Theory: the great other is R'hllor

[Morienthar]

What if there is no Great Other.

[Lion of Judah]

R'hllor gives me an ends justify the means type of vibe and I'm just not digging that. I have long thought that R'hllor could be evil, but I can't get caught up in making something true because I want it to be true. More evidence is needed, but I suspect that this R'hllor is not all he/she is trumped up to be.

[Qyburn0896]

Just want to reiterate and condense why I'm so completely sold on this.

Martin loves his earth-shattering twists. And if A:) there was suddenly no ostensibly "equal and opposite" power to counter the one behind the Others, and B:) the power behind the others suddenly had unknown thousands of devoted living cultists beyond the Wall's wards, the collective "Oh Fuck" that would get from the reading audience would be truly epic.

It would follow a pattern set forth by twists like Ned and RW. And, I realize this is a matter of opinion, but I firmly believe that crushing twists like these are why the series has been as compelling as it's been. It's a pattern that, to me, just clicks.

Aside from that, I've been noticing lots of bits and pieces in the show which, due to the show's nature to increase focus on things, seem to point even more strongly in this direction.

[Black Crow]

The most significant clue in all in this is the fact that the antagonist is the Great Other whose name may never be spoken: why may it never be spoken? Because it is R'hllor.

[Harold II]

I think R'hllor and the Great Other are the two sides of the SAME coin! Neither is Good! I always thought that the Children of the Forest have the magic that would protect people against the Others!

I don't know about the CofF motives. Some may be benign beings. Some may have created the others to wipe out men in vengence.

Also, Melisandre is very prone to misinterpreting her visions. She sees Bran and Brynden and imediately thinks "enemies". She asks for Azor Ahai and expecting Stannis gets Jon, so she simply thinks her god is messing with her.

I don't know if Rhllor is good or bad.

I subscribe to the notion that the Great Other is not the three eyed crow, and is some other malevolence we haven't seen yet.

Maybe a league of very angry and evil CotF animating the dead to kill men, and some CotF are working to stop that with Brynden.

Jon saw himself in Ice armour with a flaming sword didn't he? I think its more likely there is "good" and "bad" in ice and fire. And the evil is something else entirely.

The reason I think this is that in all the back story elements they have all culminated in something relevent to the main plot. In tWoW, Aegon being a Blackfyre would be whats comming, tieing up the whole Golden Company/Blackfyre rebellion legends in a war with Dany's return. That would end all that mythos and story.

Whats left for the final book?

I just think we haven't seen many current events involving the stories of the CotF and the First men. I think all the relegion and history is yet to come back to these early important events.

[naik2902]

Rhllor is alien. the ice god and tree is true good.

so plant more and more trees to prevent polar ice and glaciers from melting and save the world from global warming and flooding.

[The Fourth Head]

I love the OP's theory- indeed, the dispair of such a revelation could be the very thing that causes the long night as a reflection on the state of mankind. The connections between magic and emotions (rage/fear/dispair) seem intrinsic, to the extent I almost believed at one point that the Others were created by the mutinous, the superstitious, the dispairing minds of people, just as Dragons were born out of Dany's self righteousness and frustrated rage.

As war has destroyed westeros, leading to ever deteriorating social structures, so winter has arrived. The dream of the long summer is perhaps simply a dream that mankind can find a happier place.

The magics of R'hllor and the great Other are nothing more than the power to kill and bring back to life- diminished. It could be that there is only one magic, and it's what you chose to do with it that defines you- the COTF seem to put it to good use from what I can tell, whereas Man put it to violent and destructive use.

Love your point about the black and white temple. I've not really thought about the connection here, but I'm fully subscribed to the view that "the great Other" has people acting on it's behalf we don't know about. To kill a man without question because god tells you (the faceless men) seems about as misanthropic as you can get- sorry Arya, you are an agent of "the great Other" imo without knowing it, the room full of skins in the temple makes me think of the Dreadfort- (Roose/Ramsey= Others?) and didn't Littlefinger's family come from Braavos, where the temple is located? Hasn't Littlefinger been trying to get as many people as possible killed/sacrificed? All these characters, (and now Lady Stoneheart) seem bent on man's destruction, and all seem to have connections.

I also agree that the shadow-baby birthed by Melisandre rings false to me- the lord of light birthing a mystical shadow assassin bent on death? Come on! There is nothing light about it which is why I think there is no R'hllor, and no great Other, just human desire, and imagination made real, and how man wishes to apply it on other people.

It could be, all this is about is man- whether they devote magic to preventing death or causing it, whether they succumb to self-interest, fear, rage, defensiveness, or a higher mindedness. Discovering "Rhllor: is not real, and that Azor Ahai is a terrible misinterpreted fiction could be the very thing that brings on the winds of winter as hope and bravery is shattered and the winter looms ever darker.

[Leto]

This is the same God

R'hllor = Fire

Other = Ice

or

There is only 1 God who controls Heat :P

The thermostat that mounts the world

[Caladaran]

ive been pondering a theory:

i have to research this some more but seems very logical...

the great other is the the last greenseer( Targaryen Great Bastard, Brynden Rivers./three eyed crow) and bran is his right hand man..they are imo good, they will return the land to good times and rhllor is bad news..

why i came to this theory:

When gazing into the fires, Melisandre sees a wooden face, corpse white, a thousand red eyes, and a boy with a wolf's head beside him. She believes these to be the Great Other's champions, as Stannis is hers ^.

I actually had this same theory. Although Mel is typically wrong about her visions and could have seen them as an enemy when in reality they are friends, however there are more passages that lead me to this conclusion. I don't have a book on hand but there was a few times when the 3 eyed crow said things opposite to Mels teachings. A big example would be when he tells Bran to not be afraid of the dark and something along the lines of the darkness being a good thing. Really wish I had ADWD with me!

[mindchap]

Better than R'hllor=Bittersteel

[adeadhand]

My take is that like everything in GRRM's universe, The Red God and the Great Other are just two different factions vying for power. No "good, no "evil". Both self-serving. Like mostly everyone in ASOIAF.

[Guest]

Seriously, look at the legend of Azor Ahai. The guy plunged a sword through his wife's (girlfriend's?) heart just so he could make a badass sword. Feck, if that translates to you as the act of a 'good guy' I would suggest that you should be in deep counseling or better yet locked up in a rubber room. Rh'llor is the 'red god of death' that Jaqen Hghar refers to Arya having stolen three lives from. Followers of Rh'llor are either evil monsters or stupid dupes.

Put me down as 'not a Rh'llor fan.'

I don't know if that automatically makes him evil. From what I read it sounded like his wife allowed him to kill her because she believed it needed to be done. Sounds more like a terrible terrible sacrifice. I think the story is supposed to be this guy putting duty before everything, even true love. And true love would be a terrible thing to give up.

[HAL of House 9000]

There is another thread out there that really focuses on the Great Other and R'hllor in comparison to the series name a Song of Ice and Fire.

One person came to the conclusion that neither the Great Other (HODOR!!) or R'hllor is good but different ends of the same spectrum. We saw an all fire belief (Valyria) worked for awhile but in the end was consumed by itself in the Doom. And I think we can all agree that an all Ice world is not so good - I don't want to be with the White Walkers and I don't think they are good.

The key is a nice balance between the two, wargs AND dragonriders, cleansing fire AND preserving ice, Dany AND Jon (haha). We need some harmony here - thus a SONG of ice AND fire.

[callmedodge]

Wait wait wait wait. Azor Ahai is the guy who put an end to the Long Night. The Long Night`s actual state of affairs is somewhat in the air. No one actually knows how it all started. Hell. Who`s to say that the Others, humans the COTF and various other ancient beasties didnt live in harmony until something went down (caused obviously by people) and the Others were not happy. Why else would have ALL the ancient races moved north of the wall?

So yes. Azor Ahai put an end to this war. By working with the children and building the wall and supposedly "stopping" the others. But what if he was on their side and this story has just been bastardised over generations to make him look like a human saviour. As opposed to an Others saviour. We know that the Children only got involved after he sought them out. What if it was because they were to scared and he provided an answer for them?

So he`s a force for the supposedly bad Others. He`s also the saviour for the Rhollor folks. Valar Morghulis. Valar Dohaeris. That`s what got me interested in this thread. Very interesting parallel I`ve never noticed before. Definitely think they`re different sides to the same coin. Magic is, after all, magic. Is just how people or (insert race here) use it.

Interesting. Something I`m gonna have to mull over.

Edit: My point was that if Jon is Azor Ahai. Maybe he`s not the guy we think he`ll be. The ending is meant to be bittersweet. What if part of that bitterness is that Jon is an agent for the "bad" guys.

[Battle Kitten]

The movie Dark Crystal seems to be the inspiration for all things that have come after. Like how Kevin Bacon is connected to all things. Probably some schism happened way back in the deeps of time and it threw the planetary forces out of wack. The diety or planetary animus split into hot and cold magical creature manifestations. They don't necessarily need to both die, but they need to be harmonized back into synch so they're not toxic in their effects anymore. And the task of the last hero can finally be complete. In Dark Crystal the split souls of the original creatures manifested as all-good and all-evil twins for each soul, and they finally disappeared when the long split beings were merged back together again. iirc. I hope Martin's finale isn't marked by a Tolkein style end to the age of magic, because that leaves the world boring all of a sudden just because his saga is done.

I had that same thought.

[Leif]

The most significant clue in all in this is the fact that the antagonist is the Great Other whose name may never be spoken: why may it never be spoken? Because it is R'hllor.

Le gasp.

[Kienn]

Pretty much any theory regarding the gods is legit since we haven't been told much about them except of course from one very unreliable source.

I'm not sure why you think this would be an "earth-shattering twist" though... If you're taking a mysterious and fairly evil character at her words... well that's just strange of you - it seems to me Mel is set up very clearly to be someone not to trust so everything she says would be suspect and thus a revelation that she was wrong or lying is not a twist for the readers. If anything Mel being 100% correct would be the biggest twist possible.

[Tyrion_the_Oneironaut]

Tyrion has the right of it. Cunts. All cunts.

[lynxx]

Hold on just a cotton-pickin' minute! Are we so smothered in simplistic, juvenile comic book, anime notions that we see everything expressed only as a dichotomy? Why should we bash everything into that old tired mold? We have enjoyed the richness of world-building and the wonderfully shocking plot twists of the story. It even physically affected us when our lead character Ned was executed.

[ice/fire, good/bad, R'hllor/Other, black/white, hero/villain, north/south, hot/cold, us/them, winter/summer, walkers/dragons, east/west, either/or.]

We already know that Martin likes to make everything gray, no character is all good or bad. He likes to toy with our preconceived notions and blast them into smithereens. All this discussion of good gods/bad gods is playing right into his scheme. There is no good or bad in this story.

[The Farrison Horde]

What about the story of the Long Night and Brandon the builder? The wall was erected because at one point the white walkers had completely overrun westeros, surely that cant be a "good" thing. I guess for this theory to work we have to assume that the great other is not working with the WWs, who clearly like killing people and god knows what else.

Edit: This applies more to some other posts that have been made, the OP could be true. They could be one in the same and just pulling strings to get what they want, what that is we don't know