. 

[LmL]

People like to bring this up as a mystery, but we already have a perfectly good explanation.

The Children retreated to the deep forests and the untouched lands. Then the Andals came and chopped down the forests and hunted down the Children. And, over the centuries, humanity spread out to cover all of Westeros except some of the lands beyond the Wall. So, it's not in the slightest bit surprising that the only remaining Children that we've seen are beyond the Wall.

ETA: Of course we know that the First Men didn't exactly keep to the Pact even before the Andals came. But even ignoring that, the coming of the Andals is already enough, in itself, to explain the lack of Children below the Wall. And meanwhile, the fact that we're told that Children sometimes fought alongside First Men against the Andals pretty much proves the Andal explanation. It's both necessary and sufficient to explain the "mystery", so there is no unexplained mystery left.

 

 

I agree with this. It seems like the FM warred on the cotf for a time, eventually stopped and adopted their religion. Then, when the Andals came, the weirwoods were again cut down, and it seems like this was the last hurrah for cotf south of the Wall. 

[TeamRhllor]

 
The Great Wall of China is longer though shorter. Men built it without the aid of giants or magic, just taking a really long time and untold numbers of lost lives. The Wall in ASOIAF is built with magic. I fail to see why the Wall is an impossible construction but Hightower, Harrenhal, the pyramids in Essos, the House the Undying, etc are all possible. 
 
 
Doesn't Snow mention previous generations of watchmen hauling large blocks of ice from North of the Wall? Do you think this is a legend? I mean, I have a hard time figuring out how they would do it, myself, once it got hundreds of feet high and they had no magic to draw from. 
 
OP, we'd told you why we think the Others DIDN'T build the Wall. Your turn. What textual evidence do you have that they did? I am wracking my brain trying to think of some and I can't. What am I missing? 

The great wall was made of stone and isn't 700 feet tall. It's impossibly tall and ice would collapse from all the weight, yet it doesn't. As for evidence from the book there is none. No more than there is for it being built by man. The story they tell about its construction is simply a flawed fable, saying it was built by Brandon the Builder. That wall is far too large to be built in a lifetime. Why would humans use ice instead of stones? Since when did the First Men know magic, which the wall clearly has? There's just no way in my mind that humans did this, but hopefully we find out soon.

[Mithras]

The story they tell about its construction is simply a flawed fable, saying it was built by Brandon the Builder.

 

The story tells that Brandon the Builder made use of giants and CotF magic while building the Wall. I don't see what your problem is.

[TeamRhllor]

 
The story tells that Brandon the Builder made use of giants and CotF magic while building the Wall. I don't see what your problem is.

Again, this is a theory. You don't have to agree. There are stories about ice dragons, and other crazy stuff, too. Just because there's a story, doesn't make the story true.

[Lady Blizzardborn]

Again, this is a theory. You don't have to agree. There are stories about ice dragons, and other crazy stuff, too. Just because there's a story, doesn't make the story true.

Yeah, all that hogwash about Others raising armies of undead, dragons, blood magic. Total nonsense. (sarcasm off)

 

Dude, fantasy series.

[Dorian Martell]

I'm not great at making convincing theories, but I'm almost certain of this one. If you have any evidence otherwise, please feel free to point it out.

I believe that the long night was resolved by a pact, not by humans beating the Others. The pact was an establishment of a boundary that was not to be crossed. As a result, the Others built the wall to separate the two realms (they are the only known beings that possess Ice Magic). For thousands of years the pact went unbroken, but eventually the humans forgot the pact and started ranging and inhabiting the land beyond the wall. That's why the Others kill people beyond the wall. This hasn't broke whatever magic pact that still prevents them from crossing the wall, but I really believe the Others built the wall.

Why do you believe there was a pact? there is no mention of it, unlike the human ctof pact. Also, If hte others built it, why cant it keep humans out, and then why are there stories of giants and ctof building the wall with humans yet no stories of the wall being built by the others via an agreement? No, the others did not build the wall  

[butterbumps!]

Not for me. My interpretation of Brandon of the Bloody Blade is totally different.

That's a particularly esoteric, and honestly, imo, very forced reading of the scenario when you look at the adjacent context telling us that the Kings of Winter (i.e. Starks) spent hundreds of years beating up CotF, greenseers, skinchangers and their allies.   

 

Even in the off chance that this Brandon of the BB legend is both literal and means what you say it means, there's still history telling us of these Kings of Winter (and, again, Kings of Winter, for god's sakes, lol) persecuting, or at least in complete opposition to, CotF, greenseers, skinchangers and their allies for a good while apparently fairly singularly up North, so the point of Stark-old gods opposition still stands-- at least, this is a fairly compelling possibility that the Starks/ Others/ whoever handles ice magic threw up the Wall as part of an effort against the old gods entities.

 

This does not explain why many CotF lived south of the Wall for a long time after the Wall was built and why they fought side by side with the First Men against the Andals.

How exactly do you know exactly when the Wall was built?    I'm honestly really not sure.   All of this history is murky.

 

But I guess more to the point, I don't know if I understand the point you're making about the CotF habitation.   If some or all of the Northmen above the Neck were trying to wipe out the CotF and their allies, those below the Neck wouldn't be affected.  I mean, if this is about gaining a magical and power advantage of the Northern territory, why would they leave their territory to kill CotF down south necessarily?   Maybe I misunderstand what you mean, and if so let me know.
 

I know well enough that Othor and Jafers were fully functional wights under the day light and when the wights attacked Bran’s party, the sun had not set yet. You might have a different interpretation of the texts for these particular cases but I will stick to mine.

Well, we don't know that they were fully functional during the daytime-- especially not bright, cheerful, clear as an unmuddied lake daytime.   That chapter you cite with Bran (I assume you mean Bran II, DwD) begins as the sun is setting; it's during twilight, and there's barely any sun making its way into the forest at that point.   

 

I should have been more precise in pointing out that the issue seems to be the presence of sun.   We don't know exactly what sort of relationship the wights and the Others have, but they do seem to be somewhat correlated with (or having some kind of connection to) the Others.   And the Others don't seem tolerant of the sun, if not entirely nocturnal (I mean, something tells me that in a total daytime white out, they'd probably tolerate the day).   But at any rate, I think there's a correlation between a lack of sun and wight animation (or, at least, Other activity) suggested in the text.

 

People like to bring this up as a mystery, but we already have a perfectly good explanation.

The Children retreated to the deep forests and the untouched lands. Then the Andals came and chopped down the forests and hunted down the Children. And, over the centuries, humanity spread out to cover all of Westeros except some of the lands beyond the Wall. So, it's not in the slightest bit surprising that the only remaining Children that we've seen are beyond the Wall.

ETA: Of course we know that the First Men didn't exactly keep to the Pact even before the Andals came. But even ignoring that, the coming of the Andals is already enough, in itself, to explain the lack of Children below the Wall. And meanwhile, the fact that we're told that Children sometimes fought alongside First Men against the Andals pretty much proves the Andal explanation. It's both necessary and sufficient to explain the "mystery", so there is no unexplained mystery left.

I don't think it's a huge mystery on its own.  But when you look at the total annihilation of the CotF in the North, especially with so many families there now embracing the old gods, I think it's a little weird (not inexplicable, just weird).   I'm not talking about the lands below the Neck or where CotF and Andals clashed.   I mean this old ancient land where all these Northerners (apparently mostly the Kings of Winter) eradicated the CotF from the North specifically, despite continuing to share all these religious and magical elements, and apparently good relations (which is not the case in the South).      For clarity, the weirdness of this, to me, is largely related to how long ago the Pact was supposed to have happened, and their "culture" totally adopted by the Northerners, which I'd sort of think is a little off in terms none of them returning to the forests in the North but rather disappearing completely.  

[Vastet]

There is light everywhere in the universe except inside of a black hole

Since light cannot escape a black hole, yet can enter it, the inside of a black hole would have the brightest light in the universe.

[TheOne-EyedHound]

Sounds like you might enjoy the Heresy thread over on the ADwD page. Come across and have a look.

Good thread, recommended.

[LmL]

Since light cannot escape a black hole, yet can enter it, the inside of a black hole would have the brightest light in the universe.

 

Well done, ser. Have you seen any of my astronomy threads? This kind of critical, yet spacey kind of thinking of yours is just the kind of thing we like over there. ;)

[Mithras]

That's a particularly esoteric, and honestly, imo, very forced reading of the scenario when you look at the adjacent context telling us that the Kings of Winter (i.e. Starks) spent hundreds of years beating up CotF, greenseers, skinchangers and their allies.   

 

Even in the off chance that this Brandon of the BB legend is both literal and means what you say it means, there's still history telling us of these Kings of Winter (and, again, Kings of Winter, for god's sakes, lol) persecuting, or at least in complete opposition to, CotF, greenseers, skinchangers and their allies for a good while apparently fairly singularly up North, so the point of Stark-old gods opposition still stands-- at least, this is a fairly compelling possibility that the Starks/ Others/ whoever handles ice magic threw up the Wall as part of an effort against the old gods entities.

 

How else are we supposed to read unimaginably ancient events which were passed down by oral tradition and songs?

 

Kings of Winter might also mean that people came to Winterfell in winters and they all hailed Starks as Winter Kings.

 

We know that after the Pact, the First Men lost their original Faith and adopted the Old Gods. Have you ever wondered the mechanism in this religious shift?

 

The First Men embraced the Faith of the Seven in the South and the mechanism for this religious shift was intermarriages between Andals and First Men. So, intermarriages between humans and CotF might be the mechanism for adopting the Old Gods after the signing of the Pact.

 

You neglect the fact that both CotF and the First Men had doves and hawks. We know that the doves of both races led to the Pact but the hawks must have remained nonetheless. Perhaps before the Pact, Brandon and his followers came to an agreement with the doves of CotF who also wanted an end to the war. They decided to intermarry and produce hybrid offspring that would be sympathetic to both races and solve their conflict. In solving this conflict, the doves emerged as a powerful group who claimed prized habitats. After all, we know a case where the CotF and the giants fought over a prized cave system which means this scenario is not a remote possibility.

 

As a result, the Warg King and his CotF allies might very well be the hawks who wanted to reclaim their prized habitats and perhaps even to instigate the war again.

 

So far, the Wall is proven to be penetrable to both the wildlings and the CotF (Leaf). The CotF can by-pass the Wall quite easily. Then, it does not make sense to believe that the Wall was made to stop the CotF or the humans.

 

How exactly do you know exactly when the Wall was built?    I'm honestly really not sure.   All of this history is murky.

 

But I guess more to the point, I don't know if I understand the point you're making about the CotF habitation.   If some or all of the Northmen above the Neck were trying to wipe out the CotF and their allies, those below the Neck wouldn't be affected.  I mean, if this is about gaining a magical and power advantage of the Northern territory, why would they leave their territory to kill CotF down south necessarily?   Maybe I misunderstand what you mean, and if so let me know.

 

It is very well established in the first book that the Long Night happened 8000 years ago and the Wall was built around the same time.

 

If only some Northmen wielding ice magic built the Wall against the CotF and tried to drive them away, why is there no Wall in the southern borders of the Northern kingdom? What is the point of building a Wall to keep the CotF at the far North whereas a constant supply of CotF could come from the South?

 

Well, we don't know that they were fully functional during the daytime-- especially not bright, cheerful, clear as an unmuddied lake daytime.   That chapter you cite with Bran (I assume you mean Bran II, DwD) begins as the sun is setting; it's during twilight, and there's barely any sun making its way into the forest at that point.   

 

I should have been more precise in pointing out that the issue seems to be the presence of sun.   We don't know exactly what sort of relationship the wights and the Others have, but they do seem to be somewhat correlated with (or having some kind of connection to) the Others.   And the Others don't seem tolerant of the sun, if not entirely nocturnal (I mean, something tells me that in a total daytime white out, they'd probably tolerate the day).   But at any rate, I think there's a correlation between a lack of sun and wight animation (or, at least, Other activity) suggested in the text.

 

We know quite well that both of them had blue eyes when found although they did not have blue eyes while living.

 

The Others do not like the sun according to the legends but we do not exactly know why or how much truth is there.

[butterbumps!]

Mithras,
 
I don't care about possible intermarriage between CotF and FM.  I mean, whether or not this happened doesn't in any way affect anything I'm talking about, and I'm not challenging your theories about human-CotF intermarriage.   I'm not arguing against CotF intermarrying with humans; whether this happened is merely irrelevant to what I'm pointing out.
 
What I was pointing out is that Brandon of the Bloody Blade is a piece of myth that makes specific and pronounced mention that an ancestor of the Starks/ Kings of Winter went around personally killing a bunch of CotF with glee, which is totally aligned with the adjacent history telling us that the Kings of Winter were constantly fighting against various CotF and their allies for a good, generous while.  
 
I am not saying that intermarriage couldn't have happened once peace was made (or as part of the eventual peace) or anything of that sort.  I'm making no claims about intermarriage at all.    I'm saying that in light of how these Kings of Winter went around beating up CotF and their allies ostensibly after Brandon of the BB and the Pact allegedly existed, I think reading the legend of B of the BB as unifying Stark and CotF is a little misguided.   Not that the specifics of that legend matter all that much in light of how we still have accounts of the Kings of Winter beating the hell out of CotF with some dedication which is the main point I was making-- that the Starks (the "Kings of Winter") remained in dedicated opposition to the CotF for a good long while.
 

So far, the Wall is proven to be penetrable to both the wildlings and the CotF (Leaf). The CotF can by-pass the Wall quite easily. Then, it does not make sense to believe that the Wall was made to stop the CotF or the humans.

 
Sorry-- when did Leaf go through the Wall with ease?  Are you talking about bypassing the Wall via underground tunnels?   If so, then we're talking about bypassing (meaning, not actually going through the Wall), so it doesn't confirm its penetrability to CotF.      
 
I'm also a little confused by these standards you have regarding wall permeability.   One's absolute ability to get through a wall doesn't necessarily tell us whether that wall was meant to contain or repel that person or thing.   
 
Look, I don't happen to suspect that any person or thing cannot go through or over the Wall itself in some literal physical sense.   I think it's definitely a physical barrier that makes passage difficult simply due to size, lack of portals, and surface material (it's hard to climb on ice), but I suspect the main magical virtue is in blocking the wireless connection.   
 
We know that the Wall does not prevent reanimation of wights to the south side.  I don't claim to know what animates the wights exactly, but it does seem rather peculiar that they were able to animate like that on the south side if this Wall is supposed to be preventing that kind of sorcery, right?
 
Adjacently, we have some pretty compelling suggestion that the Wall blocks warging.  Jon loses touch with Ghost completely from the time they're on separate sides.  But that ability returns whenever they're on the same side.
 

It is very well established in the first book that the Long Night happened 8000 years ago and the Wall was built around the same time.

I don't think any of the dates are well established at all.   Nor the sequence of events surrounding any of that ancient history.   Putting it all together as we've gotten it at face value, it's fairly inconsistent. 
 

If only some Northmen wielding ice magic built the Wall against the CotF and tried to drive them away, why is there no Wall in the southern borders of the Northern kingdom? What is the point of building a Wall to keep the CotF at the far North whereas a constant supply of CotF could come from the South?

 

I'm not sure if I understand--- the Kings of Winter/ Others/ Ice wielders couldn't possibly have built a Wall to contain the CotF and their allies to the North because they didn't also build a similar to the South (where an ice Wall would be a little weird in light of the weather difference, but I'll roll with it I guess)?  

 

Well, isn't Moat Cailin basically operating the way that Wall does to Southron enemies?   I guess I'm not sure I follow this.  The North is actually very geographically well contained from the rest of the continent.  

 

I guess, how does your line of inquiry support your point and not mine?   As it stands, there's no CotF in the North at all between the Wall and the Neck (at least, none that anyone has any clue about, which would be weird in light of how the wildlings living amongst them further North know they're still around).   So we know there wasn't a constant supply of CotF coming from the South for whatever reason anyway.  

 

And I think the total absence of all CotF from the North is really weird in light of how long this peace was allegedly made and in light of how in the North, unlike with the Southron Andals, the FM took the CotF's religion.
 

We know quite well that both of them had blue eyes when found although they did not have blue eyes while living.
 
The Others do not like the sun according to the legends but we do not exactly know why or how much truth is there.

Well, Tormund pretty much confirms that part of old Nan's myth-- that the Others hate the sun.  He told Jon that they only come when the sun's not out, typically at night.

[Black Crow]

Mithras,
 
I don't care about possible intermarriage between CotF and FM.  I mean, whether or not this happened doesn't in any way affect anything I'm talking about, and I'm not challenging your theories about human-CotF intermarriage.   I'm not arguing against CotF intermarrying with humans; whether this happened is merely irrelevant to what I'm pointing out.
 
What I was pointing out is that Brandon of the Bloody Blade is a piece of myth that makes specific and pronounced mention that an ancestor of the Starks/ Kings of Winter went around personally killing a bunch of CotF with glee, which is totally aligned with the adjacent history telling us that the Kings of Winter were constantly fighting against various CotF and their allies for a good, generous while.  
 
I am not saying that intermarriage couldn't have happened once peace was made (or as part of the eventual peace) or anything of that sort.  I'm making no claims about intermarriage at all.    I'm saying that in light of how these Kings of Winter went around beating up CotF and their allies ostensibly after Brandon of the BB and the Pact allegedly existed, I think reading the legend of B of the BB as unifying Stark and CotF is a little misguided.   Not that the specifics of that legend matter all that much in light of how we still have accounts of the Kings of Winter beating the hell out of CotF with some dedication which is the main point I was making-- that the Starks (the "Kings of Winter") remained in dedicated opposition to the CotF for a good long while.

 

Anent this business of intermarriage its worth recalling the Ironborn' charming custom of distinguishing between Rock wives and Salt wives. The Stark marrying the Marsh king's daughter after defeating him, or any other enemy's daughter [children included] after massacring/defeating them sounds far more like taking Salt wives or concubines than of concluding dynastic alliances

[butterbumps!]

 

Anent this business of intermarriage its worth recalling the Ironborn' charming custom of distinguishing between Rock wives and Salt wives. The Stark marrying the Marsh king's daughter after defeating him, or any other enemy's daughter [children included] after massacring/defeating them sounds far more like taking Salt wives or concubines than of concluding dynastic alliances

 

Oh sure-- I'm not in disagreement with that interpretation of things.   I was more specifically trying to point out that a meaningful unification/ alliance between BotBB and the CotF seems unlikely.  Mithras seemed to be arguing that BotBB didn't massacre CotF and their allies, but rather, that "Bloody Blade" was a metaphor for intermarriage (unless I'm mistaken).   Even if the salt-wife interpretation happened, it's still in the framework of massacre/ conquest, as you say (which goes with the meaning of "Bloody Blade" I was initially referencing).  

[Mithras]

Mithras,
 
I don't care about possible intermarriage between CotF and FM.  I mean, whether or not this happened doesn't in any way affect anything I'm talking about, and I'm not challenging your theories about human-CotF intermarriage.   I'm not arguing against CotF intermarrying with humans; whether this happened is merely irrelevant to what I'm pointing out.
 
What I was pointing out is that Brandon of the Bloody Blade is a piece of myth that makes specific and pronounced mention that an ancestor of the Starks/ Kings of Winter went around personally killing a bunch of CotF with glee, which is totally aligned with the adjacent history telling us that the Kings of Winter were constantly fighting against various CotF and their allies for a good, generous while.  
 
I am not saying that intermarriage couldn't have happened once peace was made (or as part of the eventual peace) or anything of that sort.  I'm making no claims about intermarriage at all.    I'm saying that in light of how these Kings of Winter went around beating up CotF and their allies ostensibly after Brandon of the BB and the Pact allegedly existed, I think reading the legend of B of the BB as unifying Stark and CotF is a little misguided.   Not that the specifics of that legend matter all that much in light of how we still have accounts of the Kings of Winter beating the hell out of CotF with some dedication which is the main point I was making-- that the Starks (the "Kings of Winter") remained in dedicated opposition to the CotF for a good long while.

 

That is the problem. You take two facts

 

1. BotBB slew CotF.
2. Starks slew the CotF allies of the Warg King.

 

and disregard everything else in order to support your ideas that

 

1. The Wall was made by the ice-magic wielders (Others/Starks).
2. The Wall blocks CotF powers.

 

This is an extremely biased and narrow minded thought process. What is more disappointing is that this is supposed to be a heretical reading to question the canon.

 

What I am trying to do is to provide a broader perspective. Speculation about the stuff of songs and legends and stories does not accept a narrow minded reading.

 

Even for these two facts, I can show you the holes in your theory.

 

[spoiler]

First, we are talking about the myths that lived for thousands of years in songs. How much at face value are we supposed to take these facts? How much metaphor is there?

 

Let me give you an example. Even for a well-documented event that took place around 150 years ago, we see that a metaphor was taken as a hard fact and myths were produced. I am talking about Baelor the Blessed who rescued his valiant brother from a “pit of vipers” where snakes did not bite him because he was too holy. In fact, pit of vipers was a metaphor for Dorne. Baelor did not jump into a pit full of snakes. He negotiated the terms of peace and the release of his brother.

 

What does this say about events taking place thousands of years ago and surviving through songs?

 

Second, I already gave a metaphoric reading of BotBB where he impregnated female CotF and most of them died in childbirth.

 

Third, we do not even know whether the Pact was signed when BotBB “slew” those CotF. If it was before the Pact, then you cannot assume that “Starks killed CotF > bad Starks”.

 

Fourth, we know that the CotF were not a single group and some of them did not fancy the Pact. And we do not know whether the CotF allies of the Warg King were the only CotF out there or which faction they belonged to. Did Warg King and his allies violate the terms of the Pact? Did they cease paying tribute (obsidian weapons) to the NW?

 

These considerations seriously undermine your idea that “Starks killed CotF > bad Starks”.

[/spoiler]

 

will respond to the other points later.

[Mithras]

Anent this business of intermarriage its worth recalling the Ironborn' charming custom of distinguishing between Rock wives and Salt wives. The Stark marrying the Marsh king's daughter after defeating him, or any other enemy's daughter [children included] after massacring/defeating them sounds far more like taking Salt wives or concubines than of concluding dynastic alliances

 

I don’t think I argued that Warg King made a dynastic alliance with the Starks.

 

Salt Wives are not concubines.

[butterbumps!]

lol, oh boy, Mithras, old friend, it is particularly bold and rich that you are accusing me of "disregarding everything else in order to support my theory" as your way of somehow.....what....criticizing my "theory?"   I mean, is that a joke?
 

It's even more comically egregious that you go on to blatantly, and thoroughly, do that very same confirmation bias process in the very post you're seething over my having allegedly done it!    

 

That is the problem. You take two facts

•  
• BotBB slew CotF.
• Starks slew the CotF allies of the Warg King.

and disregard everything else in order to support your ideas that

•  
• The Wall was made by the ice-magic wielders (Others/Starks).
• The Wall blocks CotF powers.

This is an extremely biased and narrow minded thought process. What is more disappointing is that this is supposed to be a heretical reading to question the canon.
 
What I am trying to do is to provide a broader perspective. Speculation about the stuff of songs and legends and stories does not accept a narrow minded reading.
 
Even for these two facts, I can show you the holes in your theory.
 
[spoiler]
First, we are talking about the myths that lived for thousands of years in songs. How much at face value are we supposed to take these facts? How much metaphor is there?
 
Let me give you an example. Even for a well-documented event that took place around 150 years ago, we see that a metaphor was taken as a hard fact and myths were produced. I am talking about Baelor the Blessed who rescued his valiant brother from a “pit of vipers” where snakes did not bite him because he was too holy. In fact, pit of vipers was a metaphor for Dorne. Baelor did not jump into a pit full of snakes. He negotiated the terms of peace and the release of his brother.
 
What does this say about events taking place thousands of years ago and surviving through songs?
 
Second, I already gave a metaphoric reading of BotBB where he impregnated female CotF and most of them died in childbirth.
 
Third, we do not even know whether the Pact was signed when BotBB “slew” those CotF. If it was before the Pact, then you cannot assume that “Starks killed CotF > bad Starks”.
 
Fourth, we know that the CotF were not a single group and some of them did not fancy the Pact. And we do not know whether the CotF allies of the Warg King were the only CotF out there or which faction they belonged to. Did Warg King and his allies violate the terms of the Pact? Did they cease paying tribute (obsidian weapons) to the NW?
 
These considerations seriously undermine your idea that “Starks killed CotF > bad Starks”.
[/spoiler]
 
will respond to the other points later.

 

 

Let's start this this over.

 

First and foremost, EVERYTHING about ancient history (Kings of Winter, the Wall, the Others, CotF Pacts, etc) is open to interpretation.   None of the facts are particularly grounded, and it's ALL open to speculation.   

 

When you take all of the info we've been given, it does not add up to a consistent narrative.    What's literal versus metaphor, what the sequence of events are, the timeline-- all of it-- is questionable.     

 

When anyone tries to make sense of the ancient past, one inherently has to emphasize certain "facts" and myths and the like over others.   It is unlikely that every single thing we've been told actually played out exactly as we've been led to believe, because the narrative just doesn't make much sense that way, plotwise, as well as part of the the larger literary narrative.  

 

Speculation about the ancient past really comes down to how you're choosing to frame it broadly.  Until we get more grounded information about Others, Ancient Starks, the Watch and so forth, all we can do is see what makes big-picture sense according to various frameworks (and, in my case, I'm actually looking at the broad strokes; I'm not getting specific at all).

 

Notice that I'm not telling you that you're wrong, or accusing you of disregarding things in your interpretation as a means of discrediting or criticizing you.   I'm saying that we're ALL inherently having to emphasize and downplay various elements of these myths. because we simply just don't have enough info, and the info we have is confusing and often conflicting if not contradictory.  Everything about this subject falls under "speculation" rather than "fact."   It's just kind of how it is.

 

 

 

onto this specific issue of whether or not the Others might have built the Wall:

 

Yea, I do happen to believe that the Others and Starks (and Boltons too, but let's leave that aside for now) are connected.  My broad thesis is that the Wall has something to do with the Kings of Winter consolidating their kingdom and/ or containing their enemies.  The WOIAF mentions more than merely the Starks vs Warg King in terms of Stark-CotF hostilities.   The KoW are specifically said to have had a long history of abusing the CotF.   That, combined with how the Wall seems like it might interfere with CotF-type powers is why I think the CotF and their allies are a good guess to that end.

 

This framework does answer the question you asked upthread, which is what I originally responded to.  You asked "Why would the Others build the Wall," as though the prospect of known ice-wielders building a magical ice Wall was the most absurd thing you'd ever heard.    And I said, essentially, that if you look at it from this other angle, then it gives the Others/ KoW/ whoever uses ice magic an incentive to build it.  

 

If discussion is truly desired, I can line up a fairly consistent interpretation of the historic events, as well as current story implications, looking through this lens.   There's a lot of thematic and plot elements that fall into place this way.   I mean, don't you always talk about Jon Snow as being "ice and fire?"   Where do you think that "ice" comes from?   The CotF?    The CotF are no more ice than they are fire.     You don't think that the existence of the two main families in a series titled A Song of Ice and Fire in which we know the Targs to be deeply connected to fire and the Starks always referenced adjacently to ice might be telling us something?

[caravaggio]

I don't have the quotes, but I think it is interesting that there is a description of the Wall being held together by magic and GRRM's statement about Sam breaking the magic that held together Puddles with the obsidian.

 

So maybe the Others built the Wall and maybe they didn't, but it seems like they may originate with the same kind of magic.