Melifeather

If the wights and white walkers were in front of the wildling hoard, who was herding whom? I think the wildlings know how to create white walkers and have manufactured a threat to convince the Watch to let them through the Wall. It's a brilliant plan, really. Every King Beyond the Wall has tried to lead the wildlings on a mission to get through the Wall. Mance thought of a novel approach. He was raised at the Wall so he knows that the Watch has forgotten who the Others are and that there's a general consensus that wights and white walkers are just grumpkins and snarks - in other words, imaginary monsters from old fairy tales. Mance's relationship with Dalla was probably the key. She must have known or had access to the knowledge of shadow binding. The digging up of graves would produce more than the Horn of Winter. It would facilitate a large army of wights.

My point is that they were behind the white walkers and wights - they followed them down the mountain and past the Fist of the First Men then somehow got in front of them? Don't you find that even a little bit hinky?

Okay. It's still Harma that says that. So I guess I should have said, how does SHE know that the Others should be behind them?

Harma. He's the one that says the Others "should" be behind us. I'm more interested in what people think of the weasel in snow.

A few interesting observations... This first one is after Mance attacked the wall under the turtle shell and was rebuffed. Dalla is in labor and Jon has gone to treat with him. While there a horn blows. Something is coming from the east. It's Stannis, but before they all know who it is Jon asks if it's the Others. This confuses Harma because the wildlings know where the white walkers should be and it isn't in the east. The white walkers drive the wights and the wights are "behind" the wildlings. Whether he means north or west, the main takeaway is that he knows where they are. How does he know this? This is also after the attack at the Fist. After the Nights Watch was attacked by wights the stragglers were then attacked by white walkers. One followed Sam and he killed it and then was intercepted by Coldhands on his elk. After the attack on the Fist the wildling hoard came down the mountain and saw the carnage. The wildling hoard came after the white walkers and wights had already moved through, and now the wildings are in front of them. Very strange if you ask me. The next passage is when Jon is living with the wildlings and they are about to attack Castle Black on the south side of the Wall. The last line is said as something you might say when challenging a few people to a race. You might say, "last one there is a rotten egg!" Jarl said, "the Others take the hindmost!" This has multiple meanings. The first is similar to a "rotten egg" jest, but a second meaning would be that the front climbers are like wights while the ones climbing last are the white walkers bringing up the rear. A third implication is that an actual white walker will "get" or kill a man that straggles behind. And a fourth possible meaning is that the wildings are the Others and are taking the hindmost...they are attacking Castle Black from the rear. This last one is mainly for fun but also applies to the current discussion of Others. It's a reference to Arya who disguised herself as a boy named Weasel and the scalding "weasel soup", both of which are instances where people have been fooled. They were fooled into believing Arya was a boy and they were fooled into letting their guard down so that some of Robb Stark's men could be freed. It might be the author's way of telling us that WE are being fooled about the Others. The Others are a "weasel in the snow". Edited to add: the comment about making a cloak out of Ghost is a direct reference to skinchanging.

Its possible. Just like when Sam referred to the Others as scary childhood stories. Other people on this forum have suggested that the Others were just people back when the Wall was made, but that Bran has created these white walkers to fit the exaggerated descriptions in the stories. In order to make this a valid argument though you'd have to believe that Bran can go back in time and make additions to history.

Samwell Tarly, our knowledge seeking steward, grouped Others with white walkers as well as cold shadows. A Storm of Swords - Samwell I He remembered turning in a circle, lost, the fear growing inside him as it always did. There were dogs barking and horses trumpeting, but the snow muffled the sounds and made them seem far away. Sam could see nothing beyond three yards, not even the torches burning along the low stone wall that ringed the crown of the hill. Could the torches have gone out? That was too scary to think about. The horn blew thrice long, three long blasts means Others. The white walkers of the wood, the cold shadows, the monsters of the tales that made him squeak and tremble as a boy, riding their giant ice-spiders, hungry for blood . . .

If memory serves, Mance spent 13 years gathering support to become King Beyond the Wall. He could have met Dalla when she was too young to marry but cross paths again when she was older.

Not explicitly, but I believe it's implied. The daughter of the old wise woman saw to Mance's wounds and mended his cloak, but she told Mance it was her grandmother that found the red silk - three generations of women healers with a connection to this Asshai silk. Mance does refer to Dalla as a wise woman. Whenever she is nearby when Jon and Mance are talking she doesn't hesitate to offer her opinion on the matter. There is some symbolism to Dalla giving birth on the slope of a mountain during battle and then also dying of childbirth. It mirrors a character from the Wheel of Time series written by Robert Jordan - a man that GRRM has nodded to by inserting Archmaester Rigney as saying that history is a wheel. (AFFC The Kraken's Daughter). Rigney was Robert Jordan's surname at birth. In the Wheel of Time series, Rand al'Thor, the Dragon Reborn, was born on the slopes of Dragonmount during the Battle of the Shining Walls, at the end of the Aiel War, with his mother dying in childbirth. Here are the supporting passages for Dalla as being the wise woman's daughter: A Storm of Swords - Jon I "A cloak?" "The black wool cloak of a Sworn Brother of the Night's Watch," said the King-beyond-the-Wall. "One day on a ranging we brought down a fine big elk. We were skinning it when the smell of blood drew a shadow-cat out of its lair. I drove it off, but not before it shredded my cloak to ribbons. Do you see? Here, here, and here?" He chuckled. "It shredded my arm and back as well, and I bled worse than the elk. My brothers feared I might die before they got me back to Maester Mullin at the Shadow Tower, so they carried me to a wildling village where we knew an old wisewoman did some healing. She was dead, as it happened, but her daughter saw to me. Cleaned my wounds, sewed me up, and fed me porridge and potions until I was strong enough to ride again. And she sewed up the rents in my cloak as well, with some scarlet silk from Asshai that her grandmother had pulled from the wreck of a cog washed up on the Frozen Shore. It was the greatest treasure she had, and her gift to me." He swept the cloak back over his shoulders. "But at the Shadow Tower, I was given a new wool cloak from stores, black and black, and trimmed with black, to go with my black breeches and black boots, my black doublet and black mail. The new cloak had no frays nor rips nor tears . . . and most of all, no red. The men of the Night's Watch dressed in black, Ser Denys Mallister reminded me sternly, as if I had forgotten. My old cloak was fit for burning now, he said. "I left the next morning . . . for a place where a kiss was not a crime, and a man could wear any cloak he chose." He closed the clasp and sat back down again. "And you, Jon Snow?" A Storm of Swords - Jon I "The wildling blood is the blood of the First Men, the same blood that flows in the veins of the Starks. As to a crown, do you see one?" "I see a woman." He glanced at Dalla. Mance took her by the hand and pulled her close. "My lady is blameless. I met her on my return from your father's castle. The Halfhand was carved of old oak, but I am made of flesh, and I have a great fondness for the charms of women . . . which makes me no different from three-quarters of the Watch. There are men still wearing black who have had ten times as many women as this poor king. You must guess again, Jon Snow." A Storm of Swords - Jon X "But once the Wall is fallen," Dalla said, "what will stop the Others?" Mance gave her a fond smile. "It's a wise woman I've found. A true queen." He turned back to Jon. "Go back and tell them to open their gate and let us pass. If they do, I will give them the horn, and the Wall will stand until the end of days."

The author has said that the obsidian broke the spell holding it together which implies that the white walker was created using magic. Fire consumes and ice preserves. The shadow that Melisandre drew from Stannis eventually dissipated like mist. It was consumed. So the white walker got to keep its white shadow form because it was preserved, but after being pierced with obsidian it too dissipated into mist.

Old Nan said that during the darkness of the Long Night the Others came for the first time. A couple important distinctions: the Long Night occurred first, then the Others came for the first time. I just want to string a few ideas together that now seem like puzzle pieces fitting together. I theorize that a shadowbinder came to the north during the Long Night and that Dalla and Val's grandmother may be descendants of this ancient shadowbinder. The scarlet red silk she possessed being our clue. Mance relayed the story that she "pulled it" from a washed up cog on the Frozen Shore. How long had that shipwreck been there? Could it have been just sitting there frozen like the Endurance, the famous Antarctic ship of Sir Ernest Shackleton? What I'm proposing is that the Others that Old Nan is referring to may have been shadowbinders who came for the first time during the darkness of the Long Night. Shadowbinders are priestesses of the Lord of Light. If the planet had been struck by a meteor and the impact caused a great darkness, then surely believers in a Lord of Light would want to go out in search of what caused this darkness. Did they find the meteor? Did they create white walkers in order to carry out their mission? Or were the white walkers an abuse of their power?

I think we could describe shadowbabies as being inhuman as well as half-human. A person that knows how to create such things could be an Other. Val may turn out to be an Other. She seems to be a type of priestess of ice.

The tower of joy does have a name though. I believe it's Maegor's Holdfast, but I'm probably alone in this belief.

Old Nan is describing a connection existing between the wildlings and the Others. She said the wildings lay with the Others to sire terrible half-human children. Well isn't this what Melisandre does with Stannis? They lay together and sire half-human shadowbabies. Using Old Nan's verbiage then Melisandre is an Other.

I use capitals for Children or CofF when I post so that you know that I'm referring to those of the Forest and caves and not young children. I'm more of a stickler with tower of joy because in my mind it is not the name of the location. It's a nickname, and I have a different understanding of which tower it is referring to. So much of this story is how the reader understands the words they are reading because we are all influenced by our personal experiences and may not realize it. Didn't or doesn't the court and/or the nobles have a way of speaking that is sort of cryptic? Especially those playing the game of thrones. Being good at the game requires a certain cunning or quickness of mind.