The Others: Why Now?

[John Suburbs]

1 hour ago, Lord Varys said:

This is what Ygritte says:

Shades are neither Others nor wights. They are shades - ghosts, in this context. Not anything connected to the Others. And the text does nothing to imply those 'shades' and the Others are connected to each other - or are even identical.

The books don't give any indication that the Others and those shades are connected. Not to mention, you know, that Jon and others would have made the connection quite some time ago, blaming the wildlings for the Others - or the wildlings blaming themselves and their 'king'.

Well, Ygritte does not say when they started opening up these graves. Could have been shortly after Mance set up his base in the Frostfangs, before the Others became active again.

And as I said earlier, I doubt Ygritte is using the word "shades" to mean the Others. I can't believe she would be so casual about having unleashed this power on the north. She is simply using it as a figure of speech; neither she nor Mance, nor anyone, realizes that this is what happened.

1 hour ago, Lord Varys said:

No, Mance's original purpose to turn his cloak was to leave an order he felt was restricting him too much, not permitting him the liberties he wanted or felt he had a right to. Mance eventually grew into a raider chieftain and from there he claimed the title of king-beyond-the-Wall, but that wasn't done something he did with the desire to conquer. Part of his success was to convince the others that they didn't stand any chance against the Others all by themselves.

There is no indication whatsoever that 'King Mance' ever had the purpose or overall goal to defeat or destroy the NW before he thought he may have to do that to lead his people to safety.

There is also no indication that the Others had anything to do with his decision to rebel or that they were even active when he did so. In fact, the text refutes that because if the Others, and presumably their wight minions, were roaming around way back then, the wildlings would have left their villages years ago. But this all happened very recently, indicating that something brand new in the forest has put the fear in them.

1 hour ago, Lord Varys said:

Even if Mance had started to search for the horn before he had realized he could not defeat the Others - that's not the relevant to the question whether those shades are the Others or not - or are connected to them.

Where in the text does it say that? Where in the text does it say that the Others were 'gone', had to be 'awakened', or anything of that sort. In the Prologue they are just there, the way they may have always been. There is no indication in the books the Others were banished or imprisoned in any way, shape or form.

In fact, the entire Wall makes such ideas very strange. If there were graves or prisons which kept the Others, why on earth did the NW not guard those rather than build and maintain a magical wall hundreds of miles away from those places? Why was the Wall not built around those places, to keep them imprisoned there should they ever leave those graves?

There is no textual evidence whatsoever that implies somebody or something 'woke' the Others. The people who didn't see wights and Others - and who gradually lost believe in them - are the people of the Seven Kingdoms (and in part those of the NW). There is no indication that the wildlings ever lost that belief - or that (especially those living in the farther north) they, too, never saw any Others or wights for thousands or hundreds of years.

You are just making that up.

Again, I'm not saying the shades are the actual Others. Ygritte is just using a figure a speech. She doesn't know that this has happened.

And again, something very new in the north has scared the wildlings to the point of leaving their homes and villages and seeking Mance in the Frostfangs. If not the Others and wights, what was it? Why would they suddenly be terrified of something they've been living with all this time?

The NW might not have had anything to do with the Others in the graves. The children could have bound them there; they may have done it to themselves.

Well, the whole aim of this thread is to speculate on what may have awoken the others. So that's what I'm doing: speculating.

[Lady Barbrey]

4 hours ago, Lady Rhodes said:

Very true. I know for myself, I want to understand where they came from, where they went, why they are coming back and what they want. 

I don’t think GRRM wants us to view them as the great bad villain because that isn’t his style. I think they have a motivation that we may find reasonable, albeit terrible in execution. 

This, Lady Rhodes!  

[Lord Varys]

32 minutes ago, John Suburbs said:

Well, Ygritte does not say when they started opening up these graves. Could have been shortly after Mance set up his base in the Frostfangs, before the Others became active again.

There is no reason to assume the Others only started to be active again quite recently.

32 minutes ago, John Suburbs said:

And as I said earlier, I doubt Ygritte is using the word "shades" to mean the Others. I can't believe she would be so casual about having unleashed this power on the north. She is simply using it as a figure of speech; neither she nor Mance, nor anyone, realizes that this is what happened.

That would mean you/your theory know better than people actually being concerned with the matter at hand. Again, what's the evidence for the idea the Others have only become active quite recently?

32 minutes ago, John Suburbs said:

There is also no indication that the Others had anything to do with his decision to rebel or that they were even active when he did so. In fact, the text refutes that because if the Others, and presumably their wight minions, were roaming around way back then, the wildlings would have left their villages years ago. But this all happened very recently, indicating that something brand new in the forest has put the fear in them.

It is no easy decision to leave your home. The Others would have started to harass the wildlings up in the far north years ago, extending their sphere of influence slowly but surely. If we assume their base of operations is in the Heart of Winter, then this place is very far away from Craster's Keep. That they are active down there, at the place where Waymar and Will died, and get their wights to the Wall itself indicates that they are pretty much everywhere north of the Wall.

There is no reason to believe that active Others would have to create wights at an insane speed. It is their decision whether they want to make such creatures or not. And if they felt they had to keep a low profile they would have done that. They still do keep a relatively low profile, so there is no reason to assume that Others suddenly becoming active again would have to result in more wights. Or, vice versa, that the Others being out there for thousands of years keeping a low profile would mean they would have to create wights left and right and attack the wildlings in the their villages.

32 minutes ago, John Suburbs said:

And again, something very new in the north has scared the wildlings to the point of leaving their homes and villages and seeking Mance in the Frostfangs. If not the Others and wights, what was it? Why would they suddenly be terrified of something they've been living with all this time?

This is not something new. Mance went to the Frostfangs in search for the Horn of Winter, and it is there that he and his people assembled for their march down to the Wall (presumably in part to fool the NW for as long as possible). There is no indication that the threat of the Others was new to the wildlings - or that there was a 'new threat' at all.

There is no indication the wildlings just recently rediscovered the practice of burning their dead (which would be an insane waste of wood in the middle of winter and should have thus died ages ago if the Others had been gone for thousands of years!), or that wightification is recent phenomenon.

32 minutes ago, John Suburbs said:

The NW might not have had anything to do with the Others in the graves. The children could have bound them there; they may have done it to themselves.

Or nobody bound the Others to anything - because there is no indication that anyone bound the Others to anything. Why on earth would the Children bind the Others into human graves where the First Men actually buried real First Men? And how is it that the wildlings didn't realize that they woke the Others? Would the bodies of the Others have been in those graves? Wouldn't they have found them in there? They were effectively plundering those graves, looking the Horn of Winter which they thought might have been a burial object in Joramun's grave.

32 minutes ago, John Suburbs said:

Well, the whole aim of this thread is to speculate on what may have awoken the others. So that's what I'm doing: speculating.

And I'm saying there is no reason to speculate about that since there is no reason to believe the Others have slept and have subsequently been awoken. It is interesting to speculate why the Others make their move now - and not thousands of years ago - but without knowing they were actually gone there is no reason to presuppose this was the case just because they made no move.

It is like saying Doran Martell loves Tywin Lannister or has no issue with what the Lannisters did to his kin simply because he never made an open move to attack them.

[Lady Barbrey]

7 hours ago, Megorova said:

The Others were present beyond The Wall for thousands years, and occasionally they caused certain disturbances there. For example, most likely, they are the ones, who destroyed Hardhome 600 years ago. People, that burned Hardhome, when it was atacked by the Others, knew, that the fire can stop them, so they burned everything, including bodies of all people, that died there. Then there was that incident with Corpse Queen, that ruled Night's Watch for 13 years. Then some unknown beings came to Nightford, and were seen by apprentices. After that, within a year three of those boys died, and a fourth went mad. And so on.

Though a bit over a decade ago, the Others became more active. By the time of AGOT's prologue, Mance has already gathered his army of wildlings, and he's been doing it for many years. Craster also was giving his sons, as offerings to the Others, for many years. Gilly said, that she lived the first decade and a half of her life, without seeing anything other than Craster's Keep and the woods around it, never going further than half a league away <- in the beginning of 299, when she has met Sam and Jon, she is already 15 years old (that decade and a half), thus her 15th birthday happened in 298, so she was born in 283, same as Jon. Gilly is Craster's youngest wife-daughter. He has older wives, that are not his daughters, and daughters, that are younger that Gilly, but with whom Craster hadn't married yet. So, it looks, like, that Craster started to give his sons as sacrifices to the Others, approximately when Gilly was born, same year as Jon was born, same year as (in one of my highly speculative theories) Ned Stark has brought Dawn of Daynes to Winterfell, and buried it in the crypts with Lyanna's body.

So, could be, that high activity of the Others, in the past 15 years, is caused by Dawn's presence at Winterfell. If Dawn is the only weapon, that can destroy the Others, then they feel endangered by that weapon's presence so close to them <- that's if the heart tree of Winterfell is somehow connected to the source of the Others' power.

There are also several curious elements, that could be clues for solving the nature of the Others. Though I don't have yet a definitive theory, that combines them together. Maybe, someone else also noticed this things, and have a theory about them?

• Craster is sacrificing his sons to the Others.
• Corpse Queen and her Lord Commander were killing people, as offerings to the Others (it was happening at the Nightfort).
• Prior First Long Night, the Bloodstone Emperor became a cannibal, and practiced necromancy.
• At Nightfort Rat Cook has served to Andal King a pie cooked from human meat <- cannibalism.
• Seventy-nine deserters from Night's Watch were sealed alive into The Wall <- necromancy?
• Mad Axe killed his brothers at Nightfort: according to the story, he took his boots off and prowled the halls of the Nightfort silently at night and murdered his brothers <- possibly those lives were sacrificed to the Others?
• The Undying are people, that were constantly drinking the shade-of-the-evening, and eventually this potion has turned them into beings, that are not dead, but also not alive. And when other people drink the shade, the Undying and their blue heart are feeding on life energy of those people. Apparently, they also became cannibals, because they tried to eat Dany. The Undying, while they were normal people, were giving their life force to the trees (from which was made the shade), and in exchange for that, they gained some sort of twisted form of "immortality".
• According to some accounts, 600 years ago people at Hardhome were either taken to Essos by slavers, or were eaten by cannibals from Skagos. What if those cannibals were practicing necromancy, and came to Hardhome, to offer its people, as a sacrifice to the Others?
• The Children are connecting their own people to the Weirwood, and the Weirwood feeds on their life force, gradually consuming their bodies and souls <- similar to what the shade-of-the evening did to the Undying. And as a payment for the Childrens' sacrifices the heart trees gave them some form of eternal life. Their souls are continuing to live inside Weirwood Network, and ravens, that they were skinchanging, while they were still alive.

All of this is somehow connected. Probably.

 

I liked all your connections to cannibalism, which I had not really noticed or registered before. I think you might get some inspiration from the Wendigo myth of the Algonguin, because this suddenly rang a bell for me re a paper I did in college about Wendigo psychosis. 

Wendigo appearance and function differ according to tribe, but one description in particular fits:

-cannibal giants, with hearts made of ice, skeletal frames and covered in ice (in Algonguin description), hunger can never be satiated

-associated with the North, cold, cannibalism, famine, privation, uncontrolled consumption, colonization

What's really interesting is that men can become these creatures by practicing cannibalism. Fear of Wendigo, or of becoming wendigo, was pronounced during times of famine.

Another interesting thing is that wendigo became compared to colonization - uncontrolled greed for land by the colonists (we, my British ancestors in Canada, were thought of by the Algonguin as wendigo-like in our greed for land).

If George is using the Wendigo as one of his inspirations for the Others, it's hard to get away from themes of famine, cannibalism and colonization.

So one thing I want to know is what do Others eat?  We know they are creatures of ice and can survive in the north, but what will the upcoming Long Night do to their habitat and the creatures - fish, seal, fox, polar bears, people? - they live on?  I'd guess destroy them.

It could be they've been preparing to come south for twenty years because of an anticipated Long Night that hits them first and hardest when it does arrive.  

Kind of prosaic compared to magical reasons, but makes me think.

Edit: I should just leave it here, but did start to think of a possible origin tale for the Others.  The Wendigo story is a consequences story, cannibalism was regarded as the greatest sin.  If caught, no matter the extreme circumstances that might force you into it, you were cast out, no longer thought human but Wendigo.  This reverberates with the BSE and other stories. A winter of deep privation, people dying of hunger by the thousands, some kill and cannibalize their kin, are cast out, and transformed. 

 

 

[corbon]

9 hours ago, John Suburbs said:

Where does it say that? I don't believe there is any text indicating when they began opening the graves. Post if you got it.

John telling Qhorin about his wolf dream:

Quote

Qhorin came up beside him. "A frozen river, you say?"

"The Milkwater flows from a great lake at the foot of a glacier," Stonesnake put in.

"There was a tree with my brother's face. The wildlings . . . there were thousands, more than I ever knew existed. And giants riding mammoths." From the way the light had shifted, Jon judged that he had been asleep for four or five hours. His head ached, and the back of his neck where the talons had burned through him. But that was in the dream.

Later, talking about the same dream.

Quote

"For what?" Jon asked.

"Would that I knew," said Qhorin. "Your wolf saw their diggings in the valley of the Milkwater. What did they seek, in such a bleak and distant place? Did they find it? That is what you must learn, before you return to Lord Mormont and your brothers. That is the duty I lay on you, Jon Snow."

"I'll do as you say," Jon said reluctantly, "but . . . you will tell them, won't you? The Old Bear, at least? You'll tell him that I never broke my oath."

Ygitte uses "we" not "he".

Quote

"Not for fear!" She kicked savagely at the ice beneath her with a heel, chopping out a chunk. "I'm crying because we never found the Horn of Winter. We opened half a hundred graves and let all those shades loose in the world, and never found the Horn of Joramun to bring this cold thing down!"

Jon telling Aemon about it later.

Quote

Maester Aemon paused, washcloth in hand. "The Horn of Winter is an ancient legend. Does the King-beyond-the-Wall truly believe that such a thing exists?"

"They all do," said Jon. "Ygritte said they opened a hundred graves . . . graves of kings and heroes, all over the valley of the Milkwater, but they never . . ."

"Who is Ygritte?" Donal Noye asked pointedly.

What we get from this is that the Wildlings were already gathered at the Milkwater, in their thousands (many clans) with Giants and Mammoths, when they were digging there. And Jon's understanding of the situation from Ygritte, and clearly others, is that they (collectively) believed finding the Horn would help them and they (collectively) were digging for it.

I don't see how you can read from this that Mance made all the diggings first, then collected the Wildlings there.

 

Note also that the Shades of the dead being bound to their graves and possibly released if they are disturbed has clear parallels to the Northern (Stark's) custom of laying Iron swords across the Lord's laps in the crypts to keep their vengeful spirits (shades) from being released.
Its this Ygritte is concerned about.

[Lady Rhodes]

1 hour ago, Lady Barbrey said:

This, Lady Rhodes!  

Thank you!

[Lord Varys]

14 minutes ago, corbon said:

Note also that the Shades of the dead being bound to their graves and possibly released if they are disturbed has clear parallels to the Northern (Stark's) custom of laying Iron swords across the Lord's laps in the crypts to keep their vengeful spirits (shades) from being released.
Its this Ygritte is concerned about.

Yeah, that seems to be the point. Desecrating a grave apparently has the same consequences in Ygritte's mind than it would have to remove a sword from a Stark grave in Winterfell in Ned's mind - or when a sword has rusted away.

This whole thing has nothing to do with the Others and there is no indication that the text wants us to connect any dots here.

[Dorian Martell's son]

12 hours ago, Lady Rhodes said:

Yes, we can. From Bran's chapter re: finding the Direwolves:
“Direwolves loose in the realm, after so many years,” muttered Hullen, the master of horse. “I like it not."

From Catelyn's chapter that follows:

“He was the fourth this year,” Ned said grimly. “The poor man was half-mad. Something had put a fear in him so deep that my words could not reach him.” He sighed. “Ben writes that the strength of the Night’s Watch is down below a thousand. It’s not only desertions. They are losing men on rangings as well.”

“Is it the wildlings?” she asked.

“Who else?” Ned lifted Ice, looked down the cool steel length of it. “And it will only grow worse. The day may come when I will have no choice but to call the banners and ride north to deal with this King-beyond-the-Wall for good and all.”

“Beyond the Wall?” The thought made Catelyn shudder.

Ned saw the dread on her face. “Mance Rayder is nothing for us to fear.”

“There are darker things beyond the Wall.” She glanced behind her at the heart tree, the pale bark and red eyes, watching, listening, thinking its long slow thoughts.

His smile was gentle. “You listen to too many of Old Nan’s stories. The Others are as dead as the children of the forest, gone eight thousand years. Maester Luwin will tell you they never lived at all. No living man has ever seen one.”

“Until this morning, no living man had ever seen a direwolf either,” Catelyn reminded him.

Excellent. Thank you.

On 10/24/2018 at 6:37 AM, Lady Rhodes said:

Two thoughts on this: 1) They haven't waited too long. It has been fairly recent (within 100-150 years) that they have returned. and 2) They were amassing an army.

1: 8000 years is a long time in my book. So, what happened at the 100 to 150 year timeline?  
2: They are building an army. But the uniting of the wildlings is very recent, as in a few years, So I would think 150 years is too far back. For me it would seem to be 20 years at the most.

On 10/24/2018 at 6:37 AM, Lady Rhodes said:

You omitted part of my quote.

It happens 

On 10/24/2018 at 6:37 AM, Lady Rhodes said:

A bit of both. Speculation, certainly, but also from deductive reasoning regarding timing, Dany's vision in the HotU (blue rose in the Wall) and Rhaegar's abduction/running away with Lyanna. I am constructing this theory based on a variety of clues that can be assembled varying ways, but I think have to do with Ice and Fire joining.

Ok. 

On 10/24/2018 at 6:37 AM, Lady Rhodes said:

I am not sure what you are referring to. Could you please elaborate?

Jon's parentage has been confirmed, but we are not allowed to speak about it. 
The Others being the ancient enemy of of the CTOF makes the most sense to me. I don't think it is lazy at all. 

[Lady Rhodes]

15 minutes ago, Dorian Martell's son said:

Excellent. Thank you.

1: 8000 years is a long time in my book. So, what happened at the 100 to 150 year timeline?  
2: They are building an army. But the uniting of the wildlings is very recent, as in a few years, So I would think 150 years is too far back. For me it would seem to be 20 years at the most.

It happens 

Ok. 

Jon's parentage has been confirmed, but we are not allowed to speak about it. 
The Others being the ancient enemy of of the CTOF makes the most sense to me. I don't think it is lazy at all. 

Glad to have good conversation! I agree that 8000 years is a long time-that is why I said 100 to 150 is comparatively recent. 20 makes sense. After doing some reading for another threAd, I discovered Bloodraven was sent to the wall approx. 75 years before current events. So a bit between both of our estimates. 

I don’t have a problem with ancient enemy. But why are they ancient enemies? 

 

[Dorian Martell's son]

5 minutes ago, Lady Rhodes said:

I don’t have a problem with ancient enemy. But why are they ancient enemies? 

Everything needs a counter. The Children were the embodiment of life. Brooks, hills, forests and all the life that lives there. The others are the embodiment of death and cold.
The idea of a cyclical ancient enemy makes sense with the timeline and the thousands of years between invasions, and how the children were uniquely geared to see them coming, remember who they are and fight them, until the humans came around. 

[The Sleeper]

While it is not explicitly stated, I am making the assumption that the Others are restricted by the weather. They are never seen as being active during daylight, which as such indicates that it is at the very least adverse to them. More than that I believe that daylight and the temperature range which humans can survive in are deadly to them. As such even on the longest and coldest of winters past any expansion of theirs would be limited and they would be inevitably forced to retreat in the face of the coming spring. 

In those terms the thing that has prompted them to become active is the prospect of a new Long Night and a never ending winter, which they apparently knew was coming. Sam speculates whether they come when it's cold or if they bring the cold themselves. That leaves two possibilities. Either they effected this kind of severe winter now where for some reason they were unable or unwilling to do so before, or they seized the opportunity to expand to territory that will be coming available to them.

Their attacks on humans seem to be opportunistic. That raises the question of why they would need to bother at all. The cold and hunger would kill or drive southward any humans. As the effect of their actions seems to be to clear the lands north of the Wall of people, it could indicate that something can be done in that region that could reverse the situation and are looking to remove that possibility. 

[Lady Barbrey]

1 hour ago, The Sleeper said:

While it is not explicitly stated, I am making the assumption that the Others are restricted by the weather. They are never seen as being active during daylight, which as such indicates that it is at the very least adverse to them. More than that I believe that daylight and the temperature range which humans can survive in are deadly to them. As such even on the longest and coldest of winters past any expansion of theirs would be limited and they would be inevitably forced to retreat in the face of the coming spring. 

In those terms the thing that has prompted them to become active is the prospect of a new Long Night and a never ending winter, which they apparently knew was coming. Sam speculates whether they come when it's cold or if they bring the cold themselves. That leaves two possibilities. Either they effected this kind of severe winter now where for some reason they were unable or unwilling to do so before, or they seized the opportunity to expand to territory that will be coming available to them.

Their attacks on humans seem to be opportunistic. That raises the question of why they would need to bother at all. The cold and hunger would kill or drive southward any humans. As the effect of their actions seems to be to clear the lands north of the Wall of people, it could indicate that something can be done in that region that could reverse the situation and are looking to remove that possibility. 

Yeah, I think the Long Night in the offing is the big one, and I don't think they bring the Long Nights, it seems more a problem of the erratic weather patterns.  The Others do seem to bring a drop in temperature with their cold winds, but that counterpart could be  dragonfire for all we know - and maybe at heart that's what the problem with the poles or planet's rotation is - but that seems to be deep magic of a different order. They know a Long Night is coming and conditions will be right for expansion.  And while they might not be affected by colder temperatures up north, their food source might be, as I said upthread.  Two main reasons for invasion/immigration: living space and food.   But divination also seems to be a thing for the humanoids of Planetos, so I think something's telling them the Wall might go down, otherwise why do they seem to be sitting pretty in preparation for something momentous.  The Wall is a huge hurdle, It's not just a matter of getting around it, cause if they do they'll be cut off from their own magic.  It's a supply logistics problem they have to solve.!

[Damsel in Distress]

On 10/23/2018 at 9:40 PM, The Lord of the Crossing said:

#2 is supportive of my belief that ice and Fire should never mix and not meant to mix.  So if R+L=J is true, then the way to establish peace with the Others is to kill Jon Snow.   Allowing Jon to die from his stab wounds may be enough to satisfy the Others and make them go back to the land of always winter.  

That makes him an abomination in their eyes because the Starks are supposed to be the ice.  I myself do not believe R+L=J but it would be interesting if killing Jon is the way to send the others back to the farthest north.  

[Lady Rhodes]

7 hours ago, Lady Barbrey said:

Yeah, I think the Long Night in the offing is the big one, and I don't think they bring the Long Nights, it seems more a problem of the erratic weather patterns.  The Others do seem to bring a drop in temperature with their cold winds, but that counterpart could be  dragonfire for all we know - and maybe at heart that's what the problem with the poles or planet's rotation is - but that seems to be deep magic of a different order. They know a Long Night is coming and conditions will be right for expansion.  And while they might not be affected by colder temperatures up north, their food source might be, as I said upthread.  Two main reasons for invasion/immigration: living space and food.   But divination also seems to be a thing for the humanoids of Planetos, so I think something's telling them the Wall might go down, otherwise why do they seem to be sitting pretty in preparation for something momentous.  The Wall is a huge hurdle, It's not just a matter of getting around it, cause if they do they'll be cut off from their own magic.  It's a supply logistics problem they have to solve.!

This is exactly what I was referencing in my post. If their land has been blighted and devoid of food/energy source, the only way to survive is heading south. Horrible for the characters we love /love to hate but a reasonable reason for the Orhers to move. 

Some thoughts on this- I don’t think they “eat” humans or at least the sustenance is not enough. I am going back to Bran’s dream about the Greenseers being skewered on ice spears...could the Greenseers be the food source and the lack of Greenseers be causing them to starve? Were Greenseers sacrificed as part of a deal with the Others? But then the Greenseers died out, so no sacrifices were made and their food source dwindled. 

Alternatively, maybe they were being starved out and Bloodraven was dangling a tasty carrot in front of a ravenous rabbit

[Starkz]

Perhaps the Others are like the Dead Men of Dunharrow, cursed by the Starks and are marching South to break their curse. It’s also possible the Others could have just been regaining their power and strength for all this time to ensure they won’t fail again in taking over and with the chaos occuring throughout the 7K they’re seizing the opportunity. Chaos is a ladder after all.

[Megorova]

19 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Shades are neither Others nor wights. They are shades - ghosts, in this context. Not anything connected to the Others. And the text does nothing to imply those 'shades' and the Others are connected to each other - or are even identical.

The books don't give any indication that the Others and those shades are connected. Not to mention, you know, that Jon and others would have made the connection quite some time ago, blaming the wildlings for the Others - or the wildlings blaming themselves and their 'king'.

I'm under impression, that those "shades" are wights/walking dead/zombies. Wildlings opened many graves, while they were looking for the Horn, and later all those bodies turned into walking dead. But they were not first wights beyond The Wall.

There was already lots of zombies on that side, and they were hunting people, so Mance started to gather all wildling tribes, to fight against the Others. And when it became obvious, that they can't win, even if all of them will fight together, that's when he switched to plan B - he was looking for that magic Horn, and in the process of his searches, opened many graves, and then corpses from those graves were animated by magic of the Others, and joined their Undead Army.

So what Ygritte meant, is that they were not only unable to find that Horn, but also had to pay a horrible price for their vain efforts - they gave more soldiers to the Others, all those corpses from those graves.

18 hours ago, John Suburbs said:

And as I said earlier, I doubt Ygritte is using the word "shades" to mean the Others. I can't believe she would be so casual about having unleashed this power on the north.

Those shades are wights. But there were walking dead beyond The Wall, even before Mance uncovered those graves. Anyone who died/was dying in the Land of Always Winter, turned into wights. Though usually the wildlings burned their dead, to prevent them from rising, not to replentish army of the Others with "fresh" soldiers. But it's one thing to burn a single body of a recently deceased person, and it's a totally different thing, to burn multiple bodies, that they were digging out of old frozen graves. Lots of corpses, and they all are frozen solid, so they won't burn. To get rid of those icicles, the wildlings would have needed lots of wood, for the pyres. So they didn't wasted time on burning those corpses. They thought, that it's impractical - requires too much effort. They thought, that they will find that magic Horn, and will get out of there, before all those corpses will rise. They thought, that it won't be their problem, because by that time, they will be already far away from those graves, in the south. Instead they didn't found that Horn, and were still beyond The Wall, when all those corpses turned into wights, and went out into the world.

The wildlings were trying to get away from wights, instead they created even more wights. And those wights attacked Mormont and his rangers. They came from those graves.

[John Suburbs]

16 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

There is no reason to assume the Others only started to be active again quite recently.

No, the reason we assume that is if the Others and wights have been living in the north alongside wildlings all these years, then there would be no reason to fear them anymore than wolf packs or shadowcats. They would just be part of normal life in the frozen north.

16 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

That would mean you/your theory know better than people actually being concerned with the matter at hand. Again, what's the evidence for the idea the Others have only become active quite recently?

Nobody has made the connection between the graves and the Others. Nobody knows how or why the Others are suddenly active. And again, if this has been going on for thousands of years, then wildlings like Tormund would not be any more upset that his son has turned into a wight than if he had been mauled by a bear. It would just be another harsh fact of life in the north.

16 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

It is no easy decision to leave your home. The Others would have started to harass the wildlings up in the far north years ago, extending their sphere of influence slowly but surely. If we assume their base of operations is in the Heart of Winter, then this place is very far away from Craster's Keep. That they are active down there, at the place where Waymar and Will died, and get their wights to the Wall itself indicates that they are pretty much everywhere north of the Wall.

There is no reason to believe that active Others would have to create wights at an insane speed. It is their decision whether they want to make such creatures or not. And if they felt they had to keep a low profile they would have done that. They still do keep a relatively low profile, so there is no reason to assume that Others suddenly becoming active again would have to result in more wights. Or, vice versa, that the Others being out there for thousands of years keeping a low profile would mean they would have to create wights left and right and attack the wildlings in the their villages.

I know it's no easy decision to leave your home. They would only do so if there was a clear and compelling reason. If the Others have been roaming around the north all these centuries, as you say, then they cannot be the reason for the wildlings sudden departure. So if not the Others, what?

You are certainly free to speculate that the Others have just been keeping "a low profile" all this time or that their base of operations is the Heart of Winter, but please don't be so arrogant as to say that your speculations are facts while everyone else is just "making things up." There is at lease some evidence that the wildlings consider the Others a new and dangerous threat. There is zero evidence that they have been living peacefully, side by side, all these eons.

16 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

This is not something new. Mance went to the Frostfangs in search for the Horn of Winter, and it is there that he and his people assembled for their march down to the Wall (presumably in part to fool the NW for as long as possible). There is no indication that the threat of the Others was new to the wildlings - or that there was a 'new threat' at all.

There is no indication the wildlings just recently rediscovered the practice of burning their dead (which would be an insane waste of wood in the middle of winter and should have thus died ages ago if the Others had been gone for thousands of years!), or that wightification is recent phenomenon.

Again, your speculating, just like I am. The text strongly suggests the Others are new to the wildlings, otherwise they would not be so afraid of them. 

Yes, Mance went to the Frostfangs to search for the Horn of Winter, which is useless against Others and wights but is very affective at destroying the Wall and leaving the NW defenseless. Yes, he assembled his people there, and it took years for him to do so -- which means they likely started opening graves years ago, long before the wildlings decided to leave their homes en mass and seek safety with Mance. Ergo, it is perfectly plausible to speculate that Mance's attempt to find the power to take down the Wall somehow unleashed the Others to begin terrorizing the wildlings.

There is plenty of wood in the north. The Haunted Forest is chock full of wood and extends 1000 leagues from the Wall to the uncharted Land of Always Winter. There is no indication that the wildlings have been burning their dead all these years, but they are now because of this brand new threat that is scaring the bejeezus out of them.

17 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Or nobody bound the Others to anything - because there is no indication that anyone bound the Others to anything. Why on earth would the Children bind the Others into human graves where the First Men actually buried real First Men? And how is it that the wildlings didn't realize that they woke the Others? Would the bodies of the Others have been in those graves? Wouldn't they have found them in there? They were effectively plundering those graves, looking the Horn of Winter which they thought might have been a burial object in Joramun's grave.

And I'm saying there is no reason to speculate about that since there is no reason to believe the Others have slept and have subsequently been awoken. It is interesting to speculate why the Others make their move now - and not thousands of years ago - but without knowing they were actually gone there is no reason to presuppose this was the case just because they made no move.

It is like saying Doran Martell loves Tywin Lannister or has no issue with what the Lannisters did to his kin simply because he never made an open move to attack them.

Of course, the Others just suddenly becoming hostile for some reason is a perfectly plausible explanation. But just because one explanation is plausible doesn't mean all others are not.

Who knows why the children do anything, or that they were involved at all? Who knows how these graves were set up or if the Other's bodies were even in them? Maybe they were unrecognizable clumps of ice. Maybe they were buried ten feet below. Maybe the simple act of defilement might have been enough to undo a ward or upset some other magical balance. All kinds of possibilities here.

Nobody is presupposing anything. The OP asked for musings. I'm just musing. I could turn it right back around and say there is no reason to think the Others have been present in the north all this time because, again, the wildlings would think nothing of them if they were.

Strawman arguments are a sign of a lack of faith in one's position. We know perfectly well what Doran thinks of Tywin.

[John Suburbs]

16 hours ago, corbon said:

John telling Qhorin about his wolf dream:

Later, talking about the same dream.

Ygitte uses "we" not "he".

Jon telling Aemon about it later.

What we get from this is that the Wildlings were already gathered at the Milkwater, in their thousands (many clans) with Giants and Mammoths, when they were digging there. And Jon's understanding of the situation from Ygritte, and clearly others, is that they (collectively) believed finding the Horn would help them and they (collectively) were digging for it.

I don't see how you can read from this that Mance made all the diggings first, then collected the Wildlings there.

 

Note also that the Shades of the dead being bound to their graves and possibly released if they are disturbed has clear parallels to the Northern (Stark's) custom of laying Iron swords across the Lord's laps in the crypts to keep their vengeful spirits (shades) from being released.
Its this Ygritte is concerned about.

Sure, but where in all of this does anyone say that they only started opening graves in the past year, or two? Mance has been gathering wildlings to his side for many years, and only now they've started opening graves? And they've managed to locate a defile 50 or more in this short time after they've lain hidden for thousands of years? And all so they can find the power that will destroy whatever hope they have of protecting themselves from the Others?

It seems to me that your impression is that Mance's arrival in the Frostfangs is very recent, but there is no evidence to suggest that it is. His base of ops was likely the Frostfangs right from the start, and at the outset his search for the horn was to bring down the Wall, not destroy the Others. Only recently has he drawn significant numbers of people to his side, but that is because they are suddenly terrified of this new threat that has just emerged in their world. So put 2&2 together: they are fleeing to the very man who unwittingly loosed the threat in the first place.

And once again, I'll state that Ygritte's use of "shades" does not mean she knows they've released the Others. It's just a figure of speech for disturbing the dead from their rest. She has no idea what she's done, and neither does Mance.

 

[John Suburbs]

52 minutes ago, Megorova said:

Those shades are wights. But there were walking dead beyond The Wall, even before Mance uncovered those graves. Anyone who died/was dying in the Land of Always Winter, turned into wights. Though usually the wildlings burned their dead, to prevent them from rising, not to replentish army of the Others with "fresh" soldiers. But it's one thing to burn a single body of a recently deceased person, and it's a totally different thing, to burn multiple bodies, that they were digging out of old frozen graves. Lots of corpses, and they all are frozen solid, so they won't burn. To get rid of those icicles, the wildlings would have needed lots of wood, for the pyres. So they didn't wasted time on burning those corpses. They thought, that it's impractical - requires too much effort. They thought, that they will find that magic Horn, and will get out of there, before all those corpses will rise. They thought, that it won't be their problem, because by that time, they will be already far away from those graves, in the south. Instead they didn't found that Horn, and were still beyond The Wall, when all those corpses turned into wights, and went out into the world.

The wildlings were trying to get away from wights, instead they created even more wights. And those wights attacked Mormont and his rangers. They came from those graves.

Sorry, I don't see any text to support the idea that there were wights present beyond the Wall before Mance. Why would the wildings suddenly be so terrified of them now if they've been living with them throughout the ages?

We've never been to the LoAW, so we have no idea if wights are common up there. We know that the wildlings burn their dead now, but there is no text that I'm aware of that says this is a long-held tradition.

The wildlings opened "half a hundred" graves, according to Ygritte, while the Fist was attacked by an army of hundreds, perhaps thousands. So that army consisted of more than just the wights from the graves. Also, there is plenty of wood in the Frostfangs. It would not have been a big deal to burn bodies, even multiple bodies, as they found them. There are multiple hundreds of thousands of wildlings in Mance's army, so it's a safe bet that more than 50 of them are dying each day, and they have plenty of wood to burn those bodies. 

But your speculations are perfectly valid. There is no reason to say all this cannot be true. I just take a different view as to what Ygritte meant by "shade." I think it was a figure of speech, not that they actually sat by a watched wights wander off into the snow. I contend that Ygritte, Mance, nobody really, knows what they did.

 

[Lord Varys]

@John Suburbs

I never said the Others must have been visibly there all those years. I just said they would have been *there*, not banished or imprisoned or sleeping.

The Land of Always Winter is very large, and no human beings apparently live up there. Meaning that the Others being active up there - and at the Heart of Winter which was also always there, presumably - would have had no bearing on or connection with the wildlings. They wouldn't have met each other, and the wildlings wouldn't have had known anything about their presence.

Brandon's dream implies 'the true enemy' sits at the Heart of Winter, and that place neither were nor is some desecrated graves in the Frostfangs. The Frostfangs are a place where human beings have lived in the past and live still when Mance assembles his people there.

If the Others were *inactive* at some place it would have been in the Lands of Always Winter and the Heart of Winter, not the Frostfangs. And nothing indicates Mance or any wildling ever went up there.

In addition, the wildlings are very different tribes and clans and people. They are usually not unified (and they still aren't, considering that not all of them joined Mance). If the Others start to harass the northernmost tribes of the wildlings it should take years or even decades until those further down south do learn about that fact - and take the reports seriously.

The idea that Mance opening a couple of graves is going to lead to an Other threat powerful enough to affect all the wildlings isn't very convincing to me.