Others and personality

[Waters Gate]

For most of the books, we have seen something like "generic others", next to the wights, which come up as the "enemy" for during the long night. our first impression of others is fairly "primal" so to speak, we see the others more like monsters, they don't seem to have any distinct personality, they just seem to hate humans and be all in the same boat in this.

And so it's easy to think there is no personality to the others, like as they were just numbers amogn themselfs. Coldhands kinda breaks with this, he is the first other who seems to be differently alligned, a quite significant thing really for what regards personallity. Is it so that not all others agree or are equally aligned with eachother?

Another more specific individual other seems to be the nights king. Most probably he was once a member of one of Westeros it's noble houses, possibly a Stark. Is that specific other concious of what he was in the past, and does he remain an other and/or fight for the others conciously/willingly?

in this thread i wanted to ask if people considered that others are mostly mindless zombie's doing things instinctivly, or whether they migth actually be full blown concious individuals who have their difference's, or even factions like say isolationists and expansionists.