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Do the Others have knowledge of the rest of Westeros?


Jordan La Cabra

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On 10.8.2017 at 5:13 PM, JordanJH1993 said:

 Maybe it still does tie in with the idea that the Others are striking at a time where humans are vulnerable, that time being when there isn't a Stark in Winterfell. 

 

But this isn't the first time when that happened. After TWoIaF we now know that Winterfell had been razed - and much more throroughly than during the series, at least twice in the past.

 

On 10.8.2017 at 6:55 PM, Damon_Tor said:

Ned married a very UnStarky woman. His kids aren't Starky enough. Stark levels grew critical, and the Others started waking up, with Ned being the only really properly Starky guy. Then when Ned left they started getting really jumpy and then even his questionably Starky kids left Winterfell they were well and fully woke.

 

Please. Craster had already been giving his kids to the Others before Ned was born. Nor was Cat any more "un-Starky" than Lorra Royce. They were both from families with the First Men roots, who had converted to the Faith during the Andal invasion and intermarried with Andals to some degree. That last is true of nearly all southern nobility, even the Blackwoods. And Cat's kids (and Jon) are the ones with the First Men/Children's magic, not the thoroughly mundane Ned, whose disbelief in magic strongly contributed to the dire straits  that the North finds itself in currently.

 

On 10.8.2017 at 10:42 PM, Damon_Tor said:

About the same time Catelyn took up residence in Winterfell, you say?

Nope. At least as early as when Bloodraven undertook his last ranging as LC of NW. Between ADwD and TWoIaF it is all but certain that Coldhands used to be a black brother who had accompanied BR on his fateful outing and been killed by the Others.

 

On 10.8.2017 at 10:56 PM, Damon_Tor said:

Sure, but Cat is the first to be raised in the Andal culture. Every other Lady Stark has come from a family that keeps the Old Gods... and families that have over the years taken their own fair share of Stark brides themselves.

 

Not true. And while Starks do indeed marry Starks, as cousinly marriages are entirely acceptable in all of Westeros, those unions didn't produce skin-changers and greenseers. Marriage to Cat did.

 

On 10.8.2017 at 11:01 PM, cpg2016 said:

 Men are their enemies as well, especially the Andals who didn't sign the Pact.

 

Or the First Men who chose to slaughter them and their human allies, like the Starks did. Who are likely responsible for the Children's absence from the North. 

 

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Both thematically and from the information we're given, the Others are a naturally occurring species, like dragons.

 

I'd prefer if it were so too. They do seem to use human babies for propagation in some way, but then, that could work along the same pattern as parasitic wasps, etc. Maybe they only need them to multiply more quickly than they otherwise could?

 

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 We already know they had a superweapon that failed - the Hammer of the Waters, which destroys the Arm of Dorne and maybe also the Neck.

OTOH, I also think it possible that the Others are an unintended side-effect of great magic used to fuel the Hammer of Waters. What I don't believe (and would find disappointing) is that they were created deliberately and/or that they are transformed humans. They could be transformed Children, though, or the first of them could have been. I find the speech of the children being like the song of water (IIRC), while the speech of Other is like crackling ice a suggestive comparison. 

 

On 14.8.2017 at 11:49 PM, cpg2016 said:

The Children are actively assisting Bran.  I'm not sure how this could be more clear.  They had to have taught Bloodraven about the full extent of his powers in turn.

Yes, but they needed Bloodraven and now need Bran because they couldn't produce any new greenseers themselves. A greenseer is likely required for their continued survival, such as it is. So, whatever they do to help is likely just them humoring these necessary people. Even during the Long Night, according to the legend of the Last Hero, he had to find the Children and somehow convince them to help. They didn't volonteer their assistence just because the Others were doing their thing.

 

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Why do they have to be male and female?  They are ice zombies, they don't need to have a culture or complex motives to serve their part in the story.  The dragons seem to change sex (according to Septon Barth, who is basically GRRM weighing in on mystical stuff), why do you assume the Others must have fixed sexual dimorphism?'

 

Well, the legend of the Night King involved a female Other. And Craster gave them his sons - though it is pretty clear that this was his own preference and he did it for the same reason that young male farm animals have always been almost universally the ones slaughtered for meat, while female ones were allowed to mature.

 

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First off, Craster has never interacted with the Others.  He is acting on superstition as much as anyone else.  So at the end of the day, Craster's wives have less information on the Others than anyone else in the story, because they alone are being given an entirely circumstantial set of facts (that the Others can be bargained or reasoned with), told it's gospel, and making conclusions based on that.

This makes no sense. Craster knew that he had protection - he could have never survived with his indefensible set-up otherwise. After all, raiding and robbing each other is completely acceptable in the wildling culture and Craster was not allied with any other wildling tribes, nor did he train his women to fight.

As to his wives, IMHO they knew some things, but engaged in wish-thinking re: their murdered sons, preferring to believe that they lived on in some form, rather than that the Others just used their life energy/potential to reproduce. "Only life can pay for life" and all that. And we know from TWoIaF that some tribes on the Frozen Shore worship "gods of ice and snow", which are pretty clearly the Others, so Craster wasn't the only one sacrificing children to them, I am sure.

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On 11.8.2017 at 6:26 PM, Lord Varys said:

 Why should the Children care what happens to the world if their species are going to be extinct?

Back then the Children weren't about to go extinct yet - and removal of humans or great reduction of their numbers would have allowed the Children to recover.

However, personally, I consider the theory that the Others had been purposefully created by the Children and are nothing more than transformed humans to be very boring and a hoary trope to boot :rolleyes:.  I would prefer if the Others were their own thing - maybe something that appeared when the second moon "kissed" the sun along with the dragons as per Dothraki legends, but I could accept them being an unintentional by-product of some failed great magics - whether performed by the Children or by somebody else. I mean, the Shadowed Lands beyond Asshai very much sound like an epicenter of some massive magical catastrophe and we now know that the Long Night and even the Others weren't limited to Westeros.

 

On 11.8.2017 at 6:26 PM, Lord Varys said:

We also know that the freak seasons have magical origins. It seems very likely that the existence of the Others is the reason why there are so long and cold winters in this world. Winter is not some natural principle there. It is unnatural, created by foul magic, and when things go back to normal Martinworld will have normal seasons again as it did in ancient days.

 

Do we know that the seasons were ever "normal" on Planetos? IIRC, speculation to this end by that one maester was presented as  crackpottery. Just because  the seasons are determined by magic doesn't mean that they are unnatural - because magic can be an integral and organic part of a secondary world.

 

On 11.8.2017 at 6:26 PM, Lord Varys said:

I assume they have magical means to find out what's going on out of their lands.

Indeed. I have my suspicions about the nightmarish voice that conversed with the sorceror who had gelded Varys. And certain aspects of the Faceless Men philosophy would align quite well with the overall goals of the Others, IMHO.

 

On 11.8.2017 at 6:26 PM, Lord Varys said:

 I mean, putting the wights close to the weirwood grove wasn't just a means to kill the leadership of the Watch but also a way to draw the NW out behind the Wall to butcher them all at the Fist.

 And possibly more than that. After all, they have also proven that their magic doesn't get disrupted as long as it remains passive when humans bring it through the Wall. The next step is smuggling a couple of actual Others through and having them go to work, covertly and carefully. I am sure that this has already happened - it is no chance that TWoIaF references some tribes from the Frozen Shore worshipping the Others... and ADwD has those people among Tormund's group.

 

On 11.8.2017 at 6:26 PM, Lord Varys said:

Again, one imagines that they can perceive things somehow. Or at least the power behind them can. If there is some corrupted greenseer working with them in the Heart of Winter he or she certainly should be able to see the world in a similar way as Bran sees it in his dream back in AGoT.

I don't know - this comes too close to "The Great Other" of Melisandre's imaginings. There is something in the Heart of Winter, to be sure... but I hope that Martin comes up with something more exciting.

 

21 minutes ago, Damon_Tor said:

Cat was a Whent. The connections to Harrenhal alone should be a giant red flag for mythic bloodlines.

Sorry, but your idea of Lothstons (and Stokeworths?) and everybody teniously connected to them, being this kind of anti-magical cryptonite seems to be unsupported by the text. For one thing, Falene's descendants may even have had Targaryen blood from the Unworthy, if he did, indeed continue visiting her for years. For another, the "Mad" Danelle Lothston was reputed to be a sorceress and Cat produced 5 magical kids, one of whom is a very powerful greenseer, while another is a very powerful skinchanger.

And also, there were problems with hatching of dragons before 151 AC, otherwise it wouldn't have been down to just one malformed female.

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On 14.8.2017 at 11:49 PM, cpg2016 said:

This would make a weird kind of twisted sense, if the Children didn't immediately start fighting the Others.  Saying "they wanted to die on their own terms so they created a super powered magical ice enemy, but then immediately decided they didn't want to die" is an awful argument.

How do you know when exactly the Others showed up for the first time? They could have been out there, up in the north, for decades or centuries before the Long Night began. You are acting as if you know all the details but you don't.

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We are never given even the slightest hint that this kind of factionalism exists among the Children.  And the First Men, who did fight each other, are entirely unified when it comes to their war with the Children, so your argument doesn't really hold here.  That people may fight among themselves, and then unify in the face of an external threat, is a well-accepted fact.

Actually, we do learn that such factions existed, but I guess that is too subtle for you:

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Regardless, the children of the forest fought as fiercely as the First Men to defend their lives. Inexorably, the war ground on across generations, until at last the children understood that they could not win. The First Men, perhaps tired of war, also wished to see an end to the fighting. The wisest of both races prevailed, and the chief heroes and rulers of both sides met upon the isle in the Gods Eye to form the Pact. Giving up all the lands of Westeros save for the deep forests, the children won from the First Men the promise that they would no longer cut down the weirwoods. All the weirwoods of the isle on which the Pact was forged were then carved with faces so that the gods could witness the Pact, and the order of green men was made afterward to tend to the weirwoods and protect the isle.

Now, the marked sentence implied that there not-so-wise and perhaps even many unwise people on both sides who may eventually have decided not to honor the Pact. The fact that the Pact was broken by the First Men is pretty obvious, too. Durran Godsgrief himself takes the Rainwood from the Children, his son restores it to him but another King Durran, the one called Durran Bronzeaxe, take it from them for good.

And in the North we have a Stark king actually war against the Children of the Forest and their ally, the Warg King.

This all happened after the Long Night, to be true, but wonders why the First Men kings did this kind of thing if they actually honored the Pact. The Pact certainly would have given deep forests like the Rainwood and the Wolfswood to the Children yet it was the First Men and not the Andals who took those forests from the Children.

In that context the idea that the not-so-wise/angry Children decided not to go along with the Pact and created the Others to finally deal with the First Men for good and all. Perhaps they regretted their actions later, perhaps only some of them did. We don't know that as of yet. We don't even know whether they truly helped the Last Hero. We don't know the ending of that tale - and even if we did know it we would not know whether it is true. Old Nan isn't exactly omniscient.

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We know the Pact was signed at the Isle of Faces in the God's Eye.  Which means that was almost certainly right along the contested border between "First Man" and "CotF" areas of influence.  That's how pacts work, generally - the two sides come together in a neutral place.

No, that's just crap. The Children and First Men agreed to split up the entire continent. The First Men got everything but the deep forests. That indicates the Children were allowed to remain in the Rainwood, the Wolfswood, the forest that later became the Haunted Forest, and perhaps certain wooded areas in the Vale, the Reach, the West, and the Riverlands (there especially around the High Heart).

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The Children are actively assisting Bran.  I'm not sure how this could be more clear.  They had to have taught Bloodraven about the full extent of his powers in turn.  As usual, your argument falls flat on even the most cursory examination.  The Children are helping humanity defeat the Others.  That's all there is to it.  I'm not sure why you feel the need to question that motive, especially when you consider that at some point, they helped Bloodraven gain access to his full power.  So why help him, in that case?

As of yet neither the Children nor Bloodraven have even mentioned the Others to Bran. Why is that? There is something they are keeping from him and the Reeds.

And again - the greenseer show is run by Bloodraven, an human. If it was a Child of the Forest he or she might not care as much about humanity as Bloodraven does. And if the Children are dependent on a greenseer they might be willing to humor the humans more than they would if they were still completely in control of their own house.

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Alright, you need to understand geography and history here.  The Children DID enjoy the protection of the Wall, for many thousands of years.  They got the forests, and the First Men the fields, and all was well (more or less).  Then the Andals come, who aren't party to the Pact, and start killing the Children (and the First Men).  So, if I'm a not-idiot Child of the Forest, I think "I can die today at the hands of some Andal warrior, or I can go North of the Wall, where the Andals can't/won't go, and live to see tomorrow, even if the Others might come back tomorrow and kill me".  This is really, really simple logic.  Your utter inability to comprehend that thousands of years have passed and conditions change is astounding.

Reread the material. There were still some Children left when the Andals came, true, but most of them were already gone. And there were never any Andal in the North - so where the hell are the Children up there? Were they all struck by lightning? Or driven out by First Men not caring about the Pact?

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Actually, it's broader than this.  They are supernatural slavers.  They are out to enslave not only humanity but all life.  After all, they've turned various wildlife into wights to serve their own ends.  Which is why the whole "created by the Children" theory breaks down.  Unless your assertion is that the Children didn't understand what they were doing to such an extent that they created omnicidal ice zombies instead of a targeted and servile weapon against the First Men, the argument doesn't hold up.  And if that is your position - well, it's pretty stupid.  Why not say that the Others are god, and created the world, so they'd have some random people and animals to torment and enslave?

You keep repeating that without providing any evidence supporting your position. We don't know whether the Others actually kill other creatures besides humans. That they make corpses of all species they can find their slaves isn't proof that they kill all of them. We only have proof that they kill people.

But even if you were right there - how do you know that the Children give a shit about other lifeforms? Those who made the Others could very well have considered it more important to kill the First Men than to care what happened to the wildlife.

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He doesn't.  He leaves them in the woods, which is not at all the same thing.  You gotta stop watching the show.

And you gotta start to read the books. That's what they say:

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“Is it Craster who frightens you, Gilly?”
“For the baby, not for me. If it’s a girl, that’s not so bad, she’ll grow a few years and he’ll marry her. But Nella says it’s to be a boy, and she’s had six and knows these things. He gives the boys to the gods. Come the white cold, he does, and of late it comes more often. That’s why he started giving them sheep, even though he has a taste for mutton. Only now the sheep’s gone too. Next it will be dogs, till . . .” She lowered her eyes and stroked her belly.
What gods?” Jon was remembering that they’d seen no boys in Craster’s Keep, nor men either, save Craster himself.
The cold gods,” she said. “The ones in the night. The white shadows.
And suddenly Jon was back in the Lord Commander’s Tower again. A severed hand was climbing his calf and when he pried it off with the point of his longsword, it lay writhing, fingers opening and closing. The dead man rose to his feet, blue eyes shining in that gashed and swollen face. Ropes of torn flesh hung from the great wound in his belly, yet there was no blood.
What color are their eyes?” he asked her.
Blue. As bright as blue stars, and as cold.
She has seen them, he thought. Craster lied.

Craster and all his wives have seen the Others. Jon confuses them here with the wights but it is the Otheres. The wights are not gods. The Others are.

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Why do they have to be male and female?  They are ice zombies, they don't need to have a culture or complex motives to serve their part in the story.  The dragons seem to change sex (according to Septon Barth, who is basically GRRM weighing in on mystical stuff), why do you assume the Others must have fixed sexual dimorphism?'

Because that's what's normal in humanoid species? Or can't you keep the Others apart from dragons or manticores?

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Can't?  Oh, right, because despite being existing species, whatever passes for culture is unimportant to the story.  All we need to know is that the Others are out to eliminate all life - and mind you, they clearly have a sense of humor, which implies strongly a shared set of values (twisted as they may be).

Sure, but that could be a leftover from their human origins, right? As could be the fact that their wear strange magical armor and wield magical swords made of ice.

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First off, Craster has never interacted with the Others.  

Wrong again. See above.

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He is acting on superstition as much as anyone else.  So at the end of the day, Craster's wives have less information on the Others than anyone else in the story, because they alone are being given an entirely circumstantial set of facts (that the Others can be bargained or reasoned with), told it's gospel, and making conclusions based on that.  Your average person who doesn't even believe in the Others is better informed, because they don't hold a bunch of baseless beliefs about the motivations of the Others.  Like, if I don't believe humans have walked on the moon, I am less uninformed than someone who does believe it, but that the moon is made of Gouda and Q-Tips.

You don't tell the people in this story what's superstition and what's fact. You can speculate about that, but you can't make any proclamations as if you knew better. You don't. That's what ASoS has to say on the matter:

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Gilly was crying. “Me and the babe. Please. I’ll be your wife, like I was Craster’s. Please, ser crow. He’s a boy, just like Nella said he’d be. If you don’t take him, they will.”
“They?” said Sam, and the raven cocked its black head and echoed, “They. They. They.”
“The boy’s brothers,” said the old woman on the left. “Craster’s sons. The white cold’s rising out there, crow. I can feel it in my bones. These poor old bones don’t lie. They’ll be here soon, the sons.”

They seem to be pretty convinced that their sons are Others. Now, they could be mistaken, but as I've quoted above they and Craster have all seen and interacted with the Others before. And the old women may even have seen what the Others do to and with their sons. In any case, they do know stuff. Ignoring that is just silly. This is a very important hint towards what the Others actually are and it makes no sense to ignore it or dismiss it to bolster your own personal fan boy theory.

If that was okay then why not dismiss Old Nan's entire story about the Others and the Long Night as a children's tale that contains no truth at all?

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8 hours ago, Maia said:

Or the First Men who chose to slaughter them and their human allies, like the Starks did. Who are likely responsible for the Children's absence from the North. 

That is an important point as I laid out above. If the Pact was broken between the Pact and the Long Night - at some point during the Age of Heroes - then this could have led to the creation of the Others. And I'm certainly open to make things as complex as they could be. Meaning the first Others could have been transformed Children, or that there are still some Children-greenseer-Others up in the Heart of Winter controlling things.

Bran's remark that he would have been very angry about the inevitable end of his species had he been in the shoes of the Children is a very strong sign that there were some Children who felt that way, too, in the old days. And they may actually have done something about. Something terrible.

8 hours ago, Maia said:

I'd prefer if it were so too. They do seem to use human babies for propagation in some way, but then, that could work along the same pattern as parasitic wasps, etc. Maybe they only need them to multiply more quickly than they otherwise could?

I really don't know. What little we can draw from Gilly's story doesn't really imply they are sacrificed/killed on the spot. And chances are pretty much zero that a baby or toddler handed to an Other lives long if they don't transform it magically rather quickly. I mean, the chances that the Others have living wetnurses or animals and plants to feed babies are not very likely.

And Gilly and the other wives really seem to know that their sons are given to the Others. They are not killed.

8 hours ago, Maia said:

OTOH, I also think it possible that the Others are an unintended side-effect of great magic used to fuel the Hammer of Waters. What I don't believe (and would find disappointing) is that they were created deliberately and/or that they are transformed humans. They could be transformed Children, though, or the first of them could have been. I find the speech of the children being like the song of water (IIRC), while the speech of Other is like crackling ice a suggestive comparison. 

I doubt those things are connected. The Hammer of the Waters is extreme but still just a means to change the landscape. It doesn't involve annihilating the enemy, just severing landmasses. Actually creating magical soldiers and turning humans against each other would actually have been a very smart way to deal with the threat. That way the Children can just sit back and watch, doing and risking nothing.

8 hours ago, Maia said:

Yes, but they needed Bloodraven and now need Bran because they couldn't produce any new greenseers themselves. A greenseer is likely required for their continued survival, such as it is. So, whatever they do to help is likely just them humoring these necessary people. Even during the Long Night, according to the legend of the Last Hero, he had to find the Children and somehow convince them to help. They didn't volonteer their assistence just because the Others were doing their thing.

Exactly. That is an important point. And the question why or how the Children ended up helping the Last Hero - if that's what they did - is a very important one. One that's likely going to be answered when Bran explores the past in detail.

8 hours ago, Maia said:

Well, the legend of the Night King involved a female Other. And Craster gave them his sons - though it is pretty clear that this was his own preference and he did it for the same reason that young male farm animals have always been almost universally the ones slaughtered for meat, while female ones were allowed to mature.

The woman in that story could just as well be a female wight. Or some woman wearing a glamor to look strange. It is not clear what she is. Nor do we know for sure she existed at all.

If the Others had been still around at that time one really wonders that the Wall survived that. I mean, the Night's King ruled for quite some time, why didn't he let the Others through the Wall?

8 hours ago, Maia said:

This makes no sense. Craster knew that he had protection - he could have never survived with his indefensible set-up otherwise. After all, raiding and robbing each other is completely acceptable in the wildling culture and Craster was not allied with any other wildling tribes, nor did he train his women to fight.

Exactly. And he stresses the fact again and again that he is a godly man. He serves gods that really do something for their followers.

8 hours ago, Maia said:

As to his wives, IMHO they knew some things, but engaged in wish-thinking re: their murdered sons, preferring to believe that they lived on in some form, rather than that the Others just used their life energy/potential to reproduce. "Only life can pay for life" and all that. And we know from TWoIaF that some tribes on the Frozen Shore worship "gods of ice and snow", which are pretty clearly the Others, so Craster wasn't the only one sacrificing children to them, I am sure.

See above. Gilly has seen the Others. So it is technically possible that the older women actually recognized their sons if there is something to recognize in an individual Other. Or the Others actually told them who they were. They can speak, after all.

17 minutes ago, Maia said:

Back then the Children weren't about to go extinct yet - and removal of humans or great reduction of their numbers would have allowed the Children to recover.

Could be. Or not. They are apparently very insightful. They may have understood back then their population would never recover. And they may have been so pissed that they decided that they simply did not care whether they would kill themselves, too, by creating the Others. Just get rid of those humans.

17 minutes ago, Maia said:

However, personally, I consider the theory that the Others had been purposefully created by the Children and are nothing more than transformed humans to be very boring and a hoary trope to boot :rolleyes:.  I would prefer if the Others were their own thing - maybe something that appeared when the second moon "kissed" the sun along with the dragons as per Dothraki legends, but I could accept them being an unintentional by-product of some failed great magics - whether performed by the Children or by somebody else. I mean, the Shadowed Lands beyond Asshai very much sound like an epicenter of some massive magical catastrophe and we now know that the Long Night and even the Others weren't limited to Westeros.

That isn't all that likely. The Children would then just be standard good guy elves from the average fantasy series. There is a point both to the conflict and the inevitable extinction of the Children. And the missing link there are the Others.

I doubt they are some sort of BORG collective running amok and enacting some eradication program. I find it more likely that there is a force in the Heart of Winter directing them and planning all their actions. A Child greenseer perhaps? Some Children turned Others, the very first of them? It is really difficult to say. But I like the idea that there is a corrupted greenseer directing the Others because that would really give Bran some sort of proper opponent, a creature that might be as immobile as he is.

This could also explain why the War for the Dawn didn't really defeat the Others. While you are attacking only the minions you don't get to the root of all evil. And I very much doubt anybody traveled up to the Heart of Winter the last time the Others came down.

17 minutes ago, Maia said:

Do we know that the seasons were ever "normal" on Planetos? IIRC, speculation to this end by that one maester was presented as  crackpottery. Just because  the seasons are determined by magic doesn't mean that they are unnatural - because magic can be an integral and organic part of a secondary world.

Well, the passage from TWoIaF makes it clear that the seasons were normal before the Long Night. The maesters were skeptical that this is true but there are ancient texts claiming that this is so. And that's a pretty strong hint that there is something to this.

17 minutes ago, Maia said:

Indeed. I have my suspicions about the nightmarish voice that conversed with the sorceror who had gelded Varys. And certain aspects of the Faceless Men philosophy would align quite well with the overall goals of the Others, IMHO.

Not so sure about that. I doubt the Faceless Men want to kill all living things. They know they die, and they don't see death as a problem but they don't have a philosophy that motivates them to kill as many people as possible. Or at least - if they do, they hide it pretty well so far.

I could see the Others reaching out to people magically in principle, but if they do so they are very subtle about it. Even Euron is more likely a failed or discarded greenseer than somebody who is actually influenced by the Others.

17 minutes ago, Maia said:

 And possibly more than that. After all, they have also proven that their magic doesn't get disrupted as long as it remains passive when humans bring it through the Wall. The next step is smuggling a couple of actual Others through and having them go to work, covertly and carefully. I am sure that this has already happened - it is no chance that TWoIaF references some tribes from the Frozen Shore worshipping the Others... and ADwD has those people among Tormund's group.

That is a very interesting idea, actually. I'd like to see something like that. The Weeper's eventual attack on the Bridge of Skulls and subsequent destruction of the Shadow Tower could also play in handy with that. He is the kind of guy who might turn to the Others now that they are basically the only hope he has left.

17 minutes ago, Maia said:

I don't know - this comes too close to "The Great Other" of Melisandre's imaginings. There is something in the Heart of Winter, to be sure... but I hope that Martin comes up with something more exciting.

Well, such a creature could be pretty exciting. Think about a Child of the Forest actually participating in the making of the Pact which then later realized that these humans could simply not be trusted. The whole 'the North remembers' thing and the cold preserving things would be very interesting from the point of view of a Child of the Forest preserving its own hatred in ice, and serving revenge as a very cold dish indeed.

If the Others and the powers behind them have no understandable motivation that is essentially rooted in something the human reader could relate to George would essentially break with his own rule that he is interested in all those human conflicts. The Children are people, too. And they were wronged. And now they are angry. Or at least some of them are.

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3 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

I really don't know. What little we can draw from Gilly's story doesn't really imply they are sacrificed/killed on the spot. And chances are pretty much zero that a baby or toddler handed to an Other lives long if they don't transform it magically rather quickly. I mean, the chances that the Others have living wetnurses or animals and plants to feed babies are not very likely.

And Gilly and the other wives really seem to know that their sons are given to the Others. They are not killed.

I disagree. They "know" the same way Old Nan "knows" that giants drink blood. 

4 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

OTOH, I also think it possible that the Others are an unintended side-effect of great magic used to fuel the Hammer of Waters. What I don't believe (and would find disappointing) is that they were created deliberately and/or that they are transformed humans. They could be transformed Children, though, or the first of them could have been. I find the speech of the children being like the song of water (IIRC), while the speech of Other is like crackling ice a suggestive comparison

^^Quoter glitch, this is @Maia's post.

If the WWs are the result of a species undergoing a transformation, however that might have been, then it's gotta be humans. Their description matches that of humans and doesn't at all that of the CotF. Even their gear: armour, swords etc. 

I have long considered the possibility that the WWs were an attempt at magic by the still inexperienced FM that backfired spectacularly. Mostly for two reasons: the general look and gear, and b/c I find it infinitely more likely for Martin to make men and human motivations the "bad guy" and not a different species. 

 

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21 minutes ago, kissdbyfire said:

I disagree. They "know" the same way Old Nan "knows" that giants drink blood. 

Have you read the ACoK I've given above? It is clear that the sons are given to the Others and that the Others have come, personally, to Craster's. Now, is it possible that the Others kill Craster's sons after they have taken them and left Craster's? Sure. But it is clear that Craster himself does not sacrifice/kill his sons himself. They go to the Others.

Now, what they do with them is somewhat unclear, but George cannot really sell us the idea that the Others can take them very far from Craster's without them dying. I mean, unless 'magic' can do anything in this world a baby or toddler without human care and food is not going to live in the cold hands of some ice demons.

Thus the Others either do indeed transform those male children into their own or they kill or use them as ingredients for some spells at some place a couple leagues around Craster's Keep. Apparently they also need them alive, and if they were just tribute or blood sacrifices the wildlings worshiping the Others as gods would have to pay to them then they could just as well put them on some altars and slaughter them there, or they could do it in some sort of ritual/ceremony the Others also attend.

Instead we know that the male children are given to the Others.

And one really wonders what they would do with such children. What could they need them for, and why are they allowing people to live who are willing to give their sons to them? The Others seem to be killing all the other humans, so this whole thing must be very important to them.

If those children were just sacrifices they sure as hell could also use adult or female humans for that, no? People they capture themselves and/or by using the services of their wights. Instead they strike a deal with certain corrupt men like Craster.

If there were some Others who were Children of the Forest before then such Others were as of yet never seen by anyone in the books. It would be possible that some such are in the Heart of Winter. It seems to me that whatever Bran saw there must be more terrible than just the Others we have seen so gar. They are dangerous and evil, alright, but they can be killed if you have the right weapons. Whatever is in the Heart of Winter might be a harder nut to crack.

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22 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

Have you read the ACoK I've given above? It is clear that the sons are given to the Others and that the Others have come, personally, to Craster's. Now, is it possible that the Others kill Craster's sons after they have taken them and left Craster's? Sure. But it is clear that Craster himself does not sacrifice/kill his sons himself. They go to the Others.

Yes, I have. Didn't have to, I knew what you were talking about. My point stands, though. We don't know jack. Craster's wives clearly believe what they are saying, but we can't extrapolate from that that their beliefs are the truth. I don't understand how this is not obvious. 

Yes, I know it's possible they are right, but it's just as possible that they aren't; imo it's even likelier that they are wrong. It's really very simple: we don't have all the info to be sure either way. Tbh, I don't understand why you take it as gospel. 

Much more likely to me is that part or everything Craster's wives say about the babies being taken is bollocks. Stuff Craster made up on his own just to find a good method to get rid of the future competition. 

22 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

Now, what they do with them is somewhat unclear, but George cannot really sell us the idea that the Others can take them very far from Craster's without them dying. I mean, unless 'magic' can do anything in this world a baby or toddler without human care and food is not going to live in the cold hands of some ice demons.

I never disagreed w/ that, my problem is with believing what Craster's wives say.

22 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

Thus the Others either do indeed transform those male children into their own or they kill or use them as ingredients for some spells at some place a couple leagues around Craster's Keep. Apparently they also need them alive, and if they were just tribute or blood sacrifices the wildlings worshiping the Others as gods would have to pay to them then they could just as well put them on some altars and slaughter them there, or they could do it in some sort of ritual/ceremony the Others also attend.

I'm not sure I understand your point here.

22 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

Instead we know that the male children are given to the Others.

No, we don't know

22 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

And one really wonders what they would do with such children. What could they need them for, and why are they allowing people to live who are willing to give their sons to them? The Others seem to be killing all the other humans, so this whole thing must be very important to them.

Sure. Either very important, or not important at all. Remains to be seen.

22 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

If those children were just sacrifices they sure as hell could also use adult or female humans for that, no? People they capture themselves and/or by using the services of their wights. Instead they strike a deal with certain corrupt men like Craster.

I don't know. And neither do you, but don't let this little detail stop you. 

22 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

If there were some Others who were Children of the Forest before then such Others were as of yet never seen by anyone in the books.

Not sure I follow... Are you saying there are other types of Others? Sorry, couldn't help it. Carrying on... and some resemble humans, others resemble the CotF? 

22 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

It would be possible that some such are in the Heart of Winter. It seems to me that whatever Bran saw there must be more terrible than just the Others we have seen so gar. They are dangerous and evil, alright, but they can be killed if you have the right weapons. Whatever is in the Heart of Winter might be a harder nut to crack.

I'm very, very curious to learn about the Heart of Winter. 

 

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4 minutes ago, kissdbyfire said:

Yes, I have. Didn't have to, I knew what you were talking about. My point stands, though. We don't know jack. Craster's wives clearly believe what they are saying, but we can't extrapolate from that that their beliefs are the truth. I don't understand how this is not obvious. 

How can't we not do that. Even Gilly knows that the Others are visiting them. They come to Craster's to collect the male children. Unless you are saying that she and the other wives are lying about this we have confirmation that the Others take the sons of Craster.

There is nothing indicating Gilly and the other wives are merely told that the Others come or that Craster gives their sons to them. They know what happens.

You are right that we don't have confirmation that the Others transform the babies into their own kind but that is very much implied. The fact that the Others take the children is confirmed.

4 minutes ago, kissdbyfire said:

Yes, I know it's possible they are right, but it's just as possible that they aren't; imo it's even likelier that they are wrong. It's really very simple: we don't have all the info to be sure either way. Tbh, I don't understand why you take it as gospel.

Much more likely to me is that part or everything Craster's wives say about the babies being taken is bollocks. Stuff Craster made up on his own just to find a good method to get rid of the future competition. 

Well, that shows you haven't reread the stuff, have you? Gilly describes the Others in a manner that makes it clear she, personally, saw them. Or are you trying to say the Others show up at Craster's but do not collect the babies and the livestock? Then why are they showing up at all?

4 minutes ago, kissdbyfire said:

Not sure I follow... Are you saying there are other types of Others? Sorry, couldn't help it. Carrying on... and some resemble humans, others resemble the CotF? 

If the Others are the product of a magical transformation - human male child > Other then it is also possible that a similar transformation could go like this: (male) Child of the Forest > Other. But of course such Children-Others would then look more like Children and not like icy humans (as the Others we have seen do).

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If we take it that the hammer of the waters legend as true, then it seems plausible that the long night and winter, may have been initiated by the Children. Having underground refuges, presumably lesser nutritional requirements and fewer number, they would have been able to weather such events much better than the burgeoning human population.

The end result would have been far reduced human numbers, allowing the Children to recover territory and population. They may have gone overboard in their efforts.

The Others could be a natural species who siezed the opportunity to expand. An interesting prospect would be if they were humans who magically altered themselves in order to survive. Much like red priests like Mel and Moqorro appear to have done for religious reasons.

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4 minutes ago, The Sleeper said:

If we take it that the hammer of the waters legend as true, then it seems plausible that the long night and winter, may have been initiated by the Children. Having underground refuges, presumably lesser nutritional requirements and fewer number, they would have been able to weather such events much better than the burgeoning human population.

The end result would have been far reduced human numbers, allowing the Children to recover territory and population. They may have gone overboard in their efforts.

The Others could be a natural species who siezed the opportunity to expand. An interesting prospect would be if they were humans who magically altered themselves in order to survive. Much like red priests like Mel and Moqorro appear to have done for religious reasons.

I'm curious... why do you say the CotF have "presumably lesser nutritional requirements"? 

Also, we know that even back before the the FM even got to Westeros, they weren't numerous, never had been. So there's nothing to suggest that they'd recover in numbers.

ADwD, Bran

“Gone down into the earth,” she answered. “Into the stones, into the trees. Before the First Men came all this land that you call Westeros was home to us, yet even in those days we were few. The gods gave us long lives but not great numbers, lest we overrun the world as deer will overrun a wood where there are no wolves to hunt them. That was in the dawn of days, when our sun was rising. Now it sinks, and this is our long dwindling. The giants are almost gone as well, they who were our bane and our brothers. The great lions of the western hills have been slain, the unicorns are all but gone, the mammoths down to a few hundred. The direwolves will outlast us all, but their time will come as well. In the world that men have made, there is no room for them, or us.”

 

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3 minutes ago, kissdbyfire said:

I'm curious... why do you say the CotF have "presumably lesser nutritional requirements"? 

Also, we know that even back before the the FM even got to Westeros, they weren't numerous, never had been. So there's nothing to suggest that they'd recover in numbers.

ADwD, Bran

“Gone down into the earth,” she answered. “Into the stones, into the trees. Before the First Men came all this land that you call Westeros was home to us, yet even in those days we were few. The gods gave us long lives but not great numbers, lest we overrun the world as deer will overrun a wood where there are no wolves to hunt them. That was in the dawn of days, when our sun was rising. Now it sinks, and this is our long dwindling. The giants are almost gone as well, they who were our bane and our brothers. The great lions of the western hills have been slain, the unicorns are all but gone, the mammoths down to a few hundred. The direwolves will outlast us all, but their time will come as well. In the world that men have made, there is no room for them, or us.”

 

They are half the size of humans? During any ecological upset the larger species are the most vulnerable.

And it stands to reason that numbers would have dwindled after the advent of humans and the wars. Fewer humans would mean they could claim less territory, meaning the forrests could recover and the children would have a chance to come closer to their previous numbers.

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There is a possibility that the Others "grew" due to sorcery. Here are three different quotes of basically a similar ritual

 

Quote

 

"I watched him burn my manly parts on a brazier. The flames turned blue, and I heard a voice answer his call, though I did not understand the words they spoke." (aCoK, Tyrion X)

Grey Worm looked troubled. "The goddess is called by many names. She is the Lady of Spears, the Bride of Battle, the Mother of Hosts, but her true name belongs only to these poor ones who have burned their manhoods upon her altar. [...] (aDwD, Daenerys VI)

In the quiet of her chambers, Dany stripped off her finery and donned a loose robe of purple silk. Her dragons were hungry, so she chopped up a snake and charred the pieces over a brazier. They are growing, she realized as she watched them snap and squabble over the blackened flesh. (aCoK, Daenerys II)

 

The first is Varys's story of being castrated and how a sorcerer burned his parts on a brazier. Varys does not know how it works or who speaks and what the impact may be. He just believes it's sorcery. The sorcerer was solely interested in Varys's manly parts, not Varys. Varys was the leftover in the eyes of the sorcerer, and Varys could die for all he cared.

With the Unsullied we have the same ritual: the burning of manly parts upon an altar. And the Unsullied of Astapor are cut like Varys: penis + testicles. A major difference is that they are cut to make the boys into sometehing particular - "purest creatures" according to Kraznys, but the slave masters aren't interested in their manly parts at all. The boys themselves invented this burning ritual to a goddess.

And then we have Dany chopping up a snake, and charring the pieces over a brazier, feeding it to her dragons and noting that they are "growing". A snake isn't actually a penis, but a slang for penis is "one eyed snake", and visually you can't help but make a connection. Dany's dragons of course aren't some voices (demons or gods) in flames. But one can see them as demons of fire made flesh, and can worhsip them as gods. The scene makes a link to Varys with having Dany first change in purple silk robes. She just returned from her visit to the Pureborn (not "pure made"), saw the fire mage at the market, learned by Quaithe that fire mages can do stuff they couldn't before, and then when back at the palace she changes in those robes, which are featured in the introduction of Varys - who wears a gown of purple silk in Catelyn's chapter in KL. The crucial thing is that here we get a suggestion of what the aim of the ritual is - to make the demons/gods "grow" through sorcery, in particular the burning of manly parts. As the demons/gods of fire (dragons) grow, so grows the power of the fire mages.

So, whatever or whomever spoke in the blue flames when the sorcerer burned Varys's manly parts, we can deduce it "grew" in number, in size or power. The blue flames are highly suggestive that it might be Other related. Ice burns too.

There are a few other links between Varys and the Others (such as the Ice Spiders), but it will take me into essay level stuff that I don't want to go into, for I'd rather finish the essay. But the above three quotes of a parallel ritual offer food for thought.

Now why are the manly parts so important for the ritual? Why not a finger? Or blood or a life? I would suggest that it is the sacrifice of proginy that matters. Basically a man offers and burns all his hypothetical seed that could lead to a child, son or daughter. What does Craster do? He offers his children to the Others - and only the male children, and thus his male bloodline. With the marrying of his own daughters he actually prevents having descendants in a way - his genes aren't spread amongst the wildlings or Northerners (not until his dauhgter-wife Gilly runs away with his son): sure he has children, but they either end up as a wife to him or as a sacrfice to the Others in the woods... like a snake eating its own tail. And what Craster did was somehow to the benefit of the Others, or they wouldn't have left him alone for so long. 

Something similar occurs with Stannis. He gives his seed to Mel, but what she births is a fleeting temporary shadow baby, all grown up, but it takes his essence so much that he won't be able to have sons anymore. Again, he gives up hypoethtical descendants for demons, in this case shadow demons.

And it is true for Dany's hatching of dragons as well: her husband, her son and her ability to have children have been sacrificed prior to it. There's even emphasis on the fact that even if Drogo lives, he is sexually non responsive anymore. It is this discovery that eventually makes her decide to smother him.

Basically the sacrifice of someone having children or someone's children begets and helps a magic of choosing grow. The sacrifice may be involuntarily, unwittingly, accidentally. or deliberately. But the overarching general result is the same.

 

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3 hours ago, The Sleeper said:

They are half the size of humans? During any ecological upset the larger species are the most vulnerable.

But size has nothing to do w/ nutritional requirements, ask a hummingbird! :)

How much or how little food the CotF would need will be linked to their metabolism, and we don't know anything about it, nor are we likely to ever learn. 

3 hours ago, The Sleeper said:

And it stands to reason that numbers would have dwindled after the advent of humans and the wars. Fewer humans would mean they could claim less territory, meaning the forrests could recover and the children would have a chance to come closer to their previous numbers.

Yeah, that's logical. But being able to go back to previous numbers doesn't mean much since we are told the CotF were few in numbers even before the FM arrived.

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3 minutes ago, kissdbyfire said:

But size has nothing to do w/ nutritional requirements, ask a hummingbird! :)

How much or how little food the CotF would need will be linked to their metabolism, and we don't know anything about it, nor are we likely to ever learn. 

Yeah, that's logical. But being able to go back to previous numbers doesn't mean much since we are told the CotF were few in numbers even before the FM arrived.

It is certainly less than an elephant. As they are mammals, hominids with not too much different levels of activity than a human, it should be mor e or less proportionate.

Like a cat eating less than a tiger.

As they were confined to a fraction of the territory they held previously, after ongoing wars and continously enroaching humans, then their numbers after the pact should be a fraction of what they were before the First Men showed up in Westeros. Say if there were ten thousand in Westeros as a whole at the time of the pact, and there had been a hundred thousand prior to humans moving in. It would mean very much to them. Particularly as the humans kept outbreeding them.

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45 minutes ago, The Sleeper said:

It is certainly less than an elephant. As they are mammals, hominids with not too much different levels of activity than a human, it should be mor e or less proportionate.

Like a cat eating less than a tiger.

As they were confined to a fraction of the territory they held previously, after ongoing wars and continously enroaching humans, then their numbers after the pact should be a fraction of what they were before the First Men showed up in Westeros. Say if there were ten thousand in Westeros as a whole at the time of the pact, and there had been a hundred thousand prior to humans moving in. It would mean very much to them. Particularly as the humans kept outbreeding them.

Don't get me started on elephants... but yeah, wrong assumption based on size/weight. It's not worth it getting into it b/c it won't be of any importance to the story. 

I'll leave it at, I wholeheartedly disagree w/ the idea that the CotF need less in terms of nutrition b/c they are smaller.

:cheers:

 

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2 hours ago, kissdbyfire said:

Don't get me started on elephants... but yeah, wrong assumption based on size/weight. It's not worth it getting into it b/c it won't be of any importance to the story. 

I'll leave it at, I wholeheartedly disagree w/ the idea that the CotF need less in terms of nutrition b/c they are smaller.

:cheers:

 

We can safely say though that they feeding habits and needs seem to be remarkably different from humans. They never bothered themselves with agriculture, being basically hunter-gatherers of some sort. Those subsisting/dying in the cave seem to grow their food in there. In winter there shouldn't be any berries, fruits, etc. to be found outside, nor should it be that easy to hunt game.

Assuming they can still do that. The fact that the wights sit in front of their door doesn't indicate they go out all that often.

In that framework it might make some sense if the Children would not have to eat all that much compared to humans. But perhaps not. Then their magics certainly enable them to grow food in the dark or to preserve stuff they collected in summer for a winter which lasts years.

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18 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

How can't we not do that. Even Gilly knows that the Others are visiting them. They come to Craster's to collect the male children. Unless you are saying that she and the other wives are lying about this we have confirmation that the Others take the sons of Craster.

There is nothing indicating Gilly and the other wives are merely told that the Others come or that Craster gives their sons to them. They know what happens.

You are right that we don't have confirmation that the Others transform the babies into their own kind but that is very much implied. The fact that the Others take the children is confirmed.

Well, that shows you haven't reread the stuff, have you? Gilly describes the Others in a manner that makes it clear she, personally, saw them. Or are you trying to say the Others show up at Craster's but do not collect the babies and the livestock? Then why are they showing up at all?

If the Others are the product of a magical transformation - human male child > Other then it is also possible that a similar transformation could go like this: (male) Child of the Forest > Other. But of course such Children-Others would then look more like Children and not like icy humans (as the Others we have seen do).

Not to pick sides in this particular debate, but I just want to comment on the whole Craster plot in general. I have always been tremendously underwhelmed by it. Because it comes across as pretty weak from a plot perspective.

There are a hundred thousand or so people living beyond the Wall at the start of the series, and yet for some reason the Others skip the tens of thousands that live up to 600 miles or more North of the Wall, and come and collect sons from Craster of all people, just a few days ride from the Wall? Why? What makes him so special?

That part I have always found weak. I don't dispute that it is the case, and it might just be that Martin decided to forego logic in order to get Jon and Sam direct access to the person having dealings with the Others, fairly early in the series. But to me it would have had more impact if Jon, hundreds of miles up the Milkwater, on his scouting expedition, came across isolated villages on the fringes of human society, where some old hag recounts to him how they had been making sacrifies to the Others in order to survive that far North.

But Craster, almost in the shadow of the Wall itself? It feels pretty weak to me. But that's the route George chose to take. I just think it makes the story less effective than it could have been. Oh well.

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22 hours ago, Maia said:

Sorry, but your idea of Lothstons (and Stokeworths?) and everybody teniously connected to them, being this kind of anti-magical cryptonite seems to be unsupported by the text. For one thing, Falene's descendants may even have had Targaryen blood from the Unworthy, if he did, indeed continue visiting her for years. For another, the "Mad" Danelle Lothston was reputed to be a sorceress and Cat produced 5 magical kids, one of whom is a very powerful greenseer, while another is a very powerful skinchanger.

The appropriate analogy isn't kryptonite to Superman, no. More like a citronella torch to mosquitoes.

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