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What if there was no Walkers?


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This is a hypothetical question. If say George never had the threat of the White Walkers in this story and the whole driving point was the political fight between all these characters over the IT would you still be reading this story? Do you think it would be still as strong of a story?

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Not for me personally.   I picked up a fantasy series to enjoy magic swords and dragons and crazy seductress princess not politics.  It would be some dry historical fiction or something akin to that without the magic.   Would you?

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I dont know about other people but I definitely still would I mean the others have barely appeared this far into the books anyway most things would be the same apart from the Starks not having Direwolves and the wall's struggle being entirely about the wildlings.

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I'm actually a bit worried they might disrupt too many plots which are at very interesting points. We'll see how George handles it, they have so far had a presence but little impact on most storylines. I would be quite happy if they weren't there at all or if their future impact was limited.

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There are lots of historical novels and plain histories out there. John Julius Norwich's "Byzantium" is for me more fascinating and bizarre than anything in asoiaf.

I got into asoiaf because of the Starks, WF, the crypts, NW, the Wall, the Walkers...and great characters, of course. War of the Five Kings was perfect, but it is done. I'm getting increasingly bored with the continued political gamesmanship, and I'm sadly unimpressed with the characters who are going to be involved in a second Dance, if that's where things are heading. If Martin puts all his energies into a Dany-Aegon battle and does a half-assed job with the North, I will be mighty pissed.

 

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2 minutes ago, kimim said:

There are lots of historical novels and plain histories out there. John Julius Norwich's "Byzantium" is for me more fascinating and bizarre than anything in asoiaf.

I got into asoiaf because of the Starks, WF, the crypts, NW, the Wall, the Walkers...and great characters, of course. War of the Five Kings was perfect, but it is done. I'm getting increasingly bored with the continued political gamesmanship, and I'm sadly unimpressed with the characters who are going to be involved in a second Dance, if that's where things are heading. If Martin puts all his energies into a Dany-Aegon battle and does a half-assed job with the North, I will be mighty pissed.

 

Dont worry in 2019 Twow will be out

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I'm confused by these comments. OP is not saying "what if there was no magic at all". He's saying, "what if there was no white walkers". 

For me, I don't really know. I started reading the books after watching season 2, and I started watching the show in the first place because of the first 10 minutes or so preview featuring the White Walkers. Would I have watched the series if I hadn't seen that preview? Yeah, probably, as I always like to watch the first episode of a new show, especially one as hyped as GoT was before its premiere. Then I would've gotten hooked on by Jaime shoving Bran out the window and I'd still be here and I still would've continued reading. 

Would it still be a strong story? Oh, absolutely. The Others are one of the weakest parts of the series for me. They're definitely the least interesting thing going on in the North right now, to the point that were upstaged by a fat pie-eating cannibal. And why should we even care about the Others at this point? They haven't done anything in two books, we don't know what they want, we don't even know what they are. They're barely a part of the series. You can take the Others out of the series and you'll still get pretty much the same plot, so far, at least. 

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13 minutes ago, Good Guy Garlan said:

The Others are one of the weakest parts of the series for me. They're definitely the least interesting thing going on in the North right now, to the point that were upstaged by a fat pie-eating cannibal. And why should we even care about the Others at this point? They haven't done anything in two books, we don't know what they want, we don't even know what they are. They're barely a part of the series. You can take the Others out of the series and you'll still get pretty much the same plot, so far, at least. 

Not necessarily.They have signally failed to live up to Old Nan's hype, certainly, but yet they exist and are part of the magic beyond the Wall. Rather than complain that they aren't stravaighing about slaughtering every living thing in sight we should wonder about who is behind them and why they are being used in the plot to pose a threat which if fully realised will totally change the whole structure of the story.

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5 hours ago, Black Crow said:

Not necessarily.They have signally failed to live up to Old Nan's hype, certainly, but yet they exist and are part of the magic beyond the Wall. Rather than complain that they aren't stravaighing about slaughtering every living thing in sight we should wonder about who is behind them and why they are being used in the plot to pose a threat which if fully realised will totally change the whole structure of the story.

Garlan is right that the Others, as of yet, haven't impacted the story in any meaningful way and it wouldn't take too much reshuffling to remove the little we hear about them and still ended up with more or less identical story. 

The Others haven't been seen anywhere near the Wall and we have no reason to suspect that they can cross it. All our heroes are south of the Wall and are currently facing much more imminent dangers from people around them than the boogymen from the far North. 

If it wasn't for AGoT prologues, where the Others were clearly introduced as one of the biggest mysteries and threats (and because I know I'm reading a series of fantasy books), I might have half-forgoten about them by now. The show's actually doing much better job at keeping the threat of the Others somewhat more relevant and in the forefront of our minds. 

To the OP: I'm certain I would read the books even without the Others. I enjoyed the opening prologue but it was the human characters and the compelling political story that made me keep reading. I'm actually worried that an invasion of the Others will change the story significantly and push it too much into the fantasy level territory. 

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No White Walkers means no Nights Watch, no Wall, no Long Night / War for the Dawn, no Azor Ahai, no TPTWP myths, no Sword of the Morning / Dawn, no wildling army / refugees desperately heading south, no Three-eyed Crow, no magical destiny for Bran and no story at all for Jon. 

You just wrote off one of the 3 themes of the series and wrote out two of the main pov characters and a host of secondary ones (Sam, The Old Bear, Dolorous Edd, Mance, Tormund, Ygritte, Val) to boot.

Would the series still be strong with just the War of the 5 Kings and the Targaryens/ dragons?  Yes - most of our characters and POV chapters have been focused on events away from the Wall - but it wouldn't be as deep or as rich a story without them.

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I would still read the novels without the Others, as I do enjoy the characters and the politics. And GRRM has done a good job of world building to make his story interesting without the Others.
But, the Others do add an extra layer to the story, and I a look forward to learning more about them. And I've been pretty facisnated by the First Long Night, so I hope we learn more about that too.

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Interesting question...

My favorite characters are Sansa and Jon. Sansa's story line can live perfectly fine without the Others, Jon's... not really. Without the threat of the Others, his ADWD arc kinda falls apart. Though, I think Sansa would still be enough to keep me interested

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5 hours ago, Hangover of the Morning said:

Garlan is right that the Others, as of yet, haven't impacted the story in any meaningful way and it wouldn't take too much reshuffling to remove the little we hear about them and still ended up with more or less identical story. 

The Others haven't been seen anywhere near the Wall and we have no reason to suspect that they can cross it. All our heroes are south of the Wall and are currently facing much more imminent dangers from people around them than the boogymen from the far North. 

If it wasn't for AGoT prologues, where the Others were clearly introduced as one of the biggest mysteries and threats (and because I know I'm reading a series of fantasy books), I might have half-forgoten about them by now. The show's actually doing much better job at keeping the threat of the Others somewhat more relevant and in the forefront of our minds. 

To the OP: I'm certain I would read the books even without the Others. I enjoyed the opening prologue but it was the human characters and the compelling political story that made me keep reading. I'm actually worried that an invasion of the Others will change the story significantly and push it too much into the fantasy level territory. 

Ah but that's why I'm arguing that the white walkers are important, not in themselves but in their masters who will very likely be revealed as much closer to home than some might suppose.

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Sure. Even if Others were completely cut from the story, I'd find it equally enjoyable and worth reading.

To be frank, Others have done pretty little so far (which is one of the reasons they could be cut so easily). At this point, they are reduced to vague threat and off-screen danger. All the other aspects (characters, military aspect, intrigue, symbolism, mystery etc.) are much more immersive and important (for now, at least).

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17 hours ago, Curled Finger said:

Not for me personally.   I picked up a fantasy series to enjoy magic swords and dragons and crazy seductress princess not politics.  It would be some dry historical fiction or something akin to that without the magic.   Would you?

The OP can correct me if necessary, but I don't think he's asking if you'd read the book if there was no magic/fantasy tropes in it, but simply if the threat of the impending invasion from the Others and their undead army didn't exist. There would still be magic swords and dragons, etc.

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5 minutes ago, Ser Hyle said:

The OP can correct me if necessary, but I don't think he's asking if you'd read the book if there was no magic/fantasy tropes in it, but simply if the threat of the impending invasion from the Others and their undead army didn't exist. There would still be magic swords and dragons, etc.

^yea that's what I meant just no WW threat

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For the record, I would indeed still be reading this series if the supernatural blue eyed bad guys weren't a thing. If Ser Hyle of House Hunt and his relentless pursuit of the Lady Brienne's hand in marriage didn't exist though I'd be hard pressed to keep going.

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It's very hard to say, the Wall story line and Bran are very much dependent on the WW, many character are motivated by them or theories related to them, and since we don't know where the story is going, or where it came from, it is hard to know if it would work without them. Personally I love to speculate about lore and magic, and the WW and the Battle of Dawn are half or that, so I think they may be crucial to my love of the books.

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