Regular John Umber Posted March 17, 2016 Share Posted March 17, 2016 They haven't been sleeping. They've been waiting, and the prince they've been waiting for was born/conceived while a comet graced the sky. So they've been looking for him. And once they find him? Who knows, depends if they want him alive or dead. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
delspark Posted March 17, 2016 Share Posted March 17, 2016 Actually there are two possibilities. 1.BR tells Bran to embrace the darkness and not to be afraid of it. The Others are active when its cold or its night. So BR can be controlling the WW. This is less likely because the cave where BR and COTF dwell is a fortification from the Others. If they control WW why do they seek refuge in a cave? 2. COTF tells Bran that when First Men started conquering Westeros they started destroying the Old gods I.e Weirwoods. This may have led to awakening of Others. COTF and First Men fought within themselves till the Others marched down them. They then joined forces and made the Others retreat back into the Land of Always Winter. Later they signed a pact which led them to coexist peacefully. COTF even taught First Men to worship Old Gods and gave men of NW 100 dragonglass each year, but slowly they retreated from human race. During Andal's invasion the peace was broken and more weirwoods were cut down thereby strengthening the Others. With the birth of Dany's dragons, magic got consolidated which in turn led to increase in Others. GRRM's theory is always about balance which makes me conclude that Others never left Westeros they were just weakened by the destruction of magic during Doom. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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Cymorococh Posted March 17, 2016 Share Posted March 17, 2016 I make that 8 possibilities On 16/03/2016 at 3:22 AM, Beautiful Bloody Sword said: I've questioned this before. One thing that really stuck out to me is Craster's sacrificing of his male offspring to them. He seems to have been procreating and sacrificing for a while, well before RR. That means that the Others have been very present, not too far from the Wall, that entire time. So at least some of them have been making that commute from Craster's Keep back to the Land of Always Winter, if that's where they go with their alms. Why they attacked Waymar Royce, specifically, and started emboldening their attacks on the Wildings, is perplexing. Another thing I've never understood, is that Jeor Mormont knew of those sacrifices, as evidenced by his replies to Jon. If he knew, then other LC's before him as well as many Rangers knew too. Why would they allow their true threat, the purpose their order was formed to combat, to build up it's ranks through Craster's practices. Why didn't they kill him and use his Keep as an outpost for ranging? I always wondered why the Night's Watch never came to some arrangement whereby they would adopt Craster's sons, thereby swelling their own ranks and saving them from The Others. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jon Fossoway Posted March 17, 2016 Share Posted March 17, 2016 5 hours ago, Demonking1381 said: I think it has something to do with the return of magic in the world, it has been fading since the fall of Valyria and weakened again by the death of the dragons. It could be that magic had kept the white walkers trapped within the lands of always winter where they couldn't attack the humans but at the start of the books magic had faded to the point where they could have broken the barrier and gotten closer to the wall but since the return of the dragons and maybe the red comet, the wall is strengthened by the new magic and they can't get through it. I don' think magic was preventing them from doing anything. If we believe the Others raised a huge magical Wall, Brandon the Builder 'the Other' helped in building the magical Storm's End and trapped a draggin inside Winterhell... Then they do know how to work magic and it can't hold them back from anything. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
delspark Posted March 17, 2016 Share Posted March 17, 2016 16 minutes ago, King Merrett I Frey said: I don' think magic was preventing them from doing anything. If we believe the Others raised a huge magical Wall, Brandon the Builder 'the Other' helped in building the magical Storm's End and trapped a draggin inside Winterhell... Then they do know how to work magic and it can't hold them back from anything. If Others know how to work with magic why can't thet pass through the Wall. Remember ColdHands? He said only a sworn brother of NW can unlock the other doors held in place by magic. That why he got Samwell to bring Bran to north of the wall Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jon Fossoway Posted March 17, 2016 Share Posted March 17, 2016 29 minutes ago, delspark said: If Others know how to work with magic why can't thet pass through the Wall. Remember ColdHands? He said only a sworn brother of NW can unlock the other doors held in place by magic. That why he got Samwell to bring Bran to north of the wall Coldhands is not an Other. I am inclined to the theory that says that Coldhands is a Raven Teeth member who was wighted by Bloodraven. And he was apparently talking about a certain hidden door leading to the Nightfort if I am not mistaken. Correct me if I'm wrong, but we don't know about Others trying to pass over the Wall so far. They pushed the wildlings against the Wall, and even got to sneak a couple of kamikaze wights into Castle Black. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
delspark Posted March 17, 2016 Share Posted March 17, 2016 7 minutes ago, King Merrett I Frey said: Coldhands is not an Other. I am inclined to the theory that says that Coldhands is a Raven Teeth member who was wighted by Bloodraven. And he was apparently talking about a certain hidden door leading to the Nightfort if I am not mistaken. Correct me if I'm wrong, but we don't know about Others trying to pass over the Wall so far. They pushed the wildlings against the Wall, and even got to sneak a couple of kamikaze wights into Castle Black. The wights at Castle Black were the Black brothers who went into ranging. They were found when Jon said his oath for NW and taken back by the brothers through the wall for examination by Lord Commander. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heartofwinter Posted March 17, 2016 Share Posted March 17, 2016 Why does everyone think there has to be something involved with dragons and the magic from dragons as to why they are going south now? They were already awake and on the move before the dragons were born. It seems like they are on the move because their pact was broken, but how long ago and what that was exactly remains to be seen. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kyll.Ing. Posted March 17, 2016 Share Posted March 17, 2016 I adhere to the hypohesis that there was a pact which the Others now consider broken. The Others may have lived in Otherland to the far north, AKA the Land of Always Winter, and generally been chillin' about. The Haunted Forest would be a demilitarized zone of sorts, where both humans and Others are meant to stay out, or at least not gather in force. The humans have some tribes living there, and the Others might make some incursions, but generally things are going good for thousands of years. Enter Mance Rayder, an ambitious young human desiring to unite the Wildling tribes. Hearing legends about ancient superweapons, he gathers thousands of people and go search the Frostfangs for the famed Horn of Joramun. In the process, he ends up desacrating a lot of ancient Others graves. The Others decide to step up their presence, making the human tribes feel threatened, so they clump together in even larger groups. Before long, there's an army of humans, tens of thousands strong, scavenging around the Frostfangs. A huge army, looting graves on the doorstep of the Others. Without any way to communicate, they'd easily believe a war was brewing. How would the Night's Watch have reacted if the "Wildling Others" started raiding human villages in search of a weapon to bring down the Frostfangs? Oh, wait, that "raiding villages" thing actually happens in the books, and Mormont reacts by organising a Great Ranging and begging the lords of Westeros for reinforcements. Evidently, border guards do become jumpy when things they don't understand happen in the DMZ. The Others see Mance's actions as a declaration of war, and act as peacefully as they reasonably can, by herding them south and past the Wall. They're emptying the Haunted Forest, but not attacking in force. That stunt on the Fist of the First Men was a bit of a massacre, but they could have done a hundred times the damage if they attacked the Wildling host, and from a certain point of view the Night's Watch is a legitimate military target. It may be that the Others' primary objective is to push the humans back south of the Wall, and force them to respect the borders. The other theory I like is that the uprising of the Others is simply an Others issue, a symptom of something going wrong in their society. War, famine, overpopulation, dissidence, natural disasters or other factors outside the influence of humans. Some phenomenon or other made a group of Others attack the humans of the Haunted Forest. The few Others we have actually seen could be renegades or outcasts from Other society, or opponents of the "don't disturb the humans" policy. Their actions don't necessarily mean all Others are evil (or anti-human in any form), it might be that they have just the same problems within their society as humans do. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
koststerg Posted March 17, 2016 Share Posted March 17, 2016 I think we all agree that the Others are an intelligent race and they want to win. But they made 2 attacks (first War of Down and the Night King episode) and they failed both times. What was their conclusion from these 2 attempts? So, for me the real question is what they are afraid of. I think they are afraid of magic. In both previous wars it was not the humans that defeated them, it was the Children of the forest. Humans by themselves didn't stand a chance (as the story of the Last Hero showed). But humans with the aid of Cotf magic managed to stop them. So a logical plan forms. Alienate humans and Cotf and let them kill each other. Once the Cotf are finished, the humans will be defeated easily. But then something unexpected happens. Humans learn to control dragons and in this way they get their own magic, which makes them very dangerous on their own. And then those dragonriders arrive at Westeros making an attack on humanity even riskier. So, the Others wait. They wait for the dragons to die and then they wait for this family that has a strong affinity with dragon magic (the Targaryen) and still possesses some dragon eggs to also get extinguished (they might even have known about the prophecy). So, with the end of Robert's Rebellion the dragons are out, the Targaryens are out and there is only one Child and a greenseer. They take the decision to go to war and they start their last preparations (15 years of last preparations is not that much when you have waited for 8000 years, they are probably trying a final boost in their numbers with Craster's children). An interesting (and far more crackpot) implication of this theory is that there might also be their helping hand behind some crucial historical events, like the Doom (the Braavosi say they did it but who taught them how?), some aspects of Roynish Wars (like the curse), the extinction of dragons or the end of Targareyn rule. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jon's Queen Consort Posted March 17, 2016 Share Posted March 17, 2016 I don't believe that they had been awaken now. They seem to have a deal with Craster so I believe that they had been awaken for at least two decates. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arystin Posted March 17, 2016 Share Posted March 17, 2016 We can assume the others have been coming as far south as Crasters' Keep for a few years as he has been sacrificing his sons to them. Maybe with the diminishing of magic the others lost the ability to warg/resurrect the dead. I imaging that the others themselves are fairly few in number as are the children of the forest so without this ability would not be able to mount a full scale attach on the wall. As to why they are attacking, if the maesters/acolytes etc. were involved in the fall of magic and this resulted in the others' powers being diminished they have decided to prevent this from recurring? I'm not too sure about this and there is probably a much better reason. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
delspark Posted March 17, 2016 Share Posted March 17, 2016 2 hours ago, Kyll.Ing. said: Enter Mance Rayder, an ambitious young human desiring to unite the Wildling tribes. Hearing legends about ancient superweapons, he gathers thousands of people and go search the Frostfangs for the famed Horn of Joramun. In the process, he ends up desacrating a lot of ancient Others graves. The Others decide to step up their presence, making the human tribes feel threatened, so they clump together in even larger groups. Before long, there's an army of humans, tens of thousands strong, scavenging around the Frostfangs. A huge army, looting graves on the doorstep of the Others. Without any way to communicate, they'd easily believe a war was brewing. How would the Night's Watch have reacted if the "Wildling Others" started raiding human villages in search of a weapon to bring down the Frostfangs? Oh, wait, that "raiding villages" thing actually happens in the books, and Mormont reacts by organising a Great Ranging and begging the lords of Westeros for reinforcements. Evidently, border guards do become jumpy when things they don't understand happen in the DMZ. The Others see Mance's actions as a declaration of war, and act as peacefully as they reasonably can, by herding them south and past the Wall. They're emptying the Haunted Forest, but not attacking in force. That stunt on the Fist of the First Men was a bit of a massacre, but they could have done a hundred times the damage if they attacked the Wildling host, and from a certain point of view the Night's Watch is a legitimate military target. It may be that the Others' primary objective is to push the humans back south of the Wall, and force them to respect the borders. If the Others want to herd the humans to south of the Wall, then why kill them and turn them into one of them? In ADWD , Varamyr tried to skinchange into Thristle, but the Others attack them and Varamyr ends up in his wolf's body and Thristle becomes wight. Even the black brothers who turned into wights when brought back to south of the wall they tried to attack Lord commander. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
delspark Posted March 17, 2016 Share Posted March 17, 2016 1 hour ago, koststerg said: So a logical plan forms. Alienate humans and Cotf and let them kill each other. Once the Cotf are finished, the humans will be defeated easily. But then something unexpected happens. Humans learn to control dragons and in this way they get their own magic, which makes them very dangerous on their own. And then those dragonriders arrive at Westeros making an attack on humanity even riskier. So, the Others wait. They wait for the dragons to die and then they wait for this family that has a strong affinity with dragon magic (the Targaryen) and still possesses some dragon eggs to also get extinguished (they might even have known about the prophecy). So, with the end of Robert's Rebellion the dragons are out, the Targaryens are out and there is only one Child and a greenseer. They take the decision to go to war and they start their last preparations. The dragons are back again. If they were so afraid of dragons should not they get back into their hiding place? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Macgregor of the North Posted March 17, 2016 Share Posted March 17, 2016 I had a thought on the matter once that a couple of things helped motivate their march south and raised their hostility.The near extinction of House Stark and the blood sacrifices drying up. I know house Stark has had lords die etc but never has House Stark been in such danger as it is now that the possibility is so high their will not be another Stark In WF. The Wildlings have been moving in mass numbers south. It's possible other Wildlings were also sacrificing to the Others but we only see Craster as our example to show it happens and also to introduce Gilly to the story. So the sacrifices are ceasing to happen now and has enraged them maybe? Also, Craster is killed stopping his sacrifices also. As to where the Starks fit in I had two thoughts, the lighter happier thought was that the Others are connected to house Stark through an ancient blood sacrifice pact, and now that for the first time in like forever the Starks are actually close to being properly wiped out and there will be no Stark in WF the Others know this and will bring pain to the realm for this. My other darker thought was that since the NW no longer holds true, and their is a chance the Starks are wiped out leaving WF with no Stark in WF(Which along with the NW holding true to its cause is what is holding the Others back) then the Others see this as their prime moment to descend on the realm and devour it Long night two style!. On the Other hand though I've really no idea and it's good GRRM has managed to keep the Others true intents and motivations hidden for this long and we are still as clueless as when GOT came out in the 90s. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Illyrio Mo'Parties Posted March 17, 2016 Share Posted March 17, 2016 On Tuesday, 15 March 2016 at 6:11 AM, John Suburbs said: Mance woke them despoiling the crypts looking for the Horn of Winter. Ned woke them when he built a sept in Winterfell for Catelyn I hate the idea that Mance woke them by accident, it seems too petty. The building of a sept in Winterfell is an interesting notion. But for me, the best theory is what someone else upthread called "magical tides": 13 hours ago, King Crow said: I believe in the "Magical Tides" theory, and the dragons and others have returned because we are in magical high-tide. Although I prefer to think of it as the "magic is returning to the world for some unknown reason theory", or even the "It just happens for no reason" theory. As for Craster and his sons: while the Night's Watch knew Craster was sacrificing his sons, they didn't know the Others were taking them. I'm sure they would've tried to persuade him to let them adopt his sons, and I'm equally sure he'd have said no. But more to the point: were the Others always taking them? How did their arrangement with Craster come to be? I see no reason to be sure that they've been visiting him all these years; it's possible he started off just leaving his sons out in the snow, vaguely sacrificed to the Old Gods, and the Others showed up later. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
koststerg Posted March 17, 2016 Share Posted March 17, 2016 Hello delspark They could decide to hide or they could decide to strike fast and hard before the humans are united and organised behind those dragons and while the dragons are young. Do they seem a little hasty the last months in comparison to previous years? Definitely. It could be for their own reasons but it could be because they learned about Dany. One other thing. If they had learned about Dany and they are worried about her dragons it is reasonable to assume that they have a plan for her. Have we seen it? Well, there is that strange incident in the bridge of dreams (which is very exciting and makes no sense at all). I have seen no theory about it that explains it fully. What if (even more crackpot ... ) it is an attempt against Dany. Remember the events. The group passes the bridge and nothing happens but then they are forced to pass it again, they are attacked, the attack "fails" and they are left to escape! The real question here is why the "force" that brought them back for a second pass didn't bring them back for a third time but let them go. The moment of their first pass under the bridge is the first time that is heard in the open that Young Griff is Aegon and he is heading for Dany. Then they are brought back, they are attacked, one of them gets greyscale and they are left to continue. What if whoever brought them back (and he is related to the Curse against the Valyrians and their dragons) wants someone with grayscale next to Dany? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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