Why do people think the Others are morally grey?

[falcotron]

4 hours ago, Wild Bill said:

By the way, I've always thought of Arya's journey or Brienne's search as being like the Odyssey - a nice counterpart to your Iliad reference - though I really think of it more of a "grand tour" of the 100 Years War, with an optional side-trip to visit the 30 Years War. Good times, eh? ...

Using classical structures (not just the Iliad and the Odyssey, there's also the Anabasis and other references in there) to illuminate (faux) late-medieval Europe is such a great trick, it's one of those things you wonder why no other major fantasy writer did it before him.

4 hours ago, Wild Bill said:

Oh, to be on topic, sort of, lets consider Julian Jaynes book titled "The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind". For all this books craziness, it might offer some interesting insights to the Others(?) or.... I'll leave it to the brave to google it and read it...

I think Jaynes is completely wrong about his idea, but it's fun to think about, and his attempts to fit Homer, the Old Testament, etc. into his framework are an amazing read. Rereading especially the Iliad afterward was fascinating. And I wouldn't be at all surprised if GRRM had the same experience…

But I'm not sure how it fits the Others. Even though they do talk, they don't seem to be nearly as linguistically driven as humans. Also, if I were writing this story and wanted to go in that direction, I'd borrow heavily from Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age rather than using Jaynes directly—the Others seem more programmed by software than controlled by gods.

[Pearly]

I can't really answer your question (why do people think the Others are morally gray?) because I don't know anyone who believes that nor do I believe it myself.  

I've always understood the Others as an abstraction - a generic threat to the world. The story (ASOIAF) then becomes centered around what the humans need to do when presented with this threat. In the same way that the threat of global warming (which is neither evil nor good) requires certain actions from humanity.  

I can't remember exactly where I read it, but GRRM had responded to a question about the 'culture' of the Others with something like "they don't have a culture" (I'll try to locate the interview and post the link). To me that sort of negates the idea of a society of Others as a whole and therefore, positions them as more 'things' than humans or similar intelligent beings.

However, even if my interpretation wrong, I still don't see a conflict between a person being judged 'evil' and that person having motives that drive his/her evil acts. So, taking the Hitler analogy further, Hitler was evil, but that does not mean that Hitler believed himself to be evil nor does it mean that Hitler did not have reasons for his actions. Regardless what we may believe (or judge his actions as), Hitler himself believed he was justified in his actions and that is what GRRM is attempting to show his readers (also from an interview that I don't have the link to but will try to post it later). This does not necessarily mean that a character is morally ambiguous. It simply shows the reader how the mind of that character works (in a similar manner to documentaries, movies and TV show about serial murders) - how else can we explain characters like Ramsey, the Mountain, or Euron?

[Pearly]

Here the interview where he's talking about the Others' culture:

http://www.pressreader.com/canada/ottawa-citizen/20120326/282110633567457

“(We’ll learn more about their) history, certainly, but I don’t know about culture,” he said. “I don’t know if they have a culture."

I couldn't locate the second interview a

where he talks about liking to inside evil characters' heads - sorry. 

[falcotron]

15 hours ago, Pearly said:

It simply shows the reader how the mind of that character works (in a similar manner to documentaries, movies and TV show about serial murders) - how else can we explain characters like Ramsey, the Mountain, or Euron?

But he doesn't get inside their minds. Because there probably isn't much to see there of interest. (At least not to a story like this; there are good stories to be written about serial killers, of course.) Victarion, or Cersei, that's another story. They're evil, but they're not just sadists, or stark-raving mad, or evil for the mustache-twirling lulz. They have reasons for everything they do—reasons we can understand, even if we disagree with them. They have conflicts that drive them, just like the good guys do. And that's what makes it interesting to get inside their heads. Which is why we get a Cersei PoV but not a Gregor one, Victarion but not Euron, etc.

I don't think GRRM sees an absolute distinction between grey and black, with Victarion and most of the rest of the world on one side and Euron on the other. As I explained earlier, I think it's just that the blacker they are, the harder it is to write compellingly about them, and more often than not the less reward there is for doing so, so it's just much less likely to be worth doing when they're as dark as Euron. (Also, of course, Euron may have other reasons for not getting a PoV—e.g., as with Varys, it would be way too hard to do it without spoiling some big secrets. But I doubt that applies to Gregor.)

[Pearly]

32 minutes ago, falcotron said:

(Also, of course, Euron may have other reasons for not getting a PoV—e.g., as with Varys, it would be way too hard to do it without spoiling some big secrets. But I doubt that applies to Gregor.)

 

I agree. I think characters like Roose, Ramsey, Tywin, Walder Frey, Littlefinger, Euron, etc. are not presented as POV characters because that would spoil a lot of the 'surprises' in the story. But even with them, you get a glimpse of how their minds work through dialogues and observations of other POVs that are interacting with them.

36 minutes ago, falcotron said:

I don't think GRRM sees an absolute distinction between grey and black, with Victarion and most of the rest of the world on one side and Euron on the other.

1

I also agree on this. However, you do get a 'villain' vibe with some characters as you read the novels. And as you so rightly stated, most (if not all) of the characters that can be labeled as 'villains' don't get their own POV in the books. Not only does this avoid spoiling the plot, but it also gets the reader thinking about why these people are doing what they're doing - except perhaps in the case of Gregor and Ramsey who have stumped me many times!

[Wild Bill]

19 hours ago, falcotron said:

I think Jaynes is completely wrong about his idea, but it's fun to think about, and his attempts to fit Homer, the Old Testament, etc. into his framework are an amazing read. Rereading especially the Iliad afterward was fascinating. And I wouldn't be at all surprised if GRRM had the same experience…

But I'm not sure how it fits the Others. Even though they do talk, they don't seem to be nearly as linguistically driven as humans. Also, if I were writing this story and wanted to go in that direction, I'd borrow heavily from Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age rather than using Jaynes directly—the Others seem more programmed by software than controlled by gods.

I've only read Stephenson's Cryptonomicon which I found enormously entertaining for 3/4 of the novel, and then very tedious and predictable and rediculous at the end.

At any rate, I agree that the Others are automatons, but to rephrase the Jaynes reference as of folk who have no sub-conscience and are controlled "by the Gods". Perhaps the Night King is Agamemnon, and the Others are folk like Achilles, et al who are commanded by the Gods...

And... I feel compelled...

Quote

I went up there, I said, "Shrink, I want to kill. I want to kill! I want to see 
Blood and gore and guts and veins in my teeth! Eat dead, burnt bodies! I 
Mean: Kill. Kill!"

And I started jumpin' up and down, yellin' "KILL! KILL!" and he started 
Jumpin' up and down with me, and we was both jumpin' up and down, yellin', 
"KILL! KILL! KILL! KILL!" and the sergeant came over, pinned a medal on me, 
Sent me down the hall, said "You're our boy". Didn't feel too good about it.

And, I proceeded to tell the story about George Martins Bistro in four part harmony, 1/2 a miles walk from the Kingsroad, and of interesting views of the Others...

[Wild Bill]

43 minutes ago, Pearly said:

I also agree on this. However, you do get a 'villain' vibe with some characters as you read the novels. And as you so rightly stated, most (if not all) of the characters that can be labeled as 'villains' don't get their own POV in the books. Not only does this avoid spoiling the plot, but it also gets the reader thinking about why these people are doing what they're doing - except perhaps in the case of Gregor and Ramsey who have stumped me many times!

Totally off topic, but I think a number of plot lines are "contrived". GRRM is on record that A Feast for Crows and A Dance with Dragons were originally intended to be one book, but he needed characters (and dragons) to age five years. I think he made up filler stuff to make the two novels "full". Hence, the nothingless/endlessness of Meeren, Ramsey, the Sparrows and the conflict between the crown and the church, the pretenders to the Targaryn claim to the Iron Throne, etc.

Not to say that any of these were not on his mind. Just that they may only have resulted because he may have needed to fill the five years gap with something.

[falcotron]

1 hour ago, Pearly said:

except perhaps in the case of Gregor and Ramsey who have stumped me many times!

I think a lot of people are looking for a deeper story behind these characters and can't find one, because there isn't one. They're both sadists with no impulse control and no long-range planning. Ramsay is a smart sadist with no impulse control and no long-range planning, but if you're asking yourself "What's his endgame here?" he never had one, and he's already gone off-plan because he found someone else to torture, or came up with a new clever plan and abandoned this one.

[Pearly]

3 minutes ago, falcotron said:

I think a lot of people are looking for a deeper story behind these characters and can't find one, because there isn't one. They're both sadists with no impulse control and no long-range planning. Ramsay is a smart sadist with no impulse control and no long-range planning, but if you're asking yourself "What's his endgame here?" he never had one, and he's already gone off-plan because he found someone else to torture, or came up with a new clever plan and abandoned this one.

Nice assessment of Ramsey's endgame as you put it. I think more than anything, it's not the endgame that stumps, but the choices he makes. For example, why would he leave Lady Hornwood to starve? Does he just enjoy the idea of her alone and starving?

In any case - it's totally off-topic so perhaps I'd better just shut up and accept my own inability to get inside the mind of a sadist

[three-eyed monkey]

On 9/4/2017 at 3:46 AM, the trees have eyes said:

I think we all expect the explanation for the Others to be, well, other than straightforward.  In the sense of whether they are objectively "evil", if such a thing can be said to exist in reality other than as a concept? No, that seems unlikely given the author's criticism of JRRT's orcs.  But in the sense of an existential threat that from the subjective experience of our many characters amounts to a repeat of an earlier attempt to erase humanity completely they are the ultimate antagonists.  Some people consider them another faction in the drama of Westeros and a force to oppose "Dany and her dragons" [sic] while theorising that Jon or Bran will go Team Other".  This seems extremely unlikely to me and wheher we get bogged down in philosophical debates about whether they are evil (or beyond any such futile human categorisations) they are presented as a mindful and implacable foe.  The why of it is the mystery, not as some people seem to think the actuality of their actions and intentions.  They're here for more than danegeld or treaty negotiations.

I agree they are here for more than treaty negotiations and they are clearly an existential threat to the realm of men. The Others may well be evil. GRRM has certainly written characters I would consider evil, like Gregor or Ramsay. There are many shades of grey and some are far closer to black than others.

However, there is a clear Winter v Spring theme going on here which, I'm sure most readers agree, will culminate in another Battle for the Dawn. I'm confident that spring will eventually prevail in this battle, but at a great cost, hence the bitter-sweet ending. Winter is symbolic of decay and death. Spring is symbolic of life and rebirth. We know that only death can pay for life, so perhaps we can extrapolate that only Winter can pay for Spring. Now if the Others have come to collect that toll, as part of a natural process that reboots a decaying society, then I find it hard to consider them as purely evil.

While the Others are creature of ice and dragons are creatures of fire, and in that sense they are indeed opposites, I feel that the Green Men are closer to the Others true counterparts. We know the Green Men will play a part before the end, and have probably already influenced events surrounding TPtwP through Howland Reed. I see them as the Others of Spring, with neither party being truly good or evil but rather as morally grey as the seasons themselves.

I don't see Jon joining Team Other to fight against the realm of men. More likely in my opinion that the Prince that was Promised will grow up to be the sacrificial king, aka the King of Winter. The promise is the promise of Spring, because as sure as Winter is Coming, Spring will follow, as long as the promise is kept. And by that I mean that I suspect it is the Others that the prince was promised to.

[HallowedMarcus]

   Evil they are considering they change the balance of life and death. After you die, you are dead, regardless where your soul is or goes. In GRRM's world probably there are souls considering the two younger Starks dreams of Ned's death and talking to him inside the crypt in their dreams. Also, Lord Beric was brought back to life by the Red Priest Throros many times.

   The Others kill humans and bring their bodies back with no free will; they are mindless "zombies" doing their master's bidding. To use a person as a mind slave for itself is evil, to kill them and bring them back with no free will completely mind slaves is worse. 

   Now that said the Others themselves might have reasons and these reasons might be logical or reasonable but I seriously doubt it. On GoT book they surround the Knight and use a king of laughter when an other Other is fighting him. They have brains, use smearing words and relish on killing. Yes, they are evil. Even if they have a reason.

[falcotron]

2 minutes ago, HallowedMarcus said:

The Others kill humans and bring their bodies back with no free will; they are mindless "zombies" doing their master's bidding. To use a person as a mind slave for itself is evil, to kill them and bring them back with no free will completely mind slaves is worse. 

They're not quite mindless. What we see in AGoT Jon VII and the ADwD prologue implies that they have some mentality, and may even retain some of their prior memories.

Personally, I think that actually makes it worse. Using a mindless body as a slave is a victimless crime—something with no mind is no victim. It may still be wrong, in the same way that necrophilia is wrong, or using rotting corpses to decorate your living room, but it's not nearly as bad as mind-slaving a person who actually retains their mind, because that's actual slavery, and of the most horrific kind.

But I suppose it depends on what you think of the soul. If it takes a soul rather than a mind to be a victim, and the souls have left the body and it's only traces left behind in the brain that we're seeing, then their having those traces means…? I honestly have a hard time taking dualism seriously—if it's the brain that reacts to being kicked, how is it not bad to kick something with a brain but no soul? But I'm trying, because the ASoIaF world may well be dualist.

[the trees have eyes]

10 hours ago, three-eyed monkey said:

I agree they are here for more than treaty negotiations and they are clearly an existential threat to the realm of men. The Others may well be evil. GRRM has certainly written characters I would consider evil, like Gregor or Ramsay. There are many shades of grey and some are far closer to black than others.

However, there is a clear Winter v Spring theme going on here which, I'm sure most readers agree, will culminate in another Battle for the Dawn. I'm confident that spring will eventually prevail in this battle, but at a great cost, hence the bitter-sweet ending. Winter is symbolic of decay and death. Spring is symbolic of life and rebirth. We know that only death can pay for life, so perhaps we can extrapolate that only Winter can pay for Spring. Now if the Others have come to collect that toll, as part of a natural process that reboots a decaying society, then I find it hard to consider them as purely evil.

While the Others are creature of ice and dragons are creatures of fire, and in that sense they are indeed opposites, I feel that the Green Men are closer to the Others true counterparts. We know the Green Men will play a part before the end, and have probably already influenced events surrounding TPtwP through Howland Reed. I see them as the Others of Spring, with neither party being truly good or evil but rather as morally grey as the seasons themselves.

I don't see Jon joining Team Other to fight against the realm of men. More likely in my opinion that the Prince that was Promised will grow up to be the sacrificial king, aka the King of Winter. The promise is the promise of Spring, because as sure as Winter is Coming, Spring will follow, as long as the promise is kept. And by that I mean that I suspect it is the Others that the prince was promised to.

Interesting ideas.  You seem to be comparing them to something akin to a wildfire or forest fire that certain plants need in order for their seeds to germinate or that allows new plants and saplings to reach the sunlight (after the old ones are killed off).  Or to an inversion of a Persephone style myth where the Others play the part of Hades coming to reclaim the Last Hero / the chosen one / xxx in order to keep the pact.

If we insist in applying morality to everything I think a lot of things should be referred to as morally neutral rather than morally grey.  A season can't be morally grey as it's a force of nature with no mind behind it and morallity is a human construct to judge a person's actions, not an animal's or a force of nature.

There's more to the Others but I find the allegorical explanations to be unconvincing.  There are elements of that for sure, most obviously in their connection with winter - and an apparently savage and unnatural one - but they have a mind and objectives, they can be cruel and take pleasure in killing (Waymar Royce) and there is nothing of natural balance in the undead (men and beasts) or a giant ice wall raised along a northern frontier.  Hadrian's Wall or the Great Wall of China were built to keep something out not to achieve some kind of harmony and that seems the analogy to me.

[falcotron]

7 hours ago, the trees have eyes said:

f we insist in applying morality to everything I think a lot of things should be referred to as morally neutral rather than morally grey.  A season can't be morally grey as it's a force of nature with no mind behind it and morallity is a human construct to judge a person's actions, not an animal's or a force of nature.

People have a natural tendency to anthropomorphize forces of nature (and animals), and fantasy stories usually play to that tendency. If a storm kills hundreds of people but washes one ashore barely alive, was it the Mother or the Drowned God who saved Davos? Sure, the real answer is that GRRM saved him for storytelling reasons, but the story is coherent enough that we expect an in-universe answer, too. In real life, we'd know it was just random chance, and there's nothing to assign moral responsibility to, but in the story, that doesn't seem to be true.

So, even if the Others are just an anthropomorphic representation of winter, that doesn't necessarily mean they can't have morality. (But then it doesn't mean they must have morality, either.)

[the trees have eyes]

5 hours ago, falcotron said:

People have a natural tendency to anthropomorphize forces of nature (and animals), and fantasy stories usually play to that tendency. If a storm kills hundreds of people but washes one ashore barely alive, was it the Mother or the Drowned God who saved Davos? Sure, the real answer is that GRRM saved him for storytelling reasons, but the story is coherent enough that we expect an in-universe answer, too. In real life, we'd know it was just random chance, and there's nothing to assign moral responsibility to, but in the story, that doesn't seem to be true.

So, even if the Others are just an anthropomorphic representation of winter, that doesn't necessarily mean they can't have morality. (But then it doesn't mean they must have morality, either.)

Actually I think we can say that and that the idea of morality is incompatible with the forces of nature or the natural world..

People anthropomorphize animals because they see behaviour that they think is analagous to human behaviour and that they therefore understand the motivation and thought processes behind it.  It is an easy trap to fall into - as how else to understand other living beings but by trying to compare them to ourselves? - but false nonetheless.

People ascribe the will of the gods or blessed fortune / lady luck to forces of nature - either the gods favoured them or were displeased - but the storm is merely an instrument of the gods in this world view not a morally conscious event responsible for it's own actions. 

Since religion and magic have an element of reality to them in Planetos this last part wouldn't be surprising in story but no one seems to think the storms that sweep the Narrow Sea and Shipbreaker Bay are really sent by the gods.  If they have a lucky escape they might thank the gods (just in case) but they expect bad weather and seasonal storms.

Agency or decision making is key: do the others have a choice?  For me, yes, they have both agency and decision making: see Waymar Royce.  If they are just minions of a higher power (like the storm) then we're back to Orcs sent by the Dark Lord to do his dirty work for him.

[falcotron]

2 hours ago, the trees have eyes said:

Actually I think we can say that and that the idea of morality is incompatible with the forces of nature or the natural world..

But we're not talking about the natural world here. The Others are definitely not just winter—even if they are an anthropomorphization of winter, the fact that they are an anthropomorphization makes all the difference.

If you ask "Why did lightning burn down my house instead of the evil bastard next door", the only answer is something to do with metal rods or electrical potentials, but if you ask "Why did Thor burn down my house with lightning instead of the evil bastard next door", the answer may well be "Thor is a drunken irresponsible git".

Except, of course, that Thor isn't real. But the Others undoubtedly real. People aren't misleading themselves into thinking winter walks around and kills people and raises corpses from the dead; the Others actually do all of that.

Again, that doesn't mean that they necessarily must be moral creatures, but it does mean that they easily could be.

2 hours ago, the trees have eyes said:

People anthropomorphize animals because they see behaviour that they think is analagous to human behaviour and that they therefore understand the motivation and thought processes behind it.  It is an easy trap to fall into - as how else to understand other living beings but by trying to compare them to ourselves? - but false nonetheless.

But it's not necessarily false in a fantasy story. Eagles in LotR really do have moral agency; believing so is not just a trap that people fall into.

2 hours ago, the trees have eyes said:

Agency or decision making is key: do the others have a choice?

Yes, that's the same point I'm making, so I don't think we disagree on much after all.

[three-eyed monkey]

On 9/7/2017 at 1:04 PM, the trees have eyes said:

If we insist in applying morality to everything I think a lot of things should be referred to as morally neutral rather than morally grey. 

I agree that is a better description. 

[Kandrax]

Are Others capable to do something good?

[Lord Lannister]

There's not really any ambiguity to their malevolence. In their very first scene the Other laughed as he slaughtered Waymar Royce. Taking joy in murder is not in any way morally gray.

[Edgar Allen Poemont]

Lots of good input in this thread. I won't reiterate a lot of what's already been put forth but I really like the what Lady Blizzardborn had to say about monsters and men and Wild Bill's post on POV's dialogues, thoughts and motivations. I think both of those takes are essential to getting at a more fully realized analysis of what GRRM is presenting in ASoIaF. Concentrating on those things and really trying to understand why people do the things they do, both in terms of what most of us label as good or as evil, has been way more useful to my efforts in uncovering the mystery at the heart of the matter than anything else. One of the major themes, I believe GRRM is presenting, is what role fear plays in people's actions and decisions both internally and externally and in a sense, how it can turn them blind, deaf and mute; physically, mentally and spiritually. One of the best illustrations of this is the Others. What is an Other? ASoIaF is five books into the now planned seven book series and there have been exactly six Others seen directly by a POV in the epilogue of AGoT and one in a Samwell POV in ASoS. A grand total of seven assuming that the one Sam eliminated is not one of the original six from the epilogue, which is a big assumption. The death count total to human beings directly witnessed and attributed to an Other? I guess you could argue one for Waymar, although it was the shard from the shattered sword in the eye that actually killed Waymar, and one for Small Paul in the Samwell ASoS chapter. My point being, that nobody in present time Westeros has any idea what an Other is or what an Other can do or how many there are or if they, in fact, are even behind the raising of the wights. We have stories about them from history and folklore and rumors of them from the Wildlings and Craster, but such little direct encounter  The only thing I know for certain about them is Sam, one of the most fearful characters in the series by his admission, stabbed one with a dagger made of  obsidian and it transformed into nothing.
 

Quote

 

A Storm of Swords - Samwell I

The Other's sword gleamed with a faint blue glow. It moved toward Grenn, lightning quick, slashing. When the ice blue blade brushed the flames, a screech stabbed Sam's ears sharp as a needle. The head of the torch tumbled sideways to vanish beneath a deep drift of snow, the fire snuffed out at once. And all Grenn held was a short wooden stick. He flung it at the Other, cursing, as Small Paul charged in with his axe.

The fear that filled Sam then was worse than any fear he had ever felt before, and Samwell Tarly knew every kind of fear. "Mother have mercy," he wept, forgetting the old gods in his terror. "Father protect me, oh oh . . ." His fingers found his dagger and he filled his hand with that.

The wights had been slow clumsy things, but the Other was light as snow on the wind. It slid away from Paul's axe, armor rippling, and its crystal sword twisted and spun and slipped between the iron rings of Paul's mail, through leather and wool and bone and flesh. It came out his back with a hissssssssssss and Sam heard Paul say, "Oh," as he lost the axe. Impaled, his blood smoking around the sword, the big man tried to reach his killer with his hands and almost had before he fell. The weight of him tore the strange pale sword from the Other's grip.

Do it now. Stop crying and fight, you baby. Fight, craven. It was his father he heard, it was Alliser Thorne, it was his brother Dickon and the boy Rast. Craven, craven, craven. He giggled hysterically, wondering if they would make a wight of him, a huge fat white wight always tripping over its own dead feet. Do it, Sam. Was that Jon, now? Jon was dead. You can do it, you can, just do it. And then he was stumbling forward, falling more than running, really, closing his eyes and shoving the dagger blindly out before him with both hands. He heard a crack, like the sound ice makes when it breaks beneath a man's foot, and then a screech so shrill and sharp that he went staggering backward with his hands over his muffled ears, and fell hard on his arse.

When he opened his eyes the Other's armor was running down its legs in rivulets as pale blue blood hissed and steamed around the black dragonglass dagger in its throat. It reached down with two bone-white hands to pull out the knife, but where its fingers touched the obsidian they smoked.

 

If you reread that chapter, Samwell 1 in ASoS , you notice his inner monologue is riddled with fear, some hope emerges, then more fear and it's not just fear of what's happening on The Fist. It's a jumble of all his fears. Then at the climactic scene, we get some courage from Grenn and Small Paul, but it's Sam who finally faces his biggest fear and it's Jon's words he hears in his mind that finally spur him into acting. The words of his brother and protector, who he believes is dead urging him to face the threat right in front of him. The words of his friend who loves him even when he is afraid and who recognized his worth as a human being and stood on his behalf when it might not have even been in Jon's self interest to do so. It seems to me that it has less to do with the obsidian and more to do with the power behind the obsidian. I'm convinced it won't be the flaming sword of Azor Ahai either. 

My personal take on the Others is that they are an actual material presence in the world of ASoIaF but I tend to view them more symbolically. They gain strength from humanity's fears but people do most of the dirty work themselves, by failing to confront their own fears and projecting those fears onto others and turning others into monsters or inferiors and treating or reacting to each other as such. If the wars and violence and destruction occurring in the 7 Kingdoms continue on the same course, there may not be anything left for the Others anyway.