Do the Others really want to cross the wall?

[Bowen Marsh]

What evidence do we have that they want to cross the wall and attack the seven kingdoms?  They left Craster alone so we know they don't inherently hate man.

They attacked the wildling village in the prologue but we don't know who started that fight.  Is it possible that the wildlings under Mance violated some sacred pact?  If you were outside looking in and Mance is the King Beyond the Wall, wouldn't you consider the wildlings under his leadership a kingdom?  You would.  What if Mance killed one of the Others and they're out to settle the score with him?  He's the king of the wildlings so they attacked the wildlings under his "banner".  Craster was not a subject of Mance so they left him alone. 

[Foot_Of_The_King]

The wall being built in the first place seems like decent evidence. I'm not disregarding what you're saying, just my first thought. 

[Lord Wraith]

1 hour ago, Bowen Marsh said:

What evidence do we have that they want to cross the wall and attack the seven kingdoms?  They left Craster alone so we know they don't inherently hate man.

They attacked the wildling village in the prologue but we don't know who started that fight.  Is it possible that the wildlings under Mance violated some sacred pact?  If you were outside looking in and Mance is the King Beyond the Wall, wouldn't you consider the wildlings under his leadership a kingdom?  You would.  What if Mance killed one of the Others and they're out to settle the score with him?  He's the king of the wildlings so they attacked the wildlings under his "banner".  Craster was not a subject of Mance so they left him alone. 

Craster does prove that coexistance is possible but at a price. Also I am amazed that between the Others and the Wights that there are any Wildlings left. Between moving the Wildlings south and preventing the Watch from attacking them it appears to me that they are simply herding them south.

I could be wrong and they are simply bent of wiping out humanity but they are doing a rather shit job of it.

1 hour ago, Foot_Of_The_King said:

The wall being built in the first place seems like decent evidence. I'm not disregarding what you're saying, just my first thought. 

Yes the giant ice wall built to keep out the ice monsters that Martin says can do things with ice that we can't even fathom.  Something about that never made sense to me. Yes maybe the COTF could have helped them build the wall but why then are they on the wrong side of it. Just some things really don't add up to me.

[weirwoodface]

1 hour ago, Foot_Of_The_King said:

The wall being built in the first place seems like decent evidence. I'm not disregarding what you're saying, just my first thought. 

 

Pretty much this, along with the related stories of why it had to be built and why the Nght's Watch was founded. 

The wiki makes note of the existence of a tome called Lies of the Ancients by a certain Archmaester Fomas, who claims that the whole Others thing was a lie made up by House Stark to make themselves seem more heroic. But given that we're actually seeing Other in the books, we can likely toss his ideas in the trash.

 

[Ralphis Baratheon]

Maybe they are sick of the Wildlings and their barbaric ways and want to be left alone.

Maybe they just want to scare the Kingdoms into unifying and stop all the human on human killing.

Maybe they just get their jollies off scaring humans.

[Lion of the West]

@Lord Wraith I agree with you that the Others are doing a shitty job of killing off the humans. Maybe it will be kick up a notch now when winter has come, but so far I am actually thinking that the Others don't stand up to the hype, and they are not as dangerous as we've been lead to think.

[Roswell]

On 4/28/2017 at 11:44 PM, Lord Wraith said:

Yes the giant ice wall built to keep out the ice monsters that Martin says can do things with ice that we can't even fathom.  Something about that never made sense to me. Yes maybe the COTF could have helped them build the wall but why then are they on the wrong side of it. Just some things really don't add up to me

History is questionable.  Do you stop ice with ice?  The Wall is not a barrier if the Others can control ice. 

Mance Rayder is an untrustworthy scoundrel.  I would not be surprised if he stole something from the Others.  Some kind of weapon that he can use to take control of the seven kingdoms.  The Others are chasing him to get it back.

[snow is the man]

I think they are waiting for winter to start before they go full bore. Also didn't they send wights to kill mormont? Why do that if they didn't plan to go over the wall. If the wildlings did steal something then why go after mormont. But I think they are waiting for winter since all the stories say they attacked during winter. And as for them being able to do stuff with ice and the wall has tons of ice on it it also has alot of magic in it. I do think it would be kinda funny if they just wanted to stay north of the wall and all this panic was for nothing.

[BRANDON GREYSTARK]

The dead hates the living .

[Dorian Martell's son]

On 4/28/2017 at 7:26 PM, Bowen Marsh said:

What evidence do we have that they want to cross the wall and attack the seven kingdoms?  They left Craster alone so we know they don't inherently hate man.

They attacked the wildling village in the prologue but we don't know who started that fight.  Is it possible that the wildlings under Mance violated some sacred pact?  If you were outside looking in and Mance is the King Beyond the Wall, wouldn't you consider the wildlings under his leadership a kingdom?  You would.  What if Mance killed one of the Others and they're out to settle the score with him?  He's the king of the wildlings so they attacked the wildlings under his "banner".  Craster was not a subject of Mance so they left him alone. 

They are the ancient enemy of warmth

[Lord Wraith]

On 4/29/2017 at 2:09 AM, LionoftheWest said:

@Lord Wraith I agree with you that the Others are doing a shitty job of killing off the humans. Maybe it will be kick up a notch now when winter has come, but so far I am actually thinking that the Others don't stand up to the hype, and they are not as dangerous as we've been lead to think.

Indeed.

13 hours ago, The Transporter said:

History is questionable.  Do you stop ice with ice?  The Wall is not a barrier if the Others can control ice. 

Mance Rayder is an untrustworthy scoundrel.  I would not be surprised if he stole something from the Others.  Some kind of weapon that he can use to take control of the seven kingdoms.  The Others are chasing him to get it back.

That would be an interesting situation.

[Shi Qiang]

What an interesting discussion.  I say we take a look at the author's personal history.  George lived under the shadow of the Vietnam War when his country sent its young men across the sea to fight a war to prevent the spread of communism.  I can see how that might inspire the conflict between man and the others.  The living want to send ranging parties to the north to stop the spread of the wights when the others have taken no direct action against this side of the wall.  Those wights that attacked Mormont were zombies that would attack anyone they can reach.  Maybe they were angry at Mormont for sending them to their deaths. 

George was also said to be inspired by Hadrian's Wall.  The barbarians from the north got throught and beat the civilized.  The wildlings just might do that to the north and carve out their own kingdom. 

The Cold War between America and the Soviets also loomed large during the author's generation.  Paranoid, both sides drove their nations to spend resources out of fear the enemy would build a bigger weapon.  Domestic issues such as racism and the economy were also constant problems for the nations. 

[rotting sea cow]

On 4/29/2017 at 5:44 AM, Lord Wraith said:

 Also I am amazed that between the Others and the Wights that there are any Wildlings left. Between moving the Wildlings south and preventing the Watch from attacking them it appears to me that they are simply herding them south.

I could be wrong and they are simply bent of wiping out humanity but they are doing a rather shit job of it.

If the Others really want to bring down the Wall, ten thousands more wights will be of no help. There is strategic thinking there. They are forcing the wildings to do a job for them: Destroy the Night Watch, because they cannot do it as long as they stand behind the Wall.

Instead the Others attacked the Fist. killing a good part of the NW fighting force and 'helping' the wildings in their quest. Mance failed, in part thanks to Jon and mainly because of Stannis.

Had Mance succeeded the NW would have collapsed and there was nobody to man the Wall. making it everything easier.

[The Fattest Leech]

6 hours ago, Lord Wraith said:

Indeed.

That would be an interesting situation.

 

On 4/29/2017 at 2:09 AM, LionoftheWest said:

@Lord Wraith I agree with you that the Others are doing a shitty job of killing off the humans. Maybe it will be kick up a notch now when winter has come, but so far I am actually thinking that the Others don't stand up to the hype, and they are not as dangerous as we've been lead to think.

I had a brief discussion about this recently with @RevaM. We both seem to lean this way to some degree or another. I only have just a minute, but do you guys know of any other good threads where this specific topic is discussed?

For me, one of the big things that stops me from being a total Other sympathizer is the prologue. It seems fairly clear that they are looking for Jon Snow in particular and that is why they test Waymar Royce. If the Others are not as much of a threat as we may have been led to believe, then why did they kill the rangers? I am open to suggestions here.

 

[Macgregor of the North]

I have been thinking along the lines lately that the Others move south thousands of years ago was a climate motivated migration that naturally sent them into direct conflict with men, because if strange Icy beings were invading my territory I'd fight them too, so War and much death followed.

What I think is now happening is that the Others also have their own version of Prophecy and are awaiting the reappearance of a warrior of fire who will lead forces against them, wielding the same Dragonsteel blade that wiped out lots of their kind thousands of years ago, and who will also have Dragons at his disposal for the war, as per the Prophecy. 

This is why the Others set a trap for, and then test Waymar and his sword, believing  he is possibly this returned warrior leader with Dragonsteel. Obviously he isn't and they found that out, but they were certainly on high alert and have only upped their activity since then with the stealth Wight mission to kill the Lord Commander, the mass attack at the fist and the attacks on the Wildlings to add to their Wight army numbers.

It seems the Others are trying to get the upper hand and strike hard first before the next war. Like possibly a self preservation type mindframe. I think this includes full scale southern invasion and killing of many humans, but in their eyes it's maybe the attitude like "well your hero is returning and your gonna kill us, so fuck that, were taking it to you first!". 

We can apply GRRMS idea here that characters aren't simple black and white good/evil stereotypes because characters and beings in the story view themselves as the heroes who are doing the right thing. I think the Others fall into this category too.

[Orphalesion]

On Craster, who says it is really cohabitation? Putting the obvious problem aside that said cohabitation apparently requires the sacrifice of newborn children (though, granted, we don't exactly know what they are doing with those babies) who say it is a conscious contract from the side of the Others?

For all we know (which is very little) we could also speculate that  the Others have a machine like, programmed mind and when they sense a human settlement, like Craster's, they go into a mode that forces them to kill a human, even if it's just a swaddling baby, crying in the woods. The "sacrificed" babies might just be distractions to slake the Others' "killing mode" and then it takes them a while again to scan the area around Craster's, by that time a new "sacrifice" is put in place.
Entire communities have survived by that type of lucky coincidence in our history and attributed it to all sorts of supernatural phenomena.  

25 minutes ago, Macgregor of the North said:

 "well your hero is returning and your gonna kill us, so fuck that, were taking it to you first!".

Which still isn't a very morally "grey" course of action. "Let's kill thousands (and mutilate their dead bodies to fight as our mind controlled zombie minions) because some old story says one of them might, possibly, perhaps, come after us! That's a reasonable course of action, right?" 

One could argue that a more moral course of action would be to build defenses and hone their skills in case said (supposed) prophecy does come true.

Quote

We can apply GRRMS idea here that characters aren't simple black and white good/evil stereotypes because characters and beings in the story view themselves as the heroes who are doing the right thing. I think the Others fall into this category too.

Sure, except that launching an aggressive internecine war based on something as flimsy as a (supposed) prophecy isn't exactly grey.

Plus, I will ask again how that idea differentiates Martin from other high quality fantasy authors? Also I'd argue how much Ramsay or Gregor think they are doing the "right" thing as opposed to just not caring about what the "right thing" would be (but I suppose Gregor had bad head ouchies, which, of course makes raping women to death "morally grey" )

[Macgregor of the North]

@Orphalesion we've been over this "grey" angle IIRC so we don't need to rehash all that or we will start talking about Uruk Hai and LOTR again probably lol. 

The Others ain't perfect. Their harsh, dangerous and magically powerful beings. If they think the best course of action is to completely kill the other side before their own well being is jeopardised then you would have to take that up with GRRM and the Others, but that is simply them doing what they think is the right thing to do, however "ungrey" it may seem to you. 

And we have no idea how seriously the Others take the prophecies of returning warriors of fire wielding fiery or fire infused swords and waking Dragons from stone so you can't really "use" that in your argument.

For all we know the Others are deep down petrified of this potential warrior of fires return that they will act extremely rashly on the matter, which includes mass killings and using the dead bodies to bolster their own numbers and raise the chances of their own survival. 

[LynnS]

10 hours ago, The Fattest Leech said:

 

I had a brief discussion about this recently with @RevaM. We both seem to lean this way to some degree or another. I only have just a minute, but do you guys know of any other good threads where this specific topic is discussed?

For me, one of the big things that stops me from being a total Other sympathizer is the prologue. It seems fairly clear that they are looking for Jon Snow in particular and that is why they test Waymar Royce. If the Others are not as much of a threat as we may have been led to believe, then why did they kill the rangers? I am open to suggestions here.

 

This is a good question!  Since Gared shows up on the other side of the Wall in the Prologue to GoT; how did he get across the Wall without being seen?  It's been suggested that he came through at the Black Gate with the direwolf, which he later killed before showing up at the holdfast, were he is detained.  Can it be a coincidence that direwolves have not been seen south of the Wall in 200 years when the Night Fort was also abandoned?

Since we know only a man of the watch can say the words to open the gate,  that implicates Coldhands who seems to be the Gatekeeper.   Perhaps Gared was 'rescued' by Coldhands and made an oath to take the direwolf through to gate with him and kill her at the appointed time.   An oath that would have been as 'binding' as the one Sam gives never to speak of Bran.

So then the purpose of the Others is to procure a man of the watch to ensure that the direwolves are found and end up with the Starks.  Since the Others don't speak in a language that Gared would understand, another intermediary is required to take his oath and give him any instruction.  Again, this would seem to point to Coldhands.   So the question becomes how are Coldhands and the Others connected and who is really giving the orders? 

We know of five CotF (including Leaf the only one who speaks the common tongue) in parallel with five direwolves and five known White Walkers.  I think it possible that the CotF are the most invested in the Stark kids for their own purposes and that their shadowbinding magic is of a different order than Melisandre's.    I don't think Bloodraven has much to do with it.  Primarily he is their gateway to the world of men and procured for that purpose.

So I'm guessing that the CotF are behind all the disappearances of rangers, Colhands is bound to their purposes as well as Bloodraven, the five Others are product of their magic and the direwolves are their gift to the Stark children.

Since the Cotf have been waiting for the Bran boy; no doubt they have designs on Jon Snow and Arya as well.

[The Commentator]

18 hours ago, Allardyce said:

What an interesting discussion.  I say we take a look at the author's personal history.  George lived under the shadow of the Vietnam War when his country sent its young men across the sea to fight a war to prevent the spread of communism.  I can see how that might inspire the conflict between man and the others.  The living want to send ranging parties to the north to stop the spread of the wights when the others have taken no direct action against this side of the wall.  Those wights that attacked Mormont were zombies that would attack anyone they can reach.  Maybe they were angry at Mormont for sending them to their deaths. 

George was also said to be inspired by Hadrian's Wall.  The barbarians from the north got throught and beat the civilized.  The wildlings just might do that to the north and carve out their own kingdom. 

The Cold War between America and the Soviets also loomed large during the author's generation.  Paranoid, both sides drove their nations to spend resources out of fear the enemy would build a bigger weapon.  Domestic issues such as racism and the economy were also constant problems for the nations. 

Paranoia has caused almost as much disaster than love in this story.  You may be on to something.  Instead of addressing internal problems the country chooses to focus on an external threat that may not be much of a threat at all, or one that can be avoided.

17 hours ago, rotting sea cow said:

Had Mance succeeded the NW would have collapsed and there was nobody to man the Wall. making it everything easier.

Maybe he had succeeded.  He manipulated Jon and Stannis to let his wildlings through.  Jon was about to attack the Boltons.  The wildlings have the numbers at the wall. 

1 hour ago, Orphalesion said:

On Craster, who says it is really cohabitation? Putting the obvious problem aside that said cohabitation apparently requires the sacrifice of newborn children (though, granted, we don't exactly know what they are doing with those babies) who say it is a conscious contract from the side of the Others?

Nations buy its freedom and access to resources with the blood of its young men and young women.  We send them to war so we can have access to cheaper resources and to maintain our freedom from an outside force.  Taken in that context, the blood price asked of the wildlings is not that unreasonable.  The Others require this payment if you want to live on their side of the wall.  The free folk have paid happily for thousands of years until one "king" comes along.  This "king" was raised by kneelers and he sees things differently.  He refuses to pay the blood price.  The Others aren't getting the payment they bargained for and attack. 

 

[Ser Kinslayer]

I'm going to question the assumption that the others are "doing a shit job of killing humans." The others have been actively and subtly killing all humans north of the wall for... what... 2 or 3 years? Let's also take into the account that the entire area north of the wall is HUGE.

 

Let's postulate that Tywin Lannister invaded the North, sacked Winterfell, and kill everyone there. How long do you think it would take him to kill every last person living in Barrowton, Karhold, Deepwood Motte, etc?

Moreover, I personally believe it's implied that the last of the wildings north of the wall are living in Hardhome. Maybe there's an exact quote that confirms/rejects this statement. But I digress, wiping out all of the humans north of the wall would take forever in a barren land full of mountains and dark forests. It's also possible that it's taking the others a considerable amount of time to mobilize and raise wights from the dead. 2-3 years is a reasonable amount of time to accumulate an army of the dead and wipe out all of the humans north of the wall. And where do you think they're heading after they've slain those at Hardhome?