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Do you consider Dragons to be a greater danger to westeros then the Others?


Ned's Epic Beard

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I think both are dangerous, but both serve different goals in the narrative.

The Others are a threat to humanity in a way a natural catastrophe is. The stories we are told about them are tragic, most of them centered around the situation where people have to kill their own loved ones, like with Tormund, who had to kill his own son when he came back as a wight. The Others symbolise everything that is tragic about death: they are cold, without mercy, they kill each and every one without distinction, anger or emotion. They make every death appear meaningless and without any human sense of purpose. People complain that GRRM doesn't show us enough Others to make them appear as a threat. I think he does the exactly right thing: The people that are attacked by wights are attacked by their own people, like Sam was attacked by Small Paul, who had tried to save his life prior to being killed. This is much more devastating than being attacked by some unknown monster. I also think the Wall is a very important part of this metaphor: People who are excluded from safety are not going to roll over and die meekly, they will come back as wights and kill those who prevented them from crossing into the lands that should offer them protection. The Others represent something inhuman in humanity: indifference, cruelty, mercilessness. It comes down to: "First they kill you, then they send your dead against you." The Others make people lose their humanity in a very literal sense, people who are affected by them are dead to the world, and you cannot fight the dead. Very depressing.

Dragons, on the other hand, are the very incarnation of human emotions. The dragons react to their owner's feelings and mirror them. They are driven by greed, hunger and anger. They attack and destroy, but they are also like pet animals from time to time, eager for approval and love. They, in contrast to the Others, are much more subject of human intervention, their emotions and actions can be moulded by their owners. They can be weapons or instruments of salvation. The dragons are much more ambiguous than the Others. But I also think they are the bigger threat. I believe that in the narrative of ASOIAF, they are going to be the antithesis to the Others at first, but later might appear as the much more destructive force, exactly because they are driven by human emotions and ambitions. They might turn out to cause much more devastating wars and destruction because they are used with good intentions. They are GRRM's ring. Power and violence, even if used for the best of intentions, will ultimately corrupt those behind it. We have seen the corruption followed by Dany's attempts to free the slaves, we have seen Stannis been led to believe the only way to save humanity is to make other human beings die screaming. The dragons symbolise everything that is tragic about human interaction and the desire to do good. Very depressing.

So I don't think this story leads anywhere near salvation in the end, and the bittersweet ending GRRM has promised will be the realization that there is no easy way.

The expectation that Dany will save Westeros with her dragons will hopefully prove as wrong as the heretics' theories that the Others are just misunderstood. I have faith that GRRM is not going to tell a story that presents either an entity that makes you kill your own children or an entity that literally burns and eats children as anything as desirable. "Winter is coming" is much a bad omen as "Fire and Blood" in my opinion. Winter has no king, and the Targaryens are entitled madmen. If this should turn out to be a story about some king or queen with superblood and genetically imprinted saviour qualities I would be surprised. But then again, I was also surprised that the Island was a magically sustained hoard of goodness with a plug in it. So that you can destroy it if you happen to be an evilish evil smoke monster.

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I agree with Fassreiter, they Others and the dragons are two different dangers.

If the Others were controlled by humans they would be more similar to the dragons, but for now I think the Others are a force of nature. They bring devastation much like a volcano erupting or a tsunami.

The Dragons are weapons in the hands of their human rider (or likely will be, if perhaps not at the moment), with all that it brings, the risk of moral corruption and totality of power, besides them burning hundreds or thousands of people if used in war. That is a danger on another level and one I think I would fear more.

It's hard to say which is more dangerous, but generally I fear human evil more than dangers of nature.

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Interesting subject!

Truth be spoken, dragons scare the crap out of me, they're uncontrollable, mindless and wild creatures and it's not known if any living person has any knowledge on how to control them.

Dany is just a girl who knows little about them, not to mention that we still do not know what happened to Valyria if I'm correct (it could have been that dragons simply wiped out everything and that magic which valyrian people used to control them failed).

Then yet, The Others are a huge and scheming army. And remember that time when Melisandre was blabbing about cold creatures that serve the other god, the cold one. So maybe it's some sort of force behind them, something like the arch enemy of R'hllor. Questions man, questions.

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I think for the world the books are set in, dragons seem to be the universal threat for both Westros and Essos, while only the Wildlings take the Others seriously. Everyone south of the Wall treat it as if it's just a myth. But dragons, dragons have been proven to have existed in the past but few believe they exist currently.

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To be honest, I think that the Others are overestimated as a threat. The wights are ridiculously easy to kill if you have enough fire (and wildfire would just obliterate them). The Others themselves seem more dangerous, until you remember that Sam Tarly managed to kill one by stumbling at it with the obsidian shard in hand - imagine what a real warrior armed with obsidian would do to them.

And the wildlings have lived along with the Others for centuries and there are still thousands of them. In fact, I think that the only reason why the Others smashed the NW back at the Fist was because the NW was totally unprepared.

Now, the dragons can be killed too, but the older they become the harder it gets. Right now they're completely out of control but they haven't yet burned Meereen to smoulders and are content to just eat sheep and the occasional human. But if they somehow fall under the control of that magical Valyrian horn, I reckon that Victarion would make a terrifying weapon out of them.

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The white walkers don't like life in any form either and seem to take it without hesitation. We aren't as ignorant as people claim about the White Walkers...their one appearance nearly 8000 years ago is still remembered as the time humanity (not just one people but all peoples) was nearly wiped out. The appropriate reaction to their threat was to build a wall of ice hundreds of feet high that runs across the width of a continent just to be sure they wouldn't come back. You do not build something of that size with that purpose if there is any way to negotiate with the other side. Sorry but you just don't. And I get there is a whole theory that it will turn out that the others are just "misunderstood" (I mean they just take any life they can get their hands on because cause they're cold and not really bad at all) but I think it is crap since nothing we have seen has suggested that the others and the white walkers are anything but walking anti-life.

The dragons are complicated because they are so destructive but they are mortal in a way that the Others/White walkers are not and in the end they are just animals. They are not the nuclear option because even full grown they could not cause that level of damage. They can burn a lot and kill a lot of people but will not vaporize a city in the blink of an eye. And in the end they can be defeated. This is not to say that they don't cause their own problems but between them and the Others, definitely the lesser of the two evils.

I dont believe the White Walkers are misunderstood, I just dont think they are trying to put a end to civilization. How many people have the White Walkers killed in the series that you have witnessed? We've only seen them twice and they are no more vicious than any other family vying for power. The White Walkers are vulnerable in some sense to fire. Dragons breathe fire. Those ice swords will melt by dragon fire. Dragons can also fly and will probably roast many more children on their way to westeros.

If Dany goes all Mad King on us and she has dragons that match her personality than yea, their is nothing more destructive then those dragons. Yes dragons can be trained, but that is theretical because as of today they arent trained. Theoretically White Walkers maybe abled to be warged.

What I mean by red herring is this: GRRM does not like cliche fantasy stories about evil dark lords in the north. He makes fun of authors that do it...So why would he write a story that has evil dark lords in the north? He has said he will avoid that and having one dark, evil force is in complete contradiction to how GRRM writes. He isn't going to do it. Im not saying White Walkers are going to be cute and cuddly. Im saying that if the story turns out that the White Walkers and 7 kingdoms join forces to stop Dany, her foreign army and three dragons from invading westeros dont be surprised.

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