True origin of the Others/White Walkers

[LordImp]

None of them are a bigger threat no. But none of them is better either , dragons pose just a big threat as the Others do.

[Lordsteve666]

So in layman's terms we've got this timeline:

• Assai (possibly the GEotD, in an area of summer/fire magic) misuses their magical power for whatever purpose they need.
  
• Assai has control of dragons, or they possible created them.
  
• Their magic goes catastrophically wrong and "nukes" the far east, turning Assai into a shadow haunted land. It may have resulted in the destruction of a moon.
  
• It also completely messes up the global climate and causes the Long Night. The Other are created, either as the world reacting to the release of fire magic, or as innocent bystanders caught in the fallout.
  
• The Other first appear during the LN but are eventually stopped by the CotF and First Men. The climate returns to normal, but only temporarily as it is now set on a different cycle of long winters and summers lasting years
  
• The Others are not really defeated, just walled up behind a massive defensive barrier, now guarded by the Night's Watch.
  
• What remains of dragons flee west to hide in the Fourteen Flames. The remains of Assai's population flee west also, becoming precursors to the Valyrians.
  
• Valyrians discover the dragons, possibly with help from survivors from Assai who remember the old ways.
  
• Valyria is born and goes on to try and conquer the world using dragons and fire magic.
  
• Eventually Valyria falls, probably through its own doing but not on a scale as big as the devastation on the far east.
  
• The remains of the Valyria, culturally and physically are lost with barely a handful of dragons taken west by the Targaryens.
  
• Dragons eventually die out, fire magic has gone from the world so they cannot exist.
  
• Danny unintentionally hatches 3 dragons. Who knows why this happens as many have tried before her. Perhaps the world is changing again, maybe it senses the Other's reawakening?

[LmL]

Lord Steve, that's more or less the picture I have. To all of that, I would add that some things which are thought have happened at times before or after the Long Night actually occurred uring the Long Night. When Daenerys's third dragon hatches, the crack is as loud as the breaking of the world. One of the Stepstones is called "Bloodstone." The sigil of house Martell, the closest place to the broken arm, is a SUN-SPEAR. In one Dornish chapter loaded with comet and Lightbringer imagery (the Darkstar Dayne chapter), the sun beats down like a fiery hammer. There's a bunch more clues about this, but I think you get the idea - of the meteors from the moon which was destroyed at the beginning of the Long Night must have landed on the arm and shattered it. This by itself would have massive climate ramifications, joining the warm and cold oceans which were previously separated.

I also suspect that the cotf converted man to tree worship by helping them defeat both the Others and dragonlords from the east, as well as surviving the depredations of the Long Night. Thus, the famous "pact" between First Men and cotf may have happened right after or during the LN.

The so called Dawn Age and Age of Heroes are both arbitrary labels applied to everything that happened before the LN and during its immediate aftermath, I believe. Bran the Builder seems like someone who helped the FM rebuild or les the rebuilding effort after the LN... etc etc. I think the maesters just sort the more fantastical, magical sounding stuff into the category "Dawn Age" and the things which sound more plausible in the "Age of Heroes" category. Nothing that happened before the Long Night survived in any form other than oral tradition, plus whatever contact the early FM had with the cotf (who obviously have very good "records" of events in their trees). Point being, no writing until the Andals arrived part from runes. Then take into account that all organized society would have been destroyed during the LN because of famine and anarchy and compound natural disasters. So any memory of events before the LN is going to be hazy at best, and thus, up for grabs chronologically speaking.

[Raven Tooth]

Adding onto your idea that the children of the forest opposed the Valyrians.... the Ifequevron, children in the forest south of Ib, may have been attempting to fight the dragonlords in Essos. We do have an instance of water magic cursing the Valyrians with the Rhoynish wars.

Hmmmmm...... Have we seen water magic since the long night? Maybe the same forces that turned fire magic to shadow magic altered water magic into ice magic? Just a random thought

[LmL]

very interesting idea Raven Tooth.. there are certainly a lot of connections between the Others and the Aquatic Humanoids (Deep Ones, Merlings, Selkies, etc)

[pyker]

Maybe the others were created by the cotf as weapons to fight the the first men or any other race of men. eventually the cotf lost control of them resulting in the long night which may have lasted many years.

[Free Northman Reborn]

Magic is a sword without a hilt. But better than no sword at all.

And that explains it all. Someone desperately needed a sword, even if it had no hilt.

Probably the Children, or possibly the Asshaii.

The unintended consequences of that desperate use of magic were the Long Night and the creation of the beings we know as the Others.

[LmL]

I am finding hints ( a lot of them) that the Others were created by human greenseers (as opposed to cotf greenseers). Without posting an entire theory's worth of evidence, I'd just like to throw the idea out there.

[Lordsteve666]

Interesting idea there.

I'm not too sure myself though about them being created intentionally by humans or the CotF.

Firstly, because if humans created the Others I really cannot see the CotF helping them to defeat them and end the LN. The first men had already destroyed most of the CotF's, lands, cut down their sacred groves and broken pacts with them. To then create a deadly new enemy that stands to destroy the entire kingdom and turn everything undead....well if I was a CotF i'd just let humantity get killed off! The CotF had little reason to support of trust the first men in fighting the Others unless the threat was one so singular it was a risk to everyone, and to me it doesn't sound like you'd support you enemy up until that point if they just created an even bigger problem.

Secondly, I everything that happened in Assai was the true cause of the LN then I don't think any human interaction was required to create the Others. Also, the LN affected the whole world, Essos as well as Westeros. It's even speculated that the Five Forts could be the Essos equivalent of the Wall. Were there greenseers or CotF in Essos? Whatever caused the LN seems to have been on a global scale and seems to definitely have affected the world over in the northern hemisphere. CotF seem limited to Westeros so I find it hard to believe they've cause something over in Essos too.

[grufolo]

Lucifer i can relate when you say you thought that Asshai is the geographic opposite of the heart of winter )or the land of always winter.

But then did you ever think that the real world axis may be tilted because the way we see the world in most maps is not aligned with the axis that connects asshai and the heart of winter?

Is it possible that this tilting is somehow connected with the imbalance in seasons' alternation?

[LmL]

I did - in fact my first draft of my first essay involved that idea, that axial tilt is causing the season imbalance. But someone brought it to my attention that Martin has indeed said that the seasonal wackiness is magical in nature. So I kind of went away from that idea. But yes, it's the most logical scientific culprit for the seasons. I guess I would say that if there is a tilt issue, it still has to be of a magical nature somehow. That's why I've gravitated towards the idea that magic is somehow rooted to the connection between the heart of winter and the ice moon, heart of summer and the fire moon, with the destruction of the heart of summer and and the corruption of the shadowlands screwing up the balance somehow.

It's almost like you can take you pick for the exact mechanism - was it the moon's presence on earth, the alien rock? Was it the debris thrown up in the sky? The corruption of the heart of summer, or the moon's actual destruction? Did the impacts screw up Planetos' orbit? it's hard to exactly, and of course it's likely a combination of one or more of these interrelated things. It also seems like we are dealing with a compound disaster here. The moon meteor impact is bad enough, but it seems to have triggered earthquakes and tsunamis (as a large meteor impact will do). There is also a magical aspect that rides on the back of the natural disaster aspect. Deep Ones come with the black and bloody tide, Others come with the winter and the cold winds. Dragons are like flying volcanoes, giants like earthquakes. It seems all the trauma on the planet unleashed or corrupted all kinds of things. That's why it's difficult to sort out causes and effects - in the Stormlands, they have legends primarily of the tsunami that came up the narrow sea when a meteor broke the arm of Dorne, while on the Rhoyne they remember the river freezing up. In Westeros we got the Others and in Essos we got a deranged, dark fire-sorcerer version of Hitler.

Did the Blood Betrayal cause the LN? Did the murder of the Amethyst Empress Nissa Nissa cause the comet to hit the moon, or did the comet hitting the moon enable dark magic that the Bloodstone Emperor then took advantage of? That's another hard one. I know for a fact there is an interconnected relationship where the terrestrial events mirror the celestial events - but in what direction does the causality flow?

[LmL]

Interesting idea there.

I'm not too sure myself though about them being created intentionally by humans or the CotF.

Firstly, because if humans created the Others I really cannot see the CotF helping them to defeat them and end the LN. The first men had already destroyed most of the CotF's, lands, cut down their sacred groves and broken pacts with them. To then create a deadly new enemy that stands to destroy the entire kingdom and turn everything undead....well if I was a CotF i'd just let humantity get killed off! The CotF had little reason to support of trust the first men in fighting the Others unless the threat was one so singular it was a risk to everyone, and to me it doesn't sound like you'd support you enemy up until that point if they just created an even bigger problem.

Secondly, I everything that happened in Assai was the true cause of the LN then I don't think any human interaction was required to create the Others. Also, the LN affected the whole world, Essos as well as Westeros. It's even speculated that the Five Forts could be the Essos equivalent of the Wall. Were there greenseers or CotF in Essos? Whatever caused the LN seems to have been on a global scale and seems to definitely have affected the world over in the northern hemisphere. CotF seem limited to Westeros so I find it hard to believe they've cause something over in Essos too.

Yes, the idea that human greenseers created (or became) Others seems somewhat at odds with the idea that the corruption and weakening of fire magic created a void that winter magic expanded into. I see that. But the text seems to be saying that humans created the Others. I'm not finished tracking that rabbit to its lair; I have several categories of notes & quotes on the Others that I am amassing. I don't have all the answers there yet but I am increasingly certain the Others were created by humans, and that the truth of this goes back to the origins of House Stark.

Perhaps the ability to do whatever magic was necessary to create Others made possible by the moon destruction. Perhaps - and this is pretty wild - the Bloodstone Emperor / AA invaded Westeros first and the Others were created to fight him. Perhaps the BSE magic is what created the Others, maybe by corrupting greenseers magic. Perhaps the Others were only spirits without bodies in the Lands of always Winter or somewhere in the North and the greenseers stumbled upon magic that let the white ghosts inhabit their bodies. I also think the weirwoods are involved - the petrified ones in particular. How did the trees first become sentient, I wonder? Are there trees spirits that take over the human spirit, much like a skinchanger can lose themselves to their animal?

Another consideration: if the human greenseers took cotf magic and made abominations with it, I could definitely see the cotf feeling responsible and helping the humans who didn't create the Others survive. They would have given us the keys to knowledge, and we would have misused them... so they'd be responsible to a degree. Also, these would probably be rebel greenseers, not representative of all of humanity.

[The other prince]

I'd like to discuss what people think the true origins of the Others is.

If you go by the rough timeline in the world book they first appear on the scene during the Long Night, they've never been mentioned before that.

The continent of Westeros is pretty big but not massive and we already know the CotF live in the far north as that's where Bran meets them. It stands to reason if a deadly force of otherworldly white walkers lives up there they'd have met them long before the LN.

So how is it that despite the Children of the Forest being on Westeros for thousands of years prior to the the coming of the First Men or the Long Night have never come into conflict with them?

This is why I believe they didn't exist until the LN, which leads on to some interesting possibilities.

We have some vague evidence that the LN might possible have been caused by human actions, with a hint that such actions caused something on a celestial level. It's been speculated that unrest in the Great Empire of the Dawn upset the gods. It seems to be suggested that because of the blood betrayal by the emperor the sun (Maiden made of Light) went away and the night (Lion of Night) came out. That sounds a lot to me like a something causing a nuclear winter or similar effect.

My crazy theory based on all of this is that this "nuclear winter" or Long Night did so much damage to Planetos that it did more than just mess up the seasons. It froze the Rhoyne all the way down to the Selhoru, it caused famine and terror in most places.

But it also created the Others, not just by creating them out of thin air, but by them being unwilling casualties and transformed into their current forms. Imagine what a possibly magical nuclear winter type event could do to a civilization that lived at a high latitude already. They'd be trapped by ice and freezing temperatures and possibly be bombarded with magical fallout. If the LN possibly messed up the Shadowlands by turning it into a shadowy poisoned wasteland then imagine it's affects in the far north.

I think that the Others are simply the way they are because they were transformed against their will, unwitting participants in a event that happened thousands of miles away and messed up the whole planet. What their goals are who knows, maybe they want revenge and are bitter and twisted only seeking vengeance.

Anyway that's my crazy theory, what about other people?

While I agree with the Long night bringing the Others and not the Others bringing the long night, I don't think something like a nuclear winter is to blame (magical or natural). To put that as the root cause of the long night kind of ignores the fact that the seasons are never on what we would consider a normal cycle. Even apart from the Long Night seasons last years. The Stark Children for example have never seen what people would consider a real winter. Now that said, I think you may be on to something concerning the creation of the Others being magical and occuring during the LN. I think they have other goals apart from revenge though. I mean everyone can hold a grudge but for thousands of years? Are these even the same Other's that were around then?

[LordImp]

Imo the Others are a example of what happens with humans who overuse magic , Others are first men who was corrupted by ice magic and Melisandre is corrupted by fire magic.

[Lordsteve666]

To put that as the root cause of the long night kind of ignores the fact that the seasons are never on what we would consider a normal cycle. Even apart from the Long Night seasons last years.

I think the fact that even in a "normal" year the season are all messed up gives even more weight to the idea that something catastrophic affected the climate. It's sort of like how something caused a massive long winter, something magical in nature, and this initial Long Night was so devastating that the correct cycle of seasons never fully recovered. Hence why they are still off compared to what we have in real life. Maybe over 1000's of years the seasons would resettle into a natural cycle like we have in real life, maybe they'll stay messed up forever, the damage irreparable.

I think whatever caused the Long Night did so much damage Planetos is still recovering, so the seasons are still messed up.

[kanid99]

I was thinking along the lines of the Bloodstone Emperor bringing down a firey death on his people for the purpose of a mass blood sacrifice. The resulting explosion and dust is what caused the long night, and the flash of that explosion is what caused the black appearance of the buildings in Asshai which I believe was the Imperial capitol at the time.

I further believe that Garth Greenhands was a a member of the Imperial family probably around the time of the Opal Emperor who was not in line for succession and so went west to Westeros to found his own 'Kingdom'.

Bran the Bloody Blade was his son and I believe Bran the Builder was his grandson. I believe Greenhands was still alive when the Long Night happened and that he was likely the only member of that family line alive still after Bloodstone killed them all. Maybe some of them had escaped to the area of Valyria as well.

I don't think that he created the Others, however. I think the Others just lived in the far North in Westeros and when the long dark, cold night came they descended from the north to hunt and find food like any other creature would. As I said in another post, I think that back then they were like the wildlings, without a leader. It wasn't until the Nights King married one of them that they had their leader. It wasn't the Nights King though - it was the spawn of his marriage to an Other. I believe this baby has over time grown to be the Nights King in the show and he is amassing an army to take back his perceived (Stark) Kingdom.

I believe that the heroes who fought back the Others were Imperial in origin and had one of their white flaming swords (Dawn) and not a flaming sword. Further, I believe Valyrian steel is a corrupted blood magic form of that type of white magic sword, created by Bloodstone and his descendants.

Is that crackpot enough?