When did The Others 'activate'?

[The Sword of the Evening]

On 5/21/2016 at 4:12 PM, The Sword of the Evening said:

From the post I was talking about:

A Timeline of Northern Aggression

Now we don’t know exactly when the Others began their aggression (the show puts Mance gathering the wildlings for southern migration at 20 years, but we can’t necessarily take that as gospel). We have pretty good reason to believe that the free folk began feeling an immediate and impending threat at some point which required them to migrate south, and this happened before the actual return of dragons, before there were no more Starks in Winterfell, and before the red comet most recently showed itself. That said, the last major wildling invasion before out story was by then King-Beyond-the-Wall Raymun Redbeard around 72 years before the start of the story, and that seemingly was as a result of the dwindling Night’s Watch, and so the return of the Others as a threat likely occurred after that, since Mance had to unite the Wildlings again. So, the Others didn’t start coming back when the Hardhome tragedy occurred 600 years ago (in the books this was a different tragedy involving fire), or when dragons came to Westeros with Aegon the Conqueror 300 years ago, or when the Nightfort and Snowgate were abandoned and first night was abolished in the North during the reign of Good Queen Alysanne, or even when the dragons died in Westeros around 150 years before the story begins. Whatever brought them back, they didn’t actually start coming back till some point in the last 72 years. So what awoke them? What made them start coming south? Could Bloodraven and the Children of the Forest get the Others to invade? Well the timeline certainly fits.

The timeline indicates the return of the Others seemingly coincides with Bloodraven’s disappearance, as they don’t seem to have come back around any major events prior to that, and all of the major events in our story in the last 72 years which could believably concern them seem to be after Bloodraven took the Weirwood throne. Furthermore, considering we know Craster and the Others have an arrangement where he supplies them with children, the 48 years since Bloodraven’s disappearance also fit with the apparent age of Craster. Though the possibility that Bloodraven began working his scheme because he saw the Other’s coming exists, there is seemingly no event in the 30 some years before his disappearance while still after the last wildling invasion, which would bring the Others. If Bloodraven had seen the White Walkers beginning to gather their forces while he was Lord Commander, you’d think he would send word to Aegon V. (yes that is the King who exiled him, but that should not have stopped him from warning the realm. Yet Aegon the Unlikely seem hell bent on bringing back dragons to enforce pro small folk reforms. It appears Aegon V wasn’t warned of the Others.

Furthermore, though the Others appear an inherently hostile and ominous force, we have to bear in mind thatthe Others have kept to their side of the wall for thousands of years when our story begins, and neither the comings nor going to men or dragons in Westeros seems to have provoked them south as of yet. In fact, historically there is zero evidence of the Other’s gathering forces to march south at any time after the Long Night, so we don’t have any actual indication that there are any expansionist tendencies or southward manifest destiny among wight walkers. They seem to have started their aggression only during Bloodraven’s reign as the last greenseer.

 

This is from: https://weirwoodleviathan.wordpress.com/2015/11/11/ii-bloodraven-and-the-greatest-evil-2/

Quoting myself, but I still think this is the best explanation.

[House Cambodia]

Here's an associated question:

Where is it explicitly stated what caused the original Long Night?

[The Ice Wolf of Loki]

Year of the False Spring would be my bet, the reason the spring was false was because they awoke.

[House Cambodia]

1 hour ago, The Sword of the Evening said:

Quoting myself, but I still think this is the best explanation.

Been loving your blog and your theories - this one is truly excellent. You've suggested a particularly intriguing idea that I (and maybe no one else) haven't considered, and it fits very nicely into my bigger endgame picture.

So going by your idea, maybe for the last 8,000 years the Others have been mosying along north of Thennland, occasionally venturing south a bit to worry the Wildlings, but in the main sticking to where they come from, of no threat whatsoever to the South. The odd NW ranging party venturing over the agreed divide are fair game, but there was no aspiration on the Other's side to hit the Wall. 

Until the event you highlight. Stannis bringing Melissandre and the R'hllor banners North of the Wall into agreed Others territory was a gamechanger. Now they know the Man-induced Planetosi Armageddon is imminent and they're raising an undead army to prepare for it.

Brilliant. Where I differ from you is that in my book Melissandre is wrong about Azor Ahai. It never was Stannis and it isn't Jon. Azor Ahai is Daenerys. With less confidence, I'm maintaining that Jon is The Last Hero, The Prince That Was Promised, but even with a different interpretation here, my endgame is similar to yours - an Apocalyptic Battle between the followers of R'hllor and the other side. You see, I regard R'hllor as effectively Satan and AA as the antichrist. I do think the Others follow The Great Other, and I think Jon will bring his forces to join with the Others to defeat Daenerys.

So the answer to my original question? Briefly, the Others never 'deactivated', they simply lived in the far north where it is coldest. The onset of Winter has brought them further south where NW rangers have encountered them. Encroachment by the NW caused them to strengthen their numbers for defensive purposes, but they have only set their sights on the Wall since Men brought the threat of religious genocide in the shape of Stannis and Melissandre.

And as a parting shot, I'm exploring the thought that the Long Night was a natural event - an ice age basically (retrospectively mythologised), in which COTF helped some First Men to survive by helping them with their magic to adapt to the extreme cold. A second ice age is now impending.  

[Lordsteve666]

1 hour ago, House Cambodia said:

Here's an associated question:

Where is it explicitly stated what caused the original Long Night?

It's not stated anywhere explicitly that I'm aware of. We know it was global because there are stories of it from Essos as well as Weteros. 

Its unclear if the messed up season are the result of it or not but I would guess they probably are, just nobody is around to remember the times when things were normal. 

I mean this was an event that was further in the past than the building of the Great Pyramid is for our own real history, there's just no reliable sources for the events that far back and things get mixed up with legends and mythology. Plus it's possible most records from back then were purely word of mouth with little written down, I mean the first men were little more that hunter gatherer tribes back then, little chance they had a detailed system of recording historical events. 

As for the Long Night itself, I get the impression it's one of two things:

1. It's a "man" made ocurance. Possibly a response of the environment to something magical caused by men or the CotF. (The show certainly seems to be going this way). 

2. It's the fallout from some "natural" disaster of epic proportions. I've seen some pretty awesome theories from LmL on here about the planet being hit with remnants of a destroyed moon and have my own feelings it was a sort of magical nuclear winter.  The effect of it is still being felt in the messed up seasons and the poisoning of the lands round Assai. 

[House Cambodia]

Right, that fits. I love LmL's stuff myself, but it doesn't contradict my idea. What he posits is cosmic but natural events - a comet plunging into a moon, shrapnel hitting Planetos causing various natural cataclysms, and a load of mythology growing up to make sense of it all. I'm simply suggesting the first and coming Long Nights are also natural phenomena that Men, COTF etc are trying to rationalise and deal with using the means available to them (including magic) within their mythological or religious worldviews.

[SevasTra82]

5 hours ago, The Sword of the Evening said:

Quoting myself, but I still think this is the best explanation.

I have to agree with you on this.  The timeline fits well and it makes the most sense that Blood Raven has something to do with The Others returning.

But that leaves me with more questions then answers.  Why would Blood Raven re-awaken The Others?  Was it on purpose?  By accident?  Also, if the COTF did indeed create them, why are they seemingly helping Blood Raven protect himself from them now?  Did Blood Raven think he could control The Others but then he failed?  Maybe they are all in a league together with one another, is it possible that The Others and Blood Raven may actually be working *together*?  (the opposite of what the tv show shown).

There's a big hole in the story that we do not know yet and I'm curious on what the connection is.

 

[The Sword of the Evening]

4 hours ago, SevasTra82 said:

I have to agree with you on this.  The timeline fits well and it makes the most sense that Blood Raven has something to do with The Others returning.

But that leaves me with more questions then answers.  Why would Blood Raven re-awaken The Others?  Was it on purpose?  By accident?  Also, if the COTF did indeed create them, why are they seemingly helping Blood Raven protect himself from them now?  Did Blood Raven think he could control The Others but then he failed?  Maybe they are all in a league together with one another, is it possible that The Others and Blood Raven may actually be working *together*?  (the opposite of what the tv show shown).

There's a big hole in the story that we do not know yet and I'm curious on what the connection is.

 

I completely agree. We find an answer (or what we think is an answer) and all it does is raise more questions. 

We can only speculate at this point, and each of those questions probably raises more questions. And while the show gives us some clues, it is absolutely a different entity than the books at this point.

 

[Kyll.Ing.]

5 hours ago, SevasTra82 said:

I have to agree with you on this.  The timeline fits well and it makes the most sense that Blood Raven has something to do with The Others returning.

But that leaves me with more questions then answers.  Why would Blood Raven re-awaken The Others?  Was it on purpose?  By accident?

Might as well add another question, then. Are those the same Others that were around during the Long Night, their descendants, or an entirely new batch of Others, totally independent from the first set? It could make sense that the Others were effectively exterminated several millennia ago, but the procedure for "creating" them was not.

[House Cambodia]

^ Good call that. Might work for the book if not the show (NK issue).

[Kyll.Ing.]

On 25.5.2016 at 6:36 PM, House Cambodia said:

^ Good call that. Might work for the book if not the show (NK issue).

For all we know, the showmakers (or the Others themselves) threat the term "Night's King" as a hereditary title. Or it's something like King-beyond-the-Wall, which is a title one basically only gets via self-proclaimation. "I lead the Others now, therefore I am the Night's King".

[House Cambodia]

Feasible, all the more so with the show using two actors to play the NK - an otherwise inexplicable decision.

[enoofu]

On 5/25/2016 at 2:09 AM, House Cambodia said:

Here's an associated question:

Where is it explicitly stated what caused the original Long Night?

Blood Betrayal, from the World of Fire and Ice so far is the only named cause

The Bloodstone Emperor ruled most of the known World and was the last emperor of the Dawn, he kin-slayed to take the crown and became Super Evil and worshiped a Blackstone that fell from the sky. He also founded the Church of Starry Wisdom and supposedly kidnapped/raped a tiger women to use as his wife.

[House Cambodia]

Yeh, I think he's Azor Ahai - but where does it say he actually caused the Long Night?

 

 

[enoofu]

For killing the God-on-Earth (His sister) who is the descendant of Lion of the Night and Maiden-Made-of-Light, the Maiden-Made-of-Light made the world dark and allowed Lion of the Night to go nuts with his demons.

Lion of the Dark is also the Faceless God and probably the Great Other, and Maiden-Made-of-Light is probably R'hllor, the Lord of Light

Basically R'hllor caused the long night to punish the Bloodstone Emperor

But is also suggestive that the Blackstone, or his Dark arts also could of caused the event.

Also possible the God-on-Earth was a Greenseer do to the long life they supposedly have