Acky Deshwanee Posted November 12, 2014 Share Posted November 12, 2014 Hi everyone,Do we learn anything new about them in the new WOIAF book?Acky Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ser Cold Fingers Posted November 12, 2014 Share Posted November 12, 2014 Hi everyone,Do we learn anything new about them in the new WOIAF book?Acky First...welcome to the forums. Secondly...a little but not a lot about those two specific topics. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Acky Deshwanee Posted November 12, 2014 Author Share Posted November 12, 2014 Thanks for the welcome!What little extra info do they give? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ser Cold Fingers Posted November 12, 2014 Share Posted November 12, 2014 Mostly a more detailed physical description. It is mentioned early in The Dawn Age chapter. No 'game changing' information. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Snark of Winterfell Posted November 13, 2014 Share Posted November 13, 2014 Not too much. There were a lot of CofT, they seemed heavily concentrated in the Riverlands, Crownlands and Stormlands. They welcomed the first men initially. Also, some theories of how the breaking of the arm of Dorne occurred which was pretty cool. Essentially, hundreds of CotF gathered on the Isle of faces, then they possibly fed/sacrificed a thousand captives to the weirwood another story is they used the blood of their own young; after the old gods stirred, giants awoke and all of westeros trembled, hills and mountains collapsed and the seas came rushing in. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mrs.Grumpy Posted November 13, 2014 Share Posted November 13, 2014 Wildlings from the Frozen Shore worships the Others... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Farwynds Oceanseer Posted November 15, 2014 Share Posted November 15, 2014 We don't get much in the direct exposition about the Others, but we get hints about the Shivering Sea and the Land of Always Winter. Sailors...tell many tales of these frigid northern waters. They speak of queer lights shimmering in the sky, where the demon mother of the ice giants dances eternally through the night, seeking to lure men northward to their doom. They whisper of Cannibal Bay, where ships enter at their peril only to find themselves trapped forever when the sea freezes hard behind them. They tell of pale blue mists that move across the waters, mists so cold that any ship they pass over is frozen instantly; of drowned spirits who rise at night to drag the living down into the grey-green depths; of mermaids pale of flesh with black-scaled tails, far more malign than their sisters of the south. Martin, George R.R.; Garcia, Elio; Antonsson, Linda (2014-10-28). The World of Ice & Fire: The Untold History of Westeros and the Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire) (Kindle Locations 8254-8260). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. The Others might have wights (drowned spirits) submerged in the water (possibly merling wights as well, or merling-others) waiting for warm, breathing trespassers. Or there might be several sentient species in the Always Winter/ Shivering Sea ecosystem. The ofttimes skeptical Maester Yandel speculates that many of the diverse phenomena reported in the North might be explained if sailors' reports of ice dragons are true: These colossal beasts, many times larger than the dragons of Valyria, are said to be made of living ice, with eyes of pale blue crystal and vast translucent wings through which the moon and stars can be glimpsed as they wheel across the sky. Whereas common dragons (if any dragon can truly be said to be common) breathe flame, ice dragons supposedly breathe cold, a chill so terrible that it can freeze a man solid in half a heartbeat. Sailors from half a hundred nations have glimpsed these great beasts over the centuries, so mayhaps there is some truth behind the tales. Archmaester Margate has suggested that many legends of the north— freezing mists, ice ships,Cannibal Bay, and the like— can be explained as distorted reports of ice-dragon activity. Martin, George R.R.; Garcia, Elio; Antonsson, Linda (2014-10-28). The World of Ice & Fire: The Untold History of Westeros and the Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire) (Kindle Locations 8265-8266). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. The passage about the Ice Dragons suggest that the war with the others won't get that much easier if Dany brings her fire-dragons to the north. A sidebar about the legendary Cannibal Bay suggests it is populated with whole crews frozen and raised by the Others' necromancy: Legend claims a thousand ships lie entombed in Cannibal Bay, some still inhabited by the children and grandchildren of their original crews, who survive by feasting upon the flesh of sailors newly caught by the ice. Martin, George R.R.; Garcia, Elio; Antonsson, Linda (2014-10-28). The World of Ice & Fire: The Untold History of Westeros and the Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire) (Kindle Locations 8282-8283). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. Those who escaped the bay after seeing ships filled with wights might have assumed they saw the cannibal-descendants of trapped crews. There is also an odd suggestion that the NIght's King married a corpse-bride from Barrowton: Some suggest that perhaps the corpse queen was a woman of the Barrowlands, a daughter of the Barrow King who was then a power in his own right, and oft associated with graves. Martin, George R.R.; Garcia, Elio; Antonsson, Linda (2014-10-28). The World of Ice & Fire: The Untold History of Westeros and the Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire) (Kindle Locations 4131-4132). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. The rusted crown upon the arms of House Dustin derives from their claim that they are themselves descended from the First King and the Barrow Kings who ruled after him. The old tales recorded in Kennet’s Passages of the Dead claim that a curse was placed on the Great Barrow that would allow no living man to rival the First King. This curse made these pretenders to the title grow corpselike in their appearance as it sucked away their vitality and life. Martin, George R.R.; Garcia, Elio; Antonsson, Linda (2014-10-28). The World of Ice & Fire: The Untold History of Westeros and the Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire) (Kindle Locations 3809-3812). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. It makes you wonder if the Others arose from a curse on the First King at the Barrow, and the Night's King was a Lord Commander ensorceled by a barrow-queen exiled beyond the wall. Whether the corpse-like Barrow Kings were proto-others, hybrids, a group of first men changed by magic into something resembling the Others, or mere inventions of singers is left undetermined by the text. And the wildlings on the Frozen Shore worship gods of ice and cold. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Farwynds Oceanseer Posted November 15, 2014 Share Posted November 15, 2014 We get a couple of interesting hints about the COTF. First of all, they may very well exist in the forest between the Dothraki Sea and the island of Ib. The fabled Sea Snake, Corlys Velaryon, Lord of the Tides, was the first Westerosi to visit these woods. After his return from the Thousand Islands, he wrote of carved trees, haunted grottoes, and strange silences. A later traveler, the merchant-adventurer Bryan of Oldtown, captain of the cog Spearshaker, provided an account of his own journey across the Shivering Sea. He reported that the Dothraki name for the lost people meant “those who walk in the woods.” None of the Ibbenese that Bryan of Oldtown met could say they had ever seen a woods walker, but claimed that the little people blessed a household that left offerings of leaf and stone and water overnight. Martin, George R.R.; Garcia, Elio; Antonsson, Linda (2014-10-28). The World of Ice & Fire: The Untold History of Westeros and the Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire) (Kindle Locations 8344-8349). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. Interesting that they accept gifts of stone, water, and leaves. One of the binaries that House Reed swears by is "earth and water" (stone and water); it takes both earth and water (and photosynthesis--giving form to fire?) to make wood & leaves. The Reeds tell Bran there is a power in living wood as great as fire. Most say the Ibbenese slaughtered the woods-walkers during a period of expansion, but the Dothraki still think they exist in the deep woods. The God-Kings of Ib, before their fall, did succeed in conquering and colonizing a huge swathe of northern Essos immediately south of Ib itself, a densely wooded region that had formerly been the home of a small, shy forest folk. Some say that the Ibbenese extinguished this gentle race, whilst others believe they went into hiding in the deeper woods or fled to other lands. The Dothraki still call the great forest along the northern coast the Kingdom of the Ifequevron, the name by which they knew the vanished forest-dwellers. Martin, George R.R.; Garcia, Elio; Antonsson, Linda (2014-10-28). The World of Ice & Fire: The Untold History of Westeros and the Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire) (Kindle Locations 8341-8344). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. The Storm Kings of the First men alternate between making peace with the COTF and making war on them. One is called Raven Friend, so there may be some warg blood in the South beyond just Raventree. We get a hint that the hollow where BWB hides is an old haunt of the COTF--a storm king seeks the Children out in caves and hollow hills deep in the woods to unite against the Andals. King Durran XXI took the unprecedented step of seeking out the remaining children of the forest in the caves and hollow hills where they had taken refuge and making common cause with them against the men from beyond the sea. Martin, George R.R.; Garcia, Elio; Antonsson, Linda (2014-10-28). The World of Ice & Fire: The Untold History of Westeros and the Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire) (Kindle Locations 6421-6422). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. The maesters have two thought-provoking theories about what the Hammer of the Waters was and how it was brought about. One is more or less what we've heard before about the Children gathering to combine their powers (though supposedly at the Isle of Faces rather than Moat Cailin): gathering in their hundreds (some say on the Isle of Faces), and calling on their old gods with song and prayer and grisly sacrifice (a thousand captive men were fed to the weirwood, one version of the tale goes, whilst another claims the children used the blood of their own young). And the old gods stirred, and giants awoke in the earth, and all of Westeros shook and trembled. Great cracks appeared in the earth, and hills and mountains collapsed and were swallowed up. And then the seas came rushing in, Martin, George R.R.; Garcia, Elio; Antonsson, Linda (2014-10-28). The World of Ice & Fire: The Untold History of Westeros and the Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire) (Kindle Locations 6713-6716). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. A different maester suggests it was natural climate change rather than magic: Archmaester Cassander suggests elsewise in his Song of the Sea: How the Lands Were Severed, arguing that it was not the singing of greenseers that parted Westeros from Essos but rather what he calls the Song of the Sea— a slow rising of the waters that took place over centuries, not in a single day, and was caused by a series of long, hot summers and short, warm winters that melted the ice in the frozen lands beyond the Shivering Sea, causing the oceans to rise. Martin, George R.R.; Garcia, Elio; Antonsson, Linda (2014-10-28). The World of Ice & Fire: The Untold History of Westeros and the Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire) (Kindle Locations 6722-6725). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. My working hypothesis is that the COTF caused earthquakes to break the Arm of Dorne AND caused "global warming" to raise the oceans. If they sang the song of the earth in such a way that long, hot summers and short, warm winters raised the seas, then the Long Night may well have been some other force trying to restore balance--the seasons remain magically out of balance because they were first thrown into discord by the COTF's magical defense. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
teemo Posted November 15, 2014 Share Posted November 15, 2014 Not really, but it's still a good read. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lady Barbrey Posted November 15, 2014 Share Posted November 15, 2014 This a coincidence, Farwynds. I just posted tonight a thread on the CotF and that the Long Night was to restore the balance. Based on reading the same info. Check out the 'children caused the long night'. Don't know if everything I said is solid but would appreciate your thoughts. I certainly agree with your working hypothesis as you will see when you read mine! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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