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Of Wights and Wards


BricksAndSparrows

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Why was it Jafer Flowers and Othor were able to be taken into Castle Black, but Coldhands wasn't able to cross the Wards at the Wall, or the Cave with the three eyed crow? It seems like they are guarded by the same type of magic. 

Was it because they were carried across? Or are they like Vampires? They need to be invited. I was just curious. Am I just nitpicking?

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1 hour ago, BricksAndSparrows said:

Why was it Jafer Flowers and Othor were able to be taken into Castle Black, but Coldhands wasn't able to cross the Wards at the Wall, or the Cave with the three eyed crow? It seems like they are guarded by the same type of magic. 

Was it because they were carried across? Or are they like Vampires? They need to be invited. I was just curious. Am I just nitpicking?

The Others put Othor and Jafer to sleep, and then woke 'em up...

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"Othor," announced Ser Jaremy Rykker, "beyond a doubt. And this one was Jafer Flowers." He turned the corpse over with his foot, and the dead white face stared up at the overcast sky with blue, blue eyes. "They were Ben Stark's men, both of them." . . .

The morning was unnaturally warm; beads of sweat dotted the Lord Commander's broad forehead like dew on a melon. . . .

"Tell me how they died."

Squatting beside the dead man he had named Jafer Flowers, Ser Jaremy grasped his head by the scalp. The hair came out between his fingers, brittle as straw. The knight cursed and shoved at the face with the heel of his hand. A great gash in the side of the corpse's neck opened like a mouth, crusted with dried blood. Only a few ropes of pale tendon still attached the head to the neck. "This was done with an axe."

"Aye," muttered Dywen, the old forester. "Belike the axe that Othor carried, m'lord."

Jon could feel his breakfast churning in his belly, but he pressed his lips together and made himself look at the second body. Othor had been a big ugly man, and he made a big ugly corpse. No axe was in evidence. Jon remembered Othor; he had been the one bellowing the bawdy song as the rangers rode out. His singing days were done. His flesh was blanched white as milk, everywhere but his hands. His hands were black like Jafer's. Blossoms of hard cracked blood decorated the mortal wounds that covered him like a rash, breast and groin and throat. Yet his eyes were still open. They stared up at the sky, blue as sapphires. . . .

Sam mopped at the sweat on his brow. "You . . . you can see where Ghost . . . Jon's direwolf . . . you can see where he tore off that man's hand, and yet . . . the stump hasn't bled, look . . . " He waved a hand. "My father . . . L-lord Randyll, he, he made me watch him dress animals sometimes, when . . . after . . . " Sam shook his head from side to side, his chins quivering. Now that he had looked at the bodies, he could not seem to look away. "A fresh kill . . . the blood would still flow, my lords. Later . . . later it would be clotted, like a . . . a jelly, thick and . . . and . . . " He looked as though he was going to be sick. "This man . . . look at the wrist, it's all . . . crusty . . . dry . . . like . . . "

Jon saw at once what Sam meant. He could see the torn veins in the dead man's wrist, iron worms in the pale flesh. His blood was a black dust. Yet Jaremy Rykker was unconvinced. "If they'd been dead much longer than a day, they'd be ripe by now, boy. They don't even smell."

Dywen, the gnarled old forester who liked to boast that he could smell snow coming on, sidled closer to the corpses and took a whiff. "Well, they're no pansy flowers, but . . . m'lord has the truth of it. There's no corpse stink."

"They . . . they aren't rotting." Sam pointed, his fat finger shaking only a little. "Look, there's . . . there's no maggots or . . . or . . . worms or anything . . . they've been lying here in the woods, but they . . . they haven't been chewed or eaten by animals . . . only Ghost . . . otherwise they're . . . they're . . . "

"Untouched," Jon said softly. "And Ghost is different. The dogs and the horses won't go near them." . . .

"This . . . this is all wrong," Sam Tarly said earnestly. "The blood . . . there's bloodstains on their clothes, and . . . and their flesh, dry and hard, but . . . there's none on the ground, or . . . anywhere. With those . . . those . . . those . . . " Sam made himself swallow, took a deep breath. "With those wounds . . . terrible wounds . . . there should be blood all over. Shouldn't there?"

Dywen sucked at his wooden teeth. "Might be they didn't die here. Might be someone brought 'em and left 'em for us. A warning, as like." The old forester peered down suspiciously. "And might be I'm a fool, but I don't know that Othor never had no blue eyes afore."

Ser Jaremy looked startled. "Neither did Flowers," he blurted, turning to stare at the dead man. . . .

The day was grey, damp, overcast, the sort of day that made you wish for rain. No wind stirred the wood; the air hung humid and heavy, and Jon's clothes clung to his skin. It was warm. Too warm. The Wall was weeping copiously, had been weeping for days, and sometimes Jon even imagined it was shrinking. . . .

Bowen Marsh was waiting at the first gate as they led their garrons through the icy tunnel. . . .

A north wind had begun to blow by the time the sun went down. Jon could hear it skirling against the Wall and over the icy battlements as he went to the common hall for the evening meal. . . .

Later, much later, after they had marched him back to his sleeping cell, Mormont came down to see him, raven on his shoulder. "I told you not to do anything stupid, boy," the Old Bear said. "Boy," the bird chorused. Mormont shook his head, disgusted. "And to think I had high hopes for you."

They took his knife and his sword and told him he was not to leave his cell until the high officers met to decide what was to be done with him. And then they placed a guard outside his door to make certain he obeyed. His friends were not allowed to see him, but the Old Bear did relent and permit him Ghost, so he was not utterly alone.

"My father is no traitor," he told the direwolf when the rest had gone. Ghost looked at him in silence. Jon slumped against the wall, hands around his knees, and stared at the candle on the table beside his narrow bed.The flame flickered and swayed, the shadows moved around him, the room seemed to grow darker and colder. I will not sleep tonight, Jon thought.

Yet he must have dozed. When he woke, his legs were stiff and cramped and the candle had long since burned out. Ghost stood on his hind legs, scrabbling at the door. Jon was startled to see how tall he'd grown. "Ghost, what is it?" he called softly. The direwolf turned his head and looked down at him, baring his fangs in a silent snarl. Has he gone mad? Jon wondered. "It's me, Ghost," he murmured, trying not to sound afraid. Yet he was trembling, violently. When had it gotten so cold?

Ghost backed away from the door. There were deep gouges where he'd raked the wood. Jon watched him with mounting disquiet. "There's someone out there, isn't there?" he whispered. Crouching, the direwolf crept backward, white fur rising on the back of his neck. The guard, he thought, they left a man to guard my door, Ghost smells him through the door, that's all it is.

Slowly, Jon pushed himself to his feet. He was shivering uncontrollably, wishing he still had a sword.

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@Lost Melnibonean Interesting theory. Maybe they retracted their magic? That's why it was so warm?

I don't know though, they would still need to reach out to them to wake them. Plus, even while they slept, their eyes were that crazy bright blue color.

I feel like I'm probably just nit picking and trying to quantify the magic abilities of the Others. But I still think it is interesting. If nothing else, it gives way to some conversation about the Others, their magic, and the wards protecting the wall.

 

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15 hours ago, BricksAndSparrows said:

Why was it Jafer Flowers and Othor were able to be taken into Castle Black, but Coldhands wasn't able to cross the Wards at the Wall, or the Cave with the three eyed crow? It seems like they are guarded by the same type of magic. 

Was it because they were carried across? Or are they like Vampires? They need to be invited. I was just curious. Am I just nitpicking?

I don't have any particular evidence for this, and I could, of course, very well be wrong. However, I have always just assumed that whatever process it takes to make a man into a wight is not an instantaneous one. It may take a day or even several days. We simply don't know the process yet.

 

So I imagine it the way that a vampire is turned (or at least this is how I thought of it while reading). Othor and Flowers are dead. They are turned into a wight by whatever process does that kind of things and then they rise as wights sometime later. Othor and Flowers were found in the state between where they are cut down and before they are raised.

 

I think it is too much to assume that wights or the others can go into a state of hibernation where they are no longer undead, be brought across the wall into castle black, and then somehow be reactivated. When Mel wants to release her shadow into Storms End she has to have davos bring her past the walls to push her magic into the castle. That makes me believe that the kind of magic that is in the wall and in storms end to protect against things is such that it can't so easily be tricked

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44 minutes ago, YOVMO said:

I don't have any particular evidence for this, and I could, of course, very well be wrong. However, I have always just assumed that whatever process it takes to make a man into a wight is not an instantaneous one. It may take a day or even several days. We simply don't know the process yet.

 

So I imagine it the way that a vampire is turned (or at least this is how I thought of it while reading). Othor and Flowers are dead. They are turned into a wight by whatever process does that kind of things and then they rise as wights sometime later. Othor and Flowers were found in the state between where they are cut down and before they are raised.

 

I think it is too much to assume that wights or the others can go into a state of hibernation where they are no longer undead, be brought across the wall into castle black, and then somehow be reactivated. When Mel wants to release her shadow into Storms End she has to have davos bring her past the walls to push her magic into the castle. That makes me believe that the kind of magic that is in the wall and in storms end to protect against things is such that it can't so easily be tricked

Thistle didn't even take an hour to turn into a Wight. When Varamyr was dying he tried to warg into her, but failed. During the attempt she clawed her own eyes out. He wargs into his wolf and sees the Others have just arrived, and with wights all around, the last one to look at him is Thistle, with blue light in the bloody sockets that used to house her eyes.

It's clear that Othor and Flowers were intentionally placed there, to be carried in a forced state of "fake-death", so they could pass through the magic of the Wall. Once the link was established though, the Wall did not seem to be able to stop the Others from turning the two "on" again, and they knew what to do, they were there to assassinate Mormont.

What is clear is that the link, at least so far, does does not seem to be able to be indroduced south of the Wall, so they can't just bring back the recently dead or anything south of the Wall because they themselves cannot cross and create the link.

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50 minutes ago, YOVMO said:

I don't have any particular evidence for this, and I could, of course, very well be wrong. However, I have always just assumed that whatever process it takes to make a man into a wight is not an instantaneous one. It may take a day or even several days. We simply don't know the process yet.

Well, we see Weymar Royce change fairly quick. But there is still a lot we don't know about the process. This true.

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I think it is too much to assume that wights or the others can go into a state of hibernation where they are no longer undead, be brought across the wall into castle black, and then somehow be reactivated.

That is what happens with Othor and Jaffer Flowers, though... I'd say they are already turned because there corpses are already unnatural, as Sam points out to the other Crows. Plus their eyes have already gone that crazy blue...

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28 minutes ago, Nyrhex said:

Thistle didn't even take an hour to turn into a Wight. When Varamyr was dying he tried to warg into her, but failed. During the attempt she clawed her own eyes out. He wargs into his wolf and sees the Others have just arrived, and with wights all around, the last one to look at him is Thistle, with blue light in the bloody sockets that used to house her eyes.

It's clear that Othor and Flowers were intentionally placed there, to be carried in a forced state of "fake-death", so they could pass through the magic of the Wall. Once the link was established though, the Wall did not seem to be able to stop the Others from turning the two "on" again, and they knew what to do, they were there to assassinate Mormont.

What is clear is that the link, at least so far, does does not seem to be able to be indroduced south of the Wall, so they can't just bring back the recently dead or anything south of the Wall because they themselves cannot cross and create the link.

You are right. I had forgot about Thistle.

 

I am still very much unclear about the magic to turn on or off as it were. Why not just turn off 50 thousand wights and pass them all through the black gate when no one is looking if they can be deactivated in a way that would allow for them to pass the wall? Why doesn't Coldhands deactivate and have hodor pull him through the wall? I suspect you are probably right, but details will need to be fleshed out more. Presumably we will learn more about the mechanisms in place behind the Others and the Wights in TWOW. There simply is too little data to make anything more than conjecture at this point.

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18 minutes ago, YOVMO said:

You are right. I had forgot about Thistle.

 

I am still very much unclear about the magic to turn on or off as it were. Why not just turn off 50 thousand wights and pass them all through the black gate when no one is looking if they can be deactivated in a way that would allow for them to pass the wall? Why doesn't Coldhands deactivate and have hodor pull him through the wall? I suspect you are probably right, but details will need to be fleshed out more. Presumably we will learn more about the mechanisms in place behind the Others and the Wights in TWOW. There simply is too little data to make anything more than conjecture at this point.

I honestly doubt that there is a system to it all. GRRM is very loose with this sort of thing, so it's more like whatever works for him in the moment. The only thing we do know is that for the past ~8,000 years the Others were unable to breach the Wall.

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5 minutes ago, Nyrhex said:

I honestly doubt that there is a system to it all. GRRM is very loose with this sort of thing, so it's more like whatever works for him in the moment. The only thing we do know is that for the past ~8,000 years the Others were unable to breach the Wall.

I tend to agree. He's writing about magic in a high fantasy, not hard science fiction. 

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13 minutes ago, Nyrhex said:

I honestly doubt that there is a system to it all. GRRM is very loose with this sort of thing, so it's more like whatever works for him in the moment. The only thing we do know is that for the past ~8,000 years the Others were unable to breach the Wall.

That is fair enough and seemingly correct to me.

 

However, whether we get it or not, there does have to be a process by which a man is changed to a wight. Is any man who is killed by a wight or an other automatically turned into one. Is it that the other has to change him. To they use their crystal sword? How long does it take? Do they bite them? ewtc. etc

 

I am fine with GRRM leaving this vague, but I do believe we will learn at least something about wights and others (probably through sam and the knowledge will be through a book so you will never know if it is accurate or not).

 

Also, I would like to think we will learn a little more about the wall. The wall has kept the Others on one side through magi for the last ~8000 years. No one disputes this. So does it keep all undead things out? Does it keep magical things out? Specific magical things out? And, back to the original question, why are Othor and Flowers able to get through? Were they deactivated and then later activated? If so, how? If the wall is protecting against magic? And if there is a way, why is it only being used now?

 

While I agree with you that there are going to be a lot of things left loose (and I think that that is a good thing) I feel we are going to need to get at least some understanding of the magic at play either through Sam or Marwyn or information found in Winterfell or some combination of these and/or other places.

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It seems as if the magic that reanimates the wights requires some continuous force, namely the cold that follows the Others. When that force is absent, they are just regular corpses (even after being changed). Looks to me like the Others install the wight software and can activate it remotely with their force field of cold. The wall itself thwarts that force such that active wights and Others would return to dormancy if they passed through. Thus, if an Other tried to go through, they would lose their connection to whatever force flows through them and would have nothing to sustain their life, much less project their field of cold.

So how did that cold force reanimate Flowers and Othor through the wall? It didn't go through the wall - it went over it. This raises the questuon of whether the Others could simply walk around the wall or climb over. In that case, we'd have to look for practical reasons as to why they wouldn't just do that. I mean Logistics would be really tricky with a bunch of unthinking skeletal zombies. Can they build ships and sail? Does the sea hold some deterring force?

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Perhaps Others and their wights simply cannot pass the Wall of their own volition, but they can be taken past the Wall by men? And if they are taken past the Wall by men, they retain their magical properties? 

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Othor and Flowers are found dormant at day and walk at night, just like the group of Wildlings whom Will, Gared and the young Royce track in the AGOT prologue. The attack on the Fist comes at night, Thistle turns at night. Bran is attacked as the dark is setting in. Do we ever see walking wights at daylight? I don't recall. Anyway, it seems that the Wall functions exactly as its name suggests - a barrier. You cannot pass but can operate on either side. That was the reason why Othor and Flowers were brought to its vicinity (brought, as in, animated to walk there) and left where the Watch would find them because it was quite a safe bet that the bodies would be taken to Castle Black.

Coldhands is an entirely different matter, though - walks, and even talks, regardless of the time of day. I'd say he is animated by a different kind, or a different level, of power.

 

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