Why do people think the Others are morally grey?

[Dragonsbone]

1 hour ago, the trees have eyes said:

I don't believe he said or meant any such thing.  He pointed out that no person is entirely black or white, as in entirely and always sadistic/monstrous or altruistic/benevolent in all their doings.  This is a simple acknowledgment that human charcter is complex not one-dimensional and that a man who sent millions of men, women and children to the gas chambers could nonetheless be kind to his dog or, one would assume, to his lover, Eva Braun.

This does not make Hitler in any way a grey character in GRRM's eyes, i.e. one we should argue over by pointing out his "good deeds" in contrast to his "bad deeds" in trying to make up our minds and reach a judgment about him, it simply shows him to be a human being, albeit one of if not the most reviled ever to have lived (and rightly so).

In general, the confusion over what GRRM means by morally grey and how we should understand that ourselves and apply it in story is astonishing.

1. He indeed said that. The interview is on Youtube. You can look it up. 

2. He said that in regard why he despites writing solely good and solely bad characters, while talking about the"orks" of LotR. He then adds, that such things do not exist and points out to Adolf.

3. You say "He pointed out that no person is entirely black or white". That is the definition of grey. That is what I am saying all the time. You can have different shades of grey, you know (fifty if I am not wrong ). And I just want to make clear that I am not saying that GRRM is wrong here. I think it is a very valid point that even the worst of us have some moments of kindness or love. I am just saying that it is  not a question whether the "Others" are grey, because by definition they will be, since it is written by GRRM, and he views the World as a such. 

[Ratmancampidori]

I don't think the Others are going to be the final threat of the series, opposed by an alliance of all the characters in the series, Daenarys dragons and the Children of the Forest.

I don't truly know whats going to happen, but a completly evil enemy being vanquished in a glorious battle by the heroes of the story seems counter to everthing GRRM has shown us so far.

Gregor Clegane won a duel and later died of his wounds, Amory Lorch was fed to a bear, Vargo Hoat died of an infection/being eaten and Jon Snow was murdered before he went off to fight Ramsay in a glorious battle.

While evil characters do exist in ASOIF they are rarely defeated in Tolkien style battles, I suspect something similar would happen with the Others.

While their undoubtedly evil as any other villain in the series like Tywin Lannister at least as far as humans can perceive. One writer wrote an article about how the Others being morally grey/good would make it so Bran's quest meant nothing but I don't beleive that.

I beleive Bloodraven is either working with the Others or has goals that are counter to humanity in some way. The Weirwood Net seems like something extremly evil, something which very well could have killed Jojen, Meera and Hodor by now.

We have two more books to learn more about the Others, Winds of Winter will apparently take us farther north then we've ever gone before.

I feel that it's definitly possible that the series could end in some kind of armistace or truce with the Others.

Something I've always been curious about though is why did they build a wall made out of ice to keep out ice monsters?

[Lady Blizzardborn]

4 hours ago, Dragonsbone said:

Again. George RR Martin considers Adolf Hitler, a genocidal mass murderer who killed, gased, built concentration camps and humiliated millions of people as a grey character. This grey character discussion based on GRRM means a shit.

Do you have a link for that? And just saying "look it up" on YouTube isn't going to cut it because there are tons of videos of GRRM interviews on YouTube. 

He once described the Nazis as the closest the human race has ever gotten to being orcs. There was nothing morally gray about the orcs. There was nothing even moral about them. Their entire purpose was evil. We know that because Tolkien told us how they were created and why, things we do NOT know about the Others.

10 hours ago, Tyrion1991 said:

Genocide isn't morally grey. What the Others did to the Wildlings and Giants constitutes genocide. They murdered tens of thousands and innocent women and children. There simply isn't any reason that exists to justify that.  

You are assuming that the Others' entire purpose is to kill everyone. If that was the case, why haven't they done so? There are still plenty of Wildlings left. The giants were being wiped out by humans before the Others even showed up, and there is still at least one giant left, so the Others have not exterminated any species.

Where in the books do we have information that indicates they've murdered tens of thousands? Are you sure you're not basing this at least in part on a certain extremely changed electronic visual version of the story? In that medium I would agree that they seem to be headed toward the simplistic and boring villains are completely evil thing.

 

10 hours ago, Tyrion1991 said:

It it isn't a trope to say that genocide and mass slaughter is morally repugnant. It's simple human decency and to do otherwise would be to implicitly validate historical examples of it. If GRRM wanted the Others to be morally grey then he wouldn't have them killing thousands of children and exterminating entire species. 

I never said it was. And we don't know that Others are killing for the sake of killing. If the last War for the Dawn ended in some kind of peace treaty, and humans have since broken the terms of said treaty, even unknowingly, then war is back on. From the Others' POV their own actions may be entirely justified. We're only getting one side of the story, and that side is...well, rather one-sided. Don't the humans who know about the Others want to commit genocide against them? 

The trope inversion to which I was referring is the idea that the Big Bad has to be completely and totally evil. GRRM has been very vocal about his opinion that the true battle between good and evil is waged in the individual human heart. It would not surprise me at all if at some point (in the series or outside of it) he tells us what the Others' goal was and it will not be the total extinction of mankind.

[Lady Blizzardborn]

2 hours ago, Ratmancampidori said:

Something I've always been curious about though is why did they build a wall made out of ice to keep out ice monsters?

In the North, in winter, the one thing they have in abundance is ice. They didn't build it entirely out of ice either. There's wood, dirt, rocks, magic, and if Ygritte is right also blood, in the Wall.

The CotF used water to break Dorne's arm. I don't see how it's much different to infuse water with magic and then build with it once it's frozen, or to use already frozen water and infuse it with magic before building. 

[three-eyed monkey]

4 hours ago, chrisdaw said:

It isn't even a relevant question. The moral of the story is the humans should put aside their own differences to face together the threat to their existence, and if they don't they all die. The Others are therefor required to be a straightforward undeniable evil threat, if they're anything less then the moral is lost as they become just another faction to be treated with and understood like any other. It is why he has likened them to a force of nature, both in SSMs and the text too.

I agree that the moral of the story will be unity in the face of an external threat, but that does not mean the threat is morally evil. As you say, GRRM has likened them to a force of nature. Are floods, earthquakes, volcanoes, etc. morally evil? No they are not. 

 

[BalerionTheCat]

I don't think the Others have a color or a shade. They are not doing good. But they are the "wake up call" from the gods. The "stop that shit and start loving each other, or you will all die". They are the fever in the body trying to kill the viruses. The men have offended the gods by their incests, violation of guest right and kinslaying. And the Others have come to deal punishment. They don't really care who started the bullshit. But it must stop. It was exactly the same with the first Long Night.

[Dragonsbone]

4 hours ago, Lady Blizzardborn said:

Do you have a link for that? And just saying "look it up" on YouTube isn't going to cut it because there are tons of videos of GRRM interviews on YouTube. 
 

Indeed, there are a lot of Interviews by GRRM, but I thought that one might come to the glorious idea to use that Google thing. 

Just kidding .Here is one of the Youtube videos. It is the first question that adresses to that matter.

 

And here is a quote from GRRM :

http://thefairytalesite.net/2012/03/game-of-thrones-george-r-r-martin-on-good-and-evil/

I will post other Videos, as soon as I have time.

[chrisdaw]

4 hours ago, three-eyed monkey said:

I agree that the moral of the story will be unity in the face of an external threat, but that does not mean the threat is morally evil. As you say, GRRM has likened them to a force of nature. Are floods, earthquakes, volcanoes, etc. morally evil? No they are not. 

Do floods, earthquakes and volcanoes laugh while they kill? The threat must be evil so as to set them apart from another human faction, an obvious enemy to all factions.

[Clegane'sPup]

18 minutes ago, Dragonsbone said:

Indeed, there are a lot of Interviews by GRRM, but I thought that one might come to the glorious idea to use that Google thing. 

Just kidding .Here is one of the Youtube videos. It is the first question that adresses to that matter.

 

And here is a quote from GRRM :

http://thefairytalesite.net/2012/03/game-of-thrones-george-r-r-martin-on-good-and-evil/

I will post other Videos, as soon as I have time.

I found this to be an interesting interview. Thanks.

[Dragonsbone]

1 hour ago, Clegane'sPup said:

I found this to be an interesting interview. Thanks.

You are welcome 

[Lady Blizzardborn]

1 hour ago, Dragonsbone said:

Indeed, there are a lot of Interviews by GRRM, but I thought that one might come to the glorious idea to use that Google thing. 

Just kidding .Here is one of the Youtube videos. It is the first question that adresses to that matter.

 

And here is a quote from GRRM :

http://thefairytalesite.net/2012/03/game-of-thrones-george-r-r-martin-on-good-and-evil/

I will post other Videos, as soon as I have time.

Thank you. I appreciate your posting the links.

As I suspected he mentioned that Hitler loved dogs. What he doesn't get into is how dark a shade of grey some of the monsters of history are. But you are right that he does say he doesn't believe any person is ever wholly evil. Everybody has some positives about them, even if they are severely overshadowed by their negatives.

I'd say the closest GRRM has come to a fully black character in the series is Euron Greyjoy. He's way worse than the Others. It could be argued that Ramsay is worse as well. Those guys torture people, psychologically as well as physically. The Others just kill you and then recycle your body into a wight.

[Dragonsbone]

5 minutes ago, Lady Blizzardborn said:

Thank you. I appreciate your posting the links.

As I suspected he mentioned that Hitler loved dogs. What he doesn't get into is how dark a shade of grey some of the monsters of history are. But you are right that he does say he doesn't believe any person is ever wholly evil. Everybody has some positives about them, even if they are severely overshadowed by their negatives.

I'd say the closest GRRM has come to a fully black character in the series is Euron Greyjoy. He's way worse than the Others. It could be argued that Ramsay is worse as well. Those guys torture people, psychologically as well as physically. The Others just kill you and then recycle your body into a wight.

You are welcome .

That is what I have said too about his world view. 

I have not read the released WOW chapters, especially the forsaken chapter, so I can not judge how evil Euron really is. From AFFC and ADWD we did not get that much about him, but there were hints how sadistic he might be. I totally agree about Ramsay though. And just like Hitler, he also seems to love his doggs 

[the trees have eyes]

11 hours ago, Dragonsbone said:

1. He indeed said that. The interview is on Youtube. You can look it up. 

2. He said that in regard why he despites writing solely good and solely bad characters, while talking about the"orks" of LotR. He then adds, that such things do not exist and points out to Adolf.

3. You say "He pointed out that no person is entirely black or white". That is the definition of grey. That is what I am saying all the time. You can have different shades of grey, you know (fifty if I am not wrong ). And I just want to make clear that I am not saying that GRRM is wrong here. I think it is a very valid point that even the worst of us have some moments of kindness or love. I am just saying that it is  not a question whether the "Others" are grey, because by definition they will be, since it is written by GRRM, and he views the World as a such. 

You've misunderstood his point entirely.  He wants to portray realism and his characters to have depth or justifications that make sense to them, or to us as well, even as we reject those justifications. 

In contrasting the orcs and Hitler he is pointing out that that the simple fact of being human, even in a creature such as Hitler, does not yield itself to constant sadistic / satanic / inhuman existential evil like Sauron or Pinhead from Hellraiser and that in portraying his characters there will be depth and complexity not the one-dimensional evil of Tolkien's orcs and dark lord.  He did not mean that as Hitler treated his dogs well while murdering countless millions of people we should somehow see the good as well as the bad in the man and be uncertain about how to judge him.

To make it really simple: Ramsey is noted to be very affectionate towards his dogs (his bitches in story).  Do you think GRRM's message is that Ramsey is therfore anything less than a monster and that these acts of care towards his dogs make him a morally grey character in GRRM's eyes?

I think you misunderstand the concept of grey as well.  If you paint an entirely black canvas and put a few dots of white or a hint of grey somewhere in the corner on a small scale what you have is not a grey canvas but a black one with a couple of marks in it - or a mass murderer who cared about his dogs.  Morally grey becomes a talking point when the actions are questionable (was Ramsey's rape and skinning of women, those who didn't please him still being alive when he did so, or the holocaust questionable rather than abhorrently evil?) or when the character seems to do good and bad in equal measure.  The author is not confused about Ramsey or Hitler's "greyness" and you should not be either.

What he refuses to do is paint heroes who are unblemished shades of pure white and that seems to confuse people as to whether the heroes are really heroes at all.  Hint: they are, they're just human after all so we get the unvarnished truth of them, warts and all, rather than the sanitised myths and carefully constructed PR jobs that history will remember.

As the Others aren't human we don't have to worry that the author is plotting some M Night Shyalaman twist to show them as good folks to have a beer with once you work out what makes them stop the extermiantion campaigns.

[Lady Blizzardborn]

1 hour ago, the trees have eyes said:

You've misunderstood his point entirely.  He wants to portray realism and his characters to have depth or justifications that make sense to them, or to us as well, even as we reject those justifications. 

In contrasting the orcs and Hitler he is pointing out that that the simple fact of being human, even in a creature such as Hitler, does not yield itself to constant sadistic / satanic / inhuman existential evil like Sauron or Pinhead from Hellraiser and that in portraying his characters there will be depth and complexity not the one-dimensional evil of Tolkien's orcs and dark lord.  He did not mean that as Hitler treated his dogs well while murdering countless millions of people we should somehow see the good as well as the bad in the man and be uncertain about how to judge him.

To make it really simple: Ramsey is noted to be very affectionate towards his dogs (his bitches in story).  Do you think GRRM's message is that Ramsey is therfore anything less than a monster and that these acts of care towards his dogs make him a morally grey character in GRRM's eyes?

I think you misunderstand the concept of grey as well.  If you paint an entirely black canvas and put a few dots of white or a hint of grey somewhere in the corner on a small scale what you have is not a grey canvas but a black one with a couple of marks in it - or a mass murderer who cared about his dogs.  Morally grey becomes a talking point when the actions are questionable (was Ramsey's rape and skinning of women, those who didn't please him still being alive when he did so, or the holocaust questionable rather than abhorrently evil?) or when the character seems to do good and bad in equal measure.  The author is not confused about Ramsey or Hitler's "greyness" and you should not be either.

What he refuses to do is paint heroes who are unblemished shades of pure white and that seems to confuse people as to whether the heroes are really heroes at all.  Hint: they are, they're just human after all so we get the unvarnished truth of them, warts and all, rather than the sanitised myths and carefully constructed PR jobs that history will remember.

As the Others aren't human we don't have to worry that the author is plotting some M Night Shyalaman twist to show them as good folks to have a beer with once you work out what makes them stop the extermiantion campaigns.

Isn't it for GRRM to say what GRRM means or doesn't mean? I'm pretty sure the concept us grasped, what's being discussed is the extent of the concept and the execution of it.

Ramsay and the dogs are pretty oversimplified (much like Hitler and his dogs). Ramsay is the way he is due to many factors including parental neglect and lack of a decent father figure. Roose says he doesn't know whether OriginalReek corrupted Ramsay or Ramsay corrupted OriginalReek. That's something a father should know. He should have 1) known the kind of man he was sending to help raise his son, and 2) kept tabs on the situation. So far we don't know of anything overtly good in Ramsay but we're not getting his side of the story. He can't give us all of the info about everyone. We'll never know if Ramsay hesitated before any of his most heinous actions, and we'll probably never hear of his having done anything good. Doesn't mean it's not possible.

No human being starts out as evil. And every person on earth has the capacity to do things that are evil.

One of the fundamental questions with regard to level of grayness is how far does one go before becoming so dark that no white is left? Does one evil act make a person evil? Is there a particular number of acts or magnitude of evil per act that's required before being evil? How do we assign evilness levels to different acts? And how high must the percentage of black be before we start discounting any white? See how the lines can at times get blurred? Gray is a spectrum. Some people are darker gray, some people are lighter gray, but all humans are gray.

No one is saying Ramsay is a cuddlebug who just needs cookies and milk. We all agree he's a psycho. But the point is that he's not just a psycho. There is perhaps a part of him that's still a kid crying out for attention. Remember even Darth Vader still had some good in him.

You're right, the Others aren't human. So either morals don't apply at all, or GRRM is going to use the same approach on them that he does on his human characters...which is to give them nuance and complexity. Cardboard cut-out villains are not his thing.

[three-eyed monkey]

10 hours ago, chrisdaw said:

Do floods, earthquakes and volcanoes laugh while they kill? The threat must be evil so as to set them apart from another human faction, an obvious enemy to all factions.

If a swashbuckling hero laughed as he cut down monsters then would we see him as evil? It's a matter of perspective. That they laugh only tells us that they are not without emotion. I don't doubt the Others are intent on destroying or at least culling mankind, but as they personify Winter, amongst other things, I don't see their advance as any more evil than the onset of Winter. Winter makes the land barren but it does so as part of a greater cycle that allows nature start fresh again in Spring. 

Clearly the in world myths and stories portray them as evil from man kinds point of view and that adds to the drama but it doesn't mean they are actually evil.

12 hours ago, BalerionTheCat said:

I don't think the Others have a color or a shade. They are not doing good. But they are the "wake up call" from the gods. The "stop that shit and start loving each other, or you will all die". They are the fever in the body trying to kill the viruses. The men have offended the gods by their incests, violation of guest right and kinslaying. And the Others have come to deal punishment. They don't really care who started the bullshit. But it must stop. It was exactly the same with the first Long Night.

I agree completely. They are a magical or divine response to the moral decay of mankind.

[Damon_Tor]

On 8/30/2017 at 4:27 PM, Tyrion1991 said:

They have actually committed genocide on the Giants

We have no reason to think the Others killed the giants, or any other member of their army of the dead. They may have simply died from the cold. "But the Others bring the cold" you might respond, but we have no evidence for that.

 

On 8/30/2017 at 4:27 PM, Tyrion1991 said:

People confuse the warging and children of the forest with the Others. This is important, because obviously these things are shown as good and associated with the Starks.

Wait, you think the Children of the Forest are good? Oh man.

[Dragonsbone]

9 hours ago, the trees have eyes said:

You've misunderstood his point entirely.  He wants to portray realism and his characters to have depth or justifications that make sense to them, or to us as well, even as we reject those justifications. 

In contrasting the orcs and Hitler he is pointing out that that the simple fact of being human, even in a creature such as Hitler, does not yield itself to constant sadistic / satanic / inhuman existential evil like Sauron or Pinhead from Hellraiser and that in portraying his characters there will be depth and complexity not the one-dimensional evil of Tolkien's orcs and dark lord.  He did not mean that as Hitler treated his dogs well while murdering countless millions of people we should somehow see the good as well as the bad in the man and be uncertain about how to judge him.

To make it really simple: Ramsey is noted to be very affectionate towards his dogs (his bitches in story).  Do you think GRRM's message is that Ramsey is therfore anything less than a monster and that these acts of care towards his dogs make him a morally grey character in GRRM's eyes?

I think you misunderstand the concept of grey as well.  If you paint an entirely black canvas and put a few dots of white or a hint of grey somewhere in the corner on a small scale what you have is not a grey canvas but a black one with a couple of marks in it - or a mass murderer who cared about his dogs.  Morally grey becomes a talking point when the actions are questionable (was Ramsey's rape and skinning of women, those who didn't please him still being alive when he did so, or the holocaust questionable rather than abhorrently evil?) or when the character seems to do good and bad in equal measure.  The author is not confused about Ramsey or Hitler's "greyness" and you should not be either.

What he refuses to do is paint heroes who are unblemished shades of pure white and that seems to confuse people as to whether the heroes are really heroes at all.  Hint: they are, they're just human after all so we get the unvarnished truth of them, warts and all, rather than the sanitised myths and carefully constructed PR jobs that history will remember.

As the Others aren't human we don't have to worry that the author is plotting some M Night Shyalaman twist to show them as good folks to have a beer with once you work out what makes them stop the extermiantion campaigns.

You misunderstood completely what I have said and I won't repeat it. Again. Read my posts again. 

I don't know how good your knowledge about art, colours and metaphors in literature are but here some brief overview:

If you have black colour, and you add the slitliest amount of white, no matter how little, this colour is called grey. Grey comes in different shades. Black is physically the absorbtion of light. Since white is the complete reflection of light, black is therefore the complete absence of white. 

Your personality comes from your brain. All your memories and feelings are, regarding to the state of the art of brain science, connected to each other. There is no brain part excluded where you have a part of your personality that could be good, and the rest of the brain only bad. Therefore your metaphor with the black board and a tiny little white point does not hold up as a metaphor for personality. 

Speaking of metaphors: In literature the grey is used to describe exactly these effects. A person who has good and bad qualities of personality. One can of course argue that since the amount of bad things Ramsay does, is way to big so that you could call this extremely dark grey and therefore call him black. That you could do. But I did not deny that. 

[chrisdaw]

59 minutes ago, three-eyed monkey said:

If a swashbuckling hero laughed as he cut down monsters then would we see him as evil? It's a matter of perspective. That they laugh only tells us that they are not without emotion. I don't doubt the Others are intent on destroying or at least culling mankind, but as they personify Winter, amongst other things, I don't see their advance as any more evil than the onset of Winter. Winter makes the land barren but it does so as part of a greater cycle that allows nature start fresh again in Spring. 

Clearly the in world myths and stories portray them as evil from man kinds point of view and that adds to the drama but it doesn't mean they are actually evil.

So the Others are not evil, so long as you don't look at them from the point of view of a human. Ok.

[three-eyed monkey]

4 hours ago, chrisdaw said:

So the Others are not evil, so long as you don't look at them from the point of view of a human. Ok.

Ya I think it is valid to include more than one point of view when assessing if a group is evil. It's more than valid actually, it is essential.

If we stand back and look objectively at the clash between the Others and the realm of men I think there is a good case to be made for men being evil. Not all men obviously but we can certainly see a widespread decay in moral virtues. Westeros is a pretty shitty place right now but I think the characters who survive to see the Spring will have the opportunity to build a better world. I don't think large scale social and political change can happen in Westeros without some sort of apocalyptic reset first. To use the seasonal metaphor again, without Winter there would be no Spring. It's not a clash of Winter and Spring, it's a song of Winter and Spring, which suggests a certain harmony between both forces in my opinion.

[the trees have eyes]

13 hours ago, Lady Blizzardborn said:

Isn't it for GRRM to say what GRRM means or doesn't mean? I'm pretty sure the concept us grasped, what's being discussed is the extent of the concept and the execution of it.

Ramsay and the dogs are pretty oversimplified (much like Hitler and his dogs). Ramsay is the way he is due to many factors including parental neglect and lack of a decent father figure. Roose says he doesn't know whether OriginalReek corrupted Ramsay or Ramsay corrupted OriginalReek. That's something a father should know. He should have 1) known the kind of man he was sending to help raise his son, and 2) kept tabs on the situation. So far we don't know of anything overtly good in Ramsay but we're not getting his side of the story. He can't give us all of the info about everyone. We'll never know if Ramsay hesitated before any of his most heinous actions, and we'll probably never hear of his having done anything good. Doesn't mean it's not possible.

No human being starts out as evil. And every person on earth has the capacity to do things that are evil.

One of the fundamental questions with regard to level of grayness is how far does one go before becoming so dark that no white is left? Does one evil act make a person evil? Is there a particular number of acts or magnitude of evil per act that's required before being evil? How do we assign evilness levels to different acts? And how high must the percentage of black be before we start discounting any white? See how the lines can at times get blurred? Gray is a spectrum. Some people are darker gray, some people are lighter gray, but all humans are gray.

No one is saying Ramsay is a cuddlebug who just needs cookies and milk. We all agree he's a psycho. But the point is that he's not just a psycho. There is perhaps a part of him that's still a kid crying out for attention. Remember even Darth Vader still had some good in him.

You're right, the Others aren't human. So either morals don't apply at all, or GRRM is going to use the same approach on them that he does on his human characters...which is to give them nuance and complexity. Cardboard cut-out villains are not his thing.

Indeed it's all about the application of the concept and that is what I think is misunderstood.

Ramsey may still have a part of him crying out for attention but given he is a serial rapist, tortuter and murderer this simply doesn't matter.  GRRM is saying that Ramsey is after all still human, though pretty much the worst example of one in series, rather than a one-dimensional orc, not that we should be confused about how we should feel about him.  Ditto Hitler.  The fact that Hitler won an iron cross for bravery in WW1 (something seen as a positive) is a reflection that human behaviour is complex and multi-dimensional but, again, the point isn't that we shouldn't have a problem judging Hitler.  GRRM is an artist and he intends to portray characters realistically (Theon and Jaime are particularly good, Vargo Hoat, Ramsey and the Mountain perhaps at odds with GRRM's stated aim of realism) not that we should have some brain paralysis and consider that as humans are, well human, they must all be morally grey and we can't distinguish between them and identify any villains or heroes in story.

7 hours ago, Dragonsbone said:

You misunderstood completely what I have said and I won't repeat it. Again. Read my posts again. 

I don't know how good your knowledge about art, colours and metaphors in literature are but here some brief overview:

If you have black colour, and you add the slitliest amount of white, no matter how little, this colour is called grey. Grey comes in different shades. Black is physically the absorbtion of light. Since white is the complete reflection of light, black is therefore the complete absence of white. 

Your personality comes from your brain. All your memories and feelings are, regarding to the state of the art of brain science, connected to each other. There is no brain part excluded where you have a part of your personality that could be good, and the rest of the brain only bad. Therefore your metaphor with the black board and a tiny little white point does not hold up as a metaphor for personality. 

Speaking of metaphors: In literature the grey is used to describe exactly these effects. A person who has good and bad qualities of personality. One can of course argue that since the amount of bad things Ramsay does, is way to big so that you could call this extremely dark grey and therefore call him black. That you could do. But I did not deny that. 

Read my post again.  I didn't say mix the colours, I said put a few spots of white or a mark in the corner on an otherwise completely black tapestry.  Do you really still see grey?  Your argument that everyone is grey and your colour analogy is of course to somehow mix good and bad acts together and to lose the perspective to distinguish them.  Given your acknowledgment of Ramsey's "effectively black" character (and we can assume ditto for Hitler) the idea of everyone being morally grey seems one you yourself don't find that useful in distinguishing between human beings.

Given we are talking about the Others I still don't agree that GRRM's realistic portrayal of the dark side of human behaviour has any bearing on whether they are morally grey.  They certainly haven't appeared so to date and The Long Night doesn't lend to that line of thought.

7 hours ago, chrisdaw said:

So the Others are not evil, so long as you don't look at them from the point of view of a human. Ok.

Word.