When did The Others 'activate'?

[House Cambodia]

Is there any information in the canon as to when the Others first 'awoke' this time around?

 

To rephrase the question, is there any evidence at all to contradict my hypothesis that they awoke at the birth of Daenerys? I want to pursue the theory that they have arisen to fight the antichrist, the mother of dragons, Azor Ahai who has come to herald the second Long Night.

 

Thanks.

[Leonardo]

If the Others still had the strength, why not attack Mance and his host in order to grow their army of undead? They nip at their heels sure, but they never really attack in any force until the fist of the first men. Imo, the Others strength is pretty low. Their only real trump card is winter itself; the cold will give them all the wights they need and kill off any real organized army. We haven't seen ice spiders, and there may only be a few left. I detailed my thoughts in another thread so I won't go too far into it, but this all stinks of desperation to me. The old races such as giants and Cotf are dying off; humans have completely taken over and this is the Others last stand against extinction. They won't go 'quietly into the night' as it were, which is why they're not evil.

 

I think if they were awaking for the reasons you suppose, they would have awoken after Valyria. Westeros is still too set up with the mindset of uniting after the Iron Throne was forged, and I think the century of blood or earlier would be a better time to make their stand. The North is fairly isolated and the other kingdoms wouldn't care until it had already pretty much fallen

 

The alternative is that they have been preparing for this for a good while and this is truly their last chance. A big war in Westeros, no dragons... I don't think they have the same ability to predict the future the way the Cotf do with weirwoods, but they do know seasons and this long winter is a perfect time to try and decimate as much of humanity as they can.

 

To close, I see no real evidence in the canon to suggest that Azor Ahai was even a real thing aside from the impossible being possible in this world. If he did exist was he a harbinger of evil? I try not to eliminate any theories considering how open ended things are, but it would paint the Others as more of heroes than just grey characters if they were trying to stop the antichrist. If so it's a more grand scheme overally than originally ever imagined, so kudos to you on thinking outside of the box! And I do like the idea of finding out more about the the entire foundation of the ASOIAF universe, which your theory ties into nicely.

[Hol Horse]

What if it's all one big coincidence?

[Leonardo]

Just now, Cz-99 said:

What if it's all one big coincidence?

Entirely possible as well, though I still say in that circumstance the Others are fighting against extinction.

[JonCon's Red Beard]

My theory is that they were always activate but had a deal with the Northeners, a deal that couldn't be fulfilled after Rickard and Brandon died.

Imagine this. Why is that a Stark has to always be in Winterfell? We don't know yet, but I doubt it's more than a saying. I think that had a purpose and a real meaning: a Stark needs to, yearly, make a pact with the Others, not differently from what Craster did. Rickard knew, and he told Brandon, but after they both died in KL, no one told the next Stark.

I think that would fit on how everything is related. The coming of the Others was caused by Fire, a Targaryen. And not just some Targaryen, but the father of the one Prince who wanted to stop it all and actually procreated the one who will be an important part on their defeat.

[House Cambodia]

47 minutes ago, JCRB's Honeypot said:

My theory is that they were always activate but had a deal with the Northeners, a deal that couldn't be fulfilled after Rickard and Brandon died.

Imagine this. Why is that a Stark has to always be in Winterfell? We don't know yet, but I doubt it's more than a saying. I think that had a purpose and a real meaning: a Stark needs to, yearly, make a pact with the Others, not differently from what Craster did. Rickard knew, and he told Brandon, but after they both died in KL, no one told the next Stark.

I think that would fit on how everything is related. The coming of the Others was caused by Fire, a Targaryen. And not just some Targaryen, but the father of the one Prince who wanted to stop it all and actually procreated the one who will be an important part on their defeat.

This is what i'm trying to identify. It could well be during that period, when R&B died, Jon was born and Daenerys was born. Which one was the trigger?? I don't think it was R&B's deaths because Ned succeeded them.

 

Cz-99, we're analysing literature here - GRRM doesn't do coincidence; otherwise he wouldn't take decades to knock out each book!

[House Cambodia]

2 hours ago, Leonardo said:

If the Others still had the strength, why not attack Mance and his host in order to grow their army of undead? They nip at their heels sure, but they never really attack in any force until the fist of the first men. Imo, the Others strength is pretty low. Their only real trump card is winter itself; the cold will give them all the wights they need and kill off any real organized army. We haven't seen ice spiders, and there may only be a few left. I detailed my thoughts in another thread so I won't go too far into it, but this all stinks of desperation to me. The old races such as giants and Cotf are dying off; humans have completely taken over and this is the Others last stand against extinction. They won't go 'quietly into the night' as it were, which is why they're not evil.

 

I think if they were awaking for the reasons you suppose, they would have awoken after Valyria. Westeros is still too set up with the mindset of uniting after the Iron Throne was forged, and I think the century of blood or earlier would be a better time to make their stand. The North is fairly isolated and the other kingdoms wouldn't care until it had already pretty much fallen

 

The alternative is that they have been preparing for this for a good while and this is truly their last chance. A big war in Westeros, no dragons... I don't think they have the same ability to predict the future the way the Cotf do with weirwoods, but they do know seasons and this long winter is a perfect time to try and decimate as much of humanity as they can.

 

To close, I see no real evidence in the canon to suggest that Azor Ahai was even a real thing aside from the impossible being possible in this world. If he did exist was he a harbinger of evil? I try not to eliminate any theories considering how open ended things are, but it would paint the Others as more of heroes than just grey characters if they were trying to stop the antichrist. If so it's a more grand scheme overally than originally ever imagined, so kudos to you on thinking outside of the box! And I do like the idea of finding out more about the the entire foundation of the ASOIAF universe, which your theory ties into nicely.

I think that for GRRM, magic and prophecy are extremely important. The Other's didn't actively decide when to get their act together; it is in response to some cosmic force, which I think is the rebirth of the antichrist Azor Ahai. For me Valyria was never key - it was a major event between Long Nights and the dragons are not important in themselves but are basically forms of Lightbringer, the sword of AA - i.e. dragons are WEAPONS of the "Lord of Light" - they are Fire, but they are agents of R'hllor and Azor Ahai.

[[Deleted]]

Well, considering the first time we see the Others in the books is during the Prologue, which takes place in 297 AC, these are the major events that occured 100 years before that.

 

-13 Years: Daenerys Taragaryen is born.

-14 Years: Jon Snow is born.

-15 Years: Brandon and Rickard Stark are excuted by the Mad King.

-16 Years: The Year Of The False Sping/Tourney at Harrenhal.

-38 Years: Tragedy At Summerhall, the last (known) dragon eggs in Westeros are destroyed, Rhaegar Targaryen is born.

-144 Years: The last living dragon dies.

-167 Years: The Dance Of The Dragons civil war.

 

I doubt the Others "activated" before this. If there are any other events that you can think of, feel free to add to the list. Of course, there may be events that happened that we simply aren't aware of yet.

[Kyll.Ing.]

When did Mance Rayder start uniting the wildlings? Was this before or after the Others first awoke? Ygritte had a line going something like "In search of a weapon to bring down the wall, we opened ancient graves and let things out". It could very well be that Mance Rayder had the brilliant idea to search the Frostfangs for some legendary weapon, and when doing so accidentally released the Others.

That, or the Others have lived in peace in the Land of Always Winter for all those years, and when Mance showed up with a big army on their doorsteps and started desacrating graves, they decided to take action and push humans back south of the Wall.

[blckp]

 

19 hours ago, Aegonzo The Great said:

Well, considering the first time we see the Others in the books is during the Prologue, which takes place in 297 AC, these are the major events that occured 100 years before that.

 

-13 Years: Daenerys Taragaryen is born.

-14 Years: Jon Snow is born.

-15 Years: Brandon and Rickard Stark are excuted by the Mad King.

-16 Years: The Year Of The False Sping/Tourney at Harrenhal.

-38 Years: Tragedy At Summerhall, the last (known) dragon eggs in Westeros are destroyed, Rhaegar Targaryen is born.

-144 Years: The last living dragon dies.

-167 Years: The Dance Of The Dragons civil war.

 

I doubt the Others "activated" before this. If there are any other events that you can think of, feel free to add to the list. Of course, there may be events that happened that we simply aren't aware of yet.

red comet , dragons returned, daenerys unburnt

[[Deleted]]

24 minutes ago, blckp said:

 

red comet , dragons returned, daenerys unburnt

Those 3 events all happened well after the Others were seen. We're trying to figure out if there was an event that "woke them up", so to speak.

[Ferocious Veldt Roarer]

7 hours ago, House Cambodia said:

Is there any information in the canon as to when the Others first 'awoke' this time around?

To rephrase the question, is there any evidence at all to contradict my hypothesis that they awoke at the birth of Daenerys? I want to pursue the theory that they have arisen to fight the antichrist, the mother of dragons, Azor Ahai who has come to herald the second Long Night.

But you don't need the Others to be born at any particular moment for your hypothesis. If the Others came back earlier, then that was clearly in anticipation of the evil Dany. If they came back after, then it was in reaction to the evil Dany. So you can have your Dany the Antichrist regardless of the sequence of the events.

If the Others are the saviors, BTW, then they mask their true goal incredibly well.

[Adam Targaryen]

Considering that they're an ancient, magical race that lives high up north it's not completely unreasonable to think they started returning after the Doom and it took several hundred years for them to gather their strength, but I'd say it's more likely they awoke around the time of Robert's Rebellion. Possibly because of the birth of Daenerys or Jon, if at least one of them is AA/The Last Hero/TPTWP.

[House Cambodia]

Well, in terms of 'reaction', reaction to what? The hatching of the dragons happened after the Others had killed Waymar and before Dany was introduced to us as a 12ish-year-old maiden. It could only be her birth.

[House Cambodia]

3 hours ago, Aegonzo The Great said:

Well, considering the first time we see the Others in the books is during the Prologue, which takes place in 297 AC, these are the major events that occured 100 years before that.

 

-13 Years: Daenerys Taragaryen is born.

-14 Years: Jon Snow is born.

-15 Years: Brandon and Rickard Stark are excuted by the Mad King.

-16 Years: The Year Of The False Sping/Tourney at Harrenhal.

-38 Years: Tragedy At Summerhall, the last (known) dragon eggs in Westeros are destroyed, Rhaegar Targaryen is born.

-144 Years: The last living dragon dies.

-167 Years: The Dance Of The Dragons civil war.

 

I doubt the Others "activated" before this. If there are any other events that you can think of, feel free to add to the list. Of course, there may be events that happened that we simply aren't aware of yet.

Thanks Aegonzo, that's useful.  I've said before that I rule out the deaths of B&R Stark as Ned took over the Lordship.

Summerhall could be an outside bet, but I think it has to be far more recent.

Mance poking about - that's got legs for sure, but as I've also said, Mance wasn't raising an army to fight the Others - his army was to fight its way south to escape the Others.

For me, the most feasible time is the period covering the births of Jon AND Dany. I wish I could know which one, but I suppose that's impossible and we're left with a crucial ambiguity.

[Bael's Bastard]

There's nothing to suggest the Others ever "slept." They were already awake eight thousand years ago and they were still awake in the first prologue of the very first book. There is no indication they ever ceased to be awake. After five books they're are still north of the Wall, and we can't say for sure that they are doing anything they haven't been doing for thousands of years. We don't know that encounters like their encounter with Royce hadn't happened repeatedly over thousands of years. What will cause them to launch an attack south of the Wall? That remains to be seen. What caused them to appear now? GRRM. You can pick the birth of Dany, or birth of Bran, or death of Rhaegar, or Summerhall, or death of Jon Arryn, or any other arbitrary date. But we really know nothing about what they've been doing since the Long Night, what they are actually doing now, and how long they've been doing it. You could pretty much speculate any crazy thing with as little as we know.

[Bael's Bastard]

For instance, who is to say the Others didn't initiate their current preparations with the birth (Summerhall) or death (Trident) of Rhaegar, mistakenly believing him to be/to have been TPTWP, as Aemon and Rhaegar (until Aegon was born under the comet) had? 

[House Cambodia]

When Gared fled in panic and related what he saw, no one believed him. Neither the Starks nor NW had ever experienced such a thing - apart possibly from those rangers who had recently disappeared. There were also contemporary reports of Eastwitch residents seeing something on the horizon but they were similarly dismissed. Everywhere south of the wall and on the wall it was accepted the the Others were either entirely legendary or at best had not been around for 8000 years.

Even the Wildlings - including those living furthest north, talked as if these were recent terrors, causing them to flee en masse. There are simply no reports of encounters with Others before very recent times.

[JonCon's Red Beard]

8 hours ago, House Cambodia said:

This is what i'm trying to identify. It could well be during that period, when R&B died, Jon was born and Daenerys was born. Which one was the trigger?? I don't think it was R&B's deaths because Ned succeeded them.

It's not much that the deaths were the trigger but what these deaths caused. Was Rickard meant to do a yearly ritual he couldn't do? And no one informed Ned?  

[The Sword of the Evening]

I read a really good theory that explained and mapped out the timing of what happened immediately prefacing the series. The theory concluded that the Others began their movements roughly around the same time that Bloodraven disappeared north of the Wall. If someone can find a link to this theory please post.