Speculation about the Others

[Valyirian Aurochs]

10 minutes ago, kissdbyfire said:

Sorry, I completely missed it! In my defence I'll say it's an argument I've seen posters making w/ absolute conviction! Like Martin is going to make our lives that easy and have a character just spill the beans like that!  

 

Fair enough, but he also likes hiding the truth in plain sight. This could be one of those truths. And as I've mentioned before, this speculation is hanging by a single line of dialogue (and that Old Nan line now).

[Coolbeard the Exile]

3 hours ago, Valyirian Aurochs said:

Kind of reminds me of how Valyrians used fire to shape huge chunks of stones for their roads and castles. So it could be possible that the Others used ice magic to shape ice. And the Wall isn't really made out of blocks of ice if you read the descriptions given in the books. The Wall seems like one continuous piece of ice rather than a wall of ice bricks. TWOIAF is full of accounts written by the maesters, so it's not really reliable for giving us information about how the wall was built. The maesters are not primary sources, they were not there when the wall went up.

There's also a passage in one of the Jon chapters in ADwD where the wall is said to have ripples in it. This also reminds me of the rippling armor of the Others. If you read the prologue of AGoT or Samwell I ASoS, we see descriptions of their rippled icy armor.

We know 100% how the wall was built. It was built by the first men, children and the giants. They built it by carving blocks from nearby lakes. We have official art of this in a world of ice and fire.

If you stacked blocks of ice they wouldnt have gaps between them like bricks in a house they would merge together and after a short time it couldnt be seen. It would make sense for the wall to have ripples in it because it is so large and tall that the melting water would form ripples along the wall.

[Valyirian Aurochs]

26 minutes ago, Coolbeard the Exile said:

We know 100% how the wall was built. It was built by the first men, children and the giants. They built it by carving blocks from nearby lakes. We have official art of this in a world of ice and fire.

If you stacked blocks of ice they wouldnt have gaps between them like bricks in a house they would merge together and after a short time it couldnt be seen. It would make sense for the wall to have ripples in it because it is so large and tall that the melting water would form ripples along the wall.

We know nothing 100% in a series like ASOIAF. You may very well be right, but you have to remember that the wall wasn't as high as it was when it was built. So who helped raise it over the course of thousands of years? Not the Children of the Forest, they're mostly dead. Not the giants, there haven't been any giants south of the wall until Jon invited them in, and the Night's Watch wouldn't ask for their help. Most of the Night's Watch didn't believe giants existed until the battle in ASoS when they appeared at the Wall. The first men exist still, but we have no mention of them helping raise the wall. Who else could it be other than the Others with their ice magic? I'll also add that it's clear that magic holds the Wall up. Once again the Children of the Forest are almost extinct, their last survivors are in hiding. Where else could this magic come from?

[Coolbeard the Exile]

1 hour ago, Valyirian Aurochs said:

We know nothing 100% in a series like ASOIAF. You may very well be right, but you have to remember that the wall wasn't as high as it was when it was built. So who helped raise it over the course of thousands of years? Not the Children of the Forest, they're mostly dead. Not the giants, there haven't been any giants south of the wall until Jon invited them in, and the Night's Watch wouldn't ask for their help. Most of the Night's Watch didn't believe giants existed until the battle in ASoS when they appeared at the Wall. The first men exist still, but we have no mention of them helping raise the wall. Who else could it be other than the Others with their ice magic? I'll also add that it's clear that magic holds the Wall up. Once again the Children of the Forest are almost extinct, their last survivors are in hiding. Where else could this magic come from?

This we know 100% from the book a world of ice and fire.

Initially the first men, children and giants built it perhaps with a foundation of stone and later the nights watch added it on slowly over time to its present size. 

There is magic in the wall we dont know the nature of it but magic also exist in other places such as storms end.

Read a world of ice and fire m8 its a great book.

[A Black Hole of Ice & Fire]

Craster may call it a "religion", but I'd remind you he also calls his daughters "wives". He's trying to justify/save face because he knows everyone finds his actions abhorrent. 

And as mentioned before, no one else participates in this ritual sacrifice. That's particularly damning since there were at least 100,000 Wildlings living further North (and therefore closer to the White Walkers) than Craster. They all survived just as long as Craster without sacrificing every newborn son.

[Valyirian Aurochs]

1 hour ago, A Black Hole of Ice & Fire said:

Craster may call it a "religion", but I'd remind you he also calls his daughters "wives". He's trying to justify/save face because he knows everyone finds his actions abhorrent. 

And as mentioned before, no one else participates in this ritual sacrifice. That's particularly damning since there were at least 100,000 Wildlings living further North (and therefore closer to the White Walkers) than Craster. They all survived just as long as Craster without sacrificing every newborn son.

Religion or not, he compares giving help to the Night's Watch to helping the Others.

Quote

"I'm a godly man, else I would have chased you off."

So in his mind helping the Night's Watch is the same as helping the Others. Or at least that's what I came away with from the line.

[Lord Godric]

1 hour ago, A Black Hole of Ice & Fire said:

Craster may call it a "religion", but I'd remind you he also calls his daughters "wives". He's trying to justify/save face because he knows everyone finds his actions abhorrent. 

And as mentioned before, no one else participates in this ritual sacrifice. That's particularly damning since there were at least 100,000 Wildlings living further North (and therefore closer to the White Walkers) than Craster. They all survived just as long as Craster without sacrificing every newborn son.

Yeah, this cannot be taken as evidence that there is really some kind of religion that Craster is a part of. This seems like a quip by Craster. The real reason that he doesn't turn away the Night's Watch is because they don't bother him. They have a mutual understanding, and if Craster wants to keep that going he needs to keep giving food and shelter to the Watch. 

[A Black Hole of Ice & Fire]

43 minutes ago, Valyirian Aurochs said:

Religion or not, he compares giving help to the Night's Watch to helping the Others.

So in his mind helping the Night's Watch is the same as helping the Others. Or at least that's what I came away with from the line.

See, I consider Craster's aiding the Night's Watch as purely pragmatism. He certainly isn't doing it for free and there is the fear of what the NW would do if he didn't help. 

Which is basically the same relationship he has with the Others. Especially since his "sacrifice" is of unwanted sons and the NW trade wine, weapons, and other supplies for the ability to stay at his keep. Nothing else he says or does can be considered godly.

"I'll provide you something and you leave me alone" isn't Godly. If that counts as a religion than the Brothers of the NW are just as much his Gods as the Others are. Now Craster may rationalize it differently, but it doesn't change anything. Just like calling the daughters he rapes "wives" doesn't make those relationships marriage.

[Valyirian Aurochs]

17 minutes ago, A Black Hole of Ice & Fire said:

See, I consider Craster's aiding the Night's Watch as purely pragmatism. He certainly isn't doing it for free and there is the fear of what the NW would do if he didn't help. 

Which is basically the same relationship he has with the Others. Especially since his "sacrifice" is of unwanted sons and the NW trade wine, weapons, and other supplies for the ability to stay at his keep. Nothing else he says or does can be considered godly.

"I'll provide you something and you leave me alone" isn't Godly. If that counts as a religion than the Brothers of the NW are just as much his Gods as the Others are. Now Craster may rationalize it differently, but it doesn't change anything. Just like calling the daughters he rapes "wives" doesn't make those relationships marriage.

1

I definitely see what you're saying, which is why it's so puzzling that he says this the line at all. It never stuck as right to me. 

[Jon Ice-Eyes]

3 hours ago, Coolbeard the Exile said:

This we know 100% from the book a world of ice and fire.

Initially the first men, children and giants built it perhaps with a foundation of stone and later the nights watch added it on slowly over time to its present size. 

There is magic in the wall we dont know the nature of it but magic also exist in other places such as storms end.

Read a world of ice and fire m8 its a great book.

I own a copy. What makes you think that it is fact? 

[Coolbeard the Exile]

Because it says how it was built next to a picture of how it was built. It dosnt say "some maesters believe" or "some accounts believe" it is layed out as a fact with official art.

[Jon Ice-Eyes]

Cool. You realise that the entire book is written as if in-world, in-character, by the fictional Maester Yandel. 

So Maester Yandel believes, based on the Citadel's sources, that the Wall was built the way he describes. Maesters are often wrong about these things. But there is no objectively true perspective in the book. They wrote it that way intentionally, to prevent people from thinking that they have 100% true facts. 

[Dorian Martell's son]

On 7/18/2017 at 6:16 PM, Valyirian Aurochs said:

It always bothered me that a wall made of ice is used to protect the world from the Others. The Others probably know more about ice than anyone else, so I always believed that the Others made the Ice wall. I must sound mad, but it doesn't really make sense the other way around. We aren't given much information on Brandon the Builder, so if he did build the Wall, he must at least have had help from the Others.

It is in the north, very cold and Ice is a legit building material. The ice itself does not keep the others out, Hell, even the wildlings can climb it with mountaineering hardware. The thing that keeps the others out is the magic wards built into the wall by the ctof, like the cave where the three eyed bloodraven lives.

[Dorian Martell's son]

On 7/18/2017 at 9:11 PM, Khal Varys said:

What nags at me is, that the Others were not exterminated, they were merely beaten back... then they go dormant for hundreds of years if not thousands.  So what gets them moving as we begin the story?  I still can't quite pin that down.  The Others were stirring before Dany's dragons hatched, before there wasn't a Stark at Winterfell, before the sacrifices end completely, before so many possible happenstances that could be indicative as a reason for the Others to move on humans.  My hunch says it has something to do with restoring the balance of season in the world, otherwise fire will consume too much... Ice is attempting to balance the scales in some grand scheme.

Certainly a fun topic to think about.  I think the wall was erected to keep Men from encroaching on Others' lands.  Still lots of holes in this whole Swiss cheese theory...

To me, it makes the most sense that the others are an "ancient enemy" that comes around once in awhile. The children worship life. Their gods are nameless gods of earth, stream tree and sky. The others are anti life. A great death that sweeps  across the continent. Before the first men arrived, the children had weapons that are hyper effective against the others, they had magical wards to keep them at bay and they had a continent wide network that allowed them to see the others coming from a long way. After many a weirwood was cut down and many a CTOF was killed off, the long night came and humans almost perished.  The same thing is happening now, but there are less weirwoods, less children and humans have almost forgot the mission of the watch and the purpose of the wall