The white walkers are the Others. The Others are the white walkers.

[Voice]

On January 19, 2017 at 1:18 AM, Macgregor of the North said:

You clearly set them apart that way in your own thread but are now backtracking in my thread saying you simply think it is just a military based heirarchy but the beings are the same. 

On January 19, 2017 at 1:18 AM, Macgregor of the North said:

But be clear what you are trying to do here.

On January 19, 2017 at 2:55 AM, Macgregor of the North said:

Sorry but when you talk about different weapons being able to kill different sets of beings you are clearly talking about a separate species here, made up of something different.

Your own words here:

"One thing that few people seem to realize about my little hierarchy is that it is not meant to be taken as a hierarchy of species, but as a military hierarchy."

That may well be true, and I can't dispute that really, but it may well be true also that the Other who led the group who killed Waymar was the leader of the Others, the general If you will. There is absolutely nothing in the text to dispute that either. I'm not saying that is so, just an example.

So, on closing, you have went from believing that there are a set of beings called the white walkers that we have seen a few times in the story, and these are the beings that Dragonglass can kill, and there are a set of beings we are yet to see, the actual Others who are a separate being which only Dragonsteel can kill. 

To believing now that, these beings are the same, the Others and the white walkers are the same species, the same beings, but we may not have seen their generals yet who ride the Ice Spiders. 

Correct me if I'm wrong but this is where we are at now is it not?

17 hours ago, Macgregor of the North said:

I have composed a full counter to every point you state in your original heirarchy thread and will hold it back as my final tilt in our Joust good Ser. Awaiting your reply.

 

My own words... from my original hierarchy thread:

Spoiler

 

 

Addendum III: The Wall

Lastly, I think this theory is supported by the Wall itself. If the Others are only 'wights' and 'white walkers' the realm doesn't really need a 700ft tall wall of ice, 300 miles long, to stop them.

Wights are slow and a series of watchtowers with fire on tap would stop them. The white walkers are trickier, but dragonglass-tipped arrows in the quivers of skilled archers decreases their threat level to about zero.

Ancient Others, with a mind for military tactics, riding Ice Spiders, leading organized attacks of wights (infantry) and white walkers (field commanders), seems a bit trickier to deal with...and the ancient Night's Watch would have wanted a way to slow them down. I think that is what the Wall is for.

So why is the Wall so big? And, why the desire of every Lord Commander to leave it higher than he found it?

Answer: The white walkers leave no footprints in snow. That means they can walk up snowdrifts the way a normal army would use siege towers. If summer snows create sizable snowdrifts around Winterfell, imagine how large the snowdrifts would have been during the Long Night. Thus, best build a big Wall...

Ancient Others may be more Man-like than our garden variety 'white walkers' and this would explain their mounts being Ice Spiders, rather than wighted beasts of burden.

Spiders climb Walls...

The white walkers walk up the snowdrifts...

The wights lie in wait within those snowdrifts...

(remember the hill outside Bloodraven's cave)

As the winds of winter blow, the cold dead lands grow, like a web of frost...stretching ever southward (or, perhaps outward from Winterfell itself). Upon that icy web the inhuman Others will ride down upon the winds of winter, astride their ice spiders.

So there it is. Have at it! I look forward to discussion and debate

 

 

 

PAST IS PROLOGUE:  A TRAGEDY

SER VOICE

Who is Will?  And why is he just turning in a circle?

 

LORD CRACKLES

A Sentinel.  The boy looks lost.  I'll show them the way north.

(slides center stage, toward THE BOY, and spars lazily)

 

SER VOICE

(slides forward, watchful and silent)

 

LORD CRACKLES

(mockingly)

Brothers!  He doesn’t know his watch is ended!

 

THE BOY

(shouting and slashing)  

For Robert!

 

LORD CRACKLES

(shatters THE BOY's sword)

 

THE BOY

(Now kneeling in the snow, screaming.)

 

(After a time, SER VOICE moves forward at LORD CRACKLES’ signal. He and THE OTHERS carefully slice away THE BOY’s ringmail.)

(THE OTHERS joke and laugh, but SER VOICE is concentrating on something else . . . THE SENTINEL’s heartbeat.  Eventually THE OTHERS become calm and quiet.)

 

SER VOICE

(with resolve)

My lord, do you think he understands the hierarchy now?

 

LORD CRACKLES

No.  But he will obey it.

 

[GhostNymeria]

I've been reading through the thread and I had a thought about who the "Great Other" could be. Instead of a actual God, I believe it could be the Children of the forest.

Quote

"Their wise men were called greenseers, and carved strange faces in the weirwoods to keep watch on the woods." - Bran AGOT

First, you could say that the COTF are the closest beings to "Gods" in ASOIAF, even if they're not literal gods. The first men and the North have kind of been unknowingly worshipping the COTF as the Old Gods, by praying to the faces on weirwoods.

 In my reread of the prologue chapter in AGOT this passage stood out to me:

Quote

"Something was different tonight. There was an edge to the darkness that made his hackles rise. Nine days they had been riding, north and northwest and then north again, farther and farther from the Wall, hard on the track of a band of wilding raiders. Each day had been worse then the day before it. Today was the worst of all. A cold wind was blowing out of the north, and it made the trees rustle like living things. All day, Will had felt as if something were watching him, something cold and implacable that loved him not. Gared had felt it too. Will wanted nothing so much as to ride hellbent for the safety of the Wall, but that was not a feeling to share with the commander."

 "A cold wind was blowing out of the north" - This is telling us they were about to meet the Others that night, or that the Others were coming. But this cold wind also "made the trees rustle like living things". We know the Children of the forest (or their greenseers) can watch through the trees. I don't think Grrm would describe the trees as "living things" randomly. On top of describing the trees as rustling like living things, the next sentince desribes that Will and Gared had "felt as if something were watching" them. If it indeed was the children who were watching them, then it is implied that they are "something cold and implacable that loved him not". 

If the COTF created, controls or uses the Others as instruments for their own gain, then it wouldn't be unfitting to call the COFT the Great Other. Melisandre is the one who introduces us to the concept of the Great Other. Intresetingly enough, in ASOS she refers to the White walkers/Others as "cold children" of the Great Other.

Quote

“Dragonglass. Frozen fire, in the tongue of old Valyria. Small wonder it is anathema to these cold children of the Other.”

I also think her reaction to her vision of Bloodraven and Bran in the COTF cave could be a clue to this.

Quote

" A wooden face, corpse white. Was this the enemy? A thousand red eyes floated in the rising flames. He sees me. Beside him, a boy with a wolfs face threw back his head and howled. The red priestess shuddered. Blood trickled down her thigh, black and smoking. The fire was inside her, an agony, an ecstasy, filling her, searing her, transforming her. Shimmers of heat traced patterns on her skin, insistent as a lover’s hand."

The general consensus here is that Melisandre sees Bloodraven and Bran. Then Melisandre starts to bleed in pain. Why did she have this violent reaction? Could it be because she actually saw a glimpse of the "Great Other"? I'm not implying that BR is the Great Other here. Melisandre sees a glimpse of who the identity of the Great Other through BR and Bran, who are greenseers and is interacting with the Great Other/COTF. She wonders if BR with his "thousand red eyes" is the Great Other. You could say the COTF also has a "thousand eyes" through their greenseeing and trees. 

But you could ask, if this vision and Melisandre's reaction was a clue to who the Great Other are, why did Melisandre not simply see the COTF instead? Probably because it would be to revealing.

 

[Macgregor of the North]

@Voice

Be slightly clearer with this response here. This doesn't have to be difficult you know.

In your own thread you say we haven't seen the Others yet but it's clear we have. 

You also say that the white walkers and the Others are separate and the white walkers are a lesser group of underlings who can be killed by Dragonglass.

But the Others are a separate set of beings who can only be killed by Dragonsteel, and they haven't made an appearance yet.

Is this what you still believe or not?. Just keep the reply straight forward. 

[OtherFromAnotherMother]

Found this in the World book. Thought it might be of interest.

Quote

The history of the stormlands stretches back to the Dawn Age. Long before the coming of the First Men, all Westeros belonged to the elder races—the children of the forest and the giants (and, some say, the Others, the terrifying "white walkers" of the Long Night).

 

[Macgregor of the North]

8 hours ago, OtherFromAnotherMother said:

Found this in the World book. Thought it might be of interest.

 

 Certainly is of interest mate and is included in my full counter to the argument I'm away to post now. 

Cheers for posting it up.

 

[Macgregor of the North]

I have had a bit of time on my hands so I'm gonna go ahead and sign and seal this thread with a lump of Macgregor tartan red wax. I personally feel enough has been shown to counter that there are allegedly two separate sets of Icy walkers in our story:

The ones we have seen already: The white walkers, beings that can be killed by Dragonglass. 

And

The ones we haven't seen yet: The Others, beings immune to Dragonglass and can only be killed by a blade such as "Dragonsteel". 

I'll lay out a counter to every argument that has been brought forth. 

The use of nouns. 

Contrary to what some believe, the Others (with a capital O, proper noun) have appeared in the story and been talked about countless times. Every time the term is used the O is capitalised, it is the correct term for these beings so the proper noun is used. The white walkers are a general term used to describe the Others, it is used all over Westeros, North to South and is simply a common noun general term for the Others hence the lower case. 

Also worth mentioning, GRRM would have had to make the Others stand out in the text so the capital O makes sense there too as it would be hard to determine sometimes which being the story was referring too. As in a group of others could simply mean a group of people.

Ice Spiders.

A big deal has been made about Ice Spiders. People seem to think that because we haven't seen the Others ride down on Ice Spiders yet that must mean we haven't seen the true Others yet. 

Right away this argument falls flat on its face because you can't really say that because the Others aren't riding Ice Spiders yet we haven't seen the Others yet, it simply just means that we haven't seen the Others riding their Ice Spiders yet. 

In the final two books all GRRM needs to do is have the Others we have already seen appear at the Wall in greater numbers atop their Ice Spiders ready to finally make their move South if the Wall. 

Dragonglass & Dragonsteel. 

Quick note: I believe that Dragonsteel was a very early basic prototype of what is today known as Valyrian steel. I think it had in its most basic form, what will prove to be the most important ingredient for killing Others, the forging in Dragonflame. 

It is believed by some that in our story we have only seen the white walkers so far, the underlings of the true Others. And these white walkers melt away when stabbed by Dragonglass. We have yet to see a super set of Others that are immune to Dragonglass but only Dragonsteel can kill. 

I personally dont think you can really assert that because Dragonglass kills white walkers (actually the Others!) that must mean that everything seems so simple and far too easy now so there just has to be a higher more powerful different version of white walker, an actual Other (although we have already seen the Others), a being that Dragonglass can't kill, only a blade such as Dragonsteel can kill this being. 

That most certainly does not have to be the case. Dragonglass being able to kill all Others is well within the realm of possibility and GRRM can write how that becomes difficult as opposed to plain sailing anyway he likes. 

Example: Check how GRRM writes in a massive game changer for Arya, where all she needs to do is mention the names of three individuals and they die. She could have drastically changed the fortunes of her and her family for the good by naming certain names but it doesn't go that way, GRRM writes it a different way so she names the names she does and things go the way they do. 

So look at it this way. Stannis sent word to his Castellan to mine Dragonglass for the war against the Others, that seems great. But GRRM could very well write that there was a ship sent North with tons of it but the ship is pulled under by a Kraken. 

Just an example there. 

Or, they never managed to mine it in time and a ship never was sent North and when they need it most The Dragonglass that is in abundance on Dragonstone stays on Dragonstone, never reaching the people who need it when the Others appear. Get the idea?.

There are many ways GRRM can write Dragonglass' apparent easy solution out of the story and then write in the dire need for something else, like Dragonsteel, which I believe to be a very early basic prototype of what is today known as Valyrian steel, except it need not be Valyrian in its creation with all its magic spells etc, it simply had the most important ingredient in regards to killing Others, the forging in Dragonflame. Sorry for repeating that lol.

So I don't see the need for a set of super Others that are immune to Dragonglass but can be killed by Dragonsteel sorry. I think that is making hefty leaps in the story that there is actually no proof of.

Next up, it is believed by some that the white walkers are all male and the Others can be male or female. 

There is absolutely no proof anywhere that the Others have a male and female structure. The only thing remotely pointing to this is the pale blue eyed Sorceress who took her place beside Night's King in the ancient myth. Nowhere is it stated in any piece of text ever that she was a female Other though. This is 100% speculation.

We have not seen a female Other in the story yet in any book. 

Now, on to the Bran/Old Nan conversation and Brans "querulous" tone.

A lot is made about this here. I don't see why but I'll explain my view on it all the same. I personally think anybody looking for evidence of there being a set of white walkers and a super set of Others in this conversation is looking for a fabulous beast instead of a normal regular Cat, as per Syrios expert advice to Arya in AGOT. 

See with your eyes people! 

Ok here's the text.

"Oh, my sweet summer child," Old Nan said quietly, "what do you know of fear? Fear is for the winter, my little lord, when the snows fall a hundred feet deep and the ice wind comes howling out of the north. Fear is for the long night, when the sun hides its face for years at a time, and little children are born and live and die all in darkness while the direwolves grow gaunt and hungry, and the white walkers move through the woods."

"You mean the Others," Bran said querulously. 

"The Others," Old Nan agreed."

Now with that description there, that is clearly the Long Night in full swing, full on Winter at its worst and it's the white walkers moving through the woods. The general term for the Others. 

Right, let's put this into context. Nan has told all the children scary stories before, she has clearly told them of the Others, the white walkers of the woods. 
Here's a couple stories:

AGOT BRAN I:

"He remembered the hearth tales Old Nan told them. The wildlings were cruel men, she said, slavers and slayers and thieves. They consorted with giants and ghouls, stole girl children in the dead of night, and drank blood from polished horns. And their women lay with the Others in the Long Night to sire terrible half-human children."

ACOK ARYA III:

"She remembered a story Old Nan had told once, about a man imprisoned in a dark castle by evil giants. He was very brave and smart and he tricked the giants and escaped . . . but no sooner was he outside the castle than the Others took him, and drank his hot red blood. Now she knew how he must have felt."

AGOT JON VII:

"Unbidden, he thought back on the tales that Old Nan used to tell them, when he was a boy at Winterfell. He could almost hear her voice again, and the click-click-click of her needles. In that darkness, the Others came riding, she used to say, dropping her voice lower and lower. Cold and dead they were, and they hated iron and fire and the touch of the sun, and every living creature with hot blood in its veins. Holdfasts and cities and kingdoms of men all fell before them, as they moved south on pale dead horses, leading hosts of the slain. They fed their dead servants on the flesh of human children …"

With the evidence we have i believe that Nan mostly uses the term "Others", but at times uses the general term "white walkers". If we look at her conversation with Bran in context, it is a frustrating episode for Bran. He is quite frankly sick of the old ladies face, he's sick of her stories, sick of her company as she's left with him all the time, and sick of being confined to a bed as his legs are dead. 

He is ready to pop and rightly so will have a petulant nature about him. 

So when Nan hushes down to tell him the full story of the Last Hero of the Long Night, which incidentally, going by the text is the first time Bran has heard the story in full it seems, going by his reluctant stuttering etc. It certainly does not seem like a story he has heard many times as clearly his behaviour in the text shows. 

Anyway, so given Brans petulant manner and the fact he's ready to scream at Old Nan we see him have a nitpick at her when the story begins. She names the Others the white walkers, and Bran snaps at her querulously to correct her, to which she takes on board the correction and agrees the white walkers are indeed the Others. 

Next up, there is a belief that because an old piece of GRRM text says a certain line, this also must outright mean something. I'll bold the text. 

"The greatest danger of all, however, comes from the north, from the icy wastes beyond the Wall, where half-forgotten demons out of legend, the inhuman others, raise cold legions of the undead and the neverborn and prepare to ride down on the winds of winter to extinguish everything that we would call "life." 

Because it says the Inhuman Others prepare to ride down on the winds of winter to extinguish everything that we would call life, this has been taken by some to mean that we haven't seen the Others yet as it is not full Winter yet. For the life of me, I can't see the logic there but I'll explain my view all the same. 

Note how it says "prepare". The Others are preparing of course to ride down on the Winds of Winter to extinguish all life, but that does not mean that certain Others can not be seen before this happens. 

Yes, there is a general preparation to ride down when winter comes en masse but there are instances where Others appear either as part of that preparation, or for something absolutely necessary. I'll explain. 

The threat, and the attack. 

The Others appear to neutralise what they see as a very very big threat (at the time). Waymar Royce and his sword. I have explained lots of times why this is seen at first as a threat so I'll leave that there.

The Others also appear after the attack at the fist, we see one of them when Sam kills it. I believe certain Others were overseeing the attack on the fist while their wights diminished the Nights Watch numbers. 

So it's completely reasonable to think that while the Others are preparing for a full on Winter assault, they can still appear before that happens. 
It's like humans planning a mass expedition in real life but going to the area beforehand to plan things etc.

Next up and very important. The book text.
The books are the best source of evidence anywhere to prove something, and thankfully the books have plenty evidence that show the Others have already appeared and we have seen them, I'll use the AGOT Prologue.

We have seen the Others in the AGOT Prologue, GRRM has described them as the Others from his own mind, not the ranger Wills and his word is final. He made them appear in what was book one of his rough draft for the original three books he had planned (attacking the Wildlings while Catelyn witnesses it) and he has them appear in the first book of his extended planned seven.

There's no way about it, the beings that GRRM himself classes as the Others have already appeared in the story and are not some held back separate power waiting to be unleashed riding Ice Spiders like it is claimed.

The text:

A Game of Thrones - Prologue 

"The woods gave answer: the rustle of leaves, the icy rush of the stream, a distant hoot of a snow owl.

The Others made no sound."

This is before Will even sees the pale shapes moving from the corner of his eye, this is GRRM describing the scene for us and it is him telling us the Others made no sound. Will has no idea the Others are even there at that point.

The next quotes are the same. GRRM telling us what's going on from his own mind, and then telling us things concerning Will, like it's a language Will never understood etc.

"The Other slid forward on silent feet. In its hand was a longsword like none that Will had ever seen."

******

"The Other halted. Will saw its eyes; blue, deeper and bluer than any human eyes, a blue that burned like ice."

******

"The Other said something in a language that Will did not know; his voice was like the cracking of ice on a winter lake, and the words were mocking."

So from the story writer himself, the beings GRRM calls the Others, the official term for these beings, have appeared in the story already and are not being held back for the final books as some super set of beings that are immune to Dragonglass but can be killed by Dragonsteel, to come riding down on Ice Spiders. 

What can still happen though is that they will appear in greater numbers, atop their Ice Spiders before the Wall when it is finally time to make their move south of the Wall. That's a possibility of course. They may even be a higher rank than the Others we have seen so far in a military sense, but the same beings and not immune to Dragonglass. 

I'll touch on something else here. 

It is theorised that there is an older version of the Others that were created or evolved and they themselves "made" more newer Others that are different from themselves physically (the things that have been called white walkers by theorists on this three tier topic) but there isn't actually any proof of this in the books. 

Some theorise this to be true but there is nothing in the books to suggest that there are ancient Others hiding in the far North and they have created a separate set of beings with a different physical make up to themselves and different immunities to different weapons, and these beings are what we hear of in the story as "white walkers".

I believe I've proven that the white walkers in the story are actually the Others. Certainly the realm seems to think so also. Old Nan, the Maesters, Northern and also Southern people all refer to them as the same beings. Here's a couple of quotes:

ASOS SAM I:

"The horn blew thrice long, three long blasts means Others. The white walkers of the wood, the cold shadows, the monsters of the tales that made him squeak and tremble as a boy, riding their giant ice-spiders, hungry for blood . . ."

Here Sam is told a story as a boy in the south that refers to them as the same beings.

TWOIAF, The Stormlands, The coming of the First men:

"The history of the stormlands stretches back to the Dawn Age. Long before the coming of the First Men, all Westeros belonged to the elder races—the children of the forest and the giants (and, some say, the Others, the terrifying "white walkers" of the Long Night)."

And here the histories speculate the Others were actually around before men which I'm not sure about but they are classed as the white walkers of the Long Night. Quite simply put, the Others (proper  noun) is the correct term and the white walkers (common noun) is just a general term used by everyone to describe them.

If the angle must be pushed that there was ancient Others and now there are newer ones, does it really have to mean that they are different in their physical make up and are immune to different weaponry like they are a separate set of beings? Why aren't they just the exact same being but came into existence at a different time, like some are older and some are younger?. 

For all we know the Others we see now are the original Others from thousands of years ago and they have simply been hiding, waiting for the long winter after the longest summer, like prophecy. And the babies they take are just blood sacrifices that sustain them and their power throughout the years, instead of being used to make brand new new Others. 

That's just an example.

Or if newer Others are generated then why do they have to be different in their make up to original Others? Whatever way the original Others came to be, the same process is maybe just being repeated over the years and more exact same type Others appear like the first ones did, just replicas to the original species.

I see absolutely no evidence, and actually no need for there to be two separate types of "Other". 

An Other, a being who is immune to Dragonglass, who can only be killed by Dragonsteel, a being that we have not seen in the story yet. 

and 

A white walker, an underling of the true Others, a being that can be killed by Dragonglass. The beings we have seen so far in the story. 

I have seen nothing in the story to make me believe this is the case.

I'll end by simply saying the name of this thread.

The white walkers are the Others. The Others are the white walkers.

 

[KingMance]

@Macgregor of the North , I read this when you first posted, and I personally thought the others are the white walkers, the wights were basically zombies, and had nothing to add beyond that. So I didn't. I'll admit I only very briefly skimmed through the 4 pages here, but while reading TWOIAF, on the storm lands, I came across this:

The history of the stormlands stretches back to the Dawn Age. Long before the coming of the First Men, all Westeros belonged to the elder races— the children of the forest and the giants (and, some say, the Others, the terrifying “white walkers” of the Long Night). 

That's as much proof as I need. Not sure if it's been presented yet, but that clarifies it for me at least