Old Nan, You Should Be Here (Telling The Story)

[Joey Crows]

Quick thought I just had re-reading that first Old Nan passage; She told a damn fine tale. Scary really. Ominous. 

And in light of the whole show vibe, it occurred to me that after all this, all we've seen in the show, and read in the books, nothing about the WW seems nearly as terrifying as it seemed that first time we heard the story from Old Nan. The army of the dead is frightening if you are in that world for sure, but, the Long Night, the fact that women left their babies to die in the cold instead of waiting for the WW to claim them, and all of that is waaaay better than what things have become.

Is there anything we've heard/read so far that seems as awful as what we first assumed? And I guess, more importantly, the WW are coming, but is there really a long night about to happen? 

[The Fattest Leech]

So, basically, the books are a hella'lot better than the mummer's version?

Yes, good sir, yes indeed.

[Pearly]

24 minutes ago, The Fattest Leech said:

So, basically, the books are a hella'lot better than the mummer's version?

Yes, good sir, yes indeed.

Well... we did get that warning in the House of the Undying!

39 minutes ago, Joey Crows said:

Is there anything we've heard/read so far that seems as awful as what we first assumed? And I guess, more importantly, the WW are coming, but is there really a long night about to happen? 

1

I don't think so. I think the show hasn't been able to present the WW and the Long Night as dread-inspiring as they should be. If anything, they're more of a curiosity than a 'dread' or genuinely fear-inspiring. Compare, for example, to the sense of dread you get in LOTR when the Nazgul appear (and even right before they appear) - the visuals, the actors' reactions, even the insects and animals around them.

As you so rightly said... this is an event that would have mothers preferring to kill their infant babies. Have we seen this in the show?

No.

Are we going to see it? Possibly. But even if they did, I think it'll be rushed and full of holes and contradictions because it'll be like "Oh Damn... we need to fix that..."

[Joey Crows]

47 minutes ago, The Fattest Leech said:

So, basically, the books are a hella'lot better than the mummer's version?

Yes, good sir, yes indeed.

Obvi  

Those were front of the mind examples, but it lead me to the thought that in the books we have not seen really anything as foreboding and scary as what the stories in the first book led us to prepare for. Maybe something will happen that plunges the realm into a season of despair and forces the ultimate outcome, but it doesn't seem that way so far...

 

[The Fattest Leech]

18 minutes ago, Joey Crows said:

Obvi  

Those were front of the mind examples, but it lead me to the thought that in the books we have not seen really anything as foreboding and scary as what the stories in the first book led us to prepare for. Maybe something will happen that plunges the realm into a season of despair and forces the ultimate outcome, but it doesn't seem that way so far...

 

The monster is always the scariest before you see him on screen. 

I have a feeling that when we see this monster we are going to be thoroughly scared... and shocked. 

[Joey Crows]

10 minutes ago, The Fattest Leech said:

The monster is always the scariest before you see him on screen. 

I have a feeling that when we see this monster we are going to be thoroughly scared... and shocked. 

But we've already come across the "monsters" in the books. And it is not something to take lightly to be sure. But is it that upsetting, and are the possibilities that could come from what we've read aligning with what we were originally told the long night and the white walkers were/did?

Of course, we don't know how the story will go, but it was just a thought I had while looking at that Old Nan passage. It made me remember the days when what could happen was unthinkable almost. Nowadays it seems that maaaaybe things take a direction like that, but maybe they don't.

Anyway the point was (for book readers as well as showbies) the WW and their threat somehow seems less than what it once was. Even if it is just in our minds. Or maybe just my mind

 

[The Fattest Leech]

1 minute ago, Joey Crows said:

But we've already come across the "monsters" in the books. And it is not something to take lightly to be sure. But is it that upsetting, and are the possibilities that could come from what we've read aligning with what we were originally told the long night and the white walkers were/did?

Of course, we don't know how the story will go, but it was just a thought I had while looking at that Old Nan passage. It made me remember the days when what could happen was unthinkable almost. Nowadays it seems that maaaaybe things take a direction like that, but maybe they don't.

Anyway the point was (for book readers as well as showbies) the WW and their threat somehow seems less than what it once was. Even if it is just in our minds. Or maybe just my mind

 

I guess I was thinking that we have not seen the Others as a hoard, and we have only seen them strike when they were striked upon first. I know they are the bad guys, but we have not seen their true force. To me that is the scariest. 

Almost like Nan's story. We get little bits between her "needles clacking away", but then we are interrupted for a time and have not had the climax or the finale (obvious with the latter). 

Sorry, apparently the past few days I have not been as articulate as normal, and I was just reading an article that said we had a huge sun flair that messses with people and their emotions, sleep, and thought. So, may the Others take the sun 

 

[The Fattest Leech]

10 minutes ago, Joey Crows said:

But we've already come across the "monsters" in the books. And it is not something to take lightly to be sure. But is it that upsetting, and are the possibilities that could come from what we've read aligning with what we were originally told the long night and the white walkers were/did?

Of course, we don't know how the story will go, but it was just a thought I had while looking at that Old Nan passage. It made me remember the days when what could happen was unthinkable almost. Nowadays it seems that maaaaybe things take a direction like that, but maybe they don't.

Anyway the point was (for book readers as well as showbies) the WW and their threat somehow seems less than what it once was. Even if it is just in our minds. Or maybe just my mind

 

One more thing, @ravenous reader Is pretty good at breaking down the first prologue. There are a million details in there that hint for more to come. Hopefully she will be along shortly to join in here. 

[falcotron]

It's a lot easier to write a very short short story and make it scary than to write a seven-volume epic. If Nan had been writing these books, we might only have the first four by now instead of only the first five.

[Ser Petyr Parker]

Looks like this is more about GoT than ASoIaF.

[Seams]

It helps to have the passage included in the discussion, I think, if you want people to see what you value in it.

"Oh, my sweet summer child," Old Nan said quietly, "what do you know of fear? Fear is for the winter, my little lord, when the snows fall a hundred feet deep and the ice wind comes howling out of the north. Fear is for the long night, when the sun hides its face for years at a time, and little children are born and live and die all in darkness while the direwolves grow gaunt and hungry, and the white walkers move through the woods."

"You mean the Others," Bran said querulously.

"The Others," Old Nan agreed. "Thousands and thousands of years ago, a winter fell that was cold and hard and endless beyond all memory of man. There came a night that lasted a generation, and kings shivered and died in their castles even as the swineherds in their hovels. Women smothered their children rather than see them starve, and cried, and felt their tears freeze on their cheeks." Her voice and her needles fell silent, and she glanced up at Bran with pale, filmy eyes and asked, "So, child. This is the sort of story you like?"

"Well," Bran said reluctantly, "yes, only …"

Old Nan nodded. "In that darkness, the Others came for the first time," she said as her needles went click click click. "They were cold things, dead things, that hated iron and fire and the touch of the sun, and every creature with hot blood in its veins. They swept over holdfasts and cities and kingdoms, felled heroes and armies by the score, riding their pale dead horses and leading hosts of the slain. All the swords of men could not stay their advance, and even maidens and suckling babes found no pity in them. They hunted the maids through frozen forests, and fed their dead servants on the flesh of human children."

Her voice had dropped very low, almost to a whisper, and Bran found himself leaning forward to listen.

"Now these were the days before the Andals came, and long before the women fled across the narrow sea from the cities of the Rhoyne, and the hundred kingdoms of those times were the kingdoms of the First Men, who had taken these lands from the children of the forest. Yet here and there in the fastness of the woods the children still lived in their wooden cities and hollow hills, and the faces in the trees kept watch. So as cold and death filled the earth, the last hero determined to seek out the children, in the hopes that their ancient magics could win back what the armies of men had lost. He set out into the dead lands with a sword, a horse, a dog, and a dozen companions. For years he searched, until he despaired of ever finding the children of the forest in their secret cities. One by one his friends died, and his horse, and finally even his dog, and his sword froze so hard the blade snapped when he tried to use it. And the Others smelled the hot blood in him, and came silent on his trail, stalking him with packs of pale white spiders big as hounds—" (AGoT, Bran IV)

Why are the Others and the white walkers scarier here, in Nan's telling of the story, than in their actual appearances in the books?

Context? Snow 100 feet deep, night that lasts for years, people who live their whole lives in darkness. Starvation. We haven't seen much of this kind of extreme hardship yet. So neither the books or the show have had the duration of cold and darkness that Nan conveys.

You did cite the mothers smothering their children. Horrifying and a taboo in all cultures we know of. We have seen broken taboos in the books (notably, cannibalism) but we haven't been given a strong sense of the desperation that led to the acts: the execution of Stannis' men for eating human flesh gets more attention than the hunger that drove them to it.

There is a Ramsay Snow allusion there, in the hunting of the maids through the forests, fwiw. Nan's story probably contains a lot of symbolism and double meaning that could describe human activities in ASOIAF, not just the activities of the ice zombies.

Finishing off with the packs of spiders big as hounds is a nice finishing touch. And there's a cliff hanger - the last hero is alone and without a weapon as the Others smell his blood. What will happen? We do have a cliff hanger, as readers may have noticed that two more books are needed before the series will be completed. (Sorry if that revelation is news to anyone.)

The show can't convey the five senses and internal thoughts the way the books can - tv is just a visual and aural medium. So the books give us Sam's fear, exhaustion, sweat and cold hands as he encounters the White Walker in a way that the show cannot. But his ordeal lasts only a few minutes; a few pages. I think it's Nan's description of the duration of the horrifying situation that really conveys the awful, ominous, scary long night.

P.S. I think it's no coincidence that the last word of her story is "hounds." I think Sandor Clegane is the personification of the Long Night.

[Springwatch]

32 minutes ago, Seams said:

There is a Ramsay Snow allusion there, in the hunting of the maids through the forests, fwiw. Nan's story probably contains a lot of symbolism and double meaning that could describe human activities in ASOIAF, not just the activities of the ice zombies.

The hunting of the maids does stand out a bit. Roose is a bit strange himself, eyes pale like ice, and leeching himself of that hot blood the Others hate so much. I don't if this tells us more about the Boltons or the Others. 

Nan's story is amazing. And grrm is Old Nan - the story teller, creating a sensation without worrying too much about the details. So I have no doubt the Winter will be incredibly severe, and this will make it hard to mesh with the earlier books.

Tolkein did something similar in LOTR  - there were conventional battles with brave knights on beautiful white horses; and then there was a dark and deadly mission through the wastelands of Mordor. Not an easy story structure, but it can work.

[Joey Crows]

9 hours ago, The Fattest Leech said:

I guess I was thinking that we have not seen the Others as a hoard, and we have only seen them strike when they were striked upon first. I know they are the bad guys, but we have not seen their true force. To me that is the scariest. 

Almost like Nan's story. We get little bits between her "needles clacking away", but then we are interrupted for a time and have not had the climax or the finale (obvious with the latter). 

Sorry, apparently the past few days I have not been as articulate as normal, and I was just reading an article that said we had a huge sun flair that messses with people and their emotions, sleep, and thought. So, may the Others take the sun 

 

Gotcha. No worries.

Damn Sun flares  

[The Fattest Leech]

1 hour ago, Joey Crows said:

Gotcha. No worries.

Damn Sun flares  

Well, for me, it seems the entire atmosphere of the telling of the Others is just as important and crucial as the words Old Nan says. Words are wind and Nan likes to exaggerate to scare Bran. I don't think she is lying, but she is not being literal in some elements. I love the idea that Bran prefers scary stories because, one, I think it makes him a more interesting child, but also because his entire arc is a living/active scary story.

If you reread the scene (not saying you have not in anyway), and you look at the small, active clues like the needles clicking (synonymous for sword fighting) and then all of the death, the hunting, and then silence because of an interruption, then Hodor making a bunch of noise as he bangs into the room. So, to me it seems the real monster is still off page for now. We have no idea how he truly operates. We have seen two (?) instances with the Others on page, the prologue and the Sam chapter after the FotFM, but there seems to be a lot readers are assuming (that I hope is not based on the tv abomination). Just a quick example before I have to leave for work; history repeats, but it is never the same, and I wonder if this time around when "the sun hides its face for years" is not actually a reference to the hero of this current story. Someone with a lot of sun symbolism that has been in hiding for a few years now. Also, this time around we have Andal allies and the new representation of the woman who fled across the sea from the Rhoyne. This time around should be much larger than before.

A Game of Thrones - Bran IV

"Oh, my sweet summer child," Old Nan said quietly, "what do you know of fear? Fear is for the winter, my little lord, when the snows fall a hundred feet deep and the ice wind comes howling out of the north. Fear is for the long night, when the sun hides its face for years at a time, and little children are born and live and die all in darkness while the direwolves grow gaunt and hungry, and the white walkers move through the woods."

"You mean the Others," Bran said querulously.

"The Others," Old Nan agreed. "Thousands and thousands of years ago, a winter fell that was cold and hard and endless beyond all memory of man. There came a night that lasted a generation, and kings shivered and died in their castles even as the swineherds in their hovels. Women smothered their children rather than see them starve, and cried, and felt their tears freeze on their cheeks." Her voice and her needles fell silent, and she glanced up at Bran with pale, filmy eyes and asked, "So, child. This is the sort of story you like?"

"Well," Bran said reluctantly, "yes, only …"

Old Nan nodded. "In that darkness, the Others came for the first time," she said as her needles went click click click. "They were cold things, dead things, that hated iron and fire and the touch of the sun, and every creature with hot blood in its veins. They swept over holdfasts and cities and kingdoms, felled heroes and armies by the score, riding their pale dead horses and leading hosts of the slain. All the swords of men could not stay their advance, and even maidens and suckling babes found no pity in them. They hunted the maids through frozen forests, and fed their dead servants on the flesh of human children."

Her voice had dropped very low, almost to a whisper, and Bran found himself leaning forward to listen.

"Now these were the days before the Andals came, and long before the women fled across the narrow sea from the cities of the Rhoyne, and the hundred kingdoms of those times were the kingdoms of the First Men, who had taken these lands from the children of the forest. Yet here and there in the fastness of the woods the children still lived in their wooden cities and hollow hills, and the faces in the trees kept watch. So as cold and death filled the earth, the last hero determined to seek out the children, in the hopes that their ancient magics could win back what the armies of men had lost. He set out into the dead lands with a sword, a horse, a dog, and a dozen companions. For years he searched, until he despaired of ever finding the children of the forest in their secret cities. One by one his friends died, and his horse, and finally even his dog, and his sword froze so hard the blade snapped when he tried to use it. And the Others smelled the hot blood in him, and came silent on his trail, stalking him with packs of pale white spiders big as hounds—"

The door opened with a bang, and Bran's heart leapt up into his mouth in sudden fear, but it was only Maester Luwin, with Hodor looming in the stairway behind him. "Hodor!" the stableboy announced, as was his custom, smiling hugely at them all.

 

However, I could be wrong about this, but it keeps me reading anyway.

 

 

(Oh, and I wasn't kidding about that damned sun! http://www.yourtango.com/2017306433/how-sun-major-x-class-solar-flare-effects-mood-personality-september-2017 )

 

ADDING: Sorry for the passage repeat. I just saw @Seams added it above with good reason.

[Jon Fossoway]

We haven't actually seen much of the Others in 5 books. I'm sure Winds will show us more, and Nan's telling will be remembered just as a small taste.

[Joey Crows]

5 hours ago, Seams said:

It helps to have the passage included in the discussion, I think, if you want people to see what you value in it.

Thanks for that! You're right, I just tend to think of questions and posts at times when I'm half in the bag and not necessarily in the mood to search for the supporting text  

[Julisch]

I think the show managed to really capture the scariness of the White Walkers only twice: first in the prologue, and then at Hardhome, before the wights crash the fences. We don't really see them in either instances, first they are only dark shadows moving through the woods, and at Hardhome it's the dread on the faces of the wildlings that hints at something truly terrifying. As soon as they "receive" bodies, they become half as frightening. 

Similarly, in the books I find them most scary when they lurk in the shadows. Like when Tormund says they are never far behind, and the anxious glances the wildlings throw at the Haunted Forest. 

(Pardon my writing, English is not my first language.)

[Joey Crows]

8 hours ago, Ser Petyr Parker said:

Looks like this is more about GoT than ASoIaF.

I'll admit I was re-watching the 1st season of the show when this thought occurred, but I feel it is very relevant to the story in the books. The passage from Book 1 (as shown above thanks to Seams) is pretty spot on with what Old Nan says in the show. So, in the books we get this ominous set up early on, but as of yet we haven't seen the Others as more than a threat on the periphery. Perhaps in WoW we'll see more of that and the terrors of the Long Night that Old Nan was describing will come once again.

[Lady Blizzardborn]

Old Nan's story is scary as much for what it leaves out as what it tells. How much of the legend is true, versus what's been added over the centuries? How does Old Nan know? Are there going to be ice spiders (because that would seriously freak me out!)? 

It's interesting that you bring this up because GRRM has been quoted as saying that readers should pay less attention to the prophecies and more to Old Nan's stories.

Then of course there's are things that stick in my mind that are NOT from Old Nan's version of events. Bran--who loves scary stories--being scared half to death by whatever is in the Heart of Winter, and whatever that is being the reason he needed to wake up (or was it he needed to fly?). Ned dreaming of a frozen hell reserved for Starks. What's behind the Others?

That last question goes more than one way. How did they come into being? Is someone controlling them? Is there something they are running from? There's so much we don't know. And if the Others are only one level of a triune threat (wights, Others, something else) then what is the final boss in this battle and how can it be defeated? So far we've got wights that can be burned, and Others that can be killed with dragonglass. Whatever dragonsteel is/was/shall be does it kill something else that we haven't seen yet? Is this what the dragons are really going to be good for?

GRRM knows horror, so he knows that what's off page is scariest. He knows that the anticipation of what's coming is crucial, and our not knowing--or in this case maybe the characters not knowing--what's coming amplifies the fear and the stakes. But he also knows that the payoff has to be strong. He won't disappoint us in this.