Question on the Others/Coldhands/Night's Kings

[The Snark of Winterfell]

I posted a part of this on another thread, not trying to troll, it is long winded but curious on your answers.

For this I am going to use White Walker (WW) and Others interchangeably, which may be improper.

Someone on the board said that GRRM confirmed that the Others were not human. I have not seen the SSM, but will take their word for it. And even if he did say that, I thought it could be a matter of semantics, like the hound is dead, but Sandor is a gravedigger. So the Others are not human after the Night's Kings touch etc.

I tend to think that Craster's kids are being turned by the NK into White Walkers. But have seen several times that people make classifications as to non-living WWs and living WWs (i.e. Night's King, Coldhands, that were known to be living humans, and all of Craster's male children)

The multiple classes of these undead or WW's are interesting, including:

- ordinary weight, a zombie

- A White Walker, they have their own language, ride undead horse, command the wights and deliver Craster's babies to the NK. May have been born from a female other, some other magic, something elemental or may be Crasters kids or the living children of other humans.

- Craster's Children, live male humans changed to WW by the NK's touch.

- Nights King, previously of the Night's Watch and was the product of the unholy union with the female Other and has the powers to change Craster's children and is denoted as different by his horns. As far as we know he was human at one time and is special.

- Coldhands, is working with the last greenseer also presumably in the Night's Watch due to his garb, not sure if he is an Other or something different, but he died a long time ago.

- Female Other, is actually beautiful and had the ability to create the Night's King, I believe she is the Great Other and the Queen of the whole lot of em.

(these guys have nothing to do with this discussion)

- UnCat, UnBeric, - resurrected humans through Red magic (assuming the the Red runs opposite to White magic) They maintain their memories and may or may not lose part of themselves or their souls with each resurrection. Beric stayed pretty close to who he was each time, Cat went off the deep end, but she went through somestuff and was dead for a while.

-Qyburns monster, Robert Strong - re-animated by use of medicine and magic by Qyburn

There are differences between all the classes

1. Do you believe that there is a difference between the WWs that we saw initially in the books are series and Craster's kids that were turned by the NK?

2. Does taking the Oath of a Night's Watchmen, make you a special WW with special powers?

3. What is up with the female other, is she the great other, is she still around? and what of the directive to take only males? (as I assume she wants to be the only female and queen)

[John Suburbs]

Did the Night's King become a non-human following the union with the female WW? My impression was that he remained human, but he could have gotten Otherized in some way. One thing is for certain, though, any children that the NK and the NQ had would have been half-human, half-other.

Now let's suppose that Joruman and the KotN were able to depose the NK before he was able to sacrifice his latest son. If that child is brought south of the wall, it would have inherited all the lands and titles of his father. As a half-breed, I would imagine he would be very pale, with a soft, monotone voice, would express few, in any, emotions, and probably wouldn't sweat much as well. Does that sound like anyone we know?

[Caerl Targaryen]

We don't have enough information about the Night's King and his role in the story (if any) to reach any concrete conclusions about him. What we know is he was human, the 13th Lord Commander of the Night's Watch, "lost his soul" by laying with an Other, and he was defeated by the King-beyond-the-Wall and the King in the North. Beyond that, he's little more than a story from 8000 years earlier. Not unlike the Rat Cook or the other stories Old Nan told Bran. Sometimes stories are just stories.

We don't have any idea what he looked like or what his fate was. Was he killed? Did he escape the Nightfort and run off to continue doing whatever he was doing? Was he turned into an Other? If so, is he still alive? Was he turned into a Coldhands-like being? Is Coldhands more like a wight or is he more like Lady Stoneheart? Or is he something else entirely?

Is the story of the Night's King merely a fairy tale used to teach future generations about the importance of the Night's Watch? Is it some combination of those things? It's all a big question mark. Even the turning of Craster's sons is rather vague at this point. It's certainly hinted at in ASOS but beyond that we have no idea. We have a lot of questions and not a lot of answers yet.

It doesn't mean that story is irrelevant or that it won't have an impact on the main storyline. But we really have no idea at this point. The show and the books aren't the same thing and I think using information from the show in book theories is a bad idea. Even going the opposite way can be tricky because the showrunners aren't under any obligation to follow the story in the books. They've already made some major changes.

Also "white walker" is simply what the wildlings call the Others. It's a name that seems to be used interchangeably by other characters as well. But the Others is what's mostly used. GRRM has compared the Others to aos sí/aes sídhe from Irish and Scottish mythology. So they aren't dead. They do raise the dead (wights) and use them as part of their army.

Here's the quote on the Others from Tommy Patterson (the comic book artist):

I had many talks with George. He told me of the ice swords, and the reflective, camouflaging armor that picks up the images of the things around it like a clear, still pond. He spoke a lot about what they were not, but what they were was harder to put into words. Here is what George said, in one e-mail: 'The Others are not dead. They are strange, beautiful… think, oh… the Sidhe made of ice, something like that… a different sort of life… inhuman, elegant, dangerous.

http://books.google.com/books?id=i_SorqUvsOEC&lpg=PT203&ots=5oK3EkTd8Y&pg=PT203#v=onepage&q&f=false

[Lady Blizzardborn]

As Caerl Targaryen said, we don't really know at this point. A lot of us have theories though. Now to your questions.

1. Do you believe that there is a difference between the WWs that we saw initially in the books are series and Craster's kids that were turned by the NK? Yes.

2. Does taking the Oath of a Night's Watchmen, make you a special WW with special powers? No. We've seen dead-wighted NW members who were no different from the other dead-wights. Taking the vows in front of a heart tree might confer special protection but that doesn't necessarily translate to special powers. Coldhands is the best candidate for the heart tree vows theory. He's dead, has been dead a long time, but is not your typical dead-wight. He speaks and seems to have his own will. No powers that we know of, but we could learn something later that changes our current knowledge of him.

3. What is up with the female other, is she the great other, is she still around? and what of the directive to take only males? (as I assume she wants to be the only female and queen) We don't know about her. I think she was TGO's daughter maybe and was killed. The taking only males I see as a pure military-building move. We're looking at a medieval culture where females in general do not fight, so if TGO or NK is building an army, they're only going to take the males. However, we've seen female dead-wights. So it could be that as far as the sacrificed children are concerned, they take whatever is offered, and in Craster's case he was getting rid of his sons. Or maybe they only want males for live-wighting but anybody can be a useful dead-wight.

[Lady Blizzardborn]

Did the Night's King become a non-human following the union with the female WW? My impression was that he remained human, but he could have gotten Otherized in some way. One thing is for certain, though, any children that the NK and the NQ had would have been half-human, half-other.

Now let's suppose that Joruman and the KotN were able to depose the NK before he was able to sacrifice his latest son. If that child is brought south of the wall, it would have inherited all the lands and titles of his father. As a half-breed, I would imagine he would be very pale, with a soft, monotone voice, would express few, in any, emotions, and probably wouldn't sweat much as well. Does that sound like anyone we know?

It does sound like someone we know, but that would mean Old Nan was wrong, wouldn't it? Or that a certain Lord who was up north fighting with KitN at his command swiped the kid and raised it as his own. That could work too.