What do the Others want?

[Macgregor of the North]

Been thinking, I remember a lot of theories from ages ago when people started theorising that the Others were a weapon created by the CoTf but it got out of control etc etc etc. 

But when we read about the history, the dawn age ended with a pact that begin the age of heroes that begun a time of peace between the first men and the CoTf. 

The Long night came later during the age of heroes didn't it, so If the pact was made before already and there was peace between first men and CoTf, doesn't that totally rule out that the CoTf created the Others to fight the first men? 

[Librus]

2 minutes ago, Macgregor of the North said:

Been thinking, I remember a lot of theories from ages ago when people started theorising that the Others were a weapon created by the CoTf but it got out of control etc etc etc. 

But when we read about the history, the dawn age ended with a pact that begin the age of heroes that begun a time of peace between the first men and the CoTf. 

The Long night came later during the age of heroes didn't it, so If the pact was made before already and there was peace between first men and CoTf, doesn't that totally rule out that the CoTf created the Others to fight the first men? 

My thoughts exactly bro. I don't think the CoTf made the Others. I never really did. It just doesn't make any sense.

[tugela]

Maybe the children were just building their strength and the "peace" was a stalling tactic to lull men into a false sense of security. Then they had the others attack, and the only way the wights could be stopped would be if the children intervened. That would create the situation where the only thing between man and being eaten was the children. That would mean that it would be essential for man to respect the arrangements with the children. Over time all of that was forgotten however, so the children had to make new others to remind man why they still needed the children. But things got out of hand, the children turned the wrong person, and that turned person had different ideas about the place of the others in Westeros.

[tugela]

2 minutes ago, Librus said:

My thoughts exactly bro. I don't think the CoTf made the Others. I never really did. It just doesn't make any sense.

The problem with them allways being there is that they vanished for thousands of years, only to reappear now for no apparent reason. Man had already moved beyond the wall ages ago, so if the wall was there to keep the two sides apart you would have thought that the others would have been decimating the wildlings over all that time.

So why now? The most reasonable conclusion is that the current crop of white walkers did not exist until fairly recently, and that means that someone had to have been making them for some unknown reason.

[Librus]

Actually, the wildlings were moving further north before the Others started showing themselves. I think it was the wildling migration that kicked the beehive. They were taking more and more land from the Others and in doing so awoke a need to take back what is theirs. Yet again, invaders trying to take what is theirs and killing their people to get it. I'd be pissed too. 

 

Edit: Whoops... Wrong quote. lol

[Macgregor of the North]

9 minutes ago, tugela said:

The problem with them allways being there is that they vanished for thousands of years, only to reappear now for no apparent reason. Man had already moved beyond the wall ages ago, so if the wall was there to keep the two sides apart you would have thought that the others would have been decimating the wildlings over all that time.

So why now? The most reasonable conclusion is that the current crop of white walkers did not exist until fairly recently, and that means that someone had to have been making them for some unknown reason.

Maybe they had always been beyond the wall but now they finally know the longest winter since the last long night is finally due so it's time to make their move south again. 

The Others have been active a long time beyond the wall collecting sacrifices we know that. In 299AC there's a wife of Crasters who's given 6 boys to them if IIRC and that's just one of the wives/daughters, there's loads more than that so it's been happening for quite a while. 

Also, ever thought its maybe worth pondering the idea that the Others deal with Craster is not totally unique. There may be other instances of sacrifices happening but we only hear of Crasters situation in detail because he is quite a big part of the story and his keep(and also Gilly)is important to the story. 

[Duncan_The_Short]

Craster also refers to The Others as Gods.  Perhaps they were willing to accept wildlings beyond the wall as long as they were sacrificing to them, but as time passed and the people forgot about them they decided to get aggressive.

Another thought, are they trying to exterminate Humans completely?  I mean that doesn't make sense from a reproductive standpoint.

[tugela]

Just throwing things out there, but the others might not be evil after all. They might know that whatever Mance Rayder is trying to do will destroy the old peace that has existed for thousands of years, and are trying to stop him from achieving it in their own way.

But that is being misunderstood by the humans to the south, who are organizing to fight the white walkers instead.

In the mean time Mance is still busy trying to accomplish whatever his plan was. I think it is reasonable to suspect that it might have negative implications for everyone else. That would be the supreme irony. The real enemy is not who Jon thinks it is. The real enemy comes with a smile and pretends to be your friend.

[tugela]

It struck me that there have been thousands of years where everyone has gotten along, but now suddenly the white walkers are fighting. So what prompted that? There are two options for the WW. (1) they have always been around and up till now have minded their own business, or (2) they were created only recently by the children as weapons. In either case, something in the last 20 years must have changed beyond the wall to get all of this going. And what do we know that is different beyond the wall in the last 20 years? The only obvious thing has been the arrival of Mance Rayder and the organization of the wildlings to serve some purpose that is not clear.

My guess is that purpose is bringing the wall down, and invading the south. In both scenarios the wall coming down would be bad because it would disrupt the old order of things and allow humans from the south to flood into the north.

I think what motivates the WW is the need to stop Mance from doing whatever he is trying to do, because it will break the peace that has held for thousands of years.

And all of this plays into the whole story of Jon and Daenerys, with Mance being the main villain. I think Mance is really Rhaegar glamored, and he has a greater plan that is not going to be good for anyone other than himself. When we talk about the dragon having three heads, we mention Jon and Daenerys, then muse over who the third is. The third may be Rhaegar himself. In Dany's vision where she sees him with a child, he says that the dragon has three heads, so there must be a third, while looking at her. The people in the vision are Rhaegar, Lyanna and Jon. The first head of the dragon is Rhaegar, the second is Jon and the third is Daenerys, and together he believes that he will be able to achieve his grand plan.

If that is the case, Mance has already sort of co-opted Jon, but he still needs Dany. And the real threat to Westeros is not the WW, it is Mance/Rhaegar. The WW are trying to stop him.

[MinotaurWarrior]

1 hour ago, Macgregor of the North said:

Been thinking, I remember a lot of theories from ages ago when people started theorising that the Others were a weapon created by the CoTf but it got out of control etc etc etc. 

But when we read about the history, the dawn age ended with a pact that begin the age of heroes that begun a time of peace between the first men and the CoTf. 

The Long night came later during the age of heroes didn't it, so If the pact was made before already and there was peace between first men and CoTf, doesn't that totally rule out that the CoTf created the Others to fight the first men? 

The "Others are a weapon against man" theory generally holds that humans failed to keep the peace, citing places like Deepwood Motte as humanity intruding upon the Children's domain.

I don't really buy into it, but that's what they claim.

1 hour ago, tugela said:

The problem with them allways being there is that they vanished for thousands of years, only to reappear now for no apparent reason. Man had already moved beyond the wall ages ago, so if the wall was there to keep the two sides apart you would have thought that the others would have been decimating the wildlings over all that time.

So why now? The most reasonable conclusion is that the current crop of white walkers did not exist until fairly recently, and that means that someone had to have been making them for some unknown reason.

We know that Others were present at the time of the 13th LC (~13-260 years after the long Night), and we know they were present when Craster's sons were born, so I see no real reason to believe they were wiped off the face of the earth some time between then and now. Their inactivity for the majority of those 8,000 years is no more baffling than their inactivity over all but the last year and a half of Craster's life, or humanity's inactivity north of the frostfangs in the Land of Always Winter. While some people dismiss the Others as being mythical or historical they do the same of Giants who we know to be a totally normal part of beyond-the-wall life.

As for what might have provoked them into stirring, we're told early on that long winter's follow long summers, and that this was the longest summer in recorded history. A large number of characters profess belief in or knowledge of this theory, and nothing seems to contradict it.

[tugela]

I don't really buy that argument. We are talking about very long periods of time here, it does not make sense that they would only move now. There would have been long winters in the past as well, you would think that the WW would be motivated by more than the weather. It would imply that they are creatures without reason, and that does not sit well with me.

I still think that is recent events in the domain of man that is prompting them to react, not the weather. It is a threat to them, and in particular what Mance is up to. Their part in the story is really just a side bar to what is actually going on. And the beauty of it is that people like Jon Snow are completely misdirected as a result, and are directing their attention to the source of their fear, rather than the source of the threat. They do not see it coming, in fact, they even welcome it!!

[Muggle]

Perhaps the Gods Eye more specifically the Isle of Faces. That place hold a lot of interest for me as a reader. Some people think that's where the rituals for the Hammer of the Gods was preformed. Also the Andals were never able to conquer the island and the "Green Men". Something special is going on there.

I can only speculate but I would think if the others are in fact intelligent with goals, hopes, and dreams. This place would be of interest to them. Maybe enough to go to war. 

[MinotaurWarrior]

15 minutes ago, tugela said:

I don't really buy that argument. We are talking about very long periods of time here, it does not make sense that they would only move now. There would have been long winters in the past as well, you would think that the WW would be motivated by more than the weather. It would imply that they are creatures without reason, and that does not sit well with me.

This past summer was the longest in recorded history, with Westerosi historical records going back an incredibly long time. And even before this summer officially began, the seasons had been unbalanced. Tyrion believes seven or eight winters have passed since he was born in 273, and Jon snow only remembers one mild winter in his life. The winter of Tyrion's birth lasts to 274 and then there's a winter from 280-282 with an abominable false spring in the middle, then a summer in 284 when Dany is born, and another starting in 288. It's possible that there really has only been one winter in Jon Snow's life, but it's also possible that childhood amnesia has erased some. Tyrion's four or five missing winters have less than ten years in which they could have occurred - in a setting where seasons are said to last for years. The average length of the turn of non-summer seasons has to have been less than a year over the course of tyrion's life.

And I think climate is one of the main determining factors of intelligent behavior. There's climate change and blah blah blah george is a hippy blah blah, but there's also the medieval little ice age and the flooding of the Nile and the bering ice bridge and the windstorms that sent the Spanish and Yuan chinese armadas crashing into British and Japanese rocks. Weather makes history.

Finally, there's the fact that weather in westeros isn't natural. George hasn't spoiled what causes the seasons, except to say that it will be revealed, and is nothing scientific. The Andals and the Ashaii'i both believe their god(s) will send an eternal summer when certain conditions are met. The wildlings believe (and evidence suggests) that the Others bring the cold. This is an active struggle.

 

[Stubby]

[MOD]

A number of posts have been deleted.

Those posts were discussing the show, which is against the rules in the book threads.

[/MOD]

[House Beaudreau]

7 hours ago, Dorian Martell said:

they hate warmth and life and seek to exterminate both 

it seems unlikely that GRRM would create such a polarized evil character. 

[Shireen Purratheon]

I don't buy that the Others are stirring because of what Mance did. Mance was doing what he was doing because the Others started stirring.

[Dorian Martell]

 

3 hours ago, House Beaudreau said:

it seems unlikely that GRRM would create such a polarized evil character. 

Yet he has......

3 hours ago, Shireen Purratheon said:

I don't buy that the Others are stirring because of what Mance did. Mance was doing what he was doing because the Others started stirring.

They could be cyclical in their invasions 

[StarkofWinterfell]

What if the Others were on the run from an even greater threat?

This is a theme I can at least identify with appearing in one other literary work concerning the humans and Forerunners in Halo.

And it's not so far-fetched to believe either.

[TheDemonicStark]

Can we all just agree that Night's King is returning? What would happen to someone if they had sex with an Other, then died. They would return as an Other. Seems logical. And maybe the Others have a political system much like the Seven Kingdoms. Betrayals, plots, the works. Night's King has arisen as the leader of the Others, and seeks to claim Winterfell as his own. But this, in the process will lead to the second Long Night. That is probably what will happen.

[Macgregor of the North]

5 hours ago, MinotaurWarrior said:

This past summer was the longest in recorded history, with Westerosi historical records going back an incredibly long time. And even before this summer officially began, the seasons had been unbalanced. Tyrion believes seven or eight winters have passed since he was born in 273, and Jon snow only remembers one mild winter in his life. The winter of Tyrion's birth lasts to 274 and then there's a winter from 280-282 with an abominable false spring in the middle, then a summer in 284 when Dany is born, and another starting in 288. It's possible that there really has only been one winter in Jon Snow's life, but it's also possible that childhood amnesia has erased some. Tyrion's four or five missing winters have less than ten years in which they could have occurred - in a setting where seasons are said to last for years. The average length of the turn of non-summer seasons has to have been less than a year over the course of tyrion's life.

And I think climate is one of the main determining factors of intelligent behavior. There's climate change and blah blah blah george is a hippy blah blah, but there's also the medieval little ice age and the flooding of the Nile and the bering ice bridge and the windstorms that sent the Spanish and Yuan chinese armadas crashing into British and Japanese rocks. Weather makes history.

Finally, there's the fact that weather in westeros isn't natural. George hasn't spoiled what causes the seasons, except to say that it will be revealed, and is nothing scientific. The Andals and the Ashaii'i both believe their god(s) will send an eternal summer when certain conditions are met. The wildlings believe (and evidence suggests) that the Others bring the cold. This is an active struggle.

 

Maybe the summer needs to reach the ten year mark or something for the Others to believe they will have a long enough winter for them to move south. 

During Maekars reign (221-233AC) a 6 1/2 - 7 year summer took place. A 5 year winter followed but there was no Others invasion or long night battle we know of. 

Maybe the ten year summer ending in 300AC is a prophetic number for the Others.