The Others: Why Now?

[Megorova]

1 hour ago, Lollygag said:

Water is liquid because it has been exposed to a certain amount of heat. Add more heat, it becomes vapor. So yes, ice is an element in that it's the purest form of water because it doesn't contain a bit of heat/fire to make it liquid.

Ice is NOT an element. There are only four elements - earth, air, fire, and water.

Water is able to take three forms/be in three states - liquid, vapor, and ice. So ice itself is not an element, it's a form of element. Just because water is able to be in three states, it doesn't add more elements to four existing. It's still 1. earth, 2. air, 3. fire and 4. water, NOT - 1. earth, 2. air, 3. fire, 4. water, 5. ice, 6. vapor.

It could be said, that air and water are interconnected elements, because oxygen is one of air's components, while water is H2O (H1 hydrogen + O2 oxygen) <- "created" by air.

It could be also said, that fire and earth are also strongly interconnected elements. In nature the fire doesn't exist, as a separate standalone element (with one exception). The fire exists only when it's consuming/burning something else, and when the "food" is gone, the fire also cease to exist. The fire can be created by a hit of lightning, by sparks created thru friction, or caused by a hit of two stones, or stone and metal. The only exception, in which fire does exist in nature in pure form, is magma/lava - "blood" of earth. Thus fire and earth elements are also connected, same as water and air elements, when one is a "by-product"/creation of the other.

[Lollygag]

1 hour ago, Megorova said:

Ice is NOT an element. There are only four elements - earth, air, fire, and water.

Water is able to take three forms/be in three states - liquid, vapor, and ice. So ice itself is not an element, it's a form of element. Just because water is able to be in three states, it doesn't add more elements to four existing. It's still 1. earth, 2. air, 3. fire and 4. water, NOT - 1. earth, 2. air, 3. fire, 4. water, 5. ice, 6. vapor.

It could be said, that air and water are interconnected elements, because oxygen is one of air's components, while water is H2O (H1 hydrogen + O2 oxygen) <- "created" by air.

It could be also said, that fire and earth are also strongly interconnected elements. In nature the fire doesn't exist, as a separate standalone element (with one exception). The fire exists only when it's consuming/burning something else, and when the "food" is gone, the fire also cease to exist. The fire can be created by a hit of lightning, by sparks created thru friction, or caused by a hit of two stones, or stone and metal. The only exception, in which fire does exist in nature in pure form, is magma/lava - "blood" of earth. Thus fire and earth elements are also connected, same as water and air elements, when one is a "by-product"/creation of the other.

Take a closer look at that bolded sentence.

Ever read a book or watch a movie with witchcraft? The four elements are just an easy way to deal with a generalization comprised of various manifestations which is a very long list. Stone is a variation of earth and whoa but doesn't GRRM like using stone as earth. Stone isn't formally listed as an element, but that's only because clarifying all of the types of earth and all of the rest of the manifestations of elements would make functionality impossible.

Does a river cease to be the water element if it's frozen? Is the Wall not the water element because it's frozen? No, they're both still water.

As for the rest, true and there are more examples to be found, but it's only relevant if you've missed my point.

[Megorova]

49 minutes ago, Lollygag said:

Does a river cease to be the water element if it's frozen? Is the Wall not the water element because it's frozen? No, they're both still water.

As for the rest, true and there are more examples to be found, but it's only relevant if you've missed my point.

I didn't missed you point, and you didn't missed mine.

Actually, there's now opened another thread, that will be more suitable for discussing things, like the sourse of the Childrens' power, magic elements, etc. -

So let's not delve into that theme on this thread. Back to OP - The Others, guys, why are you here? Why now? ()

[Lollygag]

2 minutes ago, Megorova said:

I didn't missed you point, and you didn't missed mine.

Actually, there's now opened another thread, that will be more suitable for discussing things, like the sourse of the Childrens' power, magic elements, etc. -

So let's not delve into that theme on this thread. Back to OP - The Others, guys, why are you here? Why now? ()

I get lost on magic threads sometimes so I'll pass. But I made my point: the Others are water. The purest and least fiery form of it

[The Lord of the Crossing]

On 10/24/2018 at 6:23 PM, John Suburbs said:

Pretty much, yeah. Mance opened the graves looking for the horn that would take down the wall, unknowingly releasing the Others. Once the wildling clans started encountering the Others, that's when they gravitated to Mance in order to confront this threat, not knowing that Mance was the one who released them in the first place. Chances are, Mance doesn't even know what he's done.

But you asked for musing, so here is another:

The Others were living peacefully in the Land of Always Winter until the horror Bran saw in his coma dream awoke. Now they are fleeing south to get away from this horror and its army of reanimated wights, leading to the inevitable clash with the humans who already occupy those lands.

The Others were always around somewhere but they probably don't create wights until they need them.  Think about this.  All of the wildlife on the other side of the wall would be dead if the Others had been in Beast Mode all of this time.  No, the Others were living peacefully until some event happened.  Maybe that horn, the one they burned, was the real shadowbinder.  These shadows of life got loose and agitated the Others like a careless shoe might rouse an ant hill.  The graves they desecrated could have been sacred to these beings.  

[AlaskanSandman]

On 10/23/2018 at 1:17 PM, Lady Rhodes said:

 

Why did they come the first time? I go round and around on this.

Take what Luwen tells Bran

Quote

 

A Game of Thrones - Bran VII

"Everything."

Maester Luwin tugged at his chain collar where it chafed against his neck. "They were people of the Dawn Age, the very first, before kings and kingdoms," he said. "In those days, there were no castles or holdfasts, no cities, not so much as a market town to be found between here and the sea of Dorne. There were no men at all. Only the children of the forest dwelt in the lands we now call the Seven Kingdoms.

"They were a people dark and beautiful, small of stature, no taller than children even when grown to manhood. They lived in the depths of the wood, in caves and crannogs and secret tree towns. Slight as they were, the children were quick and graceful. Male and female hunted together, with weirwood bows and flying snares. Their gods were the gods of the forest, stream, and stone, the old gods whose names are secret. Their wise men were called greenseers, and carved strange faces in the weirwoods to keep watch on the woods. How long the children reigned here or where they came from, no man can know.

"But some twelve thousand years ago, the First Men appeared from the east, crossing the Broken Arm of Dorne before it was broken. They came with bronze swords and great leathern shields, riding horses. No horse had ever been seen on this side of the narrow sea. No doubt the children were as frightened by the horses as the First Men were by the faces in the trees. As the First Men carved out holdfasts and farms, they cut down the faces and gave them to the fire. Horror-struck, the children went to war. The old songs say that the greenseers used dark magics to make the seas rise and sweep away the land, shattering the Arm, but it was too late to close the door. The wars went on until the earth ran red with blood of men and children both, but more children than men, for men were bigger and stronger, and wood and stone and obsidian make a poor match for bronze. Finally the wise of both races prevailed, and the chiefs and heroes of the First Men met the greenseers and wood dancers amidst the weirwood groves of a small island in the great lake called Gods Eye.

"There they forged the Pact. The First Men were given the coastlands, the high plains and bright meadows, the mountains and bogs, but the deep woods were to remain forever the children's, and no more weirwoods were to be put to the axe anywhere in the realm. So the gods might bear witness to the signing, every tree on the island was given a face, and afterward, the sacred order of green men was formed to keep watch over the Isle of Faces.

"The Pact began four thousand years of friendship between men and children. In time, the First Men even put aside the gods they had brought with them, and took up the worship of the secret gods of the wood. The signing of the Pact ended the Dawn Age, and began the Age of Heroes."

Bran's fist curled around the shiny black arrowhead. "But the children of the forest are all gone now, you said."

"Here, they are," said Osha, as she bit off the end of the last bandage with her teeth. "North of the Wall, things are different. That's where the children went, and the giants, and the other old races."

Maester Luwin sighed. "Woman, by rights you ought to be dead or in chains. The Starks have treated you more gently than you deserve. It is unkind to repay them for their kindness by filling the boys' heads with folly."

"Tell me where they went," Bran said. "I want to know."

"Me too," Rickon echoed.

"Oh, very well," Luwin muttered. "So long as the kingdoms of the First Men held sway, the Pact endured, all through the Age of Heroes and the Long Night and the birth of the Seven Kingdoms, yet finally there came a time, many centuries later, when other peoples crossed the narrow sea.

"The Andals were the first, a race of tall, fair-haired warriors who came with steel and fire and the seven-pointed star of the new gods painted on their chests. The wars lasted hundreds of years, but in the end the six southron kingdoms all fell before them. Only here, where the King in the North threw back everyarmy that tried to cross the Neck, did the rule of the First Men endure. The Andals burnt out the weirwood groves, hacked down the faces, slaughtered the children where they found them, and everywhere proclaimed the triumph of the Seven over the old gods. So the children fled north—"

Summer began to howl.

 

Luwen, (And Old Nan) tell us that the Andals came after the Long Night. Yet Luwen tells us that the Andal invasion is what broke the pact. 

??????????

 Sooooo, why did the Others attack in the middle of peace time with their allies?

Supposedly no Andals were around, even though we have tales of Knights and such coming from back during the age of heroes, including dragon slayers. Tourneys and more, all of which are supposedly Andal. Along with round towers and better buildings.

Yet Daenerys spies nothing but square buildings and Arya gets the same at Braavos. Neither of these areas shows an infinity for Tourneys, heraldry, knights, or the faith of the seven.

Westeros during this time should have cotf every where in westeros that has deep woods. Including near Storm's End, the Kingswood, the Riverlands, Vale, and the North at least. Let alone the Order of Green men created during the Pact of which are guarding or controlling, or watching something. Who should all still be there undisturbed for sure, as no Andals have come (though we are told the Andals never touched the God's Eye)

Many link the Last Hero to Azor Ahai but if that's true, then Nissa Nissa died for nothing as his magic sword snapped. 

Did Azor even create a sword? Or was it dragons? Or was it Valyrians? 

Though with Maester Luwen tugging at his Chain and mixing Four Thousand Years with Centuries Later, can we fully believe Luwen and his account any ways?

 

 

[AlaskanSandman]

I guess another important question would be, how did everything end the last time too? We know the Others didn't die out as we have seen a couple now in the novels. We hear of a corpse queen that sounds like an Other but may not be. Was another pact made? What was the terms? Considering the CotF, Giants, and Others are all trapped to the same side, should we trust any of them? What's up with the humans on the other side? Why would all the other Kings beyond the Wall come for conquest other than Mance who came for salvation? Why is Bloodraven the only human in that cave strapped to a tree? Alot of Cotf strapped to trees in there, but no other human. 

This subject greatly interest me and part in part why i've worked so hard to try to understand the true history of Westeros. Unless we are truly to believe these past stories have no actual bearing on the plot. Which is weird, specially since the Green men have been held back as a secret, along with Howland Reed who has met them. Could not Howland have some how sparked this all? What sparked Howland to go there? Praying to those tree's should mean he's praying to Bloodraven. This though swings us to theories of Bloodraven playing at chess master (Or cyvasse). 

Who woke the sleepers? Bloodraven? The CotF again (Assuming they did the first time), Howland, Climate, death of the last Valyrians, some other pact being broken? Euron the first time he sounded that horn when he found it how ever many years ago? When did he find that thing? When did the Others first wake again? Raymund came for conquest according to Mance, who is coming for salvation. 

[AlaskanSandman]

15 hours ago, Megorova said:

Ice is NOT an element. There are only four elements - earth, air, fire, and water.

Water is able to take three forms/be in three states - liquid, vapor, and ice. So ice itself is not an element, it's a form of element. Just because water is able to be in three states, it doesn't add more elements to four existing. It's still 1. earth, 2. air, 3. fire and 4. water, NOT - 1. earth, 2. air, 3. fire, 4. water, 5. ice, 6. vapor.

It could be said, that air and water are interconnected elements, because oxygen is one of air's components, while water is H2O (H1 hydrogen + O2 oxygen) <- "created" by air.

It could be also said, that fire and earth are also strongly interconnected elements. In nature the fire doesn't exist, as a separate standalone element (with one exception). The fire exists only when it's consuming/burning something else, and when the "food" is gone, the fire also cease to exist. The fire can be created by a hit of lightning, by sparks created thru friction, or caused by a hit of two stones, or stone and metal. The only exception, in which fire does exist in nature in pure form, is magma/lava - "blood" of earth. Thus fire and earth elements are also connected, same as water and air elements, when one is a "by-product"/creation of the other.

Triple point. Every element has triple point too. So water can literally burn and freeze you at the same time. Just fun fact

[Lady Barbrey]

4 hours ago, AlaskanSandman said:

Why did they come the first time? I go round and around on this.

Take what Luwen tells Bran

Luwen, (And Old Nan) tell us that the Andals came after the Long Night. Yet Luwen tells us that the Andal invasion is what broke the pact. 

??????????

 Sooooo, why did the Others attack in the middle of peace time with their allies?

Supposedly no Andals were around, even though we have tales of Knights and such coming from back during the age of heroes, including dragon slayers. Tourneys and more, all of which are supposedly Andal. Along with round towers and better buildings.

Yet Daenerys spies nothing but square buildings and Arya gets the same at Braavos. Neither of these areas shows an infinity for Tourneys, heraldry, knights, or the faith of the seven.

Westeros during this time should have cotf every where in westeros that has deep woods. Including near Storm's End, the Kingswood, the Riverlands, Vale, and the North at least. Let alone the Order of Green men created during the Pact of which are guarding or controlling, or watching something. Who should all still be there undisturbed for sure, as no Andals have come (though we are told the Andals never touched the God's Eye)

Many link the Last Hero to Azor Ahai but if that's true, then Nissa Nissa died for nothing as his magic sword snapped. 

Did Azor even create a sword? Or was it dragons? Or was it Valyrians? 

Though with Maester Luwen tugging at his Chain and mixing Four Thousand Years with Centuries Later, can we fully believe Luwen and his account any ways?

 

 

There is something off about the space-time fabric in this world.  We saw it at the Bridge of Dreams with Tyrion.  With unreliable histories and time glitches and Bran's potential powers, it's difficult to theorize about even the most basic of histories, and yet we try anyway.

So here's one of the less magical, and less fun, variety:

Whatever happened at Asshai caused a Long Summer of a generation that melted the Essosi ice packs, and their melting swamped the North of Essos (It's missing!), the coastlines and the Arm of Dorne (alt theory by Maesters in the World book).  So  maybe the Others had to crowd over into Westeros, which was connected then through ice, as their ice packs melted in Essos, and they're still pissed about losing a continent's worth of habitat. The Long Summer was followed by the Long Night and they came south to get some land back to replace their northeastern habitat. Unfortunately, the Children and humans stopped them with dragons and sent them scrambling back to the North.  

When the Doom happened, they could see it in the acid rain trapped in the ice (this is an actual thing re volcanoes, just another bloody thing to blame on southerners) and they ran some calculations - they know weather and ice - as to an optimal time for a new Long Night.  Westeros is just coming off a 10 year summer.  Ice will have melted in the ice caps, again (the coastlines will start swamping soon), the Others have lost territory this time in northern Westeros because of bloody fire magic, again (delayed repurcussions from the Doom), another Long Night is coming, they think the dragons have gone (hardly anyone in Westeros knows or believes they're reborn, so the memories of anyone they've wighted will just say there are no more dragons), so they're boosting up their power with Craster juice, wighting an army, and testing out ways to breech the Wall with the help of wighted rangers knowledge (maybe they're even torturing live ones - where is Benjen?).

I hope It's far more magical than this!  

[rotting sea cow]

On 10/25/2018 at 5:58 PM, Lord Varys said:

I'm not sure this was really an attempt by the Others. That depends who and what his Corpse Queen actually was - if she existed. However, him sacrificing/worshiping the Others may imply they were still around to accept such offerings. But the whole thing is very vague and at this point just a very ancient story.

It doesn't matter much whether the Corpse Queen was an Other, a "glamour" created by the Others magic, a human or just a metaphorical woman. The important bit is that the Watch was corrupted, they were making sacrifices to the Others and it was necessary the - very unusual - alliance between the Free Folk and the Starks to restore order. If the Night's King had not been stopped, maybe the Others would have recovered strength and had come again in full force.

 

On 10/25/2018 at 5:58 PM, Lord Varys said:

It is quite clear that the ancient NW knew who the true enemy was. Whether they had many clashes with the Others is unclear. If the rise of Valyria affected the power of the Others and the strength of winter then this certainly could explain that they didn't do much in the millennia in-between.

I agree, even Sam notices that the Others are not often mentioned but certainly the NW met them from time to time.

 

On 10/25/2018 at 5:58 PM, Lord Varys said:

One also expects them to have suffered a severe defeat during the War for the Dawn, possibly resulting in a great loss of wights as well as of individual Others. If they were down to a handful of Others or so they wouldn't have been very strong. But this doesn't mean the Heart of Winter and who-/whatever is there was all that affected by that.

I agree as well. Although the wights are cheap, the collective power of the Others was certainly strongly diminished.

As I said the strongest evidence that the Others were not gone, is The Wall itself and the Watch to protect it.

 

On 10/25/2018 at 5:58 PM, Lord Varys said:

On the magical level one assumes the first big increase of Other activity would have been the effects of the Dance. The dragons die like flies and then we have a six-year-winter and a plague called the Winter Fever.

The next step would have been the death of the last dragon in 153 AC. If the Others felt that happening and saw to it that the subsequent winters grew longer and colder then the first people to feel their new strength would have been the wildlings. The first Craster-like deals could have been made in the midst of cruel and long winters following 153 AC (or perhaps even in the six-year-winter during/after the Dance). Winter in the North must be a living hell, especially north of the Wall, and if your food runs out and your children start to die of cold and starvation you will do anything to prevent that. Even sacrifice some of them to save the others.

I always like to hear stories of the Wall (and beyond) at the time of these big events (Aegon's conquest, Dance of Dragons, etc). I'm quite sure the Others would have made first appearance at that time, maybe attacking that lonely hunter or raiding this distant village.

What do you think about other events? For example, the Great Spring Sickness. I find contradictory that many Targaryens died from that disease and yet Dany tells us that those with "dragonblood" are immune to typical diseases. Of course she may be wrong.

 

On 10/25/2018 at 5:58 PM, Lord Varys said:

Craster wouldn't have been the first to do that, and it is quite clear that the wildlings tried to fight the Others long before Mance became king - and they all failed.

It is pretty clear that similar deals were a normal thing during the Long Night. It is speculated that the wildings survived that way. And even now, Craster may not have been the only one, nor the first. The lands beyond the Wall are immense and we don't/cannot hear all the stories.

What is important about Craster is that his actions unmistakably give us a minimum timeline for the return of the Others. He was making the sacrifices for some decades, at least 30 years. This means that the Others were at the very least harassing people since 30 years. Not Now

Before, it is more subject of speculation until we don't get more concrete facts. For example, I believe that Bloodraven encountered the Others and might have slain one. But I don't have anything to back it up. But Craster and his sacrifices are a fact.

 

 

[rotting sea cow]

On 10/26/2018 at 6:24 PM, Lord Varys said:

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.

 

This bit is important. The Free Folk is not an homogeneous culture and the North is immense. For example, even few in the NW knew that giants were still around until they came south in force. It is very unusual that the hundred different tribes agreed to follow a leader - even a strong one like Mance - and this happened only because there was a clear purpose: Cross the Wall to escape the Others.

I always had the feeling that similar events led to all the Kings-beyond-the-Wall.

Anyway, the Others do not need just to harass those in the northernmost regions. Given their fabled abilities to appear when it snows and disappear when it melts, etc they can go wherever they want and who can say they were there or not? Even they can come close to the Wall like Craster's keep.

Also, the wildings may be accustomed to a certain level of Others activity and if you are freezing you might be hallucinating too and you may have seen an Other, or not. So, these kind of stories might be normal. However, at a certain point their activity became obvious and intolerable. This was certainly new.

 

[Lord Varys]

2 hours ago, rotting sea cow said:

It doesn't matter much whether the Corpse Queen was an Other, a "glamour" created by the Others magic, a human or just a metaphorical woman. The important bit is that the Watch was corrupted, they were making sacrifices to the Others and it was necessary the - very unusual - alliance between the Free Folk and the Starks to restore order. If the Night's King had not been stopped, maybe the Others would have recovered strength and had come again in full force.

That is certainly possible. My idea just is that considering that this was supposedly taking place this early after the foundation of the NW and the time they started the building of the Wall, we cannot be sure whether the Night's King was just a guy who relapsed into Long Night mode (possibly during a long and cruel winter, fearing that the Long Night had returned/was about to return), worshiping absent Others, or whether they actually did show up at the Wall and collected sacrifices.

At this point this is completely unclear.

As to the wildlings issue - I don't think the Hundred Kingdoms/NW and the wildlings were at odds back in Joramun's days - and not for quite some time during the old days. They were all First Men, and their cultures should have been basically the same north and south of the Wall. Civilization would have set in south of the Wall before proper kingdoms had formed, etc.

It is odd that men decided to live north of the Wall knowing that the Others were there, but it might be that many of those people who worshiped them went or remained there, or that the constant infighting between the lords and petty kings later led to this or that exile, banishment, or exodus beyond the Wall. After all, we do know that the freedom there is tempting even for a maester of the Citadel...

And perhaps the things weren't as bad north of the Wall during the days of Valyria's great power? When the winters were milder and shorter and the summers longer?

2 hours ago, rotting sea cow said:

I agree, even Sam notices that the Others are not often mentioned but certainly the NW met them from time to time.

It might be - or not. Perhaps they really only saw the Others with their own eyes back during the Long Night and the War for the Dawn. These guys can be invisible and unseen if they want to.

2 hours ago, rotting sea cow said:

I agree as well. Although the wights are cheap, the collective power of the Others was certainly strongly diminished.

If they really need male human children to fill up their ranks then this could have been a major problem if they were down to only a handful and they were separated from human settlements. They would have first have to dominate the nearest human villages to the degree that they would (voluntarily?) give up their children in exchange for protection. They could not wightify them all, they could not destroy them all, but they would have to convince the people that sacrificing their sons was a good idea.

That cannot have been easy, nor does this sound like something the Others could establish easily. This kind of behavior does not come natural to people. If there was a time of peace and plenty even in the far north then the Others would have beat the people living there into submission again, before they would enter into such a pact.

2 hours ago, rotting sea cow said:

As I said the strongest evidence that the Others were not gone, is The Wall itself and the Watch to protect it.

Or it was the knowledge of the leaders of the War for the Dawn that they had not completely defeated the Others. They may have known that some escaped, they may have known that the Heart of Winter was still there, etc.

While we don't know how exactly the War for the Dawn ended this is very difficult to speculate about.

2 hours ago, rotting sea cow said:

I always like to hear stories of the Wall (and beyond) at the time of these big events (Aegon's conquest, Dance of Dragons, etc). I'm quite sure the Others would have made first appearance at that time, maybe attacking that lonely hunter or raiding this distant village.

I think long and cruel winters would make the ideal hunting grounds for the Others in the far north considering that settlements would be far apart, and people would not necessarily travel all that much in winter unless they had to. If you find some lonely village completely empty in the spring then then they could all have become wights - or they may have died some other way. It would be difficult to determine. And those kind of things would have marked the beginning of the army-building strategy of the Others.

2 hours ago, rotting sea cow said:

What do you think about other events? For example, the Great Spring Sickness. I find contradictory that many Targaryens died from that disease and yet Dany tells us that those with "dragonblood" are immune to typical diseases. Of course she may be wrong.

I think the answer there might lie in the nature of certain diseases. It would not surprise me if 'the blood of the dragon' made you immune against mundane/natural diseases like the bloody flux and the common cold, but not against diseases that seem to be magical in nature (like greyscale, which clearly affected the dragonlords and later Targaryens/people with the blood of the dragon).

At this point we don't exactly know what kind of disease the Great Spring Sickness was. The way this sickness is described, though indicates it may have not been entirely natural, considering that the reports say strong men could be healthy at morning and die in the evening. That is very fast even for a 'normal disease'.

With greyscale and its variants originally being just the curse of Prince Garin, the door is open for magical diseases in this world. And it is not unlikely at all that the Others may use such weapons, too, especially in winters, when their power south of the world must be strongest.

2 hours ago, rotting sea cow said:

It is pretty clear that similar deals were a normal thing during the Long Night. It is speculated that the wildings survived that way. And even now, Craster may not have been the only one, nor the first. The lands beyond the Wall are immense and we don't/cannot hear all the stories.

Yeah, Craster lives very close to the Wall and actually has connections to the NW! If such a man makes such a twisted pact things must be pretty bad, especially in winter. Many of Mance's people may have made such deals in the past - only to cancel them when Mance gave them the hope that they could leave and live south of the Wall.

How many First Men survived in the far north - or the lands that are now called the North - during the Long Night is unclear at this point, but I'd not be surprised if those lands had been effectively literally empty and were only slowly repopulated in the decades and centuries after the Long Night. By the time of the Long Night the Others and whoever was behind them clearly felt they were powerful enough to cancel all deals and to simply destroy everyone.

2 hours ago, rotting sea cow said:

What is important about Craster is that his actions unmistakably give us a minimum timeline for the return of the Others. He was making the sacrifices for some decades, at least 30 years. This means that the Others were at the very least harassing people since 30 years. Not Now

Yeah, that's clear.

2 hours ago, rotting sea cow said:

Before, it is more subject of speculation until we don't get more concrete facts. For example, I believe that Bloodraven encountered the Others and might have slain one. But I don't have anything to back it up. But Craster and his sacrifices are a fact.

Could be. We have no idea yet how he ended up in that cave. I assume he may have only learned about his greenseer (and perhaps even his skinchanger) potential up at the Wall where he would have met other skinchangers. I find it just rather odd that he would just go to the cave and join the Children without even informing Aemon, nor do I think that it makes much sense to assume he knew about anything. I mean, if he knew about the Others and the dangers they posed and that he would now become a greenseer wouldn't he have sent letters to Aegon V - or at least told Aemon to send some?

We have no indication that they did that, and Aemon never so much as mentions his granduncle's talk about the Others and the Children, etc.

So it might be that Bloodraven simply went out there investigating some dream or story he heard about, not exactly intending not to come back. But sure, it is not unlikely he was attacked by the Others or wights, and then saved by the Children who then took him in, etc.

That they never actually sent out any envoys to the Wall is very odd indeed.

2 hours ago, rotting sea cow said:

I always had the feeling that similar events led to all the Kings-beyond-the-Wall.

That would surprise me. From what we know those men did dream of war and conquest, not the kind of thing Mance was about.

2 hours ago, rotting sea cow said:

Anyway, the Others do not need just to harass those in the northernmost regions. Given their fabled abilities to appear when it snows and disappear when it melts, etc they can go wherever they want and who can say they were there or not? Even they can come close to the Wall like Craster's keep.

I think those abilities are connected to winter and cold. So if there are long summers and mild and short winters, their ability to go far down south might be diminished, especially while their power was not that strong. I mean, chances are that they were not risking their own hides all that much when they were just a handful or so (if that was the case). Even now they rarely show up and target only people they think are weak. And even then Sam killed one of them.

Back in the days the dragonglass story may have known to a lot of people beyond the Wall.

I really think the Others started their whole thing by making winter again and again unbearable for the people living in the far north, and then showing up at their doors in the middle of winter offering relief in exchange for their sons.

The crucial hint at the twisted and unnatural nature of winter goes back to the Prologue and Gared's stories about the cold of winter, and how it affects you.

The whole wights thing would have been they did only at the time they started to build up an army to attack the south - which is the thing I think they decided only after the death of the last dragon. That's when the plans for this thing may have begun in earnest. They would have still had deals with individual wildlings - and perhaps entire tribes - to collect their children, but they were then also starting to claim the dead of the wildlings as their own (in greater numbers than before).

2 hours ago, rotting sea cow said:

Also, the wildings may be accustomed to a certain level of Others activity and if you are freezing you might be hallucinating too and you may have seen an Other, or not. So, these kind of stories might be normal. However, at a certain point their activity became obvious and intolerable. This was certainly new.

If the Others did show up any hard and cold winter throughout the ages then chances are they were reduced to the level of 'ice demons' one might see in winter, etc. - bad omens and the like, not something you had to be afraid of unless you interfere with them. Them not actually making grand scale moves could explain why, over time, even the NW slowly but surely forgot that they were the real enemy.

[John Suburbs]

On ‎10‎/‎27‎/‎2018 at 10:19 AM, Megorova said:

"The Others wear delicate, reflective, camouflaging armor that shifts in color with every step.^[3] According to comic book artist Tommy Patterson, Martin told him that "the reflective, camouflaging armor" is able to pick up "the images of the things around it like a clear, still pond." "

It's likely, that that being was differently described by different people, because they saw it from different viewpoints, and thus, in camouflage-chameleon-like armour of that being were reflecting various things and colors, which made it look differently, from what it really was.

Meh, it's possible, but if the only discrepancy between the sightings is that the armor looked different, this doesn't amount to a "different description" in my book, any more than people would not see a man in a blue shirt and think it was something completely different from a man in a red shirt. No matter what surroundings, the Other itself would be tall, gaunt, with glowing blue eyes -- basically the same thing each time.

 

On ‎10‎/‎27‎/‎2018 at 10:19 AM, Megorova said:

Yes, something has changed. But those changes happened years BEFORE Mance dug out those graves. There were already hundreds if not thousands of wights walking around on that side of The Wall, by the time Mance decided to look for the Horn of Winter.

No. Sorry, but no. One or two tales of a single Other appearing over thousands of years is not the same thing is multiple Others suddenly appearing out of nowhere leading armies of the slain. How do you know there were hundreds, thousands of wights before Mance despoiled the graves. Please show me any text that says this. If wights were such a common thing before Mance, then why are the wildlings so suddenly terrified of them now?

On ‎10‎/‎27‎/‎2018 at 10:19 AM, Megorova said:

snip

This option seems more logical, than the possibility, that there was no Others beyond The Wall, until Mance, for whatever random reason, decided to look for the Horn of Winter, and in the process of his searches, accidentaly has released the Others from their ancient graves. No?

No, it is not more logical. It is certainly a possibility, but not more logical. It is just as logical that Craster was sacrificing his sons to the wood and only recently have actual Others been taking them. What they do with them is anyone's guess. The idea that they are being turned into Others -- again, although perfectly plausible -- is pure fanfic driven by that other interpretation of the story that shall not be mentioned on this board. Nowhere is this even hinted at in the book.

So in the end, it is the height of illogical thinking to simply invent a scenario out of the sketchiest of details and declare that to be the only possible truth. Many, many possibilities still exist when it comes to the Others, who they are, where they come from, what they want...

[John Suburbs]

 

On ‎10‎/‎26‎/‎2018 at 6:48 PM, Lord Varys said:

I take the Prologue of AGoT and ASoS (three horn blows mean Others, not wights) as sufficient evidence for that.

Read again, then. In the prologue, Will leads the party back to the wildling camp to find that the dead bodies he saw hours ago are now gone. No wights or Others are seen yet. It's dusk now and Will climbs the tree. The Others appear and slay Robar. The Others depart and Will stays in the tree for several hours:

Quote

When he found the courage to look again, a long time had passed, and the ridge below was empty. He stayed in the tree, scarce able to breathe, while the moon crept slowly across the black sky. Finally, with his muscles cramping and his fingers numb with cold, he climbed down.

All this time, there are absolutely no signs of life from Robar. It is only when Will approaches the body does it rise.

Three blasts means Others, true. But since they don't have a code to distinguish between Others and wights, it makes perfect sense to use three blasts for shambling, blue-eyed beings coming at you, since it is obvious that they are neither wildlings or returning rangers. Sam reports only the presence of wights, not Others, and at no time does anyone report seeing a single Other at the Fist.

On ‎10‎/‎26‎/‎2018 at 6:48 PM, Lord Varys said:

There is no indication that it has gotten warmer in the North. It is summer when the series starts, and it summer it is not as cold in the North as it is in winter.

Although it might be that summers in the dragon days were actually warmer and long winters in those days milder. We do not know that at this point.

Come on, Varys, please read:

Quote

"Have you drawn any watches this past week, Will?"

Yes, m'lord," There was never a week when he did not draw a dozen bloody watches. What was the man driving at?

"And how did you find the Wall?"

"Weeping," Will said, frowning. "He saw it clear enough, now that the lordling had pointed it out. "They couldn't have froze. Not if the Wall was weeping. It wasn't cold enough."

This is the longest, hottest summer in living memory. Of course it will be colder north of the Wall than in Dorne, but this will still seem pretty bloody hot to those who live there. And in the LoAW, it could very well be melting the ice out from under whatever lives there -- just like it's doing in our polar regions today, despite the fact that it's still really, really cold there.

On ‎10‎/‎26‎/‎2018 at 6:48 PM, Lord Varys said:

If the story is correct about the winters - and this goes to THK and people who actually knew people who knew winters before and after the dragons were dead - the this would be on average. There are shorter winters and longer winters, and those are supposedly also linked to longer and shorter summers - a short summer can indicate a short winter and long summer a long winter.

But it seems that those winters that were long grew longer and colder since the last dragon died.

If that was happening previously, it certainly hasn't been the trend for the past 25 years at least. Tyrion saw nine winters in a span of 15 years, which means some of those should have lasted a matter of months, now followed by a 10-year hot-as-blazes summer. So logic dictates that if the Others are migrating south from the LoAW, it's because it is getting too hot. Why on earth would ice creatures who can walk on snow like it was glass, be upset that the world has suddenly gotten colder and snowier?

On ‎10‎/‎26‎/‎2018 at 6:48 PM, Lord Varys said:

The biggest issue with your hypothesis is the whole grave-robbing thing. There is just nothing in the story that indicate a connection there. Nor is there any connection that anything human beings did or thought or said has any bearings on the actions of the Others.

Of course there is no connection yet. I never said this was the slam dunk, incontrovertible truth, just one of many possibilities. Are you saying there is proof of what you're claiming? Please, by all means, post the text.

 

[John Suburbs]

21 hours ago, The Lord of the Crossing said:

The Others were always around somewhere but they probably don't create wights until they need them.  Think about this.  All of the wildlife on the other side of the wall would be dead if the Others had been in Beast Mode all of this time.  No, the Others were living peacefully until some event happened.  Maybe that horn, the one they burned, was the real shadowbinder.  These shadows of life got loose and agitated the Others like a careless shoe might rouse an ant hill.  The graves they desecrated could have been sacred to these beings.  

Good theory, but do you have any text to back it up? Why jump to the completely unsupported conclusion that the Others were just hiding out in the woods all this time when it is just as reasonable to assume that they were not there at all? Do the Others even kill wildlife? If they are so common in the north that all wildlife would be dead if the Others were in "Beast Mode", why would the wildlings be so terrified of them? Why would they consider them to be the gods and not giants, children...?

Not a bad idea about the horn. Says Tormund: "We found it in a giant's grave, and no man o' us had ever seen a horn so big." So your theory rests on the fact that the Others turned hostile because an ancient artifact was removed from an ancient grave. So why is it such an impossible stretch to say that the Others were warded by the magic in those graves?

[Lord Varys]

29 minutes ago, John Suburbs said:

Read again, then. In the prologue, Will leads the party back to the wildling camp to find that the dead bodies he saw hours ago are now gone. No wights or Others are seen yet. It's dusk now and Will climbs the tree. The Others appear and slay Robar. The Others depart and Will stays in the tree for several hours:

All this time, there are absolutely no signs of life from Robar. It is only when Will approaches the body does it rise.

And you think that the Others and the wights both having blue eyes is some means to confuse the reader? Don't be ridiculous. We also have Will having the feeling that were watched the entire time, that it is suddenly and inexplicably cold, etc., especially when the Others finally do show themselves.

29 minutes ago, John Suburbs said:

Three blasts means Others, true. But since they don't have a code to distinguish between Others and wights, it makes perfect sense to use three blasts for shambling, blue-eyed beings coming at you, since it is obvious that they are neither wildlings or returning rangers. Sam reports only the presence of wights, not Others, and at no time does anyone report seeing a single Other at the Fist.

I go by what the three horn blows mean, not by what you want them to mean. The people blowing the horns were guarding the camp. Did you guard the camp? Or Sam or any of the other survivors? The people actually seeing the Others at the Fist may have been the ones killed by them.

29 minutes ago, John Suburbs said:

This is the longest, hottest summer in living memory. Of course it will be colder north of the Wall than in Dorne, but this will still seem pretty bloody hot to those who live there. And in the LoAW, it could very well be melting the ice out from under whatever lives there -- just like it's doing in our polar regions today, despite the fact that it's still really, really cold there.

I didn't say the summers grew shorter, I said it is established that the winters grew longer and crueler. And it is hardly surprising that the summers also do get longer, especially before a long winter - after all, since the whole freak seasons thing is magical in nature, it wouldn't surprise one if the Heart of Winter or the Others need to build up their magical strength or power before they create an especially long and cold winter - and this would then result in a rather long summer by default.

The longest summer in living memory does not compare to a summer in the dragon days. And it is not freaking hot up at the Wall. It is pretty hot, occasionally, but that's hardly a surprise. It is summer, after all.

The idea that summer is a thing in the Lands of Always Winter goes directly against the name of that land, doesn't it? Perhaps you have inside information how winter and summer affect those lands, but I take the literal in the sense that only winter rules up there. Just as I take the name 'the Lands of the Long Summer' literal in the sense that winter, spring, and autumn aren't exactly long affairs there, regardless how long winter last at other places and as I take the name 'the Summer Isles' literally in the sense that the only season felt there is summer.

29 minutes ago, John Suburbs said:

If that was happening previously, it certainly hasn't been the trend for the past 25 years at least. Tyrion saw nine winters in a span of 15 years, which means some of those should have lasted a matter of months, now followed by a 10-year hot-as-blazes summer. So logic dictates that if the Others are migrating south from the LoAW, it's because it is getting too hot. Why on earth would ice creatures who can walk on snow like it was glass, be upset that the world has suddenly gotten colder and snowier?

See above. And how Tyrion Lannister experienced winter in Casterly Rock has little to no bearing how winter was felt in the North and the lands beyond the Wall.

29 minutes ago, John Suburbs said:

Of course there is no connection yet. I never said this was the slam dunk, incontrovertible truth, just one of many possibilities. Are you saying there is proof of what you're claiming? Please, by all means, post the text.

You suggests this grave robber thing. You provide us with textual evidence that the Others have anything to do with graves and shades that may or may not have escaped from graves.

Seriously, I don't even see a reason to entertain the notion that the Others were ever imprisoned in graves.

[Free Northman Reborn]

So I meant to ask this before, Lord Varys. When you say “it has been established” that winters have grown worse since the dragons died, which passages do you base this on?

Was it confirmed as fact in tWOIAF? Or are you going by the smallfolk old wives tale? Or maybe a belief held by some Maesters? Just like various Maesters believe many other outrageous theories? 

I can’t quite recall this idea ever being confirmed as fact by a reputable source.

[John Suburbs]

3 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

And you think that the Others and the wights both having blue eyes is some means to confuse the reader? Don't be ridiculous. We also have Will having the feeling that were watched the entire time, that it is suddenly and inexplicably cold, etc., especially when the Others finally do show themselves.

Intriguing, yes, but hardly conclusive. Both men and deer have brown eyes. Are they one and the same?

Sorry friend, you must read the text. It was cold leading to the camp, but when they get there:

Quote

Under the thin crust of snow, the ground was damp and muddy, slick footing, with rocks and hidden roots to trip you up.

snip

The great sentinel was right there at the top of the ridge, where Will had known it would be, its lowest branches a bare foot off the ground. Will slid in underneath, flat on his belly in the snow and the mud, and looked down on the empty clearing below.

And if you read earlier in the chapter, sure, you see references to cold winds and such, but it is the stillness, the darkness and the feeling of being watched that has Will and Gared so spooked, not the cold.

But later, we do see references to sudden and inexplicable cold: when the wights rise in Castle Black, at the Fist, and when Sam is attacked at Whitetree when he says it was so cold "the air itself seemed frozen." When do we not see any references to sudden and inexplicable coldness? The only other time we see an Other: Sam's encounter on the trek back from the Fist. And to save you time and trouble, Sam does say the cold was "so bitter the (he) felt naked", but he has been complaining of cold for hours, days even, by then, so this is hardly sudden, and it doesn't come anywhere near as "the air itself seemed frozen."

So other than thousand-year-old tales of the Others bringing cold with them and leading armies of the slain, we have yet to see real examples of this, and no ice spiders yet either.

3 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

I go by what the three horn blows mean, not by what you want them to mean. The people blowing the horns were guarding the camp. Did you guard the camp? Or Sam or any of the other survivors? The people actually seeing the Others at the Fist may have been the ones killed by them.

I go by what common sense says. There is no code for wights as distinct from Others. I doubt very much the hornblower knows the difference or even waited long enough to tell. Shambling, blue-eyed creatures, neither wildlings nor watchmen. Do you honestly think he's not going to blow the horn with the only option left to him and let the wights walk right into camp just because they are not technically Others?

And again, the only people to see them may have been killed. So once again you are raising a maybe to a certainty with no proof, no evidence, just a desire to have it so. Highly illogical thinking.

4 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

I didn't say the summers grew shorter, I said it is established that the winters grew longer and crueler. And it is hardly surprising that the summers also do get longer, especially before a long winter - after all, since the whole freak seasons thing is magical in nature, it wouldn't surprise one if the Heart of Winter or the Others need to build up their magical strength or power before they create an especially long and cold winter - and this would then result in a rather long summer by default.

The longest summer in living memory does not compare to a summer in the dragon days. And it is not freaking hot up at the Wall. It is pretty hot, occasionally, but that's hardly a surprise. It is summer, after all.

The idea that summer is a thing in the Lands of Always Winter goes directly against the name of that land, doesn't it? Perhaps you have inside information how winter and summer affect those lands, but I take the literal in the sense that only winter rules up there. Just as I take the name 'the Lands of the Long Summer' literal in the sense that winter, spring, and autumn aren't exactly long affairs there, regardless how long winter last at other places and as I take the name 'the Summer Isles' literally in the sense that the only season felt there is summer.

 

Nobody would consider a winter of a few months, or even a year or two, to be particularly cruel -- more of a relief, actually. The long winters bring the most devastation to crops, the most starvation, the longest durations of deathly cold. The longest summer that we have actual dates for took place during Maekar I; seven years. The longest winters were during DoD and immediately after Maekar's summer; six years each. All the rest were a year or two, three tops. Nowhere is there anything on record of a season of any kind lasting 10 years. This is unprecedented as far as we know. And again, where do you get the idea that it's the Others or anything else in the LoAW that are causing winter? Just as likely, it's the children.

It's hot enough to melt the Wall. And it's been that way for a long time. Sure, maybe they were hotter during the dragon days, but this one is hotter and longer than its been for decades. The difference between this hot summer and those earlier ones, of course, is that the ancient graves in the Frostfangs have now been despoiled. 

Polar regions have summer and winter as well. No one has ever been to the LoAW, so no one knows what the weather is like up there. But our ice caps are still frozen even during summer, so to say that there are no summers up there simply because its called the Land of Always Winter is just silly. In a region that can drop to 80-below on any given day, 40-below will seem like summer, and even warmer will result in loss of the ice shelf. Plus there is the fact that summer also extends daylight hours in Westeros, so extrapolate this to the pole, and any inhabitants up there have not seen night for a decade.

4 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

See above. And how Tyrion Lannister experienced winter in Casterly Rock has little to no bearing how winter was felt in the North and the lands beyond the Wall.

Nobody is saying that summer in the LoAW is as warm as in Casterly Rock. But both the temperature and the daylight hours pretty much proves that the seasons are a global phenomenon. So if Casterly Rock has had its short summers all this time, then we can expect that the LoAW has seen short ones as well, until now.

4 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

You suggests this grave robber thing. You provide us with textual evidence that the Others have anything to do with graves and shades that may or may not have escaped from graves.

Seriously, I don't even see a reason to entertain the notion that the Others were ever imprisoned in graves.

I never said they were imprisoned anywhere, just that the despoiling of those graves coincided with their return. Please provide the textual evidence that they were present before that.

[Lord Varys]

4 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

So I meant to ask this before, Lord Varys. When you say “it has been established” that winters have grown worse since the dragons died, which passages do you base this on?

Was it confirmed as fact in tWOIAF? Or are you going by the smallfolk old wives tale? Or maybe a belief held by some Maesters? Just like various Maesters believe many other outrageous theories? 

I can’t quite recall this idea ever being confirmed as fact by a reputable source.

This is mentioned in THK, by Ser Arlan of Pennytree who actually lived to see the death of the last dragon and was raised in a time when people still remembered other dragons, including those from before the Dance.

But I'm not sure you care about that, do you? You have told us already that actually don't read Dunk & Egg - or has that changed ;-)?

Quote

He sat naked under the elm while he dried, enjoying the warmth of the spring air on his skin as he watched a dragonfly move lazily among the reeds. Why would they name it a dragonfly? he wondered. It looks nothing like a dragon. Not that Dunk had ever seen a dragon. The old man had, though. Dunk had heard the story half a hundred times, how Ser Arlan had been just a little boy when his grandfather had taken him to King's Landing, and how they'd seen the last dragon there the year before it died. She'd been a green female, small and stunted, her wings withered. None of her eggs had ever hatched. "Some say King Aegon poisoned her," the old man would tell. "The third Aegon that would be, not King Daeron's father, but the one they named Dragonbane, or Aegon the Unlucky. He was afraid of dragons, for he'd seen his uncle's beast devour his own mother. The summers have been shorter since the last dragon died, and the winters longer and crueler."

This is a very subtle concept, and it is quite clear that people in Westeros do not really know or understand what's wrong with their seasons and that the Others exists or may have to do something with all that. If the author wants to give us hints what's really going on there he cannot be very concrete or obvious.

But think about it in general - if three little dragons in the Red Waste and Qarth can influence the production of wildfire in King's Landing then dragons are not just fire-breathing animals. They are something more. They carry or embody a magic that affects spells half a world away. If Hallyne can deduce that dragons might exist again because some spells work better, then it is not that difficult to assume that the Others can feel the Others, too, and vice versa. And that two 'magical elements' that seem to be naturally at odds with each other are going to play the main role in the freak seasons in a fantasy series called 'A Song of Ice and Fire' also doesn't strike me as very far-fetched...

3 minutes ago, John Suburbs said:

Intriguing, yes, but hardly conclusive. Both men and deer have brown eyes. Are they one and the same?

It is pretty clear from the descriptions that the blue eyes of wights and Others are the same, no?

3 minutes ago, John Suburbs said:

Sorry friend, you must read the text. It was cold leading to the camp, but when they get there:

And if you read earlier in the chapter, sure, you see references to cold winds and such, but it is the stillness, the darkness and the feeling of being watched that has Will and Gared so spooked, not the cold.

The cold comes again when the Others actually come. Waymar talks about it and Will feels it. In the village there were only wights and then there was no one there, no?

3 minutes ago, John Suburbs said:

I go by what common sense says. There is no code for wights as distinct from Others. I doubt very much the hornblower knows the difference or even waited long enough to tell. Shambling, blue-eyed creatures, neither wildlings nor watchmen. Do you honestly think he's not going to blow the horn with the only option left to him and let the wights walk right into camp just because they are not technically Others?

How do you know the horn blower even saw wights? Perhaps he only saw Others leading the wights? He may have confused Others and wights but the point being is that there is no reason to believe he did that, because we don't actually know what the men who died at the Fist saw, right?

3 minutes ago, John Suburbs said:

And again, the only people to see them may have been killed. So once again you are raising a maybe to a certainty with no proof, no evidence, just a desire to have it so. Highly illogical thinking.

Oh, since an Other tried to killed Small Paul and Sam later I think I'm justified in the belief that this guy may have been one of the Others at the Fist trying to finish what he and his wights started there, no?

3 minutes ago, John Suburbs said:

Nobody would consider a winter of a few months, or even a year or two, to be particularly cruel -- more of a relief, actually. The long winters bring the most devastation to crops, the most starvation, the longest durations of deathly cold. The longest summer that we have actual dates for took place during Maekar I; seven years. The longest winters were during DoD and immediately after Maekar's summer; six years each. All the rest were a year or two, three tops. Nowhere is there anything on record of a season of any kind lasting 10 years. This is unprecedented as far as we know. And again, where do you get the idea that it's the Others or anything else in the LoAW that are causing winter? Just as likely, it's the children.

But you don't have any numbers on summers and winters during the dragon days, have you? Or how cruel a winter back then was when it was somewhat longer. One can have a mild long winter and one can have a cruel short winter. That's not mutually exclusive.

We also don't know whether King Maekar's summer or King Robert's summer were particularly long summers compared to the summers of the dragon days or the days before the Doom, no?

3 minutes ago, John Suburbs said:

It's hot enough to melt the Wall. And it's been that way for a long time. Sure, maybe they were hotter during the dragon days, but this one is hotter and longer than its been for decades. The difference between this hot summer and those earlier ones, of course, is that the ancient graves in the Frostfangs have now been despoiled. 

Nobody but you cares about despoiled graves in the Frostfangs - but the people of Martinworld care about the deaths of dragons.

3 minutes ago, John Suburbs said:

Polar regions have summer and winter as well. No one has ever been to the LoAW, so no one knows what the weather is like up there. But our ice caps are still frozen even during summer, so to say that there are no summers up there simply because its called the Land of Always Winter is just silly. In a region that can drop to 80-below on any given day, 40-below will seem like summer, and even warmer will result in loss of the ice shelf. Plus there is the fact that summer also extends daylight hours in Westeros, so extrapolate this to the pole, and any inhabitants up there have not seen night for a decade.

I'm talking about the magical seasons of Westeros here, not natural summers and winters. And there I really take the names of those regions literally.

This is magic, not meteorology.

3 minutes ago, John Suburbs said:

Nobody is saying that summer in the LoAW is as warm as in Casterly Rock. But both the temperature and the daylight hours pretty much proves that the seasons are a global phenomenon. So if Casterly Rock has had its short summers all this time, then we can expect that the LoAW has seen short ones as well, until now.

Well, that's not necessarily true. We know the Dance winter started in 130 AC while Rhaenyra sat the throne. But this doesn't mean the cold and the snow set in at the point the Citadel marked as winter's beginning - or rather: it doesn't mean it set in and became 'winter' everywhere at the same time. The North and the lands beyond the Wall may have had true winter weather since (before) the beginning of winter, whereas winter never properly started in Dorne, and KL and the Riverlands only got proper snow and frost in 131-133 AC, or so.

The same thing can be true for very short winters. And a cruel winter doesn't necessarily mean a long winter as I laid out above. It could just mean a very, very cold winter.

3 minutes ago, John Suburbs said:

I never said they were imprisoned anywhere, just that the despoiling of those graves coincided with their return. Please provide the textual evidence that they were present before that.

Well, their return also coincided with the murder of Jon Arryn. Prove to me that it was not the death of Jon Arryn that brought the Others back.

Others have already laid out that Craster's sacrifices seem to go back before Mance's desertion and the despoiling of graves.

[Lady Barbrey]

9 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

That is certainly possible. My idea just is that considering that this was supposedly taking place this early after the foundation of the NW and the time they started the building of the Wall, we cannot be sure whether the Night's King was just a guy who relapsed into Long Night mode (possibly during a long and cruel winter, fearing that the Long Night had returned/was about to return), worshiping absent Others, or whether they actually did show up at the Wall and collected sacrifices.

At this point this is completely unclear.

As to the wildlings issue - I don't think the Hundred Kingdoms/NW and the wildlings were at odds back in Joramun's days - and not for quite some time during the old days. They were all First Men, and their cultures should have been basically the same north and south of the Wall. Civilization would have set in south of the Wall before proper kingdoms had formed, etc.

It is odd that men decided to live north of the Wall knowing that the Others were there, but it might be that many of those people who worshiped them went or remained there, or that the constant infighting between the lords and petty kings later led to this or that exile, banishment, or exodus beyond the Wall. After all, we do know that the freedom there is tempting even for a maester of the Citadel...

And perhaps the things weren't as bad north of the Wall during the days of Valyria's great power? When the winters were milder and shorter and the summers longer?

It might be - or not. Perhaps they really only saw the Others with their own eyes back during the Long Night and the War for the Dawn. These guys can be invisible and unseen if they want to.

If they really need male human children to fill up their ranks then this could have been a major problem if they were down to only a handful and they were separated from human settlements. They would have first have to dominate the nearest human villages to the degree that they would (voluntarily?) give up their children in exchange for protection. They could not wightify them all, they could not destroy them all, but they would have to convince the people that sacrificing their sons was a good idea.

That cannot have been easy, nor does this sound like something the Others could establish easily. This kind of behavior does not come natural to people. If there was a time of peace and plenty even in the far north then the Others would have beat the people living there into submission again, before they would enter into such a pact.

Or it was the knowledge of the leaders of the War for the Dawn that they had not completely defeated the Others. They may have known that some escaped, they may have known that the Heart of Winter was still there, etc.

While we don't know how exactly the War for the Dawn ended this is very difficult to speculate about.

I think long and cruel winters would make the ideal hunting grounds for the Others in the far north considering that settlements would be far apart, and people would not necessarily travel all that much in winter unless they had to. If you find some lonely village completely empty in the spring then then they could all have become wights - or they may have died some other way. It would be difficult to determine. And those kind of things would have marked the beginning of the army-building strategy of the Others.

I think the answer there might lie in the nature of certain diseases. It would not surprise me if 'the blood of the dragon' made you immune against mundane/natural diseases like the bloody flux and the common cold, but not against diseases that seem to be magical in nature (like greyscale, which clearly affected the dragonlords and later Targaryens/people with the blood of the dragon).

At this point we don't exactly know what kind of disease the Great Spring Sickness was. The way this sickness is described, though indicates it may have not been entirely natural, considering that the reports say strong men could be healthy at morning and die in the evening. That is very fast even for a 'normal disease'.

With greyscale and its variants originally being just the curse of Prince Garin, the door is open for magical diseases in this world. And it is not unlikely at all that the Others may use such weapons, too, especially in winters, when their power south of the world must be strongest.

Yeah, Craster lives very close to the Wall and actually has connections to the NW! If such a man makes such a twisted pact things must be pretty bad, especially in winter. Many of Mance's people may have made such deals in the past - only to cancel them when Mance gave them the hope that they could leave and live south of the Wall.

How many First Men survived in the far north - or the lands that are now called the North - during the Long Night is unclear at this point, but I'd not be surprised if those lands had been effectively literally empty and were only slowly repopulated in the decades and centuries after the Long Night. By the time of the Long Night the Others and whoever was behind them clearly felt they were powerful enough to cancel all deals and to simply destroy everyone.

Yeah, that's clear.

Could be. We have no idea yet how he ended up in that cave. I assume he may have only learned about his greenseer (and perhaps even his skinchanger) potential up at the Wall where he would have met other skinchangers. I find it just rather odd that he would just go to the cave and join the Children without even informing Aemon, nor do I think that it makes much sense to assume he knew about anything. I mean, if he knew about the Others and the dangers they posed and that he would now become a greenseer wouldn't he have sent letters to Aegon V - or at least told Aemon to send some?

We have no indication that they did that, and Aemon never so much as mentions his granduncle's talk about the Others and the Children, etc.

So it might be that Bloodraven simply went out there investigating some dream or story he heard about, not exactly intending not to come back. But sure, it is not unlikely he was attacked by the Others or wights, and then saved by the Children who then took him in, etc.

That they never actually sent out any envoys to the Wall is very odd indeed.

That would surprise me. From what we know those men did dream of war and conquest, not the kind of thing Mance was about.

I think those abilities are connected to winter and cold. So if there are long summers and mild and short winters, their ability to go far down south might be diminished, especially while their power was not that strong. I mean, chances are that they were not risking their own hides all that much when they were just a handful or so (if that was the case). Even now they rarely show up and target only people they think are weak. And even then Sam killed one of them.

Back in the days the dragonglass story may have known to a lot of people beyond the Wall.

I really think the Others started their whole thing by making winter again and again unbearable for the people living in the far north, and then showing up at their doors in the middle of winter offering relief in exchange for their sons.

The crucial hint at the twisted and unnatural nature of winter goes back to the Prologue and Gared's stories about the cold of winter, and how it affects you.

The whole wights thing would have been they did only at the time they started to build up an army to attack the south - which is the thing I think they decided only after the death of the last dragon. That's when the plans for this thing may have begun in earnest. They would have still had deals with individual wildlings - and perhaps entire tribes - to collect their children, but they were then also starting to claim the dead of the wildlings as their own (in greater numbers than before).

If the Others did show up any hard and cold winter throughout the ages then chances are they were reduced to the level of 'ice demons' one might see in winter, etc. - bad omens and the like, not something you had to be afraid of unless you interfere with them. Them not actually making grand scale moves could explain why, over time, even the NW slowly but surely forgot that they were the real enemy.

I agree with this whole post - I see it this way too and you've elaborated in ways that make sense to me.

Correct me if I'm wrong - I believe Aegon visits Winterfell (and the wall?) and Alysanne/Jahaerys visit, but is that it?