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What is your theory on The Others?


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15 hours ago, By Odin's Beard said:

The last Long Night happened during the Bronze Age in Westeros, there were no iron weapons.  At that time an iron sword would be "magical" to the First Men, in the the way Valyrian Steel is "magical" in comparison to steel swords. 

The official timeline puts the Long Night at between 8,000 and 6,000 BC, while the Andal invasion took place anywhere from 6,000 to 2,000 BC, so there is some room for crossover there.

And this would make sense because if there were no iron weapons during the Long Night, then why would the Others be afraid of them? So right off the bat we have Old Nan contradicting herself since she says the Others "hated iron" but this was "in the days before the Andals came."

Also, iron does not glow (except in the forge). Why would there need to be a magical hero with a magical burning sword of fire tempered by the blood of his beloved wife when just plain old iron will do? If we follow the Last Hero's story as we know it, why would this substance be known as "dragonsteel" when it is just cold, hard iron? They wouldn't even have regular steel at this point, so why would they consider it a specialized form of steel? And if it is just regular steel or iron, why wouldn't it still be called dragonsteel in the north today?

And perhaps most importantly of all, if obsidian weapons are so effective against Others as we have seen, and the tales speak of the First Men and children battling the Others with obsidian, then why wouldn't this be the weapon the Others hated? It seems to me that a company of archers could dispatch an entire army of Others from a great distance with little trouble, provided they had enough support to keep the wights at bay.

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1 hour ago, John Suburbs said:

So right off the bat we have Old Nan contradicting herself since she says the Others "hated iron" but this was "in the days before the Andals came."

Also, iron does not glow (except in the forge). Why would there need to be a magical hero with a magical burning sword of fire tempered by the blood of his beloved wife when just plain old iron will do? If we follow the Last Hero's story as we know it, why would this substance be known as "dragonsteel" when it is just cold, hard iron? They wouldn't even have regular steel at this point, so why would they consider it a specialized form of steel? And if it is just regular steel or iron, why wouldn't it still be called dragonsteel in the north today?

And perhaps most importantly of all, if obsidian weapons are so effective against Others as we have seen, and the tales speak of the First Men and children battling the Others with obsidian, then why wouldn't this be the weapon the Others hated? It seems to me that a company of archers could dispatch an entire army of Others from a great distance with little trouble, provided they had enough support to keep the wights at bay.

I start from the premise that everything Old Nan says is true, she is the crone and her wisdom lights the way.

"The Crone is very wise and old, and sees our fates as they unfold."

So, if she says the Others don't like iron, they don't, and it is up to us how to interpret that.  Not liking iron could just mean they don't like technology, and might not have anything to do with what is fatal to them.  The Starks ghosts are locked in their tombs by a sword, the Wall is a sword that locks the Others north, when the sword is removed the ghosts are free to wander.

I don't want to overcomplicate this, but there was an advanced civilization on Westeros before the First Men, as mentioned in Strange Stone, who built Battle Isle and the Seastone Chair (and the Children's Tower? and what else?).  Some of their technological relics might have been found and used by the First Men, steel or dragonsteel weapons among them.

Also, I think the red sword of heroes is the comet, not an actual sword.

And obsidian arrows might be futile--Bloodraven is believed to have guided weirwood arrows with sorcery, --could the Great Other stop arrows with sorcery?  Did the CoTF knowingly give humans useless weapons?

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1 hour ago, By Odin's Beard said:

I start from the premise that everything Old Nan says is true, she is the crone and her wisdom lights the way.

"The Crone is very wise and old, and sees our fates as they unfold."

So, if she says the Others don't like iron, they don't, and it is up to us how to interpret that.  Not liking iron could just mean they don't like technology, and might not have anything to do with what is fatal to them.  The Starks ghosts are locked in their tombs by a sword, the Wall is a sword that locks the Others north, when the sword is removed the ghosts are free to wander.

Really? So when she says Dagmar Cleftjaw had his head split completely in half and he used his hands to hold the two sides together until it healed, that's the truth? Nan may be old, but she is not the Crone.

I can't see how iron could be a proxy for technology. Bronze is a more complicated technology than iron.

1 hour ago, By Odin's Beard said:

And obsidian arrows might be futile--Bloodraven is believed to have guided weirwood arrows with sorcery, --could the Great Other stop arrows with sorcery?  Did the CoTF knowingly give humans useless weapons?

Regardless of how they did it, the tale is that the children and First Men were able to check the Other's advanced with dragonglass. We can clearly see how vulnerable the Others are to it, so it is anything but useless. We have yet to see what affect iron has on them, but I can't imagine it's much worse then melting. So again, this whole idea that they would hate iron but not obsidian runs counter to the facts as we know them.

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On 11/28/2018 at 2:36 PM, Legitimate_Bastard said:

That makes me wonder how/why the Free Folk got over there to begin with. When the wall went up surely nobody thought it was a good idea to give live over on the other side, with the creatures the wall was built to keep out....

Some people are unreasonably stubborn and independent.  They don't want to obey the laws of another man.

"Better to rule in hell than to serve in heaven."

And for that, the free folk would pay any price. 

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On 12/1/2018 at 12:50 AM, Silver Bullet 1985 said:

Craster is a Stark.  The tradition must have been handed down in the family.  His side of the family split off and he brought back the tradition in his own household.  

Yeah but we don't have any proof. Although I kind of agree there is something going on with the Stark lineage and the Others.

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1 hour ago, Moiraine Sedai said:

Some people are unreasonably stubborn and independent.  They don't want to obey the laws of another man.

"Better to rule in hell than to serve in heaven."

And for that, the free folk would pay any price. 

Indeed. In Westeros and the real world!

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2 hours ago, Moiraine Sedai said:

Some people are unreasonably stubborn and independent.  They don't want to obey the laws of another man.

"Better to rule in hell than to serve in heaven."

And for that, the free folk would pay any price. 

Also, the Wall, being magical in nature, might have gone up relatively quickly. People living north of the Wall (especially way north) might not have known it was being done, or might not have had a chance to relocate, which itself is a difficult thing to do since you are basically uprooting yourself from your home, your clan, your people to go live in someone else's land -- where you aren't likely to get a warm welcome.

And I still don't see how a wall of ice is supposed to keep ice creatures at bay. If it's the wards that do that, then there is no need for a giant wall in the first place. It's always seemed to me that the Wall is more likely to be the Others' creation to keep people out, not the other way around.

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On 11/28/2018 at 9:38 PM, Victor Newman said:

Preston Jacobs has a theory whereby the continued practice of the lord's right to the first night in the north produce a lot of unwanted bastards in a poor land.  The poor husbands of the poverty stricken north can barely afford to feed themselves without having to raise the bastard of another man under his own roof.  A lot of these babies were left out to die.  Outright killed.  Disposed of in a convenient manner.  The Others are the bastards coming back to take what they think is theirs.  

I don't believe it but it is interesting.  Something must have given Allysanne reason to outlaw the lord's right and seal the bastard gate.  She gave the gift to the watch to create a buffer.  In other words, she did what she could to decrease the production of bastards and if such bastards are to happen, the disposal will happen away from the wall, where the Others can't take the baby.  

The bastard children with nothing to inherit come to take what's theirs.  Winter is their time to rule.

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On 12/3/2018 at 1:04 AM, By Odin's Beard said:

and they hated iron and fire and the touch of the sun, and every living creature with hot blood in its veins.

Theoretically, could an iron sword kill an Other if it did not shatter during the sword fight? 

Maybe, but it's probably like broom stick vs a steel sword. IMO "hate iron" is to show they don't enjoy the things humans do, like a good sharp axe. They have no use for it.

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On 12/3/2018 at 12:04 AM, By Odin's Beard said:

How the CoTF lost control of the Others was that Bran skinchanged a human who was about to get converted into an Other and they inadvertently gave him godlike powers, and he became the Great Other.  However, due to time-travel causality paradoxes, he could not change any events that would have prevented him from ending up in Bloodraven's cave.

Seems pretty similar to a well known show crackpot.

On 12/3/2018 at 10:57 AM, By Odin's Beard said:

It is canon that Dawn is an extraterrestrial object

Not exactly. Dawn's origin story is canon but we don't know that it's true. It might well be metaphorical.

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On ‎12‎/‎7‎/‎2018 at 7:06 PM, The Mother of The Others said:

It's incredibly hard.

Sure, but the Others are able to glide across the surface of snow without making a mark. They are creatures of cold and ice, and they are said to bring the cold with them wherever they go. They have some sort of craft or magic that allows them to create extremely powerful weapons out of ice. So why build an ice wall to defend against creatures that are so closely connected with ice? Fire is what they hate. The wall should be made of fire and lava, no?

True, the Wall is warded. But if it's the wards that keep them at bay, why not just have the wards and forget about the Wall.

So my suspicion as that the Wall was not built by men to protect against the ice creatures, but was built by the ice creatures -- who knowledge of working with ice is evident -- in order to protect against men.

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The Others were never gone. There's no need for a Wall if they are completely gone, no matter who built it.

I think there is a connection between the end of the Long night and the rise of Valyria. And I think there is a connection between the Others return and the Doom of Valyria. The Others and the Valyrians exist in opposite. One is ice, the other is fire. One possibly exists in the Lands of Always Winter while the other existed in the Lands of the Long Summer. 

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On 12/10/2018 at 1:24 PM, John Suburbs said:

Sure, but the Others are able to glide across the surface of snow without making a mark. They are creatures of cold and ice, and they are said to bring the cold with them wherever they go. They have some sort of craft or magic that allows them to create extremely powerful weapons out of ice. So why build an ice wall to defend against creatures that are so closely connected with ice? Fire is what they hate. The wall should be made of fire and lava, no?

True, the Wall is warded. But if it's the wards that keep them at bay, why not just have the wards and forget about the Wall.

So my suspicion as that the Wall was not built by men to protect against the ice creatures, but was built by the ice creatures -- who knowledge of working with ice is evident -- in order to protect against men.

The walls have spell built-in. The same spells prevent WW and wights from entering the cave. The wall holds those spells and the NW maintain the wall.

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Self-fulfilling prophecy:

Just like many factions in this story, the Others have a prophecy that foretells their destruction by a Stark, LC and very young, around the time of the appearance of the comet (or n number of times it appears). When Aegon's born, there was a red comet, and that's when the Others started to prepare to prevent the prophecy from happening. They swell their numbers with whatever happens to Craster's sons and by taking out small wildling targets.

The wildlings get scared enough and begin to gather (safety in numbers) and form rare alliances, including giants, and elect Mance Rayder as their king to get them at the other side of the Wall, which they expect to do with force or tearing down the wall, for the crows will never let them pass. Mance starts looking for the Horn of Joramun in graves, never finding it, but the big horn of the giant might be something the crows will believe to be genuine, and thus will let them pass. The digging of the graves didn't "wake" the Others, but it was a response by the wildlings to get the wall between themselves and the Others.

Meanwhile the Others expect the prophesied Stark to have joined the NW already, and when young Waymar (looking like a Stark) is spotted, this is their opportunity to end the prophecy before it begins. They fear him and his blade, hence they start out cautious and confront him with a large number of them. But the sword breaks, putting them at ease and they kill him. A prophecy was never so easily dispatched off. Except once Waymar's a wight they learn he isn't a Stark at all. Bummer.

They begin to take out ranging parties, both to lure more ranging parties to look for the missing ones, all the while the Others hope to catch the fated Stark. They come across Benjen's party. He's a Stark, but wrong age. He ain't the one. But from the wighted men of Benjen's ranging party or Benjen himself, they learn that his young nephew just joined the NW.

The random search is over. They know who and where he is, and they send an assassin team. Since the prophecy talks of him as an LC, that's what they have the wights attempt to do: kill the LC, but the target was Jon. Others just didn't know he wasn't LC yet. Unwittingly they overplayed their hand: now the NW knows the Others are back in operation. More, by accident Jon refigures out that fire kills wights.

Then a large faction of the NW go on the great-ranging, an army of brothers, including Jon, and they gather at the Fist. To get to the boy they need to kill that NW army, and so the Others head down the Milkwater to make as big a wight army. They don't dare to attack the Fist themselves, because it's not clear to the Others that the NW has no idea how to kill them, especially since one may have spied on Jon finding the obsidian arrows. Because the Others are off to make their wight army, they don't know that Jon is sent away with Qhorin Halfhand from the Fist. Nor do they know later, because Qhorin takes the Skirling Pass (not the Milkwater). The Others return with their army of wights and have them attack the Fist en masse. During the attack, the NW defend themselves with fire, but never use obsidian. As the NW flee, and they still don't have Jon killed they go in pursuit, but the Others think it is safe to expose themselves to the NW brothers and kill them themselves. But in one of those confrontations, Samwell accidentally discovers the power of the dragonglass.

While the Others pursue the NW brothers and figure out how to deal with the remainder at Craster's, Jon reaches the Fist together with the wildlings. Jon is sent out by Mance to climb the Wall, but at a location far out of Craster's direction. At Craster's Jeor gets killed and Samwell flees. He's the one who might tell the Wall of the attack at the fist and inform the NW of the use of obsidian. So, now Sam has to be hunted down too. He needs to be hunted with wights, instead of Others, because he knows how to use dragonglass. Meanwhile, the Others find no Jon even amongst the pickings at Craster's. Total fail.

And so Jon ends up safely back at the Wall and Sam manages to survive with the help of Coldhands. Jon's elected LC and begins to make changes to the NW to help defend against the Others. Now, the Others have only one option: outright war. So, they're gathering as big an army as they can.

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On ‎12‎/‎16‎/‎2018 at 9:22 AM, Erick Storm said:

The walls have spell built-in. The same spells prevent WW and wights from entering the cave. The wall holds those spells and the NW maintain the wall.

Right, but if it's the spells that keep the Others and wights at bay, why go through all the effort of building a huge wall of ice? They didn't need to build a huge cave of ice to keep the undead away from the 3EC.

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Clearly the wall is a joint effort of the army, air force, coast guard and marines , but not the navy.    It guards against more than one thing in more than one way.    We , or at least I, appreciate the idea the wall was built to fence humans out.  Got it.   What's not working is saying the wall is insignificant to ice creatures.  It's still formidable any direction you look at it from, and through the eyeballs of any species without wings.

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  • 2 weeks later...
On ‎11‎/‎28‎/‎2018 at 5:07 PM, Legitimate_Bastard said:

I just want to know how the Craster thing started. What event made him start giving his boys away? Is it connected to the Others starting south?

I think he just knew that if he leave offerings (or Safice) the Cold Ones will leave him alone. ps I believe there others (Free Folks) whom done the same thing as Craster in past 8000 years. 

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On ‎12‎/‎7‎/‎2018 at 1:54 PM, Legitimate_Bastard said:

Yeah but we don't have any proof. Although I kind of agree there is something going on with the Stark lineage and the Others.

Starks don't have sex with own daughters!  I believe Craster create this because he didn't have the guts to hunt women (Free Folks) villages.

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