I don't care for the Zombie Apocalypse.

[Tyrion1991]

Just generally, I really do not like zombies or undead in High Fantasy. They're automata. They're dull. We have seen them in countless films and popular TV shows. Even generic enemies like orcs or daemons, have a lot more personality and variety to them. Uruk Hai for example, or Warhammer Orks are very similar but you can infuse a lot of character and variety into them. Uruks are engineered and have cast iron armor to represent the industry of Sauron. Whilst Warhammer Orcs have that mad max vibe. But reading or watching the zombies is basically exactly the same as the Walking Dead or any other zombie film I have ever seen. I don't have that "wow they're cool" reaction that I get with other Orcs and Daemons in other fantasy settings. 

More specifically, there is a major disconnect between one of the main themes of the novel and what I as the reader enjoy about the novel. I am absolutely enthralled and fascinated by the Game of Thrones. But, they keep telling me that none of that is important and that I should focus on the generic zombies that are going to kill everybody. Plus, once winter does come and we get the apocalypse, all of the politics will end and the story becomes a very basic question of survival.

Which would be fine if Ice and Fire was like other fantasy novels. Take the Wheel of Time. Our heroes in that spend a lot of time fighting the proxies of the Darkness and his agents. So the enemy is well built up and described to us. We understand what they are all about. Theres character, mythos and lore which makes you feel engaged and involved in this looming threat throughout the story. However only a few characters are even aware of this threat and even those which are, have barely been involved and we know almost nothing about them. This is because GRRM is approaching the Others as a writer of Horror would. They are these mysterious and monstrous thing. Now, firstly I do not care for horror at all as a genre. But secondly, this does little to distinguish the zombies from those of the Walking Dead. I don't really care if I am scared or don't understand these things and I am just a lot more interested in all the politics stuff. About which most of the series material has been selling to me. 

Plus GRRM has avoided explaining the metaphysical elements of his world, this makes the conflict with the Others not make a lot of sense thematically. Obviously Tolkein its a battle between light and shadow. In Wheel of Time its about restoring balance by sealing away the shadow. In the Stormlight Archives, we are slowly fed more and more information about the world until we start to get a clearer understanding of what this conflict is about. The last is probably the best example of retaining that sense of mystery without just being obscure and cryptic as to what is going on. For example Dany getting the Dragons is never explained and comes across as a simple plot gift. If every widow could wake dragons from stone we would be infested with them. Instead GRRM gives a lot of contradictory information, prophecies and ultimately doesn't give the answer. I could say that "oh she is clearly Azor Ahai and Rhollor has made her his bride of fire"; but then there will be half a dozen other things suggesting otherwise and implying it was just a normal blood sacrifice and sheer coincidence. To me this makes the magic feel more like a plot device rather than an organic and developed part of the story. I understand what Kaladin can and cannot do. I do not know what Melisandre can do despite her being in three novels. Plus powers are introduced and then forgotten about. Shadow baby to kill people. Uses it once to get Stannis to Blackwater and never used again coz reasons. Can kill people to make ships move fast. Great. Doesn't use this to ferry Stannis army out of the frozen north who instead march through a blizzard. Basically GRRM uses magic purely as a plot device and because he does not explain any of this it means it all feels very forced and arbitrary. Since the Others are the most magical faction this means I am really not interested in seeing them take centre stage and start throwing around powers we have never heard of and then get forgotten about when they would be irrelevant.

Spoiler

 

 

Also, zombies in a medieval fantasy setting are too powerful, especially since GRRM is being realistic and the winter is killing everyone anyway. They also lack many of the traditional counters to zombies in High Fantasy. For example in Warhammer Fantasy, kill the Vampire and this breaks the enchantment animating the dead. You also have destruction magic and other ways of enhancing your own troops. Plus, stuff like the wall of pikemen holding the horde works in High Fantasy, but realistically this wouldn't happen. Pretty much every battle with the Zombies should play out like the First Men. In fact GRRM makes them even stronger by having them immune to normal weapons and making winter storms negating their weakness to fire. In Warhammer, a knight can still kill a zombie with a sword. Basically GRRM has made the Others impossible to beat and this to me isn't interesting because anyone can make a magical opponent which can't be beaten. Which means all the fighting will be one sided and not interesting. Why do I want to watch super zombies stomp all the interesting and cool factions in one sided battles where most of the army freezes to death because they have an over powered winter aura which can't be countered? That's just what they have shown us. Never mind stuff like magic, the Other themselves. They can probably kill dragons as well.

Spoiler

 

 

But specifically, I really want to see Dany play the Game of Thrones. That, for me, is the thing I want to read about and watch unfold. I have absolutely zero interest in dragons versus zombies. Its a complete waste of a story arc and I have no investment in seeing Dany do that. Her arc has had nothing, aside from a few cryptic and bizarre visions and vague insinuations she is Azor Ahai, to do with the zombies. So I really don't like the notion that most of Dany's Westeros arc will revolve around the War against the Others. I have invested in watching her try to retake the throne. I do not care about zombie apocalypse and have been given no incentive to care about zombie apocalypse. 

So why does GRRM want his finale to involve a zombie apocalypse like World War Z?

[falcotron]

It's interesting that you specifically mention The Walking Dead and World War Z.

TWD is interesting when it's about how the people try to retain or rebuild civilization, rather than when it's about how they fight zombies. The comic managed to build on that for a few years, using zombie fights just to put pressure on people, before it started to get repetitive. The TV show instead started swinging back and forth and I got bored in season 2.

WWZ is interesting because you get to see how all the different countries deal with the same problem in different ways. The movie only vaguely gestured in that direction, so it wasn't nearly as interesting as the book.

So far, GRRM has used his zombies to light a slow-burning fire under some of the factions (first Mance, then Jon, then Stannis…), which I think has made things more interesting. I don't know if he can keep that up when it turns into the actual Battle for the Dawn, but I definitely don't know that he can't do it, and I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt. I'm far more worried that he'll never finish the series than that he'll finish it badly.

But of course it's possible that ASoIaF isn't for you. It's an odd mix of epic fantasy, horror-infused weird fantasy, and what's now sometimes called "grimdark fantasy" (where people rip off the first three books of this series). If you're only here for the grimdark, you're probably going to be disappointed—and, since none of GRRM's imitators (except maybe the ones who moved things to a modern setting) have done it nearly as well as ACoK, it'll be even more disappointing.

[Ghost+Nymeria4Eva]

That is a serious case of zombie obsession. The zombies, or the wights actually, in the books are not the main threat. The White Walkers are. They are not zombies. Also, the wights in the book are not exactly as what you see in countless movies and TV shows. The wights are clearly reanimated by ice magic, and they can be killed by fire. The Others are not an invincible foe either. They are terribly vulnerable to fire and "frozen fire," Valyrian steel. So the ground here is even. The problem is that humans seem to have forgotten all about magic and the Long Night. Lord Commander Mormont in the first book even says that. We should have remembered. The Long Night has come before. 

I agree with you that GRRM is keeping most of the magic stuff too mysterious. We are into five books and we only know a little bit more about WW that we did in the first chapter of GoT. It could be that the story is not unfolding as fast as it should. GRRM planned a trilogy but now we are into the fifth book, so the pacing is definitely not going as planned. 

On the other hand, GRRM also has a lot of lore and mythos packed into the story that is just as engaging in my opinion. The problem is he's not going to explain it all clearly. He has said that there is no Hogwarts style magic here, where there's a formula to get an intended result. Some of the stuff, like why Dany got her dragons, may never be explained.  That can be really frustrating. 

The showdown with the WW is more than about zombies. I highly doubt we are going to see show Hardholm type thing here, which was clearly inspired by other material and not the stuff in the books. There are gods involved, weird shadow magic, and that place, The Shadow, that everyone hears about but has never been to. So there are dozens of mythos stuff GRRM has yet to explain and he has only so far begun to get around it. We can definitely be assured that this is not going to be zombie apocalypse a la World War Z. The movie was stupid and I haven't read the books, but the blurbs sound quite narrow minded. GRRM hates those Hollywood predicable type things, so I have faith that he'll do something unique with the remaining two books. 

Dany's role in the story is much more than being a queen like Cersei and taking part in court intrigues. She could be a child of prophesy but the Undying describe her as the "child of three." We don't know what that means yet. There's also Arya and Jon, who are caught up in their own intriguing stories. Then there's Bran, which is probably the perspective we get to see into the past and understand what happened in the past. Tyrion is also a major character (one of the main five) but he will probably be involved with more mundane affairs. 

Dany is the "bride of fire" but she is also the "slayer of lies." If she's your fav character, then you will probably like what she's going to face off in that segment of the prophesy. 

[Tyrion1991]

30 minutes ago, falcotron said:

It's interesting that you specifically mention The Walking Dead and World War Z.

TWD is interesting when it's about how the people try to retain or rebuild civilization, rather than when it's about how they fight zombies. The comic managed to build on that for a few years, using zombie fights just to put pressure on people, before it started to get repetitive. The TV show instead started swinging back and forth and I got bored in season 2.

WWZ is interesting because you get to see how all the different countries deal with the same problem in different ways. The movie only vaguely gestured in that direction, so it wasn't nearly as interesting as the book.

So far, GRRM has used his zombies to light a slow-burning fire under some of the factions (first Mance, then Jon, then Stannis…), which I think has made things more interesting. I don't know if he can keep that up when it turns into the actual Battle for the Dawn, but I definitely don't know that he can't do it, and I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt. I'm far more worried that he'll never finish the series than that he'll finish it badly.

But of course it's possible that ASoIaF isn't for you. It's an odd mix of epic fantasy, horror-infused weird fantasy, and what's now sometimes called "grimdark fantasy" (where people rip off the first three books of this series). If you're only here for the grimdark, you're probably going to be disappointed—and, since none of GRRM's imitators (except maybe the ones who moved things to a modern setting) have done it nearly as well as ACoK, it'll be even more disappointing.

 

I've read all the Wheel of Time books and I play D&D, I love my epic High Fantasy.

I just don't care for zombies in general. They lack character. Your characters can't interact with them. They are automata rather than the embodiment of an idea or concept (Tolkein Orcs=Corruption) They just exist to be this problem.

In addition GRRM descriptions of wars have relied on giving a fair and realistic depiction of combat. That goes out the window when he makes one faction over powered and have all the advantages whilst making the good guys have to live by the real world rules. 

Plus I prefer when the magic is part of the world building and explained to me. Stormlight Archives for example. You start off oblivious but you slowly clock whats going on and I thought it was quite well done. I feel totally oblivious about whats going on with the magic in this series. 

[Tyrion1991]

9 minutes ago, Ghost+Nymeria4Eva said:

That is a serious case of zombie obsession. The zombies, or the wights actually, in the books are not the main threat. The White Walkers are. They are not zombies. Also, the wights in the book are not exactly as what you see in countless movies and TV shows. The wights are clearly reanimated by ice magic, and they can be killed by fire. The Others are not an invincible foe either. They are terribly vulnerable to fire and "frozen fire," Valyrian steel. So the ground here is even. The problem is that humans seem to have forgotten all about magic and the Long Night. Lord Commander Mormont in the first book even says that. We should have remembered. The Long Night has come before. 

I agree with you that GRRM is keeping most of the magic stuff too mysterious. We are into five books and we only know a little bit more about WW that we did in the first chapter of GoT. It could be that the story is not unfolding as fast as it should. GRRM planned a trilogy but now we are into the fifth book, so the pacing is definitely not going as planned. 

On the other hand, GRRM also has a lot of lore and mythos packed into the story that is just as engaging in my opinion. The problem is he's not going to explain it all clearly. He has said that there is no Hogwarts style magic here, where there's a formula to get an intended result. Some of the stuff, like why Dany got her dragons, may never be explained.  That can be really frustrating. 

The showdown with the WW is more than about zombies. I highly doubt we are going to see show Hardholm type thing here, which was clearly inspired by other material and not the stuff in the books. There are gods involved, weird shadow magic, and that place, The Shadow, that everyone hears about but has never been to. So there are dozens of mythos stuff GRRM has yet to explain and he has only so far begun to get around it. We can definitely be assured that this is not going to be zombie apocalypse a la World War Z. The movie was stupid and I haven't read the books, but the blurbs sound quite narrow minded. GRRM hates those Hollywood predicable type things, so I have faith that he'll do something unique with the remaining two books. 

Dany's role in the story is much more than being a queen like Cersei and taking part in court intrigues. She could be a child of prophesy but the Undying describe her as the "child of three." We don't know what that means yet. There's also Arya and Jon, who are caught up in their own intriguing stories. Then there's Bran, which is probably the perspective we get to see into the past and understand what happened in the past. Tyrion is also a major character (one of the main five) but he will probably be involved with more mundane affairs. 

Dany is the "bride of fire" but she is also the "slayer of lies." If she's your fav character, then you will probably like what she's going to face off in that segment of the prophesy. 

 

That's like saying in Lord of the Rings that the Nazgul were the main enemy during the Battle of Pellanor Fields. The most noticeable feature of this foe is its use of reanimated undead. The fact that it involves ice magic doesn't matter. A reanimated corpse with flesh on it is a zombie. 

Valyrian Steel can't be made anymore. Fires can't be used during a Siberian winter. If Valyria still stood and had a few thousand dragons then yes, they probably could be beat; but not by these guys. So its not a weakness if people can't exploit it. Our heroes can't do anything about the weather.

GRRM has done a great job in all of his battles of depicting his battles as realistic, fair, believable and avoiding the "one hero kills a dozen men by himself" or "the bold charge of cavalry swept through the enemy host" and everything is all very well explained. It all quite believable and fair. But with the War for the Dawn, we have one side who is playing that rulebook and the other that is going full Wheel of Time on them. That doesn't seem very fair at all. One faction has superhuman abilities and can ignore all of the practical concerns like food, water, warmth and politics; whilst the good guys very much have to. 

They are very much an over powered faction. 

 

 

[Ghost+Nymeria4Eva]

6 minutes ago, Tyrion1991 said:

That's like saying in Lord of the Rings that the Nazgul were the main enemy during the Battle of Pellanor Fields. The most noticeable feature of this foe is its use of reanimated undead. The fact that it involves ice magic doesn't matter. A reanimated corpse with flesh on it is a zombie. 

What do you mean? WW don't really need the wights. In GoT prologue, they kill Waymar Royce with weird, mirror like swords. A wight army is the least of problems for humans. That WW use ice magic matters a lot because fire magic sort of counters it. Hence a song of ice and fire. 

9 minutes ago, Tyrion1991 said:

Valyrian Steel can't be made anymore. Fires can't be used during a Siberian winter. If Valyria still stood and had a few thousand dragons then yes, they probably could be beat; but not by these guys. So its not a weakness if people can't exploit it. Our heroes can't do anything about the weather.

They still have Valyrian steel weapons. But in any case, what people need are obsidian weapons, like the obsidian arrows the Children have. You are ruling out what fire magic can do here. 

11 minutes ago, Tyrion1991 said:

But with the War for the Dawn, we have one side who is playing that rulebook and the other that is going full Wheel of Time on them. That doesn't seem very fair at all. One faction has superhuman abilities and can ignore all of the practical concerns like food, water, warmth and politics; whilst the good guys very much have to. 

They are very much an over powered faction. 

We don't know if white walkers can live without food or water. They are living things still. While humans have forgotten history for now, not everyone has. The remaining children, the greenseers and the weirwoods know what happened and what to do. The visions Dany gets also points towards her destiny of fighting an army of ice. She dreams about it. 

Also, the humans may not be the "good" guys in the conventional sense. The humans may make a pact with WW as the Night's King supposedly did in the past. GRRM is not going for the typical fantasy tropes of the LOTR style here, if what he has said in interviews is any indication. 

[falcotron]

1 minute ago, Ghost+Nymeria4Eva said:

Also, the humans may not be the "good" guys in the conventional sense. The humans may make a pact with WW as the Night's King supposedly did in the past.

The humans ended things last time by defeating the Others and making them flee, not by making a pact with them:

Quote

Alone [the last hero] finally reached the children, despite the efforts of the white walkers, and all the tales agree this was a turning point. Thanks to the children, the first men of the Night’s Watch banded together and were able to fight—and win—the Battle for the Dawn: the last battle that broke the endless winter and sent the Others fleeing to the icy north.

Night's King came later. He may have been trying to make a pact with the Others and bring them back to use against the other humans or something, but whatever he was attempting didn't come to fruition, because the King of Winter and King Beyond the Wall teamed up to defeat him. And whatever he was doing was not the end of the Battle for the Dawn.

[Tyrion1991]

37 minutes ago, Ghost+Nymeria4Eva said:

What do you mean? WW don't really need the wights. In GoT prologue, they kill Waymar Royce with weird, mirror like swords. A wight army is the least of problems for humans. That WW use ice magic matters a lot because fire magic sort of counters it. Hence a song of ice and fire. 

They still have Valyrian steel weapons. But in any case, what people need are obsidian weapons, like the obsidian arrows the Children have. You are ruling out what fire magic can do here. 

We don't know if white walkers can live without food or water. They are living things still. While humans have forgotten history for now, not everyone has. The remaining children, the greenseers and the weirwoods know what happened and what to do. The visions Dany gets also points towards her destiny of fighting an army of ice. She dreams about it. 

Also, the humans may not be the "good" guys in the conventional sense. The humans may make a pact with WW as the Night's King supposedly did in the past. GRRM is not going for the typical fantasy tropes of the LOTR style here, if what he has said in interviews is any indication. 

 

As in theres not a lot of them. Wights make up the bulk of their force. Hence its main characteristic is a zombie horde.

They have a handful of Valyrian Steel Weapons. They do not have a lot of dragonglass and in winter will not be able to ship it to their men. Again a practical concern which the Others are not limited by. Realistically I would question how they can move a shambling horde of zombies through hundred foot snow and gale force blizzards. How can the zombies even see through the blizzard? Or, why they aren't decomposing or being eaten by various parasites and rodents as they advance. One side is being forced to play by the rules and the other flat out ignores them. That is what makes the Others broken and over powered.

Lets say its Warhammer Fantasy. Empire versus Vampire Counts. I know that the Empires troops are better man for man to compensate for numbers. Not true in Westeros. I know that their weapons can harm undead. Not true in Westeros. I know that the Empire has sorcerers who can use destruction magic. Not true in Westeros. The Empire has stuff like cannons for a tech advantage. Not true in Westeros. The Empire can kill the Vampires and go for an instawin. Not true in Westeros.

See this isn't GRRM being realistic or subverting tropes. This is him giving one faction all of their high fantasy advantages and stripping the other of theirs. That's not realistic and its basically just an unfair setup. The Others should play by the same rules as any other faction. How is sorcery a sword with no hilt, but the Others have absolute command over magic? Clear double standard. Why haven't the Other made any mistakes or misjudgements based on the fog of war? Why are they not beset by infighting and factionalism? Because they are over-powered. If they are over powered then our heroes don't stand a chance and the only they have lost is because the game has been rigged by the author; has nothing to do with the decisions of our characters.

 

 

We only have two books. GRRM does not have enough time to introduce destruction magic and shadowmen into his world. I think Ashai is simply the distant source of fire magic and we aren't going to see too much of this. 

 

 

 

[Dorian Martell's son]

2 hours ago, Tyrion1991 said:

-

so why the hell are you here on a forum discussing the endgame of the ultimate antagonist in a series that featured the things you hate in the very first chapter of the first book in what is going to be a 7 book series that will culminate in something you loathe so much
Also, mentioning the thing that cannot be mentioned is a banable offence in these parts 

 

[Tyrion1991]

25 minutes ago, Dorian Martell's son said:

so why the hell are you here on a forum discussing the endgame of the ultimate antagonist in a series that featured the things you hate in the very first chapter of the first book in what is going to be a 7 book series that will culminate in something you loathe so much
Also, mentioning the thing that cannot be mentioned is a banable offence in these parts 

 

 

I was introduced to the series because a mate told me "Theres this character on the show you'll like. Shes got the blood of the dragon. Shes like Dovahkiin." Which is why I started watching the TV show and reading the books. If he had tried to sell me on: "yeah, these rangers wander into a forest and some zombies kill them", I would have ignored it. Zombies are boring. Dragon Queens aren't.

 

Even in spoilers tags?

[The Fattest Leech]

 

6 minutes ago, Tyrion1991 said:

Even in spoilers tags?

Yes, even in spoiler tags because that which shall not be named is in no way shape or form canon. 

As per the pinned topic on the main page:

 

[Lucius Lovejoy]

@Tyrion1991 I mostly agree with you, I find the Army of the Dead a bit boring and overpowered, and I worry Daenerys will be the same if she ever can control her dragons and get to Westeros.  I'm holding out hope that the Others are shaped out a little better and presented as having complex motives, tactics, and vulnerabilities in the future books (provided there are future books, which there likely won't be).  We still really haven't seen all that much of them or learned that much about them, so they could still be worthwhile.  I am more invested in what happens to each character I like than "who wins" so I would continue to read on even if the worst comes to pass.

[kissdbyfire]

2 hours ago, Ghost+Nymeria4Eva said:

The Others are not an invincible foe either. They are terribly vulnerable to fire and "frozen fire," Valyrian steel.

The WWs are not "incredibly vulnerable to fire", that's the wights. And frozen fire is obsidian, not VS. 

2 hours ago, Ghost+Nymeria4Eva said:

I highly doubt we are going to see show Hardholm type thing here, which was clearly inspired by other material and not the stuff in the books.

Inspired?

And btw, no show discussion here.

 

[40 Thousand Skeletons]

@Tyrion1991

As other people said, you are not allowed to mention show stuff even in spoiler tags, so take all show stuff out of your OP or the thread will definitely be locked or deleted.

While I would agree with you about most of the zombie thing, I don't think the story is headed where you think it is at all. Firstly, the enemies are not the zombies. The enemies are the Others, who use zombies as a weapon. So if you were going to compare it to The Walking Dead (which is basically a story about zombies vs humans-who-are-the-stupidest-people-ever-fighting-zombies vs other-equally-stupid-humans), there would have to be some character in TWD that was controlling all the zombies, which there isn't.

I recommend reading other stories by GRRM to get a better sense of how he writes endings, which we obviously don't have yet for asoiaf. Personally, I think it is pretty clear that the Others are not some sort of ultimate evil (unlike Sauron or Morgoth). War is the ultimate evil. The Others are just another faction of humans, albeit mutated humans who live underground (very similar to the COTF in that sense). And these mutated humans have some form of powerful skinchanging abilities just like other characters, except their specific power is the ability to skinchange dead bodies. I give it a 99% chance that the humans and the Others (aka the other humans) will make peace at the end, and so politics and the "game of thrones" element of the story will remain the overriding theme. I certainly don't think GRRM is writing a story that will end in a genocide against the Others. That would be super weird for him to do. Or if it does end in genocide, at a minimum it would be portrayed as a tragedy and an act of evil, sort of like the plot of Men of Greywater Station. But GRRM has said the ending to asoiaf would be "bittersweet" and that story basically just ends in a horrible tragedy.

Would you say that the whole Wot5K was pointless because Dany is expected to just sweep in with her dragons and conquer the 7 Kingdoms? No, of course not. The Wot5K set up the entire situation for fAegon and Dany to come into play. And I think a similar context will apply to the fight against the Others.

ETA: Also, regarding magic appearing to be a convenient plot device, I think it only looks that way on the surface. I think nefarious actors are actually manipulating events, such as the hatching of Dany's dragons, in order to cause a war between humans and Others, and all prophecies are basically bullshit. So basically I would agree with your opinions here if the story was actually as it appeared at face value, but that isn't really how GRRM writes.  

[Lady Blizzardborn]

OP, I think you're confused about a few things. You think the Others have an unfair advantage because the author wants you to think that. He wants the readers to worry about whether the humans actually stand a chance. The stakes have to be high or no one will care about the outcome. But...he's also given us plenty of hints that the humans are probably going to win in the end. You seem to have missed a lot of the hints, and admittedly some are very well buried, but they are there. Of course he's not going to spell everything out for us, that would be boring. 

The Others do not have total command of magic. They have one type of magic that they do really well. They're specialists in ice magic. They don't have any control over fire magic or green/earth magic.

Humans have access to both fire magic and green magic, which actually gives them an advantage. Humans have access to dragons. Humans have magical blood, and magical swords and other magical weapons as well. It's not going to be 47-0 blowout with the Others winning.

The "handful" of Valyrian Steel items is larger than you'd think (assuming VS comes into it at all)--there are more than just the named Westerosi swords, and since we've got at least one character who knows how to rework VS, they can all be melted down into smaller weapons so there are more to go around.

We already know that obsidian kills the Others. We also know that dragonsteel kills them, and while Jon and Sam suspect that it means VS they could be wrong. Could VS kill the Others? Sure, but that doesn't mean it's the dragonsteel we're looking for. If dragonsteel is not VS, then it's a third type of weapon that can be used against the Others.

Wights seeing through blizzards bothers you? They're controlled by magic. I don't think there's any big problem if they can't see. They're not rotting because, as Maester Aemon said, "cold preserves." They will be moving in a veritable cloud of cold as winter sets in and the Others add to it. There's no rotting involved. 

As to the hundred foot snows, we haven't seen any. It could well be an exaggeration. But again, magically reanimated dead are probably not stopped by the same things that would stop a still-breathing human.

5 hours ago, falcotron said:

The humans ended things last time by defeating the Others and making them flee, not by making a pact with them:

Night's King came later. He may have been trying to make a pact with the Others and bring them back to use against the other humans or something, but whatever he was attempting didn't come to fruition, because the King of Winter and King Beyond the Wall teamed up to defeat him. And whatever he was doing was not the end of the Battle for the Dawn.

According to the "official" accounts that were written hundreds if not thousands of years later, it was a beat-down and banishing. Doesn't mean it's true. Most wars end with some kind of peace treaty, and it usually involves the loser having to back off. There could have been a peace treaty or pact that we don't know about. Regardless, there could be a peace treaty this time...assuming that the Others don't have to be completely exterminated. It could end with humans and Others fighting together against something even worse. 

Very true about NK. We don't know what was up with him.

[falcotron]

7 minutes ago, Lady Blizzardborn said:

Regardless, there could be a peace treaty this time...assuming that the Others don't have to be completely exterminated.

Sure, but so many fans dismiss the possibility of just driving them into hiding for 8000 years. That's what we're actually told happened last time, and there's no reason it couldn't happen this time.

Narratively, it wouldn't be an anti-climax. Cyclical stories are not anticlimactic, and the story ending with our damaged characters needing to reform the Watch and Bran needing to become the new three-eyed crown to stand watch would be thematically appropriate.

And in-universe, it would hardly be considered a failure. It was considered a great victory last time. Because nobody's ever said, "Oh no, we only have 8000 years to prepare!" about anything. 8000 years is a very, very long time.

And consider that, while Westerosi development does seem a little slow compared to the real world, 8000 years was enough time to get from the high bronze age to the medieval era, so in another 8000 years? The subsapient defense AI will probably have sent a couple drones to drop some antimatter on the Lands of Always Winter and Battle for the Dawn 3.0 will be over before the Prime Minister even hears about it.

[Springwatch]

Jon began to study the wights before he was killed - this hints that wights may be more complex than the standard zombie. One option is suggested by Bran's warging of Hodor - the spirit stays in the body, but at a lower level, without any control of the body. In that case, the wights need freeing from the magic that controls them - which is neat, because it joins the anti-slavery storyline of Dany with the ice storyline of Jon.

14 hours ago, Tyrion1991 said:

... I prefer when the magic is part of the world building and explained to me. Stormlight Archives for example. You start off oblivious but you slowly clock whats going on and I thought it was quite well done. I feel totally oblivious about whats going on with the magic in this series. 

Me too. I like best of all a precise magic system, and a story with a history and culture that naturally flows from that. Hardly ever happens, though. GRRM is fairer than most authors - he's made it absolutely clear that magic is in a state of flux, and poorly understood besides.

(I've not read Stormlight Archives, but it sounds good from the description.)

[Sigella]

13 hours ago, Tyrion1991 said:

 

I was introduced to the series because a mate told me "Theres this character on the show you'll like. Shes got the blood of the dragon. Shes like Dovahkiin." Which is why I started watching the TV show and reading the books. If he had tried to sell me on: "yeah, these rangers wander into a forest and some zombies kill them", I would have ignored it. Zombies are boring. Dragon Queens aren't.

 

Even in spoilers tags?

Im wondering if you realise that you are criticising this series on account of it not being like the other fantasy you like?  

Its an extremely self-centred (almost delusional) approach.

I don't see anyone giving a flying fuck about your Stormlight Archives.

You are a whiny little hipster dork. Go play with your frecking warhammers and dream about a world where you are a Q, because that is the only universe things are gonna be the way you like them.

No offence.

[Dorian Martell's son]

16 hours ago, Tyrion1991 said:

I was introduced to the series because a mate told me "Theres this character on the show you'll like. Shes got the blood of the dragon. Shes like Dovahkiin." Which is why I started watching the TV show and reading the books. If he had tried to sell me on: "yeah, these rangers wander into a forest and some zombies kill them", I would have ignored it. Zombies are boring. Dragon Queens aren't.

So much of Skyrim was lifted directly from ASOIAF

16 hours ago, Tyrion1991 said:

Even in spoilers tags?

Yes. The moderators can be  vengeful. Beware you don't cross their path, leaving them angry at your transgression, for they can erase you from these forums 

[Dorian Martell's son]

2 hours ago, Sigella said:

No offence.

you are a woman after my own heart