The Wall, the Watch and a heresy

[mrazny]

The Children and the Starks do not bury their dead. I don't know where I am going with this, but it feels important!

Were there descriptions of what they did for Lyanna besides her *bones* returning to winterfell? Not her body. I'd assume they ritualistically strip or desolve the flesh down to bones. Maybe it's just easier to deliver bodies that way, much like Ned was down to bones when he'd be shipped as opposed to a rotting body travelling north.

Depending on what the ritual entails, if all of Ned's northmen could undergo the same process, carrying them all back would still be achievable. Sure this could've been more a monument to keep his men together with the Kingsguard that died in that same battle, or simply that they weren't Starks so they didn't have to be that careful. Or like Black Crow was talking about, the "why" for these traditions has been lost.

Ned also holds back on telling his sons certain things, and is slowly exposing them as they come of age, which would mirror how his father treated him. Ned was being fostered along with Robert in the Vale with Jon Arryn when his father was killed. Ned very well could've been unaware of certain truths of the Starks because his father never had a chance to tell him. And if this could happen in the last 40 years, what coul've happened in 8,000? Very easy to have circumstances for some truths to be lost but traditions to live on.

[mrazny]

I don't think there are any gods, just magic.

I'm not saying you're wrong, but this worries me (and not in a why this can't be right way, but more of a what that will mean for us reading the rest of the story way).

GRRM has stated very specifically that he likes to keep magic foreign, unknown and dangerous. Not that the way of the gods would be much different as far as what's revealed to us, it's makes me fear that we won't get much good detail about these things by the end of the story. If the nature of the conflict is all magic, and GRRM doesn't want to shed light on magic, there will be little clarity on the conflict itself within the pages. Of course maybe this will change as we go forward.

Men wielding Magic means they understand the tool they are using.

Men blessed by gods are faith based, the unknown is maintained.

[Ibbison from Ibben]

But my favourite interpretation as of now is that the "white cold" mentioned by wildlings only is the ghosts (opposite of the red priestess shadows) and the White Walkers are the ones summoning them, sort of.

If "red preistess shadows" is a reference to Mel's shadowbabies, I would be very careful about trying to work that into an Ice/fire theory. Besides being a Red Preistess, Mel is also a shadowbinder, and that may include abilities not connected with fire.

[Ibbison from Ibben]

Men wielding Magic means they understand the tool they are using.

Men blessed by gods are faith based, the unknown is maintained.

What I think is really going on is that some people (especially Mel) who think they are invoking a god are really doing magic without knowing it. Other people, like that firemage in Qarth, are doing magic and know exactly what they are doing. And then there's Damphair, who thinks he is invoking a god when he's really doing nothing more than basic first aid.

I am not expecting GRRM to actually fully explain any system that underlies the books, in the narrative or outside it. But I think one exists, and it's fun to speculate about it.

[mrazny]

What I think is really going on is that some people (especially Mel) who think they are invoking a god are really doing magic without knowing it. Other people, like that firemage in Qarth, are doing magic and know exactly what they are doing. And then there's Damphair, who thinks he is invoking a god when he's really doing nothing more than basic first aid.

I am not expecting GRRM to actually fully explain any system that underlies the books, in the narrative or outside it. But I think one exists, and it's fun to speculate about it.

I was a Lost fanatic, so I guess I'm coming from a differing basis. I enjoy diving into things, but only to a certain extreme. The story itself deserves the ability to go whatever way it wants and to reveal what it will, with the creators knowing more of the rules and the mysteries sources. But at the same time, after a certain limit, the speculation can become damaging for me personally, so i try to tread carefully with things i have no expectations of being resolved.

The specifics of what the Starks are supposed to have been doing for 8,000 years won't need to be spelled out, but how that applies within the scope of our characters actions... hopefully we understand enough to have that be a rich source of character and conflict.

[hotweaselsoup]

So, heading off on another tangent here, but in re-reading the Bridge of Dream sequence (prompted by the thread of the same name), there seem to be some interesting parallels between the story of Garin/The Shrouded Lord/the Stone Men and the Night's King/White Walkers.

First of all, the malign grey mist that the Shy Maid encounters en route to Chroyane reminds me of the cold, white mist that is associated with the White Walkers. Then, Ysilla says of the stone men "The whispering dead hate the warm and quick and ever seek for more damned souls to join them." The White Walkers too are said to hate the living, as Old Nan tells Bran in her story: "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."

Tyrion interprets Garin's Curse as "only greyscale...Damp is said to be the culprit...Foul humors in the air. Not curses." But then Ysilla (Ygritte?) tells him: "The conquerors did not believe either, Hugor Hill...The men of Volanties and Valyria hung Garin in a golden cage and made mock as he called upon his Mother to destroy them. But in the night the waters rose and drowned them, and from that day to this they have not rested. They are down there still beneath the water, they who were once the lords of fire. Their cold breath rises from the murk to make these fogs, and their flesh has turned as stony as their hearts."

Could this be "translated" into something like this: "The First Men did not believe either, Jon Snow...The Starks hung the Night's King in an iron cage and made mock as he called upon the Others to destroy them. But then the Long Night came and froze them, and from that day to this they have not rested. They are down there still beneath the ice, they who were once the Kings of Winter. Their cold breath rises from the ice to make these mists, and their flesh has turned as icy as their hearts."

Could the White Walkers be cursed?

Back on the Shy Maid, they begin speaking of the Shrouded Lord:

Tyrion says: "Is there a Shrouded Lord? Or is he just some tale?"

"The Shrouded Lord has ruled these mists since Garin's day," said Yandry. "Some say that he himself is Garin, risen from his watery grave."

The Halfmaester pooh-poohs the idea of the Shrouded Lord being still living, and goes on the say that the Shrouded Lord is actually several men who have contracted greyscale, the most recent being a corsair from the Basilisk Islands.

But then Duck says: "Aye, I've heard that too...but there's another tale I like better. The one that says he's not like t'other stone men, that he started as a statue till a grey woman came out of the fog and kissed him with lips as cold as ice."

This reminds me of the Night's King story, with his mysterious pale woman. What's up with these freaky chicks, anyway?? Interesting that she's apparently grey - the stone analogue to the ice and fire versions of the Night's Queen and Melisandre?

Anyway, all is just more food for thought, but I'm starting to feel that there is maybe a curse involved in the appearance of the White Walkers.

[Ibbison from Ibben]

The White Walkers seem to act like a rational, highly motivated group carrying out a plan. (What little we've seen of them.). The Stone Men seem to be suffering from a magical disease, slowly going mad before they die. So I don't think that part is parallel.

Who is it that would have called down the curse on the First Men? The CotF? The CotF sing the Song of Earth, not Ice.

Also, the episode of the Night's King is said to have happened after the Long Winter.

If I were to relate The Sorrows to my GUH from a few pages back, I would say Garin was a water mage, who called up some major water magic to spite the Valyrians, and created an imbalance between water and earth magic. Grey Scale turns flesh to stone- and flesh is mostly water. The Sorrows seem to be an area with a lot of free water magic floating around, so the matching earth magic has to be somewhere. So this would be a water/earth analogue to the fire/ice situation in Westeros/Valyria. But The Sorrows are smaller and more localized than the fire/ice situation between North Westeros and Valyria.

The Moral - major amounts of free magic are bad for life. Then again, small amounts of free magic are probably vital for life.

So no, I don't think the White Walkers are cursed. They just want to change Westeros so it is more hospitable to them, or they're striving for revenge.

Really interesting idea, though.

Or I could be wrong.

[hotweaselsoup]

The White Walkers seem to act like a rational, highly motivated group carrying out a plan. (What little we've seen of them.). The Stone Men seem to be suffering from a magical disease, slowly going mad before they die. So I don't think that part is parallel.

I wasn't thinking so much of the actual sufferers of the disease - in a way, these remind me more of the wights than the White Walkers - but of the supposed "lords of fire" who were said to be still lurking under the water, exhaling the poisonous, grey-scale inducing fog. Sort of the way the White Walkers were said to lie dormant under the ice, and are associated with a cold, white mist.

Who is it that would have called down the curse on the First Men? The CotF? The CotF sing the Song of Earth, not Ice.

Not sure, but I'm thinking it might have been one person, perhaps the Night's King because he was cast down (according to the legend, anyway). I don't know what powers he might have invoked, but he apparently had an alliance with a female White Walker... And the Children sing the song of earth, that's true, but they also seem to have the power to transform earth to water, and vice versa. There is the "hammer of the waters" example, and being able to do the earth/water switcheroo is something that the young crannogman of Meera's story can do as well. And ice is frozen water, so I'm thinking that the Children are probably pretty adept with ice as well.

Also, the episode of the Night's King is said to have happened after the Long Winter.

Yes, this is a problem with the theory. But we're warned that the timeline is uncertain, so it's possible that the Nightfort was built before the Wall and the Night's Watch were formed. And it could be that the events surrounding the Night's King were what led to the Long Night, the Wall, and the Night's Watch.

But it's all just wild speculation at this point, much of which probably stems from my secret desire to see a cadre of dead, vengeful, accursed Kings of Winter flowing down through Westeros like a killing frost :devil:

[Ser Lepus]

I'm also wondering again about the true identity of the White Walkers.

Craster, we're told, sacrifices his male children to the Old Gods, who according to Gilly are also the Cold Gods. This sounds straightforward enough until we learn that the White Walkers are themselves Craster's sons. Then we're told that the Nights King married a White Walker and that 13 years down the line it was discovered that he had been sacrificing to the Others. Although not explicitly spelled out we can reasonably take it that like Craster he was sacrificing children to become White Walkers.

Where it starts to get interesting is that the Last Hero appears to have been a Stark, the Night's King was a Stark and now we reckon that Craster was also a Stark. This raises two immediate questions, first was there a reason why Craster was out there giving up his sons, is it a family secret that someone has to? Secondly, given that there don't appear to be many White Walkers, are all of them Starks/Crasters?

If the answer is yes, there's then a supplentary question arising. Is there something in the Stark blood, and if so will this manifest itself in Jon?

So, let me know if I correctly understand your theory: You think the Night King mated with an Other (or wight) woman, and sent his children to the Others (the mentioned "sacrifices") so as they would become Others too...

And Craster (or maybe Craster´s renegade father) did the same (mating with a wight or Other woman and giving them his sons as sacrifices, so as they would become Others), and he mates with his own daughters so as to keep the "Other blood" pure?

Do you think the Others are attacking because they are seeking breeders for their race?

[tze]

I think hotweaselsoup makes some very interesting points.

I'm really starting to wonder about the beginning of the Long Night and the true relationship between the Starks and the Others. In the story of Garin's curse, the conflict was between the lords of fire and a lord associated with water, two diametrically opposed natural forces, resulting in the latter destroying the former and the rise of a disease that transformed the former into mindless "stone zombies". The Others are associated with ice, snow, and cold, yet they're held at bay by a giant ice wall built by the Starks, the Kings of Winter. These are not opposing forces---the Starks and the Others actually share some very interesting characteristics: both thrive in darkness (the hour of the wolf is the darkest part of night, Bran in the darkness of the earth, the darkness of the crypts that keep sheltering Starks, etc.) and both come to power in the cold. If we parallel the two events---conflicts with the Others and the Garin/Valyrian lords story--then the Valyrian lords don't necessarily parallel the White Walkers, they parallel the wights themselves, those who fought against Garin (the Night's King and his allies/associates, the Others) and were killed by a powerful supernatural force (the power of the Others) and are now unable to truly die/become mindless zombies. Garin called down the wrath of his Mother, the power of the river, against the lords of fire. Was the Long Night perhaps precipitated by someone calling the wrath of an icy "Mother" down on the world? Could that someone have been Brandon the Builder himself, or perhaps one of his ancestors?

"King of Winter" is itself an interesting title for Brandon the Builder to have given himself. If he had actually encountered the ice-loving Others, wouldn't this be an incredibly pretentious or . . . stupid title to have given himself? But the Starks are heavily associated with winter, none more so than Brandon, who raised the Wall. Let's presume for a minute that the conflict with the Others is not an isolated and "alien" struggle, thematically divorced from the interactions between various human factions we've seen throughout ASOIAF, but in fact, can actually be informed by the human politicking we've been seeing all along. When you have a conflict in Westeros, what happens? Alliances are made. Feuds are begun and eventually patched up. And the most common way we've seen both things done is through a marriage, which then produces a child who ostensibly unites the two warring families (or seals an alliance against a common enemy). We've seen this idea time and again. Well, maybe that informs what originally happened between the Others and the Starks? The Greyjoys claim descent from the Grey King and a mermaid, the Storm Kings boasted of how they were founded by Durran and the daughter of the sea god/wind goddess, yet the Starks, who are older than the rest, tell no such stories. Perhaps this is because that tale is too terrible to tell? We've never seen a mermaid, we've never seen a sea/wind god/goddess, but we have seen the Others. Maybe the Starks actually descend from a marriage between a First Man and an Other (a tale that is twisted over the milennia and incorporated into the tale of the Night's King)? And Brandon the Builder ruled as King of Winter because he wasn't purely human, but was their child, and thus, was really half-Other? (Or Brandon himself was the one marrying an Other?)

The Starks thrive in the dark and the cold. We see Sansa getting "stronger" in ASOS and AFFC when the snows come; we have the story of Brandon Ice-Eyes defeating his enemies because only he and the Northmen could withstand the cold. The hour of the wolf is the darkest part of night. When Theon dreams in Ned's weirwood bed, he sees Lord Rickard, Brandon, Lyanna, Ned, and it's creepy and gross, but he also sees figures with long faces and grey eyes, presumably the old Kings of Winter, and they terrify him. Time and again the Kings of Winter are portrayed as sinister rulers of the cold. So we have the Starks being associated with darkness and the cold, and those that glimpse their ancestors are terrified.

The Stark motto is "winter is coming". Their kingdom sits between the realms of men and the Land of Always Winter. There must always be a Stark in Winterfell, or something pretty terrible is hinted to happen. In AGOT we have Robb Stark bringing an army south to rescue his father, who is then killed, and Robb then moves to rescue his mother's homeland and is declared king of both groups. Rather than being a separate storyline from the conflict with the Others, perhaps that's what originally happened with Brandon the Builder and what's happening now (and will happen in future books) with the Others? The armies of the North (the Others) are coming south to rescue part of their family (the Starks), just as Robb and the Northmen came south to rescue Ned and the Tullys? It would be quite a game-changer if the Others have awoken and are driving the Free Folk south, not to commit genocide on the human race, but to rescue the Starks of Winterfell from annihilation. There is no Stark in Winterfell, and the castle has been burned. The Others began waking up sometime after the Stark family was almost destroyed by Aerys, and they really begin moving after the Starks are driven from Winterfell and the castle is burned. Perhaps this is why there must always be a Stark in Winterfell---if there isn't, the Others will come south on a rescue mission, and may the gods help humanity then. (Everybody else in this story can see the future, why not the Others? Perhaps they foresaw the expulsion of the Starks from Winterfell and that's why they began moving in the first place?)

Let's say that, 8,000 years ago, the First Men were attacked by an unknown group, presumably from Essos. The First Men ally with the Others (who usually dwell in the Lands of Always Winter, where no human can survive), via a marriage between an Other and a Stark (a marriage that produced Brandon the Builder) and the Others utterly annihilate the now-forgotten invaders. The Others spread out across the world to conduct pre-emptive strikes against the men of Essos (and possibly Sothyros) so that nobody else would be stupid enough to attack Westeros. (That's why the First Men, who should have been annihilated during the Long Night as they were basically at Ground Zero of the Others' attack, somehow survived and, indeed, thrived. The Others were protecting them, not attacking them.) The Others eventually retreat back to the Land of Always Winter, and Brandon the Builder, as a child of both races, raises the Wall and declares himself King in the North to serve the same purpose that the crannogmen and Moat Cailin eventually serve in the Neck: to serve as a border, a buffer zone, between the lands ruled by the Others and the lands ruled by men. The Wall initially served the same purpose as Moat Cailin---to keep idiots from heading north, pissing off the Others, and getting themselves killed, and the Watch served the same function as the crannogmen---to pick off invaders and stop invasions before they began. Before the Watch forgot its purpose, the only gate was the Black Gate, which can only be opened by a Watchman, which means the Watch wanted to control who could come and go from either side.

The First Men were so afraid of the Others' destructive capabilities that they'd witnessed during the Long Night, that they warded the Wall so that humans killed and resurrected by the Others could not pass it, so if idiots did get across, they couldn't come back. When the Andals came, the First Men decided that asking the Others for aid was too risky, since the Others would kill and kill and kill---like the dragons, they were the nuclear option that nobody wanted to unleash. The Andals were thrown back by the Starks, though, which is why the Andals' coming didn't spark a new Long Night: the Others would move to protect the Starks of their own volition, because the Starks were family, but they would only help the other First Men if asked, and the First Men thought their aid was too dangerous. That also might explain why now the Others never attack the Free Folk in force---they're First Men, and the Others want to get south to protect the Starks and Winterfell, and will kill if they have to, but their ultimate goal is to force the Free Folk to join with the Northmen, led by the Starks, and to remove the impediment(s) that are preventing them from getting south; their goal is not genocide of the First Men's descendants, the Free Folk just have the bad luck to be in the way.

It's unclear whether the Others pilot the wights like Bran does Summer, or if the wights always act purely on instinct. It might be a combination---the wights move on instinct when no Other is there to shepherd them, and might be more "targeted" when someone's actively controlling them. But it's noticeable that, during Jon's entire time north of the Wall, it seemed like the safest place to be was with him, cause his groups never seemed to get attacked. The Fist doesn't get attacked by wights and Others until Jon leaves. The Halfhand's group is never attacked by wights or Others. When Jon joins up with the wildlings, the wildlings stop getting attacked; Mance believes this is because the Others and wights were too busy attacking the Fist, but that doesn't really make sense. There were only 300-ish men at the Fist---what, the wights and the Others weren't able to multitask here? And Bran's group isn't attacked by wights until they're physically at Bloodraven's hollow hill, and even then, the wights seem to focus heavily on everybody but Bran; one or two of them grab at him, but they never actually hurt him. The fight between Jon and the wight at the Wall was primarily the wight vs Ghost, and sticking its fingers in Jon's mouth seems like an awfully odd way to try to kill someone when there's a sword in the room. My point is that none of the Starks have ever been injured by wights, any wight "attacks" against them have been pretty weak, and none have ever been attacked by the Others themselves.

If the Others are coming to rescue the Starks, it could also clarify what's going on with Benjen Stark, since GRRM refuses to confirm if he's dead. (I don't think he can be Coldhands, based on the scene where Coldhands kills the elk and says a prayer in what's probably the Old Tongue. There's no indication Benjen ever spoke the Old Tongue, and none of the modern Northmen we've seen say a prayer before killing an animal. Not to mention one of the long-lived Children claiming Coldhands died "long ago.") If Benjen isn't Coldhands, and his party met the Others or wights, what happened? Was he really killed, or was he taken hostage? Or, perhaps, taken into protective custody?

It's said that the Night's King was the 13th Lord Commander of the Watch, which if true, means it was probably relatively close to the Long Night. It's never said what the Night's King's goal really was---power? The alleviation of boredom? But if he did exist, and he really was a Stark, brother to the Stark in Winterfell, perhaps he was trying to bring the Wall down to let the Others pass, not to promote genocide, but to protect the First Men from some threat---either a threat that history has forgotten, or perhaps he had a vision of the coming of the Andals and wanted the Others to deal with the problem before the Andals could become strong enough to attack. The "marriage" between him and an Other/wight/White Walker could be a remnant from an earlier tale of Brandon the Builder's true origins, or maybe ancient Starks and the Others intermarried more than once. I'd be amazed if an story passed down orally over thousands of years had too many accurate details.

Whether the Others and Children are two separate species, two branches of the same species, or the same species living in two different areas, it's unclear. But one of the primary themes of this series has been about families, what brings them together and tears them apart, and if the Starks actually descend from the Others, it would clarify why the Others are attacking now after so many milennia, and it would transform the conflict with the Others from a standard "them vs us" trope to a reflection of the wars and family conflicts that this series has been about from the start.

[Fire Eater]

I'm also wondering again about the true identity of the White Walkers.

Craster, we're told, sacrifices his male children to the Old Gods, who according to Gilly are also the Cold Gods. This sounds straightforward enough until we learn that the White Walkers are themselves Craster's sons. Then we're told that the Nights King married a White Walker and that 13 years down the line it was discovered that he had been sacrificing to the Others. Although not explicitly spelled out we can reasonably take it that like Craster he was sacrificing children to become White Walkers.

Where it starts to get interesting is that the Last Hero appears to have been a Stark, the Night's King was a Stark and now we reckon that Craster was also a Stark. This raises two immediate questions, first was there a reason why Craster was out there giving up his sons, is it a family secret that someone has to? Secondly, given that there don't appear to be many White Walkers, are all of them Starks/Crasters?

If the answer is yes, there's then a supplentary question arising. Is there something in the Stark blood, and if so will this manifest itself in Jon?

I agree that the Last hero was a Stark, I have this theory that the Last Hero was Bran the Builder, the Last Hero chose the surname Stark, as he was standing alone, like you said earlier, he named his castle Winterfell, because to commemorate when the forces of Winter fell. Having led the resistance against the Others, he garnered enough support to make himself the King of the North.

[BTR-90]

One queston about the Nights watch-We know that the watch has existed before Aegons landing, but before Aegons landing, Westeros was many different seperate kingdoms, now did the different kings have a gentle man agreement to send all their criminals to the watch or was the watch only occupied by North men.

[Ibbison from Ibben]

The Others are associated with ice, snow, and cold, yet they're held at bay by a giant ice wall built by the Starks, the Kings of Winter.

This is why I reject any theory that claims the Wall is intended to act as a barrier or buffer preventing movement from south to north. Legend says the Wall was built to keep Ice magic from crossing from north to south. It's very good at that. It's not very good at stopping movement by men in either direction. (They can sail around, climb over, or carve gates through.)

the Starks and the Others actually share some very interesting characteristics:

"King of Winter" is itself an interesting title for Brandon the Builder to have given himself. Maybe the Starks actually descend from a marriage between a First Man and an Other (a tale that is twisted over the milennia and incorporated into the tale of the Night's King)? And Brandon the Builder ruled as King of Winter because he wasn't purely human, but was their child, and thus, was really half-Other? (Or Brandon himself was the one marrying an Other?)

The Starks thrive in the dark and the cold.

All the parallels between the Others and the Starks are very true. The origin of Brandon the Builder is one of the greatest mysteries of the series. The idea that the Starks, up 'till now always portrayed as the 'good guys' were connected with the Long Winter and the Others is very likely to be true, and is compatable with GRRM's history of gray characters. There are lots of different ways the connection could work, but I agree there is one.

The Stark motto is "winter is coming". ... In AGOT we have Robb Stark bringing an army south to rescue his father, ... The armies of the North (the Others) are coming south to rescue part of their family (the Starks), just as Robb and the Northmen came south to rescue Ned and the Tullys? ... Perhaps this is why there must always be a Stark in Winterfell---if there isn't, the Others will come south on a rescue mission, and may the gods help humanity then.

Let's say that, 8,000 years ago, the First Men were attacked by an unknown group, presumably from Essos. The First Men ally with the Others (who usually dwell in the Lands of Always Winter, where no human can survive), via a marriage between an Other and a Stark (a marriage that produced Brandon the Builder) and the Others utterly annihilate the now-forgotten invaders. ... The Others eventually retreat back to the Land of Always Winter, and Brandon the Builder, as a child of both races, raises the Wall and declares himself King in the North to serve the same purpose that the crannogmen and Moat Cailin eventually serve in the Neck: to serve as a border, a buffer zone, between the lands ruled by the Others and the lands ruled by men. The Wall initially served the same purpose as Moat Cailin---to keep idiots from heading north, pissing off the Others, and getting themselves killed, and the Watch served the same function as the crannogmen---to pick off invaders and stop invasions before they began. Before the Watch forgot its purpose, the only gate was the Black Gate, which can only be opened by a Watchman, which means the Watch wanted to control who could come and go from either side.

This is the part that doen't work for me. If Brandon the Builder wanted a two-way barrier, why didn't he build one? The magic of the Wall keeps Ice forces in the north. It doesn't prevent fire forces, a terrible threat to the Others, from crossing south to north. Mel walks right through. And if the Night's Watch was meant to be a UN-style peacekeeping force, shouldn't it have been made up of either neutrals (legions from Old Ghis???) or a force recruited from both sides? The Others seem to have their own defenses in the extreme north, the ones Bran saw in his dream just before he came out of the coma. The wall doen't protect them.

The First Men were so afraid of the Others' destructive capabilities that they'd witnessed during the Long Night, that they warded the Wall so that humans killed and resurrected by the Others could not pass it, so if idiots did get across, they couldn't come back.

If you have a treaty with the Others, it would be their responsibility to control their own wights. Warding the Wall against one side (the Others) but not the other (the First Men) is no way to maintain peaceful relations. If the Others are opposed to you, however, it's a great idea. And it would be best to build it into the Wall from the start.

I also disagree with your dipiction of Moat Cailin and the Crannogmen. They aren't a two-way buffer zone. They are a one-way barrier against Andal aggression.

I have a hard time accepting any argument about the Wall being a two-way barrier. It just doesn't work well that way.

But I totally agree that the Starks and the Others have some deep, mysterious connections.

[FanTasy]

All the parallels between the Others and the Starks are very true. The origin of Brandon the Builder is one of the greatest mysteries of the series. The idea that the Starks, up 'till now always portrayed as the 'good guys' were connected with the Long Winter and the Others is very likely to be true, and is compatable with GRRM's history of gray characters. There are lots of different ways the connection could work, but I agree there is one.

Nice post! Yes, I think there are very close connections between the Starks and the Others. I don't think it is necessarily an evil alliance, but it could have been one.

Let's look again at the Others. We are made to believe they are the bad guys. The first time we see them in the book they kill. They look alien, they seem other than human, different. And they make the dead rise and fight for them. They could be asking for sacrifices and claim human babies.

Let's look at the other side, There is evil as well. They ruthlessly kill who they see as enemy. The Lord of Fire-lovers will ruthlessly burn humans - even children - to sacrifice. Their claim is they do it for a good cause, to save humanity from the Others, who - if not beaten by R'hlor - will kill all. They look human - even Melisandre. Stannis doesn't believe this crap I think but he kills ruthlessly as well. His claim is that he has to save 'his' kingdom.

Dany looks human too. But she kills ruthlessly. Her claim is that she has to make peace and be a just ruler.

Are the Starks 'bad' because they seem to be closely connected to the Others? Well, originally they may have joined up to do evil acts.

Their words 'Winter is coming' might be one of the clues. Their words can be meant as a warning, a reminder, that the Starks have to be 'watchers'. But it could originally mean something else as well: their goal, what they would like to achieve. The Kings of Winter could have had a goal to make more winter, to expand the lands of winter.

[Black Crow]

I love the way this discussion is going, and particularly Tze's last post:

My own view remains that the war with the Children was ended when (Bran?) Stark, otherwise known as the Last Hero, sought them out and agreed the preliminaries of what became the Pact. The Children therefore wrought their magic and raised up the Wall to hold back the Winter.

Its then when we consider what was offered in return that things get interesting and the discussions above have resulted in a broad agreement that the Starks are indeed the Kings of Winter, that the Watch was formed by them to patrol the frontier, communicating with the Children through the secret portal under the Night’s Fort and, until the Night’s King was cast down, sacrificing their children to become White Walkers.

At this point I’ll introduce another thought. The Children are pretty well unseen until Bran is taken to meet them, when we find that the “active” ones are female while the male ones are locked into the weirwood roots, and that all of them live in the darkness of caves – the mouths of which are protected by minefields of Wights; which I reckon backs up my earlier suggestions that the handful of White Walkers do whatever’s necessary outside the caves.

I suggested further up the thread that the alliance between Stark of Winterfell and Joramund of the Freefolk was motivated by a desire to open up the lands beyond the Wall for settlement, but it might also have been resentment on Winterfell’s part to giving up a child or children. If so, it didn’t end the practice because we’re pretty well agreed that Craster is (or rather was) a Stark and was continuing the old family tradition. There’s also two other things to consider here, first the fact that the dead Starks need to be bound in their graves by iron, and secondly the lack of male Starks other than the heir. We’ll leave the present generation aside because Eddard Stark may not have known the family secret, possibly because at the time his father died he was fostered out, but nevertheless, as I mentioned, he did seem uncommonly relieved when Jon volunteered to go to the Wall, and then there’s Benjen Stark, and more heresy.

Benjen has disappeared. The general assumption on the Wall is that he got scragged by the Wildlings – or worse – but it’s a mystery and I suspect is tied into the mystery of all the other missing Starks. In that generation there were three brothers; Brandon, Eddard and Benjen. Brandon was the heir, but was killed by the Mad King, so Eddard, the “spare” moved up to inherit, and Benjen became the spare. Eddard married and also had three sons, so Benjen was no longer needed as the spare. Did he then go north from the Wall because it was time to sacrifice himself, not to become Coldhands but to join the White Walkers?

[hotweaselsoup]

Their words 'Winter is coming' might be one of the clues. Their words can be meant as a warning, a reminder, that the Starks have to be 'watchers'. But it could originally mean something else as well: their goal, what they would like to achieve. The Kings of Winter could have had a goal to make more winter, to expand the lands of winter.

"Winter is coming" is not a warning, but a war cry. I like!

And tze, I think you might be on to something when you connect the deaths of Brandon and Rickard to the reemergence of the Others. I've been trying to pinpoint the catalyst as well - for a while, I was thinking that it may have been Bran's birth - but I like your theory better. It seems more apt for the fell forces of ice and winter to be awoken by the fiery death of one of their own at the hands of a lord of fire.

ETA

We've never seen a mermaid, we've never seen a sea/wind god/goddess, but we have seen the Others. Maybe the Starks actually descend from a marriage between a First Man and an Other (a tale that is twisted over the milennia and incorporated into the tale of the Night's King)?

I also think you might be right about the Starks intermarrying with the Others, or at least the Night's King and the pale queen being the seeds that begat the Stark line*. Another interesting note is that, supposedly, Bran the Builder placed wards in the walls of Storm's End, and I tend to think that these wards are like the wards that are woven into the Wall. The wards in Storm's End were placed there to protect against angry gods - angry in-laws, actually. Maybe something similar happened with the Night's King and his pale bride? The story makes it sound like the Night's King pursued her - stole her, basically. Maybe this abduction spurred later events? Stolen daughters - and the shitstorm that follows -seem to be a common theme throughout the books. The stories don't tell us the fates of the Night's King and his Queen, other than that all records of the Night's King were stricken from the books. Maybe one was killed, and the other lived, and the survivor called down a curse? Or both were killed, and the bride's family got really angry...

ETA x2: *begat the part of the Stark line that has the wolf blood, maybe?

ETA x3: re the WW waking up at Brandon's death - another thought is that the gods are angry, because they were denied their first born Stark? The gods must have their due...I keep coming back to the idea that the Starks are somehow required to sacrifice their first born males to the Others, and that this is the dirty little secret that has been forgotten. (I think this is the secret that has been forgotten by the Targs as well - that they have to sacrifice their unborn to get dragons - but that may just be me trying to shoehorn stuff again.)

[slayer420]

Reading this post got me thinking about the people that others have killed. Seems like most of them were not first men. I havent went threw the names of the people who made it back from the fist of the first men, but I bet most of them have the short names of first men. Has it ever been stated that tarly is a first men name? Maybe the white walker let sam kill him,because he was a first man. Seems really odd that sam could kill a white walker.

[FanTasy]

Reading this post got me thinking about the people that others have killed. Seems like most of them were not first men. I havent went threw the names of the people who made it back from the fist of the first men, but I bet most of them have the short names of first men. Has it ever been stated that tarly is a first men name? Maybe the white walker let sam kill him,because he was a first man. Seems really odd that sam could kill a white walker.

How Sam killed the white walker is explained in the text: he used the blade of dragonglass.

[slayer420]

How Sam killed the white walker is explained in the text: he used the blade of dragonglass.

really I didnt catch that!!!!!!! What I am saying is sam could not fight at all. Seems really strange that he was able to stab a white walker.

[Black Crow]

It was really down to blind luck rather than any dexterity as a swordsman - the White Walker appears to have been just as surprised as he was.