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The Others and treason


Nucky Thompson

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There was a recent thread about whether Waymar Royce's modus operandi in the Game of Thrones prologue was consistent or not with his task at hand. However, it led me to a bigger question: the Others and their attitude towards men. We are being told and shown that they are, essentially, unstoppable (by conventional means) when encountering humans. Yet, they let Gareth continue merrily on his way south and don't kill him. There are two possibilities here - that they simply didn't notice him (which methinks is unlikely given their supernatural abilities), or that they let him go intentionally. Now, why would they do that? They had just killed a Wildling lot, and two men of the Night's Watch. Why is the third one special?

I think that a possible explanation is what he did before they left him alive: he had considered a mutiny against his commander (Royce), and discarded the idea:

Gared’s hood shadowed his face, but Will could see the hard glitter in his eyes as he stared at the knight. For a moment he was afraid the older man would go for his sword. It was a short, ugly thing, its grip discolored by sweat, its edge nicked from hard use, but Will would not have given an iron bob for the lordling’s life if Gared pulled it from its scabbard.
Finally Gared looked down. “No fire,” he muttered, low under his breath.

That is what ultimately saved Gared's live - he acted honourably. Unlike Will, who did precisely the opposite:

Will had to call out. It was his duty. And his death, if he did. He shivered, and hugged the tree, and kept the silence.

He knew his duty, and chose to abandon his commander in time of utmost peril. And here is the next part of my hypothesis: the manner of death. I think that the Others killed Will through unWaymar - and not directly - in order to punish him for his disobedience. However, they killed Waymar themselves: he was honourable enough to meet them in battle, they probably gave him their cleanest death. With Gared, it's different: the Others let him live and prove himself. He could have gone to Castle Black a hero, a veteran. Instead, he chose to flee and desert the Watch and abandon his oaths. So, down came Ned Stark's Ice. With regards to the WIldlings, it seems that the cold coming with the Others had killed them. So, no real significance, they were part of the scenery, if you will. More interesting would be to try expanding the theory to Craster and his connection with the Others: they didn't kill him, so his offerings must have seemed somewhat honourable to them, he did keep his part of the contract. However, he is by no means a honourable man, so maybe it was more a matter of convenience. Another case worth analyzing is that of Samwell - the Other firstly disregards him, going for the more threatening foes. Why does he do it and is there anything more than "who is closest" priority, I can't really tell. But there seems to be a method to the Others' killings.

PS: I also noticed an eerie parallel between the Others coming down on Waymar and slashing with their blades in the AGoT prologue, and Varys' children assassinating Kevan in the ADwD epilogue. Craster's sons may, after all, be used way more clandestinely than previously thought...

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Pretty sure the only reason they didn't kill Craster was so that he could keep delivering them his male offspring.



Kind of like a farmer who harvests his chickens eggs once in a while. He doesn't view the chickens as honorable, he just needs them to supply him with eggs.



Others probably don't view humans as 'honorable' or 'equal' by any means. They probably might only let a couple of them live because of their supposed usefulness.



In the case of Gared, I don't know it might very well be so that they really didn't see him and only went after Will and Waymar Royce.


Agreed they might have let him live because they don't kill supposed 'cowardly' humans, but they may have also have found it appropriate to let him live so he could instill fear in other men's hearts. I really don't know what their reasons were here.


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The White walker simply accepted Waymar's challenge to a duel, once he was severely injured and defeated the rest put him out of his misery to spare him suffering.



It was a wight (Waymar) who killed Will. If you think the WW control the wights then I guess you can count that as their kill too, but otherwise they only actually killed Waymar in self-defense.


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I don't buy it, especially since Small Paul was actually a part of a conspiracy to murder Mormont and the leading officers. The Others attacked the Fist before it could be carried out, though, but there is nothing to suggest that Paul regrets wanting to kill Mormont, so it can't be said that he was an honorable foe (nor is Sam, who had just opted to just lie down and die rather than live to fight another day).



Even more damning for the theory about honorable opponents is that Paul did not understand concepts of honor or even the difference between right and wrong. There is little honor in facing an opponent with the mind of a child, so I am going to go with the notion that the Others simply kill go for the greatest threat first.


Remember, the Others pause when Waymar's sword flashes in the moonlight, mistaking it for being made of a metal (dragonsteel?) they aren't resistant to, making him the greater threat. Gared was let go, probably so that he could herald their coming.


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I hadn't reread the Fist of the First Men prologue when I wrote the post above, but thanks for reminding me about how it happened. I don't think it disproves the hypothesis above - we may look at things differently: there was a mutiny in the making at the camp of the rangers and the Others came in force. Back at AGoT, there is a growing discontent among Waymar's subordinates - and the Others come in force. One might imagine that the encounters with the Wildlings would have gone more smoothly and without such supernatural beings entering the picture, had the Watch been more dutiful... And with regard to Small Paul trying to fight back, it coult be that his actions right then and there weren't the real catalyst, but what he contemplated doing before that, which made him the top priority target. The Others might have 'smelled' the treason off of him.



As for the Other laughing at Waymar, it can be seen as a sign of superiority - in the way that an armed man would laugh at a barking dog. This, however, doesn't at all invalidate the possibility of the Others differentiating the humans that they come across. While they might not regard honour as a virtue (as most replies above seem to suggest), the Others may still act in distinctive ways when they evidence a particular type of behaviour. For example, if they are a creation of the COTF, they may have been 'programmed' to prioritize by killing those deemed most detrimental. If we stretch the hypothesis further, the Starks and their honour (and the Northerners' devotion to their overlords) might have been a natural response to such a predator lurking in the far North. Even more so if there was a pact between the COTF and the First Men - which could have outlined the rules for 'safe conduct' with regard to the Otherosaurus Rex. What is interesting in the particular event described in the AGoT prologue, is the seeming parallel between the actions of the Others, and Eddard Stark unknowingly finishing their job by beheading Gared. It is not impossible to hypothesize that he was put to a sort of a 'test' and failed by deserting the Watch, so he still got what the Others spared him of. Yes, they could have simply overlooked him, but then again, why didn't he die of exposure, like the Wildlings nearby?



With regard to the suggestion that he was supposedly a herald of sorts who was meant to scare humans - would Gared really be best suited to do so? Surely, Waymar would be far more persuasive had this been the goal. And the Others could have approached them from the other (pun not intended) direction and killed Gared instead. As for wightWaymar killing Will, it's not like the Others didn't anticipate it - by not killing him themselves, they did in no way spare him, just let their equivalent of a hound do the deed.



It could possibly be the case, that if Bloodraven is the Great Other, or their commander-in-chief, then letting Gared go was a calculated move in order to start the entire chain of events leading to Eddard beheading him, the Starks finding the direwolf pups, etc. etc. thus eventually securing Bran Stark to his current predicament. I also have the eerie feeling that Bloodraven's agenda includes somehow extracting Bran's life force and using it to make himself younger - otherwise his actions make no real sense...


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I hadn't reread the Fist of the First Men prologue when I wrote the post above, but thanks for reminding me about how it happened. I don't think it disproves the hypothesis above - we may look at things differently: there was a mutiny in the making at the camp of the rangers and the Others came in force. Back at AGoT, there is a growing discontent among Waymar's subordinates - and the Others come in force. One might imagine that the encounters with the Wildlings would have gone more smoothly and without such supernatural beings entering the picture, had the Watch been more dutiful... And with regard to Small Paul trying to fight back, it coult be that his actions right then and there weren't the real catalyst, but what he contemplated doing before that, which made him the top priority target. The Others might have 'smelled' the treason off of him.

As for the Other laughing at Waymar, it can be seen as a sign of superiority - in the way that an armed man would laugh at a barking dog. This, however, doesn't at all invalidate the possibility of the Others differentiating the humans that they come across. While they might not regard honour as a virtue (as most replies above seem to suggest), the Others may still act in distinctive ways when they evidence a particular type of behaviour. For example, if they are a creation of the COTF, they may have been 'programmed' to prioritize by killing those deemed most detrimental. If we stretch the hypothesis further, the Starks and their honour (and the Northerners' devotion to their overlords) might have been a natural response to such a predator lurking in the far North. Even more so if there was a pact between the COTF and the First Men - which could have outlined the rules for 'safe conduct' with regard to the Otherosaurus Rex. What is interesting in the particular event described in the AGoT prologue, is the seeming parallel between the actions of the Others, and Eddard Stark unknowingly finishing their job by beheading Gared. It is not impossible to hypothesize that he was put to a sort of a 'test' and failed by deserting the Watch, so he still got what the Others spared him of. Yes, they could have simply overlooked him, but then again, why didn't he die of exposure, like the Wildlings nearby?

With regard to the suggestion that he was supposedly a herald of sorts who was meant to scare humans - would Gared really be best suited to do so? Surely, Waymar would be far more persuasive had this been the goal. And the Others could have approached them from the other (pun not intended) direction and killed Gared instead. As for wightWaymar killing Will, it's not like the Others didn't anticipate it - by not killing him themselves, they did in no way spare him, just let their equivalent of a hound do the deed.

It could possibly be the case, that if Bloodraven is the Great Other, or their commander-in-chief, then letting Gared go was a calculated move in order to start the entire chain of events leading to Eddard beheading him, the Starks finding the direwolf pups, etc. etc. thus eventually securing Bran Stark to his current predicament. I also have the eerie feeling that Bloodraven's agenda includes somehow extracting Bran's life force and using it to make himself younger - otherwise his actions make no real sense...

So now the Others are drawn to dishonorable people first? That's not what you hypothesized in your OP. And I still stand by the point that being attracted to Small Paul - a mentally challenged man with no sense of right or wrong - disproves any notion that they go for people who ping on whatever extremity on the honorable-dishonorable scale. The separate attacks on Waymar and Sam's parties are simply too different if we apply that lens, and the degree of dissent toward Waymar and Mormont's respective command are on entirely different levels as well: Gared never seemed to seriously entertain the notion of striking at a ranking officer, whereas the conspiracy Paul played useful idiot for was quite serious wrt. their murderous plan to jump ship.

And when I spoke of a herald, I meant it as in the sense that they meant for one survivor to run back to the lands of men and spread tales of their coming, not as some emissary of theirs. Attributing Gared's ignoble demise to being an intricate design of the Others' is a little farfetched, I think.

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Yeah, I got the herald part right - it was my belief that Waymar would wield more credibility, whereas Gared wouldn't be taken as seriously by those south of the Wall - Eddard didn't seem scared at all. One of those two was a high-ranking noble, whereas the other would be viewed as a madman.



The hypothesis outlined above is rather speculative, that's for sure, but in the Heresy threads it has been suggested numerous times that there is more to the Others than evident at first glance. If we combine that with the repeated significance of honour throughout the series, as well as before the very encounters with the Others, we might draw some parallels. What is more, the Starks are viewed as very honourable, whereas in the Heresy threads there are theories floated about their connection with the Others. If some of this proves true in the books to come, then those assumptions from upthread might not be entirely ungrounded. What is more important, though, is my belief that the Others have a certain modus operandi, a prioritizing of sorts. They seem to follow a certain course of action, and while it may not be particularly honour in humans they come across with, that guides them, there probably is a certain characteristic which leads them to kill Waymar the way they do, to have his wight kill Will and to let Gared escape.



It was said above that probably the Others stabbed Waymar repeatedly because they wanted to put him out of his misery. Now, would that make sense given their laughter shortly before that? It was either sadism, or simply wanting to wightify him faster, in order for his wight to be able to kill Will. Maybe it was an inside joke for them - to let the one who was at a loss from Will not warning him, have his vengeance of sorts. What is more, Will fails to notify Waymar of the approach of the multiple Others, yet they stay their hand and let only one of them to duel with Waymar. They effectively refuse the advantage given by Will - was it for mere amusement from a duel with a knight, or was it because they despised the way this advantage was obtained (fear/disobedience/lack of honour/treason)?



And yes, those two cases were quite different, but does it really matter how far exactly the plan or intentions of betrayal have been? Perhaps it wasn't honour, but bravery instead. Waymar fights, so he is given a 'clean death'. So is the case with Small Paul. Gared remains unconvinced but abandons his attempt at fire after being commanded to do so. This is somewhat brave of him, he could have simply fled and Waymar would be at a loss trying to pursue him. As for Samwell, perhaps it was the job of Small Paul's wight to deal with him, similarly to Will. Yet, Samwell overcoming his fear actually dispelled the Other. It may not have been the dragonglass dagger, after all - or not it alone. Maybe the intentions and the morale of the one wielding it, matter, too.


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